On the edge of the Marre pine forest she stopped. What could have happened to them—unless Mother had taken them? But why would she do that? Riane held her head and tried to think. She was feeling distinctly unwell. She put two fingers in her mouth, removed them to find fresh blood.

  All at once, an odd thought struck her. What if Mother wasn’t Mother, after all? What if she was really Bartta? What if the had-atta had broken her? She could have told Bartta everything—bringing Ut­most Source into the abbey; learning to Thrip; finding Mother; disman­tling the Sphere of Binding; stealing The Book of Recantation. Dear Müna, what if Mother was still in her prison, dead? What if this had all been a sorcerous ruse to get her to lead Bartta to both the Sacred Books?

  The more she thought about it, the more it made terrifying sense. Stirring herself to action, she reconnoitered along the edge of the con­ifer forest until she discovered recent footprints. They headed north, directly into the forest. She followed them.

  Though they were soon lost amid the cushiony Marre pine needles, to her trained eyes the thick underbrush provided signposts of recent passage. Each moment made her more confident of her reasoning. Her mind seemed clearer than it had ever been since this nightmare had begun. In fact, she wondered now why it had taken her so long to stumble upon the reality of the situation. No matter. She had it figured out now.

  The route she was following took her more than half a kilometer into the dense forest. The circuitous nature of it only confirmed her suspicions. If this were really Mother she was following, there would be no reason for her to try to cover her tracks.

  She saw someone up ahead, and crouched, watching. Her heart ham­mered in her chest. Her teeth had begun to chatter in terror. There were the two books by the figure’s side. Whoever she had come upon was wearing the robes of the Ramanan, all right, but they were Bartta’s persimmon-colored robes, not Mother’s turquoise ones. So she had been right! Her fingers curled into fists. She could not allow Bartta to possess the Sacred Books. Mother had warned her against that.

  Pulling a low-hanging branch back out of the way, she made her way toward Bartta. She had crossed perhaps a-third of the distance between them when she heard a snap! She froze, glancing down. Müna! She had stepped on a dry twig. The figure whirled—it was not Bartta at all!—and a roaring like an avalanche echoed through the forest.

  She felt a wave of fetid air wafting toward her, like cor meat stinking in High Summer. The creature’s black twelve-legged body was seg­mented like a gigantic insect’s, its ballooning thorax protected by a hard carapace. Its long flat head, brown-black, shiny as obsidian, was guarded by wicked-looking mandibles. It swiveled and she saw twelve ruby flashes, a terrifying impression of faceted insect eyes. With another roar, the hideous beast stood up on two sets of appendages.

  Riane reacted on pure instinct. Snatching up a Marre pine branch that lay on the ground, she rushed the thing, smashed the branch into its horrifying face. The branch broke in two, the soft wood splintering. By that time, she had drawn the knife Eleana had given Annon, slashed once, twice as the thing tried to grab her wrist. Maddening. Why didn’t it attack? Instead, it kept retreating. And roaring. What was it trying to do? Then she understood. It was trying to lure her deeper into the forest. Perhaps it had reinforcements there. Perhaps these things wanted her alive. The thought of being imprisoned once more—and by these hideous beasts—was too much for her. She ducked under a clicking mandible and buried the blade to the hilt in the thing’s thorax.

  Cloudy yellow ichor gouted out, cool on her clenched fist. In a frenzy she struck again and again, while the creature bellowed and moaned. She was panting and weeping, ignoring for the moment how easily the blade entered soft flesh where it should have met resistance from hard carapace.

  She stood over it, bloody and victorious. She went to where the books lay and gathered them up. As she bent down, she experienced a wave of dizziness. She sat down heavily, her head in her hands. When her vision cleared, she saw the blade lying across her thigh like a wound. But it was covered in blood, not ichor. Her blood?

  The world snapped back into focus. She felt as if she had just awak­ened from a serious illness in which her fever had been abnormally high. She turned, then, looking back at the creature, which was no creature. She saw voluminous turquoise robes, running now with Mother’s blood. With a sobbing moan, she pushed herself up, stagger­ing over to where Mother lay. Where was the hideous creature she had been fighting? It had attacked Mother. Then, with a wail of horror, she saw the stab wounds in Mother’s belly. She fell to her knees, weeping.

  “Ah, Mother, how has this happened?” she cried. “What have I done?”

  Mother’s eyes opened. There was no fear in them, no hatred. Riane felt her heart bursting. “You have done nothing, Riane, but fulfill the Prophesy of the Dar Sala-at. I knew the moment Astar told me that you were the Dar Sala-at that you would be my savior and my end. It was foretold that you would be the cause of my death.”

  “No, Mother. No!”

  “It is the wheel of life turning. Riane. In my youth, I would never have allowed someone like Bartta to get the better of me. But my power has wasted away. I am old, Riane. Ancient, even. It is time to die.”

  Riane began to conjure healing spells as she gathered Mother into her arms as best she could. “Quiet now,” she said through her sobbing. “I will use Osoru and Kyofu to heal you.”

  “I am beyond healing.”

  “No, no, don’t say that!” Part of Riane’s attention was directed at summoning Osoru and the limited knowledge she had of Kyofu, as she desperately tried one spell after another, failing to find one that would counteract the damage she had done.

  “Listen to me now,” Mother said, ignoring her. “You must not go on blaming yourself. Bartta used the same fearsome spell, the Sphere of Binding, on you that she used on me. But she must have added Kyofu spells that hid its presence from me. Do not blame yourself, Riane. I did not know. You could not know.” Her mouth worked silently for a moment. “The Sphere of Binding—You did not attack me, did you, Riane?” She was making soft wheezing sounds. “It was not me you saw, was it?”

  “No. I was sure you were Bartta. Then you were this huge insect with twelve eyes.”

  “The Tzelos is a daemon from the Abyss. Müna forever exiled it from this realm. You see how impossible that is?”

  “But I tell you I fought one just now.”

  “The Sphere of Binding caused you to imagine the things you are most afraid of. This is what the Sphere of Binding does. It unlocks that part of your mind where your worst fears lurk and drags them into the light. What I cannot understand is how you saw a daemon from the Abyss. Did you see a Tzelos during the Nanthera?”

  “No, but something happened while Riane and I were in the Abyss. At the last moment, Giyan tried to pull me back. She put her hands into the sorcerous circle.”

  “Ah, it is far worse than I feared,” Mother said. She was clearly strug­gling to stay conscious. “The Portal has been breached. There is a dan­ger that it has been weakened, that the daemons may find a way into this realm. And as for Giyan, Müna protect her from the forces she momentarily interrupted.”

  “What do you mean?” Riane whispered. “Will something happen to her?”

  “There will be consequences, yes.” Mother’s head was nodding. “But since no one has ever dared try to break the Nanthera circle, it is im­possible to know the result or even to speculate.”

  Riane felt an icy flash of fear pierce her. She had gone through every spell she knew without it having the slightest effect on Mother’s mortal wounds. Why wouldn’t they heal? How could she fail at this? She was the Dar Sala-at. If she could not even save Mother, how was she ex­pected to save all of Kundala?

  Mother’s eyes began to roll up in her head. With a supreme effort, she refocused. “I took the Sacred Books, Riane. They would have been ruined by the spray from Heavenly Rushing if I had left them where you dropped them. Like me, they are delicate with age. They cannot be subjected to sunlight or to dampness. You are their guardian now. You must care for them. They are like living things. Memorize what you do not already know, then keep them protected in a safe place.” Blood was leaking from the corner of Mother’s mouth. When Riane wiped it away, more welled up. Like a storm on the horizon, it seemed to be gathering momentum.

  Riane held her closer. “Mother, I’ve done everything I know how. There must be something I can dol”

  “You have already saved me once, little dumpling, at considerable risk to yourself. It is not for you—or anyone—to save me again.” The rattling made her shudder and shake. “I have become weak. I am vul­nerable to Dark sorceresses like Bartta. It is time.” Her head lolled.

  “Mother?”

  Mother blinked several time. “Riane, you must find the Ring of Five Dragons. The Dar Sala-at’s first duty is to open the Storehouse Door, to unlock the secrets inside, the secrets that have been waiting for you. The Ring is the key. Only the Dar Sala-at may use the Ring. All others who try will die.”

  “What is in the Storehouse, Mother?”

  “Even I do not know. The Pearl was always kept there before it was lost. To find The Pearl you must first enter the Storehouse. Only The Pearl can stop the daemons of the Abyss if they are set free, and only the Dar Sala-at may look into The Pearl. This is your path, your fate. It is a dangerous one, for there are always those avaricious, scheming, greedy souls who covet The Pearl for their own. You must safeguard it against them at all costs. In this I was unsuccessful, and disaster has befallen us.”

  “But Mother. I know nothing about this Ring or where I can find it.”

  “Müna has hidden the Sacred Ring. To find it, you must cast a spell. The Spell of Forever. It will tell you where it is.” Mother licked her lips. “Now listen carefully to me. Half of the spell is in Utmost Source, the other half in The Book of Recantation. Separately, the spells are minor things; they were designed that way so that no one would know their true nature. I will tell you where in the Sacred Books to find them.”

  “But I am a novice at casting spells,” Riane said. “I will bring you the Sacred Books and—“

  “I cannot cast the Spell of Forever,” Mother said. “No one can, save for the Dar Sala-at. It is an Eye Window spell that is beyond even me.” She lay panting like an animal in acute distress. Then she coughed thickly, turned her head so that she would not choke on the blood.

  “Mother, don’t die. Don’t…”

  “Thigpen will know what to do. Summon her. She will help you.”

  “I want you, Mother.”

  “Find the Ring, Riane. The Ring…”

  Something was coming, just over the near ridge. So close Riane could feel its chill aura. She whirled, at the ready to defend Mother, even now. Too late. Like sand in the Great Voorg, that life had already slipped through her fingers, was passing into the ghostly mist, guided by Riane knew not what.

  A certain darkness lay upon the noonday landscape. Riane threw her head back, screamed at the cruel world into which she had been born. She wished only to die, to follow in Mother’s ghostly footsteps through the darkling mist, to a land unknown, unsought, unfurrowed, there to atone in any way she could for the murder she had committed.

  Love. What was that to her? She had loved Giyan and Eleana, both lost to her. She had loved Mother and had killed her. Most monstrous fate that had tainted her, turned her poisonous as an adder.

  She broke, at last. Her throat raw and aching from her screaming and her recent wounds, she doubted over, trying to smother herself in Mother’s cool bulk. She gritted her teeth, grabbed handfuls of Mother’s turquoise robes, beat herself about the head.

  At last, spent, a curious calmness stole over her. Her mind, taken outside her grieving self by the last effervescence of Mother’s aura, became a pellucid lake without even the breath of emotion to ruffle its skin. Onto this clear surface rose the image of beloved Thigpen. Weep­ing as if she would never stop, Riane summoned the creature to her side.

  Ciyan watched the rain gather in the distance behind Rekkk’s back. His broken bones had knit, but he was not yet altogether healed. He walked in a different manner than he had before his encounter with Olnnn Rydddlin. His stride was shorter, and because it was more dif­ficult to heal muscles and tendons with sorcery than it was to knit bones, his right shoulder dipped slightly every time he used his right leg. Giyan found it extraordinary how these little things seemed to change him. He seemed to her more overtly dangerous now, like an animal with one limb caught in a trap.

  There were other changes, not so easy to quantify. He seemed not only quieter but also more reticent to show emotion, as if he had beat a hasty retreat into the guarded core of himself, leaving the prickly shell of his Khagggun training to protect him. For him the world had become a darker place, laughter fleeing to another, unseen realm. He trembled with the effort of concentration. His dark expressive eyes were fixed on the horizon, as if by his will alone he could extract Olnnn Rydddlin from wherever he lay, bring him hence like flame from two fiercely rubbed sticks.

  Nights were the worst. He grew feverish from his wounds and began to dehydrate from an excess of sweat. He drank greedily the water Eleana fetched from the river, but almost immediately vomited it back up. Nor could he tolerate the herbal remedies Giyan prepared for him. She held him, telling him stories of Kundala in its infancy, of Müna and the Five Sacred Dragons, of Pyphoros, the daemon of daemons, and the white-bone daemon. These stories continued even after he had fallen into an exhausted, fitful sleep, because once begun they would not be stopped. When she herself dropped off during a story, it continued in her dreams, and she would awake at pearly dawn more fatigued than before.

  Having purchased three sturdy cthauros from Eleana’s friend, the blacksmith at Joining The Valleys, they were making good time as they headed northeast through ascending tiers of heavily forested valleys to­ward the Abbey of Floating White. But near the end of the second day, foul weather moved in, forcing them to find shelter.

  Having passed a series of caves less than a kilometer back, they re­traced their route back down the ridge path they had been following just past the edge of the blesson-fir forest. Giyan and Eleana lighted a fire well inside the mouth just as the rain swept down upon them. Giyan called to Rekkk, who stood, unmoving, close by the blesson firs, but not among them, inundated by the downpour.

  “What is the matter with him?” Eleana asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  The girl sat with her back against the rock wall. She wrapped her arms around herself and glanced into the cave’s lightless interior. Giyan knew that she was thinking about Annon and the perwillon. She sighed inwardly. It had hurt her to see the continuing pain her quasi lie had caused the girl. But she knew that she must keep her child’s secret from everyone, even those who had once loved him. There would be too much risk to Riane and to Eleana to allow personal feelings to take precedence over guarding the Dar Sala-at’s safety.

  They were on the last of the basalt plateaus that led to the higher reaches of the Djenn Marre, where the abbey waited for them. Even in Lonon, the nights at this elevation were cold enough. The windswept rain simply made it worse.

  She went out of the cave and stood close beside Rekkk. Within sec­onds, she was soaked clear through her robes. It was raining so hard it hurt.

  “Rekkk, come with me,” she said. “You will find no answer out here.” He said nothing, did not move.

  She heard a deep roll of thunder traversing the ridges below like an itinerant warrior. It filled the valley between like food waters. The earth beneath their feet briefly shuddered. The blesson firs bowed down be­fore the wind, black with rain, blurred as smoke.

  He took a breath, let it slowly out. “Though I may have forsaken the Khagggun Caste, I am still a warrior. That was what I was bred for, that is what I will always be. It is in my blood.” He walked into the closest line of blesson firs, stood under the dripping arbor until Giyan joined him. Then he pointed down toward the spines of the ridges below, to the armies of blesson firs marching over them. “You see how fierce this storm is? It matters not to the firs. They bend, but they do not break. Olnnn Rydddlin broke me, Giyan. That is a humiliation I cannot bear.” Giyan pointed to the same ridges he had picked out. “Do you see those bare spots, Rekkk? They were made in the depths of winter, when the severe slopes of the ridges could no longer hold the snow and ice. They began to slide, and in sliding they took the trees with them.” The downpour filled her cupped palm until she turned it over. “Every living thing has its breaking point, Rekkk. Even the bravest, the truest, the most flexible. Even those blesson firs.”

  “Trees cannot be humiliated,” he said shortly.

  “We Kundalan believe that there resides in every living thing the spark of the spirit. The blesson fir is no less noble for having been broken. If anything, its nobility has been validated.”

  “I feel like a hollowed-out log.” He stared out into the hazy distance, and at last he said what was on his mind. “The death of this world, this magnificent place… Giyan, if it happens it will be because of us, be­cause of the V’omn. I am being driven mad by the thought.”

  “If you concentrate on the possibility of death, it might come, Rekkk.” He turned to look at her.

  “Concentrate on the inevitability of life, on your role in saving Kun-dala.” She slipped her fingers through his, tugging gently at him. But instead of returning to the cave, she led him into the tree line. Her shoulder brushed against his with an electric kind of thrill.

 

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