Avenger botm-3

by Richard Baker

  “Aye, I understand you,” she answered.

  Edelmark looked to the soldiers behind her. “Show her out.” He picked up his helm from the table and left; the clerk followed after him, gathering his parchment. The soldiers behind Mirya came forward and helped her to her feet-somewhat less roughly this time-and quickly ushered her out of the council dungeons. Before she knew it, she was standing on the front steps of the Council Hall, still dressed in her nightclothes, blinking at the sunlight. The guards returned inside without a word, leaving her there.

  “Now what was that all about?” she muttered aloud. If Marstel’s men suspected her enough to bring her in, they certainly had reason enough to jail her or hang her. But perhaps Edelmark’s suspicions were as thinly founded as he claimed, and he didn’t want to risk making a martyr of her for the rest of the loyalists to rally around. She shivered in the cold air, drew her robe around her, and hurried toward Erstenwold’s. The first thing she meant to do was to get properly dressed; fortunately she had several changes of clothes at the store and wouldn’t have to walk all the way back home in her stocking feet.

  When she reached the store, she found that her clerks had opened without her, but it was a quiet day and nothing had needed her immediate attention. She stayed only long enough to send word to the Therndons that she needed a woodworker to have a look at her door, and then made her way back home.

  As she’d thought, the front door was well and truly ruined; the harmach’s men had simply stood it up in the doorway, but it was no longer attached. She sighed and worked her way inside, pausing to take in the damage to her cottage. As she’d expected, it had been searched violently and thoroughly. Many of her best plates were broken on the kitchen floor, the cupboards were bare, the sheets and blankets were dumped on the floor … “What a mess,” she muttered. If she weren’t so angry about the senselessness of it, she would’ve thrown herself down in one of the chairs and cried.

  She looked around, trying to determine the best place to start, but an envelope on top of her mantle caught her eye. Frowning, she went and took it down. It was addressed simply “Mirya” in a graceful, feminine hand. Somehow she doubted that the soldiers would have bothered to leave her a letter; they’d delivered their message by ransacking the house. Curious, she broke the plain wax seal and drew out a short note:

  Dearest Mirya,

  It is imperative that we speak at once.

  — S.

  “Sennifyr,” Mirya breathed. She frowned at the note, wondering what to do. Once upon a time she would have answered such a summons without a moment’s hesitation; junior initiates in the Sisterhood of the Black Veil were expected to obey. But she’d parted ways with the Sisterhood years earlier, until the troubles plaguing Hulburg in the last few months had led her to seek Mistress Sennifyr’s counsel again. The First Sister was very well informed about events in Hulburg. Every devotee of Shar in the town-many of them women who were well-placed to see and hear many of the town’s secrets-owed Sennifyr fealty, and reported to her a myriad of rumors, gossip, and observations. Mirya no longer devoted herself to the goddess of secrets and sorrow, but that didn’t mean Sennifyr wouldn’t help her if it suited her purposes to do so. Of course, Sennifyr meant to draw her back into the Sisterhood’s orbit, so Mirya would have to be on her guard.

  “What is it Sennifyr thinks I should know?” Mirya murmured to herself. She frowned, trying to decide whether to answer or not. Finally she sighed, drew a warm hooded cloak around her shoulders, and hurried back out into the cold. A quarter-hour’s walk brought her around the foot of Griffonwatch and then up Hill Street toward the houses of the wealthy that dotted the higher slopes of Easthead. The houses were grand old places with gated drives and manicured gardens, although those were brown and bare with winter.

  She found the house she was looking for, a fine mansion that stood amid wind-swept cedars. Before she could reconsider, she let herself in the wrought-iron gate, climbed the stone steps to the door, and gave the pull chain for the bell a deliberate tug. Chimes echoed inside. After a short time, she heard light footsteps approaching, and a young woman with long dark hair opened the door-the same attendant who’d greeted Mirya the last time she had called on Sennifyr. “The mistress is expecting you,” she said. “This way, if you please.”

  Mirya followed the young woman to the mansion’s parlor, where she found Sennifyr reading a book by the fire. Sennifyr was a woman of forty-five years or so, but her face possessed an almost ageless serenity, and no gray touched her light brown hair, piled high above her head in an elegant coiffure. Sennifyr smiled and set down her book, rising smoothly to her feet. “Ah, Mirya, how good of you to come! I was afraid that you might not see the note Lana left in your house amid all the dreadful mess she found there. Tell me, are you all right?”

  “I’m well enough,” Mirya replied. At Sennifyr’s gesture, she took the other seat by the fire as the young woman-Lana, or so Mirya supposed-stepped forward to take her hood.

  Sennifyr returned to her seat, but she leaned forward, peering at Mirya. “Oh, by the Lady,” the noblewoman said, her hand rising to her mouth. “Mirya, your face! Why, they’ve beaten you black-and-blue!” She made several small tsking sounds, leaning across to gently caress Mirya’s cheek. Mirya steeled herself not to draw away; she did not intend to let Sennifyr see anything that might be taken as fear or weakness on her part. “I should tend to that!”

  “It’s not so bad as it looks,” Mirya replied. “A few hours’ rest and I’ll be right as rain.”

  “You must have been terrified, my dear. Tell me, what happened?” Sennifyr nodded to Lana; the young woman rolled a small teacart close, and began to arrange the cups and saucers.

  Mirya suspected that Sennifyr already knew quite well what had happened, but she answered anyway. “The Council Guard stormed my house and dragged me out in the middle of the night,” she said. “I spent the rest of the night and most of the morning in the Council Hall’s dungeons. Edelmark questioned me about loyalist attacks of late, but he decided he lacked any reason to keep me imprisoned and set me free.”

  “Indeed,” the noblewoman breathed. “That seems rather … generous of him.”

  “I was surprised too,” Mirya said. Sennifyr simply studied her without saying anything. Mirya frowned, wondering what it was that Sennifyr thought she’d missed. An ugly suspicion dawned in her mind. “You believe that he had some other reason to let me go?”

  Sennifyr smiled thinly. “Mirya, if I wanted to find out who was loyal and who was disloyal, I would certainly think about letting at least a few of my catches go and watching to see who they spoke with after I released them. I imagine it might be quite instructive.”

  “I shouldn’t have come here,” Mirya murmured. “Now you’ll be under suspicion too.”

  The noblewoman laughed softly. “Oh, I think I am safe enough. Unlike you, I have no suspicious activities to answer for and no special connection to House Hulmaster. You are my only flirtation with sedition, and I will of course be very careful to behave myself. But you, on the other hand, you are being watched very closely indeed. You must take great care not to bring suspicion to anyone who might in fact be involved with this show of resistance to Marstel’s reign.”

  “How do you know this?” Mirya asked.

  Sennifyr shrugged. “One of our Sisters is the mistress of a high-ranking officer in the Council Guard. She hears much of what Edelmark shares with his lieutenants. But even without her reports, I would have been suspicious of your release. For that matter, you must also be careful of any friends you have who are engaged in any … disloyal activities. They may also wonder why you were released, and they may come to their own conclusions.”

  “What a fool I am,” Mirya growled at herself. Of course Edelmark wouldn’t have let her go simply because he lacked any proof of her wrongdoing. Lack of evidence hadn’t stopped him for months; a suspicion was all the captain of the Council Guard needed to have someone dragged off to the dungeons
and kept there indefinitely.

  “I have only your best interests at heart, Mirya. I was not about to let a sister-even one who has gone her own way for a time-walk unwittingly into Edelmark’s little trap.”

  Mirya doubted very much whether that was Sennifyr’s only concern, but whatever the noblewoman’s motivation, she might very well have saved her from a very dangerous blunder. “I thank you, Mistress Sennifyr.”

  Sennifyr inclined her head, and leaned back in her seat. “Have you any news of Geran Hulmaster? I confess that I am very curious as to what he might do next after that terrible business at the temple of Cyric.”

  Now things become clear, Mirya reflected. Sennifyr hadn’t offered her help out of the goodness of her own heart; she knew well enough that Sennifyr didn’t have one. The Sharran hoped that Mirya knew something more than she did about the Hulmasters and their plans. “I’m afraid I haven’t,” she replied. “We spoke briefly before he and Sarth struck at the temple. Geran isn’t done fighting for Hulburg, and he means to challenge Marstel soon enough. But where he is now, I’ve no idea.”

  The noblewoman studied her in silence. Then she carefully asked, “Would you like news of him? I will perform a divination for you if you wish. My own viewings are indistinct, but you are much more closely connected to Geran Hulmaster; I believe the results would be much more definitive for you.”

  Mirya hesitated, weighing her decision. She feared to accept more of Sennifyr’s help, but on the other hand, she found that she was anxious to know whether Geran had escaped Hulburg or not. Marstel would have trumpeted the news from one end of town to the other if his soldiers had caught or killed Geran, but it was possible that Geran was in hiding and unable to leave now that the harmach’s forces were sweeping up loyalists. He could very well need assistance of some kind … “Very well,” she finally said. “I’m willing.”

  Sennifyr nodded. She turned to the teacart, poured a cup, then drew a tiny vial from her sleeve and added a drop or two of a dark liquid to the tea. Murmuring the words of a spell, she carefully stirred the tea. Mirya sensed something taking shape in the darkened room, a stretching of the shadows or simply a dimming of the light; she’d never had much talent for magic herself. Then the noblewoman lifted the cup and offered it to Mirya. “Here, drink this. You will see for a short time.”

  Mirya took the cup, and drank deeply of the sweet black tea. It had a faint oily taste, and it seemed to cling to her tongue and teeth. The vapors filled her nose, and she felt a mild dizziness. “Good,” Sennifyr said softly. “Now close your eyes, dear, and think of your handsome lordling. Fix your mind’s eye on Geran’s face, the sound of his voice, the color of his eyes, the shape of his mouth.”

  She did as Sennifyr instructed, bringing to mind Geran’s features as she thought of him standing in front of the counter at Erstenwold’s on a sunny afternoon, a small smile touching the corner of his mouth as he listened to her recount some story of Selsha’s doings. It was a memory from a few tendays after he’d foiled his cousin’s plots, a brief carefree time in the summer when it seemed that all that was wrong in Hulburg had been set right. Then she felt the power of Sennifyr’s magic begin to take hold; the memory simply drew away into darkness, and she groped blindly after it. Instead, she found a confusing jumble of images, Geran as seen in dozens of brief moments, each lasting for only the blink of an eye before it vanished again into the next. She shook her head and tried to fix the flickering visions in her mind.

  Geran was making love with a golden-haired woman, their limbs entwined in the candelight as they lay together in a darkened room. Stunned, Mirya could only stare; as he shifted and drew back for a moment, she saw Nimessa Sokol, her eyes half closed. Somehow Mirya knew she was seeing something that had happened not long before-the divination’s magic at work, she guessed. He slept with Nimessa? she thought dully. How could he do that? A familiar ache welled up under her breastbone, and Mirya hugged her arms close to her body. She wrenched her eyes away, horrified to have stumbled into such an intimate moment, and the vision complied by vanishing from her view. Then she caught a glimpse of Geran dressed in the colors of a Sokol armsman, jogging along on a horse as he rode alongside a creaking caravan leaving Hulburg along the Coastal Way. Two of the gray guardians watched impassively as he rode by, but they did not stir. “He escaped Hulburg,” she murmured aloud. Sennifyr did not reply.

  Now she saw Geran standing by the rail of a merchant caravel that plunged and pitched over a sea of leaden gray, bitter spray blowing back from each dip of the bow, his tattered cloak flapping around him. This time she sensed that she saw something that was happening as she watched. “He is at sea,” she said, “but I can’t tell where he is bound.” Hulburg’s port was still icebound, so he had to be on his way to another Moonsea city. A gray coast loomed ahead in the mists and rain, but before she could make out any more, the vision fell away to be replaced by another.

  This time she saw Geran fighting in some strange, shadowy place, a great chamber of stone where ghostly warriors streamed from the darkness to beset him. He wielded a black sword in one hand, and his mouth moved silently as he shouted the words of a spell. “Now he’s fighting in a dark place,” she said. Mirya reached out to him, sensing the danger that he was in, but then she realized that what she was seeing hadn’t yet come to pass. The image began to flicker, and she called out, hoping to see just a little more. “Geran! Wait!”

  “He does not hear you, my dear,” Sennifyr said.

  Mirya blinked her eyes, realizing the visions were over. She surged to her feet, still trying to make sense of what she’d seen. Geran was safe, for now, although terrible danger waited for him soon enough … but the vision that she couldn’t drive out of her mind was the image of Geran lying in Nimessa’s arms. It’s none of my business! she fumed at herself. Why should I care? I have no claim on him, nor does he have any on me. But if that was true, then why did her heart ache as if she’d been pierced with a knife? Mirya, you foolish girl, she told herself. You’ve fallen for him again, and that’s why your heart is breaking. You foolish, foolish girl!

  Sennifyr watched her carefully. “Mirya, my dear, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  “I–I have to go,” Mirya replied. She took her cloak from the peg where Lana had hung it and hurried out of the mansion into the clean, cold air.

  THIRTEEN

  13 Alturiak, the Year of Deep Water Drifting (1480 DR)

  Nine days of hard travel brought Geran, Hamil, and Sarth to the outskirts of Myth Drannor. They’d sailed from Thentia aboard a Double Moon merchantman; unlike Hulburg, Thentia’s port remained ice-free through the winter. Still, it was enduring a difficult three-day Moonsea crossing against the westerly winds. In the city of Hillsfar, they bought riding horses and provisions for an overland journey, setting out southward along the Moonsea Ride. Deep snow and cold, damp weather had made the hundred-mile ride far more tiring than Geran remembered it, but at least they’d run into no trouble with bandits or monsters; it seemed the bad weather had driven them into their lairs, leaving the roads open to any who were foolish enough to travel in such conditions. They spent their nights huddling around campfires beneath the forest’s mighty boles, trying to keep dry and warm.

  In the middle of the afternoon on the ninth day of their journey, Geran found that the endless woods around the elven road they followed had begun to take on a familiar character. The stirring of long-buried memories washed over him. He shortened his reins and brought his horse, a big gray gelding, to a stop on the snow-covered elven road, sitting motionless in the saddle as the wet snow floated down, sticking to his woolen cloak and the horse’s mane. The woods were still, and the snow muffled the hoofbeats of his companions’ horses, leaving no sound but the faint creaking of leather and the animals’ heavy breaths. Without even realizing it, he leaned forward, listening with all his might for something that stirred at the very edge of his awareness.

  “What is it?” Hamil asked, reining in beside him. Sart
h, a little way ahead of them both, glanced over his shoulder and halted as well.

  Geran gazed at the snowy forest that surrounded them. He recognized this place. “I first met Alliere and Rhovann at this very spot,” he said. “A little more than seven years ago, I suppose. It was winter then too-Midwinter’s Eve-and I could hear the elves singing the Miiraeth len Fhierren.” He shook himself, raising a hand to brush the snow from his eyelashes and the memories from his sight. “It’s only a mile more to the city.”

  “Good!” Hamil replied. “I’m more than ready for a hot meal and a warm bed tonight.”

  “As am I,” Sarth said. The sorcerer had argued vehemently against completing Aesperus’s task, but once Geran made his decision, he’d grudgingly agreed to go with Geran and Hamil so that he could view the missing pages of the Infiernadex himself before the lich took possession of them. Geran had agreed that if the pages held some lore or ritual that seemed too dangerous to hand over, he’d destroy them rather than deal with the King in Copper-an alternative that he sincerely hoped he wouldn’t have to exercise. There was no telling how Aesperus might react to such a refusal.

  Hamil tapped his heels to his mount’s flanks and started again, but Geran hesitated a moment. This was the point of no return; if he continued forward, he’d be in defiance of the coronal’s judgment. He was not quite ready to discount all his misgivings yet.

  Sarth glanced around the woods to make sure of their privacy, and then spoke to Geran. “You need not go any farther,” he said. “Hamil and I can find the pages Aesperus requires. There is no need for you to risk the coronal’s displeasure.”

  The swordmage shook his head. “It might take you months to win the trust of the right people, and we can’t afford much delay. I still have friends here-I think. But from this point forward, my name is Aram, and I’m only a Red Sail armsman here to guard Master Hamil from any trouble on the road.” He was dressed the part, with an armsman’s scale coat, the red surcoat with its yellow slash, a little pigment to darken the eyesockets and make them appear deeper than they were, and a thick goatee in the Vastar style. His elven sword was disguised in a false scabbard, its hilt of mithral wire covered with a simple leather wrap; it likely would have been better to leave the weapon in Lasparhall, but once upon a time it had been bestowed on Geran by Coronal Ilsevele herself, and if things went poorly, he hoped that it might serve to remind the elves of the service he’d rendered their queen in years gone by.