The Uncrowned King (23 page)

Piro held her breath, waiting for the answer. Soterro nudged her to take the Utlander's plate to the table. Then she returned to Soterro, who had just finished serving up Dunstany's plate.

'They sent word the moment the abbey fell. His body will be there. Then I will have one more emblem to add to my collection.' Palatyne stroked the three foenixes.

When Piro placed Dunstany's plate before him, she was close enough to the overlord to recognise the locket with Isolt Kingsdaughter's portrait, which she had last seen on Lence's chest. Her oldest brother must be dead.

Betraying tears threatened. She blinked them away fiercely, telling herself it meant no such thing. Lence might have escaped from Palatyne after losing the locket. But if Lence had been killed, then surely Byren still lived?

Not knowing which of her brothers to mourn was worse than knowing and mourning.

A finger prodded painfully in her ribs.

'You forgot the sauce. Go get it,' Soterro hissed and she hurried to obey.

Apart from one sharp glance when she returned, Dunstany paid no attention to her. The overlord and his two Power-workers ate in silence. Dunstany used the utensils with the same precise elegance as Piro had been taught. Soterro watched his master's guests eat with barely disguised disgust. Palatyne devoured his food, tearing into it with his teeth, and the Utlander ignored all but the knife, spearing his food on the end of it.

The eating done, Dunstany signalled Piro to clear the table.

'And what news of Cobalt?' Dunstany asked, as she removed the plates.

'His body's crippled now, to match his crippled claim to the throne.' Palatyne was well pleased. 'As a broken man he is even more useful. No, everything is going according to plan, but for that accursed kingson. I can't have Rolen's heir wandering Rolencia, stirring up the people against me.' He glared at his table companions.

Piro hid her dismay. He'd said 'Rolen's heir' which meant Lence was free, or did it? If Lence had been killed, Byren would be heir. She felt so frustrated she wanted to break something.

'What good are mystics and Power-workers if they can't find one troublesome warrior?' Palatyne demanded.

The Utlander and Dunstany exchanged looks, in agreement on something.

The noble scholar spoke, choosing his words carefully. 'Affinity is like fire, a tool that can be used to perform tasks. Like fire, it has its limitations. It -'

'I don't need a lecture, Dunstany. I want you to try and find him now. Let's see who is successful, the Merofynian noble or the Utlander!' Palatyne's dark eyes gleamed with cruel delight as he pulled something from inside his vest, unrolling a stained scrap of material to reveal a human finger.

Piro blinked.

'King Rolen's ring finger,' Palatyne announced.

Blood roared in Piro's ears.

'I know a little of your renegade arts.' Palatyne was very pleased with himself. 'It is easier to find someone if you have something of theirs.'

'Father's blood calls to son's!' The Utlander cackled.

She hated them, hated them all.

'Clear this, Soterro,' Lord Dunstany ordered, indicating the wine bottle and goblets.

Soterro nudged Piro and they hastily cleared the table. As Piro took the gravy dish, Dunstany said, 'Return and stand behind me, slave. I may have need of your services.'

It was only as Piro put the dish on the sideboard that she realised what the Utlander meant. They would use her father's finger to point to the missing kingson, but it would point to her since she was the nearest blood relative.

A surge of panic made her heart race. Wiping trembling fingers on her leggings, she wondered what to do. Running was hopeless. She eyed the table, clear now except for the finger which lay on the gleaming cherrywood surface. Somehow she could not see it as her father's finger. It was just a threatening object. What if she picked up the finger and flung it in the fire?

No point. It wouldn't burn quickly enough to be destroyed and her actions would betray her.

What could she do?

If the finger revealed who she was, Piro decided she would drive her hidden knife straight into Overlord Palatyne's cunning black heart. The blade felt reassuringly solid inside her sleeve.

'Soterro, bring me my Duelling Kingdoms board,' Lord Dunstany ordered. He beckoned Piro, who went to stand just behind him, slightly to his left. His formidable black eyes seemed to hold a warning that was meant only for her. 'Say nothing, slave. You will break my concentration.'

Soterro returned with the game board, which was larger than the one King Rolen used and hinged down the middle. Lord Dunstany opened it out, revealing a beautifully made Kingdoms board. A gold vineleaf border twined around the edge, salt-water wyvern scales had been set into the wood, filling the sea with gleaming blue. The two crescents of Rolencia and Merofynia were made from white mother-of-pearl while black onyx indicated the Dividing Mountains and the border of the Snow Bridge. The spars poked out from the dividing mountains like the spokes of a wheel. Like Ostron Isle and the Snow Bridge, they were made of mother-of-pearl.

Dunstany adjusted the board until he was happy with its position and, with a nod to his colleague and opponent, placed the king's finger in the Headlands, facing the valley of Rolencia. Piro noticed that the overlord's eyes gleamed and he shifted in his seat, as if he was both fascinated and fearful.

'You are dismissed, Soterro,' Lord Dunstany said, then nodded to the other Power-worker. 'You may go first, Utlander.'

Piro wondered briefly why no one used his name, then remembered hearing somewhere that Utlanders believed their names held power.

This Utlander made several passes over the finger, not touching it, but stroking the air above it. He frowned and whined a phrase under his breath, over and over. Piro felt a thickening of the atmosphere, as if a storm were imminent. Her nostrils stung as though she had inhaled repugnant fumes. They said evil renegades could be distinguished by their foul stench. Her vision wavered as she shifted to Unseen sight. The Utlander and the noble scholar both radiated Affinity. Oddly enough, a dull glow also emanated from Palatyne. So he was sensitive to Affinity. No wonder he was both fearful of it and fascinated by it. They all focused on the board and the finger. She hoped that, standing behind Dunstany, any Affinity coming off her would be mistaken for his.

Even so, she eased the knife down until its hilt rested in the palm of her hand.

All the small hairs on her body rose as the king's severed finger crawled slowly across Rolencia. Her father had been a hard worker and a fighter all his life and his hands reflected this. The work-blunted nail came to rest, pointing to Rolenton. Or to Piro who was directly in line with it, behind Dunstany.

'Ha!' Palatyne said. 'It points to Rolenton where all the king's ancestors are buried. Your focus is not refined enough, Utlander.'

Piro let her breath out slowly and eased her grip on the knife hilt, returning it to its hiding place.

'I quested for Rolen's blood kin!' the Utlander insisted. 'Rolen's children are half-Merofynian. It points to you, Lord Dunstany. You are confusing the power because you are related to the old royal line of Merofynia through their mother's great, great aunt.'

'Enough talking! I want the kingson dead,' Palatyne ground out. 'The way you Power-workers snipe and snap at each other, I swear you are more of a hindrance than a help.'

'Overlord.' Lord Dunstany gave him a smile of apology. 'Let me try.'

The Utlander sneered but watched closely, his eyes shrouded beneath bristling brows as Dunstany pressed his finger tips to his temples and closed his eyes.

This time Piro did not feel a sense of oppression. The back of her neck tingled and she felt as if she was slowly rising through the roof of her skull. She lifted higher until she hung over the table, looking down on the three men and herself.

Then she was arrowing out across Rolencia, searching.

Chapter Fourteen

While rolling over in his sleep, Fyn felt something burn his chest. He sprang up, pulling the Fate from its resting place under his jerkin. The opal glowed with Affinity.

Fascinated and fearful, Fyn opened his mind to greet the mystics master. But it was a stranger, a presence which winged across Rolencia searching for something. It had to be a renegade Power-worker.

Even as he thought this, an image took form in his mind, the castle hunt-master with a bloodhound on leash, sniffing out a trail. Searching... for who or what?

The Fate? It called those with Affinity.

Fyn fought panic. He was no mystic. Without the mystics master to aid him, how could he do battle? He had to hide his presence. He concentrated on cloaking himself, and taking no action that would give him away.

The renegade Power-worker, however, did not seem to notice that Fyn had been swept along with him as he let his bloodhound follow the trail. He swooped over the starlit, snow-mantled land. The chantries and oratories in various villages glowed, but he ignored them until a Sylion oratory drew them down through the thatched roof of its residence, into the only bedroom.

A man lay there, on his side, his face turned away to the wall. With Unseen sight Fyn could see a miasma of grief and guilt radiating from him, but his actual features were blurred. Fyn's instinct was to try to help the grieving man, but he dare not do anything that might attract the Power-worker's attention, so he held back.

Beside the man knelt a veiled healer. She did not glow with power - her Affinity was only mild. She would heal with herbs, stitching and encouragement. Right now, she was bathing the blood from the man's ribs. The wound was revealed, an ugly, puckered knot of flesh.

He felt the nun's surprise. Fresh blood on an old wound. Days old.

Then where did the blood come from?

What did all this mean? Why had he been swept along in the Power-worker's search?

One thing was clear to Fyn, the nun could not heal the injury to the man's soul and, if that wasn't dealt with, he would not have the will to heal his body. Fyn could feel him relinquishing his hold on this mortal plane. It would only take a fever to carry him off. Fyn had to risk helping him.

On the Unseen plane he had no physical body, yet he reached out for the man's wounded essence. Contact stunned him. It was Byren, and his heart was broken, his sense of self destroyed.

It was too much, more than Fyn could stand.

Another presence pierced his awareness. With a heart-juddering start, Fyn realised he had betrayed himself.

For an instant the Power-worker was too startled to react, then he stretched out a questing tendril into Fyn, who wrenched himself away. Nausea coiled in his belly as he fell, spiralling down... down, down into his body.

Re-entering his corporeal form was like a kick in the stomach. It stole his breath and left him gasping. He found himself lying in the snow-cave, the Fate clutched in his hand, frozen tears on his cheeks. Fyn struggled to his knees and dry-retched. Pinpricks of light danced in his vision. It was a good eight heartbeats before his sight cleared.

He felt physically drained, but he had escaped the Power-worker and that amazed him. He studied the Fate. Its dim opal surface gave no hint of the power it contained. To think, he could be captured while he slept and dragged on a journey. Truly this Fate was a tricky tool to use. And there was no chance of training, now that he no longer served the mystics master.

Fingers trembling, he tucked the Fate inside his jerkin, wondering what to do next.

He was both relieved and worried to learn that Byren lay injured in a farmer's cottage, wounded physically and mentally. The impact of his brother's heartbreak still weighed on Fyn. Lence must be dead. Only his twin's death would be so devastating for Byren.

Lence dead... why did he feel only relief?

Unable to sit still, Fyn broke out of his snow-cave and shook himself.

Byren was not dead, but he was close to death and the Merofynian Power-worker knew where he was. That is, if he recognised him. Physical features did not hold shape on the Unseen plane, it was a person's essence that gave him form. How would someone who had never known Byren recognise him?

Fyn could only hope the Power-worker had not recognised either of them.

Wide awake now, he was ready to skate through the night. His father had to be told that an evil Power-worker roamed Rolencia using Affinity paths. If the king sent to Sylion Abbey for the mystics mistress, she would know what to do. She would be able to locate Byren and help him.

Fyn must reach Rolenhold and warn his father. Thank Halcyon Piro was safe in the castle.

Piro pushed helping hands away and sat up, surprised to find herself lying on the floor with the noble scholar kneeling over her. She grabbed her rabbit-skin cap, which had fallen off, and pulled it down low over her ears. The last thing she wanted was to attract the overlord's attention but that was exactly what she had done.

'What's wrong with your slave?' Palatyne demanded as Dunstany helped her to her feet.

'She has not eaten since breakfast.' He gave her a push towards the door. 'Foolish child, go to the kitchen and ask Cook for a meal.'