The Dark Ferryman

by Jenna Rhodes

  Inwardly, the words of the Goddess echoed in his head, particularly those which she had whispered to him. Like an arrow of Cerat, he mused. Straight to the heart and through it. She had intended to hurt him, and she had indeed pierced him. If he’d had a heart.

  Chapter Four

  He watched Daravan ride off, north and to the east around the looping bay after a last admonishment to tell Lariel their suspicions but to couch them with uncertainty. And to make sure his audience had no listeners but the queen, not even Osten. As for the trader they’d saved, Daravan wanted nothing said. He would handle that, he’d told Sevryn, and Sevryn had little doubt he would. The Oxfort dynasty held more power on the First Home continent than any bloodline or warlord, and it would be crossed, if at all, with great diplomacy. Sevryn took a hand off a carcass for himself after kicking and shooing away the kites who’d come down to claim the spoils.

  Blood soaked his clothes, drying stiffly in the slanting sunlight. Some of it belonged to him and some to Daravan, but the vast majority was the red-black blood of the foe and it stank. The whites of his horse’s eyes showed as he watched Sevryn as warily as he would a stranger while Sevryn wrapped and tucked away his grisly souvenir. Sevryn pulled firmly on the bridle with a word or two, testing the tie-up to a driftwood stump and sat down to pull his boots off so he could bathe. He would not ruin his boots in the sea, not even for a recalcitrant mount. He waded into the surf, the salt water stinging the cuts and scratches peppering his body, even as the chill made him clench his teeth. The foam drew back with the tide stained red by his bathing, and he stepped out of the water as soon as he could, wind off the bay cutting through him.

  Sevryn pulled a saddlebag open and ate while the cold breeze dried him, cutting jerky into strips and chewing it down as best he could. He had a cheese in there, too, but decided to save it and warm it by a fire in the evening. After he finished, he drew out all his weapons, the ones he had recovered, and began to oil and clean them. He honed the ones with the harshest usage, but there were nicks and notches that a smithy would have to finish off for him. Shivers came and went over him as his clothes dried in the chill wind, and he finally put his blades away. He cleaned his boots in the same way, but they would have to be redyed and treated. The bloodsong in him bled away with the sea wind.

  The kites came back with their shrill cries, a dark cloud of them, swooping low to the marsh, and he knew they had come to feast on the carrion left for them. With that thought, he pulled his boots back on, mounted with an encouraging word to his horse, and put his heels to the animal’s flanks. The blood on the water, the cry of birds squabbling over the dead, the winter chill of the wind, all filled him with the sense that he had a need to get back to Rivergrace as soon as he could. It spurred him harder than the urgency to take his grisly trophy to the Warrior Queen with word of a possible new foe. He rode back the way they’d come, the wind off the sea already whipping the sand and dirt over their tracks, obscuring them. When he came to the freshwater river cutting across the marshes, he paused at its bank holding little hope that he could call on the Ferryman to aid his return. He kicked the horse into the water with a jump and a leap and they were through, heading south and to the east, to the line of forested hills where the horse could graze when they halted for the day and he could catch fresh game.

  Aching a bit and tired, he let the horse carry him toward the verdant line while he scanned the area, trying to pick up threads of the trail that Daravan had forged bringing them here. As much a sign of their journey as broken branches and hoofprints, an aura lay over it. Sevryn stared across the landscape, sensing an aura he could pick up and gather, a gossamer-fine thread that he could braid into a stronger thread to guide him back. He caught a shimmering of gray mist and fine sable. Daravan had brought them to the Ferryman, a trail which carried them farther, faster, than physical abilities could otherwise. He should have sensed it. He could now. With a snap of will, he anchored his senses to it, separating it from the natural elements of the world, a passage of unnatural speed and effort, a Way that faded with every breathing moment as it had been meant to do, a thing created to be transient and unobtrusive on the structure of the world. He wondered that he could find it at all, knowing that Daravan must have expended more strength creating it than needed, rather than use too little and fail as his need to arrive in time had pressed him. He wondered that Daravan had been on his feet when they’d come to the bay. What effort had he expended, and of what stuff was he made? As far as Sevryn knew no one had created a Way in his lifetime. The methods for doing so were guarded by each House, if any even remembered. There were many who’d died trying to forge a Way, far more unsuccessful than succeeding, but even that had claimed its toll. Only the Ferryman could cut distance as he had. It was rather like two halves of the whole, this journey of theirs and the Ferryman and the Vaelinar had made the Ways.

  So it was that Sevryn urged his horse onward into the fading day by another riverside just before the setting of the sun.

  He spurred his tired mount across the river, feeling the water rise about them till it touched the bottom of his boot soles and breasted the horse. Weariness sucked at him as did the current, slowing their progress to a slogging walk and he chirped to encourage the horse, mist soaking them both. But the river grew no deeper, nor did it go higher than his boot shank. He pushed worry from his mind and fixed it on the Andredia, the sweet and sacred river that flowed into and through the valley kingdom of Larandaril, the river which would take him to Rivergrace.

  Sevryn’s horse gave a startled whuff as it staggered out of the water. He didn’t need to urge the animal away from the river, as it gratefully clambered onto dry land. He stared back at the water, the hair at the back of his neck prickling uncomfortably. He rubbed his hand across his nape as he took stock of where they stood, but didn’t know where he was. Hopefully, that condition would be temporary when he had a chance to scout in the early daylight on the morrow.

  In the thick of the forest cover, night pressed down as the sun lowered, leaving him shivering. Dry kindling and branches soon made a fire, and the two of them stood close to it while they warmed, and soon the horse dropped his head to crop at the grasses as Sevryn squatted by the flames. He listened to the calming noise of the animal searching out tender shoots left behind yet untouched by frost, and the crackle of the wood as it burned.

  He had grown up in towns—towns, villages, backwater slums of cities, with his hair long and shaggy over the pointed ears that would give him away as a by-blow of the Vaelinar, his clothes nondescript rags that would not give away his age or height or build, for he aged slower than the other wretched children of the streets. Another useless castoff of a feared and sometimes hated bloodline. He didn’t even have the Vaelinar eyes, the eyes that signaled the ability to manipulate magics of the world. No one had a use for him, no race of Kerith and certainly not the Vaelinars. His mother had brought him to a village and then left him to search for his father when his prolonged childhood had so burdened her that she had no choice but to abandon him. She said she’d return, but she never did, nor did anyone who might have deemed himself a father come to claim him in her stead. He was not wanted, except by himself. Every road had been a choice for him, a conscious decision to survive or fall by the wayside. He took care to move from village to city to town, leaving when the years made it obvious that others matured while he did not. He had a talent for making things listen to him and bend to his will. He used that to calm the recalcitrant beasts of trader stables and caravans as a stableboy, a menial job that gave him coin to get through from time to time. Other seasons, he made a living through salvaging and stealing that which was not held dear or close by others. He learned to fight to protect himself and he taught himself to throw daggers . . . to amuse himself and to hunt. He hadn’t had much of a life until that day that Gilgarran fell on him from a second-story window and looked into his face and knew exactly what he looked at despite how Sevryn tried to dissemble and to pers
uade him otherwise with his Voice.

  Gilgarran had taken him in, groomed him, taught him intrigue and spying and weapons and diplomacy, and the two of them had never looked back until the day Quendius sliced Gilgarran’s head from his shoulders when Gilgarran breached his outlaw fortress and forge. Of his own almost twenty-year captivity by the weaponsmith, he thought and remembered little except that which sometimes rode his dreams. The memories had been scarred over and hidden for a good many years till made raw again by circumstances, but he would not dwell on them. They were as if they had happened to someone else, and so he treated them that way. To think otherwise would invite insanity or self-pity, and he’d already moved beyond that. Far beyond. His escape had brought him to yet another Vaelinar who’d recognized the potential in him: Queen Lariel and her brother Jeredon, and he had not left their service since.

  Not even for Rivergrace. He thanked the lost Gods of the Vaelinars and the stubbornly absent ones of Kerith that he’d never had to make the choice.

  Lara’s title had not come by way of a dynasty, although her grandfather had been the Warrior King. She had, through a series of trials that Sevryn and most Vaelinar were not privy to, earned her designation. He could not say what she’d sacrificed, but he could say that he found her fair and tough-minded and formidable. No word had ever been breathed of what Talent she held. There were those disgruntled Vaelinar who claimed she had no Talent, that her remarkable eyes of blue highlighted by gold and silver were empty of the magics of her people, but he would deny that. Secretive she could be, but without Talent? No. She possessed whatever she needed to be Warrior Queen of the contentious Vaelinar, and more.

  As for her brother Jeredon, he was like a brother to Sevryn as well. Tall and graceful, diffident about politics and more at home in the forest than in the halls, Jeredon strode across the lands as a hunter and care-taker, not a warrior. Since his wounding in a rockfall, he’d been paralyzed from the waist down, though healers proclaimed he retained some feeling and movement and that he would likely heal completely, given time, that nerves and tendons and cartilage had not been severed, only severely bruised and traumatized. The one trait he shared with his sister, impatience, made his recovery all the more difficult. Lariel did not need the burden of his infirmity. No one but Jeredon complained of it. Indeed, Rivergrace’s foster sister Nutmeg waited on him hand and foot and said not a word in complaint. The sturdy Dweller lass had pulled a starveling Vaelinar child from the River Silverwing and made a sister of her, and she’d accept no less a miracle with Jeredon’s recuperation.

  Sevryn poked a branch into the fire, stirring up those already burning a bit, and watched as an ember flew up with a hissing spit, then burned out. Actually, that was not quite true. Nutmeg could box the prince’s ears with the best of them, and give him an earful of Dweller parables, always pragmatic and often humorous, and she never let Jeredon wallow in regret or slack in his rehabilitation, for all that she was little more than torso high to a Vaelinar. The Dwellers of this world were the salt of the earth, no less, and the Gods blessed them even as they had turned deaf ears and blind eyes to the other races of Kerith. Sevryn had not been raised as a Vaelinar, so he wasn’t brought up with the knowledge that they’d lost all they’d known, even their memories of their true roots and heritage. He missed nothing but what he had been given from the day he was born, and never thought back on the generations before him.

  Not true for other Vaelinars; not for those original lost who still lived. Not for those who fought to claim an intangible something they felt they had lost, whether it be rulership or superiority or dominion over the earth they trod. Not for those who would do anything to regain that which they had been banned from forever.

  Sevryn wondered if that was what drove Quendius.

  He stabbed his poker branch into the flames and left it there to burn as well, knowing he wouldn’t gain an answer that evening, and perhaps never. He would not, however, give up trying to find one. He wondered if he had already made the choice the Ferryman had demanded of him.

  He dozed a moment, eyes half open, his hands going slack, his mind drifting off to things he hadn’t felt in the battle, hadn’t noticed until now . . . the smell of the blood exciting him, the sight of it streaming down his blade and pooling onto the sands. His heart leaped in momentary excitement and he tasted a yearning at the back of his throat.

  He dreamed of something he was not, but had been . . . once. The feel of cold iron bound him by ankle and wrist, shame as white hot as forge-heated iron filled him. Old scars of body and soul ran achingly through him.

  The shock of it flung his eyes wide open, his body in a still wakefulness. The afternoon had grown late, the sun’s half-hidden rays slanting low across the vista.

  “City lad. You ought to know better than to sleep in the wild.”

  He knew the voice before he saw the shadow separate itself from the dusky images thrown by tree and bush, and the being squatted down in front of him, the burned-out fire separating them. Even among the varied Vaelinars, his soot-colored skin was a rarity, and he dressed to accent it, wearing leather breeches of charcoal hue, and a rich ivory long vest which fell open as he settled himself. Quendius spread his hands out to the cooling ashes in futility, but Sevryn doubted he wanted embers to warm his hands. The man he knew preferred the heat of blood.

  “You followed Gilgarran to his death. Would you follow Daravan there as well? It is better, lad, to lead. Always better to lead.”

  “Kill me and be done with it.”

  Quendius grinned. “To the point.”

  Sevryn levered himself to one elbow, eyes locked on the other. He did not move beyond that, nor did the expression in the other’s eyes give away any intention.

  “When Gilgarran brought you to my forge above the Silverwing, I thought you nothing more than a servant dogging his boot steps. Him, I knew. I knew his reputation and his canniness. Knowing that, I should have paid more attention. You were the weapon he had hidden up his sleeve although it didn’t save his life. You did what he intended. You brought my forge down, and you brought back word of what I had been doing.” Quendius clenched one fist and released it. “I kept you alive because I thought you had only been a bl-blow tagging along behind him. If I had known, you’d be dead already.’ ”

  “We’ve something in common, then. We both regret the other is living.”

  “And what of my hound? Do you have him marked for death as well?”

  Sevryn flicked his gaze around quickly but found no one else. “Where is Narskap? I thought you held that leash close.”

  “He is hunting other quarry. One you should worry more about than yourself.”

  Sevryn froze his expression before the other could see the emotion that ran through him. Before Quendius could see that his words marked him like a brand. Before Quendius could verify that he cared far more about Rivergrace than he did for himself. Before he could hand Quendius another weapon to be used in this private war. “One lives for oneself or not at all,” he remarked, with just a shadow of his Voice upon it, pushing conviction and trust. Do not think upon Rivergrace, Quendius, do not think of her at all.

  After watching him closely for a moment or two, Quendius moved smoothly to his feet. A massive though lean man, he towered over the prone Sevryn. The years had not aged him much, if at all, although his hands showed more calluses and scarring, the signature of his trade as a weaponsmith and a warrior. He crooked a finger at Sevryn. “We are both alone, it seems, except for our regrets. Yours should be short-lived.” He cast a look about the area. “The day grew cold early. It is a shame you neglected your fire, though that neglect suits my purposes.” He gestured, and Sevryn followed it to see an empty sack lying nearby on the ground. “It will seek your heat. And, when it does, sooner or later, it will strike you. I won’t bore you with the tale of why I even had it on me, but I did. If, for some reason, this doesn’t kill you, I’ll find another way.” Quendius took a calculated step backward. Behind Sevryn,
his horse let out a nervous whinny.

  Sevryn moved his chin a bit to see the thing lying close to his pants leg—green-and-yellow scales, a long, flattish, diamond-shaped head with a beautiful red whorl mark—the kedant viper. Quendius gave a dry chuckle as he took another step backward, into the shadows. “May you have the unquiet Return you deserve,” he said as he left.

  Sevryn did not move, except to measure his breathing in long, slow, shallow drafts while he watched the serpent. It would strike, inevitably, for that was its nature, to hunt warm-blooded things, even as it took shelter with him. Far from the rocks and sands which the sun heated like a hearth for its existence, it would be unsettled and even more aggressive than usual. Time crawled, even as the kedant viper did, edging up along his leg and thigh toward his torso and the hand he held very still. He stretched his senses out, the senses Gilgarran had tuned for him, Vaelinar senses for which he had the Talents if not the eyes, even as Quendius had the eyes, eyes of obsidian black with silvery shards in them, without the Talents.

  He found no sign of the other, although the edge of the forest had begun to stir with those seeking shelter for the night and those seeking to hunt by cover of the night.

  Now or never.

  He reached down and grabbed the viper by the back of its neck. Fast but not fast enough, for it struck him on the hand as he did so, and fire stung him. Sevryn bit off a harsh word as he sprang to his feet, drew his dagger, and sliced the vicious thing into shreds. Then he stood and felt the kedant venom raking him.