Theft Of Swords: The Riyria Revelations (58 page)

That night they lit the bonfires once more and everyone stayed sheltered in either the manor house or the cellar of the smokehouse. Royce and Hadrian were the only two moving outside and even they remained in the shelter of the smokehouse doorway, watching the night by bonfire light.

“How’s Thrace doing?” Royce asked, his eyes on the sky.

“Great considering the fact that she broke a tree branch with her head,” Hadrian replied as he sat on a barrel, cleaning a mutton bone of the last of its meat. “I even heard she was
walking around asking to help with dinner.” He shook his head and smiled. “That girl, she’s something, that’s for sure. Hard to imagine it seeing her under that arch in Colnora, but she’s tough. The real change is in the old man. Theron says they plan on leaving in a day or two, as soon as Thrace can travel.”

“So we’re out of a job?” Royce feigned disappointment.

“Why, were you getting close?” Hadrian asked, throwing the bone away and wiping his hands on his vest.

“Nope. I can’t figure out how to reach it.”

“Tunnel?”

“I thought of that, but I’ve been over every inch of the forest and the rocks and there’s nothing; no cave, no sunken dell, nothing that could be confused with a tunnel. I’m completely stumped on this.”

“What about Esra? Doesn’t the wizard have any ideas?”

“Maybe, but he’s being elusive. He’s hiding something. He wants access to that tower but won’t say why and avoids direct questions about it. Something happened to him here years ago. Something he doesn’t want to talk about. But maybe I can get him to open up more tomorrow if I let him know the Woods no longer require our services and that there is no reason for me to try anymore.”

“Don’t you think he’ll see through that?”

“See through what?” Royce asked. “Honestly, I’m giving it one more try tomorrow and if I can’t find something, I say we head out with Theron and Thrace.”

Hadrian was silent.

“What?” Royce asked.

“I just hate to run out on them like that. I mean, they’re starting to turn it around now.”

“You do this all the time. You get these lost causes under your skin—”

“I’d like to remind you, coming here was your idea. I was in the process of declining the job, remember?”

“Well, a lot can happen in a day; maybe I’ll find a way in tomorrow.”

Hadrian stepped to the doorway and peered out. “The forest is loud. Looks like our friend isn’t coming to visit us tonight. Maybe Esrahaddon’s flames singed its wings and it’s dining on venison this evening.”

“The fires won’t keep it away forever,” Royce said. “According to the wizard, the fires didn’t hurt it; they just confused it—bright lights do that, apparently. Only the sword in the tower can actually harm it. It will be back.”

“Then we’d best take advantage of its absence and get a good night’s sleep.”

Hadrian went down into the cellar, leaving Royce staring out at the night sky and the gathering clouds that crossed the stars. The wind was still up, whipping the trees and battering the fires. He could almost smell it: change was in the air and it was blowing their way.

R
oyce stood on the bank of the river in the early morning light, trying to skip stones out toward the tower. None of them made more than a single jump before the turbulent water consumed them. His most recent idea for reaching the tower centered on building a small boat and launching himself upriver in the hopes of landing on the rocky parapet before the massive current washed him over the falls. Although there was no clear landing ground for such an attempt, it might be possible if he caught the current just right and landed against the rock. The force of the water would likely smash the boat or drive it under when it met the wall, but he might be able to scramble onto the precipice before going over. The problem was even if he managed to perform this harrowing feat, there was no way back.

He turned to see the wizard walking up the river trail. Perhaps to keep an eye on him but more likely to be on hand should he discover the entrance.

“Morning,” the wizard said. “Any epiphanies today?”

“Just one. There is no way to reach that tower.”

Esrahaddon looked disappointed.

“I have exhausted all the possibilities I can think of.
Besides, Theron and Thrace are going to be leaving Dahlgren. I no longer have a reason to bang my head against this tower.”

“I see,” Esrahaddon said, staring down at him. “What about the welfare of the village?”

“Hardly my problem. This village shouldn’t even be here, remember? It’s a violation of the treaty. It would be best if all these people left.”

“If we allow it to be wiped out, it could be seen as a sign of weakness and invite the elves to invade.”

“And allowing the village to survive is breaking the treaty, resulting in the same possibility. Fortunately for me, I am not wearing a crown. I am not the emperor, or a king, so it’s not something I need to deal with.”

“You’re just going to leave?”

“Is there a reason for me to stay?”

The wizard raised an eyebrow and looked long at the thief. “What do you want?” he asked at length.

“Are you proposing to pay me now?”

“We both know I have no money, but still you want something from me. What is it?”

“The truth. What are you after? What happened here nine hundred years ago?”

The wizard studied Royce for a moment and looked down at his feet. After a few minutes, he nodded. He walked over to a beech log that lay across the granite rock, and sat down. He looked out toward the water and the spray as if searching for something in the mist, something that was not there.

“I was the youngest member of the Cenzars. We were the council of wizards that worked directly for the emperor. The greatest wizards the world had ever seen. There was also the Teshlors, comprised of the greatest of the emperor’s knights. Tradition dictated that a mentor from each council was to serve as teacher and full-time protector to the emperor’s
son and heir. Because I was the youngest, it fell to me to be Nevrik’s Cenzar instructor, while Jerish Grelad was picked from the Teshlors. Jerish and I didn’t get along. Like most of the Teshlors, he held a distrust of wizards, and I thought little of him and his brutish, violent ways.

“Nevrik, however, brought us together. Like his father, the emperor Nareion, Nevrik was a breed apart, and it was an honor to teach him. Jerish and I spent nearly all our time with Nevrik. I taught him lore, books, and the Art, while Jerish instructed him in the schools of combat and warfare. Though I still felt the practice of physical combat was beneath the emperor and his son, it was very clear that Jerish was as devoted to Nevrik as I was. In that middle ground, we found a foothold where we could stand together. When the emperor decided to break tradition and travel here to Avempartha with his son, we went along.”

“Break tradition?”

“It had been centuries since an emperor had spoken directly to the elves.”

“After the war, there wasn’t tribute paid or anything like that?”

“No, all contact was severed at the Nidwalden, so it was a very exciting time. No one really knew what to expect. I personally knew very little about Avempartha beyond the historical account of how it was the site of the last battle of the Great Elven Wars. The emperor met with several top officials of the Erivan Empire in the tower while Jerish and I attempted, without much luck, to continue Nevrik’s studies. The sight of the waterfall and the elven architecture was too much to compete with for the attention of a twelve-year-old boy.

“It was around dusk, nearly night. Nevrik had been pointing things out to us all day, reveling in the fact that neither Jerish nor I could identify any of the elven things he found. For example,
there were several sets of elven clothes made of a shimmering material that we couldn’t name drying in the sun. This was, of course, the first time in centuries that humans had met with elves, placing us at a distinct disadvantage. Nevrik delighted in stumping his teachers, so when he asked about the
thing
he saw flying toward the tower, I thought he saw a bird, or a bat, but he said it was too large and that it looked like a serpent. He mentioned it had flown into one of the high windows of the tower. Nevrik was so adamant about it that we all went back inside. We had just started up the main staircase when we heard the screams.

“It sounded like a war was being fought above us. The personal bodyguards of the emperor—a detachment of Teshlors—were fighting off the Gilarabrywn, protecting the emperor as they fled down the stairs. I saw groups of elves throwing themselves at the creature, dying to protect our emperor.”

“The elves were?”

Esrahaddon nodded. “I was amazed by the sight. The whole scene is still so vivid to me even after nearly a thousand years. Still, nothing the knights or the elves could do stopped the attacking beast, which seemed determined to kill the emperor. It was a terrible battle, with knights falling on the stairs and dying upon the wet steps, elves joining them. The emperor ordered us to get Nevrik to safety.

“Jerish grabbed the boy and dragged him out of the tower kicking and screaming, but I hesitated. I realized that once outside, the flying beast would be able to swoop down and kill at will. The Art could not defeat it. The creature was magic and without the key to unlock the spell, nothing I could do would alter that enchantment. A thought came to me, and as the emperor exited the door, I cast an enchantment of binding—not on the beast, but on the tower, trapping the Gilarabrywn inside. Those knights and elves still inside died, but the beast was trapped.”

“Where did it come from? What caused the thing to attack?”

Esrahaddon shrugged. “The elves insisted they knew nothing of the attack, and that they had no idea where the Gilarabrywn came from, except that one Gilarabrywn had been left unaccounted for after the wars. They assumed it destroyed. They mentioned a militant society, a growing movement of elves within the Erivan Empire that sought to incite a war. It was speculated they were responsible. The elven lords apologized and assured us they would investigate the matter fully. The emperor, convinced that to retaliate or even make the incident public was unwise, chose to ignore the attack and returned home.”

“So what’s this about a weapon?”

“The Gilarabrywn is a conjured creature, a powerful magic endowed with a life of its own beyond the existence of its creator. The creature is not truly alive; it cannot reproduce, grow old, or appreciate existence, but it also cannot die. It can, however, be dispelled. No enchantment is perfect; every magic has a seam where the weave can be unraveled. In the case of the Gilarabrywn, the seam is its name. Whenever a Gilarabrywn is created, so is an object—a sword, etched with its name. It is used to control the beast and, if necessary, destroy it. According to the elves, at the end of the war they placed all the Gilarabrywn swords in the tower, per Novron’s orders. At that time all the swords were accounted for and all but one was notched to show their associated beast was destroyed.”

Royce got up to stretch his legs. “Okay, so the elven lords held one of their monsters back just in case, or this militant group hid one to cause trouble. The elven leaders tell you all the swords are in there. Maybe they are, or maybe they aren’t, and they just want—”

“It’s in there,” Esrahaddon interrupted.

“You saw it?”

“We were given a tour when we first arrived. Near the top is a sort of memorial to the war. All the swords are on display.”

“All right, so there is a sword,” Royce said, “but that’s not why you want in. You didn’t come here to save Dahlgren. Why are you really here?”

“You didn’t allow me to finish,” Esrahaddon replied, sounding every bit like the wise teacher letting his student know to be patient. “The emperor believed he had prevented a war with the elves and returned home, but what waited for him was an execution. While we were away, the church, under the leadership of Patriarch Venlin, planned the emperor’s assassination. The attack came on the steps of the palace during a celebration commemorating the anniversary of the empire’s founding. Jerish and I escaped with Nevrik. I knew that many of the Cenzars and the Teshlors were involved in the church’s plot and that they would find us, so Jerish and I came up with a plan—we hid Nevrik and I created two talismans. One I gave to Nevrik and the other to Jerish. These amulets would hide them from the clairvoyant search the Cenzars were certain to make, but allow me to find them. Then I sent them away.”

“And you?” Royce asked.

“I stayed behind. I tried to save the emperor.” He paused, looking far away. “I failed.”

“So what happened to the heir?” Royce asked.

“How should I know? I was locked up in a prison for nine hundred years. Do you think he wrote me? Jerish was supposed to take him into hiding.” The wizard allowed himself a grim smile. “We both thought it would only be for a month or so.”

“So you don’t even know if an heir exists anymore?”

“I’m pretty confident the church didn’t kill him or they would have killed me shortly thereafter, but what became of Jerish and Nevrik I don’t know. If anyone could have kept
Nevrik alive, it would have been Jerish. Despite his age, he was one of the best knights the emperor had. The fact that he trusted his son to his care was testament to that. Like all Teshlor knights, Jerish was a master of all the schools of combat; there wouldn’t have been a man alive who could beat him in battle, and he would have died before surrendering Nevrik. They would both be dead now, of course—time would have seen to that. So would their great-great-grandchildren if they had any. I suspect Jerish would have known the need to perpetuate the line and would have settled down somewhere quiet and encouraged Nevrik to marry and have children.”

“And wait for you?”

“What’s that?”

“That was the plan, wasn’t it? They run and hide and you stay behind and find them when it was safe?”

“Something like that.”

“So you had a way to contact them. A way to locate the heir? Something to do with the amulets.”

“Nine hundred years ago I would have said yes, but finding their descendants now is probably a fool’s dream. Time can destroy so many things.”

“But you are trying nevertheless.”

“What else is there for an old crippled outlaw to do?”

“Care to tell me how you plan to find them?”

“I can’t do that. I’ve already told you more than I should have. The heir has enemies and, as fond as I have grown of you, that kind of secret stays with me. I owe that much to Jerish and Nevrik.”

“But something in that tower is part of it. That’s why you want to get inside.” Royce thought a moment. “You sealed that tower just before you went to prison, and since the Gilarabrywn was only recently released, you can be almost certain that the interior of that tower hasn’t been touched in all that
time. It’s the only place that’s still the same as the day you left it. There’s something in there you saw that day, or something you left there—something you need to find the heir.”

“It is a shame you aren’t as good at deciphering a way to get into the tower.”

“About that,” Royce said. “You mentioned that the emperor met with the elves in the tower. They aren’t allowed on this bank, right?”

“Correct.”

“And there was no bridge on their side of the river, right?”