Trial of Stone

by Andy Peloquin

  He’d been the one to show her how to sneak into the Hall of the Beyond with the other entrants. Thanks to him, she had the skills necessary to seize her chance of becoming a Blade. She owed him a great deal, and she would find a way to repay him.

  But not today. Today, she could only think of the ceremony that awaited her. The Trial of Stone would confirm her acceptance into the most elite fighting force in Shalandra.

  Provided I survive it, of course.

  Chapter Six

  As Evren followed the pudgy Brother Mendicatus through the House of Need, he couldn’t help glancing down the corridors they passed, hoping to catch a glimpse of Hailen. If he was to leave Voramis, he wanted to say goodbye to the younger boy.

  He’d promised the Hunter that he’d look out for Hailen, but he wouldn’t be able to do that from Shalandra. Thankfully, Kiara would remain in Voramis to watch over Hailen while the younger boy continued his secret training at the House of Need.

  Evren knew everything about Hailen’s past: his childhood in Malandria, the night the Hunter had killed the Cambionari and taken the boy from the temple, his travels with the Hunter, and the truth of the strange Melechha abilities he’d inherited from his ancestors, the long-dead Serenii. He also knew that the Cambionari wanted to control Hailen’s powers—to protect the world, they said, but Evren’s experience with priests in the past made him suspect that they wanted it for their own greedy ends.

  The Hunter had agreed to let Father Reverentus and the Cambionari educate Hailen, help him learn how to control the powers that they believed would one day manifest. Evren didn’t know what that training involved and neither the Hunter nor Kiara had chosen to share the details with him. He’d have asked Hailen, only the Beggar Priests kept the boy locked up in the House of Need most of the time.

  Evren felt a stab of sorrow as he reached the front of the Beggar Temple without catching a glimpse of Hailen. He and Hailen might not share the same blood, but he had come to see the boy as a younger brother. The thought of leaving Voramis without saying goodbye tore at him.

  Yet Brother Mendicatus seemed in a rush, hurrying toward a door that led into a small walled enclosure within the temple grounds. There, a wooden cart stood waiting before the closed gate, with an aging draft horse hitched to its traces. Beside the cart stood the man that had to be Brother Modestus. He was grizzled, with skin sun-burned to a leathery brown almost a match for Evren’s own and dark green eyes that regarded Evren with distrust.

  “He the one?” Brother Modestus’ voice was a strange mixture of sounds: half-grunt and half the sound of grinding stones. His tone held as much warmth as a Vothmot winter wind.

  “This is young master Evren.” Brother Mendicatus swept a hand toward Evren. “A comrade of a certain…acquaintance.”

  That’s the politest way I’ve heard anyone talk about the Hunter before. People cursed his name, spoke in fear, or simply avoided mentioning the assassin altogether. Few people beyond Kiara, Graeme, Hailen, and Father Reverentus knew the man behind the legend.

  Brother Modestus grunted and shrugged. “Let’s go, then.”

  Evren cocked an eyebrow. “Just like that? If I’m going to do what you want me to, I’m going to need a few things. Tools and such.”

  “All has been provided,” Brother Mendicatus said, and swept a hand toward the cart. “We spoke to Mistress Kiara before summoning you this morning. She has given her permission to send you off on this mission. With your consent, of course.”

  Evren nodded. Kiara had become a mix of surrogate mother and older sister to him, and if she’d signed off on the task, it was good enough for him. She took the quest of hunting down and eradicating demons as seriously as the Hunter—more so, given that she lacked the Hunter’s inhumanly long lifespan. She’d only sanction the task if it furthered their mission.

  As he pulled himself up onto the wagon, Brother Modestus passed him a heavy leather backpack. Within the pack, Evren found dark grey clothing, lockpicking tools, an assortment of daggers, soft-soled boots of the highest caliber, and some of Graeme’s fabulous glass lanterns filled with their never-quenching alchemical fuel. Everything he’d need for his task of stealing the Blade of Hallar.

  With a nod, he buckled the pack closed and dropped it into the back of the wagon beside the piles of stuffed sacks. All of the sacks bore the trademark of “Tschanz and Co.”, a legitimate Malandrian transporter of corn, wheat, and rice all around the south of Einan. It would provide suitable cover should anyone question their presence in Shalandra.

  Which raised questions in Evren’s mind. Why would the Beggar Priests conceal the truth? Brother Modestus wore a simple trader’s cloak, breeches, and trousers, with nothing to proclaim him a Beggar Priest—though Evren guessed the cloth-wrapped bundle between his feet concealed a weapon. Why not just ride into Shalandra in the guise of a priest rather than a merchant or trader?

  “May the Beggar smile on you and guide you in your efforts,” Brother Mendicatus said as he hauled open the gate.

  “And you.” With a nod, Brother Modestus snapped the reins to set the horses in motion.

  Neither priest seemed interested in whether or not Evren invoked any blessings, so he didn’t bother. Instead, he sat back against the straight-backed wooden seat and prepared himself for a jolting, bumping ride.

  Traders’ wagons lacked the coiled spring suspension common among the fancier carriages of the nobility—Evren had seen many such vehicles rumbling through Vothmot, filled with treasure hunters seeking the Lost City of Enarium. As he’d feared, the steel-banded wooden wheels struck every single rut and cobblestone on the way out of Voramis. By the time they reached the Traders’ Gate, Evren’s teeth felt ready to fall out from clenching them so hard. He’d take a night in the freezing cold Vothmot rain any day over this.

  The company didn’t prove much better than the transportation. Brother Modestus had the loquacity, humor, and wit of a boulder, and the temperament to match. He met every one of Evren’s attempts to engage him in conversation with taciturn silence and that same suspicious gaze.

  Even when Evren tried to pry information on whatever the Four-Bladed Storm was, Modestus was sparing with his answers.

  “Big storm, kicks up every year,” he rumbled. “Winds sweep through the four mountain peaks and turn nasty.” That was it. No explanation on which mountain peaks he referred to or what its significance was.

  Evren finally gave up after a few futile minutes and sat back against the seat. His gaze swept across the grassy plains, curving wagon trails, and tall trees that bordered the southern road. As boring as he’d expected, made worse by the unending silence.

  It would take nine days to reach Shalandra. Nine days of sitting mute beside the stony Brother Modestus.

  Evren stifled an inward groan. This is going to be fun.

  The hours dragged on in mind-numbing silence broken only by the occasional hail of a passing wagon driver. The landscape was beautiful, but Evren could only see so much blue sky and green-and-brown forest before he grew bored. He’d spent his entire life living in large cities like Voramis and Vothmot, where danger could lurk around every corner. Here, instead of fighting for his life with a rival gang, he fought for his sanity in the endless expanse of nothingness.

  He nearly wept in relief when, an hour before nightfall, Brother Modestus broke his silence to grunt, “We camp here for the night.”

  The taciturn Cambionari pulled the wagon into a small copse of young trees a short distance from the road, and Evren leapt off the hard wooden seat before they’d come to a full stop. He didn’t care that his backside was numb and his entire body ached from the incessant jolting. All that mattered was that he could stretch his legs and move around.

  Maybe, if I’m lucky, we’ll be attacked by bandits or highwaymen. Anything to break the silence!

  Miracle of miracles, Brother Modestus spoke to him again. “Bed rolls are in the back. Get some sleep. We’re up before dawn.”

  With a nod, Ev
ren scrambled into the back of the cart and set about loosening the canvas covering the sacks of grain. To his surprise, when he stepped onto the canvas, his foot struck something too soft to be grain and too yielding to be wooden crates. That something gave a little yelp and squirmed out from beneath him.

  “Bloody hell!” Evren leapt backward off the cart, drawing a dagger before he landed. He crouched in a fighting stance, blade held at the ready, eyes fixed on the now-moving canvas. “Come out of there, hands where I can see them!”

  “It’s me.” The canvas muffled the words, but Evren thought he recognized them.

  Sure enough, when he threw aside the canvas, he found himself staring into a familiar face: full lips, cheeks that were just losing their childish fat, a rounded chin, upturned nose, and hair that had darkened to a deep chestnut brown in the last two years.

  “Hailen, what in the Keeper’s name are you doing here?” Evren asked.

  Guilt shone in Hailen’s strange violet eyes and he blushed. “I—”

  A furious rumble sounded behind Evren, and he whipped around in time to see Brother Modestus whip a sword from his cloth-bound bundle. The priest’s eyes were fixed on Hailen, but no sign of recognition shone within.

  Evren had an instant to act before Modestus laid into Hailen for being a stowaway, thief, or something worse. He leapt between the wagon and the big priest and threw up his hands.

  “He’s with me!” Even as he said it, he sized up the priest. Brother Modestus stood a hand’s breadth taller and wider in the shoulders, and Evren had no doubt the trader’s cloak hid a warrior’s build. But Evren wouldn’t back down from a fight even if he wasn’t certain he could win. He’d taken too many hard knocks to be cowed even by someone like the Cambionari.

  Brother Modestus narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, with you?” His sword remained unsheathed, though he made no threatening move toward Hailen. “Father Reverentus said nothing about two of you.”

  Evren thought quickly. A lie could backfire, but did he dare tell the truth?

  “I’m Hailen.” The words, spoken in Hailen’s bright, cheery voice, decided it for him.

  The Cambionari’s grizzled face froze. “The Melechha?”

  “Yes.” Evren nodded. “The one who’s been studying in the House of Need under Father Reverentus’ direct supervision.” He made that last bit up, but he could be fairly confident it was true. From what the Hunter had told him, few knew the full truth of Hailen’s heritage. Evidently, Brother Modestus of the Cambionari numbered among those few.

  Brother Modestus stared at Hailen for a long moment, then finally grunted and sheathed his sword. “The eyes don’t lie.” He folded his big arms across his chest and fixed Hailen with an angry glare. “I take it the Father doesn’t know you’re here.”

  Once again, Hailen blushed. “Not…really,” he admitted. His gaze turned to Evren and his voice turned plaintive. “I heard Father Reverentus talking about sending you away and I had to come!”

  Evren groaned inwardly. At eleven, Hailen was more child than Evren had been at the same age. The Hunter had had his hands full safeguarding Hailen during their journeys to Enarium, and he’d let the Beggar Priests take the boy largely out of a desire to keep him out of harm’s way. Yet here, in the middle of nowhere, a day’s travel from Voramis, he had no one but Evren to protect him.

  “Damn,” growled Brother Modestus. “That’s two days wasted.”

  “What?” Evren narrowed his eyes. “You’re thinking of taking him back?”

  “Take me back?” Hailen shook his head. “No, no, no. I hate the temple, and the lessons are soooo boring!”

  “Bored’s better than dead,” Brother Modestus grunted. “Father Reverentus would never let us hear the end of it if the Melechha got hurt. Not too many of his kind left.”

  Evren glanced at Hailen, saw the pleading in the boy’s violet eyes. “We don’t have time to go back.” The words poured from his mouth before he realized it. “Two days’ delay could turn any chance of success into guaranteed failure.”

  Brother Modestus’ face drew into a dark frown. “We’ve got to take the boy—”

  “We can’t.” Evren’s instinctive dislike of priests surged to the fore; he argued against Brother Modestus out of force of habit. Yet he poured as much authority as he could manage into his voice. “We’ve only got a few weeks before the Blade of Hallar is brought out for the Anointing of the Blades, and that’s already too little time to plan the job properly. If I want to have any chance of getting my hands on that blade, I’ll need all the time I can get. Two days might cost us that chance.”

  Brother Modestus scowled, but Evren saw the flicker of hesitation in his eyes. He pressed on, driving the point home.

  “Hailen is studying under the Cambionari in the House of Need, right?” He took Modestus’ momentary hesitation as agreement. “You’re Cambionari, too, so you can teach him what he needs to know. And there have to be Beggar Priests in Shalandra you can turn him over to when we arrive.” Hailen protested behind him, but Evren overrode the complaints. “The best thing to do is to stick with the plan. I’ll keep an eye on Hailen, keep him out of your way. You have my word that he won’t slow down our mission.”

  He didn’t care if the priest thought his word was worth anything, but people had a tendency to take such solemn oaths more seriously. Easier to convince them to do what he wanted. The only promise that mattered to him right now was the one he’d made to the Hunter.

  Brother Modestus finally grunted, and Evren knew he’d won.

  “The moment we arrive in Shalandra,” the priest rumbled, “we get him to the House of Need.”

  Evren nodded. “That’s the best place for him.” Another lie, but one he could sell convincingly. “I just want him safe.”

  This last statement was the full truth. He had no desire to bring Hailen to an unfamiliar city filled with danger, but right now, he had no other choice. He already faced a near-impossible task of stealing the Blade of Hallar, and every hour would count. The delay incurred by returning Hailen to Voramis could spell the difference in their attempt.

  And, with Hailen by his side, he could keep an eye on the boy, maybe even learn some of the things the Cambionari were teaching him.

  Evren spared a moment of pity for the Beggar Priests in Voramis once Kiara found out Hailen wasn’t there. He’d heard a few stories of her days as Celicia, Fourth of the Bloody Hand, and her ferocity, ruthlessness, and tenacity rivaled the Hunter’s.

  Yes, out here, far away from that wrath, would likely be the safest place for him right now.

  Brother Modestus grunted and returned to caring for the horses. Hailen leapt down from the cart and threw his arms around Evren’s waist. “Thank you!” Relief flooded his voice. “I couldn’t take another day of those lessons.”

  “What kind of lessons?” Evren asked. “What were they teaching you?”

  Hailen shook his head. “Father Reverentus said I’m not to tell anyone.”

  Evren raised an eyebrow. “I can always convince Brother Modestus to take you back to Voramis, you know.”

  “No, don’t do that!” Hailen begged. “I’ll tell you. But you have to promise not to tell anyone else!”

  “I promise.” Evren smiled at the sight of Hailen’s solemn expression.

  Hailen leaned forward, a secretive smile on his face. “They’re trying to teach me Serenii magic!”

  Chapter Seven

  For the fifth time since they rode out of Rosecliff that morning, Kodyn cast a worried glance at Aisha. The Ghandian girl looked tired, likely from lack of sleep. He’d tried to wait up until she returned from wherever she’d ridden off to, but he’d nodded off a few hours after midnight. He’d found her saddling the horses outside the inn at dawn but she hadn’t spoken more than a few words to him—never explaining where she’d gone. A shadow still hovered on her face, but something almost triumphant had shone in her eyes every time she glanced at the graveyard.

  He wanted to
ask her what was going on, but being around her made him feel tongue-tied, awkward.

  Instead, he focused his attention on Briana.

  “This may sound like a silly question,” he said, hesitant, “but if your father is a Secret Keeper, how does he, you know, talk to you?”

  Briana chuckled. “Without a tongue, you mean?”

  Kodyn nodded. “Yeah.”

  Briana wiggled her fingers in a series of strange gestures, a broad grin on her face.

  “What was that?” Kodyn asked.

  “It’s called hand signing,” Briana explained. “You can use your fingers to spell letters and form words. Sometimes, a single gesture can be a whole word. Like this.” She placed her thumb on her right temple, two forefingers extended, then bent them once.

  “What does that mean?”

  Briana gestured to her mount. “It’s the sign for horse.”

  “Let me try.” Kodyn repeated the gesture, which earned him a grin and nod from Briana.

  “Very good!” She clapped her hands. “Try this one.”

  She showed him another gesture: all four fingers held together and extended, with a movement of her arm that almost looked like someone painting a rainbow on a canvas. “This means sky.”

  Kodyn copied the gesture, earning a smile. To his relief, the strange hand signing seemed to arrest Aisha’s attention and pull her out of whatever gloom she’d been in for the last few hours. When Briana caught her mimicking the movements, she turned in her saddle to correct Aisha’s form.

  Over the following couple of hours of riding, Briana taught them nearly fifty different gestures—for words ranging from “sword” to “friend” to “man and woman” to “talk” to “happy”—and the individual signs for the letters of the Einari alphabet. When Kodyn forgot the gestures, Briana corrected his clumsy finger movements with a patient smile.