The Silver Portal (Weapons of Power Book 1)

by David J Normoyle

  In Mortlebee’s dream, he had returned to the village a hero. Am I simply doing this for personal glory? No. He knew that dream to be a lie. His Father cheering him for using violence? If he managed to scare off the cleric, he would tell no one what he had done. He remembered the outline of the rib on Kataya’s torso and knew he had no choice, regardless of what the scrolls said.

  A horse’s neigh echoed through the narrow valley, and Mortlebee tensed up. This is it. He imagined himself spinning around the rock and seeing Lackma’s shocked face. His fingers squeezed the wood of the bow. Another neigh, closer that time, then the scuff of a hoof on the dirt. It is time.

  Mortlebee spun. Rather, his head ordered his body to spin, but his body remained plastered to the rock face. He squeezed his eyes shut and imagined confronting the priest, his bow ablaze with showy magic. Now.

  Still nothing.

  Mortlebee’s stomach was churning faster and faster, but every other part of him refused to move. He felt terrible. He had been willing to sin, to allow evil into his heart because he had convinced himself that his cause was a higher one, only to be prevented by something base. He was a coward.

  Mortlebee wished he was stronger. He wished he was a better man. He listened as the horse got closer and closer, every hoofstep an accusation of Mortlebee’s cowardice.

  Then the horse stopped. The cleric couldn’t have heard me, could he? Mortlebee hadn’t made any noise. He held his breath. Keep going, he whispered inside his head.

  “Can’t hold your breath forever, you know,” Lackma said. “I can outwait you. You might as well come out.”

  Fear flared inside Mortlebee. How could the cleric have known he was there? With no choice, though, his body ceded control back to him, and Mortlebee pushed himself out from behind the rock and slid down onto the trail in front of the cleric’s horse. Mortlebee took several steps back, the bow dangling by his side.

  Lackma’s pudgy face had a smug look on it. The breeze blew his wispy black hair back over the top of his head. His red cloak was wrapped tightly around him, the eagle crest prominent on his breast. He looked bigger and more imposing than he had the night before.

  The cleric appeared happy to sit there all day, so Mortlebee broke the silence. “How did you know I was there?”

  “You shouldn’t underestimate the servants of the Lord Protector. I know a lot more than you think. I warned your father about you before I left. About your violent tendencies. I don’t think he was surprised.”

  Mortlebee flushed. “Why would you tell him that? I did nothing to you.”

  “Nothing yet. Is that what you mean?” The horse snorted and took a few steps forward, and Mortlebee backed away. His back foot gave way slightly, and Mortlebee twisted around to see the foot half hanging off the edge of the trail, with nothing but air under his heel for hundreds of paces. Lumps of dirt toppled down. Mortlebee scrambled away from the edge.

  Lackma watched with a smile on his face.

  Mortlebee took another step away from the edge, thinking about how he had chosen his location to make the cleric feel scared. That worked out well.

  “You were bolder the other night,” Lackma said. “Are you going to just stand there all day, or are we going to get on with this? You hold something of significance in your hand, I believe.”

  Mortlebee felt the weight of the bow in his hand. Lackma knew more than he should, but perhaps that wouldn’t matter. Nothing about the confrontation was going the way he expected, yet there he was. “This is a magic bow. You will rescind the tributes on the land of Tockery and leave here forever. Or I will kill you.”

  “Come on, you’ve got to do better than that. Look at you—shoulders slouched, gaze shifting back and forth, mousy tone of voice. You’d have trouble scaring ravens from crops.

  Mortlebee’s pulse pounded behind his ears. “I’m serious. I will kill you.”

  “You have to sell it. Warriors charge into battle not to get there quicker, but for the intimidation factor. They roar. They rage. You are trying to scare me, aren’t you?”

  Mortlebee flushed. The cleric was having fun with him. He lifted the bow and reached for the magic string. His fingers trembled, but after a few tries, the string shimmered into life. He drew and the arrow solidified, dazzling Mortlebee’s eyes. “What do you say now?”

  The cleric showed no fear or even surprise. “Now, that’s what I wanted to see. I never thought those wizards would actually succeed. A weapon of power. Though how it ended up in the hands of a Tockery boy must be a story in itself.”

  Mortlebee released the string, and the golden arrow blinked out of existence. “The next time I draw, I will shoot. Tockery has magic now and won’t be trampled by the likes of you. Either leave or die.” He couldn’t understand why the cleric wasn’t scared.

  “How did you imagine this going?” Lackma asked. “That I would quiver in fear and flee? Do you not think the Lord Protector would send someone else in my place? Perhaps he’d send several cohorts of clerics in my place. What would you do then?”

  Mortlebee felt like an idiot when Lackma put it like that. “I can kill you, at least.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  Lackma’s horse took several more steps forward, and Mortlebee backed away, glancing backward to make sure he stayed on the path.

  “Stay back.” Mortlebee drew on the string again. It faded away before it had even formed.

  “Think, boy. How did I know to warn your father about you? How did I know you were hiding? How did I know what your bow could do?” When Mortlebee didn’t answer, Lackma held out his palm, showing a crystal in it. “Does this help you understand? It’s a color-changer.” He tucked the crystal away and pointed at the eagle crest at his breast. “What are Lord Zubrios’s high-ranking clerics best known for?”

  Lackma had to be a thought-mage. “Father never told me you were a magic-wielder.” He had read Mortlebee’s thoughts and known the bow didn’t actually do anything. Mortlebee continued to pluck at the string as he backed away even though he knew it to be useless.

  “I didn’t advertise the fact. Doesn’t matter if people know now since I’ll be returning to Soirbuz to present that weapon to Lord Zubrios. Now that I think about it, you have solved one problem for us. We didn’t want to appear heavy handed, yet the Elders were being more intransigent than we expected. Once I explain about how I was attacked by a magic-wielding Tockian boy, several cohorts will have to be sent to protect Lord Zubrios’s servants as we collect the Lord Protector’s tribute. And the cohorts will need permanent lodging, so we’ll have to build temples to house them. We won’t even need to reduce the tribute as I have previously been promising. You have been helpful to me, boy, even before I get rewarded for discovering a weapon of power.”

  “No. That’s not going to happen.” Mortlebee’s fingers firmed around the string, and he drew. The arrow appeared, more solid than ever before. He had come to stop the cleric and help his people, but he’d only made it worse. What would Father say when he learned that his son’s violent tendencies gave the clerics an excuse to build their temples?

  Lackma smiled and raised his arms wide. “Do your worst.”

  Hatred at the sight of Lackma’s smug face burst through Mortlebee’s heart, feeding a fury that roared through his body—rage at Lord Zubrios, at the clerics, at Kale and his scrolls, at his Father for his placid surrender, at himself for his cowardice and his stupidity. The rage tore through him and through the bow. The golden arrow shot from the bow and sped through the air, flashing straight through Lackma and out beyond him, exploding against a distant mountainside.

  The roar of the explosion echoed hollowly through the valley, and several boulders broke away from where the arrow had hit, crashing down the mountainside. The expression on Lackma’s face changed from smugness to shock. He rolled off the side of his horse, which promptly galloped straight at Mortlebee.

  Mortlebee was frozen in place, unable to react to the charging horse. It swerved around hi
m, its shoulder shoving Mortlebee aside. Luckily, the horse ran nearer the trail’s edge, which threw him against the upper slope rather than knocking him off the cliff. Mortlebee’s chest and right shoulder took the brunt of the impact as he fell, his layers of clothes protecting him to some extent. He slid down onto the level ground of the trail and lay there, facedown, listening to the sound of the galloping hooves fade into the distance.

  A part of him knew what he had done. Another part of him refused to accept it. Kale give me strength, he whispered to himself, though he knew he had forsaken Kale’s teachings and had no right to ask anything. He took a few attempts to stand. Dread dragging at his feet like shoes of metal, he walked to where the cleric lay.

  Lackma stared unseeing at the sky, his features frozen into an expression of shock. Through a hole the width of Kataya’s fist in the cleric’s chest, the dirt of the trail was visible. The blackened edges of the hole had cauterized, leaving not even a trace of blood.

  Mortlebee fell to his knees. What have I done? His face sank into his hands. With hate in his heart, he had killed a man in cold blood. Is there any redemption after this?

  He looked back down at the priest’s face, and with vestiges of the earlier rage, he grabbed Lackma around the collar and shook him. Why couldn’t you just do as I asked? Why did you have to drive me to this? The cleric’s frozen face gave no answer. Is he laughing at me even in death? With a heave, Mortlebee shoved Lackma’s body and watched it bounce several times against the cliff face before disappearing into the greenery at the very bottom.

  The immediate satisfaction Mortlebee felt was quickly swamped by even more despair. Not only had he killed the cleric, he’d desecrated the body, throwing it to scavengers instead of allowing a proper burial.

  The lack of a body would make Mortlebee’s crime easier to get away with, but he had no intention of dodging responsibility. It would eat him up inside even more if he tried to hide it. He knew who he had to tell, and that person was also the last person in the world Mortlebee wanted to know.

  Mortlebee started back toward Bluegrass but stopped and glanced back. The bow lay on the trail where it had fallen when the horse had knocked him over. He wanted to just leave it there, but he knew he had to bring it back. Who would believe my story if I don’t have that? So he retrieved it, and with his heart heavy in his chest, he retraced his steps back toward his home village.

  Within a few hundred paces, the heaviness within him increased, becoming almost too much to bear. He staggered, and the mountain peaks swirled. The ground rushed up toward him, but before it hit, everything went black.

  Chapter 8

  “It’s me, Odare,” Lukin said, cloaked by darkness and trying to fake Odare’s raspy voice. “Open the bloody gate.” He was outside Lord Jearg’s mansion, pretending to be one of the guards.

  “Why are you back so soon?” Hodil rushed over, trying to see through the metal bars of the gate.

  “Quickly. Before we’re caught,” Lukin rasped. “They are watching me.” Lukin leaned against the outside wall with his hood covering his face. His cloak was roughly the same brown color as Odare’s, but his disguise wouldn’t pass any serious scrutiny. Luckily, Hodil wasn’t the brightest candle in the church.

  The key rattled against the lock, and Hodil pushed open the metal gate, sticking his head out to check for the watchers Lukin had lied about. Lukin cracked the pommel of his knife into Hodil’s temple.

  The guard fell to all fours, but the blow hadn’t knocked him out. Targeting the guards with thick skulls had advantages and disadvantages.

  Odare, why, Hodil thought, shaking his head back and forth to clear it.

  Luckily, he didn’t think to shout. Lukin hit him on the head again, harder that time, and Hodil crumpled. Lukin grabbed him around his shoulders and pulled him into the guardhouse. He listened for any sign that he’d been detected, but the dark street remained quiet. He locked the guardhouse gate shut.

  He touched the side of Hodil’s neck and sighed with relief when he felt a pulse. He felt he knew the guardsman after having spent a few days watching him and eavesdropping on his words and thoughts. Hodil and Odare weren’t bad people, just bad guards. Whenever two of them were alone in a guardhouse, they would flip for the right to sneak off to the tavern for an hour.

  When Lukin reached down to remove Hodil’s uniform, his hands trembled on the buttons. He straightened. Remember you are an adventurer whose qualities include coolness under pressure, he told himself. It was much too early to get scared. All manner of shitting-in-pants fear might be called for later. Not yet.

  He bent down to finish with the buttons then shrugged off his cloak and donned the uniform in its place. Lukin thought about tying and gagging Hodil before deciding he didn’t have any time to spare for that.

  He actually didn’t have any time at all. He had been waiting for his opportunity and had been delighted when Odare had sneaked away. The night sky had been too bright, though, and by the time a cloud covered the moon, Odare was already due to return. Plus, Lukin had discovered that some kind of event involving numerous guests was taking place in the mansion that night.

  That made aborting his plan the only sensible option. If only being sensible didn’t make him break out in a rash. He peered into the gardens, hearing the distant conversation of guests outside the main entrance, then glanced back at Hodil’s prone body. If he turned around and exited into the street, the worst thing that would happen would be Hodil’s headache.

  If he continued into the mansion, he needed to return to the guardhouse before Odare returned and before Hodil woke to be able to escape. Flechir had mentioned that Lukin could lose his hand for stealing a ring. If Lukin was caught robbing Lord Jearg’s mansion, then it would be many, many—he didn’t know math well enough to put an exact number to it—many times worse.

  On the counter side, when an adventurer was faced with a sensible option, he should seek out and implement a more ludicrous one. Or that’s how Lukin assumed it should work. Therefore, he padded across the wet grass to the nearest tree and paused to study the giant silhouette of the mansion, with its tall, fat central structure and two long, thick wings sweeping away to either side. After a quick think, he figured out that the west wing was on the far side. That was probably something that should have been considered in advance, but he couldn’t beat himself up over it—Lukin had always been more blessed with quick thinking than with advanced thinking. He had to work with what he had.

  To get to the west wing while avoiding the guests still arriving at the main entrance, he needed to go around the back. He started toward a tree farther along then stopped himself, wondering why he was skulking through the trees when he was dressed as a guard.

  He cut across the lawn to the nearest path. Casual, he told himself. You have every right to be here. In fact, you are paid to be here. He got into the mindset. The gravel crunched beneath his feet, and he breathed in the night air, enjoying the smell of wet grass and spring flowers. He did sometimes miss the countryside, and only the really rich got to bring the best of the countryside with them when they lived in the city. With the new mindset, he didn’t mind when a crescent of moon slunk out from behind a cloud, spilling ghostly white light across the garden. He whistled a tune he’d heard a few nights back.

  Idiot. He jammed his mouth shut. Not that casual.

  He rounded the side of the mansion without running into anyone. Sentries patrolled the outer walls and shouted out to each other periodically.

  “Password.”

  Lukin gave a start and swiveled to his left, where a cleric was approaching. Where had he appeared out of? “Orange grass,” Lukin replied. He’d picked it up from Odare’s thoughts earlier in the day.

  The redbird came to a stop. He wore a sparrow crest, a rank above an everyday robin-crest cleric. He wore the breastplate and scarlet cloak but no helm. “What’s your name?”

  “Lu-Lucene.” Lukin silently cursed himself. What kind of idiot master thief al
most gives up his real name? And then proceeds to give a girl’s name. Was Lucene the name of a barmaid from the other night?

  “How come I don’t recognize you?”

  Lukin remembered her. The one with blond pigtails. She hadn’t been the best looker, but the way her hips moved had—

  “Guard!”

  “Yes? Oh, why you don’t know me? I’ll also explain why this damn uniform doesn’t fit.” Lukin started to improvise. “They are short staffed for this”—he waved his hand—“I don’t know what it is, a party of some kind, and they called in the gardening staff. They’ve some gardeners serving drinks. I hope the guests like those fancy drinks with flowers in them, eh.” Lukin waited for a smile that never came. “Anyway, I was told to wash and given this uniform. I don’t think my wife would recognize me right now all cleaned up and buttoned up to my neck like a heron.”

  “Aren’t you a bit young to be a husband?”

  The words continued in a torrent as a fast-talking, dim-witted gardener channeled himself through Lukin. “My father-in-law too thought me young but was willing to shave the hairs off my throat if I didn’t make an honest wife of his pregnant daughter, and that was before I even had any fuzz on my chin, if you know what I mean.”

  “You talk too much.”

  Lukin was thinking the same thing, but the words kept coming. “That’s what my mum said, Mezziall rest her soul. But—”

  “There’ll be no talk of Mezziall here. Zubrios lives in this very city, and still you want to pray to someone dead thousands of years.” He scowled. “Who are you reporting to?”

  “The guy, um...” Lukin didn’t know what to say. The redbird had expected to recognize all the guards, so he surely knew that Odare and Hodil were not people that others reported to.