“But, sire—”
Tobeszijian turned and strode on, closing his ears to Suchin’s cries. His heart was stone now, his temper a fire that had seared him. With every stride through his empty palace his resolve hardened. He knew exactly what to do next, and he did not hesitate.
The bay horse he had ridden to the doors of the palace still wandered about on the portico with its reins dangling. It snorted when Tobeszijian appeared, but seemed glad to be caught. Most of the rosettes braided in its flowing black mane had already fallen off.
Tobeszijian placed both children in front of the saddle and swung up with a soft jingle of his silver spurs. Pulling on his gauntlets against the cold air, he sent the horse plunging down the wide steps and across the grand courtyard, riding past the fountain with its grand basin and cavorting sea creatures carved of stone. The fountain had been shut down, and the water in the basin had pieces of ice floating in it. Tobeszijian gave it not a second glance and touched his spurs to the horse, sending it galloping straight across the orderly plantings between the courtyard and the curving road.
He returned to the stables, where the serfs sweeping the snow off the cobbles fled at the sight of him and stood peeking out from the shadows behind the piles of frozen fodder. Tobeszijian dismounted and pulled his children down off the horse, while a stableboy hurried to hold the bridle.
Tobeszijian glanced at the boy. “Inform the stablemaster that I want the darsteed,” he said quietly.
The boy gaped at him stupidly, looking frozen with alarm.
“Now,” Tobeszijian snapped.
The boy went shuffling toward the stables, leading the bay horse. Thiatereika tugged at her father’s cloak. “Are we going riding, my papa?” she asked.
He saw a group of hirelances coming from the guardhouse. His stomach tightened.
“Are we going riding, my papa?” Thiatereika asked again. “Are we going riding?
Are we?”
“Yes,” he said without glancing at her. He felt a sudden fear that his plan would not work.
Faldain had discovered something on the ground and was bending over, spraddle-legged, to examine it. His small, gloved fingers worked busily. “When are we going riding?” Thiatereika asked him. “Are we going soon? Is that why I have so many clothes on? I’m not cold, my papa. I want to go riding now.” “Yes,” he said distractedly, watching the hirelances come. “Very soon.” From inside the round fortified stall the darsteed scented him and bugled. Its thoughts, like smoking brands, came at him: Run/run/run/run. Soon, he answered it with his mind.
Faldain straightened up, staggering to catch his balance, and grinned at Tobeszijian. “Soon!” he crowed.
A little startled, Tobeszijian stared at him, wondering if the child had overheard his thoughts. But by then the hirelances had reached him. They fanned out, surrounding him in a circle of menace.
“Ready to surrender now?” Bork asked him.
The Gantese’s small dark eyes stared deep into Tobeszijian’s as though trying to read his thoughts, but Tobeszijian steeled himself against any flicker of communication and felt nothing touch him.
From the round stall a series of powerful thuds could be heard. The darsteed grew louder and more frantic.
Tobeszijian let his gaze stray in that direction. “I thought I would exercise the brute. It gets vicious when it’s neglected.”
Bork’s eyes had shrunk to pinpricks of suspicion. He pointed at the children.
“What are they?”
Tobeszijian’s chin jutted, and his eyes grew cold. “His royal highness, Prince Faldain,” he said in a voice like iron. “Her royal highness, Princess Thiatereika.”
Hearing her name spoken, Thiatereika turned and skipped over to Tobeszijian’s side. She glared up into Bork’s hatchet face without fear. “You aren’t one of our guardsmen,” she declared. “You wear strange boots.” Tobeszijian glared at the man. “You sent some of your varlets to seize my children from their chambers, Bork. With what intent?” Bork shrugged. “I follow orders.”
“They stay with me.”
Bork’s fangs showed. “In your land, the mothers keep their young close by. It makes them soft and feeble. Is the queen dead now?” “No,” Tobeszijian lied swiftly, conscious of little ears listening to every word. “She sleeps, and I would not have her rest disturbed by these two.” “A king, herding his own young?” Bork asked in astonishment. “You lie.” Tobeszijian’s hand slapped against his sword hilt, and several of the hirelances reached for their own weapons. Bork held up his hand to stop them, and sent Tobeszijian one of his thin-lipped smiles.
“You lie,” he repeated more softly. “You and I both know it. A king does not do servant’s work.”
“He might when there are no servants to do the work,” Tobeszijian retorted. “The palace is empty, except for one old woman who tends the queen. Or haven’t you gone inside yet? I suppose you haven’t, for there’s been no looting done.” It was Bork’s turn to stiffen at the insult. Tobeszijian faced him, steely-eyed and unflinching.
Bork scowled at him. “Surrender your sword. Now.”
Tobeszijian reached for Mirengard slowly. Inside, his heart was already knotting with more worry. He would have to fight them, and the children were in the way. Thod’s bones, how was he to get them in the clear?
A commotion in the stableyard gave him his answer.
He spun around, the hirelances turning with him, and saw five sweating stableboys bringing the darsteed out with throat poles. The stablemaster and another boy followed, carrying the armored body cloth and special saddle. The darsteed was a huge, snorting brute. As black as evil, its slitted eyes glowed red. Hot, acidic saliva dripped off its fangs to hiss upon the icy ground. The sweating, frightened boys maneuvered it around, forcing it to go near the mounting blocks.
Inside the stables, the horses must have sensed that the darsteed was out. Several of them whinnied in alarm, and the darsteed slung its head in that direction. It was bred to hunt and attack anything that moved. It lunged in the direction of the barns, but the boys held it in place.
Roaring in fury, it shook its snakelike head violently and slashed out with razor-sharp hooves. The boys screamed in fear, and one of them dropped his throat pole. At once the darsteed charged, but the others managed to hold it back. The beast shot flames from its nostrils, scorching the paving stones. Again it shook its powerful neck and head, shuddering in an effort to throw its handlers off their feet. The boy who’d fallen scrambled back up and darted forward to seize the dangling throat pole. The darsteed slashed at him, but missed. Enraged, it lashed its barbed tail from side to side. The stablemaster flung the armor cloth over the beast’s humped back and fastened it with swift expertise. The cloth clanked with its movements, and the darsteed roared at the saddle, which was being carried closer now. It lunged, and the boys barely held it in check. The darsteed flung up its head and reared high, and the stablemaster hurried to throw the saddle on its back. He reached under the creature’s belly for the cinch, missed, and grabbed again. The darsteed kicked him, and a bloody gash opened in the stablemaster’s leg. Crying out, he yanked up the cinch hard enough to make the darsteed grunt, and stumbled back, limping and clutching his leg.
The darsteed’s nostrils flared, sniffing the scent of fresh blood. Its lean head followed the stablemaster, and one of the boys shouted a warning. Faldain squealed with laughter and darted between the hirelances encircling Tobeszijian. Grabbing at the child, Tobeszijian missed, and Faldain escaped. Seeing his son run straight at the darsteed, Tobeszijian’s heart lurched in his chest. “Stop him!” he shouted.
Bork laughed, and none of the hirelances moved to obey Tobeszijian’s command. Horrified, Tobeszijian tried to go after Faldain himself, but Bork blocked his path.
“You said you wanted to go riding with your young,” he said with a laugh that showed his fangs. “Now we will see the truth.”
Tobeszijian took a step back and sent his mind to the darsteed, touching cool intelligent reason to hot bestiality. The darsteed quieted at once, despite the child’s approach. Its mind held resentment, but it was forced to subject itself to Tobeszijian’s command.
Still/still/still/still, Tobeszijian told it.
Breathing smoky plumes in the cold air, the darsteed stood motionless, watching Faldain’s approach with its red eyes. The child toddled right up to it, well within striking range, and stopped, laughing and reaching up to the creature with innocent, chubby fingers.
“In Thod’s name,” the stablemaster breathed, watching with horrified eyes. “Hoi, you and Rafe try to get him away from that devil’s spawn.” “Let his highness be,” Tobeszijian forced himself to say calmly while Bork’s eyes widened. “After all, this will be his war mount someday. They might as well become acquainted.”
“You bluff well,” Bork murmured, unable to take his gaze from the sight of child and beast studying each other. “But still you bluff.”
“Do I?” Tobeszijian replied through his teeth. He kept his face stony and calm, but inside his heart was thudding with anxiety.
Thiatereika tugged at his cloak. “I can’t see, my papa,” she said in frustration. “What is Dainie doing with the black horse?” Tobeszijian lifted her into his arms. “Making friends with it,” he said lightly, feeling sweat bead along his temples.
The darsteed was resisting his control. He could feel its hunger, like a clawing thing, and with dismay Tobeszijian remembered it had not been fed properly for many days now. Faldain was the perfect size for a meal. Oh, Thod, have mercy, he prayed.
Giggling as though conscious that he was the center of attention, Faldain glanced around at his audience, moved closer, and held up his hand again to the beast looming over him.
The darsteed lowered its head, its red eyes focused on nothing but the child.
Still/still/still/still, Tobeszijian commanded it.
The beast bared its fangs, letting acid drip, hissing, around Faldain. The child stretched up on his toes, unafraid, and patted the darsteed on the end of its snout.
“Horsey, go ride!” Faldain announced.
A sigh of awe passed through the onlookers. Tobeszijian pushed his way through the hirelances with Thiatereika in his arms. His legs felt like wood, but he forced himself to act the part, calmly walking right up to his son and the beast that wanted Faldain as its prey. Tobeszijian knew he would have to pay a price for this obedience. The darsteed would feed, and very soon now, no matter how much Tobeszijian tried to control it.
“Pet the darsteed, Thiatereika,” the king said lightly.
She reached out and gave the creature’s leathery neck a single pat before he whisked her out of reach. By then he’d gripped Faldain’s arm and pulled him off the ground, spinning and kicking almost under the very nose of the darsteed, which hissed and slavered as little shudders ran through its body. Its tail was lashing from side to side in warning.
Tobeszijian could feel its fury building, and knew his control would not last much longer.
“The bridle, stablemaster,” he said quietly.
But the stablemaster had sunk down on the cobbles a safe distance away, blood still streaming from his leg, while some of the other servants tried to tend his wound. The boy who’d helped carry the saddle stepped forward with the simple bridle in his hands. It had no bit, and was merely a headpiece with reins attached.
“Be quick,” Tobeszijian murmured to him.
The boy nodded, his throat apple jerking up and down as he swallowed. Drawing a final breath, he darted toward the darsteed, which flung up its head in alarm. With all the control he still possessed, Tobeszijian pressed harder, and the beast lowered its head. The boy fitted the bridle on, tugging the check strap swiftly into place, and stumbled out of the way.
By then Tobeszijian had both children on the darsteed’s back. He mounted in a swift, fluid motion. Gathering the reins, he let a part of himself flow into and become one with the darsteed.
He wanted to feel it attack.
The darsteed’s blood boiled through Tobeszijian’s veins. His own fury raged back into the darsteed. Impatience filled Tobeszijian, an impatience and anger that he no longer tried to govern. With a flick of his hands, he gestured to the stableboys.
“My children,” he said with the last ounce of what remained inside him as a man, “hold on tight no matter what happens.”
Inside his glove, the Ring burned hot around his finger. Tobeszijian’s heart was thudding faster and faster.
The stableboys released the nooses on the throat poles, and Bork stepped forward.
“You ride it and show us your legend,” he said with a sneer. “Then your games are over, king, and you go to the guardhouse as our prisoner.” Tobeszijian spurred the darsteed and slipped his control from the beast’s mind.
Feed/strike/go, he commanded.
With a bugle of rage, the darsteed bounded straight at Bork, who had time only to gape in dawning terror before the creature’s fangs ripped out his throat, then tore off his head and swallowed it in a gulp.
Tobeszijian spurred it again, and the creature leaped and bellowed and thundered across the stableyard toward the small still-shut gates. Someone shouted behind him, but Tobeszijian did not listen. He was concentrating inside, reaching into the heat of the Ring the way his father had taught him long ago. And when he felt the inner flash of white fire as the Ring drew him into its power, Tobeszijian tightened his arm around his children, and spurred the darsteed harder. With a roar, it bounded into the second world with a speed that made Tobeszijian’s sweat-soaked hair blow back from his face. All around him was blinding light and a deafening roar of sound. Chalice, he thought with all his might, forcing himself to concentrate and remain focused. To the Chalice.
And to the astonished onlookers remaining in the stable-yard of Nether Palace, King Tobeszijian and his children vanished on that fearsome beast of hell into thin air as though the gods had snatched them from this world and taken them far away.
Only a fading shower of golden sparks remained behind to glow upon the hoof tracks etched into the paving stones.
For Tobeszijian, the passage through the second world was too swift and confusing to evoke fear. In a terrible silence in which his own voice made no sound, Tobeszijian saw only gray swirling mists and the shadows of things he did not understand. All he knew was that he and his children were still galloping through this nonplace on the back of the darsteed. The beast ran with all its strength, its powerful muscles bunching and thrusting, but if it roared those sounds were silenced. If the children cried, Tobeszijian could not hear them. Looking down at them, clamped together within the tight circle of his arm, he saw them only dimly, as though they were shadows. There was no color in this strange, ghostly place that seemed washed in shades of moonlit gray. There was no sense of time. Nothing lived or moved except them. He perceived an emptiness so profound it frightened him.
Belatedly he remembered he must keep his destination clear in his mind, or else they would be lost here in the second world forever, prey to its many dangers. Chalice, he thought.
With a great pop of sound, they leaped back into reality, with its noise, smells, and overwhelming kaleidoscope of colors. Disoriented and shaken, Tobeszijian reeled in his saddle, while his children wailed and the darsteed reared and lunged at something moving before it.
Just in time, Tobeszijian regained his senses and realized the moving object was a woman, gowned in vivid blue with a purple girdle and a crimson-lined cloak. Screaming as she backed away from the attacking darsteed, she tripped on the hem of her long skirts and fell. The darsteed lunged at her, its pointed teeth snapping. Cringing and screaming, the woman brought up her hands helplessly to shield herself.
Tobeszijian hit the darsteed with his mind: Stand/stand/stand/stand. The darsteed’s head whipped back and around. Its eyes glowed red madness at Tobeszijian. For an instant he thought he could not withstand the hot, molten fury raging inside the beast, but with all his will he held firm. Kicking, the darsteed bugled its frustration and lashed its barbed tail from side to side. But it obeyed him and stood as he commanded.
Sobbing, the woman scrambled away, and others in the crowd helped pull her to safety.
Tobeszijian saw that he was in a stone church, filled with an ethereal glow of dusty sunlight streaming in through tall, slitted windows. Scaffolding in places showed the place to be still under construction. The air smelled of plaster dust and fresh paint pigments. On the left side, a single tapestry hung between two windows, but empty hooks showed where other tapestries would soon hang. Tobeszijian recognized the new Belrad Cathedral.
Netheran nobles in their finery filled the long, rectangular nave. Tobeszijian recognized many faces, faces which either stared at him in flat defiance or reddened and turned away. For here were gathered his missing courtiers, those who had abandoned his palace and his queen while she lay dying. A fresh burst of grief and accompanying rage shook him. His hands clenched white-knuckled around his reins, and he could feel his pulse throbbing hard in his throat.
There stood Count Lazky with his wife and grown daughters. There stood Prince Askirzikan. There stood Fortinac, the burly knight exiled from Mandria who had found acceptance here. On her stool, surrounded by frightened attendants, sat the Countess Renylkin, her aged face set like stone, her knobby hands clutching a book of Writ tightly in her lap. Only her eyes gave her away, eyes that stared at him with fear and a trace of wonder.
Tobeszijian could not believe that this countess had turned against him, yet here she was with all the others. She met his gaze proudly, never faltering, although her cheeks turned pink. She had been chief lady-in-waiting to the queen, and her desertion of Nereisse made Tobeszijian wonder in despair how he’d misjudged her character so completely. Indeed, how could he have been so wrong about so many?
In that moment of stunned silence as he faced them, still glowing from a golden light which streamed down his body from the delicate circlet of eldin gold on his brow to the rowels of his silver spurs, Tobeszijian looked every inch a king and more. Even now, travel-stained and drawn with grief, holding his big-eyed children clamped against him like refugees, Tobeszijian eclipsed every other man present. The golden light made the jewels in his sword and dagger hilts glitter even more brightly. His skin shone with the radiance of it, as though he’d passed through the breath of the gods. His ice-blue eyes, clear evidence of his eldin blood, glared with a ferocity that stilled the breath in many throats. His courtiers had run away like wicked children, but Tobeszijian had found them, bursting upon them with a great clap of sound and the acrid smell of magic. Even now, the remnants of whatever spell he’d commanded still flowed from him, the golden light of it dripping to the floor and puddling in a pool of radiance at the shifting feet of the darsteed.
Somewhere in the staring crowd there came a rustle of movement accompanied by a faint clanking sound. A man knelt, bowing his head. Another did the same. And another. The Countess Renylkin moved ponderously off her stool, and with the help of her attendants knelt on the stones before her king. Only then did the abundant folds of her skirts fall, allowing him to see the chain that shackled her ankles.
“My heart to the king!” cried a deep voice that Tobeszijian recognized as Prince Spirin’s.
Looking in that direction, Tobeszijian saw the tall, lean prince struggling with someone who was trying to keep him from kneeling. Spirin’s fur-cuffed sleeve fell back from his wrist, and Tobeszijian saw that he too was manacled with iron.
“To the king!” shouted someone else.
“To the king!”
But the few voices of acclaim were defiant and isolated. They provoked no general cheering. And although many now knelt, others did not. Rigid with anger at the insult, Tobeszijian saw more and more glances being cast toward the front of the church. He swept his own gaze in that direction, seeking his enemy.
At the front of the church, high above the altar, a wide window of stained glass depicting the Circle surrounded by the crests of the holy orders—created by men, not by the gods—cast an eerie scarlet glow over Tobeszijian’s half-brother, Prince Muncel. Wearing an ermine cloak and a tall, pointed crown glittering with jewels, Muncel sat on a gold throne with black velvet cushions, a beyarskin rug separating his embroidered velvet shoes from the cold stone floor. Balanced across his knees lay the sheathed triangular sword of black iron, the antiquated sword that Solder First had carried into battle before he met the gods and was given the kingdom, the Ring, the Chalice, and later Mirengard. Cardinal Pernal and another ecclesiastical figure sat on either side of Muncel, richly attired in long robes of crimson and purple. They were there for support and confirmation, or perhaps as guards. Gazing at his half-brother in cold speculation, Tobeszijian wondered how much of this evil plot had spun from Muncel’s greedy heart. Or was he just a puppet of the church? Across the distance, Tobeszijian and Muncel locked eyes, pale eyes to dark. The astonishment and growing fury in Muncel were so strong that Tobeszijian felt them. Although he could not reach into the minds of men the way he could those of animals, he knew that his half-brother hated him more than ever and intended to wrest the very kingdom from his hands. This religious ceremony here in the Belrad Cathedral was one more trap among many. Muncel could not strike Tobeszijian openly in the royal palace, but by stealing the Chalice and bringing the courtiers to Belrad, he had lured Tobeszijian onto his own property. If Tobeszijian attacked him here, Muncel could claim he was merely defending himself.
Such legal trickery and cowardice sparked new anger in Tobeszijian. He thought of Nereisse, who had never harmed a living soul, now dead and abandoned in an empty palace, dead by Muncel’s order. Grief and rage burned Tobeszijian’s throat, and he struck at Muncel with all the strength of his mind. The prince’s face turned gray. He cried out sharply, and fell back in his chair.
The gaudy Crown of Runtha slipped forward over his brow and fell into his lap. Cardinal Pernal was a plump, jowled man with the countenance of a kindly uncle beneath his fringe of white hair, and the rapacious heart of a vulture. At Muncel’s collapse, Pernal jumped to his feet. While the other churchmen bent over the swooning Muncel, grabbing the crown before it could roll to the floor, Pernal raised the jeweled circle that hung on a gold chain around his fat neck and cried out in a voice that rang through the church:
“Go back, creature of the darkness, to whence you came!” The darsteed screamed and reared beneath Tobeszijian, striking out with its deadly hooves, so that people shouted in fear and crowded even farther away from it.
“Go back!” Pernal shouted. “By the power of the Chalice, I command you to go.” Tobeszijian glared at him and spurred his darsteed forward to the altar. Tall and broad-shouldered, with the golden light burnishing his mail and breastplate and his burgundy cloak flowing from his shoulders over the scaled rump of his unworldly mount, the king rode through the nave like a god himself. His blue eyes held the light of battle and righteousness. Pernal’s words of repudiation were only sound, lacking power, for he did not command the Chalice, nor did he have true belief. His words were for show, to impress the terrified people watching and drawing shaky circles on their breasts for protection. Cutting across Pernal’s chanting, Tobeszijian said loudly, “I am your king! The only darkness here lies within the hearts of the traitors before me.” His voice rang off the stones and echoed in the corners. As he spoke he stripped off his gauntlets, and the Ring of Solder glowed brightly on his finger, casting its own nimbus of power about his hand. “Let the people of Nether hear my accusations. Muncel, you have defiled the holy first circle. You have stolen the Chalice for your own gain. You have murdered one who was innocent—” Muncel roused himself from his swoon and thrust himself to his feet, wild-eyed and red-faced. “Who? Your eldin whore?” he shouted, half-hysterically. “Your pagan ways have cost you, Tobeszijian. The people want to follow the Reformed Church. They want to follow me. See? Here they are. Your rule is over.” “I am king!” Tobeszijian said, his deep voice twice as powerful as Muncel’s reedy tones. “And all here know it. I wear the true crown, the crown of the First. I wear the Ring, given to the First by the gods. I carry Mirengard, which cannot be touched save by the hand of the true—” “Pagan idols,” Muncel broke in contemptuously. “The very symbols of the old darkness, which we would leave behind.”
“The way you smashed and defiled the royal paneatha?” Tobeszijian demanded. Muncel lifted his head with a proud smile. “The old ways are gone. We look to the future.”
“A future based on deceit, murder, and theft,” Tobeszijian said. “There has been no theft!” Muncel shouted angrily. “Only a return to honor for the Chalice of Eternal Life.”
“Is that why you defiled the first circle and stole the Chalice?” Tobeszijian asked, keeping his voice loud enough that all the people might hear. “Is that why you stole of the First? Is that why you hold it now?” “The Chalice belongs to all the people!” Muncel shouted. “It belongs in a place of glory, where it can be seen and worshiped. This sword is my birthright, I, who am the true son of Runtha the Second. As is the throne—” “Wanting a thing does not give you the right to it,” Tobeszijian said. He pointed at Muncel, hating him for his betrayal, his cowardice, and his lies. “I accuse you before the gods and the people of Nether!” he cried. “Let the curse of the defiler be upon you and yours for all time. You have broken the circle of trust and honor. Let all here know it.”
Muncel’s head whipped around. “Guards!” he called. “Wait, my lord,” Pernal said in alarm. “Let there be no fighting in this holy place.”
“The usurper must be seized,” Muncel said in fury. “I’ll have his tongue ripped out for his—” “The Chalice will drive him out,” Pernal said. He headed for the altar, where the Chalice stood centered on a square of pristine white linen. Tall, slender, and made of a glowing white metal only the gods could forge, the Chalice of Eternal Life filled this end of the church with its own kind of radiance. Pernal reached for it, but just as his plump hands closed around its stem, Tobeszijian drew Mirengard and spurred the darsteed forward. Light flashed off the blade of his sword, and in vengeance for the defilement of his own place of worship, he sent the darsteed bounding up the two steps onto the dais where the altar stood.
Shouting words that Tobeszijian did not understand, Pernal lifted the Chalice with both hands as though to ward him off, but the cardinal had no understanding of how to wield the Chalice’s power. That power was coiled about Tobeszijian’s finger, channeled through the Ring, which flashed on his hand with increasing brightness.
“Pernal! Take heed!” Muncel was shouting, but Pernal was still chanting his prayer and did not pay attention to the prince’s warning. The darsteed lunged and struck, its fangs biting a corner off the altar and slinging wood and splinters in all directions. Furious, the darsteed spat and snorted fire. The altar cloth blazed immediately, sending up black smoke and the stench of charred flax.
Looking alarmed, Pernal stumbled back from the fire with the Chalice still in his pudgy hands. “Guards!” he shouted. “Drive this creature out!” But the guards who clustered in the shadows behind the ranks of ecclesiastical officials did not run forward to confront the darsteed as it hissed and lashed its barbed tail about.
From the day he had been named official heir to the throne, Tobeszijian had been trained secretly in his responsibilities in caring for the Chalice, in mastering the power of the Ring, in protecting the people from disaster should either item be mishandled. Now, drawing on the immense power of the Chalice, Tobeszijian spoke two soft words of command.
A shudder passed through the building, making some of the pillars holding up the lofty ceiling sway. A piece of scaffolding fell, crushing the unfortunates who were trapped beneath it. Fear ran through the crowd, but it was Pernal who screamed most loudly and shrilly. Dropping the Chalice, he stumbled back, moaning and cradling his hands, which were now black and smoking. An unseen force responded to Tobeszijian’s command, filling him with a violence that made him sway in the saddle. With all his strength, Tobeszijian forced himself to control it, drawing on everything his father and Nereisse had taught him. Yet although he had summoned only a tiny measure of the Chalice’s power, it was incredibly strong, threatening to overwhelm him. He understood then the terrible danger of what the Chalice could do, and was afraid of unleashing too much of it.
“Strike what is false!” he shouted.
The power coiled through his body, filling his heart until he thought the muscle would burst from the strain. Then white fire, blinding bright, flashed down the length of his arm, sending sparks bursting from the Ring of Solder, and thrumming through his hand. The white fire built there, then shot down the length of his sword. A force greater than his own will aimed Mirengard before white fire shot from its tip and sent the altar exploding in a rain of flames, splintered wood, and ashes. Fire from it caught the hem of Pernal’s fine robes. Yelling in fear, the cardinal rolled and beat at the flames, but Tobeszijian paid the man no heed. Forcing the bucking darsteed around, he thrust the tip of his sword inside the Chalice where it lay on the floor, and lifted it. “No!” Muncel shouted, trying to rush forward despite the restraining hands of his counselors. “It was given to men, Tobeszijian! You and your tainted blood have no right to it!”
Tobeszijian glared back at him. “Until this evil is cleared from Nether and the hearts of its people are cleansed again, the Chalice will be seen no more. The taint comes from you, Muncel, you and your bigotry!” “Seize him now!” Muncel ordered the guards.
They rushed forward, trying to surround Tobeszijian, but he let the darsteed strike as it wished, driving the men back. Sheathing his sword, Tobeszijian handed the Chalice to Thiatereika. “Hold tight to this, sweet,” he said, while her small face tipped back to look at him solemnly. “Do not drop it, no matter what.”
“I won’t, my papa,” she promised in a tiny voice.
Faldain patted it. “Pretty.”
“Sacrilege!” Pernal shouted, howling as the flames continued to burn him despite all efforts to put them out.
With pikes, the guards charged again. Tobeszijian spurred the darsteed right at them, breaking through their attack, and galloped down the aisle of the nave. He lifted the Ring. Chalice, to safety, he thought.
And for the second time, the Ring of Solder filled him with heat and a flash of white fire, drawing him into the second world with a rush that made him dizzy. The Cathedral of Belrad and the evil men within it were left staring openmouthed in fear and astonishment at the faint sparkles of light left trailing in the air.
This time the journey through the second world was long indeed, so long that the grayness and silence began to twist and confuse Tobeszijian’s mind. Afraid, he gripped the rim of the Chalice with his bare fingers, while Thiatereika continued to clutch it tightly against her chest. The white light of the Chalice glowed brightly, even here in this place of nothing, and Tobeszijian drew comfort from it, telling himself to have faith.
They exploded back into reality with a jolt that shook Tobeszijian’s bones and made Faldain cry. Patting the child to comfort him, Tobeszijian felt his own shoulders sag with weariness. He could not remember when he’d had aught to eat or drink. He’d ridden the hunt hard yesterday—was it only yesterday?—then traveled all night without rest, and now he was drawing on tremendous reserves of energy both to control the darsteed and to channel the Ring’s power. He was a man young and strong, but he knew he was nearing his limits. Fighting off a wave of exhaustion, he sat slumped in the saddle and looked around.
He did not recognize this country at all. No snow lay on the ground, which was littered with fallen leaves. Woods surrounded them, thick and impenetrable. The sky above was bleak and gray. He could smell snow in the air, and felt a biting chill that cut through his cloak and clothing. The weather was about to turn, but as yet this land had known only the lightest bite of frost. The trees were still heavy with foliage, only now starting to turn yellow or bright scarlet. Leaves fell in steady drifts, landing on his shoulders, curling for a moment in Faldain’s dark hair before being brushed aside by the cold wind. The darsteed, lathered and steaming, stood still with its head down as though weary too. Its mind pushed against Tobeszijian’s, with more need than anger:
Food/food/food/food.
Sighing, Tobeszijian dismounted, wincing as his stiff muscles protested. He reached up and pulled his children down into his arms. Faldain’s cheeks were wet with tear tracks, and he was whining softly in the way of young children who are too tired. Thiatereika’s intelligent blue eyes looked around in open curiosity, but she was also silent. The absence of her usual barrage of questions betrayed her fatigue.
Stepping back, Tobeszijian released the darsteed to hunt, wondering if he was a fool to let it go. The creature’s head snapped up, and it hissed at him ferociously before galloping into the trees and disappearing. Tobeszijian did not watch it go. His mind remained in the lightest possible contact with it, as if connected by a long, long leash. He hoped he could order its return when he needed it.
“My papa, I want down,” Thiatereika said, squirming in his arms. He set her on the ground with relief, taking the Chalice from her, and she turned her hooded head this way and that to study their surroundings. “What’s that?” she demanded, pointing at the cave’s mouth. They’d stopped in what looked to be a shallow ravine, with a thin rivulet of stream running down its center and a rocky, heavily wooded hillside rising sharply on one side. The cave was set into the hill, its mouth half-overgrown with briars and shrubs whose leaves had turned a brilliant yellow. “That,” Tobeszijian said quietly, “is where we are going to hide the Chalice.” Although he’d kept his words low and soft, his voice seemed to ring and echo slightly among the trees. Uneasily, he looked around, trying to sense if anything or anyone was watching. His senses told him nothing was, but he did not like this place. The woods were too quiet. The smells of soil and trees and game were unfamiliar to him. He was not in Nether, but somewhere far away. He did not feel safe here.
Faldain rested his head on his father’s shoulder and sucked his thumb, heavy and quiet now. Thiatereika stared at the cave until Tobeszijian took his first stride in that direction, then she ran straight for it.
“Thia, wait!” he said in alarm.
She stopped in her tracks, much to his relief, and he caught up with her. “We must be careful,” he said, not wanting to scare her. “Always approach a cave with caution. You never know what might be living in it.” Her blue eyes widened. “A beyar?” she whispered.
“Beyar,” Faldain mumbled sleepily against Tobeszijian’s cloak. At that moment, the king realized what he smelled, and why he felt so uneasy. A cold feeling of alarm sank through him. He wished he had not let the darsteed go hunting.
Putting down Faldain, who immediately wailed and reached up his arms, Tobeszijian spent several moments comforting the child, until his gray eyes grew heavy and closed. Sighing, Tobeszijian set the Chalice next to the sleeping child and made Thiatereika sit beside her brother. Taking off his cloak, he spread it across them. “Both of you stay right here,” he commanded softly. “I want to see the cave,” she said, her voice thin and tired. “I want to see beyars.”
“Let me look first,” he told her.
“Will it come out and eat us?” she asked. “Is it going to eat us right now?
Gilda says that beyars take people into their caves and eat them all winter. It’s winter now, isn’t it, my papa? I know it’s winter because the wind is cold, although there’s no snow here. Will it snow here, my papa? Will this beyar keep us in there and eat us?”
He wished, suddenly, that a beyar was all they had to worry about. “No, Thia,” he said sternly. “There is no beyar here. I will look inside while you stay here and guard your brother.”