by P. T. Hylton
Zane found a seam in the rear of the tent and carefully worked the tip of his knife into it, moving slowly so as not to make any more noise than was absolutely necessary. It took him ten minutes to open a gap large enough to fit through. He slipped inside. Hopefully, any passersby wouldn’t notice it the cut seam.
Zane stood perfectly still, letting his eyes adjust to the deeper darkness and listening for any clues to his surroundings. He could tell from the rhythmic breathing that the bed was to his right and that occupant was asleep. He moved toward the sleeping figure. Even in the darkness, he could see the thing he’d come to steal. He took a deep, slow breath and took it. The sleeping Cragsman didn’t even stir.
Zane was out of the tent in less than a minute.
He walked the camp for another hour. The stars were bright and the air had a cool crispness that was uncommon this far south, even at night. Sound carried well in the camp, and various noises came to him, people snoring, people arguing, people loving. He was surprised by the variety of age and gender, though he probably shouldn’t have been. All Craggish were warriors, man and woman alike. He guessed the ages ranged from as young as fourteen to as old as sixty. He imagined multiple generations of the same family standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the battlefield. For some reason, the thought sent a chill running through him.
Zane didn’t have a purpose for being in the camp beyond what he’d already accomplished, but he enjoyed the feeling of walking through the camp, unseen among his nation’s enemies. The constant attention it required, the vigilance. It simplified things. Still, thoughts about the hopelessness of his situation crept into his mind.
He was alone. That was the biggest takeaway. His king wanted him dead. He had two of the finest killers in the world on his trail. If he had any sense, he would be turning himself into the Tavel leaders, not infiltrating the Craggish camps. They would accept him and use his talents, he was sure of it. But he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t betray his nation even if his nation had turned on him. He hadn’t sunk that low.
There was one more thing he needed to do before he left. He went and stood near a fire. A Cragsman Zane recognized stood across from him. He distinctly remembered the Cragsman dropping a stone on him when he’d been pressed. Making sure the Cragsman was watching him, Zane reached up and lowered his hood. The Cragsman’s eyes widened, and Zane knew the man recognized him.
Zane stepped back out of the firelight and into the darkness. He’d been seen. The job was done.
It was time to return. He could hide out in Harken for the rest of the night before returning to the Opelean camp in the morning. He’d done what he’d come here to do: he’d stolen himself a slim chance at survival.
CHAPTER SIX
Early the next morning, Jacob called Lily into his tent. It wasn’t a canvas mansion like the king’s, but it was larger than the tents that held ten soldiers each and the tent Lily was sharing with four other abditus apprentices.
Jacob motioned for her to sit across from him at the small table. She was reminded of his room in the castle with its massive oak desk and how many times he’d reprimanded her in that room.
Her mentor looked tired; there were dark circles around his eyes and he hunched in his seat.
“How are you?” Lily wasn’t sure if she’d ever before asked him that question.
“I was up half the night with Ewrkind, Prince Christopher, and the king. For someone who’s never seen a battle, that elf certainly has a lot of ideas about how he and his troops should be used. And the way he talks to the king! What’s more, the king lets him. I told the king not to look the elf in the eye, so I know he’s not using his elvish influence. There’s something about Ewrkind, the way he carries himself.”
Lily nodded. She’d noticed the same thing. He was a natural-born leader.
“How did the king take it when he found out what we’d promised Ewrkind?”
“He was furious,” Jacob said. “He yelled at his brother for half an hour after the elf left. But he’ll honor the agreement. He needs Ewrkind’s troops. Besides, he’s never seemed too comfortable with keeping the elves in the ghettos. That was his grandfather’s idea. But the king is good at putting things out his mind when he’s not comfortable thinking about him. Unfortunately, it usually falls to me to remind him, especially with the position of King’s Sword still vacant.”
“Why is that?” Lily asked. “Why hasn’t he named anyone King’s Sword?”
Jacob shrugged. “He’s been a bit busy and there’s no clear choice among the King’s Guard. Caleb didn’t bother naming a replacement, not that the king would have honored that traitor’s wishes. Still, this is war. Someone will distinguish himself and the king will take a liking to him. It’ll happen. I just hope it happens soon. Being the king’s sole advisor is no easy task.”
He stared off into space for a moment, and Lily didn’t interrupt his thoughts.
“I’ll tell you,” Jacob said, finally, “I used to dream of power. Now I have all the power I ever wanted, the power to affect wars and nations, and I’m not sure it’s worth the price I paid to get it. This thing, this position I hold, it’s not the glorious honor I thought it would be. It’s a burden, plain and simple. When so many people are counting on you…well, it wears you down. You’ll see that soon enough for yourself.”
Lily raised an eyebrow at that. As much as she’d come to respect Jacob over the past two years, she knew that he still lusted after power in the way some men lusted after women. Specifically, power he needed to fight to acquire. Power that was just out of his grasp. Lily thought of the Nettle, the Farns-made thorn Zane had given her. She’d never told Jacob about the thorn, but she sometimes suspected he knew she had it anyway. There were some magics he kept from her, and one of those might be able to detect the presence of a powerful thorn. If he did know the Nettle existed, he’d one day try to take it from her, apprentice or not. She had long considered and planned for that possibility.
Jacob sat up in his seat a little and leaned forward. “Ewrkind has asked that you be stationed with his troops. The king agrees. He wants you to act as a sort of liaison between the Opeleans and the elves.”
“Why? Why me, I mean?”
Jacob smiled. “For some reason, that elf likes you. And he doesn’t seem to like anyone, so that’s saying something. I don’t know what happened the first time you met him, but he respects you. And the king…the king does, too. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but His Majesty wants people who take the initiative and can think on their feet. And you certainly fit that description, for good or ill.”
What would this mean? For her and for the war? “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Jacob said. “This is a big opportunity. If you perform well here, assuming we survive the war, your king will not forget your service.” He paused for a moment. “What do you want for yourself, Lily? After all this, after the war, what will you do with your life?”
The question caught her off guard. She suddenly realized she had no idea what she wanted. She’d thought she’d known, once. She’d wanted to be a ferox, like Zane. Maybe even an assassin. She’d pictured herself righting wrongs, defending the weak, killing those who deserved it. Despite Zane’s warnings about not thinking what they did was good, she’d held on to that fantasy for a long time.
But over the past few years, she hadn’t had time to come up with a new plan for her life. It was all about surviving the next crisis, overcoming the next seemingly insurmountable obstacle. She hadn’t thought about the future much because she’d never been sure there would be one.
Now, in the heart of a war they were losing so badly, seemed like a very odd time to be asking.
Jacob said, “You should think about it. Being able to choose your future is a rare luxury. Not even the king had that privilege. You undoubtedly have potential, Lily. You could rise to the top of our profession, perhaps be the head of the Abditus Society someday, if that’s the path you choose
. Or, maybe you want to go into business selling your glides. Maybe you want to follow in my path and advise kings, help shape nations. But you need to think about it, or you will find yourself on a path you didn’t choose and you’ll discover it’s too late to change your course.”
“Abditus Von Ridden.” The voice came from the flap of the tent.
Jacob quickly stood, and he motioned for Lily to do the same. “Abditus Worring, please, come in.”
A tall, gaunt man stepped into the tent. Lily vaguely remembered seeing him around the Academy, but she didn’t recall his role. Perhaps he didn’t something for the Society? The head of one of their various departments, maybe? The Society had so many it was impossible to keep track.
Worring nodded to Lily. “Miss Rhodes, it’s a pleasure.”
Lily gave him a bow in return. “The pleasure’s mine, Abditus Worring.”
Jacob motioned toward the table. “Shall we sit?”
When they were seated, Abditus Worring said, “Jacob tells me you make glides.”
“Among other things,” Lily said. “I dabble with tangles, too. And sometimes shimmers. But glides are my focus.”
“May I see one?”
Lily glanced at Jacob and he gave her a subtle nod. She pulled the knife out of her boot and handed it to him.
“Hmmm,” Worring said, turning the knife this way and that. He raised the knife as if he was going to throw it at the ground, then stopped, changed the angle of his wrist, and then threw it straight up. As the knife fell back down, he opened his hand, and the knife stopped, hovering an inch above his palm.
“Elegant design,” he said. Before Lily could respond, Worring grabbed the knife handle and swung the knife at Lily’s face. It stopped an inch away as if it had struck stone. “A knife that can’t be used to cause harm unless you know the exact angle at which to hold it. Interesting, if a bit impractical. An abditus could, of course, get around it if he were clever enough to figure out the trick.”
He turn the knife just so and the resistance holding it away from Lily disappeared. Worring touched the tip of the knife to her cheek.
“As I said, not exactly practical.”
She gritted her teeth and forced herself not to respond. She was tempted to show him her sword. The way it floated, flew, and came back to her. But she hadn’t even shown that to Jacob yet. Besides, who was this man to criticize her work? Even if he was some Abditus Society bureaucrat.
Worring pulled out a small object, something with a thin, sharp blade on one end and a blunt, spoon-shaped tool on the other end. The two halves were joined with a metal ring. Jacob had one of these, and Lily had seen him working with it sometimes. It seemed much more elegant than the tools she used to work on her devices, but he never let her use it. “Learn to work with what you have,” he always said, a phrase that angered Lily like few others.
Worring poked the sharp end of the tool between the blade and the handle, working it back and forth until he’d made a small gap.
Lily sat up straighter in he chair. What the hell was he doing with her glide? She opened her mouth, but Jacob put a gentle hand over hers. She looked at him, and he gave his head a quick shake. Lily snapped her mouth shut.
Worring flipped over his tool and worked the spoon-shaped end into the gap. He then gave it a sharp pull, and the handle popped free, the two sides falling to the table. It was a full-tang knife, meaning the blade ran all the way through the handle. It looked sad, lying there naked. The abditus picked up one side of the handle, somehow knowing exactly where to find the glide. He poked at it with the sharp end of his tool.
He suddenly looked up. “Oh dear. It seems I’ve broken it.” He set down the handle and slid it across the table. “Fix it.”
What was this? Lily glanced at Jacob, but his eyes revealed nothing. Something about this whole thing, about Worring and Jacob’s somber demeanors, made this whole thing feel…significant.
She picked up Worring’s tool with a shaky hand and used it to inspect the small, cylindrical glide she’d hidden in the knife’s handle. At first, she didn’t see anything wrong with it. It looked exactly as it had the last time she’d seen it. Then, a moment later, she saw it. Worring had moved the bottom of the glide ever-so-slightly off center. That imbalance could cause disastrous results.
She worked at the bottom of the glide for a moment. When she thought she had it balanced, she gently tossed the handle into the air. It spun perfectly, up until the last moment when the bottom side fluttered almost imperceptibly as it settled into her hand. She almost ignored the imperfection. But that imperfection would be magnified once it had a blade attached to it.
Picking up the tool, she made one more tiny adjustment. She tested again, and it landed flawlessly. Satisfied, she gave the handle and the tool back to Worring.
Without a word, he went back to work on the glide. This time, she heard a scraping sound. He slid her the handle and the tool. “Fix it.”
A quick look showed her that this time he’d wedged the glide too deep into the handle. That would affect the speed at which it flew. The way he had it set now, this knife would practically move in slow motion. It took her three tries with the tool before she got it reset to the proper depth.
She gave it back to him, and she was almost certain she heard a pleased grunt emerge from the stoic man as he inspected her work.
Pleased or not, he wasted no time before taking his tool to the glide once again. This time, she heard a high-pitched squeaking noise as he moved his tool back and forth.
When he gave it back to her the third time, she saw he’d done much more than move the glide out of place. He’d actually scraped a small divot in it, ruining its perfectly uniform shape. And with glides, shape was everything.
Her hands shook, not with nervousness now, but with rage.
“Fix it,” Worring said.
She looked up at him sharply. Fix it? It was ruined. “I’d need access to the abditus workshop. I’ll need a fire and—”
“Use what’s in this room,” Worring said. “Nothing more.”
She glanced at Jacob again, but, again, he was no help.
It was impossible. She couldn’t do what he was asking, not without the proper equipment. It was crazy to expect her to. And why did she care about pleasing this man anyway? She should be punching him in the face for destroying her creation.
But she knew why she was still listening to his instructions. Because this was a puzzle, and Lily loved solving puzzles. She always had. It was part of why she’d loved being a ferox apprentice. Finding a lost object, or even hunting down a target, was a puzzle of sorts. And now, from the way this man watched her expectantly and the carefully passive way Jacob looked on, she knew there was a solution. She just needed to find it.
Then it came to her. The tool. It wasn’t one solid piece of metal; it was two pieces joined together with a metal ring. Which meant they could be separated. Which also meant…
A slow smile crept across her face. She recognized the distinctive pattern on the metal ring. It was very similar to one she sometimes wore on her finger. She knew what she needed to do, but it would require precise work, maybe more precise than she was capable of doing.
She picked up the tool and snapped it in two. She then began to scrape at the spoon-shaped side of the tool with the sharp end.
It was slow work. Tiny flecks of metal would fall onto the table, and she’d carefully pick them up and press them into the divot in the glide. Then she took out the ring that had joined the two halves of the tool together. It wasn’t a simple piece of metal; it was a thorn. A heat thorn. After inserting each piece of metal into the divot, she held the thorn to the glide, hoping she was applying enough heat to cause the soft metals to melt together but not so much that she was warping the shape of the glide.
After ten applications, she was certain that she had it. The glide was back to its original shape and position. She fit the handle back onto the blade, securing it with a bit of string for now, an
d she tossed it into the air. She forced herself to relax so she’d look calmer than she felt as she held out her open palm. If she’d been off even a little in her repair, the knife could stab her in the hand when it fell.
But it didn’t. It stopped, hovering an inch above her hand, just as she’d designed it to. She stuck the knife back into her boot before Worring could think of another way to damage her invention.
Worring looked at her for a long moment, his eyes unreadable, then a wide smile broke out across his face. “Very good. Congratulations. You’ve passed your abditus placement exam.”
Lily blinked hard. “What?”
Jacob patted her on the back, his face beaming. “Welcome to the Abditus Society!”
That was her exam? If so, it was a very different experience from the Ferox Society’s test.
As if reading her thoughts, Jacob said, “It was no small thing you just did. Repairing a glide with only one tool and in such a short time? There are very few who can do that.”
Worring grunted his agreement.
“Why now? And why didn’t you tell me?” Lily asked Jacob.
“As to the timing, we couldn’t send an apprentice as our liaison to the elves. And, to your other question…I wanted to give you an extra challenge. I knew you could pass if I gave you time to prepare. But passing with no preparation…you’ve truly impressed me.”
“Indeed.” Worring nodded toward the tool on the table. “That’s yours to keep.” He turned to Jacob. “Shall we do the other part?”
Lily tensed, realizing that the exam wasn’t over. She knew it couldn’t be that easy. But what would happen next? Would she have to defend herself from thorns? She slipped her hand into her pocket and grabbed the tangle she kept there.
“Relax,” Jacob said. “He’s talking about your vows. It’s time to say your vows.” He chuckled. “I’m going to miss having you as an apprentice, Lily Rhodes, but I think I’m going to enjoy having you as a colleague. Now, it’s time for you to speak your vows and truly become a member of the Abditus Society.”
