The Assassin's Edge (Einarinn 5) (26 page)

I could see Naldeth and Parrail. Both were trying to keep as many people between themselves and the hunting Elietimm as possible but so was everyone else. It was like watching a flock of geese harried by a pack of dogs. As the prisoners struggled with each other, the weaker stumbled away, easy prey for the waiting pirates. His innate gentleness betraying him, Parrail soon fell victim.

A pirate, his nose rotting from some pox, dragged the lad to the waiting Elietimm woman. The scholar was filthy; shirtless, ribs showing and bruises charting the daily round of brutality. Parrail tripped but the bullying raider wouldn’t let him find his feet, hauling him bodily over the foul ground. He threw Parrail face down before the woman, kneeling on the back of the lad’s legs, pinning his hands behind his back. Parrail twisted his head from side to side, trying in vain to escape the woman’s questing touch.

To my inexpressible delight pain racked her face as soon as she laid a hand on him but her cry only brought her fellow enchanters running.

“Who are you? Where do you come from? Who do you speak to?”

I don’t speak the Elietimm tongue but I heard their harsh demands echoing all around my thoughts, their voices mingled.

“I will not say.” Parrail wrapped himself in defiance.

“Who has taught you?” Fear and hatred tainted the Elietimm’s questions but his skill with Artifice cut Parrail like a knife.

Like the glimpse of a page in a book opened and shut, I saw Mentor Tonin, Parrail’s tutor in distant Vanam.

“You cannot defy us.” Vicious gratification coloured the Elietimm’s chorused thoughts. That instant of unity passed and all three attacked the scholar with ruthless interrogation.

“Who are you?”

“Where are your friends?”

“Who has betrayed Muredarch?”

Was there nothing we could do? I wanted to shake Guinalle by the shoulders, insist she get the lad out of there, do something, anything, but what if I alerted these bastards to our eavesdropping? Fear for myself as well as fear for Parrail soured my throat like bile.

Colourless fire lit the shadows with reality for an instant, the distant stockade fading as I saw the
Eryngo
more clearly. The sick agony of a broken bone ached in my wrist even thought I knew it wasn’t my injury.

“Curse them!” Guinalle’s bitter words tied me tight to her will again. Vivid once more, I saw the stockade, saw the brutal pirate twisting Parrail’s discoloured forearm this way and that. The lad sobbed, banging his head on the ground, tears streaming from his screwed-up eyes.

All three Elietimm crowded round the boy like buzzards not even waiting for their prey to die. The pirate man scrambled away, plainly terrified of these slightly built strangers. Parrail curled into a helpless ball, cradling his injured arm, knees drawn up, head tucked down, his defiance as futile as a tiggyhog’s.

The Elietimm joined hands and, as plainly as they did, Guinalle and I saw Parrail’s life laid bare. Cherished memories fluttered past me like so many coloured pages torn from a child’s precious chapbook and scattered on the uncaring ground. He’d been a beloved child, all the more when childhood frailties had carried too many of his brothers and sisters to Poldrion’s tender care. His father, humble clerk to a merchant house, had scrimped and saved to send his promising son to Vanam, mother wiping away her tears and consoling herself that such sacrifice was for her darling’s good. No idle student, nor yet a rich one, Parrail had run errands for wealthier scholars to pay his way but even then, going hungry when some tempting scroll or parchment emptied his purse. Mentor Tonin’s pride had warmed the young scholar, bolstering his confidence in his abilities, spurring him on to tease threads of meaning out of the tangle of superstition and garbled litany that was all that the Chaos had left of aetheric lore.

The Elietimm ripped such memories apart, desperate for whatever Parrail might know that they did not. With the burning agony of his broken arm consuming him, he lay helpless, unresisting. They held recollections of his first visit to Kellarin up to cold scrutiny. They saw him nervous and excited in Master Tonin’s party, thrilled to see his studies turn from dry theory to flesh and blood reality before being terrified by Elietimm assaults. With friends and mages dead all around, Parrail was left the most likely to succeed in reviving the sleeping colonists. Travelling to the hidden cavern of Edisgesset, he summoned steely determination to defeat his frail self-doubt.

To my surprise, I caught a fleeting notion that Parrail had been scared of me but that vanished like smoke in the burning light of his devotion to Guinalle. His wonder at her beauty held her sleeping face before us all, frozen in the dimness of the cavern when Parrail had first seen her. That first rapture deepened to an abiding admiration where he saw her every word as grace, her every action proof of her nobility and virtue. Even his return to Vanam hadn’t shaken that devoted loyalty and when the chance to return had come, Parrail’s longing to be of service to his lady coloured his every thought and action.

I was enraged, repelled, outraged as if I’d seen the poor lad stripped naked for some howling mob’s amusement. The Elietimm woman’s head snapped up and she stared straight at me.

“Darige, Moin!” The bitch could see us both, no question, eyes boring right through whatever veil of enchantment Guinalle had used to cloak us.

They abandoned Parrail and moved towards us.

“Guinalle?” Surely she could see the danger as easily as me?

“You foul the very aether with your touch.” Guinalle’s contempt lashed out and the Elietimm trio recoiled. “I should sear that corrupt knowledge from your very minds. What tainted lore do you think you can use against me?”

She raised her hand, an insubstantial wraith but the Elietimm stumbled backwards as if they faced some mythic warrior all tricked out with a blazing sword and shining armour.

One of the men, the one called Darige tripped over Parrail. Quick as a biting fox, he grabbed the lad’s hair. “If we cannot touch you, he’s in our hands.”

He kicked Parrail viciously in the groin. The second man, Moin, stamped on Parrail’s broken wrist. The scholar barely reacted and I felt Guinalle’s sick worry echo my own concern.

This unholy world of illusion flickered around me. The man Moin smiled with feral satisfaction. “Are you strong enough to maintain your magic in the face of his pain?”

“Yalda!” Darige didn’t take his eyes off Guinalle as he beckoned the woman forward.

She caught up the pirate’s club and with a venomous smile brought the solid oak down on Parrail’s head. Blood oozed from his nose and ears. She swept it down again and again as Darige kicked him in the gut, Moin taking nailed boots to his unprotected back.

The innocent lad’s final torment faded like a dream but I knew this was no nightmare even as the
Eryngo
’s deck grew solid and reassuring around me once more. Guinalle covered her face with shaking hands and fled to the stern cabin, racked by shuddering sobs.

Allin was wide eyed in consternation. “What happened?”

“They’ve got Elietimm enchanters,” I told her. “We have to get out of here.” I realised I was soaked with sweat, my shirt stained dark and my breeches clinging to my legs. The wind chilled me but I was already as cold as ice inside.

“We’re already going.” Allin pointed to the black and yellow chequer flags hoisted to signal a retreat. The
Dulse
and
Fire Minnow
were heading towards us, those pirates who’d have cheerfully slaughtered everyone aboard left frustrated on the gravel of the landing. “We haven’t the men to fight without wizardry to help them.”

The
Eryngo
’s sailors brought all their efforts to bear to ease us past the smouldering wrecks of the
Spurdog
and the
Thornray
. The
Maelstrom
was turning in the wider strait beyond the burning hulls, plain for all to see now its cloak of magic had been dropped for fear of aetheric attack on Shiv, ’Sar and Larissa. So much for our plan to get them close enough to gather up the prisoners with their newfound confidence in using the element of air. Vithrancel’s flotilla closed up behind us as we fled north up the strait, taking every advantage from wind and tide, our hopes broken behind us.

“What about Parrail and Naldeth?” Allin asked, her voice shaking.

“Parrail’s dead,” I told her grimly.

“What about Naldeth?” she quavered.

“I don’t know.” Though I could guess his fate if he betrayed himself.

CHAPTER FOUR

To Cadan Lench, Prefect,

From Sul Gavial, Librarian.

It’s all very well you asking me and my staff to search through boxes of litter our forebears were too idle to throw away but have you any idea what a thankless task this is? What isn’t faded to illegibility is either shredded by mice or noxious with beetles. This pious claptrap is the sole prize from an entire annal compiled by some priest in the first year of Nemith the Last’s reign.

A Welcome to the Shrine of Ostrin

I am delighted to learn that you will be joining our family of adepts and bringing a flavour of Col’s celebrated harmonies to our liturgies. You will join acolytes from the great temples of Relshaz and Draximal as well as the myriad lesser shrines of Caladhria and beyond. We are born to all degrees of rank, from the lowliest Names with the honour of but a single hall to shelter Sieur and tenants alike, to the lofty privilege enjoyed by the mightiest Princes of Convocation.

Distinctions are meaningless in our isolated retreat. In the hospitality enjoined by Ostrin’s favour, we welcome all as equals. Come to this lonely place with humility and a mind relieved of all distractions of precedence and you may learn all we can teach you. Study the lore of Artifice with diligence and piety and you will return with redoubled skill to serve your first allegiance and those loyal to your House by birth or sworn by choice.

We seek to perfect the arts of healing, to honour Ostrin to whom we are sworn above all. Beneath Drianon’s guiding hand, we watch over those making the hazardous journey from the Otherworld into this by way of a mother’s womb. As the year turns, we learn how to read Larasion’s promises of storm and sun and beseeching Drianon, we may increase the fertility that is her blessing on the earth. Attain the discipline to lift your mind from things seen to the unseen and you may seek Arimelin’s help in speaking to those far distant. Under Halcarion’s tutelage, you may travel the infinite paths marked by the moons.

As the gods grant rewards of power, they exact solemn duties in return. As those set above you uphold justice within their domains, you will swear to answer to Raeponin for the truth you prompt from a silent tongue or lift from an unwilling mind. Your sincerity will be tested never so sorely as when you comfort those passing into Poldrion’s care. It will be laid upon you to ease the fears of the dying as their lives are come before Saedrin’s scrutiny.

We are entitled to satisfaction and even a measure of pride in the execution of our Artifice but let us always remember that such skills as we master, are granted only by the grace of the gods whom we honour, as is their due. In their service, we of this shrine are sworn to curtail the arrogance of any who might be tempted to abuse the lore we entrust to them.

Suthyfer, the Northern Sentry Island,

1st of For-Summer

I walked to the far corner of the bay and looked out to sea. White ruffs of foam trimmed mysterious waters shining like black silk beneath the clear silver light of the greater moon. She was gliding serene in the cloudless night sky, perfect circle framed in subtle radiance. Her lesser sister hovered near the horizon, face half hidden as if by a veil drawn aslant, modest handmaiden to that pale beauty, waiting her own turn in the dance of the heavens. The sea breeze perfumed the air with a cleansing freshness, every now and then overlaid momentarily with the sweetness of some unknown blossom unseen in the darkness of the untrodden forest cloaking this hitherto untroubled speck of land. The rhythmic rush of the waves on the sand soothed like the rock of a cradle for a fractious babe while low voices behind me went about some unhurried business. I turned a flat stone over and over between my fingers.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Pered joined me.

“Hmm.” I managed a non-committal noise.

“What’s wrong?” He wasn’t being nosy, just offering a friendly ear. I’d noticed his talent for that before.

I cleared my throat. “Did Shiv ever tell you about Geris?” Gentle, trusting Geris. I’d never had the chance to teach him it was just agreeable flirtation and casual lust landing me in his bed, not the high-flown romance of his imagining.

“The scholar from Vanam.” Pered nodded soberly. “Elietimm killed him.”

“Same as Parrail.” At least I was managing not to cry. “Well, worse. They tortured him.” Sudden anger surprised me. All Geris had been doing was sniffing out ancient lore for Planir, with Shiv and Darni along to keep him out of trouble. How did that warrant kidnap by the Elietimm, a death broken and mutilated, all his innocent illusions brutally shattered? “It’s time we stopped these scum bringing murder and misery wherever it suits them.” I spun the stone out across the water to vent my fury. It struck silver sparks from the blackness once, twice, six skips in all.

“That’s quite a trick.” Pered looked around his feet. “Do you want another?”

“No, thanks all the same.” I’d hold on to the rest of my rage. Its heat was better than cold emptiness beneath my breastbone when I thought of all those dead at Elietimm hands. “Did you want something?”

Turning to Pered meant acknowledging the noise behind me was no comfortable everyday bustle. On this side of the beach the dubious crew Sorgrad had gathered for Shiv were still allocating supplies from the caches in the nearby woods and rocks that Rosarn andVaspret had unearthed. Vithrancel’s mercenaries had long since divided their spoils and were bedded down around their own campfires on the far reach of sand. Spread in desultory knots between them were those ordinary men of Kellarin who remained after the
Eryngo, Nenuphar
and
Asterias
had been hastily provisioned from looted stores and sent to battle wind and tide all the way to the southern end of the strait. We had to block that before any pirates could get some ship seaworthy and try to escape.