Call Of The Flame (Book 1) (3 page)

“But didn’t you say they would kill you?”

“Only if I tell them where I hid the rudders.  As long as I
keep silent they will keep me alive.”

Aiyan had told his story in a rational manner.  Kyric had
seen no signs of the lie, but felt that the man had left out much and talked
around something important, something greater.  And the crazy things he had
babbled in his fever still disturbed Kyric.  So he had to find out, for last
night he had been sure that he spoke with a madman.

“Just before you passed-out,” he said to Aiyan, “you talked
about a secret order of warriors and a man with black blood who could dominate
the will of others.”

Aiyan looked at him sheepishly.  And skillfully — just the
right mixture of embarrassment and surprise, covering that split-second
flicker, the fear of the truth.  Kyric saw the lie coming before the man even
opened his mouth, and that was what made it so shocking.

“I guess the poison
did
make me rave like a lunatic. 
I didn’t know what I was saying.”

“What of Esaiya and the castle?”

“It’s a monastery.  I’m acquainted with some of the monks. 
I don‘t know why I babbled about that.”

Another lie.  Kyric stood in exasperation, starting to walk
away then turning back to Aiyan.

“I don’t know what to make of you anymore.  The absurd and
unlikely things you say seem to be the truth, more so as the story gets more
impossible.  You finally say something that makes sense and it appears to be a
bald-faced lie.  You must be put together backward.”

Aiyan looked straight at him, and Kyric saw a new light come
into his eyes.  He slowly rose to his full height, his burning stare never
wavering, and when he spoke, it was with the authority that needs no force or
proofs, for to hear it is to know it.  The words struck Kyric like rapid blows.

“
Om aei al aim syrav haolis aeic
.”

It was a simple phrase in Old Essian.  Kyric searched for
the translation.  “Let the true heart . . . mirror true words?”

“Close enough,” said Aiyan.  “Where did a country boy like
you learn the Elder Tongue?”

“I spent ten years of servitude in a convent.  The lone gift
I received from the Sisters of the Rune was a classical education.  One must be
able to recite the Eddur, mustn’t one?”

“Did they teach you nothing of the weird?”

“No, why would they?” Kyric said.

Suddenly Aiyan was very still, his eyes glazing over and looking
faraway.

“The moment of the night storm has come,” he said.  “Morae
will be here before the dawn and nothing can stop him.  We will not live to see
first light.”

He’s having another fit, Kyric thought, turning away.  He
had almost believed the glib story about the rudders, but now he had no way to
tell.  Truth and lies were one to a madman.

What do I really know?  This man killed two reputable
gentlemen, and nothing else
.  And even if Aiyan’s madness was the result of
the fever and story of the rudders true, the man was still a criminal.

All of this was giving Kyric a
headache.  He went to the jailer’s room, closing the door, throwing himself
down on the hard little cot.  Aiyan called to him, but he couldn’t make out the
words.  He covered his head with the pillow and let sleep take him.

At first the dream felt so real that Kyric thought he hadn’t
gone to sleep.  He sat up on the cot in the jailer’s room, and Mother High
Priestess Nistra was there in her full ceremonial robes.

“You should have told Nistra that you touched the
dreamstone,” she said.  Of course it wasn’t her.  Kyric didn’t need to see the
catlike eyes to know that it was one of the dream beings.  He didn’t know what
they were, but when they entered one of his dreams it was never pleasant.

“I was a boy,” he said, “and a servant besides.  And not
allowed to be taught the weird.”

She looked at him with a cold, inhuman eye.

Suddenly Constable Parfas stood there with a man in medieval
armor — black chainmail with a visored helm concealing his face.  Parfas smiled
at Kyric.  “You did say that he’s hidden the rudders in the ruins of Karta?”

“That’s right,” Kyric answered.

Aiyan crouched in his cell, ready to spring, facing the
black knight through the bars.  The knight leveled a pistol at him and fired,
but Aiyan leapt aside the instant before the pan flashed.  The ball missed, yet
while Aiyan was still in the midst of his leap the knight raised a second
pistol and shot him in the head.  The room filled with thick smoke.

Then the black knight took Aiyan’s sword from Parfas, and
with a quick fleche attack, thrust it all the way through Kyric’s chest and
left it there.  It didn’t hurt, but Kyric fell to the floor completely
paralyzed.

“Here,” said the knight, “open the cell and drag that dead
baggage over here.  Remember, when we brought him out he broke away and got
hold of his sword.  I drew and fired, but not before he killed this poor young
man.  Understand?”

“As you say, Sir Morae,” Parfas said.  “But isn’t leaving
the sword stuck in him overdoing it a bit?”

“It seems so now, but when we bring in the witnesses it will
be all the more convincing.  Trust me, I have done this before.”

Kyric opened his eyes in the dark, his face moist, the smell
of blood and smoke gone but still with him.  A sudden gust of wind shook the
willow outside the window, and branches scraped across the shutters like the
hand of some monstrous creature clawing to get in.  His death was riding in the
dark and would be here soon.

It is the moment of the night storm
.

He stumbled into the main room where he had left the lamp
burning.  Aiyan came instantly to his feet and saw the panic in Kyric‘s eyes.

“You
know
,” he said, taking hold of the iron bars in his
excitement.  “You’ve made the leap somehow, and now you know it to be true.”

“I know nothing,” Kyric said, gathering his bow, quiver,
knapsack, and bedroll all together as fast as he could, “except that I‘m
getting out of here.”

“You’ve caught a glimpse with your true eye.  You feel the
coming moment, and you are afraid.  As you should be.”

Kyric didn’t look at him.  He didn’t want to listen to him. 
He threw his boots on in a flurry and found his hat.

“Before you go,” Aiyan said, “I have a request.  Leave me my
sword and locket that I might stand a chance with him.”

But Kyric knew he didn’t.  Aiyan’s sweat-soaked shirt clung
to him, and he shook from fever chills.  And he was in a cage.

“Can you walk?” Kyric asked him.

“I can run if I have to.”

Before he could stop and reason with himself, Kyric fetched
the keys and opened the cell, then he stepped back, not believing what he had
just done.

“You will regret this,” Aiyan said with a feral smile, going
straight to the cabinet to get his sword.  “But you have my thanks.”

Aiyan’s locket hung on a long chain, and when he placed it
around his neck and threaded it through his vest, the locket rested at waist
height.

“What do you keep in that?”

“The essence of the secret fire,” Aiyan said simply as he
adjusted his sword belt.

“Show me.”

“I fear you will see it soon enough.”

Aiyan found the blunderbuss, then put out the lamp and
cracked the door, listening for a moment.  Kyric could barely stand still. 
Panic churned in his guts, a formless unreasoning terror he had never before
felt.  Was he the one who was mad?  He couldn’t say — he just had to get out of
this place.  Now.

Aiyan laid a hand on his shoulder.  “Don’t run.  It wastes
your strength and causes dogs to bark.”

Kyric had planned to go a separate way and leave Aiyan to
his own fate, but when they stepped outside he found himself too afraid to go
alone.  The night-veiled world lay haunted by moon shadows and powers he didn’t
understand.

They followed a cobbled street through a still and silent
town.  “Now that he thinks I’m in Liora,” said Aiyan, “the coastal path no
longer seems a good idea.  We’ll circle back to the highroad.”

When they passed the last house and the lane turned to dirt,
Aiyan had Kyric walk ahead, and once again he matched Kyric’s stride and
covered his footprints.  They walked a mile in silence, coming to a bridge over
a small stream.  The toll booth had long fallen in on itself.

“Wait,” Aiyan said when they were halfway across.  He
ushered Kyric to the upstream rail of the bridge.  “This won’t fool him, but
with luck he’ll look downstream first.  Now over the side.  Ease in gently so
not to stir the water.”

In the shallow water near the right bank they found the
streambed sandy and firm, but it deepened as they went and soon the water ran
above their knees.

“This is too slow,” said Aiyan, suddenly quivering with
another bout of chills.  “We’ll have to go cross-country and try to stay ahead
of them.”

Leaving the stream behind, they struck out due east, the sky
lightening before them.  Sunrise found them crossing an olive grove near a
village called Mykinae.  Kyric had passed through it two days before.  Sparrows
wheeled in the morning sky, and the olive trees still had a sweet, springtime
scent.  Soon they reached the highroad.

Already a trickle of wagons and pedestrians ran south
towards Aeva, and many travelers who had camped near the road hurriedly packed,
finishing their breakfasts as they did, eager to get started while the cool
morning still lingered.  Aiyan steered a gently-curving course southward,
merging at length with the highroad.  The cracked and discolored paving stones
had been laid in ancient times, and all that remained of the old mileposts were
stumps of petrified wood.

“With this kind of traffic it will be impossible to track us”
said Aiyan.

“But it’s clear that we’re going to Aeva,” Kyric said. 
“Maybe we should part company here and you go on alone.  I could use a little
sleep right now.”

“We’ll do that shortly, but first we turn north for a ways. 
There’s a bridge this side of Mykinae.  They’ll be chasing us on horseback and
we can’t outrun them.  My plan is to hide under the bridge.  Hopefully they’ll
follow our tracks here and just keep going, making the same assumption you did. 
I would let you go ahead alone, but if the constable is with them and sees you—
”

“I wouldn’t want to have a conversation with this Morae.”

“Exactly.”

Aiyan led them northward at a quick pace, making sure to
stay on the pavement.  The oncoming travelers beamed at them with faces bright
and flush with morning.  The women and girls wore flowers in their hair, and
some of those afoot sang or hummed walking songs.  A few glum fellows gave them
looks for going against the flow.  When they came to a stonework bridge
spanning a narrow stream, they waited for break in the traffic then ducked
underneath.

“You should try to catch that sleep now,” Aiyan said.  “It
may be a little while.”

Kyric didn’t bother to unroll
his blanket.  Stretching out in the stale, musty earth beneath the bridge, he
fell asleep almost at once.

He awoke with Aiyan shaking him, saying, “They went past
without stopping.”

They said goodbye to each
other, and Kyric went on alone.  He made good time and reached the outskirts of
Aeva just as the late summer evening faded to twilight.  But Aiyan was waiting
for him at the gate to the old city and when he spoke Kyric could see that his
tongue was black.  He raised the blunderbuss and fired.

Kyric bolted upright as he woke, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Whoa, easy,” said Aiyan.  “Did you have a bad dream?”

“Just another one where I get killed,” Kyric said between
breaths.  “This time by you instead of Morae.”

“Is that what happened at the jail?  Have you had dreams
like this before?”

“From time to time.  But not
every
time I fall asleep. 
And I’ve never dreamed of getting killed.”

“Do you trust these dreams?”

And Kyric realized for the first time in his life that he
did.  He had run from a job and got himself in trouble with a responsible
official because of a dream.  Trouble was putting it mildly — he could be set
to hard labor for helping a prisoner escape.  The most likely explanation of
all this was that Aiyan was a spy for a powerful family, and that his mystic
innuendo was art intended to scare Kyric into letting him go.  Kyric began to
think again that
his
was the unstable mind, allowing the suggested
threat to manifest in his dreams and drive him to doing stupid things.  He was
sitting under a bridge hiding from what?  Then a thought struck him.  What kind
of spy carries a large medieval sword?

Aiyan suddenly turned his head, listening.  Kyric could hear
nothing over the traffic on the bridge.  Creeping up the embankment, Aiyan
lifted his head just enough to peer down the highroad.  “It’s Morae and about
ten others,” he said.  “They’re following our trail across the field.”

Kyric scrambled up to where Aiyan watched.  A dozen horsemen
approached the place where he and Aiyan had met the highroad.  One of them
dismounted and looked on both sides of the road for more tracks.  Another
rider, a tall man with a red hat, stood in the stirrups and simply gazed at the
sky.

“That is Morae,” said Aiyan, then suddenly, “Back under the
bridge, quickly now.”

They slipped back into hiding, Aiyan falling to his knees, instantly
motionless.  “Do not move.  Do not think,” he whispered.  “He searches for us in
the spirit realm.  You must make yourself empty.  Send your spirit far away.”  His
eyes were closed.  He barely breathed.

And the unreasoning terror Kyric had felt in the jail began
to rise.  The shadow of the bridge turned to blackness and an icy hand groped
for him in the dark, getting closer as it did.  And closer, nearly touching him
now.  He didn’t know what to do, so he imagined himself back at the rune
convent, practicing archery in the clover field.  A long deep breath as he drew
the bowstring to his cheek, the emptiness, the lack of self as he prepared to
loose the arrow.

Then the hand was gone and Aiyan nodded.  “Well done.  They’re
moving on now.”  He peeked out to make sure.  “Yes, riding south now fairly
slow.”

“What just happened?” Kyric asked.

“I already told you,” said Aiyan, dismissing the question
with a shake of his head.  “We should rest and give them time to get well ahead
of us.”

“I think I’ll stay awake if you don’t mind,” Kyric said.

“Too bad.  Now you have to choose.  I had hoped to leave you
here sleeping and never see you again.”

“That suits me,” Kyric said, “but for one issue.  My last
dream told me that if we parted you would end up killing me.”

“Tell me all the details of that dream, and of the one at
the jail.”

Kyric did so, and when he was done, Aiyan said, “Do all your
dreams come to pass?”

“Not always, but many do — usually unimportant things.  But
once I dreamed that one of the sisters died.  She got sick two days later and
was dead within a month.”

“I do not believe these visions are fated,” Aiyan said,
“only possibilities.”

“And the way I saw him kill you in the cell,” Kyric said,
looking him straight in the face and almost daring him to lie.  “Tell me that
it wouldn’t have happened that way had I left you there.”

Aiyan simply met his stare with a level gaze.  “The being
with dragon’s eyes was an aspect of the Unknowable Forces themselves.  One had
best listen carefully to what they say.  Is it true that you touched the
dreamstone in the rune temple?”

“I did more than that.  My first year there, when I was
eleven, I got into the temple using a tree near one of the high windows.  I
pretended I was the Hero King, and that the dreamstone was my orb, and I
carried it about the temple in my left hand, banishing evil and doing great
deeds with my right.  In the end I fell asleep on it.”

Aiyan let out a low whistle.  “You’re in a lot of trouble,
boy.  If I were you I’d turn around and run right back up that road to the rune
convent and tell them.  I’m sure the Mother Priestess can help you.”  Almost to
himself he added, “I’m surprised they never sensed it.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Kyric.  “Mother Nistra told
me never to return.”

They sat in silence for a moment, the music of the running
stream echoing off the stonework.

“You mean to come with me, don’t you?” Aiyan said.

“I have to know the truth of this.  Not just rudders and such
— I need to know about my dreams, and these weird . . . feelings
.
”

Aiyan gave him a hard look.  “After what you’ve been through
I don’t see how it could be any clearer.  Go speak to yourself in the mirror. 
The only one stopping you from knowing the truth is you.”

He placed a hand on the ground to steady himself.  His face
beading with sweat, he began to turn pale again.  “And there are worse fates
than getting killed.  I would not see any of them befalling you because of me.”

“You’ll need some help getting down the road,” Kyric said. 
“The midwife told me that you wouldn’t be better for a day or two.”

“It should be safe to solicit a ride from someone.”

Kyric shrugged.  “You’ll  need someone to watch your back
while you sleep.”

“Alright,” said Aiyan, letting out a great breath.  “Until
the Karta road then.”

He laid down and closed his eyes, using his arm as a pillow,
and waited for the poisonous fever to subside.  Kyric looked him over once
again.

The Unknowable Forces.
  The Sisters of the Rune used
the same name for the powers they invoked.  No wonder the Runic religion wasn’t
very popular — who wanted to worship an unknowable deity?

After a short time Aiyan rose to his feet without warning.  “Have
you any money?” he said.

“I have exactly four kandars.”

“Good coins those Kandin ducats.  Quickly becoming the
standard I hear.  Loan me one, would you?”

Kyric reached for his purse as they walked up to the road. 
Aiyan took the kandar, laid the gun in a clump of grass, and waited until a
covered wagon came their way.  The first one held a large family, two couples
up front with grandparents and children in the back.  He let that one go past. 
The next one was a traveling tinker with two teenage boys.

Aiyan strode right up to them, waving a greeting with an
easy, natural smile.  “Me and my nephew have sore feet,” he said, a slight
country drawl slipping into his speech.  “Trade you a kandar for a ride to Aeva.” 
He tossed the coin to the tinker, who looked at it before he returned the
smile.

“Why sure, my good fellow,” he said, coaxing his mule to a
halt.  His smile thinned a little when Aiyan fetched the blunderbuss, but he
was the good natured sort, and he had a silver ducat, so he waved them into the
back of the wagon.

The tinker, a man named Ventin who stunk of old leather,
asked the usual questions.  Aiyan told him they were from Sevdin, and that they
had been walking for two weeks.  Their trade?  Foresters on the estate of a
lesser Archon.  The archery contest?  Oh yes — nephew hits the bull’s-eye every
time.