The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (41 page)

Despite his frown, Torin would not fault the warlord were that his decision. “How long have you been here? Do you know of any others within your grandfather’s camp that we might turn to?” He was thinking already of Gilden and Bardik, whom he remembered encountering during the battle. He’d been surprised to find them here—outside fetters, at least—and could not help but wonder if they were truly Lorre’s men, or could be persuaded to assist him. Assuming either man had survived…

“Saena,” was Annleia’s first answer.

His thoughts shifted. “She made it back, then?” She had told him when he bid her farewell in Kasseri that she intended to return. But that had been weeks ago, and many leagues from this place. Anything might have happened.

Annleia nodded in response. “I was suspicious of her, initially—of the fact that Lorre made no mention of her from the first. Even after I learned that she was here, I was not permitted to visit her until my grandfather had briefed her in private. But the lass has such an open manner…” She shook her head, as if unable to explain. “She is Lorre’s servant, yes, but does not seem to have anything to hide.”

Torin knew how she felt, having had the same fears and reached the same conclusions, though it had taken him much longer to do so.

“Before the battle,” she added, “when Lorre would make no promise to spare you, Saena helped to guide and prepare me, smuggling me into position atop the Bastion as a member of General Gilden’s regiment. I cannot say that she would defy her lord outright, but she will help us again, I think, if need be.”

“Gilden. Bardik. Are they…?” He found himself afraid to ask. “Did they survive the assault?”

“Bardik did. He led those who found us in the wood. I can’t say about Gilden. I’ve not heard otherwise, but I’ve been as much a prisoner as you over these past three days, under constant guard while the Illysp incubation reversed itself and I waited for you to awake.”

Torin glanced at the heavy iron lock and keyhole upon the closed door, undecided as to what troubled him most at that particular moment. Their entrapment, yes. The missing details of who Annleia was, and of
how
exactly she had purged him, to be sure. Mostly, however, it was knowing that his former comrades had betrayed the Wylddean freedom for which they had struggled so valiantly, throwing in with Lorre and an eventual conquest of Yawacor’s Southland. Granted, the warlord would not likely have spared their lives had they elected otherwise. Did that mean Chamaar and Arn and Jaik and all the rest had changed banners as well?

“Is there anyone else who might help us?” he asked.

“The soldiers you fought with all seem to have sworn genuine allegiance to my grandfather,” she admitted, as if reading his thoughts. “The Nymphs, perhaps.”

Her words struck him like a bucket of ice water, and he responded breathlessly. “What?”

“Dyanne and Holly. They’re the ones Lorre suggested I speak with to learn of your potential whereabouts, and the ones who then directed me to Saena. As they—and now you—told it, Saena was the last to have seen you, remaining with you and Crag after the Nymphs had bid farewell in order to travel south.”

Yes
,
but they were only to have stopped through Neak-Thur on their way home to the Nest.
If they were still here…“Lorre captured them?”

“They claim to have decided that the best way to keep an eye on my grandfather’s movements was to remain close to his side.”

The hive of thoughts that had begun to settle somewhat over the past few hours whirred and buzzed anew.
Dyanne? Here?
“I must go to them.”

“What, now?”

Yes
,
now.
Confound all else. He had less than half the answers he needed, but could tolerate no more questions, no more doubts, no more charges from witch or elf or fallen god. Dyanne was here, in Lorre’s clutches. He would see her at once. He would know she was safe, free, and that at least one small portion of the world was as it should be.

“Guard!” he shouted, jerking his legs from beneath the blankets and rising to his feet.

When he swooned, Annleia reached out to catch him. “You haven’t the strength,” she said, as he clutched at a bedpost. “They’ll look in on us at supper. Please, we’ve still much to discuss.”

A dizziness clouded his vision, and myriad aches and pains assailed him. “None of which will matter,” he insisted, gritting it all away, “until we know what your grandfather intends for us. Guards!”

A key was already scraping in the lock, and a moment later the heavy door flung open. A steward appeared, flanked by a pair of troll faces, their low-slung jaws thrust forward. The steward’s eyes widened to see Torin on his feet, even sagging against the bedpost. “My lady—”

“Fetch me a page,” Torin snapped. “There are friends I wish to speak to.”

T
ORIN CRANED AND TWISTED BESIDE
the windows, angling in vain for a glimpse of events outside. A crescendo akin to battle cries had been building steadily ever since the steward’s departure, but the slits were too narrow to allow him a proper view.

All of which was forgotten the moment he heard the knock upon the door. One of the troll sentries, which had remained inside, rapped twice in response. Torin glanced at Annleia as she emerged from an adjacent chamber of the small suite. The trolls’ lingering presence had dampened any further discussions. While Torin privately doubted their ability to understand—or their interest in hearing—anything he or Annleia might have to say to each other, the Finlorian lass had chosen to retreat to her own room and sit in sulky silence. That suited Torin just fine, overwhelmed as he was by what he had learned already, and by the expectation of seeing Dyanne again.

But it was not the Nymph who stepped through the door in answer to his summons.

It was Saena.

Torin winced as his right knee wrenched awkwardly beneath him. The injured joint was heavily wrapped, yet he had done little thus far to test it. His abrupt motions—and the stabbing pains they unleashed—nearly dropped him to the floor.

“Are you all right?” Saena asked, hastening forward.

Torin looked past the woman to those who accompanied her. He saw the steward, and another pair of trolls waiting outside.

“Where’s Dyanne?” he asked.

Saena’s gaze turned briefly to Annleia, then to the floor.

“Saena?”

“I’m sent by His Lordship. If you would see your friends, you are to follow me.”

Her eyes finally lifted, yet she could not seem to force a smile. This was not the Saena he remembered. The realization caused a tightening in his stomach. He looked at Annleia, whose reservations shone plainly on her face.

But Torin would not be deterred. “Then lead on.”

Saena hesitated. Surely, there was much she wished to say, yet she did not seem to know how to begin. Torin could hardly blame her.

At last she nodded and stepped out into the hall. Torin followed without delay. Annleia continued to prove more wary, lingering until both he and
Saena looked back at her. Finally, she joined them, staring purposefully at Torin as all four troll guards formed up alongside.

Only the steward remained behind as their group started down the corridor. Annleia’s cautionary glances persisted. That Lorre felt the need for an armed escort did not bode well, but Torin would not let it trouble him. Nor would he be unsettled by Saena’s uncharacteristic silence. Whatever friendship they may have formed during his previous visit, he was no longer the same person. The woman could no doubt sense it, and had every right to feel awkward.

It scarcely mattered, in any case. Until he had assured himself that Dyanne was well, he found it difficult to devote much care to anything else.

Nevertheless, he knew that Saena’s voice would carry at least some weight with Lorre. Perhaps that was the impetus behind Annleia’s unrelenting looks. Perhaps she wished for him to discover where they stood.

“I’m glad to see you safe,” he offered tentatively.

“And I you,” Saena replied, turning to regard him with…what, exactly? A mixture of emotions, it seemed—fueled in part by sympathy, he decided, when her eyes dipped to regard his wounded leg. “I’m not sure I understand what all has happened here.”

“I haven’t come to terms with it myself,” Torin admitted, and wondered if he ever truly could. To die and live again…“I would not expect you or your lord to understand; though if he’ll give me a chance, I’ll do my best to explain.”

Saena nodded, then fell again into glum silence. All those times in which he had been unable to shut her up, and now it appeared he might have to drag her words out of her. She certainly wasn’t ready to offer reassurance. He caught Annleia’s next look and scowled in response. She was welcome to make her own attempt, if she thought she could do better.

She said nothing, however, and the uncomfortable silence thickened. As the footfalls of their little company echoed amid the empty halls, a sense of grim solitude closed round. It was not until they passed near an outer ward that Torin heard again the snatches of din from outside, and decided to ask about them.

“Is the city under attack?”

“A celebration,” Saena answered, without looking at him. “In honor of His Lordship and the city’s recent triumph.”

That put a lid on any other questions Torin might have asked. It was
his
fall they rejoiced in, and that of his devil minions. This was no homecoming, as some small, foolish part of him wanted to believe. He was a trophy, as likely as not to be executed for his crimes as part of this night’s festivities.

The corridor led to a winding stair, which they descended by the light of low-burning torches ensconced upon the weathered wall. A series of halls and steps followed, all leading down into the depths of the citadel. Though he would not have been able to trace the route on his own, Torin recognized bits and stretches of it as that which he had walked weeks earlier when led from
Lorre’s dungeons. A wiser man might have been alarmed by the prospect, but the only chill Torin felt was that of icy determination.

Upon reaching the outer door to the dungeons, at the base of a narrow flight of steps, they found a single giant standing post. When it saw them coming, it ducked its shaggy head beneath the opening and murmured something in a guttural tongue to those beyond. It turned back just as Saena reached the floor’s landing, and nodded her through.

Torin limped down the final step and shuffled after. His knee throbbed, and he felt a sweat upon his brow despite the dank, briny cold. He hated feeling so weak and languid, and focused those feelings in a glare given to mirror the one aimed at him by the tusked giant.

But that standoff was swiftly set aside, for beyond the portal, Lord Lorre waited, flanked by another pair of giants. Though the creatures towered over him, the overlord’s was clearly the more commanding presence, with his frigid stare, his crossed arms—

And the Sword of Asahiel sheathed at his waist, heartstones afire amid the gem-studded silver of the unblemished hilt.

Saena and the trolls stepped aside. Torin held his breath, braced against the terrible emptiness of Lorre’s gaze. If the warlord was at all surprised to see him raised from the dead, his steely manner did nothing to show it.

“Twice now you have come against me,” Lorre snapped in his crisp, imperial tone. “There are few who could boast the same. Tell me, what cause have I to spare your life a second time?”

The overlord’s eyes never shifted, not even to glance at the granddaughter stood at Torin’s side. His evident anger was greater than Torin had imagined.

“None.”

“None?” Lorre arched a colorless eyebrow. “My granddaughter speaks of a quest, one you must complete if we are to avoid further assaults such as the one you most recently led against us. As I recall, you spoke similarly when last we met. Is this not so?”

“I am responsible for a great many ills,” Torin replied. “Should you spare me, I will do what I can to set matters aright. But I cannot promise that it is within my power to do so. Nor will I make the attempt until I know my companions are safe.”

The warlord’s leathery face seemed to darken. “Your Nymph comrades returned of their own accord, and dwelled here under their own influence. My granddaughter has told you this, yes?”

“You will forgive me my doubts. After Warrlun’s attack—”

“I had no hand in that treachery. He would have suffered long and slow, had he not found mercy at the end of your blade.”

Lorre’s tone was so sharp, so bitter, that Torin did not doubt the claim—and this for exacting revenge against Laressa’s traitorous husband. It caused him to wonder briefly just what sort of suffering the overlord might devise for the man who had murdered Laressa herself.

“So you say,” Torin responded, thinking it better that Lorre did not learn
of his daughter’s death. “So let me see my friends, and hear it from their lips.”

The overlord studied him a moment longer, giving no hint of either acquiescence or denial. When at last he turned on a heel to proceed down the dungeon’s throat, he left no indication of whether he intended to grant Torin’s request.

His giant attendants, which formed a wall at the warlord’s back, motioned them onward. Saena, still looking doleful, led the way. Torin glanced at Annleia, but did not care for the Finlorian’s worried expression. The trolls started forward, and so did he.

They did not travel far. Perhaps a dozen strides along the central hall, Lorre stopped beside a large holding cell. Odd scuffling sounds echoed from within, which for some reason made the hairs on Torin’s neck stand upright. When he drew close enough to see clearly, and heard Annleia’s startled gasp, he understood why.

Through a wall of rust-flaked iron bars, he glimpsed several rows of bodies set upon makeshift biers. Each was wrapped and tightly bound in a burial shroud, watched over by a handful of torch-bearing soldiers. The presence of these armed attendants might have seemed odd, were the bodies not thrashing and writhing, struggling to tear free.

Annleia was aghast. “I warned you to burn the dead!” she exclaimed, rounding angrily upon her grandfather.

“Which we did,” Lorre assured her, “by the thousands.” He passed through the open cell door, taking a torch from one of the soldiers, whom he then dismissed. “But I wished to examine these
Illychar
myself,” he explained, as he strolled amid the rows of animated corpses, “and thus kept a few of our fallen, so as to witness the supposed transformation and better understand the enemy I face.”

A taste like bile rose in the back of Torin’s throat. To willfully condemn others so…Either the overlord lacked any grasp of what he did, or else he was far crueler than any of the stories about him suggested.

Lorre came to a stop beside one of the bundled forms, and beckoned Torin forward. “This one,” he said, when Torin stood beside him, “you may recognize.”

He did not. Not through the thick layer of burlap shroud. But the very possibility appalled him. “Should I?” he croaked, while the body kicked and squirmed against its bonds.

When the warlord did not respond, Torin forced himself to seek the other’s gaze.

“You wished to see your friends,” Lorre answered once their eyes had met.

“Here she is.”

An invisible vise clamped round his chest, and everything within seemed to burst. He did not blink; he did not breathe. There could be no doubt as to who
she
referred to. Torin’s devotion to her had been plainly demonstrated in the heat of battle—ending, in fact, their earlier assault on Neak-Thur. Lorre had not forgotten.

“Her companion, the smaller one, was slain by a goblin,” the warlord said, “ripped to ribbons. This one,” he added, his eyes turning back to the body in question, “Dyanne, she slew the beast, but perished from her wounds.”

The words echoed as though from a great distance. Torin did not know whether to vomit or weep. He looked to Saena for refutation, but the woman only hung her head.

“Is there nothing that can be done?” Lorre asked.

Torin rounded on Annleia. “You must help her,” he pleaded, “the way you helped me.”

The Finlorian, her eyes still wide with revulsion, shook her head. “I cannot.”

“Why?” Lorre pounced upon the response as if springing a trap. “Your witchcraft saved one. Will it not save another?”

Annleia pouted defensively as a roomful of eyes bored into her. For a moment, she ignored them all, then reached into a small pouch tied to the hempen belt about her waist. From within, she drew forth a small, barely budded flower. It looked something like a thistle, save that its petals, stem, and even its spiny thorns were pure white, as if all pigments had been leeched from the plant’s tiny veins.

“Here is your witchcraft,” she said. “A mere gosswyn, whose life juices, I was told, are poison to an Illysp spirit. Sure enough, a simple invocation—call it elven sorcery, if you must—enabled me to draw those toxins and use them to purge Torin’s body.”

“So let us see it at work,” Lorre challenged with a measure of distaste.

“The flower can be used but once,” Annleia admitted, looking apologetically at Torin. “For the invasive spirit is not destroyed, but driven out, caged now within the gosswyn—as evidenced by its blanched appearance.”

“We can fetch you another,” Lorre suggested derisively, turning promptly to make it a command.

“But can you also fetch a fresh sample of her untainted blood?” Annleia challenged.

Lorre’s eyebrow arched. “Untainted?”

“Prior to her death,” Annleia explained, slipping the flower back into its pouch. “For that is the key ingredient. Without it, the poison is incomplete, and will not work to expel the Illysp inhabiting the body.”

Where hope and need had given him strength, Torin knew now only staggering dismay. Damn that Necanicum for preserving
his
blood and not Dyanne’s. Damn her for not telling them plainly what they might do to defend themselves against the unspeakable. A sample of blood, a gosswyn, a Finlorian to manipulate nature’s song—it mattered not how ridiculous and painstaking and impracticable it all seemed. At the least, it had provided them an opportunity.

A chance that was now gone.

“If that is so,” Lorre said, speaking again to Torin, “what would you have me do, with her and the others?”

Torin did not know that he could speak the words. But he knew all too well the torment they endured, and could think of nothing more vile than allowing it to continue unchecked. He gazed down upon Dyanne’s body—thrashing upon its bier—and heard himself whisper, “We must…we must set them free.”

At that came the rasp of steel. “Do it, then,” Lorre said, presenting him a long-bladed dagger.

Torin regarded him with anguish. He could not make himself take the weapon.

Lorre frowned. “Would you prefer I assign the task to one of these others?”

Torin looked around, then wrapped his fingers around the bone-handled hilt. Its surface felt smooth and cold, clammy in his palm. What was one more death? he asked himself. It seemed the only fair penance, for all that he had done: to be forced to take the life of the one he had come to prize above all others.