and show you, but we’ve still got that rent to find.’ He grinned. ‘Nothing like some practical experience, eh? Beats book-learning every time.’
A few hours later, the skies cleared and late sun set the wet grass shimmering like the ocean. Sorchal reined up on the crest of a rise and cast about like a hound questing for a scent.
‘It’s here.’
A yard or two behind him, Masen stopped and pulled the horseshoe nail from his pocket. It snapped straight out to the length of its thread. He hardly needed the confirmation; this close he could sense the wrongness of the tear, so different from his awareness of a Gate.
‘Right again, lad.’ With some difficulty, given the tension in the thread and the risk of it disappearing back to the Hidden Kingdom if he let go, he retrieved the nail and stowed it away again. He dismounted, giving Brea an absent pat. ‘You see to the horses and I’ll make a start while the light lasts.’
The Song rose up the instant he thought of it. His senses sharpened, letting him smell every wild flower, see every stem of grass as it swayed in the breeze, almost count the seeds in each feathery plume. The plains were singing, and he felt it in his blood and his breath and his bones.
Carefully he reached out his hand, fingers spread. They tingled with the Song he held, acutely sensitive to the wind rushing between them. He moved his hand as slowly as he could until he encountered resistance and then stopped. The Veil’s slippery fabric billowed against his palm like a sheet on a laundry line. Spangles of pale light fluttered around his fingers, the threads glistening.
Masen followed them in the direction the nail had pulled at him. Here and there he found snags and frayed strands, the sort of minor damage that would be good for Sorchal to practise on but not severe enough to be attended to immediately. For the moment, the rent commanded all his attention.
There. Under his hand, the gentle hum of the Veil’s interwoven threads abruptly ceased. Beyond it was . . . emptiness. A hole in the world, with only darkness beyond. Looked at with the Song he could see it, black against the daylight world like ink splashed across a painting. He reached up as high as he could, trying to feel the limit of it, then traced the edge downwards. About the height of a tall man.
Masen frowned. No. Surely not. ‘Sorchal? Get over here.’
His apprentice came to stand next to him. ‘You’ve found it?’
He gave a terse nod. ‘See if you can feel the edge.’
Sorchal’s Song rose up, tingling over Masen’s skin at such close range. The boy had no great strength in his gift, but what he did have was subtlety: he could twist and flick the power as deftly as the forty inches of Sardauki steel he wore on his hip. Masen watched him gently testing the air with the flat of his hand, then the lad’s brows shot up.
‘It’s there, and then it’s gone,’ he said. ‘Like it’s been cut off.’
‘Exactly,’ Masen said heavily. Like a sharp knife through a sheet of paper.
‘Can you mend it?’
‘If the edges haven’t withered, yes, but it’ll leave an ugly scar.’ Stitching up the Veil wasn’t that dissimilar to suturing a cut: the quicker you could do it, the better it healed. This wound had been left far too long. It would result in a thick, twisted rope of a seam, like a scar down the face of a pretty girl, if it could even be closed at all.
‘But if the Veil’s been cut, doesn’t that mean someone let the Hound out?’
Even though the same thought had already occurred to him, hearing Sorchal voice it still made Masen’s blood run cold.
‘It rather looks that way.’ The Veil thrummed and rippled in response to the power they held, the slash across it visible now. Its edges glinted, but between them was a darkness blacker than the void between stars.
‘Because it was weakening, I assumed it had simply frayed apart and allowed a Hound to escape. But this,’ he touched a finger to the
A few hours later, the skies cleared and late sun set the wet grass shimmering like the ocean. Sorchal reined up on the crest of a rise and cast about like a hound questing for a scent.
‘It’s here.’
A yard or two behind him, Masen stopped and pulled the horseshoe nail from his pocket. It snapped straight out to the length of its thread. He hardly needed the confirmation; this close he could sense the wrongness of the tear, so different from his awareness of a Gate.
‘Right again, lad.’ With some difficulty, given the tension in the thread and the risk of it disappearing back to the Hidden Kingdom if he let go, he retrieved the nail and stowed it away again. He dismounted, giving Brea an absent pat. ‘You see to the horses and I’ll make a start while the light lasts.’
The Song rose up the instant he thought of it. His senses sharpened, letting him smell every wild flower, see every stem of grass as it swayed in the breeze, almost count the seeds in each feathery plume. The plains were singing, and he felt it in his blood and his breath and his bones.
Carefully he reached out his hand, fingers spread. They tingled with the Song he held, acutely sensitive to the wind rushing between them. He moved his hand as slowly as he could until he encountered resistance and then stopped. The Veil’s slippery fabric billowed against his palm like a sheet on a laundry line. Spangles of pale light fluttered around his fingers, the threads glistening.
Masen followed them in the direction the nail had pulled at him. Here and there he found snags and frayed strands, the sort of minor damage that would be good for Sorchal to practise on but not severe enough to be attended to immediately. For the moment, the rent commanded all his attention.
There. Under his hand, the gentle hum of the Veil’s interwoven threads abruptly ceased. Beyond it was . . . emptiness. A hole in the world, with only darkness beyond. Looked at with the Song he could see it, black against the daylight world like ink splashed across a painting. He reached up as high as he could, trying to feel the limit of it, then traced the edge downwards. About the height of a tall man.
Masen frowned. No. Surely not. ‘Sorchal? Get over here.’
His apprentice came to stand next to him. ‘You’ve found it?’
He gave a terse nod. ‘See if you can feel the edge.’
Sorchal’s Song rose up, tingling over Masen’s skin at such close range. The boy had no great strength in his gift, but what he did have was subtlety: he could twist and flick the power as deftly as the forty inches of Sardauki steel he wore on his hip. Masen watched him gently testing the air with the flat of his hand, then the lad’s brows shot up.
‘It’s there, and then it’s gone,’ he said. ‘Like it’s been cut off.’
‘Exactly,’ Masen said heavily. Like a sharp knife through a sheet of paper.
‘Can you mend it?’
‘If the edges haven’t withered, yes, but it’ll leave an ugly scar.’ Stitching up the Veil wasn’t that dissimilar to suturing a cut: the quicker you could do it, the better it healed. This wound had been left far too long. It would result in a thick, twisted rope of a seam, like a scar down the face of a pretty girl, if it could even be closed at all.
‘But if the Veil’s been cut, doesn’t that mean someone let the Hound out?’
Even though the same thought had already occurred to him, hearing Sorchal voice it still made Masen’s blood run cold.
‘It rather looks that way.’ The Veil thrummed and rippled in response to the power they held, the slash across it visible now. Its edges glinted, but between them was a darkness blacker than the void between stars.
‘Because it was weakening, I assumed it had simply frayed apart and allowed a Hound to escape. But this,’ he touched a finger to the
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