The Swordsman's Oath toe-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  The word theory had a worrying lack of certainty about it, but there was nothing I could do about that. The boy had earned the silver ring to prove his scholarship, hadn’t he? I waved to Halice, who nodded to the mercenaries waiting with her on the wharf side. They cast the ropes securing the boat into the water. Raising a hand, I signaled to Shiv who was standing by the captain of the ship at the tiller. Defying both current and tide, masts and spars bare of canvas, rails lined with mercenaries, bows at the ready, the boat moved upstream, slowly at first and then more rapidly, a spur of foam at her prow frothing with green light.

  “Now we should see an end to this, Arimelin willing,” muttered Livak, coming to stand beside me, offering a cup of tisane.

  I took a sip of the steaming liquid, feeling the bracing bite of herbs at the back of my throat. “You’re sure you want to do this? I’d understand if you wanted to steer well clear of any aetheric magic—”

  “And stay with Planir? To risk being skewered by an Elietimm who thinks he’s an Eldritch-man or get myself fried by Kalion getting overenthusiastic?” Livak shook her head. “I’d sooner challenge one of Poldrion’s demons to a draw of the runes for free passage to the Otherworld!”

  “That’s a cheery thought,” I grimaced as I took another sip of tisane. “I’m glad to have you with me though, after the way you avoided me on the voyage here.”

  “I had a lot of thinking to do.” Livak fixed her gaze on the curve of the river as it narrowed toward a bend. “I had to decide if I wanted you badly enough to put up with all that comes with you just at present.”

  “And you do?”

  “For the moment,” Livak’s eyes remained hard. “And I’ll be making sure every cursed thing possible gets done to empty that D’Alsennin out of your head, once and for all.”

  Despite the seriousness of our situation, I felt absurdly happy. As I watched the river banks slide past, at once both unknown to me and familiar to Temar, I could not agree with her more, finding it harder and harder to batten down the defenses in the back of my mind.

  We reached the mouth of the gorge just as the sun slid down behind the grim and mossy crags of the high ground above us. The captain guided the ship cautiously into a limpid pool, frowning as gravel scraped noisily beneath the hull.

  “Where to now, Shiv?” I asked as both wizards and Parrail came to join me and Livak at the rail.

  “I’ve no idea. I mean it’s the right place, sure enough, but I can’t locate a cave,” He shook his head. “I’ve been scrying and there’s nothing, nothing at all.”

  “There’s something preventing me from searching beneath the surface on the far side of that ravine,” Usara looked thoughtful. “That must mean something.”

  “Parrail?” I turned to the young scholar who clutched a parchment defensively to his chest, eyes wide.

  “I’m sorry,” he stammered, “I’m sorry but I can’t find anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Which is what we’d expect if this place was supposed to be shielded from aetheric magic,” Livak managed to damp down most of the scorn in her voice. “Let’s follow Usara’s lead. Buril and Tavie, you’re with us.”

  It seemed Halice’s word was good enough to give Livak a measure of authority over the mercenaries and the two she named climbed down readily into the ship’s boat, the rest remaining alert and guarding the ship. I followed more slowly, my feelings increasingly confused, reluctant to risk making contact with this ancient magic, desperate to rid myself of Temar and constantly struggling to keep him from laying his shadowy presence over my eyes and my hands. I was starting to feel quite light-headed as we reached a rocky ledge, where a stunted tree offered a handy place to tie up. The feeling worsened as my feet made contact with the ground and with every step we took up that narrow ravine, my senses reeling as the jagged walls of the defile seemed to be pressing in on me, frozen in time but ready to topple down on me at any moment.

  “It’s no good, I can’t find any kind of entrance to a cave,” said Usara with marked irritation.

  “There’s no sign along here,” called one of the mercenaries, a bull-necked man with blunt features marred by a thoroughly broken nose. “Nor here,” confirmed his mate, Tavie, I think it was, a burly bruiser with a gut on him like a two-season child-belly.

  Livak looked down from where she was exploring a narrow ledge, sure-footed as a mountain goat. “This all looks as if it’s been undisturbed since Misaen made it,” she commented. “Shiv?”

  “What?” the wizard looked up from a puddle in a rocky hollow where he had been working magic. “No, there’s nothing I can see that’s of any use.” He turned to me, face deathly serious. “The only one who’s going to be able to find that cave is Temar D’Alsennin.”

  My first instinct was to reach for my sword but I managed to stick my hands through my belt instead. “What do you mean?”

  “You have to let Temar show us the way,” Usara folded his arms. “It’s the only way, Ryshad.”

  I shook my head slowly, wanting to shout my denial but unable to find the words. Livak slid down a convenient tree and reached up to lay her hands on either side of my face, drawing my gaze to her.

  “Look at me, Rysh,” she said softly. “Arimelin save us, I don’t want to see this again, but finding this cave is the only way you’re going to be rid of him, isn’t it? Saedrin’s stones, I know what we’re asking of you, better than anyone else, but you have to do this, to save yourself.”

  She was right, curse her, curse the day Messire had ever given me this unholy sword. What choice did I have? Death? If I could leave this Temar D’Alsennin behind to make his own deal with Saedrin, would it be so very bad to cross over to the Otherworld and see what a new life there had to offer? I was so tired, so very tired, exhausted by the now incessant struggle to keep myself intact, to maintain my crumbling defenses against Temar. I was not even sure I even knew myself anymore, so much had changed in me over the seasons. Could I trust myself? Not really, but one thing I knew—I could trust Livak. I reached up with one trembling hand to bring her slim fingers to my lips in a bone-dry kiss. Shutting my eyes, I laid the other hand to the sword-hilt and lost myself in a bottomless pit of darkness.

  The mining settlement of Kel Ar’Ayen,

  43rd of Aft-Summer

  Temar blinked and stumbled, disconcerted to find himself standing upright and putting out a hand to save himself by grabbing a tree branch. How was it that he had woken up here? Or was this just one more of the tormenting dreams that the enchantment had wrapped around him, only to rip away the illusion of normality to leave him alone in the dark once more?

  No, this was real; it was daylight. He could feel the uneven rocks beneath his feet, wet leaves in his clutching hand, warm sun on his back. He could smell the green freshness of the flowers and bushes all around and he drew a deep breath of the warm, moist air down into his lungs. This was real, no vision of a forbidden reality to tempt him into madness. That first exultation of sensation faded to be replaced by a lurking headache and treacherous weakness in his limbs. Had he been ill, he wondered, vaguely recalling childhood fever. No, better not to think of that, of the way he had woken from delirium to find father and siblings lost to him forever, never to know each other again, even if they should meet by chance in the Otherworld.

  A voice spoke hesitantly beside him and Temar frowned, unable to make sense of the rapid, oddly phrased sentence. Who was this man? Obviously he was from some distant land with a different tongue. He looked to be ten or so years older than Temar, somewhat taller with long black hair and a sallow complexion. He was dressed in curiously cut and tailored clothes, a blood-stained bandage grimy beneath the tattered remnants of what had once been a good linen shirt of leaf green.

  “Temar D’Alsennin?” the man tried again, slowly. While the accent remained hard on the ear, Temar could at least recognize his own name. He nodded, cautiously and asked his own most immediate question. “Who are you?”

  The man frowned
then tapped himself on the chest, speaking slowly. “Shiv.”

  Temar did not think that much of a reply and wondered why the foreigner was looking so uneasy. He closed his eyes for a moment and ran rapidly through his memories, ruthlessly shoving aside the chaos of his dreams in a desperate search for his last moments before the enchantment had taken his wits from him. That was it, he had been sent into a sleep woven of Artifice to remain safe until rescue could come. Eyes snapping open, Temar took a step toward the man in green, clear challenge in his words.

  “How do I come to be here?”

  The man shrugged helplessly and looked past Temar to someone at his back. Angry at himself for allowing them to take him unawares like this, Temar swung rapidly around to find himself outnumbered and took a pace sideways to get the solid rock of the gorge to defend his back.

  “We are here to help you,” a lad some few years younger than Temar spoke up, snub-nosed face pale with tension beneath a thatch of coarse brown hair, a small book in one hand, crammed with odd notes and scraps of parchment. “My name is Parrail and I have some knowledge of enchantment.” His words were spoken with painstaking care and his sincerity was evident. “What you know as Artifice,” he added hastily.

  That was all very well, but Temar was more concerned about the other people he could see. Two men, guardsmen by his guess, were further up the gorge, looking at him with frank curiosity, while a tempting blossom with tousled red hair was standing rather closer, arms folded and an expression close to hatred burning in her grass green eyes. Temar found himself recoiling from this a little, unable to think how he might have offended the lady, though her claim to such a courtesy looked rather doubtful, given her immodest breeches and manlike jerkin. The last member of this band of brigands was a quiet man of no more than usual height with thinning sandy hair and shrewd eyes, dressed in some kind of long robe with no weapons that Temar could see. Was he a priest of some kind? Temar looked around again and realized with some relief that only the retainers and the woman looked to be carrying weapons. If it came to a fight, the runes were not too heavily weighted against him.

  He laid a hand to his own hip, reassured by the familiar feel of his own sword and glanced down instinctively. What he saw chilled him to the bone. This was not his hand; it was older, broader, tanned with oil ingrained around the nails, small scars pale in a lattice around the knuckles, a hard-worked hand with its fellow matching it. Temar spread both hands before him, unable to stop them shaking, mouth agape in consternation. These were an artisan’s hands, no noble bloodline bore these sturdy workmanlike fingers. The great sapphire that had been his father’s was gone too, but a deep indentation marked the flesh of the central finger, for all the world like the mark from the band of a ring.

  Was this madness? Had he finally succumbed to the insanity that had tormented him through the smothering darkness of the enchantment? Terror threatened to overwhelm him. Stumbling, he fell to his knees, heedless of the pain of the sharp rocks. The scene before him shifted and altered, everything distorted as if he were looking through cheap and flawed glass.

  “Come on,” the man called Shiv caught him under the arms and helped him stand. Temar’s vision cleared but his confusion grew as he realized he now stood taller than this man, not shorter. He looked down to see long, muscular legs encased in stained leather breeches running down to boots far wider and longer than they should have been. Temar was certain he had never owned such garments or footwear. What had happened to him?

  The scribe or whatever he was hurried to Temar’s other side. “You are under an enchantment, a sorcery, laid upon you by the Lady Guinalle. We are here to restore you and your fellows if we can only find the cavern where you are hidden.”

  Guinalle! All Temar’s alarm for himself receded as he picked that name out of the man’s slow words. He clung to the thought. Guinalle—she would help him, she would know why he was so fearfully transformed, she could answer all the questions that were crowding around him, threatening, taunting.

  “Where is Guinalle?” The man with the bandage seemed almost to be hearing his thoughts.

  Temar shook off his hands and scowled, sensation returning to his nerveless hands and feet. “What do you want with her?”

  “We wish to restore her to herself, to awaken her,” the lad with the parchments said hesitantly.

  “We need her aid to defend ourselves against invaders from the sea,” the thoughtful man in brown spoke up, picking his halting words with evident care, his accent still strange to Temar’s ear. The red-headed girl said something fast and furious that escaped Temar completely, her speech an incomprehensible gabble.

  The lad rummaged in a pocket and held out a ring to Temar, a tarnished and battered circle of bronze whose engraved crest was worn to little more than a shadow. It was the crest of Den Rannion’s house, the ring a retainer would wear to show his allegiance and status.

  “Vahil!” Memory came hurrying back to Temar and a frail hope reached past the taunts of delusion. “Vahil returned home? He has sent you?”

  The one called Parrail hesitated, but the two unarmed men answered as one: “He has.”

  “To seek your help against the men from the sea.”

  Sudden recollection of the invaders’ assault shook Temar. “They are here?”

  “Not yet, but they are coming,” replied the man in green.

  “We need to find the cavern before they arrive,” added the man in brown, hushing the lad, who was looking more and more confused.

  Temar shut his eyes for a moment and rubbed a hand over his aching head, stopping in consternation to feel a mass of short curls. That should tell him something, he knew, but what?

  “What has happened to me?” he asked, more in anguish than in any hope of answer.

  The redhead spat something at him but the man in green snapped back at her in words too rapid and oddly spoken for Temar to understand.

  “Guinalle will be able to restore you.” The brown-robed man took a step forward and offered a pale-skinned hand. “We mean no harm to any of you. We only wish to help.”

  Temar reached out one trembling, unfamiliar hand and clutched the man’s thin fingers. Contact with another living being steadied him; this was certainly no dream, no delusion wrought of fear and tangled memory.

  “Where is Guinalle?” the man asked, eyes intent despite his friendly expression.

  She would have the answers, Temar realized at once. Guinalle would know what to do; she might even know these people, whomever it was that Vahil had sent, from whatever distant land. He had to find Guinalle!

  Turning, he surveyed the gorge, dismayed to find it narrower and deeper, the bottom choked with stones and clinging ferns as the foaming water splashed and bubbled its way through to the river. Was this the right place? Low oaks clung grimly to crevices in the rocks, twisted branches reaching upwards to the light. Finer branches of ash and hazel dappled the ground with shifting shadow. Winter storms must have sent landslides or floods or something to reshape the land so drastically, Temar concluded desperately. Struggling along the treacherous stream bed with no little difficulty, he scanned the sides of the defile frantically for any sign of the cavern’s entrance. Chest heaving with burgeoning panic, Temar halted, turning abruptly to see these strange visitors watching him, waiting, expressions wary.

  “Search, curse you,” he shouted, suddenly enraged. “Help me!”

  “What do we seek?” the lad Parrail called after an awkward moment of still silence.

  “A narrow ledge, leading to rock-cut steps, a walk down into a small cave that gives onto a larger.” Temar looked around helplessly. “I cannot tell where it might be.”

  “Think of Guinalle,” the wounded man urged as he made his way through the jumble of broken rock. “Let your instincts lead you to her.”

  As the man spoke Temar felt an irresistible conviction that Guinalle was somewhere close. He turned and turned again, head going from side to side like a hound searching for a windbl
own scent. Moving rapidly, eyes unseeing, he let this unfamiliar body stumble through the chattering stream until he was brought up hard against the treacherous surface of a long, sliding scree of shattered rock. Blinking through blurred vision, temples throbbing, Temar looked up to see a familiar series of hills far distant, sharp profiles against the clear blue sky, backdrop to the raw and broken stones blocking the entrance to the cavern.

  “She’s here,” Temar said helplessly.

  The red-headed girl moved quickly along the narrow and treacherous ledges, hands and feet deft as she moved out on to the shifting surface of the scree. One of the swordsmen tried to follow her, lost his footing, tumbled and gained only scrapes and bruises for his trouble. The girl spat what could only be curses at him and he colored uncomfortably, turning to quench his hurts in the cool waters of the stream. The girl moved slowly up the long slope, everyone else watching in a tense silence broken only by the skittering of loose stones dislodged by her careful movements. Pausing, she wedged her feet securely against some larger stones and looked down, calling the first thing Temar had understood from her.

  “Mind your heads!”

  She began tossing stones down into the water, ringing splashes echoing down the rocky angles of the gorge. Soon a black patch of darkness showed against the gray of the rock face, a hole in the side of the hidden valley.

  “Be careful, Livak!” the one called Shiv yelled as the redhead swung her legs slowly around and eased herself through the narrow gap. Temar stood, looking upwards along with all the rest, silent while the sounds of the chattering stream, the woodland birds singing all around, went unheeded.

  “Yes! It’s here!” The girl Livak’s face reappeared in the breach, pale but triumphant, her voice somehow easier now on Temar’s ear.