The Sworn fkc-1

by Gail Z. Martin

  Soterius’s eyes widened. “A dark summoner? Can you tell if he’s right?”

  “Not completely.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that, Tris. I really don’t.”

  Tris clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace once more. “Ever since we returned from the Battle of Lochlanimar, I’ve felt edgy. I tried to tell myself it was battle fatigue, or even some nervousness about the birth, but it’s something else. The magic is wrong.”

  Soterius shifted in his chair to watch Tris as the other paced. “I thought you and Carina fixed the Flow during the battle.”

  Tris shrugged. “There are many rivers of energy in the world. The one that we fixed was the Flow that runs from the far north country in the east down through southern Margolan and beyond. But there are others. Fallon once told me there are at least three major energy rivers that run through Margolan and into Isencroft-and even the Sisterhood isn’t completely certain where the offshoots and tributaries, for lack of a better word, run.

  “The closest of those energy rivers is the Northern Flow. It runs from the Northern Sea, along the Nu River, and down into Dhasson and Nargi.” Tris gave a pointed glance back to Soterius. “And not too surprisingly, the line of barrows that the Sworn patrol run right along that course.”

  “Oh really?”

  “There’s another Flow that also comes from beneath the Northern Sea and veers westward, into Isencroft. Several of the old palaces were actually built along one energy river or another. Cerise told me she’s almost certain Aberponte in Isencroft is built on a Flow. I think the palace in Eastmark may be as well. But Shekerishet wasn’t built for magic; it was built as a fortress. So we’re between the Flows, but not on top of one.”

  “They obviously weren’t expecting a Summoner-King,” Soterius observed dryly.

  “Maybe not. But the point is, while we’re not right atop one of the Flows, there’s enough ‘leftover’ magic that I can feel it. I never realized that was what I was drawing from, until Fallon explained it. But lately, the Flows have felt sluggish. It’s hard to put magic into words, but if you’ve ever seen a stream that’s gotten fouled with leaves and silt, it doesn’t run right. That’s sort of what the magic feels like. Fouled. Not broken apart and wild like the Flow underneath Lochlanimar. But wrong.”

  “You said that blood magic damaged the Flow,” Soterius said slowly, thinking as he spoke. “Wouldn’t a dark summoner also damage the magic?”

  Tris grimaced. “I don’t know. The last dark summoner we know about was Lemuel, but when he became the Obsidian King, he was also using blood magic. In that case, they weren’t able to heal the Flow when it got out of hand and, as a result, we got the Blasted Lands, a place that’s magically unstable and too dangerous for anything mortal to live.”

  “So you’re saying that you might not sense a dark summoner just by the Flow?”

  “That’s what Fallon tells me.”

  Tris could tell from Soterius’s expression that the other was calculating possibilities. “So is there any way to find out whether or not Cam’s right before we’ve got trouble on the northern shore? Because I really, really don’t want to take an army up against someone who’s as powerful as you are, only on the other side.”

  Neither do I, Tris thought. “According to Fallon, we have a couple of options.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Tris grinned. “Good, because I’m counting on your help. And the first person I need to go see is Alyzza.”

  Soterius stared at him. “The old hedge witch?”

  “Actually, according to Fallon, Alyzza’s had a hard time of it since she helped Carroway and Carina muster up a riot on the night we fought Jared. Fallon says Alyzza’s come ‘unstuck.’ She’s lost her bearings in time and place, and she sees visions and carries on conversations with thin air.”

  “I seem to recall someone else who can see visions and talk to thin air, but you’re quite sane.”

  Tris rolled his eyes. “In my case, there’s a ghost in that thin air. According to Fallon, no one’s been able to confirm that Alyzza is really talking to anyone. She’s up at Vistimar, in the citadel of the Sisterhood.”

  “I didn’t think you and the Sisterhood were getting along so well these days.”

  Tris shrugged. “Landis didn’t want her mages to take sides during the war. She thinks mages should be above that sort of thing. And she wasn’t too happy about Fallon and the others going rogue and defying her. But… I am the king. And maybe more important for Landis, she still respects Grandmother’s memory.”

  “Your grandmother earned that respect,” Soterius replied. “I remember Bava K’aa. Even when we were children, although she was always kind to me, there was something about her that seemed too powerful to just be someone’s grandmother.”

  Tris chuckled. Bava K’aa had been the most powerful summoner of her age. “She led the battle in the Mage Wars to defeat the Obsidian King the last time he rose, before Arontala tried to summon him. I only ever thought of her as a grandmother, but Fallon tells me that every king in the Winter Kingdoms recognized her power.”

  “Vistimar is a place of the damned, Tris,” Soterius said quietly, returning to the subject. “The people in there are more than just insane; they’re dangerous. I’ve heard stories that might even curl your hair, and I know you’ve looked into the Abyss itself.”

  “The old legends say that madness is a touch of the Goddess,” Tris replied. “But Alyzza was one of Grandmother’s inner circle. It was the war with the Obsidian King that drove her mad. She’s the only one alive that I know of who actually went up against a real dark summoner.”

  “You’re mage-heir to their power, aren’t you? Bava K’aa and Lemuel?” Soterius said quietly. A mage once known as Lemuel who had been possessed by an ancient, malevolent spirit, the spirit of the Obsidian King. But until the night Tris had won back the throne, he had not known that Lemuel was his grandfather, something Bava K’aa had managed to hide from nearly everyone. Defeating the Obsidian King a second time had freed Lemuel’s spirit and had provided Tris with a frighteningly clear picture of just how dangerously wrong magic could go when misused. Tris vowed not to make the same mistakes. He, Kiara, Soterius, and Fallon were the only ones who knew the secret.

  Tris nodded. “They were the two greatest summoners of their age. I’ve always wondered why, when there were times that had more than one summoner, I should be the only one now.” He met Soterius’s eyes. “Maybe I’m not.”

  That night, five cloaked men left the city without attracting notice. Their horses bore no livery. A cold rain was falling, and so no one wondered why their hoods covered their heads, obscuring their faces. If the bulges under their cloaks suggested that they were well armed, the guards at the gate did not think it their business to ask why. Tris, Soterius, and Mikhail rode to Vistimar, accompanied by two soldiers Soterius had personally chosen for the task.

  In the shadows along the road, Tris could sense a dozen vyrkin, who provided silent reinforcements. He did not expect trouble on the road between Shekerishet and Vistimar, but Soterius and Mikhail argued strenuously against riding with less protection, and Tris had reluctantly agreed. For most of the way, they rode in silence. The rain grew heavier, then lightened, but never stopped completely. It made the two-candlemark ride unpleasant, even though the autumn night was warm. Mud splashed as high as the horses’ bellies, and Tris fidgeted as the rain made his cloak cling to his shoulders and arms.

  Finally, they reached Vistimar’s entrance. Tris lowered his hood and the startled gatekeeper dropped his keys twice in his hurry to unchain the madhouse’s massive iron gates. The vyrkin took up positions around Vistimar’s entrance. Tris and Soterius led the others into the compound, and the heavy gates clanked shut behind them. The chain rattled ominously as the gatekeeper secured the gates, and while Tris knew that a blast of his magic would be more than sufficient to free them if need be, uneasiness prickled at the back of his mind.

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p; Tris stopped his horse a few paces inside the gates.

  “What’s the matter?” Soterius asked as his horse shuffled and pawed.

  “There are wardings in place. Since this is a social call, I’d rather not blast through them.”

  “What do we do, ring the bell?”

  “I think we’ve been noticed,” Tris replied, inclining his head toward a brown-robed figure who was making its way toward them through the rain.

  Tris swung down from his horse, and so did Soterius and Mikhail, though the others remained on their mounts. “The night’s greetings to you, Sister,” Tris said. He pushed back his hood again, so that his face was plain.

  The Sister closed her eyes and raised her hands, palm out, and Tris knew she was sensing his power, confirming his identity. She opened her eyes and looked from Tris to the men who rode with him. “What brings the king to such a place on this miserable night?” Her voice was scratchy with age, but neutral.

  “I’ve come to visit an old friend,” Tris replied. “Alyzza.”

  “You’ve come at a bad time.”

  “Perhaps. Might we discuss this out of the rain?”

  Grudgingly, the Sister raised her hands once more, and Tris felt the invisible wardings fall. She motioned for them to move forward, although the horses shied and tried to sidle away. When they had moved a dozen paces, Tris felt the wardings snap back into place. He touched the wardings with his power, and they flared. They were well set, and it would take a considerable amount of power to break them, Tris thought. While he did not doubt that he could muster the magic to do so, being encircled by shields that were not his own increased his wariness.

  The Sister led them to Vistimar’s entrance and motioned for them to tether their horses in a nearby copse of trees. By moonlight, Vistimar looked like the stuff of nightmares. It was an old building, and Tris guessed that it had once been a fortress for a local garrison. He stretched out his mage senses and realized that the stonework was much older than he had first suspected. Vistimar was older than the line of Margolan’s kings, dating back to a time when warlords fought over wild lands that knew no sovereign. The thick stone of its walls had been chosen for defense, not for looks. It hunkered like a large, blocky beast against the night sky.

  Tris stretched out his magic. Though they heard nothing but the sound of the rain, Tris could sense a restlessness inside Vistimar that had more to do with madness than it did the weather. Vistimar’s residents were uneasy.

  They followed the Sister up the wide, front steps to a heavy oaken door bound with iron strips and studded with hobnails. The Sister gestured, and Tris felt the brush of her magic. From the other side of the door, they could hear the clunk of iron bolts drawing back and mechanical locks releasing. Vistimar might once have been built to keep unwanted visitors out, but now its formidable defenses appeared to be arrayed to keep its unwilling residents in.

  Two servants appeared to take the men’s cloaks. If the Sister noted that beneath their plain cloaks Tris and the others were armed well enough for battle, she said nothing. She turned to Tris, and in the light of the entranceway candles, he had the first clear look at her features. She was in her middle years and looked to have some Isencroft blood. Her long hair had streaks of gray through it, and her skin had been roughened by the sun. But her dark eyes were clear and bright, and Tris could sense her magic swirling around her like a mantle of power. This was a mage he didn’t know, although her brown robes marked her as one of the Sisterhood, a community of elite mages that Tris’s grandmother, Bava K’aa, had once led.

  “What brings you out to Vistimar on such a night, my king?”

  “I need to see Alyzza. I assume you know which of your residents that is?”

  Before the Sister could answer, the night air filled with cries. They came from far back in Vistimar’s corridors, and they seemed to echo from every corner of the ancient stone building. Some sounded like screams of terror, while others, wails of pain. High-pitched keens sounded like nothing that came from a human throat. The two soldiers flinched at the noise. Tris saw that Mikhail was examining the entrance hall carefully, using his heightened senses.

  “Alyzza has not been well,” the Sister said. “Forgive me, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Sister Rosta.”

  “As you’ve noted, Sister Rosta, it’s a bad night to be about. I have an important matter that requires me to talk with Alyzza.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty. But she’s not as she was when you last saw her.” Rosta’s voice dropped, and Tris had to listen hard to hear her above the wailing. “Alyzza was once a very powerful sorceress, and a friend of your esteemed grandmother. But the battle against the Obsidian King broke her mind, and she was never quite… fully sane… after that.”

  “She had moments of clarity. I’ve seen her quite lucid,” Tris countered.

  Rosta nodded. “The madness came and went. The Sisterhood tried to heal her, and when her affliction did not respond to our efforts, we attempted to shelter her for her own safety, and that of others. Of late, the madness hasn’t left her.”

  “Tell me what her madness is like.”

  Rosta looked away and pursed her lips, thinking. “Sister Landis thinks that Alyzza is reliving her youth and the Mage War. Terrors wake her in the night. She begs for salt to ward her room, and she drives herself to collapse warding her room over and over.” Rosta shook her head. “She’s in no danger here. These walls have withstood sieges for one thousand years, and we have spelled them stone by stone. Nothing can get in.”

  Tris nodded, although he was disinclined to take Rosta’s word for the security of Vistimar’s wardings. No warding is perfect, and there’s always something that has more power than you think it does. “What else?”

  Rosta frowned. “She’s arranged all of her furniture to barricade the northern wall of her room. And we discovered that she’s been stealing small objects and hiding them in her room-worthless things, but she’s got a whole pile of odds and ends that she’s carved with symbols and strewn around the room.”

  “What kind of symbols?”

  Rosta met his eyes, and Tris knew that in this at least, she was telling the truth. “No one knows. We’ve called in our best rune scryers. We’ve consulted the old texts. They don’t match anything we can find. Lately, she’s taken to making blood charms.”

  Tris raised an eyebrow. “Where does she get the blood?”

  Rosta’s gaze was level. “It’s her own. She cuts herself. It’s a fearsome thing, m’lord. On the nights when the frenzy takes her, she dances until her clothes are soaked with sweat. She chants and sings, but no one can figure out what she’s saying. We’ve tried to tie her to her bed-for her own safety, to stop the cutting-but she can still summon strong magic, and every time, she’s ripped the shrouds from around her arms and left them in pieces.”

  Another scream echoed down Vistimar’s halls. “Your residents don’t sound happy tonight, Rosta,” Tris said evenly.

  Rosta sighed, and Tris could see exhaustion in the lines around her eyes. “You’ll judge us harshly by tonight, m’lord. I can’t blame you. It wasn’t always so. Vistimar is haunted by the restless dead. That’s true. There are wretched souls who have never left these walls, and some dark spirits that torment the vulnerable. But in the last few months, it seems as if all the poor souls here are troubled. Have you watched dogs before a storm, turning and fussing? Or horses, when a killing wind is coming? It’s like that, as if they feel something on the night air or hear something on the breeze. All the Sisters have tried to use their magic to quiet them, but it’s no use. Whatever it is, it’s not for the sane to hear.”

  Tris looked around the room. Once, Vistimar might have been a wealthy warlord’s prize, but now, evidence of decay was everywhere. The old castle had a dank, musty smell. Rosta was correct about restless spirits. Tris could sense them, and he knew that they felt his power and recognized it for what it was. Already, he could feel them gathering like moths to a flame.

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nbsp; Tris opened his mage sight. On the Plains of Spirit, Tris could see dozens of spirits. As his power focused, the spirits moved toward him, and he could see them in their human forms, with their death wounds. Some had been hanged and others stabbed. More than one had died from a fall. How many of the deaths were self-inflicted, Tris did not know at first sight, but given the uneasiness of the ghosts, he was quite sure that most had died by their own hand.

  “Why do you trouble the living?” Tris added another surge of power, assuring that Rosta and the others could see the assemblage as he saw them.

  “This is our home,” an old man whose neck bore the mark of a noose spoke. The noose had been badly made, and it was clear that he had died by strangulation and not from the snap of his neck.

  “Then stay in peace, and leave the living alone.”

  The strangled man’s ghost made a deep bow. “You mistake me, m’lord. We seek to warn them.”

  “About what?”

  The ghosts pressed closer around him. Tris felt their agitation. No, it was more than that. Fear. Few things retained the power to make the dead fearful. Most feared the coming of one of the Dark Aspects of the Sacred Lady. That was the most common reason Tris had found for spirits refusing to go to their rest. Others wanted to remain near loved ones, or just lingered out of a fascination with the everyday drama of life. A few were confused about whether or not they were truly dead. And more than a few were bound by the trauma of their deaths to a place or time. Those were the ghosts who appeared on the anniversary of their death or seemed doomed to reenact their final moments for eternity. And while Tris’s powers as a summoner were strong, he had learned the hard way that it took an enormous expenditure of power to banish a ghost who did not want to go, and it was not within his power to release a ghost from its self-imposed reenactment until it had made its peace.