Lunara opened her eyes and blinked as if she had been daydreaming. “What favor would you seek? Ask it of me and it shall be,” she said with a smile and eyes that never left his.
Whill leaned forward onto his arms. “My path is one of war and death, my quest likely suicide. I would see to it that Tarren is looked after, that he is loved in my stead. I would ask that you watch over him.”
Lunara’s eyes glistened and her nostrils flared as her breath came to her quickly. Her hand found his across the table and she squeezed. “You would ask this of me, to be as mother to your child?”
“His guardian, yes,” Whill clarified gently.
Lunara straightened. “And should you return, as you doubt—when he has become used to me as his nurturer, you would take him then?”
Whill squeezed her hand back and could not help but smile at her hopeful gaze. “You would remain as you were, until he is a man of his own mind to choose.”
Sobbing laughter escaped Lunara as she answered, “Yes! Yes of course. It would be my honor.”
Whill sat back, happy that he had one less thing to worry about. “The lad loves you already, and there are things you can teach him that I cannot,” he said, and suddenly heard the same words from Abram. He turned toward the sound and found himself in his childhood cottage. Abram and Teera were talking by the fire.
“He loves you already, and you can teach him things I cannot,” Teera said, looking nervously in Whill’s direction. He followed her gaze and saw that there in a swath of elven cloth was an infant. “This child…I must know.”
Abram turned away from her as if it were an old question.
“It is best—”
“The fallen king of Uthen-Arden. My brother disappears for ten years to become a knight of another kingdom. Letters come few the first year and rarely after that. I read your tales of adventure and folly, how you were rising through the ranks of the Uthen-Arden army. Assigned to the king’s very own guard, you said. And then you return to me on the heels of news of the assassination of King Aramonis.”
Teera jerked Abram around to face her. “Brother,” she pleaded. “What trouble have you gotten yourself into?” She glanced at the infant Whill. “What trouble have you brought upon us?”
The memory froze and the Other walked out of the shadows behind Abram.
“He leaves after this conversation, not to return for a year.”
Whill looked around bewildered and then angry. “What game is this?” he demanded.
“Game?” The Other looked around, his blood- and grime-soaked hair whipping. “There is no game here. I simply wanted to share with you my fondest early memories. We cannot forget from where we came.” The memory around him swirled into smoke and became utterly dark.
Whill groped blindly and his hands found nothing but thick liquid and warm flesh. Muffled noises surrounded him, along with a steady, thunderous heartbeat. There was a jolt to his surroundings and he felt the jar of a fall. The heartbeat slowed and skipped, beat four more laborious times, and was still.
Muffled voices screamed outside of the womb and there was an explosion that shook all things. Silence followed. Whill floated there terrified, longing for the soothing heartbeat that had been his world. There came a long slice in the darkness and light poured into Whill, jolting his senses. Hands came for him and pulled him from his mother and he was lifted into the cold biting air. Pain hit him for the first time and he heard himself let out a gut-wrenching cry.
“That was the moment of my birth,” said the Other, “and I have been with you ever since.”
Whill was thrust back to Lunara’s room and the biting cold followed him.
“Whill?” came a concerned, muffled voice. “Whill!” Lunara came into focus across from him. He sat up straight quickly and looked around, confused.
“I…sorry, I have…what happened?” he asked.
“Nothing, you just trailed off for a moment. What was it? It looked as if you remembered something important.”
“How long?” he dared ask.
Lunara shrugged with a frown. “Just a few moments. Are you all right?”
Whill nodded and sipped his tea, hoping she did not think him insane.
Whill? Avriel’s voice entered his head.
Lunara perked up as if Avriel spoke to her as well.
“Of course, Princess, please enter,” said Lunara brightly.
The heavy wooden door opened and Avriel strode into the room. She stopped abruptly and Whill followed her eyes to the teapot and cups. She looked from the set to Lunara with an arched brow. Across from Whill, Lunara straightened and lifted her chin. Whill looked from one to the other, knowing he was missing something. Nothing was said of it, however, as Avriel smiled and walked forward.
“King Zerafin requests your presence,” she said to Whill.
He nodded, finished his tea, and rose with a smile at Lunara. “Thank you once again. I am forever in your debt.”
“It is my honor,” she responded with a sweet smile.
Whill and Avriel walked down the hall and through the main room without a word. Whill could sense something bothering her. “Did your brother say what this is about?” he asked, not knowing what else to say.
Avriel shook her head. “The tea ceremony—did she say what it represented?”
“No.” Now he was curious. “I assumed it was just tea.”
Avriel gave a short, forced laugh. “It was a ceremony of offering.”
“Offering what?” asked Whill hesitantly.
Avriel stopped and faced him. “An offering of self. Lunara has given herself to you.”
“What! She didn’t…we didn’t!” he stammered.
“I know. To you it was just tea. But to her it was…she will give herself to no other.”
“But it was just tea!” he blurted.
“To you, but to her it was sacred.”
“But doesn’t she know…I mean you and I…”
“I have not made my feelings known to anyone. I have been a dragon as of late, if you recall.”
“Of course,” said Whill. “I didn’t know if elves had a different way of…knowing or making these things known.”
They left the dwarven abode and strolled through Cerushia toward Zerafin’s home. At some point Whill took Avriel’s hand and together they talked and laughed through the brilliant afternoon.
Chapter 32
The Looking Glass of Araveal
Whill and Avriel strode into the pyramid at the edge of the city and found gathered there Roakore, Holdagozz, and Zerafin. The main hall was set up like a war room. At the center was a circular table with a low bottom and edges that rose up, the kind of table found at any bar in any tavern in Agora. Roakore even had a mug in hand as Whill and Avriel approached.
“Welcome. Please have a seat,” Zerafin bade them.
The closer Whill got to the strange table, the more his curiosity grew. He came to the edge and looked within the lowered center. What he saw caused his breath to skip and his eyes to widen. “This is amazing,” he uttered in admiration.
The table dipped to the center and flattened out again into a giant map of Agora. But it was more than a map; it was as if they looked down upon Agora from the stars. Whill stared in awe at the lifelike map. It had moving clouds and rain, rippling oceans, and even ships out to sea, tiny dots upon the vast blue ocean.
“Is this actually real?” Whill asked, astonished.
“Ain’t it the damnedest thing you ever seen, lad?” said Roakore dreamily.
“It is real,” said Zerafin, joining them at the table. “In a sense, it is the accumulated memory image of hundreds of elven druids who looked down upon the world from the clouds. This, the Looking Glass of Araveal, is my mother’s doing. She fabricated it and set into motion its creation. It has been and will be a critical tool in the war. Let me show you. Choose a town in a kingdom.”
Whill looked around Agora and spotted his hometown. “Sidnell,” he said.
Ze
rafin turned his high-backed chair and put his hands upon two crystals that jutted from his place at the table. There was no physical sign that Zerafin had done anything; if he had made a command, it had been in his mind. Suddenly Whill felt as though he were falling as the map turned and shifted and the view zoomed swiftly down upon the land and to the upper right corner of Agora. Whill gasped as Sidnell was displayed to him in living clarity. It was the actual view from elven memory.
“They flew over every last stone’s throw of Agora?” said Whill, amazed.
“Yes, but there are places the memories do not show,” Zerafin explained.
Once again the map backed up and dropped them in the middle of Uthen-Arden’s Thendor Plains, a few hundred miles north of Del’Oradon. There upon the ocean of grass was a strange rippling disturbance. The image contorted too much to be made clear.
“What is it?” Whill asked.
“A portal,” said Zerafin with a pensive frown. “Thrice we have sent scouts to discover the source. The first two groups did not return. The third reported back this morning. It is indeed a portal, or rather some sort of rift. The one survivor of the group said that from it marched an army of draggard.”
“How many?” Avriel asked.
“We cannot guess. The Looking Glass of Araveal’s images are replenished on a weekly cycle, and this disturbance appeared two weeks ago. There is no way to tell how long the draggard have been moving.”
“Where do you think the portals lead?” Holdagozz asked. Whill knew the answer before it was spoken.
“Drindellia,” Zerafin answered. “And there are more.”
At Zerafin’s mental command the map panned out and once again the entire continent and its surrounding islands could be seen. “They are here,” he said as bulges swelled in the map, Whill realized its surface was water. There were six bumps in the map in all. There was one over the Thendor Plains, and also one in Eldalon, Isladon, Shierdon, the ancient Uthen-Arden naval outpost Fendora Island, and Volnoss, the northern island of ice, the very place Aurora was headed.
“These may all be portals to Eadon’s hordes in Drindellia?” Whill said softly as he brought to memory the location of each.
“Yes,” said Zerafin solemnly.
“Then it’s settled! We need to be destroying ’em!” said Roakore, slamming the table.
“Of course they must be destroyed,” said Zerafin, annoyed. “But we must use cunning and patience—”
“Bah, I had about enough o’ patience! Patience had me sittin’ on me arse for twenty years afore reclaimin’ me mountain. Patience be the way o’ the weary, an’ dwarves ain’t weary,” Roakore spat.
“He is right!” Avriel yelled over them all. Zerafin nodded in agreement, but looking at his sister, he realized that she spoke to him.
“Roakore is right, we must strike these locations and we must strike quickly. The gods only know how long these portals have stood open,” she said to her brother.
“That is what he would expect.” Whill shook his head and leaned forward to study the map. “They could be traps.”
“Eadon would not have known that we have the looking glass,” argued Zerafin.
“Wouldn’t he?” said Whill. “If Eadon has assassins here inside Elladrindellia, why not spies?”
“You are right,” Zerafin conceded. “Spies there may be, and he may know about the looking glass.”
“Bah!” Roakore bellowed and threw up his arms. “We need to be warnin’ Eldalon and Isladon. Trap or no trap, it bears lookin’ into.”
Whill pointed at the Fendora Island disturbance. “From here to Fendora is what, a few hundred miles?”
“Yes,” answered Zerafin hesitantly.
Whill stared at the island for a time and finally nodded. “I must go there.”
Zerafin and Avriel began to object immediately and Whill had to shout over them. “It is the only way to know the truth!”
“And if it is a trap?” asked Avriel.
“You cannot yet face Eadon,” added Zerafin.
“I can never face Eadon!” Whill cried, and the room became as silent as a tomb. Avriel lowered her gaze and Zerafin only stared blankly. Roakore looked as though a reassuring word lay upon the tip of his tongue.
“I know what you all would say, but it is not true. I cannot defeat Eadon—I was never meant to, and the prophecy is a lie. But what is true is that I wield the blade Adromida. I possess a great weapon in this war. And though I may not defeat Eadon, I can still defeat his armies.”
Avriel shook her head in denial. “The prophecy is not a lie, I do not care what Kellallea claims. Perhaps she was a lie.”
“True or not, we cannot rely upon a prophecy alone,” Whill argued. “If your beloved prophecy is true, it will matter not if I go to Fendora Island, for I will come to no harm.”
Avriel sighed in frustration but said no more. Zerafin looked to Roakore, who scowled at the map.
“What be your plan, laddie?” he asked, and all eyes went to Whill.
Whill gazed down upon Fendora as a god might. “A full frontal assault. I am done running from Eadon and his minions.”
“We will make it a coordinated effort, then,” said Zerafin.
“No. I must do this alone.”
“When would you leave?” Avriel asked, not hiding her displeasure.
“I will see the Council of Masters, as I have been summoned, and then I will investigate this portal,” Whill said with finality.
“I’m goin’ with ye, laddie,” Roakore interjected.
“I said I—”
“I be the godsdamned king o’ Ro’Sar! I be goin’ where I please!” yelled Roakore. “One o’ these damned portals was in me mountain, an’ this fancy-lookin’ glass don’t show what portals might yet be in our mountains.”
“Very well,” said Whill, surrendering to the stubborn king. He looked at Zerafin. It was apparent that the meeting had not gone as planned.
“And once through the portal? Likely there is an army waiting,” said Zerafin, eyeing Whill and Roakore.
“If there be an army waiting, then we’ll kill ’em all,” Roakore promised.
Chapter 33
The Book O’ Ky’Dren
Dirk urged the dragon-hawk on steadily east toward Kell-Torey. He knew that to try and pick up on her trail again was a waste of time. Dirk had no way of knowing how many assassins Eadon had sent after Whill’s family, but he did know that the elf lord would send his daughter after the biggest target.
Dirk flew on into the morning, thinking of nothing but Krentz. Had she been the one to kill the mother and daughter after all? Had she killed others of the bloodline already? Had he been mistaken about Krentz being given this mission? Either way, he had to get to Kell-Torey. Whether or not Krentz was the weapon, he had to stop the assassination of the king and his family, if only to be a nuisance to Eadon.
Traveling from the Twin Lakes to Kell-Torey by horseback would have taken him weeks, but he guessed that the dragon-hawk could do it in days. He hoped that his guess about Krentz was correct, and he would have a chance to intercept her in Kell-Torey.
He used his time to refine his plan to stop her and take her captive. She had sworn fealty to her father and would not be able to disobey his will intentionally. Dirk would have to play his cards right if they were both to live through the confrontation. He was not sure if he could defeat her given the gifts that Eadon had likely bestowed upon her. His only advantage was his knowledge of her abilities and fighting style. Krentz was a powerful Zionar and warrior. Her ability to invade the minds of her victims had led to the creation of most of Dirk’s many weapons and trinkets. His hood had been enchanted to protect Dirk against such invasions, among other things, but he did not know how it would hold up to its creator.
He pondered the possibilities and played out the fight in his mind as he fingered the timber-wolf figurine in his pocket. He had not dismissed Chief during the last battle; the spirit wolf had simply disappeared when the heavy colu
mn had fallen on him and the dark elf. Dirk did not know if the spirit wolf would return when summoned, and he was anxious to find out. But he had no time to find out; he would have to wait until the dragon-hawk stopped to rest.
They flew on into the afternoon under the cover of the dragon-hawk’s camouflaged feathers. Dirk had not gotten more than an hour of sleep in days and his eyes were heavy. Trusting that the dragon would not eat him if it hadn’t already, he tightened the saddle strap and quickly fell into a much-needed sleep.
Whill was awakened by a banging at his door. He arose and threw on an elven lokata.
“Who is it?” he asked, shuffling to the door.
“Answer the damned door and ye be findin’ out!”
Whill opened the door to his friend and the dwarf king rushed inside and went straight to the small circular table of thick wood.
“Go on, then, close the door before someone finds me,” Roakore barked.
Whill complied with a smile. “Are you hiding from someone?”
“Someone? Bah! I be hidin’ from everyone,” Roakore answered as he laid a tome upon the table with a thud. “Can’t get away from curious elves ever since we got here. There be lore masters, historians, Ralliad masters, jewel crafters, nobles, elders, an’ every godsdamned elf in the city wantin’ to see me.”
Whill of Agora: Book 03 - A Song of Swords Page 28
