Shapers of Darkness: Book Four of Winds of the Forelands (Winds of the Forelands Tetralogy)

by David B. Coe

  “Tell your father what I told you, as much of it as you can remember. Maybe that will do some good.” He glanced at Grinsa, who offered a sympathetic smile. “Go on,” he said, facing the boy again and sheathing his steel.

  Innis cast a quick look at the gleaner before he, too, ran off.

  “I guess I didn’t handle that so well.”

  “Actually, I thought you did fine.”

  “They both probably think I’m mad.”

  “Colum doesn’t. He believes you, and from now on, when he thinks of his father, he’ll picture the two of you fighting together. There’s no harm in that.”

  Tavis swung himself back onto his mount. “How many men like Innis’s father do you think there are in Eibithar?”

  “Probably quite a few.” They began to ride. “The Rules of Ascension are often revered in Eibithar as a great source of harmony for the realm. Because power is shared, and because the rules provide for almost every contingency when it comes to choosing a new sovereign, most assume that they’ve prevented civil wars.”

  “You don’t think they have?”

  “I don’t know—no one does really. But I do believe that they’ve engendered a great deal of resentment among the major houses. In Aneira, at least until recently, House Solkara has held power, and no one has doubted for even a moment that when one king dies, another will rise from the royal house to replace him. The same can be said of House Yserne and the queens of Sanbira, or of House Enharfe in Caerisse. Here, it’s not nearly so simple. There’s the expectation that the major houses will share power, and when it doesn’t turn out that way, those houses that fail to place a king on the Oaken Throne grow bitter and envious.”

  “But Glyndwr hasn’t claimed a king since the Grand Venture. Surely the other majors can’t begrudge the House of Wolves one king in four hundred years.”

  “They can if it keeps one of their own from wearing the crown. Renald doesn’t care that it’s Kearney of Glyndwr living in Audun’s Castle rather than a Thorald or a Curgh. He knows only that Galdasten has been passed over, and that under the rules his house will have no claim to the throne for another four generations.”

  “These are Sussyn lands, Grinsa. Or perhaps Domnall’s, this far north. It hardly matters—both are minor houses. They have no part in this quarrel. Why should Innis’s father hate the king so?”

  “I can’t say for certain. It may be that he blames you, that he still believes that you killed Brienne and so feels justified in hating this king who protected you. Perhaps he wants no part of this war, and is using Kearney as an excuse not to fight. Or maybe he bears a grudge toward Kearney himself for some reason. But the odd thing is, if your father had ascended to the throne a year ago, as he was supposed to, it’s quite likely that Innis’s father would be following his commands without question.”

  “The conspiracy,” Tavis said, a pained look on his face.

  “Yes. As I’ve told you before, they knew the realm’s weaknesses better than we did ourselves.” Grinsa glanced up at the sun, marking its progress toward the western horizon. Storm clouds loomed in the distance, and the gleaner doubted that the fine weather they had enjoyed since leaving Glyndwr would last the night. “Don’t be too angry with Innis and his father. They’re victims of the Weaver as well, though they don’t know it.”

  The young lord frowned. “I suppose. But I can’t help feeling that all of us have made it far too easy for renegades to succeed.”

  They continued northward, riding well past sundown, eating a light meal in the saddle, and stopping only long enough for their mounts to drink from the wash and eat some of the sweet grasses growing on the Moorlands. As darkness fell, they saw torches burning in distant fields. Tavis pointed them out with some alarm, and for a moment Grinsa wondered if this was some new mischief of the Weaver or his servants.

  Then he remembered that Elined’s waning had begun, and he guessed that the torches belonged to farmers out walking among their crops. According to the moon legends, if crop seedlings didn’t break through the goddess’s earth by Pitch Night, the last night of the turn, the harvest was doomed. Judging from the soft green they had seen in field after field as they rode the past few days, Grinsa guessed that the farmers had nothing to fear from omens this year. But it had become tradition in the farming villages of the Forelands for families to walk in the fields during the nights of the goddess’s waning.

  When their mounts grew too weary to go on, Grinsa and Tavis finally stopped for the night. Lightning flickered in the distance and the low growl of thunder rode a warm wind. They ate a bit more, then slept amid the grasses, only to be awakened just before dawn by a loud thunderclap and a sudden hard downpour. The storm lasted only a short while, but with its passing the air grew colder, bringing a dawn too dreary and raw for so late in the planting. A stiff wind blew from the north, and a fine, chilling mist fell on the Moorlands. Tavis and the gleaner rode throughout the day, hunched in their riding cloaks, damp and miserable. They would have preferred to ride on into the night once more, but with no light from the moons, they had little choice but to make camp with the last grey light of day. They spoke little, ate quickly, and were soon huddled on their sleeping rolls.

  Grinsa couldn’t be certain how long he had been sleeping when the dream began. His first thought was that he was on the plain near Eardley where he spoke with Keziah on those nights when he entered her dreams. Except that the sky here was black and starless, the only light a brilliant white sun to the east. Recognition crashed over him like a wave just as he felt the Weaver reaching for his magic. For a moment the two of them grappled for control of the gleaner’s power, the Weaver trying to use Grinsa’s own shaping power to shatter the gleaner’s bones, Grinsa fighting desperately to hold him off. He felt panic rising in his chest, consuming his mind, robbing him of his strength. This is how he prevails. The voice was his own, calm, even, the way he might have spoken to Cresenne or Keziah as he explained to them how they could keep the Weaver from harming them. He uses fear and surprise as weapons, turning your emotions against you. His power can’t reach you here. Only yours, which he seeks to wield as he would his own. He only has as much strength as you cede him. Refuse to fear, refuse to give up control, and you defeat him.

  “You can’t hurt me,” Grinsa said aloud, feeling his initial confusion sluice away, and with it the dread that had touched his heart for one fleeting moment.

  “Can’t I? I’m in your mind, gleaner. It’s but a small matter to take hold of your magic.” Brave words, but Grinsa heard frustration in the man’s voice.

  They continued to struggle, though on that plain of Grinsa’s dream, both of them stood utterly still, the Weaver shrouded in shadow against the blinding light, his fists clenched. Again and again he tried to turn Grinsa’s magic against him; shaping, fire, healing, even delusion, as if he hoped to fool the gleaner into thinking him a friend. But Grinsa held him at bay, guarding his powers as a king might his gold. After several moments of this, he had an idea. Reaching for his fire magic, he tried to raise a flame that would counter the gleaming white light of the Weaver and allow him to see the man’s face. He had done this once before, when he saved Cresenne from the Weaver’s assault in Audun’s Castle, and had caught a glimpse of his enemy. Golden eyes, a square regal face.

  If Grinsa could hold him here longer, he might manage to see the Weaver’s face again, and, more important, he might see enough of the plain to recognize it.

  The Weaver sensed his danger instantly. Immediately, he stopped struggling for control of Grinsa’s other magics and fought with all his might to keep the fire from the gleaner’s hand.

  “What is it you’re hiding, Weaver?” Grinsa asked, a grin springing to his lips. “The plains near Muelry perhaps? Or Ayvencalde Moor?”

  Only a turn before, while Tavis was fighting the assassin on the Wethy Crown, Grinsa had been locked in a battle of his own against a Qirsi merchant sent by the Weaver to kill him. The man had died before Grinsa could le
arn from him all that he wished to know. But the merchant had said something about paying the conspiracy’s couriers on behalf of the Weaver, and of the Weaver’s fears that any direct payments might be traced back to him. Grinsa had surmised from this that the Weaver was in Braedon, where merchants and lords alike used different currency from that used in the other six realms. Imperial qinde, it was called. What other reason could the Weaver have for channeling his payments through the merchant?

  But if the Weaver was shaken by hearing him guess at the plain’s location, he gave no outward sign of it.

  Instead he laughed, harsh and cruel. “It’s too late for that, gleaner. You’re still trying to figure out who I am, and where you can find me. In the meantime, I’ve already won. As we speak, the armies of the Eandi are preparing to fight their foolish wars—some have already begun. Soon they’ll have rendered themselves helpless against my offensive. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “You haven’t won yet. If you had, you wouldn’t be bothering with me, and you wouldn’t still be hiding your face.”

  “I didn’t come here because I fear you, or because I have to defeat you before I can win. I came to avenge a friend. That’s all.”

  “The merchant.”

  At that, for the first time, Grinsa sensed some hesitation on the Weaver’s part. “What do you know about him?”

  “About Tihod? Quite a bit. He told me much before he died.”

  “I don’t believe you. He wouldn’t have told you anything.”

  “I never gave him the choice. I have mind-bending magic just as you do, remember?”

  Again the Weaver tried to seize his magic, the onslaught coming so suddenly that Grinsa nearly failed to ward himself in time.

  Immediately on the heels of the man’s assault, Grinsa tried to summon a flame, but the Weaver stopped him. After a moment their silent struggle ceased. They were like two armies facing one another across a battle plain, evenly matched, neither of them able to advance against the other. The gleaner knew that the wisest course would be to force himself awake, to end this encounter before the Weaver managed to harm him. Of the two of them, only he was truly in danger. The Weaver had entered his dreams; Grinsa couldn’t harm him. The most for which he could hope was an opportunity to learn the Weaver’s identity, and valuable though that information might have been, it was hardly worth risking his life. The time was fast approaching when the Weaver would reveal himself for all the Forelands to see. Yet, even knowing all this, Grinsa couldn’t bring himself to awake from this dream.

  For his part, the Weaver seemed just as intent on prolonging their confrontation, though clearly he still felt he had reason to keep Grinsa from seeing his face or the plain on which they stood. If he had truly come merely to avenge Tihod, he was risking a good deal in the name of vengeance.

  It almost seemed that their fascination with each other outweighed any sense of peril they might have felt. For his part, Grinsa had never met another Weaver. All his life, he had been unique, harboring a secret that he could share with but a handful of people. As a Qirsi living among the Eandi he had been a curiosity, eliciting awe and contempt in equal measure from those he met. Children coming to his gleaning tent had feared him as much as they did the judgment of the Qiran. This he shared with other Qirsi. But his powers had set him apart from even his own people. None of those whom he counted among his friends and loved ones had ever known what it was to live as he did. Not Keziah, his sister, who knew him as well as anyone; not Pheba, his wife, who might have understood eventually, had she lived long enough; not Tavis, who had journeyed the Forelands with him for much of the past year; not Cresenne, who loved him and who had felt the wrath of this other Weaver. No one truly knew him. Such was the life of a Weaver.

  But he couldn’t help but wonder if the same was true of this man standing before him, his face in shadows, his magic like a blade aimed at Grinsa’s heart. Didn’t it make sense that they should be more alike than not? Wasn’t it possible that the leader of the Qirsi conspiracy understood him better than did Keziah or Tavis or Cresenne? In a way, Grinsa and the Weaver had more in common than any two men in the Forelands.

  The Weaver seemed to read his thoughts—and why shouldn’t he, walking in Grinsa’s dreams?

  “Yes,” he said, his voice low. Grinsa could tell that he was smiling. “We’re not all that different, you and I.”

  “You wish to rule the Forelands. I don’t. You send assassins for innocent girls and well-meaning lords; you use your powers to torture and kill; you would gladly plunge all the realms into war in order to feed your ambition. We’re nothing alike.”

  “Of course we are. We’re Weavers. We possess powers the likes of which no Eandi can imagine. Indeed, no ordinary Qirsi can fathom what we are. That’s what you were thinking a moment ago, isn’t it? You sense a bond between us. I sense it as well. It’s real, Grinsa. You may hate what I am, but you can’t deny that you see yourself in me, just as I see myself in you.”

  “Even if that’s true, what difference does it make?”

  “Perhaps none. Perhaps a great deal. Together you and I could destroy the Eandi armies in a matter of hours. These men have never fought against one Weaver, let alone two. We could divide the Forelands between us, create a glorious new world for our people. Tell me, gleaner, do you ever wish for a better life? Do you ever wish that you could reveal the true extent of your powers without fearing execution at the hands of small-minded Eandi nobles?”

  Grinsa laughed, but tightened his hold on his magic, expecting another attack at any moment.

  “You think my question amusing. But how will you feel if your daughter grows up to be a Weaver, like her father? Will it still seem funny then?”

  “If she has to live her life as I have, so be it. I haven’t suffered so greatly for being a Weaver. And if you really cared a whit for my daughter, you wouldn’t have tried to kill her mother.”

  “Cresenne betrayed me and she’ll be punished for that.”

  “I find it interesting that in trying to turn me to your cause, you speak only of improving the lives of Weavers. I thought you were doing this for all Qirsi.”

  “I am!”

  “No. You just threatened Cresenne. It seems to me that you care only for those Qirsi who support you and your cause.”

  “The rest are traitors! All Qirsi who would devote themselves to serving the Eandi deserve death!”

  “Is that the kind of ruler you intend to be, Weaver? Will you execute all who question your vision of the world? Do you intend to kill every Eandi in the Forelands, and all the Qirsi who count the Eandi among their friends?”

  “If that’s what it takes to change the world, then yes, I do.”

  “And just how are you different from the worst Eandi tyrants of Aneira and Braedon? You’re no better than a Solkaran or a Curtell. Your eyes may be yellow, but your blood runs Eandi.”

  He had known the assault would come if he pushed the Weaver far enough, and so was able to defend himself with ease, despite the man’s fury. As the Weaver hammered at his mind, struggling once more to gain control of Grinsa’s shaping power, the gleaner raised his hand and called forth a bright golden flame.

  The Weaver’s eyes snapped wide and a low growl escaped his throat. Grinsa felt him try to snuff out the flame, but the gleaner held fast to his magic. Beyond the Weaver, across the rocky moorland on which they stood, Grinsa saw the gentle curve of a coastline and the pale glitter of water. And beyond that, more land. He saw an island to the north—Wantrae Island. The body of water had to be the Strait of Wantrae. Which made this plain . . .

  “Ayvencalde Moor,” he said aloud. “I’ve never been here, but I know this place.”

  “I told you, it doesn’t matter.”

  “I beg to differ. You must be the High Chancellor of Braedon. Dusaan jal Kania.” He had first heard the name a few turns before, in the City of Kings. After the Weaver tried to kill Cresenne, she told Grinsa of having been a chancellor in
the Weaver’s movement. Since the emperor of Braedon was the only noble in the Forelands who referred to his Qirsi advisors as chancellors, the gleaner had begun to wonder if the Weaver served in the emperor’s court. After his fight with Tihod, his suspicions deepened. Now, seeing the way this man’s face shaded to crimson, he was certain. “You say it doesn’t matter, Dusaan. Your expression tells me otherwise.”

  “So you know who I am. How will you explain this to your Eandi allies? Only a Weaver could have learned such a thing. Are you ready to admit to them what you are? Are you ready to die at the hands of your so-called friends?”

  “You think them fools. They’re not. When they understand that I can defeat you, that I’m their only hope, they’ll accept who and what I am.”

  “You’d let them use you that way? You disgust me.”

  Grinsa sensed that the Weaver was about to leave him. “I can find you now, Dusaan. The next time we meet, it will be in your dreams. You’d best be ready.”

  “You can’t hurt me, gleaner. And it may be that I can’t hurt you. But I can still reach Cresenne, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  It was only for an instant, a lapse brought on by fear for his love and for his daughter, by his fatigue, and by his belief, wrong though it was, that the Weaver intended to end their conversation. And like a wolf waiting for his prey to show any sign of weakness, Dusaan pounced. Grinsa felt a lancing pain in his temple and then an unbearable pressure on his skull. Fear seized his heart, as if the Weaver himself had reached into his chest and was squeezing his life away. It seemed that his head was being crushed beneath boulders.

  Wake up, he heard someone say. Whose voice was that?

  Wake up, gleaner. Wake up.

  Tavis. Grinsa opened his eyes and felt his world heave and spin. He rolled onto his stomach, pushed himself off the ground and vomited until his gut was empty and his throat was raw.

  “You’re bleeding,” Tavis said, as the gleaner sat back on his knees.

  Grinsa raised a hand to his temple. His fingers came away damp and sticky.