“What?”
“The Queen, Her Majesty…she’s Alheria.”
Aoife stared at him as if he’d just sprouted a second head.
“It’s the truth!” He declared. “Ask the Frog. Ask the Historian.”
“I…believe you,” Aoife said quietly. “But how…how can Alheria have been living amongst us whilst my sisters and I failed to notice?”
“Who knows what the gods are about? Here, now, I’m worried about you. Are you sure you’re well?”
Aoife beamed, looking up at Vykers. “I am now.”
Vykers pulled her close, whispered to her. “I want some time alone with you. But the men’ll be here any minute, and I gotta get them settled.”
The A’Shea blushed, lowered her eyes. She wanted time alone with Vykers, too, but how could she ever admit such a thing? “I’ll help in any way I can, of course. Tomorrow, I believe, I can get all of us home safely.”
“Can you?” She’d surprised Vykers, and he discovered that he liked the feeling. “You’ll have to tell me more, later,” he grinned. He felt like a schoolboy around the A’Shea…and yet, he reveled in the sensation.
It took some time to get everyone settled in the grove, because the slaves and their horses were exhausted, and most wanted nothing more than to sleep where they stood. The Frog, Vykers saw, behaved oddly around Aoife, and the warrior wondered whether the boy wasn’t a bit taken with the woman as well. It was true, the Frog was too young to feel the same sort of desire a man felt, but he didn’t doubt the boy was enthralled by her beauty and grateful for her kindness.
Once Vykers and the Historian had gotten everyone settled and started a small fire – with Aoife’s blessing – to warm a bit of food, the Frog was free to go hunting, and the Reaper, to relax. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been able to stretch out, sit back and rest his weary limbs without the constant pain of his wound to distract him. He luxuriated in the absence of that pain; he basked in his health and feelings of well-being. And he felt better still when the A’Shea came to his side voluntarily and joined him by the fire.
“Forgive me for asking, Tarmun, but…who are these men you’ve brought with you?”
“These?” He said lightheartedly. “These are my gifts, I suppose you’d say. The place where we found Her Majesty – Alheria – was surrounded by armies. I had to fight the champion of each one in order to gain right of passage. And when I did, they each gave me one of their own as a prize.”
“But what will you do with them?”
Again Vykers smiled. Coming from anyone else, the question would have annoyed him no end; from Aoife, it was endlessly charming. “I dunno. What do you recommend?”
“Can’t you free them?”
“Well,” Vykers sighed, “that’s the thing: their own countries won’t have ‘em, now. They’re little more than chattel.”
Aoife thought on this a while and then said, “But in our land, they might find work as soldiers, guards – even map-makers. I’m sure they could tell us things about this place that would take us decades to find out on our own.”
“Good point,” said Vykers, impressed with her thinking. “They may, at that. But now, there’s something else you should know.”
The A’Shea was secretly amused – flattered, even – to observe that Vykers’ speech was much more refined in her presence than it was when he spoke to others, or even when they’d first met. “And what is that?”
“Alheria claims to have killed Mahnus.”
Aoife was silent for so long that, for a while, Vykers thought she hadn’t heard him. “What I wouldn’t give to talk to the Mother Superior right now. I feel so lost when you tell me these things,” she said finally.
“Yeah,” Vykers agreed. “You and me, both. But she did heal me with a thought, and an army o’ Shapers and A’Shea hadn’t been able to do it with three years o’ tryin’.”
They talked in close conference right through dinner, sunset and into the night. Eventually, Aoife put her head on Vykers’ shoulder and huddled closer to him for warmth. It was the greatest, most momentous little gesture he’d experienced in all his life. It meant everything to him. And, when everyone else had fallen asleep, the Reaper and the A’Shea crept off into the denser foliage and at last acknowledged their need for one another.
But they were not alone.
*****
Long’s Team, On the Trail
Elsewhere in the night, a group of friends was gathered around another fire, sharing their fears, venting their frustrations and searching for comfort in one another.
“I’m haunted by Kittins’ story,” Long confessed.
Yendor pulled his cloak tighter around himself. “I hear you, Long. Much as the captain scares the piss outta me, there’s that in his tale troubles me.”
Long bobbed his head in agreement. “I was a fool to think I had any business spyin’ on the Great Eight. I’m a soldier, and a middling one at that.”
“So, what happened to you?” Yendor asked, voicing the question that was clearly on everyone’s mind.
Long stared off into the darkness for a heartbeat or two and then said, “I managed to get into House Fyne, they caught me, and then I was thrown into their dungeons. I was just about to be tortured – by Esmun Janks, I tell you! – when His Lordship informed me I’d been named heir to House D’Escurzy.”
“Oh!” Spirk cried out. “That was my fault. Sorry!”
The group had a good laugh at that, and then Long said, “But how did that come about?”
So, Spirk told him. It took a long time, and Spirk had to go back and correct himself on several occasions, but he eventually got the story out. It was only when he got to the banquet that he faltered, still too disturbed by his memories to continue. Fortunately, Ron took up the slack and told the tale from Faenia’s death to Spirk’s and his escape through a secret passage. Yendor, Rem and Long had a thousand questions, and Ron patiently answered them all as best he could until everyone was satisfied.
“And what about you?” Long asked his friend, Yendor. “What is your story?”
Yendor’s story, with embellishments, took most of an hour to relate, but the group found it every bit as improbable and fulfilling as Spirk’s tale. When he was done, the group turned silently and expectantly to Rem.
He scratched the top of his head and said “I don’t know, lads…”
Which was greeted with great, exaggerated umbrage and uproar. They’d all told their stories, after all. How could he withhold his own? And being an actor, no less? After much entreaty, they finally prevailed upon Rem to share his own adventure. He performed it with such gusto, he was again reminded how much he’d lost in losing his acting troop. He’d been made for the stage, not this spying business – a business, he noted, with a certain bitter dread, that had yet to be articulated to him. But he dared not defy the Queen’s Shaper. One nasty jolt of arcane lightening was quite enough for one lifetime. When at last Cindor called, Rem would come.
“So,” Long said when Rem had finished his tale, “we, all of us, walk away from the Eight changed men, scarred, disillusioned, but alive.”
“Though it sounds like we left a few dead in our wake,” Yendor added.
“And what’s that you said about Esmun Janks?” Rem asked.
Long studied the faces of his friends around the fire. “Oh, yes, I didn’t get to that, did I? Well, Janks is alive. Sure as I’m sittin’ here. And I can’t figure out how or why.”
The others prodded Long for details until, one by one, they nodded off to sleep, changed men, indeed. Each and every one.
*****
Vykers & Aoife, Aoife’s Grove
They were not alone, because Arune was with them, as always. Now that Vykers was healed, though, she knew the time was fast approaching when she’d have her own body again, at last, and she understood that her vicarious sampling of Vykers’ intimacy and elation with Aoife was nearing an end. From that point onward, she and the Reaper would be riv
als for the A’Shea’s attention and adoration. From that point onward, what was good for the Reaper was decidedly not so for her. She wondered if Brouton’s Bind had turned her into an echo of the man she’d inhabited for so long, wondered, if she could escape, what sort of person she’d become when free.
So great was Vykers’ ecstasy, it swept the Shaper’s concerns aside as if they were dust motes in a hurricane.
*****
They were not alone, because the Frog had seen them sneak away and had followed them, as stealthily as his considerable skills allowed. Cloaked in the forest – a trick he’d learned from the fey folk – he watched in fascination, and then envy, and finally bitterness as the man he idolized made love to the woman he revered. And a dark, desperate hunger came upon him, bringing with it thoughts and images of things his boy’s mind was unequipped to handle, but which his eldritch, chimera’s body silently screamed for.
*****
They were not alone, because Endu-Ro watched, seething, from the shadows, all but impotent in his rage. He loathed the A’Shea, despised her for her presumption, but he could not defeat her head-on, especially if that meddling Toomt’-La came at her aid. If Endu-Ro could only catch her unawares, as now…The man with her, however, radiated power like a sacred artifact. No, the satyr could never best these two together.
In the shadows, he sensed another, equally unhappy figure. Perhaps this one could be bent to Endu-Ro’s will…
*****
In the morning, Aoife explained how she planned to transport everyone home.
“It is called the ‘Here-There,’ she said. “I can take you from this grove to another in our homeland simply by stepping from one to the next. But I cannot take you all at once. We’ll start with Tarmun and that red knight, there. Tadpole…Frog, would you be kind enough to wait ‘til the end, so I know things will be safe on this side?”
The Frog lowered his hooded eyes in apparent assent.
“Good, then!” the A’Shea said brightly. “This shouldn’t take long at all.”
The Historian stepped up and placed a hand on Aoife’s shoulder. “I won’t be returning with you,” he said.
“No?” Vykers asked, surprised.
“Much has changed since I was here last, and I would understand the magnitude and the reasons for it. And besides,” he added, “someone has to return to the ship we arrived on and tell its captain he’s free to go.”
“I’d clean forgot about him!” Vykers laughed.
“So I gathered.”
“He’ll be expecting more gold.”
“I believe I can satisfy him on that point,” the Historian said cryptically. “But as for you, Reaper…”
“Yes?”
“I will not say our partnership has been pleasant, but you’ve taught me things of great value. In return…I suggest you seek out the Sholdorn…”
“The Sholdorn? I hate those fuckers.”
The Historian made a sour face, as if he’d just smelled something putrid. “Nevertheless, there remains a great deal you do not yet see.”
“Such as what,” the Reaper challenged, his dander up.
“I cannot explain. Visit the Sholdorn; hear what they have to say.”
This answer was clearly unsatisfactory to Vykers, but he could see the Historian was anxious to get on his way, so he let the matter drop. “Farewell, then, Historian. I thank you for your help in finding my sword and also in finding Her Majesty.”
“Alheria,” the Shaper said.
“Just so,” Vykers replied. He stared deeply into the other man’s all-black eyes a final time, looking for some sign, any sign, of a soul. Finding none, he turned away and faced the A’Shea.
“Now, I can take everyone home, eventually, but none of these horses,” Aoife said.
That was a shame. The Reaper rather liked Shalea. The thought of her running free across the hills of this land gave him some comfort. He wasn’t worried about predators, either. Not with this horse. So be it, then: she would be free.
When the time came, Aoife clasped hands with the Reaper and the red knight. Suddenly, they were in another grove, a place of cooler shade and more familiar trees. And Vykers was not ill from the journey.
“That’s a damned sight better’n that Shaper’s trick.” In the back of his mind, he heard Arune snort.
“Mmm,” Aoife agreed, “though I can only travel to and from groves I’ve…visited…before.” She’d almost shared more truth than she was ready for, but it didn’t seem Vykers had noticed.
He knew they were home – he could smell it and taste it in the breeze. “Where are we?”
“Northeast of Lunessfor.”
“A long ways northeast, I’ll wager.”
But I can get you there from here, Arune reminded him. Now that we’re back across the sea.
I think we’ll camp here for a day or so. I gotta figure out what I’m gonna do next.
You will go to Lunessfor soon, though, no?
O’ course I will. I just wanna know what I’m doin’ when I get there.
“Will you be alright if I leave to fetch the others?” Aoife asked Vykers.
He embraced her in a sideways hug, kissing the side of her head. “You know I will.” He looked over at the red knight, who was idly examining the leaves of a nearby birch. “I’d better try to talk with this fellow…”
Aoife had gone.
I can help you communicate. I learned a few things from the Historian, as well.
Arune’s burning intensified for a moment, and then Vykers tried to speak with the man. “What manner of man fights a duel with a wooden sword?”
The knight looked up abruptly, shocked at hearing his own language after so long a time. “What manner of man competes in a challenge of honor with a steel sword?”
“Was that what that was, a challenge of honor?” Vykers asked. “No wonder you fellas were so far away from the obelisk.”
The knight seemed to deflate, dropping his arms to his sides and his gaze to the ground. “Yes, no one respects the old ways, any more.”
“I fight to win.”
The knight looked up again, “Ah, but are winning and bloodshed one and the same? In my country, the first man to touch the other with his sword is champion. No one ever need die.”
“Well,” the Reaper shrugged, “I touched you first.”
“Yes,” the knight answered, dubiously.
For the better part of an hour, Aoife shuttled Vykers’ slaves from the grove in their distant homeland to the grove in his homeland, from there to here. Then, she went back a final time to retrieve the Frog and was gone for a long, long time.
*****
Long’s Team, On the Trail
Long Pete and his friends wandered for miles on either side of the north road, looking for anyone who might have seen Mardine travelling through, or any physical sign of her passing. Days and days went by, and Long began to lose hope. Gradually, those days got shorter, the nights got colder and autumn settled into the landscape. Long feared if he didn’t find evidence of Mardine’s trail soon, the falling leaves would obscure her path forever. And so, the group talked to farmers, peddlers, vagrants – any and every one they encountered. They received just enough fragments of information and dim recollections to prevent them from giving up.
One evening about sunset, Spirk happened to spot a game trail or goat track that the rest of the party had overlooked. Long wanted to skip it, but Spirk said he had a funny feeling and wanted to investigate. Long continued to resist, but they compromised and made camp on the side of the road, agreeing to follow the trail in the morning.
It was the last peaceful night of sleep Long would ever know.
Come sun up, Spirk hustled off up the trail, his friend Ron limping along behind him, whilst everyone else struggled to keep up. A ways into the forest, Rem spotted an enormous footprint, which galvanized Long. He charged ahead, possessed by a frantic energy none of the others could match. Thus, he was alone, well ahead of the others,
when he came to the clearing and found The Tree. He knew what it was on the instant, though he couldn’t have said how or why he knew. Impossibly, unfathomably, he was able to read the runes carved into its scorched trunk.
When the rest of the crew showed up, they found Long curled up at its base, sobbing the deep, wrenching wails of a soul in torment.
They had found Mardine.
Not wanting to disturb Long in his agony, Rem turned to Yendor and whispered, “How does he know it’s her?”
“It’s her,” Spirk cut in, somberly.
As Flies to Wanton Boys (Immortal Treachery Book 2) Page 48
