The Sigil Blade (47 page)

“They won’t follow me,” Logaeir said again, but somehow his objections were just not getting through.

“They are already following you,” Edryd said, making the obvious point. “Barely any of them have any idea what I look like. If we keep it that way, when I leave, it won’t undermine you. With the Sigil Corps soldiers backing you up, no one will question it. You could even go on pretending to be the Blood Prince.”

“The Hand of the Blood Prince,” Logaeir said. It was as far as he was prepared to go.

Edryd tried to shift his chair, but it wouldn’t move. It was locked in place, as was the table and most of the other chairs around it. He found Logaeir’s latest proposal to be even more alarming than the idea of allowing the man to continue impersonating him as he had done more than once before. Edryd had an unpleasant mental image in his mind of one of his hands moving about of its own volition, doing all sorts of things he wouldn’t want it to do and dragging the rest of his body along behind it.

“The Regent of An Innis, and leader of the Ascomanni,” Edryd offered instead. He wanted Logaeir to assume more responsibility and act under his own name and reputation instead of falsely pretending that he was carrying out Edryd’s wishes. Logaeir seemed to consider this. The suggestion might possibly even have appealed to Logaeir on some level, but the man did not like to be out in front. He preferred to pull the strings, rather than be the puppet.

“Alright, but it is to be understood that you are the rightful ruler of the island, and the King of the Ascomanni. I merely speak and act on your behalf,” Logaeir said.

“No,” Edryd said, rejecting the suggestion but offering a modification. “You speak on your own behalf, but you have my support.”

Logaeir wasn’t pleased. He would have preferred to make Edryd stay here, at least for a little while, and failing that, he wanted to represent himself as the being an extension of the Blood Prince’s will, but he seemed to accept that Edryd’s current offer was as much as he was going to be able to bargain for.

Edryd, for his part, was pretty certain that Logaeir was going to call himself the Hand of the Blood Prince regardless of anything Edryd might do to try and stop him. Having reached an understanding, Logaeir took his leave from the two other men, muttering something under his breath.

“I’m going to make one last trip into An Innis to say a few goodbyes,” Edryd said to Aelsian. “I will be back in a couple of hours.”

“We’ll be ready to leave when you return,” Aelsian promised.

Edryd felt a twinge of guilt as he passed his cabin. Eithne was inside, which was pretty awkward all around and had forced him to sleep outside the door, but this was where she felt safe. The cabin Aelsian had given to her had been given back to the Officer she would have otherwise been displacing. Edryd knew she would want to come with him into town, but it was impractical and still too dangerous.

He made as direct a path as he could to Uleth’s home. Edryd didn’t know what he hoped to find, apart from Uleth, but he was determined to seek the man out. He thought he had come to the wrong place when he arrived at the heavy wooden door, which hung open now on its hinges. The garden looked the same as ever, with robust growths of carefully cultivated plants, but the home was in complete disrepair. It did not look as though anyone lived there. Edryd could see gaps in some of the walls where the structure was falling down. Surely more than this had to have been real. Edryd stepped inside the open doorway. The hallways were filled with rot and mold.

Edryd turned into the library. This room appeared to have been well sheltered from the elements and contained numerous shelves of books. A young man, Edryd supposed he must have been one of the Ascomanni, was packing books into a couple of folded cloths. Edryd feared that the library was being looted, but the young man seemed untroubled and did not act at all like someone caught in an act of theft. He explained to Edryd when he was asked, that he had been paid to move all of the books to the palace. Edryd left then, and rejected the idea of looking for Uleth at the palace or anywhere else. He somehow knew that he would not be able to find the man. Edryd turned instead onto a path that would take him to the Broken Oath. The inn wasn’t far away.

He didn’t have a good reason to be going there. Edryd didn’t know Greven especially well, or anyone else that he might be likely to see inside, or at least not enough that they warranted a formal farewell. He realized as he walked that he had just needed to see the rapid improvements that were taking place, made quite plain by the number of shops that were opening up and the bustle of people moving about. An Innis was a different place, and it did Edryd good to think that his choices had contributed to and brought about things other than just suffering and death.

Edryd stepped inside the Broken Oath. The structure itself and the furnishings inside it had not been changed, but it did not feel like the same place. It was busier than ever and was serving a more varied collection of customers. There were crowds throughout, which made the one exceptional bare spot incredibly obvious. The patrons of the inn were keeping a healthy distance from the man in black robes who was sitting against the back wall.

Edryd felt sick. He hadn’t seen his former teacher since the night of the attack, and he hadn’t expected to see him now either. Seoras watched him enter, apparently having waited far longer than he would have liked and clearly angry that Edryd had declined his invitation to meet him near the ruins. Edryd walked past Seoras without acknowledging him, passing him on his way towards the inn’s back door. Without a word, Seoras stood and followed Edryd out.

Standing with his back to the inn, Edryd surveyed the wreckage of the well in the middle of the courtyard. He wondered when someone would get around to repairing the damage he had caused while fighting with Cecht and Hagan that first night in An Innis. There were a handful of people behind the inn, but nothing compared to the number of people inside or the groups out in the street in front. Edryd couldn’t trust that their presence would afford any protection from an angry shaper of the dark.

“You have no regard,” Seoras said from behind Edryd.

Edryd couldn’t understand why Seoras could think that he would, but he didn’t say so. He was about to find out what the man wanted.

“Let’s take this somewhere else,” Seoras said. This somewhere else, his voice seemed to imply, was going to be a suitable place for a fight, a parting duel that could well leave one or both of them dead. Edryd had been carrying the sigil sword at his side for a few days now, having kept it close from the moment Seoras had returned it to him, but in that time it had exhibited no unusual attributes. There hadn’t, however, been any occasions to put it to the test. It might well aid him only when there was a need, or it might continue to remain a simple piece of metal when it mattered most. Either way, Edryd could see that an occasion had come which would settle that question.

They walked together in silence, working their way towards the estate that had recently been restored to Giric Tolvanes. It was the place where Seoras had lived while training men, Edryd among them, to bend flows of pure æther to their will. Seoras had never had a more frustrating student than Edryd, and he wasn’t ever likely to have another anything like him.

As they neared the property, Edryd saw that the gates had been pulled down. Seoras had been right when he had predicted that Tolvanes would have trouble holding onto the place on his own.

“What happened?” Edryd asked.

“Tolvanes was among those who once participated in the profits gained from enslaving the most vulnerable citizens of An Innis,” Seoras explained. “When the Ascomanni attacked, there was a reckoning for people like him.”

Edryd took this to mean the old man was most likely dead, but he didn’t try to confirm it. He kept quiet as they walked into the practice yard. The place was empty and deserted despite the fact that it was clearly a valuable property. The years Seoras had spent here, housing draugar and training thralls, had established the type of reputation that would keep people away for a while.

On the assumption that Seoras was about to initiate a fight, Edryd began to make preparations. He strained to concentrate all of his focus on measuring the shifting currents of the dark and differentiating between the patterns that he could perceive. He could feel the sigil sword belted in place at his side. It was not quite cooperating, but it felt ready, as if it were cautiously aware of all that took place. There was something else unusual. Something he really ought to have noticed before. He was having trouble picking out the normally obvious pattern that Seoras generated. It was there, but it was indistinct, confused, and unstable.

Seoras noted the surprise on Edryd’s face. “I showed you this once before,” he said, calling to mind the time Seoras had hidden himself while he listened as Edryd spoke to Ruach outside the cottage. “I have made improvements. Though it is not the equal of your shrouding, and it is nowhere near close to what I need it to be, it isn’t bad at all if you consider how little I had to go on,” he boasted.

“I don’t understand. Is this what you wanted me to see?”

“It would have been if I could make it work, in which case I would have wanted you to not see it,” Seoras answered. “I’m asking you to show me how to do this correctly.”

“Why would I, even if I could?” Edryd asked. “You could have helped me when I came to you, but you did nothing.”

“I need you to teach me,” Seoras said, ignoring the uncomfortable question. “I am tethered. I cannot escape him if you do not help.”

“Just as you tied your leash around me,” Edryd said, making the point that he had no sympathy. He did not care much right now who this master was that so troubled Seoras.

Seoras was surprised. “I did try”, he admitted, “but I failed to create the link.”

“No,” Edryd insisted. “I felt every emotion that flowed through your head. Believe me when I tell you it worked.”

Seoras was no longer surprised; he was dumbfounded. The intervention of the shroud had ensured that the link had only functioned in one direction. He looked anxious then too, frightened upon learning how much Edryd might know of him and worried that his darkest secrets had been compromised.

“Then you understand how my master can use the link to trace me,” Seoras said. “I cannot hide from him without your help. I am sure that only it can shield me.”

For the sake of ending all of this, if not for the pitiable state of fear this man was living in, Edryd was almost willing to do what Seoras was asking. “Would you believe that I don’t know how it is done, that it is something caused by the sigil sword?” Asking this as a question, instead of stating it directly, did not make the explanation any more persuasive, but then Edryd did not actually know if it was the truth.

Seoras didn’t seem to immediately dismiss the idea, but eventually he rejected it. “The sword is a focus, not a living object, Edryd,” the shaper lectured. “It can only enhance your ability, in no sense can it actually shape.”

Edryd felt certain that this couldn’t be entirely correct. It did not match some of his experiences with the weapon. Seoras had to be at least partly right though. The shroud had remained in place long after Edryd had become separated from the sword. At most, the sword induced him to shape the concealment and worked to maintain it, but it could not be the actual source. It was an interesting thought, but this wasn’t going to be something he was going to solve so simply.

“This is all beside the point,” Seoras said. “I need this as a shield against my master. You are going to teach it to me.”

“No,” Edryd said, shaking his head.

Seoras was not ready to give up. “You can’t say no. I will do whatever you ask, I will become your apprentice,” he begged. The part about becoming Edryd’s apprentice was spoken as if it were some enticement, but it was in fact what Seoras truly wanted, more even than the means to shut out his master. Seoras seemed to be overestimating Edryd in a truly dangerous way.

“No,” Edryd insisted once more. He might have explained it in terms of his simple ignorance on the subjects Seoras wanted to be trained in, but instead Edryd said, “This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but I don’t quite like you, Seoras. I certainly cannot trust you, and I do not believe that I could ever teach you anything.”

Edryd saw something then that he hadn’t thought possible. Exposed for just a moment by the harsh words, a severe sadness and pain could be seen in the shaper’s eyes. Edryd had come to believe that the man did not have any emotions that were not some form of anger, and had judged him to possess little or no capacity to be hurt by anything.

The momentary reaction did not take long to metamorphose into deep offense and from there into the raw anger with which Edryd was more familiar. Edryd felt fortunate that his link with Seoras had been severed, certain that the force of this man’s anger would have been enough to almost knock him down. He was much too close to Seoras. Edryd retreated as quickly as he could, relying on the previously established correlation that distance meant safety where Seoras was concerned.

The sigil blade was in his hands now, and Edryd stopped backing up in response to some prompting that urged him to stand and face the shaper. Something opened inside Edryd again, but this time he couldn’t have felt less prepared for it, lacking the sense of calm and expanded consciousness he had possessed leading up to his fight in the palace. Edryd understood this much, he could once again, for what would now be the second time in his life, consciously touch and shape the dark.