He sensed it at once, greater than emptiness: an abyss where once earth had lain firm beneath the feet of his people. A strange dullness afflicted the ache of the wind and the whisper of sand where grains rolled down the steep sides of the new sinkhole into a shallow chamber half filled with the birth sands that had once covered it. A few tiny ice-white forms lay tumbled in the collapse: the ice wyrms that had long protected the treasure that the WiseMothers had incubated. They, too, lay as still as death.

He was surrounded by death, although life had sprung from it.

He stepped forward and pressed a palm against the nearest WiseMother. It felt only of stone. No consciousness animated its core. They were absent. Gone.

Dead.

"Can you hear me? Can you answer me?" he called to them, who were the life of their children. They had for so long guided them with the foresight of the ancient, who saw farther than their shortlived children could ever do.

He waited, and he listened.

But all he heard was the wind.

V

OLD GHOSTS

1

AS they rode west along the Osterwaldweg, an Eagle met the king's progress where dappled shadow met open road at the edge of a wide forest wilderness.

"Rufus," said Sanglant.

The redhead had been with King Henry in Aosta and lately left behind in Saony together with a few other Eagles when the king had ridden east into the marchlands.

"Your Majesty. I am sent ahead by Mother Scholastica to let you know she intends to meet with you in Osterburg. I did not expect to meet you on the road."

Once, a well trained Eagle could have looked through fire to discover the king's whereabouts by means of observing landmarks glimpsed through the flames. No longer.

"We shall meet my aunt in Quedlinhame, before she expects us." He liked the thought of surprising her, anything to put her at a disadvantage.

"She has already left. I rode ahead to alert the stewards in Osterburg. You'll meet her on this road, Your Majesty."

Outflanked. Still, two could play that game. "Take drink and food, Rufus. You'll get new mounts, and return to her. Tell her to await us at ..." He paused, considering the route.

For once, Liath was paying attention. "Goslar has a small palace."

“At Goslar. Is there more, Eagle? Sent she a message? What does she intend?"

"Nothing more, Your Majesty. Nothing she told to me, anyway." He was a good rider with an easy seat, but very serious, pacing alongside the king. If he meant his remark wryly, Sanglant saw no sign of it.

Liath fell out of line to ride with the young man back along the cavalcade to the supply wagons. Sanglant listened as they moved away. It was always easy for him to catch her voice out of the multitude.

"When was it again that you first met Hanna? At Darre? Not earlier, then? You never met her before—did you ride east with Princess Sapientia? Oh, I see."