by DAVID B. COE
“Your first barroom brawl?” Jaryd heard someone ask him in a breathless voice that carried over the din of the fighting.
He turned to see the serving girl from their first night in Amarid—her name, he remembered, was Kayle—standing next to him, flushed and smiling, her light brown hair pulled back except for a few wisps that fell attractively over her forehead.
He nodded and gave a small laugh. “Do you have a lot of them here?”
She shrugged, absently surveying the chaos before them. “We have one every couple of weeks. Nobody ever gets hurt too badly. I think they’re kind of fun, although I hate cleaning up after them.”
They both ducked as another tankard whizzed by their heads.
“I didn’t see you last night,” she said, facing Jaryd again.
She really was quite pretty, Jaryd thought to himself as he tried to explain why he had slept in the forest the night before. She had sapphire-blue eyes and a few light freckles across the bridge of her nose. There was a delicate fragrance about her that reminded him of wildflowers and spring rain. And Jaryd could not help but notice how the low neckline of her blouse revealed the beginning of the gentle curve of her breasts.
“So you spend one night in the forest and you come back with one of Amarid’s Hawks,” she said with a crooked grin, as she gently stroked Ishalla’s chin. “Is it always that easy for young mages to find their first binding?”
“No, it’s not,” came Baden’s voice from over Jaryd’s shoulder. “Jaryd is rather special, Kayle,” the mage added.
Jaryd blushed deep scarlet as Baden and Trahn joined the conversation.
“I hope you didn’t start this fracas,” Baden remarked to Jaryd, indicating the bar with a sweep of his hand, and winking at Kayle as he spoke.
“He’s been very well behaved, Owl-Master,” Kayle assured the mage in a sincere tone. “I’m keeping an eye on him.”
“I’m certain that you are, Kayle,” Baden replied in a tone laden with innuendo.
She laughed as the two older mages moved on to find a table in a safe corner of the bar.
“How did you know that this was one of Amarid’s Hawks?” Jaryd asked her, his composure returning.
Her expression hardened. “You think that just because I work in a bar, I don’t know anything about Amarid and the Mage-Craft?” she asked coldly.
Jaryd shook his head. I seem to have a knack for irritating beautiful women, he thought to himself with regret. “Not at all. It was an innocent question; I didn’t mean to offend you,” he assured her. “It’s just that, before I met Baden, I never would have known Amarid’s Hawk from a barn owl. I was merely wondering how you knew.”
She looked at him skeptically for a moment before her familiar, slightly crooked smile returned. She shrugged again. “I don’t know. I grew up in Amarid, and I used to watch the processions with my parents each year. I guess I eventually learned the names of the various birds I saw. And,” she added with genuine admiration, “Amarid’s Hawk was always the easiest to remember.”
They stood in silence for a few seconds, holding each other’s gaze. At length, glancing around the bar and noticing that the fight had played itself out, Kayle said quietly, “I should get back to work.” Jaryd nodded as she went on. “You go join your friends, and I’ll bring you some food and ale.” She started toward the bar, glancing back at him once with a flirtatious smile.
Blushing slightly, Jaryd joined Baden and Trahn at their table. Both mages grinned as he sat down. “I thought she wasn’t your type,” Baden commented.
“And I thought you were interested in Alayna,” Trahn chimed in.
“She’s not,” he told Baden, “and I am,” he added, turning to Trahn. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t flirt a little, does it?” His friends laughed. “Besides,” Jaryd went on, “given how indifferent Alayna seems half the time, it’s nice to know that someone, at least, is interested in me.”
At that moment, Kayle arrived carrying a tray with three tankards of ale and a large platter of roasted meat, breads, and some steamed roots that Jaryd did not recognize. She served them without speaking, although she smiled at Jaryd when she gave him his ale.
“Well,” Baden commented after she was gone, “she certainly does seem interested.” He winked at Trahn. “Maybe you should have her talk to Alayna for you.”
Jaryd shook his head as Trahn began to laugh. “Can we change the subject, please?” the young mage requested a little desperately.
The three mages began to eat, and, as they enjoyed their meal and the dark ale, they reviewed the day’s events. Soon their discussion shifted, and Trahn and Baden told Jaryd more of the history of the Order and of the mages they had known. As they moved to their second and then third tankards of ale, they began to exchange more personal stories about their homes, their past loves, and their families. Occasionally, they tore off pieces of the tender roasted meat and fed it to their familiars, but mostly they gorged themselves, until Jaryd wondered if he would ever be hungry again. It was a late night, as all nights in the Aerie seemed to be, and it was not until the three of them slowly climbed the stairs to their rooms that Jaryd remembered his vow not to drink any more of the city’s rich, dark ale. It was, he knew, an oath he should have kept.
8
His room was dark, save for the constant yellow glow of his ceryll and its soft reflection in the large, impassive eyes of his bird. He lay alone in the bed, thinking back with satisfaction on the events of the day. All had gone well, better than he could ever have expected. Sometimes, he reflected, all the planning in the world—all the cunning, and the attention to detail, and the artifice—was no match for plain, dumb luck. The stone crashing through the window had startled him as much as it had everyone else in the Great Hall. He had been quick to recover, however, and quicker still to recognize the opportunity that this random act offered. He had considered saying something that would allow him to seize the opening he had been given, something to galvanize the Order into action. But he didn’t have to. Baden, his most dangerous adversary, proved once again to be a valuable, albeit unwitting ally. It was Baden’s challenge to the Order that had spurred the Gathering to send a delegation to Theron’s Grove. A delegation, the mage amended, grinning in the shadows, of which I am now a member. Let the others go out on their patrols or huddle around the Summoning Stone. Once I am rid of Baden and the Hag, none of them will have the power or the will to stop me.
He closed his eyes in an attempt to get some sleep, but one memory from this day still troubled him. “If there is a murderer and a traitor in this hall right now,” Baden had challenged, “hear me: I will find you, and I will use all my power to destroy you.” It hadn’t been the words themselves that had bothered him; he was confident that he would defeat Baden when the time came. But in the stillness that followed Baden’s declaration, the mage had felt exposed somehow, as if someone in the Gathering Chamber had sensed his treachery. He did not know who it was; indeed, for all he knew, he might have imagined the whole thing. But the feeling at the time had been quite vivid, and, he had to admit, more than a bit unnerving. He shuddered at the memory.
“Not that any of them could stop me,” he said aloud, as if to convince his familiar. “No one has any reason to believe that I’ve betrayed the Order. And by the time they realize it, it will be too late.”
His bird cocked its head slightly, and then began to groom itself.
Again he closed his eyes, trying to calm his nerves. It was all going so well; he would be foolish to lose sleep over some fleeting sensation that had probably been conjured by his own overanxious imagination. The Gathering, he knew, made him nervous. It was a small matter to fool the idiots he supposedly served, and he had little trouble hiding his thoughts from one mage, or even a few. But spending day after day with the entire Order, having to watch everything he said, every action and every facial expression—it was nerve-wracking. He could not be faulted for knowing one brief moment of paranoia. It was only natural. Besides, tomorrow t
he Gathering would end, and the next morning the delegation would depart for Theron’s Grove. It would be easier once they were on their way.
His fears slowly receding, he felt himself beginning to drift toward sleep. But his slumber, when it finally came, was troubled by dreams of a shadowy figure carrying a brilliant sapphire ceryll.
The next morning, when Baden, Trahn, and Jaryd reached the Gathering Chamber, preparations for the departure of the delegation and the commencement of the patrols had already begun. Jessamyn and Peredur sat at the head of the otherwise empty council table, assigning tasks to mages and the stewards of the Great Hall, and coordinating the gathering and packing of supplies. Glancing to his left as they approached the Owl-Sage, Jaryd noticed that the window shattered the day before had been patched temporarily with a square of pale wood, and the stone and shards of glass had been removed.
The sage and her first looked up as the three mages drew near. “Ah, Trahn!” Jessamyn said with relief. “We’ve been waiting for you. Would you be willing to find mounts for the eight members of the delegation? No one in the Order knows more about horses than you.”
“Certainly, Sage Jessamyn,” Trahn answered with his familiar broad grin. “I already have mine, and I know of a trader who always has fine animals and, more importantly, who owes me a favor.”
“Good,” the Owl-Sage said. “Tell your friend that he shall be compensated above and beyond the full value of the horses. Baden and Jaryd,” she went on, turning her dark eyes in their direction, “Sartol and Alayna have gone to gather food for the journey. I’d like the two of you to assemble and pack some cooking gear and any other equipment you think we might need. I believe there is a great deal of old equipment in the attic of the back room; anything you can’t find there, you’re welcome to buy in the marketplace. When Sartol and Alayna return with the food, they can help you pack that as well.”
“Very well, Owl-Sage,” Baden said with a nod, and, as Trahn went off to find the horse trader, his chestnut hawk sitting upon his shoulder, Jaryd and Baden walked to the rear of the Great Hall.
“Cooking gear?” Jaryd asked in a whisper as they walked.
Baden grinned. “Jessamyn and Peredur have lived in the hall for many years,” he explained quietly. “They’ve grown used to some of the comforts of life here. I think they’re entitled, don’t you?”
Jaryd nodded.
“Don’t let that fool you, though,” Baden warned. “They’re both tougher than they look.”
“I’m sure they are,” Jaryd said with a smile. Something else Jessamyn had said had aroused his curiosity, however. “If mages carry little money, as you told me the other day,” he ventured, “how can Jessamyn afford to pay for the horses and equipment?”
“Individuals carry no money,” Baden told him, “but the Order itself has quite a reserve of gold and silver.” They paused at the bottom of a narrow, spiraling stone staircase that led up to a small storage area. “In the earliest days of the Order, towns and cities often sent tribute as thanks for the services provided by mages,” the Owl-Master explained. “Later, after the first of the Abboriji invasions several hundred years ago, the Order briefly assumed responsibility for the maintenance of a standing army, and it collected voluntary duties from some of the larger towns. The temples objected and the army was soon disbanded, but when the Order attempted to return the funds, many of the towns refused to take back what they had sent. Indeed, for some time, they continued to give, perhaps feeling that somehow they’d be safer if they did. Whatever the reason,” Baden concluded, “over the years, the Order amassed a tremendous amount of wealth that it continues to draw upon today.”
“Shouldn’t we return what we haven’t used?” Jaryd asked.
Baden smiled. “We do,” he assured his nephew, “in our own way.” The Owl-Master gestured for Jaryd to climb the steps to the attic, and Baden followed him up the winding stairway.
Jaryd was not sure what he had expected the loft of the Great Hall to look like, but he certainly had not expected it to resemble so closely the attic of his parents’ home. Notwithstanding the fine marble floors and high ceiling of the hall’s storage area, it was just like the crawl space above Jaryd’s old bedroom, the one in which he and Royden had played as children. It was dark, illuminated by a single translucent window just above the staircase, and, like the attic in Accalia, it smelled of mold and dust. Throughout the space, strewn in jumbled piles, some reaching to the height of Jaryd’s shoulders, lay an unimaginable variety of old paintings, furniture, trinkets, and tapestries.
“What is all this junk?” Jaryd asked in amazement, as the grey bird on his shoulder hopped to a nearby perch and began to preen.
“Junk!” Baden exclaimed. “I suggest you look more closely.”
Stepping closer to one of the piles, and brushing away some of the dust, Jaryd realized that Baden was right. The workmanship on the pieces of furniture was incredibly intricate, and many of the curios, when polished even slightly, shone with the dazzling beauty of crystal and gold. Jaryd glanced back at the Owl-Master, wonder in his grey eyes, and a question on his lips.
“Gifts for the Order,” Baden explained, “from every corner of Tobyn-Ser. This room contains some of the finest works the people of this land have ever produced. Woven rugs with strands of silver and gold, paintings by the greatest artists in our history, tables and chairs carved from the rarest of woods, silver work and gold work by smiths of incomparable talent.” He shook his head, gazing sadly from pile to pile. “These things should be on display, and instead, they sit up here gathering cobwebs,” he concluded.
“Why?” Jaryd asked, sifting through a mound of exquisite silk clothing.
Baden shrugged. “We’ve never taken the time to decide what to do with it.” Jaryd shot him a look, and Baden added, “I know that isn’t much of an excuse, but it’s the truth. We’ve never even discussed it during a Gathering. At least not in my memory.”
“So what?” Jaryd asked harshly. His tone carried more anger than he had intended, but he pressed on. “Where is it decreed that everything has to be approved by the entire Order? Sometimes someone just has to take the initiative and do something! By the gods!” he stormed, indicating the riches in the space with one hand, and brushing the hair from his forehead with the other. “Now I understand why Orris is so angry all the time!” He stopped, suddenly aware that he had been yelling at Baden. “I’m . . . I’m sorry, Baden,” he stammered sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”
But to Jaryd’s surprise, the Owl-Master was smiling at him. “It’s all right,” he said quietly, “we’re peers now. And I’m glad of it. Perhaps, if others among the younger mages share your passion, there’s still hope for us.” The Owl-Master took a weary breath. Perhaps it was the dim light of the Great Hall attic, but it seemed to Jaryd that his uncle looked much older than he had just a few days before, when they had hiked down out of the Parneshome Mountains into Amarid. “I believe the cooking equipment is back here,” Baden said, as much to himself as to Jaryd, as he stepped over a pile of paintings toward the far end of the storage space.
Jaryd glanced around the attic again.The finest works the people of this landhave ever produced. He shook his head, and went to help his uncle, who was already rummaging through the equipment.
They spent what remained of the morning gathering and cleaning off the lightweight pots and pans, utensils, and plates that the delegation would need for their meals. They also found several coils of sturdy rope, a dozen sheets of light tarpaulin, and eight saddlebags, which they hoped would be enough to carry all of the food and equipment. At midday, one of the blue-robed stewards of the hall brought them a light meal and a carafe of the honey-flavored wine that had been served to the Order the day before. Baden and Jaryd paused from their work to eat and then spent another two hours looking through the old equipment for anything else the delegation might need. In the end, they took everything they had found during the morning, as well as three stur
dy backpacks and several skins for carrying water.
They climbed down the narrow stairway and returned to the Gathering Chamber carrying as much of the equipment as they could manage. When Jessamyn saw them, she quickly dispatched two attendants to retrieve the rest of the gear.
“Sartol and Alayna returned with the food a short time ago,” the Owl-Sage told Jaryd and Baden in a crisp tone. “They’re in the kitchen sorting it and will need some help with the packing.”
Jaryd started toward the kitchen, but Baden’s voice stopped him. “Owl-Sage,” the Owl-Master began, “I have . . . an errand to which I must attend, but Jaryd will be more than happy to help Sartol and Alayna.”
Baden and the Owl-Sage exchanged a glance before Jessamyn nodded knowingly, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Of course, Baden, I had almost forgotten. Go and see to your errand. The three of them can manage the packing.”
“Wait!” Jaryd blurted out as Baden turned to leave. “You’re not going to leave me alone with—”
“Is there a problem, Jaryd?” Jessamyn asked, as Baden regarded him placidly.
“Uh . . . no,” Jaryd replied hesitantly. He paused, and took a deep breath. “No, Owl-Sage,” he said with resignation, “there’s no problem.”
“Good. They’re waiting for you in the kitchen.”
He looked once more at Baden, who was grinning. “Say hello to Alayna and Sartol for me,” his uncle told him.
Jaryd gave the Owl-Master a sour look before turning away and walking into the kitchen. He found Alayna and Sartol standing before a long white marble counter on which they had spread out and sorted the tremendous amount of food they had purchased earlier in the day. Dried fruit, rounds of cheese, dry breads, cured meats, and flasks of wine sat in tidy groups on the stone surface. The saddlebags and other equipment that Jaryd and Baden pulled from the attic had already been carried into the kitchen and piled neatly on the floor beside the counter.
The two mages looked up as Jaryd entered the room. Alayna quickly turned her attention back to the packing, but Sartol rose and welcomed Jaryd expansively, telling him all about the food market they had visited and complimenting Jaryd and Baden on their thorough search through the old equipment. Given the awkwardness of his previous conversations with Alayna, Jaryd had feared that this would be a painfully long afternoon. So much needed to be done, however, that the young mages scarcely found time to speak to each other. They filled the saddlebags under Sartol’s scrupulous supervision, and, while Alayna remained tight-lipped and businesslike, Jaryd answered Sartol’s numerous questions about Accalia, his childhood, and his brief apprenticeship with Baden. In this way, the afternoon passed quite rapidly. Before he knew it, Jaryd had finished packing the last of the equipment.
