They were in the Apiary, he realized, the highest halls of Ishterebinth. He threw aside sheets thin as web, hoisted himself to the bed’s edge. He raised his hands to the faceless helm he already knew was there—the body entertains hopes all its own. The Amiolas held him as absolutely as before.
Eyes imprisoned, he nevertheless peered into the chamber’s dimmer recesses, blinded by the brightness of the shaft above him. The bed sat upon a raised corner, some three steps above what appeared a cramped library otherwise, teetering shelves of codices, and iron scroll-racks crude enough to speak of human manufacture, heaped with scrolls of endless variety, some no more than rolled rags, others winking with the glister of nimil, silver, or gold.
He discerned the Nonman last, and fairly leapt in his skin when he did so, for Oinaral had been nearest all along, obscured by the bed’s draperies. He stood as motionless as the marble that he so resembled in hue and density, holding a long nimil blade to the light, turning it as though to follow the luminous bead pulsing along its edge.
Holol, Sorweel realized. The sword was named Holol—“Breathtaker”.
“What do you do?”
“Gird for war,” the Nonman replied without so much as a glance.
And Sorweel saw that he wore a second, heavier hauberk over the gown of nimil chain he had worn before. He noted the oval shield leaning against what appeared a workbench just beyond the Ghoul, almost absurd for the density of signification stamped into it.
“War?”
With a quickness that was nothing short of surreal, the Nonman leapt to stand before him, his blade extended, pressing the Amiolas at a point that would have blinded him, had his face been uncovered. And yet, Sorweel sat absolutely still, curiously unalarmed—possessed of a bravery, he realized, that was not his own.
“I fear you have come to us at an inopportune time, Son of Harweel,” Oinaral Lastborn said, his voice deadly and even.
“And why is that?”
“Our time is over. Even I, the Lastborn … even I can feel it begin …”
The dark gaze dulled for turning inward.
“You mean the Dolour.”
Oinaral scowled; the faintest of tremors passed through his arm. Light decanted the length of the arcane C?nuroi blade.
“The Intact huddle,” he said in a voice more wrung of passion than calm, “drip with the years into the very confusion they so fear. But the Wayward … they set out, paddle until they lose sight of all compassionate shores … seeking to recover themselves in shame and horror.”
Oinaral did not so much as move, and yet his manner sagged somehow. “Many …” he said on a breath nearly human. “Many find their way to Min-Uroikas …”
Incredulity stomped the breath from the youth, an outrage not his own.
“What are you saying?”
Oinaral lowered his gaze. The wicked white length of Holol dipped not at all.
“Cousin!” Sorweel cried, his voice not his own. “Tell me you jest!”
Dismay. Outrage. And shame—shame before all.
Flee to Min-Uroikas?
Then fury. He had assumed his own hatred peerless: a father dead, an honour and a nation trammelled. But what he felt now crackled as a live bonfire within him, a fury that could pop bones and crack teeth, pulp fists for punishing insensate stone!
Flee to Min-Uroikas? For what? To treat with the Hated? The Vile? How could such a thing be possible?
“You lie! Such a thing cou—!”
“Listen to me!” Oinaral shouted down the length of the sword. “Thousands have found their way to Min-Uroikas! Thousands!” He grimaced for something approximating wrath and became, for a fleet instant, truly Sranc-faced. “And one of them has found his way back!”
Nin’ciljiras … Sorweel realized. And upon this ringing fact, the fury was sucked away.
Ishterebinth has fallen to Golgotterath!
He had known this, but …
A sudden cold washed through him then, a resolve both fathomless and grim. Rather than grope in the vain hope of throwing off the yoke of another, more vital soul, rather than sort himself from himself, he had to find someway to master the new soul he had become. Serwa and Mo?nghus were doomed, otherwise.
“Then why raise Holol against me?”
Oinaral glared. “Cilc?liccas demands that I slay you.”
“The Lord of Swans? Why?”
“Because you are for Min-Uroikas, Son of Harweel, though you know it not.”
Sorweel leaned forward, pressed the Amiolas hard against the point of Holol.
“Then why hesitate?”
Oinaral gazed down upon him in drawn horror. It both unnerved and thrilled the youth, the sword’s gleaming taper, the luminous tip grinding, nimil-scored and nimil-blunted, a mere thumb’s breadth from his brow.
The arid slap of wings. They both started. The Holol chipped across the wrought face as Sorweel yanked his head to squint into the shaft above them. The white was so bright as to be liquid, but Sorweel saw the terrifying silhouette nonetheless, unmistakable for the knifing beak and swan-long neck.
A stork battled in the chute’s throat, then was gone.
“Because only Fate,” Oinaral Lastborn said, “can redeem the piteous soul of my Race.”
“But Father … Sorweel is one of your Believer-Kings. Will they not interrogate him?”