The Return of Nightfall (29 page)

Kelryn wished he could promise everything would work out all right, though she knew he would have to lie to do so. He had no way of even knowing whether King Edward still lived.

“I’ll do my best,” he said with the force of a solemn vow. “I’ll do my very best.”

Chapter 11

—Dyfrin of Keevain, the demon’s friend

 

T
HE CHICKEN, tubers, and cider sat like lead in Nightfall’s gut as he slithered through the darkness. He avoided the docks, where the guards would scrutinize every traveler and probably offer the captains a hefty reward for his capture. The realization frustrated him. A boat could take him back to Schiz far faster than any form of overland travel, especially since caution restricted him to walking. Horses drew the attention of passersby and thieves, and rendered silent unseen travel impossible.

Nightfall trusted his ability to outwit any guards. He could stow away aboard a ship, but the crew would eventually find him. Once they did, he would be effectively trapped until the ship pulled into port and the sailors handed him over to Alyndar. He had suffered that fate once, and never would again. Procuring a ship, by bet, money, or theft did him little good without a trustworthy crew to man it. That left him no choice but an overland route, even it if took him a month or more to reach Duke Varsah’s city.

Now dressed as a male commoner in well-worn homespun snatched from a drying line, his hair in an artificially lengthened black braid, and his features altered, Nightfall knew he would not stand out in any of the nearby cities. Nevertheless, he slunk around inhabited areas, preferring to lay low in the cornfields and forests springing up around Alyndar’s outskirts. Soon, he had completely circled the city, skirting the harvested fields to plow deep into the shadowed forests.

Though Nightfall kept off the roads, he remained near enough to monitor traffic and keep his bearings. Anyone traveling before sunup would appear suspicious. Hiding in plain sight usually worked better, in Nightfall’s experience. He had performed most of his greatest thefts with the owners at home and his best disappearances in broad daylight. Less cautious then, people tended not to lock up valuables and to ignore noises that would raise alarm in darker, quieter times.

The acrid smell of fire touched Nightfall’s nostrils. Deep in the woodlands, it could only mean a campfire.
Guards,
he guessed, and soundlessly followed the odor. It seemed worth the small risk of discovery to learn the location, numbers and, perhaps, the mind-set of his enemies. The more he understood about their hunt, the safer he became.

No stranger to creeping through woodlands, Nightfall made swift passage despite his need for quiet. At length, he spotted the red dot of the campfire, interrupted at intervals by the movement of figures around it. He saw and heard no horses, which struck him as odd. Surely Alyndar’s guard force would have access to mounts, though he supposed they might not use them. Perhaps he had stumbled upon a stealthy force, geared to find a lone man sneaking through the forest.

The skin between Nightfall’s shoulder blades tickled as his imagination placed unseen eyes in the brush. A group of men trained to spy would not kindle a telltale fire.
Unless they’re using it to draw me.
It seemed far-fetched, yet it had worked. Perhaps these men had set up their camp knowing it would draw him, then stationed others in hidden places to surround him. Nightfall froze, wondering if guardsmen could really manage such a clever and devious ruse, then dismissed his fears as paranoia. They would have to have anticipated his timing and route with an uncanny accuracy. Even he did not know exactly how he planned to get to Schiz, and they could only guess at his final destination.

Then, a familiar loud, squeaky voice reached Nightfall’s ears. “So we basically got permission to rob and kill any loner in this-here woods.”

Nightfall sifted his memory for the name of the low-down punk who owned that voice: Thumesto, a small-time thief who worked out of Nemix. Nightfall edged closer, knowing whoever spoke next would do so at a lower volume.

“I reckon he’s going to have to resemble the fellow they’s looking for at least a little if’n we don’t want to wind up executed or in a dungeon cell somewheres.”

The shadows sorted into three human forms sprawled in front of a low and flickering campfire. The scrawny, irritatingly voiced Thumesto had his back to Nightfall, his clothing of threadbare linen and his stubbly hair cut tight against his scalp. The second speaker lay on his back, his hands tucked beneath his head as he stared at the sky. Though of medium build and coloring, most of his body swaddled in a tattered blanket, Hammaxl the Highwayman was also recognizable to Nightfall once he put together the pieces of what he heard and saw. The third sat in profile, hawk-nosed and huge, a lumbering bear of a man who served as a frequent partner to Hammaxl. His name escaped Nightfall’s memory.

“They might forgive us a mistake or two.” The bearlike man stretched with an enormous, noisy yawn. “Though dinnit the one guard say they perferred him live?”

“Preferred.” Hammaxl restored the proper pronunciation. “But they dint offer more money that way. Why should we trouble ourselfs struggling with the fellow if’n we doan have ta?”

They all laughed, as if Hammaxl had said something wickedly clever instead of just wicked.

The bear-man poked a stick at the fire. “Ain’t we got more ta eat?”

Thumesto’s grating voice came next, “Ain’t you be thinking ’bout nothing ought your stomach?”

“I’m hungry,” the big man said. “Can’t help that I am.”

“You done et three quarters of what we had already.” Thumesto’s tone grew even more grating, if possible. “Don’t see as . . .”

Nightfall withdrew reluctantly, stifling the urge to grab Hammaxl by the throat and demand whatever information had oozed to Nemix’ underground. Again, his inability to act freely tied his hands. The demon would know every detail these wretched thieves did in moments, while Nightfall-turned-Sudian had to settle for whatever he randomly overheard. He might learn more by remaining, or he might lose hours listening to an inane, unhelpful recitation of highwayman strategy. He knew he could avoid them easily enough. Other travelers would have to take their own precautions, aware secluded areas seemed to breed men like Hammaxl and the others. Lone travelers were rare, and anyone who dared such a thing probably deserved what he got. Despite the viewpoints of King Edward and Dyfrin, it was not Nightfall’s job to see to it that fools traveled safely.

One thing seemed abundantly clear to Nightfall. Alyndar had offered enough of a reward to stimulate at least the lower echelons of thieves and assassins to comb the world for him. Any lone traveler would become fair game, and even his disguises might not save him if desperate people in search of gold proved no more discriminating than these bandits. He saw no way to make himself part of a group without severely hampering his mission. Dressed as a female, he would stand out even more as a lone traveler and bar himself from many of the best sources of information.

As Nightfall turned away from the traveled pathways and toward the coastline, he realized he had few options. He could skulk about for a time, living off the land and laying low, but that would not gain him the facts he needed to find King Edward. Wherever he went, he had to find a way to fit in with the local populace; and that might mean employing old personae.

To Nightfall’s surprise, the idea brought a tingle of excitement. Strange as it seemed, he missed some of his old friends, even if they were only himself in different guises. Finding a safe hollow, obscured by trees and vines, Nightfall snuggled into a defensible position and allowed himself to drift toward the featherlight sleep that kept him alive. As he drifted, he thought of Kelryn’s last words to him:
Bring back Ned, and also Sudian.
Naturally, she wanted them both home safely, yet the phrasing confused him.
Why did she say “Sudian” instead of “yourself”?
No clear answer came; it all seemed inconsequential, distant.

Nightfall fell into restless sleep.

 

Nightfall awakened well after sunrise, still completely hidden by brush and trees. His mouth felt dry and sticky. The imprint of every twig and pebble seemed stamped in bruises across the soles of feet protected only by a pair of stolen cloth shoes. His head throbbed in time to the dull, pulsing ache of his shoulder. Oblivious to his presence, or his awakening, birds whistled a symphony through the treetops. A squirrel scrambled in energetic bursts across the branches overhead, sending down a shower of leaves that had blanketed Nightfall through the night. Once his senses told him nothing dangerous shared this area of the forest, he rose and forced himself to stretch through the pain. The desire to hold his left arm utterly still was strong, but he resisted. He could not afford to allow it to stiffen.

Though it meant scrambling over rocks and unkempt ledges, Nightfall spent the next several days traveling along the coast, enjoying the aroma of salt and bracken, the shrill of gulls, and the gentle bob of other seabirds on the current. Occasionally he saw ships in the distance, their masts carving perfect triangles and rows of rectangles against the clouds; but none came near enough for him to read its standard. Every time a stone or stick added to the mass of bruises on his instep, he wished he stood aboard a rollicking deck, staring out over white runnels carved by the stern. He feasted on clams and oysters washed against the bank, infant lobsters when he could catch them scuttling beneath the bracken, and handfuls of autumn berries from twisted, prickly vines. Myriad tributaries washing into the ocean supplied him with reasonably fresh water harboring only a tinge of silt and salt.

Soon, the land grew more familiar as tended rows of crops appeared to Nightfall’s left. As Telwinar, he had tended his five small fields with the help of his neighbors and odd-job laborers whom he kept well paid for their services. He had made an effort to take Telwinar guise at planting and harvest and to ply his other trades and personae in winter and the growing season. He worked his own fields whenever possible, though he received little of the land’s rewards, which went to the overlord owner of the land. The people of Delfor knew him as a gentle recluse, badly scarred from a plowing accident. It surprised no one that he had no wife and had to hire the children of those around him rather than make his own.

Nearing Delfor.
Nightfall recalled his last visit there. A woman named Genevra, with the natal ability to heal wounds, had come to Delfor, sheltered and protected by the overlord. He kept her in a fortress, albeit a richly convenienced and comfortable one, and gave her his men and the wealthy to heal. The arrangement pleased both. Genevra sacrificed her freedom for security and believed herself the better for it. She had witnessed Dyfrin’s nightmarish death: the excruciating agony of the sorcerer’s attack, the flaying of soul from body; and the sorcerer had touched her talent as well. She believed any arrangement satisfactory if it rescued her from the same fate. Genevra liked Sudian. She would surely agree to heal his shoulder, but he doubted all of his silver would prove enough for Overlord Pritikis to grant him an audience with her.

Nightfall drifted landward as he examined the checkerboard pattern of hay and corn, careful not to draw near enough to discern human figures among the crops, as they might see him as well. When he and Edward had passed through, the spring planting had just started. He had missed it for the first time and knew Telwinar was now considered dead, his fields, horses, and supplies handed over to a new farmer or divided among neighbors, his meager belongings claimed by Overlord Pritikis or thieves.

As Nightfall considered the lot of a man who had existed only as a part of himself, he reconsidered his idea from the previous night.
A lone stranger will draw attention, especially if Alyndar’s guards came through here.
He knew he could count on that being the case.
But the return of a familiar face, alone or not, might go unnoticed.
Though Nightfall had assured Edward he had no reason to assume any name or persona but Sudian’s for the rest of his life, he believed the king would understand. He had only vowed not to take up the guise of Nightfall again, a promise he fully intended to keep. Reviving any of the others would require explanation and might entangle him in minor discomforts and interpersonal affairs, but a rebirth of the demon would result in an uncontrollable bonfire of trouble. Just one living man in Alyndar could explain what had happened, Commander Volkmier, and he had only hunches and assumptions, without explanations. The law of every country, and thousands of vendettas, would condemn Nightfall to death. The integrity of Alyndar’s greatest king would become an issue of challenge, and Edward would never forgive his squire turned chancellor.

Nightfall shook the thought aside. Making himself into Telwinar did not mean surrendering to all of his past. If he could successfully manage to revive the Delforian farmer, it opened the way to normalcy in other cities as well. He would not have to dodge human contact, without which he would never find King Edward. He could become Etan the laborer in the south, Frihiat in Schiz, and Balshaz the merchant almost anywhere. He could move through the world without the need for constant scrutiny, and Alyndar’s guards would never think to search for Sudian in the guise of well-known and established citizens.

Excited by this new prospect, Nightfall set to rearranging days of clinging filth into the familiar, scarred features of the Delforian farmer. Already dirtied and colored black, Nightfall’s hair required little coaxing to take the proper curls. He fixed his clothes to give him the appearance of additional bulk while still appearing close-fitting. Since his staged accident with the plow, Telwinar never allowed fabric to flow where a stray tool, wheel, or misbehaving animal might trap it. The purse Kelryn had insisted he take held only silver coins, twelve in total, each worth nearly as much as Telwinar could earn in a year. It put him in a quandary. Until he changed one, he would look conspicuous paying for anything.