Sister Secula’s only answer was a soft laugh.
She let them down quickly, and no sooner had they touched the stone floor than came from above a chorus of howls, like damned souls, and the faint smell of sulfur.
Then silence.
In the darkness, Anne suddenly felt stronger. “Austra, take my hand,” she said.
“It’s too dark,” Austra protested. “We’ll fall in a chasm, or trip.”
“Just trust me and take my hand. You heard the mestra. I know the way.”
Men’s voices floated down from above.
“You hear that? They know we’re here.”
“Yes,” Austra said. “Yes, let’s go.”
Fingers gripped together, the two girls started out into the dark.
10
The Sounding
Long before Stephen entered the clearing, Desmond saw him, of course. Stephen had known he would. The monk stopped his incantation, and a sardonic smile spread across his face.
“Lewes, Owlic,” he said. “On your guard. The holter will be near. He’s a dangerous man, if he killed Topan and Aligern.” He smiled a little more broadly. “You couldn’t have had much of a hand in killing them, could you, Brother Stephen?”
“No, you’re right there,” Stephen said cheerfully. He crossed his arms and tried to look nonchalant.
Desmond cocked his head at the tone, then shrugged. “You’ve gone mad, I take it. That’s to your advantage, considering what I’m going to do to you.”
“You’re wrong about the holter, though,” Stephen went on. “He killed Topan and Aligern, but Topan gave him a mortal wound. I’m going to have to kill you by myself.”
“That’s fine,” Spendlove said. “You can do that in a moment. In the meantime, make yourself comfortable—sit if you wish. I’ve a small task to finish before I take up your case.” He looked at Lewes and Owlic. “He’s probably lying about the holter. Stay alert.” He turned back to the girl.
“You don’t have to repeat all of that rigmarole, you know,” Stephen confided. “The sedos doesn’t care if you say anything or not.”
Desmond scowled. “Perhaps not. The dark saints, however, care a great deal.”
“The dark saints are dead,” Stephen said. “You’re showing your ignorance, chanting like some Watau wonderman. The sedoi are the remains of their puissance, their old tracks of power. The potence is there, but it’s insentient.” He switched his tone to one he might use with a small child. “That means it can’t hear you,” he said.
Desmond tried on another smile, but it seemed strained. “You’re talking about things of which you know nothing,” he said.
Stephen laughed. “That’s good, coming from a thickwit like you. What don’t I understand? You’re making changelings. You just sent Brother Seigeriek’s soul off to steal a body, and now you’re sending Ashern to do the same. Knights in the queen’s guard, perhaps? Is that a lock of hair I see around Brother Ashern’s neck? A personal item is needed to find the body, yes?”
“Lewes, shut him up until I’m done,” Desmond grunted. He held up an admonishing finger. “Don’t kill him, though.”
The hulking monk started toward Stephen.
“You’re the ones who don’t understand what you’re doing,” Stephen said. “Your knowledge is less than complete, and more superstition than anything else. That’s why you needed me. You still do.”
“Oh, and you’re ready to help us now?” Spendlove said. “I doubt that, somehow.”
“Call off Lewes,” Stephen said. “Call him off, or I’ll use this.” He brought the horn from his haversack, the one the holter had carried from the Mountains of the Hare to d’Ef.
Desmond’s eyes pinched to slits.
“Hold off, Lewes,” Spendlove said. He stepped a little away from the girl, holding his empty hands out so as to make clear he was not threatening her. “Where did you get that?”
“You should have spent a little more time in the scriftorium and a little less time buggering corpses,” Stephen told him. “Do you know what this is? I think you do.”
“Something you ought not to have. Something you won’t have for long.”
“I don’t need it for long. Only for an instant.”
Desmond shook his head. “You can’t think I’m that stupid. The ritual involved—”
“Is as meaningless as the one you’re gibbering now. Any sedos can unlock the power in the horn. Any lips can blow it. And look here, we have both.”
“If you really know what you have, you know better than to use it,” Desmond said. “Calling him won’t help you.”
“You’re afraid to name him? I’m not. The Briar King. The horned lord. The Nettle-man. And the thing about calling him, you know, is that I really don’t know what will happen, and neither do you. He might kill us all, though the Codex Khwrn claims that the holder of the horn won’t be harmed. A chance I’m willing to take, that, considering how by your own admission, you’ve some nasty things planned for me.” He raised the horn, wondering if there really was any such scrift as the Codex Khwrn.
“Stop,” Desmond said, a note of desperation in his voice. “Wait a moment.”
“You’re so partial to the dark saints, yet you don’t want to meet one?”
“Not him. Not yet.” He cocked his head. “You don’t know everything, Brother Stephen. Not by half. If you wake him now—if you call him out of his wood before we’ve finished the preparations—you’ll have more blood on your hands than I ever dreamed of.”
Stephen shrugged. “Let’s not wake him, then.”
Desmond’s voice took on a bargaining tone. “What do you want?” he asked.
“The girl. Let her go.”
“You know this slut?”
“I’ve never laid eyes on her before. But I won’t watch you kill her. Let her go, and let the two of us walk away.”
“Where’s the holter?”
“I told you. He’s dead.”
Spendlove shook his head. “He probably went after Fend. They’re old friends, those two.”
Lewes was only a few yards away, tensing as if to spring.
Stephen raised the horn almost to his lips and waggled a warning finger at the giant.
Brother Ashern, standing bare-chested on the sedos, cleared his throat.
“Seigereik has probably opened the gate by now,” he said. “There may be no need for me to go.”
Desmond laughed bitterly. “You always were a coward at heart, Brother Ashern. You’ve the most important task of all. You’re to kill the queen, if the others fail. She’ll trust you.”
“If he blows that horn, I won’t be killing any queen,” Brother Ashern said defensively. “Seigereik has the gates open by now, and Fend and his men will be inside soon. It’s a ride of less than half a bell, even in the dark. They’ll get the queen, sure enough.”
“We don’t even know it’s the real thing,” Lewes growled. “It could be a cow horn he picked up someplace.”
“Or it could be I’ve been traveling with the holter who saw the Briar King, who went into his very demesne. Surely Fend told you about that. That was what Fend was after in the first place—the horn. Do you think he found it?” This was all guesswork, of course, but Stephen saw from their faces he had caught the sparrow.
Lewes was edging closer.
“No, Lewes,” Spendlove said. “He’s right, and so is Brother Ashern. Soon the queen and all of her daughters will be dead; the holter can’t kill Fend and all of his men by himself. The deed is accomplished. We’ve no need to kill this little whore.” He produced a knife from his belt, one that glittered with actinic light. “I’m going to cut her loose.”
Stephen pressed the horn to his lips, a tacit warning.
He hadn’t counted on how fast Spendlove could move. The knife was suddenly a blur in the air, and then a shearing pain in Stephen’s arm. He gasped.
He gasped, and the world filled with sound.
Stephen had never intended to blow the horn, of course, nor did he really believe it would do anything if he did. He’d been counting on Spendlove’s superstitious belief in the dark saints.