And then, the trees thinned suddenly, fell away on both sides of the path into a small natural clearing.
Bringing up the rear, Ranhé blinked, wiping sweat and tree sap off her face, and stopped suddenly. She could go no farther, because the two men and their horses ahead of her had stopped dead in their tracks.
And then, as the last minutes of light lingered on the western sky, they saw it, a small overgrown structure of pale antique stone, moss-covered and dilapidated, standing in the center of the forest clearing.
It was neither awe-inspiring nor like a sanctum. There was nothing religious in its simple walls. And in the gathering mists of evening, it somehow resembled a tomb.
But Elasand stood, breath caught in his throat, and stared long, before at last speaking.
“We are here,” he said, as the sky became black with instant night, “and it is the place that we seek. Let us make camp.”
CHAPTER 14
Steel morning sun illuminated the pale stone structure that was supposedly the Shrine of Light. Ranhé stared thoughtfully at the gaping darkness of the entrance, where Lord Vaeste had disappeared for the last several hours, since his moment of waking soon after dawn. He had gone inside without eating, having said nothing to either her or Elasirr.
And now, she tarried outside, a loyal guard, watching the interplay of metallic sun and old weathered stone of the building, watching many-legged insects crawl along old bricks, in ebony ivy.
Elasirr had also disappeared, having wandered off somewhere in the forest around them, full of simmering anger, and having nothing else to do.
All around her was living silence.
Ranhé had settled in a cross-legged position several feet away from the entrance, upon her spread cloak. She had left her sword, as always, nearby, concealed just behind her and within reach. Soon, the heat of the day made itself felt, and she felt it, slithering gently down her spine, while a shimmer of fine sweat covered her brow.
“Is he still inside?” came a voice from behind. She was once again startled by how silently the blond assassin could move, as he stood behind her. If he wished he could have very easily struck her a mortal blow. And the fact that she had allowed him to creep up behind her made Ranhé angry at herself.
She suppressed her instinct to jump, and instead stilled herself, turning her head very slowly, with outward disdain.
“He is within,” she replied softly, her voice indifferent. “My lord had told me he is not to be disturbed. I saw him take some candles from his pouch. There’s a small ancient altar there, supposedly. He’s probably lighting the candles now.”
Elasirr snorted. “Oh, is he? Insane Elasand-re is burning candles and praying for our City’s deliverance. Gods help us indeed.”
He walked forward, stopping before her, so that his shadow fell across her face in direct opposition to the sun. His hands were folded, his feet planted apart. And he just looked at her.
“Do you know that your lord and master is stark raving mad?” he said suddenly, leaning forward to look at her even more closely, so that Ranhé blinked. “That he is obsessed with a dream, a hallucination of beauty? He’d told me about it once, you know. About the place that is violet. . . .”
“He is right,” said Ranhé suddenly. “You shouldn’t have come. It’s something that you can never understand.”
“Why? Could it be that you believe him, then?”
“Yes . . .” Her reply had been a whisper. She said nothing else.
Elasirr shook his head in a sarcastic show of amazement, then stepped away and turned his back to her. He was still obscuring the sun as he began to speak, “Your Elasand-re had told me once that I was free to do as I please, in all things. That I had no duties to him or his father’s memory, or to the House.”
He swung around to face her then. “Well, Ranhé, that in itself had bound me to him in such a way that now I can never be free—free of him or anything having to do with the damn Vaeste. I am the murdering executioner of our progenitor. I follow him in all things now, like a bound demon. When he tells me in public to leave him be, it means I have to come with him. When he insists I do something, I do nothing. When he asks for help, I struggle. And when he denies his need, I follow him and force that what he secretly needs upon him. I am his dark familiar, Ranhé. I would have you know this, so that you can begin to understand what it is between us, so that you—”
And then his words cut off. He turned away in disgust, and took several steps to place distance between them.
Ranhé watched the pale liquid mane of brightness that was his hair, watched the sun inflame it. And something prompted her to say, “I see now it was not you who had tried to kill my Lord Vaeste. Whoever had sent the impostor assassins is still out there. You, on the other hand, will never kill your brother. He has nothing to fear from you, and does not even know it.”
Elasirr, pacing nearby, laughed suddenly. “Yes, by gods! I of all people, would never kill more than one Vaeste! Patricide alone is within my means. I killed the old one, and that has soured my taste for Vaeste blood. How ironic that you see this and my brother does not. He never trusted me, and for that I am his enemy.”
“Are you?” she asked softly.
“What do you think, clever Ranhé?”
“I think,” she said, “that you are more like your half-brother than you suspect. And I am sorry that your father had never been—yours. In fact, even now it’s hard for me to believe that you killed him. Did you?”
“I killed him with my own two hands,” said Elasirr, his face profiled against the burning silver sun.
“You’re lying,” said Ranhé. “How is it that I know you’re lying? I know it, and it doesn’t matter what you or your brother say.”
“Ah, you have such noble faith in me,” said the assassin. “Think what you like.”
There was silence, resounding with the wind and sunlight.
“The man who had been my father made a clear choice,” said Elasirr with an unreadable expression, as he again approached her. “The pale-haired erotene who bore me out of mindless love for the man also made a choice. She had called me ‘Elas’ so that Rendvahl would remember always that he had two sons, not one. In the very hour of my birth, she had sealed my fate, damned me to a connection with Vaeste.”
“Do you go to see her often, this woman who is your mother?” asked Ranhé. “Is that who you visited that day in the Red Quarter?”
“My mother is blissfully dead,” said Elasirr grimly. “But I visit my half-sister Iherema, who apprenticed herself in the House of Erotene. I too had almost become one of them. I’d grown up in that House. I know all of it, their ways. That’s why you were so easily deceived by me. But the ways of erotene are less than what I—craved. And the House of Joy would never harbor a murderer in their midst.”
“So, you killed. Murdered. Call it what you will,” she said. “Is that what made you turn to the Assassin Guild?”
And hearing her say that, Elasirr began to laugh. “Turn?” he said. “Why, clever ignorant Ranhé, I am the Assassin Guild. I formed it, made the Bilhaar into what they are today. Before me, they were a minor guildless cross-section of the Southern Quarter’s lawless. Some were with the Thieves, some were trained by the Warrior Guilds. And some simply worked alone.”
“An achievement it is then, my Lord Bilhaar,” said Ranhé. “I see it makes you pathetically proud.”
In reply, the Guildmaster of Bilhaar unexpectedly neared her, and sat down on the edge of her cloak, right at her side.
Unconsciously, she stiffened. She was remembering that other time when there was proximity between them.
“Why?” she asked then. “Why really did you form this Guild of death? Whatever would induce anyone to organized destruction? And don’t tell me it was the cliche result of having killed your father, for I will not believe you—it is not enough.”
For a moment, there was a stillness that came to Elasirr’s facial features. He appeared to be gazing far a
way, through the depths of forest before him, toward the obscured horizon. But his eyes had no focus, were those of a blind man looking inside himself. He turned in profile to her, and if only she had looked at him then, she would have seen it, the moment of change.
“You yourself have killed. You must have some idea,” he replied, almost flippantly, as gray sun speckled his face with silver shadows from an overhanging tree bough, and insects sang in the slate grass.
But Ranhé looked ahead of her, and never saw his profile. “I have killed less than you think,” she replied softly. “Usually, my encounters end in wounding or disabling. But when I cause death, I—keep track of each time. There’s a counter within me that strikes a notch, somewhere deep. Even after a busy battle, you cannot help it—you know exactly how many deaths were caused by you. I had heard it said that the body count grows easier with time, but that’s not so. It’s only if you don’t dwell—”
“A soldier who would rather not kill? You are strange indeed, Ranhé.”
“And you have not answered my question.”
“I will answer you some other time.”
She turned to him then, and his face was only inches away. And at that proximity she saw the sunken lines of weariness below his half-lidded eyes, and the unshaved dark stubble of his hollow cheeks—not pale, but as dark as his eyebrows. It occurred to her that neither he nor Vaeste had shaved for the last two days, but she had hardly noticed. Neither had she particularly noticed that Elasirr’s silken blond hair was now unkempt and matted, as though he’d forgotten vanity for the duration of the trip.
And then she thought of herself, of what she might look like.
“What do you think of the Rainbow?” she asked him, because his proximity was bothering her more than she could bear. And because, all of a sudden, she felt a lack of air in her lungs—his presence was stifling her.
“What the hell should I think of Rainbow?” said he, raising one brow in curiosity, and turned at last to face her directly. “Are we going to talk philosophy now, or are you simply afraid of me sitting so close to you?”
A thin shiver of cold ran down her back, that conceivably, he could read her in that moment. But she knew how to answer, as always.
“And why exactly are you sitting close to me, Lord Bilhaar?” she said with unflinching eyes trained on him, with a beginning thin smile. “Do unnatural repulsive women attract you?”
“Attract?” he said. “I’ve long since stopped thinking of you as a woman, and instead find you a worthy conversationalist. I also prefer sitting on your cloak rather than on the bare ground. But if that bothers you, why then, Ranhé, I will relieve you of my company.”
And with that, he got up, shaking grass off his trousers and boots, and walked to the entrance of the old stone building.
Ranhé watched, stonelike, as he glanced inside through the doorway, then entered the structure. She thought she heard their voices, and then after several minutes, Elasirr emerged, and in his wake came Elasand, squinting from the glare of daylight.
Vaeste looked gaunt and there was a deathly absence of expression on his face. He threw one disoriented look at Ranhé, as though for a moment he did not recognize her.
“Leave your candles burning,” said Elasirr to him matter-of-factly. “And have something to eat. If the Tilirr are to hear you and reply, you will know it, whether or not you happen to be out here or inside.”
Wordlessly, Ranhé got up and went to get their provisions from one of the food bags, and also to check up on the horses. When she returned, Elasand was seated on her cloak, staring ahead. She offered him bread and meat and water, but he looked up at her and stared, making no effort to take the food.
“You must eat, my lord,” she said. “Or your strength will fail you, and you will achieve nothing.”
“I have already achieved nothing . . .” he replied coldly, then took the bread and the water flask from her hands, refusing the meat.
“You’re right not to eat this flesh,” he said suddenly, looking up at her. “It makes you cleaner, not eating it. Unlike myself. Surely that’s why she doesn’t come to me. And that’s why you, Ranhé, who’d also seen the lady, must try in my stead now!”
He put the food down, and drew open the small pouch that he carried at his waist. As Elasirr looked on with curiosity, Vaeste removed a single wax candle, and offered it to Ranhé, his eyes full of new life, of entreaty almost. “Take this, freewoman. I ask you this one thing that is beyond your call of duty. Go inside, and light the candle, and call upon her whose name is Laelith. . . .”
“But—my lord,” she responded, frowning. “What should I say? I am not religious, I have no idea what—”
“Just try!” he interrupted. “Simply call her name, speak to her, think of her. That is all that can be done now. Do it!”
His eyes, clear silver and pale as the day, were more straightforward than she had ever seen them to be. Overhead, the sun burned, and all around them the wind sang. And she could not deny him, not this time, not ever.
“Very well,” she said, taking the candle, “I will try.” And with that she turned, and took the steps toward the gray building, pausing at the dilapidated entrance at the darkness of the interior.
And then she entered the Shrine of Light.
Inside, it was cool. The darkness was indeed only twilight. As her eyes grew accustomed to the softness, Ranhé could see the interior of the single small room—the chipped stone walls, the poor wooden roof with low hanging rafters, upon which old patterns of cobwebs hung down like vaporous lace.
In the center, a little toward the back wall, stood a raised stone altar, in the form of a large simply hewn crude stone with a somewhat concave surface, rounded like a very shallow wide bowl. Its base was a wide pillar, also roughly hewn. The bowl stone rested firmly upon the pillar, and in the center of it burned a single short candle, almost gone to its quick, while the wax had coagulated in a small pool upon the stone.
The candle flame was steady, upright, for no breeze came inside this tomblike room. And yet, the air was not stifling, for the flame showed no signs of being extinguished due to lack of oxygen. She assumed there must have been an outlet somewhere in the decaying roof.
There was nothing else in this tiny room. As she glanced around her on the floor, she saw remainders of other old candles, pieces of wick string and some old dried flowers scattered on the wicker and straw of the floor, in ancient offering. On the floor before the altar there were two deep indentations that had probably been worn by the pressure of knees of other supplicants who had come here just as she had, and entreated the Tilirr.
She stood, bending her head so as not to hit the cobwebs or the low rafters, and then took her candle and drew it forth to receive the flame from Elasand’s own candle that had almost burned out. The two wicks touched, and then her candle bloomed forth with a gray radiance, continuing to burn alone. New monochrome shadows came to dance in the room as she moved the candle, thoughtlessly, and attached it firmly in the warm liquid wax that had spilled onto the altar.
Now her candle towered above the dying flame of Elasand’s own.
Ranhé felt nothing, did not know what to ask, who to invoke. There was an equal measure of silence within her mind as there had been in this simple room.
She lowered herself on her knees, in the same spot where Elasand had knelt, where hundreds of other knees had rested. Kneeling thus, the candle flame was directly horizontal to her field of vision, at the very level of her eyes.
The elongated oval of the flame stood up motionless before her, and behind it she saw the walls of the poor room, thrown in dim twilight. She stared straight ahead, focusing upon that oval of light, until it floated disembodied in her vision.
Laelith . . . she tried within her mind. You who are the violet lady of love, can you hear me?
Silence.
Ahead of her the pale oval flame floated upright. Not even the barest flickering due to wind, or even her breath (rapidly becom
ing audible in her temples).
She focused, trying to remember that distant sound of the faraway river, the chiming bells, the rushing stream in her mind . . . She closed her eyes, and the candle flame stood on the inside of her eyelids, an afterimage of black against pallid glow. She thought she almost saw it, on the velvet edges of her vision, the sparkling dots of inner brightness that was possibly, violet. . . .
Instead, in the absolute peace of the darkness, old memories came rushing back. And yet—these memories were not quite her own. She thought, for some reason, of the blond man who was now an assassin, and of how his father, a proud older Lord Vaeste, had once visited a pale haired beautiful erotene. She could almost visualize her, this blond woman, with the same heavy-lidded eyes that would rarely open wide, but when they did, were a pale and intense discovery, like a sudden window upon the sky.
What was it like to have such a mother, lush and vibrant, a self-confident sensual erotene? And then Ranhé saw contrasting images that she had tried to put down so long ago, of a meek woman with hair like ash—indeterminate, hueless actually, with kind soft eyes, and an exhausted face, that was more used to cringing, and yet was full of rightness. The kindest face she had ever seen, this gentle and self-effacing woman had—the woman who was her mother.
And she remembered this woman, first holding her small self, then—as years went by—cringing, hiding often, silently weeping more often than not, in a small room, long time ago. Because the dark man with the manic and yet absolutely lifeless eyes would come often to lock her in the room. The same dark man would come inside, and she would hear his voice, droning on and on with simmering hate, as he reviled the meek woman, for hours on end, until sometimes she would break down and start screaming, and would fall down on the floor, beating herself. The man himself never touched her. He would leave the room and lock the door, and Ranhé, a small child, would hide until his steps grew silent in the corridor. She would then creep up to the door, and call her mother—because a quite indescribable, most sick feeling would rise in her, a feeling that she later learned to recognize as fear—saying, over and over, “Mother, please don’t cry! Please, Mother! Please don’t cry!”