“I quell demons,” he said at last, mostly to Gueynor, and got an old-fashioned look from Aldric. “They slip through cracks in the walls between realities and make mischief where they’re not wanted. Some fool of a wizard makes an error in ritual, or mis-aligns a symbol, or breaks a control circle, and it’s enough to let all hell break loose. Often literally.”
“You see?” Aldric smiled. “Brevity didn’t hurt, did it?” Then he put the question which had been nagging him ever since he first heard Marek’s accent. “What brings a Cernuan to the Jevaiden woods? Isn’t it rather far to travel?”
“Is it any farther for an Alban eijo?” asked Marek, and Aldric grinned to acknowledge the fair hit. “I was visiting a Jouvaine lady associate,” now Gueynor stifled a laugh, “and she told me there was trouble in the Deepwood.” The laughter stopped as if cut by a knife. “A wolf was what she said. A werewolf was what she meant.”
“This isn’t the Deepwood,” said Gueynor.
“No matter. I’ve heard nothing more anyway, so it was probably just peasant exaggeration.”
“Not exaggeration.” Aldric’s gloved right hand stroked the soft fur of the coyac, leather and fur, black on black. “There was a werewolf. And a real wolf, too. They’re both dead.” There was a brief, uncomfortable silence and Gueynor’s eyes gleamed with the risk of unshed tears. She swallowed and cleared her throat.
“So what now for you? Back to your associate?”
“No need, lady. There was a full moon last night, and that has influence on more than…” Marek shied away from a sensitive subject. “Well, somebody, somewhere might need my services, and it’s as likely here as anywhere else.”
“You seem very sure,” said Aldric, and the Cernuan waved one hand in the air, indicating places vaguely eastward.
“Kourgath, I am sure. We’re not far from the Imperial frontier. Sorcery is strictly banned within the Drusalan Empire, but those edicts can be ignored by men with the power to do so.”
“Like Grand Warlord Etzel.” Aldric regretted his words the instant they left his mouth, for the suspicious look on Marek’s face made it clear that bit of common knowledge wasn’t as common as he’d thought. “At least so I’ve heard.” It was a lame finish, and would have been better left unsaid.
“You must have heard some interesting conversations recently.” Marek didn’t pursue the matter further, though he stared for long enough that Aldric had to evade the demon-queller’s gaze by developing a sudden interest in the lacing of his boots. “Anyway,” the Cernuan continued at last, “these Jouvaine border provinces are haven and home for many enchanters, whose skills are for hire to anyone with enough wealth.”
“Lord Crisen Geruath ignores the edicts, and he has the wealth,” said Gueynor. Aldric wished she had learned from his own slip, but it was too late now, far too late. Though he was in no position to criticise, at least he’d avoided prompting more questions.
“Lord Crisen who?” asked Marek.
“The lord’s son at Seghar. His father’s the Overlord.”
“I didn’t know. Tell me, why mention his name?”
You can’t tell him anything! Aldric wanted to shout. You come from Ternon! You don’t live here! You don’t know about any of this!
“Because his mistress…” A little of Aldric’s silent pleading seemed to reach her at last and she faltered, looking realistically shame-faced. “I should have told you that this is gossip from the last village we passed through, and they asked us not to repeat it. My mistake. I wouldn’t give it too much credence, anyway. Peasants chatter like starlings.”
“Chatter or not,” said Aldric, “you should tell him about the Vreijek woman.” With the damage already done, letting Gueynor talk too much was better than letting Marek Endain ask too much.
“Oh, her! They say Lord Crisen’s mistress – he calls her a consort! – is a sorcerer. They say she makes all manner of spells to entertain him. Or rather, to give him,” Gueynor put one hand in front of her mouth and coughed daintily, “pleasure. So they say.”
“They say a great deal.” Marek smiled a tight little smile. “But who are ‘they’?”
“Oh, everybody.” Her brightness was becoming more artificial with every second. “All the people—”
“—Are in terror of their opinions being overheard,” Aldric interrupted. “It’s the sort of thing they’d love to talk about, but daren’t.” He gave Gueynor a quick, one-eyed glare. “Only the women can’t keep from prattling, not to save their lives or anybody else’s. Though there was a merchant who—”
“I heard about him.”
“Then you’ll know why it happened.” Aldric nodded towards the wine-jars. “I’ve changed my mind. May I?”
Marek nodded and filled another bowl which Aldric lifted casually, raised to his lips and just as casually set down again untasted. He didn’t drink with those he distrusted. Instead his left hand came up to rub the back of his neck as to ease a cramp, then eased down inside the collar of his shirt to the little dagger hidden there.
“And if you know why it happened, you must also know what Gueynor just told you.” His gloved right hand made a small distracting gesture towards her, and Marek’s eyes followed it for half a heartbeat. “So why ask again?” And suddenly there was steel jutting like a serpent’s tongue from between the fingers of Aldric’s left fist as it jabbed towards the Cernuan’s neck.
“Aldric, no!” Gueynor’s gasp wasn’t loud, but it carried well enough, and the punch-dagger stopped just underneath Marek’s chin with a warning upward jerk that stung him and drew blood.
“You fool!” Aldric’s voice, his face, his whole being had gone cold and deadly, and no one was sure who he had called a fool. Marek for asking too much, Gueynor for saying too much, even himself for thinking too much and letting matters run out of control until they came to this. Like it or loathe it, he would have to kill in cold blood because now the demon-queller knew his name. Not the full name, but enough of it. Too much of it. His fingers tightened around the small dagger’s hilt.
“Aldric?” Marek’s face was the colour of old cream and he had to force the word past dry lips, up from a throat restricted by the blade against it. But he had to say something, anything, and say it quickly. “You’re Aldric-erhan Talvalin?” Aldric flinched as if struck in the face, and a muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth.
“Speak again without permission and—” The knife stung again, a reminder, before drawing back in a leisurely fashion like the paw of a cat. “Gueynor, sit down!” Aldric’s one-eyed stare hadn’t shifted from Marek and she was on his blind side, but she sat down again regardless. “Better. Now, Marek Endain, demon-queller, you have permission to speak. So do it.”
“Ar Korentin sent me. He told me where to find you, and your foster-father showed me how.”
“Ar Korentin.” Aldric drew in breath through his clenched teeth. “Well, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but I wouldn’t have thought Gemmel-altrou would play along with his tricks.” His attention settled back on Marek, intense as the grip of a falcon’s talons. “That’s easy to say. Where’s your proof?”
The demon-queller’s hand moved with the sluggishness of spilled honey as it reached inside his robe, and the tiny strip of parchment he withdrew looked absurd in his big hand. It would have been less out of place around the leg of whatever pigeon had originally carried it. “Will this do?”
Aldric glanced at it. There were minute words written on it in black ink, and though the hair-fine characters were in cipher, it was one he knew.
“You could have killed the real courier and stolen this.”
“I could have, but I didn’t.” The demon-queller glared, and his voice grew harsh. Knife or no knife, threat or no threat, his patience was running out. “Nor could I have stolen knowledge from within a man’s head. For now I say to you the word suharr’n, and I say to you the word hlaichad, and I make in your sight the pattern Kuhr-ijn.” His fingers traced an elaborate gesture in the a
ir and a faint webwork of blue fire, almost transparent in the sunlight, hung a moment in their wake before dissipating like woodsmoke. “And what do you say to that, Aldric Talvalin?”
*
Aldric said nothing. His body stiffened and his eye glazed, its grey-green iris becoming as lifeless as a sliver of unpolished jade, while the hand with its still-poised dagger sagged slowly until it hung motionless by his side.
“What did you do?” Gueynor didn’t know whether to be frightened of losing her protector, or relieved that the threat of violence during the past moments had subsided.
“Nothing. This was done to him before he left, and with his full consent. From what I heard. I merely closed the circle before its proper time, and I should have done it at once rather than taking such risks with such a man.” He touched the still-oozing nick in this throat and winced. “They warned me about what he was, and I should have expected such a reaction. He’s frightened…”
“Frightened? Him?”
“Inside, where we can’t see. And more frightened of showing it. Most kailinin are alike that way. It’s what makes them so dangerous.” Aldric still hadn’t moved, hadn’t blinked, had barely breathed, and showed no sign of hearing what was being said less than an arm’s length away from him. “We’ll take this foolish patch off first, so I can be absolutely sure, and… Yes, that scar confirms it. Not by much, but distinctive enough to the right people. And to the wrong ones.”
Gueynor sensed the Cernuan was talking more to himself than for her benefit, but she didn’t interrupt him by so much as a sudden move. He evidently trusted her, otherwise she too would have been motionless and silent. She didn’t like to look at Aldric. It was shocking that one so active could be struck as still as stone by two words and a gesture. Despite Marek’s reassurance and no matter who had placed it there, she couldn’t believe he had submitted to whatever spell was on him without a protest.
Marek shaped another complex, writhing symbol in front of that expressionless face and the ugly, mindless glaze cleared from Aldric’s eyes. Intelligence returned, but it wasn’t the same intelligence Gueynor knew, the man who had shared her bed and her body. Except for their unaltered colour these were the eyes of a stranger, and she could almost see the thoughts swimming in them like tiny, wise fish.
Then he spoke, forming each word carefully as if considering it before letting it become audible, and his voice had changed. The Elthan burr was gone, and even the rhythm of his speech belonged to someone else. “By this man, my honoured lord and trusted messenger, I give salute and greetings to the high and worthy Goth, Lord Gener—”
“Hush, my lord, and be still!” said Marek, and even though his voice was sharp and hasty it was also courteous, a request rather than a command. Aldric closed his mouth and his changed eyes as he seemed to fall into natural sleep. Marek watched him for a moment then passed the back of one hand across his forehead, smiling sourly. “I should not have heard that, my lord,” he muttered, “so the words are already forgotten.” His head turned a fraction towards Gueynor. “By both of us.”
“Know me, Aldric-eir,” the demon-queller said. “I’m a friend, sent by friends to help you.” He spoke in a slow, hypnotic monotone, and Gueynor couldn’t be sure if what he said were persuasive lies or honest truth. She was almost past caring. “Sachaur arrhathak eban, Aldric. Yman Gemmel; yman Dewan; yman Rynert-mathern aiy’yel echin arhlathall’n.”
Aldric should still have been incapable of movement, so the demon-queller started when his eyes snapped open, staring and unfocussed. But Marek himself went motionless himself when he heard what the Alban’s voice – his real voice – whispered before trailing into silence.
“Lost… Lost… I am lost…”
“What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” The words cracked in Marek’s gullet and he coughed to clear his throat of the nervous constriction blocking it. He was nervous not for himself but for Aldric, in case his hurried attempt to reach whatever secrets lay buried in the younger man’s subconscious had severed the binding of soul to body. Long ago and far away he had witnessed that error happening to someone else, an image seared so deeply into his brain that he sickened at the thought he might have caused it now. Not death, not even undeath, but unlife, mere existence. As mud exists.
“There are no stars…” Again Marek heard the almost inaudible, cobweb-fragile thread of sound. “Night surrounds… No stars… I am lost… None can help me now…”
The blood in his veins seemed to become ice-water despite the warmth of the day. He had read those words before, but never heard them spoken aloud until now, and a swift shudder racked his limbs as his skin grew pallid and clammy cold. Losing one man’s soul dwindled to insignificance compared with the potential enormity hinted at by those words – if they were only hints and not something far worse. He didn’t dare make the leap of imagination to what lay beyond, for that way lay unspeakable things, and could only wait for what came next. Aldric’s voice was already losing coherence, his words faltering more often now, stumbling over one another and no longer making sense.
The name ‘Kyrin’ meant nothing to the Cernuan demon-queller, though Gueynor turned her head away at the sound of it, and as the deep, regular breathing of heavy slumber replaced those disturbing broken phrases, Marek could relax again. He was overwrought, that was all. Too many things had happened to him in too short a time, without enough rest to compensate. There was a small thud as the punch-dagger fell from relaxing fingers on to the grass at Aldric’s side, and his spine lost its rigidity so that his head lolled heavily forward.
“Wake him, please,” said Gueynor. “I don’t like to see him reeling about as if he was a drunkard.”
“Then look away,” said Marek, sounding abrupt whether he meant to or not. “His mind will be disordered for a while yet, because I had to rummage through it in something of a hurry.” The Cernuan dabbed blood from his neck again. “Don’t forget, he pulled a knife on me. That’s never the best way to make friends.”
Aldric let out a long sigh and collapsed, first to his knees then forward until the side of his face struck a tree root. It made an unpleasant sound. Before Marek could move, if he even intended to, Gueynor was on her knees by Aldric’s side, rolling him on to his back so she could cradle his head in her lap. Except for a thumb-length of scraped and broken skin along his temple he was unharmed, and the few beads of blood dotting it matched the dagger-made cut under the demon-queller’s chin closely enough that she glared at him.
“You bastard! You let that happen, to pay him out!”
“I can’t make people fall the way I want them to.”
“But you would if you could.”
“Not always.” Marek touched his neck one last time and the trickle of blood stopped. “But sometimes, yes.”
*
Whether he was dazed by the spell or stunned by the fall, or just faking either of the two, not even Aldric knew for certain. The only certainty at present was the sensation that ebbed and flowed inside his ringing skull. It wasn’t pain, not exactly, because he knew enough about pain to recognise it. This was like a swirling fog, first hot then cold and as noisy as waves breaking on a gravel shore, but there was no smell of the sea. Instead, for just a moment, he could smell roses. He could see them too, roses like the one buried deep in his saddlebag, great dark-red blossoms armed with jagged thorns. And then, between one blink and the next, they had gone and he was back.
“I beg pardon,” Aldric said, his voice steadier than he expected it might be. “For what I did and… And for what I almost did.” Marek Endain laughed at that, disinclined to humour but amused despite himself.
“Beg no forgiveness of me, Aldric-eir. It’s Dewan ar Korentin who should ask pardon from us both. It was his crooked mind that engineered this confusion.” The demon-queller reached down, plucked grass blades and twisted them between his fingers. “After all this, do you still want my company? Or my help?”
Aldric felt Gueynor’s fingertips proddin
g at his shoulder, trying to attract his attention, trying to prompt him to refuse whether politely, angrily, rudely or any way at all. Just so long as he said ‘No’. He ignored her as best he could and thought instead about Sedna. When he finally spoke to the Vreijek woman, Marek would prove useful.
“Do you still offer them?” he asked, trying to read what he could from the Cernuan’s face, and that was little enough. Marek’s mind was turning over what he had heard. Not King Rynert’s message to Lord General Goth, for politics held no interest at all, but the words which had followed and horrified him. They couldn’t have been spoken by accident. No delirium, no dream whether born of drink or drugs or sorcery could create those phrases out of nothing. Marek recognised them as disjointed fragments of a warning, and the recollection still chilled him because he knew too well what they warned against.
“Yes, I still offer them. Without reservation.”
“Then I accept the offer.” Aldric gave him a casual bow, just an inclination of the head, then a crooked little smile. “We could be friends eventually, if I draw no more steel and you cast no more spells. So tell me, friend, what do you know about Seghar…?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The shadows of dusk were lengthening in Seghar town as they approached it at a leisurely walk. Torches and ornate lamps had been lit at intervals along the outer wall and their effect, like a string of jewels, did little to offset an all-too-plain dilapidation. Marek Endain had described it well enough, but the seedy reality was worse.
Reining Lyard to a halt, Aldric glanced over his left shoulder for Gueynor’s reaction and saw what he had expected: shock, disbelief, and finally outrage that the fine place of her cherished recollections had been reduced to what they saw now. The indignant lines of her face softened and collapsed towards tears.
“Stop that!” The snap in his voice was to attract her attention before her behaviour attracted someone else’s and put them all at risk. “You’re a stranger here, you’ve never seen the place before, so you’ve got nothing to cry about.”
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