The Book of Deacon: Book 03 - The Battle of Verril (47 page)

“I am
so
glad you are safe, Lain,” she
gushed, kissing him on the cheek. “We had to fight you! I thought
for sure someone was going to die, but we all made it! Myn and
Ether were so worried, but once Myranda started to heal you I knew
you'd be fine.”

Ether's fists tightened at the mention of her
concern. She slowly turned to avoid Lain's gaze.

“You should have
seen
Ether,” Ivy
continued, realizing the shape shifter's discomfort. “She was
practically on the verge of tears. And when we were fighting! At
the end she was
huge
! And . . . wait . . .
she wrecked
the mountainside!
That's another one of the forts we destroyed!
We are good at that!”

“Where are we?” Lain demanded.

Deacon scrambled to retrieve the map.

“Now that Myn can fly, precisely where we are
isn't much of a concern. She can have us to anyplace in the north
in days,” Myranda said.

“We need to get to one of Desmeres’
storehouses, and quickly. He told me he had finished something, but
Epidime was in my mind. We need to reach it before . . . “ Lain
began.

“I . . . I think he's given it to me,” Deacon
realized, hoisting the massive bundle from his bag. “I think there
is something for all of you in here. He'd been very clear that I
should only open it when all of you were present.”

He carefully unrolled the leather mat. What
unfurled before them was an array of glistening blades, elegantly
carved wood, sparkling crystal, and rolled pages. Beneath them was
a carefully folded and tied pile of exotic looking cloth and mail.
Every item Desmeres had provided the Undermine with had been a
masterpiece, but the pieces before them now were something else
entirely. They had the hallmarks of his design, and a precision and
craftsmanship bordering on perfection, but there was more. They
seemed alive, pulsing with energy. A small bundle of pages sat atop
everything, sealed with wax and scrawled with the words
“Open
first and read aloud.”
Deacon broke the seal.

“'Chosen,'“ he read. “'By now I am certain
that I've made an enemy of all of you. It is to be expected. If the
messenger has followed orders, these pages are being read in the
presence of the united team. If not, listen carefully and act
quickly. I believe Lain has been subverted in some way. Do not
allow him to take up the enclosed sword unless you know him to be
himself. Likewise if you must face him, do not make use of the
other weapons. If memory serves, the death of one Chosen at the
hand of another will end them both, and one of these weapons
clashing with anything but one of its peers is sure to end in
death.'“

“Wow. Desmeres is smart,” Ivy said.

“'Assuming things have gone well, this
package contains what I consider to be my finest work. If you must
kill me, Lain, kill me with this sword. I would be honored to be
killed in such a way.'“ Deacon continued as Lain picked it up. “'I
made one like it for Trigorah many years ago as a gift. My brief
time in the confidence of the D'karon has exposed me to techniques
that have enabled me to improve it immensely, and in a fraction of
the time I'd have thought possible. The gems in the blade will draw
strength ONLY from the D'karon and their creations. Once stored,
the stolen energy can be used to fuel any of the five effects I've
engraved upon the handle. I imagine that by now Deacon should be
able to explain them.'“

“'I've enclosed a weapon for Ivy. It took a
bit of research because of a few quirks about her, but I settled
upon modified katars. They are a pair of double edged, straight
blade, horizontal hilted punching daggers. For the sake of brevity,
and for other reasons that will soon be apparent, I've called them
Soulclaws. To my knowledge these weapons are utterly unique, and
necessarily so, but regardless, I think they may suit her well. I
only wish I could see them in action. The effects of a few of the
unique enchantments I've placed on them should be truly
interesting.'“

“'Finally there is the staff. Myranda has
certainly proven herself worthy of it, and I am in eternal debt to
her for giving me a reason to craft such a device. It is mounted
with three of the D'karon gems, treated to react in a more flexible
manner. Providing the gems with a charge is not perfectly straight
forward, but I've every confidence that Myranda will master the
process in no time. It has a pair of mounts for focus gems, though
lamentably I was only able to create a single crystal I would
consider worthy of a place on this staff. I think you will find it
a vast improvement to anything you've used before, regardless of
its failure to reach its full potential.'“

“'I realize that there are five of you, but a
shortage of time and information has denied me the opportunity of
equipping the rest. Ether, the shape shifter, I am in particular
saddened that I've been unable to address. Designing a weapon
useful to her limitless abilities may well be the ultimate
challenge. If I've interpreted the events correctly, and the
information that I've intercepted can be trusted, the dragon has
been raised from the dead, which I sincerely doubt can be explained
by anything other than a touch of the divine, and thus Chosen
status. Interesting as designing for a dragon's physiology may have
been, there simply was not time to do such a thing properly. I've
provided ancillary weaponry as well as protective garments. Finally
there are a few notes that Deacon will no doubt find quite
enlightening. I wish you all of the luck in the world, my friends.
Desmeres.'“

“Ooh,” Ivy said, eyes wide, as she picked up
her weapons.

Each consisted of a blade half the length of
her arm and a bit wider than her fist, mounted on grips. The grips
braced against her arm and placed the base of the blade across
Ivy's knuckles. As a result, the blades continued the lines of her
arm until they tapered into a point. As with all of Desmeres’
weapons, the blades had a flawless mirror finish and were carefully
etched with arcane symbols and designs. In addition, each blade had
a small clear crystal mounted in it. Ivy gave the weapons a few
experimental sweeps through the air.

“Wo-o-ow,” she said with a wide grin. “I love
them. They feel like I'm not even carrying anything. And they are
so-o-o pretty. Look at the jewel! It changes color!”

The gem had indeed taken on a distinctive
yellow hue, one that grew more intense as her excitement grew.
Accompanying the change was a change in the blade itself. The razor
sharp edge was taking on a decidedly frilled, intricate shape, like
the shell of an exotic sea creature. Ivy watched it change with a
look of awe and fascination.

“I have to show everyone,” she said
insistently, bounding off toward the busy Undermine soldiers.

“'Unique enchantments' indeed!” Deacon said,
turning to look over the remaining bundles of pages.

They were written in an unfamiliar hand.
Several unfamiliar hands, in fact. Every few paragraphs seemed to
have been written in an entirely different handwriting, yet the
tone and voice of the notes remained constant. As he read, he
discovered it to be notes taken by Epidime regarding the mental and
spiritual aspect of Ivy's creation. In contrast to the somewhat
mechanical and sterile writings of Demont, Epidime's words were
lively. At times they even seemed enthusiastic. Deacon poured over
the words, stopping only when Lain thrust the engraved handle of
his sword in front of his face.

“Yes. Yes, of course,” he said, taking the
weapon and beginning to analyze it while gushing about the notes to
Myranda. “So much so quickly. All of this information. It is
torturous to have to sprint through it . . . Yes, there are five
spells here . . . Those notes, is Ivy busy? She probably shouldn't
hear this. Those notes were about her, most of them . . . This very
clever, this design here . . . Desmeres had to create a new type of
weapon for her, because she's been given all of the same training
as the nearmen, if you could even call it training . . . What does
this mark mean again? Ah, yes . . . Apparently the nearmen have a
sort of instinctive training for most types of weapons installed
into their minds. You put a weapon in their hands and it activates
it . . . This grouping here is clever . . . “

“Focus on one thing at a time, Deacon,”
Myranda insisted, her head spinning as he alternated between
topics.

“Right. Ah, the sword first. There are five
spells. This first is fire. It heats the blade to glowing. The
second is time dilation, or speed, I think. Activate it and the
time around you will slow to a crawl. This one should render you
invisible. Remarkable. This increases your strength. This heals
you. The string of D'karon runes defines the spell, and this ring
with the single rune must cast the spell. It is the activation
rune, the spell won't be cast without it. Simply twisting it to
align with the appropriate line of runes should be enough,” he
said, turning to Myranda. “Now, this nearman training. Ivy must
have forced most of it aside, but the weapons training is
different, almost a reflex. If Ivy brandishes a weapon covered by
D'karon training in battle she will be able to use it as well as
they do at the price of using it with their motivation as well. The
training covers virtually everything. The only gaps are blunt
weapons and some of the more complicated rope and chain based
weapons. Desmeres had to make something she could use, but the
nearmen couldn't. Brilliant. There are more pages here. Not about
Ivy. They look older. Much older, and they are written entirely in
D'karon . . . odd. In the other writings it seems D'karon is a
proper noun, but here it seems broken up. It means first . . .
first . . . oh blast it, where are my notes . . . “

Myranda reached down to pick up her staff. A
hand grasped her wrist. She looked up to see Ether giving her a
stunned look.

“Have you no sense? These weapons were left
by Desmeres. He betrayed us. He is a known agent of the D'karon.
There is no telling what he could have done to the weapons. To
touch them is madness. Actually use them is suicide,” Ether
cried.

“Desmeres would do many things, but he would
never taint his weapons,” Lain said.

“He would endanger the very future of the
world, but he would not do so with his creations? How can you be so
sure?” Ether objected.

“You can't always trust a man to do what you
ask. You can't always trust him to do what he should do, or even
what he wants to do. The one thing you
can
trust him to do
is be himself,” Myranda explained. “Desmeres defines himself with
his weapons.”

The shape shifter relented. The mortals and
lesser beings had always been a mystery to her. She'd managed to
convince herself it was because their minds were too simple to be
understood. That they had no structure, no reason. Anything beyond
securing food, finding shelter, and continuing their bloodlines
boiled down to randomness from her point of view. Her time among
them had served to make two things clear to her. She would never
understand them, but they just might understand each other. Their
potent mixture of muddled thinking and fractured viewpoints did, at
times, result in something quite akin to insight. Of all mortals,
Myranda seemed keenest in this regard. If she believed something to
be so, it deserved the benefit of a doubt at least.

Myranda picked up her present from Desmeres.
The D'karon staff had been adequate until now. At least, it had
seemed to be. With the work of art Desmeres had created in her
grasp, she realized just how inadequate it had truly been. She
could feel her mind sharpening. Her eyes traced the long, intricate
strings of runes carved into an ancient looking silver wood. The
lines seemed to shift and coil under her gaze. Though she could
feel no discernible draw, the moment her fingers touched the
surface of the staff the gems embedded in its length began to pulse
to life. Before long they had taken on a definite glow. When the
glow reached its peak, the effects of the staff seemed to compound.
The miraculous weapon literally became weightless, drifting from
her grip and standing obediently at attention. Somehow the focusing
effect persisted even without contact.

“Astounding . . . “ Deacon said in awe. “The
. . . the staff has an
area
of effect, and yet . . . . I
can't feel it. I can feel that it is there, that there is a force
at work, but I can't feel its effects. Somehow he's managed to
create a staff that lends its strength only to its owner. I've
never seen such a thing achieved without the binding of a soul to
it . . . you don't suppose . . . “

“I doubt Desmeres would do such a thing. He
would probably consider it cheating,” Myranda said.

Myranda experimented with the levitating
staff. It drifted along beside her when she walked, and with the
merest thought leapt to her hand, or swished to any location she
required. Lain, Myn staying close beside him, had outfitted himself
with some of the light armor. The thin chain mail covered by close
fitting black cloth that had the dull texture of velvet made him
seem, save for his head, a featureless silhouette against the white
snow. The hilts of a dozen or more throwing daggers protruded in
groups of three from any portion of this outfit large enough to
accommodate them. He finished by throwing a white cloak about his
shoulders. Anyone who doubted that he was truly an assassin needed
only look upon him now.

He drew the new sword. It slipped from its
sheath with a barely audible hiss. The weapon bore a marked
resemblance to Trigorah's, though with a gentle curve along its
blade. Lain took a few cuts, the thin, elegant blade whispering
through the air silently and flawlessly. Satisfied, Lain slipped it
back into its sheath. Myranda found a hooded robe that seemed
tailored to her. Somehow merely putting it on seemed to add to the
already formidable effect of the new staff. As she moved she
noticed a slight shifting of what felt like cold sand, but turned
out to be small swatches of the exquisitely fine mail that Lain
wore placed strategically about the garment.