Fireblood (Whispers from Mirrowen) (26 page)

“The sleep affects everyone differently. Your friends may awaken soon or not, but I needed to rouse you first.” He gripped Annon’s shoulder with a strong hand, clenching his tunic. “I may not have much time before the Arch-Rike’s minion finds me again. Give me the blade you snatched from Drosta’s lair. This entire area reeks of it, and the spirits are frightened of you. The blade Iddawc.”

Annon struggled to sit up, but his uncle’s hand kept him down. He was exceptionally strong. His fist was tighter than knots.

“What errand did you send us on, Uncle?” he asked, feeling every emotion fire up in hostility. “A treasure to buy Hettie’s freedom? Was that even your intent?”

Tyrus rifled through Annon’s cloak with his other hand and discovered the blade pouch fastened to his belt. He began untying the knot and Annon grabbed at his hands, trying to stop him. It was like trying to bend iron bars.

“I have precious little time to meddle with you,” Tyrus warned with disapproval. “The one who hunts me would just as soon kill you with his fingers as waste a spare moment wrestling you. Come, boy! Stop fighting me. You are not wise or powerful enough to handle this blade.”

“And you are?” Annon seethed, unsuccessful at stopping his uncle’s fingers from snapping the cords of the pouch and claiming the weapon.

Tyrus rose, towering over the younger man like a boulder. It was then that Annon noticed the soot stains, the tattered hem of his uncle’s cloak. The gash in his sleeve. His face was weather burned.

His uncle snorted. “I know far too much about this blade to ever be its master. It has no master but itself. But it
will
serve a useful purpose in the Scourgelands. I bid you farewell, nephew.
I will likely be dead before we cross paths again. Forgive me for being an unfit uncle if you can. Good-bye.”

Annon surged to his feet, anger exploding in his heart. He shook with rage, his fingers tingling with unspent flames. Why was it that his uncle made him lose himself like this? After all they had been through, he wanted an explanation. He wanted the truth. To be dismissed as an errand boy galled him. “That is all? You abandon us here? Wherever
here
is?”

There was a grim look in Tyrus’s eye. “Abandon you? It is what I am good at, after all. I come and I go when it suits me. You can have no faith in me. You do not trust me. Believe me, nephew, there is a murderer no doubt flying the aether as we speak to kill me. When he arrives, I must be gone or he may take his vengeance out on you. For your own safety, I must leave you.”

“But why?” Annon demanded. “Have I not earned at least that? Why did you send us there? Why did you deceive us? What about Hettie’s freedom?”

Tyrus arched an eyebrow. He took a step forward, his gaze menacing. “Think, boy! Use those scraps of brains. I turn the question back on you. Why did you not insist on knowing more? Why were you satisfied to go knowing so very little? Why did you assume I would tell you all when you took no thought to even ask me?” He pointed to the woods, at nothing. “Well? Why did you not ask?”

Annon gritted his teeth together, but he would not back down. He stepped closer. “Because I did not think you would tell me, Uncle.”

“A fair statement. A fool’s answer, though. If you only knew the danger…the real danger that just being near me presents to you.” He swallowed a muttering oath. “Let me be candid with you, Annon. I have nothing left to lose. I have lost all except my wits and my will. I believe the Scourgelands is the source
of the changing Plague which has decimated the races. It comes in different disguises, but it is still the same Plague. The answer to stopping it is hidden within the Scourgelands. You will not understand this, but I will say it anyway. Some treachery happened long ago. A promise made by a Paracelsus, I believe, but none have ever recorded the memory of what the affront was. I have spent my life piecing together all the clues. I know how to end the Plague. And the Arch-Rike of Kenatos will stop at nothing to prevent me from doing so.”

His eyes blazed. “We have different opinions, he and I. Were I to stop the Plague, he would lose all his power and authority. The last time I attempted this was before you were born. Everyone who went with me into the Scourgelands died. So you see, my young friend, my dear nephew, that you are far better off never having known me or what I am going to do. For your sakes, I bid you both farewell.”

“Uncle.”

It was Hettie. She had risen where she had lain, pretending to be asleep. Her eyes were dark with concern. Her arms were folded defiantly across her chest. “How can we help you?”

He looked at her in surprise. “You are fledglings. All of you. The last group I brought into the Scourgelands were tested and trained. They were the best of their generation. They perished in the nightmares that roam inside.”

“Answer my question, Uncle,” Hettie demanded.

Annon struggled to control his anger. He did not want to help his uncle. He wanted to lash out at him with hateful words and erase the memory of him from his mind. But he could not. Tyrus’s words buzzed inside his head like a hive of angry bees. He remembered Reeder’s warning about the Scourgelands. He could almost imagine his friend’s worried expression.

Annon’s voice was raw. “Do you seek us to join you?”

Tyrus shook his head angrily. “Yours was a good question, Hettie. They typically are. Annon, you are too concerned about trying to understand
my
motives. You miss something obvious. If I am capable of deceiving the Rikes of Kenatos and their beetle-black rings, then I can surely dupe someone as foolish as you. Annon, you will never understand my motives until you understand me. You will not understand me until you understand what motivates me. And you will not understand that without seeking to do my will. In other words, you must trust me. Remember, I told you that in my tower.”

“Did Kiranrao speak the truth?” Hettie asked. “Was there an explosion?”

Tyrus nodded. “One of my latest projects for the Arch-Rike was inventing ways of releasing power in a blast. They are volatile spirits and they are bound for one reason and one purpose. You saw them on my desk when you both visited me. They were designed to help the masons of Stonehollow crack boulders. I am sure the Arch-Rike plans to use them to destroy castle walls. When he sent his man to kill me, I used a device I made to travel far away and triggered the room to explode, hoping it would kill him. It did not, but it destroyed my tower. I am still being hunted.”

Annon stared at him. “Did my arrival to the city cause this?”

Tyrus smiled grimly. “Yes, but you did it unwittingly. I protected you both the best I could.”

“I have no love of Kenatos or the Arch-Rike,” Hettie said. “How can I help?”

“I applaud your question. Was it sincerely given?”

She nodded, arms folded. Her shoulders seemed to scrunch, as if she were tightening into knots inside, awaiting a blow.

“There is a prince in Silvandom. A Vaettir-lord named Prince Aransetis. He has agreed to journey with me into the
Scourgelands. There was something he had commissioned from me that will help him survive. I did not have time to retrieve it before the explosion in my tower. You must go to Kenatos and find it. Bring it to Prince Aran. That is how you can help me.”

“What is it?” Hettie asked.

“A small leather pouch. A sturdy pouch. There are three jewels inside. They are uncut stones, not polished gems. Raw stones. There are spirits trapped in each one, bound to serve the Vaettir. Only a Vaettir can handle them and use them.”

Hettie swallowed. “Where is the bag?”

Tyrus smiled grimly. “I wish that I knew. It was in my study when it exploded. It would not have been destroyed; the magic is too powerful, and those gems were fashioned inside a volcano. It may be in the rubble. I do not know. But if you could find the stones and bring them to Silvandom, that would help me.”

Annon glanced and noticed that Paedrin was standing next to Hettie, watching them carefully. “What of me, Tyrus? Are you still in need of my service?”

Tyrus shook his head. “A Bhikhu is always very useful. But you would need to seek your master’s approval to serve me further. Your obligation to me is fulfilled. I am an outlaw now in Kenatos. You are sworn to uphold its laws.”

Paedrin nodded. He was silent for a moment. “Is that how Aboujaoude died? In the Scourgelands? He was a very famous Bhikhu, but he died before I was born.”

Tyrus stared hard at the young Vaettir. “He did indeed. What you do not understand is that you have been protecting his twins. Hettie and Annon are his offspring.” A look shadowed Tyrus’s face. The emotion vanished as fast as it appeared. “He believed in my cause, Paedrin. He gave his life for it. He knew all my motives, and he did it anyway.”

Annon swallowed hard, suddenly parched and desperate for a drink, as if water would somehow slake his fury. What was this? His father had been a Bhikhu? Then why had Annon not been raised in the temple orphanage like Paedrin? Why had he been sent to the woods in Wayland?

“What of me, Uncle?” Annon asked.

“You seek to help me as well? Or to challenge me further?”

“I do not trust you. Not yet. But like Hettie I have no love for the Arch-Rike and I am enraged at the plight of the imprisoned spirits in the city. I suspected spirit magic, but I had no idea until Drosta told us.”

“That is fair. Seek your friend Reeder. He is in the woods of Silvandom, I believe. Seek his counsel. More importantly, seek an answer that I need. The Arch-Rike has a secret temple outside of the city. I do not know where it is, but it is called Basilides. It protects an oracle that the Arch-Rike uses to divine the future. There is a connection there to the spirits of Mirrowen, a pool or a grove of some kind. The Arch-Rike uses it as a source of his power. If it truly exists, then it can tell us how much time we have before the Plague will strike. That is knowledge that I desperately need. It is knowledge that the Arch-Rike undoubtedly has, which is why he moves against me so viciously. Seek Reeder. Seek the oracle. Seek the answer to my question. That would help me.”

Tyrus looked down at Erasmus, who had also joined the group. “A question for you, Master Erasmus.”

“Yes?”

“What are my odds of surviving an encounter with a Kishion?”

“Which one?”

“You know the one. The one the Arch-Rike was training to use the blade Iddawc.”

Erasmus rubbed his mouth. “With the weapon in his hand, not even you could beat him. I think the Arch-Rike planned it that way.”

Tyrus nodded sagely. “I am counting on it anyway.”

There was a rumble of thunder, though no clouds mottled the sky. It was a bubbling, spurting noise. Annon glanced up at the sky through the screen of branches and yew leaves, seeing something flash.

A man stood behind Tyrus, perhaps a dozen paces off. A cowl covered most of his face. He stood resolutely, appearing from nowhere. He wore a woodsman’s garb, dull browns and grays with leather bracers buckled across his forearms. A scar ran from his lower lip down across the side of his chin.

Tyrus withdrew a cylindrical object studded with gemstones from his belt. It was the size of a baton, made of brass or gold, and thick around the middle with caps on each end. He stared at each of them, smiled tiredly, and suddenly he was gone.

“I rarely speak of the Kishion, the Arch-Rike’s personal bodyguards. They administer the city’s justice on those convicted of heinous crimes, such as murder, rape, and treason. Only Bhikhu and Finders are chosen to be Kishion and are given extensive training in survival, diplomacy, and poison. They are unswervingly loyal to the Arch-Rike and to the ideals of Kenatos. They are few in number, perhaps less than fifty. There is one who is feared above the others. He is never seen at state functions or even in the presence of the Arch-Rike. He is always in the background, fulfilling the greatest service to protect the city. He is reverentially spoken of as the Quiet Kishion. They say, and this is purely speculation, that he cannot be killed.”

– Possidius Adeodat, Archivist of Kenatos