First Rider's Call (78 page)

Karigan paused her sweeping to scratch at her wound. Ben said it was healing nicely, though it was still sore. She still couldn’t recall how she received the wound, but like many things, she was probably better off not knowing. At least she was alive, unlike those who hadn’t returned with them from the wall. And now even poor Mara had taken a turn for the worse.

She wiped tears away from her face and swept up a fury of swirling dust. She worked in a chamber that might never be occupied by any Rider. The size of the Rider wing mocked their losses and declining numbers. Soon, she had no doubt, the Green Riders would be extinct, a memory to some, forgotten by most.

In a sense, she had lost Alton, too, a loss she could not explain. Why had he looked upon her with hatred when they parted in Woodhaven? Why wouldn’t he speak to her? She couldn’t think of what she had done to so anger him that he turned his back on their friendship.

There was so much she could not remember—could she have done something hurtful to Alton during one of these blank moments?

She jabbed the broom at cobwebs in the chamber’s corners. How could she make amends without knowing for what? She guessed she would never know, unless he chose to talk to her. She wanted to reach out to him and try to settle the matter, but it was difficult right now with them so far apart. While she was convalescing, she had written and rewritten a letter that would be delivered by the next Rider to head down to the wall. It was terrible to have lost friends in battle, and worse to lose one of her best friends for a reason that was a mystery to her.

For now, he had his own grief to work through. Grief over the loss of three Riders, his uncle, and his cousin.

“Not dead,” Merdigen had said of Pendric. “He has given his soul wholly to the wall, and it lives on with all the other guardians. Only his body is gone. It’s no longer of use to him.”

It sure sounded like death to Karigan.

Ironically, to the Eletian who had come hunting her, she was dead. Merdigen explained, after she regained her senses, that she had had enough blood on her to easily create an illusion of death. It proved convincing enough to send the Eletian on his way.

It wouldn’t take long for the Eletians to realize she was still alive, but now that the wild magic had fled her, and as long as she kept her distance from the wall, she supposed they would leave her alone.

She sighed and tossed the broom aside, then noticed Garth filling the doorway. He held a package in his arms.

“Hello,” she said.

“You aren’t overdoing it in here, are you?” His no-nonsense expression indicated she’d better not be, or else.

“What are you going to do to me if I say yes?”

“Hang you by your thumbs and tickle you with a feather.”

Karigan snorted.

Garth glowered at her with mock-sternness. “I happen to know where to find some really fine feathers. Brutal they are.”

“Oh?”

He smiled smugly. “Lady Morane’s hat collection.”

Lady Morane, the elderly matriarch of a minor noble clan from Oldbury, had taken a shine to Garth, and never failed to ply him with tea and sweet dainties when he delivered a message. Her hat collection was renowned, and it was surprising to find birds with any feathers left on them in that province.

“How do you know the quality of the lady’s feathers for, um, tickling?”

Garth reddened and sputtered, catching on immediately to her innuendo and realizing the trap he’d set up for himself.

“Here!” he said, pushing the package into her arms. “This came in for you—Connly brought it from Selium.”

She weighed the package in her hands with interest. It felt like a manuscript. “Connly’s back?”

“Yep. All nice and tanned, too. Said his ship was blasted off course by some amazing gale, and they grounded on a deserted island. Quite beautiful, he said. Took a while for the crew to make repairs. He’s reporting to the cap’n right now.”

The relief that a Rider had made it home safely almost broke her down to tears again. Garth clapped her on the shoulder and headed out.

“Give Lady Morane my best,” she called after him.

All she heard in return was unintelligible grumbling.

She took her package into her own room, turning up the flame on her lamp. There was a covering letter from Estral with it.

Karigan looked under the letter and read the manuscript’s title page:
Journal of Hadriax el Fex.
It was the last thing she expected to see. She just stared at the manuscript on her lap, not daring to look beyond the title page. Why, she wondered, should it be of such interest to her and her father?

She was about to read on when someone tapped on her door.

“Come,” she called.

The door creaked open to reveal a Weapon standing there. “Fastion? Is there something I can do for you?”

“Not precisely,” he said with a small smile. “I thought perhaps there was something you might like to see.”

“Such as?”

“Rider things,” he said.

“Rider things?” As much as Karigan hated to set the manuscript aside, he had piqued her interest.

“Some artifacts I’ve long meant to show Captain Mapstone, but she always puts me off, and something else I had forgotten about that pertains to you Riders.”

Now thoroughly intrigued, she joined him at the doorway. “Lead on.”

He took her through rambling abandoned corridors. Each of them bore a lamp to help chase away the dark.

“While we were rooting out the Second Empire,” Fastion said, “I came upon a certain room I had not visited in some time.”

As Karigan recalled, Fastion prided himself on knowing all the abandoned corridors, and he led her with sure steps. There was also an eagerness about him a Weapon would rarely deign to exhibit. She supposed that beneath the black cloth and leather of their uniforms, that Weapons were human, too. She smiled to herself.

The room Fastion took her to was full of rotted and jumbled pieces of discarded furniture that cast jagged shadows against the walls.

“Old Rider furniture?” Karigan queried, disappointed if this is what he had brought her to see. She raised her lamp and found an impressive spiderweb strung between the legs of some oddment of furniture, inhabited by an even more impressive spider. She frowned in revulsion and sidestepped to put a little distance between herself and the fat arachnid.

To her question, Fastion scratched his head. “I don’t know.”

She swallowed back laughter at his perplexed expression, as if he thought he ought to know to whom the furniture belonged. At least the rotted tables, chairs, and whatnot weren’t the artifacts he had brought her to see.

“Over here,” he said.

Nestled against a wall was a chest. It was not ornate, but its brass hinges and clasp shone in the lamplight as if newly made. Karigan was surprised it wasn’t in the same condition as the furniture. There weren’t even chew marks or droppings on it from rodents. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a rat’s nest inside, or some really gruesome spider . . .

Fastion clearly expected her to lift the lid, and not wanting to reveal her trepidation to the Weapon, she set aside her lamp and did so. To her vast relief, no rats jumped out at her, nor was there any sign of big spiders.

“Are you sure these are
artifacts?
” Karigan asked, gazing into the chest. It smelled of pine wood freshly planed, and its contents looked almost new.

“Look closely.”

Karigan lowered herself to her knees. She removed two mugs from the chest. Simply fashioned, they bore the sigil of the gray eagle.

“King Jonaeus’ clan crest,” Fastion said. “He was our first high king.”

“Yes,” Karigan said absently. “I know.”

Next she lifted out the pieces of a mold, such as a smith would use to make buckles and other small articles. This mold had been used to make brooches. Winged horse brooches. She explored its depressions and edges with her finger, knowing them intimately in relief, just as she knew the details of her own brooch. Her hands trembled, and Fastion helped her set it aside.

There were some everyday articles also in the chest, like eating utensils and a comb made of bone. There was a length of folded cloth. It was soft and slippery cloth, not unlike silk, but stronger and more vibrant. Her merchant’s instincts wondered what kind of cloth it was, and where it had come from. It was more finely woven than anything she had ever seen, even among the textiles her father traded in.

She unfurled the cloth—a banner—and caught her breath. A golden horse shimmered to life on a field of green, its great wings sweeping up and down by some trick of light and fabric, as if to fly away. In the golden border were stitched runes. Though she could not read them, they looked Eletian in character.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Fastion said. “I believe it to have been a gift from the Eletian people to the Green Riders, but a scholar would have to translate the runes.”

“But . . .” She glanced at Fastion. “If it’s so old, how could it survive in perfect condition for so long?”

Fastion shrugged. “You are a user of magic. Perhaps there is some spell upon the chest.”

“I suppose.” Reverently she folded the banner. The last article was an oblong coffer with the sigil of the winged horse upon it. “And this?” she asked.

“I’ve never been able to open it. It is a mystery to me.”

Karigan explored it with her hands, and her heart hammered with the echo of hoofbeats in her mind. Something special resided within. She touched the winged horse on the lid, and the locking mechanism snicked open.

“Huh,” Fastion said. “It never did that for me.”

Karigan opened the lid and found within, cushioned by green velvet, a twisted horn, one she recognized immediately. She ran her fingers across carved runes and the figure of the mythical p’ehdrose, a half man, half moose, that was said to once roam the lands.

“This was
hers,
” Karigan said.

Fastion, awed, seemed to know to whom she referred. “We always wondered what had become of it,” he said.

“We wondered why it wasn’t down below.”

The “we” he referred to was the Weapons, and “down below” the tombs where the remains of Lil Ambrioth rested.

On impulse, Karigan drew the horn to her lips and blew. It issued no sound except her frustrated wheezing.

“I guess it doesn’t work after all this time,” she said in disappointment.

Gentle laughter filled her ear.
It will work, Karigan lass, but only for the captain of the Green Riders, hey?

Lil! Karigan searched the chamber with her eyes, but the First Rider did not appear, nor did she speak again.

Fastion, unaware of anything unusual, eyed the coffer with interest. “What else is in there?”

Karigan held the horn to her breast, and handed the coffer to him. He drew out a length of cloth that, like the banner, was amazingly well preserved. It was patterned with the blue and green plaid of Lil Ambrioth. It was one of her cross sashes.

Karigan, who had spoken with the spirit of the First Rider, and had met her through time, nevertheless felt the immensity of these finds, the awe they inspired.

“I need to show these to Captain Mapstone,” Karigan said.

“Of course, but let’s leave them here for a moment. I have one more thing to show you.”

When Karigan hesitated, Fastion added, “They’ve been here for nearly a thousand years. I should think they will be fine for a few minutes more.”

Reluctantly she closed the horn away in its coffer and carefully put the artifacts back in the chest.

Fastion led her through another series of corridors. Karigan had lost all sense of direction, though where they walked now felt somehow familiar.

“Do you recognize this area?” Fastion asked.

“I—I don’t know.”

“Mara and I found you in the next room there, on the right, the time when you were substantially, er, faded out.”

Karigan strode ahead of him to investigate. When she peered into the room, she remembered the place, at least vaguely. Her brooch hummed, and there was a prickly sensation on the back of her neck. Yes, of course she remembered. She had been caught in the traveling. She had come forward in time. She had looked toward the door, toward light, and seen herself.

This moment!
The realization startled Karigan. She raised her lamp, but its light could not illuminate that far dark corner.

She thought to enter the room, but Fastion halted beside her and peered over her shoulder.

“Reliving memories?” he inquired.

She remembered him asking the question—the memory had a dreamlike quality, only she had seen him from a different angle, heard his voice from across the chamber, and across time.

Fastion walked on. “This way, Rider.”

Karigan licked her lips and glanced into the room again. “Hang on,” she told whatever shadow form of herself might be in there. “You’ve come too far forward—you must go back.”

The words came unbidden, and just as she remembered hearing them that day. Amply spooked, she rushed after Fastion.

He took her up a stairwell of narrow, steep steps, and stopped at a landing with a door partially ajar. It led to a chamber with a low ceiling.