“Is it so tempting to you, too?” Danner asked suddenly.
“Not so much anymore,” the other replied. “I grew up with it, and my family has been preparing me almost since birth. They worked very hard to impress upon me the responsibility that came along with my gift. I actually have to work to block out people’s thoughts during our tests so I don’t accidentally get an answer I wouldn’t otherwise know. It also keeps out the wrong answers so I don’t second-guess myself, of course.”
Danner nodded, still deep in thought.
“You know, never mind any of that crap I said before,” he said. “What use to pass a test or gain popularity if we don’t really learn the material or earn the respect? It’s not fair otherwise.”
Trebor nodded in agreement. Then Danner shrugged.
“Well, maybe at least we can hang on to that whole idea of knowing something about what’s coming up next,” he said, smiling. “I don’t want to spoil any surprises, but a little bit of forethought could save us from some serious mishaps, and we could warn the other trainees, too, just so it would be fair. No one has to know how we found out.” His smile broadened. “Oh, and as for avoiding pranks, could we keep that one, too? If not to avoid them, at least to give us more time to work out how we’re going to respond. Would that strain your conscience?”
Trebor laughed aloud, a sharp, barking sound.
“I think I could stretch it that far, yes,” he replied, smiling. “And I think we’ll have to work out some way to tell the others. If we’re all to be friends, I think it’s something they should know.”
Danner rolled his eyes.
“You just stole that from my mind, and you know it!”
“But it was such a good thought, and I was just borrowing it!”
The two of them stared at each other a moment before they burst out laughing.
Chapter 23
Temperance can most easily be defined as proper self-restraint. Passion must be tempered by reason.
- “An Examination of Prismatic Virtue” (801 AM)
- 1 -
As it turned out, a way to tell the others found them before they found it. The two friends were still laughing when Trebor suddenly stiffened at Danner’s side and held out a hand to stop him.
“Wait, something’s wrong up ahead,” he said softly. He stared into the trees, seeing with his mind rather than his eyes and then looked at Danner. “It’s Flasch, or rather it’s Flasch worried about Garnet.”
He was silent a moment.
“Talk to me, Trebor,” Danner urged softly. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Garnet is behind a tree relieving himself, and Flasch is staring at a faerer that’s stalking nearby.” He paused. “Flasch doesn’t think the faerer has seen Garnet yet, or smelled him since he’s downwind, but if he starts walking away, he’ll probably startle it, and the faerer might attack.”
“Shniek,” Danner cursed. “So what the Hell do we…”
“No, Flasch,” Trebor said, but not just with his mouth. “Flasch, it’s me, Trebor. Don’t question, just stay still and don’t call out to him.”
Trebor redirected his thoughts.
“Garnet, if you want to stay alive, hold very still and don’t make a sound.”
“Trebor?!?”
“Yes. I’ll explain later. Right now, there’s a faerer stalking something about four trees to your right. Look for the yellow stripes. I can’t tell what he’s hunting, but for now it’s not you.”
Trebor frowned as he felt something alien on the fringe of his thoughts, as though there was another consciousness there with telepathic abilities. He searched for another denarae or even a human or demi-human, but found only his friends and the faerer. He ignored the sensation and watched the hunting cat through Flasch’s eyes. His friend was aware of what Trebor was doing, if not how he was doing it, and was almost as afraid of the sensation as he was excited by its strangeness.
“It’s alright, Flasch,” Trebor assured him silently. “This won’t hurt you.”
“How do you know? Has anyone ever looked out of your eyes before?”
“Yes. I was a very well-behaved little boy, because I knew my parents could do this and find out all the mischief I had been up to, or was currently up to. It made getting into trouble much more interesting.”
Trebor heard Flasch’s mental laugh and felt the human relax, making Trebor’s job much easier.
Eventually, the faerer moved on. Trebor could have sworn it looked directly at him, which was absurd because he was looking out of Flasch’s eyes, and had the faerer seen any of them, it surely would have either attacked or fled immediately. Eventually, it caught the scent of prey on the wind and loped off out of sight.
Trebor waited a full ten minutes before telling Flasch and Garnet they were safe. Well before then, Marc and Michael caught up with Danner and Trebor, and Danner quickly outlined the situation for them. Realizing the danger, they wisely withheld questions until Trebor had announced it safe, and the six of them gathered together again.
After that, it was time for Trebor to tell his secret once more. Strangely, it felt easier now that he’d already told Danner. Their reactions were similar, even to the point of wanting to use his talent for their own gains. A normal reaction, Trebor thought, for all that he’d been schooled against it since birth. It took Danner reminding them of the same class lesson to bring them up short, and in the end they all agreed to the same restrictions upon which Trebor and Danner had decided.
Namely, Trebor would not actively scan the other trainees or their instructors, but he would pay attention to any tidbits that came his way during his normal state of mind. Anything he came up with would be passed on, if possible, to the other trainees and explained away as just something one of them had overheard. Which was essentially the truth, it was only the manner of how it had been overheard they were obscuring.
Trebor had also agreed to warn them if any pranks were aimed their way, if only so they could prepare a suitable retort. Innocent enough uses, and even Danner agreed they in no way gave them an unfair advantage over their peers, just so long as they distributed what hints they could about anything Trebor gleaned from their instructors.
Flasch finally had the presence of mind to ask what to call Trebor’s gift.
“We call it kything,” the disguised denarae replied. “Supposedly that’s what the immortals called it when they spoke to each other in the same way, and that’s where my people took the name.”[39]
While they were discussing Trebor’s abilities, they resumed their journey under Garnet’s careful guidance; near nightfall, they found the dashed line they had been seeking. Danner was relieved to see it was indeed a stream, with crystal-clear water meandering along down from the slopes of the nearby mountains. They filled their canteens and themselves with the cool water, then Flasch and Garnet set about making a fire.
Danner was slipping his second canteen back into the pouch on his war belt when he suddenly felt cold. No, it wasn’t cold… it was enmity. Hatred. Danner had never felt such palpable loathing in his life, not even from the Coalition against the non-human members of the world. This was something different, even inhuman. It just felt… wrong! Without knowing how or why, Danner was suddenly afraid. His vision wavered, and he nearly fell into the water as dizziness stole his balance.
“Danner, don’t move.”
Danner heard Trebor’s voice in his head and his thoughts snapped back into focus. He froze, his canteen still only half in the pouch.
“What’s going on, Trebor?” he asked. Despite his fear, Danner was amazed at how natural it felt to be talking with Trebor through his mind. Maybe it was because he trusted his friend, or perhaps he just thought the ability too amazing to be afraid of it.
“Flasch just spotted the faerer, and it’s right across the stream. It’s watching you.”
Whatever remained of Danner’s calm detachment disappeared in fresh waves of fear from within and of hatred from without. The f
aerer? No. God save him, it was a demon! Danner was suddenly sure of that as he’d never been more sure of anything in his life.
Danner looked up slowly from his canteen and saw it. Crouched not thirty feet from him, the fearer was all but invisible behind the leaves and shadows of a low bush. He met the creature’s eyes and flinched. They burned with an awful intensity that somehow reminded Danner of his uncle, and at the same time made him less afraid. He read something in that gaze that went beyond words, beyond human thought. He knew that while the creature was, in fact, a demon, it was not here to kill him.
Oh, it had been hunting him, of that Danner had no doubt. Not as prey, but for some other purpose that was hidden behind those eyes where Danner couldn’t reach. Danner trembled at the enmity behind the faerer-demon’s eyes, but instead of turning to flee ─ as any sane man should do when confronted by a demon from Hell ─ Danner took a step nearer. Then another. And another.
When he reached the water, he waded slowly across, never taking his eyes from the crouched hunter.
“Danner, what in San’s name do you think you’re doing? Are you crazy?” Trebor kythed to him.
“Probably. But just go with me on this one, keep everyone back, and stay quiet. You’re making me nervous.”
“I’m making you nervous?” Trebor replied incredulously. But he was silent after that.
Danner reached the other side of the stream and stood barely a dozen feet from the demon cat. It’s hatred was even more palpable than before, rolling forth in waves of unbearable loathing, but Danner also felt an undercurrent of uncertainty. Whether or not the demon was aware that Danner knew it’s true nature, still it must be confused as to why Danner was walking closer. Faerer or demon, neither was the type of being that a man approached if he had any wish to remain alive.
“I know what you are,” Danner said evenly, his voice miraculously steady and free of the fear he felt eating away at his resolve. “I don’t know why you’re stalking me and mine, but it’s going to stop right now. I know how to destroy you, and if I can’t then one of my friends surely will.”
The demon stared at him coldly, its eyes narrowing.
“There are six of us, and all it takes is one to draw the holy mark. Three little lines, and you either suffer in agony or die outright. Can you withstand two markings of the Tricrus on you? Three?”
The faerer-demon’s lips drew back in a snarl, and it growled fiercely in the back of its throat. But it didn’t attack. In fact, it took a step back.
“I can tell when you’re near, and if I sense you again, we’ll come hunting you. Do we understand each other?”
The demon glared hatefully at him, then abruptly disappeared into the underbrush. Danner couldn’t see or hear anything, but he felt the wrongness fading from his awareness. When it was gone, he turned back toward his friends. Before he could take more than a step, his legs buckled out from beneath him, and Danner crumpled to the ground beside the stream.
Across the water, his friends stared at his still form in silence.
- 2 -
Birch reined in his horse as they came within sight of the harbor. Ankor lay sprawled before them like the carcass of a dead animal left to rot obscenely in the sun. Even from this distance, Birch could smell the stench of the uncleansed waters lashing filth against the docks. The city – and Birch was giving it far too much credit by calling it such – was crammed between a series of hills that all but hid it from outside view until you were practically on top of it. As Nuse had accurately pointed out earlier, “You can smell the city before you can see it.”
Vander reined in beside Birch and pointed toward the city. “The high hills serve to trap the stench and the befouled air created by the burning of peat, which is the town’s source of, well, everything.” The Orange paladin wrinkled his nose in distaste. “They burn the peat for fuel in their fires and torches, somehow managing to ignore the stench and fumes it creates. They spread the mud-like slime in the sun to dry and craft large blocks from it, which are then shipped out on the regularly-docking vessels you can see there bobbing in the water.
“Peat moss is a dense, spongy material that, if allowed to die and sit long enough, is the source of the peat. It’s also harvested and shipped out to the elven islands for their use in agriculture. Peat moss is ideal for the planting of rare, delicate plants; the high water-content of the moss keeps the plants from drying out. The moss is also used worldwide as a source of fertilizer.”
Nuse glanced at Vander with an amused glance.
“When you say that in such a dry tone, you take all the poetry out of this little gem, brother Vander,” the Blue paladin said.
James whistled from behind them and Vander trotted back to speak to the Yellow paladin. A few minutes later, he and two other riders galloped down toward the town.
Despite its appearance, Ankor was practically bursting with money. Or rather, a few men who ran the town had homes practically bursting with money, while the citizens were merely bursting with sickness. In the years when Birch was still a child, a plague had come from the peat bogs that were the town’s source of wealth, wiping out half the citizens in a matter of days. The entire city was quarantined, and the survivors were left to fend for themselves. Birch remembered hearing stories of it from the men he rowed across Demar Lake.[40]
Attempts had been made to drain the bogs and clear them to stop the spread of sickness, but the wealthy merchants who made their livings from the peat wouldn’t allow it. Instead, the bogs were still visible off to one side of the town, sitting like a festering sore that was too valuable to allow to heal.
Since the plague, the bogs were still a constant source of sickness. The people had developed a natural resistance to all but the harshest of illnesses, but the constant activity of their bodies fighting to maintain their health left them weary and listless, too tired to do more than complain when the overseers came to move them off the next day to work. It was a sad, dreary place, and Birch wanted to stop and put things aright almost as much as he wanted to be swiftly through and away from such a miserable existence.
“So much for the charity of mankind,” he murmured in self-disgust.
“Arre talken t’ y’sself, thar, Bark?” a rough voice asked from behind him. Birch turned and grimaced at the orange-cloaked dwarf astride a tall, green dakkan.
“No, Ben, I’m not. And it’s Birch, if you please.” It wouldn’t do any good, but Birch reminded him again anyway.
“Roit, sorry bet that.”
Ben, or more properly the Orange paladin Benatrangin Moroken, smiled his fierce smile and bobbed his thick head. Years ago, when Birch was first helping Moreen renovate her newly-purchased inn, a barrel half-full of pig iron had upturned and come rolling down a long wooden ramp toward Birch, rumbling and grating horrendously the whole way down. Birch winced at the comparison, but that was almost exactly what the dwarf’s voice sounded like.
Most dwarves spoke a rough version of the human tongue if they spoke it at all, but Ben’s was more than just a bad accent. The dwarf was disfigured from an accidental keel-hauling when he was still young, a “mer pup o’ a dwerf” as he’d put it, and the incident had damaged everything but his soul. Almost every inch of his stocky body was covered with horrible scars, including his throat, which was the source of his mangled speech. Birch could swear he never pronounced the same word the same way twice.
“Arken see ya bornin’ eyes pekin’ at me, Burck,” he grumbled from the back of his verdant mount. “D’ Oi lek so hurable to yo?”
Birch shook his head seriously. He knew what it was to be stared at, and the dwarf’s deformity was only slightly less a curiosity than Birch’s eyes. He would never subject another to that kind of discomforting scrutiny – on top of which, such close examination by Birch was invariably unnerving in and of itself.
Before Birch could answer, Nuse nudged his horse closer.
“Actually, Ben, Birch here was probably wondering how to summon the courage to ask yo
u to grace us with a song. There’s something we’d like to get rid of, the town of Ankor in fact, and we’d like you to save us the time of riding in and scattering the citizens by hand.”
Ben guffawed and reached up to pound Nuse on the back, nearly unseating the skinny paladin.
“New thar’s a man wit a sanse o’ humor,” Ben chuckled roughly. “Nuthen es sacred t’ya, eh?”
“Quite a bit actually, I am a soldier of God after all,” Nuse said piously, “but I’m only serious when necessary. It puts too much of a gloom on life, and old fire-eyes here has more than enough glumness to make up for me.”
Nuse winked at Birch, who grimaced before cracking a small smile. Nuse was too irascible for Birch to be truly angry with him, and Birch genuinely liked the bony Blue paladin.
“Everyone take a deep breath and don’t breathe in again until we’re safely out of sight of shore,” Nuse said. He inhaled and puffed out his cheeks, and even Birch laughed aloud at the sight.
James Tarmin was chuckling as he reined in his horse next to Birch. He was smiling and looked at his ease when he tapped Birch on the shoulder.
“Birch, if I can spare you for a moment, please.”
Birch nodded and Selti trotted alongside the Yellow’s mount a short distance away from the others.
“What’s on your mind, James?”
“I’m worried about Wein,” he replied, all traces of mirth disappearing from his face as soon as he was turned away from the others. “Or rather, I’m worried about Wein and you.”
Birch didn’t have to ask to know what the other paladin meant. Wein Drolgis was a constant thorn in Birch’s side, if a small and largely unnoticeable one. Wein seemed to have some obsession with Birch and would spend hours at a time doing little but staring at him. Oh, he covered his surveillance well enough, hiding it in half-gazes and looking only when he thought Birch wasn’t watching him, but over time Birch had noticed and had begun to return the unwelcome scrutiny. Whenever he caught Wein staring at him, Birch stared back until the other was forced to look elsewhere or else be caught up in the Hellish visions Birch’s gaze could invoke.
Hunting The Three (The Barrier War) Page 28
