Forest For The Trees (Book 3)

by Damien Lake

  The blade’s hilt was thicker than any other sword’s Marik had wrapped his fingers around. Nevertheless, it felt perfectly proportioned, as Sennet’s work always did. He tilted the sword forward from the bar onto its point until he secured a solid, one-handed grip.

  Its sheath covered the entire blade and had been corded to the guard to prevent it from being drawn. Too bad. Marik would have liked to examine the blade, to see what he might expect when Sennet eventually delivered Marik’s version. His design, he knew, differed in several respects. Still, it would be good to start getting a solid feel for the new weapon type as soon as he could.

  He could tell by Rail’s manner that his father expected a certain turn of events. In all likelihood, he waited for Marik to attempt to lift a sword far heavier than any weapon ought to be, dropping it before he could bring it to bare on its owner. That would be the moment when he would strike back.

  To put a cork in that, Marik instated his strength working. Using his personal creation, etheric power ran through thousands of minute channels winding through his body, enhancing the natural flows, boosting his muscle strength. Peripherally he noticed Rail’s ear twitch slightly when the working settled into place.

  With his one hand he easily lifted the lengthy sword until its point bumped off a low rafter. Before, with his previous blades, it had felt as if he held nothing heavier than a feather. He could swing swords without regard for counter-momentum since he was able to change directions faster than a heartbeat.

  This time he could feel the enormous weight of the massive weapon. With his enhanced power, it felt equal to the black soldier’s sword that he’d been carrying for eightdays. Nearly three-quarters weight in solid steel had vanished from his notice.

  Twice he swung it at the floor, getting the feel for it. The awe from the nearby men nearly made him laugh…but Rail put them all to shame with his incredulous shock. To play it safe, Marik returned the blade to its resting place against the counter.

  “A little heavier than I expected,” Marik observed, “though that’s probably because of the sheath.”

  Rail quickly regained his composure. “That much leather can add plenty in extra weight.” He struggled for a moment, confused, then simply mumbled, “Training must be a horse of a bloody different color since I left there.”

  “Not by much,” Marik countered. “My friends tell me I’m more motivated than most. I couldn’t afford to be kicked out of the band.”

  A shrug came from Rail. Men who entered the band usually had their own reasons. Most learned not to ask too many questions. Still, he said, “It is the best paying band around.”

  “It’s also the one you were with when you vanished. After traveling across the kingdom on the Southern Road, I had to make several hard decisions about how I could possibly find you with no idea where you were. I also had to make a living in the meantime.”

  Rail’s eyes flickered again, at first in suspicion. Then, abruptly, to Marik’s fascination, he saw a new flicker where surprise replaced the wariness, followed by a dawning comprehension, one that was awestruck rather than cautious.

  “No…” Rail stretched the word out, sighing it with exhaled syllables.

  Marik met his gaze. “It’s been a very long, hard, and strange road since I left Tattersfield. But I always knew that somehow…somehow I’d finally be able to catch up to you, father.”

  * * * * *

  They spent the next candlemark talking. Or rather, Marik spoke the most while Rail came to terms with what he heard. Lilly’s death hit him hardest. It evoked the heavy breathing as before until he resembled oversized bellows in a high-production forge. Marik told of leaving the town, glossing over the aspects that struck him as juvenile now. Of his journey to Kingshome, of joining the band, of his contracts with the best mercenary fighters in Galemar.

  He explained why he looked older than he should. Rail hardly batted an eyelash at hearing how mages had twice tried to incinerate his son. Marik, with effort, maintained a stolid manner, acting as any experienced man should act. Hazards of the job.

  Through the recitation, Marik only avoided mentioning the fact that within him dwelt the ability for magecraft. He had no idea how Rail would react to learning that his son was a freak. But Rail must have guessed pieces of it since Marik lacked the talent to spin the tale’s threads in such a manner as to keep the holes hidden.

  Just when Marik concluded, a noticeable rise in the crowd took place. Rail jerked his chin in the direction of the circular construction. Beyond it was a narrow staircase hugging the wall. Down came a large man, broad enough that his shoulders brushed both wall and railing on the last step.

  From the state of his face, Marik could see he was a longtime brawler. Everything about him was squarish from his jaw to his body frame. He must spend no small amount of coin on quality clothing despite eschewing fancy materials and pompous trappings, such as lacy fringe or elaborate pocket handkerchiefs.

  “That’s Shaw,” Rail explained. “He owns this rat den. Used to be a pugilist in the fighting halls around the city. He’ll bore you until you want to gnaw off your own arm to escape if you let him talk about his old fights in front of the bluebloods.”

  “Still looks like a brawler to me,” Marik replied.

  “He earned enough to open the Queen’s Head. Or take it over, like as not.”

  Shaw moved about the room, squeezing through the tight confines with impressive ease. He called out, “Your orders, gentlemen! Give them up! The sport’s about to start, so give your orders!”

  Marik watched his father. Rail kept staring into the bottom of his third glass until Marik could no longer contain it. “Are you going to tell me why you never came home or not? Where have you been?”

  “Working.”

  “For five years? Eight now!”

  “The contract’s still open.”

  “What contract takes that long? The war with Nolier was over in a single fighting season!”

  “Marik, I don’t want you pulled into this. It’s a black dog. A jilly with long nails and sharp teeth and nothing but spite in her. It has nothing to do with you, and best it stay that way.”

  In the background, Shaw kept calling, “Go on and give your orders, gentlemen!”

  “It has plenty to do with me since it has to do with you! I can be my own judge.”

  “Boy, I—” Rail abruptly halted. Marik expected the exhaustion to hit his father. Instead, Rail’s eyes narrowed, then, annoyed, he cast a hard glare up toward the ceiling. “I’ll thank you to keep your copping nose on your own copping face!”

  Marik was stung. He opened his mouth to protest when Rail barked a new chastisement that bore no relation to the conversation. “I don’t recall asking for your flaming advice, you cheeky lizard!” He lifted a hand to his forehead, and Marik felt a strange shift through his mage senses.

  When he opened his magesight, he could see nothing at all out of the ordinary. Rail’s aura, though thinner than it ought to be, displayed no alterations. The etheric mists saturating the room looked as they should. Had he actually sensed anything?

  Rail faced him, irritated, wrestling with his thoughts. “You have duties enough to see to already, by the sound.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t handle knowing what you’ve been working on.”

  “I won’t allow you to fall into this mess.” He glanced with hesitation at his round sword-grip leaning on the bar between them.

  Marik waited patiently while Rail downed the last swallow of warmed gin. Any assurances would probably sound false. Better to sit and look like a man who could handle anything the world chose to test him with.

  “So, Spirratta then.” Rail sighed. “I’ll keep it short. I was on my way home as usual, when…a contractor ran across me. Said I was exactly the fighting man he’d been looking for. Or keeping an eye out for, if you ask me.”

  “The man with the red eyes,” Marik stated. He had glossed over that part of his knowledge since revealing it also
meant revealing how Marik had come to know of him in the first place.

  Rail shot him the hardest look yet. His tight mouth twitched. This time, Marik knew Rail would push the matter.

  Except he didn’t. Maybe he thought to provide an example of not prying where the other clearly intended not to go too deeply. “Yeah, him.”

  Marik’s curiosity had sharpened greatly over the years. It insisted on further details. “What’s his name, and what did he want? I’ve never seen eyes like that.”

  “He’s got a name, right enough,” Rail responded, flipping the glass upside down on the bar. “Problem is a normal man would need a tongue six inches long to pronounce it. I’ve never been able to spit it out, so I just call him Red.

  “As for what he wanted, it was help tracking down a walking snake-bastard he’d been chasing. He offered those gold nuggets I sent on home, and what free-sword could pass that up for a rat? That was ten years worth of contract coin, easy. Never heard of pure nuggets that fat before.

  “So we followed the trail Red had been dogging. Took us all the way north, up to the northwestern coasts in Rubia. We barely missed the snake after he slaughtered a shepherd family. Followed him around through nearly every damned kingdom on Merinor before he finally hightailed it off into the ocean.

  “You mean,” Marik asked, thinking of Tru, “off the southern coast to the archipelagos?”

  “No. Out to the west. Far to the west. Across more water than any ship in Merinor has ever dreamed of sailing. Out there are lands you never heard of. Kingdoms long forgotten, if anyone ever knew of them in the first place. That’s where he went.”

  “How did he go there if ships can’t sail that far?” It sounded like a skeptical concept at best.

  Rail merely shook his head. “He got to Arronath. That’s a kingdom large enough to make you blink when you see the copping maps of it. It could swallow everything from Nolier to Rubia whole, along with half the gulf.”

  Marik interrupted before his father could proceed any further. “Are you going to tell me why you were chasing him or not? I can’t get involved simply by knowing.”

  “You’d be surprised.” A jaundiced gaze rested on him momentarily before Rail’s face shot skyward a second time. He refrained from any exclamations, yet his expression could have curdled milk. “Against my better judgment,” he at last muttered, the words filled with meaning beyond Marik’s understanding, “I’ll give you a splinter to worry at. I doubt you’ll believe any of it since the histories older than six-hundred odd were wiped out when darling Basill destroyed the old lands so he could make them over according to his own whim. Not that the details survived much in the other Merinor kingdoms anyway.

  “Way back when…” Rail trailed off with a silent chuckle. “I sound like a copping bard, don’t I, starting like that? No, no” he added when the barman approached with a fresh glass. “I might pick up where I left off later, Dryden, but what I could use here and now is one of your head-clearers.”

  Dryden, the barman, nodded. He proceeded to mix together a gods-awful concoction with the darkest tea Marik had ever seen as a base. After a generous dollop of mustard went into the mixing vessel, he averted his eyes in mild repugnance.

  “So you’ve been away for years working on a problem that’s been lurking since before the Unification. The details must be fascinating.”

  Rail cocked his head at his son’s sarcastic slant. “Buy or sell, that’s up to you. I’m only going to tell you the facts as I’ve learned them…learned them hard. Have you ever been to the cathedral here in Thoenar?”

  “The Eternal Twelve, yeah.” A memory drifted up from his subconscious sludge. “That’s the only building in the whole city that dates back to before the Unification.”

  “On the mark,” Rail agreed. “Basill was a fellow heavy into his religion. No matter what anyone else says, you can bet his decision to put his capitol city where he did had as much to do with the cathedral as any other. He wanted it in the center of his city, but after the hell he’d raised over every inch of soil from the Stygan to the Southern Sea, the cathedral people thought he was the blackest mongrel any jilly had ever bore. They kept their doors locked against him. Couldn’t have expected that to make much difference, but Basill left well enough alone on that front. Started building his city next door to the cathedral, ripping down what was left of the buildings they’d started destroying in the war so they could plant their own seeds. By the time Thoenar expanded enough to surround the cathedral, Basill was dust in the wind and the two places had enough time to get to know each other.”

  The barman placed a taller glass before Rail. It looked like a concoction town boys would religiously dare each other to consume, then be secretly glad when their mothers called them in before the other boys could force the issue. Dryden drifted away along the bar without demanding any sort of payment.

  “And what’s all that hoo-rah have to do with anything, I can hear you thinking.” Rail raised the murky mixture to his lips and took a small sip. It made his nostrils flare. A massive inhalation fill his lungs through his nose. He pursed his lips to blow the air out.

  “It crossed my mind,” Marik admitted.

  “You’ve been in there. It’s about what you might expect from the reputation. Except, there’s one part of it that’s downright strange, isn’t there?”

  And without warning, the smile that Marik remembered broke through the weathered face. It transformed him, restoring much of what the years had stolen. Marik almost felt winter sunlight playing across his face. Looking across on a level plane to meet his father’s eye felt acutely wrong. The proper perspective should be from about two feet lower, looking upward into that confident, easy, grin.

  Marik had been here many times before. Whenever Rail left a question hanging in such a manner, it always meant he expected Marik to guess at the answer, even if he missed completely. With no trace of lingering adolescent irritation, Marik slid comfortably into the role.

  “If you aren’t talking about how the statues seem to watch you, then you’re talking about that one archway.”

  “In a bull’s eye. The cathedral keepers might still have records of why it was sealed, but everyone else has forgotten. And they sure as green grass don’t mention it in their sermons. When everyone talks about the Eternal Twelve, they always talk about the eleven gods they can name, right? They don’t so much as think about the last. Odd, don’t you agree?”

  “I’ve never thought about it much. So what’s the punch line to it? Sounds like you know well enough what happened.”

  “I do. Red told me all about it.”

  “How would he know details the rest of the world has forgotten? Unless he’s a priest who worked there.”

  That made Rail laugh. “Never a priest or a holy man, that bastard!” The humor quickly died within him. “Though he got conscience enough to be one. I don’t know half of his story. The parts I do know you wouldn’t buy from me, so I’ll leave it at saying he’s like no man you’ve ever met before. And if you live to be a shriveled gaffer your daughter-by-marriage has to dust off whenever she remembers to, you’ll never see his like again.”

  “That’s an easy sell since I already believed that much about him.”

  A single nod from Rail punctuated it. “So I ask you, what would it take to drive men in lands across the entire world to expunge a god from their thoughts? A god who most everyone accepted as a true god and not some heathen deity. Simple answer. It would take a god going barking mad, and who damn near dragged the entire world into insanity with him.”

  * * * * *

  Excerpt from introduction of “Lumin ap Veoticon”

  Archbishop of Sheirleon: Vertick Durannam

  And shadows fell across the world and the suffering was great. The altars of black obsidian ran with sacrificial blood. His priests, clad in green robes stained with crimson hue, performed His will. And His Power grew.

  The stolen Life garnered from countless sacrificed souls enab
led Him to shear away the veil separating the physical realm from His domain. And so in darkest blasphemy did a Deity cross bodily into the world.

  And yet the Earth God could not sustain physical form. He was forced back across the veil. The defeat enraged Him. He determined not to be thus thwarted a second time.

  He commanded of His priests to create a great obscenity; a great statue to act as anchor for His Power. A permanent link that could house His being and defy the veil.

  And crafted they for a decade a form from blackest obsidian glass. It stood taller than the largest of men and they set it within a basin.

  The Great War had raged unending and continued to escalate as His anchor neared completion. On the final day, His priests gathered five-thousand prisoners plundered from the Known Lands. So began a terrible baptismal right. Blood spilled over the vile blackness until the basin filled.

  The Earth God grew greater in Power. He filled the statue with His Power and His presence. The black stone came alive and many of His priests were driven mad.

  The Paladins of His armies grew stronger, empowered were they with God Power flowing into them directly from His anchor. All the Known Lands hovered on the brink of eternal darkness when the Earth God was struck down by mortal hands.

  A warrior-priest of Sheirleon visited the temples of the Eleven. He carried a vial of liquid silver for each High-Priest to call down the Powers of their God into.

  The warrior-priest and his companions did arrive by stealth in the unholy chamber. He called upon the Power of the Light, and smashed the volcanic glass with the Power of Eleven Gods.

  Power ran wild through the veil between worlds. The Power streams to His paladins burned to cast them down where they stood. The Earth God was broken and hurled across the veil, Powerless with His followers dead.

  * * * * *

  Marik kept silent while he digested the odd tale his father spun. At last, he observed, “I can’t imagine it’s healthy to be standing next to a statue containing a god after you broke it.”