You must keep going, my son.
And so he settled himself, brought the stick up, set his eyes on the Light within him, and walked forward. Not really sure where he was headed, he just put his head down and walked.
The dragons tugged and tore at his clothing, spit and breathed their poison upon him, roared and screamed with all their might, as if they hoped to slay him with sound. His ears throbbed with the pain of it, but he shut that out. Shut out even the mental voices he realized were shrieking in his head. Again and again he forced his thoughts back to Eidon, releasing the Light through his flesh to purge the spore as he placed one foot after the other. Repeating verses and promises memorized as a Mataian acolyte, he walked and walked and walked. . . .
And then it was over.
The sound cut off abruptly, and the beasts withdrew. Glancing back, he saw them returning to the foot of the stair, snapping and biting at one another sulkily. Then, as if desperate to kill something, a black dragon crested with silver seized a smaller blue and scrubbed it along the ground. A gray one jumped in to help and the feeding frenzy began.
Abramm turned away and walked on across the barren slope toward the smoking pit at its midst.
CHAPTER
25
As Abramm headed toward the curtain of black mist, he began to feel strangely disoriented. Though his eyes assured him he was heading downward, his feet and lungs kept insisting he was climbing upward. Perhaps it was a result of all his trials—he’d been shaking awfully hard in that gauntlet and had been without food and adequate water for uncounted days.
Barely had he strode into the outer fringes of mist, than it thickened into a dense black fog that stymied even his night sight. He walked on, trusting in Eidon’s unseen, unfelt guidance. Gradually a sense of aversion and resistance arose in him—an irrational fear of going forward that reminded him of a griiswurm aura. But after what he’d just endured, a little unfocused anxiety was nothing, and he pressed on.
Ahead, a soft glow suffused the mist, and with each step it grew appreciably brighter. His disorientation increased as he looked at feet angled downward with the terrain and felt as if they flexed up. To say nothing of heart and lungs that labored as if he were climbing one of the peaks back in the Aranaak.
Then, in a single step, he burst free of the darkness into the intense glare of the sun in a clear blue sky, and the brightness nearly knocked him over. Once he was able to see again, he discovered that his sensations had been correct: He stood on a steep, rocky hillside just below a small domed hall of white marble. It perched at the top of the peak, its dark doorway looming directly in his path.
Once he’d caught his breath, he climbed the last bit of slope to the porch, where the doorway’s impenetrable darkness gave no hint of what lay behind it. An inscription tumbled across its lintel in the odd squiggly symbols of the Old Tongue: “No other shall come before me.”
It was from the Second Word. Reassured, he stepped over the threshold into a moist-smelling chamber every bit as black as the cloud he’d just endured, the doorway having vanished as soon as he’d passed through it. The chuckle of running water sounded at his feet, echoing in what seemed a much larger space than should have been possible for a temple as small as this had appeared from the outside.
He conjured a kelistar and gasped in amazement. The chamber in which he stood was bigger than the great rotunda of the library back in Springerlan— save there were no books, no shelves, and only a single pedestal in the room’s center surrounded by a great dome of dark walls sprinkled with stars. A trough of running water ran like a moat between the outer walls and the inner floor. To get to the latter he’d have to wade. Which, from the folded towel and small bench that stood on the other side of the channel, he guessed he was intended to do.
He gave thought to stooping and taking a drink, so great was his thirst, but decided it might be improper, so he only bent to unfasten his sandals before wading across. As he sat on the bench drying his feet with the towel, he noticed the cup of water beside him. Hardly enough, he thought at first, but obviously meant to be drunk. And so he did.
The water was cool and sharp, and the cup magically refilled, letting him drink and drink and drink, until thirst and hunger and fatigue slipped away before renewed vitality. Finally, sated, profoundly grateful, and bemused by the never-emptying cup, he set the vessel aside and stood up. The moment he did, light flared from his bare feet across the floor and up the walls, engulfing even the central pedestal, which was revealed now to be more pillar than pedestal.
He stared around in awe, for there was no confusing the light and sense of Eidon’s power. As it clarified and brightened he saw that floor and walls alike were covered with a living mural, words and images dancing together: a golden tree, a great forest, ancient fortresses crowned with orbs that looked like guardstars, great armies of giant beautiful men flying in formation over green fields that turned to ash in their wake, a glorious being hovering over a mountain, a man suspended between heaven and earth—bloodied, beaten, and screaming as the darkness took him. . . .
Abramm passed before it, walking slowly, his mind battered with concepts and images from past, present, and future. Snatches of Laud’s voice—or Kesrin’s—explained what he was seeing in a mad jumble he couldn’t begin to follow. He wanted to close his eyes, to stop his brain, to sort it out, but it just kept coming.
He saw himself taking the Star in the cistern of the SaHal, felt again the shield burn into his chest, then was crowned a king again—but in a hall greater than Avramm’s Mount. The dragon flew overhead, coming after him, coming for him and all those he loved . . .
Because of Eidon.
Something flickered beyond the wall, a new image forming behind the others in a second room like this one, with another pedestal. The moment he shifted his focus from the wall to the room beyond, the wall dissolved. Before him stood the second pedestal, clear as day, and on it rested a massive lump of amber, dancing with an inner light that caught and held the eye. Part of him knew that he stepped toward it and should not, drawn as he’d been drawn to Lema’s promises of limitless wealth and power.
Suddenly the warm light and amorphous shapes drew into forms, dark and light, hard and soft, scallops of brilliance on a dark sea. A man’s body— startlingly familiar in form—floating facedown, red hair splayed in the water around his head, blood spreading across the pale tunic on his back as a small boat approached. It was Trap. In dire straits.
The scene shifted, and he saw his wife, propelled by a tall Esurhite down a beach toward a galley from which hung the lighted purple banner of the Black Moon. He felt her fear, her shock of betrayal, her desperate plea for help.
He jerked back, horrified by the certainty that what he saw was real, though whether past, present, or future, he did not know. It drew him still, but he turned from it, seeking the euphoric almost-understanding he’d known before its intrusion. But whatever train of thought he’d been following, it was lost, for the images on the dome wall were different now. . . .
Annoyed with himself for succumbing to the distraction, he jumped back into the river of events and information. Again it overwhelmed him, and he struggled to keep up, his mind stretched to the limit by concepts too high and deep and wide for a mortal man to ever hold. And yet he kept trying, feeling as if he stood on the verge of grasping something . . . marvelous. Something he had lived all his life to understand. Something impossible to know, and yet . . . The Light flared in him, and for a moment his awareness expanded beyond anything he’d ever known, and he saw Truth. Saw how it fit together in all its myriad pieces. Time and space and choice. Saw how much Eidon loved him, saw the immensity of what Tersius had done for him, saw the evil in Moroq’s—and his own—drive to independence. All of the tales in the Words of Revelation came together for him, all of them following the same thread—the power and might of the God he served, the perfect justice and righteousness, and the unfathomable depths of his mercy and grace. But even with his
vast comprehension he saw still more he did not understand, new knowledge birthing new questions in a chain that stretched to infinity.
And then it ended. He came back to a form that seemed small and cold, weak and watery, and tinged with terrible darkness. For a moment he writhed at being put back into it, then the resistance gave way to acceptance and he was himself again, standing now before the bench on which he’d first sat, the dirtied towel still draped over it. He stared at it bemusedly, for it did not seem the sort of thing that should have remained in this glorious room.
Why am I here, my Father?
You have been traveling to this place ever since I put my mark upon you, my son. Turn now, and find your symbol on the pillar.
He did as he was bade. Names, symbols, letters he could not read scrawled across the marble, some in the Old Tongue, most of it not. But there. A shield with a tiny dragon upon it.
Why a dragon, my Lord?
Because you were once a slave. And I freed you.
Oh. Of course. . . . Why would he not want to remember that from which he had been delivered? And he understood that Eidon did not refer to his slavery to Katahn, but to the Shadow within him and the corrupted world around him. His eyes moved to the crowns and scepter above the dragon and shield. What are these?
They are yours to lose. Touch the shield, my son.
Abramm did so, and the floor zinged beneath his feet, catapulting him forward into the pillar—and through it. He did not think the light could grow any brighter, but it did.
Words echoed around him, a deep, sonorous voice, more beautiful, more compelling, more marvelous than any he had ever heard. It plucked at his heart, captured his mind, abducted his love. . . .
He glimpsed something in the brightness before him—a great space, a raised dais . . . a figure standing before a whiteness that could not be penetrated. He heard the wondrous voice, and only gradually was he able to focus on the words. Which seemed to be a litany of accusation against someone.
“He claims to be your servant yet refuses to believe you and torments himself with worry. Yesterday he spent hours feeling sorry for himself.”
Is it me he is accusing? Abramm wondered.
“He has failed in every way, for you sent him to protect his queen and he was so preoccupied with his own concerns he failed to see the danger in time. Now she is lost and he is dying, cursing you as he does.”
Not me! Abramm realized. Trap . . . and Maddie. What I saw in the amber on the other pedestal. . . . The wondrous voice, beautiful as it was, now grated.
“After all you have done, all he has learned, he has come to this. A bitter disappointment and a failure. I say take him now before he can embarrass you further.”
The compelling voice fell silent, and Abramm breathed a prayer of thanks.
Now another voice replied, warm as sunlight, soft as lamb’s fleece, but iron firm regardless.
“That is all true, but he is mine, and I have paid for his failures. We no longer hold any of it against him.”
“But he curses you. He seeks his own way over yours.”
“It is a family matter now and not the purview of this court.” Silence fell, and when the accuser said no more, the warmer, richer voice said, “I wonder, though, what you think of Abramm? He has done rather well, wouldn’t you say?”
The figure turned—a giant of a man and no man at all. Dark eyes, perfect features, too beautiful to be a man, too full of light and power to be mortal. And yet, he looked inexplicably familiar, and the shock that widened those beautiful dark eyes, then the rage that narrowed them, was all too human.
“What is he doing here? He has no right to be here!”
“He has more right than you do, Moroq,” the warm voice said dryly.
“Your servant.” Moroq sneered. “You are proud of him?”
“He has passed through Chena’ag Tor.”
“No! I don’t believe you. No man passes through Chena’ag Tor.”
“Very few, it is true.”
Moroq passed over that as if nothing had been said, glaring at Abramm again before turning back to the throne. “This one is nothing! You have been too kind to him. Protecting him on every side, giving him hope in the midst of his trials. Let me take all that he loves and see what he does then. He would be just like his friend Meridon.”
“You already have taken all he loves. Over and over, pushing me to harm him without cause. Yet he has not forsaken me. And I will reward him for it.”
“His loved ones live. His realm remains. I say destroy it all. Burn it barren and see what he does then. You have not been fair with me in this. You are never fair with me.”
“Very well, Moroq. Do your worst, then. His reward will only be the greater for it.”
The beautiful immortal—could it truly be Moroq?—whirled from the golden throne and stalked away, his face dark with fury. As he moved past, a terrible sense of smallness overcame Abramm. A sense that here was a dangerous and deadly enemy. He trembled as the creature passed by him, and nearly jumped out of his skin when the marvelous voice, distorted now by anger, hissed at his right ear, “You think to stand against me, little man? You don’t know pain. Whatever reward you think you’ve gained, you’ll give it over in a heartbeat when I’m done with you. Oh yes, you may have seen it on the pillar. But I will take it from you. I will take it all from you this time, Abramm Kalladorne.”
He strode away, and Abramm watched him go, the sense of terror and smallness ebbing like a receding tide. Then the white robes burst into light and the retreating figure vanished in a column of amber and flashing wings.
Abramm staggered and gasped as he found himself back in the domed chamber, the amber corridor immediately in front of him, the white one beside it.
Tersius’s voice sounded in his head, quoting from the First Word: “I place before you life and death, my friend. Do you know which one is which? All that you have learned will tell you, but you must know where you want to go.”
Wherever you send me, Lord.
“Are you sure?”
You know I am.
“The two ways are so close that if you are not sure, if you do not focus, if you do not know, you can be pulled to the wrong one. . . .”
Maddie had been given to the Esurhites and needed Abramm’s help; Trap floated wounded in the water, soon to be dead if Abramm did not go to him. He could save them both if he took the amber corridor. Or he could take the other way. Where he saw nothing but light. Felt nothing but light. Had no idea where it would take him. No idea if it would take him anywhere. . . .
But after all he’d come through, all he’d seen, how could there be any decision but one? He stepped toward the white column, and a gust of wind buffeted him so that he staggered toward the amber column shooting up beside it. He felt his wife beseeching him to save her, to save their sons, to save all of Chesedh.
But it was Eidon he must serve and Eidon who did the protecting.
No other shall come before me.
The wind subsided the moment he chose, and he stepped unhindered into the white fire of his Father’s will.
ELPIS
PART THREE
CHAPTER
26
Maddie was escorted down the beach toward the water where the Esurhite longboat waited just out of reach of the white-lipped waves lapping beyond it in the darkness. Iron manacles were snapped about her wrists, then and she was forced to climb over the gunwale into the vessel. As she sat on a middle thwart, the others arrayed themselves outside the boat and shoved it toward the water, scrambling in as the waves lifted it and the outflow carried it away from the beach. In moments eight oars plied the water, increasing the vessel’s speed as it met and bobbed over the next incoming wave.
As they left the susurrus of the breakers tumbling against the shore, Ronesca’s wails echoed more loudly around them, cycling between disbelief, desperate grief, and fury. As the galley toward which they headed loomed up in the darkness, the Esurhite commander chuckle
d where he sat across from Maddie. “She truly didn’t see it coming, did she? Of course we’d return them to her dead. What did she think?”
Repelled by his amusement as much as by his willingness to betray his word, Maddie asked abruptly, “And is her husband dead, as well?”
White teeth flashed in the night. “Not yet. Him we’re preparing for the Games. I understand he’s something of a fighter—nothing like your husband was, I’m sure. You have my condolences on his loss.” He paused, then added, “We all mourned his passing.”
She stared at him wordlessly. Why on earth would he say such a thing? Did he think she might believe him?
His grin widened. “We wished to see him die at our hands, of course, not chewed upon by the dogs of his own realm.” He paused, gazing at her. “You don’t remember me, do you? We met on the Island of the Gulls.”
Ah yes. That was it: He’d been the commanding officer there. Uumbra. She jerked up her chin. “I’m surprised that incident didn’t bring you a demotion, sir.”
He laughed, but she heard the note of bitterness in his voice. “It all worked out in the end. I’m here now, am I not? Here to bring you to your new husband, who has come himself to receive you—the Pretender’s woman given into his hands.” He barked a command in the Tahg to the steersman, then turned back to her. “You will meet him in a few moments, and he will be pleased to ease your grief.”
Horror washed over her. In moments? Oh, Father! Deliver me!