by Jeff Wilson
Neysim slept on a blanket spread over the cold stone floor in Edryd’s room. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was an improvement over the cramped arrangements he had endured the three previous nights aboard Captain Sarel Krin’s ship. He woke in the morning knowing that he would be spending the day here, unable to leave until they received another visit from the Ascomanni. After sharing a morning meal, he watched as Edryd and Irial stepped outside, ready for the daily trip in to the settlement. Edryd automatically took up a protective posture beside Irial, regarding her with fond respect.
“She doesn’t like him,” Eithne said, loud enough so that Neysim would overhear her frustration, but not so loud that it risked being heard by anyone else. Her face was wrinkled up in a way that made it easy to see that she was upset. “Not the way that he wants her to,” she elaborated.
“I dare say she shouldn’t,” Neysim said.
Eithne turned to look at Neysim. She hadn’t expected him to respond to the comment.
“If it were my sister, I would feel like she could do much better,” he said, making it clear that he sympathized.
Eithne leapt to Edryd’s defense. “Edryd is a prince,” she reminded Neysim. “And not just the ordinary kind either, he’s going to become a sigil knight.”
Neysim doubted that. Some in the Sigil Corps had watched Aisen closely, hoping he might show potential for developing some of the abilities his father had been rumored to wield, but to his knowledge, Aedan’s son had not been anything more than an accomplished solider.
“There are no sigil knights anymore,” Neysim said, wishing it was not the truth.
“That isn’t even the point,” Eithne continued. “She is too old for him.”
Neysim was starting to understand now.
“You’re probably right. A good thing then that she doesn’t like him back even a little bit,” he said, gently teasing Eithne.
Eithne was quick to pick up on the possibility that Neysim was more perceptive than she had thought to give him credit for.
“I don’t like him either,” she said a little too strongly. “I don’t like anybody,” she added with more control.
“You don’t need to,” Neysim said. “I’ve only just met him and I wasn’t impressed. In fairness, he may not have an especially high opinion of either one of us either.”
“Edryd thinks of me like a little sister,” Eithne said with a sigh of resignation. She could not hide or disguise how disconsolate she felt in confessing this. “I know it. I always know exactly what he feels.”
“If you are his little sister, and he is a prince, wouldn’t that make you a …?” Neysim asked, hoping to cheer her up.
Eithne rolled her eyes. She knew she was being humored, and she didn’t appreciate it.
“You don’t have to treat me like a little girl,” she said. “Besides, that wouldn’t make me just any princess. It would make me the Blood Princess.” Looking like she had just bit into a bad piece of fruit, it was clear what Eithne thought of that.
Neysim began to laugh. Not the kind of laugh which signaled a failure to take Eithne seriously, but one that showed an appreciation for her sense of humor. Eithne remained mad for a little while longer, but soon she was laughing too. She had known from the start that Edryd was a good person, or so she told herself. Eithne decided that she could trust Neysim as well.
***
The air was cold and dry and the sky was clear. It was the perfect weather in which to be outside in the practice yard training. The combat was proving more enjoyable than usual. Edryd had not been asked to try and shape or to absorb any instructions. Instead, pledging to remain completely on defense, Seoras had tasked Edryd with breaking through.
Given the state of his clothing, dampened now with perspiration, the sharpness of the chill in the air could have been a cause for concern, but it did not trouble Edryd. Directed light from the bright sun, which constantly worked upon his exposed skin, made Edryd feel as if he were standing too close to an overfed fire, and the surfeit of heat and warmth building up throughout his body in consequence of his exertions was more than enough to counter the cold. Under these conditions the temperature had a pleasant quality, with a reviving effect that made Edryd feel like he could continue indefinitely. Relentlessly pressuring his teacher, Edryd was, with regular consistency, scoring successful hits during the lengthy exchanges.
These successes did not come easily. Edryd’s sword would at times be deflected by a wall of air just when he thought he was about to connect through an exposed weakness in the shaper’s defenses. More often, he found his target gone when Aed Seoras evaded with impossibly quick movements. Seoras also employed several strategies that involved shaping the dark to disguise his positioning and obscure his presence. These efforts to confuse his pupil had all failed. If anything, to Edryd, it made his teacher’s movements unfailingly easy to measure. The shaper was using every evasive and defensive trick in his arsenal, but Edryd was proving that he could overcome them with accurate predictions and expert skill.
Edryd felt the satisfaction of resistance as he struck Aed Seoras on his right shoulder with the flat of his blade. He allowed his teacher to back away and re-enter a fighting stance. In a real fight, that strike could have inflicted a crippling injury to his opponent. Then again, in a real fight with Seoras, there wouldn’t have been any long exchanges like the one that had been necessary to score that hit. At this range, his teacher would have ended it all very quickly with lethal and unblockable attacks of his own.
Edryd drove forward, initiating a complex series of slashing strikes that were intended to lure his opponent into a predictable rhythm of alternating high and low blocks. It was an especially strong technique against someone with more skill and training than actual experience, and Edryd held out little hope that it would ever work on Seoras. Defying Edryd’s expectations, Seoras was fooled by the faint near the end of the combination, and Edryd’s sword thrust at the end of the maneuver made it through cleanly, ending with the tip of his blade firmly pressed against the center of the shaper’s chest.
There was surprise on both men’s faces. Edryd could feel his teacher’s shock disperse in a transfer of emotional energy that was soon consumed by building anger, but Seoras forced the reaction down, holding it in with effort. There was a real danger to Seoras in these exchanges, and he was placing extreme trust in Edryd’s abilities.
“If you had stepped through, that would have killed me,” Seoras said. “I’ll count it as confirmation of your skill, and your restraint, that it did not.”
Edryd lowered his sword. “A compliment?” he asked. The question was a necessary one. The remark on its surface had sounded like praise, but it had been delivered with a hint of disapproval.
“An observation,” Seoras disagreed. “Take it how you will.”
“I should have pushed the blade through your chest?” Edryd asked, trying to understand but certain that he did not.
“As a rule, I don’t tell anyone what he should do,” Seoras said.
“Only what he must do, and what he is threatened with if he refuses,” Edryd said.
If Edryd thought he had scored a point here, Seoras did not seem to notice. His reinterpretation of his teacher’s comment had not produced the disparaging effect Edryd had intended. Instead, Seoras took it as an opening to make a point of his own.
“You have devoted your life to training in its uses, but you don’t seem to understand what a sword is for. It is unlike other weapons. It is not a bow or an axe or a knife, all of which serve equally well at, and are more frequently used for, ordinary things such hunting, chopping wood, and cutting food. The weapon which you have chosen to carry is used by one man to kill another. It is designed for no other purpose.”
“A sword is more than that,” Edryd insisted. “It does not have to be used to maim or kill. It can be a weapon of defense. It can protect. It can deter violence without ever being drawn.”
“That last part is wrong,” Seoras disagre
ed. “A sword deters violence by threatening to inflict the same in return. A purely defensive weapon would have no need of a point or an edge. They make such things you know, but that is not the kind of tool you have trained yourself to use. A sword serves its true purpose only when it is held by a man who is prepared to put it to a violent use.”
This particular philosophy was well supported by what had just taken place. Without the threat of a counter attack, Seoras had not been able to stop Edryd from getting through. Without its ability to cut and pierce your enemy, a sword was severely impaired as a means of defense.
Unable to come up with a valid way in which to dispute the matter, Edryd conceded the point. “Granting all of that, having a sword does not give one the sanction to kill or injure others,” he said.
“No, it gives you something else; it gives you the ability to take another man’s life. Set aside the right or wrong of it, skill with a killing weapon is the power to take life.”
“I am no killer,” Edryd said. “I never wanted to kill anyone.”
“If you believe that, you are lying to yourself on both counts,” Seoras responded, amused by the ridiculous delusion embodied in his student’s denial of what he had done. “You have ended more lives in these last three months than I have in the last six years.”
Edryd could only wonder what had happened six years ago, and just how many lives the shaper had taken. He almost asked, but he wasn’t quite sure that he really wanted to know.
“Mine is a more honest approach,” Seoras continued. “I know who and what I am. And I know what I want.”
“And what is it exactly that you seek?” Edryd said, insulted that Seoras saw himself as the more honest of the two of them. If he had stopped to think about it though, he would have had to concede that point as well.
“I want to experience the limits of my power,” Seoras said. It was an honest answer, if perhaps an incomplete and simple one.
“Well I don’t,” said Edryd, not sure whether he meant his own power or that of his teacher.
“You may not desire power, Edryd, but you can’t continue to pretend that you have none.”
Seoras said nothing more for a moment, hoping the message would sink in.
“I’m not talking about using a sword,” he continued. “The great powers in this world are pivoting on you right now. If you were more ambitious, Nar Edor could have already fallen under your rule. An Innis would be an afterthought, and Ossia would be very much in your grasp.”
“I don’t want any of that,” Edryd insisted, cutting his teacher short.
“It does not matter what you want,” Seoras said, brushing off Edryd’s objections. “Your ability to perceive the patterns that shape the dark has surpassed my own. In time you will see much further.”
“I don’t understand,” Edryd protested, speaking the truth. Despite his teacher’s claims, Edryd knew that he could perceive very little, and understood even less.
“For better or worse, the choices you make, or don’t make, are having profound consequences. The dark transforms around you everywhere you go. Your power can not be ignored.”
“But it can be hidden,” Edryd countered, referencing the strange ability which concealed him from people like his teacher.
“I’m not sure of that anymore,” Seoras said. “In the ruins, I saw something. Your shroud was imperfect. It was distorted and broken in places, where what the Sigil Order would have called your aura, was leaking out. I don’t know if it was created by disruptions in the barrier that emanate from the construct chamber, or if that place merely pried open cracks that were already there, but I could no longer detect them once we left.”
“It’s still working then,” Edryd said, seeking confirmation and reassurance. He felt more frightened than he would have cared to admit.
“It is a hard thing, perhaps even an impossible thing to study if it were perfectly formed, but it is deteriorating even now and has begun to fray around the edges. That is what I was doing while we fought today, inspecting your shroud and trying to see if I could find the cracks.”
The modest confidence that Edryd had gained from the morning training drained away, replaced by an informed acceptance of just how inferior he was. In addition to not fighting back, Seoras had been distracted during the entire encounter, focused on studying the unusual concealing effect that enveloped his student, instead of concentrating on defending against the relentless attacks.
“What’s going to happen?” Edryd asked.
“I don’t know. I think maybe you will be able to shape once it weakens enough, maybe not. One thing is certain. Once it fails, you will not be able to hide. When that time comes, you might then find yourself glad to be in command of a sizable army.”
“I don’t want this,” Edryd said. He wanted to believe that Seoras was lying, but he couldn’t think why his teacher would do so. “I don’t have the right to use other men’s lives to protect my own.”
“But you do have the ability to do so,” Seoras said, stressing a point that he thought he had made clear previously. “Though you may not like it, you are not some simple ordinary man. You are greater than other men. You are more important.”
The dark and viscerally repellant words of his master, he realized now that this was what Seoras was to him, made Edryd convulse. He had known it before, but had not felt it so strongly as now, Aed Seoras had long ago been corrupted by something dangerous.
Seoras could see the revulsion on his pupil’s face, and he thought he could understand why. “You may think me evil if you like,” he said, “but I personally understand the position you are in better than you think. You need to accept what I am telling you. You may not want the power that you possess, but other men do, and they will make your choices for you if you do not act. If you do not seize control while you still can, you will never be able to escape them.”
So much for not telling me what I should do, Edryd thought.
The unwanted advice was dark, carrying hints of his teacher’s troubled past, but it was also insightful. In a fearful realization, Edryd also perfectly understood that his master’s words contained nothing that was not the truth.
Edryd could see himself now the way that his master did, as a powerful game piece on a board that was controlled by a small number of practiced players. It didn’t need to be said that Aed Seoras was one of those players; he was already using Edryd. Yet Seoras, seeing him as a potential ally, was also telling his student that he should choose to join the game. It was a rational solution, but a distasteful one. Edryd was determined to find some other way.
***
Aelsian woke just before dawn. For two days they had harnessed all of the speed they could manage out of the sails while maintaining the desired course, but the navarch could not be sure they were gaining any ground. Most of the time, the other ship could not be seen, having receded beyond their view. However, whenever the Interdiction rose on a swell, if the light was good, he could make out the object of their pursuit, a dark dot on the horizon. Had Aelsian not known the other ship’s intended destination, they would have lost it long ago.
Even before leaving the Interdiction’s great cabin, which served as his living quarters, Aelsian knew something was wrong. Hurrying past the officer’s berths and stepping out on the deck, Aelsian confirmed what he had suspected. The Interdiction was backing the sails on the main mast, effectively slowing progress to a standstill.
Aelsian scanned the deck, searching out Captain Hedrick, a small proud man with frail features. Hedrick was not The Captain, not with a fleet navarch aboard, but he had nonetheless taken it upon himself to slow the ship without consulting Aelsian. The insubordinate officer spotted him first and was already eyeing the navarch nervously when Aelsian located him on the foredeck.
Ignoring objections that it would take them away from the coast and deprive them of useful navigational aids, Aelsian gave orders to the officer of the watch to reset the sails and position the ship on a run, taking fu
ll advantage of the tail winds. He then returned his attentions to Captain Hedrick. He fixed his officer with an expressionless stare as he crossed the length of deck that separated them.
“Why did you slow the ship?” he demanded.
Captain Hedrick shrank, reflexively crossing his arms in a protective warding fashion. He began to mumble some nonsense about heaving to in order to wait out a contrary wind.
“You intentionally disrupted pursuit,” he accused. “Why?”
Looking uncomfortable, Hedrick cast his gaze about as if looking for support, but there was none to be found.
“Some of the men…” he began to say, starting and stopping nervously. “There are rumors among the men that we are pursuing a ship that is carrying draugar,” he finally answered, offering up his explanation in a hurried manner.
“And so you decided it would be a good thing if we couldn’t manage to catch up,” Aelsian said, finishing the line of reasoning being put forward by his subordinate. “What makes you think there are draugar aboard that ship?”
“Just a feeling sir,” said Captain Hedrick. “That and the fact some of us have seen them.”
“When?”
“You mean apart from the day you lured one away from the Interdiction?” Hedrick replied. “I seen one myself three days ago. Approached me directly, a dangerous looking fellow he was, all covered up in a foul smelling cloak, asking after you and saying things like did I know where the Lord of House Edorin might be.”
Hedrick was clearly rattled, as evidenced by the regression in his speech patterns. The captain had worked hard to shed his local dialect in favor of a more formal accent while training to become an officer in Ossia’s naval fleets. Aelsian was also disturbed by the information which his officer had only just now seen fit to share with him.