The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (28 page)

“I’m not certain of your meaning, Commander. Is it your purpose to proclaim your newfound allegiance to my grandfather, or apologize for it?”

It was Bardik’s turn to laugh. “What I’d like to know is
your
purpose in coming here. Have you come for reconciliation, or vengeance?”

“I’ve not come to put a dagger in my grandfather’s back, be that your hope or your fear. I’ve come to save him, if I can—and you, and the rest of us—from a threat that cares nothing of man’s petty struggles for resources and boundaries. Serve whom you will, but know that a larger storm has brewed, and lightning takes no side when come to rake a battlefield.”

She met his gaze, using the effect her eyes seemed to have on these men to drive her warning home. Bardik stared, unfrightened, yet without the gleam of mockery she might have expected.

“His Lordship will be so advised,” he answered finally. “Is there anything else you might tell me?”

“Much and more. But I feel my grandfather should hear it first. Should his response dissatisfy me, rest assured I shall be seeking allies wherever I can find them. Though I cannot be sure as to what difference any of us might make.”

The commander frowned as if befuddled, and hurried on without question as she hastened her pace. So far, so good, Annleia told herself. Should every man she meet prove as easy to sway and manipulate, there might yet be hope.

The gateway from which they had begun was centrally located amid the Bastion’s half-mile stretch from the coastline reefs to Neak-Thur’s curtain wall. Thus, it did not take them long to reach the city, where they had to pass through another, smaller gatehouse to continue their trek. It might have gone faster. When setting out, Bardik had called for another horse, thinking to ride directly for the city’s main gate, across the coastal plain south of the Bastion. But Annleia had asked to walk the wall, claiming that she felt more comfortable afoot than ahorse. In truth, she had seen this as an opportunity to familiarize herself with the structure’s layout—its armaments and stores, bunkers and stairs. Was there any chance that this was indeed where her confrontation must take place, she wished to be ready.

She did the same atop the city’s curtain wall, which ran a crooked, southerly line along the lower slopes of the Dragontail Mountains. Not nearly as well defensed, she noted, although that seemed to be changing. She questioned
Bardik about it, who explained that while the former Council of Rogues had dedicated its strength to the Bastion in hopes of keeping the Northland at bay, Lord Lorre was more concerned with fending off those from the Southland who might yet attempt to retake their city. A fine shield the Bastion had been, but a forward shield was of only so much use against an enemy crept up behind you. Still, it remained an important gateway in that it allowed His Lordship to regulate all foot traffic passing either north or south, and thereby help to control the distribution of people and resources in either land.

There was much more she might have asked of him concerning the infamous overlord, but she did not wish to seem uninformed or tentative. So she remained concise in her words and detached in her interest, clinging to an aura of self-assuredness. She would learn what she needed to about her mother’s father soon enough.

B
ARDIK LEFT HER WAITING IN
an antechamber, under the dead-eyed stares of a pair of troll sentries posted in the outer doorway. The door to the inner chamber lay open, though its depths lay shrouded in darkness. Without, the furnishings were sparse, the walls windowless save for a series of tall, thin arrow loops through which a meager starlight barely penetrated. She was told that a server would be sent for, but the one that came provided only a platter of overripe fruit and a flagon of ale. The hearth sat cold, the only fires in a set of low-burning braziers. As she paced the reed-woven mat laid amid the salt-stained benches, her breath clouded before her.

What have I done?
Even though she had steeled herself for this eventuality, the prospect of presenting herself to her infamous grandfather within this cage of stone terrified her. Ruthless and intolerant. Callous and vindictive. She knew of no softer terms used to describe him. These were not words her parents had ever used, but they were the only ones that could accurately portray the man’s deeds over the past two decades. If the word delivered by Lorre’s agent during Torin’s visit to Aefengaard was genuine, then it might be that the enmity he had long harbored against the Finlorian people was a thing of the past. But that was difficult to believe, particularly when that messenger’s sworn protector had thrown away his life to make sure that Annleia’s adoptive father forfeited his.

By all accounts, Warrlun’s treachery had been his alone—the jealous rage of a husband and father that needed no further encouragement. But she had no proof that her birth father wasn’t acting under orders, or that Lorre was in any way displeased by the result. Surely, her mother would not approve of the risk she had taken in coming here and revealing herself so openly.

She looked again to the trolls, wondering if they had been left to ward her, or imprison her. Would they even care if she attempted to slip past? Their unblinking stares unnerved her. At the same time, she preferred their dispassionate gazes to many of those that had tracked her progress through the avenues of this city and the halls of its castle. Some she had seen, others she had actually felt: men with lewd smiles that crawled upon her skin like worms, women
with barbed frowns of suspicion and envy that cut like the thongs of a flail. She had ignored them all as best she could, marveling at their shallowness, and wondering how many other women drew such attention—and if they sensed it as readily as she. Regardless, as uncomfortable as she felt waiting here, she was not looking forward to repeating that trek.

She turned toward the wall of window slits, putting her back to the outer door and its guards. From time to time, a gust of wind would whistle through the narrow openings, to fan the flames of the braziers. The air seemed somehow colder here, along the coast, than it did up in the mountains, where lay her valley home. Granted, that valley was deep and sheltered, ringed by sheer mountain bluffs and heavily wooded. Beyond these stone walls lay only fierce winds carrying frigid ocean spray across a ravaged coastal plain.
Two fields he planted.
She wondered if either would survive the chaos to come.

Before she could reflect further on her home and whether she ever should have left it, she heard footsteps in the outer hall. These were not the whispered scrapings of a slippered steward, but the heavy clop of hard-soled leathers, crisp and measured in their approach. Their cadence slowed and halted, however, just beyond view of the empty doorframe—almost as if the wearer had decided not to show himself. Then a man rounded and entered, stepping right past the troll sentries, who glanced at him but never flinched.

Annleia knew straightaway that she was gazing for the first time upon her grandfather, Lorre.

He stood there for a moment, staring back at her. Even at a distance, she saw him to be a stern man, and proud. Her eyes were not as keen as those of a full-blooded elf, but she did not need perfect lighting to recognize the tightness in his jaw or the cold gleam in his eyes. His stiff posture and hardened countenance told her much that words might try to hide. In that moment, she decided that all she had heard about his strict and unforgiving nature was true.

When he spoke, the room seemed to grow colder still, its chill settling in Annleia’s stomach. “Have you been waiting long?”

A lifetime
, she thought, but shook her head. “You do me honor, to have come so quickly. I expected another escort.”

That she knew him for who he was did not seem to surprise him. Yet there was an awkwardness about him that she hadn’t sensed initially. Nowhere near what there should have been, perhaps, but enough to suggest that he wasn’t entirely inhuman.

He looked to the darkened doorway at his left. “I can have my steward prepare the inner chamber. Else we can return to my study…”

“This room should work as well as any, I think.”

Her confidence was growing, while his seemed to be slipping. She wasn’t quite what he had expected, she decided. For some reason, that thought pleased her.

His extended silence, however, began to eat away at her carefully held composure. Narrowed eyes regarded her bluntly, viewing her as he might any
other potential assassin. Had she been so, the strength of that stare might have been enough to drive her to confession.

At last, he gave a signal, and the pair of troll sentries stepped wordlessly from the antechamber. Their sandaled feet slapped heavily against the stone tiles of the outer corridor as they made their retreat.

The two who remained stood their ground on opposite sides of the room, Annleia with her back to the narrow windows, and her grandfather near the chiseled doorframe. His stance was such that he might have been hewn from the same materials, harsh and rigid. A full-sleeved, black leather jerkin wrapped a frame lean and tall, devoid of adornment or sigil. Were it not for the cropped white hair and the wrinkled skin of his face and hands, she might have mistaken him for a statue of unweathered basalt. The few steps that separated them felt like a gulf.

“Laressa sent you?” he asked finally.

“The decision was mine.”

“A bold one. Did she not tell you that I am a man to be feared?”

“Do you intend me harm?”

“No doubt, you’ve been given reason to believe I might. Why not pretend to be someone else, a stranger to me?”

“Someone else might have been left waiting, else received no audience at all. My purpose in coming here is too important, and our time too short.”

Lorre folded his arms across his chest. “
That
again, is it? My lord commander of the Bastion tells me you speak of a gathering storm, a threat to all. As I recall, Torin spoke similarly, when he came through here.”

They had found a way past the awkwardness, it seemed. By focusing on Torin, they could avoid the many deeper questions between them. “He is central to this struggle,” she admitted. “It is why I seek him.”

An uncertain look passed across his face. Disappointment, maybe? Had he hoped or believed that she had come primarily to forge a familial relationship? Or to mend relations between him and his daughter, perhaps?

A twitch, and the look was gone. “I’ll admit, I am not one to be cowed by omens.”

“You are a warrior, are you not? The warning I bear is not meant to cow you, but to rouse you in preparation of what is to come.”

“I am always prepared. Were it otherwise, I would have perished long ago.”

“Not against this.”

Light from the braziers flickered upon his face, a dance of fire and shadow that made his expressions, however slight, difficult to read. “And what is it, exactly, that you would have me fear?”

Annleia told him then of the Illysp, of the folly and conceit of her ancient ancestors that had opened the rift between this world and theirs. She told him that in drawing the Sword of Asahiel, Torin had set free those that had been bound. His search upon these shores had been for those who might help him close it again. She knew not how much of this Torin might have already
relayed to the overlord, but judging by her grandfather’s disinterest, it bore repeating, to make certain he understood.

“Torin’s quest did not end well,” she announced bitterly, though if Bardik knew the tale, then it was likely Lorre did, too. “I once had two fathers. I now have none.” She paused, allowing for a response, searching for a reaction, but received only stony silence. “For his part in these murders, Torin was cast out—prematurely, perhaps. For assumptions were made as to what he did or did not know. And if the Illysp are to be banished anew, I must see to it that Torin and the Sword are found, and nothing more left to chance.”

Her grandfather clung to his silence, but this time, she was determined to outwait him, to receive an answer to her unspoken question.

“I’ve heard in great detail from those who survived Torin’s northern trek,” he admitted finally. “I would have you know that I did not commission Warrlun’s assault on…on the elf king who served as your father, and would apologize for it. Whatever ill I have done in my life, I never meant to cause your mother pain. I only wish…”

“Pain is a part of life,” she allowed, when it seemed he knew not how to finish. “Without it, we would be unable to know pleasure.”

Lorre gazed upon her with a glimmer of pride and a shadow of regret. Perhaps he thought her too young to have learned such a bitter truth. “Nevertheless, it should not come at the hands of those who care for us.”

“And rain should fall only when we wish,” Annleia replied with a stoicism she did not feel. Tears were no shame, but she was not yet ready to share hers with him. “If deeds could be undone, I would have scant cause to be here. What matters now is my search, and anything you might share to speed me in it.”

She felt him clench, and wondered if she had wounded him. “I’m told that once he left your valley, Torin set sail for his own land. If these Illysp are as you describe them, perhaps he is dead already. I can offer no comfort other than to say that he lived when last his companions saw him.”

“These companions, I’m told they dwell here within the city?”

“In willing support of my cause.”

She wasn’t sure how to take that. Had they been enslaved? Tortured? The thought might not have crossed her mind, had he not been so quick to defend himself. “I would speak with them, if you will permit it.”

“You have only to command,” he said, bowing stiffly. An unfamiliar act, she supposed, to go with unfamiliar words. He seemed almost as surprised by his response as she. “Will you…remain with us awhile?”

“My options grow short,” she admitted. “If this is truly the end of Torin’s trail…” She had thought to tell him of Necanicum’s charge, and of her suspicion that this was where she might be called upon to carry it out. For if so, she would need his cooperation—and that of his troops—if she was to be given a chance to execute it properly. But she still had doubts of her own, and was quite certain that her grandfather would only think her mad. Better to keep quiet for now, and wait to see if a clearer choice presented itself after speaking
to Torin’s former companions. “I cannot stress how critical it is for me to find him,” she finished finally.