Gorinthians (27 page)

Morindessa's eyes had
sharpened when she mentioned the man that had stayed with her
father. "Do you know who the man was?" Her tone made Seranova's
ears perk up warily.

"He said that his name was
Terrance," Seranova replied, looking at her curiously. "Why? Do you
know him?"

Morindessa's eyes had gone
flat when she mentioned the man's name. "I know him," she said
without elaborating further. A burning rage beneath her tone warned
Seranova to leave the subject alone. Sighing, she wondered how many
other people and events tied the three of them together.

Chapter 15

Captain Kerns walked through
the wide halls of the royal palace that were covered in tapestries
and lined with finely carved cabinets that supported priceless
vases and other ornaments. Servants in red livery, slashed with
yellow down the sides, moved through the halls purposefully, on one
errand or another. An air of suspense followed the captain. The
servants could feel the same suspense around the heavily armed
soldiers of the royal guard who were posted at different intervals
throughout the palace.

Kerns had only received word
moments ago that something had happened to the king’s party that
had set out to capture Prince Ferrich, and already word had
traveled to the palace personnel. By nightfall, every noble in the
city would know. Shaking his head in disgust, he passed an
intersecting hallway where a stout dark-haired maid was talking
quietly to a grey-haired, old chamberlain. Kerns picked up his
pace.

After several minutes of
making his way through the rat’s warren of hallways that made up
the palace, Captain Kerns emerged through the side entry of the
palace that led to the soldier’s barracks. The Barracks made up a
considerable amount of the palace grounds, housing over twenty-five
thousand soldiers. The Barracks was a small city within the larger
city of Shalilayo, surrounded by its own wall; in effect, keeping
the soldiers separated from the rest of the city. Past kings had
seen the wisdom in keeping the civilians separated from the
military. That was not to say that The Barracks lacked anything
that a city provided. It was just that it was all arranged with the
same order in which everything else in the military was arranged. A
soldier’s rank in the army determined his class in The Barracks. A
Corporeal might own a tavern, while the Privates that were under
his command, ran the tavern for him. A Captain might own a chain of
brothels, while a Sergeant would own the weapon smiths worked by
Privates.

The only time promotions
occurred were on the battlefield, so the soldiers were usually very
eager to go to war with a neighboring province. Kerns supposed that
there might be better ways to do it, but since this worked, he did
not see a reason to change it. He had finally arrived at what had
been dubbed the Tower of Secrets. It was more like a multi-storied
box than a tower, but the name had been given more because it was
the central gathering point for military intelligence than its
shape. As he walked up to the entryway, a sergeant that had been
standing behind the thick bushes that lined the opening stopped
him.

“
Good evening, sir,” the
soldier said, studying Captain Kerns thoroughly from top to
bottom.

“
The path is clean,”
Captain Kerns replied, waiting for the young sergeant to salute and
step aside before continuing through the entryway. Had he replied
with the incorrect password, he would have been detained and
questioned for hours to verify his identity. There was too much
sensitive information in this building for them to take any risks.
It was also required that the sentry guarding the entryway make a
close inspection of each person that arrived. If there were doubt
as to their identity, they would also be detained. The soldiers
that worked in this building were all Sergeants or higher and were
not allowed to socialize with any soldiers outside of their
department.

In the first room of the
building, another Sergeant sat behind a small desk, filling out
papers. As Captain Kerns entered, he stood and saluted. The
Sergeant then pulled a book out of a drawer and opened it to the
current date. Kerns walked up to the desk and signed his name in
the book, along with the time of day that he had arrived. The
Sergeant behind the desk studied his signature carefully before
closing the book and replacing it in the desk drawer.

“
Welcome sir.” The Sergeant
spoke for the first time since Kerns had entered the room. “Are you
here to question the deserters?”

Captain Kerns nodded curtly
and the Sergeant rang a small bell that brought yet another
sergeant into the room.

“
Sergeant Halburn, lead
Captain Kerns to the deserters,” the first Sergeant commanded in a
crisp voice.

“
Yes sir,” Sergeant Halburn
replied, saluting smartly. “If you will follow me, Captain?”
Turning, Sergeant Halburn walked down the hallway to a circular
stairway that led up to the top floor.

“
Has General Newborn
arrived yet?” Captain Kerns inquired briskly.

“
Yes, sir,” Sergeant
Halburn replied. “He is already speaking with the
deserters.”

They arrived at the top of
the stairway, where another Sergeant stood guarding the door. With
a soft knock, the soldier opened the door, letting him through
before shutting the door behind him.

The room at the top had
walls of stone, with chains attached to the walls and a few wooden
stools for interrogators to sit on. Fifteen of the chains along the
wall were collared around the necks of as many men, who cowered
fearfully against the wall, unable to sit because their collars did
not extend that far. Sitting on a stool in the center of the room
was a muscular giant of a man. He had a large handlebar mustache,
which had long since turned grey with age, and a small ring of hair
on his head that surrounded a baldpate. He stood up as Captain
Kerns entered the room.

“
Captain Kerns,” he said,
reaching out to shake his hand in a solid grip. “It’s good to see
you.” His tone was neutral, but his eyes were troubled as he
studied Kerns’ face.

“
Well met, General,” Kerns
replied shortly. “What is going on?”

Turning back to his study of
the prisoners, General Newborn stroked his long mustaches slowly.
“King Fedrin was pursuing Prince Ferrich and the lady that waylaid
you and your guards two days ago.” General Newborn paused for a
moment to see if Kerns would react to the slight. When Kerns
remained silent, he continued in a dry tone. “When they overtook
them, they had acquired a third person to their party, a woman we
believe lived in the village of Laketown. When the king and his
soldiers closed in on the Prince, the third woman held something
into the air that shone like the sun, killing the king and thirty
of his men on the spot. The rest were told to leave, or face the
same fate.”

“
Where are the other
fifteen?” Kerns asked, gesturing at the deserters who were
white-faced with fear. They were also close to collapsing from
fatigue after their journey with the king in addition to a day and
a night in chains without being able to rest. One of the beliefs
held by the high command was that if soldiers feared what would
happen if they deserted more than they feared what their enemies
would do, then they would not desert.

“
Eleven of them did not
survive the questioning,” General Newborn said calmly. “The other
four are no longer coherent.”

Captain Kerns just nodded
without emotion. Brutality was something that every officer
understood. One person’s suffering could save a lot of lives in the
end and having a weak belly did not justify losing intelligence
that could jeopardize the lives of your soldiers.

“
Who did you send to
recover them?” Kerns asked as he tried to ignore the largest of the
problems.

“
Lieutenant Sanders,”
General Newborn replied, still studying the prisoners. “I put him
in charge of the seventy-first legion and told him to bring back
anyone in the village that has any information on this mysterious
third person, whether it was the first boy to make her a woman or
the girl’s dead ancestors.”

Captain Kerns grunted in
satisfaction. Lieutenant Sanders was one of their sharpest
officers, rising through the ranks of the intelligence community
rapidly with his quick mind and intuitive ability to find the key
elements in a situation. “I want Morindessa brought in alive,”
Kerns said, rubbing the bump behind his ear that had appeared after
she had kicked him. “She was given too much freedom from the start.
It is past time that her wings were clipped.”

General Newborn raised a
surprised eyebrow at him, “Alive? Do you think that we have anyone
good enough to bring her in alive?” The doubt in General Newborn’s
voice clearly indicated that he did not believe so.

“
Send two Shielding
Squads,” Kerns snapped in irritation. “If we are going to waste our
time having them learn the Arcane Arts, they might as well be
useful for something.”

General Newborn nodded,
unfazed by Kern’s irritation. “I thought of sending them with the
legion, but if the rumors are true about her abilities in the
Arcane Arts, she is as likely as not to tie the lot of them into a
knot, leaving us with ten years of wasted training.”

Captain Kerns fixed him with
a beady eye. “Then it would be best to send them now and test their
effectiveness, before we waste any more time on that project,
wouldn’t you say?” Kerns finished in a dangerously soft tone,
indicating that he was quickly losing patience.

General Newborn grimaced,
but nodded in acquiescence. “What of these?” he asked, gesturing at
the remaining deserters.

“
Take them to the traitor’s
square and let them be an example to the rest of the soldiers,”
Kerns replied coldly, turning on his heel and leaving. The
prisoners behind him began crying out pleas as they realized what
was in store for them. Kerns firmly closed the door on their
desperate cries for mercy.

---

Jerard looked out of the
tower built in the center of the island that he had caused to rise
out of the ocean. He was not sure why he had his Elementals
construct the tower that stood a thousand feet above the rest of
the island. Once, he had liked having the advantage of looking down
on people from above; however, he had long since evolved from a
life form that depended on it eyes as the primary sense for
perception. He could feel every particle that made up the island
around him, as well as the ocean that surrounded it. To his mind, a
sea of energy pulsed below him: Elementals and Gorinthians that he
had housed in crude hosts made from stone and water. They ranged in
size from small creatures that could sit in a room undetected, to
monstrosities that towered hundreds of feet into the air. He had to
keep them shielded from this planet's
yar
, hidden from anyone’s awareness,
until he took them to the places where they would strike. With
luck, Terrance would fall into his trap soon. With Terrance out of
the way, there was really no one that could stop him. He smiled in
grim anticipation as he thought of the things that he would do to
Terrance when he finally did catch him. No other being in existence
brought more frustration and pain into his life than Terrance.
Terrence ruined every plan he made, interfering where he had not
been wanted.

Jerard still cursed himself
for a fool. Once, long ago, he had the chance to destroy Terrance,
to completely wipe away his existence. He had not been willing to
do that then and Terrance escaped as Jerard tried to find a way to
expel him from this universe.

Jerard came back to the
present as he felt one of his Gorinthian servants draw near. Jerard
felt his anger return as he realized who it was. “Why are you not
in Shalilayo?” he asked Luntar in a silkily, deadly
voice.

He could feel Luntar’s dread
as he linked with Jerard, showing him what happened in much more
detail than words could portray. Jerard felt his anger deepen as he
realized that Luntar no longer had his Trenchants, the weapons
Jerard had grafted onto his Gorinthian host's spirit that enabled
them to grapple any host while expelling the current one. A moment
later and Luntar was a frothing mass of spiritual decay as Jerard
ripped his spirit apart, pulling the elements off that he could
reuse on other projects. Without his Trenchants, Luntar was
useless.

Jerard wondered who the girl
was that had held up the Chasel. She looked familiar, but Luntar
had not been able to get close enough to feel her resonance before
he had been expelled. He recognized Ferrich, who had managed to
survive somehow, as well as Morindessa. Seeing Morindessa gave him
an idea.

Reaching out with
his
yar
, Jerard
summoned another of his Gorinthians, giving him instructions for
the next step of his plan. Jerard felt that at least some good had
occurred from this disaster.

---

In the village of Chasel Ri’
Aven, five Elders were making their way toward the Tar Ri’ San .
They were all dressed in long white robes. Two of them were men
that had long white beards that flowed down to their chests; the
other three were old women, their hair also white. The sun stood
high in the sky as they walked down the wide road that led to the
school that was on the outskirts of the town. Large trees of
diverse origin lined the street, and plants that were indigenous to
the Rajan Gardens grew along the curb. The five Elders all wore the
same expression of grim determination, feeling the weight of their
years now more than ever.