The Shaman's Curse (Dual Magics Book 1) (7 page)

Vatar was awakened from a deep sleep by the delicious smells
coming from the adjacent kitchen. He was in his comfortable bed in Uncle
Lanark’s house. He had a vague memory of a dream featuring that pretty
red-haired girl again. He’d dreamed about girls before, but always ones he
actually knew. He’d never seen anyone with hair the color of flame. He was sure
he’d have remembered that. His stomach growled, so he shook off a lingering
feeling of soaring—must have been part of that dream—and went out to see what
there was to eat.

“There you are!” Aunt Castalia greeted him when he came out.
“I’m making some of your favorites for tonight. To celebrate.”

Vatar took an appreciative sniff, hiding his disappointment
that nothing was ready yet. “It smells wonderful.”

Castalia smiled. “Thank you. But you look like they half
starved you up there at the Temple. For all the tribute the guild pays, you’d
think they’d at least feed you!” She cut him off a generous slab of her
delicious nut-and-honey bread, still warm from the oven. “Oh, Lanark wanted to
talk to you as soon as you were up. He’s in his workshop.”

Vatar grabbed a peach from the counter to go with his bread
and bit into it before heading toward the forge
.
He
paused just outside the door for several bites of the warm nut bread, then
strolled toward the forge.

Lanark looked up when Vatar’s shadow blocked the light from
the open side of the workshop. “Vatar! Come, sit down.”

Vatar sat on the bench at one side of the workshop and took
another bite of his peach. The aftermath of his manhood test had left him
feeling strangely peaceful as well as ravenously hungry.

Lanark drew a deep breath. “It should really be Lucina and
Danar telling you this. Normally, I wouldn’t even consider it, but some things
happened while you were away in the Temple and I think you need to know. Now.”

“What?” Vatar asked around a mouthful of nut bread. He
couldn’t remember seeing Uncle Lanark so flustered.

Uncle Lanark ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know
where to start. Merciful Sea Gods! I’m not even sure I know the whole story.
Pretty sure I don’t, actually. I wasn’t much older than you at the time. And I
wasn’t home much because Castalia and I were to be married that autumn.
Afterward, my father would never talk about it, either.”

“Talk about what?”

Uncle Lanark looked away. “It will be easier . . . I suppose
I should start with things you wouldn’t understand about Caere. You’ve met some
of the Fasallon now. You may have seen that the Fasallon live separately from
the rest of us Caereans.”

Vatar shrugged his shoulders. “Yes.”

“As descendants of the Sea Gods, the Fasallon strive to keep
their bloodlines pure. They almost never permit a marriage between a Fasallon
and a Caerean. In spite of that, it happens from time to time that . . .” Uncle
Lanark cleared his throat. “That a half Fasallon child is born to a Caerean
woman. Such liaisons are a huge scandal—on both sides—and often the families
try to keep it secret. No one ever succeeds. The Temple employs Searchers to
find those children. They take them away to the Temple and the families—their
mothers—never see them again.”

Vatar’s brow furrowed as he chewed and swallowed another
bite of bread. This sounded horrible, but he couldn’t see what it had to do
with him. Or why Uncle Lanark would think he needed to know this right now.
“Sounds awful. What happens to the poor babies?”

“The priests say they raise them as Fasallon.”

“What’s this got to do with me?” Vatar asked.

Uncle Lanark sat on a barrel and put his hands on his knees
as if he were bracing himself. “What do you know about how Lucina and Danar
came to marry?”

Vatar shrugged again. “Pa used to come with his father to
trade for the Lion Clan. They traded mostly with your father for the iron work
and the repairs. That’s how Pa and Mother met and Pa fell in love with her. The
year Pa was to go through his manhood test, she agreed to marry him. So he went
through the rites here so he could marry Mother right away and take her back to
the plains with him.” He took another bite of his peach.

“Yes, they were married not long after midsummer,” Uncle
Lanark said, watching Vatar’s face closely. “And you were born that winter.”

Vatar’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t see what Uncle Lanark was
implying. That was early for a Dardani couple. It was more usual to wait two
years before . . . Wait. What? His birth was near the end of First Wolf, only
about seven months from midsummer. His feeling of tranquility evaporated as a
wave of cold coursed through him and settled in his belly. “That’s not right.”

Uncle Lanark put a hand on Vatar’s shoulder. “Yes it is. I
was at the wedding.”

“But—”

Uncle Lanark squeezed Vatar’s shoulder and went on. “Before
she married Danar, Lucina was training with the Healers. The Fasallon Healers.
Up at the Temple. Sometimes they take ordinary non-Fasallon students. They
can’t become full Healers, of course, but they can be taught to take care of
more minor wounds or to help a more seriously injured person until they can get
to the Healers. Some are even allowed to work as assistants in the Healers
Hall.”

Uncle Lanark shook his head. “I’m letting myself be
sidetracked. Back to the point. I never knew the full story, but it was one of
them up at the Healers’ Hall. Lucina was already pregnant when she married Danar.
He knew, of course. That’s why his manhood rites were rushed and they left for
the plains right after. To protect you from the Searchers.”

Vatar dropped the rest of the peach from numbed fingers.
Aunt Castalia’s good nut bread turned to a hard lump in his stomach. That would
mean . . . Pa wasn’t really his father. “No.”

“Yes, Vatar,” Uncle Lanark said, his voice filled with
urgency. “Now listen. Only four people in the world know what I’ve just told
you. Lucina, Danar, myself, and now you. Even Castalia doesn’t know. A few
others may suspect, but no one else
knows
.

“Lucina’s greatest fear in bringing you here was that the
Searchers would find you. She made me promise to keep you safe and I’ve tried.
But now it seems someone suspects the truth. Danar and Lucina are beyond their
reach. I won’t tell them more than I can help. Although—this is important—you
must never tell a direct lie to the priests. Some of them are Sooth Tellers.
They can read a lie. But there are still two things that could give you away.”

“What?” Vatar asked. He felt like he was asking the question
from the bottom of a deep hole.

“First: Your eyes. Grey eyes like yours are a mark of the
Fasallon, but we can pass them off as being due to your supposed Dardani
heritage. Second: Your real father, whoever he is. There’s always a danger that
he might somehow recognize you or remember Lucina. So, stay away from the
Fasallon as much as you possibly can.”

Vatar sucked in a breath against the constriction in his
chest. The one thing he knew was that he had to cling to whatever scraps of his
identity were left. “Pa is my real father.”

Uncle Lanark nodded. “In all the ways that matter, he is.
But the man who sired you, whoever he is, is still a danger to you.”

Vatar turned to his uncle, fixing on this one thing to hold
the rest away for a little longer. “Why? I’m not a baby.” He fingered his new
torc. “I’m a grown man. What could they do now?”

Uncle Lanark shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.
As you said, you’re a man. And you have family and a powerful guild to protect
you. But . . . I’ve never known them to allow a half Fasallon to escape the
Searchers. So, be careful anyway, eh?”

Vatar nodded distantly.

“Are you all right?” Uncle Lanark asked.

Vatar shrugged his uncle’s hand off his shoulder. The last
thing he wanted right now was sympathy. He couldn’t deal with that right now.
What he wanted . . . what he wanted was to be alone for a while to have a
chance to make sense of all this. “I think I’ll take a walk. Thank you for
telling me the truth.”

Vatar walked blindly out of the yard and drifted through the
city streets. His aimless wandering carried him out through the city gates
where he had last seen his parents and his sister. He followed the same path
they had taken up into the hills.

In one day—in one hour—most of what he had believed constant
in the world had shifted under his feet. He was not who he had always believed
himself to be. So who was he?

If Pa wasn’t his father, then . . . was he even Dardani? If
he wasn’t Dardani, then what was he? Where did he belong? Vatar shook his head.
No, that wasn’t true. He put his hand over the spot above his heart where the
tattoo of the paw print of a lion marked him as Lion Clan. He’d been accepted
by his clan. He bore the Clan mark. That made him Dardani. But . . .

And someone from the Healers’ Hall? He’d seen a little of
what the Healers did here when apprentices injured themselves. Hot metal, sharp
or heavy implements—there were a lot of ways an inattentive or clumsy
apprentice could get hurt in a smithy. The way some of those injuries had been
magically healed by a trip to the Healer’s Hall roused a superstitious fear in
Vatar. Someone who could work that kind of magic was his real father. The very
thought made Vatar shudder. No. He couldn’t possibly have anything like that in
his blood. It. Was. Not. Possible.

He refused to even think about that. Pa . . . Pa had lied to
him. Mother, too. Vatar’s jaw clenched as the cold lump in his belly melted
into hot anger. His pace quickened and his foot stomped down with every step.
Why hadn’t he been told about this long ago? Among the Dardani, Lucina’s
earlier relationship, even a child, were no shame. But such children grew up
knowing who their fathers were.

He clenched his fists until he felt his work-blunted nails
biting into his palms. No wonder Pa had brought him to Caere and left him here.
He wanted to be rid of the child that wasn’t his. Vatar blew out a breath. That
was unjust. Pa had never once shown less love or concern for Vatar than he had for
Kiara. No, Pa had brought him here to protect him from Maktaz, just as he had
said. It had been Vatar’s own decision to stay and become a smith.

Vatar snorted and his shoulders stiffened. Maybe Pa hadn’t
wanted to get rid of him, but he still hadn’t told him the truth, either. This
shouldn’t have been kept from him. He should have known especially if he was in
some kind of danger. Why leave him here without the knowledge to protect
himself? Right then, what he wanted most was to be able to confront Mother and
Pa. But that wasn’t possible. Not yet. He would have to wait until summer. But
then he
would
get some answers.

~

Vatar wet back to work at Uncle Lanark’s forge, but he found
it hard to concentrate. He couldn’t reach the calm, focused state in which he
usually worked. He hardly heard the fierce song of the iron at all. At odd
moments, his uncle’s revelations would blot out everything else. He tried to
pour his confusion and anger out into the iron.

Vatar swore as another piece broke under his hammer. He
tossed the remnants into the barrel of water and paced across the workshop
trying to calm himself. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Nothing brought him
joy. What was the point of any of it?

He spun at the sound of heavy footsteps and watched  a
squad of the Temple Guard—Caere’s only police force—march into Uncle Lanark’s
courtyard.

“We seek the one called Vatar,” the leader of the squad
announced.

Vatar stepped forward. “I’m Vatar.”

The leader nodded. “You will come with us.”

“Why?” Vatar asked.

“Where are you taking him?” Uncle Lanark asked
simultaneously.

“To the Palace. Someone there wants to talk to him.” The
leader turned to head back out to the street.

Without another word, the Guard formed into a block around
Vatar and marched him away, forcing him to keep pace with them. They continued
without speaking to him all the way to the Temple district. From there, he was
herded onto a small pier and loaded onto a boat. Vatar had no time to protest.
He could only grip the sides of the boat so hard he nearly left an imprint in
the dry wood and close his eyes to try to block out the water that surrounded
him. That didn’t block out either the smell of salt and seaweed or the sound of
the waves, though. None of the guards spoke to him as they rowed across to the
large island that supported the Palace of the Fasallon.

When they finally bumped against the pier, Vatar opened his
eyes. The Palace filled his entire field of vision, covering the island. The
guards ushered Vatar off the boat and up the large stone staircase to the
entrance. The Entrance Hall was not what Vatar expected from the grand exterior
of the building. It was a dark, narrow, windowless hallway, furnished with a
few chairs and one desk at the far end. A harried, middle-aged man sat at the desk.

“We were told this one was wanted here,” the leader
announced.

“And just who is ‘this one’? If I could read minds I
wouldn’t be sitting at this desk,” the older man answered, without even looking
up.

“Vatar the Smith.”

“Ah! Yes!” he said, looking up at last. “Put him in the
first room on the left. I’ll notify Veleus that he’s here.”

The Guard escorted Vatar into a large room and left him
there, alone. The room was furnished with several comfortably padded chairs and
a couple of low tables. Nevertheless, the walls seemed to close in on him.
Vatar crossed to the windows and stood looking back towards Caere. He couldn’t
wade across that distance, even if the water was shallow enough, which he was
sure it wasn’t. He was trapped here until they chose to let him go.

Before long, the door opened and another middle-aged man
entered. Vatar spun to face him. Far from the harried appearance of the man at
the desk, this one had a very dignified air. He exuded confidence and power.
For a moment, they stood still looking at one another.