He feared opening his eyes again, feared the hush, wind, and swirling darkness that would come soon, calling him elsewhere. The will of Hoar, a poetry of anger and sorrow burning in his heart like a dark prayer, telling him where he had to go, what he had to do, and who he had to kill next.
He stood lazily, stretching and flexing his sore muscles. The wound across his collarbone ached, and the blood was sticky beneath his breastplate. He winced and pressed down on the gash as he walked away from the gruesome altar. Though the remaining inebriated had not awoken and innkeeper was nowhere to be seen, he tossed several coins onto the table. The tanglefoot on the front door had turned gray, and it crumbled to a flaky dust as he pulled on the door's handle. The temporary seal had been unnecessary. The Fallen Few had been more confident than he'd expected, apparently not having heard of the fate of their brethren in Theymarsh only a tenday earlier, but Quinsareth had been prepared. He'd spent long enough tracking them down and had no wish for them to escape and be aware of what pursued them. Outside, at the top of the deep stairwell that served as the Red Cup's entrance, Quinsareth inhaled deeply, smelling the fresh night air. He could hear the crashing waves of the Lake of Steam from the abandoned town's north side, the water swaying the wrecks of the formerly swift boats that littered the small harbor. Those rotten hulls, bumping one another in the tide, were the only sounds that disturbed the peace of the ruins. The town was one of many that dotted the lands of the Border Kingdoms, overthrown, forgotten, and left to collect dust and fall apart-home only intermittently to those seeking solace between fell deeds. Quinsareth had come to enjoy them since arriving in the region and felt he might miss their emptiness when called away by the will of Hoar. As if listening to his thoughts, the wind picked up, whistling through the broken windows of hollow buildings and rustling the tall brown grass that grew through cracks in the cobbled streets.
He sighed as the eastern horizon caught his eye, distant shadows leaping to life and flickering like black flames. All he could see became wavy and insubstantial as the familiar call, visible only to him, whispered in the wind and shadows. Something seemed different this time, more substantial, even slightly painful. His head ached as he felt himself almost physically pulled toward the east and the shadow road that awaited him. He spotted a strange red star on the horizon, bright and staining the night sky in a crimson glow. A tingling sensation covered his scalp, like the legs of a hundred spiders crawling and seeking entrance to his mind, to some weak spot in his will. Gritting his teeth, he resisted, and the strange compulsion slowly disappeared, leaving him confused and curious. The red star remained in the far eastern sky, but it seemed translucent and dimmer than before, unreal and fabricated. He raised an eyebrow, interested in this little break from tradition, and focused on the tendrils of shadow that swirled before him. Recalling a prayer resting within him, he stepped forward, shifting himself into the Shadow Fringe and disappearing on a road of darkness.
CHAPTER TWO
Thin tendrils of jasmine-scented smoke rose lazily to the ceiling above Sameska as she fell to the floor, exhausted. The dark-veined marble floor was cool on her forehead as she clenched her jaw and flexed her long fingers, pressing down as frustration passed like a tremor through her prone form. She did not open her eyes-she wouldn't, afraid of seeing only the simple walls of the temple's sanctuary, unchanged, unmoved, with no sign or vision from her absent god. She ground her knuckles into the floor, causing her aged joints to ache with the strain of her barely-contained rage. "It would not do for the high oracle to give in to such emotion," she told herself. The thought did little to quiet her growing anger. If anything, it reminded her even more of her sacred duty and devotion to the All-Seeing Savras, who remained silent and withheld his prophecies from her. Keeping his secrets to himself, she thought, then quickly admonished herself for such heresy. Her lip trembled as the horror of it all came crashing down on her. Her eyes widened and rolled as vertigo overtook her senses. Quickly she whispered an incantation, tracing her finger on the marble in a complex symbol as the spell was completed. All sound in the chamber evaporated. The nearby candles and torches ceased their popping and guttering, and the chimes were silenced, though they still swung in a breeze from the small shuttered windows above. Rising to her knees, Sameska threw herself backward, bending back over her ankles, her arms spread to her sides, and her hands clenched into claws. She screamed in the spell's silence, giving unheard voice to the turmoil within her, venting it into the sky or whatever hellish place it had come from. Thirty years earlier, the High Oracle of the Hidden Circle had been Sameska's grandmother, an ancestor she held in high esteem. Always, her family had been favored by Savras's visions and sight, allowing them to guide their followers and grow the faith in the communities that gathered around them. The Church of the Hidden Circle had become the foundation of each new town that sprang up near the Qurth Forest. Its leaders had been the oracles of tomorrow, the seers of what was to be, and the high oracle guided them all with confidence into the unknown realm of yet-to-come. The necessity of the Qurth's resources, and the dangers that guarded them, demanded the vigilance of the church. After a long morning of magical castings and prayers, Sameska found herself lying on her back, staring helplessly at the ceiling and out of breath, without vision or prophecy. She had only silence to comfort her damaged pride. Her heart hammered in her chest and pounded in her ears, but she could not hear it. She could only feel her body succumbing to fatigue and slumber. Lazily, she rolled her head sideways, looking to the large, barred doors on her left. She could imagine the lesser oracles there, praying and meditating, waiting for her to appear. She had nothing for them, and inwardly she hated them for it. She loathed the looks on their faces, still young and full of faith and immortality. She could see the disrespect in their eyes, the jealousy in their hearts, and she knew their secret desires, their whispered offenses. They despised her and wished failure upon her at every chance. Yet they smiled and played at kindness in her presence, for each wished to be her favored as they waited for the old bat to wither and die so they might take her place within the Hidden Circle. None of them carried her blood, the blood of a Setha'Mir. She was the last, the end of a bloodline that had built the six towns of the Qurth Forest as surely as any farmer, woodsman, or carpenter who had settled there. Her true successor had died many years ago, her daughter, Ilyasa, who had been born sickly and weak.
She'd barely lived a year before passing away while Sameska could only watch, helpless. A candle sizzled as it burnt itself out behind her, and she realized she could hear her own breathing again. The chimes above sang anew, their silvered designs reflecting the early glow of dawn on the horizon. Slowly she pushed herself up and stood in the center of the rune circle, staring at the age-old designs and symbols surrounding her, carved by her grandmother's grandmother when the sanctuary had first been built. She looked to her own hands, full of lines and wrinkles carved by time and experience. Both had dug furrows into her brow, the reminders of years spent in thankless service.
Looking to the double doors at the chamber's entrance, she once again dreaded opening them, allowing those young upstarts within to snicker and point at her failure behind smiles and seeming pieties. She reached into a pocket of her pale yellow robes, pulling forth a handful of golden flower petals from a plant called the fethra, or "destiny," unique to the Qurth Forest and the western edge of Shandolphyn's Reach. These she squeezed between her palms, releasing their heady fragrance, then touched the small tattoo of the eye of Savras on her forehead with each forefinger. She began to speak the spell of sight, though her throat was raw and sore from earlier attempts. Iron-gray hair lay matted to her scalp. Her eyes were puffy and dry, and her skin was chilled with sweat, but she would try, one last time before dawn, to contact her god. Weaving magic and prayer together, she sought his attention, his voice that granted her the truths and secrets of tomorrows to come. The spell hovered around her, a whirling translucent cloud sent spinning by her beseeching prayer and enhanced by the faintly glowing runes of the circle. Her muscles ached as the magic grew, but she continued concentrating for as long as she could. Waiting and praying, she fought the slow return of frustrated rage. Nothing. Silence. She began to draw a breath, abandoning her prayer, preparing to scream and curse the fading, shimmering cloud around her. But then it intensified. The circle of magic flared brightly and closed on her, the force of its power hitting her full in the chest and sending her reeling to the steps of the altar behind her. She felt constricted and couldn't breathe as the vision rushed into her weary mind. Once again her heart hammered inside the frail cage of her chest. Blood rushed through her body as though attempting to escape, filling her with warmth and cold all at once. She gasped for air as images formed before her eyes. Accompanied by tiny stars at their edges, she could faintly feel the pain they heralded, having hit her head on one of the dais steps when she fell.