The Sigil Blade (41 page)

The constriction continued to progress. The pure dark extending from the draugr had engulfed his arm now, and was spreading up his neck and across his chest. He realized this was wrong, it was not enveloping his body; it was swallowing his aura. This malleable thing, whatever it was, it was not physical in nature. It was something in a sense akin to the shroud, in the same way that being wrapped in a warm blanket was like being stuffed into a cloth sack before being drowned in a river.

The Ældisir knew that she was watching his death, and because she knew it, Edryd knew it too, through a bond that had been forged between them. He was having increasing trouble distinguishing his thoughts from hers. She was feeling pain and failure. He was struggling vainly to make it all stop and feeling the dread that came with knowing it was useless.

Edryd did not stop struggling, but he did try to calm his emotions. He needed to think clearly and use what time there was to study the draugr and find some weakness. Edryd could see her now in the way that she had once been, the way she tried now to still see herself. She was tall, at least as tall as he was, and young and beautiful. Worked through with intricate braids, her dark black hair fell past her shoulders. Her skin, a dark even shade of basaltic grey, had a warm vitality, and her eyes were an intense absolute green that evoked depths to which Edryd was bereft in all his limited experience of any adequate comparison. He knew that she was sorry for what was happening. Not just for him, but also for reasons of her own. Like so many others, she had wanted him to do something for her, something impossible.

Edryd saw that he was nearly enveloped now, and he abstractly realized that his body had gone still, having ceased its breathing. There was something he had not tried. He could make one last attempt to shape, but he still felt somehow that if he did the result might be far worse than what he was facing now. Edryd pushed the idea away as he continued to resist, prepared to endure for as long as he could. And then the balance to the struggle began to change. Edryd’s aura expanded, straining against the piece of the dark that this demonic envelopment was composed of, and as Edryd exceeded its capacity to contain him, the unnatural confinement began to grow thin.

The Ældisir noticed too. An unthinkable hope ignited inside her and she began to assail the weakened walls of her cage. Edryd’s aura continued to build. He discovered that he was only tenuously connected to his body which now lay unmoving on the ground, near to what would soon become a permanent and irretrievable death. This twisted shred of the dark that had imprisoned the Ældisir might prove to be a weapon strong enough to kill him, but it was nowhere near sufficient to contain his aura and hold his soul. Edryd felt powerful beyond comprehension.

And then the Ældisir broke through. He was still connected to her in that moment and he shared the unimaginable joy she felt at her freedom. The prison that held her had been unable to hold Edryd, and having lost her as well, it could not continue to hold itself together. It broke apart in a violent explosion, generating an unimaginable torrent within the currents in the dark that flowed through the chamber. The corrupted remnant of a construct that it had once been, dissolved into the barrier realm from which it had been formed, sending reverberations in all directions.

Chapter 21

The Sigil Blade

E
dryd remembered some of what had happened, but none of it remained clear. He was unsure how to reconstruct the exact order of events which had left him lying on his back on the stone floor of the chamber. As he stood, Edryd saw a loose arrangement of objects scattered on the ground beside him. It was only then that he thought to wonder how it was that he could see anything at all. He followed the traces of illumination back to their sources, sconces carved out of the rock and recessed into the walls at even intervals along the edges of the chamber, sending cold blue light throughout the room. He couldn’t guess what fueled these lights or what had caused them to ignite.

Abandoning this mystery, he looked once more at the objects on the ground, taking the time needed to categorize what he saw. The unusual items rested upon and were partially obscured within a strange low mounded pile of dust. Edryd sorted through the fine grains and retrieved one of the objects, a small metal needle. He dropped the item with far less care than he had picked it up, as if he were afraid it might burn him. He realized what it was. It was the weapon the Ældisir had attacked with during the struggle. These loose granules of material he had been sifting through were the creature’s desiccated remains.

Ignoring his revulsion, along with the urge to frantically dislodge the thin layer of decomposition that adhered to him from head to toe, Edryd bent down and carefully cleared the pile of dust away. If there was any danger in touching the remains, surely he had already been completely exposed. Edryd found a scrap of leather with a series of sockets. It held one more needle, with spaces for four others. He rolled this up and placed it in a pocket inside his coat.

There were a few pieces of jewelry, one of which stood out. It was a golden band shaped tightly to the dimensions of what he supposed had been the Ældisir’s arm. Edryd couldn’t imagine how the bracelet could have been worn. It was too narrow to be pulled on or off, and it was perfectly smooth with no evidence anywhere of a break in the piece. It would have had to have either been forged in place, or placed on her arm as a child for her to grow into as an adult. Something about the object seemed hollow, as if it were an empty vessel with no openings. Believing it to be important, Edryd tucked the golden band away inside his coat beside the leather bundle.

At the bottom of the pile was an accessory that would have been worn by a woman over her clothing. It was a looping cord of golden braid that crossed in the front and was designed to be fitted around the shoulders. It was connected in the back to a pair of crossed sheathes, in which two thin knives were held firmly in place. It was designed so that the hilts were positioned down and to the sides so that the two knives could easily be drawn from concealment. This was the equipment of an assassin.

Edryd removed the weapons, the blades of which were perfectly transparent, each an identical match to the other. He marveled at their beauty as they picked up and filtered the blue light along gracefully curved edges. They were not made of glass, or crystal; they were entirely composed of something else, an otherworldly material more beautiful than either. The knife handles were decorated using thin golden threads, which wound through and around tiny faceted designs, providing for a firm grip. All of the other surfaces were smoothly polished and more clear and pure than the cleanest water.

The blades measured out to the length of Edryd’s forearm. The two knives were impossibly light, and though they appeared delicate, they resisted any attempt at flexion when he tested them. Edryd ran his thumb across the cutting edge on one of the knives, and confirmed that it held as sharp an edge as any finely honed steel blade he had ever used. Feeling like he was committing sacrilege, Edryd cut through, unthreaded, and then discarded the golden braid that had held the sheaths.  With the blades returned to their housings, which he discovered could be detached from one another, Edryd hooked them, one on each side, between his hips and his belt. He would have preferred a sword, but at least he was no longer without a means of defense.

Satisfied that there was no purpose to remaining in the chamber any longer, and still as fearful of this place as he had ever been, Edryd ascended the spiraling stone stairway. As he neared the surface, the lights in the chamber died away. Edryd shivered, trying hard not to wonder what the extinguishing lights signified, feeling as though the chamber had chosen to accept him and was now going dormant while it awaited his return.

He was well away from the ruins before he even thought to try. He first confirmed that his aura was plainly visible. There was no longer any trace of the concealment that had once protected him. If as Edryd believed, the shroud had been blocking his attempts to shape, interfering with everything but his ability to passively observe changes in the patterns of the dark, it would no longer be an obstacle to him. Edryd tried to touch the dark, believing in his heart that he would be able to alter its shape. His aura intensified with his efforts, but he could no more grasp the shifting currents of the dark than he could hold onto the rising gusts of air that travelled up the forested slope which he was descending. The dark flowed around him as though he were a minor obstacle of little account, remaining unchanged by and oblivious to his vain attempt to bind it to his will.

The failure made Edryd desperate. He quickened his pace and did not slow until he reached the causeway, where he half expected to see the tall draugr still raging on the opposite shore. But there was no one on the other side. The water was deep now, reaching up to his waist in places as he made his way across. Upon reaching the other side he collapsed. He needed rest, if only just for a short while. He took the opportunity to try once more but the results were the same.

Edryd could see his own potential strength. It seemed incredible that he had proven so inept at putting this power to use. Nothing had been made better. He was no stronger than before, and now he was also exposed and would be unable to hide from his enemies. He didn’t properly understand how, but he had destroyed one of the draugar. Perhaps there was hope that he could defeat the other as well. Seoras could be of some help, if he could be trusted. Edryd noticed then that his connection to Seoras was gone. However the link had formed, the confrontation with the Ældisir in the chamber had obliterated it.

Ominously, Edryd realized that there might be another reason why he could no longer feel his master. Aed Seoras might be dead. It didn’t seem possible. Edryd knew that his teacher feared the draugar and did not have the means to overcome them, but he couldn’t believe that Aed Seoras wouldn’t be able to easily protect himself. Edryd began to hurry. He wanted to get back to Irial and Eithne at the cottage as quickly as he could. He could figure out what to do from there.

When Edryd arrived at the cottage, his strength exhausted and his concentration spent, he saw a man he had seen only once before, waiting beside the door. Aelsian stood, his movements showing the signs of a stiffness which betrayed his age. Edryd could also see a pair of bodies. They were lined up beside each other, well away from the entrance. Dark circles in the earth showed the places where they had died, only a few feet from where Aelsian now stood. A trail of blood led back inside the broken doorway to the cottage. Edryd was too afraid to ask the navarch what had happened.

“I thought for a moment that you might be Ruach,” Edryd said, “but as I get closer, I can’t see how I made that mistake.”

Aelsian looked squarely in Edryd’s eyes, his expression grave and severe.

“This does looks like some of his handiwork, unless I am to believe it is yours,” Edryd said, looking at the bodies and trying to remain calm. “Can you tell me what happened?” asked Edryd, his body growing weak in anticipatory fear of the answer.

Aelsian said nothing. He could not think how to deliver the dark news he carried.

“Where are Irial and Eithne?” Edryd demanded. It was plain that something terrible had happened. Edryd silently prayed that they were simply missing, instead of come to some harm, but Aelsian’s answer shattered that hope.

“She’s gone Edryd; she’s dead.”

Edryd felt as if he had been struck by a weighted weapon, with the hammer of the impact felt all the more severely for his having anticipated the blow.

Aelsian had not said who it was he meant, but his phrasing indicated it was only one of the two girls, and not Irial and Eithne both together. Aelsian, having never met either of them before now, might not have known their names. Edryd dared to hope it was someone else, not the woman he had promised to protect or the young girl that she was caring for. He knew it was a false hope though.

“I will take you to her,” Aelsian said, his eyes full of sympathy.

Edryd followed Aelsian and together they passed through the damaged entrance to the cottage. Edryd had expected scenes of a horrible slaughter in the large open hall, but apart from the damage to the broken doors, the building had barely been disturbed. Led by Aelsian, Edryd stepped into Irial’s bedroom, steeling himself against the grief that he could not hold back as tears began to fall from his face.

Irial was laid out on the bed, her arms posed across her body so that they covered the wound that had ended her life. Her face was calm and peaceful, but utterly pale and drained of color. Edryd wanted to cry out, and he needed to find someone on whom to vent his anger, but he could do neither of these things. He had no words to give to his pain, and no target on which to exact any vengeance. And there was a more immediate concern in that moment than his need to express his sorrow or seek retribution.

“Where is Eithne?” Edryd asked, his fear for the young girl driving all other thoughts from his mind.

“Ruach said they took her.”

“Is he alright?” Edryd asked, wondering why Ruach was not there. His officer apparently would have more answers than Aelsian did.

“He was out in front when Ludin Kar and I arrived,” Aelsian explained. “He had tried to stop them and was nearly killed in the process. He is alive, but not by a wide margin.”

Edryd recognized the name of the navarch’s friend, but he couldn’t remember from where. As to what had happened, Aelsian could tell him little more. The men who had done this had been gone well before he had arrived, so he had not seen himself, any of what had happened. Ruach possessed the only answers that could be had. At Edryd’s insistence, they went to Edryd’s room where Ruach was resting, carefully tended to by Ludin Kar.

“If you had been there with me,” Ruach said, smiling weakly at Edryd as his captain took a seat beside the bed, “we would have killed the lot of them.”

It was a perfectly horrible thing for Ruach to have said, and it filled Edryd with intense unbearable guilt. Ruach had not intended to suggest that any fault lay with Edryd for what had happened, but Edryd placed the blame where he knew it belonged. This had happened because of who he was, and it had happened because of the decisions and the mistakes that he had made.

Ruach, in trying to protect Irial and Eithne from the danger Edryd had brought to their door, had been severely hurt. The warrior bore dozens of superficial cuts. It was plain that these were not from combat. Ruach had been tortured. In addition to those lesser injuries, Ruach had been stabbed through once in the shoulder, deeply cut in several places on his sword arm, and twice pierced through by the end of a sword in each leg. It defied reason that he had survived so many injuries.

“They knew what they were about,” Ruach said, shrugging painfully. “They were careful to keep me alive.”

“But why,” Edryd wondered.

“They had two types of questions, those which I refused to provide answers to, and a great many more for which I knew no answer.”

Edryd did not doubt Ruach. The disciplined soldier would have told the enemies nothing. Edryd was worried that he might not be showing the appropriate amount of concern for his friend, but he wanted to know more, and he was far more interested in what Ruach could tell him about the men who had done this, than anything Ruach might have revealed under their interrogation.

“Who were they?”

“There were two groups,” Ruach said. “One of them was led by Esivh Rhol. He was the one who killed Irial. I didn’t see it happen but I’m sure that it was him.”

“And what of Eithne?” said Edryd.

“It was Esivh Rhol who took her as well,” Ruach replied. “I heard him tell the draugr that she was insurance.” Ruach began to smile as he explained what had happened next. “Eithne must have told the Ard Ri at least a dozen times that the Blood Prince was going to find him and kill him, and he went a new shade of pale every time she said it.”

The look on Edryd’s face told everyone that he was going to go and do exactly what Eithne had predicted.

“A draugr?” said Ludin Kar, his voice laced with concern. Apparently Ruach had not yet told this part of the story.

“A great big fellow in a cloak showed up after everything had already happened. He said someone called Aodra was dead. A great shock that was to one of the thralls, but not to the other, Hedryn I think he was called. He seemed to have already known that she was gone, and if I am not wrong, quite relieved to know it.”

Ruach seemed to be skipping important details, but Edryd needed just one more thing. “Do you know where they took Eithne?” he asked.

“Yes,” Ruach said, “they left me alive for that very reason. You are supposed to go to them in town. The draugr told me to tell the son of Elduryn that he cannot run and that Lord Seoras can no longer hide or protect him.”