Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (60 page)

He need not die here. He need not be swept away by other people’s concerns. He could seize the reins of his own life and go back, do what at the
heart of things he wanted to do more than anything else in life. More, perhaps, than life itself.

The power of the need startled him, all hot rage and savage bloodlust.

“Yes,” he said softly, hearing the passion shake in his voice.

“Go, then. If you move quickly, you should reach the rim before the rains.
Sheleft’Ai guard you and keep you, and may you find at last the destiny he
has for you.”

“Thank you, my king.”

Carissa was waiting at the opening to the cavern in which they’d set up
camp, impatience tightening her lips. “Did you hear the thunder?” she asked
as Shemm went on and Abramm drew up before her. “They say the rains
may break before sundown.”

“We should be well up on the rim by then.”

“Yes, but … Abramm, I’ve been in the rains.”

“Would you prefer to stay here?”

“Of course not.” She turned to walk with him. “Did you ask him about
Peri and Eber?”

“He said he’ll send someone to free them.”

`And pay them?”

`And pay them.”

Cooper sat alone outside Abramm’s tent, awaiting their return. He looked
morose, staring blindly off into space, so that he didn’t notice their approach
until they were nearly upon him. Giving a start, he scrambled to his feet and
sketched a hasty bow.

“Where’s Danarin?” Carissa asked, looking around.

“I thought he was with you, my lady.” Cooper flicked a glance at
Abramm, then looked away, still nervous in his presence.

“Great,” Carissa muttered. “Here we’re finally ready to leave and he’s off
gambling.” Scowling, she scanned the chamber, arms folded before her. “We
should just go without him. It’d serve him right, and I’m not sure I want him
with us anyway.”

Abramm arched a brow at her. “Oh?”

“I don’t trust him. I haven’t since Qarkeshan.”

“You think he’d betray us to Beltha’adi?”

Distaste flickered across her face. “No, he could have done that hundreds
of times on the road from Xorofin. I just … He makes me uneasy, I guess.”

“Aye, because he has eyes for her,” Cooper said. And he’s a handsome
devil, with no reluctance whatever in pursuing her, no matter that she’s a
noble lady and he a common sailor.”

Abramm cocked a brow at his sister. She stared at the floor, red-faced.

Cooper said something mollifying, but Abramm didn’t hear it, his attention snared by the man striding briskly along the line of tents in his direction.
He’d half hoped he wouldn’t have to confront Trap before he left, but clearly
that was not to be.

The Terstan offered a nod of greeting to Carissa as he stopped in front of
Abramm and looked up at him, his eyes keen and sharp. “Can we talk?”

Carissa laid a hand on Abramm’s arm. “I’m sorry, Captain, but we really
have no time to spare. Not if we’re going to beat the rains.”

Once Abramm might have used her intervention to avoid what he did
not want to face. But he and Trap had gone through too much together for
that, and anyway, her forwardness irritated him. He shook off her hand and
stepped away with Meridon. “You go find your friend, Riss. This won’t take
long.”

He walked off without waiting for her answer, Trap striding beside him.
They paced along the remainder of the tent line, heading toward the horses
picketed at the back of the cavern. For some time neither of them spoke.

“So that’s it, then?” Meridon said presently. “You’re really going to leave?”

“Yes.”

“To go home.”

Abramm glanced at him sidelong. “You want her caught in the middle of
this?”

“Of course not.”

“I don’t want to die here, Trap. And I have a score to settle in Kiriath.”

A score.” Disapproval soured his voice. It was a thing Abramm had never
understood-Meridon’s willingness to forgive those who had so deeply
wronged him. His insistence that it had been Eidon who had brought them
here, Eidon who would make it good.

They stopped at the edge of the picket line, standing on a small shelf of sandstone, a well of space separating them from anyone else. He could see
the men out on the floor watching them surreptitiously, murmuring to each
other-by now the word was surely out that he was leaving. He did not think
they would understand.

Then again, considering the matter of or’dai, perhaps they would.

`And what of Saeral?”

The question cut into his thoughts, momentarily startling him. Then he
snorted. “If I can stand against Broho, I can handle Saeral. Wasn’t it you who
was telling me how much more I know about good and evil now?”

“More, maybe, but not enough for that.”

“Of course not,” Abramm said dryly. “Nothing is ever enough with you,
nor will it be until I wear your shield upon my chest.”

Trap regarded him soberly. “Eidon is the only answer in this world,
Abramm, and life is not about settling scores or being respected by people.
It’s about his power and his worth and what he did on that hill outside Xorofin. You must come to him as nothing. But you don’t like that. You want it
to be about you. Your sacrifices, your efforts to make yourself worthy.” He
paused, studying the horses without really seeing them. “It’s pride, Abramm.
That’s why you won’t believe.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? You’ve memorized more than half of the Holy Words. Go back
through them, without the Mataian slant, and see if what I’m saying isn’t
true. Or are you afraid to put it to the test?”

Back up the row of tents, Abramm could see the wandering Danarin had
finally returned-the group of them watched him and Trap as they talked.
Carissa was wringing her hands, clearly distressed and apparently pouring out
her woes to Danarin, who was frowning at him.

He turned back to the horses, pain and impatience rising together, and
decision crystallized. “Carissa’s right. If we don’t leave now, we’ll never beat
the rains. I’ve got to go.”

The disappointment in Trap’s expression was wrenching to behold.

“I … I’m sorry,” Abramm said, rushing on, as if hurrying would somehow
ease the pain. “I hope someday you’ll understand.”

“I pray someday you will.”

“Good luck with Beltha’adi.”

He turned then, feeling wildly awkward, and hurried back to the others.

He saw Carissa’s eyes fix upon his chest and realized then why she had been
so quick to intervene, and the reason for her earlier distress-not because
their time was running out, but because she was afraid he was going to give
in to Trap’s persuasions. The look of relief on her face when she did not find
the shield she feared would have been comical were he not so torn himself.
Despite all he had said, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was walking
away from the only thing that would ever really matter in his life.

Carissa was beside herself with joy. For the first time since this whole
wretched expedition began, something was actually going right. When
Abramm had come back from talking with Meridon, tight lipped and scowling, it was all she could do not to crow aloud.

He led them off with a few clipped words, and for once she forgave him
his incivility. She was willing to take a lot more if it meant saving him from
having to face Beltha’adi or, worse, from having a golden shield burned into
his chest. Now he was free to go home and become the great man he was
meant to be. She could not wait to see the look on everyone’s face, could not
wait to see Gillard finally-finally!-receive his comeuppance. The White
Pretender, a man who had faced down the monstrous Broho in the Val’Orda
itself, would never be intimidated by the likes of Saeral. Or Rennalf of Balmark. He would be a loyal ally of Raynen, a valued advisor, and perhaps,
eventually, king himself.

The thought spawned a little zing of warmth just under her heart. After
all her twin had endured, it seemed a fitting end. Almost enough to make her
believe there was some justice in the world after all.

For some time they descended a long, zigzagging stairway carved into the
rock beside a series of dry catchment basins and crumbling cisterns. Russet
cliffs flanked them closely on both sides, and the mist had dropped in from
above with unusual density, reducing the world to a ten-foot pocket of visibility. Thus when the stairs ended in a sudden fifty-foot drop-off, it took her
by surprise.

Apparently it took Abramm by surprise, as well. Until then he’d led them
through a maze of canyons, channels, and stairways with the practiced ease
of a native. Now suddenly he stopped, staring at the cliff beneath his feet as
if it shouldn’t be there. She drew up beside him, tugging at the folds of her
gown where they had bunched uncomfortably beneath her sash. He turned
back, his gaze flicking across the stairs, his face hard to read, even for her.

Uneasiness intruded on her joyful ruminations. It would be so easy to lose
one’s way in these convoluted canyons. With each looking very much like the
next, how would you ever find your way back? And to be caught here when
the rains came would mean almost certain death. A deadly fall, a flash flood,
starvation …

Before she could dwell too much on those perils, he turned into a slit
beside the stair’s end as if he had never been in any doubt.

False alarm, she told herself.

Unfortunately, once the anxiety was sparked it didn’t go away. The slit
was dark; the cliff walls reaching high overhead bulged toward one another
to blot out the misty sky. Though she had walked through numerous similar
slits, this one suddenly made her feel trapped. Even with Danarin and Cooper
right behind her, she kept shivering with the sense that someone was stalking
them. What if Shemm had changed his mind? Had decided Abramm must
play his Pretender role after all and sent men after him?

She tugged at the folds under her sash again and glanced over her shoulder. Neither of the men behind her seemed to share her uneasiness, both
clearly caught up in their own thoughts. She was probably tormenting herself
for nothing.

The slit dog-legged through the rock, narrowing to shoulder width and
finally widening into a small grotto before spilling down into a curving,
rubble-strewn basin that turned out to be another dead end. Abramm
stopped there with an oath, scowling at the smooth concavity. Finally he
turned back, muttering, “I must be more tired than I thought-“

Something about the way his head came up and that last word choked off
made Carissa turn in alarm. Danarin stood facing them, but Cooper was
nowhere in sight. Moreover, there was no sign of the slit they had just come
through, only a sheer salmon-colored wall stained with black, rearing up into
the mist at Danarin’s back.

Which was not possible.

For a long moment they all stood there. Carissa stared at the wall and only
gradually realized how odd it was that Danarin had not turned to see what
had so obviously startled her and Abramm. When the oddness finally grew
strong enough to direct her attention to the Thilosian himself, she realized
the two men were staring at each other.

Danarin wore a faintly smug, almost victorious expression, and the amulet on his throat, which she had never noticed before, glowed with a faint red
light.

The sudden crushing realization of disaster hit her at the same time her
brother moved, his sword leaping to his hand as if he had conjured it there.
It flashed in the gray light as he lunged toward the other man, who lurched
aside in time to avoid the killing thrust, the point only snagging his shoulder.

As Danarin dodged up the basin’s curved side, something cold clamped
about Carissa’s throat, the fierce pressure choking off her cry of alarm. She
dropped to her knees, gasping and gurgling, clawing to free herself from
whatever had her. Her fingers found only the necklet Danarin had given her
on Ormah Fah’lon’s terrace.

“Back off.” she heard Danarin say through the ringing in her ears. “I’ll
crush her windpipe before you take a step, so drop the blade.”

White lights pinwheeled across her vision; the ringing became a roar. She
tried to tell Abramm not to do it, but the world grew dark, and she began to
fall….

She came to lying on her side, air rasping like fire over her bruised throat.
Her lungs craved it, demanded it, and at first she could do nothing but satisfy
that demand. As her breathing eased closer to normal, she heard a voice from
far off. “Kick … over here.”

Metal clanked on rock, and something silvery flew across the ground in
front of her. She watched Danarin stoop to pick up a sword and dagger. The
sword he pitched away somewhere behind her, the metal ringing as it hit the
rock.

“I see you have recognized my trifle,” said Danarin as he slid the dagger
left-handed into his own belt. A blossom of blood darkened his dusky red
tunic at the right shoulder and he held that arm close to his middle. “I trust
you have not forgotten how it feels to be Commanded?”