She tried not letting that bother her. She failed.
“Kaun, my boy,” said Valterik. Kaun glanced over his shoulder. “That’s how it’s said, yes? Kaun. Or is it Kau-hn?”
Elaya swallowed a chuckle as Kaun’s eyes slowly moved from Valterik to her and back again.
“What the piss is a Kau-hn?”
“Only wanted to make sure I wasn’t tongue-twisting your name. I prefer keeping myself in the good graces of mercenaries. Here,” he said, leaning forward and handing the filled pipe to Kaun, “light this for me, will you?”
After receiving his lit pipe back and taking a toke, Valterik pointed his chin in the direction of one Lavery Opsillian. The boy lay curled in a ball on a landing up a set of stairs, heaps of blankets atop him. “Is he your son?”
Elaya waited for Kaun to answer before realizing Valterik was talking to her. “My son? No. I don’t have any children.”
“A slave? An orphan?” He took another draw of the pipe. It smelled like chocolate and rum.
Elaya uncrossed her legs. “Neither.”
“Hmm,” he said, drawing on his pipe. He puffed out a wispy stream of smoke from the corner of his mouth. “Guarded responses. Cautious in your approach. There’s something you don’t wish to tell me.”
“I’ve given you as much information about us as you’ve given of yourself.” She waited, then added, “Mister ‘Mutator.’”
Valterik hunkered down, shivering. “Sure could use some wools, if you’ve any to spare.”
Elaya had several extra blankets rolled up in her sacks, but she made no move to get them. “Robes don’t provide you with much warmth, do they? You made a life in Silderine, so you said. Shouldn’t you know the cold is unforgiving?”
Valterik snickered. “Oh, I wouldn’t say I made a life. Lived one, though, I’ll grant you that. Mutations have certain… manifestations.” He found himself the recipient of Kaun’s blank stare. “Symptoms,” he clarified. “The mutation of ethereal often makes you hot. Bloody damn hot. I’d be naked if I could, but social norms dictate that I cannot.”
Kaun’s blank stare remained, and now it was joined by Tig’s.
“What in the fook are you talking about?” Tig asked.
Valterik chewed on the stem of his pipe and motioned his head toward Elaya. “I first saw you when you were six years old. You were spry. Wily. Smart, too. I asked you to hold out your hand, and unlike the other girls, who automatically offered theirs to me, you—and I’ve never forgotten this—fixed your face in a stern manner and said, ‘What for?’”
Elaya smiled softly at that. She’d been robbed of early childhood experiences as told by parents and aunts and uncles. Hearing them now made her happy… and mournful for the past.
“I told you I needed to inspect you for blemishes. You didn’t believe that, so I instead confessed to you the truth: that you would be stuck with a needle. You asked if it would hurt, and I said yes, but that every Daughter went through the same pain. You shrugged then and gave me your arm. And you received the first of many mutations.”
“Did I cry?” Elaya asked. Somehow that seemed more important that knowing what exactly a mutation was.
Valterik laid his pipe in a groove of mortar. “Not in front of me, you didn’t.”
Elaya felt proud, which was probably a stupid thing to feel.
“All right, all right,” Tig said, “let’s get on with what the fook a mutation is. That’s the part I’m waitin’ fer.”
“Mutations can be a great many things,” Valterik explained. “In Elaya’s case, she received the mutation of sorcery hymns. It’s what allows a Daughter to perceive the presence of sorcery.”
Tig and Kaun looked at one another, then they both glanced at Adom, who was still snoring, mouth agape.
“Er,” Kaun began, face fixed in confusion. “They perceive sorcery by hearing… songs?”
“No,” Elaya said, staring at her upturned hands. She remembered quite well how it felt when sorcery was afoot. “It’s a sense. Like smell, or sight, or hearing. You feel it. It’s indescribable and unmistakable, and I no longer possess it.”
Valterik stood and braced his back with both hands. “That’s because you chose to disregard the feeling.”
She lifted her eyes to meet his. “I didn’t want that life anymore.”
He shrugged. “Not my business. I’m telling you the whys. Some mutations are permanent. Some, like the mutation of ethereal that hid me from your sight, are temporary. Others, like the mutation of sorcery hymns, are conditional: if you don’t meet the conditions to preserve the mutation, it fades. The latter is like a muscle. If you don’t use it, it atrophies.
“As you might imagine, it would be a terrible plight for your conscience, and quite possibly the world over if these mutations found themselves in… well, let us say, the wrong hands.”
Those three words—the wrong hands—had, in Elaya’s estimation, never been uttered in innocence. Never once in all of history had a rosy-cheeked lad come along, put his hand around the shoulders of a toxin merchant and said in a tone both happy and free of threat, “Be a shame if those fell into the wrong hands.”
She waited for Valterik to continue. He did not. As far as she was concerned, that opened him up to more questions; she’d get to the ominous wrong hands bit soon enough.
Elaya unsheathed her sword and pointed the tip at a whetstone lying beside Tig. The burly mercenary tossed it to her.
“How did you find us?” she said, gently sliding the stone up the length of the blade, honing the edge.
“A crow. Look at me funny all you please, Kau-hn, but I’ve only told you two mutations. There are hundreds.”
Kaun brushed his oily blond bangs from his eyes. He needed a trim. Or rather, a chop. “Ones that’ll have you conversin’ with crows, even?”
“Oh, sure. Crows, ravens, bluebirds, blackbirds, redbirds.” Valterik talked wildly with his hands, gesturing in this fowl and that. “That’s only the partial truth, mind. I broke from Silderine when the last of the Daughters marched from the gates. Not long before you arrived those ten long months ago, in fact. It has been ten, hasn’t it?”
The more Valterik talked, the more questions Elaya wanted answered. “Nine. Where were they going?”
“To find a necromancer in Valios.” He offered a sympathetic expression and added, “They failed. I’d had enough of that life, just as you had. It was time to lie on a sandy beach and feel warm water lap against my toes.”
“Huh,” Tig grunted. “Not sure if you notice, but this ain’t a fookin’ beach.”
“No,” Valterik agreed, “it’s not. But I am here for the foreseeable future, until I catch the thieves who stole my mutations. Now then, what will it cost me?”
Elaya idled the whetstone at the summit of her sword. She lifted her brow, somewhat insulted, somewhat annoyed. “That might be one of the most pompous things anyone has ever said to me. We’re mercenaries, not slaves; we pick and choose who and what we work for.”
“Tell ’im, girl,” Kaun said. He got to his feet, leaned in close to Valterik. “Listen here,” he whispered, audibly enough for Elaya to hear, “you throw in a mutation or four and I’ll convince her to lend a hand. I want something that, uh, can make me go all night long.” He winked. “Get the hint?”
“Lotta good that’ll do ya,” Tig said, still sitting beside the crackling fire. “You ought to ask for a bigger tool to get the job done.”
Elaya smirked.
Kaun clapped slowly. “A job well done, Tig. You managed to string together two sentences without shoving the fuck word in between three words.”
Valterik cleared his throat. “Gentlemen.” He considered Elaya with a blink. “And lady. This is slightly more vital a matter than you might imagine. My mutations have been known for quite some time.”
“Put a date on it,” Elaya said. “How long?”
“Eighteen hundred years. Give or take twenty.”
Elaya inspected the blade ed
ge with her thumb. It drew blood with the slightest touch. Satisfied, she placed the whetstone beside her and sheathed the sword. “In that case, you should have been dead seventeen hundred years ago. Give or take twenty.”
“Yes, yes, but—”
“Mutations,” Elaya said, finishing his explanation for him.
He gave her a nod of his head. “We knew—”
“Who’s we?” Elaya asked.
“The Twin Sisters. Myself. May I finish without interruption?” Elaya gestured for him to go on. “We had information that the Conclave was aware of the mutations and was devising a strategy to either steal them or learn the process by which they are created.”
Adom stirred in his sleep. Elaya stared at him for a moment, then sighed deeply. “Are you telling me sorcerers—the Conclave, to be exact—stole your mutations?”
Valterik nodded. He was holding something back—wasn’t giving up the goods. Not entirely, at least. Elaya knew there was more to his story, but acquiring that information would take both time and trust. Fortunately, she had plenty of the former and could forge the latter.
A part of her despised the idea of helping this man. This torturer who had a hand—no, was the hand that had molded her into a Daughter. But since her unlikely survival during the assault on Silderine, the promise of new, undiscovered wonders moved her.
She was an explorer now—a mercenary too, but only to afford the lifestyle of an adventurer—and tracking down sorcerers who had stolen highly volatile mutations seemed like an exciting job.
“Could we have a moment?” Valterik said to Kaun and Tig.
Kaun got close to the old man, wagging a finger in his face. “You try anything funny…”
“I’ve no weapon,” he said. “My bones are too painful to clench a fist. A ten-year-old girl could probably shatter my teeth with a feeble slap. Ants and slugs—that’s about all I could bring harm to.”
Elaya was surprised he couldn’t tell she was about to accept his offer, pending the reward, of course. She thought him perceptive, but perhaps she judged him incorrectly.
Kaun and Tig wandered off onto the lower floors of the ruins, trading barbs with one another.
Valterik rubbed his wrinkly hands together. He squared himself to Elaya. “I’ll pay you in mutations. If you’d like, I could cook up a few concoctions that would augment your strength. Your speed. Your wits. Why,” he mused, “with the perfect combination, you might even be able to take out a god. Or two.”
Elaya felt her jaw clamp shut and her muscles tighten. Somewhere in the far reaches of her mind—the place where one keeps one’s deepest, darkest desires—she still toyed with the idea of ending it all. The all being the Twin Sisters.
She had intended to end them once, but instead was responsible for them being reborn into this world. She had to make good on her promise to end the Twins. Didn’t she? Wasn’t it an obligation?
She supposed she had judged Valterik correctly. He was perceptive. Frighteningly so.
Valterik smiled. He had her, and he knew it.
CHAPTER SIX
Lavery felt a dampness on the back of his neck. And in his armpits. Crotch too. Cold though the northern nights were, summertime had blunted their frigidness enough that sleeping beneath a thick stack of pelts and wools was probably overkill.
He sat up, heaving off a couple blankets, and took in his gloomy surroundings. During the day, these ruins sure did look a lot more impressive than at night. With a dark sky above and not much moonlight to be had, all that was visible was broken walkways and bridges and stunted growths of stone pillars, their frames haphazardly chopped off—whether from rot or an old war, Lavery didn’t know.
These derelict ruins must have oozed history, he thought. He could have Walked into the past and viewed its legends and myths in the flesh. But a few hours ago—before the strange man who called himself Valterik had appeared—Lavery had instead chosen to wade into the future. And what had that gotten him?
Embarrassment and hurt pride, that’s what. The anger he’d felt when Tig had yanked him prematurely from his Walk—it was just like the fury that had slammed into him days ago when Paya had inadvertently done the same. Or a week ago, when fatigue had forced him to abandon his Walk early.
Only this time it was worse. He’d acted on his temper. He’d hit Tig. Said awful things to him, words he didn’t mean. And still he wished to venture once more into the future. It was becoming a crippling desire, stronger each time he gave in.
Why hadn’t Baern warned him about this?
He breathed in the cold through his mouth, felt the ice soothe his dry gums. It doesn’t control you, he told himself. He chewed his cheek as he dreamed of what the future could hold. He didn’t want to go there, not even in his mind, but he’d lost control over his thoughts.
He shook his head and rolled out from under the remaining hides and wools. Standing now, he put his hands on a shattered knee-high wall and looked out over the edge of a busted walkway that rose above a lower one on which the mercenaries and Valterik slept.
Elaya probably wouldn’t want him leaving the ruins by himself, not even for a brief moment. But since she was sleeping…
Lavery pushed off the wall. He headed to and tiptoed down the steps, careful to avoid those that were held in place by twig-sized stringers and risers. Falling onto the walkway below wouldn’t feel very good, and possibly it might be fatal if the supports didn’t hold up. Which they likely wouldn’t.
He got halfway down and stopped. Maybe sleeping under six-inch layer of blankets was a poor idea, but going out into a Northern night wearing only a tunic and trousers? The feelings in his hands and arms and legs told him that would be a worse idea. So he ventured back up, grabbed some wools, threw them around himself, and returned to the stairs.
At the base of the ruins stood a T-shaped frame by its lonesome. Lavery ducked under one of the horizontal arms and continued. He passed into a thicket of pines, their branches swooping downward from the heavy snow and ice; they looked like roosting birds keeping their young warm.
Lavery fondly recalled the Graw Woods near Valios. Near what used to be his home. He’d go there when sad or angry or distressed in any way. The trees in those woods were huge. They had massive trunks, thicker than three of the pines that stood before him, and their boughs would tower above, leaves green and fanned, allowing only droplets of sunlight to seep through.
It was silent there, in the Graw Woods. This thicket was not silent. The North was never silent, he’d learned. The surrounding mountain shelves—and they surrounded you everywhere in the North—slung down a constant low-whirring wind that made branches snap and crackle. It stung your ears, straightened the hairs on your neck. Made it impossible to think.
Everything was different back home, and for the better. Lavery wished he was there again. He’d trade most anything to accomplish that goal, even his Wraith Walker powers. Especially his Wraith Walker powers. He yearned to be normal again, the sort who goes unnoticed and is unwanted. Yes, that sounded like a perfectly good way to live life.
He looked up into a tree with old, twisting branches. “So—” He paused, glancing around hesitatingly. No one was there to see him acting like a… well, a child. “So, Mister Tree,” he said, slapping the cold trunk, “looks like a nice place to sit. Do you mind?”
There were lots of knots and eyeholes for him to fit his small hands into; climbing would be no problem. As he set to it, something froze him. His name. He heard it as clear as the whistle of a bird.
The voice did not belong to Elaya or Adom or Tig or Paya or Kaun. He was sure it didn’t belong to Valterik, either.
Lavery swallowed. Keeping one hand flat against the tree’s bark, he buried his heel into the snow and turned, slowly.
He didn’t know what he would see. Or who. Lots of faces and scenarios came to mind, from a vagrant demanding everything on his person to a murderous loon who got off on dismemberment.
The face that greeted him was not t
hat of a vagrant and not consistent with how Lavery pictured murderous loons. It was the face of a man, older than Lavery. He wore an ensemble of black-dyed leather so tight to the skin it looked like he might have coalesced into it. On his hip was a belt with several tools—a chisel, a trowel, iron shears, and a pair of nippers—and a small sheathed dirk.
“Lavery Opsillian,” the man said, his voice high-pitched and friendly. “That is your name, yes?” Gusts picked up the man’s thick black hair and fluffed it into a mess of heavy knots.
Lavery nodded. Maybe he wanted to speak, but he rather forgot how for a moment.
“Mine is Haren. A pleasure.” He gestured in the space between them. “May I?”
Lavery blinked. “Er. May you what?”
“Come closer. It will be terribly difficult to prove my origin without showing you a memento.”
This man—this Haren—didn’t seem a bad man. Lavery thought himself a good judge of character, so he said, “I suppose. Just… keep your hands away from that weapon.”
Haren took several steps forward, closing the gap between him and Lavery. He held one hand up to show he meant no harm, and pushed the other into a small pocket sewn into his tight leather hauberk. He produced a silver coin, its rim gouged and worn.
“I’m a Wraith Walker,” he said, “much like you. I belong to a time when our kind was many, and I bring this as proof.”
He balanced the coin on the tip of his finger and lifted it to Lavery’s eyes. Engraved into the face of the coin were two pointed towers with a road between them. Tiny letters arcing above the towers spelled Gods Be Kind.
Haren studied Lavery’s reaction, which was much like studying a wall. “You were the heir to the throne of a capital kingdom. Surely you buried your nose in text. No?”
Lavery squinted at the coin, hoping to jar loose some stowed-away memory of two pointed towers with a road between them and an arcing idiom of Gods Be Kind above. No such memory existed, however.
“I don’t know what this is,” he admitted sheepishly.
Haren frowned. He flicked the coin into the air. As it tumbled down, he leaned forward, thumbed open his pocket and smoothly caught the coin inside. “The Grooslen Empire. Now do you remember?”
Reign of Gods (Sorcery and Sin Book 2) Page 5
