Nights were when much work could be done, but they could also be dangerous. Everything came alive at night, from the desert fox to the gilander lizards that would pull themselves off the rock and begin hunting, to the smaller creatures like mice and even the insects. All would come out, coming alive in the cool of the darkness.
Near the Fire Fortress, much effort was made to push back the night.
The flames leaping off the top of the fortress did most of the work, burning brightly, like a torch that danced, though Lacertin could feel the strange stirrings of the shaping used within them. The shaping was complex, one that he had never seen before coming to the Fire Fortress. Strange that he would detect it now when he hadn’t noticed that it was shaped previously.
All around the city raged controlled fires. Lanterns burned along the streets, adding to the light of the flames. The brightness all seemed as if it attempted to push back the night.
“You still haven’t told me your name,” Lacertin said. It was the first time the priest had brought him outside the Fire Fortress since he’d clothed him. In the days… or was it weeks? …since then, Lacertin had come to know the fortress, but little else. He had not managed to leave his floor and had not seen any sign of anyone other than servants and the priest who brought him his meals. Even the fire shaper he met in the archives had not returned.
He shifted the long shirt that he wore, adjusting the way it wrapped around his body. The thin fabric was strangely cool but it clung to him. No longer did it feel so foreign to him, though he still marveled at the way it cooled him.
“No? And you still haven’t understood yours, Lacertin Alaseth.”
Lacertin carried with him the collection of clothing the priest had asked the tailor to fashion for him. Ishan had fashioned him a complete wardrobe, and maybe that was the only reason the priest had brought him from the fortress, but Lacertin enjoyed the change and the cool breeze, even the brightness of the fires burning all around him in the city.
Lacertin thought there had been activity earlier in the day, but the city was vibrant at night, loud voices and strange music coming from open doors they passed, the sounds more celebration than Lacertin would have expected in Incendin.
After picking up the clothing from Ishan’s shop, the priest had led him to what had initially appeared to be a tavern, but Lacertin had learned was something else. The priest had sat him at a table among a dozen others, all who had welcomed him without question, and served him a meal that consisted of meats and vegetables and soup that rivaled anything that he’d ever tasted before, even better than the food he’d grown accustomed to within the fortress.
The people had been strangely welcoming, nodding to him cordially and treating him with a hint of the same respect that he was afforded when in Ethea, but there that was because he was Lacertin, First Warrior to King Ilton.
Now he no longer knew what he would be. Even when he returned to the kingdoms, he didn’t know.
“You have clothed me and fed me. What now? Will you take me to a bathhouse and bathe me? Would you see me to a masseuse? Perhaps you have a brothel and would like to ply me with women.”
“Would any of those requests bring you joy, Lacertin Alaseth?”
Lacertin stared at him, wondering if the priest made some sort of joke. “I… I don’t understand what you’re doing with me. First I am tortured—”
“We have discussed that.”
“And now you dress me and feed me as if I am a guest in your house.”
The priest spread his hands out around him. “You are a guest in my house. Only, my house is all of this. You were tested by Issa and chosen to serve. That is enough.”
Frustration that had been building over the last few days bubbled to the surface. “But I’m a warrior of the kingdoms!”
The priest tipped his head toward Lacertin and frowned. As always, the Book of Issa was clasped between his hands. “Is that still how you see yourself, Lacertin Alaseth?”
Lacertin didn’t know how to respond. When he’d come to Incendin, he had done so needing to find Ilton’s killer. Incendin was responsible; he was certain of that. With hound venom used on the king, there could be no other explanation. Over the last few days, he’d searched with less and less intensity for information that might lead him to who might have helped Incendin, though he wondered if he would ever find that information in the archives. As far as he had discovered, there was nothing but stories about the elementals and the history of Rens, all written in old Rens. Lacertin could no more read that than he could understand why the priest had been so welcoming to him.
But the question still triggered something within him. Was that what happened? Did the priest think to dissuade him of the reason that he’d come? More than that, did he still see himself as a warrior of the kingdoms?
Always before, that had been his identity, even as he served Ilton, chasing impossible tasks that Ilton assigned to him, tearing him away from the rest of the warriors and separating him. Never before had that bothered him. Lacertin understood the purpose, had believed in the purpose, and known that he served as his king demanded.
What would he be once he satisfied Ilton’s last request?
Would he still be a warrior of the kingdoms, even after everything that he’d been forced to do to find Ilton’s killer, or would he be something else? Lacertin wondered if he would ever be able to return to the kingdoms.
He had never given much thought to that, but in the time that he’d been gone, Theondar and Althem likely had grown even more bitter about what happened. They would never welcome him back, and without the king and the First Warrior, there was little chance that he could serve.
And here, in Incendin of all places, he had fallen into a certain sort of peace. It was the kind of peace that he’d never been able to find while in the kingdoms, the kind of peace that he’d never been able to find while serving Ilton.
The priest smiled and held the book out in front of him. “Issa has answers, Lacertin Alaseth. You must only have the faith to ask.”
“What if they’re not the answers I want?” he asked.
“Want means nothing to Issa. It is the answers you need that will be provided.”
The priest led him through the streets, guiding him away from the fortress. The farther they went into the city, the more uncomfortable Lacertin became. He had grown accustomed to his place in the fortress and had grown complacent, knowing that the attacks on him had finally eased, but would they return? And if they did, would he be ready?
And did it matter?
He wasn’t wanted back in the kingdoms. Theondar had made that clear, and his escape had shown that he would not be welcomed back. The other warriors would be searching for him, looking for reasons to attack, but Theondar would have given them the reason. More than even losing Ilton, losing Ilianna would be devastating to the kingdoms.
There wasn’t anything that he could do that would change anything, was there? Nothing more than suffer. Here, the priest offered him something that had been missing for long enough that he hadn’t realized he needed it: peace.
The priest led him to the edge of the city, beyond orderly rows of houses, all with flames burning brightly within. Lanterns along the street gave more than enough light for him to see his way, and the farther they walked, the more the sound of waves crashing began to fill the air.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked after they had been walking in silence for so long that Lacertin’s dangerous thoughts began to return, those that told him that he didn’t need to find Ilton’s attacker, that he didn’t need to search for who within the kingdoms had betrayed them.
Peace was a myth, one that he had seen shattered time and time again while in the service of Ilton. Good intentions turned, and even the barrier wasn’t enough to keep the people of the kingdoms safe.
“You must see something for yourself,” the priest said.
They continued beyond the edge of the city, into the darkness, with the lights of th
e flames and lanterns fading behind them. They reached the rocks overlooking the water, the splashing of waves crashing far below, and nothing but darkness stretching away from them.
Only, as he stood there, Lacertin saw that wasn’t completely true. Bright moonlight trailed along the surface of the water, rolling with each wave. Starlight twinkled softly, casting a glow along the water. Hot wind battled with a cooler breeze that gusted in from the east.
Otherwise, there was silence all around him.
They stood for long moment, letting the sounds of the sea carry and wash over them.
“Even in the Sunlands, water allows you to forget.”
“What makes you think I want to forget?”
“You came to us, Lacertin Alaseth. Why would you not want to forget?”
Lacertin could think of dozens of reasons he would want to forget, and a few reasons to remember. Wasn’t that why he had come here? The longer he spent left alone, either in the Incendin archives or with the priest, the less he remembered the reasons that he had come.
Far below, as the waves crashed along the rocks, sending salt spray toward him, leaving his lips with a hint of the sea, he felt a strange sense of relaxation.
Why would it be here that he would experience such peace? If anything, he should know peace in Ethea, shouldn’t he? Shouldn’t Lacertin find a way to be more at ease within the kingdoms rather than outside? But strangely, over the last few days, he had felt more relaxed than he ever had before.
Standing on the shore, with the rocks below him, the sound of the sea washing in and out, he could almost forget why he had come.
“Why did you bring me here, priest?”
“Always questions, but never the right ones, Lacertin Alaseth.”
Lacertin let the sounds of the ocean sweep over him. “You don’t need to use my full name.”
“No? You would have me call you by another?”
The question was loaded, but he didn’t know quite what the priest implied. “I would know what you intend for me to see here.”
“What if it is not what I would have for you to see, but what Issa would have you see?”
“Because Issa didn’t guide me out to the edge of the city and lead me to the rocks.”
“Are you so certain?”
Lacertin inhaled deeply, savoring the way the salt smell filled his nose. In some ways, standing here reminded him of the best places within the kingdoms. Nara, his homeland, had much of the heat and the rocks that pressed on his awareness. Vatten, a place of water and spray like the ocean crashing below him, had always been welcoming to him in spite of the fact that he shaped water weakly. The cool wind was much like he knew in Galen, with the gusting wind blowing in out of the mountains. There was little of Ter other than a similar flat expanse.
“I’m not certain of anything any longer,” Lacertin said softly.
“That is a step,” the priest began. “The first one, but necessary to knowing what you would become.”
“And what is that?” Lacertin opened his eyes and met the priest’s intense gaze. Moonlight reflected off his glasses and out here under the darkness, there was less of Ilton to him than he seemed while in the Fire Fortress. “You think that I’m somehow supposed to serve Issa, that I will convert to your religion, but that’s not why I’m here.”
“Tell me, Lacertin Alaseth, why are you here?”
He almost shared, almost opened up to the priest, but that would do nothing other than reveal the fact that he still served his king, if he had not revealed that already. Instead, he turned and stared out over the water, listening to the call of the waves.
“Water is different here,” he remarked.
“The water of the Sunlands is different than what you are familiar with in the kingdoms, but the salt and the spray are the same everywhere.” The priest turned and looked at Lacertin, holding his gaze. “What is it you feel when you stand here?”
“I feel… at peace.”
The priest nodded. “That is not always the case for you, is it?”
Lacertin breathed out softly. “Rarely,” he agreed. “Never might be a better answer.”
“And why is that?”
There was something about the priest that drew answers out of him, even when Lacertin knew that he should be guarded. “You know who I am… was,” he corrected.
“I know that you are Lacertin Alaseth.”
“Then you know that I am a warrior of the kingdoms.”
The priest smiled with a soft sigh. “The warrior of the kingdoms, some would say.”
Lacertin felt drawn to the edge of the rock, and traced his foot along the edge. He could jump from here, take off on a shaping of wind and fire, and leave Incendin. Little they did truly confine him, he realized. Other than Ilton’s request—his final request—there was nothing that held him here, nothing that would tie him to Incendin. He could go to Doma, to Chenir, even across the sea to the Xsa Isles or beyond. And if he did, what would he lose? What would the kingdoms lose? Probably nothing now. They had already lost their king and their princess. What did it matter if they lost another warrior?
As far as the kingdoms knew, they had already lost him. Theondar had made that clear when he chased him to the borders. And now with the barrier in place, returning would be difficult, if not impossible. Lacertin could make his way around the barrier, bypassing Chenir, and come in off the sea. His travels to the far north had proven that he was capable of maintaining a shaping like that. But once he returned, what would he face?
Theondar and his bias. Other warriors and shapers influenced by him. None knowing how he had served, the sacrifices he had made over the years on behalf of his king and the kingdoms. And he had no one to blame but himself. Lacertin had been the one to set himself apart, he had been the one to hold himself away from everyone else, all in the name of service. It was that service that had prevented him from finding any true happiness, from having an opportunity with Ilianna, and even from the possibility—however remote—of something with Jayna. He was alone, but had none to blame but himself.
“Yes,” Lacertin said finally, breaking the silence that had grown between them. The priest didn’t seem to mind, and Lacertin wondered if that was all a part of his plan, using the silence and Lacertin’s own introspection to force him into thinking about what he had been. Likely the priest knew quite well what Lacertin had done and how that had impacted Incendin. “The First Warrior to King Ilton,” he said. “In that, I had many responsibilities.”
“Interesting that you rarely were known to fight,” the priest observed.
Lacertin shook his head. All he would need to do would be to jump. The wind and his shaping would carry him. He could reach Xsa well before morning, and he had been there enough times that he would find shelter, wouldn’t he?
Except, Xsa valued their trade with the kingdoms. Harboring a wanted man was a sure way of endangering that, even if it took years to discover. Lacertin would have to abandon shaping, or do so in secret, were he to remain. It was the same if he went elsewhere, to places like Doma or Chenir. Only Incendin had no meaningful trade with the kingdoms, and only in Incendin could he walk openly.
“Ilton always had other uses for me,” Lacertin said.
“Because he knew you would not fight or because he preferred using you in a different way?”
Lacertin had assumed it was the latter, but would he have fought? Certainly he had when needed. He thought of the hounds and how they had attacked Veran, or earlier, when the war began. Even then, Ilton had pulled him away from the front line of the battle, claiming that he needed him, that there were other ways he would be used.
He’d never considered the possibility that Ilton hadn’t wanted him to fight.
Had the king feared his loyalty?
No, Lacertin didn’t think that likely, not with some of missions he had sent him on.
What then?
“I can see you don’t know,” the priest said.
“I know what I�
��ve been asked to do over the years.”
“Such as creating separation, where before there had been none.”
Lacertin felt himself tense. Perhaps this was the reason behind the questioning. The priest had been sent to probe him for information, possibly hoping to force or convince Lacertin to reveal secrets that he should not. It would explain why he had treated him with kindness, and why he had given him clothing and food and the freedom to wander the fortress. They wanted answers.
Of course they would.
Why else would they have allowed him to remain? As much as he had come looking for answers about Ilton, they hoped to pry information from him as well. And as the architect of the barrier, something that was commonly known within the kingdoms, wouldn’t they have been thrilled to discover Lacertin across their border?
“You mean the barrier.”
“Is that what you call it in the kingdoms?”
Lacertin nodded.
“A powerful shaping,” the priest remarked.
“It is.”
“Though not the first of its kind.”
Lacertin blinked. Did they know how he had borrowed from Norilan? If they did, it was possible that Incendin had some way to work past the barrier, of avoiding the exclusions that Lacertin had created.
“It is not.”
The priest joined him on the edge of the rock, staring out at the water. “You seem uncertain about it.”
Lacertin inhaled deeply, thinking of the way that Norilan had separated themselves from the rest of the world, the barrier of ice and snow so complete that none could reach their shores. Was the separation beneficial? How much had Norilan lost by excluding themselves from the rest of the world? When Lacertin had gone the last time, he had wondered if that was to be the fate of the kingdoms. Would the barrier they established to ensure their safety ultimately lead to something different?
“You mention another place with such a barrier,” Lacertin said.
The priest nodded. “I believe your people call it Norilan.”
“Your people do not?”
Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2 Page 20