“Enter their service?” Lakini glanced up at Lusk, who shrugged almost imperceptibly.
In her mind, the tiny god’s voice sounded. Please.
“It’s part of the ancient warding,” said Sanwar, looking displeased. “Who enters the Hold must pledge service.”
Lusk looked down at Lakini and mouthed an echo of the god’s voice. Please.
Fifteen years she’d wandered Faerun-a long time in the life of a human but not very long in the life of a deva. Still, while she had been Lakini and Lusk had been her Cserhelm, they’d never been separated so long.
She was tired, she realized. It was not a weariness of the body, but of the mind. She was tired of being alone. In the greatness of the world and its populations, it was almost impossible to be alone, but there was none other like her. In her travels, she’d never met another deva. Casting her mind along the fragmentary memories of her reincarnations, she had only known Lusk.
Lakini nodded.
They went to the stables to get their mounts. Lusk took the roan similar to the one he’d ridden years before, on his mysterious mission. Bithesi, her round face creased by a few more wrinkles than Lakini remembered, brought her a sturdy bay mare, already saddled. She passed the deva the reins in silence.
“Bithesi,” said Lakini, “not a word of greeting?”
The little woman paused at the stable entrance, her back to Lakini, and seemed to gather herself before turning.
“You left without saying good-bye,” she said, her face expressionless. “Why should you mind now?”
Lakini considered explaining, considered telling her that had she stopped to take her leave she would never have been able to leave Shadrun, to wander until the despairing cry of the barghest had faded. But no words came to her to say it, and she folded the thick leather straps of the reins over and over between her fingers until the mare whickered in her ear.
Bithesi went into the stable, Lakini mounted the mare, and the devas rode at an easy trot down the mountain.
“She can’t understand,” said Lusk, after they’d cleared the sentry rock. Lakini had a vivid memory of the travel-stained pilgrims she’d passed the last time she was here. “No one can understand how it is with us-except us.”
She nodded. They were silent for a time, but it was a companionable silence, their horses’ cadences matching and each deva keeping all senses alert for danger without having to speak of it. It reminded her why she and Lusk seemed to come together, year after year, lifetime after lifetime.
Chapter Eleven
JADAREN HOLD
1600 DR-THE YEAR OF UNSEEN ENEMIES
They saw the shape of the giant black rock from many leagues away. It loomed on the horizon before they were even close enough to pick out its features. There was little traffic on the road that afternoon, and their horses’ hooves crunched in the road’s crushed obsidian, making a sound like tiny beads of glass breaking.
Lakini saw that the imposing facade of the monolith, a forbidding and uniform black from a distance, was threaded all over its surface with greenery. Pockets carved by man or nature held, like great black bowls, clusters of ferns; bright green moss studded the dark rock like peri-dots in a matrix. Threads of spring water crawled silver down the monolith, and here and there the stone had been carved to divert the moisture away from the openings that served as doors and windows and into basins on the ground where it pooled, fresh and ready for use.
At the base of the side facing the great volcanic plain, the entrances of great caverns yawned. Animals-beasts of burden as well as cows and goats-were tethered outside, and Lakini realized the caves served as stables as well as storage chambers. She studied the structure with a practiced eye, as she would a fortress, and saw that as long as there was a way to block entry from the underlying caverns, the place would be all but impregnable. A wide path curved around the lava cone, presumably merging into a stone staircase that led to the summit-but a few defenders on top could hold off many attackers.
As she and Lusk approached, she lifted her eyes to that summit. It was flat, but at the rim rough rocks were silhouetted against the blue sky like jagged black teeth. Although the day was pleasantly warm and the light against the mountains was golden, a shiver went down her spine at the sight. She blinked and thought she saw a flicker of green, bilious and alien, unlike the natural green of the plants that clung to the side of the Hold. She watched carefully and saw it dance, like the ghost lightning that played in ships’ masts, over the jagged stones.
Lakini glanced at her companion to see if he noticed anything. If he did, he didn’t mention it, although his gaze flickered over the surface of the rock as fast as the strange green lightning. She wondered if Lusk, too, felt that the closer they got to the maw of the caverns, the more they were being examined by something curious and unearthly, something that resisted their approach, and made the warm air congeal slightly and resist their passage.
Several figures waited for them at the base of the Hold. Lakini recognized Kestrel Beguine and her husband. Standing beside Kestrel was a well-grown girl of about fourteen, with enough of Kestrel’s eyes and cheekbones and Arna’s mouth to prove she must be their daughter. Kestrel also had a baby cradled in her left arm, most of its weight supported by a sling she wore across her shoulders.
Someone with the bearing of a fighter stood beside Kestrel. Lakini smiled, and she recognized Ansel Chuit from the way he held his shoulders, ready to turn in any direction, and from how close he held his hand to the hilt of the sword on his belt. She hadn’t forgotten his lesson.
As Lakini and Lusk dismounted, stable hands-or should they be called cave hands? she wondered-ran to them and took their mounts by the bridles, guiding them into the chambers at the base of the rock. Lakini wondered how far underneath they went, and if there were subterranean chambers below this one.
The hands seemed to know what they were doing, taking the time to gentle the horses as they led them. Of course, with the kind of traffic from across Faerun that Jadaren Hold saw, they would have to care for many strange beasts of a variety of temperaments.
Their careful handling of her horse reminded her of Bithesi, and she felt a sudden pang.
Kestrel and Arna stepped forward to greet them. Lakini felt the resistance that she associated with the green light increase as the Jadaren scion held out his hand, and then suddenly ebb away as she touched it. Did the light, and the odd feeling in the air, have something to do with the wards that were said to bind the monolith?
“Welcome, devas,” said Kestrel. “Welcome to Jadaren Hold.”
To Lakini’s surprise, she found she liked the familial chaos of Jadaren Hold, and the bustle of a place that was a trade center as well as a home. Children ran in and out of the archives where records of goods, their origins, destinations, and prices were kept. The private chambers and hall of records were securely warded, but there were public areas where those on business for their Houses and employers gathered to bargain and negotiate and often enough that there was a festival air to the place.
Kestrel and Arna’s home proved to be a happy one, not the least because the Jadaren heir had the sense to allow his wife to keep the records and manage accounts how she pleased. Kestrel seemed happy in her new home and family, which included twin boys as well as the daughter, Brioni, and the baby, who was named Bron after his uncle. Lakini sensed none of the hidden dangers that Sanwar insisted were menacing his niece.