CHAPTER 23
Partings and Blessings
Cerisia was the first of Thornhurst’s many temporary residents preparing to leave the next morning. It dawned bright and cold, but the sun promised to warm the day later. Many of the village folk gathered, along with the Goddess’s Five Servants, and the Lord and Lady of Highgate, with the black-mailed Iron Ravens gathered around them. They had avoided Allystaire through the winter, and he’d been content to let them. Now their gap-toothed, foul-mouthed captain Ivar was engaged in conversation with Audreyn.
Deliberately, Allystaire gave them a distance, seated on Ardent’s broad back and wearing his armor. He felt in his back the folly of having slept on a soft mattress the night before, and the weight of the armor on his shoulders wasn’t helping.
“Stones Above, just heal yerself o’the pain,” Torvul said, when Allystaire shifted in the saddle with a sour wince.
“No,” he replied, forcing his face into an even calm once more, pushing the pain away. “It is trivial and I will not spend Her Gift on small matters.”
“Suit yerself,” Torvul grumbled. In truth the dwarf looked much like Allystaire felt, a relic of their late night searching.
For her part, seated on her courser, Idgen Marte seemed well rested and content, but had yet to say a word to either Allystaire or Torvul, which fact Mol and Gideon, sharing Allystaire’s palfrey, seemed to find funny and curious, respectively.
Let it remain a mystery, Allystaire thought wearily. Cerisia seemed to have made a personal connection here and there with the folk of the village, including Timmar, in whose hands she left a sizable purse. In one or two cases it seemed she offered a blessing, moving her hands in a circle over someone’s clasped hands, speaking a few words he could not hear.
His jaw had started to clench the first time, but Mol was suddenly looking at him. “She does no harm to us by offering a blessing. Besides, Her Goddess cannot reach into this place. The Will saw to that.”
Seated behind her on the horse, Gideon shrugged. “That would matter little to Fortune, I think, if She were to concentrate more power in fewer hands. Perhaps great enough need would suffice. Regardless, I do not think what I did could truly keep another god from this place if it were determined.”
“Boy. It’s early for disquisitions on the limits of divine power and your own,” Torvul grumbled. “The sooner we get all these folk on their way, the sooner we can be after our own business.” He swung a bloodshot eye towards Allystaire. “Which is what, anyway?”
“Preparing the way for peace,” Allystaire replied.
“Whatever the Cold that means,” Torvul grumbled.
“Gideon, if you would, check on the Cerisia’s route to the Vineyards?”
Gideon nodded and slid down from the horse, showing more ease, more familiarity with the task than before. He slipped a parchment from his pocket, opened it to reveal a simple but carefully drawn map, showing Thornhurst, the Ash River to its north, the Thasryach range to its west, the increasingly hilly country to the left that persisted to and across the Innadan border.
The boy knelt to the ground, still holding the map, his eyes rolled back in his head, and the Will of the Mother took to the air as the wispy outline of a dragon. Any who saw the vague form, especially as he gained altitude, would think it nothing more than a flutter in a tailing cloud, perhaps the remnants of some distant trail of smoke.
* * *
From his vantage, the entirety of Barony Delondeur spread out beneath Gideon like a massive quilt bunched haphazardly upon an empty bed. White warred with the pale greens and brown-tinged yellows of the earliest signs of spring. He bore north from the village, to the banks of the Ash, passing Ashmill Bridge, Birchvale, flew well above the High Road as it paralleled the river and passed near or to the towns along its banks.
The Will pushed himself further up into the clouds as he neared the trio of towers that guarded Harlach’s close border with Oyrwyn, Innadan, and Delondeur at Standing Guard Pass, over the mountains as they descended into the rocky hills of Barony Innadan.
The change was nearly instantaneous. The mountain ranges that rose up into Oyrwyn and Harlach and walled Innadan away from most of Delondeur were far larger, far grander than the small strip of the Thasryach, and the harsher cold of its neighboring Baronies was largely kept at bay. Once he was well past the mountainous border, well-tended, manicured fields and terraced vineyards spread out over the rolling hills, with the High Road better tended and several smaller tracks and paths branching regularly off of it.
It wasn’t long before the projection of Gideon’s mind was soaring near the Vineyards itself. Larger, more graceful, but less defensible than the Dunes, more easily reached and assaulted than Wind’s Jaw in its remote crag, it was nevertheless an impressive fortress. In contrast to the Dunes, which placed the entire population of the city it purported to guard as a buffer before its walls, the Vineyards was placed in the heart of the Barony that was ruled from it. Once a typical motte and bailey, the castle had grown upwards as well as out, and the hill it sat upon artificially steepened. From a height, Gideon could easily see that every major road in the Barony passed near the Vineyards, and the river Yew passed within sight of its western walls. It was masterfully placed to defend the surrounding Barony, for no army could penetrate far from any direction without needing to pacify it.
Something in him was captivated by the mastery of its construction, by the precise angles of the switchback trails cut into the high hill it sat upon, the delicate-seeming but formidable bridges and towers inside its curtain wall, to learn whatever it was the massive grey edifice could tell him. The towers had several banners and pennants snapping from them, though the only one he recognized was also the most prominent: a red field with a great helm wrapped in green vines.
Gideon felt the pull of Allystaire’s mind, a presence that was at once both comforting and demanding. He thought that no matter how far he might fly or how much he might forget himself, he could never again forget that presence. Reluctantly, he reeled his Will back to his physical self, the landscape receding in a blur.
* * *
Little time had truly passed. A few moments at most, but the Gideon’s stillness, his seeming vulnerability, bothered Allystaire.
We are going to have to find the boy some guards if we are to face another battle, he thought, sharing it with Torvul and Idgen Marte. Too dangerous to leave him unattended in a moment like this.
Keegan’s lot, Torvul offered. They owe their lives to him.
I will talk with them, Idgen Marte offered.
Gideon’s eyes opened wide and suddenly, and he stumbled to his feet, twitching as though unused to his body, the muscles of his legs searching awkwardly for the trick of standing still.
Allystaire’s hand was quickly at his shoulder, steadying him, and soon his feet found purchase and he calmed, took a breath.
“As best I can tell there is nothing but road and mountain between here and the Vineyards,” the boy said, slowly, the breath heaving in his chest. “No armies on the march, no bandit or brotherhood bands that I could see, and no bad weather or piles of snow or ice. Of course, everything can change between now and the time the Archioness reaches any place much further away than Ashmill Bridge.”
“She will have the company of Garth’s van further than that,” Allystaire replied. “And the lack of armies on the march would make it difficult for any to interpose them between here and there. Ivar will know how to deal with any road agents,” Allystaire replied, with brisk confidence. “And it is likely enough that Cerisia does as well. It would take a truly desperate man to attack a high priestess of Fortune.”
“You know,” Gideon mused, “I think I could carry her there myself.” A pause. “Now. Today. With no danger. Well, perhaps some, if priests of Braech were to try to intercept me, but I doubt they are ready for another confrontation.”
/> The eyes of everyone in Gideon’s hearing suddenly snapped on him.
“What did you say, boy?” Torvul’s words were quiet and careful.
“I said I could carry her there. A simple enough matter if it were just her, her mount, and baggage.”
Allystaire’s eyes were wide, and he met those of Torvul and Idgen Marte. He knew, instinctively, that all three of them were imagining the implications.
“How many could you move all at once, Gideon?” That was Idgen Marte, finding the words before Allystaire could.
Gideon frowned, thought a long moment, the silence heavy.
“I should think no more than a handful,” Gideon finally said, and some part of Allystaire deflated, just a bit, even if most of him believed it to be for the better. “It is possible that more than one at a time might drastically increase the amount of energy I would have to expend, perhaps exponentially, and it will already be considerable. If I were to burn myself out, perhaps six at one time to a very distant place. At risk of my death. Or theirs.”
“Yet you could move Cerisia now, at no risk to her or to yourself?” Allystaire’s hand had started to clench around the loose hood of Gideon’s robe and he’d only just realized it. Gideon hadn’t noticed. He forced himself to relax his grip, and Gideon turned to face him.
“A very limited risk.”
“How limited?”
Gideon shrugged. “It’s possible I could be wrong about the necessary power. It has happened. I am hard pressed to think of an example.”
Torvul let out a chuckle, as did Idgen Marte. Allystaire narrowed his eyes in disapproval, though his mouth carried the faint hint of a grin. “Well,” he said, “let us find out.”
* * *
“Are you certain?”
Cerisia only smiled. “Sir Stillbright, are you truly asking a high priestess of Fortune if she wants to miss a chance at something no one living has ever experienced before?”
“That is not entirely true,” Gideon put in. “Sorcerers have a limited range of the same kind of power, though they can carry nothing but themselves.”
“Hush,” Torvul said. “Don’t ruin it for the lady.”
“Sorry,” Gideon said. “I will say again that there is very little danger.”
Behind them, the Ravens loitered with Garth and Audreyn, while the Lord of Highgate spoke with some men in leathers, wearing the livery of the towered wall, who nodded sharply at his words and then set off at a trot.
Cerisia, meanwhile, turned to Ivar. “I am afraid, Captain, that it seems I will not require your services. I am sorry that a contract was not drawn up.”
The wiry black-mailed woman shrugged. “No matter, Arch’oness. Spring comin’ on, there’ll be work.” She spat to the side, the way she punctuated most sentences.
“When should we leave, Will of the Mother?” Cerisia led her white horse behind her, its grey mane braided and tied with silver chains that jingled lightly and glinted, along with the rest of the silver-and-gold worked into her saddle and tack, in the morning sunlight.
“Now, if you are ready. You may want to cover your animal’s eyes.”
“I can tell it what to expect,” Mol said, letting go the lead of the palfrey she and Gideon had earlier shared. She walked boldly up to Cerisia’s mare, laid her hand on the nose it dipped to meet her. Mol and the horse stared into one another’s eyes for a few moments, the horse gave its head a shake and whinnied, and Mol stepped back.
“She says a bite of sugar wouldn’t go amiss once it’s all over, but that she won’t panic or bolt on you,” the girl said, tilting her head to look up at Cerisia.
“Thank you, Voice. I find I am in your debt,” Cerisia said, extending one white-gloved hand to Mol, who took it. It was an odd sight, the grown and mature woman parting with the slip of a girl as equals, though Mol more than matched her for self-possession and presence.
“Without your intervention, who knows what havoc Delondeur crossbows may have wreaked on Thornhurst? There is no debt, Archioness.”
They nodded to one another, and Mol stepped away.
“Perhaps,” Cerisia said, “it would be best to set me a turn or so’s ride from the Vineyards? Dropping me straight into Hamadrian’s courtyard might not make exactly the impression we are hoping for.”
“As you say,” Gideon replied. “Everyone should step back.”
Haste was made to give room. He extended a hand to Cerisia, who took it. He stared hard at her and her horse for a moment.
Then woman, horse, and boy all disappeared.
* * *
This, Gideon thought as soon as he could think again, was a good deal more difficult than I had planned.
Instead of taking flight as a creature of will and leaving his body behind, Gideon had focused intently upon the physical facts of himself, of Cerisia, and of her mare. He’d fixed all their details in his mind, thought of the ground they were standing on. It was ground he knew well, the ground of Thornhurst, of his home.
Next he thought of what he’d seen of Barony Innadan, the blur of manicured fields, of rows of vines stacked one upon the other, the High Road heading west from the Vineyards and into the other Baronies. He ran the images back in his mind with perfect recall, total clarity. He picked a spot, just off the road, behind gentle curve of the ground and near a stand of trees, and simply thought, very hard, of the three of them being in both places, then only in the latter.
And suddenly they were.
But the strain was far more than he’d anticipated, and Gideon fell to a knee, then over onto all fours, as they arrived.
The horse was the least disturbed of the three, as Cerisia herself leaned against its flank, dizzy and disoriented.
Gideon found himself fighting hard not to fall prone to the ground, which seemed to rush up to meet him, promising a deep well of oblivion if he landed upon it. He focused on his hand, the lines on the back of his light brown skin, the knuckles, clenched it into a fist, digging his fingers into the soft dirt and coming up with a handful of it.
Slowly, on unsteady legs, he pushed himself back to his feet, looked blearily at Cerisia. “That did not go as planned.”
“Did it not?” Cerisia had wrapped one hand around the pommel of her saddle. “We appear to be in Barony Innadan.”
“True,” Gideon admitted, as his feet tried to move out from underneath him, sending his legs swaying after them. “It was simply a good deal more difficult than I expected.”
Cerisia slumped against her horse, laughing so hard that she half-choked. “You just performed a miracle unlike any in any song, story, or scripture,” she gasped out, “and your reaction is that it was harder than you expected.” She pushed herself away from the animal and composed her face quickly, getting her breathing under control. “Wherever did Allystaire find you, Will of the Mother?”
“Apprentice to the sorcerer Bhimanzir in the bowels of the Dunes,” Gideon answered matter-of-factly. “Though he would probably tell me not to tell you that sort of thing. Or he would have, anyway.”
“I know he didn’t trust me, Gideon. He was right not to.”
“I know,” the boy agreed, finally finding his legs agreeable to a more stable relationship with his torso, and standing straight, stretching his arms and legs.
“What was being apprentice to a sorcerer like, Gideon?”
He tilted his head to the side, wide eyes narrowing slightly. “Are you sure that you want to know?”
She nodded, pulled herself up onto the saddle. “Walk with me a bit, if you would, until I gain my bearings.”
“The Vineyards are that way,” he said pointing east. “The road is just a few dozen paces south of us.”
“Walk with me anyway, and perhaps answer my question?”
Gideon shrugged, started walking alongside her horse. “Being apprentice to a sorcerer was a daily t
rial, life or death, where I was the accused. I was not made aware of what my crime was until I was already being punished for it. The hope of someday, with dedication, being the hand doling out the punishment was to be my reward for survival.”
Cerisia was silent as her horse walked a few paces on the slightly damp ground. It was greener here than back in Thornhurst, but not by much, not yet, but the air and the ground both had a slightly wet smell. Gideon breathed it deeply, glad to miss the sharp tang of winter.
“How did you become a sorcerer’s apprentice? And where?”
“Sorcerers are careful to guard the secrets of where they hail from. I believe from my features that I was born in the eastern part of the Concordat, where the Knowing are given more sway than in other places. But I cannot tell you where I was taken, for I have no memories of not being Bhimanzir’s student.”
“Was it truly that young that you were taken to apprentice? As an infant?”
“Allow me to rephrase,” Gideon said. “My memories do not begin until I am perhaps six or seven summers old. Likely enough I was taken earlier than that, but I have either forgotten or was made to forget.”
“How old are you, then?”
“Thirteen or fourteen, I believe.”
“What did Bhimanzir try to teach you?”
“The Seeing Dark. Finding, mastering, and focusing my will. The history of the Knowing and the Eldest. Haruspicy.”
“Haruspicy?” Cerisia drew her horse to a halt.
“Divining the future by reading entrails.”
“I know what it is,” she said, her tone remaining patient. “It was, in the past, practiced by Fortune’s priests, though it has long since been left behind. It is barbaric and useless.”
Gideon shook his head. “It is not useless. Bhimanzir was considered quite gifted at it, and it was his divination that led the Knowing to send him here, to the Baronies. He had, he said, uncovered some threat that needed to be contained.”
“He learned that from reading the entrails of, what, sheep?”
“Birds, sheep, goats, rats, cats, dogs, and eventually women.”
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