“Why were these men beaten?” Bronwyn whispered. “Did Cailin order it? There’s nothing they can tell anyone.”
“They weren’t, Lady Bronwyn,” I said. “And if they were, I doubt they would need to be gathered.”
Toria gave me a brief nod, but her eyes held too many emotions for me to sort them out. I wondered briefly if all Elanians were as inscrutable.
“Lord Dura is correct,” she answered, turning from me. “None of these men have been mistreated in any way.”
“Other than breaking their vaults and turning their minds into porridge,” I said.
Before Toria could respond, Lady Bronwyn looked skyward and sighed. “Children,” she muttered, “quick to anger and slow to forgive.”
“It’s not me he’s accusing,” Toria said to Bronwyn. “It’s himself.”
I cared even less for her insight than I did for Bronwyn’s condescension, so I strode over to where the nearest man perched on his stool like an oversized bird. Bruises the size of my hand covered the front part of his torso. When I put my hand against one of the bruises and pushed, I could feel the grind of displaced bone. It didn’t take a healer to see that he’d cracked several ribs.
No halo discolored the skin around the bruise. In spite of what had just occurred in Ealdor’s church, or perhaps because of it, I found myself curious. The man before me had been in the fight during Bas-solas but had managed to suffer an injury that couldn’t be traced to the usual causes.
I looked at the healer, a tall man with birdlike eyes and gestures that noticed everything with quick darting glances. “Interesting. It’s not from a hit or strike.”
“Yes.” He nodded, walking over to me with short, quick steps. “They are all like that.”
I moved to the next man, who sported similar bruises on his torso, as well as a large discoloration on his left bicep. “I’m going to take a guess and say that this fellow was wrong-handed.”
“Good, good,” the healer said. “You have a temperament for observation.”
“I’m the king’s . . . ” I said out of reflex before I could stop myself. Not anymore. Laidir was dead, slain by whatever had driven these men to attack us during the festival of light. The healer looked at me, his head cocked to one side, as if I’d become a puzzle to sort out. “I used to be a reeve.”
“Ah.” He nodded.
“But I’ve never seen an injury exactly like this.”
“I would be surprised if you had,” the healer said. “I’ve only witnessed them once or twice myself.”
“When?”
“Years ago,” he said in a musing voice, “a man was brought to me for healing. He’d been up in the mountains and had ventured out onto a stretch of loose rock that gave way. The slide took him to the edge of a cliff. It wasn’t fast, but he fell and got trapped beneath a boulder.” His dark eyes lit as he recounted the man’s tale. “Ten feet from the edge, knowing he would die if he couldn’t escape, he thrust the boulder off and rolled out of the slide.”
He turned to the man in front of us. “His bruises and injuries looked exactly like that of these men. Their ribs were broken by their own exertions. The body is capable of extreme feats of strength, but the mind and pain limit them. In dire circumstances, such as the man in the rockslide, the limitation is removed—but this is the result.”
I stared at the man on the stool. “You’re telling me this fellow broke his own ribs.”
The healer nodded. “All of these men did. Even were their minds hale and whole, these men would never be the same again. Bones, ligaments, tendons, and muscles are broken or shredded. If their minds weren’t empty, they’d be screaming in pain.”
They had been before their vaults were broken. Day and night, the lower levels of the Merum cathedral had echoed with screams I’d attributed to insanity. The Darkwater had broken their minds, and that had enabled Laewan to push their bodies past the breaking point, making them seem gifted. I felt sick.
“Thank you, Healer Daward,” Toria said. “You’ve been most helpful.”
He nodded, recognizing the dismissal. “Might I return later, Lady Deel? I would like to make some notations and drawings of these injuries.”
Toria glanced at Bronwyn, who stared at the men, showing no sign she’d heard the question. “I will send word,” she said.
She waited until the healer had left the room. “They’re not gifted.”
Bronwyn nodded. “No, but I’m not sure how this insight into our enemy helps us.”
“That’s because your battles have always been small and personal,” I said. My guts tightened a bit more at the implication sitting on the stools. I gave the two women a small mocking bow. “Welcome to warfare, ladies. You hoped that this horror ended with Laewan’s death, but I fear your true adversary is more powerful—and desperate—than you know.”
“Our adversary,” Bolt said behind me.
I nodded, waiting, but he didn’t appear to be on the verge of saying anything more. “No quips or quotes?”
“Not this time,” he said, his craggy face impassive.
I turned back to Ladies Bronwyn and Deel. “In order to get his men to fight like gifted, our adversary had to suppress the part of the mind that registers pain. But it’s a two-edged sword.”
“It’s a rare blade that doesn’t cut both ways,” Bolt said behind me.
“It would be nice to know who we’re fighting,” I pushed.
Bronwyn wore an expression that would have looked more at home on her guard. “We’re fighting the Darkwater, Lord Dura. You know that.”
I nodded. “So I gathered, but the evil we’ve met walks on two legs and has names like Laewan or Barl or Bronach.”
She grimaced, as if fighting against the coming words. “Pellin lost touch with Jorgen weeks ago.”
“If we’re lucky, he’s dead,” Bolt said.
I pointed to the men on the stools. “Do you think Jorgen helped Laewan do this?”
Bronwyn shook her head. “They couldn’t have done this by themselves. The Vigil never had this knowledge. We’re fighting an enemy who possesses a power we’ve never seen. We can manipulate memories, but this . . . ?” She pointed to the nearest man’s bruises.
“Blocking their pain makes these men more dangerous,” I replied, “but whatever we’re facing, our adversaries can only use them in such a way once. Drive the body too far and you break it.” I paused, waving at the collection of lost souls Toria Deel had gathered. “These were used up during Bas-solas. Now they need replacements.”
“They need to find a way to get more people to the Darkwater,” Toria said.
“And we have to find a way to prevent that,” Bronwyn replied. “I will send a messenger to Pellin at once.”
“Why not use the scrying stone?” I asked.
“Too risky,” she said. “They are not all accounted for. Until we can get them replaced, we’ll have to use more traditional means of communicating.”
The hitch in her voice told me she’d left out more than she’d said.
Chapter 4
A week later I slept until daffodil-colored light came through the slit of the window that faced west in my room. I came to this awareness as I passed from sleeping to waking without the usual intermediate steps of consciousness where accusations waited to assault me. When I rolled away from the light, I saw Bolt sitting in the thickly padded chair a few paces from the bed, a worn book opened to the halfway point resting on his lap.
“It’s finished,” I said.
He nodded. “Here in the city, at any rate.”
I thought about that. “They threw every man and woman under his influence at us. If any of them had slipped back to their village in the confusion, we would have heard about it by now.”
“Probably.” He marked his spot and closed the book, but I got a glimpse of the title before he put it away. A History of Errants in the North. It reminded me of how little I knew about my guard. “There’s a messenger from Queen Cailin here to fetch
you to the keep.” A grin split his craggy face and the light blue eyes crinkled in amusement. Bolt’s amusement usually tied itself to someone else’s discomfort.
I glanced out the window. “How long has he been waiting?”
The grin deepened. “Since just after dawn.”
I scrambled for my clothes, running through everything I could possibly say before I realized how clear my mind felt for the first time since Bas-solas. “Thank you for letting me sleep. I guess I needed it.”
“Not much guesswork there,” he grunted. “Some of the brothers were talking about laying wagers on when you would drop. Evidently there was quite a bit of interest in the outcome.”
I grabbed a light cloak against the cool of the spring evening. “Funny. I hope you’re not serious. Did the messenger say why Cailin wanted to see me?”
Bolt stood and fell in beside me as I made for the door. “No. You’re to report to Laidir’s study.”
“That’s no surprise,” I said. “There are probably things—quite a few things—she’d rather not discuss in open court. Send the messenger back to the queen with my apologies. I’m on my way.”
The tor lay directly north of the Merum cathedral, where I and the rest of the Vigil stayed while we broke the rest of those who’d been to the Darkwater. I wouldn’t have been able to explain why, but instead of using the main access, I detoured around to the east to the prisons. This earned me a look from Bolt, but I had no answer for him other than my own curiosity.
“I miss them.” I rolled my shoulders, though he hadn’t said anything. “And I want to know what’s been happening in the city to keep me awake at night.”
“Ah.” Bolt nodded, and his eyebrows might have dipped a fraction, or not. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to leave your days of playing the reeve behind.”
“Playing the reeve? You make it sound like I’m part of some troupe going from village to village and mumming for coppers.”
“Compared to your responsibilities with the Vigil, you are.”
“Doesn’t every life matter?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Bolt said. “Strategically, some matter more than others, and you know it. You don’t send a captain into the vanguard with his sword.”
We entered the cavern at the base of the tor that comprised the station of the city watch. The blood from Laewan’s attack had been washed away. Something so ethereal as human suffering barely registered on the cold indifference of the stone. I looked for Gareth but didn’t see him. My former partner was no doubt somewhere within the city.
“You don’t work here anymore, Dura,” a voice growled behind me.
I instinctively moved away from the sound. Jeb didn’t have a reason to cuff me upside my head with those obscenely hard knuckles of his, but Bunard’s chief reeve didn’t always need or want a reason.
Bolt laughed at me. Sometimes I wondered about the depth of my guard’s loyalty.
“I hadn’t seen anyone in the watch since Bas-solas,” I said.
Jeb had seen action in two of the wars between Collum and Owmead and lived to tell about it, which made him either incredibly lucky or too mean to die. I didn’t have much doubt about which. With his lantern jaw and a nose to match, his scarred head looked about as inviting as an axe and his knuckles were about as lethal.
And he hated those who used their abilities to take advantage of others through theft or worse, and when children got hurt or killed I’d seen a side of Jeb few criminals had the opportunity or desire to witness. Six years ago Jeb had caught a tanner in the act of taking another man’s daughter for personal pleasure. The girl might have been all of eight. Jeb sent the girl home and then proceeded to beat the man to death with his fists. By the time he was done, the tanner’s face resembled one of the discarded carcasses in his barn.
“Don’t go all mushy on us, Dura,” Jeb growled, his eyes narrowing. “You look worse than usual. You been night-walking again?”
I nodded, then shrugged as if I were changing the subject. “What’s the city been like since Bas-solas?”
Jeb hawked and spat on the stone floor of the cavern. “Same as before. About what you’d expect from a bunch of stupid kreppa. So busy looking for scapegoats that they’re killing each other over suspicion. None last night though. Maybe they’re running out of people to blame.”
“Any gifted?”
Jeb shook his head. “No, thank Aer.” He clenched a fist and his knuckles made a sound like someone snapping chicken bones. “It’s going to take some time to get my hands on the ones responsible. They’re killing each other quicker than I can beat confessions out of them.” He shook his head in disgust. “Some of us have work to do, Dura. Did you need anything more than just city-watch gossip?”
I shook my head. “No. Tell Gareth I was here.”
We came out into the light and began the long climb up the heights. Even taking the steep stairs that cut across the winding road that circled up the tor took twenty minutes. By the time I got to the top levels of the keep my thighs were burning. It would take more than one night of undisturbed sleep to get back to normal.
I laughed at that thought. I didn’t know what normal was anymore. We passed through the hall of remembrance, and I noticed the addition of weapons, the bloodstains on them still fresh, and nodded approval. Win or lose, glorious or not, the hall reminded all who came after of the price that had to be paid.
We ascended the main staircase and came out across from the throne room. Strains of music wafted toward us, but no laughter. The relative silence of the hall only served to emphasize its emptiness.
“There’s a place I’d be just as happy never to see again,” Bolt said.
I laughed. “I don’t know why. I think most of our nobles would be falling over themselves to hire you after you dropped Lord Baine. For once, I wouldn’t mind going back to court. I could enjoy an honest conversation with the other nobles without having to put my back to the wall.”
“That’s a serious mean streak you’ve developed there.”
I nodded. “I was a lot nicer before I became one of the nobility.”
We cut around, winding through the maze of hallways until we came to Laidir’s study. My throat tightened around a dozen memories of my king, the man who’d raised me to the nobility and the closest thing I’d had to a father since my own passed.
And I was here to offer obeisance to his killer. I didn’t regret sparing Cailin’s life, but I hadn’t expected her to survive the destruction of her vault. That made her the sole occupant in the category of those who had done so, much as I was the only one to carry a vault for an extended period of time and not go into a killing rage. No bonds of affection existed between the queen and me, nothing resembling the regard shared with Laidir. But I needed Cailin, needed to understand how she’d survived. Regardless of my feelings for her, she embodied hope.
The guards at the door, Carrick and Adair, nodded in recognition.
“Weapons,” Carrick said, and watched as we emptied scabbards and sheaths until a small pile formed at his feet.
“Expecting trouble?” Adair asked with a frown.
“When I don’t, I regret it,” I said.
“‘A wise man prepares for strife,’” Bolt quoted, “‘while the foolish—’”
I put a hand on his arm. “We all know that one, and I’ve kept the queen waiting long enough.”
“Not just the queen,” Carrick said, but he didn’t elaborate as he opened one of the vaulted doors.
I hadn’t really expected anything to change in this place where Laidir had exercised the gift of kings and pursued the knowledge he prized in order to run the kingdom. Everything remained exactly as if he were still alive. Only the figure occupying the small throne between two more guards was different. That struck me as odd.
That and the fact that Gael stood by her side. Neither woman looked happy.
I stopped as if I’d run into a wall. “All of a sudden, I feel naked without my weapons,” I muttered
. I waited for Bolt’s customary reply, some soldierly advice he’d make up on the spot and try to pass off as ancient wisdom. “Have you run out of proverbs?”
He shook his head. “Just the opposite. There are so many fighting to get loose that I can’t decide which one to use.”
“Approach, Lord Dura,” Cailin said, her voice clear, confident. “Guards, you will wait for us without.”
Niall and Ronit looked at each other before Niall, as dark as winter and nearly as warm, cleared his throat. Cailin glanced up at him and assayed the tiniest smile. “I am as safe with these men as I am with you.”
They nodded and left, stepping around Bolt and me while I tried not to gape. After the door closed, I favored the queen with a bow, not the mocking kind I usually reserved for nobles. “My compliments, Your Majesty. I wouldn’t have thought anyone could have captured their loyalty as utterly as Laidir, but I see I was mistaken.”
Cailin’s smile had faded, but she acknowledged the compliment with a gracious nod. “I have you and circumstance to thank for that. The tests are done. The priests have determined that the gift of kings has come to my son, Brod. I will serve as regent until he is old enough to take the throne.”
She rose and came toward me with Gael trailing after her. “A man, Pellin, came to me in secret with the Chief of Servants the morning after the festival.” Her eyes widened at the memory. “He tried to brush my hand with his.” She wet lips gone dry. “Is it true? Not just some conjurer’s trick? Can you see so much with a single touch?”
“Yes,” I said.
She nodded, but I could see doubt behind her eyes. “And your contemporary, Laewan, was corrupted by the forest?”
“I never met him that I remember, Your Majesty,” I said. “But I know what I saw at Bas-solas. Something evil has gotten loose.”
The Shattered Vigil Page 4
