First Rider's Call (79 page)

“I warned Dakrias Brown we’d be up here,” Fastion said.

Warned Dakrias Brown? What for?

Glittering shiny panels of colored glass rippled in their light, and as they moved about, Karigan realized there was an entire dome of stained glass in the center of the floor, and now she understood. Dakrias had told her of the dome of glass that had once allowed sunshine to filter into the records room, until a ceiling was built over it some long ago time.

They circled the entire dome, Karigan’s mouth dropping at the scenes that unfolded before her eyes. Scenes she knew must be shared with the other Riders.

 

The next morning, Karigan caught Captain Mapstone before she reported to the king for another long day of council meetings. Fastion and the Weapon Willis carried the chest into the captain’s quarters, and then quietly withdrew.

“What’s this?” the captain asked.

As Fastion had done with her, she did with the captain: allowed her to explore the contents and find out for herself.

Wonder crossed the captain’s face with each new item, but when she opened the coffer bearing the First Rider’s horn, she wept.

“Only the captain of the Green Riders may make it sound,” Karigan said quietly.

The captain snuffled, and cradled it to herself like a new baby. “How do you know?”

Karigan didn’t have to answer for the captain to figure it out.

“Oh.” Then after a few moments, she asked, “Should I?”

“It hasn’t been heard in a long time,” Karigan said with a smile. “Someone has to end the silence.”

The captain gave her a slanted smile, wiped her tears away with her sleeve, and blew on the horn of the First Rider. The notes rang sharp and shrill. They blasted out of the captain’s quarters onto castle grounds, resounding against the highest battlements and turrets.

Even after the captain finished, the notes echoed on, and Karigan imagined them coursing through the countryside and beyond. She felt them stir within her, felt her Rider spirit wanting to respond.

The captain raised her eyebrows and looked at the horn anew. “It works.”

Karigan couldn’t help but laugh at the understatement. The captain grinned in return.

Within moments, Riders rushed to the captain’s quarters.

“We heard,” they said, “and we had to come.”

Garth peered through the arrow slit window. “We were called,” he added.

The captain stepped outside to share with them the finding of the horn. They all wanted to touch it, to hear it ring out again. The captain laughed and said, “I’m sure you’ll hear it soon enough.”

She encouraged them to return to their duties, and told them she’d have more to show them at a later time.

“This didn’t seem like the right moment,” she said, stepping back inside, “to show them everything in the chest.”

“I think I have an idea about what to do,” Karigan replied, and she explained it to the captain who agreed fully.

“Yes, it is time we remembered our fallen.”

A knock came upon the captain’s door. This time it wasn’t a Rider, but the mender, Ben. Karigan’s spirits plummeted, thinking he had come to deliver bad news about Mara. Karigan could tell from the captain’s demeanor that she had had the very same thought.

Ben just stood there on the step, looking bewildered. “Hoof—hoofbeats,” he said. He stuck a finger in his ear as if to unplug it. “I hear hoofbeats.”

The captain’s face miraculously brightened with delight. “Come in, Ben.”

The mender stepped in, oblivious to his surroundings. The captain went to her shelves and pulled down a coffer that looked much like the one containing the First Rider’s horn. She set it on her work table and opened it.

Within were what had to be well over a hundred gold brooches, fashioned into winged horses. Karigan, who had acquired hers from a dying Rider far from Sacor City, had never seen it before.

Ben stood over the open coffer, fingering through various brooches. He nearly dug to the very bottom until he chose one of which he seemed to approve.

It rested in his palm and he just gazed at it.

The captain took the brooch and pinned it to Ben’s smock.

“Welcome, Rider,” she said.

The words stirred some memory in Karigan, like a feather brushing against her mind.

Ben blinked as if just awakening. “What am I—?” He glanced at the brooch now affixed to his smock. “What?” Then he looked at Karigan and Captain Mapstone. “What?”

“You’ve answered the call, Rider,” the captain said gently.

“What?”
His voice cracked in disbelief. “I can’t—I can’t—” He swallowed hard. “I’m—” He put his palm to his temple as if checking for a fever. “I can’t!” he sputtered. “I—I’m afraid of—”

Karigan and the captain leaned forward, waiting in suspense for him to finish his sentence.

“I’m—I’m afraid of horses!”

They exchanged incredulous glances.

“I’ve got to go,” Ben said. “Mara!” And he darted out of officers quarters and across castle grounds.

“Is that,” Karigan asked, “a normal reaction for a new Rider acquiring his brooch?”

“No,” the captain said. “Usually the Rider sits with me and has a cup of tea while we discuss his or her new vocation.” She shook herself then, as if to break out of some reverie. “I guess I had better go explain things to Destarion. He’ll be none too happy about this.” She paused on the threshold and smiled suddenly. “But I am!”

I pray the inhabitants will accept me as I am, a hardworking man with good hands. And perhaps with time, I shall vanish away from my enemies and history, to live an ordinary life, and to die quietly in obscurity. I shall rename myself “Galadheon.” Have not the forces of the Empire already named me as such?
He who betrays. Betrayer.
And so shall I be known.

 

A HERITAGE OF RIDERS

Karigan leaned back into her pillow, laid the manuscript on her lap, and closed her eyes. The enormity of it . . . She had read the journal from beginning to end three times now, her horror mounting with each reading, as Hadriax gave his account of the atrocities of the empire. Atrocities he participated in.

And this murderer was the founder of the G’ladheon line? She still could not grasp it. It did not matter that he redeemed himself in the end. It
did
matter that he allowed the atrocities to go on for so long while he struggled with his conscience.

Who am I?
she wondered. Wild magic might no longer taint her blood, but her very own heritage did.
And my name means “betrayer.”
She shook her head, feeling sick.

Karigan looked about with wide eyes. “Lil?” A greenish glow drifted up from her washbasin. She got up from her bed and walked over to gaze into the water. Lil Ambrioth looked back up at her.

You have seen yourself in the Mirror of the Moon,
Lil continued.
Would someone who overcame her fears
—
tremendous fears
—
to dispel a terrible danger to her country and those she loves, be even a shadow of a betrayer? I think not. Galadheon is but a name, which Hadriax took in defiance of the empire and in acknowledgment of his own actions. He lived on for many a year with the knowledge of his crimes always torturing his mind. It was, he said, his curse.

“But—” Karigan began.

I have forgiven Hadriax his deeds of the past,
Lil said.
He gave up everything to help us, and saved more lives than he ever killed. A monster he had been, a man he became.

“I cannot reconcile—”

“I don’t want to know war.”

Karigan was stunned. She didn’t know what to say.

Lil blinked, her features blurred beneath the water.
Do know you have surpassed my expectations, and continue to do so.

Karigan couldn’t help but blush at the First Rider’s praise.

Continue to help the Riders, Karigan lass, they need you, and you need them.
Lil sighed, and the surface of the water rippled.
I must leave you now. A higher power calls on me to answer for my transgressions.

“What? No!” But Lil faded away, leaving Karigan to stare at her own reflection in the wash basin. “I didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye,” she murmured. “Wherever you’ve gone, Lil, I pray you are well, and in the good hands of the gods.”

 

Karigan wandered through the breezeway into the central courtyard gardens, preoccupied by the journal of her apparent ancestor, Hadriax el Fex, and the words of Lil Ambrioth. Lil’s words eased her mind, but it was still a monumental revelation for her to work through, that her blood was of the Arcosian Empire, the scourge of evil that had almost destroyed Sacoridia so long ago.

She hopped across the stepping stones of the trout pond. By the calculations of the calendar, it was still summer, yet golden birch leaves, shaped like spearheads, floated on the pond’s surface. In not so many months, the pond would freeze over and the garden would turn brown and barren till the first snowfall transformed it yet again.

Karigan marked the chill in the air and the lower angle of the sun, and wondered what the oncoming season held for her. She prayed it would be more peaceful than her summer, and that she had truly sent Mornhavon the Black far enough into the future so Sacoridia might have time to prepare for his eventual return.

She continued along the garden pathway, not really paying attention to where she was going, until she rounded a bend and saw Lady Estora seated upon a granite bench in a patch of sunshine, her golden hair radiant. A cream-colored cloak cascaded down her shoulders to drape in luxurious folds across the bench. Tall spikes of dark purple flowers with drooping blossoms, and yet taller flowers of mauve, surrounded her like a frame; and at her slippered feet, pale blue asters clustered. The scene was breathtaking, almost unreal.

At first Estora did not see her, and looked to be as deep in thought as Karigan had been, and perhaps a little pale. Concerned, Karigan strode over to her, and she looked up with a sudden smile.

“Karigan! Hello.”

Karigan bowed. “Do you wish for privacy, or would you mind a little company?”

“Please sit.” She shifted her cloak to make room for Karigan on the bench.

They exchanged quiet pleasantries, both a little distracted. Karigan was not ready to speak of her heritage or Alton just yet, nor of her recent adventures. Not even to Estora.

And Estora, who was often keenly interested in the doings of Green Riders, did not ask for the latest news. They fell into a companionable silence, each wandering in their individual thoughts as leaves rustled on trees and ravens circled the castle heights. The roses of the garden were long past, and only their fruits littered the ground. The breeze that riffled Karigan’s hair held an air of change about it.

A movement of shadow beside a shapely cedar startled Karigan, and she discerned a Weapon there, standing in a watchful posture. It meant the king must be nearby, and eagerly she searched the garden with her gaze, only to be disappointed.

“I wonder what—” she began.

Estora, who had also started to speak at the same time, said, “I’ve had—”

They glanced at one another and laughed.