Call Of The Flame (Book 1) (15 page)

“Grandmaster Grexen was dead, and Master Rethan died that
night.  The next day Bortolamae found a supply of blank parchment and we took
rubbings of the same writings that Cauldin had traced.  The monolith was carved
in ancient Keltassian on one side, and an unknown cuneiform on the other.  The
wall held only the cuneiform writing.

“Bortolamae tried to tell the lepers what had happened to
them, but they were unsure and melancholy.  He convinced a few of them to help
us finish digging out the wall.  Only one more row of tiles lay below ground,
and after we had taken rubbings of them, Bortolamae destroyed them with a hammer.

“The lepers told us that Cauldin and his woman had arrived
two months before, camping in the ruins at first.  Each day the Mistress would
make friendly talk with one of the men, and invite him to come to her that
night.  Her charms were so great that no man would refuse.  After she had
seduced him, and he lay in the aftermath of ecstasy, she would give him the
black blood, and he would take it willingly.  It wasn’t long before the lesions
and numbness began to recede in those men, and their vitality returned.  When
this became known, the lepers told us, they all wanted her blood.  She no
longer had need for subterfuge.

“We awoke the following morning to shouts and wailing.  As
the blood faded in them, the leprosy returned.  New lesions were forming on
their faces.  They raged at us for killing the Mistress.  In the end, we fled, chased
out by a stone-throwing mob.

“I saw Haflor on Esaiya a year later.  The leper colony was
no longer there, he told us.  Some had gone elsewhere, but many of them had
killed themselves.”

Kyric’s mouth had gone dry.  He took a sip of water and
asked, “What were the writings?”

“The words on the monolith were the same on each side, the
ancient Keltassian being the translation of the older cuneiform.  Of course it
took us a few years to find someone who could determine that and fully decipher
the writings on the wall.  The monolith tells of the founding of Keltassian
civilization by the Mage-Kings.  The wall records a sporadic war between the Keltassian
mages and the firebirds of the far west.  Peace came only when the Mage-King
Elitass divined a magic so terrible that even the elder firebirds could not
stand against it — a song, or a sound, that could unmake the essence of the
firebirds.  That is to say, the Unknowable Forces themselves.  It changed them
into mindless creatures without power.”

“Do you see?” asked Teodor.

Kyric nodded.  “If Cauldin can learn the song, he can
destroy the power that protects Esaiya.”

“Yes.”

Kyric let out a long breath he didn’t know he had been
holding and took a long drink of water.  The sun crossed into the western sky,
and Jazul awoke from his nap.  “Did I miss anything?” he asked.

“Just idle talk,” said Teodor.

Aiyan suddenly leapt to his feet, hand on the hilt of his
sword.  Teodor stood nearly as fast using his sword for support, the forked
stick forgotten.  He glanced all around, then looked to Aiyan.

“I’m not sure,” Aiyan said.  “Perhaps it was nothing.”

He walked to the tree beyond the garden and looked up and
down the river.  Teodor took his makeshift crutch and hobbled to the front
street, listening for something he couldn’t quite hear.  They returned to the
table, shaking their heads absently at one another.  The harborside clock tower
struck five.

Estia came out with a folded newspaper in her hand.  “Orius
will be out momentarily.  He’s not happy.”  She placed the newspaper on the
table before them.  “The social pages came out this morning,” she said, smiling
at Aiyan as she turned to go back inside.  “I thought you might find this
amusing.”

Aiyan ignored the paper, so Kyric picked it up.  The story
about the royal reception topped the front page.

“The princess was right.  Listen to this,” he said.  “
Who
is Sir Aiyan Dubern?  No one knows who added his name to the guest list for the
royal reception on Solstice Eve, but we suspect it was Princess Aerlyn herself,
for it is certain they were not strangers when she greeted him in the receiving
line on Solstice Eve.  There can be no doubt that until now, he had been the
best kept secret of the royal court — “

“Would you mind reading that to yourself?” Aiyan said
curtly.

While Kyric read, Pitbull wandered out to them and sat down
with a heavy sigh.  He didn’t look at Aiyan, and Aiyan simply picked at the
patina of scratches covering the table.

Jazul sauntered up behind Kyric and peeked over his
shoulder.  “Am I in the newspaper too?”

Kyric glanced down the page.  “Yes, here you are.  ‘Weightlifting
champion, Jazul Marlez, possibly the strongest man in Jakavia, swept into the reception
in a daring lion’s skin cape escorting the lovely Jela Selgar, daughter of
humble wine merchant Sedlik Selgar — “

Aiyan bolted upright, stiffening like he had been stabbed in
the back.  He looked from Teodor to Pitbull.  “They wouldn’t read the society
page . . . would they?”

Teodor answered him.  “I would if I were they.”

“What is wrong?” said Jazul.

“If they connected Jela to Aiyan,” Pitbull said, “If they
knew her father’s name and profession, it would be easy to find his house.”

Aiyan flew to his feet, sending his chair skittering across
the patio.  He tore into a run, and Kyric followed fast on his heels.

“We’ll be along in the wagon,” Pitbull called as they
sprinted away.

Aiyan didn’t set a pace this time, and they ran wildly in
the street like madmen.  When they came to a crowded intersection, Aiyan cut a
path through with the fierceness of his charge, and Kyric rode his wake.  All
of his muscles screamed in rebellion, his lungs burned for more air, and still
they ran.

A block from Sedlik’s house, Aiyan pulled up short.  “We
could be running into an ambush,” he said between breaths.  “We must restrain
ourselves and go carefully now.”

He looked in all directions before sliding around the
corner, hiding behind a man hawking newspapers, stopping and looking again.  At
the next corner he went to one knee and closed his eyes as if he could banish the
cacophony of street noises and hear something far away.  When they came to
Sedlik’s street they could see that his door stood wide open, and Aiyan pulled
Kyric back as he made an involuntary lunge toward it.

“No.  We go in the back way.”

All the other doors on the street were closed, all the
windows shuttered tightly despite the heat.  No one passed in or out.  The
shadows grew long as they made their way around to the alley.

The back door had been knocked off its hinges.  Aiyan
signaled Kyric to ready his pistols, and held his locket open as he drew Ivestra
across the tiny fire.  A blue-white flame ran the length of the cutting edge.  Kyric
went in one step behind him.

They had seated Jela in a chair at the kitchen table before
they killed her.  It was the high-backed chair, and they had lashed her wrists
together behind it so that she slumped forward only a little, but enough so
that her blood ran across the table before spilling to the floor, leaving her
house dress unstained.

For a brief instant, Kyric didn’t think it was her.  Her
rich copper complexion had turned paler than he would have thought possible. 
They had cut her throat and let her bleed to death.

Aiyan paused but for a second, the flame of his blade
flickering weakly, nearly going out before it rose to engulf the sword once
again.  He moved through the kitchen, swift and silent, and into the rest of
the house.

Kyric became dimly aware of a light coming up from the
cellar.  Holding his pistols at arm’s length, he ran halfway down the stairs in
a low crouch, ready to fire.  But the only one there was Sedlik, and he lay
face down, the back of his skull opened by the single cut of a heavy blade.  The
door to his vault stood open, the key on the floor next to his hand.

Kyric knew that the book of rudders was gone, but he went to
the vault to make sure.  Of course it was gone.  Nothing else had been taken. 
When he turned back Aiyan was there, standing over Sedlik.  Kyric had not heard
him come down the stairs.

“See?” said Aiyan.  “You took them straight to it, just like
you said you would.  No need to get rough; here it is and good riddance.”

The cushion of numbness that Kyric usually felt wasn’t there. 
His skin prickled hotly, and he was aware of every little sound, the creaking
of the house, the sputter of the lantern.

“Why?” he said.  “Sedlik gave them what they wanted.”

“They may have killed him out of petty vengeance, but they
killed Jela to break my spirit.  What Morae doesn’t know is that as long as I
carry the essence of the secret fire my spirit cannot be broken.  He has only
broken my heart.”

“Why did they not wait for us?” said Kyric with a dull, flat
voice.  “They could have shot us as we came in the door.”

“I don’t know.  None of our things are here.  Sedlik may
have convinced them we were staying elsewhere.  Or they may be surrounding the
house as we speak.  We should go at once.”

“We can’t leave them like this.”

Aiyan began to say something, then stopped himself.  He ran
upstairs and returned with Jela and two bed-sheets.  They had bound her with
thin twine, and with it now removed Kyric saw that it had cut into her wrists. 
She had struggled.

He and Aiyan wrapped them in the sheets and laid them in the
cold corner of the cellar.  “That’s all the respect we can afford them now,”
Aiyan said.

They left by the back door after Aiyan had peeked out
windows front and rear.  They stepped lightly through the trash-strewn alley,
Aiyan’s hand on his sword, ready to draw.  Kyric scanned rooftops and windows,
hoping to catch someone spying on them.  His conversation with one so caught
would not be gentle.

They ran into the others at the turnoff to the boulevard,
Pitbull driving, a slender machete in his belt.  Teodor sat next to him holding
Kyric’s longbow, and Jazul crouched in the back of the wagon.

“Turn around quickly,” said Aiyan, climbing in.  “Take the
roundabout way along the river road.”  They were overloaded now, and the donkey
strained to get the wagon moving again.

When Aiyan told them of Jela and Sedlik, Pitbull said
nothing, but a sharp sound escaped his throat, like the distant whine of a
whipped dog.  Teodor didn’t blink, he simply drew one of Kyric’s arrows and nocked
it.  Jazul took it hard.  He roared like a wounded beast, falling to the floor
of the wagon, tearing at his mane of hair and weeping.  Kyric envied him.  Jazul’s
feelings for her were not so strong that he couldn’t let it all out now.  He
would wake one morning to a sunny sky in a faraway place and not think of Jela
or this day.

Kyric huddled against the side of the wagon and watched the
cobblestones pass beneath the wheels.  The world felt new and strange.  He was
suddenly aware of details he never noticed before.  The woman they passed had a
mole over one eye.  The man selling newspapers spoke with a Syrolian accent. 
The Kyric that had danced with Jela was lying in a cold cellar on a narrow side-street,
and the Kyric that was
he
had been asleep all these years, waiting for
the one that had
been
to abandon this body.

And the anger he had felt over taking the black blood now
seemed like a child’s toy, something to play with for his amusement.

“Pull over,” Aiyan said to Pitbull when they reached the
river.  He took a carefully folded handkerchief from his sash, opening it and
removing a scrap of paper.  It was the corner page he had torn from the book of
rudders when he first gave it to Sedlik.

He handed it to Pitbull.  “Can you find the rest of this
book, my friend?”

Pitbull held it to his nose and breathed in sharply, again
and again, turning it over and sniffing the other side.  He was getting
excited, his eyes glazing over into something akin to ecstasy.  He suddenly
popped it into his mouth, his back arching and his body quivering as he chewed,
as if he had taken a powerful drug.  He swallowed it and began to giggle.

“Oh yes,” he breathed.  “Oh yes, I have it.  Oh yes.”

He looked at Aiyan, his eyes sparkling darkly.  “I have the
scent.  I’ve found it.  It’s in the city, not far away.”

“Take us there.  And let’s hope that Morae has placed both
eggs in the same basket.”

Pitbull turned around and drove north along river.  They
didn’t have to go far.  A hundred yards past the jetties where they had hired
the boat on Solstice Eve, Pitbull brought the wagon to a halt.

“There,” he said, pointing across the river to an arched
opening in the steep embankment.  “That’s where we need to go.  Into the
sewers.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” said Aiyan.  “He wouldn’t be
keeping the rudders down in the sewer.  Certainly it is only in that
direction.”

Pitbull removed his spectacles and wiped them with his shirt
tail.  “We can drive over and see how it feels from there.  But I tell you,
Aiyan,
that
is the way.”

Pitbull drove them upstream to the nearest bridge.  Thunder
growled in the sky behind them as a line of dark clouds swept over the headland
southwest of the harbor, and the city fell under a grey twilight as the storm
blotted out the setting sun.  As they followed the riverside drive along the
left bank, Aiyan pointed down an avenue.

“
There
is where we should find them, in one of those
upscale townhouses in the Lawyer’s Quarter.”

A few minutes later they all stood at a low wall, gazing
down on the opening in the steep stonework embankment.

Pitbull turned to Aiyan.  “Do not ask me why, because I
don’t know.  But that
is
the way.”

Jazul sniffed the air cautiously.  “I don’t smell anything.”

“It’s a storm sewer,” said Teodor.  “The, uh, other sewers
empty beyond the harbor.  Speaking of storms, I figure you have about half an
hour before the rain strikes.  You don’t want to be in there when that
happens.”

Lightning flickered inside the towering clouds as the storm
bore down upon the city.

“Then we go at once,” Aiyan said.  “It is the moment of the
arrow.”

He assigned weapons to each of them, his own pocket pistol
for himself, and the other two for Kyric, along with the two big pistols.  He
emptied Kyric’s knapsack and stuffed the little keg of gunpowder into it,
giving it to Jazul to wear on his back.  Jazul would also carry the axe.  He
handed the blunderbuss to Pitbull.

Kyric dug through his things and found his bow sling.  He
was taking his bow.  At least he could hit something with it.

“I suppose I’ll wait for you here,” said Teodor, removing
one of the lanterns from the wagon and handing it to Kyric.

Aiyan managed a thin smile.  “You are the laziest
ne’er-do-well I have ever seen.”

Teodor shrugged.  “Someone has to stay with the wagon.”

Aiyan took his hand.  Each gave a nod to the other and Aiyan
turned away.

They scooted down the embankment to stand on the brick apron
at the opening.  It was tall as a man and wide as an arm span, enclosed by a gate
of rust-encrusted iron bars held with a large padlock.  Pitbull produced what
Kyric first thought was a big steel key.  Looking at it more closely he saw
that it was actually an ornament, shaped in a fine filigree of silver wire.

Pitbull touched the key to the padlock.  “Magic won’t help
this,” he said.  “It’s rusted shut.”

“Step back,” said Jazul as he squared up to the grating. 
Taking a bar in each of his massive hands, he ripped the gate off its hinges
and threw it aside.

The tunnel was brick lined and arched at the top, and
Pitbull lead the way, Aiyan next, and then Kyric with the lantern.  He held it
high to give them light, but it helped only a little and produced a jumble of
shadows.  He heard a faint metallic scrape as Aiyan drew his sword and the blue
flame erupted, shining coldly against the light of the lantern.

They walked for a time, passing a few side tunnels before coming
to a Y split.  Pitbull choose the left tunnel without hesitation.  The floor
was moist but not slick, and he moved on quickly, almost at the trot.  Another
split and they went right, into a long straightaway, then another and left,
always with a slight uphill grade.  They entered a curving section that
narrowed at the end, turning into a series of elbows.  A small pack of rats
scattered at their approach.

A four-way intersection lay beyond.  Kyric had lost all
sense of direction with the elbow turns, but Pitbull pushed on into the
right-hand tunnel, excited now, breathing harder, a trickle of water now
running down the middle.  A hundred strides brought them to the hole.

A collapsed patch of brickwork at the shoulder of the tunnel
had opened a hole big enough for even Jazul to climb through.  A hole leading
into a larger space.

Aiyan sheathed his sword and scrambled through.  A moment
later the blue light of the flame appeared.

“It’s alright,” said Aiyan, “come ahead.”

With a leg up from Jazul, Pitbull and Kyric pulled
themselves through and into a tunnel many times larger than the sewer.  The
floor was thick with dirt and other filth, and made uneven by protruding rocks. 
The side walls and ceiling were formed by a shallow arch of smooth stonework,
with rectangular openings clogged with earth, the remnants of cut stone steps
spiraling the length of the tunnel.  Kyric suddenly realized what it was.  They
were inside an old tower or turret that lay on its side.

“Aiyan,” Pitbull said softly, suppressing a nervous giggle,
“the magical Essa is strong here.  Surprisingly strong.”  He clinched his
teeth.

“Will you be able to control yourself?”

“I think so.  The book isn’t far from here.”

“What is the matter?” whispered Jazul.

“Simply put,” said Aiyan, “when Pitbull uses magic, or even
comes close to a powerful Essa, he gets a little . . . inebriated.”

Grinning stupidly, Pitbull said, “Just a little.”

Kyric shook his head. 
So that’s why all the hilarity at
the archery tournament.  And I took it for meanness
.  “We’re in the ruins
of Derndra’s palace,” he said.

“I believe we are,” said Pitbull, a musical ring to his
voice.

They crept forward, Kyric expecting any moment to see the
eyes of the Wirmen reflecting at the edge of the lantern light.  Then he
remembered that their flat black eyes reflected no light.

After a short way, this passage opened into a larger space. 
The ceiling was low, and Kyric had to stoop a little.  He ran his hand over the
rough, weathered stonework.  It had been an exterior wall at one time, having
fallen over and crushed the upper part of this room.  The floor ran smooth and
level before them, but off to the right it was cracked, and it canted down
sharply.  A tangle of rusty equipment lay there — coiled metal tubing suggested
a distilling apparatus, and in the corner something like a blacksmith’s forge.

“There,” said Pitbull, pointing to the left where a roughly
square tunnel broke through the plaster.  It sloped upward.  “That’s where it
is.”

It looked recently and hastily dug, shored crudely with
scrap lumber.  Pitbull rubbed his nose.  “One good sneeze and this will come
down on us.”

Aiyan shushed him.  “We must go quietly,” he whispered,
taking the lead.

They followed the tunnel a few dozen steps to a sharp bend,
then upward a few dozen more to where it ended in a small square space dug and
shored like the tunnel, except that the opposite wall was made of stone
blocks.  A heavy wooden door stood behind an iron gate of crisscrossed bars,
much like the one at the sewer opening, only this one was clean and new and
oiled, the hinges set into the blocks with steel bolts.  A huge keyhole lock
held the gate fast.

“This is it,” Pitbull whispered.  “We’re so close I can
almost taste it.”  A short belch escaped him.  “Oh yes,” he giggled, “I can
taste it.”

He took out the filigree key, turning it over in his hands
and rolling it between his fingers.  He shook it hard, one time, and it hummed
faintly like a tuning fork.  He touched it to the lock and there was a click. 
The gate silently swung open.  He placed his hand on the wooden door.

“This one isn’t locked,” he said.  He stepped back and cocked
the blunderbuss.

Aiyan cracked the door the width of a hair, and a dim light
outlined the frame.  He signaled Kyric to place the lantern on the floor.

“Make ready,” he whispered.

Jazul shifted the axe to one hand — against his bulk it
looked more like a hatchet — and he drew Sedlik’s shortsword with the other. 
Kyric pulled the wheel-lock and engaged the dogs, the grip smooth against his
palm.  The weight of the two barrels felt good.

Aiyan pushed through the door, rushing into an open
basement.  Two men in shirtsleeves sat at a table, one of them in the motion of
throwing dice.  The dicer started with a yell, the dice caroming wildly off the
table top, but the other man reached for a pistol.

Aiyan’s slash caught him just above the ear, killing him
instantly.  The dicer stood and fumbled for his sabre, only to discover that
Aiyan’s sword had thrust all the way through his chest.  He dropped to his
knees, then fell forward and was quiet.

Kyric ran to the wide staircase leading upward, Aiyan
handing him the dead man’s pistol as he joined him.  They hurried up the steps
side by side.  A landing, open to the left, and they entered a room that was
not so much a kitchen as a pantry with a cookstove in one corner.  Harpsichord
music bled through the pair of doors in the right hand wall.

They kicked the doors open and the four of them rushed into
a common room with a high ceiling.  Three men sat at a big round table, two of
them wearing the uniform of Lekon’s troops, officer’s braids at their shoulders. 
They had just finished eating and the dirty plates lay in front of them. 
Another, holding an empty wine decanter, was frozen in midstride as he headed
to the pantry.

Screeching like a bird of prey, Kyric fired both barrels
into his stomach.  He fell, and the decanter shattered, sending glass shards
skittering across the floor.  Pitbull raised the blunderbuss to the men at the
table, shooting as they stood.  The blast was deafening and smoke filled the
room.  Jazul lunged at the harpsichord player.  The fellow stood and grabbed
his sword arm with both hands, holding it briefly until Jazul buried his axe in
the man’s ribs.

A bald man dressed in hunting leathers came out of an
adjoining room, a sleek longsword in his hands.  His eyes were grim, his face
scarred and expressionless, and he looked fast and strong as he came en-garde.

Aiyan leapt past the wounded men at the table, running full
force at him, raising the flaming blade.  The bald man took position to block
the overhand slash, ready to return a deadly counterblow after he had diverted
Aiyan’s attack.  Aiyan didn’t try to stop.  He threw himself into it, roaring
as he swung with all his might.

With a ringing snap, he cut through the bald man’s sword and
cut deep into his shoulder at the base of the neck, shattering his collar bone and
severing his spine.

One of the men at the table was down, but the other two,
bleeding and in shock, somehow scrambled for the swords hanging over the backs
of their chairs.  Kyric stepped up to one of them and shot him in the face at a
range of inches.  Part of his skull flew away.  Pitbull stabbed the other one
in the groin with his machete.

The front door swung open, another soldier in Lekon’s livery
sticking his head in and withdrawing it immediately.  A bell began to ring,
sharp and loud.  Kyric threw down his spent pistols and drew another, running
to the open door.

It was almost dark outside, and it had begun to rain.  At
the far side of a cobbled courtyard, soldiers poured out of a long low
building.  Pitbull had brought them out of the underground into some sort of
barracks.

The trooper ringing the bell in the courtyard turned and
leveled his musket as Kyric stopped in the doorway.  He pulled the trigger but
got no spark as the rain fell harder.  Kyric fired, hitting him in the arm, then
slammed the door closed and slid the bolt.

Despite the rainy evening, two windows stood open to the
courtyard.  “Get them closed,” shouted Jazul.  He ran to the nearest and threw
and barred the shutters.  Pitbull closed the shutters on the other window, but
couldn’t reach the bar, and as Jazul came to help him they flew open again,
several bayonets jabbing, driving the two of them back while one soldier tried
to climb through.  Pitbull staggered away and sat hard on the floor near the
table, a deep gash above one eye.

Jazul reached past the bayonet of the one climbing over the
windowsill and took hold of the barrel, pulling him in by his own musket,
tearing it from his grasp and clubbing him in the head with the stock.  Kyric
readied his two pocket pistols, firing them out the window as the soldiers
outside ducked away.  Jazul pushed the shutters closed again and held them
against the pounding of muskets while Kyric tried to get the bar into place. 
The window at last secure, he turned back.

Five smaller rooms and a hallway opened to the common room. 
Aiyan dashed from one door to the next, making sure they were empty.  The
entire place lay thick with gun smoke.  Kyric’s eyes watered, and he felt a
choking stab at the back of his throat.  Having no more loaded pistols, he
slipped his bow out of its sling and drew an arrow.  It felt big and clumsy
even in a tall room.  When he looked up everyone stood motionless, staring at
the entry to the hallway.

Vaust was there, standing perfectly still as well, sighting
down the barrel of a flintlock carabine.  He held a steady bead on Aiyan’s
heart.

“All of you lay your weapons down,” he said levelly.

His view of Pitbull seemed blocked by the table.  Gingerly,
Pitbull picked up Kyric’s spent pistol.  He pointed at it, whispering a word,
then pointed toward Vaust and whispered another.

“Now,” Vaust commanded, and Aiyan lowered his sword.  Jazul
placed his shortsword on the floor.  Kyric was torn in half, raging with anger
and horror.  He wanted very badly to lunge for Vaust and jab the arrow into his
neck, but a look from Aiyan convinced him to toss it aside.

The banging on the shutter came more rapidly now, the wooden
bar creaking with each blow.  Pitbull began a chant low in his chest, harsh
rasping words in the Essian tongue, his face twisted into a mask of
malevolence.  Kyric could barely make out the words.