Bared Blade (12 page)

“You’ve gone very quiet over there, Aral,” said Vala. “And you look so sad. I hope we haven’t brought you pain.” Her voice was soft and sympathetic and it cut all the deeper for that.

“No, it’s all right,” I said as Triss slid down from the wall and laid a comforting wing across my shoulders. “I need to remember sometimes.”

And that was true. My old, simple faith might have died with my goddess and my fellows, but over the last year I had finally started to build something new atop the ruined foundations of what I had once been. I might not be a Blade of Namara anymore. Too much gray had spilled across the black and white of my old worldview for that, but I could still serve justice in my own way. And maybe even—on the good days—serve Justice as well.

“You were going to tell me a story,” I said.

“It’s a long one.”

“Then I’d better lay out my blanket and get the whiskey.” Triss snapped his wings disapprovingly at me, but I ignored him this time. I needed something to take the sting out of the blow VoS had unknowingly dealt me.

“Let Vala get the bottle,” said the Meld. “She’s going to go crazy if I don’t allow her to get up and move around soon anyway.”

“That works for me.”

Before I’d finished my sentence, Vala had bounced to her feet and said “Oh, thank the Twins!” A reference to Eyn and Eva, the two-faced goddess at the center of the Kodamian branch of the church. “And now I can take off this damn armor, too.”

She shimmied out of the heavy leather vest and then practically bounced over to the place where I’d left the Kyle’s six beside my blanket. “Here you go.” She flipped the bottle
to me like a juggler’s club, following it a moment later with the balled up blanket.

“Thank you.” I uncorked it and took a long swig. Then I started to drag over the half barrel I’d been sitting on earlier, noting, “It’ll make it easier to pass the bottle back and forth.”

“Don’t bother,” the Meld said through Stel’s mouth. “I won’t be drinking until after I’ve finished my story. It tends to blur the edges between the three of us, and I’d rather not have that interfere with the telling.”

“Well then,” said Triss, rather acerbically, “why don’t we all just drink water for now? It tends to blur Aral’s edges as well.”

I rolled my eyes and took another sip. The harsh peaty burn of the six felt wonderful, but I could see how much my taking a drink upset Triss. So I recorked the bottle and set it aside, gesturing for him to fetch me my water skin—which he was quick to do.

“Familiars, what can you do?” I said with a shrug, and it was only after I’d spoken that I realized that the age-old mage complaint about our companions might play differently with a Dyad. “Begging your pardon, if that strikes you ladies as offensive.”

This sent both—or perhaps all three—of the Dyad’s component personalities into gales of laughter. I took the opportunity of them recomposing themselves to fold my blanket into a pad and take a cross-legged seat with my back against the half barrel.

“I take it I said something funny?”

Stel, who was wiping tears from her eyes nodded. “Oh yes. You see, one of the biggest running jokes among the Dyadary has to do with exactly who is the familiar and who is the master, and thus who it is who suffers whom. The mages usually say it’s us ‘muscle-heads’ since that’s the way the mage/familiar bond works. We claim it’s them, because, after all, we’re the ones with the familiar gift. But…”

“But what?” I asked.

“But,” sighed the Meld, “when really pressed on the topic, both sides will pick on their poor Melds.” She crossed
all four of their arms in a deliberately prissy manner. “Which is silly since I don’t actually exist in any physical way. I maintain that I am simply a figment of their conjoined imaginations.”

“The bossiest figment in the history of ever,” whispered Vala, and Stel nodded vigorous agreement.

I decided at that moment that everything I’d ever heard about Dyads was probably as wrong as the crazier stories about Blades, and that I had no real clue how their thought processes worked. And the only way to find out was to observe them in action.

“Tell me about the Kothmerk.” I slapped a couple of pieces of pork on a rice cake and took a bite—I could eat and listen.

“All right,” replied the Meld. Then she began, switching back and forth between voices as best suited the moment or allowed one or the other of her halves to eat.

It started when the Archon called us into the high office. I’d never been up there before. It’s a round room on top of the tallest tower in the Citadel with the Archon’s desks sitting opposite each other against the outer walls. They seated us back-to-back between them so that we would be able to face them and still feel comfortable.

“I hear very good things about you from Master Sword,” said the Meld we refer to as the Archon. He spoke through both mouths then, as he did throughout the entire interview—adding authority and weight to his words. “Master Wand is also quite effusive about the combat side of your magical training, if somewhat less so about the rest.”

I blushed at that. I’ve always been better with the more, shall we say,
active
magics.

“I’ll work harder on the rest,” I began. “I promise to—”

But the Archon was already waving that off. “I am not at all displeased. In fact, your martial skills are why I’ve called you in today. I intend to assign you to your very first real field mission, beyond the bounds of Kodamia even.”

“But Master Book says I won’t be ready to go out among the singletons for years.” And I must admit that I wailed a
bit here since I’d never even met a real singleton like you—the solos who live in Kodamia are different. “Not at the rate I’m currently advancing, at least. He says I couldn’t fool a drunken mercenary in search of a tumble into believing that there were actually two of me.”

The Archon laughed a good natured sort of laugh. “Well, since this mission doesn’t require you to tumble any singleton mercenaries, or even to pretend to be anything other than a Dyad, that shouldn’t be a problem. I have to send something very valuable to the Durkoth of the north and it needs the best protection I can send with it.”

That’s when the half of the Archon that faced Vala pulled out what looked like a small block of gold, maybe two inches on a side and covered in intricate etching too delicate for any human hand to have made. The designs reminded me of the patterns frost will make on steel high in the mountains, only more deliberate, as if some thinking hand had stolen winter’s brush to paint with.

“What is that?” I asked through Vala’s lips.

The Archon pulled lightly at the top and bottom of the little block. It opened like a jeweler’s box, though I could see neither latch nor hinge, nor even a seam twixt the two halves. I’ve held it several times since then and I still have no idea how it can open. Inside was a lining of some black stone like richest velvet. It held the Kothmerk as a mother holds her babe, firm yet soft, with care against any slip or mishap.

The Archon had to tip the box upside down to get it to release the ring. Then he raised the Kothmerk so that the sunlight streaming in through the window at his back shone through the stone.

“What did the ring look like?” asked Triss.

He’d slipped down from his perch on the wall and laid his head in my lap and now I was idly running a finger up and down the ridge of his scaly neck, letting my fingers find nuance where eyes saw only undifferentiated shadow.

VoS answered Triss as she continued their story.

It was a king’s signet in general shape, though no king
of men ever wore so fine a seal on his finger. Nor one carved whole from a single ruby. The band is etched inside and out with more of that thinking winter’s frost, deeper than that on the box, though no less delicate. It rises spiral-like to the crown of the ring, then leaves off at the edge of the seal proper.

That, you will know from seeing it here and there on Durkoth work, is the circle that eats itself set round the Durkoth character for the evernight. It seems a simple signet, and too easy to counterfeit by far, until you look close and see that both circle and symbol are themselves etched with a fine pattern like the veining of leaves. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and as I leaned forward I stilled my lungs so as not to fog it with any touch of my breath.

“This is the Kothmerk,” said the Archon, “living heart of the Durkoth and a necessary piece in the recrowning of the King of the North that happens at Winter-Round this year.
”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Neither the recrowning, nor why we hold the ring.” I knew little of our relationship with the Durkoth and less about the people themselves.

“Many years ago there was a war fought between the Durkoth of the northern mountains and their southern cousins. Mostly they fought in the deep ways of the earth, far below Gram’s surface. But one great battle was fought here aboveground in the gap that splits the mountains and holds Kodamia at its heart. For reasons lost in history the then Archon came to the aid of the King of the North and helped him and his people drive the southern armies from the field. She even personally saved the king’s life and with it his throne.

“In token of the debt he owed her, the king gave the Kothmerk into the keeping of the Archon and her heirs. It was to be held against the time of our greatest need, when the Durkoth of the North kingdom will redeem it by fighting at our side. We have held it unused for seven centuries, bringing it out of the vaults only for the recrowning
ceremony once every two hundred years when we send it back to its rightful master.”

That’s when I realized why the Archon had called me into his tower. “You want me to take the ring to the Durkoth?” I asked, and my voice squeaked when I spoke.

The Archon laughed. “Yes, though not alone by any means. There will be a round dozen of the Dyadary in attendance upon the ring and all of them, but you and Edge of Persistence, are the hoariest of veterans. But I’m a little short on fully trained death-spinners at the moment, what with the trouble in the Kvanas.”

I interrupted VoS then. “Death-spinner? What’s that?”

Vala spoke, indicating herself and her bond-mate. “We are. Different Dyads have different specialties. We’re given extensive testing soon after the pairing to determine where our first-order aptitudes lie. My birth sister and her bond-mate went to study under the research sorcerers. Ours was close-in combat, so we went to the spinners.”

Having seen the Dyad take on a pair of Elite I couldn’t say I was surprised. “And you stay with that for the rest of your lives?”

“No,” said Vala. “When we’re older, they’ll assign us to learn a second specialty and then maybe a third.”

“That’s assuming we get any older,” grumbled Stel. “And that we get the Kothmerk back. If we don’t manage that, we’ll probably end up as the only Dyad ever permanently assigned to mucking out the stables.”

“We’ll get it back,” said Vala. “We have to.”

“And we’ll help you,” said Triss. “But please continue the story.”

VoS nodded.

The Archon put the ring back in the box and closed it. “Based on the recommendations of Sword and Wand I’m going to brevet you to field status for the duration of this mission. If you do well, the promotion will become permanent and you can move out of the cadet quarters, though I’ll want you to continue your training with a new master in hopes of expanding your range beyond death-spinner
and the mere cracking of skulls. An important and necessary skill, but only a first step into becoming a full Dyad.”

The next several days passed in briefings and logistics. Maps, packs, and orders, none of which is all that important. So I’ll skip over all of it except for one tiny detail, the secondary staff. On any major expedition with multiple Dyads involved, there are bound to be a number of solos needed as well. Drivers for the wagons, cooks, porters, and grooms to name a few.

Among the crowd on this particular trip was a little slip of a girl who worked in the stables, fourteen, maybe fifteen years old. Her name was Reyna and she was a refugee from some disaster south and west, though no one could ever get her to talk about the details. She’d arrived a year or two before and went to work mucking out the stalls in exchange for meals and a spot in the loft. She was so good with the horses that she was quickly given a job as a groom with actual pay and a tiny room that she shared with the other girl grooms. For all that, she was very easy to forget. Stay with me, she’ll be very important later.

We departed the Citadel on foot and in the middle of the night and met up with the wagons and animals a full two days later on the Zhani side of the border. They’d been sent out a few at a time and gathered at an isolated spot in the hills to wait for us. There had been problems moving the Kothmerk before, and the Archon didn’t want to give any signal that something so important was on the road. That’s why it didn’t go straight into the Durkoth tunnels that come out near the Citadel either. The trouble’s been much on their end of things.

You see, whatever great noble holds the Kothmerk on the morning of the recrowning has the right to ascend the throne, till the next time around. So we were going to haul it up through western Zhan and Kadesh and hand it over to the Durkoth at Hurn’s Gate pass. Since the Durkoth don’t like it up on the surface, the Archon and the King of the North figured it’d be safer to send it with us by wagon.

They were wrong.