Dying of the Light

dark, deeply lined skin-fresh-carved runnels of pain.

'It is obvious now that the duels for which I was named arbiter will never come to pass,' Roseph said evenly, with none of the heavy hostility that thickened Lorimaar's voice, 'so I have no particular authority, and I cannot pretend to speak for High Kavalaan, or Braith. Yet I am certain that I speak for all of us. We will not tolerate your interference, Ironjade. Blood-gift or no.'

'Truth,' Lorimaar said.

'I do not seek to interfere,' Janacek told them. 'I seek to join you.'

'We hunt your teyn,' Pyr's companion said. 'He knows that,' Pyr snapped. 'I have no teyn,' Janacek said. 'An animal roams the forest, wearing my iron-and-fire. I would help you kill it, and reclaim the thing that is mine.' He sounded very hard, very convincing.

One of the hounds was stalking back and forth impatiently on its chain. It growled and stopped long enough to wrinkle its rat's face at Janacek and bare a row of yellowed canines. 'He is a liar,' Lorimaar high-Braith said. 'Even our dogs smell out his lies. They do not like him.'

'A mockman,' added his teyn. Garse Janacek turned his head very slightly. The shifting firelight woke red highlights in his beard as he smiled his thin and threatening smile. 'Saanel Braith,' he said, 'your teyn is wounded and thus insults me with impunity, knowing I cannot call on him to make his choices. You enjoy no such safety.'

'For the moment he does,' Roseph said harshly. 'That is a trick we do not allow you, Ironjade. You will not duel us, one by one, and save your outbond teyn.'

'I have sworn that I have no wish to save him. I have no teyn. You cannot strip me of my rights under the code.'

Small, shriveled Roseph-the smallest of the Kavalars by half a meter-stared at Janacek and refused to flinch. 'We are on Worlorn,' he said. 'And we do what we will.' Several of the others muttered agreement.

'You are Kavalars,' Janacek insisted, but a flicker of doubt passed across his face. 'You are Braiths and highbonds of Braith, bound to your holdfast and your council and its ways.'

'In years past,' Pyr said with a smile, 'I have seen many of my kethi and even more the men of other holdfasts abandon the old wisdoms. 'This and this and this are wrong,' the mincing Ironjades would say. 'We will not follow them.' And the sheep of Redsteel would echo them, and the womanly men of Shanagate, and sadly many Braiths. Are my memories false? You stand and preach code at us, but do I not recall the Ironjades in my youth telling me that I may hunt mockmen no longer? Am I misremembering the soft Kavalars who were sent to Avalon to learn spaceships and weaponry and other useful things, who returned full of lies about how we must change this way, and that way, how so much of our old code was a thing of shame, when it had been so long a pride to us? Tell me, Ironjade, am I wrong?'

Garse said nothing. He folded his arms tightly against his chest.

'Jaan Vikary, once high-Ironjade, was the greatest of the changers, the liars. You were not far behind,' Lorimaar said.

'I have never been to Avalon,' Janacek said simply.

'Answer me,' Pyr said. 'Did you and Vikary not seek to change old ways? Did you not laugh at the parts of the code you disliked?'

'I have never broken code,' Janacek said. 'Jaan… Jaan would sometimes…' He faltered.

'He admits it,' fat Saanel said.

'We have talked among ourselves,' Roseph said in a calm voice. 'If highbonds can kill outside the code, if the things we know as truth can be changed and disregarded, then we too can make changes, and shun false wisdoms we do not care for. We are bound by Braith no longer, Ironjade. It is the best of holdfasts, but that is not good enough. Our old kethi had taken too many soft lies to their hearts. We will be twisted and toyed with no more. We will return to the old true things, to the creed that was ancient before Bronzefist fell, even to the days when the highbonds of Ironjade and Taal and the Deep Coal Dwellings fought together against demons in the Lameraan Hills.'

'You see, Ironjade,' Pyr said, 'you call us false names.'

'I did not know,' Janacek said, a bit slowly.

'Call us truly. We are no Braiths.'

The Ironjade's eyes seemed dark and hooded. His arms were still crossed. He looked at Lorimaar. 'You have made a new holdfast,' he said.

'There is precedent,' Roseph said. 'Redsteel was birthed by those who broke from Glowstone Mountain, and Braith itself grew out of Bronzefist.'

'I am Lorimaar Reln Winterfox high-Larteyn Arkellor,' Lorimaar said in his hard, pain-filled voice.

'Honor to your holdfast,' Janacek answered, holding himself stiffly, 'honor to your teyn.'

'We are all Larteyns,' Roseph said.

Pyr laughed. 'We are the highbond council of Larteyn, and we keep the old codes,' he said.

In the silence that followed, Janacek's eyes went from one face to the next. Dirk, still helpless and kneeling in the sand, watched bis head move, turning from one to the other. 'You have named yourself Larteyns,' Janacek said at last, 'and so you are Larteyns. All the old wisdoms agree on that much. Yet I remind you that all the things you speak of, the men and teachings and the holdfasts you invoke, all these things are dead. Bronzefist and Taal were destroyed in highwars before any of you were born, and the Deep Coal Dwellings were flooded and empty even during the Time of Fire and Demons.'

'Their wisdoms live in Larteyn,' Saanel said.

'You are only six,' Janacek said, 'and Worlorn is dying.'

'Under us it will thrive again,' Roseph said. 'News will go back to High Kavalaan and others will come. Our sons will be born here, to hunt these choker-woods.'

'As you will,' said Janacek. 'It is no matter to me. Ironjade has no grievance with Larteyn. I come to you openly and ask to join your hunt.' His hand dropped to Dirk's shoulder. 'And I bring you a blood-gift.'

'Truth,' Pyr said and was silent for a moment. Then, to the others: 'I say let him come.'

'No,' said Lorimaar. 'I do not trust him. He is too eager.'

'For a reason, Lorimaar high-Larteyn,' Janacek said. 'A great shame has been put on my holdfast and my name. I seek to wipe it clean.'

'A man must keep his pride, no matter the pain,' Roseph said, nodding. 'That is truth enough for anyone.'

'Let him hunt,' Roseph's teyn said. 'We are six and he is alone. How can he harm us?'

'He is a liar!' Lorimaar insisted. 'How did he come to us here? Ask yourselves that! And look!' He pointed at Janacek's right arm, where glowstones burned like red eyes in their settings. Only a handful were missing.

Janacek put his left hand on his knife and slid it smoothly from its sheath. Then he held out his right hand to Pyr. 'Help me hold my arm steady,' he said in a calm conversational tone, 'and I will cast away Jaan Vikary's false fires.'

Pyr did as he was asked. No one spoke. Janacek's hand was sure and quick. When he was finished, glow- stones lay in the sand like coals from a scattered fire.

He bent and picked one up, tossed it lightly into the air and caught it again, as if he were testing its weight, smiling all the while. Then he drew back his arm and threw; the stone sailed up and off a long way before it began to fall. At the far end of its arc, sinking, it looked a bit like a shooting star. Dirk almost expected it to hiss when it sank into the lake's dark waters. But there was no sound at all, not even a splash at this distance.

Janacek picked up all of the glowstones in turn, rolled them in his palm briefly, and gave them to the lake.

When the last of them was gone, he turned back to the hunters and held out his right arm. 'Empty iron,' he said. 'Look. My teyn is dead.'

After that there was no more trouble.

'Dawn is near upon us,' Pyr said. 'Set my prey to running.'