The Archbishop's Amulet (The Windhaven Chronicles Book 2)

by Watson Davis

  “Whaddaya want?” A burly northerner stood at the door, leaning against the jamb, eyes red, cheeks wet with tears, mouth set in a quivering frown. The dark veins of the empress’ love encased the man, stunting his dangerous emotions, dampening his dangerous thoughts.

  He did not appear to be related to the boy, Rucker.

  Renaud asked, “Have you recently seen a boy in the company of a coulven girl?”

  The shadowy tendrils encircling the man’s head exploded into a black mist, torn asunder by the depth of the man’s emotion, unable to absorb them.

  “Watch out.” Fi Cheen raised his hand in warning but too late.

  The man launched himself into Renaud shoulder first, a brawler’s move, taking the sheriff by surprise, knocking him off the porch to land hard on the hard-packed dirt. A veteran of more than a few barroom altercations, Renaud squirmed, wriggling his arms free, getting his hands on the man’s arms, redirecting the man’s fists as they rained down in a fusillade of meaty blows, but Renaud took no injury.

  Fi Cheen touched his ring, calling the power of the empress to himself, pulling in the infernal strings, the infernal potential surrounding him, reassembling it, preparing it.

  Lyu-ra leapt on the man’s broad back, wrapping one thin arm around the man’s neck, the other behind his neck, choking him, the weight of her and the movement of Renaud flipping the man to the ground.

  Fi Cheen triggered his spell, taking advantage of the sovereignty of the empress so strong there, reforming the tendrils wrapping themselves around the man, enfolding him, encasing him in the empress’ love.

  The man’s body grew slack but Lyu-ra wrapped her legs around him, seeking the right leverage to break his neck.

  “Release him,” Fi Cheen said.

  “Sir?” She hesitated, surprised, looking up at Fi Cheen, eyes wide with questions, but relinquished her grip, pushing him away, letting him slump face first to the ground. Renaud, panting, dusty, helped her to her feet.

  Left fist in the small of his back, right hand returning the perfumed handkerchief to his nose, Fi Cheen said, “Flip him to his back.”

  Renaud complied, grabbing the man’s shoulder, and heaving him over.

  Fi Cheen squatted down beside the man, forearms on his knees, thumb caressing the ring on his forefinger, peering into the man’s glassy eyes, the reason within them being siphoned away. He hurried to ask, “Did you see a coulven girl and a little boy?”

  “Yes,” the man said with a voice of complete exhaustion, a voice of a consciousness not long for this world. “Abbess took them away. But my wife went to the Abbey to see that boy again. Never seen him before, why see him again. And now she’s dead.”

  Grunting, Fi Cheen stood, glancing at Lyu-ra and Renaud. “Let’s go talk to this abbess.”

  “Or maybe it was that punk,” the man said, a froth growing at the edges of his lips. “Maybe she went to go see him. Bastard.”

  Renaud asked, “An Onei?”

  “No!” The man struggled, ranting, the ranting becoming less and less coherent and more and more feral, the whites of his eyes growing darker and darker.

  Fi Cheen stared down at this pitiful example of a human, and chuckled. “Put this one down.”

  # # #

  Rucker rode on Spot, perched high on the horse’s back, his brow furrowed, his eyes red, concentrating on a pebble suspended between his outstretched hands, flows of magic twinkling, swirling through his fingers.

  “That’s it,” I said, striding up the hill, the icy grass crunching beneath my boots. “Now, project the force out.”

  “That spell’s too complicated for him,” Aissal said, her voice thick with unshed tears. She trudged behind the horse, holding her jacket tight, shivering at the hint of a wind.

  “Work is good for him,” I said, glaring back at her.

  Rucker threw his hands out, his fingers not quite right, his motion jerky. The pebble plummeted down, bouncing off Spot’s flank. He let out his breath, shoulders slumping, saying, “I can’t get it. Can’t we take Spot with us? Do we have to lose him, too?”

  “He’s not made to go where we have to go.” I snatched two more pebbles from the ground, light ones, jagged and chalky, handing one up to Rucker. “He’s not a reindeer or an elk. He’s a horse. If the snow and ice didn’t get him, the icefangs would. Let’s try it again.”

  Rucker sighed, sniffling. “I just keep thinking about my mom.”

  “Oh, poor baby,” Aissal said, hurrying to catch up, to move up alongside the horse.

  “Your mom would want you to practice casting your magic so when the time comes, you’re ready,” I said.

  “Caldane!” Aissal said. “That’s a horrible thing to say to him.”

  “The truth is a horrible thing?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, patting Rucker’s thigh on the other side of Spot, jumping up with every other step, trying to see over the horse’s withers and meet my eye. “And it’s horrible that we’re going to abandon Spot. He’s a good horse, but he’ll never make it alone. He’ll get eaten by a wyrm or something. We have to sell him to someone.”

  Rucker turned to me. “I don’t want Spot eaten by a wyrm!”

  “He’s a horse,” I said, tossing the stone in my hand into the air, sending magical power out, catching the stone, sending it flying off into the air, striking the limb of a tree, and bouncing to the ground. “I’m not going to sell him to some farmer who’ll run him into the ground pulling a plow, or butcher him for dinner.”

  “Caldane!” Aissal said.

  “What?” I shrugged, pointing at her. “You were the one talking about him getting gobbled up by wyrms.”

  “I don’t want him to get butchered, either,” Rucker said, tears streaming down his face. “That’s horrible. I want to keep him with us.”

  At the top of the hill, looking out and down, a valley stretched out beneath us, nestled between rolling hills, copses of trees clumping in the fields of golden grass. I reached up to Rucker. “Come on, time to get down.”

  “What?”

  A herd of horses milled about in the valley, wild horses, heads down, grazing on the crispy grass, a few raising their heads to study us, nickering a challenge, wondering if we were a threat.

  Spot whinnied back, and a few more of the horses’ heads popped up, grass hanging from their lips, their chewing growing slower.

  I pulled Rucker down, grabbing our packs, removing the bridle and saddle, and I slapped Spot’s hindquarters. He took a couple of steps, glancing back. I whispered an incantation, waving my hand, setting him free, wishing him well. He half-jumped, kicking his back feet out, squealing with pleasure, and sprinted down the hill toward the herd.

  “Caldane?” Aissal said. “What is this?”

  “He’s a horse,” I said, gesturing down the mountain toward Spot, toward the herd. “Horses need to be around other horses. Can’t very well send one out all alone into the wilderness.”

  She gulped, patting my arm, sniffling. “You’re right.”

  “Yeah?” I raised my eyebrows, peering down my nose at her. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  # # #

  “Overseer Fi Cheen of Archbishop Diyune’s monastery in Shria, ma’am?” The young priest peeked into the room, holding the door open, seeking permission to let the outsiders enter.

  Fi Cheen tapped his foot, sighing, his left hand pressing into his lower back. Devotion being commendable in an underling, Fi Cheen did not begrudge the uncouth, backwoods lout his lack of manners.

  Still, Fi Cheen didn’t like to be kept waiting.

  The young priest bowed his head toward his mistress in her bedroom, a casual dip of his chin, entirely too familiar for one of his station, following that inappropriate performance with an inelegant bow to Fi Cheen, the bow of a rustic. He lifted his arm to indicate Fi Cheen and his party would be allowed entry, saying, “Please, come in.”

  Fi Cheen stalked past the priest without looking at him or the slightest acknowled
gment of his existence. If Fi Cheen’s disgust and distaste were not clear to the boy, Fi Cheen had every confidence others of the retinue would take the boy aside, and teach him proper manners and respect with a sufficient degree of agony to ensure the mastery of the lesson.

  The large room Fi Cheen entered could only be called a “bedroom” because of the existence of a wood-framed cot shoved in amongst the stacks of books and scrolls, nestling in between the shelving, the workbenches, the stores of magical components, bookcases lining every wall and filling every nook. The room could have been called a maze given the snakelike paths leading through the books and manuscripts piled up on the floor.

  A stained glass window filled the southern wall, the only obvious adornment, a piece of art of exquisite technical ability depicting the destruction of the wicked allies in the Great Forest of Ohkrulon—now a desert—by the magical forces at the empress’ command. Fi Cheen’s mouth dropped open at the wonder of it, and he touched his forehead, almost falling to his knees.

  Behind him, Renaud and Lyu-ra knelt, patting their fingers to their foreheads, whispering devotions to the empress’ power and majesty, squeezing their eyes shut.

  “Yes, it has that effect on one, doesn’t it?” a dry, old voice said. On the cot lay an ancient woman, who cackled and wheezed. Woolen blankets covered her tiny body except for her wrinkled leg and heavily-veined foot, bandaged around the ankle, the toes an uncomfortable bluish, another bandage blood-flecked around her head glimmering with green healing magic.

  “Truly a wonder. A local artist?” Fi Cheen asked, considering changing his low opinion on the inhabitants of these foul northern lands and their potential for the finer arts.

  “No, a gift.” The abbess groaned, reaching back, folding a pillow, trying to prop herself up. “A friend from Nayengim, Lyi Mum, Governor of Nutath Behdoka, created it, and shipped it to me at no small expense to himself.”

  “Hmmm.” Fi Cheen nodded, a smile creeping to his lips, his opinion vindicated. He navigated the meandering path to the side of her humble cot, motioning for her to stay still. “Please, be at your ease, abbess, and remain comfortable.”

  Relaxing back into the pillow behind her, sinking down into it, she exhaled. “Thank you. Spells of healing lose their effectiveness as you get older, and I’m afraid my acolytes will sacrifice every goat and lamb in this county and all the adjacent ones to build enough gods-favor to get this old carcass to mend.”

  Fi Cheen eased himself down on the simple stool positioned by her cot, wood so dark it was almost black, gathering his tunic, making room for his knees. “We have heard horrid stories of your attackers and your noble defense of your abbey.”

  “Not much of a defense, I fear.” She shook her head. “I did more damage than they, showing why the bishops in their infinite wisdom denied my request for training as a spellsword when I was at my monastery.”

  “You are a healer.” Fi Cheen leaned forward, patting her hand. “That you fought at all is a testament to your courage and strength of will.”

  “You are too kind.” She bit her lip, struggling in her mind, before looking up at Fi Cheen with stricken eyes. “How did it happen? Why did it come to this?”

  “Why?” He withdrew his hand, studying her age-splotched face for a hint to the purpose behind her questions. “Come to this?”

  “I know.” She raised her hands in an indication of submission. “I dispatched my petition for aid and justice to the archbishop mere hours ago, and I appreciate you came to me so quickly. This token of his regard touches me.”

  “You do not realize the regard, the esteem, the empire has for you.” Fi Cheen inclined his head, forcing his face to relax, to appear solemn, like he had more he wished to say, but could not. He glanced back at Lyu-ra and Renaud, seeing their confused faces, glaring at them to enforce their silence. “And the exemplary work you do here.”

  “Thank you.” She reached up and brushed a tear from the corner of her eye. “But the Dedicated should never return home, especially so soon after their leaving, with the memories of their existence fresh in the minds of their loved ones. You must understand the delicate balance we strive to maintain out here in the real world among the real people, giving them happiness, giving them satisfaction, giving them goals.”

  “Rucker,” Fi Cheen said, placing his index finger over his lips, keeping himself silent. The old biddy had sent Rucker to the monastery to become a monk, to receive an education, to develop his spellcraft to take advantage of his gifts, not realizing the boy’s flaw, his inappropriate behavior that had led to his being added to the sacrificial lists, not realizing the true value of most of the local children she sent to Diyune’s monastery, the real reason they never returned. Foolish woman.

  “Yes,” she said, leaning toward Fi Cheen, wincing in pain, and falling back to her original position, lounging back on the pillow. “His mother fell short of being Dedicated, herself. She had the mind for it, the heart for it. If she’d only had more than a trickle of power or an identity with a source, she’d have been sent to the monastery for training herself.

  “The spell to allay her suffering rested only loosely on her mind. Seeing her son before it had a chance to seep deeper through the levels of her consciousness, to get an effective hold of her was too much.” She shrugged. “Now she’s Turned, becoming a wight at entirely the wrong time, killing a priest, a few parishioners, and forced my priests, healers all, to send the poor dear to her next birth. Reports are that her second husband is close to cusping himself. A gigantic mess sending ripples throughout my jurisdiction.”

  “Do not worry about her second husband,” Fi Cheen said. “That problem will fade away.”

  “I don’t care about her damned second husband but her first,” she said.

  “Her first?”

  “Yes, the father of the boy. I’m afraid they’ve all set forth on a quest to find him in Windhaven, to reunite father and son, thinking nothing of the empire and its needs.” She shook her head, pursing her lips, crossing her arms over her chest. “It reflects poorly on my parish, such behavior, such selfishness.”

  “Don’t fear,” Fi Cheen said, a smile spreading across his face, raising his hands, palms toward her, his next destination confirmed, and now knowing how to trap his prey. “You are not at fault for her death. No one will try to shift blame to you or your people. You have my word.”

  “No, it most definitely is not our fault, it’s the fault of that damned Onei,” she said, her eyes brimming with anger and rage.

  A curious comment. Fi Cheen’s brows knitted together as he tried to puzzle her meaning. “Granted, he is a filthy Onei, and he will no doubt be damned, given the horrors he’s seen and experienced, but I fail to see how he is at fault?”

  “He had an amulet in his possession, an amulet of immense power, but more than that, an amulet suffused with the grace of the empress, surely a gift of hers to one high in her esteem.” She shook her head. “I invited them in, here into my abbey, my safest haven with my dearest friends, let my guard down thinking that he was another Onei in her service like Gartan. I think now that he stole the amulet. I don’t know from whom. Some idiot who needs to be punished, if you ask me.”

  The archbishop’s amulet? Fi Cheen stroked his own ring, only somewhat listening to the old woman as she prattled on, making the appropriate “hmm”s and “haw”s to let her continue, considering his options, anxious now to board a ship for Windhaven. Diyune would reward him for returning the precious amulet, but what reward the empress might bestow upon him if she were to discover Diyune’s rather casual treatment of such a valuable item?

  Yes. This is very good news, very good news, indeed.

  Studying The Spells

  “I can build a shelter over there,” I said, squinting against the bright glare of the sun reflecting off the snow, pointing with my right hand toward a small, tight cluster of trees and bushes for refuge from the gusting winds. My left arm around Rucker, rubbing his arms, I hoped to warm
him up a little, his teeth chattering, his whole body quivering. “That’s as good a spot as we’re going to make before the storm hits.”

  “No.” Aissal trudged toward me, shaking her head, her head bowed, not glancing the way I’d indicated. She dragged her feet through the icy snow, the snowshoes I’d made for her scraping out a jagged trench with each step. “We are not Onei. We need something more substantial with more protection.”

  Feathery bits of snow swirling around me, I exhaled a billowing cloud of frost, my shoulders tensing, my fists on my hips, the darkness on the horizon closer than it had been a few heartbeats before. “I’m not sure we have time to be choosy.”

  “You said we were close,” she said.

  “Close for me, but you two are slower than trees.”

  “We shouldn’t have let Spot go,” Rucker said.

  He was wrong. Spot would have slowed us down even more, but I didn’t contradict him, no need to waste energy on an argument.

  Aissal sighed, her breathing ragged. “Then you better hurry and get us to the cave.”

  “Fine.” I backed away from Rucker. “Come on then, but be quick about it. Lift your feet out of the snow. You’re just wasting your strength dragging them. The cave is in the hills over there.” I didn’t add they were not going to make it at this rate. I beckoned them forward.

  A tempest howled in before the worst of the storm, moaning through the trees, tugging at our jackets, our hair. The sun dimming, blocked by the clouds racing across the sky, the air more chill, I shepherded the two of them through the woods, directing them, keeping them on track, but when the “yip-yip”s started, I stopped, the hair on the back of my neck rising. Whirling back toward Rucker and Aissal, I crouched, my fingers going to my belt, slipping out my sling and a stone, eyes straining.

  “Hurry up.” I windmilled my left arm with a renewed urgency. I scanned the forest behind us, the branches drooping beneath the weight of the snow piled on them, smooth mounds burying the smaller trees and the bases of the taller ones, blue now with the storm approaching, more menacing with those hunting calls echoing through the furor.