I have dispatched Red Sentinels along with two Trackers to the south of the city. They are waiting for you; give the name Fenidar. Their sergeant is a capable man and should follow orders. No one knows about you besides him. Use him and the soldiers as you see fit.
—Alpert
Chapter 29: Pursuit
Jhaell stepped from the black polished stone of the cavernous chamber to the slate gray flagstone of the hall. From behind, the magistrate’s attendant called out, “You said you could help find the magistrate!” The plea rebounded through the chamber.
Jhaell ignored the man. He had lied in order to discover what the attendant knew. He had no way of finding the magistrate. The man had ported somewhere. The trail ended here.
“Beelvra!”
He hurried down the long hall, each quick step of his hard-soled sandals resounding off the granite walls. Cloth tapestries representing the nine colors of the Strands lined the left side of the passageway, lit up brightly by sunlight streaming through the arched windows on his right.
Jhaell increased his pace despite having no idea where he was headed, his long strides quickly taking him down the hallway. The magistrate’s assistant continued to yell after him to come back. The cries echoed down the hall, almost mocking Jhaell. There was no going back.
Not now. Not ever.
Five days ago, he had returned from his impromptu trip to Greycliffe to discover that he had left his parchments on his desk. Cursing his carelessness, he had quickly scooped up the parchments, put them away, and headed to bed.
The next morning, when he had gone to teach his class, the redheaded mainlander had been absent. Jhaell had thought little of it at the time. It was common for his students to sometimes not show. However, after three days had passed—each without the tomble in class—Jhaell had begun to wonder if he had quit.
Today, he had asked his class if any of them had seen the mainlander. All reported they had not since Jhaell had left him standing in the middle of the sea. After class, Jhaell had gone to the registry, hoping to learn that the tomble had withdrawn from the Academy. That would leave only eight acolytes in the class, meaning Jhaell could spend more time in the libraries. The book from Quan was looking promising.
However, according to the registry, the tomble had not withdrawn from the academy. Jhaell’s curiosity had been piqued.
During the midday meal, he had made a rare appearance in the great hall, looking for the tomble, and had heard an interesting rumor. It seemed the tiny mainlander had commandeered a ship and sailed to the City of the Strands a few days ago. The cutter had only returned this morning with a boatload of apologetic sailors, claiming that they had been forced to sail against their will.
The story confused Jhaell. The tomble had never struck him as the foolish type. If he were caught, he would be severely disciplined. The Arcane Republic had very strict laws about using Strands of Will on citizens.
Jhaell had left the hall, smiling. It seemed that his class was on the verge of being cancelled after all.
Upon returning to his office, he had pulled out his parchments for the first time since Greycliffe to see if anyone had contacted him. However, when he spread them on his desk, he counted only nine. He tore apart his office, looking for the tenth sheet, but could not find it. Baffled, he had sat in his chair and tried to remember if he had done something with it.
After a few quiet moments, a sickening possibility washed over Jhaell like the wave he had sent into Yellow Mud.
No one had seen the tomble since the night he had gone to Greycliffe.
Jhaell tried to convince himself he was leaping to conclusions, but he could come up with no other explanation. He had checked the nine parchments on his desk realized the missing one’s match was in possession of Duke Everett, the sovereign of the Great Lakes Duchy. Where Yellow Mud had been.
Jhaell had sat in his chair, repeatedly cursing his indiscretion. Everett rarely contacted him without prompting on Jhaell’s part. Receiving an unsolicited communication from the duke so soon after Yellow Mud meant that Jhaell could assume the topic of the missive. Why the tomble was in Jhaell’s office and why he took the parchment were the important questions.
Centuries of faithful work for Tandyr might be in jeopardy. Along with his chance of ever seeing Syra again.
Jhaell had immediately gathered his remaining nine parchments and some other items of importance from his office. If he could find the tomble quickly and retrieve the parchment, perhaps he would be able to retain his position at the academy and, more importantly, the duke would not be implicated in anything.
After talking with the sailors of the Morning’s Mist to ensure the rumor of the tomble’s flight was true, he ported to the City of the Strands and began tracing the mainlander’s steps. A few distasteful hours of searching the city’s dregs, he found a man who had directed the tomble toward the office of a magistrate. According to the man, the mainlander was interested in finding someone who could port to the Oaken Duchies.
Jhaell’s irrational fear suddenly seemed quite sound.
He had rushed to the House of Magistrates and had interrogated the man’s attendant, discovering that the mainlander had succeeded in getting the magistrate to open a port. No one had seen the official in days.
Jhaell slowed to a stop in the middle of the sun-strewn hall, closed his eyes, and muttered, “I am a fool…”
He wondered if he should go speak with the duke to inquire what had been written, but discounted the idea in an instant. To do so would admit he had lost one of the parchments, a parchment that may or may not have evidence of Tandyr’s plans. Should Tandyr learn of Jhaell’s folly, he would never fulfill his promise. More than likely, he would simply end Jhaell’s life.
The sensation of dark crackling startled him from his reverie. Glancing down to the satchel on his hip, he spotted a few wispy Strands of Void. He had to strain to see them, but they were there.
Looking up and down the hallway and finding it empty, he carefully pulled the set of nine parchments from his shoulder bag. He flipped through the sheets until he saw one with writing slowly appearing on it. The parchment belonged to Alpert, the regent of Smithshill. He moved it to the top and read from the beginning. By the time he was finished, his heart was thudding in his chest. “This is bad.”
Two people had not only survived his indiscretion at Yellow Mud, they had reported the incident, describing Jhaell perfectly.
He closed his eyes. “This is very bad.”
When he and the students had ported to Redstone before the attack, they had arrived in one of Duke Everett’s hidden courtyards. Plenty of people had seen him exit the Duke’s Hall in his crimson robes. Rumors were bound to spread.
Things were falling apart.
Jhaell opened his eyes and read the parchment again. As he did, a hopeful, excited optimism filled him. Perhaps Yellow Mud had been the right place after all. Perhaps he truly had found the Progeny.
His eye went wide as he realized what that meant. His optimism turned to horror.
“Beelvra! I set them loose!”
Thankfully, Alpert had recognized the importance of finding the two survivors and had made arrangements for pursuit. Jhaell stared at the parchment without seeing the words, thinking.
Were he to find the Progeny and eliminate them, his indiscretion in Yellow Mud would not matter. Nothing would. Without the Progeny, Tandyr could act with near impunity. Secrecy would no longer be necessary. And, ultimately, victory would be assured.
A smile crept over Jhaell’s face. Then he would be with Syra again.
Shoving the parchments back into his satchel, he hurried to a nearby records room, rushing through the maze of halls and ignoring the strange stares he received from officials going about their business.
Reaching the room, he threw open the door—letting it bang against the wall inside—and stepped into a small, stuffy, dark space filled with wooden shelves packed with old, yellowed parchments and capped scrolls. A l
one young man in dark robes stood behind a tall counter, wearing a bored expression.
Jhaell ran to the counter and demanded, “Give me a quill and ink.” In his hurry to leave the academy, he had forgotten his own. “And I’ll need a private place to write.”
Instead of complying with the request, the man glared at him and said, “No.”
“No?” repeated Jhaell, equal parts incredulous and perturbed. “Why not?”
Lifting an eyebrow, the man said, “First, you nearly break the door. Then you order me to give you a—”
Jhaell’s destructive impatience flared. Every moment he wasted here was one the Progeny were slipping from his grasp.
Reaching to his belt, he pulled out his thin-bladed dagger and stabbed the man straight in the neck, releasing a crimson plume of blood that squirted onto the counter and splattered all over Jhaell’s robes. As Jhaell pulled the longknife free, the man grasped his neck and tried to scream for help, but was unable to with his windpipe nearly severed.
Jhaell prayed the man was not a Life Mage and, for a change, it seemed he had found a bit of luck. The man did nothing with the Strands, Life or any other kind. He stumbled about a few moments before slumping over on the counter, bleeding and choking. As the light drained from the young man’s eyes, Jhaell walked back to the door, closing and locking it. Returning to the counter, he peered over the ledge, and stared at the corpse.
“You should have just given me the ink and quill.”
Finding both lying next to the dead man, he reached out and grabbed the writing utensils.
He stood at the counter for a time, writing the same message on eight of the nine parchments. The ninth, the one to Alpert, he simply wrote that he was on his way. Once he was done, he rolled them up and placed them in his travelling bag.
Reaching for Void and Air, he wove them together, and ripped open a tear in the dusty records room. Stepping through, he arrived in total blackness. A warm, unpleasant, musty odor filled his nose, smelling of old boots and dead rats.
Cursing, he fumbled about the enclosed space, knocking various unseen items over, searching with his hands. After a few moments, he found the handle for which he was looking, wrapped his long fingers around it, and lifted.
Opening the door to the closet, he stepped into a cramped and dusty room. A simple straw-mat bed was pressed up against one wooden wall underneath a tiny, square window.
Jhaell had been paying rent on this room for years, ensuring it would always be empty for his use. Dozens of places like this existed for him in cities throughout the world, but he rarely used any of them in the duchies. The threat of exposing himself to the Constables was too great.
Glancing down, he realized that his robes presented a dual problem. First, they were now covered in dark bloodstains, and second, they could easily identify him as the person responsible for what happened in Yellow Mud. Ijul were rare here. Ijul wearing crimson robes even more so.
Reaching into the closet, he retrieved a set of spare traveling clothes: tan jute-cloth breeches, a brown shirt made of a light but durable material, leather boots, and a heavy, black, unadorned cloak. After changing, he buckled his belt around his waist with his dagger wiped clean in its sheath. He moved to the door, unlocked it, and stepped into a dingy, dark hallway.
Lined with a half-dozen doors like the one he had exited, the hall was empty of people, but full of the sounds of talking and singing downstairs. Hurrying to the end of the hall and down the steps, he entered a tavern room brimming with a crowd of unclean, drunk men. A few of the less inebriated patrons in the room noticed his entrance, but most ignored him.
He moved across the room, dodging the patrons in the room, and approached the innkeeper. When he reached the counter, a smell of unwashed filth wafted over Jhaell. The overweight, sweaty man glanced at Jhaell, looked away, and stared back an instant later, his eyes going round.
Giving a Jhaell a nervous smile, the man stuttered, “Wel…welcome b-back, sir.”
Jhaell placed a handful of gold arcans on the top of the bar. They were not the currency of the region, but gold was still gold. The innkeeper’s eyes implausibly opened even wider at the small fortune sitting before him.
“I no longer wish to rent your room. This is for you to go up to the room—this very instant—and burn everything you find there, do you understand?”
Nodding the man muttered, “Yes, sir.”
“Good,” said Jhaell. “And if any of your blasted Constables show up, you play dumb, correct?”
The man nodded his head without saying anything.
Despite the man’s odor, Jhaell leaned closer to the innkeeper and whispered, “I will come back and murder you if I find you spoke a word of this situation to anyone.”
This time the man did not move his head, but the fear in his eyes was good enough for Jhaell.
Walking away from the bar, Jhaell moved to the front of the inn, pushed open the door, and stepped out into the cool, mist-filled air doing its best to mask an otherwise warm day. Moving into the muddy street, he hurried away from The Brown Horse and Cart, heading south down the road and out of Fallsbottom. He had to find the encampment of soldiers as quickly as possible.
Chapter 30: Sergeant
Master Sergeant Nathan Trell walked through the camp, carefully studying his men. A moonless twilight had plunged the valley into a gloomy darkness, the tents and soldiers lit only by the flickering of campfires. The light, while meager, was enough to reveal the obvious.
The men were nervous.
He could see it in their faces and hear it in their voices. He swore he could feel their worry as he walked past. He had followed the regent’s instructions, keeping his men without a torch until they were all here, at which point he shared their orders. They deserved to know what they were doing here. Most of these soldiers were from the original detachment that had discovered Yellow Mud with him. They had helped bury the bodies.
Captain deCobb had assigned an extra twenty men to his normal detachment, bringing those under Nathan’s command to an even one hundred soldiers. Before leaving, Nathan had asked the captain to remove Footman Haynes from his command. He did not have time to watch after the nobleman’s son playing soldier. This assignment was legitimate.
He walked among the tents, pretending to check on the security of the camp, but the truth was he was simply trying to calm his men with his presence.
His meandering took him to where the two Trackers had set up their tent, off to one side of the camp and a noticeable distance away from the nearest soldier. The pair in gray sat before a small fire, facing the Sentinels, clearly as uncomfortable with the situation as were his own men. The sergeant ambled over to the pair, intent to learn what they knew. Nathan was operating with much less information than he would have liked.
Smiling wide, Nathan said, “Good days ahead to you.”
Both of the men looked up at his greeting but remained stone-faced and silent. After giving their name earlier, the pair had spoken nary a word.
Nathan’s smile disappeared.
“Have it your way then.” Sitting down on a small rock opposite them, he said, “Hope you don’t mind if I sit down for a while.” He eyed the Trackers, entirely aware that members of his detachment were watching him.
The Trackers stared at him in silence.
Folding his hands before him, Nathan spoke in a low, even tone.
“Gentlemen, I understand this is an unusual situation for you. It is for us, as well. However, those we are seeking apparently require a hundred swords pursuing them as well as the two of you. Speaking as a man who saw what happened at Yellow Mud, I wish we had thrice as many.”
He paused as the two men exchanged a quick glance before looking back to him. They remained silent.
Whispers about Trackers filled every tavern and meeting room in the duchies. As a rule, the mage-hunters were withdrawn, quiet, and a suspicious lot. Nathan had to counteract that somehow.
Sighing, Nathan said, “
This is what will happen: our odd expedition here will go smoothly. Why? Because it must. For that to happen, I need my men to be alert with eyes forward on the road, not on the two silent, mysterious Trackers in our midst. Is that clear?”
Cero eyed him for a long moment before nodding, his answer spoken in a confident, raspy voice.
“I believe we understand, Sergeant.”
“Good, then. Now, when I say, ‘go’, I would like the two of you to laugh as though I told the prize jest at the festival. Go.”
Nathan began to chuckle, waiting for the pair to join him. At first, neither man responded, then Cero started to laugh along with him, albeit half-heartedly. Eventually, Latius smiled awkwardly. It would have to do.
As their phony jesting ended, Nathan said, “Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to see if we can work on an exchange of information. I am here with precious little to go on.”
The two men again exchanged a look and then turned as one toward Nathan. A small muscle twitched in Latius’ cheek. Nathan tried to figure if it was irritation or fear. After studying them for a moment, waiting for them to say something, he decided that he would need to open with what he knew.
“I’ll go first, then,” he said magnanimously. “Let’s see…well, I can tell you why we’re still sitting here and not already down the road. Interested?”
Latius’ gaze flickered toward Cero for a moment before shifting it to the fire. Whether officially or not, it seemed Cero was in charge of the pair.
Cero said carefully, “We had pondered on what the delay was.”
“We’re waiting for someone. Does the name ‘Fenidar’ mean anything to either of you?”
Neither Tracker showed any recognition of the name whatsoever.
With a disappointed sigh, Nathan muttered, “Fine, I suppose we will learn of him together.”
“Why are we waiting for him?” asked Cero.
Nathan shrugged his shoulders. “Regent Alpert put him in charge. That’s all I know.” Eyeing the pair, he said, “Now, it’s your turn to share something. Tell me what you found along the base of the cliff.”
Progeny (The Children of the White Lions) Page 28