“Then ply your forge," Brannoc said, “and you shall have your price.”

  "No!” Kedryn shouted. “Brannoc, I command you! We find some other way. ”

  “There is none other.” Brannoc turned to face Kedryn, speaking low, his tone urgent. “You know that well as I. Without stone and sword as one you may not defeat Ashar; may not save Wynett. This foul creature is the only one who may perform this task and he will not without his price.”

  “Still I forbid it,” Kedryn said.

  A ghost of his old smile flickered on Brannoc’s lips and he sheathed his saber to place his hands on Kedryn’s shoulders. “I am damned,” he said gently. “The succuba’s poison flows in my veins and makes me . . . what I become by night. I am a danger to you, and I have no wish to live as some were-creature, some monster that my friends must fear and bind by moon’s rise. That is no life, Kedryn. I would sooner end it, and in this way I am able to further your purpose.”

  Kedryn shook his head and Brannoc turned to Tepshen. ‘Tell him it is the only way, my friend,” he asked. “Do we refuse the price and we shall, as the smith says, die here. Uselessly.”

  Tepshen studied the half-breed with solemn eyes. He set a hand to Brannoc’s wrist, squeezing. “I have never doubted your courage, wolf’s-head, but this is more than courage.”

  “Do you say aye or nay to it?” Brannoc demanded.

  Sadness entered Tepshen’s gaze then and he nodded. “I say aye.”

  Again Kedryn said, “No!” and Brannoc embraced him.

  “It is the only way. I have no wish to live cursed, and thus may I aid you.”

  Abruptly he pushed Kedryn away and spun to face Taziel. Kedryn moved to draw him back, but Tepshen seized him and held him as the half-breed spoke again.

  “Forge stone to sword, smith. I accept your price.”

  He turned, snatching the glaive from Kedryn and tossed it to the monstrous creature.

  “Give him the talisman, Kedryn. In the name of the Lady I ask you to do it. For her sake grant me peace.”

  Kedryn shook his head, unable to speak, and Brannoc drew the stone from round his neck as Tepshen held him still. “Do it,” he cried, crossing the cavern’s floor to hand the talisman to Taziel.

  The trollish smith accepted the stone, eyeing Brannoc avidly.

  “First the sword,” the half-breed said, his voice harsh.

  Taziel ducked his misshapen head and turned to his forge. Kedryn struggled in Tepshen’s arms, weeping now, as the hilt of Drul’s glaive was plunged into the flames. Brannoc folded his arms across his chest, watching as the smith worked the death’s-head pommel loose from its embracing claws and heated the metal afresh. The fixings glowed red as he set the stone in place, tapping delicately with his hammer, securing them around the talisman. He surveyed his work, grunting in satisfaction, and blew upon the metal. It cooled under his breath and he passed the glaive to Brannoc.

  “It is done.”

  Brannoc hefted the sword a moment, then walked to where Tepshen held Kedryn.

  “Now use it well,” the half-breed said. “Let Ashar pay for the misery he inflicts.”

  Tepshen loosed his grip and Kedryn took the sword, staring at Brannoc. “Let us slay him,” he murmured. “Let us slay him and begone from here together.”

  Brannoc shook his head, smiling grimly. “That would be Ashar’s way,” he said. “The path you tread is more honest.”

  “The price is too high,” moaned Kedryn.

  Brannoc reached out his hands, clutching those of Kedryn and Tepshen. “We have come a long way together, we three, but now my road is ended. I choose it this way, friends, and I ask the Lady to bless us all. Walk in her light and use the sword well.”

  “Aye,” Kedryn whispered.

  Brannoc turned again to Taziel. “Let them begone, smith.”

  Taziel grunted acceptance and indicated the cave mouth. Tepshen set a hand to Kedryn’s arm and steered him past the leering creature. They reached the entrance and paused, looking back. Brannoc raised a hand in farewell, and for an instant his old grin returned.

  “Remember to tell this to the minstrels, my friends.”

  Tepshen nodded. Kedryn wiped at his eyes. “All the Kingdoms shall sing it,” he promised.

  “Go,” Brannoc urged.

  They turned away, moving into the fire-lit shadows of the passage. Kedryn shouldered the glaive, feeling in its hilt the faint vibration of the stone that now glowed blue at the pommel. It seemed lighter than before, but still his shoulders slumped beneath the weight. Faint behind he heard Brannoc say, “Now take your fee, smith. ” And heard Taziel’s foul chuckle, and the sound of a hammer striking bone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rycol studied the sun-washed expanse of timber spread below the ridge with an apprehension that etched deep lines on his weatherbeaten features and turned doubtful eyes to the blue-robed woman seated beneath the awning of the small tent.

  “Is this wise, Sister?” he asked, a hand wrapping about his sword’s hilt as if in anticipation of attack. “Is it sensible that Estrevan’s Paramount Sister venture so close to the Beltrevan?”

  Gerat smiled wearily, mopping at her brow, for even at this height the heat was intense, and said, “Did it not tax the powers of my Senders beyond limit I should go to Drul’s Mound itself, Chatelain. This is the only place to be.”

  Rycol grimaced at her placid imperturbability and eased the shoulder pieces of his leathern armor to a position less likely to chafe his broad shoulders as he glanced around the jut of stone overlooking the timberland. His men were all in place and alert. Archers stood with strung bows among the rocks; swordsmen squatted on the baking ground; above the main encampment and farther down the slope lookouts, each chosen for their keenness of eye, hunkered on watch. It was unlikely, with the summer Gatherings so close, that any woodlanders would wander so far south, and impossible that any sizable force should approach unnoticed, but even so he felt uneasy. He did not like it that Gerat had decided to venture forth from High Fort, even with a lull hundred in escort, and liked it less that the Paramount Sister insisted on camping out in the foothills of the Lozins. He had sufficient men that he could light a rearguard action to see her brought safely back should the unexpected happen and knew that in military terms she was safe, but there was something else, and it was a thing he did not like at all because he could not understand it.

  It was a feeling he had known only once before, when the Messenger brought the Horde against his fort, a feeling of impending doom that he could not express in words, but felt within the innermost core of his being. It was a sensation akin to the skin-prickling stillness preceding a summer storm, a feeling of power gathering, of incalculable forces massing in readiness. It threatened to render him irritable, for he felt the anticipation of battle but could see no enemy, and he turned again to Gerat, speaking less from need of explanation than the desire to fill the ominous silence with sound.

  “You are certain?”

  Gerat nodded, recognizing his unease. “I am certain, Rycol. One half of the talisman has been separated from its rightful owner. Which half I cannot say, but I can be certain it has fallen into Ashar’s hands. With half in his possession the god is mightily strengthened. Should he secure both . . .”

  Her words tailed off and Rycol was shocked to see the fear in her gray eyes. He said, “But if Kedryn has succeeded in melding sword and stone may he not slay the god?”

  “Aye,” Gerat nodded, “he may, the Lady willing. And so we must hope it is Wynett who has surrendered her half.”

  “Surely Wynett would not,” Rycol said.

  “Surely Wynett would not knowingly,” Gerat responded. “But Wynett was taken by Ashar’s creature and so we must presume her Ashar’s prisoner, and Ashar is a god of deception and betrayal. How can we know what deceits and snares he has set out to trick her? Mayhap he has deceived her into trust. We cannot know; only stand ready.”

  “And should it be Kedryn’s talisman?” asked Rycol.

  “Then the Chosen One is lost and the Kingdoms with him,” Gerat answered bluntly. “Only Kedryn may defeat Ashar, and if he has failed, this world we know is doomed.”

  Rycol grunted, swatting at a fly that buzzed about his sweating face. Gerat smiled wanly and said, “But were Kedryn fallen or deceived I think we should know it by now.”

  “How so?” Rycol demanded, staring at the trees, the foliage ethereal under the weight of the summer heat.

  “We have watched here three days,” said Gerat, “and it took us two to reach this place. I think Ashar would have struck against us ere now had he the power.”

  “Then think you he now seeks Kedryn’s half?” asked the chatelain.

  “Aye, I do. so,” Gerat confirmed. “I suspect he has deceived poor Wynett and now seeks to inveigle Kedryn. Mayhap with Wynett the bait in his trap.”

  Rycol fidgeted with his swordbelt as if he longed for some visible, mortal enemy to fight. “Should this be the case,” he said, “and Ashar so strengthened, were we not better placed behind the walls of High Fort?”

  Gerat shook her head. “Should Ashar prove victorious even your strong walls will be as nothing. Should he secure both halves of the talisman he will have no need of barbarian flesh to further his fell ambitions for he will no longer be bound by the gramaryes the Lady placed on these mountains—his might will be unimaginable.” She closed her eyes as though the thought was too painful to bear, then turned her calm gaze on Rycol. “Here I shall feel the advent of battle, and when it comes I shall be able to link my mind with that of Sister Jenille in High Fort, through her to all those other Senders waiting along the road to Estrevan, and thus to the Sacred City itself. There, the strongest of my Sisters await the challenge. When they hear my call they will bend their wills that I may breach the walls of limbo and send that holy strength into the netherworld to aid Kedryn. Thus may we counter Ashar’s augmented power.” “Will it be sufficient?” Rycol asked, his voice hushed.

  “I do not know,” Gerat answered him, honestly. “We can only pray to the Lady that it will.”

  Rycol felt sweat trickle down his back. The sun was hot on his face and his body seemed to seethe under the armor, but the sweat was cold. “If it is not?” he demanded.

  “Then likely I shall be destroyed,” said Gerat, her voice flat, “and all my Sisters with me. Likely Ashar will strike directly against Estrevan itself. And fill the city with corpses.”

  “It is a mighty gamble you take,” Rycol said quietly.

  “Aye,” said Gerat, “but it is one that must be taken. It is the only one.”

  Wynett’s scream choked into a horrified silence as she fought for breath and the strength of will to overcome the uncontrollable panic that threatened to rob her of reason. She felt madness beat against the walls of her mind and clenched her fists, driving nails against her palms as she gritted her teeth, hearing them clatter, feeling her body tremble with unalloyed horror, her heart thudding loud through the pounding pulse of blood in her ears. She was abruptly, weirdly, aware of her surroundings with a clarity of perception heightened by the terror that gripped her. The hall was filled with shifting shadows, the walls seeming to pulse with an impossible telluric life. The black throne swelled, becoming a vast, ornate seat on which horrid carven figures moved. The candles burned now not with honest yellow flame, but with lapping tongues the color of blood. It would have been a boon had they consequently revealed less, but it seemed they shed more light, as though come into their own as had the thing that capered before her.

  It was no longer Eyrik and had she been capable of such voluntary action she would have looked away in disgust, for the handsome human figure had become something obscene. She could not, however, remove her gaze. It seemed that her eyes were locked, hypnotized as is a rabbit by the lethal dance of a stoat, transfixed by the nightmare that cavorted in triumph before her. Goatish orbs gleamed with delight from a malformed skull, bald as bone, horned and fanged, thick lips, blubbery and raw, parting to display a snaking, forked tongue that probed salaciously toward her. Massive shoulders thick with orange hair supported manlike arms clad in gray, cracked skin from which pus oozed, ending in scaly hands, hooked talons extending from the fingers. The pulse of organs was visible beneath the leprous skin of the belly, and between bent legs covered in the same orange hair as the shoulders, ending in great black cloven hooves, a huge phallus thrust rampant.

  The talisman flared as if in protest, then dulled, its blue radiance overwhelmed by the blood-red glow of the candles as the creature placed it reverentially on the cup of the intricate device. Instantly gold filigree became scarlet, glittering crystal black, and the apparatus sang with a high-pitched keening, vibrating as it drew life from the stone and turned that puissance to foul, unholy purpose.

  Wynett took a step backward and the capering thing lunged toward her, a hand fastening about her wrist, dragging her back to stand within the circle of blood-flamed candles directly before the shuddering apparatus. The stench of old sweat and excrement was noisome in her nostrils and she gagged, choking bile. “Watch!” it ordered in a voice that boomed from the vaulted ceiling in a fetid gust, redolent of ordure and decayed flesh. “Observe my triumph.”

  She turned her head, but talons locked on her jaw, gouging her cheeks, and forced her to see as the apparatus glowed and melded, supporting limbs winding about one another, fusing, light coruscating in dazzling patterns of gold and crimson and sable, the blue of the talisman faint above. She gasped as the transformation ended and the creature laughed, reaching for the sword that now stood upright before the throne.

  It was a blade of epic proportions, tall and wide, glinting crimson, the fuller deep, quillons spreading in proximation of bull’s horns from a basket of weblike intricacy, black, the hilt dark and thick, ending in fascsimile of a spider, the legs wound tight about the talisman.

  The thing that Eyrik had become snatched the glaive in both hands and sprang to the foot of the throne, raising the sword high, swinging it in whistling circles about his homed head, saliva drooling from the pinguid lips, capering a pantomime of swordplay.

  “Is it not beautiful?” he roared, his forked tongue emerging to lick at the blade, lowering it to mb the crimson steel against the length of his phallus. “Am I not an artist?”

  Wynett stared, dumbstruck, close to madness, for she saw clearly the enormity of her mistake and could see no way to undo it. She might have welcomed death in that moment had a greater fear not overridden her terror: this thing was undoubtedly Ashar himself and he must intend to use the blade against Kedryn.

  And with that knowledge came a further revelation: Ashar must need the blade.

  She fought the despair that threatened to unhinge her sanity, fought panic and fear, willing that part of her mind still able to stand off from the nightmare unveiled before her to think rationally. If Ashar needed the glaive, then he could not overcome Kedryn unaided: even with the talisman in his hands he could not face Kedryn without this weapon. Did Kedryn then possess such strength that the god feared him? It must surely be so, and therefore an element of hope existed still. She rejected madness, clinging to faith. The sword jabbed toward her and she started back.

  “Do you not think it lovely?” Foul breath wafted over her. “Tell me, lest I test the edge on your soft flesh.”

  She nodded, eyeing the wavering point, needle-sharp. “Aye,” she said, “but why?”

  “Why?” Ashar lowered the blade, settling himself on the throne, a hand fondling his engorged member. “You dare to ask me why?”

  “What need have you of a sword?”

  She thought him likely to slay her then, for he leaned forward, yellow eyes blazing, his tongue lashing as though possessed of its own angry life. Then he laughed and gestured and the world shifted again. Abruptly it was once more Eyrik who lounged upon the basalt seat and that was a relief, even though it was no longer the courteous Eyrik, but a tall, prideful figure, in whose eyes arrogance shone. He settled his hands about the hilt, resting his chin on the stone. Wynett saw now that it still retained some small degree of its former blue life.

  “I believe,” he said in a tone of mocking amusement, “that mayhap I shall now tell you the truth.”

  Wynett licked lips dry with fear, fighting the urge to spit out the foul memory of his breath, and waited in silence.

  “Taws failed me and was duly punished,” he continued, his smile evil as he relived that memory. “But those he sent me furnished knowledge of your world. Hattim Sethiyan was one; your own father another. I have lived too long bound by the strictures of the one you worship and it is past time 1 came into my own, yet still she,” he spat die word, unwilling or, Wynett thought, unable to voice the Lady’s name, “thwarted me. She set her hand to establishing such gramaryes as rendered the Lozin wall insurmountable, and she paved the way for the creation of the Chosen One. Thanks to her the Horde was defeated; thanks to her were you and Kedryn able to defeat Taws. And yet your feeble human weakness showed me the path to victory.”

  “That bitch, for all the power she commands, is vulnerable in the love she has for your kind. She should not have allowed her creation to love you, for love is weakness. Had Estrevan not entrusted you both with the two parts of the talisman, I should not have had this chance.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head. Wynett said defiantly, “Estrevan gave the stones that Kedryn might regain his sight. Thus was he able to stand against your Messenger.”

  Ashar twisted his human lips in a cynical smile, dismissing her argument. “But thus did I learn of the talismans’ owners and so foment my design.”

  Wynett opened her mouth to speak again but he raised a hand and a fetid wind lashed about her, leeching the words from her mouth, replacing them with the stench of decay. For an instant his image flickered, becoming the goatish thing again, then a bloated spider that clacked mandibles in threat. Wynett bit back her protest and saw him resume human form.