The Curse in the Gift (The Last Whisper of the Gods Book 2) (11 page)

Sorial spent the better part of the next hour probing for information and listening to rumors, but no one could provide anything concrete about the troubles in Vantok. Nothing was mentioned about wizards, although it was briefly noted that the “new Wizard’s Bride” was about the same age as the “future queen.” Apparently, during Sorial’s absence, Azarak had become engaged to a princess of Obis. Attempts to learn more about Alicia proved fruitless - she had excited little interest among the gossip-mongers - and Sorial didn’t want to appear too nosy. Even considering the propensity for rumors to be inflated in a small town like this, Sorial felt certain that the Vantok he returned to would be a less stable place than the one he left. If there was a power struggle between the king and the prelate, he would be caught in between - not an enviable position.

Eventually, the innkeeper succeeded in turning the conversation back to the ore samples in Sorial’s possession. Since a smart man like him could see that Vantok wasn’t a place where he’d want to go, she said, she might be able to make him a generous offer for them.  She wouldn’t be able to pay as much as the “fat merchants” in the big city, but she’d save him days of dangerous, unpleasant travel and he wouldn’t have to worry about walking Vantok’s streets with a full purse that would call out to the legions of footpads and cutpurses that prowled the city streets. Why, with his infirmity, he’d be ripe pickings for the likes of them. No, better he sell the ore to someone dependable like her in a peaceful place where he could be sure to spend a quiet night and not be dragged into some ally and robbed and murdered. She concluded her pitch with a toothy grin that was intended to be reassuring but instead appeared rapacious.

The haggling didn’t take long. Once, Sorial had been abysmal in what some called “the game of coins and wares,” but, over the years, he had learned from two of the best: Alicia and Rexall. The price he accepted was far below the market value of the ore, and less than one-third of what the innkeeper would collect in a few days when she took it to Vantok, but it gave him more than enough coins to make him financially independent for a while. Besides, if he needed more, he could always get it. There were pecuniary benefits to being The Lord of Earth.

By the time the dealing was done, the inn had emptied, with the denizens of the village having sated their curiosity. Sorial was shown to his room, a tiny eight foot by ten foot cell that was barely large enough to house a bed. His accommodations for the night, as well as his food and drink, were compliments of the house in view of “how most excellently” he had played the game of coins and wares - meaning the innkeeper had made such an outrageous profit that she could afford to be magnanimous. Undoubtedly, she also hoped he would stop by on the way north with his next load of ore. He guessed she had made more from him this night than she had earned from the last four caravans to pass this way.

He was initially offered something larger than what amounted to a converted storage room, but the more spacious bedchambers were on the second floor and Sorial wanted to be as close to the ground as possible. He didn’t tell the innkeeper but he intended to sleep on the hard-packed dirt that formed the floor. It would be more comfortable to him than the straw-filled mattress. Before leaving, the innkeeper curtly informed him that the privy pit was out back as was a well if he needed fresh water.

Although he was confident he wouldn’t be set upon in his sleep, lying on the ground assured him of being aroused if anyone approached his room. He didn’t know how well that trick would work if he wasn’t physically in contact with the earth; he suspected that the greater the distance, the less effective it would be. He’d probably be okay on the bed, but on the second floor? No need to tempt fate. He lay on his back, a pillow beneath his head and a blanket pulled around him to ward off the night’s chill. This settlement might be on the outer fringes of Vantok’s heat bubble, but frost could come on a cool, clear night such as this one. He drifted off to sleep surprisingly fast and slept through the night, awakening only once when his senses detected a mouse squeezing through the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor.

He departed in the early morning, shortly after the sun first peeked above the horizon. In the warmer months, farmers would be in their fields already but, during Winter, there was little to do in a farming village other than eat, drink, sleep, and get busy making the next generation of farmers. The innkeeper was abed, or at least not in the common room, when Sorial left. He thought about leaving a tip but decided against it. Her windfall from selling the ore would be so great that she would have little need of a few extra bronze studs.  How odd to think that, as a stableboy, he had coveted those coins when tossed to him by horsemen pleased with his treatment of their animals. Now, it was within his capabilities to be the wealthiest man alive but he had little need of money. Life had taught him how little it could buy.

Wealth, however, brought out the worst in men and if Sorial had hoped that by leaving at dawn he could escape without incident, he was mistaken. They waited until he was several hundred feet north of the town before advancing. There were four of them, following at a discreet distance, two off the road to the left and two off the road to the right. Sorial didn’t see them, but he could sense their footsteps through the earth. He decided to let them trail him; when they made their move, he would make his. He absently wondered whether they were acting on their own or at the behest of the innkeeper, who might be interested in retrieving the coins she had parted with. The latter was unlikely; she was greedy enough that she wouldn’t want to jeopardize the possibility of a return visit.

It didn’t happen immediately but Sorial knew the attack was underway when the men started running. At a distance of less than 20 feet, he stopped their forward progress with a negligent thought and an unnecessarily theatrical flick of his wrist. The ground behind him exploded, spraying rocks, dirt, and chunks of clay skyward. Sorial didn’t look back; he could tell they were no longer advancing. Three were backing away and the fourth was immobile. Sorial didn’t know whether he was dead or injured, and he didn’t care. His intention hadn’t been to launch a lethal attack but his control remained uncertain. Only more practice would refine it. He felt no remorse. If the men had caught him, they would have injured or killed him. As regrettable as his action had been, there was no doubting its necessity. Sorial recognized he would have to develop calluses as thick on his conscience as the ones on his palms.

No one else followed. Whether others were scared off by what happened or whether those were the only ones in the town with criminal intentions, Sorial didn’t know. All that mattered was that he had the road to himself. If he made good speed, he would be in Vantok before dusk on the third day. There was a temptation to use his abilities to speed the trip but such an act of impatience would defeat the purpose of emerging this far south. Just as he had needed seven weeks of solitude to come to grips with his new abilities, so he needed a few days to reconnect with the person he had been before Havenham.

Three days and he would be with Alicia again. His strongest memories of her were of her scent and her smile. And the touch of her soft, moist lips against his. He dimly recalled the sharpness of her tongue, but chose not to dwell on that. Surely, once they were married, her edges would be blunted, wouldn’t they?

His plan upon reaching the city was vague. He supposed the first place he should go was the palace. Ironically, because he would arrive cloaked with anonymity, he might find it difficult to obtain an audience with the king. He was known only to Azarak and his chancellor, and getting past the guards and functionaries to either one of those men might prove difficult. In the worst case scenario, he could seek out Warburm, assuming Warburm had made it back to Vantok.

Following his audience with the king, Sorial would go to the temple to free Alicia from her gilded cage. After that... maybe a visit to his mother, who deserved to see the fruits of her lifetime of sacrifice. His feelings about her remained as conflicted as they had been for most of his life and as he suspected they would always be. It was easy to understand the motivations of men like Warburm, Lamanar, and Carannan, but what mother would conspire to allow her son to suffer for a principle, no matter how noble?

He wondered where he would live. The palace? The temple? A little house in one of Vantok’s wealthy neighborhoods? To one who had spent the last half-season sleeping in a cave, fine rooms and luxury were of no matter. Even a return to his loft at The Wayfarer’s Comfort’s stable would be an upgrade. Alicia, on the other hand, was used to living a pampered lifestyle and that wasn’t something he could deprive her of - not if he wanted to maintain domestic felicity. So he would demand an abode to match his status as one of the most powerful men in Vantok and let Alicia worry about the specifics.

Then there was the question of what to do with Ferguson. Even thinking about the man caused Sorial’s countenance to darken. Of all the sins he could lay at the prelate’s feet, only one was unforgivable: Annie. No matter how much Ferguson might protest that his actions were necessary to preserve human life in the wake of the gods’ death, that single act of calculated, unnecessary brutality would render all explanations hollow. To snuff out a life so full of joy and energy without regret... Warburm had clumsily tried to explain there had been no other alternative, but Sorial didn’t believe it. For a man with Ferguson’s resources, there was always another option. Killing Annie had been the quickest and most expedient way to remove an obstacle, so she had met her end alone in a ditch. It twisted Sorial’s guts to think about it. The way he felt about Alicia didn’t nullify the fact that he had wanted Annie to be his wife.

Ferguson would pay. And, to a lesser extent, so would Warburm, if he hadn’t died on the return trip to Vantok. The innkeeper had made a partial atonement but the sin wasn’t expiated. Sorial would offer his protection to Vantok only once he had seen justice done.

Still, the success of his quest would hopefully make his homecoming more an occasion of joy than bitterness. Little did he realize that the rumors he had heard in the inn understated, not exaggerated, the maelstrom toward which he was headed.

CHAPTER NINE: THE HEAT OF PREPARATION

Justin was a patient man but there were things in life that strained even his forbearance. One was the training of an army - perhaps the most tedious and unrewarding endeavor he had attempted in his nearly 40 years. It would pay off eventually, or at least he hoped it would, but the process was an exercise in frustration. Instilling discipline in a force forged out of men who spent their lives roaming aimlessly was a task of monumental difficulty. Justin had given up employing all but the two most obvious, and ultimately effective, tools: intimidation and violence. He installed capital punishment for disobedience and desertion. Laxity, even in the most insignificant of activities, brought retribution. Everything was to be done with precision and maximum effort. Ariel thought such brutality was wasteful and, to a degree and privately, Justin agreed. But it was done out of necessity. Sorial’s emergence as The Lord of Earth had forced Justin to accelerate a schedule that had always been aggressive.

Justin had assigned the day-to-day running of the camp in every aspect from training to sanitation to his small group of hand-picked generals and an accomplished band of 200 mercenaries, The Bloody Blades, who had been hired at great expense. They were proving to be worth the coin, however. They excelled at training and organization and weren’t reluctant to punish failure or dereliction. The more men he gathered, the more critical their role. And his ranks continued to swell now that he had dropped his prohibition against putting women in fighting roles. Every human just north, within, and south of The Forbidden Lands, was flocking to the banner of The Lord of Fire, the first wizard of the new order. The recruits sought the usual: glory, wealth, and places of influence when the war was over. In terms of pure numbers, Justin’s force now exceeded Vantok’s army. But it took more than bodies to win a battle. He knew that, his generals knew that, and The Bloody Blades knew that. Unfortunately, a great number of those who would form his infantry were unaware.

His immediate concern remained, as it had been for about eight weeks, Sorial. The Lord of Earth Who Never Should Have Been. Damn and blast! Ariel had been spending an inordinate amount of time searching for him without success, meaning he had decided to go underground, perhaps literally. It was the smart, safe move - so much for Justin’s hope that Sorial would prove to be careless. Of course, Ariel couldn’t look everywhere, but she was certain he wasn’t in Vantok. She had flown over the city numerous times and walked the streets in disguise. Justin had suggested abducting Sorial’s paramour, the so-called “Wizard’s Bride,” as a means of forcing him into the open, but she was in Ferguson’s grasp and there was no reasonable way to get to her. Or at least no way that didn’t involve a massive expenditure of effort and energy. Justin wasn’t going to drain his resources this close to a campaign.

Ariel breezed into the tent without announcement, doffed her travel-stained boots and sat cross-legged facing him. “Still nothing.” Her raspy voice didn’t conceal her frustration. “I went as far as Obis and there’s no sign of him. He’s off the map, either hiding in a cave somewhere or gone to ground in a tiny village. Even the wind can’t pick up his scent.” Justin thought she relied too much on wind-blown scents. Those could deceive.

“What of this Alicia?” asked Justin.

“She’s an interesting case. There are whispers that Ferguson may not have her, that she may have slipped through his clutches.”

“Considering how tightly he clings to his prizes, I find that unlikely.”

“Still, it seems she’s no longer in the temple, if she ever was there.”

“If she’s gone, it’s because Ferguson let her go. And if he did that, it’s for a reason. Or it’s a piece of disinformation he’s placed into the gossip mill.”

“Some good news: I’ve straightened out the kinks in our assassination plan. To accomplish it in the way we want it done, it will take a little of both of our talents. More of mine than yours, actually. A little wind, a little deception. If I can procure a blood sample, can you use your newest trick?”

Justin smiled. The difficulty in killing a man from afar was obtaining his blood. Ariel had devised a solution. When she finished outlining it, he couldn’t help but admire its ingeniousness and audacity. This was why he was glad to have someone like Ariel as an ally - he never would have thought of that. His mind tended to approach problems from a straightforward, brute-force perspective. She liked slinking around corners and sliding through small openings, like a gentle breeze.

“Should we try for a second assassination?” she asked.

“Who are you thinking of?”

“King Azarak. Imagine the chaos that would cause.”

Justin could calculate the advantages, but he could also see how such a move might work against him.  In balance, it was better not to pursue the option. “No. Azarak is the opponent I want to face on the field of battle. He’s untried and, if your latest intelligence is accurate, no longer beloved by his people. We don’t know who would succeed him and, if it turned out to be someone more capable, we could be trading a desirable enemy for one less appealing. Now, if we could find a way to eliminate Ferguson... I’d declare you the most cunning woman in all the world if you divined a way to steal a few drops of his blood. When it comes to winning the battle of Vantok, he’ll be our most difficult opponent.”

“I can’t think of a way to get to him. But you know him better than I do. Is there one?”

Knew
would have been a better term than
know
. Justin hadn’t seen the man in more than two decades and a lot could change in that span of time. It certainly had for The Lord of Fire. Before that, however, he and Ferguson had been close. Until the mission. But, even then, Justin wondered how well he had truly known the prelate. Ferguson had more secrets than a flower had petals.

As the third son of a duke, Justin’s childhood had been poorly structured. Unlike his much older brothers, who had been groomed as knights and successors to their lord father, Justin had been too frail for swordplay and too far down the line of succession to warrant more than cursory attention. He had been the duchy’s ornament, the tousle-haired youngster put on display for his cuteness. So, aside from the few hours each day he was required to spend with tutors, he had occupied his waking hours grooming himself for life as a dilettante. By the age of twelve, he had become a spoiled bully, using his intelligence and cruelty to dominate other children his age. He looked back on that period of his life with shame.

Eventually, his father had recognized that his youngest son was doing little of note beyond spending his money, terrorizing his servants, and lording it over the sons and daughters of lesser nobles. When Justin was thirteen, the duke had done what was often done with the spare offspring of highly-placed men and offered his son to the Temple as an acolyte. Instead of being apprenticed in Basingham, where he would have been “too close to the distractions” that had “poisoned his life,” Justin had been dispatched to Vantok, the seat of the Temple’s power. Within a year, his intelligence, late blossoming sense of responsibility, and quick wit had brought him to the notice of Prelate Ferguson. At his Maturity, when he was elevated to the rank of full priest, Ferguson had adopted him as a personal assistant. It had been a fast ascent for one of his youth.

In that role, Justin had been taken into Ferguson’s confidence, learning that his spiritual father believed himself to be in direct communication with the gods. They had entrusted him with the privileged knowledge that they were going to vacate the universe but, to fill the vacuum left in their wake, they would return magic to the race of men. It had been Ferguson’s duty, or so the man believed, to prepare the world for this and to shepherd his flock through the difficult transition period. For a young apprentice, the revelation had been both upsetting and exciting.

To this day, Justin believed Ferguson had received some sort of mandate from the gods, but he was certain the man’s inflated sense of self-importance had perverted it. Ferguson had seen himself as the architect of the future. For a while, this had been an appealing idea for Justin; after all, as assistant to the most important man in the land, he would have basked in reflected greatness. Over the years, Justin had accepted that, although the gods might have assigned Ferguson the role of caretaker, he had appointed himself as a kingmaker. He had risen above man’s laws and, since there was no longer a “higher authority,” that meant no power in the world was august enough to pass judgment on him.

During his brief time as Ferguson’s assistant, Justin had observed the man pursue a campaign of wizard-creation whose ultimate design was to establish the prelate as the sole, unimpeachable authority. They would have been
his
wizards, answerable to him, acting as his enforcers. Many of Ferguson’s devout followers had lived in a small village in the North called Sussaman. Justin had visited there once and found the place to be ramshackle and depressing, not at all the kind of settlement one would expect as the seat of power for a man of Ferguson’s status and ambitions. He had been introduced to Kara, pompously described by his master as “the mother of the future.” At the time, Ariel would have been about eight, but Justin had no memories of meeting her.

The mission that had ended his role in the “new religion” came only weeks after the prelate’s small retinue had returned to Vantok from Sussaman. Ferguson, normally the most placid and methodical of men, had become erratic and frenzied. He had eventually confessed his belief that the gods’ end was at hand, and he wasn’t yet ready. So he had dispatched Justin on a journey to the Deep South, into The Forbidden Lands, to search for portals. At that time, Ferguson had known of only one possibly functional option, at Ibitsal. He had suspected there to be at least one other; Justin had been sent to locate it.

The four soldiers accompanying him had been killed in a bandit attack just north of The Forbidden Lands. Justin had survived the ambush and struggled on. He had been deep in the mountains, lost, hungry, and despairing, when
it
had hit him. Since then, he had spoken with many others and no one acknowledged awareness of
the event
. Ariel hadn’t known. For so many, it had been just another moment of another day of another season of another year. He wondered if Ferguson had been as affected and suspected the prelate might have felt it more keenly. The moment of the gods’ passing had struck him like psychic hammer. For nearly a week after that, he had barely functioned, choosing daily between hurling himself off a mountain trail and continuing to wander deeper and deeper into The Forbidden Lands. Each day, the decision to live had been more difficult to justify. Then he had heard the call of the portal.

His memories of those days were vague but he had no trouble remembering the portal’s insistent demand:
comecomecome
. In the end, when he had hurled himself into it, it had been more an act of suicide than an attempt at transformation. He had never considered himself as a candidate and, as best he could determine, neither had Ferguson. He hadn’t been sent on the mission to become a wizard. Yet he had survived and emerged a changed man. And in the first rush of exhilaration to accompany his resuscitation of magic, he had recognized one basic truth: it was him, not Ferguson, who was the appropriate choice to lead the world forward. The moment Justin had stepped through the portal, Ferguson’s role, whatever the gods had decreed it to be, had ended. His purpose had become obsolete; wizards weren’t his to control and command. Of course, the prelate wouldn’t have seen it that way. So Justin had elected to abandon his former master and his calling as a priest. He had become The Lord of Fire.

He often wondered whether Ferguson had sent out a search party. Likely not. The prelate viewed his priests, even those close to him, as disposable commodities. Looking back through the haze of a quarter-century, Justin couldn’t say with certainty whether Ferguson had harbored any affection for him. For his part, Justin had loved and respected the man as much then as he now hated and reviled him.

“You’re not listening to me.” The accusation was stated with enough vigor to shake Justin out of his memory-fueled reverie. Ariel had folded her legs under her and was leaning toward him.

“Apologies. Something you said reminded me of days when things were simpler.”

“We were talking about Ferguson. His weaknesses?”

“Forget getting to him. We’d burn ourselves out trying. He knows more about magic than we could hope to.”

“Knowing is different from practicing. Understanding that you can create a fireball doesn’t offer much protection when you do it. Knowing I can travel on the wind can’t stop me from dropping out of the sky with a dagger in my hand.”

“Don’t underestimate knowledge as a weapon. There may be inherent weaknesses in wizardry that we know nothing about but he can exploit. He’s a more dangerous opponent than your brother, for all that Sorial is The Lord of Earth. I keep hoping old age will claim Ferguson, but he seems to be immune. Maybe the gods conferred immortality on him.” Justin didn’t really believe that, but it was extraordinary how long the prelate had lived.

“Given an opportunity...”

“...I would strike him down, gladly and willingly. He no longer has any claim on my loyalty. But he’s unlike other men. He so rarely makes mistakes that to count on them is folly. His webs are so complicated that you don’t realize you’re in one until there’s no way out.” Justin had been saved by blind luck and a suicidal impulse.