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Silchas Ruin swung his mount around. He would pass the two priests on the narrow track, but Herat was certain that few, if any, words would be exchanged. ‘I ride to the Chamber of Night,’ the commander announced. ‘But that business, as you say, High Priestess, is not theirs to debate. Blunt them. Confound them if you must, but ensure my path remains clear.’
‘I shall do as you say, milord,’ said Lanear.
Silchas Ruin set off, gathering his horse into a quick canter.
Rise Herat glanced back at the valley. ‘We have done with it, then,’ he said in a low voice.
‘Dispense with that tone,’ Lanear snapped. ‘Condemnation avails us nothing. We cannot predict what words may pass between him and Draconus. What comes is now out of our hands, historian.’
But he shook his head. ‘And does that smoke suffice, High Priestess, to fill your body and blind you to guilt? If so, I’m of a mind to join you next time you imbibe. We can wallow in opaque insensibility, and deem all that races past us scant distraction. Let the clouds find our veins, swell the chambers of our hearts, and whisper sweet promises of oblivion.’
If she intended a retort, she bit back on the words with the arrival of Cedorpul and Endest Silann.
‘High Priestess!’ cried Cedorpul as he reined in. ‘I was dismissed with but a single word! Have we not a battle to discuss? To where does he ride?’
‘Take no offence,’ Lanear replied. ‘There is time still. Our commander attends to many things. Tell me, have you brought word of the Hust Legion?’
Cedorpul frowned, and then shook his head. ‘Nothing from the south, and it is indeed worrisome. We cannot hope to defeat the Liosan with only the Houseblades defending us.’
‘Then what manner of plans did you think to discuss?’ Rise Herat asked him.
‘My sorcery, of course! It finds shape.’
‘Shape?’
‘I have mastered malice, historian. I will be ready to face Hunn Raal.’
Herat turned to Endest Silann. The man was gaunt, aged, harried. Herat suspected that he had not come here of his own will. The priest’s hands were tightly bound in strips of linen, stained red in blooms and edged in pallid gold. He wore coarse wool to fend off the cold, but his head was bare. ‘Endest Silann, do you bring Mother Dark’s blessing to this newfound magic of Cedorpul’s?’
‘It has the flavour of darkness,’ the man replied, not meeting the historian’s eyes.
‘Bestowed by her, then?’
After a moment, he shook his head.
‘Myriad are her aspects,’ Cedorpul said, his round cheeks fiery red, his face that of a glutted child. ‘Many forces lie beneath or beyond her notice. I have drawn from such, ensuring not to stir her equanimity.’
Endest glanced across at Cedorpul, as if unimpressed with this explanation, but voiced no opinion.
Lanear cleared her throat, something she did often of late, and then said, ‘Your journey was wasted, alas, and has proved trying for Endest Silann. Your gestures are riddled with haste, Cedorpul, leaving me concerned. One would think eagerness anathema to the control of magic—’
‘One would if speaking from a place of utter ignorance!’
‘Mind your manners, sir!’ said Herat.
Cedorpul turned on him with a sneer. ‘And you comprehend even less, historian. Your pondering ways are in for a shock. Indeed, the entire world is due its rude awakening.’
‘Then do ring the discordant bell, priest,’ replied Herat wearily, ‘and delight in our fleeing its clamour.’
Teeth bared, Cedorpul pulled his mount around and kicked savagely at its flanks. The startled beast leapt forward, hoofs biting at the frozen road.
‘Pray it throws him,’ muttered Endest Silann as they watched Cedorpul ride away. ‘Swift be night’s sudden setting, to defy his newfound dawn. Pray his neck breaks, to leave lolling his interrupted ambition. Pray his limp body rolls beneath indifferent hoofs, to give lie to nature’s horror at what he contemplates.’
‘A potent curse,’ Rise Herat said, chilled by the dry venom of the man’s tone.
Endest Silann shrugged. ‘Nothing potent resides in my words, historian. Like yours, my breath sings useless warnings, bestirring a fistful of air, all too quickly swept away. What we have to say wins us less perturbation than a sparrow’s leap from a twig.’
Rise Herat could find little with which to disagree in that assessment.
