King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three

by Jenna Rhodes

  She faced in now in a hundred different poses, faceted and sparkling red-orange in the sun, shining so brightly that he narrowed his eyes. A hundred signposts, each adorned with a miniature of the cradle which had held the original Jewel, a cradle that rocked up and down, and side to side, propelled by the wind, sun, and the Jewel’s own will, so that its eye could view the horizon in front of it. He put his hand out and flicked the nearest one into greater motion. It immediately swung alertly toward him, and then relaxed into a gentle rocking movement.

  “You know me,” he murmured. “Even as I know you. I wonder if the Drebukar had any inkling at all what they found when they mined you out of the earth. Or perhaps it was my own Istlanthir who imbued you with the guardian spirit that still shines out of you, regardless of your circumstances. Whatever you are, you are more than a Way, for you are sentient.” He stroked the side of the faceted gem close to him. A hundred signposts he’d had fashioned and three staffs. One for Lariel. One for Bistel. The third, he had not chosen a Vaelinar to carry. Perhaps even Abayan Diort though that Galdarkan carried his own magic. Who might best be protected by the guardian of Tomarq?

  Lara should arrive at the cliff late that day or perhaps early on the morrow. She’d be pleased when she saw what he’d fashioned: how could she not? And he did want to please her, his heart did, although . . .

  And Tranta turned his eyes to the sea. Lara had never mentioned a marriage, an alliance between them, although they’d been close all their lives and he thought he knew well why. His truest heart lay out there somewhere, beyond the waves, calling to him on the trade winds. Was it the ocean himself or merely the desire to travel on it, to discover, to master the tides? Whatever it was, it did not matter to Tranta which might hold him on land—it wouldn’t hold him for long. Not throughout all the seasons. He would return, as all men of the sea returned to shore, but he would always go back out again, if he could.

  Was that why he dreamed of a sea-gray ship going to its doom? That if he followed his heart, the rest of his fate would fail?

  “Perhaps,” he said softly to himself, “I should take the third staff with me. You would be upset if I left you entirely, would you not?” and he turned his face back to the many facets of his Jewel, his eyes dazzled. “We have a visitor coming,” he told her and walked among the posts, ensuring that each and every one of the cradles that held a piece of her worked properly and that it held her safely.

  He still had shards too small to use and could not bear to throw them away, nor would he sell them to a jeweler to adorn bracelets and tiaras and cuffs. The Jewel of Tomarq deserved a dignity beyond that. She had watched their coast for centuries before her downfall. He would not let her remains be turned to mere baubles. As he moved among her red-gold brilliance, a tiny thought at the back of his mind occurred to him: that he had never felt as one with the Jewel before nor regarded her so highly and with an intelligence of her own, as much a woman as the Warrior Queen. Should he think it odd? Yet how could he think otherwise, given the evidence. The thought evaporated from his mind before he could focus upon it and drifted away, like foam on the outgoing tide.

  “We have a queen to show what we can do,” he told her as he moved among her many flames. “I want her to be as impressed as I am.”

  The Jewel of Tomarq did not answer him. Tranta smiled wryly as he gathered his tool belt and went to work.

  He worked on the cradles till the sun had peaked in the sky and began to slide away toward the ocean. Then he stood and stretched, easing cramped muscles in his neck and shoulders, and reaching for a waterskin. Before him, on the makeshift workbench he’d put together, lay a girdle of sorts, a chain mail belt and he had installed on its top tier and lowest tier, eye drops of the ruby jewel, not certain what purpose the armament might serve other than to bedazzle the eye. He tapped it thoughtfully with one nail as he put his waterskin down. “A pretty thing for any lady, but will you save her life?”

  “And is that what you mean it to do?”

  Tranta’s head snapped about and he saw Lariel sitting on the other side of the chasm, her hands folded in her lap, her horse and guards secured at the bottom of the slope, out of earshot.

  “Lara! How long have you been sitting there?”

  “Not that long. A welcome rest after a hard ride. Will you lower the bridge for me? I see what you’ve made.” She stood, dusting herself off. Her blonde and silvery hair caught the gleam of the lowering sun and sent it shooting like sparks through her strands.

  He lowered the bridge as requested and held it steady while she joined him. She wore riding leathers and light chain, adequate protection on the road although not likely to offer much if an attack had been pressed, but then she’d come with speed and that meant watching weight. He took her hand as she stepped off the wood-and-rope bridge.

  “So what have you done with our broken shield? It looks like you have scaled it down, but surely you can’t mean for us to have a fence along the coastline?” Lariel strode into the center of his works, her brilliant blue eyes not missing a detail of his efforts.

  “If I am correct, four of these posts, positioned properly, can handle the guardianship of Hawthorne’s harbor. The Jewel can’t strike as far as she did, nor as hot, but she certainly has retained all her capabilities to react to danger.”

  “You’ve replicated the cradle.”

  “To some extent, yes.”

  “Do we need to assign a watchman then, for each post, to aim the Jewel?”

  He could see the calculation in her eyes, of manning each signpost on shifts around the clock, and the cost of doing that. Tranta shifted his weight. “The posts don’t need to be manned.”

  Lara stopped in her tracks, half-turning. “What?”

  “Just as the Jewel of Tomarq operated independently when in one singular piece, so does each of these signposts operate. She has retained her ability to scrutinize the surroundings and react accordingly.”

  Lara murmured something which sounded to him as if she said, “Gods in heavens” before catching herself and finishing her walk through his latest creations.

  “Her beam is not as far-reaching as it was, but it is still very effective, and if there is need, the other signposts will join as sentinels.”

  Lara blinked. “Meaning . . .”

  “If the beam is not sufficient to render her target helpless, the other signposts close by will also strike. If one fiery beam does not take our enemy down, rest assured that two or three most certainly can. In a way, the Jewel is far more efficient now. Energy is not being wasted on broad sweeps.”

  “But.” Lara paused, and then started again. “How does it know? How does it know whom to strike? If I dress as a smuggler to approach the shore, will it cut me down? Will it take out a landing boat of ild Fallyn if they invade up the coast?”

  “How did it always know before? It is a Way, Lara, and it’s always known our enemies, from the day it was created. I can’t be clearer than that.”

  “There have always been traitors.”

  “And there always will be; it seems ingrained in our nature. Will the Jewel strike against a traitor? Probably not until such a one is embroiled deep in the traitorous act, because it is not more godlike than you or I. If you’re asking me if it will strike someone down merely because there is darkness in one’s heart, I can’t tell you that.” He spread his hands, palms up.

  Lara gave a soft laugh. “Of course you can’t. Although our lives would certainly be easier if you could.”

  “Now you speak of Sevryn.”

  “Yes. And Rivergrace, I suppose.” Lara pulled up a three-legged stool and sat upon it. “Or anyone else . . . can you imagine marching someone in front of these to see if our Shield would react to them?”

  “The Jewel was never meant to act as a jury of peers. It is meant as a guardian in hard times, when armed incursions have already declared their intent
ions and need to be acted against. I don’t think it was given the extreme sentience to judge much further than that.”

  She nodded and shifted her chain mail shirt about herself, easing it a bit. She saw the jewelry lying out on his worktable. “And what is this?”

  He folded his legs and sat on the ground opposite her. The cliff here was beach as much as it was rock, with scruffy tufts of grass too stubborn to not grow here, and sand that shone with tiny bits of rock and shell. He pulled the girdle into a more recognizable shape. “I’m not sure what it is,” he admitted. “I have fragments I can’t find a use for, yet, and I won’t let them be turned into vanity pieces. Now this,” and he stirred it with a fingertip, “this could be a valuable piece of armor if it works as I think it will.”

  “Have you tested it?”

  “I just finished it as you sat there.”

  “What do we need to do?”

  He pursed his lips in thought. “I suppose we need a volunteer to wear it and a volunteer to attempt an attack.”

  “Do you think it might react to ward off an attacker?”

  “It should. I don’t know if it would merely be a deterrent or if it could cripple the attacker, however. I’d hate to boil one of your guardsmen inside his armor.”

  “That serious a response?”

  “Possibly.” He calculated mentally. “Yes, quite possibly.”

  An expression he could not read passed across Lariel’s face. She looked down for a moment, perhaps to finish her thought or hide it, he couldn’t be certain. “You wear it and I’ll come at you.”

  He shook his head. “No, nor will you wear it while I attack. First, if we have any confidence in the Jewel at all, she’ll know the difference. Second, if we’re wrong, and she can’t determine the difference between a feigned attack and a real one, someone could get seriously hurt.”

  “Then the item is useless if you can’t test it and predict its use.”

  “The Jewel of Tomarq has never been useless.”

  Lara closed her mouth, her lips in a soft line, as she examined his face. She sat back a little. “You would take it on face value.”

  “We wouldn’t have to. I imagine if we search one of the prisons in Hawthorne, we could find a thief who’d be quite interested in taking the piece off you, whether you were alive or not, if he thought he could get away with it. Would you set a man up like that?”

  “Why not, if he’d savage me?” Lara leaned out and shouted down the slope to her guardsmen, “Find me a thief from the jails across the bay. A good one, a desperate and hungry one.”

  Two of her men answered with a salute, mounted and rode off.

  “You’re serious?”

  “I want to know what it does if I’m going to wear it.”

  Tranta looked at her. “I didn’t say I’d made it for you.”

  “If not me, who then?”

  He couldn’t say because he hadn’t anyone in mind, but he opened his mouth to gainsay her and then could not. Perhaps he’d had her in mind all along. Perhaps the Jewel had.

  She nodded briskly. “See? And I have a need for it, I think. There is a battle coming.”

  “Here?”

  “Ashenbrook and Ravela, most likely, although if Daravan loses his grip on his tide of Raymy, it could be anywhere. They’ve been dropping in handfuls, here and there. Worse, Calcort reports their invaders carried plague. I not only have to stop them in their tracks, I have to burn them where they stand.” Lara smiled ruefully. “I could use the Shield back in her old glory. I need a guardian against wars and traitors.”

  “I tried.”

  “Tranta! Never think you’ve failed. Look at these posts—sentinels made from the debris of the Shield’s destruction. No one else would have even attempted it, let alone succeeded.” Lara leaned close to him. “You’ve done a marvelous job.”

  “You’re pleased, then?”

  “As soon as we can test one or two of the pieces, we’ll huddle over a map and decide where best to strategically place them. You’ve made the posts substantial, I imagine they can be sunk into any foundation on almost any part of the coastline and be fairly permanent.”

  “For centuries, I had thought. If the wood rots, the cradle can be attached to a new post. The Jewel will not diminish, as stone does not. Nor do I think anyone would be fool enough to pry them away.”

  Lara touched the girdle. “Give or take a link or two, I think it will fit.”

  The corner of Tranta’s mouth quirked a little. “It should,” he admitted. He had danced with the Warrior Queen often enough that he had a good idea of the span of her waist.

  “Excellent. It’s late enough for a dinner. Cross the chasm and eat with us?”

  Tranta stood and gave her a hand up. “With pleasure.”

  They had finished a modest supper and a wineskin among the four of them and retreated into a game of pieces heading far into the night when the two guardsmen returned. Lara stood with interest as they rode into the fire’s light, leading a tired Kernan pony by rope halter with a ragged man perched on its back. His smell preceded him.

  He threw one leg over the horse’s withers and crooked it there, leaning forward with an easy smile. “So this is the lady who sent for a true man.”

  “And found him in a jail,” rumbled Guardsman Niforan at Tranta’s elbow. He set down the wineskin he’d been holding to serve Lariel.

  She put her hand on his forearm. “At ease. I did send for him.”

  Niforan stood back, but Tranta could feel the tension radiating from him. He stood, went to his workbench and crossed back over the bridge, where he handed the girdle to Lara with a bow. The Kernan thief’s gaze fixed upon the glittering jewelry. She strung it between her fingers and walked toward the thief. “I need some help fastening this.”

  He slid off the horse, eager to oblige, his hands fastening the girdle about her waist deftly, his fingertips soothing down each link and facet of the jeweled armor. Lara stepped back out of reach quickly, her nostrils flaring slightly at what Tranta thought was probably his odor.

  She considered the Kernan who was tall for his kind, although not for a Vaelinar, their eyes met on a level. “You’ve a name, I suppose?”

  “Hariston.” He gave an incline of his chin. “Harry, they call me.”

  “Appropriate.” Tranta paused. “Your hair does seem to have a life of its own.” He eyed what seemed to be small creatures moving through long, greasy hanks of mud-brown hair, probably not too much different from the way it might look when the man hadn’t been imprisoned.

  Harry eyed him. “You with hair that is not born of this or any other world.”

  Tranta smiled with one side of his mouth as he tucked his sea-blue locks behind one ear. “I would not have it any other way.”

  Lara looked between the two of them. “My lover,” her eyes lingered on Tranta, “and I have a bet.”

  Harry rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. “I hold a certain relish for gambling. Where do I figure in this little wager of yours?”

  “Why, you are the central figure.”

  “Tell me.” Harry stood, appearing at ease though Tranta marked his posture well: weight shifted slightly forward, ready to move, arms and shoulders loose. More than a thief, this one, he thought. Perhaps dangerously more.

  “Lara—”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think this is wise.”

  Her gaze flashed at him briefly. “Nonsense. You just hate to lose a wager.”

  “Ask him if he’s ready to lose his life.”

  Tranta caught Harry’s attention with that. “A life or death proposition?”

  Lara made a diffident movement with her hand. “Life if you win, back to jail if you lose. And likely your death there, right? Although you seem to be faring well.”

  “Haven’t had the trial
yet, Lady Vaelinar. That will make the difference.” His attention came back to her as she moved, and her girdle flashed fiery brilliant in the campfire’s light.

  “Get my girdle and you’re free to go.”

  He looked at her, one eye squinted. “That’s it? That’s all?”

  “You have to go through Tranta and then me to do it. That should be enough,” she said tranquilly.

  Harry turned round to survey the group. “What about this lot?” He indicated Niforan and the other three guards.

  “They will not interfere.”

  “And I have your word on that?”

  “You do.”

  Harry spat to one side, just missing Niforan’s boots. They stared at one another coldly. Hariston wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Vaelinar word don’t amount to much.”

  “Then we might have a problem agreeing to our wager. I offer freedom and gold, and you don’t trust my offer.” Lara started to turn her back.

  “Don’t be hasty. What if I wanted to keep that?” Eyes fastened on the bejeweled girdle again as if it had lit a lust inside him that could not be put out by either fear or common sense.

  “It’s not part of the wager.”

  Harry’s fingers twitched against his thighs. “But I want it.”

  Tranta put up his hand. “A moment.” He crossed the bridge, wooden planks thumping under his boots, rope creaking and straining in his haste, and made his way to his bench. There he cupped a handful of the slivers and teardrop shards, wrapped them in a sweat rag, and bore them back to the campfire. When he opened the rag to show the Kernan, a multitude of the gems shimmered in his palm. “This plus the gold.”

  Harry licked his lips. He gave a nod. “Done. But I will do whatever I have to for it.”

  Lara smiled slowly. “You took a knife off me when you helped fasten the belt on. Is that weapon enough for you?”

  A wicked smile crossed the Kernan’s face. “I could do with another.”

  At Lariel’s nod, Niforan tossed him a long sword and then retreated. Lara gave him another wave. “Retreat to the base of the slope.”