The Shattered Vigil

by Patrick W. Carr

  Bolt nodded his approval from his perch on her far side.

  “All right, Wag,” I said. “Let’s find your littermate.”

  We rode out of the nobles’ section and crossed over the branch of the Rinwash leading into the upper merchants’ quarter, the homes nearly as grand as those just north of them but without the land or cultivated gardens. The population grew more dense and the homes poorer the farther we moved south from the queen’s tor.

  We had just crossed over when a wisp of smoke caught my attention and the hackles on the back of my neck stood up. I pointed to the gauzy haze drifting upward. “Gael, was there more than one fire that night?”

  She looked at me and nodded. “The merchant’s house where you were taken went up as well.”

  I believed her. There wasn’t a reason on earth for me not to, but a sense of something out of place, an occurrence that didn’t quite fit, settled into my gut. I twitched the reins to the side and nudged Dest into a canter until the ruins of Andler’s mansion stood before me. Unlike Gael’s home, Andler’s exterior had been fashioned from wood instead of stone. Charred beams and supports thrust their way upward out of the smoking ash like blackened fingers begging the sky for mercy.

  The others rode up beside me, but I hardly acknowledged them. Puzzle pieces were rattling around in my brain, and I needed space and quiet to get them to fit. I started with the most important question. Why burn them both?

  I shook my head in frustration. No, I couldn’t answer that one yet. When? That was easier. I glanced at Wag. He wouldn’t have made a mistake. Our enemy had come to Andler’s house first, burned it, then went to the house of Gael’s uncle, Count Alainn, and did the same thing. Then he backtracked along the same route out of town and supposedly left Bunard by the southern road.

  I turned from my study of soot and ruin to face Gael. “Was anybody inside Andler’s house when it went up?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, Willet, but none of the reports to Queen Cailin from the city watch mentioned anything about bodies.”

  “He didn’t need anything else,” I muttered, looking at the ruins again. “Everything was right here.”

  Bolt must have dismounted while I was musing. He appeared at my side, watching me, waiting while I stood there gaping at the ruins of Andler’s ambition, hardly daring to breathe for fear of losing the answer that came limping toward me.

  “Did any other buildings catch fire around the same time?”

  “No,” Gael said. “Just the two where you were.”

  I hadn’t expected any other answer, but I needed to be sure.

  “Why are you here, Willet?” Bolt asked. “We already knew he would be hunting for you.”

  I nodded absently. The pieces were in place. I knew when and I knew why, but now I had to decide what to do about it. I turned to Gael. “I want you to go back to Queen Cailin. Stay there. Be safe.”

  She jerked as if I’d slapped her, though nothing but surprise showed on her face. Yet.

  “If the north falls,” I went on, “if whatever has gotten loose from the Darkwater manages to kill the rest of the Vigil and me, get on the first ship headed to the southern continent and don’t come back.”

  Her expression closed, turned calm the way the wind dies just before a storm breaks loose. “No. You knew it would be dangerous when we set out.”

  I shook my head. “Not like this. This is a roll of the bones, and we need double fours—and that’s an understatement.” I willed her to listen for once. “Please.”

  Her eyes darkened to slate. “I don’t care how much danger you’re in, Willet, I’m not leaving. You have a better chance of surviving with me than without me.”

  I sighed and closed my eyes, pointing at the ruins of Andler’s mansion, knowing I’d already lost the argument. “He’s not after me. If he was, there would have been no point to burning down your uncle’s house or killing all the servants.” I turned to Bolt. “He’s after Branna.”

  “The girl you asked me to hide?” Gael asked.

  I nodded. “The freshest scent was at your uncle’s. Wag said so. That means he came here first. If he wanted my scent, it was all over the cave next to Andler’s wine cellar. It couldn’t get much easier than that—my blood is still on the floor where they held me.” I shook my head. “He came here to pick up Branna’s scent. Then he tracked her to your estate and I’ll bet that was the last place she went to before your servant, Marya, got her out of Bunard. The only reason to do that is for him to find Branna. She’s the only one besides me whose scent would have been at both houses.”

  I watched Gael take all that in, her gaze sliding from mine as she put all the pieces together for herself. Smart girl.

  Even so, Bolt was quicker. He knew what we were up against. There wasn’t anyone within twenty paces of us on the street, but he put his hand on his sword anyway. “Branna is the only one who can identify Robin’s killer. That means the Vigil knows him.”

  “And somehow that presents a threat,” I said.

  “She could already be dead, Willet,” Gael said.

  “Yes,” I agreed, “but if she’s not, we have an advantage over our enemy.” The three of them stared at me while I stood there hoping they’d make the connection and I wouldn’t have to put my voice to what I was thinking. It was going to sound even more insane out loud than it did in my head.

  They just waited. It figured.

  “He can’t travel during the day,” I said. “Our speed will be hindered, but we don’t have to stop at night.”

  For a moment, no one said anything, but Gael’s eyes lit with comprehension. Now she knew why I wanted her to remain here in Bunard. Rory might have twitched his shoulders. He didn’t care or object. The hours of darkness were his accomplice after all, and he was the only one of us who could see the dwimor clearly.

  Bolt shook his head. “I can’t keep you safe.”

  “No, you can’t. We knew that already.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  “We have to know who it is,” I said.

  He sighed, and the muscles in his jaws bunched. I could almost hear his teeth cracking. “Knowledge gained isn’t the same thing as knowledge kept. If we can’t live long enough to get the information to the rest of the Vigil, it’s useless.”

  “All right,” I shrugged. “Let’s play it your way. Tell me what happens if we don’t get there in time.”

  I watched him run through scenarios in his head. He even went so far as to draw breath and open his mouth to speak before he settled back on his heels, his eyes narrowing in annoyance. “The girl dies, but we still might manage to run him to ground and kill him before he can track down Pellin or anyone else.”

  “The girl dies,” I said.

  He grimaced. “We’ve talked about this, Willet. You can’t save everyone.”

  “But he has to try, or he betrays who he is,” Gael said.

  Her eyes held something that was too intense for me to look at for more than an instant. I had work I needed to do. I stepped over to Rory’s horse, where Wag was perched atop it like a furry gargoyle. “Which way did your littermate go?”

  He licked me with a tongue broad enough to wet half my face before he craned his neck so that his head pointed south, his nose twitching. I went back to Dest, put a foot in the stirrup and mounted. “When we get outside of the city, we’ll let Wag lead the way.”

  We were just about to cross the bridge into the poor section, the only part of the city open to the rolling hills and the plain to the south, when an obscure impulse brought me to a stop. I could just see the ruins of Ealdor’s abandoned church some two hundred paces away. “Stay here,” I said.

  All three of them twitched their reins to follow me anyway, and I held up my hand. “It’s broad daylight, and this has to be done alone.” I licked my lips. “Please.”

  “There’s nothing there, Willet,” Bolt said. “What good can come of this?”

  I didn’t have a
n answer, at least no answers that would make sense to him or Gael or Rory, but I needed to get back to that little church and talk to my friend. When I reined in at the front door, I couldn’t help but gape at the state of Ealdor’s sanctuary. My mind couldn’t reconcile the image it still held with the derelict church in front of me.

  It wasn’t important. I stepped inside and beneath a roof that allowed almost as much sunlight as it created shadow. My boots crunched through the debris on the short walk up to the altar, but I stopped just short. To the right, there was a door hidden in the shadows. He would come from there, as he always had, walking toward me as he draped his stole around his shoulders.

  I had only to wait.

  “Greetings, Willet.” Ealdor stepped into the light. His stole rested on his shoulders, fluttering a little in the air, but his steps made no sound and left no marks in the accumulated dust.

  I looked around the interior of the church, but nothing had changed. It still looked as though it might come crashing down on me at any moment. “You left it the way it was.”

  He laughed. “I don’t do anything, Willet. It looks as it truly does because you know the truth of it now. Would you like to officiate over the haeling?”

  I shook my head and his smile diminished. “Confessional, then?”

  “No,” I said. “I came to ask you a question.”

  He looked at me with a gaze that suddenly seemed old enough to make Pellin’s appear youthful by comparison. “I’m only in your mind, Willet. I can only tell you what you already know, but oftentimes a man just needs to hear himself think out loud. How goes your battle?”

  I shook my head. “No, that’s not true and I won’t be lured into a discussion, Ealdor. I don’t have time for it.” I paused, swaying a bit to the pounding of my heart in my chest. “You can’t stay in the shadows forever,” I said. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to tell the rest of them you’re real.”

  He shook his head and walked toward me.

  And then right through.

  I never felt a thing, nothing cold or clammy the way some of the veterans described the ghosts of strangers they’d killed on the battlefield. Ealdor walked through me with as much fanfare as he would have stepped through a doorway.

  “You made a mistake,” I said as I turned to face him. “You told me something I didn’t know, couldn’t know.”

  He stared at me, all expression removed from his face, but his eyes, his eyes might have held anything and everything.

  “What are we fighting, Ealdor? We can’t win fighting in ignorance.”

  Dust from my steps, only my steps, circled in the air around us. I blinked, trying to clear the irritation away, and in that instant, he disappeared.

  I stood in the church for a handful of heartbeats before I left. When the others saw me coming, they mounted up and we rode south over the bridge that would take us through the poor quarter and out of the city.

  “Well?” Bolt asked.

  I shrugged, but inside I seethed with frustration and doubt. “He wasn’t in the mood to talk.”

  Chapter 45

  Pain lanced through Toria’s neck, and she snapped her eyes open to the sensation of falling only to close them again a moment later as her head banged against thinly padded wood. Her hands were still bound behind her, but her arms had fallen asleep and she couldn’t tell if her fingers were bare or not.

  When she struggled to right herself, hands clamped onto her shoulders, pulling her upright. The interior lines of a carriage slowly came into focus, and by dim sunlight that leaked through the covered windows she made out the still form of Lelwin across from her and two men, armed and stoic.

  The smell of lemongrass mingled with averin syrup drifted up to her from the gag she still wore, and she struggled to remain conscious. The carriage swam in her vision in a way that had nothing to do with the bumps in the road, and she fought the nausea from its swaying and the drugs to keep from vomiting.

  The man to her right, the speaker for the Clast, gazed at her with as much feeling as one might concede to an inanimate object before speaking. “We’re between villages, but I have no desire to be betrayed by chance, Toria Deel. That leaves me with two choices. I can leave you gagged for the entire trip to the Darkwater Forest . . . or,” he said, taking out a wicked-looking hooked dagger, “I can kill your companion at the first hint of alarm you raise. I was given no drawings of her. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  She swallowed and nodded. As far as these men were concerned, Lelwin’s life was inconsequential. The moment either of them became an inconvenience, her apprentice would die.

  “Are you thirsty?” the man asked. When she nodded, he held out his hand without looking away from her, and the man sitting next to Lelwin put a waterskin in it. Then he leaned forward to untie her gag. She stretched and rolled her jaw and took an unencumbered breath.

  The speaker for the Clast lifted the waterskin and she drank, surprised that he allowed her to have her fill before taking it away.

  Desperation burned the back of her throat, but she envisioned herself grabbing the panic that threatened to reduce her to begging and shoved it behind a door within her mind. First and foremost she needed to discover how much these men knew about her. “Why is the Icon interested in me?”

  The man looked at her for a moment in consideration, neither giving an answer nor appearing unwilling to. “The Icon’s decisions are the Icon’s alone. Your appearance was made known to us and you have been taken. That is all you need to know.”

  She nodded, trying to show acquiescence, but inside she railed. The speaker’s response hinted at his ignorance but didn’t confirm it.

  “The portrait was well done,” she said, “not gifted, but even so, the person who drew it must know me well. There were subtleties within it that casual acquaintance would be unlikely to capture.”

  The speaker refused to respond, and no hint of knowledge or recollection showed in his eyes. Her comments had not been idle ones. In the portrait, the artist had managed to capture the fact that one of her eyes was slightly smaller than the other, a whisker’s worth of difference between them that no one who hadn’t studied her face would notice.

  Unless of course, they were gifted. But while the strokes on the portrait were masterful, they lacked the ineffable grace that pointed to giftedness. She checked her logic, going through it point by point, like one of the king’s engineers checking a sum, and found no flaw within it—but that led her to an impossibility. Few knew her well enough to craft such a portrait and since it was one of many that had been produced, it had to have been done entirely from memory. Only one of the Vigil could have crafted it.

  She ran down the list: Pellin, Bronwyn, Laewan, Jorgen, and the rogue, Willet Dura. Pellin and Bronwyn were beyond reproach, and Laewan was dead. She’d seen his body riddled with dagger strikes with her own eyes. That left Jorgen and Lord Dura. As tempting as it might be to think that Dura might have betrayed her, she dismissed the possibility. She’d delved him, and in his entire history, all the way back through childhood, he had no artistic training. Though the thought of one of the Vigil carrying a vault still made her nauseous, she had to admit it was unlikely to the point of being ridiculous that his vault was hiding art lessons.

  That left Jorgen, but in its own way that was even more unlikely. Arthritis had left Jorgen’s fingers a swollen mass of digits that couldn’t point in the same direction, much less craft a series of portraits that could capture her likeness.

  The speaker leaned forward to gag her once more, and she recoiled. “However much you’ve been promised, I can triple it.”

  “Nobles,” the speaker said as he shook his head. “You think you can buy everything.”

  “I’m not a noble.”

  “You belong to the church, then,” the speaker said. “The Icon has wealth you cannot imagine.”

  “You believe the Clast has sole ownership and access to truth?” Toria asked.

  The speaker’s
brows furrowed for a moment, and his expression became clouded. Then he laughed. “Ah! I see now, but you misunderstand me, Toria Deel. When I said the Icon had wealth you could not imagine, I was not using your church’s doublespeak to refer to truth or wisdom or any of those other intangibles you spout to keep people poor and satisfied. I meant real wealth, wealth enough to buy and rule the world, both the northern and southern continents.”

  Despite her efforts to keep her breathing steady and her face expressionless, she must have given him some sign that he’d given her information she could use. Jerking, he retied the gag in her mouth and doused it again with that concoction that robbed her of consciousness.

  When she came to, the carriage was still and empty except for herself and Lelwin, who gave her a steady brown-eyed gaze. Toria still wore her gag, but red marks on Lelwin’s face indicated how she’d managed to force hers down until it hung about her neck.

  “We stopped about half an hour ago,” the girl murmured. “I’ve heard sounds of a minimal camp being made, but nothing in the silences between indicate any village.”

  Toria struggled to reach a seated position, flailing with her arms still tied behind her. Lelwin extended her right leg, wedging it between Toria and the carriage seat, and lifted her to an upright position. Then she leaned forward, took Toria’s gag in her mouth, and pulled it free.

  “Tastes terrible,” her apprentice said in the same soft tone that wouldn’t carry past the two of them.

  “Thank you,” Toria said. “How long have you been awake?”

  Lelwin shrugged. “I got bored and took a nap after our guards put you out again, but I’ve been awake for most of the trip. We’re headed northwest.”

  “How did you manage that?” Toria asked. “I saw them drug you.”

  Lelwin nodded. “One of the advantages of looking young and weak is that when I pretend to be helpless, no one suspects otherwise. As soon as they put the cloth over my face, I held my breath and went limp. I hid my face so that I could get my nose free of the gag and its drug.” She pursed her lips. “I’ll need to devise new strategies for dealing with people in a few years, when I start looking my age.”