The Drinnglennin Chronicles Omnibus

by K. C. Julius

  After a brutal session that left them both soaked through with sweat, the two men sat on a hay bale, passing a jug of ale between them.

  “I’ve something to tell you,” said Roth carefully. “They found Cole’s attacker, as well as proof that he’s the same man who shot the arrow after our joust.”

  Borne was suddenly on his feet. “Where is he?”

  “In a pauper’s grave. He was a Lurker, Borne. One of Vetch’s henchmen cut him down.”

  “He’s dead? But then we’ll never know what his motives were. How do we know for sure he was the culprit?”

  “He carried arrows with fletches identical to those on the shaft that struck both Lord Eston and Cole. Besides, he was made to confess. As for his motive, I told you—he was a Lurker. That sort needs no rationale to kill.” Roth plucked a handful of straw from the bale and flung it into the breeze.

  Borne sank down heavily beside him. Cole’s murderer was dead. But Borne was to find no relief in retribution.

  Roth handed him the flagon. “Finish it, and then we can both go and clean up. After, we’ll go to the Tilted Kilt, if you like.”

  Borne emptied the jug down his throat, then dropped it to the straw. “I’ve got someone to see,” he replied woodenly.

  “Lady Maura, perhaps?”

  Borne frowned. “Why would you think that?”

  Roth shrugged. “I heard she intervened between you and Lord Heptorious. I thought perhaps you shared… a connection.”

  “You are mistaken,” said Borne coolly.

  Roth stood up and dusted his hands on his stained doublet. “I confess I’m glad to hear it. Lady Maura and I have been spending some time together. She’s become…” He looked down at his hands, then flashed a diffident smile. “I have feelings for the lady. I should not wish to rival you for her affections.”

  Borne kept his face a mask. He’d come to terms with his reality—that he had no right to love, for it only brought sorrow wherever he bestowed it. “You’ve no cause for concern on my account.” Despite himself, he added, “Does the lady share your feelings?”

  Roth grinned, his handsome face alight. “I’d like to think so. I intend to declare myself to her soon. Do you think she’ll have me?” he asked earnestly.

  With a sinking heart, Borne imagined she would. It was clear the two were well matched, although if Grindasa’s claim was true, it was possible their fathers had been brothers. Then he remembered who Maura’s mother was—what she was. Considering Roth’s feelings about the å Livåri, he wondered if Maura would tell her suitor about her true lineage.

  Well, he thought bitterly, it’s her affair. He had no intention of interfering.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Borne replied tersely.

  Then he spied Sir Glinter crossing the grounds, and inspiration struck. “A moment, sir!” he called.

  He turned back to Roth. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve my own future to see to.”

  Chapter 28

  Whit

  Whit plunged with urgency into learning the rudiments of scrying. The art proved to be a taxing one, requiring both absolute stillness, in order to create magical space, and fierce concentration to maintain a clear image of what was being sought.

  The physical challenges alone were daunting. During the first days, he stood for hours before Gywna’s Fire and saw nothing more than a swirl of disappointing mist on its smooth surface. He was left frustrated and wrung out, as if every fiber in his body had been tested, and came away with an aching, stiff neck, burning eyes, and the sensation that every sound was intensified.

  Initially he tried to keep up his lessons with Cortenus and Elvinor, and to get at least an hour of physical training each day with Frandelas, who had become his preferred sparring partner. But after a week of fruitless staring at the unyielding stone, he was forced to accept that he had no stamina for anything else.

  The days passed into weeks, and Whit doggedly persisted, spending most of his waking hours in the small pavilion. But he came no closer to opening the channel between himself and the stone, and most nights when he dropped onto his bed he was too tired to do more than remove his boots before plummeting into dreamless sleep.

  He was only dimly aware of the news from the outside world that filtered into the elven sanctuary. Master Morgan sent a brief message informing Elvinor he’d left the capital for an undisclosed destination, and that they were not to expect Leif and Maura back in Mithralyn any time soon, as the wizard had been unsuccessful in extracting them from Urlion’s domain. There were also reports of a failed assassination attempt on the High King—made even more troubling by the fact that Urlion had not yet named an heir—and the culprit, who had subsequently succeeded in killing a young nobleman, had been found and executed.

  There was no news from Cardenstowe. Whit could only trust that if something was amiss there, the wizard would find a way to let him know.

  In Mithralyn, life went on. Whit’s hosts were as gracious as ever, but without his former companions, he felt even more of an outsider. He found elven mirth and merriment an unwanted distraction. And as for the dragons, they might as well have vanished into thin air. Even if he’d had the energy to walk through the forest, Whit wouldn’t have ventured alone into their hidden territory for all the gold in Glornadoor.

  And then one morning, as he stood before the scrying stone, a faint something—the mere whisper of an aura—drifted across its alabaster face.

  Whit held his breath, straining to see into it.

  A lone crow chose that moment to careen into the belvedere, its beating wings nearly striking Whit’s face. He stumbled backward and lost his footing.

  “Sard it all!” he shouted, then threw back his head with a howl. The crow responded with a harsh caw and flapped away.

  Whit slumped forward until his head touched the ground. “Arrggh! I can’t do this!” he cried. “I’ll never see anything through the confounded mist!”

  But when he closed his eyes, his mind churned with the horrific image of Halla’s lifeless body rolling in a wash of waves. That drove him back to his feet.

  “Pull yourself together, man,” he muttered. “The crow is the symbol of your house. He came to remind you that the motto of the Cardenstowes is ‘Ef syn dyfalbarhau, goresgyn’—He who endures, overcomes.”

  And so Whit gazed again into the stone.

  All the rest of that day, and into the night, he stared into Gywna’s Fire. At first he held Halla fast in his mind, but as the hours trudged past, other thoughts intruded—of crows and dragons and how the sea looked from the rolling deck of a ship. And then he thought of his father, who had cast doubt on his heritage, and who had never once bestowed upon him a measure of affection. He recalled how envious he’d been of Halla the time he saw her riding on her own father’s shoulders. At least she’d experienced a father’s love. He wondered then if his envy was misplaced. Perhaps Halla’s was the harder burden to bear. When her brothers replaced her in Uncle Valen’s heart, she lost something Whit had never had to begin with.

  The belvedere darkened ever so slightly as Whit’s mind wandered. At first he thought a cloud had passed before the moon, but gradually he came to realize the subtle darkening came from the stone itself. Wispy, shadowy figures danced across its seamless surface.

  Hardly daring to breathe, he shook himself from his reverie and pooled all his powers of concentration to bring the figments into focus. He bent every fiber of his being on defining the revelation.

  And he was rewarded with a wavering vision.

  For the briefest of moments, he saw a girl huddled in a dim, cramped space, her wrists bound with rope. It might have been any girl, except for the autumn flame of her hair.

  Alive! Halla is alive!

  Ignoring the dull pounding in his head and the sweat running down his back, Whit felt the leaden weight of his guilt lift, i
f ever so slightly. He was filled with a surge of excitement, but as much as he wanted to run shouting out the news of the stone’s revelation, he sensed that to do so would disturb the fragile connection he’d finally achieved.

  He hardly remembered making his way back to his chambers that night to fall exhausted on his bed. When he awoke the next morning, he stripped off his soiled tunic from the day before and immersed himself in the spring-fed pool that served as his bath. There he practiced the art of lech b’naith, a form of meditation he’d learned while in Mithralyn, in which he used the slow exhalation of his breath to bring his mind to the necessary stillness for the day’s work ahead.

  He cautioned himself not to expect a repetition of the previous day’s divination. Scrying stones, like magical pools and mirrors, were renowned for their fickle nature, and only the most patient of wizards and sorceresses could master them. Still, he couldn’t help but hope.

  When he was seated once again on the pavilion floor, he emptied his mind until he was aware only of the tingling of his skin and the warmth of the gilded light on his neck. His breath seemed to fill not only his lungs but his entire being as the tremor of an aura began almost at once to take shape.

  Once more, the stone darkened. This time it revealed the clear outline of a ship, scything through rolling waves. Halla stood on its deck between two men, one of whom was bent over her bound wrists.

  Then light flooded the pavilion as the rising sun cleared the horizon, and the revelation disappeared.

  Already drenched in sweat, Whit clambered to his feet with excitement—for he’d seen the slant of the light on the ship’s deck, which had provided him with an invaluable clue. The ship was heading due east, which could only mean it was destined for somewhere on the continent.

  And Whit would stake his life that the men who crewed her weren’t Helgrins, for neither was fair or particularly tall. They had the swarthy coloring of more southern lands.

  “Or Lurkers!” said Whit aloud.

  His high spirits quickly plummeted to despair. If Halla was on a ship traveling over the Erolin Sea, she was as good as lost to them. How could he hope to trace her in lands he’d never seen—lands he wouldn’t recognize even if the stone revealed them? And Master Morgan had warned him that a scrying stone might divulge images from the past as well as the present, so there was no telling how long ago Halla had made this voyage.

  Whit left the pavilion and drank his fill from the fountain that bubbled in the copse of birches ringing it. Spent from the effort of scrying, he slid down against one of the trees, closed his eyes, and listened to the soft rustling of the leaves and the trills of the morning birds.

  Sleep was the only remedy for the havoc scrying played on the body and spirit.

  Unbidden, the dark ship rose and dipped before him on a bright sea. He heard the snap of its sails, the song of the wind in its rigging, the creak of wood, and the queer four-note cry of a seabird.

  Four haunting notes.

  Whit bolted upright.

  * * *

  After sprinting the entire way, Whit burst into Elvinor’s library and whistled the bird’s cry for his tutor, Cortenus. Cortenus echoed it back to him, then set aside the large tome lying open before him. But his smile faded as Whit swayed on his feet, and Cortenus leapt up, catching him just before his legs buckled.

  “It’s enough,” Cortenus said sternly, helping Whit to a chair. “You’ve done all you can. If you keep this up, we shall lose you as well as Halla.”

  “What is it?” demanded Whit. “What bird?”

  Cortenus gave him a queer look, then repeated the call.

  “Yes, that’s it. What bird makes this cry?”

  “Dieomeldae sturmaustus, the sea vern. I’m surprised you remembered it. But I suppose there’s no reason that—”

  “But I didn’t remember it,” Whit said. “I heard it just now.”

  Cortenus frowned. “That’s not possible, my lord. Sea verns aren’t native to Drinnglennin.”

  Whit fought against the growing lassitude tugging at him. “I heard it. While I was resting among the birches. I was thinking about what I saw in the stone, and I heard it.”

  Cortenus’s eyes widened. “You’ve seen something in Gywna’s Fire?”

  “Yes.” Whit gave a weak smile. “I saw Halla. Alive. But I’ve no idea where she is.”

  “All the same, that’s marvelous news!” Cortenus clapped his hands together. “But as for the bird call, you must have been dreaming. Dieomeldae sturmaustus stay close to their breeding grounds at this time of year, as they would still have nestlings.”

  Whit felt his pulse quicken. “And where might that be?”

  Cortenus crossed to the beautifully detailed map of the Known World hanging on the library wall. Drawn by Erthernor the Elder, the map was a thing of wonder, for it reflected time as well as place, and so seasonal light, weather, and the cycles of the moon and tides were visible on it.

  “Exactly here.”

  Whit’s knowledge of geography was, as Master Morgan had once noted, more than sufficient. Cortenus’s finger lay poised over El Marisca, the vast estuary bordering Albrenia’s chief port, Segavia, the famous crossroads between Drinnglennin and the East. To Segavia’s sprawling bazaars came traders from Helgrinia bearing ice-bear pelts, beeswax, amber, and ivory; Gralians with their fine woven cloths and rich, costly dyes; and Olquarians, who bartered their exotic spices and silk for Albrenian olives and pungent herbs.

  And slaves.

  Leaning heavily on his staff, Whit hauled himself upright. “We must speak with Elvinor at once.”

  He hobbled through the bowered palace, calling the elven king’s name, and nearly collided with his host as Elvinor rounded a corner in alarmed response.

  “I apologize, my lord,” Whit said, struggling to catch his breath, “but we must send word to Master Morgan. I know where Halla is, and there’s no time to lose if we’re to rescue her from a terrible fate!”

  “I see.” Elvinor glanced at Cortenus, then took Whit’s elbow and steered him to a bench. “It seems Master Morgan would agree. He left instructions that should you locate Halla, you were to prepare to go after her at once.”

  Whit sank down with a sigh with relief. “So you’ve heard from Master Morgan? This is good news indeed. We must depart as soon as possible.”

  “We?” The king settled beside Whit. “I wish I could accompany you, but we both know this is impossible.”

  “Of course,” said Whit. “I meant Master Morgan and me.”

  “Ah, I see you misunderstood me. Master Morgan didn’t plan to go with you. He’s occupied with the High King’s business.”

  Whit felt the blood drain from his face. “So I’m to go alone?”

  “Not alone, my lord,” said Cortenus stoutly.

  Elvinor nodded his approval. “If the winds are favorable, you should be in Segavia in less than a week. But I must caution you, Whit, if Master Morgan hasn’t already: you won’t be able to perform any magic once you’re on the continent. They have antiquated ideas about wizards and sorceresses there, and they deal with practitioners in a most barbaric way.”

  Whit knew all about the burnings of those possessed of magic on the other side of the Erolin Sea. He looked uncertainly at his staff.

  “Take it,” said Elvinor. “Just remember to use it for physical, not magical, support. And take this too.” He held out a slim book. “I found it in the section of the library that you’ve been scouring. From the dust on its cover, I assume you haven’t read it yet.”

  Whit squinted at the title. “It’s in Albrenian. The Fall of Magic: Blessings of the Purge?” He looked doubtfully at Elvinor.

  The king shrugged. “I’ve never read the ghastly thing, but under the circumstances, I think you might view it as a cautionary tale.”

  “Thank you, my lord. I shall be sorry to l
eave Mithralyn. It will remain an experience I shall treasure all my days.”

  Elvinor’s somber expression lightened, and Whit wondered if the elf had expected him to flout the wizard’s instructions. “We hope there will come a day when you are back among us,” said the elven king graciously. “Until then, may Alithin’s breath fill your sails.”

  * * *

  Cortenus and Whit were on the road to Fairporth within the hour, bearing with them provisions from Mithralyn’s larder for the voyage ahead.

  “You’ll find your favorites in here,” Aenissa had promised, handing Whit an additional parcel. “Honey cakes. Think of me when you enjoy them.” But although he could still feel the soft brush of the elven princess’s lips on his cheek, by the time they reached the bustling port, he found himself wondering if the past months had been nothing more than a dream. He mentioned this to his tutor, and Cortenus’s smile was rueful.

  “Yes, I suspect we’ll not be able to recall much of our time in Mithralyn as the days pass. For all that they revere their long history, elves live in the present, and staying among them influences what we retain of our own memories.”

  Whit’s alarm must have flickered in his eyes, for Cortenus hastened to reassure him. “Don’t worry, my lord. It won’t affect the learning, magical or otherwise, that you attained there. But the fabric of the days passed in that golden bower will likely weave together and fade, just as our dreams are wont to do.”

  While Cortenus went off to secure their passage to Segavia, Whit sought a

  courier to carry the letters he’d quickly penned to his mother and Wren. In the latter, he sent instructions detailing all that his vassals must do in the event he failed to return home. To Lady Rhea, he sent assurances of his good health and that his prolonged absence was an investment in Cardenstowe’s future. In truth, he was still weakened by his time with the scrying stone, and even the act of tracking down a reliable messenger drained his meager strength. By the time he met Cortenus at the inn where they would spend the night, his head felt as though it might burst like an overripe melon and dark splotches had begun to appear before his eyes. Master Morgan had warned him that compromised vision was a side effect of scrying, but this was the first time he had suffered it.