The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (8 page)

"I do see something," she began. "There's a broken tree branch behind you that has an end sharp enough to use as a weapon. I can see the wagon ruts in the road even with the snow on top. The trees are taller far to the south so the climate is better there. There are two kinds of poisonous berries nearby and three edible ones. We are a half day's jog from Naredis."

"What does all that have in common?" Anderis asked, beaming with pride.

"It all helps me survive," she replied without hesitation. "Everywhere I go I know the exits, the entrances, the dangers and safe spots. These things tell me how I could kill you and run away."

Anderis nodded, ignoring her comment about murder. "Now close your eyes and tell me what you
feel
."

She did as she was told, again thinking this was a foolish exercise. Eyes closed, she
 
listened to the snow-dampened quiet of the mountainside. She heard the wind blow and the beat of her own heart.
 

"Stop listening and
feel
," Anderis said.

She felt the
thump-thump
of her heartbeat. Before long it became the
thump-thump-thump-thump
of two heartbeats, beating out of sync. Without knowing how, she knew the second heartbeat belonged to Anderis. She could
feel
the blood coursing through his veins as easily as she could her own.

She gasped aloud when she realized what was happening. A moment later she felt another heartbeat, this one beating much more rapidly.
 

"A rabbit," she said. "I can feel a rabbit. I don't know how I know it's a rabbit, but it's a rabbit, and a big one. It has a strong, fast heart."

"Keep your eyes closed and point to it," Anderis said.

Cailix thrust her finger out without hesitation. She knew exactly where the rabbit was. "There," she said. "Maybe ten meters."

Anderis chuckled. "Do you know it took my last pupil a month to learn this simple technique?"

"You need to pick better pupils," Cailix quipped, opening her eyes.

"Indeed I do," he said, stepping closer. "Now for the real lesson. Why do we feel no remorse in the killing of these rabbits?"

"Because people eat rabbits," she replied. "That's a stupid question."

"Is it? You have remarkably little patience for one who has survived so many trials. Men kill animals for food, but also for pelts, hides, bone, all sorts of things. But man also destroys and kills without using anything of the corpse. Why?"

"War. Men fight wars."

"And?"

"Murder. People kill each other."

"Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Why do people kill each other?"
 

"That's another stupid question. People kill each other because they're mean, or stupid, or both. And some people just deserve to be killed," said Cailix, hoping Anderis would know the last bit was meant for him.

Anderis shook his head and paced back and forth for a moment before continuing. He seemed like a different person entirely when teaching, completely unlike the murderous brute that slaughtered the monks for a map.

"It is much more basic than that, so simple that none ever stop to think about it. We kill rabbits because we need to eat. We kill men because we need something from them, or they are keeping us from something we need. We fight wars because our enemies occupy the land we need."

Cailix listened, genuinely interested in the lesson now.

"There is no good and evil, no right or wrong. There is strong and there is weak. There is no bad, there is only
need
. If you have what I need and I am stronger than you, I will take it. That is the end of it.
That
is the nature of the world and nothing more. I am not evil for killing those monks. They had what I needed, they could not stop me from taking it, so I took it."

"But you killed them for that stupid map," Cailix growled. "You could have just taken what you needed and left them in peace."

"Perhaps," Anderis said with a nod. "Why did you come with me? What did you
need
?"

"I needed to survive and I wasn't strong enough survive on my own," she said, pausing to think a moment. "I wasn't strong enough to kill you."

"Excellent," he said. "Now for the second half of the lesson. We need to eat. That rabbit is meat. It being alive interferes with our needs. We're going to kill the rabbit, but how? You have no spear, no bow, no sword."

"I can use blood magic?" Cailix asked, eager to test the power Anderis claimed she had.

If he teaches me blood magic, I can use it to kill him one day
, she thought.

"But what form? You could bleed yourself dry, using up your power to summon a fireball to burn the rabbit. You could conjure a storm to suck up your prey and knock it against the ground. You could hurl rocks at it. Blood is a rare, precious commodity and must be used wisely. How would you use your power to fetch us dinner in this cold, miserable wasteland?"

Cailix studied the rabbit. It remained blissfully unaware of potential predators as it chewed incessantly on a tiny bit of vegetation. The creature probably spent its energy foraging all day for the smallest pieces of greenery. It was a boring, miserable existence.
 

I would lose my mind if my life was as boring as a rabbit's
, she thought.

 
Suddenly an idea occurred to her.

She touched her nose and felt a bead of blood form on her fingertip. It was just a single droplet, but instinctively she knew what she could do with even one drop. The droplet lifted off her finger and floated in the air before her.

"Wha—" Anderis gasped. "I haven't taught you that yet! How did you—?"

Cailix smiled. Confusing and angering Anderis amused her. Controlling the blood felt invigorating and made her feel powerful, and she liked that. She focused all of her concentration on the tiny droplet of blood. Then, building up all that focus and power like fanning a flame with a bellows, she released all that energy focused on the blood drop.

It shot through the air, covering the distance between her and the rabbit in the blink of an eye. The blood drop hit the rabbit in the center of its eye with so much force that it punched through the eye and burst out the other side, bits of eyes and brain splattering onto the snow beside it.
 

Without making a noise and or ever getting a chance to flee, the rabbit simply flopped to one side and died.
 

"That was—" Anderis said, eyes wide and breathing heavily. "That was simply amazing. There are fully trained blood mages who cannot control their power with such precision!"

Cailix shrugged. "It just felt right to me. To survive you have to conserve your energy, in case you need more later. This felt like the same thing—kill the rabbit with the smallest effort."

Anderis stepped toward her and grabbed her shoulders, grinning from ear to ear. "You will make a fine blood mage one day."

"I thought mages were men," Cailix said. "Don't you mean blood witch?"

Anderis beamed proudly down at her, "I suppose you're right. I have never trained a female blood mage so I never thought about what one would be called. But, you
do
need a new name. Cailix is the name your weak, insignificant caregivers gave you. From now on I will call you Aerlissa."

"What does that mean?" Cailix asked. Seeing the joy this man got from teaching her showed his weakness. She now knew what pleased him, and so now she knew how to manipulate him and get from him what she
needed
. She needed power, and power meant survival.

"Aerlissa is a name from ancient history, from a war thousands of years ago. She was a fierce soldier and an even more vicious commander. The name comes from an ancient tongue long forgotten. It means 'bringer of death'."

Anderis smiled again, "Much better than Cailix, yes?"

"Yes, much," Cailix lied. It was then that she decided she would exploit Anderis's weakness. She would learn everything he had to teach, learn how to be a blood witch, and then she would kill him.

7

The gas lamp taunted Urus. It hung atop the arched entryway over the stairs, framing the darkness below, reminding him that few of his usual tricks for compensating for deaf ears would work in the pitch black of the dungeon.

He clenched his fists at his side. The dungeon was a rat's warren of interconnected tubes and hallways on four different levels. The only light in the dungeon came from lamps in sconces, providing just enough amber glow for prisoners to see their food and water. Any enemy attempting to get in or out of the dungeons might die of thirst or madness before reaching their goal.
 

How do the guards know where to go?
Urus wondered.

He crept down the lamplit stairs, wading into the pool of darkness. Taking one deep breath before stepping out of the last ember of light, he stepped forward.

A hand gripped his shoulder, startling him. He jumped and stumbled back, barely avoiding a fall. After recovering his balance, he saw Goodwyn trying his best to stifle a chuckle. He was in full First Fist uniform, red sash hung over his leather jerkin, his suzur slung around his waist, chains resting against the rigid leather guard that kept them from slicing Goodwyn's leg.

"What are you doing here?" Urus signed.

"Helping you," Goodwyn mouthed. Barely visible in the murky light, Urus could see that his friend cradled a neatly folded set of padded armor in his hands. Two heavy spiked maces rested atop the dark brown leather.

"I don't need your help," Urus snapped aloud.

"Really?" Goodwyn flashed Urus a sardonic smile. "You're culled. The guards are as likely to throw you in your own cell as they are to let you speak to a prisoner."

He shoved the bundle into Urus's arms. "Put these on."

For a moment Urus considered refusing out of spite and anger. He hated that Goodwyn always made so much sense. The idea of descending into the dungeon alone really had been a stupid one, but it was worse that Goodwyn knew it.

"With that on you can pass as an acolyte in the First Fist, like me. We might be able to talk to the prisoner that way. They won't recognize you as long as your—" Goodwyn paused. "As long as your chest is covered."

"Far better than my plan," Urus said aloud, pulling the padded leather jerkin over his shirt, its metal studs glinting in the torchlight. The poultice finally seemed to be doing some good as the pain from the branding barely bothered him anymore.

"It was your uncle's plan, really."

Urus froze. "My uncle's? He sent you down here? He doesn't think I'm good enough to do this on my own, does he?"

"It's not like that. He said you had to get in to see some mysterious prisoner and that I could help."

"I don't know why I should be surprised. Lately you get to spend more time with him than I do," Urus signed, hands a blur in the dim corridor.

He picked up the maces, appreciating their weight. He swapped them so the heavier of the two was on his left, his strong side. Satisfied, he slipped them through the loops on his belt.

"Maces?" he signed. "Couldn't have brought something with a little more finesse?"

"I never took you for a finesse fighter," Goodwyn replied with a wide smile.

Urus gave him a look but didn't disagree. As jealous as he was of his friend and angry in general, he simply couldn't stay mad at him.

"Urus, I saw what they did to you," Goodwyn said. "During the ceremony.
 
I—"

"I don't want to talk about it," Urus replied.
 
"Truce?" he signed, then held out his arm.

Goodwyn nodded, grabbing hold of Urus's arm up past the elbow. They clasped firmly in the typical warrior greeting and then let go.

"Grab the mace end of my suzur; I'll guide us through," Goodwyn said, unraveling some of the weapon and handing Urus the mace.
 

"Who's going to guide you?" Urus asked.

Goodwyn just smiled and spun around, disappearing into the darkness. A moment later the suzur chain jerked taut, tugging Urus forward.

They ducked into the dungeons, and Urus's mind recoiled, the absence of sight and other senses almost too much to bear. For a few minutes he held onto the tiny scraps of remaining light from the lamp at the entrance, but that quickly faded until it was darker than the darkest night and, other than his grip on Goodwyn's suzur and the occasional scrape against a stone wall, there was nothing.
 

He focused on the smells to keep from panicking. He smelled smoke, tea, and coffee, all probably from the fires kept by the guards in the cell blocks.

They turned corners, descended stairs, turned more corners, and climbed back up even more stairs. Even with a light and a map, Urus was sure he would never be able to navigate this maze alone. How was Goodwyn doing it?

As he wrapped his mind around that new puzzle, he slammed into Goodwyn's back. His friend had stopped short. A finger pressed up against Urus's lips, and he knew instantly something was wrong. Goodwyn took his hand in the darkness and spelled into it, "K". Then he spelled "E". Then a "B". Two more taps in his hand to let him know he should be able to figure out the rest of the word.