“What was so important about it?” Nail asked the dwarf defensively. “You all knew what Shawcroft had written on that parchment. I’m sure you read it yourself, you, Godwyn, even Hawkwood. I know what it said: ‘The boy now bears the mark of the cross, the mark of the slave, and the mark of the beast. He has bathed in scarlet, bathed in blood.’ ”
“Bathed in blood?” Dokie eyed Nail curiously.
“Yes, I read what Shawcroft wrote about you, Nail,” Godwyn said. “As did the dwarf. As did Hawkwood. But that was not the important thing about Shawcroft’s parchment. For whatever writing was visible to the human eye was but a distraction from the real truth Shawcroft had hidden there.”
“What are you talking about?” The dimness of the saloon seemed to heighten the look of trepidation on Nail’s face.
“On that parchment were several maps.” Godwyn met Nail’s questioning gaze. “Shawcroft’s maps and detailed instructions on how to dismantle the traps he set around Sky Lochs and Deadwood Gate. That parchment in that satchel was the only means by which we may ever discover where Shawcroft left Blackest Heart and Afflicted Fire.”
“Shawcroft had also located the actual tomb of Laijon,” Roguemoore added. “That parchment was our only way of finding it.”
Nail was shaking his head, somewhat relieved. “There were no such maps or instructions as you describe. Other than what my master wrote about my scars and tattoos, the parchment was completely blank.”
“Blank to the naked eye,” Roguemoore said. “Hidden from casual view. But as all in the Brethren of Mia know, there are many ways to read blank parchments. Spread lavender deje over the paper, and Shawcroft’s maps and instructions would have appeared as plain as day.”
“What is lavender deje?” Liz Hen asked.
The dwarf pulled forth a small round tin from the pouch under his tunic, opened it, dipped his fingers into the fine black powder within, then smeared the powder in two dark streaks over the surface of the table. “Shawcroft used ink from the squid of the Sør Sevier Straits to detail his maps. Rare and expensive. The ink fades quickly, but whatever writing and drawings he made would remain intact, yet hidden from prying eyes.” He pointed to the streaks he’d made. “You spread a dab of lavender deje powder over the parchment and the ink is revealed. Safe to touch. But it is a numbing agent if it comes in contact with the bloodstream, or is swallowed, or inhaled. Some royals burn the resin and sniff the smoke to lose themselves in the unfeeling. The Bloodwood assassins of Sør Sevier ofttimes coat their blades with traces of the lavender deje for stealth purposes.”
“Black witchcraft is what it is,” Liz Hen hissed, the exasperation in her voice raw with emotion. “This conversation is now officially pointless. The weapons and angel stones were translated into heaven with Laijon at his death. Have none of you even ever read The Way and Truth of Laijon? In fact, everything Shawcroft ever done was probably pointless. Likely why everything Nail ever done was pointless.”
Roguemoore swiped the lavender deje from the table with the palm of his hand. “Shawcroft spent his entire life searching for the weapons of the Five Warrior Angels. His life was no pointless trifle, Liz Hen.”
“What is it you want from us?” The girl looked squarely at the dwarf. “What is it you exactly want from me?”
“We will all of us go in search of Blackest Heart in the Sky Lochs mines and Afflicted Fire in the Deadwood Gate mines. All of us at this table: me, the bishop, Culpa, Val-Draekin, Seita, Nail, Stefan, Dokie, and you too, Miss Liz Hen Neville.”
Liz Hen threw up her hands in disgust. “But you just said you didn’t even have a map. That Nail lost it. So how will we search these mines? Or is it all as I suspect, just a bunch of twaddle?”
“No twaddle,” Roguemoore said. “Our adventure will be serious and dangerous.”
“The dwarf is right, Liz Hen,” Culpa Barra interjected, his face turning ashen. “The journey will be hard and full of much toil. The Glacier Range is treacherous, the mountains and forests around Sky Lochs full of harsh weather and oghuls. The oghuls that have integrated themselves into Amadon and other cities are somewhat civilized. But northern oghuls are naught but brute savages. And the marauding oghuls caught up in the fervor of their Hragna’Ar crusade are even worse than savage. In my previous journeys with Shawcroft, I saw strange and dark things in Deadwood Gate. Things I would rather not speak of. Those mines are a living and breathing force of their own, an evil place liable to play tricks with your mind if you are not ever watchful.”
“Well, that’s not at all reassuring.” Liz Hen glared at the Dayknight. “Perhaps you ought to find Jenko Bruk and have him help you search for these warrior weapons. Jenko stole the mystery satchel from Nail after all. Let Jenko decipher your maps and instructions with your evil druid lavender powder. Because I’m up for no more adventures like the one you’ve just described.” Her eyes flew to Nail. “And he’s done lost the invisible instructions on how we’re to find our way. If that’s not the very definition of twaddle—”
“I’m going with them,” Dokie blurted, sitting up straight in his chair, eyes eager as they met Liz Hen’s. “I’ve been aching for another adventure.”
Liz Hen stared at Dokie as if he had betrayed her in the largest way imaginable. “I think you’ve already jabbered on quite enough tonight, you clodpole. Our whole families were just slaughtered. We’ve none of us even had time to mourn for them so much as a minute. And you want to keep traipsing about on an adventure?”
“It’s gotten into my blood, Liz Hen. Adventurer. And I ain’t jabbered at all.”
“Well, my desire for adventure is the lowest of us all.” She ripped her gaze from Dokie, looked back at the dwarf. “I choose to stay.”
Roguemoore said, “You do not yet know the strength within your own self, Liz Hen. You will fare just fine.”
“She did fight valiantly in the mountains,” Dokie said. “We all saw—right, Stefan, Nail? She helped me kill that knight. Pushed Lilly over on top of the other knights. That was a feat of strength right there. We can all vouch for her bravery and stamina in a fight.” He looked at her with some measure of admiration. “Even if she won’t.”
Liz Hen gave Dokie a soft look. “I just don’t want to be scared or hurt is all. And that’s all adventuring is, trudging about miserable, scared, and hurt.”
“If you stay behind,” Roguemoore said, “it will be worse for you, Liz Hen. Knowing the savagery of Aeros Raijael and his armies as you do, you already know what measures he and his henchmen will take to get certain information from you.”
“I’d not thought of that,” she answered glumly.
“I heard the story of how you and Dokie took down that knight, Liz Hen.” Val-Draekin’s dark eyes were fixed on the red-haired girl across the table from him. “Sounds to me like you know how to wield a sword pretty well. Thus far, both you and Dokie have done well.”
Liz Hen stared at the Vallè. “I don’t reckon I know what you mean.” She lowered her head. “Though I brag about killing that man, truth is, I can’t sleep most nights ’cause of the things I seen and done these last few weeks. So as far as I’m concerned, ain’t nothing ‘done well,’ as you say, in killing a man.”
The dark-haired Vallè nodded his agreement. “No one should be put in situations that end in death. And it is true, we are asking you to take on a journey that will be difficult. But I see great strength in you, Liz Hen. And I would proudly travel into any danger with you by my side.” Despite her initial misgivings, Liz Hen seemed to be warming to Val-Draekin quickly.
“It’s no small thing, killing a man,” the Vallè continued. “Even in self-defense. It can weigh heavy.” And though he was addressing Liz Hen, Stefan felt as if Val-Draekin’s words were somehow meant for him. Like Liz Hen, he too couldn’t sleep for the nightmares that came creeping in—the faces of the dead that he could not ignore. Even the merfolk he had killed would occasionally slither into his dreams and wreak havoc on his conscience, especiall
y the young ones he’d filled with arrows. The babies. Just innocent creatures.
“I could be good with a sword,” Liz Hen said. “Leastways I think might. With a bit of training anyhow. But ain’t nobody in Gul Kana ever allowed to train a girl. Leastwise not since Hawkwood was around.”
“I can teach you to fight like a Vallè,” Val-Draekin said. “Swift and fast. To disarm your foe, and not deal out killing and death, which you so clearly abhor.”
“You really could?” A slow transformation had come over Liz Hen. Almost as if Val-Draekin had somehow lulled her into an inescapable state of calm agreement. “But why would you want to help me?” she asked. “I’m the least of us all.”
“You should never feel that way about yourself.” The Vallè leaned toward her, elbows on the table. “For no one is less important than the other. Every heart matters. Every person matters.”
“But if we have no invisible ink maps, how are we going to find the angel stones and weapons?” she asked. Stefan had never seen Liz Hen turn so affable so quickly.
“As for finding our way without the maps . . .” The Vallè casually leaned back in his chair, looking at Culpa Barra at the end of the table, and then Bishop Godwyn. “Even a shred of memory can be of use to us now.”
“I helped Shawcroft at Sky Lochs,” Godwyn said. “I’m certain I can recall the way to the mining camp Arco from Stanclyffe.”
Culpa added, “And Deadwood Gate will not be a problem to navigate. Despite its dark dangers, I know it well. ’Twas I who helped Shawcroft find Afflicted Fire and the red angel stone buried underneath those mountains. Together we hid them under the altar again and set the traps in the dungeons to keep them safe. I know enough.”
The Dayknight’s talk of altars and traps and hidden angel stones put Stefan’s mind right back inside the Roahm Mines with Gisela and Nail. Even though Stefan was a skeptic when it came to things dealing with The Way and Truth of Laijon, for some reason he had made his mind up early on that the little blue stone Gisela had found at the bottom of the cross-shaped altar was real. Gisela had been so entranced by the stone. But she had always been a simple soul, easily taken with glittery trinkets and pretty flowers. He could still see her beaming face when they placed the blue wreath of heather atop her head after she’d been crowned Maiden Blue of the Mourning Moon Feast. But now she was dead because he had not held her tight enough. So much loss and death. What grieved him almost as much as the loss of Gisela was the loss of his family. He thought of them often. His mother, Manda—he recalled the smell of the home she kept and the wood smoke of the fireplace and the aroma of her cooking. His father, Gideon—the feel of his whiskers, the scent of his sweat after a hard day in the fields. And his two younger sisters, Briana and Amber—their joyful giggles and laughter he would never again hear, their timid request to have their older brother play games of Flag-Tag and Hiding Ponies with them every evening.
When Aeros had attacked, they had holed up in the cathedral, whilst he had formed a shield line with the other men and boys to fight. He had seen the destruction wrought upon the cathedral with his own eyes. Nobody could have survived the savagery. Over and over in his head he’d played out their deaths in the twisted imaginings of his mind. Briana and Amber crying in fear as their mother and father tried to protect them when the knights of Sør Sevier came bursting in. He’d imagined a million ways in which they might have died. All of them terrible.
And yet most days and nights I cannot take my mind off Gisela. . . .
After the sacking of Gallows Haven, and their subsequent flight into the mountains, he had taken refuge in her arms, in her love for him, both of them trying to wish away the slave brands on the underside of their wrists to no avail. But that was them, a team of two. Gisela Barnwell was the representation of the future family he would now never have. Of late he was driven by a need to escape those fond memories of hearth and home and loved ones and leave them behind, dash them against the shattered remains of his heart. For whenever he dwelled upon the good times, the images of what he thought their gruesome deaths were like came quickly creeping in. Should I resign myself to the misery? Or should I somehow learn to cherish those thoughts?
Either way, he was determined to avenge his family—his family both past and future that Aeros Raijael and his marauding armies had so cruelly stolen. And if finding the remaining weapons of the Five Warrior Angels helped bring him closer to that goal, he was for it. He did not like killing. But he would kill any fighter from Sør Sevier who ever again crossed his path.
“Stefan, are you okay?”
Though she sat right next to him, Seita’s voice came at him as if from a great distance. He swallowed the bitterness in his throat and looked up. She was staring at him with round eyes full of concern. In fact, every face at the table was turned to him. The hearth fire behind him was waning fast and the room had grown chill.
He tried to shake the cobwebs of sorrow from his brain. “Just thinking about home,” he said, voice cracking with emotion. They were the first words he’d uttered since sitting down at the table. His vision was growing blurry. He blinked, the back of his hand brushing away the tear crawling down his cheek.
* * *
The Way and Truth of Laijon does me a great favor, causing those easily fooled to believe the angel stones were translated into heaven. By merciful providence, may the sacred altars of the cross be discovered only by one having knowledge of the traps. And may the silver secret of the Skulls remain forever hidden.
—THE MOON SCROLLS OF MIA
* * *
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
JONDRALYN BRONACHELL
18TH DAY OF THE ETHIC MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON
AMADON, GUL KANA
Princess Jondralyn Bronachell, with the authority of Laijon’s Holy Priesthood and in the name of the great One and Only, I, Grand Vicar Denarius, lay my hands upon your body and seal upon you this special anointing for the sick and afflicted. I bless you that you will soon be healed of these dread wounds so grievous and woeful to behold.
“I also further anoint upon you a further blessing, that as you heal according to Laijon’s will, the great One and Only will guide and inspire you and bring to your mind those things that are most important in your life. For you are one of the chosen of Laijon, and it is because of your faithfulness to the great One and Only that, as you follow the stewardship of your brother the king, you will achieve grand and glorious things in this life. It is your blessing to have come into this life as a descendant of the royal house of Bronachell, and your lineage is through the loins of those Bronachell kings and queens before you and you are therefore an heir to all they glorify.
“I bless you that you will let all further associations be with only those who love Laijon, and that you will study The Way and Truth of Laijon and your mind will enlarge and you will begin to comprehend the things of the kingdom of the great One and Only and his designs concerning you, and you will see more clearly as the days go by the pathway of life that our great One and Only would have you follow.
“I bless you with the gift of faith. May you never waver in your knowledge of the truthfulness of The Way and Truth of Laijon. You have been gifted with a keen mind and a good intellect and talents that will enable you to be an example of honor and respect to those around you. I further bless you that you will never trifle or take lightly your duty to Laijon, the church, your brother’s rule, or your father’s kingdom. I bless you that you will go forth as a princess of Gul Kana with the spirit of Laijon to guide you. I bless you that one day your words will be accepted as truth in so much as you follow the rule of your brother the king, and that you will have the spirit of the great One and Only to protect you and bring to mind the scriptures and knowledge you will need as you stand before those who would oppose him.
“I seal these blessings upon you, and prophesy with an eye toward truth, that you will come forth during the return of Laijon, clothed in glory, immortality, and eternal life, in the name of the
great One and Only. Amen.”
† † † † †
When Jondralyn awoke, her fever was gone. But her entire body was slick with sweat and the cloying scent of holy oils. The sheets of her bed were puddled around her knees and ankles along with her blankets. With a cold heart she began to recall some of what had happened as her mind became more fully awake. Fleeting images at first . . .
He was here, in my bedchamber, the grand vicar. He blessed me. Mother Mia, the grand vicar blessed me! She pulled her blankets protectively up around her nakedness.
During the blessing there had been an odd, moist heat under his hands, a searing fire where no fire should burn. And she’d felt it. In fact, the effects of those thick, oily hands of his still ebbed and lingered. Give me peace, Blessed Mother Mia. Give me peace.
Tala was right about Lawri!
But weren’t my own Ember Gathering Rites nearly the same as this? She’d mostly blocked that part of her life from all memory. She’d never been allowed to speak of it anyway. The oaths I swore at such a young age!
But as her mind slowly cleared, she remembered the blessing she had just been given. Grand Vicar Denarius had pulled forth a bull-horn flask of amber-colored oil, poured it over the palm of his hand, and then spread the warm liquid over the unbandaged parts of her forehead. Then he’d laid his hands atop the naked flesh of her breastbone and began his prayer. She could recall the blessing almost perfectly, every word somehow pulled so effortlessly from the depths of her mind. She couldn’t help it, but as her mind began to soak in what had happened, soak in the panic of it all, she began to tremble and shiver uncontrollably. The vicar’s blessing had rung so true in so many ways. Is it all true? Is this why Laijon forsook me, because I’ve lost faith in his church and holy vicar, because I see evil in the divine?
She’d been delirious with fever, in and out of consciousness for who knew how many days—didn’t even know what time it was, what moon it was. . . .
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