The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [96]
“No. It’s a long story. I actually returned here to die.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. I just thought I ought to. It appears I was right.”
“But—”
“The fane is just ahead. The path is narrower than in my time.”
“I wish—it’s hard to think, to ask what I want to ask.”
“I know. I remember. Think about who you are. Tell me about who you are.”
“I—I love languages. You’re a thousand years old! There’s so much I could learn…” He shook his head, trying to focus. Was he still moving?
Yes, inching along. He saw something up ahead, something like a standing stone.
“I, ah—when I’m angry, or frustrated, I make up a little treatise, as if it’s going to go into a book.”
“Of course you do,” Kauron said. “I used to do much the same, especially when I was a novice. I wrote mine down, though, and one of the other brothers—Brother Parsons—found it and showed the others.”
“What happened?”
“They made fun of me, of course, and I had to clean the stables for a year.”
Stephen had a sudden vivid image of standing ankle-deep in horse muck.
“It’s hard to imagine the great Kauron cleaning stables,” he said.
“What’s so great about me? What did I do?”
“You brought Virgenya Dare’s journal here for safekeeping. You must have been important among the Revesturi.”
“Like you are, you mean?”
“What are you saying?”
“I was no one. Hardly anyone. I lived in the scriftorium, I found the journal; I found the location of the mountain. My fratrex sent me to bring it here because he reckoned that no one would suspect I was up to anything important, that no one would follow me.”
“There are prophecies about you.”
“No, it sounds like there are prophecies about you, Stephen. I’m just in them, doing what I’m supposed to do: helping you.”
The voices were fading now, and his sense of where he was returning. He was on a spit of stone sticking out from the mountain, a triangle four kingsyards at the base and seven long. It slanted up as it narrowed toward its apex, where stood a little spike. The Virgenyan symbol for “five” was barely visible scratched on it.
“It’s funny,” Stephen said. “You asked me to talk about myself, but it was talking about you that helped.”
“I’m your guide.”
“I think we must be very much alike,” Stephen said.
“It sounds like it. At least in youth.”
“When I touch the stone, it’s over?”
“Yes. The knowledge and power are in you, but without the blessing of this fane you can’t control it.”
“What happens to you?”
“It’s my sacrifice to make, Stephen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t worry. All is as it should be. I’ve guided you this far. Trust me a step farther.”
Stephen nodded, walking carefully forward. Sighing, he placed his hand on the upthrust of stone.
The last of the voices faded, replaced by a feeling of vastness. It was as if a great wave had passed over him, spun him in its waters, and set him back on his feet. Everything seemed new and different, as if he were seeing the world with completely novel eyes.
As if he had been reborn.
This is the Alq, he realized. It’s not really a place, it’s a state of being.
He sank down to his knees, utterly exhausted. He gazed at the beautiful march of mountains before him and felt a sudden, savage joy at the magnificence of it all, at the thunder and lightning that was the world. His body was tired, but inside he felt alive as never before.
But he knew he’d just begun: There was still plenty he had to do. The faneway wasn’t the last step. He still had to find the throne, and he had to find it soon.
Stephen stood up, and although his knees were still a bit wobbly, he felt he could walk. He was sure he remembered the way back to the Aitivar city, but it meant going halfway around the mountain, and it wouldn’t do to starve to death. Not now, when it was all there before him, when he finally knew what to do.
Something was rushing toward him on the wind, something hot and acrid.
He turned to face the Vhelny.
He still couldn’t see it either with his eyes or with the sense that dug beneath the surface of the world. Or maybe it really was nothing more than shadow.
But no,