A Knight Of The Word

Ross met his gaze. “If they make the attempt, I will resist. I will resist to the point of dying, if that’s what it takes. I may no longer be in service to the Word, but I will never serve the Void. I will never do that.”


O’olish Amaneh looked out the window into the snow covered landscape, into the somnolent white. “The Void wants your magic at its service, and it will do what it takes to obtain it. Subverting you will take time and effort and will require great deception, but it will happen. You may not even realise it until it is too late. Think, John Ross. Do not lie to yourself.”

Ross held out the black staff. “If you take this from me now, the Void can do nothing. The solution is simple.”

The Indian made no move. He kept his gaze directed away, his bode still. “Others have suffered a loss of faith. Others have tried to abandon their charges. Others like you. They have been warned. Some thought they were strong. They have all been lost. One way or the other, they have been lost.”

He looked at Ross, solemn-faced and sad-eyed. “You will go down the same path if you do not heed me.”

They faced each other in silence, eyes locked. Then O’olish Amaneh turned without a word and went out the door and was gone, and John Ross did not see him again.

But he thought about him now, riding the trolley to Pioneer Square, stepping off onto the platform at Main, and walking back to the offices of Fresh Start. He thought about everything Two Bears had told him. The Indian and blest had given him essentially the same warning, a veiled suggestion that the danger he posed by refusing to continue as a Knight of the Void would not be ignored and that measures would be taken to bring him back in line.

But did those measures include eliminating him? Would the Lady really send someone to kill him? He thought maybe she would. After all, five years ago he had been sent to kill Nest Freemark in the event she failed to withstand the assault of her demon father. Why should it be any different now, with him? They could not chance losing him to the Void. They could not let him become a weapon for their enemy.

Last in thought, he slowed as he approached the entry to the shelter. Why did everyone think such a thing could happen? What could the Void possibly do to subvert him that he wouldn’t recognise and resist? There was his dream, of course, and the danger that it might somehow come to pass and he would kill Simon Lawrence. But the events of that dream would never happen. There was no reason for them to happen. And in any case, he didn’t really believe his dram and the Lady’s warning were connected.

He shook his head stubbornly. Only one thing bothered him about all this. Why had the Lady sent Nest to warn him? She could just as easily have sent Ariel. He would have given the tatterdemalion’s warning the same consideration he was giving Nest’s, Why send the girl — The Lady couldn’t possibly believe that Nest would have a greater influence on him than O’olish Amaneh. No, something else was going on, something he didn’t understand. His instincts told him so. He walked into the reception area at Fresh Start, said hello to Della, gave Ray Hapgood a perfunctory wave on his way back to the office, and closed the door behind him. He sat in his chair with his elbows on his desk and his chin in his hands, and tried to think it through.

What was he missing? What was it about Nest’s coming to find him that was so troubling?

He was getting exactly nowhere when Stefanie Winslow walked in.

“You’re back,” she said. “How did it go?”

He blinked. “How did what go?”

She gave him an incredulous look. “Your lunch with your old flame’s daughter. I assume that’s where you’ve been.” She took the chair across from him. “So tell me about it.”

He shrugged, uncomfortable with the subject. “There’s nothing to tell. She was in town and decided to look me up. I don’t know how she even knew I was here. I haven’t seen or spoken with her in five years. And that stuff about her mother is-”

“I know, I know. It was a long time ago, and her mother is dead. She told us before you came back.” Stef brushed back her dark hair and crossed her long legs. “It must have been quite a shock to see her again.”

“Well, it was a surprise, anyway. But we had a nice talk.”

He had never told Stef anything, about his past or the people in it, save for stories about his boyhood when he was growing up in Ohio. He had never told her about his service as a Knight of the Word, about the Lady or Owain Glyndwr or O’olish Amaneh. She did not know about his dreams. She did not know of the war between the Word and the Void or the part he had played in it. She did mot know of his magic. As far as he knew, she had no concept of the feeders. Having Nest Freemark appear unexpectedly, come out of a past he had so carefully concealed from her, was unnerving, He did not want to tell her about any of that. He traced his present life to the moment he had met her, and everything that went before to another life entirely.