The rising moon, well above the water now, revealed to Dval what he hadn’t seen before. The broken shells of graaks hatched centuries before camouflaged carved stones set in a perfect ring. The largest, its top shaped to a point, stood in exact alignment with the place from which the moon had risen.
One of his master’s companions stepped forward, a bear of a man. “Do you fully understand the gravity of our duties, boy?”
Dval thought he knew, but the man’s stare filled him with uncertainty. “We are the king’s elite guard,” he said with a shrug.
“In part,” the man said, “but there is more.”
Dval paused to remember what his first teacher, Sergeant Goreich, who trained the king’s guard, had once told him.
“A Despatcher is part scout, part spy, part saboteur, and in need, he may be an assassin,” Dval said. “It is his duty to discover the movements of enemy forces and halt them. He may do this by poisoning their draft horses and the livestock they keep for provisions. He may burn bridges or cause avalanches to block mountain passes to stop their advance. He may be sent to slay enemy kings or to hunt outlaws.”
“Very good.” His questioner gave a scant nod. “But there are deeper things still.”
The fourth man strode forward, strong and wiry. “Our duty is to protect both the king and his people,” he said in a growling voice, like tumbling gravel. “We accept the tasks that no one else dares or can accomplish. You have killed Toth, and that is a deed that few can boast. Yet you must learn to take more difficult actions still, ones that may challenge you in ways beyond your physical strength.”
Dval puckered his brow, questioning what that might mean. What more can I give? he wondered. He had sacrificed pleasure and suffered pains, risked his life a dozen times over now. But these men wanted more from him.
His master must have seen his expression because he said, “More often than not, my son, the greatest dangers to our kingdom arise from within. Sometimes we are called upon to do what men of good conscience cannot.”
Dval thought he understood at last. They want me to give up my conscience? He considered the outlaws he’d met last month in the Kingswood. They were robbers, in tents with their wives. He’d refused to kill the men’s wives, but the Despatcher had shown them no mercy. “I see,” he said uneasily, wondering just how cold he could become.
“When you take this oath,” Three said, “it is not without consequence. It will change you.”
Dval bit his lip, considered. He had lost so much already. Was he willing to give up more? He wondered in his heart if he could keep an oath when he did not know how terribly it might affect him. “I am ready. I will not fail you again.”
“Then place one hand upon your heart, to signify your loyalty to our king and to his people, and the other upon the hilt of your sword, to represent the strength of your arm in their service, and listen with care to each word, for you must repeat them after me. This oath must define you.”
He and the other four men positioned themselves about the stone altar. With them and the moon’s solemn face as his witnesses, Dval vowed to “protect the king and people of Mystarria, whether great or lowly, from all enemies, within and without our land, in whatever form they may take, and to defy the darkness.”
Dval felt somber afterward and wished for time alone to ponder the weight of the words and their deep meanings. But the gravelly-voiced Despatcher said, “Now comes the binding of the oath upon you by the greater powers. Kneel upon the altar.”
Dval dropped to his knees on the aerie’s ragged floor. “Receive the swiftness and the binding of Air,” he said, and blew a deep-chested breath about Dval’s head and shoulders. The breath surrounded him in a whirlwind strong enough to lift and tug his pale hair before it dispersed on the night breeze with a shriek like a falcon’s.
The second drew a flask from beneath his dusky cloak and splashed water upon Dval’s face. “Receive the power and the binding of Water.” Dval knew it was seawater by its scents of salt and kelp and creatures swimming in the deep, scents stronger and sharper than those borne on a summer pond.
Next, his master drew a flaxen cord from the leather pouch at his belt, a cord bearing four runestones the size of Dval’s knuckles, but each a different color and carved with a different shape. He hung the cord about Dval’s neck and said, “Receive the strength and binding of Earth.”
Dval’s knees had begun to ache from kneeling on the rough surface, so he shifted from one to the other to ease their discomfort and noticed something strange. His knees suddenly felt at one with the stone.
“Hold,” ordered Three, and he planted a short-handled torch between the altar’s stones that Dval hadn’t seen him light.
Dval narrowed his sensitive eyes and recoiled from the scorching heat on his face.
“Hold,” Three said again, more firmly this time. He dropped to his own knees across the altar from Dval, and through the fluttering fire Dval saw that the open friendliness in the young man’s face had sunk into a deep sorrow. He said no more but began to stare into Dval’s eyes.
Dval held, despite the torch’s blistering heat and painful brightness. He had felt such heat in the flying sand and dust of the training arena, under the summer sun and stern but fair tutelage of Sergeant Goreich. It is another test, Dval thought. Perhaps their final test. I endured the burning then; I will endure it now for as long as I must.
But the brightness! After a long space Dval realized that the blinding light did not come from the dancing torch, but from the eyes of the young Despatcher. More and more brilliant they burned, as if they held the sun itself within them, the full sun of high summer. Then something twinkled, like a prominent star in a cloudless sky, and released itself in a towering flare.
In that ethereal burst Dval glimpsed a white creature, a man-figure made all of light, brighter than the summer sun, a man of brilliance, of … glory. Dval could find no other word. Yes, he is a Glory!
The Glory pressed forward to peer into Dval’s soul, to search and study it, as if hefting its weight. Dval resisted recoiling once more, not from any heat this time, but from the Glory’s fell scrutiny, its revelation of his every flaw. Dval became sensitive to his own weaknesses: his hatred toward the uncle who had slain his father and banished him from his own people; the anger and disgust he’d felt toward the Mystarrian youths who had tormented him during his training for the king’s guard; and the forbidden warmth—no, heart-hunger—he felt for the Princess Avahn. How it tormented him, so much that even now he wondered how he had bonded to her in such a way. He was not a lover. He could never be that. But at some primal level he needed to protect her.
I see you, the Glory whispered. Let me see all of you. Give yourself to me and I will make you a weapon to drive back the darkness.
His face heated again, to his ears, but the heat came from inside him this time. It was all he could do not to lower his eyes in shame. I’m not worthy. I’m not ready for this at all, and the Glory sees every smudge and smear of it.
It seemed to take all of his courage and strength to remain upright, kneeling above the altar.
A voice filled his burning ears. Not the grave voice of Three but a thunderous voice as of great waters or wind. “I have seen you for what you truly are,” the Glory said. “Receive the purification and binding of Fire and know that your offering of service is accepted.”
There was a flash and light seemed to burn through him, burn all of his evil to ashes, and in an instant he felt an awareness of evil unlike anything he’d imagined. It was all around him. He could feel shadows, sense them miles away, down in the woods, in taverns, and in the Courts of Tide.
The Glory vanished, rising like a meteor that streamed up into the night, and Dval’s last thread of strength left him. He crumpled to the ground beside the altar.
* * *
Dval woke to a familiar hand shaking his shoulder and a crinkled face leaning over him.
“Come now, Son,” the Despatcher said, rai
sing Dval with a hand. “You must eat, and then we will take the easier way down from this mountain and turn our faces toward Toom. There is a matter we must investigate.”
Weakly, Dval rose and peered out across the shimmering seas, silver with morning light, and studied the crystalline bridges like strands of spider web strung between the islands at the Courts of Tide. The Toth’s black ships had moved in the night, changing formation a bit, floating derelicts.
But everything seemed unreal. He could not sense the darkness he’d imagined in the world, and the other Despatchers were gone, had fled like dreams.
Strength returned to Dval after he’d eaten dried meat from his pouch. He still could not stomach many Mystarrian foods, but hunger as fierce as if he’d spent the night in battle drove him to finish a lump of hard cheese and empty his water-skin as well. Lingering shakiness, as he followed his master down a treacherous mountain trail, left him puzzled.
Yet amazement overshadowed his puzzlement. He stared, brow furrowed in contemplation, at the narrow path before him, at the tiny dust clouds raised by his master’s soundless boot-falls. Now I know that Despatchers are more than warriors. They are users of ancient magics, like runelords and wizards.
He fingered the small stones on their cord, hidden beneath his tunic. He did not recognize the runes carved into them, but he could feel potency in them. These are relics of great power. I have been granted great power.
“Master,” he asked, keeping his voice hushed in the early chorus of birdsong, “who is the—no, what is the being I saw last night?”
The Despatcher slid him a slight smile, bearing both deep wisdom and humility. “He is simply called The Master and he has sent you on your first quest.”
Dval nodded toward the north. “To Toom? Are the hill giants crossing the borders again?”
“No,” the Despatcher said. “In the past two months, two young women have been found dead and naked in the lands near Clifftor, where reigns our king’s brother, the Duke Hamid. You must find their killer and avenge them.”
He paused to fix Dval with a cynical gaze. “Here is the mystery: I did not learn of these murders nor receive a command from the king to search into them. Our Master told me of them.”
* * *
As Dval climbed down into the wood, he had to wonder: when had the Master spoken to the Despatcher? Did the man hear words in his mind or just feel impressions?
Could Dval do the same?
They reached their mounts on a road in the morning and Dval made a discovery. As they passed a cottage, the beams of its roof so warped by time and water that it was no more than a hovel, Dval saw a hunchbacked old woman out at her gate, scattering seeds for a few red chickens that peeped in excitement.
There was something wrong with her—terribly wrong. He had to stop and try to figure it out. As he gazed at her, her body seemed to waver like the air above a desert trail and her face became shadowy and misshapen.
He peered at her in amazement and the Despatcher urged him along. “Don’t stare. Our Master has given you new eyes, so that you see the stains on men’s souls.”
There was something disconcerting and hideous about her, and Dval hurried in the Despatcher’s footsteps and wondered, “Is she evil?”
“No more than most,” the Despatcher whispered. “In fact, she’s one of the good ones. All men bear some stains on their souls.”
Dval peered hard at his master, but could sense no darkness or stains there, nor in himself.
“Where are my stains?” Dval wondered.
“Our Master burned them away,” the Despatcher said. “Last night. But take care, or they shall return.”
And so they strode that day to an inn, where a kindly fat innkeeper offered a horse, and, as Dval neared the man, he not only saw the flickering shadows of corruption, but he could smell it upon the man—putrefaction, like rotting meat—and it was all that he could do to remain calm when the man shook his hand at the wrist.
Dval caught the Despatcher watching him with an amused gleam in his dark eyes, and, as they rode down the highways, Dval peered keenly at men, struggling not to see just their forms, but to really view them. He wanted to feel them, to know them.
“Study others carefully,” the Despatcher warned that night. “Learn to truly see them. Listen for warnings. The harder you peer, the better you will learn to truly see. But if you grow careless, your vision will grow dimmer and dimmer and leave you altogether.”
So they traveled by horseback, and when they reached villages Dval struggled to see men truly, to see through their stains and twisting shadows, and he began to realize why the Despatchers often sought solitude in the wastes, for just being near others drained him, left him feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted. For eleven days they rode.
On their last night, with the towers of the duke’s castle distantly visible above the forest, they entered an inn whose sign bore a very fat hog wallowing among brightly painted squashes and melons. The sign swung on the evening breeze, creaking above their heads as the Despatcher pushed the timber door open.
While they devoured a savory pork stew, Dval listened to his master talk with the innkeeper, a woman as rotund as the pig on her sign. Like most people of Mystarria, she repeatedly darted wary glances at Dval and his white Woguld features. In the comfortable near-dark, where he didn’t have to squint, he met her silent queries with his steady gaze. He could see almost no stain on this woman’s soul.
His master finally seemed to become irritated by Dval’s silence and turned to him. “It’s your quest boy. Seek to know what you need to know.”
So Dval looked hard at the woman, searching her face, and felt … light inside of her.
“Two young women have died this summer,” Dval told her. “I must find their killer. Is there anything you can tell me about it?”
The matron’s face clouded over and tears glistened in her eyes. “The first girl was from our village. Fair Meaghan, daughter of the beekeeper.” She shook her head in genuine sorrow. “She’d taken pots of honey to the market at the castle, but she never returned. The other came from Cliff Haven, a fishers’ village three miles up the coast. Both girls were found in the woods not far from here, naked and strangled, by the bruises on their necks, and probably ravished.”
Dval shifted in the heavy chair. “Why were they naked?”
There was a clatter across the room as a patron spilled ale on the floor.
The innkeeper blinked and studied him. “When pirates take a man, young Despatcher, they strip him to his skin before they lock him in chains and sail away with him to Haversind. It keeps them from hiding weapons or breaking free. We lose a lot of poor folk to them every year—Pirates from Haversind.”
Slavers! Dval thought. He searched his heart. Yes, he felt a brooding darkness to the north and east, out at sea. It was like a massive storm on the horizon, with gray swirling clouds. Pirate marauders were indeed involved somehow, he felt sure.
“Thank you, mistress,” the Despatcher said, “for this good meal, this night’s lodging, and for your help.” He placed two steel coins on the trestle table.
The next morning, as they rode easily toward the castle, Dval spoke from under his deep, black hood. “Do we need to even go to the Duke’s court? The pirates … I can sense darkness. I feel them, a cloud off to the north.”
“Very good,” the Despatcher said. “Our master is guiding you there. Learn to trust those feelings.”
The castle was bustling when they reached it that morning, cocks crowing, bread baking, crowds gathering at the markets. Duke Hamid’s man-at-arms stopped them at the castle gate, then admitted them into his great hall, announcing, “Two Despatchers from the courts of His Royal Highness King Harrill!”
From within the cowl of his robes, Dval peered about. The great hall was much smaller than the king’s, but the stonework was exceedingly fine. High windows allowed the morning light to shine upon deep-blue tapestries that displayed saber-cats clawing the air.
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The duke rose from his humble wooden throne, a broad smile lighting his face, though he didn’t conceal his revulsion quickly enough when Dval dropped his cloak’s hood. Dval could imagine him thinking, “The Gross Wurm,” the epithet he’d heard so often from the king.
“Welcome to the Court of Clifftor,” Duke Hamid said in a voice that was surprisingly jovial. “Twice welcome, indeed! May I ask what brought you? Was it my mad brother that sent you, or do you come on other business?”
The Despatcher peered curiously at the Duke, as if considering how to answer. Dval felt a deep reluctance to speak, and he peered hard into the Duke, saw a curious darkness, but to Dval’s surprise, the Despatcher said openly, “Other business. There have been murders in your land. Two young women …”
The Duke’s smile faltered and he whispered worriedly, “Yes, I have heard. Please, come feast with us tonight, and let us discuss … in private, how to capture the men that did this.”
Dval studied the man. Ten years younger than King Harrill, Dval guessed, with hair more blond than the king’s sandy color. But Hamid shared his brother’s hazel eyes, keen and searching, his facial structure, and brawny build. He is a runelord, my master said, with a dozen endowments of brawn, sight, and agility, the gifts most sought by warriors.
Dval tried again to reach out, to sense the shadow on the man’s soul, and he felt stains there, but his heart urged him northward, toward the darkness.
“We understand that the killers might be pirates?” Dval offered.
“Perhaps,” the Duke agreed, “but I’m hesitant to put the blame on the most obvious malefactors. Sometimes, there is more to a matter than it seems. Let us investigate this more deeply.”
Guilds & Glaives Page 15
