by J. C. Staudt
“We’ll see you all in a few weeks,” Alynor said. “Farewell and godspeed.”
Jeebo stepped forward. “Before you set off, allow me to offer a benediction in Faranion’s name, that he may guide—”
“Save your words,” said Triolyn.
“Plug your ears,” Jeebo shot back.
“I’ll have nothing to do with that god of yours, whether I’m listening or not.”
“Faranion may yet change your ways, old friend.”
“Don’t bet the homestead on it. And don’t let anything happen to mine while I’m gone, either.”
“Never you fear. My birds will patrol the skies as though the very weather depends on it.”
“See they stay clear of our hunting grounds, lest I be tempted.”
Jeebo frowned. “You know I don’t suffer my birds to be dishonored.”
“Settle your bones, mixed-blood. I jest. Truth be told, I’ve long recognized the benefits of having your birds around. Less hunting I’m burdened with, for one.”
“I appreciate the sentiment,” said Jeebo.
“Let’s not get weepy about it. Shall we be off?”
“I thank you for your blessing, Master Jeebo,” said Draithon. “I pray it is as you say; that our path is directed toward a prosperous outcome.”
Kestrel smirked. “I intend to prosper whether the gods will it or not.”
“Best we part ways, then,” said Darion. “The day isn’t getting any longer. Keep your head down, singer. Dathrond’s agents are everywhere.”
“I shall be the soul of discretion,” Kestrel promised.
“You’ve never been discrete in your life.”
“I’ll give it some practice along the way.”
As the horses and pull carts split off from the grass-covered knoll to venture out into the wide world, leaving Alynor alone with Jeebo and three of her four children, she felt a sudden dread over what was to come. She told herself it was only a conditioned response. Ever since that day before the gates of Maergath so many years ago, when she’d watched Darion ride out of her life without knowing if she would ever see him again, the prospect of reliving that moment had panicked her. She knew it was only the hunt, yet she could not help but feel a pang of disquiet as Darion and Draithon crossed the grassy plains and disappeared into the wild forests beyond.
Alynor accompanied Jeebo and Westhane and the girls back to the cottage. Over the last ten years, their tiny hamlet had seen chance encounters with many creatures of the wilds, including the intrusion of a hungry gryphon, a chance meeting with a wandering giant, and an attempted raid by a goblin warband. Most such creatures kept to the deep thickets, leaving the open fields surrounding the glen in relative peace. Yet there were crueler beasts to be found in the Tetheri wilds, and that was where her husband and son were headed.
“Mother,” Westhane called. “Mother. We must fight.”
Alynor blinked away her thoughts. “What’s wrong?”
“I challenge you to single combat,” he said, darting into the cottage and reappearing a moment later with two wooden practice swords in hand. He tossed her one.
Alynor caught it at the last instant. Grasping the oil-worn hilt, she gave the weapon a twirl to test its weight, but her mind was not in it. “I’m sorry, dearest. I’m in no mood for a duel just now.”
Westhane frowned. “How long will Father be gone?”
“A fortnight. Maybe more.”
The boy didn’t like that answer. “Why can’t I go with them?”
“Your father wishes to honor Draithon for his name day. He’s a man now, and that means they’ve things to talk about.”
“What things?”
“Things Father will discuss with you when you’re older.”
“I’ll cross swords with you,” Jeebo offered. “I cannot promise I’ll go easy on you, but I presume you’re up to the challenge.”
Westhane brightened. “Give it to him, Mother.”
Alynor handed the practice sword to Jeebo. “Don’t stray too far.”
“We’ll only be down by the pond,” said Westhane. He turned to Jeebo. “What say whoever wins gets to throw the other one in?”
“I accept,” said Jeebo. “I hope you’ve been practicing your swimming, because I intend to throw you clear across to the middle. The fish will be nibbling at your muddy toes before noontide.”
“I don’t think so. I’m the one who will be throwing you in when I beat you.”
“You’re welcome to try, though you may need a catapult.”
The two jogged off, speaking of battle and conquest as they followed the stream toward the shady pond. Ryssa and Vyleigh were playing chase in the field behind the cottage, bounding through dry autumn grass and picking late wildflowers to braid into their hair. Alynor sighed as she walked back to the fire pit to tidy up the breakfast dishes before continuing the day’s tasks.
It was all too perfect, this life. They’d undergone their share of struggles to get here, certainly. Long haggard winters buried in month-long snows; parched summers where the stream ran so low they could barely scrape the dregs with a wooden cup. Yet considering they were hiding out of sight from the most powerful kingdom in the realms, things could’ve been much worse.
They’d made a life for themselves here, and nothing short of catastrophe could compel Alynor to leave it for anything else. Even given the opportunity to return to the way things had been before her children, she would not trade them for any castle or lands or gold, no matter the place or season. They were gifts, each one; they had opened her eyes to new inspiration and given her life new meaning. There was no denying the woman she’d become because of them, and she couldn’t imagine being without a single one.
That was what worried her. It kept her up nights sometimes; more and more often of late. For even in the happiest of times, chaos threatens to tear asunder the inexplicable joy of what we often recognize as a finite string of moments. For all her steady growth in the ways of the mage-song, and for all else she and Darion had done to protect themselves and their loved ones, there seemed always to be a darkness ahead. A darkness which lay just beyond the horizon, further than her eyes were capable of seeing.
Chapter 3
Each time the desert sand shifted beneath his horse’s hooves, Maaltred Furiel got the distinct impression he was sinking. Perhaps that was because he was about to take his first-ever sea voyage; he had never set foot on a boat before, and the thought filled him with trepidation. It did not improve matters that he was heading away from Sparrowmeet, where the two people he loved most in the world were awaiting his return.
Vicars Norne and Sullimas rode in front of him, each Warpriest mounted on his own purebred sand stallion. Sullimas’s long white hair wavered on the desert breeze; Norne’s shiny bald head reflected the sun’s harsh light with a mirror sheen. The horses were proud and noble, bred from the finest Dathiri bloodlines to withstand the harsh desert climes better than any in the realms. As for Maaltred, the finest steed he could afford was the old brown dray he’d used as a plow horse back home.
Maaltred had never thought to name the animal, though he’d ridden her between home and Maergath time and again. She was thick and slow and heavy, no fit mount for the nimble dunes and blistering heat of the eastern deserts. Once they reached Drythorne, Maaltred would have no choice but to sell her and pocket the silver before they took ship for Tetheril. He could scarce afford to stable her while he was gone—not if he wished to keep funds on hand for the journey.
Olyvard had furnished them with provisions and gold for the ocean passage, but little else. Their return to Maergath was set to follow a different route, through the Tetheri wilds or around the coast to Orothwain, and so it was unlikely Maaltred would see Drythorne again anytime soon. Imagine me, a world traveler, he’d thought the night before leaving Maergath for the desert’s harsh dunes. When this is done, I’ll have gone hundreds of leagues and visited two kingdoms I’ve never been to before. It was an exciting thought, i
f also a scary one.
The green ironglass sphere rested in Maaltred’s pack, having sunken to an uncomfortable position against his spine. He saw its dull sheen in his every waking moment now, clouding his memory during the times he might otherwise have been thinking of Juna. The storm within seemed to stretch to interminable depths, and he often felt as though he could gaze forever into its mysteries. Indeed, the more he did, the more he wanted to.
Maaltred was under no illusions about the gravity of his mission. Norne and Sullimas were with him for protection, but Olyvard King had sent them with another purpose in mind. They might never admit it, but Maaltred suspected the king’s orders were that they should kill anyone who threatened the safety of the sphere. Maaltred did not doubt they would kill him as well, given the need.
They were ten days out from Maergath now—ten or eleven, he’d lost count—and the mountainous dunes of the open desert were beginning to flatten as they neared the ocean. Tufts of grass sprang up here and there across the landscape, and the grains of powder-fine sand he found in his robes each morning were growing coarser. The weather’s intensity had waned as the three spheres separated toward their respective destinations, but it was far from back to normal. The wind still blew harder. The sun shone stronger. The patches of vegetation he noticed when they set camp for the night were taller by morning—or so he imagined.
Even the air felt different. There was a thinness to it, such as is found at the top of a mountain, where everything is crisp and clear and cool. Maaltred himself felt lighter, though he was no more limber or poised. He felt as if there were less of him, somehow—or the same amount of him, only more loosely held together. Yet the most alarming change of all was the one he beheld when they crested the top of the final dune and came within sight of the sea.
Waves churned with a violence thick and foaming. The ships outside the low salt-strewn town of Drythorne swayed at dock or rollicked over the surf like driftwood. It was too strange a sight to register in his mind at first. For though the wind and water crashed about as if to herald a coming storm, the skies above were clear blue, and the sun beat down unobstructed by any but the occasional stray cloud.
When they started down the sandy hardpan track which served as the town’s main thoroughfare, Maaltred could feel the grim, unsettled mood lying over the townsfolk. By all accounts, Drythorne’s residents should’ve been accustomed to the frequent battering of heavy southern storms during the autumn season. Yet they were subdued and guarded. They hurried from shelter to shelter as if expecting rain. They covered their backs from the blistering wind and gave terse greetings.
Norne proposed a brief stop at a worn old split-shingle inn near the docks, where they could take their midday meal while awaiting their ship’s call. The Crow’s Nest, read a weathered placard sign nailed into the siding. Maaltred guessed over half the inn’s two-score patrons were either sailors from the islands or passengers stopping over during a longer voyage. He did not like the look of them, sallow-faced and yellow-eyed, with red gums and blackened teeth. If a sea voyage could do this to a man, he wanted no part in it.
“Surely we cannot take ship while the tides are contrary,” he said when he and his two companions had sat to a table along the wall.
“It is the sphere,” Sullimas replied with measured distaste. “The tides will never agree with our course so long as we carry the sphere.”
“Might we not curtail its effects? Using the sphere to amplify a spell diminishes its influence.”
Norne laughed. “You’d need to cast spell after spell for a fortnight straight. Even then, your simple cantrips won’t inhibit the sphere sufficiently to calm the oceans.”
“If there’s no way to ensure our safe voyage, then why has the king chosen to send us to Tetheril by sea?”
“It’s the quickest way. Even in stormy tides. What’s more, Olyvard’s plans are his own. It isn’t our place to question them.”
“We’ve no need to question them,” said Vicar Sullimas. “I know why he’s sent us this way. He doesn’t wish to send a second sphere through Orothwain. He plans to take Vale and Deepsail both, and for that he’ll need to spring a surprise attack on the Council of Mages. There is no easy march west from Maergath for an army on foot. Thus we must keep the green sphere well away from Orothwain to ensure the red sphere arrives first. The Aeldalos is our only feasible means of travel.”
Maaltred’s heart sank. If the vicars said they were traveling by sea, there was little he could do to prevent it. He wished the king had appointed someone else to this task. He was beginning to regret accepting Olyvard’s summons to Maergath three years prior. He’d shelved his entire life in order to do the king’s work. Though if he were honest with himself, the choice had never been his.
He thought back to the day Olyvard King had commissioned them to bear the sphere eastward. “Find Darion Ulther and bring him to me,” the king had commanded from his golden throne. “Failing that, take from him something he will not suffer to live without. Something which will bring him crawling here to beg for my mercy. If he thought I’d stripped him of his life before, he’s seen nothing of my wrath as yet. I want to watch him falter on the edge of his sanity as I seize from him all he loves. I want to see the look on his face when he finally admits I’ve won. Then I shall make him wallow in his loss. Only when he professes that I am the rightful emperor of the five realms and all the world beyond shall my retribution be sated. See that this happens, and you’ll be rewarded beyond measure.”
Olyvard King had promised many times to reward Maaltred for his faithfulness and dedication to the realm. So far the king had failed to deliver on that promise. Maaltred had returned home with purses full of silver once each year, but the amounts he’d left behind with Juna and Liselle were less than he would’ve made in his village workshop through daily labor. Here’s what I get for being skilled in my trade, he thought bitterly. A king’s summons, and three years wasted.
Perhaps the king would reward them fairly when they found the Warcaster. Maaltred had heard Darion Ulther’s name many times, but he knew little of who the man was aside from a traitor to the realms and a Korengadi sympathizer. Olyvard had warned them of Darion’s power, and claimed he was not someone to be underestimated. Apparently the Warcaster had been cowering somewhere in the Tetheri hinterlands with his outlaw band of accomplices for nigh on ten years.
Maaltred could scarce fathom the vile things a group of dishonorable men such as these might do if they got the better of him. Yet Olyvard had assured him and the two vicars that with the forces of nature at their command and the forces of magic weakened by the sphere, Darion Ulther would be without the talents for which he’d become famed throughout the realms. And so Maaltred resolved to face these brigands bravely when the time came, in order that he might show his true loyalty to Dathrond.
“Will the waves never calm?” he asked.
Vicar Sullimas tied back his long white hair with a leather thong. “Our very presence here is what stirs them. The ship that bears us hence will be as the eye of a great storm across the Aeldalos. Thus do we hold nature’s power in our hands.”
Maaltred did not see the point in holding a power too strong to contend with. “How long is the journey? Where do we make landfall?”
“Twelve days due west to Cliffside Harbor. From there we begin our search. Collect rumors at the local alehouses. Hire a guide and a few mercenaries to accompany us into the hinterlands. With the wild-song to lead us, it won’t take long.”
“Best pray our ship’s a sturdy one,” Norne said with a chuckle, “should we wish her to arrive in one piece.”
“I do wish that,” said Maaltred. “I wish it very much.”
“Let’s be about it, then,” said Sullimas.
After paying for their meals, the three Warpriests left the Crow’s Nest to see their horses tended to. Both Norne and Sullimas arranged to have their animals transported back to Maergath to be stabled there. Maaltred was forced to sell his old
dray for a handful of silver, though he’d hesitate to call the horse dealer’s offer a handful. That done, they set off to locate their ship and its captain.
The docks were slippery-wet with seaspray when they arrived to find a busy crew loading barrels and crates onto the deck using a tall cargo hoist which wobbled and creaked in the wind and waves. The triangular-sailed caravel was a smaller vessel than Maaltred had envisioned, its crew the same sort of folk he’d mistrusted at the inn. “We’re going to cross an entire ocean in that thing?” he asked, incredulous.
“We shall certainly try,” said Norne, cracking a wet smile.
That didn’t make Maaltred feel any better.
“These must be our passengers,” exclaimed a man in knee-length breeches and a brown buttoned vest. He danced down the swaying gangplank, nimble as a cat, and hopped to the deck in front of them. “Afternoon, gents. Allow me to be welcoming you to the Howling Whore. Captain Jafe Briston at your service.” He removed the leather kerchief from his head and gave them a sweeping bow to reveal a balding crown of oily brown hair flecked with grays.
“Well met, Captain Briston. I am Vicar Sullimas Pileit. This is Vicar Norne Sigurdarsson, and this is Brother Maaltred Furiel. When do we set sail?”
“Soon as all’s bought and paid-for,” said the captain, extending a hand.
Sullimas smirked wryly before dropping a purse into Briston’s open palm. “It’s all there. Count it if you like.”
The captain whisked the pouch away and secreted it into a vest pocket faster than Maaltred could’ve snapped his fingers. “No need, Master Sullimas. No need. One thing I’ll never be doubting is the good word of priestly fellows such as yourselves. You can be sure of that. Was there anything special you and yours will be needing for the voyage?”
“Just a comfortable cabin and a little peace and quiet for our prayers and meditations,” said Sullimas.
“Ah, don’t you be worrying about a peep. Me and me lads here, we be the cast of tranquility. You’ll hardly be noticing us.”