Bardian's Redemption_Book Four of the Guardian's Vambrace

by H. Jane Harrington

  Kir scolded herself back to the here-and-now. The slope of analysis and regret was far too steep and slippery, and she kept sliding right back down every time she thought of the moonless night and all the Chaos it had unleashed.

  Copellian seated himself on the deck beside Kir. He scratched the side of his neck absently, where his collar used to be. It had only been a few weeks since it had been removed.

  Kir could hear Avalir, Amari, Tennras, Borloh and Rendack over the drumming and thunder. Their voices carried across the hold. It sounded like bets were being placed. Lyndal's voice joined theirs when he had finished a goofy dance. They traded words back and forth, arguing, daring, betting. Most of the Hilian warriors were gamblers at heart. They would wager on anything and everything, from games to spars to the color of tomorrow's sunrise.

  “Daydreaming? Reckon I was,” Kir muttered. She passed over her tanadas, the hollow utensils with spoon-like discs at the ends, for Copellian to click in rhythm. He refused, as she figured he would. Her austere rival clan-brother was not often given to joviality like the rest of the boys. “How's my Sorrha weathering the storm?”

  “As well as can be expected. I've got one of the grooms soothing him now,” Copellian reported. “It's Melia I'm worried about.”

  “Melia?” Kir asked with a start. “What's wrong?”

  “Nothing sturdy ground won't cure. She's not made for the sea. Can't even keep Corban's mildest broths down. Bertrand's whipping up a new potion to help.”

  “Still? I didn't think she'd be seasick for so long. Some honeymoon, huh?”

  “We'll make up for it when we get to Hilihar. I've been thinking. Corban bought the stilted hut next to his—the one with the double floating garden track—as our wedding gift. We were planning to take up residence there, but if Melia's this frazzled on a ship, how is she going to live comfortably on a lake?”

  Kir rubbed her throat in discomfort at the thought. “Maybe it won't be as bad. The ship rocks and churns a lot, but the Hili waters are pretty calm.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe I shouldn't expect to make a fish of a horse. We can build a place near Fort Ellesainia on the Hili border. It's better, anyway. Closer proximity to the stables and our duties as royal horsemasters. Hilihar's too far for a daily commute. Don't know how we'll tell Corban.”

  “There's time. Talk to Mel about it when she's feeling better.”

  “Corban won't let her out of his sight,” Copellian cleared his throat. “Almost feels like I've been...”

  Kir knew what he was getting at. Here he was, newly wed, and he was already being replaced in Melia's arms by her father. Kir had felt the same. She, herself, was newly wed, and she had been replaced by Scilio. Not quite the same thing, but it still felt bitter to Kir's liking.

  “Don't take it to heart, Cope. They were always really close, and they've been apart for three years. Can't blame Corban for doting. You're married to him as much as to Melia. That's not a bad thing. You've got two sets of eyes looking after her now. And you'll eat like a king with Corban manning your kitchen.” Kir cracked loose a grin at her own literalness.

  Copellian grunted acknowledgment and stewed in silence for a time. Finally he said, “You seem better.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That fake smile is gone. It's genuine now.”

  Kir hated how transparent she could be. “Had a little help from Bosk and Brenderia.”

  “Yeah, I heard. You're either the bravest wench I've ever met, or the stupidest.”

  “Sometimes brave and stupid mean the same thing.”

  “Sometimes? Try always. With you, they're synonyms,” Copellian smirked.

  Lyndal suddenly streaked on past, dancing his way around the hold again. Kir glanced up just in time to see his southcheeks prance by, bare of the brass-colored pantling that had clothed them.

  “Wenchin furies, Brassybins! I don't need to see that!” Kir exclaimed. “Re-pant your southerlies before I call Eshuen to spank that little neeyah blue.”

  “Can't yet,” Lyndal called back. He was already on the other side of the hold, swish-running his way through the crowd with no ounce of modesty. “They dared me!” He pointed an accusatory finger at his clan-brothers, who were howling and slapping their knees.

  Kir and Copellian shared eye rolls and head shakes in tandem.

  “Does he ever turn himself off?” Kir asked.

  “Lyndal was born without an anchor, and his capacitor is forever stuck in the forward-run position. You should have known him when he was a child. Come to think of it, he's not all that different,” Copellian snorted. “I'm going to head back to the galley and see how Melia's making out with Bertrand's potion. Stay out of trouble, will you? You're going to drive Ulivall to an early grave.”

  “Keeping my head below decks and heart above,” Kir promised with a salute. “Tell Melia I'll come sit with her in a bit.”

  When Copellian was gone, Kir added her clicking tanadas back into the cadence. She wished there was more room in the hold to dance. Lively beats always enticed her feet to their call. She and Vann had spent a lot of hours dancing together in their evenings in High Empyrea. She had been his dutiful tutor, but Kir suspected Vann knew more than he had let on. His lines were clean and confident where a novice's would not have been. She could almost see Vann dancing to this beat, swinging her into the Fruvien Plunge and twirling her in the Ten-Stop Shuffle. Would he ever again dance? Would he ever again lend his voice to harmony with Scilio and Lyndal? Would he ever again hold her?

  Kir stopped herself before she fell right back into that soggy pit of despair. It had taken too much time and too much drenching to climb out of it. She had to focus on what was before her. Kir put Vann out of her mind and mastered the moment by falling into the music instead.

  The raging storm hammered and thundered beyond the hull, while deep inside, Kir gave her rage to the hammering thunder of the drums.

  The storm left a mucus-yellow sky in its wake. Kir made her way up when it was past, partly to watch the sailors shake out the main and mostly to look north, to find Vann with her imaginings. The northeastern tip of Mercaria was barely visible aft and they were running the coast of Aquiline down to the Hili delta.

  When she reached the poop deck, Malacar was already there, casting his gaze over the Empyrean Sea as though he could see Vann's little boat on the horizon. He clutched a prayer coin that was only visible by the edge that peeked under his thumb. The small, inexpensive trinket was a common occupant of many a pocket and pouch across the isles. Some of the coins were embossed with symbols of all seven of the Gods, while some, like Malacar's, were specific to one. Kir had seen Malacar rub his thumb reverently over the coin on occasion, issuing daily warrior's prayers to his patron, Nomah, the God of the Offensives. This time, his thumb did not move. It pressed so hard across the face of the coin that it looked like he was trying to smother the image. His nail was blanched white with the pressure.

  For a spiritual soul like Denian Malacar, the challenge to his devotion had been wrenching. Only weeks ago, they had learned the hard truth of every Godhood ever conjured for worship: their Gods were merely man-made products, remnants of a civilization long dead. Malacar was suffering from a catastrophic blow to his faith. It was something Kir couldn't help him with. She had rewritten her faith ages ago. Malacar would have to work through these revelations on his own and find his own peace with his beliefs.

  Kir sidled him and leaned her forearms on the rail. They shared the comfortable silence, as they usually did. After a few minutes, Malacar's thumb eased from its God-smothering clamp. He rubbed the surface of the coin a few times, almost apologetically, then he plopped it back into the pouch inside his tabard. Kir sensed he wanted to talk, but he didn't seem willing to open the conversation himself.

  “Yellow sky,” Kir observed.

  Malacar answered with a soft grunt of acknowledgment. “Storm's over.”

  “Where are they now?” Sh
e guessed Vann's boat was close to making port, but she wanted to hear Malacar's reassuring voice. While he was the reserved, reticent type, the past week on the ship had found him brooding in a dark silence that went beyond the typical. He was struggling as much as Kir had been. It was not just a function of guilt over his failure to protect Vann on the moonless night, but something else. There were a million else's.

  “Northeast of us, approaching the coast of Havenlen in about a day. Or... less, I think. I suppose the currents from the Empyrean falls have added to their speed.”

  “You can feel it,” Kir realized aloud. That's what had been bothering him so much. “The Guardian Bonding is calling you to him, isn't it?”

  “When they speak of a Guardian's inability to leave or abandon his Guarded, it's not exactly that. You can leave. But the Bonding's pull is so strong, it's like an unscratchable itch, amplified a hundredfold. I want to climb in that dinghy right now and make straight for him. The urge is controllable, just incredibly uncomfortable. It feels like I'm a bowstring, being pulled further and further. I don't know how far I can stretch before it snaps.”

  “It's one Guardian thing I never experienced. In all this past year, we've never been apart...” Kir's voice cracked and her chest imploded. She washed the weakness away with a focused breath. She had to stay strong for everyone. Kionara, she told herself.

  Malacar wrapped a supportive arm around her shoulder and they shared the yellow northern skies in silence.

  “I guess we won't have to worry about Scilio contacting us, will we?” Kir said when she was confident she could speak without cracking. “When we've got our answers from Farning and we know how to get Vann's soul back, you'll be able to guide us right to wherever they are.”

  “Within a general range, yes. I doubt I can pinpoint him exactly, but I believe I can narrow it down to an area.”

  “Do you think Scilio will try Drendledown first? It's the largest university with the best library system.” They had agreed before departure that Scilio would investigate methods of soul-catching in the abundant stacks of the university libraries, in case Farning couldn't help.

  Malacar's eyes squinted in calculation. “By their direction, I believe they are heading to White Tower from the south. They'll make port in Vercross and ride the ferry upriver. That should take them about four days, accounting for port stops.”

  “You know Havenlen pretty well.”

  “I was born and raised there.”

  “You're a Venlender?” Kir harrumphed. “You don't have an obvious accent one way or the other, but for some reason I always pegged you a Drabackian. Dunno why.”

  Malacar sniffed a silent chuckle. “Because you associate Havenlen with men of knowledge and wisdom.”

  “You don't think you count in that group? Hells, Lunchbox, you're one of the shiniest swords I've ever had privilege to know.”

  He didn't answer.

  “If you're from Havenlen, how did you end up in the Army of Southern Cornia?” she asked finally.

  “Long story,” he said. “One for another day.”

  Kir nodded. Malacar was dry up with his past, and she wouldn't go watering it. There were demons under there. It wouldn't do him any favors to go digging them up now, especially with him already walking on the razor edge of his limits.

  Ulivall approached from behind and leaned forward, staring over the waters in the direction they were looking. “Yellow sky.”

  “Yup.” Kir and Malacar answered together. “Storm's over.”

  Kir didn't mention that it was also just beginning.

  The dream held Kir on the edge of awareness, the place where the waves of fantasy broke on the shores of reality. She was held in Vann's arms, his soothing baritone mumbling unintelligible garble that Kir knew was comforting for the tone, even if the individual sentiments were muffled. Vann rocked her, or maybe the ship did. The sounds congealed into words but as they became clear, they were not of Vann's voice. Kir's head craned. The face staring down at her, with violet eyes that swirled in vibrant, dynamic silver energies, was Tarnavarian's.

  “Hello, Kiriana,” Tarnavarian's mouth spoke with Alokien's voice. “I want my Shunatars.”

  A gasp caught in Kir's throat as the fear paralyzed her lungs and legs. She was petrified to stone. Tarnavarian's fingers gripped tightly on Kir's arms, digging in with an inhuman force that she could not struggle against, though she mightily tried. Kir thrashed, to no avail, as he pressed her against the mattress. The ship shuddered under the strength of his grip. It groaned and thundered like it had under the storm. Alokien's voice boomed and cracked against the hull.

  “Kir!” Alokien cried in a voice much deeper than his own. “Wake up!”

  Alokien flung her off the bed. The world tumbled. She was still tangled up in the sheets as she slid across the decking and slammed against the bulkhead.

  The dream shattered, leaving behind a gasping terror that was all too real. Kir screamed out warnings that didn't really register, frantically swiping at the sheets that collared her neck, threatening to choke her.

  “Are you injured?” Malacar asked urgently. He tugged the fabric away from her face and unwrapped it from her legs.

  Kir uprighted slowly, trembling, stuck in the molasses of shock. She was on the floor, back pressed against the bulkhead. So that part of the dream had been real. “Malacar? What...?”

  “Is anything broken?” Malacar pressed.

  Kir shook her head, flexing her hands absently. “I was sleeping... dreaming... I got tossed to the decking... by Alokien?”

  Malacar exhaled sharply in relief, laced with more tension. “No. We listed hard and almost capsized. Something is ramming us. Kaiyo.”

  -4-

  Descent into a World of Decency-Laced Commonality, or That Which Desperately Attempts to Claim the Definition of Decent, but is Found Wanting

  “The human condition is forever stuck in a state of relativity.”

  - Guardian Toma Scilio

  It took several hours for Scilio to adjust to solid ground. He still felt the sway of the current and the motion of the boat, even as the Tavern Row's inwalk supported him solidly. They had returned their rented vessel to a port master in Vercross and collected the deposit fee, then made straight for the nearest decent establishment.

  Decent was a relative description. What qualified as such now would once have been considered an appalling travesty of a hovel to Scilio's refined nobleman's tastes. When he left his family's estate in the summer of his seventeenth year to answer the call of the bard, Scilio had a definite idea of comfort and acceptability for one of his highborn station. Bardhood had allowed his lofty expectations and pampered picayunishness to be softened under the modest comforts of a commoner's bed or the standard tavern room he often negotiated in exchange for his evening services to the establishment's patrons. No longer did he require sheets of the finest Arcadian silk and furnishings inlaid with polished lumanere, the expensive and rare opalescent mineral that could contain natural energies and glow with the song of the heavens. Scilio had become laid-back and accepting, always trusting to what spoils the good road would provide.

  The past months in High Empyrea had reminded Scilio of the noble flavor to which he had been accustomed in his youth. It garbed him in soft, luxurious fabrics. It teased him with delicacies of the finest Septaurian cuisines. It would have been much more difficult to accept the fall from noble luxury if it hadn't been Scilio's own failings that forced it upon them. He had no more claim to exceptional comforts. Vann must not be recognized, and he would not be, dressed in common clothes and dining in common taverns. Alokien would never expect a royal to wallow in random places like this. That made it the safest place to hide.

  Scilio chose not to send word to Hili of their whereabouts. He might have found the Ganders' tavern to make contact and accept aid, as the network was inclined to offer. It was simply too risky. Alokien was bound to have eyes on any information networks, eve
n those as secret as the Ganders. To go anywhere near a Gander was to put Vann in jeopardy of being discovered. For the same reason, Scilio dared not risk sending an eagle. Messages could be intercepted if the bird was caught or killed by enemy spies. It would take time for Kir and Malacar to make Hili anyway. There was no sense moving prematurely, when Scilio hadn't even set foot in the library or found the Underground yet. They would have to make due by their lonesome little band.

  Vann's once buttery blonde hair was now mahogany. It was clipped spiky short, as it had been before Empyrea. They had no means to shave on the boat; the stubble bloomed across their faces, lending to their rugged looks. The leftover potions had dyed Vann's thin beard as brown as his hair. The beige tunic and umber trousers he wore were no longer the superior styles of High Empyrean royalty, but of modest materials and standard quality. Vann's eyes were still blue (the potions to change the color had not been readily affordable), but overall, he bore little resemblance to Crown Prince Vannisarian's image that was embossed on the newest edition of loran coins. Vann was wrapped in commonality.

  Scilio had turned his Guardian tabard over to Kir before they had parted. His finely tailored white tunic and black trousers were much too pretentious for their new world. Dailan stole some grungy, hole-pocked riding trousers and a flannel shirt of ghastly orange plaid, purposefully choosing the ugliest articles on the laundry line. He offered them over for exchange and promised to bring in top loran when he sold the finer clothes, as they would need all the funds they could muster. Scilio assumed the unfortunate articles were stolen from some poor blind soul. He could not imagine that anyone in their sane and seeing mind would announce their own dismal taste to the world by displaying such atrocities in public. Scilio would not have been caught dead in such fashion before, but he was a new man. He would bear any and all indignity if it meant keeping Vann safe. The shirt's sleeves were long and loose enough to hide the Guardian vambrace that was permanently affixed to his left forearm by divine binding magic. The armguard no longer glistened in the lumanere radiance it once did, soiled black as a raven's tail, but it was still eye-catching and obvious. It must remain shrouded under tattered sleeve.