By Ways Unseen

by Daniel Dydek

  Durdamon sat forward. “You have already accomplished far more than I could have hoped, Haydren. Jyunta’s destruction was hardly your fault. I release you from my services completely.” He sat back once more. “Sarah is on her way down from Jyunta, I have been told; she is released as well. That is all, Haydren; the guard will escort you back to your rooms. And Haydren,” he called as the doors opened and Haydren stood to leave. “The God of All be with you,” he said. Haydren bowed deeply, and followed Geoffrey out of the Earl’s chambers.

  After they had gone, and the Earl’s aide stood near him, Durdamon said: “Send word to our man in Suthet. Make sure he guides them through the mountains.”

  *

  Sarah arrived the next evening, and found Geoffrey and Haydren at the Dancing Piper.

  “You come alone,” Haydren said, hiding his surprise as well as he had before the Earl.

  “There was a remnant,” Sarah replied. “They hid beneath the hall, and came out when we were burying the dead. Corith remained behind to lead them; he intends to rebuild Jyunta.”

  “I would trust no one else to such an undertaking,” Geoffrey said solemnly. “Corith has a great leader inside him, if he will only let it out.”

  “That’s not all; Haydren, the outlawed magics Lasserain is using – Time, Life, and Shape: they take energy away when they are stopped,” she said, her eyes shining.

  Haydren only gazed at her. “I’m not sure…”

  “It means, forcing Lasserain to stop being Faschek; killing Paolound; killing the Forest…” she paused, and made continuing motions with her hands; “they weakened him, Haydren,” she finished when he remained silent. “It took even more energy away from him, rather than giving him some back. That’s why he didn’t do much to us in the Forest – he wasn’t able to.”

  “You’re sure about this?” Haydren asked; he could sense Geoffrey’s excitement at the news as well.

  “As sure as I can be.”

  “How long will he be weak?”

  Sarah hesitated. “I can’t be sure of that,” she replied; she felt fine now, after her failed attempt with Lord Garoun: but that was far less than the staggering forces Lasserain was attempting to balance. “But it definitely means we might find ways to weaken him before we meet him. He might not be able to use magic at all, if we attack the right spots first.”

  Haydren drew a deep breath. “Well, it’s something,” he said hopefully. “I’d feel better if I could come at him with a blade as equals,” he added with a grin.

  “Oh, speaking of which,” Sarah remarked, suddenly turning grave. “We found this, Haydren,” she said, holding out a red dagger. Haydren gazed at it quietly for a few moments, then slowly reached out and took it.

  “Why did we find it there, Haydren?” Sarah pressed.

  Haydren chewed the corner of his mouth, then sighed, shrugged, and grinned. “I never really used it,” he replied. Sarah and Geoffrey both only looked at him. “I traded it to the mercenaries, as part of the deal to bring them to Jyunta.”

  “Haydren, I think this dagger is very powerful, and very important,” Sarah said.

  “Why?” he asked quickly.

  “Because I know magic,” she replied just as swiftly. “Please don’t give that away again.”

  Haydren shrugged and tucked the dagger away, then informed Sarah of the Earl’s release; but Sarah looked at him dubiously.

  “The Earl is not one to release those who help him so greatly, but to keep using them,” she said. “More than likely he knows what you plan, and hopes you can do it without his sacrificing his own soldiers.”

  “Then he will get his wish,” Haydren replied, his gaze firm.

  “Of course he will,” she said, her eyes perfectly matching his.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  GUIDES

  “You would not before, but now…?”

  “He already knows.”

  “That seems to happen a lot, to you.”

  “At some point, continued secrecy becomes tyrannical.”

  23 Thriman 1320 – Summer

  They departed the next morning under slate skies and with a chill breeze toward them. The road ran south east toward Thuden; here, the inns along the way were still open, and the company grew spoiled on soft, warm beds and hot meals that did not have to be hunted first. They resupplied at Thuden and were quickly on their way to Crevane, where the Tundee and Coberan Rivers met on their way to the Shadowmere.

  On the road to Crevane, as they were riding, Haydren glanced back as thunder slowly rolled. A storm was on the horizon and from under its shadow another horseman approached: an old man with a flowing red robe and a gnarled staff in his hand. Haydren recognized the description Geoffrey had given him, and turned to face the road ahead.

  The old man drew alongside Haydren. “Good afternoon, Haydren,” he said.

  “Good afternoon, Melnor,” Haydren replied.

  The old man continued to gaze ahead. “Do you think as one who can live in your head that I should be surprised that you know my name?” he asked.

  “Do you speak with the God of All?” Haydren asked in reply.

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Or we can continue to converse in questions, which you seem to prefer,” Haydren said.

  Melnor laughed. “Sometimes there are many more questions than answers, is there not? I suppose all questions must eventually come in a row.”

  “I did not think you could come when others are around,” Haydren said, glancing at his companions.

  “If you’re wondering why they ride without looking at you, it is because you are looking ahead the same way they are,” Melnor responded. “The same as if you were dreaming; you only think you are looking in my direction.”

  “A neat trick,” Haydren said.

  “We all have abilities according to our calling,” Melnor responded. “You have been given skill with a blade; Pladt had skill with a bow; Geoffrey can lead; Corith can guide, and has been given wisdom; Sarah is compassionate beyond what she knows she can be, and that gives her the strength to defend those she cares for, and to make peace.”

  “And what was Pladt’s calling?”

  “He defended Werine,” Melnor said. He turned, and pierced Haydren with his gaze. “And he defended you. Do not think you survived Jyunta by your own blade, Haydren; the actions of Pladt Grecce on that day have yet to cease echoing through history.”

  Haydren felt tears welling into his eyes. “Will I see Pladt again, then?”

  “It is not yet known to me,” Melnor replied with a sigh. “I cannot tell all things.”

  Haydren blinked away the tears. “Why do I feel like you’re lying to me?” he asked.

  “I haven’t a clue,” Melnor replied frankly. “I cannot say anything that is a lie, Haydren; in my realm, lies do not exist.”

  Haydren gazed at him for several moments. “Yet you call me ‘Haydren’…”

  Melnor returned the gaze, and smiled. He led his horse off the road, and faded away.

  “Is my name, truly, then…?” Haydren began to wonder.

  Last one there is dead flowers!

  He was running down a street, tiny legs pumping to keep up with the children in front of him. But they were all older than he, and they quickly pulled away.

  “Not fair!” he called at their backs; they only laughed at him.

  Stop. The voice came to him then just as it would in Burieng. He stopped, gazing down a dark alleyway. He had been near the alley before, but his friends had told him a crazy old woman lived down that alley who liked to eat young children. But something was calling him down the street; something glinting in the late evening sun, buried under a pile of trash near a wall.

  “What are you looking at, Haydren?” a girl asked. The rest of his friends crowded around him, peering down the alley as well.

  “Let’s keep going,” one boy said, hugging himself though the day was warm. “Haydren’s just dead flowers anyway.”

  And yet,
Haydren’s tiny legs began walking down the alley. “Wait, stop!” the girl cried. “Mother will kill me if you get captured and eaten by the crazy witch-lady!”

  But Haydren did not stop. A wind shrieked down the alley, ripping at his shirt. One of his friends screamed. Haydren ran, plunging his hand under the pile of trash and grasping the glittering thing and running as fast as he could back to the main street.

  “What is it?” his friends asked, crowding around him once more. He unwrapped the heavy cloth from the object; it was a black leather scabbard with silver stitching in the form of scales. When he drew the sword, he saw the blade was a pale liquid-red, with ruby red flames down the center. Tied to the hilt was a scrap of paper with Rinc Nain writing; but in his memory, Haydren could not recall what it said.

  He returned to the road to Crevane, blinking tears from his eyes once more. Surely they had come to Burieng, then, to go to Deewan where the sword was forged – they came because of him.

  And he’d had a sister. One that was not with them in the caravan. He was sure.

  They passed through Crevane, keeping on the King’s Highway to the east of the Tundee River. They entered the low moors once more; but where the Tundee began widening into the Shadowmere, the ground hardened into the Endolin foothills. The road hugged the shoreline of the Shadowmere, while great hills rose to the east and across the lake to the west.

  “Why is it called ‘Shadowmere’?” Geoffrey asked as they rode. “It mirrors the sky brilliantly, right now.”

  “Things are often named after what makes them unique, not what makes them the same,” Sarah replied. “At unpredictable times, the Shadowmere doesn’t mirror the daylight sky, but the night sky. When it does, strange things happen.”

  “Strange things?”

  “Some have washed in its black waters and been healed; other times, a tide of war changes abruptly and without explanation. Always when the waters turn black, something strange happens – sometimes good, sometimes bad.”

  “So you wouldn’t wish for the shadow to come,” Geoffrey mused.

  Sarah grinned. “Not in good conscience,” she replied. “You can only accept the good that comes, and deal with the misfortune.”

  They arrived at Suthet at the first of the month, fifteen days after leaving Frecksshire. “We’ll need to find a guide into the mountains,” Haydren said. “Perhaps one of the innkeepers will know where to find one.”

  They found an inn called the Light of the Shadowmere, and inquired within. The bartender glanced at them while furiously wiping a mug, then turned to a man further down the bar who had entered just after the four companions.

  “Julian!” he growled. “These be needing you.”

  The man turned to them and regarded them lightly. “What is it?” he asked.

  Haydren approached, and sat down. “We need a guide through the mountains,” he said.

  “Wilcer Creek dumps out of the Shadowmere; follow that past the sentinels at night. The Bawelen takes you north-east or south-west; Kaoleyn Creek takes you where you don’t want to go.”

  “It is not so much where we need to go,” Haydren said quietly. “It’s what we wish to avoid.”

  Julian gazed at him steadily, inspecting his eyes. “Five thousand,” he said. He took a sip of his drink as Haydren watched him.

  “Three thousand is all we have,” Haydren replied.

  “Then you’ll need to find another guide; unless you can find fifteen hundred more, and nothing less.”

  Haydren studied him for a moment. “I think we’ll only pay two thousand,” he said slowly.

  Julian coughed into his drink and thunked the mug onto the counter. “Are you insane? Do you understand how bartering works?” he said with a laugh.

  Haydren’s eyes grew hard. “Should I go down to fifteen hundred?” he said.

  Geoffrey’s eyebrows knit as he glanced between Haydren and Julian, wondering what Haydren was playing at. Julian stared at him for several moments, and then glanced around the room.

  “Two thousand is fine,” he said, barely loud enough to hear.

  Haydren smiled. “I’m sure the Earl will reward you handsomely, Julian,” he said reassuringly. “Make sure supplies are ready for us to leave tomorrow morning. We’ll be here for the night.”

  Julian pushed himself away from the bar, glowering at Haydren. He threw a coin down beside the mug and stomped off.

  “How did you know he worked for the Earl?” Geoffrey asked with a smile as Haydren turned to him.

  “I didn’t,” Haydren admitted with a grin. “He didn’t call my bluff, that’s all.”

  Geoffrey grunted, and took a drink. “Well played, Haydren,” he said.

  Julian was waiting for them in the common room of the inn the next morning, and they rode out of the gates of Suthet soon after. Julian knew his craft, and their bags were well stocked for the journey south. They followed Gorges Road south-west as it wrapped around the bottom of the Shadowmere until they reached Wilcer Creek. Here, Julian led them south along the river; as the hills grew and began to turn to rock, a narrow path formed along the bank of the river.

  “We’ll follow this as it winds through the mountains,” Julian said. “But be careful; keep a tight rein on your horse, or you may end up riding the rapids to Deewan.”

  For several days they followed the creek as it grew in size and velocity. Soon, the entire creek was churned white by rocks as it rushed through the mountains. Each night, they would find a small cove carved out of the rock large enough to build a camp, and the pines which carpeted the sides of the mountains helped to hide their fire from any prying eyes.

  “Scouts have used this path for decades,” Julian explained. “Some of these coves are natural; the others were built as needed.”

  “It seems like someone could roll a boulder down the mountain and kill us all,” Sarah said, glancing warily upward at the crags overhead.

  “They could,” Julian agreed. “So keep a good watch, yes?”

  The next day, as evening approached, they rode along a widened path, and the forest had thinned upon slopes that were not quite so steep as they had been.

  “How near are we to Deewan?” Haydren asked Julian, who rode just ahead of him.

  “We may make it tonight, if we ride into the night,” Julian said.

  Just then, there was a loud screech from the valley downstream. Julian looked through the trees up the slope beside them, and stood in his stirrups to try to look ahead.

  “This way!” he shouted, turning his horse up the mountain and spurring it onward. Knowing the maneuver was too foolish to try on a whim, Haydren turned his horse after him without question, and the others quickly followed suit. The horses’ shoes slid on the rock, but slowly they climbed toward a crevasse halfway up the slope.

  “What is it?” Haydren asked as they finally made it to a rock overhang tall enough for the horses and deep enough that they could hide in the shadows. Julian ignored him, quickly taking out feedbags and putting them around each of the horses’ muzzles.

  “They must keep silent,” he whispered as another screech echoed along the valley. The horses pricked their ears and swished their tails, but seemed content to munch on their oats. “This is exactly why I brought these,” Julian said, gesturing to the feedbags.

  “But what’s out there?” Sarah whispered, peering out of their shelter.

  Just then, an enormous bird like an eagle – but with a wingspan that stretched the length of four horses standing muzzle-to-tail – soared along the valley floor. Its feathers were deep purple, and its beak and eyes glistened yellow.

  “It’s a Roc,” Julian whispered. “It can turn you to stone by looking at you.”

  “I thought those were just myths,” Haydren said breathlessly as the Roc turned at the head of the valley and swooped back along the river toward them. Sarah shrank back into the depths of the crevasse.

  “In the north, they are,” Julian replied, watching the bird as it flew. “Even in the s
outh, there are maybe two; one patrols along Wilcer Creek, the other along the Bawelen south of Chalon. It might be the same bird, though it should have died long ago if there was only one left.”

  “Can’t you do anything about it?” Haydren asked, turning to Sarah. “Hit it with a gust of wind or something?”

  Sarah looked at him for several moments in hesitation, then dropped her head and shook it once.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “I just…I cannot,” she said. “If I get too close to the edge, it could see me. Besides, just as with bow and arrow, a moving target is very hard to hit.”

  “If the legends I have heard are true,” Geoffrey chimed in, “that Roc will sense any magic done with air; and we will still possibly die.”

  Julian glanced at Geoffrey dubiously, but said nothing about it. “We have a good spot here,” he said instead. “We can spend the night; it will leave eventually, continuing its patrol north. We just have to wait for it to pass.”

  So they took out their blankets and spread them in the depths of the cave, though they could not risk a fire while the Roc was still below. Geoffrey took the first watch, and waited till he heard Haydren’s breath deepen in sleep before moving quietly over to Sarah.

  “Sorceress,” he whispered.

  “Yes?” she responded immediately.

  “Why won’t you cast a spell, suddenly?”

  There was silence for many moments. Finally, she replied: “I have seen what magic can do. I managed to hide some of Lasserain’s documents, from his journal; and back in Jyunta the night before I left, I read how it corrupted him.” She drew a deep breath. “I had hoped to use magic for good, and thought I was doing so. But I saw in me the same hunger for more spells and more power that overthrew Lasserain. You were right, Geoffrey: just because we can use it, does not mean we should. I have seen Lasserain’s hunger for power in every spell-search I’ve made for the past forty years; the only thing that stands between him and me is the limit that I can attain. Either I would die first, or become crippled; but I would not stop growing as long as I could help it. Lasserain just managed to possess more skill and more lifetime than most.”