“I think it would. Think it will. It does you credit. And some wars are just.”
“Are they?”
From Shandie, that ought to be a very surprising question, but she knew him now. He took nothing for granted. “Yes,” she said. “When the jotnar seized my kingdom, I had them all killed, every one, and most of them were not much older than Gath. Well, they were quite young. But none of the thanes has menaced us since.”
“If a war is just for one side, then must it not be unjust for the other? Have I mangled the problem successfully?”
“No, you’re right. I’m sorry if I offended.”
“I enjoy talking with you. Know something? No one has ever spoken to me in my whole life like this. Not the way you do.”
Poor, poor Shandie! His mother had been the worst sort of bitch, of course. He had had no brothers or sisters, and probably no real friends, even as a child. What of his wife? But to speak of the impress would be too cruel. The man was probably frantic with worry about her. However, there were limits to the amount of comfort Inos was willing to provide lost husbands, even imperors, and this conversation was drawing very close to those limits. She wondered if moonlight had this effect on people. Or was it loneliness calling out to loneliness?
“Highscarp is not a happy memory!” Shandie said firmly. ”What’s unsettling you?” He moved closer.
Fair enough. She had wrung confidences out of him, so now it was his turn, and this private little chat was becoming altogether too intense and intimate.
“Riding in that coach.”
“I thought maybe it was dinner.”
She smiled, then chuckled in case he couldn’t see the smile. “That, too. No, I kept remembering the last time I rode in a grand carnage like that.”
“When?”
“When I left Hub. Many years ago. We drove all the way to Kinvale before lunch!”
Shandie sighed. “Then I can guess who was driving.”
”Yes,” she said. “You want to hear something funny? The footman on that journey was Death Bird! Me and Aunt Kade, seven hundred leagues in a morning!” She laughed. Rap driving.
Rap gone. And Kadie and now Gath. Shandie took her in his arms.
The tears came at last. He held her tight in the moonlight while she soaked his shoulder.
6
The journey was the longest Thaile had ever taken on the Way, except perhaps her first trip to the Defile. She had a strange conviction she was going around in circles, so perhaps the archon was having trouble making the Way work backward for her.
Eventually she saw a light ahead and heard a distant boom of surf. The moon was higher, riding through milktinted clouds. Wind sighed over the bent grass on the dunes.
A strange group crouched around a bonfire, their shadows writhing on the sand behind them. No, there were two groups, she realized. On one side an old woman huddled, distraught, weeping in the arms of a bewildered boy. On the other sat a couple of young men she knew, novices from the College. They looked at her with pale, strained faces, but she could tell they were greatly relieved to see her come at last. The dying man must be a full sorcerer, and these two would be granted the other two worthwhile words.
Beyond them was a cottage. There was no light in it, but archons did not need light. She trudged over the soft sand with her heart laboring. One word only! Only one word! The door stood open on darkness. A voice said, “Enter!”
She recognized him, a blocky man with very gold eyes, and much younger than she would have expected of an archon.
“Yes, we have met,” he said impatiently, and gestured to the bed. The face on the pillow was wrinkled and pallid, its eyes closed. Under the mundane salt tang of the sea lurked the occult scent of death, old and stale and cruel.
“You want the Tylon word,” Raim said brusquely. “I will rouse him. Give me a moment.” He strode past her, out the door and away, leaving her alone with the dying man.
Why? Oh, to move out of earshot, of course. Words could only be heard mundanely, not by sorcery. Had she ever been told that, or did she just know? Remembering her great-grandmother Phain, she moved softly over to the bed and knelt down beside it. This would be a much shorter Death Watch than Phain’s. The man’s breath rattled like snakes. She wondered if she would ever know his name.
Minutes wormed by. If she wanted to pry, she would be able to Feel his agony. An insane urge to do so began to niggle at her like an itch. His features had the immobility of old ivory, reminiscent of the portrait busts in the Library. She lifted a corner of the sheet and wiped the trickle of spittle trailing from his lip.
His eyelids flickered and opened a little. The mouth pursed as if in pain. What a horrible way to die! She felt like a buzzard, picking at a corpse.
“Which? “ The word was not spoken aloud. “Can I get you anything? Water?”
“No. I am in something of a hurry, Novice. Which?”
“Tylon.”
He tried to speak, and no sound came from his lips. He ran the tip of his tongue over them; she leaned closer, offering her ear. He croaked, gasped for breath; tried again. He spoke.
The world exploded in glory and power.
She reeled out of the cabin, almost knocking over Kweeth, poor kid, only a boy, hurrying white-faced to the dying man to learn a word and become an adept . . . His fear was a luminous marsh fog around him.
The night was filled with splendor and majesty. It trumpeted. She could ride the clouds, embrace the moon. The ever-restless sea filled her with wonder. Her soul danced in the night wind.
Raim blocked her path. “Sit by the fire a moment, Archon, until you collect your wits.”
“Archon?” she said. “Did you call me Archon?”
“You are to be the eighth archon,” he snapped. He was a very brusque person, this Raim. “That is why Sheef was not replaced. Now go and sit. I am busy.”
Without moving a finger, she slapped his face, hard. He reeled, astounded.
“I remember you,” she said, feeling exultant. “You came and snatched poor Mist away from my Place. My guest! Mind your manners better in future.”
Anger burned red embers in the night. “You have soon become arrogant, Sorceress!”
“Did you need longer?”
Raim snarled and stepped away from her, rubbing his cheek. He was engrossed in keeping the old man alive and watching young Kweeth’s nervous efforts, too busy to spare time for squabbling.
Thaile walked away, over the top of the sand. Sorceress! The sheer delight of power was intoxicating. This was what Faculty was for. This was why she had come to the College.
Come to the College?
She had never come to the College! She had been kidnapped, abducted to the College. That first day at the Meeting place . . .
Leeb!
As the great breakers offshore, no matter how high they rose, must topple at last in. welters of foam, so memory crashed down upon her: Leeb, her goodman, and the Leeb Place, and their loving. Leeb weaving the walls of the cottage, Leeb building a boat, Leeb teaching her to swim, Leeb’s hands on her body. His skin against hers. The missing months flooded back, months of love and laughter.
Now she knew where she had first met Analyst Shole. It had been Shole and Mearn who had come to the Leeb Place and abducted Thaile and stolen—
Her baby!
She screamed to see the full extent of the College’s treachery. Not only her goodman! Her baby, too! With a howl of pain and fury, she gathered her powers for vengeance.
She entered the Chapel in a blast of thunder, right before the Keeper’s desk. The hall echoed. Dust billowed away across the flagstones.
“You stole my child! You stole my love! You stole my memories!”
The Keeper seemed not to have moved at all. She looked up slowly, a blankness in a cowl, conveying sorrow. “You asked me to take your memories.” Her voice was dark as buried rock.
“The second time I did! After I came through the Defile I did! I was barely sane that morning. I did not know what I was asking! You took advantage of me!” Never had Thaile felt such rage, choking her, beating in her temples. “And I certainly did not ask you the first time!”
“It had to be.”
“No, it did not! You could have explained! You could have asked me! You could have told me what was required, and why Thume needed me.” Was that true, though? Would she have given up her man, her child?