The Mark of Gold

by A. S. Etaski

  “I wouldn’t like living there at all,” said little Layne. “I don’t want a woman to take care of me.”

  The Human boy had meant to protect and decide for him; I’d understood him correctly. This was how Cris-ri-phon took care of Elana, and had wanted to take care of me. Except she wanted it; I didn’t.

  I’m not like a Witch Hunter, though… I’m not that…joyous in causing pain.

  My eldest leader was; the Prime relished it for many centuries beyond the lifespan of any man at Manalar. She who’d established the Sisterhood’s reputation to the rest of the city, who wielded a power I had looked forward to gaining if only because it protected me from the Priestesses.

  Fadele, who mistrusts anything psionic and wanted Reishel and me killed for listening to an Ornilleth in our heads.

  The merc did not press me but still sounded curious. “If your chosen sire is a noble servant, I assume his brother is a noble mage?”

  “Yes.”

  And that mattered to me, did it not?

  “No blood-bond, however,” I added, slouching, looking around for more pork to eat. “But they shared their youth.”

  “Hm. Unusual.” Mourn reached to the far side of the fire and picked up a warm piece of meat on a stick, handing it out to me. “Especially for nobles.”

  Nodding, I accepted and chewed on it, feeling resentment at felling so deflated and… shamed? Mourn had a clear prejudice against females trying to control him, but why did I blame myself? Was this big male trying to manipulate me, to suggest there was no pride in where I’d come from or who I was? Or was I just afraid he was right?

  It’s not that simple. I wanted my sisters. I chose them, they chose me…

  I wanted Jaunda to be alive down below when I got back; I wanted her to succeed in whatever her mission was. Gaelan might have been out there, sick, or hungry, but I’d failed her as I’d failed Reishel. I had been sick too long and it was too late.

  What about Jael? She was the last one in my power to help.

  I swallowed my pork. “Gavin?”

  “Hm?”

  “What are your intentions for Manalar?”

  Both males peered curiously at me. They each had such strange eyes. To think I was sitting here like this, with the two of them. I would have never imagined it when Rausery turned us loose to brave the Surface.

  Gavin tugged from his own belt pouch the shard of black glass he’d created by Human sacrifice. I recalled my current company; each of us had killed for vengeance, reward, and survival, and we would again. Maybe that was why Mourn hadn’t pushed the comparisons farther. He was a paid assassin, and I did not know if he refused any job if the reward was right.

  “Sarilis intended to aid Kurn and Castis,” the Deathwalker began, “and by extension aid the Ma’ab, by providing something which would disrupt the control the Bishops have over the sacred pool inside the temple, a great source of magical strength and a key part of the city defense. He claims they are ‘hoarding’ it, and he can’t use it.”

  I recalled, while Mourn just listened.

  “The vials you threw to cleanse the warp rot would have accomplished this goal as well,” Gavin continued, “but the cost to every mage nearby would have been excessive.”

  “What cost?”

  Chilly eyes focused on me. “Burning out the affinity they possess, closing off their talents, leaving fewer mages at large and guaranteeing a rise in violence and death rooted in insanity among Humans around Mount Sonai for decades to come.”

  Could that have included him? Could it have disrupted his dreams to his Greylord if he had followed through? Maybe he hadn’t known that until he’d died.

  “Hm,” I said. “As a Deathwalker, are not deaths the same regardless of cause?”

  “Absolutely not,” my scholar retorted, peering directly at me as if surprised at my ignorance.

  I could have brooked insult at this tone but felt a familiar twinge of interest, knowing I’d hooked his passion with that offense. I settled down to listen, hoping Mourn knew enough to be quiet.

  “As circumstances of gestation, birth, and early life aid in determining the overall health and nature of the young living,” Gavin explained, “so do the circumstances of death and transition form the nature and available pathways of the young dead. There are as many outcomes for Vis becoming what they are beyond the veil as there are for the living souls coming to us through birth. Perhaps more, as the circles can be far-flung, like living many existences at once or in sequence.”

  Death is complex.

  Mourn was as silent as I was.

  “The old goat in the Ley Tower does not understand this,” Gavin stated with a sneer, studying the glossy flint in his mist-white palm. “For his ambition to harness greater power from the Ley Lines, this one action would do worse to the living and the dead than the siege itself. I doubt he would ever recognize it, death mage or not.”

  “Then what is in your hand?” I asked, fascinated. “Why did you create it?”

  Gavin glanced up from his flint. His stare confirmed he knew but didn’t want to talk about how I’d witnessed the flint coming to be despite not having been there. “This is the Witch Hunter’s soul made manifest. His transition contained and whole, unable to travel yet.”

  “Yet?”

  “Soon, he will, but not until I release him.”

  Mourn grunted. “Under what circumstances?”

  Gavin looked at the Dragonchild, contemplated what I knew, then chose to back up in his explanation. “This flint contains the quality of the follower created by the Bishops of Manalar, familiar and recognized. It is an imbued soul trap attuned to the sacred pool inside the temple, which they call Pisc’sagrad.

  “Throwing the shard in will disrupt the Ley in a similar way as Sarilis’s vials, but the backlash will follow the threads to those bonded to the pool: the Bishops and their acolytes. Other mages who have no hand in drawing their magic from that source are likely to survive sane and with their affinities intact.”

  Mourn’s tail moved, perhaps without conscious intent. “I did not know such a thing could be made.”

  At last, Gavin looked away. “Only because I know these followers well. And only this once.”

  “Why not again?”

  The Deathwalker offered a dour look. “The cost and wisdom of doing so.”

  Mourn nodded, and I glimpsed his admiration. “You need someone to throw this shard into the pool?”

  “I must throw it in,” Gavin clarified, his tone unbending.

  The half-blood reconsidered and spoke again slowly, like he had something to debate. “If you do this early in the siege, then the Ascended will claim Manalar. Sarilis’s method would harm the Ma’ab invaders as well, for he sides with none. You target the Bishops, a scalpel used to cut the string on a drawn bow, which will collapse Manalar’s power in a catastrophe and leave the city undefended.”

  My scholar’s expression reminded me of the few times he had spoken of his father. He was unmoved. “As it shall be. As my Lady guides me.”

  “Your Lady wants to give the City of the Sun to Ennikar?”

  “I claim no knowledge of her ‘wants,’ if she truly has any.”

  “Blind faith does not become you, Deathwalker, any more than it does the Dyos Guerrimos.”

  Gavin waited several beats, watching the other with slightly narrowed eyes, and I could not tell what he was thinking. Had that stung as much as Mourn’s remarks on my Sisterhood? If so, the Dragon’s son was good at that. Where did he stand in the balance to judge us so, as one who shoots dissolving arrows and assassinates from the dark?

  The pale mage rasped with resentment. “My father was blind to his actions against the living while I could not close my eyes to the dead even in sleep. My mother’s blood allowed me to see enough to know my task at Manalar does not stop at favoring the Ma’ab, which is happenstance, not motive. It goes beyond battlefield strategy, To’vah. What happe
ns in mortal wars is not up to her but those engaging in it. This is where I beg to differ: I am not as blind but certainly as driven.”

  Mourn considered this and granted the speech another slow, accepting nod. As with me, he did not press.

  Gavin turned to me to change the topic. “I have a question, Sirana.”

  Sigh. “Yes?”

  “You said your younger ‘sisters’ could not tell you carried, though your leader could. Plural. How many sisters do you seek, if I may know?”

  Mourn looked at me.

  Uh-oh.

  I did not answer at once, so my scholar pushed his reasoning.

  “You urged strongly in favor of seeking one sister near the warp rot, but you were prepared to go to Manalar as far back as when we left the tower. Or so it seemed to me. Brom assumed your queen was an oracle interested in this battle, and this was why you were present in our party. Is that true?”

  I swallowed several times, trying not to lose my pig. Another glance at Mourn worried me that he had overheard my stupidly telling Tamuril about Jael’s assassination mission outside the Ley Tower.

  “I wanted to find both my sisters,” I confessed to Gavin. “There are two. The other will be near Manalar if she is not already there.”

  “Her mission?” Mourn asked.

  I offered the half-blood the most amused and exaggerated sneer I could muster. “I do not know, mercenary. I can lie well enough to prompt a reaction.”

  He narrowed his eyes. I saw no confusion.

  “What do you mean?” Gavin asked. “Lie to whom?”

  “The Druid mentioned earlier,” Mourn said. “A pale-skinned Elf who lives near the Ley Tower and bears witness.”

  “Ah. The one hurt by the ‘Baenar.’”

  “Correct.”

  “I admit I never saw sign of her in the five years I lived there.”

  “That is as it should be.”

  While they spoke, my feet felt cold inside dry, clean boots. What have I done? Has the Dragonblood told anyone about Jael? Was that why he was gone from Troshin Bend that night? Or has Tamuril sent a message to her sister in Augran?

  “The truth is between her and our queen,” I finished, my stomach too weak to continue. “I do not know what she is to do at Manalar.”

  Mourn watched the dark river flowing South. “If she is captured, Sirana, it will be a painful death.”

  I gritted my teeth, ground them. It was audible. “And what am I to do with that knowledge? As if I could not imagine what may happen to her, meeting Jacob face-to-face? I did not send her there.”

  “But you would join her.”

  “Not to be burned as witches.”

  “Indeed not, but to help complete her mission even if you do not know the purpose. As you did the sister sent to cleanse the warp rot.”

  No doubt my tears were obvious in the firelight. Jael had wanted to meet up later. She’d insisted, wanting to be kissed as if to seal it; our last time as we ate each other’s slits against that tree, taking turns with our noses buried in fragrant fur and folds.

  You mean to come back, Sirana.

  Yes.

  Me, too. Meet you here? We could go home together.

  While Gaelan had left to find warp rot while I’d distracted myself from her pain, and from my fear.

  I was grateful when Mourn lifted his heavy focus off me and shifted to Gavin. “Meanwhile, you must get inside the temple sanctum, somehow. Unless you are a master of illusion, Deathwalker, they would torture and burn you at first sight as they would any Baenar.”

  Gavin stared at him for a few seconds. “I am no master of illusion. I know what I am to do. Not how.”

  The humility in his tone was unfamiliar. I wondered where he’d learned it. Would his Archimandrite father have ever expressed such self-doubt to an outsider in service of his faith?

  “Hm.” Mourn did nothing with his large hands while he thought; only the tip of his tail moved. “Where were you planning to go if you survived the warp rot? Straight to Manalar with no plan or supplies?”

  Gavin and I glanced at each other. I shrugged.

  “Not discussed. Very well. I work out of Augran, and I could lead you there. I must close my contract on the Ma’ab fugitives regardless. There are many in the city with investments in the conflict rising, with resources which may support the Deathwalker’s task.”

  “We would have the same difficulty with our appearance as the city farther South,” Gavin noted, probably for my benefit.

  Mourn smirked, opening his rough broad hands, showing off his talons. “I have connections who may help if we might come to an agreement, though it need not be tonight.”

  Go to Augran, first.

  Gavin nodded, interested but not visibly eager, while I wanted to ask about a pale-skinned Elf in the city where he worked.

  “Tamuril has a sister in Augran,” I stated with confidence. “A Naulor Elf. Have you met her?”

  My death mage paid rapt attention; it was clear he wondered how I knew these things, while I wondered the same about him. Meanwhile, Mourn peered at me for many long moments as he contemplated how to answer. I waited, feeling somewhat pleased.

  Finally, he showed fang in subtle threat. “I have. She is worth my protection, Baenar, and it is better you do not meet her.”

  That door firmly slammed shut.

  I exhaled in frustration. “I was to ask how she lives among Humans every day?”

  “Illusion. They do not recognize what they see.”

  “What does she do with her time? For how many years had she lasted?”

  “That is not your business, and your Grand-mothers at present prefer to forget the Naulor exist.”

  “Most daughters never knew!” I retorted.

  “I am not here to fill that gap for you, Sirana, and Tamuril’s sister would not be eager. Ask yourself if you imagine there is good reason.”

  “Asking that helps nothing,” I said through gritted teeth. “You are only warning me not to look inside the box! Like the Sorcerer!”

  “Enough,” he snarled back, tail punctuating with a quick lash at the rocks.

  The campfire crackled while my mood stewed; Gavin added more branches, stirring the embers as sparks floated up upon the heat. It was telling that Mourn would state it so clear he would protect this mysterious Naulor; there was a history. My being blocked in this manner, however, pinched my resentment to be as sore as at Troshin Bend.

  The Davrin had forgotten the Naulor and their victorious Queen since the last war in the Red Desert, and unless the Druid’s sister was older than my Valsharess, she may know even less than Cris-ri-phon. I could question how much Mourn knew as a runaway of not yet five centuries as well.

  I smirked at the thought, but this brought me to the defeated Dark Queen, Innathi, who was trapped in the cursed dagger. If that’s her, if she is real, then she would have answers that Mourn and his Naulor ally don’t.

  I lifted my eyes from the fire. “Gavin, may I see the relic?”

  Both males stilled, pulled from their own thoughts to peer at me in the dancing light and shadows.

  Irritably, I waved my hand at Gavin. “Just unwrap it. Show me you have it. I must see.”

  “Do you mean to draw it?” he asked.

  “No.” I read their faces. “You clearly don’t think I’m strong enough yet.”

  “What purpose would it serve?” Mourn asked.

  “I cannot say.”

  That was truth. I still felt a twinge.

  “Just show it to me,” I insisted. “I’ll not touch it. Then you can rewrap it.”

  I watched for it but Mourn made no signal to Gavin I could detect. Seemingly by his choice, my scholar reached down behind him for his full pack. Loosening the top, he removed the same grey-tan leather wrap from when they sheathed it for me. The knots looked the same, many days old, while Gavin tried to tug them loose in his lap.

  Mourn’s tail had
stopped. All of him had.

  It began with this blade.

  Careful and deliberate as any of his surgeries, Gavin unwrapped the bundle to reveal the weapon in plain view. The red runes of its hilt glowed briefly at me, and the glossy edge of the sheath reflected the firelight, setting my heart to racing. No sniggering voice entered my head but in staring at it, I relived the chaos of the slime-dripping forest and festered crystal jutting from the earth.

  Gaelan speaking to me.

  Soul Drinker screaming at me not to disappear again.

  When Gavin had pulled me out.

  From somewhere.

  At some point, I must speak with Innathi again, to determine if that was truth or a demon’s trick. To learn the Davrin’s Desert history. To do that, I must draw it again, knowing what I knew now, and get past the gatekeeper. The will of the dagger was powerful, strong enough to wear me down to a nub with constant conflict demanding my compliance. Punishing me severely for disobeying.

  Had Soul Drinker been lulling me at first, when I’d been able to sheath it of my will in front of Osgrid, because it wanted to escape with me? Or had Shyntre’s pendant, which Mourn now owned, offered me some protection as it had against Priestesses of Braqth?

  I thought it was a good sign to feel a trickle of fear in recalling that moment I attempted betrayal midbattle, when Mourn had been my only protection against a hurtling horde of cannibals. The compulsion placed by my Valsharess had been the final barrier stopping the dagger from using my body to stab the Dragonblood in the back.

  The mercenary never knew though Gavin might have glimpsed it.

  “Put it away,” I muttered. “Please.”

  Wordless, Gavin rolled it up and tied good knots, replacing it in the pack, which then left my sight. I exhaled, and Mourn’s tail moved again in my periphery.

  “Have you finished your queen’s mission, Sirana?”

  Mourn’s question took me unaware, felt like a rock plummeting down my spine, from neck to tailbone, fraying nerves as it went. Shock prevented a peep as my eyes widened.

  “Is that why you’re following your sisters to finish theirs?”

  Stop.

  I began packing my dry and mended things. Mourn tilted his head but kept speaking. “As I’ve watched, your purpose seems muddled and drifting.”