Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  “Some are. But a handful went north with the military,” Khouren confirmed. “The strongest ones, including their High Priest, went to the Elsthemi war front, but that was months ago. They were supposed to break the minds of the keshari riders, to rout Elsthemen’s forces. They’ve done so. Lhaurent boasted of his sovereignty three weeks ago; that Lhen Fhekran had fallen, but he said nothing of the Elsthemi King, nor of Queen Elyasin.”

  “I heard as much these past two days in the city,” Ihbram murmured. “So Queen Elyasin may have escaped Lhaurent’s coils. And what about a tall Hakir with dark grey eyes, who rides a black scorpion?” Ihbram’s green eyes were piercing.

  “Khorel Jornath.” Khouren’s gaze met Ihbram’s. “He’s the High Priest with the Brethren. He went with the main army to Elsthemen.”

  Ihbram’s scowl was ruthless. “He was the one who broke the Kingskinder ten years ago. I’ve tracked him a few times, but he’s slippery. Strong. You say he’s up north?”

  “Search my mind if you have to,” Khouren spoke. “I’m not lying.”

  Ihbram cocked his head, but Khouren didn’t feel any search through his mind. Though his uncle’s knit brows told him that Ihbram knew Khouren wasn’t telling Aeon’s honest truth. “What are you hiding, ghendii? There’s something you don’t want to tell me that you’re putting off. I can feel it rattling around in that mind of yours. Something big. Spill it.”

  Khouren shifted on his barstool, but knew he had to speak. If he didn’t, Ihbram would simply invade his mind and find out what he was hiding, and it would be far worse between them. Even so, Khouren didn’t imagine his uncle was going to take this news well. Vapors curled through the rank air from the grimy sunlight heating up the day outside. Patronage in the bar was clearing out as city-workers finished their breakfasts and left. Only a few people lingered, playing a hand of cards in carven wooden booths or drinking listlessly at the bar in besmirched finery. Two Guardsmen in clean cobalt jerkins pushed in and hailed the bartender with coin. They gave Khouren and Ihbram a casual but searching glance as they leaned at the bar, before their attention was drawn by an aging oube-player beginning to tune his stringed gourd in one corner for a morning diversion.

  Khouren looked away, back to his ale. He drew a deep breath, then spoke. “Lhaurent’s machinations at Highsummer got grandfather hurt. Badly.”

  “Fentleith—!” Ihbram exclaimed, one hand flashing toward his longknife.

  “Is recovered.” Khouren spoke quickly, not missing his uncle’s deadly gesture. “He went north with the Queen’s party at Highsummer, protecting her and the Rennkavi, Elohl den’Alrahel.”

  Ihbram’s eyes narrowed. Khouren felt his uncle’s touch sear through his mind; like fingers of fire, they charred through Khouren’s skull more deftly and painfully than Khouren remembered his uncle’s wyrria. The invasion churned Khouren’s stomach, and his ale threatened to rise. He fought retching as images of his and Fentleith’s battle with the Khets al’Roch surfaced. Then Fentleith’s dire injury. Then Khouren running him through the bowels of Roushenn to Leith’s ancient talisman, and slapping Fentleith’s bloody hand to that cursed object.

  “See everything you needed?” Khouren gasped. The searing lines exited Khouren’s mind, and he glanced up, to find Ihbram furious with shivering tension.

  “I should kill you! Putting Fentleith’s hand upon Leith’s talisman! Feeding it Alodwine blood!” Ihbram’s eyes flashed with golden Alodwine fire. “Fentleith should have killed you long ago, whelp, for all the destruction you cause with your bad and worse decisions.”

  “Fentleith was dying!” Khouren retorted in anger, not backing down. “Putting Fentleith’s hand on Leith’s talisman at the center of Roushenn saved him! I should have done the same with Lenuria, but I didn’t have time.”

  “You exposed Fentleith to Leith’s wyrria! And you would have done it to your own half-sister?” Ihbram’s tone was scalding. His eyes flashed fire. “You let the tyrant’s magic touch him, Khouren! How could you? You know what Fentleith is capable of! You know that his careful and hard-won control is all he has from becoming a monster!”

  “It was the only way to keep him alive,” Khouren protested.

  “No. It was the way you chose.” Ihbram’s voice pounded Khouren like the hammer upon the blade. “Just like all the choices you’ve made in your despicable life. It was a good thing you had Lenuria to defend you over the years, because I don’t think anyone else could. Not with the evil you’ve created in your zealous righteousness.”

  His uncle’s words struck Khouren like a blow, the realization that he might be evil. And just like that, Khouren snapped. His longknife was out of its sheath fast – pressed to Ihbram’s throat even faster. “I’m no zealot!”

  Ihbram didn’t flinch. Just stared Khouren down with his furious green eyes in the grimy sunlight. The Guardsmen at the end of the bar perked, watching their argument intently, hands off their ales and upon their longknives. Like two hawks, they began to advance. Ihbram’s gaze pierced Khouren, asking Khouren what he was going to do.

  With a growl of anguish, Khouren put away his knife. If he wasn’t going to use it, it was just an empty threat, and making such a threat in broad daylight in front of two Palace Guardsmen was worse than stupid. As soon as his knife disappeared, the Guardsmen eased, but they still approached, their eyes flicking between Ihbram and Khouren.

  “Problem here, Brigadier?” One of them spoke, aiming his question at Ihbram.

  “No.” Ihbram was still looking at Khouren. “Just a spat with my nephew. It’s nothing.”

  With his mind-sight, Khouren was vaguely aware of strings of red fire easing out from his uncle’s lips. They lanced in through the ears of the two Guardsmen, and Khouren saw both startle as if they’d been bit by ants. They looked confused, then gave twin smiles.

  “Well, then,” the one spoke again. “I suppose it’s nothing.”

  Deep under the influence of Ihbram’s mind-wyrria, they turned and strode out of the bar without so much as finishing their ale. The barkeep claimed the abandoned tankards and drained them into a wooden bucket, no doubt to serve later. Khouren stared at his uncle, fear driving into his heart for the first time around Ihbram.

  “That’s new,” Khouren spoke, shakily, both from rage and astonishment.

  “Be glad I don’t puppet you around,” Ihbram growled. “Though perhaps I should. Might save us all from your inanity.”

  Khouren lifted his ale, taking a deep swig. He needed to be drunk, rather than feel his heart eating through his chest from fear and tumult. A tense silence settled between the two Scions of Alodwine in the grimy bar. They watched each other, the renegade and the sneak-thief, blood and mistrust thick as tar between them. Few patrons came and went now, the clinking of tankards and the murmur of tired men occupying the morning. Khouren held their standoff, feeling sweat trickle into his stubble as his own conflict twisted deep inside him, ready to be unleashed. Swirling like a vortex, a movement of dark power and horrible depth.

  A grin cracked the edges of Ihbram’s lips at last. “You’ve unleashed all of Halsos’ hells, ghendii, you know that?”

  “How so?” Khouren frowned.

  “I can feel it.” Ihbram leaned in, his gaze intense. “All around me. This whole place – Halsos, I felt it ten leagues out, before I even saw the city’s walls on the horizon. What you did – allowing that artifact of Leith’s to drink Fentleith’s blood – it woke the bowels of hell. My skin has been crawling with wyrria from the moment I stepped foot inside the city. You woke the beast, Khouren. And the beast has fangs.”

  Khouren was quiet, feeling his way through this revelation. He didn’t need to think about it. He knew. Ever since that moment, he’d been able to feel it. The press and power of wyrria in his ears at night. The feel of it, rippling across his skin as he moved through a wall. The entire city of Lintesh was breathing down his neck at every turn, breathing with wyrric power. It was a fountainhead, partly unleashed by what Khouren
had done.

  “It’s like a dragon,” Khouren spoke softly, “breathing down my neck. Making my skin crawl. I can’t even count how many times I’ve fallen through the streets unintentionally in the past three weeks, Ihbram. I can’t focus. The power – it’s waking...”

  Ihbram gave a slow nod, then let out a breath through pursed lips. “You woke a demon, Khouren. Even if it’s only partially awake, it’s enough to wreck havoc through those who know how to use it. Fentleith always told us that Leith trapped all wyrria inside the earth for his own vile control, but what I feel right now – it’s like lightning burning over my skin, Khouren. If it’s like this for us, then other wyrrics must be able to feel it, too. And if it makes our power jump, then Lhaurent and the Kreth-Hakir are far more dangerous while here in Lintesh than even Fentleith could imagine. The marking of the Rennkavis was a small opening of power compared to this. This... this is big. And Lhaurent’s made his home right smack in the middle of it, drinking it in, every damn day.”

  “It’s worse than you know, Ihbram. Lhaurent has Leith’s ring.” Khouren wiped a hand over his face, feeling tears prickle in his eyes, despairing.

  “What?!” Ihbram’s eyes had bled to hot green-gold fire, his lips fallen open and his ale paused mid-drink.

  “I gave it to him,” Khouren continued, his heart twisting. “A while back. I took it from Leith’s hiding-spot and gave it to Lhaurent, when I first saw his Goldenmarks decades ago. He’s got Leith’s ring and he’s harnessing the wyrria opening in the city. Learning to use it, to control the dome, to view far. A part of me has been waiting these past weeks in terror, wondering if he’d use it to hunt me down. I stole artifacts from him, and documents, back when I left his service. Took them to Temlin den’Ildrian of the Jenners, who has been nominated King-Protectorate against Lhaurent. Among them were tomes that state Lhaurent’s legitimacy as a den’Alrahel King. But what if... what if Lhaurent can feel where they went, can see them? Can track them now that the city is awake, with wyrria that he’s learning to wield?”

  Ihbram let out a slow whistle, his gaze incredulous. “You sentenced the whole damn First Abbey to death, ghendii.”

  Khouren’s eyes were wide. His breath clenched into tight sips; his vision tunneled. But suddenly, he felt Ihbram slide off his barstool, hauling Khouren into a strong embrace. Khouren’s breath eased. The feeling of touch, of family, overwhelmed him, and he was able to draw breath. Pulling back, Ihbram rested their foreheads together for a long moment. Calm eased into Khouren’s mind. A slow fire, a feeling of safety and solidarity, emanating from Ihbram’s wyrria.

  “We have to fix this,” Ihbram murmured.

  “How?” Khouren choked.

  With a hard breath, Ihbram stepped back. Picking up his flagon and tossing its contents back, he set it to the chipped ironwood bar. Taking up his pack from the barstool beside him, Ihbram gestured to the door, masking his former revelations. “Come on. Time to get to the Abbey. We need to tell them they’re in danger.”

  Together, they stumbled out into the dirty sunshine. The Abbey Quarter was abustle, though cool breaths of autumn curled the streets. Khouren’s mind was in tumult as they traversed the dusty avenue, hardly aware of his surroundings in the bright day. As they crossed a fountain-plaza, he suddenly felt his senses tingle, and saw Ihbram give a quick glance back over his shoulder.

  “We’re being followed.” Ihbram deftly loosened the straps of his pack as he slipped longknives into his hands, hiding them along his body as he paced toward an alley. “Six men. Ready?”

  Khouren’s knives were already in his hands when Ihbram ducked into the alley. The suddenness of an oncoming fight banished Khouren’s worry and drunkenness. Khouren was fast on his uncle’s heels as they played into the thugs’ hands. As anticipated, the thieves spanned the alley mouth, leaving no exit, the alley’s end blocked by a tumble of stone from a toppled mansion and stacks of empty crates. As Ihbram slung down his belongings and he and Khouren turned with knives at the ready, they saw the coarse thugs grin.

  Until the Scions of Alodwine dropped into fighting crouches.

  “Stand firm.” A smooth voice rippled the air. A lean fellow in black herringbone leathers moved out from the shadows. His black mane was braided back at the crown, the sides shaved like the Unaligned north-sea pirates wore, tattooed with stark white inkings. A ravaged scar lifted the corner of his lip, giving him a sneer.

  State your business in the city. The command sliced Khouren’s mind like a silver knife. He was already opening his mouth, when Ihbram’s hand stopped him. In his mind-sight, Khouren saw a net of red fire sweep out from his uncle, swatting the silvered command of the Kreth-Hakir away.

  “Our business is none of yours,” Ihbram grinned, his green eyes cold.

  The Kreth-Hakir’s eyes went wide that his mind-command had been so easily rebuffed. A ferocious scowl knit his black brows. Khouren felt the man’s next command hit him like a charging bull. Khouren stumbled to one knee in pain, barely able to hold onto his weapons. But Ihbram withstood that gale, though he jolted – his eyes flashing green-gold fire. “My turn.”

  To Khouren, it only looked as if his uncle pivoted, stepping swiftly toward the Kreth-Hakir. But that movement held a hard wave of burning power that surged out from Ihbram, slamming into the Hakir brother. The man cried out, stumbling. Blood gushed from his nose as if he’d been punched in the face. In that moment, Ihbram rushed in, gutting the man one-two with his blades.

  Khouren wasted no time. He was up, spinning into the mercenaries in a liquid dance. Slicing throats, stabbing eyes, rolling and cutting hamstrings, disembowling. The fight lasted ten seconds, and the final two mercenaries ran, piss darkening their trousers. Khouren stood, breathing smoothly, letting them go. Ihbram stepped aside, wiping his knives on a bale of straw.

  “Cunt.” Ihbram kicked the fallen Kreth-Hakir. Blood spurted from Ihbram’s finishing slice to the man’s carotid artery, as the man’s eyes dimmed out.

  “We need to move.” Khouren glanced to the avenue as he wiped his blades on the bale and slid them away. “The others will have felt that. This way.”

  Khouren took off toward the blocked end of the alley, Ihbram swiping up his pack and fast on his heels. As Khouren stepped to the blockade of stones and crates, he held out his hand. Ihbram knew the drill, and grasped it tight. Khouren took a breath, letting his body relax from the tension he always held, that kept him from falling through structures. And like a sluice of water, he breathed into oneness with the stone and wood, pulling his uncle through behind him.

  Together, they poured through the walls of the city like water through a sieve. Upsetting a weaver at her loom, making a cat hiss in a larder, passing through heaps of burned-out rubble. With one final dart across the avenue that ringed the First Abbey, Khouren led his uncle through the Abbey wall, emerging at a stone bench near the ponds in a copse of sighing willows.

  “Imendhe nethii hakkane!” Ihbram cussed, ducking behind the thick branches of the willows. “Someone’s going to see us standing here with our thumbs up our assholes! Dammit, haven’t you ever heard of using a front door?”

  “We need to get to a basement,” Khouren bit back, feeling out with his wyrria for sub-basements or larders and finding nothing but earth and solid rock nearby. “Somewhere we can hide until we make our presence known to the King-Protectorate.”

  “Fine. Fuck it. I’ll camouflage us as much as I can.” Ihbram exhaled, his eyes void of drink now and sharp with concentration. Peering through trailing branches, Khouren saw that monks, cobalt-clad Palace Guardsmen, and Kingsmen in ancient battle-Greys came and went upon the gravel paths in the bright morning. Before they were noticed, Khouren saw in his mind-sight a shimmering red-gold net blossom from his uncle’s body, knitting around them both. Khouren’s brows rose, impressed. Ihbram had been able to camouflage himself before, but never two people.

  “That’s also new,” Khouren marveled, reaching out a hand to touch the shimmering mind-stri
ngs that wreathed him in the willow-bower.

  “Don’t fuck with it,” Ihbram admonished as he took the lead out of the greenery. “Let’s move.”

  CHAPTER 14 – ELESHEN

  The Rare Tomes Room below the Abbey Annex was a delight for any scholar, but Eleshen had no time to explore it. Tall stacks of carefully-catalogued tomes and scrolls loomed around her in the shadowed vaults as she hastily packed items into crates atop one stout cendarie table. Full of arcane writings and genealogies, herbal compendiums and collections of ancient lore, the Rare Tomes Room was a treasure-trove. Placed in charge of the Abbey’s emptying and relocation to Gerrov-Tel, Eleshen had put everyone to task in a diabolical schedule, and hadn’t had a moment to read even a single word of the knowledge contained here.

  Up all night, busy all day, Eleshen directed her army of Jenners and Kingsmen from sunup to sundown. Collecting books from the libraries, rounding up supplies and necessities. Harvesting everything that could be harvested and breaking down brewing equipment. Shuttling it all and everyone who could be spared through Mollia’s Abbeystone to the ruined fortress of Gerrov-Tel in the northern Kingsmountains.

  And though the avenues of the First Abbey were abustle above, it was all silence and seeping shadows down here. Only a few lamps were lit in the sconces, causing Eleshen to nearly blend into the shadows in her new Kingsman Greys. No hands were available to help her right now in the late morning, everyone using the daylight to harvest as much as possible from the gardens for transport. Eleshen found she enjoyed the quietude, though. Keeping an inn for so long by herself in the Kingsmountains had adjusted her to being alone, and it gave her time to think.