The Gardens of Almhain

by Laura Mallory

  Devlin watched Elazar’s conspiratorial grin widen, and was distracted by the gold enamel of one of the man’s front teeth. He opened his mouth to say that, yes, he and Bellamont had crossed paths in the desert, when three events occurred simultaneously in the Den.

  There was a loud cheer as Lenora saluted the room with her glass of wine. The light refracting from crystal caught at Devlin’s focus, tickling his mind with the sensation of something forgotten. As Lenora smiled and began to lift the glass toward her lips, from among the din rose a scream, high and wailing and utterly genuine. Before the sound had died, the front windows of the tavern exploded inward in a shower of glass shards. The responsible parties, two large bricks torn from the road outside, smashed to the ground, one landing against a man’s leg with such force that there was an audible snap of bone.

  In another city, another tavern, chaos might have followed. Women might have screamed and torn their hair, snatching weeping children. Men might have hollered and rushed to the street to attack the transgressors. Not so in Thieves Alley.

  What children there were stayed silent, blinking wide, jaded eyes. The women traded glances with those nearest them, looking especially long into the eyes of their lovers. The men were stern and hard. Eyes glinting dangerously, they rested calloused hands almost casually on their belts.

  Devlin, who could feel the malevolence pouring into the tavern from the street, remembered the knives he had left upstairs. He glanced swiftly to his right, at Elazar, who alone among those in the room had a weapon in hand: a long, meticulously sharpened knife.

  “Do you have another?” he murmured.

  The pirate nodded, gaze darting from the tavern’s door to the stairs, where Lenora was half-hidden by Astin’s broad frame. “You can have this one,” he said, voice oddly loud in the silence. For a long moment their eyes met, dark and light, and Elazar’s heart spoke clearly to Devlin of a woman named Elena, his wife, four months pregnant with their first child.

  Devlin took the knife, and as he did, a loud voice yelled from the street, “Disarm at once, by order of the Church!”

  “What is the meaning of this?” Lenora asked, voice righteously angry, pitched to carry across the room, into the dark street.

  A figure stepped into view, framed by the jagged glass still attached to one of the assaulted windows. Devlin had no idea of the man’s significance, only a fleeting impression of the wrongness inside him. A low, terrified murmur began in the Den, and for the first time there were signs of panic as those nearest to the door and windows moved back.

  “Rinaldo,” Lenora hissed.

  The man lifted his hood, revealing a narrow face and ruddy, pockmarked complexion. His eyes shone with fanatic bliss as he unrolled a scroll. Tilting toward the light, he read aloud:

  “On behalf of the citizens of Tanalon and by order of the God’s Holiest Church, Lenora and Astin di Salvatoré are hereby accused of treason against the crown for the heinous crime of the poisoning and subsequent death of his majesty Armando de la Caville, may he rest in peace. This order proclaims that Lenora and Astin di Salvatoré be remanded into custody and escorted immediately to the palace for questioning.”

  “You’ll have to get through us first!” cried a nameless woman. Emboldened by the proclamation, others joined her, yelling out challenge as they formed a wall between the cleric and their beloved mistress.

  Devlin kept to his position against the wall, knife concealed by the skirts of the woman before him. He looked across the room, met Astin’s gaze, and mouthed Fifty, the number of Church Soldiers waiting in the street beyond the cleric. Astin’s eyes were despairing as he glanced toward the street and back, searching Devlin’s face as if for a miracle.

  Devlin shook his head slightly, regretfully. Thirty men, perhaps, with darkness to aid him, but fifty he could not counter. Not with one knife against sword and crossbow. Those veiled-ones who lived in Vianalon were scattered throughout the city and palace; it was even possible they lingered nearby, drawn to his presence. Groomed for anonymity and covertness in foreign lands, they lacked the distinctive tattoos of those brethren reared to kill. Still, each and every one of them was more deadly than a common solider.

  Even if he summoned their aid through the land-bond they shared, and they managed to arrive in time, he was no longer Master of Knives, to order such a thing.

  Cleric Rinaldo had disappeared back into the street. “Will you come peacefully?” he called from the shadows. “Or will you seek escape as we cut down your filthy flock?”

  Devlin looked across the room, straight into Lenora’s eyes as she replied, “You will have me, for Armando’s death was my doing. You will not take my brother.”

  The room was hushed by her words. A soft, menacing laugh filled the night. Devlin was close enough to the street to hear Rinaldo say, “She just signed her death warrant, as the High Cleric predicted. Kill her, now.”

  Elazar heard, too, and shot from the wall just as Devlin did.

  “Down, Lenora!” screamed the pirate.

  Lenora did not move, eyes wide and unseeing as she stared across the tavern at the space Devlin had occupied a moment ago. Her heart, slowed to a drugged pace by shock, kicked hard and began to race. Screams filled her ears as her senses expanded, became encompassing. She watched, seeing all and unable to move, as from the darkness outside there was a wisp of movement, a tiny, blurred disturbance in the warm air of the tavern.

  She lifted her arms futilely as Astin filled her vision. He was not encumbered by hesitation or fear, and shoved her hard to the ground. Pain flooded her head as her temple struck hard against a stair. Her vision tunneled and darkened and she lay still.

  Elazar was halfway across the room when he felt the whisper of air that was the crossbow released. He saw Astin shove his sister to the ground and turn, a wide, willing target for an unknown soldier’s impeccable aim.

  Devlin saw nothing of this, for upon Rinaldo’s words he had run for the nearest table and leapt onto its surface. For the space of a breath he was utterly still, arms flung outward and face turned skyward, and in that moment he descended to the heart of the land.

  Pulsing and thick like a throbbing vein, the Taproot of the peninsula responded to his presence and purpose, drawing him further down, deeper into its matrix of power. The depth to which he delved was unheard of, unknown, and for several seconds he was lost in a sensation of infinite time, of all Beginnings, of the essence of life in every blade of grass, chip of bark, every feather of every bird.

  Teeth clenched, mouth twisted in a rictus of effort and pain, Devlin fought for control of his limbs and finally they answered. His arms fell swiftly and into his hands surged power, raw and unwilling, and it turned his flesh and bones into conductors of heat and light.

  His hands clapped together, completing the circuit.

  The shaft of the arrow, born from a tree whose roots took succor from the land, turned to ash a hairsbreadth from the exposed chest of Astin di Salvatoré. The metal head, which would have pierced skin with its poisoned tip despite loss of balance, had been mined from the land and so fell like a leaden weight to the floor.

  The current of power rippled from the epicenter, and thunder rolled over the cloudless skies of Vianalon. In the street outside the Pirate’s Den, Church Soldiers yelped in fear as their bows turned to dust, their swords to the heaviest stone. Within the tavern the effect was the same, men crying out, dropping their weapons in haste. Those women adorned by authentic metals and gemstones slid moaning to the ground, their human efforts meaningless against the magnetism of the land.

  Through a haze of fire and waning endurance, Devlin felt the company of soldiers running for their lives, leaving the street littered with swords and knives. The cleric stood alone, jaw flapping open and closed in comic disbelief as he stared at the pillar of light rising from a table in the Den, at the core of which flickered the shadow of a man
.

  With the last of his mind, Devlin al’Ven focused on the dark heart of the cleric.

  Deep within the peninsula, the coiled form of the Taproot pulsed brightly, throwing fiery shadows along the ceiling and walls of the great cavern. From beneath thick trappings of root and rock, a membrane of scaled skin rolled back, exposing one wide, serpentine eye, black and glittering, circumscribed by a golden border.

  The call the beast felt was one not heard in a millennia, and cautiously, it probed the mind of the man who had awakened it from slumber. The summons was simple, the message clear.

  Rise and Eat.

  The heart being offered pulsed distant and feeble, filled with soul-rot.

  With an awakening appetite, the beast reached up, and up, and fed.

  *

  The funeral services for Cleric Rinaldo began the following evening with a nightlong vigil in the God’s Holiest Church. As Anshar’s face rose across the heavens, bringing a bright spring dawn, the citizens of Tanalon were awakened by the Church bells ringing. By midday, thousands were gathered—some following curiosity, some coerced by fear of not attending—in the wide courtyard before the Church’s ornate threshold.

  Though the benches within the Church were all spoken for, filled by clerics, bemused noble families, and soldiers of notable ranking, the massive gilt doors of the holy house were opened so that the words within drifted out, to be spread and repeated.

  Thus did the High Cleric Luther Viccole lead the service in a clear, sorrowful voice, with precise, carefully rehearsed words, declaring the vile denizens of Thieves Alley, down to the last woman and child, responsible for the death of the esteemed Cleric Rinaldo.

  An attack on the body of a cleric, he denounced, was an attack upon the Church. An attack upon the Church was an attack upon the God Himself.

  Within two days, the ten blocks of the Alley were seized by the army of the Church. The majority of residents had already fled, predicting the coming persecution, but others in their pride had stayed. The battle was short, and in the end, one hundred and seven bodies fed the gallows.

  Concealed within the cheering crowd outside the palace gates, four figures, their features shaded by unremarkable hoods, stood and watched the long procession of the condemned. One among the companions was a woman, features pale and drawn, and beside her stood a large, broad man, his shoulders bowed forward. The final two stood nearby, only their mouths visible, drawn down in distaste.

  When a willowy girl was led, blindfolded, up the creaking steps, the woman whispered brokenly, “Alian,” and the man beside her fit his arm around her shoulders.

  As the masked executioner adjusted the rope around the pale, slim neck, the crowd’s cheering faltered and all but died. Those who had been celebrating moments before as criminals and whores fought the rope and suffocated, now turned their faces away. A woman keened, still more began to weep, and several men, safe within the numbers, began to shout against cruelty.

  Alian did not make a sound as the planks beneath her opened. Her death was swift and merciful. Afterwards, the crowd was stiff, watching each death through eyes made glassy by fear, and they did not cheer again. They thought of children and grandchildren, brothers and sisters, and wondered what it would be like to watch them die.

  When the last man hung still, the shortest of the companions spoke, careful not to expose his teeth to the light. “Sorry business. Time to push off, eh?”

  The man he’d addressed glanced aside at the woman, who trembled with the force of her grief. “We must go,” he agreed quietly.

  The woman blinked her dark eyes and tears rolled down her face, glistening wetly in the afternoon sunlight. Finally she looked up at the man holding her. “Home?” she asked, voice so young and lost.

  He nodded. “Avosilea.”

  *

  Luther Viccole stroked his beard over his chest with long, controlled movements. He wanted nothing more than to wring the neck of the soldier who stood, shaking, opposite his desk. He had considered including him in the ballot of hangings yesterday, but then decided the man deserved a more private ending.

  “Explain again what happened, will you?” Luther asked softly.

  The commander of the two companies that had been dispatched to Thieves Alley blinked at the holiest of the God’s servants. He was hardly aware that he stood in the private study of the High Cleric of Tanalon, surrounded by finery that included several sumptuous chairs once housed within the chambers of the dead king. His palms were slick, hands trembling; he kept them locked against his sides, knowing that whatever he said, Anshar had marked this hour with his death.

  “The lady confessed, as you said she would, and Cleric Rinaldo gave the order for her death. The shot was fine. Javier is the most skilled bowman in Tanalon. I do not know how he could have missed.”

  Luther sighed impatiently. “Yes, yes, fine shot, I’m sure. Then?”

  The soldier clenched his teeth against a tremor of fear. Luther watched the man with impassive eyes, but inside he was raging, believing that the fear was not for him but for someone else. A man who had single-handedly stopped an arrow mid-flight, disarmed fifty soldiers, and killed Rinaldo without inflicting one mark of death upon him.

  The loss of the cleric was almost nothing to him. Lenora had been right, after all, about the man losing control. Just a week ago, several acolytes had come to him with a terrifying story: they had seen Rinaldo touching himself wrongly in the presence of a young devotee. Though Luther had not minded Rinaldo’s perversions—he had been a valuable, likeminded ally—it was another thing altogether to make those appetites public.

  It was well he was dead, rather than Luther having to order it for the sake of keeping peace with the younger factions of the Church. But the manner of the death filled him with impotent rage, so old and deep he did not know its name was fear.

  The soldier was speaking, stuttering a little. “There was light, very bright, coming from within the tavern. It lit the whole of the street like the sun in midday. Our bows turned to ash; our swords tore from our belts and fell to the ground. We heard thunder in a cloudless sky.” The soldier shook his head wildly. “I could not stop the men from running, your Eminence.”

  Luther laid his hands on the desk and leaned forward. He spoke in a dark murmur, “How could you have stopped them, commander, if you, too, were fleeing?”

  The man’s eyes rolled, and for a moment he looked as though he might faint. Then he steadied himself, chin trembling and fists clenched as he awaited judgment.

  Appalled that such a coward had risen to leadership in his army, Luther reached for the small chime on his desk. The bell rang merrily, and a moment later there was a soft knock on the door. He called for the summoned man to enter; the door opened on a figure swathed entirely in black. Only his eyes, black as midnight, and the black whorls that surrounded them, were visible within his veil.

  At the sight of the man, the soldier gave a high, girlish wail of despair. He fell to his knees and began to babble for forgiveness, inching toward the High Cleric’s desk.

  Luther, smiling, looked at the assassin and nodded.

  Later, servants were called for, their severed tongues and weak dispositions suited to such tasks, and the mess was cleaned from the floor.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  In the north of Tanalon, where the vales were steep and rocky, and the River Viana was merely a collection of lakes and smaller tributaries fed by the North Sea, nine people huddled around a sputtering campfire.

  The last of the noble, shining race of Alesia sat together on a coarse blanket, the old man and young woman trading soft words in a language unknown to their companions. Opposite them, Arturo Bellamont and Diego Roldan spoke softly as well, in the brief, nearly incomprehensible dialogue born of years of partnership. Nearby, the blind Adept Scholar lay at ease on the rocky ground, his muted snoring diluting the soun
ds of wilderness around them; his son Hadrian Visconte slept at his back. Ignacio Tuturro stood watch just outside the glow of the fire, near to the sleeping figure of the Princess Serephina, and the seven horses on permanent, grudging loan from the private stable of Elazar Laroque.

  Little over a month ago, they had been met by the South Sea pirate in a different kind of darkness, one thick with urgency and the muted rush of the River Viana, just outside the capital’s northwestern wall. It was the same tunnel by which Arturo and Diego had fled the city six years before. Neither men spoke on the underground journey, though upon hacking through the overgrowth covering the exit and standing free again under the stars, they had shared a glance of implicit relief.

  If Elazar had balked at the number of people making their way down the steep riverbank, or the barely adequate size of his skiff, he gave no sign. He assisted the last passenger aboard, untied the anchoring rope from a thick branch of deadwood, and vaulted over the low railing. With the particular and immense skills he’d acquired over a lifetime of piracy, he navigated them across the southbound river and landed them at a small, private dock just north of the port town.

  His wife, Elena, was a solitary, cloaked figure waiting for them. When the company stood on dry land, and the boat was safely lashed to shore, she rushed forward to embrace Isidora. The women exchanged a quiet greeting, and later, Elena offered their party saddlebags she’d hurriedly stuffed with food, water, and luxuries like soap and a comb for the women.

  As the nine refugees mounted their steeds, Hadrian with his father and Edan with Finnéces, the pirate laid a hand on Arturo’s shoulder. “This time, the debt is paid,” he said.

  Arturo nodded and clasped Elazar’s hand. “Be careful,” he murmured. “If there is danger, take Elena south, to Avosilea by the Sea. Mention the names Ralph and Lucinda de Galván. My parents are well known in Avosilea, and you will be welcomed at their estate, five miles east of the town proper.”