Wizards. I don't much like wizards. I'd rather deal with with a company of saracens than with one such. At least I know what to do to a company of saracens.
—Gray
Dark clouds gathered over the sea behind them.
Niko couldn't help turning in his saddle to look nervously over his shoulder, and he tried to act reassured when Bear would smile and nod at him, although he didn't feel in any way reassured. It felt like the clouds were herding them, like a pair of netters funneling a school of tunnies into a small cove for the slaughter. And the wind kept blowing—more so the farther inland they rode, as though the netters were getting more and more excited.
Cully seemed to catch his nervousness. "Interesting island, even if you don't include you-know-who," he said, his voice raised just enough to easily carry over the wind. "You notice the groves down by the port?"
"You mean with the walls?" It had seemed strange, at that. "Thieves?"
"No, wind—orange trees and lemon trees, well, don't like a lot of wind, for some reason. Neither do vines—they're planted in sconches. And you might want to look at those olive groves outside of Porto Pantelleria—they've been trimmed to grow out, rather than up. Arabs used to call it Bent el-Rhia—the island of the wind." His horse was starting to edge ahead; Niko envied the quick and easy tug on the reins and click of the tongue that brought it back beside his own animal, every bit as easily as Niko could have pulled a skiff into a slip on a perfect day.
Niko had always thought that it would be pleasant to ride on a horse. Sort of like a skiff, except that a horse would know enough to keep its feet on the right course, and not have to be constantly watched to prevent it from capsizing.
So much for dreams; even when they turned out to be true, they turned out to be unsatisfactory. For one thing, a horse walked so much more slowly than a skiff moved; he could probably have kept up with it by walking, not that he had been offered the choice.
And yes, the horse didn't tip over, or threaten to, and it certainly kept its feet on the trail without any urging, but what he hadn't dreamed was that every step that the animal took would bounce his tailbone against the hard leather saddle, any more than he had that getting off the animal was largely a matter of tumbling to the ground in a controlled way.
And getting on the horse was far more difficult than it looked, at least for him, although he hadn't thought himself weak of arm.
Gray didn't seem to notice his discomfort, or much of anything else. He kept watch on the hills, as though expecting something awful to stream across them the moment he dropped his gaze.
Cully was more solicitous. "You'll hurt worse in the morning, but less every morning after, particularly if you stick with it." His horse seemed impatient with the speed of Niko's, and Cully had to keep giving little jerks on the reins to keep even with Niko. "Me, as well; it's been some years since I last forked a horse, and I'm cursedly clumsy."
It didn't show. It looked like Cully's hips were stitched to the saddle, just like with the other two.
That wasn't the only annoyance. This Pantelleria, or Bent el-Rhia, or you-know-where, wasn't a proper island. The rocks weren't even a normal rock color, but an almost pure black, both at the shoreline and where they jutted up from the earth here and there.
The shore had been honeycombed with caves, but not proper caves—many of them hissed and spouted steam and an awful smell, as though the island was rimmed by entrances to the hot Hell of the One True Church. Even past the shore, gaps in the earth still spouted an occasional gout of steam that Bear had said was "volcanic" when Niko had first screamed and shied away from one, as though that explained anything.
Another one, perhaps a hundred feet away, but hidden in the dark greenery, spouted steam and stink into the sky.
Niko still flinched, of course, but he didn't shy away. He believed Cully—although how a priest of the One True Church would give credence to Hephaistos for anything—even under the false Roman name of Vulcan—was something that Niko didn't understand.
Still, he didn't want to discuss the matter. It was one thing for a priest to know about that sort of thing, but Niko wasn't supposed to even know about Hephaistos.
The island was too round and even, and the hills too low, as though they had grown old and too tired to thrust up toward the sky. There were no trees—and except where the black bones of the earth showed through, the island was covered by a carpet of greenery, molded into strange shapes that made them look as though they had been carved, to what purpose or intent Niko wouldn't have wanted to guess.
"Notice anything strange?" Cully asked.
"Everything here is strange."
Cully laughed. "True enough. The thing I've been thinking about is that we've been riding for several hours, straight up into the hills, more or less."
"Yes, Father?"
"The whole island is less than twenty miles around—it's just about five miles the long way, and half that across the waist. Ride straight across, and you should be over the top and down the other side in an hour or two, at most."
"But we've been riding much longer than that." He eyed the sun. They had anchored off the cove at the northeast end of the island just after daybreak, and the sun was now high in the sky at noon, more or less.
"That was, I believe, my point. I'll show you the charts, when we return to the port. The Montagne Grande is a mile from the Punta Karascia, but even allowing for the twists and turns in the road, we've ridden much farther than that, with more to go. Illusion? Or is the contained larger than the container? The pure of heart are supposed to be able to see through deception, even from the Father of Lies."
"So it's said," Niko said skeptically, although he wasn't sure whether he was more skeptical about the idea, or about Cully being pure of heart.
"No, not me—Bear," Cully said. "If ever there was such thing as the pure of heart, it would be Brother Bear. Yet if you ask him, he'll tell you he thinks we've been riding since dawn, as well. It's not the only thing that's strange here—have you noticed how you feel?"
"Feel? What do you mean?" The pain in his backside was intense, but other than that . . .
"The sense of misery and doom?"
"I don't feel a sense of misery and doom." Which was strange, come to think of it. Thoughts of Grandfather and his sisters had dominated his waking hours, and nightmares what little sleep he could manage. But . . .
"Yes. You have not happened to have eaten any lotus recently, have you?"
"Eh?"
"Never mind. There's something in the air here, and something else. The Wise control things here; they apparently don't like strong emotions about."
"Wise Ones? You mean wizards—"
The ground rumbled at the word, and another gout of steam shot skyward just a few oar lengths away.
"It's best to speak in . . . indirect terms hereabouts," Cully said. "Your father, perhaps, taught you not to refer to Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto by their names, or as the Furies? 'The Good and Kindly ones,' no?" Cully smiled. "Oh, please. Bear and Gray haven't been living in Pironesia for the past ten years, but I have, and I'm aware of what goes on when the, err, One True Church isn't thought to be watching, and who is to say that it's all just superstition?
"You've already decided what to sacrifice to Tisiphone, I suppose, and I can't see the harm that it'd do, although I know I'm supposed to. Saint Mani to the contrary, there is more than simple good and pure evil that struggles across the face of the world, more players than Him and the Foul One. Even the cursed Triunes have begun to recognize that their rejection of Manicheanism was correct, but for the wrong reasons—but save that for another day, when perhaps you know what an old man is rambling on about.
"For now," he said, pointing at the castle that stood at the crest of the hill ahead, "be careful in what you say or do. I think they'll be unlikely to offer the three of us food or drink, but you might be a different matter. Regardless of how thirsty or hungry you are," he said, "I'd advise against accepting it. Strongly."
"Poison?"
"I doubt that. It's possible, I suppose, though unlikely. It's certainly reasonable to trade with any of the villages along the shore for food and water, if you wish; there's no harm in that, and the port villages do a lot of trade, some of it between Crown and Dar. Pantelleria's got quite good cuisine, in fact. It's a function of having been conquered by everybody—the Sesioti, the Phoeniciasti, the True Romans, the Dar, and finally the Crown, just before the battles of the Age of Crisis, when the Wise Ones seized the central highlands. The food here—along the shore, that is—is very good. Sciakisciuka is one of my favorite dishes, even though it disagrees with me. If we stay ashore tonight, eat your fill, and enjoy." He shook his head. "But not here, not once you leave the coast, not until you return to the coast."
"Might I ask why?"
"Because I've never heard of anybody who accepted any food from the Wise ever having left." Cully smiled. "You may now say 'oh.' "
"Yes, Sir Cully," Niko said. "Oh."
The gates to the castle stood open.
Bear dismounted without waiting to see if he could force his horse to go through the gates and into the courtyard beyond. It had already been trying to shy away, and there was no point in trying to make the animal do something against its nature, not when there was an easier, gentler alternative.
He left the other three behind, and walked in through the open gates.
Bear had heard tales of the castle on the impossibly distant highlands of Pantelleria, but it was, at least at first look, much less interesting in reality than it had been in story. Life was often that way, he supposed.
He had expected something rather more exotic. The grounds, while well manicured, seemed strangely ordinary and utilitarian. The three-story main residence that stood in the center of the compound wouldn't have seemed much out of place in Pendragonshire. It had been built of huge carved stones, rimmed by carefully trimmed hedges that blocked his view of any entrance beside the main, arched one in front.
It all spoke more of careful maintenance than great age or great magic.
A low stone building clung to the east wall. The shutters had been pulled back, and the rows of narrow bunk beds, each with a variety of spears, swords, and armor made it clear that it was a barracks, although there was not a soldier, or anybody else, to be seen. The huge door on the taller building—the building was built of well-weathered wood, rather than stone—against the east wall would have proclaimed it to be a stable even if the wind hadn't brought the familiar and pleasant stink of fresh manure to his nostrils.
It all looked so ordinary, save for the absence of anybody in sight, although it certainly wasn't absent of sound.
The familiar clattering of metal on metal from beyond the residence told of soldiers at practice, as much as the distinctive metal-on-metal squeal of a pump, followed by clay shattering from behind the residence spoke of everyday dishes being washed—and some broken.
He quickened his pace and walked toward the sound. The hedges were layered; the gap in the outer hedge was several feet away from the gap in the inner one, and when he walked through into the small sheltered courtyard behind the residence, he was alone, the only evidence that there had been somebody there was the water-darkened ground beneath the very ordinary-looking cast-iron pump.
He knelt down and felt at the ground. Yes, it was damp, but there was no trace of fragments of any sort, clay or otherwise. But he had heard the sounds, and they had come from there, but—
"Good afternoon, David," sounded from behind him.
He spun about, quickly, his hand flying to the hilt of the Nameless by reflex, although the distant cold comfort was no real comfort at all, not here and now.
Be calm, David, the Nameless whispered. If you can't be the stream, be the rock that the stream flows about, and not a leaf pushed this way and that at every whim of the flowing water.
"Be easy, David," the stranger said. "There's no danger here. At least none for you—if you behave yourself, which I'm sure you will."
The stranger was a big, blocky man with a smiling face that looked familiar, although Bear couldn't have said where he had seen it before. His feet bare, he was wearing nothing more than trousers and a simple, blousy shirt that Bear would not have called peasant-style because of the whiteness and fineness of the cloth. The sleeves were rolled back to bulging biceps, which flexed as the stranger finished wiping his hands with a cloth made of similar material, then tossed it to one side and held his hands up, fingers spread, as though to show that he was carrying nothing else.
When Bear glanced down at the ground where the cloth had fallen, it was gone.
"In the name of—"
"Please. Don't say anything in the name of anybody, not here," the man said. "That would present both of us with some difficulties, you rather more than I. Let's just sit and talk, instead," he said gesturing to a stone bench that stood next to a round, wood-topped table. The surface of the old wood was deeply scored, the other brushed some chips from it; it had apparently been used as some sort of chopping board, and recently so, but there was no sign of a cleaver or knife in evidence.
"You have the advantage of me, sir," Bear said.
"True enough. Then again, what else would you expect, here? Still, you do need a name to call me by. Wolf will do. You're here about that live sword, eh?" Wolf sighed. "A bad business, that. There's power in necromancy, but—"
"Necromancy?"
Wolf shrugged. "Necromancy, death magic, call it what you will. At the very least, doing it even under the most ideal circumstances balances on the edge of the black arts, and it's a sharp edge indeed—but death-magic is always dangerous stuff. Powerful yes—as you should know better than I, worshipping it as you do."
"I?" Bear drew himself up straight.
"Oh, please. Take no offense, or if you do take offense, take it away from here. What would you call the origin of your curious religion, if not death-magic? God the Father sacrificing His Son to purge souls of their taint? He could safely involve Himself in it, but look what happened to Pilate, despite his marginal involvement." His eyes narrowed. "Oh, calm down. Wasn't it you who used to say that the truth is immune to blasphemy?"
His hand went to the Nameless—not to attack, but for the reassurance.
Words are just words, David, the Nameless whispered.
But he refused to let the familiar internal voice calm him. "It's not just me; Saint Jerome of Albans—"
"Then remove your hand from the hilt of that saintly sword of yours. Right now, if you please." Wolf's voice held no trace of heat or anger, and his expression was an emotionless mask. "This is not the place for your religious arguments, be they carried out with words, or with enchanted steel that I've little desire to see, and none whatsoever to feel. It's apparently not the place for you at all, alas; I had hoped otherwise." Wolf shook his head. "I think it would be best if you'd leave. Pity."
The gates to the castle stood open, freshly so—Gray could tell by the deep arc that the posts had scored into the hard-packed ground
Above his head, feet stomped in time along the ramparts, and torches set into the walls just outside the gates burned wanly in the bright daylight, fresh tar burbling and hissing, as though the torches had just been dipped and placed.
His horse refused to walk through the gate, as expected, and he hitched the nervous gelding to the square hitching post, giving the knots an extra turn and tug. He let his fingers rest on the wood for a moment—the pine was still sticky with resin, as though the wood had been freshly cut, although there were no trees of any sort, anywhere on the island.
He walked inside. He had only been on Pantelleria once before, and that had been close to twenty years before—that nonsense with the Barbaries—but was unsurprised to find things as he had last seen them: a central residence, its high, pointed arches covered with green vinery that should have held a thousand bird's nests, and which did, to the ear (the chirping was annoying, in a vague sort of way) but with no trace of beaks or wings to the eye.
Even the sky above held no sign of the ever-present gulls, although they had been in ample evidence near the shore. It was as though the castle was separate from the rest of the island, from the rest of the world, and he fought against the sense of calm that threatened to enwrap him.
The man Gray had been expecting sat on the steps leading up to the main building; he raised a slim hand in greeting as Gray approached.
He was a little bit above average in height, in the tunic and robes of the Order, but without any of the insignia—no silver piping along the cuffs, nor any sign of the Cross at all. While his boots were tightly laced, Order-style, with the loose trousers properly bloused, no medallions had been laced into the boots.
Beneath the open robe, his sash was bound tightly across his hips, but there was no sheath of any sort supported by it. The only thing that looked even vaguely like a weapon was a slim stick, perhaps two feet in length, that he held in his hands, just enough off-white that Gray couldn't decide if it was ash or bone.
His black hair, shot with gray at the temples, was freshly cut, as was his close-trimmed beard. Beneath dark, sunken eyes that didn't blink nearly enough, his prominent nose had no breaks or bends, and when he gave a brief smile, his teeth were white and even—somewhat too white and far too even.
"Hello, Joshua—Father Joshua, I guess I should say." His voice sounded familiar, as it had before, but Gray couldn't place where he had heard it. "Or should it be just 'Sir Joshua'?"
"You can still call me Gray."
"Gray it is, then." He patted at the stone next to him, inviting him to take a seat, which Gray did. "It's been some time since I've seen you."
Gray nodded. "Twenty years or more. We both looked much younger then."
"Well, yes, we did. But if I may still call you Gray, you can still call me Black."
"You have my permission."
Black's smile was thin and momentary. "Well, hand it over," he said, gesturing to the bundle under Gray's arm. "Please," he went on, when Gray hesitated. "Bad enough to have your Khan here—and I hope you'll oblige me by keeping your hand away from it?"
His palm itched for the Khan's steel, but . . .
"Yes, it could at the very least damage me, perhaps worse; it lives at the juncture of the godly and profane, the magical and the mundane, and is quite deadly in all three directions. It could of a certainty slice through my own defenses just as much as it could one of your pitiful wizards' protections. But you'd have to cut me with it first—"
Black was suddenly standing a dozen feet to the right of where he'd been.
"—and that would, I think, be difficult. I'd certainly try to make it so. There would be advantages to me to utterly prohibiting knights of your Order from setting foot on the island, but there are perhaps some potential advantages to permitting it, as well, as I hope you never have occasion to find out."
In the blink of an eye, Black was again sitting next to Gray. "Still, let's not have any unpleasantness, eh, Khan?" he said, addressing the sword directly. Black held out his hand. "As to the other sword you hold, well, hand it over, if you please. I would hardly want to keep such a foul thing here, even if you wanted me to. Which you should, I expect. Not that you will."
"Want to? Or leave it?"
"You'll do neither, I'm afraid. It would be the simplest way for you to handle things, but your kind has always made simple things complicated beyond my comprehension. It's worth trying, though—the simple thing to do, right now, is to hand the sword to me." Black's hand remained unmoving, palm flat and upraised. "Or you could simply walk away, with it tucked under your arm, raise sail for England, and let your Royal College examine it. Weeks to get there, and forever for them to make any sense of it. That's exactly what I'm talking about—a sadder group of men and women I could hardly imagine, learning more and more about less and less until they know utterly everything about absolutely nothing at all. Leave, or stay; go or hand it over; your choice, Gray. It's really that simple."
Gray handed Black the sword.
Black's long fingers barely touched the knots that held the blanket wrapped tightly around the sword, but the twine fell away.
"Ah. As I expected," Black said, as he unwrapped the sword. "If the likes of me started to take up death-magic, calling us the Wise would become foolish sarcasm instead of unintentional accuracy."
Black let the blankets fall away from the sword, and held it up in the bright sunlight, not even flinching when his fingers touched the steel. "Nicely done, for an awful thing to have done," he said. He examined the tang closely with a loupe that Gray hadn't seen him produce, much less set so deeply into his eye socket that it seemed to almost have replaced the eye. "No marks at all, save for the hammer. Can't think why such an artist wouldn't want to sign his work, unless, of course, he doesn't want everybody and his brother hunting him down. Or her, or them—there's no way I have of knowing. I could probably learn more by testing the edge against my arm, but I think I'll skip that; I'm fond of both of my arms."
Black touched his tongue to the tang. The loupe was gone, although Gray hadn't seen it go, any more than he had seen Black produce it. "Hmmm . . . it's tasted at least two souls, beyond the trapped one." He made a face. "Cully, for one, I suppose—no, Cully of a certainty; I'd not mistake that particular bitterness for anybody else's. Seared another and burned yet another worse than the others. Can't blame the man it seared—he didn't want to have anything to do with this, as who would, eh?"
Black set the sword down on the blanket beside him and smiled at Gray. "Nothing near the number that that Khan of yours has burned and damned, eh? But not bad for a baby."
"And that's all you can tell me?"
Black shook his head. "No. But that's all I will tell you—unless you'd care to join me in a drink and discuss it further? I could have a feast laid out by the time we walked into the great hall—your favorite dish is roast duck, I believe? Or would you prefer pottage-pig? Larks ingrayled?"
"I think not."
"You shouldn't think that you can avoid any contamination, Gray. You've breathed the air not just of Pantelleria, but of the . . . keep here. Of living knights of your Order, that puts you in a select crowd—a very select one if you still include those who are still bound to the live swords they've carried. You with the Khan, Bear with the Nameless, and John of Redhook—Big John, you call him?—with the Goatboy. It would connect you somewhat more to me, to here, were you to take more nourishment than what you can breathe in, but I think you'd find it interesting. And the duck, I can promise, would be the tastiest you've ever had."
"As I said, I think not."
"Well, have it your way, then. Off with you—don't come back with another one of these, not unless you're prepared to stay. And if you stay, you'll hardly need a live sword. Or be allowed to keep one."
"But—" Gray reached for the sword.
Black, still holding the sword, was again standing a dozen feet away. He made a shooing-away gesture with his free hand. "Off with you, Gray; as I told you, the sword won't remain here, for roughly the same reason that you might examine a viper, but not clutch it to your own bosom and think to make a household pet of it."
"Then—"
"Then nothing. Just go: discourses with the saintly are quite bad enough; talking to the damned is much more unpleasant, and every whit as pointless."
The gates to the castle stood open, although the interior was darkened, as though the blue sky above was filled with storm clouds.
Leaving his horse behind with the others, Cully walked into the gathering darkness, which only deepened with every step. By the time he was a dozen paces inside the gate, it was night. But a strange kind of night: the sky seemed clear and cloudless, but only one star shone, low over the walls, to the west. It was a silent night, as well; the crickets should have been out and chirping, but they weren't.
Lamps set into the entrance arch of the residence cast a wan light across the marble-floored courtyard, and each step echoed in the silence.
"Hello?" he called out.
No answer.
That was strange. He had expected that it would be like the other two times that destiny or chance—or both—had brought him here: he would see only one person, and that person would look like it could have been Cully himself. Oh, a different Cully—more at ease with himself, less world-worn and weary, but Cully.
"Is anybody here?"
Again, no answer.
Perhaps the distant star had grown brighter, and as he stood there trying to decide if it had, or what to do if it had, it grew brighter still. Not bright with the warmth of the sun, but bright in a cold, white-blue sort of way that dazzled without warming.
It flared into an awful, actinic whiteness that forced his eyes shut for just a moment.
He opened them.
"Hello, Cully," She said, Her voice low and musical.
A thrill ran through him; he fell to his knees.
"My lady—"
"Call me a lady if you wish, but I'm not Her. Not in any real sense, unless we are all of a oneness, and in that sense, I'm everyone, Morgaine included. Useless if true."
The last time he had been here, the Wise had appeared as himself—smoother of skin, less haunted of eye, but Cully nonetheless.
"Yes," she said. "That was when you trusted yourself rather more, as Gray and Bear do themselves, each in his own way, despite their protestations—although for a moment I was tempted to manifest as Wolf to Gray, and Black to Bear. As for you, these days your own opinion of Cully of Cully's Woode is not quite so lofty, is it? I do tend to appear as a trusted one; there are reasons for it."
"But—"
"Oh, I don't think appearing as your Lord would be a good idea, at all. He might take offense, and not just because He might think me to be mocking Him. I think it's wiser to simply manifest as Her, as I don't have need to worry if She does, not at this remove. Still, do give Her my greetings, when next you see Her, if you do."
She stood in front of him, the right side of her face and body barely illuminated by the light of the star, the left side cast into utter black shadow. Her hair, black as the raven, cupped the side of her face as it fell about her. Beneath the hair, her skin was pale as fine Han porcelain, so thin and translucent that he could see the traceries of blue veins beneath the slim arm that extended toward him.
"Then why?"
"Take my hand, as you would Hers, and I'll tell you all you wish to know," she said, smiling. "Love me as you've loved Her, with your heart even more than your loins, and all will be revealed."
A red apple stood balanced on her outstretched palm. "Just one bite—it will be good for you, Cully. I don't promise you the knowledge of all things, after all. And I'm hardly a serpent." She smiled. Her teeth were impossibly even, impossibly white, the white of sun-bleached bone; the nipple that peeked through the black sea of raven hair was not the reddish pink of real flesh; it was a dark, deeper red, the awful red of fresh blood from the heart.
"I think not," he said.
"Of course not," she said. "If you'd turn away from Her, even loving and trusting Her as you do, you'd turn away from a simulacrum of Her, no matter how persuasive it can be, although I can be very persuasive, Cully, just as I can be many other things." She leaned close to him, her breath cold on his cheek. She smelled of roses and pepper. "Ah, to be young again, eh? Even if only for a moment," she said.
Her hand cupped his groin; her lips, red as her nipple, were just inches from his. Her tongue darted out for just a moment, its ordinary pinkness touching the frightening redness of her lips, then retreated, the lips quirking into a thin smile. "Although it appears that you are young again, if only for a moment, eh?" She drew away from him, and bit into the apple. "The stiffness my appearance has brought to your member is free, Cully. Knowledge," she said, talking around a mouthful, "always comes with a price. Wisdom is more expensive. Would you care to see a price list?"
He tried to breathe shallowly; her scent had his head spinning. "Lady, I . . . if I were to surrender to knowledge, or to wisdom—"
"It would be to Her, and not to me." She nodded. "Well, it was worth asking. You can't blame a girl for trying, can you?" She sighed. "Just when you think things are settling down, they get complicated, eh?"
"I had thought that myself," Cully said.
"You thought you would spend your last years on a hill overlooking the sea, watching over sheep?" She laughed. "How foolish of you. Life doesn't admit of such simple ends, even if there wasn't danger about. As there is. Some thing that has slept long appears to be wakening. Is it some ancient power? Or just foolish lust and insensate greed in the hearts of modern men? Good questions, are they not?"
"I'm more interested in the answers," he said.
"Oh, good—very good, Cully!" she almost squealed. "You want to know the provenance of this live sword," she said, "so that you can go and destroy whoever it is that has created such a cursed thing."
"Yes."
"Just as well you've come here, then. She wouldn't allow one of these into Her presence. Not if She had any sense left. Which, perhaps She doesn't—the Great Ones do get tired, and while Merlin has been off having his little nap, She's been faithfully trying to protect Her nephew's family, even in Her weakened state, when She has little to offer beyond cautious guidance, and has to pay quite a price for dispensing that. Wisdom costs even more to give than to receive, and She's turned out to be quite willing to pay the price. I wouldn't have thought it of Her, but people do surprise me, from time to time, and there's much of the human in Her.
"You, on the other hand, don't surprise me much—your tired protestations to the contrary, you're far too much a Knight of the Order. 'Order,' that is the word—you prop up the order, the regulation, the status quo, the way of is, rather than could-be."
"Enough. Just tell me what it is that I have to do. Where I have to go."
She sniffed. "Why, nothing and nowhere, of course. Knowledge and wisdom come only with sacrifice—you could ask your Lord, or the One-Eyed, if you doubt me—but it doesn't have to be your sacrifice. Give me the boy. I have a use for him, and I can assure you it's not one he would mind, except at first, perhaps."
"He's not mine to give, and—"
"And you wouldn't even if he was, would you? You and Gray are cut from the same strange cloth, Cully. Either of you would sacrifice your own soul without hesitation, even if it's for nothing—as you have, and as it is. But if you could bring on the End of Days, with Heaven beyond, by torturing a small child to death—just one small child, a sickly one, one that was likely to die momentarily anyway—what would you do?
"Say that I make you that offer, right here and now, what would you say to it?"
Cully took a step back and reached to his side for Jenn, but, of course, she wasn't there. She hadn't been at his side for ten years, and he hadn't gone an hour without missing her, even more than he missed Her.
"She's lost to you forever, Cully. You can't count on her to answer your questions for you."
No, he didn't have Jenn. All he had was a walking stick. No; that wasn't all. He had the stick, and he had two feet and two hands, and by God's blood he had teeth.
That would be enough to end it, one way or the other.
He had long ago given up the illusion that he was more than any other man—not more in holiness, not more in wisdom, and less in loyalty and devotion than others—but he was, despite his wishes, Sir Cully of Cully's Woode, and he knew what was required of him.
"I'd do my best to take the life of the devil who made me such an offer, for that is a devil's offer," he said, taking the stick in his hands and settling his feet against the gravel. "No matter what form it took, even Hers. Particularly if it was Hers."
"You think so?" her smile mocked him. "You think that you could fight me, here, without Jenn in your hands? With just a simple stick?"
"Absolutely." He forced his shoulders to relax, and his feet to find stability and support on the ground. "I'd kill you, or I'd die trying."
"Ah. Then it's best for you that I haven't made you such an offer," she said. "I'll just send you on your way with somebody simpler and therefore far more sensible."
"Niko!" Grandfather's voice called out. "Niko—come here, boy."
No, it couldn't be—but it was.
Niko broke into a run, and almost fell over. It was one thing to ride a horse wearing these boots, but walking in them was strange, particularly on such a flat and unmoving surface. It was different than with the sandals that left his ankles alone.
Grandfather had been sitting on the flat stones of the entrance to the huge building, but he rose at Niko's approach and stood waiting, his arms open.
He folded Niko tightly in them, and hugged him to his bare chest.
"Niko, Niko, Niko," he said, his breath warm in Niko's ear. "I have something for you."