ZYGRADON (7 page)

"Don't be silly." He grinned, despite his fear for Le'esha's safety. "I'm nobody.
Maybe the Nameless One is mean enough to want to hurt me for what my father did,
but I'm not important enough for anyone to go to war."

"They're worried about you. That's all I heard. They won't let you come
along."

"Then I won't tell them," he said with a shrug.

The moment those words left his lips, Mrillis suspected he had spoken too
quickly. Wanting to ride to war, to fight the Encindi, protect his beloved Queen of
Snows and find the red-haired boy was one thing. Hiding among the warriors and
arriving on the shores of Flintan undiscovered was something else altogether. How could
he accomplish it?

* * * *

Mrillis chose hunting clothes that would help him blend in among the older
boys who rode with the war party to serve the Queen of Snows, her ladies and the
warriors protecting them. He planned to stay with the horses and keep his head covered.
He didn't delude himself that he could stay undiscovered for long.

If his
imbrose
awoke fully, then Le'esha or someone almost as sensitive
would feel his presence. If he had more terrifying nightmares, he could wake up the
entire camp. To protect Le'esha, to calm Ceera's fears for their foster mother, and for the
sake of his dreams and longing for adventure, he had to risk it. Taking a risk didn't mean
he could act foolishly, however. He hoped to avoid the inevitable scolding by taking
precautions. After all, he wasn't a little boy any longer.

He went into the armory late at night, after everyone else had been outfitted
and the party was to leave before dawn the next morning. Mrillis knew what his
strengths were, and how to defend himself. The warriors of the Stronghold had given all
the children lessons in self-defense, using knife, staff, bow and slingshot. When Mrillis and
the other boys went to Wynystrys, they perfected their archery and learned more skill
with the knife and staff. Of the weapons that remained, Mrillis chose three knives, a
good bow and a triple helping of arrows. Then he stood staring at the swords that had
been left in the racks, wishing he could carry one.

The swords left behind needed repairs or had lost their balance or just weren't
good to begin with. That didn't matter to a boy who had yet to earn the right to carry a
sword. Mrillis knew better than to strap on a sword and take it on the journey to meet
the Warhawk. He had been lectured by warriors, both in the Stronghold and Wynystrys,
about the dangers to himself and to those around him if he tried to wield a weapon he
hadn't trained with. Kathal and Tathal would swat him black and blue with the flat of
the sword he borrowed, if they caught him. He didn't want to disappoint his teachers.
Common sense said if he wore a sword, he would invite attack. Some arrogant fool
among the Noveni soldiers would see a skinny boy with a sword almost too big for him
and try to take it, either to test the skill of one so young or just to prove himself better
than a Rey'kil.

Knowing he couldn't take a sword with him didn't stop Mrillis from taking a
short blade off the rack. Its edges were nicked and dulled with use, the leather binding
on the pommel dry and cracked and packed with dirt, stiff with the sweat of years.
Mrillis grinned as he held the sword out at arm's length. He turned the blade, trying to
make the lantern light glint off the dulled metal. The light flashed into his eyes.

He saw a blade, long and thin, double-edged, gleaming with a pale blue
radiance. The sword lay in a bowl made of stars, which gleamed with the same blue
light.

Ceera appeared out of the utter blackness surrounding the bowl. She picked
it up, and the blue radiance engulfed her.

Mrillis opened his mouth to cry out in terror for her, but she only smiled
and held out the bowl to him. The bowl and the sword grew larger until they filled his
vision. Mrillis reached out. He took the sword. The radiance filled his eyes.

A dark form stepped forward, emerging from the light rather than blocking
it. A man held out his hand for the sword and went to one knee. Mrillis rested the blade
of the sword on his bent arm, so the kneeling man could grasp the pommel.

Brilliant white light shattered the blue radiance. Gasping, Mrillis dropped to his
knees. The sword fell from his hand and clattered to the stone floor, worn smooth by
generations of boots. He knelt until the cold seeped into his bones.

Whenever he closed his eyes, he still saw the bowl and sword, and the man
waiting to take the sword.

Mrillis couldn't make out any features, other than that the man was tall and
broad-shouldered like a warrior, and he had dark gold hair--Noveni, then, not
Rey'kil.

* * * *

Ceera cried silently, tears dripping off her little nose as she helped Mrillis pack.
She didn't want to be left behind, but Mrillis finally made her understand that a little girl
of seven couldn't keep up with the warriors riding to war. He was grateful she didn't
point out that a boy of nine wasn't much stronger or skilled in warfare, and might not be
able to ride all day, either.

They both knew someone had to ride with Le'esha and watch over her. Mrillis
had been outside the Stronghold before. Ceera had yet to walk beyond the Lake of Ice
or the homes of her little friends in the canyons surrounding the Stronghold.

She promised she would tell no one that he had gone, and do her best to keep
the ladies left behind from discovering what he had done until it was too late to bring
him back.

Mrillis slipped into Ceera's room in the dark hours before dawn and stood a
moment, watching her in the faint glow of magic light Le'esha had woven into the
curtains of her bed. He had realized in the sleepless watches of the night that he rode out
to protect Ceera, too.

Le'esha, Breylon and the Warhawk were right: the Nameless One had to be
stopped, at long last.

Sighing, Mrillis untied the leather wristguard he had fashioned the summer
before, and tucked it into Ceera's curled fingers. Having something of his might comfort
her.

The other boys teased Mrillis for paying any attention at all to a little girl who
wasn't his sister. He didn't care. Ceera was as much a part of his life as Le'esha. She would
always be there. They would always be together.

"This is the last time I'll do anything important without you," he promised on a
whisper as he walked down the dark stairway to the stable cavern.

"How is he?" Graddon murmured as he joined Breylon and Le'esha by the fire,
on the evening of their fifth day on the road to the coast.

"Dirty and exhausted from riding all day, working past dark and getting up
before dawn." Le'esha shook her head and smiled at her two companions. "He's having
the adventure of his life."

"Let's hope it's the first of many," Breylon growled.

Le'esha sighed. The High Scholar didn't see the humor in the situation they
faced. Mrillis had managed to infiltrate the ranks of the horse and errand boys without
anyone questioning his presence. He had managed to stay hidden at the back of the
procession for two whole days. She was proud of him for his skill, endurance and
cleverness, even as she nearly wept in fear for him. Seeing the humor in what the boy
had done was the only way to keep from giving in to anger and worry.

"He's here for the enchanter's boy," Graddon said. "I've touched his dreams since
we realized he was here. Every night, a red-haired boy wanders at the edges of his
dreams. The black net is never there. I don't know if it means the Nameless One isn't
trying to find and snare him--"

"Or if he's using his boy to lure our boy in where he can pluck him like a ripe
fig," Breylon said. "You agree with me now? The Nameless One has been weaving his
magic to capture our boy and warp him. And destroy him if he can't do that."

"Yes, we are agreed." Le'esha stared into the fire. "Ten more days until we reach
the coast, and half a day of sailing to reach Flintan... and I can feel the poison of his
blood magic. It makes the ground tremble and fills the air with scorching. It makes the
very Threads buzz with discord. I had hoped Afron's spies were exaggerating, when they
reported the rivers of blood being spilled in Flintan."

"The Nameless One turned to blood magic in an attempt to control star-metal
and protect the World, and look what evil he has fallen to," Graddon rumbled. He
stared into the fire as if it held the answers to all the mysteries of life. "What is he trying
to control now, with so much blood and death?"

"Us. The future. The World." Breylon snorted. "Who can know, when a mind is
so soaked with evil and death, so separated from the Threads, we can no longer find
him?"

* * * *

The black net appeared that night in Mrillis' dreams.
He felt it wrap around
his throat, covering his eyes and blinding him. Gasping, blood thundering in his ears, he
struggled to yank the burning, sticky, thorny cords from around his throat, but they
wouldn't budge.

"Cut it," a boy called from the mud-thick darkness behind him. "You can cut
it."

Somehow, Mrillis found his knife. It felt cold in his hand and heavy. The
blade glimmered, catching a light he couldn't see. It was the only light anywhere, perhaps
the only light anymore. He raised his arm, pushing against air thicker than frozen honey,
heavier than stones tied to his limbs and pulling him down to the bottom of the stormy
Northern Sea.

For every finger's length of progress as he struggled to raise his arm and put
the knife to the cords at his neck, it grew a little easier. Mrillis gasped, unable to even cry
out against the pain. It felt as if the cords had cut halfway through his throat.

Finally, he had the knife to his neck. He turned the blade with numb
fingers, pressed the tip against the bottom cord and tried to slide it up.

His dream exploded into light and shouts and hands shaking him and other
hands slapping him and heat that burst through the cold and scorched his skin.

Mrillis opened his eyes to find two boys sitting on his chest and legs, another
boy sitting on his left arm and a fourth boy stomping on his right hand, which still
clutched the knife from his belt. He gasped. The air rushing into his lungs was sweet with
wood smoke, the scent of horses, mud and sweat.

Breylon and Lyon, the Warhawk's brother appeared among the crowd
gathering around him. Mrillis went limp and fought not to cry. His first thought was that
he had been discovered and would be sent home. His second was to wonder what he
was doing so far from his bedroll with his knife in his hand, and why the older boys sat
on him.

* * * *

"Blood magic," Afron Warhawk grunted, and scowled as he stared at
Mrillis.

Le'esha clenched her fists to fight the need to wrap her arms around the boy.
She wanted to shake him until his eyes rattled. She fought to swallow the words that she
feared would escape in a shriek, demanding to know why he had hidden his dreams
from her for so long.

It was part of the Nameless One's enchantment, she suspected, that Mrillis had
been unable, not just unwilling, to tell them. And perhaps the boy, for all his brilliance,
didn't quite understand the danger he had been in.

She had needed to drain massive amounts of
imbrose
from the
Threads to cleanse Mrillis from the taint of blood magic that clung to him. She had
fought to help him remember the dream that had nearly destroyed him. She still found it
hard to breathe when she thought of the near-disaster that struck at them tonight. She
was thankful for the vigilant servant boys, who had awakened when Mrillis went
sleepwalking, drew his knife and nearly slit his own throat.

Breylon and Graddon met with the Warhawk to explain the ruckus at the edge
of the camp. Lyon stood guard over Le'esha as she cleansed the boy of the poison that
sucked on his soul like leaches. Now, the six were alone in the Warhawk's tent.

The Nameless One had struck too close to their hearts, with a fierceness they
should have expected. That was the harshest blow of all, she suspected. She and
Graddon and Breylon had been smugly sure that they had kept Mrillis safe. Tonight had
proven just how wrong they had been. Worse, they shouldn't have simply expected their
enemy to attack. They should have worked to prevent it. From this moment, they could
not afford to simply watch and build protections. They needed to act, not just react.
Tonight, they had to decide, and quickly.

"Can we use the boy as bait?" the Warhawk asked, after sitting long in silence,
studying Mrillis.

"Bait?" slipped from the boy's lips before he could stop himself. He took a step
back, so he pressed up against Le'esha's knees. Only she and the Warhawk sat. Le'esha
rested a hand on Mrillis' shoulder. The boy shivered from more than the cold.

"The Nameless One wants to get his hands on you, boy. Didn't you know that?"
Lyon said, his frown deepening.

"Because of my father." Mrillis turned enough to see Le'esha. "I don't understand
why he wants to get revenge on me for something my father did."

"Is that what you think?" She tried to smile, tried to understand how a boy's
mind worked. "No, my dear. The Nameless One wants
you
. Many visions and
prophecies, the Nameless One wishes to fulfill or to prevent. He suspects you are
involved in many of them, and he wishes to... simplify the future, by eliminating
you."

"Me? What can I do?"

"What use is a piece of iron ore until it's been mined and smelted and
hammered a thousand times?" the Warhawk said, his grim expression brightening a little.
"A wise man steals or destroys the raw metal before it's made into weapons to use
against him." He looked around the tent, meeting Breylon's, Graddon's and Le'esha's
gazes before turning to his brother. "Do you think we can use the boy as bait? Draw out
our enemy, make him act before he's ready?"