The Father of Winter favored her with a grave nod. "All gods attend on all battlefields. What parents would not wait as anxiously by their door, looking again and again up the road, when their child was due home from a long and dangerous journey? You have waited by that door yourself, both fruitfully and in vain. Multiply that anguish by ten thousands, and pity me, sweet Ista. For my great-souled child is very late, and lost upon his road."
The deep resonance of his voice seemed to make her chest vibrate, her bones ring. She could barely breathe. Water clouded her vision and fell from her unblinking eyes. "I know it, Sire," she whispered.
"My calling voice cannot reach him. He cannot see the light in my window, for he is sundered from me, blind and deaf and stumbling, with none to take his hand and guide him. Yet you may touch him, in his darkness. And I may touch you, in yours. Then take you this thread to draw him through the maze, where I cannot go."
He leaned forward and kissed her on the brow. His lips burned like cold metal. Fearfully, she reached up and touched his beard, as she had Arhys's that day, tickling strange and soft beneath her palm. As he bent his head, a tear fell as a snowflake upon the back of her hand, melted, and vanished.
"Am I to be a spiritual conductor on Your behalf, now?" she asked, dazed.
"No; my doorway." He smiled enigmatically at her, a white streak in the night like lightning across her senses, and her reeling mind slipped from dazed to dazzled. "I will wait there for him, for a little while." He stepped backward, and the stair was empty again.
Ista stood, shaken. The spot on the back of her left hand where his tear had splashed was icy cold.
"Royina?" said Liss, very cautiously, stopped behind her. "Who are you talking to?"
"Did you see a man?"
"Um . . . no?"
"I am sorry."
Liss held up her candle. "You're crying."
"Yes. I know. It's all right. Let us go on now. I think perhaps you had better hold my arm till we get down the stairs."
The stone court, the archway, the star court with its restive horse line, and the gate into the forecourt passed in a dark blur. Liss held her arm the whole way, and frowned at its fierce trembling.
The torch lit forecourt was crowded with men and horses. Most of the flowerpots were broken, fallen from the walls or tipped, spilling their dry soil. The succulents were smashed, the more tender flowers wilted and limp like cooked greens. The two espaliered trees on the far wall shed dry leaves in the breathless night heat, falling one by one atop a drift of rotting petals.
Foix was the first to notice her arrival; his head turned, and his mouth opened. No doubt she moved in a cloud of god light, just at present, being so recently touched.
And I bear a burden that I am most gravely charged to deliver.
Her eye swept the court, found Arhys and Illvin, but her attention was temporarily distracted by the horse they both studied. From a distance.
It was a tall, long-nosed chestnut stallion, held by three sweating grooms. A blindfold covered its eyes beneath its bridle, which was fitted with a deep curb bit. One groom held its upper lip tightly in a twitch. Its ears were back flat, and it squealed angrily, showing long yellow teeth, and kicked out. Illvin was standing well back from it, looking aggrieved.
Ista came up beside him and said, "Lord Illvin, do you know that stallion is possessed of an elemental?"
"So Foix has just informed me, Royina. It explains a
lot
about that horse."
Ista peered through half-closed eyes at the writhing mauve shadow within the animal. "Grant you, it appears to be a small, unformed, stupid one."
"That explains yet more. Bastard's hell. I was going to lend the accursed beast to Arhys. His good dappled gray has gone lame, along with half the horses that remain to us—an outbreak of thrush, developing with unnatural speed, and I hope Arhys can soon deliver our thanks to whichever Jokonan sorcerer thought of
that
one."
"Is this an especially good warhorse?"
"No, but no one will care if Arhys rides it to death. In fact, I think the grooms are hoping he will. Five gods know I've tried to, without success."
"Hra," said Ista. She walked forward; the two grooms holding the beast's head squeaked protest. Her eyes narrowed, and she reached up and placed her god-splashed hand upon the stallion's forehead. A tiny six-pointed mark burned upon her skin, snow-white to her outer vision, a fierce spark to her inner eye. "Remove its blindfold."
The groom glanced somewhat desperately at Illvin, who nodded permission but drew his sword and held it with the flat out, watching tensely.
The horse's eyes were dark brown, with purple centers. Most horses' eyes had purple centers, Ista reminded herself, but they didn't usually have quite so deep a glow. The eyes fixed on her, and rolled whitely. She stared back. The animal suddenly grew very still. Ista stood on tiptoe, grabbed one ear, and whispered toward it, "Behave for Lord Arhys. Or I will make you
wish
I'd merely ripped your guts out, strangled you with them, and fed you to the gods."
"Dogs," corrected the nervous groom holding the twitch.
"Them, too," said Ista. "Take off the twitch and stand away."
"Lady ... ?"
"It's all right."
The groom backed away. The horse, shivering, flicked its ears up to strict attention and arched its neck to bring its face, submissively, flat to Ista's torso. It gave a brief nudge, leaving a trail of red horsehairs across her black silk robe, and stood perfectly quietly.
"Do you do that sort of thing often?" Illvin inquired, strolling over. With extreme caution, he reached out to give the beast an experimental pat on the neck.
"No," sighed Ista. "It has been a day for unique experiences."
Illvin was simply dressed in light linen trousers and his spark-spotted shirt, in preparation for his role to come. Arhys looked so much as he had when Ista had seen him for the very first time that she caught her breath. Except that his mail and tabard were not blood-spattered. Yet. He smiled soberly at her as he came to her side.
"A word, Royina, before I go. Two words."
"As many as you please."
He lowered his voice. "First, I thank you for bearing me up to a better death. One less shameful, small, and stupid than my first."
"Our men may yet surprise you on that score," said Illvin gruffly. On the far side of the forecourt, a mere dozen soldiers were also preparing their mounts. Pejar was among them; his face was flushed with fever, Ista noted. He should have been lying on a pallet, not attempting this. Then she wondered how few men in Porifors were still able to walk at all, at this hour.
Arhys smiled briefly at his brother and forbore to argue or correct, or pull that thin hope from his hands. He turned back to Ista. "Second, I beg a boon."
"Anything within my power."
His clear eyes fixed on her with penetrating intensity; she felt targeted. "If this dy Lutez manages to die well tonight, let it complete the set that was left undone so long ago. Let what victory I may gain swallow up forever the old, cold dereliction. And be you healed of the long wound that another dy Lutez dealt you."
"Oh,"
said Ista.
Oh.
She dared not let her voice break; she had still an office to perform. "I was given a message for you, too."
His brows rose; he looked a little taken aback. "No courier has penetrated the Jokonan blockade for a day. What messenger was this?"
"I met Him on the stairs but now. It is this." She swallowed to clear her voice.
"Your Father calls you to His Court. You need not pack; you go garbed in glory as you stand. He waits eagerly by His palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at His high table by His side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved. In this I speak true. Bend your head."
Wide-eyed, astonished, he did so. She pressed her lips to his brow, the pale skin neither hot nor cold, unsheened with sweat. Her mouth seemed to leave a brief ring of frost that steamed in the heavy night air. A new line appeared in her second sight, a fine thread of gray light, strung from him to her.
It is a life-line.
It could, she somehow knew, stretch to the ends of the earth without breaking.
Oh.
Moved, she completed the full formal rite, kissing the back of each hand, then bending to his feet and touching her lips to each boot as well. He jerked a little, as if to dissuade her, but then stood still and allowed the gesture. He recaptured her hands and helped pull her back to her feet. Her knees felt like water.
"Surely," he whispered in awe, "we are blessed."
"Yes. For we bless each other. Be at rest in your heart. It will be very well."
She backed away to let Illvin embrace his brother. Illvin held Arhys away by his shoulders, after, and gazed with smiling puzzlement into those strange exultant eyes, which seemed to look back from some great and receding distance. The cool lips smiled kindly, though. Illvin turned to give him a leg up on the painfully obedient red stallion, check his girths and stirrups and gear one last time, and slap his leather-clad leg in some habitual gesture. He stood away.
Ista looked around through blurred and stinging eyes to find Liss, standing at the shoulder of Foix's horse. Foix was already mounted. He saluted Liss in the gesture of the Daughter's Order, touching his forehead. She returned a courier's salute, fist tapped over her heart. Foix, meeting Ista's eyes, saluted her as well; she gave back the sign of the fivefold blessing.
The dozen men of Arhys's forlorn little company mounted up at his quiet word. No one spoke much.
"Liss," Ista choked, and cleared her throat. "Liss," she began again. "Attend on me. We must get to the tower."
Both Liss and Illvin fell in beside her, and they started back through the archway. Behind them, Ista could hear Porifors's gates begin to creak open, the iron ratcheting of the drawbridge chains echoing among the dying flowers. Illvin walked backward a moment, staring into the fire-streaked 'dark, but Ista schooled herself not to turn around.
ISTA'S ACHING LEGS PUSHED HER UP THE NARROW TOWER STAIRS, the curving stone wall harsh beneath her groping hand, into a square of unexpected radiance. Rows of candles were lined up at the base of the parapet walls on the north and south sides, stuck into blobs of their own wax, burning clear and unwavering in the breezeless night air. The heat seemed to stream upward into the starry night sky, but withal the air of the tower was much less close and stale than that of the forecourt.
With their arrival, the platform seemed crowded. Ista surveyed the arrangements she'd ordered and breathed satisfaction. At one side Lady Cattilara, dressed in a robe, lay silently upon a straw pallet that was covered with a sheet. Another pallet, also covered with old linens, lay empty beside her. The sewing woman with her basket, Goram, and Learned dy Cabon, his robes now very stained indeed, all waited anxiously. The little company would have to suffice; the few physicians and acolytes of the Mother left alive in the beleaguered town were felled by fevers, or worse, and in any case could not be smuggled up the collapsed tunnels to their castle's aid.
Illvin, emerging from the stair's blackness, shielded his eyes against the candle glow. "Royina, will you be able to see out, to track my brother's progress?"
"It won't be these eyes I use to follow him. And your attendants must be able to see you." Her material hand reached to touch the invisible reassurance of the gray thread, which seemed to spin out from her heart into the darkness below. "I will not lose him now."
He grunted somewhat disconsolate acquiescence, drew a breath, and seated himself upon the empty pallet. Laying his sword aside, he peeled out of his speckled and sweat-stained shirt and rolled up his loose trouser legs. Goram helped pull off his boots. He swung his long legs out straight and lay back, face not so much composed as rigid, his dark dilated eyes looking up at the stars. Wisps of cloud, moisture out of reach, crossed the spangled vault in gray feathers. "I am ready." His voice sounded parched, but not, Ista thought, just from lack of water.
From the castle below, she heard the faint ratchet of the drawbridge chains being pulled up again very slowly, and a jingle of harness and thump of hooves passing away from the walls, fading with distance. The gray thread was moving in the pool of darkness below, very like a fishing line taken by a pike. "We have not much time. We must begin." She dropped to her knees between the two pallets.
Illvin took her hand and pressed it to his lips. She caressed his slick brow as she took it back. Composed herself. Shut out the confusing sight of her eyes and brought up the tangle of lights and shadows by which the realm of spirit represented itself to her now. She suspected the gods simplified it for her, and that the reality beneath this was stranger and more complex still. But this was what she was given; it must do.
She undid her ligature around the white trickle coming from Illvin's heart, opening the channel wide. Soul-fire poured out, joined the sluggish, sullen stream from Cattilara, and flowed away into the night, winding around the gray thread but not touching it. The life drained from Illvin's face, leaving it stiff and waxen, and she shuddered.
She turned away and studied the sleeping Cattilara. The demon swirled in agitation beneath her thin breastbone. Enormous stresses propagated here, straining toward some cataclysmic breakage. Ista's next task was dangerous indeed, dangerous to them all, but she could not shirk from it. So many souls were at risk in this ride . . .
She tightened Cattilara's ligature, pushing the soul-fire up from her heart toward her head. The demon tried to follow it. She laid her snow-spangled left hand upon Cattilara's collarbone, stared in fascination at the gray glow her fingers suddenly shed. The demon shrank again, crying with new terror. Cattilara's eyes opened.
She tried to surge upright, only to find her body still paralyzed. "You!" she cried to Ista. "Curse you, let me
go\"