Graykin was sick in the corner.
The others stared.
Jame cleared her throat, swallowing grief. There would be time for that later.
“What,” she said hoarsely, “you’ve never seen a pyre before?”
“Would you . . . er . . . care to explain?” said Marc.
“Think of our old songs: ‘Once long ago, a randon warrior went to his lord and said, “Master, our enemies hem us in. I can deliver us, but only by such acts as will damn me forever in the eyes of our people and our god. Take thou my soul, so that it will remain untainted, and loose me on the foe. And so it was done. The Three People were saved, but by deeds so foul that no man would record them. Then the warrior reclaimed his soul. Its purity consumed him, as if he lay on his pyre alive, and so he died at last with honor.’”
She continued, “Bane told me that story. He has staked his own redemption on it. Will it come true for him? I don’t know. Did it for Bender? I hope so. I also don’t know what Bender did that was so foul—perhaps living in the House for so long was enough—but the Master apparently held his soul hostage, untainted, until at last he demanded that I reap it.”
“Er . . . you didn’t, did you?”
“No!”
She almost asked, “What do you take me for?” but the answer might have hurt. In truth, there were many unanswered questions in her people’s long history, even in her own.
Then a thought struck her. “Trinity. What time is it?”
“The third watch of the day,” said Marc. “Midafternoon. Death’s-head has been in the courtyard for the past two hours, terrifying the poultry. D’you still mean to ride?”
“I have to, don’t I? All right: a night of dwar sleep is what I really need, but I think that this little nap has done me some good. Rue, you’re still coming with me?”
The cadet grinned. “Of course.”
“Good. Somebody, find that wretched cloak and stuff it into a saddlebag, or better yet into a hamper with straps. I’ll leave it at Mount Alban as we pass to join the Book Bound in Pale Leather and the Ivory Knife. Bane can keep an eye on all three, if he’s back. Hopefully it likes insects. Speaking of food, pack us something to eat as well.”
While Marc departed to arrange this, Rue plucked at her sleeve. “You’re going to Gothregor dressed like that?”
“What’s the matter . . . oh.”
A Tastigon flash-blade’s d’hen wouldn’t exactly suit her brother’s court, or more accurately, the people she would meet there. Moreover, it reeked of the pyre. All of her other clothing, though, had been turned into ribbons thanks, presumably, to Brier.
“When we left,” said Rue, “some of your wardrobe was with the garrison being cleaned and repaired. I’ve asked: both of your court coats are still there and at least one set of common wear. Have I mentioned that you’re very hard on your clothes?”
“I will give you much finer,” the Master had said, certain that she would be pleased. Once, Caldane, Lord Caineron, had said much the same.
Huh.
“See to that.” She sniffed her bare wrist, then a trailing strand of her hair, and made a face. “Death’s-head can keep company with his beloved chickens a bit longer. Come Perimal or moon-fall, I’m going to take a bath.”
V
MARC ORGANIZED THE KITCHEN, then met with the search party. They had tracked the cloak to its favorite spot, the storage room, and there had cornered it as it hissed and spat at them.
“You grab it,” one cadet urged another, drawing back.
“No, you.”
Marc gingerly reached down into the seething node. If he gripped it too hastily, would its many heads strike? Worse, might the silver thread that stitched one snake to another snap, or tear through skin? One loose in the keep was bad enough, but the whole lot of them? Sweet Trinity, how could such a thing as this embody healing?
Blunt noses nudged his hands. Sinuous bodies, dry and unexpectedly warm, twined up his arms. When he lifted the dark mass out of the shadows, it flicked his face with forked tongues.
I suppose I should be complimented, he thought, conveying his burden to a leather hamper hastily converted into a saddlebag.
The cloak didn’t fit willingly. The hamper’s lid jolted and its seams bulged with rebellious coils. Ancestors knew what the rathorn colt would think of such an unruly burden bouncing against his rump.
Then all was set, or so he thought, but where was Jame?
“She went to the bath chamber,” Rue told him.
Sweet Trinity. He hadn’t warned her.
Marc charged down the steps into the subterranean stable.
“What?” asked Cheva, staring, as he hurtled past the stall where she was tacking out an ugly little post pony.
At the northern end of the aisle was a door. From the other side came a startled yell that was nearly a scream. Marc flung it open. Spray hit him full in the face, cold enough to freeze his beard. This rocky room was at the prow of the island, open by vents to the glacial onrush of the Silver. Out of its mist loomed a monstrous visage with wide spread horns, glaring glass eyes, and jutting, bared tusks. Peering out from between its jaws was another face, porcine, boneless, squashed.
Jame huddled on the floor by the door, black hair streaming over bare, ivory limbs.
“You do know, don’t you,” she said when he gently removed her hands from her face, “that the last time I saw that monster it was surging over a river rock, about to decapitate me? Now it’s got a pig’s head between its jaws. Oh, that’s funny.”
“Sorry. The idea was to sew the yackcarn’s head onto the pig’s roasted body, with the latter’s head in the mouth of the former as a fancy touch. I was trying to surprise everyone with a chimera.”
She gulped and laughed, still on the edge of hysteria. “Well, you succeeded.”
“Steady.”
He held her until she stopped shaking.
“You really need to rest.”
“Maybe I can sleep in the saddle.”
“On that brute?”
“Death’s-head might have me for breakfast, but then he always could.”
“There is that.”
Above in the courtyard, the rathorn waited. He had, with reluctance, accepted saddle, hamper, and halter, but never the bit between his teeth, which was good because he probably would have chewed through it. As it was, his jaws and chest were slathered with grease. He looked ecstatic.
“He got bored with the chickens,” Marc explained, looking sympathetic. Poultry, at least in the raw, was not his favorite area of husbandry. “All that squawk, all of those feathers. So he barged into the kitchen and got his teeth into something called a goducken. Cadet Mott is devastated.”
Jame stared at him. “You will, in due course, no doubt explain all of that to me.”
The post pony was led up from the stables, squat and composed even in the presence of a curious rathorn. Death’s-head sniffed his rump. He coiled and kicked. Ivory rang. The colt stepped back, somewhat cross-eyed, shaking his head.
“He’ll do,” said Jame.
She and Rue swung into the saddles.
“Ride,” said Marc, smiling up at her. “Our hopes and blessings go with you.”
She grinned down at him. “Be damned if I disappoint you.”
They spurred out of the courtyard, of the wards, of the keep, the rathorn running almost sideways as he tried to avoid the hamper lurching at his hip. Dust rose at their heels down the River Road, bound for Gothregor and Summer’s Day.
THE END
Characters
Abarraden
An Old Pantheon goddess of fertility
Abbotir
Lord of the Gold court in the Thieves’ Guild
Abernia
Wife of Tubain, mistress of the Res aB’tyrr
Aden
Mother of Dally and Men-dalis, Dalis-sar’s love
Argentiel
That-Which-Preserves
Arribek
Archiem o
r ruler of Skyrr
B’tyrr
Jame’s name as a dancer at the Res aB’tyrr
Bane
Jame’s half-brother
Beauty
A golden-eyed, unfallen darkling
Bel-thari (Bel)
A Whinno-hir mare
Bender (Terribend)
Jame’s uncle
Beneficent
A cow
Benj
A baby, son of Tiggeri and Must
Bilgore
A former high priest of Gorgo
Boo
A cat at the Res aB’tyrr
Bortis
A brigand
Brier Iron-thorn
Marshal at Tagmeth
Burnt Man
One of the Four: Fire
Caldane
Lord Caineron
Canden
Theocandi’s grandson, a cartographer
Char
A ten-commander at Tagmeth, in charge of the herds
Cheva
A senior randon at Tagmeth, in charge of horses
Chingetai
Merikit chieftain
Chirpentundrum (“Chirp”)
A Builder
Cleppetty (Cleppetania)
House-keeper at the Res aB’tyrr
Creeper
Men-dalis’ spy
Dalis-sar
New Pantheon sun god
Dally (Dallen)
Men-dalis’ brother (dead)
Damson
A ten-commander at Tagmeth
Dandello (Dandy)
King of the Cloudies
Dar
A ten-commander at Tagmeth
Darinby
A thief
Dark Judge
A blind Arrin-ken
Death’s-head
A rathorn
Denish
A thief (dead)
Earth Wife (Mother Ragga)
One of the Four: Earth
Eaten One
One of the Four: Water
Elen
Granddaughter of Grandma Hogetty
Falling Man
One of the Four: Air
Fash
A Caineron follower of Tiggeri
Four, the
Rathillien’s elementals
Galishan
A thief; Patches’ master
Ganth Graylord
Jame’s father (dead)
Gerridon (The Master)
Fallen Highlord
Ghillie
Servant at the Res a’Btyrr
Girt
Kendar nurse maid to Benj
Glendar
The Highlord chosen by the Arrin-ken to replace Gerridon (dead)
Gorbel
The Caineron lordan
Gorgo (Gorgyril)
A rain god
Gran Cyd
Ruler of the Merikit
Grandma Hogetty (Granny Hog)
A pilgrim from the hills of Skyrr
Granny Sits-by-the-fire
An immortal story-teller who translates the “Big Truths” of ancient Rathillien into present reality
Graykin
Jame’s spy
Harr sen Tenko
Lord of a Skyrr hill tribe
Harri sen Tenko
Harr’s son
Harth
Kencyr lord of East Kenshold
Heliot
Old Pantheon sun god
Himmatin
A Builder
Immalai the Silent
An Arrin-ken from the Ebonbane
Ishtier
Kencyr high priest
Jame (Jamethiel Priest’s-Bane)
Lots of things
Jamethiel Dream-weaver
Jame’s mother
Jorin
Jame’s ounce
Kalissan
Old Pantheon goddess
Kells
Herbalist at Tagmeth
Keral
A darkling changer
Killy
A randon cadet (dead)
Kindrie
A healer; Jame’s cousin
Kithra
Rothan’s wife at the Skyrrman
Loogan
Gorgo’s high priest
Malign
A yack-cow calf
Marc (Marcarn Long-shanks)
Steward at Tagmeth; Jame’s oldest friend
Men-dalis
Sirdan or leader of the Thieves’ Guild
Mint
A ten-commander at Tagmeth
Mohin (Mohie)
Chirpentundrum’s wife (dead)
Monster
Penari’s pet python
Mott
A cadet at Tagmeth
Mustard (Must)
Benj’s mother, a fugitive Caineron (dead)
Na’bim
A dancer at the Res aB’tyrr
Nathe
A follower of Pathfinder
Nathwyr
A Whinno-hir at East Kenshold
Patches
A thief
Pathfinder
A New Pantheon god, the current manifestation of Hope
Pathless
An Old Pantheon demon with roots more ancient still
Penari
A thief; Jame’s master in the Guild
Quezal
Penari’s gargoyle
Rackny
Chief cook at Tagmeth
Regonereth
That-Which-Destroys
Robin
A Cloudie
Rothan
Tubain’s nephew and heir, master of the Skyrrman
Rowan
Torisen’s steward
Rue
Jame’s self-appointed servant, a randon cadet
Rugen the Architect
Builder of the Maze (dead)
Sart Nine-toes
A city guard; Cleppetty’s husband
Scramp
Patches’ older brother (dead)
Sparrow
A Cloudie
Talisman
Jame’s name within the Thieves’ Guild
Theocandi
Former Sirdan of the Thieves’ Guild (dead)
Tiggeri
One of Caldane’s sons
Timmon
The Ardeth Lordan
Tirandys
Jame’s teacher or Senethari; Bender’s brother (dead)
Titmouse
A Kencyr priest
Torisen Blacklord (Tori)
Highlord of the Kencyrath; Jame’s brother
Torrigion
That-Which-Creates
Trinket
Patches’ nickname
Tubain
Owner of the Res a’Btyrr
Utain
A Kencyr priest
Wort
A Knorth cadet