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The shrieking from the road turned into garbled noises that no human ought to be able to utter. She dared not look behind. Ahead, the owl settled with uncanny grace onto the top of the burning stone, and the horse leaped—
She shouted with surprise as blue-white flame flared all around her. Her horse landed, shied sideways, and stopped.
With reins held taut and the horse quiet under her, Liath stared around the clearing: beaten earth, a layer of yellowing scrub brush, and thin forest cover made up of small-leafed oak as well as trees she had never seen before. But her voice failed her when the man sitting on a rock rose to examine her with interest. Not a human man, by any measure: with his bronze-tinted skin and beardless face and his person decorated with all manner of beads and feathers and shells and polished stones, he was of another kinship entirely. Humans named his kind Aoi, “the Lost Ones,” the ancient elvish kin who had long since vanished from the cities and paths trodden by humanity.
But she knew him, and he knew her.
“You have come,” he said. “Sooner than I expected. You must hide until the procession has passed, or I cannot speak for what judgment the council will pass on you and your presence here. Come now, dismount and give me the horse.”
He looked no different than in the vision seen through fire, although he was smaller in stature than she expected. The feathers with which he decorated himself shone as boldly as if they had been painted. The flax rope at his thigh was perhaps a finger longer than when she had last seen him, weeks—or was it months?—ago. A tremulous moan sounded from the depths of the forest, and a moment later she recognized it as a horn call. She shaded her eyes, and there along a distant path seen dimly under shadows she saw a procession winding through the trees. At the head of the procession, a brilliant wheel of beaten gold and iridescent green plumes spun, although no wind blew.
“How did I come here?” she asked hoarsely. “The creatures were chasing me, and then I saw an owl … and the burning stone.” She turned in the saddle to see the stone still blazing, blue-white and cold. No owl flew.
“An owl,” he mused, fingering a proud feather of mottled brown and white, one dull plume among the many bright ones that trimmed his forearm sheath. He smiled briefly, if not kindly. “My old enemy.”
“Then the horse leaped, and I was here,” she finished haltingly. She felt like a twig borne down a flooding stream. Too much was happening at once.
“Ah.” He displayed the rope and the fiber he twined to create it. “Out of one thing, we make another, even if there is no change or addition of substance. Sometimes it is the pattern that matters most. These strands of flax, alone, cannot support me or aid me as this rope can, and yet are they not both the same thing?”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“The burning stone is a gateway between the worlds. All of the stones are gateways, as we learned to our sorrow, but this one was not fashioned by means of mortal magics but rather is part of the fabric of the universe. To use it, one must understand it.”
“I don’t know anything,” she said bitterly. “So much was kept hidden from me.”
“Much is hidden,” he agreed. “Yet nevertheless you have come to me. If you are willing, I sense there is a great deal you can learn.”
“Ai, God. There’s so much I need to know.” Yet she hesitated. “But how long will it take? To learn everything I need to know?”
He chuckled. “That depends on what you think you need to know.” But his expression became serious. “Once you have decided that, then it will take as long as it must.” He glanced toward the procession in the forest, still mostly hidden from them in their small clearing. “But if you mean to ask how long will it take in the world of humankind, that I cannot answer. The measure of days and years moves differently here than there.”
“Ai, Lady!” She glanced at the stone. The fire had begun to flicker down, dying.
“Why do you hesitate?” he pressed her. “Was this not the wish of your heart?”
“The wish of my heart.” Her voice died on the words as she said them. Of course she must study. It was the only way to protect herself. She wanted the knowledge so badly. She might never have this chance again.
And yet—she could not help but look back.
“You are still bound to the other world,” he said, not dismayed, not irritated, not cheerful. Simply stating what was true. “Give me your hand.”
He was not a person one disobeyed. She sheathed her bow and held out a hand, then grunted with surprise and pain as he cut her palm with an obsidian knife. But she held steady as blood welled up, as he cut his hands in a similar fashion and clasped one to hers so their blood flowed together. His free hand he pressed against the stone. Fire flared, so bright she flinched away from it, and her horse whickered nervously and shied. But the old sorcerer’s grip remained firm.
“Come with me,” he said. “What has bound you to the world of human kin?”
The fire opened, and together they saw within.
When he sprawls in the grass under the glorious heat of the sun, he can hear everything and nothing. He shuts his eyes, the better to listen.
A bee drones. A bird’s repetitive whistle sounds from the trees. His horse grazes at the edge of the clearing, well out of reach of his other companions: three Eika dogs in iron collars and iron chains bound to an iron stake he has hammered into the ground. Bones crack under their jaws as they feed. These three are all that remain to him of the beasts who formed his warband in Gent’s cathedral. He hears their chains scraping each on the others as the dogs growl over the tastiest bits of marrow.
A stream gurgles and chuckles beyond them: he has washed there, although he will never truly wash the filth and the shame of Bloodheart’s chains off himself no matter how often he spills water over his skin and cleanses himself with soap or sand or oil. Now he lies half-clothed in the sun to dry in merciful solitude.
Of human activity he hears nothing. He has fled the captivity of the king’s court and found this clearing next to the track that leads northwest—in that direction she rode off on the king’s errand eight days ago. Here, now, he relishes his freedom, bathing in sun and wind and the feel of good mellow earth and grass beneath his back.
A fly lands on his face and he brushes it away without opening his eyes. The heat melts pleasantly into his skin. Where his other hand lies splayed in the grass he has tossed down the square leather pouch, stiffened with metal plates and trimmed with ivory and gems, in which he shelters the book. He feels its weight just beyond his fingertips, although he does not need to touch it to know that it is still there, and what it means to him: a promise. He keeps it always with him or, when he hunts or bathes, ties it to the collar of one of the dogs. The dogs are the only ones among his new retinue he can trust.
Wind rustles in leaves, indifferent whispers so unlike the ones that follow his every movement among the courtiers—the one they think he can’t hear.
