Around the table the landed men of the village were already assembled, as well as the two Peloran counselors, the Voice and the Hand. Orick stood to the left side of the table, as was his due, and Londih would stand between him and Pyla for the duration of the meeting, never moving from their stations, always representing what their stations symbolized. Each had already inspected the body, and stood waiting for Londih and Pyla to begin the meeting. There was panic in the voices that filled the room, a development Londih could only see as positive, a move past the naked shock, the disbelief that had characterized their first discussions, after the boys had returned but before Orick had gone with Padlur to retrieve the second corpse—the burnt one—and bring it to the village.
Londih barely had time to take in the kenku’s body once more—the feathered torso, the beaked head, the arms that were really half wing and half arm, even the band of burnt bird between the torso and the clawed feet—and then the elders were upon him, all speaking at once, all vying for his attention. Londih pounded the Crook of Haven upon the floor, raised his free hand to claim his right to speak.
“As you all know by now, my son and Orick’s son returned from their hunt not with a deer or elk, but with something just as well-shot—these creatures that attacked them upon their way. Orick—a more knowledgeable tracker than me, or any of you—calls them kenku, says that he has heard of them in the old lore, but that he had never heard tales of them upon the mountain, not in our time or our father’s time. Wherever this one came from, it is not from around Haven, but from somewhere else.” Londih paused, let the elders titter among themselves, the weaker ones speaking the loudest.
Orick was quiet, and Pyla was trying to be but failing. He could not help but engage the fear mongers and gossips, the villagers he knew held suspicions or grudges, or were given to dispiriting words that played havoc with the local morale. Londih looked at his reeve, ordering his silence with his eyes, then at Orick, who he wished he had chosen himself. Once again Londih regretted the choices he’d made, putting Pyla above Orick when first he’d become chief. Then, Londih had been young, and nervous for his position, so putting the weaker, less stoic and confident Pyla closest to him seemed the safest choice. Pyla the talker. With Kohel old enough to be chief himself, there was no need for Londih to fear his own assassination, or at least less, as there would be more to kill: for Orick to become chief, both Pyla and Kohel would also have to die, and Orick could not engineer such a thing without the suspicion inevitably falling upon himself. Nor would he, of course. Londih had found both Orick and his son to be good men, as tough of character as they were of body. Now that Londih’s position was safe, he wished instead that it was Orick who was his closest advisor, for Orick was strong and smart, good with a bow and a blade, the best Haven had to offer. He was not a leader—he spoke too rarely for that—but he was a man that raised whoever he followed, and Londih wished for that elevation, something the more spineless, more stupid, more trivial Pyla could not provide.
“Orick knows more than I about these beasts, so I will let him describe what he can.” Londih waved his hand, invited the hunter to speak. Orick did not move, did not uncross his substantial arms, but he did describe the kenku at some greater length, repeating not what he’d learned in a book—as Pyla would have—but what he knew from his own wide ranges across the mountain, from those he had met on his travels down into the city, a trip few from Haven had ever made.
Londih himself had never gone. He could have, but what if he had run into some brother or sister, still bent on reclaiming their birthright, armed and angry across their years of exile? It had not been worth the risk, and so he had forgone the experience, as most of the villagers did. Only a few had ever been to the city, and most never would.
Orick did not speak long, and even Londih would admit that the usually knowledgeable hunter didn’t know as much about kenku as he did about many other things. “Bandit folk. Said to be bred from the divine power of the Raven Queen herself. Cheats and thieves. Skilled with a blade. Often the bow, poisons. But that’s not all, or even the worst of it,” said Orick, and then he did uncross his arms, putting his palms on the table, and onto the kenku itself. Londih watched as the hunter turned the bowshot creature halfway to free its arm, which Orick lifted to its full extension. The arm was as long as a man’s, but heavier and wider, and its feathers were sturdy, stiff as armor. Orick looked around the table until everyone saw what he saw, or perhaps until he thought they did. Then he said, “Kenku, as far as I know, do not have wings. Only arms, having made the same trade our own ancestors did when the gods made them into men. These beasts have something in between that, according to the boys, allowing them longer leaps and slow, directed falls. They can grip a short blade, too. Some other magic is upon them, or else they are not true kenku at all.”
The council members prattled on again, displayed some of their old panic, but Londih stood firm. He let them continue for a short while, then banged the Crook again. “What else might they be, Orick? Some new beast even you know nothing about?”
“I do not know, Honored One. Perhaps—”
Before Orick could answer, the door to the council chambers opened again, and in strode the one person Londih had not expected, had not even thought to wait for. A man who, while officially a member of the council, had not joined its deliberations in two decades, not since shortly after Londih had become Crook of Haven.
There, in the dust-filled shaft of light, stood the Old Stargazer, Defender of Haven, come down from his mountain home.
The sight of the old man should have filled Londih with courage, but it did not. Instead it turned his veins, sent a shiver of ice up his spine, cold as the stars Londih had once seen in the old man’s eyes, all those years before, when first he dared breach the threshold of the observatory’s forbidden rooms. He shuffled slowly, the old man. His body was stiff. That was not new, though, and not cause for alarm. All of Haven knew the man was ancient—no one living had ever known him to be anything other than a white-haired, thick-bearded, deeply wrinkled man—but something had changed about him, and it took some moments before Londih realized what it was that shocked him. It was the old man’s eyes. They were wild and peaked beneath his brow. They were, at the same time, emptier. They were the eyes of someone desperate and slipping away. The stars he had seen there when he was a child—the suns—their light had gone out of the Old Stargazer, and only its absence remained.
Despite the coming of the Old Stargazer, the meeting did not change its tone, did not move more quickly toward any resolution. Many of the younger council members did not even remember the days when the old man had been a part of daily life in the village, when he had walked among the people regularly enough that he knew some of their names, something he most certainly no longer knew, unless he somehow scried upon the people from his tower. Still, he had continued to defend Haven from the observatory, or at least Londih assumed he did, as they had experienced no catastrophes, no attacks, not in the many years since his withdrawal.
When exactly had it happened? Londih could not remember, but it had been many years. Londih remembered when the Old Stargazer would come down for early morning walks along the farmer’s terraces, how he would help himself to the apples growing there, how the villagers never complained, thankful for what they owed him. He had lived in Haven for generations, had outlived their fathers and their fathers’ fathers even as he kept them safe, first with warding spells and then with more direct magic, when the times called for it. It was said he could call a storm of fire with a gesture, a shattering of the strongest armor with a whisper. He could dissipate a party of road agents as a man blew out a candle. He could turn back an invading army with a wave. In return for his protection, Haven kept him fed and his home in good repair, whenever he asked it.
In return, they gave him some share of their crops. In return, those aware of what he meant to Haven left fresh flowers on his fence’s gate. In return, they sewed him robes, and then later clo
thes for Nergei, his adopted son.
Nergei. Londih was not exactly sure when the Old Stargazer had begun his withdrawal, did not know it by day and date, because he had not been watching for it. Still, he had a good idea. Most likely it was the day the Old Stargazer had returned from the woods not with a basket of herbs and mushrooms, fit for his alchemy, but with his foundling, the boy who went nameless until his fifth birthday, when, accompanied by his master, he announced that his name was Nergei to the other boys, to the women who taught them every day in the village square, who would teach Nergei, as well.
Londih did not know if that had always been the boy’s name, or if it was only then that the boy had been given it. He supposed it did not really matter either way, but from that point on the Old Stargazer went unseen, leaving Nergei to gather his herbs, to ask for his food, to let Londih and the other councilors know when some wall of his observatory needed shoring up or patching.
But there he was again. And there they both were, although the boy was hiding in the back, doing his best to disappear. Londih did not pay him much mind—there was too much talking around the table to do so—but still he was curious about the boy as never before. The bruises across his face and neck were ugly to look upon, uglier still if you were Londih, if you were Kohel’s father, who Londih suspected had done much of the damage.
Arrogant boy. Spoiled son, unworthy of inheriting the Crook of Haven.
Still, it would not do so to say so. Even with the burnt body of the kenku in front of him, Londih would support his son’s story, with or without the support of the others, a stand harder to take with each passing moment. “Londih, I grow tired of this conversation,” said Bozon, one of the other elders, a minor landholder but excellent farmer. “Your boy’s bow did not do this. How was this creature felled? Look at his chest. What magic is this?”
Pyla nodded. “Surely Kohel and Padlur could not have earned such a victory, as impressive of boys as they are.”
Bozon looked at the Old Stargazer—looked nervously, Londih saw—but he did not accuse the man, did not ask him for explanation. He had asked Londih, and Londih was required to answer. He said, “Kohel and Padlur told me—told me and Orick—that they were out in the woods when they found Luzhon and the Stargazer’s boy beset by these creatures. They were able to kill this one with their bows, causing the others to flee.”
“This body is burnt, Honored One,” pressed Bozon. “What boy fires a bow so fast it sets its arrows on fire? Padlur is an impressive young man, but we must trust our eyes, our reason.”
“The boys discovered them in camp. This one was knocked into the fire after it was felled,” Londih said, trying his best to believe the claim.
Pyla moved closer, looked at the body on the table, getting very close to the smoldering end. “The burn is strong. It still radiates heat. They say it fell into a campfire?”
“My son says so,” said Londih.
“And you believe him?”
“He is my son.” Londih tried to warn his reeve away, but the crafty councilor pretended not to hear Londih, and pushed ahead with his inquiry.
Pyla plucked a feather from the torso. The end was still hot. “No ash,” he said.
“What do you mean? Could it be—” asked Bozon, but Londih’s hard gaze stopped him.
“This does not appear to be a natural fire, Honored One,” said Pyla.
Londih squeezed his hands around the crook, stared his second down. “Pyla, are you questioning my son’s word?”
“Honored One, this is spellcraft. This is the Old Stargazer. Or else—his boy?”
“Choose your words carefully, Pyla. One day, Kohel will be your chief, and you will no longer be anyone’s reeve. Will you have him ascend to his right station with the knowledge that you spoke against his good word? That you called him a liar in open council?”
Pyla backed down, took a step back from the table. He begged forgiveness, and Londih waved off his words. “It is no matter,” he said. “Only frustration. Only fear.” My fear, he thought. Mine that causes your disbelief, because I do not believe either. But what choice is there? If the others believe there are two wizards among us—the Old Stargazer and now his brat—then they will not see the urgency of our need for outsiders, for warriors to encircle us with their blades.
If the others believe my son is a liar—if they believe it enough to say it aloud—then I may lose the village even without attacks from outside.
Pyla, appearing eager to regain his stature after his stumble, spoke again. “You say the boys stumbled upon the kenku in their camp? Then perhaps this was no attack at all, only a lost raiding party. Perhaps the prowess of our children and their bows will be enough to frighten them back down the mountain, and we will have nothing to worry about.”
“Perhaps,” said Orick. “But unlikely. The kenku are hard to drive. Like the birds they count as ancestors, they will go to nest on the ground, or hide in the trees, the rookeries above. But they will not be moved if they do not want to be. If there are a dozen here, then probably there are a hundred, or more.”
“And what do you know?” sneered Pyla. “You did not even know that kenku have wings.”
Pyla’s distraction worked, the council descended into arguments again, and this time Londih let them. Better to put some distance between the discussion of his son’s untruth before he stopped their useless bickering. There would be plenty of time for real solutions, and there was no need to damage himself or his family upon the way. The position you have put me in, my son. If you only understood the strife you cause me. I fear even when you hold the Crook, you will not comprehend it.
No one in the council chambers noticed Nergei, not at first. That was no surprise, for no one ever noticed him, unless they wanted to knock the herbs he had gathered from his hands, or else untie his sash from around his robes then run away laughing. He was most often invisible to the other villagers, and not through any magic spell. Even as the only witness admitted to the meeting, he was not called upon, knew he would not be. They would continue to attribute the second kenku to Kohel’s boy, despite the proof that lay smoldering, stinking, on the table where the men shared their meals, the petty squabbles of everyday life. Nergei stood in the shadow of his master and listened to the men debate, arguing while still ignorant of the real facts of the case. There had not been much time to tell the Old Stargazer what had happened before the meeting, but Nergei knew his master was aware anyway, that he always knew whatever Nergei did, that he always saw through the layers of exaggeration and the falsehoods of any story. Only in his childhood had he tried to lie to the old man, but since then there had been no more falsehoods from Nergei’s lips, only obedience. And so, he followed his master’s orders to keep quiet, even if it pained him to do so, even if it made his blood burn.
His blood did burn, for he knew what he had done, even if it went unacknowledged by the council. He had cast a spell, worked some magic. And no cantrip either—no apprentice foolery. The Old Stargazer did not work much magic in front of his charge, but Nergei still knew the telltale crackle of the old man’s power, the sizzling of the air that followed more advanced spells. That same feeling had charged his own body, then persisted after the fire had left him.
That feeling of power, it had burned in the air long after the flames were out, and still, it exhilarated him. He was proud of himself, but did not let it show on his face. His master would not permit it, for one thing, but also Kohel’s boots had stamped his muscles to soreness, so that even the slightest twitch toward a smile would cost him.
He had not had a moment to talk to his master other than the walk from the healer’s hut, where Kohel and Padlur had dragged him upon their return to the village, however reluctantly. Nergei knew he would have to thank Luzhon and Padlur, if he ever had the chance. If he could have, Kohel would surely have left Nergei out in the woods for more of the kenku to find.
Just the thought of Kohel made Nergei flush again, made him wish he could call the magic b
ack. He’d killed the kenku out of necessity—out of needing to protect Luzhon—but given the chance, he’d burn Kohel out of spite. His whole life the bigger boy had bullied him, perhaps there was a way to get even.
Nergei sighed. No, that was not the path he would walk, even if he could. He knew himself better than that. Instead, he would avoid Kohel even more than before, would walk the long way through the village to stay out of his sight, because Kohel would not forgive him for having exposed his cowardice, not even for a moment.
That is all I will have to do, he thought. Stay away from Kohel, no matter what, and hope that my power is mine by the next time he comes for me.
The council continued, and Nergei struggled to follow the proceedings, all the harder to track because they seemed to go nowhere, despite all the talking being done by the council members. Only Nergei and his master were silent, as all others eagerly sought their turn to be heard. Nergei wondered what the Old Stargazer was waiting for, why he did not speak. He looked at his master, watched the side of his bearded face he could see. The Old Stargazer’s face was impassive, looked almost bored to distraction, but Nergei knew his master was anything but. The Old Stargazer saw everything that happened in Haven, kept his eyes focused on its doings just as much as he did those of the stars. If he had decided to break his long absence from the village for the meeting, then he would not keep from speaking, when the time was right.
As the council ran itself in circles, repeating many of the same points again and again, Nergei wondered how his master would recognize that moment, and if he would see it himself before the old man finally opened his lips to speak.
Pain in the old man’s jaw. Pain behind the old man’s eye. A new pain. Something had happened.
While the others wasted their speech, he reached himself above the village, bounced his gaze back from a nearby star. He compelled his floating gaze to find the source of his alarm, and found it very close. Danger. The boy, always the boy. Around the boy he had built a scaffolding of arcane, and a prison of warding words. All this to keep it from breaking through. And yet it had broken through, had already manifested from his hands.
The Last Garrison (Dungeons & Dragons Novel) Page 4