The Heart of the Sands, Book 3 of The Gods Within (16 page)

Valso leaned forward, his eyes narrowing, his interest
obviously peaked. “That would seem to imply they had the advantage
of some sort of magic. Some prescience, perhaps? But the Benesh’ere
don’t tolerate magic. Is it possible they’ve relented
and hired some witch to aid them?”

The Kull shook his head again. “Perhaps, Your
Majesty, but we don’t think so. There was one among them whose
fighting style we thought familiar. And he was shorter than any Benesh’ere
I’ve ever seen, though a bit taller than average among normal men.”

Valso considered the halfman’s words
carefully. “Perhaps a
twoname
traveling among them, a wizard who chose to aid them.”

The halfman shrugged. “Again, Your Majesty,
we think not.”

“And why is that?”

“The one I speak of, he fought with more than
a blade; he fought with shadows.”

Valso remained seated, staring at the halfman, so still he
appeared to not even breathe. Then he threw back his head and roared with
laughter, startling the little snake. “I knew it. Yes, I knew it. That
Elhiyne was never one to deprive me of good sport. We still have a merry chase
ahead of us, and I’ll have the pleasure of seeing him watch
everything he values destroyed little by little. I was so disappointed that he
might have died cleanly in the jaws of the skree.”

The little snake took to the air and hovered overhead. “Ssshall
I hunt him down and kill him, Your Majesssty?”

Valso shook his head. “No, Bayellgae. I have
other plans for him.”

The halfman took a step forward, a breach of etiquette,
but forgivable under the circumstances. “I can organize the guard,
Your Majesty? Have them prepare to ride out after him?”

Valso stood, and began pacing back and forth on the dais. “No.
No. Not yet. That will be a task for your leader.”

“Our leader, Your Majesty?”

Valso stopped pacing and looked pointedly at the halfman. “Yes,
lieutenant. You’ll soon have your captain back.”

Ever so slowly, the halfman’s lips broadened
into a grin that sent a chill up Carsaris’ spine.

~~~

Standing in the Penda courtyard by their mounts,
JohnEngine met Brandon’s eyes and they shared an uneasy look. The
Council had ended badly, with Elhiyne and Penda almost declaring war over
perceived slights and insults. At least, now that he knew where ErrinCastle’s
true feelings lay, he saw how the young Penda lord’s actions were
always aimed at calming the situation. JohnEngine did not question in the
slightest that, had it not been for the three of them working in unison, the
Council could have ended in open war. The three of them had even met once at
the tavern in the village, met openly so no one could propagate rumors of a
clandestine rendezvous. They’d all had to sup at the trough of
paranoia far too much lately.

BlakeDown and Olivia emerged from the castle proper,
followed by Wylow and PaulStaff, then ErrinCastle. BlakeDown escorted Olivia to
her carriage, both of them beaming and smiling. One had to know them both quite
well to see the animosity hidden beneath the pleasant demeanor.

ErrinCastle approached JohnEngine as a stable hand brought
him a mount. “I’m riding with you,” he
said. “At least until you’re clear of the crowds.”

BlakeDown helped Olivia up into the carriage. They both
paused and said some pretty words. Then BlakeDown turned to Brandon and said, “I
bid you farewell.” He turned without saying more and marched back
into the castle.

ErrinCastle, Brandon, JohnEngine and the rest of the
Elhiyne retinue mounted up. Brandon’s horse neighed with
nervousness, perhaps sensing that of its master. ErrinCastle and JohnEngine
joined him at the head of the column, and they spurred their horses into an
easy trot.

Brandon turned to ErrinCastle and asked, “It’s
so bad that you need to escort us?”

ErrinCastle grimaced. “I think it wise to be
cautious. While I think there might be no difficulty without me, I know there
will be none with me.”

Crowds of Penda peasants and retainers lined the road out
of the castle and through the village. But they didn’t cheer as
they had upon the arrival of the Elhiyne contingent. They stood mute and
silent, and JohnEngine felt their animosity radiating like the heat from a
fiery red brand.

ErrinCastle rode with them for a league past the village
and the crowds. But there he reined in his mount and the column stopped. “I
will continue to try to abate this schism that is growing like a cancer between
our clans. You have my word on that. Do I have yours?”

JohnEngine nodded and said, “Aye. You have mine.”

Brandon said, “And mine.”

And there they parted.

Once alone, the two of them riding at the head of the
Elhiyne column, Brandon spoke, his eyes still locked on the road ahead of them.
“I fear we will fail.”

Chapter 12: The Freedom to Die

Rhianne’s sense of the blade had grown more
acute in the past few days, and there was no doubt it had come physically
closer to Norlakton. She couldn’t point in a specific direction,
for it felt as if the sword had taken up residence in her own soul, and waited
there biding its time. And as to distance, she couldn’t count off
some specific length, couldn’t say if it was closer than a hundred
paces or farther than ten leagues. But for a certainty it had come closer, and
that frightened her.

She’d gained some understanding of its vague
and poorly defined desires. It wanted freedom; it wanted to be released, to be
free of the fires
—though she had no idea
what that meant—and she could not allow that, would not allow
that. At least its demands had recently tempered in some way, as if it had
found some sort of peace or contentment; perhaps she had just grown stronger at
resisting it, or simply ignoring it. With that slight lessening of its constant
need, it required less of her power to resist it and she’d found
herself a little more clear-headed each day. But then, any gain she’d
made had been lost when it had come physically closer. She did not think it
coincidental that its nearness coincided with the arrival of the Benesh’ere
at the Lake of Sorrows.

With their arrival, Norlakton had transformed from a
sleepy hamlet into a bustling hive of activity. The tall white-skinned Benesh’ere
walked or rode about everywhere, wearing their dune-colored robes with the
large hoods splayed out tent-like by the broad-brimmed straw hats they wore
beneath them. They came to town and met with some of the miners, apparently
trading for iron and coke; she’d never heard of coke, learned it
was some derivative of coal, much like charcoal came from wood. Interestingly
enough, she learned they also traded for bow staves.

“They’re quite picky about their
staves,” the innkeeper told her. “Got to be cut from
just the right part of the yew, and then dried for at least two years. Got to
be cut the right way, and dried the right way, and the gods help anyone fool
enough to try to shape it. Them whitefaces just want a simple stave, and they’ll
shape it themselves. But they make a longbow can shoot an arrow near three
hundred paces.”

Rhianne worked through the afternoon preparing her herbs
and potions, the blade hovering ever at the edge of her consciousness, an
invasion of her soul she knew not how to banish. It occurred to her she should
not banish it, that maybe it needed someone to control it, though the gods
forbid it should be her. But with Morgin dead—

At the thought of Morgin, an unbidden tear touched her
eye.

“Is something amiss, mistress?”
Braunye asked.

“No,” she lied, wiping away the
tear with her sleeve. But then she realized she owed Braunye a small bit of the
truth. “There was someone . . . once . . . but
he’s dead, and it still hurts when I think of him.”

Braunye tried to comfort her, and she thought perhaps it
had been a mistake to tell her even that much.

That afternoon Fat John sent one of his sons to summon her
to the inn. They’d brought one of the miners down from the mines
with a crushed finger, and for something serious like that they always brought
them to the inn. She had far more room to work there if she needed her full
surgical skills. With so much experience, she was becoming quite adept at
surgical procedures, though that day she failed to save the finger. But while
working on the poor fellow, three Benesh’ere entered the inn’s
common room, paused and looked briefly at her, their faces hidden by the
shadows of their hoods. Then they conversed quietly at some length with the
innkeeper. She finished sewing up the stub of the man’s finger
just as the Benesh’ere departed.

As she packed up her small surgical kit, Fat John hovered
over her protectively. And then he said, “You know, now them
whitefaces are here, we’ll have them witches from Inetka and
Elhiyne snooping around. They’ll probably want to talk to you.”

A knot formed in the pit of her stomach, and she must have
blanched, for the innkeeper asked. “Why does that frighten you?”

She lied. “Those women are truly powerful,
and a common hedge witch like me is wise to avoid their notice.”

She’d become quite adept at lying, though the
look on Fat John’s face made her wonder if she had so easily
fooled him.

~~~

The smiths had given Morgin his own tent, one of the
small desert tents only large enough to accommodate about two people. It seemed
to be a symbolic gesture on their part, some sort of recognition that he
belonged among the men who worked steel, though he knew better than to believe
it meant they considered him one of them. He would always be the outsider here,
and not just because of the color of his skin.

A whiteface’s tent was his abode, whether it
be a large pavilion-like affair like those of the tribe’s leaders,
or just a few strips of canvas sewn together to make a small lean-to. It was a
sanctum into which no one ventured without specific permission. Beyond
providing a place in which to sleep out of the weather—the Forge
Hall was much too hot for a good night’s sleep—the
tent was also a place in which he could store his meager possessions: a
blanket, a spare change of clothing, one of those woven straw hats, a water
skin, a small pack with a few strips of cratl jerky, a knife and some other
trail implements, and the blade that haunted his soul during every waking and
sleeping moment.

The smiths had pitched Morgin’s tent among
their own, though his was by far the smallest, which was appropriate for a
single man living alone. At that thought, a string in his heart twanged
painfully, and he tried not to think of Rhianne dying in the jaws of the skree.
One more debt for which, someday, he would extract payment from Valso.

After a day assisting the smiths at the forges, a clear,
cool evening had settled over the whiteface camp. Morgin ate dinner with the
smiths and their families, a communal affair in which all shared happily. Then
he and the men sat about a fire and he listened to their banter while they
shared a crock of weak ale.

Morgin retired to his tent and arranged his few possessions
carefully, and then rearranged them. He had so little he could have just tossed
them in one corner of his tent. But he felt at ease in the small tent in a way
he didn’t feel among the whitefaces. Perhaps he now thought of the
tent as a home, his home. While arranging and rearranging his possessions, his
mind had really been focused on his future. He needed to mend the rift with
Blesset. Interestingly enough, Jerst seemed less bloodthirsty than his
daughter, and Morgin wondered if the father might be more amenable to
reconciliation than the daughter.

“Elhiyne.”

Morgin recognized Toke’s voice, and he’d
left the tent flap pulled back so when he turned he saw the whiteface standing
in the light of the half-moon. The demon ElkenSkul hovered beside him.

As Morgin crawled out of his tent, the whiteface sat down
on the ground, so Morgin sat down facing him.

Toke said, “You’ve come a long
way, plainface. A tent of your own, and all.”

Morgin shrugged. “I guess the smiths find
some value in my help.”

Toke turned to the demon and said, “He’s
modest. Is his modesty real, or feigned?”

Toke cocked an ear, as if listening to a response from the
demon. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “Yes, yes. We’re
all fools that way. And you and I, friend, perhaps more than most.”

To Morgin, Toke said, “The demon thinks your
modesty is real. It says you don’t yet know your true nature, that
you’re foolish that way.”

Morgin thought that, for once, Toke wasn’t
mocking him. “And I don’t know my true name either,
do I?”

Toke frowned and gave Morgin a dubious look. “And
why would you say that? You were properly named by the demon, weren’t
you?”

“Was I properly named?” Morgin
asked. “Or was my grandmother mislead? I know my name is not
AethonLaw, because I cannot claim it in a dream, nor in the demon’s
presence. And
Morgin
is merely a moniker, a label
by which I can be called. No, I saw the demon’s deceit. I saw the
extra marks it placed in the sand the instant after my grandmother looked away.
I saw her obliterate the symbol before she noticed those extra marks. But I saw
them; me, only me. Only I knew those extra marks existed, and now the demon has
shown them to you. Why? Why you?”

Toke flashed his teeth in a broad grin. “I am
merely a messenger, Elhiyne. You need to find your true name, for you can’t
defeat your enemy without it. And if you do not defeat your enemy, the exile of
the Benesh’ere will be as nothing compared to the slavery of the
entire Mortal Plane.”

Morgin leaned forward and snarled angrily, “Then
stop playing games. Stop taunting me with riddles and tell me my damn name.”

The grin disappeared and Toke’s face softened
with sympathy. And too, Morgin thought he saw pity. “I don’t
know your name. Like you, I only know what it is not.”

Toke stood; Morgin remained seated and the old man looked
down on him. “I wish I could help you, but I can’t. The
only one who might help you is the Unnamed King, though he’s just
a myth, so you’re rather stuck there, aren’t you?”

“But I may have an inkling of how to find
him. I think I can only find him in a dream.”

Toke turned and strode off, asking the demon, “You
think he’s right?”

Toke listened to the demon’s response, but
when he again spoke, he was too far away for Morgin to make out the words,
though the conversation between the whiteface and demon continued rather
animatedly.

~~~

Morgin slept poorly that night, drifting in and out of a
light slumber, never truly finding any sort of deep sleep, though he did dream
of Aethon’s tomb, and again the simple warrior no longer lay at
the skeleton king’s feet. Toke’s words haunted him,
and when he awoke well before dawn, he knew he would not again find sleep, so
he arose, dressed, wandered down to the lake and washed up. Then he returned
and sat down in front of his tent and pondered Toke’s words, and
he pondered his name.

Toke didn’t know his true name, and
apparently neither did ElkenSkul, not in the sense that the demon could
interpret the symbol and voice his name. Morgin had to find his true name to
defeat his enemy, but who was his enemy? Certainly, Valso, but Valso alone
couldn’t enslave all of the entire Mortal Plane, though as King of
the Greater Clans his rule did feel a bit like slavery, but that was clearly
not the kind of slavery Toke had meant. Morgin’s thoughts returned
to that vast chasm of unnatural power he’d sensed in Valso, and
how, in Durin, after he’d witnessed the Dark God’s
power at Csairne Glen through Morddon’s eyes, Valso’s
power now had the same taste as that ancient power. Was the source of that
power his enemy? If so, he would need an enormously powerful weapon to defeat
it. Perhaps his cursed blade was meant to defeat that power. Perhaps he was
meant to unleash it, remove all restraint from it, but how could he focus its
hatred and bloodlust on Valso and the source of his power. It had proven time
and again uncontrollable; unleashed, it wanted blood, any blood, the blood of
the innocent as well as that of the truly evil. No, his cursed sword was not
the answer.

Perhaps, the AethonSword. He recalled the skeleton king
sitting on his throne in the crypt, his bony arm resting casually on the hilt
of that great sword. He himself, as Morddon, had put the lifeless body of
Aethon on that throne, had arranged him carefully to match the image of Morgin’s
dreams. But Morddon—or was it Morgin—knew without
doubt the great jeweled sword was not the blade to defeat the Dark God, that it
had to be one of the blades Morgin had forged during the centuries he’d
spent at the forges in netherhell.

There! Without truly thinking about it he’d
subconsciously thought of himself as the forger of those blades, not Morddon. But
how could he have spent centuries forging those blades when he’d
yet lived only a little more than twenty-four years. Were the gods so casual
with time that they had created such a dichotomy? Or was it all just one big
hallucination he’d imagined in a dream?

Morgin, through Morddon, had given Aethon one of the two
swords he’d forged in the hell of his dreams, hoping it might
defeat the Dark God. But with his last dying breath Aethon had told Morgin—Morddon—that
the sword he’d forged, the sword he’d given Aethon,
had meant nothing to the ruler of netherhell, and the Dark God had destroyed
it.

Morgin looked at the sword he now possessed. Was this the
one remaining sword he’d forged so long ago; and was it meant to
defeat the monster that now haunted Valso’s soul? But still,
perhaps it was not the sword alone that must defeat the Dark God. Perhaps such
a weapon must be wielded by the proper hand.

Morgin lifted his hands and stared at them. False dawn had
lightened the sky, and he could count the many scars on his hands. Was he meant
to wield that sword? Was that what his name meant, that perhaps the sword’s
power could not be properly unleashed unless he did the unleashing. Should Morgin,
as Morddon, have wielded the great sword all those many centuries ago?

~~~

I have a task for you.

This time DaNoel managed to neither grimace nor flinch at
Valso’s intrusion into his mind.
I am with
Olivia. I cannot speak now.

Very well. But when you are free,
just think of me and I will know.

“DaNoel,” Olivia snapped. “Pay
attention.”

“Yes, grandmother.”

DaNoel decided he hated the old woman too, hated her
almost as much as he hated the whoreson. But at the thought of Morgin his guts
twisted. What if he was still alive? What if Valso’s hints that
Morgin may have survived were not merely an attempt to make him ill-at-ease? What
if he somehow came back and exposed DaNoel’s treachery. NickoLot
had her suspicions, but no proof. Did Morgin have proof? Because if he did, and
he came back, Olivia would do more than simply exile DaNoel. The humiliation
would be intolerable. But, if Morgin yet lived, he would still be a hunted man,
and if DaNoel cooperated with Valso, he would only be doing so to help capture
and execute such a wanted outlaw. Now that would not be treachery.