“Yes,” Stephen said. “I think I’d like that a great deal.”
He followed the Sefry, growing uneasier by the moment. He felt like the man in the old story about the Damned Saint who was trapped in a bottle. The man got one wish, and then the saint would kill him. There were only two things he could not wish for: to be spared—or for the saint to die.
10
The Ships
“Anne?”
She found Austra shaking her gently.
“I’m fine,” Anne told her friend.
“What happened? You were talking to—it—and then you went still as a statue.”
“Nothing,” she lied. “I’ll tell you later. For the moment, I need you all to stay here and stay still. I have to do something else and must not be disturbed.”
“Very well, Anne.”
“Anne?” Alis whispered weakly.
“Yes, Lady Berrye?”
“Do not trust him.”
“Oh, I don’t,” Anne replied.
Then she settled on the floor, cross-legged. She closed her eyes and imagined she was at the Coven Saint Cer, in the womb of Mefitis. She focused on an invented middle distance and tried to picture a light there, slowing her breathing until it was deep and steady, until she could feel the slow pulse of the tide beneath Ynis and the deeper, secret motions of the earth.
Until she was calm and quiet.
As the light flickered into being, she had a moment when she felt as if she were spreading out, as if the stone and water of Ynis and Newland were becoming her flesh and blood. The Kept ached like a pustule, as did the thing in Eslen-of-Shadows, but that rushed suddenly away as the darkness shattered and she found herself in a forest clearing. Although the sun stood at noon in a brilliant clear sky, she cast no shadow, and she knew that this time she had finally come to the right place.
“Faiths!” she called.
For a moment she thought they might not appear, but then they stepped into the clearing: four women, masked and gowned as if for a costume ball, as similar and as dissimilar as sisters.
The first, on Anne’s right, wore a dress of deepest green and a sneering golden mask. Her hair fell in amber braids almost to her feet. Next to her stood a brunette in a mask of bone and a rust-red dress. The third Faith was as pale as the moon, with silver locks. Her gown and disguise were black. The final woman wore a white mask and a white dress, and her hair was darker than coal.
“You’ve all changed,” Anne noticed.
“As have the seasons, the winds, and you, my dear,” the first Faith said.
“Where have you been?” Anne asked. “I’ve tried to find you before.”
“This sort of visiting has become more difficult,” the bone-masked Faith said. “The thrones are appearing.”
“Yes, the thrones,” Anne said. “One of you once told me that you couldn’t see the future. You said that you were like chirgeons, that you could feel the sickness of the world and sense what was needed to make it well.”
“That’s true,” the black-gowned Faith replied.
“Very well,” Anne said. “What do you feel now? I’m asking for your advice.”
“This is a dangerous time for us to give you advice,” the green-gowned woman replied, spreading her hands. Her sleeves fell back, and Anne noticed something she hadn’t seen in any of her earlier encounters with the Faiths.
“What is that?” she asked.
The woman dropped her hands, but Anne stepped forward.
“It’s all right,” the white-clad sister said. “She had to know sometime.”
Anne caught at the Faith’s hand and felt an odd tingle of contact, as if she held something very slippery. But the arm came up obediently so she could see the mark tattooed there: a black crescent moon.
“I was attacked by a man wearing this mark,” she said. “A follower of yours, perhaps?”
The Faith turned to her sister. “You explain,” she said, “if you’re so certain she should know.”
A wry smile appeared below the black mask.
“Anne, I don’t think you appreciate how important it is for you to take the throne: the literal throne of Esien and the eldritch one that is beginning to appear. We have tried to explain to you, but at every turn you have jeopardized yourself by giving in to selfish desires.”
“I wanted to save my friends from certain death. How is that selfish?”
“You know how, yet you refuse to admit it. Your friends do not matter, Anne. The fate of the world does not rest with them. After everything you’ve experienced, Anne, you are still spoiled, still the girl who fought to keep her saddle in a place where she had no use for it simply because it was hers. A little girl who will not share her toys, much less give them up.
“You almost ruined everything at Dunmrogh. For right or wrong, we decided you should be parsed from your friends so you could see things more clearly. Yes, we have followers—”
“And bloody wonderful ones, too,” Anne snapped. “One of them tried to rape me.”
“Not one of ours,” the honey-haired faith said. Her voice, too, was honeyed. “Someone our servants hired without knowing enough about him. In any event—”
“In any event, you proved to me that I can’t trust you. I never really believed I could, but now I know for certain. You have my thanks for that.”
“Anne—”
“Yet I’ll give you one more chance. Do you understand my predicament? Can you see that much?”
“Yes,” the palest Faith answered.
“Well, then, if you’re so interested in my being queen, can you show me a way out of this that doesn’t involve freeing the Kept?”
“You can’t free him, Anne.”
“Really? And why is that, pray the saints?”
“It would be very bad.”
“That’s not an explanation.”
“He is a Skaslos, Anne.”
“Yes, and he’s promised to mend the law of death and die. Is there something wrong with that?”
“Yes.”
“Then what is it?”
But they didn’t answer.
“Very well,” Anne said. “If you won’t help me, I’ll do what I must.”
The golden-haired Faith stepped forward.
“Wait. The woman Alis. The two of you can escape.”
“Indeed? How?”
“She has walked the faneway of Spetura. If you augment her power with your own, you can pass through your enemies unseen.”
“That’s the best you can do? What about my friends?”
The women glanced at one another.
“Right,” Anne said. “They don’t matter.” She turned away.
“Farewell,” she said.
“Anne—”
“Farewell!”
With that, the glade shattered like colored glass, and the darkness returned.
“Well,” the Kept said. “You’ve compared the wares. Are you ready to deal?”
“Can you lift the glamour on the passage? The one that makes them unknowable to men?”
“Once I’m free, yes. But only once I’m free.”
“Swear it.”
“I swear it.”
“Swear that once free, you will do as you’ve promised: mend the law of death and then die.”
“I swear it by all that I am, by all that I ever was.”
“Then place your neck at my feet.”
There was a long pause, and then something heavy struck the floor near her. She raised her right foot and brought it down on something large, cold, and rough.
“Anne, what are you doing?” Alis asked in the blackness. She sounded frantic.
“Qexqaneh,” Anne said, lifting her voice. “I free you!”
“No!” Alis shrieked.
But of course, by then it was too late.
Their mounted foes were all dead, and now the remaining defenders of the outer waerd were swarming to protect the gap opened by Artwair s ballistae. The hole was almost near enough for Neil to touch when something struck his shoulder from above so hard that it drove him to his knees.
Neil looked up dully at a man standing over him, lifting his sword to deliver the death blow. Neil cut clumsily at the fellows knees. His weapon was too blunted from slaughter to slice through the metal joint, but the bones within snapped from the impact just as the strike from above glanced hard from Neil’s helm.