“Are you faithful ... Bors?”
The hint of mocking in the name sent a chill down his backbone. “I am faithful, Great Lord. I cannot hide from you.” I am faithful! I swear it!
“No, you cannot.”
The certainty in Ba'alzamon's voice dried his mouth, but he forced himself to speak. “Command me, Great Lord, and I obey.”
“Firstly, you are to return to Tarabon and continue your good works. In fact, I command you to redouble your efforts.”
He stared at Ba'alzamon in puzzlement, but then fires flared again behind the mask, and he took the excuse of a bow to pull his eyes away. “As you command, Great Lord, so shall it be.”
“Secondly, you will watch for the three young men, and have your followers watch. Be warned; they are dangerous.”
The man who called himself Bors glanced at the figures floating in front of Ba'alzamon. How can I do that? I can see them, but I can't see anything except his face. His head felt about to burst. Sweat slicked his hands under his thin gloves, and his shirt clung to his back. “Dangerous, Great Lord? Farmboys? Is one of them the — ”
“A sword is dangerous to the man at the point, but not to the man at the hilt. Unless the man holding the sword is a fool, or careless, or unskilled, in which case it is twice as dangerous to him as to anyone else. It is enough that I have told you to know them. It is enough that you obey me.”
“As you command, Great Lord, so shall it be.”
“Thirdly, regarding those who have landed at Toman Head, and the Domani. Of this you will speak to no one. When you return to Tarabon ...”
The man who called himself Bors realized as he listened that his mouth was sagging open. The instructions made no sense. If I knew what some of the others were told, perhaps I could piece it together.
Abruptly he felt his head grasped as though by a giant hand crushing his temples, felt himself being lifted, and the world blew apart in a thousand starbursts, each flash of light becoming an image that fled across his mind or spun and dwindled into the distance before he could more than barely grasp it. An impossible sky of striated clouds, red and yellow and black, racing as if driven by the mightiest wind the world had ever seen. A woman — a girl? — dressed in white receded into blackness and vanished as soon as she appeared. A raven stared him in the eye, knowing him, and was gone. An armored man in a brutal helm, shaped and painted and gilded like some monstrous, poisonous insect, raised a sword and plunged to one side, beyond his view. A horn, curled and golden, came hurtling out of the far distance. One piercing note it sounded as it flashed toward him, tugging his soul. At the last instant it flashed into a blinding, golden ring of light that passed through him, chilling him beyond death. A wolf leaped from the shadows of lost sight and ripped out his throat. He could not scream. The torrent went on, drowning him, burying him. He could barely remember who he was, or what he was. The skies rained fire, and the moon and stars fell; rivers ran in blood, and the dead walked; the earth split open and fountained molten rock...
The man who called himself Bors found himself half crouching in the chamber with the others, most watching him, all silent. Wherever he looked, up or down or in any direction, the masked face of Ba'alzamon overwhelmed his eyes. The images that had flooded into his mind were fading; he was sure many were already gone from memory. Hesitantly, he straightened, Ba'alzamon always before him.
“Great Lord, what — ?”
“Some commands are too important to be known even by he who carries them out.”
The man who called himself Bors bent almost double in his bow. “As you command, Great Lord,” he whispered hoarsely, “so shall it be.”
When he straightened, he was alone in silence once more. Another, the Taren High Lord, nodded and bowed to someone none else saw. The man who called himself Bors put an unsteady hand to his brow, trying to hold on to something of what had burst through his mind, though he was not completely certain he wanted to remember. The last remnant flickered out, and suddenly he was wondering what it was that he was trying to recall. I know there was something, but what? There was something! Wasn't there? He rubbed his hands together, grimacing at the feel of sweat under his gloves, and turned his attention to the three figures hanging suspended before Ba'alzamon's floating form.
The muscular, curlyhaired youth; the farmer with the sword; and the lad with the look of mischief on his face. Already, in his mind, the man who called himself Bors had named them the Blacksmith, the Swordsman, and the Trickster. What is their place in the puzzle? They must be important, or Ba'alzamon would not have made them the center of this gathering. But from his orders alone they could all die at any time, and he had to think that some of the others, at least, had orders as deadly for the three. How important are they? Blue eyes could mean the nobility of Andor—unlikely in those clothes—and there were Borderlanders with light eyes, as well as some Tareni, not to mention a few from Ghealdan, and, of course ... No, no help there. But yellow eyes? Who are they? What are they?
He started at a touch on his arm, and looked around to find one of the whiteclad servants, a young man, standing by his side. The others were back, too, more than before, one for each of the masked. He blinked. Ba'alzamon was gone. The Myrddraal was gone, too, and only rough stone was where the door it had used had been. The three figures still hung there, though. He felt as if they were staring at him.
“If it please you, my Lord Bors, I will show you to your room.”
Avoiding those dead eyes, he glanced once more at the three figures, then followed. Uneasily he wondered how the youth had known what name to use. It was not until the strange carved doors closed behind him and they had walked a dozen paces that he realized he was alone in the corridor with the servant. His brows drew down suspiciously behind his mask, but before he could open his mouth, the servant spoke.
“The others are also being shown to their rooms, my Lord. If you please, my Lord? Time is short, and our Master is impatient.”
The man who called himself Bors ground his teeth, both at the lack of information and at the implication of sameness between himself and the servant, but he followed in silence. Only a fool ranted at a servant, and worse, remembering the fellow's eyes, he was not sure it would do any good. And how did he know what I was going to ask? The servant smiled.
The man who called himself Bors did not feel at all comfortable until he was back in the room where he had waited on first arriving, and then not much. Even finding the seals on his saddlebags un
