Dazed, Spinnock looked skyward. He saw a distant spot, far to the south now, marking the last dragon visible in the sky.
Nine. He counted nine.
Hearing a horse upon the road behind him, Endest Silann moved to the shallow ditch to let the rider past. He drew his cloak tighter about him and pulled up the hood to send a veil of shadow over his eyes. Three days past, he had awakened alone in the historian’s room to find his hands bound with bandages, to take up the blood that had wept from them.
There had been a faint sense of betrayal in this, given Rise Herat’s promise to abide, but upon leaving the chamber and finding himself in a corridor crowded with half-panicked denizens, and learning of the frightening manifestation of darkness in the courtyard, Endest pushed away his disappointment.
The Consort’s dramatic return had reverberated throughout the Citadel, and it seemed that the conjurations of that day were far from done. He had felt Night’s awakening, and then had fled, like a child, the flood of darkness that took first the Citadel, and then all of Kharkanas.
Carrying nothing, he had set out upon the river road, sleeping in whatever remaining hovels he could find amidst the grim wreckage of the pogrom. He saw no one for long stretches at a time, and those he did come upon shied from his attention. Nor was he inclined to accost any of them, hungry as he was. They had the furtiveness of wild dogs and looked half starved themselves. It was difficult to comprehend how quickly Kurald Galain had surrendered to dissolution. Time and again, as he walked, he had felt tears streaming down his cheeks.
The bandages still wrapped about his hands had become filthy, freshly soaked through with blood each night, drying black in the course of the day. But he now walked clear of the sorcerous darkness, and still as the forest was, with its burnt stretches and scorched clearings, he had found a kind of exhausted peace in his solitude. The river upon his left marked a current that he felt himself pushing against on this road. He had begun this journey knowing nothing of his destination, but he had realized that that ignorance had been a conceit.
There was but one place for him now, and he was drawing ever closer to it.
The rider came up from behind and Endest heard the animal’s pace slowing, until the stranger appeared alongside him. Endest desired no conversation and cared nothing for the rider’s identity, but when the newcomer spoke it was in a voice that the priest knew well.
‘If we are to adopt the habit of pilgrimage, surely you are walking the wrong way.’
Endest halted and faced the man. He bowed. ‘Milord, I cannot say if this path belongs to the goddess. But it seems that I am indeed on pilgrimage, though until you spoke I knew it not.’
‘You are weathered by your journey, priest,’ said Lord Anomander.
‘If I fast, milord, it is not by choice.’
‘I’ll not impede your journey,’ Anomander said. He reached down and drew out from a saddle bag a leather satchel, which he threw over to Endest. ‘Break your fast, priest. You can do so while you walk.’
‘Thank you, milord.’ In the satchel, there was some bread, cheese and dried meat. Endest partook of this modest offering with trembling fingers.
It seemed Anomander was content, for the moment, to keep pace with Endest. ‘I have scoured this forest,’ he said, ‘and have found nothing to salve my conscience. No birdsong finds me, and not even the small animals spared by our indifference remain to rustle the leaves at night.’
‘The meek of the realm, milord, have but one recourse to all manner of threat, and that is to flee.’
Anomander grunted, and then said, ‘I’d not thought to include the forest animals, or the birds for that matter, as subjects of the realm. It is not as if we can command them.’
‘But their small lives, milord, tremble atop our altars none the less. If we do not command with the snare and the arrow, then we speak eloquently enough with fire and smoke.’
‘Will you lift back your hood, priest, so that I may see you?’
‘Forgive me, milord, but I beg your indulgence. I do not know if penance awaits me, but this journey is a difficult one, and I would not share it for fear of selfish motives.’
‘You choose, then, to walk alone, and to remain unknown.’ Lord Anomander sighed. ‘I envy your privilege, priest. Do you know your destination?’
‘I believe I do, milord.’
‘Upon this road?’
‘Just off it.’
Something changed in the First Son’s voice then, as he said, ‘And not far, priest?’
‘Not far, milord.’
‘If I made a spiral of my search,’ said Anomander, ‘I now close upon a place where I believe it ends. I think, priest, that we will attend the same altar. Will you make of it a shrine?’
Endest started at the notion. He fumbled to close the satchel, and then made his way over to Anomander to hand the leather bag back. ‘Such a thing had not occurred to me, milord.’
‘Your hands are wounded?’
‘No more than my soul, milord.’
‘You are young. An acolyte?’
‘Yes.’ Bowing his thanks for the food, Endest returned to the side of the road.
They continued on in silence for a time. Ahead, the track leading to the estate of Andarist appeared, flanked by burnt grasses and the skeletal remnant of a fire-scorched tree.
‘I do not think,’ said Anomander, ‘that I would welcome a consecration in that place, acolyte, even could you give it. Which you cannot. The only holy object in the ruin before us is an Azathanai hearthstone, and I fear to come upon it now, and see it broken.’
‘Broken, milord?’
‘I also fear,’ Anomander continued, ‘that my brother is not there, when I can think of no other refuge he might seek. I was told he chose the wilderness for his grief, and can think of no greater wilderness than the house where his love died.’
Endest hesitated, and then drew a deep breath. They were but a dozen paces from the track. ‘Lord Anomander,’ he said, halting but keeping his head down. ‘Mother Dark has blessed her.’
‘Her? Who?’
‘The maiden, Enesdia of House Enes, milord. In the eyes of our goddess, that child is now a High Priestess.’
Anomander’s voice was suddenly hard as iron. ‘She has blessed a corpse?’
‘Milord, may I ask, where were her remains buried?’
‘Beneath the stones of the floor, priest, upon the threshold to the house. My brother insisted and would have torn those stones from the ground with his bare hands, if we had not restrained him. Regrettably, there was some haste in that excavation. Her father lies beneath the ground at the entrance, and at his side is the body of the hostage, Cryl Durav. The Houseblades lie encircling the house. Priest, Mother Dark has never made claim to the souls of the dead.’
‘I cannot say, milord, that she does so now.’
‘What has brought you here?’
‘Visions,’ Endest said. ‘Dreams.’ He then lifted his hands. ‘I–I bear her blood.’
To utter those words was to unleash the torment within Endest, and with a cry he fell to his knees. Anguish rushed through him in waves black as midnight, and he heard his own voice emerging, broken and torn.
And then Lord Anomander was beside him, kneeling to draw an arm around him. When he spoke it seemed that it was not to the priest. ‘Why does she do this? How many wounds will she make us carry? I’ll not have it. Mother, if you would so share your guilt, look only to me. I will take it upon myself, and know it as familiar company. Instead, you make all your children carry the burden of your legacy.’ He barked a harsh laugh. ‘And what a wretched family we are.’
Then he was helping Endest to his feet. ‘Give me your weight, priest. We take these last steps together, then. Set hands upon the blank stones that mark her grave, and leave the stain of her blood. High Priestess she will be. Mother knows, she was used as one.’
The bitterness of those last words reached through to Endest, and perversely he took from it strength and renewed fortitude.