As the day wore on, the chill of the previous night gave way to the sticky heat of an unclouded sun.
Roos’ whistling and questions and remarks ended around the time his complaints began. His thick fur garments clearly stifled him to the point of heavy sweating, and Choson could not fathom why the man did not cast the furs from a cliff. The growing cloud of stale sweat that hung around Roos like a vapor had Choson beginning to doubt his pledge of mercy. They came to a lively river in the late afternoon that wound close to the path for a time before heading east. Choson reckoned by the shape of the river, matching it to a faded map he bore, that they were two or three days’ travel from the mountain. There, at the river, Choson taught Roos to catch fish and crustaceans. Despite Roos falling into the water several times, or being too loud and scaring away the fish, they managed to catch enough for an evening meal. Choson then showed Roos how to clean and cook their catch. Later, as they ate, Roos resumed his questions.
“So, we are heading to … that mountain,” Roos said darkly. “Are you one of them? One of the …”
Choson shook his head. “I am not. But they are the reason I come this way.”
“Why go to them?”
“I was Captain of the King’s Guard, once. I lost my place, then I lost some people. Before the worst of it, there were whispers everywhere about the Mordenari being behind things … I did not pay heed until it was too late.”
“Choson, listen. You are strong. A good fighter. But you go to try and kill them … it is madness!”
“There’s nothing left to me but madness. Though you are hasty to assume I mean to kill anyone. I seek only the truth.”
“Maybe our quest now is the same,” Roos said, making Choson think that Roos had not truly listened to his last remark. “I go where there is fighting, you go where you are sure to meet the greatest test of fighting. To the Mordenari.”
Choson picked now at the bones of his fish for the last morsels.
“You are a good man,” Roos said. “You feed me when I am hungry, even though I annoy you. Even though I fight you. You won’t kill me, and won’t let me die, though sometimes this is what I think I deserve. You don’t think so. You are good, I see this. Even though you pretend not to be.”
They were silent for a time. Choson watched the fire. ‘You are good,’ he thought. This is what the barbarian thinks of me. Let him have his faith, misguided though it is. A good man does not do as I have done.
“Is it true you Wittewolders have great storytellers? Do you have any of their stories to tell?”
Roos nodded, but avoided Choson’s eyes. “I remember some tales. Parts of them. It is not much.”
“Tell them, all the same.”
The pair sat for hours as their fire threw sparks up with the gentle smoke and Roos told tales of the great wandering sky-lights that visited the northernmost reaches of the Wittewold.
Part 2: The Monastery
Chapter 6
I do not remember my creation. I was a slave before. Powerless.
The greatest pains and the darkest of magics twisted me, but I endured the trials.
I woke bathed in the light of Momaentum, and through it I walk, and of it I am.
My life has been counted in centuries, and will continue while Momaentum sustains me.
In return for my gift I protect all the free peoples of the world from the savagery of those who break my laws, the laws I created to ensure that none will have to suffer as I have.
Verandert, the first lines of Ardent Momaenta.
Amelia and Gillis did little but walk as they made their way north out of Pauloce’s lands and toward the mountain of the Monastery. Amelia, despite having been kicked and bloodied and strapped to a table a day before, walked with an easy stride. She had applied little more than bandages across her chest—and ointments which she would not let Gillis see. He sensed some kind of dishonesty in this, but was tired of bickering with her. He decided privately that he would accept her leather armor had been sturdy enough to keep Pauloce’s kicks from breaking her ribs. As though she had read his mind, she told him that it was lucky he burst in when he had, for Pauloce had only just begun. Even as he told himself the matter was settled, the thought flashed across his mind: To heal so quickly means Blood Magic. He thrust the thought away. Even she was not so reckless.
Gillis’ broken fingers, however, needed care that Amelia provided without being asked. Thankfully, Gillis thought, she doesn’t find this to be the time for jibes or criticism. His fingers hurt when she checked and re-bandaged them, though she was gentle. They had traveled in plain grey robes after leaving behind all that was in Pauloce’s colors. They ate cold and dry food as they walked, seldom made fires, and never spoke to passing travelers.
When, by Gillis’ reckoning, they were within a day’s walk to the Monastery, they came to an inn that bore above its door in roughly chiseled letters the name: The Cat’s Whiskers. At Amelia’s insistence, they entered. It was small, and the wind whistled through a gap in the wall, but steam and smoke coming from the kitchen promised a hot meal. They asked for a plate of stew each and took a table by the hearth.
Gillis picked at the bandages on his broken fingers idly until the food came, and when it did, he picked at the meal too. It was a brown and watery stew with shapeless lumps of meat and undercooked pieces of onion.
“Hand bothering you?”
“Yes. Wondering what use I’ll be in the Monastery kitchens.”
“Dish cleaners can work one handed, no?” she said. He offered no response. “Quite the demotion from the Prime Cook of a Lord, though. There must be work even for a one-handed, broken down old mule of a man in the Monastery.”
Gillis remained silent. One should not fuel an unwanted fire, he thought. Responding in kind only gets her talking more nonsense.
A group of Veldenlanders entered: a man and his son, and another man with his daughter. The son and daughter looked to be about eighteen.
Amelia lowered her voice. “You could always just be my simpleton assistant. I could use a hand making a new batch of Sleeper powder, since I’ve none left—”
“Amelia,” Gillis said, “what happened the night you were captured?”
“What do you mean what happened?”
“Recount the events of the night. Please.”
“Guards found me, dragged me off, beat me. Why make me relive that?” Amelia set her jaw hard and cast her eyes down to her food.
“But how did they find you? I saw them go in the woods. They knew you were—”
“Enough!” The Veldenlanders looked around at Amelia, and she quieted, though her voice was strained. “I don’t know how they found me. I would have fought my way free, but they caught me off guard. Leave it.”
Gillis began to speak again, but she repeated, “Leave it!”
He did. In the silence that fell between them, Gillis steadily ate his food while Amelia ignored hers. The conversation of the Veldenlanders drew Gillis’ attention, and he glanced at them casually while he ate.
The father of the young man was thin and crooked and deeply tanned. His son was of the same build, but straight-backed and lightly freckled. The other father, sitting close to his daughter and leaning slightly in front of her as though to shield her, was round, bearded, and bald. The daughter had strawberry blonde hair and fluttery eyes. Amelia scoffed as she, too, apparently listened.
“Now I ain’t saying anything against yer boy,” the bearded father said.
“Nor I against yer daughter,” the thin father replied.
“It’s just that we need time to—”
“—get to know each other,” the son said. “The four of us.”
“As a family,” the daughter said, and flipped her hair. “Future family, leastways.”
“Pathetic picture of a family,” Amelia muttered to Gillis.
“Right,” the bearded father said. “But me and Janna’s mother, we married in a rush of feelings, ignored proper-arranged suitors and all
. Sometimes the brighter candle burns low quick, is all.”
“Go on, it can’t have been too bad,” the thin father said.
“Ask the prick she’s bedding these days,” the bearded father said. “I say there hasn’t been time enough for Janna and yer boy.”
“Is there time enough in the world to fall for that idiotic grin?” Amelia muttered so only Gillis could hear, pointing to the son’s face, which pulled in awkward directions as he smiled.
“Come, let’s have a drink,” the thin father said.
The two fathers left their children alone at the table. The son and daughter touched their feet together under the table and shot tense grins at each other. Amelia suggested in a low voice that someone ought to cut the lovebirds’ feet off.
The fathers returned with three tankards of ale, one of which was thrust into the son’s hands.
“Drink up, lad. Hairs on the chest, and all,” the bearded father said.
“I’ve hair on me chest already,” the son said.
“Well I say these two’ve got to know each other more than ye might guess,” the thin father said. “How many’s the time I’ve seen this lad rise at dawn, get dressed fine and comb his hair, and sprint to the road for the chance of spotting Janna going past on her wagon—”
“Da!” the son said.
“What? It’s true.”
The two fathers laughed, but soon after the bearded man looked at the son with a hard eye.
“Bless me, I never knew. Ye’ve been talking to this lad, have ye?” the bearded man asked Janna with his eyes still on the son. The daughter hid behind her hair.
“I’m running all around the village trying to keep an eye on him. Half my reason of keeping at him is so he don’t slack on his chores…” the thin father said.
“And the other half?”
“Well, I keep at him so’s I don’t give him time alone to perpetrate a mischief, so to speak. Soon, we won’t just be wanting a wedding,” he said with a significant look. “We’ll be needing one.”
Silence fell, and Amelia gripped the table hard. What on earth has her agitated so? Gillis thought.
The bearded father looked from Janna, to the son, to the thin father.
The son shifted in his seat. “We ain’t done nothing alone-wise. Or improper.”
“Aye, I’ve kept close eyes on the lad,” the thin father said.
“So they ain’t done anything yet,” the bearded father said in a hushed voice. Then he raised his tankard high. “Let them marry, so they can!”
“Really?” Janna said.
They all cheered and clanked their tankards together.
Amelia got up and left.
Gillis still had stew in his bowl, but left a coin and slowly stood and followed her out. The cheers died away behind him as he closed the door. He half-ran to catch up to Amelia, as she was already some distance from the inn.
“Not hungry?” Gillis said.
“Oh it was just stupid. Such nattering as I have never heard before. Idiotic and stupid.”
“I saw it otherwise.”
“Then you’re blind as well as a cripple.”
“I saw four safe people traveling freely, unarmed and unguarded. I saw a young woman who drives a cart alone around the surrounding villages. I saw people that sleep soundly each night.”
“Forgive me if my eyes aren’t welling up for a group of pig farmers.”
“Goat farmers. You would know if you paid attention.”
“All the same—”
“You don’t understand. A Mordenari takes pride in the fruits of our burdens and sacrifice. We know not peace, that others may.”
“Powerful,” Amelia said in a flat tone. “Absolutely inspiring.”
“There is more to our cause than using Momaentum and enchanting. I wish you could see that.”
They continued in silence on the road.
Iron-grey clouds rolled overhead as they passed through stands of trees, across rolling farmland, and by the occasional woodland cottage. On the hilltops that were clear of trees, the mountain could be seen, a jutting tooth of grey rock tinged blue by the distance.
Amelia kicked pebbles and sticks, whistling the whole time. Whenever they passed a merchant or farmer on a wagon, Gillis bade her to be quiet, but she whistled all the same. A cold wind picked up, stinging their faces until it turned their cheeks and ears red. Gillis tucked both hands into the sleeves of his robes against the numbing cold.
“It’s your fault I’ve gone hungry,” Amelia said suddenly. “I can’t go back to that slop after having your cooking. One bowl of it and now I’m fussy.”
Gillis did not smile, though he felt a tightening at the corners of his mouth.
She blew into her hands. “I’m not thanking, I’m blaming.”
“I know.”
“Ruined my tastes. You had better teach me that hot-rock soup before the next time I have to leave the Monastery.”
“Cooking is simple. Cut ingredients, season them, apply heat.”
“Momaentum is simple. Just wave a dagger until people die.”
“Fairly said.”
They left the path, and their way now led them snaking through the mountain’s foothills and under its shadow.
The land, as written in Ardent Momaenta, was enchanted that any who were not Mordenari would become lost in the foothills or the lower slopes of the mountain, and would never find the Monastery. Gillis felt a prickling on the back of his neck as he tried to recall the precise wording of the passage that explained Verandert’s building of the Monastery and enchantment upon the hills centuries ago. Precise wording, Gillis thought.
“We didn’t fulfill the writ,” Gillis said. “That’s trouble.”
“Pauloce is dead.”
“Dead, yes. But not by poisoning as the writ required. He would have been discovered with his face smashed in and a prisoner gone. It will make a story that speaks loudly—which is not our way. Folk are supposed to whisper about Mordenari, not wonder aloud.”
“What does it matter? It’s the result that—”
“No, Amelia. Not with Verandert. The letter of the writ above all. No deviations,” Gillis said.
“Shelve the papers quickly and quietly if you’re this worried,” she said.
Gillis shook his head. Amelia is flippant about many things, he thought. Let her be flippant about them until experience teaches her calm. But to speak of Verandert thus, the founder of the Mordenari, the Immortal, the Face-Changer—it is beyond foolish.
“Hold on.” Amelia held up her hand. “Do you feel—”
“We’re being watched,” Gillis said, as he suddenly felt it too.
With a sharp look at each other, they halted. The chirp of insects and the rustling of dead leaves in the wind were the only sounds. They saw no movement along the crests of the hills or up the mountain slope, nor by any of the trees. It was then that Gillis recalled the precise wording of a passage: None who are not Mordenari shall find the path up, but take care that you are not followed on your ascent. The Monastery is not hidden to those who would follow closely your footsteps. Gillis told Amelia in a low voice to act as normal, and they walked on.
“I could always be Prime Steward. A man with an injured hand can still bow and scowl and inspect,” Gillis said loudly.
“The one thing we don’t need: more bowing and scraping at the Monastery.”
A rough, booming battle cry came down from above them and an enormous, wild-looking Wittewolder leapt from cover and rushed toward them with a titanic sword held high. A Gweidorian man clad in shining plate armor followed. There was a sudden blue flash. Gillis blinked and looked to his side. Amelia was not there. Gillis’ only weapon was the dagger tucked deep in his pack, and he cursed that it could not be reached in time. He backed down the slope, scrambling for footing with his eyes on the huge man that bore down on him, who closed the gap between them with enormous strides. Gillis held up his hands and braced for the impact.
Then b
lue Momaentum flashed again, dazzlingly bright, as Amelia collided with the giant and they toppled to the ground. The armored Gweidorian stopped. Amelia held a small blade to the giant’s throat and pinned his arm at a sharp angle behind his back. His sword lay feet away from them.
“See, Gillis, this is how you solve things quickly,” she said.
“What are you doing? Get them!” the huge man bellowed. The Gweidorian hesitated and Amelia and Gillis watched him. He slowly laid down his sword. “Idiot! Choson, get them,” the barbarian screamed. “ ‘At the Monastery,’ she said. It is them we are after!”
“Let us talk,” the man called Choson said. “I do not wish for you to harm my companion, and we intend no harm against you.”
Amelia raised her eyebrows while looking pointedly at the Wittewolder’s sword.
“Well. I intend no harm to you. My companion,” Choson said and licked his lips, “got excited.”
“Lies,” Gillis said. “Amelia, put your Sleeper on them. They will be questioned when they wake.”
“Fine, Gweidorian,” Amelia said, ignoring Gillis. “Let us talk quickly. You’ve seen what I can do. Your ambush came to nothing. So talk.”
Gillis approached the Gweidorian and took his sword. It was heavy, and took both hands; the injured one throbbed.
“What do you want?” Amelia continued.
The huge fur-clad man laughed bitterly. Amelia tightened her grip on his arm and pressed her dagger harder to his throat.
“I believe that you Mordenari have affected my lands and my people. I come for answers,” Choson said.
“He comes for justice,” the giant rasped.
“On whose authority?” Amelia asked.
“No authority. In a way, I have been exiled.”
Gillis cleared his throat and pointed at the giant, who had been reaching toward his sword. Amelia drove her foot onto the barbarian’s fingers, holding him in place. Gillis shuffled over to the second sword and dragged it away. He addressed Choson: “You know of the Mordenari, and have discovered that we truly exist. So, surely, you have heard that death awaits those that approach our mountain?”
The Tyranny of Shadows Page 7
