“Blossom!” cried the man. “Get back!”
Cathan.
A whoop of joy burst from Tithian’s lips as he surged into the fray. He hit the worm from behind, ramming his sword into it, halfway to the hilt. Foul juices gushed out as he yanked the blade free. Cathan cut it again, Ebonbane raking across the rim of its mouth. Then Bron was in the fight, and other knights, spurred on by the sudden arrival of the Twice-Born. The worm tried to retreat, to pull back into its hole, but three different swords blocked it, driven through flesh to pin it to the ground. Tentacles snapped like whips, sending men sprawling.
The knights kept on, raining down blow after blow on the monster’s hide. Most bounced off, but a few broke the flesh, and its struggles began to weaken. Finally, it shuddered and lay still, tentacles twitching as death crept over it. Sodden with ichor, Cathan ran it through with Ebonbane. Tithian did the same with his own blade, then turned, grinning, to face his old master.
Age and the desert had changed him, Tithian saw. He was bald now, only a fringe of wispy hair left behind his ears. His beard had grown long, and his skin had turned as brown and cracked as old leather. His eyes were still clear, though-as was his voice as he stepped away from the dead worm and clasped Tithian’s arms.
“Where in the Abyss did you come from?” Tithian asked, grinning.
Cathan glanced around-at his sister and nephew, staring wide-eyed from where he’d shoved them, at Rath and Beldinas still unmoving on the ground-and shrugged.
“I thought you might need some help,” he said. “Come on. Let’s get everyone to shelter before we run into any more of those things.”
Chapter 5
The Lightbringer’s injuries weren’t serious, said the Mishakite healers who had come south with the procession. A separated shoulder and a concussion were all, and the knights could carry him onward. The other injuries to the party were even less severe-scrapes and bruises, cracked ribs. Rath MarSevrin complained about ringing bells that no one else could hear. And the dead, miraculously, numbered only two: Varen, and the knight-a veteran warrior named Elecai-the worm had dragged beneath the sand.
They never found Sir Elecai, nor all of Varen’s body. The pieces they did find, they buried beneath a cairn of stones amid the ruins of Losarcum, near the rosy glass he’d sought on his first journey. With Beldinas still in a daze, it fell to one of the other Revered Sons to speak the Liginon, the final rite for the dead. They doused the cairn in holy oil, as the sacrament dictated, and left Varen in the shattered mansion, now one of the antiquities he had spent his life studying.
The rite complete, the processional gathered in the length of street that lay at the heart of the ruins. Priest and knight alike tried to catch a glimpse of Cathan, and the strange-silver eyes that marked him as Twice-Born. Finally he had no choice but to withdraw back into the bathhouse that had been his home. Wentha and her sons followed him, and Tithian as well, the Grand Marshal ordering Sir Bron and another knight to stand watch over the entrance.
Ducking beneath a lintel that had cracked and settled at an awkward angle, Tithian stepped into the vaulted chamber. Cathan and his kin were talking.
“You’re well-named, lad,” Cathan was saying to Tancred.
“You’re the very likeness of our dead brother, who shared your name.”
The young priest bobbed his head. “I know, Uncle. Mother tells me of it often.”
“And you,” Cathan went on, turning toward Rath. He studied the younger brother’s swarthy skin, his dark hair and sharp features. “I suppose you are the image of your father. I regret that I never knew him.”
“You would have liked him,” Rath said. “He was a good man.”
An uncomfortable silence fell over the cavern. Everyone looked away, none of them able to meet Cathan’s gaze for long. Finally, Wentha threw up her hands. “What happened to you?” she asked. “Where have you been all this time?”
Tithian thought he knew the answer, and he suspected the others did too. Still, he leaned forward as Cathan turned away from his sister, and stood silent for a long while. Finally, he sighed, running a hand over his smooth, hairless scalp. “Here,” the Twice-Born said. “I’ve been right here.”
“But why?” Wentha pressed. “Why hide here, in the middle of nowhere?”
“Because there was no place to go where people didn’t stare at me!” he answered, his voice turning sharp. “After I quit the Hammer, I wanted to disappear … go back to being just a man, live a simple life, leave the Kingpriest’s endless war behind. I would have given anything to be able to do that.
“And I tried. The gods know, I tried. I first went back home, back to Taol, Blossom, where we were born. But when I did, all people saw were these.” His lip curling, he pointed to his own eyes, white and empty. “I stand out among normal people like an ogre in a dwarf-hall. I’m different. They fear me, or they hate me, or they revere me … but none of them really see me. Half of them think I’m a demon from the Abyss, for forsaking their precious Lightbringer. The rest think I’m blessed, because I died, but walk again. I can’t live with either.”
“You could have come to us,” Tancred said. “We would have taken you in.”
Cathan turned his gaze full upon his nephew. “Yes, you would have-but would you have looked at me any differently? Could you treat me like just an ordinary man?”
Tancred weathered that terrible stare for nearly half a minute-but in the end he faltered, shuddering. “I–I’m sorry,” he murmured.
“It’s not your fault, lad,” Cathan said sadly, resting a hand on Tancred’s shoulder “I know I’m strange. But do you understand now, why I didn’t go to Lattakay? It’s hard enough to live among strangers who can’t meet your eyes. I could never bear it with my own family.”
“So you became a hermit,” Wentha declared. “Shut yourself away from everyone in this dead city-”
“A city I killed,” Cathan interrupted. His voice broke, and Tithian felt hot tears in his eyes at the memory.
Wentha opened her mouth to protest. Cathan cut her off with a shake of his head. “Don’t tell me it’s not my fault, Sister. It is. This terrible thing happened because I ordered the attack on the Tower. Thousands of innocents died, at my command. In the end, it was the only place I could go that made any sense. Living here, among the dead, has been my atonement. Protecting these ruins from robbers is the only way I can begin to repent.
“But not any more,” he added softly. “Now you’re here, all of you-and him as well.”
“We need you, Uncle,” Rath stated. “You must leave this place. Come with us.”
Cathan studied him, long and hard, then looked at Wentha. She, alone, met his gaze without flinching. “Is this your wish? Or the Kingpriest’s?”
“Mine,” she said, her voice barely more than a breath. “I want you back.”
He smiled, touching her cheek. She turned her face into it, making him cup her in his hand. He nodded. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll go. But for you, Blossom-not for the Lightbringer.”
Beldinas regained full consciousness shortly after nightfall. Groaning, he sat up, putting a hand to his forehead as the men and women of his entourage turned to stare, then fell to their knees, murmuring his name. He raised his hands, signing the triangle over them, and was helped to his feet by two knights.
He asked what had happened, and they told him. He bowed his head at the loss of Varen and Elecai. “Thus it is,” he murmured. “Just as evil remains in men’s hearts, so did it hide beneath the very earth, awaiting us. Let their deaths be a lesson-we must remain ever vigilant for the darkness that lurks out of sight.”
The knights and priests murmured their agreement, then told the rest of the news. The Twice-Born had come, seemingly out of nowhere, and saved all of them from the spawn of Catyrpelio. Beldinas smiled.