“Are you so certain? You saw him in the city he built, the way his people loved him. And yet somehow his power grew to a point where it became absolute, and there was no one to stop him.”
“Lionen stopped him. He killed the Ally and sent him to the Beyond.”
Erlin lowered his hands, drawing them back to cross his arms. “We could wait, delay until we reach Volar . . .”
“His creature still has possession of a body in Alpira. If we delay, it might die, and the Ally could send it for you.”
Vaelin watched Erlin’s face for a moment, seeing the faint tic below his eye, the bulge of his jaw as he clenched his teeth.
“If it should come to pass that you can’t get him to the stone,” Erlin said, “I require your promise you will not kill this body. You will use the compound to return him to the Beyond.”
“You have it. I will preserve you.”
“Me?” Erlin bared his teeth in what might have been a smile. “I doubt there will be any me left when he’s done, brother.” He rose, still hugging himself tight and moving away with a stiff gait, his parting words little more than a whisper. “Give me tonight. We’ll see it done in the morning.”
• • •
He had Alturk see to the binding, the Lonak made strong rope and the Tahlessa’s knots were unlikely to loosen. “Room enough to breathe only,” Vaelin told him as he drew the rope tight around Erlin’s chest.
Kiral came forward as Alturk finished the final knot, Erlin wincing with the strain as he knelt, chest roped from shoulders to waist and his arms secured behind his back. Kiral took a deep breath as she undid the stopper on the flask. “I . . .” she began, crouched next to Erlin, her voice faltering. “This will . . . hurt. I’m sorry.”
He gave an impatient bob of his head. “So I’m told, my dear. Best get it done quickly then.”
She rose, placing a thin reed into the flask. “One drop to cast them out,” she said in a murmur, presumably reciting a lesson from the Mahlessa. “Two to draw them in.”
Erlin’s eyes flashed at Vaelin as she stepped closer. Words were irrelevant, the meaning clear in his moist gaze.
Kiral drew the reed from the flask, the tip gleaming with something dark and viscous, then lowered it so two drops fell free to land on Erlin’s exposed skin. Vaelin had expected screams, but instead Erlin stiffened, teeth clenched together and neck bulging, his face transformed into a red mask of purest agony. After a second he collapsed, writhing on the ground as foam bubbled from his mouth, legs drumming the earth. The convulsions continued for a full minute until Erlin finally lay still, all animation seeming to seep from his limbs, his head lolling slack on his shoulders.
For a moment Vaelin was certain he had killed him, that this great design had been revealed as the desperate ploy of a grieving fool . . . But then, Erlin blinked.
He rolled upright, remaining on his knees, sparing a brief glance at the ropes that bound him before raising his gaze. His expression was curious, inquisitive, lacking malice or anger as his eyes tracked across them, lingering on Vaelin, whereupon he smiled. It was a genuine smile, warm, even appreciative, as was his voice when he spoke, Erlin’s polyglot accent moulded into something stronger, the tone deeper, “Thank you.”
He closed his eyes and raised his face to the sky, smiling yet wider as the air played over his skin.
“Kill it!” It was Kiral, standing well back from the bound man, face bleached to near whiteness as her cat crouched at her side, fangs bared. “This is wrong!”
“The decision is mine,” Vaelin told her. “Regardless of your song.”
“We should never have done this.” Her hand moved unconsciously to the knife in her belt. “My song screams it.” She started forward, drawing her knife.
“He needs to be taken to Volar,” Vaelin said, stepping into her path. “And I will take him there.”
“You don’t understand,” she hissed at him. “This entire journey, every life taken and lost, every battle fought. We have done everything it wants, taking it closer to its goal with every step.”
Vaelin turned to the bound man, now regarding him with placid features, free of fear or protestation. “We will make an ending, you and I,” he said, and began to laugh.
• • •
“What was your name?”
The bound man didn’t turn at Vaelin’s question. He sat at ease on the saddle he had been tied to, continually preoccupied with the passing landscape as Vaelin rode ahead leading his mount, eyes bright and wide as if trying to capture every detail. “My wife called me husband, my children called me father,” he said. “The only names I ever truly needed.”
