by DAVID B. COE
“I have a responsibility to the Order, Sonel!” Niall countered. “You accuse Sartol of treason and murder, but he contends that these are Baden’s crimes and Orris’s, not his. I can’t judge by myself who is lying and who is telling the truth. That’s for the entire Order to decide.”
“Very well,” she returned mildly, “but no one has accused these two of anything except being dead. Surely your duty to the Order doesn’t include endangering their lives.”
“I can’t know for certain that their lives are in danger. I have only your word and theirs to tell me that this is so.”
“Just the possibility ought to be enough!” Sonel snapped, her patience abruptly gone. “Think about what you’ve just heard from them! Look at the tokens they carry! It ought to be enough! Unless your loyalties lie with Sartol rather than with Tobyn-Ser.”
Niall recoiled as if he had been struck. “How dare you imply such a thing!” he rasped.
Sonel met his glare, her expression undisturbed. “I have said nothing about you that you haven’t already thought with regard to me.”
Niall opened his mouth, a retort springing to his lips. Then he bit it back, closing his mouth again. She was right, of course. He had, in his mind, accused her of betrayal as well. Sartol had warned him of the dangers inherent in uncovering a conspiracy, of the need to avoid paranoia. But, Niall realized with sudden insight, the Owl-Master had also done all that he could to feed Niall’s fears, to encourage him to see conspirators at every turn. Which fit perfectly with Jaryd and Alayna’s story: if Sartol could get the Owl-Masters to suspect each other, they might not think to suspect him.
“I don’t know which of us is stronger with the Mage-Craft, Niall,” Sonel was saying, “but I’d guess that the difference is insubstantial. If you wish to take Jaryd and Alayna back to the city, you’ll have to fight me first. And with these two on my side, you can’t hope to prevail. Let’s not resort to that. Go back to Amarid, Niall. Go in peace.”
Niall stared at her for some time until, finally, he gave a wan smile. “It need not come to that, Sonel; you won’t have to kill me. I’ll leave you.” He looked at the young mages. “Whatever you might think of me,” he told them quietly, “please know that I’m glad you’re safe. Sonel was right: I wouldn’t harm you knowingly.”
“Thank you, Niall,” Jaryd said. The anger had vanished from his face, leaving him looking young, although not as young as Niall remembered. “You wanted us to tell our story at Baden’s trial, and though we won’t be leaving here with you, that has been our intention all along. Look for us tomorrow; we’ll be there.”
“It would be better, however,” Alayna added, “if no one was expecting us.”
Niall hesitated, wondering how all of this had become so complicated. “In that case,” he said after a moment, “I would suggest that all of you—including you, Sonel—remain outside the city until the trial begins. I followed you at Sartol’s orders, but I wasn’t the only one who saw you visit Baden. Some of them may assume that there are others involved in your . . . conspiracy, and if Sartol finds out that you’re allied with the accused mages, your life may be in danger as well.”
Sonel nodded gravely. “Thank you, Niall. I appreciate your concern.”
Without responding, Niall turned and started to leave the clearing, unsure of how he could reconcile Alayna’s request to keep their secret with the faith Sartol had placed in him. Thoughts and impulses swarmed around his head like gnats on a warm afternoon, leaving him confused and disoriented.
Sonel seemed to notice this. “Niall!” she called.
He stopped without turning, waiting, but maintaining his silence.
“If you still doubt what we’ve told you, there is one other bit of evidence I can offer you. Baden believes that Sartol is altering the Summoning Stone, linking himself to it in some way. He has seen Sartol’s ceryll-hue echoed in the stone as Sartol walks by it. Look for this; perhaps your own eyes can convince you of what we could not.”
Niall held himself still for a moment after she finished. Then he began walking again, reentering the wood and allowing the narrow path to lead him back to the main trail, before following that to the city. And, as he walked, the silver-haired Owl-Master replayed in his mind his encounter with Sonel, Jaryd, and Alayna, particularly the Owl-Master’s words to him as he turned to leave the clearing. If Sartol really was attempting to link himself to the stone as Sonel alleged, it would go a long way toward proving what the young mages had told him. A mage seeking only to lead the Order through legitimate means would have no need of such power, and would harbor no desire to bend the natural laws governing the Mage-Craft to that degree. In truth, Niall could not even begin to fathom the effort it would require to exert one’s control over a ceryll the size of the Summoning Stone, nor could he imagine the immense power that the stone might give.
Still grappling with the magnitude of what the Order might face if Sonel was right, if, indeed, Sartol had nearly succeeded in linking himself to the stone, the mage turned his mind to his most immediate problem: Sartol expected a report from him first thing in the morning, and Niall had no idea what he would tell the dark-haired Owl-Master. He could not, in good conscience, tell Sartol that he had spoken with Jaryd and Alayna; not as long as he acknowledged even the slightest chance that they had told him the truth. And, he had to concede, he placed more faith in their story than that. Vardis had informed him on more than one occasion, usually after figuring out what he had gotten her for a birthday or anniversary, that he had no skill as a liar. His face gave him away, she had once told him. That was why he never won at ren-drah. He had not mastered the art of duplicity over the last decade, having had little occasion for practice, and the stakes now were much higher than they had ever been before. Clever as Sartol was, he would know immediately that something had happened; he would expect details, names, places. And Niall simply did not know what he would say.
The journey back to Amarid did not take him very long, and the problem still occupied his thoughts as he crossed over the Larian and back into the old town commons. Unwilling to return to the confines of his room, the Owl-Master roamed the streets and lanes of Amarid for the rest of the night, enjoying the solitude of the sleeping city even as he remained preoccupied.
So it was that his wanderings brought him, well before dawn, to the domed roof and glittering statues of the Great Hall. Realizing where he was, Niall decided to continue in the direction he had most recently taken, until he reached the wooded grounds of the First Mage’s home, a short distance west of the hall.
But, in that instant, something caught his eye, something that caused his world to shift far more than anything Jaryd and Alayna had told him earlier in the night. Through the translucent white glass of the Gathering Chamber, faint and erratic, flickering like a wind-blown candle, but absolutely unmistakable, Niall saw the pale yellow light of Sartol’s ceryll. It filled the inside of the building, bringing an ethereal, yellow incandescence to all the hall’s windows, but clearly it was concentrated at the chamber’s western end: where the Summoning Stone rested in its massive wooden stand.
Briefly, Niall considered stealing into the hall to see more clearly just what Sartol was doing. But, if Sonel had been right—which suddenly seemed likely—Sartol would have little to lose by killing him, and even less trouble doing so. The Owl-Master also contemplated returning to the clearing where he had found Alayna and Jaryd. But he could think of no compelling reason for doing this, beyond apologizing for his doubts and acknowledging, belatedly, that he believed their story. No doubt, they already had plans of their own that took into account what he had just now learned of Sartol’s plot. They needed neither his aid nor his faith; only his silence. Moreover, given that he still had to meet with Sartol in the morning, the less he knew of their strategy, the better.
So, in the end, after watching the yellow light glimmer and dance within the hall for a short while longer, Niall simply walked on, following the path on which he had a
lready decided. His thoughts, however, had begun to drift in a new direction. He no longer had any choice: he would have to lie when he met with Sartol in the morning. The question was, how?
He passed what remained of the night and the first few hours of daylight wandering the grounds of Amarid’s home. Soon after dawn, the site’s caretakers emerged from their modest quarters to begin working the land and tidying the house for the steady stream of visitors who came each day to see the place where the First Mage had spent his earliest years. The stewards regarded Niall with unconcealed curiosity, but, thankfully, they kept their distance, allowing him his solitude. Even so, when he finally started back toward the Great Hall, he still did not know what he would tell Sartol. He had come up with a few options, but none of them sounded convincing to his own ears; he held out little hope that they would mislead Sartol.
His pulse was racing by the time he reached the marble staircase at the Great Hall’s entrance. He knew that his features had gone pale. Glancing at the hand that gripped his staff—he had already thrust his other trembling hand into a pocket of his cloak—he saw that his knuckles had whitened. He paused at the top of the steps, taking a long breath that did little to calm his nerves, before stepping into the Great Hall. Immediately upon entering the building, driven by instinct and fear, his eyes flew to the Summoning Stone, which sat at the far end of the room. Even knowing what to look for, he saw nothing unusual at first. Only as he drew closer to the stone, stepping lightly so as not to alert Sartol to his presence, did he detect the faint luminescence emanating from the giant crystal. It was fairer than Sartol’s ceryll, exhibiting barely more color than the pale sands of the Lower Horn. Still, there could be no denying that the stone had begun to glow, nor that its color, as it intensified, would mirror exactly that of the Owl-Master’s ceryll.
Niall halted before the stone, noting the terrible but subtle change that Sartol had effected overnight. And as he did, at long last, an idea came to him. A story to tell, one that would offer Sartol a plausible explanation for Niall’s disquiet; one that would please the Owl-Master so much that he would not bother to question its veracity. For just a moment, standing in front of the crystal, only a few strides from the door to Sartol’s chambers, Niall grinned. I can play this game after all, he told himself. Vardis would be amused. Then, his expression turning sober, he knocked on the door.
Had Niall been as stricken with guilt and grief as he led Sartol to believe, he probably would not have noticed the Owl-Master’s dissembling. But in the wake of what really had happened last night, Niall saw it all: the manipulation, the cajolery, the false sympathy. He had been duped; they all had. Belatedly, his mind turned, with a twisting in his heart, to the stoicism with which Alayna had spoken of Sartol’s treachery. He hoped that he would have the opportunity to apologize to her for his doubts.
After he left Sartol, as he made his way across the Gathering Chamber and out into the sunlit street, Niall finally felt his sleepless night begin to catch up with him. Weary and anxious, startled by the sudden tolling of the bells atop the Great Hall, and longing for his bed, the Owl-Master chastised himself for roving the city’s streets when he should have been resting. Still, he hurried to the Crystal Inn, knowing that Sartol expected him to escort the accused mages to their trial. He wondered briefly, as he led Baden, Orris, and Trahn out of the tavern and back toward the hall, whether he should use this opportunity to inform Baden that he knew Jaryd and Alayna were alive, that he had allied himself with their cause. But he was not fully certain that he had. Considering the question as the four of them walked along the thoroughfare, sounding the depths of his heart, he moved in a sort of trance induced by both weariness and uncertainty. Only Baden’s startling outburst, and his astonishingly accurate guess that Niall knew of Sonel’s whereabouts, pulled him from his thoughts. Niall might have told Baden then of his conversation with the young mages. Indeed, he considered it. But something stopped him. It could have been the sting of Baden’s tone, or perhaps his fear that Baden’s emotional response would give too much away to Sartol. In truth, Niall found it hard to separate the two just then. And, in the next moment, Orris sundered the tenuous bonds that had begun to link Niall to their cause. Baden’s harsh words, born of fear for Jaryd, Alayna, and Sonel, he could endure. But he would not abide Orris’s self-righteous accusations.
Enraged and insulted, Niall led them the rest of the way in silence, his wrath propelling him forward as they completed the journey from the inn to the Great Hall, and he directed the accused mages to their places before the great oval table at which their fate would be determined. An instant later, though, as Sartol emerged from his quarters, drawing Niall’s glance once more to the altered Summoning Stone that sat by the opening door, the Owl-Master’s anger evaporated with bewildering swiftness. His indignity at Baden’s insinuations and Orris’s presumption was of little consequence next to the threat that this dashing, charismatic man posed to all of Tobyn-Ser. Too late, moving to his place at the table, Niall recognized that Baden and Orris, along with Trahn and the three mages he had left in the clearing the night before, embodied all the hope that remained for the Order and the land.
And half a minute into Sartol’s oration, Niall lamented that they would not be enough. The Owl-Master had always been a captivating speaker, possessing a deep voice and, as Niall had recently learned all too well, an uncanny ability to make nearly any assertion sound reasonable. Those talents, combined with his poise and commanding presence, had long ago marked the dark-haired mage as one of the Order’s most influential members. Now, listening as Sartol spun his tale of deception and treachery, seeing how so many of the Owl-Masters hung on the man’s every word, their eyes riveted on his handsome, expressive face, Niall wondered how Baden and his allies could ever expect to prevail. He was not even immune himself. All that he had learned the previous night seemed to fade to a distant memory, replaced by dark, frightening images of conspiracy and betrayal. He knew that Sartol was lying, and yet, he found his own emotions mirrored so precisely in the nuances and shadings of the mage’s voice that he felt compelled to listen, opening his mind to the reason of what Sartol said. Baden and Trahn had pushed very hard for the delegation, and Orris’s request to join it had seemed oddly abrupt. Certainly, Niall had to concede, there was something strange about Baden’s attempt to protect the men who destroyed Watersbend. And all the while, beneath the harsh accusations and the calls for punishment, Sartol’s tone conveyed a different sentiment.I wish I didn’t have to do this, it seemed to say,I wish that Baden andthe others had not brought us to this. But now that we are here, we must do whatis right. And Niall had begun to agree.
Baden’s scornful clapping succeeded in breaking the spell Sartol had cast with his eloquence, pulling the mages back to the hard realities of the trial. But Baden could not match Sartol’s rhetoric or style, and he could offer little evidence. Until Sonel arrived. Even more than Baden’s caustic applause, and the bitter exchange with Sartol that followed, Sonel’s arrival struck Niall like ice water thrown in his face. Suddenly, Alayna and Jaryd were with him again, in the clearing in Hawksfind Wood, offering their account of what happened by Theron’s Grove. Looking past Sartol to the far end of the chamber, he saw the Summoning Stone brooding in its stand, and he thought again of what Sartol had done to it. And like the churning floodwaters of the Dhaalismin, his fury at having been deceived surged back into him, stronger even than before.
Grinning with grim satisfaction, Niall watched the scene unfold before him, relishing the sudden disintegration of Sartol’s polish and confidence. He saw Sartol recognize Sonel as she stood in the Great Hall’s entrance, and his smile deepened as the Owl-Master looked desperately in his direction, still not comprehending what—or rather who—had come. He watched the mage’s face go rigid and white as Baden taunted him with the news that his proof had just arrived, and he saw Sartol’s eyes widen, heard an enraged, disbelieving snarl ripped from the Owl-Master’s throat as Alayna and Jaryd step
ped into the Gathering Chamber. The arrival of the young mages plunged the room into pandemonium, as mages from both sides of the table, their relief and joy overmastering their confusion, rushed to welcome them. Niall kept himself apart from the crush, as did Sartol, who was on his feet now, standing utterly still, his eyes fixed on the table and both hands clenched tightly around his staff.
“I had hoped that you’d be pleased to see me, Sartol,” Alayna called to him, as she and Jaryd moved to stand before the oval table. A strange quiet descended on the chamber, and the rest of the mages filed slowly back to their chairs. “I had hoped that you’d greet me as the others did. But I knew that you wouldn’t.”
“Forgive me, child,” Sartol returned, looking up from the table to meet her glare. “But given the company you’re keeping these days, I can’t imagine that you’ve returned to me in friendship.”
She gave a thin, mirthless smile. “It seems you can recognize the truth when you encounter it, after all.” Then she raised her voice, pitching it to carry throughout the hall. “I don’t know what Sartol has related to you this morning, but I can tell you this: Jaryd and I found him standing over the bodies of Jessamyn and Peredur, and it was he who chased us into Theron’s Grove. He would have killed us had Orris not intervened on our behalf.”
“Lies!” Sartol growled over the startled murmurs that met Alayna’s declaration. “She has been corrupted by the traitors, as has Jaryd!”
“You’re the only traitor in this room, Sartol,” Jaryd spat back.
“Quiet!” Odinan hissed, pounding his staff on the floor. “This is a trial, not a carnival! We have procedures! We have rules! And I expect them to be observed!”
“Owl-Master Odinan,” Baden broke in, his tone courteous despite its urgency. “According to the rules established by Terrall, I ask that Jaryd and Alayna be permitted, as part of our defense, to relate their version of what happened by Theron’s Grove.”