Heroes Return (2 page)

And the driver surprised me by snorting and saying, “Fine.” He left the carriage momentarily and returned carrying a small leather bag. He pulled from it the smallest knife and scabbard I’d ever seen, a small pouch, and what looked like a bleached finger bone of the human variety.

I knew what those trappings meant. He was going to try to cast a spell. He sliced the palm of his hand with the little knife, just a small cut to bring up just a dot of blood. He poured yellow powder from the pouch right onto the blood, and I wondered if that stung. The greenish yellow powder looked like something that would sting. He spat on the same area, and that was just disgusting. I noticed a strange acrid scent rising up from the man’s palm. Finally, he crossed the bone through the mess. “Forces of earth, forces of air, clear of the water, skies be more fair. I offer my blood, I offer my will, I seek clear skies, for better or ill.”

Ooh, bad poetry. I wondered if I could make up a bunch of rhymes and sell them as a book of spells. I had written some ghastly stuff when I was fifteen or so.

That seemed to be it, but the hail continued. We looked at the driver. “It takes a while to work,” he said.

Ah. So whether it took an hour or whether it took all day, he could claim it was his spell that had cleared the skies and Taro and I, in theory, wouldn’t know any better.

But I would know. I could feel it when a spell was being cast. I’d felt nothing from him.

Of course, I couldn’t tell the difference between when a spell was being cast ineffectively or when it was actually working. That, I thought, would be a nifty skill to have.

At least the carriage hadn’t exploded. I had witnessed attempts to cast spells that had destructive results.

And despite my former exposure, it was still something of a shock to see someone so openly attempting to cast a spell. I had spent most of my life happily not thinking about spells, except for the odd time they showed up in novels and plays. I certainly hadn’t thought they could actually be real, nor had I known anyone who believed in them.

And then the depth of my ignorance had been revealed. Spells were real. I had seen them work, though I had denied what I’d seen until someone used a spell to save my life. I knew my flaws; I could be hard to persuade of things I didn’t want to believe in. But when someone cleans away poison in my blood with a few words and some multicolored fire, even I had to admit there was something to the belief in spells.

Pretending to cast spells was against the law. Actually casting a spell was not, because the official story supported by the law was that spells were nothing more than performances put on by swindlers. The official story was bunk. And the Emperor knew it. He had used a spell during the coronation. I had felt it. I still didn’t know what the spell was supposed to accomplish, but I had no doubt one had been cast.

So why were the lawmakers so sure spells were just poetry and ritual with no real effect? Or was that something they were just pretending to believe for some reason?

The driver didn’t seem to care who saw him perform—or pretend to perform—his spell. That was interesting. Did he not know that the Emperor had made the sanctions against the performance of spells much more brutal, or did he just not care?

There was no way to measure the passage of time with the sky clouded over, but it seemed to take a while for the hail to stop. That didn’t prevent the driver from giving us a look of triumph as he left the carriage once the air was clear again. I wondered if he really thought he could affect the weather, or if he was merely pretending he did.

The driver got the carriage moving. I knew this was the last leg of our trip. I hated the thought of the trip ending. It would mean we were actually in Flown Raven, and there was no getting out of it.

“It won’t be that bad,” Taro said suddenly.

I looked at him. “I know.”

“You’re braiding your fingers.”

I looked down at my lap, where my fingers were all locked and twisted together. I pulled them apart. Taro was tense enough without my contributing to his unease with my behavior.

“Fiona seemed nice,” Taro said to reassure me, naming the cousin whom he’d assisted in acquiring the title of Duchess of Westsea. We’d met her briefly at the Emperor’s coronation.

“Aye, she did.” Not what I’d expected of a relative of Taro’s, she’d had a warm manner and an easy smile.

I heard a strange thud, closely followed by a second. The carriage jerked into a faster speed, and I heard the driver shouting at the horses. Three more thuds sounded against the side of the carriage.

What the hell was going on?

The carriage continued to speed along. It tilted as it took a corner and I slid on my seat. “What’s happening?” I shouted.

I received no answer.

Was someone chasing us? It was the only reason I could think of for the speed, but who would be chasing us? Why?

I pulled the curtain away from the window and took a look outside. All I could see were trees racing by.

Taro and I were bounced and jolted within the carriage. I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do to control what was happening. There was nothing Taro could do, either. He had one hand propped against the wall of the carriage, the other on the seat, as he tried to stay centered.

There was another hard jolt as a wheel clearly hit a hole in the road. I was sure the wheel must have been broken by the abuse, but we kept rattling along, just as quickly as before.

I held on to Taro’s arm. I didn’t know why that made me feel infinitesimally better. It just did.

The carriage took another turn. It tilted, hard. Time seemed to slow as the carriage held askew, as if it were deciding what to do next. Then it completed its fall, landing Taro and me in a heap on the side of the carriage.

Taro could be heavy.

A few moments later, the door was yanked open. “Out, now,” a gruff voice ordered.

It was difficult to get out of a carriage on its side. It took some time to accomplish it. The carriage had fallen into a ditch, and the mud on the sides covered our trousers as we climbed out.

Our driver was sitting on the ground, blood pouring from his right temple. There were arrows sticking out of the side of the carriage. I guessed they were the source of the thuds.

Two men held four horses. A third had a bow with an arrow aimed in our general direction. The fourth person stood beside the carriage. “I’ll be taking your earrings,” she ordered. Taro and I took out our earrings and put them in her palm. “The harmony bobs, too.”

I didn’t mind losing the earrings, but my harmony bob was special to me. It was a sign of affection from Taro. And it had helped save my life.

“Get your bags.”

The trunks hadn’t been shaken from their bindings. That meant they were hard to untie.

“Hurry up!” the woman snapped.

I couldn’t believe we were being robbed. We had the worst luck in the world.

Once the trunks were free and open, the woman picked through our belongings. She was apparently disappointed with what she found. “You’re Triple S,” she muttered. “You’re supposed to be rich.”

It always amazed me, the rumors that were out there about Sources and Shields. We owned very little, though I didn’t doubt there were some Triple S members who used their right to requisition goods to acquire fabulous jewels. That might make them appear rich in the eyes of regulars.

She didn’t fail to find the little jewelry Taro and I did have, or the small stash of coins Taro kept for gambling. Everything else we owned ended up on the muddy bottom of the ditch. I was too cowardly to object. The idea of being speared by an arrow horrified me.

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” the woman said. “Or we’ll come back for you.”

The hell with that. I would be telling everyone we met.

The four thieves rode away, leaving us in a mess.

“How are you doing?” Taro asked the driver. “Can you see all right?”

“Aye, I’m not hurt bad,” said the driver.

“Lee?”

“I’m fine.” I was sure I would have an array of bruises soon, but that wasn’t worth mentioning.

“Do you think we could push the carriage back over?” Taro asked the driver.

The driver laughed.

Under the driver’s instructions, we freed the horses from the carriage and gave them to the driver to lead. What could be packed on the horses was, but Taro and I each ended up dragging a trunk behind us. The ache that created between my shoulder blades was brutal.

This probably wouldn’t have happened if the livery had given us horses to ride. We would have been able to outrun the thieves.

On the other hand, they might have fired the arrows directly at us. That would have been messy. And it would have hurt.

It was twilight when we first saw the wall of thick, dark gray stone that was ominous in its solidity. It was an unnecessary remnant of a time when titleholders battled each other for land and power. We passed through an iron gate being held open by two servants. There was an emblem high on the gate that I recognized as the family’s crest. Taro used to wear a ring with that emblem.

The grounds beyond the gate were lush and green, with small bushes huddled against the base of the house. I supposed it was a house. I thought it looked more like a castle would look, though it lacked the size and grandeur of Erstwhile, the seat of the Emperor. It was made of stone, proof of a people who didn’t worry about natural disasters. It looked long, and it appeared to be four stories high. There were two towers, one at either end, with only slits for windows. The rest of the windows in the structure were wide, and I thought I saw some kind of iron inlaid in a diamond pattern. All of those windows had shutters, odd single and heavy-looking slats that were propped up over the windows and meant to be lowered to cover the windows at night. I’d never seen that arrangement before.

The front door was huge, three men high and four men wide, arching to a point at the top. It looked solid. Impenetrable. Like it would make an ominous clanging sound when it closed and one might feel trapped within. Like a prison.

Beyond the house, I could see, in the distance, a significantly smaller house in the same style. The dowager house, I guessed, where Taro’s mother lived. She was going to be our far-too-close neighbor, as we would be Fiona’s guests for as long as we were stationed in Flown Raven. That meant we were likely to see the Dowager Duchess on a weekly and possibly daily basis. Cold, manipulative, evil wench of a woman.

There was a third building that looked like a stable.

Beyond the buildings was what looked like some kind of mountain range, but smaller. More like a rocky hill range. It looked kind of vicious and dark. I knew that beyond that, at some point, was the West Sea, and that Fiona controlled the waters of that sea for several leagues. As she controlled hundreds and hundreds of acres of farm-land all around us.

What did it feel like, I wondered, to control so much? To be so important to the people who lived on and worked that land and those waters? It was a staggering amount of responsibility. I certainly wouldn’t want it. I could understand why Taro hadn’t wanted it, either.

Two people ran out from the back of the house as we approached the steps leading to the front door. “Sir, ma’am,” the blond servant said. “What has happened?”

“We were robbed,” Taro answered grimly. “The driver is injured.”

“I’m not,” the driver protested. “I don’t have the coin for a healer. Especially now. Don’t call one.”

“We had to leave the carriage in the ditch,” Taro added.

“I’ll have someone fetch it,” said the blond servant. “You, there,” he said to the driver. “Come with us and you’ll be seen to for the night. Sir, madam, if you would approach the main entrance. We’ll see to your trunks.”

Couldn’t I slip around to the back, too? My hair was half falling down and I was a sweaty mess. Not at all the image I’d hoped to present to the Duchess of Westsea and her family.

We climbed the steps toward the front door. The door seemed even larger when I stood right in front of it. Really, who needed a door so large? What purpose did it serve, other than the attempt to intimidate people?

I was intimidated by a door. That was sad.

Taro knocked on the door.

This was it.

Chapter Two

The door was opened by a tall, slim man of middle years, his silver hair cut short. He wore a dark tunic and trousers and a belt with a lot of keys. “Source Shintaro Karish and Shield Dunleavy Mallorough?” he asked.

Taro wore a black braid on his left shoulder that identified him as a Source. I wore a white braid that identified me as a Shield. Everyone would know who we were as soon as they saw us.

“Yes. We’re reporting to Her Grace to assume our post,” Taro answered formally.

Not that we had to report to Fiona. She had nothing to do with the Triple S beyond offering us a place to stay. But it was her house, and presenting ourselves to her first thing was the polite thing to do.

“Of course.” The man bowed. If he noticed anything odd about our appearance, he was too polite to say so. “Please come in.” He closed the door behind us, and the sound of it wasn’t at all ominous. “I am called Bailey, and it is my pleasure to show you to Her Grace. It is also one of my responsibilities to see to any of your needs, so please don’t hesitate to ask me for anything.” The man seemed to pause a bit, and then he looked at Taro. “I was a footman here when sir was a boy here. If it is not too presumptuous of me to say so, it is a pleasure to see how well you’ve done, and to see you back home.”

I’d never considered the possibility of some of the staff still being the same as when Taro lived here. That was twenty years ago. This was horrible. It was enough that we had to live in the house that was the source of so many bad memories for Taro, but to have to deal with the people who were here while it was happening? That had to be a nightmare.