---

CHAPTER THREE

Ceremony

Anne found herself's tar IN G again at the girl in the mirror, recognizing her even less than she had the last time she looked, only a few hours earlier. This time she wore a bride's wimple of pale gold safnite brocade that concealed even the few wisps of hair that remained to her. The gown was bone, with long fitted sleeves and edgings in the same color as the wimple. The face surrounded by all this seemed lost and strange.

Vespresern seemed rather pleased by the effect. 'It fit you nearly without alteration,' she said. 'A good thing, too, as we had little enough time to spare. My lord is in a terrible hurry.' She patted Anne's arms. 'He does so love you, you know. I've never seen him go against his father in even the slightest matter, before this. I do hope he's right about everything.'

Vespresern waited, plainly looking for a response.

'He is always in my heart and my thoughts,' Anne said at last. 'It's my greatest desire to bring him all the happiness he deserves.'

She meant that much, anyway.

'It's rare that anyone in your position is able to marry for love, my dear,'

Vespresern blithered. 'You cannot know how lucky you are.'

Anne remembered Fastia telling her the same thing, on more than one occasion'Fastia, who had married so unhappily. Fastia who had once played with her and made her garlands of flowers, whom she had left in argument, whom she could never apologize to.

Fastia, now meat for the worms.

Anne heard footsteps in the corridor.

'Here he comes,' Vespresern said. 'Are you quite ready, my dear?'

'Yes,' Anne responded. 'Quite ready.'

'Here,' the old lady said. 'We'll bundle you up in this old weather-cloak. There shouldn't be anyone to recognize you, but safe is what we'll be.'

Anne stood still as Vespresern draped the woolen garment over the gown. A knock sounded at the door.

'Who will that be?' Vespresern asked'disingenuously, in light of her former statement.

'It's Roderick,' the answer came. 'Is she ready? This is the time.'

'She's ready,' Vespresern said.

The door creaked open, and Roderick stood there, looking regal in a deep, rust-red doublet and white hose.

'By the saints,' he said, staring at her. 'I've a mind to see you in the gown this moment.'

'That's ill luck,' Anne said. 'You'll see it soon enough.'

'Yes,' he said. 'I cannot believe I was without you for so long, Anne. Now even a bell seems far too long to go without gazing on your face.'

'I missed you, too,' Anne said. 'I spent long nights at the coven, wondering where you were, what you were doing, praying you still loved me.'

'I can do nothing else,' he said. 'The saints have inscribed you in my heart, and there is no place for anyone else there.'

You don't know how truly you speak, Anne thought. Indeed, you do not.

'Come, let us go,' Roderick said. 'Vespresern, you go ahead to spy the way.

We'll go down the servants' stair and through the kitchen, then out the Hind Gate, where the stables are. I know the guard on duty there, and he will not betray us.' He took Anne's hand. 'You have nothing to fear now,' he said. 'Your troubles are over.'

'Yes,' Anne said. 'I see that.'

Roderick knew his castle and people well'they met nearly no one but an old man in the kitchen, baking bread, and the guard Roderick mentioned. The baker didn't even seem to notice them. The guard clapped Roderick on the back and said something in Hornish that sounded encouraging and perhaps a bit risque. It seemed strange to her'the guard was Roderick's friend, as she and Austra were friends. How could someone so ripe with betrayal, so filled with it, be loved by anyone?

Perhaps they could not, in truth, in the heart. Perhaps that was the real reason Austra had left her'because in her soul she no longer loved her'perhaps even hated her. Not for any particular thing she had done, but because there was nothing left in Anne to love.

But let that pass. It no longer mattered. All that mattered now was finishing this, however it would finish.

Then they were alone in the carriage. Vespresern rode with the driver, wrapped in a heavy cloak. Outside the last of day's light was fading and shadows crept along the ground. The moon was a narrow horn thrust into the horizon. In another night it would be new.

'Kiss me, Roderick,' Anne said after the carriage had rattled along a bit. 'Kiss me.'

He reached for her, and then hesitated. 'Shouldn't we wait for the ceremony?'

'We've kissed before,' she pointed out. 'I can't wait, it's been so long'don't make me wait.'

There was no lantern, and she could not make out his face, but she felt his fingers trace the line of her jaw, and then rest gently at the back of her head as she felt his lips on hers, warm and soft. She remembered that night in Eslen-of-Shadows, how his hands had burned on her like metal just come from the forge, how her breath had quickened and her heart had raced, and how she had loved

Ceremony

him'and just for the tiniest instant she really remembered and really loved him again, the way only a girl can love for the first time.

Their lips parted, but she pulled him back, both her hands clasped behind his head, and kissed him with all the darkness in her heart, pushing it into him, filling him through his mouth until it rushed out. He moaned, but could not pull away from her as'in her minds eye'she erased his face. Then, still gently, she pushed him away. He began to shudder and sob.

'I' Anne' ah, Saints!' his voice rose to a hideous shriek, and the carriage jarred to a halt.

'You are nothing, Roderick of Dunmrogh,' she said. She opened the carriage door and walked out into the night, ignoring the protestations of the driver and Vespresern. She limped back along the road, toward the forest, or where she thought it was. She hoped her leg wouldn't start to bleed again.

As the moon rose higher, Anne felt more and more certain of her way, and though the crescent's light was vanishingly pallid, she found that with each step it seemed to brighten and bleed through the shadows. A bell sounded in the distance, and then another, and the music of it seemed to float by like a breeze. She was somehow both calm and angry. She wondered abstractly what precisely she had done to Roderick, but didn't feel too concerned about it.

Something bad, and permanent'that was certain, she could feel it in her bones.

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 Ceremony

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 Artore?'

'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 of their screams for the drowsy Cazio to understand that they weren't tying them there.

'Oh, buggering lords, no,' Cazio said, redoubling his efforts at the ropes. He watched helplessly as a girl who could be no more than five had her arms stretched above her and nailed there.

'No!' he screamed. 'By all that's holy, what do you think you're doing?'

'They're waking the sedos,' Artore whispered. 'Waking the Worm.' He looked frightened, which he hadn't before.

'How can'' Cazio stumbled off, overcome by the horror of it.

'How can men do things like this?' he finally managed.

'I don't think we've seen the worst,' Artore predicted. 'And I think I'd best bid you farewell now.'

Cazio saw someone coming in their direction. He lunged at the robe-clad monk, but the rope went taut around his neck and jerked him back.

'Stop it!' he screamed as the man cut Artore's leash. Artore was faster than he looked. He head-butted the monk in the face. The man jerked back, and then moved with blinding speed, striking Artore in the pit of his stomach. The man gagged and fell to his knees, and the monk took him in an armlock and conveyed him to the post.

'Z'Acatto?' Cazio said feeling his breath coming suddenly short.

'Yes?'

'Thank you.'

'What for?'

'For desserata. For everything.'

The old man didn't say anything for a moment. 'You're welcome, boy,' he finally answered. 'I could have spent my life worse. I'm glad to be here with you.'

A monk was coming for z'Acatto. Euric was coming for Cazio.

'Don't get too sentimental,' Cazio said. 'I'm still going to get us out of this, and then you'll feel silly.'

The men were almost on them. Cazio tried to relax, so he could move quickly. He would have just an instant when the rope was slack, and he would have to use that instant well.

Euric smiled and punched him in the jaw. Cazio felt his teeth snap together, and suddenly he was choking. Just as quickly, the pressure released, and he stumbled forward, dragged by the knight who had him from behind in a wrestling hold.

'Can't kill you yet,' Euric said. 'You're one of the guests of honor. I thought I would have to play your part, and I was ready, too, but then we found you.'

'What are you babbling about, you filthy sod?' Cazio snarled.

'Swordsman, Priest, and Crown,' the knight said, unhelpfully. 'And one who cannot die. We've got a priest, and a royal, though she doesn't know it yet, I'm afraid'and now we've got our swordsman. As for the undying'well, you've already met Hrothwulf.'

'Is any of that supposed to make sense?' Cazio asked, as Euric hustled him up the mound and stood him up on a block beneath the gallows tree, then set the noose around his neck. Another man Ceremony

brought Caspator and stuck the blade point-first into the ground in front of him. Cazio gazed greedily at the weapon, so close and so un-reachable.

Now he had a good view of all the victims nailed to the posts. He could see their faces in the firelight. Z'Acatto already hung with them, blood drizzling from his crossed palms, not more than six pere-chi away.

Artore was there, too'and he'd been right. It was getting worse. Going widdershins'one by one'the monks were carefully cutting their victims open and pulling out their intestines. They stretched these to the next post and nailed them into the arms of the next victim, then cut his belly, too. As this happened, a sacritor on the mound began chanting in a language Cazio had never heard before.

Meanwhile, a new party entered the clearing, a richly dressed man and woman. The man was tall and austere, with graying mustache and beard. The woman looked younger, but it was hard to make out her features from this distance, partly because she was bound and gagged.

'There's our royal,' a voice said, just near Cazio's ear. He turned and saw one of the monks step onto the block beside him and calmly place the noose on his own neck.

'I honestly never knew,' Cazio distantly heard himself say. 'Never. I have seen cruelty, and malice, murder, and casual mayhem. But I never in my worst dreams ever imagined such sick depravity as this.'

'You don't understand,' the monk said softly. 'The world is dying, swordsman.

The sky is cracking and soon will tumble down. And we're going to save it. You should be honored.'

'If I had my sword,' Cazio said, 'I would show you what I honor and how.'

The woman was placed on the third block. Her eyes were wild with terror.

He turned his attention back to the circle. It was half-complete, and z'Acatto's turn was coming. There was nothing Cazio could do but watch.