“To some, no. The Shield, for example, intends to use the Sovereign Stone to buy power. But to the Lady Valura”—Silwyth’s voice softened—“she uses it to buy back something that was lost to her long ago. To her, its value is inestimable.”
He gave a bobbing bow and stepped out of the candle light, heading for the door at his deliberate, slow-moving pace. “I will be close, should you have need of me.”
You never followed anyone moving like a snail, Silwyth of House Kinnoth, Damra thought. That bent back of yours, those stooped shoulders are a lie. Everything about you is a lie. Yet I do not dare to eat the soup.
She did not hear the door open or feel the night air upon her face, yet when she called out, Silwyth made no answer. Was he gone or hiding again? Snatching up the candle, she searched the room, looked behind the screen, found no trace of him.
“What am I trying to prove?” she demanded of herself. “As he said, proof of his veracity will either walk through the door or it won’t. If it does, I must be ready. If it doesn’t, I will look an utter fool, but then, I should be used to that.”
Should she blow out the candle? No. If she died while eating supper, the candle would still be burning. She knew of foxglove only that elven healers gave it in small doses to those who suffered from heart complaints. Large doses of it could prove fatal, yet she didn’t know how it would act. Some poisons worked swiftly. She did not think that foxglove would act that fast. She hoped not, at any rate, for she did not fancy the thought of lying sprawled across the table, her face in her soup bowl.
“Who knows how many hours I’ll have to wait. I should be comfortable at least. On first feeling ill, what do I do? Lie down. I would have lain down and died in bed.”
As Damra tried to arrange herself to look like a corpse, the silly aspect to this situation took hold of her and she started to giggle. Appalled, realizing she was giving way to nervous tension, she forced herself to calm down. She focused her thoughts on random things, one thought led to another.
Feigning death. Elven assassins know how to feign death, how to slow the breathing, slow the heartbeat, cause the blood to run sluggishly so that even the body’s temperature dropped. No warrior would ever practice such dishonorable ways, but assassins had no honor and thus did not have to concern themselves. Damra wondered, suddenly, if Silwyth was trained as an elven assassin. That would explain much about him.
Much, but not all.
He was of noble blood and it was highly unusual for nobles to travel the dark and dismal road of the assassin. Unusual but not unknown, particularly for those elves whose Houses were impoverished or Accursed, for there are few honorable ways to make a living. Still, most elven nobles would choose to die honorably of starvation before they turned hired killer. The pain in his voice, the shadow in his eyes had been the pain and the shadow of regret, a luxury no cold-blooded hired killer can afford.
What was most convincing to her was the fact that Silwyth spoke knowingly of the Vrykyl. Few elves are even aware that the Vrykyl exist. The Wyred know, as they know all things pertaining to magic, but they keep their knowledge secret, for knowledge is power.
Damra knew about the Vrykyl, as did all Dominion Lords, for the Vrykyl are their dark opposites, tied to them in some mysterious way through the Sovereign Stone. Always curious, Damra had wanted to know more about the Vrykyl than she could find out through the Council of Dominion Lords. Her curiosity had sparked Griffith to make the Vrykyl an area of specialization, had led them both to meet and befriend the Whoreson Knight, Gustav, whose life had been dedicated to the study of the Sovereign Stone and all things pertaining to it. Through him, she had come into contact with Arim, who acted as a go-between for Damra and Lord Gustav, a Vinnengaelean and, as such, an enemy.
Gustav, slain by a Vrykyl, knew the Vrykyl were on the trail of the Sovereign Stone. Dying, he sent the Stone to her, knowing that she was the only member of the Council of Dominion Lords who would fully understand the danger. Silwyth of House Kinnoth would also know about the Vrykyl. If he was what he claimed to be, he had been present during their unhallowed creation. He came to her, as Gustav had come to her.
The circle expands outward, touches the boundaries, and starts to flow back in…
Damra woke with a start, cursing herself for her lack of discipline. She lay frozen, for she thought she had heard a sound. Concentrating on listening, she heard the sound again, this time unmistakable—a hand slowly and stealthily sliding open the door.
The dead usually die with their eyes open, but Damra did not trust herself. She shut hers to a slit, so that she could see through her dark lashes. A woman entered her chamber, silk robes rustling—the beautiful Lady Godelieve. Damra was amazed. This beautiful, delicate woman a thing of evil? She would not have believed but for the evidence of her own senses. This woman was sneaking into the guest house at an hour of the night when decorum required that she should be in her own bed.
The lady moved into the light of the candle. Damra saw the expression on the beautiful face and she was no longer in doubt. Lady Godelieve gazed at Damra, gazed upon her victim and there was nothing in her expression. No sympathy, no pity. No hatred. Nothing. She cared not a whit for the life she had taken. Silwyth had been right. Lady Godelieve turned her attention from her victim to searching for the Sovereign Stone. Now her expression altered, changed to hope, anticipation. Damra held perfectly still, made her breathing as shallow as possible. Her heartbeat seemed unnaturally loud, she feared it must give her away. She felt herself in the presence of powerful Void magic and it was all she could do to hold still, to keep from calling upon the magical powers of her holy armor, to keep from reaching for her swords.
The lady’s search was thorough. She ravaged the shrine of the ancestor, overturned dishes, dumped out the water and peered inside the vase. She looked behind the screen. Damra wished her search ended, wished her gone. She could not endure the strain.
The Lady Godelieve stood irresolute, staring about her in a fury that Damra could feel.
“It is not here,” said the Vrykyl in bitter tones.
Damra risked opening her eyelids a slit. Peering out from beneath her lashes, she saw that the lady held in her hand a slender knife, the blood knife.
“I have searched everywhere, my lord. It is not here, I tell you. Would I be likely to miss it?” The Vrykyl paused a moment, listening to that other voice, then said, “I did not feel it when I entered. Yes, I am certain that I would sense it. I saw it, remember. I was in the presence of both your father and your brother, Helmos.” Another pause, then, “I do not care what Shakur says. He is a poltroon. What do you expect? I would feel it! I would!” Her voice quivered with passion, was low and desperate. “I would feel it as you would feel it, my lord.”
The Vrykyl grew calmer, listening to the voice, and when she spoke again the tone was cold. “Perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps the Dominion Lord did not take the Stone. If so, one of her confederates must still have it. I will acquire it in the morning. First the one,” she said, “then the other.”
She slid the knife back into the sash she wore around her robes. The Vrykyl cast Damra a final glance and this time the look was one of enmity, a look of vile loathing that transformed the beautiful face. For an instant, Damra caught a glimpse of the hideous visage of the Vrykyl, the gray and rotting flesh hanging to the skull, the eye sockets that held within them the darkness of the Void. And then the Vrykyl was gone, her departure causing the candle’s flame to waver and go out.
Damra drew a shuddering breath. She was soaked with chill sweat, her body trembled. A wave of nausea swept over her. She sat up dizzily, afraid she was going to be sick. Never in her life had she known fear like that, horrible, debilitating fear that left her weak and shaking.
“Make haste, Damra of Gwyenoc,” called the old man’s voice from the doorway. “Throw off your terror. We must follow her.”
Damra rose from her bed. Now that the Vrykyl was gone, her fear began to fade, replaced by a
deep resolve to slay the creature and rid the world of its evil. The magical armor of a Dominion Lord flowed over her skin, and its blessed power brought back to her the love and strength she had felt flow from the Father and Mother during the Transfiguration.
Leaving the guest house, Damra glanced about the grounds. The Shield’s palace stood shrouded in darkness, for although night’s tide had come to the full and was now starting to recede, dawn was not yet a glimmer in the eastern sky.
The world itself seemed to slumber, for the silence was profound, yet not all in the Shield’s household slept. Guards would be up and about, patrolling the grounds. Damra was known to be the Shield’s enemy. Should they find her creeping about at this hour of the night, they would think the worst.
“Silwyth,” Damra called softly to the darkness, for she could not make out where he had gone.
“I am here,” he said and indeed he was, so close that she might have seized hold of him.
“Where is she going? What is she after?”
“The Sovereign Stone,” Silwyth spoke the word with a hissing breath. “Not the stone bequeathed to you, Damra of Gwyenoc. Valura searched for that and failed to find it. She seeks now the stone bequeathed to the elves by King Tamaros, may the ancestors do him honor.”
“Our Sovereign Stone! She could not possibly steal it,” Damra protested, aghast. “The Stone is guarded day and night by soldiers loyal to the Shield and loyal to the Divine—”
“None of whom will prove much challenge for this Vrykyl,” said Silwyth grimly. “It is up to you to stop her.”
“The Sovereign Stone is kept secure in a hidden garden set in the very center of the Shield’s property. Armed guards stand at every bend and turning between here and there. If I must fight them all I’ve no doubt I could defeat them,” Damra added calmly, “but we are in for a very long night.
“As for my Raven’s magic,” she continued, forestalling what she presumed would be his next suggestion, since he knew so much about her, “my armor permits me to command the blessed air to lift me and carry me where I choose. Unfortunately, the Shield’s Wyred will have blanketed the grounds with spells to disrupt elemental magicks and while my magic is powerful it is not infallible. I could not want to risk failure when I am level with the treetops.”
“You are not infallible,” Silwyth agreed. “And that is why you feel the need to pray at the Shrine of the Father and the Mother this night, Damra of Gwyenoc.”
“Of course,” Damra said, chagrined. “How stupid of me not to think of that. Where will you be?” she asked somewhat suspiciously.
“Where I need to be,” he replied.
Bowing over his cane, he left her side, looked like an ancient, threelegged spider creeping into the darkness. Damra tried to keep him in sight, but the night absorbed him into itself.
She could not waste time wondering about Silwyth. Not any longer. He had spoken the truth thus far. She clasped a silver pendant she wore around her neck, a pendant that was in the form of a blazing sun held by two griffins, the symbol of the Dominion Lords. The magical armor she wore disappeared. Once more, she was clad in her tabard and flowing trousers. She would have to leave her battle sword behind, for one could not go into the shrine bearing weapons. However, she would be permitted to wear her ceremonial sword, for that is a symbol of honor, one granted to her by the ancestors, and thus could be worn into the sacred precincts.
The night air was mild. An owl called. Another, at a distance, answered. Damra walked swiftly from the area of the guest houses to the first of many gates she would need to pass in order to reach the Shrine of the Father and Mother. By elven law, no one could stop her.
The history of the elven portion of the Sovereign Stone is a bloody one; a sorrowful fact that the late King Tamaros never knew. The good man went to his death believing that the Sovereign Stone would bring the peoples of Loerem together in peace. If the gods are merciful, they still keep the truth from him.
When King Tamaros received the Sovereign Stone and announced that he would give each of its four sections into the hands of each of the four races, the Divine, the father of the current Divine, assumed that the Stone would come to him, as spiritual leader of the Tromek nation. He sent his representative, Lord Mabreton the Elder, to accept the Stone in the name of the Divine. The Shield of the Divine had other ideas. He recognized the extraordinary power the Stone would confer upon the one who possessed it.
With the aid of a minor elven lord, Silwyth, who was ostensibly Prince Dagnarus’s chamberlain but was, in reality, a spy planted in the human court, the Shield caused Lord Mabreton to be secretly murdered. The Shield accepted the Sovereign Stone from the unwitting King Tamaros and refused all demands by the Divine to send it to him.
The Shield built a special garden to house the Stone, protected by cunning and powerful magical traps. The Stone did not reside there long, however. When Prince Dagnarus was transformed into the Lord of the Void, he declared war upon Vinnengael, upon his brother, King Helmos. The other races had agreed when they accepted the Sovereign Stone that if one race faced a threat, the other three portions of the Stone would come together in order to preserve peace. Helmos sent messengers asking each of the races to return their portions of the Stone. One by one, the others refused.
Fearful that the elven portion of the Stone might be in danger, the Shield brought it into his own dwelling place. The Shield was secretly allied with Prince Dagnarus. Elven troops fought with Dagnarus and more stood on the border, ready to move in when Dagnarus was victorious, prepared to take over land that had been promised to them in return for their aid.
Many elves died in the destruction of Vinnengael. The Shield was called upon to answer for their lives before the Divine. Still the Shield might have managed to save himself, but that Silwyth came forward and revealed the Shield’s crimes, starting with the murder of Lord Mabreton the Elder. The Shield saw himself surrounded by his foes. He requested death at the hands of the Divine, who gave that pleasure into the hands of Lord Mabreton the Younger. House Kinnoth was ruined from that day forward.
As to what happened to Silwyth, none ever knew. By bringing down the Shield, he encompassed his own destruction, for not even the Divine had the power to pardon him. Lord Mabreton the Younger spared no expense to find him, for it was Silwyth who had slain his brother and Silwyth who had helped Dagnarus seduce the Lady Valura, wife of Lord Mabreton. Lord Mabreton offered a reward that was equivalent to a king’s ransom for Silwyth’s head and many assassins tried their luck, but none ever found him. Now, after two hundred years, most assumed him to be dead, for how could a man survive that long with so many enemies and so few friends? Damra wondered that herself.
With the fall of the Shield’s House, the Sovereign Stone was removed by the Divine to the Shrine of the Father and Mother in the Tromek capital city of Glymrae. Garwina of House Wyval, a lifelong friend of Cedar, was proclaimed Shield of the Divine. To honor his new status, the Divine presented Garwina with a royal palace in Glymrae. This magnificent palace encompassed the grounds on which stood the Shrine of the Father and Mother and the new garden that housed the sacred Sovereign Stone.
The Stone was guarded by soldiers loyal to both the Shield and the Divine. Even when relations between the Divine and his former friend began to sour, the Divine never feared the Sovereign Stone might be in danger. A man of honor and integrity, the Divine would not be able to conceive it possible that the mind of any man would be so corrupt as to consider stealing the sacred object for his own gain.
Damra could not conceive it. If Silwyth was right and the Shield was conspiring with the Vrykyl to steal the Stone for himself, the Shield was stealing not from the Divine, but the elven nation. The Shield had accepted the Stone to hold in trust for the elven people. He bound himself with sacred oaths. If he broke those oaths, the Father and Mother would turn their faces from him. His own ancestors would renounce him. Such a crime would be more heinous than those committed by House Kinnoth. Garwina and h
is House would be ruined, disgraced, with perhaps no chance for reparation. Houses had been stricken from the rolls, but never had a House been dissolved, disbanded so that it ceased to exist. His might well be the first.
Much as Damra disliked the Shield and his politics, she could not wish such a terrible fate on him, for he would not be the only one to suffer. He would doom many thousands of innocents, those elves who looked to his House for protection. If he fell, he would take them down with him.
Damra came to the first of the many guardhouses that lay between her and the Shrine of the Ancestors. The guards were alert and wide awake. They halted her, regarded her with cool and wary looks. She told them she felt the need to pray this night. They passed her on, as they were bound to do. Glancing back unobtrusively as she continued on her way, she saw one of them depart, running toward the main house. He would report her movements to his superior. Would the superior report to someone higher up? How rapidly would the news eventually reach the Shield?
Damra quickened her steps. She followed the same routine at every guard post along the way. The grounds of the palace of the Shield were extensive, covering an area of perhaps twenty miles or more in diameter. Walkways and paths wound through the gardens from the palace to the Shrine.
The night was clear, lit by a silver moon and radiant stars. Damra had no difficulty finding her way. She walked alone. No one else was abroad this night. Spies might be lurking about, however, and so she dared not run, for that would look suspicious. She walked as rapidly as she could, slowing her pace to a pensive walk as she approached the guards. Impelled by a sense of urgency that increased the nearer she drew to the reliquary, Damra was forced to exert all her control to keep from snapping at the guards or, worse, to dash past them with unseemly haste.
She passed the last checkpoint with an overwhelming sense of relief. Topping a rise, she saw the Shrine of the Father and Mother below her. Elves believe that they are the children of the gods, most specifically, the Father and Mother, who watch over the family of the gods and the family of the dead, the elven ancestors. The elves feel close to their ancestors and thus take all manner of problems and complaints to them. Elves view the Father and Mother with reverence and awe. They seek their counsel only under dire circumstances.
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