The Warlord_s legacy cr-2

by Ari Marmell

  The cottage itself was built of loose stone, though where those rocks could possibly have come from wasn't entirely clear. Ivy crawled across the walls, appearing like veins bulging from a petrified skin, beneath an overhanging roof of bark-coated shakes. The door, too, retained its coating of bark, and somewhere beyond a fire must have burned, for a thin tendril of smoke peeked from behind the rim of the chimney before dashing shyly on its way.

  Kaleb pointed at the smoke, waited for Jassion's nod to indicate he'd seen it. "Are you well enough to pretend to be useful in there?" Obviously taking Jassion's murderous glare as a yes, he approached the door and kicked it brutally open, stepping aside so the baron could dart past him, Talon held ready.

  An orange ambience emanated from the hearth, though it came from glowing charcoal and ash without visible flame. A teakettle hung from a tripod, keeping itself warm without boiling away, ready to serve at a moment's notice. Plants sprouted everywhere, hanging from rafters, rising from pots, even protruding through the floor.

  And sitting on a bed in the far corner, her legs crossed and her eyes shut, was the woman they had braved the haunted wood to find.

  Her hair was black as the unnatural night beyond her walls, save for a few glints of earthen brown where the light caressed her locks just so, and her outfit consisted entirely of the same lush browns and vibrant greens as the forest itself. Her face, though lined by many cares, boasted an ageless grace; she might have been just over thirty years old, or approaching sixty, or anywhere between.

  Despite the violence of Jassion's entry, the creaking of broken wood and bent hinges as the door twisted slowly in its frame, she did not wake. Her breathing continued, chest rising and falling so softly that the intruders might have thought her dead had they not specifically watched for it.

  Jassion stepped forward and slapped the moss-filled mattress with the flat of Talon. No response.

  "She's not here," Kaleb said after a moment's concentration. "Are you daft? She's right there!"

  "Did you drink much quicksilver as a child, Jassion? I'm starting to wonder how you know which end of a chamber pot to piss in." The sorcerer sighed. "What I mean is, she's not in her body just now. Some witches master spells that allow them to briefly inhabit the body of another creature. They use it to pass along messages, or to spy. I imagine she's out seeking the source of the recent disruption in her woods."

  "You mean us."

  "Why, yes, I do. Very good, old boy."

  Shashar, grant me tranquility! Aloud, Jassion said, "So how do we call her back?"

  "We don't." Kaleb stepped to the witch's side, ran a disturbingly sensuous hand across her face. Jassion shivered and would have moved to stop him, save that he truly didn't know if the man was feeling mere flesh, or the flow of her magics. "It's a shame we don't just want her dead. This would be an excellent opportunity. But no, we wait. She'll be back, sooner or later." He yanked the sheets out from beneath her, letting the empty body tumble aside, and began tearing them into strips. "We can, however, make certain that she's in no position to prove, ah, argumentative when she awakens."

  Jassion's scowl grew even darker at the thought of binding a helpless woman, but he couldn't deny the sense in Kaleb's precautions. The distasteful task accomplished, he left her tied firmly to the headboard and crossed the chamber to wait, his back to witch and sorcerer alike.

  Another hour passed, or so Jassion judged by the slowly disintegrating charcoal in the hearth. And then…

  "Well. If I'd known I was having visitors, I'd have tidied up a bit."

  Jassion had to admit, he was impressed. There was almost no trace in her voice of the fear she must be feeling.

  Almost.

  "And a good evening to you, Seilloah," Kaleb said from beside the bed.

  "I don't know you," Seilloah told him. Her attention flickered across the room. "But you, I recognize. Hello, Jassion."

  "That's 'my lord' to you, witch!"

  Seilloah raised an eyebrow, and Kaleb shrugged. "That seems to be a sore spot with him," he told her casually. "I'm working on it, but he's got a way to go."

  "Nobles can be a bit prickly that way," she agreed. Perfunctorily, she tugged on the strips of linen that bound her to the bed. "Are these really necessary, gentlemen? Surely we can discuss whatever brought you here like civilized folk? Perhaps over a meal?"

  "I'd hardly call you civilized," Jassion sniffed. "And I know about your dietary predilections, witch. I prefer to be at the table come supper, not on it."

  "I see." Seilloah's lips pursed ever so slightly. "Have you come for vengeance, then, my lord Jassion? Do you fancy yourself my magistrate and executioner?"

  "I should," he said, his voice thoughtful despite the rage that quivered behind his teeth. "Your crimes are nearly as monstrous as those of your master.

  "But no." He sighed. "We're here to speak with you. Cooperate with us, and you may escape your just sentence for some time yet."

  "I see. And what am I to tell you?"

  Kaleb and Jassion glanced briefly at each other. "Where," the sorcerer asked her, "might we find Corvis Rebaine?"

  Seilloah glanced at the man beside her. "You should know… I'm sorry, I don't believe I got your name."

  "Kaleb."

  "All right. You should know, Kaleb, that I've not seen Corvis in three years. A little longer, actually. I haven't the slightest notion of where he might be these days."

  "I don't believe you!" Jassion insisted, stepping forward with fists clenched.

  "I'm not the least surprised," she said. "It's true just the same. And even if I did know, it would take far more than you're capable of to make me tell you."

  "We'll see about-"

  "I will, however," she interrupted, "offer you a piece of advice in lieu of the information you seek."

  "And what would that be?" he asked, his tone dripping scorn so thickly it nearly splattered across the toes of his boots.

  Seilloah offered a beatific smile. "Never attack a witch in her own home, you silly goose."

  It hung there for the briefest instant, mocking them. Jassion's eyes grew wide, Kaleb drew breath to shout a warning, his hands already rising.

  The torn linens unraveled themselves from Seilloah's wrists and lashed outward, leaving twin welts across Kaleb's face, causing even the proud sorcerer to flinch away. Vines detached from the walls, roots burst through the sides of clay pots, stretching impossibly across the chamber to wrap about Jassion's ankles, his knees, his elbows, his wrists… His throat. Gagging and twisting, trying to wrench free even as the foliage dragged him bodily upward, Jassion somehow had the presence of mind to wish bitterly that the world's warlocks and witches had better things to do than lift him off the damn floor.

  Seilloah rose to her feet without flexing a muscle, raised by an unseen force. Her arms, her fingers, stretched and twitched as though puppeteering the thrashing vines, and her brown eyes had assumed the hue of Theaghl-gohlatch's leaves, complete with jagged veins of lighter green.

  Kaleb hurled fire, but it arced aside before kissing the witch's flesh, pouring into and up the chimney in a burst of thick smoke. The floorboards shattered, flinging splinters to gouge the flesh of all three, as tree roots rose, swaying, enraged serpents of bark and wood. Viciously they tore into the flesh of Kaleb's calves, slapping his legs from under him so he fell hard to the broken floor.

  Jassion, who once again lacked the mobility to swing, flexed his aching wrist, sawing at the ivy with Talon's edge. He felt his pulse pounding in his ears. His chest burned, begging for air, and the wound on his side dribbled blood, threatening to reopen as the plants wrenched him back and forth.

  But even as Seilloah stepped from the bed to the floor, the smile slipped from her face. Kaleb, spitting syllables nearly unpronounceable by human lips, reached out and grabbed the roots pummeling him. At his touch they halted, bark flaking from beneath his palms as a swift rot consumed them from within. The sorcerer rose to his feet, steady despite the terrib
le wounds to his legs, and raised his arms once more.

  Jassion felt the first of the vines snap beneath Talon's edge. With greater mobility, he went to work next on the ivy that had wrapped itself around his neck.

  The witch raised her hands as well, crossed at the wrists, and then she and Kaleb froze, palms perhaps two feet apart, their gazes forming invisible lances in an unseen joust.

  The vine around his neck gave way and Jassion dropped to the floor, choking as breath flooded his beleaguered lungs. Even in the midst of his convulsion, however, he couldn't help but gawp at a sorcerers' duel unlike any he'd ever envisioned. No energies flew across the chamber to blast at the stone walls, no fell beasts rose to do their master's bidding, no sounds filled the chamber save his own racking cough and the twitching of the vines. Yet he felt the power flowing from the spellcasters, saw the air between them shimmering like a heat mirage, and he understood with a humbling clarity that he would be obliterated in an instant were he foolish enough to step between them.

  Sweat bedewed the witch's brow, dripped in a growing torrent down the sides of her lovely face, while Kaleb's triumphant grin grew wider. That his ally would ultimately prove the victor, Jassion didn't doubt. But the vines still writhed, their torn ends reaching for him once more. Smaller plants heaved themselves from their pots, scuttling on tiny roots, and even the teapot on its tripod began to walk with the screech of bending metal. Yes, victory was Kaleb's-if his efforts weren't impeded from behind-but even if he won, would he do so in time to prevent the living house from choking out Jassion's own life?

  The baron wasn't prepared to wait. Talon clasped in both hands, he approached from the side, careful never to enter the flickering barrier that linked the two combatants, and with a furious cry he swung.

  Cloth, flesh, muscle, and bone parted before the Kholben Shiar like a moist pastry, and the floor was awash with blood. Seilloah's fingers clutched at the demonic steel protruding from her gut, fingers leaving bloody artwork across the blade as they spasmed. She craned her neck and, strangely, offered Jassion a knowing smile of crimson-coated teeth.

  A rattle of breath, the grating of bone on blade, and the witch of Theaghl-gohlatch slid from Talon to lie in a sodden mass at Jassion's feet. "I SAID I'M FINE!" Kaleb snapped, hands flexing as though prepared to physically shove the nobleman away.

  "Those were some nasty wounds you took," Jassion insisted as they walked, leaving the hut and its wildly thrashing-and now audibly keening-foliage behind. "I'm amazed you can even stand. You told me that your magics weren't much for healing."

  "They're not, but they're better when directed at myself than others. I don't need your help."

  "The hell you don't. You carried me, Kaleb, and now-"

  "If you so much as try to put an arm around me, old boy, I'll turn you into something small, stupid, and inclined to lick its own excrement."

  Jassion growled something that Kaleb missed (or pretended to miss). Then, as they reached the edge of the clearing and faced the wilds of Theaghl-gohlatch once more, he stuck out an arm to halt the sorcerer in his tracks.

  "What did I just-"

  "Kaleb," Jassion said, "what now? Seilloah was Rebaine's closest ally, or so I understand. If she didn't know where he is…"

  The sorcerer nodded. "There's a spell," he said softly, "that I can use to locate people. It-"

  "What?" Even knowing what Kaleb was capable of, it took all Jassion's limited self-restraint to keep from hurling himself upon the sorcerer, fists flailing. "Then why by all the gods haven't you-"

  "Shut up, you yapping pest, and let me finish! First, it requires the blood of a close relative to work. And second, it's easily blocked, at least over any significant distances, and I can guarantee you that Rebaine has any number of spells cast on his person to prevent easy location."

  "Oh." Jassion gnawed on the inside of his cheek. "Then why bring it up?"

  "Because there's someone else who may know where Rebaine is. I don't know yet where to find her, either, but I do have access to one of her blood relatives."

  "What do you… Kaleb, no!" Jassion could feel the blood drain from his face as understanding washed over him. "Gods, no, I will not involve her in this!"

  "She's already involved, Jassion. She's been involved for twenty-three years."

  "No! If you so much as go near her-"

  "Do you want Rebaine, or don't you?"

  Jassion cursed, vilely, and struck the branches off several nearby trees with the Kholben Shiar. "We talk to her," he said finally, his voice strangely soft, almost child-like, "and only talk. If you hurt her, if you threaten her, if you so much as look at her the wrong way, I swear to every god I'll kill you. I don't care how much I need you, or what sort of power you have."

  Kaleb just looked at him. "Are you through?"

  "If I'm understood, yes."

  "Fine. We just talk. Let's get out of this forest before we try it. You're going to be a bit worse for wear after the spell, and I'd rather not chance being attacked by something else while you aren't up to fighting."

  "Decided I'm useful, have you?"

  "Sure. You make an excellent diversion."

  As they resumed their trek, Jassion glanced one final time at the hut they left behind. For an instant, on the clearing's far side, he saw a pair of eyes-a large squirrel, or perhaps a rabbit, the first he'd seen in this wretched place-peering at him, unblinking, from amid the trees. But even as he considered drawing Kaleb's attention to it, the creature was gone, leaving nothing but waving grass in its wake.

  Jassion shrugged once, castigating himself for letting his nerves affect him so, and followed Kaleb back into the woods.

  Chapter Six

  THE WEEKS PASSED in an unending march, and the byways of Rahariem grew ever more crowded. This was, in part, accounted for by the soldiers, extra patrols assigned to the streets since a captive noblewoman and her entire household had vanished into the night, leaving a trail of corpses in their wake.

  But only in part. Most of the newcomers were Imphallian, not Cephiran: citizens of the many hamlets and towns that sprouted throughout the region, wild toadstools of expanding civilization. As the invading forces advanced, conquering community after community, it simply made sense to arrange their captives and forced laborers into fewer, larger groups. Thus did Rahariem receive a constant influx of newcomers, prodded along at Cephiran swordpoint.

  And with these new arrivals, like camp followers straggling behind, came news and rumors.

  Cerris sat in a small office in one of Rahariem's great halls, hunting some of those wild rumors. He wore nondescript tans and greys, and his chin was newly shorn. Without the concealing growth of beard, his cheeks looked hollow, his flesh deeply etched with lines. He looked… Well, much as it galled him to acknowledge it, he was starting to look old.

  Maybe even old enough to justify his presence on the streets, rather than as a laborer in a work gang. So the beard was well lost, no matter how much he missed it.

  'Of course you miss it. Never were one for showing your true face to the world, were you, "Cerris"?'

  Across from him, a flimsy writing table bowed beneath the weight of heaps of parchment and an array of inkwells. Faint impressions in the old carpeting suggested that a much larger, sturdier desk had stood here not long ago, but it, like so much else of value in Rahariem, was now beautifying the chambers of some Cephiran officer. And behind that desk, chatting on in his infamous drone that could likely have put an erupting volcano to sleep, stood the fellow Cerris had come to see.

  "… fortunate we permitted you entry at all," he was saying, one hand tugging absently at the autumn-red bottlebrush mustache that was his most distinguishing feature-and also the only hair on a head otherwise as bald as a cobblestone. "I almost failed to recognize you without the beard."

  "That's sort of the point, Yarrick," Cerris said with a forced grin. "I really don't want a lot of people recognizing me just now."

  Yarrick, head of the Rahariem
division of Imphallion's Merchants' Guild, nodded sagely. "Yes, I can certainly understand why anonymity might be advantageous under the present circumstances." He sat and offered Cerris a shallow smile, which was about as affable as his expression ever got. "What can I do for you, my friend?"

  "Well…" Cerris decided to work his way up to it. "First off, I was wondering if you'd heard anything from outside." He frowned, idly tapping his fingers on the armrest. "I know the Cephirans must keep a pretty close watch on you…"

  Again Yarrick nodded. "On everyone whom they permit to remain active in governing Rahariem. They require our aid to keep the city functioning, but they trust us no more than they must."

  "Right, but you're in charge of the largest Guild still operating. You must have some contact with the newcomers they've been herding into the city."

  "Some," the bald merchant admitted. "Alas, I've heard nothing to suggest that anyone shall be coming to our aid anytime soon."

  The old wood of the armrest cracked as Cerris's grip clenched. "What the bloody steaming hell is wrong with them, Yarrick?" he demanded. "This is a godsdamn invasion they're ignoring!"

  "If I knew anything for certain," Yarrick said with a shrug, "I would tell you." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "I'd not even reveal this much, were you not a member in high standing of my own Guild…"

  "Yes?" Cerris, too, found himself leaning forward.

  "A portion of it may, of course, be the standard jockeying for position that's ensnared our government for years now. The Guilds will not commit themselves without consensus, and the nobles are reluctant to relinquish to the Guilds what little authority they have remaining. But it's more than that. I've heard no details, but rumor has it that a number of nobles and Guildmasters were lost recently. I cannot speak to the nature of the attack, or accident, or whatever it may have been, but Imphallion may be facing threats from within as well as without."