The Rival (16 page)

He had found other places since.  There were sites on the Cliffs of Blood that made him feel an almost religious calm, something the Tabernacle had never been able to do for him.

He took off his coat, and set it down carefully so as not to break the bottle of holy water in the side pocket.  He never went anywhere without holy water.  It was as much a comfort to him as it was a protection.  He sat in the grass  and straightened his legs before him, not caring that his pants got soiled.  He pulled off his boots and stuck his bare feet in the river water, letting its coldness run through him. 

Across the great bridge, past the small lights of the insignificant city dwellers, the Tabernacle rose like a beacon.  Its white walls, kept that way by diligent Auds, glowed in the darkness.  The tapestries over the windows were closed, but inside, the candles burned brightly.  He remembered summer evenings like this.  The Tabernacle was always too hot, but tradition had said that the breezes of the night brought danger.

Tradition.  The Tabernacle lived by tradition.  It would eventually die by it.

He leaned back.  A small group of gnats swarmed his face.  He moved over a few inches, and the gnats remained in their place, still swarming.  In the darkness, the swords painted on the side of the Tabernacle looked liked dirt stains.  Some shadows moved across the tapestries.  Titus and his minions.  The boy who became Rocaan by default.  Not a position Matthias would want to have.

Not a position Matthias kept.

Sometimes it amazed him, the power he gave up  when he left his post as Rocaan.  He hadn't realized how great the power was until it became clear no one would pursue him.  No one would come after him for murdering a prisoner in his cell.  Not because the prisoner had been Fey, but because the killer had been an important religious leader.

The important religious leader.

He could have used the power.  He could have made changes in the entire country, changes Nicholas wouldn't have been able to object to, changes Titus had been too young to make.  But Matthias hadn't been prepared to do so.  He had many flaws, but he wasn't a hypocrite.  And he truly thought that the man who led the Rocaanists had to believe in the religion's teachings.

He had never believed.

He never would.

Although he did miss it sometimes, the comfort of routine, the consolation of ritual.  It had a rhythm that his life now lacked.

But he no longer had to apologize for using his mind.  And he was now followed because of his own teachings, not because of someone else's. 

Yeon had already found two smiths to work on the sword.  He promised more by the end of the week.

And the banquet was set for the next evening.

Matthias had high hopes for both.

His followers didn't care what happened, as long as they would be able to go about their business.  And they would, soon enough. 

The mosquito was back, buzzing his left ear.  He brought up his hand and caught the mosquito, then crushed it, and wiped the remains in the grass. 

His feet felt like ice.  His body had grown cooler.  After the day in the smithy, he had thought he would die of the heat.  He didn't know how most smiths stood it, being near that furnace all the time.  Once he had his sword, he would never go back into that heat again.

His sword.  The second of the Secrets.  Poor Titus, guarding a hoard of information rendered useless by the very things that ensured its passage from one generation to another.  Matthias would change that.  The Fiftieth Rocaan had been right.  The Fey were the Soldiers of the Enemy.  Only the Roca had left dozens of ways to fight them.  The Islanders had given up after using only one.

The Islanders hadn't really given up.  They had been stunned by the loss of the Fiftieth Rocaan, but they would have rallied.  Nicholas had given up.  Nicholas and his father. They had sold the Isle to the Enemy without even realizing it. 

The Soldiers of the Enemy had been chased off Blue Isle once before. 

They would leave again.

Then voices traveled across the water.  Matthias looked up.  He hadn't seen anyone when he had come through the bushes, and he had been looking.  Sometimes he knew that some of the unfortunates slept on this side of the river.  A few got up before dawn and fished.  But since the Fey invaded, the river was mostly quiet.  The great sea-going trading vessels were gone.  The harbor and its warehouses were empty buildings, left to decay.  Most of the piers were half-rotted hunks still sitting in the river.  Only a few still survived, and those were used for private vessels, the play barges of the remaining rich.

Matthias drew his knees up to his chest.  He dried off his feet with his socks.  His toes were like ice.

As he slipped on his boots, he heard the voices again.  They were soft, but one of them had a bite.

And they were speaking Fey.

He froze.  The Fey didn't come inside Jahn any more.  They had their own places outside of the city, at least those who no longer lived in Shadowlands.  The rest remained in that invisible place, hiding, unable to show their faces because their invasion had failed.

The voices were coming from the bridge.  Slowly he turned his head, careful not to make any sudden moves.  If he moved quickly, they might see him.  And there was no telling what Fey would do with an unarmed Islander, even in the middle of Jahn.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust after the brightness of the Tabernacle.  The darkness facing east was immense.  Only the lights of the city broke it.  The bridge seemed especially dark.  After nightfall, the traffic on it was almost non-existent.  

Then he picked out several shapes on the bridge itself.  Three Fey, talking as they crossed, as if nothing were out of the ordinary.  His mouth was dry.  Perhaps they were Nicholas's children and their Fey guardian.

But that didn't seem right.  Nicholas had planned the coming of age ceremony for this day.  His children wouldn't be on the bridge at this hour.  Any royal ceremony, even an invented one, took time. 

Perhaps these Fey were attending it.  But they were going to the Tabernacle side of the river, away from the palace.

And they sounded young.  At least the main speaker did.  Too young to have any ties to Nicholas.

Besides the obvious one.

Matthias finished slipping on his boots.  It was clear the three Fey didn't see him.  They would leave him be.  And he would leave them alone too.

For now.

He wasn't ready to face them. 

But he would have words with his own people.  He had been told that the Fey rarely came to Jahn.  When the Fey did come to Jahn, they worked hard at fitting in. They spoke Islander.  They dressed inconspicuously.  And they always had something to trade.

He had also been told that they never went on the Tabernacle side of the river. 

Someone had lied to him.  Or perhaps his people weren't as well informed as he thought they were.

These Fey were up to something.  They had plans.  And whatever the plans were, they couldn't be good.

Matthias clenched his fists.  The last time he had watched the Fey from the side of the river, he had been an Elder.  He had watched them take their wounded into a Shadowlands.  And he had done nothing.

He would do nothing no longer.

He touched the bottle of holy water.

Those Fey would tell him what they were about.

Or they would die trying.

SEVENTEEN

Adrian stood outside the kitchen door, sweat trickling down his back.  He had put off the baking as long as he could, but they were out of bread and breakfast rolls.  He had spent most of the morning in the kitchen, and somehow, despite his best planning, morning had become afternoon.  By then he was so hot, it no longer mattered, so he threw together some stew.  The boys would appreciate solid food for dinner.  He might even be able to get Scavenger to come up from his plot of land to the south.

Or, at least, that had been the plan.

But he had gotten as far as the kitchen door.  He was going to call Luke and Coulter in from the fields, and send one of them down to Scavenger.

But the sight of Coulter made Adrian hesitate.

Coulter sat at the edge of the tall rows of corn.  His legs were crossed, his hands resting on his knees, and his head was upturned.  He was staring at the night sky.

A shiver ran down Adrian's back.  Coulter had done that for nearly a week.  When Adrian questioned him about it, Coulter had said simply that he was feeling the sky.

Adrian didn't understand.  But then Adrian never understood Coulter.  He just loved the boy, and felt Coulter was his responsibility. 

They had met in Shadowlands, both prisoners of the Fey.  Coulter had been brought in as a baby, and ignored until, as a young boy, he saved their Prince's life.  Then they had experimented on Coulter to see why he, a true Islander, had such fantastic magickal powers.  They didn't have time to find any answers.  Adrian managed to get the boy out of there, and with the help of Scavenger, a renegade Fey, keep Coulter out of Shadowlands for good.

No one had come after them.  The Fey seemed to have forgotten them.

And Adrian liked it that way.

But raising Coulter had been one strange incident after another.  During a particularly wet planting season, he had stuck his hand into the ground and pulled out root worms.  Most farmers never saw root worms, didn't even realize they were eating the crops until the crops were mostly dead.  But Coulter found them.

And he stopped the birds from landing in the cornfields.

And one memorable afternoon, he had prevented lightning from striking the wheat.

But he had never just sat in the field like this before.  He had never studied the night sky in this way. 

It made Adrian nervous.

"Dad?"

Adrian didn't turn.  He didn't have to.  He felt Luke's presence beside him.  His son, despite their encounters with the Fey, had grown into a sturdy man.  He had not married, which disturbed Adrian, but Luke said it was because he feared getting close.

And after all the Fey had put Luke through, Adrian certainly understood.  They had spelled the boy, used him as a weapon, and set him loose among the Islanders.  He managed to survive that, but he was afraid they had tampered with more of him.  He claimed it wouldn't be fair to bring a wife and children into his life only to discover another Fey booby-trap, one that could cost his family their lives.

"What's he doing?" Adrian asked.

Luke leaned against the side of the building.  The wood walls groaned under his weight.  Luke studied Coulter.  Over the years, they had developed an understanding.  They weren't quite brothers, and they weren't quite friends.  They were something in between.  "He says something's changed in the Isle's energy."

"Whatever that means."

"He says it's not good."

Adrian sighed. "That's more than he told me."

"He says you worry too much."

"I worry?  He's the one sitting in a field because the energy has changed."  Adrian glanced at Luke.  His hair was wet and slicked back against his sunburned head.  He was muscular and strong, his hands powerful from the work in the fields.  He would give Adrian good grandchildren if he only overcame that fear, the fear the Fey gave him of himself.

"He's usually right about these things," Luke said. 

"I know."  And that bothered Adrian.  Coulter had never talked about a global change before.  Only small ones.  "I was going to send you for Scavenger.  I have fresh bread and stew."

"No wonder it's so hot here.  I can't believe you had a fire on a day like today."

"It's been this hot all week," Adrian said.  "We need food."

Luke shrugged.  "I guess it's no different than me picking rocks in the far field."

"I thought we weren't going to plant that."

"It's been a good summer," Luke said.  "If we use that field, we can get a third corn crop."

"We can't sell that much food, Luke," Adrian said. 

"I wasn't thinking of selling it," he said.

Adrian looked at him.  "What else did Coulter tell you?"

Luke grimaced.  "Nothing.  It's just I've been talking to one of the Danites.  He says they're not getting enough food down south."

"You were planning to give this away?"

"Some of it."  Luke sounded diffident.  He always sounded diffident when things mattered to him.

Adrian shook his head.  All that work for no gain?  Luke knew that Adrian hated charity.  If people wanted food, they should work for it too.  He had five acres that he didn't have enough resources to plant.  He'd give the food to anyone who worked the land.  So far no one had taken him up on it.

"How long have you been planning this?" Adrian asked.

Luke shrugged.

"When did you talk to the Danite?"

"During first planting," Luke said.  "I've been looking at that field ever since."

"Who'd nurture it?  Who'd harvest it?  And who'd pay to get the corn down south?"

"The Danite said the Tabernacle would, if we let them know."

"Danites."  Adrian crossed his arms, then when his damp skin rubbed together, uncrossed them.  It was too hot even for pique. 

"I know you don't like them.  I know you aren't fond of the Rocaanists, but they do good things."

"Like make holy water to reveal Fey spells," Adrian said.

Luke took in a breath.  Then he was silent for a long time.  Adrian felt heat rise in his cheeks.  He hadn't meant that.  Or maybe he had.  Luke hadn't been particularly religious until the Rocaan discovered the Fey spell on him.  Then Luke had embraced the religion.

Adrian had been raised in the kirk.  Most people were.  But he had taken it for what it was  —  simple rituals that kept the faithful satisfied.  He had the land to satisfy him, and the warmth of the sun, and the feel of the good brown dirt beneath his fingers.  He didn't need anything more than that.

"I'm sorry," he said.  "That was wrong."

"Yes, it was," Luke said.  "I'll do the work.  It will come from my time.  I own part of this land. It'll be my donation."