The Key To The Grave (#2 The Price Of Freedom)

by Chris Northern

  The Key To The Grave

  Chris Northern

  Published by Chris Northern at Smashwords

  Copyright © 2010 by Chris Northern

  All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced without permission from the author.

  ISBN 978-1-4523-4642-7

  Cover Art & Design Christopher Steininger

  http://www.partzero.com

  This book is for Jane, for more reasons than I can list here.

  #

  I didn't recognize myself.

  The chamber in the Eyrie had belonged to an Alendi chieftain before I had taken it for my own. There were few luxuries to distinguish it from any other chamber, but one of them was a full-length mirror that stood against one wall. Naked, I stood in front of it and looked at myself. It was masochistic, in a way. I knew I wouldn't look good. I'd lost a lot of weight, way beyond what was healthy. A month ago I had been fat. Not any more. I needed to eat and put back on some of the weight I'd lost. What I wanted to do was drink. It was a problem. Still, it wasn't my weight loss that bothered me most. My face had changed from relaxed and carefree to grim and brooding. They say the eyes are a window to the soul; I didn't like to meet my own gaze. The magical stone set in my forehead was also a definite concern; it was linked to the stone set in my own signet ring, and through that link I could be found. Handy for a friend, dangerous in the hands of an enemy, and I had no idea in whose hands it was.

  There were other things that I didn't like. I had not a single hair on my body, and the fire that had burned it off had left … well, burns. Lentro had healed me but there are limits to what magic can do and the body had to finish the job. It was going to take time. Some places were just red and angry, others worse. There was swelling, blistering, and some areas looked moist. As I stood there, head tucked and glaring back at myself from under hairless, angry brows, I noticed for the first time just how shockingly blue my eyes were and was reminded immediately of Sapphire. Cold eyes and the killing face. No wonder people had appeared a little tentative around me for the last few days.

  Not Sapphire, of course. He was hurt and moved slowly but there was nothing tentative about him.

  “You're a damn fool,” he'd told me when I had finally related to him just how I had turned the walking corpse Kukran Epthel into a non-walking one. “You should have broken his neck first and then thrown him into the fire.” In actuality I'd thrown both of us into the fire and then broken his neck. Sapphire's way did seem better, now that I thought of it.

  I'd shrugged. “I didn't think of it at the time.”

  “You were drunk,” he'd growled.

  “A little,” I'd admitted. “But that is not my fault.” I hadn't bothered to explain that Epthel had slipped me a drug that made me addicted to the first substance I encountered thereafter. I wasn't sure he had believed me the first time. I'd always had a bit of an issue with booze, but now it was a full blown addiction.

  “It doesn't matter,” he relented. “You did well, both at Undralt and here.”

  Now I stood in front of the mirror and looked back at myself with cold angry eyes.

  Done well, he'd said. The way he judged things, maybe I had. I'd learned not to let pain stop me doing what needed doing. I'd learned something of his own indifference to death and ability to deal it. Not traits I'd ever judged admirable. I had also failed. The massacre before we had been incarcerated at Undralt had seen my whole command destroyed, and that of my cousin Tulian. Him and two thousand men, more or less. I'd failed as a commander. My first command and possibly my last. I had been captured and tortured for knowledge I did not possess; I was no sorcerer and could not teach what I did not know. Torture had nearly broken me, made me crazy for a while, I am sure. And here, at the Eyrie, the stronghold of the Alendi, I had been captured again, failed in my objective. And once more, I was sure, either gone mad or still been half crazy. Violence had never been my way but now it was a part of me; at least the memories of it were mine.

  So I assessed myself; a half-crazy, violent drunk. The way my body looked fitted the way my mind felt; raw and ugly.

  Meran pushed open the door and stepped into the room, a bundle of clothes in his arms. He was limping from a half-healed broken leg. He'd jumped out of a second storey window, following my lead and landing badly. Sapphire had been beaten near to death and I had been badly burned. We had all received magic healing, in Sapphire's case from a spirit that I had called, yet we still had some healing to do. Magic can only achieve so much. We were resting, the three of us, recovering. Meran limped. Sapphire moved with care. And I brooded.

  “What have you got for me?”

  “Come and look,” he said, dumping the bundle on the bed.

  Meran had found me in the Eyrie some hours after the battle was done. I'd left him in the town of Undralt several days before. With Dubaku, he was to protect Jocasta as best they could; they had done well, considering they were in a town occupied by barbarians. They had kept her safe until the town was liberated. Then they had stayed with our armies when they came north to smash the Eyrie, where I had been held captive.

  He had found me drunk, probably. I didn't remember.

  I did remember that Kerral had come to me briefly after the battle for the Eyrie. He had told me why they had not taken down the enemy themselves; Yebratt, Hettar, Lentro, Sheo, all under the sway of the last king's amulet, which powerfully and subtly urged obedience; all had served Kukran Epthel, and had briefly been my enemies. Gatren and Larner had also been my enemies and died for it. And one more; Ferrian. I didn't know what had happened to him, and resolved to find out. He had become a fanatical convert under the sway of the amulet; what would he have become without its influence? In any case, I had recognized the amulet for what it was, told Lentro, and he had told the rest; they all knew the history of it, that the last king of the city had made it and used it to become a tyrant. In the city, we do not suffer tyrants, and the last king had been slain, the amulet, according to the histories, destroyed. That had not been the only inaccuracy in the histories. Even though they had been able to work against him once they knew the source of his power over them, they had been unable to raise a hand against him. Unable to act against him directly, they had instead engineered my freedom and hoped I would act to free them. I had not seen or spoken to Kerral since then, nor had I seen any of the others. Kerral and Sheo had been my friends, once. Sheo had tricked me into taking a drug that caused my addiction to alcohol. He had been my friend, and had been my enemy. I didn't know what he was now but I considered it was just as well that he avoided me, just as well that they all did. I didn't want to speak to anyone, much, but I couldn't stay isolated here forever.

  I had a roof, I had a bed and I had beer. I should be happy. I wasn't.

  I padded across the room and started going through the clothes. My own had been burned off me in the fire that had consumed Epthel. What I had found since were coarse and basically hurt my skin more than it hurt already. I needed something softer and had planned to go looking for a few things after I'd found a room for myself. The chieftain's room had seemed most appropriate. I could see the armies of the city from the narrow, unglazed window of the room, should I choose to look. They had camped outside the Eyrie and their commanders remained with them, so there was no competition for rooms. The Eyrie was empty, the barbarian survivors having been taken as slaves and sent south under guard. The whole Alendi nation had been here, and now they were gone. I didn't mourn them.

  I picked out some black linen trousers, and a white shirt of the same material. The cloth felt cool against my skin and didn't irritate. Socks I wasn't concerned abo
ut; my feet and ankles were not burned, having been well protected by stout boots. I pulled these on, grumbling as I did so; my hands hurt. When Meran had been my slave I would have had him help me. Now he was a freedman, and I didn't care to ask for his help.

  Dressed, I was ready to face the world. Pity I had nowhere to go, really. I was superfluous at the moment, not being a part of any army. Kerral and Sheo and the others were in the same boat. I had no idea what boat Sapphire was in, not being party to his instructions or plans. My father's man, he would doubtless rest until somewhat recovered and then either travel back to the city or on to whatever duty my father assigned him. I was curious but had not inquired only because I knew he wouldn't tell me.

  Still, there was one task I could be about. It would cause problems but that was just the mood I was in. I'd been through hell and come out the other side with nothing. If I could pass on a bit of my misery, that was fine by me. Not to Jocasta, who I had a mind to visit, but to her family who might want to stop me seeing her. Jocasta was with the army outside the Eyrie, and so were her brother and sister. Having stolen a stone from her family and travelled alone to help me, she was in disgrace - her reputation compromised, although we had both been too busy, and I too drunk, for anything carnal to cross our minds. Still, patrons can be touchy about such things. No one of her own class would marry her now, making her a liability to her family. She could not be used to make an alliance with a more powerful family, and noble women were not considered much use for anything else. For myself, I suppose I felt somewhat differently. She was a skilled sorceress. She had saved my life, nearly getting killed in the process. I owed her and there was a way I could discharge that debt.

  “I'm going to the fort,” I said.

  Meran held out a wide-brimmed hat and some linen gloves. “You will want these.”

  I raised an eyebrow, then thought about it and nodded. The sun on my skin was going to hurt, and there was no sense being in more pain than I must already accept. I put them on, glanced in the mirror and frowned. I hoped I would look better in time, hoped the burns would not not leave permanent scars. I had the example of Meran's face to tell how that would look. The only difference was that he would be ugly even without the scars.

  I pulled the brim of the hat down a little further. It didn't help.

  I was not completely alone in the Eyrie. Apart from Sapphire, who was recovering from his injuries, and Dubaku, who was here for reasons of his own, there were also a thousand soldiers systematically looting the place. We ignored each other. Those we passed were going about their task with good cheer, knowing that they were due a portion of the loot. Most of it was weapon parts; barrels of arrow and spear heads, the blades of axes, sword blanks, iron links that were the makings of chain armor, as well as tons of pig iron. I let them get on with things. It had little to do with me. As I was not part of the command structure of the legions that had taken the Eyrie and ended the threat of the combined Alendi, Prashuli and Orduli tribes, none of that money was for me. I had not been a part of a unit that had won a single engagement and by the time we started winning I was basically on my own. I'd sold my library to make a war chest and raised two cohorts and there was nothing left of them or the money. My financial losses had been high; all the horses I had brought had been lost one way or another, and the remaining coin taken and never recovered. My father's loaned weapons and armor, lost when I was made captive. Okay, they hadn't cost me anything but I didn't have them. That was the point. I would make some attempts to regain those possessions but had no real expectation of succeeding. All in all the expedition had cost me a great deal.

  I became aware that the soldiers that had passed us stopped smiling, stopped talking, and looked wary. It was the kind of thing that had started to happen when people saw me, and now I had looked into a mirror I knew why. I looked like a man who was just about to kill someone. I made a conscious effort to relax the muscles of my face, to smile. Considering the state of my skin it probably didn't help much, just unnerved people a different way. Stories of me must have spread and people tend to be wary of man willing to throw himself into a fire in order to kill an enemy. It was a bit extreme, I had to admit. Just a month ago if someone had told me I would do that, the idea would have made me laugh. Me? Pick up an enemy and throw myself bodily into a fire? No way. Not me. Well, I guess I had changed. Maybe it was the torture that had unhinged my mind, then exposure to Sapphire, to whom such extreme violence was habitual. But I knew that wasn't completely true; I knew that it must have been part of my nature all along, just a part that I had not explored. I also knew that those who are tortured usually fall into two categories after the fact; one type is broken by it and fears violence, the other type needs to pass the pain on to others and frequently become torturers themselves. I wondered which I was. I knew from the events in Undralt, where I had killed indiscriminately, that I did not fear violence, in fact I now feared that I relished it, and pain too. Did that make me a potential torturer? I imagined myself in the role of torturer, pincers in hand, bound captive, pulling teeth. I shuddered. No; I promised myself that I would never do that to anyone.

  In the past I have often been accused of not understanding, but that has never been my problem. It's never been that I don't understand, but that I understand too much. I resolved to stop thinking but doubted it was possible.

  The single doorway into the stronghold led to a narrow bridge across a moat that we crossed into the main area of the Eyrie; a vast open pasture where formerly thousands of cattle had been penned and the clans of the Alendi tribe had formed tent cities. All gone now. There were a few horses corralled nearby, in one of the few remaining enclosures. But I didn't head for them. There was no way I was subjecting my inner thighs and butt to the pressure of a saddle. The burns were healing, but no way were they fully healed yet. I would walk.

  It was a damn long way to the gate. There were gaps in the walls that were closer but I didn't relish the idea of sliding down the slope beyond. It would be the long way, through the gate and down the long winding road between the long walls.

  “You didn't have to come with me.”

  Meran shrugged. “I know my duties.”

  He was my freedman and my only client. He had previously been my slave. I still wasn't sure why I had freed him. But I had and that was that. There were consequences that I would have to live with.

  “I wouldn't risk running, but it doesn't stop me walking.”

  I had guessed from the way he was limping that it hurt, but he didn't slow me down. I wasn't moving too fast myself. The burns weren't anywhere near as bad as they would have been without Lentro's healing but they still hurt pretty badly here and there; elsewhere the healing flesh was still tender and sensitive.

  A fort containing one legion is the size of a town. There were two on the clear area before the Eyrie, and the remains of two more forts, now abandoned. Sometimes we just make a bigger camp; it depends on who is in overall command, if anyone. It is not uncommon for two or more legions to operate semi-independently. Or completely at odds with each other. To place your force under the command of another chafes at the ego and means that the commander-in chief, a rival who is controlling your force, will get the lion's share of the glory and the loot. We are not good at giving away what we feel belongs to us.

  It was over a mile from the long walls to the fort and I was getting tired. And thirsty. I took out a flask of whiskey from which I took a sip. Fighting the addiction was hard work and at the end of each day I was fairly drunk. I had been cutting down, trying to get it under control. It was hard work; a constant effort of will that got harder as the day progressed. Harder the drunker I got.

  The guards at the gate watched our progress without showing any interest; we were only two men and no threat. It seemed to take forever and I was starting to drag my feet. My body had taken a beating over the last weeks and I was not in great shape; true I was in many ways fitter than before my military service began but I had been tortured a
nd starved for longer than I cared to think about. There were consequences. I didn't like to think about it much. I'd been having nightmares. That was enough.

  I was feeling weak and shaky when I finally came to the gate.

  “Password?” One of the guards asked in a peremptory way that put my back up.

  “I don't have the damn password. I am Sumto Merian Ichatha Cerulian, patron of the city and here on my own business.”

  He didn't look happy but people do not lightly cross patrons. “I'll have to speak to my centurion. You will have to wait, patron.”

  I nodded and he left.

  Waiting, I looked around, vaguely hoping for a chair to materialize. There are no comforts for the guards. No way I could get a seat, so I waited under the eye of the other guard and ignored him. There wasn't much to look at. The remaining guard seemed to think so too, as he kept glancing at me sideways, trying not to make it obvious.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, patron.”

  “You want to know why I'm looking so crispy?”

  “No, patron. I know why that is, patron. You carried a man into a bonfire and held him there till he died, patron. Everyone knows,” his voice was admiring, proud.

  I was a little taken aback but tried not to show it. He made it sound heroic; but in fact I had just been angry and desperate and a little crazy. And I hadn't held him there until he died; in fact, being a lich, he was technically already dead; I had worked at him until his neck broke and then twisted his head about and got the hell out of there and called for help to put out my burning clothes. The more I thought about it the more crazy I sounded to myself, but never mind that.

  “So, what is it? Go ahead, ask, it doesn't bother me.”

  “It's the stone, sir. Never seen one stuck to someone's head.”