The White Road n-5

by Lynn Flewelling

  “There must be some truth to it, or we wouldn’t have been telling it for thousands of years. Nothing appears out of nothing, as far as I know, and we are linked inextricably to the dragons.”

  “And Alec has more of that Great Dragon blood in his veins,” Seregil noted, frowning.

  “And Tír, and then there’s the dragon kiss there on his ear,” Tyrus pointed out. “You may be just as unique as your rhekaro, Alec. Your alchemist chose to ignore that.”

  “Then that’s why Sebrahn didn’t turn out the way he intended?”

  “So it appears.” Tyrus gazed down at Sebrahn and stroked his hair as Sebrahn continued to pat the dragon. “Do you understand that he is nothing like you, either, Alec? He’s just magic with a form that resembles you.”

  “But he thinks. He has a mind. What is he?” asked Alec. “Your dragon didn’t tell me that.”

  “He did,” Tyrus replied. “Sebrahn is the first and last of his kind, unless another alchemist finds the means to use your blood again. To understand what Sebrahn is and what he can do, then you must understand what the man was trying to create, and how.”

  “Which means getting that book,” Alec said.

  “Well then, it’s like my friend said. You’ll have to find it, won’t you?” said Tyrus.

  Alec and Seregil exchanged a look and Seregil shrugged. “The dragon did say we might not die if we go in that direction.”

  They spent the night at the cabin and took their leave the following morning.

  “So it’s Plenimar now?” said Micum as they rode along the snowy trail. “How in Bilairy’s name are two ’faie going to go back there without being captured or killed?”

  “Well, we can’t just walk into Riga,” Alec admitted, riding along with Sebrahn. “We’re obviously ’faie with no freed-man’s brand or collar.”

  “The collar is no problem. We can have those made,” Seregil noted.

  “Would your uncle make them for us?” asked Micum.

  Seregil thought a moment. “He would, but he’d want to know why. I’d rather my family doesn’t know where I’m headed. I want to spare them that, especially Adzriel, and I don’t want to leave any trail behind if someone comes looking for us. Collars will be easy enough to find elsewhere.”

  “And the brands?”

  “That may be a bit harder. Too bad we cut out the ones we had, eh, Alec?”

  Alec grimaced. “I wish you’d thought of that at the time. But they were Yhakobin’s mark, anyway. That has to be well known around the Riga slave markets, and anywhere between there and the estate. People would take us for runaways.”

  “Thero can probably do some sort of transformation—”

  “No one would remark on a master and his own slaves passing by, though, would they?” asked Micum, grinning. “I speak Plenimaran as well as you do, Seregil. Alec’s no good at it, but I’ll do all the talking, anyway.”

  It was a good plan, Seregil had to admit, but still he replied, “No. Not this time. You’re not going.”

  Micum gave him an exasperated look. “Not this again!”

  “You’d never pass for a Plenimaran, any more than Alec or I could.”

  Micum ran a hand over his chin stubble. “I’ll cut my hair, grow my beard, and let it be known I’m a northlander trader. I’ve met some who owned slaves.”

  “We can manage without you,” Seregil said bluntly. Whatever they did, it was going to be damn dangerous. He didn’t ever want another friend’s blood on his hands.

  “And Kari? She’ll flay us alive the next time she sees us,” Alec put in.

  “She’ll understand. She always has.”

  Seregil wondered if Micum had ever really understood the tension between his friend and his wife, back in their wandering days. As good as Kari had always been to him, and to Alec, Seregil always caught that same old flash of dread and resentment whenever they showed up unannounced.

  “I’m going with you, and that’s final,” said Micum.

  Seregil started to object again, then shrugged and pulled his cloak closer around him. “It’s not like I can stop you, is it?”

  Micum gave him a knowing look. “Swear it, Seregil. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and find nothing but a note again.”

  Fair enough, he thought, given past history. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t already considered just slipping away. Leaning over in the saddle, Seregil clasped hands with Micum and gave him the pledge even he would never break. “Rei phöril tös tókun meh brithir, vrí sh’ruit’ya.” Though you thrust your dagger at my eyes, I will not flinch. “There, are you satisfied?”

  “I am. Now, what route?”

  “It will be a hard trip to the coast this time of year. The road we took here will be impassable now. But if we stick to the main roads where there are way stations, we should be able to get through to Chillian in three weeks or so, and take a ship from there.”

  “To where?” Alec asked.

  “Silver Bay?” suggested Micum. “It’s a few days’ ride north of Rhíminee. A lot of travelers go through there. I doubt anyone will pay us much mind. That way we can avoid the city altogether. There’s not much out there but a few farms and inns. We can meet up with Thero somewhere. We’ll need him to find Rhal for us, assuming the Plenimarans haven’t captured him yet.”

  Alec and Seregil had been traveling in disguise when they’d first met Rhal, who’d been a Folcwine River captain then. Seregil was passing as a gentlewoman named Lady Gwethelyn, with Alec playing the role of her too-young protector. Seregil was very convincing as a woman, and had attracted the swarthy captain’s unwanted attention, much to Alec’s alarm and Seregil’s amusement. Seregil had previous experience with that sort of thing, but the ship was a small one and Rhal had been quite persistent, to his own chagrin. Later, when Seregil had funded a privateering vessel for Rhal with a pair of emeralds, the man had the joke back on him, christening the ship the Green Lady and fitting her with a carved figurehead of a green-clad woman who bore a remarkable resemblance to Seregil. Out of pique over Rhal’s joke, Seregil never spoke the ship’s real name.

  “It’s not far to Watermead from Silver Bay. We can stop there for supplies,” said Micum.

  “Are you sure you want Sebrahn there?” asked Seregil.

  “What safer place could there be, eh?”

  “Safe for Sebrahn, maybe,” Seregil reminded him.

  “That may be so, but we won’t stay long, and if we’re really headed for Plenimar then I want a chance to see my family.”

  Seregil made a quick sign against ill luck. “Don’t talk like that if you still want to go.”

  “I just meant we’d be away longer. Once we’re properly equipped, we’ll call for Rhal. He can meet us back at Silver Bay and take us across.”

  “You make it sound easy,” Seregil said with wry grin. “It would be easier if either of us knew how to find Yhakobin’s house. Neither Alec nor I was in any position to mark the way.”

  “There’s that farm, where the tunnel from the workshop ends,” Alec mused. “But I’m not sure I could find that again, either. We just sort of ran away and got lost.”

  “No, we’ll have to start at Riga, and ask the way however we can,” said Seregil.

  “Could we use that tunnel you told me about to get back into the place?” asked Micum. Seregil could tell his old friend was enjoying this. Micum had always liked the planning stage of a job.

  “I don’t think we could lift the trapdoor from underneath,” Alec told him. The door was hidden under a heavy anvil in Yhakobin’s workshop. Pulling it up with leverage from above had been hard enough; trying to balance on a rickety wooden ladder and push up from below was probably impossible.

  “We could get back out that way, though, if we have to,” Seregil said. “I think we’ll have to figure out the rest once we get there.”

  “And hope Illior’s on our side,” added Micum.

  “What about Sebrahn?” asked Alec. “It’s not like I can just leave him an
ywhere. And you’re not going without me!”

  “No, it’s probably going to be a two-man job, at least,” said Seregil. “And here we are, at the crux of the Sebrahn problem.”

  “Yhakobin is dead. As far as we know, he was the only one in Plenimar who knew what Sebrahn is, right?” Alec pointed out.

  Seregil shook his head, frowning. “We’re definitely going to need to talk to Thero about this. Let’s see what he can do for us and proceed from there.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Family

  SEREGIL went alone to tell his sister they would be departing soon. He found her in her sitting room.

  “Leaving?” She sank into a chair by the window. “But you only just got here!”

  Seregil knelt and took her hands in his. “I know, but Tyrus told us things that have decided our path.”

  “Where will you go?”

  Seregil hesitated. “I’m sorry, sister, but I can’t tell you that.”

  She looked down at him with sadness in her eyes. “Even here, you don’t feel safe?”

  “It’s not that. We have work to do.”

  “About Sebrahn?”

  “Yes.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “When will you leave?”

  “We have to prepare for the journey, and there are a few things I need to do. The new moon festival is a week away. We’ll leave sometime after that.”

  “A few weeks. After all these years?”

  “It’s not what I want, either, Adzriel. But we have to go.”

  She sighed and wiped her eyes. “I see. Well, I’ll provide anything you need for your journey, but promise me that you’ll hunt with me at least once?”

  Seregil smiled as he rose to his feet. “I won’t leave until we do.”

  Seregil kept his word. By day he, Micum, and Alec went hunting, dancing, ice fishing, and on sleigh rides—whatever Seregil’s sisters asked. Alec and his newfound friends spent hours at their shooting and his quiver was already heavy with shattas, some made of silver and one of gold he’d won cleaving a birch wand at twenty paces. Kheeta still teased him about using magic, but it was only in jest.

  The night found them at Akaien’s forge in the village, where Seregil painstakingly set about making two sets of lock picks and other small instruments they needed for nightrunning.

  Stripped to their trousers under leather aprons, Seregil and his uncle heated thin steel rods while Alec or Micum pumped the bellows. The lean muscles in Seregil’s bare arms stood out as he brought the small hammer down on the anvil, sparks spraying off the red-hot steel, shaping it to his needs. Some of the picks were straight; others had angled tips for more complex locks. Some were slender and supple as a branch tip—just the thing for a Rhíminee triple crow lock; a few were half as thick as an arrow shaft for the large locks that secured prisons, the gates of fine villas, the grate locks in the Rhíminee sewers, and other interesting places.

  Akaien looked on with interest, taking a break from his own work. “So this is what all my training with you came to? Little hairpins?” But he laughed as he said it, and Alec saw the pride in the man’s eyes.

  Alec, meanwhile, tried his hand at carving the special ones out of long goat leg bones. These they used on the tiny locks of jewel cases and locked books. The bone was strong enough to turn the lock, but less likely to leave telltale scratches.

  It took four nights to make everything they needed. On the third, Alec found himself alone with Akaien, waiting for the others. Alec liked the man a great deal—there was something of Seregil about him.

  Perhaps that was what prompted him to ask a few questions. “From the way Seregil speaks of his father, you two must not have been much alike.”

  Akaien was quiet for a moment. “Well, Korit was the elder son, and more serious by nature. That’s probably why he ended up being khirnari. He was a good one, too. He had real vision and a way with people.”

  “Except with his son?”

  “Perhaps if Korit had lived, and Seregil had grown up with him, they might have come to understand each other.”

  “Seregil told me you’re like a father to him.”

  Akaien smiled at that. “Things might have gone differently for him if he had been mine. Korit was the serious, responsible one; I took after our father, and liked my fun too well. It was our mother Korit took after. She groomed him for khirnari, and he was elected when he was still a young man. But you were asking about Seregil. His mother, Illia, was the light of my brother’s life. She was a lovely woman, with a laugh that made everyone who heard it join in. Seregil took after her in more than looks. If he hadn’t had the life he has, I think he’d be more like her.”

  “It’s sad, losing his mother before he even knew her,” Alec murmured. Another thing we have in common.

  “The time for childbearing is short for Aurënfaie women compared with their long lives,” Akaien explained. “She was too old when she carried Seregil, and died giving birth to the son they both wanted so badly, after having four girls already. Korit never forgave himself.”

  “But if that’s true, why didn’t he love Seregil for being like her?”

  “Seregil thinks his father blamed him for his mother’s death. Korit didn’t, but that didn’t bring her back, and his heart never really healed. Seregil would be no different if he lost you. I could see that the minute I laid eyes on you two.”

  Just then they heard Seregil’s voice, and Micum laughing at whatever he’d said.

  “Thank you, Uncle,” Alec said, emboldened by the confidences Akaien had shared, “I love Seregil more than I can say. I promise you, I’ll always take care of him.”

  Akaien gave him a grin much like Seregil’s. “I know that.”

  When the tools were finished, Seregil turned tailor, sewing the canvas rolls with thin pockets to carry the tools in a small, compact bundle.

  Alone in their room, Seregil rolled and tied one set and tossed it to Alec. “Now we’re ready for anything.”

  The following afternoon Mydri sent word that she wanted to speak with Alec—alone.

  She had a small house of her own on the south side of the clan compound. With Sebrahn at his side, Alec knocked softly at her door.

  She apparently had no use for servants, for she opened it herself. “Don’t stand there gawking on the mat. Come in,” she ordered brusquely, although she was smiling.

  The front room was given over to cots for the sick, bundles of herbs, and other accoutrements of her art. She led him through to a pleasant room overlooking the valley. He caught a glimpse of a tidy kitchen through an open door and smelled something sweet baking there.

  “May I look at the wounds you received in Plenimar?” she asked.

  Alec pulled down the neck of his tunic, showing her the faint scars on his chest and throat where the slave takers’ arrows had struck.

  She ran her fingers over them, feeling carefully through his skin to the vessels and throat beyond. “You have no trouble swallowing or talking?”

  “No.”

  “Weakness in your limbs?”

  “No, I’m fine, really!”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “So, what do—”

  “Not so fast, little brother. This is a civilized house. Tea first.” Leaving him, she went to the kitchen.

  Alec sat down in a rocking chair. Sebrahn went to the window overlooking a snowy herb garden and gazed out. Mydri returned a few moments later with a tray loaded with a steaming pot, mugs, a cream pitcher, and a plate of round spice cookies, still warm from the oven.

  She set the tray on a little table between his rocker and a sagging armchair and poured for them both, adding cream without asking. Alec sipped his tea and was glad of the slaking; she brewed it even stronger than her brother did.

  She popped a cookie in her mouth. “Go on,” she urged when Alec shyly kept to his tea. “They’re not poison.”

  Alec took one, wondering why he was always so nervous around the women. The cookie was delicious, la
ced with anise and honey, and he took a second more eagerly.

  “That’s better. Now, I want to talk to you about Sebrahn, and I want you to listen closely.”

  “Of course, older sister.” He still felt awkward using the title, but knew it pleased her.

  “I use magic in my healing,” she told him, running a finger over the lines under her right eye. “But I also rely on my simples and tinctures, and a hot knife when necessary. It’s a skill, healing, not a trick.”

  “Sebrahn’s healings aren’t a trick.”

  “Of course not. But you must understand that they are nothing but magic, and sometimes magic doesn’t last. Why do you think I keep checking your wounds, and Seregil’s?”

  That had never occurred to him. He thought of the first person Sebrahn had healed, revealing his power. What if that girl’s leg had gotten worse again, after they left? What if the gash high up on the inside of Seregil’s thigh opened up? And what about his own wounds? “So do you understand now, Alec Two Lives?”

  “You think the healing will wear off, and I’ll drop dead?”

  “We don’t know that it won’t.”

  She set her cup back on the tray, then reached into a basket beside her and took out some knitting—a half-finished mitten like the green-and-white pair she’d given him, but blue this time. She set to work, wooden needles clicking swiftly. How could she just sit there and calmly knit after that?

  “I think you’re wrong,” he managed at last.

  “And why is that?”

  “If his magic doesn’t last, then why would the alchemist go to such trouble to make one? Yhakobin didn’t know Sebrahn could kill, but he knew their bodies and blood could be used to make some elixir. And maybe he knew Sebrahn had the power to give life, as well.”

  “And wouldn’t that be worth any risk to recover Sebrahn and you? And all the more reason to think that whoever is left in Plenimar who knows the secret of his existence will not let you go so easily.”

  “That’s not going to happen again,” he vowed, meeting her gaze without wavering this time. “I’ll die first. And this time for good.”

  She looked up from her knitting. “Don’t say that lightly, little brother, in case one of your gods is listening.”