The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [95]
“Sound retreat,” Aspar told the man with the horn.
“Sir—”
Aspar took Emfrith’s shoulder.
“He’ll move up now. We can’t fight with our backs turned. We didn’t know about this.”
“Raiht,” the boy said, his face wet with tears. “Sound the retreat.”
A black shadow passed over them, and another, and there was a sound of many wings.
CHAPTER TWELVE
KAURON
STEPHEN PAUSED, trembling, staring at his feet, staring at a thousand pairs of feet in shoes, buskins, boots, bare, missing toes, huge, tiny.
It was like what the Vhelny had done to him, except the other memories weren’t his.
But that distinction wouldn’t matter for long. He closed his eyes and stepped, feeling as he did a myriad of other steps, a thousand different swayings of his body.
His stomach couldn’t take that, and he doubled over, vomiting, observing with an odd detachment that in that act he somehow felt more solid, more himself.
But he wasn’t. That was the greatest lie in the world, the most fundamental illusion. That thing called Stephen was a culling, a mere snip of what really existed. The rest of him was trying to get back in.
Would that end it? Would he be complete if he gave up the fantasy that this tiny Stephen thing was real?
Maybe.
No.
The voice barged through the rest, pushed them back to whispers. It was gentle, strong, confident, and Stephen felt some of the strength from the first fane come back to him.
No, the voice repeated. That is death. The voices you hear, the visions you experience—those are the dead, those who let go of themselves, who allowed the river to take what was in them. You are stronger because you still have a self. Do you understand? You are still tied together. You are real, Stephen Darige. It’s totality that is the illusion. Only the finite can be real.
“Kauron?”
Yes. I’m more powerful here. You’ve passed the fourth fane. There is only one more. Listen to me. What you feel is your mind trying to accept everything in the river. You can’t do that without dying, without ceasing to become who you are. Can you understand me?
“I think so.”
Then let me help you fight it.
“Aren’t you dead, too? Why are you different?”
Because I walked this faneway, too. Because when my body died, I would not permit the river to have me.
“I—” But the voices were coming back, and he couldn’t think. “Help me find the last fane,” he gasped.
Be strong, Stephen. Hold on to yourself. Hold on to me. It isn’t far.
It seemed far, however. He realized at some point that the light and wind weren’t illusions, that somewhere along the way he had left the innards of the mountain and was winding up its slopes. Kauron stayed with him, talking to him and not to the other voices, reminding him that he was the real one. It felt as if the ancient monk were walking right beside him, although when he looked, he could not see him.
“The Vhelny,” Stephen managed to ask. “What does it want?”
“Vhelny?”
“The thing you warned me against, the thing in the mountain.”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t think it would be someone else seeking the power of the faneway, not if he already knew where it was. One would think he would have slain you and walked it himself.”
“That’s what I thought,” Stephen said, pausing to make certain that the hand he was using to steady himself was his own.
“So it’s someone who wants you to have the power.”
“But the prophecy says he’s my enemy. I’m your heir, and he’s my enemy.”
“If I had an enemy like that, I don’t remember. It’s possible, I suppose. Ghosts, even ghosts like me, aren’t aware of the things they’ve forgotten. Anyway, I don’t think I would know much about prophecies concerning Kauron’s heir, would I? They were all made after my death.”
Stephen felt a deep shock of dizziness.
Stephen! The voice was back in his head, fainter, alarmed.
Listen to me, Stephen. Focus on my voice.
The vertigo eased back. “What happened to you, Kauron?” he asked. “How did you die?”
“I died on this very mountain,” the ghost replied.
“Did the