Ash and Silver (17 page)

“I suppose I did,” I said, hauling in the torn threads of my composure. “But you can be sure it has not been healing or reflecting and certainly not chasing women. I thank you for your help, Coroner Bastien. I would be
ever grateful if you would retrieve the Xancheiran artifact. I'll be back to fetch it as soon as I can.”

“I will,” he said, peering at me curiously. “I'm ready to help however you need. You need not do this alone, Lucian. Whether you remember it or not, we partner well.”

I jerked my head in acknowledgement, though I doubted anyone could help me understand save the spider at the center of this web. Damon.

I
crouched on a rocky outcrop above the restless lake, my senses extended to detect the approach of the Order spy. Midnight was long past; dawn, yet hours away. The waning moon was setting over the hills.

If I needed any proof of Morgan's contention that seven days had passed since leaving the Gouvron Estuary, it was that slouching moon. When I cast off from Evanide, a mere three days past, so mind and body insisted, the moon was pregnant, approaching full. Morgan said time's river meandered differently in the true lands. Confusing, impossible. Like so much about that journey, it didn't bear thinking about. My family slaughtered, save for a sister. And not one, but two bents. My spirit ached from holding it all at bay. But it was necessary. I was in-mission.

Wind-shifted trees, ruffled lake, and weak moonlight provided good cover for a practiced spy. I awaited the signal.

Muffled harness chinked softly at the spot where the track from the village emerged from the wooded ridge. A pearl of light winked not far from the source of the noise. A slow second and rapid third wink followed.

I responded with a slightly different pattern. When a green flick answered, I breathed again.

A dark figure scrambled quick and quiet as a gray spider across the spread of boulders tumbled from the ridge into the lake. Had I not known to watch, I doubt I could have spotted him. By the time he found my perch, I was standing with knife drawn.

“Well met, Paratus Greenshank.”

“Blessed respite, sir knight.”

“You may call me Grey.”

We sheathed our weapons. Though he wore his mask for our meeting, Grey's dagger did not bear the Order's mark. He lived outside our bounds.

We retreated behind the rocks. He was slender built for a knight. His hair, a shaggy tangle of mud-brown, spoke little of his age. But behind the
alert intelligence I expected, the eyes examining me through the mask carried a weary burden. No matter that their personal memories were erased, knights felt the weight of the battles they'd fought and the sights they'd seen.

“I've a skin of Malcolm's cider,” I said. “And bread, a bit aged, and olive paste.” Losing four days along my path had preserved my supplies.

“A swallow of cider would be fine,” he said, lowering himself gingerly to the ground, back to the rock. “No time to linger, as I must be back before dawn with my horse not blown. I daren't be late. Prince Osriel's bodyguard, Mardane Voushanti, has no patience for tardy guides. And he is surely marked by the Tormentor. Look him in the eye and your soul shrivels.”

I passed Grey the aleskin. “Do you travel everywhere with Prince Osriel?”

“Sky Lord's benevolent mercy, no. It sounds perverse, but we were fortunate this battle's come together near Lillebras. My cadre did advanced training hereabouts, so I've every rock, tree, and crevice charted in my bones. When the Order learned Osriel required a local guide, they made sure I was hired. I volunteered for the mission, but I'll never be so grateful as when I pass it over, for if the servant is Magrog's right hand, the master is surely the Tormentor himself.”

“I've heard it so,” I said, interested to hear rumor confirmed.

“You'll never see even so much of Osriel's face as you see of mine, but until the end of your days, you'll never mistake his presence. 'Tis like cold oil that slowly sheathes your skin, fills your ears, slides over your tongue and into your nostrils until it drips into belly and lungs and you cannot breathe nor hear nor feel anything but him. . . .”

Grey shuddered, then took a great swallow from the skin, closed his eyes, and sighed in gratitude. Evanide's brewmaster pressed a fine cider.

I left him the moment. Soon enough he opened his eyes and scratched at his half-grown beard. “Here's what you need to know. The battle was joined three days ago—sooner than we expected. The fight has gone ill for the Ardran legion. Perryn's lost two of his best generals, one dead, one captured, and his lines are in increasing disarray. This coming morning's assault is surely going to break them. Sila Diaglou and her madmen have infused Prince Bayard's legion with new vigor. They'll chase Perryn all the way to Palinur by summer's end.”

“And what of Osriel? Does he spy on them? Plot against them?”

The knight leaned forward, arms around his knees. “I've been with
them three days now, and certain he's been in no hurry to do anything. We arrived in the vicinity of Lillebras yestermorn. All day and into this night the Bastard has bided his time in a hovel with a squire, two soldiers, the bodyguard Voushanti, and a formidable Evanori warlord called Stearc. If he's got more men in the vicinity, they're well hid. I've neither seen nor heard aught of them.”

“Are the servants pureblood? I'd expect one, if not two.” Osriel was the richest of the three princes, thanks to the gold beneath his mountain stronghold.

“I attempted to discover that very thing.” Grey shoved his shaggy hair behind his ears. “I dropped an untraceable at a crossroad. The only man it brought to the alert was the Bastard himself. Fire-god's holy heart, I'd heard he was halfblood, yet I didn't believe— Well, I'd thought him asleep in his saddle. Three hours he had us scouring the surrounding wood for spies. When none was found, he concluded it was the
power of the crossroad
had intruded on his
meditations
. But ever since, he's displayed an uncanny sense of where I am. He tells his men when I'll get back from a scout, or when I'll arrive in the morning. Hold rein on your magic unless you're desperate.”

Another swallow of the cider and he passed the skin to me. “Weren't you supposed to be mounted?”

Heat flushed my cheeks, though my answer was strictly true. “I never found the hostler's. I thought it better to be here in plenty of time.”

“You may regret that,” he said, dry as ash.

I returned to the more important subject. “So the battle's almost over, and Osriel's not shown a pennon. What could he be up to?” Rumored horrors rose to mind.

“No idea. 'Tis unlikely he's to meet with anyone. He's sent no messages along the journey. Before I raised your signal, the whole party was asleep save for the warlord taking the midwatch, and he's not moved ten steps from the prince these three days.”

“Then why did you fetch me here?” I wasn't to go in until he had some sense of Osriel's plan. Then I could observe whom he met or what he did from a reasonably safe distance.

“Because they've told me I'm to guide them to a particular spot tomorrow—one I'll be told only at dawn—and then I'll be free to leave with my pay, as they've a
map
to take them the rest of the way. If I argue, they'll get suspicious, and if I follow, he'll know. And once I'm dismissed, they could head out anywhere—to the battlefield, the village, the river . . .
caves . . . springs . . . the region is pocked with places. So drink up your cider, paratus, and take up your pack. You must stay close on our trail tomorrow. When Osriel's coin touches my palm, the mission is yours.”

•   •   •

W
e made it to the hovel where Prince Osriel lay by first light. It sat atop a greening hill creased deep with rock gullies like an old man's warty face. The site provided excellent views of the rolling landscape on every side and escape routes in any direction. From the size of the steel-capped man circling the hut—the formidable warlord, Grey said—the prince could sleep nowhere safer or better guarded.

As Grey rode up the hill, I remained flat on the ground in a beech copse. He'd promised I'd see which way they went. I'd told him to have a care.

Sentimental
, Inek called me, to speak such things aloud. It was a knight's duty to take his best care—for the success of his mission and his brothers of the Order. But then, some of us had to be reminded of that.

Was it my own stubborn ignorance that had half the kingdom wanting to kill me and my family? Goddess Mother, I had a sister. Why hadn't I asked her name? A spark, Bastien called her, a girl that I loved. Even beyond magic, how could I not feel her existence? Unless I'd failed at keeping her safe and they'd killed her, too . . .

No
. After the mission I would think. For now, I had to watch and be ready.

Damp seeped through my braies and crept slowly up toward my shirt. I dug fingers into the stony earth and dragged myself forward. History and art together would be useful for a knight. To discover truth . . . to solve murders . . . to show people how to unlock complex spells and save themselves . . . The work of justice.

A wrenching jolt in my head warned me to stop. But I could not let it go. Since my first days at Evanide I had hungered for greater magic, devouring and relishing each day's advancement. Knowing some mysterious talent dwelt inside me, inaccessible, had been difficult enough. But to touch this soil under my fingers and know that in other times I could unlock its past was an exquisite torment.

Inek said a paratus's bent could be unmuted at any time the Marshal judged appropriate. Its use could be woven into the last months of his preparation. But what of
dual
bents? Would the Marshal risk giving both of them back? He could not afford a knight to go mad.

The real question was what did
Damon
intend? Damon, who had sent
me to the Order and who chose my missions. This one, too. What game was he playing and what gamepiece was named Lucian de Remeni?

A good thing Morgan had laid some kind of sleep over me when we arrived at the lake. A gift of the long-lived, she'd said, as she kept watch at my side. When I'd waked, she was gone, and two smoked fish and a pile of raspberries awaited me. Thus, unlike poor Grey, who'd not slept in over a day, I was rested and fed. Just more than half crazed.

A distant call brought me alert. Grey's horse grazed on the hilltop, but he was nowhere to be seen. And where was the warlord?
Idiot!

Just before panic sent me running up the hill to search for tracks, a soldier rounded the corner of the hut. Then Grey came up from behind, leading three horses. A youth followed close with three more. Four men emerged from the house and joined the guard and the youth. Easy to pick out the prince. Five wore leather and steel. One wore robes and hood of spruce green.

Stories named Osriel the Bastard a horned monster, deformed by his evils, or crippled from bribing his mentor Magrog with limbs or heart or balls, depending on who was telling the story.

In truth he was no giant, but average among his servants. Most other details, including horns or deformities, were hidden by his shapeless garb. But though history named him a man near my own age, his back was slightly bent, and he walked with a noticeable limp.

Before mounting, he stepped away from the others and turned slowly, as if surveying the terrain through the drooping folds of his hood.

I did not think of myself as prone to frights or megrims, but I did trust a brother knight's instincts. I did not twitch an eyelash until he turned away to his mount.

The party wound slowly down the cragged hill on its western flank, Grey in the lead, the prince behind with a stocky warrior close at his shoulder—the bodyguard. The warlord in the steel cap brought up the rear behind the youth and two soldiers.

They'd need no map to find the battleground. Thin pillars of black smoke scarred the deep blue of the western horizon. The death stench was likely my imagination, as the day was still and windless, with a gathering haze that dirtied the light. But when they reached the bottom of the hill, their route twined northward through the mounded hills.

Afoot, I scuttered between hillock and rock; paused to make sure they'd rounded another bend; ducked behind a stand of hazel or leafless larch until
they were out of sight again. Tracking a riding party of seven was simple. Staying close enough that they could not leave me behind would be the challenge in country variously open, rocky, and wooded.

The luck of the landscape took us quickly into a dense woodland of oak, beech, and pine. The track was rough and little traveled and wandered through thick underbrush of tor-grass and fragrant juniper. Boulders of every shape—twisted, bulbous, conjoined, heaped, some shoulder high, some taller than three men—protruded from the fragrant earth. The air was heavy under the trees.

An hour or more along the increasingly wild path, the party halted and dismounted. Their discussion was of an even temper, though it was impossible to make out words from behind a tree. When the solid thud of hooves came my way, I slipped to the ground and shrank into a knot.

A single rider approached, retracing the route we'd taken. Not in a hurry. Humming, and . . . jingling coins. I grinned as Grey rode slowly past, tossing two coins in the air one more time before stuffing them in his waist pocket, even as the weight of responsibility settled on my shoulders.
Dallé cineré, brother,
I bade him in fervent silence.

Stretched out on my belly, I slithered forward through a patch of mushrooms.

The prince perched on a fallen tree, his back to me. The bristle-haired bodyguard and the warlord crouched before their master, the three heads together over a sheet of parchment. Their discussion remained damnably quiet. I'd have to be sitting on their boots to hear.

The two other warriors stood well away, faces alert and scanning the wood. The unarmed squire minded the horses, examining hooves, legs, and girth straps. When done, he led the beasts one by one to a leaf-choked pool overhung with willow and birch. Its murky water leaked into a shallow rivulet that vanished quickly into the woodland.

What was here to interest a dark-minded prince in the midst of a war for his father's throne? Carefully, without invoking any spellcraft, I closed my eyes to the visible world and opened myself to magic.

A lovely enchantment, intricate as spiderweb and strong as silk thread, hung amid the prince and his men. I recognized it immediately, as it was so like that of the map hanging in the Marshal's outer chamber—a Cartamandua map, one of the finest made. It was said that Cartamandua maps could lead one to places you wouldn't find otherwise. Was that what Osriel was
about—hunting some secret place, a place of magic or omen, treasure or revelation?