by Greg Curtis
“I don't think we can learn much here,” he told the others. “It was crowded and dark and the man had his head down a lot of the time. Separating one man with a hood from another might not be easy. We should go to where he was shot. At least there we know he was out in the open on his own.”
Without waiting for an answer he headed off down the drive, counting off fifty steps and studying the dirt closely for any sign of blood. After all if he'd been shot there should be some. And if he could find some he would know exactly where to cast his next enchantment. Baen guessed that the others agreed with his thoughts as they followed him without comment. But then, even the eagles were silent – though they stared menacingly at him.
Fifty steps on he stopped, turned around to face the burnt-out ruin that had once been an inn, and began to cast his enchantment of Forgotten Light, marking out the circle and the runes on the ground. The magic came easily, not least because he'd cast this very magic not that long before and so it was still fresh in his memories. Soon afterwards he had a window into the past showing him the light of the previous day. After that it was merely a matter of finding the exact time and place when the leather hooded man had fled and been shot.
The others watched quietly as he worked, letting him carry out the enchantment by himself, though he was sure that some of them could have cast the same spell themselves and probably better than him. But the chances were that they would likely consider casting it as some sort of violation of the Golden Concord. Or at least evidence of a possible violation in the eyes of some. They were cautious about such things.
Regardless of his level of skill, he soon had the image of the man running from burning inn, and after that it was just a matter of watching as he ran closer. Close enough to see his face. But when he finally did, Baen's heart stopped beating.
“Shite!” It wasn't possible! It shouldn't be happening! The bastard was supposed to be in gaol! But as soon as he saw the man's face he knew him. The Duke it seemed had escaped again!
How was that possible? Who was helping him to escape? Because his one and only ally was locked up in an invisible prison cell in Illoria. Or was she?! He asked the others but like him they had no answers. They agreed though that it was Duke Barnly. Even if they hadn't known what he looked like, they could see the burns on the side of his face, that he’d received in his fight with Dariya. The ones he was desperately trying to conceal under the leather hood.
“Clearly his magic is far more potent than was thought.” J'bel suggested the possibility.
“No, I don’t think so,” Baen replied thoughtfully. “Whatever magic the Duke had was blocked – assuming he has any. He could not cast any magic at all. Not while he had that brand burnt into his back. Someone would have had to have removed it.” And Baen couldn't imagine King Richmond allowing anyone with magic to go anywhere near the Duke.
“We should look at the driver – his ally,” Amaru suggested, and obediently Baen started moving the window into the light of the past around. But then when he did, he cursed again.
“Damn!” He struggled to make sense of the fact that he was staring at Estor, who like the Duke should have been locked away. “Can no one keep any prisoners locked away?!”
But while he couldn’t know how they escaped – both the prison and their brands – some of the other pieces of the puzzle came together. Estor made potions. He guessed that she knew the secret of creating one of dragon's fire. In all likelihood she had created it and then given it to the Duke who had then slipped it into his assassin's ale. And if she was free of her brand, then the chances were that she had in turn freed the Duke of his. But how in all the hells had she got free?! Because she could not have freed herself.
Then in a moment of clarity, things started falling into place. And when they did he hated what they showed him.
“Damn it all, the Duke is the seer!” he cursed, annoyed that it had taken him so long to understand something so obvious. He had been looking for an enemy who was a seer. And he'd known the Duke was an enemy and had magic at his disposal. But he'd never put those things together.
But there was more. The man was tall and thin. He was elderly and yet running like a much younger man. And he was working hand in hand with the Fae.
“He's also not what he claims to be,” he added, because it was the only possible explanation. Checking that his theory was right he refocused the window into the light of the past back on the image of the Duke running, and then walked right up to his face. It showed what he had suspected.
“Black eyes!” he announced with a groan, letting the others see for themselves. There was silence for a time as the group absorbed the implications. And as he tried to remember ancient scandals of the castle.
“The Duke is part Fae?” J'bel asked after a time.
“And the King with him.” Baen answered him as he finally understood the secret the two of them shared. The one they could never allow to be revealed. “And they've both been desperately hiding their heritage from the world.” The annoying thing was that the Fae had told him almost that exact thing ages ago. The only thing they hadn't understood was why their father had favoured his daughter Amberlee. But once he saw those eyes, everything fell into place.
“Because it shames them?” one of the others asked.
“No. Because it proves that their father and grandfather was not King Raegan.” And that was where everything had started to go wrong for them.
“King Raegan was pure blooded. There was not a trace of Fae blood in him. Nor was there any in his wife. Checks of lineage were done prior to the marriage that proved that. They both came from the most ancient of lines. Lines that have not a lick of magic nor golden skin in them. That can only mean that there was another father in the mix. A father to Andris and Barnly both.”
“But not to Amberlee.” He added the last point slowly, making certain every syllable was heard.
“You told me that your seers had predicted what was coming over fifty years ago. That they knew King Raegan had favoured his daughter over his sons. This is why. Andris and Barnly were not his sons. He didn't bestow his favour on her. Rather she was his only blood!”
“He must have found that out at some point. Perhaps he saw their eyes turn black when they were angered. Perhaps the queen told him. But whatever the reason, he tried to disinherit them both. Make his daughter – his only true child – the queen. And that was what got him killed and Andris with him.”
“Amberlee ran away after that, as Barnly and Richmond fought over the throne. Both of them were determined to hide their ancestry, bury the secrets so deep that no one would ever find out. But their battles were limited – mostly since each of them knew the other's dirty little secret. Then Amberlee wed Lord Hardy Tomkins of Astoria and had a daughter. Suddenly a new fight erupted. Both Amberlee and her daughter were valuable tools. They were after all the rightful rulers of the realm. Whichever of the warring pair controlled them, had an extra roll of the dice should the truth of their ancestry come out.”
“So Barnly killed the Lord of Astoria and took control of his half sister and her daughter. In doing so he made his position stronger. Remember he had attacked King Richmond and been defeated. He’d been driven back to Castle Alldrake. His life at that point probably hung in the balance. He survived only because he had set up a means to reveal the truth of Andris and Richmond's lineage if he were killed.
“With Amberlee by his side and the young daughter Dariya in his house, Barnly could still rule Grenland one day, if only as a regent. The rules of succession are simple. A queen can't rule. But she can confer the throne to her husband. Amberlee had already conferred the throne to Lord Hardy Tomkins. But he was dead. And so on his death she immediately became queen mother while she waited for her daughter to become a woman and wed the new King – though neither Barnly nor Richmond could ever allow that knowledge out.”
“Either of them could have been regent if the other was dead and the truth of their bastard heritage became
known – as long as they had control of Amberlee. They're the older brother and the son of the eldest brother. But neither could ever be King in their own right. Not as the son and grandson of King Raegan. And that was what they truly wanted. So instead they both set about ruining Amberlee's name. Turning her into Amberlee the Wicked. Making her the secret lover of her brother. So that if the truth of their ancestry did come out, the Court would never accept her claim to the throne. And I'm guessing she accepted it, because the Duke had her daughter as a hostage.”
“But Dariya gave the Duke another option. King Richmond could never marry her – he was already married. But Barnly could. He already controlled her mother through Dariya. And through her he controlled Dariya in turn. All he needed was for Dariya to grow up enough to wed her, and then to expose the truth of both his and Andris’ heritage.”
“It's vile but Dariya would confer the throne on him by marriage. His claim to the throne would be incontestable – even with his black eyes. But I'm guessing, that Estor could hide those for him. And if that didn't work his story of killing her and stealing her magic, might explain his black eyes anyway. Unfortunately for him, Dariya escaped the castle before she was old enough to wed.”
“That left Barnly in a precarious position. He had Amberlee and a way of revealing the truth of their Fae heritage to stop Richmond from killing him outright. But no future without Dariya. The moment Dariya wed someone, that man would be the rightful King. And he could do nothing to prevent that from happening when he didn't know where she was and he was locked away in his castle. It was also likely that some of the lies he’d told would eventually be exposed. And he had a great many of them.”
“He still had his story about having gained his magic by drinking potions made from the blood of the Fae. He'd boasted about it. Something that never made any sense to me. But now it does. He boasted about his supposed crime because he could never allow people to know that it was his own blood that brought him his magic. Not until he had wed Dariya and so had another claim to the throne.”
“He'd probably also hidden Dariya's location from Richmond. Maybe told him that she'd died. Because otherwise Richmond would have grabbed her and quite likely killed her to protect his throne. So the Duke hid her and kept her close. While she was under his control he had control of her mother through her – and that was enough to keep him safe. The only child of King Raegan. The legitimate heir. Unfit to rule but fit enough to prove that neither he nor Richmond could. She protected him. And he figured that while he had her mother, he had control of her daughter.”
“But Dariya had escaped.”
“Given that he is a seer of some sort, and one who has been using his gift for a very long time to stay alive, he probably knew at some point that Dariya would escape. And though I don’t doubt he tried, he couldn't prevent it. The gift is fickle. And if in the future he did not know how she escaped, he could not have stopped it anyway. Also, if he had stopped her it would have been like opening up his own head with a knife and ripping out half of what was there to replace it with something else. He could not stop the escape using his magic of foresight.”
“So he had to live with it.”
“But he'd also done one more thing to make certain he survived and that when the time came to advance his claim to the throne he would be ready. And he'd done it long before any of this happened. He'd reached out to your people.”
“That's where Estor comes in. The Lady only knows what sort of deal was reached between Barnly and the Fae he negotiated with. Probably something along the lines of his supporting their cause within G'lorenvale when he took the throne of Grenland if they supported his claim to the throne. Whatever it was, the agreement provided him with the services of a master enchanter, potion maker and healer. Probably a poisoner too. Also a woman who his gift told him would save his life.”
“Their cause?” J'bel asked.
“Don't know.” Baen shrugged. “But they – whoever “they” are – have one. And they have power with the priests. Because they not only stopped Estor from being interrogated and nearly killed me. They were also able to remove her brand so that she could regain her magic – and then freed her so that she in turn could free the Duke.”
““They” have more power within your realm. A lot of it. Enough that they can block word of what has been discovered here from getting back home. They are the reason you presently can't hear from your loved ones. Likely they are also responsible for seeing the favoured souls who have arrived in G'lorenvale locked up. Not because of any crime they might have committed, but for things they may one day do. And if I had to guess, these Fae are uneasy allies with the Duke. My guess is that they have their own seers. I also suspect they had a hand in Dariya's escape. Because in doing so, they made the Duke more dependent on them.
“They were also the ones behind the raid on Illoria.”
Baen wasn't surprised when he saw jaws drop all around. Even though he'd suggested it before. It was practically unthinkable that any of their own could act against them. And yet it had to be true.
“As I said to Nyri, the raid served no purpose for the Duke. He gained nothing from it. He did not need the Fae prisoners to make potions from. He did not need them for anything else. And the chances of failure were always high. If it were up to him he would never have launched one. But he had made a bargain, and that was the price he had to pay. They wanted it desperately. And they did all they could to ensure it went well. They wanted to start a war.”
“Consider that the raiders were able to make their way through the Hallows without being detected, all the way to the Glade of Grace. And then they were warded against everything your wardens and protectors could throw against them. The first thing that Nyri told me when I asked how this attack had happened was that there was treachery involved. I had thought when I saw her that the treachery was Estor's. And it was. But not hers alone.”
“She is simply a player. A part of a larger conspiracy.”
Of course, the question was how an attack on their own people benefited these people? What did they hope to gain? Something that would only be known once he knew who “they” were.
He had a suspicion that the enemy would in fact turn out to be the priests. Maybe not all the Allene Mar Wane – that seemed unlikely. But there were priests of the Root of the Great Tree all around. And it was the priests who had determined that he needed to be brought in for questioning. They had interrogated him and practically killed him. And ultimately they had banished him. They had also held Estor and – he assumed subsequently healed and freed her. Their muddy footprints were everywhere. If he had to guess, he would have said that Estor herself was with the priesthood. Who else would they trust with such an important mission but a fellow priest?
When the others asked him however, he kept his peace. It wasn't his place to make wild accusations without evidence against those who were the heart and soul of the Fae. They would have to work that out for themselves.
But as he stared at the black eyes of the Duke in the window of forgotten light, he knew he was right. This might not be the Fae's true enemy, just his partner, but he was the man who'd just tried to murder him. This was his enemy.
There was worse though. Someone was going to have to tell Dariya that her uncle and her cousin both wanted by turn to wed her or kill her to stop the other wedding her.
Chapter Thirty Six
The wind streamed through Dariya's hair. It blasted her face and would have reddened her eyes save for the goggles she was wearing. It whipped her clothing around too. But she did her best to ignore it as she raced along the roads heading south. She had a message to send. And only a Friend of the Golden Concord could send it.
She didn't like this wheeler. It was fast, she gave it that. But it was damned uncomfortable to be stretched out over an engine for long periods of time and then have to endure every thump and crash as the wheels smashed into the pot holes. It was also hideously expensive. Three gold pieces?! You could bu
y a house for that! But Baen didn't care. He'd told her to take the gold she needed from his drawer, and when she'd set eyes on his fortune she'd known he would never notice a few missing pieces.
Nothing about that made sense to her. The man was rich! Beyond rich! He owned a goldmine! And yet he sold books? What was wrong with him?!
Still, that was a matter for him to worry about – not that he ever seemed to worry about much. Hers was more about what she was going to say, and whether anyone would listen to her. She had already been to the outpost, got dressed in her uniform, told the others what she'd learned about her uncle, and had a message sent. The Fae would be expecting her. Whether they would listen she didn't know. She also had to expect that whoever was working with her uncle on their side would be prepared for her.
As the wizard had explained, this was a war of seers – all of them were desperately turning and twisting events to their own advantage. And they were suffering because of it. And his crazy tale had been supported by Baen’s great uncle, something he had done in between a barrage of insults and complaints. So many desperate changes had been made to the future that none of them were unaffected. It would be months before their new future selves were once more talking to them as they should. Until then they would be living in confusion and pain.