But the Indian did not move. He was so still he might have been carved from stone.
“The consequences of accepting responsibility for the lives of others are not always pleasant. But neither are the consequences of abdicating that same responsibility. What is certain is that you cannot pretend to be someone other than who you are. You made a choice, John Ross. Failure and pain are a part of the price of your choice, but you cannot change that by telling yourself the choice was not binding. It was. It is.”
The big man’s voice dropped to a whisper. “By behaving as you do, you present a danger to yourself. Your self-deception places you at great risk. Whatever you believe, you are a Knight of the Word. You cannot be otherwise. The creatures of the Void know this. They will come for you. They will steal your soul away. They will make you their own.”
Ross shook his head slowly. “No, they wont. I won’t let them.”
“You wont be able to stop it.”
Ross met his gaze. “If they make the attempt, I will resist. I will resist to the point of dying, if that’s what it takes. I may no longer be in service to the Word, but I will never serve the Void. I will never do that.”
O’olish Amaneh looked out the window into the snow covered landscape, into the somnolent white. “The Void wants your magic at its service, and it will do what it takes to obtain it. Subverting you will take time and effort and will require great deception, but it will happen. You may not even realize it until it is too late. Think, John Ross. Do not lie to yourself.”
Ross held out the black staff “If you take this from me now, the Void can do nothing. The solution is simple.”
The Indian made no move. He kept his gaze directed away, his bode still. “Others have suffered a loss of faith. Others have tried to abandon their charges. Others like you. They have been warned. Some thought they were strong. They have all been lost. One way or the other, they have been lost.”
He looked at Ross, solemn-faced and sad-eyed. “You will go down the same path if you do not heed me.”
They faced each other in silence, eyes locked. Then O’olish Amaneh turned without a word and went out the door and was gone, and John Ross did not see him again.
But he thought about him now, riding the trolley to Pioneer Square, stepping off onto the platform at Main, and walking back to the offices of Fresh Start. He thought about everything Two Bears had told him. The Indian and blest had given him essentially the same warning, a veiled suggestion that the danger he posed by refusing to continue as a Knight of the Void would not be ignored and that measures would be taken to bring him back in line.
But did those measures include eliminating him? Would the Lady really send someone to kill him? He thought maybe she would. After all, five years ago he had been sent to kill Nest Freemark in the event she failed to withstand the assault of her demon father. Why should it be any different now, with him? They could not chance losing him to the Void. They could not let him become a weapon for their enemy.
Last in thought, he slowed as he approached the entry to the shelter. Why did everyone think such a thing could happen? What could the Void possibly do to subvert him that he wouldn’t recognize and resist? There was his dream, of course, and the danger that it might somehow come to pass and he would kill Simon Lawrence. But the events of that dream would never happen. There was no reason far them to happen. And in any case, he didn’t really believe his dram and the Lady’s warning were connected.
He shook his head stubbornly. Only one thing bothered him about all this. Why had the Lady sent Nest to warn him? She could just as easily have sent Ariel. He would have given the tatterdemalian’s warning the same consideration he was giving Nest’s, Why send the girl – The Lady couldn’t possibly believe that Nest would have a greater influence on him than O’olish Amaneh. No, something else was going on, something he didn’t understand. His instincts told him so. He walked into the reception area at Fresh Start, said hello to Della, gave Ray Hapgood a perfunctory wave on his way back to the office, and closed the door behind him. He sat in his chair with his elbows on his desk and his chin in his hands, and tried to think it through.