by Pemry Janes
“Unexpected,” the demon said. “Perhaps I’ll have something to present after all.” He ran toward the transforming woman.
Eurik tried to stop him. He did better than Slyvair expected. For several heartbeats they exchanged strikes, blocks, counterblows. Then it happened. Eurik faltered and the demon’s fingers buried themselves in his chest. Not too deep, but the boy was smart enough to retreat.
Before Silver Fang could circle around to try her own luck, the demon had scooped up Resting Python and touched the mirror. The cracks in its surface didn’t disappear, but the scene it reflected changed a great deal.
Gone was the small hall with its wooden floor covered in straw, blood, and bodies. Gone were the benches and the simple tables. Instead, Slyvair saw stone and rugs, a shelf with expensively bound books, and out a window he saw an Irelian city instead of Inza architecture.
“Now hush, little one. All change is painful. No use crying about it. Embrace it,” the demon said before its words were cut off as it passed through the mirror.
“You don’t get to take her,” Silver Fang cried out, leaping after them. But she hit a solid surface, the impact toppling the mirror, and both went down.
Chapter 34
A Story to Tell
With the rush of battle gone, and with the last of his reserve of earth chiri left, Eurik shuffled over to where Silver Fang lay. He passed the broken remains of the demon heart; it looked so very plain. The wind carried the sounds of an approaching group, too many and too loud to be anything but the city’s guardians. Perun had found someone to listen to their warning, then. It was over.
He collapsed to one knee beside her. “Are you all right?”
“No,” Silver Fang said. She rolled over, but made no move to stand up. Eurik could see no serious injury. “My sister . . . Something happened to her at the end. And her crime now falls on us.”
“But we didn’t do anything. We tried to stop her.”
Silver Fang closed her eyes briefly. “No, not you and Captain Slyvair. I mean our family. My family.” She let out a long breath. “Perhaps it was a fool’s hope that this dishonor could remain quiet.”
“I see.” He didn’t, not quite. It still made little sense to him that one could be held responsible for the actions of another. Even when that person tried and somewhat succeeded in stopping the wrongdoer. Especially in that case. But it was clear Silver Fang believed it to be so, and she would know her people best. But did she think so herself?
Silver Fang gave him a searching look and pushed herself to a seated position. “But you are injured.”
“I’ve stopped the bleeding. I’ll live.” It hurt. He felt lightheaded. But that was unimportant right now. “Still . . . It occurs to me that in all the years on the island I only got two scars. Six months with you and I have a collection.” He fought to give her a smile, but she did not answer it.
“Perhaps it is a good thing then that our paths are separating again. You, to find the memory of your father. Me, to find my cursed sister.”
“I only caught a glimpse at the end. But . . . she was changing.”
“Then maybe what I have to do will be a mercy,” Silver Fang said so softly Eurik barely caught it.
“Could somebody please pick me up from this filthy floor?” Misthell conjured a rough sketch of a hand hanging in the air and pointing down at his position. “Over here. Hurry.”
“So I hear Misthell has recovered from his ordeal,” Silver Fang said. “You’d best go fetch him. Before his complaints grow in volume.”
Eurik hesitated to leave Silver Fang’s side right now.
“Yes, get him to shut up,” Slyvair said. The orc was covered in two shades of blood, but his wounds had already scabbed over.
“I’d better.” Eurik raised his voice as he got up and left Silver Fang in Slyvair’s care. “I’m coming Misthell. Don’t worry.”
“Finally. Do you know how horrible that was? She wouldn’t let me talk. She used me to try to kill you guys. And she banged me against everything in sight like a clod. I think I might have a nick. You need to check. But tomorrow. I don’t trust the lighting conditions in here.”
The sword didn’t really stop talking when Eurik picked him up. Just stopped shouting the words.
***
Slyvair lowered his voice, though he was sure it would do any good if Eurik wanted to hear what he had to say. Then again, his Irelian couldn’t have improved that much in the last couple of months. “When you’re going after your sister, I’m coming with.”
“I thank you for the offer,” Silver Fang said. Now she pushed herself up. First, into a seated position, then to stand as she continued to speak. “But this is a family matter.”
“And you can have her. But I got my own questions to ask that demon.” The skill that thing had shown couldn’t be acquired in a week or two. Slyvair had spent but a single season on the slope of the Mountain of the Blooming Baichyao while they waited for the winds to turn north again. He’d learned much, but most of all humility.
That demon would have had to spend years in the south. Years among what were his people, despite all that stood between north and south. Slyvair needed to know what the demon had been up to, what its plans were. It might no longer just be a human problem.
“Besides, do you know where to start looking?”
“I . . . I think I saw something in the mirror. An Irelian city. Perhaps a member of the Oathfellowship.”
Slyvair grinned, though his torn cheek protested the motion. “Then I got a better look. You need me, girl. If you hope to find them before the trail grows cold.” It might anyway, if that demon could just move from one mirror to another one anywhere else. But no, there had to be limits.
Further discussion was interrupted by the arrival of a group of the city’s guards, spearheaded by several shamans and followed by Perun. They brandished questions and weapons, but Slyvair ignored them for the moment in favor of his son.
“You did well, soldier.” He squeezed Perun’s shoulder.
Perun’s face reddened a little and he did his best to look him up and down. “You a’right?”
“I’ve hurt myself more hunting crabs. You aren’t rid of me yet.” He could point out Perun’s lack of proper armor or weapons. But initiative and boldness were things to be treasured. Proper caution, only time could really teach that to hotheaded youths.
Then again, it never sank in with me.
***
Leraine watched as chaos turned to order. The dead and wounded were sorted, and so were the guilty and the innocent. The guardians took care of the former, while Sharp Prong and Sated Resting Panther led the effort to wring the truth out of the survivors.
She’d thought herself tired at the end of the fight, but now she knew better. Leraine had had to reveal her family’s shame. Her failure to stop her sister. It was made all the worse by their quiet understanding.
Sharp Prong let out a long breath. “Then it is over. We have that, at least.”
“Is it?” A Boar shaman said. “The Traitor-Mage’s mirror is still in storage. What’s to stop more of those mirror demons from coming through?”
“Obviously it will need to be secured,” a loreteller to Sated Resting Panther’s right said. He stroked his chin as he continued. “But that might not be so hard. Why didn’t this mirror demon slip in at an earlier time, when nobody was around? It might only work if there are people around, or light. If we remove those, that just might do the trick.”
“Might? You would chance the sanctity and safety of the very—”
“An argument for tomorrow,” Sated Resting Panther said. His hair was silver, his face like a carved mask of walnut wood, but his voice still carried the power of a trained loreteller. “One of many. That both a True Warrior and a Traditionalist were involved in this will silence some, inflame others. Let us therefore savor these few hours of peace that are left to us. We will need the memory in the days to come.”
“And we can a
ll use some sleep,” Sharp Prong said. “Including these four.” She indicated Leraine, Rock, Captain Slyvair, and his charge. “And since you might not hear it from anybody else: thank you.”
The shaman bowed, not too deep to shame Leraine, and walked away. A few inclined their heads, murmured some praise, but all quickly left. Only the Bear loreteller assisting Sated Resting Panther remained behind, since the old Puma himself hadn’t moved.
Only when all had left and the sounds of their discussions died away did he speak. “I knew your father, a little,” he said to Rock.
“You did?”
“Oh yes. One Claw is a rare name, but there’s no mistaking it,” he said, giving the living sword in Rock’s hands a look. “He earned his name. To this day, I’ve never heard of anybody else to be so passionate about our craft, while also being utterly unsuited to become one.”
Leraine frowned. “How do you mean?”
Sated Resting Panther huffed, a single heave of amusement. “The man could not carry a tune to save his life, and memorizing a tale always ended up in farce. Certainly, he had an imagination. But loretellers do not make up stories; we are the living memory of the People. And yet, every year he would apply. Every year, he was rejected. He’d try other crafts, I heard, but it never lasted. He always came back to stand before us and audition.”
“But he did give up.” Rock looked down at Misthell. “Instead, he learned how to make living swords.”
“Oh, you think so? I’ve heard of your sword too, these past few days. A memory of steel that can remember even the most obscure tale, and the ability to bring those stories to life like no loreteller can. No, young man, he finally found a way to make his dream a reality. After a fashion. A good way to end his story. I think I will tell it when I return home.”
The other loreteller hovered nearby, but Sated Resting Panther ignored him entirely even as he leaned heavily on his walking stick with every step.
“Honored elder,” Leraine said before the loreteller left. “What sept did One Claw belong to?”
Sated Resting Panther paused for a moment. “He resided in Uschathevaiuc. It’s a small sept downriver of Thevoy.”
“Thank you.”
“Try to restrain yourself, Silver Fang. The People may have need of you for many more days. And perhaps before I return to the pack of mist and moon.”
Leraine did not know what to say to that, and barely remembered to bow her head before Sated Resting Panther thumped out of the hall.
“I knew it,” Misthell said. “I wasn’t made for war, for fighting. I’m a work of art.”
“Perhaps we should put you in a chest again,” Rock said. “Only bring you out when we want to hear a story after dinner.”
“Let’s not go overboard here. I’ve done enough of that. I do enjoy the outdoors. You know, when it’s not raining. Or misty. And you two would be lost without me to solve all your problems. Though maybe for once without stabbing me into something. That would be nice.”
“There shouldn’t be any of that on your way to Uschathevaiuc,” Leraine said. “I don’t know the place. But by Sated Resting Panther’s description it must be on the Baelar, and the road to Thevoy is well-traveled.”
“That’s nice, but we’re not going there. We’re coming with you. Uh, right, Eurik?”
“Yes. We are.”
“But you’ve found out where you can learn more about your father. And he’s not . . . well, it doesn’t sound like he had enemies there. I cannot ask you to follow me on yet another task that has nothing to do with you.”
“I’m pretty sure we’ve been over this before,” Rock said. “You are my friend. What matters to you matters to me. More importantly, I think I finally understand something my sesin told me when he said I had to leave the island.”
“And what is that?”
“That I needed to find my own path. And my path isn’t following in my parent’s footsteps. I think they will always be strangers to me. But you,” he said, looking Leraine in the eye, “you are not. I’m going to help you. That’s where my path is going.”
Leraine inclined her head and held it there until she could trust herself to speak. “I am honored. Thank you, Eurik.”
“Now if only you knew where to go,” Captain Slyvair said, startling Leraine. She had actually forgotten for a moment that he and Perun were still here. “I can help you there. Or should I say, I’ll let you come along. Under the right conditions, of course.”
She shared a look with Rock, who shrugged after a moment. “Name them,” Leraine said. She could say no if they were too onerous.
“We are not killing the demon. Not right away. I have questions it needs to answer first. And you two—no, you three will be part of the Gored Axes for the duration of this expedition. I’ll not have you two running around doing your own thing, like during our journey through the Neisham Hills.”
“But you will vow to see my sister meet her rightful end as well?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t have a problem with it if you don’t, Silver Fang,” Rock said when she turned to him.
“And I hold you to be a man of honor,” she told the sun-man. “Very well, it is agreed. We’ll join your mercenary company for this quest. So I swear on the Great Serpent. Now, what did you notice that I did not?”
“A moment. I did not hear your friend’s oath. Or that of his sword.”
“I’m thinking about it,” the living sword said.
“I’m not,” Rock said. “As the mountain stands, the sun rises, the river flows, and the wind dances, so I will swear. I will be a Gored Axe until you have your answers, and Leraine has her sister.”
“Still thinking about it,” Misthell said when all eyes turned on him. “Fine, fine, I solemnly swear that I will join your mercenary company for the duration of this adventure. Hey, wait, does that mean you’re going to pay me?”
Captain Slyvair opened his mouth, then closed it as if he’d bitten into a spoiled apple. “Yes. I suppose it does.”
“Back to important matters. Where is my sister, Captain Slyvair?”
The sun-man’s grin showed a hint of teeth. “There were banners flying from the castle in the background. Hard to see, even when they were illuminated by mage lights, but I recognized them. I saw them only a couple of months ago. That mirror demon took your sister to the one hundred-thirty-third emperor of all Irelians, Duke Griffenhart.”
THE END
If you want to know when my next book comes out or contact me, you should visit my website at www.pemryjanes.com
Acknowledgments
The Living Sword series has been an ongoing project now since 2013. The original idea, this setting, is even older than that, but only that year did it come together enough for a story to emerge. That story is not over yet, but we’re approaching an ending now.
I would like to take this time to thank my family for their support and love. Those who are still here, and those who are not. My father, for kindling my love of history. My mother, for giving me the confidence to write. And my brother, for showing me the value of not giving up.
I also want to thank Lynda Dietz, the editor of Living Sword, for all her work to turn my writings into a product that I’m not embarrassed to publish.
Then there are the beta readers for this book. Without their advice and generosity, this story would be far less. So thank you, Peter Sagefjor, Bennett Alterman, Gareth Duggan, and many more for your contributions.
James, aka Humble Nations, who designed all the covers for the Living Sword series, is another vital part of the success this series has had. The cover truly is the first argument for a reader to try out a story, and thanks to him I have a good opener.
Then there is Tiffany Munro, who turned my sketch into a real map that fleshes out the world of Living Sword in a way that not even a thousand words could hope to do.
And finally, I want to thank you, the person reading this. It’s because of readers like you that I’ve kept
writing.
So until the next adventure,
Pemry Janes