Once inside his room, he took a much-needed bath and found the best of his travel clothes, most of which he had purchased along the way, all of which were in need of a washing.
The inn hosted a dining facility separate from another room where drinks and entertainment were being provided. He took a quick look inside the dining room, then chose the bar, settling for a seat where he could see the guests as they entered the dining area. His dagger was tucked inside his vest, his sword having been stashed between the double mattresses on his bed—not that hiding anything beneath a mattress protected against thieves, but rather, it seemed odd to sit it on a dresser in a room meant for lovers.
The bar filled quickly, the laughter and banter rising as the sun went down. He ordered a spiced mead and sampled the open-fired pork that the barmaid described as the night’s specialty. The music filled him with the expectation of once again uniting with Brenna; he clapped along with the others, even as he watched every opening of the door to the inn, and the face of every guest who passed into the dining room.
His tide of reverie waned as couples finished their dining and retired to their chambers or returned to their homes. He had declined to eat a full meal, thinking Brenna would arrive at any moment for dinner. His heart sank, and he hoped he had not made some terrible mistake. He turned away from the view of the door and stared out the window at the lights along the river, lights that reflected on the bustling water as it made its descent into the lands below.
She might have picked another inn.
No, it had to be this one.
He would not find her tonight. She was here somewhere, wasn’t she? She had to be. He would search for her in the morning. There would be no dinner tonight.
A quick trip to look in on Fury and back to his room. Yes, he would find her tomorrow.
His attention no longer on the door, he had almost missed the lady as she made her way to the fireplace. As he rose to leave, he caught sight of her long red hair, partly hidden by the hooded cloak she wore. Her shoulders straight, her stride assured. He watched as she pushed the hood back; she didn’t even look around, a woman who could take care of herself. Perfume sailed on the heat from the fire; he didn’t need to see her face.
He circled round to where she would see his approach.
She all but bolted from her seat. He went down on one knee. “My lady, please do not get up. Allow me to join you.”
“Oh, my dear Ogmia. I knew you would come.” Brenna sat with both hands over her face. She looked around as if searching for some trick, some piece of reality to tell her this was not true.
“I found you.” He came up off his knees as she rose from her seat. They embraced, a tiny dance of swinging back and forth, tears streaming down their faces, the crackle of the fireplace the only sound insisting on being heard. “Have you eaten?” he asked.
“No, I like to wait until the bustle dies down. For these past nights I have poked my head inside hoping to find you and finally, when most have left, I eat, sip a glass of wine, and then return to my room and wait until the next night.”
“Well then, I have tried a meager helping of the pit-fired pork. Perhaps a bigger helping might give us time to catch up.” He bowed his head. “Have you… have you met with any of the others?”
She put her finger to his lips. “Not now. Oran was a surprise, as was finding my family and friends. I’ll tell you all about it once I get tired of looking into your eyes, okay?”
She kissed him hard and long and continued. “And enjoy your pig, but then you belong to me. You might be good at claiming your space, and you can have all the space you want, just don’t forget that you’re mine.”
“I relinquish all claim to my space, and my person, if you promise to reenact why we came to this inn.”
Brenna put her finger under her chin. “Let me see. Was there some special reason to be at this inn?”
Devyn turned serious as he realized all he had not told her. “Listen, Brenna, I need to tell you some things.”
She took his face in her hands. “It can wait until morning.”
He kissed her hand. “Some things cannot wait until morning, but yes, any further words can.”
*****
There was little need for words as they embraced and held each other tenderly. They lay together until the faint sounds of the outside bustle had long disappeared. The love they shared gave them both the first peaceful sleep they had had in some time. It was well past sunrise when either of them awoke to greet the day.
Devyn finally kissed her brow awake, and they lay still in the cool of the mountain air that sailed in through the open window.
He sat up. “We have much to talk about.”
She kissed him. “The chalice is safe. We’re safe. I love you, and yes, we have much to talk about, but you knew that when you made me take the chalice, didn’t you?”
“The cup is not the cup.”
Devyn proceeded to tell her about all that had happened in his visit to Simon, minus what had happened to her sister and their friends; that would come later.
She listened intently to what he wanted to share before asking, “Let me see the prophecy.”
He pulled the small scroll from his jacket pocket and gave it to her.
“Our words must be presented in a certain way that thought will allow,
As spoken words are not possible between us.
We know the value of your garden.
Yet we are too far away to reach you in even a thousand turns of your seasons.
Even at the speed of light we could not reach you.
Thoughts have no such limits, and are instant between us.
The ability to do so is because of a link we have with your chalice.
And as your caretalker is linked to the chalice we are linked to them.
The caretalker (Note inserted by clerics. All the witnessing clerics vouched for this word: caretalker) must be our means,
As most of your people do not have the ability.
It will evolve in time when no chalice will be needed.
The Flame Flyer has vision beyond vision.
The Flyer can also make the connection of thought.
You have remaining a precious number of turns of your seasons in order to act.
Be in the dome room where the chalice rests.
Where the black jewels hold the power.
The power of the blade will unlock the way.
The three who told us of the urgency must take your blood;
It is the only way they may enter the temple.
Follow the ritual of the inner sanctum.
Your blood tells the Flame Flyer of those with purpose.
The Flyer controls the Prowlers.
Should you not abide, all will perish.
The peril would destroy everything,
Even the blade that carries the black jewels.
Please know, we wish your survival.”
Brenna held the scroll open in her hand. She looked at Devyn and then looked down at the parchment. “What can it mean? It’s certainly dark. And obscure.”
He nodded. “I’ve read it a few times. I think I see why Wallace would not want it known. ‘All will perish.’ If anyone considers himself the supreme power of destruction, it would be him. The rest of it, ‘obscure’ is a good word.”
“The part about the caretakers… caretalker, whatever… might well explain what happened to those who prepared for the fake cup the last two times… and now—”
Devyn took her hand. “No, I don’t think so. Simon told me that the last two caretakers might be alive.”
“Did he say as much?”
Devyn shook his head. “No, not exactly those words, but… why would a prophecy want to kill three people? It makes no sense.” He drew her close. “I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”
She kissed his cheek. “We need to talk about that protection plan of yours. This might well be beyond Straten Wallace, beyond the bounds of magic. Can
you save me from what we do not know, from a power beyond our reasoning… ancient, perhaps?”
“Not all prophecies have been deciphered—”
“Yes, but that was because we didn’t put the time into their study. When we looked back on the ones that were missed, and took the time to research, we were able to understand some of them. And this one clearly demands all of our attention.”
Brenna began reading the scroll once again. “Speed of light. Light has speed. I have always assumed it was instant; once lit, it went everywhere it could reach. And caretalker: caretakers hear what is being said inside their minds and then speak the words so the clerics can write the words down. Caretalker is perhaps more accurate than caretaker.”
Devyn nodded. “Yes, and thoughts travel faster than light?”
She looked up from the scroll. “I somehow understand reading someone’s intention or thought is instant. Like when I get a feeling that you might be thinking about me, and you are in the garrison and I’m on the farm.”
“Well, that’s easy. I’m always thinking about you.” He added a grin for good measure.
Brenna smiled. “But light… having speed. Yes, most perplexing. Perhaps our astronomers would know.”
“We won’t be talking to them anytime soon.” Devyn paced the room slowly. On further reading, the words that hit him most were the references to the caretakers. He had wanted to go back and further question the cleric, the urgency to find his wife having won out. He believed the old cleric had been circumspect in his deliberations with him. Simon clearly regretted the loss of the caretakers, short of admitting to any atrocities. Still, he wished now he had clarified the matter.
Brenna interrupted his thinking. “Are there not astronomers outside of the garrison? And the black jewels. I’ve heard about them before.”
Devyn took the scroll from her hands. “‘Should you not abide; all will perish.’ How sinister is that?”
She touched his hand. “We’re not going back to the temple. Let’s find what needs to be found, the old temple; the dome that could not be placed on the new temple was a part of my teaching, if in whisper. This is not about you and me anymore. It’s far more important. Oh my, flame! Is that the flame hawk you mentioned?”
“The prophecy does not use the word hawk. And the flame hawk’s habitat is far from the temple at the garrison… well, until the one we saw.”
Brenna laughed. “Wallace would not likely know of the flame hawk, unlike my well-traveled husband. It would have no meaning to him, any more than it had to me before you identified our unusual visitor.”
Devyn pushed his fingers through his hair. “You mentioned a dome being part of the old temple, but that temple is gone. What is written here appears to stem back to ancient times, to civilizations and meanings now lost to our time.”
“Our world is new, yet old. Where we live has survived centuries, yet our world had been much more.” Brenna took a deep breath and exhaled. “The answers are with the old world.”
“And where, pray tell, is that?” Devyn asked.
‘“To where our world began. To where the ruins of the wars lay waste that precious ground. To where none dare go again as their very soul will be taken. That place is the guardian of antiquity, where spirits talk to spirits.”’
“Is this your Ogmia speaking? What’s there in a long-lost ruined temple that will help us?” Devyn asked. “And you said the temple’s gone.”
“I remember having read those words somewhere. No, not gone: lost and forbidding, perhaps in ruin, but surely something remains. And no matter, many have died that I might be free, many more from Lord Wallace’s revenge for my having stolen the chalice. That’s on my shoulders. We cannot ignore this matter.”
Devyn bowed his head. “Yes, I’ve caused must death, but getting you killed won’t make up for it.”
“Knowledge.” Brenna closed the scroll. “The prophecies have never lied. We’ve been spared while many have died. We must do what we can to ensure no one else dies because of what was not done. This time you take my orders, farmer.”
He held her close and whispered in her ear. “We’ll do all that you deem necessary.”
Brenna passed him back the scroll. “First, there is the matter of your punishment. When the day is done, and the night is spent in your arms, we’ll pursue what needs doing. Allow my punishment to begin.” She kissed him deeply.
He lay back upon the bed. The morning sun climbed to the balcony, into the room, and offered a warmth that, for the moment, would allow all else to be overlooked.
Chapter 13
Beginnings
It was an all-too-brief celebration of their reunion; perhaps celebration was the wrong word, as their short time together carried the shadow of all that had transpired to turn their world on its end. And what was yet to be talked about weighed heavily on each of them.
To round out the tribulation of their world, the words of the last prophecy brought their own level of foreboding. The prophecy warned them of a disaster soon to come. Had they stirred Wallace’s rage enough that he would wreak decimation on all in his path, a final lesson that he should not be challenged? Surely even Wallace’s rage had limits. Yet Brenna had pointed out that a divine message that pointed to their leader could not be taken lightly.
The added weight of what Simon had told Devyn could no longer be kept inside. It lay between them like a dark abyss on either side of going back or forward, until he had no choice but to share with her what she must know.
Brenna sat and patted her knees, a signal that it was time to talk, to hear of the carnage that had been left in the wake of their leaving. It would appear his need to tell her was preempted by her need to know.
He began with the names of those who had been put to death over the falls, and next those who’d died fighting to allow her escape. All in a whisper lest he wake the dead, he next told her of what happened to her sister; she too had gone over the falls.
She sat in silence, looking down at her knees.
Lastly he told her of his friend, his friend’s family, not forgetting the old dog or the shame he’d suffered for not even knowing the dog’s name.
He shuddered as the first tears began to stream down her face. His words continued to stumble out, tumbling into the guilt he carried, and smashing against the anticipated rejection that he was certain would follow. She wrung her hands while he gave her greater detail he had hoped to avoid, but she insisted that nothing be omitted.
He ached to find a way to provide her some release, some solace as he witnessed her body tremble. She closed her eyes, perhaps trying to accept the inevitability of it all, even as she shook away the brutality; and as he knew was ordained, he waited for the greater horror he would see in her eyes when she opened them again.
She opened her eyes, and there it was: her grief for him, for the dark marks upon his soul. There was nothing he could say or do. He took her in his arms.
When the tears finally stopped she pushed him away, not once but twice, as he tried to hold her again. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. At least not for now. We need to move on, protect those who followed us here.”
A walled silence settled around each of them. They sat next to each other, yet he could no more touch her than he could touch a mountaintop while he stood in the foothills. She was so far away from him; he well knew she had gone to some inner sanctum that did not include him, nor should it.
Breathing, no other sounds, the noise inside his head another matter. Perhaps he had broken her—an evil so much worse than death. Still he could have done nothing different. That made it feel all the worse. He was a victim of his own attributes.
Eventually she reached out and touched his hand. “You’re a brave and honorable man. You did what you had to do. For now, know that I love you. We are together again. What else there is can wait.”
“I—”
“Hush. Let me tell you what has transpired here.” She went on to inform him how and when she had fo
und her family and friends, and how Oran Gadvy had bartered for a huge slice of property on the other side of Highrest. She gave him no time to respond to anything she said, but kept on talking. He knew better than to push the issue, anyway; it was her way of shifting her thoughts to other matters, and the grisly story he had told her required a special dose of that medicine.
“It’s an old town, long since deserted, as forestry needs for Highrest have given way to stonemasonry. It’s now our new home.”
She, at last, fell into his arms. He rocked her in place until it was time for them to leave and meet the ones he had made fugitives.
The Last Prophecy Page 14