“Yes,” Dormael said. “It changed into silver.”
Shawna gave him an odd look, then glanced toward her saddlebags, where the armlet was tucked away.
“The man comes to pray at the shrine—an ancient temple, from a time before the Church had split—and the gods answer him with…a woman? And a sprig of ivy?” D’Jenn said, shaking his head.
“And the ivy turns to silver,” Shawna mused, still looking at her saddlebags.
“This thing—the thing that lives inside the armlet, whatever it is—it’s trying to tell us where it came from,” D’Jenn said.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Dormael said. “I just…thought it would sound insane.”
The companions all looked to each other, and the silence stretched out between them. Rain still poured in the night, but D’Jenn had laid down a few wards to keep their shelter dry. Dormael stared into the fire, trying to recall what the struggling woman had looked like.
“I’m going to sleep,” Shawna said, breaking the silence. “This is all a little too strange for me.”
“I agree,” Dormael said, rising to head for his blankets. “Whatever this thing is, we need to get it to Ishamael. The quicker, the better.”
“Agreed,” D’Jenn said. “Sleep well, everyone.”
His sleep that night was troubled with dreams of unseen hands stretching him over an altar.
***
Maarkov stood against the aft railing of the King’s Blessing, gazing down at the roiling wake of the ship. Sailors went about their business around him, tying lines and other such things, eyes locked to the deck as much as they could manage. Ever since the disappearances had begun, the men had treated them with fear. After this afternoon, however, their fear had been much more…refined.
Maarkov turned back toward the mainmast, making his way down the steps to the main deck. He glanced up in morbid curiosity at what everyone on board was trying very hard to ignore. Maarkov, however, felt no such disgust at the sight. It gave him no pleasure, certainly, but he had seen deaths to fill a hundred thousand graves. Corpses were only scenery to him.
The flayed cadaver of the old captain hung from the mainmast, swaying in the wind and bouncing from the sail, leaving odd prints of thick, drying blood upon its once-white surface.
Maaz had hoisted him up in the early afternoon, the man screaming and begging for his life. Maaz had worked like a master, slowly cutting and pulling the skin from the captain’s body, using his magic to help things along. The man had passed out from the pain long before he died. Symbols were drawn around the mast on the deck of the ship—twisted, curving runes in a language that Maarkov didn’t care to know. Maaz had cut the skin into square, orderly patches, chanting in that damnable language the entire time. He had nailed them to the mast, one stacked atop the other in a nice column. Upon one such patch of skin, Maarkov could see a nipple poking through the web-work of cuts that his brother had made.
For some reason, he let go of a chuckle at the sight of it.
The ship had lurched forward with a great creaking of wood and rope, and had begun to move forward under some strange, fell power. Maarkov had looked askance at his brother, but all he got in response was a mocking smile. He had wanted to part that smile with a sword, but as always, he held back.
He wanted to get off this gods-damned ship.
Grimacing into the wind, he turned from the railing and walked down the gangway. He entered the captain’s quarters and found his brother lounging in the chair behind the desk, poring over a map of the Sevenlands. No evidence of the orgy of blood remained on his clothing, or his hands. He was cold, and wretchedly immaculate.
“What,” Maaz hissed, “in all the Six Hells do you want?”
“When will we hit land?” Maarkov asked, pushing down his contempt.
“Maybe a week, maybe longer, but sooner still than that pitiful captain would have gotten us there by more…conventional means.”
“Where do you plan to make landfall? It’s going to be hard explaining all the body parts and your…artwork…to any customs officials we meet, don’t you think?” Maarkov said. He plopped into the chair opposite his brother, and put his boots directly into Maaz’s face. Water soaked into the map. Maaz glowered at his brother’s boots, but only sighed and sat back in the captain’s chair.
“This mission requires a certain amount of discretion, Maarkov. Because we are not simpering fools, we will find some smuggler’s cove, and be done with it there. No harbors, no cities, no customs officials,” Maaz hissed, smiling with that painful grin.
“And the ship, the crew?”
“As I said, dear brother—discretion.”
“That’s a lot of blood,” Maarkov sighed, touching the hilt of his sword. “What happens if we just go our own way when we get to the Sevenlands? Let these poor bastards go home.”
Maaz just gave him a blank stare, ignoring the words even as they came out.
“I’ll need two of them to scry the location of our quarry. One at least to replenish ourselves—and don’t look at me like that, Maarkov, you know you have to eat. After that, I will need servants,” Maaz said, reaching over and taking a dainty sip of wine from a goblet at his elbow.
“You need strega, you mean,” Maarkov grumbled. He hated the things. There was nothing worse than an animated corpse. It was unfeeling, uncaring, unthinking. Maarkov could barely sleep, knowing the things were nearby.
He silenced the voice in his mind that screamed just how like the strega his own body had become.
“I need what I need, brother,” Maaz sighed. “Your whining is doing nothing but grating on my nerves. Go stare into the wind. Moralize to the gods. I don’t care to hear your blathering.”
Maarkov stared at his brother for a moment. How monstrous the man had become over the years, how detached from what it was that had ever made him human. What lived behind those eyes was something different now, something darker.
One day, I’ll kill him, he thought as he made his way back outside. One day.
***
The next morning came early, but with the welcome sight of a light drizzle, instead of a heavy downpour. Dormael’s clothing was dry by the time they were getting ready to go, and the feeling of it against his skin was refreshing. Though it was still raining, his heavy Sevenlander cloak would do wonders at keeping off what little there was.
Heavier rains came and went as the day wore on, but nothing that was unmanageable. Dormael passed the time giving Bethany lessons in the Hunter’s Tongue, and having idle conversation with Shawna. The swelling in his face had gone down, and he was once again feeling good to be back home.
The Runemian Mountains crept onto the horizon, a bluish haze where mountains would soon appear. The day was still too gray to make them out from so far away—Dormael knew it was still days before they would make the highlands, and more days still into the mountains—but the sight of them made him smile nonetheless. Ishamael, the place he had come to think of as home for most of his life, was just on the other side of those mountains.
Dormael expected another dream from the armlet, or perhaps another strange incident, but the artifact was silent. He had asked Bethany if she was receiving any dreams from the thing, but she had shaken her head. He couldn’t tell if the girl was lying to him, but he didn’t bother to ask more than once. The thing had so frightened her during her last interaction with it that he doubted the girl would commune with it in secret.
D’Jenn rode ahead of everyone else, brooding. Dormael figured his cousin was chewing over the problem of the armlet, turning everything he knew about it over in his mind, hoping for some revelation to shake loose. He peered into the distance with a distracted expression, letting Mist have her lead. The horse, dutiful as always, plugged down the meandering trail one hoof-beat at a time. The days passed by uneventfully, the weather going from wet to wetter and back again. The rainy season had always been fickle over this part of Soirus-Gamerit.
Late one afternoon, the
muddy trail underfoot became a wide, paved thoroughfare. The stones beneath their horses’ hooves were old and worn smooth by time, but one glance was enough to tell that this had once been a great highway. Shawna began to ask a question, but Dormael cut her off.
“Just wait,” he said.
“Just wait?” she repeated.
He nodded. “You’ll see.”
Dormael could barely keep the smile from his face, even when she gave him an irritated glance. He had been this way a few times in his life, and he knew how surprised she would be by what was coming. As they meandered up a small rise, the road opened up on a breathtaking vista.
From east to west as far as they could see, there ran a great canyon. It cut through the terrain in a snaking line, leaving a crooked wound in the land itself. The other side of the canyon was over a hundred links away. Spanning the distance was an impossibly long bridge that looked to have been woven in curving, artistic lines.
The road across the bridge was paved in smooth flagstones whose lines fit together with a precision that spoke of great artistry and craftsmanship. Two great, curving arches of bronze rose on either side of the bridge, hanging the actual road beneath them. Swirls of the bright alloy snaked their way downward to the rail, which was made of white stone that looked to have been poured from a decanter and captured in a moment of beauty. Shawna gave a sharp intake of breath at the sight of it.
“What is it?” was all that she could say.
“It’s called Indalvian’s Passage,” D’Jenn said, resting his hands against his saddle horn as the party stopped to take in the sight.
“It was built thousands of years ago, by the first known wizard,” Dormael said. “He was the one who established the Conclave, and helped build the Sevenlands.”
“It’s beautiful,” Shawna breathed, one hand going to her chest.
“He built lots of things,” D’Jenn said, “but I believe this is his greatest achievement. It’s a marvel of artistry, engineering, and magic.”
“It’s magical?” Shawna asked, then shook her head. “Of course it’s magical.”
“The bridge has spells woven into the very material that help it to self-repair,” D’Jenn said. “It resists the cold, it drains itself of water—this thing could stand forever, given that nothing moves underneath it.”
“Here we go,” Dormael muttered. “You got him excited.”
D’Jenn ignored him. “It’s said that Indalvian and thirty of his students constructed the pieces and had them brought here. They worked from both sides of the canyon, with help from the local tribesmen. Before the Passage went up, Soirus-Gamerit was two lands, instead of one. Soirus, and Gamerit.”
“It’s an amazing sight,” Shawna agreed.
“Let’s have a closer look, shall we?” Dormael said, gesturing towards the bridge.
The road sloped downward into a stone landing that had been dug out from the side of the canyon. Retaining walls of hard granite had been built around it. A brass plaque hung against one of the walls, swirling inscriptions written into its face. Shawna swung down from Charlotte’s saddle and strode to the metal plate, squinting at the engraved text.
“It’s just like your tattoos,” Shawna said to Dormael. “Come tell me what it says.”
“It says ‘look what we did’ in Old Vendon,” Dormael smiled.
“You’re an ass, you know that?” she replied.
“Alright,” Dormael sighed, climbing down from Horse. He strode over to the metal plaque and brushed some of the raindrops from the inscription.
“It says something like ‘Here Indalvian healed a wounded land, he brought two worlds together. Order conquered chaos and enemies became one’. Then, it’s a list of names—men who worked on the bridge on the southern side.”
“What a strange inscription,” Shawna said.
“It rhymes in Old Vendon. I imagine it was poetic,” Dormael said.
“Are any of your ancestors listed on the plaques?” Shawna asked.
“Yes, but on the northern side, not the southern. We Harluns were Gamerits, not Soirii.”
“We Pikes, too,” D’Jenn said. “The sooner we get across the bridge, the sooner we can show you.”
They set off across the Span at a walk. As they left the landing, the view of the great canyon opened beneath them. The ravine snaked as far as they could see from east to west, curving with the patience of the river below. It was deep—dizzying, in fact—and Dormael couldn’t help but feel vulnerable as they made their way across the Passage, as if an errant gust of wind could blow them all off the side. They could hear a vague rushing noise, and as Dormael glanced over the edge, he could see the mist rising from the depths that told of the river below.
Bethany clutched to his arms from her place on his saddle, but looked around with wild, excited eyes. She bent far out over Horse’s flank in order to look toward the bottom of the canyon, and Dormael grabbed hold of her cloak, fearing the girl would slip. Bethany had no fear of heights.
They made it across in short order, and stopped their horses on the landing. Dormael dismounted and walked over to the plaque, brushing raindrops from its surface. He squinted at the lines of swirling text, and picked out what he was looking for.
“Here,” he announced. “Ivan Harlun, journeyman mason and stoneworker.”
“And what about the Pikes?” D’Jenn shouted the question from the top of the landing’s ramp, where he was gazing off to the north. Dormael ran his finger down the list of names, searching out his cousin’s ancestor.
“Here it is—Straffon Pike, wizarding apprentice.”
“Look at that,” D’Jenn smiled. “My side of the family were among the first wizards of the Conclave, and yours were still stacking bricks.”
“That’s why everyone was so thankful when we Harluns finally came along, and became the best wizards in the Conclave,” Dormael shot back. “They were tired of you Pike bastards.”
D’Jenn answered with an offensive gesture in the Hunter’s Tongue.
“What does that mean?” Bethany asked, closing her fist and extending her pinky as she tried out the gesture for herself.
“Nothing you need to repeat,” Dormael smiled, pushing her tiny finger closed with the rest of her fist. He shot D’Jenn a meaningful glance. D’Jenn answered by winking at Bethany, then turning his horse back to the north.
“From here on out, we’re in the highlands,” he announced over his shoulder. “This is where Dormael and I grew up.”
“Is that so?” Shawna asked as she mounted. “I didn’t think Dormael had grown up.”
Dormael shook his head in answer, and everyone set off once again to the north.
The rain let up as the gloom of dusk set in, leaving huge swaths of purple and orange painted across the sky as the storms chased the sunlight over the horizon. They camped on the northern side of a low hill, where a circle of stones had been set up as an ancient waystation along the road—one of many such waystations scattered throughout the northern highlands. Dormael found a pool of clear water nearby, and felt a need to bathe after all his time in and out of the damp. He felt slimy, like an old rock at the bottom of a pond.
Dormael waited until everyone else was otherwise occupied and sneaked away to the pond. It was good to have some time alone, in any case, after the constant company of his friends. He didn’t chafe at their presence—far from it—but from time to time, Dormael enjoyed a little solitude. He doffed his clothes, left them hanging over a nearby scrub bush, and stepped into the frigid water.
During training at the Conclave, all initiates had been dunked in freezing water, then made to summon and control their magic. Nothing shocked the body quite like a dip in water cold enough to send one’s privates scuttling up into the guts, and such things were considered a good test for a wizard’s concentration. Dormael closed his eyes, clamping down on his mind, and waded out until he was waist-deep in the pond.
Closing his eyes, he went under.
His body wanted
to draw in a deep breath as the frigid water closed in around his chest. Dormael forced himself to sit under the water, waving his arms in order to stay under. He held his breath as his body spasmed, holding his concentration as the struggle bled away. When it was over, he hovered in the cold darkness, and let out a bit of air to sink deeper into the water. The silence was comforting.
It was at times like these that he could feel his magic deep in his chest, rumbling like an awakening storm. When he put his body into distress, or achieved certain states of mind, he could feel his magic in its purest form. He spent a long moment just listening to its song, until he began to grow light-headed, and knew it was time to come up for air. He broke the surface slowly, and resisted the urge to suck in deep, gulping breaths.
“I was wondering if you were ever going to come up,” Shawna’s voice said from nearby.
Dormael started, dropping back to chin-level in the water and turning to regard the woman. She stood on the shore of the pond, looking to his discarded clothing with a raised eyebrow. She also carried an armload of clothing, and a cake of soap in her hand.
“It looks as if we had the same idea,” Dormael smiled. “I got here first.”
“That you did,” she said. “Tell me, are your nipples always blue like that, or is it just that cold in there?”
“It’s that cold,” Dormael laughed. “You should come in. It’s refreshing.”
“Come in?” she said. “Dormael—getting into a body of water with you would not be a smart decision.”
“Why is that?” he asked, unable to keep from smiling. His teeth began to chatter.
“You can barely keep your eyes off me when I’m clothed,” she said. “You think I want to tempt the gods?”
“Has nothing to do with them,” Dormael muttered under his breath.
“What?” she asked.
“I said ‘I’ll be a perfect gentleman’. Like one of your country noblemen. I can bow and ‘my lady’ you to death. I know how to be proper,” he said.
The Seven Signs: Three Book Collection Page 49