The Pity Stone (Book 3)

by Tim Stead

  Cain bowed again. It was probably the best that he could have hoped for. “We are honoured, Lord King,” he said.

  It was the end of their audience. The guard officer led them out of the throne room and back to the waiting chamber with the wine and the dainties. Cain permitted himself a glass of wine. He poured it slowly, watching the purplish liquid swirl in the glass. He sipped it, and it was very fine.

  “I think the King knew my father,” Sheyani said.

  “Really?” The thought took Cain by surprise. “Well, it would explain the warmth of our reception, but how?”

  “I do not know the circumstances, but my father told me once that he had met an Avilian Prince. He said that he was well disposed towards the young man, though he did not say the name. I am sure he would have mentioned if it was the Crown Prince, though.”

  “Mortality is high among kings and princes…,” Cain said. He stopped talking, remembering Sheyani’s father.

  “I know it, Sheshay,” she said.

  “What will happen now, Colonel?” Tilian was growing anxious again.

  “We wait, I suppose,” he said.

  “For a while,” Sheyani confirmed. “They will be preparing rooms for us. There will be clothes suitable for a banquet, wine and food in the rooms, and a bath. I suggest we make use of the bath. I think they expect their guests to smell of soap.”

  “And our weapons?” Tilian asked.

  “Wear them. You have the King’s dispensation.”

  There were worse fates, Cain supposed, that being the honoured guest of the King of Avilian in the Palace at Golt, but just at the moment he could not bring himself to look forward to it. A bath and comfortable bed were a different matter.

  He decided that he liked the King.

  * * * *

  The following day they were farewelled from Golt much as they had been invited, escorted fore and aft, but now it was with respect. They had the King’s favour.

  Cain was keen to be on the way. It was not far to the Seth Yarra positions on the Afaeli border, and they would arrive by nightfall. Only then would they know what kind of challenge it represented.

  The banquet had been a low key affair for a royal occasion. Sheyani had told him as much. There was the king, of course, and his grim advisor whose name turned out to be Gorgal, and a small coterie of the exalted, no more than twenty all told. There had been more servants than lords.

  The wine was excellent, but the food was better. Cain had never had a better meal, and it revived in him an enthusiasm he had once possessed for the preparation of food. He had been a cook, and a good one, but nothing like this.

  He had embarrassed the servants by asking questions about the spices, the sauces, the cooking times and methods, but King Sebaliol had permitted him to indulge himself, and he had had a fine time of it. So much had he learned that he had felt the urge to write it down, and a faint longing for the kitchens in the Seventh Friend.

  Sheyani had talked to the king for most of the evening. It turned out that her father had met him once, shown him kindness when he was a junior prince, played for him. Sebaliol had been the third son, and destined for a comfortable estate and a life away from the madness of Golt. It had not turned out that way. The second son had been killed in a hunting accident, or at least nobody could prove otherwise, and the eldest had died when his ship had been wrecked at sea. Sebaliol himself had survived at least one assassination attempt, and seventeen plotters had lost their heads over the affair.

  All the detail merely confirmed to Cain that all he wanted was Waterhill and Sheyani to share it with him.

  Sheyani had played for them again, and the king had been so delighted by her performance that he had offered her anything she desired, if it was in his power to give it.

  “Anything,” he had said.

  “I have a husband who is brave and kind and clever, and rich” she replied. “I have a house at Waterhill that may be the prettiest in Avilian, and one day I will bear my husband many sons and daughters. There is nothing more to be had from life, Lord King.”

  “Then I will drink to your health and long life,” the King said. “May you live a hundred years, and all of them be filled with joy.”

  The king had supped a deal of his fine wine by this time, so he did not notice that Sheyani’s face darkened a moment before she smiled and thanked him for the toast, but Cain noticed. He knew they would be up with the dawn and riding hard, and his glass stayed untouched for most of the evening.

  So they rode across the brown grass plains to the east of Golt with the sea a constant companion, its endless blue prettier than any sapphire. Cain’s mood was light, and he worked to preserve it. There would be time enough for grim deeds and grim thoughts when he saw the enemy. For the present he was content to enjoy the freshness of the sea air, the kindness of the sun and the favour of the king. It was a happy day.

  They did not reach the Seth Yarra fort by sunset, though Cain was sure it was only a few miles off. He set more guards than usual, sending them further afield to scout the land that lay ahead, and camped in a valley where his fires could not be seen for more that half a mile in any direction save from the sea. Now it was that he returned his focus to the coming fight.

  Men would die. Taking a position like the one that lay ahead, however hastily it had been built, would be costly. There was nothing that he could really do, nothing he could consider, that would be of real value until he had seen the lie of the land, but he tried never the less. He reviewed his strengths, considered the materials that might have been used to build and noted their weaknesses.

  He was pulled from his contemplation by Sheyani.

  “Sheshay, there is something we must speak of,” she said.

  Cain was sitting on a rug, his back propped against a cushion against a tent pole. He looked up and saw that she was sitting opposite, a frown on her face.

  “The king wants to marry you?” he asked.

  In spite of herself she smiled. She came and sat next to him. “You say the silliest things, Sheshay,” she said. “No, this is a serious matter.”

  “What is it?”

  “I have been thinking, for days I have been thinking, and I think there are things that I must know, that we both must know.” Cain waited. There was no need to urge her on. She would tell him in her own way. She took out a knife. It was slender, the length of a man’s hand, and sharp. She held up her own hand, showing it to him, the smooth olive skin, the short-clipped nails. It was a small, perfect hand, and he was about to reach for it when she slashed it with the knife.

  It was a deliberate act, and Cain managed to prevent a cry from escaping his lips, but he grabbed at her hand. Sheyani managed to avoid his grasp, but she held up her hand so that he could see it again.

  “Look, Sheshay,” she said. He did. There was no mark on her flesh. The hand was as perfect as it had been, though now smeared with a little blood. There was no oozing cut, no trace.

  “How?” he asked.

  “I will explain later,” she said. She held the knife, still coloured with blood, over a small bowl, holding the point down so that a couple of drops fell into it. She cleaned the steel on a cloth. “Now you,” she said. Cain obediently held out his hand. This was magic. He recognised the flavour of ritual. It was a magic knife perhaps, a blade that cut without cutting.

  It hurt when she cut him, but a brief glance was enough to tell him that he was not injured, though blood had certainly been drawn. Two more drops went into the small bowl, and Sheyani cleaned the knife again, and put it away somewhere beneath her jacket. Now she took out a small phial, a thing of delicate glass no larger that the end joint of Cain’s smallest finger, and unstoppered it, allowing a few drops of liquid that it contained to join the blood in the bowl. She stirred the tiny amount of liquid with her finger and it congealed into a reddish paste.

  “Now I will explain, Sheshay,” she said. She put the bowl on the ground between them. Settled herself and looked into his eyes. “You a
nd I are different,” she said. “What happened to us has at the White Road has changed us. It has made us something else. We are Farheim.”

  “No,” he said. “Farheim were monsters created by the god mages. It cannot be because there are no more god mages.”

  “There was no magic in the knife, Sheshay,” she said, as though she had read his thoughts. “The magic is within us. We will not age, we cannot be killed by sword or bow unless we are dismembered. I have been most careful in finding this out.”

  “Then how were we created? Is Narak a god mage?”

  “I do not think so,” Sheyani shook her head and frowned. “I think it was an accident, and I think that Wolf Narak was part of it, but I cannot be sure.”

  “And this?” Cain pointed to the small bowl of bloody paste.

  “Calling magic. It is ancient, and yet passed down through all Durander mage lines. We all know it. It is client magic.”

  “What does it do?”

  “It allows the Farheim to speak to their creator.”

  Cain looked down at the paste. “Both of us?”

  Sheyani shrugged. “I have changed it so we will call together. I understand the principle. It is taught.”

  “So what happens?”

  “That is less well known,” Sheyani confessed. “There are stories, but they do not agree.”

  “What will happen if you are wrong – if we are not Farheim?”

  She shrugged again. “It is unknown. Probably nothing will happen.”

  “Probably?” He looked at the paste again. “How does it work? What do we have to do?” He wasn’t happy about this. Firstly there was the idea that he was Farheim. He didn’t like that at all. Farheim were mythical monsters, the rampaging servants of the god mages, killers. There was no sympathy in the folk tales that Cain had grown up on for Farheim. They were always evil, always bad, and always on the losing side. It was like being told you were a demon.

  Then there was the other side of the equation. If he was Farheim, and he still wasn’t ready to admit to that, then there must be a god mage somewhere. That worried him. God mages were the only thing worse than Farheim. It worried him even more that he had been chosen to become Farheim.

  “To cast the spell you must put the paste on the tip of a blade and break the skin,” Sheyani said.

  “Are you sure that we want to do this?” he asked.

  “A choice between knowing and not knowing is not a choice, Sheshay,” she replied. It was yet another piece of Durander pocket wisdom. Cain disagreed. Not knowing was sometimes quite desirable. As a common soldier he had often been much happier not knowing the damned fool plans of his superiors. Besides that, he was not sure that it was his ignorance that he wished to preserve.

  “This god mage,” he said. “Perhaps it would be better not making ourselves known to him. After all, we’ve had no sign, no call on our services.”

  “I do not think there is cause to fear,” Sheyani reassured him. “Whoever the mage is, they will be known to the Wolf, and the Wolf still lives.”

  “As far as we know.”

  “No, I am certain. When I was held at High Stone I made a link with his dreams, and sometimes I still feel them. I know when he sleeps and when he wakes.”

  “So you think this is a good idea?”

  “It is necessary,” she said. Sheyani drew his blade again and waited until Cain had drawn his own dagger. It looked like a sword next to her delicate steel spike, though it was at least as sharp. “Just the tip,” she said. “Touch the tip to the paste, then cut the skin. I will say when.”

  Cain did as he was told. For all his misgivings he acknowledged that this was Sheyani’s area of expertise, and while he felt free to question and suggest, hers was the final word. He was war, she was magic, that was the way it was. He dipped his blade into the paste. There was no sensation, no hint of magic. He hovered the tip over the palm of his left hand, ready to thrust down, matching Sheyani’s actions exactly.

  “Should we really be doing this now?” he asked, last ditch.

  She smiled. It was her amused smile, the one she smiled when she knew he was half joking. “Yes,” she said. “Now.”

  He jabbed down with his blade, a stroke just strong enough to break the skin, then withdraw. Nothing happened. He looked at her.

  “Maybe…”

  Everything went black.

  Thirty One – Jerac Fane

  The third day. A fine mist covered the ground outside the city, drifting a little and pooling in those places where the ground dipped, sketching the contours of the land. It was a cold mist, but Jerac didn’t feel it. He was in the guard house above the gate. There was a fire here, and a pot of thin soup bubbled over it. A small bowl of soup sat on the table before him and he sipped at it gingerly. It was hot. He was alone with his soup and the fire.

  Below him the other men of the morning watch stood either side of the gate, and the gate was closed, only the postern was unbolted to allow the passage of late travellers, and only then if they knocked and said their business. This was the quiet time. Dawn threatened, the mist being favoured with a little pink, the eastern sky no longer quite black, but filled with scattered dark clouds against the pale light, freckled with stars. It could have been the moon, but Jerac knew that the moon had set two hours ago over the dark sea, and so it must be dawn light. The pink betrayed its origin.

  At dawn they would open the gate proper. It was nearly time. He shovelled in one last spoonful of soup and pushed the bowl away, keeping his mouth open and sucking in air to cool it. He swallowed, and it burned.

  It had been a good three days. The men, his men, had been afraid that he would use his temporary rank to abuse them, to make their lives the hell they might suspect they deserved, but he had not. He knew that he had been given this job by the major to test him as much as to test them, and his was the bigger trial.

  He had been fair. None of them would have said he was soft. He’d been severe, but fair. He asked nothing of them that he didn’t demand of himself twice over. That was because he knew he was better, stronger, more capable. Physically he could have crushed any of them, but that was not the way to win respect. He’d learned that.

  Now it was gate hour. He glanced out the window again. In a minute, perhaps two, the sun would break the line of the horizon, lighting up the city, the fields, the roads, burning off the mist. He went down the stairs, taking them two at a time, striding out into the cold air at exactly the right moment.

  “Gate ready,” he called.

  The men were already standing in position, ropes braced. He nodded to Bisalt, and the man knocked back the steel bolts that held the gate in place, one by one, striking them with a mallet. Jerac looked up at the top of the tower, waiting for the light to touch it. Even on cloudy mornings there was a noticeable difference when the sun rose, but today it would be clear as a bell, sharp as a knife.

  There was smoke in the air, wood smoke, he could smell it. The smoke caught the light above the tower, just for a few seconds, like a magical crown, then the pale stones caught fire, golden light picking out the tops of the battlements.

  “Gate open,” he called.

  The men heaved. The gate swung inwards, revealing the ghost light of the wall’s shadow, mist swirling in from the half dark.

  There were people out there, waiting in the night. This was usual. Each morning people would come to the gate before dawn. They were traders, farmers, drifters and travellers of every description who had horses and wagons that would not fit through the postern. These waited for dawn. Dawn was the key that let them in.

  There were a few waiting inside, too. A couple of wagons loaded with general goods, a minor nobleman with a couple of companions. Jerac Fane, acting lieutenant Fane, was now the arbiter of the gate. His men stepped out and in, holding back the traffic until he decided – the gate was not wide enough for traffic to pass both in and out.

  Jerac nodded to the nobleman. Blood had its privileges, and he would be through
and away quicker than the rest. A swift glance told him that there were only two wagons waiting inside, and nothing else, so he nodded them through next. The inbound wagons would have to be checked. The city extracted duties on certain good, on wine and spirits, meat and honey, silk and herbs, many various things, and some things were not allowed to be shipped without a licence. Weapons, principally. Any man could carry a sword, but if you had more than you could reasonably wear you had to get a licence.

  Bisalt jumped up onto the first wagon, and the drover spoke to him. He lifted a blanket or two, cut open a couple of sacks.