“Six days have passed since you were taken.” Voushanti’s harsh intrusion grated on my spirit. “His Highness was made captive that same night. I returned to Renna only two days since.”
I spun to Saverian. “Only six! How could that be right?”
“Picus explained that it is not the days themselves, but the spending of human life that slows seven for one in Aeginea,” she said, with only vague attention. “Though time itself is fluid there, as we saw, the years pass side by side in the two planes, the sun’s passage marking the season’s change at the same hour.”
Saverian fell back into her own silence, distracted far beyond the matter of dirt and dishevelment and exhaustion. Her eyes flicked now and then toward Voushanti. But I accepted her word. Osriel had said something much the same.
Only six days…Perhaps we had a little time to work after all. “We’ve yet a fortnight until the solstice,” I said. “When is the anniversary of Eodward’s coronation? Has it passed? The prince was supposed to send to Bayard on that day to confirm their agreement.”
“The anniversary is three days hence,” said Brother Victor. “Mistress Saverian, did you say Picus?” She didn’t look up.
“A small, fast force might be able to intercept the priestess between the monkhouse and Palinur,” Voushanti broke in, his mailed bulk seeming to grow and fill the door. “One word and I can have the prince’s elite guard riding.”
“You will do nothing without my leave, Mardane,” said Elene harshly. “Renna is the gateway to Evanore. I’ll not leave it defenseless. As Prince Osriel’s appointed castellan, I command you stay here until Thane Boedec and Thanea Zurina arrive.”
“You cannot travel, Mardane,” said Saverian. “You know it.”
Voushanti folded his massive arms across his chest and looked away. I blinked, rubbed my own arms, and reached for better control of my wayward senses, for it seemed, just for a moment, that the edges of his flesh rippled like the surface of a wheat field. Though none acknowledged her comment, everyone looked as if a foul odor had wafted through the chamber.
“Sila Diaglou has several days’ head start and can call up remounts and reinforcements throughout Ardra,” I said, impatient with their secrets. “She’s likely back at Fortress Torvo already. We’ll have to take the prince from her there.”
My vow to preserve the lighthouse demanded Osriel’s rescue, no matter my grievances with him. And my vow to Jullian demanded my participation, for I could rely on no one else to protect him.
Brother Victor tapped his walking stick on the floor idly. “We would need to be sure Osriel and Stearc are inside the fortress. We’ve heard that Palinur is in confusion. Perhaps we could send in a small party, shielded with enchantment. Strike quickly.”
Elene’s head popped up. “You could locate them, right, Valen? Your magic…”
“Of course…yes.” I knew Jullian and Osriel well enough that I could locate them if I had a clue where to start.
Yet a direct assault on their prison was out of the question; the ancient fortress where Luviar had bled out his life sat in the heart of Palinur. And negotiations of any kind could allow Sila Diaglou to discover the prize that lay in her hand. Our plan must use stealth. Something unexpected…
“As for getting inside the fortress…” A fearful, horrid idea began to take shape in my head. “There’s a possibility I could do that, as well. Max has negotiated this solstice bargain between Bayard and Sila. If I were to go to Max…find out the terms agreed to…make sure they’ve no inkling of the prince’s situation, I could likely get inside.” As long as the priestess still wanted me. Getting four of us out would be another problem, unless my Danae skills could suffice.
Saverian threw off her blanket abruptly and kicked her hearth stool aside. “Your health is unstable, Valen. Someone should go with you.”
“No choice,” I said, shaking my head. “I can get to Max. But without a lot of awkward explanations, none of you would be admitted into the place I’ll have to meet him. Once we’ve spoken, I’ll return here, and we’ll decide how to proceed. Unless someone has a better idea?”
I expected at least Voushanti to argue, but he merely stared at me, his hand caressing his battered sword hilt.
Elene looked bewildered. “But your brother is in Palinur with Bayard! That’s weeks of traveling! We can’t afford—”
“Our sorcerer has acquired new skills, lady,” said the physician.
Brother Victor glanced between Saverian and me. “What’s happened to you, Brother Valen? There’s something very different about you tonight.”
“Perhaps Saverian could tell you some of it tomorrow, Brother. Just now…” Somehow deciding a course of action had released my weariness to settle on my shoulders like the gods’ yoke. And I would need all the wits I could muster where I was going. “I don’t know about the ladies, but I can’t promise one more sensible word until I find a bed. Mardane, if you could…”
“Excuse me, good Saverian,” said Brother Victor, insistently, “did you say Picus?”
Voushanti, with as much curiosity as I had ever seen on his scarred visage, motioned me toward a side passage and a stair. When he showed me a small tower chamber, I almost wept at the sight of the plump pillows and folded blankets piled on a bed. Dané or not, world’s end or not, walls or not, I had to sleep. “Four hours or morning, Mardane, whichever comes later.”
Voushanti jerked his head and left. I drifted off still piecing together the puzzle of the Canon, the Danae, the Harrowers, the world’s end—why had I not asked Kol about the damnable weather?
The ancient wall embedded in crumbling earth…pebbles and mud washed down to the road at its base, crusted and frozen in this early morning. A gentle rightward curve…dawn smells of roasting meat, of baking bread, of damp earth…And around the next corner the sound of dribbling water—here melting ice dripping into the cistern, there the font that never froze or dried. Scrawny trees grew sidewise from the bank, branches heavy with snow drooping over the road…in my face…tickling, scratching, freezing…the smell of burning from the lower city…
I walked around the corner, and in less time than it took to think it, the narrow alley that squeezed between Renna’s kitchens and an ancient fortification built into an Evanori mountainside led me straight into the narrow lane in Palinur, more than two hundred quellae distant. The stare of an Evanori guardsman, flummoxed at the sight of an oddly naked man in the kitchen alley, now came from a ragged woman using water from the Aingerou’s Font to wash vomit off her boy child.
The boy pointed at me and cried out weakly, “Mama, look! He’s on fire…an angel…”
“Not so!” I whispered, embarrassed. “Sorry! Shhh!” But the lad’s thready cry bounced through the lane like a child’s ball, from one hushed voice to the next, for a beggars’ city jammed the lane that ought to have been deserted.
In the past, this favored quarter of Palinur had escaped the untidy truths of hard living. Evidently that was no longer the case. A few small fires smoldered here and there among makeshift tents and crude lean-tos, built from branches cut from the overhanging trees. Fortunately most of the crowd still slept.
I jogged down the crowded roadway, jumping over pools of filth, bundled possessions, and sprawled bodies, then dived over the low wall into a crusted snowbank and scrambled well away from the lane. Thanks to half a night’s rest and enough roast venison and jam tarts to breakfast a legion of halfbreed Danae, the cold did not bother me. All the same, best not dawdle. Fine houses, like those around here, would have pureblood guards and magical wards. Staying hidden in the straggling shrubbery, I donned my silk and satin finery.
Elene had somehow managed to get my pureblood cloak and mask cleaned by the time Voushanti woke me that morning. She had brought them herself, along with her thanks for my venture. “We all knew you were extraordinary, Valen, even when you were playing monk,” she’d said, touching the gards on my hand. When I inquired about her health, her courage came near breaking. “He doesn’t know,” she’d whispered, crossing her arms on her breast. “He could die this very day, not knowing of his child.”