Book of Remembrance: The Forgotten Gods: Book One (31 page)

I looked over at Brant and he
seemed to be laughing at me.

I rode up to him scowling.
“What?”

He shrugged. “She put so well
what we have all been thinking.”

I grit my teeth. “I don’t see
any of you coming up with any better plans. If you have one let us hear it.”

He gave a deep belly laugh. “No,
that’s fine. I think I like her plan just fine.
Seems rather
sensible.”

I could not stop a growl from
escaping me. “She did not exactly volunteer this information before, now did
she?”

He shook his head, a broad grin
splitting his face from ear to ear. “You did not ask.” I shook my head in
exasperation and heeled Balder on to ride next to Seran.

He spoke before I could say
anything. “I do not think you have made any mistakes, but it is nice to have an
exact plan of what we do next.” Seeing the look on my face, he held up a hand.
“However, as you say, none of us had any better plans and I think this is just
part of the nature of what we are doing. No one expects you to have all the
answers…or the right questions at the right time. We must all work together.”

We rode in silence for a while.
When I spoke I dropped my voice to a low whisper to avoid anyone else hearing.
“Do you think I have made a complete fool of myself with Alathaya?”

He gave me a knowing smile. “I
do not think so. Besides, women like to feel superior to us sometimes; although
they would lead you to think they believe that all the time.”

My mood clouded for the rest of
that day, made more so by the giggling conversation that carried on between
Alathaya and Trissa. That night Trissa cooked for us making a mouth-watering
stew. We shared out some of the flat bread and cheese as well. The wonderful
meal lifted my spirits and I even found myself asking Alathaya how far it was
to Mirtudale before I realised I was still not best pleased with her. She
smiled at me as if I had conceded a point to her, which made me scowl. “I
expect we should be there by late tomorrow afternoon.”

I wanted to ask her how long
then before we would be able to meet her contact, but pride, or stubbornness,
or both kept me from asking anything. Instead, I said, “You realise we need to
hurry this along as much as possible. The first day of travel was slow and who
knows how close the enemy is to finding them before us.”

With slow patience as if
speaking to a child, she replied. “I know all these things Kadin. Do not fret,
we will find them as quickly as possible.”

Fret? I was not fretting! I
could feel colour rising in my face, but just as I opened my mouth to retort, I
caught a subtle shake of Seran’s head. I snapped my mouth shut.

I needed to let off some steam
so I stood up and walked off into the woods without a word to the rest. I did
not even realise I was calling her until Markai came padding up to me. There
was no need for an explanation with her. She knew what had happened and she
knew how I felt. It was a relief to have her there knowing she, at least,
understood. She did not need to say anything to me to make me feel better, I
knew what she thought of it and that was enough. I focused my Navitas to help
me see in the darkness of the woods.

A breeze picked up and was
swirling the leaves around my feet. Curiously, the wind seemed to thicken into
mist.
Danger.
Markai’s warning was clear and sharp. I
unsheathed Sunder. The mist kept thickening and suddenly was swirling up as if
pulled by some invisible force. It shaped into a huge man with a blade in his
hand, except that he and the blade were nearly transparent and looked
insubstantial. Vaguely, I remembered reading in the Book about a creature
called a Haze. It had said that its blade was as real as steel. I fell into
Crouching Cat form of the Shea-Rin. It attacked, furiously swinging its blade
in an arc and toward me. I blocked it easily enough with a loud ring as if it
was metal meeting metal and countered with my own attack. My blade sliced right
through it effectively bisecting it. It did not even notice that though and I
stumbled back as it launched another attack. Markai attacked it from behind,
slashing at its back with her massive paw. It went straight through the
creature though, and it did not as much as pause to look around.

I tried to remember if I had
read something about how to defeat it, because clearly it was not going to be
by my sword. I seemed to remember that fire was its weakness, but where was I
going to get fire from now? I could not very well ask it to wait while I kindle
a fire quickly.
Navitas
.
Markai’s thought drifted to me, but I could not understand what she meant. I
could not make fire with my Navitas.
Except, I had once
before transferred heat from objects around me into wood to shape it for a
wagon wheel.
Just maybe…
I reached out with
Navitas and I could dimly sense the campfire. It was almost beyond my reach. I
let the energy of the fire flow into and down my arm, letting it all accumulate
in my left hand. All the while, I had to vigorously defend against the
onslaught of attack. I could feel the moment when the campfire extinguished. My
hand felt as if I was holding it in the middle of a burning flame and it took
all of my focus to keep hold of Navitas. I took a deep breath and slammed my
hand toward my attacker, with my palm facing it. To my amazement, flames shot
from my hand and consumed the Haze.

I collapsed from exhaustion as
soon as the last flame left my palm. I sat shivering. Markai put her cheek next
to mine and I could feel her touch infuse me with energy. My shivering stopped
and I stood on still shaky knees. Slowly I made my way back to camp. Brant was
busy rekindling their fire. He glanced up at me when he heard me approach. “It
was not a poor fire. I do not care what they say. I built it properly the first
time round. It should have burned for a few hours more.”

When I did not answer he looked
up at me scowling, but his expression quickly turned to a mixture of concern
and wariness, his hand subconsciously reaching towards his bow. “What happened
to your arm?”

Numbly I looked at it. It was
bright red with what seemed like blisters already forming on my skin. The
others had stopped what they were doing and were all looking at me. “
Get the fire
going again.” Brant’s frown deepened, but for a
wonder, he did as I asked. I sat down heavily. Seran sat down next to me and
handed me a skin of water. I drank gratefully. Something cold touched my arm
and reflexively I jerked away.

“It looks like you have burnt
your arm and hand. Let me wrap this around it. It will soothe it.” Alathaya’s
calm grey eyes met mine and I held my arm out for her. I was relieved to see
the fire alight again just in case there were more of those things out there.

“What happened to you?” I looked
up when Seran spoke and found that they were all huddled around me with worry
etched on their faces. Whether their worry was for me or for whatever danger
might be lurking I was not sure. Haltingly I started telling them what
happened. Halfway through, I gestured for Brant to get my bag.

I pulled out the Book and as I
was speaking, I paged through looking for the entry on these creatures. I
remembered what I had read the first time I opened the Book; ‘Reader beware:
power lies in names. Naming awakes the slumbering. Do not name those you do not
wish to summon’. I carefully avoided naming the Haze aloud. I told them of the
warning and then showed the page. When I explained how I had used Navitas to
pull the heat energy from the flame and project that out to burn the Haze,
Brant’s eyes narrowed. “I have never heard the masters speak of anyone doing
anything remotely like that with Navitas.” I just shrugged. I did not have the
energy to argue this point with him. Did he think I was hiding something? I
looked up at him. Yes, he probably did.

Only then did I notice Markai
was not there with us. When I turned my attention to her though, I realised
that she was running the perimeter to make sure there were no more enemies
around.
 
Knowing that she was out there
made me relax a bit more, but my arm was starting to throb. I wondered if there
might be another way to do what I did, without scorching my arm.

When I finished my telling, they
all passed around the Book and read about the Haze. Alathaya rebuked me for not
having shown her the Book before. “This is just incredible. We did not even
know something like this existed. Of course, that was the whole point so that
if we had been discovered we could not give any information away, but still!”
As she paged through, some of my own sketches that I had put in the back fell
out. She picked them up quickly and looked at them. “What are these?”

Tiredly I explained to her that
I had been sketching anything we came across that was not already in the Book.
Her eyes widened at that. With curiosity painted across his face, Seran walked
over and stood looking over her shoulder.
 
“Not bad for a…” he cut off as he snatched a sketch from her hands. She
glared at him, but he did not even notice. She turned back to the Book
muttering to
herself
.

He brought the page over to me.
“Where did you see these?” He was holding up my sketch of the Twisted Ones that
had attacked Brant and me. Their oddly humanlike faces still made me shiver.

In my current state, I had to
think a moment before I could remember. ” They attacked me and Brant about two
days north of Pharae.”

He frowned. “What do you mean
they attacked you? And you do realise that you have made a mistake here?” He
was pointing to the sketch of the paw and retractable claws.

I was meticulous and a
perfectionist when it came to my sketches and I looked at it critically before
answering. “No, that is as I remember it.”

He shook his head. “Apes do not
have retractable claws. They hardly have claws at all. They are certainly not
hunters. They have never even been known to travel this far south. So, you have
not answered yet. You must have disturbed a mother with babies. They do not
attack unprovoked and are known for trying to evade conflict.”

I was too tired for this
conversation. “These were Twisted Ones Seran. I doubt very much that they would
behave normally once Rakadamon has had a hand on them. For that matter, there
is a reason they are called Twisted. He most likely altered their physiology to
suit his purposes for them.”

He looked at the picture
disgustedly. “That is just wrong. These creatures are the gentle inhabitants of
the north. In Gheldea, they are treasured. This is wrong.” He repeated, and
shaking his head, he handed the parchment back to Alathaya.
 

They split my watch up between
them, which I was very grateful for. It felt as if I could sleep for a week.
Alathaya sat reading by the fire for the rest of the evening and was still
there when I lay down on my bedroll. Blessed sleep took me at once.
 

The next morning I felt much refreshed
although painful blisters covered my arm. I still had the cream Master Boryka
had given me after he branded me so I started using that. Soon after dawn, we
set off and we kept a brisk pace. We were all eager to reach Mirtudale and by
mid-afternoon, it came into view. The town seemed to have a strange layout,
sprawling across miles of rolling hills, but with a lot of space in between
apparent neighbourhoods. It almost had the appearance of closely grouped farms
together with small areas that were more densely built up, which I presumed
would be the market areas. The majority of the roads in the town were not paved,
but gravel and the houses were simple wooden structures with thatched roofing.

Alathaya pointed us to an inn
called the Handsome Knight, which she claimed was a fine inn despite the
ridiculous name. The common room was simply furnished, but the floors were
clean and the vegetable soup and fresh bread they served was good. After
dinner, I had wash water sent up to my room, which was small with barely enough
space for the small bed, bedside table, and washstand. There was a mirror,
though and I gratefully had a quick shave.

Alathaya had barely had any
dinner before leaving the inn again. I wanted to go with her to the pigeon
keeper, but she said he might think it odd if she did not arrive alone. I
thought
that
odd, but I let it lie.

It was not long before she was
back. She knocked softly at my door before coming in. “The meeting is set for
tomorrow morning at dawn. I will take you with me, but only you. If he sees
more people there, he may not reveal himself. We have had to learn to be extremely
cautious.” I nodded my understanding.

The next morning she led me some
small way out of the town and into a forested area and we stopped by a big
black boulder. She stayed on her horse and I copied. She whistled a low long
whistle making it go sharp at the end. She repeated that three times. I thought
I had heard a bird with that call the day before. There was a rustle of leaves
close by and as I turned, I saw a plain looking man of his middle years come
riding out on a dapple-grey gelding.
 
He
had a thin beard that almost looked patchy in places. The now familiar heat
started to pulse across my chest. Sweat immediately popped up all over my body
and I shifted uncomfortably.
 
When he
came closer, I saw that the beard was covering a thick white scar on his left
cheek and jaw, or at least was an attempt at covering it.