Exile's Return (Book 1) (20 page)

‘Nine – and don’t expect him to tell you now. I don’t think he ever will.’

Henry looked away for a moment, then murmured idly, ‘Come to think of it, how do we even know the Key really spoke to him at all? Did you hear what it said? Do you have any idea what it was about?’

‘No. Nobody does.’

‘How do we know he’s telling the truth?’

Ayn straightened up in her seat. ‘But why would he lie? Not now, but back then, at nine years old? What possible reason could he have had? He didn’t know anything about the Enclave back then, hadn’t decided he didn’t want to join us. Back then it was all a big adventure to him.’

‘Granted. But what’s stopped him since? Don’t you find it odd that in all the years the Enclave has been here, Robert is the first member of one of the Great Houses to have powers in the first place? That he decides at such a young age that he will acknowledge us, but not join us? Why, even his own brother was quick to take the oath. And what’s even more worrisome is that Robert is so much stronger than the rest of us. His abilities far outweigh any we’ve previously seen.
As you’ve already pointed out, we would have little chance of stopping him if he did turn against us.’

‘I fear you’re seeing shadows where there are none.’ Ayn shook her head, trying to dismiss these ideas before they could take hold. The desire to defend Robert was strong even now. ‘Robert is no enemy to us. He’s never threatened us in any way.’

Henry shrugged, but he persisted with his point. ‘I know how you feel about him, but what bothers me is that, apart from Finnlay, the only other person from a great House with powers who has come through the gate is this girl, Jenn. A girl Robert himself brought to us, and is now taking away. Now – now, we have two of them not bound by the oath – and both powerful people. And really, your shadows aside, what do we know about either of them?’

*

Morning frost glistened in the hazy sunlight and turned the grass outside a pristine white. Already, though, footprints marred its perfect surface as people went about their day’s work. Robert helped Micah saddle the horses, making sure the harnesses were secure against the difficult ride down from the mountains. Fortunately the weather had taken a turn for the better and promised to remain that way for most of the day. By then they would be on safer ground in the gentle valleys east of the Goleth.

Robert put the last pack on to the horse in front of him while Micah did up the straps. Jenn was already mounted up and waiting, her face sombre in the early morning. He couldn’t blame her – what did she have to celebrate? Life was becoming more complicated for her as every day went by.

Robert finished with the pack and turned back to the tunnel entrance. Neither Finnlay nor Ayn had come to say goodbye and he couldn’t wait any longer. However, fresh in his new role, Wilf approached from the darkness, his brown robes swirling in the gentle breeze. ‘I take it you will be back, Robert? For all that we have our differences of opinion, we do value your visits.’

‘Yes,’ Robert replied dryly, ‘I can tell. I wish you the best of luck in your new job, Wilf. I don’t envy you.’

‘You’d be a fool if you did, considering you as much as turned it down yourself.’

‘As to that,’ Robert reached up and adjusted a strap on his saddle, ‘I can’t help thinking that everybody has made a huge assumption. For years I’ve been badgered to Stand the Circle – but nobody seems to wonder whether the Key would ever choose me. Who’s to say it would?’

Wilf opened his mouth, then shut it again quickly. He nodded briefly. ‘I wish you a safe journey home, Robert. If the gods are with you, you should get Jenn back to Elita before the snows hit. Do take care of her, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ Robert nodded. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen my brother this morning?’

‘No. Why?’

‘He seemed a little upset about something last night. I half expected him to haul me out of bed in the middle of the night. I can’t wait any longer to say goodbye. I tried to find him first thing, but he wasn’t in his rooms. When you do see him, tell him I’ll be expecting him at Dunlorn for the winter. I believe that was his plan.’

‘Of course.’

Robert swung up into his saddle and turned for the Gate. Micah and Jenn followed closely behind as they entered the tunnel and soon they lost the light in the dark forbidding cave. The sandy floor damped the sound of the horses’ hooves, which only made it more eerie. They moved slowly in the gloom, Robert unable as yet to make any light. Then a tingle ran over his skin and he knew they had passed through the Gate and would soon be outside.

He raised his hand and with a flick of his wrist, a bright yellow glow spread across the tunnel illuminating their path – and a figure standing in front of them.

‘Finnlay! What are you doing there?’

Finnlay’s face was a mask of anger. In the conjured light, it seemed overlarge, his eyes smouldering. He stood directly in front of Robert, his jaw stuck out in defiance.

‘I just want to know one thing,’ he hissed.

‘What? Whatever’s wrong, Finn?’ Robert asked, completely mystified.

‘Don’t ask stupid questions, Robert! You know very well what’s wrong. Just tell me why.’

‘I’m sorry, Finn, I don’t understand what you want. Why, what?’

Shaking his head as though in pain, Finnlay said, ‘Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell me before that the Key had told you never to Stand the Circle?’

What?
Robert stared at him. He tried to speak, but found his voice wouldn’t work. As he struggled for an answer, Finnlay shook his head in disgust and disappointment and betrayal. Without another word, he melted into the shadows.

‘Finnlay!’ Robert called but the only answer was his own voice echoed back. What was that all about?

‘Will he be all right?’ Jenn murmured.

Robert turned to see her and Micah watching him closely. He nodded. ‘I hope so.’

‘Then what’s wrong?

He shook his head, ‘I don’t know – but something strange is happening and I don’t understand one bit of it.’

‘What’s strange?’ Jenn’s voice was gentle against the stone tunnel. ‘If the Key would talk to you, why shouldn’t it talk to your brother as well? Perhaps you should have told him before now.’

Robert frowned in the direction Finnlay had gone, his disquiet deepening. ‘Should I have said the Key had told me never to Stand the Circle? Well, to be honest, I would have, most certainly. Except for one thing.’

Robert paused. ‘That’s not what the Key told me at all.’

Micah stood beneath the branches of a golden elm and gazed back at the distant mountains to the west. Black clouds hung ominously above the peaks, edged with a burning red from the dying sunset. There would be snow up there before morning and all trace of their passage from the Goleth would be erased. They’d left just in time. Another few days at the Enclave and they would have been snowed in for the rest of the winter. The gods alone knew what further damage that would have caused.

He glanced back towards the empty hut nestled in the heart of a copse. Smoke trickled from the crumbling chimney, while outside Robert unsaddled and brushed down the horses. Micah had been forbidden any such work because of his injury. However, two days of treatment by the Healers at the Enclave and another four days of rest while they travelled had done much to ease the pain. At least he’d had the sense not to injure his sword arm!

He could hear Jenn calling him back into the hut to change his dressing. She was very diligent in her self-appointed post of journey physician and he did trust her – what he didn’t trust was the odd quiet that had grown between the three of them since their departure from the Enclave. His master spoke only when he had to, Jenn answered any questions in a way that forbade further discussion and Micah was left with the dull prospect of talking to himself. With a sigh, he turned and headed back to the hut. Jenn was waiting for him inside, ointments and bandages laid out. He sat down beside her and held out his arm.

As she began removing the old dressing, Micah studied her face. Her dark brows were knitted together in concentration
and her lips pursed. Every now and then, she would glance up with those amazing blue eyes – and as quickly look away.

‘You’re staring, Micah,’ she said eventually.

‘Sorry,’ he replied simply. ‘I was just thinking about the Guilde and the way they treated Arlie Baldwyn.’

‘Oh? And looking at me makes you automatically think of the Guilde? I’m flattered!’

‘Look, you know we’ve been away a long time. Has that sort of thing become commonplace now? Or was Arlie extremely unlucky?’ Micah watched her, hoping the question – and the topic – would be enough to engage her in conversation. This silence was driving him mad.

‘And what,’ Robert said from the door, ‘makes the Guilde less likely to commit an act of torture like that than anyone else?’ His arms were laden with saddles which he deposited in a corner. ‘Were you really that surprised by it, my friend?’

‘Weren’t you?’ Jenn asked without taking her eyes from her work.

Robert didn’t answer – and Micah knew he wouldn’t. There was too much history there, too much Robert would never talk about. But Micah did not understand. He continued, ‘The Guilde has no mandate to be doing anything of the kind. They’re bridge builders, goldsmiths, miners and weavers. Learned men – nothing more. Why do they now wish to be healers?’

‘Oh come, Micah,’ Robert laughed ironically, ‘you know full well the Guilde consider they have a trust given by the gods themselves. A trust to hold and secure the valuable gift of knowledge and learning. They’ve always guarded that trust jealously. Healing is knowledge. It stands to reason they would want that as well.’

‘Are you suggesting that Arlie deserved his punishment?’ Jenn asked quietly.

‘By the gods, no! But perhaps … he should have known better than to defy the Guilde.’ Robert turned away, his mood abruptly changed. He stirred the fire up a little, but kept his back to them.

Jenn watched him, her expression unreadable. When he said nothing more, she ventured, ‘Is that it? Is that all you can say?’

‘As people keep telling me, things have changed.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Jenn replied with an arched eyebrow. ‘They’ve changed so much that you’re unsurprised to find the Guilde is tightening its grip on Lusara. That soon we won’t be able to cut hay or shoe a horse without their permission – and any midwife or healer who so much as looks at a patient runs the risk of losing a hand? Of dying on the trium? Is that why you left the Council? Why you left the country for three years? Because you could see it coming?’

‘Jenn,’ Micah groaned, holding up his hand in a futile effort to halt her questions. She paid no attention to him, however, and kept her gaze steadily on Robert.

‘Not entirely.’

‘Then why did you leave?’

Robert turned away from the fire. He didn’t look at her, but took a seat close to the flames. ‘Because, in my misguided way, I thought perhaps my presence at the capital and my place on the Council was provoking them. I thought that if I removed myself they might relax.’

‘Why would your presence provoke them at all? They don’t know you’re a sorcerer. What did you do to annoy them so much?’

Micah’s eyes flitted back and forth between them. He felt like he was watching a fencing match.

‘That’s a very long story.’

‘Of course,’ she said dryly.

‘And not one that necessarily needs me to tell it. There are plenty of people who know what happened – or think they do. It doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that it’s an undisputed fact that the Guilde and I do not agree. Since it was unlikely they would pack up and leave Lusara, I thought it best that I did.’

Jenn said nothing to this and merely picked up a jar of ointment. As she began to smear the evil-looking muck on his arm, Micah hissed. It stung!

‘Don’t worry, the wound is clean,’ Jenn said reassuringly.

Micah peered at his arm dubiously. ‘And how do you know that?’

‘I’m not sure how exactly, but I can see it. It’s clean, believe me.’

With a frown, Micah glanced at Robert for confirmation. His master, however, only shook his head in a gesture of complete defeat. He spread his arms wide and in an aggrieved tone, murmured, ‘I give up. Will somebody please tell me what is going on here?’

Micah almost smiled and was glad to reply in a like manner, ‘It’s called medicine, my lord. I told you to attend to your classes more when you were a boy.’

Robert stuck out his jaw. ‘I doubt it would have done me much good. There were no classes on solving impossible questions.’

‘A pity,’ Jenn grunted.

‘So tell me,’ Robert paused, turning his whole attention on Jenn, ‘When did you start Seeing like a Healer? Let me see – first you put that bridge back together, so I suppose that means the Guilde is out of a job. Now you’ve developed into a Healer, so you can put the Hospices out of work, not to mention the little job you did on my
ayarn
 – which could remove the necessity of the Enclave altogether. By that logic, I guess your next move will have to be on the Church – or perhaps even the crown? By the way,’ he continued without pausing, ‘didn’t you want to ask me something?’

‘You mean about your inability to take anything seriously, perhaps?’ Jenn replied, her head bent to her work. However, Micah could see the corners of her eyes crease up and he knew she was trying not to smile.

Robert persisted, ‘Well?’

Jenn finished with the ointment and began winding a new bandage around Micah’s arm. ‘I don’t know why you think I have anything to ask you – unless it’s about what happened when we left the Enclave. I suppose I could ask you what that was all about – but it would mean asking you what the
Key really said to you and I doubt you would answer, so I suppose I don’t have anything to ask you after all.’

‘So you’re not curious?’ Robert queried lightly.

‘Mmm? About what?’

‘Elita.’

Jenn froze for just a second, then continued her work without replying.

‘Well? I would have thought by now – with only a day’s journey to Elita, that you would be full of questions about your home and your father. Unless,’ he paused, his eyes narrowing, ‘you actually had no intention of going there at all?’