"Dead-bane," Kunnustenn added.
Dead-bane. Tom could feel a puzzle unfurling in his mind, but it was too frightening to consider. He pushed it to one side. "What do those texts say about the glarn?" he asked. "Do they say where we can find them?"
Kunnustenn shrugged. "Orlannu is easy," he told them. "Everyone knows that’s one of the names for Rimestenn’s treasure."
"Rimestenn’s treasure," Tom repeated. Kunnustenn said the words as if such a thing was well-known.
"It’s a legend specific to the Provinces," Katharine said. "Rimestenn took something dear to Emyr and hid it inside his city."
"Rimestenn has a city?" Tom had never heard of one before.
"So the stories say. It doesn’t appear on any map," Katharine replied.
"Because Rimestenn hid it," Kunnustenn said. "We think it most likely he buried it, somewhere in the Northern Wastes."
"Here." Gravinn rolled a map out over the table and pointed to an area north of the Provinces. Empty. Barren. Nothing but mountains.
Tom heard Katharine draw a deep breath and he cast a glance at her. She gazed at the map as if its presence pained her. What had happened to the maps she’d left behind in Cairnalyr? He reached out and brushed a finger against the back of her hand and she buried her pain.
"A hidden city is a common myth," Six pointed out.
"Oh yes," Kunnustenn agreed. He was looking at the map now. "But none of them had a road attached to them too."
"The Forgotten Road?" Gravinn asked and, when Kunnustenn nodded, she gave a small shake of her head. "The Forgotten Road is a myth too."
Katharine stepped forward and laid her fingers on the map and drew a breath, as if drawing strength from it. "I’ve heard of the Forgotten Road," she murmured. "They say it led north, out of Cairnajorr," she said.
"Cairnimor, actually," Gravinn countered. "If we’re going to be wrong, we might as well be right." Katharine’s shoulders tightened, but she said nothing even as Gravinn added, "Hundreds of Pathfinders have tried to find it and failed. It isn’t there."
"That's because the road is gone now," Kunnustenn said. "Sir Rimestenn had it broken up and the stone carried away."
"I've never heard that." Gravinn's tone made it clear: if she hadn't heard it, it wasn't true.
Kunnustenn shrugged. "I read it in Gellvinn's Thirty-Two Marvels of the Provinces."
"What's that?"
"It's a book." Katharine couldn’t take her eyes from the map, tracing rivers and roads with her fingertips. Gravinn’s glare went unseen. "Gellvinn gathered stories. Each year she put them in a book."
"Stories won't find an imaginary road."
Before the conversation could devolve into argument, Tom asked, "So the road will take us to Cairnarim. What will we find when we get there?"
"A ruin," Kunnustenn told them. "A city of the dead. A paradise where Taranau waits to return. Countless stories have been wrapped around that place like a shroud, hiding the truth beneath it."
Katharine nodded. "I was told it didn't even exist," she said. "That instead of a city, Rimestenn built a temple to some dark magics."
Gravinn snorted. "Another Faerie tale. Rimestenn was the finest of Taranau's knights." Her expression made her contempt clear. "He would never betray his vows."
"It's not for me to judge the world. Just record it."
"A Pathfinder isn't a gossip." Gravinn smirked and glanced at Tom, as if to share the joke. "We record the truth, not the fiction."
Was she calling Katharine a gossip? And did she expect him to agree with her, to laugh at Katharine and belittle her? Tom just shook his head at her and watched the smirk wither and die on the dwarf’s face.
Six spoke into the silence. "Truth or fiction, it seems to me that we don't know where to look for a road that might not exist, to take us to a place that might not even be there." He invited contradiction with raised eyebrows and, when none came, added, "Does anyone else think this is an impossible task?"
Six was right. It seemed impossible. But Tom shook his head. "Ambrose says we look for the glarn." There was no escaping it. No sense in questioning it. It would happen.
Six narrowed his eyes. "Are you really going to drag her across Tir on a fool’s quest?"
"I’ve crossed Tir a dozen times." Katharine’s words were cold, her expression closed.
"You can’t do it in this condition."
"Can’t I?" The chill was turning into hot anger. Six didn’t seem to see the fires he was stoking.
"Katharine can decide for herself," Tom said, trying to avert the argument, but instead her blazing glare turned on him.
"I can speak for myself."
Tom offered instant surrender, raising his hands and taking a step back, knocked a shelf and sending something clattering to the ground. Jarnstenn reappeared in an instant, grumbling and tidying and berating. Tom paid him no mind. Just stared at Katharine, glaring back at him, angry and fiery and beautiful. Tom tried not to think of his dream, his foresight, tried not to feel her hand grow weaker in his.
Would she take the child with her when she died?
Her fury changed to uncertainty and question. She saw his fear in his eyes, and it froze the words on her lips. She didn’t want to ask a question and hear his answer. As Brega had said, saying it made it so.
"We can choose a different path." Six said it softly, as if he was soothing a wild horse. "We don’t have to do what these foresights demand."
Six was wrong. Tom knew all of his foresights had come to pass. And he knew Ambrose remembered the things to come. To say they could do something else was like saying they could change what they had done yesterday. But even as he shook his head, he found a terrible, impossible thought behind all others: he had to do it. He had to change what would happen. He knew it was impossible. But he had to do it anyway. He would keep Katharine alive because he had no other choice.
Countless possibilities unfurled in his mind. Take Katharine and ride away. Ride south. Ride to the Eastern Angles; Neirin would protect them. Ride anywhere but towards Cairnarim. If he didn’t look for the glarn, if he broke that foresight, then perhaps he could break this one too.
But the fay would never stop hunting them. No. He had to find the glarn. To stop the fay once and for all. To protect Katharine and their child.
The conversation had begun anew while he thought, and he glanced over at Katharine. She was talking with Gravinn, but her body was tense. She sensed something was wrong. Should he tell her? How could he? How could he tell her that he saw her die somewhere cold and dark, a somewhere that seemed likely to be found in a place called the Northern Wastes?
He couldn’t. He couldn’t tell her. He just had to protect her.
His eyes stung and he blinked away the threat of tears, took a deep breath to clear out his thoughts. They lingered like flies on carrion. But he tried not to think them.
Kunnustenn was talking about the Forgotten Road. "Gellvin wrote that the road went out of Cairnoher."
"So we have three possibilities," Katharine said, pointing them out on the map. "Cairnoher. Cairnajorr, from the story I heard. And Cairnimor, as Gravinn suggests."
"Sir Herstenn, Sir Jorrstenn, and Sir Moorstenn," Kunnustenn said. "The Engineer, the Smith, and the Storm."
"All three cities have access to the north." Katharine tapped Cairnajorr with a finger. "They called Jorrstenn 'the Smith'. Perhaps someone Rimestenn could have called on to help build whatever it was he built out there?"
Tom let the discussion sweep away his fears for a moment and said, "Moorstenn was a warrior, through and through." Emyr had told him stories of how the dwarf had little knack for anything but violence. "Not much use for building."
"But he was rich," Gravinn said. "He had mountains of gold."
"And little use for it," Tom added. Because once he had his favourite armour, his favourite shield, and his favourite weapons, there was little Moorstenn wanted but food, women and battles.
"So he could afford to pay
for Rimestenn's road." Katharine peered at the map. "And Cairnimor is served by a river from the north. Roads are often built alongside rivers. It makes materials easier to transport."
"No road could follow the river Dor," Gravinn told her, as if she was a foolish child. "It cuts through a ravine before going underground."
Katharine ignored the tone, acknowledged only the words. "Not helpful at all," she agreed. "What’s at the other end of the ravine?" she asked Gravinn.
"I don't know." The dwarf avoided eye contact. "I didn't draw that map."
No. It had been drawn by Gravinn’s old, elfish master. Felled by Tom’s hand.
Treachery.
Yes. The elf had threatened to reveal them. Had treated Gravinn poorly, too. But had the only answer been to cut him down and steal his life's work?
To that, the sword was silent.
Katharine had shifted her attentions to the third city. "Herstenn." She tapped a finger against Carinoher, gazing through the paper as if she could see into the city itself. "I've been there."
"So have I," Gravinn said, as if there was some form of competition. "There isn't much to see."
"No," Katharine agreed. "A small, unremarkable place. Hardly befitting a knight they called the Engineer."
"Herstenn lit the way for innovation," Jarnstenn countered, still fiddling with whatever Tom had knocked over. "He designed many marvels. Unveiled the secrets of anatomy, alchemy, built great devices and engines."
"So why isn't his city more impressive?" Katharine asked.
Jarnstenn squirmed. He had faced this question before. "Herstenn wasn't a builder," he mumbled.
"Nor was Jorrstenn."
"There are suggestions that Herstenn neglected his city in favour of a great undertaking in his last years," Kunnustenn told them. "Just stories and rumours."
"Stories and rumours," Katharine mused. She tapped the map again. "There's a section of the city wall that doesn’t quite match the rest of it. And there’s a tavern sat in front of it." She looked at Gravinn. "Do you know it?"
She frowned, dredging up the memory. "The Gatehouse." And a moment later realisation dawned on her face.
"The Gatehouse." Katharine grinned. She traced a finger up the map, north from Cairnoher. "There's a clean path north here. A river to follow. An old quarry here for the stone." She looked up at Tom. "This is it."
"You're sure?" Tom peered at the map. He didn't see a clean path. Just mountains.
"As sure as we can be." She looked to Gravinn, waiting for the contradiction. But the dwarf looked excited. Tom could see her already drawing the new map in her mind.
They had a destination. Or, at the least, a beginning. And there wasn't a fay around to hear their plan. "We should leave soon," Tom said. "Tomorrow, if possible. Gravinn, start buying supplies. There's no knowing how long our path will be from Cairnoher, so get as much as you can." To Katharine he said, "Has the smith agreed to sell us weapons?"
"We haven't agreed on a price."
"Let's get an agreement out of him." And to Jarnstenn and Kunnustenn he said, "Thank you for your help."
Kunnustenn’s response was quiet, but it shocked them all. "I’m coming with you."
Jarnstenn snorted. "Like Taranau’s wrath, you are."
"This is my chance, Jarn. In years to come, they’ll be studying Kunnustenn’s Accounting of Rimestenn’s Treasure." He gave everyone a shy smile as he blushed. "Or something like that."
"You can write that here," Jarnstenn countered. "Where you’re safe."
"I live on the streets."
"I keep you fed, don't I?" He took the other dwarf's hands and folded his around them. "Give you coin for the baths? Give you a bed?" He shrugged and added. "When I can."
"I need to be more than that, Jarn." Kunnustenn sounded bitter, as if something had been taken from him. "If I stay here, I'll be a vagrant until I die, or the coppers will catch me and send me to die in the workhouse."
"Go with him and they'll find you dead by the roadside in a week."
Kunnustenn's only response was an exasperated noise, so Jarnstenn stepped closer. "Don't leave me," he said, gruff to hide the need, carefully avoiding everyone’s gaze. All of a sudden they were witness to a far more intimate conversation, and it left Tom feeling uncomfortable.
"What can we look forward to here, Jarn?" Kunnustenn pried a hand away and put it against Jarnstenn’s cheek. "Only a lifetime of hard labour for someone else’s pocket. But if we two find Cairnarim? We’ll be known. It will open doors for both of us. We can be more than what we are."
Jarnstenn was still staring at Kunnustenn’s hand in his. "Maybe I don’t care about none of that. Long as you’re here."
Tom couldn’t help but reach out and take Katharine’s hand. A simple life with the person that mattered. It seemed so easy and so impossible at the same time
"Maybe I want more for you," Kunnustenn said. "Maybe I want you to be seen as the master smith you are, to have money and comfort and respect." He touched his forehead to Jarnstenn’s. "Maybe I want to give you all the world."
Jarnstenn sighed out through his nose and the room was still. Tom squeezed Katharine’s hand. All he had given her was heartache and a horde of immortal creatures at her back. He had lost her maps. He had caused her pain.
But she squeezed his hand back.
"Fine." Jarnstenn muttered. "You’ll be the death of me."
He smiled. "And you’re my ray of sunshine."
"You’d be easier to handle if you were stone." Jarnstenn patted his hand and said to Tom, "I’ll speak to the gaffer about giving us a discount on a few pieces." Jarnstenn winked. "He’ll be in a good mood once he realises I won’t be in his hair no more."
"Iron arrows." Ambrose didn’t seem to be speaking to anyone in particular, and Tom could see it unnerved Jarnstenn.
"Yeah, I can get you some arrows with iron heads," he said. "Steel would be better, though."
"Iron arrows," Ambrose repeated. "And a bow. Big enough for him." He pointed at Six.
"I can find a bow," Gravinn said.
"Good," Jarnstenn replied. "Because I can’t."
Everyone stared at Ambrose, but he made no move to explain.
"So," Six said into silence that had grown thick and uncomfortable. "Tomorrow."
"We can’t let the fay find us," Tom replied.
"No," the elf agreed. "But can Emyr be moved so soon?"
"Absolutely not." Dorstenn dried his hands on a rag while Mennvinn washed tools and instruments in a sink in the corner. "He is to lie here, unmolested, for seven days. Then he may be permitted to stand, perhaps even take a few steps to this sink. But that is as far as he must go for another seven days. Then he may attempt the stairs. Carefully. But he must not lift anything, nor venture beyond these walls, for thirty days."
"Thirty days?" Tom shook his head. "We can’t stay here for thirty days."
"You are under no such restriction." Dorstenn finished drying his hands and dropped the rag on the floor. Mennvinn paused in her work to pick it up. "Nevertheless, he must remain."
"Tom’s right." Emyr’s voice was thick and slurred, his eyes barely open. "We’re not safe here."
"What’s wrong with him?" Tom asked.
"We gave him laudanum." Mennvinn said, and Dorstenn glared at the interruption. "It stops him from feeling pain."
"No, it doesn’t." But the old king’s voice was empty of the tightness it had held before.
Dorstenn spoke as if he hadn’t been interrupted. "Your friend will live. If he follows my instructions as I have laid them out." He raised his eyebrows. "You promised money? A kingly sum for healing your king?"
Tom opened his mouth to argue. But the dwarf had done his job. So he nodded. "But tell us what we should do if we need to move him."
Dorstenn shrugged. "My advice would be to purchase a plot and commission a headstone." And with that he began to climb the stairs out of the cellar. "My assistant will take my fee."
The dwarf seemed so
cold. So detached from the painful reality his patient lived in. Emyr had been drugged and stitched up, and the cirgeon was already leaving. There was more to healing than the body. "Wait," Tom called after him. "What do we do when this laudanum wears off?"
"Speak to my assistant," was the response, and then he was gone.
"Give him a drop of it when the pain returns. No more, no matter how much he begs." Mennvinn didn’t look up from her work. She spoke in a dull, flat monotone, as if reciting a script that was well-rehearsed. "And you’ll have to give him some preventives, to avoid corruption. These are extra costs, but all to the good of your friend. We have seen excellent results with Crowfoot’s Remedy, and can particularly recommend it."
Tom just nodded, eyeing up the walls. Brick, but perhaps they could be lined with iron, the stairs barricaded with the same. They could take watches, keep Caledyr close at all times. Then when Emyr was healed enough, escape. Through a Faerie siege? "It won’t work," he told himself. He had brought Emyr back to Tir for nothing. The weight of that knowledge was too heavy and it pushed him to a seat on the ground. He felt a rush of emotion, a sense of uselessness, that threatened to burst forth in tears. No, he told himself. You’re just tired. Things are not so bad.
Fight.
The only advice the sword ever had.
Rest.
Was it goading him?
Mennvinn made a noise in the back of her throat. "Dorstenn is set in his ways," she murmured, as if imparting a great secret. "He is not willing to accept new thinking. Thirty days of rest is a very old way of thinking."
Tom took a breath and marshalled himself before lifting his head. "Are you saying we can leave?"
Mennvinn kept washing. "I’m saying he should stand within a few days, walk a little. Immobility will only stiffen his flesh and bones."
"So we can move him?"
Mennvinn sighed again and her work stopped. "At great risk," she said. "His stitches may break, and he will undoubtedly need the care of a cirgeon again. But, yes. You could move him, if you must."
"We must."
"Then expect to find another cirgeon." She began washing again. "And buy extra laudanum."
The Realm Rift Saga Box Set Page 75