Lady of Mercy (The Sundered, Book 3) (14 page)

Robert and Darin took to wrapping sleeping blankets around their shoulders in the early morning; the afternoons were warmer, but that would change soon. Food became more difficult to find, and travel slowed considerably as snares were set and watched.

During these days, Darin took his lessons.

 

“It is not a matter of blood or instinct,” Trethar said, as he strode the ground in a circle, his arms clasped tight behind his back. “It is a matter of two things: the key to the gates and the will to control what will come of opening them.”

Darin nodded intently; he sat in front of a magical fire, created and held by the mage. This fire was special; it burned nothing, casting no plumes of smoke or wood particles. It was small, but very hot, and when a chill wind gusted by, the flames didn’t waver at all.

“Are you listening, Darin?”

“Yes, sir.” He brought his head up, tearing his eyes away from the fascination the fire held.

Trethar raised an eyebrow, but did not make his skepticism known with words. “Good. This fire—I call it and it comes. I am its gate; I am its master. When I’m finished with it, it will return.” He frowned. “You show a lack of concentration, apprentice.”

Darin reddened.

“We do not have the time for it.” Two steps brought him to
Darin’s side. His eyes grew silver; they reflected firelight and day in an eerie semblance of a Servant’s eyes. Darin pulled back and brought his arms up in front of his face as Trethar reached out. The mage stopped at once.

“Darin,” he said quietly, “have you reconsidered?”

The voice brought him back. He shook himself—easy, given the chill—and squared his shoulders. “No.”

“Then sit still, and sit straight.” Trethar stood behind him. “I will be with you; I’ll be your guide.” So saying, he placed both of his hands on Darin’s shoulders.

Darin stiffened as he felt a tingle cut across the base of his spine and bury itself in his neck. He started, and Trethar’s fingers relaxed. “I’ll stop, if you wish it.”

“What is it? What are you doing?”

“I told you,” the mage answered gently, kneading the knots of tension out of Darin’s shoulders. “I must use my power to study the form and shape of your thought. I will be as much inside your mind as you are.”

“Can you—can you hear what I’m thinking?”

“If you think it at me, yes. Only then; my spell watches nothing but the shape of your will, the path to your gate.” He murmured a word, a foreign syllable.

Fire covered Darin’s chest like a breastplate. It warmed without burning, a reminder of a previous evening, a previous choice. Slowly, Darin relaxed. “Yes,” he said quietly.

This time, he did not resist the magic that penetrated his skin and sank down like a stone in water. He relaxed completely and gave his life, and its responsibilities, to the teachings of the mage. Calm and at peace, he listened to the resonant cadences of Trethar’s voice.

“Many things were created with the birth of the world; new things, unknown. White-fire and red-fire are only for the light and the dark—but for the gray, there is the fire that burns flesh: tonight we will begin to seek it.

“Look at my fire, Darin. See its shape; hear its voice. Concentrate on it; see nothing else.”

Darin did as he was told, or at least he tried. But in the efforts he made, he was sharply constrained; Trethar corrected him even when there was nothing, in Darin’s opinion, to correct.

“You don’t have an opinion,” the brown-robed mage said severely. “You have nothing but the fire.”

When the evening call for dinner finally came, Darin was no closer to fire than he had been before he had accepted Trethar’s tutelage—yet the mage seemed pleased, or rather, as pleased as he ever got. And Darin had the sharpest headache of his life.

 

It was Robert with whom Erin argued.

Trethar, for all of his knowledge and testy mannerisms, accepted her word and her direction as if he were born to a higher command; Darin trusted her to know what she was doing. Only Robert, with his irritating flamboyance and self-aggrandizement, ever voiced a contrary thought. Unfortunately, he always voiced these loudly and at a length greater than Erin was used to.

“We cannot continue to travel in the heart of the forest,” he said, jabbing at the map laid down over canvas. “We can barely feed ourselves now—we’ll starve or freeze before winter has a chance to take hold.”

“We aren’t in lands known for heavy winter,” she replied, for perhaps the tenth time.

“They’re certainly heavy enough. We need to find an inn, a place to stay. We need to gain the road.”

Erin folded her arms, and her lips thinned. “Why?”

“In case it had escaped your notice, Lady”—his voice was heavy with sarcasm; this was about as subtle as she was certain he knew how to be—“Darin and I are cold.”

“Robert—” She bit her lip suddenly. “Yes. I’ve noticed.” The evening carried a chill wind; she could feel it nip at her skin, although her Light kept it at bay. She sat down heavily and looked at the map as if it accused her. “We can’t take the road for long; I would prefer that we not take it at all. Darin and I will be noticed.”

“Why do they want you, anyway? What have you done?”

She stared at him, her silence the only answer she was willing to give. Secretly, she hoped that he would become disgusted and take his leave—but Erin had never been good with secrets, and her desire was open in the lines of her mouth and the narrowed shape of her eyes.

“Well, never mind. I suppose it doesn’t matter. You’ve said that we’re not to worry about food?”

She glanced at her full pack, and her stomach took knots as she thought of the Lady’s last gift. But she had trained with the army, and in desperate situations, she was willing to use whatever
she could to survive. A very dear price had been paid for it, after all. “Yes. I have food.”

He sighed dramatically, and his chest jutted out. It only emphasized his lack of height. “Will you allow us to follow this route? We can come to road here”—he pointed—“and then stay roughly parallel to it. Here”—his finger traced the vellum gently—“is a village of moderate size. You and Darin are visible, yes; I can be less obvious. Let me take leave of you. I know the village well. I can buy what we need, and we can return to the forested land. Here,” he continued, “is the edge of the Torvallen River. If we veer, we’ll reach a bridge crossing; if we continue in this direction, we’ll have to ferry.”

“The Torvallen?” she whispered. “Is that what they call it now?”

“After a great imperial house.” He looked up and met her eyes; for a second his expression mirrored hers—hard and cold. Then, it was gone—his face was empty of anger or any feeling of substance. “You obviously won’t do it for my sake”—his lips turned down in the pout she had come to hate most—“but won’t you have some consideration for the poor, freezing boy?”

If she could have taught Darin the use of his blood-magic, she might have said no. As it was, she began to curl the map into a neat cylinder.

“Lady?”

“We parallel the road—we don’t travel it.” She slid the map into its container. “Is that clear?”

“Oh indeed, indeed,” he said, bowing low. “I’m most grateful for your consideration, Lady—I know that it’s a most difficult—”

“Good.”

“Ah, well, ah ...” But she had already walked away.

 

Robert was good to his word. When they found the road, and properly gauged its direction, they retreated together to a spot only a mile in; Robert marked the ground carefully and quite unsubtly. Erin changed his markers—but resisted the temptation that urged her not to inform him of the fact.

If only she felt that he couldn’t be trusted—then, she would leave him at once, taking great pains to conceal her presence. But although she disliked his proprietary, spoiled airs, she knew he meant no harm—and though she hated to admit it, his help
with the map would probably prove invaluable. He had saved her life, and Darin’s, as if they fought a mutual war; surely she could accept a few ... character quirks? She set snares, and she foraged as they waited upon Robert’s return.

But she did so alone, beneath the open skies and the brilliant, dying leaves. Darin and Trethar studied. This disturbed her, but distantly, coolly; she felt almost removed from Trethar’s magic. It was a strange magic, to be sure—but if Darin learned this skill, his lack of weapon-play wouldn’t make him so easy a target, so vulnerable a liability.

Liability? She shivered, suddenly, as she worked. She wondered where such a dispassionate thought had come from. And she wondered if, when night fell at last, she would sleep in peace and comfort.

 

Robert returned in two days, bearing food and clothing appropriate to the night’s growing chill. Although he knew that Erin and Trethar didn’t suffer much by the weather, he had even provisioned them reasonably well.

“If we’re ever spotted, or if, as I do suspect,” he explained, as he handed Erin her cloak, “we have to take to the road more abruptly than you’d like, you’ll both stand out for a mile dressed the way you are. It’s cold. People freeze. Normal people, that is.”

She looked at the cape; it was heavy and seemed sturdy and finely made. Too finely. “Robert—where did you get these?”

But Robert wasn’t listening; he’d saved the most magnificent piece of clothing for last. It was a greatcoat of heavy wool, with gold-trimmed edges and leathered cuffs as grand as any Erin had seen before. “And this”—Robert beamed brightly—“is mine.”

Speechless, Erin watched him don the coat. He’d taken boots and hats and long wrappers as well—but the coat made those seem insignificant.

“You didn’t buy these,” she whispered, afraid of what she would say if she found her full voice.

“Ah, well, uh—what makes you ask that?”

“You idiot!” She stalked across the ground and grabbed his coat by its lovely collars. “You—you stole these from a noble house!”

“Not a noble house,” he said quickly, attempting to disentangle himself. “A priest’s manor.”

“You are
never
going anywhere without supervision again. Never!” And she dropped his collars. He stumbled back, righted himself, and stared woefully at Darin. “Why on earth is she so angry?”

Darin only shook his head.

“Then I don’t suppose now would be a good time to give her the necklace I, ah, found for her?”

“A very good time,” Trethar said, with a completely reposed face. “I’m sure it would be quite cheering.”

Not even Robert was that witless.

 

They continued on, moving to the west and the north as the days grew both shorter and colder. The pace that Erin set was a harsh one, but the threat of discovery by the Enemy’s forces made it necessary; none complained but Robert, and after a while, he blended in with the background noises of breathing and walking and wind through the settling trees.

Every few days they would pause while Erin set her snares in a radius from the campsite she had chosen; during those days, Darin would study with Trethar, and Erin, teeth clenched and fingers curled in ever-tightening fists, would learn her history of this world made new at Robert’s side.

She discovered the exact date of the fall of Elliath—the first of the seven lines to be conquered and destroyed. That was the hardest lesson, but she accepted it in silence made heavy by the nightmare of sleep. The fall of the remaining six lines seemed thankfully more removed; they became names and dates and faceless dead—as all history had been when she had struggled to learn it in the halls of Elliath.

She found out how the Church operated—that had changed. Now, the Empire was de facto ruled by the Greater Cabal; thirteen high priests who held the rank and title of Karnar. Each province was in turn overseen by a Lesser Cabal, composed of priests, and headed by a high priest; it, too, was composed of thirteen, for the purpose of determining a balance of power in favor of one faction. She also heard a little of the mysterious Lord of the Empire; the shadows and mystery that surrounded his name made her wince.

I could tell you more
, she thought, as Robert spoke in his
even, long-winded way, but she forbore; it served no purpose to expose herself further to this whimsical, infuriating thief.

When at last he turned to the Lady of Mercy, she was so immune to the strength of words that she barely heard him at all. The shadows of night were calling, and she went because she had little choice but to answer.

 

There was no sign of the fugitives on the road in Mordantari. There had been no sign at all at the border crossings to either Landsfall or Cordenant, and no caravans of any note had passed their checkpoints either.

Although he concealed it well, Erliss was a very worried man. He looked up from his desk as the last of his Swords finished his long report, and nodded grimly in dismissal. The Sword left with unseemly haste, and Erliss was alone.

Nights had become the dominion of lessons he would and did—kill for, but the days demanded his attention; lack of sleep circled his eyes in bleary gray-toned pink. He had earned his cousin’s favor, but he knew well that it was due to necessity—and it could turn at any failure into something less pleasant to consider.

But if he was successful, Lord Vellen had hinted that he might teach Erliss the use of his other magic. Success was something that Erliss wanted very badly.

He glared at the map, with its various negative marks. How could a woman with a sword—a remarkable sight in the Empire—vanish without a trace? And why did it have to be this particular woman?

The need for secrecy made it all the more difficult. Erliss was expressly forbidden to call up either a good-sized contingent of the house guard—for fear that spies would note it, and report it to another house—or the Church Swords, for the same reason. He had few men, and those, dispersed, could not possibly cast a net wide enough.