Sword of Fire and Sea (The Chaos Knight Book One) (14 page)

//
We have records of magicians from long ago—centuries upon centuries ago, as far as we can reckon—that could “feel” Healing.
// The feathered tip of her tail flicked against her ankles. //
They were called PrimeAdepts, and they were masters of all four elements.
//

“Am I going to be a…PrimeAdept?” Vidarian swallowed. He was having a hard enough time with two elements in his blood; what would it be like with four?

Thalnarra gave a purring chuckle, the feathers on her throat rippling, that set him at ease. //
Not likely. For one thing, all of the PrimeAdepts were gryphons.
// She fixed him with a superior stare for a moment, and he met it, though his survival brain clamored against facing down that primal predator regard. Her amusement rippled in his mind, not unkind, and she again turned her head back toward the water. //
And for another
, // she continued, //
we do not think there remains enough magic in the world to support a PrimeAdept.
//

“There was more magic, before?” The question was obvious, and somehow Vidarian felt that he knew the answer in his bones, in his blood, but he needed it spoken.

//
Oh, yes. There was a time when most creatures had magic…and when humans and gryphons were quite outnumbered by other sentients on this planet. And further back, in the Age of the PrimeAdepts, magic was everywhere.
// Thalnarra twitched one tufted ear, her pupils contracting and flaring, her mind somewhen else.

“What happened?”

//
Get me that fish
, // Thalnarra said abruptly.

“What?” Pulled from his imaginings, Vidarian looked down into the river.

//
Get. Me. That fish.
// She gestured down into the ship's wake with a talon; a small school of silver fish swam alongside, staying just ahead of the rolling water. Still trying to figure out when he had missed the turn in their conversation, Vidarian reached down to take a fishing pole from the hooks suspended below the rail. //
Not that way
, // Thalnarra corrected. Even more confused, Vidarian stared at the fish. They were starting to separate from the ship, would disappear in moments.

He almost realized Thalnarra's intent too late. Then, as the last fish started to change its course, he reached out with his senses.

Coolness flooded his mind as he made metaphysical contact with the river. All of the life he had sensed before roared up before him—the reeds as they whisked past on the shore, the slimy moss that covered the stones on the bank, the flat lily pads with their pointed orange blossoms…and the silver fish, each as long as his forearm. He found the nearest fish with his mind and then crept forward into the rushing water just in front of it. Then, not entirely knowing what he was doing, he
pulled.

The fish flipped out of the water, or rather, the water flipped upward and took the creature with it. As it sailed high in the air and then began to fall, the still-moving ship coursed to meet it, and Thalnarra caught it neatly in her beak. Two twitches of her throat and it was gone. //
Very good
, // she said, and Vidarian did not know if she praised him or the fish.

“Don't mention it,” he said anyway. Thalnarra answered his question as if uninterrupted by the snack.

//
We do not know for certain what changed
, // she said, //
whether it was of “our” doing or whether the world simply began to lose its magic. We do believe that some of the continuing loss is population–related. Our populations—and, more specifically, your human populations—continue to rise, but the amount of magical ability doled out to both our species seems to remain the same. Therefore we have fewer magic-workers, and those few we have are not as strong as magicians of old.
//

“But I thought the goddesses gave magic.”

Thalnarra nodded. //
They do, and at the beginning of the history of the great Temples as we know them today, magicians turned to the elemental goddesses and asked them to renew their magical abilities. To a certain extent, the goddesses answered, and so the priestesshoods were born. Some would say that it is Ele'cherath's will that magic should dwindle, or that we do not act on her will enough and so she slowly withdraws her blessing from us. The fact is no one really knows.
//

It was all getting a little too philosophical. “What am I supposed to do?”

The gryphoness tilted her head, eyeing him. //
I told you. Change the world.
//

“But you didn't say how.”

Thalnarra sighed and returned her gaze to the river. Her pupils started to contract and flare again for several moments before stopping suddenly. //
The Tesseract is prophesied to seal the Great Gate
, // she said, still not looking at him. //
The Gate of the PrimeAdepts.
//

“Oh,” he said. “What happens after that?”

//
We don't know.
//

T

“You're in fine feather,” Vidarian said, chuckling at her gaiety.

“Moorport is my favorite stop,” she said, beaming at him despite his gentle jibe. “Come, I'll show you.”

Ariadel's excitement, Vidarian was later forced to admit, was fairly justified. She led him to a stately establishment far enough away from the river to shed its scent but close enough to be within easy walking distance of the port. A sign hung over the door proclaimed it the Inn of the Lustrous Pearl.

Within was a paradise in miniature. Strange plants with leaves and flowers that Vidarian could not name filled a small conservatory just inside the tall front doors, and tiny birds twittered from the trees that arched slender branches over a cobbled path that led to the inn itself.

Either Ariadel had sent word ahead, or the proprietors of the Pearl were ready for custom at any time of the day; neither would have particularly surprised Vidarian. As soon as they stepped inside the warmly lit entryway, a pair of smiling women, strikingly beautiful with dark hair and eyes, took Vidarian in hand and led him down the left corridor—Ariadel accompanied another pair to the right, flashing a wicked smile at his alarmed expression. She wiggled her fingertips at him before disappearing around a corner.

After a couple of right-angle turns, the wood-paneled hallway opened up into a small, comfortable chamber lit with lamps of frosted golden glass, each easily as large as Vidarian's head. Spaced between the lamps, covering every inch of wall space, were beveled wooden racks—and in the racks, row on row of gleaming glass bottles, all identically shaped but no two of the same color. In the center of the room was a padded leather table flanked by a pair of cedar cabinets.

The two women separated, neither having spoken. The first went to peruse the bottles, while the second began removing Vidarian's clothes, after briefly introducing herself as Orchid. He jumped as she tugged gently at his coat, but she only smiled again. “Come now,” she said, and though her voice was low, it was courteously businesslike. “You must remove your clothes for massage.” She glanced over at her partner. “He looks tense.” They shared a grin, and the second girl nodded, moving to another section of racks and selecting a series of bottles.

Vidarian managed to keep some parts of his anatomy from going completely red by the time all of his clothes were off, but it was a struggle. The first attendant wrapped a warm, fluffy towel from one of the cedar cabinets around his waist before guiding him to the table. She made a move as if to help him climb atop it, but he gently slipped away from her grasp and levered himself up on his own.

The leather was cool against his chest, but not uncomfortable. The clink of glass from behind him indicated that the second attendant had made her selections, and shortly Vidarian heard her slippered feet pad across to the table.

“First a lotion,” one of them said—he thought it was Orchid, but wasn't sure. Both of them had exotic accents, something like the intonation of the islanders in the northwest tropics, but not precisely. He puzzled over the lilt and emphasis of their words until a touch of liquid coolness in the center of his back made him tense involuntarily. There was a smile in the attendant's words. “You are with Lady Ariadel. She has asked her usual therapy for you.” A sharp, cool scent filled Vidarian's nostrils as the girl worked the lotion into his back muscles. The vapors were remarkably refreshing, seeming to clear the clutter from his mind.

“What is that?” he asked, impressed.

“The scent is from the oil of crushed laurel-wood and cedar bark. We blend it with a salve made from dustneedle leaves and pods.” Vidarian was racking his memories for anything like what she'd described, and had come up with nothing when a sudden spreading warmth between his shoulder blades blurred any future thoughts traveling through his head. “A warmed almond oil,” Orchid offered, and he could hear the smile in her voice. She added, without being asked, “Sandalwood, lavender, and mayweed.”

Time blurred for a spell as Orchid expertly transitioned from spreading the sweet, heady oil to a deep-tissue massage. Her surprisingly strong fingers found pockets of tension he was fairly sure he'd been carrying around for several years, and the abrupt, heated release was almost painful. Then the gentle orange warmth of the lanterns took hold of Vidarian's senses, briefly becoming his world.

His thoughts drifted, as they were wont to do since the battle with Vanderken, toward his ship and his crew. A pang of longing and guilt echoed in his chest, an itch to be back upon his own deck that no magic, however remarkable, could suppress. There was pride there, a glowing ember of pleasure at how Marielle would now receive her own long-overdue captainship, but he'd sailed for so long that the daily tasks of life at sea sprang upon his unconscious mind—was the sailcloth sound? Had they taken on enough vegetable to keep Ilsut appeased for the crew's health? Little Lifan, when should she be sent to a true windreader for apprenticeship? Like little gnats they surfaced, and one by one he forced himself to let them go, to trust in Marielle and the crew to see themselves safely home. At length, he ran out of worries, and his mind bobbed as on a gentle sea. Almost, he heard a soft voice singing a strange and wordless song.

When he came back to himself, Orchid was doing something rather remarkable involving her thumbs and the balls of his feet—it sent little prickles of sensation jolting up his spine. Despite the sleepy haze he'd drifted into earlier, he suddenly felt quite awake and energized.

Orchid seemed to sense his return to full consciousness. Her quiet voice was pitched for his ears only, a tone that said she was describing plant leaves, or linseed oil. “You must be careful with priestesses,” she pressed deeply just above his heel with her thumbs. Vidarian's heart picked up speed, and not from the pressure. “They are rarely what they claim, and even more rarely what they seem to be. You know this, I am sure, good sir, but you have been with Lady Ariadel long, and your air together is one of shared pain that binds. Take care it does not bind you too closely.”

Vidarian would have spoken at that, for an objection rolled up like a blue squall in his chest, but Orchid twisted his foot in a way that sent thin lances of white energy up his calf—hardly unpleasant, but utterly disabling. Lights flashed across his eyes, and Orchid was still speaking as she moved to his other foot, with a smile as though she were commenting on his reaction. “Lady Ariadel is long a friend of this inn, we have known her family for generations. But there are secrets that the priestesshood keeps from her. Never confuse her for them.”

Quelled, he said, finally, pitching his voice to wonder, as though he were asking about her technique: “How do you know so much of the priestesshood?”

“They do not have a monopoly on secret knowledge,” she said, a careless murmur that said she was discussing the weather, a cloth shipment. “You have energy of a kind I have never seen, sir Vidarian. Your task will be as great, of this I have no doubt. Look to yourself for answers, and trust not what you hear.” She raised her voice. “Prepare a robe, please.”

Orchid's assistant padded lightly across the room and was promptly at his shoulder, ready to help him to his feet and into a plush cotton robe.

Orchid appeared in front of him just as he settled the robe across his shoulders. Something glistened on each of her index fingers, and she reached up to massage his temples with them. The sharp, clean scent of lavender filled his nostrils, and he took a deeper breath almost without meaning to. “Remember always,” she said, rhythmically as if in harmless ritual benediction, “the gifts you carry will bring many to desire your friendship. But that friendship is your own gift, to be delivered to those most deserving. And the world is wide and full of secrets.” As if to complete her anointing, Orchid brushed one thumb across his forehead, and smiled, the intentness of her eyes sealing the words they had exchanged into silence. She and the assistant stepped back and bowed gracefully, still smiling, palms flat on their thighs. Vidarian fought the impulse to return the bow as they smoothly straightened. Orchid gestured, and her assistant nodded, then turned to lead him down another hallway.

In his haze of physical relaxation and mental brooding it was difficult to recall what directions they'd taken before, but if his suspicion was correct, the inn was huge—Orchid's young assistant, still unnamed, led him further in toward its center through another series of wood-paneled hallways, one of which opened up suddenly into a misty atrium.

Ariadel awaited them there, stretched like an indolent goddess across a satin-upholstered lounging chair. Her eyes roved up and down Vidarian's body as he approached. The assistant did not quite bow quickly enough to mask her smile.

When the young masseuse had taken her leave, and Vidarian had settled gingerly into another lounging chair next to Ariadel's, the fire priestess spoke. “You had Orchid? Oo.” Catlike envy twinkled briefly in her lazy gaze, and her voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “She's my favorite.”

Vidarian searched her eyes for any hint of hidden intent, but found none, and grabbed at random for something to say. “I didn't catch her assistant's name.…” He craned his neck to look back up the wood-paneled passageway.

“She probably didn't have one.”

“What?”

“I mean, she has a
name
, of course, but she probably doesn't have a flower-name yet. They only get those after they've completed training. The assistants are all trainees.”

“I see.” He consciously smoothed his furrowed brow. “Do you come here often?” As he spoke, Vidarian took in his new surroundings, eyes roaming to absorb the tall, waxy-leafed trees, spreading ferns, twittering little birds, and strange hanging decanters that issued forth steady streams of white mist.

“I try to stop in every time I come up this route. They're very kind, and adjust their schedules to accommodate me when they can.” Ariadel was picking delicately at a silver platter of strange pink-orange fruit. After a moment she selected a thin slice and began to nibble at one end, away from the slim green rind. Between bites (which by her ecstatic eye-closing she thoroughly enjoyed), she said, “It makes the rest of the journey quite a bit more tolerable.”

Vidarian lifted his eyes from the fruit platter, one hand hovering over it. “Rest of the journey?”

Ariadel wrinkled her nose. “It's by verali. Smelly creatures. I never liked them.”