The Book of Deacon: Book 02 - The Great Convergence (51 page)

"Where is she?!" Bagu demanded.

"Again, you must be more specific. I have a
considerable amount of knowledge regarding the whereabouts of the
female population," he replied.

"You know that General Teloran is limited to
the confines of the capital! She is no longer here," Bagu
fumed.

"Yes . . . was that not generally known? She
had a word with Demont then headed off to the southwest several
days ago," he said, realizing now the reason for which he was
summoned.

The room seemed to grow uncomfortably warm as
Bagu bristled with anger.

"Damn it, Epidime, you
will
take this
seriously. Trigorah remains a vital element in our plans. She must
be kept under control," Bagu fumed.

"If you'd left the leash slack, the dog
wouldn't have pulled," Epidime remarked tauntingly.

"Save your wisdom for when I request it,
General, and find Teloran," Bagu ordered.

"As you wish," Epidime agreed. He rose and
headed for the door.

Leaving the room, Epidime walked briskly
through a grand hall toward the massive doors of the palace.

"What brings you here, General?" asked the
commanding voice of a slight old man seated at the end of the great
hall.

"None of your concern, your majesty. Do not
worry yourself," Epidime said dismissively.

"It seems that nothing is my concern of late.
Nothing for quite some time," the King mused bitterly as a servant
approached with a tray of food.

Epidime stopped suddenly and turned to the
king.

"Were I you, my king, I would adopt a more .
. . civil tone when addressing your Generals. Common is the monarch
who has fallen due to a lack of trust in those who defend him,"
Epidime warned.

"It is not my own fate that concerns me, but
that of my people. My predecessors relinquished the reins of the
army in our time of greatest need, in the hope that your aid would
allow it to pass quickly. No man that lived then lives now. Perhaps
the time has come to reclaim them," the King replied.

"General Epidime, go to your task. Erdrick, A
word," Bagu ordered from the door of his chamber.

A grin came to Epidime's face as he made his
exit. Bagu marched out of his lair and locked the King in a steely
stare.

"The military that was left to us was a
beaten force. Its back was broken. Defeat was in sight. Our men are
what have given you these years, given you the chance for victory,"
Bagu reminded him.

"Peace is preferable to war. If defeat is the
price, I am now willing to pay it," the King stated solemnly.

"You claim to care for your people, yet you
would sacrifice their freedom with victory so nearly at hand," Bagu
scolded.

"Their freedom was not mine to sacrifice, nor
was it theirs. Their forefathers and mine gave it to the war long
ago, and the war has been given to you," said the king.

"Very well, but when you speak of ending this
war, do so with this thought in mind. Our forces are strong, they
are relentless, and they are many. They live only to do battle and
to do my bidding. Should you take from them their present targets,
in what direction do you suppose their blades will turn?" Bagu
asked ominously.

The king remained silent.

"Remember this, your majesty. Your continued
power is an illusion for the benefit of your people. The only true
power lies in the hand that wields the sword," warned the
general.

With that he returned to his lair. The
defeated king sat in silence.

#

Back in the cold field, a few hours of sleep
had done little to restore the trio, but time was precious. Or at
least, it should be. Lain was the first to rouse himself. He
sniffed the air cautiously. The news it held concerned him. It was
not that he smelled his pursuer, but that he didn't. The wind of
the mountains should bring even the slightest scent directly to
him. If she was on their trail, he would smell her. But Trigorah's
scent was nowhere to be found. Soon the quietly crackling fire
stepped away from its place and resumed the human form Ether had
taken as her own. She stood beside him.

"I imagine that we should be on our way,"
Ether said.

Lain was silent, testing the air again.
Nothing at all. He remembered what Desmeres had said. They had ways
of concealing themselves. It was not her way. Trigorah was Lain's
oldest adversary. Far older than his oldest ally. Long ago Lain had
learned that knowing one's enemy is infinitely more valuable that
knowing one's friend. In his line of work it was a lesson learned
early or not at all. He knew her well. She despised stealth. It was
one of the things she hated most about him. To her it was nothing
more than veiled cowardice. She was a hunter. If he couldn't smell
her, she was not downwind.

"She isn't following us," Lain stated.

"The D'karon general? I'd assumed as much,"
she replied.

Lain stared back at her sternly.

"One of my decoys has not been destroyed. I
suspect she believes that she has captured one of us," Ether
replied.

"You knew this all along," Lain hissed.

"The urgency of the pursuit was spurring Ivy
on at a considerable pace. The faster we are able to relieve
ourselves of this burden, the better," Ether explained.

Slowly, thoughts began to stir in Lain's
head. He turned to the sleeping Ivy. With a tap on the leg, he
awakened her. The young creature's eyes shot open. Almost instantly
she was fully awake. She looked about, fearfully, and clambered
gracelessly to her feet.

"I slept too long, didn't I? She's here,
isn't she! We should hurry, let's go!" she urged.

"For now there is time. Ivy. I want you to
sing something for me," he requested in an uncharacteristically
gentle voice.

"You want me to . . . sing? I've never sung.
Why would you want that?" Ivy said, almost nervously.

"Indulge me," he said.

"I . . . I don't know what to sing. It isn't
reasonable for you to ask me to do that if I haven't done it
before. Why would you think that I would even know how to? I . . .
I play the violin," she offered.

As she spoke, a more familiar look came to
Lain's face. The tiny, nuanced changed in his expression that only
a few in this world had learned to read properly. Anger. Ether
watched with eyes untrained to detect such subtleties of emotion.
Suddenly, in a smooth motion that was over before Ether had even
noticed it had begun, Lain pulled free a dagger and plunged it deep
into Ivy's heart. A twinge of pain swept over Lain. Ether and Ivy
released simultaneous cries, identical in all ways save the voice.
Ivy fell limply to the ground, gasping for breath. Ether was
staggered, wavering on her feet. When she regained her balance, her
eyes met with Lain's. The fury in his eyes was clear now even to
her.

"Explain yourself," he demanded, his tone
dripping with hatred.

Slowly, Ivy rose from the ground. Fear, pain,
all emotion was gone from her face. Her features took on an even,
practiced look of disinterest that matched Ether's perfectly. In
unison, their mouths opened, and they spoke as one.

"It had to be done Lain. She was destroying
you," they spoke in eerie harmony.

Suddenly the form of Ivy vanished in a burst
of wind, the dagger in her chest clattering to the ground.

"Where is she!" Lain demanded, his sword
drawn.

"Put her out of your mind. She was poison to
you. She was making you sloppy, you were making mistakes," Ether
said.

Lain swiped his weapon at her with incredible
speed. She managed to shift to wind and whisk aside, shifting back
to human again behind him.

"She may be one of the last of my kind. It is
my duty to protect her!" he raged.

"Duty?! Your duty is to this world! And you
are forsaking it! You are wasting precious moments to preserve what
is nothing more than an attempt by the enemy to subvert you! Anyone
could see that this has gone past duty for you. It is obsession!
Devotion! It is . . . " she cried, stopping herself.

"Love!" Lain replied.

"Yes, love! And she doesn't deserve it! She
is a thing! Weak! Ignorant! Impermanent! You and I both know that
there is only one being worthy of you! I am powerful! I am eternal!
We share everything! Purpose! Origin! And I am spurned for a failed
experiment with the mind of a child!" Ether ranted.

She shifted to Ivy's form. "I can be anything
you require of me! Do you want a malthrope? So be it! Do you desire
a human?"

Her form shifted to Myranda's.

"You shall have it! I can make myself into
anyone that has earned from you what I am denied!" Ether raved,
shifting back to her own human form and grasping desperately at
Lain's cloak. "All I ask is for your trust! For your respect! For
your affection! All I ask is that I be the one for you! That I have
the place in your thoughts that is rightfully mine!"

Lain's grip tightened on his weapon. Hatred
and anger swept over him in pulses and waves.

"You would speak to me of obsession! You
don't even know what love is and you demand it of me? It can not be
demanded. You don't understand it. Ivy is like a daughter to me.
You . . . I will not attempt to reason with you. You are dead to
me. Tell me where she is," he said.

"I will not allow you to squander yourself on
that abomination!" Ether cried.

Lain bared his teeth, clenched so tight they
creaked.

"Think!" he hissed between them. "She is
Chosen and you have betrayed her. Anything that happens to her now
is on your shoulders. What price will fate demand of you if she
comes to harm? How will your precious mark punish you if she comes
to her end?"

Ether stood silent. Lain's words had pierced
the thick veil of emotion. Slowly the truth of her actions became
clear to her, and the consequences painfully so. She'd felt the
burning several times already, a sharp, sudden pain in her head
where the mark could be found. She ignored it, dismissed it. Even
now there was a constant dull sensation.

"Gods . . . they've found a way to destroy
me. I should have been destroyed the moment I led her away. If they
kill her . . . we must find her. I led her away with some of the
other decoys. Trigorah must have her! We must find her before it is
too late! Until I can undo my mistake, her life is my own!" Ether
cried, genuine fear in her voice.

She shifted to flame and burst high into the
still darkened sky.

#

Far away, Ivy cowered fear and tried to catch
her breath. She was still struggling to work out what had happened,
but there had been little time to think. That woman, the one that
Lain had run from, was near. In the initial sprint down the
mountain a great deal of ground had been put between them, but now
Trigorah was on horseback. It was all Ivy could do to stay a few
steps ahead. The fear that had gripped her from the moment she saw
what had happened to her friends still burned her mind. The whole
of the pursuit had been a constant effort to keep it from consuming
her, from turning her into the monster. Doing so would allow her to
escape, there was no question of that. What worried her was that
when she awoke, if she awoke, there was no telling where she might
be. So she had run.

Now she found herself in dank ally in a large
town. The moon was behind the thick, perpetual clouds overhead.
Despite the size of this place, there were very few people. After
years of war one would be hard pressed to find a town that didn't
seem deserted. This, at least, was in Ivy's favor. It had allowed
her to make it to this shadowy, litter strewn alley unseen. Now she
sat, her back against a cold damp stone wall, clutching a battered
wooden box like a security blanket. A corridor leading behind one
of the buildings was to her left. To her right, a few dozen paces
away, the icy city street. Quickly she realized how foolish she was
to have come this way. Lain had made it clear that the places of
man should be avoided, but she couldn't help it. She felt drawn to
them, like she belonged among these people. Now she regretted
coming here. Every footfall that reached her sensitive ears turned
in her mind to Trigorah coming for her. Breathing deeply, she tried
desperately to clear her mind. She couldn't bring herself to
believe what she had seen happen to her friends. They had just
vanished. She tried to ignore the footsteps, replaying the scene
over in her head. The way Lain swept away seemed so familiar, and
the way Trigorah didn't seem to expect it, much less to have caused
it. But if not she then who? Did Lain do it? Did he know magic?

Ivy felt a strange tingling in her spine. She
turned to the opening of the alleyway. Time seemed to slow. The tip
of a polished sword caught what little light there was as it
slipped into view. In that tiny reflection Ivy's keen eyes locked
with those of another. Trigorah. Praying that she had not been
seen, Ivy clambered backward as quietly as she could, turning the
corner in the alley. Crouching low, she trained her eyes on the
ground where she'd been sitting. Footsteps echoed closer. The
ground took on the white blue glow of the jewels in the general's
blade. Ivy turned away, her eyes now shifting down the length of
the corridor, her legs primed for a sprint. An instant later, her
heart leapt into her throat. There was nothing ahead but a few more
paces of filthy, snow-drifted cobblestone and a wall reaching up to
the roofs of the tall buildings on either side. A dead end.

She turned again, but time had run out. The
light of the sword was painfully bright after the blackness of the
alley. Trigorah held it at the ready, her eyes coldly reading the
malthrope, judging what this beast before her was capable of. Ivy
closed her eyes and shielded her face with the box, backing to the
wall behind her.

"What did you – How did – No! Please, no I-"
she stammered hysterically, the blue aura of fear rising despite
her best efforts.