Progeny (The Children of the White Lions) (70 page)

The sergeant related a very disturbing tale involving the regent of Smithshill, Constables, and a saeljul. Broedi was glad Nikalys and Kenders were asleep. Had they heard of a saeljul’s involvement, they would have reacted inappropriately.

When Sergeant Trell reached the point where he had found Nundle following him, he gave a wave his hand, indicating Nundle should pick up the telling. Sitting forward with legs crossed, Nundle proceeded to share his own incredible story. When the tomble revealed that Fenidar and Jhaell Myrr was the same person, a deeper that usual scowl spread over Broedi’s face. At his story’s conclusion, Nundle reached into his hip-sack, withdrew the letter that had prompted the tomble to take some rather incredible risks, and handed it to Broedi.

What Broedi read turned him colder than a swim in the Sea of Kings in the middle of winter. He needed to get this letter to Storm Island. Quickly.

Sabine asked to see the letter and he handed it to her. She had wanted the truth. She would have it.

After reading it, she asked what the Progeny were. To Broedi’s surprise, Nundle recited the prophecy perfectly to her, explaining that he had read it years ago in a history he had found in a library. Broedi was disturbed to learn Indrida’s words had become so readily available.

Broedi sighed. Everything had suddenly grown thrice as much complicated. He looked across to the strange pair before him. Sergeant Trell seemed earnest and honest. As did Nundle. They were meant to be his allies. He knew that. Whoever was twisting fate had brought them to him. The question was why. Knowing they could never answer it, he instead asked a different question altogether, one that was no less important.

“What do you want from us?”

After taking a deep breath, Sergeant Trell said, “We want to know your side of the story. I am disobeying direct orders from the regent by sitting here with you. I should be trying to subdue you—not that I’d have much chance of that—in order to bring you to justice. The gods know the Tracker wishes I would do so.” The sergeant reached up, scratched his beard, and sighed. “I don’t think you—” he glanced at Nikalys and Kenders “—
any
of you are dangerous outlaws. I want to know if I have made a good decision or if I have doomed myself and my men to—at the very least—charges of treason.”

Tilting his head back, Broedi stared up into sky and the dual moons shining down on them. He wished Aryn and Eliza were here. They were always better at making decisions than he ever was, especially Aryn. However, wishing for the impossible was a waste of time. And time was short. Sighing heavily, he dropped his head and stared at the pair.

“You want my story? You shall have it.”

He then proceeded to tell the pair—and in effect, Sabine—everything.

He told them about how Eliza and Aryn had hidden away Nikalys and Kenders for their protection, entrusting their care to Thaddeus and Marie Isaac in Yellow Mud. How Jak was not blood to the pair, but was as good a sibling as one could hope. How the saeljul had used his nine acolytes to help destroy the village before he murdered them. Nundle’s face turned ashen at that point and Broedi doubted it had anything to do with the moonlight.

He shared how he had found the Progeny, and how Jak had survived the flood and tracked his siblings to the forest clearing. He told them everything, quickly, succinctly, and without exaggeration. When he was done, he stared at the soldier sitting across from him.

“Does that answer some of your questions, Sergeant?”

With as solemn a face as a person could wear, the man nodded, and muttered. “It does.” He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and ran his hands through his hair, tugging at his cord-bound ponytail.

Sabine leaned over to Broedi and whispered, “Is all of this true?”

“It is, uora.” He looked at her closely and the little girl she held. “And now that you know, you are bound to us. I cannot let you leave with that knowledge.”

“No,” murmured Sabine. “I suppose you can’t.”

Her maturity regarding the matter impressed him. He gave her sympathetic, kind smile and rumbled softly, “I promise we will do whatever we can to keep you and your iskoa
safe.”

“More promises are broken than kept,” muttered Sabine, her gaze on her sister.

Broedi wished he could refute her words, but he could not. Hearing footsteps approaching, he looked up and found Jak and the Borderlander approaching the group. While Jak carried with him a troubled expression, the Borderlander’s hopeful countenance was out of place for the night.

“Broedi?” mumbled Sabine.

He looked back to Sabine and found her staring at Nikalys and Kenders.

“Yes?”

“So, they’re going to save us from some great evil? That the Cabal—at least some of them—are responsible for?”

“If Indrida’s words are to be believed, yes.”

Staring up to him, she asked the most pertinent question of the night, a question those at Storm Island had been asking for centuries.

“And what sort of great evil would that be, exactly?”

Often when Broedi did not answer a question, it was by choice. Knowledge was a weapon, holding it until it was most potent was important. This time, however, his silence was not voluntary. He had no answer for her. When Jak and the Borderlander reached the group, he hoped they would rescue him from having to answer her. Sabine was not to be dissuaded, however.

“What, Broedi?” insisted the young woman. “What aren’t you telling us? What is the Cabal doing?” Nundle and Sergeant Trell were staring at him as well now, waiting for an answer. Jak, too. With her arms wrapped ever tighter around her sister, Sabine demanded, “Blast it, Broedi, tell us!”

Pressing his lips together, he spoke the truth.

“I cannot.”

“You said you’d tell me—”

Interrupting her, Broedi said, “I cannot tell you, uora, because I do not know the answer. I do not know what the Cabal is planning. No one does.”

After a long, heavy moment of quiet passed, Jak muttered, “Actually, that may not be true.” Worry coated his words. Nodding to the Borderlander, he said, “Everyone, this is Zecus.” As one, they turned to stare up at the tall, dark-skinned man. Wearing a deep frown, Jak said, “Zecus? Please tell them
exactly
what you told me.”

As the Borderlander began his tale, Nelnora released the Weave. The shimmering window allowing her to observe the group faded in an instant.

Relieved that they were all on the correct path, she did not need to watch any longer. The number of gentle nudges necessary to get them all together had been more than she felt comfortable doing, but events had forced her hand.

With a content smile resting upon her lips, she moved from the center of the dais and down the steps while managing to remain elegant in her gait. She gripped her silver silk robes as she stepped from the bottom stair, lifting them enough so as not to step on the hem. Spots of pale yellow light shining from the faceted glass dome high above her reflected through her golden hair.

As she strode to the room’s arched entrance, the echoes of her bare feet lightly slapping against the cool marble rebounded through the cavernous chamber. For the moment, the circular, white marble observation hall was empty.

Reaching the two towering, dark-stained hardwood doors, she knitted a short Weave and removed the wards she had placed earlier. Touching the silver-levered handles, she gave a slight push. Both doors swung outward, making no sound whatsoever, to reveal a large antechamber. A low-cut rug patterned with alternating black, gray, and white diamond shapes covered the room’s floor. The number black diamonds matched the number of white, balanced, as all things should be.

The servants she had sent out a short while ago were standing and waiting in three orderly rows. Each wore a white tunic, maroon breeches, and a short, cylindrical black hat.

One of the figures—tall with white hair that had a faint bluish tint to it, high cheekbones, and white, iris-less eyes—stepped forward and offered her a deep, gracious bow.

“Eminence, how may we serve?”

His deep voice echoed as he spoke, a quality all divina who still served the gods and goddesses possessed. It was the resonance of their deity’s power running through them. Should a divina leave the service of their god or goddess, that power evaporated like a bead of water dripped on a hot stone pulled from a fire.

Fixing her gaze on her high priest, Nelnora said, “Tenerva, please send a message to Ashana. Tell her that I thank her for her help today and will let her know if I need her assistance again in the future.”

“Yes, Eminence,” replied Tenerva. “Is that the entirety of the message?”

With a steady eye on her servant, Nelnora answered in a crisp, clear voice. “Were there more to the message, I would have told you.”

“Of course, Eminence,” replied the divina. “Is there anything else you require?”

“No, that is all,” replied Nelnora. She glanced at those assembled. “You may all resume your duties.”

“Thank you, Eminence,” said Tenerva. Turning to the rest of the divina assembled, he spoke, his voice throbbing with power. “Resume your watching.”

The host of priests moved forward to the double wood doors, filed past their goddess, bowing as they went, and entered the round chamber. As they took up positions around the circular room, she sensed them reach for the Strands. Within moments, dozens of shimmering windows to the outside world encircled the room. A priest stood beside each, watching, observing, and—if necessary—recording any pertinent information in the books resting on pedestals beside them.

Nelnora, the Watcher of the World, the goddess of Civilization and Balance, ambled around room, staring from window to window while musing over what she had just done. Despite what was happening in the Borderlands, her brethren dallied. Most were content to wait for things to sort themselves out, believing the Cabal would fail before they achieved anything of significance. Nelnora knew better. She could not permit fate to take its intended course.

Pushing aside her worries for the time being, she focused on the windows, watching, searching, and hoping.

One view overlooked a great, sprawling city filled with intricate, winding waterways rather than streets. Towering pyramids and sandstone structures rose up into the sky, majestic beside the interweaving canals. Wide, flat boats full of people choked the channels, slowly drifting beneath great, hanging gardens that spanned the water.

Another window revealed an expansive underground city carved out of midnight-black rock. The buildings were circular, absent sharp angles, and dotted with dozens of windows through which dim, yellow light spilled forth. Torches lined the streets along with tall, skinny lamps topped with glass spheres glowing with a soft green light. Citizens strode about, an even mix of squat dirgmour—their skin the color of soot—and the even shorter, colorfully dressed atarkas.

Yet another glowing portal showed a city built amongst the boughs of thick-trunked trees, the curved structures connected by sweeping wood and rope bridges. Buhanik traversed the walkways, shuffling along. Like most races, they had had two arms and two legs, yet their skin resembled tree bark, their hair like prairie grass. Groups of buhanik congregated wherever a pool of morning sunshine lit up a section of the city.

Nelnora stopped and peered closer at the tree city. Something unusual caught her eye, one figure in particular who was wholly out of place. On a great wooden platform nestled near the pinnacle of treetops, a single tijul sat in a chair, conferring with four elder buhanik standing nearby. He lounged lazily, running his fingers through his dark brown hair. A spear rest against his chair.

Nelnora tried to temper the rush of excitement she felt as she murmured to the priest, “Where is that?”

“The city is named Buhaylunsod, Eminence. In the Primal Provinces.”

“Do not close this window.” Pointing to the figure in the chair, Nelnora said, “Do
not
stop watching him.”

“Yes, Eminence.”

A slight smile touched Nelnora’s face. Things were coming together. Now, if only the children could survive.

Duke Everett Redlord sat slumped in his chair, staring at the plate on the table before him, a frown on his face. Tonight’s dishes had not interested him in the slightest. Still, he had eaten to distract himself from the tedium laid out before him.

The low hum of dozens of discreet conversations filled the dining hall, mixing with the clatter of pottery plates and the clinking of silver goblets. The banquet table that ran down the middle of the room was so wide that polite conversation was only possible with one’s immediate neighbor.

The room was cavernous, twice as long as it was wide and tall. Monumental white marble columns with ornate designs carved into the stone lined the sides of the hall, stretching from the flagstone floor to the ceiling. A column stood every twenty paces, breaking up the red sandstone block walls.

Everett’s gaze fell upon an attractive young woman standing beside one of the marble columns and holding a flagon of wine, awaiting a guest to lift his or her cup overhead. He assumed she was new, as he would have remembered such a pretty face. Perhaps feeling his gaze, the servant glanced up and met his stare at which point he offered her a smile. Even from across the room, he saw her blush.

“…would sell more casks, and his grace would see treasury revenue increase. Perhaps it is something that his lordship would take under advisement?”

Pulled from his admiration of the girl, Everett looked at the man who had just finished talking. The foppish fellow wore one of those new caps that were the current fashion, crimson with a white ball of fuzz propped on top. Everett thought they looked ridiculous.

The man, a hopeful grin affixed on his face, asked, “What say you, my Lord?”

Everett did not respond immediately. He could not stop staring at the inane-looking hat, tilted to cover one ear, but raised up off the other.

The petitioner’s grin slipped a bit.

“My Lord…?”

Giving the man a thin yet diplomatic smile, Everett said, “You make some excellent points. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.” He had no idea about what the man had been prattling.