Reckoning (The Empyrean Chronicle) (17 page)

Elias didn’t disagree on any particular point, but was
hesitant all the same. His primary concern was for her psychological well
being, although he would never tell her that. While Danica seemed her old self
again, he couldn’t exorcize the memory of her delirium and fevered ravings. The
psychic wounds inflicted by Slade might manifest themselves in unforeseen and
dire ways. Despite his misgivings, he had no right to stop her, and if he was
honest with himself he would prefer to have her with him.

Instead of arguing Elias settled on taking a sip of his
coffee and exchanged glances with Bryn who offered him a spare nod. “I suppose
it would be easier to keep you out of trouble if you’re with me.”

Danica flashed her wry smile and leaned back. “So, it’s
settled then.”

Phinneas cleared his throat. “You have something to add,
Doctor?” asked Elias.

“Danica’s training as a healer is not yet complete,”
Phinneas said.

“I am not going back to the Academy, Phinneas Crowe,” Danica
said. “I’ve made up my mind and that’s that.”

Phinneas held up a hand. “I’ve known you long enough, child,
to realize there’s no changing your mind once it’s set on something. What I
mean to say is that I am coming with you.”

“What?” the Duana siblings said as one.

“Danica,” the doctor said, “you are touched, like your
brother. You have your mother’s natural intuition and the healer’s touch. Like
Elias, long have your gifts slumbered, but recent events have activated your
latent abilities. You will need training to learn how to cope with them.”

“Phinneas,” Elias said, “you’ve served Galacia long and well
in the war. You owe her no further debt. Are you so eager to give up what
you’ve built here?”

Phinneas locked his large, clay-brown eyes on Elias. “I don’t
have a family. You, Danica, and your father are the closest I’ve ever come. To
honor the man I loved like a brother, and a promise made long ago, it’s my duty
to watch over you now as if you were my own. I’ve got one last adventure left
in me.”

Elias reached across the table and squeezed Phinneas’s hand.
“We’re fortunate to have each other”

“Don’t think you’ll be leaving me behind!” cried Lar. “I’m
coming too.”

Elias shook his head, but he found a reluctant smile crept
over his face despite his best efforts to suppress it. He flashed Bryn another
look and she threw up her hands, her cobalt eyes sparkling with a mischievous
glint. “It looks like you’ve put together quite a company, Marshal.”

“So,” said Lar, “do I get a badge too?” Danica reached out
at once and slapped Lar on the back of the head. “What!?” he cried.

“We’re up and leaving everything we’ve ever known,” Danica
said, “travelling halfway across the country, hunting an assassin order that no
one else even knows exists with blood and vengeance on the mind—and all you
have to say is,
do I get a badge?
”

Lar grinned at her sheepishly.

The entire party erupted in laughter, and Elias, for his
part, surrendered himself to the tide of good humor. Like adolescents in their
cups for the first time, once they started they couldn’t stop, as the combined
stresses of the recent week expulsed from them in a cathartic fit of giggling.

Then Elias felt a change in the room.

A peculiar sensation washed over him—a tingling along his
spine, which crawled up his neck, to the crown of his head, and then along his
arms, raising goose-bumps in its wake—but it was one with which he was rapidly
becoming more familiar, and it meant one thing: Magic.

Elias scanned the room, but remained still, not wanting to
tip off any imminent threat that he was aware of it. He had the distinct
feeling that unseen eyes watched him. He slid a hand surreptitiously toward the
hilt of his sword, which he had hung on the back of his chair.

“Elias, is something the matter?” asked Danica, who always
seemed to sense his changing moods.

Elias considered coming clean about his premonitory
feelings, but decided against it. “No,” he said after a handful of heart-beats,
when the prickly sensation faded. “I just forgot how good it feels to laugh.”

“So, it’s settled then,” Danica said. “We’re all going to
Peidra, even Phinneas. I hope you can keep up old man.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow. “I can’t imagine I’ll have all
that much trouble, young lady. It doesn’t seem too long ago that I rode with
your father. We were off saving the world long before you were a sparkle in his
eye.”

“And what of Macallister?” asked Lar.

“He knows nothing of a plot against the crown,” answered a
grim-faced Elias. “Slade’s hire was one of convenience, at least for
Macallister. As for the fiend, his motives died with him. Slade didn’t seem the
type to spill all his beans, even if he did think he had me dead to rights. My
heart tells me he had other reasons for coming to Knoll Creek than just
claiming this sword.”

“While Macallister may not be guilty of treason,” said Bryn,
“he will still answer for his crimes. He may have an in with the Magistrate,
but he doesn’t have one of these.” She reached into her shirt and pulled out a
golden chain on which hung a signet ring bearing the royal seal of House Denar.
“I’ve sent my retainers to the Magistrate with a signed confession from
Macallister. The Magistrate is bound by law, as is the house that vests him
power, to sentence Macallister. His hold over this town is at an end.”

“I guess the only question now,” said Lar, “is since
Macallister is out, and Elias is leaving Knoll Creek, who’s going to make the
whiskey?”

For the second time that day, and in the last week, Elias
laughed.

†

Sarad Mirengi sat cross-legged on the floor of his
private study in the center of a scrying circle.

The Prelate laid his hands on either side of an Ovular
mirror. The runes and sigils engraved into the edge of the glass glowed with
crimson light as he focused his will and chanted in the thick, guttural
language of his masters. “Show to me he who slew Slade of Kezia, son of Vormir.”

Scrying was a demanding art and beyond most arcanists even
if they could manage to uncover the secrets of the lost lore. Without a strong
energetic or personal connection to the individual or situation involved it
proved all but impossible. Sarad hoped that Slade’s strong link with the man
who had slain him would provide enough of an energetic connection for him to
use it as a conduit for his spell. He just needed a quick glimpse.

At first the scrying spell faltered and in the mirror Sarad
saw only his own striking, almost feminine features, distorted by the slow
churn of arcane energies coalescing in the glass. He narrowed his concentration
and drew deep on the reservoirs of his power. The churning sped and soon his
reflection disappeared and in its place formed a vortex of red energy streaked
with black.

Sarad felt his consciousness drawn into the vortex, which
calmed and wavered like a pool of water after a gale had disturbed its placid
surface. In the rippling surface a face formed and then a few environmental
details. Sarad examined the face carefully and took note of its features, filing
them carefully in his memory. The man appeared to be in his mid to late
twenties and had a strong jaw line, black hair, and black eyes. He wore a brown
duster in the fashion of the Marshal. His figure was largely concealed by his
attire and the table at which he sat, but Sarad estimated from the breadth of
his shoulders and angular features that Slade’s killer was an athletic man.

The man laughed at some silent joke and then abruptly
stiffened. He scanned his surroundings with hawk-like eyes.

He can see me!
Sarad thought, at once alarmed. The
Prelate attempted desperately to widen his view, and learn more about his
quarry, but the Marshal covertly reached his hand toward the folds of his
duster, perhaps to produce an armament or talisman. In either case, Sarad could
ill afford either retribution or discovery, and his hold on the spell was
faltering.

He surrendered his grasp on the spell, gleaning only the
shadowy forms of some few others who sat at the rustic wooden table. Sarad
frowned. This meant that this Marshal, whoever he may be, was trained in the
arcane arts. He should have expected as much. How else could he have defeated
Slade, whose own command over the arcane knew few rivals.

Slade’s final, cryptic words haunted the Prelate:
The
Marshal rides. Beware. Sleeping lions have been woken. From the south they rise
.
At the least he now knew that this man was a Marshal and stationed in the south
of Galacia. With some help from the Quarter Century War and House Denar’s
dwindling coffers, the Scarlet Hand had done much to eradicate the Marshal
Corps. Despite their efforts, it seemed at least a few of the pesky order, so
reminiscent of the knights of antiquity, had survived to spread their lore and
skill.

Sarad knew he would have to act swiftly to eliminate this
threat. He could ill afford to have his plans upset by an upstart from the
South.

†

Rafe Kaifess smiled as he felt the sending.

The gnarled piece of black stone that hung around his neck
grew cold, indicating his Lord had business with him. Rafe increased his pace
as he made his way down the central thoroughfare in Abbington and toward the
modest lodgings he had acquired. He itched in anticipation of the mission his
masters would have for him. He prayed that whatever it may be he would be
allowed to employ his special skills.

Rafe did not notice the ire of those he brushed aside in his
haste, or the merchants extolling the virtues of their wares, or even the feel
of the cobblestones beneath his feet. He swept through the front door of the
Inn, but slowing to observe the courtesy of nodding at the inquisitive
Innkeeper and bidding him a good day, before he dashed up the stairs to his
bedchamber at a near run.

Rafe knelt on the floor and took the frigid black stone in
hand. He closed his eyes, and with the aid of the talisman sank at once into a
trance.
I am here, my Lord.

Rafe, I have a special task for you.

As you command, so shall it be.

There is a man I need found. He is, from the intelligence
I have gathered, in the South.

Rafe listened attentively as Lord Mirengi described the man.

He is a Marshal, which may help you locate him,
Lord
Mirengi continued.
It will prove difficult, for I have not been able to
discern his exact location, but I have faith in you.

You wish me to kill this man, my Lord?

Yes. However, if possible, capture him first. Learn what
knowledge he has of us and if he has any allies. I chose you for your proximity
to his presumed location, but primarily for your particular talent for
extracting information.

Rafe’s mouth grew wet with hunger.
It would be my
pleasure, my Lord.

Learn what you can, but my primary wish is that this
threat be neutralized. Be warned, this man may have allies and is not to be
taken lightly. He has already slain one of our best operatives, and your
Lieutenant, Slade Kezia.

Rafe bristled at this news.
Slade was a good man. I will
see that this Marshal pays dearly for this affront.

Make all possible haste. We have worked too hard to
infiltrate the Galacian political arena to have our plans waylaid by a rogue
Marshal. We cannot afford any loose ends.

Consider it done, Lord Mirengi. I will not fail you.

Leavetakings

They left three days after their palaver at Phinneas’s
house. They took the most direct route, riding through the town proper. Elias
realized this would draw attention, but to do otherwise would invite
speculation and rumor. The party struck quite the sight as they road through
the town and drew more than a small crowd.

Elias had donned his full Marshal regalia, from hat to
gloves. Lar had retired his wood axe and acquired a more suitable long blade,
which he wore on his back in the Southern fashion. Danica traded in her Academy
whites for a brown riding skirt and a cream blouse. Still somewhat drawn from
her ordeal, she had an ethereal look, which struck a stark contrast to the
vibrant, towering Lar who rode at her side in brown breeches, a white homespun
shirt, and a hunter green cloak.

Phinneas looked dashing in a linen v-neck pullover tucked
into black trousers. A vermillion cloak, a vestige from his service in the war,
lent him the aspect of a matured swashbuckler.

Bryn had donned dark riding pants and a blouse of House
Denar crimson that opened at her creamy throat. She brazenly wore her
damascened rapier at her waist and had sheathed daggers tied to either thigh
with leather cord.

The party rode abreast down the thoroughfare like a posse. Villagers
crept from their homes and businesses to stand along the roadside and watch as
the five meandered through Knoll Creek, silent as a funerary march. Bryn had
left orders with Constable Oring, and word of their departure had spread like
fire in a rick-house.

Most of the folk remained silent and still, but some few
would offer a grave nod or remove a hat. As the party neared the end of the
town, Mayor Bromstead stood in the center of the road barring their advance.

Elias reined in Comet. The Mayor looked like he hadn’t slept
in days, evidenced by his red-rimmed eyes, sallow skin, and unkempt stubble. “That’s
it,” he said. “She hasn’t been in the ground yet a week and you’re leaving.”

“Ulric,” Elias replied, using the Mayor’s given name for the
first time, “It is because of Asa that I must go. Justice has not yet been
fully served.”

“What about her?” Ulric rasped as he pointed an accusatory
finger at Bryn. “She have anything to do with this? Country living not good
enough for you, Duana, now that some trollop from up north comes calling and
pins a shiny shield on your collar?”

“You don’t mean that,” Elias said. “I loved Asa. More than
anything. Always have. And you know it.” Elias’s countenance remained expressionless,
but his words were spoken softly, and not unkindly. “Step aside, Ulric. It is
after noon, and we have far to go.”

The Mayor acquiesced, but after saying, “This is your home, Elias.
Don’t you forget that. Don’t you dare.”

“I won’t.” Elias pulled a silver chain from under his shirt upon
which hung Asa’s engagement ring. “Not ever.”

Following Elias’s lead, the party rode out of Knoll Creek. Long
would it be before any of them passed this way again. Mayor Bromstead and the
villagers watched them go, but not a one of the five turned to look back.

†

Agnar Vundi mopped sweat from his brow. He still hadn’t
adjusted to the hot sun and mild climate that brought his Southern neighbors so
much prosperity. The smell of wheat and fertile earth filled the air and,
though completely alien to him, he found it pleasant. Among such an idyllic
landscape of rolling green hills and golden fields set as foreground to high, sweeping
Peidra Agnar felt his anxiety lessen.

Not as physically imposing as much of his brethren, his king
selected him for this mission for the virtues of his tongue, not his brawn. He
prayed to Vornac, God of ice and thunder, that he would prove equal to the task.
While Queen Eithne of Denar’s correspondence was cordial and hinted at open
relations between the ancient enemies, Agnar knew that much of her court would not
share her sentiments. Many an enemy awaited him in Peidra, and they would fight
him not with blade and shield but with innuendo and posture.

Their escort, Captain Blackwell of the queen’s guard, which Agnar
had learned were called Whiteshields, and his company of twelve men awaited him
and his companions silently at a respectful distance. Vlad and Krugh, his traveling
companions shared the silence with him. As old friends, they knew his habit for
pensiveness. The two trusted advisors to his liege would prove invaluable in
establishing diplomatic relations. They were stalwart brothers in arms, but
better counselors there were none.

“Much rests upon our shoulders,” Agnar said.

Vlad squinted up at Agnar as he knuckled the small of his
back. “True enough, but I’m a counselor not a horseman. Right now the only shoulders
I’m concerned with is this thing’s and staying off them for a good long while!”
He leaned in and in a mock conspiratorial whisper said, “That and my tender
arse!”

Krugh harrumphed. “The only shoulders I’m concerned with are
those of the Galacian womenfolk. Rumor has it that the warm climate promotes
more revealing fashions than we’re accustomed to.” He gave Agnar a lascivious
wink.

Agnar shook his head in disbelief. “Wizened by the ancient
scrolls you may be, friends, but you jest with the crass ribaldry of a common
soldier!”

Vlad shrugged and remounted his white stallion. “These
Southlanders love gold almost as much as we love mead. Surely bartering for
their grain can’t be that difficult?”

“I hope you’re right,” Agnar said.

While his companion’s words heartened him, the cryptic
warning the seer had issued weighed heavily on his mind. The cloudless skies contrasted
the shadowed storm front that darkened the deep recesses of his mind.

†

Danica glared at the pin and willed it to move.

She gave up with a grunt of exasperation. She unfolded her
legs, which had fallen asleep, and stood. “I can’t do it,” she said and tossed
Phinneas the pin.

Phinneas caught the pin and offered her a sympathetic smile.
“It is expected for one to fail at their first attempt to touch their gift, so
try not to get discouraged. It takes years—no, a lifetime—to master the craft
of magic.”

“How can I hope to ever master magic if I can’t move a
measly pin! Perhaps you’re wrong, Doctor. I’m no sorceress.”

“Patience, Danica. It takes a lot of energy and will to move
objects. Sit back down. Let’s try again.”

Bryn watched the pair with a bemused smile. They had been in
the saddle for two days, and had just stopped for their midday meal. Danica looked
well to Bryn, but she still worried for the younger woman. God alone knew what
horrors the poor thing endured at the hands of the demonic Slade.

Bryn’s attention snapped away from the doctor’s lesson as
she heard Lar curse.

Her smile widened. Elias had brought his fencing foils for
the purpose of instructing Lar in the art of the sword. Lar had been eager
enough at first, but Bryn suspected his enthusiasm had dwindled. Since tragedy
had befallen him Elias’s skills had sharpened, as had his ferocity. He acted
without hesitation, and struck with alarming velocity and power. He allowed Lar
no quarter, and thus proved a demanding instructor.

Elias noticed Bryn watching them and waved happily. Lar did
not look nearly as amused. To all appearances the distiller seemed to have
gotten a grasp on his grief, but Bryn knew it to be a façade, for she could feel
the anger pressing out of him.

“How goes it?” Bryn asked.

Elias mopped sweat from his brow and threw down his foil. “He’s
strong as an ox, but I think him more suited to a northern axe than a southern
sword.”

“Ha. Ha.” Lar said.

“Shut-up you giant oaf!” said Danica who had reassumed her
cross-legged position before Phinneas. “Can’t you see I’m trying to
concentrate?”

“What, me?” replied a confounded Lar.

Elias suppressed a laugh and drew near so that he could observe
the Doctor’s lesson. Lar followed at his heels with his head hung low, like a
dog unaware of what he’s done to earn his master’s ire.

“Close your eyes,” Phinneas said. His voice took on a
peculiar quality—a lilting cadence, silky and hypnotic, and laced with the
whisper of magic. “Now imagine you are walking down a staircase into the deep,
protective bosom of the earth. With each exhale you descend a stair. With each
step you take, you fall further into yourself.

The world falls away. Every distraction, every surface
thought, falls away, until all you can hear is the whistle of your breath and
the drumbeat of your heart. All you see is the staircase stretching before you.
But there is something bright down in the deep beyond the last of the stairs. In
the core of you it waits. You only must reach out and touch it.”

Danica gazed into the deep and into the pale, flickering
flame that waited there. As she closed in on it, she discovered at its heart
throbbed a taint: an inky, cancerous tumor from which tendrils so black they
were no mere darkness but the very absence of light spider-webbed like veins
swollen with pitch.

“
Balizor
...” she whispered, and indeed it sounded as
if her voice issued from deep within her. Danica shuddered and a sob escaped
her mouth, open in a silent scream.

Elias dashed forward and took her by the shoulders. Danica’s
eyes fluttered open and she looked lazily at her brother. “What is it?” she
asked.

Elias tried his best to affect a calm demeanor. “What do you
remember?”

“Down in the deep.” She yawned. “But,” she added sheepishly,
“I think I fell asleep.” She looked toward the Doctor’s hand where the pin
remained. “Tarnation! It’s not moved.”

Phinneas regarded the pin with narrowed eyes. “No, but it’s
grown quite cold—so cold that it burns.”

Elias turned to him and noted with no small amount of alarm
the red mark on the doctor’s hand. “Balizor,” Elias said carefully, “what does
that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Phinneas said without looking him in the
eye.

Elias didn’t need his father’s shield to know that the doctor
lied.

†

Rafe Kaifess tied off his horse and approached the
White Horse Tavern. A wolfish grin spread across his face as he took in the
building and the pipe smoking elders whiling away the afternoon in rocking chairs
on the porch. Given this quaint town with its backwater accoutrements, Rafe
found it hard to imagine that this country’s denizens had driven his noble masters
into exile.

He nodded at the old-timers and threw open the double doors.
The barkeep and a handful of locals glanced in his direction with ill concealed
interest. Rafe sidled up to the bar and chose a remote stool. “G’day, fella,”
he said in greeting to the barkeep who looked slightly perturbed by his
arrival.

“What’ll it be then?” the spindly man replied.

“Knoll, of course. I’ve been dry for nigh a week in the
saddle and have a mighty thirst.” Actually, as a rule Rafe did not drink, for
it addled the wits, but it wouldn’t look good to ply the man for information
without paying him for services rendered. Rafe produced a gold coin and pressed
it into the keep’s hand. “Keep the difference, my friend.”

The man brightened visibly and poured him a generous glass
of amber sprits from a bottle that had red wax trailing from the neck. “Enjoy,
stranger,” said the man and began to walk away.

A man of few words, Rafe mused. “I wonder my good man,” Rafe
called after the barkeep, “if you could help me with something?”

“What do you have in mind?” asked the man, his suspicious
expression returning.

“I’m looking for a man, a Marshal as it were.”

“What would you want with Elias?”

Rafe congratulated himself. The bumpkin had already given
him his quarry’s name. “I have need of the law. You see I live some distance
away, and have had a quarrel with a dishonest merchant, but the town government
there is corrupt. I need some outside help and I heard that there was a Marshal
around these parts and thought I might persuade him to settle the dispute.”

“Where’s it you’re from, then?”

“Abbington.”

The barkeep grunted. “That sounds like Abbington alright. Cost
me nigh a month’s wages to purchase some of them fancy glass cups you’re
drinking from. Elias Duana’s your man, but he ain’t here. Matter o’ fact,
you’re drinking his special reserve as we speak.”

“Oh, is that right? A Marshal from out of legend, and a
distiller of one mighty fine whiskey! Where, I wonder, has this miracle man
gone?”

“Up north as far as anyone can tell. Hunting an assassin is
what they say. A Hoity-toity rancher that goes by the name of Macallister hired
some men to off him and his family. Only he didn’t quite die, did he? That’s
how this Marshal business began. Carved one of ‘em up real good and then
proclaimed himself the law. Shame too. He was fixing to marry the Mayor’s
daughter, a real thoroughbred, but she got arrowed through the heart. He’s left
not two days ago.”

To his credit the barkeep looked genuinely distressed, but
Rafe largely attributed it to the projected loss of Duana’s whiskey. “Well, I thank
you all the same, friend. I hope the day sees you well.” With that Rafe quaffed
the surprisingly smooth contents of the glass and walked out of the quaint
tavern and back into the sun.

Duana may have a few days head start, but Rafe could ride
hard and few steeds could outmatch Wraith for speed and endurance. He would
pick up this rogue Marshal’s trail and put an end to his meddling for good.

†

They had been on the road for nigh a week and had
covered nearly half the distance to Peidra. The four from Knoll Creek had
adjusted to the saddle well enough, but were glad to partake in the amenities
offered by the town of Galeway, which provided only a slight diversion from
their course.

“Why won’t you let Phinneas train you to use your magic?”
Danica asked as she browsed the local mercantile’s stock of thread.