The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [116]
“From walking the faneway of Saint Decmanis, yes.”
“And do you have anything new like that? From this sedos?”
Stephen laughed. “Not that I know of. I don’t feel any different. Anyway, I didn’t walk the whole faneway, just two sedoi, if I understand what happened.”
“But something happened,” Aspar persisted. “The first killed you; the second brought you back to life.”
“What would the next one do, I wonder?” Leshya asked.
“I’ve no intention of finding out,” Stephen replied. “I’m alive, walking, breathing, I feel good—and I don’t want to have anything more to do with the saint that faneway belongs to.”
“You know the saint?” Leshya asked.
“There was a statue in the first one,” Stephen said, “with a name: Marhirehben.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Winna said.
“Her,” Stephen corrected, “at least in that aspect, the saint is female. If the word saint really applies.”
“What do you mean?”
“Marhirehben was one of the damned saints, whose worship was forbidden by the Church. Her name means ‘Queen of Demons.’ ”
“How can a saint be completely forgotten?”
“She wasn’t. You’ve heard of her—Nautha, Corpse Mother, the Gallows Witch—those are some of her names that survive.”
“Nautha isn’t a saint,” Winna protested. “She’s a monster from children’s stories.”
“So was the Briar King,” Stephen said.
“Anyway, somebody remembers her old name.” He frowned. “Or was reminded. She was mentioned in several of the texts I deciphered. Another of her aspects was ‘mother devouring.’ She who eats life and gives birth to death.” He looked down. “They couldn’t have done this without me, without my research.”
“Stephen, this isn’t your fault,” Winna said.
“No,” Stephen said. “It isn’t. But I was an instrument of whoever’s fault it is, and that doesn’t please me.”
“Then we should follow the monk’s trail,” Leshya said.
“Let me see the letter,” Stephen said. “Then we can decide what to do. We were sent to find the Briar King, not to chase my corrupt brethren all over the King’s Forest. It may be that one of us ought to take word back to the praifec.”
“We already found the Briar King,” Aspar said.
“What?” Stephen turned in his saddle.
“It was the Briar King and his creatures killed the rest of those monks back there,” Aspar explained.
“You said something about the Briar King’s hunt,” Stephen said, “but I didn’t realize you had seen him again. Then the arrow must not have worked.”
“I didn’t use it,” Aspar said.
“Didn’t use it?”
“The Briar King isn’t the enemy,” Leshya replied. “He attacked the monks and let us be.”
“He is the enemy,” Ehawk’s voice came weakly. “He turns villagers into animals and makes them kill other villagers. He may hate the monks, but he hates all men.”
“He’s cleansing his forest,” Leshya said.
“My people have lived in the mountains since the day the Skasloi fell,” Ehawk said. “It is our right to live there.”
Leshya shrugged. “Consider,” she said. “He wakes, and discovers his forest is diseased, and from the rot monsters are springing which will only hasten its end. Utins, greffyns—the black thorns. It is the disease he is fighting, and so far as he is concerned, the people who live in this forest and cut its trees are part of that disease.”
“He didn’t kill us,” Aspar pointed out.
“Because,” she said, “like him, we are part of the cure.”
“You don’t know that,” Stephen said.
Again she shrugged. “Not for certain, I suppose, but it makes sense. Can you think of another explanation?”
“Yes,” Stephen said. “Something is wrong with the forest, yes, and terrible creatures are waking or being born. The Briar King is one of them, and like them he is mad, old, senile, and terribly powerful. He is no more our friend or our enemy than a storm or bolt of lightning.”
“That’s not so different from what I just said,” Leshya replied.
Stephen turned to Aspar. “What do you think, holter?”
Aspar blew out a breath. “You may both be right. But whatever is wrong with the forest, the Briar King isn’t the cause of it. And I think he is trying to fix it.”
“But that could mean killing every man, woman, and child within