by Dan Allen
Her heart beat with expectation.
He fingered the brim of the hat in his hand and spoke in a low tone. “Interesting work.”
Reann blushed slightly. She stopped dusting and looked up into his eyes.
Having her full attention, he continued. “I have something that may be of more interest to you. There is a mystery here . . . about which I have some clues.”
Reann’s eyes widened. She suppressed the grin that tried to sneak onto her face. It was happening at last.
“I ask for your help,” the handsome young man said, “but only if I may have your solemn word to not speak of anything I may tell you.”
“I cannot promise not to tell anything,” Reann said. “For if telling is the lesser of two evils, it would be the better choice.”
“You speak too much like an educated lady,” he said delightedly.
“That is very kind of you,” Reann replied, wary of the flattery—she did this sort of buttering-up all the time to Ret.
“I suggest a compromise,” he offered. “I will tell you what I am looking for. If you deem it a worthy cause, you will promise to aid me without disclosing our findings, except by my permission. You are already the keeper of many trusts, no doubt?”
Reann likely kept more secrets than anyone else in the realm—all five realms if it came to that.
“Agreed,” she said confidently. The rush was upon her. She was going to hear a secret.
The man gestured to the chair opposite him at the reading table. Reann seated herself with her legs together and to the side, as etiquette suggested.
“Are you loyal to the kingdom of Toran?” he asked, his earthy eyes gazing directly into hers. “Say either way, it doesn’t matter to me.”
“I am loyal, for my part.”
“Good enough,” the man replied quickly.
Reann breathed a sigh of relief.
“There is reason to believe,” he said, whispering and leaning very low over the table, almost speaking into the hat in his hands, “that Toran did, in fact, leave heirs.”
Reann’s mouth opened as a feeling of joy and disbelief washed over her. The uncertainty churning in her stomach turned to excitement. Was it fate that had brought them together to find the heirs?
And the heirs were just the beginning of the mystery. There was the mark of Toran, his inner circle, his lost memoirs, and the Lyrium Compass. What was a Lyrium Compass? What did it mean? Was it a gathering, an organization, some ingenious invention?
Seated across from the handsome lord, who could only be five years older than her at most, Reann’s spine tingled with interest. She shrugged casually. “I’ve heard that rumor.”
“Five heirs, to be precise,” he continued, emphasizing that he knew they existed—more than mere hope. “And I intend to find them. Will you help me?”
Reann wondered whether there was a catch, but it was all quite simple. She would help the man find the heirs. There was nothing else to it, except the secrecy. Reann could easily understand that. Toran had many enemies. Information in the wrong hands could betray the heirs.
Satisfied that she was not doing anything dishonest or rash, she replied, “Well . . . why not?”
“Will you swear?”
“I accept your offer,” Reann said decisively. “What token will you have of my pledge, an oath on the Guardians’ golden gate or the fires of the seventh hell? I’ve made plenty of both.”
“Only the token of the honest heart,” he said, apparently unsuperstitious. “But I suppose if we are to be engaged on the same cause, I ought to at least know your name.”
Introductions between different classes were always awkward, and this belated one doubly so, but it meant she would be on par with him and she would be part of the mystery. Reann gave a measured smile. “I’m Reann.”
“And you may call me Verick.”
“Lord Verick,” Reann mused, trying to place the origin of the name.
“Oh, it’s a common enough name in Treban,” the visitor said quickly.
Reann knew he had not used his real name, but proceeded amicably anyway. How she knew he lied, she couldn’t tell, but she always knew. Always.
Despite his acting, this man claimed to possess clues to the greatest mystery of the age, one Reann had pursued since her childhood. This Verick was worth entertaining.
“Here is the trouble,” Verick said. “Toran spent most of his life crusading. He could not defend an heir here in Erdal while he was off on a military campaign.”
“Naturally,” Reann said politely.
Verick continued quietly as if to avoid being overheard, though there was nobody else in the library. “That suggests his heirs were born on his campaigns.”
Her mind already engaged on the puzzle, Reann stood and faced a large wall map of Toran’s united realm at its zenith. She traced a finger along the route of Toran’s conquests: north, east, south and west. “If the heir was born on a campaign, then the mother would have been someone close to Toran, someone with whom he traveled.”
“Local nobility?” Verick suggested.
“Not likely,” Reann replied.
“What do you mean? Surely Toran, a king, would never have joined with a common peasant.”
“At war Toran fought and slept in the field beside his soldiers,” Reann explained. “He would reap from sunup to sundown alongside his own farmers. The uniter of the five realms was no respecter of station. Noble or not, Toran judged by heart, not by inheritance.”
Slouching, Verick made a grimace. “But the thought of such a union is rather . . . disconcerting.”
“Not to a peasant,” Reann said. “That is the key.”
Verick sat up straight. “What is the key?”
“Toran’s enemies were nobles themselves. They would be on the lookout for babies born to noblewomen out of wedlock or to ladies whose husbands were away during the month of conception. According to Toran’s wisdom, his heir would appear to his enemies as a mere commoner.”
“But that is the very point,” Verick exclaimed, putting his fist into his hand. “It’s infuriating. How is anyone to know who the heirs are? How are the heirs themselves to know?”
“That’s why you’re here. Isn’t it?” Reann guessed. “You want a list.”
“Well, I thought I might find something concrete.”
“Such as a roster of names and birthplaces,” Reann said.
“Er, yes.”
She shook her head. “Why would he ever do such a careless thing as to record every piece of evidence regarding the heirs on a single parchment?”
Verick self-consciously tucked a leather folder jutting out of his waistcoat back into its pocket. “There are . . . indications—clues, as it were—about the heirs. All very cryptic, I’m afraid. Perhaps the two of us can piece all of the meanings together.”
“Such as?” Reann replied in a level voice.
“Does this couplet mean anything to you? The eyes of the blind see anew; They behold his fortress ever true.”
Reann gave a considering nod. “Perhaps it refers to someone who doubted Toran—didn’t see his potential—but then turned to his side once he became powerful. Perhaps a mother was a former enemy?”
“Speculation,” Verick said, unimpressed by her improvisation. He sat forward and rubbed his thumb and forefinger as if holding a lucky charm. “Feels like I’m missing something obvious.” He turned his shoulder in a moment of indecision. “Have you ever heard the name Dariel?”
Reann’s breath caught in her throat. She had seen the name only in the secret document she had burned the day Verick had arrived.
Should she tell him?
She had agreed to help but hadn’t volunteered to tell everything she knew, or even to answer all his questions—a useful caveat. If she started talking about it, where would she stop? Obv
iously Toran was hiding the information in the diary by having it scribed into an arcane language. Was it hers to reveal?
“I have heard,” Reann said, “that she was Toran’s travel guide in the Outlands.” She added quickly, “But I have no documents on the matter.” That part was true.
Verick nodded. “Hearsay is of value as well. There is often a nugget of truth in every rumor.”
Reann let out the breath she had been holding. If that had been a test, she had just passed.
Verick stood up and tugged his waistcoat into place over his belt and scabbard. “I shall meet you here again in the morning.”
Reann gave a short bow. “Do get some rest, sir. I shall attend to my duties this evening to give us sufficient time to research the problem on the morrow.”
“Excellent.”
“And . . . shall I cast a hint among the busybodies that you are investigating a land dispute?”
“Yes, that is as good an excuse as I could imagine. That will explain all our peering at maps and old documents.”
When Reann had seen him to his rented quarters, she dropped into the laundry chute, and slid to the kitchen, where she finished the day’s many remaining dishes. Then she returned to the library, her head awash with new thoughts and new hopes, but weighed by an equal measure of new fears. Chief among them was the fear that she might actually succeed. Her life would be utterly transformed, no longer a servant, but a courtier—a translator, like her mother had been. No more worrying about the fate of the realm. She could imagine that, having a king and queen in the castle, and children—princes and princesses. She could be a royal tutor.
That kind of stability and stature would attract suitors—educated ones, travelers, traders, merchants, perhaps even nobles.
Perhaps not nobles. But still . . .
It all depended on whether she could trust Verick. One part of her wanted to believe him.
Her tabby cat, Ranger, appeared at her side. He rubbed his fur along her leg, begging for her attention.
“The pieces don’t add up, Ranger,” she said, picking up the overweight cat and scratching its head. “You saw that man Verick, didn’t you? He wasn’t wearing any jewels or rings or anything like that. I’ve seen nobles from Treban. They have mines. They always wear big gaudy jewelry to prop up their pride. You’d get along quite well with them, I think. You’re always chasing after things that clink.”
Ranger kneaded his claws into her arm.
“Well it’s true. But you probably think this Verick fellow left off the jewels for safe travel,” she said matter-of-factly as she drifted past geologic treatises and into the geography section.
“But his ears weren’t even pierced—did you see that? And he kept his hands upon his hat, as if he weren’t accustomed to fingering other things like rings or bracelets or necklaces. So he isn’t Trebani. The southern accent was real, though. That’s the mystery of it.
“He could be from a little farther south, Ruban perhaps. What do you think?”
Ranger hissed.
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
Reann’s heart beat heavier in her chest as she clutched a volume labeled Ruban. There was a missing piece, she realized.
What’s in it for him?
Chapter 7
24 years earlier. Serbani Coast.
Nestled in the fortress-like walls of the secluded harbor were more than a hundred ships. The assembled fleet of battle frigates, converted fishing boats, and merchant vessels slept in the morning calm, slack sails hanging like gray tapestries in the misty air.
An old seaman sat peeling potatoes on a stool on the deck of Toran’s flagship, the North Forest.
Standing nearby, Toran noted the old man stopping to rub his knees.
An old man’s aches were a sure sign of a storm. Even Toran, only a year shy of forty, could feel the dropping pressure in his bones as wisps of fog moved quickly through the harbor. A sail flapped as the breeze took up the slack.
“I told yer,” said the man. “I said it was comin’—the big one. Better to weather it in the hollow than out on the open seas. Ay. Those waves will be heavin’ to heaven and higher.”
“And what of the enemy?” Toran asked. The unassuming opinion of an old sailor was worth a dozen midshipmen. “Won’t they seek shelter? What if they come here?”
“Plenty of spots for shelter on the coast,” said the old man. “No, they won’t find us, never. There’s three hundred and seven fjords on this stretch of the southern bend—the easier for smuggling.”
“The witch queen’s smugglers and pirates know these harbors almost as well as my Serbani captains,” Toran noted. “Still, with the hurricane brewing, they’ll have their own necks to worry about. I doubt they’ll be hunting us.”
“Quit yer worrying and start peeling.” The sailor tossed a small kitchen knife to Toran, the supreme commander of the alliance.
Toran tucked it into his belt. “Weather permitting.”
Two more sails flapped hard, then a third.
“It’s begun.” Toran whirled about and barked orders to the yeoman on the watch. “Sound quarters. I want every ship in the harbor secured tighter than a—” Toran cut off his colorful sea-speak as a cabin boy emerged from the pilot’s map room.
Bells rang out one after another across the harbor. Decks filled with seamen who bolted up the webbing to tie down the sails.
“Are we going to shore for the storm?” the cabin boy asked Toran, with a touch of hope in his voice.
“No, Nehal. A captain does not leave his ship. Besides, we’re still waiting for three more ships from Ruban to rendezvous. I can’t go to shore when my men are at sea fighting that storm.”
“The men say we’ll be barfing sea biscuits all over the place when the waves get rolling. And we can’t open the portholes either or it will let in too much water.”
“I’ll take it under consideration.”
“Why are we in this harbor?” Nehal asked.
The lad was much too keen.
“I think this place holds some . . . promise,” Toran replied.
“What makes you think this place is special, sir? I see no shadows of the future here—it is . . . just empty.”
“The doings of a conqueror are not so easily explained to a cabin boy.”
“I think you chose this harbor for a reason,” said the boy. “I saw your markings on the map.”
“I erased those markings.”
“It’s not my fault I see better than most.”
“Don’t you have studying to do?”
“No, sir. I’ve finished all three books you gave me to read. I’ve started reading the maps, but there isn’t much to learn—just memorizing places.” He leaned closer and whispered. “I can see them in my mind, like paintings—even places I’ve never been to.”
Of course, Toran thought, his mother is a witch. Such odd abilities thrived in the Serban race. The power of change was so concentrated in the coastal clan, even more than the Montazi. Early in life, their gifts were ambiguous. But in the end, fate would give them only the power to change one thing: dreams or plants, moods or motion, winds and waves, or as Nehal’s mother, healing wounds, the power to stop death. When they died, that power passed to a younger magician in the very same day. Each power was unique to one Serbani.
Though Nehal was Toran’s ward, he had taught the boy nothing about the life cycle of Serbani magicians. He kept many things to himself.
Hard work, brotherhood, and loyalty were as powerful as any curse a witch could conjure.
Except Tira.
“Have you ever met any of your mother’s relatives, Nehal?” Toran asked.
“No, sir.”
“Don’t.”
“Yes, sir. Can I climb the mast? I want to watch for the Rubani ships.”
“No, stay by
me. I may need you.”
“Yes, sir.”
At least the boy had enough discipline not to complain about the admiral of the makeshift fleet being overprotective. The lanky six-year-old cabin boy already had a year at sea. He learned twice as fast as the junior officers and remembered twice as much.
“Have you turned seven yet?” Toran asked.
“No, sir.”
“Well, you’d better hurry it up.”
“Yes, sir. I’m working on it every day.” Nehal cracked a rare smile.
A gust of wind rippled over the water, rocking boats like corks in a bucket. A second gust followed, blowing around the cove as if looking for an exit and not finding one.
It never stopped.
“Is this your first hurricane?” Toran asked over the noise of the rising wind.
“Yes, sir—look at that.” Nehal suddenly pointed to the inlet at the gap in the cliffs. “Another ship has come.”
Toran stared. The prow of the vessel was just discernible in the distance—a dragon’s head.
“Guardians help us, Nehal. They found us.”
“Hersians!” Nehal shouted. “Hersians in the cove!”
Toran flinched as the first broadside thundered. A barrage of cannon balls tore into decks and exploded into the hulls of the outermost Serbani ships. Each blast felt as though it were taking a piece of Toran’s heart.
Thousands of Toran’s loyal sailors turned their eyes to the sea. All at once they knew the horror of the predicament.
On the brisk inbound wind dozens of corsair ships rounded the point, blocking the only route out of the harbor, setting off their cannons in turn and obliterating the unlucky first line of Serbani fighting ships.
Trapped in the secluded harbor, Toran’s ships were clustered densely with hatches latched, sails furled, and anchors dropped in anticipation of the incoming storm.
They were dead in the water, or soon would be.
Forsaking rank, Toran joined the sailors in hauling lines to set the sails. In moments, the pace on the deck of his flagship increased to utter chaos.
Commands to weigh anchor sounded belatedly across the decks of nearby ships. More took cannon fire as the enemy ships poured into the gap and emptied full broadsides into virtually helpless vessels.