A ruckus outside suddenly drew everyone’s attention. The sound of the front gate opening and footsteps dragging on gravel. Whitney—Big Whitney—sat up tall and craned his neck to see out the window. Through the bare branches crisscrossing over the opening, he saw the shadows of a band of men crossing the yard.
His head spun on Young Whitney so fast he heard his neck crack.
This is that night?
“Oh, you foolish boy,” Whitney said under his breath.
“What’s that noise out there, dear?” Lauryn asked Rocco as if Whitney weren’t already looking. “It’s a little late for visits, no?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll see to it.” Rocco got up and made his way to the front door.
“Go to your room,” Big Whitney whispered to Young Whitney, quiet and intense. “Trust me.”
A moment later, just as Rocco reached for the handle, the door kicked inward, splintering at the frame and slamming hard into his forehead. The blow sent him reeling backward so hard his head rebounded against the wall. Lauryn yipped.
“What is this?” Kazimir stood and asked Whitney.
“What do you think?” Whitney said. “The kid is me.”
Young Whitney was midway up the stairs when the first of the men entered the room. Big Whitney’s jaw dropped. He remembered the night fairly well, though he’d blocked much of his past from his conscious memory. He’d stolen jewels from the wrong travelers and was caught. Only this wasn’t the thug he’d recalled breaking into their home. This was Bartholomew Darkings.
VIII
THE DESERTER
Rand blinked at the sight of the blind man whose responsibility it was to carry the voice of Iam on Pantego. It must have been a heavy burden to bear, especially when so much about Iam’s caring nature now felt like a lie to Rand. Strangely still, the old man’s presence brought him a sense of peace during a time that peace had been so elusive. All the pain wracking Rand’s body seemed to wash away beneath Wren’s gaze until Rand tried to speak.
“Father...” he rasped, his throat like the streaming magma from Kal Driscus in the far east.
Wren shushed him. “No need to speak.” His wrinkled arms were frail, but somehow, he was able to prop Rand up against the wall to rest. Then Wren looked to the ceiling, traced his eyes with his fingers, and muttered something under his breath.
“I...” Rand coughed. He could barely formulate words. “Why?”
“Iam guided me here to save you from eternal damnation, Sir Langley. I’m glad I listened.”
“I’m no knight.”
Wren the Holy smiled, his face creasing all over, chasms digging deep into his flesh. If Rand ever pictured what Iam might look like, it was the man standing before him; a fatherly presence, with a long, white beard that spoke of many years on Pantego. The only difference was that he always imagined Iam with old eyes teeming with untold wisdom, and Wren had only gaping holes where his used to be.
“No matter what you are, life is precious,” Wren said. “To take it, in anger or grief—there is no higher sin.”
“Not even taking the lives of so many innocents?” Rand barely managed the question, but once he did, he saw his error.
Wren’s face contorted into sadness. No, not sadness. Pain.
“Those were not your fault, my son. I know how difficult living with such things can be. How impossible it can be.” He pressed the palm of his hand against the side of Rand’s face. Rand could hear the coarseness of Wren’s skin against his beard. “Knight or beggar, all must endure. I know it may not seem it, but the light of Iam is with you, child.”
The man’s touch sent Rand’s skin to goosebumps. Either that, or it was a cold gust of air and snow slipping in through the crack in his window. “Trust me, Father. Nobody is with me.”
“Yet, here I am.”
Rand sat up. The burning in his throat had diminished slightly. It was still incredibly sore, but the act of speaking no longer felt like a trick of magic. “How?”
“Let us just say that an old friend needs your help.”
Rand laughed, then coughed again. “Look at me. Who could I possibly help?”
Wren rose to pace the room, bones creaking. Somehow, even sightless and in tight confines, he didn’t bump anything. He stopped by Rand’s set of Shieldsman armor, leaning against the wall. Apparently, when Rand sent his bed flying his armor went with it.
“You took a vow to shield this kingdom and the faithful,” Wren said. “I know what you did, Rand. I was there. And I saw what your Queen ordered you to do. You thought you were serving your kingdom.”
“I was a coward.”
“Then so too am I,” Wren said, his vacant eye-sockets aiming toward Rand. For a moment, Rand swore the man could see him. “There were men of the cloth hung in her wrath as well. Priests I hand-picked to serve in the castle’s chapel. I looked the other way because, for all the Queen’s wrongdoing, Iam saw fit to raise her child from the grave, I don’t care what the heathens say. He showed me that the Nothhelm family’s time is not yet through.”
“Maybe it should be.” Rand wished he could take the words back the moment they escaped his lips. He expected the Holy Father to be shocked, but the old man nodded and wore a relieved smile as if happy to see he wasn’t alone in that thought.
“Perhaps.” His face turned toward the floor. “Rand, did you know that it was I who crowned our greatest king atop Mount Lister?”
Rand shook his head.
“I placed the Glass Crown upon his head, and it was one of my proudest moments as High Priest. I knew without question the man he was and who he’d become.”
“He was perfection in Iam’s sight.”
Wren laughed this time. “He was a whoremonger with a lust for bloodshed when it suited him.”
Rand nearly toppled over.
“But Iam, in His grace, found the greatness of the man to outweigh his flaws. For we are all imperfect. It is what makes us human, and it takes a long life to find the inward light of Iam in it’s purest form.”
Wren returned to Rand’s side and lay a gentle hand upon his shoulder. “That day, crowning Liam, I felt something strong course through my veins. Hope. It is a feeling I have not felt in a long while, yet today I feel it once more. There is hope yet for the Glass Kingdom. It all starts with you.”
“With all due respect, Your Holiness. I think you’ve come to the wrong place.”
“Perhaps Sir Unger meant a different Rand Langley, former Wearer of White, who lived in a ‘shoghole of a flat above a shoghole of a tavern’ when he sent me here to beseech you.”
Wren smiled, and Rand sat up further. The only thing more shocking than the priest’s language was the name that spilled off his lips.
“Sir Unger sent you?” Rand asked.
“Directly, yes.”
“I guess he tired of begging me to return himself.”
“He wished he could come, but that is no longer possible. You’re not the only disgraced Wearer in Yarrington any longer.”
“What did she do to him?”
“She is the least of our concerns. Yarrington has been invaded. Quietly, peacefully, the enemies of Iam flood these walls from the cold, bitter North. The worst among them, Redstar, whispers in the ear of our king.”
“The Queen’s brother? I thought him dead.”
“Dead?”
“Last I saw, Torsten returned from the Webbed Woods with him as prisoner, set to be hanged for his crimes.”
“Is Dockside so forgotten by the castle you haven’t heard? The Drav Cra are here, and it was by invitation of the King himself.”
“Not Dockside.” Rand stood and crossed the room toward a row of empty jugs of ale. He sat at the table. The urge for a drink hit him like a crashing wave now that the pain had subsided. He realized his hands were shaking. Luckily, there was nothing left to drink.
“I see,” Wren said, disappointed.
“All I know is the young Prince—”
“King,”
Wren corrected.
“Yes, my apologies. The young King Pi came back to life, and we’re at war with the Black Sands.” Rand stared at the old man. That fatherly warmth was gone, replaced now with fear. “I know. Not exactly the hero Torsten painted.”
“Then perhaps it is not a hero we need. Torsten said you are the only Shieldsman he can trust.”
“Now I know this is a dream. I’m still hanging on that rope, aren’t I? Ready to die.”
“You are here, and now. The Queen’s treasonous brother has stripped Torsten of his rank, claimed the ear of the King as his newly instated prime minister, and stolen victory in the battle of Winde Port. His heathens fill the capital, their warlocks spreading their lies to the faithful. If we do not act fast, there will be nothing left to save.”
Rand swallowed the lump in his throat. He’d noticed an unusual number of fur-clad, Drav Cra traders passing through the Maiden’s Mugs, but little else. Every day since the moment he handed Torsten back the white helm and left the castle behind was a blur. Just the ropes creaking over and over and over...
“Rand, it’s time you put your armor back on,” Wren said.
Rand squeezed his eyelids tight, then tried to focus on the High Priest. “I don’t know what you possibly think I could do.”
"'Cut the head off the true snake,’ as Torsten so mildly put it. Traitors and deceivers abound, but there is only one who can be traced to all of it—one whose actions led the Queen down that horrid path you suffered.”
“I didn’t suffer!” Rand snapped. “They all suffered. Priests, doctors, council members... Tessa!” He couldn’t believe himself, yelling at the High Priest of Iam.
“And we can never change that,” Wren interjected calmly. “We can, however, ensure that Iam’s light shines brightly on the future. Redstar would cover this world in darkness in the name of his Buried Goddess. He must...” Wren paused. His lips parted, but the word he was searching for didn’t come. And that was likely because it was a word no man of peace like him had likely ever uttered before in such context.
“Die,” Rand finished for him. “Is that what this is all about?”
“It is a sin even to think, but like your friend Torsten, I would rather suffer eternity in Elsewhere than watch Pantego succumb to madness.”
“So, you come to an expert on killing?” The words stung as they came out and in the back of his mind, he could hear Tessa and the others begging for mercy.
“I come to a sworn knight of the King’s Shield. A man who vowed to safeguard this realm, and who hasn’t been manipulated by an imposter like the rest. Perhaps there are other Shieldsmen to be trusted, but the only one I trust is locked in a cell, and he told me to find you.”
Rand shook his head. “I don’t... I’m done killing.”
“That is why it must be you. Our king is young and impressionable. If we wait any longer, our great cathedral will be a ruin for warlocks to dance and spill blood on. Who knows what they will do when the light goes out upon the Dawning next week. If I could do this for the kingdom of Iam, I would. But I am too old and too frail.”
“And I’m a drunk.”
“No one is perfect. Not me, not the great Liam. All his countless mistakes litter Elsewhere—bastards all—but we are the best he could do. We are small, jealous humans, yet he put faith in us as his creation. It’s time we do something for him and protect his chosen realm from the fallen.”
Rand drew a deep breath; then a chuckle slipped through his lips. Before today, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed at anything, no matter how slight. “The sermons in Dockside are nowhere near as poetic as yours, Your Holiness.”
“That is something I will have to remedy.”
“Rand, are you—” The door swung open, and Sigrid froze in the entry. The loaves of bread under her arm fell. “Your Holiness.” She fell to her knees and circled her eyes with her fingers.
“Stand, dear,” Wren said. “You are Rand’s…”
“Sister,” she finished for him. “Why are you... I mean...” Her words trailed off as her gaze stopped on the noose of tied blankets still hanging from the ceiling. Then on the upturned furniture and armor.
“We’re doing Iam’s work, my child.” Wren stood, groaning softly as his old legs stretched out. “Now, I do think it’s time to return to the cathedral. There are a few honest folks left in this city if you look hard enough, and the Dawning approaches. Must be prepared.” He shuffled past Sigrid to grab his cane from against the wall. Sigrid hurried over to help him to the door.
“Your Holiness, what do you expect me to do?” Rand asked.
The High Priest stopped at the door, then glanced back, again wearing his warmest smile like it was second nature. Perhaps it was. After all, he was the father to all the faithful in Yarrington. Had Rand’s own father lived long enough, his might have grown equally reassuring.
“To receive that armor is a rare thing, an honor,” Wren said. “There are few in this city who have it, even fewer living beyond the castle walls. If you remain loyal to Torsten, the one you seek now sits, an imposter in the chambers you and he once occupied.” Wren traced his eyes in prayer, then hobbled out of the room.
Sigrid watched the door close all the way, then turned, brow furrowed. “Am I losing my mind?” she asked.
Rand didn’t respond. All he could think to do was rush across the room and wrap his arms around her.
A heavy gust of sea wind tore in through the window. The already loose knot of the tied sheets Rand had used to try and kill himself came undone, the cloth fluttering harmlessly to the floor. He squeezed Sigrid tight and kissed the top of her head.
They were all each other had since their parents died when they were still young. He stepped back and took in the sight of her. He’d almost stolen even that from her—made the shogpile she called a life even worse. He caught a whiff of her tangled hair, the familiar scent of salt and spilled ale heavy in it.
A second later and Wren might have been too late to save him. As he pulled Sigrid closer, he couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps he was wrong. If Iam hadn’t yet turned His eye away from him.
IX
THE MYSTIC
Sora awoke to the sound of gulls. She sat up, stretched, and yawned. Aquira flopped over and snorted, ash spraying like powder from her nostrils. The warmth of her scales felt nice in contrast to the cool air beneath the deck of the Reba.
It took a minute or three for Sora to realize what the sound of gulls meant.
“Land!” she shouted. She sprang up from her bed and bounded toward the door, grabbing her dress on her way out. She pulled it down over her body even as she climbed the stairs. The hatch opened. Bright light poured in and blinded her. The sounds of hurried commotion assaulted her ears, and with her vision temporarily impaired, it was all overwhelming.
Gold Grin’s men barked commands, ropes thrummed, and sails battled with the wind for dominance, their flapping loud as Muskigo's army marching down the streets of Winde Port. Somewhere in the distance, bells rang out.
Her eyesight returning, Sora could see the visual representation of all the sounds. Excitement stole over her, something she thought she’d never feel again, but there it was. After weeks spent on the sea, anything other than the vast bluish-gray landscape of ocean and sky was a thrill to see.
To add to all the racket, she heard the clattering of little claws against wood and looked down to see Aquira standing next to her, blearily blinking her four sets of eyelids.
Sora scooped her up and held her tight against her chest.
“We’re here, girl,” she said, taking a few steps out onto the deck. She turned and looked up at the helm where Gold Grin stood. It was then that she realized the ship’s black sails with a bleeding skull had been switched out for unmarked white ones.
“Aye, lassie!” he shouted. “Come on up and see your homeland for the first time!”
By now, Sora had come to like the pirate. She hadn’t seen much of the worl
d, and in her limited experience adventuring with Whitney, most men were cruel brutes. Torsten thought her a monster, Bartholomew Darkings a pest, Kazimir a meal, and Whitney…
She’d been nervous to step upon the Reba at first, but even though Gold Grin was some dastardly pirate feared across the seas, he treated her as she would think any decent man would a woman. He reminded her of Muskigo, and that scared her, but she smiled back up at him and climbed the short flight of stairs leading to the stern-side deck.
Grisham held the wheel steady and peered off into the distance.
“Yaolin City,” he said, a sense of awe in his voice. “No more beautiful nor magical place in all Pantego, except maybe Glinthaven.”
Sora couldn’t muster a response. She followed Grisham’s gaze and saw the capital city of her people. As far as she could see, tiers upon tiers of buildings with sweeping, red-tile roofs plastered a cliff face. It seemed nearly impossible. When she squinted, she could see dark little dots scurrying like ants along the rocky terrain. Wooden staircases connected the tiers, and more little dots covered those, with waterfalls cascading amongst all of it.
“It’s huge,” she said.
“No place like it,” Grisham repeated. He reached out to scratch Aquira beneath her chin as she flapped hard to fly along with the ship. Even Aquira had come to like the man over the weeks they’d been on the Reba. “No place at all.”
Sora’s features darkened.
“What’s wrong, lass?” Grisham asked, noticing.
“How am I ever going to find what I’m looking for in a place so big? It was hard enough for Wetzel to teach me to light a candle and I’d lived in his home.”
Sora had shared enough details of her life with the self-proclaimed pirate king for him to know about Wetzel and how he taught her. Grisham had been particularly interested in the many tomes explaining how to perform magic spells until he’d found out they'd been burned along with the rest of Troborough.
“Aye, difficult indeed,” he said. “But I’m sure someone of your particular talents’ll have no trouble.”
The Redstar Rising Trilogy Page 78
