Vitiosi Dei (Heritage of the Blood Book 2) (40 page)

              Gnorman was just getting ready to open the shop when they arrived. The old gnome was whistling to himself as he dug his keys out of his pocket. He turned towards them abruptly holding a small black rod, more than likely alerted by their footfalls. It seemed to take him a of couple moments to realize he wasn’t under attack, before a smile lit up his face.

              “Boys, you can’t be sneaking up on an old man like that. You’re liable to give me a heart attack. Thought the gods had descended and were about to take their vengeance upon me for some slight I may have given them in the past.” He turned back towards the door, unlocking it and motioning for them to follow. “I see the earrings are still in place, so you must have taken care of them like I told you to.”

              “Yes sir,” Shawnrik said. “It was sore for a few days and the hole got a little red the first week, but it healed up in no time.”

              “No 'sirs' here, my boy,” Gnorman said as he moved back behind his counter and flipped the switch that turned on the lights. Dozens of rainbows appeared throughout the room. It really took being in the room without them to appreciate just how well they colored the shop once they appeared. “I was worried when you boys didn’t show up to get your stuff last Eightday. It wouldn’t do to go to the dance without a few more baubles to show off.”

              From behind the counter, Gnorman lifted two black velvet boxes. He set them down on the counter with a reverence that Verrian had rarely seen from his father’s friend. Without even looking inside he pushed one box towards each of them.

              “Here you boys go, as ordered.” Gnorman grinned as they reached for the boxes.

              They opened their boxes at the same time, and Verrian could see that Shawnrik was just as impressed with the contents of his box as Verrian was with his own. Inside, he found a pair of cufflinks that were made out of a bright silvery metal, each encasing a large purple gemstone. The stones were cut so that portions of the gemstone would catch the light no matter which direction they were facing. Beside the cufflinks was a ring that was made out of the same silvery metal, but had a small line of blue gemstones inlaid in a diagonal across the surface.

“This is amazing,” Shawnrik said as he took out his ring—which was much larger than Verrian’s—and put it on his finger.

Following his roommate's action, Verrian carefully took his ring out and put it on as well. He marveled at how perfectly it fit for a few seconds before looking up to see Shawnrik doing the same thing. They caught each other’s eye and grinned like idiots.

“Those are all sapphires.” Gnorman said after enjoying the boys reactions to his work for a few moments. “Purple sapphires for the cufflinks, and blue for the rings. Each is my own unique cut—you won’t find anywhere else on Terrazil. Some of my best work, too.”

“These are way more than we bargained for.” Shawnrik said as he sat his box down on the counter.

“Maybe, lad, but Verrian there is a friend of the family, and I’d like to think you are too now as well.” Gnorman grinned as Shawnrik nodded. “Also, be sure to tell anyone who asks where you got those from, unless of course they aren’t privy to our little valley here.”

“Thanks Gnorman!” Verrian walked around the counter and hugged the old Gnome, who seemed uncomfortable with the exchange.

“Yes, well if you want something else you are going to have to pay full price like everyone else,” Gnorman said as he adjusted his clothing so that it wouldn’t wrinkle. The boys grinned. “Now, the dance is tomorrow night, isn’t it? What are you boys doing the rest of the day?”

“We have to go to The Proper Peacock for our final fitting,” Shawnrik replied.

“Ah, Isaac, he’s a good man,” Gnorman said. “Rather expensive though, isn’t it?”

“You have no idea,” Verrian sighed. “However, the girls insisted that we get the best. Especially after this big idiot showed them how many gems he had.”

“I already told you I had no problem paying for everything…” Shawnrik said.

“Yeah, and I told you that if my father found out I didn’t pay for my own suit I’d never hear the end of it.”

“He’s right,” Gnorman said. “I can hear Daison’s lecture about personal fiscal responsibility already. Anyway, as good as it is to see you boys, I’m sure you’d like to get your business done and have the day off as soon as possible. I would recommend getting something to eat before you hit Isaac’s though, as that’s likely to take some time. That man is a perfectionist.”

Verrian thought that was funny coming from someone who cut gems and made statues for a living, but decided to let the comment slide. He and Shawnrik decided to heed Gnorman’s advice and stopped for a bite before heading to The Proper Peacock. After all, they did have a long day ahead of them, and he was already starting to feel nervous about tomorrow.

Chapter 22

Pursuit

Year: 3045 AGD

Month: Midwinter

Fourth Eighthday

Town of Verge

Stewart Cantel had been chasing after the Princess for over a month and a half now. His clothing was worn and stained, and as he strode into the town of Verge, he was fairly certain he smelled like a walking cesspool. Unlike a Protectorate town, Verge didn’t have any high walls to keep out the dangerous creatures that roamed the land. The town was wide open, and if he had a dozen soldiers with him he could raze the place in a few hours, but unlike the Dracair, such an action wasn’t the way the Protectorate operated.

The fact that the Dracair seemed to have pacified the lands east of the forest better than the Protectorate could maintain control of their own lands rankled him a little, but he supposed they didn’t have to worry about being invaded at any moment, either. Considering the last offensive expedition the Protectorate had launched was over a thousand years ago—and had ended in absolute failure—he understood their lack of concern.

Walking through the town, he realized that his shabby clothes and appearance fit in well. They might be alive and not in fear of imminent attack, but these people were not thriving. Everywhere he looked was another destitute soul simply going through the motions without any spark of enthusiasm. He had been down to the Dock’s District in Safeharbor hundreds of times, and while that was the most desolate place in the Protectorate, even those people had wanted to live life with everything they had; the people in Verge might as well already be dead. When he reached the center of town, he seriously considered helping them on that journey.

Broken, emaciated, and quite clearly dead, Sergeant Mcdowell’s corpse was propped up in a pillory in the town square. Everyone but the flies were giving the body a wide birth. It was clear that the body had been preserved by the cold air, as his hands were blackened with frostbite. The warmer air that had moved in over the last Eightday was not doing his old friend any favors, though. Cantel's first instinct was to march across the square and bust the damn thing open and give his old comrade a proper burial, but he knew that’s what the Dracair wanted him to do.

If they had captured the Sergeant and his body was still here after all that time, then he realized that the Vigilantes were either dead or out of action. Either way, he knew he wasn’t going to have the support that he had been expecting. He was fairly certain he was catching up to the Princess and her captor. Two days before, he had come upon the embers of a small fire, and he was fairly certain that he could travel faster than the Doppelganger could move the Princess.

The day was coming to an end, however, and he was more than tired. Perhaps if he got a room he could do something about his friend’s corpse in the night. At the very least, he could give the old Sergeant a funeral pyre.

It took them five days of travel to reach the outer boundaries of Death’s Edge Forest. From the looks of it, the boy thought it might take an hour to safely sneak into the town of Verge once night fell. Relentless and Dauntless had both made it clear that they weren’t leaving the safety of the forest. If he got into trouble and made it back to the forest they would help him, but it was too dangerous for them out in the open. Troublefinder was completely willing to go with him, but everyone else had made him finally concede that it wasn’t a wise idea.

They only had to wait a few hours for the sun to dip down over the horizon, making it dark enough for him to begin his journey. He said his farewells to his Quaelyne friends and moved into the fields. As he was nearing what he assumed to be the limits of her ability to send him a message, he heard Relentless’s voice in his head.

Be safe.

Turning around, he gave a small wave of acknowledgement and continued on his journey through the ever darkening grass. He couldn’t see anyone looking in his direction from the town, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone watching. The twin moons cast their light onto the fields, causing his shadow and the shadow of anything else around him to multiply, making it even more difficult to notice anything moving unless you knew where to look.

He had just reached the town when he started to smell smoke. Another strange smell came shortly behind the smoke that was unlike anything he had ever smelled before. It smelled almost like cooking meat, but it was somehow sickly and wrong. Curious, he moved towards the center of town and could soon see the light of the flames coming from somewhere ahead.

By the time he was near enough to the flames to see what was burning, the stench was nearly unbearable. He realized as he saw the charred remains of someone trapped in some sort of "T" shaped contraption that what he smelled was burning flesh and hair. A large crowd had gathered in the square, all standing and watching the fire burn; no one seemed to even think about trying to put the fire out. It was a massive fire, and the boy thought that someone would have had to add something extremely flammable to the corpse to make it burn like that.

As big as the fire was, it was still a good stone’s throw away from the nearest building, so the danger of the fire spreading was fairly low. In the fire’s light, he saw a man run down the street on the other side of the square and then saw half a dozen forms following behind from the ground and the roofs that surrounded the square. By the time he made his way to where he had seem them run, however, they were long gone.

A man was standing on the corner of the square looking in the direction that the others had gone. His expression was downcast and it was clear that he wanted to follow, but something was keeping him in place. The man looked towards the fire and nearly jumped out of his boots when he saw the boy.

“Victor?”

The voice that came from the form sounded much different than he had been expecting the man to sound, and the fact that the man knew his former name was disconcerting. Before he could decide to run, however, the man crossed the street and put his hand gently on his shoulder and led him down the street in the opposite direction the fleeing man had gone. For a moment, the boy considered running anyway, but the gentleness of the touch on his shoulder told him that this man was not his enemy.

              He was led to the southern end of town, to a small house with a thatched roof that had seen better days. A shutter on one of the windows they passed was barely hanging on by one of its hinges, and the door itself was rickety. The man knocked on the door in a quick staccato before opening it and ushering the boy inside.

              Having seen the outside of the place, the boy was fairly surprised to see that the inside was clean and tidy. Two more open doorways led to two small sleeping chambers. The left side of the room had a small table with a short bench on each side, and the right side held a small fireplace. In front of the fireplace were two nice chairs—the only decent furniture in sight—one of which was occupied by on older woman with a few gray hairs. The woman turned to greet the man, but her greeting died on her lips when she saw who was with him.

              “Victor?” A male voice that had a lot of the same qualities of the voice that had come from the man, only with a slight rasp, came from the woman’s mouth. “What in the nine hells are you doing here?”

              “That’s what I want to know,” the man said from behind him as he closed the door.

              Staring at the woman for a few moments his vision blurred momentarily and he saw a Grey Elf man sitting in the chair for a moment before the woman came back into focus. Realizing he might have just walked headfirst into a trap, he tensed up and began to look around the room for anything he could use as a weapon. His choices were not good. There was a long rod near the fire, but it was much closer to the person who was pretending to be the older woman. The only other thing he could see in the sparse room was a broom in the sleeping quarters to his left.

              “Victor.”

The man’s voice said from behind him, and those gentle hands dropped onto each of his shoulders and spun him around before he could lunge for the broom. In front of him stood a Grey Elf, but unlike all of the Grey Elves he had met so far in his life, this one didn’t look like he wanted to spit in his face. His expression was soft, but worry lines lightly creased his forehead.

“It’s us, don’t worry.”

The way he said it made the boy realize that he was supposed to know who these men were, and they assumed that he would think of them as friends, or at least allies. The man seemed to realize that something was amiss within a few seconds of turning him around.

“What’s wrong?” the one near the fire asked.

“I don’t think he recognizes us.”

              The boy heard the creaking of the chair as the man stood, letting out a line of curses out in the process.

              “Great, just great. The one piece of good news we have gotten in months drops into our lap, and it isn’t even as useful as it could have been.”

              “I’m sorry,” the boy said. “Are you one Warren’s friends?”

              “You’ve met Warren?” the Elf holding him asked.

              “Yes, he and a man named Trenton are in the forest with the Quaelyne. Both of them are alive, but not in any shape to come help. They were both affected by the stuff the Dracairei put on their arrow tips.”

              “Well that’s something, at least.” The Elf looked towards the fire to speak with the one who looked like a woman. “I saw Stewart Cantel running north with at least six Dracairei hot on his trail.”

              “Damn, may the gods grant his soul the rest he deserves,” the voice replied. “That means there are only two of those bastards left to guard Rundig and Elandria, though.”

              “Two of us, two of them,” the kind-faced Grey Elf said. “Good odds if we know where they are, terrible odds if we don’t.”

              “Three of us,” the boy said. “I may not know who you are, but I do know that we were once companions. I am not able to do whatever it was that Victor could do, but I should be able to help in some way.”

              “Well Za’erath, you hear that? You can take the memories out of the boy, but you can’t change his spirit.” The hand that landed on his shoulder was rougher than the hands of the man in front of him, but they also felt more delicate. When he turned his head, he saw the Grey Elf that he had seen in the brief flash of through the illusion of the woman near the fire. “Pleasure to meet you boy, my name is Za’kereth.”

              The two men were nearly identical, though their expressions and bearing made it easy to distinguish who was who. Another thing that helped was that Za’erath was wearing a slightly lighter grey robe than Za’kereth.

              “So your parents thought, not only do they look alike, we should name them almost the same thing as well?”

              They shared a look and then smiled at him.

              “You know, we were told almost exactly the same thing by a boy who looked a lot like you a few years ago,” Za’erath said.

              “I suppose I should take that as a good sign,” the boy said. “Maybe when I finally get those memories back we won’t be so different.”

              “I have a feeling that no matter what you do, Victor will surprise you,” Za’kereth replied.

              “I’d take that bet,” Za’erath grinned.

              Trying to move the talk away from who he used to be, the boy turned the conversation back towards the task at hand. “So, there are two Dracairei left? Where are they?” He took a step back so that he didn’t have to keep swiveling his head between the twins.

              “No idea…” Za’kereth said.

              “…but it is likely they are somewhere near the building where they are keeping Elandria and Rundig.”

              The two Elves began to argue over the different plans they could use, all of which seemed to not include him. He listened to them weigh the pros and cons for quite some time before he got tired of waiting for them to come to the obvious solution. Not only were they starting to bug him by their exclusion of him, but every moment they argued Stewart Cantel got farther away, or closer to death. Cypheria said Cantel was important to him somehow, and he wanted to know why.

              “Hey,” he said, trying to get their attention. That didn’t work, so he started heading for the door, which did get their attention.