The Banished of Muirwood (14 page)

I did what I did for you. Your father is determined to abandon your mother and you, his rightful heir. All his thoughts are bent on it, and as you know, the Medium responds to our deepest thoughts and emotions. I fear the curse he is bringing on his kingdom as a result. To delay this collapse, your mother and I made an alliance at Muirwood. I will fall so that you may rise. You are the rightful and lawful heir to the throne of Comoros. There are no grounds for your father to forsake his marriage. I have done my best to shield you, but it is not enough. He will punish you for his failure to rid himself of his wife. In so doing, he will punish the land.

The Dochte Mandar will be expelled. When we are gone, you will soon discover that our presence held at bay a malevolent force. You will feel the presence of unseen beings who will wish to do you harm. I can no longer protect you from them, but I leave this kystrel for you.

I may never see you again, Lady Maia. I had hoped to serve under you when you became queen. I fear I may not live to see that day. My only regret is that I never sought to become a maston myself. Had I served the Medium with but half the zeal as I served your father, then it would not have left me naked to mine enemies. Until we meet again, in Idumea.

Your servant.

Maia felt the tears slip from her lashes and drip onto the folded paper, smudging some of the words. She struggled to rein in her feelings, but she could not, and hung her head, weeping softly in the gardens.

Chancellor Walraven had sacrificed his position, his eminence, and his future to preserve her right to inherit the throne. To stall the decline her father’s debauchery had caused in court and throughout the kingdom. Weeping was an unfamiliar act. She did not like the way it made her tremble and shake, her nose drip, the wildness it threatened to unleash inside her. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, trying to calm herself. What a strange mixture of emotions. Gratitude and sadness, hope and desolation. She would not be able to see her mother. She would not be able to see her friend, her mentor—the man who had taught her to read even though it was forbidden by his own people. She would remember that. She would always remember
him.
She sighed, struggling to tame her tears until she finally succeeded. She wiped her mouth and read the letter twice more.

Once she had it memorized, she turned her attention to the kystrel. Cupping it in her hand, she felt the hard edges of its woven, whorl-like pattern. It did not represent any specific creature. It was just a ring of interwoven leaves that were neither uniform nor precise. A kystrel—named after the falcon. A small bronze chain was affixed to it.

Maia stared at it, remembering that long-ago day when she had watched the chancellor use his kystrel to summon mice and rats to the tower. At the time, he had said she was too young to use one. He had warned that her years as an adolescent would be full of turbulent emotions—a storm of feelings she would have to learn to control before using a kystrel. He had promised to give her one when she became an adult. The fact that he had done so now meant that he did not expect to live to see that day. The thought grieved her.

Maia straightened the chain and slung it around her neck. She waited, pensive, trying to see if she would feel any different. But she felt the same as she always did. Nothing had changed.

She tucked the kystrel into her bodice so that its cool metal was pressed against her skin, then folded the paper tightly and hid it in her girdle. She wondered if she would see Walraven again.

He will be dead in a fortnight.

Maia stopped, eyes wide. She had heard the whisper in her thoughts as loudly as if someone had spoken them. It made gooseflesh spread across her arms and neck and a shiver go down her spine.

A fortnight later, when news arrived of Walraven’s death, she learned to trust the voice of the Medium.

The Naestors fear us greatly because the Dochte Mandar have taught them to. They have witnessed the evidence of the Medium’s destruction when a people violates laws of justice, honor, and compassion. Thoughts bring good or ill, depending on the prevailing temperaments. More than anything else, the Naestors fear the annihilation they witnessed after coming to our shores and the mastons who, despite the fervor of their faith in the Medium, could not prevent it. You will learn, great-granddaughter, that the Dochte Mandar took upon themselves the duty to control the feelings of the population. They seek to prevent another Blight. What happens to the flood when the levees are stripped away?

—Lia Demont, Aldermaston of Muirwood Abbey

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Myriad Ones

Y
ou say the watchword is ‘Comoros’?”

Maia stared up at the captain, high on his saddle. He was a big man with a blond turf of stubble on the dome of his head and a trimmed goatee. He had an easy smile, but his eyes bored into hers and stared up and down her body. A twitch at the corner of his mouth flashed and was gone.

All around these men, Maia could feel the sniffling, snuffling reek of the Myriad Ones. Oily blackness gripped her heart. There was a mewling sound, inaudible to the ear, that felt like the whine of a bow driven over a lute string at an awkward angle. It made her teeth hurt and her stomach shrivel.

Jon Tayt hefted an axe in his hand, and the hound Argus growled threateningly.

There were twelve men in all—each on horseback, dressed in the king’s colors, and carrying weapons. Three had crossbows.

“Let us pass,” Maia said, her voice sounding hollow even to her.

The captain of the riders looked at her. His eyes burned with desire. “Kill the dog and the hunter. Bring her to my tent.”

Jon Tayt planted his foot and hurled the axe at the nearest man holding a crossbow. The blade snapped the taut crossbeam, and the mechanism shattered in his hands. Argus snarled and barked furiously, yapping at the horses’ legs as he darted in and out between them, causing the steeds to snort and buck at the commotion.

Jon Tayt drew another axe and sent it winging into the chest of a second crossbowman, toppling him from the saddle.

The kishion struck from the shadows of the road. He had skulked into the darkness the moment they heard the riders’ approach, and now he emerged, digging his dagger into the captain’s leg, making him howl with pain.

Someone grabbed a fistful of Maia’s hair and yanked, dragging her backward. She tripped as her attacker’s horse jostled her and pain shot across her scalp. Reaching back, she grabbed the man’s gloved wrist and tried to pull him off his horse, but all she managed to do was collide with the beast.

“I have her!”

Ignoring the pain, Maia twisted to get a better look at her attacker, only stopping when she saw a dagger dangling from a sheath on the man’s belt. She let go of the wrist and grabbed the hilt, pulling it free.

Another horse boxed her in on the other side, and two arms reached down to pull her up by the armpits. The motion threw her off balance, but at least her hair was free. She struggled against his grip, but he easily turned her over, stomach down, and gave the horse a sharp kick to get it moving. In a series of quick movements, Maia stabbed his thigh with the dagger, drew it out, and stabbed him a second time in the hip. Grunting with pain, he dropped the reins and grabbed her wrist to prevent a third strike. He swore at her, the words laced with anger and pain.

Something yanked on her boot and pulled her off the horse. She landed sharply on the road, the impact knocking the wind out of her. Argus crouched over her, defensively snapping and barking with savage fury.

“By the Blood, kill them all!” the captain roared.

Maia struggled to kneel, trying to breathe through the fiery pain shooting through her lungs. There were so many soldiers. Hooves trampled dangerously near to her, one nearly crushing her hand. She choked for breath, feeling a surging panic.

Dust clotted in her eyes, stinging them. She hunkered down, becoming as small as she could, but a horse still knocked her over. She was going to be trampled. Argus yipped with pain.

Maia could feel the Myriad Ones swarming her, drawn to her terrified emotions, feasting on them. There were hundreds of them—no, perhaps a thousand or more. She could feel their effect on the crazed horses and the lust-filled soldiers, in every blade of grass that surrounded them. The immensity of the feeling swept over her, like the stars glittering in the sky above and the crescent-shaped moon. She felt them probing against her clothes, rooting into her skin—hungry to be part of her, to claim her, to squirm their way inside her. Her heart wrinkled with dread, and she felt a burning sensation in her skin.

Maia lifted her head, drawing on the power of the kystrel.

She blasted the Myriad Ones away from her, sending them scattering about like leaves before a hurricane. She conquered the ache in her stomach enough to struggle to her feet. Clamping an arm around her middle, she lifted her head and stared at the wounded captain, who gazed back at her with terror. Her eyes were glowing silver, she knew that well enough, so he clearly knew she was using a kystrel.

She snuffed out his lust like a candle doused in a bucket. His courage, his fierceness, his bravado—she wrapped these up in the tangled veins of the kystrel and stripped him of everything that made him a man. His horse bucked with horror, and he slipped off the back, crashing to the road in a heap of gibbering fear.

The soldiers saw her and knew her for what she was.

“By the Blood!” someone screamed.

“Kill her! Kill her!”

One crossbowman still lived. He lifted the stock of his weapon and aimed for her heart. Maia sent out a blast of fear, throwing it in every direction like a shattered bottle of glass. The jagged bits flung into everyone. The crossbowman blinked, threw down his weapon, and spurred his horse to flee. Maia whipped the horses with her mind, making them believe they were being hunted by lions. Rather than respond to bit or bridle, they charged recklessly and quickly as far as they could.

Maia stood there like a beacon of fire, her shoulders drawn in, her cloak whipping about her as the crackle and pop of thunder rippled overhead. The winds were drawn to her, and she no longer felt any sign of the Myriad Ones. They were all cowering and skulking away from her.

Argus whined and cowered from her, so she let go of the kystrel’s power, feeling it drain from her slowly. Then came exhaustion, as it always did. There were a few twitching soldiers on the ground, and the kishion went to them one by one, snuffing out their lives.

Jon Tayt collected his axes, his expression dark. He glanced at her without speaking as he finished his dark task, then walked over to where the captain lay sniveling with fear. Jon Tayt was not a tall man, but he towered over the fallen captain.

“Never threaten a man’s hound,” he said in a flat, unemotional voice. Maia turned away as the captain was killed.

When they finally rested that night in the woods, Maia dreamed about her past again. She awoke, the dream still fresh in her mind, her emotions as vivid and real as if she had only just been informed of Chancellor Walraven’s death. All these years later, she could still remember every word of the note he had written to her.

Had I served the Medium with but half the zeal as I served your father, then it would not have left me naked to mine enemies. Until we meet again, in Idumea.

It was the custom of kings and queens to choose the wisest and most able counselors in the realm to advise them. The practice of consulting with a Privy Council was centuries old, dating back to before the mastons fled the kingdoms. The chancellor always led the Privy Council’s discussions, and while Walraven’s influence and power had not always been appreciated, it had always been felt. He had been the most powerful Dochte Mandar in the realm . . . moreover, he had been her staunchest advocate and friend.

The memories brought a painful ache.

She opened her eyes to ground herself in reality. She was tucked into the shade of a fallen tree whose exposed roots twisted like a tangle of vines. The kishion sat nestled in the cover of ferns with her, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow. A small creek murmured next to them.

It was midmorning, but Maia still felt exhausted. They had walked through the night to put distance between themselves and the scene of slaughtered soldiers. Several times during the night they had listened as hunting horns blasted in the trees. There was no doubt the king’s army was hunting them now. After finding a suitable shelter in the ferns beneath the fallen tree, Jon Tayt had gone back to cover their trail and make false ones. He still had not returned.

Maia rubbed her eyes, careful not to rouse the kishion from his nap. Argus lay near her, she noticed, head resting on his paws. She reached out and stroked his fur, apologizing in her own way for frightening him the previous night.

Birds chirped in the tree heights, and the drone of insects offered the illusion of tranquility. The woods were full of the king’s men, she realized. But the woods were vast. It would not be easy for the others to find them if they held very still.

As she stroked Argus, she thought about Walraven again, remembering him with fondness as well as sadness. His actions—his sacrifice—had resulted in the Dochte Mandar being expelled from the realm. And he had known, prophetically, that things would go horribly wrong.

The news of evil had begun with his death. Her father had summoned Walraven to Comoros to stand trial for treason. Everyone knew that he would be condemned and executed, for his own hand had betrayed him. But Walraven took ill on the journey and died of a fever and chills before reaching the city. His body was interred in an ossuary in a mausoleum. There were whispers that he had been poisoned, but the coroners found no evidence of that. Because he had died a traitor, his lands and wealth were forfeited to the Crown. The Dochte Mandar were all given a fortnight to vacate the realm or risk execution.

When they left, the devastation began.

Word came next of a pack of wild boars roaming the hinterlands, besetting villages and killing children. The hunters sent to destroy the pack had failed. Wolves began marauding through the woods as well. Without the Dochte Mandar, the many Leerings in the kingdom were useless, forcing people to carry water or harvest fuel for fire. There were mastons, of course, who could and did use them, but their number was small compared with the Dochte Mandar. The extra work angered the people—a feeling that began to fester.

Soon riots broke out across the kingdom, but that was not the worst of it—tales started to pour in from around the realm, each more horrid than the last. A man with a scythe had gone on a rampage in his village, killing innocent villagers. A mother had drowned her three children in a well. A young man had set fire to a barn full of his village’s grain right before winter. It seemed that every fortnight, another tale of woe would arrive, and the court would gossip and statutes would be passed forbidding this or that. But while a deadly spring that poisoned all who drank from it could be cleansed, this madness kept no pattern. No, it was mercurial and erratic, which meant no one knew when or where the next tragedy would strike. The only commonality was that such things had never occurred under the gaze of the Dochte Mandar. Expelling them from the realm had fundamentally altered Comoros. The people began to fear it was another Blight.

Maia brushed her hair back from her ear, listening to the clicking noise of a series of insects speaking to each other across the vastness of the woods.

Suddenly Argus’s head lifted and his ears shot up. His pale fur twitched. A low growl rumbled in his throat.

Maia reached over and touched the kishion’s knee.

His eyes opened immediately.

“I am sorry—”

She pressed her fingers against her own mouth, signaling for him to be silent.

He rubbed his eyes and shifted forward onto one knee, cocking his head. Then, motioning for her to stay put, he stepped into the soft mud of the creek. The water did not even go up to his knees, but it muffled his footsteps as he ducked under the fallen tree and disappeared from sight. Maia felt a rumble in Argus’s throat and she patted him to quiet him. His ears quivered and his tail had stopped wagging.

The kishion returned shortly thereafter and motioned for her to join him in the water. She grabbed her pack and followed, plunging into the cold water, mud churning beneath her boots. She ducked under the bridge of the fallen tree, trying to keep her cloak from being soaked along with her skirts, and came through into sunlight and solid land on the other side. A bird fluttered past, trilling a song.

The kishion awaited her just past the tree.

“I hear voices coming this way,” he whispered in her ear. “Keep low and follow.”