The Swordsman's Oath (Einarinn 2) (67 page)

Guilt tormented him, to be swept aside by the motion of a violent sea, tossing and swamping a vessel caught in the teeth of a rending storm. Lightning flashed overhead, sparking eerie phosphorescence from the timbers and lashed-up rig of a skiff with no business out on the open ocean. A man wrestled with the tiller, himself tied to the thwarts with a knot of thick rope; Temar heard the desperate mariner’s thoughts clearly. He would fight his way clear of the storm or sink with the ship; if he could not save his precious cargo, both living and that held in unknowing, enchanted sleep, Dastennin could cast him to drown for eternity with Poldrion’s demons in the river of shades. It was Vahil, Temar realized, some measure of awareness returning to him just before it slid from the feeble grasp of his mind.

The echo of steps in a lofty hall was the next thing he knew, a purposeful stride, crisp with determination.

“Have you considered our petition?” A female voice rang out from some unseen direction, Temar struggling to register anything beyond a dull grayness swirling all around.

“Do you have any idea what you are asking?” It was a Sieur’s reply, confident enough to make a refusal with comforting eloquence. “Even if such an expedition could be organized, we could not sail before the latter half of spring, and Saedrin only knows what we will find. With the Empire falling asunder on all sides, you are asking me to risk men and material on a quest to find a new and most dangerous foe, doing nothing more in all likelihood than giving these marauders fresh encouragement to sail to encompass our own destruction!”

“We cannot leave them like this!” Elsire was weeping now, Temar realized distantly, a longing to comfort her welling up inside him.

“May we have your permission to contact the Shrine of Ostrin in Bremilayne?” Vahil’s voice was rough with emotion, his pain a bright goad in the leaden mists that wreathed around Temar.

“You may, of course,” the Sieur replied wearily. “The Healer grant that they might be able to help you, though I should warn you they have troubles enough of their own just at present.”

Temar’s awareness shied away from the heavy weight of the Sieur’s despair and dissolved into the dullness of the haze.

The scent of thyme crushed under the hooves of a galloping horse mingled with the acrid dust of the road and the sharp reek of the beast’s sweat. A scream rang out and Temar heard foul curses spat from all directions as the clash of swords struck sparks from his sleeping mind. Harness rattled and creaked, the swish and snap of a whip with its promise of pain to spur on the already desperate. A dire sense of urgency possessed him, a desperation mingled with an arrogance that soon shifted to fear, uncertainty and pain. The bite of the sword was as deep in the mind as into the body and Temar struggled in a futile effort to rid himself of the panic that was flooding him, its tendrils dragging him down as surely as weeds would drown a swimmer. Sudden agony overwhelmed him to be replaced by an emptiness even more horrible, until the darkness claimed him once more.

“So what exactly are you and how do I unlock your secrets?” Temar awoke with a start to see a hawk-faced man with flaxen hair stooping over him. Terror filled him but in that same instant he realized the man with the piercing blue eyes was not looking at him but at something to one side. He was himself still disembodied, no more than a shade crying to Poldrion for passage to the Otherworld, Temar realized. Who was this man? Memory struggled to knit together the tangled skeins of recollection and a distant echo of pain and terror sounded dimly in Temar’s reason. Pale heads in the dawn sunlight flashed across his mind’s eye and a terrible sense of danger began to build in Temar as the blond, cold-eyed man began a low murmur of enchantment, a tainted miasma overlying the image Temar was seeing. This time Temar reached desperately for the mists of the enchantment that concealed him, diving into the concealing depths to evade the poisonous touch of the sorcerer.

Light seared him like a burning brand.

“Come on, Viltred, move! They’re nearly on us!”

In a gateway, the speaker stood, intense eyes in a pale face, reddish hair streaked with white swirling in the biting wind. His companion hurried after him, burdened with a motley collection of jewelry, weapons and trinkets. The first man ran, long legs spurning the short grass while his companion, shorter and more sturdy, dark of hair and beard, plunged after him, the long skirts of his azure surcoat threatening to trip him at every stride. Temar was silent in helpless anguish as trifles slipped from his grasp to be lost in the uneven ground.

Quarrels thudded into the turf on all sides, but as Temar despaired of the two men ever escaping the arrows were snatched out of the air by unseen hands, blue light streaming from the bearded man’s hands, brilliance startling against the overcast.

“Here, Azazir, it’s here!” Suddenly they were at a cliff’s edge, black basalt columns forming a perilous stair to a tiny coracle, which bobbed seemingly untethered in the tumultuous foam of the breaking seas.

“Watch your step,” the red-headed man shouted, an insane exultation in his voice as he skipped lightly down the treacherous rocks, sure-footed as a cat. The younger man picked his way down more carefully, testing his footing at every step. Spray lashed him, bitter cold biting deep into flesh and bones as he made the long and hazardous descent.

Yells from aloft signalled the arrival of pursuit but as black-clad warriors gathered at the cliff-top and a few bolder than the rest began to edge down the slick and treacherous rocks, the red-headed man reached the flimsy leather boat. Standing easily in the frail craft, he raised his hands and green light gathered around him, casting an unearthly light on his thin face. Where the sea spray landed on the rocks, it began to cling, to pool, to draw together, drops making rivulets that joined to stream down the black stones, pushing at feet and hands. As the younger man reached the sanctuary of the tiny craft, he dumped his burden and wove his own skein of blue light, gusts of wind snatching at heads and shoulders, sharp blasts of icy air tugging at legs and feet. The first to fall shrieked in utter terror as he fell to his fate in the icy foam, the second clawed frantically at his neighbor, only to drag him down too, smashed on the unforgiving rocks before the seas claimed the bodies as their own. A wild exultation filled Temar, but before he could seize it the swirling mists swept over him as surely as the icy seas of his vision.

A longing filled Temar with an intensity beyond anything he had known. Guinalle. She was gone, not lost but hidden, a jewel buried deep in the earth as surely as the finest gem Misaen ever minted, not rough and unpolished but sleeping in peerless beauty, waiting only to be revealed to those that sought her. He shook off a sudden image of green eyes, dark with passion against unbleached linen in a tumble of auburn hair and determination filled him. He had to escape this, whatever this was, to reach out and find some way to rescue Guinalle. Nothing less would do.

The ruins of the Den Rannion steading,

Kel Ar’Ayen, 43rd of Aft-Summer

“Are you awake?” Livak propped herself on one elbow to look curiously at me, her eyes huge in the light of the moons, both at the half, greater waning, lesser waxing to the full that would signify the arrival of For-Autumn.

I nodded and heaved a long sigh. “I am now.”

“You’ve been dreaming?” she asked with that uncertainty that I was truly coming to hate in her voice.

“Dreaming someone else’s dreams, as far as I can make out.” I sat and stretched to work the stiffness out of my shoulders. Temar might have suffered terrors made worse by his bodilessness, I thought to myself, but I’d wager I was suffering enough for the pair of us with the knots his memories were tying my sleeping muscles into. “I think I’ve been seeing something of what Temar’s been perceiving over the generations, when someone’s emotions have been running sufficiently strong to make some kind of connection with him, if that makes any sense.”

Even in the modest moonlight, I could see Livak looking both dubious and confused. A qualm of fear chilled me in the midst of the warmth of the night as it occurred to me to wonder what might happen when Temar’s dreams included me. Would I see myself through his eyes? Sitting up, I looked across the gloomy enclosure to see a faint green glow betraying Shiv’s magelight. I ruffled Livak’s unbraided hair with an affectionate hand. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep again for a while,” I whispered. “I’m going to stretch my legs.”

“Have one for me,” she said sleepily, voice muffled by her blanket.

When I drew closer to Shiv, I saw he was talking in a low voice with Tonin. The mentor had a small chest between his outstretched legs and I caught an unmistakable glint of gold in the magelight.

“Rysh.” Shiv looked up with a welcoming smile. “Can’t you sleep?”

“Not without my uninvited guest taking over my dreams,” I replied as lightly as I could.

“We’ve been discussing how to go about the scrying in the morning,” explained Shiv.

“Did you say you’d been dreaming of the colony again?” Tonin looked up, expression inquisitive, so I reached into his casket to forestall further questions.

“What are these?” I picked out a small brooch, dropping it instantly as a shock like the spark from cat’s fur stung my fingers.

“Some of the colony’s artifacts,” Tonin retrieved the ring with careful fingers and rolled it lovingly in a scrap of silk.

“What we need now is to find the people they belong to,” said Shiv, frustration lifting his voice loud enough to raise a few heads from their blankets.

“Do you think we could have a little less disturbance?” A waspish request came from a dark bundle and I identified it with some surprise as Viltred. I’d have thought the old wizard would have stayed on the ship, given a choice.

“Does anything strike a chord with you?” Tonin offered me the casket and I reached hesitantly for a plain gold ring, the kind that men at home still give their wives to mark their child’s first steps. Resting it in the palm of my hand, I tentatively loosened my hold on the bars that held Temar behind closed doors. Nothing resulted, leaving me feeling absurdly disappointed. I shook my head, more than a little mystified.

Tonin removed the ring and laid a chatelaine across my hand, the long chains jingling softly as the keys, knife and purse swung to and fro. Still feeling nothing, I handed it back and took the casket from Tonin. For the most part, it contained rings, some plain, others ornamented with enamel or engraving, a few heavy cabochons and more seals that must have been worn for generations before crossing the ocean in hopes of reaffirming their ownership. Faceted gems on rings and other jewelry shone soft and secretive in the fugitive moonlight. I reached down to find a slim dagger in an ivory sheath. A smear of brazing showed where the hilt had been repaired after that scuffle with Vahil, I noted, but otherwise the trifle that had betrayed Den Domesin’s noble birth was still an elegant piece. I smiled at the memory of Albarn’s chagrin when his pose as a yeoman’s son orphaned in the retreat from Dalasor had been so easily unmasked.

The fleeting moment was shattered as Viltred was seized with a paroxysm of coughing and Tonin turned to him hurriedly, helping him to sit upright.

“Viltred, are you all right?”

I looked around to see Tonin laying a concerned hand on the old wizard’s brow. Even in this dim light, his color struck me as unhealthy.

“What do you think?” The aged mage struck Tonin’s hand away crossly but was seized by a further fit of coughing that left him gasping, clutching his arms to himself.

“Take this.” Tonin ignored the old man’s irascible reply and held a small vial to his pallid lips. “Trust me, it was studying healing that first took me into investigating aetheric magic. I was to be initiated into the Daemarion conventual life until my father decided I should see a little more of the world before making such an important decision. I found I liked Vanam, you know, never seemed to find the right time to leave, got my silver ring, then the next project came along…”

The Mentor’s inconsequential chat made it impossible for Viltred to interrupt. Whatever was in the potion certainly eased the old wizard’s breathing and the knot of pain between his brows gradually loosened.

“I think we’d all better get some sleep,” said Tonin apologetically, repacking his casket with deft hands.

Shiv yawned and nodded. “I’ll see you in the morning, Rysh.”

I nodded and turned on my heel but did not return to my niche with Livak in the great hall. There was no way I could risk sleep again, not with every memory Temar had of this place awake and clamoring for my attention. I picked my way carefully through the sleeping figures and climbed up the wall to a ledge where I could rest my feet on an old and weathered corbel. Only I could also see it as it had been, a cheeky likeness of Den Rannion’s steward, his beak of a nose now reduced to a faint stump, hooded eyes mere blind hollows in the pitted stone. I drew a deep breath and settled myself to wait for morning. That would bring some surcease from all this, I swore to myself, else Planir would be facing questions on the point of my sword. Only it’s not your sword, I rebuked myself, it’s that lad Temar’s, and demanding answers with threats is his style, not yours. I hoped that was true, it was starting to become difficult to tell.

As the night wore on, I found some small measure of com-fort in the regular pacing of the sentries and their quiet exchanges as the duties were swapped. Eventually the sun came up with the rapidity Misaen had thought fit for this strange land and, from my vantage point, the daylight showed me our little troop gathered within the sheltering walls, surrounded on all sides by skeins of milky mist. Huddled shapes began to stir, crawling out of blankets to go to relieve themselves, to share a drink and low-voiced chat over a mouthful of flatbread. The last of the night watch rolled themselves gratefully in their cloaks, with hoods over eyes and genial curses for those talking too loudly nearby.