The Armor of Light

by Karen E. Hoover

  The man looked up at her, his eyes red from crying. He sniffed, then seemed to pull himself together. “My name is Hadril, and that would be a wonderful kindness, miss,” he said.

  “Kayla,” she offered, not bothering with her title. It wasn’t doing her much good at the moment.

  “Among my people, the dead are usually burned, their ashes scattered after they move from this life to the next. We don’t have enough space to bury her, and to tell the truth, I don’t have the time. Would that be possible? To turn ol’ Maude into dust and spread her ashes around the meadow? She would like that, I think.” He smoothed the mare’s coat as if she were still living.

  “I can do that and more, Sir Hadril,” she said, standing and taking up the flute.

  He too stood and backed away. “Just Hadril, if you don’t mind.”

  “Hadril it is, then.” She placed the flute to her lips and began to play. This time, the music guided itself, up and down, without the trills and complexity of so many of her other pieces. This song was played in a simple minor key, but somehow full of heart and life. The horse’s body began to dissipate like sand in a storm, then swirled around and spread itself in the grass clear across the field. It was only a matter of minutes before the mare had gone from horse, to flesh, to bone, and then to nothing, but as the dust spread across the field, flowers grew until the entire area was covered with a multitude of color and scent that rivaled only that which was wound in her braid.

  She turned to Hadril. His tears were back, but his eyes were as wide as any she’d ever seen. “You did this for my Maude?” he asked, awe lacing his voice like sunlight through a wine glass.

  Kayla nodded. “I’ve always had a fondness for horses, and I can tell how much you loved her. It seemed only fitting.” She put the flute back in her satchel so she’d have a moment to look away. She couldn’t take the quivering of his chin.

  “You are special indeed, Miss Kayla. What can I do to thank you?” Hadril asked. The tall man took that moment to come to his side. He too seemed moved by Kayla’s act of kindness and began to sing quietly. His song was in a language she did not understand, but the melody was haunting, a farewell of sorts, and she could tell he had a voice like few others. A voice that seemed to be a gift from the Guardians, just as her flute. She didn’t know what he said, but she felt his song, just as she felt the flute. When he was done, all was silent for a long moment.

  It was T’Kato who broke the silence. “Which direction are you headed?”

  The elder, Hadril, answered. “Toward Javak, actually, though we’ll turn our route northward just two villages shy of the city of magic.”

  T’Kato seemed pleased by this, for reasons Kayla could understand. “You asked how you could return the favor. I have an idea that I think will benefit us all. Would you be willing to listen?”

  Hadril and the singer looked one another, then back at T’Kato, and nodded.

  “Good,” he said. “You are short a horse, and I don’t see you getting far with just those other three pulling that big wagon of yours, would you agree?”

  Again Hadril nodded.

  “Brant? Come up here.” Brant, who had been packing up their things all this time, came at T’Kato’s call. He took Kayla by the hand and listened as T’Kato asked, “Am I correct in assuming you will be traveling with us to the mage academy?”

  “Absolutely,” Brant answered, squeezing Kayla’s hand. “I’m not letting this girl out of my sight, especially with the competition around.”

  T’Kato chuckled. “That’s what I thought. How would you feel about joining up with this group, in disguise, and letting your horse take the place of the one they lost for now?”

  Brant then turned to T’Kato. “Hidden and disguised? Why?”

  “To protect Kayla, in particular. We do not know when or if C’Tan will attack again, but also, we are traveling with some rather esteemed company, in case you hadn’t noticed, and I think it best if we hide in plain sight.”

  Brant seemed surprised. He addressed the two men. “Tell me, what do you do?”

  Hadril looked at the tall man and answered first. “I am a healer and an apothecary. I travel from village to village and offer services where they are rarely offered. Hadril, by the way.” He offered his hand to Brant, who shook it, and turned to the other man, the singer.

  “Graylin,” he said, speaking his name in a voice as melodic as his singing. “I have two purposes. One is to fix items that are usually irreparable. A bit of magic in me allows it. I also provide entertainment. Sometimes a story, other times a song, but always where it is most needed.” Kayla felt an instant kinship with this man.

  Brant pursed his lips again, like he always did when he was thinking. He ran his hands through his hair and asked, “What would we do?”

  T’Kato smiled, and with all those tattoos on his face, his smile looked ferocious indeed. “I had thought Lady Kayla could join Graylin in providing entertainment. You and I could be bodyguards for the group, and the princes—” T’Kato cringed at his slip of the tongue when he said that, and Graylin and Hadril seemed to notice—” Well, they could provide more entertainment in their non-human form while paired with their water horses. They’re natural performers anyway, don’t you think?”

  Brant laughed. “I agree. If it is in all right with Masters Graylin and Hadril, I think it is a fine plan.”

  The two men looked at each other, grinned, then came forward and shook hands as they began planning how to put things into effect.

  Chapter Fifteen

  C’Tan scrubbed at Drake’s scales, getting off the muck he’d collected on their last excursion. She could have had the servants do it, but for some reason, taking care of Drake’s needs was comforting. She felt almost at peace while scrubbing his neck or buffing his nails. She didn’t understand it, but didn’t bother to question it, either. Peace was something she had so little of in her life—she wasn’t going to turn away what bits of it she could find.

  The dragon lifted his left front paw so she could scrub between his toes. “What did you do this time? Roll around in the mud?” she asked the black beast.

  His head swung toward her and he answered in his deep bass rumble. “Not mud. Wet ash. The weather in Javak is horrid. Devil’s Mount erupted, just as you’d hoped, but instead of covering the countryside with lava, it’s spitting cloud after cloud of ash. And then it rained.” The dragon shivered, coughing a small lick of flame he cautiously aimed away from C’Tan.

  The woman actually laughed. She knew how much Drake hated being dirty, but especially how much he detested the water. It was just one of the unfortunate side effects of being a creature of fire. “So what did you discover on this little jaunt? Did you find Shandae or the people who attacked her?”

  Drake swung his head back toward her and lowered it to her level. “Shandae has left for the mage academy. The group that attacked her is nowhere to be found, though I heard it rumored they have captured one of the beings and he is being held in the cells at the academy itself, though I cannot confirm it as fact.”

  C’Tan snorted. “Well, I can.” She set the dragon’s foot down and turned on the hose to wash him down one final time. She primed the pump, then let the water flow in a huge burst. If the dragon had been a cat, his hair would have been on end. As it was, he stood on his tippy toes and his tail went straight out. C’Tan was sure to wash under his belly and all the way up his neck. He closed his eyes as she washed the ash off his head, and shivered when she hit his ear hole. When she had washed him down from head to tail, she pushed down the hand pump to shut off the water—a nice combination of technology and magic—and Drake shook himself like a wet dog.

  C’Tan evaporated the droplets before they ever reached her, and even did Drake the courtesy of running heat along his scales. He relaxed into the flame, and when he was dry, turned a smile on her. “Thank you, Mistress. I feel much better now. Is there anything further I can tell you?”

  She shook her head. “No
, I think you’ve done what you could. I appreciate your efforts, Drake. Rest now. I’ll need you for a ride later.”

  The dragon nodded his head and C’Tan turned to leave, all business. She opened the door to her black castle and made her way from the dragon aerie to her work room. She picked up a particular sending stone, dropped it into a bowl of silver water, and waited.

  After what seemed hours, but was probably minutes, the face of her daughter, Shadow, danced in the depths of the bowl, and she said only one word. “Yes?”

  C’Tan spoke. “I have heard rumor that one of Ember’s attackers is being held at the mage academy.”

  Shadow nodded. She always had been a child of few words. C’Tan wondered if she had any part of her mother within her at all. Part of her hoped not.

  “Is he in the academy cells, then?”

  Again the girl nodded.

  C’Tan carressed the edge of the bowl. “I need you to get something from him—anything that is personally his—and send it to me. If I am to discover who attacked the girl, I need to know more, and he is the only accessible one. Will you do it?”

  “But of course, Mother. I always do as you command,” Shadow answered, a sneer on her face.

  “Everything but to stop calling me ‘Mother,’” C’Tan reminded her.

  Shadow smiled. It was not a pretty smile. What an aggravating child.

  “I shall do as you command, Mistress,” she said, and the picture in the bowl faded away.

  C’Tan was forced to wait then. She didn’t pay attention to the time, just continued her search in her scrying bowl, hoping to find some evidence of the attack against Ember. She had never heard of this shadow power in anyone but her daughter, and she knew Shadow would not dare to rebel against her. Not yet, anyhow. Where could they have come from, then?

  After what felt like hours, a single object appeared in C’Tan’s sending bowl. She picked it up with a stick, not wanting to contaminate the item with her own flesh. Who knew who else had handled the thing, but the less touched, the better reading she could get.

  She dropped it into her scrying bowl with the silvery water and watched it sink to the bottom. She examined it for a moment before digging at its memories. It was a black leather cord with some kind of bird talon tied to the leather thong with silver. It was beautifully done, but she couldn’t place the bird it had come from. It wasn’t dragon—that she knew for sure, as it was much too small and yellow instead of black.

  Phoenix, perhaps? Well, scrying would give her the answer.

  C’Tan waved her hand over the top of the water, heating it and letting the power build just above the surface, turning the silvery liquid into a mirror of the past.

  When the energy built enough, she released it, then looked into the bowl. The water bubbled and boiled for a moment, then stilled into a reflective surface that showed her the bird the talon came from was indeed a phoenix, the shapeshifting token animal for the priests of Sha’iim, the guardians of the light magic. Yellow magic. C’Tan growled under her breath. She hated yellow users.

  She moved beyond that memory, and up came the memory of the cow from whom the leather had been taken. That was of no consequence. Nor was the silver mined from the hills high above Niedemar. What was important were the people who lived above those hills. C’Tan finally got glimpses of the shadow weavers, as she called them, as they looked much like streaks of shadow weaving throughout the village. Most of the villagers seemed innocent, but there was a small group that C’Tan followed with her scrybowl that were different from the others. They met in secret. She followed the necklace as it bounced against the chest of its wearer, winding down into the mining tunnels where small groups met and talked about destroying white magic altogether. It was a cult, she realized after watching them train together and listen reverently to a small, wiry man who seemed completely benign. He must be their prophet, she realized. And the things he taught were full of half-truths.

  C’Tan was S’Kotos’ ear. She knew the truth behind the eruptions and the water rising up to drown entire cities. She knew his plan of destruction and it had absolutely nothing to do with white magic, except to try to deny it a chance to heal the world.

  This cult wanted to weed out all white magi from existence forever.

  It was a dangerous, dangerous thought.

  C’Tan sat and pondered until long after the sun had set and then came to realize that because of S’Kotos’ plan for the wolfchild, C’Tan could not allow this cult of Shadow Weavers to get to her first. In order to steal Ember’s soul, she was going to have to protect her.

  C’Tan shook her head, a malicious grin split her face that would have done her master proud. Her servants were going to love this change of plan. She gathered the call stones she needed, fished the remnants of the shadow weaver’s necklace from the water, and dropped the stones in. She needed to have a meeting with her spies at the mage academy, and sooner rather than later.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ember was thrilled to have avoided her new guards for a while at least, but she was curious about them, and here was someone who knew more than Rahdnee’s estranged daughter did. She turned to Aldarin. “So, tell me about Rahdnee and Brendae. They seem a bit . . . odd,” she said, for lack of a better word.

  Aldarin chuckled and squeezed her shoulders. “Yes, it’s true that they aren’t like most people, but they’ve been here longer than any others. I’d bet a year’s pay that they’ve had a hand in training every guard who has come through these doors in the past twenty years or more. They are well respected, if not well liked. Did you know your tutor, Lily, is Rahdnee’s daughter?” Aldarin twisted his neck to look at her.

  Ember nodded. “I did, actually. She just told me a little while ago. It’s hard to believe. They look nothing alike and don’t get along at all. He scares me.” She glanced around the stone halls, wondering what time it was. It was so hard to keep track of time underground. Ember ate and slept when her body told her to, with no knowledge of whether it was day or night.

  The smells wafting down the hall hit Ember’s stomach like a brick, and suddenly she was starving. She almost didn’t hear Aldarin’s response, she was so busy salivating. “Really? That surprises me. He has such a magnetic personality, I thought everybody liked him. Brendae is another matter, but Rahdnee is a decent guy.”

  Ember shivered as they took the final turn toward the hall. “Not to me. There’s something about him. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something that isn’t right. Maybe it’s just me.” She tried to shake off the feeling. “I mean, I can’t help but be upset that DeMunth is in the healer hall, and every time I see the two of them, I think that it should be DeMunth there, and not them. So it could be that I resent their presence because they aren’t him, and I’m worried about him. Or maybe Lily’s dislike of her father has worn off on me.”

  Ember and Aldarin stepped into the dining hall and headed toward the line without even looking around. Ember was starving, with all the magic she’d used up in practice today, imperfect though she still was at using it. If she could swing it, she wanted to go back to the shielded room to practice on her own tonight and see what she could do without someone watching her. Now that she knew how to trigger her magic, she needed to practice control, and that was always hard to do with eyes peering over her shoulder.

  Once Ember’s tray was full, she turned and followed Aldarin, her mind still on what she could try while practicing, so it was no wonder she didn’t realize where Aldarin was headed or who was there until she was at the table. Several of the long rectangular tables were joined end to end. It was a veritable sea of familiar faces. Her mother, Tiva, Ren, Ezeker—these she expected—but not Lily, Uncle Shad, and even her step-father, Paeder. The only thing that would have made it complete would have been to have DeMunth and her father, Jarin, there.

  Paeder stood at her arrival. Aldarin set his tray down and took hers just before her step-father took her in his arms and held her tight. Ember hadn’t
seen him for nearly a week, and was astounded at the strength that had returned in such a short period of time. He was still skinny, but his color was back, and those strong arms that had pinned horses and boys in training were returning to their normal form.

  “I never truly thanked you,” he whispered in her ear.

  “For what?” Ember answered. “I didn’t really do anything.”

  “You did more than you’ll ever know, my daughter. Thank you for the part you played in restoring not only my health, but my life.” He gave her a spine-popping squeeze and pushed her to arms’ length, looking into her face. “My word, it’s good to see you!” He hugged her again, then pulled out a chair for her to sit.

  About that moment, Ember felt a tug on her sleeve. She glanced down to her left to see little Markis, the boy she had helped through the portals that first night. His eyes were full of tears as he glanced at her and her family. “Could I sit with you, Miss Ember? I don’t have anyone to sit with, and I miss my family so. Do you think your family would mind?”

  Before Ember could answer, Lily snapped, “There are plenty of empty tables, child. Go find one and leave the girl in peace.”

  The boy glared at her, much more venom in his eye than Ember had ever imagined seeing in a youngling. If she’d been rebuked like that, she would have been in tears, but not Markis. He fought back with his eyes, if not his mouth. Ember caught only a brief glance at his face before he wiped it clean and turned back to Ember, the tears still present. “Miss Ember, I miss my da and brother so much. Can I sit with your family just this once?”

  “Of course you can,” she said before Lily could interrupt again. She stared hard at the girl, who glared right back at her. She turned back to the young boy. “You come sit right here next to me and I’ll introduce you to everyone.” Lily glanced from Ember to the boy, and watching her face, Ember could have sworn she saw a trace of fear.