Qanath made a face.
He glanced at her sidelong. “Am I allowed to ask why you dislike the man so much? He seems to be an admirable fellow and he’s captivated with your friend.”
“You know what Mahudar does,” she replied, and her voice with tight because it took effort to keep it level. “He used her powers to go snooping through Havec’s head without his knowledge or consent. If you can’t see why I find that reprehensible, I wish you’d said so before we were alone together.”
He didn’t have a response to that, and for a while they rode and didn’t speak, heading downslope to the east. They’d been traveling for no more than a quarter of an hour when the promised storm began. She glanced up into the sky unhappily, trying not to let her fears overwhelm her. Havec had told them it wasn’t too much further and he wouldn’t lie to her. Just a straight shot down this road and they would be back in the midst of civilization. What they would do when they got there remained in question, but at least they could get out of the cold.
The path they followed was at first a long, slow slope, wooded on either side, the hill it descended gradual enough that any distant view was cut off by the closest trees even directly ahead. It was a matter of minutes before the wind-driven snow had risen to such a fury that they could scarcely see, and their pace slowed to a crawl. Arandgwail climbed down from his master’s shoulder in order to help them keep to the trail, and he was back in the form of a man, shielding his eyes with one hand as he peered ahead. The sight of him walking along atop the snow without a coat was bizarre, but Qanath was too busy struggling forward against the elements to be impressed by anything other than this storm. The wind was so intense, the wailing of it, the way it seemed to press against her from multiple angles simultaneously, the endless whiteness of the snow. All of it contributed to a panicked sensation that she was being buried. The cold became little more than an afterthought to its ferocity.
The world narrowed down to a tiny bubble containing only Qanath and her horse. She willed it step by step to stay strong and steady, not to stumble, not to slip. If it hurt itself now, her companions would force her to abandon it and forge ahead, and probably neither of them would survive. She couldn’t lose her horse, Havec had given it to her. She wasn’t sure why that was meaningful; he had stolen it, and it wasn’t like the horse would have her back the way he did. But somehow, it had come to feel like the only thing that could protect her from being smothered by the storm, and she willed it Don’t slip, don’t slip. Even the man riding alongside her was of less importance. As if he were on the far side of the world, separated by an impossible gulf, she scarcely spared a thought for him.
At one point, an eddy in the ceaseless wind revealed that the trees had fallen back on the left. They were riding single-file, but she wasn’t certain why. The snow had already descended again in an impenetrable curtain and she couldn’t discern whether the land to the left was lacking in trees because it was an open, grass-filled glade, or whether there was no land and they were riding at the verge of a towering cliff. The wind sheered in from that direction, pushing them away from the emptiness rather than toward it, and Qanath paid it little mind. The next time she took her unblinking eyes from the path ahead, the trees had come back.
It didn’t seem to take hours: it took hours. When Ara appeared before her horse unexpectedly, she almost rode him down. The shyin was standing right in front of her, holding her weary horse by its bridle. The wind had dimmed from a wail to a moan, but she couldn’t hear him over it. Once he saw that she had stopped and was watching him, he released the horse and moved around to her knee so he could shout up to her: “We’re here!”
This news was shocking: she had known from the first that their destination wasn’t far, yet the journey had felt as though it would never, could never end. Picking her head up, she squinted through the snow, blowing a little less fiercely here, as she tried to make out details. She couldn’t see much through the skirling white that revealed her surroundings only in hints and winks, but she had the impression that there wasn’t much to see. Buildings loomed to either side, but they were small and unimpressive, fashioned from unpainted wood. She hadn’t felt the surface change beneath her horse’s hoofs, so the streets must not be paved. Havec had been concerned that they might be set upon by his people, but those few they encountered hurried past with heads bowed against the wind and didn’t spare a glance for them.
Havec’s uncle had been left behind to run things while his mother removed herself from what she had meant to become a battlefield; it followed that he would be found in the biggest, grandest building this miniscule hamlet had, it should be immediately apparent even to outsiders. They didn’t know where to look for it, though, and the storm limited visibility. They couldn’t see any of the buildings except the ones they were standing between, and there was no one around to ask. Ara proposed to scout for them, but the instant he turned himself into a bird and took to the wing, a gust sent him cartwheeling. That was that, and he perched as a mink on his master’s saddle while they combed laboriously street by street.
It took a further miserable eternity to find the place they were looking for, and now that Qanath was no longer terrified of being stranded in the wilderness buried in the snow, she became conscious of the cold. Her entire body ached with it, and her extremities had gone numb. Beneath her, she could feel the gray horse trembling.
When they turned a final corner to find their destination before them, both of them drew up short. Qanath wasn’t sure which of them was the first to stir. She was used to Havec helping her, and now her limbs shook with the cold and with the weakness that had arisen in the wake of her fear. She botched the dismount and staggered and sat down on her butt with a flump in the snow that was already deep as her knees. Her horse was between them, and by the time Amril had thought to wonder where she was and come look for her, she had regained her feet.
Together, they climbed through the deeper drifts disguising the risers of a short flight of stairs leading up to the imposing front door, banded in metal and emphatically closed. While Amril balled his coat up over one fist and pounded at the door, Qanath dug through her pockets, numb fingers fumbling against odds and ends they could barely feel. When a man came in answer to the knocking, she had the gold signet in hand.
“I need to speak to a man named Jonet,” she told the astonished Moritian soldier, who didn’t seem to know what to make of the pair of Tabbaqerans freezing to death on his stoop. “I have a message from your prince.”
The Sky Opens
The storm pursued them south for the remainder of the day, the snowfall steady, if nothing like so fierce as Havec had dreaded it would be. Farait had fashioned a little tent from a blanket that mostly shielded his face from the snow without smothering him, and his world was shrunk down to the length of gray fabric above, the sliver of white sky visible below, the forward horses’ hips, the tips of his own boots. He remained as useless as he had been since the instant he fell, and there was nothing to do but lie here and think. When he wasn’t worrying about the girl, he was thinking about Kebbal. He hadn’t known it could do something like this, and he had to wonder if anyone did.
The monster now inhabiting his father’s corpse had referred to Havec as a cage, but that just couldn’t be the case. If the only thing standing between Kebbal and freedom was a willingness to hurt him, speaking as someone who had once been locked in a trunk for days, he could say with certainty that any squeamishness he might once have entertained, he had left behind in that sweat-soaked nightmare reticule. He would have killed someone with his bare hands to be free from it, he would have killed them with his teeth. Kebbal had lived within a human host since before humans began recording history.
On that fateful night, Xar had told him Kebbal killed him, but he hadn’t thought to wonder if maybe the man was serious; he had just assumed it was hyperbole. An expression of remorse. If Kebbal could have been free of him at any time, though, why had it not freed itself long since? The answer he came up with was: if it killed its host, the Legacy would be broken and it would be alone. Only if its host died in a more natural manner would the Legacy pass on.
If that was true, it would have to mean the Avatethura were quite a lot more astute than he had previously given them credit for. He had thought to do some traveling once this was over, see what he could of the Empire before duty demanded that he settle down and start a school. Toward the top of the list of destinations must be his fellows’ academies. He had a lot of questions begging to be asked. Maybe it didn’t matter all that much in the larger scheme of things – the Avatethura were as old as news could get – but he’d like to understand the being that lived in him. He found himself envying Arandgwail, who could see it. When the girl captured an image of it, it had looked like a simple two-dimensional squiggle, but the shyin described it as a being of refulgent darkness, and he wished he could lay eyes on it.
“Excuse me, um, soldier-priest?”
The man moved up alongside him. “Yes, Avat? Are you well? Can I do anything for you?”
“Your people believe the Avatethura were created by Adaba to help her put her rebellious children down so she could go on unmaking reality whenever she felt like it.”
Hot Priest’s head cocked quizzically, but he said simply, “Yes.”
“Are you sure they fought for her?”
His eyes went wide. Hib’s face appeared on the right, looking even more surprised.
“If Kebbal has a fault, it’s that it loves too well. Which I guess everyone can see now for themselves. I feel like, when they met the First Gods and realized that all they were fighting for was the right to be, the Avatethura would have sympathized. All the supernatural beings we meet regard it as transcendently beautiful. Did that not leap out at anyone?”
“If they were allies from the start, if they were the midwives who brought mortal life into being, why do we keep them caged?” Farait mused.
“Because we don’t,” Havec replied. “If all Kebbal ever needed to do to be free was kill its host, then free isn’t the right word. Say instead: alone.”
“What, then, is the purpose of the bond?”
Havec chewed on his lip while he considered that. “They were made by the goddess who’s older than,” he would have waved his hands, but couldn’t, “all of this. Made to help her wipe her children out so she could wipe out the world, so they have to be…”
“Made of some otherworldly substance that could survive the destruction of material reality.”
“Well, yeah. But if they helped to make this possible, they deserve to be able to enjoy it like we do. Kebbal,” although he addressed the words to the creature inside him, he said it aloud, “I am going to eat a piece of pie for you very soon.”
He could no longer see the man’s face but heard his surprise. “You aren’t… upset about this power play? I would think you would be… averse to being controlled. Particularly in light of… circumstances.”
His mother snorted rudely. There was no possible way she had the first idea what they were talking about, but that wouldn’t stop her from forming an opinion on it, one that cast him in an unflattering light. Before she could speak, Farait called out a sharp command and Havec’s conveyance stopped. All was still save the whistling of the wind, then he heard a moan. It seemed to have come from behind them. There was a confused thudding of hooves as one or more horses turned in place, then Farait cursed. He heard Hib whisper what sounded like a prayer.
Havec had opened his mouth to demand to know what was happening when suddenly everything was happening too fast to be talked about. Something screamed a phlegmy scream of purest rage. Farait issued another command and the cadence as his horse’s hooves struck the packed soil of the road came faster with every step.
Another scream, and now Hot Priest was gone the two horses carrying Havec’s conveyance had been left unattended, with no one to keep them calm. Panicked, they bolted. The stays that lashed his slapdash stretcher to their saddles broke first at his feet, so that he was dumped to the ground feetfirst, and by the time the ties at his head came undone he was practically erect.
He had one fleeting moment in which to feel a surge of deep gratitude when his legs held his weight. Then one of the fleeing, terrified horses caught him a glancing blow with its rump and he was sent staggering drunkenly across the snow-dusted ground, arms whipping about him. For one deluded second, he thought he had control of his limbs and was good to go, then a boot went out from under him on the snow-slick soil and he fell hard on one hip.
He rolled onto his butt, squinting at the scene as he tried to figure out what was happening. They had found the road along the coast, he had no idea when. Now he was paying attention, he could hear the pounding of the surf against the shore, hidden from his vision by a thin screen of salt-stunted pines.
While he was distracted, something had gone wrong. Something sufficiently alarming it had scared everyone, including Kebbal; he had expected it to maintain its hold on him until they were back on Tabbaqeran soil, and was pretty sure it wouldn’t have let him have control of his body again if it hadn’t feared he might need to defend himself. When he saw what the fuss was about, his heart skipped a beat.
It looked like a person, standing erect on two legs. It was too small, though, the size of an adolescent. The bones in its face were heavy, a thick mantle of brow thrusting out over its milk-white eyes. It wore nothing save a loin-cloth, and the hair on its head and body were a washed-out shade of yellowed brown, as if it had been made from cloth, dyed cheaply, then left out for a long period in the sun.
