City of Night (10 page)

“He had one.”

“Oddly enough,” Alaric interjected, “those are not dissimilar from Weyrdon’s first words when he learned of the task that he must set Garroc; nor are they dissimilar from his final words. It is not easy for Weyrdon to consign men whose oaths he has taken to serve another. Nor,” he added, “is it easy for Weyrdon to imagine, in the end, that there could be any other who might deserve Garroc’s service, if Weyrdon himself was to forgo it. He is a great leader of men, but he is not known for his humility.

“Garroc, however, accepted with grace what Weyrdon could accept only with difficulty, and when the
Ice Wolf
sailed, he was upon its decks. He assumed that his task was to find a worthy lord within the heart of the Empire; we all assumed it. We also assumed it would take time, if it proved possible at all—the North and the South are different.”

“But he was sent into exile.”

“He was sent into exile. Only those who sailed the
Ice Wolf
understood that he served Weyrdon, still. His name is spoken only here.”

“But—”

“Tell me, Garroc’s son, did you not encounter Northerners upon the farm that was your home?”

Angel fell silent.

“So. You understand.”

No,
Angel thought.
No, I don’t understand.
But . . . those men had died. They had come and they now lay buried in the soil of Evanston. But so, too, Angel’s father, and his mother, and half of his friends.

Weyrdon said nothing.

“And . . . if he found this lord,” Angel said, thinking of Terrick’s anger. “What then?”

Weyrdon’s silence was different. At last he said, “He did not find his lord.”

“How do you know?”

“The same way,” he replied, “that we knew you would come, seeking the
Ice Wolf
. The same way,” he added, “that I knew that when you came to me, I would offer you in the end none of the respect that your father’s sacrifice deserves.” He turned, then, to Alaric.

“Angel, Garroc’s son,” Alaric said, the words like a chant, their pronunciation wrong. “You are of the Empire, and of Garroc. The only thing of Weyrdon you will have—should you choose it—is the mark; we will not hunt you and we will not kill you for your presumption in assuming it.

“Perhaps what Garroc sought, in the end, was a Lord of the North; perhaps what he sought, and what he measured, he measured against the truth of Weyrdon, and against such truth, all men might be found wanting. We burden you with no such comparison; we burden you with no such struggle.

“We thought it was Garroc’s duty, but we see clearly now.

“If you will take up Garroc’s duties, seek what he sought, and seek it as a citizen of the Empire; perhaps you will see clearly what Garroc, in the end, could not, and thus prevent your father’s duty from ending in failure.”

Failure. Angel closed his eyes. He could hear the lap of water against the ship; could hear the raucous cry of gulls, could smell fish, sweat, and the sea breeze. Everything but the sweat so different from Evanston; he had stepped into a different world.

But that world, and this one, were anchored by one man: Garroc of Weyrdon. The man he had known as father. The man who had sworn his life to the service of the god-born.

“If I refuse?”

Alaric said nothing.

“Can you?” Weyrdon asked softly.

“I . . . don’t know.”

“No,” the Rendish warlord said. He nodded. “You do not know, not yet, what we face.”

“And you won’t tell me.”

“What it is safe to say, I have said.”

“You told my father more.”

“Your father was mine,” Weyrdon replied. “I took—and knew—his full measure. You are merely his son. The nights are growing longer,” he added in Rendish. “And if my words or judgment seem harsh, take comfort in this: you have not taken my measure. I am not served by fools; while it might at times be convenient, I expect no blind obedience. You will find truth in my words, or you will not, but you will not forget what I have said.”

“No.” The single word was soft. “If I—if I do as my father did not live to do, what then?”

“What then?”

“If I find what you seek, what do I do then?”

Weyrdon glanced at Alaric, and the older man’s robes rose and fell as he shrugged. “We do not know,” Alaric said at last. “It has never been clear to us what the purpose of such a lord might be; whether it be to lead armies, or no. We know only that in some measure it will be significant, if you both survive.”

“If?”

“Many will not,” Alaric replied. “Even here, in the heart of the Empire, where the god-born rule the Isle and the cathedrals, many will die. There is a shadow that is growing here; my lord Teos cannot pierce it. It spreads across the City, like mist, but night follows in its wake. Here, in Averalaan, sons of my father also labor; we are not kin, but the language we speak is not dissimilar for all their foreignness.”

“Where? Where do I start?”

Alaric’s smile was gentle. “Angel, Garroc’s son, if we could answer, we would not have surrendered Garroc to exile—and death—in a land that barely knows winter. But if what we were told can be understood at all, it is in Averalaan that you will begin to unravel the answer, and in the end? You will know more than the sons of Teos.” He bowed. “It is almost time for you to depart.” Reaching into his robes, he pulled out a small leather bag. “Imperial coin,” he said. “We have nothing else to give. No advice, no warning, no words of wisdom.”

“We understand that you have not yet made your choice,” Weyrdon continued, when Alaric had placed the small satchel into Angel’s shaking palm. “And we will not therefore ask you what decision you have reached; if you offer your sword, I will not take it. Not yet. You will return to me,” he added, his eyes glinting for a moment, as if they had caught sunlight, although the sun was at his back. “And what you offer then, I will consider.” He turned his back upon Angel, and did not turn again. But he had not finished, and what he said surprised Angel.

“Have you spoken with Terrick?”

Angel nodded, and then, realizing that Weyrdon did not, in fact, have eyes in the back of his head, said, “Yes.”

“Ah. And he warned you not to chance these decks?”

Terrick had offered him hospitality and shelter. Angel did not choose to answer Weyrdon’s question.

After a pause in which Weyrdon accepted silence as the only answer he would be offered, the son of Cartanis spoke again. “You will speak with Terrick. Understand him, Angel, and perhaps you will have more of an answer than either I or Alaric can give you.”

There was respect in those distant words. Respect, and something else, but not anger, not disapproval. Something softer, or sadder. Angel couldn’t identify it.

“Would you—would you take Terrick’s service now if he offered it?”

“He will never offer it,” Weyrdon replied.

“But if he did?”

“That,” Alaric said, taking Angel gently by the shoulder and turning him toward the stairs, “was as much of an answer as Weyrdon will give. You are not of the North, boy, although the North has touched you.”

Angel followed; Alaric’s hand did not leave the boy’s shoulder, so he had little choice. But as they reached the bottom of the short flight of stairs, Weyrdon spoke again.

“I cannot command you, not yet,” he said, as both Alaric and Angel slowed. “But I ask that you do as your father did. Leave what I have spoken of on these decks.”

Angel straightened his shoulders. Nodded. He did not look back as Alaric began to walk again. He did not look back until he had reached the bottom of the gangplank, and Averalaan once again reigned.

But when he stood, alone, upon the empty dock, he gazed up to see Weyrdon’s eyes, robbed of color by distance, and he lifted a hand, not in salute, but not—quite—in farewell.

The Port Authority was not yet a press of angry people; it was crowded, by the standards of Evanston; by the standards of Averalaan, however, it was sparse enough that the air, farther away from the doors and the scant breeze that wafted in, still felt like air when one took a deep breath.

Angel stood in the line that led to Terrick’s wicket. He could see the Northerner, his height lessened by his position on a stool and the framing window of the wicket itself; could see the way his hair darkened in the internal light of the building. He could see his eyes, from this distance, although he couldn’t clearly see their color; he could see lips move, although no sound carried this far back. Paper came and went, as if it were coin.

The line shortened as Angel waited, thinking now of gathering eggs from the hen house. Thinking, as well, that he might never have that chore again; he had seen no farms in the City itself, and where there was land for the gardens one tended for one’s own family, there was no food; just grass, and flowers, and trees.

He had come from Evanston, walking in the heat of summer and resting when the heat was at its worst; he had asked for directions from passing merchants, found the road most traveled, and following it, had arrived in Averalaan. He had dreamed of the
Ice Wolf
, and he had dreamed of death.

But he had walked and waited, waited and walked. He wasn’t ready to walk into the nowhere that his life now led, not yet, and he could not turn back to the ship. So he stood in line until the last back before him broke away. He watched it recede, seeing folds of a deep blue that looked almost purple as it caught light; seeing, as well, the salt stain white across its textured surface. He watched it as the minutes passed, and when the colors shifted as movement changed the caught light, he stepped forward.

Terrick looked up. At this distance, his eyes were all of gray, the color of clouds just before thunder breaks.

Angel started to speak, and stopped. He did this three times before he spread his hands, palms up.

Terrick smiled. It was an odd smile, and reminded Angel more of pain than joy or amusement. “So,” he said, “You’re back.”

Angel nodded.

“And you still have—”

“Hair, yes.”

At that, Terrick chuckled. “Meet me when the horns sound lunch,” he told the boy. “Second lunch, as it happens; if you try to come into the back during first lunch, you’ll probably trip over Barriston. The man you first spoke to,” he added. “Barriston is very finicky, and very precise. He will no doubt eject you, possibly with the help of the guards.”

 

They sat on either side of Terrick’s massive and cluttered desk. Most of the clutter, on the other hand, was lunch. “It’s not our custom to entertain guests in the back rooms,” he offered, by way of explanation. He was careful to keep his tone light and neutral as he once again broke bread, divided cheese and meat, and poured water.

They ate in silence. Angel ate the way calm men breathe; slowly, naturally—and continuously. But when he spoke, he surprised Terrick. Even now.

“What will you do?”

Terrick could have pretended to misunderstand the question, and had he been asked it a day earlier, would have. But he met the boy’s steady gaze with his own. “Work.”

“Garroc is gone.” He spoke as if Garroc and his father had been two different men. Fair enough; to Terrick, they were. But they were both dead. The loss was new to Angel; to Terrick it was not so much new as finally acknowledged. He drank his wine the way the boy ate, and stared, for a moment, into the distance of writing and paper and furled sails.

“He is.”

“I’m not Garroc.” He set his food aside, and looked up at Terrick. “I’m never going to be Garroc.”

“No.”

“Were you waiting for him?”

Terrick said nothing. But he gave up the pretense of food, and set aside the wine. “Do you serve Weyrdon?” The question was direct and clear, for all that it was spoken softly.

There was a pause, but Angel didn’t look away, and in the muted light of the office, his eyes were almost gray. At last he said, “I don’t know.”

There was so much about the boy that was foreign and frustrating. Terrick had time for neither, but it was a struggle. “Did you offer him your service?”

“No.”

“Then you do not serve him.”

“No, I guess I don’t.”

“Your hair—”

“He said I had the right, in my father’s name, and for my father’s service,” Angel replied quietly.

“For his service.”

“I told you, he was asked to leave. He did what Weyrdon asked of him. I’m not of Weyrdon. I imagine that if I were living in Arrend, I would have a very short life unless I never left that ship.”

“And what did he ask of you?”

Angel’s eyes widened in surprise; his skin flushed slightly. “He asked me not to speak of what he said,” he answered quietly, and for the first time, his eyes slid away from Terrick’s. And then they slid back, and the boy’s jaw tightened. “But I will,” he said, in the same low tones, his eyes blue now, his gaze steady. “Because I know you never will.”