Reign of Ash (14 page)

“I
t’s just a library, m’boy,” Treven Lowrey said encouragingly. “There’s no need to hang back like that.”

Deep below the ruins of Quillarth Castle, Lowrey stood in the doorway of the hidden library of the Knights of Esthrane. Penhallow had already stepped into the room as Var Geddy rushed to light lanterns. Curiosity pulled Connor forward. Common sense made him hesitate.

“You two are hoping there will be more documents by Vigus Quintrel hidden away in there,” Connor said, still unwilling to cross the threshold. “And you’re hoping Quintrel left us a clue to jog another of my hidden memories.”

Lowrey smiled. “Quintrel tampered with your memory so you could read the code he used in documents. He’s left us a puzzle, so to speak, and you’re the key.”

“He waylaid me, planted ideas in my head, then made me forget hours of my life,” Connor replied testily. “For months, I feared I had betrayed either Lord Garnoc or Penhallow. I haven’t forgiven Quintrel for that.”

Lowrey tut-tutted. “Inconvenient, I’m sure, but important in the grand scheme.”

“I felt wretched after the last time,” Connor responded. “It’s an awful feeling, as if someone has taken over your mind. I’m not keen to have it happen again.”

“Penhallow said you were perfectly safe,” Lowrey coaxed.

“It wasn’t happening inside his head, now was it?” Connor tried to look past Lowrey to get a better glimpse of the library. Part of him itched to see what had been hidden in the archive, kept locked away for generations.

“Admit it, lad. You want to see what’s in there,” Lowrey said, grinning.

“I’ve heard the legends about the Knights of Esthrane all my life,” Connor murmured, venturing a step closer. “Mage-warriors, both mortal and
talishte
, the king’s left hand, moving in the shadows, dealing with traitors and threats to the crown, and ultimately, betrayed by the king they served.”

“It might be that Quintrel never got into this library,” Lowrey said with a crafty gleam in his eye. “After all, before the kingdom fell, this was heavily guarded. You might have nothing to worry about.”

With a sigh, Connor stepped into the room. “All right,” he said. “You win.” He looked at his surroundings. Though relatively small, the room was well appointed, fit for nobility. The library was elaborately paneled in wood, and a large rectangular table sat in the center of the room, covered with stacks of books. Tall shelves were recessed into the walls, all of them stacked with old leather folios, rolled-up parchments, and a selection of arcane instruments and talismans.

“Be careful,” Penhallow warned. “Tamed magic might not work, but wild magic is as dangerous as ever. I don’t want to take any chances with any of the objects accidentally bringing a magic storm down on our heads.”

Connor slowly walked the perimeter of the room. “This reminds me of the king’s library upstairs,” he said quietly. “It’s laid out much the same, only this is a bit smaller.”

Penhallow nodded. “Legend has it that the Knights had a private, secret place where they met with the king.” He gestured toward the hall. “A number of the Knights were billeted there to protect the king, castle, and palace city. They came and went by hidden passageways so that no one in the castle above them could track their comings and goings.”

“Powerful mages, skilled warriors, and
talishte
on top of that,” Connor murmured. “No wonder the king grew to fear them.” One side of the room was hung with tapestries that, while faded with age, were still beautiful for their workmanship and detail.

The first tapestry depicted the High God Charrot: the diune God, a being at once both male and female. Above the figure’s head, the tapestry showed the constellation in the night sky that bore Charrot’s name. Charrot was the Source, ruler of gods and men. The male side of his body was masculinity perfected: facial features that were decisive and compelling, strong, broad shoulders, corded muscles in his arms and legs, and generously endowed manhood. The female side of Charrot was intelligent and surpassingly beautiful, with indigo skin and long, midnight-black hair. Everything about her body promised fertility, from the full breasts to the curved hips.

Charrot was rarely depicted without his two consorts: Torven, the god of illusion, and Esthrane, the goddess of life. Torven was the ruler of air and sea, water and ice, metals and gems, darkness and twilight, as well as the Sea of Souls. Esthrane ruled fertility of the ground, crops, and herds and kept watch over the Unseen Realm, where incomplete souls wandered after death.

Charrot’s female side held out a hand to the god Torven, while the god’s male side extended a hand to caress Esthrane’s cheek. At the gods’ feet were smaller representations of the hundreds of lesser gods whom devout Donderans revered. Place gods and household deities, family patron spirits and the sentient essence that dwelled in ancient trees, quiet grottos, mountains, lakes, and other natural places were depicted with an artist’s fancy. Such tapestries had been common in Donderath before the fall; those who could not afford elaborate pieces showed their devotion to the gods with paintings or murals.

Connor stared at the images of the second tapestry. They told another story he knew well, that of Vessa, the goddess of fire. Vessa was a slim, willowy figure with red hair that flowed around her, covering her nakedness and reaching below her knees. She had been a minor deity who had risen, by the craft of her fire and her own wit, to sit as a counselor to the higher gods, gaining the trust of Charrot himself. But Torven had grown jealous and schemed to make it look as if Charrot had taken Vessa as a lover, knowing that would anger Esthrane and hoping it would cause Charrot to cast Vessa aside. Esthrane, recognizing Torven’s perfidy, took Vessa as her own confidante, putting Vessa beyond Torven’s reach while securing fire under the control of mortals and denying Torven and his realms of light and heat.

“They were the Knights of Esthrane,” Connor murmured. “Which would have meant that, like Esthrane, they trusted in fire.”

“Not fire,” Lowrey replied. “Magic. Vessa is the patron of mages. Think about it, m’boy. Esthrane is the goddess of life, and Vessa is the goddess of magic. The Knights were mage-warriors, with both mortal and
talishte
members, and the
talishte
—”

“Belong to Esthrane, as ruler of the Unseen Realm,” Penhallow finished for him. He looked from Lowrey to Connor. “And if we’re to figure out the secrets the Knights left behind, we’d best get started.”

He looked at Connor. “We’ll sort through the books and objects and divide things up,” Penhallow said. “Connor, you’ll take historic documents.”

Connor eyed the shelves piled high with manuscripts and sighed. “What, exactly, am I looking for?”

“The Knights were privy to the origin of
hasithara
, tamed magic,” Penhallow replied. “They were the protectors of Mirdalur until their exile. Look for anything that has to do with maps like the one of Valtyr’s you have, or the disks that the Lords of the Blood wore to summon the magic, or Mirdalur itself.”

Penhallow turned to Lowrey, who was eyeing the documents with undisguised curiosity. “Treven, start on the books of magic. If you see anything that looks newer than the other items, that might be a ‘gift’ from Quintrel. Let’s let Connor have a look at it. Anything you think might be useful, set it aside.” He leveled a meaningful glare at Lowrey. “Focus on
useful
, Treven, not merely ‘interesting.’ We have to carry anything we remove.

“I’ll take the tools and amulets,” Penhallow continued. “Being
talishte
, I’m a tad safer, perhaps, than the two of you when it comes to handling them, or at least more resilient should I manage to trip anything nasty.”

“Going to need more light in here,” Treven grumbled and looked to Var Geddy, who sat against one wall, doing his best to remain unnoticed. “See if your master can spare some oil lamps, and bring them down as quickly as you can,” he said, shooing Geddy on his way. Lowrey began moving items off of the table, clearing a space by stacking manuscripts on the floor, then filling the space with new books as he began to ransack the shelves.

Connor moved around the large bookshelves, straining to see the gold lettering on some of the older bindings and brushing away dust as he searched for historical tomes. Finally, he selected a few old leather-bound folios and settled into his chair at the table, coughing at the dust that filled the air as he opened the cover of the first collection of papers.

Connor and Lowrey took turns grabbing a few candlemarks of sleep, then returning to help with the search. They paused briefly to eat when Geddy brought food for Connor and Lowrey and fresh deer blood for Penhallow, then returned to their tasks. Penhallow slept during the height of the day but returned as soon as he could to help. Though no one spoke of it, they all understood the urgency. Pollard and Reese were after Blaine – and apparently, after them as well. Thus far, Connor and the others had only barely eluded capture. At some point, it was very likely either Reese or Pollard would try to attack the castle to deprive them of any information that might help Blaine restore the magic. It would be best, Connor thought, if they were long gone when that happened.

Connor rubbed his eyes. He hunched in a chair over a yellowed parchment, hedged in on both sides by crumbling leather portfolios and bound illuminated manuscripts. Already he had lost track of the candlemarks they had spent examining the library’s content. Connor yawned and stretched, glancing around to see how his companions were doing.

Lowrey had cleared one end of the large table, so that his place was ringed with oil lamps that gave him bright light to read by and dispelled the gloom of the small, windowless library. Connor had already scooted down to create a place for himself near enough to Lowrey so that he could take advantage of the lamps’ light. Even so, he found himself squinting to make out the cramped, faded handwriting.

At the other end of the table, Penhallow handled the artifacts. Dim lighting posed no problem for his heightened sight, and Connor watched Penhallow examine an odd-looking object, a cross between an astrolabe and a sextant.

Connor returned his attention to the document in front of him and blinked, then widened his eyes trying to focus. He turned the page, and a small length of blue ribbon fluttered to the floor. Puzzled, Connor reached down and picked it up. It was unfaded and looked much newer than anything in the room. Curious, he skimmed down through the careful lines of script. “Hold on,” he said, looking up. “I think this may be important.”

Both Lowrey and Penhallow turned their attention to him. “I found this ribbon marking a page,” Connor said. He held up the bit of satin for the others to see. “It doesn’t look like it’s been in here for hundreds of years.” Connor looked back at the book. “It’s marking what appears to be a genealogy of the thirteen Lords of the Blood.”

Lowrey leaned back in his chair and gave a loud harrumph. “Why would that be important? We know who the lords were.”

Connor frowned as he read further. He began to chuckle, even as he felt his cheeks flush. “I think I see why the Knights became unpopular,” he said. “This isn’t just a regular genealogy. It notes every bastard child and has a detailed list of the partners of the lords and ladies who were unfaithful. It’s also rather clear on which lords, or their wives, were unable to bear children.”

He shook his head. “According to this, two of the original Lords of the Blood were unable to father children, so their wives secretly took lovers to produce offspring that the lords claimed as their own.”

“The magic that kept the
hasithara
anchored only cared about true bloodlines,” Lowrey remarked, looking over the tops of his lenses at Connor. “So that would invalidate the links to those two houses.” He gave Connor a knowing look. “Does it give the names of the luckless lords?”

Connor nodded. “Doranset, which would be Lord Edenfarr’s holdings,” he began. “Gilholt,” he continued.

“That’s Lord Corrender’s manor,” Penhallow supplied. “Interesting. If that book dates from before the Knights were exiled, then there is a third illegitimate, Vedran Pollard.”

Connor nodded. “There are two more houses where the eldest sons died without direct heirs, breaking the line of succession. Solsiden, the holding of Lord Arvo, and Mirdalur, the lands of King Hougen.” He let out a low whistle. “Well, that explains why King Merrill’s ancestors decided to challenge Hougen’s throne – and won.”

“There’s another note here, about a fifth house,” Connor said. “Lundmyhre, the holding of Lord Arnbech Vandholt. The last eldest son was Kierken Vandholt, who was born a thousand years ago.” He frowned as he reread the notation. “It says that he was turned
talishte
in the thirty-fifth year of his life, and almost four hundred years ago, he was cursed to pass beyond death into the Unseen Realm, denied rest in the Sea of Souls.” He paused. “It also says his heirs were murdered, so his line would have ended with him.”

Connor frowned. “Those dates can’t be right.”