***
The River
Selling off everything in the city of the dwarves took them an extra day and was making everyone nervous. Not acting like the merchant caravan they were pretending to be would have been even more obvious. From here on out, it wasn't so much speed as maintaining cover that would protect them.
In keeping with their new identities, each of the men got a new if very basic armor. The younger men relied mostly on a few plates strapped over their chain hauberk, this left room to adjust the straps as they continued to grow. Catrin and Rea were frustrated that they didn't end up with new clothes for this leg of the journey. Still Rea was a bit impressed with the change the armor made in her brothers. They looked more like they belonged out in the wider world, not like a couple of escaped apprentices. Catrin noticed the change too but Pavel really didn't do it for her and while she owed Echal a debt she couldn't repay and respected his character, he was still a kid. No amount of armor would change that.
The small party having converted all of their gear and horses into much lighter gem stones loaded themselves onto a river barge. They pushed off and watched Stonedown Mines, shrink behind them.
Echal, always obsessed with machinery of any kind, was fascinated by the locks system that dropped them twenty thousand feet to the valley floor below in only twelve stages. They camped on deck the first night, even though there was a small human village available on the bank. It was small enough that their passage would be remarked upon and remembered should they ever be questioned. Jayen and Jan both missed their private bedroom in the cozy home in the village with its real feather bed mattress and wool blankets. Still the weather had warmed up significantly since they had changed altitude.
Day three brought them to a rather sizable mostly human town. Here they would split up and go separate ways to make themselves harder to track. It started with Jayen and Jan purchasing a large spacious smithy, large enough for many hired smiths to work from. Jayen stretched his back, "I've lived small for a long time, with this cover at least my sweet Janice can hire a cook and maybe even a lady's maid. This way if any of you need to run, no one will think twice of me adding an extra smith to the rotation."
"Is that what we'll be doing?" Asked Pavel.
Savon smiled. "No, you're all coming with me to your new lives, or at least your new educations. No more smithing for you my boy, you're to be entered into training at the Guardians Tower of the Eternal Spire in Archive."
Pavel looked as if he had just had a death sentence. "No not that, those witches use magic to enslave their guardians!"
Savon laughed. "You shouldn't believe everything you hear oh gullible one. Besides, your Tzadi will not be using magic on you; you can trust her. You've known her all your life."
Pavel looked even more confused. "I don't know any of the Tzadi."
Savon shook his head. "Well, she's not a Tzadi yet. Once our little Rea has been tested and accepted though, getting you assigned as her Guardian, should be pretty easy. You both get the best educations we can give you and if things go well in the war, then it is a good life. If they go poorly, then you're at least prepared to defend yourselves and each other."
Rea's head was spinning she knew her mother was a Tzadi of the elves, but that didn't mean the humans would accept her at the Eternal Tower. Still a chance to learn like this couldn't be passed up and she would get to stay with Pavel. A Guardian's surcoat would look splendid on him. Rea never really played with dolls when she was younger, and now at least emotionally she was too old for such things, but playing dress up on Pavel sounded like oh so much fun.
Jayen nodded to his son, "This will give you training on par with what you should have received, had I not gotten involved too directly in politics. This will allow you and Rea nearly unrestricted access to all levels of society and let you carve out for yourself an amazing life. Just don't forget to stop in from time to time and commission a new sword or helm, so we can visit." He smiled sadly at his son and pulled his wife in closer.
Echal cleared his throat. "Dare I ask?"
Jayen and Savon both grinned at each other, "You boy, are to be an initiate of the Brotherhood of the Well. Don't look so shocked, you'll not become one of the monks unless you choose to do so but just as Savon, and I did in our time and your father in his you will be a lay protector. I even know the exact Brother you will study with. He and he alone of the order can be trusted with your true identity. He will see to it you are properly instructed in all that I could not teach to this point."
"But, Catrin can't be a lay brother, how are we going to find a place for her like you did for Pavel and Rea?" Echal as getting a sinking feeling they were to be split up and in his first burning stage of puppy love, he couldn't imagine it.
Savon, hid his smile well, "Catrin is no affair of yours young man, I have other plans for her. Perhaps one day when your training is complete, you will see each other. Who knows?"
Catrin just assumed she would travel with her father learning to be a merchant so she said nothing.
Jayen put an end to the debate, "Get some rest, tomorrow will be a busy day."
***
Dress for the job you want
The next day was a long day as promised. All but Catrin and Savon spent the entire morning getting new clothes. Fancy clothes. Only Rea and Janice seemed to be excited about the adventure. Pavel wasn't thrilled, but he hadn't been thrilled about any part of this plan. Echal seemed even less so, he expected armor to be uncomfortable but it served a purpose. For as soft as these materials were, there was just so much of them, it was hot especially in the greater heat and humidity in the plains.
Rea on the other hand was just dancing. Even Echal couldn't help but smile. It was late in the day when they met back up with Savon and Catrin, who had spent the morning buying horses. Savon rubbed the sweat from his brow. "Echal, you need to say your goodbyes. I have a messenger from the Brotherhood waiting to take you to Weapons Master Brother S'ven Mirion. Yes, he's a distant relative but one who was completely loyal to your father. Mention that to no one. Your name is now Echal Sone, as far as anyone else is concerned. You will spend tonight at the Brotherhoods Chancery and leaving before dawn."
"Can't we talk about this, I mean it's so soon." wailed Echal.
Janice moved up and hugged him. "My son, I love you more than you will ever know. This day had to come. You need skills to protect yourself and the Brotherhood is where you go to get them. If I could keep you safe with me, I would. This is the only way." She released him.
Jayen stepped up to him next and engulfed him in a bear hug. "You are my son as well as your fathers, and you have made me most proud. Now go and do your duty, get the skills necessary to protect yourself and those you love against whatever the future may hold for you." He turned away but the cracking of his voice betrayed the emotion.
Pavel came over to his little brother. "Sure you don't want to trade? Not having witches putting spells on you sounds pretty good to me right now."
Echal laughed and hugged his brother. "Rea will protect you." Then looking down at little Rea, "Won't you?" she just dove into him and hugged him close.
"I'm going to miss you. Stay safe."
Lastly, he turned to Catrin, "I had hoped to have more time to get to know you." She just smiled at him. He reached into his pouch, retrieving the little ruby ring. Handing it to her. "Don't forget me."
"You saved my life, how could I ever forget you?" She leaned forward and kissed him ever so lightly on the cheek.
Reluctantly pulling away, "If we're going to do this, then let be done with it." Echal croaked his voice filled with the regret of knowing that his whole family would not be together like this again for a long time if ever.
***
The Spire
Leaving Jayen and Jan behind had been a tear-filled affair for Rea and Pavel. Savon knew this would be difficult for them but he still managed to get them underway before the sun was more than two hours in the sky. Travel was eas
y on the open roads of the plains. Even with the war of succession underway, travel of the kings highways was maintained by the Brotherhood and their neutrality in these matters was centuries old.
Early on day two of their journey, the Eternal Spire became visible on the horizon, long before the rest of the city. It was a full day's travel from when they spotted to the of the spire until they stood at the gates of the city. Archive was the second largest city in the entire Kingdom of Novas. Home to twenty thousand regular residents and five thousand tourists, students and scholars a day to visit the Great Archive. Another three thousand residents of the Eternal Spire made for more people than Pavel or Rea had ever seen in one place.
Rea presented herself before the hall of testing as Shadrea of Snow Mountain. A location chosen for its remoteness on the far side of the Elven lands. It would take a truly remarkable and dedicated agent to confirm her story. With no reason to doubt her word and the amazing aptitude she displayed in the testing, few questions were likely to be asked. Pavel, on the other hand faced his future like a man going to the gallows.
As soon as their acceptance was assured, Savon and Catrin headed back through the market. "Are we going to look for wares for the next leg of our journey or do that in the morning?" Catrin asked.
Savon just shook his head. "We're going to see to your education next."
"But Papa, I already am learning how to be a trader, and a good one at that!" she protested.
Savon grinned back at her. "That you are. There is more to life than trading."
"I can't believe you of all people just said that," she teased.
"It's true, I've enjoyed my cover as a trader but you need skills that will allow you to make your way in this world no matter what may come. We'll be there by noon tomorrow. Until then lets just enjoy this ride, it is the last you and I will have together for some time." he said with a wistful note in his own voice this time.
Catrin couldn't let it go, and they ended up arguing most of the evening. As promised though before the noon meal the following day, they arrived at a large and opulent plantation. In the few minutes before they made it to the door, Savon's voice cracked. "This is the Finishing School. This will be the hardest years of your life, but it is because I love you so much that I want you to have this experience."
"Papa what's wrong. It's not too late, we can pick up some new wares and still make the southern markets."
Savon helped her down from her horse. He held her close for a long minute, then nodded to the men who had come out to greet them.
In a flash Catrin had a bag drawn down over her head and was bound and hauled away, struggling and crying out uselessly as the men took her inside the plantation house.
Savon wept openly as he rode away.
New Lives
Echal
Echal clinched his teeth, biting back a scream to a grunting moan as he pulled off the first kid skin glove. These last few weeks have been pure hell. He looks at the second glove with dread. He's bled through the skin and fused the leather to the open blisters just below. The second glove isn't any easier to remove. He stares at his swollen cracked and blistered hands and remembers his first night arriving at this forlorn outpost of the Brotherhood deep in the wilderness.
Ushered into the dimly lit private study of Weapons Master S'ven Mirron, Echal felt a bit like he was going before a magistrate. The old man behind the desk looked as if he could have been any age north of a hundred. His face scarred and his mannerisms as curt and bluntly efficient as they were solid and sure. This grizzled veteran looked as if instead of aging like normal people he had just simply had all softness boiled out of him and hardened like Cuir bouilli leather.
"So, you're Evan Mirron's son and heir? I can see him in you, under the ill-mannered village idiot and general reckless stupidity of youth." The rasping voice pitched low enough that even only a few feet from him Echal had to strain to hear it. The man stood and walked with a pronounced limp around the edge of the table and took Echal's hands in gnarled boney grip. "Not the hands of a sluggard, fortunately, but these just won't do. No one will mistake you for nobility. The calluses are all wrong. We will have to resolve that." He shook his head. "Call it forth boy, prove your claim."
Echal was taken aback by the blunt and quick assessment made of him, but not once did refusing the old man ever cross his mind. He concentrated for a moment and the heavy ring appeared back on his hand.
S'ven eyed it, as much how it was called from nothingness as its design and grunted. Slowly with obvious pain, the old man knelt before Echal. He placed his hands between the boy's hands, "As the son is the Heir and Will of the father, the son's hands for the father's. I do swear to accept my duty and train the boy trusted to me as his father has willed." He said with a louder voice. He gripped the young man's forearms and used them to lever himself back to his feet. "Put that ring away and don't pull it back out. It's your life if the wrong person sees it." He growled. Then he reached for a pair of kidskin gloves that had been soaking in oil. "Put these on. Keep them on. Unless you are alone in your bed, wear them. I've agreed to do my duty to your father," he grinned an evil gap-toothed grin, "and I'm sure before long you will hate me for it. Until the first time it saves your life, that is." He wheezed a harsh gasping laugh. "Yes, we'll carve off that mess you've become and leave only what is fit to be your father's son, but it won't be easy. Get some rest, you've a long road ahead of you." he said as he returned to his side of the desk and sits. "Why are you still here? Dismissed!"
Echal submerged his hands in the bowl of brandy with a hiss, had that really only been weeks ago?
***
Rea
Rea's eyes were puffy and swollen but that was nothing compared to the burning fire from the small of her back to the back of her knees. One hundred lashes with a birch switch had her more miserable than she had ever been in her short life. It wasn't even her fault, if her damn room mate would have just kept her mouth shut no would ever have known she was slipping out each night for independent studies. Everyone judged her as a child, and no matter how many times she breezed though their 'tests' she was still constrained to learning at the pace of the other girls. She was seen as a bright and gifted student, but they reserved the higher magics for the older girls. Ok not 'older' but looked older, in the eyes of the Tzadi teaching them.
She didn't need to sleep, so why make her lay there for eight hours every night bored and listening to the stupid room mate snore. Of course she fixed that. She couldn't help but smile to herself, of course that's what brought on the switching. Still watching the girl's underwear burst into flames in the middle of the dining hall after she had told on Rea was almost worth the pain she was in now. Letting it be widely known that she was the one to have done it though, that was worth it. Now no one wanted to room with her, and no one was likely to tattle on her again. Not for anything that wouldn't get her expelled anyway.
She went to what was now her room and only her room, though it did have a guard stationed outside. She decided to try a new spell she had been reading about in the library. She didn't know all the spells in the chain that would normally make it easy for her to learn, but she also had something the other girls didn't, with her perfect recall memory, she had access to any book she had only glanced at. With just a second to call it to mind she could work straight from the spell as if she had the book in front of her.
The hardest part was the caster was supposed to be asleep as well, she had to play with it several tries before she realized success. By the early morning light, she had found her way into Pavel's dreams.
***
Pavel
Pavel was feeling about as out of place as ever he had. He was too big to train with the boys his own age, so they had moved him into the advanced class to train with grown men who were his own size but had also been training here longer than he had. In fact, several of them a lot longer. He was more bruises than a boy after weeks of this. He had seen no one from his old life either. H
e missed his parents, he even missed Echal and Rea. Hell, he even missed the forge with its rhythmic ebb and flow. It was a place where he knew what to do. Knew what came next. The trainers had banished anything resembling a schedule. They often ate meals on horseback even when the chow hall was within sight. Night watch shifts were picked randomly. Some times it meant you didn't get picked. Sometimes you got picked twice the same night just a few scant hours apart.
Even the combat training was screwy thought Pavel as he cleaned the sand out of an open wound on his forearm with a brandy-soaked rag. This nasty scrape was actually considered a success here. He took the injury protecting his assigned target from harm. Fighting for your life is one thing, fighting to protect someone who isn't fighting back but is right there in the middle of the combat, is a whole new animal. Closing his eyes, praying to whatever benevolent spirits of chance that he not draw guard duty in the night, Pavel drifts off to a fitful sleep.
Heir's Legacy Page 3
