Vergence (45 page)

Fla pushed open the door to the moneylenders premises as darkness started to settle in. The interior was small, dimly lit, and smelt damp.

An old man with a pointed face and thinning grey hair sat on a high stool at a table, counting through a small pile of coins with his tongue poking between his lips. A narrow staircase ran from the rear right hand corner up along the side of the room, and behind the man Fla could see a low doorway with a fabric hanging in place of a door.

“Were about closing. Come back in the morning,” the old man said, peering at him.

“This won't take long, I'm here to settle a debt,” Fla said.

“Payments, eh? Best come in then. Plunk it down where I can count it.”

Fla moved cautiously into the centre of the room, watchful for dangers. He'd seen the mark of Kylnes on the front of the building, protection enough against most, but he expected the lender to have some other security on hand -— guards, traps, animals, or something as simple as a crossbow.

“I'm here to negotiate the terms,” Fla said.

The old man scowled. “Come in here, Maude, see who this is for me, got one wants to talk instead of paying his due.”

There was a heavy sigh from the back room, followed by clunking, and dragging movements. After a few moments the curtain pulled back, and a girl shuffled into the room leaning on a crutch. Fla could see the left hand side of her body was twisted, her arm useless at her side, dragging her leg forward with each step. Her face was lop-sided, with the left eyelid drooped, and the side of her face slack.

“I don't know him grandpa. He looks like one of them robes,” she said.

“I don't do no lending to priests or casters — too much trouble,” the old man said. “You find the man as lent you, it wasn't me.”

Fla stared back at the girl, feeling Brack's money weighing on him, heavier with each heartbeat. Her ailments were not the result of some injury or malady. Like him, she'd been born, or grown into her misfortune. And he could see she struggled with it every day, overlooked or taunted, finding the easy things difficult, doing the work she could to survive.

“Be off with you then, if you've no business here,” the old man said.

“A payment from Lord Muro,” Fla said, throwing the bags of coins he'd had from Brack onto the table.

He turned and left without saying anything else. The old man's words still seemed to hang in the air as the door slammed shut behind him.

Fla limped away, no longer caring what either Brack or Orim wanted from him.

Alobria

T
HE SMALL PARTY
of travellers stood on the brow of a low ridge, looking down a gentle slope onto open woodland. Widely spaced trees, each dozens of paces high with trunks at least eight or nine paces across, stretched out before them as far as their eyes could see. The air seemed to glow with vitality, and breathing it made Ebryn feel like he'd drunk a glass or three of fine wine.

A distance behind them, a low rocky promontory rose a few paces above the line of the ridge, and beyond that, more trees like those in front of them. Over the sounds of a morning woodland he could hear running water, and the rush of a low waterfall.

This journey had taken them far from Vergence, to a place called Alobria, on the very edge of the ephemeral planes.

Cormer had switched the training groups around again after their last lesson, placing Ebryn and Addae with the other two most skilled apprentices, a young woman called Railey, and a selerian called Kulut.

Railey had a small frame, standing no taller than Brydeline, with long hair so dark it hinted at blue in the light, and a determined expression.

Kulut was nearly the same height, very big for a selerian. When he stood still, he held the end of his tail with his middle pair of hands, and groomed incessantly with his upper hands. He'd worried the lower half of his tail so much Ebryn could see bald patches where his fur had worn away entirely.

“It's beautiful,” Railey said.

“Like my home, the Mahambi forest in Muruon,” Kulut said, standing up on his hind legs.

Ebryn could see Cormer and Brydeline, who must have visited many times before, were affected by the splendour of the place too.

Turning slowly in a circle to take in the view, Ebryn realised the disadvantage of practising with the Hemetuen. Although they travelled widely, they seldom stayed in any one place long enough to satisfy his curiosity, his desire to explore, and to learn about the place in any depth.

Tenlier hadn't been so wrong about his temperament, bringing him into the Genestuer order.

“A short time to explore,” Cormer said, as if reading his thoughts, “and we'll need to return to Vergence.”

The small party spread out as they made their way down the slope towards the edge of the woods. Addae walked with Kulut, almost comical in their size difference. Ebryn couldn't imagine what they'd found to talk about. He made a mental note to himself to find out later.

He realised he'd started to feel about selerians much as most villagers in Goresyn felt about the furbeg. All the selerians he'd met so far had been rude, or what Fidela would have called scoundrels.

Ebryn stopped in front of one of the trees, stretching his head back to see up into the higher branches. The tree had broad leaves and fine bark the colour of yellow honey. A tree like none he'd seen before, almost perfect, as if every other tree had borrowed its form imperfectly from this one.

A shower of bright lights fell from the branches as Brydeline approached. They stood under the eves, surrounded for a few moments by scores of tiny winged creatures, each glowing like a small yellow-green sun.

The swarm quickly dispersed, returning to the cover of the lower leaves above, but one of the flyers stayed with them as they moved along the line of the wood. Ebryn had an indefinable sense that eyes followed them too, as if they were being watched from all sides by things they couldn't see.

“What are they?” Ebryn asked.

“These?” Brydeline nodded at the one buzzing around their heads. “I don't recall their name, but they share many of the characteristics of ephemeral were-light.”

She summoned a small were-light next to the creature hovering above them. The were-light was almost exactly the same yellow-green colour and, aside from the more obvious form of the flier and the set of fine wings they appeared almost identical.

“They are similar to look at, but this is something you can feel with your other sense better than you can see with your eyes.”

Startled by the appearance of Brydeline's floating light, the remaining flyer darted away. Reflexively, Ebryn reached out in his mind with a command to stop and return, sending it a strong desire to come back to him. Like the echoing sound of a stone dropped innocently into a cavern pond, his command amplified, and rippled outwards in every direction. And he felt the entire world respond, as if every living thing felt the command. For a moment even the trees seemed to bend towards him, and the woodland came alive before them — filled with movement.

“What did you do?” Brydeline asked. “I felt no casting.”

“Nothing. I wanted it to return, to come closer. It's something I've always been able to do — to have animals do whatever I want.”

Cormer and Brydeline exchanged a look.

“And plants?” Cormer asked, looking back along the sloping ground behind the students, to where a moss-covered pile of large stones lay piled beneath a solitary tree. One of the flatter rocks moved, as if forced upwards from beneath.

“How much control?” Brydeline asked.

The glowing flyers returned in greater numbers, bringing a dozen different kinds of birds with them — tiny, brightly coloured things darting, and hovering on wings which moved so fast they appeared as no more than a blur to Ebryn's eyes.

Beyond them, other animals ventured from the woods, few like anything he'd seen before — a tiny fawn, walking upright, with very small forelimbs, standing barely above his knee. A thing snuffling along the ground, like a hedgehog covered in short leafy branches.

In moments they were surrounded, crowded in on all sides by so many different types of creatures Ebryn couldn't distinguish how many there might be. They all pressed close, staring silently at him, or flew in tight spirals, weaving amongst the members of their group. Ever-shifting beings of dewy mist, drifting between the huddling ranks. Hunched up moles the size of dogs, and shrew-like animals as big as mules with narrow snouts as long as his arm upturned to sample the air.

Ebryn could feel Addae and Railey standing completely still next to him, watching the bizarre collection of creatures grow.

With a scraping and a soft thump, the large stone under the tree came free, sliding down the rocky face to softer ground at the foot of the slope. A monstrous thing, like a huge living knot of tangled roots, pushed its way free of the opening the stone had covered. Another followed, and another, until a dozen lumbered towards the gathering, each as large as a horse.

“What are they?” Ebryn asked.

“Churlwood,” Cormer said.

“An underground dwelling kin of these,” Brydeline said, nodding in the other direction to where even larger creatures approached. “They are called gnarlwood.”

The gnarlwoods looked like scores of tree knots jammed together into a roughly Volene shape, with two obvious legs, and powerful arms. They were gigantic, the smallest more than twice his own height, even taller than a cheg standing upright.

Addae's hand went to the blade on his belt.

Cormer held out a restraining hand. “Both kinds are peaceful unless provoked.”

True to his word, the huge new arrivals stopped beyond the expanding circle of smaller creatures, although from the corner of his eye Ebryn noticed a look of relief pass briefly over Brydeline's face.

“You are unusual, Ebryn,” she said, giving him a quizzical look. “You seem to have an inborn affinity for this realm, I'd guess for the entire taxonomy of Alobric realms, and very powerful too. Casting is a gift given to few, and deep affinities are the same. You could have an affinity without a touch of power in you. To possess both strongly is rare, and used to be highly sought after amongst the Exemetuer—”

“Bryn—” Cormer said in a sharp tone.

“He should know, Cormer … the Exemetuer were an order which studied and taught true summoning. The order, as you may know, was broken up and true summoning banned. Too dangerous for the caster, and too dangerous for the city.”

“Yes, I've heard of the Exemetuer, and I know true summoning is banned,” Ebryn said.

“Yet from time to time we still have apprentices who discover they have an affinity, and risk their lives summoning something or other,” Cormer said.

“Cormer is right.” Brydeline said. “Summoning is much more dangerous than what we do here in the Hemetuen. Yet—”

Brydeline fell silent as the gnarlwoods and half the antler men moved aside to form a corridor. A woman came towards them, stepping into view from behind a clump of trees.

She approached walking at an unhurried pace, bare feet leaving no impression on the moss as she passed, yet the ground seemed to tremble under her with each step. All the while her unblinking eyes remained fixed on Ebryn.

Clad in a calf-length dark green dress which rustled like leaves as she moved, a warming breeze at her back brought with it a scent of rich earth and flowers. Strands of her long hair, in hues of rich yellow and copper, drifted around her shoulders, blowing up across her face as the wind shifted direction.

“Hold very still,” Cormer said. He spoke so quietly Ebryn could barely make out his words. “I may be mistaken, but I think she may be an archon.”

Railey stepped backwards, into the midst of their small band. “What's an—”

“Shh,” Brydeline said.

As the woman came nearer Ebryn realised she stood about his height, taller than most men. She stopped close, and examined him. Deep green eyes tracing his features, almost as if looking for something hidden within the contours of his face.

Her face was heart shaped and flawless, with skin smoother than polished wood, every visible part patterned with a faint whorl like a fine grain. The air around her felt sharp, as if sparkling with new life, like a rain freshened field.