Tides of Rythe (The Rythe Trilogy)

by Craig Saunders

  “Right,” said Renir, and followed the others down a rocky incline, leading to a beach where he could see a strange vessel bobbing in the spiteful wash. It was built from wood, he could see, but seemingly from whole trees rather than planks. The trees still had green leaves and shoots on them. The leaves danced at the end of their branches in the wind. It was a large boat, moored against the rock-strewn shore by means of a wooden pole driven into the stone.

  When he reached the bottom on the incline the boat emptied and a strange, lithe crew alighted on the shore. They drew wooden weapons and held them to their sides. The warriors, to Renir’s surprise, did nothing. They took their weapons and laid them to one side. Shorn bade Renir to do the same.

  Reluctantly, he laid his axe by his feet, close enough to flick into his hand should things turn ugly.

  He did not understand why Wen, Bourninund and Shorn would let themselves be disarmed. But he trusted Shorn, and Shorn knew these people.

  His lips were chapped from the bitter wind, and his hand ached where he had hurt it. He tried to concentrate on what the Seafarers were saying, but could overhear nothing against the screaming wind.

  It seemed to be going well. The Seafarers sheathed their wooden swords (he could not fathom why Shorn had been disarmed by a man holding a wooden sword) as one man, and one stepped forward and embraced Wen, then clasped Shorn’s good hand, forearm to forearm. He relaxed, but didn’t pick up his axe. He stayed where he was until Shorn beckoned him forward with a wave of his hand.

  “Renir, this is Orosh, he will be our guide to the ship. He is an old friend, although he did not recognise me. It has been a long time.”

  “Welcome to my boat, Renir Esyn, Drun Sard and Bourninund Maltern,” said Orosh with a gentle bow. His voice was softly musical, and his eyes danced within his head. Renir saw that they were a stunning blue, the colour of still seas. There was a deceptive strength in his grip, Renir noted as they shook. Even though he was a thin man he had a wiry strength, like Bourninund, and it would not pay to underestimate him.

  “Thank you for your welcome. I’ll try to be a good passenger.”

  Orosh smiled. “You can bring your weapons aboard. Forgive us, but we do not let our secrets pass lightly. Shorn neglected to tell us in his summons that he would be bringing companions. Alas, we do not have much call to practice hospitality on the seas. There are few, as landfarers say, knocks upon our door.”

  He seemed warm and friendly, but Renir noted the way he looked warily at Drun. Although the only one of them unarmed, Orosh seemed almost afraid of Drun. For his part, Drun seemed oblivious to the scrutiny. He merely smiled back at the Seafarer, nodded to his companions and waved the warriors ahead of him at Orosh’s invitation to board.

  Renir nodded and returned to collect his axe. He sheathed the weapon and followed the others aboard, hoping there was some shelter on the boat, for surely he would freeze to death if he didn’t get warm soon.

  Drun caught his hand as he climbed the rope to the boat.

  ”Watch carefully, Renir. I sense danger ahead. Shorn and Wen trust these people. You have a wise eye, though, and I trust you.”

  There was no time to ask further. Renir simply nodded, and clambered over the side of the strange, living boat.

  *

  Chapter Thirty

  “I will wear it if I must, but I am not happy about this,” growled Roth with its teeth bared.

  Tirielle suppressed a smile behind a newly manicured hand. She knew the beast well enough to tell bluster from true ire. “It suits you, Roth. You look every inch the priest. Do you feel devout?”

  “Do not mock me, lady. I have never worn clothes, and I never will again. I cannot breath.”

  “Oh, Roth, do not be such a baby. You can hardly walk the streets in your fur. Not anymore.”

  j’ark put the finishing touches to the giant rahken’s disguise – a pair of oversized gloves which would serve to hide the beast’s claws.

  “I think it will serve well enough in the night. During the days you will have to remain within your rooms.”

  “I can bear that. It’s this infernal cloth that chafes.”

  Roth sat on the only bench within the room it would share with the Seer and Tirielle. The cowl of the huge robe hid its face in darkness, but its snout protruded somewhat from the shadow. The grimace on its face was plainly visible.

  “I am a creature of stealth. I do not like this subterfuge.” Even the word subterfuge felt uncomfortable passing its jaws.

  “With the edict against rahkens everywhere you have little choice. You must stick to the shadows and venture out only when absolutely necessary. I do not like it overly, either, Roth. I would have you by my side. But none of us can afford to draw undue attention here. We all make sacrifices.”

  Roth nodded its ascent. “I will be a good mouse.”

  Tirielle shook her head sadly. In some things Roth was stout and the bravest ally she could hope for, but who could have known the giant’s aversion to cloth?

  j’ark touched her hand gently, and Tirielle felt the now all-too-familiar tug somewhere secret, deep within.

  “Lady, we should go. Every passing day brings us closer to the red wizard. Time is pitifully short.”

  “Very well,” she said with a sad smile for Roth. “Let’s go.”

  Tirielle felt a moment of excitement to be setting out, with just j’ark for company. She counselled herself to caution. There was no room for girlish fantasies left in her life. She sighed loudly as they descended the windowless stairwell. J’ark turned, a question on his face, and Tirielle waved him on with mock sternness. He shrugged and pushed open the door, letting in the stale smoke-filled stairs. Typraille, who was sipping a mug of warm milk, nodded to them as they passed. They exchanged no words, but it was good to be so well protected, thought Tirielle, even if her guard of honour were without their armour. Typraille was as solid as rock, as unbending as the grand oak.

  It was his duty on this, their third day in the city, to watch the door. No one would pass unbidden to their rooms without his say so.

  The other members of the Sard were all without, each hunting their goal in their own way. There were many within Beheth who would aid them. It was as human a city as there was on the continent. The Protectorate still prowled the streets, but there was something in Beheth that was apparently anathema to the Protocrat’s ranks of wizards. They had no presence on the city streets, and only the Tenthers roamed. The Sard were more than capable of dealing with the Tenthers, should the need arise, but there had been no need so far. Without their armour they could easily pass for any other city dweller. They roamed the city streets largely unhindered, but Tirielle was not fooled by the apparent ease of their passage. One careless word, one action out of context – it would not take much to bring the Tenthers to their door. Such attentions they could well do without. Even among the human populous, there were those who served the Protectorate. Their otherworldly master had ruled for so long that some people did not even see them as an enemy any longer. People often saw only what they wished. Their masters had cowed them long ago, with the promise of an easy peace. It was a strange world indeed, mused Tirielle, when one wished for war that brought freedom over peace that bred mute contentment.

  Tirielle watched j’ark’s back as she strode the city streets. Her gown was no more elaborate than many merchants’ wives, and she fit in well. She told any that asked that she was from the north – there was little else she could do, her accent marked her Lianthrian, even though her clothes were of a southern cut. Flowers were embroidered at the hems of her dress, the sleeves left wide. It was one of few dresses this far south with sleeves wide enough to allow her easy access to her wrist blades.

  She saw a cutthroat with a bulge under his cloak move down a side alley. The bulge was undoubtedly a cudgel. Unconsciously she fingers her daggers through the thin material of her dress, moving on.

  Shortly the man was forgotten. J’ark set a fair pace and she truste
d him enough to take in the sights rather than wasting her energy looking for threats. She knew he would take in everything they passed without seeming to look. All that marked him as a bodyguard was ease of his walk and the looseness of his shoulders. She relaxed, and concentrated on walking. She thought she could find her way back to the inn, but j’ark was in the lead today, and she was content to let it be so.

  It was a good city to lose oneself in. There were enough people there to find some who were uncomfortable with Protectorate rule to find friends. She had already made tentative contact with some allies who still remembered her from her years in the city so long ago. Too few allies, though. There was so much to do, and such responsibility could not be shared. Within a city of over thirty libraries, it was their duty to find mention of the fabled wizard, the one being with the power to thwart the return and save humanity from slavery. If rumour and legend could be believed. So much was resting on the memories of the Sard’s stone temple. There was just too much they didn’t know. What if the wizard was dead? Or worse, insane from long years of waiting for his time to come again? Could he be strong enough to take on the might of the Protectorate?

  It was all so much to take on chance, and here she was, a fool for the gamble. One thing she thought the Sard were forgetting popped into her mind but she pushed it down swiftly. They were overlooking the Hierarchy, and such oversight could well prove to be their downfall, even should all the other possibilities fall into place.

  Tirielle suppressed a shudder at the thought.

  Perhaps they were meant to be slaves, thought Tirielle as she strode through the wide streets, but not all were slaves. She spared a thought for Sturma, her friends there she had yet to meet. It was a free country. One day, she vowed, she would make Lianthre free, too.

  That still was still too far into the future to see. Unimaginable, almost, to think that they could overthrow the power of an age, their rulers for the last millennium. She did not have the gift of foresight. All she had was prophesy and legend. They needed the Seer. They needed to see the road ahead.

  The strange girl, whose name Tirielle had never known, was secure at the Great Tree, their inn, insensible to the world. The Sard told her that the Seer’s boundaries had been shattered, that she was currently living in all worlds (Tirielle’s mind swam at the notion that there could be more worlds than this – the idea alone was too huge to hold. She could not dream of the torment of the Seer if her mind was truly spread so wide, as wide as all the stars in the night sky). Yet Tirielle held out hope for her. Her body was still working.

  Tirielle took it upon herself to clean and feed the girl – she imagined what it would be like for the girl were she to wake when one of the golden eyed Sard was cleaning her. She would be mortified herself, and she remembered girlhood. She had been much more modest.

  She had asked where she could, and been sent to various healers. It was a chance, and not the last, but there was nothing for it. She had to take what chances arose. So much of her life seemed dependent on luck these days.

  Where she fumbled for the words when trying to explain the Seer’s malady. j’ark was far more adept at describing the unnatural and the magical. He had a gift for it. Tirielle was glad to have him along, in more ways than he would ever know.

  “This must be it,” he said, pointing at an understated sign hanging from a crooked door. They had already tried the only hospital in Beheth, and two wise women. This was their second to last lead. Tirielle did not hold out much hope. There were no human wizards left in the cities – the Protocrats had seen to that long ago. All that remained were wise men and wise women. Perhaps some could use a degree of magic, but few were stupid enough to do it openly. If any magic remained on the continent of Lianthre it had been subdued for so long it was a mere shadow.

  The street they stood in was filthy, and if it seemed strange for a healer to ply his arts among the grime and muck Tirielle would not have said so. They were desperate. Although the Seer might never know it, it was Tirielle’s promise to her to find a cure and bring her back to some semblance of a life.

  She hoped this would be the one.

  The sign simply stated ‘Scholar and healer, Reyland Uriwane, Beheth.U, Mar. CS’

  Tirielle did not have the first idea as to what the initials stood for, but she did not have time to be fussy. She reached out, made a silent wish, and rapped on the door.

  After an age the door creaked open against its warped frame, and a voice came out of the darkness, as cracked and as old as the wood.

  “Who is it?” called the disembodied voice.

  “We have need of a healer,” said j’ark. “We understand that you are gifted in such…arts.”

  “I know of no arts, young man, just remedies and potions,” the voice told him cautiously.

  “Sir, if we may come in? Such matters are best not discussed on the streets.”

  There was a moment of thoughtful silence, and then the door opened wider, to reveal a man so wizened he was almost bent double. He rested on a crooked cane, his neck craned at a painful angle to look at them through red-rimmed eyes. The sunlight seeped into the dark building lighting the flitting dust disturbed from the floor by the grey man’s passage.

  “And are you able to pay for such a service?” enquired the old man.

  “Able and willing. We will pay you for your time, even if you are not able to heal our friend. You will be well compensated.”

  “Music to my ears, my pretty lady, but I am no hedge wizard or witch. I am a physician, and you could have got as much at the hospital. Or,” he said with a glint in his eye, “could it be something…other…that you desire?”

  For a moment, the old man’s meaning escaped Tirielle, but j’ark was quick enough.

  “It is of a fey nature, right enough,” the paladin told him. “Are you afraid of that which you do not understand?”

  Reyland grunted. “I’m too old for fear, and way past pride. If I can heal your friend I will. The Protectorate have nothing to hold over my head. Let me get my bag, then you can take me to your friend.”

  “It is a fair distance from here.”

  “Lady, I am not so frail that I cannot walk. But if your sir would be kind enough to carry my bag?”

  “Of course,” said j’ark.

  They waited for a few minutes at the open door, without being invited inside, when the old man returned, dragging behind him a pack almost half his size.

  j’ark looked at him pointedly.

  “Well, why do you think my back is so crooked, young man?”

  With a sigh j’ark shouldered the pack.

  The old man scooted along at a fair pace, his cane clacking against the uneven paving stones at regular intervals. They skirted the edges of the marketplace, where there was sure to be a Protectorate presence, sticking to alleys, crossing two canals by means of rickety wooden bridges, rather than the sturdy stone bridges that served main thoroughfares. By the time they reached the Great Tree (so called not because it was housed in a Southern Brant, a tree which grew so wide it could be hollowed out and used as an abode by a family, but because its two storeys were supported by two main cross-beams, both at least sixty feet long) the old physician was panting, but less so than j’ark, who had to bear the weight of the huge pack on his shoulders the whole way.

  Tirielle realised that j’ark was not as broad as she once thought him, now that he was no longer clad in breastplate and pauldrons, yet he was still broad enough across the shoulder. She watched his back as he struggled on in the midday heat, noting the steady flow of sweat on the nape of his neck. While he laboured, she enjoyed the walk, and found the old man to be passable company, even if his eyes did roam to places one of his age should no longer have any business with.

  By the time they arrived, he had told her a potted history of the city, his speech interspersed with entirely inappropriate winks. She could live with the attention. It wasn’t, she thought with mild annoyance, as if any one else was paying her any atten
tion.

  According to Reyland, the Beggar’s Mile, where they had come from, was protected by the Pauper’s Edict from destruction, and, abutting against several other districts, could not be burned or destroyed without risk of damage to many ancient monuments and buildings. It was even cleaned at regular intervals, at the city’s expense. They passed few major monuments, apart from two statues, one of a distinguished looking man, one of a rahken. It was strange that a city of humans would honour a rahken, but Reynard assured her that the statue, of a beast called Prill, had been there since before the Beggar’s Mile had infested the city, growing within the confines of the city like a canker, or a fungal infection.

  Prill had set up the hospital, and had thus been honoured. The regal gentleman, depicted in a shirt and trousers, holding a staff with an orb at one end, was the last human wizard to live openly in the city. If Tirielle thought it strange that the Protectorate would allow a statue that so obviously venerated a wizard, Reynard did not. He merely shrugged his narrow shoulders and moved on.

  “Wizards are a thing of the past. This man is no threat to the Protectorate. He is a symbol of hope, and if there’s one thing the Protectorate like to give more than pain it is false hope,” he explained.

  Tirielle couldn’t argue.

  She pushed the door to the Great Tree open and held it for j’ark to enter. Typraille was still on guard duty. Although no swords were allowed within the city confines, he was armed. He wore a long dagger at his belt.

  “This is Reyland, Typraille. He has come to see the girl.”

  They never called her the Seer in company. Rumours would spread like wildfire and a thousand people would congregate outside there door. A Seer was someone that came along once in an age, and people didn’t realise that they had more important work to do than find lost amulets, or lost loves, or tell what sex a baby would be.

  They would never leave the city if that were the case, even should the wrong kind of attention be drawn, that of the Protectorate, but so far they had been lucky. Tirielle could only hope that her luck held.