"How soon will Toren be ready, assuming he agrees to the mission?" the king asked.
"Janna will give him his final test in three days. By the time you have rejoined Prince Val and your subjects, my messenger will have caught up with you with the news."
Keron sighed. Not the end of the game, but perhaps the conclusion of endless preparations. In a few weeks, successful candidate or not, the campaign would begin. Keron's shoulders drooped.
"Do you have more questions of me?" Struth asked after a silence.
"Not now," Keron said. "Perhaps I will think of more later today. A request, however. I would like to see my ancestors."
"Certainly." Struth's giant eyes blinked, and suddenly a narrow doorway appeared in the wall behind Keron. The king turned and without a word strode across the threshold.
The doorway opened out into a sepulcher. The cerulean tones of the werelight shifted to emerald. The greenish glow reflected off two sarcophagi in the center of the chamber. Pale fungus streaked the stone surface of the coffins. A body lay in each, visible through transparent vartham covers.
Embalming and the sorceries within the sarcophagi preserved the corpses in an almost lifelike state. Only a waxy stiffness in the skin betrayed that they were dead, not merely asleep. On the left rested a woman. She was slender, short, girlishly figured, attired in an exquisite satin gown. A thick sprawl of jet black hair pillowed her head. The first crinkle of age showed in the corners of her closed eyes and the creases of her lips. The wilting of a flower, Keron thought. By rights the body should have resembled that of a crone, since she had died of old age.
In the other coffin lay a short, spare man. His hair matched his companion's, except for a dusting of white at both temples. Again, only slight signs of age marred otherwise youthful features. Plush silk upholstery lined both sarcophagi, cradling the occupants in finery as rich as their garments, beds fit for the highest royalty.
Both resembled Keron as if they were his parents.
The king tried to swallow, but his parched throat refused. He had had the same reaction the first time that he had viewed these remains of Alemar Dragonslayer and his sister Miranda. The latter particularly affected him, since he could not help but recall the phantom of her he had seen at her oracle in Firsthold, when she had told him of the existence of the talismans of Setan, and he had sent his twin children to the Eastern Deserts in search of them. She had seemed so alive then.
How much easier his burden would be now, had the sorcerers been able to cheat time another millennium. How long had they lived? Seven centuries at least, before the years bore them down at last and they hid here, with Struth, where Gloroc could not find their bodies and violate their repose as he had that of the line of Elandri kings housed in the royal crypts in Firsthold. Alemar the Great could have taken up the gauntlets and defeated Gloroc upon his first appearance, before the Dragon could conquer as much as one city.
Keron sighed bitterly. "You left it all to me, you bilge drinkers." Me and my children and cousins, all exiles now, clinging to a desperate hope. We didn't even know where this sepulcher lay until three years ago.
The king reached out and set his hand on the lid of the Dragonslayer's coffin. "Better for us all if you had never taken a wife," he murmured.
But the wizard had. And from the son of that union had ultimately come dozens of branches of descendants, though the attrition of the war had devastated the current generation. At least, Keron thought, your greatest ally survives in this temple.
The king of Elandris turned and stalked back out. He felt the need to spend a few quiet hours with Obo, before his old friend likewise passed out of human ken.
XXIV
THREE DAYS AFTER Keron's visit, Janna summoned Toren to her chamber. "Time to decide," she declared. "Struth and I have done what we could to train you. We'll teach you no more unless you agree to help us kill Gloroc. Will you do so, or will you leave for home?"
Toren paced back and forth, staring out at the crustaceans and kelp "outside" the dome. He took a deep breath. "Yes. I will wear the gauntlets, if I can."
The high priestess nodded, losing none of her solemnity. "Then it is time for one more test." She strolled back to the table between her divans, where a kettle of water heated above a small brazier. "Only one candidate before you reached this point. I must warn you that this test killed her."
"I know. Deena told me."
Janna folded her hands. "It was unintentional, of course. The spell is both powerful and delicate. When I sensed that she was failing, I tried to halt it, but I was too late. The same may happen with you. If Struth and I were convinced that you would fail, we would not have you attempt it. But we have reason to think you will overcome."
Toren continued pacing. "Then let's be done with it." His mind filled with thoughts of Rhi, and then with thoughts of Deena.
Janna blew out the brazier flame and sprinkled tea leaves into the steaming water. The liquid darkened. She let it steep for the count of five, then she hurriedly poured two cups, as if the timing were critical. She handed one to Toren. "Drink this when I tell you. It will be as hot as you can stand it, but you must get it down quickly."
A pungent fragrance smote his nostrils. "What is this called?"
"The Tea of Dreams. A bit like the potion you took when Obo taught you the High Speech, or when your shaman created your totem, but its effects are more short-lived. It will last just long enough for the test."
"You have to drink it as well?"
"Yes. That's one of the reasons I couldn't save the former candidate. To push you to your limit, I must tread a fine line of equilibrium myself. There is danger for me as well as you."
The porcelain warmed in his hands. Finally she gestured. He followed her example and drank the tea by sucking it in very quickly, letting the indrawn air cool it. His tongue and cheeks tingled from the heat, and from the spicy flavor.
Janna moved the table from between the divans and they sat across from each other in their customary arrangement: knees touching knees, left hands clasped. Their gazes locked. Gradually the background noises grew unusually loud. Toren's pulse murmured in his temples. A faint echo of ocean currents beat at the walls. A whale sang somewhere in the distance. Janna's pupils became black pools, drawing him within.
He heard a sudden buzz, followed by the by-now-familiar sensation of being elsewhere. The high priestess's dome vanished. He waited to be taken to whatever place she intended, but no visions came. Blackness surrounded him, neither warm nor cold. The only sound was a rhythmic beat, like that of his heart.
The place was old.
He couldn't say how he knew this when he didn't even know where he was, or how a dark, featureless location could have an age to begin with, but he felt the centuries weigh down upon him. Weariness took him. There was nothing interesting here. He wanted only to sleep, only to shut off his awareness.
No.
Alarm overwhelmed him. He tried to break through the dark walls, and they squeezed more tightly. He started to inhale, but a veil coated his face, smothering him. He tried to retreat, but there was nowhere to go. He had no limbs, he had no eyes. He was caught like a gnat in honey.
Sleep, said a voice. Be mine. I am your one and only true guide.
An inner conviction told him he had to break free now, or not at all. But his limbs refused to move, and the direction out of the blackness eluded him. He desperately stanched waves of panic and screamed, "Geim! Stop her!"
He had last seen Geim helping repair the mortar around one of the pools in the garden. Toren despaired. There was no time for his fellow Vanihr to run here from the site. Toren saw pinpoints of light flicker chaotically in front of his eyes. The veil of suffocation clenched more tightly. Oblivion reached up for him. Not enough time…