Kirjath held his head high, and drew a long, slow breath. The Captain stiffened in his saddle. The sword at Kirjath’s neck bit, and a warm trickle ran over his chest.
“Do it, now!” ordered the Captain. Kirjath steeled himself, and released the Dark. He howled as the motes scattered towards the shadows. They left raw pain behind. His hands boiled, and his scalp felt as if it was smothered with burning pitch.
“You shall come with us now to the Swordhouse,” the Captain said, glaring down at him.
He met the Captain’s glare with his own. He remained silent, but he knew his thoughts were written across his face.
You will die a horrible death, Captain. You, and all of your miserable toy soldiers.
Strangely, they did not respond to his threatening glare. Someone hobbled him with a leather cord. The same guard then bound his wrists tightly, raising an eyebrow at the charred and blistered flesh, but pulling the cord roughly nevertheless. Kirjath wanted to scream with the added pain, but he would not give an infidel such pleasure. He glared straight ahead, refusing to look up at the Captain again. A rope was tied into a simple noose, and slipped over his head. The Sword who tied it grinned slackly, then jerked the rope tight. It pinched Kirjath’s throat, but he defied them by breathing—a rasping, forced respiration.
“Ayche, stable your horses. Men, let’s move!” ordered the Captain. They began their procession through town—the Captain leading on his tall horse, the Swords and Kirjath on foot. Villagers paused, shocked and delighted at the spectacle of a captured criminal.
Kirjath decided which of the guards would die first. The man at the end of the rope pulled him forwards with wild jerks, trying to topple Kirjath to the stones as they walked. Then he would giggle to himself.
“Enough, Victor!” barked the Captain over his shoulder.
They continued at a more steady pace. Now and again the rope still twitched. Kirjath shuffled at the limit of his hobbled stride to avoid the point of the sword at his back. The guards formed a close escort around him, their dull blades still drawn. Kirjath gritted his teeth against the pain, and concentrated on reaching the Swordhouse without tripping on the cobbles.
As he was led across the village square, a terrible realisation settled on his shoulders.
He did not have enough essence to open the Gateway.
He could not call to his beast.
He was in trouble.
11. INHERITANCE
“Trickster, liar, traitor, thief—
one part laughter, three part grief.”—Zarost
The north wind was bitter, it cut to the bone. Tabitha’s teeth chattered. Her hair swirled and stuck to her wet cheeks.
The homestead was a wreckage. She saw everything with the unforgiving clarity that the Ring induced. Broken timbers lay like abandoned spears on a battlefield. Disturbed ash swirled, and collected in the lee of the ruins. The grass was burned to the scorched earth. The trees close by the homestead, all black pillars, with a sharp, stale smell. No warmth remained in the homestead; it was cold, empty, dead.
She trod unsteadily through the debris. There was nothing left of the front staircase except one of the stays. She climbed that into the carbon corpse of what had been her home.
The devastation of the family room was complete—a broad swathe where the floor had been, rude stumps of blackened timber at the walls. The hearth. The sight hit her with all the force of a collapsing mountain. Ash. Timbers. A skeleton on the raised stone. She knew without a doubt.
She snagged her sleeve on a beam as she sank to the floor; the weak support broke and fell away. She hugged her knees close. The faint sound of chimes came on the wind; the sound of shattered dreams, memories turned to ice, then broken, the shards blown with mockery across her heart.
Father made those chimes.
Her gaze dropped to a jumble of burnt timber, into the ash below, where a gruesome relic protruded. A skeletal hand, the spoiled leather of black skin pulled tight over bone. The digits pointed negligently across the floor. She knew who that was too. The clarity of truth was merciless.
She hunched over sharply. Both of them were gone, her parents were dead.
The tears never came. She had expected a flood. She almost wanted the ravaging release, yet she found that the river of her grief was dry, her heart was a desert. She stared at the carbonised floorboards. She had done her weeping the night before. She found herself in a place beyond emotion, a place stripped more bare of feeling at every passing moment.
The Ring formed a glistening stripe on her finger, clear and bright. Violence and murder had been committed. She had no power to reverse the act. She could not face the Shadowcaster. Yet she felt a purpose growing within. The Dark had inflicted this wrong. The Dark that spread fear through the night, Dark that festered in Fendwarrow, and brought death to her door. Against that foe, she could fight in another way.
She would right this wrong.
“I shall dedicate my life to the Light,” she whispered. She was certain. If they wouldn’t take her as apprentice at Yearsend, she would find another way to serve. She would resist the Dark with every breath she took. She looked up to see the Riddler watching her.
“I dedicate my life to the Light,” she repeated.
He considered her with a grave expression.
“Once is for whim, twice desire, but three times makes a vow entire,” he announced. “What shall it be?” He held up a hand, as if to forestall her immediate answer.
The pause for thought only made Tabitha’s resolve complete. “As you are my witness, I shall say it a third time. I dedicate my life to the Light.”
“Then you have bonded yourself to that course with your word. Nothing can change it.”
“Nothing shall,” answered Tabitha, meeting his stare as she rose to her feet.
“Yet everything shall try to. Of that be certain.”
“I will become a Lightgifter. I will remain a Lightgifter.”
The Riddler dipped his head, and stepped toward her.
“Then it is only fitting that you are orbed. Will you accept your Lightstone?” He held up a silver chain. On it dangled the pale crystal orb of a Lightgifter.
Tabitha was stunned into silence. Wonder swept her common sense aside. A Lightstone! For so many years she had desired nothing else but to wear the orb. She reached out her hand to touch it. The stone was cool, white, though slightly smudged from Twardy’s hands. Such stones were sacrosanct. Surely only the Rector of the Dovecote could orb her?
“Do you wish to be a Lightgifter?” the Riddler pressed.
“Yes,” she said, unsteady. “But –”
She didn’t get to voice her confusion. Twardy Zarost moved too fast. He slipped the smooth chain around her neck. The clasp clicked shut.
“How do you come by a Lightstone? Where –”
The terrible truth of the Riddler’s trickery dawned on her. She yanked at the chain, trying to break the clasp open.
“How can you give me my mother’s orb!” she cried.
He must have lifted it from her body where she lay.
“You claimed it yourself, with your words.” He backed away from her anger.
“How could you do this?” she shouted. She fretted at the clasp with her fingers. The chain was tight, the orb hung close to her throat. The clasp would not open.
“I don’t want this! I am not accepted by the Dovecote yet.” Panic gripped her. Everybody knew you couldn’t steal a Lightstone. It had to be blessed by the Dovecote, or the bearer would lose all sanity.
“I shall go mad! It’s not right! Take it off!” she cried. The chain cut into her neck, but still she pulled, frantic and wild. Twardy stepped up close then, and grabbed her hands roughly.
“How easily a tale is believed,” he said gently. “You shall not go mad, but there is magic in the clasp. Only death can release the orb now.”
His voice became firmer, a warning. “Stop, there is nothing you can do. Who better to bear your mother’s orb,
than you?”
She strained against his grip, but he was immensely strong for a small man. She knew he was right, but it didn’t stop the anger. She had trusted him.
“Once the clasp is closed, an orb is borne for life. Did your mother not tell you? You can never set aside the vow to serve the Light.”
Twardy released her hands. She swung a fist at him, but he danced out of range.
“Oh, be calming down, girl, it won’t kill you. It’s a useful piece of rock. You shall have great need of it, if you are to survive on the course you have chosen.”
She glared at him a while longer. Yet her thoughts were too clear, the Ring’s touch too revealing to hold onto her anger. She was mad at him because he’d tricked her, and he’d only been able to because she had been dumb. The anger was useless. She needed him. There was still a Shadowcaster somewhere out there, and it was a long road to Levin.
She tried to pull the Lightstone into view, but the chain was too tight. The best she could manage was to push half the orb past her chin, where her eyes had to strain to see the smudged crystal. More soot came off the orb as her fingers rubbed its surface, revealing a stone as opaque as pure snow.
“Twardy, I am not sure if I am ready for this.”
“Oh, you shall learn, surely you shall learn.”
“What will they say, at the Dovecote? How can I come in before my Age, already orbed?”
“They shall accept you, if they have any sense.”
What if they don’t? she thought, but said nothing. She let the Lightstone drop back on its chain. It nestled snugly against her throat. It had no effect on her, not like the intense clarity of the Ring. Yet she knew it was the gateway to the Lightgifter’s magic, she could learn to command the sprites through it. Wearing the Lightstone was comforting, in the way she supposed a sword comforted a soldier. It made her feel less helpless in the shattered, ruptured world that surrounded her. She would learn to command the Light.
She pushed past the Riddler, and stepped gingerly across the unstable flooring to the hearth. The skeleton upon the stones lay in delicate repose amongst the choked ashes.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
The empty sockets of the fire-blackened skull seemed to moan with the passing of the wind, chilling her to silence. Nothing could ever erase the sense of duty she felt in that moment, bearing her mother’s orb, and standing before her open grave.
Her mother had left her one final task.
The safe-chamber was by her feet. She knelt, and searched for the turn-stone. It was soot-stained but intact, as was most of the hearth. Ironic, she thought. The only place that survived the fire was directly beneath the fireplace. She pressed the turn-stone deep into the wall, felt it compress the mechanism at its far end. She rotated the stone on her fingertips, then pulled her hand away. The turn-stone jumped back at her through its channel, and came to rest slightly proud of the wall. She worked it free, and set it down with a thump. The safe was a secretive darkness before her.
Suddenly the Riddler thrust himself between her and the wall, his head blocking her view. “How does this work?” he asked, his voice partially swallowed by the safe.
“Do you mind?” Tabitha snapped. “This is a private place.”
The Riddler peered into the safe for a moment longer, but pulled away before Tabitha could push him aside. “Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “So simple.” He seemed inordinately pleased. “Go on, young Gifter, go on! Aren’t you going to retrieve your pot of gold?” he asked.
“Hardly that,” Tabitha answered curtly. The Riddler was beginning to work on her nerves. She knew she ought to be thankful to him for all he had done, but he was just so—irreverent.
Hardly a pot of gold. She knew they had stored their wealth in the safe, but how much would a farmer and his wife the healer have earned and saved? Yet her mother had thought it precious enough to warrant the message on the kerchief.
She reached into the depths of the safe.
The first item she found was familiar. The vial of rare spritesalt. It glistened in its translucent tube. She set it carefully in the breast pocket of her cloak.
The second time she reached into the safe, her hands found rough stone, then leather. A small bag. It was heavy, and when she pulled it out, and opened the drawstring, coins glinted up at her. The Eyrian wheel not in blackmetal, but in silver, and even gold. She jerked the drawstring shut, suddenly nervous with so much money in her hand.
A fortune. They left me a fortune.
There had been something else in the safe. She leaned in, and retrieved the last item. A leather scroll-case. She traced her fingers over the delicate design. A dove, clutching a lyre in its feet. She worked the lid loose. Dust-coloured parchments protruded from the tube, rolled tightly inside one another. She tugged at the layered scrolls, and they came free in one sheaf. The sheaf was followed by a cloud of sprites, a sudden puff of radiant dust which was wrenched away in the wind. The scrolls fluttered in her hand, restless. A page folded away from the sheaf with a snap, and Tabitha caught it before it could tear. When she folded it back against the others, she saw her mother’s unmistakable script inked across the scroll.
The Riddler poked his nose over her shoulder.
“Spells?” he enquired.
“It’s a song script, but it’s too windy to open it out,” Tabitha said, rolling the parchments quickly and returning them to their case. She was certain the scrolls were special, and secret. She would read them when she found some privacy.
She replaced the heavy turn-stone, sealing the safe. It was a useless gesture, she supposed, but she needed to feel that at least one small place in the devastation had been left intact.
Blackened ruins; broken remains of the past.
The wasted homestead was no resting place for her parents. They should be buried.
She left Zarost without explanation, and descended toward the barn. The roof was burnt, yet some of the walls were intact, and the tools lay in their place beside her father’s workbench. She collected a pick and a spade. As she left, she noticed two broken ropes tied to a post. The horses must have run from the fire. At least they had lived. Maybe they had returned to the stables they knew, to wherever her father had hired them from.
Digging proved to be hard work. Her sweat gathered on her brow and became icy in the wind. She was absorbed by the simple task for a while.
Zarost joined her in silence. They used the cart to move her parents’ mortal remains from the fire site to the hill behind, beneath the spreading silken tree that held such a commanding view. Her special place, her secret place. They would rest there forever.
She was planting a second silken acorn in the freshly packed earth, when steady hoofbeats made her heart leap. She whirled to face the forest. No figure was visible in the gloom of the dense trees, yet the sound was clear, the pace a steady canter. She strained desperately to identify the rider.
What if it’s the Shadowcaster, come to claim the Ring?
The Riddler spoke at her side. “That rider comes from the south fork, not the west. It is not who you fear it to be.”
Despite the Riddler’s assertion, she noticed that he edged closer to his horse and cart.
“We should be off. We have a long, long ride ahead and a hunter at our back.”
The rider burst from the trees, blue cloak swirling. A tall Sword, on an impressive roan mount. His helm glinted brightly. Twardy Zarost scuttled up to the driver’s seat of his cart.
“Let us be gone!” he urged Tabitha.
“But what of the rider?”
“It’s just a Sword, and we must go. He may have other business.”
Tabitha accepted Zarost’s hand, but paused in the motion of boarding the cart. She recognised the poise of the approaching rider, the dark, strong features, the powerful bearing.
Garyll Glavenor.
She released the Riddler’s hand.
“It’s the Swordmaster!” she exclaimed. “We must wait for him.”
> The Riddler sat atop his cart for a moment longer. His beard twitched. Then he slipped off the far side of the seat, and sprang away upon the grass. “I left something in the ruins,” he called, over his shoulder. He scurried off downhill.
The Swordmaster took a while to close the distance to her. She had forgotten how clear her sight had become, how far she could see. She stood under the silken tree, wondering what she would say to Glavenor. Her surroundings told a desperate tale.
He arrived in a flurry of hooves and armour, and dropped to the ground. He took in the mounds beneath the tree, the soot and earth on her clothes and the devastation behind her all in one glance. The depth of compassion in his eyes said all he needed to say.
His strong arms encircled her. She knew he stared over her head as he held her close, knew he took in the extent of ruin. She felt his arms swell hard against her. When he pulled away from her at last, his eyes smouldered.
“Your parents.” The blunt tone of the question told her that he had already guessed the truth.
Tabitha nodded mutely.
“When?” The word was loaded with gathering fury.
“Two nights ago. The S-shadowcaster, the same one, the one who came to First Light. He came, and my mother fought him. Then –”
Her voice caught in her throat. Garyll bowed his head.
“Afterwards, he followed me. To First Light. Captain Steed set a trap for him there this morning, but I don’t know if it worked.”
Garyll looked as if he was about to ask something, but he only nodded.
“Did you find Shadowcasters in Fendwarrow?” she asked.
“The evidence of their presence is undeniable,” he said, his eyes on the ruins once more. “But they seem to avoid my sight, no matter how close I come.” His knuckles cracked in a gathered fist.
“Describe this Shadowcaster for me again, if you can.”
Tabitha told him what she could remember—the slate grey eyes, yellowed and cruel. The cowled black robe. The aura of cold fear. His bleached skin, red lips, empty smile. The midnight orb he had borne at his throat.
The Riddler's Gift: First Tale of the Lifesong (The Tale of the Lifesong) Page 17