Then, before he could ask another question, she vanished, leaving the stable as still and quiet as before her arrival. Despite the uncomfortable warmth, Sorial shivered.
In the days that followed, Sorial found himself dwelling on Ariel’s dire words. It would have been easier if he could dismiss them as the threats of one jealously guarding her exclusivity but, perhaps foolishly, he trusted her sincerity. If she possessed the power she claimed, and there was ample evidence this was the case, she could have killed him at any point. That troubled him. Yet, even if every word she said was true, it wouldn’t change his course. Regardless of what she asserted about his free will, he was trapped by implacable forces. If he succeeded at the portal, he might regain a measure of control over his life and future. For now, however, he was a pawn destined to move where the gamemasters placed him. Acceptance of that allowed him to face the upcoming journey without collapsing in terror.
Nine days later, Warburm came to his room to tell him they would depart at sundown on the morrow. The time had come for Sorial to say his final goodbyes and put to rest any ghosts he cared to exorcise. Regardless of what happened in the Deep South, once he left the streets of Vantok behind, his days as an anonymous stableboy would be done. He would return in triumph or not at all.
Sorial intended to spend the day with Rexall, in whose hands he was leaving Alicia’s safety. Tomorrow, he would see her in the morning before his audience with the king. After that, he would join with the others and walk past the city’s eastern guard post with no fanfare. Once well beyond the city, they would stray from the road and turn southeast, heading in a direction few traveled, and from which fewer returned.
Rexall, who had left his old job with the prospect of taking over Sorial’s post at The Wayfarer’s Comfort’s stable, joined him shortly before noon when the sun was approaching its hottest. Although noticeably cooler than during high Summer, the mid-Harvest heat was withering; people remained inside until late in the afternoon.
Sorial told Rexall about his imminent departure.
“You’re gonna have to see her,” he said. “Every time I go to the temple, that’s the first thing she asks. ‘Where’s that slimy shit?’ Well, maybe not quite in those words, but she sometimes talks like she was raised in a tavern. Most unladylike. Spent too much time with that brute of a guardian, I guess. For a while, she was desperate to see you. Now, she’s just pissed off. No more understanding your reasons for staying away. She’s used up her understanding.”
“I thought it would be easier this way - just seeing her once.”
“You can explain that to her. It ain’t gonna be easy. She’s pretty sure you’ll end up dead. And so am I. Magic? Really, Sor, you never used to believe in fairy tales.”
“If I thought it was a fairy tale, I wouldn’t be going.” That wasn’t entirely true. Sorial was no longer sure what he believed. He recited the argument he had used to convince himself. “When you look around at what’s happened to this city, are you gonna tell me there ain’t no such thing as magic?”
Rexall shrugged. “I’m just an ignorant stableboy. Speaking of which, I guess that means I start tomorrow.”
“Stop in and see Warburm later. And make sure you get the first season’s pay in advance. If I’m not coming back, there’s a good chance he ain’t, either.”
“So no running? You really gonna to do this?”
“No running,” said Sorial. “And no more waiting.”
“Gods, I hope I never fall in love.”
Sorial laughed at that. “You fall in love all the time. You just don’t stay in love.”
“True. That’s the best way. There’s something about the whining and nagging that makes even the prettiest wench turn ugly.”
“I suppose I’ll learn that lesson the hard way.”
“Well, you always threatened to go adventuring someday. Thought it’d be the two of us, though.”
“Somehow, I don’t think this trip is your kinda thing.”
“Especially considering the company you’ll be keeping. Warburm? Those two prigs from the Watch? Your humorless father? Couldn’t they find any women to babysit you?”
The two continued bantering for a while, but the forced light conversation became difficult to maintain. Finally, Sorial said, “You’ll keep her safe while I’m gone?”
“She’s got a sharp tongue, but my skin’s thick. I’ll keep an eye on her, though Vagrum’s all the protection she needs. They gave him a room in the temple so he can be near her. I ain’t sure if he’s still working for her father or doing this out of a sense of responsibility.”
“I leave her in your hands, then.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“For now, let’s go for a swim and have a few drinks. Warburm promised me the good stuff. What he means by that is the ale and beer before it’s been watered down. It still tastes like piss, just stronger.”
“You sure you want to face her in the morning with a hangover?”
Sorial grimaced. “Not really, but I need to get drunk tonight to avoid having to think about tomorrow.”
* * *
Tomorrow came more quickly than Sorial might have wished. He rose from bed with a dull throbbing pain behind his forehead and a sandy feeling in his eyes. He had no clear recollection of making it back to his room last night, but his presence here was proof he had done so.
It took longer than usual for him to execute his morning routine, which involved dousing his face in lukewarm water, scraping a razor across his whiskers, and gulping down a bowl of what Warburm's wife, Mistress Ponari, called “porridge.” The hangover was only part of the reason. Sorial was procrastinating. He was more nervous than he would have admitted to anyone about the meeting with Alicia. The last time he saw her seemed like another lifetime.
This was his first visit to the temple. Under other circumstances, he might have looked in wonder at its magnificence, which was remarked upon far and wide across the continent. This was the physical representation of Ferguson’s seat of power - the same Ferguson who had orchestrated not only Sorial’s birth but the direction of his life. Now, for the first time, he was arriving in the man’s domain.
Entrance to the temple was restricted except during open worship hours. Sorial gave his name to an unsmiling gatekeeper who checked a ledger then let him pass. Another equally dour priest approached and, without a word, motioned for him to follow. He was led through a series of hallways and stairways that were unlikely to be commonly used by visitors. Apparently, Sorial was expected. By the time he was guided to his destination, he was lost. The temple corridors contained so many intersections and turns that they resembled a maze and Sorial, who didn’t possess the best sense of direction (not much of necessity when working in a stable), doubted he could backtrack without aid. He wondered whether the route had been selected to confound him and thereby limit the chance of a successful escape or if it really was the most direct way to Alicia’s chamber.
His guide brought him to a simple, unprepossessing door. After rapping twice on the wood and announcing, “You have a visitor, Your Ladyship,” the priest was gone. Sorial stood alone in the silent corridor with an ache in his head and his heart thudding in his chest.
She let him wait for what seemed like an eternity before admitting him. Then, with the portal flung wide, she stood there, framed in the doorway with sunlight streaming through an open window behind her, looking both hauntingly lovely and breathtakingly angry. Her expression was serene but there was a familiar glint in those eyes. Impatiently, she beckoned him across the threshold then, once he was in, shut the door behind him a little more firmly than was necessary. He winced and swore off ale forever.
“Assume anything we say or do will be heard and reported,” she said by way of introduction.
She offered no sign of affection - no warm greeting, no kiss, no embrace. Instead, she turned her back to him and gazed out the window. The direct sunlight glinted off her pale hair, turning it to spun gold. It was surprisingl
y cool here - certainly more comfortable than in Sorial’s room in the inn.
“I should have come earlier,” said Sorial, acknowledging the error. Despite the reasons given to Warburm and to Rexall, cowardice had kept him away - cowardice of facing Alicia once he made his decision.
“Yes, you should have,” she responded in a clipped tone.
“It’s just that... I couldn’t face you after choosing. I’m a coward.”
“No, stableboy, you’re not a coward,” she said, her voice soft, her tone brittle. “But you’re selfish. You made this choice by yourself, without discussing it with me. You don’t seem to remember that your actions impact my life as directly as they do yours.”
“I’m doing this for us...”
“No!” She rounded on him. The mask dropped. Tears pooled in eyes blazing with fury. Sorial had envisioned many things when imaging this meeting; this reaction wasn’t one of them. “You’re doing this for you. You can pretend it’s for us, but deep down, you know it isn’t. Yes, if by some miracle you succeed, we can be married with the blessing of the king and the Temple and my father and everyone else. But I’ll be your prize not your wife. I’m your reward for doing what they tell you to do. And you’ll have power and respect and money and people bowing and scraping to you. But if you fail, and you most likely will, you won’t have to live with any consequences. I will. I’ll have to wait here in my ivory tower, worrying about you, until someone remembers to tell me you’re dead and I continue this vigil until my next unfortunate suitor comes along and decides to martyr himself to the same cause. Then, fifteen years from now, I’ll be released from my imprisonment with no hope of marriage or any kind of future. Because the man who was supposed to wait for me will have been dead for half my life.”
Perhaps it was the accusatory tone of her voice. Or maybe it was that the words twisted his motivations, if only a little, but Sorial found a spark of anger of his own. His response, intended to be conciliatory, was anything but that. “If I was thinking of myself, I’d be in Basingham now. Or Syre. Or Obis. I’d be somewhere safe, living an anonymous life - the kind of life someone like me is supposed to have. But I’m doing this because it’s the only chance we got to be together. D’you think they’d ever let us marry, even in fifteen years, if I run? You know them! D’you think I put so little value on my life that I’d throw it away? In the last two seasons, I’ve learned a lot about myself and the goals of those who put us in this position. Sitting up here in your ‘ivory tower’, where you’re a captive but safe, you ain’t got the right to judge me! The price of failure’s my life, Alicia, not yours.”
Sorial braced himself for another fusillade, but Alicia surprised him. Instead of yelling, she smiled sadly. The tears pooling in her eyes escaped and trickled down her cheeks.
“You may be right,” she admitted. “But sitting here doing nothing is the worst thing. I could bear it if it wasn’t so hopeless, if I could believe this wasn’t the last time we’ll see each other.”
The temptation was strong to tell her about Ariel. Assume anything we say or do will be heard and reported. He couldn’t take the risk, even if it would ease Alicia’s worries by confirming to her that there were wizards and his bloodline had produced one. But to tell Alicia would be to tell Ferguson, and this was one secret he didn’t intend to allow the prelate to have - not now and perhaps not ever. If secrets were the currency in which his creators traded, he needed to accumulate his own stash.
“Although I ain’t got complete faith in all this - for all I know, I won’t even make it to the portal - there’s more hope than either of us believed two seasons ago. Warburm made a case that this heat wave is the work of a wizard, and I agree. Ain’t nothing normal about it. We’re at war with someone possessing magic and we don’t realize it. We need a wizard to fight back.”
“Why you?”
“I’ve given up asking that question, and you should too. It was supposed to be one of my brothers, but they died. Or my sister, but she disappeared.” Then found her own way. “But if magic is back, if wizards are back, then touching the portal ain’t an automatic death sentence.”
“I love Sorial the stableboy,” said Alicia quietly. “I’m not sure how I’d feel about Sorial the wizard. Don’t pretend there won’t be a difference. You and I both know there will be. Will what we have still be there?”
Sorial didn’t know. He accepted that if he returned to Vantok, it wouldn’t be as the same person. He had never considered how Alicia would feel about that. He hoped the things she loved about him wouldn’t change, but he couldn’t offer assurances. “It’s a risk we got to take. It’s the only chance we got. Rexall argues that the smart thing for me to do is run away to one of the cities in the North, wait fifteen years, then come back and claim you. It’s a nice fantasy, and one I thought ’bout. But with no one to stop this heat, there won’t be a Vantok in another three or four years, and certainly not fifteen. And what happens after this city’s abandoned? Does the heat continue north? Where will you be taken? What will they do with you once Vantok is lost?
“Then there’s what Ferguson and Warburm and their group invested in me. They’ve spent forty years waiting for this moment. If I run, they won’t just let me go. Ferguson’s got contacts in every city, town, and tiny settlement. Someone will find me and I’ll be brung back here in chains. At least by agreeing to go with them now, I ain’t a prisoner. They’re ruthless men, especially when thwarted.”
“Did they kill Annie?”
“I don’t know. Warburm says no.”
“But you don’t believe him.”
“No. Her death was too convenient and he admitted she was in the way. Robbers would’ve raped her, beaten her, stolen her few coins. Warburm’s lying because he don’t want me focused on a vendetta against him.”
“What will you do?”
“Someday, if I live through his, there’ll be a reckoning. I’ll get the truth from him if I have to squeeze it through his broken, bleeding mouth. And he’ll pay the price for what he did to her. Being Vantok’s wizard doesn’t mean being Warburm’s puppet.”
From there, their conversation strayed to inconsequential topics, with each gradually relaxing in the other’s presence. The closeness and camaraderie they had enjoyed in the months leading up to Alicia’s Maturity couldn’t be recaptured in a few hours, but they were able to put the rancor behind them. As the minutes ticked by, however, awareness grew that the time of their farewell was approaching.
A discreet knock at the door brought an abrupt end to their encounter. “Your Ladyship, Master Warburm is awaiting your guest at the main entrance.” The familiar voice didn’t belong to the priest who had escorted Sorial here.
“So this is it,” said Alicia, rising along with Sorial from where they sat side-by-side on the bed.
“Guess so. I got an audience with the king before leaving at sunset. Warburm probably wants me to pack but other than my dagger, I got nothing to bring. Strange that after seventeen years, I got so little to my name.”
“Did they tell you how long it will take? The journey, I mean.”
Sorial shook his head. “They ain’t said much except they hope it’ll be done by Planting. I asked Rexall to stop in to see you while I’m gone. If you need anything, ask him. He’ll refuse, of course, then do it anyway.”
Alicia wrinkled her nose. “You once said he’d grow on me. I’m still waiting for that to happen.”
Sorial laughed but his demeanor quickly turned serious as he put a finger under her chin to tilt her head upward. Their kiss was decorous but lingering. Both were keenly aware that this might be the last time their lips met.
“Goodbye,” said Alicia in a small voice, her eyes again glistening.
“I’ll be back,” said Sorial. “And then no one will be able to keep us apart.” He turned away quickly so she wouldn’t see the unshed tears in his eyes.
Outside Alicia’s room, Vagrum waited. The big man nodded to Sorial but said nothing. Their trek th
rough the temple’s maze of corridors proceeded in silence. Finally, as they approached the exit, Vagrum stopped and turned to Sorial, extending his hand for the younger man to shake. “I ain’t a man of many words. You know that. So I ain’t got no long farewell speech for you. But I know how much you mean to her and what it’ll be like if you die trying to do somethin’ she don’t believe in. Come back to her.”
“Protect her till I do,” Sorial responded, matching Vagrum’s grip with one of equal firmness. Then he left the temple behind to join Warburm and face an uncertain future.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: CATCHING A KING
Sitting across from Ferguson always made Azarak feel like a supplicant. It took him back to his misspent youth when the strict, ponderous tutors hired by his father would fix him with a disapproving stare if he gave a wrong answer.
They faced each other across the table in Azarak’s private sitting room as they had done so many times in the past. And, as on many of those occasions, the king wondered whether they were meeting as grudging allies, rivals with a common cause, or something in between. Azarak didn’t doubt Ferguson’s loyalty to Vantok but being loyal to a city wasn’t the same as being a subject of the king. And the existence (or non-existence) of the gods made little difference to the prelate’s power base. His title might be that of Vantok’s spiritual leader but he was a secular force to be reckoned with. The king suspected that if Ferguson wanted the throne, he could probably have it - not that such a thing appealed to the prelate. Still, it wasn’t a comforting consideration.
Azarak wondered if the revelation of every one of Ferguson’s countless secrets might put him in a better position to protect his city and win the war that could be coming. Maybe there were things he was better off not knowing. A glance at the placid, unperturbed features of Vantok’s top priest offered no insight.
Their opening pleasantries behind them, they began to discuss matters of import. Ferguson had requested this meeting; the agenda was his. Azarak assumed the time had arrived for the prelate to divulge another meager morsel of his private knowledge. Patience was a reliable ally in meetings with Ferguson, who would reveal what he intended in his own way, in his own time.
The Last Whisper of the Gods Page 31
