He walked for a time until he reached a bend, then climbed up a slope to a small cave formed by an outcropping and several boulders toppled together. Judging by the smell and the old evergreens dragged over the deeper recesses, a bear had spent the winter here. Lorth crept in and settled himself on the ground near the opening, propped up his knees and drew his Raven’s cloak around him to ward off the chill.
He needed to think.
War, treason, assassins, even rogue magic were not necessarily cause for alarm to the Aenlisarfon. Keeping balance in the energy patterns of the world often included allowing such events to unfold, even to deteriorate to their darkest ends. Being a dealer of such ends historically, Lorth appreciated the Keepers’ stance; in his younger days, he had chafed enough under what involvement they had deigned to show; and during his mission to the Gray Isles he had rather depended on the Council’s cavalier attitudes towards intervention.
It had begun as a tiresome reconnaissance mission. However, it had swiftly drawn him into the affairs of immortals—a step that would certainly have been forbidden by the Council had they known about it. Ironically, his reluctance to abide the rules had been the means of his success, even landing him the Ninth Seat. He stood firmly, if not uneasily, on the fact that Ealiron himself had put him up for initiation to the Aenlisarfon because of his penchant for accomplishing things in revolutionary ways.
The hunter knew better than to take that for granted, however.
The Council approved of his having killed the thorn-clad assassin in Caerroth; indeed, they would have tossed him the mark like a piece of raw meat after discovering the nature of the man’s work. Given that, anything else Lorth suggested as a course of action should have been considered without much ado. But the rift of an immortal’s violation in Rhinne’s aura changed everything.
The Aenmos, in response to Eaglin’s discovery, had brought Rhinne to his own chambers high atop the citadel. Lorth hadn’t seen her since; nor had he any idea where she was, given the visible layout of the citadel. According to Eaglin, the god’s living space didn’t exist in this dimension.
Even if Lorth had been able to persuade the Council to sail to the Gray Isles to investigate, the appearance of Ealiron during their meeting ended all conversation. The Aenmos had materialized in the light of the Source wearing a granite-crag expression that put them all on their knees, his son included. Lorth’s surroundings faded as he recalled it.
“The imbalance in Tromb, while affecting the world in small ways, is still subtle,” the god said, his resonant voice drifting through the hall like a longing autumn breeze. “Until I discover the identity of this violation, we must remain silent and bide our time as wolves to the hunt.” His gray-green gaze brushed over Lorth like a frost. “Any action now could reveal our hand, to undesirable results.”
“What of the princess?” Gwion ventured. “Will this entity not know of our awareness through her?”
“I cannot see her, even in my own realm,” the god replied; “so neither can he. Something is cloaking her, and it is not an entity. The Web interrupted the assassin before he finished his spell. While it is my hope that the Old One had a hand in that, even I dare not make assumptions as to her intentions. You will disband until further notice.”
Lorth tilted his face skyward as he recalled the stares the Council had leveled on him as Ealiron said Web, the title he most often used to address Lorth. He hadn’t known that the thorn-clad hunter didn’t finish the spell. But Lorth didn’t hang around to field questions.
One did not disregard an order from a god; such a being wouldn’t make a rare and weighty request like that out of hand. But the god’s glance—a pointed acknowledgement of Lorth’s shady involvement in this affair—continued to work on the hunter’s nerves. That glance might have meant: Go ahead; or it might have meant: Don’t even think about it. No telling. But another development had complicated it further.
Osc ti’rt lif. Lorth had discovered the meaning of the words Rhinne spoke while in trance at the inn.
When orders came down from the Oculus to bring Rhinne above—a task left to Eaglin, as he alone knew the way—Lorth had sent the healers back to their beds and spoken privately to Heimnor, an aged scholar in ancient tongues. As Lorth recited the words, the old wizard had fallen silent, his attention focused inward to the vast, dusty libraries of time and history. And then he had grinned, nodded, and told Lorth what it meant.
The earth keeps secrets. Lorth had calmed his pounding heart with a series of questions; yes, an ancient dialect spoken in the Gray Isles; yes, that is what it meant, the wizened philologist assured him.
Rhinne had recited one of the Shades in the Hunter’s Rede, unwritten tenets assassins used in the practice of their art. The Rede was as close to Lorth’s heart as its own beat, a deep, instinctual knowing that shadowed his movements in the trade. No one but another assassin knew the Rede, let alone the specific wording of the Shade of Low.
The earth keeps secrets. The earth knew death and decay. The earth knew the spark of life in a perennial root longing for the sun. The earth knew its own. It gave form to the stars themselves. How or why would Rhinne know the Shade of Low and speak it in a moment of interdimensional perception?
An eerily private communication. A message. Based on this, Lorth seriously considered carrying through with his plan to project his apparition to the Raven of Wychmouth for a word. But defying both the Aenlisarfon and the Aenmos brought him too close to his own common sense.
He huddled in his cloak in the cave as the rain started again.
A raven called in the forest. After a moment, a flash of black swooped down and alit in the ferns near the cave entrance. As the bird folded its wings, Lorth caught sight of a white tail feather. “Nightshade,” he said, holding out his arm. “What is it this time, hmm?”
The bird hopped onto his arm with a kruk. Lorth hadn’t seen the raven in the same light since the creature shapeshifted into the apparition of a warrior—another thing he had neglected to mention to the Council. In this case, he had actually forgotten. Conveniently.
He untied the message from the creature’s leg. The harbormaster’s seal. A ship arrived from the Gray Isles. One of her crew, a warrior of high blood, asked after Rhinne. He is headed for Eyrie. Awaiting your orders. Ecthor.
Lorth closed his eyes and smiled. “The tide brings light,” he said, quoting the Shade of Moon. He pulled forth a blue woven ring that meant, Leave it to me, and slipped it onto Nightshade’s claw. “There now,” he said to the bird, stroking her gently. “Let’s hope you can remain a raven long enough to return this to Ecthor.”
The bird took to the damp air without a sound.
The Wizards’ Citadel
Evening touched the sky as Wulfgar of Tromb finally found himself standing before the gates of Eyeroth. The sun shone just above the mountains, casting golden rays beneath a line of heavy clouds. The air smelled of rain. Two mighty oaks framed the great stone arch covered in silvery moss and carvings of birds. A stone eye enclosed by an interlocking pentacle gazed from the apex.
Wulfgar took a deep breath and stepped beneath the gate leading a chestnut gelding. The wind came up in a swell, chilling him. A fortnight on the Eastfetch grieving for the dead had left him dirty, hungry and sore in heart and limb. They had brought Queen Lorelei’s body aboard and, in sight of the isle, buried her at sea according to an ancient custom involving votaries of the Circle. After that, Wulfgar had spent most of the journey with Torlach. He missed the hound now. But the trouble surrounding his mission didn’t bear companionship.
Beneath the shadow of their mother’s death, Bjorn had swiftly cobbled together a crew, placed Pike in command, and remained on Tromb to lie low as a bear through a long winter. Not one to abide hearsay, the level-headed prince intended to smuggle their folk off the isle to safer places. Wulfgar prayed to the fickle sea for their safekeeping until he returned from Sourcesee bearing vengeance.
His horse plodded along beside him, h
ead bowed. He had ridden the beast from Caerroth at a cruel pace, with little rest. He reached a square where the paths merged. The streets were clean, the dwellings in good repair, and people moved about with their evening tasks. Wulfgar led his horse to a dark pool surrounded by bright red flowers and let it drink.
As he stood there, he reached into his hidden breast pocket where he kept his mother’s amulet and drew forth a scrap of fine linen that Gareth had given him at the queen’s request. The message contained neat writing, bore a Keepers’ seal of the Order of Albatross, and was addressed to the Sentinel of the South. Wulfgar unfolded it and read the words as he had every day of his journey here: Your sister prevailed in the storm. She is well and in our keeping. Sirion, Captain of the Eostar.
Wulfgar had gone directly to the harbormaster in Caerroth to inquire after Sirion and his passenger. The harbormaster’s dark, closed expression still haunted him. Woman’s gone to the wizards’ citadel. I know no more. Wulfgar had left Pike with orders to look after Torlach and the Eastfetch. Then he got directions to Eyrie.
The prince put the message back into his pocket. The comfort it had given him fell short of reality. Rhinne may have escaped Tromb and survived Endwinter, but oborom assassins wouldn’t be daunted by that. They would follow her here. For all Wulfgar knew, they had found and killed her already.
Wulfgar took the gelding’s reins and pulled the horse gently away from the flowers, which it had begun to eat. The smell of wood smoke hung in the air along with shouts and laughter, the beating of a drum, and merry music from a flute. He headed that way, noticing a woman in a mouse brown cloak, walking ahead. He quickened his pace to catch up with her.
“I say, lass,” he said as he reached her side.
She stopped and turned to him. She was pretty, wore a purple scarf, and carried a basket over her arm. She looked him up and down. “Aye?” she said with a tomboyish lift in her voice.
Wulfgar smiled under her fearless gaze. “I wanted to inquire, where might I find a tavern?”
She looked up the street. “Up yonder,” she said, waving her hand. “To the end, there, and to the right, across from the market. ’Tis called the Raven’s Nest.”
“Thank you.” He bowed his head and continued into the street. About half way to the end, he turned around. The woman stood where he had left her, watching him. Fair as she was, Wulfgar studied only the corners and oblique features of the street for the one who had trailed him from Caerroth.
The assassin never showed himself, never slipped up, and only the late queen’s magic revealed his proximity. To avoid being knifed in the night, Wulfgar had taken up with a trader’s caravan carrying wine, peat and furs, thinking he would either lead the black-cloaked fiend across the path of a wizard, or get a well-rested chance to send him to a grave himself.
Wulfgar followed the woman’s directions past a colorful market coming alive with the setting sun. He passed two taverns, causing him to wonder what had caused her to direct him to the one she had. He moved down a street until he reached a stone house marked by a sign in the shape of a nest with a raven perched in it. It creaked in the wind from a curved iron rod. The windows had murky colored panes. Geraniums, ivies and periwinkle grew in gardens along the foundation.
His senses alert, Wulfgar tethered his horse to a stone hitching post. He dug through his saddlebags and retrieved a potato and some carrots he had saved from his trip with the traders. He moved around and opened his hand to the horse’s velvety mouth. “Until I can get you some proper care,” the prince murmured as the beast crunched on a carrot. As he fed the horse, he let his gaze move around the street. People moved here and there, but none of them turned his amulet cold. When he had finished, he left his things on the horse as if unaware, except for one saddlebag, which he slung on his back.
Damned book, he thought. His mother, Harald, Aelfric—whom they had never found—and Rhinne—until he knew otherwise—all fallen for some god’s want of the thing. Had his mother’s last breath to Gareth not been a request that Wulfgar bring the book to these shores, he would have surrendered it to the sea with a prayer to the Mistress for the spirits of those he loved.
When Ragnvald discovered that the book his queen had seemingly defended with her life was a fake, he would either raze the isle or be destroyed by his secretive god, whichever came first. At the very least, he would send one of his infernal assassins to reclaim it. Wulfgar assumed he had done exactly that; though, aside from their fear of water, why the oborom hadn’t accosted the Eastfetch at sea remained a mystery. Even so, Wulfgar hadn’t slept well on his journey for fear of an attack.
Glancing once more at the glossy black raven in its nest, Wulfgar went inside, ducking his head to clear the doorframe. Heads turned as he entered. Some resumed their business after a moment; others did not. Wulfgar scratched at his face, wondering when he had last shaved it. No doubt his journey had left him looking rough.
Nodding to the barman without looking at him, Wulfgar strode across the room as if he belonged there and stepped into a hall at the rear. He passed by the rooms on either side until he reached a staircase at the end. He ascended two steps at a time. When he reached the landing, he pressed his back against a wall adjacent to a window. The edge of the ancient book, heavy enough on his mind, dug into his shoulder blade.
He scanned the street below. Steps went down beneath the building to the right of the window. He moved to a door and tried the handle, then cracked it open and peeked inside, relieved to find the room empty. Painted flowers covered the walls and the air smelled of roses. He entered, lowering the saddlebag from his shoulder. He knelt beside the bed, brushed aside the gray woolen cover and looked beneath. Wooden boxes filled the space. He shoved one aside and wedged the saddlebag behind it.
In the corner of the room stood a door which Wulfgar assumed led to the steps outside. A board was nailed over it in too many places. Gritting his teeth, Wulfgar kicked it in, causing the door to fly open with a splintering squeak. Half the board bounced off the first step and clattered to the ground below. With a grimace, he quickly balanced the door into a semblance of continuity and then moved down the steps and into the street.
As he approached the first alleyway that led back to the tavern entrance, his amulet grew cold. He stopped in the shadow of the inn and glanced around the corner. The passage was empty. He continued down the street to his first turn, circled around and headed into the market, melting into the sounds, colors and scents until he found a sheltered passage on the edge of the square. A rat scurried near his feet and vanished into a crack in the wall.
Wulfgar spotted his hunter almost immediately, pretending to look at wares on the carts. Fair skinned and tall, his features reflected the depth and crag of Tromb. By some acting skill or turn of magic, an air of belonging hovered around him like a pleasing scent. No vulgar cutthroat was this, who would take a life for a woman or a meal. This man was a seasoned professional. The thorns adorning one of his arms twined and prickled on Wulfgar’s spine with irritating poise.
The prince drew a deep breath and withdrew into the shadow of the alley. Damn it! A killer of this ilk would leave nothing to chance.
With icy resolve, Wulfgar slipped from his hiding place and sauntered into the crowd. Trusting in the safety of activity, he moved through the market looking for an opportunity, a weak place in the guard of events which he knew, with patience, always presented itself.
He followed his growling stomach to a less crowded area on the edge of the square. He stopped beside an old man sitting on a bench frying some kind of meat. It smelled good. The vendor looked up from beneath a wide-brimmed hat. “Help ye, laddie?”
Beneath the canopy of an empty cart situated against a stone building, a man in a black cloak with red trim watched from the shadow of his hood with an unwavering animal gaze that stiffened the hairs on Wulfgar’s neck. Time slowed likes water in an algae-choked pond, scattering his faculties and drawing him into liquid distraction. The serpent amulet st
irred, freezing his heart with grief.
Flaring his nostrils like an animal catching a scent, the wolf-eyed stranger turned his head.
“Laddie?” repeated the meat vendor.
In a rip of blood and thorns, something slipped at a swift angle on the other side of the path. Wulfgar tore himself from the spell and jumped into the gutter by the wall just as a spidery hand crept from the edge of an alcove tucked into the shadows of a garden. Wulfgar drew his knife and sword and crept along, plants crunching beneath his boots. When he neared the gap in the wall, the serpent on his breast recoiled with a hiss.
The assassin stepped from the opening with the grace of a specter, his sword aloft. “You will tell me where it is,” he said quietly.
Wulfgar smiled. “I gave it to the Keepers of the Eye.”
The assassin moved his blade with brilliant stealth. Wulfgar parried it high and then low, but he knew the move only meant to assess the quality of his guard. The frost on his breast spread into his shoulders and down to his blades, hovering just above the grips. His knife shivered and flew from his hand, spiraling into the trunk of a blackthorn tree. Wulfgar moved his sword to the other hand.
“By the Mistress,” he said, invoking a power his mother had pressed upon him not long before her death. The sword shivered in his grip like a spooked animal, but didn’t fly. He stepped forward with a thrust into the warlock’s guard and was easily blocked; he would find no opportunities there. The two men trampled the garden as they exchanged blows.
“Oi!” a woman shrieked from a balcony just above them. “Idgits! Get”—a large object flew down and exploded on the ground next to the warlock’s feet—“out!”
Leave it to a woman, Wulfgar thought. He moved in to kick the assassin’s feet out from under him. The man deftly jumped aside, then turned an ankle on the rounded edge of a broken urn. Wulfgar struck at him in quick succession, found an opening and put a fist into his gut. The warlock recovered and whirled away towards the alcove.
The Riven God Page 15