Sure enough, beneath Ciara's fingers were tales of a gentle giant thumping their narrator lovingly on the head and then cracking wise with a goblin of all things. Chud was a strange name for such a creature.
"And the dragon, the frost dragon," Aldrin seemed in a near panic over the thought of his house's crest, the symbol upon which rested everything the Osteros claimed, being little more than the imagination of a bard with access to more paper than sense.
"Now that is a strange one. There are numerous references to the deed but none that actually tell the tale. It seems to have been lost to the sands of time," Medwin's scholastic interests shone through as his voice grew contemplative and lively.
Ciara gently closed the book, her palm covering it protectively, "So? This has what to do with a prophecy?"
Medwin's eyes shifted down as he seemed to open his heart and life to the teenagers he took under his wings, "I...much of my life has been spent tracking down the tales of Cas and her 'merry band of idiots.'" He smiled wistfully, his mind decades past, "She always loved that tale, Analia was her favorite."
Ciara glanced down at the name inked into the margins of the book in her hand. A small name, written in oversized letters with the i dotted by a heart, graced the bottom. "Proudly Owned By Karlita."
"In my research," Medwin continued, "I stumbled across a prophecy, never fully finished in any of the books. One had to be looking for it to find it."
Medwin stood tall, placing his hands behind his back as he recited from memory,
"'On the Summer's Day,
At the fall of mankind
And the rise of reason
After seven score and thirteen years
The magic will return.'"
"Magic," Ciara cursed. It was quickly becoming the oatmeal in her hair.
The face, scarred by magical fire turned to the girl and nodded solemnly. He spent much of his life responding the way she did. "And the threat of the rise of magic, that others could succumb to the same loss that I did, drove me to track this prophecy. It was years before another Casamir book fell into my lap, another ancient one written by Jack.
'The Tower of the North
In the Land of the Dragon Slayer
Gather The Points of Arda
And Slice the Magic Free'"
Aldrin looked over at Ciara, the symbolism and third or fourth translations clearly obscuring something important, but all he got out of it was that magic was going to be sliced by a bunch of toast points, perhaps for brunch. She kept staring down at that small book in her fingers, trying to not think about her father.
"I found it most curious that it was only in books clearly printed before the great fall that this prophecy appeared," Medwin muttered to himself.
"Why?" Ciara asked, breaking from her repose.
"Because magic wasn't broken from Arda until the war with the elves. Whoever created this prophecy specifically hunted out and used books prior to the war and the, um, literary sex change Cas underwent."
Ciara nodded along, not caring about the historical implications, "So, what does that mean for us?"
Aldrin looked up at her, "We head for the Tower of Ashar."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
"Hello, Nightingale."
The voice was smooth and rehearsed, as if she didn't just catch him with his proverbial pants down. Taban smiled up at the girl, her arms crossed in protection from a magic she began to fear more than Isa's sparks.
"What are you doing?" She was exhausted from a night of scrubbing more bowls and pots than she thought imaginable or necessary to cook up oatmeal and bread. And then the priest and witch, still arguing over man's inhumanity to man and which god would win in a battle against a forty foot wide jelly, dumped enough bandages and emptied flasks into her unwanting arms to keep her up another five hours.
Aldrin tried to assist, but after he smashed the fifth bottle she sent him back to baby-sit Mitrione, who was railing as if it were the end of the world and screaming that his liver was on fire. She had no way to prove that he'd broken the bottles on purpose to get out of the mountains of work, but even the Bothers eyed the prince suspiciously, wishing they'd tried the same maneuver.
Now, with most of the Historians curled up in their beds, dreaming the dreams of heroes riding in on white sails to rescue a town, Ciara picked lonely amongst the silent wagons, trying to keep her wandering thoughts at bay. As she checked under the wheels of Dean's wagon for any stray badgers or other wildlife he'd been idiotically feeding, she caught sight of a pair of leather legs walking purposefully into the camp.
She'd followed silently behind as the assassin rather daringly reached his palms into their winnowing food stores and helped himself to a handful of grain. Summoning from her genes the generations of women who regularly caught their underlings with the hand in the cookie jar, she demanded, "What do you think you're doing?"
The smile on Taban could disarm a country in the grips of a cold war. Ciara merely shifted and crossed her arms deeper until her hands were lost in the folds of her dress.
"I am borrowing some grain. It turns out the wildlife in this besotted section of the world goes mad for your 'gourmet cooking.'"
"Borrowing implies you intend to return it," Ciara pointed out.
"I could if you'd like. Most of the prey does not get to the point of consuming it. Though there is a heady mix of dirt and poison mixed in."
"I doubt any of the men here would notice," she commented flippantly, earning a smile from the assassin.
Taban still pocketed the oats in his coat; hunting was growing more desperate the higher north they traveled. "Oh yes, I almost slipped my mind," he said quickly, his excitement for once failing his near perfect grasp of Ostero colloquialisms, "I still have your little knife." He reached into his pockets and removed her very familiar dagger, the handle freshly oiled and the blade whetted.
Ciara took it gladly from him, her fingers excited to find their old friend.
"It fell from your body after you took a small nap," he said, playing her brush with death as little more than an inconvenience.
"I...thank you," she said sincerely, her fingertips dancing upon the much missed and very beloved three circles. It made her heart ache for a moment, a reminder that this may be all that was left of the home she lost.
Taban's lion eyes crinkled as he stood slowly, trying to disguise the power of his limbs, "You carry a relic of the Adherents of the Triad. Very surprising."
Despite herself, Ciara admitted to him, "It was my father's. Why is it surprising?"
The smile faded as he touched his freshly shorn chin, more than likely thanks to a pilfered Historian's razor, "You do not know of the Adherents?"
Ciara shook her head. Her father was an expert at deflecting any questions about his past. Not that his offspring were very curious. It was rare for children to think there was ever a world prior to their birth.
"Surely you know of the Triad," he said as if talking to a five-year-old fresh off her first day at school.
Growing more annoyed at the man who'd saved her life too many times, she shook her head more pointedly. The only things she knew about Dunner culture was the everything was really spicy and there was a great fear of chairs.
"Your father taught you nothing of your skin," Taban muttered angrily.
"My skin is my own," she flared back, tried of apologizing for failing to live up to everyone's demands of her.
But the assassin shook his head, "No ones skin is their own. We owe it to our parents, our Lord, and our God," then the smile returned as he flirted through a side grin, "and our creditors, which sometimes happen to be all three."
"I don't want to know what you'd have to have done to owe your gods," she said, emphasizing the final s.
"Sometimes it's as simple as finding an apple in a field of snow. The only ones who take a greater claim for such shallow rewards are witches...or priests," he waved his arms up above his head as if he were praising to his Lord, or God, or Credi
tor on high. As the cuff of his armband slipped down, a very familiar mark shined free. A rare burst of white on the rich black of his wrist, it was a series of dots that created the letters azu. She'd seen this tattoo many times before.
Taban followed her line of sight and gripped the mark with his other hand, hiding it from sight, "Ah, ah, that is not for the unbeliever's eyes."
"Then why get it on your wrist?" Ciara argued against centuries of cult tradition.
The assassin pulled up his cuff but still kept the old mark beneath his hand, "I suppose the other brothers would not enjoy greeting each other with bare buttocks."
Ciara rolled her eyes and turned away. She didn't want to hear more about this Triad and Adherents and Cults and familiar tattoos, but...it ate up at her. That this random stranger from a land so far flung it may as well be the moon, knew more of her father's life than she ever did.
The assassin seemed to sense this, rocking back on his heels as if he'd knocked over the entire bag of wax.38 He smiled, his teeth at nearly half moon as he said, "And now you're wondering just what kind of horrible atrocities did this secret cult of Adherents with brands and daggers get up to, yes?"
She didn't look back at him, only nodded cautiously and then, lowering her shoulders, said, "Yes."
"Oh, now, little bird, no need to carry on so. It's not as bad as you fear. We weren't founded to terrorize shop keeps or pillage widows. Very little robbing, from either the rich or the poor."
"Just wandering academics," she said.
Taban laughed harshly, "I never said we were not opportunistic when the need arouse. No, to understand the Adherents you must first know of the Triad."
"You're not the Triad?" she asked, having trouble keeping her secret cults separate.
Taban gasped at that and then smiled, "Me? No, no, no. You would no sooner compare your little princeling to a god. The Triad is the governing body of our home land."
"Your home land," Ciara responded. My homeland is a crumbling mass of black brick.
"Yes, yes, no need to pick nits. One man to represent the nobility, one to represent the common man, and the third to speak for God."
"Sounds like too many cooks in the courthouse."
Taban laughed at that, "There are battle songs of the Passing of Proposition 25 where the Lord of Nobles attempted to bifurcate the Lord of Commons with his own ruler, but after a few centuries we've worked out the kinks and have a nice orderly election sponsored by interested parties."
"So the commoners elect your Common Lord and the nobles your Noble Lord," Ciara said, piecing foreign politics together. Taban nodded, enjoying this rare moment to share his society with another. "Who votes for your God Lord?"
"Ha ha!" the assassin laughed off her blasphemy, "in another life you must have been a Vizier. No one elects the Speaker for God, he has always been since the shattering of the fairfolk."
"You mean his line," Ciara argued back, finding this concept of electing people to rule strange. How could you know that Joe Leather Braider was any more qualified to lead than Lord Stickle Bottom the Fourth? At least nobility was trained from birth for all that leading stuff. "The Elven wars were centuries past."
Taban looked up at the stars and closed his eyes softly before a small smile overtook him, "Yes, yes they were. But you wanted to know of Adherents, yes?"
Another non-answer to her questions. That must be something that runs thick in Dunner blood. "Not particularly," she admitted.
"Come, come, it never hurts one to know the truth."
"Bullshit." She'd lived her life enough in both the open and dark forgotten worlds to call him on his crap. The truth, more powerful than any sword, could break a man.
Taban laughed again, enjoying this game more than he anticipated, "Very well, then we are an acclaimed order of pastry chefs who travel the world guarding our secret recipes from infidel spies. Anyone who fails to live up to our high standards is boiled alive in his own pudding."
Ciara watched him the same way her mother followed someone when the good silverware was brought out. He smiled as clear as a summer's day, not letting a single drop of falsehood dot his tongue, all while the shadow of deceit clung to his boots...and she needed to stop reading over Aldrin's shoulder.
"Then why are you here? Why does your order care about Aldrin, about me? Does he have a particularly decadent recipe for burnt bread I'm unaware of?"
The jester's grin turned into a snake's as he stepped behind her. As her head turned to follow he leaned in and whispered into her ear, "Dunlaw may slumber, but she does so with a watchful eye on the world. A broken chain of kingdoms is preferable to a strong Empire."
His breath was cold on her ear, but she feared to turn her head to face those glittering eyes, "And what of me? Why waste your resources on me?"
"Because," his voice paused as a smile took his lips, "you intrigue me."
Just what every girl wants to hear in the dead of night; a highly trained murderer finds her fascinating. Her mother would be thrilled to hear of that match. Ciara stepped forward to turn and face the assassin but found only empty air where he'd been. Apparently rudeness was one of the main tenets of the Adherents as well.
"I still expect you to return that grain!" she called out to an empty night. Scowling, Ciara gathered up her skirts and headed towards Medwin's caravan and a long night of unanswerable questions.
It grew more difficult to find a spare moment to think with the Historians gallivanting about the town trying to get in good with the locals. This earned an admonishing glare from Medwin, who still remembered all too well the fuss they suffered last time. But so far, with the Bothers chained to the cooking pot, and the blessings of a priest's healing touch, they'd managed to pass undetected into Tumbler's End's high society.
And all despite the ex-priest slipping out of his doctoral mask the moment he was away from any patients.
"You owe me a kiss."
"You're completely daft."
"You said you'd give me a kiss if I proved to you the gods are real."
"The hell I did."
"See!" Kynton crowed, "How can there be hell if there are no gods? Pucker up."
"Hell is suffering glib priests and their idiotic idea to treat a respiratory illness with frozen water," Isa muttered. "And if you come near me, I'll smash you into bite sized priest pieces."
"It worked didn't it? The patient was up and moving about in no time."
"You nearly drown him. Are all men suffering from such a lack of mental competency or is it a hallmark of your order?"
"I'm special," Kynton beamed, chasing after the witch as she marked her quick paces with her staff.
Aldrin shook his head as the bickering traveled through the forest. Every night the priest followed the witch towards her lair, trying the most outlandish pickup lines on her until she cracked. Then he'd scamper back towards the caravans taunting that he loved her when she was angry. The historians were taking serious bets on how long Kynton was going to survive. The winning odds gave him until Tuesday.
Two nights passed since they arrived in Tumbler's End to the non-army and, thanks to the ever-mounting work of reviving an entire town, Aldrin managed to put off any official royal decisions. He'd been wracking his brain about any and every thing he could think of that didn't involve his brother, his father, or kings. This meant most days he was assisting Ciara with the growing piles of work, it turned out he was a natural at working the wash ringer, and most nights he'd crawl off into the forest to dig through the few Casamir books they accumulated. The prophecy nibbled at his mind while he cranked the encrusted laundry of the physician through the rollers.
Why was there so much focus here, in Ostero? Everyone knew the Elven War, if it did take place, happened mostly in Dunlaw and Avari. A rare meeting of Sultan and Empire ships against the pointy-eared scourge. And what of the magic that was sundered or not sundered. Was it to be brought back? Destroyed permanently? Used to do some great evil or great good? And how did a witch a
nd a sword come into play?
These were the questions Aldrin asked himself so he didn't think of the real problem in his life. What was he going to do now that his brother was King?
"Medwin sent me to find the priest." Aldrin turned to find Ciara, her hair pulled back with a spare ribbon from one of the religious texts no one could pronounce anymore. Floury handprints graced the front of her dress, as if she got in a fight with a baker.
"Last I heard he was still trailing after the witch angling for a kiss."
Ciara shook her head and laughed, "That man is angling to get himself set on fire."
Aldrin nodded, "People like to talk about opposites attracting. In this instance I'd fear opposites exploding."
The girl cracked up at that, picturing the witch finally reaching her breaking point and erupting in a burst of light to take the priest down with her. Bracing herself on Aldrin's shoulder, Ciara lowered herself onto the ground, her legs dangling over the cliff's edge. The prince waited until her hand wandered off his shoulder before he tried breathing again.
"This is a lovely spot you found," she said extending her hand to the chasm below her. Pine trees gave the rare burst of color to a still grey world, shifting to a soft pink as the sun began its own slumbers. "You can't hear a single bitchy complaint from Bartrone or an order for anything but oatmeal from Mitrione."
Aldrin laughed, "And no one asks if you're prepared to decide the fate of two mothers who both lay claim to the same infant."
"Perspective," she said, looking down through those shoes she bartered his noble shirt for what felt like years ago. The cliff's rocks shimmered as the setting sunlight bounced across the mica deposits, like the ground glittered as starlight beneath her.
"Yeah," Aldrin agreed, and kicked himself. 'Yeah,' that was a wonderful response. Worthy of the Great Bard herself. He'd tried to ask Kaltar for advice on women and things of that nature, but only got a two-hour lecture on the rise and regulation of the code of chivalry. He suspected that telling Ciara he'd swear to respect and protect women would get him a side eye glare and a long "suuurree." Talk of upholding anyone's honor would probably get him a few hours scrubbing bottles.
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