The Pleasure of Memory (25 page)

He closed his eyes and willed back the anger. He had to concentrate on planning his next move. It was critical to get word to Baeldonia and the Allies as soon as possible. They must intercept the Vaemysh attack before it started. Once he fulfilled that obligation, once he notified the Allies, he’d be free to find Luren and then deal with Prae as he liked.

Grief swept in like a fall wind, sharp and biting and cold as the threat of winter. Luren, who’d never hurt a soul in his life, now a prisoner of that sorry bastard. It was the worst possible scenario for a young caeyl mage. He loved that boy as closely as if he were his own offspring. Luren was a pure soul without a blemish to deserve such a fate. He never should have left him alone. He should have known the sentry’s arrival preordained only the direst news. Luren’s fate, whether good or bad, was also his blame to carry.

He rolled to his side and pressed a finger to the Bloodlink Caeyl resting beneath the skin at the base of his skull. His stomach roiled as he found connection with the caeylsphere. For several moments, he suffered in bitter anticipation. It took far longer than it should have, but he eventually found Luren’s presence. The boy was still alive, thank the Lords of Pentyrfal! The link was weaker than it should be, but it was there nonetheless! Knowing the boy still lived would have to be good enough for tonight.

He dropped to his back and covered his face with his forearm. His stomach was on fire. He had to find calm. There’d be plenty of opportunity for rage and retribution later, but now he needed his rest. It’d been a brutal day, and tomorrow promised to be no better.

So he closed his eyes and drew a soothing breath, and attempted a calming chant, though he had no faith it’d work.

XIII

INTERROGATION

EAM WAS LOST.

The woods looked exactly the same regardless of which direction he ran.

Dark trees crowded the path, trees with skin for bark and deformed arms for branches. They leaned into the path, smothering him as he passed, their fingers clawing for his skin to add it to their obscene trunks.

He didn’t know how he got here. There was no exit, no way out, nowhere to flee. Panic threatened him. He needed out of this vile place now. He needed to break free!

A spear flew past his head, passing close enough he could hear its whisper.

Another ripped past, and then another, and another. There were hundreds of spears. They filled the air like a hailstorm. They littered the path before him, thousands of them, blocking his escape like bars on a cage. The bastards had him trapped!

He stumbled to a stop and fell to his knees. He covered his face and willed the spears away. It’s a dream, only a dream. Another goddamned nightmare. You only have to deny it, that’s all. You only have to force it out of your head and make yourself wake up. It can’t kill you!

He found himself standing in the colorless dirt holding his new sword up before him, though he had no memory of making the move. A monster stood a few paces out before him. It was the tarry beast he’d killed back at the mage’s house, clad in that unnatural armor and wearing a cloak of fire. It blocked any hope of escape.

He waved his sword at the monster. He threatened it, told it he’d kill it if it took another step. He’d kill it again and again until there was nothing left of it, so help him Calina!

But, the beast wouldn’t back away. Its eyes exploded into tiny suns. Its tarry flesh swelled. It grew in height and bulk until it towered over him, until it consumed the world around him, until there was nothing but him and this lethal, inescapable monstrosity. He had nowhere to run, no way to escape. And as he stared up at the beast, a horrible revelation seized him. This wasn’t the creature from back at the house at all. This was a different demon! A new demon!

His sword dissolved from his hands. The demon’s flaming head rose up into the sky! It was holding Beam’s sword with the point dripping back down at him! It was going to drive it down through his back just like the Vaemyn back in the cave. It was going to kill him with his own weapon!

“Wouldn’t Brother Dael be proud?” it yelled down at him, “Wouldn’t he be proud of you now?”

The creature’s unnatural laugh burned like acid in Beam’s mind. Then the beast drove the sword down on him exactly like the killing blow that had slain the Vaemyn in his dream. It was the end, and all he could do was bury his face in his hands and brace himself for the murder.

∞

Beam bolted upright. The pain of the movement seared through his chest. He doubled forward and waited for his breath to return. His bare legs glistened under a layer of cold sweat.

As the pain grudgingly released him and he could finally breathe again, he looked around at his surroundings. At first, he didn’t know where he was. He was on the floor in a tangle of heavy woolen blankets. His clothes rested in a neatly folded pile beside his boots just a few feet off to his left. The sword lay across his lap.

He smeared the sweaty bangs back from his face and examined his wet palm. And then it all came back to him. He was in the monk’s cave. It’d just been a nightmare. Just another bloody nightmare.

“Good afternoon.”

Beam nearly jumped from his bed. He twisted around toward the voice. It was the monk. He was sitting on a stool at the table behind him. The sight of the man immediately rekindled his irritation. He turned back to his bedding. “Afternoon?” he asked without knowing why.

“Just past noon, I’d say.”

“Really?” Beam grumbled. He wondered how the man could know this, considering they were in a room without windows or doors.

“You were having a nightmare.”

More aggravation. “A revelation. Thanks for that, Brother.”

“I told you to stop calling me that, I’m not a monk. My name is Chance.”

Beam rubbed his neck and shrugged.

“Are you prone to nightmares?” Chance pressed.

This was just what he needed, an interrogation first thing in the morning. Or afternoon. Or whatever the hell time of day it was. He threw a sidelong glance back at the man. “It wasn’t a nightmare,” he said, “And it’s none of your goddamned business anyway.”

“I meant nothing by it. I’m just concerned.”

“Concerned,” Beam said, forcing a laugh, “Thank you, mother, I’m sure I’m quite fine.”

“You were rather agitated in your sleep,” Chance said, “I considered you may be suffering a brain seizure of sorts. Perhaps having a fit. Do you have a history of fits?”

Another jab, another pang of irritation. “Actually,” Beam said sarcastically, “If you must know, I wasn’t having a nightmare. Truth is I was enjoying a perfectly lovely dream. Matter of fact, I was at a festival.”

“Hm. Must’ve been one beauty of a festival.”

“It absolutely was, and I begrudge having wakened from it.”

“Is that right?”

“It is right,” Beam said, throwing him a look, “I was in Taunter’s Way. That’s a town in the northwestern Nolands, if you don’t know. Just this side of the Wall of Morleph.”

“I’m too familiar with it,” Chance said smugly, “It’s a thieves’ den. A rat’s nest of a town.”

Beam was impressed the man knew of the town, more impressed that he understood its charming character. “I was having a fine time at a tavern called the Galloping Pig,” he said, “I was sitting at a table with this lovely little Parhronii dancer. We were on the verge of conquering bliss when the unthinkable happened.”

“I can’t wait,” Chance said. He didn’t sound like he meant it. Again.

Beam looked back at the man and sneered. “She turned into you,” he said, snapping his fingers, “Just like that! I’m surprised I didn’t wake up screaming.” He couldn’t suppress a chuckle.

“Well, isn’t that just hilarious,” Chance said sourly.

Beam suddenly wished he were anywhere else on Calevia. He’d rather face the savages hand to hand than be stuck in a cave with such a humorless boor.

“It’s said the Caeyllth Blades inflicted their possessors with exactly that singular malady,” Chance said.

“Malady?” Beam asked, “You mean dreaming of laying with you?” He immediately kicked himself. Could that have possibly come out more wrong?

“No,” the Chance said, “I mean nightmares.”

Beam carefully rubbed his eyes with his palms. He so didn’t need this right now.

“It’s said the dreams could be quite unsavory,” Chance pressed.

“Is that a fact?”

“I wouldn’t call it a fact, exactly, but it’s what the stories say. The few that survive.”

Beam crawled up onto one knee, but a brutal kick in his chest convinced him to go no further. Pausing there, he looked down at the splotch of blue and purple swirling across his right ribs. It was a most disillusioning sight. That was going to hurt for some time to come. Still, he couldn’t simply kneel there forever, so he braced himself for the rise to his feet. Once up and steady, he turned toward the table, and immediately stopped.

The man sitting on the stool looked nothing like the one he’d arrived with last night. Beyond the fact that he was cleaner and his long brown hair brushed and trussed back into a tail behind him, his dress couldn’t have been more opposite. He was no longer wearing the passive, threadbare monk’s robes. Now he was dressed in a white linen shirt with full sleeves, a fine thigh-length tunic of silver scale mail, and buffed brown leather britches with a wide belt bearing a sheathed knife. Moreover, this knife was no nobleman’s ornamental dagger. This was a regular curved battle-knife, forged for gutting two-legged prey and little else.

“Are you familiar with the Divinic Wars?” Chance asked.

The words slapped Beam from his gape. “What?”

“You’ve heard the stories? About the Divinic Demons and the wars?”

“Oh, the stories,” Beam said as he scratched at his bare chest, “Sure.”

“The stories of the Blood Caeyl and the Caeyllth Blades?”

“Yeah, all those.”

Chance just stared at him.

“What?” Beam said as he stepped up to the table and poured himself a mug of wine. His mouth tasted like a pig’s armpit.

“Lying doesn’t suit you much, does it?”

Beam couldn’t help laughing at that. “Apparently not.”

“Have you heard of the Caeyllth Blades or not?” Chance pushed.

Unfortunately, the change of dress had done nothing to temper the man’s grating personality. “All right,” Beam surrendered, “I concede my ignorance. What’s a cattle blade?”

“Caeyllth Blade.”

“Whatever you say.”

Chance grabbed one of a pair of tall, cuffed black boots standing on the floor beside his stool. “If my suspicions are correct,” he grunted as he struggled to pull it on, “That’s what the sword is.” The boot surrendered and his leg plunged in to the knee.

“You don’t say.”

“It was designed by an ancient caeyl mage who lived in these parts long ago.”

“How long ago?”

“An eon or more, the precise dates have been lost to time.”

“A thousand years?” Beam braced himself. Next thing, the man was going to tell him it was some kind of magic weapon.

“A Caeyllth Blade was a powerful longsword designed to slay wyrlaerds during the Divinic War. The war lasted—”

“Wyrlaerds,” Beam said, snorting.

“So you
have
heard of Divinic Demons.”

“Every child’s heard that fairytale, Brother, even me. I’m just riding you.”

“It’s no fairytale.”

“Brother Dael used to say one man’s delusion is just another man’s interpretation of reality.”

Chance grabbed the other boot. “Brother Dael?” he said as he pulled it on.

“Yeah. Maybe you knew him through the monk underground.” Beam was thoroughly amused with himself, but the eyes glowering back at him efficiently murdered his humor. He lifted his mug, but stopped just shy of a drink. “Gods, you’re a spoiler,” he said, “Would it kill you to crack a grin once in a while?”

Chance just watched him.

Beam shook his head, and then downed his wine. “Anyway, Dael raised me,” he said dragging the back of his hand over his mouth, “He was an Elysian Monk. His cloister was the Priory of Saynfyl in Parhron City.”

“Saynfyl,” Chance repeated. And then, to Beam’s great surprised, the man actually laughed.

Unfortunately, the sound of the man’s laughter wasn’t as rewarding as he’d hoped. In fact, it only spurred his irritation further. “Something’s apparently funny?” he said.

“Saynfyl Priory,” Chance said, still grinning, “I know the place. You’re telling me you were raised in an asylum?”

Beam felt himself blush. “It wasn’t an asylum,” he said quickly, “It was a gathering priory for the troublers.”