The Sigil Blade (26 page)
“Rhol has Vannin tracking your movements, and he made the harbormasters deny you any other means of employment. They all also have instructions to refuse you passage off of the island.”
Edryd didn’t know what to believe. He had assumed that Vannin worked for Seoras. He would have to see what Irial could tell him, because he wasn’t ready to believe Seoras.
“And this Logaeir, he is one of the Ascomanni?” Edryd asked. He didn’t know how much Seoras knew, but he had to at least pretend to be ignorant.
Seoras fixed his eyes on Edryd in long penetrating stare. “The soldier friend you were speaking to just now obviously came here on an Ascomanni ship, and will be leaving on one as well. Don’t tell me you don’t know who Logaeir is. He’s probably in the cottage right now.”
“Why would he be here?”
“He will be expecting you to help when the Ascomanni attack An Innis,” Seoras suggested. “Probably hopes that you can keep me away from the battle when it happens.”
His guesses were all hitting the mark, if they were guesses at all. Denying any of it would amount to much the same thing as proving the suspicions. Whatever Seoras thought he knew, there was nothing to be gained by confirming it for him.
“If you really haven’t met him yet, you will be interested to know that he is the one who is attacking ships around An Innis claiming to be the Blood Prince,” Seoras clarified. “None of this matters though. It isn’t Esivh Rhol or Logaeir that I came to warn you about.”
“No,” Edryd laughed, “why would the interests of the ruler of An Innis, or the leader of a company of pillaging warriors pose a threat that would merit a warning?”
“There are worse things that frequent this island, I can assure you,” Seoras said. “I am about to have some unpleasant houseguests. They may be here as soon as tomorrow.”
“Draugar,” Edryd guessed.
“Not a correct name for them,” Seoras confirmed, “but yes.”
Edryd recalled a conversation he had once had with Irial, and this felt eerily like an echo of that earlier discussion of these creatures. She worked for the man, and so must have picked up on how he spoke of them. Still, it bothered Edryd how closely Seoras’s reaction to the term draugar had mirrored Irial’s. “Reason enough to be away when they arrive I suppose,” Edryd concluded.
“They are following rumors of the Blood Prince and at least one of them knows you on sight,” Seoras replied, clearly thinking that Edryd was not taking the news seriously enough. “These creatures cannot be killed and they are more dangerous than you know. Logaeir did you no favors by making use of your name.”
“No, he didn’t,” Edryd agreed. “He will realize that he has done himself some harm too when he ends up face to face with an angry immortal creature wanting to know why he isn’t me.”
“That might be funny to see, if he had any chance of surviving the experience,” Seoras said, laughing as he imagined it. “He is about to get his first up-close look at a true Ash Man.”
“I will be glad that I am not him then,” Edryd joked.
“If he tells them where you are, you will wish you weren’t you,” Seoras warned.
“I will stay away until they have gone. I’m only too happy to take a few days off while you catch up with these friends of yours.”
Seoras reacted with a look of concern. He couldn’t tell if Edryd was being serious or not. “That isn’t good enough,” he said. “These creatures won’t kill you Edryd. They will bind you and deliver you to my master. You will be forced to serve him unless you leave the island tonight.”
It wasn’t that Edryd needed convincing. He just didn’t know where he would go or how he would get there. The Ascomanni encampment wouldn’t be safe; the draugar would be hoping to find him there. A better option would be too flee by ship. Logaeir would have plenty of incentive to leave with him.
As if anticipating Edryd’s concerns, Seoras offered a solution that was more of an order than it was a suggestion. “You leave the same way you came, across the causeway. They don’t like being near anything deeper than a few feet of water. If one of them should pick up your trail, it might be hesitant to follow it across.”
Edryd did not much enjoy the idea of spending time with Logaeir as a travelling companion, but getting away in his fastest ship still seemed like a better idea. It wasn’t an alternative he wanted to share with Seoras though.
“A few miles inland, there are some old ruins,” Seoras suggested.
“These would be the same ruins that haunt the dreams of the inhabitants of Ann Innis?”
“They are not dangerous,” assured Seoras. “At least not in the way that people think they are. But they are old—predating the last age. You in particular should find them interesting.”
“All right,” Edryd agreed. “I can forage for a while. While I was on the mainland on my way in, I noticed plenty of wildlife.”
“I will come when it is safe to return,” Seoras promised.
“I need to know one thing,” Edryd said. “Who is this master of yours?”
Seoras paused, considering the question. “I think that is something I’m not prepared to explain just yet,” he answered. “It is enough that as yet he has no hold on you. Just know that it would be a bad result for both of us if that ever changes.”
Edryd could see that Seoras was not going to explain any more than he had.
“I can’t stay any longer,” Seoras said. “There are preparations I need to make before morning.”
“Don’t let me stop you, I will be off of the island before the night is over,” Edryd promised.
Edryd watched Seoras fade into the distance before making his way back to the cottage. Logaeir better still be there, he thought to himself. Surely his patron amongst the Ascomanni would be able to appreciate the wisdom of getting far away, and doing so as quickly as possible.
When Edryd returned to the cottage, Logaeir was still there. He was standing alongside Irial and Krin, all crowding the entrance as Edryd opened the door.
“What was he doing here?” Logaeir demanded. “Why were you talking to him? What were you talking about?”
“He came to warn… ” Edryd began to explain.
“He knows who you are,” Logaeir said, anticipating that Edryd would surely confirm his fears.
“He overheard me talking with Ruach. That did give it away,” Edryd admitted. From the other end of the room, Ruach and Oren looked on in confusion. They did not know who it was everyone was talking about, or why they were all so concerned.
“He came to warn you about something?” Irial asked, bringing things into focus.
“Draugar will be in An Innis, possibly as soon as tomorrow morning. They have come looking for me.”
There was a collection of audible gasps as nearly everyone in the room reacted. Oren and Ruach took the information evenly, probably convinced that there were no such things in the world, but Krin, Logaeir and Irial were all well aware of the truth. Eithne was there as well behind everyone else, looking appropriately worried.
“This isn’t uncommon,” Irial said, trying to build the argument against overreacting to the news. “They come regularly, several times a year. It doesn’t mean that they know you are here or that they are looking for you.”
“They don’t know that I’m here,” Edryd agreed. “But they do know that an idiot, who has been boldly flying the banners of the Blood Prince, has been capturing ships and cargo in and around An Innis.”
Logaeir’s face went white. He didn’t even notice the insult, he was too aware of the danger he had put himself in.
Krin seized the opportunity to put forward a plan. “The two of you need to get on my ship, and we need to sail as far away from here as fast as we can,” he concluded. Edryd was glad to learn someone was thinking along the exact same lines that he was.
“No,” Logaeir said. “They are looking for Aisen, but when they start tracing the source of these rumors, it will lead back to me. If they don’t find someone, they won’t stop looking and we will have to keep running. I can’t afford that, it will ruin everything.”
“If they find and kill you, might that not even more thoroughly ruin your damned plans?” Krin argued. “I’m not saying that would trouble me much, but I wouldn’t expect you to stay and face down one of those things.”
“I’m not an important part of my plans,” Logaeir countered somewhat oddly, seemingly lost in thought, unaware that he was sharing those thoughts with everyone. “Aisen is, and so are the Ascomanni, but—“
“When are you going to learn that that name is dangerous?” Edryd shouted, tired of hearing Logaeir utter the name which he had so often and so unwisely put to ill-use. “Throwing it around, especially right now, is going to end up getting someone killed.”
Edryd’s anger shocked Logaeir back into a more coherent state. “You are right of course,” he agreed, surprising Edryd. “This is my fault,” he admitted, “so I think we can all agree that it is appropriate that I take the necessary risks to fix it.”
“Risk your own life, not everyone else’s,” Edryd responded. “You may not want to take Krin’s offer, but I will be getting on his ship and leaving tonight.”
“Hold on,” said Krin, “let’s hear what he would do instead.”
“What did Seoras say?” Logaeir asked.
“He wants me to cross the causeway and hide in the forests on the mainland,” Edryd said without any trace of enthusiasm.
“I think that’s the right thing to do,” Logaeir said, sounding uncertain.
“Seoras will be so pleased to hear that you agree with him,” Edryd said with an exaggerated sharpness which bespoke his low opinion of the idea.
Undeterred, Logaeir continued to explain. “It is important to remember that they don’t actually know you are here. If we run, it will signal that we knew they were coming. They would reason out that Seoras warned you. But if they learn that I am an imposter, they will leave once they have confirmed it. I will make them see what they are probably already expecting. It will even make them dismiss any future news that places you here as just more false rumors.”
Edryd had to admit the reasoning was sound. Logaeir seemed reckless and frivolous, but only if you were not paying close attention. He had a mind for strategy that had to be respected.
“I would still rather go with Krin,” Edryd said to Logaeir. “If you don’t want to come along, that’s up to you.”
“Let’s try Logaeir’s plan first,” Krin said. “It will be his skin in the fire. If it goes wrong, we will still be able to get you out of here.”
Things were not going well. Logaeir had persuaded the only person here with a ship. Irial stepped close to Edryd. “I need you to give this a chance,” she whispered. “We have plans that will come to nothing if you leave now.”
Edryd was embarrassed. He had given no thought to what he had promised Irial. In a room that included his subordinates, a woman and a young girl, and two criminals, he was distinguishing himself as the biggest of cowards. None of them are being hunted by draugar, he thought to himself, and then felt even worse, reflecting with shame on his selfish reaction, knowing that these people were all taking dangerous risks on his behalf.
“All right,” Edryd said, “we go with Seoras’s plan.” He wasn’t going to call it Logaeir’s plan; he was feeling too spiteful for that. Either way, Irial’s endorsement had set Edryd’s path. He had no choice but to see where it led.
The Construct Chamber
D
ark shapes were silhouetted in the midmorning sunlight, revealed now as arched walls which loomed above the bed of pine needles that Edryd had slept in. He had spent the night shivering in the cold after having made his way to the edge of the ruins and finding it too dark to either build or locate better shelter.
The oversized stonework structures made Edryd feel small, but they were dominated by another even more impressive feature of the landscape, massive towering trees which cast everything in perpetual shadows. Edryd could not get a sense for the scale of the place. There were no forests like this in Nar Edor, and while he had seen even larger stone constructions, including the Port Citadel, none of those could be compared to the sophistication of the buildings in this ruined city. The structures were pitted with age, but it only added to the beauty of the intricately shaped blocks that created complex spans and rising columns throughout the diverse architecture.
Seoras had said it predated the last age, which would put the civilization that built all of this more than a thousand years in the past. Edryd could easily believe that the ruined city was at least that old. Looking like something grown out of the rocks of the forest, the city had lost much of what once would have marked it as a place of human habitation.
Compelled by an overpowering desire to explore, the appeasement of which became his most immediate concern, Edryd passed on beyond the crumbling walls, drawn in toward what he imagined to be the still pulsing heart of the city. Guided by skeletal remains of buildings long since reclaimed by the forest, Edryd wandered into the depths of the place and lost all track of the passage of time. The morning was all but spent when Edryd reached an opening where five evenly spaced towers, positioned in a circle, anchored the center of the city in place.
Four of the towers, seemingly unaffected by time, stood proudly still, each of them pristine and perfectly smooth in appearance, as though formed from uniform and unbroken dark grey granite pillars. The fifth tower lay collapsed in a circular mounding of broken rubble piled to more than double Edryd’s height. In the midst of these spires, at the center of a slightly inclined hill, a set of wide spiraling stairs led down into the earth.
Edryd hesitated when he came to the steps. He had no means to light the way. Curiosity won out over the pounding in his veins that warned him to stop, and it continued to force him forward when after a single turn of the stairwell, the light began to disappear. Edryd kept a hand on the outer wall for stability, and was greatly startled when it abruptly fell away. The stairway, now supported solely by a thick central pillar, extended just one more turn before the passage emptied onto a landing at the bottom, but Edryd did not know this yet. He conquered the remaining descent only by fighting against a growing terror that intensified with each downward step that he took into the darkness.
Once he reached the floor, Edryd did not dare leave the foot of the stairs. Echoes from his footfalls on the stairwell had made hollow sounds which suggested his enclosure within a vast open expanse. He felt that if he were to move from where he was, he would never find the landing again. The darkness was complete. Not even a bare hint of light made it this far from the opening in the ceiling. He wondered if he might get a little illumination at the height of the afternoon when the sun was directly overhead, but Edryd didn’t intend to remain in this place as long as that.
The air felt heavy around him and a strange pressure was building inside his head. Edryd tried to ignore his physical senses. In the darkness there was no need to shut his eyes, and if he remained still there were no sounds, but he could not rid himself of the damp on his skin or the cold smell of stone that saturated the air.
Edryd failed to fully achieve what he had only once accomplished before, but he did succeed to a degree, and his efforts were not wasted. His awareness was now dominated by the five immense towers, their footings sunk in the earth to a depth that exceeded their height above the ground. The towers and the chamber operated together as a mechanism of sorts, broken and out of balance due to the collapsed tower. They no longer functioned for their original purposes, but the towers continued to be repositories for, and conduits of, immense energies.
His head aching fiercely now, Edryd made the decision to leave. He stumbled up the stairs, impaired by a clinging thickness to the air that resisted his efforts to climb. The darkness that he felt in this place had nothing to do with an absence of light. Edryd emerged into the open from out of the chamber, feeling as if he were taking his first desperate breaths of air after having been held submerged at the bottom of a pool of water, and realized that he had in fact been holding his breath.
Moving as quickly as he could manage, Edryd ran and did not stop until he fell, collapsing on the ground well past the borders of the ancient ruins. He crawled to a tree, and resting his back against its base, positioned himself so that the massive tree would shield him from the darkness in the city. For a time in that chamber, he had felt immense. His physical body had felt so frail and feeble that he wondered how it could withstand all that it held within it.
Had Seoras known? Had he intended for this to happen? Seoras had said only that the ruins were not dangerous in the way people believed. He had not said that there was no danger. Perhaps Seoras had given a warning of sorts, but that warning had been incomplete and despairingly inadequate. It was as though while crossing a stream, Seoras had given assurances to Edryd that he needn’t worry about the depth of the water, while keeping silent about the swift currents that would grab hold and wash him away. Edryd had been caught in that current and plunged into the depths at the bottom of a steep fall. He had not taken physical harm, but Edryd knew that he would never be free of the memory of the place, or the idea of a damp clinging residue that defiled his skin with filth and corruption.
***
It had been a while since Irial had made the trip into town without Edryd beside her, and it felt strange now to walk unprotected in the near darkness of the morning. It was a revelation for Irial to see how strongly she now felt the absence of something that she had so unexpectedly grown accustomed to. Edryd’s company and friendship had given her a sense of security that Irial had, until this moment, never fully appreciated. And with thoughts of what she knew would be in residence at the estate when she arrived, Irial had other reasons for feeling especially nervous and vulnerable today.
Irial knew of at least two specific variations among the ashen creatures that came to see Seoras, but she had only ever seen the least dangerous of these—dry desiccated personages whose dull grey skin smelled strongly of balsam resin mixed with fragrant spices. The sweet odor came from the application of a preservative mixture that was carefully attended to by their thralls. With limited success, it sealed the scent of disease and decay that would have otherwise been overpowering.
Irial knew far less about the others, who were of an ethereal nature and entirely devoid of lasting physical form. That she had never seen them was not a sign that Irial had never been near one, it only meant they had never had a reason to reveal to her their presence, for which circumstance she knew that she should consider herself blessed. They gave off a less intense but otherwise identical smell of death and decay, but it lacked the sweet perfumed odor of their counterparts. Irial knew these smells from experience, and she was conditioned as all people naturally are, to fear its source.
These monsters had come and gone regularly over the past ten years, beginning from when Seoras had first returned to the island. They came to take possession of the men trained by Seoras to serve as their thralls, and they were the original source of all the legends in An Innis about the Ash Men. Logaeir had capitalized on their reputations, creatures mistakenly regarded as plague victims returned from death, by having his men cover their faces with a thick grey pigment made of ashes mixed with animal fat, appropriating the term ‘Ascomanni’ with the same bold and reckless disregard that had led him to impersonate the Blood Prince—having done both for many of the same purposes.
When she arrived at the property, Irial learned from Tolvanes that there were two new occupants in rooms within the westernmost of the barracks buildings. Two Thralls meant at least one of the creatures, but possibly two, staying in prepared quarters up at the manor.
“One of them is Thovin,” Tolvanes said. “I didn’t recognize the other, but they change so much it can be hard to tell them apart after a while. He looks as if he travelled to the next realm and returned to this one lacking a certain something that he first departed with.”
Irial experienced an involuntary shudder, having understood quite perfectly what Tolvanes had meant. She would have known both of these men and attended to them during the time they had spent training under Seoras. After a short time in service to a draugr, if ever she saw them again, these thralls returned as dangerous husks, soulless versions of the men they once were, often unrecognizable and showing no signs that they remembered much of their past lives. That they no longer remembered her, Irial could feel grateful for. Sharing recollections would only have been painful for them and difficult for her. Despite this, Irial was determined to talk with Thovin, believing that a short conversation could yield important information.
She entered Thovin’s room carrying a pitcher of warm water and some towels. Thovin, without looking up, and showing no more awareness of Irial’s presence than was essential, allowed her a clear path to the basin which rested on a table against the back wall. When, after setting them down, Irial in turn allowed some space in which to make use of the items she had brought, Thovin moved forward and began to wash his face as though she were not there. Either Irial was beneath his notice, or he was deliberately ignoring her. Irial suspected the latter and saw it as confirmation that he remembered who she was.
“If there is anything else you need, Thovin?” Irial said.
“No,” he replied, answering the question quickly to discourage further conversation.
Undaunted, Irial pressed further. “Is it just you and…”
“Hilek,” Thovin finished for her, sticking to his pattern of minimalist responses.
Irial remembered Hilek. After completing his training with Seoras he had been taken as a thrall four years ago. Thovin had been gone only six months.
“And you are both bound to the same…”
Thovin frowned, carefully considering his response. “You don’t want to be too curious, Irial,” he warned.
Irial drew back. She was being clumsy and far too obvious.
Thovin’s serious expression changed, remorseful over having frightened her, and he tried to explain. “Being bound to Herja isn’t just a tether. She has a connection with my mind, and through her I have a connection to Hilek. Trust me—you don’t want the attentions of either one of them. We shouldn’t talk again.”
“I’m sorry,” Irial apologized. “I’m really sorry,” she said again as she backed out of the room and Thovin closed the door.
Irial was sorry. She wished that she could somehow help Thovin, but also understood that it was much too late. She could give him no comfort, and had caused him pain instead. In the process, Irial had also frightened herself half to death. However, balanced against the impairment of these regrets, the conversation with Thovin had still been a successful one. Irial could now confirm that there was only one of the creatures here, and more than that, she had discovered its name. As unprecedented a piece of knowledge as that was, she had been even more surprised to discover that Herja was female. Irial couldn’t recall ever seeing a draugr whose figure showed even a hint of feminine qualities, and if she had ever thought of any of these monsters in terms gender, she had imagined that they were all male.
Curiosity overwhelmed caution and all good sense. Without stopping to give it the careful thought it deserved, she made her way up to the manor. Irial wanted to know what Herja looked like. She had nearly finished the trip up the hillside before it occurred to her that the entire premise might be flawed. If Herja was of the ethereal variety, there wouldn’t be anything to see. Maybe all the females were of this kind. It would explain why Irial had never seen one.
Entering the manor through a servant’s entrance, Irial began looking for Seoras, heading towards the small study just off of the library where the Shaper spent most of his time. Irial smelled a distinctive balsam fragrance as she approached, and so she knew to prepare herself for what she would see as she entered the room. Nothing would have ever prepared her. A thin grey-skinned woman turned her head as Irial entered.
She wasn’t a woman exactly—she wasn’t even human for that matter—but apart from skin color, the differences were subtle. Herja was tall, almost as tall as Seoras, and so slender that she appeared fragile. Her arms were bare but her chest was covered by a loose black tunic that was held in place by dark plates of metal armor at the shoulders and across her waist. Dark pleats of folded crimson cloth encircled her hips. Narrow golden bands circled both of her wrists and she wore a golden pendant around her neck. Herja’s pale clouded eyes were housed in an expressionless face, and dark black hair which fell over her shoulders terminated in a series of loose braids midway down her back.
Herja had a regal bearing, and if she could have better disguised the fact that she was essentially a skeleton covered in dry cracked pieces of dead flesh, she might have been beautiful. Irial had seen these creatures more than once, but those she had seen had always taken great care to remain completely cloaked and shrouded, and none had ever so completely terrified her before.
