Sword of Shadows (20 page)

Eolyn spurred her horse forward. Corey followed.

“Miscarriages are regrettable, but not uncommon,” she said. “Indeed, they are much more common than most men care to acknowledge. Renate and I attended many failed pregnancies during our time in Moehn. The Queen will recover and conceive again.”

“High Mage Rezlyn, it seems, would agree with you. As for myself, I am not so certain.”

Eolyn cast him a sideways glance. “What would you know that Rezlyn does not?”

He shrugged and looked away. “Not nearly enough. But I suspect the Queen has enemies, and so does she.”

“Enemies?”

“A sorceress, perhaps. Someone with the power to make her ill, to force a miscarriage.”

“Are you suggesting that I—”

“No. But others have, including Taesara herself.”

“The Queen has accused me of killing her child?”

“Not openly. Akmael would have her head for it if she did. But by all accounts, this is what she believes.”

“Her ignorance of our ways has persisted for too long. Someone must help her understand that a maga would never—”

“
You
would never. But there were many who fled from Kedehen’s brutal wrath, and we would be fools not to suspect they are watching us still, hungry for vengeance, plotting to bring ruin upon the House of Vortingen and the people of Moisehén. Ensuring that King Akmael has no heir would be an excellent place to begin.”

“Akmael has an heir. He has the Princess Eliasara.”

“A girl cannot become a king.”

“Just as a girl cannot practice magic?”

“You seduced the Mage King to see that rule broken,” Corey replied dryly. “I doubt Eliasara will have the same opportunity. Though it might be amusing to see her try.”

Sir Borten halted his steed just then, and though he was some distance ahead of them, Eolyn was troubled by the thought that the wind might have carried more than a few words of their conversation to his ears.

“Why did you attack him last night?” she said in a low voice.

“Attack him? He attacked me.”

“There was no need for that flame, and you know it. If you had injured Borten, we would have been left without a swordsman.”

The mage clucked his tongue. “Swordsman, indeed. That
swordsman
speared your brother once, and now it seems he wants to spear you. But he will bring you little pleasure, I can tell you that. A peasant’s sword is a small and simple thing. Blunt around the edges. Disappointing in the thrust. What you require, Maga Eolyn, is a mage’s staff: long and sturdy, magically cured. Powerful to the touch, smooth in its finish—”

“Borten’s sword cut your staff to the quick, Mage Corey.”

Corey drew an indignant breath and then let go a low chuckle. “The highlands of Moehn have put some spirit on your tongue. I am glad to see it. I wasn’t going to hurt him, Eolyn. I just wanted to scar that handsome face a little. It would have served him right for courting my ward without permission.”

“I am not your ward.”

“You are my kin, cousin in the eyes of Dragon, and you carry the future of my Clan in your blood. You are not to waste your affections on the likes of that simple knight. Not when you have the Mage King at your beck and call.”

Eolyn quelled a surge of anger, frustrated by the ease with which he could provoke her. She focused on the rush of wind through fragrant grass and the bell-like melody of a field warbler. She invoked the memory of Borten’s embrace, the tender confidence of his kiss, the song of Aithne and Caradoc echoing through their newly discovered desire.

Sleep, Eolyn,
he had said.

And she would have, wrapped in the warm sanctuary of his embrace, had Corey not appeared with rude reminders of the outside world.

“The path of a maga’s heart is governed only by the Gods,” she said, remembering the words of Doyenne Ghemena. “She must love as they command, with a ready spirit and an open heart. No amount of scheming or interference on your part will ever change that, Mage Corey.”

“Love?” Corey replied with a confused frown. “When did I ever suggest we were talking about love?”

Chapter Twenty-One

Drostan and his men broke camp
before the sun spread its rosy light across the eastern horizon. They had left Rhiemsaven the previous day, and now followed a wide dirt road south along the Tarba River toward the Valley of Aerunden. The breeze was fresh, the sky clear, and the landscape wide open, their visibility unfettered by woodlands. Reeds rustled in the wind. The river murmured at their side and sparkled like sapphires under the morning sun.

Despite the bright summer dawn, something in the air kept Drostan on edge, a faint stench of rotten flesh that assaulted his senses unexpectedly and vanished the moment he tried to identify its source. No birds sang, no fish leaped over the waters, no dogs barked in the distance. Even the ducks sat still, huddled near the river’s edge, scanning their surroundings with nervous calls.

The tension brought back memories of the War of the Magas, when Drostan and his fellow mage warriors patrolled the countryside in a constant state of wariness, uncertain where the next deadly ambush waited, or what magic would be used to conceal it.

Drostan had sent scouts ahead of them. Now, he dispatched two more who took to the skies in the form of Hawk. His plan was to ride as far as the Valley of Aerunden today, though they would not camp on the battle ground where the rebel Ernan met his defeat. In a place so recently visited by violence and death, the barriers between the world of the living and the world of the dead were thin and easily broken. Under the cover of night, Lost Souls would drift through, drawn by Drostan’s magic, and attack him in his dreams. While they did not have the strength to drag down a mage of his power, they could certainly give the old warrior a restless and difficult night.

A rider appeared on the road ahead, a dark shadow approaching at a fast trot, dust kicking up under the hooves of his mount. When he recognized the man as one of his own, Drostan quickened his pace to meet him.

The soldier carried a large, ragged bundle in his arms, a boy in tattered clothes. His feet were blistered and bleeding; an unruly mass of hair hung over fierce brown eyes. Drostan would have thought him a half-wild orphan spat out by the forest deep, had there not been a disturbingly familiar look beneath all that grime and sweat, and a hint of nobility in the lift of his young chin.

“The boy comes from Moehn,” said the soldier who delivered him. “He claims to be a grandson of Lord Felton.”

Drostan recognized him now. This was the youth who had walked with him along the decrepit wall of Moehn. An undisciplined child who had spent his days in the streets with a loose following of ragged urchins, more intent on learning arts of thievery than techniques of combat that befitted his station. It took Drostan a moment to place his name.

“Lord Markl, if I recall correctly?”

“Yes, Sir.” Exhaustion and hunger were plain upon the boy’s face, yet he responded with vigor. “I’ve come to tell King Akmael that Moehn is under siege.”

Drostan dismounted and helped the boy to the ground. “The King has been informed.”

“How?” the boy asked, eyes wide with astonishment. “No one could have come faster than me. I rode without stopping from Moehn, until my horse collapsed coming down the pass. Then I walked from there, and ran as much as I could, until your man found me.”

“Word reached King Akmael by the gift of magic and the will of the Gods. We are the first to respond to Moehn’s call for aid.”

“You?” The boy assessed Drostan and his small company. “Just you and these men?”

“More are on the way.”

“Well, I should hope so! We’ll need much more than this. I have to get to the City and speak with the King. How much farther is it?”

“Three day’s ride on a fast horse,” Drostan informed him grimly. “Longer, if you’re walking.”

Drostan led Markl, limping, to a large rock on the edge of the river and bade him to sit down. He signaled the healer Laeryon, who hurried forward to examine the boy’s feet. Markl winced at the healer’s touch and stifled a cry by biting his lip.

Laeryon frowned, shook his head, and drew water from the river to begin washing the bloody wounds.

“He’ll have to stay off his feet until they are healed,” Laeryon said, “or they will fester and most surely be lost.”

“Fifty men will not free Moehn,” the boy insisted. “I saw the enemy’s army. A thousand strong, it was. Maybe two. The King must send more, much more, and they must go up the pass
now
or everything will be lost.”

“You saw their army?” Drostan received this claim with caution. A child prone to thievery would also be prone to lying.

“They marched into Moehn from the east, under flags of burgundy and yellow. Three miles long, the column was. Further than the eyes could see.”

Drostan, who had been bending over to listen to the boy, straightened now and surveyed the landscape with a determined frown. Just to the west of the road he spotted a small rise.

“Bring the boy,” he said to one of his men.

Markl was gathered up and carried to a modest vantage point on a small knoll.

“How far away was the army when you saw it?” Drostan asked, indicating various landmarks within view. “From here to that fir, or to that stream? Show me.”

Markl frowned. “Further than the stream. Almost to that patch of woods over there. That’s what I’d say.”

“And if you were to see that same army in front of us today, at the same distance, where would it start?”

“Down there,” Markl pointed toward the south.

“Where, exactly?”

“At that big patch of grass.”

Almost everything in front of them was either grassland or fallow pasture, but Drostan did not allow his impatience to show. “Which patch?”

“The brownish part, with the yellow flowers.”

“And where would it end?”

Markl jerked his head toward the north. “A mile that way. Maybe two.”

“How far is a mile?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Show me.”

Markl pointed to a distant stand of dead trees, leafless white trunks clawing their way toward the clear sky. “About that far.”

Drostan sucked in his breath, troubled by the boy’s account. If Markl spoke true, the threat was far greater than the old knight could ever have imagined.

“How wide was the column? How many men across?”

Markl shrugged. “Can’t say, really. I wasn’t close enough to see each man. Maybe about as wide as this road here. That’s what it looked like, anyway.”

“I see.” What the boy described seemed well nigh impossible. How in the name of the Gods had the Syrnte dragged a force that large through the unexplored maze of the South Woods and into the heart of Moehn? “Now you must tell me, Markl: you said there were spearmen. Where in the column did the spears begin, and where did they end?”

Drostan’s interrogation of Markl continued in this manner for the better part of an hour. The knight returned repeatedly to the same questions, asking them a different way each time, taking the boy to new vantage points, obliging him to use alternative landmarks, until at last he was satisfied with the relative consistency of the child’s account.

He then brought Markl back to the riverside, delivered him to Laeryon’s care, and dispatched a messenger to the King’s City.

It was sobering news at best, and Drostan felt a deep sense of foreboding as he watched its carrier race northward. Akmael, once Drostan’s student and now his liege, had never confronted an enemy of this magnitude. Though Drostan had taught the young prince well, and knew of no man more gifted in the arts of magic and war, the old knight feared for his King and for the people he was sworn to protect.

Instructing Laeryon to take the boy back to Rhiemsaven, Drostan mounted his steed and assessed the small company of men who awaited his command. Thousands more would soon march from the King’s City, mage warriors among them, yet even so, it would be a paltry force given the scale of the Syrnte invasion. And they would be long days in arriving.

We may not be able to stop them at Aerunden,
he thought, bidding his men to continue.
But we must stall them as long as possible.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Mistress Adiana!” The girls squealed and ran toward Adiana, filling her arms with laughter.

Only a few days had passed since she last held them like this, yet it felt like an eternity. Adiana drew a deep breath, inhaling their sweet aroma, and took each face in her hands.

“Catarina. Tasha.” They had never appeared more beautiful than in this moment. Catarina was rosy-cheeked and full of bright giggles. Tasha tried to smile, though her dark eyes were haunted, no doubt the mark of Mechnes’s brutality. Adiana drew the girl close for a comforting embrace. “Where is Ghemena?”

“Don’t you know?” Tasha said. “She ran away. They haven’t found her.”

Adiana’s heart filled with a mix of fear and hope. “When?”

“Our first morning here.”

“More a fool, I say.” Catarina twirled in a new gown, pink silks flaring around her ankles. “See what the San’iloman has given us? She says we are to live like queens.”

Tasha was also dressed in a fine robe of pale blue, but she fingered the silver laces of her bodice, eyes downcast. “Ghemena wouldn’t have any use for pretty dresses. She wants to be a maga.” The girl bit her lip and added in a despairing whisper, “So do I.”

Adiana touched Tasha’s chin, compelling the girl to meet her gaze. “You are a maga. You must never forget that.”

“They will make fine Syrnte witches, both of them.” Rishona’s voice, unmistakable in its seductive tenor, interrupted their reunion.

Adiana looked up, startled.

She had not even noticed the San’iloman in all her splendor, having had eyes only for the girls. Rishona was even more spellbinding than Adiana remembered her, a melody of grace and womanly charm. She wore richly dyed silks that emphasized her shapely figure. Her ebony hair was braided and adorned with pearls; her throat and arms sparkled with jewels.

Prince Mechnes’s
warning about protocol returned to Adiana’s memory, and she averted her gaze, cheeks flushing.

My Queen
were the words that came to mind, but Rishona was not Adiana’s queen. After some consideration the musician chose instead, “Most honored Queen.”

Rishona laughed out loud. “Oh, for the love of the Gods, Adiana! You would think we had never been friends.”

Catarina giggled. Even Tasha managed a shy smile, though she found Adiana’s hand and clung to it tightly.

Adiana glanced up, uncertain what to say or do. Rishona stood close, her perfume heavy with aromas of jasmine and night.

“I can only imagine the cruel jests my uncle must have played on you,” Rishona said. “Tell me, Adiana, did he claim my guards would slay you if you as much as laid eyes on me?”

“In truth, yes,” Adiana replied.

“Well they might have earlier, when you were sitting amongst the musicians. But I am the one who summoned you now, and I have given my men very explicit instructions regarding your well-being. No harm will come to you, sweet Adiana. So look upon me, and embrace me as your friend.”

Adiana stiffened as Rishona drew her close and kissed her. There was something in the woman’s tone that reminded Adiana of Prince Mechnes in moments when he thought he was being kind.

“I never imagined we would find you in Moehn.” Rishona said. “I envisioned you making a fortune in Selkynsen, teaching music to the daughters of wealthy merchants.”

“I came here to assist Eolyn.”

“So I am told.” Rishona touched Adiana’s chin and studied her bruises. “Did my uncle do this?”

Adiana nodded, wary of the tremble on her lip, shamed by the ease with which her captors could invoke tears.

“He has a strange way of showing his favor.” The sympathy in Rishona’s voice was tempered by an unsettling tone of curiosity.

“This was no favor. Prince Mechnes thought I knew where Eolyn was.”

“Do you?”

“No.” Adiana pulled away. “He claims you want her dead.”

“War is a time of difficult decisions. The maga poses a significant threat to our ambitions in Moisehén. Even so, for my part, I have long desired another destiny for her. You must remember that I loved her once, as did my brother. We treated her as one of our own, even offered her refuge among the Syrnte after Ernan failed. But she chose her path alongside the Mage King, and now all our visions coincide: Eolyn will not be swayed from her loyalty to him. So while I would prefer the maga to live, I have come to accept there is no other way.”

“No other way?” Adiana responded in disbelief. “Is this the destiny of all those you once called
friend
, to die because there is no other way?”

Rishona’s conciliatory smile cooled. She studied Adiana then regarded the girls with expressionless eyes. “I did not summon you here to question my judgment. Any other subject would have been whipped for less than what you just said. But you are my friend, Adiana. I understand what you have suffered, and I can imagine the heartbreak and indignation you must feel.

“So I will tell you this: I have come to claim what is mine by right of birth. That is all. I would have seen this done through other means. Indeed, for years I fought to achieve it in way that would have kept all of you by my side, but this is the only path the Gods have left to me, and I must assume its burden.”

“I pity you for your great burden,” Adiana said. “I can see how it makes you suffer.”

Rishona set her jaw and looked away. She signaled one of her servants, who brought a cloak and set it about her shoulders. “These days have been long and terrible for you. You need rest and proper food before you can understand.”

The San’iloman gave each of the girls an affectionate touch on the cheek, and then turned her attention back to Adiana. “My people have their orders. You are under my protection now. Stay here with the children, eat and drink as you please, rest in my bed until a proper place is prepared for you. No one will disturb you. If there is anything you want, you need only ask for it.”

“Then I ask for our freedom.”

A smile touched Rishona’s full lips. “Freedom is not always desirable. Protection is better. Tonight we will celebrate our victory in Moehn. A suitable gown will be found for you. I would have you sit at my table and drink from my cup, as we did in the happier days of Corey’s Circle. Afterwards, we will talk.”

Rishona departed, surrounded by guards. In her wake she left a hum of activity: servants assembling furniture, airing linens, and setting out food. None of them paid any notice to Adiana or the girls. Adiana had the dismaying sensation that her situation had not improved in the least.

“Shall we play a game?” Catarina clapped her hands. “The San’iloman has been teaching us the most wonderful game, on a board of ebony with little figures of men and monsters. She says it is played by all the nobility in Ech’Nalahm.”

But Tasha pulled Adiana close and whispered in her ear, “I don’t like this place. Everyone pretends to be kind when in truth, they are selfish and cruel. Please, Mistress Adiana, you must take us home. I want to be with Maga Eolyn again. Please.”

Adiana drew a breath intending to promise that she would, but then she held her tongue, though it broke her heart to do so. There would be no greater cruelty, she told herself as she wrapped her arms around Tasha, than to make a promise she might not be able to keep.

*  *  *

It was late when the guards woke Adiana.

She had fallen asleep with Tasha at her side, having succumbed to the spell of soft cushions in a low-slung divan. Tasha was groggy and her hair unkempt. Even now she clung to Adiana as if resolved never to let go. Adiana rose quickly, pulling the girl up with her, self-conscious as always beneath the invasive gaze of Prince Mechnes’s men.

“Catarina,” she called.

The girl looked up from happy contemplation of the eight-sided cards Rishona had left in her possession, each painted with strange and colorful symbols. “You and Tasha must remain here and look after each other, do you understand? I will return as soon as I can.”

“The San’iloman has summoned all three,” one of the guards said.

“The children, as well?” Adiana frowned and looked past the men’s shoulders. Outside torches were lit, and the night was black. “But it is so late.”

Their only response was grim silence.

Adiana wondered why she insisted on questioning every order given her, when it was perfectly clear that as long as this nightmare continued, she would never be given a choice.

“But I want to go along, Mistress Adiana,” Catarina said. “The San’iloman promised me there would be music and dancing and much food.”

“She’ll turn us into food, I bet,” Tasha retorted. “She’ll throw us into an oven and roast us to crisp.”

“Tasha,” Adiana admonished. “You must not scare Catarina with such stories.”

“I’m not scared,” Catarina said.

“Well, you should be!” Tasha shot back.

“Enough.” Adiana smoothed Tasha’s hair and kissed her on the forehead. “I will not have you two bickering like angry geese, not after all it has cost us to come together again. The San’iloman has summoned us, and we must go. That is the end of it.”

She reached out to Catarina, and the girl took her hand.

A litter waited for them, draped in sheer silks as pale as a moonlit mist. The transport was elegant and luxuriously appointed, yet the sight of it made Adiana’s breath stop short. Her heart pounded inside her chest, and her hands were suddenly cold with sweat.

The greater the kindness shown by these people, the more intense my suspicion.

One of the guards shoved her forward, and she climbed in with great reluctance.

“Mistress Adiana,” Tasha murmured as she took a place next to her, “what’s wrong?”

Adiana forced a laugh. “The chill of the night cuts deep when one has recently awakened. I should have had some wine before leaving the tent.”

“There’s wine here.” Catarina took the stopper off a silver flask and sniffed.

“I don’t think you should touch that,” Tasha said.

With an exaggerated roll of her eyes, Catarina took a drink. She proffered the flask to Adiana, who shook her head, overcome by queasiness at the thought of imbibing.

“What do you suppose these are?” Catarina fingered several small baskets in front of her. A stifling aroma emanated from them, heavy with strange spices that reminded Adiana of the markets of Selkynsen. It made her dizzy.

“Leave that be,” she said. “Remember what Maga Eolyn told you about unfamiliar herbs.”

Catarina pouted but folded her hands and at last sat still.

Above them hung a small cage with a white owl that screeched and fluttered its wings as the litter was lifted and born forward. Fighting off a wave of nausea, Adiana studied the bird, certain she had seen this image before. In a dream perhaps, or a nightmare.

“Mistress Adiana?” Tasha’s voice loomed, then wavered and faded.

A low rhythmic thud sounded inside Adiana’s head. She shut her eyes and pressed her palms against her aching forehead.

“Are you not well?”

“It is nothing.” In truth she was succumbing to an inexplicable wave of panic. A shower of black spots exploded in front of her eyes. “Do you hear something, Tasha?”

“What, Mistress Adiana?”

“Babbling. Like the hisses of a thousand snakes. Words I can’t quite understand…”

A wintry chill invaded the marrow of her bones. Then a savage howl tore through Adiana with an agonizing pitch. Ebony claws reached toward her. Behind them, she saw gaping holes in ghostly and distorted faces.

Adiana struggled to escape the phantoms, feeling like a fish caught in a net, except she was being dragged deeper into the darkest of all seas, rather than upwards, toward light and air.

“Help me,” she whispered, but the current was too strong. Tasha’s alarmed cries faded as Adiana was swept away on a river of shadows and terror. Tendrils of fog reached toward her, snapping in her face like rabid dogs, wrapping around her limbs and throat, then slipping away and returning to grasp at her again. Moans of hunger droned in her ears. The discordant roar was driving her mad.

“Renate, please!” she screamed.

The old maga whispered in her ear.

Music is your magic. Melody is your spell.

But what music could be found in this darkness? What melody in this awful chaos? Adiana forced air through her throat in an attempt to scream again, but no sound fell from her lips. The tendrils caught upon her like thorny vines, cutting into her ankles and wrists, pulling her against the current.

A powerful stench invaded her nostrils, like the rot of a man many days dead. Violently she jerked away and found herself once again inside the litter.

The silk curtain came into focus.

Tasha’s voice sounded close by, calling her name in desperation.

A woman leaned over Adiana, caressing her hair, murmuring strange words in a comforting cadence. Her face was drawn and aged, her gray eyes lined with kohl.

“It has ended,” she said. “Come, you can get up now.”

“What has ended?” Adiana pushed herself to a sitting position. “What happened?”