"Let's find them, then. I've something I want you all to hear and I don't want to have to go through it a dozen times."
Micum felt a rush of relief as Nysander let them in at the tower door. This was one Watcher report he was anxious to share the burden of.
"Here you are at last!" said Nysander.
"Is that Micum?" Seregil looked up from something on Nysander's desk, then hurried over to greet him. "Bilairy's Balls, man, you look like hell!"
"So do you." Micum inspected Seregil with concern.
He was thinner than ever, and looked tired in spite of his usual grin. "The boy here says you had some trouble on the road?"
"I think it would be best if we heard your report first," said Nysander. "Come down to the sitting room, all of you."
"All of them" didn't appear to include Thero, Micum noted as Nysander shut the study door.
"Seregil, pour the wine," the wizard said, taking a seat by the fire. "Now, Micum, you have some news?"
Micum dropped into the other armchair and accepted the cup gratefully. "Yes, and it's not good."
"You found the place marked in the Fens, didn't you?" Seregil asked eagerly.
"Yes. After Boersby, I rode to the southern end of the Fens. From what you'd told me, I figured the Plenimarans must have come up the Osk and followed the river trail in. I soon picked up word of them in the villages along that route. Mardus and his men had been through less than a month before."
"The Blackwater Fens are a bad place to travel," Alec said, shaking his head. "One minute you're on solid ground, the next you're up to your waist in mud."
"That's the truth. If the cold weather hadn't firmed the ground up as much as it had, I'd have lost my horse before I got out of there," Micum told him. "Mardus had gone clear into the heart of the Fens. It's a cursed waste of quaking bog in there. The villages had given out miles back, and I was about ready to turn back when I came upon a little settlement set up on a rise.
"It was the usual sort of swamp village—just a dirty jumble of hovels clustered around a muddy track. A wooden causeway led into it and I was halfway across it when I felt something was wrong. There wasn't a soul in sight. You know how it is with these little villages—the minute a stranger turns up the dogs bark and the children run out to see who it is. But I couldn't see anyone around. There was no smoke, either, no sound of voices or work. But there were gathering baskets and nets by the doorways, like someone had just laid them aside. I thought maybe they were hiding at first, until I heard ravens making a racket nearby.
"Looking around, I began to have an idea what I was going to find. The remains of three people were scattered down the other side of the rise below the village.
Animals had been at them for days, and what remained was frozen into the mud. Two were adults, a man and a woman. From the way they lay, it looked like they'd been cut down running. The man's head had been knocked twenty feet away and the woman was hacked almost in two at the waist. A young lad lay half in the water at the base of the hill, with an arrow still in his back.
"The signs were easy enough to read. Dozens of tracks led to a depression in the earth halfway down the rise; only a few came back out to cross over them. By the manner that the dirt had been thrown around, I'd say it was a wizard's doing. Going down for a closer look, I suddenly sank into the ground right up to my hip. When I went to wiggle loose, I realized that my foot was in open space down there.
"There was a hollow place in the hill, like a barrow.
Digging down, I found a little chamber in the hillside, built low and shored up with timbers."
Micum paused and took another long sip of wine before continuing. "The whole village had been killed and carried in there. The stench was fearsome; I wonder you don't smell it on me still. The torch burned blue when I stuck it through to see. There were bodies sprawled out everywhere—" Meeting Seregil's level grey gaze, he shook his head. "We've seen some hard things, you and I, but by Sakor, nothing like this. Some they'd just killed, others they'd hacked open, pulling their ribs back until the poor bastards looked as if they'd grown wings. Cut up their insides, too.
"There was a big flat stone in the center of the chamber, like a table. They must have done their butchery on that—it was all black with blood. A little girl and an old man were still laid out there, their faces gone green. I counted twenty-three in all, plus the three above. Must've been the whole damn village."
Micum sighed heavily, kneading his eyelids. "The strange thing, though, was that I found older bones beneath the bodies."
Nysander had been staring impassively into the fire all this while. Without shifting his gaze, he asked, "Were you able to examine the stone?"
"Yes, and I found this." Micum drew a bit of rotted leather from a pouch at his belt and showed them the remains of a small bag.
Nysander took the scraps and examined them closely. Then, without comment, he cast them into the fire.
Micum was too surprised to react immediately, but Seregil leapt up and tried to rake them out with a poker.
"Let it be!" Nysander ordered sharply.
"This is to do with the disk, isn't it?" Seregil demanded angrily, still grasping the poker.
Micum felt a palpable thickening of the atmosphere of the room as Nysander and Seregil faced off.
Judging by Alec's startled expression, the boy was feeling it, too. The wizard betrayed no outward sign of anger, but the lamps went dim and the warmth of the fire failed.
"I have told you all I can in the matter." Though Nysander spoke quietly, his voice seemed to
reverberate like a thunderclap in the deadened air. "I tell you again that the time is not come when you may know."
Seregil tossed the poker down on the stone hearth with a snarl of disgust. "How many years have I kept your secrets?" he hissed through clenched teeth.
"All the intrigues and dirty jobs. Now this touches my own life—Micum's, Alec's—and you won't say a word? Oaths be damned, Nysander! If I'm not worthy of your trust, then I'm not worthy of your roof. I'm going to the Cockerel comtd!" And with a final furious glare, he slammed out of the room.
"What the hell was that all about?" Micum demanded as he and Alec rose to follow.
Nysander motioned them back to their chairs. "Give him time to calm down. This situation is tremendously difficult for all of you, I realize, but perhaps especially so for him. Curiosity alone will drive him half mad, not to mention his wounded sense of honor."
"Do you mean to say you know something about that business in the Fens but you're not telling us?" asked Micum, none too happy himself.
"Please, Micum, I need your cool head to govern Seregil just now. Should the need for action arise, be assured that I will look to the two of you—" He paused, catching sight of Alec sitting stiff and silent in his chair. "Pardon me, dear boy-to the three of you to deal with it. In the meantime, do you think you can prevent him from charging off in a fury? There is another matter I must discuss with him before he leaves the Orлska."
Micum scowled. "It had better be a short fury. I don't fancy sitting in Rhнminee with home so close. I haven't seen my wife in four months."
"Your what?" Alec asked in surprise.
Micum gave a wry shrug. "In the midst of all the running and fighting we did up north, I guess the subject never came up. You'll have to come out to Watermead. In fact, if I let slip that you're an orphan, Kari may just come get you herself."
"Out to where?"
"Our holding," Micum explained. "It lies up in the hills to the west of the city. During my early days with Seregil we uncovered a plot against the Queen. The leader of it was executed and Idrilain offered us part of his holdings as reward. Seregil never cared much for property, so it fell to me. It's really been more Kari's than mine, what with me being gone so much. She and the girls run it."
"Girls?"
Nysander gave Alec a mischievous wink. "This rogue has three daughters, as well."
"Any grandchildren?" Alec inquire
d dryly.
"I hope not! The oldest, Beka, is only a year or two older than you and she's set her heart on a soldiering life. Seregil's promised to get her a commission in the Queen's Horse Guard, damn him. The other two, Elsbet and Illia, are too young yet to be thinking of husbands."
Yawning suddenly, Micum stretched back in his chair until the seams of his jerkin creaked. "By the Flame, I'm tired. After the riding I did to get here, I could sleep in the middle of the Sea Market and not know the difference. I'd better go after Seregil before I doze off. Before I go, though, there's one thing you must answer me, Nysander." He fixed the wizard with a serious eye. "I'll accept your conditions of secrecy for now. You know you can always trust me—and Seregil, too, for all his bluster. But if this business is half as serious as you make it out to be, are we in danger? I haven't been easy in my mind since I left the Fens.
"All the way down here I kept seeing Alec and Seregil stretched back over that stone with their chests torn open. And now you tell me he got hit with bad magic. Could Mardus' people have tracked us here from Wolde? And will they follow me home tomorrow?"
Nysander sighed deeply. "I have had no sign of such pursuit yet. As much as I would like to tell you that there is no danger, that Seregil and Alec eluded their pursuers completely, I cannot be certain of it. But you may believe me, both of you, when I say that no matter what my vow—I will never endanger any of you with false assurances. I shall continue to keep watch over you all as best I can, but you must also be cautious."
Micum stroked the corners of his mustache, frowning.
"I don't like it, Nysander. I don't like it at all, but I trust you. Come on, Alec, let's go find Seregil. If he won't cool off on his own, you can help me dunk him in the horse trough."
They made a quick check of the bedchamber first.
Seregil's old pack lay open on the clothes chest, along with an untidy pile of maps and parchment scraps. His traveling cloak lay in a heap next to a chair, along with several tunics and a crumpled hat. The tip of one old boot protruded from beneath the coverlet of the bed like a dog's nose. Combs, a ball of twine, a tankard, and fragments of a broken flint lay along the windowsill as if set out for a ceremony.
"He hasn't stormed off just yet," Micum observed, looking the mess over. "Before we go on, I'd like to hear what happened to you two."
Once again Alec went over the details of their journey and Seregil's strange malady. When he'd finished, Micum rubbed a hand wearily over the coppery stubble on his chin.
"That's not the sort of thing a person just walks away from, I grant you. Still, he ought to know that Nysander wouldn't put him off without good reason. I swear, Seregil is one of the smartest people I've ever known, and the bravest, but he's worse than a child when he comes up against something he can't twist around to suit himself." He yawned again heartily.
"Let's get this over with."
"Where do we look?" Alec asked, following him out. "He could be anywhere."
"I know where to start."
Micum led the way out to the Orлska stables.
Seregil was in a stall halfway down the mews, currying Micum's exhausted horse.
"You nearly spavined the poor beast," he said, not bothering to look up as they approached. His boots were soiled with barn muck; dust and horse hair clung to his clothing. A piece of sweat-soaked sacking swung from one shoulder as he worked down the animal's flank. A streak of mud down one wan cheek gave him a decidedly mournful look.
Micum slouched against the newel post at the end of the stall. "You acted like a fool back there, you know. I should think you'd want to set a better example for Alec."
Seregil gave him a sour glance across the horse's back, then went back to work.
Micum watched the motion of the curry comb for a moment. "You'll speak with Nysander before you leave?"
"Soon as I finish this."
"Looks like we won't have to toss him in the trough after all, eh?" Micum grinned at Alec. "And I was looking forward to it."
Seregil scrubbed at a patch of dry mud, sending up a cloud of dust. "You off to Watermead tomorrow?"
Micum heard the thinly veiled challenge the question often carried. "At first light. Kari will skin me if I stay away any longer. Why don't you two come out with me? The hunting should be good just now, and we could work on Alec's swordplay. Beka's a perfect match for him."
"I want to get settled at the Cockerel first," Seregil replied.
"Suit yourself. You're no use to anyone when you're like this."
Micum yawned again, then clasped hands with Seregil for a long moment, holding his friend's gaze until Seregil managed a tight, grudging smile.
Satisfied, Micum released him and clapped Alec on the shoulder. "I'll be asleep before you get upstairs, so it's farewell for now. Luck to you in the shadows."
"And to you," Alec called after him.
Upending a bucket, Alec sat down to watch Seregil finish with the horse. "He doesn't stay around long, does he?"
Seregil shrugged. "Micum? Sometimes. Not like he used to." Something in Seregil's voice warned Alec that this, too, was a subject not to be pursued.
"What's this Cockerel place we're going to?"
"Home, Alec. And home is where we're bound tonight." Seregil hung the curry comb on a nail.
"Give me a minute to square things with Nysander, then come say goodbye."
Thero answered Seregil's knock. Exchanging their usual terse nods, they strode back through the stacks of manuscripts to the workroom. Walking behind the assistant wizard, Seregil read tension in the set of Thero's shoulders and smiled to himself.
There had never been any specific basis for their strong mutual dislike, yet it had sprung up full-blown the first time they'd laid eyes on each other. Out of regard for Nysander's feelings, a grudging truce had developed between them. Nonetheless, they'd never been at ease in the other's presence, though either one would have eaten fire before they'd admit it aloud.
Seregil considered himself to be above such petty emotions as jealousy or envy; so what if Thero had taken his place at Nysander's side, filling it better, in some respects, than he ever had?
Seregil had no reason to doubt Nysander's personal regard for him, or the importance of their professional association. His continuing dislike of Thero, he'd long since concluded, must be on a purely instinctual level, and thus irreconcilable and probably justified.
"He's downstairs," Thero informed him, returning to his work at one of the tables.
Nysander was still sitting pensively by the fire.
Leaning against the door frame, Seregil cleared his throat. "I was an idiot just now."
Nysander waved his apology aside. "Come in, please, and sit with me. Do you know, I was just trying to think how long it has been since you spent so many nights under this roof."
"Too long, I'm afraid."
Nysander regarded him with a sad smile.
"Too long indeed, if you could imagine that I would keep anything from you out of distrust."
Seregil shifted unhappily in his chair. "I know. But don't expect me to just nod and smile about it."
"Actually, I think you are taking it all rather well. Do you still plan to leave tonight?"
"I need to get back to work, and Alec's feeling a bit lost. The sooner we get busy, the better we'll both feel."
"Mind you pace him in his training," Nysander cautioned. "I should not like to see either of you with your hands on the executioner's block."
Seregil regarded his old friend knowingly. "You like him."
"Certainly," Nysander replied. "He possesses a keen mind and a noble heart."
"Surprised?"
"Only that you would take on such a responsibility at all. You have been solitary for so long."
"It was nothing I planned, believe me. But as I get to know him better, well—I don't know. I guess I'm
getting used to having him around."
Nysander studied his friend's face for a moment, then said gent
ly, "He is very young, Seregil, and obviously has great respect and fondness for you. I trust you are aware of that?"
"My intentions toward Alec are perfectly honorable! You, of all people, ought to—"
"That is not what I was alluding to," Nysander replied calmly. "What I am saying is that you must consider more than his mere education. You should be a friend to him as well as a teacher. The time will come when the master must accept his pupil as an equal."
"That's the whole point, isn't it?"
"I am glad to hear you say so. But you must be honest with him, too." Nysander regarded him with sudden seriousness. "I know of at least one thing that he is not aware of. Why have you not told him of his true—?"
"I will!" Seregil whispered quickly, hearing Alec's step on the stairs. "I wasn't certain at first, and then things went to pieces. I just haven't found the right moment yet. He's had enough to contend with these last few weeks."
"Perhaps so, yet I confess I do not understand your reluctance. I wonder how he will react?"
"So do I," murmured Seregil. "So do I."
20 Homecoming
Tattered clouds were scudding across the face of the moon when Seregil and Alec set out for the Cockerel.
A bitter wind off the sea clattered through the trees along Golden Helm Street. The night lanterns grated on their hooks, making the shadows dance.
Intent on savoring his first night of freedom, Seregil had turned down Nysander's offer of horses, although he did concede to letting Alec carry the pack. As the wind whipped their hair and cloaks about, he was chilled but cheerful.
Rhнminee after dark. Beyond ornate walls and down shadowed alleys lay a thousand dangers, a thousand delights. Passing beneath a lantern, he saw a glimmer of familiar eagerness in Alec's eyes; perhaps, at last, he'd chosen well?
By the time they reached the Circle of Astellus, however, Seregil was forced to admit that his body had not recovered as fully as his spirit.
"I could do with a drink," he said, stepping into the shelter of the colonnade.
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