Az said, “See how the Fire seeks him?”
Raj Ahten had imagined that the sorcerers moved the flames. Now he watched them curl toward him in awe.
Chespot reassured Raj Ahten. “The Earth Powers withdraw from you. But not all who walk upon the face of the Earth need its sustenance. You have served our master well in the past. The forests of Aven are ash now, at your command. If you feel ill, if you continue to fade, my master will serve you. Step into the fire, and let it burn the dross from you. Give yourself to it, and it will sustain you.”
Naked desire showed in the flameweaver’s face, as if he had craved this moment for years.
The flames of the bonfire crept out further, as if hungrily licking the snow.
Raj Ahten lurched away, stared at his right hand. It did feel better where the flames had touched him—as if he had applied a salve.
Binnesman had warned Raj Ahten that he was under the sway of flame-weavers. It was true that they used him for their own ends, just as he used them.
In abject horror, Raj Ahten realized that a choice lay before him. He could continue as he was, wasting away until not even his endowments could save him. Or he could step into the fire and lose his humanity, become one of the flameweavers.
He staggered backward, retreated from the campfire out into the snow-field.
Feykaald and his Days got up and made as if to follow, but Raj Ahten waved them off. He wanted to be alone. His heart was racing.
Rahjim warned, “The fire beckons. It may not always do so.”
Raj Ahten turned and jogged for several minutes, then stopped on a switchback and stood panting. He studied the road in the valleys below. It twisted among trees and a few miles ahead was lost beneath a thin blanket of clouds. Beyond, darkness reigned over the great desert.
A shadow flitted above the woods, an owl on the hunt. He followed it with his eyes until it winged into the stars. To the northeast, a few mountains loomed like islands of sand in a sea of mist. It was a beautiful sight.
The starlight struck the snow-covered ground around him. Trees were black streaks against the snow, the wan light draining all color from them.
Like a face drained of blood, he thought. All of his thoughts revolved around death. He closed his gritty eyes, blinking back the image of Saffira crushed on the battlefield of Carris, blood trickling down her forehead and from her nose.
She is dead, yet I live on.
He clenched his teeth, resolved not to mourn. But he could not turn aside his thoughts. She’d ridden down this road yesterday. With his endowments of scent, he could discern a trace of her jasmine perfume in the air, could smell the sweat of her horse. Saffira had died for her courage and compassion.
Saffira had died. Better if it had been Gaborn.
“Why?” Raj Ah ten whispered to the Earth. “You could have chosen me to be your king. Why not me?”
He listened, not because he expected an answer, but by habit. Wind sighed through the forests below. Nearby, mice rustled beneath a crust of snow in dry mountain grasses; the sound would have been inaudible to any other. Nothing more.
Raj Ahten had been raised on tales of men who had cheated death. Hassan the Headless was a king who’d lived eighty years ago, and had taken a hundred and fourteen endowments of stamina. In a battle, his enemy decapitated him. But just as a frog will live on after its head is removed, so did Hassan.
Hassan’s body crawled about and even wrote a message in the sand, begging for a merciful death. But his enemy mocked him and put the undead corpse into a cage. Raj Ahten’s mother said that Hassan had escaped, and at night on the desert one could still hear his fingers scratching in the sand as Hassan the Headless lurched about, seeking revenge.
It was a tale to horrify children.
But Raj Ahten had studied the matter, knew the full tale. Hassan had only lost part of his head—from the roof of the mouth up. His body had lived because part of the lower brain remained attached. So Hassan had survived for three weeks, tormented by hunger and thirst, until he burst with maggots.
Raj Ahten had performed a similar experiment with a highly endowed assassin named Sir Rober of Clythe. Raj Ahten felt convinced that his own endowments could keep him alive far longer than most would suspect.
Now a terrible choice lay before him, but in the end he feared he might not have any choice.
Raj Ahten clutched his fists. Blood raced through his veins. He vowed, “Gaborn, the Earth will be mine.”
As Raj Ahten opened his eyes, downhill in the trees he spotted a silvery sheen that only his eyes could have detected—the color of heat from a living body. A moment of squinting revealed two huge bucks, antlers locked. One was already dead, worn from combat. But the living animal could not disengage.
It happened sometimes in the fall. The big bucks would fight, and their antlers would tangle hopelessly, leaving both animals locked in a death grip.
Even the victor looked only half alive.
I do not have to choose now, Raj Ahten told himself. I do not have to step into the fire and give away my humanity. Hassan had a small fraction of the stamina that I do.
From the misty canyons below, an Imperial stallion came galloping up the road. Raj Ahten studied the rider with keen eyes. A desert boy of nine or ten rode the huge mount, weaving from fatigue. He was dressed in a white burnoose, dark cape, and had his head wrapped in a turban. A message case was tied to the pommel of his saddle. The glint of gold embossing identified it as an Imperial message case. Raj Ahten knew that he bore ill tidings.
He stalked back to the fire, beneath the hovering spy balloon.
The boy whipped his horse as he neared. The stallion eyed the graak-shaped balloon, eyes rolling in terror. It danced about, thrusting its ears backward and flaring its nostrils. The beast was wet with sweat. Its breath came hard.
“O Great Light!” the boy cried when he recognized Raj Ahten. “Yesterday at dawn, reavers took the blood-metal mines in Kartish! The very Lord of the Underworld led them.”
Feykaald gasped. “If the attack was like the one in Carris...”
Raj Ahten had never fully comprehended how dangerous a reaver horde could be. His perfect memory replayed images of the fell mage crouched on Bone Hill, her citrine staff pulsing with light, issuing her incantations through scents while her minions huddled nearby. Her curses had blasted every living plant, had blinded and deafened his troops, had wrung the water from men’s flesh.
The reavers in Kartish could do untold damage. The destruction of crops alone would lead to famines throughout all of Indhopal.
“Everyone went to battle,” the boy panted, “except your servants at the Palace of Canaries in Om. They’re taking your Dedicates north. They sent me—”
“You say the Lord of the Underworld led them?”
“Yes,” the boy said, eyes growing wide and panicked. “A fell mage, very big. No one has ever heard of her like.”
Of course, Raj Ahten realized. The reavers would have sent their best troops to Indhopal. It was more populous than Rofehavan, more powerful. Only their most fearsome lord would have dared come against him.
Raj Ahten’s course was decided. His people needed him desperately.
He yanked the boy from the horse, leapt onto its back. “Follow me as you can,” Raj Ahten shouted at the flameweavers.
Feykaald looked up at him for orders. Raj Ahten thought swiftly. He felt ill, as if his very soul were waning. He needed to be strong. “Go back to Carris,” he commanded. “Find out what the Earth King has done with my forcibles. I’ll need them.”
“He will not trust me,” Feykaald objected.
“He will if he believes that you are there against my will,” Raj Ahten said. He pulled out the gold message case, tossed it to Feykaald. “Tell him of the reavers in Kartish. Tell him that the Lord of the Underworld leads them. Say that you came to beg him to come to the aid of Indhopal.”