The Complete Twilight Reign Ebook Collection (54 page)

And what am I supposed to do until then? Even in his head he sounded
petulant; he tried to control the anger he always felt when things were beyond his control. Now was not the time to lose his temper, particularly not with someone who might save his life in some way.

Control the storm, find
a way to channel its
power and
chain it.
I can
feel the Land inside
you, entwined with
magic, and struggling to find its
own
balance. The price of my power is to use it when others have need of it;
it may be that the price of your power will be the need of the entire Land.

But—

No more. You have your
future to meet now.

My future?

The witch turned and walked softly away until she was swallowed up by the silver-tinged darkness. When at last she replied, it was soft and distant, but he could feel a fond humour in the words. Our
future
always lies ahead of us, but sometimes it stops and turns around to look us
in the face. All things have their time. Remember that, young dragon.

‘So what happened back there?’ Vesna asked quietly.

Isak rode on unheeding, his eyes vague, his cloak hood hiding his face from Arian’s light, pondering the strange meeting. The ranger Jeil trotted ahead, following the gentry who were now leading the way. Megenn, unguided by Isak, trailed after the others at his own
pace.

Isak could see nothing but the image of the witch. It was hard not to trust her, but Isak was beginning to doubt altruism in anyone. Was she another player, entering the game? If so, to what end? She had no kingdom to protect, no border to expand - did she have a greater goal than that?

The witch did not offer to guide them herself; Silvernight itself was a time for human festivities, when witches and the spirits of the
night kept quiet. The Finntrail would leave even the weariest of trav
ellers alone, the Coldhand folk would ignore an open barn door, and witches by tradition stayed at home. She had gone outside her house only to speak to the gentry, and nothing but an urgent plea for help
would draw her beyond the boundary wall before dawn.

Mihn had muttered something under his breath, part of a nursery
rhyme maybe, but when Tila had asked, he said it was just the ending
of an old poem. She pushed Mihn until he agreed to repeat it.

Reluctantly, in a subdued voice, he recited, ‘And even the snakes and the gentry shiver, when the Llehden witch comes riding by.’

Tila shivered. She understood his reluctance now.

‘Isak, what happened?’ Vesna touched his Lord on the arm, startling Isak from his thoughts. ‘With the witch, why were you just staring at each other?’ Vesna looked smaller in the bright moonlight, but
perhaps he was just overshadowed by the glow of Siulents.

‘We were talking,’ Isak admitted, and then added, surprisingly, ‘I’m
sorry. There’s so much I’ve not told you, all of you.’

Carel looked resigned and unsurprised, but Tila was furious that there was yet more she didn’t know. Even Mihn stared darkly at his
Lord, his silent criticism the hardest to bear.

‘I know how you all feel,’ Isak started, ‘but it can’t be tonight. Tomorrow, or when this week is finished and the Land returns to
normal.’

‘With the Menin invading the west, normal won’t be for many
years,’ muttered Carel.

‘I meant when Arian goes away,’ Isak clarified. ‘This light hurts my
eyes - this light hurts much in me. Then I’ll explain what I can to
you.’

‘About the scar too?’

‘About the scar,’ confirmed Isak. ‘And the dreams, and anything
else you want.’

Major Ortof-Greyl had been riding ahead with Jeil, but the murmur of voices behind stirred his paranoia. He looked back nervously, even
more embarrassed when Tila shot him a dazzling smile. Isak sneered at
the man, who was everything he despised: pious, privileged, educated
- he’d probably been closeted away from the Land and taught by
priests. And all those honed combat skills and a fine scholarly mind:
everything blurred before the smile of a pretty, young girl.

Ortof-Greyl awkwardly returned her smile. The beads of sweat on his brow shone in the moonlight.

As Isak watched the major turn back to the road, he saw that the tree line was receding, giving way to pastureland. Rustling grasses
shimmered and rippled slowly. The track dipped down, following the
contours of the earth, towards a stream. The major’s horse instinctively turned to the water, but was pulled back on to the right path,
up the slope and to a copse of tall oaks on the peak of a small hill.

Now there were signs of human life. Six hobbled horses stood by
the trees, under the supervision of a soldier who waved and beckoned
them in. The scarlet of his uniform looked black in the moonlight, his steel shone brightly. From either side of the copse, drawn by the
sound of hoofs, trotted a squad of knights, moving slowly so as not to
appear aggressive, but as the gentry began to yammer and hiss, every
horse stopped dead, fearful of the voices from the shadows.

‘You might tell them not to come closer. The gentry seem to object
to your presence,’ Isak said, deciding he agreed with the forest spirits.
The smug piety of the Knights of the Temples was grating - all the
more so for the violence the Order had done over the years, always in
the name of the Gods. Lord Bahl had said once that religious law was
nothing more than an obscene collection of misinterpretations. Bahl
had never been the most forgiving - or accountable - of rulers, but he had never hidden behind religious dogma to justify his actions.

Before the Great War, the Gods had been closer to mortals, making
mistakes, lying and cheating each other, playing tricks and breaking
promises. Since then, myths and stories of the Gods had been used to justify all sorts of strange, sometimes barbaric laws, from the stoning of wildfowl on prayerday to the summary execution of people whose bedrooms overlooked a temple entrance. The people of Vanach, Farlan’s neighbouring state, were in the grip of religious law; the people
there were rumoured to be living in both poverty and terror. That had
been a good enough reason for the Chief Steward to recommend the longer southern route around Tor Milist to Narkang - the disputed
lands between two avaricious rulers were preferable to the wilful madness of folk living according to scripture.

‘The presence of those creatures pollutes this holy place.’ The major
kept his head low as he spoke.

Isak couldn’t tell whether he was repeating by rote or trying to
hide his disgust. Free spirits like the gentry were considered blasphem
ous and unclean by the Devoted. Isak couldn’t help wondering why the Gods themselves did nothing to stop them if this was such an
obscenity.

‘Gods, look at them,’ breathed Carel in wonder. For a moment Isak looked around, thinking the gentry had come out into the open, then he realised Carel was staring at the huge weathered standing stones past the trees: roughly hewn blocks of moss-speckled granite. The forbidding stones looked almost dull in the moonlight. All but one of the outer circle were still standing erect, towering ten feet or more into the sky. Thick trails of ivy snaked up their sides, somehow reaching from one stone to the next until it crowned the forgotten temple. The ivy looked black and sin
ister; Arian’s light seemed to slip off its waxy surface and down on to the twigs and acorns that littered the ground. It illuminated two yards
of ground inside the ring before the second circle of standing stones, half the height of the outer ring, rose to cast yet more shadows.

The outer stones are called “the Soldiers”. The inner ring stones
are “the Priests”.’

Isak nodded absentmindedly at Mihn’s words, scanning the copse until he could make out four men in the centre. Again, they were
trying to appear relaxed and non-threatening. It made Isak’s palms
itch.

The soldiers are supposed to have murdered the priests during a
ritual,’ Mihn continued quietly. They waited for them to fall into a trance before creeping up and slitting their throats. They were
supposed to be protecting the priests. There is disagreement about
whether this was a just act or not, but murder certainly took place
here.’

‘And Belarannar turned them all to stone?’

‘No, the soldiers escaped.’

‘And the act was justified.’ The major’s voice was fierce as he
glared at Mihn, his hand hovering close to his blade. He had turned
back to find his charges. The monks were consorting with daemons,
using human sacrifices in the most evil of rituals. The soldiers were
men hired to protect the monastery, but they could not ignore the truth. They founded our Order to continue the struggle against the enemies of the Gods. These stones remind my Order of our
origins.’

Mihn didn’t reply, but dipped his head to acknowledge the major’s
words.

‘Penitence is a wonderful thing,’ declared Isak. He caught Vesna’s
eye and forced a smirk. The count smiled in return. Major Ortof-
Greyl kept his mouth firmly shut and endured the jibe silently.

Isak climbed down off his horse and entered the copse on foot. He could feel the weight of Arian’s gaze lift from his shoulders - perhaps
he was happier here in the shadows. The gentry, spirits that were usually seen only at twilight, when the Gods rested, had accepted him as
a brother. What about the other creatures of shadow? Would Azaer
now see him as kin or foe?

‘You’re worried about that, aren’t you?’ Isak hadn’t meant to speak
aloud, but it was quietly done and Mihn was the only one close enough
to hear. Still, he kept quiet as he continued to speak in his head,
Are
you scared of finding yourself on the wrong side of this war? What if the real
you comes out only in battle? What if you are the
monster
you’ve always
feared? Do you trust yourself to be a good and just ruler?

He didn’t know how to answer these questions, but they lingered,
for if forces on both sides had affected his life, there would be darkness in his soul as well as light. Deep inside, he recognised the truth
in that.

Moving through the trees, touching the trailing ivy as he went
Isak felt the temple, slumbering. The ground was still consecrated’
whatever had happened here: it was still special to a Goddess of the
Upper Circle and there would always be an echo of her presence
there.

And all around, Isak could feel the gentry stirring, leaning gently
with the wind as they stood as patiently as the grass. It was only when
they moved that he could feel them at all; unlike humans, there was
no resonance of their presence so they just faded into the background of wood and earth, leaving a faint air of expectation, like scent on the
breeze. He envied them that, the peace of being so completely a part of the Land that they could just step back into it and disappear.

‘Lord Isak,’ called someone from the heart of the temple in precise,
educated Farlan. A portly older man stepped out through the inner
circle to meet them, moving like a man many summers younger. As
he neared, Isak could see he was a general.

‘My Lord, I am Jebel Gort,’ the man said, a dazed smile on his face.
It took Isak a moment to realise that this general of sixty or more summers was slightly awestruck.

‘And them?’ Isak gestured to the three other men, who had not
moved. Two, though looking well into middle age, were obviously
fit and strong; they wore swords at their hips. One man was of western stock, with a wide nose and sloping forehead; Isak suspected he
was from Vanach. The other was Chetse - though he looked strange
with short hair and a rapier at his waist. The only Chetse Isak had
met was one of the wildest of their kind; this man looked like a doll in comparison. The third man was younger, a tall, hard-faced individual who might have been from Narkang. He stood a little further
back.

These are General Diolis, General Chotech in the middle, with
Major Irien back there,’ General Gort said. ‘Major Ortof-Greyl has
explained that we are not here as officials of our Order.’

‘He told me something that I didn’t believe,’ Isak said, ‘but you
didn’t bring any mages with you, and I think the gentry would have
dealt with any army-‘

The gentry?’ the general cut in. ‘So that’s what’s been making such
an infernal racket at night.’

‘They were probably arguing about how they wanted to kill you. In
any case, I’ve been brought to a strange place that I don’t much care
for; to meet people I care much less for, for a reason I don’t believe,
and on my birthday. Consider me annoyed and get to the fucking
point.’