Alistair lay prostrate in the dirt, his mouth full of grit, his face pouring sweat. At first he was afraid to open his eyes, to discover that he was dead. But when at last he did, blinking against the swirl of dust that threatened to blind him all over again, he lay upon the plain, and it was empty, and daylight had returned.
He sat up, coughing. Dimly he became aware of shouting behind him, someone calling his name; the cat, most likely. He looked around.
“Dragons blast and eat and blast again!” Eanrin swore as he skidded to a halt beside Alistair, grabbed him by the shoulder, and dragged him to his feet.
Alistair, bewildered, could only ask feebly, “Where’s Mouse?”
“Where’s Mouse?” the cat-man cried. He released his hold, allowing Alistair to drop, weak-kneed, to the dirt once more. “At a time like this, all you can ask is where the pretty little wench got off to? Egg-headed, dragon-blasted mortal !”
Alistair shook his head, trying to clear it of the ringing din of howls that remained. He realized suddenly that his cousin was missing. “The Chronicler,” he said, turning to look back to the edge of the gorge.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” growled Eanrin. “They took him! They took the girl too! She sent them after us, and they took both the heir and our guide.” He cursed again and kicked in futile frustration at the dirt. “The Black Dogs always catch what they are sent for. Dragons eat them!”
Alistair’s mind whirled. He knew tales of the Black Dogs, of course. Death’s hounds, spawn of monsters that dragged the souls of the dead into the Netherworld. “Are they dead?” he asked, almost afraid to voice the question. “Did the Black Dogs kill them?”
Eanrin, like a spooked cat trying to settle his upraised fur, took off his red cap and smoothed down his shock of bright hair. He shook his head, and his voice was a little calmer when he spoke. “I don’t think so. I don’t believe the Dogs were sent by Death this time.”
“Who, then? Who else can command the Black Dogs?” Alistair asked.
“Their mother,” said Eanrin, and his lips curled into a grimace. He stared across the plain, seeing, as the dust settled, the distant light gleaming once more from the Spire tip. A suspicion was growing in his mind. An ugly suspicion, but one he should have considered.
“Who is their mother?” Alistair asked. “Where are Mouse and the Chronicler? What . . . what are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” Eanrin whispered. His hands clenched into fists. “Something. But I don’t know.”
“You could try waiting.”
The cat-man whirled about, his cap flying from his head, and Alistair, still collapsed upon the ground, turned. The swirling dust parted like a curtain, revealing a lone figure—a small, hunched, tottering figure with a withered face like a cracked walnut.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the centuries of my existence,” he said in a voice as dry as the dusty air, “it’s that answers often come to him who will wait long enough to see them.”
Eanrin’s lips drew back in a teeth-baring snarl. “Etanun!”
The Chronicler came to himself with a start and realized that he wasn’t dead.
His head rang with the echoes of the Black Dogs’ snarls. He lay stunned, unseeing and unfeeling for the moment, aware only of the pounding of his head and the certainty that he did still breathe. Then he opened his eyes.
He lay upon his back on hard, hot stone, staring up at an arched ceiling, also of stone, blistered red but polished bright as gemstones and carved in reliefs of feathers and wings. He glimpsed pillars of the same red stone supporting the roof. Save for the dreadful heat, he would have thought it beautiful.
Then two pairs of hands grabbed him, hauling him upright and off his feet. There he dangled, his feet kicking in midair, his arms aching where powerful fingers dug into his skin. He heard harsh but human voices speaking—women’s voices, not men’s, although two big men held him. He did not understand the language.
Twisting in the grasp of his captors, he tried to catch a glimpse of those speaking. He saw two women, one tall, one short, both clad in red garments that looked like cured and dyed animal hides. Their arms were bare and brown, and their hair was long, black as night, adorned with uncut gems. Neither was beautiful; their faces were much too hard.
There was no sign of the Black Dogs.
“Take him,” one of the women commanded, and though the Chronicler did not understand her words, he guessed her meaning by her gesture. The great men bore him easily down the pillared hall. They were naked to the waist, belted and armed, and their faces were stern and nearly inhuman. These were men who had never been shown mercy and would show no mercy themselves.