Reckoning (The Empyrean Chronicle) (22 page)

“But after speaking with Ogden I came to realize that fate
has moved our hand, and with your powers activating we had no choice but to
take you into the fold.”

Elias laid a hand over Phinneas’s. “I never knew the burden
you carried, or my father. I think I understand him better now.”

A silence fell over the room. Elias’s words had struck a
cord with Eithne and, following his lead, she took Ogden’s gnarled hand in her
own. The Steward looked suddenly weary as he offered his queen a wan smile. “You
did what you felt you must, old friend,” Eithne said gently. “I am not cross
with you.”

“So,” said Bryn, breaking the silence, “the Sentinels were
formed as a response to House Senestrati?”

“I would recommend not speaking that name aloud,” Ogden
warned. “I’ve warded this room, so we are safe, but the Scarlet Hand is ever
vigilant for their masters and command powers most profane. Fortunately, the
Sentinels are vigilant as well. The forgotten house vowed that they would one
day find a way to break the enchantment that has kept them from our lands. Thus
the Sentinels were formed, in part, because the founders of the sect saw the
damage that could be done if one of the ruling families fell prey to their
thirst for power, thereby necessitating a hidden body that could circumvent the
trappings of the bureaucracy and act in the benefit of the greater good, and in
part as counter to the Senestrati, to await the day of their return and prepare
for its coming.

It seems that day may soon be upon us.”

“How could they manage to break the spell that has kept them
banished for so long?” Elias asked.

“That,” replied Ogden, “I do not know. What I do know is
that the signs that their agents have been sweeping through our lands have
increased in recent years and months. Although those of the Senestrati
bloodline cannot pass our borders their acolytes can. Nevertheless, their
minions are not to be trifled with as they have been gifted the secret of their
masters’ fell powers.”

“The Scarlet Hand.”

“Just so,” Ogden said, “but before we get into that let’s
bring your sister in, for this concerns her as well. The two of you are the
only ones that have encountered the Scarlet Hand and lived to tell the tale. But
first, we need to return to the subject of teaching you to control your gift.”

“Marshal, I can ill afford a powder keg walking around
Lucerne right now,” Eithne said, not unkindly. “When I appointed you, I had
assumed you would tarry at court for a bit and then accept a commission
somewhere closer to your home. I appointed you mostly as a courtesy, truth be
told, but after last night I am aware more now than ever that I need all the
allies I can muster, and while you have certainly proven yourself, you must
abide us on this. Ogden and Bryn are willing to vouch for you and your friends,
and that is enough for me, but I require you to work with them, under their
auspices. I am afraid this is nonnegotiable. Do you accept these terms—all of
them?”

Elias studied the queen, and then his eyes went to Ogden. He
took in the old wizard’s frank expression, his raised eyebrows, and the wizened
age lines spiderwebbing at the corners of his sharp, penetrating blue eyes. Perhaps
it was nothing more than sentimentality, the fact that he had known his father,
but Elias found that he trusted the old Steward.

“Yes,” Elias said at last, “I will accept these terms, Your
Grace.”

“I am pleased, Marshal,” said the queen.

Ogden and Bryn exchanged looks, the former exhaling a sigh
of relief, while the latter relaxed visibly. Elias smiled thinly. He
appreciated the time and faith they had placed in him. Yet surely they put too
much stock in him. He’d felt he was in over his head since first taking up his
father’s sword, but the specters of Padraic and Asa had continued to propel him
forward, filling him with a need to find peace and make sense of their deaths.

With the subject at hand settled, Danica and Lar were
summoned and brought up to date on House Senestrati, the Sentinels, and Elias’s
imminent training. Danica took this all in stride saying, “I suppose one secret
society demands another.” Elias knew her reaction shouldn’t surprise him—nothing
ever seemed to rattle Danica.

After Ogden and Phinneas finished briefing her, Danica asked,
“Is my wizard’s training to continue too?”

“Yes,” said Phinneas, “but given the tilt of your powers,
and background as a healer, I will train you. In any case, one pupil each is
enough for old men like us.”

This made perfect sense to Danica, who nodded absently to
herself, her intrepid mind already formulating new inquires. “What I don’t
understand is why now? What has changed in the last couple of years that the
House-that-shall-not-be-named is on the precipice of returning?”

“That is the question upon which all of our lives and the
fate of Galacia rests,” said Ogden. “Sentinel legend holds that a millennia ago
King Mathias of House Denar, one of the original wizard-kings of this land,
bound the seventh house by means of a geas, which is a powerful enchantment
that compels the recipient, upon pain of death or worse, to fulfill the terms
and stipulations set forth by the wizard. A geas is typically a magical pact or
contract between two individuals, or a wizard and a familiar, spirit, or demon,
and thus is usually the province of the necromancer. However, uncommonly
powerful arcanists of the previous ages were reputed to have the ability to
compel victims to a geas without their consent. How Mathias managed to do so to
an entire bloodline is beyond us, and he left no record as to how he managed
the feat.”

A silence fell over the audience chamber as the gravity of
Ogden’s words settled upon each of them.

“How exactly does the Scarlet Hand fit in to the equation?”
Danica asked. “They are the seventh house’s servants?”

“It is a good deal more complicated than that,” Ogden
replied. He sat back, folded his hands over his chest.

“The Scarlet Hand is House Senestrati’s arm, and a long
reaching one at that, as there are cabals of this secret enemy in every kingdom
across the continent of Agia. The Hand is a clandestine sorcerer-assassin
fraternity, loyal to the cursed house through the dark covenant. Performing the
will of the seventh house is the price the Hand pays for the dark gift, the
unimaginable and terrible power of necromancy.

“None know how many scions of the seventh house have
endured, for it is written that their unnatural obsession with the dark arts
has rendered them sterile, but the recipients of their covenant have long
nettled the free peoples of Agia, seeking a method to break the geas that binds
their masters and opening doors to secure their eventual return. Some have
conjectured that all the descendants of the Senestrati have long ago turned to
dust, but that their shades roam the lands still, bound to the earth by their
hate and appetite for revenge, appearing to those who would seek the benighted
path and bestowing upon them the dark gift. In any case, through the Scarlet
Hand has House Senestrati passed on its legacy of necromancy and the arts of the
assassin.

“These Handsmen, as they call themselves within their
fraternity, travel Agia in five man cohorts, or Hands.”

“Five fingers in a hand,” said Lar. “Clever.”

“Yes, thank-you Master Fletcher,” Ogden said, raising his
prodigious eyebrows with a bemused smirk.

“How else does the Hand occupy itself when it’s not seeking
a way to free its masters?” Elias asked.

Ogden pressed his lips together in a grim parody of a smile.
“Oh, plenty, son. They undermine the free governments of Agia as they see fit,
seek ancient lore and artifacts.” He shot Elias a pointed, but not unkind look.
“And they accept assassination contracts as it suits them.”

“By the One God’s britches,” Lar swore, “what are we up
against?”

“It’s not as hopeless as you fear,” Phinneas said. “The Hand
does not go merrily through the lands unopposed. The Sentinels have eyes
everywhere.”

“And, for better or worse, and whether you wish it or not,”
Ogden said, “you’re all Sentinels now. Fate crossed your paths with that of the
Scarlet Hand, and you were thus exposed to knowledge and secrets that few are
privy to. According to Sentinel canon, once someone stumbles upon our sect
there are only two responses, and one of them is initiation, providing the
person is trustworthy.”

“And the other is what exactly?” Danica asked. “Death?”

“No, no,” Phinneas said quickly. “We’d wipe your mind of the
memories that pertain to subject matter we deemed sensitive.”

Danica looked hard at Phinneas. “You’re serious. Bloody
hell.”

“It’s not a procedure without its risks, but I am rather
skilled in such techniques,” Phinneas replied. “Among other things I studied
hypnotherapy at the Academy. My skills in this area was one of the main reasons
Ogden recruited me.”

“That’s all I need to know,” said a pale Lar. “We’re all Sentinels
now. Good. Happy to be aboard.”

“Just shiny.” Danica sighed. “Us against the world, then. So,
now what?”

The topic of conversation turned to the events of the previous
night. Eithne summoned a brunch of sweetbread, cheese, grapes, and sausages as
they discussed their next course of action.

Elias shared his thoughts on the innocence of the Ittamarian
delegates. Ogden agreed, saying that the Ittamar were ill equipped to fight a
war, which was the only logical outcome of a public assassination attempt,
regardless of whether it succeeded or not. It made little sense that the
Ittamar would choose such a tactic. The chief aim of the haphazard attempt on the
queen’s life, Ogden suggested, was likely to sow dissent amongst the court, an
end to which it had succeeded admirably, and was a contrivance more in keeping
with the Scarlet Hand’s methods than the Ittamar.

The party conceded to this line of reasoning, more so when Elias
explained the function of his father’s shield. Elias performed a brief
demonstration to Ogden’s delight, who exhibited a childlike curiosity in the
talisman. “Your father had more secrets than I imagined,” he remarked.

“So,” said Eithne as she popped a grape into her mouth, “we
have agreed it probable that Agnar and his men are innocent, the Scarlet Hand
being the obvious culprit, but the question remains what to do now?”

Elias felt the weight of Eithne’s hazel eyes. “We have few
leads to follow,” he said. “The three assassins are dead and left us with no
clue as to their identity. All of the household staff assigned to the banquet
have been questioned by the Redshields, under Blackwell’s order. No one claims
to have seen anything.”

“The assassins stole past a palace full of guards,
courtiers, and servants with no one the wiser,” Eithne said. “They must have
had help from the inside. It’s the only explanation.”

“Agreed,” said Elias. “Or they had the possession of some
magic that allowed them to access the palace unseen.”

“That is unlikely,” Ogden said. “The Sentinels have set and
maintained many wards around the palace. If there was a foreign magic they
should have alerted us.”

“Should have,” Elias countered, “but we’re dealing with
practitioners of the arcane we admittedly know very little about. Have you
checked the status of all the wards, Ogden?”

Ogden spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I
haven’t, no.”

“Ogden, I want you and Phinneas to check all of the wards
and safeguards that the Sentinels have placed on the palace and grounds and see
if there is anything amiss,” said the queen. “Elias, I think you ought to
question all of the household staff that were on duty yesterday, including the Red
and Whiteshields. Someone must have noticed something, however small. Bryn, as
you are familiar with the palace and the usual suspects, I want you to
accompany Elias.”

“Surely,” said Bryn. “As to whether magic played a role in
the attack, I can definitely say yes.”

“How’s this?” asked Ogden. “I didn’t sense the presence of
another wizard.”

“I had that assassin hobbled and dead to rights. Then an
invisible force grappled me and dragged me halfway across the floor, and the
assassin with me. That man couldn’t have walked if he wanted to—I cut right
through his hamstring.”

“The assassin was also an arcanist?” Ogden asked, stymied.

“I think not,” said Bryn. “The assassin was dragged along
with the same force and handled it no better than I.” Bryn shivered despite
herself. “That and I looked him right in the face as he fell on me. He was
completely expressionless and his eyes…his eyes were empty. Like the eyes of a
dead man. Whoever cast that spell it wasn’t him. There was a fourth
conspirator. I alerted Blackwell and searched the palace with a couple of Whiteshields
I knew I could trust, but found nothing.”

Ogden’s brow furrowed. “Odd that I didn’t sense anything. This
is even more troubling than I had thought. It has to be the Hand at work. There’s
no other explanation.”

“Quite,” said Bryn. “If it weren’t for the Prelate of all
people, and Elias’s ready sword, I’d be as dead as the assassins.”

“I had forgotten about that,” said Eithne, “what with all
the excitement. Rumor is the One God has gifted the Prelate with extraordinary
powers, but frankly, I figured it was merely the handiwork of the gossips. Yet
he is clearly blessed like the prophets of old with the capacity for miraculous
feats.”

Elias made a grunt in his throat. “You have something to
add, Elias?” asked the queen.

Elias leaned back in this chair and rubbed a hand over his
face. “I don’t know if I’ve just grown paranoid, but for some reason that
fellow left a sour taste in my mouth.”

“The Prelate?” said Eithne, taken aback. “He is known for
being quite charismatic and personable for a man of his station. I have had
many interactions with him and found him to be a charming man. Most eligible
ladies at court bemoan the fact that he is a cleric.”