Reckoning (The Empyrean Chronicle)

by Siana, Patrick

  Elias leveled his flaming sword at Macallister. “You are bound by law to stand down. I won’t ask again.” He took long, deliberate steps toward Macallister, keeping his guard up.

  Macallister shook his head. His bottom lip quivered, his eyes went wide. “It cannot be.” The rancher retreated toward the turned table and began to weave a spell together. Blue sparks began to coalesce in his hands and Elias charged.

  Bromstead, who had occupied himself with trying to lever the table off Lar and Bryn, scrambled over the giant slab of oak with a felled bottle of Duana Whiskey in hand. He wielded the improvised weapon like a club and struck a glancing blow on Macallister’s head. The Rancher stumbled awkwardly to one side and then sank to a knee.

  “On your face,” Elias said as he grabbed the stunned man by the collar and threw him onto the ground. He stepped on Macalliser’s right arm and pulled the enchanted ring off his finger.

  The defeated rancher complied without resistance. Elias produced a length of leather cord and bound Macallister’s hands. Then he tied his ankles together, hobbling the rancher so that he could walk but not run.

  Elias scanned the room to locate Constable Oring. He found him cowering in a corner on the far side of the table. He tossed the shamed man another length of cord. “Tie him up,” Elias said, indicating Cormik with a wave of his sword.

  “What if he wakes up and resists?” asked the constable, terrified at the prospect.

  “Then stab him,” Elias growled. Elias hastily made his way toward the dining table, and tried to keep the warble out of his voice as he called, “Lar?”

  “Little help here,” Lar cried.

  “I don’t know, I’m rather comfortable,” Bryn said.

  “I’m the one doing all the work here,” Lar protested. “This thing is heavy!”

  Elias’s head poked above the edge of the turned table and smiled down at his two companions. “Glad to see you’re still with us.”

  With Bromstead’s help and after enlisting the aid of some few of Macallister’s guests that weren’t utterly thunderstruck, Elias freed Lar and Bryn. Thankfully, neither seemed too worse for the wear—nothing a little rest and another trip to Phinneas’s wouldn’t cure.

  Upon being unpinned, Bryn climbed demurely to her feet, smoothed her skirts, and saluted Elias with a wry grin. “Well done, Marshal.”

  Lar, for his part, had no words. He fixed his slate-grey eyes on Elias’s and nodded.

  Elias, tipped his hat at Bryn and winked at Lar. Flaming sword still in hand, he turned from his companions and looked out into the chamber at the assemblage of folk from Knoll Creek and the surrounding counties. He sheathed his sword, the scrape of enchanted steel on steel the only sound. “You may all take your leave. Please do so in an orderly fashion.” At first no one moved, but remained transfixed. “Now,” Elias said forcefully, but not unkindly.

  Slowly they filed out, most casting furtive glances behind at the distiller turned Marshal overnight. Those gathered there that day would forever have the surreal events of the evening etched into their memories, their small corner of the world having been irrevocably altered in the course of minutes. Macallister’s reign over the town of Knoll Creek had come to end. Soon word would spread of the whiskey distiller who took up blade and shield in remembrance of a bygone era. The day of the Marshal had returned, and Elias Duana was its herald.

  Chapter 12

  Night Terrors

  “Danica is gone.”

  Elias winced as he pulled on his shirt. His fight with Cormik had aggravated the wound to his left shoulder, and the ensorcelled dagger he took to the chest, while not breaking any ribs had bruised a couple. “I should have stayed with her like I did last night.”

  “Elias,” Phinneas said, “you are in no condition to be sleeping on the floor. You need a bed. No one could have foreseen something like this.”

  Elias sat down on his guest bed and pulled on his boots. “I woke up and had this feeling something was wrong. I got up to check on her and she’s nowhere to be found.” Elias shook his head. “She slipped out without me even noticing.”

  “But you did notice.”

  Elias looked up to see Bryn leaning against the doorframe of his guestroom in her nightclothes. “You sleep light.”

  “You curse loudly,” Bryn said around a smile. She made room in the doorway for Lar, who had just padded down the hall from his room.

  “She can’t have gone far,” said the bleary-eyed Lar.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Elias said. “I’ve already checked the grounds. She’s taken a horse.”

  “What are we going to do?” Lar asked.

  “We find her,” said Bryn. “That’s what we do.”

  “She’s confused and scared,” Phinneas said. “She’s probably gone home.”

  Elias closes his eyes and took a steadying breath. “It’s the best place to start,” he said. “Phinneas, you should stay here in case she returns.” Elias eyed Bryn and Lar. “I suppose you two will insist on coming.”

  His two companions only smiled.

  †

  They rode through the thick of night in silence, each alone with their thoughts. Bryn provided them with light from a spell she cast on a brand of wood.

  “Useful trick, that,” Elias had commented.

  “It is an elementary cantrip,” Bryn replied. “I could teach it to you.”

  “I’m no wizard,” Elias returned.

  Bryn arched an eyebrow. “As you wish.”

  “It’s just the sword,” Elias said a little hotly.

  Bryn took a breath. “You know, Elias, eventually we’re going to have to talk about what happened tonight at Macallister’s. You invoked the authority of House Denar. There may well be ramifications.”

  “I know,” Elias said. “We’ll discuss it later.”

  The distiller urged his horse into the night, his behemoth southern destrier easily outpacing her lithe palfrey. Bryn chased after him. Orange ripples danced across the back of Elias’s duster, as he faded in and out of the circle of light provided by her torch. It occurred to Bryn that he appeared half ghost and half man, and she supposed in a way he was.

  Much to their dismay, the trio discovered that the Duana homestead was empty, save for the specters of memory. Elias suspected as much when Phinneas’s missing draft horse was nowhere to be found, but they searched the house and grounds nevertheless.

  Lar watched Elias close the front door behind him. His friend’s calm unsettled him. “What now?” he asked.

  “I think I know where she’s gone,” Elias said.

  “Out with it then,” said Bryn, who felt as unnerved as Lar.

  “Mayfair Manor,” said Elias. “She’s gone back to the Manor.”

  †

  Danica ran a finger down the table, through the combined, caked on grime of her blood, sweat, and fear. She still felt Slade inside her. The gravity of his touch lingered on her skin, and in her mind.

  The room, the house, felt alive—charged with a malevolent, conscious energy. She couldn’t rationalize this perception, but in her bones knew it to be true. The air in the subbasement dungeon was thick and heavy, pregnant with a negative force that lay cold yet electric against her damp skin.

  Even as she fancied that this dark and hungry presence slithered against her, she refused to succumb to it, or to flee the cursed place. She had left a part of herself here in the dank and dark beneath the earth, and she wanted it back.

  She had passed the patch of earth where Slade had met his end, but this gave her little comfort. The burn of his foul power had already scarred her in ways she could not quite articulate. Her skin crawled on the inside, as if his taint had seeped into her blood.

  She took in hand one of the thick cords of rope that had bound her. Stale brown blood and bits of skin soiled the course weave. One tip of the rope ended in a hard, waxy, fist-sized knob. She yet felt it digging into the soft flesh of her belly, like a persistent punch in the guts.

&n
bsp; Flashes of memory returned to her then, black and white like the etchings in her father’s books. Black lightning lanced from Slade’s fingertips. He held her head in hands haloed by a corona of fell power. He drew a glowing finger, burning like ice, across her naked body. His thoughts poured into her like black snakes. He entered her with his fell magic.

  She grew accustomed to the dark and she discovered she could sense her surroundings clearly, despite the utter absence of light. Danica sat on the table and waited, breathing in the darkness, lost in her own black musings. Then she heard footsteps.

  Slowly, Danica turned, half expecting to see Slade, returned from hell to finish his grisly work. Instead she found Elias, peering at her from the foot of the stairs. His source of light hurt her eyes. She squinted up at him. “Hello little brother.”

  Elias noted the befouled length of rope in her hand and her placid look. “You gave us quite the scare.”

  “Dad’s dead.”

  “He purchased our lives by sacrificing his.”

  “You killed Slade.”

  “With Dad’s sword.”

  “I thought you were dead.”

  “For a hot second, so did I.”

  “Asa?”

  Elias shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

  “In a way they are the lucky ones.”

  “Maybe. But we honor them in how we choose to live.”

  Danica locked eyes with her brother. “Do you really believe that?”

  Elias looked into her jade eyes, which were lent a preternatural aspect in the light of the ensorcelled brand of wood. “Danica, let’s go.”

  She held his hand as they walked out of the Manor. In the other she carried the rope with the knobby end. “You’re bleeding,” she said.

  Elias checked himself. Danica was right. His shoulder had begun to weep.

  Chapter 13

  Battle Lines Drawn

  “Tell me what you know,” Elias said as he idly examined the edge of his sword. “Leave nothing out.”

  “I’ve told you everything I know,” Macallister cried and hung his head. “Just the same as I told Lady Denar.”

  Elias eyed the rancher from beneath the brim of his hat. Macallister had stewed in the county jail for several days and it showed. The beginnings of a beard accompanied his copious mustache and the roots of his hair showed white. A diet of stale bread left his tanned skin sallow and slightly diminished his prodigious girth. “Tell me again,” said Elias.

  “I want to see Cormik.”

  “In time. He is charged with the assault of a Marshal and conspiracy against the crown, but due to his injuries he is under house arrest.”

  “My son had nothing to do with any of this! And you’re no Marshal. You just can’t declare yourself the law.”

  Elias held out his sword and cocked his head. “You know I wonder if any of the flame this blade absorbed remains stored?” He leveled the steel at Macallister. “What was it you said to activate the spell? Fera? No, no—Fiera? Forda? Wait, wait, I remember. FEOR—”

  “I was at the Arcane Summit!” Macallister all but screamed.

  Elias sat back, put his feet up, and smiled. He motioned with his hand, urging Macallister on.

  “And that’s where I met Slade.”

  “He approached you at the Summit?”

  “No. I told you, I approached him.”

  “Why him if, as you claim, he was previously unknown to you? Why not someone else?”

  Macallister opened his arms and sighed. “I noticed him is all. He’s the kind of man that stands out. He had presence. As chance had it, he attended many of the same panels as I. It seemed we both shared an interest in the magic of the ancients and artifacts of old. He always seemed to be there before I came in the morning and when I left at night he lingered, like he was searching for something.”

  Elias noticed that Macallister calmed as he talked. As ever, the arrogant rancher loved the sound of his own voice.

  “He never mingled or approached anyone,” Macallister continued. “He was very quiet. However, there was just something about him.”

  “Enlighten me,” Elias said, keeping his tone nonchalant and civil though a dark inner voice urged him to beat the life from the insolent viscount.

  “Something in the way he moved...” Macallister paused searching for the right words. “He reminded me of your father in that way. He moved at his own pace, completely at ease. He was like a wolf making his way amongst prey. One could tell this was a dangerous man—a man not to be trifled with.

  So, I sat next to him at a panel on enchanted armaments and introduced myself. I made small talk and he mostly ignored me until I mentioned your father and then he was all ears.”

  “How did that come up in conversation if he wasn’t talking back?” Elias asked.

  “The panel was discussing Eurinthian forging techniques, and I say that I know someone who has a sword like that.”

  Elias leaned forward. This was it, he thought. “Then what? Tell me exactly what he said.”

  Macallister licked his chapped lips. “He says, a sword like that could cause a lot of trouble in the right hands, and gives me a look.” Macallister swallowed. “So I say, the guy who has it gives me plenty of trouble indeed.”

  “A trouble named Padraic Duana,” Elias supplied with a dark glint in his eye, “and you wanted him dead, because he was the only thing standing between you and complete domination of this Duchy and the Knoll trade.”

  “No! I wanted him out of the picture, but not dead!”

  “This is what you told this man, this stranger?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Exact is just what I need you to be, Macallister.”

  “It’s kind of fuzzy.”

  Elias stood and pressed close to Macallister’s cell, one white-knuckled hand gripping the bars, while the other squeezed the hilt of his sword. “Do try.”

  Macallister withdrew further into the wall of his cell. “He starts asking me questions. He’s all ears, all of a sudden. He asks me about your father, where he served. He asks about his sword, what it looks like. So I tell him.”

  Elias drew his sword. “This sword?” Macallister nodded weakly. “How did you know about it? You and my father were never as chummy as you liked to pretend.”

  “After the war there was a great banquet to celebrate in Lucerne Palace. All of the gentry were invited to Peidra. The revelry went on for the better part of a week. I saw your father there in his dress uniform, and he’s wearing that sword strapped against his back.”

  “You remember it so well after all that time?”

  “It’s a singular weapon. It demands notice.”

  Elias felt his badge grow warm. His voice went low. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Macallister swallowed, for he saw his death, barely restrained in Elias’s coal-black eyes. “I did see it once at your homestead, years and years ago, in your father’s study, on display with his coat and badge. I picked up the sword. He was quick to snatch it back, but I could tell it was enchanted. It was the only time I’ve seen your father ruffled. After that I never saw the sword again. Your father hid it away, but I always wondered about it.”

  “What happened next?”

  “So he says to me, maybe we can help each other out. He’s always wanted an Eurinthian sword, and I’ve always wanted this guy off his land. He tells me he can be very persuasive, for the right price.”

  “So you hire him to kill my father.”

  “No! I just wanted you off your land. This stranger is a wizard, that much is clear. I figure he can find a way.”

  “He found a way.” Elias thrust his sword between the bars and into Macallister’s cell and with the flat of his blade lifted the rancher’s chin and forced him to look him in the eye. “What did you think he’d do? Charm us into packing up and shipping out overnight? Kill our livestock? Burn our rickhouse? Where would you draw the line!”

  “I don’t know,” Macallister whispered
, as tears tracked down his grimy face. “I tried to call Slade off, I did, but I couldn’t find him. The man is a ghost.”

  “You lie!” Elias screamed, but his badge had gone cool. He withdrew his blade and reached into the cell and grasped Macallister by his sweat-stained shirt. He pulled Macallister against the bars and pressed his forehead to his own. “I’ll see you twist yet. But not until I take everything from you, as you have from me. I will go to the queen herself and see you stripped of title, lands, house, and name.”

  He threw Macallister back. The rancher stumbled backward on weakened legs and crumpled to the floor. Elias strode out of the jailhouse, leaving a broken Roderick Macallister behind him.

  Elias’s mind raced and his pulse thundered as he stepped from the dim twilight of the jailhouse and out into the midday sun. He slammed the door behind him, silencing Macallister who screamed after him.

  “Well?” said Bryn, who waited for him in the sliver of shade afforded by the diminutive structure.

  “He’s telling the truth.” Somehow, this fact made Elias all the more angry, and he trembled with the tide of black emotion that tore through him.

  “What do you mean he’s telling the truth?” Bryn asked.

  Elias took a steadying breath. “Macallister didn’t hire Slade to murder us, as such, but to drive us off our land, force us to give up the distillery. Still, he knew it would go poorly for us.”

  “As if that isn’t enough. But how can you be sure he’s not lying?”

  “My father’s shield.”

  “What? His badge?”

  “Yes.” Elias, placed a hand on the upside-down, tear shaped Marshal’s shield. “I first noticed it when we confronted Macallister at his ranch. When he lied to me about his involvement in the ambush the shield grew warm. When someone tells me a lie, the shield responds. It tingles.”

  “Useful, that,” Bryn said with a smirk. “The ability to detect untruths is a powerful boon indeed, particularly for a lawman. Between that and the sword you’ve inherited a tidy little armament from your father.”