Cynosure replied, "As I said before, I lost track of Kiril after the Year of Blue Fire. She bears no Sign, yet in a dim way I was able to discern her condition. After she left the ruins of Ormpetarr, she and her dwarf employer plunged into something local survivors call the Plague-wrought Land. I have not detected her or Angul's presence since. And, moreover, you are the only person with whom I can converse."
"How do you know Angul lies within the Plague-wrought Land?"
"I do not. But it is the only lead we have. Perhaps you will learn more when you visit. A small settlement lies on its outskirts-you could get yourself a meal when you arrive."
Raidon's stomach spoke up of its own accord. He was still ravenous. His grief-inspired fast had sapped his strength. A sit-down meal… perhaps that was what he needed. With a pot of steaming tea on the side.
"Then send me on to Ormpetarr, when your strength is recovered. I will eat. After that, perhaps I will discover Kiril's fate, and if I decide you are not dealing with me falsely, take up the sword, Angul, as my own."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
You can't stop yourself, can you?"
Japheth looked up, his hand half out of a fold of his cloak, his fingers clutching a dull tin.
He frowned at Anusha. The girl perched on the edge of her travel case, nearly knee to knee with him as he sat on his cot. The porthole illuminated the cabin's cramped expanse, though poorly. Her face was half shadowed, but he could read her expression well enough. She was concerned. Constant proximity to her over the last days had worn away much of the distance he preferred to maintain between himself and others.
He had been lulled into a growing camaraderie. At first, she had done all the talking, relating to him the vivid details of her fight on deck against the sea hag. Japheth enjoyed her enthusiastic rendition of the events. In another person, he might have judged the story overlong, but somehow he hadn't minded as the account poured from her lips. She'd never successfully stood off a determined attack by foes eager for her blood before-why shouldn't she be flushed with success? More than that, he was interested to hear more of her peculiar sleepwalking ability.
Her question about his traveler's dust made him wish he'd maintained his customary reserve. The girl was becoming too familiar. Who was she to question his habits? Annoyance flared as a biting reply rose like acid in his throat. But he didn't voice it. Why?
Why did he not speak his mind with her? Why did he treat her so… delicately? Perhaps it was the fine cut of her jaw, her smooth-faced youthfulness. Her presence, in some way, recalled to him when he'd related to the world as she did, when he was still unscarred and saw limitless potential in everything. He had been like her not so long ago. Listening to her, watching her, he realized just how many dark events had got behind him. She radiated youth's naivety and energy, unconsciously and without regard to its scarcity.
If he allowed his guard to crumble further, he might make the mistake of dwelling overlong on her feminine attributes. It was better to think of her as a child, as when he'd first met her, rather than what she really was.
He imagined cradling Anusha's head in his hands and kissing her until they were both out of breath.
Lord of Bats forefend! Where had that come from? He shook his head, attempting to dislodge his thoughts from that track. He didn't need the complication of a relationship, however fleeting or innocent.
He tried to think of something else, anything else. An image of his tin filled with roseate crystals popped into his head. His palms itched in immediate response. His concentration shivered, and he growled.
"Are you all right?" Anusha asked, leaning toward him.
"My business is my own," he finally replied. He tried to make his voice cold, but it came out cracked.
Wait! He remembered what his mind kept trying to forget. Despite her protestations to the contrary, she could still be an agent of Behroun.
But once all was said and done, his hand seemed to spasm open of its own accord. The tin dropped back into his cloak.
Anusha watched him a moment more, then asked, "Do you suffer? I don't understand. You said your Lord of Bats keeps you from succumbing to the effects of traveler's dust."
"True, but the craving never leaves me."
"Maybe you're not getting the full benefit of your arrangement."
Japheth considered, and then said, "I have taken more than the Lord of Bats was willing to offer. I may not negotiate further without risking all I have already gained."
Anusha digested that, and then she asked, "What is a 'pact stone'? In my half brother's office, Behroun said he'd break your pact stone if you didn't do as he said, and something about how that would make the Lord of Bats so mad he'd come for you."
The girl looked at him, waiting for a reply. Confident she'd get one. Was this unearned confidence a product of her youth or her privileged upbringing? Or, it dawned on him, perhaps it was merely her personality.
"It is a complicated story."
Anusha stretched back. "We have days before we get to the atoll, you said. Tell me."
Japheth rubbed together the thumb and forefinger of the hand that had so recently held the dust tin. Why shouldn't he tell her?
The warlock said, "All right. This is the story. Before it became widely recognized that traveler's dust was ultimately lethal, I traveled too far down the crimson road. I knew I was to die, so I decided to perish in dramatic fashion, at a time of my own choosing. I took all the dust I had at one time. A lethal dose."
Anusha put a hand to her mouth.
"The crimson road leads directly into what may be the literal Abyss. Demons wait, hunger chasing across their glassy eyes. Victims of the dust walk, screaming, into demonic embrace. The road ends in a precipice, and in its tooth-lined gullet the drug-addled are consumed, mind and soul."
The girl's eyes were wide. The high color in her cheeks drained to parchment white. She believed him.
"Terrified, I regretted my decision and called out for succor, promising anything, if someone would save me from my self-inflicted fate. And thus, when a great bat sailed down from the burning sky, I thought it was my savior. It grasped me up before I could plunge to the road's terminus. Its claws held me tight, but they also cut me."
Japheth's words quickened. "It winged up through a tempest of fire, ice, and lightning, until we emerged into an enchanted reflection of the world. I saw streams of crystal water, vivid forests of living green, and mountains so high their beauty and majesty stopped my breath. I recognized it as the same landscape described in a tome I had been reading, Fey Pacts of Ancient Days. I realized the great winged creature was an entity also named in that tome, and I knew fear again. For the creature that held me could be none other than the Lord of Bats."
Into the silence that followed, Anusha asked, "Who is the Lord of Bats? A god?"
Japheth shook his head. "No god, but a powerful and potent creature, if called up in just the proper fashion. More by luck than wit, I had done so in dabbling with the ancient tome that named him, and my subsequent promise to enter into a bargain with any that saved me. The Lord of Bats had the strength to find me, save me, and seal a pact between us."
"A mutually beneficial pact?"
"It might have been, but in the urgency of my need, I promised everything and all; I pledged my soul, though I needn't have done so, had I known better. The Lord of Bats took advantage of my desperation. He sealed my pledge to him in a physical object-a small emerald pendant. The pact stone. It is the pact stone Behroun threatened to break, if I didn't do as I was told."