“I wish to ask you a favor, Viyeki-tza,” Yaarike said when they were far enough from the others for private speech.

“Anything, Master.”

A slight frown. “Do not make broad promises without knowing what you are promising, Host Foreman, or what may happen in the Song of Fate after you have sworn. Remember the old saying, ‘When one finger bends, none of the others can stay perfectly straight.’”

Viyeki bowed. “Apologies, High Magister. I should have said, ‘Tell me and I will do all that I can.’”

“Better.” Yaarike turned his back on the rest of the room, shielding the two of them from view with the wide expanse of his magisterial robes, then reached into his tunic at the neck and carefully drew out something that gleamed even through his cupped hands, as though he held a live coal. “See.” Yaarike raised the object, still keeping it close to his body, and lifted away his upper hand. What he held seemed not just to reflect the sparse light but to contain some inner fire of its own: the magister’s pale face was warmed to a ruddy sunset color by its glow.

Viyeki half-closed his eyes as he leaned toward it, the object’s beauty too much to take in all at once. “It is magnificent,” he said at last. “What is it, Master? Something very unusual indeed, I think. And very old.”

Yaarike nodded. “Your eye is good, Host Foreman. It is indeed a thing of great age. Here, take it. Feel its weight.”

Viyeki accepted the chain and its dangling pendant, shielding its glow as he had seen his master do. It was surprisingly heavy, but it was typical of the high magister that he should have worn it so long without a word of complaint. The chain was thick and plain, and even in the poor light of the hall Viyeki could see it was made of some strange metal too pale to be copper but too pink to be gold or anything more ordinary. The pendant was the size of his palm, shaped like a rounded triangle hanging point-down. At its otherwise featureless center glimmered a large oval stone of a sublime red-orange color.

“What am I holding?” Viyeki asked at last.

“It is called The Heart of What Was Lost,” the magister said. “My forefather Yaaro-Mon brought it from our people’s ancient home in Venga Do’tzae when we left that place.”

“This truly came from . . . from the Garden, Master?” He had heard of such artifacts, but other than those that Queen Utuk’ku wore for festivals, he did not think he had ever seen one, let alone held it in his hands.

“The gem did, yes. You know the tales of Hamakho Wormslayer, of course.”

Viyeki nodded. He could not imagine any of their people who did not know Hamakho, the ancient hero and founder of the queen’s clan.

“When Hamakho was dying,” the magister said, “he drove his great sword Grayflame into the stone threshold of the Gatherer’s Temple in the very heart of the Garden. But when the time came to board the ships, no one could pull Hamakho’s blade from the threshold, so it was left behind, another sacrifice to the Unbeing that claimed our homeland. But my forefather Yaaro-Mon prised this gem from the sword’s pommel. Here, hold it up and I will show you something marvelous.” So saying, Yaarike reached into the sleeve of his robe and produced a small crystal sphere known as a “cleric’s lamp.” With a brief stroke of his fingers it smoldered into light. “Come closer—I do not want to make too bright a glare and attract attention. Look through the gem with the light behind it.”

Viyeki had to turn the heavy pendant on its back and look through it sideways to see what Yaarike meant, then could not help making a small sound of astonishment. For the first time in days their situation, the fighting outside and the implacable mortal enemy, slipped from his thoughts. “It is beautiful, Master! Someone has carved the interior!” Inside the hemispheric gem some careful hand had delineated a city of tall, graceful towers standing upon the cliffs above a great ocean. With Yaarike’s lamp behind it, the whole artful scene was colored by the gem itself, so the miniature city seemed to bask under bright vermillion skies. “Who made such a wonderful thing?”

“Yaaro-Mon himself. The carving depicts great Tzo, our beloved city on the shores of the Dreaming Sea, lost with all the rest to Unbeing when the Garden fell. Like your own father, Viyeki-tza, my great-grandfather was an artist, and the voyage from the Garden to these lands was a long one. But now it serves as a reminder of all that the People left behind—all that makes us who we are.” He nodded gravely, as if in answer to some question, but Viyeki had not asked one. “I will take it back now, before one of the others notices my light and comes to intrude on us.” Yaarike accepted the heavy pendant and hung the chain around his neck again, sliding the necklace down into his tunic until it was invisible.

“I am honored that you showed it to me, Master.”

“I do nothing without reason, Host Foreman. I showed this to you because I want you to make me a promise about it, but also because I want to make a promise to you.” Yaarike shook out his robes until they hung correctly again. Even in such terrible circumstances the magister was correctly dressed at all times: despite months of hardship and bloody battle, he looked as composed as if he stood in his own home. “If I should fall here or somewhere else before we reach Nakkiga, Host Foreman Viyeki, I wish you to take the Heart of What Was Lost and carry it back to my family. It will belong to one of my children or grandchildren if they return from our defeat in the South, may the queen’s eye watch over them. It is Clan Kijada’s most precious heirloom. Will you accept this charge?”

“With pride and gratitude, Master. Your trust is an honor to my whole family.”

“Do not let it go too much to your head,” said Yaarike, amused. “If the Heart becomes your responsibility, that will be because I am dead.”

Viyeki’s face almost went slack with dismay, but he managed to conceal it. “I spoke without thinking, Master. I beg your forgiveness.”

Yaarike showed him a thin smile. “Granted. And now my promise to you. I have watched you a long time, Viyeki sey-Enduya. Over the years I have been impressed by your skills with tools and plans but even more with the way you think for yourself, which it grieves me to say is rare among our people in these fallen days. Thus, it is my wish that one day you will follow me as High Magister of the Order of Builders, and I have written a letter to the Queen’s Celebrants to say so. That letter is among my effects. If I do not survive this adventure of ours, when you take the Heart, take that letter and others you will find in my possession as well and carry them all to Nakkiga.”

Viyeki stood as if thunderstruck, unable for a moment to find his voice. “Truly, Magister? You wish me to be your successor?”

The magister showed a hint of a mocking frown. “If I did not, this would be an oddly complicated and impractical jest, Host Foreman.”

Viyeki dropped to his knees. “I will struggle all my life to live up to the honors you have heaped on me.”

“And may that life be a long and useful one, Viyeki-tza.” But before Yaarike could say more, hoarse shouts echoed from somewhere nearby, clearly the triumphant cries of Northmen. The crowd of Builders in the ruined hall murmured uneasily and pressed closer together facing the doorway, weapons raised.

“Well, it seems that the time to make dispensations for the future is over.” Yaarike took Viyeki’s elbow, and for a moment seemed to need the support. “Let us stand with the others and be ready to fight. The present is all we have—or whatever remains of it.”

Isgrimnur had done his best in just a few days to instill some kind of wider discipline into Vigri’s men. Unlike the soldiers Isgrimnur had brought back from the south, they still liked to fight in the chaotic Northern style, attacking and falling back individually or in small groups, as the mood struck them. Even with a huge advantage of numbers, this kind of brawling was a bad idea against an enemy as crafty and patient as the Norns, and the duke had set Sludig and several other trusted lieutenants to work trying to teach the rudiments of the more ordered fighting style of the Erkynguard, but within moments of the attack beginning it was clear that the lessons had not really taken. Eager for glory, young Floki and a dozen of his father’s bondsmen did not stop at the first set of broken walls to wait for the rest of their comrades, but hammered through the first Norn defenses and rushed uphill toward the round tower where the Norn commanders were presumed to be. Immediately afterward a shower of arrows sealed the way behind them.