by Mike Shel
The aged woman gathered herself and stood, brushing a speck of lint from her simple tunic. The emotion had passed, and she was back to business. “Focus on what must be accomplished and we will care for Agnes. Hopefully Gower Morz is alive on Kenes and willing to speak with you. Surely he possesses some useful recollections. And whoever serves as prior at St. Besh, let’s pray that you are persuasive and he’s amenable to our mission.”
“We can’t get anyone at court to rescind the priory’s jurisdiction over the Djao site?”
“I’ve tried. No,” she said with a sigh and shake of her head. “When I petitioned the throne, they turned the matter over to the College of Divinity. The bloody priesthood of Timilis weighed in on the request. The denial was written by its new high priest—Lopaas is his name. The man droned on and on about ‘sacred religious entitlements’ and putting our trust in the servants of the gods. Why would that blasted cult of cozeners give a fig about this?”
Auric furrowed his brow. Rae puffed out her cheeks and let loose another weary exhalation. “Regardless, I’ve found that whenever the interest of the Church of Timilis is aroused, one should tread very carefully. Sleep well, Sir Auric.”
And with that, Lictor Rae left him.
He cried out as he awoke, tangled in sweaty sheets, attempting to swing a broken blade that wasn’t in his hand. The dream’s images were already fading. He cursed, lighting the oil lamp that sat on the bedside table with a quaking hand. The flame swayed languorously, its light dancing on the surface of the Golden Egg standing next to it. Running his hands through his hair, Auric froze. Hadn’t he put the Egg back in its box before he went to bed? Auric turned with deliberate slowness, set his feet on the floor, stood up. He touched the object’s ribbed surface, noting how unnaturally cold the metal felt. After hesitating a moment longer, he returned the brass encasement to its wooden box and closed the lid, making sure the clasp was secure. He stared at the box, imagining he could feel the malevolence bound within.
Mind playing tricks, he told himself. The goddamned Egg did not hop out of the goddamned box while I slept.
Auric wasn’t certain of the hour, but he knew from long experience there would be no more sleep for him tonight. He washed and dressed himself by the lamp’s modest light, then went through a checklist of the gear he still owned and the accoutrements he had selected from the Syraeic League’s storage vaults. He tested the shortbow he had chosen, counted the black-fletched arrows that filled its quiver, and thanked providence he had kept practice with a bow during his abbreviated retirement, hunting in the countryside two or three times a week. Visiting the League’s stores with his companions, he had insisted that Del and Lumari each arm themselves with a blade as well, despite their lack of training with the weapon.
“Spells fail, vials are dropped and shatter, but good steel never disappoints,” he’d said, inspecting the finely-made short sword he had selected for the alchemist.
It was during this time rummaging through shelves and boxes that Auric was introduced to an important detail about Gnaeus that had somehow escaped him before. The man was a dabbler in sorcery and gathered up many components used in spells for his purpose. Though he didn’t by any means have the magical prowess of Del Ogara, his skill was passable when it came to a handful of charms and incantations to augment his swordplay: a summoning ritual to make flames dance upon the edge of his weapon, or spells to make his blade keener, his reflexes more precise. Auric had known other swordsmen—and it always seemed to be men—who employed similar tricks. Most came to rely on them too heavily, in his opinion, at the expense of more traditional skills. At the same time, he had to admit that magically enhanced swordplay could be most effective in the right circumstances. Sooner or later, he would know if Gnaeus had fallen into the trap of banking too much on charms and legerdemain.
The Citadel was strangely quiet now. Back when Auric was an active agent, there was no hour of the day when the headquarters of the Syraeic League was not a hive of activity. But this night, Auric had chambers, halls and courtyards not given over to the sick all to himself. There was something soothing about this solitude that had escaped him in his sleeping cubicle.
Before long, he found himself again in the curving entry hall, standing before the defaced mural of the ill-fated group of agents in whose footsteps they would soon follow. The artist who had painted the fresco was an absolute master of the form. “A. Farnes, 741,” read the signature. Auric studied the faces of Quintus Valec and Wallach Bessemer, the two who had survived the Djao temple’s horrors unharmed, at least by physical injury. Valec, the priest of Belu, had a face as wise and serene as any temple wall saint, his upper lip clean-shaven, a silky blond beard carefully manicured—was there some vanity in that painted visage? Auric could see the daring depicted in Bessemer’s eyes. The warrior-priest wielded an outlandish flail: the three balls dangling at the ends of chains took the form of laughing skulls, wicked spikes protruding from them. He was clean-shaven and smiling in the portrait, a veritable incarnation of holy, martial confidence.
Then Auric found himself staring at the ragged Xs torn in the plaster over the figurative hearts of Valec and Bessemer. Somehow, the strokes seemed hate-filled and personal—not the act of some careless vandal, but the work of a mortal enemy consumed by a bottomless wrath.
On the other hand, the damage to the painted eyes of Gower Morz seemed more the act of a malicious child, whom Auric pictured gleefully stabbing away at the fresco with a knife’s point. Bushy eyebrows floated above the vandalized craters where those eyes had been. Morz had a small mouth with full lips, framed by a long, brown beard woven with beads. His arms were crossed over his chest and he wore a studded leather cuirass strikingly similar to the suit Auric himself had packed away with his other luggage for the trip. The artist had portrayed Morz at an angle to deemphasize his kyphosis, but failed to conceal it entirely: one shoulder was noticeably higher than the other.
The Hunchback, thought Auric. Morz had the spirited look of a man who would embrace a derogatory appellation while offering an obscene gesture to whomever employed it.
Auric could glean little of personality from faceless Galadayem Pela, clad in plate, and the thin-bodied form of Cosus, the pyromancer from Mourcort. Not a scrap of dismembered alchemist Ariellum Brisk remained on the wall. Still, taking in what did remain of the mural, an aura of self-confidence and skill emanated from these agents, so like the rest occupying places of honor along the hall.
Perhaps we would have merited a fresco, had we lived longer, mused Auric, trying to imagine how he, Lenda, Brenten, Ursula, and Meric would have been portrayed. For a moment, he saw Lenda’s earnest, smiling face, but it was soon replaced by an image of her bloody severed head, mouth agape in a scream that would never end. He rubbed his eyes to dispel the dreadful vision, feeling his weariness and the tremor in his hand when he did so.
I must conquer this, he thought, feeling anger well up from within. Too many depended on their success. Agnes depended on it.
With that, he made his way to Agnes’s private cubicle. The besotted cleric Raimund had fallen asleep in a chair at her bedside, snoring lightly, holding her hand in both of his. Auric pulled up another chair on the opposite side of the bed, holding Agnes’s other hand until the sun finally rose, signaling the beginning of a new day.
9
Surprises
When Auric entered the breakfast room, he found Belech seated with his back to the door, chatting amiably with someone opposite whose form was completely hidden by the big man.
As Auric offered a greeting, Belech looked over his shoulder with a broad grin and a wave of the spoon he’d been using to shovel great mouthfuls from an overloaded bowl of porridge.
“Good morning, Auric!” he responded, boyish exuberance in his voice. “Look what four-limbed friend joins us today!”
Sira Edjani, the priest of Belu so recently down a leg, stood up, flashing
her crooked smile at Auric. Once again, something about her was oddly familiar. She stood on her left leg and swung her right back and forth, demonstrating it like a new toy.
“Blessed Belu,” marveled Auric. “We had you and that leg in separate packages four days ago!”
“Belu is good,” responded the priest. “The ritual took only three days. And not a mark on the leg where you cut it from me!”
Where Belech cut it from you, Auric thought with sour self-reproach.
Lumari entered the room at that moment, releasing an exaggerated yawn as a greeting. Del was close behind her, shuffling her sleepy self into a chair.
“Meet our newly two-legged priest!” exclaimed Belech, who introduced the three women to each other. Lumari gave a noncommittal nod and dug into her own bowl of porridge. In contrast, Del offered her winning smile and pumped the cleric’s hand.
“Coming to the Barrowlands with us, then?” asked the sorcerer, beaming with enthusiasm for the journey ahead.
“No,” Auric answered for her. “Sira is the priest whom Belech and I met on our trip to Boudun. We had to amputate her leg after she tried adopting a euvorix for a pet. She’s come by to show us Belu’s bounty. I’m not sure if our cleric has arrived yet. Do you know who they’re sending with us, Sira?”
Again, Sira’s lopsided grin. “Friend Auric, I am the priest accompanying you to the Barrowlands.”
“What?”
“The archbishop met with her council and, through prayer and fasting, concluded that I should attend you on your mission north. I’ve been fully briefed. I would have been here sooner, but the necessary rituals detained me.”
Auric shook his head with a measure of disbelief and exasperation. “Gods, woman!” he said, a bit too fiercely. “What are you? Twenty? You’ve just had a leg off! And you’ve taken a vow that prevents you from healing yourself! And you’ve never been to the Barrowlands, I’d wager!”
“You would lose that bet, friend Auric,” was Sira’s gentle reply. “I spent three months casting out unclean spirits in the hills outside Szendesh’ah.”
“The worst was cleared out of those tumbled-down ruins a hundred years ago,” he responded, but with less fervor.
“Furthermore,” she continued, as though Auric hadn’t spoken, “Belu’s gift is true. My leg is fully healed. It’s as though the amputation never occurred. And while I may not share in Belu’s bounty with all of you, the bishops at the cathedral called down a special blessing of protection upon me. I will trust in the Blue Mother to keep me safe from any harm.”
“Vanic’s balls,” cursed Auric, looking at the young woman with both frustration and embarrassment. And then he saw it. Lenda Hathspry. Lenda had been taller and her skin tone darker, but otherwise Sira bore a striking resemblance to his murdered Syraeic sister. Why had he not seen it before? The insight brought on a swell of emotion, but with effort, he gathered it in and bowed his chin to his chest.
“Forgive me, Sira. Sometimes we lash out at phantoms from the past.”
Sira nodded and touched his shoulder, as though she understood. Her grin now subdued and sheepish, she said, “But truth be told, I won’t be twenty until this winter.”
Lictor Pallas Rae saw the party off at the doorstep of the Citadel, leaving them with an unexpected escort. Sitting in the broad plaza before the curved portico of the Syraeic League headquarters was an enormous antique palanquin borne on the shoulders of two dozen sturdy men dressed in royal livery. Half a dozen palace guards, sans blindfolds, ringed the conveyance, mounted on warhorses costumed in the deep green of House Reges, small griffins embroidered into the weave with gold thread.
The queen, thought Auric with alarm. Had a fresh opportunity to earn a royal axman’s attention presented itself?
At that moment, the palanquin’s curtain parted and Countess Ilanda Padivale poked her head out, flashing a mischievous smile. One of the bearers left his post and placed a set of fancifully carved wooden steps beneath the draperied opening. She descended with grace, attired in a dark blue dress suited for an aristocratic woman of her station, but with none of the frilly ostentation of the gown she wore when Auric met her at the palace.
“Good morning, Syraeic adventurers!” she called with a coy wave of her gloved hand. “I left some things in my cabin aboard the Duke Yaryx and come to retrieve them before you sail off. The queen insisted I take her royal transport, and I decided it might also help clear the crowded morning streets for you on your way to the harbor. I hope you don’t mind my intrusion.”
“Of course not, Countess,” said Auric, both relieved that a decaying Geneviva hadn’t emerged and pleased by Ilanda’s unanticipated presence and gift.
Del, Lumari, and Belech bowed in deference. Gnaeus swept off his riding hat with a gallant flourish and took to a knee, his grin announcing to all that he believed her visit specifically for his benefit.
Novices brought the party’s mounts from the stables. Before they could climb into their saddles, the countess lightly touched Auric’s arm.
“I wonder if you might keep me company on our brief journey, Sir Auric?”
Surprised again, and not unhappy when he caught sight of Gnaeus swallowing his grin like a wedge of lemon, he handed Glutton’s reins to the novice who had led her out. “It would be my great pleasure, madam,” he answered, taking her proffered hand and leading her back up the steps into the palanquin.
The interior was lavish, bedecked with lush silk pillows, hand-painted wallpaper, rich furniture, and a pair of waiting maidservants. Ilanda plopped down without ceremony in a chair, propping her elbows on her knees. She let escape an exhausted sigh, puffing out her cheeks.
“Chaeres, give me strength,” she said with a weary breath, the girlish lilt in her voice replaced by the noble alto of a woman. Auric watched with fascination as all show and pretension fell away from her, then looked back at the maidservants.
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Ilanda, waving her hand. “They’re mine, and loyal. Baea, Ruby, would you get us some tea, please? Thank you.” The two women went to work, retrieving a boiling copper kettle from a brazier and fancy porcelain cups from a mahogany cabinet. Delicate, rearing golden griffins were painted on the sides of the cups, announcing their regal pedigree.
“Sir Auric, this performance exhausts me. I hope you won’t begrudge me an adult conversation free of cloying pretense. It will be the first I’ve had since the Yaryx sailed out of Caird over a week ago.”
“Of course, milady.”
“Oh, and no ‘milady’ or ‘Countess,’ please. Ilanda will do fine.”
“Provided you drop the ‘sir,’ which as you’ve learned is less deserved than your rank.”
“Bah,” she said, waving her gloved hand again in a rough gesture. “I sense more nobility in you, Sir Auric, than in all the puffed-up aristocrats in that bloody salon we suffered in. And as far as I’m concerned, the reason for your knighthood is every bit as valid as the happy chance of birth that gave most of my kind our lofty titles. Gods be good, take a seat, man.”
Ilanda pulled off her silk gloves and tossed them on some nearby pillows as Auric fell into an adjacent chair with the palanquin’s sudden lurch. They were apparently on their way. The servant named Ruby, an honest-faced, smiling woman with streaks of gray in her brown hair, handed each of them a steaming cup.
“Honey?” inquired Ilanda. “I like honey in mine. Another of Harkeny’s claims to fame, aside from our horses and barbarian neighbors, is our fine apiaries.”
Auric nodded and Ruby added a spoonful to the cup. Ilanda reached into the drawer of a gilded table next to her, withdrawing a thick packet bearing wax seals and gold cords.
“Your Letter of Imprimatur, from the queen,” she said, handing it to him.
“Thank you.” Auric had forgotten how elaborate a pass to enter the Barrowlands was: rich vellum with multiple folded and sealed
compartments, to be opened by inspectors, bureaucrats, and local patrols to ensure no one explored the ruins of the Djao without their monarch’s leave. While this ensured that the Crown received its share of spoils, it was also a means of controlling the potentially dangerous treasure and secrets hidden beneath tumbled stone and rotting sepulchers.
“I wanted to tell you a bit about Mr. Hraea, who captains the Yaryx,” Ilanda continued. “He’s an eccentric one, and past sixty. Most Royal Navy captains have climbed further up the ladder or are a decade into their retirements by this time. He keeps an old-fashioned captain’s table at every dinner with officers and guests—steel yourself for some tedious conversation, Auric. Of the five sorcerers in his crew, he has but one aquamancer and one aeromancer. The other three are pyromancers, Chaeres save us. Never got an opportunity to ask why a vessel that spends most of its time in the eastern reaches would need a trio of fire magicians in its crew, as though we were at war with a major sea power.”
“One aquamancer and one aeromancer?” marveled Auric. “On the Cradle Sea? I never sailed on any ship that had fewer than two of each, and perhaps one pyromancer, if the captain could afford it.”
“I couldn’t ask what his rationale was, given the need to play the flighty young countess. I can only assume he relies more heavily on his own seamanship than he does on spellcasters. We had nothing but calm seas the whole trip, not a moment’s need for a stormsoother from Harkeny Inlet to Boudun Harbor. But then, we hugged the coast. At any rate, I assumed you would much rather be at sea now with something of an oddity than waiting a week for a more modern sea captain. Forgive my presumption.”
“Gods, no, I’m deeply grateful for your intervention. Frankly, my heart sank when the queen offered the Birth of Lalu. Our matter is very urgent.”