Duty (Book 2) (28 page)

“Lie on the floor of the carriage and stay away from the windows,” Gen ordered, though he thought it was probably unnecessary; previous nights of terror had taught her the lesson. Gen could see little, but several soldiers ran by in the darkness, and after a few minutes, someone lit a lantern near the tents where the soldiers’ commanders slept. A great number of men were gathering around the lantern until a stern voice—Captain Tolbrook’s—ordered them away. More lanterns were lit inside the caravan circle, the reflected lights dancing in the puddles, as nobles, Magicians, and Churchmen awoke at the alarm. Several messengers from the soldiers’ camp pushed their way into the circle, soldiers from the Rhugoth and Aughmere seeking their respective leaders

A cry of anguish rose above the splashing, wind, and rain, and Gen knew the voice, as did the Chalaine.

“Mother!” she cried. “Something awful has happened. Gen, let me out. I must see her.”

“No, Chalaine,” Gain said. “Get back down! There is danger about.”

In the circle of lamplight, he could make out Mirelle donning her cloak and leaving her tent escorted by Cadaen and Ethris. They didn’t come near the carriage, choosing the direct route to the soldiers’ encampment.

“What is happening, Gen?” the Chalaine asked.

“I don’t know. Something in the soldiers’ camp. There are a lot of people moving around, but they seem concentrated around one tent. Your mother and Ethris went there just a few moments ago.”

The sound of heavy splashing footsteps coming toward them put Gen on guard. Volney came out of the darkness. In the weak light of the lanterns, Gen saw the haunted look in his eyes. His cloak hood was down, and rain dripped of his ample nose and plastered his black hair around his face.

“My Lord Blackshire,” he said, breathless, “he’s dead. Regent Ogbith is dead. Killed by an Uyumaak arrow. Got him right in the throat while he slept.”

Gen’s heart fell, and he sought the stillness of his training, forcing emotion out of his mind so he could think.

“It can’t be,” the Chalaine said, voice pained. “It just can’t.”

“An Uyumaak arrow?” Gen asked as the Chalaine sobbed.

“Yes, Milord. A black one. Just like the ones that killed the two soldiers. Quite a shot in the rain and dark, don’t you think?”

“Almost impossible, unless and Uyumaak got close to the camp without the outlying patrols seeing it. The Regent’s tent is close the wagons, and if he were inside, lying down, then a shot to the throat would be an incredible feat of skill or luck.”

Gen wished he could analyze the scene himself but knew he couldn’t leave the Chalaine.

“Well, the evil one’s about, that’s for sure,” Volney said, looking around nervously. “I don’t think it a coincidence that the leader of the caravan was killed. Ilch’s work, for sure.”

“Certainly not a coincidence,” Gen said. “Go. Find out as much as you can and report to me.”

“Yes, sir.” Volney saluted smartly and quickly walked away.

“I’m sorry, Chalaine,” Gen consoled, but she returned nothing. Regent Ogbith was probably as close to a father as the Chalaine had known, and Gen felt for her. He felt doubly worse for Mirelle, for the Regent had been a longtime confidant and friend.

Gen fought his impatience as people ran back and forth, word of the Regent’s death on their lips. Gen caught a glimpse of Maewen entering the tent and emerging some minutes later. She came directly to the Chalaine’s wagon in company of Ethris, Cadaen, and Mirelle. Mirelle’s deep cowl hid her face. Ethris seemed paler than normal, and Cadaen—who had been Regent Ogbith’s best friend—walked with his face to the ground and his hands clenching and unclenching as he fought back tears.

“Does she know?” the First Mother asked. Her voice, while steady, carried a deep sense of loss.

“She does,” said Gen. “I am sorry, Mirelle. I wish there was something I could do. He was a good man.”

Mirelle embraced him and Gen returned it, wrapping her tightly in his arms. She cried quietly on his shoulder for several minutes while those around her mourned silently.

At length, she pulled away and wiped her eyes. “Let me see her. Unlock the door.”

Gen reached into his cloak and pulled the heavy key from around his neck, inserting it in the lock only those with the Im’Tith could see. He helped Mirelle in and closed the door quickly, locking it.

Ethris stood in front of him, eyes alight with fury. “We need to talk, Gen. Soon.”

Gen nodded and Ethris left, taking long strides toward his tent. Cadaen sat on the edge of the carriage and buried his face in his hands. Gen turned his gaze to Maewen, who regarded him intently.

“They said it was an Uyumaak arrow to the throat,” Gen said in Elvish. “Quite a shot, I would say, in the rain, dark, and wind.”

“It was an Uyumaak arrow, but if it was shot by an Uyumaak, then I’m no ranger. There was no hole in the tent where it entered, and the arrow stuck down into his neck at an angle that would suggest it came from directly above him.”

“Did someone stab him with it, hoping to make us think it was shot?”

“I would say that was likely, but it went deep enough into the ground behind his head that the force of a bow at close range is indicated. It is an impossible shot. Unfortunately, the gawking soldiers turned the ground around the tent into a quagmire before I could see it, though I doubt there was much to see. I fear magic is involved, in which case, I am less help than Chertanne in a sword fight. A powerful enemy is set against us. If they can kill us in our camp at will, without being seen, then we ought to take the Chalaine and leave, Gen. Our only hope is stealth and speed. If the enemy doesn’t know where we are, he can’t attack us, even if magic is on his side.”

Gen shook his head. “You know I just can’t take the Chalaine and run off, Maewen. Which brings up a point. Who is in command, now?”

“You know as well as I that it is Shadan Khairn.”

“He’s half mad!” Gen exclaimed.

“He is also a military genius. You may not like him, but if you insist on keeping the Chalaine in this doomed caravan, then he is the best chance for its survival.”

Gen hated the Shadan but couldn’t fault the logic. “I suppose you’re right.”

An order was passed for the lanterns to be extinguished, and Maewen’s face was lost in the night. “Oh, yes,” she said, voice tainted with sarcasm. “Congratulations on your wedding. Fenna couldn’t wait to tell me, of course. I know what you two—or maybe just you—are up to. Be careful. I think you may be making things worse.”

For a minute, Gen thought she might say more, but she left, footsteps so light he could barely hear her. Gen turned his attention to Cadaen who had leaned back, staring into the darkness.

“I will find who did this,” he said, voice dead, “and I will kill him.”

Gen resheathed his sword and put his hand on Cadaen’s shoulder. “And I will help you.”

The Regent was not buried but placed in an empty supply wagon after the Puremen performed an embalming ritual upon his body. Shadan Khairn, as second in command, took charge of the company. Mirelle emerged from the Chalaine’s carriage just before dawn. She comforted Cadaen, sitting by him and draping her arm around his massive shoulders. When Jaron arrived, Gen rose to leave.

“Gen,” Mirelle said, “will you watch a few hours with me?”

“Certainly, your Grace.”

“Cadaen,” she said tenderly, “get a few hours rest. Gen will stay with me.”

“But he has watched through the night. I should be with you.”
  “You have watched through the night, too, and have suffered much grief. I order you to bed. You must put your anger and sadness behind you. You cannot protect me while tired and full of sorrow.”

“As you wish,” Cadaen acquiesced, barely checking his displeasure, “if Gen will swear to me he won’t leave your side until I return.”

“I will stay with her,” Gen promised. “You can rest in my wagon.” Cadaen rose and walked away, shoulders slumped.

Mirelle took Gen’s arm. “Come. Let’s go pay our respects to Harrick.”

Everything in camp moved more slowly than usual as he escorted the First Mother toward the rear of the caravan. People clumped together in the rain, talking in low voices. The Pontiff mandated a morning fast in the Regent’s memory, though Gen didn’t feel much like eating anyway. Near the end of the caravan two Rhugothian soldiers guarded the covered supply wagon where Ogbith lay wrapped in a white sheet with his sword laid on his breast. Ethris sat by the body, his bald head bowed as if in prayer.

Mirelle dismissed the guards, and Gen turned to stand in their place after helping Mirelle inside, but Mirelle waved him up and ordered him to close the flap to the rear opening of the wagon. They sat together in silence for many minutes, Mirelle leaning against Gen and resting her head on his shoulder.

Shadan Khairn rode up and down the line on his massive warhorse, spurring the numb soldiers and servants into quicker preparations for departure. The rain still fell, and there was a great commotion as soldier, Churchman, and noble alike negotiated the mud and stowed equipment and tents. Mirelle did not speak until the wagon lurched forward.

“Kimdan was here,” Ethris finally said. “The boy took it well, though I doubt he will think of much more than revenge for a good long while. He is a strong lad.”

Mirelle nodded her head in agreement. “Serena will not take it well. She had a premonition that he would die on this trip, but Harrick ignored it. He kissed her goodbye and promised he’d ride back up to the door in as good a condition as he left in. He told me that the sure word of prophecy meant the trip could not fail. He didn’t realize that his name was not mentioned by the Ministrant who saw this day.”

“And how are you, Gen?” Ethris asked after a pause, eyes tight.

“I am as well as can be expected. I must admit that I have a growing fear of what we are to face ahead of us, especially if the enemy can kill us so easily.”

“That is what we need to talk with you about,” Mirelle replied. “Do you want to tell him, Ethris, or should I?”

“I will,” Ethris said. “I feel I brought this tragedy upon us. I should have never trusted it to Harrick. It has caused a ruinous turn of events.”

Ethris fixed his penetrating glare on Gen. “What I’m about to tell you goes to no one else, not the Chalaine, not Fenna, not Maewen. No one. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. You must know this since you protect the Chalaine. We may have to tell Jaron, but I hope we can avoid it since he is on day watch. Do you know the story of Ordd and Ewen?”

“Vaguely,” Gen answered. “As I recall, he was the second Mage-King of Lal’Manar. Ewen was his first Queen. She was killed secretly by her sister, Adewwen, who then became Ordd’s wife. He found out later, but she managed to kill him with the aid of some magical device.”

“Yes,” Ethris said, “and the magic device was also what helped her kill Ewen in the first place. Ordd loved Ewen to distraction, and it pained him to be away from her on his many excursions attempting to destroy the rebels flouting his control. So he created what was at first called the ‘Lover’s Window,’ a small looking glass that allowed him to see and speak to her over long distances. Unlike other similar magical devices, this one actually opened a Portal between them so they could kiss, touch, and pass objects to each other. Quite a powerful work of magic which no one has duplicated since.

“Ewen told Adewwen about the device. After Ordd returned home with the Lover’s Window, Adewwen found it and used it to kill her sister. The mystery of Ewen’s death was never solved, and Adewwen—who had always wanted Ordd for herself—became his wife after he grieved for five years. The device lay unused for a long while, for Ordd couldn’t bear the memories it awoke within him and he hid it away. Guilt ate at Adewwen, and one of her handmaidens heard her confess to the murder while she slept. The servant told Ordd.

“Adewwen found out the guard was coming for her and stole the device. She fled the castle and hid. That night, from a small room in a rundown inn, she called Ordd’s name and the glass showed him in bed asleep. From miles away, she reached through the glass and slit his throat with a dagger. It took a long time to track her down, and when she was found by some Puremen years later, she was insane. The Lover’s Window was placed in a Pureman’s apartments and used as a simple mirror for years until a Magician of Duam’s order tracked it down and took it for himself. In time, it fell into the hands of wicked men and was used in many more murders.

“The Church finally confiscated it, but not before it became known as the ‘Assassin’s Glass.’ It should have been destroyed. Instead it was locked away within the great temple at Mur Eldaloth. It was stolen recently and no one’s been able to find it. Someone killed Harrick using this glass, someone within the camp.”

“Why do you think from within the camp?” Gen asked. “If the story is true, then the assassin could be sitting comfortably around a fire many miles from here. The Uyumaak arrow would seem to suggest a dark elf or some human working with the Uyumaak had possession of it.”

“No, Gen,” Ethris said. “It is in the camp.” He was nervous. “You see, it was I who stole it. It was I who brought it with us. It was I who loaned it to Regent Ogbith so he could get messages from home. Someone stole it from him two days ago while we were on the march.”

Gen’s mind reeled. “Why did you even bring it? And who would want to kill Regent Ogbith?”

“I brought it because I needed to use it to watch certain people, Magicians and evil men I thought might hinder us on our journey. As to who would want to kill Regent Ogbith, there are many answers, ranging from certain members of the Aughmerian camp to those who seek to capture or kill the Chalaine by weakening the caravan.”

Something about Ethris’s face told Gen that this was an incomplete answer. “Why tell me?”

“Because the Chalaine is at risk,” Ethris said, “and you as well. The carriage is warded against this kind of magic, so I do not believe the Chalaine is in immediate danger as long as she stays in it. I can feel when a Portal is opened close by, so I am relatively safe, as well. But I worry for you and Mirelle. Mirelle will sleep in the carriage with the Chalaine from now on under the pretense of consoling her about Harrick’s death. You, however, have no protection and you cannot sleep in the Chalaine’s carriage without causing a moral uproar. I can help you, though. I can give you a brand that will ‘sting’ you if a Portal is opened nearby. As the other brands, it will hurt in the giving but will be well worth the pain. There is a problem, however.”

“What’s that?” Gen asked.

Ethris leaned forward, lowering his voice. “The other Magicians in camp will know I am performing magic if they are nearby, and if they are close enough, they will know it is a Portal ward branding. If they know that, then they may become suspicious. There is speculation already since the tent bore no hole where the arrow should have pierced it, and, at the worst, one of the Magicians may be controlling the glass.”

Gen nodded. “So how will we do this?”

“With the Shadan in charge, the Aughmerian soldiers now have the lead position in the caravan with Rhugoth’s soldiers at the rear. You and I will ride near the end of the line and slip off when we can. The soldiers there will be instructed to keep silence and let us fall back. When we have enough distance and privacy, I will perform the branding. Until that time, I suggest you stay awake.”

Mirelle and Ethris stayed with Harrick’s corpse for nearly an hour, swapping stories about their friend and laughing fondly to dispel their pain. Eventually, Ethris excused himself, leaving Mirelle and Gen alone. The First Mother leaned on him, breathing in deeply and wrapping her forest green cloak around herself for warmth or comfort.

“I hear you are to be married,” she said after some time, sitting up and pushing her blonde hair behind one of her ears. Her face was serious, blue eyes clear and determined.

“Yes.”

“In that case. . .”

Placing her hand behind Gen’s head, she pulled his face forward and kissed him deeply. Whatever his conscience may have been screaming about propriety was completely silenced by Mirelle’s nearness and the overwhelming pleasure of her lips on his. Fenna’s kisses were a warm wind, soothing and pleasant; Mirelle’s were a primal fire, an impassioned call to run wild from the world and dance in heedless joy around the flames. When Mirelle pulled away, eyes inviting and teasing, Gen sat dumbstruck between a decision to run in fear or to politely beg for more.

Mirelle smiled at his wonderment. “Reconsider. No one loves you better than I do.” She pulled the flap aside. “Come. I want to see my daughter.”

After helping the First Mother inside the Chalaine’s slow-moving wagon, Gen sat on the ledge and put his head in his hands, awareness of his surroundings slowly returning from wherever Mirelle had banished it to. The jarring of the wagon and the cool rain running in rivulets down his face cleared his mind. That Mirelle chose to confess her love in the presence of the body of her trusted and recently killed adviser seemed odd, even morbid, signaling some desperation on her part.

Her emotions are running high and she is confused,
he reasoned.
She’ll probably repent of it later and apologize. She just wants someone to care for her during a difficult time and is uncertain of herself and out of sorts.

Gen repeated these thoughts until he almost believed them, hoping he could recover sufficiently enough to enable him to look Fenna in the eye without his face betraying the thrill or the guilt. 

At length, viscous sucking mud mired one of the supply wagons, and the caravan stopped. Fortunately, Fenna was preoccupied with Geoff, the two of them talking from on horseback. The rain lightened to a drizzle and the air warmed, the air misty and damp. The caravan had climbed steadily that morning, and all around them hills dotted with stands of cedars or towering pines snuggled against sheer gray cliffs. Flecked granite rocks and boulders, some of enormous size, lay scattered on hills or in great boulder washes in the gullies. Clouds concealed the bald, jagged tops of the Far Reach Mountains they had seen from the plain, and patches of snow still clung in the shadowy recesses and cracks in the landscape.

But no wind blew through the pine boughs. Mist clumped in the low places where swift streams, formed from a mix of melting highland snow and a week of rain, flowed down from the high places and pooled in troubled lakes and ponds. Rock slides had torn gaps in the blanketing fir trees. Gen feared the road ahead would prove a morass of mud and rock, though scouting reports said the road was paved in stones after Dunnach Falls Bridge. Once past the bridge, they would pass a road to the ancient and abandoned stronghold of Echo Hold, a massive fort obscured by the mountains to the east.

Mirelle and the Chalaine talked for some time while Gen waited, Fenna joining them while soldiers wrenched the supply wagon out of the mire with the help of long poles of deadwood. The men tasked with the dirty work grumbled considerably about the Mages not “doing their part,” but if any of the Mages heard, they gave no sign that the criticism mattered. Even when the caravan finally moved, it only lumbered on for a short distance before it had to stop where the rainwater had eroded a deep gully in the road.

Tempers flared again as soldiers performed the backbreaking work of hauling stones and wood to form a makeshift bridge across the gap. The Magicians, Ethris among them, huddled together and talked, faces grave. Captain Tolbrook pulled Ethris aside and visited with him briefly before coming to the carriage. Dark circles ringed the Captain’s tired eyes. The last few days had aged him.