Tarla had no answer to that and stood aside. The woman tracked muddy footprints across the room as she went to stand in front of the fire. Tarla raised a hand, and Simeon could see she was about to ask her guest to take off her boots, but she let her hand drop. Tarla took off her own boots and went to the kitchen, where she resumed chopping vegetables, her shoulders slumped.
Simeon shook his head. He never thought he’d see the day when Tarla would stand aside and see mud dragged through her house. The foreigner clearly hadn’t even noticed. She wasn’t at fault—Simeon was. He had sapped the strength from his birth mother. Tarla had raised him while working on the Women’s Council and running her house and farm. However, his recent actions seemed to be too much for her to bear.
The foreigner held out her hand. “May I see it?” She didn’t specify, but what she meant was clear.
Simeon tightened his grip on the staff. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“She’s with the Armentell Order,” Tarla said. “The Councils agreed to let a party of them stay within our borders, providing them sanctuary from Zubrios. I argued against the idea.”
“I’m not in the Order,” the foreigner said. “Though I am with those Tarla mentioned. My name is Sierre, and I’m from the Invisible Towers in Soylant.” She nodded at the staff. “We created the weapons of power.”
Simeon took a step back, holding the staff closer to his body. He wouldn’t accept that it had been a mistake. “It was meant to be mine.”
“I seriously doubt that.” Sierre’s slight smile could have meant anything. “I don’t intend to take it from you, though.” She held out her arm. “May I see it?”
Simeon took a step closer and slowly stretched the staff across. His reluctance caused an age to pass before Sierre had it in her hand, and as soon as she had it, he regretted handing it over. And only a short time ago, I’d thought of it as polished firewood.
Sierre turned it in her hands. “Yes, this is it. One of the weapons of power.” She held it out, and Simeon snatched it back.
“You mean it’s true?” Tarla asked. “The staff is actually magical?”
And the whole of Medalon laughed at me, Simeon thought. “What does it do?”
“Shouldn’t you know that?” Sierre asked. “You seem definite that it was meant to be yours.”
Simeon shrugged. “I’m not a wizard.”
“That’s yet to be seen,” Sierre said. “The weapons are designed to bond to the first person to touch them, so it’s certainly yours now, even if it wasn’t meant to be.”
Simeon had first thought Sierre to be a pushy old woman like most of Tarla’s fellow councilors, but he was beginning to warm to her—she had a worldly air about her that he liked. He didn’t know what to make of her being from the Invisible Towers. Could she have real magical power?
“What happens now?” Tarla asked. “You recruit the boy in your vendetta against the Lord Protector.”
“It’s not a vendetta. We are trying to protect Mageles from him,” Sierre said. “Just because he hasn’t invaded Pizarr yet doesn’t mean you are safe.”
“If there’s a big, powerful bear in a cave, don’t go poking him with sticks,” Tarla said.
“What if the bear already controls all neighboring territories and is just gathering his strength and, once he is at the peak of his power, will be unstoppable? In those circumstances, do you let the bear be?”
“The Lord Protector has stopped expanding,” Tarla said. “He controls the fiefdoms from Soirbuz and has his treaties with the other countries.”
Simeon was glad to see Tarla still had some fight in her. He was also glad Tarla wasn’t also a wizard, or fireballs might have been whizzing back and forth between them. As it was, Simeon was leaning back almost unconsciously.
“Even in this present quiet period, Zubrios tightens his grip on each of the countries within his protectorate, increasing his recruitment of clerics, adding more so-called temples,” Sierre said. “Only Pizarr is free of his clerics, and Zubrios won’t allow that to last much longer.”
“Krillo made those arguments to the councils, and he swayed enough of us that you were allowed to stay,” Tarla said. “One of the terms was that you weren’t allowed to recruit any Pizarrians to your cause.”
“Simeon is now involved whether you like it or not,” Sierre said. “He is a bearer of one of the weapons of power. If we don’t protect him, then Zubrios’s clerics will come for him.”
“Tell me more about these weapons of power,” Simeon said, but both women ignored him.
“Zubrios can’t come for him because his clerics aren’t allowed south of the Hatori,” Tarla said. “What gives you the right to make my son a bearer?”
“No one planned for him to be a bearer, I can assure you,” Sierre said. “But it’s what’s happened. Maybe this will work out for the best. I intend to protect him from Zubrios, but first I may need to protect him from his own people. It’s best if he is first raised.”
“What makes you think you can succeed when everyone else has failed?”
I’m right here, Simeon wanted to shout, but he didn’t dare.
“Perhaps for the very reason you think I shouldn’t be involved. Because I’m a foreigner and I’m not tied to these local rituals.” Sierre turned to Simeon. “Can you explain to me why you can’t choose one of those fine weapons against the wall? It’ll make things a lot easier for everyone.”
Simeon blinked several times. The whole story would take an age to explain even to a Pizarrian. To a foreigner... He thought hard before answering her. “Have you ever made a promise with every fiber of your being? Have you ever made a promise so strong that you feel your body will just disintegrate if you break it?”
“Can’t say I have.” Sierre held his gaze for a moment. “I prepared all my arguments on the way over. I see now I might as well save my breath. So, the hard way it is.”
Tarla glanced out the window then swiftly moved to the door.
“Trouble?” Sierre asked.
“Nothing I won’t be able to handle.” Tarla opened the door, put her boots outside, and stepped into them, closing the door behind her.
“What’s happening?” Simeon asked Sierre.
“From what I heard in the village, I fear this is more than your mother will be able to handle.”
Simeon surged forward, and Sierre raised an arm to stop him. “No. You’ll only make things worse. They have come because of you, so seeing you will only inflame them. Unless you choose a weapon, the only way you can help is to stay out of sight. Let me deal with this.”
Sierre opened the door and followed Tarla outside. Simeon didn’t try to follow, but he grabbed the door so it didn’t completely close, and he retreated into the shadows of the doorway so he could watch.
Several paces from the door, a group of around a dozen men, with Borlan prominent among them, confronted Tarla.
“I would have thought a councilor would have more sense than to lead a drunken mob,” Tarla said, addressing Borlan.
“And I would’ve expected a woman’s councilor to know better than to interfere in the men’s affairs,” Borlan said. “Especially relating to raising men.”
“What part of the ritual involves a mob of men, smelling of hard spirits, arriving at the boy’s house at night?”
“If he was staying with his tribemates as he should, we wouldn’t have needed to come to your house,” Borlan said. “If you’ll step aside, we’ll take the boy back to the barracks and deal with him there.”
“Take care of him as Xelinder was taken care of?”
“We don’t interfere in the affairs of women.”
“We don’t kill children.”
Simeon gasped. He couldn’t believe Tarla was attacking Borlan so strongly.
“Hold your tongue, woman,” Borlan ordered. “You go too far. Something has to be done about the boy.”
The men around Borlan surged forward behind him, axes and swords raised in the air.
“Do you expect my son to remain a boy forever?” a man demanded.
“Abel has completed all the tests. It’s time he was raised,” another man shouted, his words slurring.
“If you’d stepped aside when the boy was a babe, as you should have, none of this would have happened,” Borlan said, his voice rising. “By the green gods, you’ll step aside now.”
The air lit up with green fire, and the men and Tarla ducked. Did Borlan’s words summon the green gods? Simeon stood transfixed, half ready to flee, half ready to run to his birth mother’s aid.
The green fire in the air faded away, and another one flared into being. Sierre, her arm raised high above her head, green fire swirling in her palm, stepped between Tarla and the men.
“You promised not to interfere,” Borlan said. Although the men behind him shuffled backward, he held his ground.
“I’m just standing between a drunken mob and a woman and child.”
“You’re a foreigner. You don’t understand our ways. This is Men’s Council business.”
“I’ll reconsider when approached by a delegation from the council that isn’t stinking of liquor.” The green energy shot from her hand, fizzing through the air to hit a water barrel out to the left of the mob. The green flames, taller than a man, clawed at the darkness. Those men who were closest to it shied away from the heat. Even inside the house, Simeon could feel the waves of heat. Then the water barrel exploded, water spraying outward. Shards of burning wood fell into the crowd, and the men scattered backward.
“I suggest you return to the tavern in Medalon.” Sierre said.
“Bloody magic users,” someone muttered.
“This is what we get for being friendly to foreigners.” Borlan scowled at the burning wood all around him. “You won’t get away with this.” He spat on the ground at Sierre’s feet and turned back up the trail, kicking one of the bigger pieces of wood out of the way.
One by one, the rest of the men did the same, spitting on the ground in front of them before following Borlan up the trail.
Tarla glared at Sierre. “You handled that in the worst possible way.”
“It needed to be done,” Sierre said.
“You should have left them to me. The Women’s Council knows how to handle Pizarrian men when they get angry. Getting their backs up is the worst thing to do.”
“Don’t pretend you had it under control,” Sierre said. “What’s done is done. The boy needs to come with me. Tonight.”
“Is that why you did it?” Tarla moved closer to Sierre, flexing her fingers down by her sides. “Manipulating the situation so the boy was forced to go with you?”
“No.” Sierre walked to a piece of wood that was still burning and kicked it over then stamped it into the ground until the flames died. “What happened tonight will make everything much more difficult for me and my companions. I wanted to persuade the boy to allow himself to be raised first, and I hoped he would then come with me.” She moved to the next still-burning piece of wood and kicked some earth over it.
Tarla removed her cloak and went to help Sierre put out the flames, slashing down at the burning wood with her cloak. Isolated green flames were quenched one by one as the two women worked their way through the front yard.
“Will he be safe?” Tarla asked in a quiet voice that cracked slightly on the last word.
“No one is safe,” Sierre said. “He has become an important person within the realm. I and my companions will do our best to protect him.”
Simeon glanced behind him into his home. That he had to leave seemed to be the only thing Tarla and Sierre had agreed on since the wizard arrived. Am I happy to go along with that? He had to make his own mind up. He looked down at the staff in his hand—he had been convinced that it would end up saving him.
The staff hadn’t helped him the way he expected, but Sierre had come because of it. Perhaps she could teach him to use the staff. Even if she didn’t, since Simeon refused to be raised, his destiny lay outside the remit of the Pizarrian Men’s Council.
There was no decision. He placed the staff against the wall and returned to his room to pack. That didn’t take long, for everything was automatic. He’d been trained in how to pack lightly. He began by wrapping flint and a sharp knife into his spare clothes. He then roped up the bundle and tied the end of the rope into a loop that fit snugly on his back. He returned to the door, put on his cloak and boots, took up his staff again, and stepped outside.
The fires were all put out. Sierre, upon seeing Simeon come out of the house, moved farther up the trail and waited. Tarla stood unmoving in the yard, staring into the darkness.
As Simeon came up behind her, she said, “I’ve done wrong by you. Can you ever forgive me?”
Simeon let the staff fall to the ground, and he embraced her. “You’ve done no wrong.” He felt a catch in his throat but was determined to hold back his tears. The parting would be hard enough without them.
Tarla accepted Simeon’s embrace but didn’t hug him back. “I should have let you go earlier. But I wasn’t strong enough. And now you are a man without a country to call his own, protected by a foreigner.”
Simeon hugged her more tightly. “The world is bigger than Pizarr.” Although that fact was obvious, Simeon had never fully considered the implications of a world beyond what he had known all his life. That was why he hadn’t even considered that leaving Pizarr behind was the only real solution to his problems. “A bunch of Pizarrian men just paid us a visit. Don’t you want better than that for me?”
Tarla suddenly embraced Simeon so fiercely that the two of them almost fell. “Much better,” she breathed.
“Having a true mother who loves me instead of just a birth mother makes me the luckiest person in Pizarr,” Simeon said. “I will never be able to repay that gift.” Tarla’s tears fell down Simeon’s neck, and he shuddered with the effort required to not cry. “You didn’t give me up to the baby-mothers, you didn’t give me up to the kiddie-mothers, you continued to protect and love me when I lived with my tribemates, and I thank you for that a thousand times over. However, now is the time to let me go.”
She squeezed him more tightly, hard enough that he thought he was going to break apart, then she released him. The orange light coming from the door of the house touched one side of her face, showing a track of tears down one cheek. “Go and don’t look back,” she said.
Simeon picked up his staff and went after Sierre. He knew he might never see Tarla and his home again, and he dearly wanted to turn around and look back one last time.
He resisted the urge and followed Sierre into the unknown darkness.
Chapter 20
Twig lowered her hood and walked into the spice shop. Upon seeing her, Bareth’s immediate look was one of dismay. The situation was worse than Twig had realized. Faced with that look, she couldn’t even savor the aroma of the spices. Bareth pulled down the shutters of his shop and gestured Twig into the back.
The back room hadn’t changed since Twig had recuperated there with a broken arm. The light was dim, and a small window opened out onto a black stone wall. A single bed leaned against the far wall, and a pile of clothes nestled in the corner. Chunks of bread and cheese rested on a small table along with the knife used to cut them.
Bareth pulled the chair from under the table and turned it around for Twig to sit. He lowered himself onto his bed, supporting his lower back with his right palm as he eased himself down. He waited for Twig to speak first, but no one could outwait her. In the uncomfortable silence, the spice smells took on a cloying, grating edge.
Finally, he spoke. “You have been eating well since we last met?”
Twig nodded. “Thank you. I’ve just come from eating in that kitchen.”
Another silence, then: “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the cloaked phantom, the angel of death.”
“I’m also called the night demon.” That was a new one. She was picking up more names than the rain people.
&nbs
p; “I knew there was something up with that sword. As soon as I saw it, I knew things had changed for you.” Bareth shook his head. “I thought it was for the better.”
“I’m not cold or hungry anymore.”
“And I’m delighted about that.” He didn’t sound delighted. He had never before gone very long without a laugh or a smile. “Or am I? I’m not even sure anymore. I thought I had things figured out. I never thought anything could make me regret helping someone.”
Twig blinked. “You don’t want to help me anymore?”
“I don’t know anything anymore. I barely sleep these days.”
Something in addition to the lack of a smile was making him seem older. Looking closer, Twig saw his skin had a waxy sheen. Twig had wanted to repay her debt to him, and instead she had caused him to age ten years.
Bareth rubbed the crown of his head. “Perhaps I’ve just done a terrible job at helping you, and I must do better. Have you heard of Rawls?”
“The crime boss.” Everyone had heard of Rawls.
“The phantom has killed some of those who worked for him, and he’s put the word out to have you killed or captured.” Bareth paused. “Just a small warning, though there’s nothing I can do about Rawls. I can only hope to help you in other ways. By making you think, by making you see clearly.” Bareth reached forward and took Twig’s right hand in his.
She stiffened but didn’t pull away.
“How many have been killed by this phantom? By you.”
She’d killed Krawl and Feldman, plus the two from the other night. And others. Not more than ten. Twig had come to ask Bareth about killing the last one, and he seemed to think she should have spared them all. That couldn’t be right. “They were all Takers,” she explained.
“What do you mean they were Takers?”
“People who build their lives by taking from the vulnerable.”
“Does everyone who steals deserve to die?” he asked.
The Silver Portal (Weapons of Power Book 1) Page 15
