all be sacrificed to the black tree: the sacred Black-Tree, the stronghold of halfling knowledge. Their blood would seep down to the deepest roots where it would erase the stigma of failure and disgrace. Paddock—
Her hands faltered. The rope slipped. She could see the familiar face with its jagged scar from eye to lip. His name was not Paddock; his name was Pavek. Pavek! And he would not approve of what she was doing—
A fist of Unseen wind struck Mahtra’s thoughts, shattering them and leaving her empty-minded until other thoughts filled the void: It was not fitting that Black-Tree refused to hear Kakzim’s prayers, refused to acknowledge his domination. He’d committed no crimes, made no errors. He’d been undone by the very mongrels and misfits he’d sworn to eliminate, which was surely proof of the honor and validity of his intentions.
Pavek would have been the perfect sacrifice, but Pavek had escaped. Kakzim would offer three sacrifices in Pavek’s place—Ruari first, then Zvain, then Mahtra herself-all three offered while the two moons shone with one light. Their blood would nurture the Black-Tree’s roots, and all of Kakzim’s minor errors would be forgiven, forgotten. The Black-Tree would accept him as the rightful heir of halfling knowledge.
She tied the rope off with the others already knotted at the base of the Black-Tree’s huge trunk, then she looked at Zvain. His turn would come next, when the overlapping moons were visible above the treetops. Her turn would come at midnight, when Ral was centered within Guthay’s orb. She would walk freely to the stone, made by halflings and unmade the same way.
Made by halflings?
Mahtra recaptured her thoughts, broke the wall, and beat back the Unseen fist. Made by halflings—the voices in the darkness at the beginning of her memory were halfling voices. The makers who had made a mistake and cast her out of their lives with no more than red beads and a mask, those makers were halflings. Now another halfling, the same halfling who had slaughtered Father, had cast her out of her own thoughts, and…
She remembered what she’d done while Kakzim controlled her mind and those memories tore through her conscience. She raised her head, hoping the images were a dream, knowing they weren’t. That was Ruari hanging above her head. That was Ruari’s blood seeping into the dark moss, and she was the one who’d hung him.
Mahtra couldn’t cry, but she could scream. She turned her head toward Kakzim when she screamed and nailed him with a look as venomous and mad as he’d ever given the world. Thunder brewed inside her as all the cinnabar she’d swallowed in the darkness quickened. The last thing she saw before the cloudy membrane slid over her eyes was Kakzim running toward her with his arm raised and the metal knife in his hand.
He might succeed in unmaking her, but that would come too late. Mahtra extended her arms, as if to embrace a lover, and surrendered herself to what the halflings had given her, confident that her thunder would kill.
* * *
Pavek had carried their guide almost from the start of their headlong march through the forest. He believed too late for halfling legs might be just in time for longer human legs, if they stormed through the forest like a thirst-crazed mekillot, never slowing, never weaving right or left. The little fellow on Pavek’s shoulders had collected a few more bruises dodging branches on a maze of trails not made by anyone of Pavek’s extended height, but Cerk hadn’t complained, simply grabbed fistfuls of Pavek’s hair and shouted out “right” or “left” at the appropriate time.
The twin moons had risen before the sun completely set. Between them, they shed sufficient light through the leaves to keep the trail visible to Pavek’s dim, human eyes; but it was a strange light, filled with ghosts and shimmering wisps and luminous eyes in slanting pairs and foreboding isolation. The novice druid’s skin crawled as Cerk guided him through the haunted trees, but he never hesitated, not until a solitary clap of thunder rolled through the moonlit forest.
“Mahtra!” Pavek shouted.
“The white-skinned woman is still alive,” Cerk agreed.
Thinking he no longer needed a guide, Pavek came to a stiff-legged halt and tried to lift Cerk down, but the halfling clung to him, insisting:
“You won’t find it without me, even now. We must all stay together!”
Pavek turned to Javed, who’d halted beside him, as the other templars had come to a stop behind them. With his nighttime