His Ancient Heart

by M. R. Forbes

  It was intended to lift the spirits of those who came in, weary from travel. Instead, Eryn was reminded of the stark reality of the Empire. Of the severe lack of color that made the room such a contrast in the first place.

  "Welcome, welcome." A tall, thin man in black pants and a bright yellow vest came over to them. He had a long, sparse beard that trailed from his chin to his chest, and a crooked smile that made him more frightening than welcoming. He had the look of a northern islander, with golden skin and large eyes. "My name is Shiri. I am the proprietor of this fine establishment. Ahh... newly wed. How exciting. How is Portsmouth these days?"

  "Damp," Fehri said, returning the innkeeper's smile.

  Shiri laughed too long and loudly at that. "Of course, of course. Well, I see my boy hasn't taken your bag. Boy!" He spun around, looking for his servant.

  "I told the boy I would carry my own bag," Fehri said. "If you don't mind, my wife would like to get cleaned up. It's been a long journey already."

  "Of course, of course. Only one bag, though? You certainly like to travel light. Where are you headed again?"

  "My aunt is a seamstress in Varrow," Fehri said. "She owns a shop there. Nila is going to apprentice under her, and then we're going to return to Portsmouth and open our own business. My uncle should be along soon with some fresh clothes, he was to meet us here today."

  Shiri clapped his hands together. It was obvious he didn't listen to or care about Fehri's response. "Ah, wonderful. Wonderful!"

  He was too animated, too boisterous. He was fake, and Eryn didn't like it. She also didn't like the way he repeated his words.

  "Is our room prepared?" she asked, anxious to be rid of him.

  Maybe too anxious. Shiri glanced over at her, and then back at Fehri, raising his eyebrows. He didn't say anything, but she could guess what he was thinking. They were playing at being wed, so she supposed such guesses weren't too far from the typical truth.

  "Right this way, right this way," he said. He led them through the common room to a narrow staircase that had been painted in a rainbow of colors. They climbed all the way up to the third floor, exiting out into a hallway with three doors along its length. Each door was painted a different color. Theirs was red, and it was the only one on the northern side.

  "Welcome, welcome," Shiri said again, reaching into his vest pocket and producing a key. "Our best room. I call it 'The Empire Suite'. Please, please, get settled." He reached into his pocket again and handed Eryn a familiar metal disc. "If you need anything at all, press on this once and the boy will come running."

  He gave the key to Fehri, and retreated back down the stairs.

  "I couldn't be rid of him fast enough," Eryn said. She held up the disc. "And where do you suppose he got this?"

  "Black market, I would guess." Fehri stuck the key in the door and put his hand to it to push it open.

  "There's a black market for artifacts like these?"

  Fehri shrugged. "There's a black market for everything if you know who to ask. Many people aren't afraid of death, the mines, or the Historians when there is profit to be made."

  "The Historians. I've heard of them before."

  Fehri's expression grew dark. "General Spyne. I only crossed his path once, but just the sight of him made my whole body cold. From what Talon has said about the Generals." He paused and shook. "I hope to never cross his path again."

  They were silent while they let the moment pass. Then Fehri tapped on the door.

  "I suppose we should see what the Overlord arranged for you," he whispered, his face brightening again. He pushed the door open.

  The room was as big as it could be in the small inn. A large bed sat in the corner near a window, with a soft sofa and table in front of it. A wardrobe was against the wall, and the floor was lined with soft, thick furs. Draperies and paintings hung everywhere, in the same bright colors that brightened the rest of the inn, while more finery rested on small tables or on the floor, giving the room a richness that Eryn had never imagined. In the corner opposite the bed was a large dais made of more of the polished wood, the steps lined with furs. Resting in the center of that was a sunken tub, the top of which was flush with the dais. It was already filled with water hot enough to cast steam off its surface, and scented strongly enough that she could smell the lavender from the doorway.

  She turned to Fehri. "This is my room?" She didn't have much use for the richness of the furnishings. The bath was a different story.

  Fehri seemed as shocked as she was. "I suppose it is."

  "Well?" She said, looking at him.

  "Well, what?"

  "You are my husband, aren't you?"

  "I suppose I am." His face began to turn red, because he wasn't sure what she was hinting at.

  She looked at the floor just inside the door. "In my village, it was considered bad luck not to carry your bride over the threshold. Was that only a local custom?"

  He laughed. "It's a little different depending on where you are, I think." He put his arms out. "There's no harm in it, and the last thing we need is bad luck."

  She jumped into his arms, feeling the strength of him as he caught her and lifted her close. He took the two steps through the door, and then lowered her down.

  "Thank you, Captain," she said.

  "You're welcome, my La-"

  She hit him in the shoulder.

  "Eryn."

  "Now, go away. I'm going to take a bath. I expect you'll have some clean clothes for me by the time I come out?"

  Fehri bowed deeply, still laughing. "As you command, Eryn."

  He closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Talon

  Prozoa.

  The word continued to echo in his mind, long after he and Wilem had made their way from the hiding place, cutting north through the woods towards Edgewater. The journey would take a week at least, longer if they weren't able to get a horse at Doovan. And getting a horse was no sure bet. Every village and town headed towards the Empire stronghold was sure to be well informed and watchful for the Liar and his whore.

  Just the Liar now. And his son?

  Talon glanced over to Wilem, walking beside him with calm and purpose. He knew leaving Eryn had been hard on the boy, even if he had said nothing about it. How could it not be? Their affection was clear. Even so, he admired him for letting go and staying strong. Love was hard at any age, and even harder on the young.

  Prozoa.

  The word came back to him once more. With it came more memories. Genesia. Jeremiah. They were together. Him, Rossum, Jeremiah, and the others. It was late at night, but it almost always was by the time they got to socialize. They were in the atrium, sitting on benches amidst the flowers and greenery, enjoying the false sunlight that fell from the luminescent plants there. Jeremiah was excited about the results of their first tests of the reactor. They had started it only two days earlier, and so far it had been generating more energy than they had ever expected.

  "What about the samples?" someone had asked. Talon tried to see their face through the deep haze of his mind. It was a woman, of that much he was certain.

  "Everything is normal," Jeremiah had said.

  "I wouldn't call it normal. Did you look for yourself?"

  "I did. One organism. The system is closed, but that doesn't mean that particles that small won't get in from time to time."

  "It wasn't a particle. It was alive."

  "A single cell. It could have been in the water we pumped from the lake."

  "The filters are supposed to catch them."

  "It's possible one slipped through."

  "Can we stop talking work and start talking fun." The voice that said that was his own.

  "He's right," Jeremiah said. "We can worry about it tomorrow."

  Prozoa.

  The images and words danced around in his thoughts. They were disjointed, chaotic, difficult to understand. The reactor had stayed on. They had used the energy provided by the ebocite
to find more of the crystal, and had launched projects to create even more reactors all around the world. And why not? They could do almost anything with the energy it created. There would be no shortage of food or comforts. There would be no reason for violence or pain. They would have everything any civilized society could imagine.

  It was the promise of that power, the lure of that utopia that had caused them to ignore the organism they had found in the water. Even when the number of the creatures continued to increase, they considered it a harmless side effect of the reactor, instead of the warning that it truly was.

  By the time the creature had spread outside of the reactor wells, and started to infect them... by the time it began to make the wizards sick... It was too late.

  The juxtaposition. The drawing of another world into their own through the reactor and the resonances. The organisms were the first to shift from another time to theirs. They were the roots, the base by which the demons were created. The rest of the Shifters had come after, and having seen their children drink of the ebocite, having tasted the power of the world they were drawn to, they had attacked.

  It was the Shifter they had captured that gave the organism its name.

  Prozoa.

  Aren thought the prozoa carried the magic, that it was the reason he gained the power. It wasn't. The magic was always there, a part of him. A gift. It was dormant in the majority of wizards. Useless. What Overlord Iolis had likely done was increase the amount of prozoa in his body in order to either kill him, or perhaps force his Curse to the surface.

  Eryn had asked him about the prozoa, and he had lied to her. Not because there was a secret in her sickness. It was because of something she had told him about her time with the Shifter General. It had called her 'daughter' and 'queen'. The words didn't mean much to Eryn.

  He understood them.

  Daughter. Queen. If she changed, she would be driven to gather the prozoa, to use it to create the demons, to recover what they had lost. He had always known her magic was strong. Now he knew that it was strong enough to bring their enemy back from extinction. To give birth to a new army of orcs and goblins, dragons and generals.

  To finish what they started.

  Of all the Cursed he hunted. Of all the Cursed he killed. She was the one among them that truly needed to either be cured, or killed. He knew it, and she would have known it too, if he told her about the prozoa.

  So he hadn't told her. He would get her the cure that he was withholding to maintain control. He would keep her from changing.

  He wasn't about to give up on her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Talon

  "Well?" Wilem asked.

  Talon peered at the front gates to the town of Doovan, where a pair of soldiers stood guard, collecting taxes from the few people who wanted to enter. Unlike larger towns like Root, Doovan was only a little bit larger than a village, and in truth was only categorized as a town because it had walls and charged an entry tax. Not that the walls were much to speak of. They were made of trussed lumber that had been shaved to points at the top, lashed together, and driven into the ground. The gate was nothing more than a detachable frame of less durable wood, kept aside except in the event of emergencies. Judging by the amount of moss growing on it, it seemed the town never had reason to close it.

  "There are fewer soldiers than I expected. Perhaps they don't believe I would head north."

  "Into loyalist country? It seems a safe enough assumption."

  "It seems careless," Talon said. He couldn't believe the Generals would take the chance that he wouldn't head to Edgewater.

  They had veered off the road a mile down from the town, finding refuge in the tall stalks of wheat growing on a nearby farm. Two days had passed since they had split from Eryn and Fehri, enough time that the pair should have arrived at Varrow City, where Eryn would be safe under the wing of the Overlord. It was mid-day, and the sun was bright above them.

  Wilem pushed a bit of chaff from his face. "Either way, we need to get in, and getting in means passing the guards. Do you have any ideas?"

  It would have been easier on a cloudy, rainy day when it made sense to have a cloak pulled tight, hood up to stay dry. Their options were limited in full daylight.

  "The town is too small to have much of a barracks, and we didn't cross any nearby camps. There can't be more than twenty or thirty soldiers. I thought we would just go in through the gates."

  Wilem stared at him, his face paling. "Just walk right in?"

  Talon nodded.

  "What if they stop you? You don't even have a sword."

  "Then I'll take theirs. We need horses. We need supplies. There are smaller villages further off the Empire Road that may be able to furnish those things, but it will be another day out of our way to reach them."

  "We just spent the last two days skirting patrols and staying off the road," Wilem said. "I don't understand how stealing horses is going to help us more than it hurts us."

  "He has all the time in the world to hunt me down. You know we can't say the same. We're going to be exposed, at least for a while, but if we can make it into Edgewater it will be easy to disappear. Especially since you know the city well. I never spent much time there. At least not that I recall."

  Edgewater was the largest city in the Empire, considered the capital by most. Situated against the Small Sea, it was important as a trade route and crossing from the mainland Empire to a number of smaller islands that rested in the sea, islands that produced all kinds of foods, spices, furs, and cloths from plants and animals that were unique to those parts. It was also the main point of departure to the northern lands, where General Talon Rast had once led his armies.

  "I don't know it that well," Wilem said. "I was the son of a merchant. I travelled from Coin Street to our house on Gurlin Hill, and then after the Curse, to the Academy near the palace. If there are any warm beds to be found there for a fugitive and a rogue Mediator, I don't know about them."

  "Even so, you know it better than I do. There are signs to look for, to find the places that are warm to those who oppose him." Like the lines that had been painted to the cobblestone streets of Elling to warn the rebellion of the incoming soldiers, or the water buckets that were common outside of guild houses. Every group that had something to hide had some means to do so out in the open. "As for the horses, we may run into more trouble than we want to, but I brought you along for your magic as much as anything else. I saw you try to fight the Shifter. I know you're skilled."

  The compliment pulled a smile to Wilem's face. "You don't have your ircidium blade to protect you from a Mediator's attack."

  "No. You will have to protect me. Eryn's future depends on us."

  Maybe even all of our futures.

  Talon stepped out from the wheat and onto the side of the road. He climbed a small incline to where stone had been laid to smooth out the journey for carriage and horse, and to push the rainwater from the path and into the fields. He paused while Wilem caught up to him.

  "If they ask us who we are, what should I say?" Wilem asked.

  "Grandfather and grandson," Talon said. "Coming up from Varrow City, so that I can present you to the Overlord of Edgewater for placement in his army."

  Wilem nodded, and they continued their journey towards Doovan.

  They were only a few hundred feet from the gates when a thick plume of dark smoke began to rise from the rear of the town, the source obscured by the walls and by the ramshackle Constable's office that squatted in the center.

  Then they heard the screams.

  "Cursed," Wilem whispered, putting a hand to his head.

  "Where?" Talon asked, his expression turning grim.

  "Follow the smoke."

  Murderer.

  Talon felt his heart lurch, and he ran towards the gate, his pretense forgotten.

  "Hold," one of the soldiers said, stepping in front of the gate. "Not safe to go in there right now. Constable's got a Cursed cornered in old Shevan's
bakery."

  Talon's knife was through the soldier's throat before he even realized what he was doing.

  "What the-" The second soldier started drawing his blade, but a sharp missile of light and heat burned into his chest, and he fell backwards to the dirt.

  Talon leaned down, shifting the dead soldier so he could take his blade. It was standard issue, well kept, probably never used.

  "Get me the other's, too," he barked back at Wilem.

  The Mediator rushed to the soldier, kneeling and pulling his sword from its scabbard. "Subvolo," he said, tossing the sword up and pushing his hand out. The blade floated, guided by an invisible string, coming to rest in Talon's outstretched hand.

  "Now stay behind me and save your strength for the Mediator," Talon said, running through the gates and into the town.

  Nothing was paved inside. The roads were narrow and dirty, the buildings mostly the same. Worn paint, rusted hinges, broken shingles and shutters. Doovan was hardly a wealthy town, most of its trade coming in caring for the army. Talon passed two brothels, an inn, a larder, and a smith, each as run down on the outside as the next. The smoke grew thicker in front of him, and the smell of burning flesh and spilled blood reached his nose.

  The townspeople were staying away, hiding in the nearby shops or the apartments above them. As he raced down the street, he could see their faces lining the windows, watching with a mix of fear and fascination.

  He followed the smoke and the smell to what he guessed was Shevan's bakery, a three-story wood construction that was now bathed in flame. All of the soldiers stationed in Doovan were there, their backs turned to Talon, their eyes on the show.

  Four bodies lay in front of the bakery. No doubt Shevan and his family. Another boy stood amongst the soldiers, watching silently with tears in his eyes. The Mediator was... gone?

  Talon didn't let that slow him. He charged into the crowd of soldiers, only drawing attention once his blades started biting into necks, hitting the flesh where it was least protected by armor. Soldiers spun, their eyes wide with surprise, their hands dropping to their swords. The odds were nearly ten to one, but none of the men Talon attacked was powered by magic.