The Sigil Blade (42 page)

Edryd had never quite felt as if he were being protected by Aed Seoras. Manipulated and outright directly endangered yes, but never anything that in any way made him feel supported or safe. It was possible, Edryd realized, when re-examined in light of all that had happened today, that he had failed to appreciate the extent of the dangers from which he had been shielded.

With his link to Seoras broken, Edryd had to rely only on his basic perceptions. Extending them as far as he could, Edryd searched for Seoras. Edryd was able to get a sense of his master, as well as the draugr and two others, all in the direction of the town, but he could be sure of very little at this distance. What he did know for certain, was that there was also a thrall who lay dying in the tunnel beneath the cottage.

Edryd told them then what it was he intended to do. It was completely foolish to go after Esivh Rhol, for there could be no real hope of saving Eithne, but Edryd didn’t consider that there was any other choice. He had no powers with which to confront the thralls let alone face off against their immortal master, and someone should have tried to talk him out of it, but no one did.

Ruach had a word of caution. “Esivh Rhol and his men are not much to contend with. They are inferior really. But the thralls, you will need to be careful of them.” Ruach’s injuries were the only confirmation any one could have needed to affirm this. “There were three. I killed one, when I surprised him down in the tunnel. I fought two more outside, but either one would have been too much for me. They were fast. You wouldn’t believe how fast.”

Edryd did believe it. Seoras had shown him how fast an accomplished shaper could strike and how impossibly strong they could be. “Your friend in the tunnel,” Edryd said, “he isn’t dead. Probably best I do something about that.”

Before anyone could stop him, Edryd was up and heading for the entrance hidden under the floor of the adjoining room. Aelsian trailed behind, grabbing a lamp as he went. Edryd pulled the entrance open, lowered the ladder, and began to climb down. Aelsian handed him the lamp before Edryd completely descended below the level of the floor.

“You are staying up there,” he said to Aelsian when it became clear that the navarch intended to go with him. “I don’t care what happens, no one else is to come down here,” Edryd ordered. “He is still a danger to anyone who gets near him.”

Edryd found Elek only a few feet away from the ladder, staring blankly into the air from where he sat with his back against the tunnel wall, his eyes blinded by Edryd’s lamp. Edryd felt it as the thrall gathered in the dark and began to shape. He was trying to pull Edryd closer where he could really do some damage.

“I would stop now if I were you,” Edryd warned, intensifying his aura as he did so. The bluff completely intimidated Elek into submission, and the shaper released his hold on the dark.

“You, you are the one who killed Aodra,” Elek said, his eyes widening in comprehension. “If you could destroy Áledhuir as well, I would take it as a great favor. I would like to be freed from his tether before I die.”

“They left you here. Why?”

“My master has no use for a dying servant. He has another thrall, and he will most likely manage to replace me with Hedryn as well, now that Aodra is dead.”

Edryd didn’t care about any of this. He needed to know where his enemies were, and what they had planned. Elek was more than willing to supply everything Edryd wanted. He explained that he could still feel the anger of his master. Áledhuir was somewhere in Esivh Rhol’s palace. Elek also told Edryd of the ship that transported them to the island, and confirmed that they were here to capture Lord Aisen. Elek could not say why, other than that his master’s master, for whom Elek either could not or would not give a name, took an interest in the politics of all the nations and in the men who ruled them. Elek provided another interesting detail. Áledhuir was more interested in killing Edryd than he was in capturing him. The draugr had been made wary though, afraid even, by what had happened to Aodra.

Edryd returned to the room where Ruach was resting under the care of Ludin Kar, who looked worried, both about Ruach and in fear of the shaper in the tunnel. “He won’t live much longer, and he doesn’t pose a risk to anyone as long as you stay far away from him,” Edryd assured the scholar.

Aelsian entered the room a moment later carrying a long cloth wrapped bundle. Edryd knew it for what it was. This object was the locus of a sigil knight’s power, a focus for spiritual strength, and a weapon against unnatural constructs born of the dark. Edryd was surprised to discover that he wanted to wield it once more, and he was unprepared for how desperately he felt he needed it.

Edryd unwound the sword from the cloth and used the edge of the blade to cut a long strip of the fabric. He secured the ends of the cloth in a knot around the short unsharpened ricasso at the base of the simple blade. Edryd removed his long dark coat and looped the improvised circle of cloth over his right shoulder, with the other end cradling the sigil sword on his other side. He would only need to draw the blade a few inches to cut through the knotted cloth. Edryd replaced his coat, and once he was satisfied that the sword was as reasonably concealed beneath it as could be managed, which was not very well, he bid a brief farewell to Ruach and Ludin Kar before leaving the cottage.

Aelsian followed him as far as the road. “The Ascomanni are attacking the island tonight,” he said. “If you use the chaos to your advantage, it will give you a chance.”

Edryd suspected that the reverse might prove true. If Esivh Rhol were to pull men back to the palace, having been made fearful of the threat of the Blood Prince, it was going to make it easier for Logaeir to take and hold the piers, but it would make it more difficult to fight through to get to the Ard Ri. It would be better if he hurried.

Aelsian turned south as they parted, heading for the boat that waited to return him to the
Interdiction
. He needed to get back to his fleet as he would need to be in command of his forces in the aftermath of the fighting. Edryd headed west by his usual daily route, feeling the pain of Irial’s absence as he travelled the familiar path without her, drawing ever closer to the city of An Innis, the town which bore this island’s name.

As Edryd continued to walk he began to feel calm. He did not understand it. He was as angry and hurt as he had ever been at any time in his life. The pain rivaled the loss of his mother, abandonment by his father, and even the death of his brother at his own hands, but it existed beside a subtle undercurrent of joy that was in no sense rooted within his own mind. Nothing that had happened to him today suggested a possible source that could explain this feeling, but it was there.

His awareness seemed to expand by the moment, and as it did the calm increased. His anger and his fear were still there, but they were felt as if from far away. The experience felt foreign and strange, and very wrong, but Edryd did not resist this broadening of his conscious boundaries, the source of which seemed probable enough. He glanced inside his coat, taking a look at the weapon. Edryd truly expected to see it glowing with a bright white light, or humming with spectral warmth, but the sigil blade remained in all appearances, a simple piece of well crafted steel.

Edryd wished there were someone to guide him. That someone should have been his father. He could only hope that if he remained open to the sword’s influence, something useful would come of that faith and bring clarity to his confusion. Past experiences offered no encouragement. It was difficult to place his trust in an object that Edryd believed had once impelled an action which had ended in the death of his own brother.

Even without a link to his master, Edryd recognized Aed Seoras’s pattern and traced his presence long before he reached the estate. The property was shut tight, with the gates closed and securely fastened together. This was something Edryd could not recall ever having happened. Seoras stood before the entrance, waiting alongside another younger man with dark hair and a pale face, who looked completely inexperienced and out of his depth beside his former master. Edryd knew the man was a shaper. He was a former student of Aed Seoras and a thrall to the draugar. Edryd could no longer see his master’s emotions with quite the same precision that he once had, but he did not need anything but the rapidly dwindling daylight to see that Seoras was troubled.

“Which one are you, Seldur or Hedryn?” Edryd asked of the man standing beside Seoras.

“He was Aodra’s thrall, Hedryn,” Seoras answered for his companion.

Edryd turned his attention to his master. “Why are the gates closed?” He asked Seoras. It could easily have been a trap, with men hidden in the courtyard, but Seoras would not have needed such help, and from what Edryd could tell, there was only one individual within the confines of the property.

“I won’t be remaining in An Innis any longer,” Seoras said. “I have returned control of the property to Master Tolvanes. He seems quite pleased, but he may miss our arrangement soon enough. It will be hard for him to hold onto it on his own.”

“You are only here then, because you were waiting for me?”

“Better you had not come,” said Seoras, his meaning plain despite offering no clue as to what side he had chosen.

“I have not come blindly or without the means to prevail,” Edryd said, opening his coat to reveal the long blade that he carried.

Seoras didn’t seem surprised, but judging from his demeanor, he was harboring a deep resentment. “You said that was at the bottom of the ocean.”

“I’m sure you can understand why it wasn’t my first impulse to tell the truth,” Edryd answered. “Will you help me, or are you here to interfere?”

“I can take you to the palace. Those are my instructions actually, to find you and bring you to them, nothing more. I told them that it was unnecessary, and it seems I was right.”

This was a frustrating answer, but Edryd should have expected it, given the company in which he had found Seoras.

“How can you possibly do this? After what Esivh Rhol did to Irial, I didn’t think that you would side with them.”

Seoras shifted his feet, discomforted at learning there was something he had apparently not been told yet. He looked expectantly at the man beside him.

“We never meant to harm her,” the thrall insisted, his fear of Seoras evident. “She was kind to me when I was here. None of us would have ever hurt her.” He seemed to think for a second and then said, “Well Seldur maybe, if he had a reason, but none of us had any reason.”

“She’s dead then?” Seoras asked, trying not to appear angry.

“Esivh Rhol gutted her,” Hedryn admitted. “The idiot acted, and nobody was close enough to prevent it. It should not have happened.”

“They will all wish it hadn’t,” Seoras said. He might have meant several people, but the comment most especially must have referred to Esivh Rhol. There was real anger in Seoras’s eyes, but something was holding him in check, restraining the master shaper’s desire to react. “I trust that you will see to that,” he said to Edryd.

“I need your help, not your well wishes,” Edryd said, feeling bitter. He had never once asked Seoras for anything, and he began to sense that needn’t bother now, except as a means to extract a response to his request, the refusal of which he could then use to condemn his cold and unjust master.

“I don’t know what happened in your battle with Aodra, but I am reeling from the echoes even now,” Seoras said. “You announced your existence throughout this world to anyone and everyone that matters with the immensity of the strength that you displayed. With that kind of power, you do not need anyone’s help.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Edryd asked. Edryd wasn’t sure how to explain that he did not know what had happened, and Seoras did not look prepared to continue to believe that his pupil could not shape.

“I am not wrong, but if I were, my powers would not swing the balance in our favor. Áledhuir would kill us both. If you are unable to do this on your own, it will not benefit either of us to try it together.”

“If he won’t help you,” said Hedryn, “I will.”

This unsought offer caught Edryd unprepared. It seemed like an especially foolish thing to even consider, but Edryd wasn’t sure he could turn down any kind of help right now. If Edryd had been surprised, Seoras was completely taken aback.

“He does not need your help,” the master shaper said.

“But I do need his,” said Hedryn. “I am a free man, or nearly so, for the first time that I can remember in my entire life. If he can destroy Áledhuir, there is a chance that I can remain free, and if Aisen should fail, I would rather die alongside him than end up tethered to that monster.”

Seoras did not like this answer. His anger was on the surface now, but most of it was directed at Edryd. “If you come back from this, you and I are going to settle a debt,” he said to Edryd, who had no idea what Seoras meant. By Edryd’s reckoning, if Seoras thought he was owed something by his student, the two gold sovereigns the shaper had stolen more than covered it.

It was clear now that Seoras was not going to help, and so Edryd made the decision to leave. Every moment he wasted trying to persuade his teacher was adding to the risk of harm that Eithne would be exposed to under the care of the Ard Ri. Hedryn joined Edryd as he picked his way up a series of narrow streets that led to the palace. Edryd had not forgotten what this man had done. He had been there when Irial died, and he had fought with Ruach, and then tortured him close to death before leaving him behind to deliver a message.