'It will be easier for you if you realize nothing has actually changed. Bareris and Tammith are dead. We're merely their ghosts.'
He shook his head. 'You can't avoid me. You're going after Xingax, and I am, too.'
'We can hunt together. Just don't prattle of things that neither one of us is capable of feeling or being any longer.'
'All right. If that's what you want.'
'It is. Good night.' She turned away.
'Wait.'
She pivoted to look at him.
'I took care of your father and brother. I sent money. But they're both dead. Your father drank so much it poisoned him, and Ral caught a pox.'
He didn't know why he told her so brusquely, as if he were trying to match her coldness. Perhaps he wanted to hurt her, or to force her to betray soft human emotion, but if so, she disappointed him. She merely shrugged.
CHAPTER FOUR
10–26 Mirtul, the Year of Blue Fire
Over the years, Aoth had all but covered himself in tattoos, repositories of minor enchantments that could be invoked when needed. So he was accustomed to the recurrent sting of the needle. Normally, it wouldn't even have bothered him to have the sharp point playing around his eyes, and over the eyelids themselves.
This time, however, he felt a flare of pain like the touch of a hot coal. He jerked back in his chair. 'What in the name of the Black Hand was that?'
'I'm sorry, sir,' the tattooist said. 'My art has become difficult lately, just like any other form of sorcery.'
'Then try being careful!'
'Yes, sir.' The artist hesitated. 'Do you want me to continue?'
Aoth realized it was a good question. Did he want the wretch to go on etching sigils of health and clear vision around his eyes, even though the magic might conceivably twist awry and create an entirely different effect?
'Yes,' he said. Because the tattooist had reportedly restored sight to the blind on two previous occasions, and with the priests unable to cure him, Aoth didn't know what else to try.
The needle pricked his eyelid again, this time without creating searing heat. Then Brightwing screeched.
The griffon was just outside. Aoth reached out with his mind and looked through her eyes at a legionnaire. The fellow had Brightwing's saddle in his hands, and was holding it up in front of him as if he hoped to use it as a shield.
Aoth pushed the tattooist away, jumped up, strode across the room-he'd grown sufficiently familiar with the layout of his billet to avoid running into the furnishings-and threw open the front door. 'What's going on?' he said.
'This idiot thinks he can take me away!' Brightwing snarled.
To the legionnaire, Brightwing's utterance was just a feral shriek, and he reacted by taking a step backward. 'Sorry to disturb you, Captain,' he said, 'but there are orders to round up all the griffons whose riders are dead or disabled and give them to legionnaires who are fit but lost their mounts, or else take the animals along for spares. Do you see?'
Aoth understood. As the war ground on, exacting a constant toll in men and beasts, it was standard procedure. But if he lost Brightwing, he'd lose a piece of his own spirit and all the sight he had left. Bareris knew that, but he evidently wanted her anyway. It was more proof of what a false friend and callous bastard he was.
'I'm a war mage,' said Aoth, 'and Brightwing is my familiar. She won't carry any rider but me.'
'I don't know anything about that, sir. I have my orders-'
'I'm still your commander, even if I am injured!'
'Yes, sir, but this order comes from Nymia Focar herself.'
'It's a misunderstanding,' Bareris said. When Brightwing turned her head, Aoth could see the bard hurrying down the path.
The soldier frowned. 'Sir, with all respect, she spoke to me herself. She told me to make sure I collected Captain Fezim's griffon.'
'But later on,' Bareris said, 'she spoke to me.' Aoth could feel the subtle magic of persuasion flowing like honey in the bard's voice. 'She told me she'd changed her mind, and Captain Fezim should keep his mount. So you can go on your way and forget all about it.'
'Well,' said the legionnaire, sounding a little dazed, 'in that case…' He put the saddle back on the stoop, saluted, and strolled away.
'Someone made a list of all the griffons to be collected,' Bareris said to Aoth. 'I happened to glance at it, saw that Brightwing was included, and came as fast as I could.'
Aoth grunted. Courtesy indicated that he ought to say thank you, but he'd have preferred to stick a dagger in his own guts.
Bareris frowned. 'You didn't think I'd send someone to take her, did you?'
The question made Aoth's muscles clench. 'Is that a reproach? Why in the name of every god wouldn't I believe that, considering how you betrayed me before?'
'As the soldier said, the tharchion gave the order. I assume she did because she knew I wouldn't. Even if you don't believe that.' Bareris frowned. 'Although, valuable as griffons are, there's something odd about her concerning herself with a single mount.'
It seemed strange to Aoth as well, but he didn't want to prolong the conversation to speculate. 'I'm going back inside.'
Bareris's mouth tightened. 'Fine.' He turned away.
Aoth felt moisture on his face. He supposed it was blood from the needle pricks, beading and dripping. He resisted the impulse to wipe it away for fear of marring the tattooist's work.
As the army of Pyarados prepared to march, dozens of tasks and details demanded Bareris's attention. He had to see to his own gear and mount as well as those of his entire company. Procure provisions in a hungry land at winter's end. And review the intelligence Malark's agents provided, and plot strategy with Nymia, Tammith, and the rest of the officers.
It left him precious few moments even to eat and sleep, but from time to time, late at night, he prowled through the house where he'd taken up temporary residence, looking for Mirror and periodically calling his name. The members of the household-a draper, his wife, three children, and a pair of apprentices-made themselves scarce at such moments, and were leery of him in general.
But he didn't care if they thought he was crazy. He just wanted to find the ghost.
Even more than Aoth, Mirror had been Bareris's constant companion for the past ten years. Often, the ghost faded so close to the brink of nonexistence that no one else could detect him. Even cats failed to bristle and hiss at his presence. But Bareris had always been able to feel him as a sort of cold, aching void hovering nearby.
Lately, he couldn't. Mirror had abandoned him shortly after his falling out with the newly blinded Aoth, and had not yet returned.
On the eve of the army's departure, he began hunting in the attic and finished in the cellar, where cobwebs drooped from the ceiling, mice had nested in the filthy, shredded remains of a stray bolt of cloth, and the shadows were black beyond the reach of his candle. It looked like a fine location for a haunting, but if Mirror was lurking there, he chose to ignore Bareris's call.
'Nymia wanted to take Brightwing,' Bareris persisted. 'I made sure she'll stay with Aoth. He has a tattoo sorcerer working to heal his eyes. It's possible he'll see again.'
