Reign of Ash

by Gail Z. Martin

  Penhallow tented his fingers as he thought. He cleared his throat to bring the conversation back on track. “Can you follow Merrill’s line? Is it unbroken and legitimate?”

  Lowrey chuckled. “A little late to be digging up scandal, isn’t it, Lanyon?”

  Penhallow shook his head. “It’s not scandal I’m after. If Merrill came from an unbroken, legitimate line, then he must have possessed a disk. The next logical question is, if the Lords of the Blood and their original fortresses were anchors for the hasithara, then are the disks themselves important, and could they… I don’t know… stand in for the other lords if Blaine has another chance to restore the magic?”

  “I can answer part of that question.” Connor and Lowrey startled at the voice and turned to see Lynge in the doorway. “Please don’t think that I meant to eavesdrop. Geddy’s readying your supper, and I came down to see if you required anything more than food.” Lynge paused. “I heard your question about whether or not the king possessed a disk. Is this what you’re looking for?”

  Lynge slipped his hand into his waistcoat and produced a small linen bag closed with a drawstring. He opened the bag and pulled out an obsidian disk on a leather cord. At Penhallow’s nod, Connor withdrew the pendant he carried on a lanyard around his neck. “The disks are identical, save for their markings,” Connor murmured, looking closely at the disk in Lynge’s hand.

  “How did you come to have the king’s disk?” Penhallow asked.

  Lynge sighed. “As you’ve probably guessed, the role of seneschal is as much that of a secret-keeper as it is of an administrator. One of the secrets King Merrill entrusted to me was about the disk. He may not have fully understood its use, but he knew it was significant to the kingdom. He kept it locked up with the ceremonial crown, and I was under strict instructions that, should anything ever befall His Majesty, I should safeguard it and deliver it to his heir. He feared that should something happen to the disk, a calamity would befall the kingdom.”

  Lynge looked down. “Unfortunately, the king’s heir died in the Great Fire. I can’t imagine a greater calamity than what has already happened, but I dared not take a chance. I removed the disk from the safe room the night the king died, and I have carried it with me ever since.”

  “May I see it?” Penhallow asked. When Lynge nodded, Penhallow stood and walked to where the others crowded in the lamplight. Penhallow took the disk and turned it in the light. The obsidian disk had been polished to a high gloss, save for the strange, unreadable markings and thin slits carved into its surface.

  The markings they knew to be a very old magic code, and the slits, Connor had discovered, enabled the bearer to read some of the coded markings on Valtyr’s maps that showed the places where magic had been at its strongest and weakest. Two of the maps were still known to exist; one of them was carried in a box beneath Connor’s cloak. Blaine and his friends had a second map. Two more maps were rumored to have been created by Valtyr, but they had been stolen long ago, and whether or not they still existed was a matter of legend.

  “We’ll need to see what this disk reveals on your map, and Blaine’s,” Penhallow said. “But for the moment, let’s focus on the task at hand.” He reached down and picked up the snippet of blue ribbon that had marked Connor’s book.

  “It’s something of a leap to believe that Quintrel left the ribbon,” Penhallow admitted. “Let’s indulge it. If so, then he thought the bloodlines to be important. Four lines died out long before the war – Arvo, Hougen, Corrender, and Edenfarr. One more line ended with the Wraith Lord. Merrill’s line also ended when his heir was killed. And we know that Blaine McFadden is the last living Lord of the Blood. Pollard was illegitimate, so that line also died out as far as the magic is concerned. That’s eight of the Lords of the Blood. But what of the other six?”

  Connor flipped ahead a few pages. “There’s a list of names here,” he said. “And the word ‘Mirdalur.’” He paused to count. “Thirteen names exactly.” He held it up. “I’d say this accounts for your ‘missing’ names.”

  Penhallow looked to Lynge. “Do you know the fates of the old Donderan nobility?”

  Lynge sighed. “I know what befell quite a few. Many died in battle, and others were killed when the Great Fire struck. Read me the names, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Connor read down through the cramped, handwritten lines. “Lord Radenou.”

  Lynge met his eyes. Together, they had found Lord Radenou’s body the night Meroven’s mages sent their deadly onslaught. “Dead. His heirs died in the Great Fire as well.”

  “Lord Alarian.”

  “Died of the pox,” Treven Lowrey said quietly. “He only had daughters, so his line also had died out. Vedran Pollard murdered Alarian’s widow. That’s the disk Connor has.”

  “Lord Rhystorp.”

  “Died after the Cataclysm. He had no sons.”

  “Lord Taneral.”

  “Beheaded in the Battle of Asera-shan. His eldest son died of blood poisoning from a wound gone bad.”

  “Lord Lorens.”

  “The last Lord Lorens was talishte,” Penhallow said, his expression thoughtful. “He went mad and made a habit of slaughtering mortals.” He paused. “King Merrill’s grandfather used Lorens as another reason to step up his oppression of the talishte. Lorens had a very public trial, and the king condemned him to starve to death.”

  “Then it’s certainly possible that Blaine McFadden is indeed the last living Lord of the Blood,” Lynge mused.

  “What of the disks that belonged to the dead lords?” Connor asked. “The Great Fire was sent by the Meroven mages against the palace and the holdings of the nobles, to wipe out the kingdom’s leadership. Knowing the fates of the lords is only half the issue. What became of their disks?”

  “If the disks weren’t buried or burned when the manors were destroyed, then they’ve most likely been looted by now,” Lynge replied. “Things are bad enough in Castle Reach without the King’s Law and the guards to keep order. I’ve heard that it is even worse in the countryside, where the Great Fire and the magic storms have left people to survive by their wits.”

  Connor looked to Penhallow. “Do you think Reese or Pollard have the disks?”

  Penhallow thought for a moment. “Impossible to know for certain.”

  “Pollard and Reese became very interested in the research I had done on the old lords,” Lowrey said, chagrin clear in his face. “I’m afraid I’m to blame for bringing it to their attention, although I never thought my research was of the slightest importance to anyone outside the university.” He sighed. “They followed me to Kaskinnen, Lady Alarian’s manor. But she had already entrusted the disk to me, and the servant who escaped swore she died without telling Pollard anything.” Lowrey’s voice hardened. “I still owe that Son of the Damned One for what he did to her.”

  “Pollard was descended from the old lords, so might he have heard the legend of the disks from his father,” Lynge said.

  Penhallow nodded. “Certainly possible, although the real question is, when did it occur to Reese and Pollard that the disks might be part of the way to restore the magic? After all, Reese didn’t know that magic would be destroyed.”

  “Pollard sent an assassin to Edgeland to kill Blaine,” Connor said. “But the assassin didn’t come after him until it was clear that the Donderath was going to lose the war. Blaine said that King Merrill had made a note on his record forbidding the Velant commander from killing him.” He paused, thinking about the timing. “And even so, the assassin didn’t seek out Blaine until after I was shipwrecked there, and the colonists found the ghost ship to take them home to Donderath.”

  “So it might not have been about the magic,” Penhallow replied. “Pollard could have sent the assassin because he wanted the McFadden land holdings, or because he truly hated Blaine’s family. There had been no ships from Donderath to Velant in several months before the Great Fire. That makes it unlikely that Reese somehow foresaw the collapse of magic.�
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  Lowrey drummed his fingers as he thought. “Thirteen lords, and only one bloodline remains unbroken.” He looked toward the shelves and stacks of manuscripts. “If the Knights knew about the importance of the Lords of the Blood, and four of the bloodlines had died out by their time,” he mused, looking from Connor to Penhallow, “then might they have secured the disks from those four noble houses for safekeeping?”

  Penhallow nodded. “If so, then the disk might have already been removed from Pollard’s family’s keeping before he learned of it. That idea favors us, because if it was your research, Treven, that brought the old lords to Pollard’s and Reese’s attention, we might still be a step or two ahead of them.”

  Lowrey smiled. “I think Connor had a good idea. Let’s see if we can find any more bits of blue ribbon. If Quintrel’s left us a trail, then we’ll make the best use of time trying to pick up his scent.”

  This time, even Lynge and Geddy joined in the search. Each man took a section of shelves or a stack of crates and carefully checked each item for the telltale blue ribbon.

  “I’ve got one,” Lowrey crowed. “There’s a ribbon in this old journal.”

  “Set it aside,” Penhallow instructed. “We’ll go through everything once we’ve finished the search.”

  “I’ve found another one,” Connor said, gingerly handling a rolled parchment tied with a blue ribbon.

  They searched in silence for a few candlemarks. Geddy had taken on the crates, and suddenly he let out a whoop of exultation. “Look what I found!” He held up an ornate old key with a blue ribbon tied in one of its looping bows.

  Lynge frowned. “If I’m not mistaken, that is a key no one has seen in many years.”

  “What does it unlock?” Connor asked.

  “Someplace no living man has entered in many years,” Lynge replied. “The crypt of the Knights of Esthrane.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  B

  laine McFadden stood on the roof of Glenreith with a spyglass, peering at the stars. The winter wind whipped his cloak around him and stung his face. By Donderath standards, the night was bitter cold. But six years in Edgeland had given Blaine an entirely new appreciation for truly frigid weather. Despite the light snow that fell and the brisk wind, the night’s temperature likely rivaled that of one of the warmest days on Edgeland.

  Blaine looked up at the stars, then sank to his knees, studying the map he had secured with four rocks. The shuttered lantern flickered in the wind, only partially protected by the crenellations that rimmed the catwalk around the sloping peaks of the roof.

  “What in the name of the gods are you doing up here?” Kestel’s voice barely carried above the wind. A cloak blanketed her against the wind, but she, too, had grown accustomed to Edgeland’s arctic winters.

  “Stargazing,” Blaine replied, with a nod toward the map.

  Kestel frowned and knelt to have a better look. “What’s the connection between the stars and the map?” she asked.

  Blaine had turned away to get another sighting with the spyglass. “This would be so much easier with a real telescope,” he muttered before turning back toward her. “Remember when we realized that Connor’s map of the Continent not only showed the places of strong magic and no magic, but that the old noble houses were aligned in a way that traced the major constellations?”

  Kestel nodded. “I remember. Is there a reason you chose to stargaze from up here, when you could be looking out the window in your nice, warm study?”

  Blaine chuckled. “For one thing, I can see the full sky. And since I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing, I had hoped to avoid questions until I came up with something convincing.”

  “If you don’t want questions, don’t disappear after dinner. The map was gone, you were gone, and so was your cloak. I took it as a challenge and came looking for you.”

  “Just as well, I could use a fresh perspective,” Blaine said, and his breath clouded in the cold air. “Take a look at what I’ve marked on the map.”

  Kestel knelt next to the map, brushing away a few flakes of snow, and settling herself into the folds of her voluminous cloak. “I see you’ve made do with a standard map of the kingdom,” she noted.

  Blaine grimaced. “It should serve the purpose. I’ve marked the approximate position of the oldest manor houses, the ones that would have belonged to the original Lords of the Blood, and the other key points I could remember from Connor’s map.”

  “Including Mirdalur,” Kestel noted.

  “And I’ve done my best to mark the groupings that corresponded to the constellations,” Blaine said, still turning his spyglass on the night sky.

  Kestel shifted, looking up to follow Blaine’s focus on the stars above. “So far, it’s all information we already knew. Why bother?”

  Blaine turned from the sky and knelt down, marking the map with a piece of graphite. “Because there are other points that correspond with the constellations that don’t match up with the original manors.”

  He turned to Kestel. “What if… there were null places and places of power in addition to the manors, places that the mages used for themselves, or even hidden places that they didn’t want other people to know about?” He sighed. “They’re likely marked on Connor’s map, but you wouldn’t have had a reason to mark them on the copy you made, since you were looking for the major houses.”

  She looked at the map in the flickering glow of the lantern. “You’re gambling that the relationship works in reverse, that you can predict where those spots would be by the constellations, instead of just drawing lines between sites that already existed and creating a connection to the stars.”

  Blaine nodded. “We know the stars are sacred to the gods, and that the constellations have power. That’s how astrologers read the will of the gods and predict the future. And all the stories of the gods begin with ‘As above, so below.’ What if that wasn’t just a poetic flourish?” he asked, excitement bringing a flush to his cheeks despite the chill.

  Kestel traced the patterns with her finger gliding just above the surface of the map. “If you’re right… And you’re making some big guesses here —”

  “I know.”

  “Then if this is us, here at Glenreith, and this is Mirdalur, there should be another place of power here,” she said, letting her finger hover above the mark Blaine had just made.

  He nodded. “That would be the closest spot, and the easiest to verify. There could be other places of power here, and here,” he said, pointing to two other marks. “Maybe more.” He paused.

  “Up till now, we’ve been so focused on bringing back the magic that we’ve only looked at the places of power,” he said, sitting back on his haunches. “But Connor said that when the Great Fire struck, he thought Penhallow had gone to a null place, somewhere he thought the magic might not be able to strike as hard.” He looked up, meeting her gaze excitedly.

  “Connor and Penhallow thought that Vigus Quintrel was important.” A smile crept over Blaine’s face as he saw Kestel catching on. “Now Quintrel’s gone missing. What if he’s gone to one of the null places?”

  Kestel shivered as the wind rippled her cloak. “The problem is, there could be dozens of places of power and null places spread across entire kingdoms, maybe the whole Continent. We could spend a lifetime trying to find them all.”

  Blaine nodded. “And like the spot we found on Edgeland, most of them are probably just shrines if they focus power, or areas people go out of their way to avoid if they’re the null places. But what if the places aren’t all equal? What if some are stronger than others? I figure there was a reason the old lords chose Mirdalur for the working that raised the magic. Maybe it was one of the especially strong places.”

  Kestel studied the map carefully. “Mirdalur also was struck particularly hard when the Meroven mages sent the Great Fire. If there are places where the power is stronger, they may also have been damaged worse by the Cataclysm.”

  Blaine sighed. He retracted the s
pyglass and tucked it into a pouch on his belt, then reached past Kestel to roll up the map and put it safely beneath his cloak. Blaine helped Kestel to her feet and then bent down to retrieve the lantern. “We came back for a purpose, and sitting here at Glenreith won’t bring back the magic. You’re right – we could go out to these spots and find nothing. But without knowing where to find Vigus Quintrel, and without Penhallow or Connor to give us direction, it’s the best guess I can make, given what we’ve got to go on.”

  Kestel’s eyes sparkled. “You’ll need a search party, one that is small enough to slip through Pollard’s net, but able to defend itself. Count me in.”

  Blaine chuckled. “I had a feeling you’d want to come. I was thinking Piran and Verran should also go with us.”