The Hallowed Hunt (Curse of Chalion) Read online

  The brief flare faded back into dry dark, darkness absolute, and Ingrey knew the visions were over.

  “I know. Not all the gods together, by any miracle they might devise, can give me my desire.”

  “Do you fear the gods will destroy you?”

  That disturbing smile again. “That is not a fear. That is a prayer.”

  “Or…do you fear their punishment? That they would plunge your soul into some eternal torment?”

  Wencel leaned forward, up on his toes. “That,” he breathed in Ingrey’s ear, “would be redundant.” To Ingrey’s intense relief he finally released his grip, stepping back once more. He cocked his head as if studying Ingrey’s face. “But you’ll learn all about that, if your luck holds ill.”

  Ingrey should have thought he’d faced a raving lunatic, but for the stream of searing sights Wencel had sent spinning through his head. Whatever truth he had sought to shake from Wencel, it had not been this. Staggered he was, and Wencel could doubtless tell it from the winded way he sagged against the table, for all that he clutched the edge to conceal any betraying shudder in his body. Disbelieving…he merely wished he could be.

  Ingrey felt for the gaps in the tale. There were many, both old and recent, but Ijada’s army of ghosts at the Wounded Woods seemed the vastest. How could Horseriver bewail Bloodfield, yet make no mention of his abandoned and accursed comrades? That Wencel had laid the murderous geas against Ijada, he had admitted when he could no longer evade doing so, but the why of it he’d evaded naming still. Were the two silences connected?

  A knock sounded on the chamber door, and both men jerked. “What?” the earl called, his sharp tone not inviting entry.

  “My lord.” The dutiful voice of some senior servant. “My lady is ready to depart and begs your company.”

  Wencel’s lips thinned in annoyance, but he called back, “Tell her I come anon.” Footsteps faded outside, and Wencel sighed and turned back briefly to Ingrey. “We are to attend upon her father. It is going to be an unpleasant evening. You and I shall have to continue this later.”

  “I, too, would wish to go on,” Ingrey conceded, considered his words, and decided to let the dual meaning—speaking or just breathing—stand unaided.

  Wencel measured him, still wary. “You understand, our family curse is asymmetrical. While my death would be your disaster, the reverse does not hold.”

  “Why do you not slay me as I stand, then?” For all of Ingrey’s fighting edge, he did not doubt Wencel could do so. Somehow.

  “It would stir up troubles I am still contemplating. At present, the spell would merely replace you with another, perhaps more inconvenient. Your Birchgrove cousin, likely. Unless you have some Darthacan by-blow I know nothing of.”

  “I…none that I know of. Do you not know who is your next heir after me?”

  “The matter shifts, over time, in ways I do not control. You might have died in Darthaca. Fara might have conceived a son.” Wencel’s mouth twisted. “Others might be born or die. I learned long ago not to exhaust myself grappling problems that time will carry away on its tide.” He walked back and forth once across the chamber, as if to shake the tension out of his body. Ingrey wished he might dare do the same.

  At the end of his circuit, Wencel turned again. “It seems we are to be saddled with each other for a little, will or nil. How if you enter my service?”

  Ingrey rocked back. He had a thousand questions, to which Wencel, and possibly Wencel alone, held the answers. Close attendance upon the earl must reveal something more. And if I say no, how long do I get to live? He temporized. “I owe Lord Hetwar much. I would not lightly leave his house, nor would he lightly release me, I think.”

  Wencel shrugged. “How if I begged you of him? He would not lightly refuse Princess Fara’s husband such a favor.”

  No, but I might beseech Hetwar to evade or delay. “If Hetwar gives his leave, then.”

  “A nice loyalty. I cannot fault it, who would have a like one from you.”

  “I admit, your offer interests me strangely.”

  Wencel’s dry smile acknowledged all the possible meanings of those ambiguous words. “I have no doubt of it.” He sighed and walked to the chamber door, indicating this interview was drawing to its end. Obediently, Ingrey followed him.

  “Tell me one thing more tonight, though,” Ingrey said as he reached the portal.

  Earl Horseriver raised his brows in curious permission.

  “What happened to Wencel? The boy I knew?”

  Horseriver touched his forehead. “His memories still exist, lost in a sea of such.”

  “But Wencel does not? He is destroyed?”

  The earl shrugged. “Where is the fourteen-year-old Ingrey, then, if not there”—he gestured to Ingrey’s head in turn—“in like disarray? They are both victims of a common enemy. If there is one thing that I have come to hate more than the gods, it is time.” He gestured Ingrey out. “Farewell. Find me tomorrow, if you will.”

  There seemed something terribly wrong with Wencel’s argument, but in his present dizzied state Ingrey could not finger what. In a few moments he found himself in the street again, blinking in the sunset light. It somehow surprised him that Easthome was still standing. It felt as though the city ought to have been churned to rubble during the small eternity he’d spent within, not one stone left upon another.

  As I have been?

  Gaps. Silences. Things not mentioned. For a man so sick with a surfeit of time, why was Wencel so anxious now? What drove him out of his reclusive routine, and into, apparently, such unaccustomed action? For Ingrey read him as a man pressed, and silently furious to be so.

  He shook his aching head and turned for the sealmaster’s palace.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  HE WAS HALFWAY TO HETWAR’S WHEN THE REACTION SET IN, turning his knees to tallow. A low abutment along a house wall flanking the street made a good enough bench, and he sank down upon it, bracing his hands on his thighs and his back against the day-warmed stone. He blinked and breathed deeply against his dizziness. It felt peculiarly like the aftermath of one of his wolf-fits, tumbling back into a stream of time he had temporarily exited; like falling back to earth after a dream of flight. Except that it was his mind, and not his body this time, that had ascended into that state where response flowed without thinking in some desperate dance for survival.

  A passing matron paused and stared at him as he wrapped his arms around himself and rocked but, perhaps taking in his sex, age, and cutlery, passed on without daring to inquire into his well-being. In time, the trembling in his body ran its course, and his mind began to move again.

  That was real, Wencel’s tale. Five gods.

  Horseriver’s tale, he amended this thought. How much of Wencel lived on in that slight and crooked body was hard to say.

  His second thought was a flash of envy. To live forever! How could a man not achieve happiness, with so many chances to flee old errors, to make it right? To build up wealth and power and knowledge? The envy faded upon reflection. Horseriver had paid for his many lives with many deaths, it seemed, and the spell gave him no respite from any horror entailed. Burning is a painful death. I do not recommend it, Wencel had once remarked, and Ingrey had thought him joking. In retrospect, the tone seemed more the judgment of a connoisseur.

  Would surety of his own survival make a man more brave in battle? It was true that many of Wencel’s ancestors…rephrase, that Earl Horseriver had many times died not-peacefully. Or would the knowing of how much pain a death could inflict make one more afraid? Two of the most grotesque endings, Ingrey had just relived body and mind along with Horseriver, and the mere memories shook him near to vomiting. More ghostly suggestions of other such fates spun outward in repetition like a man’s image caught between two mirrors, and the thought of them going on past counting made his stomach clench again.

  Realization of the other cost came to him then, not one Horseriver had held up before his mind’s eye, but still leakin
g in around all of the searing visions. Ingrey had no child, had scarcely considered the possibility, but the dream of a son inspired in him a fierce vague sense of protectiveness nonetheless. Rooted, perhaps, in his own child-mind’s hunger for a father’s regard, bolstered by his happier memories of Lord Ingalef, Ingrey at least had some notion of what a father ought to be.

  What must it have been like for Horseriver, watching son after son grow, knowing their fates? Making them, knowing? Did he warn them of what was to befall them, as he had just warned Ingrey? Or did he take them by ambush? Some of each? At what ages? What differences to Horseriver, to his heirs, between taking a bewildered child, a frightened youth, or an outraged mind come to full maturity, with a life, choices, perhaps a bride and children of his own? Whatever the differences, Horseriver had had time to cycle through them all.

  And not just bodies and wives. Where did the souls go of all those spell-seized sons? Bound into the whole, digested but not wholly destroyed…it seemed the spell stole not only lives, but eternities. Carrying them along in broken pieces to the next generation, the next century, a jumbled, melting accumulation. Had Horseriver—the thought gave Ingrey more pause than all that had gone before—had Horseriver himself ever slain an especially beloved child before his own foreseen death, to spare that soul before it could be bound into this horror?

  I think that may have happened a time or two, as well. In four centuries of lives frequently shortened by violence, there had surely been opportunity for every variation on the theme.

  Dangerous, powerful, magical, immortal…and mad. Or nearly so. Wencel’s brittle glibness took on a new tone, in retrospect. His baffling actions, wrenching back and forth between spurts of energy and withdrawal, still bewildered Ingrey, but Ingrey no longer reached for the reasons of ordinary men to explain them. He still did not understand Wencel, but the depth of his own misapprehension was at least revealed to him. Look to souls, Ingrey, Ijada had said. Indeed.

  How many more iterations before Wencel lost even his present fragile function, and became so deranged as no longer to pass as lucid at all? As the spell spun on, it might look to the outside eye perhaps like some family disease, one blood relative after another struck down by dementia in youth, or middle age.

  One more iteration, I think. The next transfer was going to be different, if Ingrey lived to receive it. His wolf would make it so. Different, but not, necessarily, good.

  No. Not good.

  Save for when he had received his wolf, this day was shaping up to be the most devastating Ingrey had ever experienced, beginning with looking a god in the eye and ending with Wencel’s terrifying visions. He wanted nothing more now than to stagger home to clutch Ijada and howl the news into her ear. Home? The narrow house was surely no home to him. But wheresoever she is, there is my place. In the chaos and confusion of a battlefield, the standard held up above the swirl was the meeting point for the battered and lost, the place to regroup, find a trusted comrade against whom to place one’s own bleeding back, and face outward again.

  And she must be warned of this threatened transformation. It was disturbing beyond measure to realize that Wencel’s fearsome heritage had been hanging over his head for years, and he had never known it. The timing of his body’s capture was wholly in Wencel’s power. The earl could have taken a knife to his own throat at any time and effected his preternatural transfer at will. Although…upon reflection, Ijada was perhaps the only person in the Weald who might be able to perceive his soul’s adulteration upon sight. Perceive, but not necessarily understand; and Wencel’s lies, coming out of Ingrey’s mouth in Ingrey’s voice, would surely be artful and practiced.

  He forced himself back to his feet and started down the street again, trying not to weave like a drunken man. The motion helped settle his stomach and mind a little. He found himself passing the yellow stone front of Hetwar’s palace, home of sorts for the past four years, and hesitated, reminded of his first panicked impulse to run to his patron. He was suddenly entirely unsure of what he wanted to tell Hetwar about Horseriver now, but the sealmaster had instructed Ingrey to see him earlier; at least he should discover if new orders awaited. He turned in.

  The porter warned him, “My lord is in council.”

  Ingrey nearly decamped, but said instead prudently, “Tell him I wait, and ask his pleasure of me.”

  The porter dispatched a page, who returned shortly. “My lord bids you attend upon him in his study, Lord Ingrey.”

  Ingrey nodded, made his way up the wide stairs, and turned down the familiar corridor. He weaved around a servant lighting wall sconces against the gathering twilight. A rap on the study door elicited Hetwar’s voice: “Enter.”

  He turned the latch and slipped within, then controlled a recoil against the closing door. Grouped around Hetwar’s writing table were Prince-marshal Biast, Learned Lewko, and the archdivineordainer of Easthome himself, Fritine kin Boarford. Gesca stood against a wall in a strained posture that hinted of a man making difficult reports to his superiors. The whole array of eyes turned upon Ingrey.

  “Good,” said Hetwar. “We were just discussing you, Ingrey. Are you recovered from your morning’s indisposition?”

  His expression was decidedly ironic. Concluding, after a short mental review of the options, that the question was unanswerable, Ingrey returned a mere nod and studied his unwelcome audience.

  Archdivine Fritine was an uncle of the present twin earls, a scion of the prior generation of Boarfords, dedicated to Temple service when too many older brothers made his chance of achieving high place in his kin lands unlikely. A long and typical career of a noble Temple-man lay behind him, by no means unhonorable; if he favored his kin, he equally ensured that they disgorged a steady return of favors to the Temple. His appointment to Easthome, with its important ordainer’s vote, had occurred some seven years ago, the culmination of that career. And those favors.

  In Ingrey’s observation, Fritine and Hetwar tolerated each other fairly well, both men being equally practical. Through them, Kingstown and Templetown worked more often in tandem than opposed—often, but not invariably. A certain tension lay between them at present over the impending election, as Hetwar counted Fritine’s vote among the uncertain; the archdivine had connections on his mother’s side to both the Hawkmoors and the Foxbriars. And Fritine had used the excuse of his mediating Temple position to avoid promising his vote to anyone, yet. No doubt he found that uncertainty useful.

  Of the archdivine’s tolerance of his wolf, Ingrey had never been sure. It was his predecessor who had signed Ingrey’s dispensation, a document Ingrey had preserved for the past decade when every other possession had been lost, now locked away in his room upstairs in this very palace. Ingrey didn’t know if Fritine’s distaste for the uncanny was theological or personal, for he seemed as oblivious to the allure of the mystical as Hetwar. So what does he make of Lewko, I wonder?

  Who was presently chewing on his knuckles and staring at Ingrey in a most unsettling fashion, Ingrey realized. Ingrey favored him with a polite nod and waited for someone else to begin. Anyone but me. Five gods, my wits are unfit for this perilous company just now.

  The archdivine plunged in at once. “Learned Lewko tells us you claim to have experienced a miracle in the Temple court this morning.”

  Ingrey wondered how Fritine would react if he said, No, I granted one. I was disinclined, but the god begged me so prettily. Instead, he replied, “Nothing I could prove in a court of law, sir. Or so I am informed.”

  Lewko shifted uncomfortably under his level look.

  “I was there,” said the archdivine coolly.

  “So you were.”

  “I saw nothing.” To Fritine’s credit, in his expression of mixed worry and suspicion, worry seemed uppermost.

  Ingrey inclined his head in a suitably infuriating gesture of utter neutrality. Yes, let them reveal their thoughts first.

  Prince-marshal Biast said, rather hopefully, “One could assert that the Son o
f Autumn taking Boleso’s soul was good evidence against the accusation of his tampering with animal spirits.”

  “One could assert anything one pleased,” Ingrey agreed cordially. “And as long as one’s eyewitness Cumril was found floating facedown in the Stork by tomorrow morning, there would be none to gainsay it. Certainly not me.”

  The archdivine jerked, looking angry at what might be construed as veiled slander. Or possibly suggestion. Or perhaps threat. Or counterthreat. Ingrey trusted it was hard to be sure. Lewko’s shrewd eyes glinted in renewed curiosity, regarding Ingrey.

  “That will not happen,” said the archdivine. “Cumril is in strict custody. Justice will be served.”

  “Good. Then howsoever Boleso’s soul be rescued, at least his character will get what it deserves.”

  Biast winced.

  Hetwar said firmly, “So tell me, Lord Ingrey. At what point did you discover that Lady Ijada had also been infected with an animal spirit?”

  Ah, they had indeed been comparing Ingrey stories. No help for it now. “The first day out from Boar’s Head.”

  With his usual deceptive calm, Hetwar inquired, “And you did not think this worthy of mention to me?”

  Gesca, standing by the opposite wall and doing his best to appear invisible, shrank at that tone. And who were you penning your letters to, Gesca, if not Hetwar? Horseriver, judging by the neat way he’d turned up on the road. And if so, was Gesca a conduit to him still?

  Ingrey replied, “At first opportunity, I placed the problem before Temple authority in the person of Learned Hallana. Who sent me to Learned Lewko.” In a sense. “I awaited his guidance, it being clearly a Temple concern, but alas it was delayed by the crisis of the ice bear. By the time we had another chance to speak, this afternoon, it was rather overridden by other matters.” Other matters? Or the same matter, from another angle of view? Who but the gods saw around all corners simultaneously? It was a disturbing new thought. Well, shift the blame to the saint—who was watching Ingrey’s shuffle with a certain dry appreciation—and see who in this room dared to chide him.