Three Coins for Confession (37 page)

“If a dark power does rise in Nyndenu,” Farenna called out to the
assembled Ilvani, “then entering Crithnalerean in force alerts the lóechari and
the Calala to our purpose and our fear. But our patrols are known along the
frontier, and push often across the forest wall when the Crithnalerean
threaten. I have ridden to the Ghostwood more than once since Calalerean’s
movement north, though the forest and its spirits sing their same silence as
ever to my ears.”

“Then how is the cult to be found?” An Ilvani in blue robes spoke
up, circling close to Farenna.

“With the assistance of this envoy and the fate that weighs on
him.”

Chriani felt a faint chill at the captain’s words. A surge of
whispering rose around him, the Ilvani watching intently. The flash of fear was
bright in their eyes again, their minds open to him somehow through Veassen’s
thoughts. He could feel the ward against dark magic. The words that weren’t
words.

“Friend Chriani,” Farenna said with a deep nod. “You spoke of the
Calala hunting you. Show this council their weapons.”

Chriani stood in silence a moment. Then he slipped two fingers
within his belt and found the larger pocket there. Carefully, he pulled the two
talismans from it, their bloodstone shards still dark.

He heard the whispers around him shift and echo.
Gavalirnon…
Farenna
stepped forward, his hand extended. Waiting.

Chriani passed the captain the newer talisman, claimed along the
Hunthad. Farenna examined it carefully, stepping away from Chriani as
blue-white light flowed within his hand. As he whispered an incantation, that
light flared to a brilliant pulse of ice-white. Farenna turned slowly, eyes
half-closed. Listening for something, Chriani thought, but the silence that had
descended upon the council chamber was absolute.

Farenna opened his eyes, holding the talisman straight out before
him. He stood that way for a long while, staring at the stone on its thin steel
chain before he spoke.

“I focus this magic and feel for its source, and it calls me
north to Nyndenu.”

A new chorus of whispers broke across the council chamber. Even
Contáedar’s entourage had joined in now, the war master the only Ilvani who was
silent.

“I can trace the lines of dweomer in this hunter’s heart, back to
the source it reports to. I turn the power of the lóechari against them. Where
they dwell in the Ghostwood, the hunter’s heart will lead us, and the riders of
Laneldenari will find and destroy them.”

The council chamber was a storm of voices suddenly. As Veassen
listened, Chriani felt them filter through his mind without really trying.
Support for Farenna’s plan, and arguments against. Alongside the call for
action against the Ghostwood, cries for movement against Calalerean itself.
Calls for restraint and second thought before action was taken.

Chriani heard it. Understood it. From a starting point of
disbelief — in him, in the story he had to tell — the
Ilvani had swung around full in the name of the fear of whatever power had been
found in Crithnalerean. In the name of a legend Chriani heard circling around him
now, caught from the cacophony of voices like a child snatching fireflies from
the night air.

“The half-blood…”
they were saying.
“Heir of the
exile’s blade…”

They believed him because of whatever connection they imagined he
had to prophecy and power. The connection the Calala Ilvani believed in, and in
whose name they had hunted him. And it didn’t matter that none of it was true.

All that mattered was that in that moment, in the fanciful terms
of Veassen’s children’s tale, Chriani understood with sudden clarity that he
had been granted a single desperate chance to undo the damage that fate and his
own failures had done to him.

“No,” he shouted.

The voices faded to abrupt silence. Farenna’s expression showed
the surprise present on all the Ilvani except Contáedar, whose eyes showed only
contempt.

He wasn’t sure where the notion had come from. It was sharp in
his mind like it had always been with him, but it carried no sense of Veassen’s
voice.

“You need alliance with the Ilmari to do this,” Chriani said. He
ignored the war master’s gaze to focus on Laedda and Farenna, and the Ilvani
standing close by them. Trying again for Barien’s voice. The even tone, the
sense of careful thought behind every word. “You need to bring the four
principalities into alliance with the Ilvani of Laneldenar against the cult, as
I came here to do.”

“The Valnirata take no orders from laóith.” Contáedar’s voice
rang out ice cold as she paced forward. Her four followers were with her but
had pushed away. Just out of sword range, Chriani noted.

“This is no order,” he said carefully. “This is an offer of
assistance. Of the truce the Ilvani want and need. The reason I came here from
Brandishear. If you move against the lóechari in force, if you push a
Laneldenari army into Crithnalerean and the Ghostwood, signal fires will light
the length of the Aerach frontier. The assault from the east will come before
the next dawn. The invasion of western Crithnalerean from Brandishear comes
before dusk that same day. They won’t wait for the Calala Ilvani to push north
to meet your assault. Because they won’t know that the Ilvani are fighting the
Ilvani, and they won’t care.”

“You are disgraced,” Contáedar sneered. “By the testimony of this
captain, you have no authority…”

“I make my own way among the Ilmari, and it’s no concern of
yours. I have the confidence of the Prince High Chanist who sent me here. The
first strike needs to come from the Ilmar. Brandishear and Aerach have their
forces already set across Crithnalerean and the Clearwater Way. The north of
the Ghostwood is their range, as the south is yours. You set a pact between
Ilvani and Ilmari. Destroy the cult together to end the threat against both
realms. Prove that Ilmari and Ilvani can have common cause and purpose.”

The words rang in his own ears as if someone else was speaking
them. Barien’s voice, carrying the warrior’s conviction even in the Ilvani’s
complex tongue.

It was a good story, as stories went. And it didn’t matter to
Chriani that it was the greatest lie he had ever told.

“I will see it done,” Farenna said. “Chriani rides with me.”

The energy in the chamber shifted. Chriani had to fight to slow
his breathing.

Contáedar stepped toward him but it was Farenna she shouted to,
anger twisting her voice to a steel-sharp edge. “The lóechari seek the
half-blood, and you would deliver him to them!”

“You have claimed the Ilmari’s story as fabrication, war master.”
Farenna’s tone was deferential, his grey-black eyes steel hard. “Have your
thoughts changed?”

“No Ilmari rides with the carontir!” Contáedar snarled in
response. “No Ilmari army breaches Valnirata on this half-blood traitor’s word.
Captain of Sylonna or no, you presume too much.”

“As do you, war master, if you believe that your will supersedes
the will of this council.”

Contáedar’s eyes burned like bright coals. She shifted away with
a grace that suggested she might have forgotten Farenna was there. No one was
watching her, though. All eyes were on the captain.

To Laedda, Farenna turned and saluted, right hand up to touch the
war-mark at his shoulder. “I am captain of Sylonna. Chriani is the guest of
Sylonna. It is my right, and my choice, for Chriani to ride with my carontir. I
mean to discover the location of the lóechari in Nyndenu. This information will
be shared with the Ilmari through this envoy, whose fate ties him to Laneldenar
and all Valnirata. This fate we shape together to build the foundation of the
lóechari’s fall, if the council wills it so.”

There it was, Chriani thought. This was his way home.

“The vote,” Laedda called out. No more preamble than that. No
more discussion.

One by one, starting with those closest to the speaker and
shifting outward, the Ilvani raised their hands. Some made the full salute,
hand up and held at the war-mark. Some pressed a cursory touch to the shoulder,
their expressions unreadable.

Only Contáedar and two of the Ilvani with her kept their hands at
their sides, looking at Chriani as they did. The other two of her followers had
broken with her in the end.

“It is decided,” Laedda said. And with nothing else spoken, the
Ilvani began to move for the first tier and the open stair beyond.

Contáedar was among the first to go, stalking a curving path away
from Chriani. She avoided the stairs, leaped down to the lower tiers, her
footsteps sounding out in a way Chriani expected was meant to show her anger.
He still had her sword at his belt.

Farenna stepped up beside Chriani, nodded deeply. The newer
talisman was still in his hand, still pulsing within its cocoon of blue-white
light. “We ride at dawn.”

Chriani nodded in return, glanced around to see Dargana watching
him. The look in her eyes was something he couldn’t read. “Dargana rides with
us,” he said. “If she wants. With your permission.”

“It shall be.” Farenna and Dargana exchanged the salute. Then the
captain joined the others walking for the edge of the platform, disappearing
beyond shadowed walls and across the stairs.

In the end, Chriani and Dargana were left alone in the council
chamber. The sentries at the entrance stood impassive, not seeming to care
whether they stayed.

Veassen had vanished. Once more, Chriani hadn’t seen him go.

“You did well,” Dargana said at last. She was eyeing the sword at
his waist, Chriani not sure whether she was talking about it or more general
events.

“It wasn’t me,” he said quietly. “Veassen was in my head.”

“I gathered that when you stopped needing me to translate. It
wasn’t all him, though. You did well.”

“If you say so.”

Dargana gave him the thin smile. Then she paced across the tier,
down the stairs, and away.

Chriani walked to the second tier and toward the fountain as
Dargana’s footsteps faded. He let its blue light wash across him as he paced
around the platform, watching to make sure there was no movement at the sentry
station before he opened his mind to the steel ring at his finger.

I am here, Chriani.
Veassen’s voice rang clear in his
thoughts.

Are you ready to tell me what in fate’s name is going on?
Chriani thought.

I can tell you that you have done a thing today few could do.
I will help you in any way I can…

You told me to say it. The heir of the exile’s blade.
Chriani
had to focus to interrupt the speaker’s voice in his head, feeling it falter.
At the council yesterday, then today. Why?

Because that is why they listened to you, Chriani. That is why
they believe.

That and that alone? It’s madness.

It is faith,
Veassen said.
There are subtle
differences.

If he could have laughed within his mind, Chriani would have done
so.
They think the heir is me. You think that.

I believe that the lóechari believe you are the heir, Chriani.
And that I saw you here to speak the legend yourself.

I said it because you told me to,
Chriani said darkly.

I bade you say it because I saw you say it, Chriani. I saw it
before it happened.

Chriani bit down on the frustration he wanted to voice. He was fairly
certain the seer heard it anyway.
Then what happens next?
If you see
it all before it happens?

Fate and the future are not a fixed tableau. Events move and
shape themselves according to our will, but there are fixed points toward which
we move. The fate of Ilvani and Ilmari is mutable. It shifts and changes
according to the hearts and passions of those within the Greatwood and without.
I have lived with those passions for long years, Chriani. And at the end of my
life, I understand the price that both Ilmari and Ilvani have paid for them.

Why didn’t the council just ask me if I was the heir so I
could tell them ‘no’? Put an end to it?

They would hardly trust one who made open claim to such a
destiny. Fate must be lived and proved, Chriani. Not merely spoken.

Again, Chriani felt a gentle mocking in the seer’s tone that
reminded him of Barien.

I sense all possible futures,
Veassen said.
I see the
fixed points that might lead to those futures. You are one such point, Chriani.
You have touched something beyond your own life, whether you willed it or…

Chriani pulled the steel ring from his finger. As he did, he
realized the leather-strung talisman taken in Rheran was still in his hand,
squeezed tight to leave an impression of its dark bloodstone shard in his palm.
He slipped both it and the ring to the gold-lined pockets of his belt as he
turned away.

CHRIANI DIDN’T SLEEP any more through the end of that
night than he did through its start, though he felt himself slip in and out of
the same state of fitful dozing. Dargana hadn’t returned to the shared platform
by the time Chriani made his way back, the sentries at the council platform the
only Ilvani he saw along the way.

When he awoke to the faint glimmerings of first light through the
leaves above, Dargana was with him. She was sitting cross-legged, the slowness
of her breathing telling Chriani she was resting. He worked the knots from his
muscles as he stretched across the platform floor, his body finally feeling
rested even as his mind was racing, his heart beating fast with a sense of
agitation he didn’t understand.

Then he remembered that he’d been dreaming of Kathlan before he
woke. He felt something twist in his chest, forced his mind to push the memory
down. But in the shadow of its disappearance, a kind of clarity came to his
thought. A focus and purpose that resonated in his mind.

In the heat of the moment on the floor of the council chamber, it
had been Kathlan who forced his hand. He had understood it then, but hadn’t let
the thought loose in his mind. Aware that Veassen was listening. All his talk
of common threat, all his repeating of what the seer told him to say. It was
what it was, but none of it mattered anymore.

He would go back to the Ilmar. Back to Kathlan. That was his
mission, his goal. The only thing that mattered.

He could find the cult. Find the common threat that might undo
even the smallest amount of the generations-long animosity between Ilmari and
Ilvani. Find a foe that both could hate, that both could fear. Chriani could do
this. He would bring the information back to Chanist, would convince him of the
urgency of the cult’s threat.

He would win a place for himself again in Brandishear when it was
done. He had to go back.

Dargana stirred as he stood, Chriani not sure whether he had
disturbed the exile or whether she had simply been waiting for him. She blinked
awake, quickly took in the shadowed platform around her.

“It’s almost time,” she said. “You’ll want to use the baths again
before we go. The waters will strengthen you. Help you compensate if you don’t
sleep again for a while.”

Chriani said nothing as another memory unfolded. Something
lurking beneath the memory of dreaming Kathlan, he realized.

He had been dreaming of the cult as well.

He had dreamed the rites. Some vague version of the lore Veassen
had fed to his mind, coins in each palm, one in his mouth. He could taste the
metallic tang of bright gold in memory, could feel it burning his hands as
magic coursed through him.

The act of confession during the rite burns away what has been
confessed…

In the dream, Chriani had felt his memories torn from him. He felt
the coins flaring molten-hot, searing his flesh as they became part of him. And
as they did, he had made the confession he made to Kathlan that night. Felt it
burned from his mind and forgotten — a chance to truly forget, to
wipe away everything that had happened with Lauresa from his mind. Undo all the
pain he’d ever caused, feeling it scoured away as if it had never been.

“Are you all right?”

Dargana’s voice brought him back from the shadow. Chriani was
staring down to his hands, the black ring and the steel ring clutched tight
there. One in each palm, as the coins of the dream had been. He couldn’t
remember having retrieved them from his belt. He nodded to the exile as he
turned for the ladder, slipping both rings back to their hidden pockets as he went.

Dargana appeared at the baths as Chriani was finishing, slipping
behind the screens as he dried himself. He had soaked quickly in the steaming
water, but even that was enough time for someone to once more steal onto the
platform to leave new clothing behind for him and Dargana both. Armor this
time. Supple grey leather overlaid with a sash of steel links, both cut away to
leave the war-mark at his shoulder exposed.

“When this is done,” Dargana called out, unseen in the tub beside
him, “you should come with me.” She spoke the common Imperial tongue once more.

Chriani didn’t understand the statement at first. “To where?”

“Crithnalerean. Ride with me. You’re an exile twice over now.
You’ll be a good fit.”

Chriani felt a chill pass through him as he slipped the armor on
over tunic and leggings. He didn’t answer directly. “Considering that none of
us actually knows what we’re doing beyond Farenna saying he can follow the
talisman’s magic back to the cult, it’s hard to talk about it being done. Never
mind what happens after.”

A rush of water came from behind him as Dargana slipped from her
bath. Chriani heard her footsteps, glanced back to see her wiping water from
herself as she inspected the armor laid out for her. He caught sight of the
exile’s war-mark for the first time since she’d covered it in Rheran, saw its
more complex reflection of his own mark. The same core of tight lines was set
at the center of both, the sigil of Halobrelia. But then both expanded out to
their own pattern. Different stories told. Different names to be read there.

“And I’ll be going back to Brandishear,” Chriani said quietly. He
heard the words hang, not sure why he’d felt it necessary to say them.

Dargana glanced over as she pulled on smallclothes, slipped her
tunic and leggings on. “Indeed? I don’t know your soldiers’ code in
Brandishear, but I’d be surprised if desertion and accusations of treason
didn’t carry some kind of penalty.”

“I’ll be going back.”

“You were last seen escaping an Ilmari camp beneath a hail of
Ilvani arrow fire.”

“Anyone with eyes and half a mind will understand the Ilvani
weren’t shooting to kill that night.”

“I’ve ridden the Clearwater Way my whole life. Half a mind is as
good as most of your captains get.”

Chriani’s armor was an unexpectedly good fit, the leather moving
with him as if he’d worn it all his life. An empty scabbard stood against the
rack where the armor had hung, Chriani hitching it to his belt. The backsword
he’d taken from Contáedar slid into it easily.

“What do you believe?” he said. “From what was said yesterday.”

“Why are you asking?”

“Because you don’t seem the sort for superstition, yet you came
for me. You’ve stood by me.”

“Maybe it was fate.”

Chriani glanced over to see Dargana tightening the buckles of her
leather. A thin smile underlay the exile’s words as she checked the fit of her
scabbards, making an adjustment where her bloodblade hung at her hip.

“I want my homeland back, half-blood,” she said. “I believe in
the need to kill Calala by the score for what they’ve done to Crithnalerean. I
believe Veassen when he talked of seeing you as the key to defeating the cult.
But why that might be, and what you and your prince and the Laneldenari do with
the rest of the Ilmar after that, is no concern of mine. Just as it’s no
concern of yours anymore. You should ride with me.”

Dargana headed for the ladder, Chriani lingering behind her. But
as she slipped down it, she slowed. “However this ends, you need to watch me,
Chriani. You need to make sure I’m not lóechari.”

Chriani’s mind was silent suddenly, all his other thoughts gone.
The wind through the trees overhead was a voiceless whisper. The exile’s smile
had faded.

“What are you…?”

“I was a month in Calalerean.” Dargana’s voice was even, Chriani
feeling her choose her words carefully. “Getting close to the cult so I could
watch them, then waiting for them to move against you. Seeing the blind agents
since then, with their memories of the rites taken from them, if you’re right
about that… The Calala might have turned me, and I’ve got no way to know…”

“That’s enough on that.” Chriani heard a fear thread through the
words as he said them. From the ladder below him, Dargana’s dark gaze was
locked to his.

“I’m not asking you to kill me here and now. I’m just saying
watch me. Stay close. If you see it happen, you’ll know what to do.”

The degree of calm in the exile’s voice was as unnerving to
Chriani as the task she was setting for him.

“It won’t come to that.”

Dargana shrugged. “You’ll know what to do,” she said again as she
descended the ladder once more.

Chriani said nothing as he followed.

He didn’t know the route they were taking, but Dargana made no
sign of uncertainty. Countless Ilvani were out along the ladders and bridges
and platforms of Sylonna, walking or lingering in the rising light. Watching
Chriani as he passed.

The lights of the forest-home were bright in the trees above
them, spreading to a shimmering haze as the wind set boughs and branches,
bridges and platforms to a gentle swaying. The two of them reached the ground
in a broad paddock. Stables of green cloth stretched over ridged wooden frames
surrounded them, pushing back into the shadows beneath the trees. The morning
was mist and grey light, a wind blowing through the branches high overhead and
the ground crawling with a fast-moving fog.

Chriani saw seven horses waiting, five Ilvani preparing to ride.
Farenna was there, as was Taelendar, he noted darkly. He recognized the other
three from the troop that had ridden to the Hunthad, but Farenna was the only
one to acknowledge him as he approached.

All the riders were dressed as he and Dargana were, in leather
and chain. They wore green-grey cloaks over it, like the ones slung across the
backs of the two horses not yet bearing riders. Dargana approached a lithe
black mare, the other horse a grey gelding that watched Chriani, assessing him
with a too-intelligent eye.

Farenna called to him, speaking the Ilvalantar once more. “The
grey is yours, friend Chriani.”

The horses of the Ilvani took no other riders, Chriani knew. He
stood there in a moment’s uncertainty, then reached out tentatively to stroke
the neck of the grey. He felt it shift into him in greeting.

Next to the horse, he found a bow and two well-stocked quivers, a
wide belt pack filled with the paper-wrapped bread and flasks of mead. He
strapped both quivers across his back, hefted the bow carefully. It was a light
recurve horsebow, its feel familiar enough. But even through a first quick
sense of its balance and pull, Chriani understood that it was the best weapon
he had ever held.

The Ilmar had modeled their own bows on those captured from the
Ilvani for generations, but whatever knowledge the weapon masters of the Ilmar
had stolen from the folk of the Greatwood, there were subtleties they’d missed.
Or was it Ilvani magic imbued into the bow’s tightly wrapped wood and horn?
Chriani felt a wave of unease, then felt an even stronger sense of irritation
at himself. He couldn’t make the moonsign, but he touched his fingers lightly
to his heart as he drew the bowstring back to his chest.

Farenna swung on and astride his white stallion, pacing to the
front of the squad. “We ride,” he said.

As always, the steeds of the Valnirata bore no saddle. Chriani
was acutely conscious of how his experience at bareback riding amounted
entirely to a half-dozen short sessions training for retreat tactics, plus the
frenzied flight that had taken him to Sylonna. From his first meeting with
Dargana, he remembered that her Ilvani exile band had ridden with saddles, but
she showed no hesitation or uncertainty as she jumped up to her mare’s back
now.

Chriani managed to pull himself onto the grey without alarming
it, which he took as an achievement. Farenna set out at a walking pace, the
others falling into line behind. Chriani took the second spot from last,
Dargana behind him. He was glad of that, assuming that if he fell off on the
journey, she’d be the least likely to succumb to the temptation to run him
down.

As they picked up speed, the grey’s pace stayed smooth beneath
him, the horse responding to rein and knee with equal ease. By the time they
crossed the broad stone road that marked the boundary of Sylonna, Chriani felt
an unexpected familiarity. Steadier on the horse’s back than he would have
expected as the troop surged out along a twisting trail at a run.

He looked back once to Sylonna as they passed beneath the first
of the sentry platforms, but the hidden city had already vanished into the wall
of green behind them.

If the ride from the Hunthad had seemed chaotic to Chriani’s
mind, the path they cut now through the twilight forest was a maddening pattern
of switchbacks and sudden turns. A maze unfolding around them as they rode.
Farenna led them at speed along the deep wood’s twisting network of
intersecting trails, his hand up to flash signals behind him. Warning of quick
changes in direction, their course shifting onto side trails. Chriani couldn’t
remember any signals on their ride from the Hunthad to Sylonna, which made him
understand that every Ilvani in Farenna’s troop had known that route by heart.
This course was new to them, though.