The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (15 page)

As the owner had promised, his eyelids grew heavy within seconds of the first pull, the din of the minds around him beginning to dull even with the second inhale.

For the first time since he had encountered the shamans of Kest, and only the second time in the past three months, Murin slept.

"Wake up," called the voice.

Murin ran the back of his hand across his damp forehead, disgusted by the sweat and even more annoyed at hearing another voice. He willed the voice away and rolled over.

"I said wake up, you oaf," the voice persisted.

Murin sat up, the effort making him nauseous.
 

"Shut up, whatever sort of hallucination you might be," he said to the apparition on the other side of his closed eyelids.

"You think me a hallucination, do you? It will take stronger stuff than this world has to cloud that mind of yours," the voice said. It sounded familiar; like someone he used to know from a time long gone.

It cannot be
, he thought.

"Oh, but it is," the voice answered.

Murin opened his eyes, struggling to adjust even to the dim light of the smoke-filled tent.

"Timoc?" Murin said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, squinting through the smoke at the shimmering, translucent shape of a man sitting cross-legged on the pillows across from him. The figure was nearly as tall as himself, with grey skin and bright purple hair in a simple grey hooded robe. "This is not possible. You cannot be here."

"Physically, no. Have you forgotten all about astral projection, old friend?"

"You should still not be able to reach this world," Murin said, slowly regaining his senses. Thankfully, he couldn't yet hear the minds of the people in the warrens.

"The first of the vertices has been destroyed. The ward has weakened."

Murin straightened. "Impossible; I just left that vertex yesterday. It was well guarded. And you're not here. This is all just the drug affecting my mind."

"Deny it all you want, but the first vertex has been destroyed and here you sit, lying in a drug-addled stupor in this cesspool. Were you not listening? The first vertex has fallen, and the ward is weakening. The mere fact that I can project into this world should make you wet your pants with fear, old man."

Murin leaned back and stretched, as if being called an old man made his muscles cramp up. He chuckled. "You will never guess who I found while locating the first vertex."

The translucent image of Timoc said nothing.

"A sigilord and a quiver, neither of whom have the faintest idea of their power or potential."

"Now you really are hallucinating. The sigilords have been gone from this world since the end of the Fulcrum War and the Age of Power."

"Some of the old blood must still persist after all."

"Murin," Timoc's image said, leaning forward, "the universe isn't like it used to be. Things have changed. We can no longer sit idly by and watch."

"You know what interference has cost me—cost us all—in the past."

"And you know all too well the price of doing nothing," Timoc retorted.

"Do not
dare
bring that up." Murin bristled. "I did what I could. I went to warn the people who live above the first vertex. They are the most fierce, most battle-hardened people on this world. If they could not stop the Order then I doubt any can."

"The Order? Those blood-drenched madmen still remain, after all this time?"

Murin nodded. "There are only a few, and they have but a fraction of their former power. They play games of politics and power to manipulate the new races into doing their work for them."

"You can't let them destroy another vertex. There must be one near you; that's how I can project into this realm. You have to find it and move it."

"I will not interfere again. I cannot. The cost is too high."

"Murin, don't you think three thousand years of penance is enough? This is bigger than your guilt. If I can project through the ward, then so can others, others who can help the Order tear down the rest of it."

Murin looked up at his old friend and one-time student. He had been consumed by his own guilt and his self-imposed exile, too consumed to see all the possibilities. If the Order destroyed the vertices, the consequences would be unimaginable.

"Moving the vertices won't stop them," he said. "The Order doesn't care about what gets between them and the vertices, they will lay waste to this whole planet."

"Master, you have to stop the Order. The last time we stayed our hands and let things take their natural—"
 

"Enough, I remember what happened," Murin snapped. "No army can stop the Order, Timoc,"

"If you have a sigilord and a quiver at your side, you don't need an army."

Murin looked up, suddenly aware of multiple presences approaching him. These were disciplined, focused minds. They were carrying out orders; soldiers or some other form of local law.

Before Murin could stand up, the tent flap opened and a trio of soldiers wearing shiny, bronze-colored armor ducked inside, their pointed helmets and floating cloaks making them look like decorated birds.

The leader of the trio flipped his helmet up and stared at Murin for a moment before speaking. "My name is Knight Marshall Corliss, and I should be arresting you. Unfortunately there's no law against what you're doing down here, since technically we aren't within city limits. I am a little surprised to see you here, however."

"Surprised to see me? Why?" Murin replied in fluent Erubis, the local language. He didn't know it normally, but since the drug was already wearing off, he had picked it up from nearby minds.

"I've had my men searching all the reputable inns and hostels for you. Imagine my surprise when you turn up down here while I'm looking for thieves," Corliss said. "I promised your friends I would look for you."

"My friends?"

"Two scary-looking dark-skinned boys from Ehmshahr."

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Murin smiled.

13

Cailix sat in the pub in the basement of the hostel, facing the exit, her back to a corner. Instinct told her this was the safest position to take up in a strange place, and there was no place stranger than this. Part of her regretted leaving Anderis, but only because there may yet have been something more she could have learned from him. Part of her also regretted not killing him when she had the chance.

But being free of that creature and on her own, in control of her own fate, was more important.

She smiled a little, imagining the look on his face when he awoke with the knife on his pillow, a clear reminder that she'd had the power to kill him and let him live.

Waldron was every bit as hot and sticky as Naredis had been cold and unforgiving. The sun had been down for hours, yet still she sweltered.

The room was quiet for the most part. A few older men carried on in the local tongue, arguing about the game they were playing with stone pieces on a painted game board. Others took their supper in silence, pondering their meals, trying to avoid staring at the strange boy who sat at the bar.

Cailix may have been a stranger from far to the north, but this young man exemplified the word
strange
. At least with the clothing Anderis had provided, she could blend in relatively well. The stranger who people could not stop ogling sat reading a book and serenely eating cookies, but there was little he could do to avoid standing out.

His skin was the color of the briene foreman's drink with a drop of milk, his eyes the color of pure amber, his long, shoulder-length hair as black as night. His arms were so thick with muscles she wondered how he could move them, and, over the protests of the innkeeper, weapons poked out of his clothing like seedlings pushing through fresh topsoil.

Of course, someone who looked like that eating cookies was just the finishing touch on the bouquet of strange.

Cailix watched him sipping his drink, fascinated by the contradiction of this brutal warrior drinking tea with honey like a handmaiden. Maybe where he came from, the tough men drank tea and all the dainty women drank the hard stuff from the cask. She wondered if there even were any dainty women where he came from.

One thing she had learned in her travels with Anderis—one of the many things she would take away with her when she rid herself of him—was that the idea of
normal
changed with who you were and where you came from.

It also changed with how much power you could wield.

A trio of boys spilled through the entrance, laughing at some inside joke, pushing and shoving each other and generally being the typical annoying creatures who were too old to be boys and not mature enough to be men.

They stopped short when they saw the stranger sitting at the bar, gesturing at him and whispering to each other.

She gripped the little dagger hidden in her coat sleeve. She knew their type, old and strong enough to create mayhem and too stupid to decide against it. They pointed, each daring the other to approach the stranger, that glint in their eye that flitted between malicious and mischievous intent.

Finally the tallest boy puffed out his chest, gave his companions a few punches in the shoulders, and approached the bar.

* * *

Urus stared into the bottom of his hot tea, his mind wandering. How Goodwyn had been able to sleep was a mystery. They were alone, halfway across the world from home, and had no idea where Murin was or how they could get back. Hell, they didn't know if there was even a home left waiting for them if they could get back.

He hated this place. He hated Waldron and the wet, smelly air and the way people stared at him. Most of all he hated that Uncle Aegaz wasn't there.

The people here didn't smell right. Back in Kest, everyone smelled of the spices they used in the food; mostly the dried red pepper Kestians called the "devil's cinnamon". He hadn't noticed the change in smells until he arrived in the city where everyone smelled of wet earth, sweat, and pungent perfumes to cover up what the soaps couldn't clean.

Urus studied the book on the counter before him. Wrinkled, aged leather cradled the old, yellowed pages in a soft, maternal embrace. The gold clasp taunted him, begging him to find a way to open it.

He lay his hand across the symbol in the lock. Without his willing anything to happen, the blue smoke drifted up from his hands and the warmth surged from his fingertips, through his shoulder, and down his spine. It hurt a little, like flexing a cold, sore muscle.

The clasp sprang open. Urus cast a furtive glance around the room, checking to make sure no one had noticed the blue glow, then opened the book.

The pages smelled old and dusty, but then he had always loved the smell of books and the stains they made on his thumbs after a long night of reading great tales of adventure. The first page was indecipherable, written in some unknown language. The second was equally opaque, as was the third.
 

Urus flipped through the book, picking up speed as he scanned for something that he could read. Finally, about halfway through the book, he found a page written in ancient Kestian, a language every Kestian boy was taught and every Kestian boy thought was dead and useless. He could imagine the "I told you so" look on teacher Garish's face if he could see Urus now, reading ancient Kestian.

The passage read:

118 Deborg's Reign 27

Today we repeated the experiment again. Only two of the sigils glowed in response to Serbis's touch. We still struggle to discover the meaning of the symbols. It has been three weeks since the arrival of the stranger who says the obelisk is one of five points. He says they are like keystones to a building that exists outside this universe. He calls people like us, people who can activate the stone,
Radixes
.
 

125 Deborg's Reign 27

Tragedy and heartache. Serbis's lad, Inox, was playing in the obelisk chamber as we repeated our experiments to no avail, when he touched one of the symbols and vanished.

Deborg's Reign
, Urus thought.
Emperor Deborg ruled the deserts when Kest was nothing more than fence posts and tents, 800 years ago
.