The Curse in the Gift (The Last Whisper of the Gods Book 2)

by Berardinelli, James

  “I wish I had your faith.” The words were wistful. “Maybe then this wasted journey wouldn’t have been necessary.”

  “Wasted? I don’t think so. You’ve learned much about yourself since we left Vantok. Your transformation may be more subtle than Sorial’s, but it was just as necessary.” She paused, as if trying to decide whether to say more. “Ferguson knew this. That’s why he let you go.”

  Alicia gaped at her.

  “You didn’t ‘escape’ from the temple. The prelate allowed you to leave. Rexall and I were sent along to provide you with aid and encouragement. Vagrum was, as always, your bodyguard, but he didn’t know. Had he done so, he would have told you.”

  “Rexall and you... working for Ferguson?” When applied to Kara, the revelation wasn’t stunning, but Rexall? “This whole journey has been a sham?”

  “A sham... no. As I said, it’s led to your transformation, a necessary step in your maturation as The Wizard’s Bride. This was never really about arriving at the portal ahead of Sorial. It was about getting you to accept there’s more at stake here than the lives of two people. Something Sorial acknowledged before he left.”

  “You tricked me. Rexall tricked me.” There was anger in the accusations but not much heat. The truth was unexpected but not a shock. Some part of her realized things had been too easy, at least until they had gotten far away from Vantok.

  “Neither of us played you false. We did what you wanted. Rexall provided you with a way out of the temple and helped to get you out of the city. I offered you the guidance you recruited me for.”

  “You reported to him.”

  “I am his disciple. Have you forgotten that? Did you think I’d betray the values upon which my entire life is founded? Rexall has been one of Ferguson’s eyes-and-ears since the days when he was a street urchin. He was hired to watch Sorial although the friendship they developed was genuine.”

  “Sorial shared confidences with him. Rexall betrayed him.”

  “Many of those confidences weren’t relayed to Ferguson. Though you may find it difficult to credit, Rexall has a code of honor and he never violated it where Sorial was concerned. The information he provided to Ferguson was very general and some of the tasks he was asked to do, such as take Sorial bathing on your father’s property, seemed harmless enough. We’re not your enemies, Alicia. Ferguson is not your enemy. He’s your greatest ally. And if Sorial succeeds, he’ll need the prelate’s wisdom and knowledge. Eighty years of scouring the world’s greatest libraries, some of which were buried under rubble or across the ocean... He knows more about magic than any man alive - possibly more than any man who’s ever lived, including the great wizards of old. If he thought there was any chance of success, he would have been first in line to enter a portal, but his lineage is barren, not rich like Sorial’s. The portal that will elevate my son would have killed Ferguson.”

  “Knowing that you’ve... duped me, how am I supposed to trust you?” Alicia felt as if her life had once again been jolted into a ditch. She had thought the manipulation was over when the truth about her and Sorial was revealed after her Maturity. But it continued for both of them. The whole time Sorial had been relying on Rexall as a messenger, he had been in Ferguson’s employ. The prelate had been aware that Sorial had never left Vantok. She had to assume that everything Rexall had known, Ferguson had been told. And Kara didn’t see that as a betrayal?

  “So what would you have me do? Return to Vantok and wait for Sorial?” Going on seemed pointless. Worse, Vagrum’s death felt empty.

  “If that’s what you prefer, Rexall and I will show you the way. But we’re so close to the portal that it would seem a shame to turn back now. We’re ahead of Sorial. Rexall agrees that if you want to continue to the portal, we’ll take you there. No more subterfuge.”

  Kara departed soon after making the offer, leaving Alicia alone to decide. The village wise woman had decreed that the storm would pass by the morning after next and then would be optimum time to depart. Alicia had that long to choose her path.

  Stung by the duplicity of her companions, she considered fleeing without them, but the idea was foolish. She was in a strange land. Even if she knew how to get to the portal, she might never make it there on her own. And, as soon as she was discovered missing, a search party would be assembled comprised of men who knew the region intimately. She couldn’t escape them. She was trapped to travel with Kara and Rexall. But she wouldn’t make the mistake of trusting either of them. At least Vagrum hadn’t been part of the charade. He had been true. Anything else would have broken her heart. She missed him now more than ever.

  As the night wore on, she found herself thinking less about Kara and Rexall and more about Sorial. This had all started because of him and it was still about him. Yuman was right; she had been blind. The more she considered, the more obvious it was that magic had returned to the world and those who were using it weren’t friendly to Vantok. He had said there were two questions and only after answering the first could she address the second. Just because the gods allowed men to regain their magical capabilities didn’t mean that Sorial was among the select few. It was a matter of faith, not fact. Kara, Ferguson, Yuman, Warburm, and perhaps even Sorial himself believed. What about her? If she stood between Sorial and the portal, could she step aside and let him enter, knowing that the price of failure was death? She didn’t know. And she suspected she wouldn’t know until faced with that proposition.

  That was why, when she was well enough to travel, she would do what she had set out to do and complete the last leg of the journey to the portal. And, if that was Sorial’s destination as well, she would learn the answer to her question.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: DONNING SACKCLOTH

  After many days spent naked, it felt strange to be wearing clothing again walking under an open sky. Sorial had become so accustomed to living in the near-darkness of his cave that the outside world seemed like a foreign place: stars at night in the firmament above and none of the eerie greenish glow given off by lichen and other objects.

  The clothes he wore were badly made and ill-fitting - breeches and a shirt cut from a scratchy sackcloth and soft boots made from poorly cured animal skins that exuded a gamey stench. In stealing them the previous night from a small group of sleeping nomads, his choices had been limited. The benefit of being outfitted like this is that he would fit in. In a city like Vantok, one might be expected to dress a little better, but no one in the outlying settlements paid attention to a person’s garb unless he was too fancily attired. Few things raised suspicions more than wearing finery.

  Sorial absently stroked the stubble on his newly shaved chin. After having allowed his beard to grow during his sojourn in The Forbidden Lands, it felt strange to have the facial hair trimmed back to the skin. From observing his reflection in the water, he realized he had to make some attempt at grooming lest he be mistaken for a vagabond, and the new scarring on his nose and ears didn’t lend him a trustworthy mien. His intention was to re-enter human society anonymously but not as a widespread object of disdain. Even in outlying villages, people put some emphasis on how a person looked.

  Was he ready to return to the world’s surface? If the requirement for that was a full understanding of the powers available to him, the answer was no. But he recognized how easily procrastination could become a way of life with one day lazily slipping into the next and little progress made. He knew far today more than seven weeks ago when he had entered his self-imposed isolation. He hoped that would be enough for him to survive any direct attacks attempted by either his sister or The Lord of Fire, protect those who were close to him, and provide a measure of aid to Vantok. More study and practice was needed; he wasn’t naïve enough to believe he was ready to assume the mantle of the city’s protector. Even things that should be straightforward eluded him. He had not yet, for example, determined how to transport things or people with him when he traveled through the earth, although he was certain it was possible. Anything brought with hi
m, including clothing, was shredded the moment he began the process.

  There was still much to be learned but he was impatient to claim Alicia as his bride. Thoughts of holding her in his arms enflamed his nights, making it difficult to concentrate on his studies. And he worried that she might be in danger. Her status as The Wizard’s Bride was no secret and, while few ascribed importance to the title, Ariel wouldn’t hesitate to use Alicia as a means to impair Sorial or draw him into the open. He was thankful that she was essentially a prisoner in the temple, Vantok’s most secure structure. If there was anywhere she could be considered “safe,” that was it.

  For Sorial, there was one stop on his return journey to Vantok: a small village directly ahead, where he would spend the night, hear the rumors, and trade in his stash of raw gold for useable coins. Villages like this one dotted the landscape in the South. Most, even those with fewer than a dozen homes, had an inn of sorts. Wherever there were roads, there were merchant caravans, even this close to The Forbidden Lands. And wherever there were merchants, there was money to be made. To be profitable, an inn in this part of the world needed only to serve a half-dozen caravans a year. Other customers, if they had coin to spend or something of value to trade, merely fattened the innkeeper’s purse. Sorial might not look like a rich man, but he had just pulled several pounds worth of gold-veined ore from deep under the ground and that likely made him the wealthiest man within two days’ walking distance.

  The road here was barely more than a wide goat path, indicating that, although merchant caravans might occasionally venture south of Vantok, they weren’t plentiful in these wilds. There was some trade between villages but, at a time when crops underperformed because of the encroaching heat bubble surrounding Vantok, there was little to exchange. Towns this far from the city weren’t so badly heat-blasted that they couldn’t survive the warm months but, as close as a day’s walk to the north, whole settlements had been abandoned, unable to endure - never mind thrive - under such hostile conditions. Abating the heat and its associated drought would be among Sorial’s first duties although, as yet, he had no notion how he was going to accomplish that critical goal. There had to be a way. What fire and air could foster, earth could counter. The difficulty was discovering the method.

  Twilight was approaching early as it did this time of year, with the low sun bathing the world in a pleasant gold, when Sorial approached the southern limits of the nameless village. It was a sparsely populated place, with a clutch of thatch-and-wattle houses - no more than two-dozen in total - clustered around the three sturdiest buildings: a two-story inn, what appeared to be a town hall, and a rudimentary temple. Fields, fallow at this time of the year, spread from horizon-to-horizon behind the houses and away from the road. During a healthy growing season, this village likely produced enough to fill the bellies of its hundred-or-so residents with a surplus to sell to merchants. Sorial wondered how badly the heat had withered the crops and whether Winter had brought despair and deprivation.

  The only ones to greet him were five or six skinny, raggedly dressed children playing some kind of game with a stick and a ball in the middle of the road. They stopped their activities when they saw him and regarded him with unalarmed curiosity. He favored them with a smile. One little girl, perhaps five years old, smiled back but her companions stared at him with solemn expressions. Foreigners, he suspected, were unusual and not much trusted, especially if they came unannounced. Sorial had sent a herald before him but only to Vantok. And he had no way of knowing if Warburm had made it that far.

  He set his feet on a path leading directly toward the inn; it was the only place in a town like this where he would be welcome, if he would be welcome anywhere. In a strange sort of way, it almost didn’t matter how the residents received him. If they were hostile, there was nothing they could do to him. He had it within his power to depopulate their little town with barely a thought. There was so much earth here; the dry dust clung to his boots and caressed his skin. But that was not something he ever wanted to do. He thought back with regret about how he had handled the situation in Havenham. Langashin’s end had been earned but so many others had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had died because of bad luck, not because their actions had warranted it.

  But this is war, and there are always far more innocent casualties than guilty ones. He knew that to be true. It provided no solace but it was justification. And he had been too new to his power to be able to direct it with any precision. Having just emerged from the portal, he had been capable only of lethal force. His magic had been a sledgehammer. Since then, he had learned how to fashion it into more of a crude chisel.

  These people, these farmers, might not be happy about his presence, but they wouldn’t attack him. And he would return the favor.

  Unable to resist the pull of curiosity before entering the building, Sorial wandered around back to observe what the innkeeper might refer to as his “stable.” It was a ramshackle structure with no roof and three walls. It looked as if a stout wind would collapse it. There were eight stalls, all filled with mice-infested, rotting straw. This was no fit place for man or beast and it probably saw little use. Sorial suspected that, when a caravan arrived, it would be cleaned, or at least made to look clean, for the night when it was used, then would lie neglected until the next time it was needed. With a sad little shake of his head, he returned to the inn’s front and went through the door under a wooden sign that read: “Wellcum.”

  If Sorial had been expecting anything like the common room of The Wayfarer’s Comfort, he was destined for disappointment. The chamber into which he entered was small and shabby with dim light coming only from a pair of smoky lanterns and a small cooking fire. There was no bar - only four crude tables. The place was nearly empty. Aside from two fellows hunched over large pewter mugs, the only other person in the room was a rotund matron who stood near the fire. The innkeeper, Sorial assumed.

  He sat quietly at a table and waited for her to approach. The two men lifted their heads at the sound of someone entering and were now staring at Sorial with expressions of stupefaction - almost as if they were seeing the spirit of one long dead. One muttered something that might have been a curse or a ward against evil, then went back to his drinking. The other continued to stare, his gaze unwavering. Perhaps unconsciously, his hand strayed to the pathetically inadequate knife looped through a belt hole. If it came to a fight, Sorial carried no weapon. He could wield one with his remaining hand if necessary, but it was pointless. There were other, more effective ways for one such as him.

  The innkeeper looked him up and down before ambling toward him. She was as tall as any man and her girth matched Warburm’s. If it came to choosing one of the three people in the room to meet in single combat, it wouldn’t be her.

  When she addressed him, she didn’t smile. Not that it would have made her prettier or less intimidating. He couldn’t guess her age. She could be anywhere between thirty and fifty, although it was likely closer to the latter. Her face was red from exposure to the heat from the cook fire and perspiration wetted her hair and stained her shirt and apron. “You be a stranger,” she said, stating the obvious, as if her saying it aloud made it more real.

  Sorial forced his lips into a smile, hoping his expression didn’t look too much like a sneer or a grimace. “I travel the long road, looking for lodging for the night.” It was an expression Sorial had heard many travelers use during his years at The Wayfarer’s Comfort.

  She grunted. “It must be a long road indeed to have brought you here. We be far off the regular trail for all but the most adventurous merchants. Which, by the looks of you, you ain’t.”

  “I ain’t no merchant. But I’m more ‘adventurous’ than you might think. In fact, if not for my ‘adventurous’ spirit, I wouldn’t have come this far south and I ain’t never have stopped at your inn looking for a bite to eat, something to wash it down with, and a bed for a night.”

  “Where you be comin’ from, strang
er, and where you be bound?”

  “I’m a miner by trade,” lied Sorial. “So you’ll appreciate I can’t tell you where my claim is. I’m taking some ore to the city to be appraised.”

  From there, the conversation followed expected lines, almost as if Sorial had scripted it. In return for a mug of beer and a bowl of what the innkeeper called “stew”, Sorial displayed his wares. The look of avarice that passed across the woman’s features was unmistakable. She knew how precious Sorial’s rocks were. The trick for him was to make her believe that he recognized them to be worth something but nothing close to their true value.

  Eventually, she offered to relieve him of them, thereby sparing him the long trip to Vantok. “Roads be hard these days,” she said as if offering sage advice. “And there be unnatural heat surrounding the city. You be better off goin’ back to your claim. You wouldna catch me takin’ the trip to the city in times like these.”

  Sorial saw that the woman’s two customers had surreptitiously left the inn. She either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. Sorial didn’t doubt they had gone to spread the word of his arrival and their departure would result in one of two things: a crowd of curiosity seekers gathering to catch a glimpse of the rich miner or an ambush of desperate men in hard times. Whether Sorial left with his ore or with coins paid for it by the innkeeper, he would be an attractive target for robbers. And while the townspeople in a place like this were likely hard-working, gods-fearing peasants, desperation could drive men to do uncharacteristic things. He had seen it often enough. Spending a majority of his life working in an inn’s stable gave him a unique perspective on human nature.