Blood of War (43 page)

“Did you send him?”

Curled in a ball, Valik mewled.

Another kick, another snap, another animal cry.

“
ANSWER ME!
Did you send him?”

“Yes! Yes! Please. It won't happen again, I won't do it anymore. I promise.”

He picked up the groveling, sniveling creature and held it close to his face. “My brother would not have been happy with you if I had shown up at his gate. No, he would not have been happy one bit.”

“You don't have any brothers.”

Later, Jurel would think that this was one of the most ridiculous things he had ever heard. Here was Valik, facing his own dreadful demise, so scared that the stench of urine and feces lay thick on the air, so scared that the only coherent thought he could muster was that Jurel was an only child. But that would be later. As he glared at Valik, he smiled. His smile was a terrible thing. Even he knew it. It was a twisted thing, a mad thing right out of nightmare.

“Oh yes I do. I have two brothers, in fact. You are about to meet one of them and I imagine you'll have a lot of explaining to do.” He smiled again, and Valik cringed.

That smile was the last thing Valik ever saw as Jurel rammed his hand like a knife into his chest, past ribs that were as twigs, gripped the frantically pulsing heart and squeezed. Valik's head snapped back. He screamed.

Then, when the screaming tapered to a wet gurgle, and when the wet gurgle went silent, Jurel let the lifeless husk slide from his grip. Valik struck the ground with a limp thump.

“What have you done?” Erin cried into the deathly silence.

“Valik! Oh my son!” Ingirt wept.

Jurel turned his lightning gaze upon the crowd that assembled in the front yard. Blood spattered the ground, dripping, oozing from his fist. Farmers had picked up axes and spades, picks, adzes, whatever they could use as a weapon. As yet, none had the courage to approach him. As yet, they stood in a terrified pack, cowering like a herd of sheep faced by a hungry lion.

“Upon my authority, I have judged him,” Jurel rumbled. Thunder pealed though the clouds were the too-thin clouds that promised a beautiful day ahead and could certainly not have, themselves, caused the rumbling boom that shook the earth. Then he smiled causing everyone to back away a step. “Any who dare to gainsay me are free to do so now.” No one moved. “No? Fine then.”

“Why did you come here?” Erin cried.

Jurel glared at her and she shrank away. Why indeed. To find his past? To leave it behind? It seemed he had accomplished neither and both realizations mingled and meshed so effectively that they canceled each other out, managing to leave him feeling very much empty, very much alone, lost and adrift. As the sun peeked over the horizon and turned the ropes of cloud brownish yellow, he felt the last withered remnants of something within shut down.

What was I thinking? I can't escape who I am. I can't...

His eyes passed over the small crowd that bunched fearfully at the bottom step of the veranda. They stared at him, the frightened left-overs of a time dead and gone. He growled low in his throat. In rage? Frustration? Fear and sorrow? He concentrated.

When he departed that place for the last time, he thought he might have left something of himself behind. That was fine. He did not need it anyway. It was dead.

Chapter 35

There was one more place he had to go. There was one more thing he had to try. After spending what must have been days in the blasted wasteland that was his place, playing and replaying his ill-fated visit to Galbin's farm, this was the only idea he had left. It was a long-shot, a stab in the dark as some might say, but he was getting used to stabs in the dark. She had come in the middle of a terrible nightmare by his pond. She had saved him from some terrible foe that he never knew existed. At first, he thought it was no more than that: a nightmare. But the more he thought of it, the more he was convinced it had been more.

Every nightmare he had ever had—the ones that had not stemmed from his memory anyway—faded, dissipated, evaporated under the rising sun and by midday, they were barely remembered, more like uncomfortable impressions. Though the weary thudding discomfort remained and the subject of his nightmares could be recalled for days after, the details were always blanked out by the middle of the day. This one was different. This one stuck with him, and even now, days later, he could remember every detail, every nuance of that terrible dream down by his pond.

But she had saved him from it.

Wandering down a dirt track, trees imploding in toward him, pressing close enough that he did not have to fully outstretch his arms to touch them, so that the boughs intertwined above him, creating a narrow passage something like a dungeon, he felt stifled. He was not sure exactly where he was, or really how he came to be here, but he continued. He had nothing better to do.

He knew he was somewhere in the great Central Forest, and he thought he was somewhere near the eastern edge of it. It was close to where he wanted to be. It did not reduce his confusion one whit. He had imagined the place he wanted, he had fixed it firmly in his mind, he had felt that strange jolt as though the world shifted under his feet, and he had found himself in the center of the forest. Not in an idyllic clearing, not near a charming little cottage, not near a ring of stones that contained the floating sparks of a rainbow, but right smack in the middle of this dense, overgrown hunk of woods.

Considering his previous experiments with this unreal mode of travel, it seemed obvious that whatever had happened, he could not be far from the place he sought and so he ranged in ever widening circles trying to find something familiar as the meager light brightened fractionally toward midday. As he passed over and around roots and vines, stones and berms, trees—some as wide as he was tall, while others were barely more than finger wide saplings—he began to lose hope until a flash of crimson caught his eye.

Brow furrowed, he angled toward it, and when he stepped around an obscuring bush, he halted. Carefully, gently, he reached forward and played his finger along the silky petal of one of the wild roses that burst from the clump. Craning forward, he searched more intently. There, in the center, were signs that someone had picked one within the past few weeks. It could have been coincidence, he mused, but it seemed so far out of the way of any would-be flower-pickers that the obvious explanation seemed more likely.

Brushing away the image of Metana's glowing eyes gazing into his over the heart of a rose, he got his bearings and he started off again. This time, he did notice similarities. There, off to his right, was the berm with the ponytail of roots sticking from the side. A little farther ahead, he saw the tree that looked like an ancient man frozen forever. Then he passed the dogleg that was bordered by thick, purplish-green waist-high ferns. It was not much farther as he recalled.

Soon enough, he reached a line of trees that seemed abnormally straight and evenly spaced and his excitement grew. Yet when he stepped between them, there was nothing there. Well, that was not quite true. There was a small clearing but it was not the one he remembered. It was just an empty clearing. With footsteps.
His
footsteps. From earlier that day, when he had first appeared there from his place, right there in the center.

His excitement evaporated. In its place, frustration, an impotent anger, welled up. He kicked at a stone, sent it skipping, skittering to disappear in the wild grass. As if
that
helped. Aimlessly, he wandered the clearing, not really seeing it, but seeing instead what he had expected until finally, exhaustion borne of dejection made him sit down.

And that was odd, for under him, he felt something warm as though just under a thin layer of soil, there was a hot spring. He got to his knees and felt around with his hands, searching as though for something in a dark room. For a moment, he thought he was mistaken, he thought he might have imagined it, because he felt nothing-

No, wait. There it was. He pressed his palm flat to the soil, felt a prickle from a thistle, ignored that. Instead he focused on the warmth that seeped upward. He closed his eyes and he concentrated. There was something...there was something...something that flickered in and out of his mind's eye like a guttering candle.

“Fine, fine, ye've proven yer point. Try not to demolish me place, ifn ye don't mind.”

His eyes snapped open as though he had been stung by a bee.

There it was. Confused, though a passing notion told him he should not have been, he gazed at the neatly tended yard, surrounded by the wall of the forest, and the ancient logs of the little cottage. A sense of that peace entered him and ephemeral lights passed zip-quick across his vision.

“And ifn ye don't mind would ye please get out o me stones? Yer frightnin the wisps.”

With a start, he drew in his gaze, and noticed he was sitting in the center of the ring of stones. Turning, he saw the rainbow lights, darting back and forth and quietly, on the edge of hearing as though from an unimaginable distance he thought he heard agitated squeaks.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

Levering himself to his feet, he quickly stepped from the circle and turned to face the one he had come to see. Ancient, with wrinkles like a craggy cliff, and a hump on her back giving her a permanent stoop, Ursula canted her head sideways, raised an eyebrow.

“Hello, young man,” Ursula said with a grin. “What brings ye back t' me corner o' the woods?”

He had searched for this place but to have found it in such a strange way left him tongue-tied. He simply stared as he tried to pull together the threads of his thoughts. Why was he here? What did he hope to accomplish? What did he expect Ursula to tell him?

“I want to know what's going on,” he blurted.

Well, it was not exactly how he had envisioned their reunion, but it would do.

She gazed at him, her eyes sparkling strangely like sun glinting off of rippling water, her lips twisted in a bemused half-smile.

“I thought ye might ave some idea by now.” She shrugged. “Well no reason to stand here bakin in the sun wonderin about the foolishness o the young. Come in, come in. I think I have some spiced tea left.”

* * *

Sipping from his steaming cup, he savored the sweetness of the marjoram and sighed. He let his gaze wander around the cottage. As neat as the yard outside, it seemed that every one of Ursula's few possessions had its spot and everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. It was all as he remembered it, which is to say it was all very much like his old home, the cabin that he and Daved had shared for more than a decade. The cabin that no longer shared much resemblance with either this place or the one in his memory.

As usual, thinking of Daved brought a pang of sorrow but it was dull, weakened, more like a mostly healed bruise instead of the searing agony he had felt just a few months prior. A vagrant memory popped up. One afternoon, he had come home dripping mud and water after a fine day of swimming in the pond with his friends. He had scampered into the cabin and called a
“Hi pa!”
and he had been greeted with a very stern look from Daved, who had pointed silently back outside. Bewildered for a moment, Jurel had wondered what exactly he had done to deserve that look. Of course, it only took him a moment to see the muddy trail he had left on the floor. Grinning sheepishly, he had hurried back outside. Just as the door had snicked closed, he heard Daved's gruff voice,
“And bring the mop when you get back!”
He smiled sadly, as he stared at the hazy flakes of tea leaf that floated at the bottom of his cup like an old memory.

“So then, tell ole Ursula again what brings ye here,” she said, breaking into his reverie.

He frowned. “I told you. I want to know what's going on.”

“And
I
told
ye
that ye know already. 'Sides what makes ye think an old woman livin all by her lonesome in the center of the forest knows anything?”

“You're more than you seem. You came to me in a nightmare. You saved me from... from...whatever that was.”

“Me?” She appeared surprised but there was a spark of knowing, almost hidden, deep in her eyes. He changed tactics. It was obvious that he would not bully answers from her.

“Please. Please help me. I-I'm lost. I don't know what to do.”

She leaned back in her chair and she smiled behind her cup. “Ah but we all of us are in the same predicament. We're all lost 'til we're not. It's the way o' the world, you know. What makes you so special?”

He leveled a flat look at her. “You know who I am. You know what I am.”

“Do I?” Again, she shot him that look, that feigned surprise.

“Please.”

Huffing a sigh, she set down her cup and leaned forward again. She pierced him with dagger sharp eyes. “You know, everything happens in its own time. That includes the revealing of knowledge.”

“Yes but-”

“No. No buts, Jurel. You must understand that there are forces at work in the world. In fact, you are one of them.”

“Me? But I'm just farmboy.”

She smirked disdainfully. “And here I had such high hopes for you. Listen, and listen carefully. You are needed to wage war against the church. The Grand Prelate must fall.
Must.
If he does not, if the church continues as it is, then all is lost. The king, of course, is involved but his role, his position, is uncertain.

“One way or the other, you and your Salosian faction must be victorious.”

He grimaced. “Why? What's the point? It would just be easier if I disappeared. It would have been easiest if I had never been.”

He had no idea where the flash of blue-white light came from or how he had become blind. He had no clue why bells were jangling in his head or why his cheek felt that it was on fire. When his vision cleared enough for him to see, he had no idea how Ursula had managed to round the table and stand over him, her hand raised for another slap.