“Such as?”
“Where Jaga might be.”
“I thought Kataria had a plan for that.”
And, as a cold silence fell over them at the mention, Asper had the unique sensation that Lenk suddenly was staring intently at her throat.
“Then why,” she asked with some reluctance, “do you need Denaos?”
“Kataria’s plan might not work. Something could happen while we’re trying it.”
“Like what?”
The answer came just a moment too slow. “Something. There’s no sense in going into this without doing everything we possibly can.”
“I can agree with half of that sentence.”
“The one that means you’re going to be unbearably difficult and whiny about this?”
“You go blindly into a certain-death situation, recently wounded and not at all well, and I’m being difficult for expressing concern?” She rubbed her eyes, sighing. “This is different than before.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I’m not just calling you insane to be charming, you stupid piece of stool.” She whirled on him, blood pumping too much to keep her mouth shut any longer. “This is not improbable, this is not even impossible-this is futile. Going completely blind into a situation where your best bets for success rely on a she-wolf who would just as soon abandon us the moment she thought our ears were too round and a cowardly, backstabbing thug who makes treachery into a hobby, searching for a stupid book to stop demons that had no interest in us until we went after the book so we could talk to a heaven that does not exist.”
He stared, blinking. His eyes widened just half a hair’s breadth, not entirely shocked. That was what made her scream.
“WHY? WHY ANY OF IT?”
It was not a voice familiar that replied to her. Too confident to be Lenk’s, too choked to be someone else’s; he spoke, he wanted to believe the words he was saying.
“Because the alternative is still death,” he said.
And Asper wasn’t quite sure who he was, who he was talking to or who he was trying to convince. It wasn’t Lenk, not the man who spoke with certainty and didn’t flinch. Not the man she had followed into this mess, not the man who had led her to that night and into those teeth. That man, for all she knew, was still back on that boat at the bottom of the ocean.
This man could only walk, and he didn’t even do that well. He turned around and clutched at his shoulder, at the sutured wound beneath his shirt. This man was weak. This man made her call out after him.
“Wait,” she said. She turned to a nearby rock, plucked up her medicine bag and walked to him. “At least let me make sure you won’t be blaming my stitching when you die.”
“You killed her.”
Bralston spoke once, then again, and the tree above Denaos’s head exploded. Lightning sheared the trunk apart and sent smoldering shards raining down upon him.
“You killed her,” Bralston insisted.
Hardly necessary, Denaos thought; it was hard to argue with a man in the right, even if that man could make trees explode with a wave and a word.
Another word, another clap of thunder, another explosion. This one farther away. A different tree. The Librarian, at the very least, did not know where he was. Small comfort. It was a small clearing on a small island and there was only so much vegetation to hide behind.
“You killed them all.”
He half expected the wizard to finish that train of thought that had been so frequent. He waited for the wizard to use his magic to open his skull up, read his mind, and tell him he was going to hell.
Well, that’s just ridiculous, he told himself. Wizards don’t believe in hell. And they can’t read thoughts, either. That’d be silly. Now, they might make your head explode and then read whatever’s splattered on the-
Another word came from the clearing.
Oh, right. He’s still there.
And fast on the word’s trail was the end of the forest. Everything to the man’s right, all the browns and greens and soft earth was eaten alive in a roar of flame. It cheered in a smoldering tongue, urging Denaos to be sporting and run.
Denaos obliged, scrambling on hands and knees as the fire raked the world behind him. The sundered tree groaned, split, and crashed behind him in a spray of cinders as the fire put it out of its misery. Smoke rose up in choking gouts.
He’s burning the whole damn thing down, Denaos thought. Absently, he wished he was more of a nature lover so he could fault this strategy, if only on ethical grounds.
Perhaps Bralston was more of a nature lover than he, or perhaps he could read minds, for in that instant, the fire stopped, sliding back into whatever orifice the wizard had spewed it from and leaving only a sky choked with smoke and an earth seared with ash.
Neither of which did anything to stifle the words Denaos could understand. “I didn’t know you well when you were posing as the Houndmistress’s advisor,” Bralston said, his voice sweeping the clearing. “I saw you, certainly, even met your gaze when she reached out to the Venarium for help. I didn’t know what you were, then, what you would do to the city and its people.”
He wants you to answer, Denaos thought as he slithered beneath a bush and peered out from the foliage. The wizard slowly scanned the forest line. He wants you to succumb to his taunts. A little insulting that he thinks you’ll fall for it, isn’t it? You should go out there right now and show him what you do to-
Oh, that is pretty clever of him, isn’t it?
“But I know you now,” Bralston continued, “under whatever name you pretend to have and whatever person you pretend to be. I’ve seen you. I know you’re smart enough to know that you won’t escape me. You and I both know that if you flee now I’ll hunt you down and your companions will join me, once they know.
“But more importantly,” he said, “I know you’re a man who prays. I don’t know to what gods and I won’t lie to you by saying I know what they’d say. I don’t know if they’ll ever forgive you.” He drew in a sharp breath, lowered his gaze. “But whatever you’re hoping for, wherever it is you think you’re going to go. .”
His eyes rose again, drifted over Denaos. Their eyes met.
“Your best chance lies with answering for what you’ve done. Here. By my hand.”
The wizard’s eyes lingered for only a moment before passing on. He hadn’t seen the rogue. Denaos wished he had.
And still, he found himself wondering if it was too late.
Reasonable men were driven by logic. The same logic that kept him alive all these years since he had opened her throat and killed the fourteen hundred and more. The same logic that stated that he could find salvation in doing good deeds, as good as adventurers could manage.
The same logic that said, eventually, he would die, and no matter how much good he did, he would face those people and her on equal footing.
Denaos was a reasonable man.
He closed his eyes and clambered to his feet. He felt the wizard’s eyes upon him, the approving nod, the hand that was raised, palm open and steaming with warmth yet waiting to be released into a fire. One that purified, removed a human stain and left the earth cleaner.
Something final was in order. Good deaths had those. Final words, maybe, whispered in the hopes that they would linger on the wind and find the way. Final prayers to Silf, a last-minute bargain to get whatever lay beyond his flesh to whatever lay beyond the sky.
Something solid, he thought as he opened his eyes and heard the wizard speak a word. Something dignified, he thought as he watched the fire born in Bralston’s palm.
“OH, GODS, NO!”
Not that.
But that was what came out. Of his mouth, anyway. What came out of the wizard’s palm was something distinctly bigger and red.