King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three (6 page)

“He should.” Tranta opened his barrier and stepped through again, the afternoon sun on the back of his neck. He tightened his hair in its brace, the ponytail snagging a few blue strands on his rough hands as he did so. He shook them off and watched them drift away like spiderwebs on the wind off the sea cliffs. The ild Fallyn engineer sat on a stump, charts and diagrams held down by rocks on a table in front of him, but lifted his gaze long enough to give Tranta a jerk of a nod as he passed.

Tranta did not trust the man any further than he could throw him, but it was not politic to slight him any more than it would have been to refuse his help. Was that a bird feather drifting off the hem of the man’s short cloak as Tranta passed? And if it was . . . why?

Before Tranta could think much more on it, the coop lad came pelting up the crest of the hill. He carried the field owl in both hands, unaware of the creature’s ability to rip him open with either beak or talon. He thrust the carrier at Tranta. “Sir! Sir!” Then he stood panting, too winded to say anything else.

Tranta put his forearm out and spoke a soothing word, and the owl turned harvest moon eyes on him, blinking. “Fed him yet?”

“Just a scrap, sir. Just a shred.”

“See to it, then, soon as I get the tube off.” Tranta felt the owl settle on his arm and close its claws tight about him. Owls felt even lighter than most birds. It swiveled its head about to fix its gaze on his face. Tranta spoke a few more words, nonsense really, part of a sea chantey that had been in his head all day, and the owl settled, eyes half-closed. He rubbed the knuckle of his finger down its chest. It radiated heat just as the Jewel of Tomarq rubble had. He found the tube and untied it quickly. The owl dipped its beak down to rub the back of his hand as he did so, and found itself transferred briskly back to the coop lad’s arm. “Go and feed him. Settle him in, but keep him isolated.”

“No fear, sir! Lordship.” The lad took a deep breath. “The other birds are scared spitless of this one.”

No doubt. The owl was probably a predator of their kind. He kept no vantane in his roost, but if he had, that proud war bird would have scared this field owl even as it terrified the others. Pecking order.

Tranta found himself grinning at his thought, as he twisted the tube open and popped the tiny scroll out. His smile disappeared immediately.

“What is it, Lord?”

“Word from afar. I may be gone for several days. No one crosses that barricade, not even the Stronghold of ild Fallyn. To do so will mean death. Understand me?”

The Kernan squinted his brown eyes as he looked back to Tranta’s warding, and he nodded, tightly. “No one, Lord.”

Tranta thrust the note in his pocket and took the easy way down from the cliffs, whistling for a groom to bring up a horse.

I
N THE NORTHERN HILLS and forests of the lands known as First Home, a manor house sprawled at the edge of mighty aryn groves, with far-flung fields beyond them. They did not look like the holdings of a warlord, but they were, and now, the inheritance of a man who had lived long and well among the Vaelinar. Bistane Vantane felt the welcome weight of his family’s estate fold about him like a cloak as he rode in, dismounted from his weary horse, and turned his reins over to one of the waiting stable lads. “Rub him down well, Cathen. He deserves it, he brought me all the way from Ashenbrook.”

He watched them move toward the open stalls in the back, the horse dampened with sweat and blowing lightly, but walking soundly. Then he turned away.

“Welcome home, Lordship.”

Bistane paused in the stable doorway. His leathers creaked faintly as he looked to see who called his name, and spotted his brother Verdayne standing half-shadowed.

“Brother, will you never learn not to stand unrevealed unless you intend not to be revealed?”

“Someday, I’ll learn. I just keep forgetting what a jumpy lot you elven-blooded are.” The corner of Verdayne’s mouth twisted wryly. He shoved his hands into his jacket, and a glint came into his eyes that, for the briefest of moments, echoed that of the father they shared, though his height and diffident posture came from the mother they did not.

“Bastard,” said Bistane fondly and grabbed for his brother, bringing him close in a rough hug. He ruffled Dayne’s hair. “You’d be jumpy, too, waiting for the Raymy to rain down on you.”

“I’d gladly go in your place, but I think the women fighters would throw me back.” Verdayne twisted out of his hold and stepped back, grinning.

“Perhaps.” Bistane considered. “No, undoubtedly they would. No one attracts the fair sex like I do.”

“Bah. Sounds and smells like the mulch and fertilizer I spent most of the last three days spreading down on the sapling orchard.”

Bistane laughed as they exited the barn. “How do they look?”

“Excellent, if I do say so myself. I have that much of our father in me, I can grow aryns.”

“Indeed you can, but don’t doubt yourself. There is much, much more of him in you than that.”

Verdayne tossed him a look. “I’d rather have heard it from him.”

“I know. I would have, too. A spare man with praise, he was.” Bistane stripped off his riding gloves.

“I can fight.”

“And well I know it.” Bistane rubbed his rib cage ruefully. “I have the scar to prove it.”

Verdayne flushed. His dark blue eyes, blue upon indigo, Vaelinar eyes with their multiple shades of color, darkened even more. “I never meant to—”

“Of course you did! But not to hurt.” Bistane threw an elbow at him, Dayne dodging easily, with a Dweller’s grace. Dayne’s dark curls bounced as he did. His hair was not black like Bistane’s, but a rich, dark brown, with a curl that kept it close to his head until it needed cropping so badly that his brow could hardly be seen. In his youngest days, catching Dayne for a haircut was like rounding up wild cattle or sheep. It seemed like only yesterday. It wasn’t, quite, for all that he was half-Dweller, his brother had already outlived much of his family, including his mother. He would probably live two to three hundred years, near three times the age of most of his race, unless war or assassination took him first, or some dire plague that even stout Dweller constitution couldn’t withstand. But Dayne was like Bistane in that he would age slower and that thick, dark hair would someday go snow white, like that of their Vaelinar father.

Something stirred on the wind. Bistane lifted his chin, and his attention, from his brother who went stock-still.

“What is it?”

“Don’t know. Something.” Bistane rubbed his bare hand across the back of his neck. He’d gone with his hair shorn close to his head lately, to keep his battle helm better fitting and to . . . well, he supposed, to emulate his warlord predecessor and father.

“I can tell that much.” Verdayne put his shoulders back.

Bistane shook his head apologetically. “I don’t know more than that. There are times when . . .” he paused. He would not say it aloud, but there were times when the presence of his father walked these lands as strongly as he did when he was alive. He’d never told Dayne he’d seen him or asked if the other had, as well. He was a warlord now. Questions of his sanity would not be wise. This, though. He lifted his index finger. “It doesn’t feel like . . .”

“Father,” finished Dayne.

They traded a long look. Did Verdayne feel his father’s presence as he did? Dayne did not blink.

“Oh,” Bistane breathed. “And you never said anything. You will pay for that.”

“What would I say? Ghosts don’t exist.” The corner of Verdayne’s mouth quirked up. “And you think you’re man enough to take the toll from me?”

“I know I am.”

Dayne set his feet. They both knew that stance, the readying for a quick, fleet start. Dayne’s first offense was usually a quick and lithe retreat. Then he would circle back when he thought he had the advantage. It was a strategy which worked for him, playing off the height disadvantage.

Bistane curled his hand. “Come here,
little
brother.”

“You have far more years than I do, but not the wisdom that goes with them!” taunted Dayne.

Bistane readied to chase after him as Dayne moved, but it was not to take to his feet and run this time. The other put his head down and charged, with a snort just like a recalcitrant wild bull. He hit Bistane low, knocking him clean off his feet and gasping in surprise in the stable yard grit and grasses. They rolled around, both of them whooping for breath for even as Bistane had lost his, so had his brother when they had collided.

Dayne finally ended up on top, pinning him. “You, Brother, are built like a stone wall.” He inhaled gustily.

“I am just biding my time,” he warned.

“Well, and I know that.” Dayne hopped off and put his hand down. “But I got you.”

“That you did.” Bistane got up, shaking himself off. “And I will wager you never learned that from Father or any of the teachers he lined up for us.”

“No, I learned that from old gardener Magdan.” Verdayne’s eyes went a little moist, for he had been as close to the Dweller gardener as he had to his warlord Vaelinar father, his booted feet planted firmly in both worlds. Both of his fathers, real and foster, had died in the last year.

Bistane moved as if to pass him, put his foot out and swept Verdayne’s feet out from under him before his brother could blink away the tears. Verdayne went down with a whoop. Bistane looked at him. “I learned from old Magdan as well.” He grinned and headed to the main house with a swagger to his steps.

Then he heard a whistling. He looked up. A silverwing raggedly rode the wind in from the south dipping up and down on the uneasy currents, a bird rarely seen in this northern land, but he’d had a few trained to messenger for him. This one looked exhausted, its wings flapping erratically. Behind it, as if stalking the bird, glided a field owl.

“Get the owl,” Bistane ordered.

Verdayne dashed back in the barn to retrieve a bow and arrow, a utilitarian set, and nocked the arrow before Bistane could purse his lips to whistle the silverwing down as it neared them. The arrow flew past it, and caught the owl in the wing, bringing it down with a screech. As if relieved, the silverwing circled slowly and then plunged in a ragged dive to Bistane’s outstretched hand.

“Did you kill it?” He focused his attention on the messenger, for a tube did indeed glitter upon its leg.

“No, and good thing, too. It’s carrying a scroll.” Verdayne bent over his quarry and stretched his hands out. “The birder will be furious I shot it.”

“Both carry messages?” Frowning, Bistane whistled for Habbane, the head stables lad, as he worked at the thong to get his tube freed from the silverwing as it gasped and quivered in his hold. The poor thing’s journey had nearly done it in. He tried to think who could have sent it, and how far.

“I can set the wing, I think.” Dayne clucked soothingly to the owl, and it settled in the crook of his arm. “They’re both played out, Brother. They’ve come a long way.”

Habbane came running with the limp he’d had since he’d been kicked by one of Bistel’s warhorses a decade back, and he bowed. “Lordship, Lord, forgive me. I was in the mares’ barn. Your Ilytha is about to drop her foal.”

“No explanations. Take this silverwing and put it to roost. See it’s fed, but slowly. It may be famished, but I don’t want it to choke.”

“And the owl?”

Verdayne said, “Broken wing from the arrow.”

“Can be set, or I can wrench its neck.”

“Set it,” both Bistane and Verdayne said as one.

“Hold it, then. No sense having it scare the wits out of this little one. I’ll be back soon as this one’s settled.” Habbane staggered off, whistling through his half-toothed mouth for the lads who helped him run his stable yards and coops.

Bistane opened his scroll. He read it, frowning, then looked to Dayne. “Give me yours.”

The scroll flashed through the air. It startled the owl who flung both wings out, then gave a screech of pain as it did so. Verdayne settled it back down, folding it back into quiet.

“Same message.”

“Someone wanted to be certain.”

“Indeed, he did. This is from Sevryn. They tried to assassinate Nutmeg.”

Dayne had been worrying at the owl’s injury, snapping the shaft in two and working it through the creature’s wing as gently as he could. He looked up sharply. “At Calcort?”

“None other.”

“You’ll be heading there, then.”

“No. I’ve been at Ferstanthe, on the way back from Ashenbrook, and what I find there sends me to Larandaril. Faster now, for I can wager that we’ll get a bird from Lara sometime tomorrow.”

“Why were you at Ferstanthe?”

“Because Azel sent for me. What I have to tell you, though, is best not discussed out here in the open, but it must be said before I leave.” Dayne nodded solemnly. Neither spoke another word when Habbane returned for the injured owl, and they walked to the manor house that had been Warlord Bistel’s domain.

B
ISTANE TAPPED OUT A BOTTLE and decanted it into two handblown glasses meant to be gripped in the palm of a man’s hand, barrel-shaped glasses, and the caramel liquor filled each glass halfway. He left the lid off the bottle before taking up his glass and settling back into his chair. The messenger birds had been cared for and safely tucked away in the croft built for such creatures. Dayne took his drink up as well, speculatively, and both of them eyed the massive chair on the other side of the study desk: their father’s chair. Empty. Likely never to be filled and equally as likely never to be taken out of the study and put away. Bistane took a deep sip of his drink and stayed quiet for such a long time that Dayne, despite his inner promise to himself to be quiet and content and certainly not impatient as Dwellers could be (after all, they did not have the time, let alone the lifespan, of the average Vaelinar) and finally blurted, “Why Ferstanthe?”

Bistane’s eyes came back into focus and he looked over as though realizing he wasn’t alone and had forgotten that. He took a very short sip of his drink before answering, “I was looking for something.”

“And you didn’t find it.”

“No. But I did find something else.” Bistane sat back even further, swung his boot heels up on the edge of the desk, and began a tale. “I was riding home from Ashenbrook, to see how you were doing, and the farmlands, and to swing by the Library because of something gone missing that bothered me, and because Azel had sent me a note that I decided I should answer. Despite the fact worry carried me there, I enjoyed the journey. I like the northern lands with their evergreens and free-flowing brooks and . . .”

Dayne sat back and listened to his brother launch into his story.

There was a wind in the high forests, and the evergreens shook and moaned against one another, sounding like both the sea and a ship sailing upon it, its timbers creaking and echoing the force of nature which carried it. Azel d’Stanthe of Ferstanthe came to the gate of the library grounds when summoned, one hand wrapped firmly at the collar of his cloak, his towering body hunched as though the winds could lift and carry even his substantial figure away with it.

“Bistane! My lad. Good of you to come. I hope I did not thwart any battle plans by asking you to detour here.”

“You would never ask lightly, Azel. Whatever your concerns, I’ll do what I can.”

The wind whistled as if it would cut through both of them, and Azel hurried them through the gate and gardens and into the library’s front rooms, closing the massive wooden doors with a resounding thud at their heels. The foyer and corridors smelled of aromatic woods and faint incense and the metallic odors of various inks. He could hear students rustling in the background, but no one came to take his coat or Azel’s cloak, and he had the feeling that the master of these great woods and its library had ordered complete and total solitude. He draped his cloak coat over his arm as he followed after d’Stanthe to a study deep within the library complex.

“My father intended to visit you before Ashenbrook.”

“And so he did, Lord Vantane, so he did. His journal rests with the other
Books of All Truth
.”

A tension left Bistane. It was a duty he knew his father had taken most seriously and he had made his intent known that he would visit Ferstanthe. But Bistane had never been certain that Bistel had actually relinquished the book even though his visit had been well known and, since the journal had not been found with what little remains his Returned body left behind, he had worried that it might have been lost in battle. Like his father, Bistane had seen that worn leather journal nearly every day of his life. He would have liked to see it again. Just for old times’ sake, and perhaps a bit more.

Azel set his hands on his knees and said, as if reading Bistane’s mind, “It is beyond sharing now. It is in the trust with the other books, until that time prophesied when they will be needed and unleashed.”

Bistane sat with a faint misgiving. “Unleashed? So strong a word?”

“Repeated as it was given and lessoned to me. It is strong, isn’t it? It makes me worry about my charges even more.” Azel leaned forward, removing a quilted cover over an ornate tray on the table between them. He poured drinks and sliced from a loaf and piled cold meats and cheese on it, and gave a share balanced on a clean linen napkin to Bistane. “Eat and listen.”

So he did.

Azel looked gray about the face, his eyes lined more than Bistane remembered, and there was a gauntness about his hands that seemed new as well. He leaned forward and fell into a long pause, as if drawing his thoughts from a great well. The mulled wine had stayed mostly warm, if not piping hot, and imparted a good feeling against the knifing effect of the wind. Bistane kept his silence as promised, even when the quiet between them stretched for a very long time. Finally, Azel stirred, lifting up an ink-stained great mitt of a hand.

“I have sifted through it and there’s no easy way to say it. No way to tell the tale that won’t have you wondering if I have lost my mind. So here it is. There is a . . . thing . . . skulking about the immediate grounds. And somewhat in the forest, too, although my lumbermen aren’t talking about it. I’ve had a scholar lad or two, scarcely babes, blurt something out, but these others, their fathers and brothers, are hard men, few jobs more risky than cutting and processing timber, and they don’t like being taken for cowards. The saw mills and paper mills still run, but the workers are scared.” Azel paused, leveling his eyes upon Bistane. Bistane nodded to show he understood.

“There is a dead man haunting.” Azel let his breath out in a great puff and sat back. “I’ve said it, there. Incomprehensible as it is. Perhaps not dead, but Undead. Walking. Hiding. He has a smell not unlike the books from centuries ago: dry, musty, faintly decaying.”

“Hurt anyone?” Bistane couldn’t keep silent a moment longer.

“I’m not certain. There’s nothing like this in our tales, and I hadn’t run across it much in the stories of Kerith, but it does crop up from time to time. A soulless, unloving thing that exists only to bring disaster upon the living.” Azel’s gaze bored into his. “Even so, I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it myself.”

“Where?”

“In these Halls. Attempting, so it seemed, to gain entrance into the inner sanctum.”

Where his father’s journal lay, among countless others, rumored to hold the truth and nothing but the truth as written by the Vaelinars themselves. If rumors were true.

“And did it?”

“No. Although that brings me to another part of my tale. The black mold which corrupted many of my texts is gone, thanks to the preservative invented by Tolby Farbranch and the tireless efforts of my students, but it left something insidious in its wake. The books are simply disintegrating.”

“What? No fungus and yet we’re losing them? How can that be?”

Azel nodded sadly, his great face drooping in folds of defeat. “Little more than crumbles. So far it hasn’t hit the
Books of All Truth
, but it might. It could.” He turned away, unable to look at Bistane any longer. “
It will
.”

“What then?”

“We don’t copy those books because the magic that lies within them comes from the hands that have penned the pages. When they are gone, there is nothing. We lost a few to the black mold, but very few in the inner sanctum, by Tree’s blood, and none of the All Truth yet. This new contagion has different . . .” Azel stopped. He lifted both hands in entreaty, searching for a word and then giving up. “Rules, for lack of a better word.”

“And you surmise this dead man might have something to do with it.”

“I couldn’t say. It can’t get into that part of the collection, but who’s to say . . . who’s to say what it is and what it can do.”

“And you are scholars, not swordsmen.”

Azel’s eyebrows lowered ponderously. “Yes.”

Bistane rocked back in his chair, now empty napkin over one thigh, his cup in his hand. “Two things.”

“Yes?”

“I want a book in the early stages of this disintegration wrapped and packaged, to be taken to Tolby Farbranch, with all due caution. Can such a thing be done?”

“All right. I don’t know if we can do it, but we can certainly try.”

“And I want the
Books of All Truth
separated. Each to its own private chamber or drawer or whatever you can manage. Handle them as meticulously as you would a victim of plague.”

“That goes without saying; however, there are a few hundred of them . . .”

“And each is as valuable as the next, as far as we know. Separate them or have each contaminate the other until none is left.”

Azel scratched at his chin. “Nothing fancy as the sanctum now, but . . . yes, there are possibilities. I will have to set wards.”

“One of your many Talents, as I recall, Master Librarian.”

That garnered a small smile. “Yes. Not widely known but true. It will take me some time, however. And I will have to set a guard upon myself because one day those wards will have to be taken down and only I will know the undoing of them.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Such is power. It both makes and imprisons a man.”

Bistane tilted his head to one side. “And a third thing, nearly forgotten.”

“What?”

“Have I time to nap a bit and sharpen my sword before I go after that skulker?”

“I think you might. These deeds always seem best done after the sundown.”

Bistane could see signs aplenty that the scholars were wary and some downright frightened. Doors had heavy bolts newly added to them. The main entry door now had a massive board that could be lowered across it, and as Bistane examined it, he could feel the tingle of a ward on it as well. They’d done everything they knew how to do but have a cleric come bless the place with sacred flame and cleansing water, but as the students were, for the most part, Vaelinars, they didn’t believe in the Gods of Kerith.

He made the rounds outside, twice, knowing that night might draw it out, and not just the curtain of nightfall, but the depths of it when most souls were hidden deep in dreams. As it came to pass, the skulker was never found or dispatched. It, perhaps, with an uncanny intelligence, found out it was being hunted and fled. Or perhaps it was never quite what Azel and his students and timber men had made it out to be. There were some small signs of a presence. A scratched lock. A shutter hinge bent and easily loosened on a back window. Beds of twigs and leaves and grass in the woods that stank of something that made the dogs paw at their noses and growl. But nothing Bistane could face and skewer on the point of his sword. He left after a few days with two parcels in his saddlebags and Azel distracted with his current feat of re-housing his important library collection and coming up with the energy and will to ward each book separately. He looked even grayer when Bistane rode out.

Verdayne took a deep breath as though just realizing he’d been holding it. He sat back and rolled his empty glass between his palms as his brother finished.

“And so that brought me here.”

“Did you run across sign of that thing, whatever it was?”

“I’m not sure. In the wilderness, you can find subtle signs of death wherever you look. Animals prey upon each other and not always neatly. Whatever it was, it appeared to flee south. I didn’t follow. I’d been gone too long from home, and I had this—” He withdrew a small parcel, wrapped solidly in oilcloth, tied and sealed with wax. He dropped his heels from the desk so that he could lean forward and place the bundle on the top between himself and Dayne. “For you.” He topped off both glasses before settling back.