Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (92 page)

Loch lifted the heavy bolt of the door and dropped it. It opened with a whine as he stepped inside. It was a hunter's cottage, lit only by moonlight. In the shadows, Adrea lay on a simple bed, a thick, Galaglean quilt over her body. Her hair was soft across the pillow, played out. She looked perfect, beautiful, her skin porcelain. Loch walked to her side, then knelt. He lifted his fist and crushed the Unchurian crystal, letting a vapor of dark blood spill over her.

Adrea's eyes flicked open and she took a breath as through breaking water. She searched quickly, frightened; she cried out in pain, arching her back, and Loch gently touched her shoulder.

She searched the darkness of the room, panicked. “Seraphon? Where is Seraphon?”

“You need not fear for him. He is well protected now.” At his voice she turned, startled.

“Lochlain …” she whispered. She lifted her hand, weakly, to touch his face, but the pain again seized her and she cried out in a soft whisper.

He let a soft pulse of blue light pass from his fingers to hers. When it did, Loch lowered his head, closing his eyes. Adrea slowly eased back.

“What … what did you just do?”

“Took your pain,” he said. He sucked breath against the pain now in him. It was strong as it rippled through him. It was no wonder she had cried out. But Loch had gotten used to pain. He looked up through dark, Shadow Walker eyes.

“You have changed,” she said. “You are so different from when we last touched.”

“More than I ever wished, I am afraid.” He stroked her hair. It was so soft, silken. “Adrea, I am sorry.” “For what?” “Everything.”

“As you once told me, Loch, we had no choice. If I have learned anything from you, from the ring, from the birthing of your scion, I have learned that all of it was truth. The path is marked of heaven's grace. It is all truth, Loch. All you have shown me, all you believed. Faith's Light, my love, and you will you find your way.” She had to pause to take breath. Even without pain, breathing was difficult. “I am dying?” He nodded.

“Seraphon … I will not see little Seraphon again …” “Not in this world.”

Tears fell. “Promise me, Loch, swear to me he will be cared for—more than protected, as you were, but that he will be loved.” “I promise.”

She turned slowly to gaze at him. “You have aged. You look as old as your father.”

“It is the sword.”

She studied him a moment, searching his eyes. “Yes, that and taking her, bringing her back from death—the priestess.” “You know?”

“As brave as you are, you have one weakness; you fear to walk alone. Even though it is your path, still you fear it. But you will learn. You are the Voyager, my love; in the end you will understand who you are.”

His eyes misted. It surprised him. He thought all emotion had been taken from him just as the blood sucked through the pommel of the Angelslayer, but suddenly it flooded him and he remembered the love he bore for her, the love they had shared through worlds he could no longer name.

She gasped—her breath short. She watched a tear run across his cheek and was able to reach up, take it in her fingers. “Sometimes …” she whispered, “when I was alone and frightened, there was a place I would go. A place where we reached the ship that day. We outran the assassins, and the ship sailed into the deep waters of the Western Sea where we found it, the island of Enoch, and there we looked into the eyes of God.” She half-smiled. “Have you ever gone there? Have you seen that future?”

He shook his head.

“We lived long there. We learned to know each other's thoughts in this world's flesh, to love each other beyond merely our memories, and we changed. We grew old. It was a good thing, a good place, Loch. It was a life well lived—a long life.”

Her breath was shallow as she lifted her hand, spreading her fingers in the sign of the word. He lifted his own to meet them, and then, as she had once before in a dream, she curled her fingers tightly into his.

“When it is ended,” she said softly, “if Earth survives Aeon's End—you can find me if you wish. I will be there—that place, the place where the ship would have taken us—I will wait for you there, on the island. As long as it takes you to find me, I will wait for you, Voyager.” The light from her eyes left quietly. Loch slowly lowered his head until it rested against her shoulder and for a long time, he did not move.

S
atrina was sitting against the wall, watching the child as he slept. She stared at him, fascinated. He seemed so beautiful, so peaceful. Sleeping, his eyes closed, he might almost have been an ordinary child. She crawled over to lift the blanket to his shoulders, and as she did, he turned, curling into it.

When there was a knock at the villa door, Satrina got up, walked to the door, and opened it without looking. She believed there could be no danger if the child was sleeping. If there would have been danger, he would have wakened and warned her. But she was startled nonetheless, and stared a moment openly. She knew without asking who this was. The face of the child—it was much like his. The dark eyes, the cut of the cheekbone.

She bowed her head and stepped back. “My lord,” she said, but was surprised when he touched her shoulder.

“No, I do not come as your lord. I may never have been a lord, or a king. It was never my path. Please, just call me Loch.”

His eyes were hard to look at directly, so intense, dark as night, and yet there was a ring of light about their edge that left a chill through her. She thought she could see through them, a different soul, far more tender than the Shadow Walker, a singer.

“I am Satrina.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Come,” she said, and led him into the room where the infant lay sleeping. “This is Seraphon; this is your son. I suspect he is the reason you are here.”

Loch stepped near the bed, staring, though the cloak hid Seraphon's face. Satrina started to pull it aside, but he caught her hand. When she looked to him, it startled her to see a single tear openly fall, even from the dark eyes of a Shadow Walker. It was a tear of the singer that had retreated deep within. He then took her wrist and placed the leaden box in her hand. He curled her fingers about it before she could speak. “When he is of age, you will know to open this and give him what is inside. Only he can find the one who must bear it. Until that time, keep it always on your person. I name you the Ringbearer, Satrina. Teach him. Teach him of the light and the splendor; teach him all you know, for his path will not be easy. His destiny will come with the rain of fire. You must teach him well, for he must walk the edge of Aeon's End.”

“Yes, of course, but my lord, have you not made some mistake? I am no one special. I am a barmaid; my father a drunk, a gambler. I am not royalty, far from it. How can you name me the Ringbearer of a king?”

“I see your eyes, your soul. You will give him what his mother asked. A mother's love, it is in your eyes. You are the one.”

He looked one more time at the child, and seemed about to say more, but suddenly turned. His cloak flared, and he left the door open behind him. He was gone before she realized he had moved. He had vanished into shadow as the Daath were said to do. Satrina looked down and opened her palm. It was a carefully wrought plain leaden box, small, the hinges tiny, but still she shivered. She could almost sense what was inside. She knew enough of the legends of the Daath, of their kings and their queens—this was the ring of the Water Bearer—the bloodstone of the Daath from the seven centuries they had dwelt on Earth. They had been sent as the protectors, and this was the ring of their last queen. Sensing movement, she turned to the crib. Slowly, she withdrew the coverlet. Seraphon was staring up at her, watching carefully, as if he understood perfectly all that had just transpired. She clutched the box tightly in her hand.

“Little one,” she whispered, “I fear your father has just made a terrible error in judgment.”

E
ryian paused in the hallway of the palace, tingling with alarm. He was alone, using a bronze walking crutch. His leg was bound in a wooden cast, lashed with leather. The hallway before him was quiet; the wall brackets of the torches had been torn loose. The stone here was a sweating cold, frosted in the corners. There was also a smell, something vague but noxious, something that bristled his skin as he continued, making his way down the corridor.

He stopped before the dark hole of the chamber where he had last seen Krysis. The door was gone, but for splinters of wood at the hinges. In the hall were the bodies of two Shadow Walkers, both warriors prime, one thrown back against the stone and seemingly crushed into it, the other basically cut in half.

A chill left him numb as he entered the room. There was blood on the walls. Lines of it glistened where moonlight caught it still damp.

The bed had been pushed to one corner of the room and its center was caved in.

A hand dangled over its edge, small, white, with painted nails. Feathers and down from the mattress were torn and bloodied, scattered, some drifting with the cold wind from the window. He didn't want to know this; he didn't want to see more. He started toward the bed, forgetting to use the crutch, and fell, wincing in pain as the leg twisted. He straightened, pulled himself onto one knee.

Krysis's eyes were open, dulled, staring upward. She had died in a scream, her golden hair flung across the coverlet, her head to the side. There was a deep gash through her breast, cutting deep through muscle, and blood still oozed. Her legs were askew over the back of the bed. A bedpost had been rammed between them, still in place.

Eryian quickly turned away. He knelt a moment, taking quick, hard breaths, then he slammed his fist against the stone with a scream.

There was a whisper, a voice as quiet as soft wind.

“Time to come home, star jumper.”

In the night, at the edge of an empty street, Eryian waited, leaning against the walking cane. He watched calmly as a warrior rode toward him from the cluttered villas beyond. When Eryian stepped into the light, the Daath warrior pulled up on the reins, startled. “My lord,” he gasped.

“Your horse,” Eryian said. When the warrior hesitated, Eryian stepped forward, grabbed the man by his belt, and wrenched him out of the saddle. He mounted, drew up the reins, and turned to ride at a fast trot toward the dock, gripping the mane for balance when the horse broke into a gallop.

Near a lamp maker's shop, which was looted but still intact, he pulled the horse up, circled about, then urged the charger onto the wooden porch. He kicked in the door with his good leg, leaned forward, and rode in. Hooves clattered on hollow wood. He straightened in the saddle and searched. He kicked aside a table that had been displaying glass oil lamps, then pulled up near a wall of shelves and clay vessels. He scooped a handful of the thick oil paste, and smeared it first over his face, then his forearms and legs. He rubbed oil into his hair until the silver was matted and black. He then turned the horse and leaned forward as he rode beneath the doorway.

The horse pranced, spooked as it rode into the street, then broke into a gallop. Eryian's silver breastplate clattered across the stone when he flung it aside, then the back plate.

He rode toward the docks, and there, as the horse picked its way through the course, Eryian searched. He leaned in the saddle to pluck away dark Unchurian armor. He gathered weapons. The saltwater was soaked into the wood in places, and the bodies sloshed. Eryian found a boathouse still intact and rode into it, then rode out, dragging an oar boat. He pulled it to where the dock slid into the water and rode the horse until the water was up to its neck. Using his good leg, he swung over the saddle, then rolled into the boat. He now wore a dark cloak, cowled, and armor that swallowed the night. He straightened himself, then pulled the cowl over his head and took up the oars. He began stroking. Even deep into the bay, the water was ashen with a film that left the oars stained black at the tips. It was snowing, and the moon was against far, white clouds. The snow seemed to settle into the dark water as though it had never been there.