“Oh yes, I know how you tell yourself these things. God of one, you are… nothing more. A shame I wasted so much on you. Unlike you, I work for the future, as unhappy as it makes me in the day. I see ahead; it gives me strength to continue. How do you think our people even exist if not for that far-seeing eye… a far-seeing heart?”
He kicked Ren, and the body slammed against the cavern wall. There was no sound, no reaction.
“You selfish, useless god,” Maunyn said. A thick, oppressive tension, all pulled and drawn into that mighty lord, filled the cavern. The blade rose and remained high, poised to strike the sack.
“Goddess above, stay my hand if it be your will!”
Maunyn’s voice shook the cavern. Then he laughed. Taul almost laughed as well at the strange request. Maunyn set the sack down and cut the knot at the top. The boy’s head appeared. Drugged, he rolled out of the sack and onto the cavern floor.
Taul tensed. That was his boy, meant for Toshtolin. He had the assassin’s dagger and no chance of winning against the Headmaster of Isilmyr, three times badged.
“Voravin,” Maunyn said. “Who would think it was possible? I don’t believe it. The valmasin must be wrong. A liar, even, playing a hoax on us.”
Maunyn pushed the toddler over with his foot.
Taul rose slowly. His sweaty hands fumbled with the dagger.
“Let us see how well you survive on your own,” Maunyn said to the boy. “I would like to see it. Let the goddess feed you on berries from the mouth of a fox.”
Maunyn laughed darkly. He turned and scoured the cavern. Taul’s shadow-shell quavered in response.
Deeper! the devices cried.
The world went even darker as he allowed the devices to sequester him into the Dark. It wasn’t just shadow, the absence of light, it was a place all its own, with distant horizons in all directions. A person could get lost there.
“I know you’re out there,” Maunyn yelled. His voice sounded distant and muffled; the hard edges smoothed away. “Know I will find out who you are. You do not take from me without exacting a blood price.”
His presence moved like a wraith through the cavern, searching for Taul.
You can’t win, the dagger said to Taul.
“I hear you!” Maunyn roared. “I will find you and make you suffer.”
Taul shimmied back, hugging himself, pressing the dagger to his chest. The tunnel quivered around him, shaken by the knight’s power.
“You will feel the might of a high house at your neck,” Maunyn said, “at your house’s neck, at your matron’s…”
The shadows swallowed Taul so completely, he no longer sensed the world. Time passed unmeasured. The cavern stilled, but Taul wouldn’t move. He felt himself melted into the very stone.
Stay with us, the devices seemed to say, in this timelessness.
He drifted in that darkness, eternal, the goddess…
The boy!
Taul wrenched himself from that Dark place and crawled back to the tunnel’s opening and peered around the edge. His nose crinkled. Piss had escaped and warmed his leg.
The pale outline of Maunyn’s form was gone, but Taul dared not move.
Ren was still. The boy still lay on the cavern floor. Taul looked for Maunyn, but if the knight had hidden himself, was waiting for him in the shadows, he was doomed.
Ryldia filled his thoughts. For her, he must try.
What would it be like for her if he never returned without a word? Balniss would tell her the truth, he hoped. He wouldn’t let her think he had run off, too ashamed to continue with an empty vessel as a consort. The need to serve her surged. He must do everything possible to aid her, to ease her shame.
He rose to his knees and listened. His ears throbbed and rang. The more he tried, the less he heard. Flashes of light burst everywhere. Trembling, he stood and stumbled toward Ren and the boy.
The boy stirred, smacking his lips and stretching his little arms.
Taul sheathed the dagger, darted forward, and scooped him up. He crouched by Ren to see if the man lived.
Ren stirred weakly, whispering something.
Taul leaned close.
“The goddess… wants… you to have him,” Ren said, grasping him with bloody hands. He reached inside his tunic, blood bubbling from his mouth, and pulled out a folded and sealed letter.
“You can use this,” he said. “But save it for when you truly need it.”
Taul nodded and tucked the letter away.
“He is a child of great destiny,” Ren said with a deep sigh. “I know it.”
The last words squeezed out painfully and a tremulous breath escaped Ren’s lips. And then the very last breath, low and whistling.
Taul bowed his head. Pebbles trickled at the end of a tunnel. His heart pounded. If the boy woke, screaming his lungs out, there’d be no escape.
“I’m sorry, Ren,” he said in a faint voice. “I should like to give you a proper funeral and let your essence return to the stars or to the rock, as your fate has determined.”
