And then she was gone into the rain.

21

The Deathwatch Chamber

Brave Nushash was out riding and saw Suya the Dawnflower, the beautiful daughter of Argal, and instantly knew she must be his. He stopped beside her and held out his hand, and at once she too fell in love with him. Thus it is when the heart speaks louder than the head—even gods must listen. She reached up to him and let the fire god draw her up into the saddle. Together they rode away.

—from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One

VANSEN LAY ON HIS FACE, still trembling, unable to find the strings to make his limbs lift him again and uncertain that he wanted to. The terrible voice that had blasted through his head like a crack of thunder was still echoing, although whether that was inside or outside his skull, or both, he could not have said.

“DO MY WORDS PAIN YOU? OR IS IT THE WAY I SPEAK THEM?”

Vansen whimpered despite himself. He felt as though an ocean wave had picked him up and dashed him onto the rocks. He clung to the floor and wondered if he could hit his head hard enough on the stone flags to kill himself and end this throbbing, agonizing clamor.

When the voice rolled over and through him again, the words and the mocking laugh were quieter—painful but not crippling. “Well, then, I will speak more softly, for the comfort of my guests. Sometimes I forget what the voice of a god can do…”

“Half a god,” said a voice Vansen had never heard before, but which seemed somehow weirdly familiar. It was vastly less intrusive than the one-eyed monster’s, but it sounded inside Ferras Vansen’s head in the same way. “Half a god, half a monster.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Why do you take us from our lawful business, Old One?”

“To help me inmylawful business,” the rumbling voice said. “But what brings one of the Encauled so close to my adopted kingdom? What is this lawful business of which you speak?”

“We are riding home to the House of the People, but were driven out of our way. Why should you interfere?”

Now that Jack Chain’s voice no longer rattled his bones with each utterance, Vansen slowly began to lift himself from the ground. He ached as if he had been beaten, but if he was going to die he would do his best to meet that death standing, as a soldier of Southmarch. The dusty stone beneath him was splotched with red; he lifted his hands to his face and realized his nose was streaming blood.

“Interfere? You trespass on my land, little hobgoblin, and then claim I have interfered with you?” The monstrous, one-eyed creature lolled on his statue-throne, his splayed legs longer than Vansen was tall, the handsome, ruined head as big as a temple bell. Jikuyin was smiling down at a small figure standing before him—Gyir the Storm Lantern.

“I am on the king’s business,” said Gyir’s voice.