The Last Enchanter (18 page)

* * *

Dokur was quiet this morning. Only a handful of merchants had arrived early to secure the best locations for peddling their wares. Marcus recognized the woman who had sold him his gryphon amulet. He nodded a greeting as he passed, and she smiled in return.

Marcus started across the town square toward the Seafarer Tavern. Zyll had planned to meet Jayson there again today, so it was the most likely place he'd be. The attack from the night before left Marcus feeling drained. His ribs felt bruised, as if someone had punched him. Between that and the real bruises from Eliha breaking a chair over his back, Marcus would probably need to spend the next week recovering in bed. But he didn't have time for that now. He had to find Zyll and tell him about Prost's plans.

He reached the great fountain. The Seafarer was not far now, just on the other side of the town square. He was about to move on when the door to the tavern opened. A bright column of gold light spilled from the doorway, and the figure of a girl emerged. Marcus raised his hand to wave at Lael but stopped when he saw the fear on her face.

“Marcus!” she shouted. “Look out!”

Marcus spun around and drew his knife. A long, steel blade whistled through the air as it came down on him. Marcus deflected the blow at the last second, though his knife was no match for the heavy sword. The force of it nearly knocked him on his back, but he managed to regain his balance just in time to block a second hit.

Lael's shouts brought others to the tavern door.
Marcus heard Lael calling his name again, but his eyes were focused on his attacker.

The man wielding the sword was a stranger to Marcus, with deep brown skin and piercing, black eyes. He came at Marcus with a rapid succession of blows, each one harder and faster than the one before. Marcus managed to block some with his knife, others he avoided by shifting or ducking. Every movement sent spasms of pain through him.

Arnot thrust his sword forward, and Marcus jumped back, barely avoiding its tip.

Then, using both his hands, Arnot swung his blade in a wide circle, slamming it straight down. Sparks flew as metal met metal. Marcus's blade held the final assault in check, but he strained against the weight of Arnot's body, which now bore down on him until Arnot's face was mere inches from his own.

“This was supposed to be easy,” Arnot spat. “I've tried to kill you twice before, but that girl knocked you out of the way of the falling post. I had you again night before last in the great hall, but you managed to get tangled up with that Agoran rebel. I had hoped he'd do you in, but now it's come to this.”

Arnot's lips curled into a predatory smile. He pressed his blade harder, and Marcus knew he could not resist him much longer. Instinctively, he stepped back, but felt something cold and hard behind him. He was pinned against the fountain.

Marcus reached back with his free hand and felt the water behind him. If he froze it, he might have a solid
retreat, but after what he suffered last night, he doubted he would have the strength to cast any spell at all or even enough to continue this fight.

Before he could finish another thought, he heard the loud
thwang
of a bowstring. Arnot reared back, howling in pain. A single arrow tip stuck out from Arnot's side. Marcus looked toward the tavern and saw Clovis there, lowering his bow.

Arnot's body went limp, and for a moment, Marcus felt relief. The assassin didn't want Zyll, after all. Prost had sent him to kill Marcus, but now the assassin was dying.

Suddenly Marcus felt something sharp and hard pierce deep into his stomach. There wasn't any pain at first, just the shock of surprise. Arnot's eyes rolled back in his head, and his body gave a slight shiver as it rolled off Marcus and crumpled to the ground.

Marcus looked at his own body then and saw the handle of a previously concealed dagger jutting out from his stomach like some strange ornament surrounded by a growing stain of red.

Forty-nine

I
t wasn't long before the pain took hold. Each breath sent wrenching spasms through Marcus's body. The agony made him long for death.

Clovis raced to the fountain, his bow dropped and forgotten at the tavern door. He caught Marcus by the shoulders just as his knees gave way.

“Help!” Clovis shouted, his voice already choked with tears. “Help! Someone!”

Moments later Bryn was beside him. Together they eased Marcus to the ground.

The whimpering child cradled Marcus's head in his lap and smoothed back his hair with a trembling hand.

Some townspeople who had witnessed the attack from the tavern, as well as several merchants, gathered around.
Lael pushed her way through the thickening crowd. “Get out of the way!” she yelled. “Please move aside! He's my friend!”

She dropped to her knees beside Marcus. He tried to focus on her face, but the image was blurred. Finally, he closed his eyes just to keep from getting dizzy.

“Marcus, I tried to get help, but it happened so fast!”

He heard Lael's voice as though it were miles away. When he first saw the blood, he had been afraid, but now with Lael beside him, he felt strangely calm.

“I'm so sorry,” she said. “Don't die, Marcus. Please don't die.”

But how could he do anything else?

Marcus . . .

Her voice was like an angel's, sweeter than any voice he had ever heard before. Marcus longed to hear her say it again.

Marcus
, she said at last,
you must take the key.

Marcus saw the angel bathed in gold light. She held out her arms to him. He wanted to be held by those arms, comforted by them. Her lips moved again . . .

Take the key to Voltana
, she said.
Take the key, Marcus, and find its maker.

The angel began to fade. Marcus called after her.

Ivanore!

Marcus reached for her, the anguish inside him greater than the pain, but she was already gone.

Mother!

“Pull out the dagger,” said another voice. It was Zyll.
“Make room. Give the boy space to breathe. You just might suffocate him before he's had the chance to die.”

His grandfather had raised him from birth, loving him like his own son. What would Zyll do when Marcus died? Who would care for him?

Marcus couldn't abandon his master. Not now. Not like this.

Marcus felt a tugging at his chest, but it did not add to his pain, which was already more than he could bear.

“My boy,” said Zyll, his voice firm, “you will live. But you
must
hold on a few moments longer.”

Marcus struggled to open his eyes. He wanted to see Zyll's face just once more, but try as he might, his eyes remained stubbornly shut.

He felt something warm and familiar. Zyll's hands were on him, gently caressing his wounded body. He heard Zyll's voice break in one brief sob. He had never seen Zyll cry before, but he knew his grandfather was crying now. He had to try harder, for Zyll.

The warmth from Zyll's hands grew hotter and hotter until the heat seemed to penetrate every cell of Marcus's body. It grew so hot that he soon felt as though he was burning. The peace he had known earlier faded and was replaced with pain—searing, agonizing pain.

Marcus's eyes shot open, and a horrific scream exploded from his mouth. Then it was over. The heat was gone. The pain was gone.

Fifty

M
arcus stared straight above him at the cloudless sky overhead. He wondered for a moment where he was and whether what he had felt and heard had been a dream. He blinked, then slowly rolled to his side and sat up. Laying his hand over his chest, he felt the damp, bloody cloth of his tunic and the tear that Arnot's dagger had made in it, but where he expected to find a wound, there was only clean, solid flesh.

And then he knew.

“Grandfather?”

Marcus got to his knees and bent over Zyll's body, lying face up beside him on the ground. Clovis stood nearby, holding Xerxes. Both their faces appeared stricken with grief. The expressions of the onlookers revealed the
miraculous nature of what they had just witnessed. Clovis, Bryn, and Lael were all in tears.

Zyll's chest rose and fell in uneven, gasping breaths. The blood oozing from his chest was already pooling on the earth beside him.

“No!” Marcus shouted. It was almost too unreal to believe. Zyll had exchanged his own life force for Marcus's. “Why, Grandfather? Why?”

Marcus clutched at the old man's shoulders. He was angry enough to shake him. How could he? There was no way a man as old as Zyll, no matter how strong, could survive an exchange of energy as powerful as this one had to have been.

“You can't die, Grandfather! Not now!”

It was not too late, Marcus knew. There was still time to save him. He had done it once for Kelvin, he would do it again now. Marcus swiped his hand across his eyes, but the tears kept coming. He pressed his hands to Zyll's chest and tried to focus his thoughts, but his body shook from weakness.

“Live, Grandfather! Please live!”

Though desperation compelled him to try, Marcus lacked the strength to succeed. His arms fell limp across Zyll. “I'm sorry,” he sobbed. “I'm so sorry!”

With a trembling hand, Zyll reached into his robe and removed the key Marcus had given him when he left for Dokur, the same key Zyll had given Marcus for his quest. Zyll placed it in the boy's palm. His lips moved, his eyes fixed on Marcus.

“He's trying to say something,” said Lael.

Zyll's voice was so faint Marcus could barely make out the word.

“Secrets . . .”

“Grandfather?” Marcus said, his voice choked with tears.

“Your mother . . . Ivanore.”

“Yes, I saw her. I had another vision, and she finally spoke to me. She told me to take the key to Voltana. It was a beautiful dream, Grandfather.”

Zyll drew a slow breath, the air and blood gurgling in his chest.

“Not . . . a dream.”

Marcus knew Zyll had only moments left, and yet his gaze was steady, his eyes piercing into Marcus's very soul. Then with his dying breath, Zyll whispered, “Ivanore lives.”

THE LAST ENCHANTER

Fifty-one

M
arcus had no idea how long he had slept. It was dark outside when he awoke—that much he knew. He sat up and let his feet rest on the floor. He listened but heard nothing except the gentle rattling of his window shutters in the breeze. He knew he was in the Seafarer. He remembered being brought here, and he knew the tavern was always alive with patrons eating and drinking throughout the night. He expected to hear the clinking of dishes, the voices of rowdy guests, the creaking of wood as people walked up and down the staircase. Yet there was nothing but silence.

Marcus had knelt beside Zyll's body for several minutes, though to him it felt like a lifetime. Every memory he had of his grandfather passed through his mind. The countless
hours and minutes and seconds they had spent together were not enough, and Marcus felt the sting of losing the one person he loved and who had loved him most of all. It was agony beyond anything he'd ever known. Not even the sobs that exploded out of him could ease the pain.

No one tried to comfort him, for there could be no peace. They let him cry until he had nothing left in him to cry. Only then did his friends wrap their arms around his trembling shoulders and lead him into the tavern to a warm, soft bed where he had promptly fallen asleep.

As Marcus got out of bed, he expected some trace of pain. There was none. He walked to the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar, and saw a faint light beyond the landing downstairs—the fireplace in the dining hall. Hearing voices speaking in whispers, he went to the landing and peered over the rail.

Below him, the dining hall was empty except for a single table in the center of the room. From above, he could only see the tops of four heads but could not tell who they were. He leaned forward a little, trying to hear or see better, and the floorboards beneath his feet creaked.

The heads looked up at him. The first was his father, Jayson. The second was the tavern keeper, Peagry. Marcus assumed the woman with them was Peagry's wife, but when she looked up, he realized it was the amulet seller from the marketplace. What was she doing here?

The last man was a head taller than the other two, with dark skin. A Hestorian. Half his face was tattooed with strange symbols. He had seen this man once, but only for
a moment. He was the man Zyll had been speaking with that day outside the Dragon's Head Inn.

“Hello, lad,” said the man with the tattoo. “Finished your beauty sleep, have you?”

On seeing Marcus, Peagry hastily rose from the table. “Arla and I will go see about making preparations,” he said. Then Peagry and the amulet seller excused themselves and exited the room. Marcus wondered what preparations they needed to make.

Jayson walked up the stairs but stopped halfway to the top. “You all right?” he asked gently. “I know you've had a terrible shock. Clovis told me everything.” Jayson waited for Marcus to respond, but his son remained silent. “I should have been there, I know,” Jayson continued. “I was supposed to meet you, but I was looking after some personal business with Brommel here.” Jayson nodded toward the man with that tattooed face and then added, “Will you come down and talk with us?” he said.