The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4)
Page 59
Sun smiled. “A sellsword. I think I might like that.”
He swept his arm out as if in invitation, and then he continued on west. Sun followed him into the moonslight, full of wonder at what her future might yet hold. Wonder, but no longer any fear.
Oh, by the by—you should know something of what Rogan was doing during this time.
Not long after Kaita fled from Kahaunga, he was sitting in a chamber in Dorsea’s northeastern reaches. A cup of mulled wine was in his hand, but he drank from it slowly, twirling it in his hands and staring into its depths.
A voice spoke from the shadows. “My son.”
Rogan shot to his feet, his eyes shining.
“Father?”
“Kaita has failed.”
Rogan’s hands clenched to fists at his sides. “She … how do you—”
“It is enough that I know.”
“Father, tell me that she is not—”
“She lives.”
Rogan sank back into his chair in relief, casting a hand over his eyes. “Thank the sky.” But then he lifted his head, and there was fear in his eyes. “Do not blame her for this, Father. It was with my counsel that she set upon her road. If she could not succeed in Tokana, no one could have. Do not punish her.”
“She did her best. She could not have done any more than she did. But now she is searching for you. You made her a vow.”
“As you commanded.” Rogan shook his head, staring at his own boots. “I was reluctant.”
“Kaita cannot be allowed to find you. Not right away. Not until the time is right. But when you reunite with her at last, you must give her what was promised.”
Slowly, Rogan stood from his chair. He went to the table in the center of the chamber. Upon it had been laid a map of the nine kingdoms. Small figures in blue stood upon the map, marking every place where the Shades had an agent or a fighting force. There were many. Far more than we would have guessed, in those days.
“You said you would not punish her,” he said quietly.
“It is not punishment.”
“I have seen it, Father,” whispered Rogan. “If Kaita gets her wish, it will only lead to her death.”
“You can see farther than any other, my son. Any other except me. Trust me when I say that this is no punishment.” Rogan felt a hand on his shoulder, comforting him. “But yes. I am afraid that if we are to achieve our aims, you are right. Kaita will have to die.”
Sun might have been forgiven for wishing the conversation would end. After all, no one had invited her to take part in it, and few things are worse than waiting on the edges of others’ discussion, hearing what they have to say and yet having little to offer.
Her meal had gone some time ago, whisked away by a barman who gave her a wink and received a curled lip in return. Albern, however, still made deliberate and slow progress through his food, and the discussion he had begun with the woman at the next table did not aid his speed. Sun could not quite say why Albern had started speaking to her, except that it seemed to be a knack of his. He had a friendly and approachable manner, for all his appearance of a rough old man. Strangers found him easy to talk to, and he always seemed eager to speak to them as well. That was how Sun had met him, after all.
“And I say,” Albern responded to the woman, “that the day we are all pleased with our kings is the day the world breaks. I have never known a time in which the commoner had only love for the noble, and I have lived a good deal longer than you have, if you will forgive my saying so.”
“Why should I need to forgive a plain truth?” said the woman, chuckling. “And I do not wish for a perfect king. I only wish for a better one. This business on the Feldemarian border …”
Albern waved the stump of his right arm as if he had forgotten it was missing its hand. “Many lips have passed the news of those troubles to our ears. Who knows what is going on up there? But mayhap I will look into it before long, and then I will bring the truth back to you.”
The woman reached out to clasp his left wrist. “A wanderer, are you? Then I accept your offer, and with gratitude. Only take care of yourself on the journey. The roads are not as safe as they were.”
“When do you mean?” said Albern, grinning as he shook her hand. “The dream of eternally safe roads is another I have never seen come true. But we will be careful. Good day to you.”
The woman gave a rueful laugh and, with a quick nod to Sun, rose to leave. The moment she had disappeared into the crowd of the common room, Sun leaned close.
“About time, old man. I thought you two would talk until sundown.”
Albern shrugged. “I would not have minded it. Charming conversation is often in short supply.”
Sun’s brows rose. “I hope you do not mean to insult me.”
“No, indeed. I have enjoyed our conversations more than any in a good long while. I imagine your impatience is what has had you bouncing in your seat for the last half hour? I wondered if you had to relieve yourself.”
“In fact, I do. It is only that you kept seeming to be on the verge of finishing your talk.”
Sun rose from her chair, though Albern was not quite done with his food. Sighing, he scooped the last few spoonfuls of stew into his mouth. “That is your trouble, Sun, or one of them. Always too eager for the end.”
He led her through the common room and out the front door. With a kind word and a few copper slivers, Albern sent the stable girl to fetch their horse—their horses, Sun reminded herself. Albern had bought one for her. She could hardly believe that she owned a steed. All the horses she had called “hers” were, in fact, her parents’ property.
Besides the horse, Albern had given her a new brown cloak—or new to Sun, at any rate, for Albern had clearly owned it for a while. But it was warmer than the blue one she had worn when they met, and it was also less conspicuous.
“If you need to relieve yourself, do it now,” said Albern. “I mean to push our pace today.”
“But you said we were an easy day’s ride from Bertram,” said Sun.
“Easy if we want to make the city by sundown,” said Albern. “But I would rather get there ahead of the dark if we can. One of my friends in the city does not appreciate being woken at night—or being summoned, I should say, for he is usually already awake, and accompanied.”
Sun scowled at him. “I suppose you mean to tell me that we will not have time for the story.”
Albern chuckled. “Oh, were you anxious about that? Then be assured that I do not mean to gallop the whole way.”
“That is all I needed to hear. I will return quickly.”
She darted around to the outhouse in back of the inn. As with many places they had visited lately, it was only a wooden platform with a hole in it, but her nose did not curl quite so bitterly as it used to. She was growing somewhat used to conditions on the road, which of course were far less glamorous than the luxury in which she had been raised.
It made her wonder what her parents would think if they could see her now. But that thought carried worry in its wake, and she shied away from it. Thoughts of her parents had pressed themselves more and more into her mind of late. Had they halted their procession, sending their guards to seek her across the land? Or would they have carried on, eager to begin the long process of raising their station to its former heights? Sun could not be sure, and it was useless to think too long upon it. Yet in the back of her mind was being scratched, as though by a scribe marking events in a tome of history, a map of where her parents would be each day.
They would reach Bertram before long. Not today, as Sun would. But not too far in the future, either.
Sun did not plan to be there when they came, however. And so she found it easier than expected to banish the last thoughts of her family as she rejoined Albern where he waited with their mounts. Sun patted her horse fondly on the neck as Albern handed her the reins.
“Have you thought of a name yet?” said Albern. “You know it is bad luck to ride a horse with no name.”<
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“That was Mag’s superstition,” said Sun.
Albern smiled sadly. “I called it so at the time. Yet you already know my thoughts on many subjects have changed since then.”
“My opinions have not been tempered by so many years as yours.” Sun studied the horse in deep thought. She was a fine steed, though not fit for battle. She was too slight, and just a bit too skittish—trusting of Sun’s judgement, but nervous at a sudden noise.
“I will name her Undvikar if it will reassure you. Though I will call her ‘Vika’ more often, for it comes more easily to the tongue.”
Albern smiled, and she wondered if he knew the old tongue of Dulmun from which she had drawn the name. But he said only, “I hope you name her for yourself, and not for my assurance. But I think it is a fine name. Hello, Vika.” He reached over and scratched the mare behind the ears, which she hesitantly permitted. “Now, let us be off.”
They remained on foot and walked the horses at first, pressing into the busy traffic of the town’s main street. Many wagons and carts were plodding their way through the shallow mud, heading east and west in roughly equal numbers. Those heading west were laden with goods, mostly foodstuffs to trade in Bertram. Those rolling east were mostly empty, or else held items from the city to sell in town. But though the crowd was thick, still there was room enough to weave through it, which Albern did with expert swiftness.
Navigating the press kept them silent until they left the town’s western end. There the way opened before them, the carts having room to spread out. But before Sun and Albern mounted, she caught his gaze and spoke.
“I want to hear how Mag died.”
Albern went still for a moment. Then, without answering, he climbed into his saddle. Sun did the same, but she kept her eye on him all the while. She half expected him to spur his mount, still without answering her. But at last he returned her gaze, peering at her from under his hood, which he had raised against the last chill of morning.
“This is the third time you have asked me to tell you that, and the first time you have said it so plainly.”
Sun had expected him to deny her outright. His answer was not what she had asked for, but it was not a refusal, either. “You told me I may ask whatever I wish, though you are not obligated to tell me the story that I want.”
Albern sighed and turned his eyes forwards again. When he spoke, his voice was sad and solemn, but strong. It was the tone of one speaking at the funeral of a dear friend: an acknowledgment of grief, but also a resolution to face the future without fear.
“They say the best tales never end, but that is a lie. All tales end. Yours, mine. Mag’s. Yet while they still spin, in chorus they weave the tale of the world. And that tale shall never die, even if one day none of us remain to hear it.”
He glanced at her again, but only for a moment. “It is as I said in the tavern, Sun. You are too eager to reach the end of the story. You would be wiser to enjoy yourself. Take your time. All things end, yes, but that does not mean we should charge recklessly towards that end, eager to meet it. And neither should we cower from it, afraid for it to find us.
“I have met many people who needed to learn that second lesson. Mag needed to learn the first.”
Winter had yet refused to release its forbidding grip on the land of Dorsea when Mag, Dryleaf, Oku, and I rode down out of the Sunmane Pass. Of course, we had clothes to protect us against the weather, but there is a sort of cold that no cloak can entirely dispel, and it shrouded us. The peaks of the mountains at our backs remained snow-capped all year round. But now the snow covered everything from those peaks to the valleys and the wide-open land before us, shrouding it all in white. Even forests made little impression on the snowy blanket. Only the marks of towns and other settlements were plain to see, patches of brown that spouted the grey smoke of hearths into the sky.
You will remember that we had remained in Calentin for some time before continuing our pursuit of Kaita. The best information we had was that she had been heading southwest, and so that was where we went. We took the long road south through Calentin’s eastern reaches, bearing my sister’s writ, which let us pass unmolested through the lands of the other Rangatira.
In the city of Opara we rested for a few days, visiting our friend Victon and seeking what information we could. But there was precious little of it. All along our journey north, Kaita had been enticing us with a trail of clues, hidden just well enough to make us think we were terribly clever for discovering them. Now that she no longer wished to be followed, we were faced with tracking down a weremage in a wide-open world. That can be a nearly impossible task. We knew only of her connection to the Shades, and so it was information about them that we sought. All we had found so far was some vague rumor, gleaned from the Rangatira in Opara, of a plot that concerned northeastern Dorsea. And so that was where we had turned our steps.
The search was long and fruitless, and it weighed heavy on us. There is only so much time one can spend seeking one’s quarry before one tires of the hunt. Sometimes we were desperate for any sign of Kaita. Other times we were apathetically numb and merely going through the motions of our journey.
No one had heard anything in any of the places we visited. There were no rumors of a rogue weremage. We could find no reliable information about the Shades.
It was now a week since we had come down out of the mountains, and we were drawing near to a small town by the name of Taitou. As we rode, Dryleaf often turned to face the south. He was blind, of course, but he had traveled these lands when he was younger. He knew the Birchwood was close, and he must have been thinking of Loren.
Loren would have been much on my mind as well, but I was preoccupied with Mag. She was my best friend, and we often jested and poked fun at each other. But ever since the Sunmane Pass, a dark mood had come over her. There had been an avalanche in those mountains, and though it posed no danger to us, Mag had been somber since.
I thought she might harbor worry for Dryleaf and me, imagining that she was dragging us along a more dangerous journey than she had at first foreseen. Or mayhap she only hoped, as I did, that the end of the road was near, and all her thought was bent upon it. But as we approached the walls of Taitou, I sought to cheer her up.
“What troubling thoughts leave you so grumpy?” I called out to her. “If you are not careful, your face will freeze in that frown—though I suppose that could only be an improvement.”
She did not laugh. In fact, she barely glanced at me. “No troubling thoughts,” she said. “Only a hope that the journey will soon be over. But mayhap that is a fool’s hope.”
“You should enjoy what you can of your wanderings,” I told her. “Look at the land we ride in. Is it not beautiful? Drink it in and let your cares go, while they are not pressing.”
“It has always been beautiful.” Mag tossed her head to the north. “I used to live two days’ ride from here, in the northern reaches of the Carrweld Forest. You can see its southern reaches there. Taitou was the closest settlement of any notable size—I once thought it was a great city.”
There are few things she could have said that would have been more surprising. In all our years together, Mag had seldom spoken about her past.
“I did not know that,” I answered after a moment.
“It was a small village.” Her words came slow, her voice careful. “A tiny village called Shuiniu. There I dwelled until … well, until I outgrew it, I suppose. One day I had to go out into the wider world, of which I knew nothing, and when I did, I had to pick a direction. South was straight into the forest. I knew of nothing interesting to the west or east. But I had heard tales of Feldemar, and it seemed a grand kingdom, and so that is where I went. And that led me to the Upangan Blades, and you. We met about a week after I left home.”
In a few moments, Mag had told me more of her early life than in all the years of our youth. It was just like in Tokana, when she had told me of her love of the forests. And in that moment, as before, I did no
t know quite what to do. I suppose I was like you, desperate for her to give me more details and continue the story. But, if you will forgive me for saying so, I had the sense to rein in my questions—all but one.
“Do you want to visit?” I said.
Mag gave me a sharp look.
“We do not have to,” I said hastily. “But we do not know where to go, and I think we can spare a day, or a few of them. Is there anyone there you wish to see?”
“No.” Her answer came without hesitation. Her tone was not harsh, but neither did it leave any room for argument or doubt. And she did not explain further.
“Fair enough,” I said, attempting nonchalance. But in truth, I was afraid I had sent her guard crashing back down, and I wished I had said nothing at all.
Two days after we rode out of the Sunmane Pass, a rider came out of the mountains behind us. She stopped at the last crest before the road descended into Dorsea’s lowlands. The height was lofty enough to see a great distance, until it was easy to imagine one could view Danfon far to the southeast, though of course that was impossible.
She pulled her cloak a bit tighter around herself. She had been searching for us, and her search had gone on for a long time. Disappointment in Calentin was close behind her, but now the trail was fresh again, and it led her into Dorsea.
With a grumble and a set in her shoulders, she nudged her horse forwards, down into the lands we had entered only days ago.
Dusk was still hours away when we reached the town of Taitou. At the western gate, guards inspected us with suspicion. This, of course, was routine to us now—from Constable Yue at the gates of Lan Shui to the Rangatira’s soldiers who guarded Opara, we had practice dealing with servants of the King’s law. We had a story already prepared and well rehearsed from long repetition.
But this time was different. In addition to four constables, two Mystics guarded the gate as well.