The SteelMaster of Indwallin, Book 2 of The Gods Within (20 page)

~~~

“The sailor’s story checks out,” Pandorin said. “He’s the first mate on a fairly reputable ship, though I use the word reputable rather loosely.”

“Then who were the cutthroats?” Morgin demanded. “And why were they after me?”

Pandorin sighed deeply, turned and looked out the window of Morgin’s apartments at the city below. France got up unsteadily from the couch and poured another tankard of ale.

Val asked him, “Haven’t you had enough?”

France growled, “I should be with that wench, instead of back here in the palace.”

Morgin ignored them, looked at Pandorin who was still looking out the window. “You haven’t answered my question, Pandorin. Who were the cutthroats?”

Pandorin shrugged. “Bounty hunters.”

France sat up straight, seemed far less drunk.

“Bounty hunters!” Morgin asked. “Looking for me?”

Pandorin nodded slowly, turned to face Morgin. “Yes. The Lesser Council has increased the price on your head to a thousand gold coins. And they’ll pay the price only if you’re dead.”

“Whew!” France sucked air through his teeth. “Fer that kind of money even I might decide to cut yer throat, lad.”

“Exactly,” Pandorin said. “Every rogue and cutthroat and malcontent in the land has come to Aud. We’ve already stopped five assassination attempts. And three men who fit your description have been murdered in cases of mistaken identity.”

“Well lad,” France said. “Me thinks we’ve over stayed our welcome. Where do we go from here?”

Morgin shook his head. “I don’t know. But wherever we go we’d better go there soon.”

Val stood, stretched like a cat. “Yes. That’s obvious. Let’s sleep on it. I’m sure Captain Pandorin can keep you alive for one more night.”

~~~

Tulellcoe sat in the dark, fingered his dagger unhappily and contemplated the gloom in his soul. He told himself again and again he was a fool; twice a fool; thrice a fool. He’d sensed the evil in Morgin’s talisman long before Csairne Glen, and yet he’d ignored it. If he’d only opened his eyes back then, listened to his soul, recognized the sword for the danger it would become, he might have been able to help the lad. But he’d failed to do so, and he could only blame himself for the consequences.

He knew what he had to do. He’d known all along, but the knowledge of his responsibility left such distaste in his heart that even now he tried to deny it, tried to pretend that if he only gave it time a better solution would come to hand. He’d been living under that idiotic pretense ever since they’d entered Aud. Morgin was helping Aiergain immeasurably, and surely that meant he had achieved some form of control.

“Bah!” Tulellcoe growled into the darkness. “I’m a damn fool.”

Cort stirred, rolled over in bed, mumbled something about him returning to the sheets. Then her breathing returned to that slow, steady rhythm that signaled a deep and restful sleep.

Tulellcoe tried to look at her in the darkness, tried to see some hint of her face. She was such a strong woman during the day, and yet when asleep her mouth opened and her face took on the aspect of childish innocence. That was the part of her she hid from everyone, even him, but a part of her he cherished.

“Will you understand?” he asked her in a whisper. “Will you still love me when I have done what I must do? Or will you hate me? Will you think me a traitor, for certainly everyone else will?”

He stood, resolved to do what he must, crossed the room to the door and put his hand on the latch. But even now he hesitated. He didn’t want to kill Morgin, but it must be done, and better he than some rat of a Tosk or Penda. He recalled the evil he’d sensed in the blade. It had come alive that night somewhere in Aud, even if only for an instant. He didn’t know the circumstances but he had sensed it, sensed the depths of evil within it, the chasm of hatred that struggled to be released. Morgin had just barely been able to contain it, and he knew that when it did break free the land would run red with blood.

Tulellcoe understood it had fallen upon him to prevent that, and at least he would make some effort to make Morgin’s death an easy one. He dressed quickly, turned the latch on the door and stepped out into the hall.

~~~

Morgin enjoyed this dream. He walked through a vibrant forest in a proper dream: a little indistinct around the edges, a bit surreal. And then he saw the one thing that could make it even better: Rhianne. She appeared without warning, smiled at him, opened her arms and held them out to him.

He stepped into them, kissed her long and sweet. “I’m sorry I misunderstood you,” he said.

“That is the past and we can put it behind us now.”

He leaned forward to kiss her again, but she leaned away from him and gently covered his lips with her hand. “No. There isn’t time.”

“But this is a dream,” he pleaded. “We have all the time in the world.”

She shook her head. “No. We don’t. You’re in danger.”

“Not here,” he said, looking about at the forest.

“Of course not here,” she agreed. “Not the King of Dreams. But it’s not in your dreams that you’re in danger. You must go back, now.”

“No,” he said angrily. “I don’t want to.” But even as he spoke his hands passed right through her, and she and the forest and everything about him dissipated slowly on a nether wind.

“You must go back,” she called after him. “You must go back.”

~~~

Tulellcoe put his hand on the latch on the door to Morgin’s room. He was about to turn it when something tugged at his sleeve. He looked down, found a small child dressed in filthy, tattered rags. “No,” the child hissed softly. “You are wrong. He must live.”

~~~

Morgin awoke with a start and sat up in bed. The room was dark, but the lights of the city threw enough illumination through his open window to see tolerably well. No assassin stood over him or lurked in the shadows with the intention of slitting his throat. But he sensed something undefined and indistinct, though not yet of any danger to him.

Curious, he climbed out of bed, threw on a robe and crossed the room to the door. He put his hand on the latch, hesitated as he tried to sense what might await him beyond, but no image came to mind. He knew only that it awaited him there.

He turned the latch and slowly opened the door, saw a man standing there as if waiting for him, though the hallway was much darker than his room and he saw nothing of the man’s face. The man looked down and to one side, and he whispered, “Rat?” more a question than a statement.

Recognizing Tulellcoe, Morgin breathed a sigh of relief.

“Uncle,” Morgin asked groggily. “What brings you here this time of night?”

Tulellcoe shivered visibly, still looking at the floor beside him. He looked up into Morgin’s face. “May I come in?” he asked.

“Certainly.” Morgin stepped aside and admitted the older man to the room, though oddly, as Tulellcoe stepped past him Morgin’s eye caught the glint of some metallic object in his hand. But the room was too dark to see what the object might be.

Morgin lit a lamp, but after the room filled with light he noticed Tulellcoe’s hands were empty. “What can I do for you, uncle? It is rather late.”

Tulellcoe walked to the balcony doors, looked out at the city below, spoke with his back to Morgin. “Where will you go now?”

“How do you know I’m going to go anywhere?”

Tulellcoe shrugged. “You don’t have much choice.”

Morgin sat down on the edge of the bed, ran his hands tiredly through his hair. “Well I think I’m no longer welcome here.”

Tulellcoe turned and looked at him for the first time, and Morgin was struck by the despair in his eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

Morgin told him about the day he and Aiergain had gone riding, and how he’d rejected her on their return. “I tried to be kind, but I’m afraid I still hurt her. Since then I haven’t seen her, not even to tutor her in magic. Besides, I couldn’t stay here even if I were still welcome, not with every cutthroat and assassin in the land coming into the city to slit my throat. I’m just a target, living publicly like this. I need to disappear, blend into the population again, into the countryside somewhere. I’ve been thinking I might take passage on a ship, travel north up the coast a ways, maybe spend some time in Drapolis.”

Tulellcoe wasn’t paying attention to him, was clearly preoccupied with something else. “What’s on your mind, uncle? You have something to ask or say, so why don’t you just spit it out?”

Tulellcoe considered Morgin for an instant, then blurted out, “The talisman. The sword. How did you acquire it?”

Morgin flinched, told a half truth. “I bought it in a weapons maker’s shop in Anistigh. You know that.”

“Yes I do. But I also know there has to be more to it than that.”

Morgin’s hesitated, considered Tulellcoe carefully, wondered at his motives and desires. But he wanted to tell someone, for he’d never told anyone the truth of the matter. “It came to me in a dream.”

Tulellcoe frowned. “You told me that once before. What do you mean?”

So Morgin told him the story. They all knew the story of how he’d snuck back into the castle after Valso and his Kulls had killed SarahGirl in the road, but now he told Tulellcoe of how he’d been struck on the head in the corridor, and dreamed he’d been shot through the heart with a crossbow bolt. He told him of the magic alcove, and how it had come to him so often as a child, and how it came to him then as he lay dying in a corridor in Elhiyne. He told of how he crawled into it to die, how he’d dreamed of a giant burial chamber connected to the alcove, and of the skeleton king that had returned to life to heal Morgin’s horrible wound, then, as an afterthought, had given Morgin the sword.

“The Alcove was real,” Morgin added. “That’s where I awoke. But the rest was all just a dream. The sword was the sword I bought in Anistigh. France says it’s very old Benesh’ere steel.”

Tulellcoe seemed entranced by the story. He asked, “You say the king took the sword from a dead warrior sprawled at the foot of his throne? But when the king returned to life, the warrior remained a skeleton while everything else seemed again new. What else was different about this warrior?”

Morgin closed his eyes and tried to picture the scene again. “Well, the decayed rags he wore were common, not the kind of thing to find in the burial chamber of a king, or even on the back of a king’s guard.”

“And why do you say this warrior came to his death long after the king?”

Again Morgin tried to picture the scene. “Before the king came back to life, and after he returned to being a skeleton, when everything was old and decayed, there was a thick layer of dust on the floor, as if it had been settling there for millennia. And the warrior had left a trail in the dust where he’d crawled before dying. But still that was just a dream.”

Morgin continued his story, told Tulellcoe of his battle in the sanctum with the Kulls, of how the magic in the sanctum’s walls had come to him, and of how the sword had taken over and butchered the Kulls, dragging Morgin along behind it.

Tulellcoe frowned deeply at that. “The magic in the sanctum should not have come to you in that way, not so readily. And without one of us there to moderate it, it should have destroyed you. Only someone of Elhiyne blood could have handled that power that way, only someone directly of House Elhiyne.”

Morgin’s heart wanted to pound its way out of his chest at the import of Tulellcoe’s words.

“Perhaps Malka!” Tulellcoe continued. “He was always one for whoring when we were in Anistigh. And his penchant for raw power would explain your penchant for raw power.” Tulellcoe shook his head. “No. Impossible. It can’t be.”

“What do you mean by that?” Morgin demanded. “Does it really bother you we might share the same blood?”

Tulellcoe shook his head. “No. It’s not that.”

“Yes it is,” Morgin growled. “You’re just like all the rest, aren’t you? Don’t want the taint of the whoreson’s blood. Well I need some sleep so will you please leave?”

Tulellcoe turned cold and distant, even more so than usual. He looked at Morgin angrily for a long moment, and Morgin noticed his hand had slipped into his tunic as if reaching for something. “As you wish,” he said flatly, then turned and left the room.

Morgin extinguished the lamp and returned to bed, but he lay there for a long time before returning to sleep.

Chapter 11: The Pipist

Morgin awoke, took one look at his hands, sat up in his cot and swore with Morddon’s voice, “Damn! Will these dreams never end?”

There were several angels in the barracks and they all looked his way. One of them, sitting on a nearby cot sharpening his sword, asked, “Did you dream badly, whiteface?”

“This is the dream, you damn fool,” Morddon growled. But then he hesitated, looked at his hands once more, understood Morgin’s anger was mixing with Morddon’s guilt to form a deadly combination. Morgin concentrated on calming down while Morddon growled at the angel, “Sorry. Guess I didn’t wake up well.”

The angel frowned, perhaps more at the apology than anything else, then went back to sharpening his sword.

Morddon crawled off his cot, looked about groggily. His afternoon nap had lasted longer than expected and evening was now upon him. He staggered to the bathhouse at the back of the barracks, washed carefully. Since returning to Kathbeyanne he’d taken up, what for him, was the unusual habit of bathing regularly, and he was drinking less. Glistening with moisture he threw his long, black hair back over his shoulders and returned to his cot. While he was dressing Metadan approached him, told him, “You are to dine in the palace tonight.”

He almost growled,
I don’t want to
, but thought better of it and said merely, “Why?”

“The Lady AnneRhianne requests your presence. And she specifically said it was to be presented to you as a request, not an order. But from me, it is an order.”

Morddon curled his lips back into a snarlish grin. “I almost like you, angel.”

AnneRhianne sent one of the palace guards to guide him through the labyrinthine corridors of the grand palace of the Shahotma King. Corridor upon corridor led off to unknown destinations, with people moving about everywhere, most of whom refused to meet Morddon’s eyes. That saddened him, for he knew he’d gained an unpleasant reputation, but not until then did he realize how far it had gone.

The guard led him to a large sitting room where at least a dozen people had already gathered. They were mostly Benesh’ere, though there were other races present, and they stood about in small groups chatting politely, while servants walked among them with trays of delicacies and cool summer wine. The people about him all wore elegant and expensive garments that made Morddon’s plain, simple clothing seem even shabbier by comparison. He snagged a goblet of chilled wine, and was careful to sip at it rather than gulp it down.

He spied AnneRhianne across the room at about the same moment she saw him. She started toward him immediately, followed closely by two young, pretty Benesh’ere girls, but Morddon saw only AnneRhianne, for in her Morgin saw only Rhianne, and she was more beautiful than he had ever imagined

“Morddon,” she said happily. “I’m glad you could come.”

He tried a smile. “I wasn’t sure what to expect.”

One of the young girls harrumphed loudly. AnneRhianne looked at her and smiled. “Of course. How rude of me.” She introduced the two young ladies, but Morddon was so preoccupied with AnneRhianne he forgot their names almost immediately.

“That was a very brave thing you did,” the youngest of the two said, dripping with admiration.

“What thing are you talking about?” Morddon asked.

“Why! Rescuing WindHollow and SheelThane that way.”

“That wasn’t me,” Morddon lied. “Must have been someone else.”

AnneRhianne winked at the young girl. “He forever denies it, I think because he’s shy. And SheelThane will neither confirm nor deny it, because I’m certain he swore her to secrecy.”

Morddon felt an angry, bitter retort climbing up his throat, but he suppressed it, managed a smile. “I really don’t know anything about it.”

AnneRhianne took him under her wing for the rest of the evening. She piloted him carefully through the crowd, saw to it he met everyone, filled in those unpleasant moments when the conversation took a bad turn or died away slowly because of his inexperience at small talk. After what seemed an eternity they sat down to dinner. The table was carefully arranged, and the number of guests had been chosen to make everything perfect. Morddon looked at the array of utensils placed about his plate and cringed inwardly. But somehow AnneRhianne, who not coincidentally was seated next to him, managed to coach him in their proper use without seeming to do so, and for that he was grateful.

After dinner they adjourned to a large garden court, an atrium in the center of the palace—apparently there were many such—with private little, tree lined pathways that opened out into small, carefully tended garden clearings. Lamps hung overhead illuminated the pathways, and in the dim lighting Morddon caught glimpses of fountains and flowers and places to sit in private little groups amidst the beauty.

He heard pipes ever so faintly, a sound that hadn’t touched his ears in centuries. But the pipist fumbled for his notes, unsure of himself, trying to play a tune that wasn’t coming easily. “Who’s the pipist?” Morddon asked AnneRhianne.

She shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

They began a search through the pathways of the garden, pausing, listening carefully for the next sequence of notes, then following whatever path led in that direction. The pathways wound and curved endlessly, frustrating their efforts to find the pipist, but Morddon refused to relent, and eventually found Metadan and Ellowyn seated on a stone bench in a small clearing. Metadan hesitantly picked out the notes of his tune, while Ellowyn looked on with the eyes of a lover. Morgin was dumbfounded, for to his ears Metadan had piped the most beautiful tunes with true mastery of his instrument, and yet now he seemed the unsure novice.

As Morddon and AnneRhianne joined the two archangels Metadan took the instrument from his lips, looked at it forlornly and sighed. “Ah! A folly I picked up recently. But I have no teacher, and the skill of this thing escapes me.”

Morddon sat down next to him, his fingers itching to touch the instrument. “But it’s not skill that’s required for piping. It’s the feeling, the sense, the emotion. Learn those, and the skill will follow.”

AnneRhianne looked at him queerly. “You speak as if you know the pipes with more than your ears.”

Morddon nodded. “My father was a pipist.” He tried to hide his excitement at having such an instrument close at hand.

Metadan considered him carefully. “And no doubt your father taught you some of that feeling. Can you play?”

Morddon closed his eyes, tried to recall Indwallin. Working at the forges with Eisla had been a pleasant task, a chore joyful for the physical exercise and time spent with his mother, but the pipes had come naturally to him and they were his first love. He and Binth had filled their village nightly with the magic of their sounds. “I can play,” Morddon said. “A little.”

Metadan offered him the instrument. “Then please, show me.”

Morddon’s hands almost shook as he caressed the pipes carefully, felt the grain in the wood, sensed the music buried within it. He put the instrument to his lips, blew a tentative note, blew another, tested its range and depth. It needed proper tuning, but with a small knife, and a few hours, and a great deal of care, he could correct that.

He had to play something, anything, but he could remember none of the tunes he and Binth and Eisla had loved so much. And then Morgin’s memories flooded into him, memories of Metadan sitting in a clearing in the forest near Csairne Glen at the top of Sa’umbra, and Metadan’s sad tune came back to him.

He touched the pipes to his lips, played the first note of the tune, and the next, and soon he was deep into it. He played a sad tune, but it fit his mood and so it flowed out of him as if he had played it time and again for centuries. And while he played Metadan’s tune from Morgin’s memories, he did so with considerably different style, for when Metadan had piped the tune it had been more of a dirge, while Morddon piped a sweet, sad song of loving memories long gone and past, of a joyous time never to be retrieved. His fingers crawled up and down the length of the instrument, and the tune flowed from his heart, while tears flowed from his eyes.

When the tune ended he pulled the instrument from his lips slowly, looked at it for a long, solemn moment, then looked up, and for the first time noticed he’d gathered a large crowd about him, come to hear his music. AnneRhianne too had tears streaming down her face, as did most of the women in the crowd, and not a few of the men. There were also griffins among them, though because of their size the griffins were limited to only the most open spaces of the garden.

“That was very beautiful,” AnneRhianne said in a choked whisper.

TarnThane stood nearby, and for once, when he spoke, his voice lacked its usual boisterous confidence. “The madman has shown us a hint of the beauty he hides within his soul.”

Morddon wanted to snarl a reply, but the mood of the tune was still upon him, and his voice came out without its usual bitterness and sharp edges. “Be quiet, half bird.”

“Your father was a pipist?” AnneRhianne asked him.

Morddon looked at the instrument as he answered. “Yes. His name was Binth, and he was the pipist in our village. I liked working with my mother Eisla during the day at her forges, but I loved the pipes most, and Binth and I played endlessly through the evenings.”

AnneRhianne’s sharp intake of breath startled Morddon. He looked at her carefully, saw that her eyes had narrowed and her face had hardened. He’d said something wrong, and he sensed anger within her now, and he sensed anger within the crowd about him too. She spoke carefully, and she asked him one question: “And the name of this village?”

Morddon frowned and answered her. “A small village, a simple village of which you’ve probably never heard. It was named Indwallin.”

AnneRhianne shot out of her seat and stood over him. Her hand arced out, and her palm crashed into his cheek with a loud whip-crack. She lifted her hand again to slap him, and it startled so he didn’t even attempt to defend himself while twice more she struck him with such force his head rocked back and he gripped the stone bench to keep his seat.

“You blasphemous bastard!” she shouted at him. “What evil lies within your heart that you must always turn us against you? I could forgive your constant mockery, but you choose to mock us with the Abomination, and for that I can only hate you.”

With that, she turned away from him and stormed out of the clearing, leaving him in the midst of a stunned silence. The crowd about him grumbled angrily, then slowly dispersed, though one young Benesh’ere warrior stopped for a moment to spit on him before following the rest.

Morddon sat in the empty silence that followed, unable to comprehend what had just happened. “What did I do?” he asked of no one.

TarnThane answered him. “You truly do not know, do you?”

Morddon shook his head. “Know what?”

TarnThane shook his head sadly. “You chose the wrong lie, my friend Morddon, for among your people the name Indwallin is never spoken. It is instead referred to as the Abomination, for at Beayaegoath’s command the village was sacked by Magwa the jackal queen, and while it’s inhabitants were tortured to death, their children were made to watch.”

TarnThane’s words struck at Morddon’s heart, and were more painful than AnneRhianne’s blows, for they released long forgotten memories hidden within Morddon’s soul. He sobbed, remembering a night filled with torches and soldiers and hatred, a young boy tied to a stake with his young friends, while they watched their parents slowly crucified. He would never again forget the sound of their cries. And then . . .

Morddon nodded at TarnThane’s words. “I remember now. And after they crucified our parents, they tortured the other children, and made me watch.”

TarnThane shook his head again, though with less confidence. “That cannot be. Indwallin was desecrated twelve hundred years ago at the very beginning of these wars. The SteelMistress Eisla was the greatest of the SteelMasters, and the first to be murdered. Since then Beayaegoath has systematically sought out and murdered each SteelMaster, until now there are no more.”

Morddon handed the pipes carefully to Metadan, looked at the calluses on his hands and recalled hauntingly vague memories of swinging a hammer at the forges. But Eisla was not part of those memories for they were not Eisla’s forges. Eisla was long dead and the fires of those forges were stoked by hatred, and malice, and the lust for power. And those forges had never been meant for good steel: the steel of a plowshare to till the soil and bring new life to the earth; the steel of a surgeon’s knife to cut away death and make room for life. Those forges had been used only for the steel of death, the steel of hatred, the steel of one single blade, a blade twelve hundred years in the making.

Morddon looked wonderingly at the sword strapped to his side, then at his callused hands. A year in such slavery would seem no different than a century. He looked at his calluses and whispered, “And so the blade is born. What have I created?”

~~~

Morgin stood on the stern castle of the ship
Far Wind
, watched the hurried activity down on the dock as the
Far Wind’s
crew made last minute preparations. Just past dawn on a gray day, low clouds blanketed the sky, with a light breeze coming in off the ocean to put a chill in the air. Morgin pulled the hood of his cloak forward and hunched tightly within its folds. It shielded him from the nip in the air, but most importantly it hid his identity.

Bakart, the sailor who’d saved Morgin’s life three nights ago, and first mate of the
Far Wind
, sprinted across the ship’s foredeck and vaulted agilely up onto the stern castle. He leaned insanely out over the rail near Morgin and shouted down to someone on the dock, “Belay that, you idiot.” He climbed up onto the rail, jumped out into midair and caught the ropes of a nearby crane, then slid down the rope easily to the dock. He sprinted across the dock to a longshoreman, stopped with his nose only inches from the man’s face, bellowed something Morgin couldn’t hear.