Songs of the Eternal Past- Complete Trilogy

by C S Vass

  “The old knight seems to have an indescribable ability to foresee our movements,” the hunchbacked old man said.

  “Why is he still alive?” Rodrick snapped. “Since our men seem clearly to be too incompetent to rein him in why have the Laquathi not done it? Or do they no longer respect even their own laws?”

  “My lord,” the old man wheezed. “The banishment was many decades ago, and in that time our knight-errant has earned himself a rather astounding reputation. While by law the Laquathi should have put his head on a spike, he has many friends and admirers in the city.”

  “Indeed,” Rodrick snorted. “So tell me, where are my friends and admirers? Where are the true patriots of Haygarden who pine for the days of the Vaentysh kings before greed and incompetence ruined their city?”

  The room had no answer to that. After a few moments the tall man spoke up. “My lord nothing will bring us allies but clear victories. Please, allow me to do this thing.”

  “We will all be dead by nightfall if you do,” the shorter man hissed.

  The taller man continued calmly. “Sandra Redfire will meet with a Tellosian envoy tonight. I don’t need to tell you what they will be discussing. Let us take control of the situation and remove Sandra as well as a chunk of the Tellosian scourge and thus play this game on our terms. Anything less, and we will simply be waiting for the Tellosians to remove her at the time of their own convenience, and by then it may well be too late.”

  “This won’t give us the city,” Rodrick said. His jaw tightened.

  “It will not,” the tall man conceded. “However, my lord, wars are not won on single battles. Do not lose sight of the longer game we are playing. This will be an important step forward.”

  “Very well,” Rodrick said. The tall man began to say something but Rodrick held up his hand. “No details! I want no part of this, nor does anyone here. It’s safer that way. The Tellosians have Yondril. I am sure of it. Just think where we would be if he knew anything of actual importance. We keep information on a need to know basis, Kyro. This is your idea, so you’re in charge of it.”

  “My lord is wise,” Kyro said with a bow.

  The scene immediately swirled away before Fiona’s eyes. She was already running towards them. This was it. She knew where they were. She saw the house. Saw the street. Saw everything.

  Thoughts of whatever happened with Sasha melted away from her. She was on to something so much more important. She raced back to the city in less time than it took her to leave it, leaping over obstacles and racing as fast as her legs would carry her. Sweet revenge was so close, she simply had to seize her moment.

  * * *

  A short time later Fiona burst into the room. There was no need to plan, nothing to debate. She was going to kill Rodrick, then and there. She found herself in the same candlelit space she had seen with the manjeko. The air was thick and dusty. As she took a quick headcount of her enemies, it became obvious that one person was missing.

  “Where is he?” Fiona roared. She faced four tired-looking men in weatherbeaten cloaks. The group did not look good, like they had only just found lodging after roughing it on the road for a great deal of time. There was a sour smell in the air.

  “So he was right after all,” the old man with the hunchback sneered. “We didn’t think you would manage to find us, at least not so quickly.”

  “No matter,” the tall one said as he steepled his fingers. “You’re here now, and that’s the important thing. It is a pleasure to meet you, Fiona Sacrosin. You must be very proud of your older brother’s accomplishments.”

  “Where is he?” Fiona demanded. She could feel the weakness in the room. She was a lion among hares, and these old men would not intimidate her.

  “Come forth, and we will take you to him,” the old one wheezed. “He is quite eager to meet with you, after all Fiona.”

  “You think I’m playing games,” Fiona said, certain that she was being mocked. Her eyes narrowed as she felt the magic of the manjeko swirling inside of her. She took a step forward and drew her blade. As soon as the demon-pommel sword was in her hand, her whole body seized up.

  Furious Fiona tried to move to see what had ensnared her, but she found she couldn’t so much as turn her head. Every muscle in her body had been painfully locked as if she were covered in an iron mold. Below her on the ground a deep purple pentagram glowed softly.

  “Release her head,” the tall one said. “We will need to speak with her.”

  The old man shuffled in and out of her view several times, doing something that she could not see. After a few moments she immediately felt everything above her neck break free from the invisible magic.

  “You fucking cowards!” she roared. Laughter echoed all around her.

  “Maybe we should put it back just for a little, until she learns her manners,” the short man sneered.

  “I can’t believe this one is related to Rodrick,” the shorter man said. “Look how impulsive she is, like a wild animal.”

  “What is it that you’re doing here?” Fiona asked.

  “Now she wants to talk,” the old man huffed. “Let’s save the talking for your brother.”

  “Where is he?”

  She was trying furiously to free herself from whatever spell had ensnared her, but she was completely disconnected from her body. She couldn’t feel the manjeko inside her any more than she could feel her legs.

  “Your elder brother had some important business to take care of,” the tall man said. Something about the drawl of his voice made her skin crawl. “You needn’t worry though, he will come soon. Morrordraed didn’t stop him, and neither will a Laquathi barterer who doesn’t know his place.”

  “Morrordraed?” Fiona’s forehead wrinkled. “Are you telling me that Rodrick has been to Morrordraed?”

  “We have been many places these last two years,” the old man wheezed. When he talked, his head bobbed up and down like a buoy on the water.

  “Why?”

  “Why not be silent until Rodrick gets here,” the shorter man hissed. “It won’t be long. Maybe there’s something else we can do to entertain ourselves while we wait.” He touched Fiona with a small gloved hand on the thigh and gave her a slimy smile. She thrust her head at him, but without being able to move her neck instead of bashing his nose into his brain like she had done with Jared, Fiona only managed to give herself a shooting pain up her spine.

  “Fierce,” the small man said.

  “Tell me about Morrordraed if you were really there,” Fiona said, desperate to keep the conversation moving.

  “What’s to tell?” the tall man said. “Swamps and bogs and wood witches and demons. That is all that can be said of the land across the sea. It is here that we are concerned with. It is here that we will rule again as Vaentysh Kings.”

  “Kings.”

  The word was uttered with so much derision and disgust that it practically burned in Fiona’s ears. But, it couldn’t be. She tried desperately to turn her head, but she was frozen stiff.

  “Kings are the pillars of civilization,” he continued. Fiona’s heart soared in her chest. “For better or worse they are men of power, men who move their hands and mold the world. Kings whisper their secret visions into the water and rivers change course at their grace. I see no kings in this room. I don’t even see men. All I see are broken ambitions—the death rattle of an old order that has passed its own era. You are nothing more than the fractured remnants of unworthy aspirations, and your time is up.”

  “You think you still have a place here?” the short man huffed. His eyes were wide and there was a frenzied look on his face. “You’re nothing but a ghost!”

  Geoff Hightower laughed, a dark grim sound. Then he drew his blade.

  * * *

  For years to come peasants and lords alike would whisper over their drinks and minstrels would sing for courts that the battle was quick and bloody, but that was not true. There was no more of a battle between Geoff Hightower and the tired ol
d men he faced than there can be a battle between a wild dog and a pack of rats.

  The short man, perhaps frightened mad and perhaps calculating his best chance at survival, leapt at Lord Hightower without warning with a long, deadly sharp blade in his hands. Fiona couldn’t see what happened as he left her field of vision, but she felt the spray of warm blood against her cheek and heard a high-pitched shrieking sound as he fell to the ground clutching the stump of his arm tightly against his chest.

  The old man huffed and wheezed in the corner, chanting rhythmically while his hands flowed over each other in a wild combination of gestures and motions that Fiona didn’t know human hands were capable of making. Meanwhile, the tall one was backing away quickly.

  “You think encountering a stray witch or rusalka makes you a conqueror, do you boy?” Geoff Hightower barked. His blade was lined with crimson blood. “A true hero, back from Morrordraed? I’ve encountered things in that swampy land that you wouldn’t believe exist. Know your place!”

  All courage left the man as he slumped against the wall, hands raised defensively. He didn’t so much as attempt to draw a weapon. Hightower snorted and struck him hard with the pommel of his blade. He instantly crumpled into the corner, unconscious.

  Meanwhile, the old man finished his chant. He placed his hands upon the ground and roared. There was a glow, and an explosion.

  The world went white and black as quickly as if a bolt of lightning had struck through the room. In fact, Fiona wasn’t entirely certain that that hadn’t happened. She felt her body tossed from the pentagram. She tried to get up, but the magic still had a hold of her and now she was awkwardly splayed against the wall, unable to move.

  There was still a blackness all around them. She could hear the metallic screech of swords clashing against each other. It seemed as if more people had entered the room, but she couldn’t be certain. Suddenly, rough hands grabbed her and she felt herself slung over somebody’s shoulder.

  They burst out into frozen daylight, and Fiona could tell she was being whisked away by somebody much larger than her who was not in the room when she first arrived. She could see the house they had emerged from, but Geoff Hightower was still inside.

  Fiona was desperately trying to think of something to do that might help her situation when suddenly the two went crashing together in the snow in a tumble of limbs. Fiona would have almost certainly battered her skull had the snow not padded the rough landing.

  Without realizing what had happened Fiona found she could move again. She quickly rolled away from her abductor and when she turned to look saw that he was a middle-aged man, slightly overweight, with a long black arrow sprouted from his left eye socket. Grimacing, Fiona stepped away from him. When she looked up, she saw a tired-eyed Martin Lightwing standing before her with a longbow in his hands.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Martin…thank you.”

  Martin Lightwing nodded. “Just be glad Geoff had the foresight to bring me alone and watch the outside. Who is that, anyway?”

  Fiona looked at the corpse, but it was nobody she could put a name to. “Some Vaentysh Boy.”

  “Shit. So they really are back in the city.” There was a white tinge to Martin’s face.

  Suddenly, Fiona remembered the old knight. “Geoff!” she said, but before she got two steps down the road Geoff Hightower emerged from the house. He wiped a streak of red blood from his sword with a cloth, his braided hair swaying over his shoulder as he walked towards them.

  “There is no more threat at the moment,” the old knight said solemnly.

  “You’re back,” Fiona said. She couldn’t think of what else to tell him, so she simply gave her thanks.

  “Why are you back?” Martin asked. “Is your mission in Laquath complete?”

  Geoff shook his head. “My mission in Laquath is hopeless. I have learned some things and meddled in the affairs of the Vaentysh Boys to a great extent, but my ultimate hope was to win the aid of the city against the Empire’s position here in Haygarden. On that count I have completely and utterly failed. There will be no assistance from the West. In any case when I learned that Rodrick was back from Morrordraed, I knew I had overstayed my time away.”

  Lord Hightower spoke slowly and with gravity, each word passing through his lips with weight.

  “But why?” Fiona asked. “Why did Rodrick go to Morrordraed? How could he have gotten past the border with the Empire scrying for him?”

  “How indeed,” Geoff mused. The old knight seemed to be looking at something nobody else could see. “That Rodrick has been to the swamplands greatly concerns me. There is magic there far beyond what the Vaentysh Boys could hope to accomplish with the tinkering of runes. If they truly are back, then they must be working towards some new strategy to overtake the city.”

  “He was there,” Fiona said at once. “Rodrick was in that room! We almost had him.”

  “You spoke with him?” Geoff Hightower’s emerald eyes gazed at her unflinchingly, and Fiona suddenly became very uncomfortable.

  “Well, no, not exactly,” she said. Internally she was cursing herself. She couldn’t tell Geoff about the manjeko. There was still something deeply personal about it and sharing that information didn’t feel right. Especially not now that he had just warned them about the dangers of tampering with magic. “I…I caught a glimpse of him as he was leaving. But I’m positive he was there.”

  Geoff held her gaze for what felt like an eternity. She got the feeling he saw right through her lie. “Very well,” he said at last. “We will have to deal with this. I must speak with Sandra Redfire. But first, tell me Martin, what news should I know of the city?”

  Martin’s face flushed red and Fiona realized that he was ashamed to tell Geoff that he was no longer Captain of the Guard. “All focus has been on the Forgotten,” Martin said. “That is where the city is placing their efforts internally. If you want any more details, you’ll have to speak with somebody else. I’ve resigned.”

  Fiona was certain that the old knight was going to scold him for abandoning his duty, or at the least give him some inspiring words to try to talk him back into his post. Instead he merely nodded, taking the news as fact and not questioning it.

  “This is not the life I would have chosen for either of you,” Lord Hightower said. “You do not deserve to be caught up in this nonsense after the tragedies two years ago. But as with all who find themselves trapped in such turbulent times, there is no real choice in the matter. In any case I cannot know peace until Rodrick is brought to justice. Lawrence Downcastle may be the leader of the Vaentysh Boys in name, but it’s clear as daylight who is truly in charge of their operations.

  “What we need is more information. Without knowing exactly what the Vaentysh Boys have accomplished in Morrordraed or why they’re back now, we can do no better than stab blindly at shadows in the darkness. I will travel to Sun Circle to see what can be learned there and plan a defense of Haygarden. I fear the worst will soon be upon us.”

  It was then that Fiona remembered her earlier trips into the world of the manjeko when she had first caught Rodrick’s presence. Tome Vaenti. That was what she had heard. Over and over again. Obsessively.

  “Lord Hightower. Do the words Tome Vaenti mean anything to you?”

  Geoff’s thick eyebrows pushed together as he thought. “Not immediately. It has the ring of the elder tongue about it. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard the phrase before. Why do you ask?”

  Fiona kept a straight face. “It’s nothing important, just something that I heard one of the Vaentysh Boys whisper while I was trapped in their pentagram. It sounded odd.”

  “Do you remember anything else? Any clues from their manner or subject of speech?”

  “Well…I was under the impression that it was something they were searching for.”

  “If the Vaentysh kings of old kept tomes that would be news to me. They were famously suspicious of the written word and are said to have burned many folk accused of
necromancy and other dark magic for simply possessing books. But I will make a note of it.”

  Fiona felt her stomach tighten with guilt. She was sorely tempted to simply tell Geoff then and there about the manjeko. What if it truly was important? What if he knew something about it that could help to save them all?

  But before she had a chance to speak up the old knight was marching away. She had missed her chance. Perhaps it was for the best. After all the last thing that Fiona wanted now would be for Sandra Redfire’s agents to escort her to Sun Circle and question her for using powerful magic.

  “Why is it that I’m seeing more action and adventure right now than when I was Captain of the Guard?” Martin asked bitterly.

  Fiona looked into Martin Lightwing’s bleary eyes and felt another pang of guilt. He truly had a very hard couple of years, it was written all over his face. When would all of this finally be over? When would any of them get some peace?

  “Martin, we should talk,” Fiona said. “Let’s go somewhere where we can sit down. The guards will clean this mess.”

  “Anywhere but my house,” Martin agreed.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later Fiona and Martin found themselves warm and at ease in an inn that bordered the Stone and Leaf Districts. Before her was a heaping bowl of thick soothing stew with generous chunks of beef, brown rice, potatoes, onions, carrots, and a host of spices of that gave the meal a rich red color. Martin had insisted on going somewhere he wouldn’t find rat shit on his boots (or in his food) and said he could pay for it with money he had saved from the city guard.

  “So what are you going to do?” Martin asked her through a loud slurp of ale from a tin tankard.

  “I don’t know.” It was a very good question. The Vaentysh Boys were so close, Rodrick was so close. She couldn’t let him escape this time. But what was the best way to find him? Rodrick had been in that room. The manjeko had shown her. But either he had known somehow that she was coming, or he simply left before she had arrived.