“That’s right,” said Pitbull. “That’s where he is. Now he’s circling to your left.”
Kyric heard the shuffle of boot leather, then a metallic sound, a clash of blades and a grunt.
“No,” winced Pitbull, “he’s cut Aiyan on the shoulder. He stays out of sight, and then rushes in. Aiyan can barely dodge him.” He called out, “Aiyan! He’s backing you into the well.”
Kyric reached for Pitbull in the fog. “You have the power. Do something. Anything.”
Pitbull tore the lantern from his grasp and pulled the cover off. He thrust his hand into the flame and screamed through the pain in the Essian tongue. In one of the nearby globes of light, the liquid began to ripple, then bubble. It churned in a roiling boil. Pitbull screamed again and smashed his hand down onto the wick. The floating ball of light exploded, the glowing liquid raining down on all of them. It was sticky and scalding and it painted them in light. Suddenly Kyric saw Aiyan and Morae clearly outlined in a yellow-green glow.
Morae had raised his sabre high, and slashed down at Aiyan’s head. Aiyan parried, holding Ivestra with one hand, his other hand seizing Morae by the wrist.
All in an instant: He stepped inside, pommel blow shattering the chin, slid under his arm, cutting his triceps, pulling him off balance, a slash to the back of the skull, and Morae lay dead on the floor, much like they had found Sedlik.
The fog vanished. Black blood pooled beneath Morae’s body.
Eren opened his mouth in wordless agony. He twitched in Jazul’s arms, convulsing rapidly before suddenly going limp.
“What was he doing down here?” said Kyric.
“I think I know,” said Pitbull. “Come this way.”
They went deeper into the cave, weaving through the maze of natural columns, only Aiyan’s sword and the glow of their own bodies for light. Aiyan bled from the shoulder but didn’t seem to notice.
The cavern narrowed to a man-sized opening. Beyond lay another cave that ended in a wide crevasse. An altar of sorts sat at the edge of the crevasse. A shallow reflecting pool stood on end, like a mirror, in front of a platform made of alternating plates of metal and clay, the water resting calmly there as if sideways were down, disregarding gravity as easily as the floating balls of light. A sparkling mandala was inscribed in the floor of the platform. No, not inscribed. It was laid in diamonds.
“Elistar’s breath,” said Pitbull, “do you know what this is — it’s Derndra’s Mirror. He created this to focus the most powerful Essa ever conceived. It is written that he could see his enemies in this and cast hideous spells upon them.”
A row of alcoves had been carved in one wall of the cave. Some contained books and dusty scrolls. One scroll lay on the floor, halfway open.
“This is how he did it,” Pitbull continued, “he read directly from Derndra’s original grammaries. In a place of power like this, one need only have the sympathy to make magic.” He swayed a little, and Kyric thought he would faint. “I feel that I can invoke magic simply by thinking of it.”
Pitbull’s eyes shone with a feral light, and his mouth was askew with a mischievous grin. He leapt onto the platform and stood in the center of the mandala. He stared into Derndra’s Mirror.
“What do you see?” said Aiyan.
“I see many things.” He fought down a giggle. “I can see my house.”
“Pitbull,” Aiyan said impatiently, “do you see a way out of here?”
“Yes. Yes I do.”
“Wait,” said Jazul. “One handful of those diamonds would make us all wealthy.”
Pitbull turned to him. “How can you think of the material when so much power flows from this spot. Diamonds are nothing. If you wish for something truly rare, I could summon the essence of the Aerth itself.”
At once they felt a vibration beneath their feet. The walls of the cave began to tremble.
Aiyan stiffened. “Pitbull, what have you done?”
Pitbull looked at each of them, shocked and suddenly terrified. “I’ve called forth golden mercury from the center of the Aerth,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to. I only thought about it.”
Aiyan dragged him from the platform as a crack opened beneath his feet. “Come on. Show us the way out.”
A shiny golden substance flowed from the crack, bright with heat and magic.
“No,” said Pitbull, rummaging in his satchel. “I’m not leaving without golden mercury. It’s unattainable — you don’t know what it means to a magician. I need to find my magic jar.”
Outside, in the cavern, they heard the crash of a falling stalactite. The floor of the cave shook.
Aiyan spun him around. “It is the moment of the hand. If we do not leave now we will die.”
Pitbull froze. “So it is,” he said quietly.
He led them back through the cavern. Kyric no longer felt the ground tremble beneath his feet. One of the glowing balls drifted close to his face, making him blink with the afterimage after it passed. When they reached the chamber, a dozen silent figures crouched at the edge of the well. Dozens more were climbing over the lip. The Wirmen had come up from their pit.
Pitbull pointed to the wall opposite where they had come in. “See? There’s a tunnel leading to another cave.”
Aiyan sheathed his sword and drew his pocket pistol. His face glowed with luminescent splatters.
“Jazul, give the prince to Kyric and take out the keg of gunpowder. We will walk slowly to the tunnel, Kyric and Pitbull going first. If they move to attack us, throw the gunpowder into their midst and everyone run. I’ll shoot the keg and hope that it goes off.”
They started across the floor, the Wirmen packing together and growing restless. Kyric and Pitbull had just crossed under the great stone lintel at the entrance to the tunnel, Jazul next and Aiyan covering the rear, when the Wirmen broke and charged.
Jazul tossed the gunpowder over Aiyan’s head, and it arced towards the middle of the pack. Aiyan fired while it was still in midair.
The explosion knocked Jazul backward and threw Aiyan to the floor. Chunks of the ceiling rained down all around them. Most of the Wirmen lay dead or had scattered.
Kyric looked back through the tunnel. The ceiling of the chamber had begun to give way. The supports holding the lintel at the head of the tunnel crumbled, and the great stone came loose. Then Jazul was there, holding it up, his muscles bulging like knotted cables. Aiyan staggered to his feet.
“Hurry,” Jazul called to him over his shoulder. “I can’t hold it forever.”
Aiyan lurched toward him. “It’s not too heavy,” Jazul chanted between clenched teeth. “It’s not too heavy.”
Aiyan squeezed past him. Jazul shifted his weight, preparing to drop the stone block, but a Wirman lunged from out of the darkness, sinking its teeth into the back of Jazul’s thigh. He fell, and the huge stone fell with him. He was crushed beneath it.
The tunnel collapsed in a cascade of earth and stone. Aiyan threw himself forward in a headlong dive, landing sprawled in the little cave beyond.
He pushed himself up. “Jazul!” he called, “Jazul!” He clawed at the debris filling the tunnel.
Pitbull gently pulled him away. “It’s no use, Aiyan.”
The far end of the cave ended in a wall of ancient stonework. There was a vertical crack, wide enough for a man to pass. The odor was foul but somewhat familiar.
“Another sewer tunnel,” said Pitbull. “The sanitary sewers this time.”
They shuffled through and followed the flow of sewage. Aiyan drew his sword across the essence of the flame and led the way. These tunnels were much older than the storm sewers. The mortar had crumbled in many places, and some of the stonework had fallen away here and there. In one spot the floor stones had long ago sank into the earth, and they had to wade through a pool of muck, Pitbull up to his chest.
Eren lay limp in Kyric’s arms, his breaths coming more ragged as they went. “There’s something wrong with the prince.”
They stopped and Pitbul
l felt his forehead, sniffed his breath. “We have to get him to my house. Soon.”
They entered a section where the rain leaked in through a score of cracks, soaking them to the skin. The yellow glow ran from their clothing in little rivulets. The level of the sewer water grew higher, and they waded on laboriously, Kyric up to his knees in water and filth, Pitbull up to his waist. Kyric’s skin stung where the magic fluid had scalded him.
“How are you doing, Pitbull?” said Aiyan.
“I’m nearly spent. Feeling pain now.” He held up his burnt black hand.
“How much farther?”
“Miles. These sewers empty outside the city.”
They waded on, steadily following the slight downhill grade. They looked for passages up to the street, but those that they found were slick with filth, and too steep to climb. There was no place to stop and rest. It became a hell of timeless labor. Many times Kyric thought he saw the tunnel come to an opening, only to find that it intersected another sewer, or was a trick of the dark.
At last the tunnel joined a larger artery with a raised sidewalk along one wall, and they climbed out of the sewage to lay wet and exhausted on the concrete shelf. Suddenly Eren was wracked with a coughing fit. He seemed unable to breathe. Aiyan massaged his chest while Pitbull whispered into his ear. The fit ended, and Eren’s lungs made a horrible scratching sound as he took another breath.
“We should be near the end,” Aiyan said.
“I’m done,” said Pitbull. “I can’t get up. Just leave me here.”
Aiyan held out his hand. Pitbull took it and was hauled to his feet. Kyric managed to stand, and Aiyan helped him gather Eren into his arms. They had walked only a few minutes when they saw the flash of lightning at the sewer’s opening.
“We’ve made it,” said Pitbull.
They came to the end, a ledge overhanging a churning sea. The night was black and the rain fell in sheets. There was no shoreline below them. The mouth of the sewer rested in a vertical bank of earth, too muddy to climb. There was nowhere to go.
Aiyan stood facing the storm and shook his flaming blade at it. “What would you have of me?” he shouted to the wind. All of a sudden, he fell to his knees.
“What is it?” said Pitbull.
“Stung once again by Morae’s poisoned sword,” said Aiyan, showing him the wound on his shoulder. “Bear’s bane.”
Lightning flashed again. There was something on the water. A pair of bright eyes in the dark, then another pair — the lamps of a fishing boat. Then Teodor’s voice, almost lost in the storm.
“We’re coming to you. We can see your light.”
CHAPTER 16: Redemption
The rain stopped shortly after midnight, and Pitbull came out of the sickroom where he had taken Eren, telling them that he was out of danger. Earlier he had drawn the poison from Aiyan with some sort of spell that involved rubbing salt into the wound. He had done it mostly one handed, and it had looked painful for both of them.
Aiyan spent several hours composing a long letter and sealing it with the emblem of the flaming blade. In the hour before dawn, they wrapped the boy in a blanket and carried him to Pitbull’s wagon. Kyric and Aiyan sat with him in the back while Teodor drove them to the royal residence. He was awake, but sat still and said nothing. He only stared into the dark.
When the guards officer at the gate saw that it was the prince, he urged them to hurry to the main house. He would send a rider ahead to tell Princess Aerlyn. But Aiyan placed Eren in his arms, along with the letter he had written.
“But the princess will wish to speak to you personally,” said the officer. “She will want to know where he was held, and by whom.”
“It’s all in the letter.”
At Aiyan’s signal, Teodor turned the wagon around, and they drove through the dark streets all the way to the old harbor.
They secured a room overlooking the harbor square. Teodor went to an undertaker and made arrangements for Jela and Sedlik. Aiyan knew that Sedlik had a sister living near Karta. He wrote to her and paid a rider to take it straightaway. Kyric tossed for a couple of hours in an attempt to sleep, then Teodor returned, hobbling on his makeshift crutch, and they took a few bites of bread and cheese. They sent their filthy clothes out to be washed, and didn’t speak to each other the entire afternoon. Kyric had time to think.
All he felt was guilt. Men had been killed all around him. Jazul had died. Aiyan and Pitbull each bore a vicious wound. And he had come through it unhurt. But worse, far worse than that was the guilt of what he had thought about Jela. It had been an insidious thought in the back of his mind that he could not push away.
He had blamed Jela for her death. The horrible little voice said that it had been her fault for going to the reception, that Vaust had connected her with Aiyan, and that he had found her when he read her father’s name in the paper. But now he saw that there was no way of knowing. Vaust might have seen her on the street by chance and followed her home. Morae could have seen it in Derndra’s Mirror.
Their clothes came back and they went out for supper that evening. Kyric ordered little and ate less. They overheard someone at another table talking about how the Senate had failed to meet that morning, and how Senator Lekon was reported to be very ill.
“I think our boat has come,” said Teodor, standing at the window of their room.
It had been a long sweaty night. They were up early but stayed in the room all morning, Aiyan pacing by the window. Kyric wasn’t sure if he was waiting or simply trying to make a decision. At one point he called to the landlord for ink and paper, changing his mind and saying he didn’t need it a moment later.
Teodor spent the time sharpening and polishing his sword. Aiyan had sat down at last and shown Kyric how to clean the intricate mechanisms of the wheel-lock pistol. It was almost noon when the two knights began discussing how they would return to Esaiya.
“It’s Sea Sprite. Looks like the masters sent Marrus and Jorlin to find us.”
“Good,” said Aiyan. “Saves us a trip to the narrows.”
They gathered the few things they had. Aiyan ran his hand across the book of rudders before tucking it under his arm. They walked down to the harbor, meeting Sea Sprite just as it came to dockside.
The two men in the sailboat were dressed in identical tunics, dark blue with intricate white stitching falling to the knee, reminiscent of a knight’s surcoat. They too wore the silver lockets with the mark of the flaming blade.
Aiyan handed them the book of rudders and his gear. “We must return to Esaiya at once,” he said to them.
They helped Teodor into the boat, and Aiyan turned to Kyric. “I couldn’t have done this without you. I only hope that you don’t come to curse me for it.”
“I’m the one who chased you down the road to Karta. I’m the one who didn’t walk away after the archery contest.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility to shoulder. I think you must accord some of it to me. Still, I can’t help but think the Unknowable Forces had a part in the way we met.”
He held out his hand. “I will see you again, Kyric.”
Kyric’s mouth fell open. “You’re not taking me with you?”
He thought his heart had hardened over the last few days. He had thought that Jela’s death and all that followed would make him immune to petty hurts. But suddenly he was ten years old again, and his mother was leaving him at the rune convent, saying that it would be only for the summer, that she would come back for him. And he saw every sign of the lie on her face.
“I thought . . . I thought I was different. I thought you were teaching me. I thought you were training me to become one of you. You introduced me to the princess as your squire — and I saw that it wasn’t a lie. Am I not your squire?”
Aiyan placed his hand on Kyric’s shoulder. “Remember what Teodor told you about the barrier surrounding Esaiya? There is a law of the order imposed upon us by the Unknowable Forces. No man may come to that island by the hand of another. I
f we were to take you, we would not be allowed to pass.”
“How am I unworthy?”
“I cannot say that you are.”
“Then what of redemption? Jela and Sedlik were killed because of us.”
“No,” said Aiyan, his grip tightening. “They died because of the hate of evil men. Nothing more and nothing less. You must understand that, for if you do not, you will never be whole, never be at one. Look me in the eye and know that I speak the truth.”
Kyric still felt helpless. “I have killed men. Be they evil or not I ask you: How will I be redeemed? You had your master to show you the way. How will I find it alone?”
Aiyan loosened his grip. “My master showed me a way, but even now I don’t know if I have found redemption. I feel that I will not know until my life is at its end.”
He leaned in close, lowering his voice. “Listen to me, Kyric. You are the most naturally gifted young man I have ever met. You have started on the path without anyone having shown it to you. But one step is only one step. And your natural talent, bereft of any training, leaves you vulnerable. I believe that we are not done with each other. I have every confidence that we will meet again very soon.”
Kyric looked away from him. “Then is there nothing for me now?”
A chorus of hoofbeats made them turn. A fine open-topped carriage with a cavalry escort rolled along the harbor road, stopping in front of the dock. Princess Aerlyn stepped out. Aiyan and Kyric went to meet her.
She smiled when she saw them coming, but to Kyric she seemed a little sad. Aiyan stood before her and bowed deeply.
“Please don’t be formal with me,” she said.
“You are a princess and I am in your service. How else should I be?”
“Be the man who danced with me on Solstice Eve.”
Aiyan smiled at her then, a little sad as well. “How did you track me down?”
“Our good Senators are not the only ones with informants in this city.”
“That is good to know.”
She brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I read the book you suggested. There is much in there of which I would know more. I also read the letter you wrote me. I couldn’t stop reading it. I understand why you think . . . why you think that we cannot . . . “
Call Of The Flame (Book 1) Page 17