Down a Lost Road (36 page)

“
No!” I screamed, pulling
free. “Leave me alone!”

I tried to ward him away. I didn’t see his
face. Only the head, the empty, bloody head with tormented eyes.
Hands reached up, spread wide to reassure me, but I tore away in
terror, collapsing in a shuddering heap. My body ached with sobs.
Couldn’t breathe. No sooner had I gulped in air than it was spent.
It felt like drowning.

A sound cut through my terror, something
vague in the distance. Sticks breaking. I felt myself swept off the
ground. The grey world drifted to black.

Chapter 25 – The Gift of Fire

“
Where is
Akhmar?”

The question drifted, faint, into my turbid
thoughts. Yatol, speaking somewhere beyond me in the blank
smothering darkness.

“
Akhmar travels with you?”
Ingaea’s voice, bright and clear. He sounded surprised, or awed.
“It’s been many years since I have seen him.”

I let out a shuddering breath. I found
myself sitting up, wrapped in a blanket of some coarse woolly
fiber. Somewhere nearby there must have been candles or torches.
The warm flickering light danced against my eyelids. When I forced
my eyes open I found that the flames came from a small fire, but
Yatol knelt between it and me and mostly blocked it from view.
Ingaea was farther away, stooped over a chest of some sort.

“
He left just before you
found us. He must have stopped here because this place was so
close.”

“
Aye.” Ingaea stood,
hoisting Yatol’s leather pack. “This should be enough to keep you
for a while. It’s all we have left here, but it’s just as well. No
one will ever be coming to this place again.”

I leaned my head on my knees, glad to be
unnoticed, and gazed around the tiny hut. It reminded me of
Enhyla’s, only smaller, with pallets all along the wall and racks
of tarnished weapons in the corners. It wasn’t made of living wood
like Enhyla’s, but clay or mud with dried brush for a roof. The
floor was bare earth. Past Yatol I glimpsed a wooden platform, a
dead-still figure lying enshrouded upon it. The plain white cloths
hid the corpse, but I knew it was Royin. I didn’t fear him anymore,
hidden under the shroud. The thought of him dead made me strangely
sad. I wondered what Yatol thought of him, now. I wondered what he
thought of himself.

“
We can’t afford to stay
any longer. What weapons can I take?”

“
Whatever you can carry. I
have mine already. Not that they will do me or you or anyone much
good, especially if it
is
the Lord of K’hama who hounds you.
If I had a weapon that could destroy them I would give it to you
with all my heart, but I know of no such object.”

Yatol drew the small knife from his belt and
held it out. The firelight slithered over the blade, casting it in
vermilion hues.

“
This blade,” he said
simply. “The only one I know that can be borne by human hands,
though not without a cost.”

“
The Blade of Heaven!”
Ingaea cried. “Then Akhmar is not the only one of the Brethren whom
you know.”

“
No.”

He stood and turned to me, holding out the
blade. I broke from my thoughts to take it from him. The hilt felt
warm, heavier than I remembered it, and I smiled a little.

“
Merelin carries it now.”
To me he said, “Are you ready? We should go soon.”

“
Before
he
comes,” I
said. I could tell Yatol had been thinking the same thing. “I’m
ready.”

I must not have looked ready, though,
because Yatol hesitated. I stared at the bier, and then at Ingaea
standing beside it, singing or chanting something in low tones.
Yatol’s gaze followed mine.

“
To peace, Royin,” he said
softly. “We give our days seeking it, but it is only in death that
we find it.”

I closed my eyes, echoing his words in my
mind. Yatol laid his hand on my shoulder, and the three of us left
the hut in silence. Once outside Ingaea stopped and glanced
back.

“
You know what they do to
the bodies of our fallen, Yatol.”

Yatol turned, his eyes gleaming with that
white fire. “Aye.”

“
We cannot leave him to be
desecrated,” said Ingaea, almost pleadingly.

I wondered if the light in Yatol’s eyes
startled him.

Yatol said nothing. He gazed down at his
hand, the palm filled with radiance like I had seen after the
Brethren came. Slowly he closed his fingers over the light, and it
erupted in flame. He drew his hand back, spreading his fingers to
the night. For a moment nothing happened, then suddenly the hut
burst into swirling fire. Somehow it didn’t surprise me, but Ingaea
ducked away from Yatol, wide-eyed. The rush and crack of burning
thatch filled the air, and the burnished light flared on our
faces.

Ingaea inched back toward Yatol and took his
hand, and the radiance danced over Ingaea’s fingers.

“
What are you?” he
murmured.

But Yatol didn’t answer. He kept watching
the hut, the thick black smoke curling into the sky. Waves of heat
washed over us, thick with a mossy smell that singed my lungs and
drew tears from my stinging eyes. Then, mixed with the earthy
smell, the nauseating stench of burning flesh. My stomach churned,
and I wrenched away to survey the forest behind us. I couldn’t feel
the Ungulion’s presence now, and I wondered if Royin might have
said something to mislead them. All was quiet but the dull roar of
flames.

When Akhmar appeared beside me suddenly, I
only put my hand out to his massive shoulder and met his gaze. I
couldn’t speak, but I knew he didn’t need to hear my voice. He
fixed me with a solemn gaze, then turned to Yatol and Ingaea.

“
The gift of fire,
Farseer,” he said. “I knew one day you would use it.”

Yatol bowed his head. “I didn’t think I
would.”

“
Every gift is given for a
purpose.” He turned to Ingaea. “Rune-singer, well met!”

Ingaea’s face lit with joy but he only
bowed, mute.

“
Akhmar,” I said. “Have you
seen him? The Lord of K’hama is tracking us.”

“
Aye, he and his horde
flounder in the dark maze of the forest, but it will not be long
before his scouts get their bearings. We should go.”

“
I wish I could follow you,
Yatol,” said Ingaea. “But I know it is not my task. Akhmar, keep
them safe! If safety even exists in that realm.” He clasped Yatol’s
arms in farewell, then came to me. “I am sorry you had to see what
happened to Royin. But I am sorrier that you are going into the
very heart of the evil that destroyed him. Farewell,
sister.”

“
Goodbye, Ingaea,” I said.
“If you find your way to the army’s camp, will you look for my
brother and my friend? Tyhlaur will likely be with
them.”

He nodded, and I turned away feeling
strangely sad. Yatol was already on Akhmar’s back, and he gave me
his arm to pull me up. He lifted his hand in farewell, and I
watched over my shoulder until Ingaea and the burning hut were lost
to view. I kept seeing Royin’s broken form, heard his last words
tumbling in my thoughts:
Forgive me
. Forgive him for
what?

“
Yatol,” I said finally.
“What happened when my father came through the portal? I need to
know.”

I saw him sigh, and bow his head.

“
I wish you didn’t,” he
murmured. For a while we rode in silence, and I wondered if he
would refuse to answer. Then he said, “He was so weak when he came
through. It was his tenth passage through the portal, and it nearly
claimed his life. I was the only portal guardian at the time. I
watched alone except for Royin, who was a healer. But he and Davhur
had quarreled the last time Davhur was here. Royin said Davhur
risked too much by his voyages, that he was putting our people in
danger. When Davhur returned that day, he wouldn’t go to his
aid.”

I watched the slow, deliberate rise and fall
of his shoulders.

“
I left the portal. Just as
Royin said. I abandoned my duty. I called to Royin but he wouldn’t
move. I went to Davhur. He could barely lift his head. But he
looked at me, and then past me, and said, ‘The portal, Yatol.’ I
turned, and saw three Ungulion…they had just forced their way
through.” He stopped abruptly, and then went on, fierce, “One of
them I banished. Royin fled. The other two seized me, then left me
for dead. When I woke, Davhur was gone.”

He turned his head to glance at me, the wan
light shining off the thin twisting scar that marred his cheek.

“
Was that when you got that
scar?”

He put his fingers to the old wound, probing
it as though it still pained him. “Yes. Shan healed me. Royin was
his guardian master, but Shan severed his oath to him after what
happened.” He let out a sharp breath, shallow laughter. “We were
both barely fourteen. Neither of us should have been burdened with
the duties we had.”

“
You were only fourteen?
And you banished an Ungulion?”

“
If I’d been older or
stronger, maybe I could have defeated them all,” he said
bitterly.

I swallowed. “Then what?”

“
I went looking for Davhur.
I figured they had taken him to the Gorhiem Bolstoed, so that’s
where I went. I used the conduit to get in, began searching the
fortress. Do you really want to hear this?” I nodded, mute. “I
found him…they were torturing him. I heard their questions, he
wouldn’t answer. They asked about Pyelthan, about the portal. They
even asked about your family, and about me. The more they tried to
make him talk, the stronger he grew.”

His words hit me like a blow to the chest. I
gasped hollowly, and my vision swam – grey from pain, blurred from
tears. I didn’t think of Azik, or what had happened to us. I only
saw Royin’s broken body. I tried to bar the image from my mind, but
it slowly took on my father’s likeness. It blistered in my
thoughts. I pressed my palms to my forehead to drive it away, but
it wouldn’t fade.

“
It wasn’t Azik,” Yatol
said. “If that’s any comfort to you.”

I couldn’t answer. He reached back and took
my hand, his grip firm and steady. I covered my face with my other
hand and tried to collect myself.

“
What did you do?” I
managed.

“
I tried to find a way to
save him. They found me and imprisoned me. They didn’t know who I
was, but Davhur heard that I had been caught. His cell was next to
mine. When he was awake, he spoke to me through the wall. He had
taught me so much already, but now he told me about you. Your gift.
His hope that you would follow him here. They didn’t torture him
often. They didn’t want to kill him. At first they interrogated me
too, and… Well, they had no such qualms about me. I feigned
ignorance. After a month they decided to execute me – they had no
reason to think me important.”

I was staring at his arms, the faded bruises
and scabbed wounds, old gashes scarred white. I remembered how his
arms looked when I’d first seen them in the Gorhiem Bolstoed and I
felt nauseous. Fourteen. He had been just fourteen.

Yatol sat silent, head bowed and shoulders
tense. Then he let out his breath, thinly, and resumed his
story.

“
Davhur told me to escape.
I did. I returned to save him. I nearly succeeded, but they
discovered me. They knew me by now, and would have killed me at
once. But I evaded them and got free. Again I slipped in. By then I
knew those halls better than some regions of the
Branhau
.
Davhur wasn’t there. I spent a week hiding, searching everywhere
for him. I had no reason to think he’d been killed. I spied on the
Ungulion, hoping to learn something from them. Finally a messenger
arrived. He reported to the Ungulion captains that Davhur had
arrived, and that they now waited. I didn’t stay to see if I could
learn anything else. I got out of the fortress, then I too
waited.”

He lifted his hands a little, palms up.

“
And now the waiting is
over.”