The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (4 page)

“I’ve been looking for you for quite some time. I finally decided to come here to wait.”

He’d been found out. Zain or someone else had betrayed him as a spy. His would be a slow, painful death. “How can I be of service to my lord?”

The speaker of the Circle did not move. Pagus wondered how long he had been waiting.

“To begin with, I wonder if you might tell me where you have been.”

“Errands, my lord, for…” He started to lie, then thought better of it.

“For Master Allion, my lord.”

“And what would those errands be?”

“They…they were of a private nature, my lord.”

“Private to whom?”

Pagus began to sweat.

“You needn’t fear answer, my boy. I am not your enemy.”

Though warm in tone, the words sent a shiver down Pagus’s spine. “Of course not, my lord. But I was asked to keep quiet, you see.”

“Ah, that I do. Would it help you to know, then, that I already have some idea as to what you were about?”

He considered bolting, but his quarters were small, and he wasn’t certain he’d be able to open the door before Thaddreus seized him. Besides, the old man likely had soldiers stationed nearby, ready to respond.

“Have I committed an offense, my lord?”

“That depends. One of my pages claims to have seen you with Master Allion some time ago, pushing a barrow full of linens through the palace. A curious job for regent or herald, it must be said. And it has just been reported to me that our regent is now en route from the city. Would you care to tell me where he is going?”

“I…” This time, he went with the lie. “I do not know, my lord. I suspect he is riding forth to greet the imminent arrival of Baron Nevik.”

Pagus could have sworn that the Elder’s face darkened. The stern brow lowered, and the grim mouth tightened. “And did he take the Sword with him?”

“The Sword?” he echoed, feigning ignorance. “I’m sure I do not know, my lord. ’Tis not a herald’s place to inquire about such things.”

“Ah, but you are a curious boy, are you not? A boy who takes note of many things he may or may not be meant to see.”

It was Pagus’s turn to scowl. His taste for intrigues had soured. Whatever game the Elder was trying to drag him into, he wanted no part of it.

“I’m not sure I’m aware of my lord’s meaning.”

“Mercy, lad!” the Elder exclaimed, leaping to his feet with an urgency and swiftness Pagus had never seen in the old man. The boy hunkered, his back to the door, half tempted to draw his knife. But already, Thaddreus spoke as if to mollify him. “These are dangerous and uncertain times. With the passing of our lord king, our city and government may seem ripe for the taking. Surely I do not have to tell a clever lad like you that there are those who may choose to twist these events to their own advantage.”

Rogun. He was speaking of the general who would be king.

“It may be,” Thaddreus continued, crouching, “that some have already played us foul. You can see this, can you not?”

Pagus managed to nod. Was the speaker of the Circle suggesting that the rumors of assassination might be true? If so, had Pagus himself been the one to facilitate it?

“I can sense your grief,” Thaddreus went on. “I share it. Torin was a fine and worthy king. To grant individuals such as us positions of such high esteem…” He allowed the thought to hang. “’Tis a rare leader who is willing to listen more than he speaks. Am I right?”

The Elder’s tone had grown soft, reassuring, even as his eyes blazed with cold intensity. Pagus forced himself to respond. “What do you ask of me, my lord?”

“Only that you be my ally in helping to defend the crown against all enemies. There are others, young Pagus, who might continue the work King Torin has begun. But in order to defeat the evil without, we must first weather challenges from within. You understand this, yes?”

“Does my lord speak of General Rogun?”

Thaddreus’s taut smile vanished quickly. “It is but a matter of time, I fear, before Rogun lays claim to the Sword, one way or another. We must be vigilant, and protect against that eventuality at all costs. Would you agree?”

Pagus nodded slowly.

“So, I ask again, did Master Allion take the Sword with him?”

The boy could almost believe the other’s sincerity. At the same time, he suspected what was really being asked of him, and did not like it. Though he couldn’t be sure that his spying had played any part in Torin’s fall, he was loath to risk harm upon anyone else by returning to his informant’s ways.

“Aye, my lord.” He tried to look the other in the eyes while saying it, but failed to do so. “Aye, I believe he did.”

When he looked up again, Thaddreus’s features had tightened with renewed anger. Or so he thought. A moment later, the old man was all gentle seriousness once more.

“I see. Well, then, I ask you this: Keep an eye out, lad. For both the Sword and its wielder. The general is not a bad man, but he will do bad things, hurt innocent people, to accomplish what he believes he must. Help me see that the Sword is kept safe and not put at risk in any way. Can you do that for me?”

Again the intensity of the old man’s gaze forced Pagus’s to the floor.

“Look at me, boy!” The old man grasped him by the arms with a savage strength.

“Aye, my lord. Aye, I will keep watch.”

“And let me know where both are at all times.”

“Aye, if that is your wish, my lord.”

Thaddreus stepped back. “Good. In gratitude, and to see that you keep your oath, I offer you this gildron.”

He pressed the promised coin into Pagus’s palm. The boy could not even bring himself to look at it.

“There are more where that came from, I promise. That one merely seals our agreement. A goodly sum, as you know, but a small price for our continued freedom. Yes?”

“Aye. Thank you, my lord.”

“Do not disappoint me, boy.”

Pagus stared up at the old man, hoping to make him leave. “I will do my best, my lord.”

Thaddreus grunted, then gripped his shoulder in what passed for acknowledgment but might as easily have been a warning. Pushing him aside, the First Elder reached for the door, then vanished down the hall.

For a while after the other had gone, Pagus held his coin in silence. Finally, when the old man’s footsteps had faded, he flung it across the room and fell to his mattress in tears.

A
LLION CLICKED HIS TONGUE AND
cracked his whip, urging his wagon team onward. The gate guards had barely looked at his cargo. To them, it was just another load of rotting corpses being driven from the city.

He was, perhaps, being overly cautious. Torin was
his
friend, and he the king’s regent. It might have been that, had he explained himself, no one would try to stop him. But he wasn’t taking any chances. There had been many who protested as their slain ones were being dragged away to be burned, on order of the army and of the Circle—an order that Allion himself had done nothing to fight. From what they’d been given to know, it was the only way to protect those fallen from rising again as Illychar. Some did not yet believe, and saw only that those precious to them were being desecrated, denied a proper mourning and burial. But Allion, still haunted by the final look in Evhan’s eyes, understood that they had little choice.

Even so, he would not allow his friend’s remains to share the fate of these others. This was not Torin’s home; he had never belonged here. His life’s road complete, he would be laid to rest where it had begun: in Diln, beneath the boughs of the Kalgren Forest, among friends and loved ones. And this was not a matter Allion would chance to debate. The inherent risks, he had decided, were manageable enough.

An evening breeze, unseasonably mild, rustled his cowl and brushed his cheeks. Spring was well on its way. Or perhaps it was only the heat of the fires that warmed this night.

The first came into view as he continued east around the hill. Its red glow painted the sky like a molten sunrise, and already he could see the tips of the flames spitting from their bowl, forked limbs clawing toward the heavens.

At a branch in the switchback roadway, a soldier gestured in the direction he should follow. Allion nodded without showing his face, and whipped his horses past.

From there, he but followed the long line of wagons and barrows pouring down and around the ragged hills that formed Krynwall’s base. It was a sobering sight, to see just how many had fallen.

The burnings themselves were no haphazard affair, but a regimented effort carefully planned and closely monitored. The closer Allion got, the more soldiers he encountered. There were blazes that had been tamped down until the winds changed, to avoid blowing ash and smoke across the city. Some were just being lit, while others raged so hot that the tenders allowed no one within fifty paces. At a main checkpoint, Allion received orders as to where his load
would be deposited. Using a cloth to cover his nose and mouth, the hunter rode on.

His eyes stung and his throat burned when at last he came upon a new pit, freshly dug, into which bodies were just now being laid. Laborers and taskmasters of countless number and untold variety swarmed the pitted landscape, which smelled of rot and burning flesh and tilled earth. Diggers and woodcutters and pyre-builders and flame-bearers and others went about their work with stoic resignation. Those who handled the bodies did so, for the most part, with proper dignity. The soldiers acting as overseers would tolerate no disrespect, Allion supposed, where it concerned those they had battled alongside.

The civilians, sorted and separated from the men-at-arms, were carried off to different pits. The treatment of these appeared much the same, only with less solemnity and few prayers or rites to speak of. The priests and their acolytes, it appeared, could only attend to so many souls at one time.

Better to have died a commoner, however, than an Illychar. The latter, referred to by most as “reavers,” came in all shapes and sizes—though in quantities much smaller than Allion would have hoped, given the overall number of dead. Elves, mostly—Finlorian. But Allion spotted a pair of ogres and even a goblin among them, as well as several whose original race he could only guess at. These were handled with nothing short of disgust—kicked and tossed like vermin, spat and even pissed upon, showered with taunts and curses and wards to protect against the spread of their evil. A baseless prejudice, really. After all, while in some cases difficult to tell, there were many of their own kind—such as Evhan—who had been confirmed as Illychar. From what Allion could see, most of these were being treated with pity, rather than contempt, as if their human shell made them somehow less vile.

“Oy! You going to lend a hand, or let your arse blister while we do all the work?”

Allion turned to regard the stranger, a giant of a man with twisted features and a gnarled bent. After waving in apology, the hunter tied off the reins to his team, double-checked the brake, and climbed over the bench to assist with the unloading of bodies from the wagon bed.

His load had already been sorted before leaving the city, wrapped in canvas and marked according to station. Fasor all—members of the City Shield. He had not wanted to give the workers—or soldiers—reason to look down upon him.

The decision seemed to have the desired effect.

“Stout lads, these, and brave,” the crooked giant observed solemnly. “Shame to see so many struck down in their prime.”

Allion wondered how exactly the man had determined this, since the faces of the fallen were covered. Most likely, he was speaking in general terms. Either way, Allion was not going to disagree.

“We’ll overcome,” he replied huskily. “We Alsonians always do.”

The other grunted and clapped his shoulder, without causing so much as a hitch in their efforts.

When naught but bloodstained straw remained, the giant and his team of unloaders moved on to the next wagon drawn up in line. Allion saw them off with a workmanlike nod, climbed back upon the bench, and took up his reins.

Time to be about his real business.

He turned not toward the city, but continued down along the road wending east. He had driven no more than twenty lengths when a voice cried out.

“You there! Halt!”

A battalion commander, Allion realized, and quickly reined his horses and wagon to a stop.

He bowed low as the colonel drew close, a personal regiment of a dozen or more in tow.

“I beg pardon, sir. Is there a problem?”

“You’ve just completed a delivery, no?”

“Yes, sir. A team of Fasor killed within the walls.”

“Then where are you taking this cart?”

“I—I was returning it to my sister’s farm for the night,” Allion stammered.

The colonel shook his head. “All carts commissioned for deliveries are to return to the city immediately for reloading. Upon decommission, they are to be destroyed.”

Allion’s stomach lurched. “But my sister—”

“Your sister can apply for compensation for commissioned articles. But my orders are clear. I will not risk spreading this contagion.”

It was difficult to fault the man for such precautions. And yet, Allion cringed, recognizing full well that a dangerous turn had been taken, and fearing where such paranoia on the part of his countrymen might lead.

“On whose authority was this order given?” he asked, as innocently as he could manage.

“The highest you’ll find,” the colonel responded.

Within his cowl, Allion’s frown deepened. The Circle had issued no such edict before his departure. “Does the army mean to burn all drivers and handlers, too?”

“Only them that challenge orders,” came the curt reply.

It made little sense, Allion knew, to treat this like a form of plague spread by contact. But neither was this the time or place for that argument. All of a sudden, he regretted his decision not to attempt to sneak Torin out through the secret passages beneath the city. Those segmented pathways would have been virtually impossible to navigate with his friend’s deadweight, and much of the network had been placed under heavy patrol by Commander Zain. But if he’d known in the beginning that this would be the result of his efforts…

“Your choice is simple,” the colonel added in his clipped tones. “Either return to the city at once, or we destroy this wagon, here and now.”

His ruse was up. He would have to reveal himself—and likely his true purpose—if he meant to escape. Even then, he had no doubt that Rogun him
self would take part in the final decision before he was allowed to leave.

He was about to draw back his hood when the thunder of an approaching rider stole his—and then the colonel’s—attention.

“Colonel Venmore,” the messenger greeted, after pulling his steed to a thrashing halt. “Commander Zain bids you gather as many as can be spared to join him at once at the head of the Hanoan Promontory.”

“What is it?”

“A delegation under Drakmar banner approaches, sir. The commander has been ordered to welcome it in full force.”

The colonel glanced back at the work taking place around him. “I don’t have time for welcoming committees,” he muttered.

“Sir?”

“Strike that, Corporal. Inform the commander that we are on your heels.”

“Upon your command, sir.”

“Given.”

The nameless rider twisted his mount’s head and put heel to flank, spurring it back up the rise.

Just like that, Allion was forgotten, as Venmore turned to his aides and runners and issued the necessary orders.

“You there,” the colonel added before turning away, and Allion knew—without a great deal of surprise—that he was not to be let off so easy. “I would see you back here within the hour with another load. If not, and I learn that this cart has traveled anywhere other than straight back to the city, I will hunt it down and burn it with both you and your horses strapped to the traces. Is that clear?”

Allion bowed in his seat, letting the colonel believe that his threat alone was sufficient to ensure compliance.

To be safe, he drove halfway back to the city before daring to veer off onto one of the lesser roadways that would circle the city west and north before carrying him around to his ultimate destination in the east. The roundabout route would add an hour or more to his journey, and would be difficult to navigate in the darkness, but there was no help for it now.

More than once, he glanced south along the line of slopes and ridges, down to where hundreds of torches lit the night almost as brightly as one of the giant funeral fires. He was fiercely tempted to go and demand answers of Nevik, but better that he use the diversion provided by the baron’s arrival to make his escape.

His thoughts darkened by recollection of the task that lay ahead, Allion hunkered in his seat, driving his wagon—and its hidden cargo—into the night.

M
ARISHA STEPPED OUT ONTO HER
balcony as bells tolled the Raven’s Hour—the last before midnight. Though it had been a long day, her restless thoughts and churning emotions would allow her no sleep.

Even at this distance, she could smell the smoke from the fires that wrapped the city on three sides. So much death. So much suffering. Would it ever end?

Worse, she had contributed to it. She had spent more time with Darinor than anyone. She should have been the one to figure out the truth of his Illysp possession. Had she not been such a little girl, blinded by her devotion to a beloved father she’d not seen in more than twelve years…

But that was not the whole of it. For it was not just love that had blinded her, but personal need. The need to learn who she was and who she was meant to be. Having learned the truth of her heritage as one bearing the blood of the Entients, she had succumbed to that need like never before, defending her father—the only one who could hope to teach her about herself—against all suspicions and challenges. Had she not been so selfish, he might have been exposed much sooner, and the deaths of thousands avoided.

But “what if” and “might have been” were of no help to anyone now, and so she tried not to dwell on them. She had two choices: become a slave to her devastation, or pick up the pieces and move forward as best she could, encouraging others to do the same.

She had chosen the latter; the alternative could grant only desolation and madness. What she hadn’t anticipated, and found much harder to accept, was Allion’s withdrawal from her for doing so. Though he would never say that he blamed her for Torin’s death or her father’s treachery, he had regarded her these past two days as if she were no more than a reminder of his pain. This, more than anything else, had stung her to the core.

She believed she recognized the actual source of his feelings. Though it was her fault as much as his, and though Torin had shown no animosity upon learning of it, they had in fact formed a forbidden relationship in the king’s absence. Not quite lovers, but near enough. In consequence, Allion was being devoured by guilt, and the more she tried to assuage that guilt, the more sullen and angry he had become—as if her overtures for strength were a temptation he must resist. What she considered moving on, he perceived as callousness toward Torin, her onetime betrothed.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Hence her decision to let him go forth on this hazardous and potentially foolhardy venture—not because she’d been persuaded by his arguments, but to demonstrate her love and respect for both men. A terrible sacrifice on her part, trusting him to return safely on his own. Whether Allion recognized it or not, he was all she had left. Yet he was no good to her or the kingdom a broken man. Unless he could come to terms with his grief, he might as well be dead.

The stars blurred as tears came to her eyes, but she gripped the stone balustrade and blinked them away. Though it had pained her to say it, she’d meant what she had said about burying either his guilt or himself along with his friend. For there was still much to be done. They knew not the whole of her father’s Illysp-driven plan, nor quite how to combat it. They could not even be certain of what things he had told them were true, and which were
lies. This war was bigger than Allion and Marisha, more important than their personal quest for love and happiness. No matter what became of his feelings for her, the hunter, as a keystone soldier in the conflict to come, could not go around carrying such anchors as he now bore.

Without quite meaning to, Marisha drew forth the Pendant of Asahiel from where it hid against her breast. Clutching the gleaming heartstone, she lifted her gaze to the heavens and prayed once more for Allion’s safety, asking that this act of laying his friend to rest be enough to heal his wounds and bring him peace—and, should it please the Ceilhigh, that they be given a chance to find the joy they deserved, when the time was right.