Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1) (10 page)

Take the left branch of the trail that starts
near the Grossen’s. Follow it northwest for an hour. After the rotting wooden
bridge there is an overgrown trail that splits off due north. Look for a pine
with my initials carved in the bark. Follow that trail for another half-hour.
You’ll come to a hill. The steeloak is at the top. You can’t miss it.

Oster has a terrible memory when it comes to
the forest, but should be of some help.

With Love,

Tyrissa.

She capped the pen and folded the note in half.
Footsteps sounded in the hall and Tyrissa looked up to see her mother standing
in the doorway. She wore the same outfit from before, and still looked like a
completely different person. For two reasons.

“Are you ready?”

Tyrissa stood the folded note on the nightstand
and took a long look around her bedroom, lingering on the row of epics and
adventure stories on the shelf. She had fantasized about this, the moment right
before setting off on some grand, world spanning adventure. Such dreams never
included this sense of melancholy.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Iri walked in and took a seat at the far end of
the bed, keeping a noticeable distance between them.

“Tyrissa, I realize I perhaps haven’t been as
kind or open with you as a mother should. I’ve been cold at times, distant, and
I’m sorry.”

“I understand, mother,” she lifted the
Tales
book in one hand, before letting it fall to the bedspread. “Heroes are shaped
by their pasts.”

Iri reached over and picked up the book, turning
it over in her hands. “Sometimes you get what you want in unexpected ways,” she
said. “I don’t have to tell you that I love you dearly. Just… I will never be
ashamed of you, or the path your life follows, Pact or no.”

Tyrissa said nothing, slide closer to her mother
and took her hands in her own. Iri flinched at the touch as the white light
sprang into being. The light gathered in pools at her fingertips, flowing in
luminous veins along the back of her hands before fading to nothing along her
arms. It was strangely beautiful.

Mother and daughter sat in silence, faces bathed
in a warm glow.

They left Edgewatch without fanfare beyond
parting tears that betrayed the falsity of their cover story. Tyrissa slept as
they drove through the night, lulled by the rhythmic grind and strike of wheels
and horseshoes against the ancient stones of the Fjordway. Liran’s wagon was
just large enough to serve as an acceptable bed if enough compromises were made
in regards to comfort. It was already mid-morning when she awoke to a pang of
hunger and went rummaging through their modest supplies. Liran heard her
shifting in the wagon, and looked over his shoulder.

“Good morning sister. Welcome to the glade
formerly known as Mateth.”

Only younger trees lined this stretch of the
roadway. Old stone columns, the remnants of hearths and chimneys, stood among
the saplings and regrowth. Once a village, these ruins were far along in the
process of being reabsorbed by the southern reaches of the Morgwood. Here, the
stillness of the forest had all the comfort of a tomb.

“Did you know it?”

“Not really. I remember passing through when I
was six. The Cleanse was over and we were going home from Greden to what was
left of Edgewatch, a home I never knew.”

Tyrissa found a piece of bread and dug in.

“You know the Rudbecks? The tanner’s family? They
used to live here”

“Yeah,” she nodded between bites, “I played with
their youngest, Alfred, growing up. He asked me to dance at this past Midsummer’s
feast, even after I broke his nose two weeks before. By accident,” she added
quickly.

“That explains how he got uglier. I was friends
with his elder brother. Turns out there was a group of Pactbound holding out in
Mateth, hiding among the residents. The army torched the place not a week after
we passed through. The Rudbecks were deemed ‘clean’ and allowed to resettle in
Edgewatch, after a fashion. Karl saw the whole thing. Said people he thought he
knew fought without fear or pity, some without weapons, clawing and biting.
Pure madness. They fought like…”

“Like daemons,” Tyrissa finished for him. Liran’s
story wasn’t uncommon. King Horald spent the initial years of his rule hunting
down holdouts, some hiding in the wilderness, others within plain sight in
cities.

“Right,” he said, nodding at the passing ruins.
“That’s the only Cleanse story I have. Don’t remember much else, thank the
gods.”

“Did mother ever tell you…” she left the rest
unsaid.

“No. No, that was all news to me. I remember that
she was gone for a long time. It might as well have been forever. Father served
around Greden, and took care of us with Grandma Jo. He was home more often in
winter, so those were better times. I suppose even daemons prefer warmer
weather. When mother returned, I recognized her, but she felt like a stranger,
a distant relative instead of my mother.” Liran shook his head, seeming to try
to jostle childhood memories loose. “Hell, hard to say I even remember those
days. Most of what I know Corgell told me. He’s old enough to remember it all,
more or less.

“It’s for the best that I don’t remember. There’s
a certain… paralysis among our people. The scars run so deep, deeper than you
can know until you leave and see what it’s like elsewhere. Call it a shared
cultural guilt that holds us back, and for all the talk of moving forward, all
the rebuilding we’ve done there’s still a sense that we’ll only go so far
before settling back into a comfortable constant. That’s why I left, Ty. That’s
why I went south.”

“When did it become a week of sharing old stories
and inner thoughts,” Tyrissa said, trying to lighten their talk. The last few
days were far too grim.

Liran gave her a grin, though she could see the
tiredness in his eyes. “I guess you and mother put me in the mood,” he said.

“Shouldn’t you rest, Liran? Not
here
,
obviously.”

Liran turned back to the road ahead, shaking his
head. “Later. Maybe tonight. The sooner we get to Tavleorn, the better. We
still have a couple days until the caravan leaves. I can catch up on sleep
then.”

As they continued westward, Tyrissa’s heart
jumped a beat whenever they passed another group traveling on the Fjordway, but
nothing came of the encounters besides friendly nods and small talk over the
road ahead. She tried to see threats everywhere, as the idea of being Pactbound
becoming further internalized. Even if she didn’t know what that really meant
yet, the events of the past few days redrew what and where she considered safe.

“I’ll give Morgale one thing over the south,
besides scenery,” Liran said when they had the road to themselves. “Here,
bandits are rare, nearly unheard of post-Cleanse. For now, at least. No
merchant would dare travel like this down south, not without armed guards.”

Tyrissa lifted her staff from the wagon bed and
gave him a light jab in the back.

“What about me? I’m armed.”

“Oh, of course. My mistake. I feel much safer
now.”

Tyrissa leaned back, watching bands of clouds roll
across the sky through the trees that lined the Fjordway. With the aurora
between color phases, it was invisible and the sky was a pure, boring blue.

“Liran, how much of it is true, this mystic
you’ve talked about.”

Liran paused, clearly choosing his words or
un-censoring them from before. “As I said, there are rumors. ‘Mystic’ is
perhaps too kind a word. I believe most reports and talk had settled on calling
her the ‘Pact Witch’. The newspapers followed every trace of her for a time,
though I’m sure they’ve moved onto another fixation by now. I know she’s a
recluse, only seen in the under districts of Khalanheim by day and only
glimpses and hearsay by night topside. A few known Pactbound have come forward
as severed from their pacts, including one of the Stone Shapers. So the removal
stuff is true, at least.”

“But?”

“
But
there are as many or more stories
about Pactbound disappearing since she arrived in Khalanheim early this year.
They are almost always criminals or other unsavory types. Some turn up dead in
the city’s alleys and under districts, cut down like rabid dogs. Other must
have fled the city.” His gaze went to the sky. “Pactbound in Khalanheim work by
their own set of rules. Like the aurora they surge and fade by some controls or
rivalries. Mostly among themselves. Ty, I don’t know much about Pacts, but I
know that some are rather mild, if permanent, and depend on what the person
gained in exchange for service. Maybe yours is one of those.”

“Liran, I died and came back to life.”

“True. I’m just telling you what I know.”

Tyrissa flopped back onto the packs, “Helpful as
always.”

“Also true.”

After another stretch of silence, Liran said,
“Normally, Pactbound are granted, ah, powers of some sort. Magick abilities.
Fireballs and such.”

“Yes.” Tyrissa had read as much in her many
adventure novels and was more than familiar with the idea.

“Well, can you do anything?” They dodged around
that particular topic back in Edgewatch. Perhaps her parents didn’t want to
know.

“No. Gods, that’s the worst part. I feel exactly
the same! Worse even, thanks to this, this burned foot from…” Tyrissa trailed
off, mind drifting back to her encounter with the daemon. She ran a hand across
her stomach, making certain it was still whole. The memory was still fresh
enough to be chilling, a nightmare that wouldn’t fade away.

“You said it was feeling better.”

“Yeah,” Tyrissa conceded. She pulled away the
cloth wrapped around her injured foot. The skin was now a little more than a
large purple bruise, far into the healing process. Liran glanced over his
shoulder and raised an impressed eyebrow.

“Considering you got it, what, two days ago that
is a remarkable rate of healing. Some would say unnatural. Doesn’t even look
like a burn anymore.”

“That is something.” Tyrissa thought back to the
feverish night in the Morgwood. That sickness had struck and run its course in
a matter of a few hours, and her foot had gone from seared and boiled over to a
mild, if large, bruise in a few days. Soon, perhaps even tomorrow, she should
be able to pull on a boot and walk on it again.

But where were the oft wrote about elemental
Pactbound powers? Calad Stoneshield could pass through rock walls, the
Windmages of Hithia could fly, and the Waveriders of Rhonia could part a storm
around a ship. Tyrissa, so far as she’d seen, could heal faster than normal.
That was undeniably useful but hardly among the stunning displays of power in
the tales. If it was even that much.

“It could be an aftereffect of my revival. It
could have been an incomplete or gradual process, like I woke up a little too
soon. If it fades I’ll be left with nothing but a Pact etched inside of my head
and no guidance towards completing it.” The idea of finding this Pact Witch in
Khalanheim became a more attractive option by the minute. If only to learn more
about
what
she was now. One so adept at curing and killing would have to
know a thing or two. Tyrissa would just have to be careful not to make herself
a target.

“Are you sure it’s fading?”

“No.”

“Perhaps you should explore that idea. Test out
your limits.”

Tyrissa blinked at her brother’s back in shock.
He was actually suggesting that she hurt herself on purpose! What’s more, she
shocked herself by thinking where her knife was stowed, though dismissed the
idea in an instant.

“I think I’ve had enough cuts for a while,
Liran,” Tyrissa said, smiling at the sheer morbidity of it. Still, she shivered
at the memory of her battle with the daemon, feeling little slices of phantom
pain from the countless cuts.

Liran barked a short laugh. “Fair enough,” he
said. “But it’s something to keep in mind. Always take any and every advantage,
sister.”

One of too many things to keep in mind
,
Tyrissa thought.

They arrived at the outskirts of Tavleorn the
next day under gray skies that teased the possibility of rain and never carried
through. Originally built atop a rocky bluff that punched up from the earth
like a godly fist, the city of Tavleorn now spread out down spiraling, tiered
cliffs and over the fields below. The city’s history of craftsmen showed in all
the new construction bearing artful flourishes of carved stone that mimicked
the small but beautiful castle keep crowning the heights of the town’s heart.
Tyrissa last came here two years ago and the town was noticeably larger, as the
rows of new houses springing up at the outskirts of the town could attest to.
For every house left empty by the Cleanse, two families moved in from outlying,
isolated villages, a process that continued all these years later. Not every
attempt at rebuilding the past was as successful as Edgewatch and tales abound
of villages folding, their residents flocking to the cities and towns with
better luck.

The city loomed above the intersection of the
Fjordway and the Heartroad, the core of Morgale’s settled cross. While thought
to have been built by the same hands, if the Fjordway was a practical work, the
Heartroad was a masterpiece, a raised roadway of gray-white stone wide enough
for a dozen wagons abreast and shockingly level and enduring. It was said to
run across the continent, from Greden in the north until crumbling in the
broken lands near Hithia.

“It would be for the best for us to stay among
the caravan and avoid the city,” Liran said. “We’re camped at the Harvest Fairgrounds.”
Liran guided Izzy off the Fjordway, following a narrower road that looped
through the newer sub-villages that ringed the city. As they passed, some
residents waved with genuine smiles. Others gave them cold, careful stares.
Both were understandable. She would expect the same from Edgewatch.

“For the best,” Tyrissa said, disappointed. She
wanted to see Tavleorn’s winding narrow streets that curled up the cliffs once
more, and the grand plaza at the top hemmed in by stone temples and the castle.
Tyrissa always smiled at how the masons of Morgale could mine serene beauty
from the severity of plain gray stonework. It would be her last chance to see
the comfortable sights and sound of a Morg city for a long time, to say nothing
of her eldest brother Corgell and his family. But lingering in populated areas
would only invite incident. While she had no obvious indicators of being
Pactbound, and they were ahead of any word spreading from Edgewatch, there was
always the chance she would react with something or manifest a more conspicuous
ability. At least, that’s how the stories go. For all the time she spending
reading the exploits of magick-wielding adventurers, there was little detail on
how being Pactbound actually
worked.

The promise of power. The thought should excite
her, a fulfillment of childhood fantasies. Instead it loomed over her head like
an unspoken threat, like the heavy clouds of today’s sky.

At the Harvest Fairgrounds, it looked as if
someone had dropped a ship in the center of the field, hundreds of miles from
the nearest drop of ocean water. At the center of the field stood a great barge
of sand colored wood with tapered ends and sloping slides standing atop five
sets of massive, iron rimmed wheels. Three clear layers composed the barge, the
base above the wheels easily ten feet tall, with multiple broad cargo doors
around the base. Above that, accessed by ladders recessed in the hull were a
ring of normal sized cabin doors with narrow ledges at their thresholds. An
open deck crowned the entire thing, shaded by gently rippling canvas awnings
attached to thin metal poles, sails as misplaced as their ship. Two flags
fluttered in the intermittent wind, one a solid field of green, the other black
bearing the circular crest of the Khalan North Trade Company. The wheels
implied mobility, but Tyrissa could see no means of moving the massive
construction. It would be like towing a full size inn.