"The Prince will answer the invitation," the sage said, stepping from his alcove and approaching the king in two slow, fluid steps. "The signs are on the wind."
The sage did not flinch back as the messenger had done. His blind eyes had stared into Dragonfire too long to be of any further use in the mortal world. In the center of the sage's bald head was an agonizing red scar, the place where the puncture had been made and a drop of Dragon blood poured in.
"Will he try to marry the Exalted Warrior? Is she Dragonmarked?"
Duruno clicked his tongue as though he thought the question unworthy of the king. "She is most assuredly Dragonmarked, Sire. Perhaps more so than the leader of any other world. Varian would be a fool not to compete for her hand."
Rillaur had always found discussions of the Dragons unpleasant, at least until recently, when it became clear to him that Varian would appear at the Dragon Moon Festival without a Dragonborn heir. Thus, he knew that only his heir, Rurick, was Dragonborn, and he had every reason to believe the Dragons would give him control of Tellan once they killed Prince Varian.
"What do you mean by that? A woman is Dragonmarked, or she is not."
The sage blinked his blind eyes and wandered over to the rose crystal windows. He reached up uncertainly to touch the glass. "The Sarl are a special race. Their Dragon is unlike any other Protector in the Known Worlds—more ancient, more powerful, wiser and deadlier. Our Dragon, Brighthill, fears him and refuses to speak his name."
"By the burning dogs of the North, Varian must not marry that woman!"
Duruno faced the king. "Brighthill says there are signs in the rain that say she may choose Varian."
"What use is that?" The king tossed the parchment onto his desk. "Almost anything may or may not happen. Will she or won't she?"
"I said there are signs in the rain, my liege. It means that as things stand, she will, but the rains are unstable and fleeting and show us possibilities. They are rivulets against which dams and embankments may be successfully made."
"What must I do to stop this joining of the Exalted Warrior and Varian?"
Duruno shrugged, and stared off into whatever void his blind eyes beheld.
Rillaur pursed his lips and waited. He wondered if, given the shortness of time, it were even possible for Varian to produce another heir. "If this Exalted Warrior is merely pregnant, is that enough to save Varian?"
Duruno switched to Dragon and spoke a string of nonsense words. It irritated Rillaur when Duruno showed off in this fashion, but he ignored it.
"Brighthill says that the Exalted Warrior of the Sarl has the power to shake the Prophecy."
"What are you talking about?" Rillaur shouted, then calmed himself and spoke more softly. "What does it mean to 'shake the Prophecy'?"
"I can only tell you what Brighthill tells me. She says that she sees the Prophecy as a field of wheat, and the Exalted Warrior as a storm, hail and lightning sweeping over the land toward it."
Rillaur felt his heart speed up again. "Is this like the rain? Is it uncertain? Can it still be stopped?"
"The storm follows the rain, Majesty. If it does not rain, then perhaps the hail and lightning will fall elsewhere."
Rillaur nodded. "I know what I must do. Please leave me."
Sage Duruno bowed and drifted back to his alcove.
The king walked over to the bird cage. He pulled at the gilded door and reached in, placing his wrist near the raven's feet. Obligingly, it hopped on and Rillaur withdrew his hand.
The king walked to the window and opened it.
"Go and kill something," he whispered to the bird, then he thrust his hand outwards and watched the raven fly away. Mother had trained this bird exceptionally well, and he had come to value it.
****
As Rillaur finished his dinner with Sage Duruno that evening, a man walked into his private dining room unannounced.
The visitor had been expected, but not until the next morning. He had shoulder-length blond hair, a youngish looking face that made the king well aware of his own age, and amber-colored eyes that seemed to reach into Rillaur's soul and find his vulnerabilities.
His eyes alone were enough to make most men step a bit to the side as he passed, but tonight his black trousers and matching silk shirt made him almost the human twin of the raven perched on his shoulder.
As though aware of the impression he gave, he wore a cocky grin.
Rillaur had an instance of shock at the sudden appearance of the man but composed himself almost instantly. After using Vaurt on several occasions, he should have expected this kind of arrival.
"Duruno," Rillaur said, turning to the sage, "please give me a moment alone with our guest."
There was no response. The king repeated his request, but Duruno sat slumped over in his chair with his meal on his lap.
Rillaur stood to check on him.
"Don't bother," Vaurt said.
Startled, the king looked at Vaurt, who grinned.
"I believe that Duruno's ale was too strong for him. He will remain asleep for the next two hours at least."
"You poisoned him?"
The assassin shrugged one shoulder as though to pass off a well-deserved compliment.
Dropping into his seat, Rillaur stared at his half-empty mug. Duruno's ale had been on the same tray as his own.
"I wouldn't worry about your drink." Vaurt sat in a chair on the other end of the table. The raven flew off his shoulder and found a perch on top of a nearby bookcase. "I only put the sleeping draught in the Dragonspeaker's drink." Vaurt met the king's eyes and held them. "I didn't want to have a witness to our conversation."
Rillaur swallowed. The poison that had rendered Duruno unconscious might just as easily have killed King Rillaur himself. He had to find a way to reclaim control of this meeting.
Vaurt grinned again and plopped his boots on the edge of the table, lacing his fingers behind his head. "I assume you have a job for me."
Rillaur gripped the edge of the table to hide the trembling that always overtook him in the presence of one of the high assassins. "Do you think you could pretend to be my cousin?"
Vaurt raised a single eyebrow, and the gesture made Rillaur's stomach clench. He stood and strode toward the bird cage. He lifted his arm and waited impatiently for the raven to return to him. When it did, he opened the cage door and put the bird inside.
His father had cautioned him against having an assassin on his secret staff, but Rillaur preferred mother's advice to do what he had to do to protect the kingdom, and Vaurt had served him well. So far.
"I played the part of a Tellan stablehand a few months ago, and now I am to be part of the Andarnnon nobility? It is a bit of a step up."
"Can you do it?"
"Of course, Your Majesty. Have no worries on that regard."
"I need you to go to Carrick." He handed Vaurt the invitation. "I have reason to believe that Prince Varian will be in attendance, trying to win the hand of Exalted Warrior Moonrazer in a competition of some sort. You are to make sure that doesn't happen."
"You want him dead? Or is he merely to lose?" Vaurt studied the parchment, now all business.
"I do want him dead. I'm finished playing this cat-and-mouse game of waiting for the Dragons to do the job. I will have Tellan."
"Of course, that is for the Dragons to decide." Vaurt met the king's eyes and raised his eyebrow again.
Rillaur clenched his jaw. Any other man wouldn't dare to contradict him this way.
After holding Vaurt's gaze for only a heartbeat, the king dropped his eyes and said, "You will be Lord Olivier, my cousin, who is attending the competition in my place."
****
Moonrazer sneezed. Olaf and Adazzra grinned, but Adazzra rubbed her nose.
"It is dusty. I apologize." Boros, Moonrazer's foster brother and cousin, pulled a rag out of his apron pocket and wiped down a stool. "Please, Warrior, sit."
Boros was a short, solidly built man with hair the color of smoke and as
h. He had studied at one of the major universities of the Known Worlds, spoke many languages, and now worked in the Sarl archive.
After the Navin had been defeated, many cities and villages that had been abandoned by the Sarl were rebuilt. Moonrazer had assigned Sarl warriors to retrieve whatever historical documents or artifacts they could find and store them in a warehouse behind the Tower built for that purpose.
For a number of blizzards, these items lay virtually forgotten. No one had made a comprehensive list of what items the warehouse contained, nor had they done anything to organize the piles of documents and scrolls.
Boros' schooling had given him a love of learning and when he moved to Carrick with the other Sarl, he volunteered to take on the task of cleaning and preserving this part of Sarl history.
Adazzra looked around the warehouse. "What chaos," she said. "You could hide a mountain bear here, and no one would be the wiser."
The Exalted Warrior smiled. "You were not here several moon cycles ago when this building was finished and all these things were brought in. My warriors often have little regard for the historical value of things, and all the documents, artifacts, and even possible relics were tossed wherever room could be found. At least today, we can walk through the place without risking the destruction of Lorelii's water jug or Grayskin's helmet."
Moonrazer sat on the offered stool. "You have made great progress."
"Thank you, Warrior. There is still much to do but I did find something interesting in the scrolls about the Choosing Rituals."
Moonrazer rubbed her shoulder. "Please do not tell me there is some other tradition I have to satisfy or some other complicated ceremony to perform."
"I don't know anything about that," Boros said, "but I am curious. The Choosing Rituals are to culminate in a hunt, and whatever the men catch are to be given to you as an offering. Did Whiteshadow tell you anything about what happens if one of the Candidates makes an unworthy offering?"
"I'm not sure I even knew that much. By unworthy, I assume you mean an offering I do not accept?" Moonrazer asked. "I would think I send him on his way."
"So, she didn't tell you that Candidates who present offerings deemed unworthy by the Mother Prioress are to be killed with the Sword of Justice?"
Moonrazer gasped and stared at him. "She certainly told me nothing like this. Are you certain that is part of the Choosing?"
"There is no doubt," Boros said. "We have a scroll written by Mother Bloodring, Prioress during the time of Moonstone the First. She was the first Exalted Warrior to require a Choosing Ritual, and apparently Mother Bloodring designed the Rituals and Tests based on a vision she had of the Holy One."
"This doesn't make sense," Adazzra said. "What constitutes an unworthy sacrifice? It can't just be that Moonrazer doesn't accept it."
"The scrolls only say that it is up to the Mother Prioress to decide if an offering is unworthy. I think that must mean that none of the Candidates can make an offering Whiteshadow doesn't accept and still live."
The ache in Moonrazer's shoulder grew worse. "But we do not know for sure."
"I'm afraid not, Warrior," he said. "This scroll is incomplete. At least the lack of an end piece seems to indicate that."
"Possibly if we had the end of the scroll, we would have the answers to those questions," Olaf said.
"Again, there is no way of being sure."
"We need the rest of the scroll before I can continue with this Ritual," Moonrazer said. "If Whiteshadow only has what you have, she could easily insist that any Candidate she does not like is unworthy and deserving of death."
Adazzra scowled. "Even she couldn't be that legalistic. She couldn't condone the killing of innocent men, could she?"
The Exalted Warrior sighed. "At this point, I cannot say that. She seems very set on this Ritual being done the way it has been throughout Sarl history, and if all she has to go on is a copy of this one—" She waved her hand over the papers in front of Boros. "—she could certainly insist on a strict interpretation."
Adazzra faced Moonrazer. "You can't go through with this."
"Whiteshadow certainly won't let me change anything about the Rituals. Right now, we are trying to re-establish the traditional ways. My people have been scattered for so long, they need these traditions to forge their sense of identity as one people."
"This isn't the kind of tradition you need to re-establish," Adazzra said. "You can change this. No one alive now has ever seen a Choosing Ritual. Why does it have to be the way it was two hundred years ago?"
"My sister, I do not want to have to kill anyone either, but we cannot decide that we do not like this rule or that law. Surely you understand that that would render all the writings meaningless."
"You are the Exalted Warrior. That must mean something in situations like this. You know this goes against the teachings of Janico. Killing an innocent is wrong."
"Would the unworthy Candidate be considered innocent?" Olaf asked.
Adazzra glared at their friend. "Of course he would be. None of them would take part in the Rituals knowing this could be the outcome." She turned back to Moonrazer. "You have to do something."
"I will do something, my sister. Whiteshadow surely knows this, but chose not to tell me. She must have a reason."
"She knows you'd never let this Ritual continue."
Moonrazer patted Adazzra's hand. "I know you are angered by this, but let me handle it. I promise you I will not cut some man's head off without a better reason than he killed too small a boar or something. I need to find out what the Mother Prioress is planning before I confront her."
"I would like to see her scroll," Boros said. "I believe this is not the original scroll, but we haven't found any other copies. If the Mother Prioress has the original, it would be of great value."
"Could there be another copy at the Temple of Joyful Balance?" Olaf asked. "Or even the original?"
Moonrazer shook her head. "We have discussed this, Olaf. You are not to try to get there again. It is too dangerous."
"What are you talking about?" Adazzra asked.
The Exalted Warrior looked at Adazzra. "The Temple of Joyful Balance was where the priests were trained before the Navin came. Priestesses, of course, went to the Fountain of Infallible Light."
"Getting into the Temple might be the only way to know what the rest of the scroll says," Olaf said.
"No," Moonrazer said. "The Temple is impossible to get to."
Boros spoke up. "The warriors told me how hard it was to get just the few documents they did find in that area. The Temple itself is at the bottom of a massive lake."
"The Navin flooded it," Moonrazer said, "as they did so many of our villages. They believed, according to legend, that a treasure, something called the Vessel of Life, was hidden under the ice. Whatever this treasure was, it was believed to give whoever possessed it great power and riches."
She leaned back on the stool. "They nearly ravished the whole of Carrick looking for this treasure, melting great areas of ice and glaciers with dark magic. In the process, they ended up, after many blizzards, flooding about half of the world, killing many animals that lived here. An entire species of snow bear was wiped out. The face of World Carrick is very different now from what it was in my ancestors' time."
"When I first came here to live," Olaf said, "I attempted to swim to the Temple, but the Navin did more than flood that area. They released ancient monsters, frozen for centuries in the ice. The immense creatures emerged ravenous and devoured any creatures daring to near the shore. I was severely injured just coming through the mountain pass that leads to the lake. Several warriors who accompanied me were killed."
Moonrazer held her hands in front of her as though in defeat. "It is a hopeless mission."
"Perhaps not." Boros hurried over to the drawer where many scrolls were kept. "The monsters are not always in the lake," he said when he returned. "There is one scroll that is completely intact even though it was written near the time of Graysk
in, the first Exalted Warrior. It describes the mating habits of what the writer calls 'the Lake Serpents.' They come out of the lake and move into the mountains to mate just before the first full moon of the warm season." He looked triumphantly at Moonrazer.
"If what you suggest is true, then the creatures would still return to their mating grounds the same time every year," Moonrazer said. "The first full moon of the warm season is in two days. How long is the lake empty?"
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