by Jenna Rhodes
“You’re a bit away from the temples, yourself, and decked out like a spring garland for the fairs.”
“Ah, but that’s my lot,” the priest said, and drew his sleeved arm over his forehead which glistened with sweat despite the chill of the winter day. “When the Gods speak again, all should hear!”
“Aye? After all these centuries, what seems to be the rush?” Tolby eyed the pottery which looked like miniature water wells and statue nooks, shaped by hand and fired hastily from the crackled glaze on them.
“That’s the point, in’t it, Master? All these years without divine guidance, but we never gave up, did we? And now the signs point that the Gods have examined us closely, found us worthy again, and lean close to speak!”
“Indeed?” Tolby took a moment to knock the fine shavings off his clothes before meeting the priest’s eyes again. A-course, that was the Kernan way of things. Dwellers had never conversed directly with the Gods, so never felt the lack of communication when the Kernans were cut off. Dwellers knew well the deep voices and workings of the Gods in the world about them, and were never bereft of guidance and judgment. Kernans, though, they were a nervous and insecure folk.
“Buy one, good master, for I would hate to think a fine fellow like you could be left behind when the Gods speak again. Only a silver bit, although if you wished a grander one, I could bring one by later when it’s painted and such.”
“Exactly what is it?”
“A listening altar. A bit of incense, a little wine or hard cider, a sprinkling of petals or herbs here.”
“And I would hear through it . . . how exactly?”
“Why, with your ears, good sir! With your ears? How else?”
Tolby scratched one. “I already have ears, good priest, and I don’t see an extra pair among your relics.”
“Indeed not! No, no, these altars and alcoves attest to your faith and your readiness, so that Their Voices reach you when the time comes! This is your testament that you are prepared.” The priest beamed at him, a flight of wrinkles spreading across his worn face, an earnest gleam in his eyes.
“Ah.” Tolby patted his vest unconsciously to remind himself that his pipe had been cold when he’d placed it there. He’d only put a still-lit pipe in his clothes once, but the smoldering and burning that had ensued was enough to keep him wary even decades after the event. “Good man, I’ll bring you a cup of cider and send you on your way while I think about it and discuss it with my wife. You understand how wives are, no doubt, and if she desires one, why then I’ll find you at the temples.”
The priest flapped his mouth wordlessly for a moment as if unsure whether he’d been rejected or accepted, but then finally nodded. “A drink would be appreciated. This is my third load today.” He lowered his voice so that the scattered children, who’d stayed nearby to see what might be made of this priest, could not hear him so easily. “ ’Tis said even the Oxforts at Hawthorne have ordered a custom altar for their manors.”
More like the Oxforts had something to do with the selling of them, Tolby thought, and made a noncommittal sound appropriate to the gossip. With a duck of his head, Tolby took to his heels and fetched a nice draw of cider. He patted the Kernan on one shoulder, being careful not to upset the poles balanced there, and sent the priest on his way. He watched him go, children trailing at a distance and throwing glances at him to see if he would interfere with their fun again. He shook his fist and growled at one who skittered away.
Priests selling goods like common street vendors. Not that the temples didn’t do a fair business of selling things, oh no, Tolby was not so naïve as that. Still, the sight of the Kernan struck him as both odd and unnerving. On the heels of so many other things changing in his world, he did not like the idea of the Gods springing back to life and stirring the pot, as it were. He didn’t like the idea at all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"THE COLUMNS ARE MARCHING,” Tiforan said solemnly, as he gave a kneeling bow before Abayan Diort. Diort looked on him coolly. Tiforan was not his choice as a second-in-command, but as third or fourth, he might do. Thus, he would be left behind as Diort moved on to Ashenbrook. His tattoos, deeply etched into his cheekbones, twitched as if he sensed the small disapproval Diort felt when looking upon him. Weathered by the badland sun, his golden-bronze skin had darkened to a warm brown, and the corners of his eyes were etched near as deep as the knife-carved tattoos, though those markings were not the august ones worn by Diort.
“Good. Tell Hefort I want the sands cast.”
“Today, Warlord? After the men have already marched?”
“It’s not for my army, Tif. Their fate is already set. The Warrior Queen of the Vaelinars wants a quick battle, I wager, a handful of days at the most, to achieve her point. I read the sands for another answer. Now go.” Diort watched the man get to his feet and leave in haste, and thought again that this was someone he would not willingly leave in charge, for he did not wish to be questioned over something so trivial as an oracle. Now, if he were to argue battle tactics instead of minor occurrences, that might give Abayan hope. He sat down and pondered his chain of command, trying to decide if he wished to make changes.
The oracle came soon enough, crawling on her knees. She had claimed, when the mantle of prophecy had been passed to her, that the weight of the world was too great for her to bear standing, and so regressed to creeping about on hands and knees. It was an affectation that gave her credence among shallow Galdarkans and kept her from being hauled about here and there by minor lords who wished to use her gifts, but despite her show, she actually held a gift that Diort could perceive and admire. So he tolerated her histrionics much as he tolerated Tiforan’s minor rebellions. Hefort, however, had proved far more valuable to him.
She looked up at him, yellow-green eyes shrewd, her young face lined about her mouth as though she held bad opinions in her teeth and chewed on them all the long days. As well she might, knowing what she did. “You sent for me.”
“I did, Hefort. I would like the sands cast, if you are able.”
She snorted. “I’m able. It is yourself that must be ready and willing to accept my read.”
Diort shifted in his chair to lean down toward her. “I do not ask for that which I do not want.”
“Good that it is you know that. Very well, then.” She reached inside her cloak lined with pockets, each filled with a small glass vial of brightly colored sand. The vials alone were worth a small fortune, each shaped and cut brilliantly, small decanters of the sand of prophecy, their mouths gilt in gold and their handles set with gems. There were times when Hefort physically cast the sands and others when she merely spread the vials before her in a pattern and mused upon their meaning before intoning her message. He had no idea what she would do today.
She plucked a single vial out, filled with a gray-white powder. She uncorked it and shook a bit out on the back of her hand, then inhaled it deeply. Hefort recorked the bottle as her eyes rolled back in her head a moment and her body quaked. She sat back on her haunches like an animal, her hands moving independently of her reaction to the inhalant, stowing the vial back from whence it had come and pulling a second out and spilling its crimson sand upon the floor before his feet. Then she began to draw in it with one finger, symbols and movements that he could scarce grasp in his own vision before she wiped it out and drew another, over and over, a parade of symbols and pictographs springing from her artistry only to be wiped out as she spoke to herself, trying to grasp what she saw. Hand trembling, she capped the vial of crimson sand and put it also in her cloak. She looked up, and her eyes were both seeing him and half blind at the same time. The war hammer at his back vibrated in agitation as if the minor Demon inside it had been awakened.
“Your spies are slow. There should be word arriving that the great warlord of the queen is dead, assassinated, and Osten Drebukar will not face you in battle.” She held her hand palm up as Diort let out a word in surprise, stopping him. “The outcome of the battle is no
t foretold to me, nor is that your question. His death does not assure your victory.” The oracle did not wait for him to answer her or to ask his question. She licked dry lips and continued, “That which the Gods themselves have said would never happen again, is already stirring and coming about. Old masters will return, and you must choose. I cannot tell you which is the right, only you can know what you must do. The fate of many, however, will rest upon your decision. Bow your knee only after great thought, Warlord, for you are the Guardian of these lands.”
Hefort stopped. She took a deep breath as if fighting for it. Abayan half rose to help her, but she shook her head. “Listen! There is one who would use Kerith as a stepping stone to the Heavens, and his heel will grind us to dust if we allow that. You are one of those few who can stay his madness. Not the only one, but your allies have not yet become aware. Enemies today may be the brothers you need at your back tomorrow.” Hefort gulped down another breath. Shiny sweat covered her brow in a slick sheen. Her hand trembled as she held it in the air between them, her fingers stained with crimson powder. “Look to the pathways for the answer to your question.”
With that last, Hefort dropped her hand and her body prone in front of him. She began to weep quietly as if overcome, and he did not move, afraid of disturbing her and her vision if there were more to be said.
So they remained until the sun lowered and the sands became as ice in the night and her sobbing finally ceased. Only then did he put out his hand to cup her head and thank her, and send for blankets to comfort her, and warm stew to nourish her. But first, as he stood, he scrubbed out the last marking of the crimson dust in front of his feet, not liking the symbol he saw there.
It was the marking the nomad clans of Galdarkans used to warn all who might trespass that chaos and death lay in the countryside ahead.
Diort slept in another tent, leaving the exhausted woman to rest and rise on her own. Tiforan met him in the morning with his horse, cloak, and pack as instructed, his face tilted in curiosity. He held back for only a moment as Abayan filled his hands.
“Do you ride because of the oracle?”
“No. Did I not tell you I would leave this morning?”
“Yes, Warlord, but I thought . . . she seemed distraught. She filled the night with her weeping. It’s being said about the camp that she inhaled the dust of graves. All know that brings the most powerful visions.”
“Really. What else is said in the camps?”
“That you are driven by her words.”
Abayan let himself laugh softly. It seemed only to knot up Tiforan even more. “She gave you a dire quest.”
“She did not. Puzzling, yes, and informative, yes, but not dire.”
“Still you ride.”
“I’ve things to do before I join my army. I didn’t ask her to predict a victory, but she gave a good accounting on that. You can repeat those words and those words only in the camp.” He shouldered his packs as he took up the reins to his horse. “You have nothing to fear, Tiforan—but me.” With that, he swung up and kicked the horse into movement, leaving his third-in-command behind, jaw hanging. He did not mention that Hefort was weeping again in the morning when he went to reward her and say good-bye, nor that she remembered not a word she’d uttered. It was the crimson stain upon her fingers that set her off again, her hands shaking and inconsolable, and so he left the oracle alone in his tent to recover, not convinced one way or another of the truthfulness of the night. He thought omens fragile things, broken by one wrong step of the men who tried to follow them and could not. So, they might be like a lantern hung in a tent on a dark night, a hazy beacon homeward or a wisp of moonlight off a glass-light patch of sand. Reality or mirage, and he could only count on his own wits and sense of direction in the end.
Look to the pathways, she’d said to him. He knew she had not spoken of the Elven Ways, those damned but necessary nets that tied Kerith together, but rather those roads taken by the guardians when all haste had been needed to defend their Mageborn. He knew the secret passages, they’d been ingrained in him, but no one he knew had trod them in centuries. It was said some were haunted by the angry specters of Mageborn who’d perished at the hands of their rivals and the Gods despite the efforts of their Galdarkans to save them. It was said that foul things ran the tunnels of others. That stone and water had twisted and destroyed some of them. That nothing remained as it had been intended centuries past. It would fall upon him to see what was true. But did he not have a war hammer which could break stone? Turn earth? Could shake the very foundations of the pillars of the world if he struck it at the base of them? Who better to see what the pathways still held?
Diort turned his horse’s head toward the base of the melted hills on his southern hand. When he reached his destination, he murmured the passwords given unto his guardianship and horse and rider vanished into the tunnels where time and distance seemed not to exist under the earth.
Bregan Oxfort loosened his brace a little as he settled down by his campfire. Recruiting in Calcort had been profitable and enthusiastic, creating a fervor which he felt certain would sweep through the other cities. He’d left that in charge of one of his father’s apprentices, a dour, wizened old Kernan by the name of Garfin, returning to Hawthorne to supervise the new relic industry. His body protested the hard ride. He preferred not to travel by elaborate trader carriage when he could help it, though in the last few years, he could feel the pain of riding astride. That damned Ferryman. He would take him on again, if he thought he’d survive the encounter, and this time bring the being down, annihilate him, rend him forever from the daylight of Kerith. Boatmen on the Nylara had survived before, they would again, just as they did on any river which swelled with rain and melting snows. Barges and ferries were better built, rudders stronger, cables and pulleys better anchored. It would be no loss to anyone but the purses of the Vaelinars. That might be a good exercise for his new regiment of caravan guards, a coordinated attack on the blight of the river. There ought to be some underlying, compelling excuse he could arrange. . . .
Pain lanced through his thigh. Bregan glanced down in surprise to find his hand knotted into his trouser, darkened fingers gouging into half-numb flesh. The clever brace curled about his leg carried a glow as if newly forged and yet uncooled from the fires, its heat burning its way through his clothing even as its warmth subsided. He uncurled his hand slowly, catching his lip in his teeth in concentration as he fought the shooting agony and the effort necessary to unclench his stiff hand. Each tiny movement wrought havoc that echoed through his entire frame, aches he had not had in years as though the very thought of attacking the Ferryman again brought punishment. He watched as each digit straightened with a spasm of more pain, the base of his nails pale, blood welling from his mouth. Decorative runes upon his brace flared once and then went out, darkened.
Bregan pushed his leg out in front of him, hating it, cursing his flesh for living only enough to bring him pain every day. His breath hissed from between his teeth as everything subsided except for the slow trickle of blood from his bitten lip, and that he finally wiped away with the back of his hand. As the tide of pain ebbed, he became aware that his heart had been pounding, beating in his ears, and it, too, began to slow into a measured drumming, pulse by pulse. The brace felt cool to his hand when he brushed his left hand across it, as though it had never held a heat threatening to scorch through the fabric of his trousers and neither had it left a mark upon him. Dare he trust his senses? Was he losing not only his body but the threads of his mind, and all of it to the machinations of the Vaelinars? How long could he endure it? How long must any of them endure what the wretched invaders wrung from them day by day? He sat and stared into the fire, unseeing, until the flames guttered into low, glowing embers. Then a twig cracked loudly as something or someone trod upon it carelessly. Oxfort reached for his sword and stood up with effort. Once on his feet, he was no cripple, and the sword fit his left hand admirably. Beyond the sparse illumination of the fire
as he stirred it, a shadow solidified in the darkness.
Bregan tightened his hold on his sword as the shadow separated itself from the night and stepped into the firelight. It loomed larger and larger until the tattoos on his face and the headpiece which held back his hair flashed in the illumination, and Bregan knew without doubt who accosted him. He did not lower his blade.
“Lord Diort. Either you are far afield, or I am.”
Abayan spread his hands to show they were empty. The fire glazed his skin like fresh-forged bronze, and his jade eyes glinted in the shadows with a catlike sheen. The great war hammer he always carried stayed at his back. Dust glinted on his clothing, a rusty tear or two in his sleeves showed the tinge of dried blood, and his boots carried heavy gouges and scuff marks as though, for all his composure, he had been in a scuffle. “In all fairness,” the Galdarkan said, in his slightly stilted way, “I think we are both off our normal paths. It is welcome to see you, however.”
“Me?”
Abayan ignored the distrust in Bregan’s voice. “May I sit?” He gestured at the fireside.
“I think it best if both of us stay on our feet. My pardon, Lord Diort, but things are not always as they seem, and I wonder if it’s even you I talk with.”
“As you command.” Diort’s face twisted slightly, and then he rolled his shoulders as if to flex a stiffness and soreness out of them. “I am in hopes we can share some information.”
“I thought Quendius kept you on a leash and as well-informed as he wished.”
“The same thought could be said of you.”
