Boteen hadn't seen him since.
The carriage door opened slowly. The Scribe came out.
He was older than Boteen by at least a generation. He might even have been older than Rugad. His eyes were large and deep, his mouth small, and his ears the size of hands.
He bowed to Boteen, who shook his head.
"I'm not someone to bow to, Scribe," he said.
"I'm sorry, sir," the Scribe said and started to bow again, but seemed to think the better of it. He seemed uncomfortable at being noticed, uncomfortable at the strange place. He glanced more than once at the river, frothing pink foam below them.
"You knew this would be a difficult trip, did you not?" Boteen asked.
The Scribe shook his head. "I was only told that I was needed."
"And you normally sit in a corner and listen."
"Yes, sir," the Scribe said.
Boteen let some air out of his nostrils. Of course. This man was next to worthless. But Rugad had sent him for a reason.
"If you had let me talk to those Islanders," Ay'Le said, "he could have recorded that."
"You did talk to the Islanders," Boteen said.
The Scribe was watching them intently. What else was he supposed to report back to Rugad?
"You are mine now," Boteen said. "This whole trip is mine now, and you will do as I say. Is that clear?"
The Scribe nodded once.
Boteen almost asked him for his name, then remembered. Scribes were forbidden to give their names when they were working. It was better for them to be anonymous. Better for them, better for their magick, and better for those who used their services. That way a perceived error would not be taken out on the individual Scribe, but on the entire group.
As timid as this one was, that was probably good for them.
"You will be at my side, and you will be prepared to take a message back to Rugad. I suspect the message will be a very specific one."
"That's what I am for," the Scribe said. "Specific messages."
"Good," Boteen said. He glanced at the mountain. The Scribe did too, and shuddered. Boteen got the sense that the Scribe rarely went outside.
"Do you ride?" Boteen asked.
"No," the Scribe said.
"Wonderful," Threem mumbled from beside him.
"Well, then, you'll have to learn. There's no way a carriage will make it back to Jahn in the time I suspect we'll need."
"So you'll burden us with him," Threem said again.
Boteen smiled at him. "Maybe even you, Threem."
The horse's head moved, neighing as if in protest. Threem patted the horse's neck, his own neck, unconsciously. Such twitches these strange magicks had. Boteen shook his head.
His own twitches would come later.
"May I return to the carriage now?" the Scribe asked.
"No," Boteen said sharply. "I told you to remain beside me."
"But there is no one else here," the Scribe said.
"This is not going to be a normal assignment for you. You are simply going to be my messenger boy, not the recorder of a long diplomatic meeting."
"Surely, sir," the Scribe said, his voice humble, his head bowed, "one of the others — the Gull Rider, perhaps — can serve as a better messenger."
"Not in this case," Boteen said, and all but rose on his toes with excitement. "If we are facing what I think we're facing, Rugad needs to know the exact wording of the message from me. He would grill a Gull Rider. He will believe you."
"True enough," the Gull Rider murmured from above.
"I'm the head of this team of Horse Riders," Threem said. "You can't make this creature ride on my back. I will send one of the others."
"Only if he's quicker," Boteen said.
"I'll make certain of it," Threem said.
Boteen smiled a little, then paced to the edge of the mountainside. He didn't expect the Scribe to follow him this far, but the old man did, finally understanding his assignment. He peered down at the red water, and turned so pale that for a moment, Boteen thought he was going to pass out.
"Afraid of water?" Boteen asked.
"Heights," the Scribe whispered.
Wonderful, Boteen thought, and they would be going into the mountain. Ah, well. He couldn't worry about the Scribe. The Scribe would have to take care of himself.
Something glinted over the water. Boteen squinted. The glint was moving. It looked like a spark. It was growing closer and closer.
Gauze.
He had just about given up on her.
She arrived on the side of the road, landed, then grew to her full height. For a moment, she looked as if she were dusted with sparks, her body and her wings alight with internal fire. Then the image faded, leaving her delicate face untouched.
"Boteen," she said. "I think we need to speak alone."
He glanced at the Scribe, wondering if he should order the man along, and then decided to trust Gauze's judgment.
"I guess you get to go to the carriage after all," Boteen said.
The Scribe bowed and almost ran to the carriage. Boteen suppressed a smile. This trip would be the challenge of the man's career.
Then he turned to Gauze.
She was rocking back and forth on her small feet, her wings fluttering with the breeze off the river. When she saw him looking at her, she beckoned him away from the carriages, down the side of the road to a small outcropping.
The outcropping bulged over the river. On three sides, he could see the water frothing below him. The river boomed over the rocks below, sounding as furious as the ocean.
Above him, real birds swooped and dived, hunting in the rapidly moving water. The diamond glow on the mountainside beckoned him, and he glanced at it, just once.
"What did you find?" he asked.
"One of the most terrifying places I've ever seen," she said. "It's a cave, with marble steps and an interior hollowed out by human hands. It's guarded by the Islanders' holy swords, and inside are all the tools of their religion."
"You went in?"
She nodded.
He would have to remember to tell Rugad of this, of her great courage.
"There's more, isn't there?" he asked.
She nodded again, a small smile playing on her lips.
"What is it?" He knew she was milking the information, and he didn't care. He needed to know.
"Rugad's great-grandson is inside, along with some Islanders and some Fey. They're expecting the arrival of the great-granddaughter and the Islander King at any moment."
All of them in one place. Boteen's heart skipped. He had found them. His instinct had been right.
"Inside the Islanders' religious place?"
"I'm not sure what kind of place it is," Gauze said. "the magick currents outside of it are so strong, I nearly landed on one of the stone swords."
He still had to see this place. He knew it. And he also knew that he couldn't wait for the Scribe to reach Rugad. This news was too great.
"You are sure these are the Black King's great-grandchildren."
"I am certain of the son," she said. "And I know they were talking of the others coming."
He squinted. Her voice sounded odd, as if there were something else, something she was unwilling to admit to.
"What happened to you in there?"
"Magick currents," she said. "I told you."
"And what else?"
She blinked, then looked away. Her wings fluttered again, but this time the fluttering wasn't caused by the breeze.
It was caused by her nerves.
"You need to tell me," he said. He put a bit of Charm in the words. He rarely did that. He rarely used spells unless he needed to.
"My grandmother," she said. Then started, backed up, and nearly tumbled. He reached for her, but she righted herself and smiled at him.
"Your grandmother?"
"She was — " she shook her head.
"Your grandmother was Eklta, one of the great Wisp messengers of the L'Nacin campaign. I've he
ard of her," Boteen said. "And was sorry to hear how she died."
Gauze nodded. "She knew secrets; she was killed for them. It happens. At least I got to spend some time with her on Nye."
Boteen knew that Gauze had to get to this in her own time. But he felt the impatience in his own stomach. The greatgrandchildren. Here, in this place of wild magick.
"Murder is never something we live with easily," he said soothingly, fighting the urge to use a spell more serious than Charm. Something that would compel her to talk. "But I don't understand how it fits now."
"I — " Gauze swallowed hard, then shook her head. "I nearly slammed into one of those stone swords. They're bigger than you, Boteen, and they are stuck into the mountainside. I don't know if they have Islander magick, but the current around them was so strong. I was falling toward one, unable to stop myself, when my grandmother appeared beside me. She pulled me out, and by then, I was inside the cave. Then she kissed me on my cheek, told me I would be forever loved and forever remembered, and led me down the stone stairs."
Boteen's heart sank. "And that's when you saw the great-grandson."
Gauze nodded. She saw his disbelief. "The boy was talking to someone who wasn't there. And there was a clean Red Cap with him, as well as a woman from Rugar's infantry. They were whispering to an Islander, trying to explain the Mysteries to him."
"The Mysteries?" Boteen repeated. He looked at the diamond on the mountainside.
The Mysteries?
It couldn't be.
But it all made sense. Complete sense.
Gauze had stumbled on a Place of Power. Here, in Blue Isle. And it was controlled by the Islander religion. That was why they were able to defeat the Fey. They had the same powers. They just used them differently.
A Place of Power. Where the Mysteries lived, and the Powers ruled. Where, if a man went deep enough into the cave, all time disappeared.
"You're certain of this?" Boteen asked.
She nodded. "I'm sorry about my grandmother. I wasn't going to tell you. I was afraid you wouldn't believe me."
He didn't want to hear her apologies or her worries. "Who was the great-grandson talking with?"
"I don't know. It appeared as if he were talking to the air."
Another confirmation, if he chose to see it as that. "I understand. But who did he think he was talking to?"
"His mother," she said.
"Jewel?" Boteen asked.
Gauze shrugged. "There were no names used. None at all."
Mysteries. It was said Mysteries could appear to three people, and three people only. The Mystery's greatest love in life, the Mystery's greatest hate, and a person of the Mystery's choice.
"You and your grandmother were close?" Boteen asked.
Gauze nodded. "I loved her more than anything."
"And how did she feel about you?"
Gauze smiled. "I was the only family she had. She said she loved me to distraction."
Boteen nodded. Greatest love. It wasn't a real confirmation, but it was good enough.
"You need to go to the Black King and tell him what you saw. You need to get to him as soon as you can. Do not tell him of your grandmother. And do not tell him what's in the cave. Just that his great-grandson, great-granddaughter, and the King of Blue Isle are meeting in this remote location. Do you understand?"
"Doesn't he need to know the danger?"
"Tell him I'm going to investigate. Tell him I will send word when we know more. Tell him — " Boteen paused, thought. "Tell him to send as many troops as he can here. Tell him there are strange magicks here and we have not yet located the source of them."
"Should he come?" Gauze asked.
Boteen shook his head. He didn't want the Black King here yet. He didn't know what would happen if Rugad came.
"That's his decision," Boteen said. "But it would be better if he waited until we knew more. Can you do all this without revealing the cave?"
"Of course," she said.
"Then go," Boteen said. "Go now. And tell no one but the Black King of this."
She nodded to him, shrank, and rose in the air, her spark glinting off the sunlight like the diamond across the way.
A Place of Power. The Black Family, and another Enchanter.
All the power of Blue Isle, here in this place.
Boteen smiled.
The advantage had just returned to the Fey Empire.
Three Places of Power in the world, and soon they would have two.
Rugad would be so pleased.
SEVENTY
Matthias felt as if he were growing stronger. He climbed the thin trail that kept disappearing on him. Behind him, Denl and Jakib complained softly. Tri said nothing, but did grunt occasionally as if in pain.
They had just gone through a boulder field and were coming up on some flat rocks that looked as if they had once been part of a staircase. Decades, maybe centuries, before, a slide had covered part of the stairs.
Matthias had to use his hands for balance as he climbed, but he didn't care. He felt a sense of urgency he had never felt before. He knew that the Fey were above him, but that wasn't where the urgency came from.
It was coming from the shimmer itself.
Above him, he thought he heard other voices, familiar voices. Once he even thought he heard Nicholas, although he knew that was an impossibility. Nicholas was somewhere else, if he was alive at all. Nicholas would never be in such a treacherous place so far from his precious home.
Or his half-breed children.
The sun's full rays were on Matthias, but they didn't warm him. The air grew colder as he climbed. The shimmer still rippled above him, but he felt it more than he saw it. It seemed to be giving him strength, pulling him forward. The feeling he had had about the mountains ever since he was a small boy had grown, and he wondered, as he grabbed the rocks and pulled himself forward, why he had never done this before.
Why he had never climbed to this place before.
He had always resisted it. He had always felt as if the mountain's call to him had been a call to his own death. He had nearly died here once; he figured the mountain wanted to finish the job.
He hadn't realized that perhaps it was calling him home.
The rocks had cleared off the stairs. The stairs were broken, but they were still easy to manage.
He hurried.
"Holy Sir!" Denl yelled from below. "Please dunna lose us here."
He didn't answer. They would be able to catch him.
They knew where he was going.
The steps led to a rock ledge, and behind it, the shimmer pulsed. He could feel each pulse. With it came another pull, as if each pulse were timed to draw him forward.
The exhaustion he had felt earlier was gone.
His hunger was gone as well.
And so was the headache that had formed after his meeting with the burning boy.
"Matthias, please," Tri called. "Wait."
Matthias took the last few steps, and then hauled himself onto a large rock ledge. When he stood on the ledge, he stopped, and took a deep breath.
The air was thinning. He had trouble breathing. He should have realized that would happen, but he hadn't thought it through. He had only been thinking of coming up here, of reaching the top, of getting to the shimmer.
He was nearly there, if he could only catch his breath.
If he went on like this, he wouldn't make it any farther. He knew that, no matter how hard the shimmer pulled him.
He turned his back on it, and stared over the ledge into the valley below.
Far below, the river twisted, its coppery red color a wound in the valley floor. Beyond it were the roads and trails that led to Constant. The town was nestled against the mountain, with gray stone houses looking as if they had been formed just for the people of the town.
The Roca had come from here, from this desolate place, and beneath the town, if Pausho and Tri were to be believed, were the Words Written and Unwritten.
And
above, in the shimmer, was the cave where the Roca had been reborn.
What would happen to Matthias there? Would he experience some sort of magickal event?
He didn't know. He did know that he would have to clear the Fey out of there first, and he couldn't do that alone.
Tri reached him before the others. Matthias took Tri's hand and pulled him onto the ledge.
Tri was breathing heavily. "It's quite a climb."
"Yes," Matthias said. He was still watching the stairs. Denl and Jakib were making their way up carefully. Denl kept looking over his shoulder as if he were afraid of falling backward and tumbling all the way down to the river.
"Hey," Tri said. "This is man-made."
He was looking down at the ledge. Matthias looked down too, and wondered why he hadn't noticed it before. The rocks were mortared together and time had worn them flat, although several had worked their way loose. It looked like a poor version of the flagstone leading into one side of the Tabernacle.
Now gone, probably.
His heart twisted a little.
He would miss the Tabernacle. For the rest of his life he would miss it. It hadn't mattered that he had left it. It mattered that it remained, that it existed, that it continued without him.
He had loved it so much that he had given up himself for it.
And now it was gone.
Denl and Jakib made the final climb to the ledge. They stopped beside him, breathing as hard as he had.
"We're almost there," he said. He could still feel the pulsing, the shimmer, pulling at him. "Let me go first."
"I dunna think twould be wise," Jakib said. "Marly — "
"You'll keep your promise to her," Matthias said. He was smiling. He liked to have Jakib worried about this. He liked the strength that Marly had, the command she had over all the men in that small crew.
"He might have a point," Tri said. "You're the one who has the Secrets."
"And I'm the only one who seems to know where this place is," Matthias said. "Don't worry."
"They know we're coming," Denl said.
"I know," Matthias said. "I've already thought of that."
The Resistance: The Fourth Book of the Fey (Fey Series) Page 45