The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  Garrett whistled softly and pointed toward the archer with his chin, “That’s her up on the roof?”

  The guard stepped out of the way to open the gate. “Yeah, that’s where she normally stays while we have visitors coming down from the mountains.”

  The king looked from the lodge to the crest of the valley where his men waited, measuring the distance. “Geez, that’s got to be, what, three thousand feet? How’d she shoot that far?”

  “Roughly.” Garth shrugged, “Maybe a little longer. She can hit everywhere in the valley—accurately.”

  “That’s impossible,” Nicholas chimed in.

  Garth sputtered and then laughed aloud. “Maybe for you. Darci has this old book about world records that she showed me once. In the old world, people could shoot for double that length with a specially made bow and arrow. She’s something special, though. She can hit anything she can see. That’s why the Seers hired her.”

  They spread out inside the fence as Garth closed the gate and put the chain back through it. “I’ve seen her kill four men before they made it past the first marker stones.”

  Garrett glanced back up the pathway. Sure enough, large boulders broke up the tall grass at regular intervals. The stones looked to have been there for all time, causing him to wonder if they’d been placed before the fall of the old world. The hunters may have used the markers to increase the accuracy of their weapons at different distances.

  “Damn, she’s really good to have around then,” he muttered, falling into line with Garth as the guard led the way back toward the lodge.

  “The Seers are in high demand,” the man replied. “Everyone wants to know what the future holds. Sometimes people don’t want to pay the price for their services or want to take what they think the Seers have stockpiled, so we need security. The truth is that we’re scraping by here, just like everywhere else.”

  “Except you don’t have to farm the land yourself to get the resources,” Nicholas countered. “All of that is given to you by people trying to get answers about their future.”

  “That’s true, I guess,” Garth admitted. “We do get paid in food and supplies—like clothing and firewood, sometimes other random things—but we have to supplement with our own meat and there’s a large garden the Seers tend to when not talking with travelers.”

  Garrett didn’t begrudge them earning a little bit of food or clothing like Nicholas did. The Seers provided a service for people and they charged for their services so they could continue to survive. Part of their survival was the employment of guards to help keep away the raiders and slavers so they had to charge enough of a fee to cover the guards’ cost as well. It was the same economy as in Homelake; they simply offered a different product than the merchants at home.

  They continued in silence until they reached the porch. The rough-looking men posted there asked them politely to leave their weapons. Nicholas started to protest that they hadn’t relinquished their weapons when they were here years ago, until Garrett unbuckled his weapons belt. The gesture was enough to end his friend’s objection. If he was willing to give up the sword of Aeric Traxx, then Nicholas could leave his own sword.

  Nicholas held up his empty hand, the other was busy digging into his boot to pull out the knife he had stashed there as well. “The Seer who was murdered couldn’t see what the guy was going to do?” he asked.

  Garth sucked at his teeth and seemed to arrange his thoughts before answering. “From my experience with them, I’ve learned that they can’t predict their own deaths. Crimes of passion, often spur of the moment with no forethought, are hidden from them as well.”

  “They can tell others all about what will happen to them, but they can’t take care of themselves?” Nicholas scoffed.

  “That’s why we’re here,” a woman’s voice surprised them from behind.

  Garrett turned to see the dark-haired woman in the brown cloak who’d been on the roof earlier. She wore rough leather leggings and a homespun shirt, offset by high-cut boots that looked to be from one of the old world militaries and a metal composite crossbow topped with a metal tube. “Hello, Darci.”

  She inclined her head slightly. “King.”

  Simple and to the point, Garrett liked that. “I was telling Garth here that I was impressed by your skill with the bow.”

  Darci hefted the crossbow and patted the tube centered above the trigger. “This is the best scope I’ve ever seen. Traded four demonbroc paws and eight jackrabbit carcasses for it; probably fed that merchant for two months if he preserved the meat properly.”

  “A scope?” Garrett asked.

  “It’s like a pair of binoculars. You’ve seen those, right?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  She rolled her eyes. “This is exactly like a binocular except there’s only one tube. I can see thousands of feet with the scope, like it was right in front of me. They used to put them on the top of guns, but most of them have been lost or broken over the years. This one is special.”

  “Because it’s yours?” Garrett guessed.

  She smirked, “Exactly, Traxx. Are you prepared to meet with the Seers?”

  He patted his coat and replied, “Yes. We’ve surrendered all of our weapons.”

  “Good. Garth will escort you inside.”

  “You’re not going in?”

  Her smirk turned dark. “I’m a much better long-range fighter. Garth and Ryan will be inside the sanctum with you.”

  “Well, I’m glad that you’ll be out here watching our backs while we’re inside.”

  “You’ll be safe,” Darci stated and turned to return to the roof.

  *****

  The sanctum, as Darci had called it, was a large space set off the common room. Garrett sat uncomfortably on a cushion waiting for the ceremony to begin. As he did so, he looked idly around the room and tried to focus his mind, which was already becoming a fuzzy from the smoke swirling foglike along the floor. He couldn’t decide what the room was originally designed for. Outside, the remains of an old sign hung above the door and the letters “SA” were the only readable section left of the title, lending to his belief that it was a sanctum in the old world as well.

  The room was square with some type of wood, perhaps cedar, lining the walls and ceiling, while the floor was simple concrete. In the middle of the floor, a drain was set in the sloping foundation to allow liquids to escape. Garrett wondered if the hunters used the sanctum as a slaughter room for their game, and the drain was to catch the blood. Two rows of wooden shelves or seats of some kind lined each wall, adding to the room’s oddities. Did the hunters gather in the room and watch the victor carve up the animal? Was there some type of connection between the kill and honoring the beast?

  He’d never know the true nature of the room, of course. The Seers tried to soften the room’s appearance by placing pillows and rugs everywhere, using the wooden structures as a combination of storage and seating. When he was here before, Mistress Erika and two other women had formed the points of a triangle around him while two more fed twigs of an aromatic bush into an ancient brazier set in the corner. Garth had stood outside, peering through the little glass square set in the door—which was how the merchant had been able to kill Erika before he could get inside.

  The current set-up was much like the first time, except Garth and Ryan, one of the guards who’d been on the porch when they arrived, were inside the sanctum with the Seers. Nicholas and Brandt were allowed to enter the sanctum with Garrett while his remaining companions sat in the common room drinking wine with a young girl.

  Nicholas and Brandt sat along the wall next to Ryan. Garth stood in the doorway, blocking the window with his height. As before, two women sat near the brazier peeling leaves from small sticks and setting them aside before throwing the wood and roots into the fire. Garrett sat on a pillow, roughly in the center of the floor near the drain that he’d noticed before. Once he sat, one of the Seers had drawn a triangle on the concrete in chalk, placed a cushion
at each point and then returned to sit on the bench.

  The three Seers who would perform the ritual sat across from him on the wooden benches. They wore heavy robes of wool with strands of silver and gold intertwined around their wrists and upon their brows. Idly, his mind thought that their adornments must have cost a fortune. The women focused on a point behind him, seemingly ignoring the fact that he was even present.

  The woman directly in front of him was stunning. Her dark hair framed olive skin that could only have come through breeding and not years of toiling in the sun. She appeared slim and of average height, but he could tell that she was well endowed as well. His mind began to wander even farther as the thick smoke curled around him and he found himself thinking about the woman more. What else did those robes hide?

  He sat for an uncomfortably long time, waiting for them to begin the prophecy. Sweat dripped down the crevasse between his shoulders, continuing to trail along his spine and mingle with the wetness between his cheeks. It was incredibly hot in the sanctum and the acolytes continued to feed twigs into the fire.

  Garrett began to get an ache in his lower back from sitting cross-legged, so he straightened his legs and arched his back to stretch it out. Still the women stared at him.

  He wondered if he should open the conversation, but that felt wrong. Are they already in a trance, learning of Homelake’s future? He was dimly aware of the pungent odor of pine and something sweet permeating the air. When he looked toward the brazier, he was surprised to see thick layers of smoke pouring forth from it; they’d begun to pile the leaves of the plant directly on the coals.

  “Garrett Traxx, I am the Mistress of the Valley Lodge.”

  The violation of the silence in the chamber surprised Garrett, making him jump and whip his head back toward the Seers in front of him. The woman in the center had spoken. Her voice was scratched and battered, sounding as if she had something stuck in her throat and the words had trouble passing it.

  His reaction must have played across his face, for the woman smiled. “Do I surprise you, little king?”

  “No, I just wasn’t expecting the rites to begin yet,” he lied.

  She laughed, the noise grating down his spine like a child rubbing a rock across a washing board. “You must learn to lie better once you are truly a king in the land of Homelake, Traxx.”

  His face flushed in embarrassment. How can such a beautiful woman be cursed with that voice? “I’m sorry… ahh, Mistress?”

  “You may call me Diane or Mistress; both are acceptable in our home.”

  He nodded dumbly, feeling compelled to tell her the truth. “The sound of your voice startled me, Mistress. You are a beautiful woman, I wasn’t expecting—”

  “Traxx, you flatter me,” she replied in guttural tones that made him wonder if she was even human.

  The mistress pulled her robes away from where they’d gathered around her neck. She leaned her head back to expose ugly scars along both sides of her throat. “My father attempted to cut out my voice when I was a child. He thought that if he could remove my voice, the Gift would go away and I could be married off to a man who preferred a silent woman.”

  Her head snapped back down to stare icily at Garrett. “It didn’t work. The visions intensified and I fled to the Valley Lodge, a place of legend where I was told the Seers were accepted by all.” She held up both hands in front of her companions as she said the last word. The two women stood and grasped her delicate fingers, lifting her gently from the seat.

  As one, they moved forward. Diane stopped near a pillow directly in front of him and the other two continued to their own cushions behind him on either side to form the human points of the triangle around him.

  “I know why you are here. Tell me why you think you came to us today, Traxx.”

  Her word choice disturbed him. Why he thought he was there?

  Garrett cleared his throat before beginning, “Mistress, I am to be crowned king of the people of Homelake at the full moon—”

  “That is only two weeks from now,” Diane interrupted him.

  “Yes, Mistress. The people demanded that I speak to the Seers before my coronation. They wanted to ensure that crowning one, singular person as the leader is not a mistake.”

  “And the inevitable passage of the title on to your descendants,” she surmised.

  He nodded. The idea of succession had been a heated point of contention among the Council, dividing them on the issue. Generally, the farmers had liked the idea of the stability a royal family could bring; while the merchants wanted the title to be voted upon after Garrett’s death. He preferred the hereditary nature of royalty as well, but had chosen to keep his opinion to himself so as not to sway the Council one way or another.

  “Yes, that’s one of the concerns,” he admitted. “The other is whether or not crowning a king is the right thing for our people. Both the Council and myself share this concern.”

  Diane smirked at him through the haze of smoke. “Does it really matter what your title is? Are you not already the leader of the people of Homelake and the head of the governing council there?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You waste our time, King Traxx,” she growled while she gestured for the two women feeding leaves into the flames to increase their pace. Garrett waited patiently while the smoke built, allowing Diane to get into the element that she desired.

  She inhaled deeply from the thick cloud around them. “What are your other concerns? You surprise me, Traxx, for you’ve not scratched the surface of the real problem. I have dreamt of other…issues for Homelake—and for everyone in the region.”

  “Issues? What issues?” Garrett demanded.

  “All in good time,” she replied as she inhaled deeply once again. “For now, talk to me about your concerns.”

  Behind him, he could hear the other two Seers breathing deeply as well, taking in as much of the smoke into their lungs as possible. He’d seen it before, with each breath, the women would begin to lose themselves in their trance. “I want to know about the crops,” Garrett began. “We have a little wheat and some oats set aside, but everything else is ground-to-mouth; most of our food doesn’t last much longer than a month once it’s harvested. When will the ground produce enough to allow us to begin saving for the leaner seasons?”

  “This is the lean season!” the Seer to his right shouted, causing him to jump.

  “Forgive Arielle,” Diane spoke softly, drawing his attention back to her. “She is usually the first to succumb to the effects of the Calamus.”

  Garrett watched, mesmerized as the Mistress’ chest swelled and deflated with each breath. The fuzziness in his mind was beginning to deepen as the drug’s effects intensified. “Calamus?” he asked, the word slurring off his tongue.

  “Maybe you know it as Sweet Flag?” the Mistress said. “We use the root to help bring our visions while guests are present. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to tell you of your future until you’d already gone—not a good business practice.”

  “Sweet Flag?” he was having difficulty thinking straight. The smoke was much more intense than it had been the first time he visited the lodge.

  “Yes, but it smells awful,” Diane’s ruined voice cut through the fog. “That’s why we also use pine needles to cover up the scent. When I became the Mistress of the Lodge, I also added the leaves and seeds of the Prickly Poppy to help ease the terror of the visions, which allows us to understand them and interpret them a little easier. As it turns out, they smell nice too.”

  He nodded his head dumbly in the smoke. The Seers wouldn’t be able to see his movements; it just felt like the right thing to do. He had to acknowledge her somehow and he didn’t trust his voice anymore. In fact, Garrett wasn’t sure he trusted any part of his body at that moment.

  “Garrett Traxx,” Diane spoke, pulling his attention back from the edge of the abyss. “Do not panic. It is natural to feel isolated and that your body will betray you. When we—”

 
“Betrayal!” the woman named Arielle, gasped. “Your friends will betray you!”

  “Yes, sister, tell us what you see!” the youngest of the three women in the triangle called from his other side.

  “The past is not dead!” Arielle stated. “It will come for you. The sins of the past will be your undoing.”

  The fogginess in Garrett’s mind cleared away, remaining in his limbs. He felt that he couldn’t move, but could hear everything perfectly. The Seer’s words painted a picture in his mind, “A jungle… Traxx in the jungle with the lizard-men… They fly! So beautiful, graceful…”

  “The Earth Mother demands a sacrifice to end her pain!” the young Seer screamed.

  The two of them played off each other, yelling things back and forth about flying men and the repair of damages. His head began to swim with all of the things that they said until one voice, the voice of a devil cut through the smoke.

  “Your ancient enemies have returned.” It took him a moment to focus on the voice. It was vaguely female, but not quite. There was something wrong with the way the words were put together, forced through ruined vocal chords. Then, he remembered the Mistress. Her face emerged from the smoke as she leaned forward.

  “The wild men have returned from the grave. Their army, always ravenous, has conquered the homeland of your fathers. They rule all of the brown land to the south, demanding more and more from their people."

  She grunted as if she’d been struck, then, “They know of the Traxx prosperity in the foothills of the giant mountains. They’ve been told of the never-ending food supply, the abundance of women who are not marked by disease, even the cooler weather draws them.

  “Plotting. Planning. Scheming. The Vultures have returned. Beware little Traxxling. When you are older, they will come for you and everything before them will burn anew.