The Stalker turned away, jerking his eyes from Tier’s as if Tier had some sort of hold on him.
“You told him how to bind the Orders to the gems,” Tier said. He wasn’t certain he could stand, so he didn’t. “If You had not done that, the Travelers could have dealt with him eventually. That is the task they bear for their imperfect sacrifice. Their greed for knowledge, for the libraries and Hinnum’s mermori left the possibility open for a Shadowed to exist. It is a task they have carried out since the fall of Colossae. But there are few Travelers left now, thanks to Willon. If You had not told him how to bind the Orders, he would be no threat to You now.”
“You said it yourself, Bard,” the Stalker said bitterly, “death has no hold over him. I can do nothing to him so long as he holds My power.”
“So what can I do to him?” asked Tier. “How do we stop him for You?”
The god sighed. “I can help.” He said. “I will sing with you and we will withhold my power from Willon for a time. You have proved to me that you can withstand the pain of My song inside you. While we hold the power back, Willon must be killed.”
“Lehr?” asked Tier.
“Only the war god can kill an immortal,” said the Stalker regretfully. “There will be sacrifices before the Shadowed is dead, Tier.”
“The Guardian believes that if he kills someone, it will destroy Jes,” said Tier.
“The Guardian is right,” agreed the Stalker. “Hennea is as much My child as she is My brother’s or Jes is yours. I would not cause her more pain if I could help it.”
“Lynwythe,” Tier heard himself finish the word and realized that the entire episode had taken no time at all.
Everyone paused, waiting for something to happen. Tier released Rinnie’s hand, then Hennea’s. He pulled the lute, which was once more on his back, over his shoulder and began to pick a melody.
The Stalker had told him the song didn’t matter, but Tier picked a soldier’s song, one of those pieces with eight lines of chorus for every two lines of verse, and the number of verses was limited only by his memory for risqué puns. He could sing it from now until sundown.
He bent his head to tune a string, and said, very softly. “Jes, when I start the second chorus, the Guardian will be able to kill Willon.”
“It didn’t work,” said Willon. “The Stalker didn’t answer you.”
“Did you think He would?” asked Tier. Of course Willon would know the god’s real name. He would have to have both names if he were going to steal their power. “Why would He answer me?”
“I can do it,” said Lehr, who had also heard Tier’s words.
Tier shook his head and began singing.
“What are you doing?” asked Willon, but Tier could tell that Seraph wanted to ask the same thing.
He could answer neither one of them because the god’s power burned through his throat like fire. He understood why the Stalker had tested him with pain because this song hurt, the Stalker’s power no lighter for him to bear than it was for the Shadowed—and Tier would take no other person’s life to make it easier.
“What are you doing?” asked Willon again, and this time he was angry, certain Tier was making fun of him with his choice of song—a silly thing about a soldier who goes out into a strange village looking for a woman to lie with.
“He is a Bard,” said Seraph suddenly. “Music is his gift, Willon.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Tier saw Jes release his hold on Hennea, then vanish from sight.
Willon had been watching, too.
“Two hundred and twelve years,” said Willon, “and I never knew that there was a sixth Order. I thought Volis was talking about the Stalker when he called him the Eagle. If it hadn’t been for Ielian, I never would have known that I was missing one. Where did he go?”
“He’s still here,” said Seraph. “Can’t you feel the ice of his breath on the back of your neck?”
Bless her, thought Tier, as he forced his pain-laden finger to exert the proper pressure on the neck of his lute. She didn’t know what he was doing, but she knew he was doing something. The longer she kept Willon distracted the better.
“I told you to shut up, woman,” said Willon in a vicious tone that broke through his merchant-smooth manner and rang true as a bell to a Bard’s senses. He gestured at Seraph.
Nothing happened. Tier was no mage, but he had a Rederni’s keen sense where magic was concerned, and he felt nothing at all.
“Bitch!” snarled Willon, obviously placing the blame for his failure upon Seraph. He sucked in a breath and pulled the merchant’s mask back over his face. “But I am more than just the Stalker’s avatar. I am a wizard who bears the Raven’s Order.”
He ripped open his tunic neck and Tier saw that he wore a necklet covered with gems. Hennea made a small sound, so Tier could only suppose that they were all Ordered.
“I can’t,” the Guardian said into Papa’s ear. “I can’t risk Jes.” Jes sensed the Guardian’s cold terror before it was buried beneath the avalanche of the Guardian’s protective rage. A Guardian defended those he considered his—and Jes belonged to him.
“Only you can do it,” said Papa in a quick whisper between verses. “The Stalker said only the Guardian can kill him.”
Jes understood than. Somehow the god his father had called upon had given Papa’s music the power to hinder the Shadowed. But the power came at a terrible cost, the shimmering waves of agony that rolled over Jes were only a taste of what his father felt.
The Guardian couldn’t perceive Tier’s suffering as Jes did, but he could see the sweat that dampened their father’s tunic and the lines of pain around his mouth. And all of Papa’s hurt was to make a way for them to kill the Shadowed.
We can’t let him suffer for nothing, Jes told the Guardian. We have to kill the Shadowed while we can. It doesn’t matter if I die as long as we take the Shadowed with us.
<No.> Jes could feel the Guardian’s absolute refusal, and beneath it the echoes of memories of the other Order Bearers, driven mad by the Guardian’s actions. He couldn’t bear to lose Jes that way.
Jes was helpless, held prisoner by the Guardian’s unwillingness to put Jes at risk.
Look, Jes told him in mounting frustration, look at Papa’s pain.
“We are Ravens,” his mother was telling Willon, her voice laden with disdain as she nodded toward the Ordered gems the Shadowed wore. “You are nothing.”
She was trying to keep the Shadowed’s attention on her, to let Jes do what Papa had asked. She did it with the weapon best suited to the task—her tongue.
“You are a solsenti,” she told the Shadowed in the voice Papa always said could freeze a man to death quicker than any blizzard. “A mere illusionist who can only ape his betters by stealing magic that doesn’t belong to him.”
Jes felt the impact of her words, the fury loosed in the Shadowed in response to his mother’s mockery. He tried to urge the Guardian to action, but the Shadowed’s response was swifter.
The solsenti wizard gestured and Seraph flew backward, slamming into the road. She bounced once, then lay still.
With a soundless snarl the Guardian raced to her side, still camouflaged from view. The relief of seeing her ribcage rise shook the Guardian’s resolve. Mother was his to protect as well.
“You are not but a dirty little thief,” said Hennea, who had stepped between the others and the Shadowed.
Willon, still enraged, screamed out a smattering of unintelligible syllables that both Jes and the Guardian knew must be some sort of solsenti spell. The Guardian, knowing himself helpless, watched Hennea hold up her hand.