Dave Duncan – The Living God – A Handful of Men. Book 4

“Let me see it.” Thaile held out a hand.

Kadie drew the sword reluctantly and passed it across the table. The pixie took it and closed her eyes for a moment. “It’s very old. Very subtle. It was made for someone called . . . Olliano? No, Ollialo.”

“Inisso’s wife! He was the sorcerer who founded Krasnegar.”

“And a very powerful warlock. Almost the only warden who ever resigned his throne.” Smiling, Thaile passed the sword back. “It’s all recorded in the Library.”

“Is everything recorded in the Library?”

“Just about everything. Keeps people busy.”

Kadie gasped, seeing the rapier changed. All its silver filigree was clean and shiny, and the one blind dolphin had a ruby eye again to match its sisters. ”You’ve mended it! Thank you!”

“I restored it, too,” Thaile said, standing up. “You almost wore it out killing ravens.” Her smile faded. “I can prophesy something about that sword, Kadie.”

“What?”

The pixie frowned, as if puzzled. “It will draw blood again soon, but not in your hand. Someone else wields it.”

“You?”

“No, not me. Someone I have never met—and who has never yet touched the sword. You give it to him . . . I think it’s a him.”

Kadie said nothing. She could not imagine herself ever giving her sword away to anyone, anyone at all.

Thaile shrugged, and smiled. “There are strange times coming soon, times I cannot foresee. It would not be good manners to take a sword to the Meeting Place, I think.”

And what use would a sword be against sorcerers, anyway? Kadie reluctantly unfastened her belt.

4

The two of them had barely started along the white gravel path before Thaile began to realize that she might be making a real error in dragging Kadie away from the safety of the Place. Her guest was a badly wounded fledgling who needed time to heal, and apprehension was burning up around her like a thicket of purple fire. She had taken Thaile’s hand, and her own was damp and shaking.

“This is the Way,” Thaile explained cheerfully. “It goes everywhere in the College, one road to anywhere. All you have to do is think where you want to be, and it will take you there.”

“Oh.”

“And that’s even more wonderful than you might think, because the College is scattered all over Thume. To go from my Place to the Meeting Place would take you a week on a horse.”

Kadie said, “Oh!” again, not sounding at all comforted. “But it’s really only a Way Back, because it will only take you to somewhere you have been before. Notice how the vegetation has changed already?”

Time to heal . . . but that time might not be available. Old Baze, the former archon, had predicted that Thaile would not be an archon for long. She could probably foresee such things for herself now—although not while shrouded within the Way’s shielding—but she had not done so and did not intend to do so. Prophesying one’s own future was a dangerous and ill-advised thing to try.

Then the Way emerged from the trees and into the Meeting Place. The clearing was hot and bright with sunshine, a dell of flowered park land enclosing a small lake at its heart. Green was greener here, among the Progiste foothills on a summer evening, setting off the myriad bright colors of blossoms and tropical birds, of gay-clad people sprawled on the grass or conversing on benches and in shady cabanas. White swans floated among the water lilies and wading herons. A herd of small deer grazing on the bank jerked their heads up in alarm, apparently registering the arrival of a mundane. They had been oblivious of their human company until then. Kadie stopped dead. “Pixies!”

“Of course.” Thaile decided not to inform her young friend that she was one of the dark-haired demons mentioned in the Catechism. This intrusion was probably very unwise all round. Seeing the cold stare on every face, she realized that the few fragile friendships she had begun to build as a trainee were all lost to her. Archons could befriend only other archons.

Well, if she couldn’t woo them, she could awe them.

“Come! I’ll introduce you to some pixies.”

Kadie dragged her feet as she was led forward along the path. “They’re beautiful!” she muttered.

Perhaps they were, to her mundane eyes—graceful, youthful, tanned, all clad in fine garments of soft colors, mostly golds and greens. Few were less than full sorcerers, though, and Thaile could see their true ages and shapes. Why did they bother to pretend? Only the lowly trainees would be deceived.

Talk had ceased all over the Meeting Place. A hundred golden eyes stared disbelievingly at the newcomers. Closest was a group of two women and three men, standing. One of them was distinctively clad in blue, instead of the forest shades most others preferred; he strode forward a couple of paces, flickering with anger and indignation.

“Trainee Thaile?” he barked. Then he became aware of the solidity of her presence in the ambience. He stopped with a flash of alarm.

Give Teal his due, he made no claims to youth; he projected an image of fatherly middle years, silver hair and a mature figure. To sorcerer vision he was repulsive—old and fat, bald, curvaceous body coated with white fur. Despite the fur, he made Thaile think of snakes. That he should be the first to greet the visitor might be pure coincidence. If not, it boded ill for Kadie’s chances of ever leaving Thume.

Thaile flashed him an ominous smile. “This is the Master of Novices, Analyst Teal. Master, may I present Princess Kadolan of Krasnegar, a visitor to our land?”

Teal froze. In the ambience he flamed green terror. “An imp?” he croaked. “A demon? And you? Trainee Thaile?”

“Archon Thaile.”

Teal vanished with a wail. An instant later, the ambience blazed with occult power and the Meeting Place was deserted. The departure of so many people simultaneously created a clap of thunder. The deer took off for the safety of the surrounding forest. Ducks skittered across the water into flight; swans reared and flapped in white spray.

Kadie jumped and squealed: “Oh!”

Startled herself, Thaile flinched, and then she began to laugh. ”There!” she said. “I told you you had nothing to fear! They’re far more frightened of you than you are of them.”

Kadie’s pale face forced itself into a sickly smile.

“Thaile, Thaile!” a reproving voice murmured. ”You’d better bring her with you, I suppose.”

“What’s wrong?” Kadie demanded.

Thaile shivered. “We have to go and meet the Keeper.”

Rain was falling on the jungle. Little could penetrate that great ocean of foliage, but the air itself was wet, dense with odors of vegetation and rotting humus. The Way snaked dimly between giant trunks, barely visible to mundane vision. Kadie clung fiercely to Thaile’s hand, whimpering nervously as trailing moss brushed her hair. Together they walked down into the blackness of the vestry, then through into the cold gloom of the shrine. Twice before Thaile had seen this ancient ruin, and yet the Chapel had lost none of its power to awe her. Empty expanse of flagstone floor, high shadowed roof, ill-placed and odd-shaped window openings, the two black comer doors, and the absence of an altar-all seemed wrong and sinister. Again she sensed the mourning centuries.

Even a mundane could detect the outpouring of grief from the farthest comer. ”What’s that!” Kadie shrilled, pointing a tremulous finger.

“Keef’s grave,” Thaile muttered, and was annoyed to hear herself whispering. “The dark patch is ice, frozen tears.” For a moment she considered taking her visitor over there to pay her respects, and then decided not to.

This whole visit was folly. Her return to Thume itself had been. The thought of meeting the Keeper again was starting to hammer pulses of fury in her throat. She killed my lovely Leeb! She killed my baby! Hatred and loss! Raw, bleeding, unquenchable loss. Could even Zinixo surpass such evil?

The fourth corner was empty. To reach the Keeper, Thaile must make that odd sideways move to the other Thume, the Thume that existed on the same plane as the rest of Pandemia—and she was not sure how to take Kadie with her. To leave her here alone would terrify her beyond reason. Even as Thaile wrestled with the occult problem, the Keeper solved it for her. She did not seem to appear, she was just present, as if she had been standing there all along, a darker shadow in the darkness.

Kadie saw her a moment later and shied.

“It’s all right!” Thaile said—adding I think under her breath. Nothing was all right where the Keeper was concerned. A demigod was not, strictly speaking, still human. Thaile bit her lip as she stared over the barren floor at that eerie cowled shape, motionless as a draped pillar. She felt her hatred straining for release, for action. All the power she could summon was useless against the Keeper. She knew that in her mind, and yet her heart urged her to try again.