The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [173]
“They’re connected to the sedoi?” Stephen asked.
“Surely you knew that,” Leshya said. “The greffyn was walking the sedoi when you first saw it.”
“Yah,” Aspar said. “It’s how the churchmen were finding them.”
“But you’re implying a deeper connection,” Stephen persisted.
“Yes,” Leshya said. “They are spawned by the power of the sedoi, nourished by them. In a sense, they are distillations of the sedos power.”
Stephen shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. That would make them distillations of the saints themselves.”
“No,” Leshya said carefully, “that would make the saints distillations of the sedos power, just as the sedhmhari are.”
Aspar almost laughed at the way Stephen’s jaw dropped. For an instant he seemed the same naÏve boy he had met on the King’s Road, months ago.
“That’s heresy,” he finally said.
“Yes,” Leshya said dryly. “And wouldn’t it be terrible to contradict a church that’s sacrificing children to feed the dark saints? I’m very ashamed.”
“Yet—” Stephen didn’t finish his thought, but his expression grew ever more furiously thoughtful.
“It seems to me most of this is moot, at the moment,” Winna interrupted. “What matters is finding that last sedos, that Bent Hill.”
“She’s right,” Aspar concurred. “If we don’t have time to kill the nicwer, we don’t have time for you two to stand here and go all bookish for a nineday.”
Stephen reluctantly conceded that with a nod. “I’ve looked on my maps,” he said, “but I don’t see anything marked that looks at all like Khrwbh Khrwkh. Logic dictates that it has to be to the east.” He knelt and flattened the map on the ground so they could all view it.
“Why?” Aspar asked.
“We know the order of the faneways from the invocation, and we know where the first one was. These others have been leading steadily east. Most faneways fall in lines or arcs that tend to be regular.”
“Wait,” Winna said. “What about the faneway they meant to sacrifice me at? That was near Cal Azroth, and so would be north.”
Stephen shook his head. “They did a different ritual there, not the same thing at all. That wasn’t part of this faneway, but a sedos used for the single purpose of possessing the queen’s guards. No, this faneway goes east.”
Aspar watched as Stephen’s index finger traced a shallow curve, across what must be the Daw River and into the plains near where Dunmrogh was located now.
“That’s the Daw there, and the Saint Sefodh River there?” Aspar asked.
“Yes,” Stephen replied.
“The forest extended that far—all the way into Hornladh? It’s no wonder the Briar King is angry. The forest is half the size it was.”
“A lot of it was destroyed in the Warlock Wars,” Stephen said. “The Briar King can hardly hold that against us.”
Leshya snorted. “Of course he can. He doesn’t care which particular Mannishen destroyed his forest, only that it was destroyed.”
“There’s still a stand of ironoaks in Hornladh,” Aspar said. “I passed through there on my way to Paldh once. Had a funny name—Prethsorucaldh.”
“Prethsorucaldh,” Stephen repeated. “That is a strange name.”
“I don’t speak much Hornish,” Aspar admitted.
“The ending, caldh, just means ‘forest,’ ” Stephen said. “Preth means a ‘copse,’ like a copse of trees. Soru, I think, means a ‘louse’ or ‘worm’ or something like that.”
“Copse-Worm-Wood?” Leshya said. “That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why would they call it a copse and a forest in the same name?”
Stephen nodded. “Doesn’t make a lot of sense, which means it probably wasn’t originally a Hornish name. It was something that sounded like Prethsoru, so over time they substituted words that made sense to them.”
“What do you mean?” Leshya asked, sounding as lost as Aspar felt.
“Like this place, Whitraff,” Stephen explained. “In Oostish, it means ‘White Town,’ but we know from this map that the original name was Vhydhrabh, which meant ‘Huskwood,’ corrupted through Vitellian to ‘Vitraf.’ When Oostish speakers settled here, they heard the name and thought it meant White Town, and so it stuck. You see?”
“This