The mother smiled, lips peeling back to reveal her tusks. 'Gone.'
'Where?'
'Beyond your reach, Bonecaster.'
Pran Chole's frown deepened. 'These are our lands. There is no place here that is beyond our reach. Have you slain them with your own hands, then?'
The Jaghut cocked her head, studied the Imass. 'I had always believed you were united in your hatred for our kind. I had always believed that such concepts as compassion and mercy were alien to your natures.'
The Bonecaster stared at the woman for a long moment, then his gaze dropped away, past her, and scanned the soft clay ground. 'An Imass has been here,' he said. 'A woman. The Bonecaster-' the one I could not find in my spiritwalk. The one who chose not to be found. 'What has she done?'
'She has explored this land,' the Jaghut replied. 'She has found a gate far to the south. It is Omtose Phellack.'
'I am glad,' Pran Chole said, '1 am not a mother.' And you, woman, should be glad I am not cruel. He gestured. Heavy spears flashed past the Bonecaster. Six long, fluted heads of flint punched through the skin covering the Jaghut's chest. She staggered, then folded to the ground in a clatter of shafts.
Thus ended the thirty-third Jaghut War.
Pran Chole whirled. 'We've no time for a pyre. We must strike southward. Quickly.'
Cannig Tol stepped forward as his warriors went to retrieve their weapons. The Clan Leader's eyes narrowed on the Bonecaster. 'What distresses you?'
'A renegade Bonecaster has taken the children.'
'South?'
'To Morn.'
The Clan Leader's brows knitted.
'The renegade would save this woman's children. The renegade believes the Rent to be Omtose Phellack.'
Pran Chole watched the blood leave Cannig Tol's face. 'Go to Morn, Bonecaster,' the Clan Leader whispered. 'We are not cruel. Go now.'
Pran Chole bowed. The Tellann warren engulfed him.
The faintest release of her power sent the two Jaghut children upward, into the gate's maw. The girl cried out a moment before reaching it, a longing wail for her mother, who she imagined waited beyond. Then the two small figures vanished within.
The Bonecaster sighed and continued to stare upward, seeking any evidence that the passage had gone awry. It seemed, however, that no wounds had reopened, no gush of wild power bled from the portal. Did it look different? She could not be sure. This was new land for her; she had nothing of the bone-bred sensitivity that she had known all her life among the lands of the Tarad clan, in the heart of the First Empire.
The Tellann warren opened behind her. The woman spun round, moments from veering into her Soletaken form.
An arctic fox bounded into view, slowed upon seeing her, then sembled back into its Imass form. She saw before her a young man, wearing the skin of his totem animal across his shoulders, and a battered antler headdress. His expression was twisted with fear, his eyes not on her, but on the portal beyond.
The woman smiled. 'I greet you, fellow Bonecaster. Yes, I have sent them through. They are beyond the reach of your vengeance, and this pleases me.'
His tawny eyes fixed on her. 'Who are you? What clan?'
'I have left my clan, but I was once counted among the Logros. I am named Kilava.'
'You should have let me find you last night,' Pran Chole said. 'I would then have been able to convince you that a swift death was the greater mercy for those children than what you have done here, Kilava.'
'They are young enough to be adopted-'
'You have come to the place called Morn,' Pran Chole interjected, his voice cold. 'To the ruins of an ancient city-'
'Jaghut-'
'Not Jaghut! This tower, yes, but it was built long afterward, in the time between the city's destruction and the T'ol Ara'd — this flow of lava which but buried something already dead.' He raised a hand, pointed towards the suspended gate. 'It was this — this wounding — that destroyed the city, Kilava. The warren beyond — do you not understand? It is not Omtose Phellack! Tell me this — how are such wounds sealed? You know the answer, Bonecaster!'
The woman slowly turned, studied the Rent. 'If a soul sealed that wound, then it should have been freed … when the children arrived-'
'Freed,' Pran Chole hissed, ' in exchange !'
Trembling, Kilava faced him again. 'Then where is it? Why has it not appeared?'
Pran Chole turned to study the central mound on the plain. 'Oh,' he whispered, 'but it has.' He glanced back at his fellow Bonecaster. 'Tell me, will you in turn give up your life for those children? They are trapped now, in an eternal nightmare of pain. Does your compassion extend to sacrificing yourself in yet another exchange?' He studied her, then sighed. 'I thought not, so wipe away those tears, Kilava. Hypocrisy ill suits a Bonecaster.'
