He turned to his left, speaking spidery words and weaving his hands through the air. Cathan felt the cold in the air intensify-and something else, something he hadn’t felt since Losarcum fell. Magic. The sorcerer was drawing it down from the black moon, focusing it with his will. Dread rising, Cathan watched as Fistandantilus pointed at one of the baths’ empty pools, channeling the magic toward it.
There was a gurgling rush of sound, and as Cathan watched, pure, clear water flowed up through a crack in the pool’s bottom, swiftly climbing the painted-tile walls, in less than a minute it was lapping at the edges, cool and clear and tempting. It shone with golden light, casting glowing ripples upon the cavern walls.
“Look into the water, Twice-Born,” Fistandantilus said. “There is something you must see.”
Maybe the wizard charmed him to do it, or maybe curiosity led Cathan to the pool’s edge. The water glistened as if the sun were shining down upon it, but otherwise there was nothing to see within.
No, wait. There was something, after all. Images forming, running together on the surface. He squinted, trying to see what it was … and then the images coalesced into a sight he knew all too welclass="underline" a maze of canyons, snaking among the golden mesas and canyons of the Tears, the shattered remains of Losarcum at its heart. He was looking at them from above, circling like one of the carrion birds that always seemed to be wheeling overhead, searching for things the desert had killed. With a view like this, a man could make such a map of the Tears that no one would ever get lost in them again.
The view shifted, and he spied something new. A thread of silver, winding through the canyons like some strange serpent. Sunlight gleamed off silvery armor and snowy robes, and though there was no sound, he was sure he could hear voices chanting, singing hymns to the gods. He knew what an imperial processional was; he’d marched in plenty of them himself. And there, at the heart of this one, was a gleam of holy light that could be only one person.
The Lightbringer had come to the Tears. He was less than two leagues away from this very place.
Cathan swallowed a curse. The scholar had told Beldinas where he was! He’d known it would happen, but that didn’t make him any happier about it.
“Let him come,” he growled, glaring at Fistandantilus. “I swore never to go back. Not after this.” He gestured at the ruins around him.
“And no blame to you,” said the wizard. “It is understandable. But … before you dismiss him too quickly … you should look closer.”
Something in the Dark One’s voice made Cathan’s stomach turn cold. You’re being manipulated, a small voice told him, but he couldn’t help it; he looked again. When he did, he saw a closer view of the processional. Now he could make out other figures besides the glowing shape of the Kingpriest astride his golden chariot: knights and priests, the gray-robed figure of the scholar … and there, an armored man in the scarlet tabard of the Grand Marshal of the Divine Hammer. The man had his helmet off-any smart man would, in the baking heat of Dravinaar-and Cathan could make out his face … the freckled, boyish face that, except for the beard, didn’t seem to have changed in all these years.
Tithian. He felt a strange surge of pride that his former squire had risen to lead the knighthood. But the knowledge also unsettled him. The Hammer had done some terrible things in the Kingpriest’s name. He’d even participated in some of those deeds. What more had happened under Tithian?
Then he saw another figure, riding nearby, and shock spiked through him, momentarily driving thoughts of the Divine Hammer and the Lightbringer from his mind. There, flanked by two young men who could only be her sons, he spotted his sister.
“Wentha,” he breathed.
“Yes,” answered Fistandantilus. “It changes things, doesn’t it?”
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She had aged, but she was still beautiful. Even grim-faced as she was, the mere sight of her made his heart lighten in a way it hadn’t for years. She might be old and somber, but to his eyes she was still the laughing girl he’d called Blossom.
“A pity she won’t reach this place alive,” said the Dark One.
Cathan looked up sharply, his heart lurching. “What?”
Fistandantilus nodded toward the pool. “They are being hunted. Look closely.”
When Cathan turned back, the vision had shifted again. Now he was looking at the back of the train rather than its front. There, the rear guard of knights rode watchfully, searching the clifftops and the skies. Even now, manticores and giant scorpions prowled the depths of the desert, and ruffians preyed on unwary travelers. Cathan nodded in approval of the knights’ vigilance, his eyes following their gaze. The skies were empty, the cliffs bare. A frown spread across his face; where was the danger Fistandantilus spoke of? He turned to question the archmage-then stopped, catching his breath as he saw it.
It was the faintest of ripples, disturbing the sands of the canyon floor for just a second before it vanished again. He blinked and had nearly convinced himself he hadn’t seen it at all when it appeared again-a hundred yards behind the trailing knights, shifting the sand slightly, only to be gone again. None of them had spotted it; they were watching for death from above, while it stalked them below.
“Palado Calib,” he breathed, rising to his feet “What is it?”
“The same as any of the beasts that haunt these lands,” Fistandantilus said. “The spawn of wild magic, set loose by my unwise brethren when they destroyed the Tower. But this beast is particularly cunning. It will wait for the right moment before it strikes … and when it does, it will kill them all. The Kingpriest, Lord Tithian, your precious sister … unless someone stops it.”
Cathan glared at the wizard. “This is one of your tricks, isn’t it? A ruse, to make me go to them.”
“Possibly,” the Dark One replied. He spoke another word, and the images in the pool flickered and faded. The water swirled as it drained away. “But can you afford to believe that? Are you willing to bet your sister’s life?”
The cavern was silent. Cathan glanced into the pool, watching it empty itself again, the scrying spell done. His fists clenched, unclenched, clenched again.
Something floated toward him, glinting in the lamplight. It was Ebonbane, moving through the air to hover before him.
“You’ll want your weapon now, I think,” Fistandantilus said.
Cathan shot him one last furious glare. Then, with a snarl, he grabbed the sword out of the air and ran out of the cavern, as fast as his injured leg could carry him.
Something was wrong. Tithian could feel it.
There was nothing out of the ordinary that he could see. The processional-a half hundred of his knights and as many clerics, along with the Kingpriest, the scholar Varen, and the MarSevrins-had set out from the Lordcity on the first day of the year. Three weeks had passed, and only their surroundings had changed-first the grasses of the old city-states, then the Shifting Sands, now the snaking canyons of the Tears, bringing back terrible memories. All the while, he’d wondered: Cathan had chosen to return here? Of all places in the world, he had come back to Losarcum? Beldinas believed it, though, strongly enough to leave the Temple in Quarath’s care while he made this journey, so here they were, riding slowly along the rock-strewn road, the priests singing soft hymns while the men of the Divine Hammer searched the clifftops for danger, and found none.
So then why this strange feeling, this prickling at his scalp? Why, when there was no foul scent on the air, no odd noises or movements from the canyon walls, was a lingering doubt growing in his mind? He bit his lip, running a hand over his sweat-damp hair, then glanced over at the Lightbringer on his chariot.
Beldinas didn’t notice. He was conferring with Varen, listening while the scholar told him this was the way he and the sell-swords had come, half a year earlier. The processional, had already killed several magic-warped creatures, and sent many more slithering or scuttling away in terror.