“Forget it. I don’t care why you left. Just go away. I can’t deal with you right now,” because Sarn might strangle his oldest friend. Also, those guards must be combing this level by now.
“They saw you fall, and they told all you walked tall with no scrape at all. Tale spread like a ball tossed through the sprawl. Now one and all say fly not fall. Even gangs call you angel all. Thought you stay hid, not do ‘less bid—”
“Enough—” Sarn turned, cutting his friend off mid-babble, “You told me all of this last night. Leave us alone.”
Bending, Sarn picked up the sack and caught a good look at Shade’s bloodshot eyes. His short friend squinted and struggled to achieve proper focus with his swollen pupils. Shade was high as the lumir mosaic overhead.
“Damn you. You promised you’d quit.”
But the promise had been a lie all along. Sarn slung the sack over his shoulder and descended the stairs. At least one question had an answer. His magic had rejected Shade because it hated drugs, and it was determined to keep them away from him. If only his friend subscribed to the same idea.
“Angel flies and falls. Broken-winged, he still calls.”
“Go away. I don’t want you around my son when you’re like this.”
Ignoring the curious glances Ran sent him, Sarn hustled the boy down the twisting steps.
“Have to tell you all, before the last call.”
“Go away.”
Two hundred steps more and they'd reach the Lower Quarters. Shade continued to spout nonsense, but Sarn ignored it as he stepped onto a landing and steered his son down the first turning determined to lose Shade. He had enough on his mind without adding the rantings of an addict to the pile.
Sliding down his door into a puddle of elbows and knees, Sarn regarded the overfull sack. He should divide it up and leave the lion’s share for the Foundlings next door. Before he could move, Ran’s head and shoulders vanished inside the bag.
Cold air buffeted Sarn as the ghost boy coalesced and this time, it had all its parts. The ghost’s pale green eyes pleaded with Sarn to get up and do something.
“What do you want? Other than finding out what happened to you, there’s not much I can do.”
The ghost made no attempt at speech. It just stared at Sarn from the other side of the Mortal Veil, beyond the reach of speech and his magic too.
Smiling, Ran backed out of the bag holding a sausage and padded over, his attention riveted on the ghost. Ran extended his hand. The ghost backed away and faded out as a shadow leaped up from the floor. It passed through the spot the ghost had occupied, extruding tentacles as it dove at his frowning son.
Seizing Ran, Sarn pulled the boy to him. The shadow hit the floor and vanished as magic increased his eyes’ glow.
“What was the dark thing?” Ran pointed with the sausage half in his other hand.
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”
“Can I help?” Ran finished his snack.
“Not right now.”
Thirst forced Sarn to get up and slake it with a tin cup he held under a dripping stalactite. After he had drunk his fill, he handed the full cup to his son grimacing at the sticky state of his offspring. Wetting a section of his tunic, Sarn wiped Ran’s face clean. He should supervise his son’s snacking. Instead, Sarn staggered to the mattress and cast himself down on it. He had a lot to think about, and he was so damned tired. Every part of him cried out for rest. Surely the mystery could wait a few hours more.
Bells chimed the hour, ringing fourteen times as Ran joined him. His son smelled of dust, sausages and fruit juice as the boy pillowed his head on Sarn’s shoulder. He hugged Ran close.
“You’re not okay."
“I’m tired. It’s been an eventful day.”
And he had to report to Nolo soon. Sarn suppressed a groan. None of his heroes had to go to work while they were righting wrongs. But none of them were Indentured, and he was. Promises he’d made years ago, manacled Sarn to his word. He would go to work and find some way to work on the ghost boy’s problem while there. Because, he had no other options.
“Papa, what was that thing?”
“What thing?”
“It’s not a real boy ‘cause I saw through it. What was it?”
Sarn looked around but saw no spooks. “It’s a boy's ghost.”
“What’s a ghost?”
Indeed, what was a ghost? Was it a spark of personality or was it something more? And how had the shadow moved independently of the light source throwing it? What about the Insectoid Abomination and all the other weird things that had chased him? Sarn rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“I don’t know.”
“Why does it run away from me?”
“I don’t know.” Sarn tightened his grip on his son. Ran had no magic. It must be something about the ghost boy making it impossible for the two children to coexist in the same place. But was it germane to the specter’s problem? “I just don’t know.”
Ran fingered his stuffed bear’s ears. “Bear and I saw it—the ghost I mean.”
“When?”
“When you were sleeping. Uncle Miren didn’t see it. It showed up and went away two times.” Ran held up two fingers to make his point.
“Did it do anything?” Sarn shifted his grip so he could see his son’s pensive face. Let the answer be ‘no.’
Ran shook his head. “It looked at me. I asked it things, but it won’t talk to me.” His son hugged his bear. “What does it want?”
“I thought I knew, but now I don’t know. Did it do anything else?”
Ran held out his arm. “It made me cold here.”
“When?” Sarn rubbed the affected spot, but the flesh was warm now.
“When you left me with Shade." Ran reclaimed his arm and squeezed his bear. “And I saw a shadow monster.”
“You saw a what?”
This was Shayari. There were no monsters here—until yesterday. How could the death of one child lead to all of this? It couldn’t. There had to be more to it.
“And where was Shade when this happened?”
Ran shrugged.
Sarn rubbed his son’s back. “I’m sorry you had such a scare.”
Silence blanketed them. Had the ghost dropped in to warn him? Was his murder only the beginning of something far worse? If only the specter could speak what it knew, but Death had gagged it.
Sarn rubbed eyes pricked by tears at the thought of some fiend killing his sweet son. Until he’d untangled this mess, he couldn’t discount the possibility. In fact, he couldn’t discount anything. Everything was bloody likely.
“If the ghost shows up again, you stay away from it, okay.”
“What about Bear?” Ran gripped his only toy.
“You both hide from it.”
“Okay, but he’s not right.”
“What do you mean?”
Ran shrugged, unable to explain. But Sarn had felt it too. The ghost was incomplete. Other than a body, what could it be missing? He needed answers but who could he ask for them?
Ran squirmed free of his grip and returned holding a slim volume.
“What are you doing with Miren’s book?”
Ran hugged the book to his chest. Bound in brown leather, it was wider than his son's torso and just as long.
“I want to see it. It might help.”
Doubtful since neither he nor his son could read, but he owed the boy sending pleading looks his way. “All right but you have to sit here by me and be careful. Don’t tell my brother I let you look at it, okay?”
Ran flopped down where indicated, settled Bear so his toy could see and opened the book.
“Be careful with the pages. If you tear or crease them, Miren’ll know, and we’ll both be in trouble.”
Ran nodded as his fingertips slid over the lines in the drawings, memorizing them.
Sarn yawned and sleep beckoned. No, he told it. He crossed his arms behind his head. After he’d sorted out what he knew, he could figure o
ut where to go from here. Beneath the mattress, the mountain slumbered, and he shivered, recalling the touch of its alien consciousness and the cancer eating at its roots. Something about that cancer niggled at him. It was like something else he’d run into. If only he weren't so tired, he could call it to mind.
Bear’s button eyes focused on him and in their depths, intelligence flickered. Sarn blinked, and Bear was just a toy again.
“You figured it out?” Ran gave him a hopeful look.
“No,” the ghost of an idea had fled before it had fully formed. Sarn rolled onto his side and tried to recapture it. Ran’s fingers revealed a Guardian’s face in slow increments. He wasn’t one Sarn recognized from the stories his brother had read to them.
Something about the book teased his memory. The Rangers had one filled with signatures, dates, and notes about people’s travel plans. No one sane would head into the hinterland without leaving some record behind.
What if one or both murdered groups had departed from Mount Eredren? They’d all died within four miles of here. One of them might have left a note. Maybe it would tell him something about the boy or his traveling companions. Sarn sat up drawing his son’s gaze away from the illustration.
“You stay. It’s not time to go.”
“I know. I'm not leaving you.”
Satisfied with his answer, Ran resumed his interrupted tracing.
Those killers had ignored the rules for a reason. It had to be the Shera Kai. The stupid law had legalized the killing of mages centuries ago. What else could motivate murder in a forest prejudiced against fools? Such law-abiding citizens would want to leave a record of what they’d done. Something to illuminate why the forest had allowed the boy’s death in the first place and kicked off all this insanity.
The harbormaster kept records too. If the Seekers had stopped at Mount Eredren, they’d show up in his ledger. Will could look at any time he wanted. It was a place to start, and with luck, it would lead to answers.
“Next time can we have a nice ad-ven-ture?”
“Yeah, I’ll try. I’m sorry today was such a disaster.” Sarn yawned, and guilt stuck hundreds of needles into his heart. “I should make a safe place for you to play.” Sarn turned the idea over as he stared at the crenelated wall.
“With nets to climb.”
Sarn nodded to his son’s suggestion. What would it take to create such a haven? He fell asleep imagining a place for children echoing with laughter fast turning to screams. Blood splashed the walls and children’s corpses littered the floor. Rocks fell, blanketing them in rubble as an icy black curtain dropped, hiding thirteen graves. A thirteen-pointed star ghosted out of the shadows, and a voice whispered, eam’meye erator.
A hand shook his shoulder, startling Sarn out of a nightmare.
Eam’meye erator. The phrase persisted, growing more ominous with each repetition. A warning vibrated in his bones as Sarn blinked bleary eyes at his brother.
“What time do you have to go to work tonight?”
“What time is it?”
“Nineteenth bell just rang.”
Something bad was coming, and it was connected to the murders and the ghost boy somehow. “Do you still have them?” he whispered into his son’s ear.
Ran had curled up in his arms sans Miren’s book. With luck, the clever child had put it back where he’d found it, and his brother would be none the wiser.
“Have what?”
“The seeds.”
Ran pressed on his stuffed bear’s belly until the edges of a pouch appeared. Soft white light shined from within.
“Keep them close.” Sarn hugged his mystified son once and laid him down on the mattress. Stay safe, he thought at the sleepy boy dwarfed by the giant mattress.
“What was that all about?” Miren glared daggers at Sarn’s back.
Sleep still fogged his mind and hunger clamped his belly, but nineteenth bell had already rung. He had sixty minutes to find his master. Sarn yanked open the door and pulled his cowl down to shade his face.
“Sarn? Answer me.”
“I can’t,” because I don’t know. Sarn closed the door on his brother’s sputtered reply and rushed toward the danger thrumming in his veins.
Chapter 17
As Sarn hurried, the skin between his shoulder blades prickled. Warnings buzzed through his head in a wordless jumble. He turned, but there was only sculpted rock and stairs vanishing around bends in both directions. Something had tweaked his magic senses. If something were happening tonight, the commander would be hip deep in it. He closed his eyes and merged with the crowds navigating the statue-choked transept.
Raised voices halted Sarn by a statue of a rearing lion. Diagonally across from him stood the open doors of the Middle Kitchen. He should move on. His dark green cloak and cowl were conspicuous against the white and gray stonework. But the voices—their timbre sent a warning skittering up his spine.
Before he could move closer, a silent summons turned him away from the kitchen. Catching his hand, it tugged Sarn south. He slid through the crowd like a somnambulist deeper into a dream, and they parted for him.
The north-south transept ended at a W-intersection, and he hooked a left into a maze. Time dilated as he wound through the labyrinthine gloom, negotiating its hidden traps and murder holes. Past the door wardens, he staggered until a hand clasped his shoulder and spun him around.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Gregori shook Sarn breaking the enchantment.
Sarn blinked at a sky dyed orange by the setting sun. The Queen of All Trees stood halfway down Mount Shayar’s east face, calling to him. He must run the intervening miles to her.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Gregori shook him again.
Sarn glared at the burly Ranger blocking his path. “You left me for dead.”
Or for the Seekers to find—which was it? Sarn swallowed the question. Now was not the time. When he tried to brush past Gregori, the man pivoted, taking up the entire ledge.
“What are you looking at?” Sarn demanded hands fisted at his sides.
Gregori shook his head and clapped an arm around Sarn’s shoulders. It made his skin crawl, and he sought to evade the stronger Ranger.
“You’re all right Kid. Didn’t think you’d make it, but you did.”
Had he just heard an admission of guilt? Sarn studied Gregori, but the man's face held his usual smug expression free of any cracks. “No thanks to you.”
“Don’t be such a child.”
Sarn rolled his eyes. Ahead the trail wended through a narrow rock cut. To fit, the broad-shouldered Ranger would have to let go of him. “Why do you hate me?”
Gregori gaped at him for a moment then the big fool laughed off his surprise. “I don’t hate you, and you don’t hate me.”
“Why did you do it? Why did you leave me out there?”
Gregori looked away and caved into himself. The sight unsettled Sarn so much he stumbled on the damned gravel littering the trail. “You’re a smart Kid. I’m sure you can figure it out.” Gregori shook his shoulders out and liberated himself from whatever emotion had gripped him.
Had he seen some evidence of regret or guilt? Likely neither given Gregori’s temperament. The Ranger's ego rooted out all such sentiments before they could take hold.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
To Sarn's left, the ground dropped away from a precipice—one of his favorites due to its stunning views of the Nirthal River Valley.
“Because I don't have to.”
No answers, no apologies, not even a congratu-fucking-lations for surviving yet another pointless test. And what had Gregori tested him on—his ability to dead reckon? Or had the man hoped he’d blunder into the Seekers?
Something glinted in Gregori’s eye. Maybe it was the setting sun. Maybe it was a spark of amusement or a warning to tread with care. Whatever it was, it made Sarn pull free of the man’s grasp and slip past him when the trail widened. He left Gregori standing there as inc
omprehensible as always.
But Gregori refused to stay behind. The damned man caught up with Sarn and spun him around. “I asked you a question Kid, and you haven’t answered it. Where are you going?”
To answer the Queen of All Trees’ summons, but she was gone leaving only deepening twilight. Night’s purple veils blanketed the enchanted forest, hiding it and her.
Eam’meye erator—the phrase whispered on the wind, fouling the air with the stench of death. Each syllable was a warning, striking deep chords.
“This isn’t a trick question. I’ll give you a hint—nowhere except to Jerlo’s office. The commander’s looking for you.”
“Why's he looking for me?”
Anger tightened Sarn's hands into fists. But the forty-something bruiser stood there, waiting. His eyes taunted Sarn, but he shook his fists out instead.
“Why do you think. You okay Kid? You look a little green—I mean aside from your funny eyes.”
Like Gregori cared what happened to him. Sarn spun on his heel and stalked off toward Jerlo’s office, but the Ranger stopped him a third time.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Gregori nodded to the rock wall next to a strip of runes outlining the mountain’s main doors.
Using quartz and lumir chips, the Litherians had inlaid a glittering welcome, unintelligible to the mountain's current residents. It glowed in night's falling gloom, extending a shining invitation to all in sight. The doors were another ornate mystery thankfully unconnected to the others he was solving. Steel-backed, the two solid lumir crystals stood at least forty feet tall and half as wide, and all they did was glow.
“Come on Kid, let’s not make an issue out of this. Stand up against the wall, feet shoulder-width apart, hands on the stonework. You know the drill.”
“But I—” Sarn gestured to the two Rangers dwarfed by the doors they guarded. Neither spoke up on his behalf. And why would they—he was a freak and a thorn in all their sides.
Curse Breaker: Books 1-4 Page 24