Eagle-Sage
Book III of the LonTobyn Chronicle
David B. Coe
TOR
A Tom Doherty Associates Book
New York
Tor Books by David B. Coe
THE LONTOBYN CHRONICLE
Children of Amarid
The Outlanders
Eagle-Sage
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
EAGLE-SAGE
Copyright © 2000 by David B. Coe
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Edited by James Frenkel
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Coe, David B.
Eagle-sage / David B. Coe.— 1st ed.
p. cm.— (LonTobyn chronicle; bk. 3)
"A Tom Doherty Associates book."
ISBN 0-312-87818-4
I. Title.
PS3553.O343 E26 2000
813'.54— dc21 99-089861
Electronic format made
available by arrangement with
St. Martin's Press
peanutpress.com, Inc.
www.peanutpress.com
For Alex and Erin,
who, in ways they don't even know,
add light and magic to my world.
Acknowledgments
If an author is fortunate enough to surround himself with caring,
supportive people, his or her acknowledgments tend to grow terribly
redundant. So it is with mine.
Once more, I would like to thank Harold Roth, my agent and lifelong
friend; Tom Doherty, for continuing to believe in me and my work; Jim
Frenkel, my editor, for his friendship, his wisdom, and his humor;
Jim's terrific staff, especially Kristopher O'Higgins and Seth Johnson;
Karen Lovell, Jennifer Hogan, Jim Minz, and all the other great people
at Tor; my friends, Alan Goldberg and Chris Meeker, who, as always,
read early drafts of this book; and my siblings, Bill, Liz, and Jim,
and their families, who continue to give me the love and encouragement
that have, for as long as I can remember, made our family so special.
As always, my deepest thanks are reserved for my wife, Nancy Berner,
and our (now) two daughters, Alex and Erin. Nancy is my most astute
critic, my best friend, and the source of my greatest inspiration.
Without her love, her laughter, and her unwavering support, LonTobyn
would still exist solely in my mind. Alex and Erin, on the other hand,
are almost totally clueless as to what it is Daddy does for a living.
But they seem to love me anyway, and for that, I am grateful beyond
words.
— D.B.C.
1
Even with the establishment of commerce between our two lands, even
with seven years having passed without additional conflicts, the people
of my land remain deeply distrustful of Lon-Ser. They accept the goods
you send, but only because these goods ease the burdens of their daily
chores. They are curious about your land and eagerly seek knowledge
about your customs and society. They even acknowledge that our
languages are similar and that this implies a shared ancient history.
Still, they remain convinced that war with Lon-Ser is not only possible
but perhaps inevitable. Many of us in the Order have tried to convince
them that this is not the case, that we have little to fear from you,
but even the people who live in Order towns remain skeptical. More than
ten years have passed since the outlanders burned our villages and
killed our people, but the scars are still fresh.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Winter, God's Year 4633.
For one terrifying instant he fears that the outlanders have returned.
But the outlanders' birds would not fight each other, and both of these
creatures are crying out stridently, something the mechanical hawks
from Lon-Ser never did. So he watches, marveling at the size and grace
of the winged combatants, though troubled at the sight of their
slashing claws and beaks. Yet, even with his eyes riveted on the
struggle taking place above him, he senses another presence in the
clearing.
Tearing his gaze from the birds, he sees a woman standing on the far
side of the field. She has straight brown hair and pale eyes, and there
is something vaguely familiar about her. For a disorienting moment he
wonders if this is his daughter, grown suddenly into a woman. But when
he hears her laugh, malicious and bitter, he knows that this cannot be.
He opens his mouth to ask her name, but before he can he hears a
piercing wail from above.
The two birds are locked together now, their talons digging into each
other's flesh and their wings beating desperately though in unison, as
if even in the throes of battle they are working together to keep
themselves aloft. But their efforts are in vain. Toppling one over the
other, they fall to the ground, landing at his feet. They are dead,
though whether from the impact or the damage they have inflicted on one
another, it is impossible to tell. And seeing them at last, their
carcasses bathed in the sunlight that had obscured their color and
features just seconds before, he cries out in despair.
* * *
Jaryd awoke with a start and found himself immersed in darkness. He
heard Alayna beside him, her breathing slow and deep, but otherwise all
was still. Lying back against his pillow, he took a long, steadying
breath and closed his eyes. He knew better than to try to go back to
sleep. His heart was racing, and his hair was damp with sweat. He was
awake for the day. He opened his eyes again and stared up toward the
ceiling, although he could see nothing for the darkness.
"You up again?" Alayna asked him in a muffled, sleepy voice.
"Yes," he whispered. "Go back to sleep"
She said something in reply that he couldn't make out, and a moment later her breathing slowed again.
He couldn't remember the last time he had slept through the night. It
wasn't that he slept poorly. For the first several hours, he slept like
the dead. But every day for weeks on end he had awakened before dawn,
sometimes spontaneously and other times, as today, out of a dream. At
first he had taken his sleeplessness as a sign that something was
coming; that perhaps, not too long from now, he would bind again, and
end this interminable wait. But slowly, as each day passed without a
new familiar appearing, he began to accept that there was nothing more
to it than the obvious: he was just waking up too early.
Usually during these predawn hours he tried to clear his mind using the
exercises he had first learned so many years ago, when he was a
Mage-Attend to his uncle Baden. If he wasn't going to sleep, he
reasoned, he might as well prepare himself for his next binding. But
invariably, rather than quieting his emotions and taming the confused
thoughts that came to him in the darkness, the exercises only served to
heighten his feelings of loss.
His hawk, Ishalla, was gone. She had been since late summer. And though
he had hoped that the agony of losing his first familiar would begin to
abate with time, he was forced to admit that it hadn't. He had so much
in his life: a cherished wife and daughter, a brother and mother to the
north whom he loved, and friends throughout the land for whom he would
gladly have given his life. He had served the communities on the
western shores of Tobyn-Ser for nearly a dozen years, and in return he
enjoyed the respect and affection of many of those who lived there. And
yet, with all this, Ishalla's absence still left a void within him that
he could scarcely fathom. Even the death of his father had not affected
him so.
Time and again, he had watched people he loved, Baden, Trahn, Rodomil,
cope with the loss of their familiars. Orris had lost two familiars in
the time Jaryd had known him, both of them as a result of violence. The
first, a large impressive hawk, had been killed at Theron's Grove by
the great owl carried by the traitor, Sartol. And the second, a dark
falcon, died just over three years ago during one of Orris's many
battles with members of the League, who had decided long ago that the
burly mage deserved to die for what they viewed as his betrayal of the
land.
Most recently, Alayna had lost Fylimar, the great grey hawk who had
looked so much like Jaryd's Ishalla, that many in the Order had said
that in sending them such similar familiars, the gods had marked Jaryd
and Alayna for each other. Like Ishalla, Fylimar had died a natural
death, one she had earned after a life of service to the land. This, of
course, had not softened the blow for Alayna, any more than it had for
Jaryd. But Alayna found a new familiar quite soon after Fylimar's death.
And what a binding it had been. She had left their home early in the
day, leaving Jaryd to care for Myn, their daughter, and when she
returned late that afternoon, she bore on her shoulder a large,
yellow-eyed owl with great ear tufts. It was the same kind of bird to
which Sartol, her mentor, had been bound, and it occurred to both Jaryd
and Alayna that the gods were offering her a chance at redemption.
"Sartol failed the land," they seemed to be saying. "Go now and make
right all that he made wrong."
The others had bound again as well. Indeed, Trahn's binding to an owl
had come just a few days after the death of his hawk, prompting Orris
to suggest that owls had actually been waiting in line to become
Trahn's familiar. Orris, too, had found his new familiar rather
quickly. He was bound now to another falcon, this one larger than his
last bird and as white as snow.
None of his friends had spent more than a season unbound. Yet here was
Jaryd, still without a familiar after nearly half a year. Alayna
assured him that, notwithstanding her experience or Trahn's, being
unbound for long stretches was a normal part of being a mage. And
Baden, who communicated with him periodically using the Ceryll-Var,
reminded him during one merging that Owl-Sage Jessamyn, Myn's namesake,
who had been leader of the Order when Jaryd received his cloak, had
spent more than a year unbound.
Such reassurances helped, but only a little. Certainly he didn't
begrudge the others their bindings. He was deeply proud of Alayna, who
had become the youngest Owl-Master within memory. But he could not help
but wonder if he was ever going to bind again, or if he was destined to
die unbound and become yet another victim of Theron's Curse.
He had spoken with Phelan, the Wolf-Master. He had endured the terrors
of Theron's Grove, and he now carried Theron's staff as his own. He had
seen what it was to be unsettled, and the very idea of it filled him
with a cold, penetrating dread. But after all this time without finding
a new familiar, Jaryd was forced to acknowledge that this might be his
fate, that the sense of foreboding that hovered at his shoulder all
day, and followed him to bed at night, might carry the weight of
prophecy.
After struggling with his fears privately for some time, he mentioned this possibility to Alayna, who reacted predictably.
"That's ridiculous," she told him. "We're all afraid of Theron's Curse.
That's just part of being a mage. It certainly doesn't mean that you're
fated to become one of the Unsettled."
He nodded silently, accepting the logic of what she said. But later
that day he noticed her watching him, concern etched on her delicate
features. And he knew what she was thinking. He has been unbound for such a long time ...
Oddly, Jaryd found comfort not in anything Alayna or Baden said to him,
but rather in a lesson he had learned long ago from his father. Jaryd
had never been very close to his father, and the distance between them
had only increased after Jaryd became a mage. But while Bernel had been
brusque and taciturn, he also had possessed a pragmatic wisdom that had
manifested itself late in his life in terse, pointed maxims that he
offered without warning to anyone who cared to listen.
One of these Jaryd heard for the first time when he took Alayna and Myn
to Accalia so that his mother and father could meet their granddaughter
for the first time. During the journey, Myn slept poorly, often
refusing to nurse, and Jaryd and Alayna worried that something might be
wrong with her.
"Worrying's a fine way to waste some time," Bernel finally said, after
listening to them fret for an entire afternoon, "but it sure doesn't
accomplish very much, except to annoy the rest of us."
Alayna had taken offense, prompting Drina to scold her husband for the
balance of the day. But lying now in his bed, watching the room he and
Alayna shared brighten slowly with the first grey glimmerings of
daylight, Jaryd could only smile at the memory.
He glanced over at Alayna, who was still asleep. Her long dark hair was
streaked with strands of silver, and her face was leaner than it had
been when they first met eleven years ago. But the passage of the years
had not diminished her beauty.
I can worry about becoming one of the Unsettled, Jaryd told himself. Or I can enjoy what the gods have given me until they decide that I'm ready for my next binding.
He smiled in the silver light. It didn't strike him as a difficult choice.
He leaned over and kissed Alayna lightly on her forehead. Then he
lightly slipped out of bed, dressed, and wrapped his green cloak
tightly around himself. Spring was approaching, but there was still a
chill in the air.
He started toward the common room, intending to light a fire in the
hearth, but as he walked past Myn's room he glanced inside and saw his
daughter sitting beside her small window, bundled in a thick blanket,
and reading a worn book of Cearbhall's fables.
"Good morning, Love," Jaryd said in a whisper.
She looked up from the book and smiled at him. With her long chestnut
hair, perfect features, and dazzling smile she was the image of Alayna.
All except her eyes, which were pale grey, just like Jaryd's and those
of his own mother.
"Good morning, Papa!" she said.
Jaryd held a finger to his lips and pointed back toward his bedroom. Myn covered her mouth, her eyes wide.
"What are you doing up so early?" he asked her quietly.
"I always wake up when you do," she whispered.
"How do you know when I wake up?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I just do."
Jaryd gazed at her for several seconds, then nodded. That she showed
signs of having the Sight, already, at the age of six, did not surprise
them. Both he and Alayna had understood from the beginning that their
child would not be ordinary. But she was attuned to both of her parents
in strange and wondrous ways, some of them remarkably subtle and
completely unexpected.
Jaryd stood in her doorway for another moment, watching her and grinning. She just looked back at him, saying nothing.
"I was going to make a fire and have some breakfast," he finally told her. "Are you hungry?"
She nodded, put the book on her bed, and, keeping the blanket around
her shoulders as if it were an overly large cloak, followed him into
the common room.
After lighting the fire, Jaryd cut two large pieces of the dark currant
bread he had made the day before and covered them with sweet butter.
They sat in the kitchen, and as they ate, Myn told him about the fable
she had been working her way through when he found her. She was just
learning to read, and Cearbhall's work was not the easiest to figure
out. The fable she had been reading, however, was one of his favorites,
The Fox and the Skunk, and he had read it to her many times when she was younger.
"It was smart of you to start with one you know already," he said, still speaking in a whisper.
She smiled, her mouth full of bread. "Mama picked it out."
Jaryd laughed. "Well, then it was smart of her."
He got up to cut some more bread, and as he did he heard the rustling of blankets in the other room.
"I think your mother's awake."
"She has been for a little while," Myn said. "I think she was listening to us."
Jaryd turned to look at her again.
"How did you know that, Myn-Myn?" Alayna asked, appearing in the
kitchen doorway with Wyrinva, her great owl, sitting on her shoulder.
Myn looked at her mother and then at Jaryd, a shy smile on her lips. "I
just know," she said, seeming embarrassed. "I can feel it when you're
awake. Both of you."
Alayna glanced up at Jaryd and grinned.
"Is it bad that I can tell?"
"Not at all," Jaryd said.
"Does it mean I'm going to be a mage?"
Jaryd suppressed a laugh.
"I'd be very surprised if you weren't a mage," Alayna said, her eyes still on Jaryd. "And so would everyone else in Tobyn-Ser."
This time Jaryd couldn't help but laugh out loud. Since before she
could walk, Orris and Baden had been saying that she was destined to be
Owl-Sage, and though Jaryd and Alayna were determined to let Myn find
her own path, neither of them doubted that she would bind someday,
probably to Amarid's Hawk, just as they both had. The question was:
would she join the Order or the League? Indeed, Jaryd could not even be
certain that both would still exist by the time Myn was ready to
choose. He shook his head. It was not a line of thought he cared to
pursue just then.
"Good," Myn said. "I want to be a mage. I like going to Amarid."
"I'm glad you like going there," Alayna said, crossing to the bread and
picking up the knife to cut herself a piece. "We like it, too."
"That's why I'm happy today."
Alayna turned to look at Myn, the knife poised over the loaf. "What do you mean, Myn-Myn?"
"I'm happy because we're going to Amarid soon."
"No, we're not, Love," Jaryd said gently. "It's still winter. The Gathering isn't until summer."
Myn smiled at him as if he were a child. "I know that. We're going anyway."
Alayna walked to where the girl was sitting. She squatted down and
looked Myn in the eye. "What makes you think we're going to Amarid,
Myn?"
"I saw us going there in a dream."
Alayna's eyes flicked to Jaryd for an instant, and then she forced a
smile. "There are different kinds of dreams, Myn-Myn. Your Papa and I
have explained—"
"It was a real dream, Mama," Myn said earnestly. "I promise."
Jaryd took a deep breath. Myn's Sight had grown stronger over the past
year. He and Alayna had learned to trust her visions almost as fully
they trusted their own. He had no idea why they would need to undertake
the journey to Amarid so suddenly, but neither did he truly doubt that
they would. "How soon, Love?" he asked her. "When do you think we'll be
going?"
Myn looked at him and wrinkled her forehead in concentration "Tomorrow, I think," she finally said. "Maybe the day after"
He faced Alayna again and saw his own concern mirrored in her
expression. What had happened? What would lead Owl-Sage Radomil to
summon the mages of the Order to Amarid for a Gathering? Had something
happened to Radomil himself? Had he fallen ill or died? Jaryd looked at
his staff, which was leaning against the wall near the door of their
small home. The sapphire stone mounted atop the ancient charred wood
still glowed steadily. Neither Radomil nor First of the Sage Mered had
awakened the Summoning Stone yet. If one of them had, Jaryd's stone, as
well as that of every other mage in Tobyn-Ser, would have been flashing
by now.
"We've still got some time," Alayna said, as if reading his thoughts. "We should probably let Narelle know."
Jaryd nodded. Narelle was the leader of the town council in Lastri, the
nearest of the villages located along the shores of South Shelter. Or
rather, the nearest of those villages that remained loyal to the Order
rather than the League. Narelle needed to know that Jaryd and Alayna
would be departing for Amarid, leaving Lastri and the other villages
without their services for some time.
"I'll go and tell her," Jaryd said. "And I'll also get us some food. You and Myn can start closing up the house."
Alayna sighed. "All right," she said. "This is the last thing I was expecting."
"I know. Me too."
"I'm sorry," Myn said, her voice quavering slightly.
Jaryd and Alayna both looked at her.
"For what, Love?" Jaryd asked.
Myn shrugged, refusing to look up. A single tear fell off her cheek and darkened the table.
Alayna placed a hand on her shoulder and bent to kiss her forehead.
"It's not your fault that we have to go, Myn. Just because you have a
vision, that doesn't mean you make it happen. We've told you that
before. Remember?"
"Yes," the girl said softly, wiping another tear from her face.
"So we don't blame you. In fact, it's better that we know now, so we can get ready and warn the people in town."
Myn looked up. "Really?"
Alayna nodded and cupped Myn's cheek in her hand. "Really. Now go get dressed and wash up, and then we'll get to work."
"All right, Mama," Myn said. She stood, pulling her blanket around her shoulders once more, then returned to her bedroom.
"You don't have any doubts, do you?" Alayna asked Jaryd, staring after their daughter.
Jaryd shook his head. "No. A year ago I might have, but every vision
she's had since last spring has been true. I don't see any reason to
start doubting her now."
Alayna passed a hand through her hair. "Neither do I."
He let out a sigh. "I guess I'll go put a saddle on one of the horses."
"You can't," she said, grimacing "I promised Myn I'd start teaching her to ride today."
"This isn't the best time, Alayna."
"I know, but I've been promising her since midwinter. And now that
we're going to Amarid, who knows when I'll have another chance?"
"She'll be riding every day for the next fortnight," Jaryd said.
"But with one of us sitting behind her. You know that's not the same."
He stared at her for several moments, shaking his head. The sunlight
shining through a small window behind him made her eyes sparkle. Brown
and green they were, like a forest in midsummer.
"Do you know how beautiful you are?" he said, smiling and kissing her lightly on the lips.
She gave a wry grin. "Does that mean you'll walk to the village?"
"What choice do I have?" he answered, laughing.
"Then you'd better get going. We have a lot to do today."
She pushed him toward the door, but not before letting him kiss her again.
He put on his leather shoes, which had been sitting on the floor beside
the door, and stepped out into the cold morning air. A light westerly
wind stirred his cloak and hair, carrying the familiar scents of brine
and seaweed. A few featherlike clouds floated overhead, but otherwise
the sky was nearly as blue as his ceryll. In winters past, on a morning
like this one, he might have taken Ishalla to the water's edge and
watched her fly or hunt.
He shook his head. "You're not doing yourself any good," he said aloud. He let out a long breath and started toward town.
The walk to Lastri usually took him nearly an hour. Once it had been a
pleasant journey along a narrow trail that wound among towering forests
of oaks, maples, ashes, and elms. Occasionally, the path angled toward
the coast and the woods thinned, allowing a traveler to catch glimpses
of Arick's Sea pounding endlessly at the rocky shoreline below.
Over the past few years, however, the trail had changed, as had
everything else in Tobyn-Ser. Vast stretches of the magnificent forest
had been cut down so that the wood could be shipped to Lon-Ser, or in
some cases, Abborij. Where the trees had been there was now little more
than bare patches of exposed rock and dirt. Only the mangled roots and
stumps left behind by the woodsmen gave any indication of what once had
stood there. The trail had been widened and straightened into a broad,
rutted road, so that the timber could be hauled to town in large carts
drawn by teams of horses. And Lastri itself had become heavily
dependent upon the wood trade. From all that Jaryd and Alayna had
heard, Lastri was one of the largest wood ports in Tobyn-Ser. Many of
its people had grown wealthy as a result, and it was hard to find a
single family in the town that did not prosper in some way from the
cutting of the forests. So whenever he visited the town, Jaryd tried to
mask his distaste for what had been done to the landscape.
Not all the trees were gone. There were still sections of the journey
that remained just as Jaryd remembered them, except for the road
itself, which was wide and relatively straight all the way to town. But
the areas of forest seemed smaller each time Jaryd saw them, and
recently he had realized that there were now more stumps to be seen
along the way than there were trees.
Indeed, he had last made the journey only a fortnight ago, and yet on
this day, as he walked to Lastri wondering what crisis would compel
them to Amarid, Jaryd could see that there had been even more cutting
done during the interval. It was frightening how quickly the trees were
disappearing.
His one consolation was that there were no woodsmen at work as he made
his way to town. Not that they had ever treated Jaryd or Alayna with
anything but courtesy and respect. In fact, several of them now greeted
Myn by name when she made the journey with one of her parents. But they
seemed to know how Jaryd and Alayna felt about the work they did, and
they regarded the mages with suspicion.
More than that, the woodsmen had been hired by the Keepers of Arick's
Temple, who now owned much of the land on either side of the path and
who had profited more than any other group from Tobyn-Ser's recent
forays into transisthmus commerce. Everyone in Tobyn-Ser was aware of
the hostility that had existed since the time of Amarid between the
Keepers and the Order. The emergence of the League and, more recently,
of a growing number of so-called free mages, had done nothing to lessen
this animosity, and it seemed to Jaryd that the Temples' commercial
ventures had actually deepened it. Even if the woodsmen understood
nothing of the issues that had divided the Children of Amarid and the
Children of the Gods for a thousand years, they must have sensed that
by working for the Temples they had made themselves parties to the feud.
Or perhaps Jaryd was merely imagining it all. Perhaps the woodsmen were
just uncomfortable around the mages because, like so many of
Tobyn-Ser's people, they were awed and a bit frightened by the power he
and Alayna wielded. Or perhaps they supported the League rather than
the Order. In a way it didn't matter. Whatever the reason, Jaryd was
just as happy to find himself alone on the road. It gave him time to
think.
The Summoning Stone hadn't been used in some time, not since the death
of Sonel's owl necessitated the election of a new Owl-Sage nearly four
years ago. Before then, it hadn't been used since just before the
sundering of the Order, when Owl-Master Erland demanded that Sonel
convene a Gathering so that he could accuse Orris, Baden, and others of
treason.
Even before Erland and his followers formed the League, use of the
Summoning Stone was limited to dire emergencies. But with the
Mage-Craft divided, use of the stone all but ceased. For in altering
the giant crystal and tuning it to the cerylls of every mage in the
land, Amarid and Theron had not allowed for the possibility that the
Order might someday be challenged by a rival. While the mages of
Tobyn-Ser were divided by personal resentments and profound differences
over matters of conduct, they were still united by the stone. And each
time the great ceryll was used to call together what remained of the
Order, every free mage and every member of the League saw his or her
ceryll flash as well.
Which meant that whatever it was that would cause Radomil or Mered to
convene the coming Gathering would have to be grave indeed.
Driven by the thought, Jaryd glanced at his stone again. Nothing yet.
But turning his gaze back to the path, he spotted something out of the
corner of his eye that made him freeze in the middle of his stride.
He was in an open area, where the trees had long since been cut and
hauled off to Lastri. One of the few remaining forested sections loomed
before him. And just beside the path, only a few feet in front of this
next stand of trees, an enormous dark bird sat on a scarred stump. Its
feathers were rich brown, save for those on the back of its neck, which
shone in the bright sunlight as if they were made of gold. Its dark
eyes regarded Jaryd with an unnatural intelligence that made the mage
shiver. It almost seemed to him that the bird had been waiting for him,
that it had known he would be coming.
He knew, of course, what it meant, what the gods and this bird expected of him. And he shook his head.
More than anything in the world he wanted to be bound again. But even
this longing had its limits. He didn't want a familiar this badly.
"I don't want this," he said, his voice sounding small.
The great creature stared at him impassively.
Jaryd turned away. He wanted to run, to turn his back on this gift from
the gods, if such a binding could even be considered a gift. What would happen if I were to refuse a binding? he wondered briefly. Would the gods ever favor me with a familiar again?
He shook his head. Probably not. Because in this case, refusing the
binding meant far more than defying the gods. It meant breaking his
oath to serve Tobyn-Ser and its people.
The gods had sent him an eagle. And though his blood ran cold at what
that meant, Jaryd knew that he had no choice but to accept this binding
and all that came with it.
He took a long, steadying breath, readying himself for the onslaught of
images and emotions he knew would come as soon as he met the eagle's
gaze again.
I've been through this before, he told himself, remembering his binding to Ishalla. I know that I can do it.
He took another breath, then faced the great bird once more.
Their eyes met. Jaryd had time to remark to himself that this was the
most magnificent bird he had ever seen. And then it hit him.
For any ordinary binding, his experience with his first familiar might
have been ample preparation. But this was an eagle, and, Jaryd realized
in that final instant of clarity, there would be nothing ordinary about
their time together. It was his last rational thought for some time.
Visions and memories suddenly coursed through him like the floodwaters
of the Dhaalismin: hunting along the crest of the Seaside Range;
flipping over in mid-flight to ward off the attack of two smaller
hawks; swooping and diving with another, smaller eagle in what he
recognized instinctively as a courtship flight; pouncing on a rabbit,
digging his talons into its soft fur and flesh, killing it with a quick
slash of his razor beak.
He reached for the eagle, feeling her presence in his mind and
remembering that he had done this with Ishalla. But the bird resisted
him, as if she were not ready to accept him yet. There is more, she seemed to be telling him. It is not yet time.
The images continued to cascade through him so swiftly that he barely
had time to make sense of them. The next one seemed to begin before the
last was done. He saw the eagle's parents, its siblings, all the
creatures it had ever killed, all the rivals it had ever fought off. He
saw its one mate, and he saw that bird die with a hunter's arrow in its
breast. He saw the eagle's entire life pass before him in a spiraling
procession of memory, thought, and emotion. Yet, dizzying and
bewildering as this was, he had expected it. The pattern was familiar
in a way. He had shared his consciousness with a bird before. And so he
resisted the overwhelming urge to fight against this tide of thought.
Instead he allowed the eagle's consciousness to carry him where it
might.
But despite his experience, despite his attempts to heed the lessons he
had learned from his first binding, what came next shocked him, humbled
him, frightened him. Abruptly, he wasn't an eagle anymore. Or rather,
he wasn't this eagle anymore.
He was circling above a tall, powerfully built mage to whom he was
bound. And as he watched, two armies approached each other under a hazy
sky. One army flew the flag of ancient Abborij. The other was led by a
phalanx of mages. In the distance, beyond the warriors, he could see
the waters of the Abborij Strait, and he knew that he was on
Tobyn-Ser's Northern Plain, watching the first war with Abborij. The
armies came together amid shouts of death and fear, and almost
immediately the Abboriji army fell back, their weapons shattered by
magic.
An instant later, he was bound to a different mage, this one a woman,
tall and hale like the man who came before her. Her silver hair flew in
a stiff, cold wind, and the cerylls of her fellow mages glittered in
the bright winter sun. Again an army approached across the plain, a
larger force this time. It marched under a flag different from the
first, but still recognizable as a banner of Abborij. And once more the
soldiers of Abborij were no match for the mages of Tobyn-Ser.
A third mage, this one also a woman. She was young and small of
stature, though no less fierce than her predecessors in her defense of
the land. The army approaching her through a fine grey mist was larger
than the first two combined, and the magic of the mages she commanded
took far longer to prevail. But prevail it did. He saw the people of
Tobyn-Ser rejoicing in their victory even as they wept for the dead. He
saw Glenyse hoisted onto the shoulders of an enormous, bearded man who
wielded an ax and bore welts and bloody gashes on his forehead and
arms. This man walked with the mages and held a ceryll, but he carried
no familiar on his shoulder. And in the remote corner of his mind that
was still his own, Jaryd recognized this man as Phelan, the
Wolf-Master, who had lost Kalba, his one familiar, just before the
third Abboriji invasion, and who had vowed never to bind again.
Other images washed over him. Lifetime after lifetime after lifetime.
It almost seemed that he was binding not to one bird, but to many, each
carrying its own memories and those of the mage it had loved. He saw
scenes from the lives of the three Eagle-Sages who had come before
flashing through his mind so swiftly that he had no time to interpret
them, no time even to divine from whose life they had come. He kept
waiting for a pattern to emerge, for the flood of images to begin
again, as it had during his binding to Ishalla. But there was no ending
here; there was nothing to grasp. Yes, he had been through a binding
before. But nothing could have prepared him for this. He was being
carried away by the deluge. He was drowning.
And in that moment, when at last he saw a familiar image and sensed
that a pattern had finally emerged, that there was an ending after all,
he was very nearly too exhausted to assert his own consciousness again.
Jaryd felt the eagle touch his mind once more, nudging him as if to
awaken him from slumber. This time, when Jaryd opened himself to her,
offering her his memories and emotions as she had done for him, she
accepted. Once more, he saw her flying, hunting, fighting, but this
time his own life was interwoven with hers. The images of the Abboriji
wars did not return, and seeing the images of her life again, Jaryd
understood why. They had not truly been her memories to give. This was
not the same eagle who had bound to Fordel, Decla, and Glenyse, the
three Eagle-Sages. But somehow, this eagle— his
eagle, who now named herself to him as Rithlar— carried those
memories within her. It was impossible. The wars had taken place
hundreds of years ago. But Jaryd knew what he had seen.
Rithlar seemed to sense his doubts, for a moment later he saw the
armies again, and the sequence of events repeated itself in his mind,
exactly as it had a short time before. Then he understood.
"This is how it was given to you," he said aloud.
His voice appeared to break the spell woven by their binding. Suddenly
he was standing in the clearing again. It was over. He felt the eagle's
presence in his mind, and he knew that they were bound to each other.
Jaryd continued to gaze at the bird, who still had not moved from her
perch beside the road. He felt awkward in a way. The instant he bound
to Ishalla, he loved her as he had no other person or creature. Even
his love for Alayna, powerful as it was, did not exceed his feelings
for his first hawk.
But he knew already that he and Rithlar would have a different kind of
relationship. She was an eagle, and because she had chosen him, he
would be the fourth Eagle-Sage in the history of the land. The gods had
brought them together for one reason: Tobyn-Ser was destined for war.
Soon. Theirs was not to be a binding based upon love or even
friendship, although in time it might come to be characterized by those
things. Theirs was a bond born of necessity and forged by their
devotion to the land. He wondered briefly, if it might have been
otherwise had he not at first resisted the binding, but he sensed no
resentment in the bird's thoughts. Only a reserved pride and the same
preternatural intelligence he had seen in her eyes when he first
encountered her. Had it been this way for Glenyse and the others?
Thinking this, he began to tremble. I am an Eagle-Sage, he told himself. I'm going to lead Tobyn-Ser into a war.
But against whom? There had been no new conflicts with the outlanders
since Orris returned from Lon-Ser over six years ago. Certainly Abborij
posed no threat— Tobyn-Ser had been at peace with its northern
neighbor for more than four centuries.
"At least now I know why we have to go to Amarid," he said grimly.
That of all things caused the great bird to stir. She opened her wings
and let out a soft cry. Jaryd walked to where she was sitting and held
out his arm for her. Immediately she hopped to it, and Jaryd gasped
with pain. Not only were her talons considerably larger than Ishalla's
and just as sharp, she also weighed far more than his first familiar.
Her claws stabbed through the skin of his forearms like daggers. He
quickly conveyed to her that she should move to his shoulder, where his
cloak was reinforced with leather. Even this did not help much,
however. The padding on his shoulder was as effective as parchment
against those talons.
"We're going to have to do something about that," Jaryd said, wincing
as he resumed his journey to Lastri. After only a few steps though,
Jaryd realized that he could not carry Rithlar the way he had Ishalla.
The eagle was simply too large and heavy. Every step he took caused her
to grip his shoulder, and he could feel his shirt and cloak becoming
soaked with blood.
I'm sorry, he sent, but you'll have to fly.
She sent an image of herself gliding above him as he walked to show
that she understood, and Jaryd braced himself, knowing that when she
leaped off his shoulder, her claws would gouge him again. Instead,
however, she hopped down to the ground and then took off with great,
slow, sweeping wing beats. And as Jaryd started to walk again, entering
one of the few remaining wooded sections of the road, Rithlar soared
overhead, just above the tops of the bare trees.
In flight she appeared even more enormous than she did when she was
sitting. The combined length of her wings easily exceeded Jaryd's
height, and he was by no means a small man. When the mage stepped back
into an open area, she swooped down low and circled just above him, and
he marveled that so great a creature could move with such grace.
It was not the binding he had expected or hoped for. In truth the
implications of the eagle's appearance terrified him. But Jaryd could
not help but smile as he watched her fly. It had been so long since he
had shared his thoughts with a familiar, or felt the enhanced awareness
of his surroundings that came with being bound. For the first time in
longer than he could remember, he felt like a mage again.
2
Your concern for my safety is appreciated but unnecessary— and
you can tell Jibb that I'm not yet ready to resort to employing a
bodyguard. This is not to say that the conflicts between the Order and
the League have ceased or that I am any less a target of the League's
enmity. Quite the contrary: the mages of Tobyn-Ser remain hopelessly
divided, and I still spend much of my time looking over my shoulder for
would-be attackers.
In a sense, though, I am resigned to this. It strikes me as a fitting
punishment for my defiance of the Order's will. The land has suffered
greatly as a result of my actions; that I should suffer too, seems
just. Don't be alarmed: I have no intention of allowing myself to be
killed. My guilt does not run that deep. But just as the gods appear to
have ordained that I shall never bind to an owl, the League has
determined that I shall never know peace. And I am prepared to accept
both decrees.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Winter, God's Year 4633.
By the time Jaryd and his eagle reached Lastri it was past midday.
Jaryd gathered food as quickly as he could and then went in search of
Narelle, the leader of the town council. He found her by the piers
arguing with an Abboriji sea merchant.
Narelle was a stout woman, with steel grey hair and overlarge features.
She had a deep, powerful voice, and pale blue eyes that flashed angrily
as she spoke to the merchant.
"If you unload your cargo, you pay the town docking fees!" she told the
man, as Jaryd approached. "If you don't wish to pay the fees, that's
fine! You can take your ship and everything on it somewhere else!"
The man shook his head. "But as I told you, I have no choice but to unload here. My client—"
"And as I've told you," Narelle said, "that is not my concern! If you use Lastri's piers, you pay Lastri's fees."
She turned away, effectively ending their discussion, and almost bumped into Jaryd.
"Hawk-Mage!" she said pleasantly. "How nice to see you!"
Jaryd had to fight to keep from laughing. He had seen Narelle do this
before: she could be unyielding and hostile one moment, and effusive
and charming the next. As far as he could tell, neither was done for
effect; it was just her way.
"It's good to see you as well, Narelle," Jaryd replied. "Better for me, it would seem, than for that merchant."
She laughed and waved her hand, as if she could dismiss the matter of
the docking fees with the gesture. "That was nothing," she said. "I
must have the same conversation five times a day." She started to walk
back toward the town square, indicating to Jaryd that he should follow.
"Everyone wants to do business here, but only on their terms. They
don't understand that I have a town to run. Those new piers didn't just
emerge from the sea. We built them, and it cost us a good deal of gold
to do so. But these merchants don't seem to understand that. As far as
they're concerned, we owed them the piers."
Jaryd smiled, remembering the first time he saw this town, soon after
he and Alayna arrived on the shores of South Shelter a decade ago. At
that time, the entire town had consisted of one street and two or three
storefronts, and the villagers had stowed their fishing boats on a
sandy beach because there were no docks at all. Commerce had been
limited to whatever Lastri's people could get for the fish they caught
and the baskets they wove.
"I know what you're thinking," Narelle said, looking at him sidelong.
"But even if we weren't sending timber to Lon-Ser, we still would have
needed the docks."
"Actually," Jaryd told her, "I was just thinking back to my first visit to your town."
"Ah," she said, nodding. "I think of that now and then, too. There wasn't much to see back then, was there?"
Jaryd forced a smile, but said nothing, and they continued in silence for several strides.
"You have blood on your cloak!" Narelle said with alarm, stopping suddenly and pointing to Jaryd's sleeve. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. I have a new familiar, and she has quite a powerful grip." He glanced up at Rithlar, who was circling above them.
Following his gaze, Narelle gave a small gasp. "She's beautiful, Hawk-Mage! I've never seen a hawk so large!"
He didn't bother to correct her. No doubt she was familiar enough with
the history of Tobyn-Ser to know what the appearance of an eagle meant,
and he didn't wish to frighten her.
She looked at Jaryd again. "So how can I help you, Hawk-Mage? You must
have come to see me for a reason." She glanced at the sack of food he
was carrying and frowned slightly. "This is not good," she said.
"Whenever I see you with provisions it means my people will be doing
without your services for some time."
Jaryd laughed. "I'm afraid you're right. Alayna and I will be leaving
for Amarid in the morning. I'm not certain how long we'll be gone." He
thought about saying more, but again he thought better of it. He and
Alayna would not be back for some time. He was to be Eagle-Sage, which
meant that they would be living in the Great Hall until whatever crisis
awaited them had passed. But he couldn't tell her that either. He
looked around at the town, noting the faded green flags that flew above
the doorways of every home and building. This was an Order town largely
because he and Alayna lived nearby. Even with the anti-Order sentiment
fomented by Erland and his allies when they formed the League, the
people of Lastri had remained loyal to the Order because they knew and
trusted the young mages who lived just outside of town. But Jaryd
wondered now whether that loyalty would survive their departure and the
arrival of a new mage in the area.
"Is everything all right, Hawk-Mage?" Narelle asked. "You look troubled."
"Everything's fine, Narelle," he said, his assurances sounding hollow
to his own ears. "I just wanted to let you know that we'd be going."
She frowned again, furrowing her brow. "Well, do you know why you're needed in Amarid?"
"No," he said, although he could not keep his gaze from wandering up to Rithlar. "I have no idea."
He thought he was lying to her. It was only later, as he walked back
through the forest, that he realized how much truth there had been in
his answer. Even knowing the land was destined for war, he had no sense
of why this should be so or who their enemy would be.
He arrived back home just as the sun was disappearing behind the Lower
Horn on the far side of South Shelter. Stopping by the front door, he
waited for Rithlar to settle to the ground beside him. He squatted and
stroked the feathers on her chin.
You are the most glorious creature I've ever seen, he sent. I
don't know why you've come, or why you chose me, but I'm sorry I
refused you at first. And I promise that no matter what it is that
brought you here, we'll face it together. By way of reply, she
nuzzled him gently with her huge hooked bill. In spite of everything,
Jaryd laughed. Perhaps he could love her after all. He stood, opened
the door, and stepped inside, motioning for Rithlar to follow him.
Three saddlebags sat near the door in the common room. Two of them had
been filled and strapped shut. The last, obviously intended for the
food, was still open and was empty save for some rope, a few eating
utensils, and some of Myn's favorite playthings.
Jaryd heard Alayna and Myn laughing from one of the back rooms.
"I'm back," he called.
"We're in Myn's room," Alayna answered. "What took you so long?"
He looked at Rithlar, who had been surveying her surroundings with a
critical eye. Now she bounded into the kitchen, hopped onto a chair,
and jumped from there onto the table.
"Come out and take a look," Jaryd said, following the eagle into the
kitchen. "I think I've figured out why we're going to Amarid."
"How could you have?" Alayna called back. "Radomil hasn't even figured
it out yet." She appeared in the doorway with Myn behind her. "Our
cerylls still aren't—"
She froze, her eyes widening as the color drained from her cheeks. "By the gods!" she whispered.
Myn stepped past her and walked right to the edge of the table, staring
at the great bird. Rithlar gazed back at the child, her head tilted to
the side slightly, and they remained that way for several moments,
neither of them looking away.
"What is it, Papa?" the girl asked.
"It's an eagle, Love. Her name is Rithlar."
"That's a funny name."
"Actually," Alayna said quietly before Jaryd could respond, "it's the name of every eagle that has ever bound to a mage."
Jaryd looked at her sharply. "Are you sure?"
She nodded.
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," he said, facing his familiar again.
"She carries their memories. I saw the Abboriji invasions during our
binding."
Alayna pushed her hair back from her forehead with a rigid hand. "You
have to contact Radomil," she told him. She looked pale, and her voice
sounded tight. "He has to summon the others."
"I know."
"Did you see Narelle?"
"Yes."
"And had you already been bound?"
"Yes, but don't worry. Narelle just thought I'd found a really big hawk."
Alayna gave a small laugh, although she grew serious again almost
immediately. "An eagle, Jaryd," she said, shaking her head in
disbelief. "Do you know what that means?"
"What does it mean, Mama?"
Alayna glanced quickly at Jaryd and then looked down at Myn, making
herself smile. "Well, Myn-Myn, it means that ..." She trailed off,
her eyes meeting Jaryd's again.
"It means," Jaryd said, "that I'm going to be the new leader of the Order, so we'll be living at the Great Hall for a while."
Myn stared at him in amazement. "You're going to be Owl-Sage?"
"In a sense, yes," Jaryd told her. "But I'll be called Eagle-Sage. And
since we'll be living in Amarid, and we won't be back here for a long
time, I want you to go check your room to see if there's anything else
you want to bring with us. All right?"
"All right, Papa," she answered, already running to the back of the house.
"Thanks," Alayna murmured, staring after her.
"We'll have to tell her eventually," Jaryd said. "She's going to figure it out when she sees the way other people react."
Alayna faced him again and nodded. "I know." She stepped forward and
wrapped her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder. "Are you
scared?"
"Yes, but not as much as I was this morning."
"At least you've bound again."
She pulled back and gave him a wry look, which he returned. Again, though, her smile faded quickly.
"I don't envy you," she said.
"It's not just me," he replied. "You're going to be First of the Sage."
She put her head on his shoulder again. "Wouldn't you rather have Orris?"
He kissed the top of her head. "Orris's hair isn't as soft as yours."
"How do you know?" she demanded, feigning jealousy.
Jaryd grinned.
"I think I'll check on Myn," Alayna said. "She's probably trying to pack her bed."
Jaryd nodded, taking a long breath. "I'll contact Radomil."
He stepped outside again with Rithlar following close behind. It was
almost dark. Only the western horizon was still tinged with yellow and
orange, and several stars had already emerged in the deep indigo
overhead. Jaryd's breath hung before him in clouds of steam, and he
shivered slightly in the cold, still air.
He had not attempted to use the Mage-Craft since Ishalla's death, and faced now with the prospect of attempting the Ceryll-Var, one of the most complicated and draining tasks any mage could undertake, he felt unsure of himself.
"I haven't done this in a while," he said to the eagle.
She merely stared at him.
He sat on the ground beside her and, closing his eyes, reached for the
connection they had forged that morning. He felt her presence
instantly, and as he began to send his consciousness eastward toward
Amarid, where Radomil now lived, he felt power flowing through him like
the icy waters of a mountain stream. The sensation was both familiar
and alien, for while Ishalla's power had also run cool and swift
through his body, his first hawk had never been this strong. Within
seconds Jaryd had found Radomil's ivory ceryll in the vast blackness in
which one traveled for the stone merging. He projected his own sapphire
into the Owl-Sage's stone and then waited for Radomil to reach back.
The entire process had been nearly effortless.
Jaryd? Radomil sent.
Yes, Owl-Sage. I'm here.
This is a surprise. I didn't know you had bound again. Congratulations.
Thank you, Owl-Sage. Jaryd couldn't help but smile. He had known
Radomil since his childhood. The rotund Owl-Master had once served
Leora's Forest in northwestern Tobyn-Ser, where Jaryd's home village of
Accalia was located. And even now, after the two of them had served in
the Order together for a dozen years, Jaryd still sensed an almost
fatherly pride in Radomil's thoughts as the Owl-Sage congratulated him
on his binding.
Have you bound to an owl? Mered and I have assumed since Alayna's binding that you would.
Jaryd sighed. This was not going to be easy.
No, Owl-Sage, it wasn't an owl.
Jaryd sensed Radomil's embarrassment. I'm sorry, Jaryd. I didn't mean to presume ...
Please, don't apologize, Jaryd sent. There was no way to cushion it. I've bound to an eagle, Owl-Sage. That's why I've contacted you. I thought you should know.
The Sage offered no response for some time. Indeed, had not Jaryd still
felt the Sage's shock and fear, he might have thought that their
connection had been broken.
Arick guard us all, the Owl-Sage finally sent. Have you told Baden yet?
No. Aside from Alayna, you're the only one who knows. I assumed you'd
want to convene a Gathering to inform the others and decide what we
should do next.
What I want is irrelevant. You lead the Order now.
Jaryd sensed no bitterness in Radomil's thoughts, no anger at having
his rule ended so abruptly. He was merely acknowledging what both of
them knew to be true.
Would you like me to use the Summoning Stone, Eagle-Sage?
Eagle-Sage. Jaryd felt his mouth go dry. He wasn't ready for this.
Jaryd?
Yes, he sent at last. Yes, I guess I would.
Very well. If you'd like, Mered and I will remain in the Great Hall
until you and Alayna arrive— I assume Alayna will be your First.
That will be fine. Thank you, Radomil. Jaryd felt himself growing
light-headed. Perhaps it was the strain of using the Mage-Craft for the
first time in so long. Or perhaps it was the realization of what he had
become. It was hard to tell just then. But he felt his connection with
Radomil growing weaker.
I don't want anyone to know yet, Radomil, he sent, desperately trying to keep his thoughts coherent. Only
you and the First. And Baden, but I'll tell him myself. I don't want to
cause any panic. If anyone asks, just tell them I've requested a
Gathering.
I understand, Radomil replied, his thoughts seeming increasingly distant with each moment. Arick guard you on your journey, Eagle-Sage. And may he bring you to us quickly.
An instant later, Radomil was gone. Jaryd opened his eyes to a starry
sky that appeared to spin like a child's top. He sensed no fatigue from
Rithlar, nor had her power wavered even for an instant during his
exchange with the Owl-Sage. But he was exhausted from channeling the
magic she gave him. And not for the first time that day, he wondered
why the gods had chosen him for this binding.
"There must be others who are better prepared for this," he said to the
darkness. "There must be others who are stronger and wiser."
Rithlar nuzzled him, again, as she had earlier in the evening. I've chosen you, she seemed to be telling him. For better or worse. I've chosen you.
Jaryd stroked her chin, and then gazed up at the stars again. The
dizziness was beginning to pass, and he could see the constellation of
Arick overhead, his hand raised to smite the land.
"There is a war coming," Jaryd whispered, feeling cold and terribly young. "And I am to be the fist of the gods."
* * *
He was a migrant. He always had been, and he had no doubt that he would
remain one for the rest of his life. The way of the nester had never
appealed to him. The very idea of it made him restless. He had only
known two women in his life who, given the chance, might have convinced
him to settle in one place and make a home. One of them was now the
wife of his best friend, and the other lived hundreds of leagues away,
on the far side of Arick's Sea, in a land so alien that even the stars
looked different in the night sky.
Every mage in the land knew that Alayna and Jaryd belonged together.
The gods had made that clear by sending them identical birds for their
first bindings. And Orris would never have begrudged his closest
friends their happiness, particularly not after the birth of their
beautiful daughter.
As for Melyor, who now ruled Bragor-Nal as Lon-Ser's first Gildriite
Sovereign, Orris was too wise a man to pine for her. Notwithstanding
the narrow isthmus that joined their two lands, they lived in utterly
different worlds. It didn't matter that they loved each other. They had
their letters and, Orris knew, that was all they could have, at least
for now. And though he would never have said that the letters were
enough, they were something. They were the only things that even
allowed her to be a part of his life in Tobyn-Ser.
He accepted that as part of the price he paid for the power the gods
had given him, just as he had reconciled himself to the fact that his
endless solitude was a natural outgrowth of being a migrant mage. No
one had forced him to live this way; it had been his decision. And he
had pledged himself to the Order and to the land long before he had
fallen in love with Bragor-Nal's Sovereign. But though he accepted the
choices he had made, he was forced to acknowledge that he had never
expected his travels to become as frenzied and relentless as they had
in the past few years. Even in his youth, when he had wandered the
length and breadth of the land, intent on proving to the older migrants
of the Order that he was hardier than they, he had not covered as much
territory as quickly as he did these days. Because while he had been
driven as a young man by arrogance and misguided zeal, he had never
been hunted, as he was now.
It sometimes seemed to Orris that there was no place where he could
rest. Everywhere he went, the mages of the League of Amarid found him.
Sometimes it took them a few days, on rare occasions a week. But
eventually he would be forced to move on. The only real peace he had
known for the past several years had come during his visits with Jaryd
and Alayna on the shores of South Shelter. There, either the League
mages couldn't find him, or more likely, they were unwilling to take on
Jaryd and Alayna as well. But though his friends had always welcomed
him and had never placed any constraints on the length of his stays,
Orris was unwilling to impose upon them for very long. They had Myn to
take care of, and though the League mages had left him alone during his
visits thus far, he had no guarantee that they wouldn't be bolder the
next time.
So after a short rest, usually no more than three or four days, he
would leave them and resume his journeys, watchful once more for any
sign of attack. He did everything he could to avoid confrontations.
Given the choice between fighting and fleeing, he invariably chose the
latter. Clearly the League mages had found some way to reconcile their
attacks on Orris with their pledge to uphold Amarid's Laws, but Orris
had vowed not to use the Mage-Craft against another mage, and he
intended to do everything he could to honor that vow.
On those occasions when he had no choice but to fight, he did so
defensively, using his power only to shield himself until he could slip
away. He had yet to kill one of his attackers, despite being injured
several times himself. And though he would have liked to hunt down the
man who had killed Anizir three years ago, he knew that his adherence
to the oath he had taken would not allow him even that satisfaction.
There was nothing for him to do but continue his wanderings and, when
possible, offer his services to those who would accept them. Of course,
even that was made more difficult by the existence of the League. Over
the past few years he had been in every region of Tobyn-Ser. He had
stopped in literally hundreds of towns and villages and had seen the
blue flags of the League flying in roughly half of them. Somewhat fewer
remained loyal to the Order, and a growing number wished only to be
served by those mages who claimed to have no ties to either body.
These so-called free mages were a relatively new phenomenon, but they
struck Orris as far more dangerous than the League. They answered to no
one. If a mage of the Order attempted to use the Mage-Craft to gain
wealth or power, or to harm in any way the people of Tobyn-Ser, he or
she would be tried and punished by the rest of the Order. And though
the leadership of the League appeared to be encouraging or at least
tolerating the attacks on Orris, as far as he knew they dealt with
other violations of Amarid's Laws just as the Order did. In practice,
there had been few violations of the First Mage's Laws over the course
of the last thousand years, and in the most serious case, the treachery
of Owl-Master Sartol, the Order had been agonizingly slow to act. But
in theory at least, the mages of both the League and the Order were
held accountable for their actions. The free mages, on the other hand,
were subject to no laws of conduct. They took no oath, and they had no
procedure for disciplining renegade mages. Orris shuddered to think of
what would have happened if Sartol had been given the opportunity to be
a free mage rather than a member of the Order.
He had been walking northward along the eastern edge of Tobyn's Plain,
and he paused now, looking west to watch as the sun, huge and orange,
and partially obscured by a thin line of dark clouds, began to slide
below the horizon. Almost immediately, the wind sweeping across the
grasses and farmland turned colder. Orris shivered within his cloak and
started walking again, immediately falling back into the rhythm that
came to him so naturally. He could see the God's wood before him,
perhaps a league away. It would be dark when he got there, but the moon
was up in the eastern sky, yellow and almost full. It would light his
way once the daylight vanished, and if it failed him, he could always
summon mage-light from his ceryll. He glanced at the stone and grinned,
his thoughts traveling west again to Lon-Ser. Once he had carried a
crystal that shone with an amber light. But seven years ago, in
Bragor-Nal, he and Melyor had used his stone and hers to fool Cedrych,
the Overlord who was responsible for the outlanders' attacks on
Tobyn-Ser. Their ruse worked for only a moment, but that was long
enough. In the battle that followed, they killed Cedrych, sending him
toppling from the window of his opulent quarters to the avenue far
below. But Orris's staff fell with him, and the mage's ceryll shattered
into thousands of pieces.
After returning to Tobyn-Ser, Orris traded for a new ceryll with his
friend Crob, an Abboriji merchant. But when Crob placed the new stone
in Orris's hand, the light that burst from the crystal was different
from the hue of the mage's first ceryll. It was a subtle change. Few
people other than Orris would have noticed. And thinking about it
afterward, he soon realized that he shouldn't have been surprised.
Since finding his first stone in the caverns of Ceryllon he had grown
wiser, more patient, and more compassionate. But he also knew from
looking at the new ceryll that there was more to it than that. His
ceryll-hue had gone from amber to russet. It almost seemed as if some
of the red from Melyor's stone had found its way into his. Again he
smiled. He still wasn't entirely certain what it meant, but it pleased
him.
He continued northward as darkness spread across the plain and the
constellations began to take shape in the night sky. A town appeared in
the distance, ahead of him and slightly to the west, its small houses
glowing warmly with candlelight and hearth fire, but he didn't alter
his course. He had been there before. Its name was Woodsview, and it
was a League town.
Seeing the lights of the village, Orris felt himself growing tense. His
grip tightened on his staff, and he found himself scanning the horizon
continuously and glancing over his shoulder periodically to make
certain he wasn't being followed. Kryssan, gliding above him, seemed to
sense the change in his mood, and she flew higher so that she could
better survey their surroundings. He looked up at the white falcon and
nodded with grim satisfaction. They weren't likely to be surprised out
here on the plain. Once they reached Tobyn's Wood, they'd be more
vulnerable to an attack, but he and his falcon had been in hostile
areas before. They were more than capable of defending themselves.
At times he grew tired of living like an Abboriji war general, planning
for battle every time he walked into a new village or crossed
unfamiliar terrain. But he was used to it by now, and considering how
many times a little bit of foresight had saved his life, it seemed a
small enough price to pay. Still, he had made the mistake once of
complaining about it to Melyor in one of his letters. She had replied
rather unsympathetically by pointing out that she had been living this
way since the age of fifteen, when she had become a break-law. "Such is
the nature of life in Bragor-Nal," she had reminded him. "If you can
live that way in Tobyn-Ser, perhaps you are ready to return to Lon-Ser
and be with me." He had not complained about it again, nor had she
raised again the prospect of his joining her in Bragor-Nal.
Skirting Woodsview, Orris and Kryssan soon reached the edge of the
God's wood. The gentle radiance of the moon had been enough to light
their way as they covered the last league of the plain, but as they
stepped into the brooding shadows of Tobyn's Wood, Orris was forced to
draw more light from his ceryll. He did so reluctantly, knowing that it
announced their presence to anyone within sight of the wood. Their only
other choice, however, was to spend the night on the plain, where the
chill air would have required that he start a fire. At least the wood
offered shelter from the wind and the opportunity for an inconspicuous
retreat.
They walked some distance into the forest, only stopping when Orris
could no longer see any sign of Woodsview. Even then, Orris took the
added precaution of finding a small hollow in which to make camp and
build his fire. Kryssan flew to a high branch that afforded her a view
of the hollow and the surrounding forest, and she began to preen. Orris
gathered a pile of wood, started his fire, and sat back against the
trunk of an enormous oak to eat some of the smoked meat and dried fruit
that he carried in pouches within the folds of his cloak.
He had eaten well earlier in the day on a large grouse killed for him
by his falcon, and he ate only a few bites of meat and fruit before
putting the food away. He briefly considered working on his current
letter to Melyor, but tired as he was, he decided against it. Instead,
he laid his staff across his legs where he could reach it easily and
settled back against the tree again with his eyes closed. When he was
younger, he would have found it impossible to sleep this way. But as in
so many other ways, the exigencies of his life had demanded that he
adjust.
He was certain that he had fallen asleep quickly, because the next
thing he knew, Kryssan was waking him silently, sending him the image
of an approaching mage. Orris sensed an eager tension in the falcon's
thoughts, but no panic. The mage often wondered if she actually enjoyed
these encounters.
He closed his eyes again and, reaching for the falcon with his mind,
looked upon the approaching mage a second time. It was a man, bearded
and slight, with youthful features. He carried a sea-green ceryll and
was accompanied by a small grey woodland hawk. Orris didn't recognize
him, but he knew from the stranger's blue cloak that he was a League
mage, and therefore an enemy. He could also tell from the way the mage
carried himself— his staff held out before him, his body in a
fighter's crouch, his steps light and careful— that he was ready
to fight. He knew Orris was there.
Opening his eyes once more, Orris glanced quickly toward the fire. It
had burned down to little more than a bed of glowing orange coals that
crackled and settled loudly in the stillness shaped by Tobyn's Wood.
Still, in the darkness, Orris could see that the embers offered a
would-be attacker ample light. And the thin line of pale grey smoke
that rose from the fire and drifted, as it happened, back toward the
plain and Woodsview, could easily have served as a beacon to someone
tracking him from that direction.
Cursing his own stupidity, Orris considered smothering the remnants of
his fire, but in that moment he heard the footfalls of the stranger.
The man was close; Orris didn't even have time to flee. Kryssan dropped
silently to the ground beside him and the mage did the only thing he
could. He crawled into the shadows on the far side of the small
clearing and waited for the League mage to come into view.
He took position behind a jagged stump among tangles of bare vines and
brush. He could already see the sea-green glow of the man's ceryll
seeping into the darkness around him like a slow summer tide advancing
on the dark sands of the Upper Horn. He held his breath, remaining
perfectly still. He again reached for Kryssan with his mind, readying
her for what he intended to do, and felt once more the eagerness for
battle that he had sensed when she awakened him.
Do you hate them so? he asked her, chiding her slightly with his tone.
She nuzzled him gently in response, and Orris allowed himself a momentary smile.
Then he saw the young stranger who wished to kill him, and his mood
grew dark. The man's bird was perched on his shoulder, and for just an
instant Orris thought of avenging Anizir. It would have been so easy.
"I have sworn an oath," he reminded himself.
It was only when the man froze, looking frantically in his direction,
that Orris realized he had spoken aloud. Before his would-be attacker
could do anything, Orris uncovered his ceryll for just a second and
sent a beam of rust-colored fire hissing past the stranger's head. The
man dived for cover, and his grey hawk darted up into a nearby tree,
crying out repeatedly. An instant later the mage sent his own mage-fire
back in Orris's direction, although his volley did not come very close
to where Orris was hiding.
Orris grinned in the darkness. The stranger was new to battle.
"Have you come to die, Mage?" Orris called out.
Another stream of sea-green fire crashed into a nearby tree trunk, closer this time. Orris crouched a bit lower.
"I can see your little hawk, Mage," Orris goaded. "Shall I kill her now?"
No mage-fire this time, but the woodland hawk did hop higher into her
tree, positioning herself on the far side of its trunk, which was just
what Orris had been hoping for. As long as she was hiding, she couldn't
offer her mage any information on Orris's position.
"Come now, friend," Orris called. "Surely you don't wish to die here, far from your home and—"
Two more beams of fire sliced through the darkness, one of them
actually striking the tree stump that Orris was using for shelter.
Orris retreated a bit farther into the brush. Perhaps the stranger
wasn't as callow as he had seemed at first.
"I'm not afraid of dying!" the man threw back at him, contempt in his
young voice. "At least not in a battle with you. Word of your cowardice
has spread through the land, Mageling! And if your first attempt on my
life in any indication, I have nothing to fear from you!"
I was trying to miss, you idiot! Orris wanted to shout back.
Instead, he took a steadying breath. This was a tactic the League mages
had used repeatedly in their recent encounters with him. They could not
keep him from fleeing, and they had trouble tracking him when he did,
so they had taken to trying to provoke him into staying and fighting.
"If I had wanted to kill you with my first volley, you'd be dead," Orris said evenly.
The stranger fired again, hitting the stump a second time and igniting
a small fire. "Well, here I am, traitor!" he answered. "Why don't you
kill me now?"
Orris shook his head, though the man couldn't see him. "I'm not in the
habit of killing children." He regretted his choice of words the
instant he spoke.
"No!" the man cried out, pouncing like a wildcat. "You're too much of a
coward even for that! Instead, you give aid to those who kill children!
You take them from their prison cells and return them to the comfort of
their homes!"
Orris closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. How much abuse could the
gods ask him to endure? How much longer could he be expected to honor
his oath? Yes, he had taken Baram from his prison cell and returned him
to Lon-Ser. He would even admit that by doing so he had contravened the
will of the Order, although there had been no formal vote on the
matter. But he had done so to save the land, not to betray it. And
Baram had died in Bragor-Nal. Orris could still see the outlander's
smile as he released his hold on the window ledge outside Cedrych's
office and began to fall to the pavement far below. The outlander was
dead. Wasn't that what they had all wanted in the first place?
Yet another shaft of green power flew from the man's ceryll, this one
soaring just past Orris's head. Glancing up, Orris saw that the small
grey hawk was in the open again and no doubt could see just where he
and Kryssan were hiding. Uncovering his own stone again, Orris sent two
small bursts of fire at the branches above and below the bird.
The creature leaped into the air, screaming again, and began to circle
far above the treetops, her plaintive cries sounding small and distant.
The stranger fired again, but his volleys passed harmlessly over Orris's head.
"You'll attack my bird, but you're afraid of me, eh, traitor?"
He had suffered the League's attacks and insults for several years,
repeatedly resisting the urge to lash out with the violence that had
once been so much a part of him. And yet it was this last comment that
finally broke his resolve. He could accept what they had done to him.
He could accept that they wanted him dead. But they had killed Anizir.
And now this man had the gall to accuse Orris of cowardice because he
had thrown two balls of mage-fire in the direction of the stranger's
bird, intending to miss with both. This was too much.
Orris stood, beckoning Kryssan to his shoulder with a thought.
Immediately, the League mage sent a beam of fire at him, but Orris
shielded himself with a wall of russet power and began advancing on the
man. The young mage fired a second time, his eyes widening and his
mouth hanging open with fear and disbelief. Again, Orris blocked the
attack with little effort. The stranger was new to his power and not
terribly strong. Orris, on the other hand, had been battling mages for
a long time. He grinned and continued to stride toward his attacker.
The man scrambled to his feet to flee, whistling for his bird as he broke into a run.
Get him! Orris commanded.
Kryssan flew from Orris's shoulder, overtaking the mage in a few
seconds and knocking him off-balance with a blow to the back. Orris's
bird then circled back and, ignoring the cries of the smaller woodland
hawk, dived at the mage's head. The man cried out and stopped to shield
himself from Kryssan's assault. When Orris caught up with him, he was
still guarding his face and head with both arms.
Seeing Orris approach, the mage tried to get off one last volley of
mage-fire. Before he could, though, Orris smashed his own staff into
the man's shoulder, sending the young mage sprawling to the ground and
his staff hurtling end over end into the forest. Orris dropped his
staff and lunged for the man, picking him up by the collar of his blue
robe and knocking him back to the ground with a fist to the jaw.
Then he retrieved his staff and leveled it at the prone man, making the rust-colored ceryll blaze menacingly.
"I— I thought you took an oath!" the League mage said, staring
fearfully at the glowing stone. A small line of blood trickled from his
mouth, mingling with his beard.
"My oath didn't include putting up with the likes of you!" Orris growled in reply.
The man's hawk called out in alarm, and Kryssan responded with a fierce hiss that silenced the smaller bird.
"They all said you wouldn't fight! You never fight!"
"And that gives you license to attack me?" Orris demanded, his voice
rising. "To try to kill me? That gives you the right to call me a
traitor and a coward?"
"No, Mage!" the man said, despite his obvious fright. "You earned those names a long time ago!"
Orris exhaled angrily and thrust his ceryll closer to the man's face.
The mage flinched and closed his eyes for a moment. But then he opened
them again and met Orris's glare.
"You have some courage," Orris said grudgingly. "When you tell the
story of this night to your children, you can say it was that, as much
as anything, that saved your life."
He started to turn away, but the League mage spit on the ground at Orris's feet.
"You weren't going to kill me," the man said, sneering at him. "You haven't the nerve."
Orris almost did kill him then. He spun back toward the man, laying his
ceryll against the side of the mage's throat and baring his teeth in a
venomous grin. But in that very instant, even as he reached for Kryssan
with his mind to draw the killing power from their bond, he saw
something that stopped him cold.
His ceryll had begun to pulse like a heart. For a single dizzying
moment he thought that it was a sign from Amarid himself that he should
reconsider and spare the man's life. But then he understood. Someone
had awakened the Summoning Stone.
The League mage was staring at Orris's ceryll in amazement. "What does it mean?" he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
"You don't know?"
"I'm new to the League," the mage admitted. "I've never seen this before."
Orris gave a small laugh and shook his head, turning away once again.
"Go home and ask your masters," he told the man. "They can tell you
what it means. I promise you, it's all they'll be talking about."
He started to walk away, but he stopped himself and returned to where the man still sat on the ground.
"Tell your masters this as well: you are the last."
The mage narrowed his eyes. "The last what?"
"The last survivor. The next mage they send against me I'll kill. I swear it in Amarid's name."
The man opened his mouth to fling back a retort, but Orris stopped him with a raised finger and a look of steel in his eyes.
"Not a word! I've chosen you to be my messenger, but your corpse can make my point just as effectively."
The mage stared at him for some time, saying nothing. Finally, the man
nodded once. Orris turned and walked away, leaving him there on the
forest floor.
Kryssan flew to Orris's shoulder, but she continued to glance back at
the League mage and his hawk for some time as Orris made his way
northward through the wood.
Don't worry, he sent soothingly. He won't be following us. We may yet have other attacks to deal with, but not from that child, not tonight.
He glanced at his stone. It was blinking steadily now, a general
summons. Something important had happened. With the thought, an image
of Jaryd and Alayna entered his mind. And Myn, of course. He smiled. At
least he'd be seeing the three of them soon. Regardless of what crisis
the Order might face now, he would look forward to that.
3
I am glad to hear that you and Shivohn are pleased with the trade
that has developed between our two lands over the past several years. I
wish that I could share your enthusiasm. The fact is, however, that
Tobyn-Ser's recent involvement in transisthmus commerce has had
unintended and, in my opinion, undesirable consequences for our people,
our land, and our culture. Even our language has changed. I had never
heard the word "transisthmus" until a few weeks ago and it still sounds
strange to me. It does not even describe accurately the nature of our
trade, given that ships are used to transport all the goods that travel
in both directions between Tobyn-Ser and Lon-Ser. Yet the term
persists, and I grow more confused by the day.
No doubt you are laughing at me now, amused by my inability to adapt to
these changes I describe. In spite of everything, that is a sound I
would love to hear. Still, I find it hard to see the humor in this new
world, that I helped to create. I fear that while the tools and devices
you send us may indeed save us time and effort, as you say, they are
still going to bring great hardship to my land.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Winter, God's Year 4633.
Baden stood in the doorway of their small house and gazed out into the
night. Four years ago, when he and Sonel first came to this cottage,
they could see nothing from here save the small garden they had carved
out of the God's wood and the elms and maples that grew around it. Even
now, in the summer months that was still the case. But the cutting that
had been done left sizable tracts of forest with no trees at all and a
lattice of wide roads for removing the harvested timber, destroying the
essence of Tobyn's Wood. This winter, when the trees were bare and the
air was clear, as it was tonight, Baden could see the Emerald Hills
from their doorway. Or rather he could see fires smoldering on the
hilltops where once trees had covered the hills.
He was tired and he felt the cold air reaching through his cloak like
an icy hand, but he couldn't tear his eyes from those distant fires. He
heard the door open and close behind him, and a moment later he felt
Sonel's hand on his back.
"Longing for your migrant days again?" she asked, standing beside him.
He glanced at her and saw a gentle smile playing at the corners of her
mouth. There were more lines on her face now than there once had been,
and her wheat-colored hair had broad streaks of silver that shone in
the moonlight. But she still remained much as he remembered her from
their first meeting so many years ago: straight-backed and tall, with a
youthful oval face and those stunning green eyes. Looking at her made
him feel old and ungainly, and not for the first time, he wondered why
she still loved him.
"Hardly," he finally answered, placing his arm around her shoulders.
"Then what?"
He shrugged. "I'm just watching the fires."
She gazed up at the hills and frowned. "There are so many of them. It seems like there are more every night."
Baden nodded. "There are."
"There are limits to how much they can cut, Baden," she assured him,
beginning again a conversation they had repeated several times in
recent months. "The Temples don't own everything in the hills."
"It's not just the Temples anymore," he said more sharply than he had
intended. "Sure, they were the first, and they still own more land than
anyone else. But there are lots of people logging now."
"I know," she said quietly.
"I'm sorry, Sonel," he whispered, kissing her brow. "I just wish Radomil would do something about it."
"He can't act alone, Baden. He needs the Order's support."
"He's got it!" Baden said, shaking his head. "Between us, Jaryd and
Alayna, Orris, Trahn, Mered, and a few others, he's got the votes."
"You know better than that. If he pushes an issue like this with a bare
majority, he'll drive more mages to the League. He needs to do this
carefully. He can't rush it."
Baden looked up at the hills again. "He doesn't have that luxury."
She nodded grimly. "I agree." Then, her mood brightening slightly, she
added, "But maybe that's what this is all about. Maybe he finally has
the support he needs to act."
Baden looked down at his staff. The orange stone mounted on top of it had been flashing for nearly an hour.
"Maybe," he said, though he could not keep the skepticism from his voice.
"Are you humoring me?" she demanded with a smile.
Baden laughed in spite of himself. "Yes, I'm afraid I am."
"Don't you know that it's a violation of Amarid's Laws to humor a former Owl-Sage?"
"No, I didn't know that," Baden said, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, it's one of his lesser-known laws," she explained airily. "You
don't hear of it much, because there aren't that many of us."
He grinned at the understatement. There was one, to be exact. Sonel had
lost her owl four years ago and was forced by the rules of the Order to
relinquish her position. The previous four Sages had died during their
tenure in the Great Hall, including Baden's friend, Jessamyn, Sonel's
immediate predecessor, who had been killed at Theron's Grove by the
renegade, Sartol.
Thus, Sonel was something of an oddity: a living former Sage. She and
Baden had often remarked on how lucky she was to have been succeeded by
Radomil, a man whose modesty and lack of ambition allowed him to see
her as a friend and advisor rather than as a threat to his authority.
For now that she was bound again, there was nothing to stop her from
asking to be considered for the position again if Radomil lost his
familiar or died. She claimed to have no interest in returning to the
Great Hall in that capacity, and she had given Radomil no reason to
doubt her word. But another Sage might have seen such claims as
disingenuous and taken her expressions of support as a calculated
attempt to curry favor.
"Come on," Sonel coaxed softly. "It's late, and we have a long day ahead of us."
"I'll be along in a minute." He gave her arm a squeeze.
She smiled sadly and nodded. She had known him long enough to recognize
his mood. If he followed her in now, he wouldn't be able to sleep
anyway.
"Don't be too long," she called over her shoulder.
"I won't be."
A moment later he heard the door open and close again, and he looked up
at the hills once more. He reached for Golivas with his mind and found
her asleep in her usual spot, on the top shelf in the kitchen. She
slept more and more these days. He had been with her for more than ten
years, and she probably didn't have many Gatherings left.
And how many bindings do you have left, Mage? he asked himself,
gazing at the stars overhead. A cold breeze stirred the bare limbs of
the trees around him and Baden shivered. He didn't feel old, although
he knew that he was considered one of the senior members of the Order.
Despite the cold, he and Sonel planned to walk to Amarid, as they still
did for every Gathering. And while he was no longer a migrant, he still
ranged far from their cottage during the summer months, covering not
only the hills and much of Tobyn's Wood, but also most of the Northern
Plain, where he still had many friends.
But though he was youthful for his age, he was no fool. He didn't
expect to live forever. And more than anything, before he died, he
wanted to see the Order restored to its rightful place as the land's
sole body of mages and masters. He had repeated this wish to many of
his friends within the Order, always keeping his tone light and
confident. But he had seen enough towns with blue flags hanging on
their homes and shops to know that even if the conflicts dividing
League mages from Order mages could be overcome, the Order had much
work to do to regain the trust of Tobyn-Ser's people. Too much, in all
likelihood.
He shook his head, as if he could fling these dark thoughts from his
mind with the motion. He knew he should go to sleep. Sonel was right:
they had a long journey ahead of them and a good deal of preparation to
see to before they left. But something was keeping him out in the cold
night air with the stars and the subtle scent of smoke that rode the
wind. He couldn't name it, but he had been a mage long enough to trust
his instincts in such matters.
So when at last Jaryd's blue appeared for a second in the flashing
orange of his ceryll, Baden was not surprised. Reaching for Golivas and
closing his eyes, he extended his awareness back to the west, toward
the Seaside Mountains.
He found his nephew waiting for him just above the trees.
Hello, Jaryd, he sent.
I'm sorry to contact you so late at night, Baden, the young mage returned. I would have done this earlier if I'd been able.
Baden sensed Jaryd straining to maintain their connection, and he
remembered belatedly that his nephew had been without a familiar for
many months.
You've bound!
Yes.
Baden almost congratulated him, but the uneasiness he read in Jaryd's thoughts stopped him. What's happened? he asked instead.
I've bound to an eagle, Baden.
Baden had wielded the Mage-Craft for nearly forty years, and, because
his mother and grandmother had both been mages, he had attended
Gatherings and been acquainted with the Order and its ways for most of
his life. He had spoken with Phelan, the unsettled Wolf-Master, he had
unmasked a traitor to the land, and he had fought against outlanders
who had come to Tobyn-Ser to destroy the Order. He had spent the better
part of three years interrogating the one outlander who survived the
battle at Phelan Spur, learning from him of a people who could create
weapons and goods that mimicked nature with mind-numbing accuracy. He
had seen the Order sundered and supplanted in the hearts of Tobyn-Ser's
people by a rival body. And he had seen the land itself scarred beyond
recognition by men and women chasing a dream of wealth. Few things
surprised him anymore. Fewer still shocked him speechless.
Yet he could think of nothing to say in response to Jaryd's news. An
eagle. They were destined for war. And Jaryd was to be their Eagle-Sage.
When? Baden finally managed to ask.
Today. This morning.
So that's why Radomil summoned us.
Yes.
Baden took a long breath. Are you all right?
It's been a long day, Jaryd replied. I'm exhausted. And I'm frightened.
You should be. We all should be.
What do you think it means, Baden?
You mean aside from the obvious? I really don't know.
He could feel Jaryd's fatigue growing by the moment, and he wanted
desperately to end their connection with a word of encouragement. But
nothing came to him. Even having access to Jaryd's thoughts, he
couldn't even begin to imagine what his nephew was feeling. He sensed
the young mage's apprehension, his self-doubt, and his bewilderment.
But the link they had forged in the night did not allow him to divine
much more than that.
If I can help you in any way, Jaryd, he began, knowing how inadequate that must have sounded. He didn't even bother to finish the thought.
I know, Baden, the mage sent back. Thank you. Before this is over I'm certain I'll need the counsel of every mage in the Order.
Their connection was weakening. In another moment, Jaryd would be gone. So Baden offered the one assurance he could. The
gods wouldn't have chosen you if they doubted your ability to lead the
Order, Jaryd. Remember that, if you start to question yourself.
I will. Thank you. Arick guard you, Baden. And Sonel, too. We'll see you soon.
Arick guard you as well! Baden tried to send in reply. But his
nephew was already gone. The Owl-Master opened his eyes and immediately
his gaze was drawn back to the fires burning on the Emerald Hills.
"Arick guard our land," he said out loud. He watched the fires for
several moments longer before finally turning and stepping into the
warmth of the cottage.
They awoke early the following morning to prepare for their journey to
Amarid. As they ate a modest breakfast, Baden told Sonel of Jaryd's
binding and saw the shock and fear he had experienced the night before
mirrored in her eyes.
"An eagle!" she breathed. "That's the last thing I was expecting this Gathering to be about."
Baden nodded. "I felt the same way."
"I'm not happy with all that's come of our trade with Lon-Ser," she
went on. "But I thought the threat of war had passed a long time ago."
"So you think we're going to war with Lon-Ser?"
"Who else would it be?" she asked with genuine surprise.
He shrugged. "I'm not sure. But I think it's dangerous to jump to conclusions."
Sonel fell silent for several moments. "I suppose you're right," she
said at last, "though I don't see any other possibilities. Certainly
Abborij wouldn't attack us."
"Probably not."
There was another possibility, Baden knew, one that frightened him far
more than war with Lon-Ser, but he wasn't willing to give it voice. Not
yet, not even with Sonel.
Sonel regarded him keenly, her gaze expectant. But he said nothing more
and she didn't push him on the matter. Throughout the rest of the
morning, as they prepared to depart for Amarid, they spoke little.
Just after midday they took the narrow path from their garden through
the surrounding forest until they reached one of the many logging roads
that now ran through the God's wood. Stepping onto the road, they
exchanged a look and then a smile, as they often did now when they made
this journey. Neither of them approved of the roads, or, for that
matter, of the timber trade that they made possible. But the
Owl-Masters could not deny that the wide thoroughfares made the journey
to Amarid faster and easier than it had ever been before. It was an
irony they had acknowledged to each other on a number of occasions.
In recent months they had also been forced to admit that many of the
towns engaged in the sale of timber seemed to have benefited from it.
The homes and shops in these villages looked sturdier, the people
appeared well fed and well clothed, and in those villages where the
blue flags of the League flew, Baden and Sonel sensed a slight but
unmistakable easing of the people's hostility toward the Order.
Prosperity, it seemed, was a balm for a variety of the land's ailments.
This was not to say that Baden and Sonel welcomed the timber trade's
astonishing growth. As they had discussed the previous evening, they
both wished the Order could take some action to limit the scope of the
logging taking place under the supervision of the Temples. But unlike a
number of their colleagues in the Order, including Trahn and Ursel,
they did not view Tobyn-Ser's burgeoning commerce as totally evil.
Still, they could not help but be disturbed by what they saw as they
made their way through the southern portion of Tobyn's Wood. Barely
half a year had passed since the Midsummer Gathering, and yet, in that
brief interval, enormous swaths of the forest had been stripped of
every tree. No attempt had been made to repair the land or to leave
saplings that might someday replace the giant oaks, maples, and elms
that had been cut. There were stumps, mutilated shrubs, a few forgotten
branches, and nothing more. The very sight of it pained Baden's heart
and left him wondering if any amount of wealth or prosperity could be
worth such a price.
The two Owl-Masters came to the southern bank of the Dhaalismin ten
days after leaving their cottage, and, turning to the southeast, they
followed the river for two days before coming to a bridge. Even along
the river, the forest had suffered at the hands of the Temple's
woodsmen, and the waters of the Dhaalismin had been muddied by soil
from the cleared areas and choked with tangled tree limbs and brush.
Where once the river had been a torrent, its waters were now sluggish
and meek.
Several days after crossing the Dhaalismin and turning once more to the
northeast, as they began to hear the roar of Fourfalls River echoing
through the wood, Baden and Sonel came to a small village nestled
within the trees. Though not terribly far from one of the larger timber
cuts they had encountered thus far, the forest surrounding the town
appeared undisturbed, save for a small clearing a short distance from
the village where one of Arick's Temples stood, austere and
weatherworn. Intending to replenish their supplies, if this was an
Order town, Baden and Sonel left the logging road and turned onto a
narrow footpath that led to the cluster of shops and homes.
But as they drew nearer to the town, a strange scene unfolded before
them. A number of people had gathered outside the front gates of the
town and were standing in a long curving line with their backs to a
sizable, dense grove of oaks and maples. Facing them were perhaps a
dozen woodsmen, carrying axes and saws, and seven other men, all of
them tall and muscular with dour expressions on their faces. All the
men were dressed in identical bulky grey shirts. Between the woodsmen
and the townsfolk stood three mages, none of them wearing a cloak, and
another man, tall and heavyset, wearing a silver-grey robe that marked
him as a Keeper of Arick's Temple. The mages and the Keeper were
engaged in a heated argument, and the people of the town appeared quite
agitated.
"The land surrounding the village belongs to the Temple!" the Keeper
was telling the three mages, as Baden and Sonel halted within earshot.
"You have no right to come here and stir up trouble!"
"The people of Prannai asked for our help!" one of the mages said. He
was tall as well, although far leaner than the Keeper and
younger-looking. "They've seen what the Keepers have done to Tobyn's
Wood, and they don't want their piece of the God's forest destroyed to
fill the Temple's coffers!"
"Do not presume to lecture me about the people of Prannai!" the Keeper
answered, raising his voice and gazing past the mages toward the
villagers. "I've known most of you for the better part of your lives!"
he said, a plea in his words. "Do you really think I'd do anything to
hurt you or this town?"
"Your men are killing the wood!" a woman cried out from the crowd. "We've asked you to stop them, but you won't listen to us!"
The other townsfolk shouted their agreement, drawing satisfied smirks from the mages.
"It is our land!" the Keeper told them again, his round face reddening.
He paused, as if trying to compose himself. "We understand that the
changes that have accompanied our new prosperity are ...
unsettling to some of you," he began again. "But surely you see the
benefits as well. The timber trade is bringing wealth to Tobyn-Ser that
none of us ever imagined possible. And Prannai will see more than her
fair share of that wealth. But we must do our part as well."
"What if we don't want your riches, Keeper?" a man shouted. "What if we just want our homes and our trees to stay as they are?"
The Keeper straightened and stared grimly at the townspeople. "In that
case," he said, his voice suddenly cold, "I will remind you once again
of what we all know to be true: they are not your trees. They belong to the Temple, as does all the land surrounding the village."
"That land was entrusted to the Temple by our forebears hundreds of
years ago!" replied the woman who had spoken earlier. "The Keepers were
to care for the land, not destroy it!"
"The Children of the Gods have tended this land for generations," the
Keeper said. "We have always acted in the best interests of Prannai and
its people, and we continue to do so today. In your hearts you know
that to be true." He indicated the three mages with a disdainful
gesture. "But these strangers have thrust themselves into our affairs
and filled your heads with nonsense! They are the problem, not the
Temple!"
The tall mage bristled. "As I told you before, the people of your town
sought our help! They asked us to come, because they believe that the
Temple and its Keeper have betrayed their trust!"
"Careful, Mage!" the Keeper said, his tone low and dangerous. "Meddling
is one thing. Accusing the Temple of betrayal is quite another."
The mage bared his teeth in a harsh grin. "Your actions invite the words, Keeper."
The Keeper glared at him for another moment before spinning away with a
swirl of his silver robe. "I won't listen to this anymore!" He faced
the woodsmen. "Cut the trees!" And then, turning to the burly men
standing beside the loggers, he added, "Make sure no one gets in their
way."
Immediately, the seven men, their faces still grim and their feet
planted solidly, pulled strange-looking objects from beneath their
bulky shirts and pointed them toward the crowd. The Keeper gave a
satisfied nod.
The three mages stared at the Keeper's men, their eyes wide and their
faces turning pale. Behind them, the people of Prannai began to whisper
to each other.
"I had heard tales of such things," the tall mage breathed, "but I didn't want to believe them."
Baden had not heard any of these tales, and he didn't know what the men
were holding. But he had an idea, and he had seen enough.
"Perhaps we can be of assistance!" he called out, striding forward with Sonel close behind.
None of them had noticed the Owl-Masters until now and all of them,
including the villagers, regarded Baden and Sonel with expressions that
ranged from thinly veiled mistrust to open hostility.
"The Order has no business here," the Keeper said. His tone was icy,
though the expression on his face betrayed his discomfort. "I'd suggest
you move on."
"We're on our way to Amarid," Baden said, ignoring the man. "We've come
to Prannai to replenish our supply of food. In exchange for our
service, of course."
"This is not an Order town," the tall mage told him, his voice carrying little more warmth than that of the Keeper.
"I see that," Baden replied. "But I see nothing to suggest that it's a
League town either. Perhaps your people are ready to embrace the Order
as an ally, at least for the time being."
"Such arrogance!" one of the other mages said, stepping forward to
stand beside the tall man. She was a young woman with light brown hair
and grey eyes. She bore a large brown-and-white hawk on her shoulder,
and like her two companions, she wore no cloak over her woolen shirt
and trousers. "You assume that the Order and the League are their only
choices. What if they want nothing to do with your petty quarrels? What
if they prefer mages with no ties to either the League or the Order?"
The woman shook her head and regarded the Owl-Masters with disgust.
"The Keeper's right: you should go."
"Well, at least we got them to agree on something," Sonel muttered under her breath.
"What's your name?" Baden asked the woman, not bothering to respond to Sonel's comment.
The mage narrowed her eyes. "Why do you want to know?"
"Because I wish to speak with you," Baden answered, impatience creeping
into his voice. "And I prefer to know someone's name when I carry on a
conversation with them."
She pressed her lips into a thin line and glanced at her companions. "Tammen," she finally said. "My name's Tammen."
"Well, Tammen, before you tell me with such certainty what the people
of Prannai do and don't want from us, wouldn't it be a good idea to ask
them? And before we ask them, wouldn't it also be a good idea to tell
them just what those men are holding in their hands? We want them to
make an informed choice, don't we?"
"You're wasting our time, Owl-Master!" the Keeper broke in. "I've asked
you to leave, and so have these mages. None of Prannai's people have
asked you to stay. The only one who seems to think you belong here is
you. Now I will say this one last time: leave us!"
"I would think, Tammen," Baden said, glaring at the Keeper, "that with
the Keeper so anxious for us to leave, you'd want us to stay."
"We don't need your help!" the taller mage said, sounding unsure of himself.
Baden turned to the man slowly. "And your name is?"
The man hesitated for a moment. "My name is Nodin."
"And have you ever seen, Nodin, what the weapons of Lon-Ser can do to
one of our villages?" Baden glanced at the Keeper. "Those are from
Lon-Ser, aren't they?" he demanded.
The Keeper's face reddened. "Yes, they are," he said. "So are the chairs in my quarters at the Temple. What of it?"
"Your chairs aren't used to kill people!" Sonel answered.
The Keeper raised a finger as if in warning. "No one's been killed, Owl-Master! You'd do well to remember that!"
"But what they're saying is true, isn't it, Keeper?" one of the
villagers called out. "Those are the weapons the outlanders use. And
you were going to have your men use them on us."
"I did not order these men to use their weapons on anyone!" the Keeper
insisted, his voice rising. "These mages, all of them, have put
ridiculous notions in your head!" He pointed to the armed men. "The
Temple hired these men solely to protect our woodsmen. As long as no
one interferes with the logging on our land, no one will get hurt."
"So it comes back to that," Nodin said.
The Keeper gritted his teeth. "It is our land!"
"That may be," Baden told him. "But I don't think you'll be cutting any trees today."
The Keeper looked at him, a challenge in his eyes. "Do you plan to stop
me, Mage? I gather that you have seen what these weapons can do. Do you
honestly think that you can stand against me?"
Baden allowed himself a dark smile. "Yes, Keeper, I do. You see, I was
at Phelan Spur when six mages of the Order did battle with thirteen
outlanders who were, I guarantee you, far more skilled with their
weapons than your men are with theirs. We prevailed then, and I have no
doubt that my friend and I, along with these three mages, can defeat
you now."
"I don't get the feeling that these three mages like you very much,
Owl-Master. What makes you think that they will fight by your side?"
"Against you and your mercenaries," Nodin broke in, stepping forward to
stand next to Baden and Sonel, "I would join forces with Theron
himself." He made a small gesture, and Tammen and the third mage moved
to stand beside him.
The Keeper stared at the mages for what seemed to Baden an eternity.
The Owl-Master honestly believed that five mages were more than a match
for the Temple's men, but he had no desire to test that belief. There
were too many people here. Someone was bound to get hurt, even killed.
Nor did he want to kill these men, even if they were armed and in the
service of this Keeper.
Fortunately, the Keeper was no more willing than he to press the
matter. "Very well, Owl-Master," he finally said, meeting Baden's
glare. "Our trees will stand for another day. If your flashing stone is
any indication, you're anxious to get to Amarid. You won't guard this
grove forever."
Baden offered no response, and the Keeper grinned broadly. He glanced
at Nodin and the other mages, nodded once, and then turned and walked
toward the path leading back into the village.
"We'll be here, Keeper," Nodin called after him. "If you want to cut those trees, you'll have to deal with us first."
"I was counting on it, Mage," the Keeper replied, not even bothering to
look back. He made a single gesture, and immediately the woodsmen and
the guards fell in behind him.
Baden and the others watched as the Keeper and his men returned to the
Temple. Only when they were out of sight did Baden finally turn to the
three mages.
"We were lucky that time," he said grimly. "He won't give in so easily tomorrow."
"That's our concern, Owl-Master," Nodin told him, "not yours."
Sonel gaped at him. "You can't be serious! Baden just saved your life
and quite possibly that of every other person here! And now you're
telling us that it's not our concern? How dare you!"
"We didn't ask for your help!" Tammen said. "We've dealt with the
Temples before without any interference from the Order! We would have
dealt with them today, with or without you!"
"Have you faced those weapons before?" Sonel demanded. "Would you have
known how to guard yourself and the people over there, who are counting
on your protection?"
Tammen hesitated, drawing a smile from the Owl-Master.
"I thought not," Sonel said. "Perhaps you need us more than you think."
"We have no need of the Order or the League!"
"It's not your decision to make," Baden broke in. "Nor is it ours."
He looked over at the villagers and walked to where they stood. Most of
them wore anxious expressions, although one, the woman who had argued
with the Keeper, stepped forward confidently to meet him. She was small
and thin, with white hair and dark brown eyes. Her face was deeply
lined, giving her a severe appearance, and though she smiled at Baden,
the look in her eyes remained reserved.
"I am Maira," she said, bowing her head slightly. "I lead Prannai's Council of Elders."
"I'm Baden."
"My people and I are grateful for your help, Owl-Master," she said.
"That Keeper is new to our Temple. The old Keeper never would have
tried such a thing."
Baden nodded soberly. "Tobyn-Ser is changing. None of us is immune from the effect of those changes."
"True."
"But perhaps, working together, we can make sense of them. We can help each other adapt."
Maira smiled thinly. "We have no desire to adapt, Owl-Master. We have no intention of changing."
Baden stared at her, not knowing what to say.
"You think us mad."
"Not mad," the Owl-Master said cautiously. "But the entire land—"
"We don't care what others do," Maira told him. "We're not foolish
enough to believe that we can keep the rest of Tobyn-Ser from changing.
But we plan to resist that change for as long as we can. We see strange
goods made by outlanders flooding our land. We hear others talking of
minting coins for use throughout the entire land, as if we lived in
Abborij. We encounter strangers just outside the gates of our village
who speak not a word of our language. And now we have seen the Keeper
of our Temple threaten us with outlanders' weapons. We want no part of
this new world that seems to be intoxicating the rest of the land. We
don't want wealth, or Lon-Ser's notion of comfort and luxury. We just
want to live our lives as we always have."
She paused, shaking her head slowly. "You protected us today, and for
that we thank you. But the Order has done nothing to guard Tobyn-Ser
from these larger intrusions."
Baden opened his mouth to argue, but she stopped him with a raised hand.
"I know, Owl-Master: neither has the League. Which is why we want
nothing to do with either of you." She indicated Nodin and his
companions with a gesture. "The free mages listen to us. They share our
concern for what's happening to the land, and they do not act on the
assumption that they know us better than we know ourselves." Again, she
smiled sadly at him. For all the severity he had noted in her features
a few moments before, Baden was struck by how the smile softened her
face.
"No doubt you deem us strange, Owl-Master. I'm sorry for that. You and
your companion seem to be decent people. For all I know, you were among
those who advocated executing the outlander held by the Order all those
years ago. Perhaps if the other mages had listened to you then, we
would not be where we are now."
Baden offered no reply at first. As it happened, he and Sonel had been
almost entirely responsible for keeping Baram alive. He had argued
repeatedly against Baram's execution, believing that the Order had too
much to learn from the outlander to throw his life away for the sake of
vengeance. And when at last the Order voted to kill Baram anyway,
Sonel, Owl-Sage at the time, overruled the vote, as was her right in
such cases. But Baden saw no sense in correcting Maira on this matter.
"I doubt that listening to us would have made much difference one way
or another," he said instead. "I believe that some changes are just
inevitable."
Maira raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
"As to whether I think you're strange or not," Baden went on, "I don't
believe that I'm in a position to judge you. This isn't the first time
I've heard your point of view."
"Nor will it be the last," the woman said pointedly. "Mark my word,
Owl-Master: the People's Movement is growing, as is the stature of the
free mages. The Order and League ignore us at their own risk."
Baden narrowed his eyes. "The People's Movement?"
"That's what they call themselves," Nodin said.
Baden turned to look at the mage. "Who?"
"Those in other villages who feel as Maira and her people do."
"You've spoken to these people?" Baden asked.
"Yes. Many of them."
Baden began to nod, comprehension coming to him with the force of a
thunderclap. "How fortunate then that you and your friends should be
here just at the time when Prannai's people are feuding with their
Temple." He stared at the mage, daring the man to meet his gaze. "Was
that merely a coincidence, or was it something more?"
Nodin stared back at him silently for a few seconds before looking away.
"The people of this village asked us to stay with them and join their
cause," Tammen answered, taking up the fight. "I heard no such
invitation extended to you and your friend."
"And how long do you plan to stay around?" Baden asked her. "Will you
see this through to the end? Or do you prefer to move on before things
get too ugly?"
"I don't know what you're implying, Owl-Master," Maira said, "but we
had no intention of allowing the Temple to cut those trees, even before
these mages came and told us of the Movement. You may think us too
simple and weak to take up such a battle on our own, but I assure you,
we don't lack for courage! And just because the Order and the League
have proven themselves adept at manipulating the people of Tobyn-Ser,
that doesn't mean that the free mages are guilty of this as well!"
Baden sighed and glanced at Sonel. She was watching him, a pained look
in her green eyes. She shrugged slightly, then shook her head.
"I assure you, Maira," Baden said, turning back to the white-haired woman, "I meant no offense."
Maira regarded him dubiously. "Perhaps not, but I still think you and
your friend should leave. There's an Order town several leagues east of
here. You can reach it by nightfall without adding much distance to
your journey. I'm sure they'll be happy to give you what provisions you
need." With that she turned away and rejoined the other villagers.
Baden faced the free mages again. They were already watching him, looked smug. "Let's go," he said to Sonel.
He started back down the narrow path that led to the logging road.
Sonel fell into step beside him. After a few strides, however, he
stopped and looked back at Nodin. The mage was still watching him, as
were the others.
"Their weapons are powerful," Baden called. "But a shield of power can
block their fire. Conserve your strength though; use a shield only when
you need it. The weapons don't get tired."
Nodin gazed at him for several moments, as if unsure of what to say. Finally, he nodded. "Thanks," he said.
Baden and Sonel continued on in silence, saying nothing until they were
back on the logging road and had put several miles between themselves
and Prannai.
"Those mages are going to get them all killed," Baden said at last, shaking his head with disgust.
"You think Maira and the others should just let the Temple cut the trees?"
He glanced at her briefly. "No. But I'm not sure that the trees are worth dying for, either."
Sonel shrugged. "That's not your choice to make."
"Isn't it?" Baden demanded. "I can protect them. We can protect them.
That's what we're supposed to do, right? 'I shall serve the people of
the land,' " he recited, quoting the oath every member of the
Order took when receiving his or her cloak. " 'I shall use my
powers to give aid and comfort in times of need.' "
"You can't protect people who don't want to be protected, Baden," Sonel
said gently. "We can offer our service, but if the people say no, we
have to accept that."
Suddenly he felt cold, though the day was mild and sunlight filtered
through the bare limbs of the wood. "When did all this happen, Sonel?
How is it that the people of the land hate us so much that they'd
rather die than accept our help?"
"I don't know," she answered in a low voice. "But the gods have sent us
an Eagle-Sage, so they must think we still have a role to play in
guarding the land."
Baden nodded and took her hand. She smiled at him, and they walked on
toward the First Mage's city. She was right, he knew. The appearance of
Jaryd's eagle was double-edged: it meant war, but it implied as well
that the Order was still Tobyn-Ser's guardian.
Or did it? There was another possibility, he suddenly realized, one
that terrified him more than anything, more even than the prospect of
war with Lon-Ser.
4
I continue to be amazed by the changes that have come to Bragor-Nal
over the past seven years. The constant warfare among Nal-Lords and
break-laws that once threatened to plunge the entire Nal into chaos is
now largely over. Firefights still break out occasionally, and
assassinations continue to claim the lives of a few Nal-Lords each
year. But I have made it clear to my Overlords that I will not tolerate
such activities, and they have conveyed this message to their
underlings. Advancement, I have told them, will be based upon
production, efficiency, and Nal maintenance. Those who resort to
violence even once will be punished; those who return to it again and
again will be stripped of their authority and jailed ...
As I say, I have made my policy on this matter quite clear, and my
subordinates appear to have taken it to heart, with one notable
exception: while they have stopped trying to kill each other, some
among them— I have yet to learn who— have redoubled their
efforts to have me killed.
— Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal to Hawk-Mage Orris, Day 4, Week 8, Winter, Year 3067.
The sound of the explosion jolted Melyor awake, her heart hammering
within her chest, and her ears ringing. For one horrible, disorienting
moment, she was eleven again, waking in the small bedroom of her
childhood to the sound of the blast that killed her father. But the
memory was fleeting. She was in her quarters in Bragor-Nal's Gold
Palace, and this bomb had been meant for her.
Shards of glass lay scattered across the wooden floor and on the satin
coverings of her bed, and smoke was beginning to drift in through the
shattered windows, acrid and thick, mingling with the cold air of the
late-winter morning. She could hear men shouting outside, below her
window. Jibb's men. She might even have heard Jibb himself. She
couldn't be certain, not with the ringing in her ears.
She checked herself for injuries and found none, although she felt
something moving high on her cheek. She touched it and then looked at
her hand. Blood. Probably a cut from the flying glass.
"Bastards!" she said, swinging herself out of bed and throwing on her
silk robe. She stepped to the mirror on the far wall of her chamber,
which hung crookedly but had survived the blast, and examined the cut
on her cheek. It was nothing, barely more than a scratch with a smudge
of blood beneath it. But she was furious. "Bastards!" she said again.
She took a deep breath and realized that she was trembling.
There was a knock on her door.
"Come in!" she said, thrusting her shaking hands into the pockets of her robe.
The door opened and Jibb walked in. Melyor still found it strange to
see him in the stiff, pale blue uniform of SovSec, though he had been
the head of her security force for nearly seven years. She still
thought of him as a break-law, just as she still thought of herself as
a Nal-Lord, rather than as Sovereign and Bearer of the Stone. It didn't
help that in most respects, he looked just as he did more than ten
years ago, when she first encountered him in a bar in Bragor-Nal's
Fourth Realm. He was still powerfully built and graceful. His shaggy
hair remained dark, unmarked by the silver that had already begun to
appear in her own amber waves, and his face was still round and
youthful. He was more reserved than he used to be, and perhaps a bit
more cautious. But that had as much to do with changes in their
relationship as it did with the passage of time. In other ways, he was
still the same, except that now he was personally responsible not only
for her safety, but for maintaining order throughout the Nal.
"Sovereign!" he said, striding into the room and looking toward her
bed. He halted when he saw she wasn't there, and quickly scanned the
room. His eyes widened when he finally spotted her. "You're hurt!" he
said, approaching her.
She frowned. "Hardly. Report, Jibb. What happened?"
"We should call a doctor," he insisted. "You're bleeding."
She laughed, though she kept her hands hidden and had to fight a sudden
chill that ran down her spine. How many assassination attempts could a
person tolerate? "I'm fine, Jibb. I promise. Just tell me what
happened."
He stared at her for another moment, then shook his head slowly, his
face wearing a look of resignation that Melyor knew all too well. A few
years ago she would have teased him about it, delighting in his
frustration and telling him that if she made it too easy for him to do
his job, he'd grow bored and leave her. Such had been the nature of
their friendship.
All that changed a few years ago, however, when Jibb finally admitted
that he was in love with her and asked her to marry him. They were
walking the grounds of the Gold Palace at the time, enjoying the cool
breezes of an early-autumn evening. At first she thought he was joking,
but when her flippant response elicited only silence and a pained
expression in his dark eyes, she understood her error. Fighting a
sudden wave of panic, she tried to explain to him that she didn't love
him in that way and didn't think she ever could.
"You're my closest friend," she told him. "But that's all I can give you."
Jibb, though, refused to be dissuaded. He tried to convince her that,
given some time, her feelings might change. In the end, she had no
choice but to tell him the one thing she knew would hurt him most, even
as it put the matter to rest.
"I can't love you," she finally said, surprised to find herself crying,
"because I'm in love with someone else. I'm in love with Orris."
Jibb stared at her for a long time, holding himself perfectly still. At last he nodded and walked away.
Melyor feared that in the wake of their conversation, Jibb would resign
as commander of SovSec. But he was in his office the following morning,
making her security arrangements and dispatching a group of men to deal
with the aftermath of a firefight in the Seventeenth Realm. They never
spoke of the matter again. Melyor tried to once, but Jibb made it clear
that he would not discuss it. Instead, they both tried to pretend that
nothing had changed.
Nonetheless, their friendship had not been the same since. Their
conversations suddenly became strained and awkward. Where once Melyor
had talked with him freely about almost everything and joked with him
without a second thought, she now found herself watching every word for
fear that she would hurt his feelings, or worse, give him cause to
think that she had reconsidered her rejection of his proposal. She was
profoundly relieved by his willingness to stay on as head of SovSec,
but she knew beyond a doubt that the ease of their friendship was gone
forever. She saw him every day, and yet she missed him the way she
missed her father.
Once in a great while, when they were working out security logistics or
discussing strategies for the next meeting of the Council of
Sovereigns, Melyor could almost convince herself that their
relationship was back to the way it had been years ago, when they were
still working out of her flat in the Fourth Realm. But standing now
amid the shards of glass that littered the floor of her sleeping
quarters, with smoke stinging her eyes, it seemed to Melyor that the
gulf between them was as wide and deep as Arick's Sea.
"The boomer was hand-detonated," Jibb said, his voice flat, "apparently
by someone dressed in a SovSec uniform. He got as far as the steps
leading to the palace entrance before my men noticed him. Their thrower
fire took him down, but he managed to set off the explosion."
Melyor nodded. It was an old tactic, but an effective one. Give an
assassin mind-mastering drugs, strap explosives to the inside of
whatever disguise you wanted him or her to wear, and send the poor fool
to die, hoping that he or she would take out your target as well.
Cedrych, who was Overlord of Bragor-Nal's First Dominion, was almost
killed this way, and he bore the scars of that assassination attempt
for the rest of his life. And in the last year alone, Melyor had
survived four such attacks. Now five, she told herself, conscious once more of the cut on her cheek and the trembling of her hands.
She and Jibb still had no idea who was behind them. After the first
attempt, they had received reports that Enrik, one of Melyor's
Overlords, was responsible. Under questioning from Jibb's men, the
Overlord admitted as much and was thrown in prison. But the attacks
continued— from all that Jibb could learn, all four assassins had
used the same type of explosive and the same type of casing. That,
combined with the similarity of their tactics, convinced both Jibb and
Melyor that the same person or people had sent them all. After the last
bombing, Jibb questioned Enrik a second time, but while the Overlord
admitted that he had received instructions from another source, and
more than enough gold to convince him to follow these instructions, he
claimed that all of this had come through intermediaries. Jibb had used
every method at his disposal— even now, Melyor could not help but
shudder at the implications of that phrase— to get Enrik to
reveal the identity of his backer, but the Overlord told them nothing.
"He doesn't have much tolerance for pain," Jibb said at the time. "So I'd guess that he really doesn't know."
Who could be doing this? Melyor asked herself, as she had so
many times over the past year. She had no shortage of enemies, she
knew. Glancing over at her staff, with its glowing red stone, she
smiled sadly. As Sovereign, she was a natural target for assassination.
Despite all the changes she had brought to Bragor-Nal, she could not
alter the one essential truth of the Nal's system of government: peace
and stability tended to limit opportunities for advancement. The
violence of the Nal, which Melyor and Jibb had worked so hard to curb,
did have a practical side. It enabled break-laws to become Nal-Lords
and Nal-Lords to become Overlords. And if this violence managed to
claim the life of the Sovereign, as it had seven years ago when Cedrych
murdered Sovereign Durell in this very room, the effects rippled
through the entire system, creating openings for a few lucky people at
every level of the Nal hierarchy.
But Melyor believed that this was only part of the reason for the
repeated attempts on her life. She was more than just Bragor-Nal's
Sovereign. She was also Bearer of the Stone and the first
self-acknowledged Gildriite in the Nal's history to wield any authority
at all, much less occupy the Gold Palace. Because of their Sight—
their ability to divine the future— her people had been
persecuted for a thousand years. And as the most prominent and powerful
Gildriite in all of Lon-Ser, Melyor could not help but become a target
for the fear and hatred that the Gildriites had endured throughout
their history.
"Are you sure you're all right?" Jibb asked her, looking at her closely.
She managed a smile. "Yes, thanks."
"We'll find out who's behind this, Sovereign," he said confidently,
holding her gaze. "I give you my word. I've already got Premel working
on it, and with the additional evidence from this attempt, he should
have something for us very soon."
"I don't doubt it for a moment," Melyor replied.
"But something's troubling you."
She smiled, ignoring another chill. "This wasn't the nicest way to wake up."
"Of course not, Sovereign." He looked away. "You probably need some time alone. I'll leave you."
She shook her head. "That's not what I meant, Jibb—"
"It's all right. I should oversee the sweep-up anyway. I don't want them to lose anything that might help Premel."
Melyor took another breath and nodded.
"Let us know if you need anything, Sovereign."
Sovereign. Call me Melyor! she wanted to say. You're my best friend! Instead, she merely nodded a second time. "I will."
He turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Melyor pulled her hands from her pockets and ran them through her hair.
The smoke had thinned a bit, leaving just a fine grey haze, but her
quarters looked like a quad bar the morning after a firefight. It would
take most of the day just to clean it up and replace the windows. None
of that, of course, was her concern; a Sovereign had stewards to see to
such things. But it did mean that her room, and the study that adjoined
it, which, she could see, had also been damaged, would be inaccessible
until the evening.
She walked to the small sink by her bed, wiped the fragments of glass
from its edge, and then splashed cold water on her face. The water
stung the cut on her cheek, but it made her feel better, so much so
that she abruptly made a decision. Stepping out of her robe, she
quickly dressed and pulled on her boots. Sovereigns of Bragor-Nal were
expected to wear the golden robe; it was as much a token of a
Sovereign's position as the palace itself. But Melyor had never felt
comfortable in anything but her loose-fitting black trousers and ivory
tunic, and she continued to wear them, along with the thrower that she
still strapped to her thigh, even to meetings of the Council of
Sovereigns. Marar, the leader of Stib-Nal, Bragor-Nal's inconsequential
southern neighbor, had made it quite clear that he found her lack of
decorum offensive. Even Sovereign Shivohn of Oerella-Nal, who had
played such an important role in the events leading to Melyor and
Orris's confrontation with Cedrych, had often commented, with more
seriousness than she could mask with a smile, that Melyor looked like a
Nal-Lord rather than a Sovereign.
Melyor, of course, didn't care what her fellow Sovereigns thought of
her attire. She was a Gildriite, a Bearer; she was bound to be
different. But more than that, she ruled a Nal famous for its
break-laws and firefights. It wouldn't do for the first female
Sovereign in its history to put away her thrower and dress in a pretty
robe.
Strapping on that thrower now, and picking up her staff, Melyor left
her bedchamber and made her way downstairs and outside, where Jibb and
his men were examining the damage caused by the explosion. The marble
stairs leading to the palace entrance, which had once been golden, were
now blackened and covered with glass and other debris. Most of the
steps were fractured beyond repair, and the second, third, and fourth
steps from the bottom had been completely obliterated. The gilded
facade of the palace was blackened as well and pitted with jagged
pieces of marble.
Approximately a dozen of Jibb's men lay on the ground near the
entrance, their blue uniforms stained with blood. A few had already
been bandaged while others were still being tended to by the crisis
meds. Three men had already been covered with white sheets so that
Melyor could see only their black boots and the crimson streams of
blood that flowed from their bodies. There seemed to be nothing at all
left of the assassin.
Those of Jibb's men who had come through the attack unscathed were
searching the front grounds of the palace for boomer fragments or
anything else that might tell them something about the assassin.
Several others were carefully extracting debris from the palace facade.
Jibb stood at the base of what was left of the steps, speaking in low
tones to Premel. If Melyor found it difficult to see Jibb as head of
SovSec, she found it even more disorienting to think of Premel as
second-in-command of the security force. With his clean-shaven head and
the large gold hoop in his ear, he still looked too much like a
break-law, even in the pale blue uniform. In spite of the carnage
around her, Melyor could not help but smile. It seemed at times that
they were all just children, pretending to be Sovereigns and soldiers.
"Sovereign!" Jibb said with surprise, noticing her in the doorway. "Did you need something?"
"No. I just thought I'd offer you some help."
He narrowed his eyes. "Excuse me?"
"I used to be a pretty good Nal-Lord, remember?"
"Of course. But—"
She walked down the stairs, nimbly jumping over the steps that were too
damaged to support her. She stopped in front of him and met his gaze
evenly. "I may be Sovereign," she said with quiet intensity, "but that
doesn't mean I'm not capable of sifting through rubble, or doing any of
the other things that you and your men do."
"I know that, Sovereign," Jibb replied, lowering his voice as well.
"But it does mean that you're even more of a target than you used to
be. And who's to say that there isn't a second assassin in the area."
She smiled. "You're right. Good thing the commander of SovSec is nearby."
Jibb shook his head. "This isn't funny, Sovereign."
"No, it's not," Melyor agreed, her smile fading as she surveyed the
carnage around them. "Someone killed three of my men today, and I'd
like to know why." She looked at Jibb again. "As to the rest, I'm still
better with a blade or a thrower than any man here. Including you Jibb.
Never forget that."
He grinned at her in a way that she hadn't seen in years. "I never have," he said. "I'm glad you haven't either."
She frowned, uncertain of what he meant.
"Come with me," he said, gesturing toward a small pile of debris that
sat a short distance from the palace entrance. "Let me show you what
we've found so far." They squatted next to the pile and began to
examine the blackened fragments of rock, clothing, and metal. A moment
later Premel joined them.
"In most ways we're finding just what we found the last four times,"
Jibb told her, looking closely at one piece of metal for a few seconds
and then tossing it casually back onto the rest of the debris.
Melyor gave a rueful grin. "In other words: nothing."
The security chief shrugged and then nodded. "But it's the same nothing each time."
Premel made a loud snorting sound. It took Melyor a moment to realize
that he was laughing. But when she glanced at the bald man she saw
little mirth in his pale eyes.
"That's worse than nothing," Premel said. "It's like they're taunting us."
"So you agree with Jibb," Melyor said. "All the bombs were sent by the same person."
It took him a minute. "Or people," he corrected. But then he nodded. "Yes, I guess I do."
"Well, that's something." She faced Jibb again. "So what do we know about them?"
Jibb shook his head. "Not much. There's rarely anything left for us to
look at. A few pieces of bomb casing, some clothing from the assassin.
They make good bombs, and they're more than willing to sacrifice a few
men if it means killing you. But beyond that ..." He trailed off,
shrugging again.
"You haven't learned anything from the casing or clothing?"
Jibb shook his head. "Not yet, no. But this boomer might offer a bit more."
"What do you mean?"
He picked up another scrap from the pile of debris and handed it to
her. It was black and jagged, and it was barely larger than the palm of
her hand. "You may not believe this," he said, "but that's the biggest
scrap we've gotten from any of the boomers."
Melyor turned it over and, seeing nothing distinguishing on either side, handed it back to him. "That's not much to go on."
"No, but there are several other fragments that are nearly that size.
Apparently, this bomb wasn't as well made as the others. We might find
something more."
"And if we don't?" Premel asked.
The three of them stood, but before Jibb or Melyor could answer, one of
the men scanning the facade of the palace called excitedly to Jibb. He
was holding something in his hand, and he bounded down the stairs and
rushed to where the three of them were standing.
"What is it?" Jibb asked.
The man grinned. "I think it's the detonator."
He held it out, and Jibb grabbed it from his hand. The security chief
examined it for several moments before looking up at the man again.
"Well done," he said with a single nod.
The man's smile deepened. "Thank you, sir." He turned away and hurried back to the palace.
"Well?" Melyor asked Jibb.
The big man gazed at the object again. "He's right. It is the detonator." He handed it to Melyor. "Take a look," he said grimly.
It was a small metal cylinder, dented on one side and blackened like
the other fragments. There were two holes near one end of the cylinder
probably for the wires leading to the explosive, but otherwise the
object was unmarked. And yet this single piece of metal told Melyor all
that she needed to know about her would-be assassin.
She was no expert on boomers. Even in her younger days, when she had
killed with some frequency, she had preferred the precision of her
thrower and blade to the unpredictability of explosives. But her life
in the quads had demanded that she learn something of bombs. Indeed, on
more than one occasion, her survival had depended upon her ability to
disable timed boomers. So she knew that the detonators on most of the
boomers used by break-laws and Nal-Lords were far cruder than the one
she held in her hand. The man who had tried to kill her this morning
had been sent by someone with the resources to supply him with a
sophisticated device.
But that was secondary. Boomers made in Bragor-Nal had squared
detonators. All of them. It was required under the provisions of the
Green Area Proclamation signed by the Sovereigns of Lon-Ser's three
Nals in 2899. All of the Nals were required to standardize certain
components of all of their advanced goods. The provision was designed
to enforce the ban on exporting advanced goods by making each item
traceable to its source. It covered a wide range of essential parts for
carriers, manufacturing devices, speak-screens and other everyday
items, and, of course, weapons. Including detonators.
"What do you think?" Jibb asked, watching her closely.
Melyor took a breath. "This wasn't made in Bragor-Nal."
"No, it wasn't," he agreed.
She stared at him for another moment and then, handing the device back
to him, spun on her heel and started back toward the palace.
"Where are you going?" Jibb called to her.
"To my office!" she replied over her shoulder without breaking stride. "I need to speak with Shivohn!"
* * *
"Good morning, Sovereign!" one of the laborers called as Shivohn
stepped onto the low terrace overlooking the empty flower beds and
precise, curving hedgerows.
She waved and smiled, her crimson robe and light hair stirring in a
soft wind. Several of the other men and women called greetings to her,
and she waved to them as well.
It was cold still. She knew that if they moved the flowers from the
growing house to the gardens today, they risked losing them all in a
hard frost. But winter's grip was loosening, and she was impatient to
see the blooms opening beneath the Oerellan sun. Besides, she had
always followed her instincts when it came to the gardens. And in all
her years as Sovereign, she had never lost a single bud to frost.
She descended the narrow staircase that led from the terrace to the
garden and began to stroll along the meandering pathways defined by her
well-groomed hedges.
Most aspects of her life as Sovereign had grown stale over the years:
the isolation, the constant fawning of her underlings, the pomp of
ceremonies that held no interest for her anymore. She had grown
impatient with the ever-worsening strife among her Legates. She
understood it, of course: they all wished to be Sovereign, someday, and
she was getting old. But she was weary of their ambition and dismayed
by the bitterness of their rivalry.
Even the meetings of the Council of Sovereigns, which she had attended
with renewed interest and enthusiasm when Melyor was invested as leader
of Bragor-Nal, had grown tedious once more. Marar, the Sovereign of
Stib-Nal, showed little interest in bringing genuine change to Lon-Ser,
and Melyor, though savvy and well-intentioned, still had much to learn
about running a Nal and building relations with Bragor-Nal's neighbors.
She knew that there was an opportunity here for Oerella-Nal. Stib-Nal
remained weak, and Bragor-Nal's leader lacked experience. Ten years ago
a younger Shivohn would have found a way to exploit such a
circumstance, and perhaps Wiercia, or one of the other Legates, could
have done so now. But this older Shivohn, who shivered slightly within
her crimson robe, was tired, and with Durell gone, and with him, the
threat of war, she no longer felt the urgency that had once driven her.
The only thing that held her interest anymore was the garden. Here she
could act, boldly filling her flower beds as if daring the winter to
provoke her. This was her battlefield, and these laborers were her
soldiers.
She walked among them now, peering over their shoulders, occasionally
offering a word of advice or instruction. Most of them she had known
for years. Old Tiran had been here longer than she, and Krid, Lirette,
and Affren, had arrived soon after her investiture. Several others had
been hired more recently, and though she didn't know their names, she
recognized their faces. And, as there seemed to be each year, there was
a new face as well, a woman she had never seen before who was walking
in her direction now. Shivohn smiled. The new ones always liked to meet
her.
"Sovereign!" She turned and saw Lirette motioning for her to come and
look at something. Shivohn nodded and started in that direction. The
new woman would have to wait.
"Yes, Lirette," Shivohn said as she reached the stout woman, who was
turning the soil in a large section of flower bed. "Is there a problem?"
"There certainly is, Sovereign!" Lirette answered, her blue eyes
blazing as she laid down her hoe. "They've got your lobelia and your
hibiscus going in right next to each other! Never mind that I don't
care for the color combination! But the hibiscus is just too tall! By
midsummer it will be shading the other something fierce!"
Shivohn suppressed a smile. Lirette had never been shy about expressing
herself, and while she was respectful of Shivohn's position, she had
never left any room for doubt: the garden was her domain.
"I see your point, Lirette," Shivohn said with appropriate gravity. "Make any changes you feel are necessary."
The woman smiled. "Thank you, Sovereign."
Shivohn nodded and resumed her strolling. Then, remembering the new woman, she paused and scanned the garden for her.
Before she found her, however, she heard someone else calling for her.
Sighing heavily, she turned back toward the terrace and saw one of her
bodyguards beckoning her back to the palace.
"What is it?" she called impatiently.
"Your speak-screen, Sovereign!" the man answered. "Sovereign Melyor wishes to speak with you!"
Shivohn made a sour face. "Very well."
She turned to follow the shortest path back to the terrace, and nearly
bumped into one of the laborers. An instant later she realized that it
was the new woman.
"Oh, hello," Shivohn said, as pleasantly as she could manage. She tried
to step around her. "I'm afraid our introductions will—"
She stopped, gaping at the woman's eyes. Her pupils were enormous,
leaving just a thin ring of pale grey around the fathomless black.
She's been drugged, the Sovereign realized, fear gripping her
heart. She tried to back away, knowing with sudden, mind-numbing
clarity why the woman had come, but there was a hedge just behind her.
No one else had noticed. She was going to die within shouting distance
of a dozen laborers and an entire unit of security men, and there was
nothing anyone could do about it.
"Why?" she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
But she knew that the woman could not answer.
The woman raised her hand slightly, and Shivohn saw the morning sun
glint off the metal of the square-edged detonator. The Sovereign opened
her mouth to scream, but before she could, the assassin moved her thumb.
5
I have never made any secret of my feelings for the League. Indeed,
I'm sure that you would be happy if you never read another word about
that body or its members. I find it hard to imagine forgiving any of
them for the harm they have caused me, and harder still to pardon what
they have done to the Mage-Craft. You know all of this, of course. I've
written it all before.
So it may come as something of a surprise to you that there is one
member of the League for whom I hold no animosity, and with whose
rejection of the Order I cannot find fault. No doubt it will surprise
you further to learn that this person is considered one of the leaders
of the League— for all I know, she is one of those who has
ordered the attempts on my life. Even if this were the case, however,
it would not matter....
Her name is Cailin, and she suffered so at the hands of the outlanders
when she was but a child that I can scarcely fathom how she has managed
to survive to adulthood. That she holds the Order responsible for its
failure to protect her seems to me entirely justified, and convinces me
that as long as she serves the League in any capacity, there will be no
reconciliation between our two groups.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Winter, God's Year 4633.
Cailin dried her eyes a second time and smiled apologetically at Linnea.
"I'm sorry, Eldest," she said, her voice still unsteady. "This is all
so new to me. Every time I start to talk about it, I feel like I've
lost him all over again." She swallowed, fighting back another wave of
tears. Marcran had been dead for nearly a fortnight; the numb, empty
feeling in her chest seemed as familiar to her now as the small
falcon's presence in her mind had felt just a short time ago. And yet,
each time she spoke of his death, which had come gently, as he slept,
she felt the pain of losing him once more, as vivid and debilitating as
it had been that first day.
Linnea had been standing by the window in her dimly lit chamber, her
bulky frame appearing almost black against the silver-grey of another
rainy afternoon. But now she stepped to where Cailin was sitting and
placed a hand on the young woman's head.
"There's no need to apologize, Child," she said softly. "Not to me. I'm
just sorry that I can't help you more. I can tell you that being
unbound is part of being a mage, but that's not likely to help you very
much." She moved a small wooden chair next to Cailin's and lowered
herself into it. "Isn't there anyone in your League who can help you?"
she asked. "Someone who's been through this before."
Cailin shrugged. "I suppose there are a few I could talk to," she answered without enthusiasm. "Most of them are afraid of me."
"Afraid of you?" Linnea repeated with a breathless laugh. "They must not know you very well."
Cailin looked at the woman and grinned. Linnea had aged considerably
over the past few years, particularly since she had given up leadership
of the Temple just over two years ago. Her hair was white now, and her
once round cheeks looked hollow and were marked by deep lines. And
though she was still a large woman, she appeared frail somehow, as if
her silver-grey robe was draped over bones and skin and little else.
Recently, Cailin had begun to fear that the Eldest might be ill. Still,
while the rest of her seemed to be failing, the woman's pale blue eyes
remained as bright and sharp as ever. They sparkled with the light from
the window and the flashing golden glow given off by Cailin's ceryll.
"You may not find me frightening, Eldest," Cailin said, using Linnea's
old title as much out of habit as out of deference. "But to the mages
of the League, especially the younger ones, I'm ..." She
hesitated, feeling herself starting to blush.
"A legend?" Linnea ventured, completing the thought.
Cailin nodded sheepishly. "Yes. Not that I've ever wanted to be treated
that way, but that's what I've become." She pushed her long brown hair
out of her face and shrugged again. "Anyway, to answer your question,"
she told the Eldest, "I'm certain that there are those in the League
who'd be willing to help me, but none whom I'd feel comfortable asking."
"I would guess," Linnea said, "that your ties to the Temple are little help in this regard."
Cailin laughed. While the League and the Temples had been allies for a
brief time after First Master Erland formed the League seven years ago,
the tensions that had developed between them in recent years already
ran nearly as deep as those between the Children of the Gods and the
Order. "Actually they don't create as many problems as you'd expect,"
she said. "Being a legend has certain advantages."
"I'm glad to hear it," Linnea replied with a smile. "I'd hate to think
that our friendship might keep you from becoming First Master when you
bind to your owl."
"Since when are you so ambitious for me?" Cailin asked, ignoring the
pang in her heart. She still was troubled by the notion of binding to a
bird other than her beloved Marcran.
The Eldest smiled enigmatically. "So what of Erland in all this? Is he of any help to you?"
The young mage shook her head. "You never have liked him, have you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Linnea insisted, her eyes
widening with feigned innocence. "I merely asked a simple question."
"Indeed."
Linnea gave a small laugh and stood, stepping once more to the window.
"It's not important, Child," she said, her voice subdued suddenly. "I
just wondered if he could help you."
Cailin stood as well. "Look at me, Linnea."
The Eldest turned at the sound of her name.
"Look at me," Cailin repeated.
She watched the older woman's face, seeing Linnea's pale eyes soften as she looked Cailin up and down.
"I'm not a child anymore. I'm not even certain that I ever was one.
Certainly I wasn't after Kaera. But the point is, I'm grown now. I'm
eighteen. If I was just an ordinary woman rather than a mage, I'd be
joined by now; I'd probably have children. Yet everyone still treats me
as if I'm the little orphan who survived the outlanders and bound to
the pretty falcon."
Linnea frowned. "Cailin, when I call you 'Child' I—"
"I don't care what you call me, Eldest," the mage broke in, shaking her
head. "But how am I to convince the League to take me seriously as one
of its leaders if I can't even get you to talk to me honestly about
Erland?"
The Eldest stared at her for several moments, saying nothing. Finally, she inclined her head slightly. "I see your point."
"Good. Then tell me why you hate Erland so much."
"I don't hate him. We of the Temple do not direct hatred at
individuals; to do so is to repeat the wrongs of Tobyn and Lon and thus
risk provoking Arick. You should know that after living among us for so
long."
"Of course, Eldest," Cailin said. "I'm sorry."
"You needn't apologize, Ch—" She grinned, her cheeks coloring for
just a moment. "I don't hate him," she continued after a brief pause.
"I just don't trust him. I never have."
"But didn't you ally the Temple with him when he split from the Order?"
"We supported the League. We hoped that maybe, if the Mage-Craft was
controlled by a body other than the Order, this ancient feud of ours
might finally end. And at the time, I suppose, supporting the League
meant supporting Erland." She made a sour face. "But even then, I
didn't trust him."
"Why not? Because he used me? Because he needed a symbol for his new League and chose me?"
Linnea regarded her with unconcealed astonishment.
"Yes," Cailin said, smiling again. "I knew. Not immediately, of course.
I was too young and too taken with the idea of being First Mage of the
League." She still remembered the day Erland came to her in the
clearing above the Temple where she liked to fly Marcran, and offered
her the chance to wear the blue cloak. The League was new to the land
then— she had never even heard of it. But in a vision that had
come to her nearly two years earlier, she had seen herself in a blue
cloak, killing the men who had killed her parents. And so she accepted
his offer, believing that the gods had ordained that she should serve
the League. "But it didn't take me long to figure out why Erland was
being so kind to me," she went on. "I could see it in the way the other
mages treated me."
Linnea narrowed her eyes. "How did they treat you?"
"Like a child."
"Do they still?"
"Not all of them. The younger ones look to me for direction during the
Conclaves. But Erland and his allies still see me as little more than a
trophy."
The Eldest nodded. "I see."
"So is that why you don't trust him?"
Linnea gazed at her without responding for several seconds. "You really want to know what it was?" she asked at last.
Cailin nodded.
"It was the ceryll."
"My ceryll?" Cailin asked incredulously, her gaze falling on the golden
stone. Erland had given it to her that day in the clearing, a gentle
smile on his lips and a look of kindness in his dark blue eyes. And as
soon as he placed it in her hand, a brilliant light had burst from it
like a flame. "You now possess everything you need to be a Hawk-Mage,"
Erland told her that day. "The power you carry within you, your
familiar and your stone." It was, to this day, the finest gift anyone
had ever given her. In the years that followed, as her awareness of the
motives of those around her grew, she had clung desperately to the
memory of that single moment. It was the one act of genuine kindness
that Erland had shown her; it was a gift of such surpassing generosity
that, in this one instance, she had refused to question his motives,
ignoring all that she knew of him.
"I've troubled you," Linnea said with concern. "I'm sorry, my dear."
"It's all right," Cailin answered in a small voice, her eyes still
fixed on the flashing golden crystal. With an effort she made herself
meet the Eldest's gaze. "Tell me about my ceryll."
Linnea took a long breath. "You remember Sonel, who led the Order when you first bound to your falcon?"
"Yes."
"Despite the animosity that exists between the Temple and the Order, I
often spoke to her of your progress in mastering the Mage-Craft. She
made it clear to me that until you had matured and learned to control
your power, it would be dangerous to give you a ceryll."
"And you believed her?" Cailin asked dully, grasping for anything that
might preserve her memory of Erland's gesture. "Could she have been
trying to keep me from coming into my power?"
Linnea shook her head. "I don't think so. I sensed no malicious intent.
I think this is what she honestly felt was best for you and for those
of us who were caring for you."
"Did you try to keep Erland from giving it to me?"
"No," Linnea said with a thin simile. "I didn't know he intended to until it was too late."
"And you think he gave it to me as a way of luring me into the League."
Cailin offered it as a statement. It made sense really. Given reason to
doubt the trust she had placed in the white-haired Owl-Master, she had
found herself in recent years re-examining all the kindnesses he had
shown her since their first meeting. Every one of them, she had come to
realize, could be interpreted as an attempt to deceive and influence
her. Why should the ceryll have been any different?
"Yes," the Eldest said. "He needed you. Your presence in the League
immediately made it a legitimate alternative to the Order. Without you
it would have taken him years to win the support of so many of the
land's villages and towns. He as much as told me that he had purchased
the ceryll for just that reason."
Cailin felt herself blanch. "He told you that?" she whispered.
"Yes. Why?"
The mage gave a small, mirthless laugh. "He made it sound as though it had been lying around his home gathering dust for years."
Linnea sat beside her again and put her arm around Cailin's shoulders. "I'm so sorry, my dear."
"Don't be," Cailin said. "I needed to know this." She glanced at the
Eldest and made herself smile. "As I said before, I'm not a child
anymore. And actually, it explains a great deal."
"In what way?"
She pushed the hair from her face again. "At the last two Conclaves
I've spoken against some of Erland's actions, most importantly against
his endorsement of the attacks on that man in the Order."
"The one he believes is a traitor?"
"Yes. Those attacks are a direct violation of Amarid's Third Law, no
matter how our bylaws might justify it." The bylaws of the League,
adopted at the body's first Conclave, expressly amended Amarid's Third
Law, which prohibited mages from using the Mage-Craft against one
another. Such attacks, the amended law stated, were justified if they
were necessary to protect the land. In the years since, Erland and his
supporters had used this law to explain away their attacks on the Order
mage. "How can the League hope to maintain the people's faith in the
Mage-Craft," Cailin asked, "if we can't even abide by its oldest laws?"
Linnea grinned, shaking her head slightly. "You see the irony?" she asked.
"Yes," Cailin said, smiling for a moment as well. As a young girl,
newly bound to her falcon and still haunted by the memory of her
parents' death, she was so resentful of the Order for its failure to
protect her family that she refused to take the oath to abide by the
First Mage's Laws. As she grew older and came to recognize the
importance of the laws, she realized how foolish she had been. In her
mind, though, the ultimate irony lay not in her own belated adherence
to the laws, but rather in the disregard for the laws shown by her
older colleagues.
"So, Erland objected to your opposition?" Linnea prompted, bringing them back to subject at hand.
"That's an understatement. I always believed that as a member of the
League I had the right to speak my mind, and much of what I said drew
support from the younger mages. But after the first time I opposed him
on this matter, Erland told me that he expected me to endorse all of
his decisions. I told him I couldn't do that, and when I disagreed with
him again at the most recent Conclave, he acted as though I had
violated some unspoken agreement. He stopped speaking to me, he refused
to recognize me during formal deliberations, he even tried to exclude
me from the closing ceremonies, although the others wouldn't allow
that."
Linnea shook her head. "It sounds to me as though your League needs a
new leader, or at least someone who's willing to stand up to Erland."
"I agree," Cailin said. "But there's little I can do about that. Especially now."
Linnea frowned. "What do you mean?"
"When I lost Marcran, I also lost my status as First Mage."
"But Erland lost his owl a few years back," Linnea said, her voice rising. "He managed to keep his position."
Cailin nodded. "I know. He maneuvered to have the man who replaced him
as First Master designated as an interim leader. But he's already named
my successor. And he made it clear that she'll continue to be First
Mage long after I find my next familiar. I can still speak against him,
but I don't have the standing within the League that I used to."
Linnea sighed. "It's unfortunate that Erland has remained your leader for so long."
"Perhaps," Cailin agreed. "But it seems that changing leadership carries risk as well."
"Ah," the Eldest said with a wan smile. "So we're speaking of the Temple now, are we?"
"You have to do something, Linnea," Cailin told her. "The Temple lands
are being destroyed, and the people in the League villages are growing
frightened."
The older woman made a small, helpless gesture with her hands. "What
can I do? When I stepped down as Eldest, I relinquished my hold on the
Temple."
"You still have influence though. You must."
"Less than you'd think," Linnea said grimly. "Too much has changed over
the past few years." She smiled. "It's ironic, really: you have the
support of the younger mages, and I still have some influence with the
older Keepers." The smile fled from her lips. "But not the young ones.
All they can think of is gold and power. The Temples have never had so
much gold, and yet all they want is to cut the forests and get more.
Several of us have called for an end to the cutting, at least for a
time. But the rest of them don't listen. As far as they're concerned,
we're too old to understand this new world created by our trade with
Lon-Ser. And with Brevyl as Eldest, they don't have to listen to us.
He's more obsessed with gold than any of them."
"Is it true that the Temples have been trading for weapons as well?"
Linnea nodded, her face going white. "Brevyl didn't even ask us about
that," she said. "He just announced one day that the weapons had been
purchased. As far as I know, they haven't been used yet," she added
quickly. "Brevyl says he needed them to protect the loggers."
Cailin felt her expression harden. "Come now, Linnea. You know better
than that. Even if they haven't been used yet, it's only a matter of
time before they are. Someone is going to get killed."
The Eldest stared at her with wide eyes, looking for all her white hair
and facial lines like a child. "You're right," she whispered. "I know
you are. But what can I do?"
"I don't know, Eldest," Cailin said in the same hard voice. "Something. Anything. You have to try."
They sat for some time, saying nothing and avoiding each other's gaze.
Cailin had never spoken to Linnea in that manner, and though she felt
her words were justified, she was afraid of how the Eldest might
respond. In the end, however, Linnea surprised her.
"You know," the older woman finally said, laughing nervously, "it might
help me if I could take you with me to the next Assembly of Keepers."
Relieved, Cailin allowed herself to smile. "Only if you'll come to the next Conclave," she replied, laughing as well.
Linnea indicated Cailin's ceryll with a nod. "Perhaps we should both
journey to Amarid and join the Gathering that Radomil has summoned."
Cailin glanced down at the stone again. It had been flashing for well
over a fortnight, having begun to do so just days before Marcran's
death. In the aftermath of losing her familiar, Cailin had given little
thought to why the Summoning Stone might have been used. But now,
prompted by the Eldest's comment, she began to wonder.
"Do you have any idea what's happened?" Linnea asked, as if reading her thoughts.
"None." She looked up from the stone to meet the older woman's gaze.
"I've been too consumed with losing Marcran." She paused for a moment.
"Maybe something's happened to Radomil."
The Eldest shook her head. "No. This is a general summons. If they just
needed the Owl-Masters to choose another Sage, the interval between the
flashes would be much longer."
Cailin narrowed her eyes, staring at the Eldest. "How do you know so much about the Order?"
Linnea gave a sly smile. "It's always wise to know something of one's adversaries."
Cailin considered this for several moments. Then she pointed at her
stone. "So this means that the entire Order has been called to Amarid?"
"Yes."
"How often do they use the Summoning Stone in this way?"
"Very rarely," Linnea said. And then, seeming to anticipate Cailin's
next question, she added, "It was rare even before the formation of the
League."
Cailin felt a wave of apprehension wash over her, like the frigid
waters of Arick's Sea in winter. "Did they use it when the outlanders
came?" she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Linnea looked at her with a pained expression. "Honestly, Child, I
don't know. But I don't think we have anything to fear from the
outlanders anymore. At least not in the way we did when you were a
child."
The mage heard the truth in what the Eldest had said, and she tried to
take solace in it. But her fears clung to her heart as if they had
talons. Her ceryll was flashing. Something had happened, even if it had nothing to do with the outlanders.
"Have you ever thought," she asked, gazing wistfully into the
flickering ceryll, "that if you and I could just sit down with the
leader of the Order— just the three of us— that we could
solve all of these problems, end the fighting and the distrust?"
"All the time," Linnea answered in a tone that made Cailin look up from her stone.
The mage felt her pulse quicken. "So how do we make that happen?"
Linnea shrugged, although her pale eyes remained locked on Cailin's.
"I'm not sure. So much needs to happen. I would have to be in a
position where I could count on the support of at least some of the
younger Keepers."
"And I'd have to be bound again, preferably to an owl."
"We'd need a different Sage as well," the Eldest added. "From what I
know of Radomil, I believe him to be a decent man. But he's very
cautious."
"What is it we're talking about?" Cailin asked, feeling strangely giddy as she leaned forward.
Linnea grinned. "You tell me. It was your idea."
"It wasn't an idea, it was a fantasy, an idle thought."
"Then why do you look so exhilarated?" the Eldest asked with intensity. "Why is my heart pounding so?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I'd suggest," Linnea went on, a warning in her tone, "that you
not share such fantasies with anyone other than me. Your fellow mages
in the League might be disturbed by the direction your mind takes in
its idle moments."
Cailin nodded and swallowed. The Eldest was right, of course. Not that
it mattered: the entire notion was ludicrous. Linnea, the Owl-Sage, and
herself meeting in secret to save the land? Such a thing would never
come to pass. And yet, for some reason, Cailin could not bring herself
to dismiss the idea, nor, she knew, could Linnea.
They sat in silence for some time, Linnea staring at her hands and
Cailin gazing once more into her ceryll. Eventually, the Eldest asked
her about a Keeper in Tobyn's Wood, a friend of Linnea's Cailin often
saw during her travels. And for what remained of the afternoon, they
spoke of other things, avoiding further mention of political matters.
But late in the day, as Linnea led Cailin to the front gates of the Temple, she returned to the topic once again.
"I don't know how long I have before Arick and Duclea call me to their side," she said, taking Cailin's hand in her own.
Cailin felt her blood turn to ice water. "Are you—"
The Eldest stopped her with a raised finger and a quick shake of her
head. There was a single tear running down her cheek. "Let me finish. I
don't know how long I have, and, of course, neither of us knows how
long it will be until you bind again, be it to a hawk or owl. But as
absurd as it sounds, I think that the two of us have as much chance as
anyone of bringing an end to the conflicts that have plagued Tobyn-Ser.
Even before you said what you did about the two of us meeting with the
Owl-Sage, I had a feeling about this."
"Eldest," Cailin said, "do you mean to tell me that you have the
Sight?" She tried to keep her tone light, but Linnea's words from a
moment before kept repeating themselves in her head. I don't know how long I have until Arick and Duclea call me to their side ...
"Me with the Sight?" Linnea answered, coloring to the tips of her ears.
"Don't be ridiculous! I just think that the gods have marked you for an
auspicious binding. And I think it will come soon. Perhaps as one who
has given her life to the gods, I'm able to, glimpse such things."
"And what of your role in this new world we're going to create?" the mage asked. "Have you seen that future as well?"
"On the contrary," Linnea said, shaking her head. "I've seen the past,
and I don't like it. You're right: it's time for me to reassert myself
in the assembly. I still have allies, people who are no happier than I
with what Brevyl has done in the name of the Temple. It's time we made
ourselves heard."
Cailin stepped forward and put her arms around the older woman. The
thought of her life without the Eldest frightened her deeply. She knew
what it was to lose people dear to her, and she was not at all ready to
lose Linnea as well.
"Don't be frightened, Child," Linnea whispered. "I have some time left yet."
"Are you ill?" Cailin asked, feeling herself start to cry. "Can I heal
you?" She stepped back and looked the Eldest in the eye. "All you have
to do is ask."
Linnea smiled. "I know that. If I thought it was within your power, or
anyone else's for that matter, I would ask. I'm afraid, though, that
there's nothing to be done, except wait, and make good use of the days
I have left." She wiped the tears from Cailin's face and kissed her
forehead. "Are you sure you won't stay the night? There's room, and we
have plenty of food."
The Eldest's offer was tempting, particularly now that she knew her
time with Linnea was limited. But since leaving the Temple three years
ago to begin her life as a migrant mage, she had taken shelter only on
the coldest of nights. A mage belonged in the forests and mountains and
plains, she had decided long ago. Serving the land meant living on the
land. And though her heart was heavy with the knowledge of Linnea's
illness, and the rain was still falling, she could not in good
conscience sleep anywhere but in Hawksfind Wood. In an odd way, she
felt that she owed that much to Marcran.
"Thank you," she said. "But I'm sure. I'll visit again soon, though. I promise."
"Very well, my dear," Linnea said, kissing her a second time. "Arick guard you."
"And you, Eldest."
She turned quickly and walked from the Temple. She was crying again,
her tears mixing with the cold rain that stung her face, and she did
not look back, although she knew that Linnea was still watching her
from the gates. I don't know how long I have ...
"Not her, too," she whispered to the trees and the rain, feeling
Marcran's absence like a wound on her heart. "I'm not ready to lose
Linnea, too."
In the distance she heard the ring of a woodsman's ax against still
another tree, and she shuddered. She pulled her cloak tight against the
cold and glanced at her flickering golden ceryll. Something was
happening in Amarid, and she burned to know what it was.
Everything was so much easier when she first joined the League, so much
clearer. She grinned in spite of the rain. More likely that had been an
illusion, too, like Erland's generosity. As she told Linnea a short
time ago, she hadn't been a child since Kaera. But she had been young,
and too quick to believe in Erland and his promises, too eager to blame
the Order for all the land's troubles. They had let the outlanders
come. They had let her parents die. Nothing else mattered. The Keepers
hated the Order and had raised her after her parents died. Linnea hated
the Order and loved her almost the way her mother and father had.
Erland hated the Order and gave her a ceryll. It all seemed so simple,
so clear.
Except that now the Temples were destroying the land's forests, Erland
was treating her like an enemy, and Linnea was dying. And in Amarid,
just a few leagues from here, the mages of the Order were gathering in
response to the call of the Summoning Stone. The Order wasn't
evil— it never had been. She knew that now. It was nothing more
or less than the League: a collection of men and women who wielded the
Mage-Craft, most of them well-intentioned, all of them fallible. She
had come to this realization slowly, and it had made coping with her
past, with the distant memory of her parents and her childhood, more
difficult, not less. A part of her didn't care whether it was all an
illusion; she wanted to be eleven again. She longed for that clarity.
But another part of her knew better. If she was to lead the League and
prove to Erland that he could not ignore her any longer, she had to
accept the ambiguities that came with being an adult.
"I'm not a child anymore," she had told the Eldest. Right. Then it was time to stop seeing the world through a child's eyes.
The path she was on met a logging road and, on a whim, she turned
northward. There were fishing villages on the coast above Hawksfind
Wood. That was as good a place as any to offer her services, limited as
they were just then.
Once more she thought of Marcran, her eyes stinging at the memory of
his brilliant colors and breathtaking flight. But a moment later she
remembered what Linnea said just before she left the Temple. The gods have marked you for an auspicious binding. And I think it will come soon.
Cailin halted, knowing as she did that her new familiar was here, on
this road, watching her. Suddenly her heart was hammering at her chest
so hard that she could actually see her cloak move. She felt the
creature's presence as if it was already perched on her shoulder, and
she readied herself for what she knew would happen as soon as her eyes
met those of the bird. She still remembered her binding to Marcran as
if it had happened yesterday. She had nearly lost herself in the
maelstrom of memories and emotions that he had conveyed to her. That
had been years ago, of course. She was merely a child then, new to the
ways of the Mage-Craft. In the years since, she had grown accustomed to
sharing her thoughts with a wild creature, and though she knew that
binding to a new bird was no trifle, she also knew that she was ready
for this.
Taking a breath and turning slowly, she looked up toward the low perch where she knew the bird was sitting.
And seeing her new familiar, she felt her head spin, as if the world
itself had shifted. She heard Linnea's voice in her mind again,
speaking to her of the binding that she had foreseen.
But not this! Cailin had time to think before a flood of images hit her. Surely she didn't mean this!
6
The emergence of the People's Movement is a relatively new
development although not a surprising one. With both the Order and the
League looking for ways to temper the effects of Tobyn-Ser's new
commercial activity, and the Temples driven only by their lust for
gold, there has been no organized attempt to end the trade with Lon-Ser
altogether. Until now. From what I have heard, it seems that the
People's Movement wishes to reverse all that has happened to our land
since my journey to Bragor-Nal. It goes without saying that they want
to end our trade with your land. But they go much further than that.
They want to destroy all of the advanced goods that have come into our
land and they wish to expel those citizens of Lon-Ser who have tried to
settle in our seaports. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that
we should end our trade with Abborij, which has been ongoing for
centuries.
And yet, as extreme as their demands may sound, I find nothing
inherently dangerous in the existence of this movement. I see it merely
as an inevitable consequence of the vast changes that have come to
Tobyn-Ser in the past several years. I am frightened, however, to learn
of the alliance being forged between the People's Movement and the free
mages.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Winter, God's Year 4633.
Tammen smiled grimly as she surveyed the scene before her.
Notwithstanding the Temple's men with their large weapons and the
fearful expressions on the faces of the townspeople, she felt
confident. For the past six days, the people of Prannai had joined her
and her fellow mages in opposing the keeper and his mercenaries. The
townsfolk had been reluctant at first. Perhaps the presence of only
three mages had not been enough to embolden them. Nodin, Henryk, and
she were certain of their ability to defend the town against the
Temple, but it had taken some time to convince Maira and the rest of
the Elders that their village would be safe. And in the end, the
Keeper's inability or unwillingness to act, not anything that the mages
did, won over the villagers.
It began with their first encounter, when the two Owl-Masters from the
Order intervened, and Keeper Padgett backed down. Each day since then
had been pretty much the same except that no more mages from the Order
had come through the village. The Keeper and his woodsmen, accompanied
by their armed escort, approached the grove only to be confronted by
the villagers and the three free mages. Padgett threatened to have his
men kill anyone who interfered with the woodsmen, but when Maira and
her people, supported by Tammen and her friends, refused to allow the
woodsmen to cut the trees, he did nothing. Perhaps he feared that
Tammen and her friends would retaliate by killing him, or perhaps he
merely lacked the nerve to resort to violence. Whatever the reason, six
days later, the forests still stood.
And with each day, the confidence of the villagers grew. Tammen could
see it in their faces, she could hear it in their cheers each afternoon
when the Keeper and his men finally retreated to the Temple.
Eventually— quite soon, really— Tammen, Nodin, and Henryk
would have to move on. There were other towns and other forests. If the
movement was to succeed, none of the land's dozen or so no-cloaks, as
the free mages called themselves, could remain in any one place for
very long. And with their cerylls flashing in response to the summons
of the Order's Owl-Sage, Tammen and her companions knew that they could
not tarry in Prannai for much longer. Something
was happening, and Tammen was determined that the Movement would have a
role to play in whatever changes were coming to Tobyn-Ser. Fortunately,
she no longer doubted that Maira and her villagers would keep up the
fight once she and her fellow mages were gone. The weapons carried by
the Keeper's guards still scared them, of course. That was to be
expected. And it didn't help that Padgett had increased the number of
armed guards accompanying his woodsmen from seven to fourteen. But even
that could not alter the one essential truth of what had happened
during their six days of confrontation. Here in Prannai, the People's
Movement had taken hold.
There was a part of her that wondered if once she and her companions
were gone, Padgett would allow his men to use their weapons. But such
concerns were, Tammen believed, beside the point. As she saw it, the
free mages were responsible for bringing the People's Movement to the
towns and villages of Tobyn-Ser. It was up to Tammen and those like her
to organize the townsfolk and to make them believe in their ability to
end the destructive transformations that they saw taking place all
around them. But once the no-cloaks did this, it fell to the villagers
themselves to sustain the Movement, even if that meant risking their
lives to do so. This was, in a sense, a war for the future of the land.
There were bound to be casualties.
"Here he comes," Nodin said in a low, tight voice.
Immediately, Tammen looked toward the Temple and saw the Keeper
striding in their direction, his silver robe rustling in the light
wind, and his round face looking flushed beneath his steel grey hair.
"He looks different," Henryk said under his breath. "Something's happened."
Tammen heard the tension in his words, and for a moment she thought she
might laugh. "He looks beaten," she told him. "He knows we've won."
"Maybe," Nodin said cautiously. "I agree with Henryk: he does look different somehow. But I'm not as sure of the reason."
"I just told you," Tammen said impatiently, shaking her head. She knew
that Nodin considered himself a man of some importance among the free
mages; certainly he saw himself as the leader of their little group,
and Henryk treated him that way. But despite his swagger and his
posturing, the tall mage was neither bold nor particularly brave. He
had some wisdom, Tammen had to admit, but if it wasn't for her, he
would have given up on Prannai after their encounter with the two
Owl-Masters. And even then, he had only listened to her because he was
half in love with her.
"You heard what Baden said about those weapons!" he fretted at the time. "We could get these people killed!"
"He was trying to scare us," Tammen had replied. "He wants us to leave.
And even if all he told us is true, he also said that we can block
their fire."
"For a time," Nodin had said. "But not forever."
She had come close then to just throwing up her hands in disgust and
striking out on her own. She didn't need Nodin or Henryk. If this was
how they planned to advance the Movement, she wanted no part of them.
But in the end, she decided that three mages could accomplish more than
one, and, though it took her much of that night, she did manage to
convince them that they should stay in Prannai for just a few days
more. The success they had enjoyed since then had only served to prove
how right she had been. Again.
Watching Padgett approach for yet another day of confrontation, Tammen
could not help but think back once more to their first encounter. The
Keeper had been so smug that day, as if he himself had been holding a
weapon. To see him now, his fat face looking red and blotchy in the
morning sun, made her feel giddy. This is our first victory, she realized, a smile springing to her lips. The Movement is truly on its way.
"Good morning, Padgett!" she called out, not bothering to conceal her
glee. "Have you come to dismiss your mercenaries? Or shall we shout
insults at each other for another day?"
The Keeper stopped in front of the three mages and looked at them
gravely. He did not look well. There were dark circles under his green
eyes, and he was sweating, although the morning air was cool.
"I have tried to reason with you these past several days," he said. And
even Tammen could hear the plea in his voice. "I have tried to tell you
that I wish the people of this village no harm, that I hope and expect
that they will profit from the timber trade even as the Temple does."
He paused and swallowed.
Tammen wondered briefly if he was going to be ill.
"But now," he went on, "I'm asking you— begging you, in fact— to tell these people to step out of our way."
"Why?" Tammen asked. "So that you can destroy this forest? So that you
can steal this land from Prannai's people? Haven't you been listening
to us? Haven't you been listening to Maira?"
"Yes! I've been listening!" Padgett shot back with uncharacteristic
fervor. "But clearly you haven't! None of you have!" he added, glancing
at Nodin and Henryk. "This is not their land!
It's not my land, either! It belongs to the Temple, and so is subject
to the decisions of Eldest Brevyl! You must understand that!"
Tammen laughed harshly. "And you must understand that—"
"What does Brevyl have to do with this?" Nodin broke in, silencing Tammen with a glare.
The Keeper hesitated, licking his lips. "I received a dispatch from him
this morning. He is on his way to Tobyn's Wood so that he can see for
himself how the harvesting of Temple lands is progressing. According to
his message, he left Hawksfind Wood nearly a fortnight ago. He will
reach Prannai within the next day or two."
"I don't believe you," Tammen said.
Nodin turned and glared at her. "Be quiet, Tammen!"
She felt her color rising. She was certain that Henryk was watching
her, that all-too-familiar amused expression in his dark eyes, and she
had to resist an urge to spin around and slap him.
"What's your point, Keeper?" Nodin asked, facing Padgett again. "What happens when Brevyl arrives?"
Padgett took a slow breath. "That depends. If the forests haven't been
cut yet, he'll cut them, regardless of the cost in human life."
"That's quite a statement to make about the leader of Arick's Children," Nodin said, raising an eyebrow.
The Keeper shrugged. "I'm merely telling you what I know to be true.
The Eldest is a decent man, but like any person in a position of such
importance, he's used to having his orders followed. He has little
patience with delay and less still for frivolous challenges to his
authority." He gazed beyond Nodin and Tammen toward the townspeople. "I
have done all that I can to spare the lives of these people because I
care about them. I care about Prannai." He looked at Nodin once more.
"Brevyl has no such sentiments to stay his hand."
Nodin nodded, as if weighing this. "So what do you propose?" he finally asked.
"Let us cut the forest now, and we'll only cut half of it. When Brevyl
arrives I'll tell him that we're in the process of harvesting the rest.
He'll move on, satisfied with our progress, and he'll never know of the
bargain we've struck."
"You're not really listening to him, are you?" Tammen asked, unable to
contain herself any longer. "He's lying! He doesn't care about these
people! He's just worried about what will happen to him when Brevyl
sees that we've beaten him!"
Nodin passed a hand through his short dark hair. "She makes a good
point," he told the Keeper. "How do we know that Brevyl is really
coming? And even if he is, how can we be sure that once you've cut half
the forest, you won't just come back for the rest later?"
"As to Brevyl's visit," Padgett answered, "I can show you the dispatch.
The rest you'll just have to take on faith. I'm a man of my word: if I
tell you that I'll only cut half the forest, I'll only cut half the
forest."
" 'I'm a man of my word,' " Tammen mimicked, her voice tinged with contempt. "That's it? That's the best you can do?"
"Can you offer us any other guarantee?" Nodin asked mildly, as if he
hadn't heard what Tammen said. "For instance, would you be willing to
cede the uncut land to the village?"
Padgett glared at Tammen for several moments before finally responding.
"I'm afraid I can't do that" he said, clearly struggling to control his
anger. "Only the Eldest can acquire or bestow lands in the Temple's
name. And as I've tried to explain to you, Brevyl would not be willing
to do that."
Tammen shook her head. "So you're not really offering us anything, are
you? You want us to give way so that you can cut half the forest
immediately, and all you offer in return is an empty promise that you
won't take the rest when the mood strikes you."
"Perhaps, Mage," the Keeper said, his anger rising again, "you should
ask Maira and the others what they think of my offer before you dismiss
it out of hand! And when you do, tell them that the alternative is to
have us cut it all right now, with our weapons trained on their hearts!"
"Be that as it may, Keeper," came a voice from nearby, "we will not tolerate the cutting of even one tree."
They all turned to see Maira standing a short distance away. She looked
small and somewhat frail beside Nodin and the heavyset Keeper. Her
white hair shifted in the light wind, and her arms were crossed over
her chest as if she were cold. But there could be no mistaking the look
of resolve in her brown eyes and her set jaw.
"These mages have filled your head with foolishness, Maira," Padgett
said with disgust. "They've convinced you that there's some great
movement out there, when in reality there's nothing. Just a few mages
who are looking to make a name for themselves. They've deluded you, and
they're going to get you and your people killed."
"We're not doing this because of the mages, Keeper," she said evenly.
"And we're not doing it for the Movement. You may think we're simple,
that we're not capable of thinking for ourselves, but you're wrong.
We're doing this because someone has to stop the Temples before they
destroy every forest in the land. We're doing this for our children."
"You see, Padgett?" Tammen said with satisfaction. "As we've been
telling you all along: the people of Prannai want nothing of your gold
or the future you want to buy with it, so take your men to another
village!" she went on, raising her voice so that the rest of the
townsfolk could hear. "Prannai's forests are not for you!"
A loud cheer greeted her words.
The Keeper glanced at Nodin, who shrugged.
"Ultimately, this is Maira's decision," the tall mage said. "Hers and the rest of the Elders. We serve the village."
"You serve yourselves!" The Keeper regarded them all with a bitter
expression on his face. He was shaking his head slowly, and his face
had reddened again. "Fine!" he said at last. "But I've warned you!" He
started to walk back to where his men were standing, but then he
stopped himself and faced the crowd of villagers. "I've tried to tell
Maira and the mages that this is your last chance!" he called to them.
"I've tried to tell them that Eldest Brevyl is on his way to Prannai. I
have no choice. I must begin the harvest today. If you try to stop me,
you'll die. But if you allow us to cut the trees, I promise that we'll
only take half of them. The rest of the forest will stand for as long
as I'm your Keeper."
"And what did Maira say to that?" a man called out.
"She said that she'd rather die than give up a few trees," the Keeper answered.
"Good for her!" the man said, drawing nods and murmured agreement from
the other townsfolk. "That's just what I would have told you!"
Again, Padgett shook his head. "You're all mad!" he said. He glanced
over his shoulder at Nodin. "This is on your head, Mage. Remember that."
The Keeper approached the woodsmen and their guards and spoke to one of
the armed men for several moments. Then he started back toward the
Temple.
"Where's he going?" Tammen asked in a low voice.
"I'm not sure," Henryk answered. "But if I had to guess, I'd say he's going somewhere where he won't have to watch."
She knew that he was right as soon as the words left his mouth, and she
felt her stomach clench itself into a fist. Sensing her tension, Othba,
her splendid brown hawk, gripped her shoulder tightly.
It's all right, Tammen sent, but she didn't believe it herself.
Othba's talons dug deeper into her flesh. "What are they going to do?"
she whispered.
Nodin looked at her grimly. "They're going to cut the trees. The question is, what are we going to do?"
As if on cue, the woodsmen stepped into the nearest grove and the guards brandished their strange weapons.
"Well?" Maira demanded, eying Tammen and her companions expectantly. "Are you going to stop them?"
Tammen looked beyond the white-haired woman to the villagers. A few of
them were watching the woodsmen unsheathe their axes, their eyes wide
with fear, but the rest were looking at the mages with expressions that
mirrored Maira's.
"Well?" the woman said again.
Henryk and Nodin were staring at each other, both of them looking pale
and uncertain. Neither of them said anything, and Tammen could tell
they had no idea what they should do.
One of the woodsmen had chosen a tree. He planted his feet, hefted his ax, and swung it back to strike his first blow.
There was only one thing Tammen could do. She raised her staff and,
with barely an effort, sent a ball of pale blue fire at the man. Her
timing and aim were perfect. Her mage-fire crashed into the head of the
man's ax just as he paused before swinging it forward. The force of the
blow ripped the ax from his hands and snapped it in two. The handle
landed a few feet from where the woodsman stood, its wood splintered
and charred, while the metal blade, smoking and blackened, flew several
yards before burying itself harmlessly in the ground.
A cheer went up from the villagers, but it was followed almost
immediately by a collective gasp as the guards aimed their weapons at
Tammen.
"Don't do it!" Nodin shouted at the men. "We don't want to hurt you!"
"We have our orders!" the guard to whom Padgett had spoken replied. His
voice sounded unsteady, and his eyes flicked nervously from the three
mages to the townspeople.
"Do your orders include dying for the sake of a few trees?"
The man hesitated. "Yes," he finally said. "They do."
A second woodsman stepped forward, selected a tree, and readied his ax.
And before he started his swing, four others had done the same. The
three mages leveled their staffs at the men and sent streams of fire at
their axes. Nodin found his target, but Tammen and Henryk missed and
hit the men instead. Two woodsmen fell to the ground writhing and
screaming, one of them with his shoulder blackened and bloody and the
other with his hand severed at the wrist.
Immediately, the guards opened fire, sending beams of sizzling red
flame at the mages. Tammen raised a shimmering shield of blue power
that was joined an instant later by Nodin's violet and Henryk's sea
green. And though the force of the guard's fire staggered Tammen and
Nodin and knocked Henryk to one knee, the curtains of magic held.
But at the same time, the rest of the woodsmen started hacking at the
trees, and before the mages could stop them, the villagers surged
forward. Some of them were carrying hoes, shovels, or other farming
tools. A few had axes of their own. And they ran at the woodsmen with
their weapons held high.
Seeing this, the guards trained their weapons on the villagers.
"No!" Tammen screamed sending a torrent of blue power at one
of the guards. Her mage-fire stuck the man full in the chest, throwing
him backwards as if he was made of rags and engulfing him in flame. Two
other guards fell as well as shafts of violet and green sliced through
the morning air.
Two of the guards faced the mages once more, firing their weapons and
forcing Tammen and the others to guard themselves before they could
throw their power again. And the rest of the guards began to fire their
weapons at the people of Prannai. Screams of pain and terror echoed off
the trees as men and women fell to the ground with smoking black wounds.
"Henryk!" Nodin cried. "Shield us for as long as you can! Tammen and I will try to protect the villagers."
Henryk nodded and gritted his teeth, and in the next instant the sea green of his shield brightened.
Acting in perfect unison, Nodin and Tammen thrust their cerylls out
before them and sent rivers of power toward the villagers in an attempt
to cloak them in magic. Violet and blue, their power appeared to meld
together into a gleaming wall of lavender light that succeeded in
blocking the first volleys of red fire. But the weapons of the guards
were too strong, and the townsfolk were so far away. Tammen's arms were
already trembling with fatigue. Her back and shoulders ached, and she
feared her legs would give way at any moment. She could feel Othba's
exhaustion as deeply as she felt her own, and though she hadn't the
energy even to glance at Nodin, she had no doubt that he and his
familiar were fading as well. It would have helped if they could have
moved closer to the villagers, but to do so would have stretched
Henryk's power and endangered their lives.
Another barrage of weapons fire from the guards carved through their
shield as if it wasn't even there, striking several of the villagers.
"Fist of the God!" Nodin spit.
"Do something!" Maira screamed at them, as the cries of her people and the smell of burning flesh filled the air once more.
Nodin and Tammen exchanged a silent look. There were tears in the tall
mage's eyes and as Tammen held his gaze, he began to shake his head
slightly.
It was up to her, and in Tammen's mind there seemed to be only one
choice. Two of the guards continued to fire their weapons at the mages,
but Henryk's barrier of sea-green magic still held. The rest of the
guards were too occupied with firing on the villagers to notice her.
Taking a breath, she raised her staff again and began to throw
mage-fire at the guards. She tried to hit their weapons, but she was
tired, and her aim was not as true as it might otherwise have been. And
when all of the guards turned their weapons on her, she had to bolster
Henryk's shield with her own magic and throw fire at the guards when
the opportunity arose. In the end, she killed three of them and maimed
four others before the rest fled, with the woodsmen close behind,
scattering into the forest like frightened rabbits.
She stared after them for a long time, her arms hanging at her sides
and her face and cloak soaked with sweat. She sensed Nodin beside her,
and, with an effort she turned to look at him. His face was damp as
well, but with tears rather than perspiration, and his eyes had a wild,
terrified look that made her shudder. He hadn't done a thing to help
her in her battle with the guards. He hadn't even raised a shield to
protect himself. It was remarkable that he had survived.
"It wasn't supposed to happen like this," he whispered, tears still pouring down his face. "We weren't supposed to kill anyone."
"We had no choice," Tammen said in a flat voice. "They were killing the villagers."
"We're mages!" he said, whirling toward her. "Amarid's Laws forbid us
from using our powers this way! 'We shall use our powers to give aid
and comfort in times of need!' " he recited. "We're not supposed
to kill!"
"We never took an oath, Nodin! We're no-cloaks! We haven't violated any
laws! We did what we had to do! No one can blame us for that! Besides,"
she added, looking away, "you didn't kill anyone. You just stood there
like a statue of Amarid."
"I did before," he answered, his voice low once more. If he heard the
accusation in her tone, he showed no sign of it. "I killed a guard
earlier."
She nodded, remembering. "That's right. You did."
Tammen heard a footfall nearby and turning, saw Maira approaching. Her
face was ashen and the look in her eyes resembled the expression in
Nodin's.
"Sixteen of my people are dead," she said, her voice cracking. She
swallowed. "Nearly three dozen are wounded and require your aid."
"Of course, Maira," Tammen said. "Right away."
But the older woman didn't move. "How did this happen?" she asked after a lengthy silence. "How could such a thing happen?"
"It shouldn't have," Nodin answered. "It was a terrible mistake."
"No!" Tammen found herself saying. "No, it wasn't a mistake! It was
unfortunate, perhaps even a tragedy. But it was not a mistake."
Nodin opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off with an abrupt gesture.
"We came here to keep the Temple from killing this forest," she said.
"Did you really believe that the Keeper would give up the gold he'd get
for these trees without a fight?"
"An hour ago you told us that Padgett was beaten," Henryk reminded her. "Or have you forgotten that already?"
"No, I haven't forgotten," she said, her cheeks burning as if he had
struck her. "I was being foolish, just as Nodin is now." She looked at
Henryk for a moment, but he merely stared back at her, his expression
unreadable. "This is more than just a movement," she said, facing Nodin
once more. "This is a war, and we've just fought the first battle."
"Perhaps, Mage, you should have told us that earlier," Maira said
severely. "We might not have been so quick to join you had we known
that you considered us foot soldiers in your conflict with the Temple."
"You and your people were more than willing to accept our protection,
Maira," Tammen said, ice in her voice. "You asked us for no
explanations, and we put no conditions on our offer of aid. Don't think
that you can absolve yourself of responsibility in this matter. You
can't. You're to blame for this as much as we are, and it ill behooves
one who calls herself a leader to run and hide as soon as things turn a
bit ugly."
Maira glowered at her. She was breathing heavily, and her hands were
clenched in white-knuckled fists. "How is it possible for one so young
to be so cold?" she asked at last, her voice barely more than a
whisper. "Has life been so cruel to you?"
Tammen looked away. The woman's questions struck a bit too close to her
heart. "Your people need healing, Maira," she said. "Why don't you take
us to them?"
The white-haired woman stared at her for several moments more, but
Tammen refused to meet her gaze. Finally, without another word, Maira
turned and led the three mages to where the dead and wounded lay.
* * *
Light. Pale yellow, like the color of sand on the shores of Duclea's
Ocean. That was all he could see. Sometimes it seemed that it was the
sum of his entire existence. Light, the weight of a hawk on his
shoulder, and the burning memories of his life and death. The radiance
stabbed into his eyes like daggers. He could close his eyes against it,
but after so many years, it even seemed to follow him into this haven.
One of the others— a young one, a woman of no consequence—
had described it as living in one's ceryll, which was perfect. He was
trapped in a prison of light and magic. It might as well have been his
ceryll. Or perhaps, he thought with a bitter smile, the Summoning
Stone, which he had come so close to making his own.
The bird on his shoulder ruffled her feathers and began to preen, and
he stroked her chin absently. This was not Huvan, the great owl who had
been with him in the time of his power, and who he had killed at the
end to win for himself a measure of immortality and one last desperate
chance to wreak his revenge. This was Miron, the pale brown hawk of his
youth. And though the accursed light kept him from seeing anything of
his surroundings during the day, he knew that he was on the Northern
Plain, where, on a grey afternoon countless years ago, he first bound
to her.
He remembered that day more clearly now than he had during the later
years of his life— what else did he have other than his memories?
He had been little more than a child then, overwhelmed by the myriad
possibilities embodied in this beautiful bird. There had been so many
paths laid out before him, and all had seemed destined to lead him to
power and glory.
That had been before the reprimands and indignities heaped upon him by
his fellow mages in the Order. Then he had been only Hawk-Mage Sartol.
He had little influence or fame, he knew nothing of the Mage-Craft. And
yet it was, he realized, noting the irony, the only time in his life
when he had been truly happy. All too soon after he had become Sartol,
who extracted payment for his service to the people of the plain;
Sartol, who was censured by his fellow mages; Sartol, who was passed
over by his fellow Owl-Masters each time they were called upon to
choose a new Sage. Finally, in death, he became Sartol, the murderer
and traitor, who was killed by the collective might of the Order.
Today, he was Sartol the Unsettled, more hated even than Theron.
Even in his prison of light and magic, he knew what they said about
him. Like all the Unsettled, he was Mage-Craft incarnate. He still had
the Sight and more, for, he had learned, as a victim of Theron's Curse,
he could see much that went on throughout Tobyn-Ser. So he knew.
Sometimes he actually heard Baden and the rest speak of him.
More than anything, he wanted to destroy them, to avenge his defeat in
the Great Hall, to make them pay for what they had forced him to do to
Huvan. Not only Baden, whom he hated more than any of the others, but
also Jaryd and Alayna, the whelps. They were the ones who had stumbled
upon him as he stood over the bodies of Jessamyn and Peredur. They were
the ones who somehow managed to survive Theron's Grove when he was
certain that they would die there. They were the ones whose appearance
in the Great Hall during the trial of Baden, Orris, and Trahn destroyed
all for which he had worked so long and so hard. Before this was over
every mage in Tobyn-Ser would suffer for what had been done to him, but
none more than those three: Baden, Jaryd, and Alayna.
He had tried the very first night of his eternal unrest. When Phelan,
Theron, and the rest of the Unsettled offered aid to the mages in their
battle with Calbyr's band of outlanders, Sartol used all of his power
to hinder their efforts. And, though new to the ways of the Unsettled
and unfamiliar with the workings of the Mage-Craft in this strange
realm, he did manage to keep Phelan and the others from taking away the
outlanders' weapons. As a result, Niall died and Baden was rendered
unbound.
But that did little to satisfy his hunger for vengeance, and it cost
him a good deal. From that time on, he was ostracized by the rest of
the wandering ghosts. He became an exile among outcasts. Except for
Miron, he was utterly alone. It was funny in a way: in punishing him
the rest of the Unsettled were also giving him the freedom and privacy
he needed to plot his revenge. Among the ghosts of Tobyn-Ser, thought
was communication. Had Theron or Phelan or one of the others deigned to
speak with him, had they even come just to revile or taunt him, they
would have divined his thoughts and found a way to stop him. But
instead, out of spite and stupidity, they isolated him.
So he waited and watched, biding his time, which was the one thing he
had in abundance. He saw Jaryd and Alayna in their home by South
Shelter and he watched the birth of their little brat of a child. He
knew of Orris's defiance of the Order, and he looked on with interest
and satisfaction as Erland and his allies formed their little League
and sundered the Mage-Craft. And most recently, he watched the
so-called free mages struggle to make their mark on the land, seeing in
their repeated failures and their growing desperation the opportunity
he had been waiting for.
So much still had to happen, he had to remind himself again and again. So much remained beyond his control.
Even now, he saw cerylls flashing throughout the land, and though he
had yet to learn why, he wondered if there was an opportunity here as
well. They were using his stone after all. He had Seen patterns
emerging. In the waking world of dream and thought that passed for
sleep in the realm of the Unsettled, he had glimpsed the future. Or
more precisely, he had envisioned one possible future among many. And
he saw in it a path to redemption and retribution. He had learned all
he could of the power he still possessed as one of the Unsettled. He
knew its limitations as well as its possibilities. When the moment
came, he would be ready. He had only to wait and be patient. For time
was the one thing he had in abundance.
7
In your last letter you expressed surprise that I would inform you
in such detail of the political maneuvering within the Council of
Sovereigns and in each of the Nals. As you put it, "I am satisfied in
knowing that you and Shivohn remain in control of your respective Nals
and allied with each other. Little of the rest concerns me."
I could not disagree more. It seems to me from what you have told me in
the past that you have railed against your colleagues in the Order for
expressing a similarly narrow view of the world. In light of
Tobyn-Ser's expanding commerce, its leaders must pay heed to all that
affects the governance of its trading partners, no matter how arcane
such matters may seem. Just as you seek to know all you can about the
internal workings of the League, you must keep abreast of all that
happens in Lon-Ser.
— Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal to Hawk-Mage Orris, Day 1, Week 11, Winter, Year 3067.
"I'm sorry, Sovereign," the woman said, grinning at the speak-screen in
a way that told Melyor she wasn't sorry at all. "Sovereign-Designate
Wiercia cannot speak with you right now. She's terribly busy with plans
for her investiture. Perhaps if you contact her again after—"
Melyor shook her head, her frustration mounting. "It can't wait!"
The woman's expression hardened. "I'm afraid it will have to!" She reached forward as if to switch off her screen.
"No!" Melyor said quickly, drawing another grin from the woman. Melyor closed her eyes and took a slow breath. She's a Legate, she told herself. Treat her that way.
"Please," she began again. "This is very important. I understand that
Wiercia has much to do, but this is about what happened to Shivohn."
The Legate narrowed her eyes. "We know what happened to Sovereign
Shivohn. Sovereign-Designate Wiercia intends to raise the matter at the
next meeting of the Council."
"She can't do that!" Melyor said.
"Of course she can. I'm certain that Marar will be fascinated to learn that a Bragory assassin killed Sovereign Shivohn."
Melyor shook her head again. "That's not what happened." But she knew
that she had no chance of convincing the woman. She had been through
this same conversation a number of times over the past several days
with a number of different Legates. Perhaps she had even spoken with
this woman before. It was hard to tell. With their faces framed by the
black headpieces, all of Oerella-Nal's Legates looked the same: dour
and cold. Certainly they were all equally adamant in their
unwillingness to listen to her or allow her to speak with Wiercia.
In all likelihood she would have no more success with Oerella-Nal's new
leader if she ever got the chance to speak with her, but she had to
try. There was too much at stake not to.
She could still hear in her mind the explosion that killed Shivohn as
it had sounded over the speak-screen. And she could still see the
expression on the face of the young woman who had answered her call,
and who, after an agonizingly long interval, returned to Shivohn's
quarters to inform her that the Sovereign was dead. Coming as it did
less than an hour after the attempt on her own life, Shivohn's
assassination struck Melyor as too improbable a coincidence to be
believed.
Her suspicions were confirmed two days later, when she received word
through Jibb's intelligence network that the detonator of the boomer
that killed Shivohn had been found and identified as coming from
Bragor-Nal. Two bombs, one with a detonator from Oerella-Nal that
almost kills Bragor-Nal's Sovereign, and the other with a detonator
from Bragor-Nal that kills the Sovereign of Oerella-Nal. So clumsy a
plot could only have been initiated by one man: Marar, Sovereign of
Stib-Nal. Who else had so much to gain from a conflict between
Oerella-Nal and Bragor-Nal? Since Melyor's investiture, the
centuries-old antagonism between Lon-Ser's two largest Nals had been
replaced by an unprecedented period of accord. As a result, the
perquisites Stib-Nal had enjoyed as Bragor-Nal's ally within the
Council, meager though they were, had vanished, leaving Marar's
diminutive territory as little more than a political irrelevancy. Of
course he was behind the bombings. It seemed so transparent that it was
almost laughable. At least it did to her.
But Wiercia and her Legates remained unconvinced. Melyor had shown them
the detonator from the boomer that damaged the Gold Palace, holding it
up before the speak-screen so they could see. But all the Legates to
whom she had spoken had dismissed the item as nothing more than a prop
in Bragor-Nal's elaborate scheme to kill Shivohn. As if Melyor had
nothing better to do with her time than stage attempts on her own life
and kill the single most powerful ally she had in all of Lon-Ser.
It was ludicrous. And yet, for all its gross heavy-handedness, Marar's
ploy was working. In the course of a single morning, he had managed to
end nearly seven years of cooperation between his two giant rivals.
Wiercia and her underlings believed that Shivohn had been killed by
agents of Bragor-Nal, and Melyor didn't know how to convince them that
they were wrong.
"Look," she said dully, gazing at her speak-screen again, "there was an
attempt made on my life the same day Shivohn was killed. We found the
detonator from the bomb and—"
"Yes, I know," the Legate broke in, sounding unimpressed. "The
detonator from that bomb came from Oerella-Nal. We've heard this
before, Sovereign. You and I spoke just a few days ago.
Sovereign-Designate Wiercia will consider your evidence at the next
meeting of the Council."
Melyor exhaled through her teeth and rubbed a hand across her brow. She
had never suffered fools well and was about to tell the Legate as much,
when a thought occurred to her. She had little expectation that this
gambit would work, but she had long since exhausted her other options.
"Tell Wiercia that I wish to congratulate her myself on her impending
investiture, and that I want to do so not only as Sovereign of
Bragor-Nal, but also as Bearer of the Stone and emissary of Lon-Ser's
Gildriites."
The Legate looked at her skeptically for several moments.
"Tell her as well," Melyor added, casually picking up her staff with
its glowing crimson stone and laying it on her desk where it could be
seen through the speak-screen, "that I also wish to convey a message of
goodwill from the Order of Mages and Masters in Tobyn-Ser."
The woman's eyes widened and, after another moment's hesitation, she nodded and stepped away from her speak-screen.
Melyor waited for what seemed a long time, and as the minutes passed,
she began to wonder if her gambit had worked. But at last, just as she
had convinced herself that Wiercia had refused to speak with her once
more, the Sovereign-Designate stepped in front of the speak-screen and
sat down.
Melyor had only met Wiercia once before, seven years ago when, along
with Gwilym, Bearer of the Stone, and Orris, she was arrested and
thrown in an Oerellan jail. Desperate to speak with Shivohn and enlist
her aid in their struggle against Cedrych, the Bragory Overlord who was
behind the attacks on Orris's land, Melyor had told the guards that the
three of them were in Oerella-Nal as Shivohn's guests. She had been
lying, of course, but perhaps because of the sheer audacity of the
claim, Shivohn sent Wiercia, at the time a Legate, to investigate.
Wiercia had not changed much in the intervening years. There might have
been a few more lines around her blue eyes and her wide mouth and a few
more wisps of grey in her golden hair. But otherwise her face was just
as Melyor remembered: square, attractive in a severe way, and wearing a
cold, thin smile. Melyor also noticed that even though she had yet to
be invested, Wiercia was already wearing the crimson robe donned by all
of Oerella-Nal's Sovereigns.
"Hello, Wiercia," Melyor said with exaggerated enthusiasm. "How kind you are to speak with me."
"You've finally gotten my attention, Melyor," the woman replied
indifferently. "Don't waste my time with sarcasm. What is it that you
want?"
"As I told your Legate, I only wish to congratulate you on behalf of my people and my friends in Tobyn-Ser."
"Yes, so she told me. Mentioning your sorcerer friends did just what
you wanted it to: it got me here. Now, I'll give you one last chance.
What do you want?"
"How goes your investigation of Shivohn's assassination?" Melyor asked.
Wiercia's eyes flashed dangerously. "How dare you!" she breathed. "I will not sit here and be mocked by you of all people!"
"The question was intended seriously," Melyor told the woman, struggling to keep her own temper in check.
"This charade of yours has gone on long enough!" Wiercia sat forward so
that her face came close to the screen. "Shivohn's lone fault was her
overriding desire to see the good in people. You may have fooled her
into believing that you had reformed your ways and changed Bragor-Nal
into a place of peace and respectability. But I know better. The
detonator from the bomb that killed the Sovereign only proved what I've
suspected all along. You're still just a miscreant who happens to rule
a den of hoodlums."
"Careful, Wiercia," Melyor said. "You don't want to make me angry. If I
deny your petition for entry to the Council, your Legates will have to
choose someone else. Surely you don't want that, do you?"
The woman's face blanched. "You wouldn't dare! The petition is a formality, nothing more! You can't deny it!"
Melyor gave an icy smile. "Can't I? If I was willing to kill Shivohn, as you believe, why should I even hesitate to do this?"
Wiercia glared at her, the muscles in her jaw clenching. "What do you
want?" she asked once more, although this time there was a note of
resignation in her voice.
"I just want you to listen to me with an open mind," Melyor said. "Put
aside your suspicions for a moment and hear what I have to say." She
smiled again. "That's a small price to pay for admission to the
Council, don't you think?"
The woman said nothing, but after several moments, she gave a small nod.
Melyor took a breath. This was to be her only chance, she knew. She
needed to choose her words carefully. "I don't expect you to believe
this right away, but I considered Shivohn my friend."
Wiercia let out a high, disbelieving laugh.
"You agreed to listen!"
"I expected more than lies!"
That almost ended it. Melyor was already reaching for the speak-screen
to switch it off when a voice in her mind stopped her. Shivohn's voice.
Don't let it end this way, she heard the Sovereign say. Don't let them win, not without a fight.
Pulling her hand back, Melyor exhaled slowly. "Do you think I'm a foolish woman, Wiercia?"
The woman blinked. "What?"
Melyor grinned. "Do you think I'm foolish?"
"No," Wiercia replied after a brief pause. "I think you're dangerously clever."
"Then why would I have Shivohn killed?"
She hesitated, and Melyor could see from the uncertainty in her pale
eyes that she had never stopped to consider a motive for Shivohn's
murder. "Well ..."
"You yourself just said that Shivohn had been too willing to trust me;
that she was too eager to believe I had changed," Melyor went on
pressing her advantage. "Why would I want to see her replaced by
someone who'd be less likely to trust me?"
Wiercia stared blankly at her speak-screen.
"It doesn't make any sense, does it?"
For a long time, the Oerellan leader said nothing, and when she finally
spoke, her reply surprised Melyor. "I'm listening," she said simply.
"If it wasn't for Shivohn, I would never have become Sovereign. In
fact, I probably would have died at the hands of Cedrych's assassins.
And even though we didn't agree on every issue that came before the
Council, we did work well together. Indeed, I'd guess that relations
between our Nals have never been so good."
"I suppose that's true."
"Which begs the question," Melyor continued, "who has the most to gain from putting an end to our cooperation?"
Wiercia seemed to consider this for some time. "I'd have to say Stib-Nal."
Melyor nodded. "Very good." She held up the detonator from the boomer
that damaged the Gold Palace. "This came from a bomb that went off just
outside my bedroom window less than an hour before Shivohn was killed.
Do you recognize the shape?"
"Yes," the woman said evenly. No doubt her Legates had prepared her for this. "It's one of ours."
"Doesn't that tell you something?"
"Not necessarily," Wiercia said with a shrug. "You could easily have
smuggled that into Bragor-Nal and staged the attempt on your life."
"Yes!" Melyor said impatiently. "Just as you could have with the device that killed Shivohn!"
"Me?"
Melyor almost said the obvious: that Wiercia had more to gain from
Shivohn's death than anyone else in the Matriarchy. But she knew that
such a statement would do far more damage than good. Wiercia had no
more to do with Shivohn's death than Melyor. "Not you personally," she
said instead. "Someone. Anyone. The point is that while Shivohn's
assassination and the attempt on my life could have been carried out by
people from either of our Nals, it strikes me as too much of a
coincidence that such similar attacks should take place in a single
morning."
"And it strikes me as absurd that Marar would try something so clumsy and transparent."
Melyor closed her eyes and rubbed a hand over her face. Wiercia was right. It did
sound absurd. But she had thought it through again and again. This was
the only explanation that made any sense at all. "Do you know Marar,
Wiercia? Have you ever met him?"
"No," the woman admitted.
"Well, I've known him for several years. You can't serve on the Council
with someone for that long without gaining an understanding of how his
or her mind works. Before I became Sovereign, Marar played a crucial
role in maintaining Bragor-Nal's supremacy within the Council. And as
such he wielded a certain amount of power and influence. He lost all
that when Shivohn and I became allies, and he's been looking for a way
to get it back!"
"I'm sure he has. But this is ..." Wiercia opened her hands and shook her head. "Even Marar wouldn't be this inept."
"Inept?" Melyor repeated. "Don't you see? It's working. You think I
killed Shivohn. It took days before you would even talk to me. Imagine
if I had died, too. Our Nals might already be at war." She smiled
grimly. "It may have been heavy-handed, but Marar's plan has proven
itself anything but inept."
Again Wiercia fell silent, and she sat perfectly still, staring at her
hands. "If you're right," she began at last, "what can we do?"
"I'm not sure yet," Melyor admitted, gazing at her glowing red stone.
"I need to know if he's going to try to have me killed again
immediately, or if he'll be satisfied for now with driving a wedge
between the Matriarchy and Bragor-Nal." She looked up again, her eyes
meeting Wiercia's. "In the meantime though, we can at least keep
speaking to each other. We can't let Marar think he's winning."
"Why not?" the woman asked. "If he's convinced that he's broken the
Oerellan-Bragory alliance, maybe he won't come after you again at all."
Melyor felt herself break into a grin. Perhaps she could work with this
severe woman after all. "That's an interesting point. Although I don't
think it would save my life."
"Why not?"
She held up her staff. "I'm a Gildriite, a Bearer no less." She
shrugged. "Marar has never trusted me. Eventually he'll come after me
again. But you may be right: we can at least buy ourselves some time by
making him think that his plan is working."
"And how do we do that?"
"By making a show of not trusting each other." She smiled. "It should be easy for you."
To Melyor's surprise, Wiercia smiled in return. "Too bad," she said. "I
like a challenge." A moment later though, her smile vanished. "You
realize that if you turn out to be right, we have another problem."
Melyor held herself perfectly still and waited. She knew what Wiercia
was going to say, for she had been thinking the same thing for several
days. Marar was the least of their worries.
"If Marar really did smuggle these bombs into our Nals," the woman was
saying, her square features growing pale as if she was hearing her own
words for the very first time, "then we've both got traitors in our
security forces. Which means that both of our lives are in danger."
"I know," Melyor said, nodding slowly. "Be careful whom you trust."
Wiercia gave a small, mirthless laugh. "Those are unsettling words coming from you."
"I don't doubt it," Melyor answered, trying unsuccessfully to smile. "Welcome to the Council of Sovereigns."
* * *
At first he had been livid. He was paying the guard handsomely— a
good deal more than he had paid Shivohn's security man— and in
return for all of that gold he expected efficiency and competence. He
had spent too much time and far too much money putting this plan in
motion to have it spoiled by one man's carelessness. He had told the
guard as much that very night, while the rest of Melyor's men were
still repairing the facade of Bragor-Nal's Gold Palace. And he had been
pleased to see the man flinch at his raised voiced and his threats of
punishment for further failures.
Melyor and Shivohn thought him a poor leader, he knew. They thought him
a fool. But even if Stib-Nal was the smallest and weakest of the Nals,
becoming its Sovereign had been no small accomplishment. Marar was
fairly certain that Melyor's path to power and his own had been rather
similar. Like Bragor-Nal, Stib-Nal was governed by a strict hierarchy
within which advancement resulted from guile and strength and, yes,
just a little bit of luck. The Bragory system operated on a much
grander scale, but the similarities were too significant to be ignored.
Those in Stib-Nal who had underestimated him had wound up dead. Just
like Shivohn. In many ways, he and Melyor had much in common.
Which was why, after a few days' reflection, his ire had begun to fade.
He had wanted her dead. She was a Gildriite and he was more than a
little afraid of the powers embodied in that glimmering crystal she
carried with her. But she also had ties to the mages of Tobyn-Ser, and
no matter what she had become in recent years, once upon a time she had
been as ruthless and ambitious as any of Bragor-Nal's lords. If the
alliance between Oerella-Nal and Bragor-Nal could be broken, and if
Melyor could be convinced once more that the path to power and gold led
through Tobyn-Ser, the guard's failure might prove to be a stroke of
enormous good fortune. Her connections to Tobyn-Ser's Order of Mages
and Masters would be invaluable if combined with the relations Marar
himself had cultivated with that land's clerics. The possibility
remained remote of course. But he still had the guard. If things didn't
work out, he'd just send another bomb for Melyor.
He had first learned of the Tobyn-Ser Initiative seven years earlier
during that extraordinary meeting of the Council when Shivohn
confronted Durell with her knowledge of the plan to subjugate the
mysterious land across Arick's Sea. Marar had been so shocked by her
revelations, and so frightened of their implications, that he actually
opposed Durell openly, something he had never done before. He had
feared that the Bragory Sovereign would punish him in some way for his
effrontery, but Durell didn't even survive the night. Cedrych, the
renegade Overlord, killed him and petitioned for admission to the
Council, only to be killed himself by Melyor and her sorcerer before
Marar and Shivohn could reply.
In the years since, however, Marar had come to recognize what he might
gain from the conquest of Tobyn-Ser. From all he had heard from
Abboriji merchants, the land of the Hawk-Magic had in abundance all the
raw goods that Lon-Ser's Nals had exhausted: timber and minerals, as
well as clean water and air and room to expand. Which was why, when
those same merchants told him that Tobyn-Ser's clerics sought weapons
in exchange for gold, Marar jumped at the chance to arrange a series of
clandestine weapons transactions. It was an opening. Nothing more, he
knew. Stib-Nal had neither the resources nor the technology to defeat
the sorcerers' magic, even with the clerics' help. But apparently this
Cedrych had once believed that he did. And since he had chosen Melyor
to be the leader of the band that traveled to Tobyn-Ser, it followed
that she knew what Cedrych had in mind.
Marar nodded to himself and smiled. For now at least, Melyor was worth
far more to him alive than dead. And if she proved uncooperative, she
could be killed; then he'd approach the new Bragory Sovereign about
Tobyn-Ser. The beautiful Gildriite had made much of the changes she had
brought to Bragor-Nal, but Marar suspected that Stib-Nal's northern
neighbor remained much as it had been. Melyor's appetite for gold might
have ebbed, but her replacement was unlikely to be so principled.
He took a breath and sat before his speak-screen. In the interim, he
had another assignment for the Bragory security man. Melyor wasn't the
only threat he faced in Bragor-Nal.
* * *
Premel was in a security meeting when the summons came. Jibb, who was
reviewing what they had learned about the boomer that damaged the
palace was in mid-sentence when the beeping interrupted him.
"What was that?" he asked, glancing up from the papers in front of him and scanning the room.
"It was nothing, General," Premel answered, fighting to keep his voice
steady. "Just a remote signal from my speak-screen." Jibb narrowed his
eyes slightly, and Premel forced a smile. "Probably just the girl I was
with last night."
The security chief gave him a wry grin and resumed his briefing. But
Premel heard little of what Jibb said for the rest of the hour, and by
the time he returned to his quarters his hands were shaking with rage
and another thing that he didn't care to name.
Switching on the screen on his desk, he immediately found himself face-to-face with the Sovereign of Stib-Nal.
"Ah, at last," Marar said, a hollow smile spreading across his thin,
bony features. "I was beginning to think you were ignoring me."
"I was in the middle of a briefing!" Premel flung at him. "I thought you were only going to contact me after hours."
The Sovereign shrugged his narrow shoulders with annoying indifference.
"I needed to speak with you," he said. "And I suggest you watch your
tone. I'm paying you, remember?"
Premel glared at the man, but offered no reply. He had been growing
increasingly uncomfortable with their arrangement. There was no denying
that the rewards were great, but the risks were growing all too
rapidly. It had started innocuously enough: standard intelligence
gathering, logistical information, and a few details on weapons
technology. None of it had seemed overly threatening to his own safety
or that of his friends in SovSec.
But then the assassination attempts began. Premel, either by
unconscious choice or sheer stupidity, had been slow to make the
connection, but when Marar started asking him questions about security
response times to the attacks, he could no longer ignore the obvious.
Even then, though, he had found a way to justify his betrayals and the
riches they brought him. Melyor was a Gildriite; she had no business
running Bragor-Nal. One had only to look at the things she had done as
Sovereign to understand that. The Nal system had always been based upon
a strict hierarchy that rewarded strength and resourcefulness. It was
violent, perhaps even cruel to those who were too weak to advance. But
it worked. It had for centuries. And she knew that as well as anyone,
because she had been as fine a Nal-Lord as Premel could have imagined.
But that stone she carried had changed her. It had made her squeamish.
Her efforts to rid the quads of violence had only weakened Bragor-Nal.
And even worse, she had forged an ill-conceived and dangerous alliance
with the Oerellan Matriarchy that threatened to compromise the Nal's
military and economic supremacy.
So when Marar instructed Premel to arrange the next attempt on Melyor's
life, the security man hesitated, but only briefly. He was doing it for
the good of the Nal, he told himself. No Sovereign as weak as she would
have survived this long under the old rules. If Bragor-Nal was to
remain the strongest Nal in Lon-Ser, she had to die.
But while Premel had long since made peace with his decision to betray
Melyor, his betrayal of Jibb still bothered him. In his opinion, Jibb
should have been Sovereign. The security chief still understood the way
the Nal was supposed to work, and he would never have allowed
Bragor-Nal's position in Lon-Ser to be weakened. Only his unflagging
devotion to Melyor kept him from saying as much openly. And though
Premel didn't quite understand Jibb's continued loyalty to her, he
could not help but admire the man for it. Jibb was a unique blend: he
was strong enough to survive the Nal system and yet honorable enough to
earn the trust and respect of the men who worked under him. Jibb would
have been disgusted by Premel's betrayal. But as Premel saw it, this
was his chance to set things right, his chance to make Jibb Sovereign.
The trick was to keep Marar happy at the same time that he pursued his
own goal. So for the time being, he had resolved to accept the
Sovereign's condescension with equanimity. When Jibb became Sovereign
and Premel the leader of SovSec, they'd get their revenge.
"What is it you need, Sovereign?" Premel asked with as much courtesy as he could muster.
Marar grinned. "That's better."
Premel merely waited, refusing to react to the Sovereign's remark.
"I've been thinking, Premel," Marar began again a moment later. "Your
failure the other day may have been fortuitous. I've come to think that
I was a bit rash in trying to have Melyor killed just now. She is, I've
concluded, far more valuable to me alive than dead."
Your failure. Premel had to bite back a retort. It hadn't been
his fault. For some reason, whether because he was too drugged to know
better, or too stupid to care, the assassin had deviated from their
timetable. Not by much to be sure, but enough. Premel had explained
that to Marar several times already, but the man refused to listen.
"I'm glad to hear that, Sovereign," Premel managed. "Is that why you contacted me? To put my ... concerns to rest?"
"Hardly," Marar replied, smiling thinly. "No, I have another task for you."
Premel felt the color drain from his face. If he didn't want Melyor dead right then, what else could he ask—
"I want you to get rid of Jibb for me."
Premel stared at the screen. "You can't be serious," he finally said, the words coming out as little more than a whisper.
"I'm not a man given to jests, Premel."
"But Jibb—" He faltered. "Why?"
"Any number of reasons," Marar said breezily. "At some point I will
want Melyor dead. And when I do, it will be much easier to kill her
without Jibb by her side. Besides, you know as well as I that if word
ever got back to Jibb that I'd been responsible for Melyor's death,
he'd see to it that I died as well." The Sovereign narrowed his eyes.
"Is there a problem, Premel?"
He licked his lips but it did no good. His mouth was as dry as a quad
avenue in midsummer. "Killing Jibb could be ... could be
complicated."
Marar chuckled. "No more complicated than killing Melyor certainly." He
furrowed his brow, though a smile lingered on his lips. "Come now,
Premel. I expected you to relish this assignment. You told me yourself
that if Jibb ever left SovSec, you'd replace him as head of security.
Here's your chance."
Premel exhaled through his teeth and closed his eyes briefly, cursing
himself for confiding such a thing to this man. "I can't do this," he
said, opening his eyes once more. "Jibb is my friend. He's a good man."
He's going to be Sovereign. "I can't do this," he repeated.
"Sure you can," Marar told him, his tone hardening. "You will, and soon."
Premel swallowed, gathering himself. "And if I refuse?"
"I don't think you will," the Sovereign said. "I think you have too
clear a notion of what Jibb and Melyor would do to you if they learned
of your disloyalty."
Premel opened his mouth to speak but found that he couldn't think of
anything to say. For the first time in more years than he cared to
count, he felt like crying.
"Life is about choices, my friend," Marar was saying, although Premel
could barely hear him. "Some time ago, you chose wealth. You must have
known that such a choice would carry a price. You're lucky really. As
it happens, you not only get gold, you also get power. SovSec will be
yours. Considering that, it seems to me that Jibb's life is a
relatively small price to pay."
Premel stared at his desk— he couldn't bear to meet the Sovereign's gaze— and he kept silent.
"Think of this as your chance to redeem yourself," Marar went on. "I'll expect to hear from you when this is taken care of."
There seemed to be a windstorm in his mind. Marar's words were coming
to him from a great distance. But he made himself nod once. The
Sovereign would be expecting at least that much.
"Don't fail me again, Premel. Or I'll be forced to expose you and find
another man in SovSec who's more committed to carrying out the tasks I
assign."
An instant later, the Sovereign's bony face was gone. Still, Premel
just sat there, unable even to muster the energy to switch off his
screen.
He had more gold than he had ever dreamed possible. SovSec was his if
he wanted it. And he had never in his life felt so helpless. Marar had
trapped him with bait that he had been all too willing to take. There
was no one to whom he could turn.
That thought stopped him cold, for there was one person. Remarkable and
strange as it seemed, he suddenly knew with shocking certainty that he
was not without hope. He had never dreamed that he could even consider
such a thing, but neither had he ever expected that he would be in a
predicament like this.
Life is about choices, Marar had said.
Premel nodded, and leaning forward, he finally turned off his screen. Perhaps this once he had made the right one.
8
As I see it, the appearance in Tobyn-Ser of these free mages is
dangerous for a number of reasons. Indeed, the concern that I expressed
to you in my last letter— that they do not answer to any central
authority, as the mages of both the Order and League do— is but
one of my objections, and not even the greatest....
For the first time in a thousand years, the Mage-Craft is controlled by
two bodies rather than one. The Order's relationship with the Keepers
remains strained at best, and, from what I have heard, it seems that
the early cooperation between the Temples and the League has given way
to conflict and distrust. Add to that the new People's Movement, which
professes hostility toward the League, the Order, and the Temples, and
the result is more instability and a greater likelihood of violent
conflict than this land has ever seen.
Right now a delicate balance exists, maintaining a fragile peace among
all these bodies. But it will not take long for the free mages to
realize that they have the power to tip that balance one way or
another. And I fear that when they recognize this, their hunger for
power will lead them to throw the whole land into chaos and ruin.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Winter, God's Year 4633.
Tammen sat across from him, staring at the fire, her face looking young
despite the lines around her mouth and the scowl that she always seemed
to be wearing these days. The light of the flames and her flashing blue
stone shimmered in her pale eyes, and her light brown hair fell
attractively over her brow. Nodin thought that she had never looked so
lovely.
He looked away and stroked the chin of his hawk who sat beside him on a
wide log. Tammen didn't care for him in that way, he knew, and though
he could still feel his heart tighten when he thought of it, for the
most part the pain of her rejection had healed. He could not bear,
however, to have her think of him as a coward, as she clearly had since
the incident at Prannai several days before. He could hear it in her
voice when she spoke to him. He could see it in her eyes on the rare
occasions when she allowed herself to look at him. It's not my fault! he wanted to tell her. I didn't want anyone to die.
But he knew that wasn't the issue. It no longer mattered how it had
begun, or what they had intended. There had been a battle, and he had
merely watched from behind Henryk's shimmering green shield as she
killed the Temple's men. It hadn't been cowardice. He really wasn't
certain what it had been. But it had earned her contempt.
"Perhaps we should go back," he suggested, gazing at her through the
firelight. He glanced at Henryk, who was leaning against a tree a short
distance from the fire, his eyes closed, his feet resting on a broad,
flat rock. "Padgett might try something again. Maira might need our
help."
"We've been through this," Tammen said wearily. "Maira asked us to
leave. And besides, I don't think the Keeper is about to go after the
trees again."
"But what if he does? We should—"
"Stop it, Nodin!" she said, her voice like a blade. "It's over, and we
have other things to worry about! What happened in Prannai doesn't
matter anymore!"
He felt his face turning red and was grateful for the darkness and the
uncertain light of the fire. He looked at Henryk again and saw that the
man was watching him, the expression in his dark eyes unreadable.
"I'm sorry," Nodin murmured.
Tammen dismissed his apology with an impatient gesture and picked up
her staff. "I wish I knew what they were up to," she said, gazing at
the flashing blue ceryll. "I don't trust them. I don't care if the
League has more members at this point. The Order is the real danger.
They're the ones we have to watch."
Nodin shot a look toward Henryk, who merely shook his head. She had
said such things before, and though neither of them agreed with her,
they both understood why she felt as she did.
Tammen was one of the few survivors of the outlanders' infamous attack
on Watersbend, the last of Tobyn-Ser's villages to be ravaged by the
raiders. Her parents and sisters died that night years before, as did
most of her neighbors and friends, and though she had known for years
that the attackers had not truly been mages, she had never stopped
blaming the Order for what had happened.
"Why would they have a Gathering now?" she asked, her eyes still on her stone.
"We'll find out soon enough," Henryk said, sounding worn. "It's
probably just something having to do with the League. It's nothing for
us to worry about."
"No," Tammen said. "It's more than that. I'm sure of it. You can't trust them."
Nodin and Henryk exchanged a second look, but said nothing more.
They sat in silence for some time, Tammen still staring at her ceryll
and Henryk sitting forward to stir the coals with a long narrow branch.
Nodin tried desperately to think of something to say. He was the oldest
member of their trio. He had been bound to this, his second bird, for
nearly as long as his companions had been bound to their first
familiars. It fell to him to come up with a plan of some sort. At least
it should have. But ever since Prannai ...
"So where are we going next?" Henryk finally asked, settling back against his tree.
"That's really not the issue," Tammen answered. "It doesn't matter
where we go, or who we encounter. We need to find a way to make
ourselves stronger. We can't afford a repeat of what happened in
Prannai."
"I promise it will be different next time," Nodin told her.
She shook her head. "I'm not talking about you, Nodin! I'm talking about all of us, the entire Movement!"
"I don't understand," Henryk said.
"How many free mages would you say there are in all of Tobyn-Ser?" she asked him.
The dark-eyed man shrugged. "I don't know. Ten. Maybe a dozen."
"Right. And that's less than half the membership of the Order or the League."
"I think our numbers will grow," Nodin said. "It may take some time—"
"We don't have time!" she broke in. "The People's Movement is looking
to us for leadership and protection. If we can't help them now, it
won't matter how many no-cloaks there are next year. A few more
episodes like the one in Prannai, and the Movement will be dead. No one
will trust us to help them anymore."
"What's your point?" Henryk asked.
"My point is this: the League and the Order outnumber us, apparently
the Temples have access to the outlanders' weaponry, and it's only a
matter of time before they're too powerful for us as well." She paused
and regarded them both. "We need a weapon as well. We need something
that will allow us to contend with the numbers of the League and Order,
and the weapons of the Keepers."
Nodin stared at her. "You may be right, but what?"
She hesitated, suddenly appearing uncomfortable. She glanced briefly at
Henryk, but then faced Nodin again. "We need help," she said, sounding
far less certain of herself than she had a moment before. "And I
haven't been able to think of anyone who'd be willing to help us." She
took a breath. "At least no one who's living."
"No one who's living?" Henryk repeated, a quizzical expression on his angular face.
But Nodin already understood. It almost made sense really. Everyone
knew that the Unsettled had helped the Order defeat the outlanders at
Phelan Spur twelve years ago. Obviously they still possessed power of a
sort. And if they could be convinced to aid the no-cloaks, the People's
Movement might be able to overcome the advantages enjoyed by its
rivals. Nodin could not help but see the logic in what Tammen was
suggesting.
But neither could he ignore the cold dread that had taken hold of him
as soon as the words passed her lips, as if one of the ghosts had
wrapped an icy hand around his heart. Theron's Curse was no trifle; no
mage who had spent even a single day unbound could ever doubt that. And
those who had fallen victim to the Curse, those who Tammen sought to
enlist in their cause, included some of the most formidable
and ... malevolent ... figures in the land's history.
"You can't be serious!" Henryk said breathlessly, his dark eyes wide as
he finally grasped what she had suggested. "You want us to go to the
Unsettled for help?"
"Yes," she answered defiantly. "I've been thinking about this for
several days, and I don't see any other way for the Movement to
survive."
"But it makes no sense! Why would they even help us? All of the
Unsettled were once members of the Order. They have no interest in
helping us or the Movement."
"Some of them do," Tammen said pointedly. "Some of them care nothing for the Order."
Henryk leveled a rigid finger at her. "I'm not going to Theron's Grove!"
"No one's asking you to, Henryk!" she replied.
"Then who's going to help us?"
Nodin knew what she would say even before she spoke the name. She had
been at Watersbend. And just as that meant that she would never trust
the Order, it also meant that where the rest of the land saw a traitor
and a murderer, she saw a redeemer, a man who had saved her life and
what remained of her home.
"Sartol," Tammen said.
The very sound of the Owl-Master's name made Nodin shudder. It didn't
matter that Sartol had killed the outlanders at Watersbend in order to
keep his treachery a secret. It didn't matter that he had given aid to
the outlanders, that he had helped make the attack on Watersbend
possible in the first place. All that mattered to Tammen and the others
who had survived that night of horror and flame was that Sartol had
ended the attack and avenged the lives of those who died. To them,
Sartol was a hero. They didn't care what the rest of Tobyn-Ser thought.
"Sartol?" Henryk said. "The man was a traitor! He helped the outlanders! He's not interested in helping the Movement!"
Tammen regarded him coldly. "You sound like an Order mage, Henryk."
Henryk leaped to his feet, his eyes flashing with firelight and
ceryll-glow. But somehow he managed to keep his temper in check, and
when he spoke, his voice was surprisingly calm. "I'm only telling you
what I know to be true. Sartol betrayed the Order and Tobyn-Ser. He
killed the Sage and her First." He opened his hands as if pleading with
her. "These things are a matter of history, Tammen. They aren't stories
made up by the Order. They're facts."
"And I can tell you for a fact that he saved my life. If it wasn't for
Sartol my entire village would have been destroyed, and I would have
died, just as my parents did. Just as my sister did."
Henryk opened his mouth to say something but then stopped himself. For
a long time he just looked at her, a sad expression in his eyes. "I
won't do this," he finally said. "I know that you trust him—
perhaps I even understand why— but I know what he was in life,
and I won't go to him for help, even now."
"We have to!" Tammen insisted. "We need help!"
"You may be right," Henryk answered. "But we don't need it from the Unsettled!"
She threw up her hands in frustration. "Then who? How else can we match
the strength of Lon-Ser's weapons and the number of mages in the Order
and League?"
Henryk looked away. "I don't know. But this is insane! It's too dangerous!"
"So, you admit that you're scared."
"Yes," Henryk said, meeting her angry gaze again. "I'm scared. I'm afraid of the Unsettled. And I'm terrified of Sartol."
"And you're willing to let your fears destroy the Movement."
She offered it as a statement, and though Henryk turned away again, he didn't argue the point.
"And what about you?" she demanded, facing Nodin. "Are you afraid as well?"
Like you were in Prannai? She didn't say it of course. She
didn't have to. Nodin heard the insinuation in her voice, saw the
challenge in her grey eyes. He glanced at Henryk and saw that the
dark-eyed man was watching him, too, his expression no less intent than
Tammen's. Finding a compromise that both of them would accept wouldn't
be easy.
Fortunately, probably without meaning to, Henryk had given him an
opening of sorts. "I agree with Henryk that Sartol is not to be
trusted," he said. "The risks are too great. But," he added quickly,
seeing Tammen sneer in disgust, "I'm not ready to dismiss the idea of
seeking the aid of the Unsettled. I don't expect them to help us, but
we need to do something." He shrugged. "Maybe they'll surprise us."
"All right," Tammen said grudgingly. "But if not Sartol, then who?"
"I had forgotten this until Henryk mentioned that Sartol had killed the
Sage and her First all those years ago," Nodin replied. "But the First
was a man named Peredur, and he was rendered unbound before he died. He
found his first familiar along the western edge of Tobyn's Wood. It's
only six or seven days from here if we make good time."
"How do you know this?" Henryk asked.
"I was raised not far from there," he said. "Peredur and my father were friends."
"So he might listen to you."
"Possibly. It can't hurt to try." Nodin looked at Tammen. "I believe
there are some free towns in that area. Perhaps they'll be open to
joining the Movement. Even if Peredur won't help us, the journey won't
be for nothing." It came out as more of a plea than he had intended,
but at that point he didn't care. In spite of all that had passed
between them, he still wasn't ready to lose her.
"To the west, you say?" she asked, seeming distracted.
He nodded, and then said "Yes," because she didn't appear to be looking at him.
"Near the Northern Plain?"
"Within two leagues of it. You know the place?"
Tammen shook her head. "No." A moment later she shook her head a second
time, as if clearing her sight. "All right," she said. "We'll speak
with Peredur." She smiled at him. She actually smiled. "It's a good
idea."
Nodin grinned in return— how could he help it?— and he turned to face his other companion. "Henryk?"
The man looked from Nodin to Tammen, his dark eyes grim. "I don't like this," he said. "I'll do it, but I don't like it."
Nodin nodded, still smiling. "Good." Henryk's fears were probably
well-founded, but he couldn't bring himself to think of that right
then. They had a plan, one that kept them together for a while longer.
And she had smiled at him.
* * *
Jaryd, Alayna, and Myn came within sight of Amarid late in the morning.
From where they stood, on a stone outcropping in the lower foothills of
the Parneshome Range, the First Mage's city resembled a sprawling quilt
of white, grey, and green. The crystal statues of the Great Hall
sparkled in the sunlight and, farther in the distance, the white and
blue spires of Amarid's Assembly, the meeting place of the League,
gleamed like blades.
It would have taken them but a few hours to reach the Great Hall, but
Jaryd and Alayna thought it best to wait until nightfall, when Rithlar
was less likely to be noticed. They had avoided villages and towns
during their journey across Tobyn-Ser and, when encounters with
strangers appeared inevitable, Jaryd had instructed the great eagle to
fly off rather than allowing her to be seen in the company of a mage.
Too many of Tobyn-Ser's people knew what the appearance of an eagle
meant, and the last thing the mages wanted to do was cause the people
of the land to panic.
During their journey, they had managed to explain all of this to Myn in
a way that did not raise the child's fears, but as her excitement at
seeing Amarid grew, so did her impatience to reach the great city. And
in this instance, finally, Jaryd and Alayna's casual explanations did
not satisfy her. In the end, Jaryd felt he had no choice but to tell
her the truth, at least in part.
"We need to wait until nightfall, Myn, because we don't want anyone to see Rithlar."
"Why not?" the girl asked, looking puzzled.
"People might be scared of her," he said, glancing up at the bird, who
was circling high above them, a dark speck in a brilliant blue sky.
"Sometimes people are scared of eagles."
"Do they think eagles are mean?"
Jaryd took a breath and glanced at Alayna. He wasn't handling this very well.
"People are afraid of eagles," Alayna explained solemnly, "because usually eagles only bind to mages when there's a war."
"A war?" Myn whispered, her face turning pale. "Is there a war now?"
Alayna smiled. "No, Myn-Myn. There's no war."
Jaryd made himself smile as well, hoping Alayna's answer would satisfy his daughter. A year ago it might have.
"Is there going to be a war?"
Alayna's smile vanished, as did his own.
"We don't know, Myn," he told her. "We've come to Amarid so that we can
work with Uncle Baden, and Trahn, and Orris, and the rest of the mages
to prevent a war. But for now we don't want to scare the people in the
city by letting them see Rithlar. Do you understand?"
The girl nodded, her pale eyes wide, and her long chestnut hair
stirring in the mountain wind. "Who would we fight in a war?" she asked
a moment later.
"I don't know, Love," Jaryd said quietly. "None of us knows."
They spent the rest of the day playing beside a remote corner of
Dacia's Lake at the base of the foothills, the respite serving as a
distraction for Jaryd and Alayna as well as their child. Only when the
sun disappeared behind the mountains did they finally start toward the
First Mage's city.
They reached the bank of the Larian several hours later, crossed one of
the small, ancient bridges into the old town commons, and made their
way quietly to the Great Hall. Myn, who was sitting in front of Alayna
on Alayna's horse, had long since fallen asleep, and even after Alayna
handed her down to Jaryd, she did not wake. With Rithlar bounding along
beside him and his staff with its sapphire ceryll tucked under one arm,
Jaryd carried the girl to the large wooden doors of the domed building
and knocked once. Several moments passed before one of the blue-robed
stewards of the Hall answered his summons. She was young-looking and
her face was puffy with sleep, but she seemed to recognize him
immediately.
"Hawk-Mage!" she said with genuine surprise. "Can I help you?"
"Hawk-Mage Alayna and I need a place to sleep," he answered. And then,
grinning and glancing at Myn in his arms, he added, "As does our
daughter."
She furrowed her brow. "I don't understand. The inns are full?"
Apparently, Radomil had kept Jaryd's secret all too well. "Perhaps you
should summon the Owl-Sage," Jaryd said gently. "He'll know what to do."
"The Sage is sleeping, Hawk-Mage," the woman told him, looking at him
now as if he had lost his mind. "Everyone in the Hall is asleep."
Jaryd stared at the woman for several seconds and then, taking a slow
breath, he summoned a bright light from his crystal so that its glow
fell upon Rithlar, who now stood beside him on the threshold of the
Hall.
Seeing the great bird, the woman let out a startled gasp and jumped
back. "Fist of the God!" she breathed. "That's the biggest hawk I've
ever seen!"
"That's because she's not a hawk," Jaryd replied. "She's an eagle."
At first the woman did not seem to have heard what he said. She
continued to stare at the bird with unconcealed amazement. But after
several moments her eyes suddenly flew to Jaryd's face. "An eagle?" she
repeated.
Jaryd nodded.
By this time Alayna had joined him at the doorway, and she glared at
the woman with manifest impatience. "I believe Eagle-Sage Jaryd asked
you to wake the Owl-Sage," she said with asperity. "Please, don't make
us ask you again."
"Of course, Owl-Master!" the attendant said, nodding eagerly before
spinning away. "Please, enter!" she called over her shoulder. "The Sage
will be here shortly!"
The woman vanished behind a door, but almost immediately several
stewards appeared in her place, and within a few minutes the entire
Hall was bustling with activity. Attendants appeared carrying plates of
food that they placed on the council table in the middle of the
Gathering Chamber. Jaryd glimpsed others carrying bed linens to a small
room in the back of the Hall, and an older man, also wearing a blue
robe, told him that their horses had been taken to a nearby stable
where they would be fed and brushed.
Myn awoke, and seeing the small feast that had been prepared for them,
announced that she was too hungry to sleep. Alayna took her from
Jaryd's arms and carried her over to the food, for at that moment,
Radomil emerged from his chambers, accompanied by Ilianne, his wife.
"Eagle-Sage!" he called in his deep voice, striding across the Hall's broad marble floor. "Welcome to Amarid!"
Jaryd felt himself blush. "It's just me, Radomil."
The heavyset man gestured toward the enormous golden brown bird
standing by Jaryd's side. "And are you not bound to that magnificent
creature?"
Jaryd conceded the point with a grin and an embarrassed shrug.
Stopping in front of him, Radomil wrapped Jaryd in a fierce embrace.
"I'm glad to see you," he whispered, pounding Jaryd's back. "Even under
these circumstances, I'm glad to see you."
A moment later Radomil released him and turned toward Alayna and Myn.
"Hello, Alayna!" he said cheerfully. "Who's this young woman sharing
your meal with you?"
Myn looked at him with wide eyes. "It's me, Owl-Sage!" she said. "Myn!"
"Myn?" Radomil said with an exaggerated frown. "Impossible! Myn is just a babe! You're much too old to be her."
"No, really," the girl insisted. "It is me!"
The Sage squatted down next to her. "Are you sure?" he asked.
She nodded, and Radomil began to laugh. "Very well," he said. "I
believe you." He stood again and embraced Alayna. "She looks just like
you, Alayna." He glanced at Jaryd mischievously. "Lucky child."
Alayna laughed, as did Jaryd and Radomil.
"Don't listen to him, Jaryd," Ilianne said, a smile on her round,
pleasant face. "I see as much of you in Myn as I do Alayna. Actually
the one she really favors is your mother."
"I know," Jaryd agreed. "She has my mother's temper as well."
Radomil laughed again, but an instant later his mirth vanished, leaving
him grim-faced. He looked old, Jaryd realized. There was more grey than
black in his goatee and mustache, and even puffy with sleep, his face
appeared lined and drawn. The Sage regarded Rithlar a second time and
then approached her cautiously.
"Will she let me touch her?" he asked over his shoulder, his eyes never leaving the eagle.
"Yes," Jaryd replied. "She's not as ferocious as she looks."
The Sage nodded. "I've never been this close to an eagle," he
whispered, squatting again so that he could look at her closely. "I
never imagined they could be so large. Or so beautiful," he added
quickly, looking back at Jaryd for a second. He stroked the bird's
chin, and she closed her eyes and stretched out her neck obligingly.
"What's her name?"
"Rithlar."
Again the Sage nodded. "Like all the others."
Radomil looked over his shoulder at Ilianne, and the two of them shared a look.
After several seconds, she nodded. She might even have smiled. "Myn,"
she said, "why don't you and I go put the linens on your bed. We have a
special room set aside for you."
Myn glanced up at Alayna, a question in her pale eyes.
"It's all right, Myn-Myn," Alayna said. "I'll be along soon."
Myn took Ilianne's hand and the two of them started toward the back of the Hall, where the living quarters were.
"Ilianne and I will be out of the Sage's quarters tomorrow," Radomil
said, standing again and smoothing his cloak. "We weren't certain when
you'd be arriving. Mered has already vacated the First's quarters.
That's where we assumed you want Myn to be, so we prepared the room for
her ahead of time."
Alayna smiled, looking tired. "Thank you. That will be perfect for her.
As to the rest, we're in no rush to get into your quarters. If you need
more time, take it."
"Absolutely," Jaryd agreed. "We'll be fine anywhere."
"You're kind," Radomil said. "But with all the gods have placed on your
shoulders, you shouldn't have to worry about your comfort as well."
"Have the rest arrived already?" Alayna asked.
"Most, yes. Trahn arrived several days ago, as did Orris. Baden and
Sonel have been here for some time as well." The Sage smiled.
"Basically, we've been waiting for you. Mered and I have done as you
asked: no one knows of your binding. All we've said is that you asked
for a Gathering."
"Thank you. That must have raised some eyebrows."
"It did," Radomil said with a grin. "I seem to recall Orris's response being particularly spirited."
Alayna laughed. "He probably hasn't left Baden alone for a minute."
The three of them laughed briefly before growing serious again.
"What do you intend to do, Jaryd?" Radomil asked.
Jaryd pushed his hair back from his brow and took a slow breath. "I'm
still not certain," he admitted. "There's too much we don't know about
why Rithlar has come. And even with that information, I don't feel
qualified to make these decisions on my own. I need advice from all of
you."
"I understand," Radomil said, nodding. "Truly, I do. I never felt that
I was particularly well-suited to leading the Order, and I never had to
face the burden of being bound to an eagle. I don't envy you."
"We need sleep," Alayna said after a brief silence. "At least I do. We can't decide anything tonight anyway."
"You're right," the Sage said, suppressing a yawn. "Let me show you where you'll be sleeping tonight."
Jaryd and Alayna followed the Sage to their room and within a few
minutes had climbed into bed and fallen into a deep slumber. They awoke
early the next morning and after eating a quick breakfast, had one of
the attendants call the Order to the Gathering Chamber by ringing the
bells mounted atop the Great Hall.
They waited with Radomil in the Sage's quarters for the mages to
arrive. Better to field everyone's questions at once, Jaryd and Alayna
decided, than to answer them repeatedly as the membership of the Order
trickled into the Hall. The wait seemed interminable to Jaryd, although
he knew that it lasted only a short while. Faced now with the prospect
of assuming leadership of the Order, he felt all of his fears and
doubts returning. I'm not ready for this, he said to himself. Why would the gods choose me?
Alayna took his hand, seeming to read his thoughts, and Rithlar sent
him an image of their binding, as if to say that she had truly been
meant for him.
"It's time," Radomil said quietly, standing to face Jaryd. He smiled reassuringly. "Lead the way, Eagle-Sage."
Fighting back a wave of nausea, Jaryd stood as well and tried to return
the Sage's smile. He called Rithlar to his arm, wincing as her talons
gripped him. Even with the padding he had added to his sleeves, he
still felt as though she was shredding his skin. But in this instance,
he wanted her on his arm. With one last glance back at Alayna, he
stepped to the door, opened it, and entered the Gathering Chamber.
The others in the Hall turned to look at him, the rustle of their
cloaks echoing with unnatural loudness off the domed ceiling of the
chamber. His footsteps, and those of Alayna and Radomil behind him,
resonated through the room as well, but no other sounds reached him.
Unmoving and silent, his fellow mages merely stared at him, or rather
at the great bird that gripped his forearm, her talons piercing his
flesh. Baden and Orris were there, as were Sonel and Trahn, Mered, and
Ursel. They were his friends, the people who had taught him to be a
mage, and somehow he was supposed to lead them. He saw the fear in
their eyes— how could he miss it?— and as he had so many
times since binding to Rithlar, he had to struggle to control the panic
rising within him.
Reaching the Sage's chair— his chair now— he stopped and
looked around the council table. It had been many years since Erland
and Arslan led their followers out of the Great Hall and created the
League, and yet Jaryd was still not accustomed to seeing the long table
with so few seated around it. Strangely, he found himself thinking
about the size of the meeting table in Amarid's Assembly. Did Erland
find a smaller table, or did he expect that someday the Assembly would
accommodate all of Tobyn-Ser's mages?
Alayna and Radomil stopped on either side of him, and a deathlike
stillness fell over the Great Hall. The building itself seemed to be
holding its breath, as if waiting to see what would happen now that an
Eagle-Sage had appeared again in the Gathering Chamber. The only one
who seemed unaffected was Rithlar, who turned her head from side to
side, staring avidly at the other birds arrayed around the table.
"The gods have sent us an Eagle-Sage," Radomil announced, at last.
"Jaryd leads the Order now, and he has chosen Alayna to be his First."
The ghost of a smile touched his lips. "I would think it a good choice
even if she wasn't his wife."
Everyone in the chamber laughed, and much of the tension that had
gripped the room a moment before vanished. Jaryd grinned appreciatively
at the portly mage, thinking to himself that despite Radomil's comments
to the contrary, the Owl-Master was a fine leader.
"I will leave it to our Eagle-Sage to convene this Gathering," Radomil
said, his smile lingering. "Thank you all for the wisdom and respect
you've shown me during my time as your Sage." He gripped Jaryd's
shoulder briefly and nodded once to Alayna, before making his way to
what had been, prior to his term as Owl-Sage, his customary position at
the table.
Alayna reached over and gave Jaryd's hand a squeeze. Then she lowered herself into the First's chair.
Jaryd looked around the room and took a steadying breath. "This is
Rithlar," he said, indicating the eagle with his free hand. "I bound to
her several weeks ago and immediately contacted Radomil to request that
he summon all of you to Amarid." Why would the gods choose me?
"I'd be grateful for any advice you can offer. I don't know why this
bird has come to me rather than to one of you, but we all know what the
appearance of an eagle means."
He looked around the table, inviting the others to speak. At first no
one did, but then Trahn sat forward, looking from Jaryd to the other
mages.
"Do we really know?" he asked. "Certainly in the past, they have been
harbingers of war. But does Jaryd's binding mean that war is inevitable
or only that it's possible?"
"I'm not sure that it matters," Orris replied grimly. "We have to assume the worst and make our preparations accordingly."
Sonel nodded. "Orris is right. I hope that war can be avoided, but we'd
be foolish to allow such hopes to interfere with our planning."
"But how do we prepare?" Ursel asked. "We don't even know who our enemy is."
"Of course we do!" said Tramys, one of the newer members of the Order. "It's the outlanders. It must be."
"We've had no trouble from the outlanders for several years," Orris
said. "What makes you think that they're suddenly interested in a war?"
"They've attacked us before!" Tramys answered. "Recently. I know that
things have improved since your journey there, Orris. But you can't
expect them to have changed entirely. Not this soon."
The burly mage shook his head. "I don't believe we have anything to fear from Lon-Ser."
Another of the young mages stood, a woman named Orlanne. "What about
the stories we've heard of Temple guards carrying weapons from Lon-Ser?"
"I'm alarmed by that, too," Orris said. "But it doesn't mean that the Sovereigns want war."
Tramys opened his arms wide. "But who else could it be? The Abborijis?
We've enjoyed peaceful relations with them for hundreds of years."
"There is a new Supreme Potentate in Abborij," Mered observed. "Perhaps she's not as committed to peace as her predecessors."
"We should also remember," Trahn added, "that the other three
Eagle-Sages fought against Abborij. Based on those experiences, we're
ready to assume that the appearance of an eagle inevitably means war.
Isn't it just as possible that it inevitably means war with Abborij?"
"Regardless of who our enemy is," Alayna said, "I think we need to
recognize how limited our power is. If we're to fight a war, be it
against Lon-Ser, or Abborij, or some other enemy, I think we need to
consider approaching the League and the Temples. We can't do this
alone."
"If the Temples are indeed getting weapons from Lon-Ser," Orlanne said,
"we should consider the possibility that they've already joined forces
with our enemies."
Tramys and the other young mages nodded in agreement.
"Even so," Jaryd said, "Alayna's point is well taken. We should go to
the League and tell them of my binding. If we're destined for war,
we'll need all of Tobyn-Ser's mages. And who knows?" he added. "Maybe
this will begin our reconciliation with the League."
"Nothing would make me happier," Baden commented, speaking for the
first time since Jaryd entered the chamber. "But I think we need to
consider another possibility."
Everyone had turned toward him.
"This eagle may have come because we're on the verge of a civil war."
9
I have not the time to write a lengthy letter, and even if I did, I
do not believe that I could find the words to convey this news gently.
So I will just write it and be done, knowing as I do that it will take
some time to reach you.
Shivohn is dead, killed by an assassin's bomb. I have my suspicions as
to who is responsible, but I will not commit them to paper, for if I am
right, our correspondence may not be as privileged as we once believed.
I will write at length when I am able, but for now let me leave you
with this warning: Lon-Ser may be moving toward a period of profound
unrest, perhaps even civil war. It is only a matter of time before this
conflict, if it comes, spills over into your land and Abborij. For all
I know it has already.
Guard yourself, Orris, and do not allow the vigilance with which you
and your fellow mages protect Tobyn-Ser to slacken for even a moment.
— Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal to Hawk-Mage Orris, Day 6, Week 4, Spring, Year 3068.
Watching Wiercia pace the length of the Council chamber, her long legs
carrying her from one end of the room to the other in just a few
strides, Melyor could not help but question her memory of their
conversation from a few days before. She had switched off her
speak-screen that day convinced that somehow she had managed to win at
least a measure of Wiercia's trust. They had a long way to go before
they could be allies, she knew, and probably she would never be as
close to Wiercia as she had been to Shivohn. But she felt that they had
reached an understanding. And yet now, listening to the tirade of
Oerella-Nal's new Sovereign, as the surf of Arick's Sea pounded the
Oerellan shore just outside the windows, she wondered if she had
imagined it all.
True, they had spoken of the need to make Marar believe that he had
succeeded in driving a wedge between the Matriarchy and Bragor-Nal. If
that was what Wiercia was doing, she was making an awfully good show of
it.
"I may be new to your little Council," the tall woman was saying, her
crimson robe rustling as she turned at the far wall and started back
toward the end of the table at which Melyor and Marar were seated. "But
I will not allow Oerella-Nal to be bullied! Bragor-Nal will accept
suitable punishment for its crimes, or we will be forced to retaliate
in kind! I have the support of my Legates on this, Sovereign!" she
said, her eyes blazing as she glared at Melyor. Her face was flushed,
and she was gesturing sharply. "If Bragor-Nal wants a war, then by the
gods we'll give you a war!" She turned her hot gaze on Marar. "And lest
you think that Stib-Nal would stand to gain from such a conflict,
Marar, think again! Any interference on your part— any at
all— will be taken by the Matriarchy as an act of war!"
Melyor glanced at Stib-Nal's Sovereign and found that he was already
looking at her, a slight smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. He
held himself with an air of confidence she had never seen in him
before: he wasn't sitting as hunched as usual; his shoulders didn't
look quite so narrow.
You bastard, Melyor thought. Shivohn's dead, and you think you've won.
She looked at Wiercia again, but the Oerellan Sovereign had already made her turn and was walking away from them.
"Don't you have anything to say for yourself, Melyor?" Wiercia demanded
over her shoulder. "Or do you just plan to hide behind the shameless
lies you've told my Legates since Shivohn's death?"
It was an opening, whether or not that was now Wiercia had intended it,
and Melyor had little choice but to play along. "Perhaps we should
allow Marar to judge what I have to say, Sovereign," she said with a
frosty smile. "What the Matriarchy dismisses as lies may carry some
weight with the good people of Stib-Nal."
Wiercia halted her pacing and turned to look at Melyor, her expression revealing little.
Her eyes fixed on the tall woman's face, Melyor pulled out the
detonator from the boomer that had damaged the Gold Palace and tossed
it onto the table. "This is from an explosive device that came
frighteningly close to killing me. As you can see," she added, turning
briefly to Marar, "it was made in Oerella-Nal."
"When did this attack occur?" Marar asked, not bothering to hide his amusement.
"As it happens," Melyor answered, watching him closely, "the same day Shivohn died."
A smile broke over his face, as if he could no longer contain his
delight at all he had wrought. "My, but the two of you have been busy,"
he said, looking from one of them to the other.
Wiercia took a step forward and leveled a rigid finger at Marar. "I have done nothing! That detonator proves nothing!"
"It proves no less than the detonator you found from the bomb that
killed Shivohn!" Melyor fired back. "You can't have it both ways,
Wiercia! If Bragor-Nal is guilty, then so is the Matriarchy!"
"You're forgetting one important difference, Melyor," the woman returned. "You survived. How do you explain that?"
Melyor swallowed. Wiercia was really quite good at this. She hoped. "I guess I was lucky."
Wiercia gave a high, mirthless laugh. "Lucky? You expect us to believe
that?" She shook her head. "I think it much more likely that you had
Shivohn assassinated and then staged the attempt on your own life to
confuse us."
"I must say," Marar broke in, the grin still on his bony face. "That's the way it looks to me as well."
Melyor looked at Wiercia, gauging her reaction. And what she saw
chilled her blood. The Sovereign's pale eyes gleamed triumphantly, and
she wore a fierce, predatory smile on her lips.
Melyor felt her stomach knotting. What of their conversation? What of
their agreement that Marar had everything to gain from a conflict
between their Nals?
"Marar, would you excuse us for a moment?" she managed to say. Her
mouth had gone dry. "Sovereign Wiercia and I need some time to work
this out in private."
"I'll do better than that, Melyor," the man said smugly. "I'll give you
all the time you need." He rose smoothly and stepped away from the
table.
"I do not need to be alone with this criminal for even a moment!"
Wiercia raged, her eyes fixed on Melyor again. "Anything you and I have
to say to each other can be said in a meeting of the full Council! You
tried this before, Melyor. All those attempts you made to contact me by
speak-screen should have told you something! I will not be manipulated
and I will not be intimidated!"
Too late, Melyor realized her error. It was all an act. Incredible as
it seemed, Wiercia was doing just what they had agreed. Even as she
kicked herself for failing to recognize this sooner, Melyor could not
help but smile to herself. Wiercia was really quite good at this.
Better than Melyor herself, as it turned out.
Wiercia continued to glare at Melyor for another moment, as if
chastising her. Then she turned to Marar. "Please stay, Sovereign," she
said warmly. "The people of Oerella-Nal would appreciate your insight
on this matter."
"You're very kind, Wiercia," Marar answered. "But it seems quite
obvious to me that this is a dispute that has nothing to do with the
people of Stib-Nal." He smiled and opened his hands slightly. "I would
just be getting in the way were I to remain." He glanced at Melyor.
"Sovereign," he said mildly, with a single nod.
A moment later he was gone. Wiercia and Melyor stared at each other,
but they said nothing until they heard Marar's air-carrier rise above
the ancient palace in which they were sitting and fly off toward
Stib-Nal.
"You idiot!" Wiercia said, practically shouting it at her. "What were you thinking?"
Melyor shrugged slightly. "I wasn't really sure what to think," she admitted. "With all that you were saying—"
"I was doing exactly what you told me to do! I thought you wanted to convince Marar that he had turned us against each other!"
Melyor grinned. "I did. I just didn't realize that you'd be so good at it."
Wiercia stared at her for several moments. Then she began to shake her
head, laughing quietly. "Well, let that be a lesson to you, Sovereign:
never underestimate me, or my people."
"I'll try to remember that."
"Good." The tall woman smiled and, after a moment, she sat down. "So what do we do now?"
"We wait. In light of your performance, I doubt we'll have to wait very long."
Wiercia inclined her head slightly, acknowledging the compliment. "What do you think Marar will do next?"
"I expect he'll contact one of us, offering an alliance in exchange for some exorbitant reward."
Wiercia arched an eyebrow. "Ah, but which of us?"
Melyor considered this briefly. "It depends. He has to decide which of
us can offer him the most, which of us needs him the most, and which of
us will be the easier to control." She paused again. Finally, she
smiled. "Me," she said. "I expect he'll contact me."
"Why you?"
"Because he knows me, and because he'll expect you to be too principled
to join forces with him. I'm a Gildriite, and that will give him pause,
but I was once a Bragory Nal-Lord. He understands me— at least he
thinks he does. Stib-Nal isn't all that different from what Bragor-Nal
used to be." Melyor nodded at the soundness of her own reasoning. It
all made so much sense. She smiled to herself. In spite of all the
changes she had brought to Bragor-Nal, there were times when she longed
for the simple, brutal clarity of the old ways. "He'll contact me," she
repeated, nodding again. "Probably this evening."
Wiercia grinned. "That's fine with me," she said dryly. "I can't stand the man."
* * *
Even by air-carrier, the trip from the Point of the Sovereigns, on
Oerella-Nal's eastern shore, back to his palace in Stib-Nal took
several hours. And Marar smiled the whole way. He couldn't remember the
last time that had happened. Probably it never had. As much as he still
rued the passing of the days when he and Durell had stood together
against Shivohn, he knew that even then he had been unhappy. Durell
might have needed him, but the Bragory Sovereign had never respected
him, and neither, Arick knew, had Shivohn.
But all of that was about to change. Sitting at his desk in the Grove
Palace, staring out at the Greenwater Mountains, which were shrouded in
the cool blue shadows of early evening, Marar grinned. How could he
help it? He had seen fear on Melyor's face today, and there had been
barely checked rage in Wiercia's every gesture. And he had seen as well
that they were both putting on a show for his benefit. It was obvious.
Both of his rivals had figured out that he was responsible for
Shivohn's death and the attempt on Melyor's life. Perhaps they had done
so together. It really didn't matter.
For in seeing beyond their deception, Marar had also seen the limits of
their newly fledged alliance. Melyor's fear was real. She still wasn't
certain that she had won Wiercia's trust. And though the Oerellan
Sovereign had been feigning her outrage, the lie came to her too
easily. Clearly, she still half believed that Melyor had been involved
in the plot to kill Shivohn. Yes, the two women were working
together— he was certain of that— but neither of them was
happy about it. And each was still more than willing to believe that
the other was the enemy.
Which suited his needs quite well. He had to drive a wedge between
them, and already he knew the points at which their relationship was
weakest. It might have been easier if he had been interested in a
partnership with Wiercia. Her doubts about Oerella-Nal's alliance with
Bragor-Nal ran far deeper than did Melyor's. And, of course, she wasn't
a Gildriite. But neither did she have any knowledge of Tobyn-Ser's
sorcerers.
He glanced down at the papers that Gregor, his First Minister, had just
put before him and found that he was grinning again. He could hardly
help it. Earlier that day, he had received a shipment of gold from
Tobyn-Ser's clerics that had exceeded even his most fanciful
expectations. There were riches in that strange land that were ripe for
the taking, and as wary as he was of doing business with Melyor, he
understood that he had little choice in the matter. Perhaps soon, if
Stib-Nal's trade with the clerics continued to expand, he would not
need her anymore. At which point he would have her killed. But for now,
he had to content himself with what he had accomplished thus far:
Shivohn's death, his discovery of a new, seemingly endless supply of
wealth, and the recruitment of well-placed security men in both
Bragor-Nal and Oerella-Nal. All that remained for him to do was
complete what Shivohn's assassination had begun: the destruction of the
Oerellan-Bragory alliance.
Reaching for his speak-screen, he pressed the yellow button that
connected him with Bragor-Nal's Gold Palace, although not before he
took the usual precautions to be sure that his conversation was not
being recorded or monitored. An instant later, the face of one of
Melyor's guards appeared before him. Marar didn't recognize him.
"Yes, Sovereign," the man said with proper courtesy. "How may I help you?"
The Sovereign glanced down at his desk again, as if already bored with
their conversation. "I wish to speak with your Sovereign."
The man nodded. "Of course. One moment please."
The guard reached for a button on the console, and the screen went
blank for several moments. The next face that appeared was Melyor's.
She was dressed as she had been earlier in the day— as she was
every time Marar saw her— in an ivory tunic and dark
loose-fitting trousers. He couldn't see her thigh, but he assumed that
she had a thrower strapped to it. She always did. Many thought her
beautiful, he knew, and he could see why.
As soon as she appeared, a light on Marar's console began to flash.
"You have a recording device," Marar said, with a smile.
The woman nodded. "Yes I do. Is that a problem?"
"I'd like you to turn it off."
"Why?" she asked with a coy grin.
Marar shrugged, feigning indifference. "As a rule, I don't allow my
conversations to be recorded. If we're to talk, you'll have to turn it
off."
"You contacted me, Marar. What makes you think I'm interested in talking to you?"
"Perhaps you're right. How presumptuous of me. Shall we speak another time?"
She regarded him for several moments, her expression neutral. Finally,
she reached forward and pressed a button on her screen. The light on
his console stopped flashing.
"Thank you," he said, smiling.
"What can I do for you, Marar?" she asked with manifest impatience.
"Can't I contact you just to chat?"
"You never have. And besides, I said everything I needed to in the Council meeting."
He raised an eyebrow. "I sincerely doubt that."
"Meaning what?" Melyor demanded, narrowing her eyes.
"Just that there seemed to be a great deal that went unsaid in today's meeting."
"I don't understand."
For a second time, Marar smiled. It was clear from the look of alarm in
her eyes that she did understand. "Let's dispense with the games,
Melyor. They insult both of us."
She stared at him for some time, saying nothing. Then she nodded once,
as if coming to a decision. She might even have grinned for an
instant— it was hard to tell. "All right, Marar," she said. "What
is it you're after? Why did you have Shivohn killed, and why did you
send that assassin after me?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Do you think I was responsible for all that?"
"I thought you didn't want to play games."
"I don't." He paused briefly, then smiled. "Let's do it this way:
speaking hypothetically, were I to have done all that you say, I'd
still have trouble replying honestly to your questions."
She looked at him skeptically. "Why?"
"You make it sound as though they all can be addressed with one
answer," he said. "They can't. What do I want? Why would I have Shivohn
killed? Why would I try to have you killed? Those are three separate
matters."
"Three or two?"
Marar gave a small laugh and inclined his head slightly, conceding the point. "All right, perhaps two."
"Then give me two answers," Melyor said, sitting back in her chair and
crossing her arms over her chest. "But they'd better be good ones,
Marar. Technically, what you've done is an act of war, and regardless
of whatever advances you feel Stib-Nal has made in the past few years,
I shouldn't have to remind you that my military is still far more
powerful than yours."
Marar smiled disarmingly. "Of course, Sovereign." And you would do well to keep in mind, he wanted to say, that if I was able to kill Shivohn, and if I came so close to killing you once, I can do it again.
But such brazenness would have been a bit premature. "Please keep in
mind that we're still speaking hypothetically," he said instead.
She nodded and made an impatient gesture, as if urging him to go on.
"As to what I'm after, as you put it," he continued, "that should
hardly come as a shock to anyone. I want wealth, and I want power."
"You have both of those already," she said. "You're Sovereign of
Stib-Nal. You answer to no one, and surely your position brings you
ample amounts of gold."
He nodded. "That may be true, Melyor, but let me ask you this: would all I have satisfy you?"
"What?"
"You've ruled Bragor-Nal for nearly seven years now. You know what it
is to command the land's greatest army, to call yourself Sovereign of
the land's largest Nal, to have at your disposal the land's richest
treasury. Would you trade that for what I have?"
She hesitated, and Marar smiled.
"Of course not," he said, answering his own question. "Neither would I,
were I in your position." He sat forward, resting his elbows on the
arms of his carved wooden chair and peering into the screen. "But I'm
not in your position, am I? I don't have all that you have. I don't
even have what Wiercia has. I'm not even close."
"So it's not really power or wealth you're after, is it Marar?"
His turn to hesitate. "I don't follow."
"Listen to yourself," she said with unsettling equanimity. "You're not
interested in gold or influence. You're just jealous. You want what we
have. Probably you always have, but you never had the wherewithal to go
after it until now."
"That's ridiculous!" he said.
"Is it? It also seems to me that this explains Shivohn's assassination
and the boomer you sent to the Gold Palace." She gave a thin smile.
"You may enjoy sounding mysterious and complicated, but when it comes
right down to it, you're a child. You want everything that your
playmates have, and if you can't have it, then you'll find new
playmates."
"How dare you!" he sputtered. "Who do you think you're talking to?"
Her smile vanished, and she glared at the screen with hard green eyes.
"I'm talking to the man who tried to have me killed, and who has
violated more provisions of the Cape of Stars Treaty than I care to
count! It would be within my rights under both the Treaty and the Green
Area Proclamation to invade Stib-Nal tomorrow. Or Wiercia and I could
simply have you removed from the Council. Don't push me too far,
Sovereign!"
He opened his mouth to fire back a threat of his own. In that instant
he wanted nothing more than to see her dead. But once again he resisted
the urge to give too much away. He clamped his mouth shut, struggling
to regain his composure.
Melyor seemed to read his thoughts anyway. She reached to the side and
a moment later produced her staff with its brilliant red stone. "In
case you plan on trying something again, Marar," she warned, "you
should know that Gildriites are seldom taken by surprise twice."
"I appreciate the advice," he managed to say. He reached for his screen to end their communication.
"Are we finished already?" she asked.
He stared at her, his hand poised above the console. She had him
off-balance, he knew. If this had been a street fight, he would have
been dead by now. But she still had so much to offer him: her knowledge
of Cedrych's plan to conquer Tobyn-Ser, her ties to the sorcerers
there, and, remote as the possibility seemed right now, all the
resources she could bring to an alliance between Bragor-Nal and
Stib-Nal.
"You contacted me for a reason, didn't you, Marar?" she coaxed. "We still have much to discuss."
He pulled his hand back slowly and regarded her for some time. "Like what?" he finally asked.
She smiled indulgently, as if he really were a child and she a lenient
parent. "You tell me. You sent assassins after both Shivohn and me.
That's bold. A leader with your experience doesn't take such a step on
the spur of the moment. You must have had something in mind; a plan
that you were carrying out."
"Perhaps," he said. "What of it?"
"It may be that I can help you with it." Her smile deepened as she
traced an idle finger along the edge of her glowing crystal. "That is
why you contacted me, isn't it? To gain my trust?"
He licked his lips nervously. Abruptly he wasn't certain why he had contacted her.
"Both of us know that you don't want me as an enemy," she went on.
"Stib-Nal can't possibly be prepared to go to war with Bragor-Nal. But
by the same token, you're wise enough to recognize my value as a
potential ally." She paused briefly, as if giving him time to consider
what she had said. "So tell me: why did you contact me?"
She was offering him what he wanted. Indeed, it was practically all he
had thought about since he had first heard of Premel's failure. And
yet, in that moment, something stopped him. It might have been the
sight of her staff and the ancient fears it aroused within him. It
might have been intuition— at one time, when he had still been a
minor lord making a name for himself in the quads, his instincts had
been quite good. Perhaps it was merely that her offer was too perfect,
too close to being exactly what he needed. Whatever the reason, he
could not bring himself to trust her. She was powerful and brilliant
and rich beyond all measure, but she was also ruthless and a Gildriite.
Most importantly, though, she was his enemy, and nothing would ever
change that. He had been a fool to think otherwise, even for just a
moment.
"No," he said, shaking his head for emphasis. "Contacting you was a
mistake. I'm sorry to have bothered you, Sovereign." He sounded
ridiculous he knew. He certainly wasn't fooling her. But he needed to
extricate himself from the conversation before he ruined everything.
Obviously he had underestimated her. He had contacted her so that he
might lure her into an alliance, and instead he had nearly been trapped
himself.
"You want me to believe that you summoned me by mistake?" she asked with unfeigned surprise.
"Yes."
Her expression hardened. "And did you send the assassin by mistake as well?"
He said nothing, but reached once more to switch off his console.
"Think carefully, Marar," she warned. "If you end this conversation
now, you'll be all alone. No one in Lon-Ser will be able to help you."
He hesitated, but only for an instant. "I'll have to take that chance."
He switched off the speak-screen and fell back heavily into his chair,
his eyes closed.
A moment later, however, he leaned forward again, turned on the
recording safeguards, and punched in the code for Premel. His
speak-screen beeped for several minutes before the security man's sharp
features finally appeared before him. Premel looked angry—
probably he had been in the middle of another briefing— but Marar
didn't really care.
"Yes, Sovereign," he began impatiently. "What do you—?"
"Is Jibb dead yet?" the Sovereign demanded.
Premel looked away briefly before meeting Marar's gaze again. "No," he answered, his voice flat.
"Well, kill him. Soon. And Melyor, too."
Premel stared at him, his pale eyes widening. "Now you want both of them dead?"
"Yes."
"But the other day you told me—"
"I know what I said the other day! Now I'm telling you to kill them both! And I expect it to be done!"
Marar jabbed his finger at the console button, terminating their connection before Premel could say anything more.
Slumping back into his chair once again Marar took a long breath. He
felt better already. Melyor had unsettled him greatly, but knowing that
she would soon be dead did much to calm his nerves.
There was still one more conversation he needed to have, however.
Melyor, he realized belatedly, had been a poor choice from the start.
She was too shrewd to be manipulated by anyone, and too dangerous to be
embraced as an ally for any length of time. But if the Bragory
Sovereign could not be turned to his purposes, perhaps the Oerellan
Sovereign could.
* * *
Wiercia was already speaking with Melyor when her speak-screen beeped for a second time.
"One minute, Melyor," she said, interrupting the other woman's
description of her conversation with Marar. "I've got another summons
coming in."
"It's him," Melyor said with such surety that Wiercia knew she had to be right.
"What should I do?"
The Bragory Sovereign shrugged. "Talk to him. See what he wants. You and I can speak later."
"All right," Wiercia said. "Later, then."
She pressed a button on her screen to switch views and, just as Melyor
had predicted, found Marar waiting for her, a sour smile on his narrow
face.
"Marar," she said, trying to keep her tone light. "What a pleasant surprise."
"I doubt that," he replied.
She felt her pulse quicken. "What do you mean?"
"I would guess that you were already speaking to Melyor. No doubt you knew it was me before you switched views."
She stared at him for several moments. Perhaps Melyor and she had given
Stib-Nal's Sovereign too little credit. She abruptly felt beyond her
depth. The other two Sovereigns had been playing these games far longer
than she. She straightened in her chair and met his gaze as steadily as
she could. "You're right. I did."
His smile broadened at that until it looked almost genuine. "Excellent," he said. "I appreciate your candor."
She heard the goad in his words, but she ignored it. "What do you want?"
"What did Melyor tell you about our conversation?"
He wants candor? she thought. Fine, I'll give him candor. "We only
spoke briefly before you interrupted us," she said. "But she did tell
me that you had confessed to killing Shivohn and sending an assassin to
the Gold Palace."
Marar began to laugh— he had a surprisingly deep laugh for a man
of his meager stature— and he nodded, as if acknowledging a good
jest. "That was very amusing, Sovereign," he said after some time. "I
wouldn't have thought you the joking sort."
Fighting to ignore the tightening knot in her stomach, Wiercia merely
sat there, gazing placidly back at the screen until finally Marar's
mirth subsided, and he regarded her with narrowing eyes.
"You are joking, aren't you?" he asked.
"No. And I don't find your dissembling very convincing."
What remained of his smile vanished from his face. "She really told you that?"
"Yes."
"And you believed her?"
Wiercia faltered. "I suppose I—"
"Do you really think me that stupid?" he demanded. "Do you honestly believe that if it was true, I would admit it to Melyor?"
"She made it sound as though you had little choice," Wiercia said defensively.
He nodded. "Yes, I'll bet she did." he looked away for a moment, his
lips pressed together in a tight line. "Did she bother to tell you," he
asked, facing her again, "that she had mentioned the possibility of an
alliance between Bragor-Nal and Stib-Nal?"
"You're lying!" Wiercia said with more vehemence than she had intended.
"I believe she said that I was wise enough to recognize her value as a potential ally, or something to that effect."
Wiercia's hands were trembling, and there was a sound in her ears like
wind rushing through the quads of Oerella-Nal. She wanted desperately
to terminate their communication, but she couldn't bring herself to do
it. He was lying. He had to be lying. But what if he wasn't? What if
Melyor had been misleading her all this time, getting her to believe
that Marar was behind Shivohn's assassination, when in fact it had been
a Bragory plot all along?
"I think you're lying," she said warily.
Marar nodded gravely. "Yes, you said that. But think for a moment: if I
had gone to so much trouble, if I had sent assassins after both Shivohn
and Melyor, why would I then turn around and blurt out my plans to one
of those I wanted dead? What kind of a fool would do such a thing?"
"But she said—"
"I assure you, Wiercia, regardless of what Melyor told you, I never said that I was responsible for these attacks."
Wiercia stared at him in silence for some time. She wasn't sure what to believe anymore. "Do you admit that you contacted her?"
He nodded.
"Tell me why."
He shrugged. "For the same reason I've contacted you: to discuss
today's meeting of the Council." The Sovereign gave a sad smile. "It
wasn't one of our best. I fear that you and Melyor are moving toward
some kind of armed conflict, and I want to do everything I can to
prevent it."
"How noble of you," she said.
"Hardly," he replied, his tone icy. "I'm thinking only of my people and
myself. A Nal as small as mine could easily be crushed in such a
conflict, even if we're not party to it."
He was right, of course. Had she been in his place, she would have been
worried as well "Then an alliance with Bragor-Nal should be quite
attractive to you," she said. "Which leaves me wondering why we're even
speaking."
"To be honest," Marar said, "if Bragor-Nal was led by anyone else, we
wouldn't be. I would have already pledged my aid to the Bragory
Sovereign and we'd be busy making preparations for war."
"Go on," Wiercia said after a brief pause.
"Melyor frightens me. I'm not ashamed to admit it." He sat forward,
bringing his thin face close to the screen. "Leave aside for a moment
the fact that she was once an outlaw, that she's killed more times than
you and I can imagine. She's also a Gildriite. I don't trust her at
all, not as an enemy, and certainly not as an ally."
"Is this your way of saying that you do trust me?"
"It's my way of saying that I'm willing to try. Provided you are as well."
Wiercia held herself very still and continued to stare at Marar's face.
She didn't trust him. She wasn't sure that she ever could. But neither
was she certain that she had been wise to place so much faith in
Melyor. Much of what the Bragory Sovereign had said had sounded quite
plausible at the time. Perhaps a bit too plausible. She seemed to have
an answer for everything. It did strike Wiercia as overly convenient
that Marar should confess to the crimes the very first time Melyor
spoke with him alone.
And then there was Melyor's ancestry. Wiercia did not like to admit it,
not even to herself, but she, too, found the notion of being allied
with a Gildriite ... distasteful. It was not that she lacked
tolerance. She just preferred to do business with people she
understood, people, who were like her. It was quite possible that she
had been too quick to trust Melyor. The Bragory Sovereign was a
murderer and a Gildriite. True, Shivohn had trusted her, but Shivohn
was dead. This was no time to rush into anything. Nor was it time to
rule anything out.
"You understand," she said at last, "that I bring far less to a
potential alliance than Melyor. Oerella-Nal is strong and prosperous,
but we're no match for Bragor-Nal."
At that Marar smiled broadly, exposing bright white teeth that appeared
too large for his narrow face. "I'm aware of that, Sovereign," he said.
"But I believe you'll be surprised by how much Stib-Nal can bring to
such a partnership."
10
I have heard little from you since the colder months and less still
from Shivohn. I hope you both are well and that your sudden silence is
not a harbinger of bad tidings to come. Indeed, your lack of
communication is particularly worrisome now because of recent
developments here in Tobyn-Ser.
My friend, Jaryd, of whom I have told you so much over the past few
years, has bound to an eagle, becoming the land's first Eagle-Sage in
more than four hundred years. Throughout Tobyn-Ser's history, the
binding of a mage to an eagle has presaged the coming of war, and my
fellow mages of the Order fear that this time will be no different.
Many are convinced that Lon-Ser is to be our enemy in such a conflict,
and though I have assured them that we have nothing to fear from the
Nals, I find myself wondering what would happen to the amicable
relations between our two lands should something happen to Shivohn or,
Arick forbid, to you. I know that this message will, not reach you for
some time, and I am reasonably certain that some correspondence from
you is already on its way across Arick's Sea. But if one is not, please
write as soon as you can so that I can put my fears, and those of my
colleagues, to rest.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Spring, God's Year 4633.
It was well past dusk when they finally adjourned for the night,
discouraged and subdued. Jaryd wished that he had something to offer
them. It was his responsibility, he knew. He was their leader. The
future of the land rested on his shoulders. But there was still much
that they didn't know. Just over a fortnight had passed since his
arrival in Amarid, and he still had received no responses to the
missives he sent to First Master Erland and Brevyl, Eldest of the Gods.
There was nothing for the Order to do but wait and wonder if Baden was
right in believing that their enemy was not a foreign one, but rather
one or more of the Order's rivals here in Tobyn-Ser.
Hence, their daily discussions had become little more than somber
vigils kept for the messengers of the League or the Temple. And yet,
when Jaryd offered his fellow mages the choice of not meeting until
some word came, they were nearly unanimous in refusing.
"We should remain close to the Great Hall," Baden had said, speaking
for the vast majority of them, "just in case we need to take swift
action."
So they convened, and they sat, and when the stewards of the hall
brought food, they ate. But they said little and did less, and with
each day that passed, Jaryd's frustration mounted. The mages had
managed to keep Jaryd's binding a secret, although in recent days
rumors of a new Sage had begun to spread through the city. But even
this small success struck Jaryd as hollow; it was just a matter of time
before someone learned that Tobyn-Ser had an Eagle-Sage. And as of yet,
Jaryd had no answer for the panic that he knew would follow. He didn't
want to believe that their war would be fought with the League or the
Children of the Gods, but neither could he ignore the implications of
Erland's and Brevyl's silence.
"It probably doesn't help that I'm so young," he said to Alayna, as
they walked slowly back to their quarters in the rear of the Hall. "A
more experienced Sage might have gotten an answer by now."
She shrugged. "You're our leader. They have no more right to ignore us
because you're young than you do to ignore the League because Erland's
old."
Jaryd grinned. "He's not old, he's venerable."
"He's old," she said. "He was old ten years ago, which makes him older than old. They don't even have a word for how old he is."
Jaryd laughed and shook his head. "You're a cold-hearted woman. I hope I don't get old and decrepit before you do."
"You'd better not," she said. "I like my men young."
They were met in front of the doorway to Myn's room by Valya, the
townswoman who took care of their daughter when Jaryd and Alayna were
occupied with their duties.
"She's already asleep," the grey-haired woman whispered as they stopped
in front of her. She gave a toothless grin. "She tried to wait up for
you, but she was too tired."
"Thank you, Valya," Alayna said quietly. "We'll see you tomorrow. Sleep well."
"And you, First." She nodded to Jaryd. "Sage."
As the woman shuffled off, Jaryd and Alayna opened Myn's door slowly,
allowing the muted light of their cerylls to spill across the room. The
girl was sprawled in her bed, soundly asleep. Alayna grinned and they
both stepped into the room to fix Myn's blankets and kiss her cheek.
"This is the third night in a row that we've done that," Alayna
whispered as they left the room and closed the door behind them. "I
hate not saying good night to her."
"I think she understands."
Alayna nodded. "I'm sure she does, but I still don't like it. Let's try to adjourn a bit earlier tomorrow."
"All right," Jaryd said, taking her hand. "If it's at all possible, we will."
They made their way back to their own quarters, closing the door behind
them and lighting several candles. Jaryd tossed himself onto the bed as
Rithlar took her usual spot atop the large mantel over the hearth.
Alayna sat beside him and took his hand, but neither of them spoke.
Jaryd was too tired to say anything, although he doubted very much that
he would be able to sleep. He hadn't had a decent night's rest since
before their arrival in Amarid.
"What if it doesn't mean anything, Jaryd?" Alayna asked without preamble.
He opened his eyes and looked at her. "What?"
"What if your binding doesn't mean anything? What if we're doing all this for nothing?"
"Do you really think that's a possibility?"
She shrugged and pushed her dark hair back from her brow. "I don't know anymore," she said. "I—"
She stopped at the sound of voices coming from the Gathering Chamber. They exchanged a look.
"It might just be the stewards," he said, sitting up.
Alayna shook her head. "I barely hear them during the day. They wouldn't be making so much noise at this hour without a reason."
She was right, of course. Jaryd swung himself off the bed and started
toward the door, but before he reached it someone knocked. He halted
and glanced back at Alayna. Again she shrugged.
"Yes?" he called, facing the door again.
The door opened, and one of the attendants peered around its edge tentatively.
"I'm sorry to trouble you so late, Eagle-Sage," the woman said in a soft voice. "But there's someone come to see you."
"Who is it, Grieta?" Alayna asked.
"A woman, Owl-Master. I believe she's from the League of Amarid. She wears a blue robe."
"Did she give her name?" Jaryd asked.
"No, Sage, she didn't." The attendant faltered. "She's asking to speak with the Owl-Sage, and I wasn't certain what to do."
Jaryd tried to smile. "It's all right," he said. "Tell her we'll be out in a moment."
The woman nodded and closed the door again, leaving Jaryd and Alayna alone.
"It's awfully late for an envoy," Jaryd said, as their eyes met.
"I agree. You think it's someone who wants to cross over?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. I guess that's possible. It's also possible that she's an assassin."
"You don't really believe that, do you?"
"I'm not sure what to believe anymore," he said.
She stepped forward and took his hand again. "Do you want me to come with you?"
"I think you'd better. I'm not ready to let a League mage see Rithlar,
and I don't want to face her without access to the Mage-Craft."
She nodded, and the two of the walked out into the Gathering Chamber,
Alayna with her great owl on her shoulder, and Jaryd beside her,
carrying his staff and acutely aware of Rithlar's absence.
But when he reached the great wooden doors of the Hall, he found that
their visitor was not carrying a bird either. She was a young woman,
with long brown hair that hung straight to her shoulders and delicate
features that resembled Alayna's. She carried a plain staff crowned
with a brilliant golden stone, and she wore the blue cloak of a League
mage. But her eyes drew Jaryd's attention. They were as blue as the sky
on a cool autumn morning and carried within them a wisdom and an
awareness of life's capriciousness and cruelty that went far beyond the
girl's years. He had seen these eyes before, years ago, when this woman
was just a girl, newly orphaned by invaders from Lon-Ser and
distrustful of anyone wearing the forest green cloaks of the Order, and
so he knew her name before she spoke it.
"I'm Cailin," she said.
"Yes, Cailin," Alayna replied. "We remember you."
The young mage narrowed her eyes. "Have we met?"
"Once," Jaryd said. "A long time ago, when you were still living in the Great Hall." Just after your parents were killed along with every other person in your world.
Cailin looked from one of them to the other. "You're the ones who went to Theron's Grove, aren't you?"
Alayna nodded. "Yes."
"Which staff was the Owl-Master's?" she asked, her voice suddenly tinged with awe.
"This one," Jaryd answered.
He held out his staff for her to take and examine, but though she
stepped forward to look at it closely, she seemed reluctant to handle
it.
"My name is Jaryd. This is Alayna." He indicated the council table with his hand. "Would you like to sit?"
"Thank you, no." She took a breath. "Which of you is the new Sage?"
Again, Jaryd and Alayna looked at each other. "I am," Jaryd said after a moment. "Alayna is First of the Sage."
"We had heard that the Order had a new leader," Cailin told him. "I
hope nothing has happened to Owl-Master Radomil. From what I've been
told, he seems a decent man."
Jaryd forced a smile, although he felt his stomach tightening. "Thank you for your concern," he said. "Radomil is fine."
"Then why are you Owl-Sage now?"
"Are you sure you wouldn't like to sit, Cailin?" Alayna broke in. "If not here, then in our quarters?"
Cailin gave a thin smile. "There's little more trust here than there is
at the Hall of the League," she said, as much to herself as to either
of them. "I appreciate your courtesy," she continued an instant later,
looking at them both again. "But I doubt that you'll want to sit with
me once I explain the reason for my visit."
She walked to the Hall's entrance, opened the heavy wooden doors, and gave a single whistle, sharp and brief.
Almost immediately, Jaryd heard the sound of flapping wings, and in the
next instant, he saw something that caused his entire world to shift in
ways he had never anticipated. Standing in the doorway, taller and more
majestic than any bird he had ever seen save one, stood an eagle. Like
Rithlar, she was deep brown except for the back of her neck, which was
washed with gold. The bird's eyes were dark, giving her a look of
ferocity and intelligence that would have shocked him had he not seen
precisely the same expression in his own familiar. Looking at the
eagle, wrestling with the implications of its mere presence, Jaryd
found himself remembering the strange vision that had haunted his sleep
before his own binding. He had realized some time before that Rithlar
was one of the eagles he had seen fighting to the death in the sky
above him. Here, it seemed, was the second bird. He looked at Cailin
once more, wondering if she was the woman he had seen. But though she
resembled that woman, she was not the one. There was still a piece
missing. It had not been a true Seeing. He had known that at the time.
But seeing this second eagle, he was forced to consider the possibility
that his dream carried at least some grain of truth.
"I know this must come as a shock to you," he heard Cailin say,
although in truth he was barely listening to her. "It did to me as
well. To be honest, I haven't been sure what to do about it. But Erland
has summoned the mages of the League to Amarid in response to your use
of the Summoning Stone, and so I felt that I had to do something. And I
thought I should come here first, since traditionally an Eagle-Sage
becomes leader of the Order."
Jaryd glanced at Alayna, but she had her eyes locked on the bird, and didn't seem to notice.
"What's her name?" Jaryd managed to ask, staring at the eagle once
more. He didn't know for certain what the binding of a second mage to
an eagle meant, but he had some ideas, and none of them was terribly
appealing.
"Rithel."
"And when did you bind to her?"
"Just over two fortnights ago."
After my binding, he thought, although that did little to ease his mind.
"I don't know how you want to handle this," Cailin began again with
obvious discomfort. "Do you want to tell the other mages of the Order
or do you want me to?"
At that, Alayna finally looked up. "Tell them what?"
Cailin blinked. "That there's an Eagle-Sage, of course. That I'm to lead the Order."
"That's why you came here?" Alayna demanded. "Because you think that
we're just going to step aside and let the League take over the Order?"
Cailin's expression hardened. "That's not what I said!" She stopped
herself and took a long breath. "Look," she said in a calmer voice,
"for better or worse, the gods have sent me an eagle, and we all know
what that means. Tobyn-Ser is destined for war. This is no time for
pettiness and rivalry. For now at least, we need to work together. Once
our enemy is defeated, you're free to choose your own leader again."
"Do you have any idea who our enemy is?" Jaryd asked.
Cailin looked away. "No. I'm hoping that Erland and the others will
have some idea." A moment later she met his gaze again. "I'd welcome
your thoughts as well, and those of your colleagues."
Jaryd started to respond, but then he stopped himself, remembering
something from before. "Did you say that you came to us first?" he
asked.
"Yes, I—"
"So Erland and the rest don't know about this yet?"
Once again, she looked away. "No, they don't. My standing in the League is ... not what it once was."
"And you thought that taking control of the Order would put you in a better position," Alayna said.
"That's not why I came!" the young woman insisted again. She stood very
still for several seconds, glaring at Alayna. Then she shook her head.
"I should never have come at all."
She turned away from them and started back toward the door.
"Cailin, wait," Alayna called.
Cailin turned with obvious reluctance and faced Alayna again. She wore a sour expression, but she said nothing.
Alayna smiled. "I'm sorry. But we had to be sure."
"Sure of what?" Cailin asked with manifest skepticism.
"This is yours to tell," Alayna said, turning to Jaryd. "But I don't think we have much choice."
"I agree," he said, nodding. He looked at Cailin. "Come with me, and bring your bird."
Cailin glanced at Alayna with uncertainty, but then she began to walk with Jaryd toward the back of the Hall.
"Please speak quietly back here," Jaryd said as they approached Jaryd
and Alayna's quarters. "Our daughter is sleeping in the next room."
Cailin smiled. "How old is she?" she asked in a lowered voice.
"She's just turned seven."
The woman's smile abruptly faded, and Jaryd remembered that she had been seven when the outlanders attacked her home.
Reaching their quarters, Jaryd pushed open the door and gestured for
Cailin to enter. Hesitantly, she stepped past him, and he followed her
inside. Rithlar, still perched on the mantel, remained utterly
motionless, eyeing Cailin warily.
At first Cailin didn't even notice her. "What am I looking for?" she
asked, scanning the room. "I don't—" Seeing the great eagle at
last she let out a loud gasp and jumped back toward the door, nearly
crashing into Jaryd. "Fist of the God!" she whispered. She spun to look
at him, her eyes wide. "How did—" She stopped herself as her own
eagle glided into view, landed at the threshold of the room, and stared
up at her impassively. She spun again to look at Rithlar. "Fist of the
God!" she said once more.
"Her name is Rithlar," Jaryd said. "I bound to her a short time before you bound to Rithel."
The young mage nodded, although she still stared at Jaryd's eagle. "That explains your use of the Summoning Stone."
"Yes."
She continued to look at Rithlar for some time, saying nothing, and not
even appearing to move. Finally, she turned to face Jaryd. "What do you
think this means?"
"I wish I knew. The most obvious conclusion would be that the League and the Order are destined to battle each other."
Cailin's face paled and she shook her head. "I don't want to believe that."
Jaryd smiled wanly. "Neither do I."
"Then don't allow it to happen," came a third voice.
Jaryd and Cailin turned toward the doorway, where Alayna stood watching
them. "You're Eagle-Sages, both of you," she went on. "You lead the
Order, Jaryd, and, Cailin, soon you'll lead the League. Not even Erland
would deny your claim under these circumstances. So it lies within your
power to prevent a war."
"Does it?" Cailin asked. "The gods sent us eagles. If their wishes lie
elsewhere, we may be helpless to deny their will." She paused, averting
her gaze. "I'm not even certain that I can control the rest of the
League, and you want me to defy the will of the gods?"
"I don't think you'll have to," Alayna said, her voice gentle. "The
gods have always sent eagles to protect Tobyn-Ser, not to destroy it.
And I don't think this time will be any different."
Cailin looked up. "What are you saying?"
"The gods have sent two eagles, one to you and one to Jaryd. I think
this is their way of telling us that the League and the Order need to
come together, that whatever enemy we're about to face can only be
defeated by the combined power of all the land's mages."
"You take comfort in that, don't you?" Cailin asked.
A small smile flitted across Alayna's features. "Yes, I do."
"As do I," Jaryd said. "Shouldn't we all?"
Cailin shook her head. "If you knew Erland as I do, you wouldn't. He
hates the Order with more passion than you can imagine. He'll never
allow the League to be allied with you for any cause."
"That's all the more reason," Alayna said, "for you to assume your
rightful place as leader of the League as quickly as possible."
"You don't understand the League," Cailin replied, walking to the
hearth and looking up at Rithlar. The eagle regarded her coolly, and
then began to preen. "Erland is to the League what Amarid once was to
the Order. He created it, he leads it, he controls it. Even the younger
mages, whom you might expect to oppose him on so many issues, defer to
him more often than not."
"But they must feel the same way about you," Jaryd said. "When you
joined the League seven years ago, everyone in Tobyn-Ser assumed that
the Order would be gone within a year."
She turned at that, the ghost of a smile on her lips. She looked so
young, barely more than a girl really. And yet, like him, she was an
Eagle-Sage. "You're right," she said. "That is what they thought. Even
Erland did. That's why he worked so hard to get me to join. But that's
not what happened, is it? The Order is still here, not as strong as it
was, but not as weak as it might be either." She made a small sound
that might have been a laugh, but an instant later her smile vanished.
"I've been a disappointment to them. They've made that very clear.
Especially Erland. He won't give up power, at least not to me."
"But you've bound to an eagle," Jaryd said. "It doesn't matter what
they think of you. You're their Eagle-Sage. Nothing can change that."
Cailin made an impatient gesture. "The League isn't the Order. You can't just assume that your rules apply to us."
"But still—"
"No," she said, shaking her head vehemently. "You don't understand!
Even when his owl died he managed to remain First Master. The eagle
means nothing. That's why I came here first. My one hope was that I
could go to the Conclave having assumed leadership of the Order."
"Well obviously that's not going to happen," Alayna said.
Cailin nodded. "I can see that."
"So you have to find another way."
"Have you heard anything I've said?"
Alayna's dark eyes flashed angrily. "Yes, everything. But you're not a
child anymore, Cailin. You're a mage who's bound to an eagle. And that
carries a great deal of responsibility. The gods have chosen you, so
they must think you're ready. But now it's up to you."
Cailin glared at her wordlessly for several moments. "There may be some
truth in what you're saying," she said at last. "Perhaps more than I'd
like to admit. But if you know anything about me at all, you know that
I was never a child. I never got the chance."
The two women stared at each other for another few seconds before Alayna looked away.
"I'll do what I can," Cailin said, her tone icy. She glanced at Jaryd.
"Arick guard you, Eagle-Sage. I hope that we can stand together before
all of this is over."
"Be well, Cailin," Jaryd replied. "If we can be of help in any way, let us know."
Cailin nodded and left their quarters. For several moments Jaryd and
Alayna stood silently, listening as Cailin's footsteps echoed off the
domed ceiling of the Gathering Chamber. When she was finally gone,
Alayna turned to him, her expression grim. "I shouldn't have pushed her
so hard."
Jaryd shrugged. "It's hard to know. She's so young."
"She's no younger than we were when we went to the Grove."
"I know," he said with a smile. "Remember how young we were then?"
Alayna gave a small laugh, but she quickly turned serious again. "If
I'm right, and we can't defeat this enemy alone, she's going to have to
find a way to overcome Erland's influence."
"Yes," Jaryd said, nodding. "And as Order mages, that's the one thing we can't help her with at all."
* * *
"I don't like this," Henryk said for what must have been the thousandth time. "I don't like this at all."
Tammen glanced at him for just an instant, before turning her attention
back to the cluster of trees in front of her. "So you've told us," she
said, not bothering to mask her disdain. "If you want to leave, I won't
stop you."
The dark-eyed mage shifted his position slightly, but he didn't go. Tammen wasn't sure whether she was relieved or disappointed.
They were on the western fringe of Tobyn's Wood, less than a day's walk
from the Northern Plain and, if Nodin was to be believed, within
shouting distance of the place where First of the Sage Peredur bound to
his first familiar over sixty years ago. As of yet, however, they had
seen no sign of the Owl-Master's unsettled spirit.
"You're sure this is the right place?" she asked Nodin, briefly meeting
his gaze, which, in recent days, seemed to be fixed on her constantly.
He frowned. "I thought I was. It's been a long time since I was in this
part of the wood. I know we're close, but this might not be the exact
spot."
She rolled her eyes and propelled herself off the large, decaying tree
trunk on which they had been sitting since dusk. "And when were you
planning on mentioning that?"
"It had just occurred to me when you asked," he answered, sounding defensive.
She exhaled loudly. "So do we need to move?"
Nodin surveyed the forest, his uncertainty written plainly in his pale
eyes. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "I don't think we're that far from
where we should be, but—"
"But you don't really know, do you?"
"This was a bad idea to start with," Henryk said, shaking his head. "We should just—"
"Henryk!" Tammen said, whirling toward him. "If I hear one more word
from you ..." She stopped herself. This wasn't getting them
anywhere.
"What, Tammen?" Henryk demanded, getting to his feet.
Nodin stood as well. "Stop it, both of you."
"No," Henryk said. "I'm tired of her making me feel like a coward.
You're not afraid of the Unsettled," he said, offering it as a
statement. "Not at all."
She held his gaze as steadily as she could. "I'm here because I believe
the Movement needs help," she answered at last. "That's all that
matters. Being afraid or not being afraid is beside the point."
"And what about you?" Henryk asked, facing Nodin. "You're not afraid either?"
Nodin's eyes flicked momentarily toward Tammen. "Like she said," he
began in a low voice, "the important thing is that the Movement needs
help."
Henryk looked away. "Right. The Movement."
He turned back a moment later as if intending to say something more,
but in that instant a strange pearl-colored light began to seep through
the forest, like torchlight in a coastal mist.
The three mages turned toward it, all of them falling silent. Tammen's
heart was pounding so hard she thought she could hear it, and her
stomach felt cold and heavy. Even Othba, her beautiful brown hawk, who
usually sat so composed on her shoulder, was crying out softly and
digging her talons into Tammen's shoulder.
As the light approached and grew brighter, Tammen began to see a figure
walking at the center of it. He was tall and lean, and he walked with
long, confident strides. He bore a staff in his right hand and, as he
drew closer still, Tammen saw that he carried a small woodland hawk on
his shoulder. His eyes were as bright as stars, and his face, though
lined with age and framed by white hair, looked young somehow, as
though the light shining from him had chased away the years.
He stopped before the three mages, regarding them coolly. When his eyes
came to rest on her, Tammen felt as though a frigid wind passed through
her, chilling her heart. A moment later he turned his gaze to Nodin,
and she allowed herself to breathe again.
"You're Prin's boy, aren't you?" the spirit said in a voice that sounded like a high wind moving through trees.
"Yes, First," Nodin answered, his voice sounding leaden and awkward.
"My name is Nodin. With me are Hawk-Mage Tammen and Hawk-Mage Henryk.
We're honored by this meeting."
Peredur looked at Henryk and then Tammen, before facing the tall mage again. "Where are your cloaks?"
Nodin swallowed and glanced as his companions. "We wear no cloaks, First. We're free mages."
"What does that mean?" the ghost asked, his bright eyes narrowing.
"It means," Tammen broke in, "that we don't belong to either the Order or the League. We merely serve the people."
The ghost lanced her with his glare. " 'We merely serve the
people,' " he mimicked. "What do you think I did for fifty-two
years? And I did belong to the Order!"
"Yes, First," Nodin said quickly. "Of course you did."
"What in Arick's name does the land need free mages for, anyway?"
Nodin looked at Tammen for just an instant before answering. "Perhaps
you know something of the feud between the League and the Order," he
said.
The spirit made a sour face. "Yes, I do. It's all nonsense."
"It is to us as well," Tammen said, allowing herself a smile. "How can
mages serve the land if they're so busy fighting each other?"
Peredur regarded her skeptically, as if not quite comfortable with the fact that he agreed with her. "Go on."
Tammen shrugged. "We've found another way. We serve the land, but we have no part in their quarrel."
"And who keeps watch on your kind?" the spirit asked. "Who makes certain that none of you is violating Amarid's Laws?"
"We hold each other to the laws," Tammen answered. "Just as the Order and League do."
The Owl-Master's ghost took a step forward. "That's not good enough!
You have no formal body, so you have no method for imposing discipline
or punishment. I was killed by a renegade, a man who betrayed not only
the Mage-Craft and the Order, but the entire land. And even with all
the rules and processes we had in place to deal with such things, in
the end it took the combined might of all the mages of the Order to
stop him. How could you possibly stop one of your 'free mages' who did
something similar?"
Sartol. He was talking about Sartol. Tammen had to fight an urge to fling back an angry reply.
"The free mages are committed to serving and guarding the people of
Tobyn-Ser, Owl-Master," Nodin said, his voice tinged with so much pride
that Tammen could not help but smile. "We are part of a great
Movement— the People's Movement— that seeks to rid
Tobyn-Ser of the foreign influences that have already done such damage
to the land." He glanced at Tammen again, and seeing that she was
smiling, he smiled himself.
"I've heard nothing of this," the spirit said. "I've seen the trees
cut, and the strange weapons in the hands of the Temple's men. But a
People's Movement?" He shook his glowing head.
"But if you've seen the rest," Tammen said, "the weapons and the
destruction of Tobyn's Wood, then surely you see the good that could
come from our Movement."
The ghost hesitated. "Perhaps," he acknowledged at last. "What of it?"
Nodin took a long breath, as if gathering himself. "Our Movement needs
help, First. We free mages are badly outnumbered by both the League and
the Order. There are too few of us to do battle with the Temple's men
now that they carry weapons from Lon-Ser. We have much support among
Tobyn-Ser's people, but we can't defend those who stand with us." He
swallowed, and even in the strange light given off by their cerylls and
by the unsettled spirit before them, Tammen could see his face growing
pale. "Just a few days ago, in a village called Prannai, sixteen people
died because we weren't strong enough to protect them."
Peredur stared at them all, his expression as cold as a winter wind.
"If you cannot protect them, you have no right to involve them in your
cause! As mages you should know that!"
"They asked for our help!" Tammen said.
"You should have refused!"
Tammen started to respond, but Nodin stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
"You may be right, First," he conceded. "In our desire to preserve the
land, we may have acted rashly. We're young, and we're still learning.
But that merely proves our point. We not only need help, to make us
stronger, but also guidance, to show us how best to serve the People's
Movement."
Tammen nodded. When he wanted, Nodin could be exceptionally clever.
"Nodin's right," she said. "We have much to learn from you and the
other Unsettled. And," she added, dropping her eyes diffidently, "I
apologize for the way I spoke to you earlier."
The spirit looked at her briefly, his expression revealing nothing.
Then he turned to Henryk. "What of you, Mage? Your companions seem to
be doing all the talking. You haven't said a single word. Are you ready
to ally yourself with the Unsettled as well?"
The dark-eyed man glanced sidelong at Tammen and Nodin, looking
uncomfortable. "I support the Movement with all my heart," he finally
answered, meeting the spirit's bright gaze. "If the Unsettled can help
us achieve our goals and guard the land, then yes, I'm ready to accept
you as an ally."
Peredur grinned. "Deftly handled, Mage." He faced Nodin again. "You
have a fine companion here. He has grave doubts about what you're
doing, but he's willing to support you. It's too bad his sense of
loyalty has won out over his common sense."
"I don't follow."
"You're attempting to harness powers you can't possibly understand, all
for the sake of a movement that will ultimately do more harm than good."
"You don't know that!" Nodin said.
"Don't I? You don't fool me with your flattery and your obeisance. You
care nothing for guidance. You want the aid of the Unsettled so that
you can match the power of the League and the Order, and the weapons of
the Temples. That's all that matters to you. As it is, this land is
headed for violence and upheaval. Your little band of free mages is
just going to make matters worse. Even if I could help you, I wouldn't."
"Even if you could?" Tammen repeated. "What does that mean?"
"It means that the Unsettled have little access to power in your world.
There's actually very little that I can do for you without the help of
all the other Unsettled, and ever since Sartol became one of us,
there's been no chance of that."
"So there's nothing that you can do? There's no way for an unsettled mage to affect our world? I don't believe you."
"Believe what you will," the spirit said. "The paths to power open to a
single unsettled mage are not paths that I care to take. If you want
help from one of us, you'll have to find it elsewhere."
Tammen suppressed a smile. That was the confirmation she had been
seeking. There was a way, and here on the northwest fringe of the God's
wood, they were only a few days' walk away.
"Leave me now," Peredur commanded. "I don't wish to be disturbed anymore."
"But, First," Nodin pleaded. "We need your help. The land needs your help."
"I've served the land," the spirit said, turning away. "For more than
half a century I guarded the people, healed them, mended their broken
fences and their shattered homes. And I always did so with a clear
conscience, because I knew that as a member of the Order, I was
following in Amarid's footsteps." He turned to face them once more, and
his eyes appeared more radiant somehow, as if they were cerylls, and he
had summoned from them a brighter light. "I'll not undo a lifetime of
faithful service for the likes of you." He turned a second time and
walked away, not bothering to look back at them again.
They watched as he walked away, his pearly glow retreating into the
darkness like a fog, until they were alone, the only light in the wood
coming from their cerylls. Tammen felt something loosen in her chest as
the ghost vanished amid the tree trunks and branches, and not for the
first time, she wondered if she was up to the task that had really
brought her to this part of Tobyn-Ser.
"So what now?" Henryk asked, running a hand through his dark curls.
Nodin shrugged. He looked tired and beaten. "I don't know. There are
some free towns in the area. I suppose we should see if we can enlist
them in the Movement." He looked off in the direction the spirit had
gone. "I really thought he would help us. Not before tonight, mind
you," he added, facing Tammen and Henryk again. "But when he said that
the feud between the League and the Order was nonsense, I started
thinking that this might work."
"And what if it had?" Henryk asked. "You honestly believe that the
three of us would be capable of controlling the Unsettled, of wielding
them as if they were a weapon?"
"I wasn't looking for a weapon," Nodin answered. "I was looking for an
ally. And if you had so little faith in what we were trying to do,
maybe you shouldn't have come."
Henryk recoiled as if he had been struck, and his face turned bright
red. He stood saying nothing for several seconds. Then he turned on his
heel and walked away.
"Henryk!" Nodin called after him. "I didn't mean ..." He trailed
off. Henryk wasn't coming back, at least not tonight. He looked back at
Tammen and shook his head. "I shouldn't have said that."
"It doesn't matter," she told him. Actually, she was glad he was gone.
What she had to do next would probably be easier without Henryk around
arguing against it.
"So where do you think we ought to go from here? There are free towns to the south and west."
"I think we should go north," she said.
"North? Why?"
She took a breath. "Peredur isn't the only unsettled mage in this area.
And it's possible that a different spirit will give us a different
answer."
It took a minute. And then suddenly his eyes widened, and he actually took a step back away from her. "You mean Sartol?"
"Yes."
He shook his head again, vigorously this time, and he licked his lips
nervously. "No," he finally said. "It's too dangerous. You heard what
Peredur said: Sartol killed him, rendered him unbound. He betrayed the
land."
"He saved my life! He saved Watersbend! I saw him do it! I saw him kill the men who killed my parents!"
"I know," Nodin said. "But he did that to save himself."
Tammen turned away from him. "That's the Order talking."
"Tammen—"
"No," she said, "it doesn't matter. Henryk will never agree anyway. I'll go by myself. You and he can go to the free towns."
Nodin said nothing for a long time and Tammen stood motionless, with
her back to him, waiting. In truth, she didn't want to do this alone.
For all her insistence that Sartol would help them, that he was not the
figure of pure evil that the Order mages said he was, she was
frightened. Confronting Peredur's spirit had been unnerving enough, and
Sartol in life had been a far more formidable figure than the First.
Nodin was still there behind her. She sensed his uncertainty and his
unwillingness to leave her side. Before this his affection for her had
been a nuisance, but now she saw in it an opportunity.
Turning again, she stepped close to him, raised herself onto her toes,
and kissed him lightly on the lips, allowing her breasts to graze his
chest as she did. "Be well, Nodin," she whispered, pulling away. "I'll
miss you."
She started to walk away, but he barely allowed her to take a step.
"Tammen, wait."
She faced him, suppressing a smile. Perhaps she could have convinced
him some other way, and perhaps what she had done was wrong. But she
had to acknowledge that she did care for him. And she certainly
preferred being with him to being on her own.
"I'll go with you," he said. "I wouldn't want you to do this alone."
How wrong could it be? she asked herself, seeing the smile spread
across his face. How much harm could it do to let him take care of her
for a short while?
"Thank you, Nodin. I'll be glad to have you with me."
His smile broadened. How wrong could it be?
11
For several years now, the members of my Order have been acting
under the assumption that we seek reconciliation with the League. All
of us recognize the dangers inherent in having control of the
Mage-Craft divided, and there is as well a sense among many of us that
we allowed the Order to be sundered and that, therefore, it falls to us
to set things right. I am forced to acknowledge, however, that if I was
given today the opportunity to unify the Mage-Craft once more, I would
have strong reservations. After all that I have been through, I find it
hard to imagine ever thinking of a League mage as a friend, or even a
peer. And while others in the Order have not been persecuted by the
League as I have, I am certain that I am not alone in feeling this way.
It remains to be seen if this will be an issue in my lifetime. The
mages of the League have shown in more ways than I can count that they
want nothing to do with the Order. But should the occasion arise,
either in the near future, or many years from now, I believe that those
pushing to reunite the League and the Order will face resistance from
within both bodies.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Spring, God's Year 4633.
Baden sat staring at Jaryd and Alayna, too astounded to speak, and
wondering if it was possible for two people to share a delusion.
Judging from the utter stillness of those around him, the Owl-Master
guessed that others in the Hall shared his astonishment. He shifted his
gaze to the enormous brown bird perched on the back of Jaryd's chair
and shook his head slowly. To have an eagle bind to a mage— and
not just any mage, but his own nephew— was incredible enough. But
for there to be two Eagle-Sages in Tobyn-Ser at one time defied
comprehension. He didn't know whether to be terrified or elated, but in
an odd way he couldn't help but be awed. He had never thought that he
would live to see such times.
"You're certain that your binding came first?" Tramys asked, breaking a lengthy silence. "You established that?"
"I don't see what difference that makes," Orlanne said, before Jaryd
could reply. "If we're to go to war with the League, it really doesn't
matter who bound first."
"But if we're to go to war with Lon-Ser," Tramys replied, an earnest
expression on his youthful face, "it makes a great deal of difference.
The mage who bound first will command our land's army." He faced Jaryd
again. "Wouldn't you agree, Eagle-Sage?"
Jaryd took a breath, his face wearing a sour expression. "I hadn't really thought that far ahead."
Another of the younger mages stood. "If the gods intended us to fight
alongside the League, they wouldn't have sent two eagles. They would
have sent only one. This must mean that we're destined for a civil war,
just as Baden suggested a few days ago."
"Nonsense!" Mered said, standing as well. "They may have sent two
eagles because our enemy this time is more powerful than any we've
faced before. Certainly that would be the case if we were to fight
Lon-Ser."
Others nodded.
"Maybe it's a sign that we face more than one enemy," Neysa added.
"Perhaps we'll be faced with threats from Lon-Ser and the Temples. The
Children of the Gods have been acquiring weapons."
Mered looked at her skeptically. "Would the gods favor us with even one eagle if our fight was with the Keepers?"
The tall woman nodded. "If, in their pursuit of gold, the Children of
the Gods have abandoned the people of Tobyn-Ser, then I believe they
would."
Several mages voiced their agreement, and almost immediately arguments began to break out all around the council table.
"This is premature," Jaryd said loudly, halting the discussions as
quickly as they had begun. "We don't know enough to draw any
conclusions. This kind of speculation gets us nowhere."
"What did you and Cailin have to say about your bindings?" Baden asked.
"You've told us of her eagle, but I'm more interested in your
conversation."
The Eagle-Sage gave a small smile and inclined his head slightly, as if
thanking Baden for the question. "It wasn't an easy one," he began,
glancing briefly at Alayna. "Cailin is willing to believe that the
Order and the League are destined to be allies in a coming war, but
she's not at all convinced that the rest of the League will accept such
an arrangement. She's not even sure that Erland will step aside and
allow her to lead them."
"They haven't made her Eagle-Sage yet?" Sonel asked with amazement.
"They don't even know that she's bound to an eagle."
Baden's eyes widened. "What?"
"Well," Jaryd amended, "they may by now. But they didn't as of last night."
Sonel shook her head. "How is that possible?"
"It seems that Cailin's influence within the League is not what it once
was," Alayna explained. "Erland is still revered by even the youngest
Hawk-Mages, and Cailin has fallen out of his favor."
"But why?" Sonel persisted. "At one time she was everything to them."
She had met Cailin years ago, Baden remembered, when she was still
Owl-Sage, and though Cailin had been but a child then, newly bound to
her first hawk, Sonel had been quite impressed with her.
Alayna gave a wan smile. "Apparently the mages of the League,
particularly Erland, blame Cailin for the fact that the Order has
survived these past seven years."
"That's ridiculous," Sonel said.
"Perhaps," Radomil agreed. "But it's not surprising. I've never really understood Erland's reasoning on any subject."
"So how did you leave matters with Cailin?" Baden asked, looking at Jaryd again.
The mage shrugged. "We reached no agreements, if that's what you mean.
I certainly wasn't going to commit the Order to anything without
consulting the rest of you, and Cailin was in no position to speak on
behalf of the League. She has a great deal of work to do before she can
claim to have any authority at all."
"Is there anything we can do to help her in that regard?" Trahn asked, scratching the chin of his large, round-headed owl.
"I doubt it," Jaryd said. "Her loss of standing is tied almost entirely
to the fact that this body still exists. Any help we might try to give
her would probably do more harm than good."
"Why would we want to help her?" Tramys asked. "I don't care if Erland
has lost faith in her and— forgive me, Eagle-Sage— I don't
care that she's bound to an eagle. She's no less a League mage than the
rest of them."
Orlanne nodded. "I agree with Tramys. I know she went through a lot as
a child, but I still don't trust her. Why did she come here, anyway?
What did she hope to get from us that she couldn't get from the League?"
Jaryd hesitated, his eyes flicking in Baden's direction, as if he was
looking for help. "She didn't know of my binding," he said, his voice
subdued. "And since Eagle-Sages have traditionally become leaders of
the Order simply by virtue of their bindings, she came here thinking
that she would assume leadership of the Order and then go to Erland."
A shocked silence fell over the Gathering Chamber. Even Baden felt his
mouth drop open, although he recovered quickly. It made a great deal of
sense really. What better way to win the support of her fellow mages in
the League?
"What arrogance!" Tramys breathed. "She honestly believed that we'd
just ignore the color of her cloak and accept her as our Sage?"
"Why not?" Orris demanded, speaking for the first time that morning.
Everyone turned to face him. "If we didn't already have an Eagle-Sage,
we'd be debating the matter right now. There has never been an
Eagle-Sage who didn't lead the Order." He pointed in Jaryd's direction.
"Under any other circumstances, she'd have a very powerful claim to sit
in that chair. It seems to me a measure of the extraordinary times
we're witnessing that we can dismiss her claim out of hand."
"But, Orris," Tramys said, "this is Cailin we're talking about. She
practically founded the League with Erland. You, of all people—"
"Yes, Tramys. I, of all people can find it within myself to understand
her and accept what she did. Doesn't that tell you something?"
The younger man said nothing, and after a moment he lowered his gaze.
Orris swept the chamber with his dark eyes, as if daring someone else
to challenge him. "It may be that we can't help Cailin, at least not
yet. As Jaryd said, the rest of the League expected her to destroy the
Order simply by donning a blue cloak. But at some point that may
change, and if it does, I think we should be willing to help her in any
way we can."
"Even if that means helping the League as well?" Orlanne asked.
"Yes. Even then."
The young woman shook her head, the expression in her pale eyes growing
cold. "I don't know if I can do that. Frankly, I'm amazed that you can
even contemplate such a thing. They've been stalking you for years. By
the gods, they killed your familiar!"
Baden saw Orris clench his jaw. This wasn't easy for the burly mage, he
knew. Several years ago, Orris would have been siding with Tramys and
Orlanne. Actually, Baden thought, smiling inwardly, he would have been
leading them. It was an indication of how much Orris had matured over
the years that he was capable of forgiving the League. Baden wasn't
certain that any other mage in the chamber could have done it.
Including himself.
"I know what they've done to me, Orlanne," Orris finally said, his
voice low. "And I'm not ready to make overtures of any sort to Erland.
But to me, Cailin is a different matter, especially given that she's an
Eagle-Sage. For all we know the League is destined to be our enemy in
the coming war. But if the gods have sent these birds as a sign that
the Order and the League must work together to save Tobyn-Ser ..."
He shrugged. "I'm not so vain that I'd defy the gods to satisfy my own
hunger for vengeance." He glanced at Baden and grinned. "At least not
anymore."
Baden laughed, as did several of the other mages. But the Owl-Master noticed that Orlanne and Tramys did not.
"Do you know what I see, when I look around this Hall?" Tramys asked,
his tone severe despite the sad look in his green eyes. "I see mages
who still carry feelings of guilt for having allowed Erland to leave
all those years ago. You still see this Order as incomplete; you
believe that it won't be whole again until we've reunified the
Mage-Craft." He shook his head. "Those of us who joined the Order after
the split did so because we regard the Order as the true guardian of
Amarid's legacy. We chose the green cloak. That's why we're here. We
don't blame you for what Erland did, and we have no desire to see
League mages around this table. To us, the League is a fraud. If its
members truly honored Amarid's memory, they would abide by his laws."
He turned to Orris. "I'm sorry, Orris, but that's how I feel. Even if
you can forgive them for what they've done to you, I can't." He
regarded the rest of them again. "But while we hate the League, we also
accept that it's here to stay, and the time has come for the rest of
you to do the same. This reconciliation you're waiting for is never
going to happen. The League mages don't want it, and even the
appearance of a hundred eagles wouldn't change that."
Baden could hear the truth in Tramys's words. Looking across the table
at Sonel, he saw from her expression that she had heard it as well. He
could think of nothing to say.
He could only nod in silent agreement when Alayna, staring at Tramys
with a bleak expression on her beautiful face, gave voice to her own
fears. "I can only hope, Tramys," she said, "that the mages of the
League can find it within themselves to see beyond their hostility for
the Order. Because if you're right, and they can't, our people are
doomed."
* * *
She briefly considered going to Erland first. Perhaps, she thought, if
I can speak with him alone, when the rest aren't watching, I can get
him to see my eagle as something more than a threat to his standing
within the League. It didn't take her long, however, to dismiss the
idea. He had never been any more honest with her in private than he had
been in front of the others. It would be better, she finally concluded,
to catch him unawares, with the entire membership watching.
So the morning after her unsettling visit to the Great Hall, Cailin
watched from afar as her fellow mages, dressed in their bright blue
cloaks, entered the Hall of the League to begin the Conclave. Only when
she was certain that the rest were inside, did she leave her hiding
place in the narrow alleyway and approach the great doors of the hall
with Rithel gliding easily above her.
Despite the best efforts of Erland and the rest, the League's meeting
place had, in the end, come to resemble the Great Hall of the Order in
most respects. Both buildings were oval, with blue-domed roofs and
large arching wooden doors. The Hall of the League had marble statues
atop its roof, instead of the dazzling crystal figures that were
mounted on the Great Hall, and the windows of the League's building
were decorated with panels of brilliant stained glass, but in every
other way, the buildings were quite alike. Cailin thought it an irony,
one that became more and more poignant with each year that passed.
Reaching the wooden doors, she took a steadying breath, opened them,
and stepped inside. Rithel walked in behind her and then hopped to her
arm, the iron grip of her massive talons causing Cailin to wince.
Erland was standing at the far end of the long wooden meeting table,
speaking to the rest of the mages, a broad smile on his ruddy face. He
was tall and still carried himself like a young man, so that his silver
beard and white hair, rather than making him appear aged, gave him an
almost regal aspect. Regardless of what he had done to her, or what she
thought of the decisions he had made as leader of the League, Cailin
could not deny that he looked and sounded just like a First Master
should. She felt herself starting to tremble, and she fought to calm
her nerves. But she was, in that instant, intensely aware of her own
youth and her slight frame.
I've bound to an eagle, she reminded herself. The gods have decreed that I should be leader of this body.
"Cailin!" Erland said, gesturing toward her with an open hand. The rest
of the mages turned in their chairs to face her. "How nice to see you!
We had started to wonder if you were planning on coming at all."
She started to respond, but before she could, Erland's eyes widened slightly.
"I see you've bound as well. Splendid! We had heard of Marcran's death, but we didn't know—"
He stopped abruptly, and Cailin noted with satisfaction that all the color drained from his face.
She stepped closer to the table as a flurry of whispered conversations filled the room.
Still Erland did not speak, but at length, Arslan stood, the sunlight
from one of the windows lighting his red hair like a flame. "You've
bound to an eagle!" he said, his voice tinged with wonder.
Cailin smiled. Of all the mages in the League, Arslan had been kindest
to her, offering her encouragement as Erland's words to her grew
harsher, and defending her openly when others questioned her loyalty.
"I have," she answered. "Her name is Rithel, and she came to me two
fortnights ago."
Vawnya, another of the younger mages, stood as well, a look of
astonishment in her green eyes. "The gods have sent us an Eagle-Sage!"
"That is an Order term!" Erland said, his tone severe.
"An Eagle-Master then," Vawnya replied. "It's still wondrous."
Erland regarded Cailin skeptically. "Is it?" he asked. "Or is this some kind of trick?"
"Yes, Erland," Cailin said, unable to stop herself. "It's a trick.
She's not really my familiar; she's just a bird I coaxed onto my arm to
stir up some excitement."
"Such a tone dishonors yourself and this body, Mage."
She glared at him. He had treated her like a child for long enough. "I am properly addressed as Eagle-Master, Erland!"
"And I am properly addressed as First Master! You would do well to remember it!"
"I haven't forgotten, but it may be that your time as First Master is coming to an end."
The white-haired man narrowed his eyes. "Meaning what?"
Cailin glanced around the vast chamber, hoping that someone might take
up her cause; she didn't want to have to do this alone. But no one
showed any signs of wanting to help her. Even Arslan avoided her gaze.
She had only been in the hall for a few moments, but already it seemed
she had pushed her claim too far. She thought briefly of her
conversation with the Eagle-Sage and his First the night before. If
only they could see her now, they might understand what she had been
trying to tell them about the League.
"Meaning," she said at last, "that every mage in this room knows what
it portends when the gods send us an eagle. There is a war coming, and
it falls to he or she who has bound to the eagle to lead Tobyn-Ser in
that war." She was misleading them, she knew, but her one hope was that
Erland would take the bait she was dangling before him.
"We haven't had an Eagle-Sage for over four hundred years," said
Stepan, one of Erland's staunchest supporters among the older masters.
"The appearance of an eagle might not mean a thing anymore."
Arslan shook his head. "You don't really believe that, do you Stepan?"
The older man shrugged. "I don't know what to believe. I do know that
there is nothing in the League bylaws that compels Erland to step down
in Cailin's favor." He looked at Cailin, a sneer on his broad, pasty
face. "That is an Order tradition."
"Cailin wasn't suggesting that Erland relinquish power," Arslan said. "She was just suggesting that she—"
"Actually, Arslan," Cailin broke in, "that's precisely what I was suggesting."
The red-haired mage frowned at her and shook his head.
"As Stepan just reminded us," Erland said, "there's nothing in the
bylaws that supports your claim to my chair. This is nothing more than
a blatant attempt to seize power, and it's not going to work. Perhaps
Order mages would allow you to get away with this, Cailin, but we
won't." He grinned. "That is an idea though: why don't your take your
eagle to the Order; perhaps they'll make you Eagle-Sage."
Stepan laughed, as did a few others, but most of the mages kept
themselves perfectly still, as if waiting to see how this latest
confrontation between the League's founders would turn out.
For her part, Cailin allowed herself a smile as well. Erland was a
formidable man, but he was also unimaginative. It had been almost too
easy leading him to this point. "Going to the Order is a fine idea,
Erland. Indeed, I already have."
His grin vanished, and he stared at her with avid interest. "And?" he said, suddenly breathless.
"They already have an Eagle-Sage."
She had expected that this news would be greeted by an explosion of
shouted questions and denials, and she was not disappointed. She had
also expected, however, that Erland would be the most vocal in calling
her a liar, but the older man surprised her. He seemed to sense somehow
that she was telling the truth, and though his face turned deep red,
his voice when he spoke remained level. Still, it cut through the din
like a blade, silencing the other mages.
"Who is it?" he demanded. "Tell me it isn't Baden."
"No, not Baden. A younger man named Jaryd."
"Jaryd?" Arslan said, his eyes growing wide. "Is Alayna his First?"
"Yes."
"Jaryd," Erland repeated quietly. "He told us something like this would happen."
"Who did, First Master?" Stepan asked.
"Baden, of course," the white-haired man mumbled. A moment later,
Erland shook his head and looked around the room, as if suddenly
remembering that the rest of them were there. "This is an interesting
turn of events," he said. "I'll admit that. But it changes nothing."
"Doesn't it?" Vawnya asked. "The Order has an Eagle-Sage, and yet the
gods have chosen to send an eagle to one of us as well. That has to
mean something."
"I agree."
Everyone looked to a chair at the far end of the table, just beside
Erland. And for the first time that day, Cailin felt a surge of hope.
"You, Toinan?" Stepan asked, his voice tinged with amazement and, Cailin thought, more than a bit of despair.
Toinan had been Sonel's First of the Sage before the creation of the
League, and as such, had long been, aside from Erland, the most
respected mage to wear a blue cloak. With her support, Cailin might
have a chance.
"Yes," the old woman said. She stood, leaning heavily on her staff. She
had grey hair and dark blue eyes that had grown rheumy over the past
few years. But her voice remained strong, and she commanded the
attention of everyone in the hall. "I've lived a long time—
longer than any of you, I daresay— and I've never seen even one
eagle on a mage's arm. And now there are two?" She shook her head and
tried to smile, but was stopped by a spasm of coughing. "The gods would
not have done such a thing lightly," she continued when she could speak
again. "There's a warning in this, a hint at the power of the enemy we
face. We ignore it at our own risk."
"Does that mean," Arslan asked, "that you believe Cailin should lead us?"
Erland gestured impatiently and stepped away from the table. "This is
not a matter for Toinan to decide," he said, and then, turning back to
the table, he quickly added, "or any individual mage for that matter."
"Of course it's not," Arslan agreed. "But I'd like to hear what the
Owl-Master has to say." He smiled, although not with his eyes. "We
should all be heard on a matter of such importance. Don't you agree,
First Master?"
"What are you implying?" Erland asked in a low voice.
Arslan shook his head. "Nothing at all. But this is an issue that
transcends the personal interests of any one member of this body. Even
you, Erland." He took a breath and ran a hand through his unruly hair.
"Most of us in this hall followed you out of the Gathering seven years
ago because we agreed with your criticisms of Baden, and of what he and
Orris had done. You must know how hard that was for us to do. But we
trusted you, and given the chance to relive that day, I wouldn't
hesitate to follow you again. I doubt any of us would. But you led us
out of the Great Hall because Baden and the others had come to care
more about their own concerns and well-being than they did about the
land and its people. And I won't stand by and let any member of this
League do the same thing. Not Cailin, and not you."
Erland surveyed the room, as did Cailin, and it seemed from his
reaction that he saw the same resolve in the faces of their fellow
mages that she did.
"Very well," the First Master said, returning to his chair. He sat and
looked around the room a second time, his expression grim. "Very well,"
he said again.
"Toinan?" Arslan said, facing the old woman again.
The Owl-Master gave a slight shrug. "As Erland said, this is not a
matter for me to decide. But I will say this: we have a First Master
whom we respect, and an Eagle-Master who comes to us bearing a
harbinger from the gods. Having two such leaders can only strengthen
us."
Toinan sat back down, a small smile on her wizened face.
For a moment there was silence, and then an instant later, there seemed to be arguments everywhere.
And yet, Cailin knew that Toinan had found the solution. It might take
the mages of the League the rest of the day to come around to it, but
she had heard the prophecy in the old woman's words.
Looking across the table at Erland, she found that he was already
watching her, as oblivious as she to the clamor around them. She saw
resignation in his dark blue eyes, and then, to her surprise she
actually saw him nod to her, as if he already recognized the
inevitability of this.
As Cailin expected, the rest of the mages accepted the change far more
slowly. Too slowly, as far as she was concerned. Everything the League
did in recent days seemed to spark a fight. Their deliberations, she
had realized recently with some alarm, resembled the descriptions she
had heard of the last days of the Order before Erland led his followers
out of the Great Hall.
In the end, the mages did agree, which was something. Cailin was to be
Eagle-Master, and Erland would remain First Master. And until whatever
crisis that presented itself had passed, they would rule the League
together, with the consent of the rest.
It was a fine start, she thought, leaving the Hall long after dusk, and
returning with Rithel to the peace and solitude of Hawksfind Wood. But
it was nothing more than that. She and Erland had been thrown together
into what promised to be a difficult partnership. He had agreed only to
share power with her, not to listen to her, and certainly not to follow
her. On those occasions when they disagreed— and there would be
many— Cailin had little doubt as to whose side the others would
take. In a way she almost hoped that their conflict would be with the
Order, because she knew that she would never convince Erland and his
followers to accept the Order as an ally.
Reaching a secluded clearing along the banks of the Larian, Cailin
stopped and sat on a low rock. Rithel glided to the ground beside her,
and Cailin leaned over to scratch the bird's chin. She pulled from her
cloak a pouch of dry bread and hard cheese, and began to eat. But
before she could take a second mouthful, she heard a man's voice
calling her name.
Cailin stood, her blood suddenly coursing through her veins like the glacial waters that raced over stone and silt beside her. I'm bound again,
she reminded herself. I may be alone, but I have nothing to fear. A
moment later a ceryll came into view, and then the man who carried it.
"Cailin," Stepan called again, drawing closer.
She thought about retreating into the forest. Even if she trusted him,
she had little desire to speak with him. But she was Eagle-Master and
he a member of the League. She had responsibilities now. She raised her
staff over her head and brightened the golden glow of her ceryll so
that it illuminated the wood.
A few seconds later he stood before her, breathing hard. Even had it
not been for the red light of his stone reflecting off his perspiring
face, the older man would have appeared alarmingly flushed. He bent
over with his mouth open, as if trying to catch his breath. If he had
come to kill her, he'd need to rest first.
"What are you doing here, Stepan?"
Rithel hopped forward to stand with her and let out a small hiss. Stepan's small owl hissed in return.
The Owl-Master straightened and regarded her coolly. "I've come to talk."
I don't believe you, she wanted to say. And even if I did, I wouldn't want to listen to you. "About what?"
"You handled things poorly today. You shouldn't have challenged Erland the way you did."
"Ah, I see," Cailin said with a nod. "You've come as Erland's lackey."
The Owl-Master smiled thinly. "Hardly. If Erland knew I was here, he would be ... disappointed."
She looked at him skeptically.
"You don't believe me."
"Why should I?"
He allowed the point with a small shrug.
They stood in silence for several moments, Stepan watching her with a
neutral expression on his pale face. Finally, Cailin exhaled heavily.
"All right, Stepan," she said, her voice flat. "What should I have done differently?"
He gestured toward the rocks on the riverbank. "Let's sit."
She didn't move, and after some time, he shook his head. "As you wish, but I intend to sit."
He walked over to the riverbank and lowered himself gingerly onto one
of the large stones. "You've been a mage for some time now, Cailin, and
you've been a part of the League from the beginning. All of us know how
special you are, and all of us recognize that you're wise beyond your
years. But you still have a good deal to learn about using your
influence and authority."
"Do I?"
"You wasted an opportunity today. You've bound to an eagle, Cailin, and
you had the good sense to conceal that from us until your arrival in
the hall today. But then you squandered the advantage you'd gained by
demanding immediately that we choose between you and Erland."
She stared at him, not quite believing what she was hearing. "And what should I have done?" she asked.
"You should have given those who might have been inclined to support your claim a chance to help you."
"I don't understand."
He looked down, wiping a hand across his damp brown. "You know what
Erland means to us," he said, meeting her gaze again. "None of us who
followed him out of the Order will ever do anything to embarrass or
hurt him."
"I wasn't asking you to."
"Yes, Cailin, you were. And I understand why. He hasn't treated you
well in the past year." He looked away again. "None of us have. But
when you turned your claim to leadership into an assault on Erland, you
made it impossible for anyone to support you. Frankly, you were lucky
that Toinan said what she did, or you might have left the hall with
even less than you did."
She sat down on a stone near his. "Why are you telling me this?"
Stepan hesitated. "Because I'm scared," he finally said. "I never
thought I'd see one Eagle-Sa—" He stopped himself and grinned,
although only briefly. "I certainly didn't think I'd ever see two mages
bound to eagles at one time. Notwithstanding Erland's denials, or my
own for that matter, that has to mean something. The gods wouldn't send
two such birds without reason."
"So you think I should be leading the League."
The Owl-Master stood abruptly. "I didn't say that."
Cailin threw up her hands in frustration. "Then what are you saying? If you're so frightened, why did you oppose me today?"
"I told you why: Erland is my friend, and he's First Master of this
League. I won't allow him to be humiliated by you or anyone else." He
swallowed. "Perhaps you should be leading us, at least until we know
why your eagle has come. But you're going to have to find a way to
assert your will in more subtle ways. You can't win the support you
need by fighting with Erland."
"But Erland and I are bound to disagree. Are you saying that I always have to give in?"
"Not at all. I'm merely saying that you have to argue your point of view carefully."
Cailin shook her head. "But how—"
"It's not my place to tell you how to lead, Cailin," he said, his voice
almost kind. "No doubt, there will be times when I'll oppose you, and I
have no intention of helping your cause any more than I have to. But
you're an intelligent young woman. I have confidence in your ability to
figure this out on your own."
They both fell silent again. It was getting cold. Cailin suddenly was
anxious to light a fire, and to consider in solitude what Stepan had
told her.
"I should leave you," the Owl-Master said at last. He hesitated, and
then said, "I would prefer that you speak to no one of our
conversation. I don't want Erland to learn that I came to you." He gave
a thin smile. "It seems that I've given you something to hold over me,
should you ever have need."
Cailin stood and looked at him. "I won't tell anyone," she said, her
eyes locked on his. "I swear it to you on the memory of my mother and
father."
His eyes widened at that, and after several seconds he nodded.
She made herself smile. "Thank you for your advice, Stepan. I think I
have some idea of what it took for you to come to me like this. I'm in
your debt."
"I did it for the League and for Tobyn-Ser," he said brusquely. "And I suppose I did it for Erland as well."
She smiled again, and this time she meant it. "Whatever your reasons,
I'm grateful. I'll try to find a way to put your counsel to good use."
"Good night, Eagle-Master." He glanced at Rithel, who stood on the
ground at Cailin's feet, gazing up at him avidly. And it seemed to
Cailin that the Owl-Master nodded to the bird before turning and
starting back toward Amarid.
When she could no longer make out the red glow of Stepan's ceryll
through the forest, Cailin set about searching for dead tree limbs with
which to make her fire. But she didn't search long. She was tired and
she reconciled herself to a small blaze and the completion of her
modest meal. Stepan had been right about one thing at the very least:
she was inexperienced in the ways of leadership and persuasion. And
there in the darkness of Hawksfind Wood, alone save for the great bird
to whom she was bound, Cailin could not help but wonder if her
ignorance would bring ruin to all of Tobyn-Ser.
12
With all the changes that have come to my land— and there have
been many— I am forced by recent events to admit that some among
the lords and break-laws of the Nal remain wedded to the old ways. The
continued attempts on my life offer clear evidence of this, as do the
skirmishes that still break out with annoying regularity in various
realms. As I have told you on more than one occasion, I see real
progress in this regard. I take great pride in accomplishments, but I
must also acknowledge the limits of my success.
... The danger of course, is that something will happen to one of us
before the transformation of Lon-Ser is complete. Jibb's death or my
own, or even Shivohn's, could have devastating consequences for every
person in every quad in all three Nals. Progress is steady, but the
danger of falling back into chaos and violence is constant as well. All
it would take is one well-placed explosive, one brief volley of thrower
fire, one unseen dagger....
— Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal to Hawk-Mage Orris, Day 1, Week 11, Winter, Year 3067.
They were in the tunnels again, making their way to the Fourteenth
Realm to quash yet another skirmish that had broken out between two
rival Nal-Lords. Melyor could tell the lords and their underlings how
to run the realms, she could tell them how to do business with each
other, but she could not force them to change their very nature. And so
it fell to the men of SovSec to enforce the Sovereign's decrees,
regardless of whether they agreed with the laws or not.
Under normal circumstances, Premel wouldn't have minded. He usually
enjoyed these forays into the quads. It felt good to be forced once
more to rely on his instincts and his extensive knowledge of the
streets and byways. He was in his element, as was Jibb. The security
chief would never have admitted it to anyone, Premel knew. Jibb would
have considered such an admission a betrayal of Melyor's trust. But one
needed only to look at the man as he loped through the tunnels, his
thrower in hand, his dark eyes watchful, his teeth bared in a fierce
grin, to see that his heart was still in the quads. Indeed, his mere
presence was an acknowledgment of the obvious. Slevin, his predecessor
as head of SovSec, never would have gone on a mission of this sort,
leaving it instead to his subordinates. But not Jibb. And under normal
circumstances, Premel would have been glad to have the dark-haired man
along.
But these were not normal circumstances. Marar expected Premel to kill
both Jibb and Melyor within the next day or two. And truth be told,
this mission presented Premel with his best opportunity yet to carry
out the first half of that assignment. They were bound to run into
resistance when they reached the Fourteenth. Were a stray blast of
thrower fire to hit Jibb, it would arouse no suspicions. Things of that
sort happened all the time in Bragor-Nal. There might even be a way to
do it that would allow Premel to blame someone else— another
guard, or perhaps even one of the break-laws. Logistics weren't the
problem.
He had never had an older brother, but he felt about Jibb the way he
imagined his own younger brother had felt about him before dying
several years ago in a firefight in the Twelfth. He couldn't stomach
the idea of losing a second brother. And yet, by refusing to kill Jibb,
he made his own life forfeit. He had thought of one possible solution
after one of his recent conversations with Stib-Nal's Sovereign, but it
had been so drastic and so risky that he had quickly lost his nerve.
Then Marar had contacted him again, with that half-crazed look on his
narrow face, and demanded that Premel kill both Jibb and Melyor. They
had spoken once more since then, albeit only long enough for Marar to
ask whether the assassinations had been carried out, and for Premel to
explain that the occasion had not yet arisen. Marar accepted this
grudgingly, but Premel had little hope that he could put the Sovereign
off again. One way or another, he'd have to act soon.
Ahead of him, Jibb raised a hand, pulling Premel from his dark musings.
The security chief turned to face them and pointed to a small blue
light mounted on the curved cement ceiling. They had reached the edge
of the Fourteenth. Premel and the other ten guards gathered in a tight
ring around Jibb.
"Stay alert now," the big man whispered. "Gribon's men could be
anywhere, and at last report Tullis's invaders were in this part of the
Realm."
The others nodded, as did Premel after a moment's hesitation. He took a
deep breath, trying to clear his head. He needed to concentrate. A man
could get killed in the tunnels if he wasn't paying attention.
"Should we split up, General?" one of the other men asked in a low voice.
"I've been trying to decide that," Jibb said. He glanced at Premel. "What do you think?"
If we split up, there's no way I can kill you. "I'm not sure. It might be a good idea."
"But?"
The man was unnervingly perceptive. Premel cleared his throat, forcing
his mind past his own problems. "But we have a better chance of ending
their conflict by finding one of them and persuading him to break off.
And we can only do that if the one we find is convinced that SovSec is
here in force."
Jibb seemed to weigh this for several moments until, finally, he nodded. "That makes sense. We'll stay together."
He started forward again and Premel followed, unsure whether to feel relieved or dismayed.
"You all right?" Jibb asked as they stole through the passages.
No, I'm a traitor. "Yes, fine."
"I thought you'd be glad to be back in the quads."
Unnervingly perceptive. "I am. It's just been a while. I'm still trying to make the adjustment." And I'm trying to decide whether it would be easier to kill you or just get myself killed and be done with it.
Jibb grinned. "Well don't take too long. Tullis and Gribon aren't likely to be as patient as I am."
Premel tried to smile, but judging from the frown that appeared on
Jibb's face, he knew that he'd failed. Jibb faced forward again, and
they continued through the tunnels, taking a fork to the right and then
a second several moments later.
Jibb glanced back at him a second time and opened his mouth to say
something. But in that instant a man stepped into view at the end of
the corridor, and though the tunnels were dimly lit, and the man
appeared as little more than a shadow, Premel could see that he had a
thrower in his hand. Without pause, in a motion so fluid he must have
done it a thousand times before, the man raised his thrower and fired,
red flame leaping from his weapon. Without even a thought, Premel did
the only thing he could, the only thing he had ever really been capable
of doing. Crying out a warning, he leaped forward, knocking Jibb to the
cold cement floor with his left forearm while at the same time firing
his own weapon at the break-law.
Premel heard Jibb grunt with pain, and he wasn't certain whether he had
been hit by the thrower fire or had just had the wind knocked out of
him by his fall. But in the next moment it hardly mattered. The man in
front of them was joined by several of his comrades, all of them armed.
Using the corner of the corridor for protection, they took turns
pouring their thrower fire into the passageway and then ducking back
for cover.
Premel and the other guards were well-trained and highly skilled with
hand weapons. But in the narrow passageway they had nowhere to hide and
could do little to protect themselves. At least five of them fell in
the first volley— it was hard for Premel to get an accurate
count, draped as he was over Jibb. Judging from the angle of their
return fire, the rest seemed to have dropped to the floor to use the
bodies of the dead for protection, but they could not hold out for very
long.
"Use your hand boomers!" Jibb said through clenched teeth, his voice
strained. The break-law must have gotten him with his thrower, Premel
thought, starting to tremble.
"Of course," Premel answered. "Hand boomers!" he called out for the rest to hear. "Quickly!"
For several seconds nothing happened, and the men in front of them
continued their assault. Then one of the guards shouted out a warning
from behind them. And an instant later the tunnel rocked with the force
of an explosion.
Bits of cement fell on Premel's back and head, and smoke began to fill
the corridor. But the firing stopped, and, despite the ringing in his
ears, he could hear screams coming from where their attackers had been.
"Take them forward," Jibb said in the same tight voice. "Don't let the break-laws get away."
"But you're—"
"I can protect myself. I still have my weapon and one good arm."
One good ... "Is that where you were hit?" Premel asked, climbing to his feet and helping Jibb into a sitting position. "Your arm?"
"My left shoulder."
Premel looked more closely, and even in the faint light he could make
out the sheen of blood on Jibb's pale blue uniform. For a moment he
wondered if he was going to be ill. He was trembling again, and he
wasn't sure why. He was a soldier— before that he had been a
break-law— things like this weren't supposed to bother him. But
this was Jibb who had been hurt. This was Jibb whom he was supposed to
have killed.
"Could you tell whose men they were?" Jibb asked, wiping sweat from his brow with his good hand.
"No."
Jibb closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the stone wall.
"Well you'd better get going. I don't want them getting away."
Premel swallowed, nodded. "We're moving!" he said to the rest, a slight flutter in his voice. "After them!"
The others started forward, but Jibb reached out for Premel's leg, stopping him.
"Premel."
"Yes."
"Thanks."
Premel nodded again— somehow he couldn't bring himself to say
anything at all— and then he followed the rest of Jibb's men.
The boomer had killed three of the attackers and driven the rest off.
And as Premel's hearing slowly returned, he could make out the sound of
their footsteps retreating down the passageway in front of them.
Apparently the rest of the men heard them as well, because one minute
they were stepping gingerly over the rubble left by the explosion, and
the next they were sprinting down the corridor, weapons drawn.
They couldn't see the break-laws, and while they were running they
couldn't even hear them, but Premel could tell that he and his men
weren't getting any closer to them. When the tunnel forked, as he knew
it would, they'd lose them. It happened even sooner than he'd expected.
Rounding a bend in the passageway, they came to a second corridor that
veered off sharply to the right. They stopped, and Premel held up a
hand indicating that the guards should remain silent.
"There!" he said after several seconds. "Footsteps to the right!"
They started after them again, but almost immediately they saw flashes of red light reflecting off the walls.
"Thrower fire!" one of the other guards shouted.
"I see it!"
They slowed again, peering ahead cautiously until, finally, the
break-laws came into view. They were crouched at the mouth of yet
another fork in the tunnels, firing their weapons at some unseen enemy
and occasionally ducking for cover to avoid the bursts of red flame
that streaked past. So far they had not noticed Premel and the other
guards, and Premel scanned their faces in an effort to figure out whose
men they were. To his great surprise, he soon spotted Tullis himself,
taking aim with the rest of them, and giving commands in sharp, silent
gestures.
Thus far, Premel and the others had not used their hand lights—
Jibb had feared that they would alert the break-laws to SovSec's
presence before the guards could get close enough to do any good. But
now Premel pulled his light from his belt and pointed it directly at
Tullis.
"Drop your weapons!" he shouted. "And stay right where you are!"
Tullis whirled toward them and fired, as did several of his men.
Premel dived for cover, spitting a curse. This was no way to run a Nal. Better to let them fight it out.
"SovSec!" he heard Tullis call out. "Run!"
The Nal-Lord, following his own advice, took off down the left-hand
passageway, twisting once to fire wildly over his shoulder. Premel
fired at him three times, and though he missed, the shafts of fire came
close enough to the Nal-Lord's neck and cheek to send him sprawling to
the floor, his arms wrapped around his head.
"Stop firing!" he cried. "I give up!"
Several of the guards fired warning shots over the heads of Tullis's
men, and the break-laws threw down their weapons. If Tullis was willing
to cower for his life, they seemed to decide, they weren't about to
risk theirs defending him.
Premel strode across the corridor to where Tullis still lay and hauled him to his feet.
"The Sovereign would like a word with you, Tullis," he said, turning the man around and looking him in the eye.
"What about Gribon?" the Nal-Lord asked petulantly.
"We're in Gribon's Realm. He's not the aggressor here."
"He started this fight! I was just defending myself! If I hadn't attacked first, he would have!"
"Tell it to the Sovereign," Premel said, shaking his head. "I'm really not interested."
"That Gildriite bitch wouldn't know—"
Before Premel knew it he had hammered his fist into the man's gut,
doubling him over. He had no idea why. He had called Melyor much the
same thing in his own mind more times than he could count.
"That's the Sovereign you're talking about!" he growled.
But Premel was trembling again. First he had saved Jibb's life, and now
he was defending Melyor as if she were his sister. He felt as though he
was losing control of himself.
He yanked on Tullis's arm. "Let's go."
"What about the rest of them?" one of the guards asked, gesturing toward the break-laws they had captured.
"We'll take them to the general and see what he says."
The guard nodded.
Glancing back over his shoulder down the other corridor, Premel saw
several of Gribon's men watching them, their weapons held casually at
their sides. "Take them back to Jibb," Premel commanded, facing the
guard again. "I'll be along soon."
"Yes, sir."
Turning again, Premel approached Gribon's men, making a point of putting his weapon away as he did.
"What do you want?" one of the break-laws asked, as Premel drew near.
"We heard what you said to Tullis, and you were right: he started this,
not us."
Premel opened his hands and smiled. "I just want to talk."
"We have nothing to say to SovSec."
Premel's grin vanished as quickly as it had come, and he twisted his
fist into the man's shirt, pulling him close. "Well SovSec has
something to say to you, or rather to your boss. Tell Gribon that he's
getting off easy right now. The Sovereign is willing to assume that he
was just defending himself. But any retaliation, any move at all
against the Fifteenth, and she'll strip him of his Realm, arrest all of
his men, and let the rest of the Nal-Lords in the dominion carve up his
wealth. Understood?"
The man met Premel's gaze with a smirk on his lips, but he said nothing.
It wasn't an uncommon reaction among gangmen. They were afraid of
SovSec, even if they didn't admit it to each other, but seeing the
stiff blue uniforms seemed to make them bold, to a point. Premel had
been like that himself when he was still a break-law, and he had seen
it many times over the past few years. But after all that had happened
this day, and with all that preyed on his mind, his rage finally
exploded like a hand boomer, sudden and uncontrollable.
Still gripping the man's shirt with one hand, Premel pounded his other
fist into the break-law's stomach, much as he had done to Tullis a few
moments before. But this time, when the man doubled over, Premel drove
his knee up into the break-law's face and then, almost in the same
motion, flung him headfirst into the tunnel wall. The break-law hit the
cement with a sickening thud and then crumpled to the floor like a
child's doll.
"Fist of the God!" one of the other break-laws breathed, staring at
Premel as if he were some creature out of a nightmare. "I think you
killed him!"
Premel looked at the one who had spoken, and then at the other two who
remained standing. "I asked him to deliver a message. He refused. Now
is one of you going to volunteer to do what he wouldn't, or do I have
to do this to all of you?"
"No!" the first one said quickly. "We'll tell Gribon, just like you said."
Premel nodded. "Good." His anger had sluiced away, leaving him badly
shaken and terrified that he had in fact killed the man. When the
break-law stirred and let out a low groan, he breathed a ragged sigh of
relief.
"Get your friend to the meds," he said, "and keep out of the tunnels."
He didn't wait for a reply. He just left them there and walked back
toward Jibb and the others. He felt sick. It wasn't as though he had
never beaten a man before. He had done far worse as a break-law many
times. But somehow this was different. He hadn't planned to do it at
all. He just attacked, without thinking, without being able to stop
himself.
"I don't even know who I am anymore," he mumbled in the dim corridor.
And a voice in his mind answered, You're a traitor. You'd kill your
Sovereign and your best friend for gold.
He shook his head. "No." He said it aloud, so that it echoed off the walls.
Then you're a dead man, Marar will see to that. Those are your choices traitor or corpse.
"No." There had to be another way. Which of course led him back to the
one alternative he had thought of, the one that had come to him the
night he spoke with Stib-Nal's Sovereign. It wasn't much of an option.
Just the idea of it made his skin crawl, and it carried grave risks.
But it was all he had. He had wracked his brain trying to come up with
other choices, but there were none. Marar had him trapped.
"No," he said to the darkness a third time. "You did this to yourself."
He saw the rubble from the hand boomer in front of him, scattered
around the bodies of the break-laws who had died in the explosion. At
the same time, the sound of voices reached him, and stepping over the
debris, and turning the corner, he saw Jibb. The security chief was
still sitting with his back against the wall. He was speaking to two of
the guards, who stood over him gesturing toward the other survivors and
the bodies of the guards they'd lost. He turned at the sound of
Premel's approach and beckoned to him with his good hand, before
looking up at the guards again.
"We'll have the bodies taken to the coroner in this Realm," he said. "The Sovereign will send for them later."
"Very good, General," one of the guards said, before they both moved off.
Jibb turned to Premel as he drew closer. "There you are," he said. His
voice sounded stronger than it had before. "What took so long?"
Premel stopped before him and squatted down to take a closer look at
Jibb's shoulder. "I had to give Gribon's men a message for their
leader. I don't want to have to come back here anytime soon."
"Good thinking."
"We need to get you to the meds. This doesn't look too good."
Jibb made a sour face. "It's fine. I'll be fine."
"I didn't say you wouldn't be. But you still need to get that worked on."
The general indicated the other men with a bob of his head, as if he
hadn't heard. "They told me how you captured Tullis. Well-done."
Premel felt his face reddening. "Thank you, sir."
"First you save my life and then you grab a renegade Nal-Lord. You're turning into quite the hero, aren't you?"
He looked away, unwilling to meet Jibb's gaze just then. "We should be going." He stood and gently pulled Jibb to his feet.
"There's blood on your uniform," the general said, gritting his teeth as he stood. "Are you all right?"
Premel looked down at his shirt, spotted with blood in several places.
It must have come from the break-law he had beaten. "Yes, I'm fine. One
of the break-laws I talked to was less cooperative than I would have
liked."
Jibb raised an eyebrow. "You've been busy."
He tried to force a smile, but failed.
"You're sure there's nothing wrong?"
"Yes, General. But we should get you back."
This time Jibb nodded.
Premel snapped his fingers and waved two guards over to assist the
general. A moment later his companions set off down the corridor, but
Premel lingered briefly, glancing one last time at the mess they had
made of the tunnel and shaking his head. It could have been far worse,
he told himself. Jibb could have been killed. You could have killed him. He shook his head a second time, trying to clear his mind. Then he followed after the others.
But even as he walked, all he could hear was Jibb's voice. You're turning into quite the hero, aren't you?
He couldn't possibly have been further from the truth.
* * *
There was still daylight coming through her windows, but already Melyor
was on her third glass of wine. She didn't usually drink so early, or
so much, but this had been an extraordinary day. Never mind that
Wiercia was refusing to speak with her again, or that she had received
intelligence reports indicating that Marar was accumulating gold and
new weapons at an alarming rate. Those were secondary.
Jibb had nearly been killed. The injury to his shoulder was severe,
according to her personal surgeon, to whom she had sent the security
man as soon as she learned that he had been hurt. The physician had
gone so far as to caution that Jibb might never have full use of that
arm again. True it was his left arm, but still ...
And then, of course, there were the five men who hadn't returned at all.
She drained her glass and poured another.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. She had devoted herself and all the
resources available to her as Sovereign to changing Bragor-Nal, to
ending the violence. People spoke of the Consolidation, the prolonged
period of civil conflict that had consumed the land for over a century
several hundred years ago, as a tragic episode in Lon-Ser's history.
And yet, in effect, Bragor-Nal had been experiencing its own
consolidation ever since. How else could one describe the constant
warfare that had raged unabated among the Nal's Overlords, Nal-Lords,
and break-laws? Was she the only one who understood how dangerous it
was? Was she the only one who wanted to see it end? Certainly it seemed
that way at times. Despite all her efforts, too many Nal-Lords and
break-laws stubbornly held to the old ways. Her Overlords, Dob, Bren,
and Bowen claimed to support her efforts to end the bloodshed, but if
they really meant it, they wouldn't have tolerated so many skirmishes.
Dob was the only one who seemed sincere in his agreement and,
unfortunately, he had little influence with his peers.
She ran a hand through her amber hair and took another sip of wine.
She'd strip Tullis of his Realm and throw him in jail for ten years,
she'd throw each of the break-laws they had captured in jail for five
years, and she'd divide Tullis's wealth among Tullis's neighbors,
including Gribon, she decided with some reluctance. She also would make
a point of withholding some gold from Bowen, Tullis's Overlord, when
she next paid out the Dominion allowances. All of this didn't amount to
much, she knew, especially since five of her guards had been killed,
but it was something, and Melyor felt it important that she show
everyone in the Nal that the old ways didn't pay anymore, but instead
carried a cost.
Glancing at her staff, which leaned against the wall beside her desk
across the room from where she stood, the Sovereign couldn't help but
wonder if she'd have had more success if she weren't a Gildriite. If
she were just Melyor i Lakin trying to change the Nal, rather than
Melyor i Lakin, Bearer of the Stone, might they listen to her? The
question was moot of course, but she found some solace in the notion
that they opposed her, and wanted her dead, because of their prejudice
rather than because they thought her vision of the Nal was flawed.
She raised her glass to her lips again, but stopped herself before
drinking anymore. This maudlin self-pity was getting her nowhere.
Setting the glass on a low table by her bed, she crossed to her desk
and the speaker that connected her with Jibb's office. From the sketchy
reports she had received from the surviving guards, it seemed that
Premel had not only saved Jibb's life, but had also been responsible
for the arrest of Tullis and his men. For some reason, the tall man
hadn't reported directly to her, but it was time she thanked him. If
Jibb's injuries prevented him from continuing as head of SovSec, Premel
would replace him, and ever since she had become a Bearer, their
interaction had been difficult.
Before she could turn the speaker on, however, she heard a knock on her door.
"Who is it?" she called.
"Premel."
She grinned, stepped to the door, and pulled it open.
The security man stood before her, looking pale and younger than she
had seen him look in many years. He still had blood on his blue
uniform, and he glanced at her only briefly before looking down to
avoid her gaze. Jibb, Melyor knew, was Premel's closest friend—
it was one thing that she and Premel had in common. No doubt, the
general's injury had the man worried.
"May I speak with you a moment, Sovereign?"
"Of course, Premel. Come in."
He looked around him, as if checking to see if anyone was watching from the hallway, and then he entered her chamber.
"I was just going to call for you," Melyor said, closing the door behind him. "It sounds like you had quite a day."
"Yes, Sovereign." He was wandering around the room, still avoiding her
gaze. He came to her desk, and stopped for a moment to stare at her
staff and the glowing scarlet stone it held.
"I want to thank you, Premel. According to the reports I received, you saved Jibb's life."
He looked up at that, his eyes wide, as if she had caught him in a lie.
And suddenly, Melyor felt her stomach tightening. Something wasn't
right here. Her hand moved involuntarily to her thigh and the thrower
that was strapped there. Fortunately, Premel had looked away again and
didn't notice.
"I can't thank you enough," she went on, trying to keep her tone
casual. "I care about Jibb a great deal, Premel. Perhaps as much as you
do."
Finally, he met her gaze. "I know you do, Sovereign. I believe you
would have done the same thing if you had been there instead of me."
"That's kind of you to say."
He dismissed the comment with a small gesture and began wandering around the chamber again.
Moving slowly, so as not to betray her suspicions, Melyor began to
wander as well. She needed to be at her desk, just in case she had to
call for security.
"So how can I help you, Premel?" she asked. "You did come to me, after all."
He stopped walking and looked at her again. He was breathing hard, and
Melyor half expected him to go for his thrower in the next instant. But
instead he averted his eyes again. "I'm not sure," he said, his voice
barely more than a whisper.
She put her hand on her weapon. "Not sure of what?"
He shook his head. "Of anything: why I'm here, whether you can help me. Anything."
Melyor just waited, saying nothing. She wasn't sure what to make of
Premel's odd behavior, but she could see that his confusion was genuine.
"I need your help, Sovereign," he said after a long pause. He stopped
pacing and met her gaze again. "I've gotten myself into some trouble."
"I'll help you in any way I can, Premel. You know that I've always taken care of the men who work for me."
He gave a brittle laugh and shook his head. "I wouldn't be so generous if I were you. Not yet."
"I don't understand."
He took a long breath. "Perhaps you've wondered how the assassin who
died on the steps outside your window managed to get so close to the
palace."
She stared at him. A moment ago she had wondered if he planned to kill
her. She shouldn't have been surprised at all. But this was different.
In a way it was worse. She knew she should have said something, but she
found that she could barely speak. "You?" she finally managed.
"Yes."
Somehow she had her thrower in her hand, and she waved it at a chair near her bed. "Sit," she commanded, her tone icy.
He obeyed her without a word, his eyes never leaving her face.
"Why, Premel?"
"I was offered a great deal of gold, more than I ever imagined I—"
"Was it Marar? Was he the one who recruited you?"
Premel swallowed. "Yes."
Melyor sat on the corner of her desk and shook her head, exhaling
slowly. "You still haven't told me why," she said after some time.
"Yes, I did. The gold—"
She silenced him with an abrupt gesture. "That's not what I mean. Marar
offered you gold to help him kill me, and you wanted to be rich. I
understand that. What I don't understand is why you wanted me dead."
For an instant she thought she might cry, but she thrust the emotion
away. This isn't the time, she told herself. Later, when you're alone.
"What have I ever done to you," she pressed on, "except give you a job
when no one else would, and take you with me to the Gold Palace when I
became Sovereign?"
He looked away. "It's difficult to explain."
"Try."
He shifted in his chair. "When you became a Gildriite—"
"I've always been a Gildriite, Premel. Getting this staff didn't change
anything. It just told everyone else what I'd known all along."
"No!" he said. "You're wrong! It did change you! You started trying to
make the Nal into something it's not! It was like you wanted us to
become another Oerella-Nal."
"Would that be so bad?" she asked.
He looked at her with disgust. "The Melyor i Lakin I pledged myself to
all those years ago would never think to ask such a question."
She started to argue, but then stopped herself. After several moments
she gave a single nod. "You're right, she wouldn't have. I guess I have
changed, and I've tried to change the Nal with me."
"It didn't need changing."
"No? You saw the old ways at work today, Premel. Did you like what you
saw? We lost five men; Jibb was almost the sixth. We killed three of
Tullis's men, and I haven't even gotten the count on how many died in
the firefight between the break-laws. Is that the way you want to live?"
He looked like he wanted to say something, but Melyor wouldn't let him.
"What's it going to take, Premel? How many have to die before you're
willing to give this a chance to work? Or isn't it a matter of numbers?
Would Jibb's death have done it?"
His eyes flashed angrily, and he looked for just an instant like he
wanted to strike her. But then he looked down at his hands. "Yes, that
might have done it," he said quietly.
She nearly laughed aloud, although she couldn't say why. "Great," she said, shaking her head.
He said nothing, and they sat that way for a long time.
"So why did you come to me, Premel?" she finally asked. "You said you
were in trouble, that you needed my help. Why should I help you after
all this? You've gotten all that gold; why don't you just buy your way
out of trouble?"
"It's not that easy. Marar has me ... trapped. This thing has
gotten out of control, and I don't know how to get myself free of it."
"And why should I care? Why shouldn't I just cut you loose and let Marar do what he wants with you?"
"Because," Premel said bitterly, looking up at her again, "if you cut
me loose, Marar will find someone else. I'm not the only one in SovSec
who'd be willing to help him in this way."
Melyor felt an aching in her chest, and for a second time she thought
she'd cry. He was right, of course. She was certain of it. "All right.
But you still haven't told me why you've come to me. What kind of
trouble are you in?"
Premel hesitated, but only briefly. "Marar wants me to kill Jibb, too.
He says that if Jibb ever learned that he'd had you killed, his own
life would be in danger. Jibb would never rest until he'd avenged you."
He paused again, his eyes remaining locked on hers. "He's right. I
think you know that."
She nodded. It all made a great deal of sense, really. "So you were
willing to have me killed, but you got squeamish over killing Jibb?"
His face reddened.
"Never mind," she said. "You don't have to answer that. Tell me though:
what do you expect me to do? How am I supposed to help you with this?"
Premel shrugged. "Just by knowing. Marar threatened to expose me if I
didn't kill both of you. Now that you know, his threat means nothing.
In a way, I'm already out."
"Except that I may have you killed as a traitor."
He was brave, she had to give him that. He didn't look away. He didn't
even blink. "If that's what you choose to do, I'll gladly die. At least
I'm the one who told you. At least I didn't let Marar win."
She smiled. Trying to keep Marar from winning had become something of a
hobby of hers recently. She was ready to tell him as much, when she was
stopped by another knock on her door.
Premel's eyes flew to the door, and the color drained from his features.
"Who is it?" Melyor asked.
"It's me." Jibb's voice.
She stood. "Come in."
The door opened, and the big man walked in. His arm was in a sling, and
he was wearing quad clothes rather than his uniform: dark pants, an
ivory shirt, soft leather shoes. He looked pale, but he was smiling.
And his grin broadened when he saw Premel.
"I was hoping I'd find both of you."
"How are you?" she asked, not bothering to mask her concern.
He shrugged, winced. "Surgeon said I'm all right for now. He's still
not certain how the shoulder's going to heal, but he said that he was
more confident now than he was when they first brought me in. Still, I
won't be going out on any security details for a while." He turned to
Premel. "Which I believe makes you acting head of SovSec." He grinned.
"How does that sound, Colonel?"
Premel lowered his gaze and licked his lips nervously. He glanced at Melyor for a moment, a plea in his eyes.
"No," she said. "This is your story to tell."
"What's going on?" Jibb demanded. "What story—" He stopped,
noticing for the first time that Melyor held her thrower in her hand.
"What is all this?"
"Tell him," Melyor said. "You want my help? First you tell him."
Premel stared at her for another moment before giving a single nod.
"Tell me what?" Jibb's voice had grown cold, and he was, looking from one of them to the other.
"That I'm a traitor," Premel said. "That I was recruited by Marar to
help him assassinate the Sovereign. That I was responsible for allowing
the bomber to get so close to the Gold Palace."
Jibb gaped at Premel as if the guard had disfigured himself in some
way, as if he had severed his arm from his shoulder and left it
bleeding on the floor. After a long time he looked over at Melyor. "Is
he telling the truth?"
She nodded.
Facing Premel again, the general took an awkward step forward, so that
he was standing right in front of the man. "Stand up," he commanded.
Premel shot Melyor a look and then did as he was told. When both were
standing, Premel was slightly taller than Jibb, but at that moment, the
general seemed the larger man. They stood that way for some time,
staring at each other. And then, with such swiftness that it actually
made Melyor start, Jibb hit him. Premel staggered backward but quickly
righted himself, a bright red welt appearing almost immediately high on
his cheek. An instant later Jibb struck him again. This time Premel
fell to one knee. He was bleeding from the corner of his eye, and he
blinked several times, as if attempting to keep his head clear. But
after a few seconds he struggled to his feet and stood before Jibb once
more. And again Jibb hit him, Premel fell to the floor bleeding from a
cut on his cheekbone as well. He lay still for a moment and then fought
to raise himself onto one elbow.
"Get up!" Jibb said.
Melyor found herself trembling, her arms folded over her chest. "Jibb, that's enough."
"Get up!" he repeated, ignoring her and balling his fist again.
"I said that's enough, General!"
At that, Jibb looked at her. "You and I agreed a long time ago that I was to have free rein disciplining my men."
She remembered. It had been years ago, the day she met him, when she
was just an inexperienced Nal-Lord, and he a brash independent. This
had been the one condition he had set when he agreed to work for her.
"Yes, I did," she conceded. "But—"
"Then let me do my job!"
"No, not this time."
He started to protest, but she stopped him with a raised finger.
"He tried to have me killed, Jibb. Marar hired him to have me killed."
"Yes! And he deserves to be beaten for that! He deserves to die!"
"Maybe," Melyor said. "But not yet. I need him to help me get at Marar."
Jibb held himself utterly still for some time, his dark eyes locked on
hers. Finally, he exhaled, and it seemed like his entire body sagged.
He dropped himself into the chair that Premel had occupied a few
minutes before and, after another moment, he nodded. "All right."
Premel sat up slowly and dabbed gingerly at the cut on his eye. "How?"
he asked, looking at Melyor. "I'll do anything you want, but how are we
going to get him?"
She shook her head. "I don't know yet." She was tempted to just take an
army across the Greenwater Range and crush Stib-Nal like a bug. But the
last thing she wanted was war with Oerella-Nal, and she had no doubt as
to how Wiercia would respond to such an aggressive move. "I don't
know," she said again. "But I'll think of something. One way or
another, I'm going to destroy him."
Jibb glanced up at that, an eager look in his dark eyes that Melyor hadn't seen since their days in the quads.
13
Despite the concerns of my fellow mages, and your recent silence, I
remain convinced that Lon-Ser presents no threat to our land. Jaryd's
eagle, I believe, has come to help us defeat some other enemy. But who?
If the gods have sent an eagle, this foe must be formidable indeed.
Many in the Order have even speculated that we are destined for a civil
war, much like your Consolidation, a viewpoint that has been reinforced
by the appearance in Tobyn-Ser of a second eagle. She is bound to
Cailin, the young woman of the League about whom I have told you so
much.
The presence of two Eagle-Sages is unprecedented in our history. Most
cannot even begin to imagine what it might mean. But I believe that I
know. I believe that Tobyn-Ser faces an enemy so overwhelming in its
power and destructive capacity that the gods determined that one eagle
would not be sufficient.... If I am right, then it becomes more vital
than ever that the League and the Order reach some sort of
accommodation. For if the Mage-Craft is divided against such an enemy,
no number of eagles will save us.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Spring, God's Year 4633.
As a boy, Nodin had traveled the length and breadth of the Northern
Plain with his uncle, a peddler whose company he had much enjoyed. They
spent time in all sections of the plain, including the eastern corner
adjacent to Tobyn's Wood and just north of the Dhaalismin River, which
Nodin remembered as being no different from the rest: populated by
hardworking farmers and marked by low rolling hills and small clusters
of windswept oaks.
Looking around now, as the sun dipped low in the western sky toward the
distant peaks of the Seaside Range, Nodin thought to himself that these
plains still looked much as they had all those years ago. They still
possessed a subtle, haunting beauty; tall grasses still swayed in the
constant wind, and small towns with their modest, low-roofed homes
still dotted the landscape.
The difference was that now, the towns had been abandoned, the homes
left to decay, the fields neglected. Because eleven years ago, one
hundred leagues from here, one man, on the verge of being killed by the
mages of the Order, rendered himself unbound and thus became one of the
Unsettled, fated to wander the nights in eternal unrest with the spirit
of his first familiar. It was an accident of history and nothing more,
that drove the people of the eastern plain from their homes. For
decades before this man's death, he had bound to his first hawk on this
spot. So it was that this land, once a home to the people of Tobyn-Ser,
now belonged to the wind by day, and to Sartol's ghost by night.
"You're certain that this is the right place," Tammen said, a simple statement.
Nodin shook his head. "No. I'm not. I never claimed to know very much about Sartol. I thought you'd know."
She pressed her lips into a thin line, but said nothing.
It had been like this all day. It almost seemed to Nodin as if the
previous night had never happened, that it had been but a dream. Except
that his memory of their lovemaking was far too vivid to have been a
vision. He could still feel her lips on his, he could still taste her
skin and see her face illuminated by the firelight, eyes closed, mouth
opened, as his lips traveled her body. The rhythm of their movements
was as much a part of him this day as the beating of his heart and the
measure of his breath. Yes, it had been a dream, but a waking one. It
had been real.
She was using him. He knew it. She needed him for this journey—
she was afraid to face Sartol without him. That was why she had allowed
him to love her, not because her feelings had changed. He was too wise
not to see through her pretense, and even if he hadn't been, Henryk,
who had accompanied them after all, had been quick to point it out
before stalking off into the night to give them their privacy. But if
this was the only way he could have her, then so be it. He had denied
himself for too long. Perhaps, with time, she would learn to love him
as he loved her.
"So neither of you knows if this is the right place?" Henryk asked,
sounding impatient and disgusted, just as he had nearly every day since
Prannai.
"It's the right place," Nodin said, his voice low. He indicated the
abandoned farmhouses before them with a wave of his hand. "Look around.
These people were driven away, and not by the weather." He glanced at
Tammen. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
She nodded, although he noticed that she had her arms folded in front of her, as if she were cold.
"All right. Then let's start a fire and eat something. The sun will be down soon."
Neither their meal nor their fire amounted to very much. None of them
was terribly hungry, and with little wood to be found on the plain, and
the god's forest at least an hour's walk back to the east, they had to
content themselves with burning a few planks from the dilapidated
fences nearby. They briefly considered taking wood from one of the
abandoned houses, but Henryk argued against it.
"I know they're probably not coming back," the dark-haired mage said, "but it just wouldn't be right."
Tammen said that he was being foolish, but Nodin agreed with Henryk. They left the houses alone.
Sitting beside the small fire in anxious silence, the three mages
watched the sun disappear behind the mountains and stars begin to
emerge above them in a sky of deep indigo.
"What are we going to say to him?" Nodin finally asked.
Tammen shrugged. "The same thing we said to Peredur, I guess."
Henryk shook his head and gave a high harsh laugh. "Right, because it worked so well the first time."
"That had nothing to do with what we said," Tammen shot back. "He
wouldn't have helped us under any circumstances. He was First of the
Sage in the Order. He'd have seen any help he offered us as a
betrayal." She ran a hand through her light brown hair and twisted her
mouth in annoyance. "He was a bad choice."
"No," Henryk said. "This is a bad choice. We shouldn't be here. I think our lives are in danger."
"We've been through this," Tammen told him. "If you don't want to be here, leave. But I don't want to talk about it anymore."
For a moment, Henryk looked as though he might actually go, but then he
sighed heavily and threw the last scrap of wood on the fire.
Nodin looked to the west, where the last vestiges of daylight still
glowed orange, like embers in a dying fire. His grey hawk gave a soft
cry and he scratched her chin. She cried out a second time, and Nodin
felt a sudden cold dread that made him shudder. He's here.
He heard Tammen draw breath.
"Look," Henryk whispered.
Turning to look east, toward Tobyn's Wood and the advancing night,
Nodin saw a glowing figure in the distance, picking its way among the
remains of the farming community. He could tell that it was a man, tall
and graceful, with a large hawk on his shoulder and a staff in his
hand. He and his bird were both suffused with a pale yellow glow, the
color of sand touched by the golden light of a setting sun. As the man,
or rather, as Sartol's ghost came closer, Nodin found that he could see
more of his face, just as he had with the spirit of Peredur a few days
earlier.
With all that he knew, or thought he knew, of Sartol's life, Nodin had
expected his appearance to be harsh and forbidding. This was, after
all, the man who had killed Peredur and Sage Jessamyn, the man who had
given aid to the outlanders. He hadn't expected to see this handsome
mage who was approaching them, his dark hair flecked with grey and his
chiseled features weathered like those of a seaman. The spirit was
smiling broadly, his arms opened in greeting, belying his reputation.
Only his eyes gave Nodin pause. They glowed bright and hot, like
torches, making it impossible to see what lay behind the smile. It had
been much the same way with Peredur's ghost, Nodin realized, except
that the First's eyes had been whiter in color. But it hadn't bothered
him as much that night, perhaps because he knew Peredur from his youth,
or perhaps because he had heard so much about the evil that dwelled
within Sartol.
He looked briefly at Tammen beside him, but he could read little on her
face. She was watching Sartol walk toward them, just as he was, and
though she appeared to be trembling slightly, her expression remained
neutral. Henryk, on the other hand, looked frightened, his dark eyes
wide, and his face pale in the ceryll-glow and the spirit light. He
looked toward Nodin for a moment and shook his head, seeming to say one
last time that this was a bad idea. Then they both faced forward once
more.
* * *
She was a child again, the burns on her neck throbbing, her face grimy
with tears and sweat, the image of her parents and sisters burning like
wood in a hearth seared on her mind forever. She could smell the fires.
Flesh, wood, her own hair. Everything seemed to be burning. Someone was
carrying her, running so that she bounced in his arms. She knew it was
a man; she still didn't know who.
But suddenly they stopped, despite the mages and dark birds pursuing
them. For standing before them were two more mages, one of them lean
and balding, and the other dark-haired and powerfully built, like a
hero out of one of Cearbhall's dramas. And like a hero, this mage did
what the other had been unable or unwilling to do. Thrusting forth his
staff, summoning from his stone a brilliant yellow fire, he smote the
men who had destroyed her village and killed her parents.
Again and again she saw it in her mind: the way the fire forked at the
last instant, smashing the attackers to the ground and consuming them
in flames. She could hear the cries of the other townspeople— she
heard herself crying out as well, though she didn't know why— and
she saw them gather around this man, pressing close to thank him for
saving them and avenging their loved ones.
She had seen all these images a thousand times, in dark dreams that
thrust her from sleep sweating and panting. But never had they come to
her so clearly, so completely. Because never, in all the years since
that horrific night, had she seen that man again, that hero, that tall,
dark-haired mage.
Until tonight. He glimmered with a soft yellow light, as if he were
mage-fire itself. And the bird on his shoulder was not the great owl
she remembered from Watersbend. But she would have known his face
anywhere. This was the man who had saved her life.
She held herself perfectly still as he approached, fearing that if she
even allowed herself to exhale, she would weep. Often she had wished
that she could see her parents once more before she died. This was the
next best thing.
"Greetings!" the spirit of Sartol said, his arms still spread wide. The
great hawk on his shoulder regarded Tammen and her companions coolly.
"We've been expecting you."
Henryk and Nodin exchanged a look.
"You have?" Nodin asked.
"Of course. After your conversation with Peredur went as it did, I guessed that you would be coming to me next."
Tammen smiled, though her heart was hammering in her chest, and her
hands were shaking. "Then you know why we've come," she said, a flutter
in her voice.
"Yes, I do. I must say, I think Peredur was a poor choice. A man of his
temperament would never embrace a movement such as yours. He could
never be so bold, so courageous."
She could scarcely believe what he was hearing.
"You know of our Movement?" Nodin asked. "How is that possible? Peredur knew nothing of it."
"Those of us who choose to keep watch on the world of the living have
the ability to do so. I've been aware of your Movement for some time
now. You deserve praise for what you've done; I think you're providing
the people of Tobyn-Ser with a valuable alternative to the Order and
the League."
"How convenient," Henryk said under his breath.
The smile on the spirit's face widened. "Ah, you don't believe me."
"I just find it strange," Henryk answered. "Peredur had no knowledge of
the Movement, and yet you claim not only to know of us, but to be an
admirer of our work."
"There's nothing strange about it," Sartol said. "I longed for an
alternative to the Order throughout my service to the land, but the
opportunity never presented itself. As for Peredur," the spirit added
with a shrug. "Well, even in life, the First was not a man given to
bold thinking."
"Is that why you killed him?"
"Henryk!" Tammen snapped, spinning to face him.
Sartol's smile vanished, and the fire in his glowing eyes appeared to
brighten. "Remember to whom you're speaking, Mage!" he said, his tone
as hot and hard as newly forged iron. "I may not have been a Sage, or
even a First, but I was an Owl-Master before you were born, and in my
time I was as powerful as any mage who has ever walked the land!"
"Our apologies, Owl-Master," Tammen said quickly, her voice still
unsteady. "He meant nothing by it. We've come to you in friendship. We
have no wish to give offense."
Sartol glared at Henryk for another moment, before turning his gaze to
Tammen. "Of course," he said, the smile touching his handsome face
again. "I understand really. No doubt all of you have heard ...
things about me, about what I was supposed to have done. It took great
courage for you to have come here."
"Actually, Owl-Master," Tammen said, "I've wanted to come for some
time. I was at Watersbend. I saw you save our village from the
outlanders."
"Did you?" Sartol asked kindly. "So then you know that the mages of the
Order told the most horrible lies about me so that they could conceal
their own treachery."
She nodded. "That's why we've come to you. You of all people might
understand our opposition to the Order, and to the League." She
hesitated. "Maybe you'd even be willing to help us."
"Help you?"
"The People's Movement has support throughout the land, but there are
only a few free mages. We're no match for either the League or the
Order, and now that the Temples are getting weapons from Lon-Ser, we
can't even be sure of equaling their strength."
The spirit nodded. "Ah yes, the Temples. I had seen something of this as well."
"Then you know how desperate our need is."
Sartol furrowed his brow and walked off a few steps, seemingly lost in
thought. He stood that way for several moments, his back to them, his
head bowed slightly, and his hand gripping his staff tightly. His hawk
sat perfectly still on his shoulder, and even the wind that drifted
across the plain did not ruffle the bird's feathers or the mage's hair.
Tammen held her breath. Without Sartol, she wasn't certain what they would do.
"Very well," he said at last, turning to face them again. "I'll help you."
"Thank you, Owl-Master," she said, feeling her relief like a cool wind on a summer afternoon. "I knew you wouldn't refuse us."
"I'm glad to be able to further your Movement, my dear. What better way for me to use those powers that I still possess."
"How are you going to help us?" Henryk asked.
Sartol frowned slightly, as if puzzled by the question. "In any way I can, of course."
"That's not what I mean. Peredur told us that the Unsettled are limited
in their ability to affect the living world, and that what little they
can do must be done together, with the consent of all. He even implied
that since you became one of them, such cooperation among your kind has
become next to impossible."
"Peredur is a fool," Sartol said, sounding annoyed. "And as I told you before, he was never terribly clever or creative."
"So there are ways for you to help us?" Tammen asked.
"Yes."
She looked at Nodin, smiling triumphantly. "I knew it!"
"I will need your help though," the spirit added.
Tammen faced him again. "What do you mean?"
"Peredur is right in part. I can't use my power the way I could when I was alive. It's not that easy."
"But you said—"
He smiled disarmingly. "I said I would help you, my dear. And I will.
But I'm not a mage anymore. I'm one of the Unsettled, and my kind are
constrained not only by Theron's Curse, but by the very nature of the
Mage-Craft."
"So what is it that you need from us?"
Sartol's smile broadened. "A trifle, really. Nothing more."
* * *
Nodin felt suddenly and inexplicably as though his entire world was
balanced on the edge of a blade. Watching the spirit intently, waiting
for him to respond to Tammen's question, he saw Sartol struggling with
something. It took him a moment to figure out what it was. But then he
knew. The ghost was fighting an urge to laugh, straining to control a
wave of giddiness. Nodin felt a chill run through his body, as if one
of the Unsettled had run a finger down his spine. He wanted to warn
Tammen. He wanted to grab her hand and lead her away from here at a
dead run. But he knew that it was too late. They had set a series of
events in motion, and he had no idea how to stop them. All he could do
was watch and listen, and hope that Tammen would realize their error in
coming here.
The spirit still had the same benign smile on his lips, and now he took
a single step forward. It covered little distance, but Nodin suddenly
felt an urge to back away.
"I need access to your ceryll," Sartol said.
Tammen stared back at him, as though not quite believing what she had heard. "Our cerylls?"
"Not all of them, just one."
"You can't be serious," Henryk said. "You can't really expect that we'd allow you to use our cerylls for anything."
The smile faded from the ghost's face. "I do expect it. You came to me
seeking my help, and I'm happy to give it. But I can do little without
receiving help from you in return. As I told you a moment ago, there
are limits on my powers. If you want me to help you, you're going to
have to help me first, so that we can overcome these limits." He
regarded the three of them somberly. "Besides," he went on, "why should
I trust any of you if you show so little trust in me?"
Henryk gaped at him. "What? You want us to believe that you're worried about our trust?"
"That's enough, Henryk!" Tammen said. She turned to Sartol and took a
long breath. "What exactly do you mean when you say that you need
access to one of our cerylls?"
"It's difficult to explain," the spirit replied. "We who are unsettled
exist as Mage-Craft, and nothing more. We are the embodiments of power,
but we are also tied by Theron's Curse to the places of our first
bindings." He gestured toward his own ceryll. "In my realm, this ceryll
is real, but it doesn't exist in your world. So I need your ceryll to
focus the power that I still possess. Without it, I have no way to use
my power in your world, and I have no way to leave this place."
"Tammen," Henryk said, a plea in his voice, "you can't really be considering allowing him to do this."
"What's to stop you from just using our cerylls without our consent?" she asked, ignoring Henryk.
Sartol shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing at all." He smiled at her. "If
I really were the monster your friend thinks I am, I would have done it
already."
Tammen glanced at Henryk and then Nodin, with a look that seemed to say, See? I told you we could trust him.
"Would you mind, Owl-Master," Nodin asked, "if we took some time to
discuss this among ourselves? You've given us a good deal to think
about, and we'd like to give your offer the consideration it deserves."
"Yes," Henryk agreed. "I might be more amenable to all this if I have a chance to speak with my friends about it."
Tammen opened her mouth, no doubt to object, but Nodin silenced her with a glare before facing Sartol again.
The spirit was watching them with narrowed eyes. Nodin could see him
clenching his jaw, but otherwise he offered no response for what seemed
a long time. "Very well," he finally said, with a thin smile. "You know
where to find me."
He turned and walked off through the ruined village, his yellow glow fading into the night as the sun had done some time ago.
Nodin turned and started in the opposite direction, signaling that his
companions should follow, but saying nothing until they were a good
distance from the old farmhouses and could no longer see Sartol's ghost.
"What in Arick's name was that all about?" Tammen demanded, whirling on
them both when they finally halted. "He was ready to help us!"
"I don't know what he was ready to do," Henryk said. "But I got the feeling that helping us was the least of his concerns."
Nodin nodded. "I agree. He's plotting something. I'm sure of it. He was just too eager to get at our cerylls."
"You idiots! Didn't you hear what he said? If he had wanted to use our cerylls he could have done so at any time."
Nodin hesitated, but only for a moment. "Yes, Tammen. I heard him. But I didn't believe him."
"Well, I did! And I don't care what you do or do not believe! I'm going
back to find him before he changes his mind about helping us."
"Tammen, don't!" Henryk said. "I know that you think of him
differently, that where we see a villain, you see a man who saved your
life. But didn't it strike you as a bit too convenient that he should
know so much about us, and that he should be so willing to help us, and
that he should know of a way to get around all the limitations that
Peredur mentioned? It was all just too perfect. Didn't you see that?"
She stared at him, looking pale and young in the strangely colored
light from their cerylls, and then she began to shake her head slowly.
"You know what I think?" she said at last, a look of defiance in her
grey eyes. "I think that the two of you are afraid of succeeding?"
"What?" Nodin said. "That makes no sense!"
"Doesn't it? Here we are, on the verge of joining forces with someone
who can put the Movement on an equal footing with the Temple, the
League, and the Order, and it seems like the two of you are searching
for reasons to refuse his aid!"
"That's not true," Nodin said. "We're just not certain that it's wise
to give Sartol a way to use his power in our world." He placed a hand
on her shoulder, but she shook it off. "I know that you trust him," he
continued, trying to ignore the sudden ache in his heart. "I even
understand why. But Henryk and I can't just ignore everything else that
we know about him. He killed Peredur and Jessamyn, and he helped the
outlanders. Can you really blame us for being cautious?"
Their eyes met, and Nodin found himself holding his breath. I love you, he wanted to say. I don't want to risk losing that. But he kept silent and waited.
"No," she finally said. "I don't blame you. But I know that you're
wrong about him, that the things the Order said about him aren't true.
And even if you can't bring yourselves to accept his help, I can."
With that, she started away from them as if she was going back to Sartol.
"Tammen, no!" Nodin said, grabbing her arm.
She looked down at his hand, her expression hardening. "Let go of me!"
"No. I won't let you do this."
She gave a short, harsh laugh. "You won't let me? Who do you think
you're talking to? One night together doesn't make you my husband or my
master! You can't keep me from doing anything!"
Nodin felt his face redden. Suddenly he was intensely aware of Henryk
standing beside him watching their exchange. He closed his eyes
briefly. "Tammen—"
"No!" she said, wrenching her arm out of his grasp. "I'm going! You two can do as you wish."
She began striding away from them, and Nodin followed. She spun around
and leveled her staff at him, making her blue ceryll gleam menacingly.
"Don't, Nodin! I won't let you stop me, so you might as well just let
me go."
He saw that her hands were trembling, but no more than his own. After
several moments, he opened his arms in a placating gesture, and nodded
once, cursing the single tear that he felt running down his cheek.
She seemed to see it, because a moment later, she allowed herself a sad
smile. Nodin thought that he might even have seen tears in her eyes as
well. It was hard to tell. But she gazed at him briefly, and then she
whispered, "I'm sorry," so softly that if he hadn't seen her lips move,
he might have thought it just the wind moving over the grasses of the
plain.
Then she turned and started once more to make her way back to Sartol.
Nodin stood watching her go, feeling like someone was kneeling on his chest. I love you.
"We're just going to let her do this?" Henryk demanded. "We're just going to let her give him her ceryll?"
"What are we supposed to do?" he answered, his voice subdued. "It's her
life. We can't keep her from doing it if that's really what she wants."
"You're wrong!" the dark-haired man said with such fervor that Nodin
turned to face him. "It may be her life, Nodin, but if she gives Sartol
access to her ceryll, she's endangering every person in Tobyn-Ser!"
He was right. Nodin knew it immediately. "But how do we stop her?"
"Any way we can."
"I can't hurt her, Henryk. And I can't allow you to either. Do you understand that?"
Henryk looked away, but nodded. "We'll just have to find some other way."
A moment later they were sprinting through the grasses after Tammen,
back toward the place where they had encountered Sartol's ghost. But
they hadn't gone very far— not nearly as far as they should
have— when they saw the glowing figure of the Owl-Master standing
before them. Tammen was already with him.
"I thought we had gone much farther than this," Nodin said.
Henryk was breathing hard, struggling to keep up with Nodin's longer
strides. "We had," he managed. "Sartol must have followed us."
They ran on, closing the distance between themselves and the ghost as
swiftly as they could. But somehow Nodin knew that they wouldn't get
there in time.
And just then, as if to prove him right, Sartol stepped toward the woman, his hands extended toward her ceryll.
"No!" Nodin cried out.
But it was too late. In the next instant, a brilliant flash of yellow
light brightened the plain, as though the sun itself had fallen from
the sky and landed in front of them. Nodin and Henryk stopped running
to shield their eyes. And when they looked again, the spirit was gone.
Tammen stood alone amid the crumbling farmhouses. Her great brown hawk
was nowhere to be seen, and Sartol's glowing bird sat on her shoulder,
as if it had been there all its life.
* * *
He had known they would come. With each day that passed in his prison
of light, his certainty had grown, until the feeling was so strong upon
him that the hours between dawn and dusk became unbearable. He had
tracked their progress through Tobyn's Wood after their conversation
with Peredur, screaming within his mind for them to move faster. His
interminable waiting was coming to an end at last, and yet these final
few days seemed to pass slower than had the preceding eleven years.
He knew from the vague images he had seen and the fragments of
conversation that had reached him through the web of consciousness that
linked the Unsettled to each other, that they were free mages, and that
they sought help for their precious Movement. But he had not realized
until they reached the Northern Plain that there was a woman in their
party. And he had not realized until he began speaking with them that
she was the one.
It was like an unexpected gift. A woman would arouse far less suspicion
than a man, she would allow him to carry his plan much further before
he had to betray himself by using his power. That the woman had been at
Watersbend seemed to him an almost uncanny stroke of good fortune. That
she was exceptionally attractive made the prospect of what was coming
that much more enticing. Had he not known better, he would have sworn
that the gods were with him.
Her companions were an annoyance, but nothing more. Under different
circumstances, their abrupt departure would have alarmed him. But this
woman— Tammen— had long since made up her mind. Long ago,
he had saved her life, and tonight he had won her trust with his
careful use of partial truths and modest lies. He had been following
their Movement for some time, although only because he viewed it as a
means for furthering his own ambitions. The limitations placed upon him
by Theron's Curse did necessitate his use of her ceryll, although not
in the way she thought, and not so that he could help them fight the
Keepers and the land's other mages. And he could have used their
cerylls at any time, but only to destroy them where they stood. In
order to gain the type of access he needed, she had to give it to him
freely.
But she believed him, or rather, she believed in him, and nothing her
companions might say could dissuade her from giving herself to him. He
had only to give her the opportunity. So he followed them, at a
distance to be sure. He was no fool. But he followed, and soon he saw
her walking back toward him, a look of grim resolve in her grey eyes.
She slowed when she saw him approaching, and she seemed to waver slightly.
He smiled and raised a hand in greeting. "I was hoping you'd come back." He frowned. "Where are your friends?"
"They're not coming," she said in a quavering voice.
"I'm sorry to hear that. I hope I didn't give offense." He stopped just
in front of her. Her light brown hair stirred slightly in the wind, and
her eyes shone with his glow. She really was quite beautiful.
She looked back over her shoulder briefly, as if she expected them to
appear on the horizon at any moment. "No, Owl-Master, you didn't," she
said, facing him again and taking a breath. "They just ... aren't
certain that we can trust you."
"I see. And what about you?"
She shrugged and tried to smile. "I'm here."
"Indeed." So beautiful.
"So what do we do now?"
He fought to suppress a wave of giddiness. He had waited eleven years
for this. Eleven years of isolation and tedious light. "It's very
simple. When you're ready, I'll lay my hands on your ceryll, and by so
doing, place my essence, my very existence now that I'm Mage-Craft and
nothing more, within your stone." Partially true he actually planned to
channel his power through her stone and thereby take possession of her
body. "At that point you and I will be linked to each other in a way
that few people have ever been." True, but not as he intended her to
understand it. "I will no longer exist independent of you. My life will
be inextricably bound to yours." Again, true. Her body would become a
vessel for his power and his consciousness. As long as she lived, he
would dwell within her. And she would live forever.
Tammen shuddered slightly.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"Yes. Fine." She chewed her lip. "And once this is done, you'll be able to leave this place? You'll be able to help us?"
"My dear, once this is done, you and I will be able to go anywhere in
Tobyn-Ser, and all the power I possess will flow through your ceryll."
All true.
She considered for another moment. And as she did, he became aware of her companions approaching. They didn't have much time.
Hurry! he wanted to rail at her. I will not let you ruin this!
But in the next moment she nodded; she even managed a small smile. "All
right," she said. "I'm ready." She was brave. He had to give her that.
"Close your eyes. And hold your ceryll out to me."
She did as she was told. The other mages came into view.
"Do you grant me access to your ceryll, freely and without reservation?"
"Yes."
He reached for the glowing blue stone.
"No!" one of the mages cried.
He laughed. There was nothing they could do now.
Tammen's eyes flew open, but even she was powerless to stop him now.
She had given her consent. He laid his hands on her crystal, and yellow
light exploded from it so suddenly and so brilliantly that even he had
to close his eyes, he who had known nothing but light for so long.
And using the ceryll as a portal to her mind, he entered her. She
screamed and reached for her hawk, attempting to use her power to ward
him off. But she was too late. Again he laughed, and using his power,
sending it through her ceryll, he killed the bird with a blast of power
that was so intense it left nothing, not even ash. Just as the fire
that killed him in the Great Hall all those years ago had left nothing.
A moment later, as darkness returned to the plain, Miron, the bird of
his youth, settled on his shoulder. Or rather, on Tammen's shoulder.
They were one now. He felt her struggling against him. He heard her
screams, although he did not allow her to give them voice.
You cannot fight me, he told her. This body is mine now. It will never die, it will never even suffer pain. But it will never be yours again.
Why are you doing this? she sobbed.
He watched her friends approach, deciding that he would indulge her
until they reached him. After that, he would not even allow her to
communicate with him. Because I can, he answered. Because you let me. And because this was the only path I could find to vengeance.
But—
Your friends are almost here, and I can't afford to have your voice in my head once they reach us.
You'll never silence me, she told him. Not for good. I don't
care if you were once the most powerful mage in the history of
Tobyn-Ser, you won't defeat me. I'll find a way to—
Enough! he snapped, bringing the full weight of his power down upon her mind. I
have defeated you. There's nothing you can do to save yourself. And
just so we're clear: I wasn't the most powerful mage in the land's
history during my life— my first life, that is— but I will
be before long. And all the mages in Tobyn-Ser will not be able to
stand against me. Thanks to you. I have nothing to fear from anyone.
He didn't even allow her to respond. Surely she was sobbing again,
begging him for mercy. But never would he listen to her thoughts again.
Her friends were almost upon him, and he smiled, watching them draw near.
You should tell them to run, he taunted, flaying her mind with his laughter. You should tell them to save themselves while they still can.
He nearly laughed aloud. He was going to enjoy this so. And this was
but the beginning, the first steps down a path that would lead
eventually to Baden and Trahn and Orris, and, of course, to Jaryd and
Alayna. But I'm getting ahead of myself, he told her. All that will come in good time. First these two. After eleven long years, vengeance is finally mine.
* * *
She couldn't do anything. She couldn't even cry. It was like Sartol had
buried her mind and heart beneath boulders. Except that she felt
everything— pain, grief, humiliation. She felt Sartol's laughter
as a blade slashing at her chest. But she could not give expression to
any of it. Othba, the only familiar she had ever known, was dead, wiped
from the face of the earth by a blast of power from her own ceryll. And
she couldn't even shed a tear for him.
You'll never silence me, she had told him vainly. You won't defeat me.
She would have laughed at her foolishness, if she could. She was
silenced, and she was defeated. By the man who had saved her life. She
was his now. Utterly. He was inside her, raping her body and her mind.
And all she could do was obey his every command as if she were a
child's puppet.
Sartol had saved her life and her village. He had killed the outlanders
who killed her parents, and he had done so despite the fact that his
companion, an Order mage, tried to stop him. Because of him, Tammen had
become a free mage, making something positive of her hatred of the
Order and allowing her to overcome the loathing she had felt for
herself when she first became a mage. Everything she was today,
everything she had accomplished in her life, could be attributed to
three people: Sartol, and her parents, whose lives he had been unable
to save.
In mere moments, the Owl-Master's spirit had succeeded in shattering
everything she believed in, everything she thought she had known about
what happened that night in Watersbend eleven years ago, about her
parents' fate, about the Order and the outlanders, about the
Mage-Craft, and most of all, about herself. She wanted to destroy him.
She wanted to scream. She wished that she could take her own life,
rather than become the agent of his conquest of Tobyn-Ser.
Nodin and Henryk were almost upon them, and they regarded her warily.
She wanted to shout a warning to them, to tell them to run and let the
whole world know that Sartol was coming. Instead, she raised a hand in
greeting.
What are their names? the Owl-Master demanded.
She tried to close her mind to him, and a moment later she was in
agony, her mind seared by the spirit's fire. And, she knew, there was a
smile on her face.
Don't resist me. It does you no good, and it will bring you great suffering. As if to prove his point, he hurt her again, until she wanted to claw at her eyes to get at the pain.
And then it stopped. Nodin and Henryk. Thank you.
She didn't even know she had told him.
"Nodin, Henryk, how nice to see you again."
"Tammen?" Nodin said, narrowing his eyes. "Is that you?"
"In a sense, yes."
"What have you done with her?" Henryk asked in a hard voice. "What happened to her hawk?"
He killed her! Just as he plans to kill you! Get away from here! Get help!
Even Sartol couldn't hear her. She was close enough to Nodin to take
his hand, but she might as well have been a thousand miles away.
"Sartol and I are joined now," she heard herself say. She tapped the
side of her head. "His knowledge and his wisdom are here, and his
essence is contained within my ceryll— see how it's changed?"
She wanted desperately to know what Sartol meant, and as if reading her
thoughts, or perhaps thinking it another way to torment her, he let her
look down at the stone. It was blue still, virtually unchanged from how
it had been. But at its very center, burning like a small candle in a
blue mist, was a spark of yellow light. She wanted to cry out. First
Othba, and now her stone. He had truly taken everything from her.
"As for my hawk," Sartol went on, pretending to be she, "she's fine.
She's left me. Even though Sartol and I are two, as long as we're
linked, we can only be bound to one bird. So we let Othba go."
Nodin and Henryk exchanged a look.
"So," she said brightly, "where are we going next? We have Sartol on our side now; what should we do?"
"No," Henryk said flatly. "We're not going anywhere. I don't believe
you. I see Sartol's light in your eyes, Sartol's bird on your shoulder,
Sartol's ceryll hue in your stone. And yet you want me to believe that
you're still just Tammen? Forget it. It's not going to work. Now tell
me what you've done with her."
She shrugged. "Fine," Sartol said, sounding bored. "This would have
been easier with the two of you traveling with me. But I'm perfectly
capable of doing it alone."
Tammen felt herself raise her staff, and instantly a bolt of fire,
banded yellow and blue like ribbons in a little girl's hair, blasted
Henryk in the chest, smashing him to the ground. Tammen knew without
looking that he was dead.
Nodin cried out and thrust forth his ceryll. With no effort at all,
Sartol raised a shield of power that shimmered blue and yellow, like
the sea beneath a midday sun. But Nodin's blast never came. There were
tears on his face, and rage in his eyes. But, Tammen knew, he still saw
her standing before him, and he loved her.
Instead, the mage spun away to flee, his grey bird leaping into the
air. And casually, as though she had all the time in the world, Tammen,
with Sartol's will guiding her, aimed her staff at the creature and
destroyed it with a second burst of power.
"Where did you bind to your first bird, Nodin?" she heard herself call. "Where will you spend eternity?"
The tall mage was running as fast as he could toward the river, but he
had so far to go, and on the plain there was no place to hide.
Tammen was helpless, and she thought it would drive her mad. She had
never been in love with Nodin. Both of them knew that, and it had been
a source of much pain for him. But, she now realized, she had loved him
in her own fashion, and in that moment, she would gladly have given her
life to save his.
For a third time, Sartol made her raise her staff. Tammen tried to
close her eyes and, failing that, close her mind to what she was about
to do. But even that solace was denied her. A third bolt of fire flew
from her ceryll, crashing into Nodin's back and driving him to the
ground in a whirlwind of flame. The last thing Tammen saw before Sartol
turned her away and started walking east toward Tobyn's Wood was Nodin
flailing about like a fish on land, trying to put out the flames that
had engulfed his cloak and his hair.
You're probably wondering where we're going, he sent to her as she walked, his words buffeting her mind like storm winds. We're
on our way to Amarid. There are people there I've dreamed of killing
for many years, and there's a stone there that almost belonged to me
once. It's time I made it mine.
14
After taking precautions to ensure that our correspondence remains
secure, I can tell you what has been happening here for the past few
days. Shivohn has been succeeded by Legate Wiercia as Sovereign of
Oerella-Nal. You may remember Wiercia as the rather severe-looking
woman who escorted us from the Oerellan prison to Shivohn's palace
seven years ago. Wiercia and I have gotten off to a difficult start,
and I fear for the Oerellan-Bragory alliance. In large part, the
tensions in our relationship stem from the circumstances of her rise to
power and the successful efforts of Shivohn's assassin to make it
appear that Bragor-Nal was responsible for the Sovereign's death.
I have believed all along that Marar, Sovereign of Stib-Nal, was behind
the bombing that killed Shivohn as well as the attack on the Gold
Palace that almost killed me, but I have been unable to prove this.
Until now. One of Jibb's men has confessed to being an operative for
Stib-Nal and has told me of orders he received to kill both Jibb and
me. Unfortunately, I cannot get Wiercia even to speak with me, much
less consider this evidence of Marar's duplicity. I do not know what
Marar hopes to gain from my death, or from the hostility he has
fostered between Bragor-Nal and Oerella-Nal. I only know that he is
proving to be a far more formidable foe than I previously thought.
— Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal to Hawk-Mage Orris, Day 1, Week 7, Spring, Year 3068.
They were sitting together by the window in her quarters looking out on
the palace courtyard, where Premel was leading the guards in their
daily drills. She could feel Jibb growing tense, and she knew it was
only a matter of time before he resumed pacing.
"You still haven't heard from Wiercia?" he asked abruptly, breaking a lengthy silence.
Melyor shook her head. "Not since that evening after the Council
meeting." She exhaled through her teeth. "I haven't heard anything from
Marar either. For all I know, they're allies now, making plans for a
war with us."
"I doubt that," Jibb said. "Wiercia's too cautious, and Marar has shown
no sign that he's ready to do anything that bold. He's content to
recruit traitors and assassins. That's much more his style."
An instant later, he propelled himself out of his chair and began
stalking around the room again. "He shouldn't be out there," he
muttered, gesturing violently toward the window. "He should be in
prison, and every one of those men he's ordering around should know
what he did. We owe them that much."
"You're right, we do owe them that. And perhaps at some point we'll tell them. But what about Premel, Jibb? What do we owe him?"
The general looked at her as if she were insane. "Premel? We don't owe him anything! Except maybe an execution!"
"He saved your life. And he confessed to me, rather than follow Marar's order to kill you. That must count for something."
"He almost managed to get you killed," Jibb said. "And if Marar hadn't
been afraid of me coming after him, Premel would still be trying to
find a way to kill you. For all we know, he would have succeeded by
now."
She smiled. "Oh, I doubt that. I hear the head of SovSec is very good at what he does."
"I'm serious, Melyor. It's one thing to keep him out of jail, but it's
quite another to put him back out there among the men, much less as
their interim leader. For all we know this whole thing was a ruse that
he and Marar thought up to get us to relax."
"I guess that's possible," she said with a shrug. "But I didn't get the
feeling that he was putting on an act when he confessed. That felt
real. As for the rest," she went on, glancing out the window again, "I
really had no choice. I don't want Marar to know that we suspect
anything, at least not yet. And we don't know how good his intelligence
is." It was enough to know that he still had other operatives working
in Bragor-Nal, including the ones who had transported Marar's gold to
the Nal and given it to Premel. She and Jibb knew their names now, but
they couldn't risk arresting them either. "If he learned that you were
wounded," she concluded, "and that I'd given SovSec to someone other
than Premel in your absence, it would make him suspicious."
The big man flexed his shoulder gingerly, as though her mention of his
injury had reminded him that he was in pain. "I still can't believe
that bastard actually hit me."
"It could have been worse, Jibb," she said. "If Premel hadn't been there, it would have been."
"Why are you defending him? He betrayed you!"
She stood and walked to her desk where, as usual, her staff leaned
against the wall. "Do you think I've changed much, Jibb?" Picking up
the staff, she turned and faced him. "Do you think I'm very different
now from the way I was before I met Gwilym and Orris?"
His face colored slightly at the mention of the sorcerer's name, and he looked away. "I don't know. I guess."
"It's all right. I want to know."
He met her gaze again and took a breath. "Very well. Yes, you've changed. A great deal."
"For the worse?"
"I'm not sure that I can answer that. You're not as reckless as you
used to be. You control your temper better. You're wiser. Those are all
good things."
"But?"
He looked away for just an instant, an embarrassed smile tugging gently
at the corners of his mouth. "But you've also grown cautious. Too
cautious. You're so concerned about doing the right thing all the time,
about making certain that nothing you do is at odds with the changes
you're trying to bring to the Nal, that you seem ... indecisive,
maybe even weak."
She nodded, trying not to let him see how much his words had hurt her.
After all, she had asked him to be honest. "And what about those
changes? Do you disapprove of them as well?"
He frowned. "I don't disapprove of anything you do, Melyor. It's not my
place, and even if it were, I wouldn't presume to do so. You should
know that by now."
"But you think that trying to change the Nal was a bad idea."
"Actually, no. I think the Nal needs to change if it's going to
survive. The old ways, Cedrych's ways, were destroying us. And if we
really care about preserving our peace with the sorcerers in Tobyn-Ser,
we have to find another way."
She could scarcely believe what she was hearing, and she desperately
wanted to accept that he was telling her the truth. "Thank you," she
said. "I needed to hear that."
"That's not why I said it."
"I'm glad to know that."
"If I'm going to be completely honest with you, I also have to say that
I think you expect too much change too quickly. You can make new laws,
and hold people responsible when they break them, but you can't force
people to change their attitudes. You need to be patient. The men in
the quads have lived their whole lives under one set of rules, and now
you've gone and changed them. It's going to take them some time to
adjust. Some of them never will."
She nodded, looking out the window again. "You're right. I'll try to remember that."
"You still haven't answered me, though," he reminded her. "What does all this have to do with why you're defending Premel?"
She ran a hand through her hair. "He told me that he helped Marar
because he thought I was ruining the Nal. He said I was trying to make
it into Oerella-Nal. And he also said that there were others in SovSec
who felt the same way."
Jibb gave a reluctant nod. "That's probably true. But that doesn't excuse what he did."
"No. But maybe it means that I'm partially responsible. Maybe I have expected too much of them."
"That's ridiculous. Premel is a traitor. He doesn't deserve your
understanding or your guilt. Certainly he's done nothing to earn your
protection."
"You're wrong," she said, looking at him. "He saved your life. I can never repay him enough for that."
Jibb dismissed the remark with a wave of his hand, but once more he averted his gaze.
"You can't ignore that, Jibb. Whatever you may think of what he's done, you can't deny that he cares about you."
"He's got a strange way of showing it," Jibb said, a pained expression in his dark eyes. "You weren't the only one he betrayed."
"In a way I was. The one thing that's absolutely clear to me is that
the thought of killing you was too much for him. In these three days
since you learned of what he had done, have you stopped to consider how
hard it must have been for him to confess to me?"
He stared at her. "No," he finally admitted. "I guess I haven't."
"Maybe you should. Maybe that would give you some sense of what you mean to him."
Jibb shook his head, looking uncomfortable. "I'd rather not think about
it. It would be easier if we could just punish him and be done with it."
Melyor smiled. "When was the last time I made anything easy for you?"
Jibb laughed.
"Think about it, Jibb. Talk to him. In spite of all he's done, I think
he's basically a decent and loyal man. And I'm convinced that before
all of this is over, we'll need his help."
He pressed his lips into a thin line, just as he did every time she
asked him to do something he didn't want to do. It wasn't really fair
of her, she thought with an inward grin. He never could refuse her.
"All right," he finally said. "I will think about it."
"Thanks." She smiled at him again. "You know," she said, "I'm almost glad you got hurt."
He raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"This is the longest conversation you and I have had in years. I've missed this. I've missed you, Jibb."
"I know," he said quietly. "I've missed it, too."
She walked to where he stood and took his hand. "Are you ever going to forgive me?"
His brow furrowed. "Forgive you for what?"
"For loving Orris."
"I forgave you a long time ago," he said, looking down at their hands. "I just never stopped loving you."
She took a long breath, not knowing what to say. It would have been
easier if he had just been angry with her. "I'm sorry," she whispered
after some time.
Their eyes met, and he smiled. "Don't be."
Standing there in silence, they heard Premel give the command ending the training exercises.
"He'll be coming back up," Jibb said, releasing her hand as his
expression soured again. "I'm not sure that these interrogations are
doing us any good. We haven't learned a thing from him."
"No, we haven't," she agreed. The interrogations had been her idea, a
compromise of a sort intended to appease Jibb after she refused to have
Premel thrown in jail. Whenever Premel was off duty, he was expected to
report to Melyor's quarters for questioning. "But at least we always
know where he is," she pointed out after a brief pause. "I'd have
thought you'd want to continue meeting with him just for that."
Jibb inclined his head slightly, conceding the point.
"Besides," she went on with a grin, "I get the feeling that these
sessions leave Premel feeling like some fledgling break-law arrested on
a carousal charge. And there's something to be said for that."
He grinned as well. "Yes, there is."
A moment later there was a knock on the door.
"Come," Melyor called.
The door opened, and Premel walked in. His face was flushed, his
uniform darkened with sweat. He glanced uncomfortably at Melyor as he
crossed to the chair he usually sat in for questioning. But he said
nothing, and he didn't even look at Jibb.
"How did the exercises go?" Melyor asked.
"Very well, Sovereign," he answered, lowering himself into the chair.
"Good." She looked at Jibb and raised her eyebrows. "Where should we begin today?"
The general shook his head. His expression had grown grim with Premel's arrival. "I don't know," he said in a flat voice.
"Let's go back to the gold," Melyor suggested after a brief silence. "How much have you received from him so far?"
"Twenty-two bars, Sovereign."
"Twenty-two bars," she repeated in a low voice. He had told her this
before, a day or two ago, but she still had trouble believing it. It
was far more than she paid Jibb in an entire year, and from what Premel
had told her, she gathered that Marar had also recruited a man in
Wiercia's security force. No doubt Stib-Nal's Sovereign was paying him
nearly as much. She walked to the window, absently tracing a finger
along the edge of her glowing red stone. "Where is he getting all that
gold?"
"I don't know," Premel answered.
She looked up at that. "I didn't think you would. I was thinking out
loud." She paused, thinking back to her last conversation with Marar.
He had spoken of wanting more wealth, of being dissatisfied with his
position in Lon-Ser. I don't have all that you have, he had said plaintively. I don't even have what Wiercia has. I'm not even close.
And yet he was throwing gold around like a drunken Nal-Lord. She looked
at Premel again. "You said yesterday that Marar changed his mind about
killing me, that he decided that I was more valuable to him alive than
dead, right?"
"Yes, Sovereign."
"Did he tell you why?"
"No, he didn't. He rarely explains anything to me. He gives me orders, and he gives me gold. But that's all."
"Are you complaining?" Jibb demanded harshly.
Premel was rubbing his hands together nervously, and he looked down at
them now. "No, General. I'm just answering the Sovereign's questions."
"Well, do it without the self-pity. We're not interested."
"Yes, General."
Melyor wished Jibb would ease up on the man, but she wasn't about to
say anything to him in front of Premel. And at the moment, her mind was
focused elsewhere. The gold was the key to everything, she realized
with sudden certainty. She didn't know where these flashes of intuition
came from, but in the years since she had gotten her stone, she had
come to trust them nearly as much as she did her Sight. They were, she
had decided long ago, just another part of what it meant to be a
Gildriite.
"What is it?" Jibb asked, looking at her intently.
"I'm thinking about Marar. I last spoke with him just after the Council
meeting, and he contacted me. I hadn't given it much thought until now,
but I think he was going to propose an alliance."
"An alliance?" Jibb asked, sounding skeptical. "But he tried to kill you."
"Yes. And then he decided that it had been a mistake." She looked at Premel. "Right?"
The man nodded. "That's what he told me."
"If we could just figure out why he changed his mind," she said. "If I just knew why he contacted me that—"
She stopped, interrupted by a beeping sound coming from Premel's belt.
She and Jibb both stared at the man, whose face had gone white as the
walls in her chamber.
"What was that?" she asked.
Premel swallowed nervously before removing a hand communicator from his belt and giving it to her.
It beeped a second time.
"This isn't one of ours," she said.
"No, Sovereign," Premel said. "It was given to me along with my first payment. This is how Marar contacts me."
Jibb grabbed the front of Premel's shirt and yanked him out of the chair. "Why didn't you tell us about this before?"
"I didn't think of it," the man said, sounding surprisingly calm. "I
wear the thing on my belt. Most of the time I don't even remember it's
there."
"I don't believe you!"
"It's all right, Jibb," Melyor said.
Jibb shot her that look and opened his mouth to argue. But instead he
just glared at Premel again and shoved the man back into his seat.
"So what's supposed to happen now?" Melyor asked.
Premel licked his lips. "That's a summons. Normally I'd return to my quarters and use my speak-screen to contact him."
"Then let's go," she said, starting toward the door.
"Wait!" There was a look of panic on Premel's face. "He's going to want
to know if you're dead yet." His pale eyes darted nervously to Jibb.
"Both of you."
"I'm not dead yet," Melyor said. "Are you?"
Jibb shook his head.
She faced Premel again. "It doesn't strike me as a very complicated question."
"But—"
Melyor felt her patience waning. "Make something up, Premel. Lie to
him. It shouldn't be that hard. You've been lying to us for long
enough."
The guard looked down again. "Yes, Sovereign," he said sullenly.
"Or better yet," she said, an idea coming to her in that moment. "Tell
him that you have it all worked out. That you're going to take care of
both of us tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" the two men said simultaneously. They looked at each other and Jibb frowned.
Melyor had to suppress a smile. "Yes. Now let's get to Premel's quarters. And think quickly, boys. We need a plan."
* * *
The wait seemed interminable to Marar, although by now he should have
been used to it. Premel had been responding to his summonses quite
slowly recently. It was not a trend that pleased him. He needed to
impress upon the man that if he was no longer eager to earn Stib-Nal's
gold, some other member of Melyor's security force would be.
It had started, the Sovereign realized, when he instructed the man to
kill Jibb. Apparently, Premel just wasn't up to the task. Perhaps, in
light of his failure to kill Melyor the first time he tried, Premel
wasn't capable of taking care of the Gildriite either. Marar had been
so pleased by his ability to recruit Melyor's third-in-command that he
hadn't even stopped to wonder if Premel was the right man for these
jobs. The guard had been happy enough to take the gold, and had
professed a deep resentment toward Melyor, but he had been a part of
Jibb's security team for more than ten years. One could not help but
build up a certain level of loyalty in that much time, more perhaps
than even gold could overcome.
It was disappointing, because in other ways his plans were progressing
quite well. He had spoken with Wiercia twice more since the evening of
the Council meeting, and though the Oerellan Sovereign had yet to
pledge herself to an alliance, she had shown ever-increasing interest
in the idea. And she showed no sign of gravitating back toward Melyor.
Add to that the continued attentiveness of the Oerellan security man he
had recruited— just in case Wiercia proved too intransigent in
the future— and, as evidenced by the latest figures Gregor had
given him, the steady flow of gold from Tobyn-Ser, and Marar could
barely contain his delight. Except with respect to Premel.
As if in response to that final thought, Marar's speak-screen suddenly,
finally came to life, revealing the guard's face. He looked even paler
than usual. There was an anxious look in his grey eyes, and he looked
surprisingly young and vulnerable, as if the big gold hoop in his left
ear had been placed there as a joke. Something had happened.
"You summoned me, Sovereign?" he said.
"Some time ago, yes," Marar answered, not bothering to mask his impatience.
"Yes. I-I'm sorry. I had some trouble getting away."
"Premel, I find myself forced to wonder if you're still the right man
for this job. Should I be looking for someone new to help me?"
The man shook his head and swallowed. "No, Sovereign. I'm fine. Everything's fine."
"Good. Then I don't expect to be kept waiting the next time I want to speak with you."
Premel nodded, but said nothing.
"So?" Marar said, after a brief silence. "Report. Have you taken care of them yet?"
"Not yet. But they should be dead by this time tomorrow."
The Sovereign raised his eyebrows in unfeigned surprise. "Tomorrow?"
"Yes. Jibb and Melyor will be going into the quads to speak with a
Nal-Lord who's been giving the Sovereign some trouble. I've been in
touch with some independents who are going to start a firefight, and
I'll be there to make certain that Melyor and Jibb don't survive."
"But Jibb's hurt, isn't he? Why would he be going?"
"Actually, Sovereign, it's because Jibb is hurt that Melyor will be
going. Otherwise, he'd go on her behalf. But with me in charge of
SovSec, she didn't feel comfortable staying behind. And wherever she
goes, Jibb goes."
Marar nodded, considering all this. "I must say, Premel, I'm pleasantly
surprised. After our recent conversations, I had come to believe that
you were unwilling or unable to carry out my orders." He smiled. "I'm
delighted to find that I'm wrong."
The corner of Premel's mouth twitched, but otherwise he offered no
response. And for the second time, Marar had the distinct impression
that something wasn't right.
"What is it, Premel?" he asked. "Is there something you want to tell me?"
"No." The guard made a sour face. "I still don't like this, that's all.
I don't see why you're so eager to have Jibb killed, or Melyor for that
matter. A week ago you wanted her alive."
"You needn't worry about my reasoning, Premel. That's not your place.
You just do as I ask, and enjoy your gold, and we'll get along quite
well. Is that clear?"
"Perfectly. But all I'm saying is that it would be easier for me to
follow your orders if I understood them. Doesn't that make sense?"
The Sovereign narrowed his eyes. Something was definitely wrong. "No, it doesn't. This has never been an issue before."
Premel hesitated, then shook his head and tried weakly to smile. "You're right. Please forget that I even mentioned it."
Not likely. "Of course, Premel."
Marar leaned forward to turn off his screen.
"Sovereign."
He stopped, leaned back again. "Yes, Premel?"
The guard took a breath. "I haven't been paid in a long time. I believe ... I believe you owe me three bars of gold."
Marar smiled. So that was it. "Yes, I know. As I told you, I'd been
worried about your performance recently. You've allayed my fears
somewhat in this conversation though."
"So, you're going to pay me now?"
"Soon. As soon as I know that Jibb and Melyor are dead, I'll send what
I owe you. You can think of it as a reward for a job well-done."
"But that wasn't our arrangement. We worked out a schedule of payments."
Marar felt his features harden. "Premel, you seem to be under the
impression that you're indispensable to me. You're not. It would be
nothing for me to expose you to Melyor and find someone to take your
place. I'd suggest that you remember that the next time you feel the
need to complain to me about changes in our arrangement." He leaned
forward again and held his finger over the console button. "Do we have
anything else to discuss?"
Premel glared at him for several moments, his face reddening as if
Marar had chastised him in front of his closest friends. But when he
spoke, it was in a low, meek voice. "No, Sovereign."
"Good. I'll speak with you again when they're dead. And not before."
The Sovereign jabbed at the screen keypad, terminating their
connection. Then he sat back in his chair again, shaking his head. He
didn't have time for such nonsense, and he didn't like what he had just
seen in Premel. The man had behaved strangely. Probably the guard was
merely upset about his payment, but the story he had told about going
into the Nal with Melyor and Jibb left Marar somewhat skeptical. It
seemed almost too easy to be believed.
The Sovereign was forced to consider the possibility that Premel would
have to be replaced, regardless of whether he actually succeeded in
killing them. The guard was becoming too unpredictable. He was asking
too many questions and challenging too many orders. And he had yet to
prove himself useful enough to justify all the gold he had received.
Marar nodded to himself. The time had come to make a change.
Fortunately, he already had the names of several men in Melyor's SovSec
whom he believed he could turn.
There was also the other man he had recruited several months before. He
wasn't a security man. He didn't have Premel's skill with weapons. But
Marar had no doubt that he would be useful in his own way. Perhaps it
was time to speak with him as well.
* * *
His screen went blank, and Premel fell back against his chair, closing
his eyes and taking a long breath. He felt drained, the way he did
after an intense firefight.
"I don't think we fooled him," he said, his weariness seeping into his voice. "I'm pretty sure that he suspects something."
"He might," Melyor agreed. "But your complaints about the gold seemed
to confuse him. Certainly it gave him something to which he could
attribute your nervousness. That was quick thinking, Premel. Well done."
"Thank you, Sovereign." He had to suppress a smile— strange that
her praise could still please him so— and he glanced at Jibb.
The general, however, wasn't even looking at him, which wasn't very
surprising. That was how it had been since he confessed. Except for
hitting him or threatening him, Jibb appeared to want nothing to do
with him. And in truth, Premel could hardly blame him. Melyor, on the
other hand, had treated him astonishingly well. It almost seemed that
she accepted what he had done, that she understood his reasons and was
willing to look beyond his crimes. A few days ago he would have scoffed
at such compassion, seeing it as further proof of her weakness. A true
Sovereign of Bragor-Nal would have executed him and been done with it.
Only a Gildriite would have gone so far out of her way to spare not
only his life, but also his feelings. This at least is what he would
have told himself.
But having received her compassion, her mercy, and— dare he think
it— her forgiveness, he could not dismiss her so easily. Perhaps
the changes he had seen in her over the past few years hadn't weakened
her after all. Certainly the way she had treated him these last three
days didn't make him think less of her. On the contrary: it humbled
him. He had betrayed her. Yet rather than punishing him, she had found
a way to turn his betrayal to her advantage. And in doing so she had
offered him a gift of surpassing generosity: a chance to redeem
himself. He couldn't have done the same thing, and neither, it seemed,
could Jibb. Maybe, just maybe, she was stronger and wiser than both of
them.
The very idea of it staggered him. It turned his entire view of the
world on its head. And it forced him to consider that the changes she
was trying to bring to the Nal might not be so foolhardy. Which, if it
were true, would mean that he had truly been an idiot for betraying her.
And perhaps that was the point. By not punishing him, she had allowed
him to reach this conclusion on his own. She could have had him killed,
or she could have imprisoned him— either course of action would
have been well within her authority as Sovereign. But his public
execution would have further angered those who also opposed her. And in
jail, he would have brooded, his hatred for her growing, and with it
his belief that he had been right to betray her. Instead, she had begun
to earn his respect. Again. He was far taller than she, and more
powerfully built, but in that instant he felt like a child beside her.
"So what do we do now?" Jibb asked, breaking a brief silence.
Melyor shrugged. "We need to stage a firefight. And I suppose we have to make it look like you and I are dead."
"You can't be serious!" the general said. "How far are we going to
carry this? Do we make Premel Sovereign and let him forge an alliance
with Marar? Maybe we should just let the two of them attack Oerella-Nal
and plunge the whole blasted land into civil war!"
Melyor gave him a sour look. "Settle down, Jibb. I'm not going to let
this get out of hand. But I want Premel to get paid again, so that we
can grab the courier. I need to know where that gold is coming from."
"Isn't it coming from Stib-Nal?"
"I doubt it," the Sovereign said. "When I pay operatives in the other
Nals I do it through merchants and other operatives. I rarely send the
gold myself."
Jibb grinned. "Sovereign!" he said in mock horror. "You have operatives in other Nals?"
She gave a wry grin, but it vanished quickly. "So who's our troublesome Nal-Lord?" she asked. "Any ideas?"
Jibb didn't even hesitate. "Someone in Dob's Dominion. He's the only Overlord I'd trust to find us one."
Premel smiled inwardly. Seven years ago, in Melyor's absence, Dob had
attacked Jibb and taken the Fourth Realm from him. He had done so with
help from Cedrych, the Overlord who almost succeeded in taking over the
Nal and killing Melyor, but that didn't change the fact that Jibb
blamed Dob and wanted desperately to kill the man. It was a measure of
how much things had changed between them that Jibb should now consider
Dob the most trustworthy Overlord in Bragor-Nal. There was a lesson
there, Premel realized. Yet another one about the virtues of change.
"I agree with you," Melyor said. "I'll contact Dob and arrange things.
In the meantime, I need you to select two units of your best men for
this. We're going to be playing a very dangerous game, and I don't want
anybody making any mistakes."
Jibb nodded. "Of course."
Melyor started toward the door, but then stopped herself and faced Jibb
again. "Take Premel with you. He's going with us tomorrow; he should be
there with you when you put together the units."
The general glanced at him with obvious distaste. "I don't see why," he
said. "We might be giving him a chance to bring along one of his fellow
traitors."
"We both know better, Jibb. Even if there are others in SovSec on
Marar's payroll, he wouldn't tell Premel who they are. It's much safer
for Marar if each operative thinks he's the only one. Besides, Premel
knows the men almost as well as you do. He can help you choose."
"But—"
"The men will expect him to be there with you, Jibb, especially since
you're hurt. If you don't bring him along, it will raise their
suspicions. And one of those other traitors you're so worried about
might report back to Marar."
Jibb pressed his lips together. But after a moment he nodded.
Melyor smiled, though not with her eyes. "Good. Report to me when
you're done. By then I should know whose Realm we'll be visiting."
A moment later she was gone, and for the first time since admitting
that he was traitor, Premel was alone with Jibb. Realizing this, he
felt his mouth go dry, and he looked up at the general.
He found that Jibb was already watching him, his round features looking
uncharacteristically severe, and for just a second, Premel wondered if
the dark-haired man was going to kill him. They said nothing for what
seemed to Premel a long time, and their eyes remained locked on each
other.
Finally, Jibb looked away. "Get up," he said.
Premel rose from his chair, his legs feeling unsteady.
The general motioned sharply toward the door, and the two of them left
Premel's quarters and walked wordlessly down the corridor toward the
lifter that would take them back to the palace's training levels.
Waiting for the lifter seemed to take forever, and even after it came
and began to carry them up from the guards' housing level, they did not
speak.
But just before they reached the training level, Jibb abruptly pressed a button on the wall, halting the lifter.
"Why did you do it?" he demanded, spinning toward Premel so swiftly
that the guard actually backed away. "Why would you turn on her after
all these years?"
Premel stared at him bleakly. "I don't know."
"You don't know?" Jibb repeated contemptuously.
"That's not what I mean," Premel said, closing his eyes for a moment.
"Of course I know. I did it because of what she was trying to do to the
Nal, and because she's a Gildriite. But I can't justify it with those
reasons anymore."
"Why not? She's still a Gildriite. She's still trying to change the Nal."
"I know. But those don't seem like such bad things now."
Jibb turned away. "I don't believe you. At this point you'd say anything to save yourself."
"I don't expect you to understand," Premel said quietly.
"If you didn't like what she's doing, you should have quit SovSec and
gone back to the quads. A man with your skills could have found work in
any Realm in the Nal. Even if things are changing, a Nal-Lord or
Overlord can always use someone who's good with a blade and thrower.
But selling yourself to Marar." Jibb faltered and shook his head. "All
I could think while you were talking to him just now was, 'He betrayed
Melyor for this bastard?' "
"I didn't do it for Marar. I did it for gold."
"Marar's gold!" Jibb snapped, whirling on him again. "This is about
more than greed! It's worse than that! You betrayed all of us! Melyor,
me, the rest of the guards!" He shook his head a second time. "How are
we supposed to trust you now?"
I saved your life, Premel wanted to say. Doesn't that mean anything? He didn't, of course. He didn't dare. Instead, he just looked away, and murmured, "I'm not sure."
"Neither am I, Premel. You were the best man I had, and you threw everything away."
They stood there for some time, each seeming to wait for the other to say something.
"Can I ask you a question?" Premel finally said.
Jibb stared at him for a moment. "I suppose."
"If you didn't love her, would you approve of the way she's running the Nal?"
Jibb's face turned red, and he balled his hands into fists, but for
some time he didn't answer. And when he finally did, his voice was
surprisingly subdued. "Yes," he said. "But it took me a long time to
come around to it. She's smarter than the rest of us, Premel. You
should know that by now. She sees things that the rest of us miss.
That's why she was able to beat Cedrych all those years ago. That's why
she's Sovereign."
Premel nodded and actually managed a smile. "It's taken me a while, but I'm starting to see that."
"It's a little late."
"Is it, General?" Premel ventured. "The Sovereign doesn't seem to think so. Just you."
Jibb glared at him. "The Sovereign tends to be too lenient at times like these."
Premel shook his head defiantly. "No. You can't have it both ways. If
she's right about the Nal and about changing from the old ways, then
you have to accept that she's right about this, too."
"Don't you dare tell me what I have to do!" Jibb said, his voice
rising. Once more Premel wondered if the general was going to hit him,
but instead the big man started to pace the length and breadth of the
small lifter, his gestures sharp, and his dark eyes focused on the
floor. "You're a traitor! You almost got Melyor killed— you're
partially responsible for the deaths of three of my men! And you wonder
why I'm not ready to forgive you?"
"I also saved your life, and when Marar told me to kill you I chose instead to admit what I had done."
Jibb stopped in front of him, and this time he did strike him, across
the cheek with the back of his good hand. Premel staggered back, but
quickly straightened.
"Never speak to me again of saving my life!" Jibb said, leveling a
rigid finger at him. "This isn't about me! This is about Melyor and
what you did to her!"
"Then why are you taking it so personally?"
Jibb took a menacing step toward him, but Premel held his ground.
"Because she's my Sovereign," Jibb told him. "And she's my friend. And
because she's been both of those things to you as well, and still you
chose gold over her. I can never forgive you for that, even if she
can." He paused, running a hand through his unruly dark hair. "But more
than that, you were my friend. I trusted you with her safety because
you knew how much she means to me, and because I thought that you would
die to save her, just like I would."
Premel stood utterly still, fighting to keep from crying, and searching
desperately for something to say. But there was nothing, or at least
nothing that would make any difference. In the end, it didn't matter if
Melyor was willing to give him another chance. It was Jibb whose
respect he wanted, and that was gone forever.
"So that's it?" he finally managed, forcing the words past the lump in
his throat. "That's all there is to say? There's no way I can win back
your trust?"
Jibb stared at him for several moments, then finally shook his head. "None that I can think of."
Premel nodded and swallowed. "All right. Can you at least treat me with ... courtesy, just in front of the men?"
"I'll try."
Premel nodded again, before gesturing vaguely toward the lifter control panel. "We'd better get going."
Jibb regarded him for a few seconds more before pressing the stop
button a second time. The chamber jerked upward, and a moment later it
stopped again, and the doors slid open. Still, neither of them moved.
"For what it's worth, Jibb," Premel said, "I am sorry."
The general looked away. "I wish I could believe you."
Jibb stepped out of the lifter and started down the corridor toward the
training rooms. And Premel followed, not knowing what else to do. His
face still stung from where the general had hit him, and he could
imagine the welt that was forming there on his cheek for all to see,
like a sign reading, "I'm a traitor. I betrayed you all." It was
appropriate, really. It was a badge he had earned, just as he had
earned Marar's gold.
15
My friend Crob, the Abboriji merchant whom I have mentioned to you
before, is standing beside me as I finish this missive, waiting to take
it on the first leg of its long journey to Bragor-Nal. It pleases me to
know that it will be on its way so quickly, and yet it reminds me once
more of something I often try to forget: you and I are separated by too
great a distance. This bothers me not only for the obvious reasons, but
also because I need your help with a matter of great urgency, one that
requires your immediate attention.
Someone in your land is providing the Temples of Tobyn-Ser with
weapons. From all that you have told me of Lon-Ser's advanced goods, I
am reasonably certain that this is a violation of your laws. Yet the
weapons keep coming. They have been used to kill our people and to
guard the Keepers as they defile our land. ....
I do not believe that you or Shivohn would allow something of this sort
to happen, but the leader of Lon-Ser's third Nal, whose name I have
forgotten, strikes me as the kind who would. Obviously it falls to my
fellow mages and me to keep the Temples' men from doing more damage.
But unless you and Shivohn can stop these weapons from leaving your
land, our efforts here will do little good.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Spring, God's Year 4633.
"There's an Eagle-Sage! The Order is led by an Eagle-Sage!"
"So then it's true. We're to go to war!"
A third voice. "That's not all. I hear that the League has an
Eagle-Sage, too. And that the League mages and the Keepers have joined
forces to destroy the Order."
"So it's to be civil war!"
"That's insane!" The first voice. "Erland and Cailin wouldn't do that!"
"Wouldn't they? They've been trying to get rid of the Order for years now."
Sitting in the back of the Aerie, listening to the conversations that
buzzed around the tavern like flies in a stable, Orris didn't know
whether to laugh at what he was hearing, or hurry back to the Great
Hall and warn Jaryd of the panic mounting in the streets of Amarid.
Actually, he was fairly sure that Jaryd already knew. They had spoken
earlier that day, when Orris had gone to ask Jaryd for permission to
send his letter to Melyor. Normally, of course, he wouldn't have
bothered asking; he would have just sought her help. But these were
dangerous times, and they still didn't know for certain whom they were
destined to fight in the coming war. Indeed, if it had been left to the
entire membership of the Order, Orris believed that he wouldn't have
been allowed to ask for Melyor's help. But Jaryd didn't give the others
a chance to prevent it.
"Some things are best decided by the Eagle-Sage," he said at the time,
his youthful features looking pinched and weary. "You trust her." He
offered it as a statement, but Orris could tell that he needed
confirmation.
"Yes," Orris said. "Even if our enemy is from Lon-Ser, it's not Melyor. I promise you."
Jaryd nodded. "All right. Send your letter. And let me know as soon as you hear something."
"Of course." Orris smiled at him, but Jaryd seemed too weary even to
smile back. "Are you all right?" the mage asked, his smile fading.
"I'm fine. I'm just tired."
"Where's Alayna?" Orris asked, glancing around the Sage's quarters.
"She's with Myn. I think they went to the old town commons. I would
have liked to go with them— I haven't had any time with Myn since
we got here— but I didn't feel right leaving the Hall." He
shrugged. "Just in case."
"You need to get out of here occasionally, too. You're no good to us if you're too exhausted to lead."
"You're right. I've been reluctant to take Rithlar out into the streets, but I'm not sure that matters anymore."
At the time, Orris hadn't given Jaryd's last comment much thought, but
now, listening to the conversations taking place around him, he
understood.
"Pardon me, Hawk-Mage," said one of the men who had been speaking
before. "We were wondering if you might tell us what you know about the
Eagle-Sage."
Orris looked up from his ale at the three men sitting at an adjacent
table. Two of them were young, one of them dark-skinned with dark brown
eyes and long black hair, and the other heavier, with pale features and
hair as yellow as Orris's. The third man also had yellow hair, but it
was streaked with silver, and his face was lined and leathery, as if he
had spent most of his life working in the sun. It was this older man
who had spoken.
"What is it you want to know?" Orris asked.
The older man shrugged. "His name, to start."
They were going to know eventually. Everyone was. And better it should
happen this way, in casual conversation, than in a time of crisis, when
the League or the Temples or someone else might have a chance to spread
lies about him. "His name is Jaryd. And his wife, Alayna, is First of
the Sage."
"Jaryd and Alayna," the man repeated softly. "They're the young ones aren't they? The ones who spoke with Theron?"
"Yes, that's right."
"We always said they were destined for great things."
Orris smiled at the man. "So did we."
"Is it true that the League has an Eagle-Sage as well?" the dark-skinned man asked.
The mage hesitated, but only for a moment. "Yes. But I believe they call her Eagle-Master."
"It's a woman?"
"It's Cailin."
"Cailin?" the older man repeated, his eyes widening. "But she's so
young! Both of them are for that matter." He sighed. "My time is
passing before my eyes. There are two Eagle-Sages in the land, one of
them young enough to be my child, and the other almost young enough to
be my grandchild."
Orris offered a sympathetic smile. There had been times recently when
even he felt old, and this man was at least twenty years older than he.
"Do you expect the League and the Order to go to war?" the second young man asked.
Orris looked at him for several seconds, gauging what he saw in the
man's pale eyes. It was he who had been telling the wild tale of an
alliance between the League and the Temples, and Orris could see that
he was enjoying himself. "I believe that Jaryd and Cailin will do
everything in their power to prevent that."
"But if the gods have decreed—"
"And have they?" Orris asked. "Do you have knowledge of such things? Because I certainly don't."
"Well, no," the man began, abruptly sounding nervous. "I mean, I don't
know anything for sure. But the gods have sent two eagles. That must
mean something."
"I agree," Orris said. "And the mages of both the League and the Order
are still trying to figure out what that might be. Until we do, I think
we'd all be best served by avoiding any wild tales. After all, we
wouldn't want to frighten people unnecessarily, would we?"
The man hesitated, then shook his head.
"Do you have any ideas of what two eagles might mean, Hawk-Mage?" the older man asked after a brief, awkward silence.
Orris kept his eyes on the young man for a moment longer, watching him
grow increasingly uncomfortable. "I have some," he said at last, facing
the older man. "But they're only that. Ideas. It wouldn't be any more
appropriate for me to speak of them than it would be for your friend
here."
The older man nodded. "I understand. Can you at least tell us who you think our enemy might be?"
Orris frowned. "I could, but that would be little more than a guess, as well."
The man glanced at his companions and made a sour face.
"I don't mean to be evasive," Orris told them. "Honestly, I don't. We just don't know yet."
The three men appeared unconvinced.
"I will say this though," Orris went on an instant later. "Cailin and
Jaryd have spoken to each other twice now, and they plan to meet again
soon. And I've been in touch with people in Lon-Ser whom I know to be
our friends. It may be that the eagles were a warning of sorts, and
that having received that warning, and having reached out to old
enemies, we've managed to avoid a war." He wasn't sure that he believed
this, but it had occurred to him in recent days that the appearance of
Jaryd and Cailin's eagles had done more to improve relations between
the Order and the League than anything else that had happened over the
past seven years. That wasn't saying much— all that had happened
really was that the two Eagle-Sages were talking to each other. But
that was something at least. He just hoped that the men at the next
table would not take note of the one potential enemy he had failed to
mention. He should have known better.
"What about the Keepers?" the dark-skinned man asked. "Who's talking to them?"
Orris considered a lie, but quickly thought better of it. "I don't know," he admitted. "I'm not sure anyone is."
The older man raised an eyebrow. "Someone should be if the stories I've heard are true."
"You mean because of the weapons," the yellow-haired man said.
"Yes, Tret," the older man replied, a note of impatience in his voice.
"Because of the weapons." He faced Orris again. "Are those tales true
as well?"
The mage nodded. "I'm afraid so."
"So then your friends in Lon-Ser aren't as reliable as you'd like us to believe."
Orris stared at the man, wondering if he was trying to start an
argument. But that didn't seem to be his way. He was making a
statement, and nothing more. And, truths be told, he had a point.
"That's not exactly right," Orris said, picking his words carefully.
"My friends are quite reliable, but Lon-Ser is a vast land, and they
have enemies whom neither they nor I can control."
The man held his gaze. "I see. I appreciate your candor, Hawk-Mage. My
name is Delsin, and I must tell you that I'm a League man from a League
town. But I respect someone who's honest with me no matter the color of
his cloak."
"Thank you, Delsin," the mage said, trying to smile. The men's
questions alarmed him, and the more he turned them over in his mind,
the more frightened he became. As far as he knew, no one was talking to
the Keepers, and if they had access to weaponry from Lon-Ser, they
would quickly become every bit as great a threat as the League and the
free mages. The mage suddenly felt a need to discuss this with Jaryd,
and to prevail upon him to broach the subject with Cailin.
He stood abruptly. "I should be going. I've enjoyed speaking with you.
My name is Orris, and if there's ever anything I can do for you, please
let me know."
Delsin furrowed his brow. "I hope I didn't give offense, Hawk-Mage."
Orris sighed. He'd never been very good at dealing with people. "Not at
all, but you've given me much to think about, and I'd like to discuss
it with the Eagle-Sage."
The man fairly beamed at that. "Thank you, Hawk-Mage. I'm glad to have been of help."
"And my thanks to you, sir. Arick guard you." The mage nodded a
farewell to the two younger men and then, calling Kryssan to his
shoulder, he hurried out of the tavern. It was late— Jaryd,
Alayna and Myn were probably eating supper— but with the days
lengthening, there was still enough light to make his way through the
alleys and byways without brightening his ceryll. He walked quickly,
anxious as he was to speak with Jaryd. His conversation with the three
men kept repeating itself in his mind, and he barely paid attention at
all to where he was going. He had followed the twists and turns of this
path dozens of times before; they came to him almost without thought.
It was only when he had walked a good distance from the Aerie that
realization struck him. He halted abruptly, his heart suddenly pounding
in his chest. He was quite alone in a small courtyard among the narrow
passages, too far from the tavern, and yet not close enough to the
Great Hall. He had been limiting his movements since his arrival in
Amarid, making sure to remain in open areas and, when possible,
traveling with other mages from the Order. For the League was here, and
despite his stern warning to the young League mage he had encountered
in Tobyn's Wood several weeks earlier, he had little doubt that Erland
and his allies still wanted him dead.
He looked around quickly, trying to get his bearings and find the
quickest route to the city's main thoroughfare. But by then it was too
late.
"I smell a traitor," came a man's voice from behind him.
Orris whirled and saw a mage in a blue cloak approaching him from
another alleyway. The man had long, dark hair and an angular face that
bore a malicious grin. His ceryll was deep orange, the color of an
autumn moon hanging low in the sky, and the large, dark falcon perched
on his shoulder looked very much like Anizir, whom a League mage had
killed several years before.
"I smell a coward," a second man said.
Orris turned again. Two more Leagues mages stepped into the byway from
the same direction he had come. Apparently he had been followed. Both
of them were young— indeed, he recognized one of them as the man
from Tobyn's Wood— and they were grinning as well.
He had brought this on himself, he knew. He could still hear himself
telling the young man that he was to be the last, that the next League
mage who came after him would die. Orris almost laughed at the memory
and at his own stupidity. It hadn't even occurred to him that they'd
send three.
Kryssan let out a low hiss and raised her wings. One of the men laughed.
"Your bird looks scared, Mage," said the one with the orange stone. He laughed again, softly. "You do, too."
"I find this very interesting," Orris said, pleased to hear that his
voice remained steady. "League mages are always calling me a coward,
and yet it's the League that sends three men to attack one." He glanced
at the young mage he had bested in the God's wood. "I guess that was
quite a beating I gave you."
The man's face turned crimson, and he took a threatening step toward Orris.
"Hold!" the first mage said. "He's trying to bait you. We'll do this as we agreed: together."
"I can defeat him alone!" the young mage answered, his eyes still fixed on Orris.
"I believe we already established that you can't," Orris said with a grin. "Remember?"
The man leveled his staff at Orris, and brightened his sea-green
ceryll. Orris dropped into a crouch, and Kryssan hissed again, drawing
a harsh cry from the man's small grey hawk.
"I told you to stop!" the other mage called.
For a moment the young mage hesitated, but then he lowered his staff again, a look of barely checked rage in his eyes.
Orris spun to face the man with the orange stone. "What about you
then?" he demanded. "Do you have the courage to fight me, or do you
need help from these children?"
The man bared his teeth in a fierce grin. "I would give anything to
fight you on my own. Killing you would be one of the great joys of my
life." He exhaled through his teeth. "But I have my orders."
"Whose orders?" Orris asked. "Who's telling you to do this?"
Again the man smiled. "The Eagle-Master of course. Who else?"
Orris's mouth dropped open. Impossible, he wanted to say. Cailin wouldn't do this.
He had nothing on which to base such an assertion. All he knew about
her was what he had heard from others. They had never even met. But he
had come to think of her as someone who could change the League, who
could overcome all that Erland had done to tarnish Amarid's legacy.
That she would send these men after him seemed unthinkable.
He was about to say this to the long-haired mage, but before he could
speak, the man nodded once to his two companions and then thrust his
staff out before him, sending a beam of orange mage-fire surging in his
direction.
Orris started to dive out of the way, but remembering the two mages
behind him, thought better of it. Instead, he surrounded himself and
Kryssan with a barrier of russet power. The orange flame crashed into
his shield with such force that he nearly fell to the ground, and in
the next instant green and silver flames from the other two mages hit
the barrier as well. Orris fell to one knee, gasping at the effort it
took to block their assault, and Kryssan let out a sharp cry. But their
shield held.
"How long can you hold us off, Mageling?" the long-haired mage called
to him, mockery in his voice. "Mind you, we're in no rush."
Orris said nothing. He just closed his eyes, pouring every bit of his
strength into blocking their mage-fire. And already he knew that it
wouldn't be enough. The younger ones weren't very strong— he
could have defeated either of them with ease, perhaps he could have
beaten them both. But the mage with the orange ceryll was another
matter. He would have been a difficult opponent on his own. With his
companions, he was far more than Orris could handle.
Kryssan let out a second cry and Orris opened one eye to look at her.
Her mouth was open, as she was panting, and she sat hunched, her
feathers slightly ruffled and her eyes nearly closed. She was tiring
quickly.
And he was as well. Sweat poured from his face and arms, soaking his
hair and his cloak. The muscles in his legs and forearms were starting
to quiver, and he felt light-headed.
"Give up, Mageling!" the leader of League mages said. "You can't possibly win."
"Never!"
"If you give up now, and let us end this, I promise you that no harm will come to your bird."
Orris opened his eyes. "You mean that?"
The man flashed a smile, and his eyes gleamed with mage-fire. "Yes. We'll let her go."
But seeing the expression on the man's face, Orris knew better. He
intended to kill Kryssan first and send Orris to the Unsettled, to
wander eternally in the company of Theron and Phelan.
"You lie!" Orris roared. "You'd better hope that you kill me, because if you don't, I'll hunt you down like an animal!"
"An idle threat, traitor. You know it as well as I do."
The man was right. Even as Orris gathered himself to cry out a denial,
he felt his shield failing. The heat from their fire was already
starting to burn his face and hands.
I'm sorry, my love, he sent to Kryssan. I've failed you.
She nuzzled him weakly and sent in return an image of their binding place on the northern coast of Leora's Forest.
Orris opened his eyes again, looking quickly at the three mages and
wondering if there was a way to take at least one of them with him when
he died.
And so it was that he saw the three men from the tavern approaching through one of the alleys.
"What's going on here?" Delsin shouted, rushing forward into the courtyard. "Why are you attacking this mage?"
"This doesn't concern you, old man!" the long-haired mage said, not
bothering to break off his assault. "Now leave, before you and your
friends get hurt, or worse."
"Are you threatening me, Child of Amarid?"
This time the mage did lower his staff, and a moment later his companions did the same.
Exhausted nearly to the point of collapse, Orris dropped his shield. He
kept a wary eye on the other mages, but even if they renewed their
attack, he wasn't certain that he could have mustered the strength to
raise the barrier again.
"I meant no offense, sir," the League mage was saying, his face wearing a smile that wouldn't have fooled anyone.
"Perhaps not," Delsin said. "But you certainly seemed intent upon killing this mage."
"He's a coward and a traitor!" said the young mage Orris had bested in the wood. "He deserves to die!"
The older man shook his head. "Killing him is a violation of Amarid's Laws. Even I know that."
"That's not entirely true," the long-haired mage said. "The bylaws of
the League allow us to use our powers against other mages when doing so
is consistent with our oath to serve the people of Tobyn-Ser."
Delsin narrowed his eyes. "I've heard nothing of this."
"It's true," Orris said. "It's one of the things that distinguished the
League from the Order. Where we seek to uphold the First Mage's Laws,
they look for ways to bend them so that they can justify their crimes."
The younger mage glared at him. "Shut your mouth, traitor!"
"Even if what you're telling me is true, I don't see how killing this man serves the land."
"I'm not going to waste my time explaining it to you," the long-haired mage said. "This is no concern of yours."
"Well," Delsin told him, "I'm making it my concern."
The mage glared at him, his grip on his staff tightening until his
knuckles turned white. Then he turned to Orris. "So now we see the
extent of your cowardice, Mage. You'd let these men risk their lives to
save yours."
"No," Orris said evenly. "I'd die before I allowed you to harm them.
But I'm guessing that even the League's bylaws don't allow you to harm
innocent people."
"You bastard!" the mage said. And moving so quickly that Orris had no
time to defend himself, the League mage swung his staff, striking Orris
in the side.
He fell to the ground, gasping for breath, and the League mage moved to hit him again.
But Delsin stepped in front of him. "Enough!" he said. "You've done enough. Now go!"
The mage bared his teeth again, and Orris feared that he would strike
Delsin down. But after several moments he looked away. He nodded to the
other mages, and they began to walk away. Just as he reached one of the
alleyways, however, he looked back at Orris. "This isn't over,
Mageling! We'll find you again. You have my word on it."
He turned again, and the League mages walked away.
Orris got to his feet slowly and took a long, deep breath. His side
ached, but he didn't think that the man had broken any of his ribs.
"Thank you," he said, looking at Delsin. "I'm sure that you saved my
life."
"They were wrong to attack you like that. It saddens me that League
mages would do such a thing." He glanced at Orris's side. "Are you hurt
badly? Do you want us to get you help?"
"No, thank you. I'll be fine."
Delsin nodded. "Very well." He hesitated, and then he looked Orris in the eye. "Why do they call you a traitor?"
The man had saved his life, and he had spoken to Orris a short time ago
of honesty and respect. What choice did the mage have? "I was the one
who took the outlander back to Lon-Ser. I needed him as a guide and, I
thought at the time, as proof that the men who attacked our land came
from Lon-Ser." He shrugged. "Erland and his friends saw this as a
betrayal, and they branded me a traitor."
Delsin's eyes widened at Orris's admission, but otherwise he offered no
outward response. His two companions exchanged a brief look, but they,
too, kept their expressions neutral.
They remained silent for what felt like a long time, looking at him appraisingly, as if they had never seen him before.
"It took courage to tell us that," Delsin finally said.
"It took courage to stop those men from killing me. I felt you deserved no less in return."
The man nodded. "Can we escort you to the Great Hall, Hawk-Mage?"
Orris smiled. "That's kind of you, but—"
"Those mages are still out there," Delsin said. "You shouldn't be alone."
He was right, and though Orris felt foolish accepting his offer, he would have been a greater fool to turn it down.
"Very well. Thank you."
They said nothing as they covered the rest of the distance. By the time
they reached the Hall, the silence had grown awkward, but still Orris
was grateful for their company.
"Thank you, again," the mage said, standing on the steps outside the
domed building. It was hardly adequate given what the man had done for
him, but he wasn't sure what else to say.
"Arick guard you, Hawk-Mage," Delsin said. "If there are more like you
in the Order, I may have to rethink my support of the League."
"Arick guard you as well, Delsin. And your friends."
Orris turned to climb the stairs, but before he could take a step one
of the other men called to him. He faced the men again and waited.
"We were told that the outlander died in Lon-Ser," the dark-skinned man said. "Were you the one who killed him?"
Orris sighed. It was an old wound, but it still hurt. He had wanted to
save Baram's life, and yet it was his death that had made his defiance
of the Order acceptable to some. "The outlander killed himself," he
said. "I saw him fall, but I didn't kill him."
The man stared at him, considering this. "At least he died," he said at
length. "You saw to that." He stood there for another moment before
nodding a farewell and walking away with his friends.
Orris watched them go, stroking Kryssan's chin and shaking his head
sadly. It still pained him so, even after so many years. After some
time he looked around, as if expecting to see the League mages again.
But the street was empty. He rubbed his side gingerly and then climbed
the steps to the Great Hall. He had much to tell Jaryd.
* * *
Cailin sat staring at her hands which were folded in her lap. The two
eagles sat together on the giant stone mantel above the Sage's hearth,
as still as statues, eyeing each other warily and yet each seemingly
comforted by the other's presence. Very much like the mages to whom they're bound, she thought, suppressing a smile.
A part of her still felt that her conversations with Jaryd amounted to
a betrayal of the League. It was not that she told him anything that
was meant to remain secret. Indeed, she told him nothing that didn't
pertain directly to her duties as Eagle-Master. Still, she knew that
Erland and the others wouldn't have approved of their conversations had
they learned of them. And she didn't enjoy skulking about like a bandit
every time she and the Eagle-Sage were supposed to meet.
But she also knew how important it was that she and Jaryd share with
each other all that they knew about who their enemy might be and how
the mages of the League and the Order were responding to having two
eagles in Amarid. And she had to admit that she enjoyed speaking with
him. Despite the different colors of their cloaks, they had much in
common. She believed that the Eagle-Sage harbored no ill will toward
the League, and after spending more time with Alayna, she had come to
the same conclusion about her. At times it seemed to Cailin that she
had more in common with the Eagle-Sage and his First than she did with
anyone in the League. Certainly they shared her belief that war between
the two bodies could lead only to disaster. Erland and the others did
not.
Which was just what she was on the verge of telling Jaryd.
"Cailin?" he said, looking concerned. "Are you all right?"
She made herself smile. "Yes. Fine. What is it you were asking?" She
remembered his question, but she was none too eager to answer it. Once
again, as she had been so many times in recent months, she was
embarrassed to be wearing a blue cloak.
"I asked you whether Erland had been receptive to the idea of getting
all the mages of Tobyn-Ser together to discuss the possible meanings of
our bindings. It seems foolish for each body to have the same debate
separately. And this might be a way to begin building some trust
between the League and the Order."
"Have the mages of the Order already agreed to this?" she asked.
He hesitated. "No, not yet."
"Have you discussed it?"
Again, he seemed to falter. "I've mentioned the possibility to several
mages individually. But I was waiting to hear from you before I brought
it up before the full membership."
She grinned. "Well then you might want to wait a bit longer."
"He didn't like the idea?"
"I haven't even mentioned it to him." The Sage opened his mouth to say
something, but she stopped him with a raised finger. "I've tried to
explain this to you before, but you just don't seem to understand.
Erland isn't interested in improving relations with the Order. Few
mages in the League are. They don't trust you."
"They don't trust me?"
Cailin shook her head. "Not you specifically. All of you, anyone in a
green cloak. Since its creation the League has defined itself by its
enmity for the Order. It exists to keep watch on you, to prevent the
Order from becoming too powerful. You can't expect them to just turn
around and embrace the Order as an ally because you and I have bound to
eagles."
Jaryd regarded her for several moments. "And what about you?" he asked
at last. "You refer to Erland and the others as 'them.' Does that mean
that you trust us?"
She shrugged and looked away. "I'm here, aren't I?"
"Yes. But you're not comfortable with that."
"Does it matter?"
"Yes, Cailin, it does."
She looked at him again.
"Alayna and I haven't broached the idea of meeting with the membership
of the League because we don't think a majority of the Order mages will
agree to do it. Distrust of the League runs as deep in the Order as
distrust of the Order does in the League."
"I doubt that," she said. But she was shivering. This was the last thing she had expected to hear.
"All right," Jaryd admitted. "That may be an exaggeration, but not by
much. The distrust exists on both sides, and if we're to overcome it,
you and I have to be committed to keeping the peace."
"I am."
"But you're still worrying about what Erland and the others would say if they saw you here."
She shifted uncomfortably. "So? Shouldn't I worry? You're telling me to
betray the League, and yet I see no willingness on your part to do the
same to the Order. You haven't even talked to them about meeting with
us, and you're judging me?"
"I'm not asking you to betray anyone, Cailin," he said gently. "And I'm
certainly not judging you. I'm just asking you to put your love of the
land ahead of your concerns about what Erland is going to think of our
meetings. There are those in the Order who feel that I've betrayed
their trust, but I don't care. I meet with you anyway, and I report to
the Order on each of our discussions. I wouldn't ask you to do anything
that I'm not willing to do myself. But," he said with a sigh, "I
realize that our circumstances are different, and I won't deny that
you're in a more difficult position than I am."
Cailin said nothing. She had heard her voice rising a moment ago. She
sounded young and peevish, not at all like an Eagle-Master ought to
sound, a fact that was made that much more obvious to her by Jaryd's
calm. At that moment, she would have given anything to be elsewhere,
and she chose to say nothing rather than embarrass herself further.
He seemed to misunderstand her silence. "I know how hard this must be for you Cailin. I'm not trying to deny that."
She smiled at that and shook her head. "No, Jaryd, I don't think you do
know how hard this is. Nobody does. Nobody could." She stood and walked
to the mantel. "You know that I grew up hating the Order," she said,
gazing up at Rithel. "Everyone knows that." She turned to face him.
"But did you know that I hated it so much that I despised myself for
binding to my first familiar?" Her eyes stung at the memory. She could
see Marcran sitting before her, his brilliant feathers glimmering in
the autumn sunshine as they had the day of their binding. "Did you
know," she went on, heedless of the tears on her cheeks, "that I
refused to use my powers for months because I thought becoming a mage
would mean that I had forsaken the memory of my parents?"
She could see the grief in his eyes, and she had to stifle a sob. Right now, she couldn't even bear his sympathy.
"Cailin—"
She shook her head so hard that the tears flew from her face. "Don't.
It doesn't matter. There's nothing you can say to make it better." She
swallowed, struggling to compose herself. "But don't tell me that you
know what I'm feeling, or that you understand how hard this is for me.
You don't. Nobody does. Because nobody has ever been through what I've
been through."
She knew that she sounded hopelessly self-pitying. But she also knew that it was true.
He opened his hands in a helpless gesture. "I don't know what to say."
"That's all right," she managed, shrugging again. "You don't have to
say anything." She wiped her sleeve across her face, drying her tears,
and she willed herself to stop crying. "I should go."
"Won't you stay and eat with us? Alayna and Myn should be back soon. I'm sure that Myn would love to meet you."
Cailin shook her head. "Thank you, but I'm meeting someone." It was a
lie, but the last thing she needed right then was to spend time in the
company of a seven-year-old girl.
Jaryd smiled at her. "I understand."
And she saw that he really did. Was she that obvious?
"Come back soon," he said. "Please."
She nodded, and started toward the door.
But before she reached it, she heard voices coming from outside the
chamber. "I'd rather not be seen," she said, turning back to Jaryd
again.
"It's probably just Alayna and Myn."
But even as he spoke, they heard a man's voice echoing loudly off the domed ceiling of the Hall.
"I'll go and see," he said.
He stepped past her out into the larger meeting room, closing the door
behind him, and she heard him call out a greeting to whoever had come.
For a moment she remained where she was, but then, unsure as to why she
was doing it, she walked over to the door and pressed her ear against
the wood.
"... Three of them," she heard the stranger say. "All of them from the
League. If it hadn't been for some men I had been talking to in the
Aerie, they probably would have killed me. As it is, I could use some
healing."
"Where?" Jaryd's voice, sounding alarmed.
"My side."
The rustling of cloth. A sharp intake of breath.
"It looks worse than it is," the man said. "I don't think he broke any bones. He hit me with his staff."
"I can see that from the bruise. Weren't you protecting yourself?"
"They had already attacked me with mage-fire. He hit me after the men I mentioned intervened. I wasn't ready for it."
Cailin had heard enough. She pushed the door open and stepped out into
the hall. "Who hit you?" she demanded. "Who were these men?"
Jaryd looked up, a startled expression on his face, but Cailin was
intent on the other man. He was solidly built, with long yellow hair,
dark, angry eyes, and a short, bristling beard. He had taken off his
cloak and shirt, and she could see the long dark bruise snaking around
his side.
"Eagle-Master Cailin," Jaryd said, "this is Hawk-Mage Orris. He's a good friend and a man who can be trusted."
It took her a moment. "Orris?" she repeated, her eyes flying to Jaryd and then coming back to the burly man. "You're Orris?"
He regarded her warily. "Yes, Eagle-Master."
"You're the one who took the outlander back to Lon-Ser."
She saw something flit across his features, a look of pain, or perhaps
longing. It was hard to tell, and it vanished as quickly as it came,
leaving only weariness.
"Yes," he said, his voice low. "I'm the one."
She wasn't sure what moved her in that moment. Maybe it was what she
had seen in his dark eyes, eyes that weren't so angry after all, or
perhaps it was her knowledge of what the mages of her League had done
to this man. But she surprised even herself with what she said next.
"Then we have you to thank for the peace we now enjoy with Lon-Ser."
It almost seemed that Leora herself had laid her hands on the man's
face, his expression brightened so. "I never thought I'd hear that from
a League mage," he whispered. "Thank you."
She shook her head. "Please don't thank me. Just accept my apologies
for what the League has done to you these past years." She felt her
expression harden. "The men who attacked you tonight, did one of them
have long hair and a sharp, narrow face?"
"Yes."
"I thought so. His name is Kovet. And if I'm not mistaken, he was with Brinly and Dirss."
Orris gave a small shrug. "I don't know their names, although one of
them tried to kill me once before, early this spring, in Tobyn's Wood."
She nodded. "That's Brinly. I heard about your encounter with him. That's why they sent three this time."
He gave a rueful grin. "I assumed as much. I won't be so boastful next time."
She smiled, although she couldn't help but think that her betrayal of
the League was now complete. This man before her was the body's most
hated enemy, and here she was chatting with him about the League mages
who attacked him tonight. If Erland had walked in at that moment, he
wouldn't have known which of them to kill first.
"You should also know this, Eagle-Master," the burly mage went on a
moment later, eyeing her closely. "Kovet claimed that you gave the
order to attack me."
Cailin abruptly felt herself growing hot with rage, as if there was
mage-fire rather than blood coursing through her body. But she did her
best to hide her anger from the others. This was a matter to be
discussed within the Hall of the League, not here among Order mages.
"I swear to you on the memory of my parents, it's not true," was all she said.
Orris smiled. He was actually quite handsome when he wasn't scowling. "I never truly believed him."
Jaryd had called his eagle to him, and was now laying his hands on
Orris's side. "From now on, I don't want you traveling in this city
alone," the Sage said as he healed the man. "You should always have
someone from the Order with you."
"Is that a command, Eagle-Sage?" Orris replied, sounding amused.
Jaryd's face colored, and he grinned. But he also nodded. "Yes, it is.
And if you defy me, I'll send Alayna after you." He stepped away from
Orris, and Cailin saw that the man's bruise was gone.
"Now that's a threat," Orris said to Cailin, winking at her.
"I heard that!" Alayna stepped into the hall from another room with her
daughter in tow. "And if you're foolish enough not to listen to Jaryd,
you'll deserve what I do to you."
Orris raised an eyebrow, and Cailin found herself smiling in spite of
everything. She was supposed to hate them, all of them. And she
couldn't do it.
"All joking aside," Alayna went on a moment later, looking at Jaryd and
then Cailin, "the two of you might want to consider the fact that with
Orris accompanied by Order mages, and bands of League mages roaming
Amarid looking for him, this city could easily turn into a
battleground."
"There may be a way to prevent that," Cailin said.
They all looked at her, but she kept her gaze fixed on Orris.
"You said that some men saved you from Kovet and the rest."
"Yes."
"Did they actually witness the attack?"
He nodded.
"Good. Do you think you could find them again?"
The mage hesitated. "Maybe. They were in the Aerie, but I don't know if
they were staying there. And I don't know how long they'll be in
Amarid. I got the feeling that Delsin was a peddler."
She chewed her lip for a moment. "It may not matter, but just in case,
I'll have to move quickly." She glanced at Jaryd. "I should be going,"
she said for the second time that night. "I hope we can speak again
soon."
"So do I."
"Before you go," Orris said, "Delsin and his companions wanted to know
if anyone from either the League or the Order had been in touch with
the Keepers. It struck me as a good question."
Jaryd exhaled through his teeth. "It is a good question, but I have to
admit that I have few ties to the Keepers. Leaders of the Order have
seldom been popular with the Gods' Children."
"I may be able to help with that, too," Cailin said.
Jaryd smiled. "For someone who professes to be an ineffective leader,
you certainly seem to be shouldering a good deal of responsibility.
Thank you, Eagle-Master."
Cailin felt herself blush. She turned away and whistled for Rithel. But
before the eagle reached her, Cailin felt a tugging on her cloak. She
looked down and saw Jaryd and Alayna's daughter standing before her.
She was a beautiful girl, with long dark hair like her mother's and
grey eyes like Jaryd's.
"Are you the other Eagle-Sage?" she asked.
Cailin glanced up at Jaryd, feeling awkward. Children made her uncomfortable. "Yes, I am."
"What's your name?"
"Cailin."
The girl continued to look at her, and after a few seconds, Cailin cleared her throat. "Uh ... what's your name?"
"I'm Myn. Do you think that you and my daddy are going to have a war?"
"Myn," Jaryd said, coming forward and placing a hand on the child's shoulder, "that's not really a fair question, Love."
Myn twisted her head around to look up at him. "But you told me what
eagles mean, and I just thought that I should ask her if she thinks
you're going to be enemies."
The Eagle-Sage opened his mouth to say something more, but Cailin stopped him with a raised hand and a shake of her head.
"It's all right." She looked down at Myn and smiled. "The answer is no.
I don't think your daddy and I are going to be enemies. Actually it's
too late for that." She looked up at Jaryd and then glanced back at
Orris and Alayna as well. "We're already friends."
16
Thinking back on my recent correspondence I realize that most of
what I have written will have left you with the impression that the
goods sent here from Lon-Ser have brought nothing but heartache and
turmoil. This is not the case. Many in Tobyn-Ser have come to admire
and enjoy the things you send us. Children now play with toys the likes
of which their parents could not even have imagined. Men and women
enjoy tools that make meal preparation, farming, and countless other
tasks far simpler than they have ever been. Chores that once took hours
to complete now take only minutes, thanks in great part to the items
that have come to us from Lon-Ser.
From all that you have told me, and all that I saw during my time in
your land, I know that the things you have sent us are primitive by
your standards. Indeed, I would guess that you are prohibited by law
from sending us more advanced items. It doesn't matter. To us, these
tools and toys are marvels, and despite all the difficult changes that
have come to our land in recent years, I believe that most of my people
would now be reluctant to do without them.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Spring, God's Year 4633.
Lessa was walking as quickly as she could, the muscles in her arms
burning with the weight of the two water buckets until she thought that
she would have to drop them. But her house was only a few painful
strides away, and with the cold rain stinging her eyes and soaking
through her clothes, she couldn't bear to stop. Reaching the single
step that led into her home, she finally put down the pails and slowly
straightened her cramping fingers. Then she pushed open the door and
hoisted the buckets into the house one at a time.
Entering the house and shutting the door behind her, she immediately noticed that the common room was far too dark. The fire!
She spun toward the hearth and, as she had feared, saw that the fire
had died again. There wasn't even any smoke rising from the rain-soaked
wood.
"Fist of the God!"
Adlyr and the boys were still at the smithy, but it was getting late.
At this rate, supper wouldn't be ready until well after dark.
She pushed her damp hair back from her brow and knelt before the
hearth, shivering slightly with the cold. She still had plenty of twigs
and birch bark with which to light the wood, but there wasn't even a
spark left in this fire. It had been Telar's day to bring in the wood,
but in his excitement at going with his father and older brother to the
smithy, he had forgotten. The logs were soaked from the rain. Lessa was
going to have to start over completely. She closed her eyes and exhaled
heavily, and then reached for her flint.
"Where's a mage when you need one?" she muttered under her breath, as she prepared to strike the stone.
She paused on that thought, glancing over at the small box that still
sat on the floor beside the woodpile, just where Adlyr had first put it
over a fortnight ago. The flamesticks from Lon-Ser. Adlyr had used them
a number of times now to light his pipe. But Lessa had yet to even
touch them. It wasn't that she disapproved, although she knew of
several people in Greenbough who did. She just was not sure that she
wanted to use them yet, and, to be honest, she was more than a bit
afraid of them. They smelled strange, and they flared suddenly and
quite brightly when struck against stone.
But she was cold, and it was growing late, and she had already tried to light the fire with her flint four times this day.
She leaned over and picked up the box, hearing the flamesticks rattle
around inside. Her heart was pounding, and her hand might have trembled
slightly as she lifted the lid. Even now, before she had lit one of
them, she could smell them, acrid and yet not entirely unpleasant. She
had watched Adlyr closely when he lit his pipe and so she knew to grip
the stick tightly and scrape it along the stone of the hearth. But
still, when the bright fire burst from the stick's yellow top, she gave
a small gasp and dropped the stick on the floor. Breathing hard, she
picked it up immediately, but then realized that she had forgotten to
prepare the kindling. Reluctantly, she blew out the flame and began
piling the bark and twigs beneath the damp logs, carefully hiding the
wasted stick within her pile. Adlyr was a kindly man and patient, but
he would have been angry with her for wasting one of the sticks. They
had been costly, and he hadn't gotten many of them.
Taking a second stick from the box, she again swiped it against the
stone, this time fighting the urge to drop the stick when the flame
appeared and the blue smoke swirled up to the ceiling. She held it to
the kindling and couldn't help but smile as the twigs and bark caught
fire and began to crackle.
For several minutes Lessa added more kindling, until she was certain
that the flames had taken hold and the room glowed again with
firelight. The logs continued to smoke and sputter from the dampness,
but soon steam was rising from the water for her stew and the room
started to grow warmer. Perhaps these advanced goods are not so bad,
she thought with another smile. I could grow accustomed to this.
She crossed to the eating table and began to cut roots and greens for
the stew, but after only a short time, she heard a knock at the door.
Wiping her hands on the front of her dress, she pulled the door open.
It had stopped raining, but she hardly noticed. For there standing
before her, was a woman with long brown hair that was still wet, and
pale grey eyes that had a somewhat wild look to them, as if what she
looked at and what she saw were not the same. She carried a staff with
a bright blue ceryll at its top, but she wore no cloak, indicating to
Lessa that she was a free mage. However, there was no bird on the
woman's shoulder, and Lessa wondered if she was unbound.
"I am Hawk-Mage Tammen," the woman said. "I was traveling through the wood and noticed your village."
"Greetings, Hawk-Mage," Lessa replied, feeling awkward. "I'm honored by this meeting. How may I help you?"
"What is this place?"
"This is Greenbough, Hawk-Mage, a free town. Are you with the Movement?"
The mage hesitated, but only for an instant. "Yes, I am. There are
several of us in this area, all of us stopping at towns like yours to
encourage you to join the Movement."
"I see," Lessa said with a nod. "If you'd like I can arrange for you to speak with the village elders. They'd—"
"No. That won't be necessary. You can tell them I was here. That will suffice."
Lessa stared at the mage, not quite believing what she had heard. "I
know little of your Movement, Hawk-Mage, and even less about the
politics of the Order and League. I'm not certain that I'd be the best
person to speak to the elders for you."
Tammen smiled, although the unnerving look in her eyes remained.
"You'll be fine. Can I impose upon you for some food? This body—"
She stopped herself and smiled again. "I'm hungry. And since I lost my
familiar, I haven't had a decent meal."
"Of course, Hawk-Mage. I'm still preparing supper, but you're welcome to eat with us."
"No," the mage said again, even more quickly this time. "I can't stay
that long. I should be moving on. Just some cheese or dried meat would
be fine."
Lessa frowned for a moment, but then nodded. "Very well, Hawk-Mage.
I'll see what we have. But I'm afraid it won't be much. You might want
to check with the merchant in the village commons. He's likely to have
plenty."
"Thank you. I'm sure whatever you can spare will be sufficient."
Lessa stepped back into her home, feeling uncomfortable and keenly
aware of the mage's presence just behind her. It was growing dark
outside, and Lessa had yet to light any candles. The only light in the
house came from the small windows in the common room and the flickering
flames in the hearth. She wished Adlyr and the boys were home.
A year ago she would have had little to offer the mage, but with the
arrival in Tobyn-Ser of covered glass containers from Lon-Ser, she had
two blocks of cheese, and several pieces of dried fruit, in addition to
the dry breads she normally kept on hand.
"Here you go, Hawk-Mage," she said, handing Tammen one of the pieces of
cheese, and all of the dried fruit. "I wish I had more to offer, but I
have two growing boys, and more often than not, I have even less in my
pantry."
Lessa smiled, but the mage offered no reaction.
"This will do," she said. "My thanks."
The woman turned to go.
"You're certain you won't stay for supper?"
"Quite certain," the mage answered, shaking her head. She cast an
anxious glance toward the window. "It's getting late. I must find a
place to pass the night."
"We haven't much room, but you're welcome to stay here."
Tammen faced Lessa again and smiled, but there was a brittleness to her
expression, as if she were desperate to be on her way. Her eyes
appeared even more wild than before. "You're very kind. But I can't
stay."
Lessa forced a smile as well. "I'm sorry to hear that." A lie. She was
profoundly relieved. She had never met a mage like this one. Indeed, it
occurred to Lessa that being rendered unbound might have driven the
mage mad. She had never heard of such a thing happening before, but it
was certainly possible. Mages were said to be quite close to their
birds, and of course, those who were unbound had Theron's Curse to
worry about. Tammen appeared quite young— perhaps too young to
cope with her grief and her fear. What other explanation was there for
her strange behavior?
The mage put the food into a pouch that hung on her belt and started once more toward the door.
"What would you like me to tell the elders?" Lessa asked.
Tammen stopped again, just on the threshold of the door. Lessa saw her
ball her fists for just an instant, before she glanced back over her
shoulder, the same thin smile on her face.
"Tell them that the Movement needs all the support it can get. They
should do everything they can to convince other towns in this part of
the wood to join us. Tell them as well that at some time in the near
future, the leaders of all the free towns will be contacted and told
what they should do. Can you remember all that?"
Lessa nodded.
"Good. And now I really must be going."
Without another word, the mage hastened out of the house and disappeared from view.
Lessa hurried to one of the windows and saw Tammen striding quickly
away from the village and back into the shadows of Tobyn's Wood. She
soon lost sight of the mage, although she was able to track the woman's
progress by the glowing blue ceryll she carried. And just before the
mage vanished entirely, Lessa thought that she caught a glimpse of a
glowing yellow form on Tammen's shoulder. An instant later, she could
see nothing of the mage at all, and she was forced to wonder if it had
just been an illusion, a trick played on her eyes by the light from her
fire and the uneven glass of the window. No doubt that was what it was.
It had to be. Except that the form had looked just like a hawk.
She shivered slightly and realized that the door was still open. She
walked to it intending to pull it closed, but as she did she heard
Adlyr's voice and the laughter of her boys.
"And dinner's not even cooking yet!" she said under her breath.
She rushed to the fire and placed another damp log on it, and then she
returned to the table and resumed her cutting. She paused briefly, as
her men drew closer, and glanced out the window, wondering if she could
catch another glimpse of the mage. But seeing nothing, she turned her
attention to dinner. It was going to be so very late.
* * *
"With all due respect, Eldest," Linnea said, her voice rising, "all
your assurances and apologies cannot change the fact that people have
died. For the first time in the history of this land, men and women of
Tobyn-Ser have perished as a direct result of the Temple's actions.
Someone must answer for that."
Brevyl shifted uncomfortably in his chair, but gave no other indication
that he was alarmed by what he was hearing. "I've already told you,
Linnea: if you seek someone to blame for this unfortunate incident, I
suggest you look to the free mages who instigated the confrontation in
the first place." He opened his meaty hands, as if in a plea. "These
deaths are on their heads. Our men merely sought to protect themselves
and the woodsmen they were hired to guard."
Linnea struggled to keep her temper in check. She had been hearing the
same nonsense from Keepers throughout eastern Tobyn-Ser. Brevyl had
been all too effective in conveying his message to all the land's
Temples and keeping his supporters in line. Which was why she was back
here, in this chamber that had once been hers, arguing with the man who
had succeeded her as Eldest of the Gods. Normally, she and Brevyl
avoided each other, which was not always easy, given that she still
lived in the main Temple of the Children of the Gods. But on this day
she had sought him out, swallowing her pride to request an audience.
She knew that she would have no success turning the others against him,
so she had little choice but to try to change his mind. And already she
knew that she was going to fail at this as well.
"The mages were there at the request of Prannai's people," she said
through gritted teeth. "And if your men hadn't been carrying those
weapons, they would never have attacked."
"Linnea," he said, smiling at her as if she were simple, or a child,
"you don't really believe that do you? You, of all people? These free
mages are as bad as the Order. They may even be worse. You know what
it's like dealing with them. It wasn't that long ago that you were
sitting where I am." His smile deepened. It was the third time in this
discussion that he had said something to remind her that he was now her
superior. "To be honest," he went on a moment later, "I'm surprised to
hear you saying such things."
"As am I, Brevyl."
"You see? You're just a bit out of sorts. With all that's been going on
recently I'm not at all surprised. We all are to some extent."
She shook her head. "That's not what I meant. I'm surprised, because I
never thought I'd have to confront an Eldest of this Temple on such a
matter. You've disgraced us, Brevyl."
The Eldest launched himself out of his chair, his round face turning
crimson. "How dare you!" he said. He was standing over her, holding a
rigid, trembling finger just inches from her face. "I am Eldest of the
Gods! No one speaks to me that way! Not even you!"
"Perhaps that's the problem," Linnea said, refusing to be cowed. "You
have all of the Keepers so afraid of you that no one is willing to
question any of your decisions."
"My decisions don't need to be questioned!"
"Don't be ridiculous, Brevyl," she said, sounding, she knew, as
condescending as he had a few moments before. "You're not perfect.
Don't let your title and that pretty robe of yours convince you
otherwise." He started to say something, but she stopped him with a
raised hand. "Hear me out. I know a great deal about the dangers of
believing oneself to be infallible. Every day you're told that you
speak with the tongue of the gods, that you are the instrument of Arick
on this earth. And hearing this, it's easy to forget that the gods are
imperfect, just as we are. Lon and Tobyn bickered like children, Leora,
in her vanity, fueled their rivalry, and Arick, in a fit of pique,
sundered the land."
He turned away from her and walked to the chamber's only window. "I'm
no child, Linnea," he said, his voice sounding tight. "I know the gods;
I daresay I'm as familiar as you are with their glories and their
shortcomings."
"Then pay heed to what they tell you."
He faced her again, his dark eyes narrowing. "Meaning what?"
"You make mistakes, Brevyl, just as the rest of us do. And lately you've made more than your share."
"I don't see it that way."
"Then you're blind. People are dead, Brevyl, the land is scarred, there's talk of civil war."
"That last is certainly not my fault! You can't blame me for the fact that mages are binding to eagles!"
Linnea shook her head. The man was hopeless. "I'm not trying to,
Eldest. I'm just pointing out to you that these are dangerous times,
and anything that the Temple does to heighten that danger must be
questioned."
Brevyl stared at her for several seconds, his expression thoughtful. Perhaps she had been too quick to judge him.
Perhaps not. "You're right: these are dangerous times. But am I to be
blamed for wanting the Temple to take advantage of current
circumstances?" He returned to his chair and pressed his thick fingers
together. "Isn't it my responsibility, as Eldest of the Gods, to do all
that I can to assure that the Temple emerges from this coming crisis in
the strongest position possible? Would you have done otherwise,
Linnea?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
She hesitated, and Brevyl grinned.
"Of course not," he said, sounding pleased with himself. "It's only
now, after you've relinquished power, that you start to think this
way." He leaned forward. "It's understandable really: you haven't much
to fill your days anymore, and that can't be easy for someone who was
once the most powerful person in the Temple. But don't expect me to
take your criticisms seriously, Linnea. You'd find fault with me no
matter what I did. If I was doing what you suggest right now, you'd be
in here wondering why I wasn't arming the guards and harvesting more of
the forest."
"That's not true!" she said. But she could hear how defensive she
sounded, and she knew that she had no hope of convincing him. He had
made up his mind about the weapons, and he had made up his mind about
her.
"Will you at least allow me to raise these issues at the next Assembly
of Keepers?" she asked him, resignation in her voice. She knew before
he answered what he would say.
"We've a long time to wait until the Autumn Assembly, Linnea. I can't
even begin to imagine what we might be discussing." He smiled at her in
a way that told her all she needed to know. "But if we have time for
it, I won't stop you from broaching the subject."
Brevyl glanced toward his desk before facing her again, the same thin
smile on his lips, and Linnea knew that their meeting was over.
"Forgive me," he said, "but I have a great deal to do this afternoon. I'm sure you understand."
"Of course."
Linnea forced herself out of her chair, wincing at the pain. The
illness was in her bones now, like an animal gnawing its way through
her body. Despite all the assurances she still offered to Cailin, she
knew that she had little time left.
"Are you all right, Eldest?" Brevyl asked, with unconvincing concern. "Can I get you anything?"
I'm dying, you bastard. Can't you see that? Hasn't it been clear all this time? "No, Brevyl. Thank you. I'm fine. Just a little stiff from sitting too long."
"I'm glad to hear it. We'd hate for anything to happen to you. You're a
rarity in the Temple, Linnea: an Eldest who relinquished her power
rather than carrying it to her deathbed. I can't recall the last time
that happened. None of us can."
Linnea stared at him, ignoring her pain for the moment. "What is it you're trying to tell me, Brevyl?"
He opened his hands and raised his eyebrows in what must have been an
attempt to look innocent. The effort was wasted. "I'm merely saying
that you occupy a special place in all of our hearts."
"And?"
He hesitated, but only for an instant. "Well, it does make one wonder
why you did it? Especially since you seem so eager to criticize all
that I do."
Linnea took a long breath. She had no desire to share her reasons with
this man, but he was right. She had no right to criticize him in light
of the decision she had made. He was Eldest now, and though she
believed that he was bringing ruin to the Temple and, potentially, to
the land as well, it was not her place to judge him. At least not
openly.
"I did it," she said at last, "because I grew weary of the bickering
and the politics, and because I wanted to have a little time to enjoy
my life before ..." She paused and swallowed. Strange that she
should manage to be so stoic around Cailin, but that talking to this
man made her heart ache with grief for herself. "I had a premonition
that I hadn't much time left. So I stepped down."
Brevyl was gaping at her, an appalled look on his round face. And once
more, Linnea was forced to wonder if she had judged the man too harshly.
"Do you mean—?" He closed his mouth. Blinked. "Do you mean to tell me that you're dying?"
"Yes," she said, her voice even.
"Have you seen the Temple's healers?"
She actually laughed. "The healers gave up long ago."
"And what about Cailin?"
The question surprised her. Brevyl and she had rarely spoken of the
young mage, and when they had, he had made it quite clear that he
disapproved of Linnea's relationship with her. Now that he was Eldest,
he had suggested during one of their more heated discussions of the
topic, it was improper for her to meet with any members of either the
League or the Order, even Cailin. Naturally, she had chosen to defy
him, and this had only deepened their mutual distrust. But after some
time, Brevyl let the matter drop.
"What about Cailin?" Linnea asked cautiously.
"Can't she heal you?"
"She's offered to try. I declined."
"But why?" he asked, his eyes widening. "If she—"
She averted her gaze again. His question struck her as far too similar
to those she continued to ask herself. There had been a time when
Cailin might have saved her, when the power of the Mage-Craft might
have been a match for the animal inside her. But how did one who had
spent her life opposing the Order on behalf of the gods accept such
healing with a clear conscience.
"It's my time, Brevyl," she said at last. "Even if Cailin could help
me, I'm not sure I'd want her to. Arick and Duclea have called me to
their side. Who am I to keep them waiting?" She forced herself to
smile. "Your concern surprises me," she said, trying to keep her tone
light. "I'd have thought you'd be glad to be getting rid of me."
"That's an ugly thought, Linnea," Brevyl said, looking hurt. "It does an injustice to both the Temple and me."
She lowered her gaze. She had never been very good with people, which
was why the bond she had somehow managed to forge with Cailin was so
special to her. "You're right, Eldest. Please forgive me."
Brevyl waved off her apology with a dismissive gesture. "I really have much to do," he said, his tone gruff.
He wasn't very subtle, and yet she lingered, suddenly unwilling to
leave him after such an exchange. "I'm truly sorry if I've hurt you,
Brevyl. That wasn't my intention."
"Does it matter, Linnea? It seems a fitting way to end our conversation, regardless of your intent."
He sounded surprisingly sad, and Linnea considered saying something
more. But the distance between them was too great to be bridged now. A
year ago, perhaps. But not now.
Instead, she nodded, and then, without another word, she left him and
started back toward her modest quarters at the far end of the Temple
grounds.
She was tired, and she moved stiffly across the stone courtyard in the
middle of the grounds, feeling each step as if it were a hammer on her
tender bones.
I need to rest, she told herself, smiling grimly at the double meaning of the thought. Soon, she told herself. Very soon.
But when she reached her quarters, she found Cailin waiting for her.
The mage rose from the corner chair when Linnea opened the door, a
smile on her youthful face.
"I let myself in. I hope you don't mind, but I didn't want
anyone ..." She trailed off, her smile giving way to a look of
concern, and then fear.
"You look terrible," she said coming forward to help Linnea into the room. "Come and sit down."
"I'm fine, my dear," Linnea told her, hearing the lie in her own words. "Just a bit tired."
"Where have you been?" Cailin asked, obviously unconvinced.
"Speaking with Brevyl."
"About the weapons?"
"Yes."
"And it didn't go well."
Linnea allowed herself a wan smile. "To say the least."
"Have you told him how sick you are?"
"I did today," Linnea said, lowering herself slowly onto her bed. "I
thought that giving him the good news would smooth things along. But it
didn't work."
At least this time the joke got a laugh, although it brought tears as well.
"I hate him," Cailin said, returning to the chair and dabbing at her
eyes with the sleeve of her cloak. "Why couldn't he be the one to get
sick?"
Linnea frowned. "That doesn't become you, Cailin. You know better than to wish such a thing on anyone."
The mage gave a rueful grin. "Yes, Eldest."
They sat in silence for several moments, Linnea with her eyes closed feeling her pain recede slowly, like an ocean tide.
"So what brings you to the Temple?" she finally asked, opening her eyes
and facing Cailin. "Are you here as Eagle-Master or just as Cailin?"
"Both, actually. I wanted to see how you were doing, but I also needed
to ask you some questions. Hearing about your conversation with Brevyl,
however, tells me most of what I need to know."
"About what?"
"About whether the Temples can be persuaded to stop arming their
woodsmen and, if possible, to cease their cutting of the forest
altogether."
The Eldest shook her head. "I doubt it. I've spoken with Keepers
throughout Hawksfind Wood, the eastern halves of Tobyn's Wood and
Tobyn's Plain, and even a few on the northern edge of Phelan
Spur—"
"No wonder you look so tired! Linnea you're in no con—"
"Let me finish," Linnea said. "None of the Keepers I've spoken to is
willing to defy Brevyl. And Brevyl made it clear to me today that he
has no intention of backing down."
"Doesn't he realize how close this land is to a civil war?" Cailin
asked. She pushed herself out of the chair and started to pace the
floor of the small room. "Doesn't he see the danger?"
"Yes, he does. But to him, that danger justifies what he's doing. He
sees the League and the Order at each other's throats, he sees the free
mages aligning themselves with the People's Movement, and he feels that
the Temples should be able to defend themselves as well."
Cailin halted and stared at her, a look of incredulity on her face. "You almost sound like you agree with him."
"I wouldn't go that far," Linnea said. "But I do understand him. And I
think that if I was still Eldest— and if you and I weren't
friends— I might be following the same course."
"Linnea! You can't be serious!"
"Perhaps I wouldn't be cutting so many trees, but think about it,
Child! The Mage-Craft and those who wield it have been enemies of the
Temples for a thousand years. And now, suddenly, we face not one enemy,
but three. Granted, none is as powerful as the Order was when it was
united, but still, we are surrounded by foes, and, as you say,
Tobyn-Ser may be on the verge of civil war."
"So is that what I am? An enemy?"
"Come now, Cailin. You're being childish. Of course you're not an
enemy. But if you're to be lead the League, you must have the ability
to view the world as it's seen by those who would oppose you, be it
mages of the Order, free mages, or even Keepers of the Temple. And what
I'm telling you is that, though I disagree with what Brevyl is doing, I
understand it. Can you see the difference?"
For several seconds, Cailin merely glared at her. The mage's cheeks
were bright red, almost as if she had been slapped on either side of
her face, and her blue eyes blazed defiantly. But then she took a long
breath and nodded. She might even have smiled. "Yes, Eldest," she said
at last. "I see the difference."
"Good."
"But that still leaves us without a solution."
Linnea conceded the point with a slight bob of her head. "Do you have
any news? What of Erland in all of this? And the Eagle-Sage?"
"Nothing has changed with Erland. And for that matter, nothing has
really changed with the Order either, although the Eagle-Sage and I
seem to agree on a good deal, far more than I ever expected we would."
"You trust him?"
"Yes," Cailin said, surprising Linnea with the surety of her reply. "I
trust him and his friends more than I do most members of the League."
Linnea raised an eyebrow. "Are you considering changing the color of your cloak?"
Cailin smiled. "No. I think I can do more good in the League. What I
said before about Erland wasn't really true. Something has changed. He
and some of his friends got careless and may have violated the bylaws
of the League."
Linnea looked at her keenly. "Can you prove this?"
"Yes, but it might take the testimony of an Order mage. And not just any mage: the one who took the outlander back to Lon-Ser."
Linnea gaped at her. "Would the mages of the League even allow him into their hall?"
The young woman shrugged. "There were other witnesses, but I haven't found them yet."
"I think you'd better."
"Probably," Cailin said with a wry grin.
Linnea tried to stifle a yawn, but failed. She smiled apologetically.
Cailin leaned forward and squeezed her hand. "I should go."
Normally Linnea would have insisted that she stay, but today she didn't
even have the energy for that. "Come back soon, all right?"
"Of course."
Cailin stood and stepped to the door. As she placed her hand on the
door handle however, Linnea stopped her, calling her name. The mage
turned to face her again.
"I'm sorry I failed with Brevyl," the Eldest said weakly. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop him."
Cailin smiled reassuringly, although the expression in her eyes
remained grim. "There's no need to apologize, Linnea. We'll just have
to find another way."
* * *
The Eagle-Master returned to Amarid by late afternoon, but not before
leaving Rithel, her cloak, and her staff in a remote clearing in
Hawksfind Wood. She needed help, but she had to be circumspect in how
she got it, both for her own sake and that of the person whose
assistance she needed.
The tavern he was said to frequent sat on a narrow byway only a short
walk from the Hall of the League. It was possible, she knew, that other
League mages would be there as well, and would recognize her even
without her cloak and ceryll. But she had to take that chance. There
seemed little chance that he would come to her in the forest again.
Checking herself once more to make certain there was nothing upon her
that made her appear to be anything more than a poor young woman,
Cailin entered the tavern.
The barkeep called to her almost immediately, just as she had expected.
"Hey, you! We don't serve children in here! You trying to get me closed down?"
Cailin suppressed a smile. "I'm not here for a drink," she said, as
meekly as she could. "I'm looking for my uncle. Please! I need to speak
with him! It won't take but a moment."
The man frowned and looked around the room, which was almost empty. "All right," he muttered. "But make it quick."
"Yes, sir. Thank you."
She hurried to the back of the tavern, scanning the dimly lit tables
until she spotted Stepan sitting against the back wall, reading from a
scroll. She walked to his table, sat across from him, and cleared her
throat quietly.
The Owl-Master looked up at her. "Yes? Is there something—?"
He stopped, his eyes widening, and then he glanced nervously around the
tavern. "Are you insane?" he whispered. "Do you know what Erland will
do if he finds me talking to you?"
"Nobody will recognize me without my cloak, Stepan. The barkeep thinks I'm your niece."
"My niece?" he repeated, his voice rising.
"Besides, what can Erland do? I'm Eagle-Master, you're a member of the League. We're not allowed to talk?"
"You know what I mean. Now leave me alone."
She shook her head. "No, not yet. I'll go in a minute, but first I need your help."
"You must be joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
He stared at her for several moments, his pale face looking even more
ashen than usual. "All right," he finally said, his eyes flicking
around the tavern again. "What is it you want?"
"You heard about Kovet, Dirss, and Brinly?"
He let out a short laugh, though his expression remained grim. "Fools,"
he said. "It's bad enough that they tried to kill Orris here in the
city, with every League mage and every Order mage within shouting
distance of where they attacked him. But to threaten those
men ..." He shook his head. "What a disaster."
"You see a disaster," Cailin said. "I see an opportunity."
"I don't understand."
"These men violated Amarid's Laws and our bylaws, and they did so following Erland's orders."
"You can't prove that."
"I don't have to, Stepan. Everybody knows it. He's been obsessed with
Orris for seven years. We all know that Kovet and the others were doing
what Erland wanted them to do. If I wanted to, I could have them
expelled from the League, and I could use this incident to embarrass
Erland enough to ensure that he'd never lead the League again."
"You wouldn't," Stepan breathed.
"I would, but I don't want to. You were right in what you told me that
night in the forest. For the good of the League, I need to find a way
to lead us without weakening us. And as much as I hate to admit it,
that means keeping Erland's standing intact."
He raised an eyebrow and nodded. "I'm impressed. I wasn't sure you were
listening." He regarded her for another moment, as if weighing his
options. "So what is it you want from me?" he finally asked.
"I need you to find the men Kovet threatened. I haven't been able to, and you know this city far better than I do."
"But why do you need them? You just said—"
"I said that I would try to do this without destroying Erland. But I
need him to believe that I can destroy him, and in order to do that, I
need to be able to prove just what happened that night."
His eyes narrowed. "How do I know that you won't turn around and use these men to destroy Erland after all?"
"You don't, Stepan," she said, not bothering to mask her anger. "You're
just going to have to trust me. You're the one who came to me and told
me that I needed to find more subtle ways to assert myself within the
League. Well, that's what I'm trying to do. One way or another, I'm
going to lead us through this war. Now you can help me do this quietly,
by allowing me to go to Erland with all the information I need to win
his cooperation, or you can force me to take this fight to the entire
Conclave, in which case Erland will be humiliated."
They stared at each other across the table, neither of them looking away.
"What if you can't convince him?" Stepan asked at last. "You know how stubborn he can be."
"If he believes that I know where those men are, he won't have any choice but to back down."
The Owl-Master smiled sadly. "You don't know him very well. He doesn't like to give in under any circumstance."
"Actually, I know him better than you think. Find those men for me, Stepan. I'll do the rest."
He hesitated, but only briefly. "All right. Give me a day or two."
She smiled, surprised by how relieved she felt. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me. As I've told you before, anything I do on your behalf, I do for Tobyn-Ser, the League, and Erland."
"Yes, I know," she said. "And as I've told you before, I'm grateful anyway."
The older man smiled at that. "I hope this works. Truly, I do."
She stood and started to walk away.
"Arick guard you," he called after her. "Niece."
17
I do not know how much news you receive of events in Lon-Ser other
than those tidings that I send. Before your journey to my land you
received none; this much you have told me. But with merchants traveling
regularly between Tobyn-Ser and Lon-Ser that may have changed. For all
I know, you had learned of Shivohn's death long before you heard of it
from me.
It is for this reason that I send this brief note, which so quickly
follows my last one. Much is happening here that I cannot yet explain
to you, but I want you to know that not all of what you hear from
others about events in Bragor-Nal is true. At least for now, believe
nothing unless you hear it from Jibb, Premel, or me. I apologize for
being so mysterious. I hope that you will trust me when I say that it
is absolutely necessary.
Arick guard you, Orris. Always remember that I love you.
— Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal to Hawk-Mage Orris, Day 4, Week 7, Spring, Year 3068.
Honid wouldn't have been his choice. In fact, Jibb could think of at
least three other Nal-Lords in Dob's Dominion who were smarter, braver,
and more skilled with a weapon. But it hadn't been his decision to
make; Melyor had left it to Dob, and Dob had chosen Honid.
In at least one way it did make sense. Honid controlled the Second
Realm, which bordered Melyor's old Realm, the Fourth. It was familiar
territory for all of them, but not so familiar as to raise Marar's
suspicions. Dob had also gone out of his way to assure Melyor and Jibb
that Honid was the most honorable Nal-Lord in the Dominion, and though
Jibb wouldn't have thought it possible a few years ago, Dob's word on
such matters now carried a good deal of weight with both of them.
Still, Honid? He didn't like it. Of course, he didn't like the entire plan, but that was another matter.
"You're awfully quiet," Melyor said, sitting beside him in the long,
black carrier as it sped northward along the Upper. "Something on your
mind?"
Jibb shrugged and opened his mouth to reply. But noticing Premel, who
was sitting in one of the seats across from them, he thought better of
it. "No," he said in a low voice. "Nothing at all."
Premel stared at him for a moment before shifting in his seat to face the window.
"All right," Melyor said in an offhand way, "but if you're going to be sullen and moody, this is going to be a very boring day."
"Boring?" Jibb repeated, not believing what he was hearing. "Are you kidding me? We're going into the quads to stage—"
He stopped, feeling his face grow hot. She was laughing at him, as she always seemed to be at times like these.
She shook her head slowly, a smile lingering on her face. Why did she
have to be so beautiful? "You have got to stop being so serious all the
time," she told him. She glanced at Premel. "He's always been like
this: so earnest, so duty-bound."
Not always, he wanted to say. Only since I've been with you. Only since you put your life in my hands.
But he kept silent. He knew what she was trying to do, and he was
determined not to let it work. He and Premel had said all that they
needed to say in the lifter the other day.
Premel appeared to feel the same way. He laughed politely at the
Sovereign's remark, but he made no effort to prolong the exchange. And
after another moment, he turned back to the window.
Melyor looked at them both, and then, pressing her lips into a thin
line, she shook her head again. "Fine," she muttered at last. "I don't
care what you do. As long as SovSec continues to function up to my
expectations, I really couldn't care less."
Jibb glanced at Premel again, but the guard kept his gaze fixed on the
Nal as it hurtled by outside the carrier. The welt on Premel's cheek
had begun to fade, but it was still quite noticeable, and seeing it,
Jibb couldn't help but grimace. He knew that it had raised eyebrows
among the men, and Melyor, who had no doubt as to how it had gotten
there, had been infuriated. Jibb realized how stupid it had been—
if he was going to hit the man, better to punch him in the gut, where
no one could see. Not that he cared about humiliating Premel, but he
couldn't afford to put Melyor's safety at risk by alerting other
traitors to the possibility that something was amiss. He had apologized
to her profusely, and she, of course had forgiven him. But he couldn't
stop worrying that the damage might already have been done.
They rode without speaking for what seemed like an eternity, all of
them staring out their windows. After some time, Jibb leaned his
forehead against the cool glass and closed his eyes, trying without
success to sleep.
"You're both clear on what we'll be doing?" Melyor asked, abruptly ending the silence.
"I'm clear on it," Premel said, as Jibb turned to face them. "But I don't like it."
Jibb looked at him quickly, then looked away. He had wanted to say the same thing.
"That's too bad," the Sovereign said. "We're doing this my way, whether
you like it or not. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be in this mess
in the first place."
Premel's face colored, and he turned toward the window again without offering a reply.
"Can you believe him?" she asked Jibb.
The general cleared his throat. "Actually," he began, feeling awkward. "I'm not sure about this either."
"Great," Melyor said. "You haven't said two words to each other in
days, and the only thing you can agree on is that I'm doing this wrong."
Jibb shook his head. "I didn't say that. Regardless of what I think of
the plan itself, I'm not sure that Honid and his men are up to this."
"Dob says that Honid is as trustworthy a man as there is in the entire Dominion."
"That may be true," Premel said. "But we need someone who's more than
just honest." Again his face reddened, and he looked to Jibb for help.
He was really in no position to be arguing this point.
"I think what Premel means, is that Honid and his men are going to have
to be extremely precise with their thrower fire, and that while neither
of us questions their loyalty, they may not be good enough with their
weapons to make this work."
"Exactly," Premel added.
Melyor looked at them both, as if weighing what they were telling her.
"Well," she finally said. "I guess that's why I brought the two of you
along."
"The two of us may not be enough," Jibb said. "I've only got one good arm, and he's—" He clamped his mouth shut.
"He's what, Jibb?"
"He's a traitor," Premel said, completing the thought.
"And are you intending to betray us again?"
"No, Sovereign, I'm not," Premel said. "But no matter what assurances I
give you, you'd be foolish to trust me, particularly under these
conditions."
She regarded him for a moment before facing Jibb again. "Is that what you were going to say?"
"Essentially, yes."
She nodded and gazed out her window. They were drawing near the enormous glass buildings of the Farm. It wouldn't be long now.
"I'm not worried about Honid and his men," she said after a lengthy
silence. "I trust Dob's judgment on this. I'm not worried about your
arm either, Jibb. I'd trust you to protect me even if both your arms
were useless. And maybe I'm crazy, but I don't think that Premel will
betray me again." She shook her head. "No, none of that worries me."
She faced them again, her face looking pale. "What does worry me is the
fact that the two of you aren't speaking, because if something goes
wrong, and we need to act quickly, that could cost all of us our lives.
So you two can spend the time we have left considering how you might
live with yourselves and with each other if your stubbornness and your
pride get me killed."
Once more she turned away from them, and Jibb found that he and Premel were staring at each other, their eyes locked.
"You remember what we talked about in the lifter a few days ago?" Jibb asked at length.
"Yes."
"Maybe I can bring myself to trust you, at least with regard to this."
Premel nodded. "All right."
"If you disappoint me, Premel— if you give any sign at all that
you plan to betray us again— I'll kill you on the spot, just as I
should have the first time."
This last Jibb said for Melyor's sake, but she showed no sign that she had even heard him.
"I understand," Premel said, nodding a second time. "And what if I
don't disappoint you? What if I do just what you and the Sovereign
expect of me? Will I start to earn back your trust in other ways as
well?"
If Melyor hadn't been there, he would have hit the man. Here he was
offering Premel a way to redeem himself, at least to some extent, and
Premel was already reaching for more. He glared at the guard, allowing
him to see how angry he was, but he offered no answer. After several
moments, Premel lowered his gaze.
A short time later, Melyor's driver steered the carrier off the Upper and down into the crowded quads of the Second Realm.
Jibb sat up, suddenly alert and watchful. He glanced back through the
rear window to be sure that the larger vehicle behind them, which was
carrying two units of his best men, had followed. Seeing that it had,
he nodded and faced forward again. His hand wandered to the thrower on
his thigh, and he felt reassured by the feel of the cold metal. Premel,
he noticed, was sitting more erect as well, and Melyor had both hands
on her staff, as if the red stone mounted upon it could guard them from
those who might attack the carrier.
Their driver pulled off the main avenue almost immediately and followed
a series of turns through narrow alleys until they reached the back
entrance to Honid's flat. The second carrier stopped just behind them.
Dob wasn't there yet, at least there was no sign of his carrier or his
men, and Jibb felt his apprehension mounting, and with it, his anger.
Who was Dob to keep the Sovereign waiting, especially under these
circumstances, when she was exposed like this?
"It's all right," Melyor said quietly, placing a hand lightly on his arm. "He'll be here."
And in the next instant, as if her reassurances had been prophecy, two
more carriers entered the passageway, both of them large and black.
They pulled up alongside Melyor's carrier and the one holding Jibb's
men, and Dob climbed out, accompanied by a dozen of his men, all of
them in black uniforms.
Seeing Dob, Premel abruptly turned pale. "Does he ... ?" He hesitated, as if he didn't know how to continue.
Melyor smiled gently. "All he knows is that there have been attempts on
my life, and that we're here to stage this firefight. I told him
nothing else."
"Thank you, Sovereign," Premel breathed.
Melyor nodded. "I'm ready when you are," she said to Jibb.
He pulled his pocket communicator from his coat and pressed a button on
its side. "The Sovereign is ready," he said. "Take positions."
Immediately, the doors of the carrier behind them opened, and twelve
men in the light blue uniforms of SovSec emerged from the vehicle and
formed a semicircle around Melyor's carrier.
"We're ready, General," one of the unit commanders told him over the communicator.
Jibb turned to Melyor. "They're in position, Sovereign."
She took a breath and flashed them both a smile. "Let's get started."
She opened her door, but then paused. "Watch yourselves," she said, her
voice suddenly low. "Just in case."
The three of them stepped out of their carrier and into the alley. Jibb
scanned the rooftops and windows for assassins, and, he noticed, so did
Premel.
"Hello, Dob," Melyor said. "It's nice to see you again."
"The pleasure and honor are mine, Sovereign," Dob said, smiling and
bowing formally at the waist. He was an Overlord now— not
Melyor's strongest, but not her weakest either— and he was
dressed elegantly in black, just as an Overlord should have been. His
long black hair was touched with narrow streaks of silver, and he wore
it tied back. He had added a beard since the last time Jibb saw him,
silver and black like his hair, and, the general had to admit, it
looked quite dignified. But to Jibb, Dob would always be the
overreaching break-law who, with Cedrych's help, had taken Melyor's
Realm from him.
Apparently, Dob felt the same way, because when he next turned to Jibb,
he appeared decidedly less sure of himself. "Good morning, General," he
said, not quite meeting Jibb's gaze. "We're honored to have you in our
Dominion."
"Thank you, Dob. I'm delighted to be here."
"You remember Premel, don't you, Dob?" Melyor said, indicating the guard with a casual gesture. "Jibb's second-in-command?"
"Yes, of course."
"Premel is interim head of SovSec until Jibb's arm heals."
"Right," Dob said, with a nod. "I had heard of your injury, General.
I'm sorry. I also heard," he added, turning to Premel, "that we have
you to thank for saving the General's life."
Premel grimaced but didn't look away. "That's a bit of an exaggeration."
"No, it's not," Melyor corrected, her eyes flicking for a moment toward
Jibb. "Premel's just being modest, Dob. Don't pay any attention to him."
"What's the situation, Dob?" Jibb asked, in an attempt to change the subject.
Dob kept his eyes on Melyor and Premel for another moment, before
turning to answer the question. "Honid and his men staged a raid on the
Third Realm last night. They killed several men, did a good deal of
damage to the infrastructure, and captured a large cache of hand
boomers and throwers."
Most of this was true, Jibb knew. They had staged the raid the night
before to give Melyor an excuse to come here. Little had been explained
to Carden, Nal-Lord of the Third Realm. He had been warned that the
raid would take place, and he had been promised generous compensation
if he allowed it to succeed with an impressive but ineffectual defense.
From all reports, he had made a good show of it. The corpses had been
faked. Melyor had insisted on that. And though they had succeeded with
this aspect of the ruse as well, Jibb had no desire to know how they
had done it.
"This is why you called the Sovereign and the General here?" Premel
demanded, also making a good show of it. "To deal with a renegade
Nal-Lord?"
Dob glared at him. "No. I called in the Sovereign because Honid did something else as well— something that concerns her."
"And that is?" Jibb asked, allowing a touch of impatience to creep into his voice.
"He also struck at a meeting of the Network. It seems he and his men killed nine Gildriites."
For several seconds none of them spoke, although Jibb could hear a few of Dob's men whispering among themselves.
"Why would he do this?" Melyor finally asked. She looked pale, and she appeared to be trembling.
Jibb had to suppress a grin. It shouldn't have surprised him; after
all, she was ridiculously good at everything else she did. Why not this
as well?
Dob shook his head. "I don't know, Sovereign. That's why I contacted
you. Honid seems determined not only to defy you, but to flaunt that
defiance by attacking your people. I thought you'd want to speak with
him yourself."
It wasn't the story Jibb would have used. There were too many holes in
it, starting with the obvious: why not have Dob and his men capture
Honid themselves and then escort the renegade to the Gold Palace? But
Melyor had been determined to find out immediately what Marar was up
to, leaving them with little time to prepare. And this was the best of
the options they had considered.
"Very well," she said with a nod. "Dob, I want your men positioned
around the flat. Nobody comes in or leaves until I'm done in there.
Understood?"
"Yes, Sovereign."
"Jibb, Premel, you and your men come with me. We're going to take the
building. Once Honid's men have been disarmed, the guards will take up
positions on the first floor while the three of us and Dob speak with
our rebellious Nal-Lord."
"Me?" Dob said, his eyes widening in a display of alarm that had been rehearsed as well.
"Yes, Dob. I'm here because you failed to control one of your Nal-Lords. It only seems right that you should face him as well."
"But—"
"Jibb?" Melyor said sharply.
In response, Jibb nodded once, and Premel pulled out his thrower and leveled it at Dob's heart.
"All right!" the Overlord said quickly. "All right."
The Sovereign nodded once and glanced around at the men standing with
her in the alley. "You all know what to do. Let's get this over with."
Premel barked a command, and a moment later a phalanx of guards led
Melyor, Jibb, Dob, and Premel into the rear entrance of the flat.
Almost as soon as they crossed the threshold into the building a shaft
of red fire sliced across through the air from above.
"Ambush!" one of the guards cried out. Instantly guards dived for cover and began returning fire.
Honid's men continued to fire as well, although they did a remarkable
job of keeping themselves concealed, and for a few minutes the building
seemed to be consumed by thrower fire.
Jibb kept low to the floor and remained close to Melyor. After a time,
he began to feel something burning in his chest, and he realized that
he wasn't breathing. This was the most dangerous part of their scheme.
His men had no idea that this was being staged— if there was a
second traitor among them, it was crucial that he believe that what was
happening was real. As long as Honid's men managed to stay hidden, and
didn't actually kill any of the guards, this would work and no one
would get hurt. But as soon—
"There!" one of the guards cried out, pointing at something above them.
Instantly, three more of his men began to pour their fire in the
direction indicated by the first.
"Hold your fire!" came a cry from above.
"Not until you surrender and lead us to Honid!" Premel answered. "The Sovereign herself has come to speak with him!"
"The Nal-Lord's gone!" came another voice. "He took to the tunnels as soon as you came in! Hold your fire!"
"Throw down your weapons!" Premel commanded.
The weapons' fire ceased, and a moment later Jibb heard the sound of
throwers clattering down the stairs and onto the ground floor.
"Gather them up!" Melyor shouted, sprinting toward the tunnel access on
the far side of the building. "Don't let any of them escape, but don't
harm them! Jibb, Premel, and Dob, you're with me!"
All three of them had anticipated the order and were already following
her, but Jibb knew that there was nothing suspicious about that. Anyone
who knew them would have expected it. So far, unbelievably, their plan
was working.
Reaching the low door, Melyor threw it open and plunged into the
darkness with her staff held out before her. The three of them
followed, charging down a long flight of stairs into the rank, still
air of the tunnels.
When they got to the base of the steps, they turned right and sprinted
to the first sharp turn. But there they stopped. Honid was waiting for
them, his shiny bald head glinting in the dim light, and a crooked
smile on his square face.
"Welcome to the tunnels, Sovereign. I'd guess it's been some time since you were here."
Melyor regarded him coolly. "You've done well so far, Honid. Don't ruin it all now by being presumptuous."
The man's smile vanished abruptly. "My apologies, Sovereign. I didn't mean to give offense."
"You spoke about this to no one, correct?"
"Only the five men in the flat, Sovereign. And I'll personally vouch for their discretion."
"And if they betray your trust?"
Honid smiled again. "I've promised each of them a slow, painful death."
Melyor stared at him for several moments, until his smile faded once
more and he began to fidget. "Very well," she said. She turned to Jibb.
"As of right now, you and I are dead." She glanced back over her
shoulder. "Honid, I'm afraid you're a corpse as well, at least for the
time being. Premel here has killed us all, and he and Dob have reached
an agreement. Premel will take control of SovSec and, when the time is
right, he'll throw the full weight of the security force behind Dob's
effort to become Sovereign." She turned to Dob. "That at least is the
story I want making its way through the quads over the course of the
next day or two."
"All right," Dob said. "But we're going to a great deal of trouble to fool someone. I'd like to know who it is."
"That's none of your business."
Jibb winced at Melyor's tone and, looking quickly at Dob, he could see,
even in the dim light, that the Overlord's face had reddened.
Melyor seemed to notice as well. "I'm sorry, Dob," she said, taking a
long breath. "That wasn't fair of me after all you've done. You deserve
an answer, as does Honid, but I have to ask you both to be patient. I
can't say right now. The fewer people who know, the better."
Dob held himself perfectly still, refusing to look Melyor in the eye.
She stepped forward and placed a hand on his arm. It may have been a
trick of the light from the glow of her red stone, but this appeared to
make the Overlord even more uncomfortable. "I promise you, Dob: as soon
as I can tell you I will. Please understand."
He gave a reluctant nod and allowed his gaze to touch hers for just a moment.
She smiled and gave his arm a squeeze. "Thank you."
"So what do we do now?" Premel asked.
"First, you and Dob should fire your weapons for a while, just up and
down the tunnels. There should be some blast points on the walls, and
your weapons should be warm. After all, you were in a firefight." Again
she smiled, though only for a second. "Then the two of you will go back
up to Honid's flat and tell everyone there what happened." She turned
to Honid. "Your men have been instructed to make a show of positioning
themselves to take your place, right?"
"Yes, Sovereign."
"Good. Premel, I want you to take control of the situation. Act as
though you've been intending to take Jibb's place all along. If any of
the men challenge you, assert yourself; make it clear to them that
SovSec is yours now. Obviously you shouldn't allow anyone else down
here— tell them that you'll be handling the official inquiry into
our deaths. Don't worry about it looking suspicious. That could
actually work to our advantage."
"How are you and Jibb going to get back to the palace?"
"You're going to take us."
"In your carrier?" Premel asked. "What about your driver?"
"Vian?" Melyor said. "What about him?"
"Do you trust him?"
"Absolutely. Vian's been with me longer than any of you. Even Jibb."
"Being with you a long time doesn't necessarily mean anything," Jibb said pointedly.
Premel clenched his jaw, but otherwise offered no reaction.
"Don't worry about Vian," Melyor said. "Just do what I've told you."
She faced Premel. "You should be the last to leave Honid's flat. Seal
it for the coroner— he's already been paid— and make
certain nobody else comes in. Then take my carrier; we'll meet you four
quads east of here in the middle of the byways."
"It almost sounds too easy," Premel said.
Melyor grinned. "That's fine for you to say. You're not dead like the rest of us."
They all laughed, but only briefly.
"Get going," Melyor said a moment later. "And don't forget to fire your weapons a few times."
"Yes, Sovereign," Premel said. "We'll see you soon." He turned to Jibb, his expression growing solemn. "General."
Jibb said nothing, but after a moment he gave a single nod.
Premel opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he appeared to
think better of it, and instead, he and Dob just walked away,
discharging their weapons at the tunnel walls as they did.
"We have plenty of time," Melyor said, turning to face Jibb, "but I
wouldn't mind starting toward the meeting place now. We might have to
take some detours to avoid being seen."
"All right." Jibb glanced around him, trying to get his bearings.
"This way," she said, pointing to the right with her staff. It wasn't
the direction he would have taken, but he was sure she was right. He
had spent a lot of time in the tunnels as a break-law, and he had
learned to travel them long ago. But, like most, his navigation of the
tunnels was approximate, not exact. Melyor was the only person he had
ever met who always seemed to know precisely where she was. During her
days as a Nal-Lord, her ability to navigate within the tunnels had been
legendary, enhancing her already formidable reputation.
"What would you like me to do, Sovereign?" Honid asked, as Jibb and
Melyor started to walk away. Jibb had forgotten that he was even there,
and it seemed that Melyor had as well.
"A good question, Honid. I guess I just need for you to disappear for a while. Just for a couple of days."
The Nal-Lord nodded, although he didn't look pleased. "Do you want me to stay in the tunnels?"
"Only as a last resort," Melyor said, frowning. "You must have places to hide, someplace you go when things get too hot."
He stared back at her, wearing a puzzled expression. "I had some when I
was a break-law," he said at last. "But I haven't been to any of them
in years."
"You don't have even one?"
"Why would he need one?" Jibb asked gently. "Being a Nal-Lord isn't like it used to be. The Nal has changed."
She looked at him sharply, as if she thought he was criticizing her.
But a moment later, she tipped her head slightly, conceding the point.
She might even have grinned.
"Well, that does present Honid with a bit of a problem, doesn't it? It
wouldn't be right of us just to leave him to fend for himself in the
tunnels."
"I suppose it wouldn't," Jibb agreed. "We could take him back to the palace with us. He'd certainly be safe there."
Melyor's face brightened. "That's a great idea. Have you even been a guest of the Sovereign?" she asked the Nal-Lord.
Honid smiled sheepishly. "No, never."
"Then it's decided. You'll come with us."
"Thank you, Sovereign, General."
They walked for perhaps an hour, following the twists and turns of the
tunnels, but making their way steadily westward. And when Melyor
finally led them up a stairway, perhaps the fifteenth they had seen
since leaving Honid's flat, Jibb was amazed to find that they were just
where they were supposed to be. The Nal-Lord was utterly speechless.
"H-How?" he finally managed to ask Jibb in a whisper.
The general shrugged. "She's Melyor i Lakin," he said, as if that could explain everything.
Honid didn't look satisfied.
"From what she'd told me, there's a pattern to them."
"A pattern? Not that I've ever seen."
"I haven't found it either. Apparently it repeats itself every six
quads or so. The secret is figuring out just where you are in the
pattern and keeping track of your direction."
The Nal-Lord shook his head. "A pattern," he said again. "I guess that's why she's Sovereign."
Jibb laughed. "Now you know how I feel every day."
The three of them waited in the doorway to the alley for nearly another
hour before Melyor's carrier finally came into view. Looking around
them to be sure that they weren't seen, they hurried into the vehicle.
"Go!" Melyor called to the driver almost before Jibb had closed the
door behind them. The carrier lurched forward out of the byway, and in
a few moments they were climbing back onto the Upper and speeding
toward the Gold Palace.
"Report," the Sovereign commanded as she settled back into her seat. "Did everything go all right?"
"It seemed to go fine," Premel said, sounding surprised. "I did just as
you told me to. Nobody challenged my claim to SovSec, and I think they
all believed the story. Dob was a big help. He was very convincing." He
glanced at Honid. "Has there been a change in our plans?"
"Not in any way that concerns you," Melyor answered. "Honid just needs somewhere to hide for the next few days."
"Is my flat sealed?" the Nal-Lord asked.
"Yes, and your men assured me that they'd keep watch on it."
Honid nodded, although he looked a bit uneasy. Jibb sympathized. Even
with the changes taking place in the Nal, no Nal-Lord liked to be away
from his flat or his Realm for very long. Even the most trustworthy
break-laws had been known to betray their lords under such conditions.
"Now what?" Premel asked, looking at Melyor again.
"We'll talk back at the palace," she said, her eyes flicking briefly in
Honid's direction. "Suffice it to say that we have to begin spreading
the word. Do you take my meaning?"
Premel paled noticeably. "Yes, Sovereign."
The rest of their journey back to the Gold Palace passed without
conversation. Honid and Premel appeared to be too preoccupied to speak,
and though Jibb would have liked to talk to Melyor about Marar, and her
plans for Premel once all of this was over, he couldn't very well bring
those matters up in front of the other two men.
Upon returning to the palace, Melyor, Jibb, and Honid snuck in through
an air-intake port. Premel used the main entrance. After leaving Honid
in a small room on the subfloor, Melyor and Jibb made their way to
Premel's chamber and immediately had the guard contact Marar.
"What should I tell him?" Premel asked. He actually looked scared.
"We've been through this, Premel. It's not going to be that hard. Just
tell him Jibb and I are dead, demand your gold, and end the
conversation. It couldn't be easier."
The guard smiled at that, as did Jibb. It would be easy for her maybe.
Just like everything else. But, in spite of his feelings toward Premel,
Jibb couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for him. He wouldn't have
wanted to make this call either, particularly with his Sovereign and
his commander sitting just on the other side of his desk.
"All right," Premel said, as much to himself as to Melyor. He leaned forward to punch Marar's code into his speak-screen.
"Premel," Melyor said, stopping him.
He looked up at her and waited.
"Have fun with this. Regardless of what comes after, this is your chance to get back at this man. Do it for me, and for Jibb."
Premel nodded. Then, looking at the screen once more, he entered the code.
Jibb and Melyor sat in silence nearby. Jibb's heart was beating so hard
that he almost worried about Marar hearing it, and it was all he could
do to keep himself from standing and pacing the length of the room.
It was several minutes before Marar finally answered Premel's summons. "Yes, Premel. What is it?"
The guard flashed a smile. "You don't sound very happy to see me, Sovereign."
"Should I be? I think I told you that I didn't want to hear from you again until you had done as I instructed."
"I remember that as well."
A pause, and then, "So you're telling me—?"
"They're dead, Sovereign. Officially, they died earlier today, in a
firefight with a renegade Nal-Lord, who, as it happens, also died.
Obviously, you can confirm that they're dead with whatever sources you
care to consult."
"And I will," Marar said, sounding amazed. "Nobody saw you do it?"
"One man did. Dob, an Overlord who wishes to succeed Melyor as Sovereign."
"Do you trust him?"
"I trust no one," Premel said, baring his teeth in a harsh grin. "Not
even you, and certainly not Dob. But he needs help from SovSec to
become Sovereign, and I control SovSec now."
"Well, Premel, I must say that for a man who seemed reluctant to carry
out my orders, you certainly have moved quickly to take advantage of
the situation."
"I won't lie to you, Sovereign, I was frightened. I did this for gold,
but you were offering me much, much more. You were giving me an
opportunity to fulfill all my ambitions, and it scared me. But I
realized after our last conversation that I'm tired of being afraid,
I'm tired of being used and manipulated by other people, including you."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that I'm head of SovSec now, and I want my gold. And if there
are any more delays in delivering it to me, I'll use all the resources
that are now at my disposal to get it."
Melyor and Jibb exchanged a look. Premel's approach carried risks, but
it was also quite believable. And the guard sounded far more convincing
than he had the other day when Marar contacted him.
"I certainly understand your eagerness to receive your payment, Premel.
You must understand though, that I have to verify what you've told me
before I can pay you."
"Of course, Sovereign. You have one day."
Marar laughed. "One day? That's hardly enough time to verify your story, much less get in touch with my couriers."
Melyor sat forward.
"I'll need at least three days," the Sovereign went on. "And even that
will be a stretch. Besides, if you're head of SovSec now, what
difference could my gold make to you? It's nothing compared to what
you're about to have."
"Perhaps you're right. But I see it as a test of your good faith. You
owe me this money. Regardless of what I am now, or even what I'm to
become, we had a deal. And I expect you to honor it. I'll give you two
days."
"Premel, this is no way to begin this new phase of our relationship."
"What new phase?"
"Before, I was your employer. I'd like to think that we're ready now to become partners."
"With all due respect, Sovereign, I'm about to enter into a partnership
with the new Sovereign of Bragor-Nal. What could you possible have to
offer me that would match what he can give?"
Again, Melyor and Jibb looked at each other, and this time she was
grinning, her eyes wide with astonishment at the direction Premel had
taken their conversation.
There was a long pause, and Jibb held his breath waiting for Marar's response. Premel, he could see, was doing the same.
"Let me ask you something," the Sovereign finally said. "Did you ever meet the sorcerer, the one Melyor knew?"
"The sorcerer?"
Melyor's face turned ashen, as it always seemed to when someone spoke
of Orris. But she nodded so that Premel could see without taking his
eyes off the screen.
"Yes," Premel said. "I met him."
"Would he remember you? Would he trust you?"
Again she nodded.
"I believe so, yes."
"In that case, I can offer you riches beyond your wildest imagination."
Premel smiled. "Come now, Marar. Bragor-Nal's Sovereign can offer me far more gold than Stib-Nal has in all—"
"This gold isn't coming from Stib-Nal, Premel. It's coming from Tobyn-Ser, and there's more to be made than you can conceive."
Jibb saw Melyor's jaw drop.
"Tobyn-Ser?" Premel said. "How?"
"Never mind that for now. Are you interested in a partnership or not?"
Premel looked away from the screen as if pondering the offer, and he
waited for Melyor's signal. After a moment she nodded once again. The
guard delayed his response several seconds more for effect, then turned
back to Marar.
"Yes," he said. "I'm interested. Get me my gold, and after I've received it, we can discuss this further."
"Very well."
An instant later, Premel fell back into his chair and closed his eyes.
"That was masterfully done," Melyor told him, although she clearly was preoccupied. "You were very convincing."
"Thank you, Sovereign."
Premel glanced at Jibb, and the general forced himself not to look away.
"Well done," he said grudgingly.
Premel grinned, looking more pleased than he had any right to look.
Jibb thought about saying something to deflate him just a bit, but
instead he turned his attention back to Melyor. She was shaking her
head, her flawless features still looking pale, and her eyes wide with
worry.
"What would he want with Orris?" she asked in a low voice. "Who in Tobyn-Ser would give him gold?"
* * *
He could scarcely believe it. Naturally, he'd have to have it confirmed
by other operatives, but Premel wouldn't have lied to him about
something like this, no matter how much he wanted to disentangle
himself from their relationship.
Melyor was dead. And for the first time in his reign as Sovereign of
Stib-Nal, he had a true ally in the Gold Palace. To be sure, Premel
didn't like him, but a few extra bars of gold would help smooth things
over. That was a small price to pay for the cooperation of SovSec's
leader.
Marar smiled— he could hardly help it— and he got up from
his desk and began wandering around his office. It would have been far
easier had Premel chosen to become Sovereign rather than head of
SovSec. In that case, Marar could have ended his frustrating efforts to
win Wiercia's trust and concentrated instead on improving his rapport
with the Bragory guard. But now he had to wait and see who ascended to
the Gold Palace. And even if it was this Dob of whom Premel had spoken,
there was no guarantee that he would be any easier to control than
Melyor had been. He shook his head. No, Wiercia couldn't be jettisoned
just yet.
Pausing by one of his windows, Marar stared out at his gardens. The
last rays of sunlight were angling sharply across the blossoms and
shrubs, giving everything a bright, golden glow, and the laborers who
remained were working in shirtsleeves.
He couldn't remember the last time he had taken a stroll through the
rows of flowers laid out before him or, better yet, through the gently
winding trails of Stib Grove. He had been planning for so long that it
sometimes seemed that his entire life had become a series of
speak-screen conversations: giving Premel his orders, making
arrangements to have gold delivered, arguing with Melyor, negotiating
with Wiercia. He needed rest. He needed time to relax. And what better
time than now? It was almost dusk, his favorite time of the day.
He nodded, as if reaching a decision. He even took a step toward the
communicator he used to summon Bain, his security chief. After what he
had done to Shivohn, he wasn't about to go on such an outing without a
security detail.
But then he stopped himself. First he needed to speak with Wiercia. It
was quite possible that Melyor's death would be the event that cemented
their alliance. The possible benefits of an alliance between the
Matriarchy and Stib-Nal might never look so enticing again.
Returning to his desk, he tapped the button that summoned her to her speak-screen and settled back into his chair.
A moment later, she appeared before him.
He fought to keep from smiling. It wouldn't do to seem too pleased. "Good afternoon, Sovereign."
"Hello, Marar," she said, sounding far from thrilled to see him on her screen.
"You're well I trust."
"Quite. What do you want?"
"You haven't heard?" It was so hard to keep a straight face.
She sat forward, narrowing her eyes. "Heard what?"
"Melyor is dead."
"What?" she said, her voice suddenly a whisper. She shook her head. "How?"
"I believe she was killed in a firefight. She went to see some renegade Nal-Lord and never returned."
She shook her head a second time. "I've heard nothing of this. When did it happen?"
"Just this morning."
"Strange that you should know of it already."
Marar hesitated, and from a distant corner of his mind he suddenly
heard a voice calling to him, telling him that this was a mistake, that
he needed to end this conversation immediately. "My intelligence
officer briefed me just moments ago."
"Really?"
Turn off the screen. Just turn it off. "Yes. He said he came to me immediately upon learning of it."
"And you felt compelled to inform me as soon as he left."
This is madness! Tell her that one of your Quad-Lords is here; tell her you have to contact her again later.
"I thought you'd want to know. If I was mistaken, forgive me." He
reached forward to switch off the speak-screen, cursing the trembling
of his hand.
"Wait, Marar."
He stopped and, after a moment, reluctantly withdrew his hand.
"I want to know the real reason you contacted me."
"I just told you. I th—"
"I don't believe you," she said. She pressed her fingers together, as if lost in thought.
Marar opened his mouth to tell her that he had to go, but she raised a
finger before he could say anything and shook her head. He felt his
left eye starting to twitch, and he had to resist the urge to rub it.
"You thought that this would convince me, didn't you. You thought that
hearing of Melyor's death would make me join forces with you."
"I merely thought that you should know what happened, Sovereign," he
told her. He tried to sound indignant, but it merely came out peevish. This was a mistake.
"Did you think it would scare me, Marar? Did you mean to imply that I'd suffer the same fate if I refused you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
"You killed her, didn't you?"
"Of course not! I already told you, she died in a firefight in Bragor-Nal!"
"But you arranged it." She gave a small mirthless laugh. Her square
face looked pale, but there was no fear in her blue eyes. Only rage.
"She was right all along, wasn't she? You sent the bomb that killed
Shivohn, and the one that almost got Melyor. And today you finally
succeeded in killing her."
"Don't be ridiculous!" He sounded desperate.
"You led me to believe that she assassinated Shivohn and then staged
the bombing of the Gold Palace. But now she's dead. And what am I to
believe? That she staged this, too? Or that she was telling the truth?
That it was you this whole time, trying to kill them both."
"You're obviously distraught, Wiercia," he said, trying to salvage some
small shred of his dignity and credibility. "I'll speak to you in the
next few days, after you've managed to calm down."
"Don't bother, Marar. I'll see you at the next Council meeting, and we can discuss all of this with Bragor-Nal's new Sovereign."
She switched off her console, and his screen went black.
"Fist of the God!" he muttered, turning his console off as well. He
rested his elbows on the desk and dropped his head into his hands. All
the work he had done, trying to win Wiercia's trust. And he had
destroyed all of it in a matter of moments. How stupid could he be? Now
he'd have to kill her, too.
A moment later the screen beeped at him. He would have liked to ignore
it, but ... It beeped again. He jabbed at it with a rigid finger.
Missed the button. Jabbed again.
For just an instant, he didn't recognize the face that appeared before
him. They had only spoken once, several months before, when the man
first agreed to work for him. He hadn't done much since—
occasionally he gave Marar a scrap of information for which the
Sovereign paid him a bar or two of gold. Only recently had Marar begun
to think of him as someone who could help him in a meaningful way.
Because only recently had the Sovereign recognized the importance of
having Jibb killed as well.
And this man hated Jibb. Marar wasn't clear on exactly why. Something
about a half brother whom the security man had killed in the quads a
year or two ago.
"What do you want?" Marar asked.
"I have news, Sovereign."
Marar rubbed a hand over his face. "I've already heard. Melyor and Jibb are dead. I won't be needing—"
"No," the man interrupted. "They're alive."
The Sovereign gaped at him. "What? That's impossible!"
"I assure you, it's true."
"But Premel said ..." He trailed off. Premel. Of course. "You know
this for a fact?" he demanded a moment later. "You've seen them?"
Vian grinned. "Seen them? I drove them back to the Gold Palace. How else do you think they got home?"
Marar closed his eyes. She was alive. Which meant that she knew.
Somehow, Premel had won her trust and then told her everything. And
Marar, in turn, had given it all away. He had revealed himself to
Wiercia. But worse than that, he had mentioned to Premel— and, no
doubt, to Melyor as well— that he was getting gold from
Tobyn-Ser. He felt ill.
Opening his eyes again, he saw Melyor's driver staring at him, waiting.
He looked away, toward the window. The sun was dipping down below the
horizon, casting shadows across the Nal, its last light reflecting off
windows and the moving steel of carriers on Stib-Nal's Upper.
I should have taken my walk, Marar thought. I just should have done it when I had the chance.
18
That Kovet, Dirss, and Brinly attacked the Order mage Orris is not
in dispute— they admit that much. Nor is this fact the reason for
my submission of this formal accusation, though I remain convinced that
their actions violate the spirit, if not the letter, of our bylaws.
These charges stem instead from their interaction with three men of
Tobyn-Ser whom they endangered with their reckless attack on Orris, and
then threatened, in direct violation of Amarid's First Law. Their
actions have disgraced themselves, this body, and the memory of the
First Mage, whom we seek to honor through all that we do.
No violation of our bylaws should be taken lightly; no one who defies
Amarid's Laws should escape punishment. But coming at a time when our
land stands at the brink of civil war and our need of the peoples'
support is most pressing, the offenses of these mages seem particularly
egregious. For that reason, I believe that this matter should be
addressed by this body immediately.
— Formal charges submitted to the Seventh
Conclave of the League of Amarid by Eagle-Master Cailin, in accordance
with the Bylaws of the League of Amarid, Spring, God's Year 4633.
Erland slumped back into his chair and closed his eyes. He had read
Cailin's charges a second time, looking for something—
anything— that would allow him to salvage at least a small
victory from what promised to be a nightmarish debate. But there was
nothing there. Nothing at all. He was tempted to throw the parchment
into the flames that crackled in his hearth, just for the satisfaction
of making her scribe the document a second time. But instead he took
another sip of his shan tea and began to read it through a third time.
It was, he had to admit, a brilliantly conceived document. She had been
careful not to predicate her charges on the attacks on Orris, although
neither did she concede their legality. Instead, she merely used the
opportunity created by Kovet's actions to criticize the attacks, which
were already becoming a point of contention within the League. Arslan
and his followers were bound to be sympathetic, as were those who
already supported Cailin over Erland. And due to the sheer stupidity of
what Kovet and his companions had done, Erland had little doubt that
even his strongest allies would support some sort of punishment for
them, possibly even expulsion from the League. Which would deny Erland
three dependable votes on all subsequent matters.
"Idiots," he muttered under his breath, sipping his tea again. What
could have possessed them to threaten those men? What could they have
been thinking? He had summoned Kovet to the hall to ask him just those
questions, but the mage had yet to respond. No doubt he knew what his
conversation with the First Master would be like. Erland could hardly
blame him for avoiding the encounter.
He raised the cup to his lips again, but before he could drink, someone knocked at his door.
"Yes?" he called.
The door opened, and one of the hall's attendants poked her head into his quarters.
"The Eagle-Master is here, First Master," the woman said. "Shall I tell her you wish to speak with her?"
"Thank you, no," Erland answered, getting to his feet. "I'll ask her in myself."
The woman inclined her head slightly. "Very well."
He made himself smile. "Thank you," he said again, feeling awkward. He
should have known her name. He had resided in the Hall of the League
for six years, and this one had been here almost from the beginning.
She offered a thin smile and withdrew.
He stood where he was until he could no longer hear the woman's
footsteps, and then he waited a few seconds more, not wishing to appear
too anxious. Cailin was probably smart enough to know when she had the
upper hand, but just in case she didn't, he would do nothing to give
himself away.
He took a quick, deep breath, fixed a smile on his lips, and strode purposefully into the central chamber of the hall.
He had hoped to give the appearance of being on his way somewhere, but
Cailin was standing at the far end of the meeting table, staring at him
as if she knew better.
It was an unusually cold morning for so late in the spring, and her
cheeks were still flushed, making her youthful face seem almost
childlike. Her great eagle sat on her arm, dwarfing her, and making her
look even younger and less imposing. And yet there was something in the
way she carried herself and bore the bird who had chosen her that left
Erland feeling insignificant and just a bit intimidated.
Why would the gods have chosen someone so young? he found himself wondering. Why did they choose her instead of me?
"You've been waiting for me?" she said, her blue eyes locked on his.
What was the point of lying? "Yes."
"To discuss the charges against Kovet and the others?"
"Yes."
She gestured toward the door through which he had just come. "After you."
Erland retreated into his chamber with the Eagle-Master behind him.
"Please sit," he said, waving at one of the large chairs by the hearth
and closing the door. "Can I offer you some tea?" It was his room, by
the gods, and regardless of the situation he resolved to take control
of their discussion, as was fitting given his age and his position in
the League. Pride demanded no less.
And yet, Cailin seemed determined to deny him even this small victory.
"I'm fine, thank you," she said, standing by the fire, as her eagle
hopped from her arm to the mantel and began to preen. "Let's just be
done with this, Erland. You wanted to talk to me. So talk."
The First Master swallowed and lowered himself into his chair. He had
been planning what he would say to her for the better part of an hour.
He had decided upon a tone of voice, a bargaining position, a set of
concessions he was prepared to offer, and a second set he was
determined to demand of her. But abruptly he felt far less sure of
himself.
"These are very serious charges, Cailin," he began, willing his voice
to remain steady. "If these men are found guilty and punished in
accordance with the bylaws, it could weaken the League. As you point
out yourself, we're living in dangerous times. We can ill afford to
have our standing in the land damaged just now."
"You should have thought of that before you sent Kovet and his friends after Orris."
"Orris is a traitor! He deserves what he gets!"
"That may be. But if your obsession with him harms the League, you'll have no one to blame but yourself."
Erland narrowed his eyes. "So this is about Orris."
"No," she said quickly. "It's about what Kovet did to the peddler and his friends."
"Yes. You make that very clear in your allegations. But you and I know
better, don't we? You want to end the attacks on Orris. That's your aim
in all of this."
"The attacks on Orris are hurting the League, Erland. We both know
that." She pushed her hair back from her forehead in a gesture he had
often seen her make when agitated. "They've done nothing for us, and in
fact they continue to divide us and hinder our ability to serve the
land."
He smiled, sensing that she no longer had quite the advantage she had
enjoyed a few moments before. "Nonsense," he said. "We may not all
agree on this matter, but I don't think our pursuit of justice has hurt
us at all. In fact, you're the only person I've heard say such a
thing." This was a lie, of course, but he gave her no chance to say so.
"Why is that, Cailin? Why are you so concerned with Orris? Could it be
that your meetings with the Eagle-Sage have become more than that?"
Her mouth dropped open.
"Yes," he said, still smiling, "I know of your surreptitious journeys
to the Great Hall. I've said nothing before now because I thought some
good might come of them." And because he had not been willing to admit
that he was having her followed. "But it seems that I was wrong. All
that's happened is that you've compromised your oath to the League."
"I've compromised nothing," she said, her voice even. If he had managed
to shake her composure, the effect was fleeting. "I tell Jaryd nothing
of our Conclaves, and I've never forgotten the color of my cloak."
He started to challenge her, but she raised a finger, stopping him.
"But neither have I forgotten," she went on, "that the gods have
favored me with an extraordinary binding, one that carries
responsibilities to the land that go far beyond my oath to this League.
I meet with Jaryd because doing so may help us avoid a civil war, and
I'll continue to meet with him as long as our conversations remain
amicable and productive."
"And what of Orris?" Erland asked bitterly. "Have you met with him, too?"
She hesitated, but only for an instant. "He came to the Great Hall the
last time I was there. He had just come from his confrontation with
Kovet."
"And that's when he prevailed upon you to submit these charges."
Her eyes blazed. "No one prevailed upon me to do anything!"
"I don't believe you," he said, shaking his head. "Someone must have
forced you to do this. Because the Cailin I know would never have
turned against her own this way."
"The Cailin you knew was a child, Erland. And she ceased to exist years
ago, just around the time she realized that you had been lying to her
and using her from the very start."
"I don't know what you're talking about." He said the words forcefully enough, but he couldn't keep himself from looking away.
"Of course you don't," she said softly.
They both lapsed into silence so that the only sound in the room was
the crackling of the fire. After some time he chanced a glance in her
direction, but she was looking up at her eagle and gently stroking the
bird's feathers. Soon they began to hear voices in the central chamber
of the hall— the other mages arriving for the day's
session— but still neither of them spoke.
Finally, he drew a long breath and faced her again. "So how do you want to do this?"
"I've submitted my charges, Erland. I intend to pursue them. How far this goes is really up to you."
"Up to me?"
"Yes. If you want to turn this into a discussion of the attacks on
Orris and my conversations with Jaryd, that's your decision. But I
promise you that if you do, I'll beat you. It may take some time, and
it may do a good deal of damage to the League, but I will win. I think
we both know that."
He was less certain of this than she seemed to be. And even if he had
agreed with her fully, he wouldn't have admitted it. But there could be
no denying that the prospect of this fight daunted him.
"The men Kovet threatened," he said, his voice low, "you've spoken with them? You know where to find them?"
"Yes."
She might have been lying; it was hard to tell. A year ago the very
notion wouldn't have even entered his mind, but Cailin had learned the
art of politics all too well.
"You don't believe me," she said.
"I'm not sure," he admitted.
She smiled, looking quite suddenly like a child playing a game. "Good."
An instant later though, her expression turned grave again. "It's
certainly possible that I'm trying to deceive you, Erland. Amarid is a
big city— finding those men would not have been an easy task.
It's possible that I searched for days without success and finally gave
up, choosing instead to lie my way through this." She shrugged,
appearing maddeningly calm. "Then again, I may have found them after
all. I'm not one to play games, Erland." She smiled again. "At least I
didn't used to be. You have to decide from what you know of me whether
you think that I would go so far as to submit these charges if I didn't
know where the men were. And then you have to ask yourself," she went
on, the smile lingering this time, "whether you can afford to assume
that I haven't found them. Because if you're wrong, and I do know where
they are, Kovet, Dirss, and Brinly will never wear the blue cloak
again."
She was giving him an opening, he knew. Even as she was threatening him; she was also holding out the hope of a compromise.
"But how am I to decide all this?" he asked, not quite willing to give
in just yet. "Certainly you don't think that I can read your mind." He
made himself smile as well. "My powers run deep, my dear, but not that
deep."
"You play Ren-drah, don't you, Erland?"
He nodded, then licked his lips, which had suddenly gone dry. He played, but he wasn't very good at it.
"Well, this is much the same thing. You have to decide what you're
willing to risk based upon what you know of your strengths and
weaknesses, and what you can divine of mine."
But I can divine nothing about you! I didn't even know that you were capable of placing me in such a position! "The affairs of the League are hardly a game, Cailin. They shouldn't be treated as such."
"Nonsense!" she snapped, her smile vanishing abruptly. "You've been
playing games of this sort for years. How do you think I learned to
play?" She stared at him for a moment longer before, shaking her head.
"Fine. If this is the way you want to do it, I'm happy to oblige." She
turned toward the mantel and raised her arm for her eagle, as if
readying herself to leave his chamber.
Erland closed his eyes and made his decision. Better to surrender now
than to be beaten in front of the entire League. "What is it you want,
Cailin?"
She glanced back over her shoulder at him. Her bird had yet to move,
and he had to wonder if she had ever intended to leave. Not that it
mattered anymore. Whatever games she had learned from him she had
mastered in ways he had not. "I want your cooperation. I want you to
stop turning every issue into a test of the League's loyalty to you."
"All right."
She turned to face him again. "The attacks on Orris have to stop immediately."
"You can't expect me to control the actions of every mage in the
League, Cailin. And you certainly can't expect me to control those whom
we expel." He wasn't going to concede everything to her.
"I do expect it, Erland. If you tell them to leave Orris alone, they
will. And as to the rest, I think we might be able to find a solution
to this business with Kovet and his friends that stops short of
expulsion."
"I believe," Erland said, trying not to sound to eager, "that such a
solution would be in the best interests of the League. This is no time
to be pushing our mages toward the Order or the People's Movement."
"I agree. I'd hate to have to take their cloaks from them."
He gritted his teeth. "And what will it take to keep that from happening?"
"A promise from you that I'll have your full cooperation on all matters
pertaining to the Order, the free mages, and the Temple."
"You can't be serious!" he breathed. "You're asking me to just give you control of the League!"
She shrugged, her expression neutral. "I wouldn't go that far."
"How is it different? You want me to defer to you on all matters of importance."
"Only for a while. Only until this crisis— in whatever form it takes— has passed."
Erland hesitated, tempted once more by the promise of what she wasn't saying. "And then?"
"From all that I've heard of Tobyn-Ser's previous Eagle-Sages, it seems
that once the need for an eagle has passed, the birds move on, leaving
their mages unbound."
Erland nodded. "I've heard much the same thing."
"So then once this crisis is over, the League will be yours again. An unbound mage can't be First or Second Master."
"But you won't be unbound forever," he said, regarding her skeptically.
"Are you telling me that you have no ambitions to lead this body?"
"No, Erland, I'm not saying anything of the sort. I'm reminding you of
what we both know to be true: I have plenty of time. I'll be First
Master someday. And I'm willing to wait."
"How do I know that you'll keep your word?" he asked. "It's not easy to relinquish power once you've had it."
She nodded sagely. "So I've seen."
He felt the blood run hot to his cheeks, and he looked away.
"You're just going to have to trust that I'll step aside," she added a moment later. "I'm afraid you have little choice."
"I could fight you." He pointed toward the door leading to the central
chamber. "I could make you convince them to side against me."
"You could. But as I told you before, you'd lose."
"You don't know that."
The eagle abruptly hopped to Cailin's arm, and she started toward the door. "You're right. Let's go find out, shall we?"
He didn't stop her immediately; he wanted to see how far she'd go. But
when she grasped the door handle and started to pull, the door open, he
had little choice but to call to her.
She pushed the door closed again and turned to face him.
"All right," he said. "I pledge my cooperation. But in return, I'd ask
that our arrangement be kept secret. Call it vanity if you like, but
I'd rather no one knew about this conversation."
"You have my word," she said solemnly.
"And I also have your promise that Kovet, Dirss, Brinly will not be punished?"
She shook her head. "Oh, no. You have no such thing. They will be
punished. I just promise you that I won't have them banished from the
League."
"But you said—"
"I promised no more than this, Erland. And you should count yourself
fortunate that I've given you this much. Your friends will be allowed
to keep their cloaks and attend our Conclaves, but they're to say
nothing and have no vote for a year."
"A year?"
"Yes. That should teach them a lesson, and it should also keep you from breaking the promises you've made to me today."
"We're only talking about three men, Cailin. That may be enough to
defeat me on a few matters, but not all. If you try to do anything
foolish with this power I'm granting you, or if you stray too far from
what I believe to be the wisest course, I'll stop you. And there won't
be anything you can do about it."
Her features grew pale, leaving her looking young, and, for the first
time that day, just a bit frightened. "So in other words, you have no
intention of honoring our agreement."
Erland shook his head. "I didn't say that. Despite what you may think
of me, Eagle-Master, I am true to my word. I've agreed to your terms,
and I trust that you'll live up to the promises you've made to me. We
each have some advantage over the other, some threat that we can use to
compel each other to keep our promises. But in the end, Cailin, it
comes down to trust. I have to believe that you'll relinquish power
when the time comes, and you have to believe that I'll support you
until that time comes." He opened his hands. "Have I really given you
so much cause to doubt me?"
For several moments she said nothing. She merely stared at him, her
sapphire eyes locked on his. "Do you remember the day you gave me my
ceryll, Erland?" she asked at last, surprising him.
It was hardly something he was likely to forget. He would remember
until he died the brilliant golden light that burst from the stone as
soon as she laid her hand upon it. It had almost seemed as though Leora
herself had been in the clearing with them, laying her hand on the
crystal at the same time, and filling the stone with her radiance. But
even more than that, Erland would always recall the joy he had felt at
winning Cailin over to his cause. Until that moment, he had doubted
whether his League, and the challenge to Baden, Sonel, and the rest of
the Order that it embodied, would amount to anything more than a dream,
or, worse, a tavern joke. But when Cailin agreed to join him, he knew
that it would succeed. Indeed, he convinced himself that the League
would supplant the Order within a year or two. The day to which she was
referring had been, quite possibly, the happiest day of his life.
"Yes," he told her. "I remember."
She nodded, as if she was reliving the moment. "It was the finest gift
anyone had ever given me," she said. "In many ways, it still is."
"I'm glad."
"But I know now why you gave it to me. I know that it wasn't just
gathering dust in your home as you claimed, that actually you bought it
so that you could use it to lure me into the League."
He considered denying it, but only briefly. There was no sense in it
really. She wouldn't have believed him, and it would only serve to
erode further the fragile bond that still tied them to each other. "I'm
sorry," he said instead. "We needed you, and I did what I felt was
necessary to get you to join us."
She nodded again, but she kept silent.
"So that's why you don't trust me? Because of the ceryll?"
Cailin gave a small, brittle laugh. "That's just one reason among many.
Neither one of us has done much to strengthen our friendship in recent
years."
He gave a rueful grin. "True. But then perhaps this can be a new beginning for us."
"Perhaps," she said, holding his gaze.
They stood looking at one another for a few moments more. Finally she
pulled the door open again, and they walked together into the central
chamber of the hall.
* * *
He drove her as an Abboriji warrior might have driven a stallion,
pushing her body beyond endurance, and resting just often enough to
keep her from failing. He did his best to keep her fed and watered, and
when she grew too weak, he bolstered her strength with his power. But
he had need of haste, and he refused to allow the frailty of Tammen's
flesh to slow him. Not now, not when he had gotten so close.
He would have preferred to find a mount and travel that way. It would
have shortened his journey significantly. But a mage on horseback,
particularly a free mage, would have drawn attention. Sartol had no
choice but to content himself with the progress he could make on foot.
He passed through a number of free towns along the way—
Greenbough, Starview, Vilpar, Kittran. There were more of them than he
had ever imagined; the Movement was spreading. And in all of them he
managed to replenish his food stores and leave before dusk revealed
Miron's ghost on his shoulder.
His days were long. He walked from first light until nightfall, pausing
only long enough to drink some water and eat a few bites of cheese or
dried fruit. On a few occasions, when he felt certain that he would not
encounter any strangers along the path, he ate a light supper as the
sun set, and then pressed on toward Amarid. The darkness posed no
problem for him; actually, even looking at the world through Tammen's
eyes, he could see more at night than he could during the day. On those
nights when he didn't press on toward Amarid, he allowed Tammen to
sleep and let his own mind wander, as the Unsettled did when they
sought rest. Sometimes, though, before he gave Tammen's flesh over to
sleep, he made her remove her clothes and he touched her in ways he had
never thought he would touch a woman again. It had been so long, and
this was his body now, to do with as he pleased.
Five days after Greenbough, he came within sight of the Parneshome
Range. Beyond the snowy peaks and green valleys, he knew, lay Amarid.
And in the city stood the Great Hall, and within the Hall, resting in
its stand, dormant and huge, was the Summoning Stone. It had almost
been his once. He had come so close to mastering the great crystal that
it had taken every mage in Tobyn-Ser to defeat him. And if he was
right, if he had interpreted correctly all that he had learned about
the Unsettled and their powers, it followed that the stone would
respond instantly to his touch. What had been within his grasp in life,
remained his in death. It was merely a matter of getting there, of
laying his hands— Tammen's hands— upon it.
But first things first. He still had food enough for a day or two, but
not enough to get him through the mountains. Fortunately, there were
several towns and villages strung along the base of the foothills, and
after searching for the better part of the morning, Sartol finally
found one that flew the brown flags of the People's Movement. Striding
into the town, with Tammen's staff grasped firmly in her slender hands,
he felt a wave of giddiness pass over him. This was his last stop
before Amarid. Whatever food he found here would be enough to see him
the rest of the way to the Great Hall. Usually when he entered a town
he forced a smile onto Tammen's lips— there was no sense in
drawing attention to himself by appearing surly. But today it required
no effort; he could barely contain his glee. Until he reached the
village commons. And by then it was too late.
There were three of them, all of them free mages. They were speaking
with a group of older men and women, no doubt the village's elders.
Sartol considered turning on his heel and taking the shortest path out
of the village and back into Tobyn's Wood. But in the next instant one
of the mages, a thin bald man with a dark beard, spotted him— or
rather, her— and beckoned him over.
"Greetings!" the man called out. "Have you come to join us?"
He wanted to run, to tell them that he had no desire to have anything
to do with them or their Movement. But he was carrying a staff, and he
wore no cloak. Under the circumstances, making a show of joining them
was the only thing he could do without arousing their suspicions.
"Perhaps," Sartol said, stopping in front of the man as the others
looked at Tammen appraisingly. "I had heard that there was a group of
free mages in the area. If it turns out we're headed in the same
direction I'd be happy to join you."
"Wonderful!" the man said, looking and sounding so enthusiastic that
Sartol found himself wondering idly how long it had been since the man
last passed a night with a woman. "My name is Hywel." He gestured
toward the other two mages. "With me are Shavi and Ortan."
Sartol glanced at the two men briefly and made Tammen smile. One of
them was thin and of medium height, with curly yellow hair and blue
eyes. The other was taller, with long silver and black hair that he
wore tied back.
"It's a pleasure to meet you all," he said. "My name is—"
"Tammen."
Sartol looked sharply at Ortan, who had spoken. He saw now that this
man was older than his companions and more solidly built. He had a scar
on his temple that had healed poorly, and his eyes were dark and
difficult to read. Sartol noted as well that the man carried Amarid's
hawk on his shoulder.
"Yes," Sartol said. "That's right. Have we met?"
"Once, long ago. You were traveling with Nodin then, and another man whose name I forget."
He searched Tammen's memory. "Henryk?"
The man grinned, although not with his eyes. "Yes. Henryk. How is Nodin? I always liked him."
Sartol shrugged. "It's been some time since I last saw him. We were
spreading word of the Movement on the Northern Plain. I assume he's
still well."
"Why did you part company?"
"It's a long story. We parted as friends, I assure you, but beyond that I don't really care to discuss it."
"You'll have to pardon Ortan," Hywel broke in. "He's prone to asking
too many questions. He tends to be suspicious of strangers. But don't
let it put you off. We're very happy to have you with us. We can always
use another mage, even one who's between bindings."
"Thank you," Sartol said. He cast another glance at Ortan and saw that
the man was still eyeing Tammen closely, although he gave no indication
that Hywel's comment had angered him.
"We were just asking the village elders where we might find the next
free town," Hywel went on. "The people here are committed to the
Movement, but other towns might not be so well informed." He flashed a
smile at the elders.
"I'd suggest you head south along the edge of the foothills," one of
the older men said. "You're more likely to find free towns in that
direction than to the north."
Hywel nodded. "Thank you. That's what we'll do then."
The elders and the mages began to bid each other farewell, but Sartol
stopped them. "I'm sorry to be a burden," he said to the elders. "But
is there someone in town who might be willing to give me a bit of food
in return for my services?" He looked at Hywel and gave an embarrassed
smile. "Without my familiar, I've been forced to eat roots and greens
for too long."
"We can help you," Hywel told her. "You needn't trouble anyone here."
"I appreciate that," Sartol said, fighting a surge of anger. "But as it
turns out I won't be traveling with you. I'm headed east, across the
mountains to Hawksfind Wood. I'm sorry."
"As am I," Hywel said, looking genuinely disappointed. "Still, we can
help you, and perhaps in doing so, we can convince you to stay with us
for a time."
If they had been alone, Sartol would have killed the man on the spot.
He couldn't afford to stay with them past sunset, and at this point he
had no tolerance for delays of any sort. But what could he do?
"Thank you, Hywel. You're very kind."
A few moments later the mages said good-bye to the elders and made
their way out of the village and into the shadows of the God's wood.
"So where are you going, Tammen?" Hywel asked, as they walked. "Why are you so reluctant to travel with us?"
Sartol made himself laugh. "Don't be silly. I'd be delighted to travel with you. But I'm on my way to Amarid."
"To Amarid?" the one named Shavi repeated, his eyes widening. "Why?"
Sartol made Tammen shake her head. "Never mind. You'd think I was foolish."
"No, we wouldn't," Hywel assured her. "Please tell us."
"Well, the Movement needs more mages, doesn't it?"
"Of course. We all know it does."
"Exactly. And right now, the mages of both the Order and the League are
all in Amarid. So I want to see if I can convince some of the cloaked
mages to join us."
Shavi halted and gaped at her. "You must be joking! Everyone knows what the cloaks think of us. They'd never leave their halls."
The rest of them stopped walking as well.
"You may be right," Sartol answered. "But the Movement needs help. If
we don't get more mages, it's going to die before it ever has a chance
to succeed."
"Is this why Nodin isn't traveling with you anymore?" Ortan asked. "Because he didn't approve of what you want to do?"
Sartol hesitated and looked away. "Yes," he said at last.
"I can't say that I blame him," Shavi said. "This will never work. The
Movement has no place in Amarid. It exists out here among the villages
and towns. That's the whole point. We don't belong there any more than
the cloaks belong out here."
Ortan nodded. "I must say, I agree with him. I think this is a bad idea."
Sartol suppressed a grin. Good. Then take your pitiful little Movement to the next free town and leave me alone. "I'm sorry to hear you say that. But nonetheless, I'm going to do this, even if I have to do it alone."
"You won't," Hywel said. "I'll come with you."
"What?" Shavi hissed. "You're going to leave us? Just like that?"
Hywel faced him. "I'd rather not. I'd rather you and Ortan came with
us. But I think Tammen's idea has merit, and I don't think that she
should have to do this alone. If it comes to a choice between making
her do this on her own and separating from the two of you for a short
while, I'll do the latter."
"Well, then, that's what you'll have to do," Shavi insisted. "Because I'm not going to Amarid."
Hywel turned to Ortan, as did Shavi.
"I'll go with Shavi to the next town," the dark-eyed man, said evenly. "I hope you'll find us again soon."
Hywel nodded once, but he said nothing, and Sartol could see from the
way the muscles in his jaw were working that he was unhappy.
"I don't want to be responsible for breaking up your group," Sartol
said, looking at each of the mages in turn. His gaze finally came to
rest on Hywel. "I'll be fine on my own. I have been for a long time
now." Keep away from me. Go with your friends if you want to live.
"My mind is set, Tammen. Yours is a worthy endeavor, and I want to be a
part of it. And when you and I are done, we can rejoin Shavi and Ortan,
accompanied by the new no-cloaks we'll have convinced to join the
Movement."
The bald man smiled at her and Sartol made himself smile in return. "Thank you, Hywel. I'll be glad to have you with me." And I'll enjoy killing you.
"I can't believe you're doing this," Shavi said, his voice thick with
resentment. "After all the time we've been together ..." He
trailed off, shaking his head and refusing to look at Hywel.
"We'll be back before you know it, Shavi. I promise."
The yellow-haired mage offered no reply, and Hywel turned to Ortan. "Do the two of you have enough food?"
"Yes. We'll be fine. Arick guard you, Hywel. Return to us soon." Ortan
glanced at Tammen and essayed a thin smile. "Be well, Tammen. Perhaps
we'll meet again."
He turned, placed a hand briefly on Shavi's shoulder, and began to walk
away. Shavi faced Hywel for a moment and shook his head one last time
before turning and following Ortan. He didn't even look at Tammen.
"He'll be fine when we rejoin them," Hywel said, after the two mages
had disappeared from view. He flashed a smile at Tammen and gestured
toward the path. "Shall we?"
They began to walk, heading generally eastward and, after only a few moments, beginning the slow climb into the foothills.
"Have you been unbound long, Tammen?" Hywel asked after a lengthy silence.
"Not very, no."
Another silence.
"Where are you from?"
"Tobyn's Plain. A town called Watersbend."
Silence.
"How long have you been a mage?"
And so it went throughout the rest of the day. Hywel would ask her a
question, Sartol would give a terse response, and they'd walk in
silence until the free mage could think of something else to ask.
Sartol was so furious with himself for allowing his encounter with the
mages to happen in the first place that he couldn't bring himself to
sustain a conversation. And Hywel was too much of a fool to give up
trying. Until at last, late in the afternoon, as they crested yet
another hill and finally saw the Parneshome Mountains looming before
them, Sartol decided that the time had come to end their time together.
"So how did you lose your hawk?" Hywel asked, apparently too desperate at this point to realize how rude his question had been.
"Actually," Sartol said, stopping in the middle of the trail and turning to face him, "I killed her."
Hywel gave an awkward laugh. "I— I'm sorry if my question was inappropriate."
"Not at all. If I had thought it inappropriate, I wouldn't have answered."
"But surely you didn't mean ..." He licked his lips. "You weren't being serious."
"Of course I was."
Hywel stared at her, his face turning white. "You killed your own familiar."
Sartol smiled. "Well, she wasn't really mine."
"Not yours? I don't understand."
"The bird belonged to Tammen, as did this body you see before you."
The man's eyes widened and he took a step back. But before he could
take another, Sartol reached out with Tammen's hand and, grabbed him by
the throat. The mage's small falcon leapt into the air and started to
cry out, but Sartol silenced her with a single burst of blue-and-yellow
flame. She fell to the ground in a smoldering heap.
"You shouldn't have come with me, Hywel. And you shouldn't have asked
me so many questions." He lifted the mage off the ground and tightened
his grasp.
"Who are you?" Hywel managed, his eyes beginning to bulge from his head and his hands clawing vainly at Tammen's wrist.
Sartol pulled the man's face close to Tammen's. "Look into my eyes," he commanded. "What do you see?"
The man looked and an instant later his eyes widened even further with
recognition. He made a sound that might have been a gasp had he been
able to breathe.
"You see it don't you. Tammen's not alone in here."
"Who are you?" Hywel mouthed again, although by now he couldn't make any sound at all.
"My name's Sartol. Perhaps you've heard of me." He squeezed Tammen's
hand nearly to a fist, crushing the mage's throat as one would dry
leaves in autumn. After a few moments more, Hywel went limp and Sartol
carried him some distance off the trail and dropped him in a thicket of
pines. He took the man's food pouch from his belt and then, as an
afterthought, retrieved the carcass of Hywel's bird and tossed it among
the trees as well. Probably no one would have noticed it, but he wasn't
willing to take that chance.
It was only when he was walking again, watching the sky darken
gradually overhead, that Sartol realized what a terrible mistake he had
made. Indeed, he realized with a start, stopping in his tracks, he had
made the same mistake twice: once with Nodin, and now again with Hywel.
He had sent them to the Unsettled. And in doing so, it was possible
that he had alerted Theron, Phelan, and the others to his plans.
Idiot! he raged at himself. Fool!
A moment later, Miron appeared on his shoulder, yellow and spectral,
like moonlight in a summer haze. She stared at him for a moment, then
began to preen her ghostly feathers.
It's done, she seemed to be telling him. Make your peace with it and move on.
"You're right," he said aloud. He even smiled. He had seen no sign that
Theron and the others were aware of his plan, and Nodin had been dead
for days.
"They're the fools, not I."
And saying that, he continued on toward the great city and Amarid's
Great Hall, vowing not to rest again until he stood before the
Sammoning Stone.
19
I have written to you at great length about the free mages and their
strengthening ties to the People's Movement. I'm sure that you are
tired of hearing about them by now, and if this is so, I apologize. And
yet here I sit, writing of them again. I have been thinking about them
a great deal recently, trying to remember how they first came to play a
role in the increasingly intricate politics of my land. My friends in
the Order and I cannot recall precisely when we first heard someone
speak of a "free mage"; the term seems to have entered our language
while no one was looking.
I am certain, however, that despite their present close ties, the free
mages and the People's Movement arose separately from each other, with
the free mages appearing first by as much as a year or two. Originally,
I believe, these mages were men and women who refused to be drawn into
the bitter rivalry that had grown between the League and the Order, and
who chose instead to serve the land on their own terms. And who could
blame them? It might surprise you to hear this from me, but I think
their original purpose was a noble one. It was only later, when their
solution to the problem failed to catch on with others and they found
themselves alone, in numbers too small to be taken seriously, that they
turned to more dangerous and questionable activities.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Spring, God's Year 4633.
He was alive. For reasons he couldn't fathom, he had survived Sartol's
assault. His body was covered with burns, but with his beloved hawk
dead there was little he could do to heal the oozing wounds or ease the
pain than knifed through him with each movement. He had managed, with
an effort that nearly killed him, to crawl to the houses and barns that
stood abandoned on the plain, as if they were monuments to Sartol's
malevolence. And rummaging through the homes, which had been left in
haste, as though the terror brought upon the villagers by the
Owl-Master's ghost had brooked no delay, Nodin found salves and
bandages to put on his blistered skin. He found clothes to replace the
blackened tatters of what he had been wearing when the ghost of Sartol
threw Tammen's fire at him. He found an old hat to protect his burned
head from the sun, whose once gentle caress now felt like raking talons
on his scalp.
He found food as well, or at least something that used to be food. None
of it was fit to be eaten. So after drinking greedily from a
rain-filled trough in one of the farmyards, he left the village,
abandoning it once more to the wind and the grasses. He made his way
eastward, as Sartol had done in Tammen's body two nights before. While
he had the strength and could bear the pain, he walked. But that didn't
last long. By late afternoon, he was on his hands and knees, his eyes
fixed on the trees of Tobyn's Wood, which still seemed impossibly far
away. Walking with Tammen and Henryk a few days ago, it had taken him
but an hour to walk from the wood to Sartol's binding place, but now he
wasn't sure that he could make it back to the shelter of the trees
before nightfall.
Perhaps Sartol killed me after all, he thought, his heart aching with a
grief that made his physical pain seem as nothing. The Owl-Master's
spirit had two days on him, and Tammen was strong. She could carry
Sartol swiftly across Tobyn-Ser to wherever it was he was going.
Amarid, probably. That's where the Order and the League were. If Sartol
wished to defeat them and make himself sole master of the Mage-Craft,
he would have to start there.
Nodin didn't know how to stop the Owl-Master's spirit. He was unbound
and half-dead from his injuries. And he knew better than to think that
he could save Tammen. He had seen Sartol's yellow fire in her eyes just
before she raised her staff and tried to kill him. She was gone already.
But he had loved her, and she had cared for him in her own fashion;
their one night together had convinced him of that. So, he had to try.
He owed her that much. And even if he didn't, he owed it to himself. He
refused to allow the history of Tobyn-Ser to show that Tammen had
allowed Sartol to destroy the land.
And so he crawled, the sun behind him, casting his own animal-like
shadow before him, too low now to score the wound on his back where
Sartol's fire had hammered into him. He held his staff against his body
with one arm, stopping frequently to switch it to one side or the other
so that he didn't lean on either hand for too long, but always keeping
his violet stone in front of him, as if its continued glow offered some
reassurance that he was still alive. Every part of his body hurt. His
knees were just about the only parts of him that weren't burned, and
they grew increasingly sore with every minute that he crawled. And his
hands, which were charred almost beyond hope of recovery, throbbed with
such intensity that even if he had found food in the village, he
probably would have been unable to keep it down.
He felt the hoof beats before he heard them. They drummed through the
soil of the plain like a pulse, flowing up into him through his knees
and his hand.
He stopped crawling and raised himself with an effort that tore a gasp
from his chest so that he knelt upright. The horseman was to the south,
heading toward the wood as well, and seemingly unaware of Nodin. The
mage raised his staff over his head and reached for what little power
he had left to make his ceryll gleam.
Almost immediately, the rider turned toward him, and within moments he had dismounted and was kneeling by Nodin's side.
"Fist of the God!" the man whispered. His face and voice were youthful,
but Nodin noticed little else about him. "What happened to you, Child
of Amarid?"
The mage hadn't even thought of what he would tell anyone. On some
level he had never believed that he would speak to another living man.
Would people believe him? Would they think him mad with pain and lack
of food? And if they did believe him, would the news that Sartol was
wandering the land again, freed from the constraints of Theron's Curse
and armed once more with the Mage-Craft, send panic through Tobyn-Ser?
"I was attacked by a fellow mage," he finally said, struggling to make
himself heard. "She's mad, and I need to find her before she does this
to others."
"You need a healer, Mage," the man told him. "Or better yet, another of your kind who can tend to you. The rest can wait."
"No!" Nodin winced. Even speaking pained him. The man was right. "My
apologies," he breathed. "I appreciate your concern, sir, and I'd be
grateful if you could get me to a healer. But we have need of haste.
This mage must be stopped."
The man nodded. "Can you stand?"
"With your help."
"And can you ride?"
Nodin swallowed. He knew what it would cost him, but he knew as well that he had little choice. "I'll try."
As it turned out, the jarring of the mount was so painful that Nodin
passed out practically with the beast's first stride. It was a blessing
of sorts. When he awoke next, he was on a bed in a small room, lying on
his side. It was night still; the only light came from his ceryll,
which lay beside him, and a candle burning on a nearby table. The rider
was there, standing beside a young woman who appeared to be his wife.
An older woman, her brow furrowed and her mouth set in a thin line, sat
on the bed laying pungent poultices on Nodin's burns.
"Your touch is deft, Healer," he told her, trying to smile. "But your herbs smell like a stable."
"It may not be my herbs, Mage," she returned drily. "When did you bathe last?"
It hurt to laugh, and Nodin squeezed his eyes shut against the pain
that knifed through him. "Please, Madam," he whispered, "spare me your
humor."
She placed one last poultice on his back and stood. "Those should
remain in place for at least two days. Preferably longer." She turned
toward the rider and his wife. "Feed him stews and water. Nothing solid
until his strength returns. Send for me if he worsens."
"I need to be going," Nodin told her even as he felt himself drifting
back toward sleep. "I have to find the mage who did this to me."
The woman faced him again, arching an eyebrow. "Why? So that he can
finish you? Don't be a fool. He's but one mage. Others will deal with
him. Count yourself lucky that he didn't kill you."
She started to turn away.
"Listen to me!" he said with all the force he could muster.
The healer halted and waited.
"This is not just any mage." He took a breath and glanced briefly at
the man and woman before fixing his eyes on the healer again. They
might think him crazed, but he had to take that chance. "Her name is
Tammen. She ... she was a friend. But we sought help for the
People's Movement from the Unsettled." It occurred to him that he
didn't even know whether this was a free town, but that hardly mattered
anymore. "One of them refused us, and so we went to Sartol. He has her
now. He controls her, and somehow he's used her to gain access to the
Mage-Craft and leave his binding place. It was he who did this to me,
not Tammen."
They were staring at him, and he feared that they did indeed consider
him a madman. The healer stepped forward and placed a cool hand against
his cheek.
"He's feverish," she said over shoulder, although she kept her eyes on Nodin.
"This is not my fever talking, Healer. I promise you: what I'm telling
you is true. Sartol is roaming the land again in the guise of a mage
named Tammen."
She chewed her lip for several moments and continued to stare at him.
"He seems to have his senses still." She glanced back at the others.
"I'm not certain what to think."
"Stop talking about me as if I'm not here and listen! My name is Nodin.
I'm a free mage. I was rendered unbound and burned over most of my
body. I couldn't heal myself, but I managed to find some bandages and
salves in the abandoned homes on the plain and I used them to treat my
wounds. Now do those sound like the recollections of a man crazed with
fever?"
The healer crossed her arms over her chest. "No," she admitted.
"Then hear what I'm telling you. Sartol convinced Tammen to give him
access to her ceryll, and in doing so, he managed to make her body a
vessel for his spirit. He is free. He's found a way to escape his
binding place, and Arick knows what he plans to do next. We're the only
people who know of this. I'm sure of that. We have to warn the leaders
of the Order and the League."
She regarded him for a few moments longer. "How long ago did you say this happened?"
"Two nights."
"And do you know where Tammen is now?"
"You mean Sartol. No, I don't. I would guess that he's headed east, toward Amarid."
She nodded. "I suppose that would make sense." She seemed to consider something for a moment. "Was he on horseback?"
"Not that I know of. The three of us came to the plain on foot."
She narrowed her eyes. "There were three of you?"
"Yes. Tammen, myself, and a mage named Henryk."
"And where is Henryk now?"
"Dead. Killed by Sartol."
Again she nodded. "You should rest," she said after a brief pause.
"I'll consider what you've told me. And I'll inform the village elders.
They should know about this."
Nodin sat up, gritting his teeth against the pain. "I don't have time
to rest, and I can't wait while you and the elders ponder all this.
Haven't you been listening to me?"
"Yes, Mage," she said sternly, "I've been listening. And I've heard an
incredible tale about an unsettled spirit taking control of a living
mage, of a long-dead villain threatening us from the grave, all from a
man who's been without food for days, who's more dead than he is alive,
who's flushed with fever, and who's lost his familiar and his friends
and is probably half-crazed with grief. Pardon me for being skeptical."
He looked beyond the healer to the rider and his wife. "Do you think I'm mad? Do I sound crazed to you?"
The man cleared his throat. "Forgive me, Child of Amarid, but I'm not a healer. I know nothing of such things."
"It doesn't matter what he thinks," the healer said. "You're in no
position to be going anywhere. So you might as well wait until the
morning. I promise you that I'll relate your story to the elders first
thing."
"And I promise you that as soon as you leave this room, I'll be going
as well. Sartol is days ahead of us already. I have to go after him."
"You won't get far," she said, as if daring him to try.
"I had crawled most of the way to Tobyn's Wood by the time this kind
man found me," Nodin told her. "Go ahead and ask him. If I have to,
I'll go all the way to Amarid on my hands and knees. But I will be
going."
The healer exhaled through her teeth. "You're a fool. I should let you
go. If you're so determined to kill yourself, I should just let you do
it."
"You're too good a healer for that. I can tell."
She looked at him, saying nothing. He could see from the working of her
jaw and the intensity of her gaze that a battle waged within her.
"Help me, Healer. Help me stop him."
"You're a fool," she said again. "And I must be an even bigger fool."
Nodin smiled, his relief as much a balm for his burns as the healer's poultices.
"Farrek," the woman said, turning once more to the rider. "Do you still
have that cart that you used to take your goods to market last summer?"
"Yes, Healer, of course."
"And can you spare a plow horse for a time?"
"A plow horse?" Nodin broke in before the man could reply. "You can't
be serious! How are we supposed to catch up to Sartol with a plow horse
and cart?"
"I'd rather be placing you on a cart than on a pyre!" the healer said,
whirling on him. "Farrek here told me that you passed out as soon as he
placed you on his stallion. Is that true?"
Nodin gave a reluctant nod.
"I thought so. Now I'm willing to take you to Amarid, but we're going
to do this my way. You may be trying to save the land, Mage, but I'm
determined to save you, with your help or without it."
"You're right, Healer," he said, still not meeting her gaze. "My apologies and my thanks."
"Hitch the beast to your cart, Farrek," she instructed, as if she
hadn't heard Nodin at all. "And pack up whatever food you can spare."
"You're leaving now, Healer?"
"You heard him. If we try to wait until morning, he'll be crawling
through the wood like a worm all night, upsetting all my poultices and
bandages." She shrugged. "I can't abide the waste."
"Yes, Healer," the man said, hurrying out the door. "Right away."
She looked at Nodin again and shook her head. "Arick help you if it turns out you're crazed."
As it happened, Nodin couldn't even stand the pain of being carried
from the bed to the pallet they prepared for him in the cart. He passed
out again as they carried him and did not awaken until morning. It was
only then that he became convinced that the healer believed his tale,
for if she hadn't, they would surely have returned him to the small
bedroom as soon as he lost consciousness.
The pallet was made of straw, but it was uncommonly thick and
comfortable. The forest path they were on was rough, and the wooden
cart bounced constantly and swayed from side to side. And yet Nodin
felt little of it.
"Awake at last," the healer said in a flat voice, not even bothering to look at him.
"Yes," he answered. He sat up gingerly, and though his burns still
throbbed painfully, he was at least able to move his limbs. "You do
good work, Healer. Your poultices seem to be working."
"There's broth in a skin back there," she said. "It's not very warm, but it will have to do."
He found the skin wrapped in several pieces of cloth and took a long
drink. It was salty and delicious, and though it wasn't hot, it hadn't
turned cold yet either. "Thank you," he said after taking a second pull
from the skin. "It's very good."
"Finish it. There are three more skins full of it, and when that's gone we'll stop at an inn and get you more."
"Do you know of other free towns in the God's wood?"
At that, she did turn. "Does it matter?"
"I just meant that a free town will gladly give us the food. That's all."
"Ours was an Order town, and I'm doing this for you. Do you really
think that any town regardless of its loyalties would deny food to
someone in your condition?"
He said nothing, and after a moment she shook her head and faced forward again.
"We'll ride for a few miles more," she said without even looking back
over her shoulder. "Then we'll stop so that I can check on your burns.
In the meantime, you should sleep some more."
He nodded, and then, realizing that she hadn't looked for a response, he said, "That sounds fine. Thank you, Healer."
"My name is Ianthe."
"All right. Thank you, Ianthe."
She glanced back at him. "And yours?"
"Nodin."
She gave a single nod, then clucked at the old plow horse. He watched
her for another minute or two and then lay back down on his side and
closed his eyes to sleep. At this pace it would be at least a fortnight
before they reached Amarid, but he could hardly complain. He was lucky
to be alive and luckier still to be pursuing Tammen at all.
Sartol, he told himself. You're pursuing Sartol. Tammen is dead. If the gods know anything at all of mercy, she's dead.
* * *
Rhonwen knew that another had joined them the moment it happened. It
was as if a dozen voices whispered the news in her mind in unison. It
was as if she was part of a great circle that suddenly opened itself a
bit wider to admit another. Neither image, she knew, was terribly far
from the truth. In this place where light was power, and thought was
communication, there were voices in her head, and her circle, the
circle of the Unsettled, had just grown larger.
She still remembered her first day as an unsettled mage with a
vividness that constricted her heart. Trevdan, whose ghost now sat on
her shoulder preening, had been killed a few months before by a
hunter's arrow. It had been an accident; the man had meant no harm. He
had been in tears as he apologized to her again and again. And though
she had grieved, she had always assumed that she would soon find a new
familiar, that she would serve the land for a lifetime. But when the
fever took her, she lacked the power to heal herself, and she hadn't
enough strength to return to Amarid in search of aid from other mages.
Before she understood what had happened, she found herself surrounded
by a light so dazzling that it nearly blinded her. Trevdan was with her
again, which should have told her everything. But only when Theron came
to her, cold and distant, and yet repentant in his own way, did she
fully comprehend her fate.
She was a ghost, denied the solace of rest and the comfort of the gods'
embrace by Theron's Curse. She would spend eternity immersed in
light— teal, like the color of her ceryll— and she would
wander the shadows of Tobyn's Wood within earshot of the River Halcya
and within sight of the Parneshome Mountains. At least that's how she
remembered this spot, the place of her binding to Trevdan, her one and
only familiar. She heard many things, and she could see much that went
on throughout the land, but she could take no pleasure in the music of
the river or the beauty of the mountains. Such sights and sounds were
beyond her reach. She was in a radiant prison; she was dead.
And so too was another mage. A new one. Hywel, the voices in her head
whispered. His name is Hywel. He was in Leora's Forest now, the place
where he had bound to his first hawk, although he had died elsewhere.
She would go to him when the time was right. Not now, not today, or
even tomorrow. Theron would speak with him first. Theron spoke to all
of them first, as was appropriate. His curse, his circle. And when
Theron was done, when his emerald glow withdrew, leaving the newest of
the Unsettled alone with his fear and his despair, Phelan would go
next, to give what reassurance he could, and to offer some kindness in
a place that was endlessly cruel.
It was much the same for all the new ones. It was a ritual of sorts,
though a strange one to be sure. Theron and Phelan. One was the most
reviled man ever to have walked the land, and the other was beloved and
revered more than any figure in Tobyn-Ser's history except Amarid. Yet
in her time with them as one of the Unsettled, Rhonwen had come to see
that there was both more and less to them than their legends could
convey. They were men, or rather, the ghosts of men. And like all men,
they had their faults and their virtues.
Theron was arrogant and gruff. Even sharing his thoughts, she sensed
that there was a remoteness to him, a desire to distance himself from
all others. He seemed incapable of warmth or kindness. But he was not
evil, as she had once believed. Though he was loath to admit it, he
felt remorse for what he had done to the others in this circle. He knew
the Curse had been a mistake, and while the greeting he offered to the
new ones carried no apology, or even sympathy, the gesture itself, she
had come to understand, was intended as an expiation.
Phelan, on the other hand, was kindness personified. Just the sound of
his voice, which was as gentle and deep as a morning tide, had given
her some relief that first day. He had been so gracious with her, so
polite, that she had been embarrassed to be treated so by a man as
great as he. And yet the assurances he had given her, though kindly
meant and welcomed at the time, had been empty. It didn't get any
easier; there was no relief from the tedium and the loneliness and the
regret. He, who had chosen to become one of the Unsettled so that he
could spend eternity with his beloved wolf, had no idea what it meant
to be ensnared by Theron's Curse against one's will.
So she would wait her turn, and when the time came, she would speak
with Hywel, who was only the second mage to join their circle since her
death. And she would tell him what little she had learned about their
existence in this realm of light and death. That the greatest suffering
came not from the Curse itself, or from Theron, but rather from the
regrets and the lost loves that he brought with him. That even with the
voices that would gather in his mind as he learned to hear them, there
was no companionship here, no comfort or friendship or love. There were
only light and memory, and it never got any easier.
Except that in the next moment, there was more. Abruptly the whispers
in her head changed, taking on an urgency that Rhonwen had never heard
before. Even when the voices argued, even when there was discord among
the Unsettled, there was an order to the voices that allowed her to
follow what was being said, or, to be more precise, thought. It was, in
that way, not unlike attending a Gathering in Amarid's Great Hall. But
now, in the aftermath of whatever had happened, that order was gone,
replaced by a clamor that left her dazed and frightened. She could make
out little of what the others were saying; all she knew was that they
were angry and afraid. Then a word reached her through the bedlam in
her head. One word that the others cried out repeatedly. Sartol.
Sartol. The one voice that she had never once heard in her head. The
one mage among all the Unsettled whom they had told her was never to be
addressed. She knew who he was, of course. Everyone did. And having
been a member of the Order, even though it was only for a few months,
she probably knew more than most people in Tobyn-Ser. She knew of his
betrayal, of his alliance with the outlanders, and of how close he had
come to having others in the Order punished for his crimes. And she
knew that in his first day as an unsettled mage, he had defied Theron
and Phelan and nearly succeeded in bringing ruin to the living mages
who battled the outlanders at Phelan Spur. For this, he had been
isolated from the rest. She had been instructed by Theron himself never
even to think of Sartol.
"As far as I am concerned," the Owl-Master had once told her, "he does
not exist. Let him spend eternity utterly alone. He has earned that in
life and in death."
Now, however, something had changed. Because all of them were thinking
of him. All of them were shouting his name until it seemed to echo
within her skull like thunder rolling through a mountain pass.
"Enough!" Theron finally roared, his voice crashing down upon their minds like a wave, silencing them all.
"Can you tell us what's happened, Owl-Master?" Phelan's voice, deep and calm, even now.
"The traitor has freed himself from the Curse. He is loose upon the land again."
"How?" several cried out at once, like a chorus from one of Cearbhall's tragedies.
"I cannot explain it," Theron rumbled. "At least not yet. Somehow he is
using the body and ceryll of a living mage. He has left his binding
place and is on his way to Amarid."
"The Summoning Stone." Rhonwen didn't know that she had allowed the others to hear her thought until Theron addressed her.
"Yes, Mage. I agree. It was almost his once. He must believe that he can control it still."
"Can he be stopped?" Phelan asked.
Theron didn't answer, and for what seemed to Rhonwen a long time, there
was utter silence in her mind. She couldn't remember the last time she
had experienced such a thing. She sensed the others waiting, just as
she was, wondering what Theron was doing.
"I have seen his binding place," the Owl-Master announced, abruptly
entering their thoughts again. "I understand what he has done."
"And?" Phelan said.
"We can do nothing."
Chaos. Cries of despair. Questions flying at Theron from all over the land.
"He has done nothing to alter the Curse," Theron told them, silencing
them again. "He has merely found a way to use the power he has." He
paused, and then, "I will show you."
An instant later an image entered Rhonwen's mind, and immediately she
understood. It was brilliant, though so ruthless and twisted that it
nearly defied comprehension. The image Theron sent was of a remote spot
on the Northern Plain— the place of Sartol's first binding.
Except that rather than seeing the Owl-Master's spirit, as she should
have, she merely saw his ghostly staff planted in the ground. And from
the ceryll mounted atop the wood, light flowed like blood, running down
his staff into the rich, dark soil and coursing eastward toward Tobyn's
Wood and Amarid. By day, no living man or woman would have seen
anything, and even at night, a passerby would have seen the staff, and
perhaps a small puddle of yellow light at its base where Sartol's power
soaked into the ground, but little more. Only the Unsettled could see
all of it and divine from this vision what Sartol had done.
He was rooted to this spot on the plain by Theron's Curse, but using
the ceryll of the unfortunate mage he had mastered, he had found a way
to extend his reach across the land. Any of them could have done it,
because all of them were manifestations of the Mage-Craft. But in order
to do it, they would have had to be capable of the worst kind of
violation. This was rape, certainly nothing less. A man capable of
doing this ...
She didn't allow herself to complete the thought. True, she was dead, a
ghost and nothing more. But she still loved the land and she still
believed in the Mage-Craft and all that it represented. To have it
perverted in this way seemed to her something akin to blasphemy.
And there was nothing they could do.
"If he had altered the Curse in some way," Theron told them all, "he
might have freed us to alter it as well. Then perhaps we could stop
him. But unless one of us is willing to do what Sartol has done, we are
powerless."
"Can we at least warn someone?" Rhonwen asked, "so that they can tell the Order and the League that Sartol is coming?"
"Of course," Theron said. "But as always they must come to us first. We have no way to reach out to them."
"We are power incarnate," one of the others said bitterly. "And yet we are powerless."
Rhonwen shook her head in frustration. She wanted to cry, but her rage
would not even allow that. Instead she just stared into the brilliant
teal light that surrounded her. And for just an instant, she thought
she heard laughter coming to her from a great distance.
* * *
"I'm hungry, Mama," Myn said, as Alayna led her through the maze of merchants in Amarid's old town commons.
Alayna was looking for one peddler in particular, a man who was selling
a shirt that she wanted for Jaryd. His birthday had already come and
gone, but with all that had been happening, they had done little to
celebrate.
"I know, Myn-Myn" she said. "Me too. I just want to find this one peddler and then we'll get something to eat, all right?"
"Can I get a sweet?"
Alayna laughed. "Maybe. After we have our meal."
They walked on for a few minutes more, Alayna searching for the merchant and Myn humming a song to herself.
"I had a dream last night, Mama," the girl said after some time.
"What was it about?" Alayna asked absently, frowning as she looked
around them. The man couldn't have moved on already. It was still too
early in the year for the old town merchants to be leaving Amarid for
the smaller towns.
"It was about a man who's coming here."
Alayna stopped and looked down at her daughter. They had tied back the
girl's hair today, and with her hair pulled away from her brow, and the
sunlight sparkling in her grey eyes, she looked just like Jaryd's
mother.
"What kind of a dream was this, Myn-Myn?"
"A real one. The kind you and Papa sometimes have."
A vision. Alayna felt her heart racing suddenly, and she had to fight
to keep her voice steady. "Myn, this is very important: do you remember
anything about the man in your dream?"
"I didn't like him very much."
"Why not?"
Myn shrugged. "I think he was mean. And I don't think you and Papa like him either."
"What makes you say that?" Alayna asked, squatting beside her.
"I'm not sure. You looked kind of angry when you saw him."
"Did he say anything? Or did we say anything to him?"
Myn looked at her feet and shrugged again. "I don't know, Mama. I made myself wake up too soon. I didn't like looking at him."
"Did he scare you a little, Myn-Myn?"
She nodded.
"Then you did the right thing waking up." She hesitated. She didn't
want to make Myn recount anything that would frighten her, but she also
knew how important it was to know as much as they could about this man.
"Do you remember what he looked like, Myn? Can you tell me a little bit
about him?"
"Yes. He was a mage, and he was big."
"Was his hair silver?" Alayna asked, thinking that perhaps the girl had dreamed of Erland.
"No. It was dark, but there was a little bit of silver in it."
Alayna shuddered slightly but then smiled at her own foolishness. She
knew of one mage who fit this description, but it couldn't have been he.
"Was he wearing a blue cloak?"
"No, green."
"And what color was his stone?"
"Yellow."
She shuddered again. Myn was describing Sartol.
"Are you sure this was a real dream, Love? Are you sure it just wasn't so scary that it felt real?"
"I'm sure, Mama. I saw this man in the Great Hall. I promise."
Alayna didn't want to believe her. Sartol was dead. He walked with the
Unsettled now, which meant that he was tied for all eternity to the
Northern Plain. But Myn was old enough and familiar enough with the
Sight to know a vision when she had one.
"What did his bird look like?" Alayna asked, unable to keep her voice from quavering.
"It was a hawk, a big one, and I don't think it was a kind I've seen before."
Alayna racked her brain trying to remember what kind of bird Sartol's
first familiar had been. He had told her once, during her
apprenticeship, back when they were friends. Back before she learned
that he was a traitor and a murderer. So much had happened since then;
so much had changed. She couldn't remember anymore.
"Are you scared, Mama?"
She had learned long ago that it was impossible to lie to Myn. The
child was far too perceptive. "A little bit, Myn-Myn. The man you've
described is not someone I'd care to see again."
"Is he dead?"
The mage felt the blood drain from her face. "Why would you think that?"
"Because of the way his eyes looked," Myn said in a small voice.
"How did his eyes look?" she asked, not really wanting to know.
"Sort of like they were on fire."
Alayna nodded, knowing precisely what the girl meant. She had seen
Theron, after all, and Phelan as well. She knew what it was to look
into the eyes of the Unsettled. Standing and taking Myn's hand in hers,
she started back toward the Great Hall.
"What about Papa's shirt?"
"We'll get it another day. Right now, I want you to tell your papa about your dream."
"Slow down, Mama," Myn said. "You're going too fast."
"I'm sorry, Myn-Myn."
She made herself walk more slowly, but she kept glancing over her
shoulder and peering down alleyways, as if she expected to see Sartol's
ghost coming after them.
As soon as they reached the Great Hall, Alayna took Myn back to see
Jaryd and had her repeat to him what she had seen in her vision. When
Myn left out details, Alayna prompted her, but otherwise she merely
allowed her daughter to recount the dream as she had the first time.
For a long time after Myn finished, none of them spoke. Jaryd and
Alayna exchanged a look, and Alayna knew from what she saw in the
Eagle-Sage's eyes that he recognized the man Myn had described.
"Myn-Myn," Alayna finally said, "why don't you go to the kitchen and get something to eat. Your papa and I need to talk."
"All right," she said quietly, starting toward the door. But when she
reached it she stopped and faced them again. "I'm afraid to be alone,
Mama. I'm afraid of that man."
Alayna went over to her and gave her a hug. "How about if I call for Valya? Will that make you feel better?"
Myn nodded, and Alayna led her into the kitchen. After getting the girl
some food and waiting until Valya, the townswoman who had been taking
care of her arrived, Alayna returned to their quarters and sat down in
one of the large chairs. Jaryd hadn't moved from where she had left
him. He was standing in the middle of the room, staring at the empty
hearth while his enormous eagle sat, as always, on the mantel.
"What do you suppose it means?" he asked, as Alayna closed the door behind her.
She shook her head. "I wouldn't even want to guess. I don't even know whether I believe it was a true Seeing."
"I thought of that," he agreed. "But we've never told her about Sartol.
How could she have described him so accurately if this wasn't a vision?"
"I don't know. But I also don't know how it's possible for him to be coming here. The Curse ties him to his binding place."
"Is it possible that this wasn't Sartol? That we're allowing our own
memories and fears to make her vision into something that it wasn't?"
Alayna pushed her hair back from her forehead. "I'd like to believe
that. But you heard what she said about his eyes. She saw an unsettled
mage. And based upon everything else she told us, I have to believe
that it's him."
"And why would he be coming here? Revenge?"
"That. And the Summoning Stone."
Jaryd's face turned ashen. "I had forgotten about the stone."
"I haven't forgotten any of it."
He gave her a sympathetic look. "It wasn't your fault. You should know that by now."
"I do." It was true in the strictest sense. For a long time after he
was revealed as a traitor, she had blamed herself for not being able to
see beyond his deceit. But finally she had come to see that she was no
more to blame than any other mage in the Order. Sartol had deceived all
of them, and when she had been his Mage-Attend and had known him best,
she had also been most susceptible to his lies. She had looked up to
him. He had been like a second father to her. And she had taken all he
told her not just as truth, but as lessons to be learned. But now,
thinking of him again after so long, feeling the old fear of what he
had become well up within her once more, she could not help but feel
some of her guilt returning as well.
And knowing her as well as he did, Jaryd saw this. He crossed to where
she was standing and took her in his arms. "So you know that it wasn't
your fault, but you still feel guilty about it."
She gave a wry smile. "Yes. Something like that."
He smiled and kissed her. But then his expression grew grave again.
"We'll stop him, Alayna. We stopped him once before, and we'll do it
again."
"How?" she asked, shaking her head and feeling herself begin to
tremble. "If he's managed to alter Theron's Curse, and he's confident
enough in his powers to come after us as a ghost, what makes you think
that we can defeat him?"
"The eagles. Now we know why they've come. They're here to unite us, to
bring the League and the Order together to face him, and to give us the
strength and the courage to destroy him."
"All of us were just barely enough last time," she said. "What if he's stronger now?"
"We'll have to be stronger, too. What choice do we have?" He had always
been strong-willed and passionate. It was part of what had made her
fall in love with him so many years ago. But gazing into his grey eyes
now, Alayna saw a look of resolve and certainty that was unlike
anything she had ever seen in him before. "All of Tobyn-Ser is
depending on us," he told her. "But more than that, Myn is depending on
us. I'll destroy him myself if that's what it takes to save her."
20
Obviously, the leaders of all the great Nals of Lon-Ser have an
interest in maintaining stability and order. We live in unsettled
times, as the recent assassination of Oerella-Nal's Sovereign Shivohn
demonstrated so vividly. Now, with the tragic death of Sovereign Melyor
i Lakin, Bragor-Nal has suffered a similarly debilitating loss. This is
a time of mourning and reflection for Bragor-Nal's people. It is a time
to remember our fallen leader and to honor all that she accomplished.
But it is also a time of fear, a time of uncertainty. Bragor-Nal needs
a leader who can lead it through this time of crisis, who can offer the
people of the Nal the reassurance that comes with continuity and
familiarity.
For this reason, and in accordance with the procedures established by
the Cape of Stars Treaty of 2802, I hereby formally petition Lon-Ser's
Council of Sovereigns to recognize my claim to the position of
Sovereign of Bragor-Nal by admitting me to its ranks.
— Formal petition for admission to the Council
of Sovereigns, submitted by Dobir i Waarin, Overlord of Bragor-Nal's
First Dominion, Day 1, Week 8, Spring, Year 3068.
Wiercia still wasn't sure why she had agreed to this. She had been
fooled once by Marar, and it seemed quite possible that the ease with
which she had been duped had cost Melyor her life. And yet here she
was, only days after the Bragory Sovereign's death, consenting to a
face-to-face meeting with Dob, the Sovereign-designate. She knew little
about him, just that he was an Overlord, and that he had once been a
break-law, just like Melyor.
Which perhaps was the point. She had failed Melyor dismally, allowing
Marar to trick her into abandoning the friendship she and the Gildriite
woman had begun to forge. In a sense, meeting with Dob was her way of
making amends. Unfortunately, the gesture came a good deal too late.
Dob had suggested that they meet at the Monarch's residence on the
Point of the Sovereigns, where the Council of Sovereigns usually met.
It was, she had decided, quite presumptuous of him. His petition for
admission to the Council had yet to be approved, and here he was
inviting her to a clandestine meeting as if he had been a Council
member for years. But it was the very audacity of his invitation that
had convinced her to accept. Obviously he had something important to
discuss, and in light of what she now knew about Marar, Wiercia had
little choice but to find out what it was.
But as her air-carrier drew closer to the old residence, she began to
have misgivings. What if Dob thought that she was somehow responsible
for Melyor's death? Or what if he merely wanted to throw Oerella-Nal
into turmoil as a prelude to invasion? She knew nothing about him, at
least nothing of substance. What if this was a trap?
Shivohn would have shaken her head at such thoughts. "The world is a
lonely place for suspicious people," she had once told Wiercia, when,
as a Legate, Wiercia had expressed doubts about Melyor. "If you go
looking for enemies, you'll never find any friends."
Of course, Shivohn was dead now, killed by an assassin whom she allowed
to get too close. Wiercia rubbed a hand across her brow and shook her
head. She was not a trusting person; she never had been. And recent
events had reminded her once more of why: she was not a good judge of
people. She had mistrusted Melyor because she feared the woman's
Gildriite powers and could not forget that she had once been a
break-law. Yet she had nearly agreed to an alliance with Marar, who she
now believed had been behind Melyor's death, and who had probably been
responsible for Shivohn's as well.
"We'll be at the residence in just a few moments, Sovereign," the carrier pilot informed her over the speaker console.
She almost told him then to turn the carrier around and take her back
to the palace. She actually had her finger on the console button before
she stopped herself.
If you go looking for enemies ...
She pressed the button after all, but only to thank the pilot.
The carrier landed a few minutes later, and Wiercia saw that the
air-carrier of the Bragory Sovereign was already there. She smiled to
herself. At least the man was being as presumptuous with his own people
as he was with her.
She took her time leaving the carrier and walking into the residence.
He might have called the meeting, she decided, but she was the only
true Sovereign there. And she was determined to make him understand
this. She had also brought an unusually large contingent of guards,
along with the two Legates who usually accompanied her, and she had the
soldiers form a tight diamond cluster around her, just in case.
As soon as she entered the residence, however, she realized that there
was more to Dob's invitation than she had divined. First, rather than
waiting for her upstairs in the Council meeting room, Dob was standing
in the entrance foyer of the residence. And he was alone.
"Greetings, Sovereign," he said, his tone crisp. "You and your
attendants are free to go up to the Council chamber, but your guards
will have to remain here with me."
"What?" she said. "Why should I—?" She stopped abruptly, as the
full import of what he had said reached her. "Remain with you? I
thought I was here to meet with you."
"You'll understand shortly, Sovereign." He gestured toward the curving staircase. "Please. We're pressed for time."
She stared at him for several moments. "I'm not sure I trust you," she admitted.
He grinned, his blue eyes dancing beneath a shock of unruly black hair.
He was quite handsome in a rough way. She couldn't help but think that
he must have been a very good break-law. "I don't blame you," he told
her. "But that's why I stand before you, alone and unarmed. If any harm
comes to you, your guards will be able to exact a measure of revenge by
killing me."
She stood regarding him for a few seconds longer, then nodded. "Watch
him," she said, turning to the captain of the guard. "But unless
something happens, don't touch him."
"Yes, Sovereign."
She started up the stairs, motioning for her Legates to follow. There
was really only one explanation for this, and she wasn't entirely
certain how she felt about it. On the one hand she was relieved, more
so than she would ever have believed. Yet she was also angry. How much
trickery could she be expected to tolerate from her fellow Sovereigns?
Though she was prepared, however, her Legates were not, and when they
walked into the Council chamber and saw Melyor sitting in her customary
place, very much alive, with an enigmatic smile on her lips, they
gasped in unison.
"Funny," Wiercia said drily, "you don't look dead."
Melyor's smile broadened. "I'll take that as a compliment."
"I'm not sure how you should take it. By the gods, Melyor, what is all
this? What are we doing here? Why are you pretending to be dead?"
The Bragory woman indicated Wiercia's chair with an open hand. "Please,
sit," she said. "I'll answer all your questions, but it could take a
while."
Wiercia took her seat reluctantly, glancing around the room as she did.
There were two men sitting with Melyor. One of them was her security
chief, Jibb, whom Wiercia had met several times before. But the other
was a man she did not know. He was long-limbed with a thin face and
pale, nervous eyes that flicked to Wiercia's face for just an instant
before darting away again. He wore a uniform like Jibb's, so he had to
be a security man as well, but unlike Jibb he carried no weapons that
she could see.
As usual, Melyor was armed. Her thrower was strapped to her thigh, and
she was dressed as always in dark, loose-fitting trousers and an ivory
tunic. The only thing that distinguished her from an ordinary break-law
was her staff, which lay across the table, its crimson stone glowing
brightly, as if to remind Wiercia of why she didn't trust this woman.
"First of all," Melyor began, regarding her solemnly, "please accept my
apologies for the deception. I assure you it was absolutely necessary.
I want Marar to believe I'm dead, and since I don't know which of my
men he's recruited as spies, I need for all of them to believe it as
well."
"Well, I can tell you that Marar is convinced," Wiercia said. "He
contacted me a few days ago to tell me, and he was positively giddy. At
least he was at first."
"And then what happened?"
"I asked him how he had learned of your death so quickly, and when he
hedged, I accused him of having you killed and of sending the assassin
for Shivohn as well."
Melyor raised an eyebrow. "Is that really what you think?"
Wiercia shrugged, her gaze wandering to Melyor's stone again. "I don't
know what to think anymore. Frankly, I don't trust either of you."
"Would it help if I could offer you proof that Marar tried to have me killed?"
"What proof?" Wiercia asked, looking at Melyor again.
"Tell her," Melyor said over her shoulder.
The bald guard cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. He had a
large golden hoop in one ear that she hadn't noticed earlier. "Me," he
said. "I'm the proof. I'm a traitor. Marar hired me to kill the
Sovereign and the general, and he paid me a great deal of gold."
Wiercia looked at the man for a long time, until a muscle on the side
of his face began to jump, and he looked away. He could have been
lying. She wouldn't have put it past Melyor to get him to say these
things in order to win Wiercia's trust. The world is a lonely place for suspicious people....
The fact of the matter was, he didn't appear to be lying. And neither
did Melyor. She looked over at Jibb and saw that his shoulder was
bandaged.
"What happened to your arm?" she asked.
"I was trying to tame a renegade Nal-Lord and ended up in a firefight." He shrugged. "It's not as bad as it looks."
"Premel here saved his life," Melyor added.
Jibb made a sour face, but said nothing.
There was far more to this story than they were telling her, Wiercia
realized, but little of it concerned her. The important thing was, she
believed them. And in that moment she wouldn't have traded places with
the one named Premel for all the gold in Lon-Ser.
"So what do you want from me?" Wiercia asked, shifting her gaze back to Melyor.
The woman smiled, her relief written so plainly on her face that Wiercia had to grin as well. "Thank you," she said.
"I haven't done anything yet."
"Actually, you've probably done more than you think. If Marar believes
that he's made an enemy of you, he's more likely to strike a deal with
Dob, which is exactly what we want him to do."
"I'm surprised you haven't just gone into Stib-Nal and gotten rid of him."
"I would have," Melyor admitted, "but I was afraid that would lead to a war with the Matriarchy."
Wiercia considered this briefly and conceded the point with a nod. "It probably would have."
"Besides," Melyor continued, "Marar is up to something. He told Premel
that he's getting gold from Tobyn-Ser, and I want to know how that's
possible."
Wiercia shot a look toward the security man. "He really told you that?"
Premel nodded.
"Did he say anything else?"
"No," Melyor answered. Wiercia faced her once more. "Jibb and I were in
the room during their conversation," she explained. "He was very vague.
That's where you can help us. In addition to playing along with all of
this— acting as if you believe I'm dead, considering Dob's
petition, all of it— you can also have your Legates talk to some
of the merchants that frequent your ports. Find out if any of them have
noticed any unusual activity between Stib-Nal and Tobyn-Ser."
"All right. What else?"
Melyor thought for a moment. "It might also help matters along if you
play up this meeting you were supposed to have had with Dob today. Make
it sound as though the two of you established a strong rapport. If we
can scare Marar enough, he might make a mistake. Be on your guard,
though. If he decides that you've become a threat, he won't hesitate to
send another assassin to your palace."
"I know," Wiercia said with a nod. "Security at the palace has never been so tight."
They sat in awkward silence for several moments. There wasn't much left
to say, and the two of them had never been very good at making
conversation.
"So what are you going to do next?" Wiercia finally asked.
"Marar still owes Premel some gold. We're going to collect it today."
"Why bother?"
"I want to interrogate the couriers and find out if they know which
merchants are supplying the gold. And I want to know who else in my
palace they've been paying."
Wiercia nodded slowly, pondering this. She had little doubt that there
were traitors in the Matriarchy as well, and she would have given a
good deal for similar information. "Let me know what you find out," she
said.
Melyor smiled. "I will."
After another brief silence, Wiercia stood, as did her Legates. "We should be going," she said.
"Very well. We'll wait until you and your men are gone. It would be best if your guards didn't see me."
"They'll know that I never spoke with Dob. Some of them may get suspicious."
Melyor pressed her fingertips together and frowned. "I suppose they
might." She sat perfectly still for some time and then finally
shrugged. "There's really nothing to be done. Explain it to them as you
wish. If you trust them, I have little choice but to trust them as
well. If you don't, find a way to keep them from contacting anyone, at
least for the next few days."
"All right," Wiercia agreed, a bit unsure of what she would do. She had
trusted them enough to bring them with her, but trusting them with a
matter of this importance was another thing entirely. She would have to
ponder the matter on the way back to the palace. She met Melyor's gaze
and made herself smile. "Don't worry about this," she said. "One way or
another, I'll keep your secret safe."
"I had no doubt," Melyor said, smiling as well. "Arick guard you, Sovereign."
"And you."
Wiercia led her Legates toward the doorway, but she stopped on the
threshold and looked back at Melyor. The woman had her eyes closed
tightly, and she was rubbing her brow, as if her head hurt. Seeing
Wiercia turn, Jibb cleared his throat. Instantly, Melyor was looking at
her again, a smile on her lips.
"Was there anything else, Sovereign?"
"No," Wiercia said softly. She had a sudden urge to tell Melyor to be
careful, but their relationship had never allowed for such things.
Besides, Melyor hadn't gotten as far as she had without learning to
avoid careless mistakes. "No," she said again. "I'll see you soon."
But as she descended the stairs and made her way back to her
air-carrier, Wiercia could not help but wonder if she'd ever see Melyor
again.
* * *
When they returned to the Gold Palace, Premel and Dob made a great show
of entering the building together, distracting the guards long enough
to allow Melyor and Jibb to sneak in through the air-intake port and
make their way back to Melyor's quarters. Once there, they had little
to do but wait. All the arrangements for the coming meeting with the
couriers had been made by Premel, while Melyor looked on, watchful, but
unseen.
They were to meet them about an hour after nightfall, in the tunnels
just two quads due south of the palace. It promised to be a fairly
simple encounter. The couriers would be armed, but not heavily. Most of
the couriers Melyor used tended to carry two throwers, one of them
concealed, and perhaps a hidden blade as well. But that was all. More
weaponry than that would call attention to them, and given the amount
of gold they generally carried, that was the last thing they wanted.
From what Premel had told her, Melyor gathered that Marar's couriers
took a similar approach.
"So then why am I so nervous?" she said, pushing herself out of the
chair in which she had been sitting, and beginning to pace the length
of her chamber.
"What?" Jibb asked, not even bothering to open his eyes. He was lying
on her sofa as if he actually believed that he could fall asleep.
"How can you just lie there?"
He opened his eyes. "What's the matter?"
"I don't know. I have a bad feeling about tonight." Her palms were wet and she wiped them on her trousers.
"What kind of a bad feeling?"
She shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest as she continued to pace.
Jibb's eyes strayed to her stone, which was leaning against the wall by her bed. "Have you ... have you seen something?"
"No. Nothing like that. It's just a feeling."
"Maybe we shouldn't go. We can always—"
"No," she said, halting in front of him. "We're doing this tonight. We're too close to stop now."
He ran a hand through his dark curls. "All right," he sighed. "But then I don't know what to tell you."
"I know." She resumed her pacing. "I'm being foolish. Go back to sleep, Jibb. I'll be fine."
"I have a better idea," he said, getting to his feet. "Why don't I leave you alone, and you can sleep?"
She stopped again. "No. I mean, maybe you're right. I'll lie down for a
while, but I'd prefer it if you stayed. I'd rather not be in here
alone."
He smiled and sat back down on the sofa. "As you wish."
She crossed to her bed and lay down. And though she didn't sleep, she
found some peace in staring out her window and watching the afternoon
gradually give way to night. Jibb did fall asleep, and she found some
comfort as well in the slow rhythm of his breathing. It was almost as
if his mere presence offered her a measure of safety.
It's too bad I can't bring myself to love him, she thought. At least he's here.
And with that, of course, an image of Orris's face entered her mind, and the old pain rose in her chest again.
Fortunately, Premel knocked on her door a few minutes later, rousing
Jibb from his slumber, and forcing her to move past her melancholy.
"It's almost time, Sovereign, General," the security man said, poking his head into the room.
Melyor sat up and pushed her hair back from her forehead. "Thank you, Premel. I'll be ready shortly."
"Of course," he said. "I'll be waiting in the next room."
He withdrew and closed the door.
"I'll give you a minute or two," Jibb said, stretching and then making his way to the door. "Call if you need me."
A moment later he was gone, and Melyor was left to prepare herself as
best she could. She stood, strapped her thrower to her thigh, slipped
her dagger into its sheath in her right boot, and, as an afterthought,
took a second thrower from her desk drawer and put it in one of the
inner pockets of her overcoat.
Satisfied that she was ready, she started toward the door. But as she
reached it, she heard a beeping sound coming from her desk. At first
she thought it was her speak-screen, and she decided not to answer.
There was no telling who it could be. It might have been Marar, looking
for Dob. But then she realized that the sound was coming from her
pocket communicator, the code to which few people had access.
Returning to her desk, she picked up the device and turned it on.
"Yes?" she said.
"I just wanted to let you know that I'm ready to go when you are,
Sovereign." It took her a moment to recognize the voice as that of her
driver.
"Excuse me?"
"I have the carrier ready," Vian told her, his voice sounding thin and strange through the small speaker.
"We're taking the tunnels," Melyor said, wondering how he even knew
about this excursion. Jibb, Premel, and she had decided to tell no one.
Not even Dob.
"General Premel led me to believe that you'd changed your mind."
"Well, I haven't. It'll be safer to do this underground."
"You're sure, Sovereign? I can have you there in no time at all."
"I'm quite sure," she said. "But thank you." She switched off the device, and as she did, there was a knock at her door.
"What is it?"
Jibb pushed the door open. "We should get going."
She nodded and followed him out of the room. She'd mention the driver's call to Premel later.
They made their way to the sub-ground floor of the palace by way of the
lifter shaft and entered the tunnels through an access that dated back,
she had been told, to the earliest days of the Consolidation. From
there, it was a small matter to navigate the tunnels to the meeting
place, which was at the northern edge of the Sixth Realm. The tunnels
in this part of the Nal were rarely used and poorly lit. Premel and
Jibb were forced to carry hand lights, and she, of course, used the
light from her stone, but they made their way through the passageways
somewhat slower than Melyor would have liked.
When they came within a turn or two of the meeting place, Premel went
ahead to find the couriers. Jibb and Melyor were to wait for a signal,
a single flash of Premel's light, before coming into view. But only
moments after Premel left them, he returned.
"They're not here yet," he said quietly, a frown on his thin face.
"Have they ever been late before?" Melyor asked.
"No. Usually they're waiting for me."
She chewed her lip for a moment. "Well, let's give them a few minutes. I'd rather not have to do this again."
Both men nodded, and they waited there in silence for a time, listening for voices or footsteps.
After a few minutes, Melyor remembered the driver's call. "Why did you
tell my driver that we'd need him tonight?" she asked Premel. "I
thought that we decided to use the tunnels days ago."
"I didn't tell the driver anything about this," Premel said, looking surprised. "I haven't even spoken to him."
Melyor looked at Jibb. "You?"
"I haven't talked about this with anyone except Dob."
"Dob? Why did you tell him?"
"Because I wanted someone to know where we were going."
"Do you think he would have mentioned it to the driver?" Premel asked.
Jibb shook his head. "I made it clear to him that he wasn't to speak with anyone about this."
"The driver told me it was you," Melyor said, facing Premel again. "I'm sure of it."
"Then the driver was lying."
"Was he?" Jibb demanded, eyeing Premel with obvious distrust.
"Yes."
"Because if he wasn't, and you've done anything to tip off those couriers—"
"Quiet!" Melyor hissed. "Did you hear that?"
Jibb and Premel immediately fell silent, and Melyor strained her ears
to hear the sound again. It had sounded like a footfall, soft and slow,
as if someone was approaching cautiously. But something about it was
odd. She just couldn't put her finger on what it was.
They waited for what seemed an eternity. Before they finally heard it
again, still soft, but unmistakable. It was a footstep. But rather than
coming from ahead of them, where the couriers should have been, it came
from behind them, as if they had been followed.
And suddenly, although too late by far, all of it made sense to her:
the ease with which they had been able to set up this meeting, Vian's
call, the couriers' failure to show up, all of it.
"Ambush!" she had time to cry out, grabbing for her thrower. "Cap and strike! The cap man's behind us!"
An instant later, the tunnels came alive with thrower fire. Shafts of
scarlet light carved through the darkness, bringing clouds of smoke and
showers of sparks when they hit the stone walls, and hissing like fat
on a griddle. Melyor, Jibb, and Premel dropped to the floor and fired
back, but they were in the middle of a straight corridor with nowhere
to hide, and their attackers had taken positions at the corners at
either end of the hallway. The only thing that saved the three of them
from a quick death was the small, dim chamber just a few feet from
where they had been standing. And if it hadn't been for Premel, Melyor
never would have even known it was there.
Shouting for Jibb and her to follow, Premel leaped into the room. Jibb
managed to crawl in as well, and Melyor, diving forward into a roll,
fired once at the two assassins in front of her, and then rolled a
second time into the chamber, just as two red beams crashed into the
doorway over her head.
Miraculously, none of them had been hit, but their situation had not
improved by much. The chamber offered them some cover, but its entrance
was barely wide enough for two of them to fire their weapons at the
same time. They were trapped there. It was all they could do just to
keep their attackers from advancing on them. Escape seemed out of the
question.
With only two of them able to fire at any given time, they took turns
resting. Because of Jibb's injury, he could only fire in one direction,
which made the rotation a bit awkward. But they managed to maintain a
fairly constant barrage, thus forcing the assassins to remain hidden.
For their part, the attackers had all the time in the world, and they
seemed to know it. They fired sporadically, establishing no rhythm with
which Melyor and the others could time their salvos. At one point,
Melyor stuck out her head and arm to fire, only to see a shaft of flame
immediately burst from a thrower. She barely ducked back into the room,
yanking Premel back with her, before the fire sliced through the
chamber entrance.
After that, the three of them varied the heights from which they fired,
sometimes squatting or kneeling, sometimes standing, and at times even
lying on their bellies. But the longer the firefight dragged on, the
worse their chances of surviving it grew. Close calls like the one
Melyor had occurred with ever-increasing frequency. Their chamber began
to fill with smoke, and their throwers got hotter and hotter until
Melyor began to wonder if they would cease working altogether.
"We've got to do something," Jibb finally said in a hoarse whisper, as he poured his fire into the corridor.
Premel, who was firing as well, opened his mouth to respond but began
to cough instead. In the end he merely nodded his agreement.
"Ideas?" Melyor asked, looking from one of them to the other.
"I suppose," Premel said through another fit of coughing, "that this would be a bad time to ask them if they have my gold."
Melyor and Jibb laughed so loudly that the assassins momentarily
stopped firing. A few seconds later, however, after their laughter had
subsided, the attackers resumed their attack, driving Jibb and Premel
back into the room.
"Have you noticed," Jibb asked, "that the fire coming from the right is far weaker than the fire from the left?"
"Of course," Premel said. "There's only a single attacker to the right: the cap man. The two deep men are on our left."
"That's not what I mean. Not only is the cap man alone, he's also not as good with a thrower."
Melyor nodded. She had noticed this as well, although she hadn't given it much thought.
"I bet the cap man's your driver," Jibb went on. "Which means that while he's armed, he's not trained."
"So what do you suggest?"
"One of us should rush him."
"You must be insane!" Premel said. "Whoever does it will get killed before he takes two steps!"
"Or she," Melyor corrected. "And that won't happen if the two who remain throw enough fire their way."
Jibb grinned at her. "Exactly. You two get into position and when you start shooting, I'll charge him."
"You're not going anywhere," Melyor told him. "Not with only one good
arm." She pulled her second thrower from her coat, and then, as an
afterthought, took the coat off.
"I won't let you do this," Jibb said.
Before Melyor could respond, they heard a footstep in the corridor.
Immediately, Jibb and Premel jumped back to the entrance way and fired
their weapons, driving the assassins back.
"You can't do this!" Jibb called over his shoulder as he continued to fire. "If you won't send me, send Premel. But—"
"I'm not arguing about this, Jibb. Neither of you is as good as I am
with a thrower, and neither of you is as skilled with a blade. And on
top of that, I'm Sovereign. It's my decision to make."
She could see the muscles in his jaw tightening as he fired his weapon, but after a moment he glanced at her and nodded once.
She crossed to the entrance and crouched down by Premel's legs. There
was a good deal of smoke in the corridor by then, but that actually
worked to her advantage.
"When I give the word, Premel," she whispered, "I want you to turn your
weapon on the deep men with Jibb. Don't give them a chance to throw any
fire at me. I don't want to get hit in the back."
"What about the cap?" Premel asked in a low voice.
"I'll be using both my weapons. That should keep him pressed against
the wall long enough for me to reach the end of the corridor."
"And what then?" Jibb asked.
"At that point we should be on equal footing, and if that really is my driver, he won't have a chance."
"And if it's not? If it's really another assassin?"
She looked up at Jibb and smiled. "I still like my chances. Don't you?"
The big man grinned and shook his head. "Watch yourself."
She nodded. "I'll see you in a few minutes."
Turning her attention back to the corridor, Melyor squeezed between her
two companions, remaining in a low crouch. She adjusted her grip on the
two throwers and, taking a deep breath, stepped into the corridor.
She assumed that Premel turned as she had instructed and started firing
at the deep men. Certainly he wasn't firing this way anymore. But she
was, with both weapons, as she ran through the blue-grey smoke, still
in her crouch. She knew that the cap man, whoever he was, could hear
her footsteps, but there was little she could do about that.
She hadn't thought that the end of the hallway was very far, but it
seemed an impossibly long way now. With each step she expected to feel
an explosion of pain in her back. But none came, and just before she
came to the end of the tunnel, she heard voices shouting from behind
her. Somewhere in a remote corner of her mind, she wondered what she
was hearing and whether Jibb and Premel were all right. But she didn't
hesitate even for an instant.
Just as she reached the corner, without breaking stride, she dived and
tucked, rolling on her shoulder and coming up on one knee with both
throwers ready and firing, the left one aimed low, the right one aimed
high. Both volleys of fire found their mark, sending the man sprawling
backward, although not before he managed to get off a blast of his own.
And as he fell onto the floor, screaming in pain, Melyor felt white
heat stab into her thigh like a knife. Gasping, she dropped one of her
throwers and grabbed at the wound. The man in front of her— it
was her driver after all— tried to raise himself up to fire
again, but she fired first with the thrower she still held, catching
him in the wrist and sending his weapon and much of his hand flying
against a nearby wall.
Lowering herself onto her back, Melyor squeezed her eyes shut and
gritted her teeth against a wave of nausea. She felt herself growing
dizzy, and for a moment she thought she might pass out. But then she
opened her eyes again, and forced herself to crawl toward Vian. He was
writhing around like a wounded animal. His shooting hand was little
more than a bloody stump, and he had blackened, bloody burns on one
knee and on the upper part of his chest.
"Was it Marar?" she asked him, her voice sounding thick and unsteady. "Did he tell you to kill us?"
He glanced at her through half-closed eyes, but said nothing.
She pounded her fist into his injured knee and he screamed.
"Answer me!" she demanded. "Was it Marar?"
"Yes," he managed.
"And did he want all three of us dead?"
"Yes. All three of you."
"Where are the couriers?"
He shook his head.
She raised her fist again. "You don't know, or you won't say?"
"I don't know. I swear."
"Why did you do it, Vian?" she asked, her fist still poised over his knee.
"Ask Jibb."
She shook her head. "What?"
"I said, 'Ask Jibb.' Ask him about Selim."
She didn't understand what he was saying, but she hadn't the strength to pursue the matter.
She lowered her hand and leaned back against the wall. She was starting to shiver with cold. Her lips were trembling.
She heard someone running toward them and with an effort she lifted the
hand that held her thrower. But then Jibb came into view, and she let
her arm fall to the floor again.
"Fist of the God," he whispered, rushing to her side. "Premel!" he shouted, his voice cracking slightly.
She heard a voice call back, as if from a great distance. She felt faint.
"Call for meds!" Jibb yelled.
"I'm all right," she said, closing her eyes again and swallowing.
"No, you're not. You need a doctor."
"Are you all right? Is Premel?"
"We're both fine. Premel's with Dob and the others."
She opened her eyes. "Dob?"
"He came up from the south and surprised the deep men. Like I said, I
wanted someone to know where we were going." He smiled, though there
was an anxious look in his dark eyes.
"Are the assassins dead?"
"One of them is. We grabbed the other one so you could question him."
She nodded, allowing her eyes to close again. "Good. Make sure Vian lives. I want to talk to him, too."
He brushed a wisp of hair from her brow and kissed the top of her head.
"Don't worry about that," he whispered. "Don't worry about anything.
Just rest now."
She nodded again. "Yes. I'll rest. And then I'm going to kill Marar."
21
At this point it is the waiting that disturbs me most. The bindings
of Jaryd and Cailin tell us that war is inevitable. That at least is
what history teaches us, and certainly most in this city have taken
that lesson to heart. So we sit and we wait, seeing enemies everywhere.
Will the League fight the Order? Will the mages unite to fight the
Temples, or will the Temples join forces with one body to do away with
the other? Will the People's Movement and its free mages go to war with
the God's Children, drawing the guardians of the Mage-Craft into the
conflict in some way? Or is our fight with some foreign foe: Abborij,
or Lon-Ser?
This is all we ponder; it is all we discuss. Today Jaryd and Alayna
informed the mages of the Order that their daughter, Myn, who in
fairness to them has shown signs of possessing the Sight, dreamed of
Sartol, an unsettled mage who has been dead now for eleven years. Based
on this child's nightmare, they fear that Sartol may have found a way
to alter Theron's Curse, and make himself a threat to our land again. I
fear that we have allowed ourselves to be consumed so by our
anticipation of war, that we have lost our senses. And I wonder if,
when the time comes, we will still be capable of distinguishing our
true enemies from those with whom we will need to ally ourselves in
order to prevail.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Spring, God's Year 4633.
It had taken Jaryd a long time to conquer his doubts, to stop wondering
why the gods and Rithlar had chosen him over every other mage in the
Order. For weeks after their arrival in Amarid, he had worn the title
"Eagle-Sage" uneasily. He thought of the other Eagle-Sage's in
Tobyn-Ser's history— Fordel, Decla, Glenyse— and he knew
that he did not deserve to have his name mentioned in the same breath
as theirs. They were legends, heroes. They had saved the land. And he
was but a mage. Nothing less, certainly, but nothing more either.
On more than one occasion, as they lay together in their bed in the
Great Hall, Alayna had assured him that such doubts were to be expected.
"I'd have them, too," she had said more than once. "Any of us would. I'd be more worried about you if you didn't feel this way."
Though it had taken a long time, he had finally come to recognize the
wisdom in her words. He had, at long last, learned to live with his
doubts and to accept that the gods had chosen him for a reason, for
something that they saw in him, even if he didn't, see it.
And he had done so, at least in part, because of the faith in his
leadership shown by the other mages of the Order. Their belief in his
abilities had, in turn, nurtured his own. If they think I'm worthy of
being called Eagle-Sage, he had told himself, then perhaps I should
believe it as well.
All of which had made the doubts that he saw now written across their faces that much more disturbing.
He and Alayna had just finished telling the gathered mages of the Order
about Myn's dream, making it clear that they believed the girl's vision
to be prophecy.
"Over the past few years, Alayna and I have learned to trust Myn's
Sight almost as completely as we trust our own," he had concluded. "We
believe her. We don't know how it's possible for Sartol to be coming
here. Obviously it means that something has happened to change the
nature of Theron's Curse, or to allow Sartol to escape the limitations
that the curse imposes."
At first, the other mages said nothing, and an uncomfortable silence
settled like a heavy fog over the Gathering Chamber. The mages shifted
noisily in their seats, clearing their throats or casting furtive
glances at those sitting next to them. The only thing they didn't do
was look Jaryd or Alayna in the eye. After all, Jaryd was their
Eagle-Sage, and Alayna his First, as well as his wife. How could the
others say that they didn't believe what the two of them were saying?
How could they say that where Jaryd and Alayna saw prophecy, they saw
merely the dark side of a child's imagination?
Most disturbingly, it didn't appear to be just a few of them who felt
this way. All of them did, even Orris and Radomil and Sonel. Even Baden.
Baden was the first to respond to what Jaryd had said. "None of us
doubts that Myn is an extraordinary child, Jaryd," he began, rising
slowly from his seat. "And all of us expect that she'll be a mage
someday, a powerful one at that. With you and Alayna for her parents,
she could be no less. But right now, she's only a child. She's barely
old enough to know the difference between what is real and what is
fantasy. You can't expect us to believe that she can tell the
difference between visions of the future and simple dreams."
"Baden's right," Orris added. "It's not always easy for mages to decide
whether or not we've had a Seeing. Trusting a child's judgment on such
a thing, even if it is Myn, is just too risky."
Alayna tried to tell them that they were wrong, that even a child of
Myn's age had a better sense of what was and wasn't real than they
thought. And on this point, Trahn, who had two girls of his own,
offered some support. But the others remained unconvinced.
"It makes no sense," Radomil told them, a pained expression on his
round face. "Don't you think that if the Curse had been altered in some
way that someone would have noticed?"
"Not necessarily," Trahn answered. "It's not as though any of us spend
a good deal of time with the Unsettled. Unless we have need of them, we
avoid contact with them. And Tobyn-Ser's people still fear them. I'm
not sure I believe that anything has happened to change the Curse, but
I'm certain that no one would notice if something had."
"And even if someone had noticed," Alayna said, "how would they let any
of us know? If we were out there, wandering the land, speaking with the
people the way we usually do, that would be one thing. But we're here,
hundreds of miles away from Sartol's binding place. If something had
happened, we'd be the last to know about it."
"You're right," Orris agreed. "And perhaps that's the problem. Perhaps
we've been here for too long, talking about war, planning for war,
wondering whom we're going to face in a war. Maybe it's clouding our
judgment."
"You mean our judgment, don't you," Jaryd corrected. "Alayna's and mine."
The burly man shook his head. "I didn't say that."
"But you thought it, didn't you?"
"None of us is questioning your judgment, Jaryd," Baden broke in. "Or
Alayna's either. But the two of you have been bearing an enormous
burden for quite some time now. Were any of us in your position, we
might find ourselves getting a bit carried away from time to time as
well."
"Carried away?" Jaryd shot back at him. "Is that what you think?"
Sonel placed her hand on Baden's and rose to stand beside him. "I think
what Baden means is that, even in the best of times, and even for the
most experienced leaders, it's not always easy to sift through all the
possible threats and problems we face and separate the more serious
ones from the less serious ones. The two of you have done a fine job so
far, under terribly difficult circumstances, and we all believe that
you'll continue to. But in this one instance, your perceptions may be
clouded by the fact that Myn is your daughter."
Jaryd stood and picked up his staff. "If that's what you want to
believe, that's fine. You can dismiss all that we've told you. Yes,
we're tired, and we're concerned. And yes, Myn is our daughter, and we
love her more than anything else in this world. But even if she was a
stranger, I'd think very carefully before I rejected her vision out of
hand. Alayna and I have never told her anything about Sartol. I'd be
surprised if she had ever heard his name before all this began. But
yesterday this child, who does have the Sight, and who knew before
Alayna and I did that we'd be coming to Amarid to take our places at
the head of this table, described him to us as if she had just been
standing beside him. Now if any of you can explain that to me in a way
that puts my fears to rest, please do. But until one of you can, it's
my responsibility to assume that Sartol is on his way here." He paused,
sweeping the table with his glare. And none of them said a thing.
"We're adjourned," he said, spinning away from the table with a swirl
of his cloak. "I'll see all of you tomorrow morning."
He didn't look back at them, although he did glance to the side to see
Rithlar bounding along beside him. When he reached the door to the
Sage's quarters he merely stepped inside and closed it, not loudly, but
not gently either. He had left Alayna out there to deal with them, and
he felt guilty about that, but he was fairly certain that she would
understand.
Orris, he knew, was afraid that they were all panicking. Jaryd feared
that the opposite was true: that they were growing complacent again,
that the longer they sat here waiting for a war that never began, the
less prepared they would be when it finally did. He couldn't allow that
to happen, not so long as Rithlar stayed with him.
He could hear them talking in the Gathering Chamber, arguing about what
he had just said and done, and about the possible meanings of Myn's
dream. A part of him wanted to return to the council table and join in
those discussions. But he had walked out for a reason. For now there
was nothing to do but wait for Alayna to return to their chamber, and
tell him about it. And that wouldn't happen until after all the others
had gone.
The wait proved to be shorter than he had expected. Within a half hour,
the last of the voices ceased, and he heard the sounds of Alayna's
footsteps echoing off the domed ceiling of the Great Hall as she
approached.
She entered the room, looked at him, and rolled her eyes. "What a
morning. They were terrified that they had really offended us. I've
never had so many people say so many nice things to me about Myn at one
time." She let out a long, slow breath. "I'm exhausted."
He came forward and put his arms around her. "I'm sorry to have done that to you. I shouldn't have abandoned you that way."
"Don't apologize. I'm glad you said what you did. If you hadn't, I
would have. But I think it was better coming from their Eagle-Sage."
"Did you end up convincing any of them?"
She shook her head. "I don't think so. They've been expecting our enemy
to be the League or the Temples, or, in Orris's case, the free mages
for so long, that they refuse to accept that it could be someone else."
"Particularly Sartol."
"Right," she said with a thin smile. "Do you think we gave too much
credence to Myn's dream?" she asked a moment later, her smile
vanishing. "She is just seven. Maybe we've been wrong to place so much
faith in the strength of her Sight."
Jaryd shrugged. "I suppose it's possible. But her description of him
was so precise. Even the color of his ceryll was right." He threw up
his hands and shook his head slowly. "I don't know what to think
anymore."
"Maybe we should talk to her again. Later, after she's finished with her lessons."
"All right. In the meantime," he said, "I've been thinking that I
should tell Cailin about the dream, just so she knows what we're
thinking about right now."
"You don't want to wait until we've spoken to Myn again?"
Before Jaryd could answer, someone knocked on their door. The two of
them exchanged a look and then Alayna called for whoever it was to
enter. One of the hall's attendants stuck her head into their room.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, Eagle-Sage, First, but there's a mage here to see you. One I've never seen before."
Jaryd felt his stomach start to tighten. Glancing at Alayna, he saw
that her face had turned pale. "What does he look like?" he asked.
"What color is his cloak?"
"It's a woman, Eagle-Sage. And she's not wearing a cloak. She doesn't
even have a bird. The only way I knew she was a mage was from her staff
and stone. She's asking to speak with the Owl-Sage. I wasn't sure what
to tell her."
Jaryd felt himself start to relax again. A woman, and a free mage at
that. It was strange to be sure, but that was all. "It's all right," he
said, smiling. "Send her in. We'll speak with her in here."
The woman nodded. "Very good, Eagle-Sage."
Alayna called her owl to her shoulder while the attendant went to get
their visitor. "What about Rithlar?" she asked. "Shouldn't she stay out
of sight?"
Jaryd shook his head. "Word of the eagles has spread throughout the
city. It's probably starting to move through the rest of the land by
now. There's no sense in hiding it anymore."
She nodded. "I suppose you're right."
There was a second knock at the door and a woman stepped into their
chamber. She was young, perhaps a year or two older than Cailin, but no
more. She had light brown hair and pale eyes and a face that would have
been pretty had it not appeared so severe. Like other free mages Jaryd
had encountered over the past few years, she was dressed plainly in
brown trousers and a lighter shirt. The attendant had been right:
without her bird there was nothing to mark her as a mage except for her
ceryll, which was blue, much like his own.
When she saw Jaryd and Alayna, she seemed to freeze momentarily, as if
surprised by their very presence. Then she continued to scan the room,
and seeing Rithlar she started, her eyes widening and then flying to
Jaryd.
"Is she yours?" the woman asked.
"Yes. My name is Jaryd. I'm Eagle-Sage of the Order. This is Alayna, First of the Sage, and my wife."
The woman smiled and nodded, although she didn't approach them to clasp
hands. "My name is Tammen." Her gaze returned to the eagle, and for
several moments she said nothing.
"Would you care to sit?" Alayna asked, indicating one of the large chairs by the hearth.
"Of course," Tammen said, crossing to the chair, but staring first at Jaryd and then at Alayna.
It almost seemed to Jaryd that she recognized them from a previous
meeting, and in truth, she looked somewhat familiar to him as well. "Is
something troubling you, Tammen?" he asked. "Perhaps you had expected
to find Sage Radomil instead of us."
"Yes, Radomil. He was Sage the last I had heard." Once more her eyes strayed to Rithlar. "And I knew nothing of the eagle."
"I assure you," Jaryd told her, trying to ignore his memory of
Radomil's comments during that morning's session, "I speak for the
Order just as he did, and I have, in almost all respects, continued on
the path that he and his predecessors set out for us."
Tammen smiled again. "I'm sure you have." She glanced at Alayna and
then quickly looked away. "How long have you been ... I mean when
did you bind to your eagle?"
"Near the end of winter."
She nodded and looked at the bird yet again, as if trying to divine its meaning.
"How can we help you, Tammen?"
She faced him again, although she appeared distracted. "My apologies."
She shook her head slightly, as one might when trying to clear away
stray thoughts. "I've come to you," she began at last, "to discuss a
possible alliance between the Order and the People's Movement."
"Really?" Jaryd replied with unfeigned surprise. "I was under the
impression that the free mages wanted nothing to do with either the
League or the Order."
"Yes, well that was before the Temples starting receiving weapons from
the outlanders. We now find ourselves in a position where we cannot
hope to match the strength of any of our potential rivals. Both the
Order and the League have far more mages than we do, and with their
weapons, the Keepers have become far too formidable a foe."
"So why the Order?" Alayna asked. "Why not go to the League? They have
more mages than we do, and I've always heard that the free mages hate
the Order more than anything, more even than they do the League."
Tammen hesitated, but only for an instant. "I disagree. Even before the
Movement contemplated this alliance, it always viewed the Order as a
more legitimate guardian of the Mage-Craft than Erland and his crowd."
"What would the Order gain from such an alliance?" Jaryd asked. "Are
the free towns willing to accept service from Order mages? Are you and
your fellow mages willing to work with the Order to end your conflict
with the Keepers?"
"Yes, we'd be willing to do all of that, and more. We'd be willing to
join forces with you. Wouldn't it be helpful to have additional mages
for any future conflict you might have with the League?"
"We're hoping there will be no conflict with the League, Tammen. The
leaders of the League have been working with us to put an end to all
that."
Tammen frowned. "I see."
"How do we know that you speak for the People's Movement, Tammen?"
Alayna asked. "You come here alone, unannounced. Why should we commit
to anything without hearing from other free mages and from the people
you're supposed to represent?"
"Have you always been so suspicious of strangers?" Tammen asked. "Or did something happen to make you that way?"
Alayna narrowed her eyes, but said nothing.
"I appreciate your coming to speak with us, Tammen," Jaryd said,
getting to his feet. "I will discuss your offer with the entire Order
when we convene again in the morning. In the meantime, do you have
someplace to stay here in Amarid, or would you like us to see to making
arrangements for you?"
"Thank you, but that won't be necessary." She stood, cast a thin smile
at Alayna, and walked to the door. When she reached it, however, she
stopped and faced them again. "I hope you'll forgive this imposition,
but I've never been to Amarid before and so I've never seen the Great
Hall. Would you mind if I took a few moments to look around?"
"Not at all," Jaryd said. "The Hall belongs to all the people of Tobyn-Ser. Take all the time you'd like."
"Thank you." She left the room and began to walk slowly around the Gathering Chamber.
Once she had moved some distance away, Jaryd and Alayna crossed the room so that they could watch her from the doorway.
"You don't trust her," Jaryd said in a low voice, offering it as a statement.
"Not at all. If the leaders of the People's Movement were really
interested in an alliance, don't you think they'd send a group
consisting of citizens as well as free mages?"
He nodded. "Probably."
Tammen was walking in a slow circle around the central chamber of the
hall, looking at the council table, the portrait of Amarid that adorned
the chamber's ceiling, the marble floor.
"Well if she's not here representing the Movement, why did she come?"
Alayna shook her head. "I have no idea. But something about her bothers
me. I can't say for sure what it is, but I just didn't like her. And
did you notice that comment she made about me being suspicious? Who
does she think she is?"
He smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I guess she touched a nerve, didn't she?"
"It's not funny, Jaryd. Sartol's the reason I'm so untrusting. And I didn't need her reminding me of that just now."
"I'm sorry."
She shook her head and looked out at Tammen again. "It's all right. I
just don't think that we should be too quick to make any deals with
her. At least not until we've heard from other free mages."
"I agree."
Tammen had circled the council table and was now near their door again.
She glanced at them and smiled. "Thank you," she said. "It's everything
I thought it would be."
Jaryd made himself return her smile. "I'm glad to hear it."
The woman looked like she might say more, but then she just started
toward the door. When she reached it, she looked at them one last time,
a smile still on her face, and left.
"There's just something about her that I don't like," Alayna murmured. "I don't know what it is."
* * *
He had slept poorly. He went to bed thinking about the day's debate and
all the things he shouldn't have said to Jaryd and Alayna about Myn's
dream, and his regrets had followed him into his slumber. Orris had
little doubt that his friendship with the two mages could survive
almost anything, but he also knew how unfair he had been to them. They
needed his support right now, and the Order needed to remain united
behind their Eagle-Sage. And notwithstanding the concerns he had
expressed in his latest letter to Melyor, he also knew that Jaryd would
never have mentioned the girl's dream in the context of this Gathering
had he not truly believed that it had been a Seeing.
Even knowing that, Orris wasn't ready to believe that Sartol's spirit
was on its way to Amarid. But he was anxious to apologize to both Jaryd
and Alayna, and to try to divine with them what Myn's vision might mean.
Indeed, that was what he was considering when he heard the alarm bells
on the constable's post begin to ring. A moment later he heard cries
going up from nearby, and by the time he was dressed and heading down
the stairs of the Aerie, with Kryssan gliding beside him, the bells of
the Great Hall and the Hall of the League were tolling.
His heart pounding in his chest, Orris burst out of the tavern into the
small courtyard. Trahn and Baden were there as well. Shouts and cries
seemed to be coming from all directions.
"Do you smell it?" Trahn asked, turning to look at him.
Orris nodded. "Smoke."
"Yes. And nearby."
The three of them hurried out of the courtyard, through the twists and
turns of the alleyways, and onto the main avenue of the city. From
there they could see a great black cloud of smoke rising into the
morning sky. It was coming from north of where they stood, in another
tight cluster of buildings. Plunging back into the alleyways, the three
mages soon reached the fire.
It had already claimed one building entirely, an inn from the looks of
it, and it had spread to two other buildings, one of them an inn as
well, and the other a storefront. There were people everywhere, many of
them running in different directions seemingly without a purpose. A few
appeared to be attending to the injured, who lay in the narrow street
that fronted the buildings. Others had formed a bucket line and were
trying desperately to douse the flames, which were quickly engulfing
the structures.
There were other mages there as well, three of them, all wearing blue
cloaks. Orris recognized one of them as Kovet. The other two, both of
whom were older, were healing the burns of those who had been hurt, but
Kovet was speaking with a man whose face had been blackened by smoke
and who was gesturing wildly toward the buildings.
"Let's go," Orris said, leading Trahn and Baden toward the other mages.
When Kovet spotted him, he stopped talking to the man and just stared, as if not quite certain what Orris intended to do.
"How can we help?" Orris asked, stopping in front of the dark-haired mage. "Are there still people inside?"
Kovet stared at him for a moment longer. "I'm trying to find that out
now," he finally said. "This is the innkeeper. He doesn't remember how
many rooms he filled last night."
"I went to sleep early last night," the man explained, his voice
trembling. "My wife may have sold rooms to a few more. I don't know.
She's unconscious. I just barely got her out in time." He cast an
anxious glance toward the wounded.
"Go to her," Kovet said. "If there are people inside, we'll get them out."
The man nodded and hurried away.
He faced Orris again and looked at him appraisingly. But before he
could say anything, a cry went up from the front of the bucket line.
"There are people inside!" a voice called out.
Orris spun toward Baden. "You stay here and help with the wounded!"
The bald man nodded, and Trahn, Kovet, and Orris sprinted past the
bucket line and into the building, with their birds following close
behind.
The heat of the flames hammered into Orris like a fist, sucking the air
from his lungs and making his eyes water. Fire and smoke were
everywhere, and for a dizzying moment he lost his bearings and couldn't
even remember where the door was. Then he heard a faint cry and felt
Trahn tugging at his cloak.
"This way!" the dark mage shouted, his voice just barely carrying over the roar of the blaze.
With Trahn leading the way, the three of them bounded up the stairs and started kicking open the doors to all the rooms.
The first several were empty, but there was a wall of fire blocking the
hallway, and there were voices coming from the rooms beyond it.
Shielding their faces with their cloaks, the mages ran through the
flames to the far side. There they found three more rooms. One of them
was completely burned. There seemed to be a body lying on the small
bed, but that person was clearly beyond help.
In the other two rooms, however, the mages found survivors: a young
couple in one, and an elderly man and a small boy in the other. The
younger man and woman appeared to be unhurt, but the boy had passed
out, and the man was coughing continuously.
"Are you hurt?" Orris asked him, hollering to make himself heard.
The man shook his head as another fit of coughing shook his body. "No,"
he finally managed. "The boy couldn't take the smoke, and there was no
way to get out." He gestured at a pile of canvass satchels in the far
corner of the room. "I can't carry those myself."
"What are they?"
"My wares. I'm a peddler. The boy's my nephew and apprentice."
Somewhere back up the hall there was a loud crash. The building was starting to collapse.
Orris glanced at Trahn, who shook his head.
"You'll have to leave them!" Orris told him.
"I can't! This is my whole life!"
"I'll carry it!" Kovet said, rushing forward and hoisting the bags onto
his back. "You take the boy!" he told Trahn. He looked at Orris. "You
make sure the old man and the other two get out of here."
Orris nodded. He helped the man off the bed and wrapping an arm around
the peddler's shoulders, led him out the door. Trahn already had the
boy in his arms and was wrapping his cloak around the child to protect
him from the heat as they started back down the hallway. Kovet was
behind them.
The flames in the corridor had spread up the walls and now thoroughly blocked their way.
"Any ideas?" Trahn asked, looking back at Orris and Kovet.
Part of the ceiling dropped to the floor just in front of them, sending
up a flurry of sparks. Somewhere below them the building groaned.
"There's no way through?" Kovet asked. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
The League mage made a sour face.
"What if we blast through the floor?" Orris asked. "Two of us can jump
down and we can hand down these people and the old man's things."
On the other side of the flames, more of the ceiling fell in with an impact that made the floor shudder.
Trahn eyed the walls and ceiling with uncertainty. "I don't think we have much choice. Go ahead and do it."
Reaching for Kryssan, Orris lowered his staff and sent a burst of
russet flame through the old wood. An instant later, Kovet's orange
flame did the same, and together they shaped a hole large enough to
allow them to get through, but not so large that it compromised the
stability of the floor.
Orris sat at the edge of the hole and jumped down. Much of the lower
floor was engulfed in flame, but they still had a narrow path to the
door. He grabbed a chair, placed it beneath the opening, and stood on
it, motioning for Trahn to hand the boy down to him.
Within a few moments, the boy, the peddler, and the young couple were all on the ground floor. Trahn jumped down as well.
"Get them out of here!" Orris said. "Kovet and I will take care of the peddler's bags."
Trahn nodded and started leading the others out of the building.
"Hand them down!" Orris shouted to the League mage.
Kovet nodded and started handing down the satchels. But he had only
given one to Orris when another crash echoed through the inn. Kovet
cried out and burning scraps of wood showered down on Orris through the
opening in the ceiling.
"What happened?" Orris called to him.
Kovet didn't answer.
Peering up through the hole, Orris could make out the mage's face. His eyes were closed, and he wasn't moving.
"Fist of the God!" Orris spit.
Jumping off the chair, he raced across the room and bounded up the
stairs, taking them three at a time. The corridor was littered with
burning beams and charred pieces of the fallen ceiling and Orris had to
climb over them just to get back to the wall of fire that they had been
unable to cross a moment before. He took off his cloak and balled it
up, rather than risk having it catch fire.
"Orris!" he heard from behind him.
He whirled and saw Trahn at the top of the stairs.
"What are you doing?"
"Kovet's hurt. Wait for me below. I'll need to hand him down to you."
Trahn nodded and retreated down the stairs.
Facing forward again, Orris took a deep breath and then leaped into the
fire. He felt the flames licking at his face and hands. He smelled his
hair burning and he flailed at his back and neck, all the while forcing
himself forward. The smoke was so thick that he could see nothing, and
his lungs burned for air. And then his leg hit something so suddenly
and so hard that he pitched forward, putting out his hands blindly to
break his fall.
He landed hard on his shoulder and rolled forward coming to rest on his
back with one leg dangling through the hole he and the League mage had
made.
"Are you all right?" Trahn called to him.
"Yes," he managed.
He crawled to where Kovet lay and threw his cloak over him, smothering
flames that had been climbing up the mage's blue cloak along his legs.
When the flames were out, Orris placed a hand on the man's back. He was
still breathing, though he had a nasty gash across his brow and
extensive burns on his feet and ankles.
He dragged Kovet to the opening in the floor and lowered him to Trahn.
Then he jumped through himself, landing heavily and falling to the
floor.
"Can you make it?" Trahn asked, hoisting Kovet onto his shoulders.
Orris nodded and scrambled to his feet. He had burns on his hands and
no doubt on his face and neck as well. His right leg ached from the
fall he had taken upstairs, but he was able to hobble out of the
building and into the bright sunshine.
Almost as soon as he stepped into the street, someone threw an arm
around him and helped him to a spot several yards from the fire where
he could lie down. Once on his back, he started to cough.
It was a long time before he could draw breath normally. When he
finally could, he opened his eyes and looked up to see who had helped
him. It was Jaryd, and his great bird was standing beside him.
"You almost got yourself killed."
Orris nodded, tried to say something, and found himself coughing again.
Kryssan, who was sitting on the ground beside him, nuzzled him gently.
I'm all right, he sent.
"Let me heal those burns," Jaryd said when Orris's coughing had subsided again.
"I'd be grateful."
He laid his hands gently on Orris's face, and for several minutes
neither of them spoke. When the Eagle-Sage had taken care of Orris's
burns, he turned his attention to the injury to the mage's leg. Orris
lay perfectly still during all of this, his eyes closed. He was utterly
drained, and as the pain of his wounds slowly subsided he felt himself
starting to fall asleep. He forced his eyes open and blinked several
times.
"You should rest," Jaryd told him.
"You may need help with the others."
"There are more mages here than we need. And you've done enough
already." He sat back, removing his hands from Orris's leg. "That
should do," he said. "But I want you to lie still for a while.
Understand?"
"Yes, Eagle-Sage," Orris said with mock servility.
Jaryd gave him a grin. He started to stand, but Orris gripped his arm, stopping him.
"Thank you," he said.
"My pleasure."
"And please accept my apology if I offended you yesterday."
Jaryd smiled. "It's all right. Don't worry about it."
Trahn came over and squatted down beside them. "Is he going to be all right?"
"It looks that way," Jaryd answered. "He'll be sore for a while, but I don't think it'll be anything permanent."
"Good." The dark mage looked at Orris. "Kovet seems to be all right as well. Thanks to you."
The Sage's eyes flew to Trahn and then back to Orris. "Kovet? What did he have to do with this?"
"The three of us were helping some people out of the inn and Kovet got hurt. Orris saved his life."
Jaryd gaped at him as if unable to speak, his expression so comical that Orris couldn't help but smile.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" the mage asked. "Do you really think that I would have let him die?"
"No," Jaryd said, after a moment. "But I was thinking that saving him
was probably the worst thing you could have done to him. He owes you
his life now. It's going to drive him insane."
Orris laughed. "You're right. I hadn't thought of that."
A moment later Alayna and Baden joined them as well.
"Are you all right?" Alayna asked, kneeling by Orris's side.
"Yes, thanks to your husband."
She smiled, but only for an instant.
"What's the matter?" Jaryd asked, looking from Alayna to his uncle.
She ran a hand through her hair. "We've been hearing some strange things from the people we're treating."
"Like what?"
"Several of them have said that they heard a series of loud crashes
just before the fires started. And one of them said that he saw a
bright blue flash at the same time."
"I'm not sure I understand."
"From the way they described it," Baden said, "I'd have to assume that these fires were started by one or more mages."
"What?" Jaryd stood. "Are you certain?"
Alayna nodded. "It's really the only way to explain what they heard and saw."
"You said the man saw a blue flash?" Orris asked, lifting himself onto one elbow.
"Yes."
Trahn exhaled through his teeth. "I can think of at least five mages in the Order and the League who have blue stones."
Jaryd nodded and held up his staff. "Including me."
"What if it wasn't someone from either body?" Alayna asked.
Orris shrugged. "Both the League and the Order are gathered here right now. I think it's safe to assume—"
"There's a free mage here as well. And she has a blue stone."
"It couldn't have been Tammen," Jaryd said. "She's unbound. She wouldn't have enough power to do this."
"Tammen?" Baden repeated. "A young woman? Brown hair, pale eyes?"
Jaryd nodded. "Yes. You know her?"
"Sonel and I encountered her in Tobyn's Wood while on our way to this
Gathering. She was still bound then, and she and some of her friends
were helping a free town in a dispute with the Temple." He frowned.
"What was she doing here?"
"She came to us to propose an alliance between the Order, and the People's Movement?"
Baden's eyes widened. "I find that very hard to believe."
"So did I," Alayna agreed. "I always thought that the mages of the Movement hated the Order."
"I believe they do, but I'm not even referring to that. Tammen was
intensely hostile toward Sonel and me, much more so than either of her
companions. Even if the Movement had decided to make overtures to the
Order, she seems to me a strange choice to represent them. Was she
alone?"
"She was when we spoke to her," Jaryd answered. "But there may be other free mages in Amarid."
Baden shook his head. "Very strange indeed."
"She was hostile toward the Order when you met her," Trahn said to
Baden, "but did you get the impression that she would do something like
this?"
The Owl-Master scanned the street, seeming to take in the charred
buildings and the injured. "No," he said at last. "She struck me as
impetuous and foolhardy. But I don't think she's cruel. And besides,
Jaryd's right: if she's unbound, she couldn't have done this."
Alayna opened her mouth as if to say something. But then she closed it again.
"What is it?" Orris asked.
"It's nothing," she said, shaking her head with a tight smile. "We'll
be convening soon, and I'd imagine that none of you has eaten breakfast
yet. I know Jaryd and I haven't. Why don't we head back to the Great
Hall, and we can all eat there?"
The others agreed, and Trahn and Jaryd helped Orris to his feet. His
head spun sickeningly at first, and he squeezed his eyes shut. But
after a short while he found that he could open them again without too
much discomfort. The bucket line had been unable to save any of the
three buildings, but they had kept the fire from spreading beyond them.
The injured, it seemed, had been healed. Most were standing, or at
least sitting up, and the other mages on the street were standing
together in small clusters talking. There was nothing more that they
could do.
Orris and his friends started to leave, but before they had gotten very
far, Orris heard someone call to him. He turned slowly and saw Kovet
limping in his direction. Immediately, Jaryd moved to stand by his
side. Orris didn't really expect that Kovet would try anything here,
but he found himself tightening his grip on his staff just the same.
"I guess I owe you my thanks," the mage said, stopping in front of him.
Orris felt Jaryd bristle.
"You owe him a lot more than that."
Kovet glanced at the Eagle-Sage and then at Rithlar. "Maybe I do," he
allowed, his voice low. He looked away, as if unwilling to meet Orris's
gaze. "It took a lot of courage for you to go back and get me."
"Either courage or stupidity."
The mage's eyes flew to Orris's face, and his expression hardened. But
then he saw that Orris was grinning, and after a moment he smiled as
well. "Yes," he agreed. "One or the other."
"What do you say we call it both?" Orris said. "A lot of the things
I've done over the years can be characterized that way. And yet, I
think most would agree that some good comes of them anyway."
Kovet seemed to catch his meaning. He nodded slowly, as if weighing his
words. "I suppose," he said at last. "I'll keep that in mind."
Orris nodded. "I'd appreciate it."
They looked at each other for another moment or two. Then Kovet turned
away and started back up the street in the direction of the Hall of the
League.
Orris watched him go, wondering if at last his feud with the League was
over. Kryssan nuzzled him again, and he stroked her chin.
"Come on," Jaryd said gently. "Let's get going."
Once more the mages started back toward the Great Hall. But they had
only gone a short distance when one of the Great Hall's attendants come
into view. She was running, her face flushed and her eyes wide. When
she saw Jaryd and Alayna, she stopped.
"Something's happened at the Great Hall!" she said. "Come quickly!"
Without hesitating, the mages sprang forward, running with the woman
back to the Hall. Jaryd and Alayna were ahead of the rest, Jaryd's
eagle and Alayna's great owl soaring overhead.
When at last they turned a corner and came within sight of the Great
Hall, Orris wasn't sure what to make of what he saw. Many of the Hall's
attendants— close to a dozen of them, all wearing their bright
blue robes— were standing in the street. Jaryd and Alayna
sprinted forward, and Orris realized that Myn was there as well,
standing between two women. Baden, Orris, and Trahn reached the Hall a
few seconds later.
"... A woman," Orris heard one of the attendants say as he stopped
beside Jaryd and Alayna. "The same one who came to see you yesterday.
She threatened to kill us all if we didn't leave right away. I didn't
believe she really could, because she didn't have a bird with her. But
then she made fire fly from her stone, and I got everybody out as
quickly as I could."
"You did the right thing, Basya," Alayna said. She had scooped Myn into
her arms, and she was embracing her now as if she never intended to let
the child go. "Thank you."
"It looks like Tammen was responsible for the fire after all," Jaryd
said, looking briefly at Baden and Trahn, and then at Orris. "But I
don't see how she could have done all this without a familiar."
"There's something else, Eagle-Sage," the attendant said, sounding less
sure of herself now. "The fire that came from her stone was
strange-looking. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before."
Alayna stared at the woman, her face suddenly white. "What did it look like?"
The attendant hesitated. "It seemed to have layers: blue and then yellow and then blue again."
"Of course," Alayna said, nodding as if she had known what Basya would say. "Of course."
Orris shook his head. "What? I don't understand."
Jaryd was nodding now as well. "It's Sartol," he murmured, turning to
look at the hall. "She was the one in my dream. I should have
recognized her."
"What?" Orris said.
The Eagle-Sage shook his head, as if trying to clear his sight. "It's
not important. Sartol is here; that's all that matters. Somehow he's
used Tammen to escape his binding place and come here."
"But how is that possible?"
"I don't know. But he's in the Great Hall, and he's alone with the Summoning Stone."
22
I have believed for some time now that we in Tobyn-Ser have been
asking ourselves the wrong question. "Who is our enemy?" it seems to
me, is not what should concern us. By sending us two eagles the gods
have told us that our enemy is formidable. For now, that is all we need
to know. The question that worries me much more is: "How will we
respond when we finally know whom we are to fight?"
Assuming for a moment that our conflict is not with either the Gods'
Children or the League, will we be able to put aside the hostilities
that have divided us from them for so long? As I have explained to you
in past letters, our society is riven by petty jealousies and ancient
animosities that cannot be healed overnight. You will tell me, no
doubt, that in a time of crisis we will be able to put aside our
differences and unite. I desperately wish to believe that this is true.
But I have doubts and I fear the day when our capacity for trust and
forgiveness will finally be tested.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Spring, God's Year 4633.
If it had been Radomil, Sartol would have killed him on the spot. Even
without knowing the extent to which the Summoning Stone would augment
his power, he never would have doubted that he could defeat the fat old
man. But Jaryd and Alayna were another matter. He had been Alayna's
mentor; he, of all people, had known how strong she would become. And
he still remembered as if it were yesterday how Jaryd, then new to his
power and little more than a pup, had, incredibly, kept him from
killing Baden in the Great Hall all those years ago. Seeing them there
in the Sage's quarters, Jaryd with his eagle— an eagle!—
and Alayna with an owl so much like Huvan, Sartol's last familiar, that
seeing it had taken his breath away, the Owl-Master could not help but
hesitate. He knew that something had happened; even before he entered
Tammen's body, he had seen the flashing cerylls. But he had never
expected this. How could he have? It almost seemed that the gods
themselves had given Jaryd and Alayna these new birds as confirmation
of the glorious futures hinted at by their first familiars, which had
both been Amarid's hawks.
So rather than chancing a confrontation with, them, Sartol had spoken
with them of alliances and politics, and then he had asked their
permission to take his little stroll around the Gathering Chamber. He
knew that they were watching him from their quarters, wondering who
this Tammen was and what she really wanted. So he kept a careful
distance from the Summoning Stone, venturing close enough to see if it
responded to his presence at all, but not so close that its response
would draw their attention. And only then, as he passed by the massive
crystal, did he understand what he had to do. For he did see something
as he approached it: a brief, faint glimmer of pale yellow light, no
more than the flickering of a candle in the dim silver-grey light of
morning.
But that was enough. He was still linked to the stone, although he
would need to pour more of his power into it before the connection
would be strong enough to allow him to control it fully. He needed time
with it, uninterrupted time, though not a lot. Within an hour, he would
be more powerful than any mage who might wish to oppose him, perhaps
any two. Within a day, he would be able to hold off all the mages in
Tobyn-Ser. After that, his work would begin in earnest. Nothing would
be able to stop him, and the vengeance of which he had dreamed for so
long would be his. He had been humiliated in life, reviled in death.
But now, in the second life given to him by Tammen's flesh, he would
avenge himself on all who had wronged him.
But first, he needed access to the stone.
He had taken little satisfaction in setting the fires. To be sure there
had been some pleasure in feeling the Mage-Craft flow through Tammen's
body like the waves of Duclea's Ocean. But it had only whetted his
appetite for what he knew was coming.
It was a small matter to find his way into the Great Hall afterward.
Jaryd and Alayna did just as he had expected, rushing blindly to serve
the people without even considering that it all might be a ruse. They
were all too trusting, which was why he had come so close to mastering
the stone once before. The attendants gave way with almost no fight at
all. The one who had greeted him yesterday now informed Tammen that the
Eagle-Sage and the First were not there and that she could wait or come
back another time. Sartol told her to leave and to take the other
attendants and Jaryd and Alayna's child with her or be killed. After he
sent a bolt of mage-fire arcing across the council table and into the
great stone, she obliged.
For just a moment, Sartol considered killing the child. Jaryd and
Alayna had been responsible for all that had befallen him at the end of
his life. Taking their daughter seemed to him a suitable punishment.
But the last thing he needed was for his two most dangerous enemies to
confront him before he was ready, bent on exacting revenge and justice
for the death of their child. So he let her live, sending her into the
street with the Hall's stewards.
Before he knew it, he was alone with the Summoning Stone. Finally. It
had been so easy he had to laugh; only a few minutes had passed since
he started the fires.
By the time the constable's alarm bells stopped ringing, telling him
that the fire had burned itself out, Sartol was well on his way to
mastering the giant crystal. Already it glowed with his
ceryll-hue— pale yellow, like the sands of Duclea's beaches at
sunset. It would grow brighter, he felt sure of that. One day, not very
long from now, it would be as bright as his ceryll had once been, and
as the glimmering yellow flame at the center of Tammen's blue stone now
appeared. But even now there could be no mistaking the fact that the
stone was his.
No doubt Jaryd, Alayna, and their friends knew it the moment they entered the hall.
He had his back turned to the door, and so he heard them before he saw
them. Still, without turning, he was able to guess who had come.
Besides the Eagle-Sage and his bride, there would be Baden, Trahn,
Orris, Radomil, and perhaps a few others whom he would remember from
the final battle of his life, when the entire membership of the Order
sent him into the realm of the Unsettled.
"Get away from that stone!" Jaryd commanded in a tone that was passably forceful.
"Now why would I want to do that?" he answered, turning slowly to face
them. "Ah, Sonel," he added, spotting the tall, green-eyed mage
standing next to Baden. "I had forgotten about you." There were eight
of them. The ones he had anticipated plus Sonel and Mered, all of them
looking much as he remembered, except for Baden, who looked
gratifyingly old and feeble. It was more than he had hoped would come,
but his morning with the stone had gone well. He felt certain that he
could defeat them.
"We know who you are," Alayna said. "You're not Tammen, you're Sartol."
He laughed. "I'm both, actually. But it's not a point worth quibbling over."
"Did you really think we'd let you get away with this?"
"My poor dear," he said, opening his arms and grinning. "You already have."
"You've gotten in here," Baden said, taking a step forward. "And you've
admitted to us who you are. Why don't you let Tammen go now? You don't
need her anymore."
"Ah, Baden. Always looking after those less fortunate than you. How
very noble. I'm afraid though that Tammen is beyond your help. Without
me, she'll die. You wouldn't want to be responsible for giving another
mage over to Theron's Curse, would you?"
"What is it you want, Sartol?" Jaryd asked.
He shrugged. "Power, immortality, revenge, justice. In other words, the stone, which, as you can see, is already mine."
The eight of them looked toward the great ceryll as one, and though they tried to school their features, he saw their fear.
Again he laughed. "This time you're too late. You stopped me once, but I've beaten you, as I always knew I would."
"You won't have beaten us until every mage in Tobyn-Ser is dead," Jaryd
shot back. "And as long as your power is tied to that stone, that will
never happen."
"Believe that if you'd like. Perhaps, for a brief time, that will offer
a bit of comfort. But not very long from now, you will all be dead. Do
you really think that I would have come back here so soon if I hadn't
been sure of that?" He grinned again. "I'm dead, remember? Time means
nothing to me. If I wasn't sure that I could win, I'd still be just a
ghost."
"Then we'll just have to destroy you first," Alayna told him.
"I'd have thought you'd be grateful to me, Alayna. After all, I spared
the life of your child. Doesn't that count for something?"
She started to tremble. He could see it, and it made him want to laugh out loud.
"You bastard."
"I'm bored with this conversation," Sartol said. "I have work to do. Leave now, or die, but I'm done talking."
Jaryd and Alayna exchanged a look and the Eagle-Sage gave a single nod.
An instant later, all eight of the mages raised their staffs and sent
torrents of mage-fire at him. Blue and purple, orange and green, russet
and brown, ivory and grey. And even blended into a brilliant white,
they were no match for the yellow-and-blue shield that burst from the
Summoning Stone. Jaryd and Alayna were strong now— far stronger
than he remembered them being— but the others were not, and Baden
had grown weak. With barely the effort it had taken him in life to
light a fire, Sartol blocked their assault and then sent his power
surging back toward them.
They tried to resist him. He felt them gather themselves for a second
assault, he saw the strain on their faces and in the corded muscles of
their arms. But all he had to do was summon a bit more of his magic,
enough to brighten his ceryll on a dark night, and he scattered them to
the floor with a concussion that shook the Great Hall to its
foundations.
They scrambled to their feet, looking stunned, like children who had
just been slapped by an angry parent. And, just like chastened
children, they didn't raise their staffs to challenge him again.
"I could kill you all now," he said. "I think I've made that obvious.
But I have reasons for wanting all of you to live for just a bit
longer. So be thankful, and leave me, before I change my mind."
Again, Jaryd and Alayna looked at each other. Then the Eagle-Sage said
something under his breath and the others began to file out of the
hall. Jaryd and Alayna, however remained.
"This isn't over yet, Sartol," the Sage told him. "I know you think
you've already won, but you haven't. Despite all that's happened
between the League and the Order, the League mages will join us when
they hear that you're back."
Sartol shook his head. "Fool. Do you really think that a few more mages
will make any difference to me at all? I'm no more afraid of Erland
than I am of you."
"And what about Cailin?" Jaryd asked.
He narrowed his eyes. "Who's Cailin?"
"The League's Eagle-Sage."
He tried to mask his response. It wouldn't do for them to see any doubt at all on Tammen's face. But this was too much.
"A second Eagle-Sage? I don't believe you." Actually, he was lying. He
could see that Jaryd was telling him the truth. He could hear it in the
man's voice.
"Fine. Don't believe it. Go ahead with whatever it is you have in mind
as if I never even mentioned it. But I assure you it's true. And
despite all your bluster and all your threats, I also assure you that
before all of this is over, you will be afraid of us. We may only be
mages, but the gods have sent us two eagles. They knew you'd be coming,
Sartol, even if we didn't. And they gave us the means to defeat you."
"Get out!"
"You can't win, Sartol. You're up against more than just mages and people. The gods themselves are against you."
"Get out!" Almost before he knew what he had done, a second
bolt of blue-and-yellow fire leaped from the stone, forking at the last
instant and crashing into the shields of power they had raised to
resist him. Remarkably, their power held, although the force of his
blow sent them flying into the walls of the hall. Their birds screamed
out and then hopped to where the two of them lay, dazed and bruised.
Slowly, Jaryd climbed to his feet and then helped Alayna stand as well.
"Get out," Sartol said one last time. "Or I swear I'll kill you, even if I have to tear the Great Hall apart in order to do it."
They stared at him for another moment, then made their way out the
door. Jaryd was bleeding from a gash on his head, and Alayna was
limping noticeably, but that did little to lift his mood.
Two eagles. He had never imagined that such a thing could happen. It defied explanation. The gods themselves are against you, a voice in his head repeated, as if to prove him wrong.
He stared at the wooden doors of the Great Hall, seeing once more in
his mind how the power he wielded had scattered the mages who opposed
him as if they were fallen leaves in an autumn gale. And he smiled at
the memory.
"The gods are nothing," he said aloud, turning back to the Summoning
Stone and seeing how it glimmered with his ceryll-hue. "Let them oppose
me. Before this is over, I'll be stronger than all of them."
* * *
Baden rushed forward as soon as he saw them emerge from the Great Hall,
Jaryd with an ugly cut on his brow and Alayna hobbled and wincing with
pain. He threw an arm around Alayna and helped her to a spot beside the
avenue where she could sit and rest. After a morning spent healing
victims of the fire, he was tired, as was Golivas, but he didn't
hesitate for a moment to begin treating her wound. This much he could
still do.
Laying his hands on Alayna's leg, he glanced back over his shoulder to check on Jaryd. Trahn was already healing him.
Baden turned his attention back to Alayna.
"This shouldn't take long," he told her. "I don't think the bone is broken."
"Thank you."
He smiled. "I feel like I've been doing this all morning."
"That's because you have been, Baden," she said, her expression grim.
"We're at war now. We may be doing this quite a bit over the next few
weeks."
He shuddered, his smile abruptly vanishing. She was right, of course. We're at war now.
And as if in response to the echo of her words in his mind, something
happened to the Great Hall that chilled Baden's blood. A shield of pale
yellow mage-fire, barely perceptible in the sunlight, but unmistakable,
suddenly surrounded the building.
"Fist of the God!" Baden whispered. "What's he done?"
"He's made certain that we can't attack him again," Alayna said, staring at the Hall, her expression grim.
"But the power required to do such a thing ..." He shook his head, leaving the thought unfinished.
"He's an unsettled mage," she said. "And he's mastered the Summoning Stone. Arick knows what else he's capable of doing."
He stared at her for several moments. Then he swallowed and finished healing her in silence.
As soon as he removed his hands from her leg, she started to lift herself.
"You should rest."
She gestured sharply toward the Great Hall and its sheath of yellow
magic. "I'll rest later, when all of this is over." She tried to look
past him. "Where's Myn?"
"I had Valya take her to the Aerie," Baden said. "She can stay there for now."
"That makes sense," she said, swiping impatiently at the hair on her brow. "Thank you. What about Jaryd? Is he all right?"
"I'm fine," came the Sage's voice from behind them.
Baden stood and helped Alayna to her feet.
"I'm sorry about that," Jaryd said, taking Alayna's hand. "I meant to
make him angry, but I didn't realize just how strong he is. I almost
got you killed."
She dismissed his apology with a wave of her hand. "It's all right."
When he didn't respond she touched his face and made him meet her gaze.
"I'm all right, Jaryd. And you didn't do anything wrong."
"I'd like to believe you, but I'm not so sure."
"Why?" Orris asked, joining them. "What happened?"
"I told Sartol about Cailin, about the other eagle. I didn't mean to,
but he just seemed so sure of himself. I couldn't help it; I was
looking for anything that might shake his confidence."
"I don't see anything wrong with that," Orris said.
The Sage shrugged. "I just wonder if I should have kept it from him.
Look what he's done to the Hall. Now he can take as long as he wants to
prepare himself. Maybe if I hadn't told him, he wouldn't have done
this, and we'd have another chance to fight him before he does whatever
he's planning to do."
"Maybe," Baden agreed. "But I think he would have done this no matter what you said."
"I agree," Alayna said.
The Owl-Master looked at her, and then at Jaryd. "How did he respond when you told him about Cailin?"
"He got scared," Alayna answered. "You could see it on ..." She
hesitated and looked at each of them. "Is it his face or hers?"
Baden shook his head. "I don't know. But I do think," he went on,
facing the Eagle-Sage again, "that you did the right thing. If he's
scared, he might make a mistake. Right now, anything that distracts him
from his plans, whatever they may be, works to our advantage."
"You may be right," Trahn said. "But what should we do now?"
It was still strange for Baden to see everyone looking to Jaryd and
Alayna for the answer to such a question. For so long, he and Sonel had
been the Order's leaders, the ones who guided the younger mages through
crises. Even after Radomil became Sage it had remained that way, in
part because Radomil himself was more than willing to defer to them in
times of trouble. It had taken Jaryd's eagle to bring about a true
change in the Order's leadership.
It should have been hard for Baden to accept. He had been at or near
the center of power in the Great Hall for many years. And, in all
honesty, there were times when it did bother him. It made it easier
that this was Jaryd, his former Mage-Attend and his brother's son, whom
he loved as his own son. Seeing the Sage standing beside his enormous
eagle, Baden could not help but be proud. And it helped as well that on
most occasions, Jaryd chose to do precisely what Baden would have done
in his place. Just as he did now.
"The first thing we need to do," the Eagle-Sage said, glancing back at
the Great Hall again, "is go to the Hall of the League and tell Cailin,
Erland, and the rest what's happened."
By this time, they had been joined by the other mages in the Order, who
had been informed by their colleagues or the Hall's attendants of
Sartol's presence in the Gathering Chamber. Hearing now what Jaryd
intended to do, two of the younger mages, Tramys and Orlanne, stepped
forward.
"Do you really think that's wise?" Orlanne asked. "We've just had the
Great Hall taken from us by one enemy. Do we really want to go and
announce our failure to another?"
"The League isn't our enemy," Jaryd said evenly. "Sartol is. If we're
to have any chance of defeating him, we'll need the help of every mage
in Tobyn-Ser."
"And what if instead of helping us, they choose this moment to try to destroy us? Did you think of that?"
Jaryd opened his mouth to respond, but Alayna stopped him with a hand on his arm.
"You haven't been a member of the Order for very long, Orlanne," she
said. "And I know that you were quite young and living in western
Tobyn-Ser when Sartol died. So I'll assume that your words are a
product of ignorance rather than foolishness."
The young mage's face reddened, but Alayna gave no sign that she had noticed.
"Sartol was my mentor. I've known him nearly all my life. I saw what he
did to Jessamyn and Peredur, I saw what the men with whom he allied
himself did to Watersbend, and today I saw what he's done to a mage
named Tammen, who, for all I know, did nothing at all to deserve her
fate. He is more cruel and more ruthless than any person our land has
ever known. And now that he has access to the Summoning Stone, he may
be the most powerful mage in Tobyn-Ser's history. The mages of the
League know of Sartol, even if you and Tramys don't. And regardless of
what they think of the Order, when they hear that he's back, they'll
realize that Tobyn-Ser's only hope lies in our ability to work
together. So if I were you, instead of looking for reasons not to trust
the League, I'd start trying to get used to the idea that they're going
to be our allies in this war." She swept the street with her glare, as
if challenging other members of the Order to speak against Jaryd's
proposal. "Our Eagle-Sage has suggested that we go to the Hall of the
League. I'd say it's time for us to get going."
She took Jaryd's hand in hers and started walking in the direction of
the League's hall. Without a word of protest, the other mages of the
Order followed them.
As they walked through the streets of Amarid, a strange silent
procession, the people of the city stopped to point and whisper among
themselves. Word of Sartol's reappearance had not yet spread, but their
march through the streets was already prompting other whisperings.
"They're going to war!" Baden heard one man say.
And another replied, "They're going to fight the League!"
Jaryd seemed to hear that as well, because a moment later he halted and held up a hand, signaling the others to stop as well.
"It might not be wise for all of us to just show up at their hall," he
told them. "I'd rather they didn't get the wrong idea. Alayna and I
will go on, along with Orris, Baden, Sonel, and Trahn. Radomil," he
added, turning to the goateed Owl-Master, "I'd like you to take the
rest and talk to the council of city elders about finding us a place
where we can convene. The Great Hall is beyond our reach right now, and
I'd like to have a place where all members of the Order can discuss
matters in private."
Radomil nodded. "Of course, Eagle-Sage." He hesitated. "What shall I say is the reason for our need?"
Jaryd pressed his lips into a thin line and rubbed a hand over his
face. "Tell them the truth," he said at last. "With what Sartol has
done to the Hall, lying to them would be pointless."
"Very well." Radomil smiled. "Don't worry, Jaryd. They'll listen to you. They must."
Jaryd gripped the man's arm. "Thank you, Radomil."
The small delegation stood in the center of the avenue watching as the
portly mage led the rest of the mages away. Then, with Jaryd leading
them once more, they walked the rest of the way to the Hall of the
League and knocked on the building's large wooden doors.
For several moments there was no response, but just as Jaryd raised his
hand to knock a second time, one of the doors opened and a young woman
in a long grey robe peered out at them.
"I'm sorry," she said. "The League is in Conclave right now, but ..."
She fell silent, staring at them in disbelief.
"We need to speak with the League of Amarid," Jaryd told her. "Please
tell Eagle-Master Cailin and First Master Erland that Eagle-Sage Jaryd,
First of the Sage Alayna, and a small group representing the Order are
here."
"B-But they're in Conclave. They're not to be interrupted."
"In this one case I'm sure they'll understand."
"But they're—"
"If you tell us they're in Conclave one more time," Orris said,
stepping forward, a fearsome expression on his face, "I'm going to tear
your hall apart stone by stone. And believe me, that will be much
harder to explain to Cailin and Erland than a simple interruption of
their Conclave." He glared at her. "Have I made myself clear?"
The woman nodded and took several steps back away from him before
turning to deliver their message. She didn't even bother closing the
door again.
While they waited for her to return, Baden looked at Orris and raised an eyebrow. " 'Stone by stone'?"
The burly mage shrugged. "It worked didn't it?"
"Yes," Jaryd said over his shoulder, a slight smile on his lips. "But
I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from threatening anyone else. We're
here looking for allies."
An instant later another young woman appeared in the doorway, looking
breathless and pale. She wore a blue cloak and carried a staff with a
golden stone. But it was only when the eagle appeared beside her,
looking almost as large as she, that Baden realized this was Cailin.
"Jaryd, Alayna," she said. "Welcome." She glanced at the others as if
to include them in her greeting, but her gaze returned quickly to
Jaryd's face. "What's happened?"
The Eagle-Sage hesitated. "It would be best if I could tell all of you at once."
"Of course," Cailin said with a nod. "Come in."
She backed away from the door, gesturing for them to enter. But as they
made their way toward the large table that stood in the middle of the
League's hall, she fell in beside Orris.
"I know what you did today," she whispered. "I think it may be the most noble thing I've ever known anyone to do."
In the next instant she was gone, hurrying to her place at the far end
of the table next to Erland. Baden looked over at Orris and saw that
the mage's face was bright red. He almost said something— half a
dozen quips about schoolgirl infatuation leaped to mind— but
remembering the woman Orris had loved and left behind in Lon-Ser, Baden
thought better of it.
"Be welcome in our hall," Cailin said a moment later, standing in front of her chair and smiling at them.
Erland was standing as well, although he eyed the Order mages with an
icy expression. And though the other mages of the League shifted their
chairs in order to make room at their table for Baden and his
companions, they did so silently, the looks on their faces much more
like Erland's expression than Cailin's.
Jaryd led his friends over to the table and indicated with a subtle
hand movement that they should sit. He remained standing, however.
"Thank you, Eagle-Master, First Master," he said, nodding to each of
them in turn. "You honor us with your greeting and by allowing us to
join your Conclave."
"What is it that you want?" Erland demanded.
Jaryd regarded Erland coolly for a moment before looking around the
table at the other League mages. "Since I first learned that the League
had an Eagle-Master," he began in an even tone, "I have vowed that I
would do all I could to avoid any conflict that might pit mages of the
Order against mages of the League. All of us who serve the land wish to
protect it, not to divide it, and I have been steadfast in my belief
that the League is not our enemy. Instead, I have maintained that the
gods sent these eagles to us so that we would unite when the time came
to fight another foe, and I vowed that upon learning of whom that foe
might be, I would come to the League and do all that was in my power to
convince you to join us in our struggle." He paused, sweeping the room
with his gaze. "It is for this reason that my companions and I have
come to you today."
"You know who it is?" Cailin said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "You know who we're to fight in this war?"
"I think it's more appropriate," Erland said before Jaryd could
respond, "to ask the Eagle-Sage how he can assume that we would
consider an enemy of the Order to be our enemy as well."
Baden could see the muscles in Jaryd's jaw tighten, and for a moment he
feared that the Sage would fire back a barb of his own. And not too
long ago he would have. But Jaryd was Eagle-Sage now, and he responded
to Erland's comment with a dignity befitting that title.
"I assure you, First Master," he said, "there isn't a mage in this hall
who will want to stand with this enemy. I'm quite confident of that."
"Who is it?" Cailin asked, casting a hard glance at Erland.
Jaryd took a breath. "The unsettled spirit of the traitor Sartol."
Cries of disbelief and denial filled the hall, the loudest as Baden would have expected, coming from Erland.
"That's impossible! Theron's Curse doesn't allow such a thing!"
"Apparently, Sartol has found some way to alter the Curse," Jaryd
answered. "Or, more likely, he's managed to escape its limitations. He
came to us in the guise of a young free mage named Tammen. But we have
no doubt that it's Sartol. He's here in Amarid."
Erland shook his head. "I don't believe you." He looked frightened,
however, like a man who knew all too well that he was hearing the truth.
"There's more," Jaryd told them. "He's taken the Great Hall from us. He has the Summoning Stone."
"What?" asked Stepan, one of the older mages, who had once been a member of the Order. "How could you allow such a thing?"
"We didn't know yet that this woman was Sartol. The alarm bells started
ringing this morning, and we left the Great Hall without a second
thought. When we returned, we found Tammen there— or rather,
Sartol. A group of us tried to fight him, but with the stone he was
just too strong."
"So you think Sartol started the fires?" another man asked. It took
Baden a moment to realize that it was the mage Orris had saved earlier
that day.
"Yes."
Stepan shook his head. "Arick save us all."
"I don't understand," Cailin said. "What can he do with the Summoning Stone?"
Baden and Erland stared at each other across the table. And for just
that brief moment, Baden knew that they were thinking the same thing:
how is it possible that a leader of the League could be young enough
not to know such a thing?
"Before we defeated him twelve years ago," Erland explained quietly, "Sartol had begun to link himself to the Summoning Stone."
"You mean to make it his?" the young mage asked, a look of fear
creeping into her bright blue eyes. "The way one would a ceryll?"
Erland nodded. "Yes. In the days after his death, we who were in the
Order at the time decided not to tell anyone about this. We didn't
think there was any sense in letting the people of the land know how
close he had come to destroying Tobyn-Ser."
Cailin nodded and looked at Jaryd. "So when he returned today, he was able to make the stone his again."
"I don't think it ever stopped being his," Jaryd told her. "He had only
been alone with it for half the morning when we returned from the fire,
and he already had mastered it enough to fight off eight of us."
"Sartol," Erland said in a low voice, shaking his head slowly. "I never thought we'd have to worry about him again."
"Does that mean that you believe them, First Master?" one of the younger League mages asked.
Once more, Erland looked across the table at the Order mages, his eyes
finally coming to rest not on Jaryd, but on Baden. Oddly, Baden
understood. There were no old friends here, but perhaps the next best
thing was the comfort of an old enemy.
"If this is a trick," Erland said, trailing off and letting the threat hang between them unspoken.
Baden shook his head. "It's no trick. It wasn't easy for us to come to
you like this, in need of help and exiled from the Great Hall. We
wouldn't be here if the threat wasn't real."
Erland held his gaze for another few moments before giving a reluctant nod. "Yes, Gerwen," he said. "I believe them."
"I'm glad to hear it," Jaryd remarked in a tone seemingly free of
irony. "Next we should decide on a course of action. We need to act
quickly if we're—"
"With all due respect, Eagle-Sage," another of the young mages broke
in, sounding anything but respectful, "you don't set the agenda for our
Conclave. Erland and Cailin do."
"Thank you, Vawnya," Cailin said. "But this is now a council of war,
and Jaryd has as much right to direct our discussion as I do."
"On whose authority?" Erland demanded.
The young woman glared at him. "Mine. Unless you care to revisit the discussion we had in your chamber the other day."
"No," the Owl-Master said after a brief silence. He glanced around the
table and took a long breath. "Cailin's right: this has become a
council of war. And in matters of war, particularly against this enemy,
we should hear from both Cailin and Jaryd."
The Eagle-Master nodded and faced Jaryd again. "You were saying, Eagle-Sage ... ?"
Jaryd smiled. "I was saying that we need to act quickly, and I'd add
that we need to move beyond the petty jealousies that can be found
among mages of both bodies. When all this is over, we're free to go
back to being rivals again, but right now that's a luxury we can't
afford. For better or worse, the gods chose to give eagles to Cailin
and me, and if we're to defeat Sartol, the rest of you will have to
respect their choices. I believe that we need to seek the counsel of
the Unsettled. Sartol is of their realm, and they may know of a way to
defeat him. Cailin, I'd like you to choose two or three mages to
accompany us on a journey to speak with the nearest of the Unsettled.
And I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who knows which of the
spirits is closest to here. I know of none who's closer than Phelan."
He looked down at Alayna and then at Baden, a question in his pale eyes.
"I can't think of anyone," Alayna said.
Baden shook his head. "Neither can I. This is the reason we battled the
outlanders at Phelan Spur all those years ago. We decided that he was
the closest."
"What about Rhonwen?" Vawnya asked.
Baden frowned. "Who?"
But Jaryd and Alayna were nodding.
"Of course," Jaryd said. "I'd forgotten. Her binding place is in Tobyn's Wood, due south of the mountains."
Cailin looked from Jaryd to Vawnya. "Who is Rhonwen?"
"Rhonwen," Jaryd replied, "was a young mage who entered the Order just
a year or two after Alayna and I did. Less than a year after she found
her hawk, the bird was killed, by a hunter I think. An accident. And
before she could bind again, she was taken with a fever. She died
shortly thereafter." He shook his head. "She was the last mage to enter
the Order before ..." He stopped himself, but no one in the hall
had any doubt as to what he had been about to say. She was the last
mage to join the Order before the sundering of the Mage-Craft.
"You say that her binding place was in Tobyn's Wood?" Orris asked.
Vawnya nodded. "Yes, just north of the top of Phelan Spur. It should be no more than a week's ride from here."
"Then she sounds like the best choice," Cailin said, taking charge of
the discussion once more. She looked at Jaryd. "When do you want to
leave, Eagle-Sage?"
"Today. As soon as you and the others you select are ready."
She nodded. "Give us until midafternoon. We'll meet you outside the hall."
"All right." Jaryd motioned for his companions to stand. "In the meantime, we'll inform the rest of the Order."
He turned away from the table and led Baden and the rest out of the
hall and into the street. There, surprisingly, they found Ursel waiting
for them.
"Don't tell me you've found a place already?" Jaryd said.
The mage nodded. "When the elders heard we were in need, they offered
the constable's building." She grinned. "It seems the head of the
council and the constable are both Order men."
"Has anything happened?" Jaryd asked as they began to walk toward the
constable's building, which was in the center of the city, near
Amarid's home. "Has Sartol done anything?"
"There's light coming from within the hall, so he must be doing
something with the stone, but other than that we really don't know."
Jaryd pressed his lips in a thin line and nodded, but he said nothing,
and they walked for some time in silence. After a while, Ursel looked
at Jaryd and then glanced back at Baden and the others. "How did your
conversation with the League go?" she finally asked.
"Better than I could have hoped," the Sage admitted. "A group of us,
Order and League mages both, will be leaving later today to speak with
an unsettled mage in Tobyn's Wood."
Her eyes widened slightly. "That's a fine start. I wouldn't have
believed such a thing could happen so quickly. You must have been very
persuasive."
Jaryd shook his head. "It wasn't me. It was Sartol. The mere mention of
his name is enough to convince even the most stubborn mages to put
aside their differences."
Baden thought that Jaryd was taking far too little credit for what had
just happened in the League's hall, but he said nothing. He was, at
this point, consumed with another matter that he fully expected to have
to address in the next few moments. So he just walked, holding Sonel's
hand in his own, and trying to decide how best to inform Jaryd of the
decision he had made.
The constable's building was not a particularly attractive one. It had
neither the soothing curves of the Great Hall nor the graceful, lofty
spires of the Temple of the Gods located on the edge of the city. The
tall bell tower rising from the back of the building was too ponderous
to be considered the least bit beautiful. Nor was it an especially
large building. Seven years ago, before the formation of the League,
such a building would never have sufficed for the Order. But since the
Order now consisted of fewer than thirty mages, the building was more
than adequate.
They found Radomil and the other mages of the Order waiting for them
inside, standing in a spacious room that was otherwise empty.
"I hope this is satisfactory, Eagle-Sage," the Owl-Master said, as
Jaryd led Baden and his companions into the chamber. "The constable has
promised us chairs and a table, but he said it might take a day or two."
"This is fine, Radomil. Thank you."
"Shall I see to some food before we resume our discussions?"
Jaryd shook his head. "We haven't time. A group of us will be leaving
shortly for Tobyn's Wood and the binding place of an unsettled mage
named Rhonwen."
As the rest of the mages gathered around them, Jaryd explained what had
happened in the Hall of the League and what he and Cailin had decided
to do. At first, no one spoke out against the idea, although Baden
could tell from the expressions on the faces of Tramys, Orlanne, and
some of the other young mages that they still did not relish the idea
of entering into an alliance with Erland and his followers.
After several moments, however, Radomil took a long breath. "Forgive
me, Jaryd, but do you think it's wise for both you and Cailin to leave
Amarid at this time? If Sartol tries anything, we may need an
Eagle-Sage to lead us in battle."
"You may be right, Radomil," the Eagle-Sage said, placing a hand on the
portly man's shoulder. "But it may take both of us to convince the
Unsettled to help us. Besides," he added, a rueful smile on his lips,
"I don't think either of us would agree to stay. I'm not willing to
give control of this delegation to the League, and Cailin wouldn't
trust Erland to represent her."
Radomil nodded. "I see your point," he said quietly.
"We'll return as quickly as we can. Sartol has surrounded the Hall with
his magic. I don't get the feeling that he'll be attacking anytime
soon. I'm afraid he has something more elaborate in mind."
"Who are you going to take with you?" Orris asked, when the Sage had finished.
"Well, I had hoped that you would come."
The burly mage grinned. "Of course."
Jaryd turned to Alayna, but she shook her head before he could even say something.
"One of us should stay here with Myn."
He nodded. "All right. Then in addition to Orris, I'll take Baden and Trahn."
Baden swallowed. He had been expecting this. "As much as I'd like to go with you, Eagle-Sage, I'm afraid I have to decline."
Jaryd stared at him as if he had just announced that he was leaving the Order to join the League. "Why?"
"This is a younger mage's journey, Jaryd. You need to cross the
mountains as quickly as possible, preferably on horseback, and I'll
only slow you down."
"That's ridiculous! You know Erland will be going. He wouldn't trust
Cailin with something like this. And he's older than you are."
Baden smiled. "Just because Erland is an old fool doesn't mean that I should be, too."
The Eagle-Sage stepped forward and placed a hand on the Owl-Master's
shoulder. "Baden, I need you. I need your wisdom and your guidance,
just as I always have. Please don't make me do this without you."
"You'll have Trahn with you, and Orris. I'm confident that the three of
you have enough courage and wisdom to handle Erland and the Unsettled."
"Never mind Erland and the Unsettled," Jaryd said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Who'll handle me?"
Baden pulled him close, as much to hide his own tears as to comfort
Jaryd. "You'll be fine," he said softly, so that only the Sage could
hear. "The gods chose well when they sent that eagle to you."
A moment later he released the mage, although not before giving Jaryd's arm one last squeeze.
"Very well," Jaryd said, pitching his voice to carry. "Orris, Trahn,
and I will go. I'm hopeful that we can be back within a fortnight." He
turned to Alayna and gathered her in his arms. "Take care of yourself,"
he told her. "And tell Myn I love her."
She nodded. "I will. If anything happens, we'll use the Ceryll-Var to let you know."
Jaryd kissed her and then let her go. "Are you two ready?" he asked, facing Orris and then Trahn.
"Aren't we always?" Orris answered, grinning once more.
The Eagle-Sage smiled in return, and the three of them turned to leave the meeting house.
"Arick guard you!" Baden called to them.
Jaryd looked back over his shoulder. "And you."
A moment later, they were gone, and Baden was left to wonder if he had done the right thing.
Sonel walked over to stand beside him and laced her fingers through
his. "That took courage, Baden," she told him in a low voice. "I know
how much you wanted to go. I'm proud of you."
He gave her a small smile, but it faded quickly. Sartol had returned,
Tobyn-Ser's two Eagle-Sages were on their way to Tobyn's Wood to enlist
the aid of the Unsettled, and though Jaryd and Cailin had managed to
bring the League and the Order together for the moment, the mistrust
that had divided mage from mage for so many years remained. And yet,
selfish as it seemed, Baden could not help but wonder in the midst of
all this, if he still had a role to play in saving the land.
"I feel old," he said, as Sonel kissed his cheek.
She smiled, the playful soft smile he had come to know so well over the
years. "You are old. I am, too." Her expression hardened. "But that
doesn't mean we're powerless. This may be Jaryd's war, and Cailin's,
but we'll be there at the end. One way or another, we'll be there."
23
As I have sought changes in the ways of the Nal, I have, of course,
met with resistance from Overloads, Nal-Lords, break-laws, and even
guards under Jibb's command. And though this has been a source of
frustration, it has not come as a great surprise. The Nal has worked
under one set of rules for a long time, to the benefit of many.
I did expect, however, that my efforts to curb the Nal's excesses would
win the support of the Network. I am, after all, a Gildriite, a Bearer
of the Stone. As such I thought that Bragor-Nal's Gildriites would
embrace me as an ally. I am the first of my people to rise so high in
the Nal's hierarchy; certainly I am the first to do so while
acknowledging my ancestry. Yet, they have spurned every overture I have
made toward them, offering no explanation. I have made it clear to
every break-law and lord in Bragor-Nal that the oppression of
Gildriites will no longer be tolerated. Acting on my orders, Jibb has
ended SovSec's persecution of the Network. And still, they treat me as
if I am their enemy. Obviously, I am confused by their behavior. But
more than that, I am hurt by it.
— Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal to Hawk-Mage Orris, Day 6, Week 12, Winter, Year 3067.
For several days Melyor did little more than sleep. They woke her every
few hours to give her more pain medicine and then allowed her to drift
away again. She was vaguely aware of certain things: the dull ache in
her right thigh, Jibb hovering at her side, doctors moving in and out
of her bedchamber. She gathered from what she managed to hear of Jibb's
conversations with the meds that while her wound was deep, it was not
too serious. She would heal eventually. She had a number of vivid
dreams during this time, most of them of the firefight they had just
come through. But she also dreamed of killing Marar, and in one
especially clear vision, she saw Orris come to her and lay his hands on
her leg to heal her.
When she finally did awake, it was night. Jibb was there, of course,
sitting at the foot of her bed, a worried look on his round face.
"I was starting to wonder if you'd ever wake up," he said, smiling at her with so much relief that it made her blush.
"How long have I been out?"
"Three days. They had to repair the bone," he added, seeing her reaction. "And you had lost a lot of blood."
"Three days," she muttered. She shook her head and found that doing so
made her dizzy. "Has there been any word from Wiercia?" she asked,
closing her eyes again.
"No."
"What about Marar? Has he tried to contact anyone in the palace?"
"Not that we know of." He took her hand. "You shouldn't be worrying about all this. Not yet. You need to rest some more."
"Rest?" she said, her eyes flying open once more. "I've lost three
days! There's no telling what he's up to now! For all we know he's
already recruited someone else to take the place of my driver and
Premel." She sat up and glanced around the room, weathering another
wave of dizziness. "Where is Premel, anyway?"
His expression soured. "I haven't put him in prison yet, if that's what you're asking."
"Actually, I was wondering if you'd killed him."
He gave a small laugh. "No, not that either."
"Did you talk to Vian?"
Jibb's face abruptly turned pale. "Yes."
"Why did he do it? Who was Selim?"
The security man swallowed. He looked like he was about to be ill.
"Selim i Vitor," he said at last. "He was a break-law I killed in the
Eighteenth Realm last year during a skirmish. Apparently Selim and Vian
were half brothers. Same mother, different father."
"Which is why we never knew," Melyor said, completing the thought. "They had different surnames."
He nodded, but said nothing. Instead, he merely stared at his hands.
She could see from the look in his dark eyes how angry he was with
himself, and she laid her hand on his arm.
"It wasn't your fault, Jibb. I'm the one who trusted him."
"He says he didn't even care about killing you. It was me he wanted. But that was almost enough to get you killed."
"You couldn't have known. No one could have."
He took a long breath, his eyes flicking in her direction for just an instant. After a moment he gave a small nod.
There was a knock at her door, and one of the doctors walked in.
"You're awake!" he said, a smile on his square face. "Splendid."
He sat beside her and gently removed the dressing from her leg, revealing an ugly, raw wound.
Melyor swallowed and looked away.
"You think that's bad," the doctor said. "You should have seen it a few days ago."
"When can I walk again?" she asked, looking at the wall next to her bed as he changed the bandages.
"I'd like to get you on some walk-aids in the next day or two. It'll be
a while though before you're running through the tunnels again."
"What does 'a while' mean?"
He stopped working on her leg and took a long breath. "I'd say you'll
probably be walking unaided again in four weeks," he replied at last,
turning his attention back to the dressing. "Full activity again in
six, maybe seven."
"Six weeks?"
"Maybe seven."
She shook her head again. The dizziness was subsiding. "That's unacceptable! I have things to do! Places I need to go!" I have to kill Marar.
The doctor said nothing as he finished with her leg, but then he turned
to face her. "I'm not repairing a carrier, Sovereign. I'm not tinkering
with a thrower. And I'm not making you wait that long for any sort of
treatment. I'm merely telling you what your body needs in order to
recuperate." He stood. "I can't make you listen to me, of course. And,"
he added, giving her a disapproving look, "I'm sure you're anxious to
get back at whoever did this to you. But I've given you my opinion. If
you rush this, you may never move the way you used to."
He nodded once to Jibb and left, closing the door behind him.
"So are you going to listen to him?"
"I haven't decided yet," she said, her tone sullen.
"Melyor—"
"I heard him, Jibb. I'm not deaf, and I'm not stupid. I just need to
find a way to follow his advice without giving Marar time to buy
himself a new ally in this palace."
"I could take some men, capture him, and bring him back to you."
"And let him see me lying here in bed, like an invalid? He'd die thinking he had won. No, there has to be another way."
"I don't think there is. Not if you're going to stay off your feet."
And in that moment she knew. "But I don't have to stay off my feet," she said, grinning.
"But the doctor said—"
"The doctor said that it would be weeks until I could run again. But he
also said that he wanted me on walk-aids in the next day or two."
"So you're going to hobble into Stib-Nal on walk-aids?"
"That's my plan. I just need a little bit of help."
Jibb stood, thrusting his good hand into the pocket of his trousers,
and began to pace, as he seemed to do so often these days. "Help? Who
could possibly help you with an idiotic stunt like this?"
It was a familiarity she would not normally have allowed, even from
Jibb. But these were extraordinary circumstances, and she could hardly
begin to imagine how much he had worried about her over the past few
days. So she let it go, choosing instead merely to answer his question.
"The Network."
He halted in the middle of her room. "The Network? How can they help with this?"
"Do you remember Gwilym?" she asked, feeling her chest tighten as she
mentioned his name. She remembered him as clearly as she remembered her
own father. His kind brown eyes, his shy smile, and the quiet
confidence and grace with which he carried himself. He had come to
Bragor-Nal from the Gildriite settlements in the Dhaalmar, drawn to the
Nal by a vision of Orris. And just as her own vision of the mage had
convinced her to abandon her life as a Nal-Lord and join Orris's
struggle against Cedrych and the Tobyn-Ser Initiative, Gwilym's vision
of redemption for Oracles throughout Lon-Ser drove him to journey with
Melyor and Orris to Oerella-Nal. There, just outside Shivohn's palace,
he died, the victim of an assassin's attack. But before he died, as his
life's blood seeped into the Oerellan avenue, he gave Melyor his stone,
thus making her a Bearer and changing her life forever.
"You mean the Bearer?" Jibb asked.
Melyor nodded, although she was staring across the room at her stone.
It was red now, but it had once been golden brown, back when it was
Gwilym's.
"Sure I remember him," the security chief said, drawing her gaze back to his face. "But what does that—?"
"The Network got him all the way through Oerella-Nal and almost all the
way through Bragor-Nal without anyone knowing about it, including
Shivohn's security, SovSec, and Cedrych. If they can do that, they can
get you and me into Stib-Nal."
"It's not the same, Melyor. The Bearer could walk."
"Give me a pair of walk-aids, and I can walk, too."
He shook his head. "This is a bad idea."
"Well, at least that's an improvement. A few minutes ago it was idiotic."
Jibb frowned. "I'm sorry I said that."
"You can make it up to me by finding me someone from the Network."
"How in Arick's name am I supposed to do that?"
"I don't know," she said with a shrug. "You're the head of SovSec; you figure it out."
He stared at her, shaking his head. After a moment he began to smile. "I'm not going to change your mind, am I?"
"You have a far better chance of finding the Network."
"All right," he said, laughing. "But for now I want you to rest." He
walked to the door. "I'll have some food brought up to you, then I'll
get to work on this. Will that be satisfactory, Sovereign?"
She grinned. "Quite, General. Thank you."
Notwithstanding her confidence in Jibb's abilities, and the blithe
manner in which she sent him to find a member of the Network, Melyor
knew just how difficult a task she had given him. Years ago, when
Cedrych learned that Orris was in Bragor-Nal and in the care of the
Network, he sent her to find him. It took her all of her resources and
the better part of two days to do so.
Which was why she was truly shocked when Jibb returned to her chambers
midway through the following day with a young, wiry, dark-haired woman
wearing black trousers, an ivory tunic, and a black overcoat—
clothes that marked her as a break-law.
"This is our Gildriite?" Melyor asked. With help from the doctor she
had moved to a large cushioned chair by one of her windows, and she
shifted slightly now so that she could get a better look at the woman.
"Yes, Sovereign," Jibb replied. "She denies it, but my sources tell me
she's a member of the Network. On the street they call her Mouse. She
wouldn't give me her real name."
"That's all right," Melyor said. "Mouse will do."
He crossed to where she sat and handed her a scratched, discolored
thrower and a blade with a badly worn handle. "She was carrying these."
"Thank you, Jibb. You can leave us for now."
He glanced at Mouse with manifest distrust, but after a moment nodded and withdrew.
Melyor waved a hand at the chair opposite hers. "Please sit down."
The woman just stared at her, unmoving.
"Suit yourself," the Sovereign said with a shrug. She narrowed her
eyes, looking Mouse up and down. The woman had a small scar on her
chin, and another on her wrist, but they were old. Given the way she
stood there in the middle of the Sovereign's quarters— the
battle-ready stance, the defiant look in her pale blue eyes, and the
slight smirk on her thin lips— Melyor guessed that she had made
herself into an accomplished street fighter. In many ways, Mouse
reminded Melyor of herself when she was still a break-law. "So you
belong to the Network," Melyor finally said.
"No, Sovereign," Mouse answered. "As I told the security goon, I'm no
Gildriite. I'm just a poor independent trying to make her way in the
Nal."
Melyor raised an eyebrow. "That goon, as you call him, is the head of SovSec, and his sources are seldom wrong."
Mouse shrugged and glanced indifferently around the room. "Well, they are this time."
"Well, let's assume for the moment that they're not."
"But they are."
Melyor smiled thinly. "Humor me."
Their eyes met, and Melyor held the woman's gaze until finally Mouse looked away. "All right," the break-law murmured.
"If I wanted the Network to get me into Stib-Nal, who would I talk to,
and how much lead time would you need to get me in touch with that
person?"
Mouse held her arms out wide. "How can I answer a question like that? I tell you, I'm not a Gildriite. I'm just—"
"I know," Melyor broke in. "A poor independent, trying to make her way in the Nal."
The woman gave an insolent look and nodded.
"So why aren't you with a gang yet, Mouse?" the Sovereign asked, playing absently with the worn dagger Jibb had given her.
"I don't know," Mouse said with another shrug. "I guess I'm not good enough yet."
Melyor smiled indulgently, and then, with a motion so fluid that Mouse
had almost no time at all to react, she lifted the dagger by its blade
and hurled it at the woman.
And just as she had expected, Mouse dived to the floor as the blade
passed harmlessly over her head, rolled, and came up reaching for her
thrower. Or rather, reaching for where her thrower should have been.
Melyor was already holding the weapon in her hand, its dented firetube
aimed at the woman's heart.
"Easy, Mouse," she said. "Don't do anything foolish."
"Me?" the woman said, her eyes blazing. "You're the one who just tried to kill me!"
"I wasn't trying to kill you. I was just proving what I already
suspected. You're a liar. No independent who moves like you do should
have any trouble convincing a gang to pick her up. Not unless she
wanted to remain an independent. Perhaps as a way of concealing a
secret?"
Mouse looked away. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Stop it. I'm sure you've fooled lots of people over the years, and I'm
sure you'll fool many more. But not me. Never me. We're too much alike."
The woman snorted in disbelief.
"How do you think I got started, Mouse? Think for a minute. I've known
I was a Gildriite since I was a little girl, and I started my life in
the quads when I was fifteen. I was you once. Is that really so hard to
believe?"
Mouse stared at her for several moments, saying nothing. Melyor could
see that there was a war raging within her, and she understood. Like
Mouse, she had spent years hiding her ancestry from everyone she met.
It had been a struggle for her even to reveal her secret to Jibb, whom
she had trusted with her life for years. What she was asking of Mouse
now was far more difficult.
"I thought that you were different," the woman finally said. "I thought
that you weren't coming after the Network. They all said, 'She's a
Gildriite. She's changing things.' "
It was, Melyor realized, the closest thing to an admission she was
likely to get. "I am different. I'm not only a Gildriite," she said,
gesturing toward her staff, which leaned against the wall by her bed,
"I'm a Bearer."
"Then why are you doing this to me?"
"I'm not doing anything to you, Mouse. The question I asked you before
was sincere. I need the Network's help, and so I needed to speak with
someone who could put me in touch with them." She shrugged. "You just
happened to be the one Jibb found."
"Lucky me."
Melyor grinned. "Lucky you." Again she pointed to the chair in front of hers. "Won't you sit?"
Mouse glanced down at the chair, clicking her tongue. Finally, with a
low sigh and a roll of her eyes, she dropped herself into the chair,
allowing one thin leg to dangle over the cushioned arm. Melyor had to
suppress a laugh; it was like looking at a mirror image of herself.
"Why do you need to get to Stib-Nal?"
Melyor almost went for the bait. It was an impertinent question, one
this woman, who was really little more than a girl, had no right to
ask. And the Sovereign almost told her so. But that, she was sure, was
what Mouse wanted her do. The break-law was looking for reasons not to
help her or answer her questions. Melyor wasn't about to give her
another.
"Stib-Nal's Sovereign has tried a number of times to have me
assassinated." She indicated her bandaged leg with a dismissive
gesture. "I got this from his latest attempt. I've grown tired of it,
so I'm going to Stib-Nal to kill him."
Melyor had to give Mouse credit. She had expected the woman to gape at
her, her mouth open in shock at the Sovereign's candor. But apart from
a slight widening of her eyes, Mouse offered no physical reaction at
all.
"Sounds dangerous. You sure you're up to it?"
Melyor did laugh at that. "Now you sound like Jibb. But," she added,
her mirth fading, "I still want an answer to my question. Who would I
need to contact about such a journey, and how long would it take you to
get me in touch with him or her?"
"Why should the Network help you?"
"Why shouldn't it?" the Sovereign snapped. "You said yourself that I'm
different. I'm a Bearer. Doesn't that count for something? I've stopped
SovSec's raids on your hideouts, I've ended the persecution of
Gildriites in the Nal—"
Mouse laughed. "If you still lived in the quads, you'd know how wrong
you are. The prejudice against Oracles hasn't vanished, it's just gone
underground, where it can't be seen from the Gold Palace."
"If you're still being attacked, I want to know who's doing it. I guarantee you, I'll have SovSec all over them within a day."
The woman hesitated. "I haven't seen any attacks. But the hatred is still there."
"I can't change that, Mouse. I can change the rules so that those who
hurt Gildriites go to prison, and I can keep SovSec and the lords and
break-laws who work for me from persecuting you. But I can't make them
think differently. That takes time. And maybe it will help that the Nal
now has a Bearer as its Sovereign. Maybe people will see that, and it
will start to change their minds. But I can't make it happen overnight."
Mouse smirked. "That's just what I'd expect a Sovereign to say."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You can afford to tell the Gildriites in the quads to be patient. You
don't have to deal with all that anymore. You're immune to the hatred."
She made a vague gesture and glanced around the room. "This place
protects you from all that."
"You'd be surprised," Melyor told her, thinking back to the
conversation she had with Premel the day she learned of his betrayal.
"What do you mean?"
The Sovereign shook her head. "Never mind. So what you're telling me is
that my being a Gildriite and a Bearer doesn't matter to you people
because I'm Sovereign now, and that means I don't have to face the
prejudice every day. Is that right?"
She gave a noncommittal shrug and looked away. "That's what a Gildriite in the quads might say."
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! Do you really think
that I can forget what I went through for the first twenty-six years of
my life? Do you really think that becoming Sovereign made me any less
of a Gildriite than I was before?"
"I don't know. Did it?"
"No, Mouse. If anything it made me more of one, because it meant that I
could stop hiding it. Our people have been oppressed for so long that
we've come to believe that being a Gildriite means being afraid. But it
doesn't. It took me a long time to figure that out. It took the death
of the man who gave me that stone. But I know it now, and I'm
determined to pass the gift of that realization on to every Gildriite
in Bragor-Nal."
"But first you want to kill Marar."
"He's no friend of the Gildriites, Mouse."
"Maybe not, but that's not why you want him dead, is it?"
Melyor started to argue, but then realized that she couldn't. Mouse was right. "What's your point?"
"That maybe you're not so different after all. This all sounds like the
old ways to me. This cycle of violence and retribution has been
poisoning this land for centuries. It's just the type of thing our
people have been trying to avoid since the Consolidation."
" 'Our people,' Mouse?"
The woman blushed to the tips of her ears and looked down at her hands.
"You're right," Melyor said after a lengthy silence. "Maybe killing him isn't the answer."
Mouse looked up. "So I can go?"
Melyor shook her head. "No. I still need to stop him. He's responsible
for the death of Oerella-Nal's Sovereign, he's come close to killing
me, and he's involved in some sort of campaign against Tobyn-Ser."
That, of all things, got the woman's attention. "What's he doing to Tobyn-Ser?"
"I don't know yet. But I intend to find out. That's one of the reasons
I still have to get to Stib-Nal." Melyor took a breath. "Please, Mouse.
I need the Network's help."
Mouse looked at her for a long time, her expression neutral. She
certainly knew how to conceal her emotions, as did all members of the
Network. It was a skill that had been forced upon them by years of fear
and secrecy.
"I won't help if you're going to kill him," she finally said. "If
that's what you're planning to do, there isn't a man or woman in the
Network who'll help you."
"I won't kill him," Melyor said. "I'll find some other way." Seeing the
doubt in the young woman's dark eyes, she added, "I swear it on the
memory of Gwilym, Bearer of the Stone, whose staff I now carry."
Mouse swallowed, then nodded. "All right." She stood. "Am I free to go?"
Melyor tossed the woman her thrower. "Of course."
She put the weapon in the holder that was strapped to her thigh and
started toward the door. "You'll be contacted within two days. We'll
expect you to be ready to go on a moment's notice."
"I'll be ready."
Mouse reached the door and put her hand on the door handle. But then
she stopped herself and walked to where her blade had stuck in the
wall. Yanking it from the wall, she slipped it back into its sheath, in
her right boot. Melyor grinned. She still carried her own blade in the
same place.
The woman turned and faced the Sovereign. "What if you had been wrong?
What if I hadn't been as good as I am and your throw had killed me?
Would you have thought, 'Well, no worry, I'll just have my goon find me
another Gildriite'?"
"I wasn't wrong. Was I, Mouse?"
"But what if you had been?"
Melyor grinned. "If you hadn't been as good as you are, I never would
have tested you. You don't get to be Sovereign by being wrong about
people."
"Then how is it that an assassin got close enough to you to confine you to that chair?"
The woman had an unnerving knack for asking difficult questions.
"I've already told you how I knew that I wouldn't kill you, Mouse,"
Melyor finally said, meeting the break-law's gaze. "You and I are very
much alike."
Mouse seemed to consider this for a moment before walking to the door again and pulling it open.
"Mouse," Melyor called just as she was leaving.
The woman paused in the doorway, although she didn't bother turning.
"There may be traitors in the palace. Watch yourself as you make your way back into the quads."
"I always do," the break-law said, pulling the door closed behind her. "I'm a Gildriite."
* * *
He had seen her stained with her own blood.
Even when he had thought that he would kill her, he never really
imagined that he would see that. In his mind, killing her had seemed a
sanitary act— one minute she would be there, he had thought, and
the next minute she would be gone. But he had never thought that he
would have to see her bleed. She was Melyor i Lakin. She was more than
a Sovereign; she was practically a legend.
But he had seen it nonetheless: her blood on her trousers and her ivory
tunic. Her blood staining the stone floor of the tunnels. And then,
because Jibb was still hurt and there was no one else, he lifted her
into his arms— she was impossibly light, almost like a
child— and he carried her to the med carrier waiting for them
outside the nearest street access. And after the carrier sped away,
back toward the Gold Palace, there it was again. Her blood. On his
uniform.
Later, after the meds had seen to her and returned her to the palace,
Premel had gone to see her in her chamber. Jibb had been there, of
course, hovering at her side like an anxious parent as she slept. And
though the general had glared at Premel when he entered and then
ignored him while he was there, he had not insisted that Premel leave.
Perhaps he knew that Premel was there out of concern and respect. Or
perhaps he believed that Melyor would have insisted that Premel be
allowed to stay. Whatever the reason, Jibb allowed it, and Premel
remained, watching the Sovereign as she lay still and pale, looking
more vulnerable than he had ever seen her.
Premel had always towered over her, and though he had known for years
that she was better with a thrower or a blade than any man in
Bragor-Nal, he had never doubted that he was stronger than she. It was
only when he saw her in that large bed that he realized how slight she
was.
And later still, this very morning, he had seen her on walk-aids for
the first time, completing the process that had begun for him a few
days before in the tunnels. He would never look at her the same way
again. She was no legend; her Gildriite powers didn't make her
immortal. She was as human as he. She bled, just like he did.
But rather than diminishing her in his mind, it made her seem braver,
more accomplished as a fighter, more brilliant. After nearly ten years,
he finally understood why Jibb loved her as he did. And now, at last,
he understood fully what an idiot he had been to ally himself with
Marar.
Which was why he had been so pleased when Melyor asked him to accompany
her, Jibb, and a small contingent of highly trained guards into
Stib-Nal. Whatever revenge she had in store for the Sovereign—
and Premel understood from Jibb that she no longer intended to kill
him— he wanted to be a part of it.
They had spent the better part of the day in carriers, making their way
on the Upper from the Gold Palace to the southern tip of Bragor-Nal's
Nineteenth Realm. There they met a slight, dark-haired woman, who was,
it seemed, a member of the Gildriite Network.
"They sent you, Mouse?" Melyor said, getting out of carrier in the
narrow alleyway in which they had stopped. "I didn't think you wanted
any part of this."
"I don't," the woman said, her voice flat. "But we all agreed that it
would be best if you and your goons know as few of us as possible." She
gave a thin smile and opened her hands. "So here I am."
Jibb handed Melyor her walk-aids out of the back of the carrier. She
deftly tucked them under her arms and swung herself over to the
Gildriite woman. She moved remarkably well on the walk-aids,
considering that she had only tried them for the first time the night
before. Still, Mouse was not pleased.
"You're using those?" the woman asked.
"Of course. Otherwise, I'd have to crawl, and that might slow us down."
Jibb snickered, drawing a glare from Mouse.
"This is insane," the woman said, facing Melyor again. "We have a swamp
to cross, and Stib Grove to get through. You can't do all that on
walk-aids."
"You said yourself it's less than fifty quads from here. And if we
skirt the foothills," Melyor added, gesturing in the direction of the
Greenwater Range, "we won't have to deal with the swamp at all."
"SovSec patrols the foothills. That's not the route we use."
The Sovereign grinned and nodded at Jibb. "SovSec is with us today,
Mouse. For this one time, you don't have to hide from them. And you
also don't have to show us your route into and out of Bragor-Nal. I
thought you'd be pleased."
Mouse blinked, as if this hadn't occurred to her. But a moment later
she was eyeing the Sovereign dubiously again and shaking her head.
"Don't you have an air-carrier we can use?"
"The air-carrier can't land in the foothills. And even if it could, Marar's people would see it. We have to do this on foot."
"You're crazy," the woman said. "Those walk-aids will add a day to our
journey. Probably two. And that's assuming that you're capable of
keeping up any sort of acceptable pace, which I doubt."
"Tread carefully, woman," Jibb growled. "That's Melyor i Lakin you're speaking to."
"It's all right Jibb," Melyor said quietly. "What she's saying is true, and we both know it."
The general fell silent, but the look he gave the dark-haired woman could have melted steel.
"Don't worry about me, Mouse," the Sovereign said, facing her again.
"You've promised to help me, and I plan to hold you to your word, even
if I have to do it with a thrower pressed to your back."
Mouse laughed. "Right. As if you—"
Before she could finish, Melyor lifted her walk-aids off the ground and
swung them at the woman simultaneously, so that one caught Mouse on her
right temple, and the other crashed into the side of her left knee. The
combination of blows knocked the woman off her feet sideways. She
landed hard on her side and lay still for a moment, too dazed to move.
And by the time she was even able to roll onto her back and look up at
the Sovereign, Melyor was standing over her with the butt of one of the
aids pressed down on her throat. She wasn't even out of breath. Jibb
and the other men were grinning, but Melyor's expression was deadly
serious.
"Even with my injury," she said, "I'm faster than you, I'm stronger
than you, and I'm capable at any moment of killing you. Never forget
that. And never, ever laugh at me. Do you understand?"
Mouse stared up at her for several seconds, giving no response.
Finally, she nodded once, never taking her eyes off Melyor's face.
"Good," the Sovereign said. She removed the walk-aid from Mouse's
throat, but left it within the woman's reach, as if offering it to her.
After another moment, Mouse took hold of it and pulled herself to her feet. There was already a dark welt forming on her temple.
Melyor turned to Jibb. "Can you get me my staff please, General?"
"Of course," he said, retrieving it from the carrier. He brought it to
her, but seeing that both of her hands were occupied with the
walk-aids, he hesitated. "Do you want me to carry it?" he asked at last.
"No. Why don't you give it to Mouse? It seems appropriate that the stone should be carried by a Gildriite."
He gave her a doubtful look, but she nodded.
"You don't mind, do you, Mouse?" she asked, glancing at the woman.
Mouse looked from Melyor to Jibb. "No." She faltered, then looked away.
"Actually," she said, sounding embarrassed, "I'd be ... honored."
Melyor looked at Jibb again and nodded a second time. The general shook
his head, his frown deepening, but he did as he was told, handing the
staff, with its glittering scarlet stone, to Mouse.
"Be careful with that," the Sovereign said, her tone light. "It's the only one I've got."
Mouse smiled. "I will, Sovereign," she answered, drawing a smile from Melyor. "Thank you."
"Let's get going," Melyor said, turning to Jibb. "I'd like to cover a few quads before dark if we can."
"You heard her," Jibb told his men. "Carry sacks on. We're moving."
The general said nothing to Premel. He rarely did these days. But
Premel knew that he was expected to do what the other six guards did,
so he joined them at the rear of the carrier and flung one of the sacks
onto his shoulders. There were only eight packs— no one expected
Melyor to carry one, obviously, and she made it clear that Mouse wasn't
expected to carry one either.
"She's our guide," Melyor explained. "She's doing us a favor. And there
should be plenty of food for all of us, even if we take an extra day."
Again, Jibb did not look happy. Clearly he didn't trust this woman,
which made her suspect in Premel's eyes as well. But Melyor seemed to
harbor no such doubts. Indeed, despite their confrontation, and the
harsh warning Melyor had given her, the Sovereign appeared grateful for
Mouse's company. They walked together for the first hour or two of
their journey, trailing behind the men slightly— although Jibb
hung back near them— and talking. From what Premel could hear of
their conversation, it sounded as though Melyor was asking the woman
question after question, and that, after being reluctant to answer
initially, Mouse grew increasingly talkative.
After some time, however, the strain of using the walk-aids on the
soft, uneven ground began to take its toll on Melyor. She fell silent,
and though she continued to keep pace with the others, she looked
unnaturally flushed. Her face was bathed in sweat, as were her clothes.
Jibb's face was etched with concern, and he glanced back at her with
ever-increasing frequency as the afternoon wore on. They were still
near enough to the swamp to smell the rank mud. Insects buzzed around
them constantly, until Premel was ready to pull out his thrower and try
to kill them. But there was a breeze, and the air was mild enough to
make the day bearable.
"Sovereign," Jibb finally said. "Perhaps we should stop. It will be dark soon, and we should set up camp for the night."
Premel looked up at the sun, which was just barely visible through the
brown haze that hung over the Nal and the mountains. It was maybe an
hour past midafternoon. Certainly no more. They had at least two hours
of daylight left. But Melyor really did not look good.
"No," she said. Despite her appearance, her voice sounded strong. "I appreciate your concern, Jibb, but I'm fine."
The general nodded, his lips pressed together, and they continued on
deeper into the foothills. Conditions improved as they did. The stench
of the swamp faded, and there were fewer insects to bother them.
Still, when they finally did stop, close to two hours later, Melyor
simply collapsed onto her back, her eyes closed and her chest rising
and falling rapidly. Jibb hurried to her side, but she gave a weak grin
and waved him away.
"I'm all right," she said breathlessly. "I just need to lie here for a while."
The general shook his head, but he stood again, and started to walk off.
"Where's Orris when I need him?" Melyor muttered under her breath. "At least he could heal this."
Jibb stopped in mid-stride, his whole body seeming to stiffen at the mention of the sorcerer's name. But then he walked on.
"Keep an eye on her," he said as he went past Premel. "If she needs
anything, call me. The others and I will get the camp set up."
"I can see to the camp, General," Premel said, turning as Jibb walked by.
Jibb didn't even slow down. "I know," he said over his shoulder. "But I don't want to be near her right now."
The general and the other men had the six sleep shelters set up well
before the last vestiges of daylight had vanished. After distributing
enough food for an adequate meal, the company began to settle in for
the night. Jibb returned to where Melyor was now sitting, to offer her
some food and re-dress her wound, but they said little to each other.
The general spent most of his time barking orders at Premel and the
other guards, and Melyor merely stared off into the night, looking
thoughtful and tired. Mouse kept to herself, although she seemed
unwilling to stray too far from the Sovereign now that she had been
entrusted with Melyor's stone.
When Melyor finally struggled to her feet and hobbled over to her
shelter, Mouse followed and took the one beside her, leaving Jibb and
Premel to share one that stood a short distance away.
They made good progress the following day, despite Melyor's obvious
discomfort. They broke camp at first light, rested briefly late in the
morning, and stopped again in the middle of the afternoon. And though
the Sovereign once again looked flushed and exhausted, she offered no
complaints. She didn't even slow them down.
"How does she do it?" Premel heard Mouse ask, late in the day.
He glanced over at her and realized that she had been talking to him. He hadn't even realized that she was walking beside him.
Premel felt his face color and he quickly faced forward again. "I'm probably the wrong person to ask." I'm a traitor. "I really don't know her that well."
"You must know her better than I do. How long have you worked for her?"
He shrugged, feeling self-conscious. "About ten years."
"And you still don't know her?"
Premel looked at her again. She was regarding him with a slightly
amused expression and a smirk on her lips. He had seen that look so
often during the past day and half that he assumed it was there all the
time. Despite the smirk, she was actually quite pretty, although in a
hard way.
"Are you mocking me?" he asked her.
"Not at all."
He raised an eyebrow, and she laughed.
"I'm not saying that I'm incapable of mocking you," she conceded. "Or that I won't later. But I'm not mocking you right now."
Premel grinned. "Well, that's reassuring." He looked away again. "The
truth is, I don't think anybody knows her that well, except Jibb, and
maybe the sorcerer who was here a few years back."
"I've heard about the sorcerer," Mouse said. "People in the Network,
still talk about him. Is it true that he and the Sovereign loved each
other?"
Premel did know this much. He had been a friend of Jibb's long enough
to know what Melyor's feelings for the sorcerer had done to him. But
this, he decided, was none of Mouse's business. "Like I said, I don't
know her that well."
"Now you're lying," Mouse said. "But that's all right. I probably shouldn't have asked."
They walked in silence for some time, as the sun dipped lower in the
western sky. Premel would have liked to talk to her. Jibb hardly spoke
to him anymore, and though the men still knew nothing of his treachery,
they saw him as their superior officer, not as a friend. He had never
been very good around women, however, and Mouse made him feel awkward
and unsure of himself. And yet, he was comforted by her company, and
she seemed content to walk by his side.
"How did you know I was lying?" Premel finally asked, his eyes trained
on the ground in front of him. "There aren't many people who would have
figured that out." Jibb and Melyor never did.
"I lie every day," she said. "It's a way of life for me. After a while
you learn to tell when other people are lying." She looked at him. "Why
did you lie to me?"
"I didn't think you needed to know anything that personal about the Sovereign."
"Maybe not. But you know her better than you were letting on, don't you?"
"I suppose," he said. "What I said about nobody really knowing her is
true. But to answer the first question you asked me, I think that what
drives her to do the things she does, and to do them all so well, is
the fact that she's a Gildriite."
Mouse faltered in mid-stride, but only for an instant. "What does that have to do with it?" she demanded, an edge to her voice.
"It's what made her feel she had to succeed. Before she became
Sovereign, Gildriites were brutalized in the Nal. They were hunted down
by SovSec and break-laws alike."
Mouse shook her head and laughed bitterly. "You all think that things have changed so much."
"You're alive, aren't you?" Premel said, looking at her. "You're
traveling in the company of the Sovereign and eight of her security
men. Do you really think any known Gildriite would have been allowed to
do that under Durell?"
The woman started to respond, but then stopped herself. "You may be
right," she said at length, "although the quads still have a long way
to go before Gildriites will feel safe there. But I still don't see
what that has to do with Melyor, and what she's become."
"You should," came a voice from behind them.
They both turned and saw the Sovereign hobbling toward them. Her face
was as red as thrower fire, and her sweat-soaked hair clung to her face
and neck. But she was smiling at them.
"I'm sorry, Sovereign," Premel said. "I didn't know you were listening."
"It's all right, Premel," she said, as she reached them. "I probably shouldn't have been."
She didn't stop, so Premel and Mouse started walking again on either side of her.
"But since I was," Melyor continued a moment later, "I thought I'd offer my opinion."
"Which is?" Mouse asked.
"That Premel is right: I'm the way I am because I'm a Gildriite. And you of all people should understand that."
"Ah, yes," the woman said with an exaggerated nod. She looked past
Melyor to Premel. "The Sovereign tells me that she and I are very much
alike."
"What I actually said," Melyor corrected, "is that she's me ten years ago."
Premel considered this for a moment, and then began to smile. There
were differences, to be sure. He would have bet on Melyor in a fight
between the two, and by the time she was Mouse's age, Melyor had been a
gang leader and well on her way to becoming a Nal-Lord. But in most
other respects, the Sovereign had a point: they were really quite
similar.
"What are you grinning at?" Mouse asked.
"She's right," he said. "You're her."
The woman halted and shook her head. "No, I'm not," she said.
Melyor and Premel stopped as well.
"I know about you," Mouse told the Sovereign. "I know that you killed
out of spite and ambition; I know that you never joined the Network,
that you chose instead to turn your back on us until you needed our
help. And I know that at one time you were going to lead an invasion of
Tobyn-Ser."
"Who told you that?" Melyor breathed, her eyes widening.
Mouse bared her teeth in a harsh grin. "It doesn't matter. I just know it. Just as I know that you and I are not at all alike."
"Then why are you helping me?"
"I'm helping you now because the Network asked me to. They thought that
maybe if I did, you'd make things in the quads better for us. I told
them you wouldn't, that you think it's all fine now, but they insisted,
so I'm here. But I'm doing this for my people, not for you."
She spun on her heel and stalked off, leaving Premel and the Sovereign
to stare after her in silence. After a moment, the guard looked over at
Melyor.
"Sovereign, I—"
"It's all right, Premel," she said in a low voice. She started forward
again, her hands white-knuckled as they gripped the walk-aids. "Let's
just get this over with."
24
Please do not take what I am about to write the wrong way. I am
grateful for the peace that exists between our two lands, and though I
am uncomfortable with some of the consequences of the transisthmus
trade that has developed in recent years, I see its benefits as well.
But I cannot help but be struck by the irony of what I see happening to
our land. Twelve years ago, my fellow mages and I fought off invaders
from Lon-Ser. Four years later, you and I destroyed Cedrych so that we
might prevent future invasions.
Yet every time I walk through Tobyn's Wood and see still more expanses
of forest destroyed in the name of commerce, every time I travel into
the high country and see mountainsides scarred by miners, I am forced
to wonder if our land is any better off than it would have been had we
not defeated the outlanders. Yes, the people of Tobyn-Ser are
compensated for our trees and our ore— at least some of them are.
And we are not subjugated by anyone. But our land is being ruined. I
believe that with all my heart.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Winter, God's Year 4633.
It was worse now than it had been just a few weeks ago, when he crossed
through the God's wood with Alayna and Myn. It didn't seem possible
really; so little time had passed. But Jaryd could see the difference.
The forest was disappearing that fast.
He knew that they had more important things to worry about right now.
If they couldn't stop Sartol, the trees would be the least of their
concerns. But as their company rode southward toward Rhonwen's binding
place, the pain of seeing so many stumps and scarred hillsides tore at
his heart like a talon. And judging from the expressions on the faces
of Trahn and Orris, he guessed that they felt the same way.
There were six of them in all. Cailin and Erland had selected Vawnya,
the young woman who had first suggested that they go to Rhonwen, to
accompany them on the journey. She was tall and powerfully built, with
long yellow hair and green eyes. She seemed quite comfortable on
horseback and she knew the area through which they were riding, having
spent much of her childhood near Phelan Spur. Indeed, Rhonwen had
served Vawnya's village during her brief time as a member of the Order.
According to Cailin, the mage knew just where the spirit could be found.
They had covered the distance to the southern portion of the wood in
just five days, and Vawnya seemed confident that they would reach
Rhonwen's binding place on this day, before nightfall. But despite
their swift pace and the mere fact that League mages and Order mages
were journeying together, Jaryd saw little to indicate that the
temporary truce he and Cailin had forged might last beyond this
journey. Erland had gone out of his way to avoid Jaryd and his friends.
Apart from the venomous looks he sent in Orris's direction from time to
time, he ignored them entirely. And though Vawnya did not seem to be
particularly comfortable with the First Master, she made it quite clear
that she preferred his company to that of any mage wearing a green
cloak. Jaryd wasn't really surprised, but against his better judgment
he had hoped for more.
Only Cailin made any effort at all to bridge the chasm that divided the
League mages from those of the Order. She rode with Jaryd, Orris, and
Trahn frequently, allowing Erland and Vawnya to ride ahead without her.
In the evenings, long after her fellow League mages had gone to sleep,
she stayed with Jaryd, Orris, and Trahn, joining in their
conversations, or just sitting silently, listening to them. At first
Jaryd assumed that she was just building on the friendship that the two
of them had forged during their frequent meetings throughout the
spring. But he soon realized that Orris was the one who had drawn her
into their circle. She rarely strayed from his side as they rode, and
at night, as they all sat by the fire, her eyes never left his face.
Under different circumstances it might have been amusing; certainly
there could be no mistaking the depth of her feelings for him. And no
one who still remembered the power of a first love could help but be
moved by the expression in her sapphire eyes. For all her poise and
power, and notwithstanding the great eagle that soared above her as she
rode through the wood, Cailin was still little more than a child.
But neither could anyone watching Erland when Cailin was near Orris
doubt that the First Master would never forgive her for loving a man he
believed to be a traitor. What was worse, Jaryd, knowing Orris as he
did, could see how uncomfortable the mage was with the attention
lavished upon him by the Eagle-Master. Orris was in love with
Bragor-Nal's Sovereign. He had been for years, and Jaryd believed his
friend when he said that he was incapable of loving anyone else.
No, this was anything but amusing. It should have been. It should have
been harmless. Things of this sort happened all the time. But instead,
it put everything at risk: their journey to see Rhonwen, the fragile
peace that existed between the League and the Order, Cailin's ability
to lead the League with Erland's cooperation. Everything. Jaryd could
do nothing but watch it all unfold.
Riding through yet another cleared expanse of what once had been
woodland, Jaryd held up his hand, signaling to the others that he
wanted to stop. Vawnya and Erland were ahead of him, and he called to
them as well.
"What is it?" Erland demanded, pulling his mount around so that he was facing them.
"I want to rest a moment."
"Here?" Vawnya asked, scanning the scarred clearing with obvious distaste.
Jaryd pointed to a small, muddied stream that crossed the narrow path
between himself and the League mages. "There's water here. My animal
needs to drink."
Vawnya and the First Master exchanged a look and then began to ride back to the brook, both of them frowning.
Jaryd swung himself off of his animal, as did the others, and while the
horses drank, the company pulled food from their sacks and ate a small
meal.
"How much longer?" Jaryd asked Vawnya, breaking a lengthy silence.
The yellow-haired woman scanned the clearing again and gave a small
shake of her head. "Not much longer, I think. It's hard to tell with
the wood the way it is. I knew this forest when it hadn't been cut. But
now ..." She shrugged.
"You can still find Rhonwen, can't you?"
"Yes, Eagle-Sage," she answered, sounding annoyed. "I'll get you to Rhonwen."
Jaryd sensed Orris bristling beside him, and he laid a hand on the
burly mage's shoulder. "Thank you," he said to Vawnya at the same time.
They rested for a few moments more, none of them speaking, or even looking each other in the eye.
Standing there amid the stumps and scraps of shattered trees, Jaryd
felt his apprehension deepening. He knew that the company needed to
find some way to conceal their divisions from the Unsettled. If Theron
and Phelan sensed that the League and the Order were unable to work
together, they would be far less likely to help them. And Arick knew
that without the Unsettled, the mages of Tobyn-Ser had no hope of
defeating Sartol. Yet, the Sage could think of no way even to broach
the topic with Erland and Vawnya, much less to reach some sort of
understanding with them.
"Are we ready to move on?" Erland asked, his impatience manifest in his voice and stance.
"I suppose," Jaryd said, walking over to his mount and swinging himself into his saddle.
The others climbed onto their beasts as well, but as Erland and Vawnya
turned their animals to go, the First Master glanced back over his
shoulder, his eyes flicking to Orris and then coming to rest on the
Eagle-Master.
"Cailin," he said, "why don't you ride with us for a while?"
"No, thank you, Erland. I'll ride with Jaryd. You're welcome to join us though."
The silver-haired mage cleared his throat and made himself smile. "I
just thought that perhaps we three should ride together for a time and
discuss how we wish to approach this evening's conversation with
Rhonwen."
"That's a matter for Jaryd and me to decide, Erland," Cailin said evenly. "We're the ones bearing eagles."
"Actually," Jaryd broke in, "I think this is a matter we should all
discuss." He looked from Cailin to Erland. "That's why Cailin's earlier
suggestion was such a good one: why don't we all ride together?"
The First Master's eyes were locked on Cailin. "Stay out of this, Jaryd."
Orris leveled a rigid finger at Erland. "He's properly addressed as Eagle-Sage."
"And you're properly addressed as Traitor!"
"That's enough!" Cailin snapped, sending a bolt of golden fire into the sky.
Erland nodded, his eyes blazing. "That's just the type of display I'd expect from the whore of a traitor."
For an instant no one moved. Then, her face bright red and tears
flowing from her eyes, Cailin leaped onto her horse and rode off at a
full gallop past Erland and Vawnya and into the forest.
"You bastard!" Orris growled, jumping down from his mount and advancing
on the First Master, his hands balled into fists. "I'm going to tear
you apart."
Erland lowered his staff, so that his ceryll was aimed at Orris's heart. "Not if I kill you first, Traitor."
Orris stopped in mid-stride.
"Don't do it, Erland," Jaryd warned, leveling his staff at the older man.
"Do you know how long I've waited to do this, Orris?" the First Master
asked, as if he hadn't heard Jaryd at all. "Do you know how many nights
I've dreamed of killing you?"
"Erland!" Jaryd shouted.
But the First Master seemed oblivious to everything and everyone,
except Orris. Jaryd had little doubt that he would have killed the mage
in the next moment had Vawnya not reached out and placed her hand on
Erland's staff.
"Please, don't do this, First Master," she said, her voice steady despite the frightened look on her face.
Erland blinked, then took a breath.
"First Master?"
He looked at the woman and appeared to shudder slightly. But then he
nodded. Tentatively, she removed her hand from his staff. He faced
Orris again, and the two of them eyed each other for several seconds,
saying nothing. Then, as if by agreement, they both looked away at the
same time and Orris walked back to his horse and swung himself onto its
back.
For what seemed an eternity no one moved or spoke. Jaryd strained his
ears listening for the hoof beats of Cailin's horse, but aside from the
trickle of the small stream and the distant call of a jay, he heard
nothing at all.
"What do we do now?" Trahn asked at last.
"We go on to Rhonwen's binding place," Orris answered before Jaryd
could say anything. "And after we've reached it, I'll try to find
Cailin."
Erland looked up sharply, as if intending to say something. Instead,
though, he just looked away again, the muscles in his jaw clenching
like fists.
Orris spurred his mount forward, but when he reached Erland he stopped.
"Not that it's any business of yours, but I've never touched her. I've
never had any intention of touching her." He kicked his animal forward
again and disappeared into the wood.
After a few seconds, Erland and Vawnya followed, leaving Jaryd and Trahn alone in the clearing.
"Erland would have killed him," Jaryd said. "I'm sure of it."
The dark mage nodded. "Probably. But Orris intended no less when he got down off his horse."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
Trahn grinned. "Hardly."
"What am I supposed to do about this, Trahn? Do I keep them apart for
the rest of the journey? Do I allow only one of them to come with us
when we speak with Rhonwen? Because we can't—"
"It won't happen again, Jaryd," the mage said with such certainty that Jaryd just stared at him.
"How can you know that?"
"I know both of them. And for all their faults, they both love this land too much to let their hatred of each other destroy it."
"But you saw what just happened."
"Yes."
"And you still believe that?"
Trahn smiled and nodded. "I do. Perhaps they needed for something like
this to happen. They've been moving toward some kind of confrontation
for a very long time, since Orris took Baram from the prison. Maybe
even before then. Now that they've had it, maybe they can work
together."
"I hope you're right," Jaryd said, starting after the others with Rithlar circling above him.
"So do I."
Vawnya made them stop just a short time later, in a dense, undisturbed
portion of the wood. Dismounting and looking around her, she began to
nod.
"This is it," she said. She looked at Jaryd. "This is where Rhonwen found her hawk."
The Eagle-Sage wanted to ask if she was certain, but at some point they
had to learn to trust each other, and it was up to him to start the
process.
"Good," he said instead, climbing off his horse as well. "Well done, Hawk-Mage."
Her eyebrows went up, as if he had surprised her, but a moment later she smiled. "Thank you, Eagle-Sage."
Jaryd looked at the others. "We should find Cailin as soon as possible.
The sun will be down soon, and we need to have her with us when we
speak with Rhonwen."
"I'll go," Orris said. "I'll find her."
"We'll all look for her," Jaryd told him.
Orris's expression hardened, but after a moment he nodded.
They agreed to split up— Jaryd remarked to himself that it was
probably the only thing he could have gotten them all to agree to
do— and to meet back at Rhonwen's binding place at dusk. As they
started to leave the thicket, however, Jaryd called Orris over.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "After what happened earlier, I felt that I needed to send everyone out looking for her."
Orris nodded and gave a small smile. "I understand. And I think I owe you an apology."
"Save it for later. Right now you have to find Cailin. You're the only one who can, because she only wants to be found by you."
The mage stiffened momentarily, but he didn't look away. "I know." He
hesitated. "What I said to Erland was true, Jaryd. There's nothing
between us. My heart ... lies elsewhere."
"I know that." Jaryd smiled sadly. "Be kind when you tell her."
"Of course."
Orris turned his horse and steered him into the trees. Within moments Jaryd had lost sight of them.
Taking a breath, the Eagle-Sage turned westward and began his own
search. But he had little doubt that what he had told Orris was true:
the burly mage was the only one who had any chance of finding the
Eagle-Master. The question in Jaryd's mind was whether she wanted to be
found at all. He had seen the look on her face as she rode out of the
clearing. He had seen the humiliation in her eyes and the tears on her
cheeks. She was bound to an eagle, and she led the League; she was
strong and wise beyond her years. But she was still young, and Erland
had called her a whore.
* * *
He knew that he'd find her and that he wouldn't have to go very far to
do so. Yes, there was probably a part of her that had wanted to ride as
far as her mount would take her. To be sure, there was a part of Orris
that wouldn't have blamed her if she had. In the brief time he had
known her, however, he had come to realize that she was far more than
just a child with an impressive familiar. The gods had chosen well in
sending her an eagle, almost as well, he had to admit, as they had in
sending one to Jaryd.
So when he spotted her horse through a gap in the trees less than a
league from where the company had stopped, he was not surprised. He
dismounted and walked forward slowly. The animal was drinking from a
small cascade, and hearing Orris approach, he looked up, blinked once,
and then went back to drinking. At first though, Orris saw no sign of
Cailin.
"Eagle-Master?" he called.
"Go away," came the reply, from much closer than he had expected.
She was sitting on a large rock above the cascade, her arms wrapped
around her knees, which were drawn up to her chest. Her hair was
falling down around her face, and her eyes were swollen and red from
crying. She looked even younger than she usually did.
"I will go away," Orris said gently, "if that's what you really want me to do."
She gazed at him for several moments and then looked down at her knees. "Do you love me?"
He had never been very good at talking about his feelings, especially
not with beautiful women. But this struck him as a particularly
difficult question to answer.
"Not in the way you mean," he finally said. "I'm sorry."
She began to cry again, and as her body shook with her sobs, she lowered her forehead to her knees.
Orris closed his eyes and shook his head. Jaryd would have handled this
better. So would Trahn or Baden, or even Sartol for that matter.
Leaving his horse to drink with Cailin's, the mage scrambled up the
small rise to the rock on which she was sitting. Her eagle was sitting
nearby, and she watched him keenly as he sat beside Cailin.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"Is it that I'm younger than you?" the Eagle-Master asked, her voice muffled and thick.
"That's part of it. I'm twice as old as you are." He wished that he
were exaggerating, but he knew that if anything, he was doing the
opposite. "And then some," he added.
She looked at him. Her cheeks were damp, but for the moment her tears
had stopped flowing. "That doesn't stop other people. Girls my age
marry men who are even older than you. They do it all the time."
"I know that, Cailin. As I said, our ages are only part of it."
"Then what?" she asked, drying her face with the sleeve of her cloak. "Is it me?"
He smiled. "Of course not. Any man in his right mind would fall in love with you."
A single tear rolled down her cheek, but she smiled in return. "Ah, so you're insane."
"There are certainly those who would say so," Orris said with a laugh.
He took a long breath. "The reason I can't love you, is that I already
love someone else. I have for many years now."
Cailin looked down again. "Oh. I'm sorry," she said in a small voice. "I didn't know."
"There's no reason you should have."
They sat without speaking for some time, she with her eyes trained on
the water spilling past the rock they were on, and Orris
surreptitiously watching her. After several minutes he sneaked a look
to the west so that he might gauge the progress of the sun. They hadn't
much time left before they were supposed to rejoin the company, but he
was loath to rush their conversation.
"She's probably nothing like me, right?" Cailin finally said, sighing heavily.
"That's hard to say. In some ways you're quite similar, in others
you're ..." He hesitated, then smiled. "You're worlds apart."
"Is she very beautiful?"
"Yes." He leaned forward, peering at her until she had to look him in the eye. "So are you, Cailin."
She gave a shy smile and looked away. "What's her name?"
"Melyor."
She wrinkled her nose. It wasn't a common name here, although Melyor
had once told him that it was not an unusual one for girls in the Nal.
"Is she a mage, too?"
Again Orris hesitated. He had no idea how she would respond to learning
that Melyor was from Bragor-Nal. Cailin's parents had been killed by
outlanders, and though she had been gracious when she learned that it
was he who had taken Baram back to Lon-Ser, and had, it seemed, managed
to fall in love with him despite his past, this was another matter
entirely. Still, he decided, he owed her the truth.
"No," he said. "She's not a mage. She's a Bearer."
The young mage shook her head. "What's a Bearer?"
"A Bearer is someone who's descended from Gildri, one of Theron's
followers, who left Tobyn-Ser after the Curse and Theron's death."
She gave him a puzzled look.
"Melyor lives in Lon-Ser, Cailin. She's someone I met while I was there."
Her eyes grew wide. "She's an outlander?"
"Yes. She's the Sovereign of Bragor-Nal." This time it was Orris's turn to look away. "I'm sorry if that disturbs you."
"No, it doesn't. I suppose it might have once, but not anymore." She
paused, as if considering what he had told her. "Actually," she went on
a moment later, "it makes it easier in a way. We're so different that
there's no way I can compare myself to her."
"Well, as I said: you're similar in some ways. You're both strong,
intelligent, beautiful women. But I think I understand what you mean."
She sighed again and then hooked her arm through his and rested her
head on his shoulder. He stiffened slightly, wondering if she was
trying to make him change his mind.
"I'm sorry," she said, lifting her head. "Would you rather I didn't?"
"No, it's all right. As long as you understand that there can be nothing more between us."
She nodded and put her head on his shoulder again. "I do."
He looked to the west again. "We should get back to the others soon."
"I know. Just a few minutes more." She fell silent, but only for a moment. "So how did you meet her?"
Orris grinned and shrugged. "She sent some people to kill me, and things kind of grew from there."
She sat up straight again, smiling. "Really? So if Kovet had been
telling the truth, and I had sent those mages after you, I might have
had a chance?"
Again he laughed. "I can't say for certain, but let's not try to find out, all right?"
He stood, and offered his hand to help her up as well. As soon as she
had gotten to her feet, though, she stepped forward and kissed him
softly on the lips.
He frowned. "Cailin—"
"I know," she said, smiling and blushing. "But I just had to do it once."
"Come on," he said, jumping down off the rock and going to his horse. "We need to get going."
She climbed down off the rise and swung herself onto her mount, but once there, she didn't move.
Orris had already started riding, and now he stopped and looked back at her. "What's the matter?"
"I'm not exactly eager to face Erland again."
"I don't blame you, Cailin. But I told him— I told all of
them— that it wasn't true, that there was nothing between us."
"It almost doesn't matter," she said. "He had no right to say what he did."
"You're right, he didn't. But he was saying it out of anger at me, not you."
"Well, he has no right to call you a traitor, either."
"Maybe not. But none of that matters right now. You're Eagle-Master,
and you need to show him that even if he can't put his anger aside for
the good of the land, you can." He smiled. "Now come on. It'll be dark
soon."
She returned his smile and nodded, and they started back toward Rhonwen's binding place.
They found the others just as the last rays of sunlight were streaming
through the wood. Erland looked up when they emerged from the trees and
quickly looked away again. Orris and Cailin exchanged a look, and then
Orris shrugged, drawing a grin and a shake of the head from Cailin.
Jaryd approached them, and held the reins of Cailin's horse as she dismounted. "I'm glad to see you, Eagle-Master."
"Thank you," she said, her face reddening. "I'm sorry for riding off like that."
The Eagle-Sage shook his head. "Don't be."
Vawnya walked over to where they were standing and looked from Jaryd to Cailin. "What's our plan?" she asked.
"At this point we don't really have one," Jaryd answered. "We need to
find out how Sartol got free of his binding place and what he's done to
Tammen. And we need to know if they have the ability and the
inclination to help us."
"What if they don't?" Orris asked.
"I'd rather not think about that right now," Jaryd said, meeting Orris's gaze.
Trahn had built a fire, and now they gathered around it to eat a small
meal. Orris, however, was not at all hungry, so he merely stood there,
staring at his feet and shivering slightly, though he wasn't really
cold. He was not a man easily given to fear, but he could do nothing to
ease the racing of his pulse or rid himself of the flutter in his
stomach. Until their recent encounter with Sartol in the Great Hall, he
had never faced one of the Unsettled. He had been unbound when Jaryd,
Alayna, and the others traveled to Phelan Spur to battle the
outlanders, and he had not had occasion since then to meet one of the
spirits.
"There's nothing to be afraid of," Jaryd said, as if reading his thoughts.
Orris looked up, but found that the Eagle-Sage wasn't even looking at him.
"I know that," Cailin answered, rubbing her hands together over the fire. "But I know very little about the Unsettled."
"From the little I know of them," Trahn told her, "it seems that the
spirit bears the same temperament as the living mage did. Know the
mage, and you know the spirit. Rhonwen was kind and gentle in life, and
I expect she will be in death as well."
Orris shivered. This did little to ease his fears. Taking a long
breath, he turned away from the fire and gazed into the gathering
darkness of the wood. And so it was that he was the first to see
Rhonwen's spirit coming toward them.
"Jaryd," he said in an urgent whisper.
He sensed the others turning as well, although he never took his eyes
off the approaching light. He heard Cailin draw a sharp breath and felt
her move closer to him.
Jaryd stepped in front of them, his eagle by his side. After standing
there for a moment, watching as the teal-colored light grew brighter,
he turned back and held out his hand to Cailin.
"Come, Eagle-Master," he said, his voice startlingly calm. "This is why we're here."
She nodded, swallowed, and took Jaryd's hand, glancing back over her
shoulder at Orris for just a moment. Then the two of them, accompanied
by their magnificent birds and followed by the other mages, walked
forward to meet the ghost of Rhonwen.
Rhonwen was a stout woman, with a youthful, round face and dark hair
that fell to her shoulders. Or rather, she had been in life. It was
easy for Orris to see her as merely another person, until her gaze fell
upon him and he gasped at what he saw in her eyes. For while the rest
of her glowed gently with a soft teal hue, her eyes burned like flames,
or, he thought, struck by the incongruity of the image, like the
glass-covered lights he had seen in the streets of Lon-Ser seven years
ago.
Yet, though she was a ghost, dead for nearly ten years, it was Rhonwen who sounded frightened when she spoke.
"Are those truly eagles?" she asked, her voice sounding both gentle and
strong, like the rush of mountain water over a rocky streambed.
"Yes, Hawk-Mage," Jaryd answered. "I am Eagle-Sage Jaryd, of the Order
of Mages and Masters and this is Eagle-Master Cailin, of the League of
Amarid. With us are First Master Erland and Hawk-Mage Vawnya of the
League, and Owl-Master Trahn and Hawk-Mage Orris of the Order."
Rhonwen nodded. "I remember you, Jaryd, and most of your companions as well. I trust Alayna is well."
"Yes," Jaryd said, smiling. "She is, thank you."
The spirit turned to Cailin. "I never met you, but I know of you and how you suffered as a child. I'm sorry."
Cailin nodded, but it took a moment before she seemed able to speak. "Thank you," she finally said. "I'm sorry for you, too."
Rhonwen smiled and opened her arms. "I'm dead. Pity is wasted on me."
"I— I just meant—"
"It's all right," Rhonwen told her, still smiling. "I think I understand."
"And do you remember me as well, Rhonwen?" Vawnya asked, stepping forward.
The spirit's smile vanished. "I thought I did," she said icily. "I
remember a child named Vawnya whose hair was yellow like yours. I
remember that her parents and mine were once friends. But the Vawnya I
knew dreamed of wearing a green cloak, not a blue one. She never would
have done anything to weaken the land or the Mage-Craft that protects
it. So I have to assume that you and I have never met."
The mage's face blanched. "That's not fair," she whispered.
"Isn't it? Cailin's choice I understand, and I got the sense that Erland was always looking for the quickest path to power."
Orris saw the First Master's jaw clench, but Rhonwen seemed to take no notice of this.
"But you should have known better," she went on. "The Mage-Craft is
weaker now than it's ever been, just at a time when it needs to be
strongest. Mages like you have doomed the land."
"That's enough," Jaryd said, his voice stern. "We don't have time for this."
Orris winced slightly, expecting the spirit to take umbrage at Jaryd's
tone. From all that Jaryd and Alayna had told him of their previous
encounters with the Unsettled, Orris had gathered that the spirits did
not tolerate the least sign of impudence. Then again, their encounters
had been with Theron and Phelan. Rhonwen had died at Jaryd's age, and
she had never led the Order. Certainly, she had never been bound to an
eagle. So rather than bristling at Jaryd's rebuke, she retreated.
"You're right, Eagle-Sage," she said. "My apologies. I take it you've come to speak to us of Sartol."
"Yes. He's in the Great Hall now. He has the Summoning Stone."
She stared at Jaryd as if he were the ghost and she the living mage. "Fist of the God! Has he mastered it yet?"
"Yes. It didn't take him very long. It seems the stone remained his for
all these years." Jaryd indicated the others with an open hand. "We've
come here together, united, to ask the Unsettled for help. We don't
understand how Sartol has escaped from his binding place. We don't know
what he's done to Tammen, or what he's capable of doing to the people
of Tobyn-Ser."
"If what you say is true, and he has access to the stone, there's no
limit to what he can do." The spirit shook her head. "Arick save you
all."
"We need more than your prayers, Rhonwen. We need to know how he's
doing this." Jaryd took a breath. "Has he altered the Curse? Is that
how he left the Northern Plain?"
"No," Rhonwen said. "That's what makes it so frightening. He's done all
this without altering the Curse at all. Any one of us could have done
this, if only we had thought of it, and been cruel enough to go through
with it."
"What is it he's done?" He sounded so gentle, as if he were drawing information from a child.
"It's difficult to explain in terms you'd understand. The only way
Theron was able to explain it to the rest of us, was to convey an image
of it." She faltered, shaking her head once more. "He's using Tammen's
ceryll," she began again, sounding unsure of herself, "to anchor
himself to his binding place."
Jaryd narrowed his eyes. "But he's got her stone with him."
"Yes, I know. But it ties him to the land at his binding place. His
power is flowing from his own staff, which remains on the Northern
Plain, to her ceryll."
"So that's his weakness," Erland said. "If we can do something to her
stone, or if we can interrupt that flow of power, we can stop him."
Rhonwen regarded him coldly. "I suppose," she said at last. "But if he
has the Summoning Stone, you'll have no chance of taking Tammen's staff
from him. His own staff exists solely in the realm of the Unsettled;
you can't reach it. And there is no way to block his power." She looked
away. "I suggested such a thing to Theron at one point, and he laughed
at me. He said it was impossible."
"Did he say why?" Jaryd asked.
She nodded. "Sartol's power flows through the land like blood through
our bodies. Trying to stop his power would be like trying to stop the
wind. It's simply too vast."
"Did Theron say that there was any way to stop him at all?" Cailin asked.
"Not unless one of us was willing to do to another mage what Sartol had done to Tammen."
"Which is what?" Jaryd asked.
Orris held himself very still, sensing that they had come to the heart of the matter.
Rhonwen stared at the Eagle-Sage with her glowing eyes, a stricken
expression on her round face. "There is no word for it. He's taken
everything from her. He resides in her body now; she cannot live
without him."
"Can he live without her?"
"I don't know," she said. "But it makes no difference. With the power
he now wields, you can't kill her anyway. Nothing can, not even time."
"Do you mean to say he's immortal?" Orris asked. "That's impossible."
"No," Jaryd said, turning to face him. "It's not. Think about it,
Orris: Sartol is already dead. He exists as nothing but magic." He
looked at Rhonwen again. "That's right, isn't it? All of you are
Mage-Craft incarnate."
"Yes."
"So, he himself is an endless source of power. He can keep Tammen's body young forever."
The spirit nodded. "Precisely."
"So it's over," Vawnya said in a small voice. "We can't beat him."
"I refuse to accept that," Jaryd said. "There must be a way."
Rhonwen opened her hands and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Eagle-Sage, but—"
"I want to ask Theron."
The ghost's eyes widened. "Theron?"
"Yes. Tell him Eagle-Sage Jaryd, bearer of his staff, wishes to speak with him."
She looked at his staff, which despite the glowing sapphire ceryll
Jaryd had mounted on top of it years ago, still bore black scars from
the night Theron placed his Curse upon the mages of Tobyn-Ser. "Of
course," she said. "This may take a few moments."
She closed her eyes, as did the lanky, grey hawk on her shoulder, and
for several moments nothing happened. Jaryd glanced back at Orris and
then Trahn, his expression grave, but none of them spoke. Orris allowed
his gaze to stray to Cailin, expecting to find her already looking at
him, but instead, she was staring at Jaryd, as if seeing him for the
first time. So, too, Orris realized were Erland and Vawnya. In that
moment, it seemed, Orris and Trann were the only ones who weren't in
awe of him. And that was only because they had realized long ago how
special both he and Alayna were. They weren't any less amazed; they
were just used to it by now.
In the next instant, Rhonwen opened her eyes again. "He's here,
Eagle-Sage," she said, her voice seeming to come from a great distance.
"He asks me to convey his greetings to you and your companions."
"Thank him for allowing us to seek his counsel," Jaryd said. He paused,
allowing her to do as he had asked. "We need to know if there's any way
to stop Sartol," he began again a moment later, "without one of us
sacrificing his or her life to allow a second unsettled mage to walk
the land."
"First of all," Rhonwen said, after a brief silence, "the Owl-Master
says that not even he could defeat Sartol now, not if Sartol has
mastered the Summoning Stone. And without that possibility, he knows of
no way to defeat him." She looked down at the ground for a moment,
before meeting Jaryd's gaze again. "He says that all you can do now is
empty the city, perhaps Hawksfind Wood as well."
"You can't be serious," Jaryd whispered.
"I'm afraid I am. He says that Amarid must be abandoned, just as
Theron's town of Rholde and the Shadow Forest were abandoned a thousand
years ago. As long as his strength is tied to his control of the
Summoning Stone, he can only reach so far. At least this way, the
people of Tobyn-Ser will be safe."
Jaryd shook his head. There were tears on his face that reflected
Rhonwen's teal glow and the blue light from his own ceryll. "Abandon
Amarid," he repeated.
Rhonwen nodded. There were black streaks on her face, and Orris
realized that they were tears as well. "It's the only way. We made him
an outcast among the Unsettled, and now you must ..."
She trailed off, a puzzled look on her face.
Orris had heard it as well: a second voice riding the light wind that wound through the forest.
"What was that?" the spirit whispered. "It sounded like—"
Before she could finish, she simply disappeared, like a candle
extinguished by a sudden draft. The mages stood utterly still, as if
unsure of what to do or say. After a moment, Jaryd spun toward Trahn
and Orris, his mouth opened. But in that instant Rhonwen returned,
looking confused and terrified.
"What's happening?" she asked, panic in her voice. "I don't understand."
"It is he," came another voice, this one deep and distant like thunder
from a far-off storm. It was, Orris realized, the same voice he had
heard just before Rhonwen vanished.
"This isn't possible," Rhonwen said, sounding desperate.
But on this night, in these times, it seemed that anything was
possible. For abruptly, there was a second figure in the wood that
glowed as she did, although with a baleful emerald green hue that was
as different from Rhonwen's soft teal as lightning is from starlight.
And at the center of this light, stood an imposing man with a long
flowing beard and hard, piercing eyes. He carried a dark falcon on his
shoulder, but he bore no staff. Because, Orris knew, he had given it to
Jaryd twelve years ago.
"Owl-Master!" Jaryd gasped. "How is this possible?"
"It should not be," he rumbled. "The traitor is doing this."
The traitor. Orris had been called traitor for so long that it took him a moment to realize that Theron meant Sartol.
"But how?"
Theron shook his head. "I do not know. He is doing something. He is compelling us to Amarid."
There were others there as well now. Spirits all of them, standing
before the six mages in a rainbow of colors like some evil perversion
of the Procession of Light. Orris recognized Peredur, his milky white
eyes shining like his ceryll. He recognized another man as well, though
he had never known this one in life. He was huge and powerful,
glimmering like a full moon and standing beside a magnificent silver
wolf.
Phelan, Orris thought. I'm looking at the Wolf-Master.
There were dozens of them, more than Orris ever would have thought
possible. Yet it made sense. This was all of them: a thousand years'
worth of unsettled spirits. Before him stood the sum cost of Theron's
Curse. And even as they appeared there in the wood, they began to fade,
as if they were being pulled back into the night.
"I do not know what he has done, Eagle-Sage," Theron said, his voice
sounding even more distant than before, like the retreating cry of a
whippoorwill. "But he has altered my Curse. He wants us for something."
"Can't you fight him?" Jaryd asked.
Theron shook his head. He was dimming rapidly. All of them were, even Rhonwen, who was now no brighter than any of the others.
"There is no fighting him now," the Owl-Master said, in a voice like
wind through the limbs of a bare tree. "But do you not see? He has
altered my Curse."
"I don't understand."
"Think, Jaryd!" the wind sighed. "If it can be altered, it can be
broken! That is the way to beat him; that is the way to save the land,
to save all of us! You must undo my Curse!"
They were gone. There was nothing to show that they had ever been there
at all. The only light came from the cerylls of Orris and his
companions. The only sounds they heard were the embers of their fire
settling behind them, and the leaves of the God's wood rustling
overhead.
"Undo the Curse," Jaryd said quietly.
Cailin looked at him, the light from her golden ceryll glimmering in her eyes. "Can it really be done?"
"Maybe," Jaryd answered, his expression grim. "But we'd need the Summoning Stone to do it."
25
To answer your question, the reason I never write to you regarding
Stib-Nal is that both its Sovereign, an annoying little man named
Marar, and its standing in Lon-Ser compared with my Nal or Shivohn's,
render it something of an irrelevancy. It is little more than a relic
of the Consolidation, a tiny replica of Bragor-Nal that Dalrek,
Bragor-Nal's Sovereign at the end of Lon-Ser's civil war, allowed to
survive solely so that he could count on a second, decisive vote in the
Council of Sovereigns. While Bragor-Nal and Oerella-Nal were rivals, my
predecessors continued to count on Stib-Nal's support, but now that
Shivohn and I have forged an alliance Marar has lost even that small
measure of influence.
In another era, under similar circumstances, Stib-Nal would be
swallowed by Bragor-Nal. Its land would become part of our territory,
its military and economy would simply bolster our own. But Shivohn and
I have pledged to refrain from behaving as our predecessors did. Unless
Marar or one of his successors does something truly idiotic, Stib-Nal
will remain much as it is today: tiny and weak, but secure.
— Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal to Hawk-Mage Orris, Day 1, Week 7, Winter, Year 3067.
Mouse hadn't said a word to her since their confrontation in the
foothills. She had barely looked at her. Melyor remained convinced that
the Gildriite woman was leading her and Jibb's men to the right
place— what choice did she really have?— but she was
reluctant even to ask Mouse about their progress.
She still believed that Mouse and she had much in common, that Mouse
was a mirror image of Melyor in her youth. But that only made Mouse's
loathing more difficult to accept. Had she really turned her back on
her Gildriite heritage? She had believed so herself up until the day
Gwilym gave her his staff, a final gesture of absolution and surpassing
kindness from a dying man. The Bearer had forgiven her, and in doing
so, he had forced her to forgive herself.
Yet there had always been a kernel of doubt, a feeling buried deep in
the recesses of her mind that she was unworthy of Gwilym's gift.
Bragor-Nal's Network had nurtured that doubt in the years since she
became Sovereign by refusing to embrace her as an ally. You may see yourself as one of us, they had been telling her. But we don't. It was much the same message that Mouse had conveyed to her so bluntly the other day.
"I'm doing this for my people," she had said, "not for you."
Melyor had wanted to raise her staff over her head and make fire pour
from the stone as she had seen Orris do with his. She wanted to hold
the staff out before her, right in front of Mouse's face.
"Look at this!" she wanted to scream. "I'm a Bearer! If this doesn't make me one of you, what does?"
But all she could do was watch Mouse walk away, because the woman was
carrying Melyor's stone. And Melyor couldn't help but think that Mouse
deserved it more than she did.
Mouse returned it to her every evening when they had set up camp for
the night. She said nothing, of course. Most nights their eyes didn't
even meet. But she did return it. And each morning, as Melyor picked up
her walk-aids, the young Gildriite took possession of it again, as if
she, too, thought that she had a claim on it.
On the sixth day after their departure from the quads of Bragor-Nal, as
a light rain fell on them from the brown clouds overhead, Melyor's
company came within sight of Stib Grove, the small timber stand that
separated Marar's Nal from the Greenwater Mountains. Each Nal had a
small wood of this sort. It had been the central provision of the Green
Area Proclamation of 2899, a complex treaty signed by the Sovereigns of
the three Nals that had included an uncharacteristic though tacit
acknowledgment that the Nals were being overly zealous in destroying
their forests. It had simply required that each Nal set aside a small
wooded expanse that was never to be harvested, with the minimum area of
each Nal's preserve to be determined by the size of its population.
Hence, in theory, Bragory Wood was to be the largest of the three,
followed by the Oerellan Green, and finally Stib Grove. As it happened,
however, the Oerellan Matriarchy set aside substantially more than
their minimum, making their Green the largest in the land.
Stib Grove, however, like Bragory Wood, was no larger than the treaty
required it to be. It was barely more than a strip of forest a hundred
quads long and twenty wide. In other words, it was no larger than a
single Realm in Bragor-Nal.
Seeing the wood, they rested briefly and ate a small meal, before
continuing toward the trees. By her own choice, Mouse reported to Jibb
now, and he passed word along to the Sovereign. After their rest was
over, and they were walking again, the general fell in beside Melyor
and told her that the Gildriite thought that they could reach the edge
of the grove by nightfall.
"Provided, you feel that you can make it," he added, glancing down at her leg. "If not, sometime tomorrow will—"
"I can make it," Melyor said, sounding more annoyed than she had
intended. "My leg's improving," she went on a moment later, hoping to
soften her tone. "You should be a med."
A smile flitted across his face and was gone. "I'm glad you're feeling better."
She was better, and not just because her leg was healing. Her arms felt
stronger. Going for hours at a time on the walk-aids was getting easier
by the day. In spite of everything, she was enjoying being out of the
palace and out of the Nal. For the first time in several years she was
truly pushing herself, and it felt good.
"Perhaps I should leave you," Jibb said after a lengthy silence.
"There's no need." She paused, searching for something to keep their
conversation going. "How are the men holding up?" she finally asked.
"Fine. They're anxious to reach Stib-Nal, finish this, and get back to the palace." He smiled. "But I'm sure all of us are."
Not really.
"But other than that," he said, "they're doing quite well."
"Good."
"I should tell you, though, that a few of them have expressed concerns about Mouse."
Melyor looked at him. "What kind of concerns?"
"They don't trust her. They think that she may try to undermine the mission."
"And do you share their concern?"
He shrugged in a way that told her he did. "I understand it," he said
after a moment. He looked at her briefly and then gazed forward, his
brow furrowed. "She hates you, Melyor. You must see that."
"Yes. But I don't think she wants to hate me."
"What do you mean?"
"She hates me because she thinks that I've betrayed the Gildriites,
that I've done too little to improve life in the Nal for them. But I
think that she'd rather see me change than fail. Certainly that's why
the others in the Network sent her to help us. And though she might not
want to admit it right now, she shares their hope. So even if she hates
me, she won't do anything to destroy me. Given the choice between any
other Sovereign and me, she'd rather have me."
Jibb raised an eyebrow. "You're certain of that?"
No. She forced a smile. "Fairly."
He was thinking about Vian, she knew. He still blamed himself. But in a
way, she realized, he also blamed her for trusting the driver. No doubt
he thought she was making the same mistake with Mouse.
"Let's hope you're right," was all he said.
By dusk, Melyor was exhausted. The grove had looked far closer than it
actually was, though in the end they did manage to reach it. Marar's
palace was less than twenty-five quads away, and now that they were out
of the foothills, the terrain promised to be more level. The rain had
stopped, though water still dripped from the branches of the grove's
trees. Melyor's arms and hands were cramped and sore, but sitting with
her back against a wide tree and her eyes closed, the Sovereign could
not help but be pleased with the progress they had made.
She wasn't aware that Mouse had approached her until she heard her
staff land on the ground in front of her with a thud. She opened her
eyes and looked up, but the woman had already turned and started
walking away.
"Wait a minute, Mouse," Melyor called.
The Gildriite halted, let out a loud sigh, and turned to face her. "What do you want?"
"What do you want, Sovereign?" Melyor corrected.
Mouse stared at her for a moment. "What do you want?" she asked again.
Forcing herself to keep her anger in check, Melyor waved a hand toward the ground in front of her. "Sit."
"I'd rather stand."
"I didn't ask you!" the Sovereign snapped. Enough was enough. "Now, sit."
Mouse peeked back over her shoulder to see if any of the others had
heard. They had. Melyor could see that several of the men, including
both Jibb and Premel, had stopped what they were doing and were glaring
at her. Reluctantly, the woman sat.
"How long until we're there?" Melyor asked.
"Quads or time?"
"Time."
Mouse pursed her lips for a moment. "About a day and a half. At a
normal pace we could be there tomorrow night, but we're going so
slowly ..." She shrugged, leaving the thought unfinished.
"When are we likely to encounter Marar's security?" Melyor continued, ignoring the gibe.
"We'll reach wire and mines tomorrow morning. They begin less than a quad from here."
"You know your way around them?"
Mouse nodded.
"And how about his guards? When will we start seeing them?"
"We could start meeting up with some patrols as early as tomorrow
afternoon. They don't usually venture farther than ten quads into the
grove. By tomorrow night though, they'll be everywhere." She grinned.
"That's when the fun begins."
Melyor smiled as well, fighting an impulse to tell the woman once more
how similar they were. "Can you get us past them as well?" she asked
instead.
"That will be a little harder. I think we can avoid most of them, but
it'll slow us down." She looked away. "Chances are we couldn't make the
palace by tomorrow night regardless of our pace."
"I appreciate your honesty."
Mouse shot Melyor a look, as if she thought that the Sovereign was
mocking her. But seeing Melyor's expression, which was utterly neutral,
she looked down again. "You're welcome," she said, her voice barely
carrying over the light wind that stirred the branches above them.
Melyor took a breath, steeling herself. Her next question was likely to send Mouse storming off again, but it had to be asked.
"You know, Mouse," she began, "if we do meet up with Marar's men, we'll
have to fight them. I know you don't like the idea of killing anyone,
but I need to know if we count on your help if we wind up in a
firefight."
"There are ways to disable security men without killing them."
"I know that," Melyor said with a nod. "But Jibb's men have been
trained to respond in a certain way. I'll see to it that he tells them
to avoid killing when they can, but in the heat of a fight, their
training may take over."
Mouse regarded her coolly. "Well then, I'll have to get us past the patrols without them seeing us, won't I?"
"That would be preferable, yes. But I still need an answer to my original question."
"What is it you want, Sovereign?" Mouse asked, her voice rising. "Do you want me to say that I'll kill for you? Is that it?"
Melyor shook her head. "Not at all. But I have to know if you'll fight beside us."
"And if I won't?"
The Sovereign looked Mouse in the eye, and neither of them looked away.
"If you won't, then you can get us past the mines and wires, and we'll
find our way through the rest."
"Do you know the way?"
"I have a pretty good idea of where Marar's palace lies. I may not know
the quickest way through the grove, or the safest, but I can get us
there."
Mouse shrugged. "If that's how you want to do it ..."
Melyor closed her eyes. The woman was impossible. "That's not how I
want to do it, Mouse," she said, looking at the Gildriite again. "I
want you to take us through. But I need an answer."
Mouse stared at her for a moment, then looked back over her shoulder at
Jibb and his men. "I never thought that I'd be working with SovSec,"
she said quietly. She faced the Sovereign again. "For as long as I can
remember, SovSec has been my enemy. It's been the enemy of every
Gildriite in Bragor-Nal."
"No, it hasn't," Melyor said. "I know that you think of it that way.
But for the past seven years, it hasn't been true. I'm not saying it's
been your friend, because you wouldn't believe me if I did. But I
assure you, SovSec's campaign against the Gildriites ended the day Jibb
took control of it. I made sure of it."
"If I were to tell you that I will fight beside you, would you believe me?"
"Absolutely."
"Would the general?"
Melyor hesitated, drawing a grin from Mouse.
"I see," she said.
"Jibb's very protective of me, Mouse. He sees how you feel about me, and it makes it hard for him to trust you."
"It doesn't seem to bother you."
"I understand you better than he does."
The woman raised an eyebrow. "You think you understand me?" But before
Melyor could answer, she shook her head and looked away. "Don't answer
that. I'm not sure which would bother me more: hearing that you don't
know the first thing about me, or finding out that you really do."
Melyor smiled again, but she said nothing.
After a brief silence, Mouse looked at her again. "Don't worry about me. If it comes to a fight, I'll be there beside you."
"That's all I need to hear," Melyor said. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."
Mouse nodded, then stood. "Do we need to talk about anything else?"
"No. You can go."
The woman stood there for a moment, as if reluctant to walk away.
"Was there anything else you wanted to discuss?" Melyor asked.
Mouse shook her head, though Melyor got the impression that she still
had something on her mind. After another moment she turned and started
back toward the others.
Melyor watched her go and, doing so, saw that Jibb was watching the
woman as well, a dark look in his eyes. As Mouse passed him, he began
walking over to Melyor. When he reached her, he knelt and started
removing the bandages from her leg. He didn't say anything at first,
but Melyor could tell how angry he was.
"What was that all about?" he finally asked her, his voice thick.
"We were just discussing Marar's security and what we could expect tomorrow as we make our way through the grove."
He looked up at her for an instant and then turned his attention back
to her leg. "I want you to stay close to me tomorrow, just in case."
"Don't worry, Jibb. I won't let you get hurt."
His head shot up so quickly that Melyor laughed out loud. His face
turning a deep crimson, he immediately returned to tending her leg. "I
should have left you years ago," he muttered.
"Who would have taken you?"
"I could have just gone to one of Lon's sanctuaries and spent the rest of my days as a cleric."
She laughed again and this time he glanced up at her, a grin tugging at
the corners of his mouth. He worked wordlessly for a few minutes more,
but as he finished fastening the fresh bandage to her leg, he looked
her in the eye, and there could be no mistaking the seriousness of his
expression. "All kidding aside, Melyor, I meant what I said before. I
want you to stay close to me tomorrow. I know what you think of Marar,
but even if he is a fool, he's shown himself to be a dangerous fool.
And from what I hear, his men are pretty good."
Melyor nodded, shivering slightly as she did. "All right."
He cocked his head slightly, still looking her in the eye.
"What?" she asked. "I promise. What more do you want me to say?"
"That'll do," he said, smiling and getting to his feet.
He helped her up, and the two of them walked over to the fire, where the others were already eating.
As Mouse had predicted, the company came to the first of the blade
wires less than an hour after breaking camp the following morning.
SovSec had never resorted to blade wire, because it was a relatively
ineffective deterrent for anyone who really wished to enter or leave
the Nal. It was little more than a long coil of strong though
malleable, razor-sharp metal. Handling the wire was out of the
question; it was capable of slicing through flesh and even bone at the
slightest touch. On the other hand, thrower fire cut through the wire
quite easily, and though this first barrier actually consisted of
multiple coils piled on top of each other, strung out to the left and
right as far as the eye could see, it presented no real problem for
Jibb and his men.
The danger, according to Mouse, lay in the fact that Marar's security
men tended to back up the wires with densely spread minefields that
could be as much as half a quad wide. So, rather than going straight
through the coils, the company waited for some time while the young
Gildriite walked along the edge of the wire searching for some sign of
where they were to go through.
The men eyed her doubtfully while she searched, but when at last she
found what she was looking for, they all crowded around her to see it
as well. They opened a space for Melyor, however, allowing her to swing
herself through on the walk-aids.
"What have you found?" she asked, standing over Mouse, who was kneeling on the ground, the ghost of a smile on her lips.
The woman looked up at her and then pointed to a small circle of
pebbles just beside the wire. It was nothing any of them would have
noticed. It could have been random. Which, of course was the point.
Mouse stood and as the men stepped back to let her by, she walked a few
more paces along the wire before squatting again. Melyor followed her
and saw that there was a second circle there.
"This is where we go through," Mouse said. "There should be a corridor on the far side that lets us get through the minefield."
Melyor stared at the stones for a moment shaking her head. "How could
they know this?" she whispered. "Where do they get this kind of
information?"
"I don't know," Mouse said. "But when you need information to survive
and to protect your family, you do whatever you have to do to get it."
She picked up the stones and scattered them around and then returned to
the other circle and did the same. "I don't want Marar's men to find
those circles when they discover what we've done to their wire," she
explained.
She walked back to where Melyor and the men were standing, stopping in
front of the Sovereign. "What are you waiting for? Get us through."
"Jibb," Melyor said, not even moving.
Instantly, the general barked an order and his men began carving
through the wire with their throwers. They were on the other side in a
matter of moments, waiting as Mouse found the Network's markers for the
path through Marar's minefield. Once again it was stones, pairs of them
this time, laid out on either side of the path at regular intervals.
And once again, no one would have noticed them had they not been
looking for them.
They crossed through the minefield as quickly as they could, with Mouse
and Premel leading the way on either side of the path, their eyes
trained on the ground as they looked for the markers. The end of the
field was marked by a second pair of circles, which Mouse left intact
so they could find their way out again.
Through what remained of the morning and into the early afternoon, they
found three more expanses of wire, all of them bordering minefields.
But now that Jibb's men knew what they were looking for, finding the
paths through took far less time.
"I think that's the last of them," Mouse told Melyor as they cleared the fourth minefield.
"Are you sure?"
"Not completely. But if I'm wrong, it just means that we'll come to
more wire. If I'm right, it means that we have to start watching for
security patrols."
Melyor looked at Jibb who, as promised, had been right beside her all day. "Better tell the men."
He nodded and whistled once, waving the guards over to where he stood.
As Jibb talked to his men, Mouse handed Melyor's staff back to her.
"You'd best find a way to carry this," she said. "We might need my thrower, and I don't want that thing slowing me down."
"Tie it onto my back," Melyor said. "There's rope in with Jibb's gear."
They were on their way again within a few minutes, walking in a tight
cluster with a single scout approximately a quarter of a quad ahead of
them, another an equal distance behind them, and a guard on either side
about two hundred paces away. They walked as quietly as they could
without sacrificing too much speed, and managed, by Jibb's estimate, to
cover close to ten quads.
Either by stealth or plain luck, they managed to avoid Marar's men for
most of the day. They saw no patrols, although they did occasionally
see discarded food wrappers and the remnants of small campfires.
Late in the afternoon, however, the lead scout returned to them, breathless and agitated.
"What is it?" Jibb asked, as the man stopped in front of him.
"A patrol, sir, about half a quad ahead, and heading this way."
The general signaled to two of his men to bring the side scouts back in. "How many men?" he asked, facing the lead scout again.
"I'm not certain. At least half a dozen. Probably more."
"The patrols are usually twelve men," Mouse told Jibb. "Ten with hand
throwers and two with bigger ones. All of them have boomers, and all of
them carry blades for close fighting."
The general's eyebrows went up. "Thank you."
"I don't want to get killed any more than you do," she said drily.
"I don't want a fight if we can avoid it," Melyor said. "This will work far better if we can surprise Marar."
Jibb nodded. "I agree."
The company retreated until they met up with their rear scout and then
cut westward through the trees, moving as stealthily as they could.
After some time, they heard voices far behind them, but they could see
nothing of the patrol.
"Well done," Melyor whispered to Jibb.
The general nodded. "How are you holding up, Sovereign?"
"I'm fine."
"Are you getting tired?"
She narrowed her eyes. "What's on your mind?"
"If we stop and make camp, and then one of those patrols comes upon us,
we'll have no chance to get away. On the other hand, if we keep moving,
the patrols will be easy to spot— they've got to have hand
lights. We'll see them coming from at least a quarter of a quad. We
won't even need scouts."
"No, but we'll need lights, too."
"Maybe not," Jibb said.
He pointed toward the sky, and looking up Melyor saw a half-moon peeking through the trees and the brown haze.
"That should give us some light for the first four or five hours of darkness," Jibb said. "And your stone can provide the rest."
Melyor turned to Mouse, who had been listening. "Can you get us to the palace in the dark?"
"Sure," she said. "As long as I can see the moon I can navigate."
"All right," the Sovereign said, facing Jibb again. "Let's give it a try."
The company almost walked headlong into a second patrol just before
dusk, but managed to avoid that one as well. As Jibb had anticipated,
however, once the sun went down, the patrols became much easier to
spot. And though the moon did not offer much light, it was enough, when
combined with the crimson glow of her stone, to keep them from breaking
their necks on roots and downed branches. At one point, they found
themselves caught between two patrols, and they had little choice but
to lie flat on the forest floor with their weapons poised for battle.
But when the commanders of the two patrols realized how close they were
to each other, they both veered away. Melyor and the others waited
until their hand lights were no more than a distant glow to the north
and south, then resumed their advance on Marar's palace.
Melyor had expected to be exhausted long before midnight, and to be
sure, her arms were sore. But she sensed that the company was getting
close to the palace, and rather than being tired, she felt exhilarated,
just as she remembered feeling when she was a Nal-Lord preparing for a
raid. No wonder so many of them don't approve of the changes I've been trying to bring to the Nal, she thought to herself as she made her way through the shadows of the grove. This is fun.
They came within sight of the palace two hours after their dangerous
encounter with the two patrols. The building was so brightly lit that
its glow had begun to seep through the grove some time before. But only
when they could actually see the security lights and illuminated
windows did Melyor signal for the company to stop.
"How do you want to do this?" Jibb asked in a whisper.
A patrol appeared nearby, forcing Melyor and the others to drop to the ground and keep still until it had passed.
"There's got to be a sub-ground entrance," Melyor said, once it was
safe to speak again. "We'll go in that way and fight our way through to
Marar's chamber."
Mouse shook her head. "I don't know if that's the boldest thing I've ever heard, or the dumbest."
Another patrol went by. Again they ducked down until the guards were gone.
"I'm afraid I have to agree," Jibb said.
Melyor nodded. "I know it sounds crazy, but I think it will work. I
don't think of myself as a disciple of Cedrych i Vran, but he told me
something once that I've never forgotten. He said that when you're
raiding another man's flat or, headquarters— and I think this
works with palaces, too— you're at a terrible disadvantage in
almost every respect. Your opponent knows the layout, the
vulnerabilities, the strengths of the battleground much better than you
do. As an invader, your only advantage lies in your willingness to
destroy the building you're attacking. The other side wants to save
it— that's their whole purpose. So you have to use boomers and
throwers to take the building apart. If you can do that, you can beat
them."
"So we're going to destroy the palace?" Jibb asked.
"We're going to tear it to the ground if we have to."
Mouse grinned. "Sounds like fun."
"Premel," Melyor said, turning to the tall guard. "Do you know anything about the layout of the palace?"
Even in the darkness the Sovereign could see the guard's face turn
pale, and for just a moment she regretted putting the question to him
in front of the others. But there was nothing to be done about that
now, and he seemed to realize it, too.
"Yes," he said in a low voice, as the other guards eyed him with
curiosity. "Marar's chamber is on the second floor, in the front of the
palace, overlooking the gardens and the Nal. That's the area that will
be most heavily guarded."
"Good," Melyor said. "Thank you." She looked at the others and smiled
at the eagerness she saw in their eyes. She wasn't the only one
enjoying herself. "Watch yourselves," she told them. "And watch out for
each other. I want all of you coming home with me."
"Even me?" Mouse asked.
Melyor grinned. "Yes, Mouse. Even you."
* * *
At first he thought he was dreaming. Sometimes he still had dreams
about his days as a Quad-Lord, when he had carried a thrower on his
belt and a blade in the studded sleeve of his overcoat. But as the
sound of the explosions grew louder and more insistent, he began to
emerge from his slumber. And when the boomer went off just outside the
door of his outer chamber, he jerked upright in his bed and fumbled for
the thrower he kept in the drawer of his night table.
With the weapon in his trembling hand, Marar reached for the security
communicator he kept in the same drawer. A moment later, however, he
threw the device to the floor without having pressed the shining red
button. If there were boomers going off outside his chamber, something
must have happened to Gregor and Bain. And anyone else who might have
responded to his call for help was either dead or a traitor.
Instead, he got out of bed to crouch and ready himself to fire upon
whoever came through his bedroom door. At least that's what he had
intended to do.
It was only when he was lying prone on the floor, the back of his head
smarting from where he had smashed into the wall and his ears ringing,
that he realized another boomer had gone off. There was smoke in the
room, and he could hear people shouting in the distance. Occasionally
he heard the hiss of a thrower, but the sound was scattered and
infrequent. Whatever resistance his guards had given had been broken.
Melyor, he said to himself. This had to be Melyor's doing.
He tried to sit up, but he wasn't even certain he had moved when
someone grabbed him roughly, knocked the thrower from his hand, and
hoisted him to his feet. He could barely see through the smoke, and his
vision was still blurry from the blow he had taken to the head. But
then the men who had hold of his arms started to lead him out of the
chamber, and one of them said, "This way, Sovereign." And he knew that
he had been right.
"Hello, Premel," Marar managed, though he started coughing the instant he opened his mouth.
"How does he know your name, sir?" the other guard asked, just as Marar had hoped he would.
"It doesn't matter."
"I know his name," Marar said, struggling to speak through another fit
of coughing, "because he's been working for me since early last summer.
Haven't you, Premel?"
The guard said nothing, although his grip on Marar's arm tightened
painfully. They were in the corridor outside of his outer chamber now,
stepping over rubble and an occasional body on their way to the stairs.
Gregor was there, his chest blackened and bloody, his eyes staring
sightlessly at the ceiling. Marar's mouth twitched.
The smoke had thinned, and the Sovereign's vision was slowly clearing,
allowing him to see what had been done to his palace. The walls were
blackened and shattered. As they reached the landing at the top of the
stairs, he saw that much of the artwork had been destroyed. Injured
security men lay on the stairs and the floor below, but Marar saw only
one or two who appeared to be dead. Somehow, Melyor and her men had
managed to do all of this without Marar even knowing that they were on
their way. He would have liked nothing better than to kill all of them,
starting with the beautiful Sovereign, who had to be here, somewhere.
But all he had was Premel, so Marar went after him.
"What is he talking about, Colonel?" the other man finally demanded. "Is all of this true?"
Marar made himself grin. "Of course it's true," he said before Premel could reply. "Why do think he's being so quiet?"
"Sir?" the man said, the word coming out almost like a plea.
"Quiet!" Premel commanded. "Both of you! Just shut your mouths! Sovereign!" he called, leaning over the railing. "We have him!"
"We're on our way," Melyor called in reply.
"It's not easy being a traitor, is it Premel?" Marar asked quietly.
"Betraying your Sovereign, your general, even the men who serve with
you. It must be very difficult."
Marar heard footsteps on the ground floor, people approaching the
stairs. He could see the glass doors— broken now, of
course— that looked out over his gardens, and he felt an odd rush
of relief that nothing had been done to them. Premel was facing
forward, his face crimson, but his expression utterly neutral. The
other man, a young, square-jawed guard with massive arms and a thick
neck, was staring at Premel the way a boy might look at his father upon
learning that he was a killer. The man's hold on Marar's arm had grown
so loose that the Sovereign briefly considered trying to break away and
grab the guard's thrower. But Premel was squeezing Marar's other arm as
if he thought it was the Sovereign's throat. Any attempt Marar made to
get away would merely give Premel the excuse he was looking for to kill
him.
So instead, Marar kept talking. It was, after all, what he did best.
"How much gold have I given you to this point, Premel? I can't remember. Certainly enough to buy yourself—"
Before he could get the rest out, Premel had smashed his fist into
Marar's face. The Sovereign's knees buckled, and he would have fallen,
but Premel was still holding one of his arms, and the young guard was
holding the other. Premel hit him a second time, and Marar felt blood
begin to flow from his nose.
"Premel, no!" he heard Melyor call. People were running now, bounding
up the steps. But they were going to be too late. Premel was going to
kill him before the others ever reached them. There was rage in the
guard's pale eyes and he had already pulled his arm back to hit Marar
again. The Sovereign flinched and closed his eyes.
"Stop it, Colonel!" the young guard said.
Opening his eyes again, Marar saw the metallic glint of the guard's
thrower. The man had it aimed at Premel, who was staring at the weapon,
wide-eyed and trembling, his fist still drawn back. Other guards had
gathered around them, as had a young dark-haired woman.
"It's all right!" Melyor called to the guard as she came up the stairs,
accompanied by a burly man who had to be Jibb. And then Marar noticed
something that made his head spin: she was on walk-aids. Melyor had
done all of this to him, and she was on walk-aids. Marar felt his
stomach heave.
"No, Sovereign," the guard said as Melyor stopped in front of them.
"It's not all right. According to Sovereign Marar, the colonel is a
traitor."
The other guards stared at Premel as the young one had. Only Melyor and Jibb looked unfazed by the news.
"Actually," Melyor said, smiling thinly and shifting her gaze to Marar,
"Marar only thinks this is true. Premel came to the general and me just
after Marar contacted him for the first time. He only took the
Sovereign's gold because we told him to."
Marar's mouth dropped open. She was lying. He knew it, because Jibb's
expression mirrored his own. But her men had no cause to doubt her.
After a moment, the young guard lowered his weapon. "My apologies, Colonel," he said.
Premel mumbled something, but Marar couldn't make it out. And at that moment he didn't really care.
"You're lying!" the Sovereign said, sounding, he knew, desperate and
unconvincing. "Premel betrayed you! He betrayed all of you!"
Melyor laughed. "If he had done that, why would I have brought him with me on a mission like this?"
Marar opened his mouth, then closed it, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles hurt.
"Premel, take the men with you and finish securing the palace. Jibb and I will take Marar someplace quiet where we can chat."
Premel nodded, a look of profound gratitude in his eyes. "Of course, Sovereign."
"I'd like to watch this, if I may," the dark-haired woman said.
Melyor eyed her for a few seconds, then shrugged. "Be my guest."
Jibb grabbed Marar by the back of the neck, and with Melyor and the
young woman following, steered him into one of the sitting rooms on the
far end of the corridor from his chambers. As the woman closed the door
behind them, Jibb shoved Marar forward so that the Sovereign sprawled
onto an opulent sofa. But rather than coming after him, as Marar had
expected, the general then whirled toward Melyor.
"How could you do that?" he railed. "How could you lie like that?"
"I don't want Premel being humiliated," she answered, her voice level.
"And I'm certainly not going to let him"— she nodded toward
Marar— "decide when and if I should reveal Premel's crimes to the
others. That's my decision, and no one else's. Not even yours, Jibb."
"So then it is true," the dark-haired woman murmured.
"That's not to leave this room, Mouse," Melyor said, looking at the woman briefly.
The woman nodded.
The Sovereign swung herself forward on the walk-aids until she was
standing over Marar. "As for you, Sovereign, I'd say you're lucky that
Jibb and I came when we did. Premel might have killed you."
He sat up slowly and shook his head. "I had the situation under
control. That young guard was ready to kill him as a traitor, until you
told your little fable."
"Well, then, you are lucky," Melyor said, her tone turning cold.
"Because if that had happened, I would have killed you on the spot."
Marar gave a thin smile. "I didn't know you cared so much about him.
Perhaps he's a lover? I hope not. That would be terribly disappointing.
While sitting here I've been weaving the most wonderful scenarios in my
head involving you and your young friend over there."
He glanced at Mouse, his smile deepening.
"What did he just say?" the woman said, striding forward.
Melyor held out a hand, stopping her. "Relax, Mouse. He's looking for a reaction. Don't give him one."
"Mouse," Marar repeated. "What a charming name. Are you the Sovereign's pet? Is that why she brought you along?"
"No, you pig. I was her guide. I'm the one who got her past your wires and minefields."
Melyor closed her eyes. "Mouse—"
"Ah, now I see," Marar said. There was only one explanation, really,
Who else would be able to help Melyor with such a thing? "You're a
Gildriite, a member of the Network."
Mouse grinned. "In the flesh."
"I'll have to remember to punish our Gildriites for their part in this."
The woman's smile vanished as quickly as it had come. "They had nothing to do with it."
"Nothing?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "I find that hard to believe.
Who told you the way through my minefields? Who told you how to avoid
my patrols? Only Stib-Nal's Network could do all that. And they'll
suffer because of it."
"You bastard! If you—"
"Quiet, Mouse," Melyor said. "He's not going to be able to punish anyone. His days as Sovereign are over."
"I doubt that," he said. "After Wiercia hears of what you did today,
she'll have you expelled from the Council. She hates Gildriites even
more than—"
The blow came so swiftly, and such force that it took him several
seconds to realize that she had struck him with the butt end of one of
her walk-aids.
"Is there anything you can't turn into a weapon?" he asked, rubbing the welt that was already forming on his cheekbone.
"If Wiercia opposes me," Melyor said, "I'll install Jibb as Sovereign
of Stib-Nal, and she'll never win another vote." She shook her head,
her green eyes locked on his. "But I'm confident that it won't come to
that. She knows about Shivohn and about the attempts on my life. She'll
support whatever I decide to do about you. So I'm trying to decide what
that will be. Jibb here wants you dead, as does Premel." She smirked.
"And you haven't done anything to make Mouse an ally, either."
Another gibe leaped to mind, but abruptly Marar didn't feel quite as cocksure as he had a few moments before.
He licked his lips. "The Cape of Stars Treaty prohibits executions in cases like this."
"Funny that you should be so concerned with treaties all of a sudden.
You've been ignoring the Green Area Proclamation for the better part of
a year."
"Yes, but—"
"As I've already told you, Marar, if I choose to kill you, Wiercia
won't raise any objections. Although I'll make Jibb much happier if I
just give you over to SovSec."
The general grinned darkly, and Marar shuddered.
"On the other hand," Melyor said, "I'd also be willing to consider a simple exile to Abborij."
He stared at her. "You would?"
"I just want to know how you're getting gold from Tobyn-Ser."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
This time he saw the blow coming, although there was nothing he could
do to prevent it. Her walk-aid arced up in a blur of chrome, catching
him on the temple this time and knocking him to the floor.
"Pick him up," he heard Melyor say.
An instant later, Jibb grabbed hold of him and lifted him back onto the sofa as if he were a child.
"Who's giving you gold, Marar? And what are they getting in return?"
He swallowed. He had been beaten more in this one day than he had since
his earliest days in the quads, and he had taken it much better back
then.
"You have to understand," he said, "they came to me first—"
She struck him a third time, sending him tumbling to the floor once more.
"Don't lie to me, Marar," she said, sounding bored, as Jibb picked him
up and tossed him onto the lounge again. "Who would have known to go to
you? Now I don't care how it began, and I don't want any more lies.
Either you answer the question, or I'll leave you alone with Jibb for a
while." She smiled sweetly. "He's not as gentle as I am."
The general pulled a blade from his belt and started to play with it, his eyes fixed on Marar.
"All right!" the Sovereign said. "All right." He took a deep breath. He
had dreamed of riches and power, but there seemed to be little chance
that he would have any of that now. And under the circumstances, exile
in Abborij sounded rather appealing. "It's coming from their Temples,
the Children of the Gods, they call themselves." He licked his lips and
looked away. "And in return, I'm sending them weapons."
"Fist of the God!" Mouse breathed.
But Melyor merely nodded. "I figured it was something like that." She
turned and started toward the door, with Mouse close behind her. "Bring
him along, Jibb. It's time we got out of here. Call for my air-carrier;
there's no way I'm walking all the way back."
Jibb gripped him by the neck again and forced him up off the sofa.
"Can I at least bring some of my things?" Marar called after Melyor. "Can I at least bring a bit of gold?"
She stopped in the corridor. "Gold? What are you going to do with gold in prison?"
"B-But you said that I'd get exile if I told you."
"I lied." She turned again and continued toward the stairs. "Be
thankful I don't kill you, Marar," she called over her shoulder. "I'd
really like to, but Mouse made me promise that I wouldn't."
"Yeah," Mouse chimed in, not even bothering to look back at him. "But at this point I wish I hadn't."
26
I write to you on behalf of Eagle-Sage Jaryd and the entire
membership of my Order to request your help in facing this grave threat
to the safety of Tobyn-Ser. I know that the Order and the Temple have
long been rivals, although I regret that this is so, as does the
Eagle-Sage. The Order's relations with the League of Amarid have been
strained as well, and yet, even as I write this note, the Eagle-Sage is
with First Master Erland and Eagle-Master Cailin on a journey of utmost
importance. Perhaps this will give you some sense of how concerned all
of us are about Sartol's return.
I know that you will have to discuss this matter with the Keepers of
your temples. No doubt you will have to overcome the opposition of many
if you are to join our cause; Eagle-Sage Jaryd and I had to do no less
before making this request. But I ask you not to delay and not to allow
this process to consume too much time. I fear that it will not be long
before Sartol seeks to use his vast powers against the people of our
land.
— First of the Sage Alayna, of the Order of
Mages and Masters, to Brevyl, Eldest of the Children of the Gods,
Spring, God's Year 4633.
Tammen stood before him on the plain, her silken hair stirring in the
wind and the hint of a smile touching her lips. He could see Sartol's
pale fire burning low in her eyes, like a cooking flame that had been
left to die down for the night, but he didn't care. She was there with
him. And when she shrugged off her cloak, allowing it to fall to the
grass, and then pulled her tunic off over her head and stepped out of
her breeches, revealing her perfect breasts and the gentle curve of her
hips, he could do nothing but rush forward to gather her body in his
arms. Even as he reached her though, even as he felt her soft skin on
his hands and arms, and tasted her neck with his lips, he heard her
laugh with Sartol's voice, and she burst into flames, searing him. He
tried to scream, but there was no air for his lungs. Only fire.
Everywhere, fire.
Nodin awoke with a shudder, opening his eyes to see the low wooden edge
of the cart and its canvas cover. The sun was shining through the
canopy of Tobyn's Wood, casting irregular shadows on the cloth. He
could hear birds singing over the hoof beats of the plow horse and the
rattle of the wagon, and with an effort he lifted himself onto one arm
and gazed out the back of his shelter at the forest and the road on
which they were traveling.
"You were dreaming again," Ianthe said from her perch at the front of the cart.
"Yes."
"Of your friend? The one Sartol has taken?"
The healer had shown him little warmth during the course of their
journey, and she had asked prying questions like this one almost every
day. But she had saved his life— he was quite sure of that—
and she had left her village, her people, perhaps even a family, at a
moment's notice, just to help him find Tammen. Much as he wanted to
tell her to mind her own affairs, he couldn't bring himself to do so.
No doubt she knew that as well as he did, which was why she asked such
questions in the first place.
"Yes," he said at last. "I was dreaming of Tammen."
"You loved her?"
"Where are we, Ianthe? How long until we reach the Parneshome Range?"
She twisted in her seat to look at him, her pale blue eyes dancing. "What's the matter, Mage? Are you tiring of my company?"
Nodin smirked and looked away, shaking his head. "I'm just anxious to get to Amarid."
"As am I," she said, her expression turning sober.
She faced forward again, leaving Nodin feeling abashed for his thoughtlessness and ingratitude.
"Did you leave a family back there?" he asked.
She glanced back at him again, the sun lighting her grey hair. "Nearly
a fortnight together, and suddenly you're interested in my family?"
"Not suddenly. I've wondered since we left. I just wasn't sure you wanted me to ask."
"And today I've given you some sign that I'm anxious to share the particulars of my life with you?"
Again the mage shook his head. "You're a difficult woman, Healer."
That of all things made her smile. "Thank you, Mage."
Nodin laughed, though doing so still caused him great pain.
Seeing him wince, Ianthe clicked her tongue at the horse and pulled on the reins, stopping the wagon.
"It's time I changed those poultices again," she said, climbing back
into the cart and kneeling beside him. Her brow was furrowed, as it
always seemed to be when she worked her craft, and Nodin could see the
concern in her eyes. Some of his burns weren't healing well. She had
told him as much the night before. And now, as she gently removed the
bandages from his back, she exhaled loudly through her teeth.
"Is it worse?" he asked.
"Yes." She clicked her tongue again and took a long breath. "I'd like
to find a mage before we venture into the mountains. You need more
healing than I can offer."
"All the mages are in Amarid."
"Not all. Farrek was lucky enough to find you, wasn't he?"
"I believe I was the lucky one."
"I suppose," she said. "You could use some luck again. We need to find a free mage."
"Can you tell me where we are?"
She had been placing new bandages on his burns, and she paused now. "I
would say we're no more than two days from the mountains and perhaps
twenty leagues from the northernmost falls on Fourfalls River."
Nodin felt a tightening in his chest, and for several moments said
nothing. He and Tammen had been near here with Henryk early in the
spring. "I know this area well," he told her at last. "Turn toward the
river when you can. There are several free towns along its banks."
"All right," she said, resuming her work on his back. "We need more food anyway."
Ianthe was back in her seat a few moments later, calling to the old
horse to start moving again. After perhaps an hour they came to a fork
in the road, and she steered them toward the river. Eventually, Nodin
dozed off, as he seemed to do each day when the healer wasn't tending
to his injuries or feeding him.
When he awoke again, the sun was still high in the sky, but the roar of
the river told him that they had come a long way as he slept.
"We're coming to a village," the healer said, pitching her voice to
carry over the rush of the water. He wasn't sure how she did it. She
never woke him with a word, but neither did she ever allow him to lie
very long in silence once he was awake. Yet, he had never once seen her
turn to check if his eyes were open.
"Thank you," he murmured, blinking his eyes to clear his vision, and
yawning. She warned him whenever they approached a town. It was the one
courtesy she had extended to him from the start. He had not seen his
reflection since his encounter with Sartol, though he gathered from the
shocked expressions that greeted him everywhere he and Ianthe went that
the burns had disfigured him terribly. There was little for him to do.
The worst burns on his face were bandaged already; covering his face
any more would impair his breathing and his sight. But still he
appreciated the warnings. At least he could prepare himself for what he
saw in the eyes of those they met.
As it turned out, there were no free mages to be found in this first
town. However, the people there did mention having seen a group of
three mages less than a fortnight before. Most seemed to believe that
the mages, all of them men, had continued southward. After prevailing
upon an innkeeper to give them some food, Ianthe steered the cart back
onto the forest road, following the river southward toward the next
village.
Darkness fell before they reached it, and they were forced to stop for
the night. But they were on their way again with first light and had
reached the second village before midday. Once again, the townspeople
said that they had seen a group of free mages recently, but that they
were gone now.
"It's been no more than a few days," one toothless old woman told them.
"They were headed south I think. There are lots of free towns to the
south. That's what I told them." And then, glancing at Nodin's face and
wrinkling her nose, she had added, "It's about time you changed those
poultices, don't you think?"
Nodin had feared for a moment that Ianthe might climb down off the cart
and bloody the crone's nose, but instead she merely smiled and nodded,
then clicked her tongue at the horse. But for much of the afternoon she
muttered under her breath about meddlesome old women who knew nothing
of healing.
Late in the afternoon, they still had not reached the next town. The
sun had disappeared behind a bank of dark grey clouds, dimming the
light in the forest and making it seem closer to dusk than it really
was. Ianthe had lapsed into silence, although she continually glanced
back at Nodin, the familiar crease in her brow. The mage tried to
sleep, but for once, found that he couldn't.
They were still near the river, and lying in the wagon it was hard for
Nodin to make out any sounds above the water's tumult. So when he first
heard the voices, he dismissed them as creations of his imagination.
But then Ianthe said, "Arick be praised," and called to the horse to halt, and he knew that he had heard them after all.
"What is it?" he asked.
She climbed down off the cart, grinning broadly. "Mages," she said. "Two of them."
She called to them and took several steps down the road until he
couldn't see her anymore. He heard them reply, but he could make out
nothing of what they said. A few seconds later, he heard footsteps
beside the cart and then Ianthe was at the rear of the wagon, peering
into the canvas shelter along with two men.
One of them was a young man with curly yellow hair who carried a lean
grey hawk on his shoulder and a staff with a pale green stone. There
were not many free mages in Tobyn-Ser, but Nodin was certain that he
had never seen this man before. His companion, however, Nodin
recognized. His name was Ortan, and though his hair had a bit more grey
in it than Nodin remembered, he had changed little since their last
encounter. He was still an imposing man, broad-shouldered and
square-jawed with long hair and dark brooding brown eyes. And he still
carried Amarid's Hawk on his shoulder. A free mage, with Amarid's Hawk.
All of them had taken it as a sign that perhaps the gods approved of
their Movement, and Ortan had become a leader among the cloakless mages.
Under ordinary circumstances, Nodin would have been delighted to see
him. But while the stares of strangers shocked by his injuries made him
uncomfortable, having Ortan see him like this promised to be
humiliating.
"Fist of the God!" the younger man whispered as he stared into the cart at Nodin's injuries. "Who could have done such a thing?"
Ortan placed a hand on the man's shoulder. "It's all right, Shavi." He
climbed into the cart and smiled at Nodin. "Hello, friend. My name is
Ortan. The healer has asked me to help with your wounds. If it's all
right with you, I'd like to take off your bandages and see if there's
anything I can do."
"Of course," Nodin said, not meeting Ortan's gaze. "Thank you."
Ortan began to remove the bandages and poultices from Nodin's back, his touch almost as deft as Ianthe's.
"The color of your stone is familiar to me, friend," the dark-haired mage said as he worked. "Have we met before?"
Nodin closed his eyes. Is my face really so marred? "I don't think so."
"Well, what's your name?"
"Please," Nodin said, his voice cracking. "I'd rather not say."
He heard Ortan exhale. "I understand. Forgive me."
Nodin began to cry, the tears stinging the burns on his face. Tammen
was gone; Henryk was dead. He had no friends left in the world. And now
this man was offering him friendship and kindness, and all he could
think about was the shame of his disfigurement. "It's me, Ortan," he
whispered after several moments. "It's Nodin."
The mage stopped working on his back. "Nodin?" He shifted his position
so that he could look into Nodin's face. He looked stricken, as if he
had lost a brother. "It is you." He shook his head slowly. "I can't
believe it. Shavi and I met up with a friend of yours not long ago."
Nodin felt himself grow cold. "Who?" he asked, shivering.
Ortan frowned. "A woman." He turned to his young companion. "What was
her name, Shavi? Do you remember? I remembered it the day we met her,
but—"
"Tammen," Nodin said, before Ortan could finish.
Ortan looked at him again. "Yes. That was it. Tammen. She said that you
and she had been journeying together, but had separated because you
disagreed on how the Movement should proceed."
Nodin was crying again. Merely saying her name aloud hurt him more than
anything that she— that Sartol— had done to him. But to
know that others had seen her, had spoken with her about him. It was
too much.
"She lied to you," he said through the sobs that shook his body so painfully. "Or rather he did."
"He?"
"Sartol."
Ortan's eyes widened. "The traitor?"
"Yes. He's ... he's inside her. He controls her mind and her body."
Ortan glanced at Ianthe, who was still standing by the back of the cart. The healer shrugged in response.
"You think I'm mad."
Ortan looked at him again. He was smiling kindly, but Nodin could see
the doubt in his eyes. "I think you've been through a great deal," the
mage said, seeming to choose each word with care. "You're hurt badly.
You're feverish. And I think you're grieving as well, although I'm not
sure why."
"I'm grieving," Nodin said through his tears, "because the woman I love
has been taken from me, and because my closest friend in the world is
dead."
"What friend?"
"Henryk. Sartol killed him, just as he tried to kill me. And now he's on his way to Amarid. For all I know he's there already."
"That's where she said she was going," Shavi said, staring at Ortan. "What if he's right? What if that really was Sartol?"
Ortan rubbed a hand across his face. "Then he may have lost a friend, too."
Nodin looked from one of them to the other. "What do you mean?"
"We were traveling with a third mage," Ortan said. "A man named Hywel.
He was taken with your friend Tammen and agreed to accompany her to the
First Mage's city."
Taken with ... Nodin closed his eyes briefly, fighting a wave of jealousy. Perhaps I am mad. She's gone. Hywel is another victim, not a rival. "I hope your friend survives the journey."
"Is any of this possible?" Ianthe asked. "Could he be telling the truth?"
Ortan looked at Nodin again, studying him as one might an unfamiliar
plant or a gem of unknown value. "I'm not certain," he admitted.
"Tammen did behave strangely when we met her, but I saw no sign that
she was controlled by Sartol. On the other hand, I have no reason to
doubt Nodin's claim that she did this to him, in which case she is
dangerous, whether Sartol has her in some way or not."
"I tell you he has her," Nodin said. "She wouldn't have done this to me otherwise."
"Either way, Ortan," Shavi said, "we have to go after her. For Hywel."
The older man nodded. "Let me finish seeing to Nodin's wounds, and then we can be on our way."
Nodin gripped his arm. "I have to go with you, Ortan. Please."
"Let's see what I can do for you first. If this really is Sartol, we
have need of haste. And you may not be fit for the journey."
Nodin held the man's gaze for another moment, before nodding and
looking down. Ortan was right of course. Who knew what Sartol had in
mind for the people of Amarid?
In the end, Ortan was able to do quite a bit to ease Nodin's pain and
soothe the fever that had settled in the deep wound on his back. It
took him all that remained of the day, and several hours more beyond
nightfall. And before he finished he had to call upon Shavi to help
him. The burns were severe and covered much of Nodin's body, and the
fever proved to be quite stubborn. But together, the two mages were
able to heal him.
"I wish I could tell you that the scars will vanish, Nodin," Ortan told
him when they were done. Nodin was lying beside a low-burning fire,
enjoying its warmth, which he had been unable to do since that night on
the Northern Plain. "Some of them have faded, and I expect that others
will disappear with time. But most will remain. You'll never look as
you did. I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Nodin said. "You've done more for me than I ever could have
asked. The scars are what I get for allowing my love of Tammen to
outweigh my good sense and my friendship with Henryk."
"How did all this happen, Nodin? How did Sartol get close enough to Tammen to do this to her?"
Nodin swallowed, finding it difficult to look Ortan in the eye. "We
went to him. Tammen believed that we needed to do something to
strengthen the Movement. The Order and the League have more mages than
we do, and the Temple has weapons now. We needed something, too. She
suggested that we go to the Unsettled, to see if they'd help us. We
started with First of the Sage Peredur, but he refused us. Then Tammen
suggested Sartol."
"But why? Didn't she know what he had done during his life?"
"She's from Watersbend," he said. "She—"
Ortan raised a hand and shook his head. "No. You don't have to say any more. I understand."
"She truly believed that he'd help us," Nodin said. "She never would have done this otherwise."
Ortan offered a kind smile. "I believe that." He gave Nodin's arm a
gentle squeeze and stood. "You should rest now. Shavi and I need to as
well. I expect that with a night's sleep, you'll be ready to travel."
"Does that mean you'll be taking me with you to Amarid?"
Ortan grinned. "Is there any way I could stop you from coming?"
"No," Nodin said, grinning as well. "Thank you, Ortan."
The mage nodded, crossed to the other side of the fire, and lay down.
Nodin closed his eyes and listened to the flames, feeling himself grow
increasingly sleepy. But before he slipped into a slumber, he heard
footsteps nearby. Opening his eyes and turning, he saw Ianthe climbing
into the cart.
"Healer," he said.
She stopped and came over to where he lay. "Do you need something?"
"No, I'm fine. But I wanted to thank you for all you've done. If it
wasn't for your care," he smiled, "and your foul-smelling poultices, I
would have died before Ortan and Shavi could help me. I owe you my
life."
She shrugged, her eyes flicking away momentarily. "You owe Farrek your life. He's the one who found you."
"Do you argue with all of your patients, Healer? Or is it just me?"
For a few seconds she offered no response, and Nodin feared that he had
given offense. But then she looked away again, a wry grin tugging at
the corners of her mouth.
"I argue with everyone, Mage. Even if they're not my patients. It's just my way."
Nodin smiled. "I'm glad to hear that."
They sat in silence for another moment, and then Ianthe leaned forward and placed a hand on his brow.
"Your fever is gone."
"Yes."
"Do you still believe that Sartol did all this to you, that he controls your friend?"
"I'm sure of it," Nodin told her. "I swear it to you on the life of my friend Henryk, whom he killed."
She shivered, as if from a chill wind. "I had hoped that you wouldn't
say that. I'd rather that I had made this journey for no reason, than
to know that it was all true." She shook her head. "Arick save us all."
He wanted to say something to ease her mind. He wanted to tell her that
they'd find a way to stop him. But he had felt the power of the ghost's
fire, and he had seen the ease with which Sartol took everything from
Tammen and killed Henryk. So he said nothing. She deserved more than
lies.
Ianthe remained beside him for another minute of two. Then she rose and
walked back to the cart. "Good night, Mage," she said before climbing
into it. "I'm glad you're well."
I'm not well, he almost said. I'm whole again, thanks to you and Ortan and Shavi. But I won't be well until Tammen is free of Sartol. But again he held his tongue. That was his burden, not hers. She had done all that she could for him.
* * *
It had started as a chill, nothing more. A mild fever and a drip from
her nose. Two days later she was in bed, too weak to move. Linnea knew
little of healing, but she knew her own body. And she recognized that
this was the beginning of the end. The disease that had raged within
her for the past half year had done its part to wear her down, so that
this trifle of an illness, this nothing, could finish her. She had
resigned herself to the inevitability of her death long ago, but the
irony of this was too much for her.
She cared about nothing anymore, except living long enough to see
Cailin one last time. The rest of it didn't matter. Not the eagles or
the weapons or the forests. Just Cailin. She had no children of her
own, but now, at the end, she finally realized what it was to be a
parent.
She had no use for healers anymore, and had told them as much that
morning, refusing any more of their ministrations. They were just
trying to make her comfortable now anyway, and perhaps delay her death
for a day or two. It was all they could do, and she refused even that.
No doubt they thought her foolish, and she had to admit that if she
truly wished to see Cailin again, she might need their help. But for
now, she wanted nothing to do with them.
She sat in her bed, propped up by the pillows they had brought her,
watching the day pass by outside her lone window. And she waited for
Cailin to come so she could die. Her breakfast sat on the small table
beside her bed, untouched save by two fat flies that buzzed around it.
Eventually she dozed off, only to be awakened sometime later by a knock at her door.
"Let me sleep," she said, closing her eyes again.
"Linnea, please," came a man's voice in reply. "It's Brevyl. I need to speak with you."
"I'm dying, Brevyl. Can't you leave me alone?"
The door opened, and the Eldest walked in, a look of worry on his round face. "I'm afraid I can't. Not now."
"Get out of here!" she said, sitting forward with an effort that left
her wheezing. "How dare you enter my chamber without my permission!"
Now that he was in the room, he looked uncomfortable, as if he feared
that getting too close to her would kill him as well. "Forgive me. But
I need to discuss something with you."
"I will not forgive you! Now get out!" She sounded small and a bit
insane, but she couldn't help herself. She had never liked this man,
nor had he ever given any indication of liking her. And at this point,
she was through pretending. "I just want to be alone, Brevyl," she
said, falling back against her pillows and closing her eyes. "Can't you
understand that?"
"Yes, Linnea. Please believe me when I tell you that I do understand. But this is important."
Something in his tone caught her attention then, making her open her
eyes again and look up at him. He held a piece of parchment in his
hand, rolled tightly and tied with a bright blue satin ribbon. She
stared at it for a moment, then met his gaze.
"What is that?"
He handed it to her. "A message from the Order, from First of the Sage Alayna."
She looked at him for an instant longer before removing the ribbon and unrolling the message.
"Fist of the God!" she said as she began to read. "When did you get this?"
"Just today."
She continued to read, scarcely believing any of it.
"You knew nothing of this?" he asked, as she finished and let the arm
holding the parchment drop to her side. "Cailin didn't mention it to
you?"
"No. Not a word. I'd imagine that they departed on this journey Alayna mentions as soon as it happened."
He lowered himself into the chair beside her bed, eyeing her intently. "Do you believe it?"
"I think it's more important to ask if you believe it. You're Eldest of the Gods, Brevyl. Not I."
"I don't know what to think," he admitted. "I've had few dealings with the Order, far fewer than you had during your tenure."
"That was a long time ago. I knew Sonel, and Radomil briefly. But I've never even met Jaryd and Alayna."
"Maybe not. But you know the Order. Could this be a ruse of some sort?
An attempt on their part to draw us into their conflict with the
League?"
"No," Linnea said with a surety that surprised her as much as it seemed
to Brevyl. "I don't think they'd lie about something like this.
Sartol's treachery was their shame. Sonel felt that the entire
membership of the Order was responsible for allowing him to do so much
damage to the land, and I always got the sense that others felt the
same way. They wouldn't bring all of this up again if it wasn't true."
"So what should we do?"
Linnea smiled. "That, thankfully, is not my decision to make."
"I know that, Linnea. But I'm asking for your advice."
"I'm not sure I can give it, not on something of this importance."
"You're still a part of the Assembly of Keepers," he said. "I'm not
asking you anything that I wouldn't ask of the others." He hesitated.
"Please, Linnea. I know that you hate me, that you think I've disgraced
the Temple."
She winced. She still remembered saying that to him, and she regretted
it. Notwithstanding what she thought of him, that had been unfair.
"I need for you to put those feelings aside for a moment," he went on.
"This isn't about you and me. This isn't even about the Temple. If
Alayna's telling the truth, we could be talking about the survival of
every person in Tobyn-Ser."
"In that case," Linnea told him, "I think you've answered your own question."
He blinked. "What do you mean?"
"If the stakes are truly that high, then you have no choice. You must help them."
He stood and walked to the window, seeming to weigh her words. "You may
be right, but do you think that I can convince the others of that?"
"I don't know. Hatred for the Order runs deep in the Assembly. And
those who haven't served as Eldest don't always understand that there
are times when we have to work with the Mage-Craft instead of against
it." She almost added that he hadn't helped matters by justifying the
purchase of Lon-Ser's weapons with statements about the threat posed to
the Temple by the Mage-Craft. But during her years as Eldest, she had
done her share to fan those flames as well. In this, she was no less
guilty than he.
"Can I count on your help, Linnea? I need to win over as many of the
Keepers as I can, and those who won't listen to me will surely listen
to you."
All she wanted was to rest, and, when the time came, to die. But what could she do? "Yes. I'll help you."
He smiled. "Thank you," he said, coming forward to reclaim Alayna's
note from her bed and starting toward the door. "I need to be going. I
should get a message out to the other Keepers as quickly as possible."
He paused in the doorway, the look on his round face almost kindly.
"Rest well, Linnea. Arick guard you."
She nodded and he began to pull the door closed behind him.
"Brevyl," she called.
He stuck his head back in the chamber, waiting.
"Eldest," she began again, correcting herself. "I should never have
said that to you, about you disgracing the Temple. It was presumptuous
of me."
He just looked at her for several seconds, as if unsure of what she
expected him to say. "Thank you," he murmured at last. He closed the
door, and Linnea heard his footsteps retreating across the courtyard.
Closing her eyes once more, she settled back against her pillows and
sighed heavily. She was so tired. Cailin would never have understood
this, but she was truly ready for death. But it seemed the gods weren't
quite done with her yet.
* * *
They had been there with him for two days and two nights; vanishing
from view with the dawn and then returning at dusk to stand before him
like glowing statues. He had managed to bend Theron's Curse enough to
bring them to the Great Hall, but to do the rest, to use them as he
intended, he needed even greater mastery of the Summoning Stone. So he
poured his power into the giant crystal while the ghosts waited for
him, wondering, no doubt, why he had brought them to the Hall and what
he had in store for them. Theron, their leader in all things,
questioned him without pause, at first using the silent communication
of the Unsettled, and then, when that failed, turning to the spoken
words of the living world. After the first day, the Owl-Master tired of
this and Phelan took over. But still Sartol offered no response. He saw
no need, and he had more important things to do. But more than that, he
took pleasure in making them wait, in leaving them to their silence and
their uneasy curiosity. Never mind that they had done much the same
thing to him for so many years. He made them wait for the simple reason
that he could. And he wanted them to understand that.
On the third night, however, he was ready for them.
Theron was speaking again, asking him, for what seemed the one
thousandth time, what he wanted from them, sounding bored and defeated,
as if he no longer expected a response. So when Sartol turned to face
him, to face all of them, Theron looked shocked.
"Do you really want me to answer that?" Sartol asked, saying the words
aloud with Tammen's voice and so denying Theron access to his thoughts.
"Do you really want to know what I have in mind for you?"
"We have been asking you for days," the Owl-Master answered, recovering quickly. "Of course we want to know."
Sartol eyed the others. "And what of the rest of you? Are you ready to hear your fate?"
None of them said anything, choosing instead to defer to Theron.
"Don't look to him for guidance," Sartol said. "He's nothing. From this day forward, I control all of you, including Theron."
The Owl-Master raised an eyebrow. "Really? And what do you plan to do with a bunch of ghosts."
"You mean an army of ghosts."
Theron's mouth dropped open, and Sartol felt himself grin. He had waited so long.
"That's right, Theron. You're mine now— all of you are— and
I'm going to use you to conquer the land. And by the time I'm done with
that, I'll be strong enough to send you across Arick's Sea, so that you
can conquer Lon-Ser as well. It's ironic, don't you think, that in the
end we'll be the invaders and the outlanders the hapless victims."
"I do not believe it," the Owl-Master said weakly. "The Curse does not allow such a thing."
"The Curse?" Sartol laughed. "The Curse is mine now, too. It allows
whatever I want it to. And I've decided that the Unsettled are going to
help me rule the land."
"It will never work."
"Of course it will. It's perfect. An army that can't die, that doesn't
need to sleep or eat or even rest; an army that I can send anywhere
with little more than a thought. The Potentates of Abborij would kill
for it."
"We will fight you!" Theron said, his green eyes blazing impressively. "We will not let you do this!"
Sartol smiled, but said nothing. Instead, he drew some of his power
from the stone— not much really, barely a fraction of what he now
had at his command— and with a single thought, he made Theron
raise his glowing arm over his head and hurl a bolt of emerald fire at
the portrait of Amarid that adorned the ceiling of the Gathering
Chamber. The fire struck the First Mage's likeness in the head, sending
smoking fragments of the stone ceiling cascading down onto the council
table and the hall's marble floor, and leaving a blackened mark where
Amarid's face had been.
For several moments, none of them moved. Then Theron lowered his arm
slowly, staring at his fingers with an expression so comical that
Sartol had to laugh again. The others merely watched the Owl-Master
with stricken expressions, as if they had just learned that Arick was
mortal.
"Theron of Rholde," Sartol sneered. "First Owl-Master, author of the
dreaded Curse. And yet, not so mighty after all." He regarded the other
ghosts, his eyes finally coming to rest on Phelan. "You can't resist
me. I'm more powerful than all of you. I'm more powerful than any of
you even dreamed of being." He looked back at Theron for just a moment.
"Even you, Owl-Master. The stone is mine, immortality is mine, you are
mine, and soon, Tobyn-Ser will be mine."
"The gods will not allow this," Phelan said. "Even if we cannot stop you, they will."
"How? With their eagles and the little mages who carry them? I don't
think so. Unless Arick himself is ready to fight me, I have nothing to
fear. And even if he is ready, I think I can prevail. I've made
Theron's Curse my own, and I've mastered the Unsettled. I cannot be
killed or controlled. Some would say I am a god. And before this is
over, every person in the land will kneel before me, as befits a god."
Phelan opened his mouth to say something more, but Sartol made a small
gesture with his hand, denying the Wolf-Master the ability to speak.
"Enough," Sartol said, as Phelan's eyes widened. "I'll be sending you
off now, back to the places of your first bindings. It's time we took
this war to Tobyn-Ser's people. It's time we began our conquest of the
land."
"No!" one of the others cried.
He looked at her, smiling. She was a stout woman, with a lean grey bird
on her shoulder and a teal-colored stone on her staff. "I'm afraid so.
You shouldn't have cut me off the way you did. You shouldn't have
exiled me. I know that it was Theron's idea, and Phelan's, but you're
all going to suffer for it. You all love the land, so I'll make you
destroy that part of it which you love most." He turned to Theron.
"Except you. You never did love the land. Not really, not like them. So
I've tried to think of a task for you that you would find equally
distasteful."
Theron raised his chin proudly. "And what would that be?"
"Remaining here with me, of course. I have to keep an eye on the
others, make certain that they're doing what I want them to do. When
Jaryd and Alayna come back, as we both know they will, I'll need
someone to deal with them on my behalf." His grin broadened. "You're
going to be my champion, Theron."
"Never."
Sartol shook Tammen's head and let out a long sigh. And then, with no
more effort than it had taken the first time, he made the Owl-Master
lift his hand and blast the council table with green fire. The wood
shattered as if it were made of glass, and the chairs around it flew in
all directions, clattering across the floor.
Theron glared at him, but that was all he could do.
"You're a tool, Owl-Master. Nothing more. You do what I want you to do,
when I want you to do it. And otherwise, you do nothing. This is your
existence now. Get used to it." He swept the others with his gaze.
"Time for the rest of you to go."
He stepped closer to the Summoning Stone and laid Tammen's hands upon
it. And one by one, the other ghosts began to vanish from the chamber
until he and Theron were the only ones left. He faced the Owl-Master
again and saw that the spirit was watching him with an expression he
thought he recognized.
"I can see the envy in your eyes, Owl-Master."
Theron shook his head. "No, Traitor. What you see is contempt, not envy."
"Well, I'm in good company. No doubt you looked at Amarid the same way."
The emerald ghost gave a harsh laugh. "Again, you are mistaken. In
spite of everything, I did envy Amarid. He deserved no less. For all
your power, you are nothing next to him. And notwithstanding your
control over me, I give you my word: I will find a way to destroy you."
"You're welcome to try," Sartol said, turning his attention back to the
Summoning Stone. "But you have as much chance of succeeding as Tammen
did."
27
As what we in the Order call a migrant, one who wanders the land
rather than settling in one particular place, I have become something
of a relic. With the Order and the League fighting each other for the
loyalties of individual towns throughout the land, more and more mages
are choosing to nest, and thus establish themselves as friends and
neighbors of the people they wish to serve. At this point, with Baden's
decision to build a home with Sonel, I am one of only two migrants left
in the Order. As far as I know there are none in the League. The free
mages still wander, but I hear that as more towns declare themselves
free, even they are starting to settle....
It goes without saying that even those of us who are not tied to one
place in Tobyn-Ser by a home or a family have certain parts of the land
that we love more than any other. The village of one's childhood
perhaps, or the place of one's first binding. For me, that special
place is Tobyn's Plain, where I grew up and bound to Pordath, my first
hawk. As much as I love the Emerald Hills and the shores of South
Shelter, the plain has been and always will be my true home. All of us
have a place like that, one that we love more than any other. And all
of us, nester or migrant, League mage, Order mage, or free, would give
our lives to protect that place from harm.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Autumn, God's Year 4632.
They had hoped to return to Amarid as swiftly as they had ridden to
Rhonwen's binding place. Jaryd had wanted to start back the night of
their encounter with Rhonwen, Theron, and the other Unsettled, but
Orris and Trahn had prevailed upon him to wait until morning. The
horses needed rest, they had told him. The animals could not be pushed
so hard if they were to bear the company through the mountains. In the
end, Jaryd relented.
They started north the following morning, commencing their journey with
the first silver-grey glimmer of daylight. For two days they pushed
themselves— or rather, Jaryd pushed them— until their
horses were so exhausted that Cailin had to wonder if resting the night
before they left had made any difference at all.
This was not to say that she didn't understand the Eagle-Sage's sense
of urgency. It was bad enough that Sartol had mastered the Summoning
Stone and altered Theron's Curse for some purpose that she didn't even
care to imagine. If her family had been in Amarid, as Jaryd's was, she
would have pushed the company every bit as hard.
But the only family she had was gone, and having heard what Rhonwen and
Theron had to say about Sartol and the power he now wielded, Cailin
could not help but wonder if there was any point at all in trying to
stop him. No doubt he would kill anyone who opposed him. So perhaps
Tobyn-Ser's mages would be better served by abandoning the First Mage's
city, as Theron had said, and devoting themselves to guarding the rest
of the land from whatever attacks Sartol contrived. It saddened her to
contemplate such a thing— she had come to love the great city.
But better to lose Amarid than to sacrifice the lives of dozens of
mages in a vain attempt to overpower Sartol's ghost.
She kept such thoughts to herself, of course. She had a feeling that
Vawnya might have agreed with her, but she was sure that the others did
not. Not Erland or Trahn, and certainly not Jaryd or Orris, whose
opinions meant the most to her. So she merely rode, grim-faced and
silent like her companions. But her doubts grew.
They rode well past dusk, until the last ghostly glimmer of daylight
vanished from the God's wood and Cailin began to wonder if the
Eagle-Sage would let them rest at all. Indeed, he might not have, had
not Trahn and Orris pulled abreast of him and spoken to him in low,
urgent voices. With a reluctant nod, Jaryd raised a hand, signaling to
the others that they should stop.
"We'll make camp here," he said simply, swinging off of his mount and walking off alone into the woods.
"Why are we taking orders from him?" Vawnya asked, her tone sullen.
"Because he's Eagle-Sage," Cailin said. "And because any order he gives you comes from me as well."
Vawnya twisted her mouth disapprovingly, but gave a single nod.
"Where's he going?" Cailin asked Orris, after watching Vawnya and Erland walk off to help Trahn gather wood for a fire.
"You mean Jaryd?"
She nodded.
"To reach for Alayna. They never go a night without contacting each other with the Ceryll-Var."
"Oh," she said quietly, feeling a sudden twisting in her heart. She
wanted to know what it was to share such a bond with someone. She
wanted it with the man standing beside her.
Somehow Orris seemed to divine her thoughts, for a moment later he
cleared his throat awkwardly and started to walk after Trahn and the
others. "We should help them find some wood."
"Of course," she said, watching him move away. But she remained where
she was, cursing the ache in her chest and the trembling of her hands.
She was still standing there staring after him when Jaryd returned.
"Where are the others?"
"Gathering wood for the fire." She made herself look at him; she had
lost track of Orris's ceryll some time ago anyway. "How are Alayna and
Myn?"
The Eagle-Sage allowed himself a small smile. "Fine, thank you."
"Has anything happened?"
"Not that they know of, but it's just a matter of time. She said that
there's been some strange light coming from the windows of the Hall, as
if there were many cerylls in the Gathering Chamber."
"Or many ghosts," Cailin whispered.
He looked at her, his expression bleak. "Yes."
"Rhonwen may have been right, Jaryd," she said impulsively. "We may have to abandon Amarid."
She caught her breath, expecting him to rail at her. But he surprised her.
"I know that," he said, his voice low as he looked away. "But I'm only
willing to do that if everything else fails." He met her gaze again.
"You have to do what you think is best for the League, Cailin. I know
that. But I need you all and the League mages if I'm going to find
another way."
She just stared at him. If Erland had been in her place, she knew, he
would have demanded some concession in return for a pledge of the
League's support. After all, Sartol had taken the Order's Hall, not the
League's. If they were forced to abandon the First Mage's city, it
would be the Order's failure. And if with the League's help the Order
managed to defeat Sartol, Cailin and her fellow mages would be the
heroes. Either way, the League stood to benefit, and as one of the
League's leaders, it fell to Cailin to make the most of the situation.
But while the color of her cloak demanded that she take advantage of
Jaryd's plea, the great bird standing beside her would not allow it.
And neither would the friendship she and the Eagle-Sage had forged over
the past several weeks. Notwithstanding her own doubts about whether
the city could be saved, she knew that she owed it to Jaryd and to all
of Tobyn-Ser to try.
"We'll do whatever you need us to do," she told him, as a grateful
smile spread across his features. "Regardless of everything else, the
League and the Order are allies in this war."
"What about Erland?"
Cailin tried to grin, but she could tell that she only succeeded in
grimacing. She could still hear him calling her a whore; she could
still feel her cheeks burning with shame. "Leave Erland to me."
Jaryd looked as if he might say something, but instead he clamped his
mouth shut and nodded. And a moment later Cailin heard voices and
footsteps coming toward them. The others were returning.
None of them said much for the rest of the evening. Vawnya continued to
sulk over Cailin's rebuke, Jaryd appeared distracted and worried, Trahn
never seemed to say very much, and Cailin, Orris, and Erland refused
even to look at one another. When Jaryd finally announced, just a short
time after they finished eating, that he was going to sleep, the rest
eagerly followed his example.
The second day after their encounter with Rhonwen and the other
Unsettled went much like the first. They rode all day with almost no
conversation, stopping at nightfall, and eating their supper
wordlessly. Even if they had wanted to say anything, they would have
been too exhausted to sustain any sort of discussion. They had covered
more ground on this day than they had the day before, reaching the
foothills of the Parneshome Range by late afternoon, and continuing
almost to the base of the first line of mountains. With any luck at
all, they would be back in Amarid within three days.
That at least is what Cailin told herself as she drifted toward sleep
that second night, forcing herself to think about their journey rather
than about Orris, who had positioned himself once again as far from
where she lay as he could manage. But when she awoke the following
morning, she found herself soaked by a pelting rain and shivering in a
fierce wind that swept down from the mountains like an Abboriji army.
The other mages were already awake, their cloaks darkened by the rain
and their hair matted and clinging to their foreheads, as they
scrambled to find some kind of shelter for the horses.
Cailin sprinted to her mount and led him back down the narrow trail to
a small cluster of trees, where Trahn was whispering soothingly to his
horse and Jaryd's.
Jaryd was there as well, peering out from under the trees, his eyes
trained on the thick grey clouds that blanketed the ridge of the
mountains like fog on the shores of Duclea's Ocean.
"It's awfully late for this," he murmured in a tight voice. "We never have storms from the north so far into spring."
Cailin glanced at another group of trees about a hundred paces away,
where Erland, Vawnya, and Orris stood with their horses. She couldn't
begin to imagine what that conversation sounded like.
"It is unusual," Trahn said, "but not unheard of."
"So you don't think Sartol is doing this."
She whirled to face him. "Sartol?" she breathed. "You think he can create storms?"
Jaryd looked at her and shrugged. "I don't know what he can do. He's
altered Theron's Curse. We know that. Who knows how deep his powers go?"
"Not this deep," Trahn said with a certainty that Cailin found
reassuring. "He may be stronger than any mage who's ever lived, but the
elements are ruled by the gods. Even the Summoning Stone can't change
that."
The Eagle-Sage took a breath and nodded. "I suppose you're right."
Despite Trahn's assurances, however, the storm might as well have come
from Sartol. It raged throughout the morning and into the afternoon. It
began to weaken a few hours past midday, and the sky brightened
briefly. But then a new bank of dark clouds rolled into view and the
rain and winds returned, more violent than before.
Had they simply been riding through Tobyn's Wood, they might have been
able to make some progress despite the storm, although admittedly not
much. But they needed to cross the mountains, and with the wind blowing
so hard and cold in the foothills, none of them had any doubt that even
the lowest passes would be impassable. They were stuck where they were
for the duration of the storm.
So Cailin thought. But late in the day, the company decided to retreat
into the God's wood, which offered more shelter than the small copses
of the foothills. Wearily, their clothes soaked, and the muscles in the
legs of their mounts quivering with cold, they retraced their steps
from the afternoon before and took refuge in the densest grove they
could find. Even there, the rain and the wind reached them, but at
least they were able to light and sustain a fire, around which they
huddled in the gathering darkness.
"We should turn east to the ocean," Erland said, breaking a lengthy
silence, "and follow the shoreline around the mountains to Hawksfind
Wood."
Jaryd looked over at Orris, a question in his pale eyes.
"It would add seventy or eighty leagues to the journey," the
yellow-haired mage said. "And we'd be traveling on sand much of the
way, which would slow us." He shrugged. "On the other hand, there'll be
new snow in the passes, which could slow us even more."
"How many days?" Jaryd asked.
"Probably three days more to follow the coast."
The Eagle-Sage seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he shook his
head. "No. We should wait here. Hopefully this storm will blow through
tomorrow, and we'll be on our way."
"Wishful thinking is not a sound basis for leadership," Erland said icily.
"Neither is sarcasm!" Cailin shot back without thinking.
Despite the poor light given off by the fire and their cerylls, Cailin
saw the First Master's face shade toward scarlet, and she winced.
"I understand your concern, Erland," Jaryd said evenly. "I may be
making a terrible mistake. But storms such as this one are pretty rare
this late in the spring, so I do have some reason to believe that it
may be short-lived."
Erland was breathing hard, his eyes fixed on the fire, and he did not
look up now to meet Jaryd's gaze. But after a moment he gave a single
nod.
Now you know how I felt, you bastard, Cailin wanted to say. Now you know what it's like to be humiliated in front of everyone.
"So we're waiting out the storm here?" Vawnya asked.
"That would be my preference," Jaryd said, facing her. "But if you have another idea, I'd be glad to hear it."
The woman shook her head. "No. I think that's best."
The Eagle-Sage allowed himself a small smile and looked at Orris and then Trahn. "What about the two of you?"
"I think we're better off remaining here," Trahn said.
Orris nodded. "I agree."
"Cailin?"
"I feel the same way," she said.
"Then it looks like we're staying," Jaryd said. "Let's hope that the storm cooperates."
The others murmured their agreement, and Trahn knelt to place more wood on the fire.
"Cailin," Erland said in a thick voice, "may I speak with you for a moment?"
She made herself look at him. "Of course. What about?"
He frowned. "In private, Cailin."
The Eagle-Master glanced at Orris, but he merely raised an eyebrow and gave a slight shrug.
"Yes, Erland," she sighed, following the older mage as he walked away
from the others to another grove a few dozen paces away. Rithel hopped
beside her, raindrops rolling off the golden feathers on the back of
her neck.
Once they reached the center of the grove, Erland turned, to face her,
the glow of his grey stone reflected in his eyes, and those of his
round-headed owl. She had expected him to berate her, but when he spoke
his voice was surprisingly calm.
"Cailin, you and I need to talk."
"What about?"
He frowned again. "I think you know."
"You mean about the fact that we don't like each other? I thought we
had that conversation already in your chambers at the hall."
"Nonsense," he said with a forced smile. "We never—"
"Stop it, Erland," she said. "We wear the same colored cloak, and as
circumstances would have it, we both lead the League, but I'm not going
to pretend that we're friends."
"I'm not asking you to pretend. I'm just asking you to show me some respect."
She should have held her tongue. Lashing out at him was bound to do
more harm than good. But he had shamed her, and she wasn't ready to
forgive him. She wasn't sure that she ever would be. So she said the
first thing that came to her mind, heedless of the response she knew it
would provoke. "You're contradicting yourself, Erland."
His expression hardened. "Fine, Cailin. If you feel that you must
insult me as retribution for some injury I've given you, then so be it.
But you and I will be working together for years to come, and I expect
you to show me some respect when others are present, whether you mean
it or not."
"And if I refuse?"
"Don't. Long after your days as Eagle-Master are through, I'll still be
leading this body. And you don't want to have the First Master as an
enemy."
She gave an exaggerated nod. "Ah yes. I've been meaning to discuss that
with you. I'm not so certain that you will be First Master. I've
decided that I enjoy leading the League."
Erland gaped at her. "But we had an arrangement. You gave me your word."
"Yes, I did," she flung at him. "And then you called me a whore. Or had you forgotten that?"
He shook his head. "No, I hadn't forgotten. I deeply regret it, Cailin.
You must believe me. Orris told me that I was wrong, that there was
nothing between you. And I believe him."
"But until then?"
"I see the way you look at him. I know you have feelings for him."
"And that gives you the right to humiliate me?"
"No," he said, his voice low. "It doesn't. But neither does my poor
judgment give you leave to renege on an agreement that we entered
together in good faith."
She smiled. "You sound frightened, Erland. Don't you think that you can wrest power from me if you want to?"
"I hope that it won't come to that."
"Of course you do. Because you realize that if we manage to defeat
Sartol with Jaryd and me leading the land's mages, I'll be able to lead
the League for as long as I wish."
The First Master pressed his lips into a thin line. "Any conflict
between the two of us can only serve to weaken the League, Cailin. And
weakening the League assures Sartol of victory."
"But this is a conflict that will only arise if we defeat Sartol," she
reminded him. "It may weaken the League with respect to the Order, but
it won't endanger the land."
"Anything that improves the standing of the Order, does hurt the land,"
he said in a hard voice. "A year ago, you would have understood that.
But something's happened to you. That eagle has changed you in ways
that I can't begin to fathom. And it makes me very sad."
"You're right: Rithel has changed me. She's made me wiser, and she's
reminded me that our oath ought to be to the land, rather than to the
League."
"I gave my oath to both of them," he said. "And I intend to honor that
oath. If you can't honor yours, perhaps you don't belong in the League
anymore."
"You may be right," she agreed, sensing the kernel of an idea forming
in the back of her mind. "But for now I plan to remain just where I am."
"So do I."
"Which means we're right back where we began this conversation." She
knew as soon as she spoke the words that it wasn't true. The kernel had
begun to grow. Things would never be the same again. The League would
never be the same. But Erland couldn't know that. Not yet.
"I suppose we are." He took a breath. "I'm sorry for what I said to you
the other day, Cailin. Truly I am. For the sake of the League and the
land, I will make every effort to show you the respect you deserve. I
promise you that."
The League and the land. It occurred to Cailin that he always
put the League first, in word and deed. She was amazed that she had
never recognized this before. "I make the same promise to you, Erland.
For the sake of the land."
If he noticed her choice of words, he showed no sign of it.
"Thank you," he said, smiling. "I think we'll all be stronger for it."
They stood in awkward silence for a moment as the rain continued to fall all around them.
"Well, perhaps we should rejoin the others," he finally said, the strained smile returning to his lips.
She motioned for him to lead the way, then followed him back to where
the rest of the company stood around the fire. The others looked up as
they approached and made room for them beside the fire, but none of
them said anything. And a few moments later, Jaryd lowered himself to
the damp ground and curled up just beyond the flames' reach to sleep.
The others followed his example, and on this night, for whatever
reason, Orris allowed Cailin to sleep beside him.
The storm had yet to pass when they awoke. If anything, it had
strengthened, the winds growing fiercer and the rain pouring down on
the forest like a mountain cascade.
"It's not too late for us to turn east," Erland said, eyeing the
Eagle-Sage closely, but keeping his tone light. "Even after the storm
moves on, those passes are going to be choked with snow."
Jaryd took a long breath, as if fighting to keep his temper in check.
"The horses will carry us through," he finally said. "We may lose a day
or so, but that's still better than going all the way over to the
coast."
"Today perhaps. But what if the storm persists for another day, or two, or even three? What then?"
"If you're so eager to go," Orris broke in before Jaryd could reply,
"then go. But the Eagle-Sage has made his decision, and the rest of us
have already agreed to abide by it."
"It's all right, Orris," Jaryd said quietly. He faced Erland again. "As
I said last night, I know that I'm taking a risk by staying. But I
think it's the correct choice. I hope you'll stay with us, First
Master, though I'll understand if you feel you must leave."
Cailin suppressed a grin. Erland was not about to set off on his
own— no doubt Jaryd knew that as well as she did. And by making
the Owl-Master choose to stay, Jaryd was taking away his right to
complain about it. Erland seemed to sense this as well, because his
face had reddened again, much as it had when Cailin confronted him the
night before.
"We're probably better off staying together," Erland said after a brief pause, sounding bitter.
Jaryd nodded. "I think so, too."
The First Master stalked off, mumbling something about seeing to his mount, and Jaryd, Cailin, and Orris shared a smile.
Despite this small victory, however, the rest of the day did not go
well. The rain and wind continued relentless and unchanging, until
Cailin began to wonder if Erland had been right after all. Another day
or two of this, and not only would the company have given up too much
time, but the mountain paths would be impassable, even for their mounts.
The mages spoke little throughout the day. Trahn sat by himself,
shaping small scraps of wood into figures of men and birds that he said
he intended to give to Jaryd's daughter. And Vawnya spent much of the
day with her eyes closed, in silent meditation. But the others merely
stood around the fire, stomping their feet to keep warm and
occasionally setting out in search of more wood. They ate little,
though Cailin guessed that the others were as hungry as she was. Their
stores of food were getting low, and though they all sent their birds
out to hunt, the creatures had little success. Most game birds and
small animals had taken shelter from the elements just as the mages had.
Night fell, with no change in the weather. Cailin ate a small meal of
cheese and dried fruit and lay down to sleep with Rithel nestled beside
her. She woke with the first grey glimmer of dawn. And hearing the rain
pelting the leaves above her, she felt her heart sink.
"There's less wind," Orris whispered from nearby, sensing somehow that she had opened her eyes.
"That's something," she said, sitting up to look at him.
"Perhaps. Who knows what it's like up in the mountains."
She made a sour face and nodded.
The others woke up a short time later. Jaryd looked pale and troubled.
Cailin could only imagine what he was feeling. Erland, on the other
hand, looked quite smug, although he had the good sense to keep silent.
The morning passed slowly, and though the winds did not return the rain
remained steady. Near midday, however, the skies began to brighten and,
at long last, the tapping of raindrops on the forest canopy began to
slow.
Immediately their spirits began to lift. Even Erland appeared genuinely
pleased. They remained watchful, however. As Jaryd pointed out, this
storm had fooled them once before. But by early afternoon, the trend
was unmistakable: the clouds were breaking up, and once or twice the
sun managed to peek through, illuminating the wood and drawing steam
from the forest floor.
"I've lost track of when the moon is supposed to be full again," Jaryd
said as they climbed onto their horses and prepared to ride. "But
regardless, I'd like to ride for as much as the night as we can. We'll
light the mountains with our cerylls if we have to."
Orris nodded and grinned. "I've rested enough in the past two days to go without sleeping for a week if I have to."
They started out of the grove, but before they had gone even a hundred
paces, Trahn called out Jaryd's name. They stopped again and looked
back at the dark mage, who was sitting utterly still, like a stone
statue on his mount. Beyond him partially obscured by the wood, but
drawing nearer, Cailin saw something that froze her blood and made her
tremble.
People. Dozens of them. Perhaps hundreds. They walked slowly,
painfully, in an endless column. Their hair and clothes were soaked
from the rain. Many carried children, who cried or slept or merely
whimpered like animals. Others sat on carts that were pulled by horses
or oxen, and that carried bedrolls, cooking pots, farm tools, and other
household items packed in haste and unprotected from the elements.
"What in Arick's name ... ?" Jaryd breathed, turning his mount and steering it over to Trahn.
Cailin and the others followed him.
At the same time, the people at the head of the column spotted the company and rushed forward.
"Mages!" they cried out. And, "Arick be praised!"
They clamored around the mages, all of them shouting at once. Cailin
heard the words ghost and fire, and she gathered that they had fled
their homes, but beyond that, she could make little sense of what they
were saying.
"Please!" Jaryd finally called out, raising his staff over his head and making his sapphire ceryll gleam like a signal fire.
The crowd quieted, although a continuous rustle of voices still reached
them from farther back in the column, which stretched on as far as
Cailin could see.
Jaryd's eagle had been circling over head with Rithel, and the
Eagle-Sage called her to his arm now, wincing as her talons gripped him.
"I am Eagle-Sage Jaryd of the Order," Jaryd said, pitching his voice to
carry. "With me are Eagle-Master Cailin and First Master Erland of the
League. Can one of you tell us what's happened?"
A flurry of conversations swept through the mass of people at the
appearance of his bird, but they quieted quickly and for several
seconds no one answered him. Then an older man stepped forward. He had
steel grey hair and dark eyes, and there were ugly fresh burns on his
arms and his brow.
"If you're Eagle-Sage, then you already know that we're at war."
"Yes," Jaryd answered hesitantly. "But our enemy is in Amarid."
"Your enemy is on Phelan Spur," the man said. "And he is none other than the Wolf-Master himself."
"What?" Jaryd seemed to recoil at the very notion of it. "Phelan did this to you?"
"Yes. He destroyed our villages, burned our homes, killed our families and friends."
"That's impossible!"
"I would have thought so as well," a woman agreed, stepping forward to
stand beside the man. It seemed to Cailin that they were husband and
wife. "We've lived on the spur all our lives. We've encountered the
Wolf-Master many times, and he's never done anything like this before.
But two nights ago he came to our village and threw white fire into our
home and the homes of our neighbors. I saw him kill an entire family."
There were tears on Jaryd's face. "Did he say anything? Did he tell you why he was doing this?"
"What could he possibly say that would justify this?" the man demanded.
But the woman laid a hand on her husband's shoulder, and whispered something to him.
After a moment the man nodded, then looked up at Jaryd. "My apologies, Eagle-Sage."
Jaryd shook his head. "It's all right."
"He told us to leave," the woman said. "He told us that the spur was his now and that if we ever returned, he'd kill us."
The Eagle-Sage looked out over the horde standing before them, and
Cailin and the others did the same. He was still crying, as were Trahn,
Orris, Vawnya, and even Erland. Cailin wondered what was the matter
with her that she should be so stoic in the face of this tragedy. And
as if in response to a question, she heard a voice in her mind speak to
her. Her mother's voice. You've seen this before, it reminded her. You've lived this.
"Is this what happened to the rest of you?" Jaryd called out. "Did Phelan do this to all of you?"
Nods and cries of affirmation met his question.
"So this is what he had in mind," Cailin heard herself say.
Jaryd looked at her, and she felt the eyes of the other mages on her as well.
"He's making them fight his war," she went on, keeping her gaze fixed on the Eagle-Sage. "He's using the Unsettled as his army."
"None of this should be possible," the Sage said. There was fear in his grey eyes.
"Theron said that Sartol had altered the Curse," Orris reminded him.
Jaryd turned in his saddle to face the mage. "If what they're saying is
true, he's done more than alter the Curse. He's changed the very nature
of the Unsettled. Allowing them to appear somewhere other than their
binding place is one thing. But Phelan once told me that the Unsettled
couldn't interact with our world, at least not individually. They all
had to act as one. Apparently, Sartol's changed that as well."
"Perhaps not," Trahn said. "He might not have changed them; he might
just be strong enough to impose his will upon all of them, so that he
can make them act as one."
Jaryd exhaled through his teeth. "I'm not sure which idea scares me more."
"We need to get back to Amarid," Cailin said. "There's no telling how
many other villages have suffered the same fate as theirs." Her eyes
met Jaryd's, and it seemed to Cailin that they were both reliving their
conversation from a few days before. "It's no longer a question of
abandoning Amarid," she told him, as if responding to something he had
said. "Sartol can reach us anywhere, so we have to destroy him."
The Eagle-Sage nodded. "If we can."
"What about us, Eagle-Sage?" the man standing before them asked. "What are we to do?"
Jaryd regarded the man sadly, and then looked beyond him to the others
standing in their winding column. "We can see to your wounds," he said
at last. "But after that, I'm not sure what to tell you. We'll do what
we can to win back the spur for you. But until we do, you'll just have
to fend for yourselves, or find a town near here that can offer you
shelter and food."
The Eagle-Sage started to swing himself off his mount, as did Cailin and the others, but the woman stopped them.
"Save your strength Children of Amarid," she said, raising her voice so
that her companions could hear, "and ride as fast as you can to the
First Mage's city. There are healers among us who can see to our
injuries. I'm a healer myself. And the land has greater need of you
than do any of us."
"You're certain?" Jaryd asked, not bothering to mask his eagerness to be going.
The woman nodded. "Go. And may Arick guard you and your companions."
Jaryd lowered his head, as if bowing to her. "May he guard all of you
as well, kind woman. As long as people with your courage continue to
walk the land, our enemy will never win."
The woman blushed and smiled. "Go," she said again. "Strike a blow for all of us."
The Sage nodded, and the company of mages turned as one and began their long ride back to Amarid.
* * *
There were so many who had to go before her. She was one of the newest,
and though Sartol was aware of her, and hated her as he hated the rest,
she was of little importance compared to others. Phelan was first, of
course; Sartol wouldn't have had it any other way. And the traitor
seemed to take pleasure in Peredur's suffering as well. But though he
took his vengeance on others first, Rhonwen had no doubt that her time
would come. She had only to wait.
She was back at the place of her binding. It was night, and she could
see Tobyn's Wood. She could hear the distant wash of Fourfalls River
and the call of a horned owl. If she tried hard enough, she could even
imagine the touch of a cool spring breeze on her skin. But she couldn't
move or speak. From what she understood of what Sartol was doing, she
knew that he could only guide one of them through an attack at any
given time, but he could at least hold the others to keep them from
warning anyone. Just as he was doing to her.
She had once compared being unsettled to being trapped within her
ceryll, as if the crystal and its light were a prison. But never had
the image seemed so apt as now. Only now, rather than merely being
inside the crystal, she felt that she was surrounded by it, as though
she were an early blossom trapped in a sheath of ice by a late-winter
storm. She was utterly helpless.
But it was worse than just that. For though she could do nothing, she
could see everything. All that her fellow spirits saw, all that Sartol
saw, was conveyed to her as well. When Phelan attacked the fishing
village that had been his home, burning homes and slaughtering men,
women, and children, she experienced it as if she was doing the killing
herself. And when Phelan was done, she found herself in another part of
Tobyn's Wood, watching as Peredur destroyed the villages near his
binding place. After that she was on the Northern Plain, in the mind of
yet another ghost, and then she was in the Emerald Hills. The scene
continued to shift throughout the night, but always the visions were
the same. People were dying, houses were burning, and the Unsettled
were responsible for it all.
Sartol didn't come for her that first night, and when daylight finally
arrived, taking her sight, she knew that she was safe for a few hours.
Sartol had turned Theron's Curse to his own purposes, but he could not
change it that much. He could have made her attack during the day, but
he would have been blind, just as she was. So Sartol merely held her
and the others, waiting until dusk to resume his war. Even when
darkness fell, it was not her turn. There were so many of them spread
across Tobyn-Ser, and she had been nothing to him in life. She hadn't
even been a Mage-Attend when he died.
Still, in the end, he did come for her, just as he had come for the
others. One moment she was alone, unable to move at all, and the next
she was walking. And Sartol's voice was in her head.
"Your turn, Mage," he told her, his tone mocking.
I'll fight you. You'll have to force me to do everything.
Laughter filled her mind, reverberating like thunder in the mountains until she thought she would scream.
"I have already forced mages who were stronger in life than you ever
dreamed of being. I've already forced Phelan. What makes you think that
you can withstand me?"
And as if to prove his point, he made her lift her staff and throw a
bolt of teal fire at an ancient oak standing a few yards away. The tree
split down the middle, both sides crashing to the forest floor, and
within seconds both halves were completely engulfed in flames.
Rhonwen merely stared at what she had done. As a living mage, she had not been capable of such a thing.
"I have made you stronger in death than you ever were in life, Mage,"
Sartol said, reading her thoughts. "How does it feel to wield such
power?"
Had there been anything in her stomach, she would have vomited.
Rhonwen felt herself starting to walk again and she knew that there was
nothing at all she could do about it. She knew as well that the others
were watching this, seeing it all through her eyes, and that knowledge
made it even worse. As did the realization of where they were going. He
was sending her west, toward the village that had been her home, and
that was still home to her mother.
"I can spare her if you like," Sartol whispered to her, like a lover
breathing into her ear. "I can do that small thing for you, but you
must ask it of me."
Everything. He was taking everything from her, just as he had done to
the others, just as he had done to the woman whose body he was using.
Just as he intended to do to all of Tobyn-Ser.
And what could she do but beg?
Yes, please, she sent, feeling the tears pour from her eyes. Please don't kill her.
Again he laughed, and Rhonwen wondered if he really intended to spare her mother, or if this was just another cruel game.
She could see the small houses in front of her, and she struggled to
break free, to stop in her tracks, to fall to the ground. Anything.
Sartol's laughter echoed in her mind.
Reaching the first house, she felt herself raise her staff. She tried to close her eyes, but he didn't even allow her that.
"Consider the others," he said. "They want to see."
She felt a surge of power move through her body like wind through tree
limbs. It was a sensation she had not experienced since her death and
for just an instant, she found herself savoring it. But when the ball
of teal fire that had burst from her staff crashed through the wall of
that first home, making the ground shudder, and bringing cries of
terror from the people inside, she felt ashamed. Had Phelan felt this way? she wanted to ask. Had the others?
"No," Sartol told her, laughing once more. "You're the only one."
She walked on, destroying home after home. When the townspeople fled
from the burning structures, looking back at her as they ran, their
faces distorted with fear and grief, she threw fire at them as well.
She recognized a few of them. All of them, she knew, recognized her.
Some pleaded, some shouted horrible things at her. And who could blame
them? Whatever they thought of her was nothing compared to what she
thought of herself at this moment.
"You're doing wonderfully."
Leave me alone! she said to him in a small voice. Stop talking to me!
"But I'm so pleased with the work you're doing for me. Surely there's nothing wrong with offering a bit of praise."
She tried to close her mind to him, to silence his voice, even if she
could not break free of his will. But his taunts continued, as did her
assault on the village.
By the time she came to her mother's home, the entire village had been
alerted to her presence. The sky glowed with flame and alarm bells rang
from the meeting hall and the Temple of Arick. Her mother was outside
the house, but unlike the others, who ran from her in terror, her
mother simply stood in the center of the road, staring at her. Tears
rolled down her cheeks, and her silver hair hung loose to her shoulders.
"Rhonwen, why?" she asked, her voice quavering.
He's making me do it, Mama. I'm so sorry.
"Because you never came to see me, Mother," he made her say. "Because
I've been alone all these years, and you never came to speak with me.
Not even once."
It was true: her mother had never come to Rhonwen's binding place.
Somehow Sartol had learned that from her. But it was a decision Rhonwen
understood. She had died so soon after her father's death. It had all
been too much for her mother.
"I meant to Rhonwen. Truly I did. But surely that's no reason
for ..." Her mother gestured at the flames and corpses. "For this."
Of course not, Mama. Don't listen to him. Don't listen to me.
"It's all the reason I need."
Rhonwen was crying again, and she hoped that her mother would see her tears and understand them.
Sartol made her raise her staff again, pointing it at her mother's heart.
You promised! she shouted in her mind.
And at the last instant, Sartol shifted her aim, so that the fire from
her ceryll flew just past her mother and hammered into her house, the
house of Rhonwen's youth. The force of the blow knocked her mother to
the ground, but she was still alive, and as far as Rhonwen could tell,
she was unhurt.
A moment later Rhonwen began walking again, carrying her assault to
other homes. She could hear her mother calling to her again, but Sartol
didn't allow her to turn and look back. And just this once, Rhonwen was
grateful.
The attack didn't take very long; it had never been a big village.
Within less than an hour, every building was burning and bodies
littered the narrow lanes between homes. Mercifully, many of the
townspeople had managed to escape into the forest, and Sartol did not
deem them important enough to have Rhonwen pursue them.
"We need some witnesses," he told her, sounding pleased with himself.
"And it's time you made your way to the next village. I'll be leaving
you for a time, but I'll be back soon and we can do this again."
You bastard! She was trembling with rage and grief and disgust at what she had become, at what he had made her. You sick bastard!
"Rhonwen!" Her mother's voice.
She felt herself turn, saw her mother standing before her. She was
still crying, and there was a dark bruise on her cheek. Apparently she
had been hurt by the destruction of the house after all.
"I grow tired of this," Sartol said. "You should tell her to run."
Please! You promised! She had shed more tears this night than she had in all her years as an unsettled mage. And yet they kept falling. Leave her alone!
" 'Sick bastard,' am I?"
Her staff rose again, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, or to block the teal fire that flew from her ceryll.
28
As fate would have it, your message regarding the weapons flowing
from Lon-Ser to the Keepers of your Temples arrived this very day, just
as Jibb's security men were intercepting a shipment of gold from your
land that was bound for Sovereign Marar. The next shipment of weapons
was already on the merchant ship, but it has been removed and
destroyed. As for the Temples' gold, I await your instructions as to
what should be done with it. Were I in your position, I would demand
that it be given to the people of your land as restitution for what has
been done to your forests, but that is merely my opinion.
... I am hopeful that by ending the flow of weapons from Marar to your
land, we have managed to ease some of the burdens you have described in
recent letters, but I get the impression that this represented merely
one problem among many. If there is more that I can do, please know
that you need only ask. I, too, grow weary of the distance between us,
although in an odd way, this episode has made me feel closer to you
than ever.
Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal to Hawk-Mage Orris, Day 2, Week 11, Spring, Year 3068.
In the days immediately following their successful assault on Marar's
palace, Melyor and Jibb managed to get quite a bit of information out
of the Sovereign regarding his contacts with Tobyn-Ser's clerics and
the operatives he used within Bragor-Nal to deliver gold to Premel.
Marar resisted at first, of course. He made no effort to hide his
bitterness at being imprisoned after Melyor had hinted at the
possibility of exile, and he retreated into a brooding silence for
several hours after they brought him back to Bragor-Nal and placed him
in one of the Gold Palace's underground cells. But physical pain, and
the threat of prolonged torture, had a way of making even the most
reticent of prisoners become positively chatty.
In truth, Melyor was reluctant to resort to torture. It had been used
against her people for too long, by too many leaders of SovSec. And
Mouse, who had asked to be allowed to stay on for a few days until
Marar's fate was decided, made it clear that she disapproved of torture
just as much as she disapproved of murder.
Fortunately, as they had learned two days before in Marar's palace, the
Sovereign had a remarkably low threshold for pain. Jibb barely did more
than glare at him, and Marar started babbling on about which merchants
he had used to send his gold and who his couriers were here in
Bragor-Nal. He had even volunteered the names of his operatives in
Oerella-Nal, information Melyor immediately shared with Wiercia. Most
importantly, the Sovereign gave them the names of the Keepers of
Tobyn-Ser's Temples whom he had contacted by way of Abboriji
intermediaries. Those Melyor quickly sent off to Orris, although she
knew that it would be many weeks before her letter reached him.
"How did you meet him, anyway?" Mouse asked, after Melyor dispatched her letter.
They were standing in Melyor's office, the midday sun fighting through the Nal's brown haze to light the chamber.
"You mean Orris?"
Mouse gave her a strange look, and Melyor smiled. "That's the sorcerer's name," she added.
"Orris," the Gildriite repeated. "How did you end up as his friend? I
know he came to the Nal. I wasn't in the Network yet, but people I know
still talk about it."
"I met him," Melyor said, "because Cedrych, who was my Overlord at the
time, told me to find him. This, of course, was after I sent Jibb to
kill him."
The woman's eyes widened. "You're joking!"
"Not at all. Cedrych was intent upon conquering Tobyn-Ser, and I was to
be the leader of his invasion force. It would have put me in line to
become Overlord, maybe even Sovereign, and at the time, that was all I
cared about. I had a vision of Orris and realized that he was coming
here to stop the invasion, and so I decided to have him killed."
Mouse was still staring at her, but her expression had changed from one of astonishment to one of disgust.
"I know what you're thinking, Mouse, but don't judge me too harshly. I
had many other opportunities to kill him after Jibb failed, and I
didn't take advantage of any of them. In fact, I joined his cause, and
as a result I was nearly killed myself by one of Cedrych's assassins."
"So Orris forgave you?"
Again she smiled, remembering how long it took them to trust each
other, and how quickly that trust turned into love. "Yes, he did."
Mouse regarded her wordlessly for several moments before turning away
and stepping to the window. "So what now?" she asked. "What are you
going to do with Marar?"
"Don't you think it's time you forgave me as well, Mouse?"
The woman faced her again. "Me?"
"You, the Network. My people."
"Does it matter to you that much?"
"Wouldn't it matter to you?"
Mouse shrugged, then nodded. "I suppose it would. Truth is, I don't even know anymore what it is we'd be forgiving you for."
"I do," Melyor said, smiling sadly. "And if you give it any thought at all, you will as well."
Their eyes met briefly before Mouse looked away again. But in that one
moment, Melyor saw that Mouse did know, that she still remembered their
conversation in the foothills.
"So what will it take?" Melyor asked.
"Do you really want an answer?"
The Sovereign gave a small laugh. "I think so."
"Then let me think about it," Mouse said, grinning. "In the meantime,
you haven't answered my question yet: what's next for Marar?"
Melyor flexed her leg, which, according to the meds, seemed to be
healing quite well. Certainly it hurt less than it had. Then she
lowered herself into a large chair. "I'm still not certain. Wiercia is
coming here later today so that we can try to decide on something, but
I don't think she knows what to do either." She eyed the woman with
interest. "Why? Do you have an idea?"
"Not really. I know what I'd do. I'd throw him in prison and leave him there for the rest of his life."
"That would certainly be in the easiest thing to do, but it gets a bit
more complicated when you're dealing with Sovereigns. Despite what I
said in his palace about his violations of the Green Area Proclamation
justifying his arrest, Marar was right: there are procedures for
dealing with this sort of thing that are spelled out in the Cape of
Stars Treaty. He can't be executed, he can't be placed in a common
prison, and he can't be punished unilaterally by the leader of one Nal.
I need Wiercia's approval to do anything, and though Stib-Nal carries
little weight in the council, their new Sovereign would have legitimate
grounds for protest were we to do anything that violated the treaty."
"So are you going to exile him after all?"
Melyor exhaled and shook her head. "I'd rather not. Knowing Marar, it
would only be a matter of time before he was stirring up trouble again."
"Sounds like a problem," Mouse said. "I think I'm glad I'm not Sovereign."
There was a knock at Melyor's door before she could answer, and an instant later, Jibb stuck his head into the room.
"Can we—?" Seeing Mouse he stopped and frowned.
"I was just leaving," the Gildriite said, smirking at Jibb as she sauntered toward the door.
"Don't go too far," Melyor called after her. "I'd like to speak with you again later."
Mouse nodded. "All right. See you later, General," she added as she brushed past Jibb.
The security man glared after her for a few seconds and swung the door
shut. "I don't like her having the run of the palace," he said. "Who
knows what she's learning about our security system?"
Melyor had to keep herself from laughing. True, it was a security man's
job to be suspicious, but she sometimes wondered if Jibb was capable of
trusting anyone. He trusted Premel, a voice in her head said. And look what happened. On second thought, perhaps it wasn't so funny.
"I don't think we have anything to worry about," she said, keeping her
tone neutral. "If she wanted to do something to me she could have done
it on our way to Stib-Nal, or in Marar's palace, or at least a half
dozen times since."
"True," he answered without enthusiasm.
"Come on, Jibb. She got us there, just as she said she would, and she
fought beside us as effectively and as loyally as any of your men.
Hasn't she earned a bit of trust and respect?"
"I guess." He dropped himself into the chair across from where she was
sitting. "She is good with a thrower, and she's brave, too."
Melyor raised an eyebrow. That was high praise coming from Jibb. "It seems she's made an impression on you."
He dismissed her comment with a wave of his hand. "It doesn't mean I
like her. She's impertinent and obnoxious, and I resent the way she
speaks to you. I'm not sure why you put up with it."
"For the same reason Nal-Lords put up with me when I was younger, and
for the same reason I put up with you when we first met. I see her
potential; I see qualities in her that could be refined."
He shrugged, as if unconvinced. "Maybe." Then, grinning, he added, "And I was never that bad."
"You might not have been as obnoxious, but you were twice as arrogant."
They both laughed before falling into a brief silence.
"So I understand that you don't like her," Melyor said at last. "But do you think that you could work with her?"
"What? You're not serious."
"Yes, I am."
"You want to bring her into SovSec?"
The Sovereign took a long breath. "I'm not sure what I have in mind.
I'd be the first to admit that I haven't thought this through too
carefully yet. But she's got talent, Jibb, and it's being wasted out
there in the Nal. She should be more than just some independent
scratching out a living in the quads."
"That's her choice, and you know it. As an independent she can do more for the Network than she ever could in a gang."
"And working for the Sovereign, she could do even more."
He opened his mouth, shut it, then sat back in his chair. "I see," he said quietly.
"Could you find a place for her?"
The general smiled, and Melyor new that he would. When had he ever been
able to deny her anything? "Let me give it some thought."
"All right." She continued to gaze at him, waiting. He had come to her,
and she knew why. But she had decided some time ago that it was up to
Jibb to initiate the conversation.
The security chief cleared his throat and shifted in his chair.
"There's another matter we need to discuss," he began at last. "Now
that we've taken care of Marar, we have to figure out what we're going
to do with Premel."
"Jibb—"
He raised a hand, stopping her. "I know what you're going to say.
You've forgiven him, and you've learned to trust him again. But I
haven't, Melyor, and I'm the one who has to work with him every day. He
betrayed us, he almost got you killed; he's partially responsible for
the deaths of three of my men and the wounding of several more. I can't
ignore that, and I can't pretend none of it ever happened." Jibb looked
away for a moment. Melyor could see that his hands were shaking. "He
deserves to be executed," the general went on, facing her again. "He
should at least be jailed."
"So we're just supposed to forget that he saved your life, and that he played an integral role in defeating Marar?"
He didn't answer.
"I can't do that, Jibb. Just as you can't overlook his crimes, I can't overlook the fact that he's atoned for them."
"Saving my life doesn't bring back the men who died in that explosion!"
"I know that," she said quietly.
Jibb stared at his hands for several seconds and took a long breath. "I
don't like giving you ultimatums, Sovereign. I think you know that. But
if you insist upon letting Premel stay where he is, I'll leave SovSec.
I can't work with him anymore."
And in that moment, it came to her. There was a way to satisfy both of
them, all of them in fact, and to assure that all for which Melyor had
been working would continue.
"What if you didn't have to work with him?" she asked.
He stared at her, a question in his dark eyes. And Melyor smiled.
* * *
Premel had dismissed the men from their training a few minutes early
today. He had seen Jibb making his way to the Sovereign's office and he
guessed from the way the general glared at him that he would be the
topic of their conversation. Chances were that this was his last day as
an officer in SovSec. Tomorrow everyone would know that he was a
traitor, so he figured he might as well give them an easy morning
today. Maybe that would soften the reaction a bit. He shook his head
and smiled grimly. Probably not.
He was still alone on the training grounds, lost in thought, when the young Gildriite woman spotted him and called his name.
Premel briefly considered making an excuse and retreating to his
quarters, but despite her strange manner and the fact that their first
conversation in the foothills of the Greenwater Range had ended poorly,
he liked her. Besides, this was no time for him to be discouraging
would-be friends.
"What are you doing out here?" she asked as she drew near. "Where's everybody else?"
He shrugged. "I let them off a little early today. I was feeling
generous." He tried to smile, but in his current mood the humor felt
hollow.
"So Melyor still lets you train the guards?"
Premel narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean 'still'?"
"Nothing," she said, her features growing pale. "I just—"
"She told you, didn't she?" He turned away, shaking his head. "I can't believe she told you."
"No one told me anything, Premel. I was with Melyor when she interrogated Marar in his palace. That's how I found out."
The security man glanced at her, wanting to believe what she was saying.
"I'm telling you the truth. Melyor told me nothing. In fact she swore
me to secrecy." She shrugged, then gave a slight smirk. "It just never
occurred to me to keep it from you."
He couldn't help but smile at that. "Palace politics can be a bit confusing sometimes."
"I guess," she said, the smirk lingering on her face. It occurred to
him that it was as much of a smile as he had ever seen her offer. "So
why'd you do it?" she asked after a brief pause.
He felt his stomach tighten. "What do you mean?"
"Why did you betray Melyor?"
He pressed his lips into a thin line and stared back at the palace.
This was not something he wished to discuss with anyone, least of all
her. Yet, there was something about Mouse that kept him from just
walking away. Yes, she was pretty, but it was more than that. For some
reason, he wanted her to like him, to understand.
"I was wrong to do it," he told her in a low voice. "I never should have."
"That's not what I asked."
He stared at her, as if he could gauge by the look in her eyes just how
honest he could be. "Marar was offering me a lot of gold."
"So you did it out of greed?"
Premel frowned. "Are you judging me?"
"I'm trying to understand you."
"Why?"
The woman shrugged. "Was it greed?" she asked again.
"I suppose that was part of it."
"Did you do it because she's a Gildriite?"
I should have walked away when I had the chance. I should have seen this coming.
What was there for him to say? She had proven in the foothills that she
could tell when he lied. "I did it for a number of reasons," he said.
"And that was one of them."
He nodded. "Yes. I'm sorry."
Mouse gazed at him for a long time, a sad expression in her pale eyes.
In that moment, she looked younger than he had ever seen her. "Do you
hate my people that much?"
"I thought I did. The truth is, I really don't know anything about your
people. Until I met you, the Sovereign was the only Gildriite I had
ever known. And so when she started changing the Nal, making it into
something I didn't like, I blamed it on the fact that she was a
Gildriite. That was how I justified my betrayal."
He had expected the woman to rage at him, perhaps even to strike him.
Had their positions been reversed, he would have been infuriated. But
she just continued to look at him, albeit sadly. And Premel realized
that he shouldn't have been at all surprised. She dealt with blind
prejudice such as his every day. There was nothing new in what he had
said. People had been treating the Gildriites this way for a thousand
years. All of which made him even more ashamed.
"What did she change?" Mouse asked. "What made you so angry with her that you'd turn to Marar?"
He felt his face redden. "It's going to sound foolish to you. At this
point it does to me as well. But I resented the fact that she was
trying to end the violence. I accused her of making Bragor-Nal too much
like Oerella-Nal."
Mouse laughed and shook her head.
"What's funny?" Premel asked.
"My people have been condemning her for years for not doing enough to
change the Nal, none more than me. And now I find out that you betrayed
her because you think she's changed too much." She shook her head
again. "I know she's got more gold than I can imagine, and more power
than any other person in Lon-Ser, but I don't think I'd want her job."
Premel started to agree, but in that instant he saw Jibb and Melyor emerge from the palace and begin walking in their direction.
"How would you feel about my job?" he asked. "I have a feeling it's about to be available."
She gave him a sympathetic look but said nothing.
Actually, he knew, his job was the least of his worries. He was a
traitor, and in Bragor-Nal, traitors were executed. Still, he felt
surprisingly calm as he watched Jibb and the Sovereign approach.
Melyor was still on her walk-aids, but she had become so adept at using
them that Jibb appeared to be straining to keep up with her.
"I'm glad to find the two of you together," the Sovereign said as she
stopped in front of them. She was smiling, although Jibb looked grim,
and though he was afraid to think it, Premel couldn't help but believe
that he might not be punished after all.
"Why?" Mouse asked, rising to the bait.
Meylor glanced at Jibb, but the general's expression didn't change. Whatever they had decided, Jibb wasn't entirely pleased.
"How would you like to work for me, Mouse?" Melyor asked. "Or, more precisely, how would you like to work for Jibb?"
"SovSec?" the Gildriite said, looking stunned. "You want me to work for SovSec?"
The Sovereign raised a hand. "Hear me out before you decide. I want to
create a new unit in SovSec devoted entirely to the protection of
Gildriites. It would work in cooperation with the Network." Her eyes
flicked to Premel. "The two of you would run it together, Premel on
SovSec's end and you on the Network's end. It would be an equal
partnership." Melyor looked at the two of them expectantly, like a kid
waiting to open presents on the Festival of Lon. "So?" she asked. "What
do you think?"
Mouse exhaled through her teeth. "Me, working for SovSec. I don't know."
"You'd be working for the Network, too, Mouse. You'd be doing more for
Bragor-Nal's Gildriites every day than you could ever do in a lifetime
as a break-law."
"Why are you doing this?" Mouse asked. "Why would you want to hire me?"
The ghost of a smile touched Melyor's lips. "I'm doing this because I
can. I think I've finally found a way to protect the Gildriites of
Bragor-Nal. And I want you, because I feel that I've gotten to know you
a bit over the past couple of weeks. I've seen the way you work, the
way you handle a thrower. I think you can do this." She hesitated, but
only for an instant. "I also feel that I owe it to you. I appreciate
your help." She grinned. "And I've come to appreciate your candor as
well."
Mouse gave a reluctant smile, but quickly turned serious again. "Can I recruit others from the Network to help me?"
"Absolutely."
"And I have complete authority over those I recruit? No interference from you or SovSec?"
The Sovereign glanced at Jibb. "She sounds like you."
Jibb grunted in response. It might have been a laugh, although it was hard to say. His expression remained dour.
"You have authority over your recruits, but you, in turn, take
responsibility for whatever they do. If they mess up, you'll answer for
it."
"And I'd be working with Premel?" Mouse asked, looking his way.
"Yes," Melyor said.
Mouse raised an eyebrow, and regarded him appraisingly. "I can live with that," she said at length. "I'll do it."
The Sovereign, smiled again and nodded. "I'm glad. What about you?" she asked, turning to Premel.
Premel took a breath and looked directly at Jibb until the general met his gaze. "You're all right with this?"
Jibb frowned, his dark eyes flicking away momentarily. "Would it matter?"
"Yes, it would. If you don't want me in SovSec anymore, I'll resign."
Jibb stared at him for several seconds before looking away again. "I
don't know what I want. A part of me would like to see you in prison.
Another part of me wishes none of this had happened, and that you could
just stay on as my colonel."
Premel said nothing. He just waited.
"The problem is, Premel, I don't trust you anymore. I don't think I can
ever trust you again. But Melyor does, and she's my Sovereign. So I
guess I have to accept what she decides."
"That's not good enough, Jibb," Melyor said, before Premel could
respond. "I told you as much in my office. I may not always be your
Sovereign, and I need to know that this arrangement will continue long
after I'm gone."
"You never said that!" Jibb whispered, the color abruptly draining from
his face. "You never said anything like that!" He shook his head. "What
would stop you from being Sovereign?"
The Sovereign shrugged, and this time she was the one who averted her
gaze. "I'm not sure. I just know that I don't want to be Sovereign for
the rest of my life. There are other things I want."
Even Premel, who didn't know her very well, and who knew even less
about the events that had led to her investiture as Sovereign, knew
what she meant. The sorcerer. She wanted to be with the sorcerer.
Jibb's face, which had turned white just a moment before, now hardened. "I see," he said quietly.
Melyor took the general's hand. "You've known all along, Jibb. I
shouldn't have had to tell you." She tried to smile, but failed. "It
won't be for some time yet. I don't even know when. But I have to know
that the Gildriites will always be safe. I need you to promise me that."
"But you must know that once you leave, I won't be running SovSec anymore."
She did smile at that. "Of course you won't. You'll be Sovereign."
Looking to Jibb for his response, Premel couldn't help but grin at the
irony of it all. He had first betrayed Melyor because he wanted Jibb to
become Sovereign, and all this time, she had wanted the same thing. But
he could see from the way Jibb was staring at Melyor that the general
didn't feel the same way. I don't want to be Sovereign, the expression in his eyes seemed to say. I want you.
Premel glanced over at Mouse, and then stared down at his feet. Anything to avoid looking at Jibb and the Sovereign.
But after a brief silence, Jibb surprised him. "Well, if I'm going to be Sovereign, I'll need all the help I can get."
Premel looked up again, and their eyes met.
"If you want this position," Jibb told him, "you should take it. I have
no objections. I think it's a good use of your talents. And maybe it
will teach you a thing or two about Gildriites."
"Oh, I'll see to that," Mouse said.
Melyor laughed, and after a moment Jibb and Premel did as well.
"You're certain?" Premel asked, when their laughter had died away.
Jibb nodded. "But remember: I'll be watching you. If you disappoint me again, even the Sovereign won't be able to save you."
"I'll keep that in mind," Premel said. He looked over at Melyor, who
was regarding him closely. But he was most aware of Mouse. Even without
looking, he knew that she was watching him as well. And in spite of
himself, he smiled. For some reason, all three of them were giving him
another chance, and though he had really done little to give offense to
the young woman— far, far less than he had done to the Sovereign
and the general— he was most grateful to her.
* * *
It was a prison. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less. That it was
clean and well-lit compared to Bragor-Nal's common prisons, or those in
his own Nal, made little difference to Marar. He was a Sovereign, by
the gods! He had gold and power beyond the reckoning of every person in
Lon-Ser save Wiercia and Melyor. It was ridiculous that he should be
treated so. True, he had violated a few provisions of the Cape of Stars
Treaty and Green Area Proclamation. But those same agreements contained
protections for Sovereigns even in extreme circumstances, protections
that Melyor had ignored by taking him from his palace and throwing him
into her jail.
He had told her so twice, during each of her two brief visits. And both
times she had responded the same way, laughing away his protests and
offering to leave Jibb with him so that they might discuss in private
the treatment Marar had received.
The next time would be different, he had decided. When she came to see
him again, he would demand that she contact Wiercia and arrange a
meeting of the council at the Point of the Sovereigns so that the three
of them might discuss this situation as equals, as the victors of the
Consolidation had intended. Under those conditions, Marar figured, he
might have a chance. Both Melyor and Wiercia had to approve of any
punishment for his crimes, and they had shown little sign of being able
to agree on anything at all. Given that he was guilty of crimes against
both Bragor-Nal and the Matriarchy, it was quite possible that their
discussions would break down over questions of jurisdiction. And if
that happened, he would be freed under the terms of the Cape of Stars
Treaty. It wasn't much to hope for, he knew, but it was something.
It had been two days since she last came to see him, and both of her
previous visits had come just before dusk. So Marar was not surprised
when he heard her voice approaching his cell late that afternoon.
Sitting up on the cold steel pallet on which he had been lying, he
straightened the plain blue clothes they had given him as best he
could, and passed a hand through the matted tangle of his hair. Then
the Sovereign looked expectantly toward the metal door that opened onto
this section of the palace prison and waited.
"Good afternoon, Marar," Melyor said, opening the door and stepping into the narrow corridor.
He had vowed not to waste any time. "Melyor," he began firmly, standing as he spoke. "I'd—"
He stopped, his mouth falling open as Wiercia followed the Bragory
Sovereign into the hallway. She was dressed, as always, in her crimson
robe and hood, and, as usual, there was a slightly mocking smile on her
face that broadened when she saw his expression.
"Hello, Marar," she said. "You seem surprised to see me."
He gaped at the two of them, knowing how foolish he must have looked, and yet unable to make himself stop.
"He's speechless," Melyor said with amusement, looking at Wiercia. "If
I had known that this was all it would take, I would have invited you
to the Gold Palace years ago."
Wiercia laughed, and Marar felt his stomach tightening.
Melyor was still on her walk-aids, but she was dressed for battle as
she always seemed to be. She wore the light tunic, dark trousers, and
metal-tipped boots of a quad fighter, and she had a thrower strapped to
her thigh. Her hair fell to her shoulders in amber waves, and her green
eyes shone with the scarlet glow of the stone she carried atop her
ancient staff. She was beautiful and mysterious and deadly. He couldn't
ever remember seeing her look any different.
Looking from Melyor to Wiercia, Marar couldn't help but be struck by
the contrasts between them. Where Melyor was alluring, the Oerellan
woman was severe; where Melyor was lithe and compact, like a fighter,
Wiercia was solid and imposing. Melyor's clothes reminded all who met
her of her violent past as a break-law. Wiercia's robes gave her the
look of a cleric, stoic and unflappable. Separately, each was a
formidable foe. Together, they were unassailable. And they knew it,
just as he did.
"What are you going to do with me?" he asked, abandoning in that
instant all the strategies and ploys he had dreamed up over the past
few days. "You can't execute me. You can't jail me in a common prison."
"We could leave you in this one," Wiercia said. Apparently there would be no battle over jurisdiction.
"Or in the one at Wiercia's palace," Melyor added, as if to prove the
point. "But," she added, addressing Wiercia again, "it seems to me that
simple imprisonment hardly fits his crimes."
"It's all you're allowed!" he said, his voice trembling, as it always seemed to at times like these.
"Actually that's not true," Wiercia said. "I took the time to read the
provisions of the Treaty dealing with punishment of Sovereigns before I
came here today. It's quite specific in what it says we can't do, as
you already seem to know. But it's very vague when it comes to
describing what we can do. Apparently our options are nearly limitless."
"I don't believe you."
She raised an eyebrow and snapped her fingers. Immediately one of her Legates entered the corridor carrying a worn volume.
"The wording is in here," the Oerellan Sovereign said, as the Legate handed her the book. "Do you want me to read it?"
Marar sat back down on the pallet. "No," he murmured. "Don't bother."
"The problem, Marar," Melyor said, "is that neither of us wants the
burden of imprisoning you for the rest of your life. We don't want you
in our palace prisons."
He looked up at her eagerly. Perhaps he still had cause to hope. "Exile?" he asked.
"I've been in touch with the Supreme Potentate of Abborij," Wiercia told him. "She doesn't want you."
Melyor leaned casually against the bars of his cell. "I briefly
considered sending you to Tobyn-Ser, but they wouldn't have any use for
you either, and I wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardize our
improving relations with the mages there."
They were toying with him.
"Enough of this!" he said, standing again and starting to pace. "Just tell me what you're going to do, and be done with it!"
"There's really nothing we can do," Melyor said with a shrug. "So we're going to let you go."
He halted in mid-stride, staring from one of them to the other. "What?"
"You're free to go."
He shook his head. "This is some sort of joke, isn't it? You're playing games with me."
Wiercia shook her head. "No, we're not."
"You'll have to walk back to Stib-Nal," Melyor told him. "I'm not going
to waste my gold paying for an air-carrier to take you home. But the
walk's not so bad." She grinned. "I should know."
Nonsense, he thought. I'll hire a boat. Once they know who I am,
they'll know that I have the gold to repay them. "That's fine," he
said, struggling to keep his glee in check. He took a hesitant step
toward the door. "So when can I go?"
Melyor shrugged. "As soon as you'd like." She pressed a red button on
the wall behind her, and the door to his cell slid open. "You're
welcome to go now."
Still not believing what they were telling him, Marar stepped out of
the cell and stood before them. "Thank you, Sovereigns. I'll always
remember what you did for me today."
They both nodded, but said nothing. After an awkward moment, Marar
turned and started for the door leading out of the prison. His pulse
racing, his hands trembling, he allowed himself a smile. After all,
neither of them could see.
And at that moment, it all fell apart.
"There is one more thing, Marar," Melyor said, forcing him to stop.
He turned slowly. They were both grinning in a way that froze his blood.
"Wiercia has given me leave to conquer Stib-Nal," the Gildriite said.
"After all the trouble you've caused us over the past few months, we
agreed that it would best if Lon-Ser had only two Nals rather than
three. In return, I've ceded mining rights in the northern half of the
Median Range to the Matriarchy."
Marar felt his knees grow weak, and he grabbed the door frame for
support. "You can't do that," he said weakly. But really there was
nothing to stop them. Any formal declaration of war abrogated the
Treaty. Which meant ...
"You know that we can," Melyor said. "And since Bragor-Nal and Stib-Nal will soon be at war, I'll have to take you prisoner."
At which point, it would be entirely within her right to have him executed.
"Please," he breathed. "I'll do anything you want."
"Anything?" Melyor asked.
He swallowed. Nodded.
"I'll call off the invasion if you'll agree to waive the provision of the Treaty that keeps us from jailing you."
He closed his eyes. A common prison. There was no telling what the
inmates would do to him upon learning who he was. Death would be
easier. Unfortunately, he was too much of a coward to make such a
choice.
"Do we have a deal?" Wiercia asked.
"Yes," he whispered. "I'll waive the provision."
The Oerellan woman pulled a document and a pen from the folds of her
robe. He closed his eyes again and muttered a curse under his breath.
They had been planning this the whole time. They had known that they
had him, and yet they put him through it all: the false hope, the
crushing letdown, the humiliation.
She handed him the paper and pen.
"May assassins take you both," he said, signing the document without even bothering to read it.
"They may," Melyor answered. "But they won't be your assassins."
"Will you at least allow me to choose which Nal's prison I'll be going to?"
The two women looked at each other.
After a moment, Melyor gave a shrug. "Sure."
"Thank you. I'll go to the Matriarchy." It wouldn't make much
difference, he knew. Break-laws were break-laws. But conditions were
said to be better in Oerellan prisons.
"Told you," Melyor said.
Wiercia smiled. "I know, but this is right. I know what he did to you, but he killed Shivohn. Justice demands that we take him."
Melyor nodded. "I hope it brings some comfort to you and your people."
Marar closed his eyes again. Melyor and Wiercia were allies. In the
wake of all this, they might even have been closer than Melyor and
Shivohn had been. All his planning and all his gold had gone to naught.
Wiercia clapped her hands twice, and four of her guardsmen appeared.
"Take him to the air-carrier," she commanded, gesturing indifferently
at Marar. "Keep a close eye on him, but treat him with courtesy. He was
once a Sovereign."
"Yes, Sovereign," one of the men said.
Two of them took his arms, pinning them to his side firmly, but not too
roughly. They led him through the doorway into a wider corridor, and
started toward a marble stairway at the far end.
"Marar," Melyor called.
The guards stopped and turned him around.
The woman was grinning again, and he wished he could turn away, rather
than hear whatever it was she had to say. The guards, however, would
not allow it.
"You should never have gone after Jibb. If you had been content with
having Premel kill me, it would have worked. You got greedy, and it
cost you everything." Her grin broadened. "Something to think about
while you rot in jail."
He stared back at her for a few seconds, before glancing at one of the guards. "Get me out of here," he said.
They turned him again, and led him out of the palace to Wiercia's air-carrier.
You got greedy. Melyor was right. He knew she was right. And, he
knew, her words would gnaw at him for the rest of his days, reminding
him of how close he had come. Just as she intended.
29
Once more I write to you seeking your aid in a matter of great
urgency, and once more I do so on behalf of Eagle-Sage Jaryd. Somehow,
through trickery or coercion, Sartol, the enemy of whom I wrote in my
last letter, has enlisted the Unsettled in his war against the people
of Tobyn-Ser. We are beginning to receive reports of atrocities
committed by these spirits against villages near their binding places.
Regardless of how you respond to my previous request for help, I beg
you to assist us in our effort to warn our people of this latest
threat. Alert the Keepers in every village in Tobyn-Ser as quickly as
possible using whatever means you have at your disposal. People have
died already. Entire villages have been destroyed. People must
understand that even if the spirit near their village has been benign
in the past, he or she is not to be trusted now.
— First of the Sage Alayna, of the Order of
Mages and Masters, to Brevyl, Eldest of the Children of the Gods,
Spring, God's Year 4633.
The fresh snow in the mountains slowed them, but it also captured the
glow of the moon and the light the company summoned from their cerylls,
allowing them to ride deep into the night. Jaryd drove himself and his
companions as hard as their mounts would allow, and though the others
had grumbled about the pace he set when they first left Rhonwen's
binding place, none of them complained after their encounter with the
people from Phelan Spur.
No doubt every night that passed saw renewed attacks by the Unsettled on villages throughout the land. How could they rest?
They reached Amarid late on the fourth night, riding into the great
city and through the streets to the constable's building long after the
last of the merchants had packed up his wares and retired. Jaryd had
contacted Alayna earlier that day to tell her when to expect them, so
she was awake, waiting for them in the doorway of the building, her
great owl perched on her shoulder. Myn was there as well, looking
sleepy but pleased to see Jaryd again.
"She insisted," Alayna said quietly, an indulgent smile on her lips.
Jaryd smiled in return. "Of course." He kissed Alayna and then picked up Myn and kissed her forehead. "I missed you, Myn-Myn."
"I missed you too, Papa," she said, resting her head on his shoulder.
"You need to sleep though, Love, and Mama and I have a lot to talk about."
She lifted her head and looked him in the eye. "Are you going to talk about that man?"
Jaryd felt fear flood his heart like a moon tide. Arick, give me the power to protect her. "Yes, we are."
She put her arms around his neck again and held him tight for several
moments. Then she scrambled down out of his arms, gave Alayna a hug,
and went off with Valya back to the Aerie, where she and Alayna had
been staying since Sartol took the Great Hall.
"We should be getting back to the Hall of the League," Cailin said,
after they all watched Myn walk away. "Erland and I need to speak with
the rest of the League mages about all that's happened since we left.
It'll be dawn in another couple of hours. Why don't we meet back here
then?"
Jaryd nodded. "All right. I need to speak with the rest of the Order as
well. But I have little doubt as to what we'll decide to do. We need to
face him, Cailin. We need to try to defeat him now. He's only going to
get stronger."
"I agree," Cailin said. "I'll do whatever I can to convince the others."
"If it means anything to you," Erland added, still sitting on his
mount, and looking regal in his blue cloak and white beard, "I agree as
well."
"Thank you, Erland," Jaryd said, smiling at the man. "It means a great deal."
Erland and Vawnya turned their mounts to leave, but Cailin lingered a
moment longer, gazing at Orris and looking like she wanted to say
something. But then she turned as well and followed the other two mages.
"I let the others know that you'd be back tonight," Alayna said, taking Jaryd's hand. "They're waiting for you inside."
They walked into the constable's building with Orris and Trahn just a step behind them and Rithlar hopping in front of them.
"Has there been any more news?"
She nodded. "Sartol has removed the shield of power from around the
Great Hall. We don't know what it means. We haven't heard of any new
attacks, but that means nothing. It wouldn't be like Sartol to stop
now."
"Is he still in the Great Hall?" Trahn asked.
"Yes, and Theron's with him."
"You're sure it's Theron?" Orris asked.
Alayna and Jaryd shared a brief smile. "I'm sure," she said. "I'd know that shade of green anywhere."
They stepped into the main room of the building, and the other mages
stood to greet them, led, of course, by Baden and Sonel. No one said a
word as Orris and Trahn took their places at the table that had been
placed there, and Jaryd and Alayna moved to the front of the room.
"Thank you all for being here," Jaryd began. "I know it's late; we'd
all rather be asleep. But as long as this war continues, the people of
Tobyn-Ser can't rest, so perhaps it's appropriate that we don't either."
"Did you learn anything from Rhonwen?" Baden asked. "Do you know how to stop Sartol?"
"As Sartol took the Unsettled from their binding places, Theron
appeared to us," Jaryd answered. "He said that Sartol had altered
Theron's Curse, and that in doing so, he had given us our one chance to
defeat him." He paused, knowing how this was going to sound. "We must
undo the Curse."
The others remained utterly silent, staring at him as if he had told them to darken the sun.
"I wouldn't even know how to attempt such a thing," Baden said at last,
his voice barely more than a whisper. "Did he tell you anything more?"
Jaryd took a breath. "No. I assume we'll need to wrest control of the
Summoning Stone from Sartol, but beyond that I have no idea what we're
to do. All I know is, we can't wait. We should confront him tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Trahn asked. "Or tomorrow night?"
"If we wait until night," Baden said, "he can send the Unsettled after us. That could make this a lot more difficult."
Trahn nodded. "True. But if we wait until night, we also give a respite
to the rest of Tobyn-Ser, even if just for a time. More importantly,
though, Theron uttered the Curse at night; that may be the only time it
can be broken."
"Not only that," Alayna added, "but if Theron is there at night, he may be able to help us."
Jaryd looked over at his uncle. "Baden?"
The older mage shrugged slightly. "What they're saying makes sense. Who
knows? There may even be some way for the rest of the Unsettled to help
us. We should go at night."
"I tend to agree," Jaryd said. "Let's hope the League mages do as well."
"Has Brevyl responded to your request for help yet, Alayna?" Radomil asked.
The First shook her head. "Not yet," she said in a flat voice. "Maybe we'll hear from him tomorrow."
No one responded, and it was clear from Alayna's tone that she held out little hope that the Keepers would come to their aid.
There was little more for them to discuss. They knew almost nothing
about Sartol's power and that of the Unsettled now that he had altered
the curse. All they could do was confront him and hope that somehow the
combined might of the League and the Order would be enough. Yet even
after Jaryd adjourned the meeting, all of them stayed, sensing perhaps
that this might be their last gathering. They said little, but they
seemed to take comfort simply in being together. And when the first
light of morning touched the windows of the building, the Order mages
filed out into the street to greet the day.
Once more, Alayna took Jaryd's hand. "It's strange to think that by
this time tomorrow, all of this will be over. One way or another."
"One way or another," he repeated.
"You don't think we can beat him."
He glanced around them, but no one else appeared to be listening. "I
don't know," he admitted. "The Order has never faced anyone this
powerful before. I don't even think there's ever been anyone this
powerful. We have to defeat him, but I have no idea how we're supposed
to do it."
"We'll find a way," she said with such certainty that he actually believed her. "What choice do we have?"
A short time later, as the sun first appeared low over the rooftops of
the city, Cailin led the League mages up to the constable's building.
Rithlar was standing on the ground next to Jaryd, and seeing Cailin's
eagle, she let out a cry that the other bird answered.
"Good morning, Eagle-Sage," Cailin said in a voice that carried to all
the mages there. "We of the League of Amarid have come to fight beside
you for the people of Tobyn-Ser. Three times, Eagle-Sages have led our
land to victory. Today, the four gods willing, you will do so again. We
pledge ourselves to your service. What would you have us do?"
Jaryd gazed at her in disbelief. How had she managed to get Erland and the rest to agree to this?
"Eagle-Master Cailin, I ... I'm overwhelmed."
She smiled, her bright blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight. "This
wasn't easy," she said under her breath. "Accept our offer before they
change their minds."
"My fellow mages and I gladly accept you as partners in this war,"
Jaryd said in a voice all could hear. "United, the Mage-Craft can never
be defeated."
"Several of the older mages, including Erland, think we'd be wiser to
do this at night," Cailin said in a lower voice. "I'm not sure I agree
with them, but I thought I'd mention it."
"Actually," Jaryd said, "we came to the same conclusion. I think it
makes sense for a number of reasons, but if you're not
convinced ..."
She shook her head. "I'll defer to your judgment, and theirs." She
frowned and looked away briefly. "I'm feeling very young today."
"You shouldn't," Alayna said. "None of us thinks of you that way."
Cailin smiled. "Thank you. So we're putting this off until nightfall?" she asked Jaryd.
"Yes. We should gather outside the Great Hall at dusk."
"And until then?"
He opened his hands. "I'm not sure there's any way to prepare for this,
Cailin. Rest, do something to make this day special." He looked up into
the sky, which was a cloudless, deep blue. "Enjoy the sunshine. Who
knows what tomorrow will bring?"
"It will bring victory," Cailin said, as if she had no doubt at all.
"I've been telling him the same thing," Alayna said. "But he won't believe me."
Jaryd smiled at them. "I want to believe you both."
"That's not enough," Cailin said. "You have to believe us. You're leading us. If you don't think we can win, we can't."
He knew that she was right, that they both were. Yet he couldn't shake
the feeling that this time was different, that the mages of Tobyn-Ser
were faced now with too powerful a foe.
"I'll remember that," he finally said. It was all he could say.
And Cailin frowned, as if sensing his lingering apprehension. "Dusk then?" she asked. "At the Great Hall?"
"Yes."
"All right," she said, turning away to tell the other League mages.
A few moments later all the mages, League and Order, began to disperse,
excused for the day like schoolchildren. For just an instant, Jaryd
wondered if he was making a mistake, if in fact they should have been
preparing somehow.
"You look exhausted," Alayna said. "You should get some sleep."
He shook his head. "I don't want to sleep. Let's find Myn and get out of the city for the day."
"Where do you want to go?"
He gazed up at the sky again. A day like this wasn't to be wasted.
Especially now. "Anywhere. Anywhere at all. We'll let Myn decide."
As it turned out, she chose just the place Jaryd would have: Dacia's
Lake, the small body of water outside the city in Hawksfind Wood. It
was a short ride, but once they were there, it felt as though they were
leagues away from the Great Hall, which was exactly what Jaryd had
wanted. For a few hours, the three of them merely played and swam and
laughed. Rithlar circled overhead for much of the time, reaching for
Jaryd occasionally, as if to reassure herself that he was still there,
and Alayna's owl slept nearby on an old stump. But for a short while,
for the first time in so long, Jaryd and Alayna were husband and wife,
father and mother, rather than Eagle-Sage and First.
Late in the afternoon, reluctantly, they climbed back onto their
horses, with Myn sitting just in front of Alayna, and they rode back to
Amarid. Over the course of the day, Jaryd had not found any reason to
believe that the mages would prevail, but he had found a measure of
peace, as if the gods had assured him that whatever the outcome of the
coming battle, Tobyn-Ser would find a way to survive. No matter how strong he is,
they seemed to be saying with the sunshine that sparkled on the water,
and the warm breeze that stirred the branches of the oaks and aspens
surrounding the lake, he cannot destroy this. And perhaps, in the absence of true confidence, that was the most for which Jaryd could hope.
They reached the city a short time before sunset and took Myn back to
the Aerie, where Valya was waiting. Jaryd and Alayna tried to keep
their good-bye casual and lighthearted, but Jaryd could not help but
clutch his daughter tightly when his turn came. Alayna had already
turned away, so that Myn wouldn't see her tears, and Jaryd had to fight
to keep from crying himself.
"It's all right, Papa," Myn said, pulling back to look him in the eye.
"I promise. I dreamed last night that we were back at our house. We'll
get to go really soon."
He smiled and found that he was crying after all. He almost asked her
if it had been a real dream, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know. And
at that moment he didn't trust his voice enough to speak. So instead,
he kissed her once more, whispered, "I love you," and walked away, with
Alayna by his side.
They were among the last to reach the Great Hall. Cailin and Erland
were already there with the rest of the League mages, and all but one
or two of the Order mages were there as well, standing in a tight
cluster around Baden and Sonel.
"We were starting to think you had changed your minds," Baden said, as
they stopped in front of him. But then, seeing how red Alayna's eyes
were, the Owl-Master's brow furrowed. "Is everything all right?"
Jaryd nodded. "Saying good-bye to Myn was ... difficult."
Baden frowned sympathetically and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "I'm sorry."
The last of the Order mages arrived a moment later, and Jaryd beckoned
Cailin and the other League mages closer with a wave of his hand.
"I don't have much to say that you all don't already know. I'm not sure
what we'll encounter in there. Just take your lead from Cailin and me.
If things go badly, and we're lost, fight on as best you can. Our goal
is to wrest control of the Summoning Stone from Sartol long enough to
break Theron's Curse. If we can do that, we can destroy Sartol and his
army."
"How do we do that?" one of the League mages asked.
"I'm not sure," Jaryd admitted. "But if we throw all our might at
Sartol— or rather at Tammen, whose body he controls— we may
find a way. As soon as we're inside, we should fan out around the
Gathering Chamber. Make certain that you have a clear line of attack at
Sartol, and," he added, casting an uncomfortable glance at Cailin,
"that he can only throw his fire at one or two of us at a time."
"Would the power of two more mages help you with what you have in mind?" a voice asked from behind him.
Jaryd turned and saw three men standing nearby. All three of them
carried cerylls, although only two of them had hawks on their
shoulders. They wore no cloaks, and Jaryd assumed that they were free
mages.
"My name is Ortan," the first one said. He was a large man, with dark
eyes and long silver-and-black hair that he wore tied back. He carried
Amarid's Hawk on his shoulder; Jaryd had never heard of a free mage
binding to one before. "With me are Shavi and Nodin. As you probably
gathered, we're free mages. There are more of us scattered across the
land; only the three of us are close enough to be of service. But we
would be honored to stand with the Order and the League against this
enemy."
"We'd be grateful," Jaryd said. He glanced at the other two men. One of
them was young-looking and slight, with yellow hair and a pleasant
face. But it was the other man, the one who was unbound, to whom
Jaryd's eyes were drawn. His face and hands were horribly scarred, his
face and head hairless, as if he had walked through mage-fire.
"Nodin?" Baden whispered. "Is that truly you?"
The man nodded, although his gaze dropped. "Yes, Owl-Master."
"Did Sartol do this to you?"
"Yes."
"After he took Tammen?"
Once more, the man nodded.
"I'm so sorry," Baden breathed. "I'm so terribly sorry."
"Jaryd," Alayna whispered, "we can't wait any longer. It's almost dark. The Unsettled will be attacking villages again soon."
"You're right." He looked at Ortan and Shavi. "As I said, we'd welcome your help."
"May I come with you as well, Eagle-Sage?" Nodin asked taking a step
forward. He limped slightly. Jaryd couldn't even begin to imagine how
he had suffered. "I know I'm unbound, and I'm still weak from my burns.
But I loved Tammen, and I think in some small way she loved me, too."
How could he refuse? "Of course, Nodin. We're honored to have you with us."
The man smiled, and, sadly, it made his disfigurement appear even more severe.
"Are there any questions?" Jaryd asked, turning back to the other mages.
No one spoke.
"Then let's go. Arick guard you all, and give us the strength to prevail."
As the mages of Tobyn-Ser started up the marble stairs of the hall,
Jaryd looked sidelong at Cailin. "You and I should be on opposite
sides, just in case something happens to one of us. You take the right,
I'll take the left."
Cailin nodded.
"Where do you want me?" Alayna asked.
He took her hand and held it to his lips. "With me, of course."
They reached the top of the steps, and Jaryd and Cailin, their great
eagles on their arms, pulled the doors open and led the mages inside.
Jaryd had half expected Sartol to throw fire at them as they entered,
but he didn't. Indeed, wearing Tammen's body like a robe, he was
leaning over the Summoning Stone at the far end of the Hall, staring
into the great glowing crystal as if he could see the coming battle
unfold within it. And he was ignoring them, as if their presence there
was of no concern to him at all.
Better he should have attacked us, Jaryd thought.
They arrayed themselves around the Gathering Chamber quickly, the Order
mages, as it happened, following Jaryd, and the League mages following
Cailin, so that an observer might have thought that the mages had come
to the Great Hall to do battle with each other.
Rithlar gave a soft cry, and Jaryd reached up to stroke her chin. Courage, my friend, he sent. This is why the gods brought us together.
Only when all the mages were inside did Sartol finally straighten and look at them, an amused smile on Tammen's face.
"Welcome to my Hall," he said in the woman's voice. He glanced toward
the translucent windows for a moment, just as the last golden rays of
the sun's light touched the glass. "And just in time, too."
As if on cue, Sartol's ghostly falcon appeared on Tammen's shoulder.
And, an instant later, Theron appeared before them, suffused with
emerald light, his eyes bright and baleful.
A smile stretched across Tammen's face. "I'm sorry that I can't fight you," Sartol said. "But that's why Theron's here."
Without another word, he turned back to the Summoning Stone. At the
same time, Theron took a step forward and raised his fist as if to
smite them all.
"You should have come earlier," the Owl-Master said, his gleaming eyes flicking toward Jaryd and Alayna. "Now all is lost."
* * *
"Protect yourselves!" Orris heard Jaryd shout, just before Theron's hand came down, sending a wave of emerald fire at them all.
Instantly, Orris raised a shield of power, as did all the mages in the
hall except Nodin, whose two comrades extended their power to guard him
as well. Yellow and blue, purple and orange, Orris's own russet and
Trahn's brown beside him, and dozens of other hues lit the chamber.
Together the mages' shields made a wall like a rainbow, with Jaryd's
sapphire and Cailin's golden light burning brightest on either end. And
though Theron's green fire crashed into their wall with the force of a
thousand Abboriji armies, causing the Great Hall to tremble and groan,
the shield held.
"Why did you come at night?" Theron rumbled, even as he sent another
wave of fire at them. "You knew that he had made us his servants! You
knew that he could send us to fight you!"
A third surge of green power crashed into the shield, and Orris felt
his arms starting to quiver with fatigue. He sensed Kryssan tiring, and
he knew that the familiars of the others would be as well. Their wall
of power was still withstanding the spirit's assault, but for how much
longer?
"We thought we had to wait, Owl-Master," Jaryd said. "We thought we had to come at night to do what we intended."
That seemed to get Sartol's attention, for Tammen straightened again and came forward to stand beside Theron.
"And what was that?" he demanded.
Orris could see the yellow fire burning in the woman's eyes and the
small spot of yellow flame at the center of her blue ceryll, and he
shuddered. Whatever suffering Sartol had in mind for the mages who had
come to fight him was nothing compared to what he had done to Tammen.
Jaryd did not answer Sartol's question, and a moment later Tammen
stamped her foot, like an angry child. Another wall of green flame
burst from Theron's hand, this one stronger than the others. Several
mages, including Baden, Orris noticed, fell to one knee. But still,
their shield did not fail. "Tell me!" Sartol growled.
"We came to destroy you, Traitor!" Jaryd said through clenched teeth,
his face bathed with sweat. "What more do you need to know?"
Sartol glanced at Baden. "How does it feel to grow old, Baden? How does it feel to be supplanted by children?"
"These 'children' are wiser than you ever were, Sartol," Baden answered. "And before this day is through, they'll destroy you."
The ghost shook his head and laughed. "You still think there's a way
you can win, don't you! You must, otherwise you wouldn't be here!" Her
expression hardened. "Now tell me what it is!"
Yet another wall of fire crashed into the mages' shields, this one far
more powerful that Theron's earlier attacks. Mages were thrown back
against the walls of the chamber, and hawks and owls leaped into the
air screaming. Two of the League's older masters lay on the floor for
several moments before finally stirring and climbing stiffly to their
feet. But once more, their defenses had withstood the assault.
"We can't take much more of this," Trahn whispered hoarsely.
Orris had been thinking the same thing. "I know."
"We won't tell you anything!" Jaryd said, glaring defiantly at Sartol.
"No matter how strong you are, you won't make us your slaves."
Again, a grin sprung to Tammen's lips. "I don't need to," Sartol said.
"I already have slaves." He turned to Theron. "Tell me what they know.
How do they intend to fight me?"
"I will tell you nothing," the Owl-Master's spirit rumbled. He closed his eyes, holding himself perfectly still.
"You cannot resist me, ghost, and you know it! Your mind is open to me."
Theron said nothing, although his brow furrowed as if in concentration.
"Stop fighting me! It's futile!"
But Sartol sounded increasingly desperate.
Theron began to tremble, and he bared his teeth. "Now!" he called out in a strained voice. "Destroy him!"
Jaryd raised his staff and sent a torrent of blue flame at Tammen. In
the next moment, every mage in the chamber had joined the attack.
Myriad shades of mage-fire converged into one brilliant ball of white
fire.
And Sartol blocked them all. With no visible effort at all he sheathed
himself in power. Yellow it was, with thin striations of Tammen's blue.
And it seemed to absorb their fire, like dry soil soaking up a summer
rain.
Theron's hands flew to his head and he screamed in pain with a voice that shook the Hall just as his fire had.
The mages kept up their assault on Tammen, but it did no good at all.
"Tell me what you know!" Sartol commanded calmly.
Theron fell to his knees with an inarticulate roar, his fingers clutching his hair. A moment later he rolled over onto his side.
"Jaryd!" Baden called. "It's doing nothing, and we're taxing our familiars!"
Reluctantly, the Eagle-Sage lowered his staff. The others did the same, and Sartol's shield vanished.
"The Curse," Sartol said, smiling. "You thought you could destroy me by breaking the Curse."
Theron lay utterly still on the floor.
"You killed him!" Erland said, his eyes wide.
"Fool! He's a ghost. He can't be killed, any more than I can! You think
you can beat me? You can't even sustain an attack for two minutes
without Baden whining about his familiar."
"Perhaps not," someone said from the doorway. "But we can."
Orris turned to look at who had come, and nearly fell over in shock. It
was Brevyl, Eldest of the Gods, with twenty men, all of them carrying
weapons from Lon-Ser.
Looking at Tammen once more, Orris thought he saw surprise register on
her features, and— dare he think it?— just a touch of fear.
It lasted for just an instant, however. In the next moment, the
familiar sneer returned.
"I had planned to destroy the Temples eventually, Eldest," Sartol said. "But I'm happy to begin today."
Yellow-and-blue fire flew from the Summoning Stone toward Brevyl and
his men. But the mages, acting as one, blocked it with another
shimmering wall of power.
"Spread out your men, Eldest!" Jaryd called. "But stay behind us so that we can guard you."
The Temple's men quickly positioned themselves along the wall of the
chamber as Sartol's fire continued to flow from the stone. When the men
began to fire their weapons at Tammen, however, Sartol was forced to
raise his own defenses again.
"Do you see that?" another voice cried out. It took Orris a moment to
realize that it was Nodin, the scarred mage. "Do you see? There's blue
in his fire! Tammen's blue! She's still alive! She still can be saved!"
Sartol looked at the man, Tammen's eyes narrowing. Then her face
contorted with contempt. "You!" Sartol said. "You're still alive?
That's impossible!"
"Nothing is impossible!" Jaryd told him, drawing Sartol's gaze back in
his direction. "You're beginning to see that now, aren't you? Nodin was
supposed to be dead, but he's not. The League and the Order and the
free mages and the Children of the Gods were supposed to hate one
another too much to join forces against you, and yet here we are."
"You're all fools!" Sartol said. "I expected more from you and Alayna,
Sage, but I guess I was wrong. You could bring every man and woman in
Tobyn-Ser to face me, and still you wouldn't win." A strange look came
into Tammen's eyes and she smiled again. "Let me show you why."
* * *
She was waiting again. Twice more Sartol had come to her and taken her
to a village and forced her to kill and maim. Soon he'd do so again.
Rhonwen had begun to sense a rhythm in his assault on the land. She
knew that it was almost her turn again.
In a way she no longer cared. She was numb, he had hurt her so badly.
It was bad enough that he had made her destroy her village and even the
home in which she had spent her childhood. But when he made her raise
her staff and kill her mother, he killed her as well, in ways the fever
that first took her life never had. She couldn't even grieve anymore.
He had denied her the solace of despair. There was nothing left; Sartol
had taken it all.
Yet, once more, she realized that he could always find something more
to do to her, some other avenue to her pain. Waiting in the darkness,
she suddenly sensed that Sartol and Theron were doing battle, that the
Owl-Master had found the strength to resist Sartol's will. The effort
was in vain. She sensed that even Theron knew this from the start. But
by fighting anyway, he seemed to be telling the rest of the Unsettled
that they needed to do the same, regardless of the cost.
And just moments after Theron's resistance began, Rhonwen learned how
great that cost could be. Pain lanced through her mind like a sword,
tearing a scream from her throat that echoed Theron's roar of anguish.
Still he resisted, and despite the pain, despite her own grief and what
she thought had been her own surrender, she fought to help him. All of
them did. From across the land, every unsettled spirit lent their
strength to Theron. And it wasn't enough. It wasn't even close.
Abruptly the pain stopped, and a voice whispered to her, to all of
them. "When this is over, you'll suffer for what you did tonight."
Rhonwen thought that was the end of it, at least for a time. But only
seconds later, she felt herself being transported, just as she had the
first night Sartol took her from her binding place to the Great Hall.
Suddenly she was immersed in darkness. Even her ceryll went dark, as
though it was a candle flame, and Sartol's will a sudden wind. She
could see and hear nothing. Only Trevdan's talons on her shoulder told
her that she still existed at all.
And just as panic began to claw at her heart, she emerged into the
light of the Great Hall. Again. The others were there, too: Phelan and
Peredur, Padwyn, whose son, Niall, had once served the land, and Hywel,
who was the newest of them all. Theron was there as well, but he was
prone on the marble floor, his eyes closed and his mouth open as if in
a silent wail. For all she knew, he was lost forever.
But it was only when Rhonwen saw the living mages standing around the
perimeter of the Gathering Chamber that she fully understood. You'll suffer for what you did tonight.
Who could have known that he would find a suitable punishment so soon?
As if killing her mother and destroying her home hadn't been enough,
now he intended to make her destroy the Mage-Craft. They were his army,
his servants. And this was his will.
"You see?" Sartol cried triumphantly, as if to confirm her fears. He
waved a dismissive hand at Theron. "Even without the great Owl-Master,
I can defeat you. And I don't even need to raise a finger. I command
the mightiest army this land has ever seen! They will destroy you!"
Resist him. She heard the voice as a faint whisper, no more than
a rustling of wind over plains grasses. But she knew the voice. It was
Theron, not lost after all.
How can we, Owl-Master? We've tried, but he's just too strong.
Resist him, Theron sent again. You must find a way.
"You failed, Owl-Master!" Sartol crowed, able to hear Theron's voice as
well. "You were the strongest of them all, and you failed. How do you
expect the rest to stand against me?"
And as if to prove his point, Sartol had them raise their cerylls and
throw fire at the mages and the Temple's men. The mages raised their
power to guard themselves and the Eldest, but even Rhonwen could tell
that the men and women she was fighting were fatigued. They hadn't a
chance. The Temple's men raised their weapons and fired at the ghosts,
but, of course, the red flames passed right through them.
"Isn't it clear now?" Sartol demanded, laughing triumphantly. "No one
can stand against me. Even Lon-Ser will be mine before I'm through!"
But the words came again, faint still, but insistent. Resist him. You are our last hope. If you fail, the land dies.
30
Given all that I have written to you about the free mages and about
my experiences with the League, you probably think me foolish to even
hope that the Mage-Craft can protect our land as Amarid intended. No
doubt there are great dangers in the way mages have been divided from
one another since my journey to your land. But ultimately I have to
believe that the things we share are of greater importance than the
issues that divide us. Even if our cloaks are different colors, even if
some of us wear no cloaks at all, we all bind to familiars whom we
love, we all channel our power through stones that bear our colors.
Despite the sundering of the Order, we are all linked by the Summoning
Stone. At one time or another we all know the pain of losing a
familiar, and at these times, even our fear of Theron's Curse binds us
to each other.
So long as these things continue to define the Mage-Craft, I remain
hopeful that we will, in times of crisis, find a way to work together
for the good of the land. Perhaps I am unwise to think this way;
perhaps my colleagues in the Order and I should be trying to determine
how we will cope when this hoped for reconciliation fails to occur. But
I cannot give up hope. I believe it is better to be a fool than to
surrender.
— Hawk-Mage Orris to Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal, Spring, God's Year 4633.
Baden knew that Sartol hated him more than he did any of the others.
Their fates had been entwined for many years now, and this was not the
first time that the future of the land and their own enmity had come to
a crisis within the walls of the Great Hall. In life, Sartol had tried
to have Baden executed as a traitor, only to be killed himself by the
combined might of the Order when Baden proved that it was he who had
betrayed the land. But in death, with the arrival of the Unsettled in
the Gathering Chamber, Sartol sought to avenge himself on all of them.
And on Baden most of all.
Baden knew this, and so he was not surprised when Sartol sent Phelan to kill him.
"I believe the two of you have met," Sartol called out to them as the
Unsettled began to advance on the mages. "Phelan once helped you defeat
my plans, Baden. My hatred for him runs almost as deep as my hatred for
you. So who else would I choose to kill you?"
Baden said nothing. He merely crouched lower, raised his staff, and
prepared to defend himself. Glancing quickly around the chamber, he saw
other mages doing the same, and he felt his heart sink. This was not at
all like fighting Theron had been a few moments earlier. Rather than
one ghost throwing waves of fire at all of them, the living mages of
Tobyn-Ser were now slightly outnumbered. Raising a single shield
wouldn't work anymore. Now they had to fight for themselves. The young
and old, the strong and the weak.
Sartol sent two ghosts against each of the Eagle-Sages, and he sent two
after both Orris and Trahn as well. Obviously he knew that at this
stage of his life, Baden was not enough of a threat to warrant two
foes. Not only was he old, but so was Golivas. Almost any one of the
ghosts would have been far more than Baden could handle. But Sartol
sent the Wolf-Master, because he wanted to be sure. Because he hated
him.
There was a look of profound sadness in Phelan's eyes as he and his
wolf came forward to destroy him. Baden still remembered his one
encounter with the Wolf-Master as clearly as he did his first binding.
It had been a clear summer night on Phelan Spur, and Phelan, working
with them on behalf of all of the Unsettled, had helped Baden and his
fellow mages defeat the outlanders. Baden could see from the expression
on Phelan's face that the spirit remembered as well. I'm sorry, the Wolf-Master seemed to be saying. I don't want to kill you.
Baden saw flashes of mage-fire out of the corner of his eye and heard
cries of alarm from living mages. The battle had begun. Perhaps the
last battle the mages of Tobyn-Ser would ever fight. But he dared not
take his eyes off Phelan to look. And an instant later, the ghost
before him raised the mighty arm holding his staff and threw a bolt of
fire at him. White it was, as if the Wolf-Master was Tobyn himself,
throwing lightning at the land. Baden met the blow with a curtain of
orange power, but he was knocked to the floor so violently that the
breath was knocked out of him. Golivas, his glorious white owl, let out
a cry as she hovered above him and then swooped quickly to avoid a
second stream of fire that was intended for her.
Somewhere in the center of the chamber, Sartol laughed.
Phelan raised his staff again and brought his fire down on Baden's
chest like a gleaming hammer. The Owl-Master could do nothing but
sheathe himself in magic. And though his power held, barely, the force
of the blow forced the air from his lungs a second time. He tried to
roll away, but Phelan struck at him before he could. Again and again,
the Wolf-Master pounded at him, each blow tearing Baden's breath from
his chest, until the mage began to fear that he would pass out. Golivas
was above him again, laboring to keep herself aloft. If Phelan decided
to strike at her a second time, there would be little she could do to
avoid the blow. The Wolf-Master seemed content, however, to continue
his assault on Baden.
And with good reason. Baden's power was failing. Every blow weakened
him. The orange glow of his shield was fading, the white of Phelan's
fire penetrating farther and farther, until it almost seemed that Baden
could feel its heat upon him. Each blow rang in his mind like a smith's
sledge striking an anvil. But sounds from the chamber still reached
him. He heard screams of terror and pain coming from his fellow mages.
Men and women he knew were dying. He heard Sonel cry out from beside
him, and he couldn't even turn his head to see why.
This is how it's going to end, he thought. They'll keep striking at us until we're too exhausted to defend ourselves.
As if to prove him right, Phelan's next blow broke through his power,
searing his chest and ripping a scream of pain from his throat. Golivas
cried out in response and fluttered to the floor beside him, as if too
weak to fly anymore. Somehow Baden was still alive; apparently his
shield had managed to absorb most of Phelan's fire. But as Phelan
raised his staff to strike him again, Baden knew that this next blow
would be the last.
He reached for Golivas, but she had nothing left to give him. So
instead of coaxing one last surge of power from her, he merely touched
her mind with his. Thank you, my love, he sent, for your strength and your courage.
An image of the Northern Plain entered his mind, the boreal stands of
the upper reaches of Tobyn's Wood darkening the horizon. Their binding
place. I remember as well. I've loved you more than any other. Take that with you when I'm gone.
Then Baden closed his eyes and waited for Phelan's killing blow.
* * *
She had made mistakes in her life. Arick knew she had. She had been
arrogant at times, dismissive of those who did not wield the
Mage-Craft, impatient with those who were less intelligent, or bold, or
decisive than she. She had not always treated the people who cared for
her with courtesy, and, perhaps as a result, she had few friends. She
had known all this for some time, and yet she had done little to change.
It's because of what happened to me, she had told herself time and
again, though she knew it was a poor excuse. It's because of Watersbend.
But Tammen could think of nothing that she had done to deserve the fate that had befallen her.
Was it that she had allowed Nodin to love her when that love was not
returned? Was that enough to warrant this? Or was it simply that she
had chosen to trust Sartol despite Henryk's warnings and Nodin's
misgivings?
For days after Sartol took her, she repeated these questions in her
mind. At first, as she struggled vainly to break free only to find that
Sartol's grip on her was complete and unassailable, they were her only
outlets for despair and self-pity. Later, when Sartol's abuse began in
earnest, when he started to touch her— to make her touch
herself— in ways she had never even conceived, she used them as
an escape, as if asking the gods "why?" could make her forget what was
being done to her.
It was only after he— they?— killed Hywel in the forests
below the Parneshome Range, that she stopped asking the questions
altogether and closed her mind to everything. After crushing the man's
throat with her hand, Sartol had sensed her dismay.
"This is not new to you," he had said, taunting her again. "You killed Henryk, remember? You killed Nodin."
She had not forgotten of course. But with all that had followed, she
had not given herself over to the grief that came to her now. Killing
Hywel, it seemed, had brought back the horror of what she had done to
Nodin.
He was your lover! Sartol said, gleefully, forcing the memories of her night with Nodin to play again and again in her mind. How splendid!
Fighting to escape the images of their lovemaking, and then the vision
of Nodin flailing wildly at the flames that engulfed his body the
following night, which Sartol made her remember as well, Tammen finally
resolved to close her mind to everything. There was no escape for her.
She knew that now. And if what Sartol had told her that first night on
the Northern Plain was true, there would be no death either. Which
meant that she would have to endure this for the rest of time, as if
she herself was unsettled.
Better then to surrender, to let her mind drift and wither, like autumn
leaves freed by a gust of wind, than to continue to fight and suffer
each indignity as another defeat. You cannot fight me, Sartol told her the night he entered her mind and body. This body is mine now.
How many times had he proved this to her since then? How many times had
Tammen tried to defy him only to find that she could do nothing at all?
She would have been better off submitting to him that first night and
saving herself the anguish that followed. It had taken far too long,
but at last she had learned her lesson. If she could not find comfort
in death, she could at least spare herself the pain of being alive.
She was only vaguely aware of their arrival in Amarid and their capture
of the Great Hall. Sartol tried to make her watch as the Unsettled
began their war against the land, but even then he could not reach her.
He could force the images into her mind, but he could not make her see.
When the mages came to challenge him, Tammen saw them as if from a
great distance, but she heard only whispers of what they said and paid
no heed to Sartol's reply. This was their war; she had lost hers long
ago.
But then, a voice reached her, insinuating itself somehow into the tiny
world that was still her own. It was a voice she knew, although not one
that she ever thought she would hear again.
You're dead, she wanted to say. You can't be here.
Yet hearing this voice, opening herself to the possibility that it was
real, she also heard Sartol's reply. "You! You're still alive?"
And then she knew that it was true, that it really was Nodin, that she hadn't killed him after all.
She allowed herself to see what Sartol saw through her eyes, and so beheld Nodin's ravaged face. I did this to you. If it had been possible, she would have cried out, she would have run to him.
Forgive me! she would have begged. I never meant to hurt you! I'm sorry that I didn't love you!
Seeing Nodin, she saw the rest of them as well. Nearly every mage in
Tobyn-Ser was here. Yet she sensed no fear at all from Sartol. And in
the next moment his army of unsettled mages appeared in the Hall, and
she understood why. Tammen tried to retreat, to close her mind rather
than watch this final battle. But now that Sartol had her again, he
didn't let her go.
No, he whispered to her. You're going to watch. This is our victory, yours and mine. I want you to enjoy it, too.
There was no escaping it. She couldn't turn away or close her eyes. And
in that instant, finally, she understood why she was being punished. It
wasn't her arrogance, or her willingness to use Nodin as she had. The
gods often forgave greater sins than that. It was simply that she had
trusted Sartol to help them. In the end, it was not that she was evil,
or even cruel. It was just that she was foolish. For that reason alone,
the land was going to perish.
Resist him.
She heard the voice as Sartol did, as the Unsettled did. A whisper,
weak and desperate. But while Sartol laughed at Theron's plea, thinking
that the Owl-Master was asking the impossible of the other unsettled
mages, Tammen knew better. Theron was speaking to her.
I can't do anything, she tried to say. But she couldn't even tell him that.
Resist him. You are our last hope. If you fail, the land dies.
She saw the ghosts advance on the living mages, and despite the hatred
she once harbored for the Order, the contempt in which she once held
the League, she implored the gods to help them.
You must fight him. You must stop him.
Didn't Theron understand that she was helpless? Didn't he know that
Sartol controlled her more completely than he controlled the Unsettled?
Now! Sartol sent.
Immediately, torrents of Mage-Fire flew from the spirits, lighting the
Great Hall with shades of blue and red and yellow and green, and
crashing into the walls of power raised by the living mages so that the
floor of the Great Hall heaved and shuddered as if from an earth
tremor. Again and again the ghosts pounded at them. They would never
tire, she knew. They would never die. Brevyl and his men were the first
to fall— the mages could barely protect themselves. How could
they be expected to protect the Eldest and his men as well? And though
Tammen had once fought against the Temples, she grieved to see Brevyl
and his men die. Then the ghosts turned their attention fully on the
mages, and her grief turned to anguish. For it was clear that the mages
did not stand a chance again Sartol's army of ghosts. Within moments,
several older masters had fallen, unable to summon enough power to
guard themselves. Some were consumed by flames, screaming in terror and
pain as they burned. Others were blasted with such force that they fell
silently, their bodies shattered and still.
Stop this, Theron said to her. Only you have the power.
I have no power, she wanted—
Yes, you do!
Tammen fought to control herself. Somehow Theron had heard her. She had
spoken to him, and he had heard. Sartol, she realized, was so intent on
the battle, and on controlling the actions of every ghost in his army,
that he was ignoring her. He still held her. She couldn't move or speak
out loud. Certainly she couldn't rid herself of him. But perhaps she
could do something.
How? she sent.
Again, miraculously, Theron heard her. Your ceryll, was all he said.
She understood.
What? Sartol's voice. Suddenly, he was aware of the conversation
she had been having with the Owl-Master, and he moved to crush her once
more.
But he was too late. Reaching for her ceryll with her mind, and sensing
the flow of Sartol's power from his binding place to her stone, she
poured all the power she still possessed into the crystal, much the way
she would have if she wanted to brighten the stone. She was unbound, of
course— Sartol had seen to that long ago— and her powers
were limited. Had he not been distracted by the battle, she never would
have been able to do even this much. But he had ignored her for an
instant too long, and despite all that had happened, this was still her
ceryll. Abruptly, the flow of Sartol's magic stopped.
She heard herself roar with his rage. She saw the army of unsettled
mages falter in the midst of their battle and then turn in her
direction. She felt him flail at her mind with the power he still
possessed, the power that came from the spectral falcon on her
shoulder, and she shuddered at the pain. But it was not as it had been.
I'll kill you for this! he told her. I'll destroy you!
You killed me a long time ago, you bastard! she answered, knowing that he could hear her, that his control over her was not what it had been. And now I've killed you.
* * *
The fatigue in her arms and shoulders was overwhelming. Her muscles
trembled and sweat poured from her like rain from a storm cloud. The
two ghosts were striking at her mercilessly, alternating their assault
so that she had no opportunity to rest. Rithel was strong, far
stronger, Cailin had to admit, than her beloved Marcran had ever been.
But even the great eagle could not endure this forever, any more than
she could. And yet, though her entire body ached, and her mind was
growing numb from the endless succession of blows, there was little
else she could do.
When the spirits suddenly broke off their attack, Cailin suspected a
trick. But then she heard Sartol's inarticulate roar of frustration,
and she knew that something had happened.
The ghosts turned toward Tammen and started toward her, and Cailin followed them warily.
Theron was on his feet again, and seeing Cailin, he beckoned her forward with a sharp gesture.
"Come, Eagle-Master! We have little time!"
"She's not going anywhere!" Sartol said, leveling Tammen's staff at her.
Cailin raised her staff and prepared to shield herself.
"Fear not," Theron told her. "We will take care of the traitor."
And in that moment the unsettled spirits, who moments ago had answered
to Sartol's command, raised a wall of glimmering multihued power that
stretched from the Great Hall's marble floor to its domed ceiling.
Sartol, standing in the center of this prison of light, roared a second
time, and sent volley after volley of yellow fire at the walls of his
cell. And nothing happened.
"No!" he cried, blasting the walls again and again. "No!"
"We can hold him for a time," Theron said. "But eventually he will link
himself to the source of his power again. We must act before he does."
Perhaps Sartol heard what the Owl-Master said. Or perhaps he merely
realized what he needed to do. But suddenly he fell silent. Closing
Tammen's eyes, he raised his staff over his head and then held himself
perfectly still.
"He is making the attempt now. Come quickly." Theron looked over at Jaryd. "You, as well, Eagle-Sage."
Jaryd hurried to the Owl-Master's side, and together, Cailin, the
Eagle-Sage, and the ghost of Theron strode to the Summoning Stone, with
Rithel and Jaryd's bird following close behind.
"Place a hand on the stone," the spirit said. "Both of you." He glanced
back at Sartol, who still stood like a statue in the center of the
Gathering Chamber. "Make haste!"
Cailin did as she was told, as did Jaryd.
"Now raise your staffs and pour your power into the crystal."
Cailin reached for Rithel with her mind and an instant later, golden
yellow fire burst from her ceryll, to be joined a split second later by
brilliant blue from Jaryd's. And as their power flowed into the giant
crystal, it began to glow, blue at one end, gold at the other, and
green in the center where their hues met, so that it seemed as though
Theron's fire lay at the core of what they were doing.
"Now the rest of you!" Theron called. "All of you, come here and add your power to the stone!"
"What about us, Owl-Master?" one of the unsettled mages asked.
"No. This is for the living mages only. We are powerless against the
Curse. Guard the traitor. That is the extent of what we can do now."
The rest of the living mages, some in blue cloaks, others in green, and
three wearing no cloak at all, began to gather around the great crystal
and channel their magic into it. Alayna was the first to reach them,
followed almost immediately by Trahn and Orris, Erland and Vawnya, and
all the others who had survived the assault of the Unsettled.
"Baden!" Jaryd cried out. "Where's Baden?"
He started to pull away.
"Stay where you are!" Theron commanded.
"But—"
"There is not time, Eagle-Sage! We must do this now, before the traitor finds his power again!"
"It's all right Jaryd," came a faint voice. The other mages parted and
Baden stepped forward, supported by Sonel. His cloak was blackened at
his chest and his face looked pale and haggard, but he wore a slight
smile, and his white owl sat on his shoulder wide-eyed and alert. "I'm
all right. Let's end this."
Jaryd smiled broadly and nodded. "Yes, let's."
All of them were there, at least all who were still alive, and their
power poured into the stone, so that it glimmered brilliantly with
white light, as if it were a star plucked from Leora's sky. And no
one's power was greater than Jaryd's and hers. This was what the eagles
had come to do. This was their purpose, their destiny. Cailin felt
Rithel's power move through her like light through a glass. So vast it
was, as if she were holding the sun itself, that she feared she could
not contain it. Yet, somehow she did. And Jaryd did as well. And their
power, Jaryd's and hers, Rithlar's and Rithel's, bolstered by that of
the other mages, seemed to bring the great stone to life, so that the
heat of their magic was radiated back toward them. The stone was on
fire.
"Jaryd and Cailin," Theron said, looking at them both in turn. "Repeat
my words in unison. Say exactly what I say. Do not change anything. Do
you understand?"
They nodded.
"The rest of you remain silent and keep your power focused on the stone. We may only get one chance to do this."
* * *
He had control of her again, which was the first thing. And though he
wasted little time reaching back toward the Northern Plain for the
source of his strength, he did make it clear to her that she would
suffer mightily for what she had done.
This is but a taste, Sartol told her, searing Tammen's mind with the power he still possessed. Once I have my full strength again, you'll wish that you'd died at Watersbend.
He felt her shudder at the pain, and he smiled with satisfaction. She
was still struggling against him, but he could hold her, and soon he'd
be able to crush her again.
His eyes were still closed, and his mind soared back across the
mountains and Tobyn's Wood toward the plain. He heard Theron speaking
to the mages. The Unsettled could keep him from attacking Jaryd and his
friends, but they could do nothing to keep him from reclaiming his
power, and the Owl-Master knew it. He saw the fires burning atop the
Emerald Hills.
"Repeat my words ..." he heard Theron say.
He could see the plain in his mind. He could see the northern peaks of
the Seaside Range beyond it, bathed in the silvery light of the rising
moon.
"From this night on ..." Theron said.
And Jaryd and Cailin answered together, "From this night on ..."
He saw his staff, still jutting out of the earth like a glowing spear.
Taking it in his hand, he felt the power surge through him, an ocean of
light and fire.
"... Rest shall be granted to all mages ..."
"... Rest shall be granted to all mages ..."
He stretched his mind back across the land, reaching for the Summoning
Stone, which was still his, even with the fire of four dozen mages
flowing through it.
"... Whether they perish bound ..."
"... Whether they perish bound ..."
He could see it, he could almost feel its heat. The massive crystal
seemed to be calling to him, reaching back toward him like a gleaming
stone hand. It had been his; it would be his again. He had only to
grasp—
"... Or unbound."
"... Or unbound."
White light exploded in his mind, brighter than a thousand suns. He
heard his falcon cry out, heard himself scream with Tammen's voice, and
then realized that the scream had come from Tammen herself. He felt the
power rush out of him suddenly, as though the gods themselves were
pulling the blood from his body. And as the last echoes of Tammen's cry
descended to him from the ceiling of the Great Hall, Sartol felt
himself being dragged down into an icy, impenetrable darkness. He tried
to scream, to grab at something, at anything. But there was no air, no
light, no sound. Only the black, which swallowed him like a midwinter
sea on a moonless night.
* * *
"... Or unbound."
As soon as the words left his mouth and Cailin's, a blinding white
light burst from the Summoning Stone with a sound like the rending of
rock. The Great Hall seemed to rise up off its foundations for an
instant and then crash down to the ground, sending the mages sprawling
to the floor as if they were children's dolls.
For several moments Jaryd lay dazed on the cold marble, his ears
ringing, and his eyes open but seeing nothing except traces of the
brilliant light that had come from the stone.
Then he felt someone touch his hand.
"Jaryd." It was Alayna, lying beside him.
"Yes," he whispered, gathering her in his arms.
"Is it over?"
"I think so."
He sat up with an effort, and as his sight cleared, he surveyed the
Gathering Chamber. The unsettled mages were gone. Theron, Phelan,
Peredur, Rhonwen.... All of them. They had finally found rest. At the
far end of the hall lay the bodies of six mages, the Eldest, and his
men. In the middle of the chamber, directly below the portrait of
Amarid, which appeared to have been marred by mage fire, Tammen lay
unmoving, her eyes staring sightlessly toward the windows above where
Jaryd sat.
He turned to look at the rest of the mages, and doing so, beheld something that caused the world to fall away beneath him.
"Fist of the God!"
"What is—?" Alayna froze, gasped. "Arick guard us all," she breathed.
The Summoning Stone lay shattered on the floor, its shards spread in a
half-moon around the ancient wooden stand that had held it only moments
before. The stand itself was charred in places and broken. Jaryd stood
slowly and walked to where it lay. Fragments of the great crystal had
embedded themselves in the wood of the stand and in the stone wall
behind it. And as other mages began to stir and make their way over to
where he was standing, he saw that many of them bore cuts and gashes
where pieces of the stone had struck them as well. It was remarkable,
he realized, that none of them had been killed.
The Eagle-Sage glanced down at his staff, which once had been Theron's
staff. He could still see the blackened edges and thin fracture lines
in the wood that were made when the Owl-Master created the Curse.
Tonight, in breaking the curse, they had shattered the Summoning Stone,
just as Theron had shattered his ceryll a thousand years ago.
Looking up again, Jaryd saw that the others were watching him.
Except one. He heard sobbing coming from the center of the hall, and as
the other mages turned to look, Jaryd saw Nodin kneeling on the floor,
cradling Tammen's body in his arms.
Jaryd walked to him and knelt beside him, placing a hand on the man's shoulder.
"I wanted to save her," Nodin said, his voice unsteady, and his tears
winding a crooked course over his scarred cheeks. "I thought there
might be a way."
"I think she was lost the night Sartol took her," Jaryd told him. "I
don't think any of us could have saved her. But I think perhaps she
saved us."
The mage looked up at that.
"Theron said that Sartol had to find his power again. I think Tammen
found a way to stop him, or at least slow him long enough for us to
break the Curse."
"You really believe that?"
"Something happened," Jaryd said. "One moment I was on the verge of
being killed by two unsettled mages, and the next they were turning on
him, and trapping him in the circle of power."
"Phelan had his arm raised to kill me," Baden added. "I may never know
why he didn't, but I think Jaryd's explanation makes as much sense as
any."
Nodin looked up at the lean Owl-Master, and for several seconds they held each other's gaze. Then Nodin nodded.
"Thank you." His eyes flicked to Jaryd and then back to Baden. "Thank you both."
"Do you know how this all happened?" Cailin asked him. "Do you know how Sartol took her?"
Nodin looked down again and brushed a wisp of hair from Tammen's
forehead. "She gave herself to him. She thought he could help the
People's Movement."
"But why would she do that? Didn't she know—?"
"She was at Watersbend," Nodin said, his tears flowing again. "She was
only a child at the time, but the memory of it seemed to haunt her.
Much of her village was destroyed by outlanders. Sartol stopped their
attack and killed the men responsible. She didn't care why he did it,
and she didn't care that the rest of us thought him a traitor. To her,
Sartol was a hero."
Cailin stared at the man, her young face abruptly pale and her lips trembling. "She was at Watersbend?" she whispered.
Nodin gazed back at her. "Yes." He narrowed his eyes. "Were you as well?"
"Kaera. I was the lone survivor at Kaera."
"Of course," he said. "You're Cailin. I should have remembered."
But Cailin didn't seem to hear him. "This could have been me. She's a
few years older, and she wears no cloak. But otherwise we're the same."
Nodin shook his head. "No. I wish it were so. Perhaps then she'd still
be alive and I wouldn't bear these scars. But the two of you were not
at all the same. You and she shared this grief, this nightmare. But it
did something to her. Something dark. How else could she have allowed
Sartol to take her? The gods never would have given you that eagle if
they had seen the same darkness in you."
Cailin seemed to hear the truth in his words, for a moment later the
color began to flow back into her cheeks. After a few seconds, she
nodded. "Thank you," she said.
"What do we do now, Jaryd?" Orris asked.
Now that the stone is shattered and the Unsettled are gone. Now that there is no Curse to haunt the sleep of unbound mages.
Orris didn't say this; he didn't have to. They all knew what he meant.
Jaryd didn't know whether to rejoice or weep, although he suspected that before this day was over he would probably do both.
"We tell the people of Tobyn-Ser that they have nothing more to fear from Sartol or the Unsettled," the Sage finally said.
"And what about the stone?"
Jaryd shrugged. "The stone is lost. I don't see that we can do anything
about it at all. Amarid and Theron brought it back from Ceryllon and
altered it so that it was linked to all of our cerylls. I suppose we
could bring back another crystal like it, but I wouldn't know how to do
what they did."
The other mages stood before him silently, as if contemplating what it
meant to have no Summoning Stone. There was nothing binding them to one
another anymore. There was no way to summon them all to a Gathering, or
inform them of the death of an Owl-Sage. Indeed, without the stone,
there was little need for a Sage. Certainly there was no longer any
compelling reason for a Sage and First to remain in Amarid. It had
always been the Summoning Stone that held them here. It was their
responsibility to summon the rest to the First Mage's city in times of
crisis. And if the crisis then demanded that the mages go elsewhere,
they could use the stone to send a party of mages anywhere in Tobyn-Ser.
"The Mage-Craft will never be the same," Erland said softly, as if he
had been reading Jaryd's thoughts. "The stone is lost, the Curse is
gone." He shook his head. "I never thought I'd see anything like this."
"Perhaps," Cailin said, "this is a good time to end the feud between
the League and the Order. We've defeated an enemy together, and we've
lost the ability to respond quickly when the land is in need. To
continue our rivalry would be foolish."
Jaryd offered a smile. "I agree."
But she wasn't done, and in the next moment, Jaryd realized that her
comments had been meant for Erland more than anyone else. Handing her
staff to Orris, Cailin removed her blue cloak and let it drop to the
floor.
Erland stared at her, his mouth open. "Wh— What are you doing?"
"I'm leaving the League. You wanted me to relinquish my authority to
you once the war was over. I'm doing even more. You won't have to worry
about me challenging you anymore, Erland. I'm a free mage now. I serve
the land, and that's all."
Orris laid a hand on her arm. "Cailin, maybe this isn't the time."
"Yes, it is!" she said, brushing his hand away. "I've waited long
enough. The League is nothing; the land is all that matters. It's time
he realized that."
"But if you leave others will as well! The League will be weakened. Surely you don't want that!"
"To be honest, Erland, I don't really care one way or another. Some
will stay with you: Toinan, Kovet, Stepan." She stopped abruptly, the
color draining from her face once more. "Where is Stepan?" she asked,
scanning the hall. After a moment she seemed to remember the dead lying
at the edge of the chamber. "Oh, no," she breathed, rushing to where
they lay.
She walked among them for a moment, and then with a cry dropped to her knees beside one of them and began to weep.
For some time, no one spoke, although they all made their way over to
where she was to see who else had fallen. After several minutes, Orris
approached her. He had picked up her cloak, and he tried now to drape
it over her shoulders.
"No," she said. "I don't want that."
He hesitated, and then, dropping her cloak, he took off his own and gave it to her.
In all, four League mages died, all of them older. The Order lost two
mages. Neysa, a young woman who received her cloak just a year before
Jaryd and Alayna received theirs, and Eifion, the oldest member of the
Order.
"We should honor them all," Jaryd said, "perhaps with a procession
through the city from the Great Hall to the Hall of the League."
"We should include the men of the Temple as well," Sonel suggested.
"They came to our aid when we needed them, and they lost their Eldest."
Jaryd nodded. "Very well. Can you get word to them?"
"Of course."
"Thank you," the Eagle-Sage said. He turned to Alayna, took her hands
in his, and somehow found it within himself to smile. "Let's go find
Myn."
31
In light of the events of this spring, and the loss of the Summoning
Stone, we are of the opinion that we can no longer count on the
Mage-Craft and the Temples to lead and protect us through times of
crisis. We will, of course, still welcome the guidance and service of
Tobyn-Ser's mages and Keepers. But we believe that the time has come
for Tobyn-Ser's people to take a more active role in the governance of
the land. To this end, we hereby request your aid in creating a
People's Council. This council would consist of one individual from
every village and town in the land, chosen by ballot. Once elected,
each member of the council would travel to the Council Assembly, which
we hope to locate in a town or village in the southern portion of
Tobyn's Wood— someplace that is equally accessible to all. The
Assembly would last several months out of each year; long enough to
address any matters that warrant its consideration ...
We understand that to some degree, it is not in the interests of the
Temples, the League, or the Order to aid us in this venture. But we are
hopeful that in your wisdom and your love of the land, you will look
beyond your own concerns to do this for the common good.
— Open letter to the Order of Mages and Masters,
the League of Amarid, and the Keepers of Arick's Temples, from the
Leaders of Tobyn-Ser's free towns, Summer, God's Year 4633.
Cailin awoke early the next morning, having spent the night at an inn
near the Hall of the League. She didn't like sleeping indoors—
she usually slept in Hawksfind Wood during Conclaves. But she had been
exhausted nearly to the point of collapse following their battle with
Sartol, and had decided to make an exception for this one night.
Thus, at first, she attributed the dark mood that held her when she
woke and the strange images sent to her by Rithel, as products of both
the previous night's ordeal and the unfamiliarity of sleeping in a bed.
She dressed at a leisurely pace, taking time to bathe with the water
and scented soaps provided in her room before slipping into her
clothes. She put on her cloak as well, before remembering that she had
vowed the night before never to wear it again. Taking it off again, she
ran her fingers over the embroidery on the sleeves and hood. A part of
her wondered if she had been rash to forsake the League, even though
she had been considering it since her confrontation with Erland as the
rain fell on them in Tobyn's Wood. Stepan would not have approved, she
knew, feeling a tightening in her chest, but even he might have
understood.
"It was the right thing to do," she said aloud, looking over at Rithel.
"Erland and I can't work together. We both know it. It was time for me
to leave."
By way of reply, Rithel sent her one of the strange images again. The
great bird was soaring high into a clear blue sky, over terrain that
Cailin did not recognize.
She shook her head. I don't understand, she sent. What do you—? And in that moment it hit her.
The war was over, and eagles never remained with their mages in times of peace.
She and Rithel had grown close in the past weeks, but at no time had
Cailin loved the eagle as much as she had loved Marcran, her glorious
little falcon. Nonetheless, realizing that Rithel was ready to leave
her, the Eagle-Master began to cry. The bird hopped closer to her and
nuzzled Cailin gently with her enormous beak. An image of their binding
entered Cailin's mind, and the young mage smiled.
I'll never forget you, either.
She held out her arm and the bird climbed onto it.
"Come on," Cailin said, wiping her tears away and stroking the eagle's chin. "I'll take you outside."
Seeing her descend the stairs with Rithel on her arm, the innkeeper
stepped out from behind the bar and regarded her solemnly. "Many thanks
to you, Eagle-Master. You and your League. We feared the ghosts would
attack us here before the war was over."
"It was the Order as well," Cailin told him. "If it wasn't for the Eagle-Sage and his mages, Sartol would have destroyed us."
The man's eyebrows went up, but after a moment he nodded. "Would you
care for some breakfast, Eagle-Master? I can find some raw mutton for
your bird as well."
Cailin fought back another wave of tears. "No, thank you. We'll eat later."
Again the man nodded, and after a brief, awkward silence, he retreated to the bar.
Stepping out into the bright daylight, Cailin caressed the golden brown feathers on the eagle's nape.
Rithel looked up into the sky and cried out softly.
"I know," Cailin said, a dull ache in her chest. "Be well, my love. Arick guard you."
The eagle cried out a second time before hopping off the mage's arm to
the cobblestone. Then with a quick step forward, she jumped, and
beating the air heavily with her enormous wings, began to rise into the
clear blue, crying out repeatedly to Cailin and circling ever higher.
After only a few moments she was little more than a dark speck in the
sky, and as Cailin watched, it seemed that she was joined by a second
bird who circled with her briefly. Then, with one final faint cry, she
tucked in her wings, as did the other bird, and they both soared out of
sight.
Wiping the tears from her face and exhaling slowly, Cailin walked away
from the inn, intending to make her way out of the city and into
Hawksfind Wood. Within a few minutes, however, she found herself
standing before the Great Hall. She hesitated only for an instant, then
climbed the stairs and entered the domed building. As she had expected,
Jaryd and Alayna were there, standing in the middle of the Gathering
Chamber surveying the wreckage. The bodies were gone, of course, but
the fragments of the Summoning Stone remained, as did its broken stand
and the remains of what had once been the council table.
"Good morning," Cailin said, her voice echoing loudly off the ceiling.
They both turned. Alayna's owl sat on her shoulder, but Jaryd's eagle was nowhere to be seen.
"Is yours gone, too?" Cailin asked him.
He nodded. "She left this morning."
"So did Rithel. It feels strange, doesn't it?"
"Yes and no. I was unbound for a long time before Rithlar came to me. So in a way, this feels all too familiar."
Their daughter emerged from one of the back rooms, clutching a small
doll in her hand. "Mama! Look what I found." Seeing Cailin, she stopped
and smiled. "Hello, Eagle-Master." Her smile quickly vanished, to be
replaced by a puzzled frown. "Where's your cloak?"
Cailin glanced at Jaryd and Alayna, smiling shyly. "I got rid of it," she said.
"Are you going to join the Order?"
"Myn!" Alayna said quickly.
But Cailin shook her head. "It's all right. No," she said, facing Myn
again. "But I'm not going to be in the League anymore, either."
"Oh," the girl said, nodding sagely. "You're a free mage now."
The three mages laughed.
"Yes," Cailin said. "I guess I am."
"Are you sure that was the right decision?" Jaryd asked.
"Not entirely. But then again, I can't remember the last time I was
entirely sure about anything." She laughed, but it even sounded forced
to her.
Jaryd and Alayna smiled compassionately, and Cailin looked away, feeling embarrassed.
"I'm not sure it matters anyway," she said, as she started to wander slowly through the chamber.
Jaryd's face seemed to blanch. "What do you mean?"
"I just wonder if we've seen the end of the Mage-Craft as we know it.
The stone is lost, the Unsettled have found rest. What if it's all
ending? Theron and Amarid are both gone now. Maybe that means that
their craft is gone as well."
The Eagle-Sage and Alayna exchanged a look. "I've thought of that as
well," he admitted. "It occurred to me that Rithlar may have been my
last binding."
"I don't think so," Alayna said. "The Mage-Craft may be changing—
it may be that we can't play the role we once did— but I don't
think the gods are through with us yet."
Cailin shrugged, stopping in front of where the Summoning Stone once stood. "I hope you're right."
She lingered there for several moments, absently moving shards of the
great crystal with her toe. Then she looked up and forced a smile. "I
just realized that you're probably in the middle of something. I didn't
mean to intrude. I just found myself in front of the Hall, and
wanted ..." She shrugged a second time. "To be honest, I don't
know what I wanted."
"You're welcome here anytime, Cailin," Jaryd told her. "And regardless
of whether you wear a cloak or not, we hope that you'll always consider
us your friends."
The smile came to her easily this time. "Of course."
She left them a short while later, and making her way to the outskirts
of the city, soon came to the Temple of the Eldest. The windows of the
Temple were boarded, as they would be for the next forty days, to mark
the loss of Eldest Brevyl. And before entering the Temple grounds,
Cailin lit one of the tribute candles in the small prayer house at the
Temple gate. Then she hurried through the courtyard to Linnea's
chambers.
The air in the room was heavy and hot, and it smelled of mage-wort and shan.
There was an acolyte sitting in the corner, but when Cailin came in,
the woman nodded once and withdrew. Linnea was lying in bed, of course,
a blanket pulled up to her chin. There were black circles under her
eyes, and her pale skin was stretched so tight over her cheekbones that
Cailin feared it might rip. But the Eldest smiled when she saw Cailin,
and there still seemed to be a good deal of life in her light blue eyes.
"I was hoping you'd come!" she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"I've wanted to for some time now. I'm sorry it's been so long."
Linnea clicked her tongue and closed her eyes briefly in a way that
seemed to dismiss the apology. "You had more important things to do.
They tell me you're a hero."
"We all are." She smiled. "Even Erland."
"I find that hard to believe," Linnea said archly. She indicated the
bed with a slight nod. "Sit beside me. Tell me all that happened."
Cailin sat, and the Eldest winced at the movement of the bedding.
"Can I get you anything?"
Linnea closed her eyes briefly, but then opened them and smiled again. "No, Child. I'm fine."
Fine? Looking at her, Cailin felt like crying.
They spoke for some time about the previous night's battle. Linnea
peppered her with questions, interrupting often to ask Cailin to
elaborate on one point or another. When Cailin was finally done, the
Eldest closed her eyes once more, as if resting after an ordeal. But
she quickly opened them again.
"Where's your cloak?" she asked, as though she had just realized that Cailin wasn't wearing it.
"I don't wear it anymore. I've left the League."
"When?" Linnea asked, her eyes widening.
"Last night, after we defeated Sartol."
"Erland must have had convulsions!"
Cailin laughed. "He did."
"Did others leave with you?"
"Not that I know."
"They will," Linnea said, with certainty. "Just wait and see." Her eyes scanned the small room. "And what of your eagle?"
"She left me this morning. The war's over. Both eagles are gone."
Linnea regarded her sadly. "So you're unbound again?"
Cailin shrugged, then nodded. "It's not important," she said, not
wishing to dwell once more on the loss of her bird and the chance that
she wouldn't bind again. "I think the greatest loss was the Summoning
Stone."
"You're probably right," Linnea said. "I can't even fathom what it might mean."
Again the Eldest closed her eyes.
Cailin started to stand, moving slowly so as not to move the bed. "I should let you sleep."
"Please don't," Linnea said quickly, although her eyes remained closed.
"I don't want to die alone, Cailin. And I don't want some acolyte I
don't even know to be the last person who sees me alive."
The mage choked back a sob.
"Come now, Child. You've known this was coming for some time now. Let it come. I'm ready to go."
"But I'm not ready to lose you!" Cailin said, tears pouring from her eyes.
"Would you rather I lived on with this pain?"
"Of course not."
Linnea smiled. "Then let me go. Sit here until the gods come for me, and then let me go. Please."
What could she say? She wiped her eyes and nodded, even managing to smile.
"That's a good girl," Linnea said. "Now tell me again about your fight with the two ghosts. That sounded terrifying!"
They talked well into the night, until finally Linnea fell asleep.
Cailin thought about leaving then, but instead she climbed carefully
off the bed and lowered herself into the chair beside it. Listening to
the Eldest's labored breathing, Cailin soon fell asleep herself, only
to wake up sometime later, just as the moon was coming up. It took her
a moment to realize what had awakened her. Linnea's breathing had
stopped.
Cailin sat gazing at the Eldest's face, which looked fuller and
healthier in the moonlight and ceryll-glow than it had in a long time.
At dawn, there was a knock at the door, and another acolyte came in.
She froze when she saw Linnea's face and then turned to Cailin, a
question in her eyes.
"The gods came for her during the night."
The woman sighed. "Now it will be eighty days until the windows are uncovered."
Cailin almost railed at the woman for her callousness. But then she
thought better of it. She was young; younger even than Cailin. And to
her Linnea had just been a sick old woman. So Cailin merely stood,
picked up her staff, and said, as she walked past the woman, "As it
should be."
In the days that followed, Linnea's prediction proved correct. Eleven
League mages, nearly half the body's membership, shed their cloaks and
declared themselves free mages. Not surprisingly, most of those who
followed Cailin's example were younger mages, Arslan and Vawnya among
them. Several mages of the Order also gave up their cloaks, although
not nearly as many. And as a result, the League now had fewer mages
than both the Order and the People's Movement.
Cailin only saw Erland twice during this period, the first time at the
procession honoring the dead, during which they walked together,
leading the League mages through the streets of Amarid, but said
nothing to each other. Their second encounter, however, proved more
substantive. Early in the morning of the day before she intended to
leave Amarid to resume her wanderings, she stopped by the Hall of the
League. She wasn't sure why; for some reason, she just needed to see it
again. She thought it empty when she entered— everything seemed
perfectly still— and she assumed that she was alone.
But as she slowly circled the great table in the center of the hall, she heard a footfall behind her.
"Did you come back to mock me?"
Startled, she turned to look at him. He seemed more stooped than she
remembered, and his normally ruddy face appeared sallow and drawn.
"Not at all. I'll go, if you wish."
"You've killed the League, you know."
"No, I haven't. The League still has many—"
"We're old, Cailin. All of us who remain are old. When we die, the League will die with us. You know that."
She hesitated. He was right, and she knew it. "That wasn't my intention."
"Of course it was. You wanted to get back at me. That's why you did it
in front of everyone, to humiliate me. Fact of the matter is, I can't
really blame you."
"Honestly, Erland—" She stopped herself. There was more truth in
what he had said than she cared to admit. "I never meant to destroy the
League," she told him at last. "I did it for myself, because I knew
that we couldn't work together anymore. And because I was tired of
feuding with you."
"But you knew that they'd follow you. You're their hero now."
"I knew some would. I didn't know who, or how many."
He nodded. "I'd like to believe that."
"We won, Erland. We defeated Sartol. That's what matters. That's what
you should be thinking about. It took all of us working together. It
was your victory and the League's as much as it was Jaryd's and mine."
He gazed at her for several moments, as if weighing her words. Then he
nodded again and walked back to his quarters. "Farewell, Cailin," he
said from the doorway. "Arick guard you."
"And you, Erland," she answered as he closed the door. She wasn't even sure that he heard her.
She went to the Great Hall a short time later, hoping to find Orris.
When he wasn't there, she asked Jaryd where she might find him, and he
directed her to the Aerie.
Reaching the courtyard of the inn, she thought that Jaryd had made a
terrible mistake. Surely no self-respecting mage would stay at a place
like this. But when she stepped into the dingy inn, she was met by an
aroma that made her stomach rumble and mouth water, and she decided
that Orris might be there after all. A moment later she spotted him in
the back corner of the room. He was alone, save for his beautiful white
falcon, and he was eating a bowl of hot stew.
"May I join you?" she asked, approaching his table.
Looking up, he smiled, making her heart dance. "Of course."
She sat across from him and they watched each other silently for a few awkward moments.
"I'm leaving, tomorrow," she finally said, cringing inwardly at how awkward and abrupt it sounded.
"I'm sorry to hear that. I hope that our paths will cross again soon."
"Do you?" Too eager. Again, she cringed.
The mage sighed. "Cailin—"
"I know," she said, stopping him with a raised hand. "I apologize."
They lapsed into silence once more.
"Where will you be going?" he asked at last, before taking another mouthful of stew.
"South, I think. It's time people resettled the Shadow Forest and the area around Theron's Grove. I'd like to help with that."
Orris nodded slowly. "That's a fine idea," he said.
She beamed. "How about you?"
He dropped his gaze, hesitating. "I haven't decided. It's a new world, and I'm not certain yet where I fit in."
Come with me! "You'll fit in anywhere you want, I'd think."
He smiled at that, looking into her eyes again. "Thank you."
For a third time, the conversation faltered, and Cailin decided that
she was best off leaving before she embarrassed herself further.
She stood and extended a hand. "Good bye, Orris. Arick guard you."
He took her hand in both of his. "And you, Cailin. May the gods keep you safe and bring you happiness."
She gazed at him for a few seconds more before reluctantly pulling back
her hand and leaving him. Once outside, she took the quickest route out
of the city to the wood. She had intended to spend one last night here
before starting south. But it was early still, and she had said
good-bye to all the people who mattered. So glancing back across the
Larian once last time, she began the slow ascent into the mountains.
She had no cloak or bird, but she was a free mage, and there seemed to
be a great truth in that term. For the first time she could remember,
probably for the first time in her life, she was utterly on her own.
She shivered slightly at the thought, with a touch of fear to be sure,
but with excitement as well.
* * *
With midsummer approaching and the entire membership of the Order still
in Amarid, Jaryd decided, as his last act as Eagle-Sage, to convene the
annual Gathering early, and call for the selection of a new Owl-Sage.
In the past, that had been a process involving only the Owl-Masters,
and it remained true that only masters could be considered for the
position. But with the sundering of the Order, the number of masters
had grown so small that when Sonel stepped down as Sage, all members of
the Order, Hawk-Mages and Owl-Masters, were invited to participate in
choosing her successor. Thus, Radomil had become the first Sage since
Amarid himself to be chosen by the entire Order.
In addition, the selection of the Order's leader normally revealed
ambitions that otherwise remained well hidden. But this year, in the
wake of all that had happened, it seemed not a question of who would be
chosen, but rather who would agree to serve.
Radomil, who had been Sage before Jaryd's binding to Rithlar, struck
Jaryd as the logical choice. But the rotund Owl-Master declined the
honor.
"I've served once," he said. "And I'm not sure that I'm suited to the position."
Others assured him that he had done a fine job as Sage, but he refused
to be swayed. This began a lengthy discussion of other possible
candidates, with Baden, Sonel, Trahn, Mered, who had been Radomil's
First, and Alayna mentioned as possibilities.
The phrase, "I've been away from home too long," was repeated so many
times over the first two days of the Gathering, that it began to elicit
laughter.
At last, on the third and final day of discussion, Jaryd brought up a
point that had first occurred to him the night of their battle with
Sartol.
Standing during a lull in the proceedings, and clearing his throat
awkwardly, he asked, "Do the Sage and the First have to stay in Amarid?"
He had been afraid of the response his question might provoke, and so was surprised when no one said anything at all.
"They always have," Baden answered after a long silence.
"But that was because of the stone, wasn't it? They had to be here in
case the other members of the Order had to be summoned to Amarid." He
gestured toward the shattered pieces of the stone, which had been
gathered into a neat pile next to the broken stand. "That's no longer
the case."
Trahn raised an eyebrow. "What he's saying makes sense. One might ask if we even need a Sage anymore."
"Of course we do," Orris said. "I'm still bound to a hawk, so I have
nothing to gain from saying this. And I think we'd be foolish to stop
selecting Sages and Firsts. We need a leader, someone to guide our
debates and represent us in our dealings with the rest of the land."
"I agree," Jaryd said. "But do you think that person has to live in the Great Hall?"
Orris seemed to consider the question for a moment. "Yes, I do. As I
said, the Sage is our link to the rest of the land, and to the rest of
the world. For the last thousand years, even if a person didn't know
the Owl-Sage's name, they always knew where he or she could be found. I
don't think we should change that."
Hearing it phrased that way, neither did anyone else. When they voted
on the question a few moments later, every member supported keeping the
Sage in Amarid. Which brought them back to the question of who would
lead them.
In the end, after the mages discussed the matter for several hours
more, Trahn agreed to serve, and Radomil offered to stay on as his
First.
"Ilianne has grown quite fond of Amarid," he explained.
Before they adjourned, the mages of the Order agreed unanimously to add
one more medallion to the constellation of golden coins that adorned
the roof of the Great Hall. Theron's. It was, they all agreed,
something that should have been done years before.
After that, there was little left to do, and Trahn declared the
Gathering closed, inviting them to a hastily prepared feast at the
First Mage's home, to be held later that evening.
Despite the fact that the Great Hall's attendants had only had a few
days to prepare, the Procession of Light and the closing feast were the
most enjoyable that Jaryd could remember. It was not that the food was
any better than usual or that the procession was more spectacular than
it was every year. But for the first time in years, there seemed to be
no shadows hanging over the Order.
The night of Jaryd's first procession and feast, at which he received
his cloak, had been one of the most glorious of his life. And yet, even
that had taken place on the eve of the delegation's departure for
Theron's Grove. Tonight, finally, the long struggle that began with the
outlanders' attacks on Tobyn-Ser was over.
Trahn extended invitations to this feast not only to the people of the
city, but also to the League and those free mages still in Amarid. And
though Cailin had already departed, and Erland declined to come,
several free mages and a few members of the League did attend. The
Mage-Craft was still divided— Jaryd had resigned himself to the
fact that it probably would be forever— but the rivalries among
its various factions appeared to have eased in the aftermath of their
war with Sartol. Yes, victory had come at a great cost. Throughout the
land, people were grieving for lost relatives and friends. And who
could say what the future held for the Mage-Craft now that the stone
was gone? But the war was over. Finally, the land could begin to heal
itself.
"When will you be leaving?" Baden asked as they ate, looking from Jaryd to Alayna.
"Soon," Myn said, before either of them could answer.
All of them laughed.
Alayna leaned over and kissed the top of Myn's head. "She's right: soon. Tomorrow, if possible."
"What about you?" Jaryd asked between mouthfuls.
"Sonel and I will be leaving tomorrow, too. I miss my home."
Orris laughed. "Listen to him. It's hard to believe he was ever a
migrant. I'm going to have to take a look at this house and see what
makes it so special."
Baden regarded him with surprise. "I'd like that, Orris. You're welcome anytime."
"Thank you. I'm going to ride with Trahn back to his home when he goes
to get his wife. I've always wanted to spend a bit of time in the
desert. But after that, I'd like to visit you and Sonel."
"Of course."
"What about us?" Myn asked him, her mouth full of brown bread.
"If it's all right with your mother and father, I'll be coming to you from Uncle Baden's house."
"Sounds great," Alayna said, grinning.
But Jaryd merely stared at his friend, sensing something in the plans
he was making. Trahn's home, Baden's, then theirs. And where after that?
Orris looked his way and their eyes met.
"What?" the burly mage asked, laughing again. "You look like you don't want me to visit."
"Not at all," Jaryd said. He shook his head. "It's nothing." If Orris was hiding something, he was doing a fine job of it.
It was a late evening, as the feasts often were. Jaryd and Alayna
returned to the Great Hall only an hour or two before dawn, with Myn
asleep in Jaryd's arms. Still, they managed to have their sacks packed
and their horses saddled and ready by late morning the following day.
And after saying their last farewells to Baden and Sonel, Radomil and
Ilianne, Orris, and Trahn, they rode out of the city and commenced the
long journey back to the shores of South Shelter.
"Do you think it's strange that Orris is coming to see all of us?" Jaryd asked as they rode through Hawksfind Wood.
Alayna shook her head. "Not really. He didn't like to stay with friends
while the League was still after him, because he worried about
something happening to us. Now that they seem content to leave him
alone, he's ready to visit again. It makes sense to me."
"I hadn't thought of that," he admitted. "I guess you're right."
Throughout the afternoon, as they crossed the wood and then started to
climb into the foothills, Myn made them sing songs with her and tell
her stories. After some time though, Jaryd fell silent, leaving the
songs and tales to Alayna.
He couldn't help but think back to what Cailin had said about the
possibility that they might not bind again. He had been unbound for so
long after Ishalla died, and though the Curse was gone, he did not
relish the idea of spending the rest of his life without a familiar. He
wanted to believe, as Alayna did, that the gods would continue to send
familiars to Tobyn-Ser's mages despite the loss of the stone and the
breaking of the Curse. But a part of him wondered.
"What are you thinking about?" Alayna asked quietly, pulling her horse
abreast of his. Myn was sitting in front of her, and had fallen asleep.
He gave a wry grin and shook his head. "You don't want to know."
"You're worrying about binding again?"
He nodded reluctantly.
"I really don't think you have to worry. The Mage-Craft has been a part
of this land for a thousand years. It's as much a part of Tobyn-Ser as
the Seasides or Tobyn's Wood. And as long as there are hawks and owls
flying over the plains and forests, and as long as there are people who
carry Leora's Gift within them, the Mage-Craft will remain."
He was desperate to believe her. Aside from Alayna and their daughter,
there was nothing he loved more than being a mage. And yet, his doubts
lingered, like an ocean mist on a cool spring morning.
"You're still not convinced, are you?" She shook her head. "You were a
great Eagle-Sage, Jaryd. You're a wonderful husband and father. I see
you with Orris and Trahn and Baden, and I see that you're a terrific
friend." She shook her head a second time. "But I have never met
anybody who's as bad at being unbound as you are."
He laughed a bit too loudly, and Myn started awake.
"What's so funny?" she asked with a yawn.
"Nothing, Love," he said. "You should go back to—"
"Papa, look!" she whispered. She was gazing ahead, pointing at something.
And turning to follow her gaze, Jaryd took a sharp breath.
Just in front of them, perched on a low branch, sat a magnificent owl.
It was large and powerfully built, with intelligent yellow eyes and
tufts on its head that gave its face a catlike appearance. And it was
staring directly at him. It was, he had time to realize, the same type
of owl to which Alayna was bound, not that this should have surprised
him. As long as there are hawks and owls, she had said. As long as there are people who carry Leora's Gift within them. She was right after all.
That was his last clear thought for a good while. For in the next
instant, a wave of images and emotions crashed down upon his mind like
breakers on a sandy shore. And so his new binding began.
Epilogue
As I have told you before, I was greatly relieved to hear of your
victory over Sartol and of the pledge made by the Temple's new leader
not to purchase any more weapons from Lon-Ser. If you have received my
earlier letters, please forgive me for repeating myself. But it has
been a long time since I heard from you, and I find myself wondering if
you are all right. I worry that perhaps your feud with the League mages
is not over as you believed, or that somehow, Sartol proved to be a
more resilient foe than you thought ...
I have come to a decision of some importance that I am eager to share
with you, but I am reluctant to do so until I receive word that you are
well. Please write to me soon, Orris. I do not want our correspondence
to end.
— Melyor i Lakin, Sovereign and Bearer of Bragor-Nal to Hawk-Mage Orris, Day 6, Week 2, Spring, Year 3069.
She had been thinking along these lines for nearly a year now, and she
had tried on many occasions at least to hint at it, so that Jibb would
be prepared. But though he had known since the day they hired Mouse and
put Premel in change of Network relations that she didn't intend to be
Sovereign forever, he seemed unwilling or unable to accept that her
tenure would be ending anytime soon.
Which explained the look on his face now.
"But—" He halted, shaking his head for what had to be the
twentieth time. "But what will you do?" he finally asked. "Where will
you go?"
She stepped to her window and looked out at the Nal. The air looked
browner and heavier than ever. Even the storm that had moved through
that morning hadn't cleared any of it. She needed to get out of here.
Melyor had spent almost her entire life in the Nal. She had only left
twice, once to escape Cedrych's assassins and once to capture Marar.
Not that she was complaining. All in all, the Nal had been good to her
over the years. It had given her just about everything she had ever
dreamed of having: excitement, power, gold. She was proud of what she
had accomplished as Sovereign, of the changes she had brought to the
Nal and the improvements she had made in the lives of Bragor-Nal's
Gildriites. The process was still just beginning; it wouldn't be
completed in her lifetime. But it was still more than many had thought
possible. Certainly it was more than other Sovereigns had done.
But with all that she had done, with all the wealth and influence she
now enjoyed, she couldn't help the way she felt. The realization had
first come to her in the tunnels beneath the Sixth Realm, just before
the firefight that nearly killed her. It struck her again during the
journey to Marar's palace, when the excitement of their invasion of
Stib-Nal was more than enough to offset the discomfort of making the
journey on walk-aids. She was bored.
For years, her lone ambition had been to make it to the Gold Palace.
And for a time after she got there, she enjoyed running the Nal. But
gold could only buy her so much, and despite her power, more often than
not, she felt like a prisoner in the palace. After all this time, she
had finally come to understand that being Sovereign was a lot less fun
than being a Nal-Lord. Not that she wanted to go back to the quads. She
just wanted to do something else. And whatever it turned out to be, she
didn't want to do it alone.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," she said, finally answering the
general's question. She had hoped that she would have heard from Orris
by now. What she really wanted was to go to Tobyn-Ser to be with him.
But how could she say such a thing to Jibb? Besides, she couldn't very
well go without telling the mage that she was coming. "Maybe I'll go to
the settlements in the Dhaalmar."
"You're going to live with the Gildriites?"
She faced him again. "There's a part of me that thinks I belong there." She held up her staff. "Certainly this stone does."
"That stone belongs with you, wherever you are. You don't have to give up the palace to deserve it."
She conceded the point with a shrug of her shoulders and turned back to the window.
"When was the last time you heard from him?"
She crossed her arms over her chest, as if to cradle her heart. "It's been a while."
"Have you written to him again?"
She almost told him to mind his own affairs. But she knew how hard it
was for him to talk to her about Orris, and so she merely nodded.
"You've told me that he travels a lot. That he wanders the land on foot
all year long. Maybe he hasn't been able to get his letters into the
hands of any merchants. It's probably as simple as that."
She looked at him over her shoulder and gave a wan smile. "Probably. Thanks, Jibb."
"But until you hear from him again, doesn't it make sense to stay here, where he can reach you?"
He had a point.
"I suppose it does, at least for a while longer."
"And anyway," he said, his tone light, "you wouldn't want to leave me all alone, would you?"
"You wouldn't be alone," she replied with a grin. "You always have Premel."
The rift between Jibb and Premel had persisted for much of the past
year, and Jibb still did not trust the security man as he once had. But
in recent weeks Melyor had noticed some of the warmth returning to
their relationship, as if Jibb had finally found it within himself to
forgive Premel for his betrayal.
"Premel," Jibb repeated with a shake of his head. "At this point, Mouse
has practically turned him into a Gildriite. In fact, he probably knew
I was going to say that before I did."
Melyor arched an eyebrow. "Careful, General. Remember who you're talking to."
Jibb laughed, and Melyor managed to as well. After a few seconds,
however, their mirth faded, and they were left staring at each other.
"I'm not ready to lose you, Melyor," Jibb said with unsettling intensity.
She didn't enjoy hurting him, but sometimes he needed to be reminded. "You never had me."
"That's not true. Even if you never loved me, you've been the closest friend I've ever had."
"I'll always to be your friend, Jibb. No matter where I go, or who I'm with."
He looked down. "I know that."
"You know," Melyor said, attempting to change the mood, "as Sovereign you'll be able to have any woman you want."
"You know this from personal experience?"
She gave a coy smile. "Do you really want me to answer that?"
His face turned bright red, and Melyor laughed.
The remote from his speak-screen beeped. "Looks like I need to be
going," he said. "Don't move out of the palace before I get back, all
right?"
"Fair enough," she agreed.
Jibb let himself out of her quarters, and she returned to the window.
"This isn't my home anymore," she said, staring up at the brown sky. "I'm not even sure I've ever had a home."
She hadn't expected to see Jibb again until the next day, but later
that afternoon, as she wandered through the gardens on the west side of
the palace, the general approached her, his round face wearing a
strange expression.
"What is it, Jibb?"
He stopped in front of her, his brow furrowed. "I'm not sure how best
to say this." He took a breath, and then, "I think I know why Orris
hasn't contacted you for so long."
Her mouth went dry, and she actually had to remind herself to breathe. "Why?"
And by way of response, the general turned and pointed toward the entrance to the gardens.
There, framed by the marble gate, stood the mage, his yellow hair tied
back, just as she remembered, and a beautiful white falcon sitting on
his shoulder.
She wanted to run to him, to throw her arms around him. But she was
afraid to take even one step. She just gazed at him, and he back at her.
"I'll leave you two," the general said quietly.
"Thank you, Jibb," she whispered.
"Melyor."
She tore her eyes from Orris to look at him.
"I'm happy for you. Truly."
She smiled, feeling a single tear on her cheek. "And I love you for that."
Jibb smiled as well. Then he turned and left the garden.
Facing Orris again, Melyor took a deep breath. "I had wondered what
happened to you," she said. It felt strange to be speaking Tobynmir
again. She had been writing letters in the mage's language for years,
but she hadn't spoken it since leaving Orris at the edge of the
Southern Timber Stand eight years ago.
He started to walk toward her slowly, as if unsure of himself. "I'm
sorry I didn't get any letters to you. Few merchants come to the
isthmus, particularly in the winter and early spring. I did write
though. I can show you the letters later."
"You walked? You could have come on a merchant ship."
"Actually I rode." He grinned self-consciously. "I do much better on a horse than I do on the sea."
She gawked at him. "You brought a horse to the Nal?"
"I set him free at a beach on the isthmus, just before the timber stand. He should be very happy there."
He stopped just in front of her.
"I never thought I would see you here again," she breathed.
"I never thought I'd return."
With one last step forward, he gathered her in his arms and kissed her
deeply. Melyor had dreamed of this moment time and again, hoping
against hope that just once the image would come to her with the weight
of a Seeing. She returned his kiss with a passion that had burned
within her for more years than she cared to count.
After some time, she realized that Orris's falcon, who had been forced
off the mage's shoulder by their embrace, was circling above them,
complaining loudly.
She pulled back and looked Orris in the eye. "I do not think your bird likes me very much."
"She'll get used to you."
"Does that mean you will stay with me?"
He kissed her again. "I'm here, Melyor. I spent nearly half the year crossing the isthmus. Doesn't that tell you something?"
Of course it did, though she was almost afraid to let herself believe
it. "But why would you leave Tobyn-Ser? I never expected you would do
that."
He shook his head, a sad look in his dark eyes. "Things there are
changing." He gave a wry grin. "I don't do very well with change."
"Coming here is not change?"
"It's different. I've been a mage and a member of the Order for
twenty-one years. And for ten years before that, I dreamed of wearing
this cloak. After I left Tobyn-Ser the first time— in fact,
because of my leaving— all that it meant to be a mage started to
change. I can't even begin to tell you what it was like to see the
Order broken, and to know that it was my fault. But even then, the
Mage-Craft remained essentially the same. Now, though ..." He
shook his head again. "With the Summoning Stone lost, there's nothing
holding us together anymore, there are more free mages than there are
Order mages. Too much is different."
She understood only a fraction of what he was telling her, but in a way that was enough, at least for now.
"Besides," he went on, smiling at her again, "I had a very good reason
for wanting to come here. Would the Sovereign of Bragor-Nal have need
of the services of a mage?"
A reply leaped to mind, one that would have made him blush, but she
wasn't sure how to word it in his language. And in any case, she had
news for him.
"I want to tell you—" She broke off embarrassed by the difficulty
she was having speaking Tobynmir. "I have been wanting to tell you
something for a long time. I am not to be Sovereign anymore."
His eyes widened. "Why not?"
She shook her head. "I cannot tell you now. Later, when I can find the words. But it is my choice. I am deciding it."
"I see," he said, nodding. "And what are you going to do?"
"I was going to come to Tobyn-Ser," she said. "I want to see your land. But now you are here."
The mage gave a small laugh. "I guess I should have written."
Melyor smiled and nodded. "So what do we do now? Do you want to return to your land?"
"Not yet." He took her hands in his. "I do someday, Melyor. I want you
to see Tobyn-Ser, too. I want you to meet my friends. But I'm not ready
to go back."
"Then what?"
"You once asked me to go with you to the Bearer's village."
"To the Dhaalmar?" she asked with amazement, remembering her conversation with Jibb that morning. "You want to go there?"
"Yes," he said. "I think it's time I honored Gwilym in that way. And I
think it's time that someone brought the Mage-Craft to the Gildriites
of Lon-Ser."
"Do you think that is possible?" she asked, a chill going through her
body at the very thought. "Gildri's power left him when he came here.
That is what the legend says. And there has been no sign of such power
existing among my people since."
"I know that. But Gildri came here a thousand years ago. Think of how much has changed since then."
"But still—"
He held up a hand, stopping her. And a dazzling smile lit his face. "I
dreamed it, Melyor. While I was crossing the isthmus, I dreamed of
mages in the Dhaalmar."
She stared at him. Wanting to believe him. Afraid to believe him.
"Truly?" she asked, her voice so low she could barely hear herself. "A
Seeing?"
He nodded.
She shook her head, feeling tears on her face again. "What a marvelous dream."
He smiled, and kissed her once more. "Actually, the best part was that we were together."
About the Author
DAVID B. COE grew up just outside of New York City, the youngest of
four children. He attended Brown University as an undergraduate and
later received a Ph.D. in history from Stanford. He briefly considered
a career as an academic but wisely thought better of it.
David has published two other novels and is the 1999 recipient of the
William L. Crawford Memorial Fantasy Award. He lives in Tennessee with
his wife, Nancy J. Berner, their daughters, Alex and Erin, and of
course, Buddy, the wonder dog. Eagle-Sage is the third and final volume of the LonTobyn Chronicle. But David is already hard at work on his next fantasy project.
-End V1.
----------------------------------------------------------
