The Legend Of Eli Monpress (35 page)

Without a word, she turned on her heel and fled. Her spirits were wide awake, yet oddly silent, their attention
buzzing against her shaking fingers. She shoved her hands in her pockets and walked faster. So that was the Lord of Storms. For the first time, she understood why Banage had been so adamant about leaving demon matters in League hands. The silver-eyed man did not look like someone who took well to having his affairs meddled in. She almost felt bad for Eli and Josef. If the Lord of Storms himself was here looking for Nico, it was only a matter of time before they found her. Alric had said that awakened demons don’t go back to sleep and, whatever Josef’s sword had done, Miranda believed him. She shuddered, remembering the flickering glow of Nico’s lantern eyes. Despite Eli’s pleas, she didn’t see how something like that could ever go back to being human. Hopefully, the thief and the swordsman would have enough sense to give her up quietly when the Lord of Storms came, or there wouldn’t be enough of them left for her to catch, much less bring back to Banage.

That thought nearly made her sick, and she put the whole affair out of her mind. Whatever horrors were yet to happen, it wasn’t her problem anymore. That thought cheered her up immensely, and she threw open the door to the stables with remarkable gusto for someone who’d spent the smaller half of a week in bed.

Gin was where she knew he would be, sprawled at the center of the stable yard, eating a pig. The stains on the cobbles around him spoke of many such meals, and she stopped at the edge of the walkway, putting her hands on her hips with a mock glare. “Are you eating them out of house and home?”

“Nice to see you, too,” Gin mumbled between chews. He licked his chops and rolled to his feet. Miranda winced
when she saw the long, still-healing gash that ran across his shoulders, interrupting the flow of his undulating patterns.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he growled when he saw her expression. “I’m not made of paper, you know.”

Miranda walked over and reached up to scratch behind his ear. “I’m glad to see you doing so well.”

“So am I,” Gin said, but he leaned into her scratching. “So, where now?”

“Home,” Miranda said. “I have to let Master Banage know what happened, especially now that the League’s involved. I think our Eli hunt is going to get a bit more hairy from here on.”

“If Banage lets us keep going,” the hound said. “League nonsense aside, Eli still got away with the increased bounty and more than eight thousand in loose gold. Banage isn’t going to be happy about that part, and he’s not the forgiving type.”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we reach it,” Miranda said, giving him a final pat. “Finish your pig, we’re leaving as soon as I find where they put the rest of my things.”

They left that afternoon, after Miranda said good-bye to Marion and paid her respects to the king. Henrith was in a bit of a panic when she found him, for the league members had left just a few minutes before, vanishing as mysteriously as they had appeared.

“It really is too much,” he said, slumping down in his chair. “First we have no wizards, then we have too many, and now none again.”

“It doesn’t always have to be that way,” Miranda said, sipping the tea he had insisted she try before leaving. They were sitting in the rose garden behind the
main castle, just below the throne room’s windows. It, like the rest of the palace, had been repaired, but here and there the plants were bent at odd angles where the falling stones and overflowing water had crushed them. Deep inside her, Mellinor shifted uncomfortably at that thought. Miranda sent a warm reassurance before setting her cup down and meeting Henrith’s dejected gaze. “The Spirit Court would be delighted to send a representative. We might not be as flashy as the League, but no country was ever worse off for having a Spiritualist.”

“I think I may take you up on that offer,” the king said thoughtfully. “After all, of all the wizards who’ve tromped through my kingdom over the past week or so, you’re the only one who did right by us, and we won’t forget that.”

“Your Majesty flatters me,” Miranda said and smiled. “Perhaps I can do you another good turn. I’m going home to Zarin to give my report to the Rector Spiritualis. Master Banage is a powerful man, and he might be able to convince the Council of Thrones to throw out Mellinor’s part of Eli’s bounty. I think coercion of a monarch counts as extenuating circumstances enough to justify a slight bending of the rules.”

The king set down his teacup. “I appreciate the offer, but it won’t be necessary. After all this ruckus, I think thirty-five thousand is the least we can do to reward the person crazy enough to catch Eli Monpress.” He smiled broadly. “I hope, lady, that it will be you.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment,” Miranda said, laughing. “But I shall do my best, all the same.”

In the end, he gave her three bags of the tea to take with her. She bundled them into her pack, along with the generous store of sandwiches, fruits, nuts, and bread
from the palace kitchens, and secured the lot across Gin’s lower back. Then she climbed into her spot right behind the ghosthound’s ears and let him put on all the show he liked as they bounded over the gates and out of the town. Once on the road, she was careful not to comment when he set a slower pace, and if she made them take more breaks than they usually did, Gin didn’t mention it. So, in this casual way, they crossed the borders of Mellinor and followed the trade roads north and a little east toward Zarin, the wizard city at the heart of the world.

Far to the west, on the other side of Mellinor, Eli was having a harder time of things.

“I give up,” he said, turning his back on the deep, fast river he had spent the better part of an hour trying to convince to pull back its waters long enough for them to cross.

“Why don’t you just give it an order?” Josef said from his perch on the enormous bag of gold. “Worked well enough on the big lake spirit back there, why not a river?”

“It was a sea spirit,” Eli growled. “And that was totally different.” He turned his scowl toward Nico, who was sitting on the ground beside Josef drawing patterns in the sand with a split twig.

“This is all your fault, you know,” he said, pointing at her. “If you hadn’t been so careless and ripped your coat to shreds, the river would have no idea what you are, and we would have been safely across thirty minutes ago. Now it thinks we’re part of some vast, demonic conspiracy and is looking for a way to drown us.”

As if to prove his point, the river chose that moment to splash several rocks onto the shore, which landed in the sand inches from Nico’s bare knees. Eli shook his head
and glanced forlornly upriver. “Nothing for it, we’ll have to find a bridge and cross like normal people. Fortunately, I think there’s one in our direction.”

“Our direction?” Josef scratched his chest where the bandages poked above his shirt. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Eli said. “We can’t get anything done with Nico in that condition. We’re going to get her a new coat.”

“A new coat?” Josef cocked an eyebrow at the wizard. “Is that all?”

“Yes,” Eli said, starting up the sandy bank. “So make sure you don’t lose any of that gold. If we’re lucky, we’ll have just enough to pay for it.”

“We’ve got enough gold to purchase a fully stocked villa and the noble title to go with it!” Josef said, kicking the bag with his boot heel. “What kind of coat are we buying?”

But Eli was already a good distance ahead, digging through the maps in his shoulder bag and muttering to himself. Josef rolled his eyes and stood up. With a grunt, he heaved the bag of gold onto his back and balanced it on the flat of his sword while he tied it in place. Then, with the Heart of War secured over one shoulder, and the bag of gold tied across the other, he tromped down the bank after the thief. Tossing down her twig, Nico stood and followed, fitting her small, bare feet into the swordsman’s large tracks. Every few minutes, the river would send a new volley of rocks at her, which she dodged easily, never taking her eyes off Josef’s back. She stayed less than a step behind him the whole way, one thin hand clutching the tattered remains of her coat and the other stretched out in front, her long fingers resting on the cutting edge of the Heart of War’s blade.

To my parents, for more reasons
than I can fit on one page

H
igh in the forested hills where no one went, there stood a stone tower. It was a practical tower, neither lovely nor soaring, but solid and squat at only two stories. Its enormous blocks were hewn from the local stone, which was of an unappealing, muddy color that seemed to attract grime. Seeing that, it was perhaps fortunate that the tower was overrun with black-green vines. They wound themselves around the tower like thread on a spindle, knotting the wooden shutters closed and crumbling the mortar that held the bricks together, giving the place an air of disrepair and gloomy neglect, especially when it was dark and raining, as it was now.

Inside the tower, a man was shouting. His voice was deep and authoritative, but the voice that answered him didn’t seem to care. It yelled back, childish and high, yet something in it was unignorable, and the vines that choked the tower rustled closer to listen.

Completely without warning, the door to the tower, a heavy wooden slab stained almost black from years in the forest, flew open. Yellow firelight spilled into the clearing, and, with it, a boy ran out into the wet night. He was thin and pale, all legs and arms, but he ran like the wind, his dark hair flying behind him. He had already made it halfway across the clearing before a man burst out of the tower after him. He was also dark haired, and his eyes were bright with rage, as were the rings that clung to his fingers.

“Eliton!” he shouted, throwing out his hand. The ring on his middle finger, a murky emerald wrapped in a filigree of golden leaves and branches, flashed deep, deep green. Across the dirt clearing that surrounded the tower, a great mass of roots ripped itself from the ground below the boy’s feet.

The boy staggered and fell, kicking as the roots grabbed him.

“No!” he shouted. “Leave me alone!”

The words rippled with power as the boy’s spirit blasted open. It was nothing like the calm, controlled openings the Spiritualists prized. This was a raw ripping, an instinctive, guttural reaction to fear, and the power of it landed like a hammer, crushing the clearing, the tower, the trees, the vines, everything. The rain froze in the air, the wind stopped moving, and everything except the boy stood perfectly still. Slowly, the roots that had leaped up fell away, sliding limply back to the churned ground, and the boy squirmed to his feet. He cast a fearful, hateful glance over his shoulder, but the man stood as still as everything else, his rings dark and his face bewildered like a joker’s victim.

“Eliton,” he said again, his voice breaking.

“No!” the boy shouted, backing away. “I hate you and your endless rules! You’re never happy, are you? Just leave me alone!”

The words thrummed with power, and the boy turned and ran. The man started after him, but the vines shot off the tower and wrapped around his body, pinning him in place. The man cried out in rage, ripping at the leaves, but the vines piled on thicker and thicker, and he could not get free. He could only watch as the boy ran through the raindrops, still hanging weightless in the air, waiting for the child to say it was all right to fall.

“Eliton!” the man shouted again, almost pleading. “Do you think you can handle power like this alone? Without discipline?” He lunged against the vines, reaching toward the boy’s retreating back. “If you don’t come back this instant you’ll be throwing away everything that we’ve worked for!”

The boy didn’t even look back, and the man’s face went scarlet.

“Go on, keep running!” he bellowed. “See how far you get without me! You’ll never amount to anything without training! You’ll be worthless alone! WORTHLESS! DO YOU HEAR?”

“Shut up!” The boy’s voice was distant now, his figure scarcely visible between the trees, but his power still thrummed in the air. Trapped by the vines, the man could only struggle uselessly as the boy vanished at last into the gloom. Only then did the power begin to fade. The vines lost their grip and the man tore himself free. He took a few steps in the direction the boy had gone, but thought better of it.

“He’ll be back,” he muttered, brushing the leaves off his robes. “A night in the wet will teach him.” He glared at the vines. “He’ll be back. He can’t do anything without me.”

The vines slid away with a noncommittal rustle, mindful of their roll in his barely contained anger. The man cast a final, baleful look at the forest and then, gathering himself up, turned and marched back into the tower. He slammed the door behind him, cutting off the yellow light and leaving the clearing darker than ever as the suspended rain finally fell to the ground.

The boy ran, stumbling over fallen logs and through muddy streams swollen with the endless rain. He didn’t know where he was going, and he was exhausted from whatever he had done in the clearing. His breath came in thundering gasps, drowning out the forest sounds, and yet, now as always, no matter how much noise he made, he could hear the spirits all around him—the anger of the stream at being full of mud, the anger of the mud at being cut from its parent dirt spirit and shoved into the stream, the contented murmurs of the trees as the water ran down them, the mindless singing of the crickets. The sounds of the spirit world filled his ears as no other sounds could, and he clung to them, letting the voices drag him forward even as his legs threatened to give up.