Dawn of Swords (6 page)

“I bid you good night then, Master.”

With that, Roland bowed before turning tail and sprinting up the path, heading back into Safeway. Again Jacob chuckled. Over the nine years the boy had served as Jacob’s steward, he had headed for home in that exact same manner each evening. His energy was awe-inspiring.

It was energy Jacob could have used at the moment. Suddenly his arms felt too heavy, his knees too weak. He slumped his shoulders, turned around, and pulled open the door to his cabin. Stepping inside, he found the embers of a recent fire, glowing in the inglenook. Above it, resting on an iron rack, was a steaming pot. He dipped a finger inside. Roland had left a meal for him—rabbit from the smell of it. His stomach cramped as he licked his finger; then he grabbed a wooden bowl from the niche above the inglenook and ladled himself a helping.

The soup was warm and spiced with lemongrass and sage, which made it taste a tad sour. He gulped down mouthful after mouthful, feeling his hunger pangs decrease with each swallow. Making his way to the window, he pushed open the shutters with his free hand, allowing the breeze to tickle his flesh. The stifling heat from the embers was slowly whisked away.

When he finished eating, he went to his desk on the far side of the room. The desk had been a gift from Norman Astencroft, the lone carpenter to take up residence in Safeway. Norman wasn’t particularly skilled, and the ash desk wasn’t particularly well made, but it served its purpose. That was all Jacob could really ask for.

Setting aside his bowl, he reached beneath the desk and pulled out a leather-bound book. He placed it on the flat surface, wiped dust from the cover, and undid the iron clasp. The food might have settled his stomach, but it had done nothing to stifle his exhaustion from riding three days straight with little sleep. Nor did it calm
the dissonant thoughts running through his mind. He had not yet decided what he would tell Ashhur about the events at the temple. His hand shook as he took out a folded piece of paper from the inner pocket of his tunic, flipped open the cover of the book, and turned until he reached a blank page.

He unfolded the paper and began inscribing the words written on it. With each letter he formed, he sensed his fatigue—and his anger—lessening. It was as if documenting his adventures and discoveries in his journal was setting his soul afire. Other than serving his god,
this
was what he lived for: unlocking the mysteries of the world, slowly assembling the building blocks of life in Dezrel, one word at a time.

His earliest entries had originally been written on the huge leaves of the barrow elms that grew atop Mount Ire in the northwest, using excretions from nightworms as his ink. It wasn’t until his twenty-fourth year, when Ashhur showed his people how ink could be made by mixing iron salts with gallnut tannins, that Isabel DuTaureau, the matriarch of House DuTaureau of Mordeina, had had this particular tome created for him.

The journal was filled with oddities—descriptions of plants and animals beyond number. He chronicled humanity’s progress, from their early days as youths under the watch of the Wardens to the time when those in the east began to earn their independence. The chronicles also served as a comparison of the burgeoning cultures in the east and west, both their similarities and their vast differences.

Though magic was sparse within Paradise, used only to heal the sick and urge crops to grow, the study of it was what interested Jacob the most. Page after page of his journal was scrawled with psalms, ingredients, runes, powerful words, and the laws of tribute. One could open the book to any random page and discover something wonderful: practical magic, such as how to conjure food from topaz or create a bubbling stream with onyx dust; earth magic, derived from the elves, about how to divine power from the
molecules in the air itself to form balls of fire, shards of ice, or even cause plant life to obey commands; astral magic on how to bend time and space to travel between two points in an instant; psychic magic, explaining how to use the power of one’s mind to manipulate physical objects on a whim or commune with others over great distances, using select totems, such as sea-worn copper or dragonglass. There were also vast sections on metallurgy, botany, chemistry, astrology, and what he had learned about the inner workings of the human mind. Rarest were the segments dealing with blood magic, an ancient form of conjuring that existed only in the legends told to him by the elves.

According to those legends, two millennia ago there were three demon kings—Darakken, the thunder lord; Velixar, the beast of a thousand faces; and Sluggoth, the slithering famine. When they ascended from the underworld, they brought terror to the elves. A war lasting a hundred years ensued, until Celestia, apparently upset that these hellbeasts were laying waste to her creations, sent the demons and their minions back to the underworld and locked it up tight. The demons were said to have possessed great mystical abilities. Through their words and strength of will they could control the dead, inflict insanity upon all who gazed on them, and rip apart a living body and reassemble it as they pleased. Their story fascinated Jacob. He wanted more than anything to discover the truths hidden within the legends, to inscribe the words of these beasts’ ancient magic in the pages of his tome. Sadly, barring a few obscure carvings in the crypts of Dezerea, there was no hard evidence that the demon kings had been anything but bedtime stories. The section on them in his journal was maddeningly sparse.

His current work for the night dealt with medicinal herbs. Living in the west meant a life free from disease and physical maladies, so it intrigued him how those in the east—and in Haven—got through each day with all the potential dangers surrounding them. He had catalogued all the different herbs and their uses, both medicinal and
recreational, from poppy to crimleaf to the silia fungus. During his visit to the Temple of the Flesh, he’d spoken with the priestess Aprodia, who had told him that by sucking the milk from the large seeds of nectarines, her people avoided the Wasting that inflicted many throughout the east. That information might not have much practical use in Ashhur’s Paradise, but Jacob was nothing if not fastidious, so into the book it went.

He was in the middle of writing his last word of the evening when a board creaked behind him. The quill halted mid-stroke, and he cocked his head. All was quiet but for the whistling of the wind through the open window. Just then, something grabbed the back of his hair, forcing his head back. Sharp steel pressed against his throat. He reached for the skinning knife he kept tucked into his belt, but it was no longer there.

“Looking for something?” asked a low, mocking voice.

“It seems I have misplaced my knife,” Jacob replied, calm as could be. “You wouldn’t happen to have it, would you?”

“I might.”

“Please be careful. The blade is quite sharp.”

The voice snickered, and the knife was pulled away from his throat. The hand dropped from his forehead, silken fingers tracing a sinuous line down his cheek.

“So many apologies, kind sir,” the voice said, now sounding high-pitched and childish. “I knew not.”

Jacob stood from his chair and turned around slowly. The corners of his mouth rose into a sad grin when he saw the elf girl standing there.

“Brienna, one of these days you might actually hurt me. I may not age, but I’m not indestructible, you know.”

“I wouldn’t have broken the skin. Where’s your sense of humor?”

He shook his head. “It seems to have abandoned me this night. Forgive my lack of charm. You took me by surprise, Bree. Shouldn’t you be at the homestead, preparing for the engagement?”

“I reckon my sister could do without my company for a few nights. There are only so many flower arrangements a girl can make, and to be honest, I have no desire to spend time in Dezerea. Our cousins there are so…stuffy and staid.” She clucked her tongue. “Now I ask, would I not be of more use to you here?”

Brienna gestured to the bedchamber, leaned her head forward, and gazed at him from under slanted eyelids. Her hair hung down to her waist in a straight sheet the color of sun-drenched summer wheat. Her skin was like fresh milk, pale and shimmering in the light of the dying coals in the inglenook. She was slender yet durable, muscular yet womanly. The green, satin-threaded petticoat she was wearing offered the faintest hint of her shapely body. She was Brienna Meln of the Stonewood Forest, daughter of Cleotis and Audrianna, Lord and Lady of the southern Dezren elves. At just over a century old, she was eleven years Jacob’s elder, and they had been partners for twenty-two years. Jacob had been infatuated with her since the day they met, before the dawn of man, and had eventually wooed her by defeating her shamed older brother Carskel in a duel. He depended on her for many reasons, not least of which was her ability to make him laugh.

But now that laughter seemed so far away.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, a look of concern crossing her normally mischievous face.

“The Temple was attacked. Martin Harrow died.”

Jacob was becoming accustomed to the expression that crossed Brienna’s face—blatant incredulity.

“Attacked?” she asked. “By whom?”

“A small battalion from the east, flying Karak’s banners. They demanded that the people of Haven swear themselves once more to Karak or else face more violence.”

“And Martin was caught in the middle?”

Jacob nodded. Brienna frowned, and he could tell that her sharp mind was already working through the problem.

“So Karak’s followers have formed an army,” she said.

“It seems so, though I cannot begin to guess at the size. The hundred men who attacked Haven may only be a fraction, or they may represent the entirety of their power. Either way, it means we now have a rather unfortunate problem. If Neldar is lashing out at those in Haven, who have done nothing wrong save exercise their freedom, how long until their soldiers cross the bridges and do the same to us?”

“You know that can’t happen, Jacob. Ashhur won’t let it, and neither would Karak. Nothing good can come from that way of thinking. Nothing at all.”

He sighed, and even to his ears it sounded defeated.

“I know.”

“So what are you going to do? What does your god say?”

Jacob shook his head. “Nothing as of yet. He is consoling Stoke and Tori Harrow as we speak. I assume he will send for me come morning.”

“What will you do until then? Do you want to talk of it?”

He stepped forward and wrapped an arm around Brienna’s slender waist. The downy feel of her petticoat helped ease his mind, and he suddenly felt tired once more.

“I’d rather not,” he said.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

He smiled at her.

“You know there is.”

Brienna blew a strand of hair from her eyes, which sparkled with life.

“Indeed I do.”

C
HAPTER

3

I
t was still dark when a loud banging woke Jacob from a dreamless sleep. He slowly rose to his elbows on the feather mattress. Brienna lay on her back beside him, mouth slightly open. She was snoring. He reached over and pinched her small, pointed nose shut. She licked her lips and rolled over, forcing his fingers off her. When she settled in again, her snoring ceased. The banging, however, did not. Jacob grumbled as he slid out from beneath the thin, corded sheets, the rough material grabbing at the hairs on his legs. He walked out of the bedchamber, his body sore and his head groggy, not bothering to slip his bedclothes over his head. Moonlight poured in through the windows he’d forgotten to shutter earlier.

“Give me a moment,” he muttered.

He opened the door to his cabin, naked as the day he was created. The brightness from the moon turned the man standing on his stoop into a squat blue toad. The man looked up into Jacob’s face, his jowls shaking as he spoke.

“Master Eveningstar,” said Clegman Treadwell, Ashhur’s Grand Steward.

“Clegman,” said Jacob. He let the name hang in the air for a moment, knowing that the short, fat man grew uncomfortable during long periods of silence. “Why are you here at this ungodly hour?”

Clegman cleared his throat.

“His Grace wishes an audience with you.”

“Now?”

“Yes, yes, now.”

Jacob leaned out of the cabin. He gazed east, where the horizon was still black, though the tiniest thread of crimson was working its way into the sky.

“Let me get dressed.”

“Very well. I will wait here.”

Jacob rolled his eyes. “You do that.”

Throwing on his old breeches and a somewhat clean tunic, Jacob followed the portly man down the path. Though still annoyed by his interrupted slumber, he couldn’t help but admire the way the change in lighting altered the feel of his surroundings. How amazing it was that a simple difference could completely transform a person’s outlook. It was as if all of life existed in multiple worlds layered over one another.

They took the road up and out of the gulch, but instead of heading for the Sanctuary, Clegman led him toward the grassy hill overlooking the valley on Safeway’s western border. Even from a distance, he could see the god sitting there on the crest, legs crossed and hands on his knees, facing the desert. The serenity of his posture caused Jacob to shiver.

“I bid your leave here, Master Jacob,” said Clegman, bowing and backing away.

“Thanks,” mumbled Jacob.

Ashhur did not move as he approached. The god’s head was tilted back and his eyes were closed. Jacob sat on the ground before him, crossing his legs in the same manner. Even sitting, the god towered over him by more than two heads. There he waited without
making a sound, until at last Ashhur’s shimmering gold eyes fluttered open.

“Jacob,” the god said, his voice low and soothing. It was the tone he usually took when meeting with his most ardent disciple.

“My Lord,” said Jacob, pitching forward on his knees and bowing so low that his nose brushed a blade of grass.

“Sit up, my son,” Ashhur said. “We must talk.”

Jacob did as he was told, but kept quiet. In conversations with a god, it was best to let the deity speak first.