By the time they reached the island and stumbled, panting, into the
trees, the shouting had stopped. Even the birds had quieted. There was a
faint, calm rill of water, which, as they moved toward it, transformed itself
in surprising fashion to Pierce’s ears. The water spoke a human language. The
water was not water. The rill, low, sweet, calm, was human.
They followed the trail the bikes had left along a hiking path that was
littered with torn branches and tire-scarred ground. The tangle around them
opened to a wide clearing. Surrounded by brush and trees, it edged the top of
the island, overlooking the waters of the slough as they were pushed inland by
the tide toward the distant conjunction of water and earth, silver flowing and
disappearing into the endless rise of green.
The woman, her back to them, was addressing the entire company of knights.
They stood among the sunken patterns of fieldstone, small, dark standing
stones, the drifts of shell and little piles of sea-polished stones left by
more recent visitors. Their faces, half-hidden by visors and sunglasses,
seemed both baffled and incredulous. The woman in black with the Wyvern’s Eye
in her hand aimed it not at them but at the line of bikes that had fallen one
over the next as though they had been ruthlessly shoved.
“It’s a long walk back to Severluna,” she said.
Then she was facing Leith, Val, and Pierce, her pale violet eyes unblinking,
her face composed, ready for whatever came. In her other hand, the weapon’s
red fuming eye still stared at the bikes.
There were stray movements among the knights, but Leith had his weapon out,
aiming at the young men rather than their transportation. The woman smiled
suddenly, and Pierce recognized the very tall, broad-boned, amber-haired
knight who had rescued him, in the Hall of Wyverns, from the wrath of the king
’s seneschal.
“Sir Leith. Where on earth did you come from?”
Leith nodded, his taut face loosening almost enough to smile back. “Dame
Scotia. I’m very happy to see you here.”
“Sir Leith,” one of the young men called across the clearing. “Can you get
her to stop pointing that at our bikes? She has us at a disadvantage. We are
Knights of the Rising God. We don’t fight women.”
“Oh, yes, you do,” Pierce exclaimed indignantly. “Last I saw of you, you
were harassing a girl at the mountain shrine.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t us.”
“I’m counting,” Val said, “what? Twenty-three of you? And you need my
father to rescue you? I have an idea. Why don’t you just do whatever Dame
Scotia wants you to do?”
“We haven’t done anything yet! We just came to look around, and she started
shooting.”
“I’ve been on the road long enough to see what happens when you just stop to
look around,” Dame Scotia said tartly. “Things get stolen and broken. Sacred
shrines to gods other than Severen get totally trashed.”
“We seek only what belongs to Severen—”
“You seek to destroy any hint of power other than Severen’s. You’re a rude,
wicked lot, and I should just make you walk back across that bridge without
your bikes.”
“How about we slash their tires?” Pierce suggested.
“Let’s toss their boots into the slough,” Val said with enthusiasm. “After
they tell us exactly what they hoped to find here.”
There was a brief silence, during which the knights, without moving, seemed to
shift closer together, and the partially hidden faces calculated the changed
odds.
“You wouldn’t understand,” another indistinguishable face said slowly. “We
are searching for something holy, precious, powerful. We move in Severen’s
name; his name moves our hearts. You, Sir Leith, might think yourself worthy
of this quest. But Lord Skelton and Mystes Ruxley both spoke of the need to
see with your heart, and how can you, blinded by the king’s unfaithful wife
wherever you look, and by your two sons at your side whose mother you
abandoned for the queen? How can you possibly understand what we seek?”
Pierce, standing very still beside Val, could not hear him breathe. When he
breathed again, Pierce knew, in that split second, the tiny, peaceful island
would no longer be the same. Birds would die, maybe trees; stones would go
flying; bikes would roar into flame. New ghosts would inhabit the place in
Severen’s name; they would roam without peace among the ghosts who still
worshipped the moon.
Val drew breath. He turned his head to look at his father, and said mildly, “
He’s got a point. What do you think? Are they holier than thou?”
“Damned if I know,” Leith said. “I do know that I don’t want to litter the
mudflats with their boots.”
“If we slash their tires, we could find someone to haul the bikes off the
island,” Val suggested. “That way, we wouldn’t offend the moon.”
“Just try,” another of the company dared them. “There are twenty-three of
us and three—”
“Four,” Dame Scotia said dryly.
“Actually, I wasn’t counting the kitchen knight, Dame Scotia. That’s five
to one. At least.”
“Ah,” Val said. “That would be seven to one. Three times seven—”
“I knew that.”
“Actually almost eight to one, Prince Ingram.”
There was another brief silence. “How did you—”