The journey from Bokagul to Caledo had taken six days through foothills and valleys. The blizzards let up during their trip, but the snow that remained had made it tough going. Occasionally they met urZrethi patrols, and once ran across the aftermath of an urZrethi ambush of some Aurolani deserters, but otherwise they passed without seeing much of interest and not being seen themselves.
Out and around Alyx and Crow galloped a company of Sayce’s Lancers. One of them had bound the Murosan Princess’ personal pennant to the tip of his lance and carried it upright as he rode toward the city. Because she had learned of it in the Communion, Alexia had been able to say nothing about Sayce’s father being displeased by her mission to the south. Sayce’s dispatching of the squad to announce her arrival—along with that of the Norrington—might well blunt her father’s reaction.
Alyx urged her horse forward again and down the last hill in the wake of the Lancers. “How long do you suppose it will be before the Aurolani arrive and lay siege to the city?”
Crow shook his head. “There’s no real way of telling, but the signs suggest sooner rather than later. For Chytrine to have sent forces into Bokagul, she’s probably already neutralized Sarengul. That secures her flank and pressures Scrainwood. She can take all the time she wants to conquer Muroso. She has any of a dozen ways to expand south from there, and that’s well before summer, when the true campaigning will take place.”
The princess had hoped Crow would see some flaw in her analysis, but the simple fact was that Chytrine was isolating countries and taking them one at a time. No single country could stand against the full might of her army and its dragonels. As the Aurolani forces moved south, they did venture into lands with higher populations, but that just meant there would be more refugees to send streaming south.
Alyx shook her head. “As beautiful as this city is, it is wholly unsuited to holding off Chytrine. The dragonels were made to shatter walls like that. Those towers will topple under her assaults. The Murosans are known for being valiant, but standing against her is foolishness.”
“We can hope King Bowmar will be more reasonable than his daughter, but I doubt it.” Crow shifted his shoulders. “There are things we can do to slow Chytrine down, however. And for now, buying more time is a victory.”
Even before the detachment of Lancers reached the city, the eastern gate opened and a larger troop of horsemen rode out to greet them. The two groups—the smaller in red, and the larger in blue—met and mingled for a moment, then the bulk of the larger group rode east toward Alexia and the others. The Lancers continued with an escort back into the city.
Princess Sayce came riding up on Alexia’s left, giving her a view of a silver profile. “This is not likely to be good. My brother is at the head of the riders. Let me handle this.”
The slight tremor in Sayce’s voice amused Alyx. “As you wish.”
Snow splashed up from hooves, then flew apart in the breeze as the riders approached. One man, tall and lean, bundled in furs against the cold, moved out in front. The breeze caught the hood of his cloak, billowing it out, then blowing it back. Long brown hair streamed back from his head. The mask he wore was as large as the one Sayce had worn, but instead of red, or even the blue of his unit, it was black.
As black as the magestones marking the city gate.
The man reined back, slowing his horse to a walk. He raised a gloved hand in greeting. “Welcome, travelers. I am Prince Murfin, of the Murosan royal house. You would be Alexia of Okrannel?”
Alyx nodded, rather surprised that he’d not addressed his sister. “I am. This is Kedyn’s Crow. You know Princess Sayce.”
“Indeed. It is a pleasure to meet you both.” Murfin did not even glance at Sayce, who had gone very still and quiet. “My father, King Bowmar, offers you his hospitality and his thanks at returning a wayward daughter to her home.”
Before Alyx could offer any sort of reply, Will rode up. “More like she’s the one who’s bringing us here, not the other way around.”
The prince smiled, almost as if he had been expecting such a comment. “And you would be the Norrington.”
“Until someone better comes along.” Will urged his horse forward until he partially eclipsed Murfin’s view of his sister. “I’ve brought with me a company of Oriosan Freemen to fight for Caledo.”
“Your contribution is most welcome. They can join the other Oriosans here. We’re grateful for your help.” The prince broadened his smile for a moment. “It is a great honor to have you all here, and things have been prepared for you in Caledo. Captain Twynham here will conduct you to the city and your lodgings. Once you have had a chance to rest, my father would like to welcome you all.”
Alyx nodded. “We will await his pleasure.”
“Splendid.” Murfin glanced at Sayce. “Sister, attend me on my return.”
She nodded and started her horse forward. Will moved to accompany her, but she laid her right hand on his left arm. “No, Will, just go with the others.”
“But . . .” Will looked from her to her brother and back again. “You shouldn’t ride into trouble alone.”
“That thought will be all the accompaniment I need.” She leaned over and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. “From the moment I left, I knew what this would be like. I will see you soon enough.”
With a touch of her heels to her horse’s flanks, she started off and raced a bit past her brother. He set off, cloak flying, and caught up with her. Neither slowed, but neither did she try to elude him. Alyx thought she even might have heard laughter on the wind, but she couldn’t be certain.
The King’s Heavy Horse spread out along the column with a blond man, Captain Twynham, leading the way back into the city. He didn’t say much, but rode tall and proudly in the saddle. Alyx and Crow followed him several paces back, with Will falling in behind her and Kerrigan coming up beside him.
Will grumbled in a low voice. “I’m not sure I like the look of that Murfin.”
Kerrigan kept his voice soft. “You caught it, then?”
“Caught what, Ker?”
“The spell.” The Vilwanese mage shifted in the saddle. “I almost didn’t. Murosan magick has a different feel to it, but he cast a spell on the lot of us when he came up.”
Crow turned. “When?”
“When he raised his hand in greeting. Takes a tricky man to say one thing, but cast another.”
Crow frowned. “What kind of spell?”
“Just a moment.” Kerrigan closed his eyes, raised his right hand from the saddlehorn, and wove his fingers through an odd little pattern of movements. “I am not wholly certain, but it could have been some diagnostic spell.”
Alyx raised an eyebrow. “Checking to see if his sister was hurt?”
Kerrigan’s eyes popped open again. “That could be it, yes.”
She laughed. “Definitely sinister.”
“I still don’t like it.” Will snorted. “He wasn’t friendly to her at all. They should be thanking her.”
Crow winked. “Don’t assume they are angry. Being worried would be enough.”
“Well, if they do anything to her, I’ll . . .”
“What will you do, Will?”
The thief sighed in response to Crow’s question. “No fair asking me to make good on empty threats. I just hope she’ll be okay.”
“I’m sure she will.” Crow faced forward again, but Alyx still caught the full force of his smile. “Your friend will be fine, you’ll see, Will.”
Captain Twynham led the main company into the city and on up to the central quartet of towers. The easternmost pair comprised one building, the palace, while the other two were used by the Caledo Academy of Magicks and the Guilds Tower, in which most of the nation’s guilds had offices. Once he’d taken them through the palace gate, they turned left and approached the South Tower. Attendants took their horses to the stables there, while body servants emerged to conduct the travelers to their own accommodations.
Alyx and Crow parted
company quickly, as he went to see to the billeting of the rest of the company. She bid him a silent farewell, then followed a middle-aged woman with rosy cheeks up a spiral staircase to the small suite of rooms they had been given. The sitting room faced east, with the sleeping alcove off to the left, complete with a huge four-poster bed thick with quilts. To the right lay a toilet and bathing area. A folding screen decorated with painted wooden panels showing scenes from a hunt would allow privacy in that area.
A slender woman not quite as tall as Alexia was standing in the room as they entered. The servingwoman gasped and immediately dropped to one knee. “Begging your pardon, Highness, I didn’t know.”
The woman shook her head. “It is no matter, Meg. Leave us for a moment. Perhaps Princess Alexia would like you to fetch some food?”
Alyx caught a note of familiarity in the voice. “I’m not hungry at the moment.”
“Very well, then.” The woman’s features were sharper than Sayce’s, but close enough that the familial resemblance could not be ignored. She waited for the servant to depart before smiling. “Greetings, Princess Alexia. I am Dayley. I feel as if we have met before.”
Alyx nodded, knowing full well that this was the woman she had met in the Communion. “So nice to make it a reality.”
The Okrans princess offered Dayley her hand, and was met with a firm, warm grip. They shook hands, pumping each other’s arms three times, but before they could release, something odd happened. Alyx felt herself shifting—there was no other word for it—as if moving into the Communion. Despite that feeling, she remained there, in the South Tower with Dayley.
But they were not alone.
Off to the east appeared a beautiful woman with snowy white hair and a soft innocence to her features and expression. Her eyes immediately caught Alexia’s attention because, despite her being semitransparent, they glittered silver. Her mouth moved and Alexia caught pieces of words. “. . . Kesh, here things . . . victorious . . . casualties . . .” There was more, but the volume waxed and waned, with the words sometimes coming slowly and other times squeaking quickly.
When their hands parted, the vision vanished.
Both women looked at each other, then held hands again, but it did not come back.
Dayley frowned. “You saw it, of course. What was it?”
Alyx shook her head. “I don’t know.”
She shivered and Dayley caught it in her grip. “Something, Alexia. What is it?”
The Okrans princess frowned. “‘Kesh’ has to refer to Nefrai-kesh, Chytrine’s general. Was she communicating with him? Warning him? Something like that?”
Dayley nodded, letting her hand slip from Alexia’s. “Logical, but it was something else that made you shiver. What?”
Alyx shifted her shoulders uneasily. “In Meredo, Will saw someone, someone he said saved him from dying. She could have been the person he described.”
“Someone in league with Nefrai-kesh saved the Norrington?”
“So it would appear.”
Dayley sighed heavily. “I don’t know what to make of that, if it is welcome news or not. If the gods are merciful, perhaps we have a chance to figure it out.”
CHAPTER 46
K errigan awoke with a start. Bok had clapped a knotty hand over his mouth, stifling an outcry. The mage clawed at the hand, but could not move it. The urZrethi’s hand remained in place for a moment or two more than it needed, then finally moved away as Kerrigan stopped fighting him.
The young mage blinked his burning eyes. He’d not intended to fall asleep when guided to his chamber. He just lay down on the bed while Bok went for the luggage and shifted things around. He remembered yawning and deciding to close his eyes for a moment—then the hard press of Bok’s hand on his mouth brought him back to consciousness.
Rym Ramoch, standing there at the foot of the bed, shook his head. “I asked you to awaken him, Bok, not scare him.”
The urZrethi sank to the floor in a low crouch and mewed an apology.
Kerrigan pulled himself upright and banged his head on the headboard. “Ouch.”
“Don’t be doing that, Kerrigan. We can’t have you dashing your brains out when we need them.” Ramoch moved stiffly to an overstuffed chair near Bok’s corner and seated himself. “I apologize for my absence, but when you detoured into Bokagul, reaching you was too difficult. Knowing your goal, however, I was able to come here ahead of you. I have learned some things that might be useful in your quest.”
“Learning how to detect fragments of the Dragon Crown?”
“The same. But first, however, I need to know what happened in Bokagul.”
Kerrigan yawned as Bok slunk across the room to Ramoch’s side. The elder mage idly tangled fingers in the urZrethi’s hair and scratched him as one might a dog. The younger man smoothed a wrinkle from the blankets upon which he’d slept, then began to recount his adventures beneath the mountains. Rym Ramoch did not interrupt him, and because his face was masked and shadowed, Kerrigan had trouble telling if he was even listening.
When he finished his recital, the crimson-robed mage nodded solemnly. “The power you displayed is impressive. If you are able to harness that and direct it toward our goal, Chytrine will not be able to stand against you. And this thing with Will and his blood is surprising. You’ve seen nothing like this before from him?”
“Well, he curses all the time, but this . . . I could feel the magick pulsing off him. The effect his blood had on the Aurolani and their allies was horrible—and incredible. Even when we were leaving, after the hallway had been washed clean, I could still detect the magick. It would not surprise me if an araftii flying above that spot would not be stopped by the columns of power marking where his blood lay.”
Ramoch drummed his right index finger on the arm of his chair. “Something must have happened to him. What was different?”
Kerrigan shrugged his shoulders. “I think maybe he likes Princess Sayce, and she had been hurt when he acted.”
“A factor, certainly, for it lent power to the oath, but something else.”
“Well, before Bokagul, while you had me, he had been bitten by a sullanciri and said a woman in white healed him. He has two burn scars on his neck and is always cold.”
The elder mage’s head came up. “You have examined him?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And he seems normal.” Kerrigan frowned. “Normal except that I can’t detect the scars. They should be there and wrong, but his body seems to have accepted them.”
Ramoch pressed the fingers of his left hand over his mouth for a moment. “That is fascinating. Watch for more symptoms, more signs.”
“What is it? Is he okay?”
“I’m sure he’s fine. More than fine, actually. Still, it will bear watching.” Ramoch nodded. “Now, tell me, did you notice anything particular about his magick? Something that marked it as his?”
Kerrigan smiled. “I thought of that. Not at the time; we were too busy fighting. But later when I got a chance to examine the places his blood had fallen, there was something about it that had an essence of Will. It’s very hard to describe. When I cast a diagnostic spell, I would get odd echoes in the back of my mind: hearing a word as he spoke it, or catching a flash of his grin, or even seeing him as he was in Yslin, running away from me.”
That latter memory brought a frown to Kerrigan’s face. Granted that had been before Will had known him, but Will had run from a gang of youths beating him up. Had the situation been reversed, Kerrigan would have waded in to help. At least, I think I would have. Will had apologized, and had since become his friend, but some bitterness remained because of that incident. Because of it I was given the dragonbone armor to protect me.
“This is good, Kerrigan, very good. You are sensing his essence. Your mind is relating that to memories you have of him. This indicates you are capable of perceiving a great deal more information related to a spell than most other mages.”
Kerrigan s
miled. “I’ve had a chance to think more on that, too, based on our previous conversations and what I noticed in Bokagul. I’ve identified at least seven different dimensions I think I should be able to find in a spell. They are: Person, School, Race, Nature, Intent, Influence, and Power Source. Person, School, and Race I know are there. I picked up on the difference between a diagnostic spell cast by Prince Murfin of the Caledo Academy and the one I would cast. Since I know it was a diagnostic, I guess I got Nature, and Intent, too. Influence I know about from you, since you said I have the taint from the DragonCrown.”
“And Power Source?”
He frowned. “I have cast spells that draw on my own physical strength. That’s how I learned to do things at Vilwan, but then there are some other spells I’ve cast in an emergency, like diagnosing and healing the urZrethi infant in the womb. I wasn’t tired afterward. It was as if the energy for that spell was taken from somewhere else. I could guess my further training at Vilwan might have showed me how to access other power sources.”
“Clearly, Kerrigan, you were shown those paths, but in a subtle manner so you do not have conscious control of those flows. Were this not true, you’d not have been able to draw from those sources.” Ramoch waved his left hand idly. “That matters not at the moment, however. Your analysis is very good, and there are dimensions you have missed, but those are largely inconsequential—temporary things dealing with local factors at the time of the casting. Your further thoughts?”
“Well, I thought about how it would be possible to remove the taint from someone or some thing. The closest analogy I can come up with is thinking of the item as a piece of cloth that has a stain on it. You have to clean the item, dye it, or put a patch over that stain. Patching would be the most crude, but could take as little as laying another enchantment over the first. Wheele—the Aurolani mage who killed my mentor—did that sort of thing to hide a spell beneath another spell. I did that with my duplicate fragment of the DragonCrown. The problem there is that, if one looks closely, the patch can be detected, and then the real stain can be seen, as you managed when sorting the dragonbone armor from the DragonCrown taint on me.”
When Dragons Rage Page 37
