The Ancient

by R. A. Salvatore

  “My people are not without resources,” Milkeila replied. “Our shamans are not useless fools sputtering meaningless chants to false gods.”

  “I did not mean …” he repeated helplessly.

  “You did not have to,” Milkeila said again, with a frown. “It is said among the islands that the monks see two ways to the world: their way and the wrong way.”

  “You do not believe that about me.”

  “Do not or did not?”

  The two stared at each other for a few uncomfortable heartbeats until Cormack added, “Is that statement not true of every clan on Mithranidoon’s steaming waters? Could anything less be said of the powries? Of Yossunfier? Of Clan Pierjyk or Tunundar or any of the other tribes of your barbarian kin? The Alpinadoran clans cannot even agree amongst themselves—on anything, it seems!”

  If Milkeila was impressed, she didn’t show it.

  “When will Androosis and the others be set free?” the woman asked.

  Cormack swallowed hard—all the answer she needed.

  “Then I am bound to tell my leaders that they are on Chapel Isle.”

  Cormack felt panic welling up inside. “You cannot,” he begged. “I told you only because …”

  “You cannot ask of me that I hold this secret. My kin are out upon the lake, every day, in search of the lost five. They travel to dangerous corners of Mithranidoon. Am I to hold quiet while some are lost to the trolls?”

  “I would not have told you.”

  “Then you should not have told me! Not on that condition! You cannot ask that I pretend ignorance while my people sail into danger. And you cannot ask that I do nothing while my friend—your friend!—sits in your Abellican prison.”

  “You have to believe me,” said Cormack. “I am trying to get them released. As soon as the healing is complete.”

  “Healing that sickens the heart of Toniquay, no doubt.”

  “He will allow no more now that his thoughts are back in the world of the living,” Cormack admitted. “But he mends. They all do, and they are well fed. And I will press for their release, of course.”

  Milkeila’s posture and the fact that she allowed Cormack to take her hands again revealed that she did not doubt him. But in the end she shook her head, unsatisfied with the promised resolution. “I cannot lie to my leaders. Not about this. I will not explain to them how I know, but they will be told that our lost brethren are on Chapel Isle. You cannot ask anything else of me.”

  “Their boat is beached on our shore,” said Cormack, his tone noticeably short of enthusiasm. “Tell them you spied it from afar.”

  “My people will come for them,” the woman promised ominously.

  “I pray that a bargain will be struck,” said Cormack. “Perhaps this is an opportunity for a better understanding between Chapel Isle and Yossunfier.”

  But Milkeila was shaking her head with every word. “There is no bargain to be found,” she explained, her tone even and full of certainty. “My people will go to Chapel Isle in full force to demand the release. Anything less will incite war.”

  Cormack stuttered around a couple of insufficient responses before settling upon “What will Milkeila do?”

  She stepped back and stood staring at him in the moonlight for a long while, obviously waging an inner struggle. “I am Yan Ossum,” she said, and reached up to her neck to separate her second, secret necklace from her more traditional shamanistic attire. She pulled the gemstone necklace over her head and held it out to Cormack, who widened his eyes, too stunned to respond.

  “I am Yan Ossum,” Milkeila said again. “If there is to be war, I battle on the side of Yossunfier.” She tossed the necklace to him, and he caught it. “It would be wrong of me to use your gemstones against you in that event. I would not so betray your trust.”

  “As you perceive I am betraying yours?”

  Milkeila shook her head and managed a thin smile. “I am Yan Ossum, and you are Abellican. We both battle the limitations of our heritage—I am no more in Toniquay’s favor than you are in the eyes of Father De Guilbe. But we cannot escape the truth of who we are, not in the event we both fear. My people will come for our lost brethren, and your brothers will not likely release them. And so we are left in the most awful place where our hopes collide with our realities.”

  Cormack stood there on the sand, staring at this extraordinary barbarian lass, a woman he had come to love, and he had no answers to her simple and straightforward logic. His shoulders slumped, his arms fell limp by his sides, and he smiled meekly, almost apologetically, back at her. He didn’t know whether he should go to her and hug her again or kiss her to assure her that everything would be all right. It was a moot point anyway, for there was no strength in his legs at that moment, powrie beret notwithstanding, to propel him.

  Her waning smile carried Milkeila back to her small boat, and she pushed it away from the sandbar and hopped aboard it with the grace only one of her heritage might know.

  In moments, the mist enveloped her, and Cormack stood alone.

  And never in his life had he been more aware of exactly that.

  ELEVEN

  Two Birds

  It is a lie,” Brother Pinower remarked as Dawson, stepping lightly as if the weight of the world had been removed from his shoulders, started out of Father Artolivan’s audience hall.

  Dawson stopped with a small hop and turned to face the younger monk, but Artolivan spoke before he could reply.

  “A tale of mutual benefit,” the old priest said.

  “A tale untrue,” said Brother Pinower. “We know the fate of Brother Dynard.”

  “Do we?” asked Artolivan.

  Pinower licked his lips and glanced over at Dawson. “We know at least that Dawson’s concoction has no basis in any known facts, Father.”

  “Vanguard is a large and untamed place,” said Artolivan.

  “We make a leap of circumstance based on less than compelling reasoning, Father. To spin such a claim, without cause, seems the very definition of …”

  “Prudence,” Father Artolivan interrupted. “Play it out to logical conclusion in your thoughts, young Brother, absent this ‘concoction,’ as you deem it. The benefactors of your veracity would be?”

  Pinower’s gaze went from Artolivan to Dawson and back again, and again. After a few moments, he could only sigh, having no practical response.

  With an appreciative nod to Father Artolivan, Dawson McKeege took his leave.

  “Go with him,” Father Artolivan instructed Pinower. “Supply to his tale the imprimatur of the Abellican Church.”

  Brother Pinower’s expression showed his ultimate dismay, but he did not argue and did not respond, other than to bow politely and rush away in pursuit of the Vanguardsman.

  Named because she sat below the peak of the northern cliffs and thus offered protection from the cold winds that howled down from the gulf, Weatherguard nevertheless still afforded her residents and visitors a magnificent view of Chapel Abelle, so strong and solemn and crisp against the steel-gray sky beyond the high rise.

  Bransen, Callen, and Cadayle stood and enjoyed that view for a few moments when they first came in sight of the renowned abbey, with the two women flanking Bransen and holding him relatively straight, as he had been for most of their journey, particularly those parts when they neared more populated areas. Today he walked in genuine Stork form.

  “Built by the hand of God, so they say,” Callen whispered, awe evident in her voice. For how could it not have been? Many of Honce’s traveling bards named this the most impressive structure in all the land, even above the magnificent palace of Laird Delaval.

  Bransen slipped a hand into his belt pouch and clutched a soul stone. He had become quite adept at making this movement unobtrusive and even more so at accessing the power of the stone, almost instantly transforming himself. “We know the Abellicans far too well to make the mistake of listening to ‘they,’” he reminded. “How might Chapel Abelle measure against the Walk of Clo
uds of the Jhesta Tu?”

  “One day we will know, my love,” Cadayle whispered to him. She nudged him gently to make sure he was aware of people walking by.

  Anytime Cadayle rubbed his upper arm and said “my love,” it meant that he should revert to his disguise. Bransen took the cue and let go of the gemstone. Any hint that he was faking his malady would surely land him on the front lines of the vicious war as both sides scrambled for more and more fodder to feed their kingly designs.

  Cadayle and Callen helped Bransen to Weatherguard’s long inn, a ramshackle old structure so warped and aged that the floor showed stains of the water that easily crept through whenever it rained or snowed. Still, the common room’s hearth was enormous and well stocked. The fire, seeming like three separate conflagrations, worked its way through the jumble of logs piled high behind an iron grate, their flickering ends sometimes joining, sometimes flaring in opposite directions so that they resembled a trio of dancers acting out the tragedy of a failing love triangle.

  The patrons in the room showed no such intrigue. Old men and women young and old littered the many small round tables set about the generous floor. Glances both scornful and bitter came at Bransen immediately as he entered. Only as he staggered storklike, drool wetting the corners of his mouth, did many of the patrons nod their understanding and let go of that resentment. Few men of Bransen’s age remained in Weatherguard, and everyone in the room had suffered the loss of a husband or son or brother in the seemingly endless war between Ethelbert and Delaval.

  “Wounded in the South,” Cadayle explained to a gaggle of old women who stared incredulously as Bransen staggered into a seat.

  “Ah,” they all said together.

  “A pity he weren’t killed outright, then, ye poor girl,” one dared offer.

  Cadayle merely nodded, accepting their misplaced pity. She’d heard that one often enough.

  Cadayle noticed then that one middle-aged man in the tavern seemed quite out of place. Sitting in a back corner, his weathered boots up on the table, he was surely of age and fitness to be at the front. He cradled a mug of mead in one hand, absently running the index finger of his other hand about its thick rim. And all the while he stared at her and at Bransen with more than a passing interest. Too much so!

  Cadayle told herself that she was being ridiculous, that the man, like everyone else, was simply intrigued by the abnormality of the Stork. She settled into her chair beside Bransen, facing Callen.

  Callen’s glance over her shoulder was Cadyle’s first warning. Before she even turned, a strong hand patted her shoulder.

  “Well seen and well to drink,” the man greeted, sliding up beside Cadayle near to the fourth chair at the table. He looked to her and then to it as if asking permission to sit down.

  Cadayle glanced at her mother, who gave a quick nod.

  “Do join us,” the younger woman said.

  The man settled in heavily, staring at Bransen all the while. “You look as if you’ve a long road behind you.” He motioned to the bartender to bring a round of drinks.

  “My husband cannot indulge,” Cadayle said quietly.

  “Make him unsteady on his feet, will it?” the man asked, and Cadayle glowered at him.

  “Apologies, good lady,” he said unconvincingly. He half stood and bowed toward Bransen. “Wounded in the war?” he asked, again too intently.

  “In the South,” said Cadayle.

  “A pity, that. The towns are full of torn men. Arms and legs missing. Brains all scattered so that they can hardly speak. An ugly business is this war.”

  “One you seem to be avoiding,” Callen said across the table, and Cadayle was glad indeed for the diversion.

  The man gave what seemed to be a helpless chuckle. “I’ve come from Vanguard to the north across the gulf.” He stood and tipped his heavy cap. “Dawson McKeege at your service, good ladies and yourself, good sir. Here on a brief—too brief!—respite. War’s no less up there, I tell you.”

  “So you fled?” Cadayle asked.

  The man laughed harder. “Nay, that wouldn’t do. I’ve sailed under Dame Gwydre’s banner to Chapel Abelle for supplies, you see? The gemstones of the Abellicans have proven well worth the journey. We’re taming a land as vast and great as Honce herself.”

  “The brothers help you, then.”

  “Oh, indeed!” Dawson replied. “We’ve several working our chapels. Good men, one and all, though I’ve no doubt that more than a few found themselves in the northland for reasons of discipline and not choice.”

  Cadayle gave a pleasant and polite smile.

  “Whenever the Church has one out of line, the road turns north, is my guess of it,” the clever Dawson went on. “And don’t be misunderstanding me! Pray no! We’re all too glad to have them.”

  “Surely,” said Cadayle, sharing a glance with Callen.

  “And why might you be at Chapel Abelle?” Dawson asked. “Seeking help for your man, there, from their gemstone magic?”

  Cadayle nodded.

  Dawson returned it. “If they’ve the time, perhaps you’ll find what you seek, though your man will likely find himself on a wagon heading back for the fighting if they manage the task.”

  Cadayle clutched Bransen’s hand tightly. “He does not fear any battle,” she said.

  “Surely,” Dawson replied. “Have you come far, then?”

  “All the way from Pryd Hol …” Callen started.

  “South of Pryd Holding,” Cadayle quickly corrected. “Closer to Entel, even.”

  Dawson’s eyes widened. “A long and trying journey, to be sure, with one so impaired.” He paused as the barmaid came over and delivered a pair of pale ales.

  “Don’t ye let Dawson here bother ye,” she said, exactly as Dawson had paid her to remark. “He’s the lout of the North, so goes his reputation.” She gave him a playful slap on the shoulder as she finished to diminish any real warning in her words, again, exactly as he had paid her to do. There was nothing like a charming rake to calm a stranger’s fears, Dawson knew.

  “But he’s just harmless,” the barmaid said in Cadayle’s ear. “Always looking for a warm bed for his spike, don’t ye know? And he’s looking to yer friend there—yer ma, she is, I’m guessing, or yer older sister—and don’t she look so pretty? My, but ye’ll be a long time with yer charms following that one!”

  Cadayle snickered despite herself. She lifted the ale to her lips and took a long and welcomed draw.

  “Don’t you be showing my dice, Tauny Dentsen!” Dawson complained as the barmaid whirled away, giggling. He looked back at Cadayle to find a warm smile waiting for him.

  “How long are you to stay, then?” Dawson asked.

  Cadayle and Callen exchanged uncertain looks.

  “If you’re to wait on the brothers, then some time, of course,” Dawson reasoned. “Chapel Abelle is full of activity, readying for the new class of brothers who will enter her gates in but a few days. I doubt you will get Father Artolivan or Brother Pinower to even hear your request before the week is through.”

  “You know them?” Callen asked before Cadayle could.

  “All of them, of course,” said Dawson. “I told you that my Dame Gwydre is on fine terms with the brothers of Blessed Abelle. They’ve eyes on Vanguard, to be sure, as would any far-seeing man.”

  “And they have brothers up there,” Cadayle added. “As you said.”

  “Aye, many have come for more than twenty years now.”

  Cadayle glanced at Bransen, a perfectly natural movement, and one that would not have been telling to Dawson had he not already known the true reason the trio had ventured to Chapel Abelle.

  “So you’re to seek the work of the brothers with their gemstones,” Dawson said. “A reasonable request, and one that would likely be met with some sympathy were it not for these times.”

  Cadayle furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

  “The brothers are exhausted,” Dawson explained. “Overworked, particularly with
the gemstones, as they tend constantly to the wounded of both the warring lairds. As long as you have a writ, you have a chance, I expect.” He addressed Bransen directly. “You fought under Delaval’s flag, yes? And his commander offered you a Writ of Plea for the Brothers of Chapel Abelle? The higher his rank, the better your chances, of course. A Writ of Plea from Laird Delaval himself would likely get you into their healing chambers.”

  “A Writ of Plea?” Cadayle asked, shaking her head.

  “To be sure! A letter from a laird, or his commanders, begging special attention to a valiant warrior’s wounds. Without it, you’ll not get near to the leaders at Chapel Abelle, and they are the most powerful ones with the gemstones. They are not so—” Dawson stopped in a hush and sat staring sympathetically at Cadayle, then at Bransen. “So you do not possess a writ?”

  A horrified expression came over the woman, and she looked to an equally surprised and upset Callen.

  “All hope is not lost,” Dawson was quick to add. “Have you a friend or relative among the brothers, anything to elevate your needs above the maladies of so many other poor souls? Was your man there particularly valorous?”

  Cadayle stared at him incredulously.

  “I recant!” said Dawson. “Dear lady, forgive my foolishness. Of course he was, but what I mean is … well, is there a witness to his bravery? A letter of honor if not a Writ of Plea?”

  Cadayle’s expression answered that clearly in the negative.

  “Then a relative among the brothers?” asked Dawson. “Think hard, I pray you. A friend? An acquaintance, even? Anyone who can speak for your poor man there to elevate him from the throngs of wounded.”

  “We have come in hopes of healing, to be sure,” Callen said, drawing the attention of both Cadayle and the man, and both looked equally surprised. “But also in search of one who might well speak for us.”

  “A brother?”