FIFTH
“There came a grate splitting of the sky. A thunderclap felled all to their knays. The rott’d trees cracked. The birds of the aer did stryke the ground, which did shake and growl like a beast in payn. Waters flooded their banks and drown’d the land. The sun did flare with grate fyre and fury. And the blue sky went the black of a bruise.
“And in that trembling light, he fell to the mount, to his knays, a grate lord of blood and bone, bearing a sword of light and shadow. He sayd unto me, ‘Lo, all is at an end.’ ”
22
Tylar sipped the draft of bloodvine, bitter but sweetened with honey. It was his third dousing. He held the mug with two hands, needing both. A shiver from his bones threatened to shake his frame, but he contained it.
Kathryn sat on the neighboring bed. He felt her eyes on him, a steady watch, as if expecting him to swoon at any moment. Upon his waking, she had tried to comfort him with her soothing hands and whispered words, but it grew too difficult for them both. Such intimacy was still beyond them, confused by old familiarity and new awkwardness.
And for the moment, more important matters had to be settled.
It was nigh on midday and a plan had yet to be worked that held any chance of victory. They had debated and strategized. How did one reach Lord Chrism with untold legions of ilk-beasts guarding his grounds and an entire castillion garrison roused to alert? And once cornered, how did one slay a god corrupted by Dark Grace and wielding untold power?
Tylar studied the room over his mug. They were too few: a thief, a warrior woman, a wise man in bronze, two Shadowknights… and two frightened girls.
Gerrod knelt with Dart. He peered into her eyes with a dark lens. Earlier he had pricked her finger and dabbed her blood upon a crystal wafer. He, with the assistance of the healer, had tested the girl as bell after bell chimed the passing morning.
He lowered his scope. “Thank you, Dart. That’ll be all.”
She nodded and scooted to the other end of the bed. Her friend sat down next to her. They leaned close to each other, like two frightened rabbits, eyes fixed and glassy. Tylar could only imagine such terror. His upbringing among the orphanages of Akkabak Harbor had not been easy, but it was nothing compared to the experiences of the two girls here.
Gerrod stepped over to Tylar. Kathryn sat straighter on the next cot.
The master shook his head. “Most strange. I can detect Grace in her blood, faint yet certainly present. But it is oddly and persistently inert. No alchemies can stir it or react to it. I’ve searched for any trace of quickening in her body, some faint glow at the back of the eyes, any sign that Grace manifests in the girl. But I’ve discovered nothing. It’s as if she has no ability to bless or utilize her Grace, not within herself and certainly not without.”
“So is she a god or not?” Kathryn asked.
“Not as we know a god to be. It is said that the gods, before the great Sundering of their own kingdom, bore no special Grace. That only after their naethryn and aethryn aspects were stripped from them did the remaining flesh quicken with humoral Graces. Masters have debated the reason for this over the many centuries. It is supposed that a god’s Grace manifests from some ethereal connection that persists between the gods of Myrillia and their torn counterparts, a bleeding of power that still flows through all three.”
“And the girl?” Rogger asked, joining them. He settled next to Kathryn on the cot.
“She is unsundered,” Gerrod said. “Whole. I think that is why she does not manifest with any significant Grace. But I would know more about this creature that accompanies her.”
“Pupp,” the girl, Dart, said from the neighboring bed. Despite her frightened countenance, she had been listening intently. “His name is Pupp.”
Gerrod shifted. “What can you tell me about him?” Tylar noted his calm demeanor and lack of condescension when dealing with the girl.
She licked her lips. “He’s always been with me.” She glanced over to Yaellin. He guarded the door, periodically checking the hallway, while Eylan kept a watchful eye on the healer. “Even as a babe, he was with me.”
Yaellin nodded. “I saw him in her dreams. Ugly fellow. Fiery eyes. All molten and barely formed.”
Dart’s eyes hardened.
“He’s not ugly,” the second girl declared, coming to her friend’s defense. “He’s… he’s… fearsome.”
“I thought no one could see this creature?” Kathryn said.
Dart glanced to Kathryn. The girl’s gaze was steady. There was certainly a well of strength in her small frame. “Only I can see him at most times. And even I can’t touch him then. Only stone seems to block him.”
“And he’s trapped in the Eldergarden?”Tylar asked, having heard their story.
The girl nodded with a pained look of worry.
“And when was the first time, this creature… this Pupp… revealed himself to other than yourself?” Gerrod asked.
The girl’s steadiness faltered. Her eyes sank to the floor. She seemed to collapse into herself.
Gerrod continued with reassuring tones. “You’re among friends, Dart. We wouldn’t ask this of you unless it was important.”
She kept her eyes down. Her voice was a whisper. “It was with Master Willet… up… up in the rookery.”
Dart swallowed. She let go her last secret reluctantly. Fury had given her strength before to accuse Paltry, to tell what had happened to her, but now she must reveal the end. “Master Willet…”
She spotted Healer Paltry leaning forward. His eyes were sharp, his lips thin. How long must he have wondered what had become of his cohort? His face shone with oil. How had she ever considered him handsome?
She turned away and took a deeper breath. “Pupp attacked him, protecting me.”
“I thought-”
She cut off Master Gerrod. If she stopped her words now, she might never finish them. “It was my blood… my virginal blood.” She choked on this last. So much had been stolen from her, more than she could measure. Would the pain ever end? “Pupp bathed himself in it. I think he knew the touch of my blood gave substance to his form. He blazed with fire and tore into Willet.”
Dart was drawn back to the rookery, to the blood, to the break of bone, to the sear of flesh, to the boil of blood… “All was consumed,” she said. “Gone. Not even blood stained the planks.”
No one spoke.
The silence drew Dart back to the room. She saw the look of horror on Paltry’s face. She found no satisfaction in it.
“And Pupp?” Gerrod asked.
