PROLOGUE (80 page)

"Badly hurt," said Laoina, translating Two Finger's words. He turned away to speak to the girl who, des^te her youth, seemed to be Horn's apprentice. Dressed in a wove Vblouse that fell as far as her knees, she, too, wore the copper oniaments common to those who had won a Hallowed One's renown. Her hair was braided with pale shells and beads carved out of bone, and she wore a pectoral so heavy that her shoulders bowed under the weight of it—or maybe that was only the weight of the burden that would come to rest on her should Horn die and not be able to take her part in the great weaving.

The girl would have to take Horn's place. Alain had been wandering around at the edge of the torchlight, staring at the paintings. When Adica looked for him, she saw him tentatively reach up to place his uninjured hand over the broad palm—a grown man's palm—that had been outlined in red countless generations ago.

A faint grunt sounded beside her. The feather wafted up, blown by a puff of air, and Horn's eyes snapped open. For an instant, Adica had the wild idea that the old woman was staring directly at Alain with her vacant eye. Abruptly, her left hand let go of the gold cup balanced on her chest and, trembling, grasped Adica's wrist. Her other hand, withered and limp, rolled away from the cup which, overset, spilled its aromatic brew down over her right side. If the hot liquid burned her, she seemed not to notice.

She spoke in her own language. Laoina was quick to translate as Two Fingers hurried over to crouch on Horn's other side.” Go by the silent road." Only half of her mouth truly moved when she spoke, giving her words a lisp, but Laoina had clearly spent many seasons listening by the side of the old woman and had no trouble interpreting the slurred sounds.

Two Fingers grasped her limp right hand and drew it back up to her chest. He set the fallen cup upright on the cavern floor, wiped its rim with a forefinger, and touched that moist finger tenderly to the old woman's lips.

"You are ill, cousin," he said as Laoina murmured a translation to Adica.” You are not strong enough to weave the loom."

Horn licked her lips as well as she could, tasting the liquid.” I am sorely hurt. I will not live long. But my apprentice died last year and this young one—" she indicated the girl with a movement of her good eye, "—knows too little."

"I will remain," said Two Fingers.” My niece can take my place in my own land."

"So be it," whispered Horn. She looked at Adica.” How will you weave at the loom while the Cursed Ones control our lands?"

"Adica must go on to Shu-Sha—" Two Fingers began, but Horn cut him off.

"Nay. We cannot risk her in that land." She coughed, as if so many words were a great trial to her, taxing what little strength she had. Liquid bubbled in her lungs, a deadly sound. After a pause during which all of them waited patiently, anxiously, Horn went on.” She will walk the silent road with this Walking One, daughter-of-my-heart Laoina. The Bent People will take her by their roads back to Queens' Grave. Laoina must go back to her home and bring to me her strongest warriors. We have too few adults left to attack the Cursed Ones ourselves. We must have a force strong enough to draw them off on the evening of the great working, so that Two Fingers can reach the loom and weave his portion. Only then will we be safe."

Horn coughed again, shaken with it, weakening perceptibly.

Alain ghosted in beside her and settled down like a hound come to rest beside its mistress. He set his good hand on Adica's shoulder and regarded the old woman with a compassionate gaze, neither too sorrowful nor too cool.” May you find peace, honored one," he said.

At the sound of his voice, Horn turned her head so that the slack side faced them full on. She seemed, oddly, to be staring at Alain again with her vacant eye, as though it was the only eye that could focus on him properly. Her labored breathing made an erratic accompaniment to the other sounds in the cavern: whispering children, a light and steady snoring from off in the darkness, the insubstantial footfalls of unseen dancers and pipers caught forever in their ancient ceremony, painted upon the rock ceiling. A faint horn call seemed to resound, but surely it was only a trick of the ears or the echo of a child's sigh.

Horn spoke in an altered tone, too resonant to come from that diseased throat.” You do not belong here, Wanderer," she said in the language of the Deer tribes.” Go back to your own place. Your father weeps for you."

Alain's expression altered, pain and bewilderment replacing sincere sympathy.” I have no home. I have no father. No mother. No kin. I came alone, with nothir.^from the place I once lived. I will not go back." He stared fiercely at Horn's slack eye before turning to Adica. The light in his expression made her heart flood with joy.” Here, I have a home. I will not leave her." He clasped one of Adica's hands between his own. Even the grasp of his injured hand felt strong, now.

"Many are they who wait for you in that place," repeated Horn stubbornly.” I see your crown, brighter than stars. You have wandered off the path meant for you, and you must return. This is your fate, Wanderer."

Throughout this labored speech, Alain's hand tightened on Adica's until her fingers hurt, squeezed between his. Horn's words cut deeply, slicing open the scar that had sealed over her fear of dying. Was Alain to be taken away from her? Truly, she was no longer sure she could walk with the others, knowing where their path led, if she didn't have him beside her. She had come to depend on his companionship; it made her last days bearable.

Alain did not quail.” I will not leave her."

Adica recognized then, in his expression, the terrible pain he had suffered before. It was not only she who had found shelter in their bond. He had as well.

Horn snorted, made a whistling, throaty sound as a palsy shook her. Her apprentice rushed forward and bathed her face with what was left of the spilled potion, and this effusion calmed the old woman. When her body ceased its trembling, she lay slack, her good eye closed and the vacant eye staring unseeingly toward the ceiling as at a particular group of brightly-painted pipers dancing around an elk, coaxing it into their snares.

No one knew what to do at first. Cider was brought, along with rather fermented, withered, tasteless greens, and barley cakes that had been fried in lard and left to congeal in the recesses of the cave. Adica ate what was given her. She knew that, driven from their village and their stores, they had little enough to offer a guest.

Abruptly, Horn woke and, in her normal slurred whisper, began speaking where she had left off before Alain had knelt beside her.” Laoina and the Akka warriors she brings will shelter here, with my people, until the time comes for the great working. Afterward they will be free to return to their home. Those among my people who live will build a new village so that we need never again dwell in a place poisoned by the Cursed Ones. Those who die will catch up to me on the path that leads to the Other Side. Girl, take them to the Bent People. I still hold the power of fire over them, and they owe me one last boon." She fumbled with her good hand at

an armband, her fingers slipping as she tried to tug it off.” Return this to the Bent People. They will do my will in this matter." Horn took in a breath, and as she let it out, spoke faint words.” Let that be the end of it."

A feather floated down out of the darkness and came to rest on Horn's lips. Adica waited for her to take in another breath, for the feather to stir, but nothing happened. Her chest did not rise. Her whole body slackened. The pale wisp that was her spirit rose out of her body, taking a form like that of the big-bellied woman carved into the cavern wall, so different than the frail, elderly body she now inhabited.

A wind rose sudden and strong. The torches blew out, plunging them into darkness. The pale substance of Horn's spirit twisted as the wind spun it around.

"Hear me! Hear me!" It spoke in a new voice, deep and booming.” She is taken! Come quickly, or all is lost. The Holy One has been captured by the Cursed Ones. We have not enough strength to rescue her. Come quickly, or all is lost!"

"Shu-Sha!" cried Two Fingers.

A thunderous knock resounded through the chamber. Adica leaped up just as the wispy spirit shattered into a thousand glittering lights, quickly extinguished. The young apprentice wailed out loud.

Quickly, the torches were relit, but Horn was dead, and her spirit had vanished into the darkness.

THE flames scoured her clean. They emptied her of emotion, of her past, of all her links to any substance except fire, because she was fire. Long ago Da had constructed and then locked a door in the citadel of her palace of memory, hiding from her the truth of what she truly was. Even as the fire of the Sun consumed her, the pure fire of her innermost heart burned more brightly even than the blast of the Sun, waves of heat and golden towers of flame. The door remained in place, but now she could peer through that keyhole and understand exactly what it was she saw writhing and burning, the thing that Da had locked away from her: her secret soul, the blue-hot spark that had given her life and that permeated her substance.

am only half fanned out of humankind.
She needed no words, no voice, because the fire itself was her voice.
The daimones who took me at Verna are my kin.

I am fire.

Exultant, she reached easily into the blazing fire of the Sun and transformed it into wings. On these wings she rose on the updraft of an uncurling flare to the limit of the Sun.

Yet even so, to her surprise, she had not left everything behind. Maybe she could never leave everything behind. She still had her bow and quiver of arrows; she still had the gold torque, cold at her neck, that bound her to Sanglant, and the bright beacon of lapis lazuli, the ring Alain had given her. But nothing else, only the fire that suffused the physical form she called a body.

Jedu's baleful glare bathed the horizon in a bloody red, the home of the Angel of War. The gates were guarded by a pair of sullen but dreadful daimones, carrying spears carved of crystal. Skulls dangled from their belts, and their faces shone with blood lust. She strung her bow and nocked an arrow, lit it so it burned.

They laughed, seeing how pitifully small she was. Although she was fire, they did not fear her. They were big as castles, with thighs as broad as a house and arms as stout as tree trunks.

"Pass through, pass through!" they cried mockingly, with voices that boomed and crashed.” We'll watch the sport while you're hunted down and killed, Bright One."

"I thank you," she said, seeing no reason to stay and quibble with creatures who looked ready to squash her like a bug.

She passed through the arch as their voices followed her, deep and resonant.” Go as you please, Child of Flame, yet you will lose something of yourself on the path!"

She tumbled into Jedu's angry lair.

AT dawn, Bulkezu ordered the vanguard driven forward with the lash to swarm the walls of Echstatt. Maybe the hapless men, women, and children would find mercy in the Chamber of Light, since they had certainly found none at Bulkezu's hands. He used his prisoners wisely, if one called ruthlessness wisdom. By pressing the unarmed mob up against the walls first, he ensured that Echstatt's defenders used up much of their precious store of ar
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rows, javelins, and hot tar on folk who could do nothing to harm them in return.

Hanna refused to weep while Bulkezu watched her. He liked to watch her, just as he liked to make her watch each assault as his army struck deep into the heart of Wendar, having long since outflanked his pursuers. He was trying to batter her down, breach her walls, but she would not give in.

By midday the Quman breached the town's gates and the fires started. Smoke and flame curled up from houses, halls, and huts, melting the thin mantle of snow on the rooftops. Mounted on a shaggy Quman horse, surrounded by Bulkezu's command group as they surveyed their troops from a hillside overlooking the prosperous town, Hanna saw every bitter moment as the victory unfolded. Despair tasted like ash on her tongue as the winged riders started in on their usual slaughter, cutting the fingers off folk who didn't give up their rings quickly enough, dragging adult males out into the streets and killing any who resisted.

Smoke billowed into the sky as fires raged. A dozen riders hurried out of the church as it, too, began to burn, flames licking up through the roof. Four men held corners of the embroidered altar cloth; vestments, gold fittings, silver cups, and the deacon's bloodstained stole jostled in a heap at the center. After a moment, the glass window above the altar blew out.

In a prosperous town like Echstatt there was plenty to loot beyond fodder, provisions, and the church's treasure. Bulkezu's intentions remained a mystery to her, because he seemed remarkably uninterested in loot except in so far as it pleased his troops to enrich themselves with trinkets and slaves.

Now, of course, came the worst part as the Quman herded the surviving townsfolk out of the gates and onto their ruined fields. Bulkezu gestured, and the command group moved forward. Trapped between his warriors, she had to go along with them as they rode down to examine the captives.