The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (17 page)

"How is it that everyone here knows Kestian?" he asked.

"Kestian? I was going to ask why you were speaking Naredan."

Bizarre things with languages like that had only happened once before, and could only mean one thing.

"Murin is here," he said.

14

Urus froze as the door burst open and Corliss and two of his men filed into the common room, blades drawn and at the ready.

"For once you show up early!" shouted the barkeep. "I was about to send a man to fetch you. This kid is making a mess of my bar."

Corliss took in the scene, eyebrows slowly rising and mouth dropping.

"What in all the hells happened here?"

Urus looked from Corliss to the defeated young soldiers, to Cailix, and back, "I can explain," he said aloud.

Corliss blinked. "I knew you were lying before. You can speak Erubis!"

"You're both speaking Naredan," Cailix interjected, her lips moving in flawless Kestian.

Corliss shook his head and paced around the common room. After several laps around some tables, he turned to the barkeep and said, "I am sorry for any trouble the boy has caused you. I will be bringing him before the duke."

Urus's heart raced. A little scuffle like this was hardly a matter for someone like a duke. In Kest, the emperor never got involved in trivial matters like this.

"The duke? You're going to bring me to the duke over this?" Urus gestured toward the boys. "They're not even hurt that badly. We did save your life, that has to count for something."

Corliss spun toward Urus, looking truly angry for the first time since they had met. "It looks like you've nearly killed one of my cadets. You seem to have made a habit of assaulting my trainees."

"Pardon me, sir, but—" Cailix started.

"Who in the hells are you?"

"No one of concern, sir, but you should know that your cadets started it. They taunted him until he had no choice."

"There is always a choice, young lady," Corliss said. He straightened and sighed, then turned back to Urus. "I was on my way here to find you to bring you to the duke long before any of this happened."

"If I'm not to be punished for this, then for what?" Urus asked aloud. This time, even he wasn't sure what language came out of his mouth. Murin had to be involved in this somehow, and hopefully that meant he was nearby.

"You aren't to be punished, Ehmshahran. We have far bigger problems to deal with, and you and your friends appearing just before these problems is something we need to discuss."

"What kind of problems?"

Corliss looked around, making sure the barkeep was out of earshot. "An army camps at the base of the white mountain. We are besieged."

"An army?" Urus wondered if the Order was controlling this army the way they pulled the puppet strings of the armies that attacked Kest.

"So the briene have arrived then," Cailix said more as a statement of fact than a question.

"Girl, what could you possibly know of this?" Corliss demanded.

Cailix said nothing, glancing casually about the room as though she were the only one there.

"Just as well you don't answer me here. This is a discussion best had in private with the duke. Whoever you are and whatever you know, you're coming with us now, girl."

Corliss led them out of the hostel, again apologizing to the barkeep and assuring him that the crown would compensate him for any damage and lost business. For a warrior, Corliss seemed to do a lot of placating and licking of wounds. He wondered if Aegaz's job was like that—spending more time pleasing people and tending to their needs than actual military business.

Leadership didn't seem quite so appealing as it once had.

They walked in silence, making their way through the city, snaking between pools of lamplight as they climbed higher up the mountain toward Waldron's center.

Urus exchanged a few glances with Cailix, trying to figure out what lay beneath that cold stare of hers, but she neither said a word nor revealed anything in her gaze. Who she was or why she had talked him out of killing that boy remained a mystery.

It didn't matter who she was; she knew he thought the boy was his father, and she knew he was going to kill him. Most importantly, she had saved him from himself, from living with the guilt of doing something for which he could never forgive himself.

They crossed over a massive stone bridge guarded by a half-dozen men, marking the transition from the main part of the city to the political center where the duke's private residence, the courthouse, and the council chambers sat: smooth, polished stone reminders of where the true wealth and power of the city lay.

"What about Goodwyn?" Urus finally asked Corliss.

"More likely than not, your friend is bored to tears awaiting our arrival in the council chambers. Before I went to fetch you I sent men to escort him as well."

"Why do you think this army has anything to do with us?" Urus asked.

"You show up here, claiming that your home was attacked by four armies, and then not a day later, my scouts report campfires from the mountain base all the way to the coast."

"It doesn't sound like a coincidence."

"No. No, it does not," Corliss said, picking up the pace a little.

It took them until the full height of the moon to finally reach the outside of a castle, by the looks of it one of the oldest structures in the city.
 

"This is Castle Durgas, named for the nomadic tribe that first settled in the mountain caves," Corliss said. "They're the ones who started carving this castle right out of the mountain itself." He ushered them through the narrow opening beneath the portcullis. "The duke's private residences are up the hill to the left, the public audience chambers down to the right. Where we're going is where the nobles manage the city's daily affairs."

They walked past even more guards, across an open courtyard, and through huge iron doors into a giant, vaulted-ceilinged room where plush, cushioned seats arranged in a semi-circle sloped downward to a dais on a large platform. Brilliant, oversized lamps hung from the ceiling and walls. The finely polished white marble floor cast back the lamplight back up at the ceiling.

This is where the business of an entire city takes place
, Urus thought. He'd seen every room of the palace in Kest and knew where all of that city's business happened, but somehow it seemed to carry more weight in a city like this; a strange city where he hadn't grown up down the hall from the emperor's private chambers.

"This is it," Corliss said. "The heart of Waldron."

Down the stairs, just in front of the dais, two figures sat bathed in shadow. They stood as the group proceeded down the gleaming steps. The quartermasters had a saying for floors like this: "Boots on marble carry the walking dead." In other words, nobody wearing boots ever sneaked up on someone on a marble floor.

The figures climbed steadily up out of the shadows to meet them, both taller than Urus, one much more so. As they stepped into the light cast by the lamps overhead, the shadows peeled back to reveal Goodwyn and Murin.

"Urus!" Goodwyn shouted, his mouth barely visible in the dim light. "Guess who Corliss found?" He gestured wildly at Murin as though they had been reunited with some long lost friend. Murin was no such thing, and had a lot to answer for.

Urus sped down the stairs to stand face-to-chest with Murin. "You used us to get to the vertex. We looked for the vertex instead of staying to fight for Kest. For all we know, Kest could lay in ruins right now. Everyone—my uncle—could all be dead. You may even be the reason Kest was attacked in the first place!"

Murin blinked, slowly. Those bottomless pit eyes crept downward toward Urus but he said nothing.

Corliss gripped his shoulder and spoke. "You best put aside whatever issues you might have between you. Duke Pemor will be here shortly and this is no time for bickering."

As if on cue, a door shaped like the wood paneling on the wall behind the dais opened, spilling more lamplight into the chamber. A man in a dark purple robe, a bright red jerkin, black tights, and polished black boots, strode onto the platform.

Urus had to stifle a laugh, and he could see Goodwyn was having the same trouble. This was a duke? The man looked like a jester. He wore no armor, carried no weapons, and his hair was preened and shampooed and had obviously never felt the touch of sweat or dirt. His hands were covered in ornate, gold and silver rings inset with huge, colorful gems.

Corliss approached the dais and bent to one knee in front of it. He looked back, waving the others on to do the same. Goodwyn and Urus took a knee next to Corliss but Murin and Cailix merely stood.

"Rise," said the duke, flashing an irritated look at Murin and Cailix. Urus could've sworn the duke spoke Kestian.

"Corliss, please tell me the whispers I hear in the dark about an army at our doorstep are just rumors."

"I'm afraid I cannot, my liege," Corliss said, standing.

"Let's have your report, then."

"My liege, early this evening my scouts reported large campfires at the base of the mountain. I sent some men up to the roost to investigate. With their scrying lenses, they could see the flames of war camps all the way to the coast."

The duke gasped and took a seat on the large chair behind the lectern. "That's not possible. You can't see campfires on the coast from here."

"No, but you can see a forest being burned," Cailix said, stepping forward.
 

Urus had almost forgotten she was there. She had a way of blending in that would make the stealthiest of Kestian warriors jealous.

"Who is this little waif, and why does she address me out of turn? We have rules in a civilized society, girl."

"Answer the duke's question," Corliss said. "I've been dying to hear the answer to this myself."

"My name is Cailix. In the time spent with my former…custodian, we have encountered the briene before. They burn down entire forests to provide fuel for their war machines."

"The briene?" Duke Pemor exclaimed. "No one has seen them for a hundred years. For all we know, they died out in their caves and there is nothing left of them."

"They are quite real and quite alive," Cailix said, without using any formal address for the duke. She talked to him in that same calm, steady manner she had used with Urus earlier.

"Corliss, have your scouts actually seen any of the enemy?"

"No, my liege. We can count the fires and guess their size, but from the roost we can see nothing but shadows moving in the firelight."

"What numbers have you counted?" Duke Pemor asked, stroking his white beard, resting his elbow on the soft armchair cushion.
 

The idea of a cushion on a chair seemed ridiculous to Urus, but so many things about Waldron seemed ridiculous that he was learning to accept that everything here was strange.

"We count two hundred fires at the base of the mountain, another two hundred leading from here to the coast, and, as the girl points out, a few blazes that could only come from something as big as a forest fire out near the coast."

"This is troubling indeed, though I have no doubt that our defenses will hold. Attacking Waldron is folly, no matter what number the enemy brings to bear," said the duke, standing up and pacing between his chair and the lectern.

"We need to organize a scouting mission, to get closer to the enemy, to gauge their number and makeup," Corliss began. "And these boys here think they may know why the enemy is after Waldron."

The duke stopped pacing. "Oh? More young strangers? You are full of surprises tonight, Knight Marshall Tudell."

Urus stepped forward and bowed slightly, careful to treat this noble with more respect than had Cailix. "My Lord, my name is Urus Noellor and my friend is Goodwyn Stom. We are from Ehmshahr."

The duke whistled appreciatively. "A long way from home. Let us skip the usual formalities and you can jump right to the part where you tell me what you know about the motives of this briene army."

As quickly and with as few words as possible, Urus stumbled over the story, starting with the arrival of the four armies at Kest and their escape, finishing with a narrative of the stone slab that dumped them onto the white mountain road.

"There is another vertex somewhere near here, probably in the mountain caverns below the city, the ones hewn by the Durgas. This is what the briene seek, but they do so under the heels of the Order of the Sanguine Crystal," Murin added.

"How will that effect their tactics, Corliss?"

"If there is any truth to this story, sire, then the briene will care little for our soldiers. Their aim won't be to occupy the city, it will be to destroy it."
 

The duke resumed pacing, his face troubled. "This situation is dire," he said, nervously rubbing his hands together.
 
"My constable and war advisor is returning from a diplomatic trip to the crown city and, if my own sources at the gates are reliable, he has arrived and should be here any moment. We will wait and hear his counsel on this matter."

"But my liege, we need to act now," Corliss pleaded.