by JANRAE FRANK
Then Josh snatched the flask, and swigged from it. He wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve, and then capped the bottle again. His eyes, red and rheumy looking, gained a sudden clarity. The ethereal energies came together around the sot like a brilliant cloak. He leaned so near to Brendorn that he nearly tipped himself over.
Brendorn stayed still, afraid the smallest movement would frighten him. He had the sylvan gift of gaining the trust of small creatures: At that moment the sot seemed like a small, suspicious, maybe a little frightened, creature to Brendorn. So, although the Josh's reeking odor made the gardener's stomach queasy, he did not move, enduring the strange examination in silent stillness.
"She didn' tell ya, cuz she din tell anyun. Jest me. Told me so. Talkin' bout it hurt. Saw inner face." Josh folded his arms across his stomach and bent over them in mock pain, rocking slightly. "Yer not so special, husband," Josh sneered as he straightened.
"I guess I'm not. But I love her every bit as much as you do. I want to help her. I have come to die for her if need be," Brendorn said with such sadness that Josh softened.
"I see that," Josh said suddenly, moving to sit beside Brendorn again.
So Josh told, in as great a detail as he could remember, of how Aejys had led her warriors in the assault on Bucharsa Temple, of how she wanted revenge for the massacred innocents at the West Temple where Thendaric died. She got separated from her advance guard. Josh told it in a sometimes jumbled order, going back and forth to correct himself.
Brendorn's face softened as he listened. Tears ran down Brendorn's sensitive face. "Aejys. My dearest Aejys, why didn't you tell me? Why did you leave me to guess?"
Josh leaned over, his shoulder pressing Brendorn's, his head on the sylvan's shoulder, round ear pressed to pointed one, and patted Brendorn's hand sympathetically. "Aejys jest don open up much. Not easy fer her ta do. 'Cept with Tagalong. Yer know whut I mean."
Brendorn hugged Josh. "You've answered the last questions. I understand now. You've given my love back to me as whole as she was before the war."
Josh shoved his flask in Brendorn's face. "Then celebrate."
Brendorn accepted the flask, wiped the mouth off with his sleeve, and took a swig. It burned going down.
* * * *
Aejys settled on a wide smooth rock beside the falls. She ignored the water splashing over her and turned deep within herself. She felt some small surprise at how easily she entered the full reflective state after seven years away from such things.
Slowly she walked through the memories that surfaced in the stillness. Aejys stood in her ma'aram's rooms looking out the window over the courtyard where the levies were gathering. She watched the fluttering mosaic of brightly colored banners of clan and house; and the personal ones belonging to the heroes granted their own mark by the queen. She saw her own banner: three rowans circled by the ouroborus, evergreen against a royal purple.
"Do you know what you are asking, Ma'aram?" Aejys turned from the window, her crested helmet hung from her hands by the chinstrap; she wore a silken surcoat over her mail hauberk and leggings. "Margren hates me! That promise would destroy me more surely than any Waejontori hell I march into."
Tears ran down Kaethreyn's strong-featured face. She was a handsome woman, her face a perfect oval, "Margren is not your enemy! You just don't understand her, that's all."
Aejys snorted and moved off, it was like talking to a wall. "I am not Margren's enemy. But she makes herself mine."
"That is not true! I know it even if you do not. Promise me, Aejystrys ... promise me you'll do nothing to harm her."
"I can't."
"For the love of God! If you cannot make me this promise, then you hold no love for me or your God! Go on! Go die in Waejontor! But don't come back here! Because I'll set my life between you and your sister!"
Aejys paled, turning sick to her stomach, She threw herself down at her ma'aram's knee. "Don't say that! You don't mean it. You can't mean it."
Kaethreyn pressed her hands to her weary face, weeping harder. "No, Aejys. I don't mean it. I'm tired. I love you, Aejys," she lifted her daughter's face and kissed it. "But the problems between you and Margren make me feel so sad, so desperately sad. You are the strong one. Margren is so weak, so vulnerable..."
"Ma'aram, stop crying. Please stop crying. I promise I will never do the smallest thing to harm Margren. On my honor, my life be forfeit to God, I swear it.."
My life be forfeit ... my life be forfeit ... forfeit...
* * * *
Tagalong hit the streets that night, going from taproom to taproom on the dockside of town, discretely asking to buy a red raven. Red raven was a code name for members of the Assassins' Guild. You let them know you were looking, but you never went to them, they came to you.
Toward midnight she settled down in a grimy booth in a tiny hole in the wall called The Barking Spider. Hay covered the floor to absorb the spills and vomit which Tagalong could already smell. Down in the far corner a lean, gnarled old mon drew on a long stemmed pipe and regarded her through the smoke. He looked vaguely familiar, but Tagalong could not place him. The proprietor appeared with a tankard of watered ale: as he set it down, his gaze followed hers and he said, "Don't go messing with the gaffer, mon. Don't want no trouble here."
Tagalong gave him a sneering headshake. She picked up her ale and pushed past him, starting toward the old mon. Two young toughs rose from another table to block her path.
"Gaffer don't wantta talk to ya," one of them drawled.
"Take your business elsewhere, dwarf."
The contempt in the second one's voice rankled. It had been a long day, a longer night, and Tagalong Smith was fresh out of patience. With the tremendous strength of her race, which always astonished the humans, Tagalong picked up the second one and threw him across the room. He slammed against the wall and slid down overturning chairs and a table as he went. The first reached for his sword, but Tagalong already had her hammer out. She gave him a poke in the stomach that doubled him over. He spewed his night's drinking all over himself, the floor, and Tagalong. She backed off with a disgusted look, caught sight of the proprietor approaching with three more myn and decided that discretion was the better part of valor: especially since she did not want to chance killing one of them and put herself at odds with the Guild – if that was what they were. She wouldn't talk to the gaffer that night, but she felt sure that he was the man she was looking for. There would be other nights. Tagalong whirled and raced out the front door.
She dragged home in the wee hours of the next morning, tired and worried.
* * * *
At sunrise Suthana came out with a plate of bread and cheese and a pitcher of frothy beer. Aejys stirred from her reverie and glanced at the food, realizing that she was hungry.
"Soon," Suthana said. "Remove your clothing."
Aejys stripped and so did the priest. Suthana took Aejys by the hand, leading her into the waterfall. They stood beneath it with the rushing water striking their naked bodies. Then Suthana began to speak. She asked permission of a willow hanging over the water, broke off a branch, and thanked the tree. The priest struck Aejys with it across the back three times, and then she plucked moss and rubbed Aejys' entire body with it, speaking the words of the ritual cleansing. They emerged from the water. Aejys ate and then slept on the bank of the waterfall for the first time since her period of reflection began.
When she woke in the early afternoon Suthana brought Aejys a gray scarf of penitence and tied it around her right arm. "Wear this until you find the strength to truly pray, to give her your heart and your trust. When you return to the God's favor, remove it."
"And if I never can?"
"Then wear it until you die, and God have mercy on your soul."
* * * *
Tagalong slept late into the early afternoon. Clemmerick left to purchase hay and oats and see to a fancy bridle being made for Tagalong's horse by the local tanner. Life went on as usual, but the servants were watchful.
Tamlestari and Cassana posted themselves outside the city gates, hidden high in the trees, watching for Farendarc to shoot him with bows. Cassana had no compunctions about this, she was not ha'taren. Farendarc was a monster and they could not take him fairly. They never saw him. After coming down the coast by boat in a round about route, he had been in Vorgensburg for three days watching the inn,. His brother, Mephistis Coleth de Waejonan, had made full and canny use of their late father's old network of spies to fish for information and other useful things. Mephistis' people had many ways of getting their agents in and out of Vorgensburg.
At six foot three, Farendarc stood a fraction taller than Aejys. His full mouth twisted in a perpetual sneer and his heavy brows drew together in a scowl of hatred for all that lived. His jaw was too heavy for the average Sharani male, his body too broad and tremendously muscled, but he had glossy red brown skin and heavy smoke black hair like Aejys and Cassana. He went shirtless, wearing just his breeches, boots, and his two blades: sword and dagger. There were no scars anywhere on his body, except a long one crossing his right cheek as Tamlestari had described.
He moved like a cat, stepping from the street into the stable yard, and glancing about the torchlit open deciding between the stables and the brightly lit tavern as the best place to make trouble and force Aejys into the open. Ahead of him the side door to the stable opened and a familiar figure stepped out. A feral grin split his features.
"We meet again, Breed," he said.
Brendorn glanced up; startled by the movement his usually quick eyes had not caught. His pulse raced and a stone seemed to form in his stomach. He wondered how the duelist had gotten into the city past Cassana and Tamlestari, but before he could think further, Farendarc was on him. The duelist shoved him roughly back into the stable.
"You here to warn Aejys or run interference for the gutterscrew."
Brendorn visibly flinched at the epithet, but his voice was even, "I do what needs to be done."
Farendarc shook his head with mock regret. "Eager to die, Breed?"
"If need be." Brendorn schooled the fear from his voice, fear for Aejys as much as for himself. His hand dropped to the sword hilt at his side. He was quick, very quick, but there was an art to the blade that he knew he sorely lacked. He had promised Tagalong that he would run away, flee a fight, but there was no place to run.
Farendarc's gaze flicked across the stalls without entirely leaving the young sylvan. The stable appeared to be empty except for a scattering of horses, and two wynderjyns who screamed and began to kick their stall doors, trying to break free. "You been inside your filthy bitch yet? Was she nice and wet for you? You know, I've been promised your daughter as a reward for this job," he sneered. "I'm going to do that fancy bitch up good when I'm done with this one. My cock's just itching to get inside her. I'm going to fuck her to death. Maybe beat her a little between rounds."
"Never! You'll never touch either of them," Brendorn screamed, drawing his sword and lunging at the duelist in one of the few decent attacks Ladonys had managed to instill in him. Farendarc laughed, drawing and stepping back just a pace as he casually turned Brendorn's assault back on him. Brendorn was quick, but Farendarc moved with uncanny speed. He beat down Brendorn's defenses in three moves to shove his sword in just under the breastbone with a savage twist. Brendorn collapsed, writhing on the ground, breathing in sobbing gasps. Farendarc stood over Brendorn, pushing at his face and throat with the point. "All over now, Breed. I'm going to hand her your head." He raised the sword, holding it two handed for a clean, severing cut.
"Nooooo!" Josh dropped his flask, stumbling out of Gwyndar's empty stall next to Ajandar.
At Josh's shout, Farendarc's blade halted in its descent and moved to guard instead.
Josh opened Ajandar's stall, and then snatched open the gate to Emrindi. The huge animals charged Farendarc, driving him back from the wounded gardener. Josh snagged a pitchfork and stalked after him with a startling clarity in his booze-reddened eyes.
The duelist had never seen anything as strange and disturbing as the expression on the sot's face. Farendarc retreated into the stableyard. He slashed and stabbed, but the drunken sailor with his strange, unpredictable talents brought out by booze and holadil blocked him at every turn. Ajandar half reared, striking at him. He cut the wynderjyn in a long gash down the left foreleg. Josh blocked Farendarc's attempt to finish the animal. The right tine of the pitchfork gashed Farendarc's left arm. For only the second time in his life the duelist had been cut.
With a scream of rage, he whipped around on Josh. His sword laid Josh open in a shallow slash across the ribs. Josh sprang back, parrying with the pitchfork and came on again as if unhurt. Then a horde of invisible pixies swarmed around Farendarc's ankles as Becca's tiny bouncers responded to the screams from the stables, stabbing his legs repeatedly with their small stinging blades. Farendarc slashed down at them and they fled. Grymlyken's forces reformed near the west end of the stableyard throwing small rocks.
"Load slings!" Grymlyken barked. "Fire!"
Pebbles pelted Farendarc. He howled when several struck his wounded arm.
"Load and fire!" Grymlyken shouted again.
The pixies launched more stones.
Farendarc spied Clemmerick approaching with a pike: the noise of the brief battle had managed to rouse the household. The duelist had no desire to stand against the huge ogre in addition to the others, so he withdrew to an alley mouth, ducking a third flight of stones. There he paused to shout, "The drunk dies next unless Aejys agrees to fight me! Leave me her answer on the dueling grounds before sunset tomorrow."
Then he vanished down the alley.
Tagalong plunged through the tavern doors into the courtyard just as Clemmerick arrived.
Josh stood sobbing brokenly. He let the fork slip from his fingers and clatter on the paving stones.
"Where's Farendarc?" Tagalong asked, her hammer in her hands.
"Gone."
Tagalong gripped Josh's elbow, steering him toward the tavern. "What happened?" Then she saw his torn shirt and the blood. "Josh, you're hurt."
"Brendorn's dead," Josh said. With an anguished cry he jerked away from Tagalong, fleeing into the streets.
Tagalong's broad, blunt face looked stunned. She shook her head. "No. That can't be ... he promised to run away. He promised..."
She ran for the stable with the two wynderjyns dancing agitatedly around her.
Tagalong found Brendorn lying in the straw, a small stain spreading through his tunic, he had entered a state of grace, when shock overrode the pain, and he did not feel his wound. Tagalong sat down beside him, cradling his head and shoulders. She examined the wound.
"I'm dying," Brendorn whispered weakly.
"Yes." The set of her mouth was grim, but her eyes held love and concern.
"Get Aejys, please. Want to see her, last time."
The yard had filled with patrons and servants gathered around the door. Becca shoved through them brusquely. "Go back," she ordered everyone. "Go back. It's under control." Then she saw Brendorn. "Oh, sweet gods, no. Clemmerick, clear the yard. Then come back."
Tagalong looked up as Becca knelt beside her. "Send someone quick for Cassana and Tamlestari."
Becca caught the scullery boy who had lingered next to her despite her admonition to clear the yard. "Go." Zacham raced off pell-mell.
"Becca, do you know where that Aroanan shrine is?"
"Yes."
"Can you ride?"
"My father had a farm. Of course I can ride."
"Take my Gwenny, and bring Aejys back quick. Brendorn's dying."
Dismay filled Becca's face; she whirled, running down the line of stalls.
Clemmerick brought a blanket, wrapped Brendorn, and carried him upstairs. They laid the dying sylvan in Aejys' bed.
As they settled him Tagalong remembered Josh. "Omigod!" She turned to Clemmerick, her usual sloppy speech patterns banished by urgency. "Find Josh quickly, Farendarc
cut him. I don't know how seriously. I have no idea where he went."
Clemmerick looked grave as he nodded, "I know his bolt holes. I can find him."
* * * *
Aejys crawled onto the bed beside Brendorn and cradled his head in her lap. A red-purple stain showed about his lips and teeth. Tamlestari had given him Pollendine, a drug for pain so strong and potentially addictive that healers only gave it to the dying.
Brendorn reached weakly and touched the gray scarf tied to Aejys' arm. "I am glad ... of this," he said. "Josh told me ... Bucharsa. All of it. Sorry I did not ... understand."
"It's all right, Brendorn. It's all right." She kissed his forehead, cheeks, and lips.
"Love you, Aejys. Always. Song you sang Laeoli when she was frightened."
Aejys' eyes softened, sorrow set a turn to her lips. "Yes."
"Sing it."
The words were in Sharani, her voice was rusty. She had not sung since the West Temple fell. At first haltingly, then smoothing out, her voice rose in the words of a song about the God Aroana walking beside good children and keeping them safe. When she finished she saw that Brendorn was dead.
* * * *
Josh sat at a small table in Aejys' parlor, his shirt drawn loosely over his bandaged ribs. Aejys' eyes kept returning to that bandage and thinking about Brendorn. I was a fool. A bloody fool not to bring them with me. Brendorn would be alive now.
Aejys wore a black band on her left arm with a lock of Brendorn's hair sewn into the lining. Cassana sat at the table beside her, watching Aejys, dark eyes swollen with weeping yet grave and steady; the line of her full lips resolute.
Tamlestari settled cross-legged in the far corner with her back to the wall, looking much older than her sixteen years. Her eyes traced the patterns of the rugs while her hands folded and unfolded; rubbing together; pressing together; then lying still in her lap for a breath's span before starting the uneasy movements once more.