The Last Whisper of the Gods (37 page)

As they rode into the warm night air, Alicia exalted in the sense of being unfettered. She longed to bring her horse to a gallop and feel the wind in her face, although such an indulgence would reinforce Rexall’s already poor opinion of her. Caution was required here, not rash acts of self-satisfaction. Her stallion, who wasn’t much older than a colt, was of a mild temperament, but she assumed he would welcome a run as much as she would. The time, she supposed, would come soon enough. Alicia didn’t know the horse’s name, not having spent much time with any of her father’s animals other than her pony and a few of the older mares. She resolved to call him “Sorial.”
At least I can give this Sorial orders and he’ll obey
.

She was surprised at how easily Rexall rode. Being around horses wasn’t a guarantee of horsemanship; Sorial was proof of that. He could ride but he was clumsy. Rexall showed no such awkwardness. Either he was a natural or he had spent more than a little time riding the animals he was supposed to stable. The latter seemed likely.

They rode the horses slowly through the benighted streets, moving at the fastest pace they could afford without attracting attention. It wasn’t only that they wanted to avoid being stopped by a member of the Watch, but they didn’t want to be remembered by any passersby. The more invisible their passage, the greater their chance of success. Alicia kept glancing behind, worried about a possible pursuit - a potential that didn’t concern Rexall - but there was no indication they were being followed. Ruefully, she privately admitted that she wouldn’t be able to detect any shadowing unless it was clumsy.

Noticing her backward looks, Rexall said, “Don’t worry. We ain’t being followed. Have a little faith. Remember, I got a lot more to lose if we’re caught than you do.”

Once they were beyond the boundaries of the city proper and into the farmlands that created a deep, wide perimeter around the urban center, they increased their pace to a canter. Vagrum lit a lantern hung from a pole affixed to his saddle. With less than two hours remaining before the first rays of the new dawn lit the eastern horizon, they reached the door to Kara and Lamanar’s farmhouse.

Kara was waiting outside, a small burlap bag of provisions on the ground next to her. Alicia breathed a sigh of relief. Despite Rexall’s assurances that Sorial’s mother had agreed to guide them to the portal, she hadn't been certain until now. Kara believed in what Sorial was doing. In fact, she had conspired with the others to send him on his current journey. Alicia wondered what words Rexall had used to convince Kara that they needed to reach the portal before her son.

As the pool of light from Vagrum’s lantern fell on the older woman, Alicia saw how worn and unsettled she looked. She had already lost three children, at least one directly to a portal. Was she having second thoughts about her youngest boy?

“Are you at peace about accompanying us?” asked Alicia. It was perhaps a foolish question. Providing Kara with an opportunity to change her mind put their journey in danger.

“At peace? No, not at peace. Never at peace, at least not lately. But I’ll come with you, if you’ll have me. If only because I must be there when he comes face-to-face with his destiny. You may think you go to stop him, but only he knows what he’ll do at that moment. He may need one or both of us.”

Kara’s words exhumed one of Alicia’s darkest fears - that even her presence, free and clear of the temple, might not turn Sorial aside. In her heart, she didn’t believe he would survive an encounter with the portal, but she suspected he might have been converted to think differently. How much of his mother's doctrine had he been exposed to? And, with the temptation of becoming a wizard so close, would he be able to turn away? Would anyone?

“Which way?” asked Vagrum, who had stepped down from his horse to help Kara onto hers. She gently rebuffed his aid and climbed into the saddle with practiced ease.

Noticing the big man’s nonplused reaction, she remarked. “I haven’t always been a farmer’s wife, you know. I’d wager I’ve been riding for as long as you, if not longer.” She reached to accept her sack from Vagrum and secured it behind her saddle. “We ride north, and we’ll be on the road for weeks.”

“How far north?” asked Vagrum.

“Beyond The Broken Crags.” That was the imposing mountain range separating the ‘sophisticated’ southern cities from the more primitive, warlike northern ones of Obis and Syre. “The portal is nestled in the remains of the city of Ibitsal, about midway between Obis and Syre, to the north of the main east-west thoroughfare connecting them. By the time we get there, you’ll remember what Winter is.”

“On foot, that trip will take Sorial two-thirds of a season. At a reasonable pace, we can get there in about five weeks,” said Rexall. “We’re going to have to wait for him.”

“There are villages around there that will take us in. I lived my whole life save for the last fifteen years in that part of the world.” Kara didn’t sound enthused about returning to lands where she had grown up and given birth to four children.

“What about the terrain between here and there?”

Vagrum, also a native of the North, offered his assessment. “Can’t rightly say about these parts. You’ll never get through The Crags unless you use Widow’s Pass or go all the way east to the coast, which would add five-hundred miles to the trip. Beyond the mountains, you can venture into the wilds if you want, but I can’t see a reason. Anyone coming after us will have either caught us or given up by then.”

“Are there inns along the way?” asked Alicia.

“Inns, waystations, of course,” said Rexall. “At least for the next several hundred miles. Where merchants travel, innkeepers set up shop. But inns cost money, which ain’t something you got.” The pale lantern light illuminated Rexall’s smirk. He thought it funny that the noblest member of the party was also the poorest.

“No, but I do,” said Vagrum. “I’ve been saving it up for years now. No sense letting it go to waste. As long as there are inns to stay in, Milady can sleep on a bed rather than the ground.”

“Once you’ve seen what goes on in some of those beds, the ground holds a certain appeal,” said Rexall.

Vagrum let out a gruff laugh. “The ground and me is old friends. But I’m afraid Milady might not find it so comfortable.”

“Wrap her in blankets and she’ll survive,” said Rexall. “In my experience, when a person is tired, he’ll sleep anywhere. The problem with the nobility is they ain’t never been forced to bed down on anything other than a mattress.”

A retort died on Alicia’s lips as she realized he was right. In her entire life, she couldn’t remember one day when she had slept anywhere but on a bed. And the mattress was always stuffed with down and feathers, not straw, which was prickly and prone to rotting when damp. She also couldn’t remember going more than a handful of days without bathing. In the larger picture, the loss of such physical comforts would be a minor inconvenience, but she knew she would resent them. Sorial had once called her “pampered.” He had been right and now she was going to pay the price. Her companions, even the slightly built Kara, had all spent time living without the trappings of a noble’s life, but not her.

Her reality had changed, however. She was leaving behind an existence of comfort for one of hardship. She knew she had never done a day’s honest work, but for her to build a life with Sorial, she would have to learn a craft. They would be farmers or tradesmen or servants; her future would be as different from her past as night was from day. The grimness of that eventuality was something she had avoided confronting, but she no longer had the luxury of regarding it as “what might be.” Spending a night sleeping on a bed of cold, rocky dirt with the stars winking above was among the least difficult of the tribulations she was sure to face.

“No, but I’d better learn,” she said, much to Rexall and Vagrum’s surprise. “Keep your coins, Vagrum. We’ll sleep where we can. The next time I see a proper bed, I’ll have forgotten what it feels like to use it.”

“Are you sure you want to go through with this, Milady? It ain’t too late to turn around. You could be back in your chamber in the temple before anyone knows you’re gone...” ventured Vagrum.

Alicia smiled at him a little sadly. Vagrum knew the hardships that lay ahead of her - he had lived them - and he didn’t think she was strong enough to surmount them. But it wasn’t about her. If she turned back now and Sorial died in a futile attempt to become a wizard, how would she live with herself?

“No, Vagrum. This is my destiny. To find Sorial or die trying. He’s my future and if it means lying naked in the snow, I’ll do that.”

“We can probably arrange that, as long as we can find the snow,” said Rexall. Everyone ignored him.

“Whatever may happen, you’re worthy of my son. I can think of no better a life’s partner than you,” said Kara.

“Then let’s move out so the dawn doesn’t find us standing here nattering like old women,” said Vagrum.

So began their journey to the portal. The
wrong
portal.

The blackness faded gently, giving way to a bleak gray that filled his vision and clouded his mind. But Sorial was aware of only one thing: agony. It was unlike any pain he had previously endured. His brain had difficulty processing it. It emanated from the ruin of his left arm, a lance of unrelieved, white-hot suffering that blotted out everything else. Concentration was impossible. Discerning who or what or where he was were impractical. The only thing he recognized was the undesirable continuation of his life - no dead person could possibly feel such torment.

He had enough presence of mind to recognize he wasn’t alone in this strangely benighted world. As dim as if from far away, he heard the grunts and guttural murmurs of a language he had no hope of deciphering. He was fluent in only one tongue and that wasn’t being spoken. It didn’t matter, though. Even if he had understood the words, his mind was too fragmented by pain for him to make sense of them.

Sorial supposed he might be injured in places other than his arm. He had been struck on the head and possibly stabbed or cut in other places. His memories of his last moments of consciousness in the clearing were confused. But if there was pain from other wounds, it was overwhelmed.

A cup of warm, foul-tasting liquid was placed to his lips. Thirsty as he was, he slurped it greedily, then choked as too much spilled down his throat. Sleepiness spread quickly through his mind and body and he reached toward the cool, pain-free embrace of blackness.

The second time he awoke, he was more himself. The arm no longer hurt as badly; in fact, it was more numb than painful, as if some deadening salve had been spread onto the wound. He opened his eyes and saw indistinct, fuzzy shapes - men, he assumed, although he couldn’t make out any features. The voices again spoke the unfamiliar language, but this time they were closer. His head hurt abominably, with the greatest area of soreness concentrated behind and above his left ear. And there was something else - a strange, throbbing sensation deep within. Not unpleasant, but insistent.
Comecomecome
, it seemed to say.

He was lying on his right side and his nose scented vomit, piss, blood, shit, and other less readily identifiable odors. In the semi-darkness, it still felt as if his left hand was whole - he could almost wiggle the fingers. But when he squinted and focused, there was only a stump. At that moment, he made a noise. It might have been a groan or an attempt to say something. Even he wasn’t sure. But the others noticed he was awake and again the warm, bitter liquid was forced down his throat. They weren’t yet ready for him to be awake.

Lamanar’s face swam across the vast sea of his mind’s eye, followed by Darrin’s. Dead, both of them. A similar fate had probably greeted Warburm and Brindig on their trip to Havenham. The ambush had been well planned. For some reason, he was still alive, although it wasn’t hard to guess why. The bounty was for him, not his companions. Then the return of unconsciousness brought relief, calm, and an end to such thoughts.

Words greeted Sorial upon his third awakening. “How you feeling?” They were spoken with a thick accent but weren’t difficult to understand - someone familiar with the language. For a moment, disorientation gripped Sorial then he realized he was in the same poorly lit place. His left arm was a deadweight, no longer sore. In fact, he couldn’t feel it at all. It might have been cut off at the shoulder. His head wound hurt and the humming, throbbing sensation had intensified.
Comecomecome
. It was hard to think, to concentrate. Thoughts were vaporous and he couldn’t hold them long enough to weave them into a coherent whole. He would have been hard pressed to say his name, where he was, or why he was there. He offered a feeble grunt, having already forgotten the question.

“Fuck. Dosed you with too much that time,” said the voice. The speaker was squatting nearby. Sorial squinted, trying to see better, but the effort defeated him. “Rest and sleep if you’s can. I’ll be back.” He barked some words in the unfamiliar language then was gone. Sorial closed his eyes; it was too taxing to keep them open. The vertigo nipping at him retreated.

He did his best to take stock of his situation. He was damaged but not dead. The numbness in his arm was troubling but an improvement over the pain. A spot above and behind his left ear was sore. Then there was the buzzing in his brain, what sounded like the repeated utterance of a plea to "come". It commanded his attention, making him dizzy and distracted. He wondered if it was the result of the head wound.

He assumed he was being held captive by the men who had attacked him. He might be in Havenham, although he could just as easily be elsewhere. The location made little difference at the moment. The stench argued that his body’s needs weren’t being attended to with much care by those to whom his well-being was entrusted.

Rising to a sitting position required an exceptional expenditure of effort, especially with only one functioning arm. His head spun and he would have vomited if his stomach wasn’t empty. As it was, he managed a few dry heaves. The he opened his eyes again.

He was in an unlit room. The meager illumination, coming through a grill in the door, showed that the walls were close; there wasn’t much room to move. His ears picked up distant voices and other noises. The air was cool and clammy. He assumed he was in a cell, probably underground. The climate of The Forbidden Lands wasn’t as brutal as to the north, but a chill like this could only be found in a cellar or dungeon.

Using his right hand, he probed his injured limb. It was dead to sensation, neither noticing nor responding to the touch of his fingers. The stump was a jagged mess, with burnt tar having been used to cap the end midway between elbow and wrist. There was soreness around his shoulder but nothing lower, where the arm was a dead weight. Sorial tried without success to move it. He sniffed and was relieved by the absence of putrefaction’s distinctive stench. At least the flesh wasn’t rotting. He supposed that was something, although he didn’t know whether he’d live long enough for it to matter.

Unwilling to risk getting to his feet in his weakened condition, he crawled a short distance to a cleaner patch of floor. With every passing moment, the fog in his mind dissipated; whatever sedative they had given him was wearing off. That didn’t stop him from dozing off again.

Sorial started awake when he heard the grind of stone on stone as the door to his cell was pulled open. He was in a sitting position with his back against a wall. The healthy light of multiple torches poured through the opening. A burly man dressed in animal skins and carrying a blazing brand entered, shutting the door behind him. “Now, you’re awake. Time for us ta get ta know each udder.” It was the voice from earlier.

As the gaoler assessed his prisoner’s condition, Sorial studied him in turn. He was tall with a wide girth and legs like small tree trunks. His arms were those of a blacksmith - corded and powerful. Head, face, chest, and arms - exposed areas of skin were blanketed with thick, coarse black hair. Ice-cold blue eyes shone from the caverns of his sockets, buried under enormous, shaggy brows.

Sorial took a moment to observe his injured arm, now that there was light to see it by. To his relief, it looked normal except at the stump, where the flesh was an ugly red around the seared tar.

Seeing the direction of Sorial’s gaze, the man remarked, “They botched it. Cut it with a dull blade then nearly killed you wit’ the cauterization. Bloody savages. Don’t matter how many times you tell them a thing, they don’t do it right. That’s one thing I miss about the militia. Discipline.”

Sorial said nothing. His eyes were held by the grotesque sight of his crippled arm, made all the more unreal by his inability to feel anything. It didn’t seem to be a part of him.

“In case you’re wondering why you’re alive, which I would be in your position, it’s because there’s a price on your head. More’n the head, actually. You’re worth ten times more alive and
mostly
intact than dead. I’ll get my gold from my old commander either way, but I see no reason to piss away nine-tenths of it by killing you. Stupid waste, that’d be. Problem is, even though I got a long history with the man who’s paying and don’t doubt the depths of his pouch, it may take a while before someone arrives ta collect you - he ain’t exactly nearby - and I don’t know how long you’re gonna last with an arm that’s as likely as not ta start festering. I could cut the whole thing off and heal the new wound properly but you’d probably die of shock.

“Your friends, as I ’spect you already know, are dead. No profit keeping them alive - just more mouths ta feed. My hunters tell me one of ’em was near as dead anyway. The bounty is for you, not anyone else.”

As he was speaking, the man hung the torch in a sconce, freeing both hands. He appeared unarmed but Sorial recognized someone of his strength would be as deadly without a blade as most warriors were with one. The meaty fists were cudgels of flesh.

The room was as plain and functional. Small with stone walls and a bare floor, the only features to mar the monotony of its construction were the door and two sconces, one to either side of the exit. The stalls in the stable of The Wayfarer’s Comfort were more spacious.

“Guess we should wash you down and clean up in here a little. I don’t mind getting dirty when I work but I prefer blood ta shit. It’s the smell. The women never want ta share your furs when you stink of shit. Not that they got a choice. If I tell ’em, they do it.

“Let’s understand each other.” The man absentmindedly scratched at his beard, a habitual gesture. “I got the power of life and death over you, least until that arm putrefies. The bounty is mine ta claim or reject, although my old commander wouldn’t like ta hear me talk that way. I’m an expert at what I do. Extracting information is as much an art as a skill. It requires great patience and understanding of how far a body can be pushed. I was an interrogator for five years in Basingham before I left for Obis ta join the military and see the world. I can cause exquisite pain and keep you in a state of delirious agony for days and weeks without killing you.

“There’s a reason Maraman wants you alive - wants it so much he’s willing ta offer such a fucking insane amount that no sane man would think of killing you. And the bounty specifies that your tongue gotta be intact, which means you got words he wants ta hear. There’s some great secret here, something he didn’t tell me afore he dispatched me ta this patch of dirt. You’re gonna tell him what he wants to hear. But first you’ll tell me. One way or t’other, I’ll know what you know. After that, you’ll be his and he can do with you as he chooses.”

“Maraman?” Sorial’s voice sounded harsh in his ears, and the effort of speaking the name flayed the raw skin of his parched throat.

“You’re familiar with him.” It wasn’t a question. “I suspected as much. He ain’t one ta offer sums of that sort for strangers and he’s been obsessed by you for a while. First he wanted you dead. Wanted it bad. Then he changed his mind. I dunno why; he didn't confide in me. Secretive fucker, he is. Anyway, he thought there was a chance you’d be headed here, ta Havenham, so he sent me as his ‘agent’ in case. Now, just tell me who you are, how you know him, and what you’ll say ta him, and we can finish up with little messiness. These are easy things for you. Why not give ’em up freely instead of having them ripped from your lips in blood and pain?”

Sorial, however, wasn’t properly processing the man’s words. The casual revelation that the man hunting him had been named by Lamanar as his true father…the implications were stunning. But if Maraman now wanted him alive, why had he tried on two previous occasions to kill him? Or was he being hunted by more than one group?

The man sighed, frustrated by Sorial’s loss of focus. “You want me ta think you’re too weak ta speak. I’ve given you four days ta recover, which is more’n I give most prisoners - not that we get many. City men don’t come this far south into The Forbidden Lands. Where you from? Vantok, maybe Basingham? So let’s start with that. Where’s your home? And why’d you leave? I want your name as well. Make it a fake one if you like, it won’t make a difference ta me. Just don’t lie about the important things. That’d make me
very
angry.”

Comecomecome
. Damn, the buzzing was making it hard to concentrate. That and coming to terms with the revelation about Maraman. His father knew what he was, or at least what he had the potential to be. His gaoler didn’t. There was no telling how this man might react if Sorial claimed to be a potential wizard searching for a portal to unleash his latent abilities. He might laugh and think him insane. Or he might believe him, which would be worse. Yet to stray far from the truth could open up his story to inconsistencies that his fuzzy mind and memory might be unable to explain.

The man became impatient after only a brief silence. “How uncivil of me. Living among savages for so long, I’ve forgot the genteel manners you city dwellers find important.” This was said with equal parts contempt and sarcasm. “I ain’t introduced meself. Name’s Langashin. Or at least it used ta be. Here, we go by titles. For me, that’d be ‘Guv’nor’. This settlement’s too small for me to be ‘King.’ Since you and me’ll be on a first-name basis during your stay, you can call me Langashin. And this,” he withdrew a nasty-looking instrument from a compartment in his fur vest, “Is my devoted companion. She ain’t got no name ta go with her excessive appetite.”

Langashin’s move was so sudden and precise that Sorial didn’t register the weapon’s bite until after it had happened. The implement, with its razor-sharp, wafer-thin blade, sliced through the flesh and muscle of Sorial’s numb upper arm, leaving behind a scarlet trail oozing droplets of blood. The big man loomed over his prisoner, a nasty expression contorting his features.