The eaters of time, p.26
The Eaters of Time, page 26
It was Edmund. Vlk opened his eyes to see the count’s mustachioed face smiling down at him. His entire body moved with the force of his sigh. He was so clearly relieved. “Don’t try to talk. You’ve had a bad fall. I’ve called for my—”
Vlk sat up. He found that he’d apparently been laying in Edmund’s lap, which was somewhat surreal. Using the bigger man’s shoulder for leverage, he pulled himself up to his feet. He had to find her… had to—there!
Vlk took two steps to his right, ignoring Edmund’s admonishment to be easy with his steps. He dropped to his knees before a seated red hound and threw his arms around her neck, burying his face in her luxuriant fur.
“I forgive you, Štít,” he whispered. “I svear that I do. I am a Muž Přísahy, too.”
-VII-
Kastan finished cutting Jafyl to the southwest, Tyesca right beside her. She could see six riders just ahead—four of her own, Hajvarr, and the lone member of the Bluemark Guard. She and Tyesca fell into step to Hajvarr’s right.
Nearly there. We simply have to race through the final two-hundred or so strides to the northern gate.
Another few heartbeats and she came up with the sellsword’s name. That almost has to be Blevelsket. Hajvarr’s spoken of her often enough.
Speaking of—Hajvarr looked past her, asking Tyesca the bitter, but necessary question. “Johanka?”
Eyes red either from grit or grief, Tyesca shook her head a single time.
Edmund’s Ruční Kopí bowed his own in understanding. Looking back over his shoulder, he tried on a dour smile. “Well, so long as—”
Whatever he’d meant to say, Kastan never heard it. The air was suddenly thick with dust, shouts, and the storm-sounds of hoofbeats. Arrows began whistling overhead, coming from Jižní Lov’s palisade.
But only from one spot. Strange.
She chanced a look back and felt her stomach drop. Three riders were in mid-career, charging toward the ghostly drogue member of their party, swords and axes held high. Behind them, she saw what might be as many as half-a-dozen more, leveling spears and holding their horses back until their way was clear.
“Yaberd hem! Yaberd hem! Yaberd zcúr kargást!”
(Kill him! Kill him! Kill the white wraith!)
“With me!” Kastan began to turn Jafyl, but Hajvarr grabbed her reins.
“No, Lady! We’ve lost one already trying to get you back to Edmund. I’ll go.”
“No, Hajvarr. I can’t leave her out here. I won’t leave her to die alone! Let go of—”
“Kastan!”
This was a voice she hadn’t heard before. Looking, she saw the Bluemark woman smiling at her. “It’s lovely to finally meet you, Lady. I hope we can speak again.”
Hajvarr snapped his head around to look at the small soldier. “Blev—What are you—”
Blevelsket nodded back toward the harriers. “That man talks too much,” said she and said no more. Instead, she reined up, turning her horse toward the enemy, and bolted off.
Kastan turned in her saddle, looking back past Rákos’s hunched left shoulder. She saw Blevelsket racing toward the press, a long knife held by its blade in her bright hand. Beyond her, the rider in white was a blur with her boar spear. Her horse was trying to stomp and bite, but there were simply too many.
“Fetem… Please….”
Again, a stream of arrows raced over Kastan’s head, aiming directly toward Fetinba’s attackers. One struck an enemy horse square in its rump. It reared, throwing its rider, then bolted away.
Blevelsket drew her arm back and threw both it and her blade forward in one exaggerated motion. The blade glinted in the late-day light, striking another of Fetem’s foemen.
“Open the damned gate! Open it, or rain death down on these bastards!” Hajvarr’s shout forced her to turn her eyes front, if only for a moment. The gate was so very near now…
“Nekt! Nekt! Yaberd hem! Yaberd zcúr Kargást!” The harrier shouted his imperative in an ecstasy of rage. His voice—already high and shrill—seemed now to be choked with dust and dragonfire in what sounded like equal measure.
Kastan turned back and saw Fetem and Blevelsket riding side by side. Yes! Run! Hells be hid, don’t let them catch you!
Blevelsket suddenly peeled off, racing back toward the enemy. She drew a long and wicked-looking sword from a scabbard on her saddle as she rode.
“What is she—?!” Kastan shouted in genuine alarm. She didn’t know the woman, but her willingness—her insistence that she go back to rescue a complete stranger…
Hajvarr laughed… and with obvious delight.
“Lady, she already told you. She thinks that man talks too much.”
Kastan blinked, looking first at Hajvarr, then back to the killing field. Fetinba was now close enough—they all were, save Blevelsket. The air was suddenly full of archery fire from on high, covering Fetem as she neared them.
Blevelsket was hurtling toward the man who’d been calling for Fetinba’s death. He rode unarmored, with a wild yellow beard on his face and a gleaming bald pate. He’d now been reduced to wordless screaming. He pointed what looked like a morning star at her as she rode to meet him.
Kastan watched as she rode through his guards, swerving to avoid them rather than slowing down to fight them. As for their still-shouting captain—he raised his morning star and charged to meet her. His battle cry was too garbled to hear at this distance, but it didn’t much matter. Kastan thought it would be the last word he would utter on this or any other battlefield. As Blevelsket rode past him, he fell from his saddle in two pieces.
Hajvarr shook his head, face split in a wide grin. “Behold Blevelsket—Jastrab’s Living Sword.”
Kastan simply nodded, too emotionally drained to speak.
Their party came to a stop just beyond the northern gate. She turned Jafyl to get a better look at the carnage they’d escaped. There were easily two score or more dead on the ground and perhaps another two dozen riding toward them… and then there weren’t. Between blinks, she saw the riders giving chase simply wink out of existence. A moment later, most of the dead on the field had disappeared as well. Perhaps a dozen such corpses remained. They looked like ugly, mottled boulders strewn haphazardly amongst the grass. She thought she saw a figure wearing green and gold among the dead—Johanka’s broken body. Perhaps she should…
The gate opened. The call for the archers to put their bows down rang out in the sudden quiet.
“Come, Lady,” said Hajvarr. “Edmund awaits.”
-VIII-
As the gate closed behind them, she heard distant thunder, the music of many horses, and the deep rumble of unnumbered voices singing blasphemous staves.
“Sdraliana kr ka. Rhexrryn xro, rhexrryn xro, rhexrryn xro…”
Chapter Eight
LOST, AND IN THE WIND SAVED
-I-
Dereek khn
Yrxa Castle
٥ Korunasykli: ٢٢ Days after the Red Storm at Westsong
A sea of stars…
That had been Methias’s first, and for some time only thought. Those stars hung in all directions and in such bright profusion… they seemed to hover so close. He felt he could almost reach out a hand and touch their warmth. And there was he, standing within it—the apotheosis of all night skies. A deep blue-black that was too expressive and nuanced to be accounted stygian. And yes. Standing, not floating, for he could still feel the stones beneath him.
The night wind sang. The sound was lonely, but then, windsong had always sounded lonely to him… and somehow cold. It rose and fell all around, almost as if it were trapped. He heard it. But he felt none of its biting breath. The Cage had set his eyes and ears to fly, and now he was here, after a fashion. There just weren’t any accompanying physical sensations.
He wasn’t seeing a projection, or hearing sound carried from rune to rune. His eyes and ears told him without question that he was here. The rest of him was just as certain he hadn’t gone anywhere at all. He marked the stone beneath his feet, the cool and motionless air on his exposed skin, and the gentle rise and fall of his own chest as he breathed. His other senses remained in Yrxa Castle. He was quite certain he still stood near the couch at The Cage’s center.
Recognizing that fact did little to help him reclaim his ability to think clearly. He’d had no trouble accepting his situation. He’d just found the scope and power required to create such a situation nearly impossible to fathom. Weave Author rites could certainly craft convincing illusions. Such things were their meat and wine, after all, but this… Comparing this to Author rites was like comparing a crude tent to a newly finished castle.
Later, when he could process all of it, he would think on these things—examine them with a scholar’s careful eye. But that was later. Now the sheer scope of it had all but obliterated his ability to think clearly.
Methias drew in a deep, shuddering breath and bowed his head in a species of wordless awe. At the same time, he managed to force his eyes to close. He needed to blot out the wonderment that was that endless sky… to regain perspective… to find a moment to breathe and be.
After a span that might have been heartbeats, or whole sykli, Sleara’s voice came from somewhere just above him. The boy sounded as if he were trying to put on a brave face, but his sadness was a perfect melody against the music of the sobbing wind.
“This … is my home.”
“H…” Methias shook his head and tried again. “How? How did you…” He opened his eyes, lifted his chin, and answered his own question. Sleara and his people had not lived in the sky. Methias could see rolling foothills far below him, and the ocean beyond. It lapped at the pale greens and deep ochers of the shoreline with clean, dark fingers. Looking between his booted feet, he saw he stood on a wide shelf high up on a shadowy mountain.
Sleara gave a mirthless little chuckle—two notes that sounded as if they’d issued from a nose, rather than an open mouth.
“Look left.”
Methias turned his head and drew in a sharp breath. A small skeleton lay in a few tatters of what must once have been clothing. Its head was missing, as was its right arm below the elbow. It lay intact otherwise.
“That’s how I brought you here. That’s the rest of me… most of it, anyway.”
Not what I’d meant to ask you, but never mind. That… that’d been my… my next question.
“Do you…” Methias forced himself to stare down at the weathered bones. It cost him, and quite a bit more than he’d expected. In an effort to refocus, he recalled a mnemonic from his early days of study. It was a thing designed both to motivate a wayward attention span, and to help recapture fleeting thoughts.
Sconces on the wall. Sconces down the… the hall. One pool of torchlight shows… shows the path ahead. And as the light… And as the light… stone in sky but it’s hard to concentrate. What had I meant to ask him? Did he… did he remember… Ah!
“Do you remember much of your last days here?”
Sleara laughed. The sound wasn’t altogether comforting. “What a gentle way to ask that.” There was the sense of him shaking his head, though that might have been pure imagination. “You want to know if I remember my death—how and why it happened. That’s what you’re really asking. And yes. I remember all of it.”
Methias felt his cheeks burning. “Sleara, I—”
“It’s fine.” The boy had again adopted that detached, dismissive tone.
“It isn’t. I’m just trying to understand as much as I can about you, this place—Rímhril, did you call it(?)—and how it applies to The Cage.”
Now came the sense of Sleara nodding. “The island is Rímhril. The place—the city, I suppose you might call it—is Arrétaln Drén.”
“Ah-ree-taln Drenn.” Methias looked around for some sign of a settlement but saw nothing.
“You won’t see it. Not from here. You might be able to if you were really there, but not using my body this way.”
Methias made a nod of acceptance. His mind was growing accustomed to his situation, but thinking was still maddeningly slow work. “The city is hidden, then? Fair enough, but why haven’t they come to perform the necessary rites on your—”
“They can’t.” The interruption carried with it a terrible patience—cold and watchful.
Methias reached up to rub thumb and forefinger against the place above his nostrils. “The rite that binds you to The Cage won’t… won’t let them? Does it protect the site, somehow?” Images began to play out across the stage of his mind’s eye. With maddening clarity, his treacherous imagination conjured scenes in which the small and ruined body stood—one-armed and headless—to attack physical intruders.
“No. Nothing like that.” The boy’s voice became small and expressionless.
“Do they … not know where to find you, then?”
“I… it’s not important.” That icy patience had begun to fracture.
“It is if I’m to try and put things to rights. I know next to nothing about Elven culture, least of all your funerary rites. If there’s an Elven settlement near at hand, there should be someone I can ask for guidance, no?”
“They aren’t going to help you.”
“Won’t they? Why wouldn’t they want to ensure—”
“Because they’re gone, Methias! They’re all gone, don’t you understand?” His voice was equal parts rage and grief, but there was something more beneath it. Something deeper.
Please let me be wrong… Methias was fairly and miserably certain he knew what that underlying something meant. He didn’t see how it could be possible, but then…
But then what do I really know about Sleara, this place—this Arrétaln Drén, or elves as a whole?
“Sleara…” He made his voice soft, careful to remove any hint of frustration or codling patronization from it. “How can I understand what you haven’t told me?” A pause. “How can I help if I don’t understand?”
Sleara’s voice sounded choked, as if he were fighting back a wave of fresh tears. “You can’t. No one can.”
“Sleara, I—”
“No!” The stars faded into shadow. Likewise the land and the sea, revealing The Cage’s stark misery once more. “I’ve shown you what The Cage lets you do. I did as I promised. Leave me now.”
Methias took a moment to get his bearings. As he did, he saw Sleara’s small skull sliding back down the shadow of his imprisoning panel.
“Sleara,” he began again, but the boy cut him off.
“I said leave me! I don’t want to talk anymore!” His voice softened. “Not now.”
Methias bowed his head. The exchange had forcibly reminded him of Jannon … of a conversation they’d had. It had only been a few days after he’d found Methias beneath that blessed banyan tree. His mind tried to fix on it, though he had no desire to reopen that particular scar. That memory was painful, but always within easy reach.
He shook his head, sliding his foot backward even as he turned to leave. The leg bounced against something unyielding. That, in turn, caused his feet to tangle with one another. He stumbled backward, landing in an awkward-looking seated position on that twice-forgotten, thrice-cursed couch.
The room was full of a sudden half-light, and Methias was…
Methias was…
…was…
-II-
Kingdom of Traead
Ad Eniddia
١٤ Kamieńsykli: ١٠ years prior to the Red Storm at Westsong
Methias stands at one corner of Ad Eniddia’s massive central belfry. He’s looking out over the large, rather clean streets of this walled border town, willing himself not to cry. He has a belly full of mixed misery to contend with. The misery is justified, given recent events. And it’s flavored with—though he doesn’t himself realize it—a dash of quite typical adolescent angst. He will, after all, be thirteen in less than a fortnight.
The wind is good up here. It sings and strains… whispers and moans. It provides a surfeit of perfect, melancholy underscores and counterpoints to his moiling emotions.
That same wind now tugs at the heavy cloak he wears, ruffling his unruly auburn curls as if it were trying to comfort him … or coax him. For now, he pays it little mind. The constant weight of his haversack holds only a touch more of his attention… just enough to ensure it’s still hung over his shoulders, and no more.
It’ll be tonight. It has to be. Otherwise I’ll just keep finding excuses to stay.
The sun is setting. He can’t see it behind the iron-colored clouds, but he can hear it. It’s in the subtle changes to the birdsong below.
Not that any of the others would mark it. His thoughts are sour. Before long, they’ll boil over into anger… he hopes. He’ll need anger if he means to leave the comforts of the last few days. That, or the weight of all that’s happened will finally be too much.
I’ll just wait here. Then, when the sun’s down and everyone’s headed to the hall for supper, I’ll make for the postern gate. If I’m quick and quiet, I can get out of the city before I’m missed. If not… If not, I’ll climb back up here and… and I’ll—
His mind freezes, as does his blood. Voices on the stair below cause his breath to hitch, then halt as their speech becomes clear. With a collapsing sensation, he realizes there’s nowhere to hide up here.
Maybe I… If I crawl up into the bell and wrap myself around the clapper…
His mind conjures an image of someone pulling the rope to ring the bell. The vibration alone might kill him. Certainly, he’d be hard pressed to cover his ears without falling the few dozen feet to the base of the tower.
“…stairs, my lord. He’s been up there for oh, ’bout half a bell, I think.” The man sounds aged, with a queerly high, almost reedy timbre.
