Riddle of Fate (25 page)

“Derrin as well,” he added more subdued.

“No, please, I want to help bring Seb in.”

“We cannot let you out. You are a flight risk.”

“I came here of my own accord to help you. I will not flee, but I must see this through. Let me help. I can take you to their mansion.”

The Highest studied his face. “He is speaking the truth,” Reez said.

“Very well,” the Highest said. “We leave immediately.”

The Hunt

Brier paced up and down. He had a bad feeling. Where were the Collectors? He stopped his pacing and stared out of the meeting room window.

The landscaped gardens looked so neat and tidy. It made a mockery of his entire life. Nothing was neat. Nothing was perfect. Nothing happened the way it was supposed to!

He took a deep breath to stem his anger, forcing himself to unclench his fists.

He swung round as the door burst open behind him. Seb strode in. He looked flustered, his eyes darting from side to side as if expecting the other Collectors to appear at any moment. Brier hoped they would. Seb gave him a cold sneer. “Why are you still here? Are you really still their obedient dog?”

Brier ground his teeth. “I'm here, because I'm waiting for Meir to return. I've done everything they have asked – not because I'm an obedient dog, but because I was promised acceptance to the Collectors. Once Meir returns, I expect he will confirm that I can now pass on to take up the mantle of a Collector.” 

“You are a fool,” Seb scoffed. “He isn’t coming back here and you were never going to be a Collector.”

“Meir promised me. We have an arrangement! I’ve kept up my end and now they must keep up theirs.”

Seb shook his head. Turning his back to Brier, he squatted down and rolled up the edge of the carpet. He lifted a couple of the flagstones underneath it to reveal an elongated wrapped bundle. He strode to the window, opened it and tossed the bundle out. Then he turned back to Brier. “They aren’t coming back. They’ve been taken prisoner in the middle realm. Even if they weren’t, they never had the authority to offer you acceptance. I suspect the others will be here soon looking for me. Perhaps you would not want to be here when they come.” Without another word, he vanished.

Brier rushed to the window and watched as he scooped up the cloth wrapped bundle and mounted a horse that had been tied up close by. How strange that a Collector would choose to ride a horse anywhere.

Could Seb be right? Had he been a fool to trust them? To believe their promises? Had it all been for nothing? Anger seethed through him. He’d never even entertained the notion that they might be lying. Seb was right: he was a fool! With a grunt, he punched the wall. He was so angry, he didn’t even feel the pain of his bleeding knuckles.

There was a knock at the door. He threw it open and nearly stormed straight over the maid who looked at him with large eyes.

He collected his horse from the stables and urged it on, fleeing to the cover of the forest. He wished he could know for sure if what Seb had said was true, but even if he waited, he wouldn’t be able to see the other Collectors.

Spurred on by the hate in his heart, he chased his mount on. He had nowhere to go, yet he wanted to be as far away as possible from that mansion, from the Collectors, from all the lies.

For the longest time, he was unable to live a happy life. Now he was unable to die a peaceful death. Perhaps, one day, he will have the courage to choose to die and then his fight would start anew.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Derrin led the group through the tall arched, wooden doors and into the mansion. “I think this is a waste of time,” Derrin said, not for the first time.

“Yes,” Liron sighed, “you’ve made your view quite plain. And as I’ve said before, he might not be here now, but maybe he came here right after Leaping away from the Hall of Angels.”

Footsteps echoed down the stone-floored hallway and they all froze. “We expected them back already,” a woman’s voice was saying just as two maids rounded the corner, deep in conversation.

Everyone relaxed. “That little man flew through here earlier as if his feet were on fire. He had a word with Brier before he disappeared. I thought he was still in the meeting room, but when I knocked Brier opened and he was alone. I looked out of the window and saw the little one charging away on a horse. He was cradling something under his arm and he looked so unsteady I thought he might fly off at any moment.”

The other maid joined in the gossip. “Brier rushed out of here as well,” she said. “Something had him scared. I don’t know how the odd one could have got past us and out the door without either of us seeing him.”

“Maybe he climbed out of the window. He's strange enough that I’d believe that.”

They chuckled as they passed the Collectors, carrying on down the corridor and turning into a room further along. “What could be so important to him to risk coming here first?” Derrin wondered.

“Let’s search the house,” Liron said, “make sure they’re not still here. We meet in that room at the end of the hall.”

The three Collectors split up and went off in different directions. Derrin Leapt from room to room down the hall, ending up in the meeting room. The other two appeared soon after. “I knew this was a waste of time,” Derrin said and Liron’s face darkened.

“I am concerned about what he might have come to collect,” the Highest said. There were more than one protest raised at his insistence at coming along, but he wouldn’t be dissuaded.

A thought struck Derrin and made his stomach twist. “Where is the sword kept? Shahemdilor?”

The Highest’s eyebrows arched. “Liron, return to the middle realm. You know where it is kept. Make sure it is still there.”

Liron vanished. “You said all the Masters know where Shahemdilor is kept?” Derrin asked.

“Yes. You don’t think Meir would have given Seb access, do you?” 

“Not necessarily deliberately, but maybe he let slip where it is kept?”

“It isn’t possible for any but a Master to take the sacred sword from its cache.”

“Seb has proven himself quite capable of getting his dirty fingers on things that doesn’t belong to him. Take the Masters’ seals for example – kept in their private studies. The only one he wasn’t able to get was yours. I’m somehow certain he would have gone through your study searching for it, though.”

“Bah! Nonsense. You’d have to be a ghost to be able walk through the wall to get in without my say-so.”

“A ghost?” Derrin muttered to himself.

“What was that?”

Derrin frowned, the events of the previous weeks running through his mind. “Not a ghost,” he whispered.

“Speak up,” the Highest said, annoyed.

“He’s not a ghost,” Derrin said, becoming more certain. “He’s a poltergeist!”

“Where is this coming from?”

“You just said it. If he was getting into rooms and places that you can’t get into unless you can walk through walls, it’s got to be.” Derrin grinned. “Khaya asked me once why I was able to manipulate objects in the living world. I told her it was because I was a Collector, not a ghost. So, if Seb isn’t a Collector, but he can interact with objects in the middle realm as well as in the living world, he has to be a poltergeist!”

Liron appeared, his mouth ajar. “It’s gone. I spoke with the other Masters. No one knows where it is. Seb isn’t a Master. Surely he wouldn’t have been able to take it.”

The Highest turned his back on them, rubbing his bald head. “These are dark days.” He turned back to face them. “We must assume the worst. Seb has Shahemdilor. That must mean he is planning to come after one or more Collectors.”

“Let’s get to Arteal,” Derrin said.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

“You really think he’s a ghost?” Liron asked, sceptical.

They were walking through the village square. If it could be called that. It had perhaps once been the village green, but the grass was overgrown and thorny weeds were everywhere. This would hardly be a suitable place for market stalls. A lone tree, branches bare, stood to the side of the square area.

“A poltergeist,” Derrin said.

“You realise the last account of this was about five hundred years ago?” Liron asked. “And that was a soul who had managed to escape the Collector sent to fetch him. It took the Collectors a good ten years to catch up to him and put a stop to his mischief.”

“Why do you even know that?” Derrin asked.

“I’ve spent some time researching Collector history,” Liron said with a shrug.

The few houses that stood in a lonesome group further down the road had a forlorn look about them. The village had the feeling of being abandoned. “Are we sure Meir was telling the truth about this place?” Liron said.

“He had to be,” the Highest said. “Reez would have known if he was lying.”

They picked up the pace and hurried towards the row of houses. As they drew nearer, it became more apparent that they were indeed derelict. The nearest one’s door was hanging off its hinges. It tapped against the wall as the wind pushed it to and fro.

Derrin peered inside. A broken three-legged table lay on its side, covered in cobwebs and dust. A mouse skittered across the floor and through a crack in the wall. “Could Reez have been wrong?” Derrin asked.

“No,” the Highest said. “What Meir said was the truth.” He paused, playing with his gold earring again. “But, what if it only rang true because that’s what Seb told Meir?”

“You mean Seb lied to Meir?” Liron asked, realisation dawning.

Derrin rubbed a fist against his suddenly pounding temples. “That leaves us with nothing, then.”

“Well, what is it that Seb wants?” Liron said, his hands behind his back. “If we assume that he was the one to kill Zera, and he is now in the possession of Shahemdilor, then we must assume he means to kill again.”

“Yes,” Derrin said, “but who is he going to go after?” A prickle ran down Derrin’s back as he asked the question. “Khaya said something that I didn’t pay much attention to at the time. She said Seb told her that if it had been up to him, he wouldn’t have offered her a second chance, since he wasn’t given one.”

The Highest gave him a blank look, obviously not connecting the dots.

“I need to go to Khaya,” Derrin said.

“That wasn’t part of the agreement,” the Highest said, voice stern.

“Don’t you see? She’s in danger! I think Seb will go after her.”

“That’s a bit of a leap,” Liron said.

“Even if I’m wrong, we have no better leads to follow. I say, we go to Khaya’s home and see what we find.”

“I thought you said you don’t know where she is,” the Highest said.

“I don’t. I told her to leave her home.”

The Highest’s face darkened.

“I hope she’s taken my advice,” Derrin said stubbornly. “We’re wasting time.”

“Lead the way,” the Highest said.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Khaya sat at her little kitchen table, her soup cold in front of her. She tapped her fingers on the table absently. Tomorrow. She’d leave tomorrow. She didn’t know where she was going. It didn’t really matter. As long as it was far away.

She’d been trying to convince herself that it was some great adventure that she was going on. Starting afresh somewhere new. Not defined by her abilities nor governed by them. She’d be safe again.

Without Derrin. It always came back to him.

She didn’t want to ask herself the question why she hadn’t left yet. Danger was on her doorstep here. But she couldn’t escape the answer even if she wasn’t asking. If she left, how would Derrin find her again?

She blew out a breath in a puff. She threw out the soup and washed her bowl. As she walked into the hallway, movement caught her eye. She looked to the left and saw Seb coming through the door. Straight through it. Not Leaping into the house like a Collector, but coming in through the door like… a ghost!

He smiled at her – it didn’t touch his eyes – and he opened the door, retrieving a sword from the ground outside. Khaya backed away, eyeing the sword. She recognised it. It was the one that had been used to kill Zera.

“You aren’t a Collector, are you?” she said.

His smile spread and he nodded. “At last. Took you some time to work that out.”

“What are you then?”

“Dead,” he said, the smile finally slipping off his face. “For some time now. I didn’t find damnation to my taste, so I left.”

“And you couldn’t come back to life so you decided to become a Collector?”

“Ha! Never. They tossed me aside. I wasn’t good enough for them – not worthy of having a second chance. What makes you so special?” He waved the strange sword around as he spoke and took a step closer to her, jabbing the air between them. Khaya backed away. “It wasn’t enough that you stole a life that you should never have had. No! They decide to offer you acceptance to the Collectors after your undeserved life comes to an end.”

“I don’t think your grievance is with me,” Khaya said. “I haven’t done anything to –”

“No, you haven’t, have you? Everything just fell into your lap. I know exactly who is to blame. I’m starting with you, because that is going to hurt the one who’s next on my list: Derrin.”

He lunged at her and she barely managed to angle out of the way, scrambling back. She had nowhere to go, but up the stairs. She took them three at a time, her heart beating in her throat.