“That’s a mighty big risk,” Noble pointed out, “If the Turin don’t respond favorably to a spontaneous visit...”
“It’s a risk we have to take,” Landos said, “Duncan, do you feel equal to the challenge?”
Duncan spun to face Landos. He was not expecting to be put on the spot. He realized that if he were in Landos’ position, he would have done the same thing. Duncan knew the language, had met with the Turin leaders, and understood the situation. There were a lot of ways in which it made sense for him to go.
“I mean, I can help translate,” Duncan murmured. “If you want me to go along with whatever...whoever....”
“No,” Landos said. “I’m sending you. The fewer people who know what’s going on, the better. And hell, I would have picked you anyway. Can I count on you?”
“Yeah,” Duncan said, “Yeah, I’ll go. But I’ll need some help.”
“I’m going too,” Nuria stepped forward.
“I don’t think--” Landos started.
“I know. You’re going to say I’m too young, I don’t know what I’m getting myself into, it’s too dangerous, and all that. Can we just pretend you already said all that and we all agreed that I’m the only one who stands a chance of understanding anything the Turin have to say about magic?”
“Sir Noble, you’ll go as well,” Landos said.
“Magistrate, you know I serve at Her Majesty’s pleasure.”
“Go,” Sarah said. “Your bravery and dedication are unquestioned. But we have a castle full of guards out here. Out there, they’ll only have you.”
“As you wish, Your Highness,” Noble said, bowing. “I’ll find the fastest ship in the harbor.”
“No,” Landos said, “I’m going to call in a favor. I know someone who has a fast ship with a good captain, and who doesn’t fly our flag.”
“Who?” Duncan asked.
“The Baron Dubon von Wrims.”
Chapter 11: The Life of Countess Vye
Vye knew at some point that she was having a dream.
It had started innocently enough. She had been wandering in some frozen tundra. The stars were different than she remembered them. She must have been very far north, because the constellation Minatoura was higher in the sky.
Finally, she came to a cave dug into the side of a mountain. There were voices coming from inside the cave. Distant, meaningless echoes.
“You shouldn’t be here,” said a voice. Vye turned to see a Man. He was wearing only an old robe, which seemed insufficient for the harsh tundra. But then Vye noticed that she was still wearing her sparring clothes. “You’re not ready. Not by a long shot.”
The man was lacking in any descriptive features. He was just the Form of Man. Vye’s mind interpreted him as a person, but he didn’t have a hair color or an eye color. He was just there, and that was the most important thing about him.
From deep inside the cave, the voices continued. Vye still couldn’t make out any words, but she could feel emotions from the whispers. Malice. Hatred. Fear. They were planning to unleash death upon the world.
“They will be out soon,” the vague man said. “We should be going.”
“Going where?” Vye said.
“You need to wake up.”
“How?”
“Let me try,” the vague man said, moving closer to her. He put his hands on her temples, in a gesture that felt very familiar to Vye. He closed his eyes and concentrated.
Suddenly, everything went dark.
Vye couldn’t see anything, but in a strange way, she could sense things. It wasn’t seeing, or hearing, or feeling, or smelling. It was just knowing. It was like standing in the middle of a room and closing your eyes. You still had a general sense of how the room was shaped. You just couldn’t see it anymore.
The room she thought she was in was Duncan’s quarters. Which was weird for two reasons. One, she thought she was in a frozen tundra, and she hadn’t Shadowed anywhere. And two, she couldn’t think of a good reason to be in Duncan’s quarters. They certainly didn’t have that kind of relationship.
She reached out into the room, sensing it with her mind. The desk and the dresser and all the minor odds and ends of Duncan’s room were right where they should be. There was only one person in the room. A woman. About thirty. Very badly injured. Lying in the bed, recovering. It took Vye a moment to realize that the woman was her.
Vye fought against the fog in her brain, trying to remember recent events. She had been attacked. By whom? She couldn’t remember. She was very badly hurt. How did she survive? It was all too confusing for her.
And then she could sense another person in the room. At the most basic level, it was just a human being. Arms, legs, pancreas and all. But on a deeper level, it was a terrifying presence. Like the voices in the cave in the tundra. Full of vile emotions. Something sinister was in the room with her.
“Vye, you must wake up immediately,” the voice said. “Vye, you are in grave danger. Find yourself, and awaken.”
“How do I find myself,” Vye projected the question with her mind. She didn’t think she could do it until it happened, but it felt very natural once she did.
“You are thinking as though you are looking at your own body. That your mind is not a part of your body. But your mind is used to being in your body. Reach out to it, like you would reach out to anything using magic.”
Vye concentrated on this. It felt horribly counterintuitive. In her mind, she moved closer to the sickly body on the bed. Closer to her own body. She could feel the other person moving in. It would be only moments before she was at the villain’s mercy.
She reached out into her own body. There it was. Every corner of it. The familiar bits that she saw and thought about everyday. The parts that she operated without thinking. Her lungs, her heart. Her muscles.
“Vye, hurry!” the voice urged. “You must wake up now.”
Vye found her eyelids and opened them. It was disorienting. She suddenly couldn’t sense things anymore. She wasn’t aware of things as a whole anymore. She could only see them from the perspective of her eyes. It was almost a shock to her system.
The terrifying presence saw her waking, and moved in. It was a familiar looking woman. Selene. One of the ones who had attacked Vye.
Vye closed her eyes and found her muscles. Face muscles. Neck. Shoulders. Torso. Back. Arms. Legs. Hands. Feet. It wasn’t the same as being a disembodied sense. She was just tensing each muscle, one at a time. They were all right where she left them.
Vye checked one more thing. Indeed, during her long rest, she must have stored up some magical reserves. She could put up a small fight.
And a good thing, too, because Selene reached in, her hand aglow with magical energy, ready to snuff Vye out of existence.
Vye rolled off the bed, toppling to the floor. Selene grasped the empty pillow, searing it to a black, charred mound of ashes in seconds.
Vye’s mind raced, her memories flooding back to her. She hadn’t really been an even match with the two attackers. And the fact that there was only one now didn’t ease her mind. She was too weakened to put up this fight right now.
Vye already knew from her scan of the room that her sword wasn’t there. She would have to improvise. She focused on the bed, lifting it into the air and flinging it across the room, right at Selene.
But Selene had survived through many lifetimes, and she knew all the tricks. Making furniture fly across the room seemed like a rookie move to her. With a flick of her wrist, the bed changed course, flying into the far wall, opening up the room.
Vye used the sound of the crash as a distraction and closed in on Selene. She bashed her fists and elbows against her opponent. Not quite as effective as a sword or a spell, but there was something very satisfying about bashing her enemy’s head in.
Selene opened her palm into Vye’s torso and fired three successive death hexes into her heart. Vye staggered back. Just as in the first attack, it was clear to Vye that these weren’t regular spells. They
hit her harder and faster than anything the Turin-Sen had ever thrown at her.
Selene stepped up to the doubled-over Vye, reaching a hand out, once again planning to end Vye’s life. Vye had nothing left in the tank. She was way too weak to win this fight...
Suddenly, a flash of light burst from behind Vye. She peeked over her shoulder, and noticed a new person in the room. He was tall and slender, of some foreign ethnicity with which Vye was unfamiliar. He had a darker tone of skin, similar to the Turin. But his facial features showed that he was from somewhere else. He had straight, short, dark hair, and black eyes. He was wearing a midnight blue robe, and didn’t carry a weapon.
“Get down!” he commanded to Vye. She immediately recognized the voice as the strange man who had invaded her dreams. She ducked, allowing the newcomer to blast Selene with a beam of pure, white light. Selene recoiled, sliding on her feet back towards the window.
She only needed a second to recover, but the newcomer grabbed Vye by the wrist, pulled her into his embrace, then waved his hand in a grand flourish. He and Vye vanished in another flash of bright light, suddenly gone.
Selene glared at her missing prey. She cursed in her native tongue, “You can’t hide forever! Witch!”
Book 2
Pasts Haunted
Chapter 12: Points of Light
The Baron was all too happy to lend his boat to Landos’ quest. He had previously sent his servant, Krugg, on many assignments by boat, and the silent, bald man was an excellent sailor. He caught all the right winds, and got Duncan, Sir Noble, and Nuria up to the border of the Turinheld on the morning of their fourth day at sea. He wished them well, then turned back to return to Anuen.
It was another day and night of marching before the trio arrived at the border of the Turin territory. The Peace Festival was meant to sooth some of the bitter feelings between the two peoples. But these three citizens of Rone were not under the impression that anybody would be happy to see them.
Duncan considered his team. He had decided not to bring a sword. He had some minor training with the sword, but he wasn’t a great fighter, and since their only real hope was that the Turin believed they were there peacefully, he thought it was better to go unarmed.
Of course, Sir Noble didn’t agree to that. He was in his mail and helm, his shield on his back, his sword by his side. He was a legendary knight in the Rone Kingdom, and the Turin might think twice about attacking him. Other than Vye, he was the only one who had defeated a Turin-Sen warrior. If Duncan couldn’t have Vye with him, this was the next best thing.
Then there was Nuria. Duncan didn’t like having her here. She was smart and capable. But she was thirteen. Immature. Unworldly. If they had to fight, she would be invaluable as a magician. But if they had to run, her legs would be too short. Also, Duncan suspected she had a crush on him, which wouldn’t be good under normal circumstances, and was even worse in a foreign land.
Duncan pressed the group ahead to the City of Sayil. It was easy to think of the Turin as a rural people. And they had been, once upon a time, when their small population was spread across the continent. But that had been centuries ago. And since then, they had built cities embedded in the trees. They incorporated the forest, rather than plowing it over.
And there were also sentries. In a way, Duncan was counting on it. They walked down the paved path to the entrance of the city. But before they were in longbow range, three Turin guards emerged from the treeline.
“Stop there!” one of them shouted. He spoke in the language of the Rone, showing he had already identified the visitors.
“We mean no harm, and seek an audience with the benevolent Regent of the Turinheld,” Duncan spit out in his most eloquent Turin.
“Duncan, is that you?” the sentry asked in Rone, stepping forward.
“Orlean?” Duncan recognized the man. The two of them had been translators during the early peace negotiations. It made sense to Duncan that the sentries would be those who could speak Rone, and Orlean had been one of the best.
“What are you doing all the way up here?”
“It’s a very long story,” Duncan said, “And we really must speak to the Regent. It’s urgent.”
“She’s coming down to your capital in less than a week,” Orlean sounded suspicious, “Actually, four days once the sun rises.”
“This can’t wait four days,” Duncan answered, “Or even until the sun rises.”
“You want me to wake up the Regent?” Orlean now sounded dismissive.
“You can blame me,” Duncan offered.
“I will,” Orlean answered. “Who are the others?”
“This is Nuria and Sir Noble,” Duncan waved to the team.
“Sir Noble?” Orlean definitely knew the name. “You brought Sir Noble to meet the Regent?”
“Even better, I brought him to meet the Turin-Guarde.”
“OK, well, fine. OK. Yeah. No problem. Alright, listen, he has to lose the sword, at least.”
Duncan nodded to Noble. Noble drew his weapon and handed it to the nearest Sentry.
“Anything else?” Duncan asked.
“Yeah,” Orlean said, “Look, I think you’re a good guy. And I’m hoping this isn’t a really clumsy trick. But I just have to warn you, if you try anything stupid, you will all die horrible deaths.”
“Shall we proceed?” Duncan answered, his calmness and confidence reassuring Orlean.
Orlean gave quick orders in the Turin language to the other sentries, before leading Duncan and company further along the path to Sayil, the capital of the Turinheld.
It was the first time Duncan had been inside the capital. Years of negotiations had taken place along the border, or sometimes at neutral, third-party locations. Duncan and Orlean had exchanged many stories, describing each other’s lands, but this was the first time he got to experience the splendor of the Turinheld.
The city lived over a valley that dipped between two small, tree-lined mountains. Walking bridges and pathways had been carved into the branches and limbs, connecting the upper level of the city. And below, small huts and houses banked against the limbs of the mighty birches and oaks. Even at night, there was enough of a population that the pathways were busy. Lanterns dotted the upper and lower levels, giving Duncan the impression that they were floating through a flock of lightning bugs.
“Isn’t it dangerous to have so many lanterns?” Nuria asked.
“The way they’re balanced,” Orlean answered, “If they tip in any direction, the lid closes right away. The flame is snuffed out before it hits the ground.”
“That’s pretty smart,” Nuria said. “We should have those in our Castle.”
The company continued in silence for a while. Every Turin they passed gave them a look. They didn’t even pretend not to. Here were three people from the hated Kingdom of Rone, walking through their city. Sure, they were technically at peace, and everyone knew the Peace Festival was coming very soon, but chances were, each of them knew at least one person who had died in the war. If Orlean hadn’t been leading the way, no doubt there would have been trouble.
Finally, they arrived at the far mountain, at the Regent’s Stronghold. This was the only structure that went beyond pure utility. It was carved into the side of the mountain, three stories tall. Each level had been shaven down to create a plateau. But as far as Duncan could see, there was no way to reach the second or third level except by entering the first.
“We’re entering the Regent’s Stronghold,” Orlean warned. “I know you guys aren’t idiots, but I can’t stress this enough: Don’t make any sudden moves.”
He led them up to the only entrance on the first level. Duncan could see the shadows looking down from the plateau of the second level. Archers with bows at the ready. Even the treeline behind them seemed to be alive with movement.
Two Guards emerged from the door and spoke in hushed tones with Orlean. Duncan couldn’t hear most of it, until one of the guards asked, incredulously, “You want me to wak
e up the Regent?”
But a shrug and apology from Orlean apparently got the job done. He led the group inside.
The inside was, like the outside, an attempt to go beyond efficacy. Hand-crafted murals and artifacts adorned the walls and pedestals. The hollow went deep into the mountain, supported by uneven lines of stone pillars, each with a lantern embedded in the stone. Duncan could see that each pillar had a small chimney leading up, thus keeping the chamber from accumulating smoke.
And while the two guards at the door stayed at the door, they weren’t alone. Dozens of armed soldiers surrounded them on all sides, each peeking out from behind one of the pillars. Some had bows, some had swords. But it didn’t matter. There was no way to know for certain how many were there. Duncan pitied the fools who might try to breach this room.
Orlean led them to one of several spiral stairways in the back of the cavern. He held his hands out in front of him, palms up.
“Everyone, like this,” he warned. The Rone visitors all did the same as they ascended the stairs. And Duncan could see why. Spear points gleamed from gaps in the wall. Several guards were tucked into the stairwell, ready to impale any unwelcome guests.
Finally they emerged into the open again, now on the plateau of the second level of the Stronghold. Even though they were only about twenty feet higher, Duncan could see over the entire city from where he was. The sea of lanterns shaped the City of Sayil, a rough circle. Duncan could even see a nearby village, also defined by its points of light.
“OK, you can all put your hands down now,” Orlean said. Duncan hadn’t even noticed that he was still holding them up. He was so nervous about making a false move, it never occurred to him to lower them. And he was still well aware of the danger they were in. The archers who had been keeping an eye on them were now turned in on the courtyard, hands on their swords. And another batch of archers on the third-level plateau looked down at them, arrows nocked and ready.
Then, from the center entrance, four humongous guards emerged, forming a barrier around the opening. A herald emerged, announcing, in Turin, “And now, Regent of the Turinheld, Rajani, The Queen of May.” Orlean translated for the benefit of Duncan’s companions.
A Dagger of the Mind (The Imperial Metals) Page 7
