by Alec Hutson
“And now?”
“Now I’ve seen great cities and kingdoms. I’ve met queens and princes and sorcerers.”
Nel nodded again. “Perhaps they murdered your mother and let the paladin take you away because they were ignorant and afraid of what they did not understand.”
“That doesn’t make it better,” Keilan said sharply.
“No? My mother was killed by a rich man. The life of a whore meant nothing to him—she was a thing to be used and thrown away. But he knew what he did. Your villagers… they acted out of fear. Their whole lives they’d probably been told that sorcery was evil. That it would bring down disaster and death upon their families. They were trying to protect themselves. And I think your father… when he did nothing to save your mother, he was trying to protect you.”
That struck Keilan so hard he rocked in his saddle. “Me?” he said softly.
Nel stared at him intently. “Keilan… what would have happened if your father had fought the men who came for your mother? Could he have stopped them?”
“No,” Keilan whispered, his thoughts wandering back to that terrible night, the shapes in the darkness outside his hut demanding for the door to open.
“They would have beaten him. Maybe killed him, if he fought hard enough. It was probably only because he had been born in the village that he was not immediately guilty himself. If he had fought for your mother and died, what would have happened to you? Would one of your relatives have taken in a cursed child?”
Would Uncle Davin have cared for him? Keilan found he couldn’t speak and had to shake his head.
“So your father gave up the woman he loved to save you.”
Tears prickled Keilan’s eyes, and he bowed his head. He felt something within him shift. It was like a tight knot he had been carrying around for years finally unraveling. He took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Some people do terrible things because of malice. But not all. Most people simply don’t know what they’re doing is wrong.”
Keilan’s thoughts were churning. After a moment he glanced up, and his gaze was drawn to the white cloak of the paladin riding a hundred paces ahead.
“Senacus,” Keilan murmured. “It’s the same. He doesn’t know.”
Surprise flitted across Nel’s face, and then she grimaced. “Well,” she said. “He has to learn.”
The journey from Gryx to the Kingdoms boasted far fewer inns and eating houses than the Iron Road, and as the day began to fade Nel decided they should find a suitable place to spread their bedrolls. Keilan knew she felt uncomfortable hemmed in by the forest, so he wasn’t surprised when she suggested they camp at the edge of a meadow speckled with golden flowers. Earlier that day, in a stroke of great good fortune, they’d encountered a hunter on the road who had sold them a brace of coneys. So as Nel began to awkwardly clean the animals, Keilan gathered kindling from the edge of the nearby forest. By the time he’d returned and built a fire Nel still hadn’t finished, as she seemed surprisingly squeamish when it came to removing the fur and guts. When Keilan offered to help, she scowled and turned away so he couldn’t see what she was doing. He shrugged and sighed and stretched out in the grass, enjoying the pleasant feeling of not being in his saddle.
A ways removed from their campfire Senacus had also found a spot to rest, his back to a fire-blackened stump and his eyes closed. Keilan watched him, turning over what Nel had said earlier.
What had happened to the paladin? What was it like to be Cleansed? What horrors had he seen as he hunted sorcerers across Araen? If Keilan knew, would he understand why Senacus was so uncompromising he would consider executing a grandfather in front of his grandchildren? That seemed impossible. And yet… he didn’t think the Pure was evil. Senacus was doing what he thought was right.
Coming to a decision, Keilan stood and went over to where their horses had been tied up. He pulled the jeweled sword Lady Numil had given him from among his bags, and with almost reverential care also lifted the paladin’s still-scabbarded white metal blade. Carrying both swords, he walked towards Senacus, who opened his glowing eyes as he approached. Keilan hoped the expression he saw was mild curiosity rather than outrage that Keilan had dared touch his sacred weapon—it was always difficult to read the paladin.
Keilan held out the Pure’s sheathed sword. “Senacus. I’ve heard the paladins of Ama are some of the world’s greatest warriors. Will you teach me something?”
Senacus cocked his head to one side and studied Keilan, his lips pursed. Then he also seemed to decide something, and pushed himself to his feet, brushing the dirt from his white armor and vestments. He held out his hand for his scabbard, and Keilan passed it to him. With a last, measuring look he turned and walked into the meadow.
“Come on.”
Keilan hurried to catch up with the paladin’s long strides. Indignant insects rose from the golden flowers as they passed, buzzing angrily, but luckily they were not the stinging sort. Near one of the few trees in the meadow, a gnarled old oak, the paladin stopped and squinted towards the setting sun.
“We can practice until the sun dips below those treetops. Sword-training is dangerous in the dark.” The paladin unsheathed his sword and let the scabbard fall in the long grass. Keilan had never seen one of the famed white metal blades this close before, and he studied it with interest. The sword didn’t look like steel, or even metal—it looked fragile, as if it had been shaped from ceramic, yet there were absolutely no blemishes on the blade.
“Where do they come from?” Keilan asked, and Senacus shook his head.
“I don’t know. We are given them after we finish our time as neophytes in the temple, and the mendicants say the swords are forged with Ama’s blessing.” Senacus slashed the air with his sword. “They are light, and do not rust or break easily.”
“Do the swords make the Pure great warriors?”
Senacus smiled slightly as he continued carving the air. “Certainly having a sword that does not weigh much is a great advantage. But it is only one of several. When the light of Ama fills us, we become faster and stronger than other men.”
“So the Pure truly are the world’s best warriors?”
Senacus hesitated. “There are some out there who could match the Pure in battle, great champions of their peoples. But as an order of warriors, there is only one other that approaches ours in strength.”
“The Fists?”
“No. They are great fighters, but they are only men.”
Keilan thought back to the carnage he had glimpsed in Saltstone. “Shadowblades?”
Senacus snorted. “I’ve never crossed swords with one of those assassins, but I’d wager their deadliness relies on cunning and trickery. No, I am speaking of the monks of Red Fang Mountain, in the Empire of Swords and Flowers. The Pure are strong because the divine light inside us gives us power beyond what should be possible, but somehow the warriors of Red Fang draw upon something similar. I’ve seen them fight. They can leap through the air like cats, and strike with unnatural speed and strength.”
“What gives them their power?” Keilan asked, and Senacus shrugged.
“I do not know. Their secrets are closely guarded.” He held out his sword so that its tapering length pointed towards Keilan’s chest. “Now, you wanted to practice?”
“Yes!” Keilan said, drawing his own sword. The red stone eyes of the falcon carved into the hilt glittered in the dying light of day. He took a few practice swings, testing the sword’s weight and grip. The last time he’d trained was over a month ago, atop Saltstone as Xin had instructed the apprentice magisters, and he could already tell that he was out of practice and that tomorrow his wrist would be sore.
He adopted the first form of The One Who Waits, his blade held high.
Senacus’s eyes widened slightly. “You’ve been instructed by a Fist warrior?”
Keilan slashed downward,
the third form of The One Who Strikes, and then as quickly as he could returned to the previous form. “Xin was a Fist warrior.”
“He would have been killed if the masters of Gryx knew he’d taught you even a small fraction of the forms.”
Keilan lunged forward again, a different variant of The One Who Strikes. “I taught him how to read, and they would have killed him for that, too. I don’t think he cared much.”
Senacus nodded. “It is still dangerous. Even if he did not value his own life, any punishment would have also fallen on his brothers.”
“He cared so much for his brothers,” Keilan said, and the paladin seemed to hear the edge of anger in his voice, as he ended the conversation by lifting his own sword.
“Come, Keilan. Try to strike me. Remember your forms, and don’t hold back.”
Keilan lowered his sword slightly. “Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you.”
Senacus gave a small, confident smile. “You won’t.”
They practiced as the last shreds of daylight fled across the meadow. At first Keilan was worried he would accidentally strike the paladin, but he soon discovered that Senacus was a warrior unlike any he had tried himself against before. No matter how fast he thrust or slashed, the white metal blade was always there to turn his sword away with ringing precision. When the paladin attacked he was notably slower than when defending, allowing Keilan to parry each strike. Finally, when it grew too dark to see clearly, Senacus stepped back, sheathing his sword. He seemed barely winded—unlike Keilan, who was gasping for air.
“Good,” Senacus said, real approval in his voice. “You have strong fundamentals. Your footwork is sound, and the forms you’ve been taught give you a grounding that will serve you well, if you can find another Fist warrior to teach you more.”
“We both know… that’s not likely,” Keilan said, panting.
A thoughtful look passed over the paladin’s face. “Hmm. I can’t build upon your foundation in the forms, but I can teach you another style of sword fighting. Not as elegant, perhaps, but as effective in its own way.”
Keilan stood and slid his sword away. “Thank you. I would be grateful.”
Senacus nodded like he considered the matter settled and began walking towards the flickering light at the meadow’s edge. Nel must have finally managed to clean the coneys—the delicious smell of roasting meat greeted them as they approached the campfire, and Keilan’s stomach responded. He felt a pang of sympathy for Senacus, as Nel never shared any of the food she prepared with the paladin… but to Keilan’s surprise he saw her crouched beside the fire holding three sticks threaded with chunks of crisped meat.
“Took you long enough,” she said, rising. “I wouldn’t have started roasting them if I’d known you’d be gone so long.” She held out a stick for Keilan, and then offered another to Senacus. The paladin accepted it gently, ducking his head in thanks. She turned away as if this peace offering was nothing to be noted and returned to her spot beside the fire. Keilan found his own seat and motioned for Senacus to join them.
Later, Keilan listened to Nel’s gentle snoring as he lay and watched the fire’s last dying flames. He could also see Senacus, who had pulled his bedroll closer after they had finished their supper, and the paladin’s side was rising and falling in the steady rhythm of sleep.
He returned his concentration to that tiny flame, reaching out to it, attempting to recreate what he had witnessed in the camp of the Kindred. Inside his mind an image formed of him out on his fishing boat, floating in a great, empty expanse. He leaned over the side, hesitating only for a moment as he stared into that dark abyss, and then plunged his arm into the water. He shuddered as something searingly cold flooded him.
A tiny hand extended from the flames of the campfire and curled towards where he lay, almost as if beckoning him on.
They rode through the night after passing through the eastern gate of Herath. Jan sat a horse well, Cho Lin thought, for a man who had been chained to a wall for quite some time—she guessed a few weeks, at least, given the lesions scarring his wrists that had been revealed when they’d finally gotten his manacles cut away. His hair and nails were not overlong, though, nor were his clothes reduced to rags. His dress was fine enough that he had ridden straight past the guards flanking the night gate without drawing a second look. She’d followed behind with her cowl drawn up to hide her features, afraid that the sight of a Shan on horseback would prove memorable.
Jan did not speak, and Cho Lin suspected that if she could see his features in the darkness, he would look deep in thought. He had barely spoken while they escaped from the fortress of the Crimson Queen, clinging to her silently as she climbed down the wall of the tower in which he’d been imprisoned. No words, but there had been wary respect in his face when they’d finally stood in the courtyard below. Then they’d slipped out through of the larger gates, hidden in a stream of servants returning to their homes in the city proper. After Cho Lin stopped by her room at The Cormorant to gather a few things—Jan had stayed outside in the shadows, claiming he was known inside—they had made their way to a stable and purchased a pair of nags that looked to her to have a future in the cook pot rather than outrunning the queen’s hunters. The horse trader had tried to press two sleek stallions on them instead, but after inspecting all the man’s stock Jan had been insistent they take the nags. The stable master’s resigned expression after Jan had made his choice suggested to Cho Lin that her new companion knew horseflesh.
For most of the night they rode silently along the Wending Way, listening to the night birds warble to each other. Finally, as a pink dawn started to creep over the horizon, Cho Lin kicked her horse into a canter and came up alongside Jan.
“Why were you a prisoner? What did you do?”
The man’s face—his expression lost to the darkness—turned towards her. “I was a guest of the queen, and I betrayed her. Through me another struck at her and killed many.”
Ah. So that was it. “You were a part of the attack on Saltstone?” Rumors of the attempt to murder the queen had been on everyone’s lips in Herath—even the man who had sold her fruit in the morning had wanted to gossip about the explosion that had destroyed the queen’s tower. And the ones behind the carnage—they had been shadowblades, if the whispered words of a fruit seller were to be believed. Even in the land of Shan the legends of the kith’ketan were known.
“I did not intend to be. I was tricked.”
She could hear his anger. “Who was behind the attack? Do you know?”
A long pause, as if the man was weighing how much to tell her. “I do. The sorceress who used me is the same one who commands the child demons you are searching for.”
More pieces fell into place. If the Betrayers had been a part of the attack, then that would explain why her sword had sensed their presence inside Saltstone. And that would also suggest that the Crimson Queen was in fact in opposition to the demons… or whoever they were allied with.
Something shrieked in the forest, an almost human sound, and Cho Lin’s hand found the handle of her butterfly sword.
“Just a rabbit,” Jan said. “Caught by a fox or owl. When they cry out in pain they sound like children.”
Cho Lin relaxed. “And this sorceress, are we heading towards her now? You said the chest was in Menekar.”
“It is. In the imperial gardens of the Selthari Palace. We have a long ride ahead of us.”
The midday sun had nearly crested when they reached the first rest stop along the Way. It was just a few buildings clustered off the road: a ramshackle inn and tavern, an open-air smithy, and a few wood and mud huts with barren vegetable fields spread behind them. Jan nudged his horse towards the little village, leaving the road, and Cho Lin turned her horse to follow him.
“Where are you going?” she asked when she’d caught up.
He slid from his horse. “I need a bath.”
>
Cho Lin glanced down the road in the direction they had come. “A bath? There will be hunters. We need to go. Quickly.”
Jan looped his reins around a hitching post, then looked up at her, squinting into the sun. “If the rangers of Dymoria have our trail—and I assume they do—then we are already caught. It is just a matter of when.”
“Then we find a good place to do a… how to say it . . . secret attack.”
Jan gave a crooked smile. “An ambush, you’re talking about. They will come in force, Cho Lin. How many of Dymoria’s elite soldiers can you kill?”
She twisted the reins in her hands. “If we ambush? Ten?”
He blinked in surprise, his expression of calm resignation briefly replaced by one of incredulity. “Ten?”
Cho Lin shrugged. “Fifteen, maybe.”
He shook his head, sighing. “That’s… unbelievable, but even if it was true it wouldn’t matter. I expect fifty rangers, at least, with sorcerers accompanying them.”
Now it was Cho Lin’s turn to eye him skeptically. “So many? For you?”
Jan touched the metal collar around his neck. “They will assume, I think, that I know of a way to remove this.”
“And why is that important?”
Jan ran his hand through his sandy hair. “Because I am a sorcerer.” He watched her reaction, and then continued when she only raised an eyebrow. “This collar keeps me from using my power.”
Cho Lin gestured at the empty smithy. “Someone here can cut it off.”
Jan frowned. “No. There are only two ways it can be removed—with its key, which is probably somewhere back in Saltstone, or if a sorcerer stronger than the one who placed it on me attempts to unclasp it. And since that sorcerer was Cein d’Kara, I’ll likely be wearing it for quite a while. Now,” Jan said, holding out his hand, “some coins, please. When the rangers arrive, I’d like to meet them freshly washed.”
Cho Lin pursed her lips, but she passed Jan a few Dymorian copper pieces. He smiled and nodded his thanks, then headed for the door of the inn. Cho Lin watched him until he’d vanished inside, stunned by his insouciance. How could he be thinking of a bath at this time? Had she rescued a madman?