by Dorian Hart
“Pyknite! Thank heavens!” Ernie rushed to where his sword leaned against the wall. “I dread what Old Bowlegs would say if I lost it. It’s a famous sword.”
Dranko shrugged out from under Grey Wolf’s arm at the sight of his possessions. “It’ll be a lot more famous once you’re done with it. Someday people will look at your sword in a museum and say, ‘This is Pyknite, the sword of the man who flew the Stormknights into the nose of the Ventifact Colossus!’ It would be even better if you could arrange to get yourself stuffed and mounted, so you can be holding it.”
“Enough talk,” Grey Wolf grumbled. “Kibi, do you have a plan?”
“Well, Pewter and me, sure. He’s worked out a route from here to the southern wall that avoids the watch. I figured we’d get there, I’d tunnel us through, and then we’d head southward down the road away from Trev-Lyndyn as fast as we can in case the constables send someone to chase us. It’s a long, long way to Djaw, so we shouldn’t waste no time.”
Grey Wolf grabbed Kibi’s arm. “You know where Djaw is?”
“Not exactly, but what I gather is, it’s ’bout five hundred miles away. The road there goes east for a ways, then south.”
“Five hundred miles! Are you sure?”
“That’s what more than one person has told me.”
Gods, what a disaster. They were looking at weeks on the road before they could even figure out what to do next. The faces of the others fell as they reached the same depressing conclusion.
As Horn’s Company hoisted their packs and buckled on their weapons, Tor asked, “How could Pewter tell you he’s found a good path to the wall? I thought he could only talk to Aravia.”
Kibi chuckled. “We worked out a couple a’ things. Pewter can scratch letters in the dirt, for one. For another, he can understand me just fine, so we could have somethin’ like a discussion with me askin’ yes or no questions, and ’im shakin’ and noddin’ his head. I tell you, that cat’s a far bit cleverer than some folk I worked with back in Eggoggin.”
They followed Pewter through the dark government district of Trev-Lyndyn, its streets largely empty, the lamps still burning few and far apart. Grey Wolf gripped the hilt of his sword more tightly each time they passed near a nighttime pedestrian, but those who saw them simply hurried away with nervous glances. Good. Let them be afraid.
Inside of fifteen minutes the stone wall of Trev-Lyndyn loomed up out of the shadows.
“I could climb it if I didn’t feel like I was about to pass out,” said Dranko, wheezing a bit.
Grey Wolf glanced behind him. “Let’s just get through it before someone from the watch sees us. Pewter may be smart, but I doubt he could have figured out all the watch’s patrol routes in just two nights.”
Kibi already had his hand on the wall, his eyes closed. Aravia moved right up next to him and watched, frowning.
“How do you do that? It’s obviously magic, but you’re clearly not casting a spell. Without gestures and words, it shouldn’t be possible.”
“Still takes concentratin’” said Kibi, not opening his eyes.
“Sorry.”
The wall was two feet thick, and Kibi opened up a hole big enough for them to walk through without needing to duck. On the far side, they faced a flat river plain, the city wall at their backs.
“The stars are in such odd places,” Aravia remarked. After a small pause she added, “Yes, I know, we can still use them to figure direction, but even I will need some time to do the calculations in my head.”
Right. The cat.
While Kibi resealed the wall, Grey Wolf thought out loud. “I imagine there won’t be many travelers on the road this time of night, but it’s still a risk. We know we want to go southeast, so once Aravia has figured out which way that is, we can use the carpet to make fast time. A low stream of smoke at night shouldn’t give us away.”
“Kibi won’t like it,” said Morningstar quietly.
“Kibi will like it less if Trev-Lyndyn sends men on horseback to catch us,” answered Grey Wolf. “And that’s another advantage of the carpet: It lets us go cross country. Pursuit will be more likely over the road.”
Tor retrieved the carpet and snapped it flat. Kibi had set down his lantern, giving them just enough light to see; the sky was overcast, and the nearest light atop the city wall was hundreds of feet distant. That was just as well; Grey Wolf didn’t think that guards walked the walls, but this would be a bad place to get spotted.
Aravia pointed across the shadowed countryside. “Southeast is that way.”
“Right,” said Grey Wolf. “Let’s get moving.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dranko lay back on the flying carpet, staring up at the swath of stars painting the night sky, listening to the sound of his lungs not doing their job. Morningstar and Aravia were squeezed in on either side, while Tor sat at the front doing the steering. The warm air ruffled Dranko’s clothing and hair. Was he going to die? With every wheezy breath that rattled through his lips, it seemed more and more likely. It wasn’t fair.
They were three days out from Trev-Lyndyn. That’s what the others told him, but maybe that had been yesterday, so it could be four days. He had dipped in and out of consciousness more than once.
He had barely eaten since their flight from the city. Just the sight of food made him ill. The others had insisted, so he had choked down some of Ernie’s porridge this morning, but skipped out on lunch. He could only eat so much jerky, hardtack, and dried fruit even when his stomach wasn’t protesting.
Too much healing. That was obviously the problem. He’d known for weeks that his body was crumbling under the stresses of channeling. Assuming he wasn’t permanently damaged, he needed rest, serious rest, rest without having to direct Delioch’s blessings through his friends every other week. But he couldn’t have left that barbed spear sit there sticking out of Ernie’s leg. Same with Aravia’s crossbow bolt. Sometimes life left you only with choices that stunk.
He hadn’t wanted the others to know, had tried to pass it off as a run-of-the-mill sickness. Who knew what kind of illnesses floated around in the Kivian air? But Morningstar had called him on it. She felt something similar after creating her invisibility cloak twice in one evening, though she had fully recovered. He faintly recalled, during one of his periods of delirium, her warning Tor to take extra care in his flight, so that Dranko wouldn’t have to endure any bumps or jarring.
One night of full bedrest, in a real bed, would get him past the worst of it. He closed his eyes; it was so much easier than keeping them open.
* * *
Someone put a cup to his lips. Dranko gulped reflexively, choked, and sprayed water messily from his mouth.
“He’s conscious.”
“Dranko, can you sit up? You need water.”
“Gods, he looks awful.”
The ground beneath his back felt odd. It wasn’t the carpet, and it felt softer than the grass, rocks, and roots of the past few…days? The passage of time was missing from his mind. Dranko coughed out the remaining water in his throat and tried to speak but managed only a feeble little gasp.
The smell in the air confused him, wonderful and revolting at once. He should know what it was. Bread? Yes, that was it. Bread, freshly baked. Hunger gnawed him from the inside out, but the thought of putting bread in his mouth made him want to gag.
“What should we do?”
Was that Ernie’s voice? He could open his eyes and find out, but the idea of light striking his eyeballs was nearly as repellant as food touching his tongue.
“You should go to sleep.” That was Morningstar. “You too, Kibi. No matter how long my dispensation lasts, I will always find it natural to be awake at this hour. I’ll see what I can do for Dranko. Go to bed.”
Footsteps. A door opening, distant voices sounding from somewhere beyond, a rattle like dice in a cup, a cheer, the door closing, quiet coming back in.
Dranko licked his lips and tried one more time to speak. The words came
out like a dying man’s final gasp.
“I’m not lying on the ground.”
“No. You’re in a bed.”
Dranko tried to detect any emotion in Morningstar’s response. Was she sympathetic? Annoyed? All he could tell was that her voice sounded matter-of-fact. It embarrassed him to be lying here like this, an invalid. Damn it, but at least he could open his eyes.
The light stung. Morningstar sat on a stool at his left, hands in her lap, looking down at him. Her face was as hard to read as her voice, but he fancied there was at least a semblance of concern.
“Why am I in a bed?”
“Because Kibi put you down on it and because you needed one. How are you feeling?”
“I feel like a pile of cow crap. And you?”
Morningstar smiled, probably out of pity more than his sense of humor. “I’m fine, Dranko. Because, unlike you, I haven’t overdone things, and I’ve allowed my body time to recover. Also I’ve had dinner, and you should, too. It’s just a bowl of stew and some bread and jam. Can you eat?”
Dranko supposed he could. He tried to sit up, but nothing happened. He tried again and his torso rose an inch or two, then flopped back down on the bed. Sleep would claim him easily, if he allowed it.
“Here, let me help you.”
Morningstar grabbed him under his armpits and hoisted him to a sitting position, back against the wall behind the bed.
“Now try to eat this.”
He looked down at the slice of bread and jam in her hand, and the aroma made up his mind. He shoved it into his mouth, overcoming a spike of nausea. Once that was gone, he slurped up the whole bowl of steaming stew, never mind that it scalded his tongue.
“I could use another cup of water.”
Morningstar silently handed him the cup, and he drained the whole thing.
“Better.” His voice sounded more like a voice and less like a mutilated wind instrument.
“Good,” she said. “I can send for more food if you’d like, and there’s plenty of water.”
“No, that’s fine for now. Last thing I need is to puke everything up.”
She winced.
He looked around the room, squinting. Was this what it was like for Morningstar all the time, even dim lights bringing discomfort? Like an eternal hangover?
“I have a vague recollection that we were headed cross-country on the carpet, so we could go faster and evade anyone chasing us from Trev-Lyndyn. But if I’m not mistaken, we’re in an inn. Have we reached Djaw already?”
“No,” said Morningstar. “We still have a long way to travel, though we’ve made good progress. We’re in a little town called Lyme, in the middle of the country of Dir-Tolia. The innkeeper said it’s a hard three weeks on foot between here and Djaw. If we keep using the carpet, we can cut that time in half. Poor Kibi. He can’t get used to it, but he endures it for the sake of the quest.”
Dranko’s mind started to focus a bit better. Must have been the food.
“Isn’t it risky, staying in a town like this? Lapis could have left behind another nasty surprise for us.”
“We talked about that,” said Morningstar. “But there are so many little villages and towns between Trev-Lyndyn and Djaw, it’s unlikely she’d have happened to set a trap for us in any particular one.”
“Lapis worships an evil god of knowledge. Given everything Mokad knew when we chatted, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lapis knows exactly where we are and where we’ll be this time tomorrow, too.”
Morningstar refilled his water cup from a pitcher and handed it back to him. “We can’t think that way. We’d be afraid of doing anything, for fear that our enemies can predict our actions. As for this inn, we decided that you needed one night beneath a roof, in a bed, with a hot meal. Two or three nights would be better, but this is all we can afford. Kibi changed some of his coins into miracs back in Trev-Lyndyn, but it wasn’t very much.”
Dranko smiled. “We have more money than you think.”
Morningstar raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Remember when those thugs threw their firebomb in the window of the moneychanger’s shop? And there was a mad scramble to get out? I may have liberated some miracs during our escape.”
He expected Morningstar to disapprove, and maybe she did, but her steady look betrayed nothing.
“The Trev-Lyndyn watch emptied out our packs,” she said. “There weren’t any coins when Kibi scooped everything up.”
“Doubt anyone would have seen them. I stuffed the miracs into a hidden compartment in my pack.” He also had the last of Abernathy’s fire opals for financial emergencies, but out of habit he didn’t mention that.
“Your pack has a hidden compartment?”
“We had a lot of downtime after the giant turtle died.”
Given how much Morningstar disliked him, it hardly mattered admitting he was still a thief at heart. But she surprised him.
“That was quick thinking,” she said. “Let’s take a look at how much you…liberated…and see if it’s enough to buy us another day or two.”
She brought him his pack. Beneath concealed folds of leather were two pouches of coins. Morningstar spilled them out onto a table.
Her eyes widened. “You don’t do things halfway, do you? We could spend a week here and eat lavishly every night. But let us hope you feel well enough to travel before that. We shouldn’t delay more than we must.”
Dranko felt better with each minute that passed, though he still shivered with a feverish chill. “About that,” he said. “It’s obvious now that we’re not getting our hands on the Crosser’s Maze anytime soon. This is turning into a slog, not something done in a week or two like we were hoping. It’s possible we’re already too late. For all we know, Naradawk busted down his door and has been stomping Charagan to pieces the whole time we’ve been gone.”
Now it was Morningstar’s turn to smile. “I don’t think he is. I’ve had communication with some of my sisters back home. If Naradawk has escaped, he hasn’t yet done anything that they’ve noticed or heard about.”
Dranko didn’t bother to hide his shock. “You can talk to your sisters in Charagan? How? Can you find out if Abernathy is back from his emergency?”
She didn’t answer right away. Dranko sensed an internal debate.
“I cannot talk to Abernathy,” she said eventually. “Though I could ask Sister Previa to visit the Greenhouse and ask Eddings if there has been any sign of the archmagi. I suppose I ought to do that, now that you bring it up.”
Dranko waited for her to say more, but that was all he was getting. “You can keep your secrets,” he said genially. “Given how much you dislike me, I ought to be thrilled that you’re here in my room playing nursemaid. For that matter, you probably shouldn’t stay too long. Wouldn’t want the others to get the wrong idea about us.”
He waggled his eyebrows, and she grimaced and turned away. She really needed to lighten up.
“That was a joke,” he said. “But seriously, I do appreciate that you bought me food. Any chance you could have a bottle of wine delivered?”
“I don’t think that would be wise. As for my concern about your health, consider that we are on an extremely important and dangerous errand. I doubt our need for your healing has ended, so getting you rested enough that you can channel should be one of our highest priorities.”
“Ah, ever focused on the practical. For a moment there, I was worried that you might care about me.”
Morningstar stood up. “Go to sleep, Dranko. This is the inn’s only single room; take advantage of it. I’ll leave the water.”
She gathered up his stew bowl and spoon. Then she picked up one of his pouches of miracs. “I’ll see what good we can put this to.”
Dranko couldn’t have resisted even if he had wanted to, and it would be a waste of time to protest. He lay back down and sighed as his head sank into his pillow. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lapis stood in the
Plaza of Glory, a small, abandoned place with a cracked statue of an angel in its center. She had long since left the extravagant parts of Djaw behind, wandering through increasingly decrepit neighborhoods until she found herself in a tiny district known as the Pit. No one goes there, she was told more than once. It was rumored, in words of whispered fear, that deep in the Pit was hidden the shrine of Dralla, Daughter of Death, Mother of Monsters, Scourge of Night. It was called the Pit because it contained a perilous darkness, and those who fell into it were unlikely to claw their way out.
She reached out idly and fingered away a smear of ancient grime from the statue. Most of Djaw might be rich and splendid, a city of a size and magnificence that would humble King Crunard of Charagan, but this place hadn’t seen a street-sweeper or lamp-lighter, let alone one of the Falcon Guard, in many years.
All the buildings that surrounded the plaza were abandoned. Some were boarded up, others vigorously ransacked. Had this place once been as grand as the rest of Djaw? Though crumbling and bereft, the buildings were three, four stories tall, some with partially intact facades that hinted of prosperous years once upon a time.
One of the angel’s wings lay broken on the ground near her dirty marble feet. This was certainly the place; Lapis had wrested its description from an acolyte of Drosh, god of death, as he had journeyed on an errand away from the safety of his temple. Drosh, Dralla, Kemma, Nifi… Kivia had its little gods, its playtime pantheon, just as Charagan did. But they were all children who would flee the shadow of the Black Circle when the time came. The denizens of Djaw might fear this place, sacred to the terrible goddess Dralla, but Lapis felt only contempt. She was here because Dralla’s servants had hidden knowledge that she required, and while the Black Circle might dwarf all other pretender-gods in might, Lapis herself was merely a mortal person, and she could not stand outside and pluck knowledge from Dralla’s holy ground. She needed to go in and take it for herself.