I met Mag’s gaze. “I think they are telling the truth. I have seen something like this before.”
“You should bind me regardless,” said Tuhin.
“I have already said you cannot escape from me if I do not wish you to,” said Mag.
A thought struck me. “Tuhin,” I said. “You are trying to warn us about yourself. But you have said nothing about Chao. We both lost sight of her. She could be the weremage, for all you know.”
Tuhin grinned. “I wondered when you would think of that. Oku trusts her. Animals have a sense for these things, and none more so than wolfhounds. For a weremage to be able to fool Oku, they would have to be so powerful that you would not have survived the long road you took to get here.”
I glared at them. “But you just said Oku’s trust of you was no proof.”
Tuhin shrugged. “Not if I am a strong enough weremage.”
“This is making my head hurt,” said Mag. “We should be getting back to Opara, lest we return after dark.”
“Then you must take the three of us to the Mystics,” said Tuhin. “They will know the same trick I have already told you, and they will tell you I am who I appear to be.”
“The Mystics?” cried Hoko in terror.
All of us turned to look at her—including Riri, who suddenly fixed the girl with a razor-sharp glare.
“Why, yes,” I said. “We need to know what happened to the weremage who had been working with you. And no one is better at gathering information than the Mystics.”
“I will tell you!” shrieked Hoko.
“Hoko!” said Riri sharply, tensing in my grip.
“The weremage went to the Telfer homelands! Tokana!” cried the girl.
I froze.
“Hoko!” snarled Riri. “Dark damn you, you traitorous sow!”
“Save your breath,” said Hoko, who sounded close to sobbing. “I have been under the Mystics’ knives before. I will not go there again for anything—not for you, and not for the Lord.”
The girl’s words rang in my ears. Tokana? My homeland? What would draw the weremage there?
“Why?” I demanded. I shoved Riri away and gripped Hoko by the shoulders. “Why Tokana?”
I had meant to shove Riri towards Mag. I failed.
She spun with my shove and charged at my back, bent almost double. I heard her just in time to step aside and turn to see what was the matter.
Riri caught Hoko in the stomach with her shoulder.
She did not stop. Both women pitched headfirst over the edge of the trench.
“No!” I cried, running to the edge. Mag leaped forwards and seized my arm, drawing me back.
Riri remained silent, but Hoko’s scream lasted an obscenely long time before being sharply cut off.
“They are gone,” said Mag quietly.
I ripped my arm out of her grip, and she let me. “Dark take me,” I said savagely.
“You were distracted,” said Mag. “And you have reason to be.”
I glared at her, but I could not do so for long. I turned away, even as Tuhin stood on the edge of the cliff, looking down to where they had fallen.
“We … we should investigate,” they said after a moment, sounding like someone coming out of a dream. “The stronghold, I mean. We should ensure no one else lurks within. And one of you must remain with me as a guard. Or mayhap we should stay together—I could heal this injury and overpower only one of you.”
“Sky above, Tuhin, you are not the weremage,” I growled.
They gave me a grim look, only faintly amused now. “You do not know that.”
“Let us all search Maunwa, then, and be quick about it,” I said gruffly. “The sooner we can return to Opara, the better.”
“Do not look too worried,” said Tuhin. “If the weremage is heading for Tokana, that means you can set your steps for home.”
They could hardly have said anything more worrying, though of course they could not have known that. I struggled to don a smile. “That is good news, at least.”
But it was not. I knew it, somehow. Just as I knew that this had become very, very personal.
I did not know exactly why the weremage had turned her steps towards Tokana. But I knew, down to my core, that my family was in terrible danger.
In raven form, Kaita watched the whole thing from the air. When we captured Hoko and Riri, she spun lower in the sky so that she could hear. Hoko told us that the weremage was headed for Tokana, and Kaita felt an enormous wave of relief.
That relief turned to grim satisfaction as Riri and Hoko pitched over the cliff.
Dark take her, the fool, thought Kaita.
Her anger at Riri faded quickly. Now she was free to journey to Tokana. She would travel by air. It would be exhausting, but she had the strength. The end of the game drew near.
Kaita could not defeat Mag herself. But even the Uncut Lady would be helpless against the trolls.
And if she were not—if even the trolls proved unequal to the challenge—Kaita had Rogan’s word. If the trolls could not finish what she had started, then Father would give her the strength she had long craved.
But that would come later, if it came at all. In the meantime, at long last, she was going home.
Albern fell silent and glanced down at Sun. The corners of his mouth curled up, though he seemed to be trying to fight the smile. Sun frowned. What was the old man smirking for? Then she realized she was fidgeting with her fingers as they walked. A flush crept into her cheeks as she stilled her hands.
“You look fit to choke on whatever unasked question plagues you,” chuckled Albern. “Spit it out.”
Still she hesitated, and when she did speak, it was slowly. “You said you would only give me certain stories. I do not want to ask for a tale you do not wish to tell.”
“I will only tell you what I wish, but you can always ask,” said Albern. “I do not promise to answer, but I might.”
That was good enough for Sun, and her words came out in a rush. “Whenever you speak of Kaita, you say she thought of Calentin—and now Tokana, I suppose—as ‘home.’ Was it the Shades’ home, or her home? Did she live there as a child? Did you know her?”
Albern shook his head. “I did not know her, because she was not a noble.”
Sun frowned. “What does that matter? I was a noble as well, but I knew plenty of common folk in—”
“Calentin is not Dulmun, and my family was not like yours,” said Albern. “The commonfolk in Tokana obeyed us, but when I was a child, we were not particularly well loved. Nor did we mingle often. My mother, in particular, was very strict about it. You recall the story of Ditra and her retainer? She feared Mother would punish her severely if they were found out, and she was correct.”
It still made no sense to Sun. “Still, you must have known some commoners in your youth, unless you never left your family’s stronghold. But you have already told me that was not the case.”
He sighed. “You are not entirely wrong. My mother’s attitude is, mayhap, an excuse I use to feel better about the way I acted. We all like to think better of our younger selves than we might deserve. The truth is that I rarely tried to befriend anyone outside my family, or even converse with them. I never paid much attention to anyone but other nobility, and even that was scant compared to the attention I gave to the wilderness. You might not believe it, but I think I have spoken more to you, in the short time we have known each other, than I ever spoke to my eldest sister, Romil.”
Sun balked at that. “That cannot be true.”
“Stories and truth,” said Albern with a smile. “But that is how I remember it. Romil saw me as little more than a family asset, and a poor one at that, and I wholeheartedly returned her lack of affection. The only person I was close to was Ditra, and even we drifted further apart as we grew older.
“It was not until I was free from my home, out from under the sway of my mother, that I began to appreciate the people around me. I had been so starved for friendship and affecti
on that I began to bestow them with great vigor. You think I am friendly now, but I doubt you would have so enjoyed my company if you had met me when I was your age. I was too focused on my family, on how they treated me. In short, I thought only of my own difficulties. Once I had put them mostly behind me, it felt like my attention was suddenly free, and I was able to behold a world I had never noticed before. And only then could I spare enough thought for my own desires to decide what I wanted to do with my life. That is when I realized I was ander. I could never see it in Tokana, when I was too focused on my dissatisfaction with my family to see how I was dissatisfied with myself.”
Sun shook her head. “I still want to know why you left your home in the first place. You have told me of the tree in the valley, and your mother’s lack of care. But neither sounds dire enough to flee your homeland, especially as a noble.”
“You did not ask about this before.”
Sun threw her hands in the air. “I did not want some dark-taken answer that ‘Every part of the story must be told in its proper turn, or the whole thing will collapse.’”
Her imitation of his Calentin accent was passingly fair, and Albern laughed loud and long at it. “I suppose I can explain a bit more of my decision without ruining the whole tale,” he said at last, wiping a mirthful tear from his eye as his laughter finally subsided. “I did not leave because of the tree. As I told you, that was only what first made me aware of my discontent. The urge to leave built steadily after that. My mother’s unkindness was another part of it. My father was a bannerman first, a parent second, and he died when I was young. All I had was Ditra, and she was only a few years older than me. She was not a good substitute for a parent. And why should she have been? She had no one to learn from—certainly not our mother.”
He cut himself off suddenly, and the smile he forced was sour. “That sounded resentful.”
“You seem resentful,” said Sun. “But not without good reason.”
“I should have left this bitterness in the past long ago,” said Albern. “I should not still be angry about it, but I am.”
It made Sun uncomfortable to hear such familiar sentiment from someone so much older than she was. “I understand,” she said. “Truly, I do. My parents act the same way.”
“As I suspected,” said Albern with a sigh. “It is as though … as though people become parents, and suddenly they feel a sense of duty to ‘the family.’ But they forget, or so it seems, that the family is made of people. A family is not a name. It is not a legacy, not a list of ancestors, not the house you live in. It is the people. Your kin, by blood or by law, or by choice. If the people are not well, the family is not well.”
He paused again—but this time with a wince of pain, and his hand moved to his side, clutching near his ribs. Sun’s heart skipped.
“Are you all right?” she said.
“Fine,” he said. “It is … something. I am not sure. Mayhap it is an old injury, or mayhap just a product of age. It is one of the reasons I wish to see the medica.”
“Ah,” said Sun. “You seem to be traveling quite far to meet her. Have you known her long?”
“Oh yes,” said Albern, his smile returning. “She is the one who performed my wending when I was your age. She is hardly any older than I am. That was quite a shock, when first we met. There I was, having only seen nineteen summers, having only just realized that I was not my mother’s daughter, as I had always thought, but her son. I had just left home, and I was very anxious about the wending, as most are. And in walked a young woman in a medica’s robes, who had seen only twenty-two years, and who looked even younger than I was.
“Well, I must have seemed nervous, because Dawan laughed out loud. ‘You think I am young, do you?’ she said. ‘Well, you are right. But I am one of the High King Enalyn’s personal medicas. Masada, the one who performed Enalyn’s own wending, was my mentor, and when he passed into the darkness, I took up Enalyn’s service myself. If I am good enough for the High King, I daresay I am good enough for you.’
“Her manner was so forthright, and yet so friendly, that I was immediately put at ease. We got along famously after that. And though she had to travel often, being a medica, we always stayed in touch—better, in fact, than I would stay in touch with Mag in later years. And whenever I was due for a new visit, to ensure my health had remained good since the wending, I would always seek her out if I possibly could.”
Sun was staring at him in fascination now. To have the High King’s own medica … she would not have been more surprised if Albern had revealed that he and Enalyn were closely related by blood. Albern was looking at her carefully, and he continued studying her while she attempted to gather her thoughts.
When Sun spoke, it was not about Dawan. “What happened in Opara next?”
Albern chuckled. “In Opara? Not a great deal. But on the road north, and in Tokana … why, yes. Quite a bit happened.”
As I have mentioned, my family has long dwelled in our stronghold in the city of Kahaunga. And in Kahaunga, while Mag and I were returning from our fight with Riri and the Shades, the Lord Telfer received dire news.
She was in her council chamber, poring over the map of her lands. Her lead ranger, a man named Maia, was by her side. He stood off to the side, leaning against the wall, one hand idly toying with the hilt of the sword on his hip. He knew better than to interrupt his lord when she was deep in thought. She had been a stern woman as long as he had known her, and she did not take kindly to being interrupted.
There was another woman in the room, waiting somewhat less patiently than Maia. Her name was Callen of the family Incab, and she was a representative of the Calentin king. One such representative is stationed in the home of each Rangatira, to provide counsel and to send independent reports to the king. Callen was a reedy woman, and Lord Telfer had never liked her—a sentiment that Maia fully shared. They particularly resented the woman’s presence in the room at that moment, but Lord Telfer could think of no proper way to dismiss her.
A knock came at the chamber door.
Lord Telfer growled as she looked up. “What is it?”
The door swung open, and a messenger made her hasty way inside. She pressed a fist to her forehead and bowed.
“Lord Telfer,” she said. Her voice was too loud in the modest chamber, full of the frantic energy of one who is both eager to please, and terrified because they bear ill news. “The trolls have attacked another village.”
Callen’s brows rose in faint surprise. “Sky save us,” she said in mild worry, turning to regard the Rangatira.
Lord Telfer ignored her. She straightened, her hands gliding across the smooth parchment of the map before her. “Another? Which one?”
The messenger shook her head. “No name, my lord. It was little more than a collection of homes. One of the survivors is here.”
“Here?” snapped Lord Telfer. “Why would you bring—”
The door swung a bit wider, and another woman entered the room. It was Whetu, the woman who had once been one of the Lord Telfer’s rangers, but long ago.
“Whetu!” cried Maia, stepping forwards to embrace her. They pressed their foreheads together for a brief moment. “It is good to see you once more.”
“If only the circumstances were otherwise,” she replied. Stepping past him, she put a fist to her forehead and bowed to Lord Telfer. “My Rangatira.”
“Be at peace,” said Lord Telfer. It was a soldier’s command, and Whetu had not been a soldier for a long while, but Lord Telfer did not much care at the moment. “Report.”
Callen looked at her Rangatira in faint surprise. “But this is a villager.”
Maia’s eyes flashed with anger. “She was a ranger.”
“Was,” said Callen, tilting her chin up ever so slightly.
Lord Telfer slammed her hand on the desk, and the room fell silent. “Report,” she snapped. “The rest of you, keep your flapping lips shut.”
“The trolls destroyed our village,” said Whetu
. “Every building was torn down. Our crops and any stores of bread were raided. The trolls ate most of them before we managed to escape.”
“Was anyone slain?” said Lord Telfer.
Whetu shook her head. “No, Rangatira.”
“How many trolls?”
“I did my best to count. I saw at least a dozen, but there might have been more.”
A dozen, thought Maia. That was a sizable pack.
“Why did you not get a full count?” said Callen sternly.
Whetu did her best not to glare at the representative. She pointed to a bandage on her leg, red with blood. “I was injured. And my husband and I had our daughters to think of.”
Callen snorted dismissively. It was a rich reaction, coming from her. Maia knew full well that the king’s representative would have fled at the first sight of a troll, and likely kept running until her heart gave out.
But Maia had a thought, and he grew troubled. “Whetu,” he said quietly. “Where was your village?”
“Ten leagues out.”
Lord Telfer’s eyes shot wide. “Where? In which direction?”
Whetu met her gaze with a grim look. “North, Rangatira.” She came forwards and pointed to a spot on the map. “There. It is not marked on the map, but it was there.”
Maia gave his lord a swift glance. He could see the sudden tension leap into her muscles, the way her knuckles whitened as they gripped the edge of the table. There was a sense of building energy in the air, as though a firemage had summoned a ball of flame and was threatening to unleash it. He gave his lord a moment to answer, but when she remained silent, he turned to Whetu.
“Thank you,” he said, nodding. “That will be all.”
Whetu nodded and turned to leave the room. The messenger who had brought her left as well, relief plain in her expression at the chance to escape whatever explosion was about to take place.
“That settlement,” growled Lord Telfer. “It was clearly within the bounds of the pact.”
Maia restrained a sigh of exasperation. “Rangatira,” he said carefully, “the last two settlements were within the bounds of the pact.” Not that anyone listened to me when I mentioned that, he added only in his own mind.
The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4) Page 37