by Tom Lloyd
‘But what will you do? Will you be able to control -him -before he lashes out like he did at the High Priest of Larat?’ Tila asked.
‘That was different, I wasn’t prepared for him then,’ Isak said. ‘Now I know exactly what danger he poses. You’ll all have to just trust me that Aryn Bwr’s simply not strong enough to take over now. At the Ivy Rings he had his only chance -and he failed. Prepared, I’m too strong for him - and I’m still getting stronger.’
‘Still?’
Isak smiled. ‘Perhaps not physically, but I’ve found there are other things that count -Gods, Carel, can you believe that it was less than a year ago I was driving your wagon and complaining that I’d never even be allowed to join the Palace Guard?’ He laughed.
They reached the shrine and Isak ran his fingers over the waist-high cairn. Someone had taken great care fitting the stones together to make it concave rather than conical. It curved around an offering bowl fixed firmly into the structure so half of it was sticking out. The bowl itself was made of rough clay, plain and unfinished, but its contents showed someone valued the shrine. A carved bone comb, a worn but serviceable knife and two small copper coins; they meant nothing to Isak but they were significant enough for whatever shepherd had left them in the first place. Above the bowl was a rounded shard of slate on which had been scratched Vrest’s horns symbol.
‘Aye,’ confirmed the veteran with a grim face, ‘less than a year since I joked that the Gods might have a plan for you. Careless words in this life.’
The silver-haired man stepped away from the shrine, hawked up noisily and spat onto the dusty ground. That act earned an admonishing look from Tila, at which Carel hung his head and, after a moment of looking sheepish, he reached into his money-pouch to find a coin for the offering bowl. Tila’s reproach vanished into the glittering smile that Carel had never been able to resist. She beamed at the man as though the veteran guardsman was a five-year-old just learning right from wrong. Carel knelt in front of the shrine and said a short, silent prayer to accompany his offering. As the man bowed his head, Isak felt a touch of breeze skitter down his neck like cool breath. He turned instinctively, but there was nothing there, only the certainty in his mind that the local God of this place was close at hand.
Isak reached out with his senses as gently as he could and to his surprise saw a blurred shadowy shape, like a hawk, circling slowly above the shrine. With a start he realised how frightened the spirit was; strange, he’d expected it to keep as far from him as possible. He placed a hand on the shrine and felt a shudder run through the spirit above it. Suddenly it all made sense: the local God hadn’t moved away because it couldn’t bear to allow him between it and the shrine. The shrine was all it had.
‘It’s not been consecrated,’ Isak muttered.
‘Eh?’ Carel said. ‘The shrine? What about the symbol of Vrest, then?’
‘I assume the shepherd who built this doesn’t know much about religion. He probably built it to give thanks for finding a lost lamb or something like that, so it made sense to put the symbol there. He didn’t realise a priest still needed to consecrate it.’
‘I will make a note of it, and we’ll inform the nearest border village unmen,’ Vesna said.
‘Don’t bother,’ Isak replied. ‘It’s over the border, and it won’t remain peaceful in Tor Milist for long. There are too many mercenaries -any priest daring to come this way will need an armed escort, and that escort would either be the local suzerain’s hurscals - and then we’ll be accused of taking part in the conflict -or soldiers wearing neither crest nor colours, and they’d risk attack by anyone who sees them.’
Vesna stared at him before a smile spread over his face. ‘Gods on high, perhaps we’ll make a lord of you yet!’
Isak gave a snort and grabbed Carel by the scruff of his neck to haul him upright again. ‘Perhaps you will at that -and to think all I ever wanted was to join the Palace Guard. You people should learn to pay more attention when you’re handing out jobs!’
The comment provoked a burst of laughter from his companions. ‘If you’ll forgive the observation, my Lord,’ Vesna said, his grin widening, ‘you’ve still not passed the trials. Now I’m willing to admit you’ve done a few things on the battlefield some might call noteworthy, but that doesn’t mean you can just walk into the Ghosts.’
Isak gave a hiss of mock exasperation and thumped the count on the shoulder in response.
‘I can’t see Kerin agreeing to it,’ Carel agreed, ‘but I’m not going to be one to complain about unearned honours; I still don’t quite believe I’m now Marshal Carelfolden, and you’re still just some snotty-nosed child I took pity on a few times. Sweet Nartis, it must be more than thirteen summers since I found you snivelling in that wood, knees and elbows all scratched up -feels like last month. What’d they done to you again?’
The four of them began to walk back to the horses. Mihn stood with Mistress Daran, Tila’s chaperone, holding the reins.
‘They led me out to the river,’ Isak replied in a small voice, his smile fading somewhat, ‘then they pushed me down the bank and left me lost out there.’
‘Ah yes, nasty little buggers some of them were. Still, children don’t know better and their parents didn’t give ’em any reason to think what they were doing was wrong. We got them back though, didn’t we?’ Carel chortled.
The memory restored Isak’s cheer. ‘Garner berries, still one of the best ideas you ever had. Never felt so happy at the smell of shit as that day!’ He scratched his cheek and looked west towards Scree, where the surviving White Circle and Fysthrall troops were believed to have fled. ‘I think it’s going to take more than garner berries to get the revenge I need nowadays.’
Vesna gave a nod. Isak had put off the discussion of how he was going to respond to the White Circle’s attempt to enslave him, though he had talked freely since leaving Narkang about what had happened in the abandoned temple in Llehden, and his connection with the white-eye, Xeliath. The Yeetatchen girl was something else he didn’t fully understand, and another decision Isak knew he would have to make soon. He just had to hope that those closest to him wouldn’t become too nervous of the company Isak kept in his mind: the Gods’ greatest enemy, and the daughter of a foreign nobleman, one of the Farlan’s ancient adversaries.
‘A wagon-brat shouldn’t have to make this sort of decision,’ Isak sighed.
Tila shook her head. ‘Better a wagon-brat with some sort of a brain than half of those bred for the job.’ Her vehemence took them all by surprise, but Tila carried on regardless, ‘Read a history of the Litse sometime and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The Farlan have remained strong because of the new blood it brings into the aristocracy. The other tribes might mock us for our rigidity in tradition, but the Litse’s biggest problem has always been the fact that commoners can never amount to anything. The ruling élite has always been weak and bickering, while the armies are led by men with the right family background, not any skill at the job. You might not have the training for your title, but we’ll rectify that -and at least you don’t have the baggage a proud family history always brings.’
‘Well, that’s very sweet of you to say so,’ Isak said with a smile.
‘I mean it,’ Tila said, ignoring his levity. ‘You’ll learn what you need to and Lesarl will manage the details, just as he did for Lord Bahl. The most important thing is that you have the strength to make the decisions, and your strength is one thing I’m happy to rely on.’
‘So I was bred for the job after all,’ Isak admitted after a pause. ‘Stronger and bigger than normal men, and unable to have children except with my own rare kind. White-eyes are born to lead, and born to lack those family ties you’re talking about.’
Tila nodded. ‘And you more than others, it appears. Since the battle in Narkang, and what happened at Llehden, you’ve reminded me of a line from one of the old tribal sagas, when King Deliss Farlan, father of Kasi, the first white-eye, says, “History echoing in
his footsteps”.’
‘Now there’s a curse,’ Carel muttered, the lines on his face more pronounced as he frowned.
‘No it isn’t,’ she insisted. ‘It’s a burden, yes, but think of all you’ve achieved since you left the wagon-train; you’ve only eighteen summers and already you’ve done things that wouldn’t disgrace the heroes of myth. White-eyes were created by the Gods to fight and to lead in their names, but most will never have such a marked effect on the Land.’
Isak pointed at Mihn as they approached the waiting horses. ‘What about him? He killed the Queen of the Fysthrall, a white-eye, and one carrying a Crystal Skull at that.’
Mihn ignored the finger jabbing towards him, though his eyes took in every detail. The only non-Farlan in the group, Mihn was noticeably smaller than the other men, and his nondescript clothes and tidy manner made him easy to ignore sometimes. Only his eyes belied his unassuming appearance; they were too bright and observant, the eyes of a predator.
Isak lowered his hand as Mihn stepped forward to join them, saying, ‘A deed that will haunt me my entire life.’
‘Why?’
‘You are a white-eye, and one born for great deeds; I am not of such consequence to the rest of the Land. The fate of common men who stumble into great events is never so happy.’
Before any of them could contest the claim a voice called out from behind them, ‘Happiness is such a relative thing; it’s the lack of reward that annoys me.’
Isak jumped, hand closing around his sword hilt as he turned, but in the next instant he recognised the speaker and raised a hand to stop his guards closing. Morghien was looking as dishevelled as the first time they had met, and wearing that same mocking, infuriating smile. His weathered face looked as though the years had been hard on him, but Isak was one of the few who knew just how supernaturally well the man of many spirits had aged.
‘You,’ exclaimed Carel angrily, tugging his black-iron scimitar free of the scabbard as he strode forward. Morghien didn’t pull the battered axe from his belt or let the loaded pack on his back slip off his shoulders but waited beside the shrine and watched Carel come towards him, his expression unchanged.
‘You’re going to have to be more careful who you sneak up on next time,’ Carel snapped at the man. ‘I don’t like bloody surprises ’cept on my birthday, so next time you creep up on us my boys will kick seven shades of shit out of you.’
‘Oh come now, is that any way to treat an ally?’
‘It is nowadays,’ Carel said with feeling. He hadn’t put his sword up. ‘In case you’re not up with current events, surprises aren’t welcome any more.’
‘I heard about Lord Bahl,’ Morghien said, no trace of emotion in voice or face. ‘A shame, but not much of a surprise, with hindsight. Xeliath tells me it was Lord Styrax who killed him. If that’s true we have quite a problem on our hands.’
‘We?’ echoed Isak hotly. ‘And which city do you rule that makes it your problem?’
‘I don’t care for the Lord of the Menin, and if it involves those I call allies and complicates my own plans, I consider it a problem.’ Morghien’s eyes were fixed on Isak and he remained calm and confident - until the seconds stretched on and he became aware of Isak, slowly tapping his fingernail against the emerald set into his sword hilt. Morghien frowned, his normal self-assurance wavering slightly.
Under different circumstances Isak would have been pleased to disconcert Morghien, but there was little to be happy about here. ‘Your friend,’ he said, ‘the Seer of Ghorendt . . .’
‘Fedei? What about Fedei?’
‘We stopped there on the way back -well, we tried to. The guards made it very clear before we even reached the city walls that we were not welcome.’
‘Not welcome?’ Morghien’s face fell. ‘Is Fedei dead?’
‘We don’t know; Ghorendt is closed to outsiders. All we could discover was that it happened the day after Silvernight. As we left the river we found ourselves staring at the pointy ends of a dozen arrows, so we turned back. There was talk of the Seer being trapped behind locked doors, and every mirror in the house being broken.’
As Isak spoke, Morghien’s face darkened. ‘I know whose handiwork that is,’ he muttered.
‘Why? Fedei didn’t strike me as a major player in your games.’
Morghien shook his head. ‘He wasn’t, he’s simply a warm-hearted academic with a rare skill, the ability to see the shape of future events.’ He broke off, then added, ‘Xeliath has told me something of what happened that Silvernight, of the twist in history that occurred.’
‘One that was in part thanks to your intervention,’ Isak broke in, feeling a little ashamed that he’d not remembered when Carel was threatening to kill Morghien that it had been the wanderer who had given him the key to surviving Aryn Bwr’s assault. ‘Without you, I don’t think I would have survived.’
Morghien waved away the thanks as he stood in silence, frowning at the ground. After a few moments, he came to a decision. ‘You can tell me the rest of the story over dinner. We have more to discuss than I realised, and perhaps I can shed some light on the mystery of Ghorendt.’
They continued on their way while the light was still good, following the two rangers past the small lake and on towards a spring that ran through the heart of a cluster of ash and elm trees on the periphery of the forest. They hurried past the lake out of habit; still waters were a poor omen, and only to be used as a last resort. Such places attracted all sorts of spirits. This one was little more than fifty yards wide in any direction, but being so close to a disputed border, it would undoubtedly have its share of swords and axes rusting away in its depths; tributes to the greatest of the Gods, He who had already claimed the owners of the weapons. Not every lake was a certain gateway to Death’s realm, but no one wanted to linger.
The sun had sunk below the horizon before they stopped and lit fires. The warmth of the day remained as the darkness drew in, and the little group of travellers ate unhurriedly, then chatted amiably, their backs resting against tree-trunks, looking up at the comforting light of the stars and both moons.
When the soldiers started settling down for the night, Morghien stood and beckoned for Isak to follow him. The white-eye paused only to sling his swordbelt over his shoulder and indicate to Carel that he didn’t want an escort.
Within a minute or two he and Morghien were walking through the trees, following the slope of the ground down until they reached a natural hollow of no great depth, no more than twenty yards across. At the bottom of the hollow was a stone lying half-buried in the earth, its surface worn flat by wind and rain and looking like a crudely carved tabletop. Isak glanced back and saw Mihn watching them from the tree line. The failed Harlequin’s face, framed by shadow, was strangely comforting. He gestured for the man to return to his bed, but felt curiously pleased when Mihn ignored the order and maintained his vigil.
‘This is ideal,’ Morghien commented, running a hand over the stone’s surface.
‘Ideal for what?’
‘A little magic. My skills have never been remarkable, but this is a simple thing if you have the right tools.’
He took out a small silver-bladed knife, battered and worn by years of use. Isak could tell it had a simple charm on it, though not what sort. Morghien scored a faint cross about a foot long on the stone’s surface and connected the ends so that the cross was bound within a diamond. From the same pocket he pulled a golden chain on which was strung a set of fat, oversized coins, all made from different materials and set with gemstones.
‘Gods,’ Isak breathed, reaching out to touch one until Morghien jerked it away, ‘what are those?’
‘It’s called an augury chain; it’s used for divination. The way they fall and their position in relation to each other can reveal a surprising amount, if the caster has the experience to properly interpret what he sees.’ Morghien saw the sceptical look on Isak’s face. ‘Don’t look like that,’ he said sternly, ‘this isn’t the random drawi
ng of cards. Each coin is aligned to a God of the Upper Circle, blessed by a high priest of that God and thus touched by a being outside of time or the laws governing the Land. When cast by a mage, there is a pattern spread over the board that guides the fall of the coins. Trust me, this is not mere chance.’
He held up a blank disc of gold, turning it over to show Isak its flip side, obsidian or polished jet. ‘There are two that aren’t aligned to the Upper Circle: this one, the Lady’s Coin, represents Chance, but in a very specific way, and the Mortal, which is usually the principal coin in a casting, since all events ultimately revolve around people.’
He carefully separated out another coin on the chain as he spoke and held it out to Isak, keeping the others well away. Isak realised it was lapis lazuli, deep blue with a thin speckled line of pyrite. ‘This is Nartis’ coin, as you can probably guess. I suggest you don’t touch any of the others, as you might upset the balance. ’ He grinned. ‘And here’s a piece of advice for you: never trust a priest with one of these. Without the balance of alignment they’re useless -worse than useless -because whatever is read that way will be horribly skewed.’
‘What about the cross?’ Isak asked as he ran the dead white fingers of his left hand over the disc’s polished surface. The snake symbol of Nartis was engraved in the centre and surrounded by an unfamiliar script Isak assumed was the huntsman’s prayer. As Morghien gave an approving nod, Isak realised his magic-marked hand would probably improve Nartis’ own coin.
‘The cross is our board, divided into quarters: the heavens and the land above, fire and water below. I have owned this augury chain for many years now, and I know its moods well enough. The position of each coin in relation to the board and each other once the blanks have been removed should provide an answer to the question in your mind when you cast the coins.’
‘The blanks? Ah, only one side is engraved,’ Isak said, turning the Nartis coin over. ‘What about the Lady’s Coin, though? That one’s blank on both sides.’