Rogger started to wag a finger at him, then thought better of it and used it to dig a flea out of his beard. “Just a thief and a pilgrim.” An eyebrow rose as he paused in his scratching. “Or rather should I say I’m as much a thief and pilgrim… as you are a knight?”
Tylar’s head hurt from trying to riddle meaning out of these strange words. “Are you truly on a pilgrimage? Was your story of Balger’s punishment true?”
“Alas, as true as the stripes on my back, I’m afraid. But one story does not make an entire man, does it?”
Tylar had to agree. “You mentioned hearing other grim tidings on your journeys. What sort of happenings?”
“Rumors, whispers in the night, tales of black blessings and ilk-beasts stirring from the hinterlands. Your young friend has barely nicked the flesh on what’s really going on, but he still hit the heart of the matter. Something is indeed stirring out there.”
“What?”
“How in the naether should I know?” Rogger rolled back to his straw billet. “And now that I finally have a bit of quiet, maybe I could get some true sleep. I doubt we’ll get much rest this night.”
“Why’s that?”
“The bells, ser knight, the bells.”
Tylar had almost forgotten. Meeryn’s deathwatch ended with the rising of the Mother moon. The death bells would announce her passing. They would surely peal all night.
He settled back to his own bed and pondered all that had been told him. But his thoughts kept returning to one moment-or rather one word.
Rivenscryr.
What did it mean? Why had Meeryn blessed him, healed him? Was it for him to be her champion, as Perryl had suggested? Was this word supposed to mean something to him?
Tylar sensed something unspoken in Perryl. The young man had paled with the mention of Rivenscryr. But if Perryl knew more, why hadn’t he spoken?
There could be only one answer.
Perryl must have sworn an oath. While the young knight might show his face to a man who had once been his teacher, even protect him, he would never break an oath.
Perryl had learned that much from Tylar.
Rolling to his side, Tylar tried to stop thinking, stop remembering.
It hurt too much.
Tylar startled awake in his bed, sitting up. He vaguely remembered dreams of being crippled again… and now waking to his hale body, he felt oddly disappointed. His broken body had sheltered him, hidden him these long years, requiring nothing of him but survival. But now Tylar had to face the world again, a whole man.
He groaned.
From beyond the lone window, hundreds of bells pealed, ringing and clanging. The noise was deafening.
He glanced upward. Full night had set in. Evening mists flowed in through the high barred window, pouring down like a foggy waterfall. His eyes grew accustomed to the gloom and spotted Rogger across the cell. The thief was standing under the window, bathed in mists.
“It’s all over,” Rogger said, noting him stir. “The Hundred are now ninety-nine.”
Tylar stood, joining him. He had heard the sorrow in the other’s voice. Despite the thief’s calculating and dismissive demeanor earlier, the man understood the loss, felt it deeply.
“This is just the beginning,” Rogger mumbled. “The first blood spilled. More will flow… much more…”
Though the night remained hot and muggy, Tylar shivered. Bells rang and rang, echoing out to sea and beyond. Cries could be heard rising in the night, mournful, pained, angry, frightened. Prayers were sung from a tower top, cast out to the skies.
The pair in the cell remained silent, standing under the window for a long stretch. Rogger finally turned away, staring at Tylar. “You talk in your sleep, ser knight.”
“So? What does it-?”
Rogger cut him off. “You were speaking in Littick, ancient Littick, the old tongue of the gods.”
Tylar found this claim doubly odd. First, he was hardly fluent in Littick. And second, how did a thief from the Dell even recognize Littick, especially ancient Littick? “What did I say?” he asked, expecting no real answer.
“You were whispering. It was hard to make out.”
“Yet you’re sure it was Littick.”
“Of course. What I did make out was clear enough. You kept saying, ‘Agee wan clyy nee wan dred ghawl.’ Over and over again.”
Tylar pinched his brow. “What does that mean?”
Rogger pulled on his beard in thought. “It’s nonsensical.”
“Then it’s probably nothing. Dream babble, nothing more.”
Rogger seemed not to hear him. “ ‘Agee wan clyy’… break the bone. ‘Nee wan dred ghawl’… and free the dark spirit.”
Tylar waved the words away. “As I was saying, dream babble.”
“Then again,” Rogger continued, “ clyy could mean body, rather than bone. Depends on the emphasis.” The thief sighed. “And you were whispering.”
“How do you know Littick so well?”
Rogger dropped his hand from his beard. “Because I once taught it.”
Before Tylar could inquire about such an oddity, voices arose from the hall, right outside the door. The peal of bells had covered the sound of approach.
Both men turned as the door was yanked open.
Castillion guards filled the hall, including the captain who had spat at Tylar days ago and named him Godslayer. The dungeonkeep backed aside to let in two others: one cowled in a bloodred robe that glowed ruddily in the darkness, rich in Graces, and one dressed formally in gray with silver rings on each finger and ear.
A soothmancer and an adjudicator.
Their eyes fell on Tylar.
The gray figure stepped forward. “Tylar de Noche, you are to present yourself to the Summer Mount Court to be soothed and judged.”
Guards sidled in with swords drawn. The captain followed, carrying clanking iron manacles for wrist and ankle.
Rogger backed aside, mumbling, “It seems your friend’s cloak was thinner than even he supposed.”
Tylar did not fight his manacles, even when they were snapped too tightly, pinching. Perryl was leaving as soon as the deathwatch had ended. These others must have come for him as soon as he boarded the flippercraft and was away. So much for respecting the command of a Shadowknight.
Poked in the back by the point of a sword, he was led out of the cell.
“Bring the pilgrim god-sinner,” the soothmancer commanded from under the cowl of his red robe. “His guilt is as plain as the brands on his flesh. On this mournful night, we will cleanse our house of all who have blasphemed. The way must be pure to grieve the loss of the Brightness of the Isles.”
The adjudicator nodded and waved to the guards.
There were no additional manacles, so Rogger was simply grabbed and hauled.
They were led roughly down the rows of cells and up the long winding stairs into the central keep of Summer Mount, rising out of the dank darkness of the island’s natural stone and into the sunbaked brick and tapestried walls of the castillion. The odors of piss and blood were replaced by the scent of braziers smoking with incenses: sweetwood, dried clove, and sprigs of thistledown.
The scents of the isles… in memory of Meeryn.
The deeper into the castillion they traveled, the more cloying the odor became. Braziers burned everywhere, as if death and grief could be smoked out and away. Every mirror they passed was shattered to hide the faces of those mourning. Black drapes covered windows to hold back the sun.
And over it all, bells rang and rang. Children dressed in black finery ran the halls, even among the guards, carrying small cymbals, clanging away, meant to chase away ghosts. It was supposed to be an act of grief, but
