The Nightblade Epic Volume Two: A Book of Underrealm, page 3
But she only shrugged. “He speaks at least some truth. I should have had words with him days ago. If it will stay this foul temper that has seized him, I will have them now.”
“I can go with you,” said Albern.
“No,” said Loren quickly. “Stay. Tell the children your story. Surely they will enjoy it.” And she rose to follow the wizard into the city.
XAIN STOOD ACROSS THE NARROW street. A lamp on the building beside him bathed him in its sickly yellow glow. His nails scratched furiously at his sleeve, and his head darted back and forth in the darkness. When he saw her emerge, she thought she saw him sigh with relief. But she approached him slowly. If he was going to be so difficult, she was in no hurry to give him what he desired.
“I … I may have spoken harshly,” he muttered once Loren was in earshot. “Forgive me.”
“Mayhap,” said Loren easily. “Still, you have me here now, wizard. What shall we speak of? You make it sound most urgent, though you yourself have had days to speak to me. A conversation takes not one, but two at least.”
“What we have to say—what I have to tell you, at least—I would not utter in anything above a whisper, and not at all here in the city,” said Xain. Suddenly his voice was no longer bitter, or even exasperated. Instead he sounded afraid, and his words carried a darkness that made Loren shiver. She tried to disguise it as a sudden chill in the night air, and drew her cloak closer about herself.
“What, then? Do you mean to fly us into the air with your magic? For we are within the city still.”
“At my best I could not do so, and I am far from my best. If it pleases you, Nightblade, let us take a stroll beyond the walls of Northwood.”
Loren did not relish the idea of walking unknowing into the darkness with him, but his calling her “Nightblade” mollified her somewhat. It was a foolish daydream of her childhood, and only a few knew of it, though Gem kept trying to spread the tale of her—an effort she found more irritating than endearing, but she rarely had the heart to tell him to stop.
Xain pushed off from the wall and strode down the street, and Loren felt she had little choice but to follow. Rather than north, as she often went with Chet, Xain now took her east. There the gate lay open still, despite the late hour. Northwood had been removed from the wars of the nine lands for so long that it felt no need to lock its doors against them. The guard at the gate gave them a close look, peering at them in the weak light of his torch, but let them pass without question or comment. Soon they were in the empty darkness of the farmlands beyond the city, with only the tiny glow of candlelight through the windows of farmhouses to break the inky black.
From behind him, Loren saw the faint glow of Xain’s eyes and heard him muttering words of power. A small spark of flame sprang to life in his hand, but almost immediately it guttered and died. Xain muttered a curse and tried again. This time the fire remained, hovering above his palm, though it was thin and wispy compared to the flames she had seen him cast in times gone.
“Your gift has not entirely left you, I see,” she said.
“It weakens by the day,” said Xain. “Soon even this small magelight will require all of my power and concentration. Then it will be a long time before my powers return to me.”
“How long?”
“I do not know. I have never witnessed the recovery of one plagued by magestone sickness. They are, as you may know, strictly outlawed by the High King.”
He barked a harsh laugh, and Loren found herself joining him. But she also thought, with some trepidation, of the small packet of magestones she carried in her pocket even now. Xain knew nothing of them; she had made very certain of that. She did not like to imagine what he would do if he ever found out.
Soon even the lights of the farmhouses had vanished behind them, and Xain’s was the only flame in sight. But the moons had risen already, and they gave Loren enough light to keep from stumbling—most of the time.
Finally Xain stopped and turned to her. Without a word he sat cross-legged upon the ground beside the road. With a furtive toss of his hand, he indicated for her to do the same.
“A moment,” said Loren. She stepped off into the darkness, searching around in the grass. Though it was still green, it was dry, and from the hedge that ran beside the road she pulled a few dead branches. These she made into a little pile before Xain, and waved her hand at it. “Light this. It will save your strength, for if we must finally speak of dark matters, I would have all your concentration.”
“My concentration? I find it difficult to think of anything else,” said Xain. But he lit the tinder, and soon the branches caught above it. In no time they had a little fire going, and Xain let the flame die in his hands.
“First I should tell you what Jordel said just before he died,” said Loren. “Though I know little of its meaning. He said the Shades’ dark master had returned, and that Trisken was some captain of special significance. He said—as you and I saw—that magic is no proof against them.”
The Shades were a secret order that Loren had only learned of a few weeks ago, when she and her friends had become lost in the Greatrocks and stumbled upon their stronghold there. Jordel had said precious little about them, only that they were an order somewhat like the Mystics—except the Mystics, who wore red cloaks, preserved order and upheld the King’s law in the nine lands. Loren had never learned the Shades’ true purpose, though she had an uncomfortable feeling that would soon change.
“All of this I had guessed already,” said Xain, waving a hand in dismissal. “Any fool could have pieced it together.”
“Then it was no great crime for me to wait so long to speak to you,” said Loren, her irritation growing. “Tell me, then, what you know, and why it is of such great importance that we must meet out here where only the grubs in the dirt can hear us. Who is this dark master of the Shades?”
Xain looked at her a long moment. His eyes looked black in the darkness, black as they were when he cast his spells under the power of magestones. It made Loren shiver, though she refused to look away. Then Xain averted his gaze and picked at his sleeve again, and when he spoke it was not with an answer.
“What do you know of magic?”
Loren blinked. “Only a little. I heard tales as a child, and Jordel taught me some little more when we were searching for you. I know of its four arms, which you call … oh, I cannot remember their scholarly names just now. But they are firemagic, mindmagic, weremagic, and alchemy.”
“Elementalism, mentalism, therianthropy, and transmutation,” said Xain stiffly. Loren ground her teeth, but he went on quickly as though sensing her impatience. “Yes, every child in the nine lands knows this. Wizards are few and far between, but rare is the man, woman, or child who goes a lifetime without seeing at least one. Yet we are all of us ignorant. For there are two other branches, hidden, never taught to children. For in them lies the fate of us all, and a dark and terrible fate it is.”
Loren felt as if the world around them had gone still. She had to struggle to hear even the crickets, for it seemed that everything had gone completely silent.
“What—” her voice cracked, and she stopped. She swallowed hard and tried again. “What are the hidden branches?”
“Ceremancy and necromancy,” said Xain. “Life. And death.”
Loren frowned. “Those … those are not magic. They are … they are … they simply are.”
“So I, too, thought,” said Xain. “Yet in Wellmont I spoke with Jordel for nearly a day, and he taught me the truth of things. Life magic and death magic are the source of all the other branches. They are the essence of power itself. My power, the power of all wizards, the power of magestones. All are interlinked, forever entwined with the two hidden branches.”
“But there are no life wizards and death wizards,” said Loren, irritated. “Surely we would know of them if there were. You were the first wizard I had met, Xain, but I had heard tales aplenty before then. Four branches I was told of. Not six. And nothing of two hidden branches.”
“That was by careful design,” said Xain. “And you are wrong: there are life wizards and death wizards. Or rather, there is one of each. The Necromancer, master of death. And the Ceremancer, though that one is more often called the Lifemage.”
“Only one?” said Loren, more confused than ever. “Why, when there are a great many of the other kinds of wizards?”
“Because they are the source,” said Xain. “They were the first, and from them sprang all the other, lesser powers. And though the first Necromancer and the first Lifemage died long, long ago, they were reborn. Again and again they returned, in later times and places, in new bodies, but always together, and always with the same powers. Life and Death, returning to wage their great and endless war for the fate of all men.”
“I have heard tales of great warriors, wizards, and kings,” said Loren. “And thieves as well. Yet never have I heard of either a Lifemage or a Necromancer.”
“Many centuries has it been since they last lived in the nine lands,” said Xain softly. “And in such times, the in-between times, the Mystics hide all knowledge of them. Every record is expunged, every tale snuffed out. They wish for no one to know of the Necromancer, for then followers might take root, and gather in strength in preparation of his coming.”
Loren felt she understood at last. “The Shades. They serve the Necromancer. Do the Mystics, then, serve the Lifemage?”
“That is their true purpose. But they have forgotten. All but the highest and greatest among them, who guard the secret as carefully as the existence of the Necromancer. To know of one is to know of the other.”
They fell to silence, and for a while the only sound was a light wind rustling the grass about them. Xain shivered and pulled his dirty grey cloak tighter. The weather struck him harder, as thin as he was.
As she began to digest his words, a thought came to Loren that made her heart skip a beat. “Then if the Shades are gathering in strength, does that mean the Necromancer is reborn?”
“That is what Jordel guessed,” said Xain. He picked at the cuff of his sleeve.
“And while they grow in power, the Mystics do nothing to stop them,” said Loren, stomach sinking. “Because they know nothing. Only Jordel discovered the truth, and he died in the Greatrocks. And now I have made us sit here and wait in a faraway city, when we should have been warning all the kingdoms.”
Xain looked away. “You can hardly be blamed,” he said, though his voice was gruff. “We all keenly felt his loss.”
“I should not have let that stop me. Jordel would not have.” She brushed the fingers of one hand across the battered knuckles of the other. Almost she struck at the ground again, but she did not wish to open the wound. “I am sorry, Xain. I should have listened to you from the start.”
Xain grunted and moved to rise. “I will not argue there. Only see that you remember this in the days to come.”
Loren shot to her feet easily and lowered a hand to pull him up. “I will. Clearly you are too weak to do much of anything useful, and have chosen to be wise instead to make up for it.”
He glared sharply up at her, but then the moonslight showed him her smile. A wry twist came to his lips, and he took her hand to rise. Together they strode back for Northwood, and Xain flicked a finger to douse the embers of the fire behind them.
THE NEXT MORNING, THE TRAVELERS readied themselves to depart. Though they had all seemed happy enough to remain in Northwood, once spurred to action Loren thought they seemed relieved to be on the move again. All of them except Chet had spent many weeks riding from one place to another. A rest had been welcome, yet now their feet itched for the road.
While Albern went into town to fetch supplies, Loren went to the inn’s stable to prepare their horses for travel. Chet, for lack of anything better to do, came with her. Midnight gave a great cry the moment Loren approached, and she smiled to hear it. The horse was wise beyond the custom of beasts, and Loren thought she must know they were preparing to leave.
“Still your braying, you nag,” said Loren, but she patted Midnight’s nose with affection. “I have kept you waiting only a few days.”
“Look at the way she nuzzles you,” said Chet, looking Midnight over with appreciation. Loren had told him the tale already of how she had come to steal the horse. “She has taken you for her own, and no mistake.”
“I took her, you mean,” said Loren. She fetched a brush from the wall and took it to Midnight’s coat, though she could see almost at once that the mare needed no grooming. “Though I suspect she thinks differently, I am her master and not the other way around.”
She grew quiet for a moment and looked at Chet from the corner of her eyes. She had been meaning to ask him a question for some time. Now it had grown in urgency, but with the moment finally here, she found the words hard to say.
“Chet,” she said slowly, carefully. “What will you do? Once we leave, I mean.”
His eyes flew wide. He pushed himself from the wall where he had been leaning, and rested a hand on Midnight’s flank. “Why … I mean to come with you, of course. Unless my company is not welcome, though I had hoped it would be.”
Loren felt a rush of happiness, though she tried to still it. Chet had heard much of their journeys, but not all. Though he no doubt thought he understood his decision, he could not possibly imagine its implications.
“Of course you are welcome, always,” she said. “And nothing would make me happier than for you to join us. But I would not have you come out of obligation.”
“It was not obligation that made me leave the Birchwood,” said Chet quickly. “I wanted to follow you. How often did we wish to leave the forest behind, when we were younger? How many lands did we see in our dreams, day after day, longing only to walk their roads with our own feet?”
“Yet in all my daydreams, I never foresaw the peril that has plagued me since I left,” said Loren. “And though I would like nothing more than your company, I am loath to bring that peril upon you, and you unaware of it. Dark things hound our steps, Chet, darker even than I have known.”
He paused, his hand scratching Midnight’s side idly. “Things the wizard told you of? Is that why you make ready to go with such haste? Are you sure you can even trust his words? Mayhap your fear is misplaced.”
“It is not,” said Loren. “If what lies ahead is half so terrible as what I have left behind me, it will be a road far more perilous than any you have traveled to get here. I will walk that road with you—but only if both your eyes are open.”
“They are,” he said, shrugging. “I can handle myself in a fight, and have learned to ride a horse. What else would I do except take the road beside you, traveling as we always meant to?”
“This is not some fanciful journey. You must not come with me if you think so.”
Chet smiled. “You have told me of the danger, Loren. That is enough. I still mean to come, unless you wish to lock me in these stables, or tie me to the trunk of some tree.”
She gave a lingering sigh. “Very well. We will take you into our company, and happily on my part. But know that if you ever wish to turn aside and go your own way, no one will think less of you. And we shall have to find you a horse, unless you wish to be tied across the back of Midnight’s saddle.”
After readying Midnight and the other steeds to ride, they went back to the inn to see about a horse for Chet. There they found Mag already busy in the common room, her well-muscled arms glistening with sweat as she bussed trays back and forth from tables to kitchen. But she stopped at once when she saw they sought her attention, and came to speak with them at the bar.
“We need a horse for Chet,” said Loren. “Do you know where we might find one from an honest seller, who will not give us some beast with a cracked hoof?”
“Why, beneath this very roof,” said Mag. “Sten!”
Her roar was sudden and sharp, as could often be her way. It always made Loren jump a little. Her husband came hastily out from the kitchen, wiping flour from his great arms with a greased rag, his bushy eyebrows drawn together and his wide mouth muttering darkly.
“Sky above, Mag, how many times have I told you not to bray after me like some donkey?”
“And how many times have I told you how I love my little ass?” said Mag, though she stood a full hand shorter than he did. “See to the common room, will you? These two need a horse.”
“The chestnut from that southern man?” said Sten.
“The same. And one last thing.” She seized the front of his collar and pulled him down for a quick kiss. But when she tried to pull away, Sten wrapped his arms around her and lifted her from her feet, burrowing his thick beard into her neck. Loren and Chet looked away, shifting their feet. Mag squealed like a little girl, but gave him a sharp chop in the ribs at the same time. Sten groaned and dropped her like a heavy sack.
“The customers!” she snapped, though she could not hide her smile. “I will be only a moment.”
Mag led them back to the stables. It held more than a dozen stalls, and most were full, four of them with the beasts Loren and her friends had brought. Near the back was a huge chestnut with a flowing golden mane. Loren had seen it as she came in and out.
“Two southern men came through here some weeks ago, from Idris or some such,” said Mag. “They each rode a horse when they arrived, but had to sell one to pay for the rest of their way north. It is a good enough beast—no warhorse, but no swaybacked farm animal, either.”
“Why did you buy it?” said Chet. “Do you often go riding?”
“Any innkeeper buys a horse for sale,” said Mag. “A good bit of business, horseflesh. Often the folk who come through my doors need a steed to carry on their journey.”
“And we will pay you handsomely for it,” said Loren firmly.
Mag pursed her lips. “Not handsomely, though I cannot give him away for free. You know I will take no coin for your room and board, but a horse is another matter. Ten gold weights I paid. That is what I will take from you, and not one more. Just passing him on, so to speak.”
