Giyan made way for him as he knelt beside Ba.s.se. He opened his fingers, turned the pale cap open so that dark gills were accessible. Using the nails of his thumb and forefinger, he plucked every other gill. He did so deftly and carefully, for to be effective the gills had to remain intact. Tear even one, and he would have to start over with another cap, and he knew he had no time for that.

When he had gone all the way around the underside of the cap, he bade Giyan gather the gills and place them in a radiating pattern on the wound. While she did this, he plucked all the remaining gills but one. He buried the cap beside Ba.s.se, then pried open his rigid jaws. Roughly, he pushed back Ba.s.se's head so that his mouth was pointing straight up, then he used one finger to depress his tongue. One by one, he dropped the gills into his mouth so that they went directly down his throat.

Seeing that Giyan was finished, he said, "All right, everyone stand away." He glanced around. "Back away, I say!" he shouted, and was gratified to see both Majja and the Tuskugggun comply. Clamping Ba.s.se's jaws shut, he rose over him, his knees firmly against Ba.s.se's shoulder bones.

A moment later, Ba.s.se gasped, and his body arched upward, almost knocking Minnum off. But the little sauromician was prepared, and he held on, pressing downward more firmly as Ba.s.se continued tospasm, shaking like a mad wyr-hound. "What's happening?" Majja cried. "Look!" Marethyn clutched Majja. "He's breathing!" Majja was trembling slightly. "What are you doing to him?" "Bringing him back,"

Minnum said, "from the twilight world into which he had slipped."

Whispering the spell as if she were praying to Miina, Konara Inggres opened her Third Eye.

Immediately she felt the emanations of the opal, and she touched them with her psyche, sensing the conduit, opening her mind to it, following it back to the coolly glowing skin of the opal. She felt each color inside as a pinp.r.i.c.k, as if she were being inoculated, shot through with a potent decoction of mushrooms and herbs. Her mind expanded until it seemed to fill the chamber.

And then the colors irised open and, one by one, she conjured up the names of the abbeys on the master list she had painstakingly a.s.sembled: Returning Current, Floating Reserve, Correspondence Hall, on and on, journeying through the sorcerous lens of the opal casting to the abbeys, each time on a wave of hope, only to crash into the trough of lifelessness that greeted her. On and on, each wave lower, each trough deeper. The pain of each abandonment was like a grave being dug inside her, growing larger, deeper, darker, and she despaired. Could it be true? Could Floating White be the last remaining inhabited abbey on Kun-dala?

She was on her way to the Abbey of Orbit Bone when she felt it. It was only the slightest p.r.i.c.kling at the nape of her neck, stirring the loose strands of hair there as from the slightest zephyr, but it sent a shiver down her spine. Turning her gaze, she saw the vertical slit, fiery red, lambent orange: the dreaded Eye of Ajbal. It was one of the three most potent Kyofu spells, one that even Bartta had not mastered.

But it was rumored that the sauromicians knew of the Ajbal Incantations and had, against Miina's express wishes, used it extensively.

She felt fear swallow her for she was certain that this spell was what had ensnared Perrnodt, what had pursued her through nethers.p.a.ce, what had caught her in its grip. Konara Inggres knew she did not have the expertise to defend herself against the Eye of Ajbal-didn't know if even the First Mother did.

In any event, it did not seem as if the Eye had as yet found her. But it was Seeking. She could feel the emanation of its filaments, sticky as kris-spider silk. From her reading she knew that she was relatively safe as long as one of the filaments did not lock on to her. She could still maneuver in the psychic world of nethers.p.a.ce sandwiched between realms of existence as long as she made sure that none of the filaments sensed her. The problem was, of course, that they winked in and out of her sight according to her own speed. The faster she went-and she was by then of a mind to go as fast as she possibly could because doing so would make it more difficult for the Eye to spot her-the harder it would be for her to keep track of the filaments.

She did not see that she had a choice. Pushing her casting to the limits, she fairly flew through the opal-casting lens until she had come to the Abbey of Orbit Bone. The milk-white granite walls had been built at the base of Little Rushing, the waterfall that fed Three Fish River. Cloaked in eternal mist, dewy with moisture, its blank walls rose ahead of her as if in greeting. But when she pierced the exterior she found the abbey filled with the plucked-clean skeletons of the faithful. They sat or lay in positions of ordinary life, as if death had overtaken them in the blink of an eye, which, she supposed, it had. The dust of what had once been skeletons tended the overgrown garden, lay beside the abbey bell, knelt in postures of prayer. Others, small-leyna surely-were crumpled in rows, along with shards of blackened wood, in cla.s.srooms where they had been studying when the end came.

All at once, she looked up and saw the Eye of Ajbal rising over the parapets like a livid sun, and she raced away into the mist, into the mountains, anywhere to rid herself of the danger. But the images from Orbit Bone followed her, mocking in their utter despair. It was one thing to learn about the dissolution of a world, a way of life, but it was something else again to confront it face-to-face. She felt desolate, and once again she beseeched the Great G.o.ddess, begging her for another sign, some further rea.s.surance that one day soon the tide would turn, that the old ways, the sacred days would return. But this time she heard nothing but the awful, stifling silence that infested Orbit Bone.In her utter despair, she almost forgot about the last abbey on her list. It was the one she was least certain about, the one at the bottom, where the page was most damaged, the lettering most eaten away.

The Abbey of Summit Window. That was her last hope. And she turned the lens to the west, toward the high, spiked tors of the Djenn Marre, toward the Great Rift and beyond, just to the north, Kunlung Mountain. As always, the mountain was almost entirely obscured by the perpetual ice storms that raged in the Unknown Territories. At first, when she had pieced together the master list, she had been certain that she had made some mistake, for what would a Ramahan abbey be doing in such a remote and inhospitable climate? But then, as she checked and rechecked her translations, she had had to accept the fact that there could be no mistake. Summit Window was perched high on the north face of Kunlung, overlooking the Unknown Territories, though what could be seen or even surmised through the blinding storms she was at a loss to say.

Reaching the Great Rift, she lost the last of the filaments behind her and entered fully into the ice storm that filled the rift with an eerie and desolate howling. Not a bird could be seen, not an animal trudged across the trackless wastes. It was clear that no living thing could survive there.

Despite her research, she approached the mountain with a good deal of skepticism. Kunlung was an anomaly, for where the bare jagged rock could be seen through the layers of snow, permafrost, and ice, it was a uniform jet-black. Not a speck of silicate, not a vein of iron or limestone or calcite marred the perfect ebon hue. And there was something else, stranger perhaps even than the stultifying ma.s.s of its color. The rock was smooth as gla.s.s. How on Kundala could anything be built on such a surface?

And then, as she came around the western shoulder of Kunlung, she saw it. At first, she thought she was looking at another sheer wall of ice and rock, but then she spotted a fortresslike crenellation, then another and another. Moving the lens in closer, she spied behind the cre-nellations a walkway wide enough for perhaps two Ramahan to stand back to back. It was entirely free of crystallized snow and, with a surge of elation, she felt the spell that kept it clear.

Nearer Summit Window, she could see that the crenellations were not the only aspect that made the abbey seem more like a fortress. For one thing, its walls were ma.s.sive, thicker on the bottom than on the top, a certain sign that its battlements were heavily reinforced. For another, it featured narrow, almost slitlike windows. They could, of course, be a response to the violently inclement weather; but combined with the other features, such as an inner wall and a central keep, it was clear that the abbey had been constructed to repel even the most persistent siege. In what era had it been built, Konara Inggres wondered, and for what purpose? It looked ancient, far older even than Floating White, which had long been acknowledged as the oldest of the abbeys.

Her entire mind itching with curiosity, she moved the lens even closer, but when she came abreast of the jutting crenellations, she was brought up short. The lens of the opal irised inward and the colors that swirled through the spectrum of its body were held in stasis.

Konara Inggres heard a voice in the center of her mind.

You fool! What have you done? You have led them to us1.

The p.r.i.c.kling at the nape of her neck caused Konara Inggres to turn and, looking up, she saw through a rent in the clouds of ice and snow the fiery red slit of the Eye, turning this way and that. The fresh spurt of filaments it was sending out filled the sky, melting ice crystals and snowflakes alike into rain that froze as it slanted down, turning into an a.s.sault of hail that rattled against ice walls and disfigured virgin ice fields.

No.' she cried. It's me they want. It's me they are searching for.

She backed furiously away from the sorcerous screen. Freeing the opal-casting lens, she plunged through it, withdrawing from Kunlung Mountain, from the Great Rift, from the breathless heights of the Djenn Marre.

But to her terror, she saw that the Eye of Ajbal came with her. Had it seen the Abbey of Summit Window? She prayed to Miina that it had not. And she prayed to Miina for deliverance, for just then the first of the filaments touched her shoulder. She squirmed away, right into the path of another. She gasped inwardly as another half dozen filaments wrapped around her. Immediately, she felt the dreadful tug in her mind and knew that whoever controlled the Eye had cast Sphere of Binding. She felt like a fish caught ona hook who was now being slowly reeled in to be gaffed and gutted. The first connections of the potent spell were plugging into her memory synapses, the better to read her mind, discover her strengths, weaknesses, her purpose. Even as she conjured up Arms Crossed, a defensive spell, she could feel the cold, slithery thoughts of the ent.i.ty behind the Eye.

Her gorge rose and caught in her throat as the Sphere of Binding shattered her own spell. She cast Wall of Hope, an Osoru spell that she had learned on her own. But either she conjured it improperly or it, too, was rendered impotent by the Eye of Ajbal, which had now drawn closer, its fiery iris opened wide, its orange pupil fully dilated.

A hateful cacophony of thoughts filled Konara Inggres to overflowing. She wanted to scream, wanted to rend her flesh from her bones, anything to escape the madness that was centimeter by centimeter swallowing her whole.

17

Word to the Wise

They sat eating the qwawd Majja had caught and skinned. It was a large bird, and there was plenty to eat. Nevertheless, it was an altogether unpalatable meal. Because of the a.s.sumed proximity of the Khagggun, they were unwilling to light a fire. Raw qwawd meat was no bargain even for famished adventurers such as these four.

There was, however, much to celebrate, as Ba.s.se was recovering at a miraculous rate. His fever was down, and his breathing was deep and even. Majja, who had thanked Minnum and Giyan profusely, had bathed his head and shoulders with water Minnum had brought from a nearby stream. Once having oriented himself around the mushroom sea, he had mapped out the immediate area in impressive detail.

They managed to get the raw slippery meat down with copious mouthfuls of the cold, clear water.

When they were done, Giyan held up the cor-hide pouch.

"I found it down there." Marethyn went over to the death pit whose slotlike opening looked in the gloom like the maw of a gigantic beast. She turned on her lumane, played the beam around the interior. "I counted just over thirty Ramahan."

"I want to go down there," Giyan said.

Minnum shook his head. "Lady-?"

"It's all right. I need to see it for myself. I need to feel the evil that killed them." She turned to Marethyn. "Will you be my searchlight?"

By that time, of course, Marethyn had introduced herself, but not by her full name. No matter. Giyan knew who she was from the time Kurgan had been her son Annon's best friend. At first, she had a.s.sumed she was Majja's prisoner, but it did not take her long to intuit the truth. And if it astonished her to discover that the regent's sister was an active member of the Resistance, she did not show it. All the same, it gave her a degree of pleasure.

"Of course I will," Marethyn said.

"Keep a sharp lookout," Giyan said to Minnum, before turning and descending down the makeshift ladder.

The pit was a charnel house. She walked slowly and carefully, moving through the evidence of ma.s.s murder with all her senses at full alert. She noticed, as Marethyn did, how many of the Ramahan had turned on one another, but there were two questions she asked that Marethyn lacked the knowledge to ask. The first was what had caused them to fall upon each other. The second was who had given them the weapons to commit these atrocities.

It was difficult to ignore the horror all around her, but she knew that for the moment she needed to hold her feelings in abeyance while she allowed her rational mind to make sense of the slaughter.

Directing Marethyn, she crouched down and looked into their eyes and ears, she pried open jaws and studied the roofs of their mouths, the insides of their cheeks, their tongues. She repeated this meticulous process until she had examined all thirty-four corpses. Fully a third were so badly mutilated or so encrusted with blood that whatever evidence might once have been there had been obliterated. Still, she did not skip a single one, and it was well that she was so methodical for as she rolled over one of the bloodiest corpses she discovered something beneath it. It was no more than twenty centimeters in length and though entirely covered in blood and gore, she could tell it was carved, could see its outline begin to appear as she cleaned it off. Her heart skipped a beat.

Nearly breathless, she returned to the ladder and climbed out of the pit. She washed the thing she had found and even before all the details appeared she knew what it was: an idol. An idol of the same curious male-female deity, in fact, that Minnum had discovered at Za Hara-at. When she showed it to him, heconfirmed that it was, indeed, the same deity.

"What does this mean?" Minnum asked. "That the same mysterious folk who were at Za Hara-at centuries ago are responsible for this slaughter?"

"The Ramahan were infected somehow," she said, her blood running cold. "Possibly in a stew that was fed to them or a tea brewed for them."

"The Dark League," Minnum said.

"One would think so." Giyan was staring at the androgynous face of the idol. "An odd thing, though-all their eyes were the same."

Minnum c.o.c.ked his head. "All of them?"

"Every one. Their irises were so black they merged with the pupil." She looked at him. "Sound familiar, my sauromician? You tell me."

Minnum frowned. "On the face of it-"

"Here." She unwrapped a small cloth. "I took sc.r.a.pings from their tongues and ears. We have to be certain the sauromicians were responsible. How long will you need?"

"Perhaps an hour. I am going to have to cover every possibility, and some of the tests are quite complicated."

"Anything you need that you do not have?"

"You must be joking." He laughed and opened his jerkin, the underside of which was a warren of tiny pockets and gusseted pouches. His hairy paws swept the air. "Besides, this is the forest. In the unlikely event I am lacking a reagent, I will find what I require right here."

He took the cloth in his cupped palm and went off by himself to do his sorcerous testing.

Majja was sitting cross-legged, with Ba.s.se's head in her lap, wiping the last of the sweat off him. The purple swelling around his wound was gone, and he was sleeping deeply and peacefully. Within moments, her head went down on her chest, and she began to nod off.

Giyan and Marethyn crouched over the remains of the qwawd. The night had a velvety quality, a deepness and a certain l.u.s.ter, as if the lichen and the mushrooms possessed a slight phosph.o.r.escence.

The effect was pleasing, and it was possible to forget the nearby presence of prowling Khagggun packs, if only for a few moments.

Marethyn stretched. "So you are Giyan." She settled herself with her back against the rough trunk of a Marre pine, wrists on knees she had drawn up. "The Giyan, mistress of the Ashera?"

"I have seen you several times." Glimmerings of moonslight tracing across Giyan's cheeks like silver snowflakes. "Kurgan spoke of you occasionally."

"Not flatteringly, I imagine."

"Kurgan was always very angry inside."

Marethyn said, "Don't you hate him?"

Giyan knew that was not quite the question Marethyn was asking. Don't you hate the Stogggul?

was more like it. "Of what use would hatred be?" she said.

Marethyn appeared to consider this a.s.sessment for some time. "Do you know the name Raan Tallus?"

"Of course. He was the Ashera family solicitor-Bashkir. When Eleusis became regent much of his time was taken up with the affairs of all Kundala, and he began to give more power over the family's affairs to Raan Tallus."

"I am curious." Marethyn c.o.c.ked her head. "What did you think of him?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Now Raan Tallus is running the Ashera business as if he were the Ashera heir himself."

"That is most unfortunate," Giyan said. "I told Eleusis that Raan Tallus had ambitions far beyond his caste, that it could make him dangerous, under certain circ.u.mstances a potential enemy. All Eleusis responded to was his expertise."

"Which made Eleusis' life as regent that much easier."

"Yes. Exactly. Raan Tallus knew how to make himself indispensable to Eleusis. In any event, by that time, Eleusis was already captivated by Kundalan myth and lore. That was my doing, so I have to take much of the responsibility for Raan's rise to power."Marethyn laughed a little.

"Have I missed something?" Giyan asked.

"No, it's just that I was thinking, if we were male we would be enemies, we would be choosing weapons and mapping out plans to kill each other."

They heard movement in the darkness, and the focus of their attention shifted. Minnum was making his way toward them through the underbrush.

"I have completed my tests," he said as he hunkered down beside them.

"And?" Giyan arched an eyebrow.

"It is not what I expected." He sighed. "It is most curious. The substance you sc.r.a.ped off the dead Ramahan was used to drive them mad. They killed each other in a frenzy of paranoia."

"Sounds very sauromician," Giyan said.

"And yet it's not." Minnum looked at her. "I swear I checked and double-checked, and I can a.s.sure you that this is a by-product of no psychotropic the Dark League uses or is even aware of."

"What is it, then?"

"I cannot be certain, but I think I can make an educated guess," he said. "When I spent time in the Korrush I happened to overhear two Jeni Cerii talking about a compound they had traded for. We were in a tavern, and it was very noisy, but I distinctly heard them say that it was incredibly potent, dangerous even. They had it spread out between them, and when they were gone, I slipped over and managed to sc.r.a.pe up several grains that remained.

"I ran tests on it and found that the information they had been given was correct. This substance was different from any psychotropic you or we used. It had an entirely different chemical makeup. It was very volatile and frighteningly potent."

"What was it?" Marethyn asked.

"It took some doing, but I did find out," Minnum said. "It is called oqeyya, and it is a well-guarded secret of the Sarakkon."

"The Sarakkon!" Giyan exclaimed. "What would sailors be doing in the great steppe of the Korrush?"

Minnum scratched at his beard. "Better to ask, Lady, what they are doing here."

Leyytey was fuming. "What do you mean he doesn't trust me?" "Isn't what I said." Fleet-Admiral Pnin laced his fingers together.

"That stupid, arrogant-1 How dare he!"

"For the love of N'Luuura, daughter, why won't you listen."

"It was what he implied. You said Sornnn felt I still loved Teww Dacce."

"In this he is correct. Your hearts have never let go of Dacce."

Leyytey looked into the fulminating core of her ion forge. Her cheeks were flushed but not from its heat. "I have agreed to help you. I will help you. Whatever I feel about Teww Dacce is irrelevant."

"Is it?" Pnin performed a deep scan of the shadows in her atelier. It was late, and they were alone, he had made certain of that; but instincts never died. "You need to think this through all the way to the end.