by J. L. Doty
Three beings, a Kull, a jackal warrior, and someone not easily visible through the ever-swirling mist, were carefully discussing something in hushed tones. At first he thought the third, unidentified fellow was one of the human Goath, one of the many traitors who’d given his soul to the nethergod. His stature and girth pointed to that conclusion, but when he moved or gestured, the grace and poise of his actions hinted at the unspeakable: an angel meeting secretly with a Kull and a jackal in the middle of the forest.
Morddon refused to believe it. No angel would betray Aethon that way. But Morgin dredged up the memory of Ellowyn telling the story of the dark angel, the Fallen One.
A sharp cry broke the silence of the forest, then Morddon heard the sound of a single horse riding off into the distance. The perimeter guards closed in slowly on the center of the camp. Morddon moved in with them, keeping a safe distance but still anxious to know more. The Kulls and jackals and human Goath all mounted up and rode out, following the single rider.
“Damn!” Morddon swore. He no longer cared about the Goath; he wanted that single rider, but the larger troupe of Goath had obscured the trail and it took him more than an hour to find it, and even then he wasn’t sure he’d found the right one. He followed the track through that day and into the next, and as he’d suspected it led in the general direction of the First Legion’s camp. He tried to push himself, to catch up with the rider, but in his haste he lost the track several times and had to back track. And then late in the second day, just as he thought he might be closing the gap with his quarry, it began to rain; only a light drizzle, but enough to destroy the track completely.
Morddon gave up and started back to the First Legion. He didn’t have far to travel since the track he’d followed had led constantly in that direction. He found the camp early the next morning of a bright and sunny day, and was surprised to learn that the legion had been joined by Gilguard and a company of Benesh’ere. As always, he rode straight to Metadan’s tent to give his report, but as he approached it he noticed a groom nearby brushing down a horse that had recently been ridden. Morddon dismounted, gave Mortiss’ reins to a guard, but instead of entering the tent he approached the groom.
Morddon looked at the horse the groom was rubbing down. A cloud of steam rose from its back and shoulders. It had clearly been ridden long and hard. “A beautiful animal,” Morddon commented. “Whose is it?”
The groom paused and looked at him carefully with the vacant stare so typical of the damn angels. “It is the Warmaster’s horse,” he said flatly.
“Gilguard’s?” Morddon asked.
“No.”
“Metadan’s been out then?”
“Yes.”
“Scouting?”
“Yes.”
“How long’s he been out?”
“Several days.”
“Hmmm! I wonder if our path’s crossed. I’d like to compare reports with him. Do you know where his scouting took him?”
“No.”
Morddon could get nothing more out of the groom, though the flat and unembellished conversation was typical of his interactions with the angels. He often wondered if, among themselves, they spoke with more life in their words.
~~~
Morgin stood in the bow of the Far Wind and looked at the moon glow reflected off the dark waters of the nighttime sea. Standing next to him, Val spoke casually, “Bakart says the weather is perfect. We’re making good time, and having no problems with the damage. Should make Toblekan tomorrow sometime.”
The sea was dark and silent, and almost glassy smooth, and the Far Wind sliced through the water with a barely audible hiss. Morgin didn’t really hear Val’s words, for the sorceress of Simpa occupied his every waking thought. Ever since she’d come aboard he could sense her presence, like he sensed Olivia when she was near, though she was far different from Olivia, with none of the steel and ice and anger that drove the old Elhiyne witch. In fact the old woman from the isle seemed oddly familiar.
“And you are familiar to me,” an old, old voice croaked.
Both Val and Morgin started, turned about quickly, found the old witch standing behind them, a gray-black shadow barely distinguishable from the darkness of the night. She stood horribly bent with age, barely able to support herself, her young companion hovering close at hand, though again Morgin had the impression that if the old witch could stand erect she would stand taller than most men. Slowly, carefully, with her companion’s help, the old woman lowered herself to the deck and sat on the planks with her legs crossed as if she had sat so for ages. Her companion remained standing behind her. “Sit,” the old woman commanded, and she extended a hand to indicate that Val and Morgin should sit on the deck facing her. For just an instant Morgin saw the moonlight reflected off the skin of her hand as it arced through the night in front of him, and he thought it had the bone white cast of a Benesh’ere hand.
Morgin and Val sat down facing her. Her face was hidden within the hood of her cloak, almost itself a shadow, though somehow the moonlight penetrated the shadow just enough to cast a reflection from her eyes: two bright, hot sparks that cut to the depths of Morgin’s soul. “Come closer,” she said to him.
The old woman drew Morgin like a moth to a flame, and without hesitation he stood up, crossed the few feet between them and sat down again. She extended her hands, and in the moonlight Morgin confirmed they were the hands of a Benesh’ere woman.
Morgin reached out to take her hands in his, and as their skin touched his mind filled with images of Kathbeyanne in all its glory, and the palace of the Shahotma. “Who are you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I am no one and nothing. I am what’s left of the end of the old, and I am here to see the beginning of the new.” Her words were sad, but there was joy in her voice.
Morgin reached up to her face, touched the folds of her cloak and slid the hood back off her head onto her shoulders. His heart pounded in his chest with such force he thought it might burst at any moment, for the face the moonlight revealed was a face from his dreams. And though withered and wrinkled by centuries of age, he would never forget AnneRhianne.
She smiled at him. “You said you would come back, and so I’ve waited through the centuries, and as you taught me I’ve listened to the netherwind, and when you freed the Hand of the Thief I knew you were coming.” She lifted one of his hands to her face and kissed it gently.
“You’ve waited all this time?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, but pressed his hand against her cheek and closed her eyes. “I am content now,” she said, “and my waiting is done. At long last I am free.” And as Morgin looked on she dissipated into the night, melted into the shadows of the moon and drifted away on the sea air. And where a moment earlier his hand had been caressing her cheek, it now caressed nothing, and the small circle of deck where she’d sat was empty. Nor was there any sign of her companion.
~~~
Morgin awoke with the dawn, wrapped in his blanket and laying on a bunk in the crew deck of the Far Wind. Nearby France still slept in his blanket, though Val was already sitting up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Morgin shook his head, said to Val, “I had the strangest dream last night.”
Val ran his fingers tiredly through his hair, arched his back and stretched. “It was no dream.”
Morgin looked at the twoname carefully. “What do you remember?”
Val blinked and shook his head. “I remember she said you had freed the Hand of the Thief, and now I see the connection to Aud, and Aiergain, the Queen of Thieves.”
Morgin climbed angrily out of his bunk, leaned over Val and snarled, “Don’t start vomiting those superstitions at me.”
Val nodded thoughtfully. “I’m curious. Before you freed the Hand of the Thief, you had to have restored the House of the Thane. What does that mean?”
Morgin gripped Val’s tunic angrily, pressed him back against the bulkhead behind his bunk. “I don’t ever want to hear those words aga
in.”
The twoname didn’t resist him, but shrugged and said, “She’s gone, you know?”
“Who’s gone?”
“The old witch. I heard two of the crew talking a little earlier. They found the door to her cabin wide open this morning, and she was gone. They’ve searched the entire ship and found no sign of her or her companion. Like she said, her waiting is done.”
~~~
The Far Wind put into port late that afternoon. Toblekan was a small, bustling seaport on the mouth of the river Dahaun, and while quite provincial, still a dangerous place for Morgin. Castle Penda was less than a day’s ride up the river, and BlakeDown maintained a large and well equipped garrison in the middle of the city. There were too many Penda armsmen about for an outlaw wizard to feel at all comfortable.
Tulellcoe wanted news, so as soon as the Far Wind docked he and Morgin’s other companions hustled ashore. With his beard now full Morgin considered going ashore with them. But if all went well the needed repairs would be minor, and they’d be on their way to Drapolis sometime the next day, so he decided not to press his luck.
Darma and Bakart put the crew to work almost instantly, while Morgin settled down to watch from his usual place in the stern castle. Bakart had told him they’d get a much better assessment of the damage by partially unloading the hold and stacking it on the dock, and of course the heavy equipment and facilities available in the shipyard helped immeasurably. But beyond a lot of grunting, sweating crewmembers, there wasn’t much of interest to see, and Morgin quickly grew drowsy in the warm afternoon sun. Finally he sat down on the deck with his back to the stern castle rail, and drifted off into a pleasant slumber.
The neigh of an angry horse woke him, followed by the staccato sound of rapid hoof beats on the wooden planks of the dock. Morgin came fully awake in an instant, for he knew that horse well. Down on the dock they’d begun unloading the horses from the ship’s hold and some poor devil was having an impossible time with Mortiss.
Morgin vaulted down to the Far Wind’s main deck, then across the gangplank and onto the dock. His fear was not so much for Mortiss, but for the poor fool trying to handle her. It would not do much for his relations with the crew if she kicked his brains out.
Morgin took her reins from the crewman, then to everyone’s surprise let them drop free, and Mortiss calmed instantly. “Lead her with a light hand,” he told the crewman, “and she’ll follow if she chooses. But beware if she chooses not.”
The crewman looked at Morgin, then at Mortiss, and he made a sign to ward off evil. Morgin shook his head and turned back to the ship, but he noticed he and Mortiss had drawn quite a bit of attention and a lot of staring eyes.
During the afternoon they learned the damage to the Far Wind was worse than thought. Toblekan’s shipyard could only effect temporary repairs, so Darma would have to turn back to Aud.
When Morgin’s friends returned from scouting the city he told them the news and they all retired to Cort’s cabin to consider their options. “Why don’t we just sit tight?” Morgin proposed. “We’re not in any hurry. We can take the Far Wind back to Aud and find another ship to take us to Drapolis.”
France scowled, shook his head. “This city’s too full of rumors.” He turned to Morgin, “How long did Bakart say they’re going to take for repairs here?”
“Four, maybe five days.”
France shook his head unhappily. “Too long.”
They were all tense about something. “What rumors are you talking about?”
Cort took a deep, thoughtful breath and answered, “Every kind of rumor you can imagine, but all about you. It’s common knowledge you’ve disappeared from Aud, and they’ve got you in Drapolis, or on your way there, or headed back to Elhiyne to fight it out with Olivia, or even taking a ship out into the unknown sea to spend the rest of your life exploring its vastness and hiding from the clans. But most prevalent among the rumors is that you’re either here in Toblekan, or Penda, or headed this way. I hope that’s just coincidence.”
“In any case,” Tulellcoe added, “we can’t stay here. Not for four or five days. There are too many people looking for you in every shadow, and they have descriptions of each of you, and they know this ship came from Aud, and when these sailors get drunk I doubt all of them will hold their tongues.”
Morgin nodded. “Then we leave now.”
Val shook his head. “If we’re going to strike out across country we’ll need supplies, and right now the shops are closed up tight. We’ll have to wait until morning.”
That night Morgin lay in his bunk and saw time and again the eyes of the strangers on the dock as they looked at him and Mortiss after the sailor had made the sign to ward off evil. Eventually sleep came, a troubled and restless sleep.
~~~
The First Legion and the company of Benesh’ere traveled east for some days, advancing deep into enemy territory. They came upon a large river and followed it further east looking for a place to ford. And when they found the wide shallows Morddon, through Morgin’s memories, realized they were following the Ulbb, and had come upon Gilguard’s Ford, though in this time and place neither the river nor the ford had been named.
Morgin recognized the ford only because of the lay of the land, for that was all that remained unchanged. In Morgin’s time the ford was in the midst of a great forest, while in Morddon’s the Ulbb meandered through green rolling hills only sparsely populated by trees and a few clumps of bush.
Metadan decided Gilguard and his Benesh’ere should remain at the ford to keep their back trail clear in case the legion found itself in need of a hasty retreat. Then the legion crossed the Ford and moved on into what would someday be called Yestmark. They were only an hour or two beyond the ford when Metadan gave orders to pull the scouts in, and without outriders he chose to continue advancing the legion. Throughout that night and the next day he and his lieutenants argued about that decision repeatedly, but Metadan insisted, and of course they obeyed, and so they advanced blindly.
As sunset approached on the following day they bivouacked near a small stream, spent the night in the open without pitching tents. Early the next morning one of the perimeter guards came sprinting toward Metadan’s tent. “Riders,” he shouted. “Goath. About a dozen of them. Waving a flag of truce.”
While the legion moved hastily to break camp, Metadan ordered Morddon and his lieutenants to saddle their horses quickly, so Morddon left his mess kit unpacked. He had an uneasy feeling about this, especially since he could recall Morgin’s memories of Ellowyn’s stories of Metadan’s treachery.
The green rolling hills where they met the Goath were covered by few trees and only low grasses. As they approached the truce party, which waited out of bowshot on a nearby hill, they could see to the next hilltop, though not beyond. Like the group Morddon had followed, the Goath troupe was a mix of Kulls, jackal warriors, and human Goath, with a jackal captain in charge.
Metadan halted his escort about twenty paces from the Goath truce party, and for a moment they stared at one another. Then he demanded, “What do you want with a flag of truce?”
The jackal captain’s lips curled back into a snarling smile, exposing yellow-white teeth. “You have already given me what I want,” he barked. “You have done well, angel. You will receive the price you demanded.”
Metadan flinched. Cynaban, Metadan’s senior lieutenant, looked at him innocently and asked, “What does he mean, my lord?”
Metadan frowned uncertainly, and in the silence that followed Morddon spoke calmly. “Metadan has betrayed us.”
Metadan turned slowly toward Morddon. “Be silent, whiteface.”
Morddon looked at the archangel, but he spoke to Cynaban, and told him of the group of Goath he’d been following, and how they’d rendezvoused with what appeared to be an angel, and how Morddon had followed that angel back to the legion to learn Metadan had arrived only minutes before him. “He has betrayed us,” Morddon finished.
Cynaban shoo
k his head, but doubt appeared in his eyes. “That’s impossible. What price could they pay to the foremost warmaster of the twelve legions?”
The jackal captain laughed and answered, “Power. He covets the power of the gods.”
Cynaban turned to Metadan and demanded, “Deny this. I beg you to tell me you did not betray us.”
“Of course I deny it,” Metadan shouted. “I would never betray my brothers. It’s not you they want, but him.” He pointed at Morddon.
“Then it’s him you betrayed?” Cynaban asked.
“Yes,” Metadan shouted. “No. I betrayed no one. He belongs to the Dark Lord. He escaped and they want him back.”
Cynaban frowned, and a stream of tears began pouring down his cheeks. “A slave escapes his evil master, and you would return him to his slavery, and you would do so merely for power?”
“He’s not one of us,” Metadan shouted. “He’s all they want. The rest of us can go free.”
“Free?” Cynaban asked as he shook his head. “My soul would never be free again. And he is one of us. He has fought beside us in many a battle, and in betraying him you have betrayed us all.”
Cynaban and Metadan’s lieutenants backed away from the archangel. Morddon moved with them and they left Metadan alone astride his horse. “But you’ll all die with him,” Metadan pleaded. Tears formed in his eyes also. “I never meant for that to happen.” He nudged his horse forward to join them. “No,” he shouted. “Let them have him. He’s nothing to us.”
Cynaban shook his head silently, tearfully, and he spoke one simple word: “No.”
Metadan reached out to Cynaban, extending his hand. “I cannot betray you.”
Cynaban struck out at the hand, slapped it away. “You already have.” To emphasize the point he drew his sword and leveled it at Metadan’s throat. “You betrayed one of us; you betrayed all of us.”