Hidden Warrior

by Lynn Flewelling

  Arkoniel had never seen so many wizards in one place before, and it took some getting used to. He never knew when he’d bump into someone practicing invisibility or levitation spells in the hall, but he was grateful for their company. Lyan and Vornus were powerful, and Hain had potential. Melissandra, though more limited, was a master of wards, and soon had the meadow and roads ringed with signals. Arkoniel breathed a bit easier after that. She was kind with the children, too, and joined with Lyan and Vornus to help Arkoniel with their lessons. Little Wythnir fell in love with her at once and Arkoniel began to fear he’d lose his first apprentice.

  At his insistence, all the wizards took a hand with the children, testing their abilities and offering their own special talents. Kaulin and Cerana practiced charms and simple household magic. Lyan, on the other hand, could send messages in colored points of light, a rare skill indeed. Vornus and Melissandra shared an interest in transformational spells and she had some skill with wards and locks. Eyoli’s mind-clouding skills, though simple in nature, were of considerable practical use but, as it soon proved, nearly impossible to teach. It was a natural ability, like being able to carry a tune or roll your tongue into a tube. Wythnir and Arkoniel could hold an illusion for a few seconds, but the rest had no luck with it.

  These were all useful skills, but it was proud, foppish Malkanus who surprised them all with a dangerous talent for manipulating fire and lightning. The younger children were not allowed to learn these spells, but Arkoniel had him work closely with Ethni and the adults, telling them, “If the Harriers do decide to pay us a visit sometime, I’d like to give them a proper welcome.”

  As the winter wore on, however, it became clear that many spells, especially the more difficult ones, could not be universally taught or learned.

  As he’d expected, Virishan’s orphans were unable to learn more than the simplest of spells. But Wythnir’s potential showed itself. The boy thrived, having so many teachers, and by midwinter he could transform a chestnut into a silver thimble and had managed to set the stables on fire while trying to duplicate a spell he’d picked up from Malkanus when Arkoniel wasn’t looking. Arkoniel lectured him sternly but was secretly pleased.

  The servants proved as useful as their masters. Noril and Semion, two who’d come in with Malkanus, had a knack with horses, and the third, Kiran, fashioned toys for the children from wood and scraps of rags. Vornus’ man Cymeus was a skilled carpenter and made it his business to keep the house in repair. Not content to fix where he could improve, he rigged a weighted wooden arm over the well so that even little Totmus could draw water with ease simply by pressing on the far end of the pole. He showed Cook how to irrigate her ever-expanding garden by means of a roof cistern and clay pipes, and installed a similar apparatus in the wooden washing tub in the kitchen, so that instead of dipping out the dirty water, she could simply remove a plug and let the water drain away through a pipe he’d laid into the garden.

  “Isn’t that the cleverest thing!” she exclaimed as they all gathered to watch the water swirl away down the drain.

  Cymeus, a tall, bearded bear of a man, blushed like a girl, and said gruffly, “Just something I picked up in our travels, is all.”

  “You’re too modest as always, my friend,” Vornus said with a chuckle. “He’s a wizard, even without magic, this one is.”

  Arkoniel was careful in revealing his own magic, for it was irrevocably mingled with Lhel’s. Spells he’d come to take for granted would have revealed his secret teacher. Yet it was she, rather than Arkoniel, who insisted on secrecy.

  “How would you explain my presence here, eh?” she asked as he lay with her one winter night.

  “I don’t know. Couldn’t we just say that you came down from the hills and settled here?”

  She stroked his cheek fondly. “You’ve been with me so long, you’ve forgotten the ways of your own people. And speaking of your people, have you taken the pretty little bird caller to your bed?”

  “Once,” he admitted, guessing she already knew.

  “Only once? And what did you learn?”

  “The reason for the vow wizards take.” Lhel might not be beautiful, or young, but her power had drawn him as nothing else did, both to her hearth and her bed. Joining with her was like being filled with lightning. With Ethni, he was dark inside. His power flowed away into her but there was no return except a little affection. The physical spasm was nothing, compared to the joining of power. He’d tried to hide his feelings, but Ethni had sensed it and not come to his bed again.

  “Your Lightbearer sets you a narrow path,” Lhel said when he tried to explain.

  “Is it different with your people? You can bear children, even with your magic.”

  “Our people are very different. You’ve forgotten, knowing me as you have. I’ll be no better than a necromancer in the eyes of your new friends. That haughty young fire thrower would burn me to a cinder as soon as look at me.”

  “He’d have to go through me first,” Arkoniel assured her, but he knew she was right. “It won’t always be so,” he promised. “Because of you, Skala will have her queen again.”

  Lhel gazed up into the shadows above them. “Yes, it will be soon. It’s time I kept my promise.”

  “What promise?” he asked.

  “I must show you how to separate Tobin from Brother.”

  Arkoniel sat up. He’d waited years for this. “Is it difficult? Will it take long to learn?”

  Lhel leaned over and whispered in his ear.

  Arkoniel stared at her. “That’s it? That’s all? But—why all the mystery? You could have told us that years ago and spared yourself this exile!”

  “It is not only for that that the Mother bade me stay. The unbinding may be simple, but who would have woven the new binding when it was needed? And perhaps you’d still have your entire finger, for not creating the magic you have. The Mother foresaw and I have been where I must be.”

  “Forgive me. I spoke without thinking.”

  “As for the simplicity of the unbinding, all the more reason to keep it secret. Would you trust that unhappy child with such knowledge?”

  “No.”

  “And do not be deceived,” she said, settling down in the blankets. “The deed may be simple, but the doing of it will take all the courage she possesses.”

  Lhel’s words haunted Arkoniel, but there were other concerns closer to home.

  “Only the other day the butcher’s boy remarked on how much more meat I’m ordering,” Cook warned one night as they sat down to a noisy supper in the hall. “And with the snow so deep in the meadow, we’ll soon have to buy fodder for the horses. I don’t think your mistress foresaw that; it’s only going to get worse if more arrive. And that’s not even thinking of spies, if there are any.”

  Arkoniel sighed. “What can we do?”

  “Good thing for you I was a soldier before I was a cook,” she replied, shaking her head. “First off, we have to stop buying so much in Alestun. The men can hunt, but that won’t do for vegetables. I didn’t have enough of a garden this year, so we’ll have to go farther afield. Two Crow Ford is only a day’s journey by wagon, and none of us are known there. Send a couple of the men this time, posing as traders or traveling merchants, and different ones the next. Tobin’s grandfather used that strategy one winter when we had to go into winter camp near Plenimar.”

  “There’s the difference between wizards and soldiers. I’d never think of such things. Consider yourself our quartermaster.” As she turned to go back to the kitchen, a thought struck him and he laid a hand on her chapped red forearm. “All these years I’ve known you, but never asked your true name.”

  She laughed. “You mean to tell me you don’t know what every tradesman in Alestun knows?” She raised an eyebrow at him, but she was smiling. “It’s Catilan. I was Sergeant Cat in my day, of the Queen’s Archers. I’m a bit past it for swordplay, but I can still pull a bow. I keep in practice when I can find the time.”

  “H
ow did you ever end up a cook?” he asked without thinking.

  She snorted. “How d’you suppose?”

  Chapter 38

  Aliya’s miscarriage delayed the royal progress for nearly a month and it was whispered around the Palatine that some of the king’s advisors wanted Korin to put her aside; the details of the miscarriage could not be entirely suppressed. But a divorce would have brought far too much attention to the reasons and, moreover, Korin did seem genuinely to love her, though Tobin and the other Companions could not fathom why, as marriage had not tempered her manner toward them.

  “Guess she must be sweeter in private,” Ki groused, after she’d slighted him in the hall one day.

  “It would be worth her while to be, given what she has to lose,” Nikides agreed. “And she’s smart enough to know it. Look how she’s got the king doting on her. She knows who cuts the loaf.”

  Erius had grown immensely fond of her and had visited her daily with gifts during the weeks of her seclusion.

  She recovered quickly under her mother’s care and that of half the drysians of the grove. By the time she was well enough to sail the sorrow had passed and people were speaking hopefully behind their hands of the good effect fresh sea air might have on a young bride.

  After cooling their heels for so long, Tobin and the others greeted the departure announcement with jubilation. Bored beyond measure with city life, the prospect of a voyage, even in the dead of winter, was a welcome escape.

  Tobin had reasons of his own to look forward to it. A week before they were to leave, Iya made another of her unexpected visits.

  “This is a rare opportunity for you,” she told him as they sat alone in his mother’s house. “Never forget that you are meant to rule this land. Learn as much about it as you can. See with the eyes your teacher Raven has given you.”

  “Because I’ll have to protect Skala from Plenimar?” said Tobin.

  “No, because you may have to win it from your uncle or cousin.”

  “A war, you mean? But I thought the Lightbearer would—I don’t know—”

  “Smooth your way?” Iya gave him a grim smile. “In my experience, the gods create opportunities; it’s left to us to grasp them. Nothing is assured.”

  That night she told him of the vision she’d had at Afra before his birth. “I’ve visited the Oracle since then, but Illior has shown me nothing different. The future is a frayed rope and we must twist up the strands as best we can.”

  “Then I could fail?” The thought sent a chill over Tobin.

  Iya clasped his hands in hers. “Yes. But you must not.”

  They set sail on the twelfth of Dostin, the masts of their ships gay with banners and garlands. Korin took his Companions and guard, and a small household of servants. Aliya was accompanied by her mother and several aunts, servants, two drysians, masters of her hounds and hawks, and a portable Dalnan fertility shrine.

  The weather was frigid but calm enough for coastal sailing, and the little fleet made first landfall at Cirna five days later. Tobin was delighted to see this holding at last, important in its way as Atyion; but coming here also meant traveling with its current Protector. Lord Niryn would sail with them, and play host when they arrived at the fortress.

  Niryn met them on board the morning of their departure, looking more noble than wizard. Under a cloak lined with winter fox, he wore robes of thick silver silk trimmed with pearls.

  “Welcome, my princes!” he cried as heartily as if he were the captain of the venture.

  Tobin studied the skillful stitching on the wizard’s sleeve, carefully not thinking of anything but that.

  The village at Cirna was nothing but a cluster of rude cottages above the sheltered harbor on the east side of the isthmus. Their welcome was jubilant, however, and set the pattern for the rest of the journey. A handsome, dashing young future king with a beautiful wife on his arm was a happy sight; no one outside the Palatine knew of his first showing as a warrior.

  Korin made a short speech, then Niryn led them up a frozen switchback road to the fortress that commanded the isthmus road. It was an imposing pile and Tobin blushed, thinking of how he’d so casually tried to give it away. Sir Larenth might have been a poor choice to rule such a stronghold, but Tobin would have preferred him to its current Protector.

  The fortress keep was nothing like Atyion. Ancient, damp, and cheerless, it was less a noble residence than a barracks. Disliking both it and their host, Tobin spent as much time as he could exploring with his friends.

  The parapets all faced north. The high curtain wall had three levels, with wooden walkways and loopholes for shooting. The top of the wall was open, with a broad allure to stand on and merlons with arrow loops. The boys stood at the crenels between, imagining an enemy force bearing down on them along the isthmus road. The fortress had been built at the narrowest point of the land bridge and the sheer fall of the cliffs on either side offered little purchase, except for the steep track down to the village.

  From the walls they could look east over the Inner Sea, then turn and, less than a mile away, see the distant expanse of the Osiat.

  “Look at that!” Ki exclaimed. “The Inner Sea is the color of turquoise today, but the Osiat is like ink.”

  “Is that Aurënen over there?” Ruan asked, pointing at peaks visible far off in the west across the water.

  “No, that lies much farther south,” Tobin replied, recalling the maps he and Ki had studied in the palace library. “If you keep going west from there, you’d end up in Zengat, I think.”

  Riding along the headlands, they peered over the sheer, dizzying cliffs on the western side. Far below they could see the backs of circling gulls, and below that, the white curl of surf against the sheer stone face.

  “The isthmus is like a fortress wall,” said Tobin. “To get to that little point of land down there, you’d have to sail back all the way around Skala.”

  “That’s why there are hardly any settlements on the west side,” said Nikides. “The land is steeper on that side of the mountains, and there aren’t many good harbors. And Grandfather says the Three Lands all face Kouros because it’s the heart of the world.”

  “Good. That means we don’t have to sail all the way ’round, at least,” said Ruan, who was prone to seasickness.

  But Tobin was still looking at that tantalizing jut of land in the distance. It thrust out against the unexpected blue of the Osiat Sea and was covered by what looked like oak trees. What would it be like to walk there? He’d probably never know and the thought made him oddly sad. This windswept ribbon of land, and the rugged mountains, which ran like a spine down the middle of the Skalan peninsula, effectively cut the country in half.

  They left Cirna and began a halting progress along the jagged northern coast. Sometimes they stayed in castles, and sometimes in cities, meeting the same acclaim, the same blessings and speeches and toasts at each port of call. By spring, they’d only gotten as far as Volchi, but Tobin had already filled two journals with military observations. Thoughts of other sorts he knew better than to commit to paper.

  Chapter 39

  Iya arrived at the keep at midsummer with three more wizards for Arkoniel’s little band. She was delighted with his progress, especially when she learned that he and Eyoli had mastered Lyan’s message-sending spell.

  The nights were warm and they spent the second evening walking along the cool riverbank. Behind them, the windows of the keep were warm with candlelight. A large log had washed up after the spring floods and they sat on it and dangled their bare feet in the water. Iya watched him send a trifling message off to Lyan in a tiny globe of bluish light. A moment later the woman’s laughing reply sped back in a firefly spark of green.

  “Amazing!” Iya exclaimed.

  “Actually it’s not a difficult spell at all, if you can perceive the pattern.”

  “That’s not what I meant. You’re young, Arkoniel, and you’ve spent the better part of your life caught up in this scheme of mine
. Don’t you remember how it was before? Wizards don’t live in groups, and they seldom share their knowledge. Remember how frustrated and hurt you’d be if someone showed you a pretty spell but wouldn’t tell you how it worked?”

  “Yes. And you’d tell me it was rude to ask.”

  “So it was, but these are different times. Adversity is binding us closer—both this lot of yours, and that group I told you of in Ero.”

  “Your Wormhole wizards?” Arkoniel chuckled.

  “Yes. How many other little cabals do you suppose there are, out there?”

  “There are the Harriers. They were the first.”

  Iya’s lips tightened in distaste. “I suppose you’re right. When I first heard of them I thought it couldn’t last. Yet here we are.” She shook her head. “Yes, different times, indeed.”

  Arkoniel glanced back at the warm glow in the windows. “I like it, Iya. I enjoy seeing so many children together, and teaching them. I like sharing magics with the others, too.”

  She patted his hand and rose to go. “It’s what you’re meant for, my dear.”

  “How do you mean? As soon as we’ve accomplished your task, it will all go back to the way it was before.”

  “I’m not so sure. Do you recall what I told you of my vision at Afra?”

  “Of course.”

  “I didn’t tell you everything. I saw you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, standing in a great, shining white palace filled with wizards, with an apprentice by your side.”

  “Wythnir?”

  “No, you were a very old man in my vision. It must have been centuries from now and the child was still very young. I didn’t understand at the time but now I think I begin to see the significance.”

  Arkoniel looked up at the keep again and shook his head. “It’s no shining palace.”

  “Ah, but you’re not old yet, either. No, I think we are seeing the very beginning of a path that will shape your life.”

  “Both our lives.”