Queen's Hunt Part 28

In that moment, the sun dropped toward the horizon. The golden plains turned dark red in its dying light. Blood touched the cliff face and the rocks behind her. "This is too much," she murmured.

"We've not begun to explore excess," Rikha answered. He snuffed the ground and with his forepaw indicated a depression where dust had collected. "That spot."

Valara touched the soft red dust. She saw no footprints at first, then realized the prints were as red as the ground. Scarlet for eternity, she thought. Dzavek's prints, she noted, were the silver gray of twilight. She dug into the dust with her fingers, tasted the salt of old tears and the metallic edge of panic. She heard s.n.a.t.c.hes of voices she recognized-Dzavek and herself arguing loudly. Both called out words of magic. Valara felt a sharp stab and plucked back her hand. Immediately, the voices cut off.

Future and past together. It was almost too unnerving to continue.

Rikha sniffed at the ground. "The tracks lead on."

"Then we do as well."

It was a trail in opposite directions, a looping path across rivers and lakes, over bare hills and thickly forested plains. Two sets of prints-one laid down by Imre Benacka, one by Leos Dzavek. Several times the prints disappeared beneath landslides, or lay submerged where rivers had changed their course. She could see where Dzavek had broken off his search, only to return again and again. Rikha himself, a creature of Autrevelye, had to circle around with his nose in the dirt until he found the trail once more.

Rana's hiding place lay underneath a waterfall, hidden behind a cascade of water and mist. Wind and rain and water had smoothed the dirt; only a shallow pit remained where Dzavek had dug up the ruby behind the waterfall. Crossing back and forth over the area, Valara found her tracks leading onward, backward. Handprints covered the branches and higher rocks; footprints dotted those leading across the frothing water.

"You tried to disguise your trail," Rikha said. "You knew someone would follow you."

Memory returned, much stronger. Oh yes, she remembered that day. On the farther bank, she had climbed down the rocks from the next plateau. Valara followed, gripping the same rocks, hearing, as though her own self were just ahead, the uneven gasps as she eased herself down the sheer cliff. Above, the land stretched into a wide and even plain. Here the prints were s.p.a.ced farther apart, as though she had come in this direction running as fast as possible, leaping ahead of pursuing danger. Valara ran the same path backward, matching leap for leap, each one longer and longer, until ...

The tracks disappeared.

Valara cried out in shock and fell to her knees. Rikha hurried to her side. His muzzle wrinkled in surprise. "Where next?"

Where indeed? She pressed her palm over the last footprint. Fear and urgency vibrated from its essence. The signs were clear. She'd run headlong over the packed dirt. But from where?

She rocked back on her heels, willing herself to remember that terrifying day. Dzavek in pursuit. The sapphire clutched in her (his) sweat-slick hands. The knowledge that he had to break the trail, except that footprints and handprints in Vnejek were not so easily hidden. He had to make a true break, to leap from the magical plane into the ordinary world and back, to an entirely different point. Only then could he escape Leos Dzavek.

I remember now. I leaped into nothing. I dared him to follow me. He never could, my brother. He always wanted a sure victory.

It was a gamble she could not refuse, could not resist.

"Follow me," she said to Rikha, "if you can."

Without waiting for his reply, she launched herself into a run, each stride lengthening into the next, each leap coming higher, until she took that last measured stride and, calling aloud to the G.o.ds, vaulted into the unknown.

Dimension vanished. Darkness. Nothingness. No direction. Falling. Dying. Living.

A brilliant ribbon of light arced before her. Pale footprints dotted that ribbon, each one an impossible distance from the next. All around the wind hurtled past, the sky was an inky void, and she had nothing to guide her but a thin path and her own footsteps.

Step. Leap. Fly. And live.

The ribbon ended, and she tumbled through the centuries onto a desolate plain, where she lay gasping for breath.

Body. I still have my body. I'm alive.

She tried to scramble to her feet, but her knees gave way, and she collapsed into an aching heap. A dark red streak landed next to her. Rikha rolled onto his feet. "The trail continues," he said. She tried to stand a second time and failed. Rikha merely nudged her with his nose. "Do not bother with walking. Time for you to ride."

With his a.s.sistance, she crawled onto his back and clung to his neck. "Go," she croaked.

A clear order. And this time Rikha obeyed.

He galloped forward, her weight as nothing to him. The tracks led them to a narrow valley, where the high gray walls shut out the sun. Here the footsteps circled a bare patch of dirt. Valara could see two deep indentations. She dropped off Rikha's back and dug into the hard ground, not caring how her nails broke or her fingers bled. Rikha pushed her aside and scratched at the packed mound, breaking it apart, while Valara scooped out handfuls. In her hurry, she nearly missed the small dark speck, the size of her thumbnail, which was half-buried in the loose heaps of dirt.

Asha.

Valara carefully extracted the sapphire and cupped it in her hands. Its color was much darker than she had imagined-a blue so deep it looked black, but when she touched it, indigo fire sparked at her fingertips, the lights echoing a complex melody of bright pure notes.

With Asha, I could free my kingdom and hold it safe against the world.

Briefly she saw herself at the head of an army. Her heart leapt up. Just as quickly the image faded and she heard Ilse Zhalina's voice saying, We must make the right choice this time.

Valara tore off a strip from her s.h.i.+rt and wrapped Asha securely within it. She would not lose this jewel again, even if Dzavek chased her through all Autrevelye. After tucking the bundle inside her s.h.i.+rt, she climbed onto Rikha's back. "Let us go."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

IN ALL THE old texts, scholars spoke of the instant of translation, as if magic transported the body into the magical plane in an eyeblink. Like so much else, the phrase was poetical but not accurate. Ilse plainly saw Valara's body s.h.i.+mmering in the air a long moment before the woman vanished from sight. Even then, whether by some trick of sight or expectation, the ghost of her figure remained, outlined in wreaths of mist and fog.

On impulse, Ilse reached toward the spot where Valara had sat. A wayward puff of air broke the illusion apart. She stopped, exhaled. Suppressed the urge to follow Valara into the void. The other woman was right. Ilse would only prove a burden and distraction. Better that she remain here to safeguard the emerald.

She glanced down at the ring in her hand. Again its weight surprised her and its surface felt unnaturally warm. Daya, Valara called it. A living creature, one who hoped, just as she did. A memory floated up from another life. She had held this jewel, or something like it, in her hands. She had relinquished it to another person. Out of duty? Relief that it would no longer be her responsibility? She couldn't remember precisely, only an old sense of regret that she had done so.

With some trepidation, she slipped the ring onto her finger.

One more day. Less, if she could believe Valara's claims. Ilse herself had no such confidence. She would have to start work now to a.s.sure her own survival.

She checked her sword and her daggers. Both were in good condition, though she would need to clean her sword and its sheath. There were gra.s.ses on the plains, low trees, and patches of snow. She could wipe down the blade, cut switches to clean out the sheath.

First, however, she decided to make a circuit of the Agnau itself. She did not want any surprises. Any more surprises, she reminded herself. The past five months had been filled with nothing but the unexpected.

The Agnau measured several miles in circ.u.mference. Its sh.o.r.es remained low and smooth, covered with the same black sand she found at the entrance. Once a few hundred yards beyond the Mantharah's entrance, however, the cliffs rippled inward then outward, like folds in a cloth, nearly to the edge of the lake, so that she had to edge carefully between them and the seething magical substance of the lake. From time to time, she knelt and sifted through the hot black sands, thinking that she would find more clues to her past, or the world's, but she found nothing. These were as barren as these cliffs stretching upward to the sky. And yet, a millennium or more ago, life had poured out in a season of love and life.

You and your beloved Toc have loved beyond life and death, Tanja Duhr once wrote. You have loved beyond the imaginable. And so we poor humans cannot imagine and so must stumble through our lives, more blind than Blind Toc, more alive to grief than Lir herself.

She needed barely an hour to finish the circuit.

One hour. And you have not returned.

But their agreement was for an entire day.

Ilse wanted to shout, to send her spirit soaring into the void after Valara's. An unprofitable venture, she decided.

After carefully scanning the plains with sight and magic, she ventured down the slopes and scouted the immediate area. The wind had died away, and the afternoon was fair and chill, the sky a hard gray. She found ice and snow packed into crannies and fissures around the base of the cliffs. The snow was old, granular, but clean enough to drink. If she had to, she could strain the water through her s.h.i.+rt. She packed her helmet full. A flicker of movement caught her eye-a hare or other small animal darting through the gra.s.s. That reminded her. She could braid the gra.s.s into snares, as Galena had taught her on their journey from Osterling.

At the thought of Galena, her eyes stung with tears. She swiped them away, angrily. I must not mourn her too soon-none of them-or else I won't be able to carry onward.

Onward. Yes.

She gathered an armful of gra.s.ses and returned to the Agnau. She stowed these in a shallow bay with an overhang, a few yards in from the entrance. Sheltered from snow or rain, warmed by the lake, it would make a perfect sleeping spot.

Another expedition yielded a small quant.i.ty of pine twigs and peat, cut from the earth with her dagger. She also discovered wild oats growing in a gully. Farther on, a patch of plantain. The leaves were tough, but they would make a drinkable tea. Her two prizes were a hollow stone that could serve as a cook pot, and a block of frozen snow for water.

It took her several trips to carry everything back to camp. She drank off her water and built a fire. Scrubbed the cook stone clean with snow, and set the plantain leaves to simmer. The oats she spread over a flat stone next to the fire. By the time she finished the sun had reached the midpoint in the sky. Exhausted, she sank to the ground and took up a fistful of gra.s.s to scour her sword, but the effort proved too much. She leaned back against the cliff wall and stared upward.

Noon. Valara had crossed into the magical plane at least two hours ago. She should have returned with the sapphire before now. Valara had spoken with absolute certainty of her ability to do just that.

She misjudged the time, Ilse told herself. But she will return with the jewel. Then we shall make our next plans.

Without thinking, she rubbed the wooden ring. Magic ran beneath its smooth surface, reminding her that Daya was no man-made thing, but a being created by the G.o.ds. Ilse closed her eyes and focused on the point between the ordinary and the magical planes. Yes, she could hear its voice, a silvery stream of minor notes, like the wind keening through the rigging of a swift-moving s.h.i.+p.

You told Leos Dzavek where to find us, she said. You stopped his brother from running free to Morenniou. Why?

For several moments, she heard nothing but a faint humming, then, Because he, because she, they lied. They would keep us bound. And she learns too fast this brother-sister-cousin. She remembers her magic. She would know as he does, as the brother does, how to bind me stronger.

Its voice blurred into music again, as it spoke about the centuries in Anderswar, hidden. Working through plans, though its nature was not given to such. Absorbing magic. Thinking that if it had one chance, it would break from its prison. But not alone. Ilse heard three strong chords, followed by a long, long note that vibrated through her bones.

You must deliver us, Daya said at last.

I know, Ilse whispered. I promise.

She rested her head on her hands. The ring felt heavy on her finger. The strong green scent of magic filled the air, the sweet fragrance of wildflowers and new gra.s.s, an impossible contradiction to the frozen plains outside the Mantharah's walls.

Death and rebirth. The eternal contradiction of magic.

She thought about a world without the threat of war. Removing the jewels would not accomplish that-she was not so foolish to think so-but it would make the wars much harder to carry through. Would Valara see that? She might tell herself that she only wished to defend Morenniou, but like Armand, like Dzavek, she might soon persuade herself to a different, more murderous course. Was that why she had not yet returned?

If I took the ruby, then I could bargain with her.

She rubbed her aching eyes with her knuckles. The fire had died away. The oats were as roasted as they would be. She chewed a few handfuls, drank the lukewarm tea to wet her throat, and felt the headache recede. The winds were rising again, a thin high keening. Snow hissed against the Mantharah's walls, only to vanish into melt.w.a.ter.

Running just beneath the windsong, she heard Daya speaking again. Go in spirit. Go through the world of flesh in spirit with me. We shall take Rana. We shall make the leap into Anderswar and back to here, to the Agnau. Then you shall have two of us, and Valara Baussay has no choice but to follow.

She remembered now. The oldest mages, the ones who served the chieftans of Erythandra in the northern plains, before they moved south to conquer and make an empire. It was part of their initiation, to walk in the spirit but remain in the ordinary world. There were no written records, of course, but the old tribes had handed down the stories, priest to priest, until those stories reached the days when scribes set them to parchment. If she left her body here by the Agnau, her spirit could glide the miles to Zalinenka, unseen by guards. She and Daya could take Rana and escape through Anderswar and thence back to Agnau.

Flesh in the spirit. And spirit in the world of flesh.

A sense of vertigo swept over her, recalling her first time in Anderswar and that disembodied sensation, as if she were floating in an ocean of mist.

A return to ordinary ch.o.r.es restored her sense of place. She buried the fire. Laid out her sword and dagger in their sheaths. Then she lay down on the warm sands and clasped her hands over Daya. "Komen mir, lazen mir," she whispered. "Lir give me courage. Toc give me strength."

The current contracted around her, then blossomed outward. Her spirit rose to standing, her body s.h.i.+fting slightly as the two separated. She breathed deeply, felt the muted sensation of flesh against cloth-in-memory, and glanced around.

The world had turned translucent. Bright fires-other spirits-were moving about. Two bright sparks circled the opening between the cliffs-winter foxes on the hunt. From the south came a sense of many more. Rastov and Leos Dzavek's castle.

Ilse turned south, and began the journey to Zalinenka.

VALARA RETURNED TO find Ilse lying motionless next to the Mantharah's cliffs. Her eyes were closed, and her lips parted. In the Agnau's extraordinary light, it appeared as though the other woman were speaking. Right away, she noted that Ilse wore the ring on her left hand.

She thought I betrayed her. She went to Zalinenka. Alone.

Valara wasted no time in fury or second thoughts. With the sapphire clasped in one hand, she lay down next to Ilse and spoke the words to release her spirit from her flesh.

ILSE WALKED FOR hours across the plains, through a world painted in grays and black and muddy white. Her pa.s.sage left a glittering trail, visible to the spirit eye until she wiped its trace clean. In places, a companion set of tracks dented the snow crust. The tracks were slight, a powdery dusting of snow crystals swept over them; nevertheless, she took care to interrupt her trail on rock outcroppings, or by taking detours through an icy, free-running stream. Strange that her spirit communicated physical sensation to her. Habit or clue to some tenuous connection between body and soul?

As she walked, she thought of Valara. She thought of Raul Kosenmark. And Galena, Alesso, all those others from her past. If she did not succeed, she would be dead and beyond helping anyone, yet she continued this internal recitation of those in danger.

Hours pa.s.sed. The miles slipped away, impossibly fast. The sun arced toward the horizon, then dipped below. More hours pa.s.sed, as the last of daylight drained from the sky, leaving behind a scarlet thread of light above the southwest horizon. She sensed Rastov's bright constellation of souls and fixed on that direction. Soon she came to a narrow track cut into the ground. It led to a second, larger path, which joined a third to become a road leading south. Gradually the high flat plains began their long descent, dropping from the plateau toward a broad valley with a river winding through it. She saw at once the large city, its buildings a dark ma.s.s. On the nearer bank, at the northern edge of the city, stood a castle. Zalinenka.

Daya had remained silent throughout the long journey, but she felt its presence even stronger here, in this point between flesh and pure spirit. Now it spoke. You remember?

Ilse nodded. I lived there once. My name was Milada Ivet Darjalova. My father was a prince of Karovi.

Four hundred years ago, and yet the roads of time had led her back.

She went on, following the road as it looped down from the plains toward the castle. Sentries stood guard at various points; to her, their bodies appeared cloudy, their spirits like concentrated flames within a darker husk. Ilse forced herself to continue. She was spirit and not flesh, she reminded herself. They could not see her. As she pa.s.sed the first visible perimeter, one soldier did turn, his expression startled, as if he had sensed her presence, but no one spoke or tried to bar her way.

At last she came to a side gate into the castle grounds. The gates were closed, and six guards stood at attention, swathed in voluminous fur capes against the cold. More guards patrolled inside the courtyard.

Ilse cautiously explored the gate, taking care to stay clear of the sentries. She thought of herself as invisible, but that wasn't entirely true. Spirit alone would fly to Anderswar, and so she existed now as a distilled version of her complete self. Walls and closed doors blocked her, and though darkness obscured her footprints, it could not hide her actions completely. She waited until the old watch left their post, then followed them to another gate, where they gave a pa.s.sword. As they pa.s.sed through, Ilse hurried behind them.

Once inside, she wandered through a maze of halls. A wide set of stairs led her upward. She climbed them, and found herself standing in the castle's great hall. The room stood empty, draped in blue shadows, yet from this point, she could number every inhabitant of the castle, from scullions and lackeys, to courtiers and n.o.bles. The steady pulse of heartbeats sounded in her ears, and the presence of hundreds crowded against her skin. Running just below the surface was Rana's song.

The call drew her upward, and she climbed two flights up a broad curved stairway to another gallery. She pa.s.sed two cavernous rooms, then turned down a narrow corridor, past antique statues and fluted columns of snowy marble. No more servants appeared. No sentries or guards stood in attendance. Warnings nipped at her consciousness, but the ruby's song drew her onward, as if it were a magnet and she the metal filings. She came at last to a tall carved door, painted dark red, like a scarlet drop in Zalinenka's white infinity.

She glanced around. The corridor remained silent and deserted. She tested the latch. Unlocked. Her fingers sank into the metal, but not completely. She pushed harder, and the door swung open.

It was a large room, with a freshly laid fire. Scrolls and books filled the many tall shelves. A graceful desk stood by a window, and several chairs circled the fireplace with tables at their sides. By the largest chair stood a pedestal carved from a single block of marble. On it rested a small wooden box, its lid opened wide. Even before she saw the dark red gleam inside the box, Ilse knew from Rana's rising song that she had found the ruby.

Slowly she approached, hardly daring to breathe. Rana lay in a bed of white silk, its surface alight with magic. Its song beat against her thoughts, a complex pattern of dark and light notes. Her hand had just touched the ruby, when the door closed behind her.

"Andrej. You came back."

Ilse plucked her hand away. Her skin contracted, as if her spirit still inhabited a body. Keeping her movements slow and deliberate, she turned around.

Dzavek stood at the entrance to the room. The outline of his face wavered, and through his eyes, Ilse saw the pale stones of the castle walls. He'd left his body behind, just as she had, and spirits in the realm of flesh could sense more than any guard.

"Milada," he whispered.

His once-brilliant eyes widened. Age had clouded them, but it had not obscured the intelligence behind them. She remembered, from the distance of dreams and almost-forgotten days, how they had argued so pa.s.sionately about Karovi and its people, and whether the connection with the empire could be broken. She had not loved him-theirs was a marriage arranged by their fathers, both high-standing n.o.bles whose families traced their lineage back to the old kingdom, before Erythandra had absorbed Karovi into its domains. But she had always admired him.