Chased By War

by Michael Wolff

  “He has my daughter!” Andrew burst out. His hands clasped his face to veil his tears.

  “And many more, apparently.” Calm and collected, Stromgald was. As if talking over the dinner table. “To what purpose we don’t know. Nor do we know how the Weirwynd are found in the first place.”

  It was a weary Lazarus that answered. “Hiding in plain sight is the key to survival, which in this case many Weirwynd opt to disguise themselves as peasants. Peasants die often enough in dark alleys for little purpose. Who would miss one or two of them disappearing? Still, I would like to know the truth behind the accuracy.” And right under my nose, said the feral glare twisting Lazarus’ face. The man took many a fatal blow in the name of his people. Perhaps too many.

  “So, what do we do now?” Matt echoed.

  “We seek out Kalam’s sanctuary, discover the means of his blackmails and put them to an end.”

  “Is that all?” Mykel said with a humor he didn’t feel.

  “Yes. Mykel. Shayna. Seek out the records of Kalam’s lands. Something is amiss.”

  “Us? Just the two of us? Why not you, or John?”

  “John must return to the frontline. As for me, my absence from Kalam’s eye will do more harm than good. You are the only people that will not be noticed.”

  “Because we’re not important enough, you mean.”

  “To put it bluntly...Yes.”

  “What do you want me to do, Lazarus?” Matt echoed.

  The Khatari blinked as though seeing the pirate for the first time. “You? Nothing.”

  “I can help. I’ve got a fleet of fighters backing me.”

  “Against a nobleman who thinks you little more than a snail. Anything you do will be an excuse for him to manhandle you. Act out in any fashion and your crew will be under the gallows.”

  “Fine. I’ll just take my leave now. I’ll be more useful on the battlefield.”

  “No. You have to remain here.”

  Matt looked at him with a gaze equal parts of disbelief, anger and shock. “Staying just increases the chances of being caught. A man like Kalam will have spies. Whisperers. I’ll be under watch all the hours of the day. Not to mention my men. You want me to spin needlework waiting for me to slip up.”

  “Your men will not be mistreated, nor you. That I promise.”

  “But you won’t tell me the reason why. I’m just supposed to trust you.”

  At this Lazarus’ eyes darkened. “You seem to under the notion that you have a choice. I have been polite in my instructions. That could change.”

  For a moment, furious eyes locked, and then Matt pulled his away and muttered an affirmative. Nodding at the victory Lazarus returned his attention to the full group. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go!”

  The next few days Mykel kept appearances to evade suspicion; just enough to remind the Kalam castle that yes, he existed, and yes, he wasn’t up to any trickery. Just a harmless little cripple. Nothing to be wary about.

  Research was immense. The tomes of tithes and property were thicker than a titan’s hand, and so ancient that special tongs were necessary to turn the pages without them dissolving to dust. Generation after generation, bloodline after bloodline. Mykel feared that the records were clean, or worse so, that he had skipped something in the shuffle of examination.

  Nedlyh was founded by a farmer named Nicolas Forest. Born in 1852 to parents Maria and Charles, matriarch and shoemaker respectfully...

  The story described a hero rather than a simple peasant. Nicolas went to work on the family farm when the Great Famine of 1860 decimated crops round the world. He lost both parents to the pox five years later. It galvanized him to risk his life so that no more families suffered what he suffered. Nicolas was the first to give shelter, the first to rely on herbal medicine when prayers and confessions failed. He was the first of his family to employ free men, on the salary of a free man. Come the time of the feudal era in 1876 Forest established his allegiance with a General Victor Senel, Kalam’s ancestor.

  There was just one problem.

  Nedlyh didn’t exist.

  XXVIII

  “Why this place?” Shayna asked. “This Nodra –”

  “Nedlyh,” Mykel corrected.

  “Whatever. What makes you think the crisis is here?”

  “Because there is no Nedlyh. It never existed. Nicolas Forest did exist, but he was a farmer. He was a practicing Chronist –”

  “Chronist? I know of it. It is a faction of the Church that operates on the notion that their ancestors take the form of angels at death and become the family guardians. How does this help us?”

  “I’m getting to that part. This kind of worship started elsewhere. A remote island in the Eastlands, named Nugohs. The people believe the king is an actual descendant of Syrui, the sun god of that pantheon.”

  “Mykel, I swear. If you do not start making sense I will brain you.”

  “I’m just trying to show the big picture.” A sudden heat told him of the smoky-eyed glare of fraying patience, and the promise of violence should that last strand snap. “Look. You wanted to know why we’re here. I’d have to jump over essential details and you’d be confused, and then you’d be asking questions that I would have answered if I told you of the background in the first place.”

  “Are you saying this is my fault?”

  Warning bells started wailing in his head. “No. No. I didn’t say that. What I’m trying to say – all right, all right. The Chronist practice embodies strong family bonds. Families often contained three generations at one time. A second tradition is the family history. Chronist families have been using the Ligrev language for centuries. It is very old, and it has produced offshoot tongues as more people came to adopt it.” The rasp of a dagger from the sheath made the librarian raise his arms in mock surrender.

  “The documents I read were in 12th Century Ligrev. That variation died out three hundred years before the Chronists were formed! A Ligrev scholar would be writing in 14th script! It’s fake! There hasn’t been a town here for centuries!”

  “Well, you might want to ask them why they’re here.”

  “What?” Mykel looked up, and his jaw bounced off the ground.

  He expected barren plains, with the whistle of lonely winds stirring spirals of dust. He did not expect a whole town, tepid with a life grown dull by isolation. It was the kind of surprise that could easily end with one squeezed into a child-sized cage to be dinner for the vultures come nightfall.

  There were little in the means of welcome, and the welcome that did come was paired with too-wide grins and knowing nods, as though greeting returning neighbors. Mykel scrutinized the smiles. He knew a thousand and one empty courtesies from favor-hungry barons, and all of them were at work now in the townspeople. The town that wasn’t supposed to exist. He grunted as Shayna’s elbow in his ribs broke the reverie. There was a dumpy little man coming straight for them.

  “Well howdy folks. I can see you’ve been traveling long with all that dust on you. How are you called?”

  “Morgan Lewis,” Mykel said before Shayna opened her mouth. “This is my fiancée Sara.”

  The man’s broad smile became broader. “Well, if it’s hospitality you seek, you’ve come to the right place. Nedlyh welcomes all strangers far and wide. I’m Hazel, by the way. Hazel Strum. Let me give you the grand tour.”

  Mykel’s hackles grew cold. People with that much happiness bursting at the seams tended to see others as no more than children incapable of original thought. Especially people who should have been tossed to the wolves for their deformity.

  A glance at Shayna returned a smile just that
side of smugness. On the one hand Mykel couldn’t blame her, after all the speeches she’d had to endure. On the other hand, the town’s discovery did wound his pride. He liked it not to fail when every instinct said the opposite. Especially in front of Shayna. Careful LeKym. You aren’t falling in love with her, are you? What would Caryl say?

  The pair went through the Pale Moon Inn, to Old Barney’s Mill; all the way to Kain’s Road...save for one. “What’s that mansion over there? The mayor’s residence?”

  “Um, oh, that? No no, our mayor doesn’t live there. Nobody lives there anymore. Or even if anyone did. It was there when we constructed the town. It’s our own secret landmark. Or maybe not, since everything is kind of secret around here. Come. You must be parched. The Bronze Flagon has the world’s best cider –”

  Strum’s words were cut short with Mykel’s hand upon the other’s shoulder. “What do you call that place?”

  “The Stranger’s Mansion.”

  “Hazel, would you give us a moment alone?” Shayna kept a smile wide enough to match Strum’s own until the guide was well out of earshot. Then she turned a viper’s gaze upon the librarian. “What the hell is the matter with you? You look as though you’ve been pricked by nettles.”

  “There is something amiss here.”

  “Why? Because you were wrong? So you miscalculated.”

  “I never miscalculate. Or have you forgotten Andrew’s daughter?” The returning slap was far stronger for a girl of Shayna’s dimensions.

  “How dare you. You are burned so deep from your failure you would hold that blackmail over my head? I have not forgotten our task. My pride has not blinded me. Now, we are going inside for some cider. And you will behave yourself. You might even have—the gods forbid—some fun. Am I clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, Shayna. I will have –” the librarian could not help the bitterness twisting his face – “some fun.”

  “Good.” Turning back to Strum she said, “We would be honored to partake of your cider.” Mykel lowered his hat to veil the dark glare sharpening his eyes. Something burned in him, the way she laughed, the way she exchanged pleasantries, the sheer familiarity she shared with the stranger she knew not a heartbeat gone. She is not a possession. That didn’t lessen the rancor one inch.

  “You’ll have to forgive the lack of accommodations. We don’t expect visitors at this hour.” The man went right to the inn’s bar and began plucking glasses and bottles. The crystalline tinker of ice announced the quality of the holding chamber’s temperature, as did the torrent of liquid gold churning into the wine-glasses. Shayna took her glass almost immediately, while Mykel contented himself with small sips. He didn’t care for the sideways glare Shayna cast on him, nor did he care at the purple shins he was getting from all the girl’s kicking. Strum, his smile so long it almost touched the earlobes, was ignorant to it all.

  “So, if I may ask, what is your purpose here?”

  “We are on holiday.” Shayna replied, hooking an arm around Mykel with a flawless smile. “We just got married, and we’re inspecting our family’s holdings. Is this not the site of Lewis & Son?”

  “No, I’m afraid. There’s nothing what you’re describing for a thousand leagues.”

  A thousand leagues. Mykel kept his words curiously flat. “Lucky for us you were here. We could have died out there without knowing it.” I’m going to rip out your stomach through your nostrils, you smug son of a bitch.

  “Yes, well...for every door the Lord closes, He opens a window.”

  Great. Pathetically annoying, and a preacher. What’s next? Then a slight rattle rolled into the room, followed by a frail old woman whose flesh had just started to sag under gravity’s pull. A chameleon, Mykel thought, for she had two faces. There was the warmth of a grandmother seeing her progeny return from decades of absence, and yet there was the fear the elderly faced daily before sleep, always wondering if this night’s slumber would be their last. Interesting how the latter expression came alive upon sight of Strum.

  “My word. Am I still asleep, or have me customers?”

  “Indeed, you are awake, and customers they be.” There was something discomforting about the width of Strum’s smile; try as he might Mykel could not shrug the dread from his shoulders. “I was giving them the grand tour.”

  “In the middle of the night? What if they are bandits?”

  “Have you seen bandits with dust on their backs? You grow suspicious in your old age, Diane.”

  “And you are not yet the age I can bend you over my knee, Hazel. Now leave over.” To the new customers she continued, “I fear that my rooms will be below your satisfaction. Please give me a moment to tidy the chambers. Do not let Hazel near the wine. He has too deep a fondness for the drink.”

  Strum laughed quietly, fading only when the click of a door signaled the innkeep out of earshot. “She exaggerates, of course. Our little mother hen, we like to call her. She will not mind a glass of Kohlin gone –” For a moment the dumpy little man paled under Mykel’s dissecting glare. There was too much the librarian disliked Strum while sober. Getting him drunk would only make things worse. So, they entered a stalemate, opposite each other on a pair of rickety benches, the air tight with tension. Even Shayna lost her tongue to the uncomfortable silence.

  “Well, it took longer than I thought, but you won’t see any room cleaner in this place.” She barely glanced at the friction between the two men; a bar was often the cause of pissing contests. “Now, you drink this milk. It will help you sleep. And you, Hazel. Don’t you have a wife to return to? She might wonder why her husband is out and about at this hour.”

  “Right as always. Say, how about tomorrow I guide you to the wheat fields? It’s a small piece of land, but the harvest is in full bloom. It truly is an impressive sight.”

  “We would be happy to join you, Hazel.” said Shayna. “Eight turns of the glass, shall we say?”

  We would be happy to join you, Hazel. Mykel thought in sing-song. Eight turns of the glass, shall we say? The girl was so damn naïve, and she didn’t even know the treachery she was unleashing. That Mykel had to employ politeness for Strum’s farewell made him sick.

  “I think that went rather well.”

  “Yes. Quick thinking on your part, by the way.”

  “Tactical use of disinformation. First thing they teach at the Citadel.” Her grin was as radiant as sunshine. “We’re going to need our rest if we are to tolerate that man tomorrow. He makes my skin crawl.”

  “You got that too? Good. I was afraid of being paranoid.” A dry chuckle escaped him. “At least it’s just him. An average, run-of-the-mill mortal.”

  Mykel nodded. A mortal would be a great change of pace.

  Grinning like idiots the pair ascended to their room.

  XXIX

  WAKE UP.

  Mykel jerked upright...surrounded by an abyss of white. No sky, no ground, no horizon, nothing. Just endless white in all directions. Manna. Which meant a shiisaa. Which meant a Weirwynd. What element the spell possessed was in question, though it was dispelled by the anxiety of making headway through this muddled agenda.

  “You show no fear. Have you experience with this before?”

  Mykel whirled about...to find the old woman at the inn not two paces away. “You?”

  “I am sorry for the hour, sir. This was the only way I know to keep this conversation hidden from them.”

  The librarian felt poleaxed from processing so much all at once. “This is a dream, isn’t it? I’m asleep and I’m having a dream. What Element are you?”

  “I am an areku, sir.”

  User of Gal
e, Mykel thought. “Keep going.”

  “I wish no disrespect, but circumstances have forced my hand.”

  “This isn’t an ordinary town, is it?”

  The old woman looked relieved to be free of the verbal burden, as though her own risk was somehow lessened because of it. “There is a mine at the southern edge of town. It has been abandoned for years, and has more than enough corridors to hide undesirable elements.”

  “They’ve captured Weirwynd.” The woman nodded. “There’s more than just one girl, isn’t there?” Mykel did not know his fingers clamped upon the areku elder until she burst out in pain. “What will they do to them?”

  “They’re –” The image flickered like a street magician’s illusion gone awry. “Mi-mi-bleeding-bleed-no-they-found –”

  The white abyss vanished, leaving only the room around him, as plain as it ever was. Except the shadows quivered, thickened. In the moonlight, a silver sheen betrayed a dagger’s form, and then the baleful eyes of the wielder.

  Mykel did not let the assassin time to complete his intent. A horrid cry escaped the man as Ifirit roared to life, exhilarating in the gobs of blood pumping from suddenly fingerless hands. It wanted more. Mykel wanted more. The hunger sated with a savage offense grew twice over with the khatar’s feasting. Mykel followed the man into the shadows, once confident eyes now wide in fear. Ifirit rose for the deathblow, and a measure of reason froze the librarian in place. The assassin saw his escape and darted through a window Mykel did not realize was shattered.

  Mykel muttered on an oath for his own stupidity. Had the assassin not been stricken with fear the librarian would have the knife in his ribs. Not only that, but Shayna was nowhere in sight. There was no blood, so murder was not the assassins’ intent. They must have taken her.

  The old woman. Mykel rushed to the innkeep’s quarter and saw the old woman, fans of blood across her blouse, crimson threads dripping from a still-twitching cheek. Shayna. Again, he failed to defend her. No, he admonished himself. Just find her.