The Exodus Sagas: Book I - Of Spiders And Falcons (34 page)

“If the church has the answers you need, be my guest. I doubt they will protect you as I can. If their priests had the answers they would have told you in Southwind. Your scroll may be beyond their ability to understand. If you would like my help, I will need to see the scroll.” Gwenne acted the part well, her mother hopefully sleeping soundly by now. “I will give it back, brave minotaur, you have my word.”

The gray gladiator pulled out the heavy stone scroll and handed it to Gwenne, his senses telling him something didn’t fit entirely together, yet his body felt as to collapse. He retired to a bearskin rug on the floor. Most evident it was for decoration yet the horned warrior did not care. He had met the last few days head on and the night and warmth had taken him into deep slumber despite his fighting effort to stay awake. James too, had lost himself to dreaming in the warmth of the chamber, armor still on, asleep in a chair of fine tanned brahma hide leather across from Saberrak.

Shinayne looked from the window, having indulged in fantasy enough for the evening, focusing on what the next move would be. She turned to see Azenairk kneeling toward a plain stone wall by the fireplace, praying and humming hymns in his sharp dwarven dialect and holding his hammer and moons symbol to his chest. He had quietly taken off his armor, piece by piece, and laid his warhammer down beside him. Turning to her right, the other two warriors lay fast asleep, worn from battle.

“
Men
.” the elven noble strolled to Gwenneth, watching her unroll the parchment on her long oak table. “Seems we are the only ones with strength left Lady of Lazlette. The men have lost their zeal and ferocity, leaving you and I to unravel this conundrum.”

“Yes, I see as much. Please, call me Gwenne,
one lady to another
. Now if you could hold the stone end there, yes, and let us see what fate has brought us Lady T’Sarrin.” Gwenneth was fascinated, exhausted as well, but too enthralled with this to even consider sleep.

“Please call me Shinayne.
One lady to another
. If this is a holy text Gwenne, how will you be able to comprehend the dialect or fully grasp the religious meaning in any great capacity?” the elf looked at the words, almost a pattern of ancient artwork rather than a language.

“I studied most every ancient language, including this one, ancient Altestani. This spoken language predates the commonly used arcane writ and most divine scripture known in existence. However, we have one professor here, well a few, that intensely preach of the beginnings of the divine and the arcane as having much the same roots in ancient Altestan. I assure you, I am well versed in my Aldane, my histories, and my languages, and if this is half as valuable and timeless as I feel it is you will have every effort of mine at your disposal.” Hoping that put her questions to rest for a small time, Gwenneth began picking pieces of parchment off the bottom, chipping with small tools at the ink and stone, and invoking dozens of spells and arcane powers. From ancient identity orisons, to deep reading glyphs, and even elemental counter-divinations, the prodigal wizard, assisted by her elven companion, stayed hours into the night examining every aspect and word of the scroll found under Arouland. Fueled by inspiration, focused by curiosity, and driven by passages and phrases with hidden magicks and meaning only she could uncover, Gwenneth did not rest long after Shinayne had given in.

The vials of alchemically prepared and enchanted liquid were all glowing with a radiant blue for more than an hour now, unlike anything Gwenne had ever seen. She had tested many liquids and chemicals in here, yet never had anything produced a glow to the entire room let alone for this long. The parchment in the beakers as well, along with her spells of divining truth from simple matter, all pointed to an odd conclusion. This ink, she knew, was indeed blood. Some of it several thousand years old, some of it only a decade near the end, but as impossible as it was, it was all from the same being. She doubted herself and her abilities, yet she had cast the incantations perfectly, twice, and had received the same arcane impulses and derived the identical conclusions. The parchment had tested as pressed skin or tissue from the same being, twice over as well. Her candles nearly spent, puddles of cascaded wax forming intricate designs down the base of the holders, Gwenne tried to put together such ancient passages with testimony to dark Altestani worship. Annar was in fact the being that wrote it, and having done so with his own blood, on paper made of his skin, over nearly two thousand years. Her divinations had answered the same result a dozen times now in the night.

The church would hide it or declare it blasphemy, speaking of Yjaros, the God of divine creation of the Altestani people and the devil, Shukuru of old covenant texts, in the same document. The scripture itself was magical, divine, arcane, older magic, not any that Gwenne thought could be reproduced. Feeling and thought seemed to grasp and enervate her mind as if the words had mystical evocation upon sight, releasing penetrating belief in the writer’s tale of torment and deception. Despite the blue glow that emitted from it, the priests would deny it as an error or plot from a cult of demon worshipping savants playing a cruel prank. Her own mother would have it destroyed or sent away far out of Vallakazz, for safety and to avoid attention from anyone that might find interest, good or otherwise, in this artifact. Gwenne knew what she had to do, the only answer to truly unleashing what was inside with any certainty in private.

Middir would side with her mother, Dasius opposed her, and the other professors were plainly under her skill as it was. Gwenneth knew that Dasius of Caberra kept a forbidden warlock mirror in his chambers. Unbeknownst to Aelaine, she had used it before when she had snuck in. The prodigy felt fear for but a moment, traveling up her spine and forking throughout her body. What she was about to do, was walking this moment to do, her mother would possibly banish her for. Gwenneth went to make contact with the only man she trusted with more power and knowledge than her own. She went to contact her mothers first mentor by trespassing and using illicit arcane devices. Knowing that a God was the creator of this scroll and for a divine purpose, she needed more than what Vallakazz could offer. She went to contact the most famous and powerful wizard alive, Kalzarius of Harlaheim.

Kaya I:I

Eastern Trail, Southwind Keep

Sleet and bombardments of large wet snowflakes covered the sky in front of her, as she watched the road to the east. It was early morning, a glimpse of light blue and gray peering from the western horizon over Southwind Keep. The mountains to the far north, and hills of rolling farmlands were barely visible in the early morning snowshower. The winter trees and quiet of the small iced forest was peaceful to her troubled mind. Kaya T’Vellon watched the west, making sure she had not been followed. She knew, from Dasius in Vallakazz, that James Andellis and his companions had arrived with no escort and no letter from the church as he could tell. The Lady of Southwind knew that meant one of two things. Either her men were dead and exposed, the group carrying the scroll had their letter. Or, one or both of her men ran into trouble, fled, or escaped and would be heading back west. This being the third day out in the cold of early morning or late at night, Kaya was weary and nervous. The fear of a failed mission for the White Spider was enough to keep her awake, as were the consequences of her brother or the king finding out of her allegiance. All her men had to do was get the scroll, keep the letter of recommendations, abandon them in the Chazzrynn wilderness, then the assassins in the arcane community of Vallakazz were to cover the western gate, and the four would never have been seen again. Kaya was frustrated, hearing that nothing thus far had gone right, none according to plan, and the companions were with the scroll safely in the academy. Now she had to dispose of her own men and abandon Southwind Keep leaving it unoccupied by Johnas’ organization. She hoped that he would not have her killed for losing the keep, since Elcram held no members of the White Spider inside. The value of this noble fortress to the White Spider was hopefully less than the lady known as
Jade of the West
appraised.

Evril had returned last night, fresh wounds from ogre clubs, very believable to all but herself. Kaya knew that the young knight had been lying to her brother Alexei and the others. She had seen ogre wounds, even grazing ones to the face, and Evril Alvander must have hit himself mercilessly several times, but not enough to fool her. She planned to meet him for his reward in the stables this morning. His eyes told her, other than self inflicted swelling, that something had not gone to plan and he had arrived half a day earlier than expected. Before this morning was over, Kaya would have all the answers she needed, and all loose ends tied off.

Lady T’Vellon saw the faint figure of a horse walking slowly down the trail toward her, barely visible in the black and gray haze of snowy dawn. Content with herself and her patience, she walked ahead in the tree line, keeping just out of sight. The man on the back of the horse was slumped over, likely due to exhaustion and an attempt to keep warm. Kaya drew her shortsword and waited. Her long gray robes and winter clothes pulled around her as she stepped in the snow.

The young red headed knight of Dunmoor raised his head, seeing the keep in the near horizon. His horse was wobbly, the ground slick, and the breeze unforgiving. His last two days had been hell since the food they had packed was on the other knights’ horse, the one that did not make the journey by way of a giant horned snowpanther. He pulled his waterskin out from beneath his arm, the water warmed now, unfrozen from his body heat. He raised it to his cracked lips. His eyes widened, the horse pulled to the right into the trees as a cold blade plunged into his ribs and lung. He couldn’t breath, the pain and spasming and puncture had done its work. He felt himself half falling, half pulled from his tired mount, hitting the white ground as the blade freed itself from his chest. He tried to draw his broadsword as he lay on his back and got it almost loose, when cold steel cut across his throat. His eyes blackened, body feeling a chill to end all chills, one that could not be warmed. He looked to the gray snow sky, flakes falling to his face. Beautiful, smiling, with glossy eyes, Lady Kaya was there at his end. He could not see, as his last moments drifted away from the world of consciousness, that her blade ran red with his blood.

The lady of the keep searched his packs and belt, finding the letter from the church in Southwind Keep. Kaya tucked it into her robes, cleaned her shortsword off on his tabard, and kicked the body over till it rolled downhill, well out of sight off the trail into the woods. Soon it would be buried in the snow. Months before the thaw, he was safe from notice for quite some time. The horse wobbled some more, Kaya leading it back to where she knew the road to be and started toward the stables, still before daybreak.

In early morning, Evril Alvander snuck into the partially opened door to the stables, the smell not as bad as his mind recalled due to the cold. Rows of horses, over a hundred fine steeds and a few brahmas kept well on the end of the long narrow stone building. One lantern was lit on the far corner where his mistress had told him she would be. The young traitor ran his fingers through his long dark curls and felt the stubble on his face and swollen cheek. A bruise recalled from an attacking tree branch and the pommel of his broadsword. He had lay with the lady of the keep once before, but a servant had interrupted and they held still for an eternity in her bedchamber. Fearing being caught, she promised to offer herself again, after another favor, this one more dangerous. He could not wait to tell her and relay the story of the ogre that, in fact, did come after him in the foothills after his killed the escorts and the priest. He saw her silhouette in the lamplight, saw her sitting on a chair in her robes, waiting for him.

“I have been waiting for weeks Kaya and here you are. Like the bruise?” his voice nervous, in anticipation, his craving for her body and pleasures barely held back by words.

“I did, very nice. So what happened?” her smile was warm and inviting, she opened her robes a small inch or two, enough for him to gather that she had little underneath. Her feet kicked at the fresh hay brought from the stock barn and the blanket she had laid on top of it.

“I led them off the trail to the foothills…” he knelt on the blanket, at her feet, running his hand up her calf and thigh, trying to open her robes more with his teeth, playfully. “…killed the escorts in their sleep and shot the priest…” his hand touched for her breast, feeling the soft skin through the robe. He ran his other hand between her legs and moved his lips up into her dark brown waves of hair, fishing for her ear. “…with the poisoned bolt. He had some problems with
dying
…” Evril kissed her ear. Hearing a faint moan of pleasure, he continued. Her hands now pulling his tabard off and beginning on removing his shirt. “…but I managed to show him that the broadsword had other plans.”

“And the horses, where are the rest?” her hands now running up and down his bare and nearly hairless chest, nails scratching playfully.

“The story about the ogre attack was
true
my love…” the young man now had positioned himself between her legs, still on his knees while she sat in the wooden chair. His hands tried removing the robes and loose clothing from her shoulders, yet she resisted playfully. “…six of them charged from above the foothills, chased me, and took the horses I had tethered before I could get them free.” barely able to breath, a slight sweat glowing between their bodies, the kissing became more prevalent than words. “But I escaped, mission completed, the deed is done…” his pants loosened by the lady of the keep, he ran his fingers across her perfectly shaped breasts inside her garments, then down between her thighs, feeling for the treasure he had waited weeks for. “…and I am alive and was not followed by ogre or anyone, just as you wished my lady.” Evril pushed himself onto the woman he had dreamt of for years, fantasized about for months, craved for weeks, and felt the brutal sensations of lust, even stronger than before.