by DAVID B. COE
“You think that’s why he offered me the position?”
“In all likelihood. Not that you wouldn’t make a fine first,” Orris amended wryly.
Baden grimaced. “It’s hardly a position I covet.”
“Either sage or nothing, eh?”
Baden gave a small laugh. “I assure you, I’m quite satisfied with my life as it is now. I’m not interested in accumulating power.”
“That may be another reason why Sartol wants you as his first. A more ambitious mage might pose a greater threat.”
“Possibly,” Baden commented. “But I think there may be more to Sartol’s plan than just controlling the Order.”
“What do you mean?”
The Owl-Master hesitated, drawing a smile from Orris. “Ah, yes,” the Hawk-Mage said knowingly. “We still don’t trust each other, do we? That does complicate things a bit.”
The two of them fell silent, each absorbed in his own thoughts. At length, Baden stirred. “This impasse we’ve reached can’t be broken without a leap of faith. I’ve been growing increasingly leery of Sartol’s story for the past day or so, and he did something tonight that I found very disturbing.”
“Killing the strangers, you mean.”
Baden looked at him sharply. “You saw that?”
Orris nodded. “It looked to me as if the one man was about to speak to Sartol. He clearly recognized him.”
“I agree. We could have learned a great deal from those men, which may be precisely why Sartol killed them when he did.” Baden’s eyes narrowed. “If you saw Sartol kill the strangers, you also must have noticed that the men retained their powers even after I killed their birds.”
“I did,” Orris replied grimly.
“And what did you think?”
Orris took a deep breath. “That’s a more complicated question than you know, Baden. I had a chance, after you were taken to the jail, to examine their weapons and the bodies of their birds.” He paused, unsure of how to proceed.
“And?” Baden urged.
“None of it was real: not the staffs or the cerylls, and not the birds either.”
“I don’t understand.”
Orris shook his head. “Neither do I. And I’m not sure how to describe for you what I saw.” He stopped, tugging impatiently at his beard. Baden was staring at him, his sharp features looking pallid and drawn. “Your mage-fire did a good deal of damage to them, and yet there was no blood on them. They had no feathers or bones. They were constructed of a strange material that I’ve never seen before: flexible and lightweight, like canvas, but much stronger. Their talons and beaks were metal. Even their eyes were fake.” He reached into his cloak and pulled out the golden disk he had found on the street. “Look at this,” he added, dropping the disk onto Baden’s outstretched palm.
The Owl-Master gazed with amazement at the golden eye, picking it up with his thumb and forefinger to look at it more closely. “This is its eye?” he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
“Yes. I believe it was knocked loose when the creature fell onto the street.”
“No wonder Jaryd couldn’t describe the eyes of the bird he saw in his vision,” the Owl-Master breathed, still gazing at the disk. “What he saw would have seemed completely illogical.” He shook his head, as if emerging from a daydream, and then handed the eye back to Orris. “You say their cerylls were unnatural as well?”
“Yes,” Orris confirmed. “The staffs were made of the same material as the birds, and there was a device on them, a small square that, when pressed, caused fire to shoot from the stone.”
Baden nodded slowly. “That would explain why I couldn’t render them powerless by destroying their birds.” He stared at the ground for a long time before finally turning his gaze back toward Orris. “But how could all this be possible?” he demanded, fear creeping into his voice. “Who could create the things you describe?”
“No one in Tobyn-Ser,” Orris replied with certainty.
“Outlanders?” Baden asked incredulously.
“That’s the only possibility.”
“Outlanders,” the Owl-Master repeated, as if the word itself were alien. He took a long, slow breath. “I would almost have preferred renegades,” he said, more to himself than to the Hawk-Mage. Then he looked at Orris again. “Have you any sense of where they were from?”
“I have an idea,” Orris confided. “No more than that.” He told Baden of his recent conversation with Crob. “It seems too much of a coincidence to ignore,” he concluded.
“Lon-Ser,” Baden whispered. “These are dark tidings, Orris.” He paused again, passing a hand over his brow and gazing blankly at the town. Then, abruptly, he looked back at Orris. “Do you have any other evidence of what you’ve told me, aside from the bird’s eye?”
“No,” Orris told him. “I was afraid to take any more. I thought it might make Sartol suspicious.”
“So the weapons and birds are still lying in the street?”
“No. Sartol wrapped them in blankets and tied them to his saddle. I think he plans to destroy them.”
Baden began striding back toward Watersbend. “We need more proof of what you’ve told me! We need at least one of those birds!”
Orris caught up with the Owl-Master and grabbed his arm. “We can’t, Baden! He’ll notice! He’ll figure out that I’m here and that you’ve escaped!”
“But that eye isn’t going to be enough to convince the others!”
“It convinced you!”
“Yes,” Baden conceded, “but only because I saw the outlanders use their weapons after I killed their birds. Sartol has witnesses who will swear that I tried to save those men. We need something just as convincing.”
Orris could think of no reply. Baden was right.
Suddenly, the Owl-Master looked up into the night sky. “Anla!” he said aloud. And the next moment Baden’s round-headed owl glided out of the darkness and alighted on the lean mage’s shoulder. Baden stroked the bird’s chin for a moment and then looked at Orris, his pale eyes intent. “Are you coming with me?”
“All right,” Orris agreed reluctantly, “we’ll take one of the birds. But does this make us allies?”
The Owl-Master looked at Orris for some time. Then he nodded. “I guess it does.” He ran a hand through his thinning orange and silver hair. “I know that our interaction has never been easy, Orris. You think me overly complacent, and I see you as rash and impudent. But we can’t allow those feelings to obscure the more important issues. Tobyn-Ser is in grave danger, and you were right when you said during the Gathering that the Order has grown weak and passive. If we expect the rest of the Order to act as one, you and I will have to put aside our differences. We share a common link, you and I: our friendship with Trahn. He trusts you, he respects you, and, even when Sartol accused you of treason, he maintained his faith in you. Along with Jaryd, there is no person in this land who means more to me than he does, and if he thinks so highly of you, there must be a reason.” He glanced back toward the devastated town. “Sartol has got to be stopped, and I think that it falls to you and me to stop him.”
Orris grinned savagely. “That would give me more pleasure than you could know.” Then his expression sobered. “Even when I felt certain that you and Sartol had conspired together,” he went on, “your friendship with Trahn gave me pause. I respect him a great deal. I’m glad to know of his regard for me and his faith in my loyalty, even in the face of Sartol’s lies. And, if you’ll join me in fighting the traitor, I’ll gladly accept that I was wrong about you.”
Baden nodded and gave a relieved smile. But in that moment, they both heard a sudden cry of alarm go up from the town.
“I don’t like the sound of that!” Baden said, crouching down in the grass.
“Someone must have found the guards,” Orris ventured, also ducking, and concealing his ceryll. “It won’t be long before they start looking for us.”
“Fist of the God!” Baden spat. “We need one of those b
irds!” He shook his head. “How could they have found them so quickly? Who would have gone to the jail?”
And in that moment, as if in answer to his question, the mages heard the drumming of hoof beats on the prairie. Peering up over the tall grass and looking to the north, past the charred remains of Watersbend’s farmhouses, they saw a pale yellow ceryll retreating rapidly into the night.
“Sartol!” Orris said, somewhat unnecessarily. “I didn’t think he was planning to leave until morning.”
But Baden nodded. “Of course,” he said, “I should have known. He couldn’t risk letting me live through the night,” he explained, turning to Orris. “I might have convinced the guards that he was lying, or maybe he knew that I’d escape somehow. He had to kill me tonight.” The Owl-Master paused and grinned. “You saved my life. Thank you.” He looked northward again, his expression turning somber. “Sartol has everything: the strangers’ birds and weapons, the staffs of the sage and first, and a town full of witnesses who think I’m a traitor.” He gave a small, mirthless laugh. “He even has my ceryll.”
“What now, Baden?” Orris asked quietly, his eyes still fixed on Sartol’s yellow light.
“I’m not sure,” the Owl-Master managed in a raw voice. “We don’t have many options.” Baden didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t have to. Orris understood. One of them had lost his familiar and the other his staff. Even if they chose to pursue Sartol they could do nothing to stop him.
“Maybe he overlooked something,” Orris said, looking back toward the town center. “Maybe we can find some other bit of evidence.”
“Maybe,” Baden agreed. “But as you said a minute ago, they’re going to be looking for us.”
As if on cue, the mages heard voices coming from the town, and looking in that direction, they saw a mob of villagers moving in their direction. They were carrying torches and weapons.
Both of them crouched lower, and Orris glanced nervously at his horse. It wouldn’t be long before the villagers noticed the animal standing there.
“Now what?” Orris whispered.
“I don’t know!” Baden hissed in return. “Why do you keep on asking me?”
“Fine!” Orris shot back. “I’ll decide!” He paused for several moments, considering their options. They didn’t have many. “Maybe now would be a good time to circle back into town and search the street again,” he finally suggested.
Baden shook his head. “How do we know there aren’t more of them searching the town?”
Orris rolled his eyes. “That’s why I keep on asking you!”
Baden actually laughed. “You’re right,” he whispered. “We’ll circle back to the village.”
Keeping low, and leading the horse carefully through the grass, the two mages made their way back to the town, giving the searchers a wide berth as they did.
They found the streets of the town deserted, which, Orris realized belatedly, should have come as no surprise. Watersbend had lost a great number of its people this night. The search party he and Baden had seen probably represented most of the town’s surviving adults.
Orris brightened his ceryll slightly, just enough to allow him to scrutinize the blood-stained dirt of the street on his hands and knees. Without his ceryll, Baden was forced to use Anla’s eyes, and he stood in the middle of the street, his eyes closed, as his owl scanned the area.
They found nothing near the bodies of the outlanders, and they moved quickly to where Baden’s dead horse lay. Again, Orris saw nothing unusual. But just as he was ready to give up, he spotted something small and dark lying in the road. It was almost completely covered with dust, but Orris knew immediately what he had found: a small scrap of the strange black material from which the birds had been made. A corner of it had melted, but, otherwise, it was smooth and intact.
He called to Baden, raising his voice as much as he dared. The Owl-Master was at his side instantly, bending down to look at what Orris held.
“What is it?” Baden asked, picking it up out of Orris’s hand and examining it in the amber light of the Hawk-Mage’s ceryll.
“This is what the birds were made of,” Orris told him. “In effect, this is one of their feathers. Feel how light and flexible it is.”
The Owl-Master nodded, his eyes wide in the dim light of the ceryll. He examined it for some time, turning it over in his hands, and trying to bend and stretch it.
“It’s not much,” Orris admitted. “But with the eye, it might be enough.”
“Maybe,” Baden replied, sounding less confident than Orris would have liked. “We should keep looking.”
Orris nodded and Baden placed the black shard in a pocket within the folds of his cloak. Then they resumed their search of the street. Unfortunately, however, they turned up nothing else that might help them.
“At least we found something,” Orris commented, as Baden pulled the shard from his cloak to inspect it once more.
Baden shook his head. “I’m afraid it won’t be enough. I’ve never seen anything like this, Orris,” he admitted, holding up the strange scrap of material. “I won’t deny that. And I don’t question your account of what you saw. But we need to convince the Order, and that won’t be easy. Not with Sartol offering witnesses of my alleged betrayal. We want them to look at that golden eye, and this scrap of . . . of something, and see creatures that can think, see, and fly like hawks. That’s an awful lot to ask.”
“Perhaps,” Orris conceded. “But we don’t have much choice, do we?” He took a breath, his eyes boring into Baden’s. He was losing patience with the Owl-Master, and he struggled to keep his anger in check. “I violated Amarid’s Law for you, Baden. I threatened those men and locked them in a prison cell so that I could break you out of jail.” Baden started to say something, but Orris held up a hand to stop him. “It was my choice, I know,” he went on, “but I’ve cast my lot with you now. As an Owl-Master, you’ll speak for us at our trial, and if you don’t believe that we can convince them, we’ve already lost. So you have ten days, Baden—maybe a week, if we can find a second horse and get back to Amarid faster—to make peace with what we’ve got and to think of some way to make it convincing. You owe me that.”
Baden glared at him, his pale eyes flashing angrily. But he said nothing for a long time, and he appeared to consider Orris’s words. In the end, he merely nodded.
“We should go,” Orris said, his voice less strident than it had been a moment before. “The villagers will probably be returning soon, and Sartol’s got quite a head start on us.”
Again Baden nodded, and with one last glance around them, the mages left the town center. They assumed that they would be safer on the far side of the river, but, just after crossing the stone bridge, they spotted the torches of the search party. The villagers were also on the west side of the river, searching the prairie. But they were far enough to the north that they did not appear to see the mages. Orris concealed his ceryll, and he and Baden, crouching low in the grass, continued westward, intending to circle around the mob before starting back toward Amarid.
They had gone only a short distance, though, when Orris, glancing back toward the town to check their progress, saw something so unexpected, and so glorious, that he nearly cried out with joy. On the other side of the river, three riders were approaching Watersbend from the south, all of them carrying cerylls, which glowed with familiar shades of russet, purple, and sapphire.
15
It had been a gamble. All three of them knew from the start that it would be. But for Alayna, still wary of Trahn despite Jaryd’s assurances and the comforting manner of the dark mage, it had been an especially difficult risk to accept. Trahn only knew of Theron’s Path from legend and rumor; he admitted this himself. No one had traveled to the Shadow Forest in hundreds of years, and no traders had visited the ports of Tobyn-Ser’s southeastern extreme in nearly as long. Only Theron could have confirmed for them what they needed to know, and they could not spend another night in the grove. Alayna had argued vehement
ly against taking the ocean route, but, in the end, compelled by Jaryd’s fervor, and by her own recognition that it offered their only true chance of catching up to Baden and Sartol, she had acquiesced. Her misgivings, however, had lingered.
They had ridden due east through the Shadow Forest for only a few hours when they spotted the first gulls circling high overhead, and noticed the subtle scent of brine in the cooling air. Still, the dark tangle of the forest kept their progress slow. They emerged from the trees into the tall, coastal grasses late that first morning, and rode for yet another hour before reaching the pale sands and rough blue waters of Duclea’s Ocean. In the distance, well past land’s end, the dark clouds of the storm that had struck during the company’s one night by Theron’s Grove floated serenely just above the horizon. Closer to shore, seabirds wheeled and dove over the pounding breakers, squawking noisily and fighting among themselves for food. Stones and shells and tree limbs, worn smooth by the sand and the waves, littered the beach, and dried kelp stained the sand in a jagged line parallel to the surf that stretched in both directions as far as the eye could see.
For Alayna, who had grown up within a mile of the Abborij Strait, the sounds, sights, and smells of the coast brought back a flood of memories. She could see her mother and father pulling shellfish from the waters near her home, and she could hear her sister’s giggles as the two of them played in the sand, or jumped waves together, hand in hand. And with these images from her childhood came a pang of homesickness that startled her with its intensity. She had left Brisalli to begin her apprenticeship with Sartol two winters ago and, since then, had not once felt nostalgic for her home. To be sure, she missed Faren and her parents, but, until this day, when she saw for the first time the southern shores of Tobyn-Ser, that had been the extent of it. Standing beside her horse, with Fylimar on her shoulder and her eyes focused on the distant clouds, she had shaken her head. At any other time, it might have been funny. But, at that point, in a part of the land that no human had seen in centuries, and with Sartol and Baden at least a day’s ride ahead of them, she had known that she could not afford the luxury of these emotions. She quelled the recollections with a ruthlessness that she had not known she possessed. Later, she told herself, turning away from the ocean and stroking Fylimar’s chin. I’ll think about them later, when this is over.