by Welcome Cole
As Kaelif knelt beside him, as they watched the last fingers of the small fire dancing to their death, he knew there was one more thing he had to do, though it grieved him deeply. He had to broach the future with the boy. This was a door that had to be opened, regardless of the specter of fear waiting on the other side. This was their dark destiny, and the sooner they bucked up to it the better.
“You have the Birthsight,” he said finally, “Isn’t that right?”
Luren wiped his eyes with the edge of the coarse blanket. “Yes. You know that.”
“And you’re quite well read. No doubt Chance has had you studying since you were big enough to hold a tome, eh?”
“Yes,” Luren said, shrugging, “And before that he read them to me.”
“It must be a daunting responsibility, being the heir to Chance Gnoman’s legacy. He’s got some damned big boots to fill. I’d think that a bit intimidating, especially for one so young.”
“I don’t think about it much. My fate’s Calina’s will.”
“You know a lot about our history, the region’s history, I mean. And I don’t mean just the Vaemysh legacy. You must know it all. The Divinic Wars, the wyrlaerds…”
Luren sniffed and dragged an arm over his eyes. “Yeah. I knew that bastard at the house was a demon the minute it pushed back its cowl.”
“You’ve probably heard of Lamys te’Faht?”
“Of course,” Luren said, looking up at him, “I know your role, too, if that’s your next question.”
Kaelif grinned at that. “I reckon that shouldn’t surprise me.”
“What are you getting at, Kaelif? You don’t need to tiptoe around, just say it.”
“All right,” Kaelif said, nodding, “All right, then. Here it is. These times are dark. You know that better than most. We’ve cracked our Drayma. It gave us our orders. And now we know that this here, this moment right now, this is the Time.”
Luren seemed unfazed by the remark. Instead of reacting as Kaelif had expected, the boy surprised him with another simple shrug. “Do you expect me to be surprised? Divinic Demons have been loosed on us. I’ve looked one of those bastards dead in the eyes. And I’m fairly sure you’ve known it far longer than I have.”
The words felt like an accusation, but Kaelif didn’t press it.
“How much more incentive do the Eyes need?” Luren said plainly, “They damned well be better be acting.”
Kaelif didn’t think any words had ever startled him so in his life. In that moment, he understood what he’d never really seen in the years of their acquaintance; he knew exactly how divided Luren was. The boy was half a child fighting his way through adolescence and half a wizened old man speaking from the Caeyl Temples of Mount Healdor. He had to take great care to find words that didn’t sound infantile in the eyes of this mage-child.
“You’ve had your vision, then?” Luren asked before drawing off another slug of wine.
“Ay’a,” Kaelif said, relieved to have the questioning turn, “We all have.”
“And?”
Kaelif looked into the boy’s red, probing eyes.
“And?” Luren said, harder this time.
“And this is where it grows unreasonably darker.”
“Darker?” Luren laughed. “It’s possible for things to get darker?”
“Ay’a, it is. It’s darker because this is where I’m forced to ask something of you, something I’ve no right to request.”
“You can ask me anything. You saved my life. I’m in your debt now. I expect I’ll be in your debt as long as I’m drawing air.”
“This isn’t like asking for help cutting down a tree or bringing in the fall grain.”
“Oh, for the love of Calina, just ask it, Kad’r.”
Kaelif looked at Luren, looked at the boy’s cracked lips and sallow face, at his hollowed, wear-trodden eyes, and he suddenly felt like a monster. What he was burdened to ask this pitiful youth was merciless and unspeakable. He knew he had the responsibility to ask, but he didn’t know if he had the right.
“Kaelif, you’re an old friend, both to Chance and me,” Luren said as if throwing him a life line, “I’ve had your acquaintance as far back as I can remember. There’s nothing you can’t ask of me.”
Kaelif slid his arm around the boy’s shoulders. There was nothing left for him to do; the question was no longer his to consider. This unforgivable request belonged to the world just as surely as the boy’s answer would.
“Luren,” he said, very carefully, “I need you to go back upriver with me.”
For a moment, Luren just looked at him. Then he said, “Upriver? Upriver where?”
Kaelif looked off into the forest. He’d just caught the first taer-cael of the scouting party making their way back toward camp behind them.
“Kaelif, where upriver?”
“Back.”
“Back where?”
“Back…” Kaelif paused, then turned his face to look the boy full on. “Back to hell.”
Time stopped. Luren stared up at him in utter disbelief. “What did you just say?”
Kaelif watched him, but said nothing.
Luren shoved himself away from him. He scrambled to his knees on the other side of the dying fire. “Back to Dragor’s Field.” It wasn’t so much a question as a declaration. “You want me to go back there? Back to Prae’s Keep?”
“Ay’a. That’s exactly what I’m asking, and I’m dear sorry to do so.”
“What? Why? I… I don’t understand. Why would I do that?”
The boy sounded more perplexed than afraid, like he’d been told the sky was falling and didn’t believe it, but still felt a traitorous pang of fear for hearing it.
“It’s much to ask, I know,” Kaelif pressed, “But I don’t have a choice. I need your help to finish this.”
Luren was studying Kaelif too deeply, like an elder trying to discern the truth through vague descriptions of a young man’s tale. After a moment, he said, “It’s your vision, isn’t it? It’s the Drayma. It’s given you a vision that involves me, hasn’t it?”
Kaelif nodded. “Ay’a.”
“How’s that possible? I’m Parhronii, not Vaemysh.”
“You’re not a Vaemyn. But you are a key.”
“A key? What the hell does that mean?”
“It means… it means you can gain us… access.”
The shock in Luren’s face melted under the pressure of the invading truth. He looked as if he’d just suffered gret k’feyn, a moment of divine clarity or enlightenment, as if he’d seen the truth that stitches the world together.
“We need to get access to Prae,” Kaelif said, “And we need you to get it.”
“I see what you want,” Luren whispered, his eyes suddenly focused and determined, “You’re all away without leave, aren’t you? You’re deserters now. You need me to get an audience with him. You want me to be your prisoner. You want to use me.”
“Ay’a.”
“And when you do? When you get your audience with him? What then?”
“Then? Then we’re going to kill him.”
Luren stared at him like he’d just announced he was about to fly to the moon. “That’s insane,” he whispered, “You can’t kill him. He’ll kill you.”
“Ay’a, he might very well kill us,” Kaelif said straight, “But not before I gut that bastard like the pig he is. Whatever comes of me after that is of no consequence.”
“That’s insane! It’s… it’s suicide! If you die, you’ll betray the cause. You’ll fail Lamys te’Faht.”
Kaelif’s stomach twisted. There was the very heart and soul of it. Death meant nothing, but dying meant everything. “Nay,” he said, steadying himself, “We won’t fail the cause except through inaction. Death is an unacceptable outcome. Death before we complete the assassination, anyway. Death before I get access to the madman… that would be failure. But the Drayma tells me that won’t happen, and I have faith it speaks true.”
For a time, Lur
en simply looked at him. Then, without drama or fanfare, he said plainly, “Yes, Kaelif. I’ll go with you.”
The rush of relief Kaelif felt at the words nearly overpowered him. Though he’d have resorted to it out of desperation, he had no taste for abducting his friend’s apprentice, for forcing the boy back into the abyss against his will. Such an act would’ve been the mud frosting on a shit cake. Gods knew the task at hand was already unsavory enough.
“But I have one condition,” Luren whispered.
“All right,” Kaelif said, “That seems fair enough. Name it.”
“I want to be the one.”
“The one? The one what?”
“I want to be the one who kills Prae.”
XXVII
THE BRIDGE
MAL TIED HIS HORSE TO THE WHEEL OF THE LEAD WAGON, THEN STORMED HIS WAY THROUGH THE CROWD.
The forest felt cool to the point of chilly. The dark canopy hung above them like the ceiling of a great cavern, its branches braided as tight as a water basket against the sun. The shadows down here at ground level made it nearly impossible for him to make out individual faces. In strange contrast, the dense white ferns smothering the forest floor on both sides of the trail were so bright he nearly had to squint to look at them. He’d always hated this forest. Seemed his eyes never fully adapted to the gloom possessing this place.
He ignored the greetings thrown by the hundreds of men and women parting for him as he made his way up the line, focusing instead on the waiting waterfall and the hopeful image of his idiot brother screaming as he plummeted toward the bottom. He half expected to find the fool retarding their progress while admiring himself in the hand mirrors he’d required his manservant to pack for his adoring pleasure
He broke through the trees and out into the open, holding his wide-brimmed felt hat above his eyes in defense of the sun. The noise here was deafening, the air even cooler than in the dense forest behind him, compliments of the mist hanging over the wide waterfall.
Squinting against the oppressive sunlight, he spied a small throng of faceless silhouettes standing at the precipice of the bare rock face jutting out over the falls. He quickly located the one belonging to his brother. Even half blind, it was hard to miss the floor-length black leather riding coat and the ridiculously wide brim of his low hat with the three foot lavender feather arching back from its bejeweled band. Only a dandy like Lucifeus would be arrogant enough to dress so outlandishly on a campaign of such importance.
He felt his way carefully up the water-slicked rock face, barking away the hands held out by the crew as he made his way. He heard his name tossed around even over the bellowing waterfall as the faceless seconds surrounding his officers identified his approach.
Tree stood directly beside Lucifeus, looking every bit the renegade warrior with her short hair slicked back and now darkened with skunk grass paste to the color of green mud. She wore her usual scouting attire: an olive buckskin shirt reinforced with overlapping plates of light, dulled steel, buckskin breeches, a pair of knee-high black leather boots, a ridiculously long gutting knife sheathed on her belt, and a scowl.
On Lucifeus’s other side stood Freer, the Watcher, who looked exactly as he always did: elusive. His green eyes drank in everything around him the way a sponge steals all water within its reach. When the man spied Mal approaching, his dark, tattooed face blossomed into a most amiable grin. His cheerful image fully balanced the bleakness of Tree’s scowl.
“What say ye, Cap’n mine?” he called with a half-hearted salute.
Mal bullied his way through the crowd of his lessers without so much as a salutation. Much to his irritation, Lucifeus offered no sign that he knew his brother was there, not even when Mal was standing directly before him. He was the one man in the Freehold Mal could never intimidate, though the gods knew he’d been trying his entire life.
“What’s your cursed problem now, Luce?” Mal yelled above the roar of water, “You’ve got an army milling around in the woods picking their bloody ass—”
But even before the words finished the trip off his tongue, he identified the cause. The blackened butt of the rocky outcropping came to an abrupt end a dozen feet out over the crest of the falls, leaving nothing but an expanse of rushing river between them and the opposing shore thirty yards away.
“Hellsteeth! Where’s the cursed bridge?”
Lucifeus still didn’t look at him. He did, however, wave a handful of gold-gladdened fingers down toward the foot of the falls a hundred feet below. “I suspect it’s lounging somewhere beneath yon rapid. Unless, of course, you suggest it may have somehow been overcome by the malady of invisibility, in which case, you’re free to prove it by being the first to cross.”
Mal bit his lip and said nothing. He turned toward the uninterrupted expanse of wild water, then looked down to the foaming rage that was the foot of the falls. He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.
“Well, it was damned sure here the last time I went to Fairy’s Hide,” he said at last, “Rode across it myself. Damned thing was sturdy as a mountain, last I saw.”
“Well, damn me if it doesn’t seem to have taken its leave in the meantime,” Lucifeus said, finally turning to look directly at him.
Mal realized the tables had just turned. “What exactly are you saying, Luce? That I’m confused? Perplexed? Mayhaps forgetful?”
“Actually, I’m wondering just when it was you last made a trip to Fairy’s Hide?”
“Hell, I don’t know, a few years ago, I reckon.”
“Try fifteen years ago, Malevolus.”
Mal cringed at the use of his full name in public. He glanced back at his seconds standing dutifully behind them. “Fifteen years ago, my ass!” he said to them, “It was nothing like that.”
“Mal, the last time you went to Fairy’s Hide was to meet with Freer to recruit several smugglers of Watcher persuasion. We’d just started building the Freehold, recall? It was two full years before you reefed the Molly.”
Mal’s stomach erupted in flames. “For the record, “I didn’t reef the Molly. We reefed the Molly. And we did it because you had half the Parhronii navy chasing us for the murders of Dunlap and Thiss.”
“Sink me,” Lucifeus said, looking thoughtfully out over the misty falls, “Perhaps there lurks a lick of truth in your words. Still, after fifteen years, I’d have thought it a good idea to scout this road out before dragging nigh on six thousand crew to a dead end, wouldn’t you say?”
“Three years, ten years, fifty years, it doesn’t make a spit of difference. The bridge was solid bloody rock. How could it just fall into the river?”
“How does a tree fall in the forest? How does piss soak into the grass? The event is set into purpose, then it’s gone, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise to either of us.”
Mal leaned out over the broken rock and peered down into the foot of the falls. A series of delicate rainbows sliced their way through the mist cloaking the boiling water far beneath them. As he studied the white terror, he felt the vibration of the roaring water against his chest. There was no sign of the bridge.
He stood back and scratched his head. “I still don’t understand how the hell a stone bridge simply—”
“Lightning,” Tree offered.
The Captains turned toward her as one.
“Lightning?” Mal said seriously, “Lightning knocked down a solid stone bridge? It was several feet thick at the weakest point. Must’ve been one damned serious bolt of lightning.”
“Or perhaps the punishment of a few seriously pissed gods,” Lucifeus said.
Mal looked at him. “Pray tell how a bridge pisses a god?”
“I’ve seen you wreck more than a few innocent chairs in anger.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“If you two could manage to stop your childish bickering for two minutes, I can explain it to you.”
Mal caught Tree’s dark, scolding eyes and immediately lost the urge for further debate.
&nbs
p; “This outcropping rests above a natural caeyl deposit. This entire forest does. As stewards of these Nolands, I’d have thought you’d have known that. These woods are subject to the influence of those caeyls, which are a natural conduit for lightning and other natural events.”
“Seriously, Tree?” Lucifeus said, snorting, “That’s about as ridiculous a notion as I’ve ever heard!”
“Begging the Cap’n’s pardon, but you’re a man of the sea. Do they have mountains at sea?”
“What?”
“I’m a student of the earth. My people have been stewards of the forests for epochs. I’m fairly confident I know the terrestrial world better than some old deck swabber.”
“Why are the Vaemyn ‘my people’ when you’re trying to win an argument, but just ‘bloody savages’ when you’re picking their pockets?”
“Shut up, both of you,” Mal said, “I don’t give a good goddamn if all the Gods of Pentyrfal came to earth and ground the bridge into the river with their heels. What in the Nine are we going to do about it?”
“We’ll build a new bridge, of course,” Lucifeus said.
“Build a new bridge?”
“Of course.”
“A new bridge?”
“Aye.”
“Hellsteeth! You’re an idiot.”
“And you’re just—”
“Luce, we don’t have—”
“Me dear, Captains!” Freer said over both of them, “Scaling said river upon points nigh at hand be a ridiculous notion at best.”
They all turned to look at the Watcher. His braided red hair was on fire under the pressure of the sun.
“Scouted up and down these blessed banks since moment of arrival at yon river, ain’t we? Nearest safe passage be fifteen miles up current, ain’t that right? Places upon our folks a forty-five mile burden, numbers counted straight and true.”
“Freer’s right,” Tree said.