Oathen (15 page)

The group watched in stunned, angry silence as
she and Pon rode away.

Hours later, the pair began to ascend the
mountain’s flank. Bjeski told Pon to hole up in a natural cave she
spotted. “I’ll be back with the scepter much faster without you to
slow me down,” she said, leaving him standing before the cave
mouth.

Two mornings later, Bjeski returned to the
cave and woke Pon from a huddled sleep amongst his furs. He looked
up, eyes bleared with sleep, to see her waggling a pewter-hued
scepter studded at one end with yellow diamonds the size of lynx
eyes.

“Let’s go.”

Pon was full of questions as they descended
the mountain. Bjeski’s answers were short and bored. “Yes, I saw
the body of the Storm King. No, I didn’t break off a souvenir. No,
I think he suffocated. Yes, it took a long time to find it. No, I
didn’t have to chisel the scepter out of the ice. Actually, I
didn’t sleep at all. No, I’m not tired. No, you can’t carry the
scepter.”

As they rounded a bend in the valley at the
foot of the scepter’s mountain, she jerked her horse to a snorting
stop, staring in horror.

A tumbled wedge of snowy clumps spread across
the valley, from the near mountainside to just shy of the far
slope. Uprooted trees and broken branches poked out here and there.
A fresh white scar marred the mountainside overhead, and a wide
swath of trees had been erased from the thin forest near the valley
floor. The avalanche had buried hundreds of paces of the snowy
trail in cold death.

Bjeski looked across the valley, desperate for
some smudge of color that would indicate the group had camped
somewhere other than right where she’d told them to. But the valley
remained monochromatic in all directions.

She felt her breathing quicken.
No, no,
no…

They searched for hours. They dug for days. In
the end, Bjeski and Pon recovered all four bodies and hauled them
home on makeshift sleds.

To his credit, Lord Skissen ignored the Storm
King’s scepter, dropping to his knees in the muddy snow inside his
castle yard, beside his oldest child’s body. Bjeski and Pon stood
silently, letting him grieve.

Then Mindri arrived, rushing through an open
archway. She stopped short on the stone steps, taking in the four
bodies, her father’s bowed head. A shriek of denial ripped from her
mouth. She threw herself onto Jann’s body, clutching at his frozen
limbs. Pon shifted his feet, uncomfortable in the face of her wild
grief. Bjeski merely waited.

The Maid of Skissen dried her tears, rose to
her feet, and slapped Bjeski hard enough to drive her to her knees.
“You told me they would be safe with you!” she raged. “That you’d
be back before I knew it! You lied to me! They’re dead; they’re all
dead! Why didn’t you die, too? Why didn’t you die!?”

She wrapped her fingers around Bjeski’s throat
and squeezed, driving her onto her back in the snow. Darkness edged
Bjeski’s vision.

Arisson…here I come
again…

Blackness.

When she could see again, Mindri stood a few
paces away, between a pair of wide-eyed guards, and Lord Skissen
was standing over Bjeski herself, a bitter smile on his
face.

“It’s true, then. You really can’t
die.”

She got to her feet. “No, I die on a regular
basis. I just have the dark luck to come back every
time.”

“Foul creature!” Mindri hissed, stepping
toward her. “Spawn of evil!”

Lord Skissen glowered at Bjeski. “Did you kill
these people? Did you murder my son?”

“My lord—” Pon began.

Bjeski cut him off with a curt wave. “Yes.
They died because of my actions.”

“No, they didn’t!” Pon protested.

“They did,” she insisted. “I abandoned them
because they irritated me. If I’d been there, I might have saved
them all.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “Here’s your
scepter.” She scooped the bejeweled rod from a loop in her horse’s
saddle, slapped it into his waiting hands, and strode out of the
yard.

The chill spring wind sent gusts of icy
particles dancing before her, leading her down the icy
road.

~~~

Two days later, Pon found her at a
caravanserai, waiting to depart as a hired guard with the next
caravan. In the dimness of the pale stone enclosure, the air was
thick with the smell of horses, oxen and sawdust. A low cacophony
of voices, leather, metal and animal sounds made a constant
backdrop.

“I’ll come with you,” he offered.

She looked up from the sword she was checking
for nicks. “What about your family?”

“My debts were forgiven because I helped you
bring the bodies home. My mother, my sister and her children are
safe now. But I thought…well…it didn’t seem right that you just
wandered off alone. I thought we could travel together for a
while.”

Bjeski shook her head. “Not safe. Look what
happened.”

“You can’t take credit for an avalanche. It’s
the season for them.”

“No, before that. I felt superior. I left them
behind. And they died. I was unforgivably impatient. If I’d just
decided to wait another ten or twenty years before calling them on
their mistakes and poor judgment, they’d likely have figured it out
already.” She sighed. “I’m already forgetting what it’s like to be
young.”

He looked at her strangely for a moment, then
said, “All the more reason to have a traveling companion,
then.”

That garnered a small but genuine smile.
Offering her weapon’s handle to him, she asked, “How are you with a
sword?”

Pon traveled with Bjeski for over twenty
years. She never left him behind.

White-eyed Onix Oolat, leader of the Cult of Dzur i’Oth,
leaned forward in his basalt-and-diamond throne, deep within the
black stone bowels of the Dragon Temple. The fingers of his right
hand, encased in silvery metal, clicked against the stone. “What
did you say?” he murmured, his strange, whispery voice carrying
eerily through the open chamber.

The initiate trembled, dropping to her hands
and knees, not daring to look at anything other than the floor.
“M-master, Bailik says the thief has disappeared. The searching
spells are returning only emptiness. He cannot explain.”

The Hand of Power frowned down at the quaking
initiate. “And so he sends you.”

The initiate squeezed her eyes shut, trying to
still her shaking limbs. Oolat’s lip curled in disgust. Fear was
healthy within the cult, but panic was a sign of
weakness.

Oolat steepled his fingers, flesh against
magic gauntlet, losing himself in thought. The trembling messenger
was forgotten as he considered what might have caused the ancient
thief to disappear entirely from detection.

She may be dead, somehow, finally
. The
thought brought him no cheer, however. If her body had finally been
killed, they would have to seek the key itself, which was unable to
come to them of its own accord. Seeking the key entailed leaving
the magic-rich shores of Shanal, and no earth-mage felt comfortable
leaving his seat of power.

Oolat’s fingers brushed the diamond-embedded
arm of his throne.
Seat of power, indeed
.

And then he had it. How had he not realized it
earlier? He exhaled through his nose in irritation. This thief was
causing him no end of difficulty. This latest trick of hers proved
that she was going to be more trouble than he had
anticipated.

His eyes fell on the initiate woman again, and
he bade her stand up. When she did so, keeping her eyes on the
floor, he rose to his feet and stepped down from his throne,
pausing right in front of her. He could feel the heat of her body
radiating onto his skin, and he breathed in her fear, a heady
fragrance.

“Do not worry, Initiate,” he murmured to her
gently, his eyes trailing along her features. “The Hand of Power is
eternal.”

The woman nodded jerkily; the phrase was part
of their daily chant.

“The Hand of Power is infinite.” His
metal-shrouded hand slid up her arm, pausing briefly at her
shoulder.

She nodded again, a tear slipping down her
trembling cheek as she closed her eyes.

“The Hand of Power is life.”

She bit her trembling lip as the gleaming
gauntlet slid down her breastbone. Its razor claws drew ragged
furrows through her clothing.

“The Hand of Power…is death.”

The woman staggered from the shock of his
silvery gauntlet ripping into her chest. A choking cry escaped her
mouth. Oolat twisted his grip and jerked, then focused his magic
into the beating heart he held in his hand, while its blood pumped
out onto the dark stone floor. Its former owner froze in a huddled
crouch—dying, yet bespelled.

“Walk,” he commanded. The woman’s body
straightened, and even as her death rattle slithered over her
tongue, she turned around and walked away. Blood poured from the
gaping hole in her chest for several paces before it lessened to a
mere trickle. Only the woman’s bloody footprints marred the floor
as she entered the hall and turned the corner.

A distance away, Bailik was busy reviewing an
old parchment, a sheen of sweat atop his hairless pate, when the
door to his study swung open. He turned to chastise the one who had
interrupted him, and his jaw fell open at the sight that met his
eyes. In walked the initiate he had just sent to Oolat. The gaping
hole in the animated corpse’s chest was clear evidence that the
Hand of Power had not been pleased with her message.

“Master,” Bailik said in as calm a voice as he
could muster.

The corpse’s mouth moved, and Oolat’s voice
issued forth. “She is hiding from us.”

Bailik blinked, his mind racing. “Then she
knows our intent.”

“She is coming, nonetheless.” The corpse’s
eyes stared up and to the left; it nearly distracted Bailik from
his master’s words. “If she still has others with her; she will
seek to protect them too.”

“Excellent,” Bailik said. “I’ll have the
harbor and border crossings monitored day and night. We’ll
intercept them.”

“Good. Recall the Enforcers I sent north; the
Blood Plague won’t be striking those three villages along the
Emerald after all. And, Bailik.”

“Yes, Master?” The bald man inclined his head
toward his master’s avatar.

“The next time you fail me, don’t send someone
else to take your punishment.”

The corpse tumbled to the floor, its limbs
tangled, its mouth agape.

Bailik waited a long moment to make sure his
master’s presence had left the body, and only then did he approach.
He knelt and closed the woman’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, Lillimin,” he murmured. “I’ll miss
your warmth at night.” He squared his shoulders and sighed,
standing and dusting his hands off. “Better you than me, though.”
I could have spared you, but it would have shown Oolat my hand,
and I’m not ready to make my move yet.

He gave a final glance to the lover who had
died in his place, then summoned a slave to clean up the mess in
his study so he could return to his research.

~~~

By morning, the wind had settled down to a
brisk breeze. While Ruel got some well-earned rest, Rhona, Geret
and Sanych perused sea charts on Rhona’s cabin table. The red silk
curtains Geret had hung were pulled aside, and Meena lay on Rhona’s
bed—a wooden frame suspended on ropes like a hammock—carving on a
bit of toothy bone with a small knife.

“We’re here,” Rhona said, pointing to a spot
on the top chart. “Out of Juala proper. There are a few more
islands scattered ahead of us, but we’re pretty clear of pursuit,
even what with stopping to get the Circuit working
right.”

Geret fingered the heavy medallion Rhona had
given him; it peeked out from the open collar of his dark green
silk shirt. A new silvery ring glinted on his pinky finger. “Now we
only need to worry about the open sea and local Clan
ships.”

Sanych was glad that Rhona’s prohibition on
his speaking hadn’t lasted as long as his had on her. She turned
her attention to the islands west of Rhona’s finger. “Your chart
doesn’t name these islands,” she said, tapping them.

“These aren’t Clan charts,” Rhona said, waving
a lax hand in their direction. “I stole them somewhere north of
Ha’Lakkon. As for the islands, they’re just flotsam. Tiny bits of
dirt. What could possibly be worth naming?”

“Maybe nothing,” the girl allowed. “After the
Sea God ship
Kazhak
made landfall for repairs on the
northern Eirant coast, Captain Galanishav had me memorize his
charts. They labeled those islands as
Nadoth vri Fron
. I’m
curious why they’d be named on a Kazhbor chart, but not a local
chart.”

“Nadoth vri Fron
?” Rhona’s eyes snapped
up to Sanych’s. “That’s an old Clan word: ‘foothold’. You’re sure
that’s what it said?”

The frown that raised Sanych’s eyebrows showed
her disdain for such a foolish question. “It was clearly marked,”
Sanych said, crossing her arms.