Tithian stood still, too stunned to move. “Palado Calib,” he breathed. “Cathan…”
Then his mouth filled with blood, and he toppled onto his side.
Cathan gaped in shock. He’d been fighting to stall, not to win. He’d thrust aside nearly a dozen opportunities to finish Tithian, looking for some way to convince him to give up the fight. But the last onslaught had been too much, too fast. Panic had taken over for brief moments. Now Tithian lay beside the creek, Ebonbane buried in his stomach halfway to its quillons. There was blood everywhere, and the rain carried it into the stream, turning the waters a ghastly pink.
The Grand Marshal was still alive. His fingers clutched feebly at the sword’s hilt. His lips, dead white with shock, moved without making a sound.
Cathan found he didn’t have the strength to stand back up. So he crawled over, and lifted his former squire’s head, and laid it down gently in his lap.
“Oh, lad,” he wept, pulling off the Grand Marshal’s helm. He smoothed back the long, sandy hair from the pale face. “Oh, lad…”
“You’ve… learned sssss-” Tithian began to say, then choked off in a hiss of pain. “Ssssome new… things, too.”
“You should have listened to me,” Cathan said, choking on his tears. “I was telling you the truth. You should have listened. I never meant-”
Tithian nodded. “You’re right, Cathan,” he said. “I… should have. I ssssss-see… that now. I see the truth.”
“I’m sorry,” Cathan said.
“Now pull it out.”
It took Cathan a moment to understand. He looked at Ebonbane. “You’ll die,” he murmured.
“And if you… leave it in? How… old will I… live… to be?” Tithian asked with a crooked grin. His teeth were now bright red.
It was true. Tithian might last hours, maybe even days, but the pain would be excruciating, and he wouldn’t survive. He squeezed his old squire’s hand. “First, will you tell me one thing?” he asked.
“If… I can.”
“My sister… what has happened to Wentha?”
Tithian’s grin became a smile. “Karthay,” he said. “A good household there… slave. I saw her board… the ship mysssself.”
Cathan felt a rush of hope. Karthay was as far from the Lordcity as any place in the empire. He bent low over Tithian and kissed his forehead. “Thank you, my friend.”
“Now… end this.”
Wordlessly, Cathan rose to his feet. He signed the triangle over Tithian, adding the horns of Jolith, and the tears of Mishakal. Then he planted his foot on his old squire’s shoulder, and gripped Ebonbane’s hilt
“Farewell, my friend,” he said, and tugged the blade free. Tithian let out a bubbling sigh.
Cathan stood beside his friend for quite some time, unmoving, while the rain washed the blood away.
It was almost dawn when the storm finally let up. By then, the knights were bone-weary and a chill lay on their hearts: Tithian should have returned to the keep by now. So, as soon as morning’s first light broke over the hills, Bron sent a group out to search for some sign of their leader.
It took them most of the day, but at last they stumbled upon the ravine. Bron heard the distant call of the signal horns and ran to follow them. He found Sir Girald and two other knights up-slope from the high-cresting creek. They were standing by a cairn of stones. Bron’s sword was planted at its head.
Sir Bron’s anger was too great for tears.
“Track the Twice-Born,” he said. “He will pay for this.” Girald looked at him, wide-eyed. “But, sir… he won the trial by combat…”
“To the Abyss with the trial!” Bron raged, advancing on the younger knight. “I am your commander now, and I say Cathan MarSevrin is no true knight. He murdered your Grand Marshal. Now, track him!”
“Y-yes, sir,” Girald muttered, and hurried away, followed by his men.
Bron watched him go, then reached out and yanked his blade from Lord Tithian’s grave. The Twice-Born had tricked them. He had a day’s head start-maybe more. But the knights had horses, and they were many while he was one. Bron intended to catch up with him, sooner or later. And Cathan would pay.
Chapter 28
TWELFTHMONTH, 962 I.A.
It was late, and the sacred chancery was quiet. One of the world’s largest libraries-smaller only than the collection in Palanthas and the underground Archives of Khrystann in Tarsis-the Great Temple’s scriptorium was a seemingly endless labyrinth of bookshelves and scroll-racks. It was said that every word ever put to parchment-or papyrus, paper, even clay tablet-in the gods’ name could be found there, as either an original, or as a copy laboriously inscribed by the Temple’s scholars. The place was so vast that a man could get horribly lost-as, indeed, some of the elder clerics did now and then. By day the library bustled with activity, with scribes and illuminators and binders and archivists all working in the sunlight that streamed through its many tall windows. At night, however, the chancery emptied, its twisting aisles and huge copy-rooms swallowed by shadow. No one in the library worked after sunset-except one man.
Brother Denubis sat alone, his head bent low over a book. Of all the Temple’s scholars, he preferred to work at night. Fewer interruptions that way-less nonsense. The clerics who came here during the day spent all their time yammering and arguing and drinking wine, Brother Denubis thought. That was all right for philosophers, but not for a copyist … certainly not one whose life’s work was so urgent.
The book before him was thick and heavy, more than two thousand pages long. He was a translator, and had spent more than forty years bringing the Peripas Mishakas into the Solamnic vulgate. It was unspeakably tedious labor, yet Denubis, a man for whom the word meticulous seemed inadequate, reveled in it. The other scribes rolled their eyes when he shuffled past them, entering the chancery as they were all leaving. He knew they called him a boring old drudge, and perhaps they were right. But he didn’t care. This was his mission, done in the gods’ name-if others didn’t grasp that, it was their problem, not his.
His pen scratched across the page almost incessantly now. When he was young, his hand had been uncertain, his Solamnic primitive. He’d redone most of the oldest pages in recent years, unsatisfied with the quality of the original work. He took few breaks, stopped only now and then to dip the stylus in his inkwell, or to push up his spectacles-an unfortunate inconvenience, the price for having worked in half-light for decades. When he finished a page-something that, counting illuminations, might occupy a whole evening or more-he would pause to reread and check his work. If he found he’d made a mistake, as was sometimes the case, he would daub the corner with red, marking it for the binders to remove the next day. Then, either way, he would sprinkle sand to dry the ink, and get himself some watered wine, perhaps some fruit and cheese. Denubis subsisted on little else.
Tonight was going well. He was setting a swift pace, each letter well formed and straight upon the paper’s ruled lines. The ink-mixers had given him good colors, too. The flourishes of crimson and violet, green and gold were all richly vibrant-almost too much so: he worried the previous page’s illuminations would look watery beside the new ones. And the translation, for a change, felt utterly effortless and naturaclass="underline" no odd declensions, no brow-knuckling idioms. It was the kind of night that made most scribes rejoice, but it only made Denubis nervous. It was too good to be true. Any moment now, he was bound to make some monumental error that would force him to scrap the lot. He prayed to Paladine that wouldn’t happen. On the southern slope of seventy, he knew he didn’t have many days to spare for mess-ups, and he had to get this done before his old heart finally gave out. Had to-or what had he sacrificed his life for?