There were, after all, the mysterious memories of Greyt's manor that crept into his mind.
There was something eerily familiar about this building he had avoided studiously for the last fifteen years, lest his thirst for revenge get the better of him. That wall hanging there, that end table… The layout of the corridors, the design of the carpet… Walker could have sworn he could say where each and every door led, as though…
Even as he ran through the halls of his greatest enemy, Walker felt the cruel sensation of coming home.
"Empty as the darkness," he said under his breath, washing his mind of the memories. With the words, Walker pushed the painful, bittersweet sensation out of his mind, much as one would ignore a moment of deja vu. It was difficult, but he did it.
Then he heard cruel laughter from ahead and knew his destination: Greyt's study.
After running a hand through his black curls, Meris took his time wiping the blade with a kerchief from his pocket. Then he slid the shatterspike back into its scabbard and dropped the bloody cloth on his father's corpse. Absently picking at the blood spatters on his white leather armor, he paused to consider the fallen man. Greyt's face knew an almost peaceful expression, but there was sadness there also-a duality of emotion.
By contrast, Meris felt nothing.
That only made him smile.
His smile faded as the lithe Talthaliel stepped out of the air next to Greyt's body. Meris dropped his hands to his weapons.
The black-robed diviner ignored him entirely. Talthaliel knelt over the Lord Singer's body.
"I am to assume that Walker has been dealt with, then?" snapped Meris. "Did you kill the wretch? Where is Bilgren?"
"Yes, no, and dead," Talthaliel replied absently.
"What? Make sense, elf!" shouted Meris. "You were my father's slave, and he's dead, so you are mine now! Speak!"
Talthaliel looked at him with an expression Meris might have called amusement. He pulled an amber amulet from Greyt's dead hand and admired it.
"I serve no man," said the seer, "unless he holds this."
Meris looked at the amber without comprehension. Then he thought he saw a tiny gleam. "And what is that, your life-force? Your soul, or whatever you rat-faced elves have instead?"
"My daughter," said Talthaliel. He stood, and Meris watched as the amulet vanished into his robes. "But to answer your question, the Spirit of Vengeance has been defeated, once, but I have not slain him. He comes for you even now, and I do not have to see the future to know the violence he will bring."
"You fish-skinned, tree-kissing, elf bastard," growled Meris. "You get back there and-"
Talthaliel vanished as though he had never been.
Meris's frown deepened. Walker? Coming here?
Then it seemed obvious. The fool was trying to rescue Arya. Meris could ambush Walker and rid himself of the ghost at last-the shatterspike should do the trick.
First things first, though.
"Guard!" he called.
The door opened and one of the Greyt family rangers looked in. From his face, he did not find the carnage surprising,
"Too many liabilities," Meris said. "See that that wench Venkyr and the others have accidents in their cells. Immediately. When they are dead, post six men there. I want anyone who comes looking for them killed just as quickly, no matter who it is." The man nodded, then Meris continued. "And gather all the other rangers in the courtyard. I am coming soon."
"As you command, Lord Greyt-Wayfarer," the scout said. Then he disappeared out the door. Out in the hallway, Meris could hear voices as the two guards left.
"Lord Greyt-Wayfarer," murmured the scout. He enjoyed the sound of that.
After a moment, Meris bent over Greyt's body and seized the left hand. The gold wolf's head ring-the Greyt family crest-sparkled from the fourth finger. Meris wrenched it free, let Greyt's arm fall with a satisfying thump, and slid it on. It was too big.
"Once, I would have given anything to have your name," said Meris. He cradled his father's head in his hands. "I would have done anything to be worthy-anything to make you love me."
Then he dropped the head and rose, drawing away from the corpse. When he had gained his feet again, he slipped the ring off and admired it.
"It seems, however, that all I had to do for your name," said Meris, "was kill you."
He turned and started for the door.
But it was only to stop. He had noticed something new about the ring-something he had not seen before. Meris squinted to see. There was tiny lettering on the inside, elegant letters scripted in Elvish.
" 'It is easier to destroy than to create,'" he read aloud. He touched his stubbly chin as though in thought. "Stupid sentiment. Why create when others will do it for you?"
With a derisive laugh that echoed through the halls, Meris walked away from the corpse of his father, toward the door. As he opened the door, he slipped the ring on. Then he stepped out.
Lancing from the shadows, a blade bit through the white leather and into his stomach.
In the darkness of her prison cell, Arya could see a light approaching down the dungeon corridor, and a feeling of foreboding hit her such as she had never known before. So the great and mighty Lord Greyt had finally ordered her murdered. She would almost welcome death to free her of the pain of watching Walker die, of sending her dearest friends to their deaths, and of knowing that such a twisted lunatic as the Lord Singer was soon to be the most vaunted hero in the land.
Almost.
The knightly oaths that bound her, however, would not allow Arya to give up. Even if it was hopeless-even if everything else was gone-at least she could try.
She swore. This perverted peace, even if Greyt brought it about, would inevitably fail. The Lord Singer was no friend of Alustriel or the Silver Marches. The rebellion of Quaervarr would bring war-innocents would suffer and die for nothing, all so his mad heroism could hold true, a version of heroism he himself admitted to be false!
Burning with resolve, Arya strained at her bonds, her mind racing to formulate an escape plan. She tried to call for Bars and Derst, but the two slept soundly across the way, and her gag allowed only muffled grunts. Arya knew she was alone. Perhaps, if the guards were to come close, she could trip one and get her manacles around a throat…
But then she heard startled gasps from down the hall and the light vanished. Straining her eyes, Arya looked out but could see only darkness. Everything was silent and absolutely still. She could not be sure why, but she felt that a battle was going on, albeit a short one, though she could not hear the screams of either men or steel.
"Illynthas, shara'tem," came a whisper, and a light the size of a torch flame gleamed into existence inside her cell, a man's length from her.
It was an eerie, blue-green light that shone from a crystal high overhead. Arya looked up at it, then allowed her eyes to slide down, along a long staff of black wood, down to a thin hand that held it aloft. That hand extended from black robes that swathed a gaunt figure, a figure with glowing green eyes that seemed to bore into Arya's very soul.
The dark figure made a little gesture, but it was not an attack. Her bonds crumbled and fell away, passing into nothingness before they touched the floor. Arya blinked in disbelief.
"I offer freedom, Nightingale," said the mage. "And a warning: you are his only hope."
Arya's brow furrowed. "What? What do you mean? Who are you?" she asked.
"Someone who is doing what he should have done long ago," the mage replied. He extended his hand as though to help her up.
Still wary, Arya took that hand and, with the mage's help, got to her feet.