The Silent Tempest (Book 2) (5 page)

He mixed the blackened charcoal as thoroughly as
possible, crushing the larger pieces with his mind and turning it into a thick
slurry. Then he leaned over the unconscious warden.

“W—what are y—you going to do?” asked Haley.

He grinned, but immediately regretted it. The
expression seemed to frighten her more. Looking back at Gwaeri, he answered,
“I’m going to tattoo our friend here to ensure his loyalty.” He pushed the
man’s gray hair and slave collar aside, studying the warden’s neck as he chose
the spot for his artwork.

***

When Gwaeri awoke sometime later, the first thing he
noticed was a stinging burn at his throat. Instinctively, he tried to reach
up, fearing a cut, but his arm refused to move.

“I’ll release you in a moment,” said the Illeniel
warden looking down on him.

“What have you done?”

“I’ve given you a reason to cooperate,” answered
Tyrion. With a thought, he activated the tattoos along his right arm. He held
the force blade up in front of his prisoner’s eyes. “You know what this is?”

“Everyone has heard of your arm-blades.” Gwaeri’s
attention was firmly on the deadly weapon.

“Does ‘everyone’ know that it is capable of severing
She’Har spellweaving?” asked Tyrion.

“Your fight with the Krytek,” said the warden. “Not
everyone believes the story, but there’s no other way…”

“I can sever a slave collar as well.” He lowered the
tip of the blade to the old man’s throat. It made a shallow slice in the flesh
as it slid close to the spellweave around Gwaeri’s neck. Blood welled and
dripped to the ground, but the warden didn’t flinch or cry out. “Do you know
what happens if the collar is broken?”

“Death.” Sweat was beading on the older man’s
forehead, but he gave no other sign of fear.

Tyrion dismissed his enchanted arm-blade and then
presented the outer edge of his arm for Gwaeri’s inspection. “See the runes
there?” He waited for the other man to nod before continuing, “Those are the
secret. They forge my aythar into a type of magic that is similar to She’Har
spellweaving. I call it enchanting.

“If you refocus your magesight, you’ll find something
similar on your skin.” He used a finger to push the slave collar up a bit, to
make it easier for the warden to examine the symbols on his throat. They had
been hidden by the collar.

Gwaeri frowned.

“I kept the marks as small as I could, so your masters
won’t see it, unless you deliberately show them. I wouldn’t advise it,
though.”

“What purpose does it serve?”

“Mine,” said Tyrion with steel in his voice, “just as
you do now. If I decide you have been disloyal, I will activate the
enchantment tattooed onto your skin, destroying your slave collar and ending
your miserable life.”

“I cannot disobey, Dalleth,” said the warden.

“Then you should take care to make sure he never gives
you an order that I will take exception to. If you displease me, if the girl
comes to harm, or if you attempt to show your new decoration to anyone, the
enchantment will activate,” Tyrion stated calmly.

In truth, the enchantment would do none of those
things, unless he deliberately activated it, and that would still require him
to be within a few hundred yards of the tattoo. It was possible to create an
enchantment that would do all those things, but Tyrion had yet to discover how
to trigger one beyond the limit of his own power. Nor did he know how to set
an enchantment to detect betrayal.

But of course, Gwaeri knew none of those things.

Haley had fallen asleep exhausted, both emotionally
and physically. She lay on the living wooden pallet that grew from the floor.
The buildings in Sabortrea, like those in Ellentrea, were actually part of the
roots of one of the nearby god-trees. The She’Har could control how they grew,
forming them into buildings complete with furniture-like protrusions such as
the ‘bed’ she now slept on.

She was shivering now, her concentration had lapsed
when she fell asleep, and the pocket of warm air she had kept around herself
had dissipated. Done properly, the spell that maintained the warmth around her
would have lasted through the night, but she was still a novice, and her father
had been pushing her hard.

Tyrion felt impatient. He only had twenty-four hours,
and it bothered him that they were being forced to spend some of it sleeping,
but he knew she wouldn’t be able to learn without rest. She had already had
far more help than he had received when he had first been taken.

He picked up the blanket he had brought, his only gift
to her, and draped it over her gently, tucking the edges around her shoulders
and feet. Haley seemed small under his hands.

Looking down on her, he couldn’t help but examine her
features. Her face was smooth, relaxed and calm with sleep. She was
beautiful.

She’ll probably die in the arena.

Tyrion shoved that thought aside and stretched out on
the ground. He spoke a word and wrapped himself more firmly in a shell of
warmth, outlining it vividly in his mind. It would last long past his descent
into unconsciousness. Years and constant practice had given his imagination
and will a strength that iron would envy.

He closed his eyes and tried not to think of his own
parents. He didn’t want to remember childhood, or his mother’s kind hands
tucking him in at night.
I am not a parent,
he told himself, but
Haley’s sleeping face returned to his mind before he drifted away.

He awoke sometime later. He felt hot, and his body
was sweating. Something was covering his shoulders. He was disoriented for a
moment until his senses sorted out what had happened.

He was covered by the blanket, and the warmth at his
back was Haley, curled up soft behind him. Her body heat, combined with the
extra insulation of the blanket, was the reason for his perspiration.

Dismissing the magical warmth was enough to allow his
body to reach a more comfortable temperature.
We’ve probably slept enough.
I should wake her and continue training her.

He lay still, though, despite that thought, listening
to his daughter’s slow breathing. Tyrion was filled with an odd sense of peace,
and he was loathe to ruin the moment, despite knowing that it was an illusion.

***

It was morning, and he knew they had little time
left. Their food had been brought an hour earlier, and he had been pleased to
see that it was much better than the previous meal. Gwaeri was already making
good on his promises.

“Name the five groves,” he commanded.

“Illeniel, Prathion, Centyr, Gaelyn, and Mordan,” she
recited dutifully.

“When facing their slaves, what special qualities do
you expect from each?”

She answered promptly, “Prathions can make themselves
invisible, and they have a knack for illusions. Centyr mages can create
spellbeasts to aid them during battle. Gaelyn mages can transform their bodies
at will, and the Mordan are able to teleport to any location they can see or
remember. Illeniel…” Haley frowned. “What can Illeniel mages do?”

“There are none. The Illeniel Grove does not keep or
breed slaves,” he told her.

“But you’re an Illeniel,” she responded.

“I’m from Colne, the same as you,” he reminded.
“Their special abilities come from birth, not training. You and I have nothing
of the She’Har in us. What is the weakness of the Prathion’s invisibility?”

“To become completely invisible, even to magesight,
they must forgo their own ability to see.”

“How do you handle a Mordan mage?”

“Trust my defense and strike when they strike. They
cannot teleport while doing something else,” she said immediately. “I won’t
have to fight a Mordan, will I? Since they are the ones who—own me?”

“You may. The groves do trade slaves. Every grove
has some fighters that come from other groves,” he explained. “When is a
Gaelyn mage weakest?”

“During a transformation their shield becomes weaker.
Some of them cannot maintain a shield at all while transforming.”

“When do you shield yourself?”

“Always, even while sleeping…”

“Except?”

“…Except when in the presence of the She’Har. They
consider a shield to be an act of hostility,” she replied promptly.

He continued drilling her with both questions and
exercises until it was close to noon. Lyralliantha would be back for him soon.
Their time was nearly at an end. Haley was far from being ready for the arena,
but Tyrion comforted himself with the fact that she was much better prepared
for it than he had been.

“You may have several days or even a week or two
before they decide to blood you,” he informed her. “Make sure you practice
every day.”

“There’s nothing else to do here,” she replied
somewhat bitterly.

He could only agree with that, “The solitude will test
your sanity.”

“Is that what changed you?”

Tyrion stared at her, unsure how to answer.

Bolder than she had been in the past twenty-four
hours, she elaborated on the question, “I can see Alan’s features in your
face. He talked about you a lot. Helen did too, but you seem very different
than the son they described.”

“I am not the son they raised.”
Daniel is dead,
he
told himself, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was taking.

Haley turned away, but her voice continued, “Listening
to them while I was growing up, I often imagined you as an older brother. I
knew you were my father, but they were my true parents. Hearing them talk, I
couldn’t help but feel like we were siblings, except I never got to know you.”

“You were lucky…” he replied hoarsely, “…on both
counts.” The voice of the wind was whispering in his ear now, as it often
seemed to do when his emotions grew stronger than he could bear. Beneath his
feet the earth pounded like a distant drum.

“I am lucky,” she said defiantly. “Despite everything
else, they loved me, just like they loved you. Not everyone is given that
much. Now that I have met you, I have one less regret.”

“Here you will discover that no one even understands
the word ‘love’,” he told her. “Don’t think about the past, or the pain will
undermine your will to survive.”

“I don’t intend to survive,” she said in a quiet
voice.

“What?”

Calmly she turned and looked him fully in the face, “I
have been taken from my family, terrified, and abused. Until you arrived, I
had no hope at all. I appreciate what you’ve tried to do, but I can’t be like
you. I can’t kill. I would rather die remembering the life I had, than live
by becoming a beast.”

Tyrion’s eyes turned hard, but he knew he had no more
time. Beyond the walls of the hut he could sense Lyralliantha’s approach. She
would be at the door in a few minutes.
You stupid girl,
he thought, but
his mouth found a better response, “Keep your defense up. Don’t let them kill
you easily. You’ll find your will to live before it’s over.”

“You’re wrong.”

He suppressed an urge to slap the impudent girl.
Curbing the violent impulse only served to remind him further that he was no
longer anything like the kind boy his parents had raised. He was a beast, just
as Haley had implied. He survived, but violence had become ingrained at the
center of his being. He stood without answering, his fist clenching. Despite
his anger, he didn’t want her to die.

A minute passed without a reply from him, so she asked
another question, “What’s your reason for surviving? Why do you keep living
like this?”

Tyrion gave her a long stare before finally answering,
“There is no reason to life.”

She shook her head, “You have one, or you wouldn’t
still be alive after all these years.”

The door opened behind him, and Lyralliantha’s voice
called to him, “Your time is done. We must leave.”

He turned and moved toward the door, “Remember what I
have shown you.” Beneath the surface he was seething with anger, but he had no
answer for Haley’s question.

“What
is
your purpose?” said Haley, repeating
her question as he walked out. She wanted to follow him, a sudden desperate
urge filling her as the door began to close between them. She saw his eyes
watching her as the gap closed. Then he was gone.

She was alone.

Her calm vanished, and a wave of anguish and loss
rolled over her. She was alone. Sitting down on the bed, she picked up the
blanket he had left her and wrapped it around herself, balling the extra
material up in front of her and hugging it closely.

Haley fought against the urge to cry, but the tears
came anyway. The walls closed in and the air in the room seemed to suffocate
her.

She was alone.

Tyrion and Lyralliantha rode back atop a large dormon,
but they didn’t attempt to talk. The wind made conversation difficult, and he
was in no mood to talk anyway. The world seemed to crawl by slowly beneath
them as they drew ever closer to home. Thillmarius hadn’t bothered to come for
this trip, a fact that didn’t make much of an impression on Tyrion until they
had reached the Illeniel Grove.

“It seems Thillmarius wasn’t interested in seeing if I
made any impression on her,” he noted as they descended the god-tree that the
dormon had landed on.

Lyralliantha paused, giving him an odd look.

“What?”

“We need to talk,” she answered.

“So talk,” he suggested.

“In private,” she added.

Privacy was not something the She’Har valued, or even
considered most of the time. Tyrion’s interest was piqued. “Your platform is
closest.”

“No, more private,” she replied. “Your house?”

Now he was definitely curious. She was referring, in
a roundabout way, to the fact that he was building his enchanted stone house
partly for the purpose of preventing eavesdropping, magical or otherwise.
She
really wants to make sure we aren’t overheard.
“One of the rooms is
finished,” he stated simply.

Half an hour later they stood within the front arch of
his enchanted stone house. The outer walls were up, and the roof was in place,
but there were no doors, and the interior was still unfinished. The building
stood three stories in height, an oddity amid the massive trees at the edge of
the Illeniel Grove.

“If you wanted it to be so tall, why not grow it?” she
asked. “Stone is a crude medium for such a building.”

“Stone endures,” was his only reply before stepping
through the empty doorway and leading her up the first flight of stairs. He
had built the master bedroom on the third floor, and so far it was the only one
that had an actual working door.
And the ability to shield us from any who
might be curious about our conversation,
he added mentally.

Once they were inside the room and the door was closed
he turned to face her squarely, “No one can hear us now.”

Lyralliantha took a moment to test the enchantments
herself, letting her magesight roam throughout the room, seeking any opening
that might let a spy intrude upon them. Once again she marveled at her pet’s
cleverness. While his new magic was not so fine grained as the spellweavings
of the She’Har, it was no less effective, and she was continually surprised at
its versatility.

“Your people are in danger,” she said without
preamble.

Tyrion frowned, “What do you mean?”

“News of the new baratti found by the Mordan has
spread rapidly…” she explained.

My daughter,
he
thought irritably, but he held his tongue. After fifteen years Lyralliantha
had gotten better, she never referred to him as an ‘animal’, but she still used
the term when she spoke of other humans.

“… and they will send wardens to search for more of
your offspring,” she finished.

His heart jumped. Haley had been hard enough.
What
would I do if they had all of them? How could I watch them being forced to
fight one another?
A hard lump formed in his stomach. He should have
thought of this already. Haley’s discovery would lead to a rush of wardens searching
Colne, and probably Lincoln too, hoping to find another human with his wild
talent. Every grove would want at least one—or more.

How many children do I have?
He
had no idea.

“I have to get there first,” he stated firmly.

“Thillmarius has already sent a team to get there
before the others. That is why he was too busy to come with me today,” she
informed him.

Tyrion clenched his fists, “How long ago, and how long
before the others leave?”

“I am not sure,” she admitted. “They probably left at
dawn. The others will surely leave by dawn tomorrow.”

“It will take them a lot longer, though,” he noted.
“None are as close as the Prathion Grove, besides us.” The Illeniel Grove had
the closest border to the stony foothills in which Colne was located, but the
Prathion border met the edge of the Illeniel Grove not far from there.

Lyralliantha shook her head, “They will use the dormon
and fly them to the foothills and proceed on foot from there. The distance
will not delay them much.”

“Shit,” he said, growling in frustration. “Still,
they can’t carry horses with them, can they?” None of the dormon he had seen
thus far were large enough to carry livestock.

“Some dormon are made large enough for such things,
but I doubt they will bother,” she answered. “They aren’t worried about the
speed of their return, for which horses would be useful, only the speed of
their arrival. Once they capture a slave, the other teams will respect their
claim.”

“I have to go,” he said firmly. “I can’t let this
happen.”

“You cannot stop them, Tyrion,” she told him. Her
features hinted at sadness, though it was well hidden by her near lack of
expression.

“Then help me!” he bit back, raising his voice. “Send
wardens with me.” An idea struck him then, “Yes! Send wardens, help me
capture them for the Illeniel Grove.” At least then they would all have the
same owner. They wouldn’t be forced to fight each other.

“We have no wardens, Tyrion. You know that. The
Illeniel Grove doesn’t keep slaves. You are the only one.”

She was right, of course. He wasn’t thinking
clearly. “Then send me—alone. I can’t let them take my children.”

“No.”

His eyes narrowed, “Then remove my collar.”

Her calm exterior began to crumble, and her eyes
widened, “No, Tyrion. If I do that, you know what will happen. They will kill
you. All the She’Har would set themselves against you, to kill, or even to
capture you for their own.”

“You swore you would,” he pressed. “If I asked,
either that or…” He held up his arm, flattening his hand into a blade,
reminding her of the other side of their bargain.

“Maybe that would be better…” she said, a strange
hesitancy in her voice.

“They’re my family,” he said firmly.

“They don’t even know you.”

Tyrion was unmoved, his determination clear. “Makes
no difference, they’re my family even if they hate me.”

“You told me family was about love. You said I was
your family.” Lyralliantha’s face was hidden by her hair now, her eyes cast
down toward the floor.

He reached out, lifting her chin with his hand, “You
are. Love and hate are not so different; both require that you identify someone
or something as a part of yourself.”

The skin around her eyes crinkled as her face tensed,
“Then it’s alright that I hate you now?”

He kissed her briefly. “Of course.”

They stood together silently for a moment before she
broke the silence, “So those are my only options, your freedom or death
together?”

“Don’t neglect the first option, sending me on your
behalf,” he reminded her.

“You will set the Illeniel Grove against the others if
you kill their agents,” she cautioned.

He snorted, “I’m glad you have faith in my abilities.”

“I know you,” she replied. “If you find they have
already taken some of them, you must respect their claim.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then you must make certain none of them return to
inform the elders of your betrayal,” she added.

“I hope it won’t come to that,” he told her.

She clenched her jaw, resolving herself to the
decision, “Go. You have three weeks. Do as you will.” Lyralliantha stepped
back, leaving his path to the door unobstructed.

He took several steps, then paused, “I’ll need a
horse.”

“You are my agent, take whatever you need.”

***

An hour later he rode for Colne, pushing his mount as
hard as he dared. There was little in the way of underbrush beneath the
massive god-trees, but once he reached the border the terrain became more
difficult. The giant trees gave way to smaller oak and elm. Bushes and rocks
crowded beneath them, forcing his horse to slow and pick her way more
carefully.

The journey to Colne was just over six hours from the
border of the Illeniel Grove. If the Prathion group had left at dawn, they
would probably have arrived sometime after noon, perhaps a bit later since they
had started from Ellentrea. Given those assumptions, the Prathion group would
have had at least six hours to search before he got there.

Tyrion glanced at the sun where it hung low in the
sky. It would be dark when he reached the town.
But there’s a good chance
they haven’t taken anyone yet,
he told himself. None of his other children
had awakened to their power yet, at least not as of a week ago when the Mordan
warden had found Haley. If there had been others, they would probably have
been detected.

Unless they were hiding their power like I
did,
he corrected mentally.

Still, the chances were that none of the others would
appear as anything special yet, unless one of them had awakened very recently.
That gave him a distinct advantage. While he might not know how many children
he had, he did know which women he had slept with. He could approach each
directly, and if they had a child of the right age, he would know it was almost
certainly his.

And then you’ll have to take them.

It wasn’t a pleasant thought. He had brought nothing
but misery to the women he had known back then. Now he was returning to do even
worse, stealing their children, but the alternative was unthinkable. The
She’Har would take them all, one by one, as they discovered their power.
Slaves to various groves, his children would then be forced to murder one
another in the arena.

Unless some of them don’t inherit my
curse.

If that were the case, then he would be dooming some
of them to miserable lives, trying to prevent a disaster that might never come
to them. He turned those thoughts over and over in his mind as he rode, but he
found no satisfying answer.

Pragmatism dictated one response. He would take them
all.

He bypassed the first few widely scattered farms.
None of the women he had been with lived in them. It wasn’t until he reached
the Tolburn’s house that he stopped. Brenda Sayer had given birth to his first
child, and she had married Seth’s father. It had been over a decade, but it
was likely that she was still there, raising her daughter Brigid.

My daughter, Kate’s half-sister, and Mr.
Tolburn’s step-daughter… it’s a complicated world I’ve left behind.
In
his mind’s eye he remembered the one time he had met her, a strange dark haired
girl full of energy and whimsy. She had played with his parent’s dog, Lacy,
and afterward he had tried to teach her to play music on his cittern.

It was the only remotely parental memory he had.

As soon as the Tolburn house came into view he knew
something was wrong. It was still beyond the range of his magesight, but he
could see smoke rising from the main house, and it didn’t appear to be coming
from the chimney.

Tyrion felt a surge of anger, but he refused to give
in to it. The horse felt his anxiousness and began to walk faster, but he
reined her in, keeping the pace steady. Whatever had happened there was done.
I may need her strength later,
he thought, putting one hand on the
mare’s neck to reassure her. Despite his forced calm, his mind’s eye
envisioned them running down the men who had attacked the Tolburn home.

“Not now, not yet,” he told himself.

Twenty minutes later he was riding into the yard in
front of Owen and Brenda Tolburn’s home. It was dark now, but his magesight
had already located the one survivor. Owen sat in the front room of his home,
cradling his wife’s dead body. The fire that had burned the front of the house
had gone out already, leaving the front wall of the house scorched and still
smoking. Either Owen had been lucky, or he had managed to put the flames out
himself.

Tyrion stopped some twenty feet from the door and
dismounted, tossing the reins over the mare’s saddle and uttering a one word
command in Erollith. The horses kept by the She’Har were well trained, he knew
she would not move from the spot until he returned to her.

His shield deflected the crossbow quarrel that struck
him as he stepped through the front door. Owen held the empty weapon in his
hands. He still sat on the floor, his wife’s limp body draped across his lap.

“Back to finish what you started!?” the farmer
screamed. “Kill me! I don’t care!” Owen’s face was mottled, angry red
blotches combining with smut and tears to render his visage an ugly testament
to grief and despair.

A thousand things ran through Tyrion’s mind. Memories
of the man before him, his best friend’s father. He had never felt
particularly close to Seth’s dad, but the man had always been fair to him. The
years had made him a stranger, though. Owen showed no sign of recognition as
he looked at him.