The Kinshield Legacy (23 page)

The Gwanry Museum of History appeared to have been a house at one time, with what had probably been a sitting room, music room, dining hall and kitchen on the ground floor, and some unknown number of rooms upstairs. Now, each of the rooms downstairs contained rows of shelves on which various artifacts were neatly arranged. One room was dedicated to the reign of King Arek, displaying letters he and the queen had written, gifts they had given to others, items they had once touched, worn or owned. Gavin was unfamiliar with the other rooms; he’d never visited them.

When he stepped into the foyer, a smartly dressed woman rounded the corner. “May I help-- Gavin.” She smiled broadly and curtsied.

Gavin took her delicate hand in his calloused one and bowed over it. “M’lady Tolia, always a pleasure.” He planted a kiss on its back.

Tolia giggled and patted her gray-streaked brown hair as though to tuck up a stray lock. “May I bring you some tea?”

“Got any ale?” he asked with a grin.

She laughed and patted his arm. “I’m afraid we’re out of ale today. Feel free to browse the exhibit. Stay as long as you’d like. Oh. We have something new you’d be interested in seeing. Come, let me show you.” She waved him to follow her into the next room and stopped at the back wall. They stood side by side and looked up at a portrait on the wall.

Gavin did not recognize the child’s face, but the golden brown eyes looked right through him, piercing his heart. “Who is she?”

“Ronor Kinshield’s daughter. She was just four years old when she died. Dagaz. Isn’t that an odd name for a girl?”

Gavin felt his knees weaken. That was the name he called Caevyan in his recurring dream. No. It couldn’t be. Surely he’d misheard.

“Her death was so tragic. Apparently, Ronor’s suicide followed not long after, but you can’t really blame him. His inability to protect the king and queen must have been devastating, and when the Lordover Tern declared him a hero for saving the Rune Tablet, his guilt must have gotten the better of him. It’s no wonder he became a drunkard. But then to watch his own daughter get impaled on-”

“Stop,” Gavin choked. “Please. Stop.”

“I’m sorry, Gavin. Did I say something wrong?”

He tore his eyes from the painting and looked down at Tolia. A sympathetic line creased her brow. “Actually I’m in a hurry,” he said. “I’ve got to talk to the overseer.”

“Mr. Surraent? Oh yes, come to think of it, he did mention you would be by. I’ll show you to his office.”

“No need. I can find it,” Gavin said. He had to get away from that painting. Those eyes.

“Upstairs and to the left. It’s the room at the end of the hall.”

Gavin gave her a nod and as much of a smile as he could manage, then cast one last look at the portrait. He took the wooden steps two at a time while he chewed on what he’d learned.

Dagaz had been Ronor’s daughter. But it was Caevyan in Gavin’s dream, not a stranger. Gavin understood why Ronor had fallen into the drink. He’d done it himself after Talisha and Caevyan were killed, and often wondered how he’d managed to survive it.

Plush red carpeting muffled his footsteps as he walked down the hall past four closed doors. The one at the far end stood open.

Inside his office, the curator sat hunched over a wide desk littered with books and papers. Shelves loaded with papers in haphazard piles lined the wall, and on their tops sat broken pieces of pottery and sculptures. Gavin rapped on the door. Laemyr flinched and knocked over a glass, spilling its contents onto the desk.

Laemyr’s left eye was swollen and black. His bent spectacles sat crookedly upon his nose. “Oh. Gavin, you’re back. You startled me.” He gestured to the pair of wooden chairs in front of the desk. “Please have a seat while I clean up this mess.” Laemyr moved the books and papers to one side and dabbed at the spilt water with a handkerchief.

“What the hell happened to you?” Gavin pulled the scabbard from his back and leaned the sword against the desk. The chair creaked when he sat down.

“Oh, I’m just clumsy. It’s of no consequence.”

Judging from the way Laemyr had flinched when Gavin knocked, he was frightened, not clumsy. “I’ve got some bad news,” Gavin started.

“You didn’t find the pendant?”

“Oh, I found it. It has some writing on it, did you know that?”

Laemyr cocked his head. “I did not. What does it say?”

“‘A promise to transcend death. Forever yours.’ Do you know what it means?”

“It sounds familiar.” The curator reached for a thick tome and began to flip pages. “Arek was fond of proverbs, so it’s likely a reference to one of them... Hmmm. Sorry,” he said looking up. “It’s not here, but I’ll try to find it for you. Do you have the pendant? May I see it?”

“That’s the bad news. On my way back to Ambryce someone stole it.”

Laemyr pushed his spectacles farther up his nose. “But you’ll go after it again, won’t you?”

Gavin had expected a different reaction: anger, annoyance, concern, surprise. But Laemyr’s face looked eager, hopeful. Strange that he wasn’t upset about it. “O’course. It’ll take some time though.”

“That man sure is a wily one.”

“What man?”

Laemyr gaped at him for a moment, then forced a nervous laugh. “How silly of me to think a man could ever wrest it from your powerful grasp. Why, you’d sooner kill him than let him take it from you - I could see it in your eyes the day we met. It had to have been a woman using seduction and trickery. That’s the only way--”

“You’re not answering my question.” How did Laemyr know so much about it? “Who stole it?”

“I-I don’t know. Perhaps she’s just a petty thief with a stroke of good fortune. How could she possibly have known to target you?”

“That’s what I want you to tell me,” Gavin said. His voice got louder as his annoyance increased.

“I’m telling you I don’t know.” Laemyr’s downcast eyes said otherwise.

Gavin relaxed his gaze. A shimmering haze grew outward from Laemyr’s body. At the level of his head, yellowish smudges marred an otherwise blue bubble of light. Laemyr was lying.

He narrowed his focus again and met the curator’s enormous blue eyes, which stared behind his spectacles like those of an opossum awoken in the daylight. “Why didn’t you tell me someone else was after it?”

Laemyr stuttered for a moment while he fussed with the items on his desk. “Not someone else. Just Tyr.” He got up and shut the door, then sat in the chair beside Gavin. ”Sithral Tyr did a favor for me several years ago. A big favor. Ever since then, he has asked for recompense time and again. I couldn’t seem to repay this debt, no matter what I did.

“He’s clever and well-connected. This favor-swapping is how he does his business. He finds a way to make people indebted to him, and then he exploits them. He has such associates everywhere. He does favors for anyone: battlers, scholars, merchants, bards, tavern maids, prostitutes, even a lordover. Once someone owes him a favor, they have to keep paying until he’s satisfied or bad things will happen. Very bad things.

“Some time ago,” Laemyr went on, “the Lordover Ambryce had asked me to care for some of the artifacts at the Grand Mausoleum and showed me how to open the lock -- a keyless lock that works by magic. Tyr found out about my work in the mausoleum and asked me to help him get into Queen Calewen’s shrine. He promised that if I helped him get the pendant, my debt would be paid. I refused. The next day my sister...” Laemyr paused and took a deep breath. “...died in a bizarre carriage accident. He came to see me the morning after her funeral and repeated his request. Again I refused. That afternoon my father slipped and drowned in a watering hole,” he said, his voice rising in pitch. A tear ran down his face. He took a moment to compose himself. “My point is that Tyr has ways to get to you, possibly magical ways. Anyone you met along your journey could have been watching and reporting to him. If you mentioned the pendant to anyone...”

The barmaid. In front of Gavin’s drinking companions, she’d asked if he’d found the diamond. Damn it. He needed to have a few words with her. Surely, his battler companions had had nothing to do with the theft. Warrant knights were an honorable lot; they lived by a code. Although Domach had no warrant tag, Gavin had known him for years. He wouldn’t have been involved in such treachery.

“Tyr came to see me two days ago,” Laemyr said. “He told me he had someone watching for you.” He pointed to his bruised eye. “He did this. Somehow he knew I’d hired you to get the pendant back. He threatened to kill me if I didn’t just drop the matter, but I can’t.”

Gavin sighed. He was starting to get a headache and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Do I want to know why not?”

“The pendant has part of King Arek’s essence bound to it.” 

King Arek’s spirit bound to the diamond? No wonder it had affected Gavin so profoundly.

“Tyr works for a wizard,” Laemyr said. “Someone named Ravenheart or some such.”

All the muscles in Gavin’s body tightened at once. “Ravenkind? Brodas Ravenkind?”

“Yes, that’s him. Tyr told me once that Ravenkind intends to extract Arek’s essence from the pendant so he could become Wayfarer. You’ve got to save what’s left of King Arek’s spirit.”

Brodas Ravenkind. Damn it. Gavin had hoped never to hear that name again. “Listen,” he said. “This is serious. I need all the facts. I need to see the letter.”

“What letter?”

“Don’t play games with me, Surraent. Ronor Kinshield’s letter.”

Laemyr stood and backed away. “I-I don’t actually have it, you see.”

“What?” Gavin rose slowly from the chair.

“It’s at the Institute of Scholarly Studies in Sohan. The sage promised me a copy of it in trade for loaning them the pendant to study. If you give me the pendant, we both get the letter.”

“You lying bastard. How can I trust anything you say?”

“I know, Gavin, I’m sorry. Listen, I’ll pay you the second half of your fee. Here.” He dug in his coin purse and came up with two large silver coins. “And two more when you deliver the pendant.”

Gavin pocketed the coins. “I hate to tell you this, but since you helped Tyr steal Calewen’s Pendant, you’re an accomplice.” He drew his dagger. “I got to brand you as a criminal.”

“Wait, Gavin. Please, listen. I did not help him steal it. He must have had his henchman follow me to the Mausoleum, because once I opened the lock, the thief pushed me inside and blew some powder in my face. I was overcome with dizziness. I tried to stop him. You must believe me.”

Gavin sighed. He believed it. Damn it. This information would have been helpful to know before he’d left on the mission. Now it looked like he would have to confront Brodas Ravenkind. The man who’d murdered his family.

Chapter 23

A sign hung by one corner from a rusted chain attached to the eve of a building, and swung gently in the breeze. The first gust from the approaching storm would surely bring it down altogether. “The Good Knight Inn,” it read, painted over several times. Rectangles of darker paint on the walls looked like the ghosts of window shutters from years past. Several large boot prints marked new pine steps.

Daia jogged up and opened the door to the lobby. A musty smell wrinkled her nose. “Is anyone here?” she asked.

Patches of plaster had fallen off the walls, baring the brick outer wall behind it. The floor creaked as she walked to the counter.

A man pushed past a brown plaid curtain, about Daia’s height with a bit of gray at his temples. His right hand and half of his forearm was missing, and he held the arm, elbow bent, against his round belly. “Help you, Lady Sister?”

“Good afternoon. I’m looking for someone. Some men at the tavern down the street thought you might know him - Gavin Kinshield?”

“Don’t know what you’d be wanting Gavin for, but if you’re here to make trouble, I’ll have none of it.”

Daia smiled. “I assure you, sir, I’ve never met the man. I merely seek his help with a quest.”

“I see. Come with me, then.” He came around the desk and started toward the door.

“By the way,” Daia asked as she followed him out, “did a Nilmarion man happen to stay the night here last night or the night before?”

“No, I’m afraid not.” He went down the steps to the dirt road in front of the inn. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he looked up. “Gavin,” he shouted. Daia followed his gaze and saw the head of a man poke up over the peak of the roof. “Someone’s here to see you.”

He came over the top of the roof and down the front slope to the nearest edge. Daia caught herself staring.

Not only the look of him made her gape, but also the strength that radiated from him. This power had nothing to do with physical strength, although she could plainly see he had that in abundance. His well-muscled chest and arms rippled as he squatted at the edge of the roof. No, something was different about him. He had a commanding presence, the sort of man one couldn’t help notice enter a room.

They looked at each other for a long moment without speaking. The intensity of his gaze might have made some people squirm, but Daia found herself drawn in by it. She was tempted to connect to him using her gift to see how he would react. There would be time for that later.