“Not Wyld yet,” he said, climbing down from his horse.
“Ha!” said one of Shendla’s companions. Torn had a wide smile and wore his beard in two thick, knotted braids, one down from either cheek. “You are surely the most humble conquering despot this world has known, Bao. You will execute a man for failing you, but you will not allow us to give you the title you seek?”
“To take the title I do not yet have,” Bao said, “is to dishonor it, Torn. I will walk Angarai’la and enter the Hearttomb, where I will face—and kill—its guardian. Until I return, I am not the Wyld.”
“Then what are you?” Torn asked.
“Many things.”
“I shall create for you a title to use until you return! Wy-dain!”
The term was not lost on Bao. The language they called isleh, or Ancient, had little left in common with the Old Tongue that Bao knew. However, during his time with this people, he had begun to piece it together. Wy-dain was a pun on Wy-eld, or Wyld. Wy meant slayer, and Wy-dain roughly translated to “slayer of boredom.”
Mintel chuckled at that, ancient eyes alight. Shendla smiled.
“No smile?” Torn asked, inspecting Bao’s face. “Not a hint of one?”
“Lord Bao does not laugh, Torn,” Shendla said, a possessive hand on Bao’s shoulder. “His duty is too heavy.”
“Oh, I know, I know,” Torn said. “That doesn’t mean I can’t try. Someday I will break that mask of yours, my friend. Someday!” Torn laughed, taking a canteen from one of his servants and drinking its contents down.
“My time has come,” Bao said. “I will descend. Camp here and wait for my return.”
The Freed gathered around him, but Bao seized the One Power and pointed. “Wait!” he commanded. They responded only to direct—and forceful—orders. Like hounds. The feral men pulled away, climbing up onto a nearby incline and huddling down to await his return.
Shendla still held his arm. A tiny broken piece of him was fond of her touch and wished for it to linger. That disturbed him. It had been…long…since he had felt an emotion such as that one.
“I see trouble in your eyes,” she whispered.
“Walk with me a moment,” he said, leading her toward the path down into the chasm. Bao turned his head and saw that Mintel watched them go with a curious, yet patient, expression. The old man then closed his eyes and entered meditation. The man would meditate until Bao returned, eating nothing, taking only occasional sips of water. Mintel gave no farewell, and Bao had expected none. The old man closed his eyes to Bao, then would open them to the Wyld—come at long last into the world.
Once they were a short distance away, Bao stopped Shendla with a hand on her shoulder. “I know you would come with me,” he said to her softly. “You cannot.”
“Let me at least walk you to the opening below,” she said. “I know the path. I—”
“I must walk it alone,” Bao said, stern. “You know this. If I am to bring your angor’lot, I must follow the prophecies exactly. ‘He descends alone and dies, returning to us reborn.’ You will wait.”
She drew her lips into a line. She did not like being told what to do, but she had given him her oaths.
“What bothered you, above?” she asked.
Bao turned, looking down the chasm, toward the River of Souls below. “Torn called me friend.”
“Is he not your friend?”
“I do not have friends,” Bao said. “And I certainly did not come here to find them. I seek the prize, and the prize alone. I will have the cup’s power, Shendla. Nothing else matters to me. Surely all of you can sense that. I long ago lost the capacity for affection.”
“You say things such as that so often.”
“They are true,” he said. “Tell me honestly. You cannot look in these eyes of mine and see anything but death and coldness.”
He turned to her, and she stared into his eyes.
“No,” she said. “That is not what I see at all.”
“Bah!” he said, pulling away from her. “You are fools, all of you. I don’t care for your prophecies! I speak the words so I can control you. How can you not see this?”
“You have come to save us,” she said. “You break us free of fate’s chains. You did not know the prophecies when you first came—you have said so yourself—but you fulfilled them anyway.”
“By accident.”
“Releasing the enslaved, declaring all men free? That was an accident?”
“I did it to create chaos!” he said, turning.
“You have brought us unity,” she replied. “You have brought us glory. The Dragon has come, Bao. Every man and woman in this land can feel it. He will try to destroy the world, and only you can stop him. There is a reason you have done what you did. The Tapestry…shall I call it by your word? The Pattern? It has brought you, and once you step into that cavern below, we will be freed from fate and be made our own people again.”