The Wayfarer King (19 page)

The following morning after they’d broken their fast, Gavin stood behind Daia as she knocked on the door of a tiny cottage, rattling it in the frame. A warbling voice within called “one moment,” and they waited on the stoop while rain tapped their heads and shoulders. When the door swung open, a white-haired Farthan woman, as small as a six-year-old child, smiled from the doorway with a toothless grin. “I was expecting you for long time. Come in.” She waved them in, staring into Gavin’s belly with clouded blue eyes. “I am glad you find each other. Your work would not be possible without
vusar.
”

Gavin glanced at Daia with a questioning look. Was this old woman addled or mad?

“She means me,” Daia said. “I’m the
vusar
— a mystical conduit.”

“Yes, that is right,” Jennalia said. “
Vusar
can help people find their strength.” She shut the door and barred it, plunging them into darkness. A single window faced east, but both its exterior and interior shutters were closed, letting only a few slivers of light into the home. “Do you need cloth for wiping off water?”

Gavin cracked his head on a low beam. “Ow. No.” With one hand, he groped for its location. “It only started raining a minute ago.”

Jennalia fumbled around with a drawer and other items he couldn’t see, and whispered a few words. On the dresser, a ball of dried grasses burst into light, brightening the room. “This for you do not injure your head again on ceiling.” She reached blindly toward him. “Take my hands. I must now see you.”

When Daia nodded encouragement, he took them gently, wondering whether two pairs of hands could be more different. His were massive and scarred, rough with calluses and accented with dark hair that covered his arms to the elbow. Hers were child-sized, bony and wrinkled, spotted with age, and surprisingly soft. If he gripped them too tightly, he might break them into tiny pieces.

She rocked forward and back, grinning. A wisp of white hair drifted down from the ponytail she wore, but she didn’t appear to have noticed. Daia winked at him. He took a moment to calm his impatience.

The cottage consisted of a single room with the dresser against the west wall, a table and three chairs against the south wall and a bed positioned under the window. The scent of herbs was so strong, if he closed his eyes, he might imagine himself in a garden.

At last, Jennalia released his hands. “It is good you are come here. I see you have sword Risan made for you. Gems make it powerful to handle. You must be careful.”

“Yeh, I figured,” Gavin said. “Can you tell me what enchantment is on the sword?”

“Three enchantments I put,” Jennalia said. “Strength for battle keeps you strong for fighting. You will not tire from use it like normal weapon. Second is for sharpness, so blade never is dull, and third is for Warrior’s Wisdom. It tells you when enemy is nearby. You must listen inside your head.” She tapped her temple.

“Yeh, I hear it whisper to me when danger is near. Also the gems in the hilt light up.”

Jennalia smiled toothlessly. “Good. You must listen because you cannot always see gems. Anywhere you are, it warns you if there is danger.”

“How does it know when I’m in danger?”

Daia grinned.

Jennalia cocked her head and tilted her face up, though her eyes missed his. “Because it is magic. Enough silly questions. We have work. Sit please.” She directed Gavin to sit at one end of the table, Daia across from him, and Jennalia pulled up a stool and sat in the center. “You have great burden, but with
vusar
, you can live.”

Daia’s eyes widened, and she looked at Gavin with concern in her expression.

“That’s good to know,” Gavin said, “but what burden are you talking about?”

Jennalia made a motion with her hands as if outlining a bubble around him. “I see in shadow what sits ahead on your path. You must to learn how to use
vusar
even across great distance. First, we practice searching.”

“Searching for what?”

“For
vusar.
”

“She’s right in front o’me.” This was ridiculous. Gavin wanted to leave. “I don’t have time for games.”

“You want to close rift?” A note of impatience soured Jennalia’s voice.

Her question was like a slap. “How do you know about that?”

“As I said, I know what sits ahead on your path.”

He cast a questioning glance at Daia.

She answered with a nod and knowing grin. “Gavin, trust her. She can help us.”

He sighed and sat back in his chair. “Awright. What do you want me to do.”

“You know how to see shadows, yes?”

“Yeh.” Most people referred to the ability as shadow-reading, but the term was inaccurate. What he saw was a hazy bubble, not a shadow.

“Easy to do when your eyes are open and you look at someone. You relax eyes to let hiding eye work. Now you must learn next step — finding shadow without using your real eyes. Close them. You know where
vusar
is, so this will be easy.” Gavin complied, and she continued. “Picture in your mind each of us as bubble. One bubble is me, one bubble is
vusar
. Can you see them?”

“No, my eyes are closed.”

She sighed. “You see shadows not with your eyes, but you use them like old men use cane to walk. You must use your hiding eye without cane. One that lives here.” Gavin felt a light touch between his eyebrows, above the bridge of his nose. “Can you feel where I touch you?”

The sensation of having been touched remained, although he knew her finger was no longer there. “Yeh.”

“Even nothing is touching you there, you feel it. Same is with hiding eye. Think out from that place to see shadows.”

For a moment, Gavin thought he saw two hazes in front of him, yellow-white and shaped like eggs. When he tried to focus on them, to grasp their images with his mind, they dissipated.

“You almost had it. Try again.”

He felt a second touch on his forehead, and immediately the two egg shapes appeared. Again they broke up when he tried to focus on them. Then he discovered that if he didn’t focus directly on them, if he concentrated instead on a point near the center of Daia’s egg, perhaps a few inches closer than the nearest boundary, he could see it better. “I see it.” Daia’s haze had a sunny ring near the top. A swirling cloud of orange swept outward from her abdomen. Using the hidden eye gave him a clearer image of the hazes than relaxing his physical eyes did.

Jennalia clapped her hands. “This is your hiding eye at work. You are very strong. You only need practice.”

He opened his eyes, but the haze didn’t immediately fade. He had to blink a few times to see Daia’s bodily form.

She was smiling, her chin resting on the back of one hand. “Well done, Gavin. I didn’t even help you.”

“Next, we try harder,” Jennalia said. “Turn around so Daia is on your back.”

“Behind me?”

“Yes, behind.”

He stood and straddled his chair, leaning on its back. As much as he tried to follow Jennalia’s instructions and do what he did last time, he couldn’t see Daia’s haze nor his teacher’s. She even stood to touch his forehead like she did before, but he felt like he was groping in the dark.

“
Vusar
, try help him,” Jennalia said.

Immediately, Gavin sensed a brilliant orange flame behind him, stretching outward from her abdomen toward his own like a tongue. The sensation of seeing through the back of his head and looking at her haze was startling. “Seven hells! I see you!”

“Stop now,” Jennalia said. “Let him try find you again.”

They practiced this for another hour until Gavin was able to find both women’s hazes without Daia’s help.

“What’s next?” Gavin asked as he faced the two women. He felt energized, eager to learn more.

“There is no next,” Jennalia said. “I taught you what I can. Only practice now, to build your skill. You must practice finding
vusar
over great distance, and she also finding you. When you can find each other, you can use her.”

“But what about the vortex? How do I find it? How do I open it?”

“I know nothing about vortex, but everything is done same way — use your hiding eye. When your skill is enough to find
vusar
across great distance, then you can venture beyond this realm.” Jennalia leaned over and took his face between her tiny, warm hands. “Do not be too eager to journey. Without connect to
vusar,
how will you return?”

The old woman had a point. The last thing he needed to do was get himself stranded in another realm.

Daia started to mount her horse and paused, thinking about the figurine in her pack. She’d taken it from the corpse of the Nilmarion Sithral Tyr a few weeks earlier, but no one she’d asked knew what it was. “I’ll catch up to you in a bit. I want to ask Jennalia about something.”

“About what?” Gavin asked. “She dug into her saddle bag, searching by feel for the object at the bottom. ”I want to ask her what this is.“ Her fingers found the cold, smooth surface and pulled out a cat figurine made of porcelain with a glassy, gray-green finish and deep black eyes. It might have been attractive except that there was something distinctly... horrible about the eyes.

“You’re still carrying that thing around? Just smash it and be done with it.” He swung onto Golam’s back. “Prob’ly has nothing but sand inside.”

She shrugged as she started back to the mage’s door. “Perhaps. I’ll see you back at the inn.”

Jennalia answered the door with a questioning expression. “
Vusar?
Something is wrong?”

“I found a little sculpture a short time ago and hoped you could tell me what it is.”

“Oh? Let me hold it.”

Daia put the figurine into Jennalia’s tiny hands and watched her feel its shape. “Where did you get it?”

“I killed a Nilmarion criminal and found it on his body.”

Jennalia pushed it back into Daia’s hands. “Take it away. You must be careful to not break it. It is dangerous.”

It felt heavier than it looked, but dangerous? Only if she broke it over someone’s head. “What is it?”

“Soulcele token. Nilmarion use them to protect innocent souls before death or imprison evil ones. This one contains blackened soul. You must not let it to escape.”

“A soul?” Daia asked in disbelief. “Do you mean the Nilmarion’s soul?”

“Yes. I cannot see shadow because of special ward to lock soul inside.”

“Did his soul go into it when he died?”

Jennalia shook her head slowly. “Nilmarions have ceremony to separate soul when it becomes evil. That man did horrible thing and his gods punish him by removing zhi. Best thing to bury it. Bury it deep in wilderness so nobody ever will find it. Be sure not to let it break.”

“What would happen if it breaks?”

“I do not know. Some say the soul is release to go to afterlife. Others say it finds new body to live in. I want to be far away if it breaks. Far away. Please. Take it.” Jennalia closed the door, leaving Daia standing bewildered and disturbed on the stoop.

Chapter 26

Gavin was quiet on the way back to the inn, considering the things Jennalia had said and weighing them against what he knew he must do. The demon in the palace had waited two hundred years. It would wait a few more weeks. Still, he felt the weight of time pressing on his shoulders and couldn’t shake the notion that he didn’t have weeks to practice. The country needed its king, and he needed to ensure the people’s safety before he could claim to be their leader and expect them to bend the knee.

“Try it, Gavin.” Daia rode beside him on her brown mare. “Ride on ahead and try to find me. I’ll help you.”

He nodded. “Awright. I’ll lift my right hand if I find you. Then stop helping me and I’ll try it again.” She dropped back while he and Golam continued walking. Trusting his horse not to run people down in the street, he shut his eyes and concentrated on Daia’s haze. To his surprise, he saw a dozen of them belonging to the townsfolk they passed. He searched behind him, and there, slightly distant, was Daia’s haze with the orange bolt shooting toward him. It was so intense as it came at him, he had the urge to duck. Instead, he lifted his right arm and watched with his hidden eye while the orange tendril shortened, withdrawing back into the center of Daia’s egg-shaped haze.