The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (38 page)

As Urus looked down on the face of his killer, a father who had rejected him since birth, a blue shadow formed behind his attacker, coalescing from puffs of smoke drifting up from the floor—drifting up from Hugo the doll. Ghostly blue hands gripped his father's neck and squeezed.

His father's hands spasmed, and Urus dropped to the floor. He looked up and wiped blood and tears from his eyes, unsure of whether he was hallucinating, dreaming, or already dead.
 

The translucent blue form squeezed at his father's neck, pushing the man to his knees. His father choked and struggled, spittle and drool dripping from his mouth. Urus watched, horrified but also not intervening. Even if he could have, he wasn't sure if he wanted to save his father from the blue creature.

Only a few short moments later, his father dropped to the floor, lifeless and twisted. Urus stood up and looked at his blue savior. There, in its chest among wisps of blue smoke, hovered four crossed swords made of pure, brilliant blue light.

***

"You killed your own father." Draegon released his grip on Urus's head.

"No!" Urus shouted, tears rushing down his cheeks. "No, that's not possible! I couldn't kill him or anyone else!"

"You sat back and watched while your creation, your
power
, killed your father. Do you still think good and evil are the only distinctions? Friend or foe? Right or wrong? You think yourself a good person, yet you killed your own father. How does one rationalize such a thing?" Draegon said.

Urus struggled to come to grips with the memory of Hugo—or some sigil-powered version of Hugo—killing his father. It didn't matter that his father was about to kill him, all that mattered was that he had killed his own father. His power had killed his father, and he didn't how many people he might kill in the future.

"Let me cure your deafness, let me show you how to control your power, let me show you how the arbiters and the sigilords treated the blood mages the way your father treated you. With control of your power, you can be sure you won't hurt the innocent. Join us, Urus, and you will never again know loneliness or despair or weakness."

"Prove it," Urus said.

"Prove what?"

"Prove that you can cure my deafness, that you can teach me to control the power."

"And in return for these gifts?" Draegon asked.

A childhood of hurt and pain, anger and rage flashed before his eyes and, hopefully, before Draegon's as well. Urus tugged at every emotion he had, relived every memory in which he had failed, where he had been shunned by the Kestians, where his deafness had brought him nothing but suffering and despair.

"In return, I will join you," Urus said, hoping that Draegon's thirst for power would blind him long enough to hide the lie while he waited for Draegon to reveal a weakness.

Draegon smiled and stepped closer to Urus. "The power of a sigilord, in my hands at last. I haven't wielded the blood of a sigilord in three thousand years. I can almost taste it!"

He cupped his hands over Urus's ears and muttered words in a language Urus couldn't lipread.
 

At first the incantation seemed not to have worked. Then…
something
…came rushing in. He didn't know what it was, but his mind felt assaulted. Stimuli that he didn't recognize invaded his mind from every direction.

The world was awash in it, things he had never experienced and had for which he had no reference. It was like the vibrating floorboards during a bard's performance, only now everything vibrated—the walls, the floors, his hands, even Draegon. The world was filled with painful, overwhelming vibrations.

The pain in his head grew to be too much to bear. A wave of dizziness hit him first, then nausea. He bent over, vomited, and then the world went black.

28

Cailix paced, fists clenched, muttering about indecisive old people.

"You'll wait while we decide just what to do with you, girl," the constable snarled through a puffy beard that threatened to swallow his rose-colored face. He had the shape of one of the fat, abusive land-owners in Naredis but carried himself like a just, righteous man. She just hoped he would figure that out for himself before it was too late. "You're lucky we haven't thrown you in a stockade."

"Calm down, Ben, we're not accusing the girl of anything." Orla, the kind matron of the family on which she had intruded, spoke softly. "Speaking of which, we don't even know the girl's name."

"My name is Cailix," she said, feeling at once stupid and vulnerable for having given her real name.

"And what a pretty name that is. Is that a Fedigan name, or Bruhan perhaps?" Orla asked, placing herself between Cailix and the makeshift council that included Ben, the constable; Hutcher, the fisherman; and a handful of pike- and axe-wielding farmers and merchants.

Cailix stopped pacing, stunned. "I-I don't know," she said. She didn't know whether Cailix was her given name or just the name given to her by the first of many fosters who had taken her on as a burden.

"Orla, it's obvious you've got a soft spot for the girl, but you need to let the men take care of business here," Ben said.

"And what business is that, this business that can only be done by men?" Orla demanded, hands on her hips, a wooden soup spoon still inexplicably in her hand.

"She exploded a lamb to light the signal fires, woman. This is serious."

"Oh, it's quite serious. You think if she could explode a lamb she couldn't explode you, Ben? This girl's in trouble and she's trying to save this island, so you need to quit your old man fussing, grow yourself a pair of walnuts, and do something."

Cailix was really starting to like this woman. She was as full of fire and spirit and energy as she was of motherly kindness. She had never encountered anyone like that before.

"You can't talk to me like that, Orla, I'm the only law this island's got."

"Ben, quit flirting with Orla and let's take a vote on the matter," said one of the farmers in the little council huddled around a large bonfire they'd built just down the hill from Orla and Woss's tent. A young man—his son, presumably—stood just behind the farmer, unable to take his eyes off Cailix, big brown eyes that reflected the firelight and seemed to match his blond hair perfectly.

"If she's lying, then she's a witch and she just sacrificed a sheep," one of the men said, stuffing some tobacco into his pipe.

"It was a lamb, you idiot," Orla shouted.

"If she's telling the truth, she's still a witch, but she's the least of our problems," another said.

"If she's telling the truth, we need to figure out how to protect the people of Aldsdowne," Hutcher said, looking across the fire at Cailix.
 

Cailix shrugged into Orla's embrace as the woman wrapped her in another blanket. She grabbed another biscuit when she thought no one was looking and shoved it into her mouth.

The moon was nearly full overhead, the night half gone. Anderis's navy would be within range of the island tomorrow.

Woss glanced from Cailix up to the moon and back. "You boys better figure out what you're going to do quick. The night's not gettin' any longer."

"We can't fend off a navy, lest we drive 'em off by throwin' spice barrels and dead gloomfish at 'em."

"We could hide."

"Where would we go, Abe? Look around. We're on an island," Hutcher said.
 
"We don't have enough empty ships to carry all our people off to the north and away from the navy."

"So it seems like you all agree she's telling the truth about this navy coming our way," said Ben.

"Maybe Cailix knows how to stop them," said the farmer's son, forcing an awkward smile in her direction.
 

Cailix couldn't figure out what his angle was, why he was smiling.

"Colin, stay outta this. This is grown men's business," scolded the farmer.

"I don't think we can take the chance she ain't tellin' the truth," Hutcher replied.

"We need to start preparing now!" Cailix shouted.

"Hush now, girl, let us handle this," said one of the farmers.

"My name is Cailix, and I would let you handle it if I thought any of you oafs were capable!"

One of the farmers picked up his garden hoe and stepped around the fire, muttering, stomping, and making a big show of being a big strong man.
 

Oafs indeed
, she thought.
They don't have a whole brain between the lot of them
.

"Someone's gonna have to teach you the proper way to behave 'round your betters, little miss!" grumbled the oaf.

"When I see any of my betters, then I will gladly await such a lesson." Cailix reached out, still able to draw some power from the lamb's blood, and lifted the oaf into the air, dangling him there like a helpless fly caught in a spider's web.

"Cailix, you put that man down right now!" Orla demanded.

Never before had she cared about any orders any adult had barked at her. She complied when it suited her needs, complied when it was necessary for her survival. But to comply because she cared about the other person's opinion?
Never
.

Cailix let the oaf-man drop.

"Orla, you keep that witch on a leash till we figure out what our next move is, understand?" said the farmer, Colin's father.

"Yes, Rowden," Orla said in a sweet, demure tone.

She pulled Cailix aside, sat her down, and whispered in her ear, "You and I both know these dunderheads need a good kick in the arse to get them going in the right direction. Problem is, they're too stubborn to admit it. You need to ply them, treat 'em like stubborn mules. Get them to think it's their bright idea, and they'll take all the credit but do 'zactly as you want 'em to."

Cailix's eyes widened. This Orla was an amazing woman. She could survive, and she was in control, but she didn't have to fight for her control; she got it with her brains and cunning. The best part was that she was in control even when everybody else thought they were in charge.

Maybe a good strategy is as good a power as the blood magic
, she thought.

"Watch and learn, sweetie," Orla said.

She stood up, approached the fire, and stoked it. She leaned in to stoke the fire again and slipped, tripping over something. Rowden reached out and caught her just in time.

"Lord above, woman, you need to be more careful."

"I'm sorry, I'm just frazzled, all this talk of witches and invasions and navies. It's more than an old woman like myself can take."

"Don't you worry, nothing's going to happen to Aldsdowne."

"It's just, well, you've seen what the girl can do."

"Yes, I have," Rowden said, the pitch in his voice rising a little.

"Well, she's barely an apprentice. The people who took and slaved her, well they're the really dangerous ones. If you think explodin' lambs is terrible, just you wait till they get here."

She's amazing
, thought Cailix.
This idiot is falling for it, buying into Orla's poor defenseless scared woman act
.

"How many of them did she say there was?"

"The girl says they got eighteen ships, with three witches on each ship," Orla said, just loud enough so the others would overhear.
 

That was all it took. Cailix could have shouted the same words at the top of her lungs and the men wouldn't have cared, but coming from Orla the way it did, they all stopped talking.

"How many witches and ships?" Hutcher asked.

"Eighteen ships, with three blood mages on each, four on the lead ship," Cailix said, trying to keep her tone as soft as Orla's had been.

"What if we just surrendered?" Rowden asked. "We could let them have what they want from the island and then they would leave. Other kingdoms have come and gone when they found out we have little to offer them."

Cailix stood up, her fists clenched. She looked at Orla and Woss and took a slow, deep breath before she spoke. "They don't want the island, they want you. They use blood for power, and they need the power to finish what they're doing, to destroy something big. They'll bleed the island dry like you were nothing but cattle."

"She's joking, right?" asked one of the farmers.

"What I did to that lamb, that's what they'll do to every man, woman, and child on this island."

"How can we fight a power like that?" another farmer asked. "Garden tools and bread are clearly not going to do any good, and none of us are soldiers."

"We could dig in, fortify ourselves?"
 

"You mean hide," Hutcher said. "If they can turn you into a bloody fog, they can find you hiding under a barn."

Cailix waited, tapping her foot, but biting her tongue and waiting for someone, anyone, to ask the right question.

"Girl," said Hutcher.

"Cailix," she offered, calmly, even with a hint of a smile.

"Cailix. You escaped from these people, and you made it all the way to this island to warn us they were coming. What would you have us do? How would you fight them?"

Cailix stifled a grin.
It's about time they came around. It would've been easier just to beat them into submission, but Orla's way may have its merits
.