Forest For The Trees (Book 3)

by Damien Lake

  Marik considered the implications. Whatever had been done to his father’s talent had altered it. This, by the accounting, allowed Rail to perform any number of intense combat techniques. Taking the custom-forged sword into the equation, which surely meant one of those techniques was similar to Marik’s strength working, the kkan’edom fighting abilities must make them awesome forces on the battlefield. What if strength enhancement were only the beginning?

  On the other hand…there was Rail’s obvious state. He had looked unwell when Marik first scryed him over a year ago. Sitting on the stool, he looked much worse. Whatever the benefits, the sheer toll being a kkan’edom took on the body must be staggering. And that might be a natural consequence of having his talent twisted. Rail might suffer equally as much whether or not he ever used those supposed techniques.

  How similar were his and Rail’s techniques in truth? The advanced image training that Marik had learned from Sennet had, in actuality, originated from his father, and at a point after Rail had taken up with the Red Man. He pressed Rail for the details of exactly what he did when he needed to act as a kkan’edom.

  Rail was hesitant. He believed this to be an area well within the realm he wished to protect his son from. Marik found it easier to keep pressing him if he kept his eyes watching the ratting match. When scant details at last came, the first question had a surprisingly clear answer.

  Though similar in nature, the two techniques were very different. Marik fueled his by using his talent as a link to provide outside energy to the channel network within his muscles. Rail, though boosting his muscles in a like fashion, had no such link to the etheric planes. His energy source sprang solely from what life energy his body naturally produced.

  At first that seemed a detriment. Later, Marik saw that it might be absolutely necessary in certain cases. An outside source would interfere with the bizarre twisting which the mage talent was being put to use. Marik shelved that in a rear mental corner. There would be time enough to pursue further information on that later. Besides, Rail had grown increasingly resistant.

  The conversation also confirmed a fact Marik had long suspected. Rail mentioned that the average human only used about twenty-five percent of his natural strength in his daily life. Normal people could only call on their full strength in moments of incredible need. A mother could hurl a toppled wagon off her trapped child, or a man could shift boulders to rescue a friend trapped by a landslide. Later, they would suffer from tremendous physical shock and adrenaline poisoning, paying the price for their superhuman feat.

  Marik’s strength normally increased by roughly three times when he used his strength working. If he completely flooded his channels, he could goose it up to around a factor of four. He had always known that the stronger he was in an ordinary state, the stronger he could become using the strength working. At last he understood the entire truth of it.

  The strength working did not, in fact, grant him any additional strength. It only enabled him to fully tap into the strength he already possessed without sending his body into reaction shock.

  While a white terrier shredded rats to the encouragement of its owner, Marik returned to the path Rail had attempted to lead him down before. Rail related how the chase had driven Xenos across the sea, though he still refused to discuss how that had been possible, to the forgotten caverns of the Earth God’s ancient temple, to his stealing a position as a councilor beside the Arronathian king, to his apparent obsession with returning to Merinor.

  “That’s what I’d give two harems and a sack full of dreams to know,” Rail replied when Marik asked what Xenos could possible want so badly. “Could be about damned near anything, as long as it made him stronger.”

  “If he’s resurrected an old faith enough to have followers and if he sacrifices people every few days, then he’s got all the power he needs. Or could use. The harvest in life energies must be fantastic if he’s keeping it all for himself.”

  “Too many assumptions, boy. Don’t leave out good old-fashioned human nature. You’ve seen men obsess over things that meant nothing, simply because at one time it used to mean a good piece. Could be he’s still dreaming about taking the filly to bed who lived next door in his village.”

  “I doubt a harvester would be concerned about that. But since he’s the real reason the Arronaths are invading, I need to find out what his ultimate goal is, if I can. I have to present my ideas to the council soon. Knowing the enemy’s objective could be a key element to jamming a stick in their spokes.”

  Rail began to chuckle softly under his breath, which had grown weary. “I’m still struggling to get a handle on that particular coach.”

  “I didn’t ask to ride in it,” Marik grumped. “They shoved me headfirst through the door.”

  “Whatever the cause, don’t worry too much. If I have my way, Xenos will be producing a whole generation of fat worms before he can kick up any new troubles.”

  “He’s caused trouble enough! With Nolier acting up, we can’t afford frontlines on both sides. Why didn’t this eul-whatsit kill him when you had the chance, before he got too strong for you to fight directly?”

  “Because Red has a past, and it weighs heavily on his shoulders. Don’t let my jilly-bitching put you off doing a proper job of things, son. Remember, anything worth doing is worth doing the best way you can.”

  “I know. I’ve always remembered that.” Marik suddenly felt insanely weary himself. He might have been tempted to ask Shaw if any rooms were available…except the smell of hot rat’s blood must saturate the entire building. The walk back to the palace through the evening air would clear his nose enough that he could sleep.

  Before he left for the night, he asked Rail one last question that had been growing steadily in his mind. “Why did it happen in the first place? A god going mad.”

  Rail’s eyes had reddened. Marik suspected he had consumed twice as much gin as he usually did in a single night since taking up residence in the Queen’s Head. “To put it simply, the Earth God was an opium addict.”

  “Come again?” He knew he could not have heard that correctly.

  “The God of Earth. Sounds nice, don’t it? Farmers used to pray to Him the most. They would bury fish in the burrows alongside the seeds they planted since the decomposing flesh made for good, healthy plants, not to mention the lingering life energy in the bodies would also seep into the soil. Then you have battlefields. All that fresh energy leeching into the dirt. You’ve seen it.

  “Anything that affected the dirt would eventually affect Him too. He had the faith and the prayers of His followers to sustain Him, keep Him strong. But on top of it, the blood and life force from wars kept seeping into Him through the soil. Finally reached the point where He liked the taste of that better than what His followers offered Him through their faith. Once you gain a taste for power, nothing else ever satisfies you the same way. Opium users always need to get the next dose. The Earth God finally got to where all He ever wanted was more of the sweet power feeding into Him through the soil men fought and died on.”

  And that, Marik concluded, proved that nothing in creation was infallible. Even gods. Which made the world a much scarier place to be than he had ever believed possible.

  On the walk back to the palace he realized he had never thought to ask what the Earth God’s name had been. Not that it mattered. He had learned far more from his father than from all the men in Trask’s camp combined. A minor portion would be useful for the presentation to the council. Everything else was of importance only to him.

  The twisting of an unborn mage talent…it made his spine crawl. True, it granted the sort of techniques he actually valued as an elite warrior, but was the price worth it? Would this Red Man’s dawdling in a years-long quest finally burn his father out, ruining his body until it killed him?

  Still so many questions that only occurred when he slowed down enough to think them through. What would Xenos do with the religion he had resurrected? Keep on with his private blo
od-services indefinitely, or push his followers to greater evils? He would make notes on the most important questions in his room as soon as he returned so that tomorrow night, when he returned to the Queen’s Head to share dinner with Rail, he would not forget a single one.

  But when he arrived the next night, Shaw told him that his two tenants had departed earlier in the day, paying their bill and leaving no information in their wake.

  Chapter 08

  Marik squeezed Ilona’s hand beneath the table of the upper class establishment she had insisted they come to for dinner. Across the table, if Dietrik, through his typical efforts to be cute, so much as brushed Rosa’s knuckles under the hanging cloth, Marik imagined the woman would give him the rough edge of more than just her tongue.

  This was a new experience for him. Only city-dwellers would have the time or luxury to dream it up. When Ilona had expressed her desire to find a meal, rather than have the Standing Spell’s kitchen provide, he’d assumed they would find a tavern that employed a reasonably talented cook. Instead she had ordered him to dig out whichever clothing in his pack bore the least stains or did not yet look fit to burn. Rosa, the Spell’s receptionist, had agreed to join them at Ilona’s invitation to augment Dietrik’s presence.

  Then Ilona had brought them here. Marik guessed it must be called a common room. Guessed, because it looked like none he’d been in before. Tables filled it. No countertop bar ran along any wall, nor were you even allowed to find an available table on your own. A server escorted the customers to an empty table, as if the owner believed every blighted soul in the city was a thief out to strip any of his valuables they could steal, given the opportunity. He might have taken affront at the insult if Ilona’s battering ram gaze had not forced him to swallow his protests the instant she sensed him on the verge of voicing them.

  For the first time, Marik thanked the circumstances that had forced him to master reading. Asking the server what the kitchen had available would certainly have been a mistake, given Ilona’s demeanor. He was mystified at how the cook could possibly make dozens of different dishes on demand without any warning whatsoever. Despite that, all four had ordered a different dish after studying the list their server provided. Marik expected they would be forced to wait two or three candlemarks before the food arrived. It struck him as silly…but if it made Ilona happy, then…

  The quiet atmosphere made him uncomfortable. No one spoke above a hushed tone. What level of inefficiency would the nobility fall in love with next? A person came in and apparently waited half the night to eat a simple meal with no other amenities. He would have to go someplace else to find a minstrel playing, or dice to roll, or entertainment of any variety. Leave it to the aristocracy to ruin a perfectly good system when they could. Give him a solid tavern any day.

  Dietrik continued regaling a tale from his youth in a Stygan Gulf port town. This particular recounting described an event where a trading ship from Vyajion had caught fire while berthed at the docks. Ilona listened with interest, as she always did when business matters of any sort came up. Rosa, who Dietrik hoped to impress, only paid polite attention.

  When Dietrik ended with smoking pier fragments floating out to the central gulf, Rosa registered only slight awareness that she realized the story was over. This hardly dampened Dietrik’s fortitude. Since the summer before, he had set his sights on the stoic lady. She, as adamantly, ignored his existence.

  The silence unsettled Marik. He had plenty to say that could fill the void…except he wanted to speak to Ilona alone. Making the best sally he could under the circumstances, he mentioned, “I’m glad my letter caught you before you left Kerwin’s. I was afraid you might have already gone.”

  Ilona’s brown eye took him in. She watched him sideways. Marik’s unease increased. Was she remembering the first letter he had left for her when he departed along the Southern Road? Since reuniting with her earlier that afternoon, he had yet to find an opportunity to discuss that particular missive with her. It left him wondering where he stood in her esteem.

  “The ferry charged by the baggage. You owe me half a silver.”

  “That much to carry one parcel up the river?” Dietrik asked, incredulous. “Perhaps I should retire and start a portage service!”

  “It’s that much for thirty pounds of steel,” Ilona elaborated. “The ferrymen have started weighing baggage, rather than counting the number.”

  “Any angle they can work,” Marik grunted. “They’re as bad as rivermen if you give them any leeway to take what they can.”

  Rosa stuck her oar into the water. “Considering the amount a standard ferryboat can load and maintain buoyancy through calm waters or foul, then linking potential profit from a single journey to the cargo rather than the number of passengers is the most sensible approach.”

  “You see, mate?” Dietrik stated, his amused gaze fixed on the curling ends of Rosa’s hair bobbing up and down under her chin. “A skilled talker can make anything sound reasonable. All the more reason to have her come work for me after I buy a few barges.”

  She ignored that with the same efficiency she had hitherto displayed regarding him.

  The server stopped by to refresh Ilona’s and Rosa’s wineglasses. Earlier, the same man had reluctantly found enough ale in the kitchen to fill two tankards for the men. He had yet to offer a refill on either.

  “Business is about finding the best return on your operations,” Ilona stated. “Anything worthwhile in life is the same way.”

  “I wouldn’t quite put it that way,” Marik answered. “There are times when you have to put in a lot of effort for only a minimal gain.”

  Dietrik met his eye. Clearly he understood Marik referred to the endless training sessions he engaged in while at Kingshome.

  “If the gain was valuable,” Ilona countered, “then it was worth the effort, whatever it was. Having a tight hold over a niche in the market is invaluable, and it requires harder work than you’d imagine to keep others from gaining a foothold. The slightest grip could allow others to build a presence that quickly cuts into your profits.”

  “That is if the others are playing by conventional rules,” Dietrik observed. “A clever chap can find ways to break into any fortress.” He glanced sideways at Rosa with a grin.

  “Of course, “ Ilona returned. “That’s why the successful business operators spend their time thinking of ways to achieve what they have already gained, then moving to ensure that others won’t blindside them with it. The best players are the ones who can think unconventionally, and can see matters from perspectives that no one else yet has.”

  “I suppose that’s why you’re obsessed with finding every social loophole you can while you plan out your new location’s opening,” Marik quipped.

  “Have you ever run a serious enterprise?” Ilona scoffed, her depthless eyes taking on her customary steely edge. “Of course you haven’t! If you ever tried, I have no doubt you would hammer it into the ground within a month.”

  Marik felt the scowl crawling across his face. Before he could reply, Dietrik came to his defense. “Hardly, lass. Oh, given the type of business you meant, I would say that is out of our waters, under our current expertise. But you could make an easy case that the present situation is every bit a ‘serious enterprise’ as you could have.”

  “And how is that running?” Ilona asked. A quirk pulled at her mouth. Her amusement usually came at Marik’s expense, he had long since noticed. “I gathered the main points earlier. What did the council say when you addressed them this afternoon?”

  “Nothing pleasant,” Marik revealed, his mood souring fast. He kept looking for an opening to talk to her about personal matters, except every conversational foray she made led in directions too awkward to steer the course he wanted. “The only one who enjoyed it was the knight-marshal. He about broke his facial muscles smirking when I had to ask for additional time.”

  “How did Raymond and Torrance take it?” Dietrik wanted to know. “I still find it ha
rd to understand why they expect anything from you in the first place.”

  “No one was happy. Celerity was the only one siding with me, explaining how the information we need isn’t being gathered as quickly as they had hoped.”

  “Well, that was right nice of her, seeing as she never bothered to tell you much in the first place.”

  “That’s what I was thinking, but it seemed best to kept quiet about that.”

  “Since you found time to come to the Spell,” Ilona interjected, “I assume they granted you a deadline extension. But no doubt you intend to spend the night sweating over your labors, regardless of their approval.”

  Marik opened his mouth before the sparkle in her gaze abruptly made him interpret the meaning of her words in a whole new light. It appalled him that, despite his age, a burn rose in his cheeks. He shot a quick glance at Dietrik, who, thankfully, devoted his attention to Rosa. On the other hand, Rosa looked past Dietrik to stare mercilessly back at him.

  Despite saying nothing, he believed he could read some sort of judgement in her silent appraisal. She had said little all evening, acting like the fifth wheel she was. Why had Ilona wanted to bring her along in the first place?

  “I’m not sure how,” Marik forcefully announced to move the moment along, “but Tru promised that his team was scurrying hard for answers.”

  Dietrik glanced away from Rosa’s helmet-like hairstyle. “Trask is finally sorting out who’s who in the prisoner camp. It has been a real job getting anything out of that bunch.”

  “At least it gives you things to do during the day instead of watching the army boys dance across the field.”

  That brought a wry smile from his friend. “It is not much fun watching them go at it, no. It reminds me too much of when I was running those foolish drills as a recruit.” He shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “We finally figured out that we could tell who understood Traders by substituting the word for ‘rank’ with the one for ‘penis’. In Traders, they sound similar. Wyman played the part of a blowhard army captain, stalking around, demanding that the prisoners respect his rank and confess, or hollering to be obeyed because his rank was far superior to theirs. After a while, even the card players with the best stone faces cracked a tad.”