The Pleasure of Memory (69 page)

Prae eased the flames back. Then he gently stroked Luren’s hair. His fingers smelled of soap and perfume. “Don’t you see, my son,” he whispered, “That’s why he covets the Blood Caeyl so?”

Luren pulled away from his hand. “Blood Caeyl? What’re you talking about? The Blood Caeyls are all gone.”

“That’s why he’s plotted against me for so many decades, don’t you see? So that he may finally be stronger than me, that for once in his wretched life he may stand superior to me. So he can finally be a real mage, a mage worthy of the respect of the people.”

“He’s a member of the Circle of Twenty!” Luren yelled at him, “And what are you? Why, you’re nothing! You’re nobody! You’re a prisoner in your own keep.”

“He resents me for my strength,” Prae whispered as he caressed Luren’s cheek, “He resents me because I’m a constant reminder of his weakness.”

Luren withdrew into the stone, whispering, “You’re insane. You’re Prae the Biled!”

Prae’s eyes swelled like a dragon’s wings unfurling. He slapped Luren. “You dare call me that?” He slapped him again, harder. “You dare mention that name in my house?” He slapped him again and again.

Luren suffered the blows in silence, refusing to beg mercy from a lunatic.

Prae stood up. His eyes were wild, his breath ragged. He waved a threatening finger down at Luren and yelled, “Well hear these insane rants, boy! By tomorrow night, Chance will be dead. Do you understand me? He will be dead! And once he’s dead I’ll have the Blood Caeyl.”

“What Blood Caeyl?” Luren cried, “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about! There is no Blood Caeyl!”

“I should kill you right here and now and give your shell up to one of my demons. I’m confident you’d make a magnificent hack.”

Luren refused to lower his eyes from the mad stare of the mage. Don’t show him fear, he ordered himself. If you show fear, you’re lost.

The mage watched him for another few moments, and then his features abruptly melted back to their pre-rage simmer. “But I don’t suppose it matters now, does it?” he said softly, “By tomorrow midnight it’ll be done. Then, when I receive the word that it’s so, I will have you executed as well. It’s all very neat and organized, don’t you agree?”

Luren said nothing.

Prae grinned. “Aya. Yes, of course you do. You’re a bright lad. I can see that now. It’s unfortunate our lives couldn’t have worked out differently. I would’ve enjoyed raising an apprentice of such obvious talents. I could’ve shown you the glorious side of caeyl magic.”

It was more than Luren could bear. “You’re a liar!” he yelled, “You’ll never beat Chance! He doesn’t even have any damned Blood Caeyl! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Prae stepped gracefully from the path of a flying wad of phlegm. Then he turned and walked toward the door held open for him by the miserable jailer. Before he exited, he stopped and swept his gaze over the ghastly cell as if surveying its contents. Eventually, his eyes landed back on Luren.

“Please forgive these dreary accommodations,” he said, smiling, “It’s just that we’re so busy these days with our planning. It seems I’ve filled every room with dignitaries and heads of state. Being as you’re nearly family and all, I pray you’ll understand.” He glanced at the headless skeleton resting near Luren, and added, “And I do hope you get along well with your bunk mates.”

His noxious laughter continued even after the creaking door closed and the lock clacked tight.

“You’re insane!” Luren yelled after him, “You’re insane! Do you hear me? Insane!”

As the cell door wrenched shut, he fell back against the mildewed wall and curled into his knees, and then he started to cry. It was only after his grief had been spent and his tears run dry that he finally slumped back into the cold rock and faded into an exhausted sleep.

XXXV

BELFRY HILL

AWBY TRUDGED CAREFULLY THROUGH THE CHEST-DEEP GRASS.

The ground rising up the steeply sloping hill was uneven and unpredictable, turning each step into a calculated risk. His pain and growing fatigue perfectly compounded the gamble.

He pushed himself up the last few yards to the peak of the crest and back into the unending wind. Once there, he dropped to his knees and waited for his breath to catch up with him. From up here, his view of the surrounding plains was completely unfettered. Hills the color of heady grain rose and fell and rose again like the swells on an angry ocean until disappearing into an unreachable horizon.

He pulled the waterskin from his pack. The lightness of it was tragic. He hadn’t seen any water since that wretched pond where he’d found Goudt. He might be able to dig for water at the bottom of one of these swales, but loathed the effort it would take. His wounds were sapping his energy at an epic rate.

Despair plagued him like a stubborn cloud. The death of his brother, the loss of Koonta, Goudt floating so indignantly in that damned pond, all sang to him a ballad of failure and defeat. And now Maeryc was getting away with the Blood Caeyl. It was nearly more than he could bear. He’d never wanted anything more in his life than to scream out at the gods, to release the too’ke fel of all war cries, to screech until it drained him of life, and then collapse into the welcoming earth. He was failing his people! He was failing them!

He dragged an arm across his eyes.

He looked at the moisture glistening along his bare forearm. It’d been long since he’d last cried. Even when he watched Pa’ana plummet to his death in the dark tower, he’d denied himself the weakness of tears. Even as Pa’ana begged him forgiveness in the seconds before his suicide, he wouldn’t allow himself to grieve. Grief would only weaken him, slow him down. Grief was a distraction he could not afford.

He dropped his hands to his lap and drew a hard breath. Then he again looked out over the rolling plains. They were every bit as oppressive as the Nolands, though more extreme due to the unrelenting wind and the violent hills that seemed to consume every inch of this place. The only break in the endless grass was the surreal outline of one great tree that exploded up from the apex of a larger hill just to the north.

He spotted something moving in his peripheral vision. He turned toward it, blocking his eyes from the wind as he studied the agitated grass. There was nothing to be seen there. Again. It was just his body betraying him. Again. It was just more nothing, more obscure blurs and smudges that disappeared when looked at full on. His chest wound was infected, and he was certain he was suffering a fever. How much longer would he be able to trust his senses?

Yet, even as he pondered the question, he knew it wasn’t worth pursuing. He was dying, and there wasn’t a single thing in Heaven or the Wyr that was going to change that fact. It wouldn’t be long before his mind would start failing him, betrayed by disloyal flesh. In truth, he relished the moment. To lay down into the welcoming grass, to sleep beneath the wind. It was—

He saw it again.

He rose up on his knees and pinned his wind-whipped hair back from his face as he studied the distant grass. There it was! It was just over a half-mile out and climbing that next hill. It was almost unnoticeable, the sparest spark of red against the swelling green. He ripped the binds free on his pack and dug out his field glass. He scanned that hill, moving the glass slowly and methodically across the section in question.

Though the details were hazy, he recognized the erratic movement of the figure climbing the next hill. It was Maeryc. It had to be.

He stowed the glass and shouldered the pack. It took all his determination to keep from busting into a full run, though he knew full well his wounds would never bear such an act of zeal. The goddamned chest wound was taking him down more quickly than he would’ve ever thought possible, making it critical he reserve his strength for the deed that awaited him.

A large bird circled the sky high above the hill Maeryc was climbing. Mawby watched it as he crept forward through the grass. It might be a prairie vulture, though it’d have to be a damned big one. He imagined Maeryc must look like an awfully tempting proposition from that altitude, a staggering mess of bloody wounds and festering flesh. Then he remembered his own condition, and he couldn’t help laughing. The damned vulture could be circling for either one of them.

Not that it mattered. He’d be on Maeryc within the hour. Once he dispatched that miserable hack to the demons that loved him, it didn’t matter what happened to his own corpse. He’d find a place out here in the middle of this godless no man’s land and bury the caeyl where no one would ever find it. Then his only wish was that he’d still have enough strength to crawl as far from the hiding spot as possible before giving himself up to the vultures.

∞

Wenzil burst through the dripline of the massive tree and into the deep shadows before reeling back on the reins.

As the horse danced to a stop beneath the low, heavy crown, Wenzil swiped off his hat and dragged a bare arm across his brow. He was sweating more than he had a right to. It was the fear again. The plains had always been difficult for him, coming from a culture of mountains and caves as he did. A day of riding through nothing more than grass and wind and a towering sky had left him feeling a bit jittery. The shade here beneath the low hanging branches felt as soothing as a soft bed in a dark room.

Hector’s horse exploded through the dripline a moment later. The nearly white beast lumbered to a circling halt beside his, snorting and shaking its mane wildly.

His partner was a foot shorter than Wenzil. His braids and short beard were dark blonde, though leaning toward a premature gray. Heavier than Wenzil, he was dressed in the same light, black leathers, though Hector sported a turtle shell, a pair of thin plates of blackened steel armor that covered his chest and back. He wore a wide-brimmed, black leather hat with the front brim pulled low and the right side tacked up against the crown. The hatband sported a pair of long red feathers that spiked backward dramatically, the tips landing in space well beyond the edge of the rear brim.

Hector leaned back in his saddle and pulled a leg up over the horn as he grinned at Wenzil. “What’s the matter, little feller?” he said, leaning into his raised knee, “Feeling a bit sheepish, are we? Is that big old sky making you all scared again?”

“Piss off!” Wenzil snapped.

“Fear of the plains
and
of heights. My gods, mayhaps it’d be safer if you just found yourself a bedroom with a big old door on it, and retired to the blankets.”

Wenzil leaned over and slapped Hector’s hat off. It landed in the grass between them. The horses continued ripping and eating at the grain on either side of it.

Hector’s grin faded. “Now I know you’re going to climb your ass down there and pick that up.”

“Well, sure I am,” Wenzil said, “You just wait and see.”

With that, he urged his horse forward under the tree and toward the opposite edge of the canopy.

This place was called Belfry Hill, at least among his fellow runners. There was an official, old-timey name for it, but it was too long, too old, and too cumbersome to bother committing to memory. This hill was the highest point on the plains, and crowned by the grand old tree rising above him, the only significant tree for twenty miles in any direction. The trunk was several feet wide at the roots. The canopy began a mere twenty feet above him and swelled out from the trunk for another seventy feet in all directions. The heavy crown whispered and hissed as the deliberate winds coaxed them to life. The air here was delightfully dark and cool.

Wenzil passed through the deep shade to the opposite side of the canopy and ducked beneath the dripline as he clicked his horse back out into the sunlight again. As he emerged from under the tree, the cool wind slapped him hard enough to doubt his security in the saddle.

The sky beyond the tree was a solid ceiling of endless blue floating above an ocean of rolling hills. Despite the apprehension he’d experienced just minutes ago, it was one glorious view. Hector urged his horse up next to his and turned his face up into the sunlight. Wenzil envied his partner’s comfort with the open spaces, the way he even seemed to relish it. He often ribbed Hector about it, accusing him of being half-savage, an insult that never settled well with Hec. Not that it ever deterred Wenzil from applying it. Insults were his only advantage over a soldier like Hec.

Hector was the best horseman in Barcuun, and had such a command of the bow that he could shoot a bee from a flower at a hundred paces. Wenzil never felt he had the right to ride side-by-side with Hector, let alone be his partner. On the other hand, Wenzil had two important attributes that Hector was sorely lacking in: A tactical mind and good judgment. It was what made their relationship so symbiotic. Their strength as a team was far more effective than the simple sum of their talents.

“Wen, look there!”

The words startled Wenzil from his thoughts. Hector was on foot now, stooping as he led his horse out through the tree’s dripline. He stopped a dozen paces out in the grass ahead of Wenzil and threw a finger up at the sky. “Look up there,” he said excitedly, “Up there, above that next hill to the south.”

Wenzil tracked Hector’s pointing finger up and out into the blue. A bird with a massive wingspan was slowly circling on the thermal winds directly above the hill. It was nearly a half-mile up. “Vulture,” he said, “So what?”

“So what?” Hector replied, “You ever see a vulture that big before?”

“It’s just a vulture,” Wenzil said, turning his attention back to the grasses, “I’d be more interested in what it’s drooling after.”

“Look at it. It’s practically floating in one spot. You ever see a buzzard do that before?”

“He’s just riding the wind currents. Strong as the wind is down here, I can only imagine what it’s like up there.”

Hector led his horse a few paces further out into the grass. “Something odd about its wings, too,” he said over his shoulder, “They ain’t right. Kind of fuzzy looking or something.”