"You men," he said, pointing to the six who had captured Kazick, "follow me. We ride back west with the captive. Take care that he doesn't bleed to death. The Johalid wants him alive. The rest of you," he said, "rejoin us when you have killed these two and retrieved the stone."
"What?" cried Xasho, shocked. Had he heard the man correctly? The tense looks of the warriors around him told him he had.
"You would kill a fellow warrior? A fellow son of…" but Xasho found he had no time for questions, as he barely had time to duck a spear thrust aimed at his head. As he rolled to the ground, he was faced with a terrible decision. He had failed Sidhir. Perhaps his life was demanded as the price for such failure. Choosing to live would therefore be to defy the will of a johalid. He would be branded a traitor to his people and their cause. Worse, the choice of life would mean he would be forced to raise his blades against another warrior of Vraqish—an act of cowardice and dishonor when the other was simply enacting the will of a johalid. Either way, it meant an end for Xasho, and he was momentarily paralyzed by the impossible choice.
It was a scream of pain from Jeina that made up his mind, and made his hands fly to his belt and clamp shut around the hilts of his daggers. The union of flesh and steel was accompanied by the familiar jolt of pain and odd slowing of the world around him. For the first time, however, his vision went completely black, and all was darkness before his surroundings began to fade back into focus. As a flurry of blades and haft-ends of spears made their way towards him, Xasho began a slow dance of death, weaving between the flashing arcs of metal and burying his own blades in the flesh of those around him. As his steel bit into his opponents, and the blood of his own people began to seep into the clay around him, he felt strangely empty. The pain was still there, wracking his body with every blow, but he felt as if his mind was underwater, oddly divorced from the physical agonies of battle. One by one his opponents fell as Xasho reluctantly cut them down, until none were left, and Xasho stood alone amidst the carnage he had wrought. Exhaustion brought him to his knees, and as he bent to catch his breath he saw his reflection in a pool of Curahshena blood. He gasped as he saw a face staring back at him that was not his own. A face that was older, with sunken cheeks, deeper lines, eyes that were dark and haggard, and framed by a mane of long white hair.
Chapter 51: Nicolas
Nicolas woke to the sound of intermittent creaking and the musty smell of sodden timber. Though he was sure he had opened his eyes, he could see nothing; the world around him appeared to be nothing but a uniform black void. Trying to raise a hand to his head, he found his body leaden and unresponsive, as if he were tied down by lengths of rope. For one horrible moment, he imagined himself in a coffin, being lowered into the earth, until he heard the sound of a familiar voice close-by.
"I just want to look in on him for a second, to make sure he's well. I've brought some water, he needs to drink even if he's…"
"You know the rules," interrupted another voice. "He's not to be seen by anyone, 'cept with permission of the captain."
"But I saw him just yesterday. You let me in then," said the familiar voice. Names and faces skittered through Nicolas' mind, but he found he couldn't concentrate long enough to sort out who the speaker was.
"That was different. You were with the captain then, weren't ye?"
"Please, what harm could it do? He's just an apprentice. It's his master you should be worrying about."
"Orders is orders," said the other voice, firmly but not unkindly. "Now run along lad, maybe ye can get a nice slice of bread and some butter from cookils if he's in a good mood."
"If I leave you the water, can you give it to him? You're allowed to go in and see him, right?
"I suppose I am."
"Then please, take it to him."
There was a long pause, and then Nicolas heard a sigh. "Alright lad. But don't ye get to thinking I'll do this every time ye ask."
"Thanks, Jorles."
A door opened somewhere nearby, but the flood of light Nicolas was expecting did not come. Instead, he merely heard the shuffling of approaching footsteps as someone entered the room.
"Who's there?" rasped Nicolas, his voice alarmingly feeble.
"What's that? Did I hear you say something?" said the disembodied voice somewhere above Nicolas' head.
"Who…" began Nicolas, before his words were interrupted by a weak fit of coughing.
"Rekon save us! You're awake then? Hey! Rujo! Go an' fetch the captain. The boy is awake!"
There was the sound of running footsteps, and then Nicolas heard the familiar voice above him.
"Nico? Nico can you hear me?"
"I said fetch the captain, ye dolt, not 'come on in Rujo, he's awake," said Jorles.
"He needs water," said Rujo, "let's give him some water."
A loud thwap sounded somewhere above Nicolas.
"Ow!" yelped Rujo.
"I said get the captain, lad! Don't you go ignoring my orders."
"Alright, alright," said Rujo. "Hold on there, Nico, I'll be right back."
By the time Rujo came back with the captain, the sailor called Jorles had managed to get a few ladles of water down his gullet, and had helped him up into a sitting position. The water began to clear his head, and when the captain spoke he could recognize the voice as belonging to Sir Mavonin.
"So you're finally awake then," said Mavonin. Though the man spoke in his usual boisterous tone, there was a hint of hesitation in his voice that Nicolas had not heard before. "Tell me, how do you feel?"
"I, I can't see," croaked Nicolas.
"Oh, can't you?" chortled Mavonin. "I'd have trouble seeing too if I had a dozen feet of bandages wrapped around my head."
"Nicolas lifted a hand to his face. Sure enough, he found it covered with some sort of soft, spongy bandage.
"What…what happened?" asked Nicolas. He did not remember any injury. The last thing he could remember was a song. An odd song, by an old bard. No, a young bard who had been crippled by the Baron. Little by little, the memories of Edgmere's keep came trickling back to Nicolas.
"I was hoping you could tell us what happened," replied Mavonin, his tone more serious.
"I don't remember anything after…" Nicolas looked around, "Where is Kayne?"
"Oh, so you knew the bard?"
"Yes…" said Nicolas, still trying to collect himself. "He was going to sing for Diyasa but…something happened."
"And that something was?"
"I don't know," said Nicolas.
"Well boy, I can see you're still a little dazed. I would be too if I had been unconscious for three days. But don't you worry, it's a long journey to the Isles of Three. The memories should come back to you in a while, and when they do, then maybe you can tell us why we found you unconscious in the Baron's wing of the keep with two guards, the Baron, his daughter, and a bard lying dead all around you."
Nicolas' heart jumped.
"Dead?" he asked.
"Dead," Mavonin replied. "And not a scratch on any of them."
EPILOGUE
Erwhil sat alone in his chamber as he had done every day for the better part of a century. The chains around his ankles kept his body bound to the island, but the chains that had bound his mind had long since been removed. It had been a kindness, a 'gift' from Virazil Mehlor, who had known that Erwhil's power to control the säel had been stripped from him long ago.
Yet though he could no longer shape the säel that flowed though him, no longer bend it to his bidding, Erwhil could still feel it, taste it, and recognize the signature trace of another senisthma. For years, the currents of säel which coursed throughout Esmoria had been dominated by the late King Vichtor. Oh, every now and again Erwhil could detect strange traces in the rushing currents, ones he could not identify. But the unfamiliar traces were, for the most part, feeble and confused. Erwhil could guess at their sources, and it pained him to think of so many young lives being cut short by forces within them they could not hope to understand, m
uch less control.
Vichtor's trace, the signature his manipulations left upon the säel, was powerful and unmistakable. Erwhil knew it well, for he had tutored the man in the ways of the senisthma when he was a mere boy. As the last surviving member of the Varkos Academy, Erwhil's life had been spared in exchange for his promise to educate the descendants of Urik Mehlor. It was the great secret of the Mehlor family that, though Urik Mehlor was the most celebrated hunter of false prophets of his day, he himself possessed the qualities that made his prey the target of the Church's wrath. Indeed, it had been his intimate knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the senisthma and his connections with the Varkos Academy that had made him so effective a hunter. At the time, Erwhil had justified the arrangement by telling himself he was ensuring the survival of knowledge that had taken the academy centuries to compile. He was old enough now to admit that he had accepted the bargain out of cowardice. The Mehlors were not interested in the knowledge itself, only the power it brought them, and each guarded the secrets of Varkos more jealously than the next.
Young Vichtor Mehlor's appetite for the säel had been insatiable, and from an early age he spent most of his time bending it, and therefore others, to his will. He shared Urik's obsession with keeping the power of the säel to himself, but unlike his forbearers, Vichtor had taken it a step further. He had denied the gift of säel to his own son, and instead used it to control the boy. That was why Erwhil's skills as a tutor had become obsolete, and why the day that Vichtor's trace had disappeared completely from the säel was the day Erwhil knew the King of the Blood Marsh had died.
At first, Erwhil had wondered if Esmoria had seen its last true master of the säel. He did not know whether to mourn or celebrate, for in truth, senisthma more than often seemed to perpetuate Esmoria's cycles of war and ignorance. Erwhil had thought he had made some progress with Vichtor, but in the end the power had corrupted him as well.
Erwhil was surprised therefore when, shortly after Vichtor's death, the currents of säel began to change. A faint, astonishingly subtle, yet confident trace had appeared on one of the currents from the north. Within a month, the strength of the signature had become several magnitudes greater. Unlike countless others before it, it did not merely fade away to nothingness but pulsed consistently throughout currents of säel like blood pulsing through a human's veins. Even now Erwhil could detect it in the säel flowing through him.
Then, unexpectedly, there had been a surge in the säel so strong, it momentarily disoriented the old tutor. It had been borne upon a current from the east, but had disappeared as quickly as it came. Erwhil could not remember feeling anything like it, and had barely had the chance to analyze the accompanying trace. These new developments left Erwhil both excited and disturbed. He had spent most of the last century coming to terms with what he predicted would be the extinction of his kind. He had not expected other, hitherto undiscovered, senisthma to suddenly surface. And he had certainly never expected them to be, by far, the strongest he had ever encountered.
His mind made up, Erwhil rose from his seat, his old bones creaking in protest, and shuffled into the hallway as far as his manacles would allow. He felt along the wall for the door he knew was there, and when his fingers found wood, he rapped his gnarled knuckles against it.
"Leave me be," said a voice from behind the door.
"Messenger," rasped Erwhil. "I have a message I would like you to deliver."
"I said leave me be, old man," said the voice again.
"The message is for an old acquaintance of mine in the Isles of Three," continued Erwhil, a slight smile crossing his lips. Several moments of silence followed, and then the door creaked open to reveal the unkempt visage of Vichtor's unlucky messenger.
"Off the Island?" he demanded. "Paeter said I would never be permitted to…"
"Paeter cannot know of this," interrupted Erwhil.
"Then how can…?"
"This island has been my prison longer than Paeter, or anyone living here, has been alive. Before that it was my home. I know its secrets. Yet, I am too old and frail to brave the sea. I long ago resigned myself to the fact I would be buried here, but you are a younger man, and need not accept the same fate. Give me your word that you will deliver this one last message, and I will tell you how to escape this prison."
"You have it," swore the messenger, clasping Erwhil's wizened hand is his own.
PREVIEW
Book Two of the Azhaion Saga:
THE POINT OF A BLADE
One hundred paces north of the old church ruins, fifty paces west, and sound the call of the owl. The words rattled in the back of Myrii's head as she counted each step forward. When the wind blew, she could feel a chill where tears had traversed her face, and it was all she could do to keep her teeth from chattering.
Her dusken journey through the forest would haunt her for the rest of her life. She had seen the gray demons in every stray shadow, heard their steps in every rustle of a leaf or snap of a twig. Twice she had stumbled and fallen, and each time she was convinced that she had given herself away. She imagined their shapes emerging from the shadows, the glint of the moonlight on their grave-gray hides as they came for her and the touch of their claws upon her skin as they ripped her soul from her body. When the fear took hold all she wanted to do was to run; to pick a direction, never look back, and run until her body collapsed. But she could not, for she would surely lose herself in the forest, and tonight her only chance of survival was contingent on finding one specific place.
Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty. She had come to the end of her journey. If the rumors were untrue, or if she had misremembered the instructions, it would only be a matter of time before she was found by a prowling demon or one of their thraells, the soulless husks of men and women who served the will of the gray abominations. She had taken such care to pass silently through the forest; she now balked at making any sound. Once more she considered abandoning her purpose, but she was stayed by the knowledge that other lives depended on her success this night. Slowly, hesitantly, she did her best to imitate the call of an owl.
A few moments passed in silence. What was supposed to happen? The rumors had promised safety and aid to those who sought it, but beyond the instructions on how to find the Oaken Few, they offered no details. The silence was unbearable. Had she come to the wrong place? Myrii opened her mouth to once again sound the call of the owl and screamed as a large hand clamped on her shoulder and another pressed over her mouth to muffle her cries.
"Hush," whispered a voice in her ear. "You have sounded the call of the owl and we have answered."
The slim figure of a man appeared before her, his face partially masked by a leather cowl.
"If you are a friend, you have nothing to fear," he began in a measured, polished tone that reminded Myrii of the many sermons she had listened to as a child, "but in these troubled times, when the souls of monsters masquerade in the bodies of men, we can take no chances."
The cowled man held up a bottle, the liquid inside rippling in the moonlight. "You must drink this." As he uncorked the bottle, his comrade behind her lifted his hand from Myrii's mouth. Still quaking slightly with fright, Myrii eyed the bottle suspiciously.
"What is it?" she breathed.
"A simple spirit," replied the cowled man. "It will not harm you, but to match its potency, you would have to drink six tankards of ale. After quaffing it, you may become ill or fall asleep. You might even feel compelled to dance around in your small clothes."
The big man behind her chuckled.
"But why…why must I—"
"Because," interrupted the cowled figure, "if you were a denizen of the beasts they call the gröljum, you would be revealed to us. As their sorcerous powers gradually lost their dominion over your inebriated body, you would begin to jerk uncontrollably, your eyes would bounce back and forth inside of your skull, you would fall to the ground, and your tongue would begin to coil and uncoil like a frog's. I have seen it before—a terr
ible sight."
"How will you be sure I am not just drunk?" asked Myrii. She had not known what to expect from the Oaken Few, but certainly had not expected this.
"There is a difference," replied the cowled man. "I am almost certain that I could not mistake the one behavior for the other."
Almost? thought Myrii. That was no comfort. "Do I have a choice?" she wondered aloud.
"No," replied the cowled man. He pressed the bottle to her lips and after an instant of hesitation she drank.
"Careful Jon," Myrii heard the big man behind her say. "She's just a slip of a woman and too much of that will put her out cold."
"We can't take any chances, Edwin," said Jon, his voice tinged with regret. "But since she is just a slip of a woman, you should have no trouble carrying her."
As the spirit warmed her stomach, a strange sensation enveloped her mind, as if her thoughts had suddenly become suspended in water. She began to feel more comfortable in the grip of the stranger behind her. After all, his voice was not unkind. She let herself sink back into his chest and felt his strong arms wrap around her in support.
"By Rekon, it's working fast," said Edwin.
"She doesn't appear to have been corrupted," said Jon.
"Told you she wasn't, I can always tell."
"You say that about all the pretty ones," scoffed Jon. "Well it doesn't look like we'll be getting much information out of her tonight. Best bring her to the Nest, and see if she's up to talking in the morning."
Though most of her thoughts were in the process of floating away, a few remained firmly in the grasp of Myrii's consciousness. She spoke them.
"My name is Myrii," she managed to slur out. "I take care of the ponies and I was sent…fifty paces west; sent by Lady El."
The Weight of a Crown (The Azhaion Saga Book 1) Page 47