The Chronicler whirled about to face that voice and thought he saw (though he couldn’t have seen) the staring eyes of a warrior going to her death. But though her face was turned to him with an intensity of desperation, she did not see him. She moved toward him, her hands outstretched, each clutching brutal weapons. “The honor is mine! Open the door!”
Her powerful form overwhelmed the Chronicler, and he thought she would slay him. But she passed through him with a coldness like bitter winter. For a moment he felt the beat of her sorrowing heart, and when she had gone, disappearing into the shadow realm, he wept for her though he did not know why. All around him, the voices of the lost ones cried.
Then suddenly another sound echoed down from the realm above. It must have been a great noise indeed to sound so loud even here in the Diggings. The baying of the Black Dogs.
They were on the hunt.
Somehow the Chronicler knew they were coming for him.
9
IN THE BODY OF A WOMAN I FELL, wingless, upon a cloud. I lay in hideous pain, uncertain what had happened. The fire still roiled within me, but my dragon form had vanished, and without it the furnace inside was too hot! I could not support such pain! Even now, though I have lived with this burning for generations of mortals, it hurts me more than you can know. It hurts like first love rejected. It hurts like jealousy eating me away from the inside out.
So I lay in the presence of Hymlumé. When at last I dared raise my face, I found her looking down upon me, shining and luminous. And she said to me:
“Poor thing.”
I cast myself from the cloud. I fell all that long, long way, streaking like a comet to earth, trailing fire in my wake. I hoped it would burn this frail woman’s form to ashes and that I would die my final death, more painfully even than in the blaze of Halisa. I would die and then I would burn no more.
“I will kill you,” the Dragonwitch said to the scrubber. Fire spilled from her lips, so keen was her hunger. “I will kill you at last.”
“Maybe,” the scrubber replied. “But you want my sword to do it, don’t you?”
She could not answer. Her mouth contorted and fire bellied up from her throat, but she gnashed her teeth and would not let it spill forth. Slithering down from the altar, more snakelike than womanly in that moment, she crawled to the scrubber. In a sinuous movement, she stood up, towering above him.
“I will have your sword!” said she.
The scrubber grinned up at her, his cloudy eyes foolish. But his voice was sharp. “You’ve lost my heir,” he said. “Not a good start to your plan.”
“I will recover him. I have sent my children.”
“So I saw,” said the scrubber. He leaned more heavily on his mop, which was leaving a wet patch on the rooftop. “But you know,” he continued, “they won’t stand a chance of finding him. Not against the bonds of kinship.”
“What?” The Dragonwitch stared down at him, spraying sparks in his face when she spoke. “What do you say?”
“The bonds of kinship. Surely you know what I mean. There was a time you felt those bonds yourself, Hri Sora. Before you took the flame.”
She said nothing. So the scrubber, waving smoke from under his nose, persisted. “The bonds of kinship are never stronger than in the Netherworld. If my heir’s own kin goes searching for him in the dark, even your Black Dogs will find it difficult to catch him first.”
Suddenly that ancient face turned, and Mouse, lying near the rooftop door, was caught in the gaze of the old man who had taught her the scouring of pots and floors. It was a gaze far deeper, far older, and—oddly enough—far younger than she had ever dared imagine, and she gasped at the potency of it.
He was telling her, she realized, what she must do.
But her limbs were weak as water. For the moment, at least, she could not move.
“Your own Father,” the scrubber continued, turning back to the Dragonwitch, “was unable to call me to the darkest place once my brother had set out to hunt me down. There is power in blood ties. Power you would do well to recall.”
The Dragonwitch’s face convulsed. What memories coursed through her brain just then to cause her such torment? But when she spoke, her tongue was a whip. “No hunter, no matter how skilled, is a match for my children!”
“He doesn’t have to be a match,” said the scrubber. “Not for this task. You know that well enough.”
He leaned his mop handle away and stepped around it to approach the burning creature before him. And she, though she could have broken him in two, stepped back, avoiding his touch.
“You cannot count on my heir to bear Halisa up from the darkness to you,” the scrubber said. “Prophecies and chosen ones can hardly be trusted in any case.” He sighed heavily and passed a hand across his brow. “Indeed, dear queen, there is only one thing to do.”
“What is that, Murderer?” the Dragonwitch hissed.
“I shall have to fetch it for you.”
Waiting was not among Eanrin’s more developed skills.