The malorn landed on its back a few feet away. Hissune went to it and danced forward between the thrashing legs to bring the cudgel down into the malorn’s belly twice more. Then he stepped back. The malorn was still moving feebly. Hissune found the biggest boulder he could lift, held it high above the malorn, let it fall. The thrashing legs grew still. Hissune turned away, trembling now, sweating, and leaned on his cudgel. His stomach churned wildly and heaved; and then, after a moment, he was calm again.
Alsimir lay some fifty feet up the ridge, with his right hand clasped to his left shoulder, which seemed swollen to twice its normal size. His face was flushed, his eyes glassy.
Hissune knelt beside him. “Give me your dagger. I’ve lost mine.”
“It’s over there.”
Swiftly Hissune cut away Alsimir’s sleeve, revealing a star-shaped wound just above the biceps. With the tip of the dagger he cut a cross over the star, squeezed, drew blood, sucked it, spat, squeezed again. Alsimir trembled, whimpered, cried out once or twice. After a time Hissune wiped the wound clean and rummaged in his pack for a bandage.
“That might do it,” he said. “With luck you’ll be in Ertsud Grand by this time tomorrow and you can get proper treatment.”
Alsimir stared in horror at the fallen malorn. “I was trying to edge around it, same as you—and suddenly it jumped at me and bit me. I think it was waiting for me to die before it ate me—but then you came along.”
Hissune shivered. “Ugly beast. It didn’t look half so repulsive in the training manual pictures.”
“Did you kill it?”
“Probably. I wonder if we’re supposed to kill the trackers. Maybe they need them for next year’s tests.”
“That’s their problem,” said Alsimir. “If they’re going to send us out here to face those things, they shouldn’t be annoyed if we kill one occasionally. Ah, by the Lady, this hurts!”
“Come. We’ll finish the trek together.”
“We aren’t supposed to do that, Hissune.”
“What of it? You think I’m going to leave you alone like this? Come on. Let them flunk us, if they like. I kill their malorn, I rescue a wounded man—all right, so I fail the test. But I’ll be alive tomorrow. And so will you.”
Hissune helped Alsimir to his feet and they moved slowly toward the distant green trees. He found himself trembling again, suddenly, in a delayed reaction. That ghastly creature floating over his head, the ring of red staring eyes, the clacking jaws, the soft exposed underbelly—it would be a long time before he forgot any of that.
As they walked onward, a measure of calmness returned.
He tried to imagine Lord Valentine contending with malorns and zeils and zytoons in this forlorn valley, or Elidath, or Divvis, or Mirigant. Surely they all had had to go through the same testing in their knight-initiate days, and perhaps it was this same malorn that had hissed and clacked its jaws at the young Valentine twenty years ago. It all felt faintly absurd to Hissune: what did escaping from monsters have to do with learning the arts of government? No doubt he would see the connection sooner or later, he thought. Meanwhile he had Alsimir to worry about, and also the zeil, the weyhant, the min-mollitor, the zytoon. With any luck he’d only have to contend with one or two more of the trackers: it went against probability that he’d run into all seven during the trek. But it was still a dozen miles to Ertsud Grand, and the road ahead looked barren and harsh. So this was the jolly life on Castle Mount? Eight hours a day studying the decrees of every Coronal and Pontifex from Dvorn to Tyeveras, interrupted by little trips out into the scrub country to contend with malorns and zytoons? What about the feasting and the gaming? What about the merry jaunts through the parklands and forest preserves? He was beginning to think that people of the lowlands held an unduly romantic view of life among the highborn of the Mount.
Hissune glanced toward Alsimir. “How are you doing?”
“I feel pretty weak. But the swelling seems to be going down some.”
“We’ll wash the wound out when we reach those trees. There’s bound to be water there.”
“I’d have died if you hadn’t come along just then, Hissune.”
Hissune shrugged. “If I hadn’t come, someone else would. It’s the logical path across that valley.”
After a moment Alsimir said, “I don’t understand why they’re making you take this training.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sending you out to face all these risks.”
“Why not? All initiates have to do it.”
“Lord Valentine has special plans for you. That’s what I heard Divvis saying to Stasilaine last week.”
“I’m destined for great things, yes. Master of the stables. Keeper of the hounds.”
“I’m serious. Divvis is jealous of you, you know. And afraid of you, because you’re the Coronal’s favorite. Divvis wants to be Coronal—everybody knows that. And he thinks you’re getting in the way.”
“I think the venom is making you delirious.”
“Believe me. Divvis sees you as a threat, Hissune.”
“He shouldn’t. I’m no more likely to become Coronal than—than Divvis is. Elidath’s the heir presumptive. And Lord Valentine, I happen to know, is going to stay Coronal himself as long as he possibly can.”
“I tell you—”
“Don’t tell me anything. Just conserve your energy for the march. It’s a dozen miles to Ertsud Grand. And four more tracker beasts waiting for us along the way.”
2
This is the dream of the Piurivar Faraataa:
It is the Hour of the Scorpion and soon the sun will rise over Velalisier. Outside the gate of the city, along the road that was known as the Road of the Departure but will be known from this day forward as the Road of the Return, an immense procession is assembled, stretching far toward the horizon. The Prince To Come, wrapped in an emerald aura, stands at the head of the line. Behind him are four who wear the guise of the Red Woman, the Blind Giant, the Flayed Man, and the Final King. Then come the four prisoners, bound with loose withes; and then come the multitudes of the Piurivar folk: Those Who Return.
Faraataa floats high above the city, drifting easily, moving at will over all its vastness, taking in the immensity of it at a glance. It is perfect: everything has been made new, the rampart restored, the shrines set up once more, the fallen columns replaced. The aqueduct carries water again, and the gardens thrive, and the weeds and shrubs that had invaded every crevice have been hacked down, and the sand drifts swept away.
Only the Seventh Temple has been left as it was at the time of the Downfalclass="underline" a flat stump, a mere foundation, surrounded by rubble. Faraataa hovers above it, and in the eye of his mind he journeys backward through the dark ocean of time, so that he sees the Seventh Temple as it had been before its destruction, and he is granted a vision of the Defilement.
Ah! There, see! Upon the Tables of the Gods the unholy sacrifice is being readied. On each of the Tables lies a great water-king, still living, helpless under its own weight, wings moving feebly, neck arched, eyes glowering with rage or fear. Tiny figures move about the two huge beings, preparing to enact the forbidden rites. Faraataa shivers. Faraataa weeps, and his tears fall like crystal globes to the distant ground. He sees the long knives flashing; he hears the water-kings roaring and snorting; he sees the flesh peeled away. He wants to cry out to the people, No, no, this is monstrous, we will be punished terribly, but what good, what good? All this has happened thousands of years ago. And so he floats, and so he watches. Like ants they stream across the city, the sinful ones, each with his fragment of the water-king held on high, and they carry the sacrifice meat to the Seventh Temple, they hurl it on the pyre, they sing the Song of the Burning. What are you doing? Faraataa cries, unheard. You burn our brothers! And the smoke rises, black and greasy, stinging Faraataa’s eyes, and he can remain aloft no more, and falls, and falls, and falls, and the Defilement is performed, and the doom of the city is assured, and all the world is lose with it.