The Dark Ferryman

by Jenna Rhodes

  Garner turned away as if disinterested. But he wasn’t. This was why Sevryn had asked him to join the Oxfort ranks, and this was one of the men most specifically Sevryn had needed followed. He would not find out now, but he would watch and listen.

  Quendius did not leave the caravan all that long afternoon or evening, and his mount was still tied at the horse line, being massaged and groomed and given grain, when Garner woke in the morning and uncurled from his blankets on the ground.

  What had the trader and weaponsmith met about? What was their game?

  A low, misty fog hung over the training camp, blown straight off the bay, and even the Jewel couldn’t be seen through it, although he would bet his day’s wages that it would burn off by the time the sun was halfway up in the sky. While they sat hunkered over their skillets of hash, he debated sending word to Sevryn. But what word? He knew little or less. He could report a meeting, nothing more. That would only worry at Sevryn, and the man was already worried; that was why he’d put Garner in place. Garner scraped his pan clean before taking it over to the boiling cauldron for a quick dunk of cleaning. He had more to learn; he had only to find a way to do it.

  The way found him first. Bregan emerged from his caravan dressed not in his trader finery but for a ride. “I need four men,” he announced. He pointed at the Bolger instructor, Garner, and two of the other trainees.

  Quendius came out behind him, a dark shirt that matched the sooty color of his skin under his long, white woolly vest, and frowned. “Not the Bolger,” he said. “I need men.”

  Garner’s pulse thumped heavily in his chest at the sight of the weaponsmith.

  The Bolger lifted his upper lip in disdain as he turned away from the Vaelinar.

  “Mount up, field gear.” Bregan pointed at a fourth, a young Kernan who had shown some promise in training although he was greener than a summer apple.

  They were in their stirrups and ready before the horse boys held mounts for the trader and the weaponsmith. As he watched, Garner scratched at his chin where a smudge of a beard had taken root. Oxfort caravan guards trained close to a hundred men in this camp and the ones staying behind were quickly formed into drilling units by the tough Bolger and a scar-faced Kernan, Stickle by name, who had far better guard sense than gambling sense. He rode out after Bregan and Quendius with his Bolger instructor uttering another long, scornful hiss after them. He cast another glance at the sky where a pale winter sun fought to beat down at them through thinning clouds and fog.

  Of all the places where he thought Bregan and Quendius might lead them, he would never have bet on the rear gate to Temple Row in Hawthorne. The horses moved restively in the close quarters of the alley, their hooves loud on the clay tiles that paved the way. The temples of Hawthorne were grander than those of Calcort and far more than the simple houses in Stonesend, but they were not opulent by any means. The tiles had been broken by time and wear and relaid with new mortaring, rather than replaced, so that whatever pattern they’d once held had been scattered and rearranged, and the glazing over their surface long faded from sun and salt air. A priest had come out to greet them, the wind even under the sheltering eaves of the temple finding him to ruffle thinning brown curls about his head as he spoke in a flustered manner.

  “Master Oxfort! Is there a problem at the countinghouse? I deposited the sales as per your command, and they had told me that all was in order. I trust I have not offended you in any way!”

  “I’ve heard nothing amiss. Collect yourself, good priest, and take a deep breath.” Bregan swung down, the only finery glittering about him the metal brace upon his leg, curling metalwork done by the most cunning of Vaelinar and holding him steady. “I am glad our people have taken your sermons seriously and purchased the listeners for their households. We don’t want to miss the words of the Gods when They speak to us again.”

  The priest bobbed. “No, indeed not. Never. Yet, here you are. How may I help you, Master Oxfort?”

  “A grave situation has come to my attention, which only you can help me solve. What I propose to you now has been brought to me by great effort and through a long meditation of what to do about what I have learned.” Bregan frowned, and brushed his hair back from his forehead, a gesture that seemed almost boyish. The Kernan priest’s eyes never left his face. Oxfort lowered his voice a little. “What I will suggest to you is near treasonous. Have I your confidence?”

  “Absolutely, my son, as any who come to a temple must have!”

  “Good, then. I’ve been brought information which tells me that our efforts, so hard worked upon and so needed, will come to nothing.”

  The priest sucked in his breath sharply. “Tell me not.”

  “Yes, and yet there is a glimmer of hope. All these centuries,” and Bregan paused until he was certain the priest, and the two boys hanging back in his shadow, listened closely. “All these centuries of punishment for our sins and the arrogance of the Mageborn we took because we felt it our lot to do so. We have hope now that the Gods are about to speak to us again, but their efforts will be futile, as they have been for many, many decades. It is not our failure. We’ve proved our humility and our love. No. Those who would rule us have blocked the voices of the Gods.”

  The priest wrung his hands. “Who would do such a thing? And how could they?”

  Bregan pointed, away from the temple, over the rooftops of the city, across Hawthorne and the bay, his finger aimed at the great Jewel of Tomarq which, like the sunlight, had finally broken through the haze and shone like a faraway ruby on the cliffs. “That,” he told them, “is a Shield not only for the bay and our coast but a Shield from the Gods who would deal with the Vaelinars. So I have been told, and so I have come to believe.”

  The priest swung about to follow the line of Bregan’s hand. He swallowed down a gulp or perhaps it was a tremor, for Garner saw the man shake from head to toe. When he turned about, it was to say in a quailing voice, “But you ride with one of them.” His gaze fastened upon Quendius and slid away.

  “Not all wish to rule. Some quest for the truth. This man came to me after many years of finding evidence of his suspicions, and now I am come to you.”

  The priest put his chin up. “What, if anything, can we do?”

  “I intend, with your help, to confront them. To demand they put their Shield down and let us live as the Gods command us to.”

  The priest managed a quick look at Quendius. “You stood in the temple with me. You said you wanted to know how we worshiped.”

  “I did.” The Vaelinar’s deep voice rolled out with the tenor of thunder coming from far away. “I wanted to see if the people I was willing to risk my life for were worth it. I came to the conclusion you are.”

  The priest bowed deeply. “Tell me what you would have me do.”

  “I want robes for the six of us, and we will go with you and your most devoted priests, up to the Gate of the Jewel.”

  “Today?”

  “Now,” said Bregan firmly.

  The priest spun about on his heel. “Quick, quick, then! Robes, you heard the master!” He scurried into the depths of his sanctuary, leaving behind only the echo of his running footsteps.

  Quendius looked to Bregan. “Selling merchandise with the temple? Is there an agreement I should perhaps have a part of?”

  “That agreement pays for the guards you use and I recruit, feed, train, clothe, equip, and board. I think we are quits on this deal.” Bregan’s jawline hardened, and Quendius only chuckled.

  Garner sat quietly, feeling the heat of his horse’s flanks warm the inside of his legs. He had become part of something he could neither stop nor warn Sevryn about. He tried not to let the thoughts running through his mind show in his expression. They had not brought him along to think. Yet that’s what he was, a man who thought, wasn’t he, and he’d be a fool not to be one; and did they think that they were just going to ride up to the Gate where the Istlanthir kept guard over the great Way their House and the House of Drebukar had
made, and did they also think the Vaelinars were going to say, “Come right in and, of course, we’ll undo the Way so that your Gods can talk to you?” If they thought that, they had another think coming. But he kept his musing under tight wraps, all the long ride out of Hawthorne and up to the cliffs of Tomarq where they picked out the trail cautiously until they came to the great abyss known as the Gate of the Jewel where a barracks house blocked the trail. He expected the Vaelinars to come boiling out like hornets from a fallen nest but only one came forth.

  They sat on horseback. Woven robes covered their bodies and great, floppy hoods hid their faces. The Vaelinar who stepped out had the distinctive faintly blue skin and hair the color of the ocean that he warded, so Garner knew it must be either Tranta or the younger of the two guardians, Kever. He hadn’t met either although Nutmeg might have, being part of Lariel’s entourage, so he could not say who they faced. Whoever he was, his dark green upon lighter green eyes gave them all the once-over before seeking out the priest who rode in front.

  “Greetings, my friends, on a dry and gloomy winter’s day. What can I do for you?”

  “We come on a mission for our Gods,” the priest answered. The wind pushed his hood back on his head, revealing him, and a tremor ran through him as if he feared the sudden exposure.

  Istlanthir smiled thinly. “Gods and sorrow are in attendance aplenty down the trail at House Drebukar, if you’re looking for the memorial of Osten Drebukar. Here, only the sun, wind, and sea can sway a man.” His dark blue hair fanned out about his shoulders, and the great jewel sat turning slowly in its cradle behind him, almost as if it rode his shoulder.

  “Our mission,” said the priest, “is the Jewel. Would you put down the Gate so we can approach?”

  The Vaelinar tilted his head slightly. He waved a hand through the air. “Even with the Gate down, you can’t cross the chasm from here. The only way to get truly close to the Jewel is to climb the cliff.”

  The priest’s hand shook violently. He stilled it by grabbing onto his saddle, startling his rough-maned horse as he did so. “It . . . it has become known to us that the Shield is blocking us from our Gods, that it stills their Voices so that we cannot hear them and we implore you, to drop that barrier.”

  “What are you babbling about?” The thin veil of weary humor about Istlanthir dropped immediately. He took a step back as if to widen his view of all of them. Garner saw shrewdness spark in his eyes.

  “It is a wish, a plea, milord Istlanthir, for you to stop the Jewel in its Way, so that we may hear our Gods, as is our right and hope.”

  Garner watched the priest as he literally shook in his stirrups, but the man would not give ground.

  “This Way, this gem, has protected Hawthorne and the bay for centuries. The entire coast for all of that time. And you wish me to topple it from its cradle?”

  “Yes, milord, you have the right of it.”

  Istlanthir shook his head slowly. “Turn back on the trail and ride down the way you came. Your faces will be forgotten as soon as you leave.”

  Garner wondered if his face could be seen through the shadow of the hood pulled around it. Surely not. The guard riding next to him shifted in his saddle slightly, as if he pondered the same.

  The priest sucked in a great breath. “It is you who should leave. All of you who exploded into our lands and never left, and take the bounty of it by force, and have no right to rule it or us. You who should worry if I will remember your face when I count those misdeeds done against me and my people and my followers. You who should fear to be standing here on this cliff at this time!”

  “Old man.” Istlanthir had his hands on his cross-strapped sword hilts but had not drawn them. “I commend your loyalty to your worship and worshipers. If you worry about the Shield, petition the next Council two years hence, and gather your evidence to present then. There is no truth to your fears, but I invite you to investigate them until the hair falls from your head and the teeth from your mouth. In the meantime, the Jewel will stand and do what it was created to do, and that is to protect both of us and thousands more.”

  “Lies, and you hide behind them.”

  “I have no reason to lie to you, Priest, but neither do I have any great reason to give you further regard. Turn around and ride back the way you came.”

  “Not as long as the Jewel stands!” With that, the priest threw back his robe and sprang from his horse, pulling his knobby wooden staff from its saddle strap.

  Garner and his fellows bailed as well, springing apart, and freeing themselves from their robes, swords and staves filling their hands. The Istlanthir whipped about, his hands blurs of motion and the man next to Garner fell, two daggers protruding from his chest, as he coughed and cried out in a pink froth. Garner brought his horse down in front of him as a barrier and unfastened the bolo from his belt. The Istlanthir whirled about and took another man down before stepping back, not winded or dismayed, and called out, “It is not too late to leave, Priest.”

  Quendius dropped his robe and drew his bow off his shoulder, and nocked an arrow to it. “I think it is.”

  They stood facing one another over the heads and shoulders of the Kernans and others, Bregan Oxfort on one knee, his head cleared of the hood but motionless inside his borrowed robes, watching both of them.

  “You’re a fool. Even with the Gate down, you can’t cross the final chasm to the Jewel. The only way is to climb from the seaside. It’s the final defense. Even my brother has to climb.”

  “And fall,” Quendius remarked.

  Istlanthir’s skin paled to a ghostly white. He gripped a sword as he would a spear. “You will have to go through me to get to the Jewel.”

  “Oh, I’m well prepared to do that.” Quendius smiled, and let the arrow fly.

  Time slowed. Garner could only watch as the arrow arced across the distance, centered on Istlanthir who heeled in and threw his sword, shoulder muscles rippling. The two weapons passed one another, the arrow far nearer its target than the sword which would fall short of Quendius. Garner let loose his bolo.

  The arrow struck Istlanthir in the chest, driving him back, drilling through him as his voice cried out, but he did not fall. He put his hands to the arrow, but it did not thunk home in his flesh. It went through him, like an animal eating through the sweet meats of its fallen prey, and when the arrow came clear of his body, it flew onward. Garner’s bolo twisted across the span and tangled about the sword, bringing it clattering down just short of Bregan Oxfort’s throat. Istlanthir faltered and went to his knees. Turned, his chest destroyed and gaping, and watched the arrow fly onward. It gained speed, blood and gore dripping from its shaft and arrowhead which sparkled like a smaller ruby eye of the main Jewel . . . a splinter going home . . . and it hit.

  The Jewel shattered. The cradle let out a groan of metal and shards and ground to a halt, covered in ruby dust and debris. The arrow lay in its midst, head glittering. Then it rose and returned to the outstretched hand of Quendius.

  That was when time caught up. Istlanthir toppled with a groan, and his body shimmered, then danced and twitched upon the ground and his flesh began to grow translucent before rending from his bones and he not yet dead but certainly dying. He let out a last, heartbreaking scream. Bregan staggered to his feet. Quendius caught him by the collar.

  “Behold the Returning of a Vaelinar where two worlds fight for his dying soul and his dying flesh.”

  Garner’s breakfast rose bitter in his throat to choke him. He spewed it out about the ground as what had been a man, a brave and fighting man, disintegrated into ribbons of bloody flesh and broken bone, even the weapons and clothing upon him torn to such a degree that nothing remained recognizable. Kites coasting on the sea winds dipped down with strident cries to the kill and began to fight over it, squawking and flapping at one another. No one who hadn’t seen it could tell who died there. The priest made an incoherent choking noise in his throat. Quendius clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Brace yourse
lf, old man. The Gods will come calling soon.” He pointed out to the sea, where small sparkles on the waves bobbed up and down, drawing ever nearer and Garner gulped a sour swallow downward as he saw what Quendius revealed. Sea craft, coming in on the tide, an armada. “My army will bring the Gods back to you, I vow. Never will you pray so hard.” He laughed as he threw himself back on his horse and left them to their small destinies on the cliff.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  SEVRYN FOUND TRANTA Istlanthir in the far pasture working one of the ild Fallyn tashya horses as he rode down into Andredia’s river valley. The two made quite a pair as the wind whipped about them, and the horse cantered so close to Tranta who lunged at him on foot that his mane and tail whipped about the man, veiling him from sight in a swirl of flaxen hair. It would be difficult to judge which of them was the most colorful: the horse with the gold-dappled chestnut hide and flaxen hair or the Vaelinar lord with his dark blue hair and clothes of green and sea blue and gold. Neither, Sevryn mused, would be difficult to pick out of a crowd. He watched Tranta pivot smoothly as the horse cantered round and round him, seeing that his friend moved as easily in his gait as the tashya. After his fall from the high sea cliffs of Tomarq, that had been in doubt. But, as tales told, the Vaelinars healed well. What should have been fatal and had, indeed, nearly killed him was now only a memory in his scars and aching bones.

  As, nearly, his own wound was puckering down to be, although his healing skills were more attributable to the ability of the queen’s healers. He could not begrudge the full-blooded the advantage he didn’t hold. If it weren’t for that, Jeredon might never have a chance to heal and walk again, and that seemed to still be a distinct possibility in his case. He could not see Jeredon restrained to a cart the rest of his undoubtedly long life. Although Tressandre might have gotten him to his feet for now, who knew what toll that was taking on the natural healing process? It was a risk Jeredon had eagerly accepted. Sevryn could not blame him, although he would not have suffered either hurt or healing at Tressandre’s hands if he could help it. Not again.