The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Will you abandon him to death after he saved the life of my granddaughter?”

“Nay. He can be our messenger to Anne. He can still serve us, and in serving us may serve himself….”

The wind’s moan tore away the rest of Marcus’ words. Sister Meriam had called him a brave man.

It was better to die bravely than to live with shame.

It was better to die, but he lay there not precisely in pain but unable to move or see, with his skin on fire and yet not really hurting. He lay there and felt the sun rise, although the touch of light hurt him. They shaded him with a lean-to of cloth, and he lay in that shade while Meriam coaxed a bit of honeyed water down his throat, but the smell of honey nauseated him. That stench of honey-carrion that pervaded the monster welled up in his memory, in his throat, and he threw it all back up.

Elene sat beside him, staring at him with solemn eyes. “I didn’t look at him,” she said to her grandmother. “I thought him beneath my notice. How strange that God should act through such a common, ugly, dirty man.”

“Even a cringing dog can bite, Elene. Look more closely at humankind. The outer seeming may not mirror the inner heart.”

“I know! I know!” said the girl impatiently, as though she had heard this lecture a hundred times before. “That isn’t what I meant! He just didn’t seem to matter.”

“Neither did the mouse spared by the prisoner, who later gnawed through her ropes and thereby freed her.”

The shade drew a line across the girl’s tunic as she smoothed it down over her knees; she had her head in the sun and her legs in the shadow. “I’m afraid, Grandmother. I don’t want to go into the wilderness. You don’t know what we’ll find on the other side of the gateway. What if there are monsters there, too?”

“We must be strong, Elene. We have been given a task. I alone can speak the language of those who bide in the desert country, so I must go. So be it.”

“So be it,” she breathed, bowing her head.

“Gah,” he whispered, but the sound vanished in the trickling tumble of grains of sand down the sloped cloth lean-to as a wind blew up from the flats.

His body was ice, his thoughts sluggish. Somehow, the lean-to came down and he was rolled onto a length of cloth and dragged over the bumpy ground to be dropped again, left lying with a rock digging into the small of his back.

There he lay. A haze descended, and for a while he heard faint sounds, none of them distinct enough to identify. A drop of moisture wet his palm. Through the haze the sun shone as it sank low into the west, but its glare had the force of ice, creeping into his limbs.

He drifted. It was getting harder and harder to see people; they seemed so tenuous and insubstantial set against the pale hills and the darkening sky, which were older creatures by far, populated by ancient spirits that stalked the shadows. Light winked in the heavens; a star bloomed. Figures moved outside the circle, raising and lowering staffs and murmuring words too softly for him to hear or understand.

A spider’s thread spun down from the heavens to latch to one of the stones, followed by a second. His heart sped as he realized they were engaged in the art of the mathematici, who could read the movements of the heavens and discern their secrets. Years ago Kansi-a-lari had woven a spell into the stones while he cowered and prayed, but she had woven it with the intent to keep them in one place while time moved forward around them. Marcus wove a gateway into the stones through which Meriam and Elene and their retinue might travel to a distant land.

The stone circles were gateways, each one a gate that could lead to any one of the others, but he did not know how to weave the spell. He wanted to know how to weave the spell. He tried to lift his head, to look, to learn, but none of his limbs moved and that waxing torpor dragged him down, and down, and down into the pit. A shadow bent over him; hands pinned parchment to his robes; the cloth on which he lay strained and tugged around his body and he moved into the web of light. Blind, he floated while all around blue fire burned with a cold breath that soaked him to the bone.

It is so cold that it burns. He sees branching corridors and down each one a vision, whether false or true he cannot say.

A man, grimy, thin, half naked, walks and walks as a rumbling wheel rolls around and around him, never ending.

Wizened creatures whisper and skulk in the depths of the earth, listening.

A merman glides through smoky waters, pulled by the wake of a slender ship.

A small party of robed figures strides hastily through the blue-white fog. Is there a familiar face among them? Isn’t that the Eagle called Hanna, who was freed from slavery to Bulkezu? She turns as if hearing his thoughts and calls aloud.

“Who are you?”

Light flared, and died, and he hit hard ground, his back and head and hips jarred by the force of the impact. That flare of the light washed away until no light remained. Was it night? Or was he blind?

He could no longer move his lips. But he could still hear.

“Who is this?”

“See, there is a message pinned to his robes with a fine brooch. Ai, God! He stinks!”

“Feh! So he does!”

“This is signed with the name of Brother Marcus. Here is the man who dragged the filthy one. He has the look of a servant.”