Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) (34 page)

“It strikes me odd that they should have reacted this
way.  They work best together, pooling their strength, not isolating it each
one to himself.  It’s obvious that they know this and they’ve been trained to
it.  But suddenly, they are each and severally seeking their own survival above
all.”

Possibly it was a lingering effect of the Thrum, that they
should turn their thoughts and their power entirely toward themselves.  With a
wave, Dith dismissed the Thrum.  Eerily, he saw no change in the demeanor of
the mages.  They were terrified.

“Perhaps, but we will know more once we see what this is
that worries them so.” 

Dith moved closer, using as little power as he could to bend
the light around himself.  He refused to let his thoughts linger on a disturbing
detail he had noticed that apparently Galorin had not:  the grass he had set to
grow as cover for himself had withered away and died in a single spot.  The
dead spot did not expand, but try as he might, he could not cover it again.  No
doubt the source of their fear was there, just beyond the rise ahead.  It was
not that it withered away and died from the energy.  It simply ceased to be. 
In fact, in that one area, he saw––

“––nothing.  Do you see it?  No strands touch it.  It is
as if they’ve been…”

There was more here.  Galorin was deliberately hiding
something.  Dith prodded.  It’s as if they’ve been what?

“No.  If you would know what is there, then you must see
it for yourself.  I will not fill your mind with notions.”

Dith almost laughed.  Not fill his mind with notions? 
Galorin had done nothing else since they’d left the keep!  In any case, he
could see the area fairly well now, but he was really no nearer understanding
what had happened than when he started.  The other mages skirted the area widely,
probably because they, too, could see that no strands could touch it.

At the center looked to be an unkempt stack of dried sticks
and furry looking moss, like what they might have brought along to start fires.

A smile crossed his face.  He’d discovered the mages’
kindling pile.  Terrifying, truly.

“Don’t be ridiculous.  Why would they need kindling?  And
why don’t any strands of power touch it?  You must get closer.  I hope it is
not as I fear…”

He looked around him carefully, watching the patterns the
mages walked, finding a break in them that would let him slip through.  He
would not risk porting in.  Never mind that such a localized spark of power,
they were sure to notice, and while he could bend light around himself, he
could not hide the port’s shimmer if someone was looking at him directly. 
Besides, with the strange dead spot around that pile of rubbish, not knowing
what caused it, he could not know what effect it would have on a port.  So he
had no choice but to walk.

But this presented a different problem.  While he could bend
the light around himself, he could not keep the fact of his passage from
showing in the dried kelp vines and crackling frozen seaweed beneath his feet
once he’d passed over them.  Not easily, at any rate, and certainly not without
drawing attention to himself.  The grasses were only a few inches high now, not
high enough to conceal all but high enough that one might notice movement or
crushed stalks in it.  So once more, he found himself relying on what he’d
picked up in passing about stealth––actual, physical concealment––from Gikka.

The kindling pile, or what he’d thought was a kindling pile…the
sticks weren’t sticks, he saw as he approached.  Not splayed out the way they
were.  For all that they seemed covered in thin peeling bark, they were ancient
bones, bones gone almost to powder.  The moss was dark hair, long, crackling
dry and curling toward the ends, attached to what was left of the curls of
barklike flesh.  And finally, to leave no doubt, he saw the withered face. 
This had been human once.

It was as if they’d stolen an Anatayan frost mummy.  If they
had done, they had good reason to fear.  The Anatayans had no real concept of
death, just as they had no real concept of past or future, so their dead were
as alive to them as the living.  Steal their dead, and you might as well be
stealing their brides or their children.  More than that, the only thing
Anatayans hated more than a grave robber was a mage.

But it could not be a frost mummy.  Where would they have
acquired such a thing, out here on the landbridge?  Surely not from the
Anatayans.  Not to mention what possible use they could have for it.

“No frost mummy, this.  See how this area was cleared of
debris and made quite flat and featureless?  I imagine we might have noticed
that they do not walk through it, had we been paying closer attention.  It is
their designated porting place.  When you have more than one mage in a group,
you must establish such things to avoid accidents.”

Dith edged closer. 

“This is one of their own.  They know him.  They were
expecting him, but not like this.”

Galorin was right, of course.  Even as wizened as his
features were over his skull, he bore more resemblance to the other Byrandians
than to any Anatayan.  His hair was too dark, his build too slight.  The splits
in the skin could be what frightened the other mages away, but…

“Look closely at the body.  Look at the cuts.  But more
importantly, note the stitching of one large cut, there, over his ribs, and the
burned flesh around it.  This man used magic after that stitching was in
place.  That took desperation or extreme courage.”

Dith remembered the painful way his power had bound up in
the clothing he’d worn in Pyran and how that clothing had burned away when he’d
let free his full power to raise the landbridge.  This mage had not had nearly
that level of power or control, so whatever magic he cast had burned his chest
badly at the stitches.

“Whatever magic?  It was the port!  He was trying to
escape from them, but he did not get away in time.  Someone captured this mage
and killed him with a kind of magic that… “

What magic?  Who are “they?”

“Who they are doesn’t matter.  We must get you away from
here and safely into Byrandia or all is lost.”

Dith crossed his arms.  “It matters to me.”

*          *          *

“To your mounts and away, for your lives!”  Renda called to
the knights, “Take up all you can, but take no pains to hide that we were
here.  Be quick, and it will not matter.  Now go your ways!”

At once, they were all in motion.  Only Chul saw the look
that passed between Nestor and Jath before Jath went to see to the spare
horses, and Nestor went to the duke’s side.

“What was that?”  Chul looked back toward the lean-to and
toward where the knights had stood, weapons drawn, only moments before.  He ran
behind Jath.  “What just happened?”

“Nothing,” breathed Jath.  “You saw nothing.  Come, help me.
Time is dear.”

“I do not understand.”

“No, you do not,” Jath said, turning suddenly.  “Help me and
I will explain later.”

Less than a minute before, the whole camp had been startled
by a series of wild screams from the lean-to where they’d kept the prisoner. 
One of the furs had bunched, pulled, then flew off the rope line that held it
in place, and the prisoner had come scrambling out, naked, squinting into the
sunlight.  He was covered in fresh bleeding slashes, and blood ran into his
eyes where the dark curling hair was ripped from his scalp.  Something in his
hand gleamed in the sunlight.  Small, but sharp.  A weapon.  He stopped short
and stared around him at the men and women who armed themselves, the horses who
neighed warning to their masters, the man who had questioned him, the woman who
had stabbed him, all with no sign of recognition, no sign of comprehension. 
Only unthinking frozen terror. 

“
Cwara!
” called Nestor.  He moved slowly toward the
mage, trying not to frighten him any further.  He spoke soothingly to the mage
in Brymandyan, gesturing toward the man’s cuts.  From his gentle tone, Chul
gathered that Nestor was offering help.  But the prisoner seemed not to hear
him.  He only stared at the old retainer as if trapped in a nightmare.

Behind him, Kerrick pushed angrily through the cloaks and
furs, clutching at his leg, and stumbled weakly after him.  “He stabbed me! 
Stop him!”

At the sound of Kerrick’s voice, the prisoner blinked away
his paralysis as if fighting for some measure of clarity.  He screamed again,
babbling and hoarse, and ran, dodging between the knights, slashing clumsily at
them to drive them back, looking up at the sun, around at the hills.

The Byrandian turned and hissed what must have been a threat
and raised a hand in a warding gesture, circling around him, and a wall of
white flame rose around him.  The knights drew up short, trying to find a way
through the wall of intense heat.  But the mage was weakened, and already the
wall was wavering, losing its power.  The man was clearly in pain.

Damerian shouted as he ran toward the mage, sword drawn,
“Stop him! Before he ports away!”

Shanth cursed at how slow he was to unbind his bow from his
saddle.  Finally, after what seemed hours, he turned, bringing the nocked arrow
to bear on the prisoner.

In a desperate gamble, the mage turned, drew all of his
power back to himself, letting the flame fall completely away, and directed an
attack toward the most powerful of them, toward the one who had questioned
him:  Damerien.  But whatever his attack would have been, it never fully took
form. 

Suddenly he had crumpled upon the ground, writhing and
shrieking.  Blood had bloomed from the stitched wound in his chest and from the
cuts all over his body, and he’d kept screaming one word over and over:  “
Wyt’stra!
” 
His skin had seemed to thin and dry over his frame, as if years passed for him
in mere moments, or as if all the water was being sucked out of his flesh. 
With an act of will, he had raised his withering hand, but not in attack.  The
air had shimmered around him, like heat rising from a road, and then he was
gone, ported away, still screaming, his voice fading on the wind of the landbridge.

“What happened to him, Jath?”  Chul looked back at the place
where the mage had vanished moments before, as if looking at it would somehow
help him understand.  Of course, it did not.  The man was simply gone.

Jath followed Chul’s gaze.  “He tried to hurt Damerien.”

Far ahead of the main body of riders, Chul and Gikka rode
vanguard, scouting the road ahead as quickly as they could while riding at full
gallop toward the Lacework.  Before long, Gikka reported finding a way far to
the south of the road to take them out of the direct path between their camp
and the Lacework.  Her reasoning, which the duke thought solid, was that at
least until they reached the Lacework, the enemy would not be able to surround
them, not right away.  Once they approached the actual Lacework, though, they
would be at risk again.

Nestor and Jath rode close beside the duke, while Renda and
the sheriff rode ahead and behind with the knights, ready for an attack should
one come.

Laniel rode at Kerrick’s side to mind him in case his wound
was worse than it looked, but by now it was already merely seeping instead of
running.  He would dress it more properly when they stopped, but it seemed the
knight would be able to fight, should the need arise.  

The prisoner had ported away just as they’d feared he might
in spite of their precautions and in spite of the horrific injuries he’d
suffered.  Damerien had told the others that he thought it unlikely the mage
would survive long once he reached the other mages, but he would not take the
chance.  It was possible that he was not as badly injured as he looked or that
they might have a proficient surgeon on hand to save him, which meant that he
might survive and that once he was debriefed, he would be leading at least some
of the army back to destroy them.

Minutes, hours, days.  They could not be sure how much time
they had, but they would use it to get as far away from where he’d left them as
they could.  Even an insignificant portion of the enemy forces would be deadly
if they ported into the knights’ camp unexpectedly. 

What Damerien did not tell them was that if the mage did not
survive to lead them back, it was very likely the body of mages would mass at
the Lacework to intercept them, since it was the only way across.  If that
happened…well, if that happened, he supposed they would all do whatever they
must or whatever they could, even he.

But an hour passed and then another, with no sign of any
mages even scouting.  At length, they let the horses slow their pace and began
considering where to put camp.  A few hours ride from the Lacework, Gikka had found
them a clearing north of the road to make camp for the night.  It was on higher
ground, not as level as they might have liked, but not directly visible from
the main roadway.  A good watch set through the night, and they would be fine.

“I took an unacceptable risk today,” breathed the duke,
warming his hands in the small fire they’d built in a carved out hollow in a
dead reef.

“Yes,” Renda said simply.  “You did.  You should never have
been alone with the prisoner, Your Grace.”

“My Grace, is it?”  he sighed, then allowed himself a bit of
a chuckle at his own expense.  “How is it with you and your father, that whenever
you say, ‘Your Grace,’ I feel as if I’ve just been called a whoreson graetna
whelp?”

She looked up at him.  He was once again his hale self, the
thick burnished gold of his curls around his shoulders, a proper beard on his
chin and the spark back in his dark gold eyes.  She peered at him in the
firelight and tried to see her heroic Uncle Brada in this man barely older than
herself, but she could not, not even in the way people used to say they could
see Lord Daerwin in Roquandor.  She certainly saw no trace of her Grandpapa in
him.  Yet she knew he was Trocu and Brada and Vilmar and all the dukes going
back to Arjan, the first Damerien prince.  But then, this was a very different
man from the bloated dying creature she’d seen at Castle Damerien only half a
season past, too.  She was grateful to the gods, to B’radik, even to Damerien’s
strange nature, she supposed, for his renewed vigor, but she was still angry
with him for putting himself at risk.  If he had been at risk.  She supposed he
had, considering how Nestor and the others had fretted over him.  She wondered
if she would ever understand.  His ability to live seemingly forever by
becoming his own son generation after generation and why he had this power…these
things were all mysteries to her.  But more mysterious still was how he could
live lifetime after lifetime, engage in war after tedious war, and never lose
his will.  Yet after only one war, she had seen no point in continuing?  Was
that the secret?  Endless war?  She looked up to see him studying her.