At least they had light. By clearing off the grime, they had uncovered a small porthole that could be opened to admit fresh air and the occasional splash. Shadamehr had obtained clean clothes from the orks, and he had taken a bath beneath one of the pumps. But the sewer smell still lingered unfortunately, making them all glad of the fresh air and the small patch of sunlight.
Damra frowned, clearly not amused. Sacred subjects are not matters for joking. Before she could say anything, however, Alise sat up in bed and cracked her head on the low ceiling.
“Ouch!” Alise clapped her hand over her forehead. “What the—” She peered around in the gloom. “Who is that? Where am I?”
“You are with me, Alise…”
“Shadamehr? Is that…Are you…”
“I am, my dear. I shouldn’t be, but I am.”
Alise flung her arms around him, clasped him tightly. “Thank the gods!” she breathed, holding him fast.
“Devil take the gods,” said Shadamehr fiercely. “Thank you, Alise. You saved me. I—”
“No!” she said, suddenly recoiling. “No, don’t say that. Don’t say anything. If you’re not dead, why am I alive? That spell I cast…”
She shuddered, huddled away from him, pressed her body up against the bulkhead. “What happened to me?”
He tried to calm her, but he could feel her body tense, go rigid at his touch, and he drew back reluctantly. “Alise…the Grandmother…do you remember anything?”
“The Grandmother…” Alise repeated gently. “Yes, I do remember. I remember sunshine and turquoise skies and lying in sweet-smelling grass and the gods came to me. They said…they said…”
“What?” Shadamehr asked tersely.
“They said, ‘Why did you waste your time trying to save that wicked Baron Shadamehr?’” Alise spoke in a whispering, ghostly monotone, adding softly, “‘The baron who smells like a sewer.’”
“They didn’t say that,” Shadamehr protested, hurt. “Did they?”
“No,” said Alise, relaxing at his touch. But very gently, she pushed his hands away. “That’s not what they said.”
“What did they say? That you are a hero for saving the life of the handsome and wonderful Baron Shadamehr?”
“No, they didn’t say that either. Our conversation was private.” She squinted. “Damra, is that you? Griffith? What are you two doing here? Why is my bed rocking? And why do I smell like a sewer?”
“We’re on board an ork ship,” Shadamehr explained. “We’re fleeing New Vinnengael. And about the sewers—”
“That’s a relief, leaving New Vinnengael. I suppose we’re on the run, two jumps ahead of the palace guard who are determined, as usual, to hang you or behead you or maybe both.” Alise pushed back a few straggling red curls from her eyes, swung her feet over the bed.
“Don’t you remember?” Shadamehr asked.
“I find I am hungry, my husband,” said Damra hurriedly. “Did you say something about bread in the galley?”
“Yes, I’ll show you,” Griffith offered. “If you two will excuse us—”
“I’ll come with you,” said Alise. “I’m ravenous.”
Shadamehr caught hold of her wrist.
“Alise, we need to talk.”
She lifted her head, shook back her red hair, and looked him in the eye. The two of them were alone in the cabin. The elves, deeply embarrassed, had fled.
“No, we don’t. There’s nothing to say.”
“Alise—”
“Shadamehr.” She took hold of both his hands in hers, held them fast. “I know what I need to know. I remember what I need to remember. Nothing has changed between us.”
“But it has,” Shadamehr said quietly.
“Then it shouldn’t,” she said, refusing to look at him.
“Alise, you saved my life,” said Shadamehr, drawing her close. “Because of me, you nearly died—”
“And so now you are in love with me,” she stated, trying to wriggle away. “Now you want to spend the rest of your life with me. Have baby Shadamehrs. Grow old together.”
“Yes!” he cried rapturously.
“What?” She stared at him.
“Yes to all that. But not baby Shadamerhs. Baby Alises. Six girls with red hair, like their mother, to plague me and torment me and never do what they’re told and…” He paused. “We’ll have to deal with a few small matters first, of course, such as the Sovereign Stone, which is now in my possession and which a dead man told me to take to Old Vinnenagel and the Lord of the Void, Dagnarus, seizing New Vinnengael and the fact that we’re on the run for our lives, but once this is all sorted out—”
“I knew it!” Alise struck him in the chest. She started to push him away, then stopped, looked up at him earnestly. “I don’t think it will work, Shadamehr.”
“Of course, it will work. The dead man told me—”
Alise smiled, a lopsided smile, held up her hands, made two fists. “I don’t mean that. I mean us. Lodestones,” she said, hitting them together, bouncing them apart. “You see? I do remember. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go wash the sewer out of my hair.”
“Alise,” he said, holding her fast. “I don’t blame you for not trusting me. I never spoke a serious word in my life before last night and now listen to me. You can’t shut me up. I love you, Alise. And not out of gratitude for saving my life,” he added sternly, halting the words on her lips. “I calculate that saving my life this one time makes us even for all those other times you put my life in danger.”
“I never!” she said indignantly, trying unsuccessfully to wrest her hands from his grip.
“Oh, but you did. There was that time with the trolls. ‘Don’t ride across the bridge’ I warned. But, no, you wouldn’t listen and out come three of the biggest trolls I’ve ever seen in my life, and trolls are damn hard to kill—”
“I’ll think about it,” Alise promised hastily.
“You’ll think about marrying me? Truly?”
“Yes,” she said. “Anything not to hear the troll story again. Now will you let me go wash my hair?”
“I was going to suggest it,” said Shadamehr. “Quite frankly, my dear, I think it’s proof of my love that I even let you get close to me, the way you smell…”
Alise gave him a shove that knocked him backward into the bulkhead, kicked his shins for good measure, then turned and marched out.
Alise was an experienced sailor, having accompanied the baron on more than one expedition. Before the day was out, she would have the sailors rigging a pump for her to wash her hair. She would have her chemise hanging from the yardarms and, dressed in clothes borrowed from the orks, be dancing hornpipes at the midnight watch.
“We will work,” said Shadamehr, fondly rubbing his bruised shin.
He stood alone in the cabin, smiling at the small, round patch of sunlight. But even as he watched, the sunlight faded away with the passing of a cloud.
Always a cloud. And this time, enormous clouds, masses of clouds. So many they might never see the sun again. He lifted the knapsack containing, presumably, the human portion of the Sovereign Stone. The knapsack looked very ordinary, its leather worn, its stitching frayed. Holding it to what light remained, he opened it up, peered inside, saw nothing except lint. According to Bashae, the knight Gustav had claimed the knapsack to be magical. The Sovereign Stone was hidden in folds of magic and could be revealed only by a secret word.
“Wouldn’t it be a great joke,” said Shadamehr to himself, “if all this time we’ve been risking our fool lives for an empty knapsack.”
The word he was supposed to speak, “Adele,” was on his tongue. He would see this Sovereign Stone. He would see what Bashae had given his life to protect. He would see with his own eyes what all the fuss was about. He was not going to take this on faith….
You are the bearer of the Sovereign Stone.
Gareth’s words. That was why Gareth had come to him.
I wasn’t dreaming. Shadamehr knew th
at as certainly as he knew that he loved Alise and that—would miracles never cease—she loved him. She might not know it yet, but he’d convince her. There was just the small problem now of keeping them all alive.
The word “Adele” went unspoken. He could hear, over the creaking of the ship, the voices of Damra and Griffith talking to Alise. He could hear her voice, her laughter.
He draped the worn leather strap over his shoulder. Better get used to carrying it. He didn’t dare leave it anywhere for the Void to find. So long as it was his responsibility, he would guard it with his life. As for what happened to the Stone in the future, that was a decision for others to make. He wasn’t a Dominion Lord, a blessing for which he was certain the gods must be grateful.
“It’s early in the day. Let’s see what else I can screw up,” he said cheerfully to himself, as he went on deck.
RIGISWALD FROWNED DOWN AT HIS BOOK. THE VOLUME WAS NOT nearly as informative as he had hoped. He shut it with an irritated snap.
“You’re a dolt,” he told the long-dead author.
Rigiswald sat in his chair, wondering what time it was. Thinking of time made him wonder what day it was. He lost track of time in the library, where there were no clocks, no windows, no town criers insisting that it was noon and all was well. What day was it? Had Ulaf been here last night or the night before? Had a whole day truly passed since then?
Yes, it had, Rigiswald decided. He’d gone to bed, after Ulaf’s departure, and slept most of the day. Then he’d eaten a bad supper in the mess hall, then come back to his reading. It had to be close to dawn. He wondered whether or not he should bother going to bed or simply move on to breakfast. He had just decided on the latter, when he felt a touch upon his shoulder.
He looked up to find the head of the Order of Battle Magi looking down.
“They told me I would find you here, sir,” Tasgall said in the low tones that were always used in the library. “I would like a word with you.”
“I’ve been expecting you,” said Rigiswald, setting aside the book.
A hovering novitiate pounced on the volume and bore it away to whatever safe haven they were using these days.
“The taan won’t have any interest at all in the books, you know,” said Rigiswald, accompanying Tasgall out of the library. “Few taan can read. They have no written form of their own language. They wouldn’t know what to make of books. Neither would Dagnarus,” Rigiswald added.
Tasgall made no response, beyond a flickered glance.
Leaving the library, they walked down a large corridor that smelled of oiled leather and wood and vellum. Off the corridor were meeting rooms furnished with ornately carved tables surrounded by high-backed chairs of dark wood and classrooms. He and Tasgall were the only two in the corridor. The rooms were empty and dark. With the coming of day, this part of the university would be filled with activity, but none walked here at night.
“As a child, Prince Dagnarus often played truant,” Rigiswald continued. “We have the account of his tutor, who wrote that Dagnarus preferred hanging about with the soldiers to studying his lessons. Your precious books would be safe enough from him, I should imagine.”
“Prince Dagnarus died two hundred years ago,” said Tasgall. He spoke in a heavy voice, with no intonation, as if reciting the words by rote.
Rigiswald smiled and ran his hand over his beard, smoothing it.
They walked the length of the corridor before the battle mage halted. He looked back down the hall, the way they had come and, seeing no one in sight, he gestured abruptly to Rigiswald, led the way into one of the meeting rooms.
The room was dark, smelled of chalk.
Tasgall muttered the words to a spell, and the room was filled with a soft gray light. Tasgall glanced about the room, made certain that it was empty. He motioned Rigiswald to seat himself in one of the high-backed chairs, then walked over to look out into the hall, before he shut the door.
Rigiswald settled himself in the chair. Resting his hands upon the arms, he crossed his ankles and waited.
Tasgall pulled out another chair, but the battle mage did not seat himself. He remained standing, his hands clasping the carved slat that adorned the chair’s back.
Tasgall in full battle regalia was an impressive sight, a force comprised of a deadly combination of steel and flame. Tonight he was dressed in the soft woolen robes generally worn by the Brethren in their hours of study or relaxation. Devoid of his armor, he was just another human—a middle-aged man in his late forties, the sharp lines of his square-cut, clean-shaven face blurred with fatigue, his dark hair going gray at the temples, his brow furrowed. Tall and powerfully built, he dwarfed his former teacher—the slender, dapper Rigiswald.
Rigiswald had known even then that the dark-eyed, brooding, and intense Tasgall would make an ideal battle magus, and he had advised him to pursue his studies with that goal in mind.
“Where is Baron Shadamehr?” Tasgall demanded abruptly.
“That is not how you speak to someone considerably your elder, Tasgall. Even if you are head of the battle magi,” Rigiswald returned.
Tasgall’s hands tightened their grip on the chair back. “I have been up for two nights. Night before last, I had to deal with your baron, who tried to kidnap the king, then promptly vanished. Then there was the battle with a Vrykyl in a tavern, a Vrykyl who killed one of my people before we sent it back to the Void that spawned it. Yesterday and today I’ve been dealing with the probability of an enemy invasion. You have only to look across the river, and you will see the fiends camped on the shore! You will forgive me, therefore, sir, if I am somewhat deficient in tact.”
Rigiswald raised an eyebrow. Placing the tips of his manicured fingers together, he tapped them gently.
Tasgall let out an exasperated breath, then said, “Do you know where to find the Baron Shadamehr, sir?”
“No, I do not,” Rigiswald replied.
“I think you do,” said Tasgall.
Rigiswald rose stiffly to his feet. “Then you are calling me a liar. I bid you good morning—”
“Wait, wait! Damn it!” Tasgall moved to block the path of the elderly mage. “We know you are part of the baron’s household, that you were his tutor, and you are now his friend and confidant.”
“I have that honor, yes,” said Rigiswald, still standing.
“The baron rode into the city two days ago—”
“Was I riding with him?” Rigiswald interrupted.
“No, sir, you were not, but—”
“I arrived here several days ago. I have spent my time in the library, as I am certain you know from your spies. I have left once to go to my bed, six times to eat, and eighteen times to go to the privies—my bladder isn’t what it used to be—and I met once with the Nimran ambassador, as I am certain your spies have also told you. Did your spies inform you that the Baron Shadamehr came to speak to me on any of those occasions?”
“No, sir,” said Tasgall grimly. “He was inside the palace trying to abduct the young king.”
“Indeed? And how came he to be in the palace?”
“The Regent wanted to see him.”
“What about?”
“I am asking the questions, sir,” said Tasgall.
“You asked me one, and I answered it. You didn’t like my answer, but that’s not my fault. If you have other questions, I will be happy to answer them, but you will probably not like any of those answers either. Therefore, I see no need to continue this fruitless conversation. I am quite weary, and I would like to get what sleep I can before the city comes under siege. Good morning to you, sir. Again.”
Rigiswald circled around Tasgall, who did not try to stop him. The elderly magus had nearly reached the door before Tasgall spoke.
“Whatever else the Baron Shadamehr may be, he is no coward. I served with him on the field of battle, as you yourself know, sir. I have seen for myself his tenacity, his resolve, and his courage, and I do not agree with those who say that he refused to undergo t
he Transfiguration out of cowardice.”
Rigiswald halted, turned to look over his shoulder. “Well, sir, and what of it?”
“I have seen Baron Shadamehr in his tomfooleries, I’ve seen him in his cups, I’ve seen him in battle, and I have never before seen him afraid. Not until the night he was in the palace. I saw his face, and I saw fear. Something happened to him inside the palace that scared him so that he lunged through a crystal window to a five-story drop onto stone pavement. I want to know what it was.”
Rigiswald shook his head, took another step.
“Tell me this, then,” said Tasgall. “Does Baron Shadamehr have in his possession part of the sacred Sovereign Stone?”
Rigiswald took another step and another.
“Sir,” Tasgall said in tightly controlled, level tones, “I am responsible for the lives of several thousands of our people, not to mention the life of the young king. If you have information that might be useful to me in helping to save those lives, and you withhold that information, then the blood of innocents will be on your hands.”
Rigiswald glanced around. “You have no need to concern yourself with the life of the young king. The young king is dead.”
“Impossible!” stated Tasgall impatiently. “I just left him. He is sleeping soundly.”
“Very soundly,” said Rigiswald. “At the bottom of the river. The young king you left slumbering in his bed is a Vrykyl.”
Tasgall’s jaw worked. His dark eyes flared in ire.
“Where is Baron Shadamehr?” he demanded, his voice taut.
“Ah, we’re back to the beginning,” said Rigiswald, sighing. “I will tell you that I don’t know where he is. You will call me a liar. I will start to walk out—”
“No, sir,” said Tasgall. “I will walk out.” He stalked past Rigiswald, out the door and into the dark corridor beyond.
“I told you that you wouldn’t like my answer,” remarked Rigiswald.
Tasgall did not look back.
“Gods help us,” Rigiswald muttered, as close to a prayer as he’d ever come in his life.
Dagnarus, Lord of the Void, stood on the banks of the Arven River and stared across it at the city of New Vinnengael, a city he planned to conquer. He stood alone and unseen, cloaked in the magic of the Void. Night had fallen. Some distance away, his taan troops were gathered around the campfires, telling stories of the brave deeds they would do when the signal was given to attack.
Journey into the Void Page 14
