Silverkin, page 2
“That was always a possibility. I had seen it in my Foretelling as well.”
“Yours?”
“I had one before coming to this valley to find you. It set my feet on the path leading to this point. But some of it does not make sense, even now. I was also supposed to find someone else—someone who would help defeat the Sorian.”
Thealos leaned forward. “I thought that wasn’t possible.”
“I told you in Castun that only a Sorian could defeat another Sorian. But in my Foretelling, I saw a young man with Shae blood, though not a Shae, whom I was supposed to meet in Castun. I would recognize him if I saw him. He wore a patch over one eye.”
“A patch? He’s blind?”
“Not blind. He can see, but he does not understand what he sees. I searched the Shadows Wood and the surrounding lands for him. When I scouted the Bandit army, I searched among the prisoners for him. I waited in Castun as long as I dared. He never came.” Jaerod shrugged. “But I must keep looking for him, Thealos. The Sorian must not control the Silverkin. If that happens, we fail.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Did your Foretelling give you any names?”
Thealos wiped his face, feeling exhaustion seep inside him. “I have so many questions, Jaerod. But I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open. What do we do now?”
“That’s for you to decide, my friend. I’ve given you enough nudging. You know the dangers. You know the task. You must find a way to accomplish it.”
“But surely you will come with me. I…I can’t do it alone, Jaerod. I know that now.”
“I’m glad you do. Now you know how I feel. I’ve mentioned before that many who start out following our order do not make it in the end. The Sorian want us dead. The Shae do not trust us, nor do the other religions of the humans. For some, the price is just too costly. They cannot give what it takes to earn the right to wear this medallion.”
Jaerod hefted the medallion he wore and let the moonlight glimmer off its polished edge. It had always fascinated Thealos—the strange offset cross in an octagon. It was the symbol of Jaerod’s order—an order, he claimed, that had originated with the Shae.
Thealos let his fingers graze the medallion and felt magic whisper from its touch. It was a quiet magic, a subdued magic that he could barely sense.
Jaerod smiled. “There are other magics, Thealos, than the ones you’ve been taught. This symbol is an ancient magic. It goes beyond this world to the world the Shae came from. The magics of this planet are kindred to it. But it is older and deeper. It is the Oath magic. You can see how the words themselves have evolved…have been lost. In this world, you say Earth magic. Such a subtle difference, isn’t it? A small pronunciation twist and the meaning changes drastically. This medallion protects me from Firekin. But it comes at a great price.”
“What is that price, Jaerod? What must I do to earn it?”
“What do you think? What does its name suggest?”
Thealos nodded and his eyes drooped. He pinched his hand and muttered a little curse. “I have never felt so weary. I must make an oath then? You know that the Shae do not enter oaths lightly.”
“The founders of my order were Shae. My father, grandfather, and uncle were all part of it as well. In the Shae tongue, we are called Ravinir. Another interesting Silvan term.”
“It is. The word Ravin has two meanings in Silvan,” Thealos said. “It means literally ‘to break is to be broken.’ When we destroy something, we destroy a part of ourselves. It is a very difficult word for humans to understand. The nuances of it…”
“Are?”
“To be a Ravinir, you are a breaker…a destroyer. Yet you are also broken yourself.” He looked up at Jaerod and saw sadness in his eyes. The look was heartrending, so intensely personal that it clutched at Thealos’ throat. “What is the cost you must pay, Jaerod?”
“The cost is the oath we take. The agony is in keeping it. Sleep, my friend. You’ll need your strength. I’ll watch over you while you rest.”
“But I have so many questions. Please, can we talk a little longer?”
“You can hardly keep your eyes open. Think about what I have said. If you would be part of my order, you must be prepared to give away everything you hold dear. Even Avisahn.”
The thought sent a pang through Thealos’ heart. Give up his homeland? Forever? He looked at the Sleepwalker and felt the heaviness overwhelm him. “I’ve missed you, Jaerod.”
A little smile in the darkness. “Go to sleep, Thealos.”
Thealos stretched out on the cool grass and let the drowsiness take him.
* * *
Jaerod unbound the clasp that held his cloak closed and spread its warmth over Thealos as he lay sleeping. He stared at the young Shae’s face. The mouth and nose—so like his mother’s. He was a handsome young man. He had always been so. Jaerod sighed and patted his shoulder. So helpless now. So fragile in thought and sentiment.
Carefully, Jaerod knelt down in the grass, one knee up, and planted his right hand on the soft garden soil. He bowed his head and let the Oath magic swallow him up again, hiding himself from the eyes and ears of others.
“Correl,” he whispered in Silvan, though he did not need to. “I have done as I was meant to do here. The boy’s life is in your hands. I know the suffering that awaits him, Correl. Give him courage to face it. Give him strength to overcome it. Heal his heart when it is broken. It is such a hard thing he must do.” Jaerod paused, feeling the strangling pressure of the future. “He is so young. So very young, Correl.”
Jaerod reached out through the magic and laid his hand on the back of Thealos’ head. He watched a shiver run through his body.
After rising to his feet, the Sleepwalker left.
Chapter II
Exeres Tallin dreamed of a woman in a cage of gold and glass. It was a dream from his childhood, one that repeated itself often enough for him to remember the pecularity of its details. The woman was abandoned and lonely, sagging forgotten against a curving glass shield supported by ornate gold stays. The dream saddened him because he understood the loneliness of her prison. His father always said the recurring dream was trying to teach him something.
He awoke at dawn still clutching his blanket for warmth, the images of the dream still fresh in his mind. The wind invigorated him as he sat up and gazed at the massive cedars just south of where he had camped hidden in a copse of oak. Reaching over, he grabbed the gray cloth patch and covered his left eye—his blind eye—and made sure the band fit snugly. After rubbing his good eye with the back of his hand, he stood and stretched, kneading the stiffness from his shoulders and lower back. He twisted his neck until he felt it give a little snap and then sat down and pulled on his boots. The morning chill was sharp, making gooseflesh prickle down his arms. He grabbed his tunic, slid it over his head, and adjusted his medallion so that it hung exposed on his chest, marking him a Druid priest of the Zerite order. The cold made him examine the remains of the evening’s fire, and he stirred the ashes with a stick. Placing a fresh log on the pile, he focused on the Earth magic, drawing it into the wood. Flames burst alive and started crackling.
As he stared at the healthy flames, he thought about her again—the woman in the cage. He couldn’t really see what she looked like. At least not well enough to describe her. The details of the cage were vivid enough, but she had been a mystery his entire life. While he was awake, he remembered feelings more than anything. Without friends—without hope—full of despair. She was a symbol for something in his life, and he saw the similarities. He was like the woman he dreamed about. Both outcasts, both alone. Perhaps because of choice, or perhaps because of who they were. They could not fit into the world, and so the world had caged them with isolation. The world cared little for half-breeds. And cared even less for the blind.
Exeres was both.
Since he was born of a Human father and Shae mother, both societies shunned him. Was he more Shae than Man—or something different? People feared his milky white blind eye, so he suffered their rejection by wearing a patch. Their words still stung, even after so many years. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t right. It was a curse. Mixing with the Shae led to perversions like blindness.
He blinked, trying to banish the memories of his childhood. His father was dead. All of the Druid lessons and journeys through the duchies—gone. Burned to smoldering ashes in a tiny village. Exeres had left the Yukilep and ventured east to the Druids of the Isherwood. He had never suspected his father to be capable of such deceptions. He was grateful that he had not been shunned completely from the order.
After eating a sparse meal of kettle rice flavored with onions and gnerric seeds, he cleaned up his camp and carefully tended it. He stared at the fire that had warmed him and then drew the rest of its heat into himself, feeling the buzz and tingle of Earth magic beneath his skin. A small smile twisted his mouth. Memories were such honest tormentors. He thought of his father and his lessons in taming the Earth magic. His child’s tongue could not describe the feelings that using the magic had brought to blossom inside him. His father did not understand what he was trying to say. But his Shae blood awoke every time he used it. It helped him excel at the lessons. Some day he would travel to Avisahn and seek to spend a season among his mother’s people. Surely the Rules were not as austere as the Zerite oaths he had already taken.
When the camp was cleaned up, Exeres took up his walking staff, left the knot of trees, and went south to meet the border of the Shadows Wood. The Valley Druids already knew that the Bandit army had gathered there. He was one of the first that had been chosen to go and lend aid as a healer. He wondered why. Because of his skill or because his life did not matter as much? The Druids were impervious to external politics. The Zerites healed regardless of who had inflicted the injury.
The tall cedars rose like giant turrets in the distance ahead. The chill of the night quickly fled and the heat of the Inland plains soon had sweat soaking Exeres’ shirt. He knew how to use the Earth magic to make himself more comfortable but did not want to tire himself out too quickly. If the rumors were true, the Bandits had already taken the city of Landmoor. There would be plenty of wounded and sick to attend to down there. He reached the woods and paused, staring at the majestic expanse of wilderness. It reminded him of the Yukilep, only hotter. Searching the grounds nearby, he paused to collect enough giant mushrooms, turtlelock, and thimbleberries to eat later. The woods spoke to him of health and vibrancy, but there was a harmful odor to them as well—a flavor that added a bitter sting to his Shae senses. He had no idea what it meant.
His mind wandered freely as he crossed into the woodlands. He thought back on the dream. It had come to him at least once a year for as long as he could remember. At first he had thought it was a dream about his mother, but his father had dispelled that assumption. In the dream, the woman’s hair was gold, though it was always blurred by the glass, and Exeres’ hair matched his mother’s—a pale silver. His hazel eye came from her as well. The milk-white eye came from some unforeseen blight of fate that demanded cruelty accompany mischance. It was a curse that had plagued him as a child. He always wore the eyepatch. Always.
Perhaps if he had not been thinking so deeply, he would not have walked into the trap set by the Kiran Thall.
Exeres was struck from behind and found himself choking on pinescrub as the full weight of several men crushed him. Pain shot through his shoulder as someone grabbed his wrist and jerked his arm up and behind his back in a searing flash of pain.
“Got him! Lift him up! Watch for a knife…”
“This isn’t him, you fools!”
Exeres felt his body groan as it was forced backwards and his throat raised up. A blade pressed against the slope of his throat.
“Bloody Hate, he’s a priest!”
Dirt stung his good eye and he felt his patch had slipped down his face, which burned from scraping against the cedar scrub. Someone’s elbow stunned his jawbone, sending spots of light into his eyes. The knife left his throat.
“Ban it, it’s only a priest. I’d have sworn on my soul he was a Shae.”
Exeres shook his head and struggled to open his eye again. His arms were held behind his back and they forced him to stay on his knees.
“Speak up, lad. You’re a Druid?”
“I’m a Zerite.”
He tried to open his eye again, but could not because of the dirt or debris annoying the flesh. He was totally blind now.
“His hair is long enough to be Zerite. The complexion is a little weathered. Ban it, I’d have sworn he was Shae.”
“My mother was a Shae. But I am a Zerite. I have no weapons.”
Someone tugged at the Druid medallion and bent him forward. “We don’t need the Zerites any more, do we Mordon? Not with the Root. Where are you from, boy?”
“I was sent by the Druids of Isherwood. I am on my way to Landmoor.”
Someone snorted and the pain in his shoulder increased. “I don’t think so, priest. We don’t need the Zerites.”
“The dying never say that,” Exeres whispered. He bowed his head and drew in a little of the Earth magic to ease his pain. It welled up inside him, sparking sharp flavors and colors in his mind. The pain ebbed.
“What have you seen coming down from Isherwood, boy?”
“We are not spies,” Exeres replied. “I am here to comfort the sick and ease the suffering.”
“I asked you a question, boy.”
Exeres was dumbfounded at the man’s audacity. His mouth went dry. “I am here to comfort the sick and ease the suff…”
A knife went to his throat and he felt its edge slide across his skin.
“Last chance, boy.”
The man was right. An arrow whistled from the woods and struck the soldier in the throat, from the sound of it. Exeres inhaled the Earth magic, drawing it into him like he had with the fire. The thrill of it exploded in his heart, but he tamed it quickly, focusing his mind not on enjoying it but on using it. He brought his arms around and together, infused with the strength of the stones and trees. The men holding him were powerless to stop him. Another arrow whistled from the woods and brought a second man down.
“Over there! Behind that one! It’s Devers!”
Exeres was not sure who they were referring to. Reaching down, he felt on the ground for his walnut-wood staff and grasped it tightly. Coming up in a low stance, he swung it around and hammered a man in the lower back with it—right where one of his kidneys would be. He let the Earth magic be his eyes as he had always done. Dodging to his left, he felt a sword whoosh by his ear and brought the stick up to the man’s armpit, along a certain line of sensitivity running along the arm. It would cause an immense amount of pain. Exeres did not fight to kill. He never did. But he knew right where to hit a man to bring him to his knees and take the fight out of him.
The sound of horses charging rushed through the woods as more soldiers joined the scene. Exeres brought another soldier down with a well-placed blow to his temple and summoned the Earth magic in a wash to frighten away the horses. He caused the air to smell of danger and fire and soon the animals were panicking and struggling against their riders. In his mind’s eye, he could see another Kiran Thall go down, an arrow in his chest. He hated death in all its forms, but he accepted it as the natural order of the world. A brief spark of Life magic snuffed out, never to rise again. Exeres’ staff snapped as he struck another man and so he tossed the weapon aside, using his hands next. His blindness had sharpened his other senses. He could hear on his blind side and know danger coming. Drawing in more of the magic, he felt his strength bloom. He grabbed a soldier’s arm, took the man off his feet and flipped him upside down before letting him fall. The snort and whine of startled horses echoed through the trees only slightly louder than the wailing of men.
A last arrow whooshed nearby, and someone collapsed while trying to flee.
Exeres rubbed and blinked the dirt from his good eye before tugging the patch securely in place. He looked around and saw the members of the Kiran Thall sprawled around the area. It saddened him, but he had not chosen to start the conflict. One of the soldiers writhed with pain, the arrow in his lower back. Exeres hurried over to the man and rested his palm on the man’s shoulder.
“Hold still. You’re only wounded.”
The man had blood coming out of his mouth, but he writhed at his belt, trying to reach a wineskin or a pouch.
“Hold still. I’ll heal you.”
Steps approached and a hand clamped down on Exeres’ shoulder. “He’ll live, lad. Trust me. Better run while we can.”
Exeres cocked his head and looked up at the man holding a longbow. He was a rugged-looking fellow with a short beard with flecks of gray. His woodsman garb had a different style than any custom or pattern that he was familiar with. A broad sword was belted to his side. He had brought down half a company of Kiran Thall by himself. Exeres had seen the Kiran Thall kill before.
“I appreciate your help, sir,” Exeres replied and turned back to the wounded man. “But I’m a healer. I must…” Something caught his attention. A smell…a sharp bittersweet smell. A cloying smell. He looked up and saw one of the dead Kiran Thall sit up and shake himself off. It was the man who had taken the arrow in the throat. The smell of Earth magic grew thicker.
Other soldiers started twitching, and for the first time, fear began seeping into Exeres’ stomach.
The woodsman hauled Exeres to his feet. “Hope you’re strong enough to run, lad. Try and keep up.”
Exeres looked down in time to see the Kiran Thall at his feet stuff something in his mouth under his tongue. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, glazing over with pleasure. The sickly sweet smell hit Exeres in the face again.
Another dead man rose.
Exeres had no problem keeping up with the woodsman.
Chapter III
