Fleeing Peace

by Sherwood Smith

  Leander shook his head and vanished.

  Dtheldevor busied herself with laying the stones in a ring, and then setting up the fire in the way she’d seen Leander do it so many times.

  Leander returned, his arms laden, just ahead of another band of rain. He swiftly redid the fire, banking it so that it would burn steadily and long. Senrid watched this operation with interest, shivering the while, for he still had only his shirt—torn from his trip with the Norsundrians—and trousers, one leg sporting a sizable hole. Both were still damp from his morning bathe.

  Leander dug in his pack. “Here. Take my extra tunic.” He pitched a dark green garment at Senrid. “I’m afraid it’s, um, grubby.”

  “I’ll live,” Senrid said, his voice muffled. Then his head popped out, and he looked down at himself. “Is this a tunic or a gown?”

  “On you, a gown,” Dtheldevor chortled.

  Leander said, “Anyone hungry? I found some scallops and mushrooms that I can add to these spuds, and I think I have a handful of olives left—”

  “Cook!” Dtheldevor commanded. “Don’t talk! Can’t ye hear me gut growlin’ from there?”

  “Thought that was thunder,” Senrid said. He’d crouched down as near to the fire as he could get, head on his knees, his feet bare again. He laid out his socks on the stones and watched them steam.

  “You shut up, short boy,” Dtheldevor said genially, “or I’ll sit on ye.”

  Senrid made a face of fear, then Dtheldevor’s slanted eyes narrowed. “Oh! Near forgot. Morvende says we ought to go t’the lake.”

  “The lake! The elevens won’t patrol that, oh, no,” Senrid retorted sarcastically.

  Dtheldevor shrugged. “So we dodge ‘em.”

  Leander said, “If we go to the lake, we’ll probably get a transfer, which will save us time.”

  “Not necessarily,” Senrid said. “The lake beings’ transfers seem to be limited by the physical extent of their waters. True, we’d be able to skip dodging our way up the land route through . . .” He shut his eyes, then said, “I can’t remember the names now, but there are three or four kingdoms around the lake, all north of Lascandiar, which extends on both sides of these mountains.” He pointed with his chin east, and nodded backward west. “Problem is, there’s a good chance they might put us in the mountains north of the lake. That isn’t like the Fereledria, where the Geres seem to waft you along if they like you. We’ll be floundering around in a huge range, probably under heavy snow, judging by the weather here. Now, if we cut east along the Lascandiar Pass—”

  “Which will be stinking with Norsundrians,” Leander said. “Especially if Siamis really does want us. Which we still don’t know.”

  “Of course he does,” Senrid said. His smile, his wide, derisive eyes, recalled the unpleasant, seemingly heartless Marloven king of the bad old days. “Because I know what he’s doing next. And he knows I know. What bothers me is why he took this long to sic his hounds on us.” His gaze went distant.

  Dtheldevor said, “Back to the route. The sea along here I know right good. Hier Alverian is north o’ Lascandiar. We landed there a few times. Got less o’ them blood-blast mountains to climb if we go the east way?”

  “Yes, though it’s a longer route,” Senrid said, his voice absent. “At least, on the maps.” He blinked, and faced the other two, palms out. “This is all new to me, too. Drawing it is very different from riding—or walking—it. But on the map there are fewer mountains to the east of us.”

  “We might be walking it,” Leander said. “I doubt we’re going to find much help up here. And we have to dodge regular folk as well as the elevens.” He stopped, watching Senrid, who was now staring at the fire, absently tossing a small stone from hand to hand. “Senrid?”

  Senrid looked up, his round face blank in the ruddy firelight.

  “Something wrong?” Leander asked.

  “No.”

  Senrid was not going to admit worrying about Liere. “Just wondering if the dyr is doing its job. You haven’t heard anything wherever you’ve been going, have you?” He addressed Dtheldevor, who shrugged.

  “How long would it take to go over the entire world?” Leander asked. “Supposing, of course, that Siamis hasn’t nabbed Sartora by now?”

  Senrid’s stone smacked against his palms with more force. “We are going to have to assume that either she’s been caught, or she’s gone to ground again of necessity. So it’s up to us.” The stone flew harder, slapping against his palms. “So . . . let’s say Siamis went down to Everon right after the slaughter, to try to flush Liere. Either he pinpointed her by following her trail of disenchanted towns, or else someone had the wit to get her to the capital, where—if I understand it right—if you free the monarchs, all loyal subjects would be freed. Not a problem finding loyal subjects in Everon,” he added dryly.

  Not a problem finding someone with wit, either, Leander thought, but he kept it to himself. He knew by now that Senrid thought most adults were either idiots or villains—and judging from his past, who could blame him?

  “So she’s either untraceable, or else she’s been nabbed. If he oversees the search, there won’t be squabbling minor bullyboys vying to make the grab and getting in each other’s way, like that botched job at Loss Harthadaun.”

  Dtheldevor cursed under her breath, and Leander winced, saying, “It seems to me what we heard was bad enough.”

  Smack went the stone against Senrid’s palm. “Of course it was! But remember the original orders that you overheard, Dtheldevor. If Siamis had gone himself, you can bet it would have been more efficient—and not just Liere would have died, but everybody. Man, woman, child. As it was, from what we overheard, it sounds like most of the kids escaped, and probably a lot more of the adults than the Norsundrians were willing to report. I bet most of what they got were the drunks.”

  Leander said, “All right, so we put Siamis next in the north. But all this is assuming that Siamis told you the truth about going to Bereth Ferian and making the rift up there. You yourself have said that telling the truth is way down on a Norsundrian’s list of ethics.”

  “No,” Senrid said. Then he frowned. Slap, slap, the stone smacked from palm to palm. “Well, I did. Aside from that, Siamis does seem to tell the truth—it’s part of his superiority game—but he does it in such a way that he misleads.”

  “Howzzat?” Dtheldevor asked.

  “He’ll tell you three of five things, but the two things he left out change the meaning.” Senrid flung the stone into the middle of the fire and scrambled to his feet.

  He paced back and forth along the narrow length of the cave, stepping over Dtheldevor’s outstretched legs and rounding Leander’s knapsack; Leander doubted he even saw them. “I wish I knew why he let us go . . .”

  “You’re still sure he knew we were there all the time,” Leander commented as he chopped the last mushroom, then turned to the scallops. “I know I was very careful to keep my mind shielded—the trick becomes a habit, doesn’t it?” He turned his head, and Dtheldevor nodded. “Didn’t he say to Davernak something about how he thought you were rescued by magic transfer?”

  “That could have been the mislead—not quite a lie,” Senrid said. “Just one interpretation of his words. ‘Our shadows.’ That could mean Lilith the Guardian’s mage allies, or it could be the forest animals spying on him . . . or it could even have referred to you two.”

  Dtheldevor cursed again, and Leander shook his head. “Then why didn’t he grab us?”

  Senrid said, “Why did he tell me the plan? And why . . .”

  “It makes sense to tell you the plan if he was about to enchant you,” Leander said.

  “Yep,” Dtheldevor said, adding in a meaningful voice, “You want some help choppin’?”

  Leander realized he was waving the knife in the air, and laughed. Returning to his dicing, he said, “Stones aren’t warm enough for the pan.”

  “Quiet, guts,” Dtheldevor exclaimed, smiting her middle. “So the
old pinch-soul changes his plans.”

  “He can’t,” Senrid said over his shoulder.

  “Why not?” Dtheldevor and Leander said together.

  Step, step, shuffle, turn, step, step, step, turn.

  “Because—let’s say Liere is free, and he’s abandoned the search for her—which leaves her to unravel his enchantment. He’s going to have to move really fast now. He can’t delay the second phase of his plan.”

  “Second phase?” Leander repeated, then stabbed the knife into the air. “Oh. Rift.”

  “Chop, blast ye,” Dtheldevor commanded, “or I’ll dice ye myself and cook up the remains.”

  “Eat one of those cakes,” Senrid said impatiently.

  She shook her head. “We save those, if we got a long trip ahead. What’s this second phase? I thought the blast-damn rift was already up there?”

  “The permanent rift ready to move over armies.”

  “How many armies they got?” Dtheldevor demanded.

  “Who knows?” Senrid said. “That place is timeless. One army I suspect is ready and raring to ride is the First Lancers of my many-greats grandfather, known to be unbeatable.”

  Leander grimaced. King Ivandred Montredaun-An had been so terrible that even Marlovens were afraid of his memory, and did not name their children after him. The image of him riding out of the maw of Norsunder made his stomach hurt.

  Senrid waved a hand. “These dolts we all see running around at Siamis’s command are only the recent recruits, who feel the pull of time just as we do. Norsunder needs that big rift.”

  “They did have one,” Dtheldevor said. “Few years back, over on Goerael. Clair Sherwood mentioned it once.”

  Senrid shrugged one shoulder. “Gone almost as soon as it was instituted. I heard that much. Did she also talk about how it was closed?”

  Leander and Dtheldevor both shook their heads.

  Senrid’s lip curled. “Didn’t think so. Back to Siamis, who has to establish the rift himself, because if he asks one of the other head snakes, he divides his power base.”

  Leander nodded, checking his pan for warmth. Norsunder commanders did not work for one another, they worked at best in conjunction with one another. Promotion meant taking another’s position by force. Sometimes—as in Sartor a few years before—it was one of the few advantages beleaguered lighters had.

  Senrid snapped his fingers. “In fact, what you want to bet Detlev isn’t busy plotting behind Siamis’s back right now? Remember, they just took a heavy fall down south, if we read the clues right.”

  Leander and Dtheldevor both said obediently, “No bet!”

  Leander then said, “I still don’t see why Siamis would bother with us. It’s not like we could possibly be a danger, and he’s got all those spells to renew, if Sartora is ruining them, and if that Detlev is trying to take over his plans. He’s got to be insanely busy.”

  Senrid said, “That’s what I thought.”

  Leander tipped his chopped food into the pan, which sizzled nicely, wafting the aroma of frying scallops into the cold, damp air.

  Dtheldevor shrugged. “So what’s the plan?”

  “So we need to find a powerful mage. Someone like Evend, who could probably hold the magic while doing a dark-magic spell even if he wasn’t trained to perform it. And we need a light magic object of power, something strong enough to hold all the binding spells without losing its own integrity—which I’ll bet he can find. Bereth Ferian’s gotta have a heap of ‘em squirreled away over the centuries.”

  “All right, so we’re right back to going north,” Dtheldevor said, sighing. “Which way, is the question?”

  “East,” Leander said, stirring the food with his knife. “We’ll be faster if there aren’t many elevens.” He cut a glance at Senrid, who hadn’t answered.

  Senrid had stopped pacing, and stood at the cave entrance, looking out at the gray veil of rain. “It all comes back to Siamis. He knew we were there—he knew you, Dtheldevor. There wasn’t any surprise despite what he said.”

  Dtheldevor scowled. “Now I think on it, yer right.”

  “Yet he did nothing. Just played around with the sword—”

  “That warn’t no playing,” Dtheldevor said, massaging the back of her head.

  “It was playing,” Senrid stated. “I only know the rudiments myself, but I’ve watched training all my life, and I know what’s for fun and what isn’t. He was having fun with you. Then he then stood by and let those animals attack—when he could have blasted them with fire-magic, or whatever. Why?”

  Dtheldevor groaned. “I dismasted me own ship with that stunt.”

  Senrid said, “I still think he knew we were there all along.”

  Leander sat back, waiting.

  Senrid whirled around and resumed his pacing. “He has to go north. And he can take ages to make that rift on his own, or he can shorten it drastically by having a—”

  He looked down, and absently rolled the cuffs of Leander’s tunic back to his still-healing wrists. “‘Family gift.’ He knows all about me,” he whispered.

  Leander looked at the tunic, which sagged down past Senrid’s knees. Though there was maybe half a year’s different in their ages, Senrid barely came up to his shoulder. Short he definitely was, but there was nothing small about his brains. “Have a what?” Leander prompted.

  Senrid turned around, his face grim. Just for a second, he looked disconcertingly old. “Look. It all follows. The off-worlders he can hold just in case. They could probably do the magic to make small rift accesses—at the price of their lives—but they couldn’t manage the big one. A big new one, away from all the others, that no one knows about—maybe not even Detlev or the other Norsundrians. So he will control it completely. To force it open he needs the life of someone who knows dark magic, can hold it. Someone—” Senrid grinned nastily. “—like me.”

  Leander’s neck crawled.

  “Why do you think we call it dark magic?” Senrid said with a strange smile. “The absence of light is—”

  “Dark.”

  “The absence of life is death.” Senrid whirled around again. “He wanted me to escape, because Detlev supposedly had me on some list or other. Maybe they had a cooperation deal with prisoners, but Siamis decided he had a better plan. If I ran, then no one in Norsunder would know what he was up to.”

  “Which is?” Dtheldevor prompted, frowning.

  “He wants me to run north, straight up the little rift accesses to Hier Alverian, and right into his trap. He’s probably up there now, and the elevens behind us have orders to chivvy us north without ever quite catching us—because then we’d have to be handed off to Detlev—so we’ll run straight into his arms, without taking the time to think ahead. And then I do his work for him, ending a short and unlamented life. And he wants me appearing at the last moment, so he won’t have to risk Detlev coming along to take me away if he holds me too long. That’s why he didn’t keep me that day, he wasn’t ready!”

  Dtheldevor leaned back, blowing a lock of hair that had come loose from her braid. She turned her head, narrowed eyes aslant. “So, what, ye gotta go back home, I take it?”

  Senrid snorted. “I’m going north.”

  Leander said, “If he knows you are coming, what good does it do to go anyway?”

  Senrid shrugged a shoulder. “Because I know what to do to get around him.”

  Leander sighed. “I guess it’s the mountains, then.”

  Senrid’s eyes were wide, and steady, and filled with reflected light. “The danger is only to me. I can go alone.”

  Leander shook his head. “Nope. As a new lighter-ally you’re going to have to get used to sentimentality like loyalty and mutual aid. May’s well get the unpleasantness over with now.”

  “Besides,” Dtheldevor added, snickering. “You’re too short to make it up them mountains without us to boot you along.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “The queen here is not much older than you,” Rel said to Li
ere.

  “I told her, I told her!” Devon exclaimed, jumping up and down in her desire to get going, to show off Liere to the people she liked best in the entire world. And to show them off to Liere.

  They stood on the white-sand beach, looking out at the Tzasilia moving slowly away, its sails belling in the southeast wind.

  “Rose,” Liere said, marveling as she stared at the waves. “It’s the weirdest thing.”

  Liere leaned over the rail, gazing down at crimson, rose, peach, flame-colored sea plants fingering up toward the surface.

  “The red stuff is coral,” Rel said.

  “Coral,” Liere breathed.

  “Come on, let’s go find the girls!”

  Ever since she discovered their destination, Devon had filled the days with details about the Mearsiean girls, and no matter what subject was under discussion, she always had an anecdote be beginning with Clair said... and CJ once said....

  Both Liere and Rel had been glad to see Devon so happy, and if it meant a lot of stories about kids who sounded like paragons, it was a lot better than the worn, fearful girl they’d worried over at the beginning of the voyage.

  Besides, Rel had some private misgivings about CJ Sherwood, who was trenchantly loyal to her friends, but he’d never met anyone so passionate about holding a grudge against someone she’d once thought an enemy. “I don’t know what we’re going to find here, so it’s a good idea to start out carefully.”

  For glorious weeks they hadn’t had to think about the enchantment. This reminder sobered Devon. She stopped chattering, and watched the road.

  They walked westward into meadowland filled with dying grasses. A dark line of mountains jutted on the northern horizon; occasional big raindrops spattered their faces from the iron-gray sky.

  Seabirds cawed, circling overhead. Liere looked up just in time to see some of them flying rapidly inland. She watched in dismay, angry with herself that she could so swiftly forget to check. She closed her eyes, listened—and sighed with relief. Allies.

  Slowly the clouds gathered, thickened, and rain began in earnest.