The Swordsman's Oath toe-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  “Where’s Livak?” I inquired, stepping off the curb to draw level as Shiv made his way along the crowded walkway.

  “She went to see Halice. There are some Soluran scholars here who are trying to improve her leg. Some aetheric magic has remained in their healing traditions, but you knew that, didn’t you?”

  I have to confess I’d hardly given Halice and her problems a passing thought since we’d been separated. Mentally shaking myself, I determined to stop dwelling on my recent experiences and get a grip on the reins again. Would there be some magic that could mend so severe a wound, and one now several seasons mended and healed? That would certainly be something to see and, more importantly, something to bring to Messire’s attention. I’ve not seen too many men left with only stumps of leg or arm in order to save them from green rot, but hearing one screaming, weeping, pleading with the surgeons to no avail had been enough for me when Aiten and I had been working for Messire along the Lescari border. The reminder that I was not the only one with troubles was salutory as well.

  “What about Viltred?”

  “He’s back in his old hall, catching up with whoever he trained with who isn’t dead yet.” Shiv’s tone was nevertheless affectionate. “Here we are.”

  He opened a stout door to usher me into a modest abode in the center of a well-weathered terrace. I blinked as my eyes adjusted after the sunlight outside and I saw the front of the lower rooms was laid out as a workplace, a sloping desk set to catch the best of the light, parchment, pigments and binding agents neatly arranged, ready for use. I vaguely recalled hearing that Shiv’s partner was a copyist or an illuminator, something of that kind, certainly not a wizard, which was the most significant thing to me.

  “Pered!” Shiv stepped into the rear room and then shouted up the tight curve of the boxed staircase. “No, he must be out, probably getting some food in. Look, make yourself at home, there’s wine in the kitchen or you can have a tisane. I have a few things I need to do but I’ll be back soon.”

  Before I could protest he was out of the door, pulling it to behind him with an emphatic slam. Not wanting to upset anything in the study, I went through into the kitchen, a little surprised to find a modern charcoal stove standing in the fender of the hearth where a damped-down fire was making the room stuffy in the summer heat. Other than that it was an unremarkable place apart from a collection of wildly differing and highly decorative herb jars with a shelf to themselves on the far wall. I opened a couple, sniffed, stoked up the fire and put a kettle onto boil, but then decided I didn’t really want a tisane after all, took the kettle off again and went out into the narrow yard at the back. Shiv’s neighbors evidently kept chickens and on one side a pig, as you might expect, but the sty and run in this yard were swept bare and empty. I poked around a bit, finding a handful of stones and tried my hand at hitting a large, pale stone high on the wall of the piggery. Striking it every time, I was about to look for more missiles when I heard the door behind me open.

  “You should follow a plow and earn yourself some coin stoning the crows. That’s some skill,” a cheerful voice complimented me.

  “It is, but it’s not my own,” I said without thinking.

  “That sounds like a line from a bad ballad! You must be Ryshad, I’m Pered.”

  I turned to see what manner of man Shiv had returned to so fondly. As with the island of Hadrumal itself, I couldn’t have told you what I was expecting. I had the sense not to be looking for a masquerade matron, all feathers and flamboyant gestures, but perhaps I was anticipating something a little more obvious than a stocky, blunt-featured man with curly brown-blond hair and hazel eyes. His Tormalin was excellent, his accent that of Col and I recalled that city’s reputation for letting folk follow their own path.

  “Go on then, tell me the tale.” Pered sat himself in a bench to enjoy the sunshine, arms folded, muscular legs outstretched at his ease.

  I hurled my last stone and struck a chip of rock from my target. “I have a fair eye but this particular talent belongs to a man many generations dead whose memories are somehow cluttering up my dreams.” It sounded rather improbable put like that, but Pered didn’t look surprised.

  “So our revered Archmage has entangled you in one of his schemes, has he?”

  I liked the almost total absence of respect in his voice and thought that Pered and I could probably be friends.

  “Like a fly in a web.” I nodded.

  “This is all to do with some lost colony and this unknown magic that has all the mages fluttering like doves with a cat in the cot, is it?” Pered shook his head. “Good thing too, if you ask me. It’s nice to see some of them learning a little humility for a change.”

  No, I decided, we were definitely going to be friends. “Shiv’s told you about it?”

  “Enough,” shrugged Pered. “So, what’s he like?”

  “Sorry?”

  “This lad who’s wrecking your nights, the one with the throwing eye, what’s he like?”

  I looked at Pered and found myself at a loss for words. The Archmage had asked so many things, teased out so much detail about the colony, found far more information that I had realized I knew, but he hadn’t once asked about young D’Alsennin himself.

  “He’s not a bad lad. He still has an unholy amount to learn about women but he’s growing up fast, squaring up to his responsibilities all right. He has got plenty of character but it needs tempering, polishing up.” It seemed strange to be talking about Temar like this.

  “What does he look like? Can you describe him?” Pered pulled a scrap of reed paper from the breast pocket of his shirt and found a broken length of charcoal in his breeches pocket.

  I closed my eyes to picture Temar more clearly and Pered sketched swiftly as I spoke, charcoal deft in his stubby fingers. “He’s a skinny lad,” I concluded. “He’ll fill out a bit in a few years, but he’s outgrown himself just at the moment. I suppose you’d call it a wolf’s face, long jaw, thin lips, angular, if you know what I mean. He certainly has a wolf’s eyes, really intense light blue, which is strange when you consider he has black hair.”

  “How does he wear it?”

  “Long, straight, mostly tied back.”

  “Anything like this?” Pered turned his sketch toward me and I smiled involuntarily.

  “Are you sure you’re not a mage? Actually, his nose isn’t that prominent and his brows are finer but that’s a better likeness than many a portrait I’ve seen. You’re wasted in a copy-house.”

  It was strange, seeing that picture, imperfect as it was, the face of a youth so alive in my dreams and reveries but so long lost on the far side of the pitiless ocean. I felt an odd tug of affection, almost. Besides, I owed the boy, didn’t I? He’d saved my stones against Kaeska’s enchanter.

  “As my father said when he apprenticed me, it’s a fair trade and it keeps bread on the table,” grinned Pered. “I’ll turn my hand to proper portraiture when Shiv finally gets fed up with being ordered about by Planir and we find ourselves hurrying for the next ship to somewhere different. Until then I’ll bide my time and mix my inks.”

  “Don’t you mind the way Shiv has to go running every time Planir tugs his leash?” I asked curiously.

  “Yes,” said Pered simply, “but that’s Shiv’s choice and I have to respect that if we’re to be together. The trick is making sure Shiv himself comes out ahead when all the runes are drawn, whatever game the Archmage is playing. That’s what you need to do, trust me.”

  This struck me as an unusually intense conversation to be having with someone I’d only just met. “You seem very well informed. Shiv must have told you more than you’re saying.”

  Pered shook his head. “Not Shiv, Livak. Anyway, what you need to work out first is just what you want. Then make sure whatever Planir tries to talk you into works for you as well as for him. Watch your step if he’s being all honest and open with you as well—there’ll be a barb in the honeycake, mark my words.”

  I heaved a sigh. �
��I just want to get clear of all this, have ordinary, nonsensical dreams about swimming through deep water with talking fish or whatever; to be allowed to go and pick up the threads of my own life again.”

  “Then keep your eye on that target and don’t let Planir or anyone else distract your throw.” Pered raised a hand and stood up. “I think I heard the street door.”

  We went into the kitchen, the inner door opened and Shiv came in, moving to one side to reveal Livak, who stepped directly into my arms, tucking her tousled auburn head under my chin. I breathed in the scent of her as I kissed her hair and felt her arms tighten around me. Holding her close like that was a feeling worth more than a season in Laio Shek’s embraces. I could have stayed like that for ever if Shiv hadn’t needed to reach the range to put the kettle on the heat.

  “What’s for dinner, Shiv?” Livak peered into a basket full of vegetables that was standing on the scrubbed table-top.

  It proved to be a sturdy pottage that had been simmering away in a cook-pot on a tripod in the hearth and only awaited the addition of the vegetables. Shiv skimmed the fat and thickened the mix with the marrow from the bones while the rest of us peeled and chopped.

  I caught Livak looking thoughtfully at me and raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  “Are you planning to keep the beard?” she asked with a faint smile.

  “Do you like it?” I did hope she was going to say no.

  She tilted her head to one side, considering this. “It definitely makes a difference but—”

  That was good enough for me. “Shiv, do you have a razor I can borrow?”

  Shiv laughed. “Certainly but I’d wait a bit before you use it. Shave a beard like that off in high summer, especially after spending time in the Archipelago, and you’ll have a piebald face. Your chin will catch the sun too, unless you’re careful. Trust me, I’ve done it!”

  Pered’s artist’s imagination was instantly caught by this picture. “When did you wear a beard?” he asked, intrigued.

  “Soon after I came to Hadrumal,” replied Shiv. “I thought it would make me look older and force some of the senior wizards to take me a bit more seriously.”

  “Didn’t it work?” Livak asked with a wicked smile.

  “No.” Shiv shook his head ruefully. “The only thing that impresses master mages is how you handle your element.”

  In very little time we were sitting down to an extremely satisfying dinner. Whatever the mages might be doing, someone with more practical skills was raising very good beef on Hadrumal, and while I couldn’t identify the wine it was of a quality I associate with feasts and festival days. Best of all, we spent the entire meal talking about everything and anything and nothing to do with Planir, arcane dreams or lost colonies. It was almost as if my life were turning normal again.

  As Shiv eventually rose to stack the plates in the sink, Pered looked out at the night. “You might as well stay, Livak. There’s no point in you heading back to the hall now and Halice will be asleep, if she’s anything like as tired as she was after the last session with those Solurans mauling her leg about. So, am I making up the bed in the garret as well or will the one in the back bedroom suffice?” he inquired with the first trace of archness I had seen in him.

  I looked at Livak, who hid a smile in her wine goblet. “One bed will do, I wouldn’t want to put you to too much trouble.”

  “You two can wash up then.” Shiv tossed me a dishcloth and he disappeared up the narrow stairs with Pered.

  “You wash, I’ll wipe,” said Livak, taking firm possession of the towel.

  “Thanks,” I replied dryly, before taking the kettle from the hearth to pour scalding water on to the crocks and blinking in the steam. “You and Pered seem to get on well.”

  “We do,” agreed Livak. “Halice likes him as well.”

  “How is she?” I asked belatedly.

  “Better.” Livak’s nod was emphatic. “Much better.”

  “Shiv was as good as his word then.” I was glad something positive seemed to be coming out of all this, for Halice’s sake as much as anything, though a part of me was also selfishly glad that Livak would be freed of that particular burden.

  “By the time we arrived, he didn’t have a lot of choice,” laughed Livak, evidently well satisfied with something.

  “How so?” I was intrigued, pausing in my work to look at her.

  “Well, there was this archive Planir was desperate to have,” Livak began, her expression gleeful.

  “From a shrine to Arimelin?”

  “That’s right. Well, Lord Finvar, the old grayhair who had it, was absolutely dead set against giving it up. He’d got it into his addled head that wizards dealing in natural science is only one step away from Rationalism and he wasn’t about to hand over sacred texts to godless mages and risk who knows what wrath from an outraged deity.” Livak’s eyes gleamed wickedly.

  “What changed his mind?” I was smiling myself now.

  “There were a whole series of portents, strangely enough.” Livak shook her head in mock perplexity. “The old boy would wake up and find things in his bedchamber had been moved around while he slept. He kept finding an ancient set of runes laid out on his reading desk, up in his study, with something he was convinced was a mystical message. All his staff and retainers were questioned and, of course, the first people he suspected were Shiv and Viltred but the captain of his guard kept them under constant watch and they couldn’t possibly have been responsible.”

  “Of course not.” I nodded solemnly. “So what finally convinced him?”

  “Oh, waking to find his own birth runes laid out in the middle of the floor when he was sleeping in a high bedchamber with only one, inaccessible window.”

  “Inaccessible?” I couldn’t restrain a chuckle.

  “That’s right,” confirmed Livak, pulling up a sleeve to examine a long graze, now nicely healing. “Inaccessible and cursed narrow as well.”

  We both burst out laughing but then fell into an awkward silence, broken only by the clatter of crockery and the sounds of shifting furniture on the floorboards above our heads.

  “I thought I’d lost you, you know,” Livak said abruptly, a faint hint of red beneath her summer freckles as she stared blindly out of the window into the darkness.

  “Not so easily done,” I said as lightly as I could manage. “I’m just glad to find you here. I wouldn’t have wanted to go all the way back to Relshaz to search for you again.”

  Our eyes met for a long moment until Livak turned to lay a plate on the table. “I’ve been thinking—if the offer’s still open, I could come back to Zyoutessela with you for a while. Whatever the Solurans are doing for Halice’s leg, it’s going to take a long time, at least into Aft-Autumn, that’s what they were saying, anyway.”

  “I’d like that,” I said, carefully keeping my tone even.

  “I mean, I’m not making any promises and I shan’t be growing my hair just yet,” Livak continued hurriedly, “but we could see how things went, though of course, you’re still a sworn man—”

  “For the moment,” I said, surprised to hear the curt note in my own voice. “I’m thinking about that. It may be time to hand back my oath fee and take charge of my own life again.” Now I had actually said it, put into words the impulse that had been growing slowly and inexorably within me.

  Livak gaped. “What will you do?”

  “Come to see what Vanam’s like?” I’d never been to Livak’s home city.

  “What will you do for coin?” Livak was frowning now. “Don’t say you’re thinking of going for a mercenary in Lescar?” It was a feeble jest and I could see real concern in her eyes.

  “Coin won’t be a problem.” I grinned at her and went to recover my kit bag. As I spread Laio Shek’s largesse on the table-top, Livak’s eyes grew as round and as bright as the emeralds in the bracelet she first picked up.

  “Just what sort of services were you rendering to earn this kind of pay-off?” she giggled.

&nbs
p; I winked at her. “I’ll show you when we’re in bed.”

  Livak laughed and ran a wondering hand over some of the more choice pieces. Her eyes were keen as she looked up at me. “With what you have here we could take ship tomorrow and disappear. I know people who’d give us a good rate to turn this into sound coin and I reckon we could take a chance on the mages not finding us. I have friends who’d hide us. You don’t need to do whatever it is that Planir’s asking; you could just walk away from it all.”

  “I know, and I’ve thought about doing it,” I admitted. “But then it wouldn’t be finished, would it? There would always be questions—what if, if only. No, I want to be able to walk away on my own terms, leave no one with a claim on me.”

  As I spoke, I realized this had to mean letting Planir and his scholars work their ritual over my dreams of Temar D’Alsennin. The thought of aetheric magic loose inside my head, breaking down all my defenses, was a chilling one but if it was the price for getting rid of these echoes from the past or whatever they were, I’d have to pay it. I looked at the wealth spread all over the table-top and shook my head at the irony of it all.

  I looked up to see Livak regarding me intently. “Do you mind?” I asked her. “I need to finish this once and for all.”

  She nodded. “I knew you would,” she said simply. “That’s the kind of man you are. I suppose if I were honest I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

  I drew her to me in a close embrace. “Planir has some scheme for sending me into a half-sleep, a ritual to reach these cursed dreams directly.” I shivered involuntarily. “Once that’s done we should be able to leave.”

  Livak’s arms tightened around my chest. “I’ll stay, I’ll be there with you if anyone wants to mess with your mind. Anyway,” her tone brightened, “there are good pickings to be had here in Hadrumal. There are wizards here who might be able to talk to each other a thousand leagues apart but haven’t the first idea of reading the run of the runes. Give me half a season and I’ll probably be able to match your little treasure trove.”