Mythborn (14 page)

“Really?” Sai’ken asked, more than a bit surprised. “My sister, with eyes like mine, left no message?”

The woman stared at him, looking a little sheepish. “No, and you’ll be on your way or I’ll call your militia brothers to take you for disturbin’ our peace.”

Sai’ken got up, looking down at the woman from her now more considerable height advantage, and said, “And what about the silver—”

“Auntie,” the boy Derrik interrupted, putting two hands on the woman’s shoulders and pulling her away from the confrontation, “I forgot to tell ya, the mistress from before asked for a room and ale for her brother. Paid in silver she did.”

The woman didn’t take her eyes off Sai’ken, but answered over her shoulder, “You’re sure?” Clearly this was all part of their well-rehearsed act.

Derrik looked appropriately apologetic and said, looking at Sai’ken, “Yes, Aunty. No reason for all this fuss. This is certainly her brother.”

He pulled her away and positioned her at his last station, then came over with a mug of ale and said, “Forgive her, sir. She’s gettin’ up in the turns, losin’ her memory and all,” he said, tapping his head. “Lemme make it up with a free mug after this one. No need for yer militia.”

Sai’ken’s opinion of the boy grew another notch, for he’d skillfully protected his thieving aunt while leaving a potential customer none the wiser. It was a good bet on the inn’s part to claim ignorance. How many people just left, not realizing their friend or family had left coin? Had she not just been here posing as the younger girl, she’d have believed all this was a mistake. When the boy saw his auntie wasn’t going to get away with it, he’d stepped in and offered a face-saving way of extricating themselves from the situation. While he may be a port town local, he was anything but daft.

Sai’ken smiled, then nodded and said, “I understand. My sister and I have a father who’s a bit empty in the head. Can’t find his way out of a one door room without smashing the place like a drunken dragon.”

The boy smiled back. “Sounds like a handful he does.”

“You have no idea,” said Sai’ken, still smiling.

Derrik nodded and then left to tend to another patron, leaving Sai’ken alone to think. She’d probably found out everything she could from the bartenders, but these men-at-arms might be a better source of information, hence her guise as one of them.

She looked over at the table of soldiers, now well into their drinks, then grabbed her mug and sauntered over. Eyeing the table’s men, she pulled out a chair, slapped her mug down and took a seat. Their raucous behavior stumbled to a stop, a few of the more sober ones coming to order in the presence of an officer of their militia.

Before things became awkward, Sai’ken said, “At ease, just off duty.” She smiled, toasting, “To EvenSea!”

The men raised their mugs and cheered, “Here, here!”

Sai’ken took a gulp, then turned to the man closest to her and said, “What’s the news from Bara’cor?”

The man leaned in and said, “Well sir, your guess is as good as mine. Strange though, about EvenSea?”

Sai’ken paused, a bit confused. “Yes, very.”

“Who’d have thought the ground could do that.”

The dragon nodded, still confused but careful to keep her face the same mixture of astonishment and pride she saw reflected in the man’s. The bartender had said something about EvenSea rising, and she’d assumed she meant the men of the fortress. She took a quick sip and turned to her left and said to another, “EvenSea… amazing.”

The second man, oblivious to the conversation the first had had with Sai’ken said, “The walls, growing right out of the ground! Never have I seen such a sight!”

Sai’ken sat back, stunned. The fortress regrowing? She looked back at the man she’d started with and said, “Walls growing? Dwarven magic if you ask me.”

“Whatever magic it is can’t come too soon. Will be whole again within a month, say the stone masons.” He leaned in and asked, “Is that right? You probably know more than the lot of us, beggin’ yer pardon, sir.”

Sai’ken ignored the question and asked instead, “And you don’t care magic is the reason?” She turned to the man, who broke his gaze and looked into his cup.

Then he looked back up and there was fire in his eyes. “Not if it means EvenSea lives again.” He turned his attention to his shieldmates and said, “Praise the Tir family and the Lady’s mercy upon them!”

A chorus of “ayes” followed that, from more than just this table.

Sai’ken waited, digesting the news. EvenSea growing again from the ground? If that was true, it could mean that the other fortresses were doing the same. What part of the Way was responsible for this? She thought about the society and rules of the people they’d pledged to protect. Rais dealt with enforcement, and destruction, but Sais were meant to protect and nurture. It was within her ability to coax the walls to regrow, she knew, but she was not responsible for EvenSea’s repair. So who was?

Though most of Edyn knew Bara’cor had been built by the dwarves, the dragons alone knew of the great dwarven king Vulkan, who had built the fortresses ringing the desert long before Bara’s time. Bara’cor was the newest, but all four had been built by his hands. Why Vulkan and his people chose those locations was lost to antiquity. They rose long before Sai’ken, her father, or her father’s father had existed, and that was a very long time indeed in halfling years.

Now the fortress of EvenSea was repairing itself, and what if that meant they all could? Worse, how could Lilyth not know this would happen? And if she knew, why then had she expended the red mage in an effort that would prove to be utterly fruitless? Something important was happening here, a missing piece of information the dragonkind needed to know.

“You’ll be drinking to that, Lieutenant?”

She didn’t realize the man next to her had been speaking until he jostled her with an elbow.

“What say you?”

She looked around at the table and asked, “To what?”

“TCA is asking for volunteers… you going?” said a man across the table. He was by his chevrons a staff sergeant, and nominally in charge of this table, at least until Sai’ken in her guise as a lieutenant had shown up. When she didn’t answer, the man cleared his throat and added apologetically, “Sir?”

Why would the combat academy be asking for volunteers? She turned to the staff sergeant and said, “I’ll go wherever my duty lies, Sergeant.”

He nodded at that, taking it for a “yes,” and said to the table, “You can stay here and wait for the fortress to grow a new privy, or join me and the King’s Tirs in freeing Bara’cor.” He raised a mug and said, “TCA knows the way!” The rest of the table cheered and drank.

Sai’ken watched, knowing half of what was said tonight would be forgotten in the mugs. It wasn’t that these men weren’t without courage, but they just didn’t know enough to answer her about whether Dragor and Jesyn had come through here or not. That would take a regular, and these men were simply relaxing off-duty. The news of EvenSea was worth the time at the table, though she was no closer to finding the adepts dispatched by the lore father.

She raised her mug to the sergeant and then drained it in one long gulp. She smiled back at the man’s astonished look, then rose to leave. A hand on her shoulder stopped her, and she turned to find a patron pointing at the bartender, Derrik.

She moved closer to the bar and raised her chin, “Yes?”

“Your sis,” he said while pouring another ale, “said something about dwarves.”

“Reports from Bara’cor… Why, did you see one?”

He shook his head quickly and smiled, “Nah, yer pullin’ my leg, just like mi’ auntie said to your sis.”

Sai’ken sighed, then asked, “What then?”

The boy looked a little sheepish, then said, “Well, a couple others asked about dwarves, too.”

Sai’ken’s senses tuned to the boy’s words. She waited, then raised an eyebrow when he looked down at her belt. The dragon cursed, reached down, and flipped the boy a copper crown, not quite an imperial but enough money for a full meal.

The boy seemed to consider it, then said, “Two of ’em, a brown man and a girl with short hair.”

The adepts! Her relief must’ve been plain on her face, for the boy then asked, “They’re not yer family… maybe they owe someone money?”

Sai’ken moved a bit closer and pulled another crown out and held it up. “Did they say where they were going?”

“Not exactly.” The boy didn’t look at the copper, only at Sai’ken’s gold-flecked eyes. “I’d be wantin’ to know why yer lookin’ for ’em, before I speak, sir.”

The dragon considered it. What harm could come by sharing her information?

Plenty, she knew, given this boy’s character and the nature of greed. If someone followed, they would only need to ask him the same questions and they’d have the information too. It was too risky and there were better, cleaner ways. She decided to test the balance.

She leaned in, knowing the boy saw a lieutenant from the EvenSea militia, and asked, “You’re the brains here, aren’t you? I mean, despite what your auntie says, you’ve got the eye for coin.”

The boy didn’t blink, only turned to her and shrugged. “I keep us in business. Had to ever since…” He trailed off, then his eyes focused back on her. “I’d know yer business before I go rattin’ out other travelers. Not good fer business if our patrons end up dead.”

Sai’ken flipped her fingers and the copper turned into an imperial aurum. She held it up so that the light glinted off the gold and said, “And how much does this help your business?”

The boy’s eyes widened. He must’ve known an aurum would be a month’s worth of income, especially if it were real. He reached out, and Sai’ken dropped the coin in his palm. It fell with the solid weight of gold, enough so that the boy raised the coin and bit into it to see if lead showed beneath. Sai’ken waited to see if nobility or greed would win his heart.

When it was clear the aurum was real, he said, “They’re headin’ to a place between Dawnlight and Respite, northwest of the Summer Pass.”

Greed had won. Sai’ken looked around, then held out her hand. “I thank thee.”

The boy’s eyebrows drew together at that, her odd high speech no doubt the cause, but shook her hand nonetheless for a deal done. He barely felt the small slice of Sai’ken’s fingernail on the inside of his wrist. The dragon in the guise of a man bowed once, then turned and walked out the door.

Sai’ken took comfort in the fact that this boy would share another meal with his family, enjoying their odd predilection for prayer and ritual. He’d probably laugh over that funny girl and her soldier brother they met today and fleeced for good coin. He’d feel good his auntie and he were running a profitable business at the Sunsetter Inn. He’d go to sleep and die peacefully, leaving behind an aurum for his family to cherish, and silence in his wake.

True, the Rais were tasked with brute enforcement. They kept the Law of the Way and meted out punishment to those who would threaten its existence. They were the might of the Way manifest, the strong arm of justice when needed, and she truly loved them for it.

Sais were different. They silently served the people of Edyn both as protector and nurturer, like a gardener tending to her garden. They focused on building a better society, free of wickedness, lies, and cruelty, the kind that choked the life out of what was essentially good folk. Sai’ken didn’t look back as she made her way out of Westbay.

Pulling weeds was all part of a good day’s work, she thought happily, as she headed northwest toward Dawnlight, and her garden would be better for the deeds done here.

Lore Mother

It is easier for some men to die,

Than to endure pain in silence.

-
          
Toorval Singh, Memoirs of a Mercenary

H
e’d left Lilyth’s castle, teleporting on a whim to an island he thought was north—if that was even a direction here. The sun moved across the sky here but had not on Lilyth’s island, so Duncan inferred that each island rotated independently, creating its own day-night cycle. Why he didn’t perceive the tilt was another curiosity he could not explain, but he could see some islands rotating and others hanging motionless. Perhaps here the sun stayed in one place? Strange, but immaterial to recovering his family.

Duncan looked across the hills, his pale eyes searching for anything out of the ordinary, but only verdant knolls and grassy plains stretched out before him. Dirt paths cut lazy trails around various irregularities in the terrain, the only sign that anything lived here at all.

Then something impinged on his senses, a vibration just under his skin. A change in the air that he was instantly attuned to, like a chord being struck, but one that could not be heard. His skin began to bump, as if he were cold, and the world paused.

“You should not have come.”

He spun toward the voice, lightning already flashing at his fingertips. It sputtered and died when he saw who greeted him. Staggering back to fall to one knee, he held up a hand in disbelief and choked out, “H-how?”

The figure of a woman stood before him in simple white robes. She’d materialized from thin air, flowing toward him like a ripple that solidified with heart-rending detail. He looked at her, unable to comprehend the sight before is eyes, and felt his composure break. “She said you were captured…”

Sonya Illrys, wife to Duncan, looked down upon her husband and said, “There’s nothing but pain and grief for you here.”

“What?” he said, tears blinding his sight. “How are you here?”

The shade looked down at him. “Duncan, you must not follow this path.”

He turned to her then squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, wiping away tears. The apparition had not disappeared, so he answered the last thing he’d heard. “What? It was only for you that I have dared—”

She held up a hand and he felt himself grow smaller, somehow weaker. “You cannot achieve your goal.” She looked at him with pity in her eyes. “I’m
lost
. What you see is nothing more than a shade.” Then she tilted her head and said, “I beg you, do not seek me out.”

Duncan looked her uncomprehendingly. This was too much, and he understood less and less of what was happening. She looked exactly as he’d remembered,
exactly
, yet this was not the reunion he’d envisioned. For what then, had he sacrificed everything?

Anger replaced loss and in a voice edged with obsession he looked up and said, “No! I did not come this far just to abandon you.”

Sonya looked around the small area Duncan had been sitting in, then knelt near him—but not close enough to touch—and said, “You’re not abandoning me. Leave this world and me to my fate.”

“No!”
Duncan slammed his fist into the ground and lightning exploded across the landscape like a tidal force of energy, magnified by the very potency of the Way here. It blasted outward with a thunderclap’s crack, ripping through earth and trees, a detonation of grief echoing across the hills. Something about the act restored some of his mental balance, his anger and frustration finally having release. His shoulders sagged forward, but slowly he braced himself and rose to his feet.

Sonya still knelt in front of him, untouched by the devastation that spread out from him. Even her white robes remained unblemished from his violence. Duncan stood in the center of a shallow crater of ruin made by his own misery.

“There’s nothing for you here.”

“Nothing?” he asked incredulously. “What about you? What about our son? What has happened to you?”

The shade of Sonya did not react until Duncan mentioned their son. At that, her eyes met his own and she asked, “What do you mean, our son?”

Duncan was unprepared for the vehemence underneath her question and stood there, dumbfounded.

“What do you mean?” she repeated, insistent. “Our son is safe. I saw to that.”

The fact that he was talking to his wife called to question his grasp on reality. Her presence took him to the realm of the surreal. He could not parse her here with the contradiction of her having been lost for so long. Her questions, thrown at him, did not help. He shook his head slowly, backing up a step, one hand coming up to cover his eyes. This could not be real. This was not Sonya, was it?

“What do you mean?” she asked again and he knew from his own familiarity with her voice she’d reached her end. There was no compassion or sympathy, only dire undertones speaking of accusation and hate, as if she understood what he feared most. He’d come to believe he was to blame for abandoning her so long ago. Now judgment would fall again at his feet, but this time for losing their son.

“She has him…” he trailed off, feeling at fault. He had overlooked something, made a horrible mistake, of that he was now sure. There would be no reprieve, no reunion. Hope fell away, sifting out of him as if his soul were an hourglass about to run empty.

“She?” Sonya stood now, coming to within arm’s reach of Duncan. “Lilyth?”

When he nodded she exclaimed, “Curse your eyes, Duncan! I had him safely away from here!”

At first he accepted it. Guilt had thinned any shield he might have had used to block her denunciations. Her words stabbed into him like a blade through skin as thin as parchment. He knew the list of his failures intimately, starting with the sight of an arrow protruding from her chest. Duncan turned to her with sorrow, its marks chiseled into every feature on his face.

Then something in him changed. Whatever had bolstered him, had carried him through these centuries in search of his family, had also given him strength in the face of adversity. His mind, now clear and able, saw a glimpse of the truth. Her accusation hurt as only the words of a loved one could, by cutting to the bone. Yet the truth was, he had never given up. He had never released himself from the duty to save her, not for these two centuries, and that simple fact lent him strength.

In a voice rising in anger he exclaimed, “Safe? I did not know he survived until today… when
Lilyth
told me!”

It was Sonya’s turn to step back, her anger quickly turning into confusion. “I found a safe place. He was sent from here, through a rift, back to Edyn.”

Duncan’s anger bled out, his eyes downcast with misery. He could feel all of this as if he sat outside himself and watched his own actions like an actor in a play. His body walked slowly away from Sonya, out of the devastated area. He didn’t look back to see if she followed. He walked a few steps farther then said aloud, “I haven’t seen you for almost two hundred years and the first thing you do is tell me to leave.”

“I… would spare you the pain of finding me.” Her voice floated up, still some distance away.

When he turned to look at her, she was looking down at the earth, her form echoing grief and shame. At least, he imagined it was, and knew it could be wishful thinking on his part. Some part of him, small and perverse, wanted her to miss him as much as he’d missed her. Instead he asked, “What are you talking about?”

Sonya looked up at him, and for a moment he saw love in her eyes. It sent his heart fluttering, but quickly her face crumpled into sadness and she held a hand up to her mouth, stifling a sob.

Then she asked, “What does Lilyth want?”

Duncan looked away. “Kill Valarius and we get back our son.” He said this dejectedly, sitting down with the burden of the years weighing on him like never before. He crossed his arms over his knees and rested his forehead, wishing to be somehow awakened from this bad dream.

It was Sonya’s turn to be silent, her expression one of shock. Clearly she’d not expected that Lilyth would move with such alacrity. After a few moments, she turned to Duncan and asked, “Why does she think you can succeed?”

He laughed, a short bark that echoed out into the still air., “It’s good to know you still worry about me failing.”

Sonya didn’t reply right away. She was still, then asked quietly, “You would have to enter Avalyon… how?”

“There’s a dwarven prisoner I’m to rescue. Lilyth felt Valarius would be interested and allow me entry.” He fell onto his back, crossing his arms over his eyes. He could feel Sonya move up next to him.

“Do you know Lilyth has Aten?”

“Aten?” he asked, moving an arm out of the way to look at her with one eye. “That’s our son’s name?”

Sonya tilted her head at him in assent, the gesture so familiar it drove him to move his arm back in place, a futile attempt to blot out the sight of her. His mind could finish every feature on her face even if he were blind. The only thought that intruded now was it wasn’t fair.

“It was what I named him when he was born. After he went through the rift to Edyn, it was impossible to see him directly, yet I followed his life. It was not much, bits and pieces of moments with those I thought could protect him best.”

“And who was that? Clearly not his own father,” Duncan said, unable to hide his frustration and disappointment.

With a sigh she explained, “The Galadines were thorough, but some managed to escape. When Alion Deft was killed, rumors said Captain Dreys survived. Much was put in place so that our son could find a way to him.”

“Then you must have known I survived the king’s hunt too,” he said, acid still in his voice. “But you didn’t trust me.”

The shade of Sonya did not respond to his condemnation. Instead, she took a breath and said, “You were consumed with revenge, Duncan. Captain Dreys tried to find a place safe from the Galadine law.” She waited, then added, “You always trusted him.”

He propped himself up and met Sonya’s eyes, confused for a moment at the mention of Deft. He’d killed the magehunter who had brought such misery and ruin to the land. Did all the dead come to life here? If so, his seeming victory over her was being fed to him now a bitter mouthful at a time. “You’re telling me Alion Deft still lives?”

Sonya slowly nodded but explained, “For the most part anyone who dies is gone. However, there are a few who have, through deed and action, become legend. And legends find life here. The more people who believe in you, the more likely it is that you will appear here.”

She was quiet, then said, “It is why I’m still here… your belief in me.” Sonya dropped her gaze, unable, it seemed, to look at him anymore. Then she changed the subject and said, “Dreys’s sons lived. They found an isle far from the king’s lands, one protected by the Conclave of Dragons. I could think of no better place.”

Duncan felt a sudden fear form in the pit of his stomach, a hollow feeling he knew had a reason to be there, though it was still nameless. Trepidation replaced bitterness, and he asked, “Do you know our son’s name?”

Sonya looked down. “I… they named him Arek. I sent him to—”

Duncan bolted up, staring at his wife with wide eyes. For the second time in their conversation he felt his mind go numb, racing through his conversation and mindread of Silbane. He’d been so close! The boy had been within his grasp if not for that idiot Kisan. Her interference stopped him from taking Bara’cor and reuniting with his son!

An unspoken part of him recognized that he was being unfair. He would not have known Arek was his son, but anger flared nonetheless, so much so that he could feel the world respond with a tremor. More anger and demons would appear, though he understood from Valarius’s teachings that his Ascension with Scythe was proof against possession. Though death was still on the table.

Too much, he told himself. He breathed in, calming himself, finding balance in the Way. Finally, he uttered, “I know a boy named Arek. As common as that name is, this particular boy was trained by monks in an isle secluded in the Meridian Sea, under the leadership of Themun Dreys. The boy is apprenticed to a man called—”

“Silbane,” Sonya finished for him.

“By the gods,” he said to himself. “You’re telling me Arek is my son?”

Sonya did not respond at first. Then, in a voice edged with anger, she responded, “Yes, and you do not understand the danger.”

“Then explain it!” he exclaimed, frustrated and confused. What was going on here?

“Our son may mean the end for all of us.”

Duncan let out a heavy sigh and said, “You’ll have to explain—” he paused and his eyes narrowed—“about Arek
and
you.”

Something in his stance must have gotten through. Sonya seemed to agree, her hands coming together in a white-knuckled clasp. Duncan knew this was a sign she was uncomfortable, and waited patiently. Saying anything now would only make her defensive and cut their conversation short.

So he waited, drinking in every detail of her as a way to distract himself from the implausibility of this moment. No matter the fixation of his centuries’ long quest, nothing had prepared him for this outcome. He wondered again at her anger toward him, and her seeming disinterest at being rescued. Clearly she had found a way to live here, perhaps she’d come to even enjoy this world, perhaps enjoy Valarius’s company. The gods knew how much time had passed for her.