The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [70]
“What do you mean?” Winna asked.
Stephen sagged against a tree, looking pale and weak.
“Do you understand about the sedoi?” he asked her.
“You mentioned something about them to the queen’s interrogators, but at the time I wasn’t paying much attention. Aspar was hurt, and since then—”
“Yes, we haven’t discussed it much since then.” He sighed. “You know how priests receive the blessing of the saints?”
“A little. They visit fanes and pray.”
“Yes. But not just any fanes.” He waved at the mound. “That’s a sedos. It’s a place where a saint once stood and left some bit of his presence. Visiting one sedos doesn’t confer a blessing, though, or at least not usually. You have to find a trail of them, a series of places visited by the same saint, or by aspects of that saint. The fanes—like that building there—have no power themselves. The power comes from the sedos—the fane is just a reminder, a place to help us focus our attention in the saint’s presence.
“I walked the faneway of Saint Decmanis, and he gifted me with the heightened senses I have now. I can remember things a month after as clearly as if they just happened. Decmanis is a saint of knowledge; monks who walk other faneways receive other blessings. The faneway of Mamres, for instance, conveys martial gifts on those who travel it. Great strength, alacrity, an instinct for killing, those sorts of things.”
“Like Desmond Spendlove.”
“Yes. He followed the faneway of Mamres.”
“So this is part of a faneway?” Winna asked. “But the bodies . . .”
“It’s new,” Stephen said. “Look at the stone. There’s no moss or lichen, no weather stains. This might have been built yesterday. The renegade monks and Sefry who were following the greffyn were using the creature to find old sedoi in the forest. I think it had the power to scent them out, and made a circuit of those which still had some latent power. Then Desmond and his bunch performed sacrifices, I think to try to find out what saint the sedoi belonged to. I don’t think they were doing it right, though—they lacked certain information. Whoever did this did it correctly.”
He passed his palm over his eyes. “And it’s my fault. When I was at d’Ef, I translated ancient, forbidden scrifts concerning these things. I gave them the information they needed to do what you see here.” He shook, looking paler than ever. “They’re building a faneway, you see?”
“Who?” Aspar said. “Spendlove and his renegades are dead.”
“Not all of them, it would seem,” Stephen said. “This was built after we killed Spendlove.”
“But what saint left his mark here?” Winna whispered.
Stephen retched again, rubbed his forehead, and stood straight. “It’s my place to find that out,” he said. “All of you, wait here—please.”
Stephen nearly vomited again when he reached the circle of corpses. Not from the smell this time, but from the horror of details. Bits of clothing, the ribbon in the hair of one of the smaller ones, juxtaposed with her lopsided, not-quite-fleshless grin. A stained green cloak with a brass broach worked in the shape of a swan. Little signs that these had once been human beings. Where had the little girl got the ribbon? She was probably the daughter of a woodcutter—it might have been the grandest present she’d ever recieved in her life. Her father had brought it when he drove the hogs to market in Tulhaem, and she’d kissed him on the cheek. He’d called her “my little duckling,” and he’d had to watch her be eviscerated, before he himself felt the knife, just below where a swan brooch pinned his cloak . . .
Stephen shuddered, closed his eyes to step over her, and felt—
—a hum, a soft tickling in his belly, a sort of crackling in his head. He turned to look back at Aspar and the rest, and they seemed far away, tiny. Their mouths were moving, but he could not hear them speak. For a moment, he forgot what he was about, just stood there, wondering who they were.
At the same time, he felt wonderful. His aches and pains were all gone, and he felt as if he could run ten leagues without stopping. He frowned at the bones and rotting flesh around