“What am I?” she whispered, her breath warm against his cheek once more. She had a scent like brandy pudding, sweet and heady.
Bevn wouldn’t answer. She wouldn’t make him cry. She wouldn’t. Hot tears stung his cheek.
“I can do this all day, little boy, until you wish you hadn’t been born.” She smacked his wet cheek with the back of her hand, over and over, and it stung like fire.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it!” he heard himself say. “You’re not a tart, you’re a lady, a lady, you’re a lady!”
Gabrielle gripped him by his hair and looked into his eyes.
“So, you do have a brain beneath this mop.”
He nodded. Just don’t hit me again. Please don’t hit me again.
“You’re wrong about the Swords,” she said. “You’d be surprised how much we can hide from prying eyes. The Swords will think they’ve been through every tunnel, and not have explored half of Ravenscroft.”
She cocked her head. She shouldn’t be able to look so pretty when she was being so ugly to him. He wanted to touch her face.
“You didn’t come all this way to play with stones. What are you doing here?”
He couldn’t get his feet under his body—she was holding him by his hair in an awkward position.
“Hiding,” he answered. He didn’t want to tell her about the crown. She might want to steal it from him, or worse.
“What have you done? You’re hiding from your father, aren’t you?”
“Can you let me go now? Please?”
“Will you answer my questions without trying to be clever?”
“Yes. Yes! Anything you ask. Just let me go.”
“You have less spunk than I thought. Very well.” She let him slip to the floor. “Just remember, it’ll be far worse if you don’t behave now.” She gestured over him, and a shadow seemed to leave his shoulders and return to her hands.
Then Bevn caught a movement behind her, at the entrance to the chamber where the arched walls tapered to frame the heavy door, although it wasn’t quite a movement, rather a change. Something took form in the gloom, it took form from the gloom, and as it became, he felt the arrival of its presence pressing on his heart.
Gabrielle turned, she’d felt it too.
A man with wide shoulders and a mantle bore a great hook-bladed battleaxe, taller than his head. Bevn couldn’t make out anymore, for the guttering torch on the bedpost didn’t cast enough light.
The newcomer stamped the shaft of his axe down, and the floor heaved. The rats in the corners of the room squeaked and ran. The rocks began to glow with red light, and the air was filled with sudden warmth. Everything was plain to see.
He was a seriously heavy man. Bronze fabric glinted on his chest. His skin was dark. He had a single plait of hair that fell backward like a tail from the crown of his shaven head. Two smaller plaits framed his unsmiling lips. He watched them from smouldering eyes.
Bevn was immediately impressed with him. He looked strong, he looked fearsome. Bevn didn’t think he was a Shadowcaster. He’d never seen them doing that trick with the light in the rocks. Even the Darkmaster hadn’t been able to keep the caverns of Ravenscroft warm. Heat and light was something the Lightgifters wielded, but Bevn was certain the newcomer wasn’t a Lightgifter either. He was something else.
“Do you understand what you’ve done?” the man asked. The voice made him jump, and it drove into his head.
“I-I… yes,” Bevn answered, without any idea of what the stranger meant. He wanted to appear certain of himself before the mighty newcomer.
“Who are you to be here in the secrecy of Ravenscroft?” Gabrielle challenged.
“This is called Ravenscroft? What a smelly smoky dung-hole! You don’t have to live in darkness to be able to use darkness. You live with rats!” The newcomer flicked his hand so that his index finger cracked like a whip. The sudden chorus of high squeaks ended in awful silence.
“And what do you know about darkness, stranger?” Gabrielle demanded.
“A great many things more than you, if that simple essence in your hand is all you have learnt to use. Did you capture the boy?”
“No! I came here myself!” Bevn insisted before Gabrielle could answer. And I’m not a boy! he thought, but he wasn’t going to push the newcomer that far. He’d just learnt that picking a fight could be risky, and the newcomer was a whole lot scarier than the Shadowcaster. “I go wherever I want to!” he added. “The King is my father.”
“Yet you have his crown, and that marks you as a royal scoundrel,” the newcomer said.
Gabrielle whirled to face Bevn. “Is that why you’re here? You’ve stolen the crown?” She looked into his eyes. “You have!”
So the truth was out, without him wanting it to be. The man with the battleaxe had known, somehow. Bevn moved away from Gabrielle, skipping sideways with his precious knapsack to the wall, but the newcomer pressed his finger and thumb together, and Bevn was suddenly rooted to the spot.
“Who are you?” Bevn cried.
“You can call me Black Saladon. Stop running away. We have much to discuss.”
“What are you?” asked Gabrielle.
“A man, as you are a woman. I was a wizard once, but I am learning to transcend that limitation.”
“A wizard, as they have named the Serannon girl?” Gabrielle asked scornfully. “Do you know her?”
“I know of her. She is a newling. She will not last a month! She comes too late. She will be crushed, just as they all shall be. We have our own special plan for the singer. No, I am a wizard as they have named those who studied in the great College in Kingsmeet, those defenders of Oldenworld who mastered the three axes of magic, those learnéd fools who founded Eyri.”
Bevn remembered the legend of the founding of Eyri from his endless history tutorials. Those wizards had been very strong, yet Black Saladon had called them fools.
“You are from beyond Eyri?” Gabrielle asked.
“Most of the world is beyond Eyri, Miss Leather-and-Whips,” Saladon answered.
“My name is Gabrielle. Gabrielle Aramonde.”
The wizard strode closer. He halted near Gabrielle, and looked her over slowly. “You should venture from these caverns more often.”
“But there is nothing else than Eyri! Where is there a road that leads out of this kingdom?”
“Woman, you were born in confinement! Again we see the flaw of learning only from knowledge—if the knowledge is kept from you, you can be so easily controlled. You’ll have to do better than believing only what you’re told if you want to escape. You have not found the way that leads out of this kingdom because you believe you need a road to follow. Maybe you still do. The weakest point is a gap north by north-west, known as the Penitent’s Pass. For the one who bears the Kingsrim shall the way be open.” He had a funny way of phrasing things, thought Bevn, an old way. His penetrating gaze was resting on Bevn.
“How did you know about the crown?” Bevn asked. It was still hidden in his knapsack.
“I can sense it, princeling, even though it is by nature difficult to trace. The warping in the shield of Eyri points to this place, to this room, to you.”
“But if you’re from beyond Eyri, then how do you know what goes on here? How do you know about the crown?”
“I helped to forge it.”
Bevn knew the crown had been passed down from generation to generation within his family. It was impossible, but Black Saladon wasn’t joking. He wasn’t that kind of man, not at all. How old was he? What was he capable of? He was still watching Bevn, his tall fighting-stave motionless in his left hand. The hooked and hollowed blade was grim. Shivers! Saladon didn’t even need the blade, he could probably split Bevn down the middle just by clapping his hands or gesturing. Suddenly Bevn knew: he had come for the crown!
Bevn still couldn’t move; the wizard’s spell bound his feet. I really am the fly in the sticky-pot, he thought. “Are you going to take it from me?” he a
sked in a small voice. He’d so wished to keep it, to find some way to use it. It had special powers, he knew.
Black Saladon laughed then, but it wasn’t the kind of laughter that made Bevn feel welcome to join in. “No, princeling, I hope I have not misjudged you that badly. You have done well to take the crown. You have already served to disrupt the order, maybe without meaning to. You might yet keep the crown. I have an offer for you, an offer of power, on behalf of my…superior. First I must ask what you wish to do with the Kingsrim?”
A hard knot of excitement formed in Bevn’s belly. An offer of power? Nothing could be better in all the world than power. Once you had power, you could get anything you wanted, anything at all.
“I want the throne of Eyri,” he answered. “I want to be king.”
Gabrielle snorted, but Saladon didn’t, and that was what mattered to Bevn. He looked into the wizard’s eyes wherein the red light of the room was reflected, and he saw a new future in them, a future where he dared to deal with wizards, where he became mighty, fearless, and feared. The vision rushed into him, like a hallucination, as if he’d just bitten into a jurrum leaf and swallowed its delicious poison. All the colours and feelings of his grand premonition filled his head.
Black Saladon was speaking. “Then you have a great journey ahead of you, you cannot be king from where you stand. Turmodin in Oldenworld, that’s where you should be, there you’ll get the guidance you need. The great Sorcerer will find you and your crown very interesting. He rewards service. I can vouch for it.”
“But how am I to find Ter-Termalin? I’ve never been out…there.”
“Turmodin,” Black Saladon corrected. “Think of it as a trial. Are you man enough to face a trial? You’ll have to be, if you really want power. You are ready? Good. Listen closely. After you’ve left Eyri, you will travel through Oldenworld, through the woven six-sided land of the Lûk, to Koom, at its heart, then north to the terraced border fortress of Slipper, down to Gredy and then farther north on the remains of the great slipway to the old glass-blown city of Wrynn at the coast, where the ships can sail west around the worst of the Lowlands to reach Rundirrian Run. From there you can walk to Turmodin. Don’t say where you’re going to in the end, even when you’ve taken passage on the ships, or you’ll lose your head on some vengeful blade. You’ll be looked at strangely enough for whom you are, and for wanting to go north. The same goes for speaking about the Sorcerer—you might discover that his name is Ametheus. Do not use that name anywhere in Oldenworld, especially if you stand before the legend himself. Do not speak his name out loud.”
Bevn had never heard of Oldenworld, or Slipper, or the land of the Lûk. But most of all, he’d never heard of the Sorcerer Ametheus. What did a sorcerer do that made him more than a wizard? Would the rewards that Black Saladon promised include learning magic? Bevn guessed it might. He wet his lips.
“How powerful is Ametheus?”
Black Saladon cuffed him on the ear, without moving a muscle, he just looked the strike at Bevn.
“Did you not hear me? Do not speak his name. Now you know of it, keep it secret. Hah! You want to know how powerful he is? He is the wrecker of Oldenworld, the rage against Order, the inventor of the silvered wildfire, the innovator, the arch-mage, the answer. He is the reason that Eyri has a Shield. He is the greatest wielder of magic, and its most feared enemy. He is contradiction, change. He is Chaos. Even the Gyre of Wizards can not meet the level of his spells anymore. He is the future. If we don’t side with the Sorcerer, we shall die, it has become that simple.”
The conviction in Black Saladon’s voice made Bevn’s skin crawl. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to seek out the Sorcerer. Maybe they would find more trouble than they could manage, outside.
“What if we just stay in Eyri? He hasn’t been able to reach in here, has he?”
Saladon laughed, that same private laugh. “Wait until you witness his power. Wait until you are outside your little playpen. It is time for you to grow up! Eyri has been safe only because the Sorcerer has been distracted from it all these years. Now he is aware of it. He will demonstrate his—contempt—to the Gyre, by changing it in a particular way. Everyone who stands in the way of that change will wish they hadn’t.” He looked meaningfully towards Bevn.
“I don’t get it!” Gabrielle objected. “If the Sorcerer is so powerful, why does he need this little snot to work for him? I could take the crown to Turmodin. I would have a much better chance of surviving. All this boy knows is pretty clothes and simpering servants. He knows nothing of survival, or stealth. I am a Shadowcaster. Let me take the crown to Turmodin and claim the reward!”
Bevn’s face grew hot. “It’s mine,” he said. Gabrielle laughed.
“Aah. There is something you do not understand, Miss Gabrielle Aramonde. You cannot use your simple power beyond the borders of Eyri, or you will die. There is a network that reacts to any kind of magic. Remember that. You will be eliminated if you use Dark essence, because that marks you as a threat in the Sorcerer’s eyes. And the prince is right—the crown is his. Only someone of royal blood can bear the crown without going mad, for that is the way it was forged. It is the mainstay upon which Order is fastened in this realm. It is the mainstay upon which Chaos can feed.”
“I cannot believe you would leave such an important task in his hands.”
“That is why I shall not,” replied Saladon. “You look like a—capable—woman. You shall escort the prince to Turmodin.”
Anger crimped the corner of her eyes, but Gabrielle’s voice was warm. “What do I get in return?”
“What do you want?”
There was a long moment as Gabrielle and the mighty mage considered each other.
“The journey sounds perilous, and the task of great significance. I want a fair price: my weight in gold.” She licked her lips. She must have guessed she was pushing her luck, but she had asked nonetheless.
“Gold? Gold! Ah, you shall have it, Miss Gabrielle. That is too easy for words, even I can pay you that. You really do still think on the first axis of magic, but that is good, you shall attract less attention in Oldenworld. I need you to keep the prince close to you. See that he survives, see that he keeps going. In Turmodin you shall get your reward, and more.”
“And you, Saladon?” Gabrielle asked, in a gentle way Bevn thought odd. “Where will you go? Can you not join us?”
The wizard looked distracted. He ran his hand up the shaft of his battleaxe and gripped it near the head. “I shall attempt to, from time to time, but I travel in a different way to you. You must protect the Kingsrim—although it will help you, for it resists the touch of magic in many ways. I cannot get a grip upon it with any spell. That is why you must use your own feet. I shall meet you once you’re beyond Eyri. For now, I must be brief. There are eyes that look for me and the farther I am from you both, the better. Prince Bevn, do you wish to please the Sorcerer and earn the power to rule?”
Black Saladon held his eye, and Bevn felt suddenly important. When the wizard winked, he felt as if they shared a secret, something only between them, the men: the power to rule. The Sorcerer would show him magic, real magic, not the dark trickery of the Shadowcasters, but things such as Saladon knew—how to appear out of nowhere, to fill the room with power, to own a demanding presence. You didn’t argue with someone like Black Saladon. He commanded respect. That was the kind of king he wanted to be.
“Yes!” Bevn cried.
“Then go! Don’t piddle about! I shall wait for you in Koom. I shall see you there as well, Miss Gabrielle Aramonde.”
Black Saladon vanished, and the warmth and light left the room.
“The bastard! What makes him think I will do as he says?” Gabrielle said.
They wasted no time leaving Ravenscroft, however. There was no doubt that their visitor had been serious.
As they sneaked through the night-time calm of Levin, the excitement of their quest still squirreled in Bevn’s belly. They were going to leave Eyri altogeth
er! He would keep the crown! He was going to learn real power!
The wizard Saladon had seemed so very powerful, and he’d just been the messenger. Bevn couldn’t wait to meet the Sorcerer. Black Saladon had called him Ametheus—a secret name, a feared name, not to be spoken aloud.
“Ametheus,” he whispered in the dark. “Ametheus, Ametheus, Ametheus!”
_____
The world was pale; the daylight was dreary despite the fullness of the sun. Ravens circled languidly over the burial site. No Morrigán those, they were hungry birds with sharp beaks.
Kirjath Arkell was dead.
His body had been thrown in a pit among the Darkswords. His slack corpse tumbled down; his wasted limbs broke upon the heap. He watched from above, feeling nothing.
They tossed his head down afterwards.
No ceremony for him. No kind words.
He had expected none.
A man who raised the Morgloth and set them upon the people would never be remembered kindly.
Kirjath didn’t care what they thought. The three gravediggers stood on the lip of the deep grave, carelessly close to the edge. The drudgers didn’t even seem to understand that he was there at all.
He looked down at himself. He was a glistening disturbance, like a robe of dirty spider webs, nothing more. His limbs were so flimsy they would surely pass right through living flesh. His impotence made him so angry he could kill.
The gravediggers were surveying their handiwork. “To the earth, keep the bastards down!” commanded the eldest gravedigger, a wiry cretin wearing a dirty orange neckerchief. He could be a failed fishmonger. He could be the father of a Fendwarren whore. Yet he thought to lord over Kirjath’s corpse.
The men fetched their shovels, and began to strike them into the great mound of fresh soil bordering the grave. The younger men bent their backs to the task, shovelling over their shoulders, not wanting to look to where their loads fell, but the veteran carried his shovel to the brink, and watched the soil fall as he cast it from the very edge.
Schrink! the soil left his blade, dropped away.
Second Sight: Second Tale of the Lifesong Page 4
