The Crosser's Maze (The Heroes of Spira Book 2)

by Dorian Hart

  “Stop it,” said Morningstar. “If you’ve already rendered judgment, what is the point of—”

  “I am not finished, Outcast of Ell. I haven’t yet arrived at the most embarrassing moment. Here.”

  Again the vision from the past jumped to life, and they were obliged to watch as the chaos played itself out, a frenzied assault of little flying monsters ending with Mrs. Horn bleeding to death on the floor. Grey Wolf himself knelt by her side, trying futilely to staunch the bleeding with his sleeve, when Dranko pushed him out of the way.

  “Lord Delioch, I pray for healing, that this woman be made sound and whole.”

  The scene froze again.

  “Such a pity,” said Solomea. “Delioch, God of the Healing Hand, was standing on tip-toe in his heaven, poised and ready to send a bolt of new life into Ysabel. If only Melen here wasn’t such a coward, he could have served as a conduit for that restoration. But he knew there would be a small cost, a little bit of his own life traded for the entirety of Ysabel’s, and so he balked. He trembled at the thought of sacrifice. He—”

  “Enough!” Grey Wolf shouted. “You don’t think Dranko already regrets that day? In the months since then, he’s nearly killed himself to save the rest of us.”

  Again, motion. Dranko’s futile efforts played out. Inevitably, Ysabel Horn died in a pool of blood, Ernie sobbing and holding her hand.

  Grey Wolf saw himself red-faced, consumed with rage.

  “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s his!” his past self screamed at Dranko. “Have you ever actually channeled? Have you?” And before Dranko could answer, Grey Wolf kicked him savagely in the ribs, driving the wind out of him.

  “You are useless! Worse than useless! Ysabel was worth a hundred of you!”

  The bloody room faded away, leaving Grey Wolf’s final shout to echo in the hedge-maze courtyard.

  Solomea studied Grey Wolf’s face. His cruel, sneering demeanor was gone, replaced by a soft, sad look. “And you, Ivellios. What do you regret?”

  Grey Wolf forced himself to take a long, deep breath before answering, though he wanted to lash out. “You want me to say I regret treating Dranko that way? I suppose. I didn’t know him then like I do now. You want me to say I’m guilty of misjudging a man? Fine. But I don’t owe you an apology for how I acted.”

  “No, you don’t,” Solomea said serenely.

  “And that’s not truly what I regret,” said Grey Wolf. “What I regret is that goblins murdered my parents and steered the course of my life onto a darker road. My parents gave birth to me, but those monsters made me into the man I became. Having to look at Dranko every day just rubs my face in it.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “My childhood was perfect. I used to laugh and play and do whatever I could to help my mother and father. The woods were a paradise. I could have grown up a hundred different ways, all of them happier than this one.”

  Solomea merely nodded.

  Grey Wolf banished thoughts of his parents from his mind. “And besides, Mrs. Horn’s death was a tragedy, and we all share responsibility for it, but I’ll be damned if you’re going to judge us only on the first adversity we faced as a team. You want to know if we deserve the Crosser’s Maze more than Lapis? Look at the months that followed. Look at what it’s taken us to get this far, across the entirety of Kivia.”

  “I look at everything,” said Solomea. “I see things as they are. I see what others do not. I see the truth about you, Ivellios, and how you have been deceived. Do you want to see the truth for yourself?”

  “About what?” Grey Wolf asked slowly. He didn’t trust Solomea not to indulge in some mean-spirited trickery, but the man’s demeanor had changed so wholly, becoming calm and kindly, his voice soft and empathetic.

  “About the foundation of pain and loss on which your life has been built. I think you deserve to know.”

  His parents’ death. He thought about how Naradawk had tried to muddle the memory of it.

  “No,” said Solomea. “Naradawk changed nothing. The damage had already been done.”

  “Show me,” Grey Wolf whispered.

  “Very well,” said Solomea. “But the truth is no more pleasant than what you remember. In some ways it’s worse.”

  Once more the hedge maze melted away, this time replaced by a small house in a forest clearing: his childhood home. A fifteen-year-old Ivellios worked in the backyard, trimming wood.

  “This is how you remember that day.” Solomea put his left hand on Grey Wolf’s shoulder. Grey Wolf was cognizant of the rest of Horn’s Company watching alongside him, but his focus was locked on his younger self.

  Sounds of booted feet and clanking metal came from the far side of the house. It hardly registered at first, but then came the chaotic noises of destruction, as though a wild animal had gotten loose and was smashing up their kitchen. Young Ivellios dropped his tools at the terrible noise of his mother’s scream, of inhuman grunting coming from inside his home. The door banged open, and his mother, Lia, sprinted out of the house towards him. But she had not gone ten steps before a heavy axe flew from the doorway and sunk into her back. She called his name one last time.

  “Ivellios…”

  The goblin stepped out onto the grass, its skin puke-green, its tusks stained and filthy.

  Ivos, his father, screamed from inside the house, a gurgling, blood-choked cry that cut off abruptly. Two more goblins stepped from the house to join the one that killed his mother. They wore red tunics emblazoned with their clan symbol: the gray head of a wolf. Tears of shock and grief streaked young Ivellios’s face as the goblins laughed their cruel, guttural laughs.

  Around Grey Wolf the others in Horn’s Company made small noises of horror, little gasps and quick exhalations, seeing for the first time what he imagined every night as he went to sleep.

  “Such a terrible memory,” said Solomea, sounding sympathetic. “But that’s not what happened. Or, at least, not how it happened. The truth is more complicated and directly related to why you wear Caranch’s bracelet to prevent your involuntary world-sliding. Observe.”

  The goblins vanished from the scene, as did the corpse of Lia Forrester. Young Ivellios shifted several feet to the left, his face scrubbed of its sadness. He watched the back door intently; a clanking ruckus came from the house, but behind it a man and a woman talked calmly.

  Grey Wolf ran a hand through his hair and strained his mind to find a memory that matched the scene. He could not. Half a minute later his parents came out the door in the company of ten soldiers. Ivos looked puzzled and Lia impatient. His mother was always impatient with unexpected interruptions; there was so much to do. Each solider wore gleaming silver armor, and they had long blades in sheaths at their hips. Six were men, four were women, and all carried themselves with a proud, military bearing. Their breastplates showed an insignia of two crossed swords.

  Across the backs of their shoulders hung bright silver cloaks.

  Grey Wolf closed his eyes. In the darkness his memories sought to shift, the goblins wearing these cloaks—or were these the killers instead? No, it was goblins. Solomea had shown him—

  “This is your son? Ivellios Forrester?”

  An older woman among the soldiers spoke these words formally, like a magistrate invoking a crucial point of law.

  “It is,” said Lia. “Now will you please tell us what this is about? Do you need to see the receipt for this spring’s taxes?”

  “Lia Forrester,” said the woman. “On behalf of the Silverswords, I, Orleah Farthing, do beg your forgiveness.” The soldier nodded, and three of her fellows swiftly took up position behind each member of the Forrester family. Before Ivellios or his parents knew what was happening, they had been seized roughly, their arms forced behind their backs. Each soldier produced a set of silver manacles and locked their victims’ wrists.

  Ivos and Lia struggled, but the soldiers were strong and had them outnumbered three to one. Grey Wolf winced at the sight of his younger self hardly resisting at al
l, plain confusion written on his face.

  “What are you doing?” Ivos cried. “And on whose authority?”

  Orleah pulled out a long scroll tucked in her sword belt. She stood above Ivellios and his family as they were forced to kneel before her.

  “In a past age the Kingdom of Charagan was ruled by the tyrant Naloric Skewn, whose malign power flowed directly from a divine force we call the Black Circle.” Orleah slowly unwound the scroll as she read from it. “Though Naloric was killed in battle over five hundred years ago, his son Naradawk seeks to return from his prison world of Volpos and resume his father’s dominion. The Silverswords have divined that the prime instrument of Naradawk’s escape will be a direct descendent of Naloric’s chief arcanist, Moirel Stoneshaper.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ivos shouted as he struggled in the immovable grip of the soldiers. “What does all that have to do with us?”

  “Having tracked down and executed all other such descendants, the only two remaining are Ivos Forrester and his son, Ivellios Forrester. With equal parts regret and zealous justice, and by the authority invested in us by the Spire in order that we thwart the Black Circle wherever we discover its members and machinations, we hereby carry out the final actions of our remit. Lia Forrester, you will bear witness to this act.”

  Grey Wolf’s mouth was dry. Who were these people? It sounded as though—

  “You have no right!” his father bellowed.

  Orleah Farthing rolled up the scroll and tucked it back in her belt. “Ivos Forrester, I sentence you to death, to be carried out immediately and by my own hand.”

  She drew her sword, which flickered silver with enchantment. It shed a powerful feeling of sharpness just to look at it, as though it could slice neatly through a block of granite.

  Or a human neck. Grey Wolf’s stomach clenched but he could not turn his head. While her cohorts held Ivos in place, on his knees, back bent forward, Orleah raised her blade and brought it down with a flash of silver.

  His father’s head thumped to the grass.

  His mother screamed and doubled her fruitless struggling.

  The woman turned impassively to Ivellios. “Ivellios Forrester, I sentence you to death, to be carried—”

  A crossbow bolt took her in the throat. It came as part of a barrage from many different directions, a hail of at least two dozen missiles. They had been aimed with deadly precision; seven of the ten soldiers fell, struck above the neck. None wore helmets. Ivellios’s young eyes grew wide with confusion, then hope, then horror. His mother had been struck by a bolt directly in her back. Her eyes were open, her mouth parted in surprise. She toppled forward, having died without making a sound.

  The three Silverswords who had survived the attack quickly drew their blades and stood back-to-back, but it was a futile gesture. A second volley came from the trees surrounding the lawn, felling two of the three. The final Silversword was struck twice, one bolt sticking from his calf, the other from his shoulder. He jerked and fell backward.

  Grey Wolf watched, stunned. None of this had happened. Where were the goblins? Why was Solomea showing him this? He peered into the trees at the edge of the yard, trying to see who had launched the attack.

  Four figures, three women and a man, stepped out from the shadows of the trees, moving with the fluid grace of seasoned warriors. None carried bows. Their skin was a dark blue, their heads hairless.

  Sharshun.

  Grey Wolf blinked. He had been saved by Sharshun?

  Ivellios stared at them, stupidly.

  “Too close,” said one of the Sharshun as they approached. “We left it much too close.”

  “And yet in time,” said the man. “The Circle would not betray us.”

  The first Sharshun, short and stocky, bent over the fallen form of the wounded Silversword. She placed a hand on the man’s head and whispered while making subtle motions with her fingers. The Silversword went limp.

  A third Sharshun, taller and slimmer than the others, stepped over the body of Ivos to stand above Ivellios. She smiled at him. “You are Ivellios Forrester?”

  “Who are you? What—”

  “Do you know why those people wanted to kill you?”

  Don’t tell her, Grey Wolf thought. But his younger self was still in a state of shock.

  “They said something about me being a descendant of Moirel Stone…stone something. And a person named Naradawk.”

  “Damn,” muttered the male Sharshun. “He knows. We can’t—”

  “I will fix that,” said the tall Sharshun woman.

  “Should we take him?” asked the man. “I think we should. If we leave him, who knows what could happen as he grows up?”

  “No,” said the tall woman. “We’ve been over this before. The Circle’s divinations are clear on the day Ivellios here will come into our power, and that is not for many years to come.”

  The man looked unconvinced. “I have read the auguries, and I disagree as to their clarity. They say that for Ivellios to serve his purpose, he must already have crossed the boundary, and his mind opened in a place that is all places. And those are not further clarified.”

  “I am satisfied,” said the woman. “It is my decision that he be freed. But do not fear. We will take precautions.” She nudged the wounded Silversword with her foot. “This one will report back that Ivellios died beside his father. That is how he will remember this day. The Silverswords killed Ivos and Ivellios, then were attacked by Sharshun. He was the lone survivor, lucky to have escaped with his life. But he will swear on all he finds holy that the last descendent of Moirel is dead.”

  She gazed down at Ivellios. “As for this one, I will change his memories of the past half an hour. A goblin raid should do the trick. Simple, and it will account for the deaths of his parents.”

  “I doubt there have been goblin raids around here for years,” said one of the others.

  “But the humans still fear them,” said the leader. “I’ll give them the insignia of a wolf; that’s the kind of thing those beasts would choose. For the aftermath, I will add some hazy memories of him taking a new name and starting his life over far from here. I will bring him to Hae Charagan myself. The Silverswords will never find him, even if they think to look.”

  The short Sharshun nodded. “And in the meantime, we will hunt down the remaining Silverswords. There cannot be more than a dozen left in their order. The best way to assure they never learn of Ivellios’s survival is to make sure they’re all dead.”

  “Quite right,” said the leader. She turned to the man. “Take the father back inside and break some things. Make it look like the goblins were here to plunder.”

  Even from this distance of yards and years, Grey Wolf could see the deep wells of pain and shock in his younger eyes.

  The Sharshun placed a hand on Ivellios’s head. “Young man, you will remember this day quite differently. And someday you are going to do great things.”

  Grey Wolf’s childhood home faded gently away, and he was back in the hedge maze courtyard. He was aware of many hands on his shoulders now—the rest of Horn’s Company surrounded him, their heads bowed, speechless but seemingly needing to comfort him.

  “I’m sorry, Ivellios.” Solomea’s voice came from far off, and behind it was the steady in-and-out breathing. Had it stopped before while Solomea had been speaking? “Naradawk didn’t alter your memories of that day; he discovered them already rewritten, even as he tore away the more recent memories of your visit to Volpos. The mind is not meant to endure that sort of thing, and the result was a shredded confusion of tattered images. There were never any goblins. The Silverswords killed your father, and the Sharshun killed your mother. That was the way of it.”

  Grey Wolf’s eyes stung. His chest heaved in uncontrollable spasms. His parents—he had seen them one last time, only to witness their deaths twice over. No goblins. The pillar of pain on which he had built his identity was a fiction, a lie planted in his mind.

  “By
the authority invested in us by the Spire,” Orleah had said. Had the archmagi known what had happened? Had Abernathy been complicit in his father’s murder?

  “Grey Wolf…” Ernie spoke his name quietly. The boy had tears in his own eyes.

  “Don’t call me that,” he answered in a whisper. “Grey Wolf is a lie. A lie. I am Ivellios Forrester.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Kibi didn’t know what to say, as usual, but this time he wasn’t alone.

  Dranko opened his mouth, then closed it, as if he wanted to make some glib joke but didn’t have the heart. Tor’s boyish eyes were as wide and round as saucers. Morningstar looked down at the pebbled ground, her mouth tight. Aravia looked down, too, but at Pewter, who sat silently at her feet, staring up into her eyes.

  Solomea was absent, though Kibi hadn’t seen him leave.

  Grey Wolf—no, Ivellios—straightened his shirt. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  “You’re sorry?” Dranko shook his head. “Gods, and here I was thinking I had a rough childhood.”

  “Who…” Tor had trouble finding his voice. “Who were those soldiers? The Silverswords? If they work for the Spire and their job is to fight the Black Circle, why didn’t the archmagi tell us about them?”

  “Maybe,” said Ivellios in a low voice, “because if I knew agents of the Spire had murdered my father, I’d have told the wizards they could stuff their quest up their wrinkled old arses.”

  Kibi scratched his beard. “I ain’t so sure the archmagi had any idea what them Silverswords were up to.”

  “Abernathy wouldn’t have kept that a secret,” said Ernie.

  “No?” Ivellios looked up at the featureless, black ceiling-sky above the hedge maze. “Abernathy has told us right to our faces that he’s keeping secrets from us. Why did he choose us? How did he know?”

  For some reason the question always made Kibi uncomfortable. He wanted to say it didn’t matter but wasn’t sure he truly believed that. For the moment he was content to let the others do the talking.