The Silver Lake (18 page)

The kazakin been riding all day, following the path of a small whirlwind that Kursk had called up just after day-break. The spirits of the wild lands were unsettled and distracted, unable to say more than that something portentous was still happening to the southeast. Alert to the signs from the night before, Kursk had sent several of his people fanning out ahead as they tracked the wake of the disturbance.

It was Rayne who spotted the figure standing all alone in the middle of the plain. She gave the short, low whistle that meant unknown danger in the distance and, signaling the others to wait, Kursk joined her on a small hillock overlooking the strange creature. It stood as still as stone, giving no indication that it knew they were there, even after they began their approach, but Kursk could sense the chaotic swirls of power spinning about it like a cloud of spring flies. Whatever it was, this was the center of the disturbance on the plains.

He halted the kazakin several hundred yards away. He was still uncertain whether the figure was human or spirit, but now, as it raised one hand toward them, he could feel it reaching greedily for his life’s power. Frowning, he brought up his own hand to deflect its attack, and it swayed weakly in response.

Spirit, then.

“Wait here.”

Removing a ward fetish from his belt, he dismounted. As the company fingered their own protections nervously, he approached the creature as cautiously as one might approach a wild animal, holding the fetish up before him.

Behind him, Rayne stirred with impatience, unwilling to make use of her own wards until the creature proved to be other than physical.

On closer inspection, the figure seemed to be a slight, brown-haired boy of eleven or twelve, his sunburned face a mask of bruises and ugly red scratches, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. His clothes were little more than tattered and bloody rags and, as Kursk drew near, he saw him shiver with cold. Keeping his movements slow and careful, he held one hand out toward him.

“Child,” he said gently, “what do you do here?”

The boy turned gray eyes streaked with wisps of bright white power on Kursk’s face and the Yuruk leader felt a chill run up his spine.

Not spirit, but not truly human either.

“I’m watching for the dawn,” the boy whispered, his voice low and rasping. “The dawn is creation.” He frowned. “Or destruction, I’m not sure which yet. But the dawn will help me see which one it is.”

“But the dawn is long past, child.”

“No, it’s a prisoner in a tall tower. But I’ll get it out. One day. If I feel like it,” he snarled, his gaze suddenly turned inward.

Kursk stilled the urge to back away. The spirits had told him something strange and powerful would be born on the wild lands, but he hadn’t expected it to look like a half dead, half mad boy-child. That limited his responses. Forcing himself to take another step forward, he froze as the boy suddenly tensed.

“It’s all right. I won’t hurt you. But what are you, human or spirit?”

The boy cocked his head to one side as if the question gave him some pause. “I don’t remember,” he said finally.

“You’re bleeding. Who harmed you?”

“Others.”

“Others? Others like yourself?”

“Maybe.”

“Where do you come from?”

The boy’s eerily bright eyes narrowed. “The shining city,” he answered after a moment.

“Shining?”

The boy gestured toward the southeast. “The city ...” he repeated, then paused with a frown as if he wasn’t sure what to say next. “The city of lights and power,” he added finally. “The city of steel and stone.”

“The city of ... ? Do you mean Anavatan?”

The boy nodded.

“But that’s miles away. How did you come to be here? Where are your abayon?”

The faintest of smiles crossed the boy’s face. He raised his fist to his ear and Kursk could see something black clutched in his fingers. “Dead,” he answered flatly. “Everyone’s dead, even...”

He held his hand out to show Kursk a large stag beetle, its carapace badly cracked, lying in his palm. The boy closed his fist over it again.

“It’s dead, but it still talks to me, helps me think. It didn’t leave.” He glanced around blankly. “It’s the only thing that didn’t leave. Even the spirits left.”

“The spirits?”

The boy nodded, his face paling to a sickly shade of gray. “They ran away when they saw you coming and I’m so thirsty ...” His eyes grew pinched. “I want them to come back.”

A tinkling of bells swept a few of the wisps of power from his eyes and Kursk glanced over to see Rayne sliding down from her mount. He gestured.

“Bring water.”

“Yes, Aba.”

Making her way to his side, she handed him her waterskin, then stared frankly at the boy, taking in his injuries and dazed demeanor with a flick of her eyes. As he snatched the waterskin from Kursk’s fingers, she tilted her head to one side.

“Who is he, Aba?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

She turned. “Who are you? What’s your name?”

He blinked uncomprehendingly at her as water dribbled down his chin, then shrugged. “Graize,” he said finally as if he’d had to pull the word from some far distant place, then returned his attention to the waterskin.

Kursk frowned. Graize was a Volinski name, meaning lonely mountain if he remembered correctly. The boy had the look of the people across the northern sea, but it still didn’t explain how he’d gotten there.

“Aren’t you cold?” Rayne continued.

The boy—Graize—brought the beetle up to stare intently at it for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes.”

Kursk pulled off his sheepskin jacket.

“If you come with us, you’ll be warm and fed, Graize. Will you come with us?”

“Come ... ?” He tipped his head to one side as if the question made no sense to him, then brought his unfocused gaze to bear on Kursk’s face. “Will you let the spirits come back?” he asked.

Now it was the wyrdin’s turn to pause. The spirits could be very dangerous if they weren’t handled properly, but for all his physical appearance, this boy might still be only human seeming himself. To refuse the spirits might be to refuse the boy, and the portents had led them to the boy.

“As long as the spirits do us no harm,” he answered finally.

“They won’t; they’re mine.”

“Then they may come with us.”

Graize’s eyes cleared for a moment. “Then I’ll come with you, too.”

“Good.”

Stepping forward, Kursk draped his jacket very gently over the boy’s blood-encrusted shoulders, but as soon as it touched his skin, he collapsed. Kursk caught him before he hit the ground and, noting with some relief that Graize felt as human as any one of his own children, lifted him into his arms and jerked his chin toward Rayne.

“Well, it looks as if we’ve got what we came to the wild lands to find. Fetch my pony.”

“Yes, Aba.”

As she passed by, she bent and picked up the beetle that had fallen from Graize’s limp fingers. Kursk glanced over at it.

“Keep it for him. I think it’s his birth fetish.”

Her lip drawn up in a faint sneer, she nodded and, after tucking it into the small hide bag at her belt, headed for her mount.

Lost in his sea of silver lights, Graize gave himself over to the encompassing safety of the older man’s arms as a host of comfortingly physical sensations washed over him. Kursk smelled like exotic plants and animal hides, and felt like clear, clean water. The tinkle of his pony’s bells sounded like raindrops on the water and seemed to keep the power of the spirits from overwhelming his mind. He felt calm and quiet with no need for thoughts or words. No one had ever made him feel like that before.

For a brief moment, a distant memory of a man’s face looking down at him, his own gray eyes smiling, flitted by and then was lost again as the image of another man, black hair falling into dark, fathomless eyes, rose up again. But once again he swept it aside. He still didn’t know who that was. He didn’t know who anyone was, but for the first time since he’d woken up with dirt in his mouth and a host of spirits swimming through his veins, he didn’t care. He was safe and he was warm, his battle on the streets of Anavatan the night before already fading to no more than a distant nightmare. As Kursk lifted him onto his own mount, Graize released all memory of the shining city and the life he’d once lived there and embraced the shimmering power of the Yuruk leader and his people.

Miles away, Brax was giving up his old life with a lot more difficulty, wincing as the growing pressure of Estavia’s presence pushed him down the street toward Her temple.

He and Spar had been walking all day after Drove’s knife had bought them a jar of comfrey salve for their injuries and his five aspers a breakfast of bread and honey with two cups of extra-sweet tea and a handful of dried apricots. Spar was looking better already, especially after Brax had hooked a new jacket for him off a clothier’s cart while the merchant argued with a customer about the meaning of Estavia’s bells the night before. The God had given him a sharp mental smack for that, but after Brax had patiently explained that the younger boy could not possibly walk through the damp and chilly streets all day without it, She’d relented. With the resigned belief that this was only going to get worse once they reached the temple, he glanced over at Spar. Despite the jacket, he was starting to flag; his eyes as shocky as they’d been that morning and he was beginning to favor his bad leg. Never a good sign.

“Who’d of thought the city was so big, huh?” Brax joked. “But that tea seller said the temple was close. Breathe deep; you can smell the fruit trees, can’t you?”

Spar nodded wearily.

“So we’re nearly there. Come on.”

He quickened their pace as drops of rain began to hit the cobblestones all around them. Nightfall was nearly an hour away, but it wouldn’t do them any good to get caught in the rain. He could feel Spar’s growing agitation and, as the thunder cracked above their heads, both boys broke into a run.

They reached the temple’s public parade square a few moments later. A hundred yards away, across the vast, open expanse of flagstones, two sentries, looking a hundred times more dangerous than any garrison guard in their black enameled armor, stood as still as onyx statues before the huge cylindrical front gatehouse towers of Estavia-Sarayi. Their tall, hook-bladed halberds gleamed in the dull light and their sharp eyes tracked immediately to the two boys as they stepped onto the square. Spar froze.

“It’s them or that,” Brax said simply, jerking his head toward the glowering sky.

Spar glanced longingly back toward the city and Brax shook his head.

“We’d never make it. Not now. Look,” he said, his voice taking on an urgent tone as a streak of lightning rippled across the sky. “You’re feeling the storm, not the temple, but if you don’t like it, we can always leave in the morning, all right? She won’t make us stay if we’re not happy. And I won’t make us stay if you’re not happy. I trust your feelings, but just give it one night’s try, all right? Just one?”