The Dame sotfk-3

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Bannagran said-”

  “I would not trust their safety outside of Chapel Abelle, particularly if Yeslnik or his lackeys come to understand that I go to find he who killed Delaval not out of anger or for vengeance or for their perceived justice.”

  “Then why?” Jameston smiled as Bransen took a deep breath. “Because they’re like you-like your ma, at least.”

  “Jhesta Tu,” Bransen confirmed. “Long have I wanted to embrace the mystics of that which has guided me from Stork to Highwayman.”

  Jameston considered the words for a few heartbeats, then nodded and shrugged. “Your road to choose.”

  “And you will go north?”

  “Only following your own steps. This is your journey.”

  “Because that is what Dame Gwydre asked of you, but now I travel for myself and not for Dame Gwydre.”

  Again Jameston shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. I travel for myself and have been enjoying the road beside you. And that’s the whole point of it, isn’t it?”

  “Enjoyment?”

  “Aye.”

  “There is more than that,” said Bransen.

  “Never!” Jameston said with a grin.

  Bransen knew better than to argue with the stubborn scout. Besides, though he wouldn’t admit it aloud, he was glad for the company-particularly the company of this man, this friend. He took a deep breath and took a bold step to the southeast, toward Ethelbert dos Entel, toward this unknown Jhesta Tu who had slain Delaval the king, toward the realization of his greatest hopes or his greatest fears.

  But he didn’t slow.

  Not this time.

  PART THREE

  THE MEANING OF HIS GIFT

  I met Jameston Sequin on a road east of Pryd Town. I had first been introduced to him on a winding trail in Alpinador, far, far away, when he had intervened to help me and my companions in a fight with trolls. His reputation preceded him by only a few sentences, mostly revealed in the wide-eyed admiration from that most unlikely source of such animation, Crazy Vaughna.

  I had known Jameston Sequin for months and had spent many hours with him and many alone with him before I ever truly met him. There was always something about him and his unusual appearance and demeanor that had drawn me to him and had made me glad indeed (though I wouldn’t openly admit it) when he had unexpectedly joined me on my perilous road out of Chapel Abelle. So many extraordinary visual clues had revealed to me long before that this was no ordinary scout, with his huge mustache and amazingly long-legged strides and that distinctive hat he wore, named after him because its triangular design served him as a sight for his deadly bow. Truly Jameston seemed larger than life, a man, perhaps the first I had ever met, whose reputation was not diminished, indeed was enhanced, by familiarity.

  So I had known him, had traveled with him, had battled beside him, but it wasn’t until one morning a week out of Pryd Town, the smell of recent battles heavy in the air, when I actually met Jameston Sequin, and all because the enigma that was this formidable scout finally forced me to ask him a simple question.

  ”Why?”

  He looked at me, and I knew at once that he understood the context and the depth of my inquiry. Maybe it was my stance, or the tone I had used in asking, or the simple lack of context for such a question, uttered suddenly on a faraway road. Whatever the reason, Jameston knew. I could see it in his eyes and in that grin he often wore, a look that made anyone around him know for certain that he, Jameston, knew more than they knew or at least understood better.

  “Where?” he flippantly replied. “When? Who?”

  I wasn’t letting him get away. Not then. I needed to know. He had surprised me by deciding to stay with me even after I had learned of the presence of Jhesta Tu and had proclaimed that my journey was my own and not for Dame Gwydre. To understand his decision, I needed to know the truth of Jameston Sequin. “Why?” I responded.

  “Any answer I gave would work, I suppose, since your word works for any question.” He grinned wider because he knew that I knew that he knew, if that makes any sense, and he was determined to play it out fully.

  “Why are you who you are?” I clarified, though it certainly wasn’t necessary. “Why a scout? Why do you spend your days in solitude?”

  “I’m here with you.”

  My sigh made him grin all the wider.

  “You are becoming predictable,” I told him.

  “When people think that, it makes me more dangerous.”

  “Or are you afraid to tell me? To tell anyone?”

  Finally, I could see that I had hit his sensibilities, and hard. His expression changed, as if a cloud had passed overhead to darken the day. He moved off the road to a small grouping of rocks large enough to serve as seats, bidding me to follow. I saw weariness in his step that I had never before detected.

  “You want to know why I went into the emptiness of Alpinador?” he asked me as he took a seat, still looking older than before.

  “I want to know why you’re here with me.”

  “That’s what I said,” he replied. Was he always one layer ahead of me in my thinking?

  “Pride and money,” he said then, and his smile became self-deprecating. “I went to Vanguard as a young man, younger than yourself. I was a confident one, almost as much as you are, and I was good enough to back it up. Things that seemed so simple to me, like how to hide and how to find someone else who’s trying to hide, befuddled others. I understood animals-I don’t know why or how, but everything about them and the way they were likely to behave just seemed obvious to me.”

  “And goblins and trolls and powries,” I remarked, and Jameston nodded.

  “With all that behind me, with all the folk of Vanguard looking north for furs and timber and exotic items, the road seemed obvious. I wanted to make a name for myself, boy, and make a fair amount of coin at the same time.”

  It all made sense to me, of course, but I knew, too, that the young man who had first gone out from civilization for those reasons was not the same person now sitting before me. As Jameston continued his tale of exploration and building his reputation and fame as a guide and hunter, one question became apparent: What had changed his mind?

  “I had the coin. It came from the caribou moss, from leading teams to it, from protecting caravans, and from this hat!” He tipped his “sequin,” that triangular cap favored by archers across Vanguard and even in northern Honce proper. “All the coin in the world, and nothing I wanted to spend it on,” he answered, plainly and again with that self-deprecating chuckle, as if it had all been a bad joke he had inadvertently played upon himself. “The fame led to a line of the same questions being asked over and over again. To some I was a hero, but I wasn’t any such thing. To most I was a curiosity, something to gawk at.

  “Aye, that’s what I was,” he said, sadness in his tone. “And there was no point to any of it, so I went on without any sense of purpose.”

  “Even mocking those who claimed such purpose driving their own lives,” I dared remark. Jameston’s corresponding nod was more enthusiastic then, as if I had grasped exactly his point in telling me all this.

  “My purpose was all for me when I was a young adventurer, looking to conquer the world,” he said. “Then I had no purpose at all, and for a long time.”

  “And now?”

  “Now? Dame Gwydre’s father cut a new trail in front of my wandering feet. I didn’t walk it, not far anyway, until I had to, many years later.” As he finished, he looked up at me, locked gazes with me, and I knew then, in that moment, that I had truly come to know Jameston Sequin.

  “When you met my group in a fight on the trail,” I reasoned.

  “That was part of it.”

  “You walk with me to find purpose in the life of Jameston Sequin.”

  My proclamation was met with a somewhat accepting and somewhat incredulous look. Finally, he shook his head. “You’re just on the trail Gwydre’s da cut for me.”

  Part of the bigger whole, he mea
nt. Part of the purpose that was not self-centered, as was the one that had driven Jameston Sequin to the wilds of northern Vanguard and Alpinador, the one that had brought him fame and false fortune. It wasn’t until he realized that his journey through this life wasn’t about him alone, but about a greater sense of brotherhood and community, that Jameston Sequin had found a trail worth walking.

  As I pondered that unexpected conversation throughout that day, I knew, too, why Jameston had shared it with me.

  Dame Gwydre, like her father before her, had cut a trail, but it was one I was reluctant to walk.

  And so it was that even as I directed our journey, to the east and the Jhesta Tu and my greatest question and challenge, even as I led, so I was being led.

  It was… comforting. -BRANSEN GARIBOND

  TWENTY-ONE

  Let the Word Go Forth

  A calm spread over St. Mere Abelle. Panlamaris’s army remained entrenched across the field, but they would not come on. No monks were out to guide the many prisoners, who, suddenly, did not seem to be prisoners any longer. Their work was not diligent this day as they milled about, whispering about the grand changes that had come to the world and to their corner of it. Ethelbert man and woman and Delaval man and woman mingled effortlessly and without thought, their old boundaries and battles now, finally, fully left behind.

  In every prayer room of the great chapel, the brothers did their work, those lesser monks assisting the more powerful as they used a soul stone to soar out from their bodies, to travel spiritually to every corner of Honce, to their brethren with the word of Father Artolivan.

  Come gather in Chapel Abelle, the blessed St. Mere Abelle, their spirits implored their brethren. Or to Ethelbert dos Entel if you must, and pray for the mercy of Laird Ethelbert. Hide, brethren, from the fires and follies of King Yeslnik.

  The finality of the decision, a frank admission that the Abellican Church had severed ties, had declared a complete and likely irrevocable break with King Yeslnik and thus the bulk of Honce itself, had weighed heavily on Father Artolivan and the others, but when Father Dennigan of Chapel Delaval had arrived, carrying the head of Brother Piastafan, what choice had been left?

  “Let the word go forth,” Father Artolivan had told his brethren, his voice thick with regret and sad resignation. And so the brothers went to their work this calm morning, their spirits soaring from their corporeal bodies and from St. Mere Abelle, flying to the distant chapels to the limits of their power, then entreating the brothers of the outward chapels to spread the word to the wider corners of Honce.

  “This ability of the monks to spread the word wide and far is an advantage for us,” Dame Gwydre said to Dawson, Cormack, and Milkeila at the windswept docks of St. Mere Abelle. “Should it come to war, our armies can remain in coordination. Our enemies might wait a week to hear word from a distant battlefield, but we can know…”

  “You overestimate the power of spirit-walking,” Cormack dared to intervene. “This is a highly unusual event-we did not dare try it even in those hours when our situation in Alpinador grew desperate. This is most extraordinary for Father Artolivan to command it, or even allow it.”

  “He did as much to relate to us the happenings in the southland when we were in Vanguard,” Dame Gwydre protested.

  “And paid a dear price. One of the brothers who came spiritually to Vanguard-”

  “One of? There was only the one.”

  “Only the one who made it,” Cormack corrected. “Out of a dozen who made the attempt. Most fell short, weary before they ever managed to float their spirits across the Gulf of Corona. Another never even made the gulf, having fallen to possess a poor girl he saw along the road. He has recovered from the shock of that ill-fated meeting, but she remains a stuttering fool. And another brother did cross the gulf, only to be drawn into the corporeal form of a dockman on the wharves of Port Vanguard. He did not manage a possession and was driven mad in the attempt.”

  “Why would they attempt such a thing as possession?” Milkeila had to ask, her eyes wide with shock.

  “Aye, it seems an evil thing!” added Dawson.

  Cormack nodded. “It is a compulsion that breaks the greatest of brothers, a temptation borne out of no rational thought and rarely controlled by rational thought. Spirit-walking is outlawed within the order, other than by specific exception. A brother trapped in the forest, freezing to death, would be violating church edict if he so used a soul stone to seek out aid.”

  Dame Gwydre started to argue against that reasoning, but stopped and swallowed hard and glanced back at the long tunnels that would take her back to the cliff-top structures, only then truly appreciating the enormous weight that had bowed the shoulders of Father Artolivan.

  “They use it now, as previously to inform you of the great events in Honce, because of the magnitude,” Cormack explained. “Even should a few brothers fail, even should a few bystanders be driven mad by an unintended possession, the cost is worth the gain, for Father Artolivan knows well that many of his brethren and the prisoners they shelter are in dire peril now, and he would not have them go to unwitting slaughter.”

  “His brethren, or your own?” Dawson asked, drawing a sidelong glance from Cormack. “You sound like one who’s thinking the church a good place to be.”

  Cormack glanced at Milkeila, who grinned knowingly, not disagreeing with Dawson’s assessment.

  To that, Cormack merely shrugged.

  “Sail swift and sail safe,” Gwydre said to them. “To Vanguard, one ship, to Ethelbert dos Entel the other.”

  Dawson nodded, then stepped up and gave the woman a hug. “I’ll be for Entel,” he whispered. “So my journey’s the long one.”

  “What will I do without Dawson beside me?” Gwydre whispered back.

  “The right thing,” he replied and squeezed her tighter. “I lost me heart last night,” he whispered even more quietly. “And now I’m leaving her here under your own protection.”

  “Callen?” said Gwydre, loudly enough so that Cormack and Milkeila caught it and looked at the hugging couple curiously. She pushed Dawson back to arm’s length. He didn’t answer, other than to smile.

  And Gwydre’s own smile more than matched his own. How strange the fates could be! A deception to bring Bransen to Vanguard to serve in a war had brought Dawson together with a woman who stole his heart, an event that neither he nor Gwydre had ever expected would happen again.

  “Sail swift and sail safe,” she said, her voice breaking. “And come back to your lady, who will be by my side.”

  The good news carried Dame Gwydre back through the tunnels and stairs to the high ground of St. Mere Abelle. When she arrived, though late for a meeting, she did not go straight to Father Artolivan’s audience hall. Instead she climbed the ladder of the back wall, overlooking the narrow bay that sheltered St. Mere Abelle’s docks.

  Lady Dreamer was just putting out, all lines away. A second ship was already out from the docks, awaiting Dawson’s craft. The two would travel together throughout the first couple of days, moving to the middle of the gulf, before Dawson turned east to run the coast all the way to Ethelbert dos Entel at the end of the Belt-and-Buckle and the other went north.

  The tide brought Lady Dreamer out a short ways, and one sail dropped open, Dawson tacking hard and expertly to turn his bow out to open waters.

  Gwydre took comfort in the great confidence she held in Dawson McKeege. If anyone could get to Laird Ethelbert and properly deliver her message, it was he. The comfort helped her to get past the great sadness that enveloped her as Lady Dreamer started away, for she missed her longtime companion already. He had become a true brother to her, a confidant and the one man who kept her focused on and honest to what was in her heart. How would she get through these trying days without him?

  She made a mental note to look in on Callen and Cadayle. She was quite fond of the mother and daughter, and if Dawson saw so much in Callen, then Gwydre figured her positive impressions of the woman must be
valid.

  When she finally arrived at Father Artolivan’s gathering, she found the elderly church leader with Father Premujon, brothers Pinower, Jond, and Giavno, and several other monks she did not know by name engaged in a heated debate about their next moves.

  They stopped chattering as one when Dame Gwydre entered, Father Artolivan motioning for her to take a seat beside him on the raised dais that centered the gathering.

  “My ships are out for Vanguard and for Ethelbert dos Entel,” she explained. “Our break with King Yeslnik is complete.” Several deep breaths, signaling fear and determination, came back at her. “We cannot turn back from our stance now, Father Artolivan,” she pressed. “Yeslnik will not forgive.”

  “Let us hope your good man Dawson gets to Laird Ethelbert’s side before Yeslnik pushes him into the sea,” Brother Pinower remarked, and Gwydre winced at the proposition.

  “King Yeslnik and Laird Panlamaris will not forgive, Lady of Vanguard,” said Father Artolivan. “We must hold them off long enough to diminish their appetite for war. Perhaps then we might find some common ground upon which a peace can be enacted.”

  “Or we must win,” said Brother Pinower, and all eyes turned his way.

  Their expressions told Gwydre that this was exactly the argument into which she had walked.

  “Yeslnik proclaims himself King of Honce and there seems to be no one who can stop him,” Pinower explained. “But his actions have already wrought great disdain. Almost to a man and woman, the prisoners we hold here have pledged their loyalty to our cause. They will fight, though the option of sitting to the side of the battle is open before them without ill consequence. How many men in Yeslnik’s army would be so willing and eager for more battle, I wonder?”

  “How many of Laird Panlamaris’s men did not look on in horror when our brethren were evilly murdered on the field outside St. Mere Abelle?” Brother Giavno agreed. “And if Brother Fatuus so touched and inspired us, what might be the effect of his determined march on those among Panlamaris’s ranks who witnessed it?”