Call Of The Flame (Book 1) (14 page)

“He’s still inside,” said Teodor.

“How long?” Aiyan asked.

“Maybe half an hour.”

They waited, watching river traffic creep along the shore. 
No one said anything.  Jazul drew Sedlik’s shortsword, cutting the air a few times. 
Kyric sat and examined each of the arrows he had left.  Aiyan went to a tree
behind the garden and cut a forked limb for Teodor to use as a crutch.

When Pitbull finally came out of the house his face was
grim.  He tossed the bag of toys onto the table, and a few wooden figures
spilled out — a firebird, a unicorn, a dragon, a knight in plate armor.  He
looked at Aiyan and shook his head.

“There’s no bond with the toys?” Aiyan said.  “Perhaps his
hair brush would be better.”

“No,” said Pitbull, “his touch and his spirit are strong
upon these figures.  A concealing essence has been woven over the boy, a hot
black smoke that obscures the scent and burns my fourth eye.  I can’t penetrate
it.”

Aiyan stared at Pitbull in disbelief.  “The princess . . . I
— Pitbull, I have sworn by the secret fire.”

“I have tried, Aiyan.  I’m sorry, but I cannot find him.”

Aiyan looked at Pitbull with smoldering eyes.  “Then try again.”

“I will, I will, but I need to rest first.”

Teodor picked up the figure of a dragon, turning it over in
his hand.  “Can you approach it from another angle?  Is there something you
lack — a special regent for instance?”

Pitbull let out a heavy sigh.  “No.  There’s nothing for it. 
I just need to be alone for a while.”  He gathered the figurines and went back
inside his house.

Jazul’s face darkened.  “Have we nothing more than sorcery
to guide us?”  When no one answered he looked at each in turn.  “I suppose all
of you are witch-warriors of some sort.”

Aiyan said, “Something like that.”  Teodor only smiled.

“Do you know who took Prince Eren?  Was it the tall man at
the dance, the one that Jela pointed out to me — what was his name?”

“Kleon Morae.  Yes, it was him.”

“The one who did the kidnapping itself,” said Teodor, “was
no man at all.  According to Kyric they are called Wirmen.”

“Yes, Kyric,” said Aiyan, “I don’t know this one.  Please
educate us, young scholar.”

“There’s little to it, only a few dozen lines, but the
interpretation is this:  For Derndra to create his third and greatest grimoire,
he had to write it in an ink of what alchemists call essential mercury or
golden mercury, also known as the blood of the Aerth.  This magical ink
incinerated even the most enchanted parchment, so Derndra divined that the only
material which could be imbued with enough power to hold this ink was human skin
— skin from the youngest and most innocent.

“Now the War of Mages had already begun, and the people of
Aessia had started to suspect that Derndra was not the sage-king he pretended
to be.  He saw an opportunity to vilify Graifalmia and her allies, convince
everyone that they needed his protection, and get the virgin skin he needed. 
So he created the Wirmen in the deep pits below his palace.  He bred them to
scent the flesh of children, and made them silent, and gave them the power of
sleep.  He also trained them to drop a clover leaf, the symbol of Graifalmia’s
alliance, in the bed of each taken child.  When children began to disappear in
the night, many folk believed that Graifalmia’s cohorts had stolen them.

“You know,” Kyric said with a hollow chuckle, “I always
thought that was a parable.”

“All I want to know,” said Jazul, “is if they can be killed
with a blade.”

The sun climbed to zenith, pouring the heat of high summer
over the city, and they all sat under the awning watching the blurry, rippling
air rise from the walls, the flagstones, and the cobbled street.  Teodor kept
shifting in his chair, moving his injured leg from one position to another,
never finding a comfortable way to sit.  At noontime Pitbull’s wife came out
and introduced herself.  Aiyan dropped to one knee and hugged her gently.  “So
good to see you again, Estia.”

She was frail compared to Pitbull, yet all smiles and
bursting with light.  She served them cold tea, and her twelve-year-old
daughter followed with a plateful of dolmas.

After they had eaten some, Rellen approached them saying, “I
had to unhitch the donkey and turn him out.  Can’t just leave him standing in
his harness all day.”

“Of course,” said Aiyan.  “Sorry.  I kept thinking we would
go any minute.”

Aiyan became more and more restless as the afternoon wore
on, unable to sit down or stand still.  Through all that had happened in the
days since Kyric met him, he had never seen Aiyan lose his inner stillness,
even when he was angry.

“Aiyan,” said Teodor.  “Maybe we should look for another
way.”

“No.  He will do it.  He was
born
a finder.  While he
was still a student his master told me that Pitbull had already surpassed his
own skill in finding.  There
is
no greater finder than Pitbull.”  He
turned and went into the house.  When he returned a few minutes later he looked
sick.  “Perhaps the third time will
be the charm.”

The day turned sultry as a bank of clouds far out to sea
rose into thunderheads.  Jazul found a bench that had fallen into shade and
laid down there, a rhythmic snore soon rising above the buzz of insects.  Aiyan
sat at last, and Kyric caught his eye.

“Can I ask you something?  How is it that you can move so
quickly?  I understand that training plays a part, but is there a weird to it,
like the way you can sprint through a crowd and not run into anyone?”

“Training is a large part, the rest concerns the warrior
essence,” said Aiyan.

Teodor leaned forward.  “We do not so much move quickly, as
we slow the world down a little.”  He smiled like Sister Golla did when she
asked a tricky logic question.

“How is that possible?  You cannot slow the whole world.”

“You can slow your little part of it,” said Aiyan.

“Everyone,” said Teodor, “has experienced the mutability of
time.  Hence will folk say ‘Time flies when you’re having fun.’”

Kyric frowned.  In the few times he had fun, time slowed for
him.  Like so many feelings shared among people, his ran backward.

“That’s simply a difference in perception,” he said.  “Time
can seem slow to me and fast to you, and still the clock will strike the same
hour.”

Teodor was suddenly serious.  “You think of perception as
passive, a helpless sense.  Perception can also be a function of will.  In
other words, you can decide how you will perceive the sensations of the world,
particularly the spirit world.

“On the mundane plane, time is a series of moments all
strung together.  In the realm of power, each moment is whole, complete.”

“Eternal,” said Aiyan.

“How can one moment last forever?”

“It does not,” Teodor said.  “Eternity has nothing to do
with time.”

“To put it simply,” said Aiyan, “for one whose spirit has
been refined to its warrior essence, it is possible to narrow your focus to
encompass only the moment.  And each moment so seen is truly eternal.”

Kyric looked at both of them.  “You two are even weirder
than the rune sisters.”

Teodor laughed long and loud at that, and even Aiyan broke a
brief smile.

Kyric said, “Let me ask you something else.  What is the
long game for the Knights of the Dragon’s Blood?  Clearly they intend to take
control of the government of Aeva, but to what end?  If this Master Cauldin has
had over two hundred years to accumulate wealth and political power, why here,
why now?”

“Master Cauldin has no need of money or influence except as
tools,” said Teodor.  “There is only one end.  He seeks only, and always, what
our order seeks as well:  To rejoin the two halves of the Pyxidium.”

“And if either of you are successful, what will that mean?”

Aiyan answered him.  “No one really knows.”

“What Cauldin seeks is supremacy in the realm of power,”
Teodor said.  “He would be master of firebird and dragon, the Unknowable Forces
and the Designing Powers.  The mundane world means nothing to him.  He believes
that the Pyxidium restored would gather all the Essas and allow him to hold
them in his eye.”

“Is it still in the castle on Esaiya?”

Teodor nodded.  “No one has touched it since Master Sorrin.”

“You must have some thoughts of what it would mean if the
Knights of the Flaming Blade defeat Cauldin and restore the Pyxidium?”

Aiyan glanced sharply at Teodor.  Kyric had crossed into a
subject not for outsiders.

Teodor smiled thinly.  “We believe that certain events would
occur.”

They both fell silent, their thoughts turning inward.  After
a moment Kyric said to Teodor, “You must maintain a strong garrison on Esaiya
in case he returns with his minions to take it by force.”

Aiyan grunted.  “Excepting masters and candidates, there are
rarely more than a dozen knights there at any given time.  Esaiya is a home to
us, but we cannot answer our calling from behind fortress walls.”

“Then why — “

“Why does he not attack?” said Teodor.  “There is a reef surrounding
the island.  A reef is a living being, and this one bears the essence of the
Unknowable Forces.  It has influence over sea and sky, and no one unworthy of
standing upon Esaiya can pass that barrier.  No one.  But even dragons and
firebirds are not immortal, and there is nothing made that cannot be unmade.” 
He looked to Aiyan.  “Tell him.”

Aiyan was silent for nearly a minute.  “I had been invested
in the order for only a few days,” he said at last.  “I was still on Esaiya,
and we received word from Sir Haflor that Cauldin was living near a leper
colony outside the city of Albatas.

“Grexen was grandmaster in that day, and he choose Master
Rethan, Sir Bortolamae, and myself to go with him, and we went quick as
possible, loading this little ketch we had and sailing straight there across
the open sea.

“We found Haflor in Albatas.  He didn’t know the situation
because he had only been venturing close enough to make sure Cauldin was still
there.  You see, because we are atoned with the Pyxidium, we can feel his
presence from some distance.”

“Fortunately for the order,” said Teodor

“Would the masters of Esaiya know if he were here in Aeva?”
said Kyric. 

“I think Master Zahaias would know,” said Aiyan.

“
We
would certainly know,” said Teodor.

“So,” said Aiyan, “the lepers were salt miners of a sort,
but the local traders told us they hadn’t shipped any salt at the end of the
month as they always had.  That made Grandmaster Grexen wary.  We approached
the colony quietly along a wooded defile, thinking that Cauldin would have
several of his knights with him, perhaps even a lieutenant, and that they would
be on the lookout or patrolling outside the colony.  So we were surprised to discover
nothing more than a couple of lepers watching the road from a nearby hill.

“We slipped past them and circled around the village,
finding a place above the mine where we could hide and observe.  The whole
colony, maybe five hundred people, were all out and working, working
vigorously, as if they suffered no weakness from their leprosy.  Not mining
salt, but unearthing a ruin.  They had uncovered a monolith with writing on it,
and were in the process of digging out a nearby wall with the same strange
language inscribed on tiles.

“We didn’t see Master Cauldin, or anyone at all except the
lepers.  But we knew he was there.  Each time a new tile was cleared on the
wall one of them immediately took a rubbing with charcoal and parchment, and
ran it to a stone building beyond the edge of the village.

“Master Rethan had a badly pock-marked face from a childhood
disease, and had lost a finger on his left hand in a swordfight.  Properly
covered, he could pass for a leper in dim light — that’s why Grexen brought him
along.  After the sun set and all the lepers returned to their homes, Grexen
covered him with a peasant robe and led him down to the village.  The rest of
us followed at a discrete distance.

“Grexen planned to tell the lepers that he had heard about
the colony, and that he was there looking for a place his cousin could live.  None
of them had lesions on their faces.  They told him that his cousin must be
taken to the Mistress, a healer who had cured them all.  When Grexen tried to
ask questions about her, he discovered that half the colony had surrounded
them, and were pushing in, intent upon carrying them to the Mistress.

“It was either draw swords and cut their way out, or go
along with it, so Grexen allowed the lepers to lead them.  Dusk had fallen, so
we followed closely as we could.  The lepers took them to the stone building,
which turned out to be part of the ruins, ancient but mostly intact.

“The Mistress had felt their coming and was waiting for them
with a pistol in each hand.  Yes, she was of the blood, one of Cauldin’s
lieutenants — a woman with the warrior essence is not unheard of, but they must
have been shocked to find one at Cauldin’s right hand.

“They drew swords and she fired, missing Grexen, but
wounding Rethan badly.  Outside, we heard the shots.  We pushed our way through
the lepers, showing them the fire of our swords, but they thought us to be
enemies of their mistress and tried to lay hands on us.  We struck them and
burned them with the flats of our blades, for we saw them as innocent.  But
there were many, and a fervor rose among them.  We had to kill a few.

“We’ll never be sure of what happened inside, but as we neared
the structure they all fell to their knees with the grief that comes with the
death of their master.  She had given all of them the black blood.  We think
Rethan killed her while Grexen fought with Master Cauldin.”

Kyric stopped him.  “Why was it her?  Why did Cauldin not
give them his own blood?”

“Those who drink
his
blood are not simply made his
willing servants; they are thrust into the realm of power.  They gain more than
the black blood.  They quickly develop abilities that we spend long years
learning.  Those who are not prepared, who do not have the spirit and insight
of the warrior essence, go insane in a short time.  Thus he must have the
lieutenants and knights of his so-called order, and they rule the devotions of
the uninitiated.

“He appeared in the archway that was the entrance to the
place.  He was dressed as a gentleman farmer, an eye patch concealing the shard
of the Pyxidium.  His sword, still black with the blood of Aumgraudmal, exuded
a freezing mist, a cold mockery of our flaming blades.  A deep cut crowned his
forehead, one that would have killed any man instantly, and black blood ran
down his face.  He limped from a wound to his knee.  Still, I think he would
have tried to kill the three of us, but the lepers were quick to recover from
their grief, and it turned to anger and outrage.

“The lepers, eager to get to him, came between us, and he
retreated into the building.  The lepers ignored us now, but we couldn’t get
through them.  We circled to look for another entrance, finding it in time to
see Cauldin riding away, laden with map cases.