Pups ran out and circled the Queen, leaping up at the hem of her dress, whining and yapping for attention.

"Yes, he's here," Myrrima said.

Iome did not apologize for what she planned to do. Even as a princess, she had refused to take endowments from another person, to risk a human life.

"I'll need some of those, too," Iome said stiffly. "If I'm to be of any help to you."

Late that night, after the lords had left, Gaborn stood awake in Sylvarresta's old study on the fourth floor of the King's Keep, gazing southwest across the hills. The floor had recently been strewn with dry meadowsweet, and so his pa.s.sage across the planking as he crushed the golden flowers had infused the room with a delightful, pleasant scent.

Borenson had left the keep nearly three hours past. Iome had gone to her room hours ago, though Gaborn did not imagine that she would sleep. They were newlyweds, after all, and he imagined that she would be awake, worrying, as he worried.

But perhaps not. He hoped that she slept. A week past, when Borenson had slain her Dedicates, Iome had lost all of her endowments of stamina. She needed sleep now, as much as any commoner did. But Gaborn still had his endowments of stamina and brawn. He did not sleep much at all in times of stress, but instead preferred to rest on his feet, sometimes letting his mind retreat to a waking dream.

He hoped that Iome would not wait up for him. He wanted solitude this night.

Part of the Queen's garden was back there beneath the study. A pair of frogs sang in the water of a reflecting pool. A ratlike ferrin wearing sc.r.a.ps of cloth came and drank at the pool. The frogs went quiet as the creature gazed about with bright eyes. Gaborn tasted the scent of fresh air flowing from the open Window, looked out in the starlight.

The camps below town were dark now, and the people huddled in a ma.s.s. Gaborn could still feel danger about them, could feel it closing in, like a noose around his own neck. The Darkling Glory was coming. Gaborn could feel the danger rising as it flew steadily north.

Half a million people, all under his protection--along with their horses and cattle--asleep and unaware.

"May the Earth hide you. May the Earth heal you. May the Earth make you its own," Gaborn whispered, reciting the ancient blessing: He dreaded what he had to do. At dawn he would leave his people, head south to war. He could only hope that they would escape the wrath of the Darkling Glory.

So many people depended upon him, and he wanted to save them all, to do everything in his power. Yet though he was the Earth King, his powers were still new to him, and they were growing. He felt clumsy. Incompetent.

If any of us survive these dark times, he thought, I will have to live with the memories of those I let down. For the sake of my own conscience, I dare let no one down.

For a long time he pondered some words from the small book written by the Emir Owatt of Tuulistan--not the forbidden words from the House of Understanding, but a silly poem about self-definition. He had not committed it to memory, could only recall two lines.

Love and lovers may not always sustain, But I choose to love still.

Though heart might fail me and the battle be lost, I choose to strive still.

As did the Emir, Gaborn saw wisdom in the struggle. The universe was a powerful foe. In time death overtakes all men. But while he breathed, Gaborn was free to choose the kind of man he would become. It was essential that he remain the kind of man he could live with.

He thought of Emir Owatt of Tuulistan. The little book he'd sent to King Sylvarresta intrigued Gaborn. The Emir was obviously a jewel among men. And now Gaborn was placing great hopes on his daughter Saffira.

A flicker of ghost fire caught his eyes up on the hill at the edge of the Dunnwood just at the tree line, a shimmering gray light.

A wight sat there, on its ghostly mount in the darkness, staring toward the castle at the huddled ma.s.ses.

He's watching over my people, Gaborn realized, just as I commanded him to do. Like a shepherd on a hill, watching his flocks by night.

Gaborn could not see from so far away who it might be. He imagined that it was the spirit of Erden Geboren himself, or perhaps his own father.

Gaborn missed his father's counsel now.

He wondered idly if the wights would be able to fight the Darkling Glory. He doubted it. A wight's cold touch could kill a mortal man, but wights dissipated when in light A campfire would drive them off. Sunlight banished them. And if the Darkling Glory came from the Realms of Fire in the netherworld, it would surely have some control over that element.

At the back of the room, Gaborn's Days coughed.

Gaborn turned and looked at the man in the shadows, wondered what he knew.

"Tell me," Gaborn said in an easy tone. "What think you of our plans? Did I do well or ill today?"

"That, I cannot say," the Days answered in a tone that told Gaborn precisely nothing.

Gaborn asked rhetorically, for he knew the answer, "If I were drowning in deep water, a foot from sh.o.r.e, would you save me?"

"I would note in my records the moment that you went under for the last time," his Days said amused by the game.

"And if mankind sank with me?" Gaborn asked.

"It would be a sad day for the books," the Days said soberly.

"Where is Raj Ahten? What does he plan?"

"Everything in its own time," the Days said. "You will know all too soon."

Gaborn wondered. Had Raj Ahten sped north, too? Could he be coming with the Darkling Glory? Or did he have more dire plans in mind?

"Your Highness, may I ask you a question?" the Days said.

"Of course."

"Have you considered the fate of the Days? Have you considered whether you will Choose me--or any other Days?"

Seizing the moment, Gaborn stared the man in the eyes, gazed beyond them, into the Days' hopes and dreams.

Gaborn had looked into his father's heart, and it had been clear. He'd looked into the heart of Molly Drinkham's child and seen that it loved nothing, was only grateful for its mother's nipple and for the warmth of her body and the way she sang sweetly to get him to sleep.

Yet even that child, with its vague longings, seemed clearer, more comprehensible, to Gaborn than did the Days.

Through the Earth Sight, he saw not a man, but a man and a woman, a woman with a quill and parchment, a woman with wheat-colored hair and emerald-green eyes.

Gaborn had never guessed that the scribe to his witness would be a woman. Now he saw that the two loved one another, that for them sharing a mind was a joy and an intimacy that Gaborn had never quite imagined.

He looked deeper still, and saw that they shared something more than that: a love of old tales and deeds and songs, a childlike joy that came from merely watching events unfold, the way that an old gardener loves to watch the first crocuses of spring spread wide their white petals, or seeds sprout green from a newly planted field. For them, the study of history was a constant delight, an ever-present joy.

And neither of them wanted anything more than to simply watch. They did not want to better the world or lessen another's pain. They sought no gain.

They were content to watch.

Gaborn could not fathom it, he was amazed. He had never quite imagined that any man's heart could be as odd as what he saw beating within the historian.

Gaborn considered. He'd told Iome that he wanted much the same kind of unity earlier in the day, that his domain and hers were one, and that he wanted to grow together with her. Yet so long as they remained two creatures apart, perhaps that could never be achieved. But the Days had seen a possibility, away to unite two people so that they became of one mind and one heart, and they had followed that path.

Gaborn almost envied them. He would have spoken to Iome of the possibility, but it was too late for them. She'd already granted an endowment of glamour to Raj Ahten's vector, and though the vector was dead and Iome's beauty had returned to her, the fact that she had given an endowment now made it impossible for her to ever give another.

She and Gaborn could never share such intimacy.

"I will consider the possibility," Gaborn answered.

"Thank you, Your Highness," the Days said.

Gaborn resumed looking out the window, letting the fresh night air blow into his face as he listened to the frogs. For long hours, he sat taking his rest as Runelords do, eyes awake, wandering through a realm of dream.

In his dream, he was a young man, riding a stallion through a dark chasm along a narrow mountain road he'd once ridden with his father.

He knew this place, knew this bleak landscape. Last week he had asked his Days why the Days were once called the "Guardians of Dreams." His Days had said that someday soon, in his sleep, he would visit this place: this land in his dreamscape where all of his terrors lay hidden. He'd told Gaborn to seek out that place.

Only in this dream, he was alone and spiderwebs as strong as bands of steel barred his way. In creva.s.ses among the dark rock, he could see spiders larger than crabs scuttling in the shadows, eyes glittering like bright crystals.

Now, Gaborn looked up the dark ravine, thick with cobwebs. His heart pounded with terror, and his chest was tight. Sweat beaded on his brow. He drew his saber and cut through the strong strands, so that they snapped like lute strings. He urged his mount forward.

He missed a strand, and it hit his forehead, slashed his face before it broke. Gaborn rode on with blood running down the bridge of his nose, into his clenched lips.

This is the land of fears, he realized. This is where my terrors reside. He raced now to face them.

He ducked low and rode hard up the narrow ravine, fearing death, hoping instead to find his father there, or his mother, or some other proper reward.

But ahead the creva.s.se turned and twisted. It splayed into a wide pa.s.sage where a dim light shone.

There, above him, tall upon a dark horse, sat his Days. His narrow skull was a dark V, his close-cropped hair unkempt. He looked almost skeletal, merely bones wrapped in a bundle of cloth. He held a wavering green light in his palm, like the flame of a wind-blown lantern, though the light did not issue from any device.

"I've been waiting for you," the Days said, holding up the thin light, as if to pa.s.s it into Gaborn's hand "I know," Gaborn answered. "I'll try not to disappoint you." Gaborn reached to take the light. "What is this?" he asked as it touched his palm.

"The hope of the world and all its dreams," the Days said, thin lips pulling into a ghastly smile.

Gaborn trembled to see how small the light was; his hand shook so that the flame dropped and fell toward the stony ground.

BOOK 7.

DAY 31 IN THE MONTH OF HARVEST.

A DAY WITHOUT CHOICE.

CHAPTER 13.

THE FOURTH EAR.

Even in the shifting winds, Bessahan smelled the smoke of the messenger's fire from three miles down the trail. He was high in the Brace Mountains, in the deep pines. The clouds had scudded in just at sunset, smelling heavy with rain, and in half an hour the rain was pelting down while lightning flashed. The winds shook the great pines, knocking branches down in the roadside. Falling leaves swirled about. His quarry dared not ride in such brooding darkness, and so they had been forced to stop beneath the trees. After an hour, the lightning had abated, and now only brief flashes sometimes lit the northern horizon. But the rain still fell.

He approached the smoke quietly, walking along the road, so that he made no noise, keeping low, until the smell of the wood smoke came strongest.

He had expected to find King Orden's messengers camped by the highway, but after pa.s.sing the source of the scent, he realized that they were being wary. They'd taken a side trail, climbed up the mountain to a hidden glade. From the road, he could not even see their fire.

So Bessahan got off his horse, tied it to a tree, and strung his bow. Then he pulled out his khivar and inspected it. He'd cleaned the blade after beheading the old woman. Now he took a moment with an oilstone to hone it sharp, in the darkness, working by feel alone.

When at last he felt prepared, he took off his hard shoes, letting his bare feet grip the cold muddy road as he prepared to ascend the hill.

For a Master in the Brotherhood of the Silent Ones, it was not a great challenge. To climb through brush in the darkness was not difficult, only cold and miserable and sometimes painful. He had to feel his way through the underbrush, letting his fingers and toes search for twigs that his eyes could not see.

So it was that he began his slow ascent. The trail was not hard, he soon discovered. The moss here was thick, and he found himself crawling through a bed of deep ferns higher than a man's chest. The trees here were old, had stood like this for a hundred years, and twigs were scarce on the forest floor. The few he encountered were small, and because they were wet and old and rotten, they snapped softly. The ferns and the pelting rain muted any sounds of breakage.

Only once in his journey did he encounter any difficulty. As he crawled along his palm sank into the moss and hit something sharp, possibly a ragged piece of bone left by a wolf. The wound it caused was small, a tiny puncture that hardly bled. He ignored the pain.

In half an hour, he reached the summit of the hill, topped a small rise, and glimpsed the fire. A great pine had fallen, a tree perhaps twelve feet in diameter, and it rested against the hillside at an angle.

The party was camped beneath the windfall, using it for a roof. They'd peeled off some of the drier bark to build a fire, but it was wet and smoky.

Now they lay in blanked beside the fire, talking to one another. The huge knight, the big red-haired messenger, and a girl child.

"Stop fretting," the big red-haired messenger said. "You'll get no sleep worrying."

"But it's been an hour since we heard her. What if she's lost?" the child asked.

"Good riddance, I say," the fat knight replied.

"It was your fire that scared her," the child accused the knight. "She's sore afraid of it."

Bessahan halted, heart thumping. He'd thought he was hunting three people, but there appeared to be a fourth. His lord paid him for his killings by the ear. He'd want that fourth woman's ear.

If she was looking for them, it would not be long before she stumbled into camp. Even a person without the benefit of a wolf's nose would smell that fire.

Bessahan backed away, decided to wait.

Yet as he eeled backward on his belly, down over the lip of the hill, he b.u.mped against something solid.

He glanced back, looked up. A naked woman with dark skin smiled down at him stupidly. The fourth ear.

"h.e.l.lo?" he whispered, hoping to keep her from shouting in alarm.

"h.e.l.lo?" she whispered in return.

Was she a. fool? he wondered briefly. Then she knelt on her haunches and studied him. In the dim light that reflected from the branches overhead, he could barely discern her. She was long-haired and shapely.

He'd been too long without a woman, and decided to enjoy her before he killed her. He reached up quickly, slapped a hand over her mouth, and tried to pull her down.