Ashok found himself swept along to the gates of Tower Athanon, where another crowd waited with Uwan at its head.
The Watching Blade beckoned the crowd to let Ashok, Chanoch, and the brothers through. Bodies parted, and suddenly the four of them were standing before Uwan. Ashok bowed his head with the others.
“Where is Vedoran?” Uwan asked.
“We were separated at the gates,” Ashok said, “from Ilvani as well, we-”
“She is being seen to by clerics of Tempus,” Uwan interrupted. “Don’t worry. You’ve brought her safely home. You could not have cared for her better, or pleased me more.”
Ashok looked to Chanoch and the brothers, but they nodded that he should speak, so Ashok raised his eyes to Uwan’s.
“The others in Ilvani’s party we found murdered by another shadar-kai enclave,” Ashok said. He told the story of their journey across the plain and the rescue. He left nothing out except Chanoch’s defiance and confrontation with Vedoran. They were all alive and had returned safely. There was no reason to emphasize that conflict.
When it came to explaining the harrowing battle, he told of the nightmare’s appearance and Ilvani’s subsequent defeat of the hag. Neither Chanoch nor the brothers contradicted his story.
As he finished, the crowd erupted in cheers. Uwan let them go on for a time, then he gestured for Ashok and the others to follow him inside the tower.
They entered an antechamber on the first level. Neimal stood watch outside the door, leaving Uwan alone with Ashok and his companions.
“I asked Natan to join us,” Uwan said, “but as you can imagine, he is quite anxious to look after his sister.”
Ashok nodded, distracted by the continuous cheers and sounds of celebration filtering through the stone walls.
“You’ve heard your city,” Uwan said to them all. “And Ikemmu has heard the tale of your mission. Natan’s vision-Tempus’s word-has been fulfilled.” He looked at Ashok. “Ikemmu rejoices.”
“You told the people about the vision?” Ashok said. He felt suddenly uncomfortable, caged, with the shouts beating against the walls.
“Yes,” Uwan said. “The people have seen that Tempus is at work in their lives. He reserves a place for everyone”-he put a hand on Ashok’s shoulder-“even those who believe they have none.”
Ashok said nothing. The shadar-kai cheered for him, accepted him. They thought he was an emissary of Tempus. Ashok could feel himself sweating beneath his armor. He glanced at the brothers and Chanoch, expecting to see resentment. They had had as much a part in the mission’s success as he. He would be dead without them. Why should the people not cheer them-the city’s true sons?
Yet they cheered Ashok, messenger of Tempus, slayer of his own people. He was a hero and a traitor.
Cree and Skagi came to him, but instead of resentment there were only hearty grins and slaps on the back. Chanoch’s reaction was the most disturbing of all. He stared at Ashok with an awe usually reserved for Uwan’s presence. That he directed the feeling at Ashok was more than he could bear.
Ashok stepped back and stammered, “Vedoran should give you his report. His leadership was crucial to our success. We would all be dead without his guidance.” He shot Chanoch a meaningful look meant to wipe the awestruck fervor off the young one’s face.
It worked. Chanoch ducked his head and nodded, acknowledging Vedoran’s contribution along with Skagi and Cree.
Uwan nodded. “Vedoran will be well rewarded for his service. In the meantime, I will let you all go for some much-needed rest. Visit Makthar and accept healing. We’ll speak again soon,” he said, looking at Ashok.
When Uwan had gone, Cree said, “That’s done it all, hasn’t it? You’ll be accepted into the city for good. All that’s left is for you to take Tempus’s oath.”
Ashok didn’t know how to respond. His head was full of the crowd’s noise. He couldn’t think beyond the cheers.
Chanoch said, “You are taking the oath, aren’t you?”
“Come on, Ashok, don’t make the little one cry,” Skagi said, and dodged a swipe from Chanoch. “Of course he will.”
They all looked at him expectantly. In Ashok’s mind, the images ran together: Ilvani’s skeletal form huddled beneath his cloak; Reltnar’s desperate, hungry gaze as he reached for her; the split-open bodies of the shadar-kai. And he heard the screams of his dying enclave as he trampled through the tunnels of his home carrying death’s flaming banner.
By the time Vedoran waded through the crowd of shadar-kai, he was at the point of collapse from his wounds and exhaustion. Finally he reached the trade district, and Traedis’s small temple to Beshaba loomed before him. The green door opened before he could knock.
“I saw you coming,” Traedis said. “The whole city is afire with talk of your mission.”
The cleric helped him to one of the cots and immediately began seeing to his wounds. Vedoran stared blankly at the altar to Beshaba while Traedis prayed over him.
“They chant his name,” he said when the cleric had finished. “I can still hear them. They chant Ashok’s name and Tempus’s.”
“Of course they do,” Traedis said. “I told you this would happen, Vedoran.” He took Vedoran by the shoulders, but the shadar-kai was lost in his own thoughts and didn’t immediately acknowledge the cleric.
When he did look up, he saw Traedis’s holy symbol wavering before his vision. The gods were everywhere, he thought. He couldn’t escape them.
“Why do they follow him, Traedis?” Vedoran said. “Why do they love him so much?”
“Not all of us love Uwan and Tempus,” Traedis said. “You are not alone, my friend. Come, unburden yourself. What happened on your mission?”
Lost in thought, Vedoran told the cleric everything. He left nothing out, including a suspicion he’d been nursing in his mind during their long journey back to the city. When he finished, Traedis’s eyes were lit with triumph.
“This is more than I could have hoped for,” he said. “Now we must plan.”
When they had recovered from their mission, Ashok and his companions took up their training again as if nothing had changed. But there were subtle differences Ashok could not ignore.
His Camborr training resumed, for one. Olra came to fetch him without ceremony one day from the training yard. She said only, “Come,” and jerked her head toward the forges and the pens.
There was no nightmare to train, and Ashok found himself missing the beast’s presence without meaning to. But Olra started him working with the hounds and shadow panthers, the stalking beasts of the Shadowfell. They were no replacement for the nightmare, but they were deadly enough to satisfy him, Olra said.
Ashok worked by lantern in the caves where the animal pens were kept. Most of the time, he had only the beasts for company. The forge smoke hung heavily in the air, stinging his eyes, and the flickering light made them water, but Ashok never complained. He kept his mind focused obsessively on his work so that the deep tunnels only occasionally transformed into the blood-soaked passages of his enclave. He banished those images as soon as they intruded on his thoughts and accepted them as the price of solitude.
Anything to be away from the rest of the shadar-kai.
Ikemmu regarded him as more than one of their own. Strangers greeted him on the tower steps with warmth and deference. Ashok heard them whispering when he was not quite out of earshot. He hurried his steps to get away from their words. He didn’t want to hear himself called Tempus’s emissary.
A tenday passed, and Ashok had not spoken to Uwan again, nor had he seen any sign of Vedoran either at training or in the trade district.
He was surprised then one day to be summoned to Uwan’s private chamber, where he found not only the shadar-kai leader but Vedoran as well.
Ashok glanced at Vedoran as he entered the room and saw that the warrior’s wounds had been healed, and there were no visible scars from the battle in the tunnels. Vedoran looked healthy and strong-a sharp contrast to the way he’d appeared outside Negala’s bog. He met Ashok’s gaze and nodded. Ashok returned the greeting, but there was no time to exchange words.