The Last Rune 4: Blood of Mystery

by Mark Anthony

  With the Touch, Grace examined all of them in turn. It turned out Vani was nearly as sick as the knight, and a far worse patient.

  “Surely you don’t expect me to simply sit here in this room and do nothing,” the T’gol said, her golden eyes hot with outrage.

  Grace gave a tight smile. “Actually, that’s exactly what I expect you to do.”

  “You cannot give me orders. I am a daughter of the blood of the royal house of Morindu.”

  “Then that makes us both the heirs to monarchies that don’t exist anymore,” Grace said. “And since you’re just the princess of a nonexistent city, and I’m the queen of a nonexistent kingdom, I’m pretty sure I outrank you. Falken?”

  The bard rubbed his chin. “I think she’s right, Vani.”

  By her expression, the T’gol didn’t accept their reasoning, but a fit of coughing prevented any further argument.

  Grace turned her attention to herself and Falken. She was sick, but not to the same degree as Beltan and Vani. There was only a slight inflammation in her lungs, and her temp was barely elevated. She would be fine in a day or two, as long as she didn’t exert herself.

  Grace knew there was really no point in checking Falken— the bard was immortal, after all—but just to be thorough she used the Touch to gaze into his chest.

  Her eyes snapped open. “You’re sick, Falken.”

  The bard frowned at her. “That’s impossible.”

  Grace examined him more closely, listening to his chest, touching him lightly as she shut her eyes and examined his silver-blue life thread. At last she opened her eyes again. There was no denying it.

  “It’s a mild case,” she said. “You’re certainly not as sick as Beltan or Vani, or even me. But you have a slight infection in your lungs. A fever, I mean.”

  Beltan propped himself up on his elbow in bed, green eyes curious. “I didn’t think you could get sick, Falken.”

  “Neither did I.” The bard gazed down at his right hand. He had removed the bandages, and his silver fingers gleamed in the gray light that filtered through the window. “Then again, this is the first time in seven centuries that I’ve nearly drowned, so I suppose anything’s possible.”

  Grace returned to her room and changed into her borrowed gown, then helped Vani struggle into her own. Almost fondly Grace remembered the first time she had tried to don a gown like this in Calavere. It had nearly suffocated her before Aryn had come to her rescue.

  Just as Grace finished adjusting Vani’s gown, a knock came at the chamber door. It was the steward, bearing a tray for their breakfast. Over his shoulder, Grace saw a serving maid delivering a similar tray to Falken and Beltan’s room. She invited Leweth in, and he set the tray down. There was oat porridge, dried fruit, cream, and— thank the gods of this world—a pot of blistering hot maddok.

  Warming her hands around a cup of the rich, slightly bitter drink, Grace asked if she might talk to the earl that morning.

  “I’m afraid Lord Elwarrd is not available for an audience today,” Leweth said with an expression of sincere regret. “There are matters that demand his attention. However, he asked me to beg your forgiveness for this rudeness, and he requests your presence at table this evening.”

  “Of course,” Grace said. “We would be honored.”

  Leweth was obviously relieved by her words. Grace wondered where Elwarrd could be; a steady drizzle fell from heavy clouds. Then again, in Embarr, she supposed this passed for a pleasant day.

  “If you’ll forgive my asking,” Leweth said, “what was it you needed to see the lord about, my lady?”

  Grace described her need for herbs and a mortar and pestle in order to make medicines.

  The steward clasped his hands together, his expression worried. “It’s no wonder you’ve all taken ill. The sea is deathly cold. I’m sure my lord will want all of you to rest here until you’re well. I’ll do my best to see to your requests, my lady. There is a woman in the kitchens who has some knowledge of herbs and their names. If you describe what you need, she should be able to find the things for me.”

  Grace described the herbs she needed as clearly as she could. She would rather have written it all down, but Leweth seemed to listen carefully, and he repeated her words back to her verbatim. Besides, she doubted a kitchen wife would be literate enough to read her ingredient list.

  To her surprise, Leweth returned not much more than an hour later, bearing a pot of sweet oil—which Vani had requested—and all of the herbs Grace had described. The herbs were old, and had lost some of their potency, but they would do. Grace thanked the steward, and he bowed and hurried away.

  Since Grace and Vani’s chamber was larger and less prone to drafts, Grace asked Beltan and Falken to spend the day there.

  “Is that an order or a request?” Beltan asked.

  Grace smiled pleasantly. “It can be either one you like, as long as you do what I say.”

  “I think this whole queen thing is starting to go to her head,” the knight grumbled, as Falken helped him stand.

  As the drizzle continued outside, they passed the hours close to the fire. Beltan lay in the bed, and Grace forbade him to leave, save when returning to his room to use the chamber-pot became a necessity. With meticulous care, Vani wiped her black garb clean with a damp cloth, then rubbed oil into the leather as it dried in the warmth of the fire, working it with her hands so that it remained supple.

  Falken borrowed a bit of Vani’s oil for his lute. He rubbed it into the wood with his hand, then tested the instrument. Its case must have been watertight, for the lute was in fine condition, and Falken strummed the strings, filling the chamber with quiet melodies.

  Grace spent her time carefully grinding herbs with the pestle in the brass mortar and measuring the resulting powders onto scraps of parchment, which she folded to keep the contents from spilling. After hours of it her arm and back ached from working the pestle, but she had a week’s worth of medicine for them all.

  At midday, a servingwoman came to the door with a tray of bread, cold meat, and a cheese for their dinner. She was a short, stooped woman with a dirty, fearful face. Grace sighed; she had met few servants on this world who weren’t terrified of her.

  And why shouldn’t they be, Grace? You’re royalty. You could have them punished on a whim. Even put to death.

  Only she wouldn’t. And if somehow, by some strange twist of fate, she ever did find herself a queen with subjects, her first task as a ruler would be to find a way to make sure not one single person in her castle feared her. Maybe it would mean she wouldn’t be a very effective monarch, but that seemed by far the better alternative.

  Grace asked the servingwoman for a pot of hot water, and this was quickly brought. Grace emptied a packet of the herbal powder into each of four cups and poured hot water, letting the herbs steep to make a tea. She made the others take a cup.

  “Is it supposed to taste like horse dung?” Falken said, his expression at once curious and repulsed. “Or is that just a happy coincidence?”

  “That’s how you know it’s working.” Grace forced herself not to grimace as she drank her own cup.

  “I rather like it,” Vani said, taking a sip.

  “How can you possibly like it?” Beltan groaned from the bed. “I think this stuff is going to kill me.”

  The T’gol’s eyes flashed. “That’s how.”

  Grace had had quite enough of that. “All of you be quiet and drink,” she said in what she hoped was a queenly voice. It must have been, for all of them obeyed.

  24.

  Grace had remembered her herb lore well, for the medicine seemed to make all of them feel better, which in turn significantly reduced the level of general crabbiness in the room. As the gray afternoon drizzled away outside the window, they spoke in quiet voices.

  “I suppose there’s no chance they survived,” Grace said. “Magard and his crew, I mean.”

  Falken met her gaze. “I’m afraid not, Grace. You heard what Elwarrd said. Exc
ept for the beach where we washed up, the coast around here is nothing but rocks and cliffs. And there’s no way off the beach except the trail that leads to this keep. If Magard or any of his sailors survived the shipwreck, they would have found their way here by now.”

  Grace nodded. She hadn’t been looking for false hope, only confirmation. She thought of Captain Magard’s rough humor and sly winks, and of his mad plan to sail around the world he believed to be round. Now he’d never get the chance to find out he was right. A tight ball formed in Grace’s throat.

  “So why us?” Beltan said. “Doesn’t it seem awfully lucky that the four of us washed up on the beach and no one else?”

  Vani shrugged. “Luck is simply an act of Fate we are not expecting.”

  Grace took a sip of maddok. Despite Vani’s invocation of Fate, Beltan’s words disturbed her. She thought back to the shipwreck. Everything had happened so quickly. There was the horrible noise of the ship cracking apart, the brutal shock of plunging into frigid water, and the darkness closing in as she sank downward. And then...

  “Did anyone else see a light?” Grace said. “In the water, after the ship went down?”

  The others looked at her, expressions curious, and Grace explained what she had seen as she sank beneath the waves: the light that had encapsulated her, lifting her to the surface, and the shining face she thought she had glimpsed. Falken and Vani shook their heads; both had lost consciousness in the water, and the next thing they knew had awakened on the beach. However, Beltan seemed to remember something.

  “It was just before everything went dark,” the knight said, peeling an apple with a dagger. “It wasn’t a light, though. It was more like a feeling of suddenly being...safe. And there was a sound. It was beautiful, almost like music. But even I know that’s impossible. You can’t hear music in the ocean.”

  “I don’t mean to discount your words, Grace,” Falken said. “Or yours, Beltan. But the mind can play tricks on you in dire situations like that.”

  Grace had to agree; no doubt she had been hallucinating. But it was nice to know she wasn’t the only one.

  After that, conversation turned to their host, with whom none of them could find fault. While the rules of hospitality had required him to take them in, he could have given them a cold room and a loaf of stale bread and have fulfilled his duty. Instead he had treated them with nothing but deference, even though as far as he knew they were only a band of free traders.

  Falken strummed a chord on his lute. “Elwarrd seems like a good man.”

  “And he’s very handsome,” Grace said, only realizing she had spoken the words aloud when she saw that everyone was staring at her. She fumbled for something else to say, hoping her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. “But what do you think he meant, when he said he wasn’t a knight of Embarr? I thought all earls were knights. Like Durge.”

  “Most are,” Falken said. “But what Elwarrd said is true. One is made a noble by birth, but knighthood can only be granted by the king.”

  Vani looked up from her work on her leathers. “So why would a king deny this honor to a man?”

  Beltan leaned on his elbow in bed. “Usually it’s because there’s some sort of dishonor—a black mark on his name. If the earl did something untrustworthy or cowardly—something that’s not exactly a crime, but distasteful all the same—the king might not be inclined to knight him.”

  Grace chewed on a knuckle. What could Elwarrd have done that cost him a chance at knighthood? It was hard to think of him acting in a cruel or cowardly fashion. Then again, by all accounts, Sorrin was suffering from some form of paranoia. Elwarrd’s dishonor might exist entirely in the king’s mind. For some reason she couldn’t name, Grace found herself hoping that was the case.

  “Perhaps I am mistaken,” Vani said, folding her leathers— supple and clean now—and setting them aside. “But is not your friend Durge a knight of Embarr?”

  A needle of fear pierced Grace’s heart. What was the T’gol saying?

  Falken set down his lute. “You’re right, Vani. If we do find Durge, he’ll be in great peril if he ever returns to Embarr.”

  The bard’s words brought cold understanding to Grace. Elwarrd told them King Sorrin had commanded all of his knights to journey to Barrsunder. However, Durge had been in Tarras, and now he was somewhere else they couldn’t reach him. There was no way he could have responded to Sorrin’s command. But Grace knew that wouldn’t matter, not to a man as mad as the King of Embarr.

  “They’ll execute him,” she said, her chest tight. “If we find Durge, and he comes back to Embarr, they’ll execute him for disobeying the king.”

  Falken reached out and took her hands. His silver fingers were warm and smooth against her skin. “Don’t worry, Grace. Once we find him, we’ll make sure Durge doesn’t come anywhere near Embarr.”

  “Embarr is his home,” Grace said. “It’ll break his heart.”

  “No, Grace.” Falken brought her hands together as if to form a cup. “Durge’s home is right here.”

  Grace couldn’t speak, and her heart ached, but in a way it was a welcome feeling. She knew Durge considered himself her loyal servant. But to her, he was the truest friend she could imagine. She would have done anything right then to be able to throw her arms around those stooped shoulders, to kiss those craggy cheeks.

  Gradually, the ache in her chest transformed into fierce resolve. They would find Durge. And if King Sorrin so much as laid a finger on him, Grace would take Fellring and put an end once and for all to Sorrin’s fear of death.

  Wait just a minute, Doctor. You’re supposed to preserve life, not take it. Besides, right now all you’ve got of Fellring is one small piece, and I don’t think it would do you much good against a raving king.

  Still, the thought heartened her, and she felt better.

  “Now I see what’s happening here.” Beltan sat up in bed, cheeks flushed from fever, but his eyes keen. “King Sorrin has summoned his knights to Barrsunder. That leaves all of the castles and keeps in the entire Dominion deserted. There are serfs, of course. But there are no knights, no guardsmen, no warriors to protect the fortresses. And that means—”

  “Embarr is ripe for an invasion,” Vani finished for him.

  Beltan glared at the assassin, obviously annoyed she had stolen his thunder.

  They spoke more as the sullen day waned outside. It was clear Beltan was onto something. With all the keeps and castles abandoned, there was nothing to stop an army from marching across Embarr and laying siege to Barrsunder. And with the capital so overcrowded, food and water wouldn’t last very long—and neither would the siege. The Dominion could fall in a matter of days. Just like Eredane and Brelegond before it.

  “The Onyx Knights,” Grace said, feeling cold despite her proximity to the fire. “Do you think they’re the ones behind all this?”

  Falken set down his lute. “I don’t know, Grace. But I’d give up ale for a month just to know who Sorrin’s advisors are. Remember how Elwarrd said the king was surrounded by a circle of powerful men? Men whom everyone fears? Well, maybe Sorrin is getting a little help in his madness.”

  It made chilling sense. The king’s illness rendered him an easy target for manipulation. And once such men got close to him, they could use the king’s authority to keep all who opposed them away—or have them put to death for treason. All the signs, here and elsewhere in the Dominions, were clear. Embarr was going to be invaded, and Grace couldn’t imagine it was anyone else who planned to take over besides the Onyx Knights.

  “First Eredane, then Brelegond,” Beltan said, his voice hoarse. “Now it’s Embarr. And after that it’ll be Perridon, I suppose. Queen Inara is smart, but her Dominion was ravaged by the Burning Plague, and it’s still too weak to put up much of a fight. After that, it’s only Galt that will stand between these bloody knights and Calavan and Toloria. And since they can attack through Brelegond, Perridon, and Eredane, we’ll be fighting on three fronts. There’s no way we can
win a battle like that, no matter how hard we fight. The Dominions will fall.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Grace said, pacing before the fire, trying to burn off some of the nervous energy the maddok had given her. “That’s exactly what’s happening. There’s no other possibility that makes sense. But that still doesn’t answer one question. Who are these Onyx Knights? Are they servants of the Pale King, or of someone else? And what do they want?”

  Falken regarded her with a solemn expression. “Maybe they want you, Grace.”

  She halted in mid-stride, clutching the necklace at her throat, but before she could respond a knock came at the door. It was Leweth, informing them that supper was nearly ready. The steward had brought them their own clothes, which had vanished wet and filthy while they supped the day before, and which were now as fresh and clean as when they had bought them in the port town of Galspeth in Perridon.

  They changed garb, then made their way to the great hall. Grace was glad to have her own clothes back; they were warmer and fit her better. Vani was wearing her leathers, and she looked and moved like a sleek, black cat. However, Elwarrd—who stood by the head of the empty table—seemed not to notice her unusual attire. Instead, his green eyes were fixed on Grace.

  As she sat, Grace noticed that, in her haste to dress, she had not given the laces of her bodice the customary final tug to tighten them. As a result, her necklace was in plain view, and for a terrified moment she thought Elwarrd was staring at it, just like Detective Janson, the ironheart, had at the Denver police station over a year ago.

  Don’t be an idiot, Grace. It’s not your jewelry he can’t take his eyes o f. No doubt you look like some tavern wench, and he’s insulted you’d come to his table dressed this way.

  However, something told her the earl was anything but offended. She could almost feel his gaze moving over her exposed flesh, and she felt suddenly vulnerable. Oddly, it was not a disturbing feeling.