The Sacred Hunt Duology (108 page)

But Helene saved her by catching her arm and walking them both toward the guards at the gate. They were stopped—given the state of the manse itself, it was not unreasonable—but when they gave their names, the guard bowed quite formally.

“I am Arrendas ATerafin,” he said gravely. One of The Terafin's Chosen. “We were expecting you. If you would follow me?”

The Chosen rarely acted as guides or escorts for visitors of little import. Leof and Helene exchanged glances and then nodded quickly. He led them through the main doors into a foyer that stretched to a height that was uncomfortable to look at—and undignified, which neither Lady could be said to be. But they were not, as they had been on previous occasions, left to wait in the sitting rooms to the east or west of the foyer; they were taken into the manse itself.

They thought little of it; the foyer was obviously being rebuilt from the ground up, and it was no place to leave the men and women who had power enough to request, and receive, an audience. But as they passed door after door, following a long hall; as they passed mirror and fountain and open sky; as they stopped at
checkpoint after checkpoint for a cursory inspection, they realized that they were not being taken to wait.

Ah
, Leof thought, and the thought was bitter.
You are cruel, Hunter Lord.

Because she knew, the moment before six of the Chosen moved into two small rows of three guards each before a closed door, that she was on the verge of realizing a long-held goal: She was about to meet The Terafin for a personal audience. And this one day, this one occasion, neither she nor Helene could do anything political or financial at the behest of the Breodani.

• • •

The Terafin was a younger woman than either Leof or Helene—but she was used to wielding power; more power, financially, than the entire Kingdom of Breodanir. Yet she was standing as they entered the room, and she nodded quietly, holding her head down a moment in respect.

“Lady Faergif. Lady Morganson.”

“Terafin.”

“Please, be seated. I know that you have come to attend Lord Elseth, and I do not wish to keep you longer than I must.”

They sat; what else could they do? But Leof of Faergif felt a chill that the ruins of the manse and grounds had not put there. The silence was profound and awkward.

“I have always found the women of Breodanir to be perceptive, perhaps because Breodanir only chooses to send its best,” The Terafin said at last. “How much do you know of what has occurred upon these grounds?”

The two women, Helene and Leof, glanced at each other out of long habit; it was Leof who replied. “Why?”

“I have been studying what little we know of Breodanir,” was The Terafin's quiet reply. “Lord Elseth will not speak to anyone, and although he has been seen on the grounds, he leaves his dogs. He will take his meals, but he eats poorly.”

The glance that Helene and Leof exchanged was longer and more painful. “That is . . . as it often is.”

“Always is,” Leof said.

The Terafin nodded. “So we understand. But I owe Lord Elseth—and his huntbrother—a great debt. I cannot repay Stephen of Elseth; we do not even have his body.” She rose, turning to stare at a painting that was windswept sky and open plain without the clutter of any moving life; there were no windows in this room. “And I confess, Lady Morganson, Lady Faergif, that by my understanding of the law of the Breodanir, I will owe Lord Elseth and his family far more than I can ever repay them. We all will.”

Silence.

Then Lady Faergif spoke, her voice a hush of cool, cool words. “You do not intend to allow him to return.” It was not a question.

The Terafin's brows rose a fraction, and then she smiled, the expression at once rueful and mirthless. “I will offer you honesty. If it came to that, no.” She turned her face to the painting again, as if to find some solace in isolation. “But it will not come to that; Lord Elseth knows what is at stake.”

Leof snorted. “He's a Hunter Lord. He cannot know what is at stake.”

“Leof. He knows—as all Hunters know—that he will lose Elseth if he does not return for the King's Call at the Sacred Hunt.” The set of Helene's lips were grim.

“He is,” Leof replied, “wild with grief. He does not see his duty or his responsibility clearly.”

“Leof—”

“No, Lady Morganson. Lady Faergif is correct. He
is
wild with grief. I think he knows what he will—what he must—lose, but he does not care. I have rarely seen a man so close to his own death before.” The Terafin was silent a moment, and then she said, “At night, he keens like an injured animal. He will not see Alowan, although he was wounded. No one touches him. Even the mute companion—the girl—he shuts out.”

“And you are so concerned with his welfare that you risk exposing secrets to us?”

“Yes,” The Terafin said flatly. “Because I believe that he is necessary. The battle that began here a week past has in no way ended. I am sorry, Lady Faergif. But the risk that we face is graver than you know. You worry about the sorrow of one man; I worry about the lives of the entire city.

“The entire Empire.” She paused. “You sat, each of you, in judgment. You made decisions that profoundly affected the lives of the commoners in your demesnes.” Her voice was softer, but only slightly. “I make no apology to either of you; you know how power cuts.

“But if you, upon that hallowed seat, had the choice between the death of a man and the death of the kingdom, can you tell me, honestly, that you would not choose the man?”

“A child's question,” Leof replied tersely. “For there is no situation—” She stopped, suddenly.

The Terafin's eyes were a very dark color, some trick of the light perhaps. Grudgingly, so grudgingly, Leof of Faergif bowed her head. “We do not choose the Death,” she said at last, her voice faint. “The Hunters and their brothers make that choice when they take their oaths.”

“They take their oaths when they are eight,” was The Terafin's cool reply. “And Lord Elseth is no boy of eight.

“Stephen of Elseth—according to those of my Chosen who were in a position to see it—chose his death.”

“The Hunter chooses,” Helene said, correcting The Terafin gently.

“That is what I read, yes. But Arrendas ATerafin—the man who escorted you
to these rooms—says otherwise. The Hunter Lord faced the Death; he ordered his companions to run, and they did. But not for very long, and not very far.

“Stephen of Elseth left his companions, and his Hunter; he traversed the ruins of the foyer, and there set the horn that he carried to his lips. That horn brought the Death; it seemed clear to Arrendas that that horn summoned its attention.

“I do not pretend to understand the bond between a Hunter and his brother. But it is clear to me that Stephen of Elseth died to save his Hunter's life. It is equally clear to me that the Hunter, thus abandoned, lives only to Hunt his brother's Death.” She gestured, sudden in the motion, her hand rising and closing at the same time. The painting, wild cloud and windswept grass, began to shift in its simple frame, contorting and changing in a swirl of pale color until it contained a seascape: the mild waves lapping against the walls of the harbor city. And centered there, sword lifted in a salute or gesture of defiance, stood the cenotaph of Moorelas, the last of the heroes of the past age.

Leof and Helene gazed at the picture almost in awe, aware only now that its handiwork was that of an Artisan.

“His enemy,” The Terafin said starkly, staring at Moorelas' graven visage, “is our enemy.”

They both knew of whom she spoke, and they paled, and they did not demur again. But Leof of Faergif rose. “Terafin,” she said. “We will see Gilliam of Elseth now. I ask that you clear a space on the manor grounds, leaving only the green grass and the tall trees. We are not Priests; the Priests do not travel. But bring an unadorned altar, and leave it where we might approach.”

“This cannot be done in a day.”

“Then do it in two. We will wait.”

• • •

“My sources believe that half the family council was destroyed before suitable intervention arrived. The Darias—ah, forgive me—Archon, had put out a call for members of the Order, but those members were delayed for reasons that are not clear.”

The Terafin closed her eyes and leaned into the high back of her chair. “He knew his council was infiltrated.”

“He must have—but he must have reached that conclusion only yesterday, after the Council of Ten began discussions on the Darias affair.” He paused. “There will be no threat from Darias to any House for at least three years—but if the damage is as I suspect, it will be closer to thirty. There's only one man who can rule the House, but he was Archon ADarias' choice. The House will do everything it can to avoid the stigma of choosing him heir.”

“Good.”

Morretz fell silent as he watched his lord. “Amarais,” he began, his tone greatly changed.

She raised a slender hand. “Don't.” She rose. “Have Devon and Jewel returned?”

“They are cleaning up, and will report within the two-hour.”

• • •

“So we know what happened to the missing servants,” Devon said softly. “We suspect that the slaughter started a week ago—not more, but certainly not less.” The set of his face was grim and pale. Jewel Markess did not speak at all.

“There were day servants who did not reside within Cordufar proper. We've spoken with those that survived the fall of the estate at length, and we can ascertain that both Lord and Lady Cordufar were not among the dead.” He paused. “Their children were, and recently dead.”

“The fires?”

“Killed no one. The deaths occurred before the manse was destroyed.”

She regarded him in the silence of the unsaid. He returned her gaze unsteadily, and at last looked away. Jewel had still not spoken, which was unusual.

“Jewel, what do you think?”

The younger girl did not start or jump; she did not blush or otherwise show any embarrassment at her stony silence. Instead, she met her lord's gaze with an impassivity of her own. “I think,” she said, in a hushed whisper, “that they have to be stopped. They
all
have to be stopped.”

Devon reached out and caught her hand; she gripped his a moment and then relaxed.

“And that,” The Terafin said, rising from her chair to signal an end to the interview, “is just what we cannot do. Were you not what you are, Jewel, I would not tell you this. But I value any insight that you might have, however and whenever it might come, and I wish you to feel free to interrupt any meeting that I might have, should any insight of relevance arise.

“
If
we can make our way into the maze that your den used to travel, the mages of the Order—guided by Teos, Lord of Knowledge—believe that we would be able to stop the enemy from completing his ascent. But we have searched, and searched again for a way into the undercity; we have the entire Order, from the fourth circle and up, attempting to break the barrier that the—that our enemy has imposed.

“Not even the combined power of the Exalted has been able to achieve the smallest rupture.”

“Can't they call their Gods, the same way the Allasakari have?”

“They can,” she said, her expression remote, “but at the best guess of the Lord of Wisdom, it would take twenty years for the Gods to answer in a like fashion. And He believes that if we have twenty weeks before the Lord of the Hells takes Averalaan, we are very, very lucky.”

• • •

Torvan ATerafin waited by the shrine of the House. He sat, kneeling stiffly in the cool breeze, his hands palm up across his lap, and in them, the scabbard of his
partly unsheathed sword. It was not an easy position to maintain; his legs were bent around a scarring wound, and his shoulder throbbed in the wet air.

So many of the Chosen lay dead, their faces shielded by caskets from the upturned earth. To his bitter regret, he was not among them. Marave, dark-haired and hawklike, was gone, her sword snapped at the hilt, its blade lost; Gordon, Chosen a month later than Torvan, had been accepted into the Mother's arms. Alayra fought death successfully, but it was rumored that she might lose her leg; after the battle, the healer was in no shape to heal; he had called The Terafin back from the path the dead walk. From a path that she would never have touched that eve had it not been for his own weakness.

And Torvan?

A cut in the leg an inch above the knee, a dislocated shoulder, a scrape across the cheek, a broken rib. A gash along the right shoulder. The memory caused him more pain than these.

At his back was the shrine, lit for the coming evening. Leaves and late-falling petals, blown wayward by salt-laden wind, collected upon the altar where Torvan had once laid down arms and armaments. Where he had picked them up again, with pride and quiet confidence, and offered them at once to The Terafin herself, eight years before he had been Chosen.

The Chosen . . .

He had been kept in confinement for three days, the first of which had been spent speaking with the mage, the second with the Exalted. The third day, he had spent in isolation, speaking only to Arrendas, and at that briefly. The rest of the Chosen did not know how to speak with him or to him—and he couldn't blame them. His was the face of the man who had almost assassinated The Terafin.

Jewel had come; he had heard her angry voice through two closed doors. The Chosen that she spoke with remained calm in the face of her anger, and also remained adamant: there were rituals and rites to be followed by the penitent, and speaking to the servants—speaking even to the guards—was not among them.

She hadn't liked that much.

He could almost pity the Chosen who had had to deal with her. Ah, he felt the knots in his neck and realized again how tense he was, how stiff. The sun was falling groundward in its daily descent; the color of the landscape was being altered by slow degree. Beneath it all, he sat, as he had sat since mid-morning. Waiting upon The Terafin. If The Terafin chose to come.