The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [197]
She stepped beneath the groping trees as the eleventh bell sounded, and there she stopped. She knelt on the damp earth and closed her eyes and pushed away the world.
When she opened them, she was in a different forest, but it was still night, the moon still a sickle above. In front of her stood a woman she had never seen. She wore an ivory mask and a black gown that glinted with jewels.
“The fourth Faith,” she said.
The woman bowed her head slightly. “You have called me, and here I am.” She lifted her head back up. “You should not do this, Anne. You are free—return to Eslen.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I’m tired of running. I won’t run anymore.”
The woman smiled faintly. “You feel your power waking, but you are not yet complete. You are not ready for this trial, I promise you.”
“Then I will die, and that will be the end of it,” Anne said.
“It will be the end not just of you, but of the world as we know it.”
“I do not much care for the world as we know it,” Anne confided a little haughtily.
The woman sighed. “Why did you come here?”
“To tell you. If you are so certain that I must live, then you will help me, I think.”
“We are already helping you, Anne. My sisters and I have strained ourselves, woven as much into the web of fate as we dare. We foresaw this moment, and there are two paths. One is the path home, to Eslen. At this moment your mother is locked in a tower, and the man who murdered your father sits the throne. A moment approaches there, also, and if you aren’t there to greet it, the result will be terrible beyond imagining.”
“And the other path? The one in which I face my pursuers and free my friends? The one I’m going to take?”
“We cannot see past that,” she whispered. “And that is gravely worrisome.”
“But you said you foresaw this moment.”
“Yes, but not your decision. We feared you would take the unseeable, and have provided all the help we can. I do not think it will be enough.”
“It will be enough,” Anne said, “or you will find another queen.”
The monks had been piling wood in a huge cone all day, but soon after it grew dark, they lit it. Cazio watched the flames lick hungrily up toward the oak branches above.
“Do you suppose they’re going to burn us?” he asked z’Acatto.
“If they meant to do that, they should have tied us up to the logs. No, boy, I think they’ve something more interesting in mind.”
Cazio nodded. “Yes. Something to do with those.” He meant the seven posts the monks had erected earlier, but he also meant the newer, somewhat more worrisome detail they had added only a few moments before—three hanging nooses suspended from a low tree branch.
“You always said I would end in a noose,” he told the old man.
“Yes,” z’Acatto agreed. “I never imagined I would be joining you, however. Speaking of which, how is your plan coming along? The one you promised Artoré?”
“I’ve got the broad strokes of it laid out,” Cazio said. “I’m mostly lacking in details.”
“Uh-huh. How are you going to slip your bonds?”
“That, unfortunately, is one of the details.”
“You work that out while I get some sleep.” z’Acatto grunted.
They were silent for a while as Cazio watched the play of light from the fire. It seemed as if giants made of shadow were leaping from the trees into the clearing and then retreating again—doing footwork, as a dessrator might. He glanced longingly at Caspator, where the sword lay with the rest of his effects.
His bonds were loosening again, but if experience was any guide, someone would be along presently to tighten them.
Cazio himself was tiring, and was almost dozing when it finally started. The monks were leading captives to the perimeter of poles around the mound and securing them there. It took the first