Undoubtedly, many of the men we recruit to our cause will be followers, content to follow a leader that shows at least a modicum of strength, Lian continued. But others will test the boundaries of my authority, and others besides will resist my authority. For these latter sorts of men, I will need to be their prince and their captain.
Gem remembered discussions between Lian and his mother along these lines, and of course many lessons from Elowyn on the workings of men’s minds and hearts. Lord Grey and Lian had continued these political discussions, and she could see that her wielder was assimilating all of their teachings and melding them into a gestalt of his own. You had excellent examples to follow, Gem said affectionately, meaning his father and eldest brother. You are becoming a man they would have been proud of, Lian. I know that I’m proud of you.
Not caring that Lord Grey would know they’d been talking, Lian patted the sword’s hilt with warm regard, his eyes moist. He entered Qan’s cabin and began cleaning up. “Do you have any weather witchery about you, Lord Grey?” Lian asked as he undressed, knowing that Gem did not.
The necromancer said, “No, Lian, I’m afraid not. I know a few weather prediction spells, but they’re not very reliable unless the singer has a talent for weather magic. If you’re asking if I can predict when Jinian’s ‘blow’ will strike, I cannot.”
Pouring the basin of freshwater over his head, Lian quickly rinsed the sweat off his naked form. It was long past, the time when he would have been uncomfortable being undressed in front of Gem, and it had never been a problem with Lord Grey or Snog.
He’s filled out so much, Gem thought, regarding him with her inhuman senses as he dried himself off. He looks so much like Evan and Rishak in physical form, although he’s definitely keeping his mother’s coloration. Because it was she that maintained the illusion of the darker-skinned and black-haired Staikal yeoman “Alan,” Gem always saw Lian as he truly was under the mask. The freckles were still prominent on his face, but since he rarely went above deck shirtless—primarily to hide the finely woven lashthirin scale armor he wore under his shirt—they’d faded since the coup. She had no doubt that time in the sun would both burn him and bring them back in a riot. His auburn hair had lengthened, and he usually kept it braided back these days.
Some impulse of wildness had compelled him to leave his hair loose for his practice with the axe and shield, and his thick locks of hair had flown everywhere as he’d moved back and forth across the foredeck. He’d seemed like some pale barbarian prince from the north, and Gem had admired him from her perch on the shattered mast.
Finding him a queen won’t be a problem, I should think, she thought to herself with satisfaction, imagining the noblewomen that would vie for his attentions should he win the throne back from his uncle. Finding one that’s honest, well, that’s a different problem, but there’s going to be plenty of competition. It was the most optimistic thought she’d had in months, and if she could have smiled, she would have.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
The venom had been a potent admixture of two different poisons common to the Southron Empire, and if he had not had the foresight to have a healer standing by it would have been a lethal one. He’d chosen his healer carefully, selecting someone who did work for the Thieves’ Guild from time to time. A bit more mercenary than most white mages, she’d been more than happy to take his coin, no questions asked, and stand by in his comfortable apartments for as long as he was willing to pay her.
She’d worked on the poison with clinical detachment and professionalism he had found reassuring, and her calm demeanor had helped to calm him as well. A less experienced healer, or a more excitable one, would probably have helped the poison along by virtue of keeping him from calming down. After her magic worked the venom out of his system, she’d repaired the slight wound, and he’d been good as new, save the small loss of vocal ability that still plagued him. No healing magic that he knew of could help him there; it would just take time to finish his recovery from Sileth’s violent attack.
Now the healer was long departed, her contract with him including confidentiality, although he didn’t really expect her to honor that part of it. She didn’t possess any information that was particularly dangerous to him, however, so it wasn’t an issue. It had been a long time since he was inexperienced enough to make a slip bad enough to require eliminating the help.
Being careful to use a new pair of gloves—no telling how permeable the contact poison was—he took the frog out of the cloth he’d wrapped his old gloves and the figurine in. A simple hand-carved jade figurine, it didn’t look like much, but he imagined he could see the fate of a kingdom revolving about it. Chuckling at his recent bouts of romanticism, he began the laborious process of identifying the toxin (for he was sure there was one) and the magic bound into the figure.
It was nearly noon when he took a break, and he was perplexed. Not in the contact poison; that had been another Kavris purchase for the Avani elf and one that Ammon himself had used from time to time. Once he knew what it was, he’d carefully wiped the tarry smudges off of the jade frog, taking care to do it right.
It was the enchantment on the thing that was confusing him because he had expected extremely powerful sorcery indeed to pierce whatever Lian was using to close the mystical eyes searching for him. Instead, the magic on the figurine was the sort a hedge witch with little personal power would create in order to store enough mana to cast a spell.
Is that the secret? he thought. The very subtlest approach has worked, where the greatest diviners Rishak could hire, bribe, or threaten to work for him came up with nothing? That didn’t make sense, for he was sure many of the assassins and bounty hunters after the prince would only have had access to such petty magics, and so someone should have been able to run Lian down long before he departed Avethiel.
It must be some kind of keyed magic, he decided. Something that can get through the specific protection he’s carrying. Powerful anti-scrying wards could be keyed and they could also be gated, meaning that the one carrying the ward could allow specific individuals or a class of individuals to penetrate the protection.
That made a kind of sense. Perhaps the Dunshor Master of Assassins had given Lian the anti-scrying ward and the frog was Elowyn’s way of finding him again through it. The queen or one of the Master mages captured the thing from Elowyn’s corpse and it’s taken them this long to figure out what it’s for.
Ammon didn’t realize how close he was to being correct, and it really wasn’t his fault for misunderstanding. Elowyn and Celewyn, after all, looked nothing alike, and no one knew of their association. The frog wasn’t keyed to penetrate the warding Firavon’s Key provided. Instead, the Key was allowing the specific magic of the frog through its protection. This was possible because of the instruction Elowyn had given to the Key of Firavon through Lian’s brief touch on it. Let this magic through, was all the extra command had been, along with a clear mental image of the homing device’s magic. The brothers had made a number of other arrangements for the elder to locate and try to aid the rest of the royal family, since which royal survived a major attack (if any) would be a matter of chance.
Unfortunately, the rest of his plans with his brother were no longer relevant. Once Elowyn had killed Lian’s last surviving sister, Jenine—before she could be spellbound into service to Rishak and his line—the youngest child of Evan was the last one as well. Only Lian, protected by Gem, had been given an escape route through Firavon’s Tower, so the frog figurine was specific to him, and it was irreplaceable. Its enchantments were bound at the same time as the little cat figurine that had bitten Lian’s hand in the tower’s scrying chamber and linked together through sympathetic magic and the blood bond between brothers.
It could theoretically be replicated, but that would require two wizards working together and the Key of Firavon in one or the other’s control. While Lian carried it, whatever size it was, it would only respond to him—and then only if Lian was somehow given enough magic
al power to command it.
Ignorant of the true origin of the figurine, the Easterner continued to meditate upon it. So they don’t know the nature of Lian’s protection, and so they can’t make another one, he thought. And if they had two of these things, they probably wouldn’t have invested in hiring the Shadow. It meant that, provided he could avoid Celewyn finding him, he didn’t have to worry about competitors. Rishak and Jisa wouldn’t care who slew Lian, after all, only that the young man’s head was in their possession.
The elf has no choice but to hope Wavecrest gets close enough to Indigo Runner to spot her, and it’s a mightily big ocean, he thought. But on the other hand, I can’t be certain of how much distance lies between them.
He’d sent for maps of the Vellan coast so he could reproduce the chart he’d seen in Celewyn’s cabin, and he had an excellent memory, so he was for the moment sure he remembered the track correctly. Indigo Runner’s bearing—or perhaps Lian’s bearing, he conceded—from the caravel had not significantly deviated over the days the elf had been tracking her, which meant either she was moving directly toward or away from Wavecrest or that she wasn’t moving much at all.
But it matters little, Ammon realized. Even if Celewyn finds Lian and kills him, I still win. He has to take the body back to the Usurpers in order to claim his payment, and this thing will still track a corpse, I’ll wager. If he could best the Shadow once, who’s to say he could not do it again? Without having to worry about damaging or losing the figurine, he could strike Celewyn from a distance with battle spells; at that point it wouldn’t matter if Lian’s body were a little more damaged. He knew one thing for certain: he wouldn’t be closing to weapon range with the Avani assassin again if he could help it!
He dined and rested, rousing himself only to accept the bundle of maps from his contact. He found one that was close to the same region as the one the elf had used and carefully marked it as Celewyn had, as close as he could recall. That done, he settled down with the figurine and began working to plumb its secrets. Soon, Your Highness, he thought. Soon, I’ll see you face to face, and we can be done with this long chase.
Chapter Twenty Five
When the wronged cry out in the darkness
And justice and honor have failed,
When offenses pile high and no one
Will speak for the victim assailed.
There is one will bring vengenance.
There is one will bring terror.
There is one will make tyrants afraid.
In the darkness cry Vengeance!
Three times call thee Vengeance!
And Vengeance will answer her name.
-- “Song of Vengance,” prayersong to Dalgarin as sung in the Southron Empire, forbidden by imperial edict
Jinian’s weather sense was accurate, and a massive storm front bore down upon the crippled merchantman several hours after dark. Having no choice, Lian gave the order to lay Indigo Runner ahull, which meant striking their small sail and letting her drift with the storm. The sea anchor lay lashed to the port rail, unused because the wind and waves built too quickly to deploy it. Lian’s training with Captain Cedrick agreed with the more experienced hands’ opinion: Indigo Runner would smash her rudder to pieces as she was dragged down the sharply building waves by the sea anchor’s pull. If they’d still had even one of the masts they could have rigged the ship with heavily reduced sail and used that to keep her headed up into the waves, but the tiny jib mast was too weak to take the strain of the gale-force winds.
Knowing the storm was coming, the men and goblin had gone through the whole of the ship battening down every hatch tightly, and Lian locked the wheel full to windward relative to the storm’s approach. The wind would pull the bow away from the oncoming waves, and the rudder would work to force the bow into the waves. Depending on how the storm progressed, the rudder might not be enough to keep the ship headed partially into the waves, and she could come to rest abeam of the seas with the waves coming directly from starboard (as Indigo Runner’s initial heading brought the storm to her starboard). If that happened, they would be at Tysleth’s mercy, and if the sea god wanted to capsize them by breaking a wave directly on top of the ship, he would.
Lian faced the onset of the storm with all hands on deck because if Radiel were aware of the storm she might see it as an opportunity to attack while the crew was distracted. The ride became rough quickly, and the ship began corkscrewing as she crested each wave, was fully exposed to the wind driving her to port, then sliding starboard again as she picked up some momentum downslope and the rudder was able to bite into the water.
Before long, the storm intensity grew to the point that Lian and Snog had to lash themselves to the helm post—he was unwilling to go below himself in case his sister cast spells at the ship intended to damage or destroy Indigo Runner. He refused Gem’s offer to sing again the spell to allow him to walk on the pitching deck, not wanting to experience again the seasickness.
The sailors went below into the officers’ cabin, shared by the bosun and chief mate before their death, and alongside Qan’s cabin, but before they went the cook extracted a solemn oath from Lian that if his sister’s presence was detected they’d ring the ship’s bell to summon them to where the two mages could protect the crew along with Lian and his man-at-arms.
The driving wind coming from the forequarter sheeted rain and spray mercilessly across the pair at the helm post. There was little to do other than hold on, for the only steerage the merchant ship had was the rudder and it was hard over fully to starboard already; no additional steerage was to be had.
After Jinian’s pronouncement that a “big blow” was coming, Lian, Gem, and Lord Grey had made a plan that if the rudder lost ground, driving Indigo Runner abeam to the waves, they’d use their magic to try to help haul the bow around. But neither of them had spells suitable for applying that kind of force to an inanimate object, nor enough water affinity to try something like the Avethiel harbormaster’s spell.
Some force applied to the ship to turn her was better than nothing, so after Lian ascertained that singing the spellsong wouldn’t interfere with Lord Grey’s ability to detect Radiel if she approached, he agreed. So far, thankfully, the spells weren’t needed because the rudder was holding their bow partway into the wind.
Drenched to the bone, Lian clung to the aft side of the wheel with Snog huddled at the foot beside him, the goblin partially shielded from the wind and water by virtue of his small size. Water sheeted across the main deck every time the bow rammed into the next wave, but the ship was more than buoyant enough to weather this. It would make crossing the main deck, should that become necessary, very dangerous, but there was a passageway belowdeck that could be used.
Jinian couldn’t tell them how long the storm would last, and neither spellcaster had enough weather talent to determine it themselves, so all they could do was wait it out and hope they weren’t driven into the shallows, nearly faced stern-on into the rocks or shoals as they were. It was going to be a long night.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Hundreds of miles to the east, Ammon watched with satisfaction as the frog turned the cork to the west. It had taken some time to figure out the subtle (and very like an elf) magical passes needed to activate the figurine, but once he’d done so, it was easy to perform and quite reliable; the frog worked every single time he did it. He’d missed those gestures when he’d observed Celewyn through the mirror, they were so subtle, and subtly done. At first the little figurine had sat defiantly on the piece of cork, slowly rotating randomly to the slight movements of the water. I don’t know how you track Lian’s direction, little frog, he thought as he pocketed it and strode toward the long staff of ash that leaned against the window, but I suppose that does not matter.
This particular flying spell required a lot of concentration and skill, but it was faster by far than the one he’d used above Wavecrest. Gripping the staff firmly, he stood confidently on the edge of the balcony wall and sang the forceful
tones and words of the spell. The ash wood beneath his hands seemed to warm in response, and at the critical point he tipped himself over the side and swung his leg across the staff.
Rather than plunging to his death on the flagstones, the staff shot forward into the sky, accelerating and gaining altitude quickly enough to nearly snatch his breath away. He could maintain this spell for only three hours at most before needing rest, but in that time he’d cover more than a hundred and fifty miles. On this first leg he headed southwest instead of nearly due west on the frog’s bearing; the hundred miles or so of southerly travel would allow him to make a distance estimate to the prince, diminishing the risk of overshooting his target.
His instincts told him that he had a significant lead on Celewyn, but he had no way to be certain of that; knowing how far away Lian was could completely change his approach. It might be necessary to teleport blindly out to sea and try to home in by that means, but while he was completely comfortable teleporting to a place he knew well, he was equally uncomfortable trying to teleport anywhere blindly. Mages that did that were oft times mages no one ever heard from again, but he’d chanced that sort of apportation before, and he would do it if he had to. Danger was, as always, a part of this business.
Rushing over the ground at twice the speed of a bird of prey was always a thrill, and he enjoyed watching the terrain pass beneath him as he focused on the spell, occasionally singing a new note to reinforce it. He preferred to fly no more than five hundred yards or so over the ground because while that was high enough to be out of bow range, it was low enough that he could see features and landmarks clearly.
Once, he’d taken the ash staff as high as he could keep breath in his lungs, protected by another spell against the biting cold that existed at such altitudes, but the distant land became uninteresting to him, too far below to retain its meaning. True, he could navigate from that height, providing the cloud cover wasn’t too great, because the world below looked much like a map of the appropriate scale, but he preferred the lower flight level just the same.
By Blood Hunted: Kingsblood Chronicles Part Two (The Kingsblood Chronicles Book 2) Page 35
