by Heath Pfaff
My heart started beating fast in my chest at this bit of information, as I began to consider the possibility that Malice might have been that other agent. She had been with Knights of Ethan for a long time, and had as good of a reason to hate them as Weaver and I did. She too had loved her Bound One. "Who was the other spy?" I asked, almost afraid of the answer. Would it turn out that Malice, too, had been lying to me?
Weaver raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe you knew her, but if you must know, she is generally called Flawless, named for her defensive style, which is said to be perfect. She has been with the Knights of Ethan for 300 years and still serves with them, as a spy for me."
To my surprise, I felt only relief at the unfamiliar name. Malice may have died at the battle of Fell Rock, but that was uncertain. What was certain, however, was that she was still the woman I remembered her to be, and not some shadowy illusion of a person I'd thought she was. For me, at that moment, amidst all the revelations coming to light, that was vitally important. Until one has experienced a sudden and terrible upheaval of their entire life, it is impossible to understand just how important a single, unchanging point of solidity can be. For all that everything else was chaos, at least one person I knew was still who I thought they were. Silent, as it turned out, had always been a spy for Lucidil. That meant he had most likely always been assigned to keep an eye out for me. Any friendship we might have had, had been an illusion.
There was one more question I had left to ask. "You wish for me to join forces with you, that, I understand, but what exactly do you want from me, Lucidil? What is it that you have in mind for me that is so vital that only I can do it? I do not believe that you merely want me as a high ranking officer with my lack of tactile experience." I thought I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from Weaver.
The red-eyed monster smiled for the first time since he'd told his sad story. "What do you think I want from you, Lowin? I know you well enough to understand that you believe you've guessed my purpose. So, what do you think I want from you?"
"You want me to kill the king for you." I said, confident that I had guessed his intent, but I was wrong.
The fallen Knight burst into raucous laughter. "Now why would I want you to do that? The king is just a human man. Anyone among the trained warriors here could put a knife in his chest if we could get close enough. No, it is not the king that I want you to kill, my boy. I want you to kill Ethaniel."
I stood up so fast I knocked my chair over. "What? You want me to kill the head of the Knights of Ethan? I don't have half the skills necessary to..."
Weaver's voice cut in over the top of mine. "...but you will learn them. You are destined to be stronger than he is, and so it must be you who kills him."
"Why can't you do this?" I demanded of him, confused at the turn of events and disturbed by just how wrong I had been in my guess at Weaver's intentions.
Lucidil cast his eyes down. "It is true that I might be strong enough, though it would be a close fight between us. Ethaniel is still the same man he has always been, however, and I cannot look upon him without seeing the friend that he used to be." The red-eyed warrior raised his head, and his eyes were glassy, "You are the first, besides myself, strong enough to beat him, and I would have you take that burden from me. I know that I ask a lot of you, but I have no one else to turn to in this matter. Ethaniel maintains all of the security for the king, and has for hundreds of years. Without him it will all fall apart. I need him dead, and no assassin will be able to do it. I could lose most of my army trying to lay siege to his keep, and still possibly fail in eliminating that man simply because I do not have the heart to do it. He is as a brother to me. You, though, could do what I cannot. With a small group you could reach him, fight him, and kill him. It would take weeks, or longer, for the king to repair the disorder that would arise, and that is longer than we need to finish this war."
"I will not do it, Weaver," I said firmly, remembering only too well the easy laugh, and easy smile of the Knight, Ethaniel, as I'd seen him in his office that day, early in my training at Fell Rock. Killing him, I thought, would be somehow worse than killing the king, and to be entirely honest with myself, I wasn't sure I could do either of those things.
Weaver nodded, and a faint smile came to his lips, though his eyes hardened. "I thought you might say that, noble hearted Lowin, but I am going to call in that favor that you owe me, now. Do you remember when I had the slave girl freed at Renwalk?"
My face blanched and I nodded. I remembered Lace quite well, and I also remembered the promise I'd made.
"Well, I am demanding my payment now. We will help you become good enough to kill Ethaniel, and in return I will not send out my Shao Geok assassins to devour your little slave girl." Weaver's tone left no room for negotiation.
I nodded, a great numbness in my chest and the pit of my stomach. I could not revoke my word even if I wanted to. I would trade Ethaniel's life for that of Lace, a girl I barely knew, not because it was the right thing to do but because I was bound by my word, and because I felt she had as much right, if not more, than Ethaniel to live. She was no hero of war, but neither had she ever taken a life. "So be it," I said, the words feeling heavy in my mouth.
Weaver's eyes softened and a look almost like sadness touched his expression. "Then it is done. So it must be, but let me not be ungrateful. I have one last secret, Lowin, and though you forced me to call in a favor to get what I needed, I shall still show you favor and give you a piece of information that I only recently received myself." He made a summoning gesture with one hand, and I approached him cautiously, my heart a ball of torment over what I had just agreed to do. "Come nearer. Let it be, from this day on, that we call you Lowin no more. You will be Noble, a fool with a heart too big for his chest, but one perhaps we all should envy. Come closer, Noble."
I stepped yet nearer, taking my new name numbly, and moving until I was so close to the red-eyed warrior that I could feel his breath upon my face. I did not feel so noble, then. I felt like an assassin tasked to kill a member of his own family. In a moment, though, that mattered not at all to me. Weaver leaned over so that his mouth was at my ear, and whispered three profound words.
"Kyeia is alive."
"That can't be possible." I said, a mix of shock and anger coursing through my body as I pushed Lucidil away from me. That he would lie about such a matter was beyond reasoning, an unforgivable act. "I can't believe that you, of all people, would say such a thing." The restraint it took to keep myself from leaping at him and tearing him apart was phenomenal.
His face remained calm. "I'm not lying, Noble. Kyeia is alive, and she has been moved to a private villa in the Uliona province of Iol, where she is being studied to determine why she has survived the process that has killed every other of her kind. I do not yet have a contact within the place, since I only today received this news, so I know only what my spy at Fell Rock was able to tell me; that Kyeia was taken away just hours after the transplanting of her eyes, still alive but unconscious, and has been kept under heavy guard since."
I staggered back to my chair and sat down heavily, all the strength fleeing from my legs. Everything in my life had suddenly changed, and I was at a loss for what to make of it. I knew only one thing for certain, and that was that I had no intention of staying with Weaver if Kye was alive elsewhere. I would not break my promise to the red-eyed warrior, but neither could I allow Kye to be held as a prisoner to be studied. I would be unable to do anything else until I knew that she was safe.
"I'm going to get her." I said aloud, expecting some form of protest from Weaver, but the red eye warrior merely nodded.
"I would do the same thing in your shoes, my friend. I will not forbid you this because I do not believe you would be any good to me if I did so, and I ... I can only say that I wish I'd had the same chance myself. You may go, but I want you to take Silent and Brutal with you. Brutal can educate you on your new abilities, and train you in swordsmanship. Silent is a good compan
ion as well, and I feel you already have some companionship with him. He can get places others cannot, and can gather information in places others would stand no chance," Weaver said, defying my expectations.
I frowned, "I'll take Silent, but I don't want to travel with Brutal."
"Brutal is my strongest warrior. He is the best one to teach you the skills you will need when you face Ethaniel, and there are few better warriors to stand at your side in a fight." His tone was taking on an air of command, but I did not intend to back down on this point.
"He will cause nothing but trouble for us. He is too hostile," I replied, taking a stand against the will of the commander who would oppose the king.
"You don't even know him, Noble. Brutal is intelligent and skilled. He will be an asset to you, and he is going with you. There will be no more debate on this subject. He is going, and that is my final word." A hint of "the voice" crept into his tones, and though it held no effect on me, I could sense how unmoving Weaver was going to be on this issue. I would have to cede the point, or risk Weaver revoking his permission entirely. If I lost his good graces, I would have to escape the island on my own and strike out for a location that I knew nothing about. I wasn't happy to have the fierce and mean-spirited Brutal along for the trip, but I would have to learn to tolerate him. If nothing else, I would have opportunity to strengthen my patience.
I nodded. "If you believe he will be of value to our party, than I shall accept your decision." That resolution reached, I was eager to be back on the road again. I realized that I had no idea how to reach the lands of the Uliona, let alone a single province within them. As weary as I was of travel, the knowledge that Kye was out there was all I needed to urge me onward. I felt suddenly alive again with purpose, full with energy as I had not been since discovering that Kye was to die on my behalf.
Lucidil's voice broke my train of thought, "I will arrange transport for you in the morning. You can leave with the dawn tide off the east side of the island. We have supply ships that come in on a daily basis, and one of them should be able to take you as far as the Uliona port city of Werin. It will be a two or three day trip by sea, maybe longer with the winter winds being what they are, but it will be far quicker than traveling by foot. I'm afraid getting any further into the Uliona territory, however, will have to be done on the ground. Werin is the only Uliona city with open ports, and you would definitely be stopped for questioning at a closed port. If the king's men find Knights of Ethan aground without orders, it could raise suspicions and make your journey far more hazardous. Uliona is, after all, considered a territory of the human kingdom, and those who have attained the rank of Knight are either still in service to the king, or fallen Knights and enemies of the crown. There is no in between for us. From Werin it is a week's walk by foot to Iol province. From there I do not know how much further to the villa in which Kyeia is reported to be housed. I did not get precise details from my spy, but I shall have maps drawn up for you, detailing what we do know."
"Thank you, Weaver," I said, the sentiment at least mostly genuine. He could have made things much more difficult for me, or even outright refused to give me permission to go and get Kye. It wouldn't have made any difference to me if he had. In my mind there was only one thing I could do given the situation, and that was to find where the king's men were keeping Kye and rescue her. I thought that it was likely Lucidil knew that, and that was why he was allowing me to do what I would have done anyway.
The red-eyed warrior simply shrugged, and put his arm around Fero's shoulders. "Sometimes there are things that simply must be done before one can focus their mind on the greater picture. I sincerely hope that you find Kyeia, and that she is alright. I do not know what tests the king's men may perform on her in order to find out why she survived the removal of her eyes, but I do not envy her the tests she will likely undergo. I have worked with the king's researchers, and I know their ways. Steel your heart for the worst, Noble."
I nodded, "I have suffered losing her once. I would not like to do it again."
Weaver shook his head, a troubled look about his features, "I'm afraid that being dead is not the worst, my good hearted, noble friend. I hope for her sake that she has been either left in peace or killed, because the alternative is something that I would wish upon no one."
His words worried me, casting a shadow of doubt over the surge of hope I'd felt at finding out that Kyeia was still alive. I knew nothing of the king's research group or the lengths to which they would go in order to reach their ends, but Lucidil seemed to know, and it seemed to set ill with even his grim perspective on the world. It was perhaps how troubled he was, more than anything else, which sent a cold chill down my spine. The morning tide couldn't come fast enough.
"Silent, bring Brutal here. He is not yet aware that I am sending him with you into Uliona territory, and it will be easier if I explain it now." Lucidil's voice of command was always direct and clear, a surprising contrast to his regularly relaxed tone, and in response Silent immediately jumped up and dashed out the front flap of the tent.
Weaver's intense red eyes met my own again, "This will be no easy task, my friend. You will have to constantly remain alert, and do your best not to be seen. I'm going to issue all three of you regular cloaks, and I recommend you stow your shifting cloaks until you leave the city. As much as the near invisibility is an asset in battle, our cloaks are like a beacon to all who know of us, and that makes our kind easy to spot in a populated area. In a normal cloak, with your hood up, and arms covered, most people won't notice your peculiar traits - assuming you don't give them time to do so."
"Will there be other Knights of Ethan between us and our goal?" I used the word "other" without pausing, the word simply falling from my lips, and it was only after I'd used it that I realized, to my dismay, that I was no longer a Knight. Indeed, I had actually only been a Knight for a very short time. Since the fall of Fell Rock, when I was carried away by Weaver, I had become something else, not quite a Knight and not quite one of the fallen like Weaver and the other ex-Knights of Ethan he traveled with. Now though, having given my word to kill Ethaniel, I was indeed a fallen Knight, and not merely a lost soul.
"At the villa in Iol, yes, there will certainly be Knights there. Kyeia will be a top priority for the king and his men until they discover why she still lives. As for what lays between, that is harder to say. There are not so many Knights of Ethan that their forces can be everywhere, but there are enough that, should you raise a fuss, you may find yourself pursued by them. What's more, we do not know where the survivors from Fell Rock have been sent," Weaver explained. "There could be more of them in Uliona. Since the king does not know where my armies are, he would be smart to reinforce as many of his border posts as possible with the Knights from Fell Rock. He has to be quite worried now, having just had a fortress in the middle of his territory sacked in one night with no warning, and no sign of where the invading army fled to. It is difficult to say what his next strategy will be, and our spies at court have been giving us mixed messages. Until we figure out where the misinformation is coming from, our information is too risky to rely upon."
"Then the information that Kye is alive might be..." I began, but Weaver quickly interjected.
"No, that is from our other source at Fell Rock, and she has been nothing if not unerringly reliable. She reports only what she witnesses herself."
I nodded, relieved to hear that. For a moment I had feared I might run all the way across the countryside only be faced with the horrible reality that my journey had been for nothing. I did not know if my heart could take such a burden without shattering once and for all. My conversation with Weaver ended there as Silent returned to the tent, Brutal following behind him.
"What is it?" Brutal asked in a petulant tone as he made his entrance into the tent, crossing his massive arms before him. They were a deep black, streaked with gray, obviously from an older Fell Beast, though still powerful. I noticed as he spoke that his mouth was lined wit
h razor sharp teeth, but his tone did not have the hard, abrasive edge of those with "the voice."
"Brutal," Weaver started. "You are to accompany Silent and Noble..."
The large warrior spat on the ground. "I'm not interested."
Weaver stood up straight, his shoulders going back, and a dangerous boom entering his voice, "This is not a question of what you're interested in. You are going with Silent and Noble to the Iol territory within the Uliona lands, and you are going to instruct Noble on the proper use of his new abilities, and weapons. Do you understand?"
Brutal puffed up, flashing his razor teeth, "...and I say that I do not care to travel with the weakling child, and your sneaky little spy, Lucidil. Do you have a problem with that?"