The SteelMaster of Indwallin, Book 2 of The Gods Within (2 page)

“That makes two of us.”

She looked into his eyes for a long moment, as if trying to understand him better, then she withdrew her hand from his cheek. “And why don’t you want to admit you still love me?”

He didn’t try to answer that question, but instead asked one of his own. “Aren’t you getting a little tired of ErrinCastle?”

“Of course I’m getting tired of him,” she said. “I don’t like it when he baits you, and he’s mooning over me like a puppy. His advances are getting downright embarrassing.”

“Then why don’t you get rid of him?”

“I would if I could,” she said defensively, frustration in every word. “If he were at least discreet I could turn him down discreetly, but he’s become so blatant I’d have to openly insult him in public to discourage him. And your grandmother has specifically forbidden me to do that. So I’m doing the best I can.”

Morgin shook his head. “I do know what it’s like to be caught between my grandmother’s desires and my own.”

“It’s maddening,” she said.

This was the first time in years they’d actually spoken more than a few words in a private setting. More frightened than he’d ever been in any battle, more fearful of this moment than he’d ever feared death, he took a chance. She stood within arm’s reach, so, looking into her eyes, he reached out carefully and put his hand behind her, pressed it into the small of her back and pulled her toward him. He did so carefully, gently and tentatively, ready to yield if she showed the slightest bit of resistance. But she came to him almost gladly, and as he drowned in her eyes he saw that twinkle appear, the twinkle he hadn’t seen in so long a time. She pressed her body lightly against him and stopped with her lips almost brushing his, her arms still at her sides, the soft scent of her skin washing over him.

He hesitated, not sure where to go with this, and in that instant she smiled coyly and said, “Well husband, are you going to kiss me or not?”

He said, “I wasn’t sure if—”

She didn’t let him finish, but wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his. As their tongues danced together, he pulled her tightly against him, and he realized they had never kissed before, not like this, not hot and passionate, both of them sensing each other’s desperate need. When the kiss ended and their lips parted she rested her chin on his shoulder, and they held each other tightly for a long moment. Then she leaned back, looked at him carefully and smiled.

He blurted out, “I’m sorry I was stupid enough to believe you went to Valso’s bed. I was a fool.”

Her eyes narrowed, though the twinkle remained. “Yes, you are.” She stepped out of his arms, turned and walked out of the stables.

He was alone again, with only Mortiss to keep him company. She snorted and shook her head, as if telling him she agreed with Rhianne.

~~~

“You promised me you’d discredit him,” DaNoel growled angrily. Then, thinking of the enspelled guard dozing in the corridor, he lowered his voice. “You promised.”

Valso sat down on the cot in his cell and spoke as if lecturing a child. “And I fully intend to keep that promise. My methods are effective, but they cannot be rushed. Take, for instance, the Penda whelp ErrinCastle.”

“What does he have to do with discrediting my bro—the whoreson? He’s a fool who can’t keep his head about women. That’s all.”

Valso shook his head carefully. “You don’t actually believe he’s that much of a fool, do you? He’s making a complete ass of himself over Rhianne. His father has told him more than once to stop being such an idiot, and each night he resolves to maintain his dignity the next time he sees her. But the next morning, when he does see her, my spell takes over, and he loses all control.”

“So you’re responsible for that?” DaNoel laughed and looked at Valso with new respect. “That’s driving the whoreson crazy.”

Valso nodded happily. “Yes, it is. ErrinCastle’s advances are putting him under a great deal of stress right now, and tomorrow that will be very important.”

“Why?” DaNoel demanded. “What’s going to happen tomorrow?”

Valso intertwined the fingers of his hands, cupped them behind his head and leaned back comfortably on his cot. “I really can’t tell you that, though I will tell you the whoreson has two very carefully kept secrets, both of which will be revealed tomorrow and create quite a bit of excitement. Don’t miss the final session of the Council in the Hall of Wills, or you’ll miss all the fun.”

“Listen to me, Decouix,” DaNoel spat angrily. “I want to know what’s going to happen, and you’re not going to evade the answer.”

Valso sat up and his eyes narrowed. “I’m not, am I?” he asked through an unpleasant smile, and DaNoel’s eyes grew heavy. In seconds he drifted off to sleep standing on his feet. Valso stood, approached him, and spoke softly. “You can’t even conceive of the power I command, you ignorant fool. I’ve a mind to kill you where you stand, but traitors can be a valuable commodity so I’ll let you live, for the time being.

“Now you’ll remember nothing of this. You’ll leave here, return to your room and go to sleep. And tomorrow you’ll not remember coming to me, nor leaving, nor anything that happened between. But you’ll instruct the stable boy to saddle and provision a horse for you, and to hold it ready. And when the excitement begins in the Hall of Wills you’ll come to me immediately. Is that clear?”

DaNoel’s eyes opened and his head straightened. There was no hint in his features that he was not fully in control of himself. “Is that clear?” Valso repeated.

“Yes, my lord. Will that be all?”

“Yes. You may go.”

DaNoel bowed. “Thank you, my lord.” He turned and left.

Valso laughed openly. He controlled that one so easily, and some day it would be just as easy to control them all. Someday, he and his god would rule the Mortal Plane as it was meant to be ruled.

~~~

Morgin had trouble getting up the next morning. He’d had a fitful night’s sleep, filled with dreams he couldn’t remember and a struggle he couldn’t name. He awoke late, groggy and slowwitted, and found it impossible to move with any degree of haste. His sword filled him with unease, and he couldn’t put it out of his thoughts. But he pulled himself together, headed for the kitchens, wolfed down some food, then made his way to the Hall of Wills.

The central floor of the Hall was recessed three steps below the periphery, with a high vaulted ceiling overhead. With everyone packed around the edges of the Hall the difference in elevation gave the central floor the air of a stage, while the three steps that raised the surrounding periphery above it formed a boundary beyond which those who were merely observers dare not pass.

The last session of the Council was well under way when Morgin arrived. The twelve council members—three chosen from each of the Lesser Clans—were seated at a heavy, wooden table placed in the center of the main floor. Everyone else stood along the outer periphery, and anyone who wished to address the council would step forth and do so from that floor.

As was customary, though not required, none of the clan Leaders had chosen to place themselves on the Council, perhaps feeling they could be more effective addressing the Council from the floor. To address the Council one needed to walk down the three steps to the central floor and wait patiently to be recognized. At any given moment there were usually two or three clansmen or clanswomen, already recognized, standing in the middle of the floor before the Council, discussing or arguing the topic of the moment, while a half dozen more waited quietly to be recognized at the bottom of the steps along the periphery. Morgin had observed that the speed with which one was recognized was quite dependent upon one’s status within the Lesser Clans, status through rank, money, power, birth—it really didn’t matter. And if one weren’t highly placed, it would be foolish to speak without proper recognition.

He slipped quietly through the observers standing on the periphery and headed toward the back of the Hall. There were more than a few eyebrows raised at his tardiness, though Olivia showed no reaction whatsoever. But Morgin knew that steel-gray stare too well to be fooled by her apparent impassivity, and there was no doubt in his mind she would have words with him later.

It was customary to come armed to the Council, but to place one’s weapons aside once there. At the back of the Hall Morgin unbuckled his sheathed sword and placed it on a rack among a great number of weapons against the wall. But just as he put it down his fingers refused to release it, and it took a decided effort of will to let go, though doing so heightened his unease. He turned back toward the crowd feeling almost ill, spotted JohnEngine not too far away and moved quietly to his brother’s side.

JohnEngine looked worse than Morgin felt. “What’s the trouble?” Morgin whispered.

JohnEngine took a ragged breath and exhaled it slowly. “Too much wine last night. Or not enough. I’m not sure which.”

“Be silent!” someone hissed at them.

At the moment a Penda lord named Tarare was carrying on an argument with Alcoa, marchlord of the western Elhiyne lands that bordered Penda. Morgin knew Alcoa only vaguely, for the man kept to his own lands. Nor did he personally know Tarare, but it was common knowledge the Penda lord was simply a mouthpiece for BlakeDown.

“They are always a threat,” Alcoa said loudly, “And until they are taught the proper lesson, they will always be a threat.”

“And what lesson would you teach them?” Tarare demanded. “That you can take our hands from the fields and turn them into soldiers? That you can march them off to a war in a distant land while our crops wither without care? That you can—”

“Enough of this,” Alcoa shouted.

AnnaRail stepped onto the edge of the central floor, and she commanded such respect that a Penda councilman recognized her almost instantly. A Penda! “My lords,” she said carefully. “We speak of war, and we speak of peace, as if our lives are carried on in either one or the other state. But that is rarely the case, for most often we live in a gray limbo between the two . . .”

While AnnaRail debated with Tarare, Olivia ambled her way through the crowd at the periphery. She hesitated here and there, to have a whispered word with this lord or that, but she worked her way slowly, purposefully, toward Morgin, and when she reached him she took him by the arm and pulled him to an empty corner of the Hall. He was careful not to make a scene by resisting her.

“That wife of yours,” she hissed at him, trying to keep her voice to a whisper. “You need to control her better. She’s allowing ErrinCastle to make a fool of himself.”

For the first time Morgin realized he now towered over the old woman. He had spent so many years as a young boy looking up at her, but now she had to look up at him. He stepped in close to her to emphasize the difference in their heights. “My wife has done nothing untoward or inappropriate. But ErrinCastle has come close to crossing the line. Tell BlakeDown ErrinCastle needs to control himself, because if he doesn’t I’ll kill him.”

Morgin yanked his arm out of Olivia’s hand and turned away from her. But she stepped quickly around him, stepped in front of him. “Oh Lord of Shadow,” she hissed quietly. “Lord without power. You can no longer even claim the rights of a clansman, can you?”

Morgin ignored her, stepped around her and elbowed his way back into the crowd on the periphery. She’d have to make a scene if she wanted to stop him.

The debate had grown even more heated, and Tarare was snarling something at AnnaRail. Morgin’s unease grew, his stomach churned, and the ErrinCastle situation seemed a distant problem for another day.

Olivia stepped down to the floor and didn’t wait to be recognized by the Council. “If Lord Tarare et Penda feels so strongly about peace, we of Elhiyne will not fault him if he chooses to lay his arms aside when his enemies plunder his lands.”

The crowd buzzed momentarily at the open insult in her words, but the old witch outclassed the Penda lord and he knew it, so he wisely chose not to strike back with an insult of his own. “But my enemies have not plundered my lands, most gracious lady. It is your lands that have suffered. It is your fight, and a wise man does not champion another without careful consideration.”

Olivia smiled that stone-hard, straight-lipped smile of hers. “Be careful, Tarare, that you are not too careful, for you might find your lands have already been plundered before you finish your consideration.”

BlakeDown stepped down from the periphery and moved to join his kinsman. “Is that a threat, Olivia?”

AnnaRail started to speak, but BlakeDown cut her off. “Silence, woman,” he shouted. His magic flared for an instant, but he brought it under control quickly.

AnnaRail’s eyes grew livid, though she held herself in check, but Morgin sensed her anger as if it were his own. His magic flared within his soul, a magic he thought he no longer possessed; it washed slowly over him, crawled up the back of his spine like a living creature from beyond life. He sensed something growing within the Hall, something wrong, something evil. For a moment he thought only
he
sensed it, but in the midst of the argument raging about her he saw AnnaRail perk up and cock her head, and then slowly she turned her eyes toward the back of the Hall.

Morgin was close to the end of the Hall where the weapons had been placed, and she was at the other end, but even from that distance he saw the fear in her eyes. She began walking toward him, slowly at first, then more rapidly. But just as she approached him she veered away and walked past him, and he realized her goal was the back of the Hall.

There came a clattering of steel from the weapons there, not a loud or alarming sound, but Morgin couldn’t see anyone near enough to the weapons to have caused such a disturbance. AnnaRail hesitated, blocking Morgin’s view of the weapons. She tensed, and the sudden sound of steel sliding clear of a sheath cut through to everyone’s ears. A harsh, red light flared near the amassed weapons, and raw, uncontrolled power filled the Hall with a severe note of anger and rage.

Not understanding what was happening, but knowing only that AnnaRail stood between him and his sword, he charged at her as if she were an opponent in battle. He hit her from behind, slammed her protectively to the floor and hurtled over the top of her. He caught only a glimpse of an angry red power as it arced up from the pile of weapons high over his head. He tried to convert his forward momentum into a leap, stretched his muscles to the limit to intercept it in midair and caught something in his outstretched hand that felt like the hilt of a sword. Its momentum jerked him back in midair, pulled him toward the center of the Hall where he crashed painfully to the stone floor in a tumbling sprawl.