flinched in the chair across from Dorian. He gestured, and the lamps in the room lit. “Dorian? You’re back! I hope whatever you were doing was important, because I wanted to wake you about a hundred times.”
Dorian’s head was aching. What day was it? How long had he been catatonic?
His answer was in the air itself. Khali was close. He could feel her.
“I need gold,” Dorian said.
“What?” Solon asked. He rubbed his eyes. It was late.
“Gold, man! I need gold!”
Solon pointed to his purse on the table and pulled on boots.
Dorian spilled the gold coins into his hands. It barely even hit his palm before the coins melted into a glob, instantly cooled and wrapped around his wrist. “More. More! There’s no time to lose, Solon.”
“How much?”
“As much as you can carry. Meet me in the back courtyard, and rouse the soldiers. All of them. But don’t ring the alarum bell.”
“Dammit, what is it?” Solon demanded. He grabbed his sword belt and strapped it on.
“No time!” Dorian was already running out of the room.
In the courtyard, Dorian could swear he smelled Khali even more strongly, though the scent was purely magical. She was perhaps two miles distant. It was midnight now, and he suspected she’d strike an hour before dawn, the wytching hour, when men are most susceptible to the night’s terrors and Khali’s delusions.
Dorian tried to untangle what he’d seen. He couldn’t imagine the garrison would hold, and if Khali caught him, the results would be as terrible for the world as for him. A prophet, delivered into her hands? Dorian thought of the futures he’d seen for himself. Was it so great a sacrifice to give up seeing those rush inexorably toward him? But if he gave up his visions, he would be blind, rudderless, and useless to anyone else. It also wasn’t a simple procedure. He’d described it to Solon and Feir as being like smashing his own brain with a sharp rock in order to stop seizures. Ideally, he could sear one part of his own Talent in such a way that it would eventually heal, but not for years. If Khali captured him, she might think his gift was gone forever, and kill him.
He had begun preparing the weaves before he realized he’d made up his mind. The fact that it was dark and he couldn’t replenish his glore vyrden was no problem because the amount of magic he needed was slight. He set up the weaves deftly, sharpening some and setting them aside, holding the prepared portions as if in one hand. As the magic came together, he realized that all his time in his visions, juggling different streams of time and holding place markers at decision points, had paid off in his magic. Not five years ago, he’d come this far with the weave, practicing it to see if he could hold seven strands simultaneously. It had been brutal, especially knowing that letting any one slip could make him an amnesiac, an idiot, or dead. Now, it was easy. Solon came into the yard and saw what he was doing, a look of horror on his face, and even that didn’t distract Dorian.
He sliced, twisted, pulled, seared, and covered one section of his Talent.
The courtyard was curiously silent, strangely flat, oddly constricted. “My God,” Dorian said.
“What?” Solon asked, his eyes full of concern. “What have you done?”
Dorian was disoriented, like a man trying to stand after losing a leg. “Solon, it’s gone. My gift is gone.”
32
Three days north of the Silver Bear Hills, Kylar came to the small town of Torras Bend. He’d been pushing hard for six days, barely stopping long enough to rest the horses, and his body ached everywhere from his stint in the saddle. Torras Bend was halfway to Cenaria, at the base of the FasmeruMountains and Forglin’s Pass. The horses needed the rest, and so did he. South of town, he’d even had to submit to a Lae’knaught checkpoint looking for magi. Apparently, Waeddryn’s queen didn’t have the will or the power to expel the Lae’knaught either.
He asked a farmer for directions to the town’s inn and soon found himself in a warm building filled with the smells of roasting meat pies and fresh ale. Most inns smelled of stale beer and sweat, but the people of northern Waeddryn were fastidious. Their gardens lacked weeds, their fences lacked rot, their children very nearly lacked dirt. They prided themselves on their industry, and the attention to detail of these