Breath of Heaven, page 47
Tyrik watched as Matthais walked to a sideboard, setting the glasses down on a tray. He pulled a short knife from a pocket and began working at the wax sealing the wine’s cork. Flakes of it fell to the floor, and a moment later the rotund councilor pried the cork free with a small, “Ah.” He held the cork up. “Would you like a sniff? It’s Andovan, a fine vintage from the Siracusa Family vineyards. I expect it will be difficult to come by in the future.”
“What do you mean?”
Shrugging, Matthais set the cork on the tray and poured two glasses of the Siracan. “I’m certain you saw—or at least heard of—the light show earlier today. General thought is that something has happened in Andover.”
“Do you know this for certain?”
Matthais picked up the tray and brought it across the room to the desk. Light from the large bay window leading to the balcony glinted on the glassware and the gold buttons and gilt of the councilor’s vest and jacket. “Whatever do you mean?”
Tyrik tensed as he set the tray down and handed the wine across the desk. When Tyrik didn’t reach for it, he set it down before him, then turned and drifted away, toward the window and its view of the inner bay, leaving his own glass behind.
Tyrik ignored the wine.
“I mean, do you know what’s happened in Andover?”
“Of course not.”
“But you have your suspicions. You know something.”
“I am suspicious of everything…and everyone. And I know many things. For example, I know that you and Roland have been feeding me false information about the whereabouts of the Legion. I’ve spent the last few hours determining that the majority of our forces are in the southern Provinces, not along our eastern borders protecting us from the dwarren. Does the king know of this? Or is this being done behind his back?”
“The king knows. He approved of Roland’s deception. It was done by his order.”
“I see.” Matthais drifted toward the door, and for a moment Tyrik thought that the traitorous councilor would simply leave.
Then he heard the snick of the key in the lock and his hand closed tighter over the handle of the letter opener. Matthais weighed twice as much as him, was a good twenty years younger. He had no illusions that Matthais could best him in a fair fight.
But Matthais had never fought fair in his life.
“So tell me, is the wine poisoned?”
“Of course it is.” Matthais turned back toward Tyrik. “Now tell me, my good councilor, how long have you been spying on me? How long have you been reading the messages I send by pigeon? And have you been halting the messages I send out by other means?”
“Is that why you killed the dovecote’s warden?”
“That was an unfortunate accident.”
“A damned convenient accident.” The fear that had caused sweat to break out on Tyrik’s forehead suddenly shifted into anger. “You’ve betrayed the king, betrayed your sworn oath to protect him, first as regent and now as advisor. What for, Matthais? What was worth breaking your loyalties?”
“The usual. Power and immortality.”
Tyrik’s eyes widened. “You really have allied yourself with the Wraiths. Roland suspected as much. What did they offer you? What did you ask for?”
“Corsair, of course. The Provinces.” Matthais had reached the desk, stood to one side. “And to drink from the fabled Lifeblood.”
“You would become one of them. You would become a Wraith.”
“Would I? You forget the legend of Colin Harten. He drank from the Well of Sorrows, yet he did not become a Wraith.”
“What makes you think you would survive as he did? What makes you think the Wraiths would even allow you to drink the Lifeblood? They don’t respect the Provinces. They seek to destroy them, to destroy everything that we have built here. They will never allow you to rule, because by the time they are done there will be no Provinces left. They certainly will not let you drink from the waters that give them their power!”
“They wouldn’t dare. Not after what I’ve done for them.”
Tyrik laughed. “You are delusional,” he began, but he was interrupted by the sudden clanging of warning bells from the city below, muted by the closed window.
Both of the councilors looked at each other, bodies rigid with tension. Tyrik’s fingers clenched tighter around his knife, but Matthais looked just as confused as he did.
Then, from the corridor outside, they heard the tread of running feet and the rattle of armor. Someone slammed into the locked door, barked a startled curse, then pounded on the door. “Councilor Tyrik! Councilor Tyrik! Something is happening in the bay!”
“What is it?” Tyrik demanded, already rising from his seat. Matthais made for the balcony, throwing back the glass doors and stepping out onto the stone ledge beyond. Tyrik strode toward the door, but realized Matthais held the key. He veered toward the balcony, clutching the knife close to his body.
“The bay.” Tthe guard outside rattled the door again. “The water is receding!”
“What do you mean the water is receding?”
But by then he could see over Matthais’ shoulder and he gasped.
Out beyond the slope leading down to the bay, over the peaks and chimneys of the rambling city of Corsair, through the smoke haze, the water from the bay had pulled back from the docks, drawing away from the shore in a bizarre reversal of the tides. Ships tied to the docks were left standing in mud, those with shallower hulls ripping free, or tearing the docks themselves down with them. And still the ocean receded, drawing back farther and farther, stranding ships lengths from the wharf. Birds wheeled skyward, circling with raucous cries, and fish flapped on the exposed bay’s bottom, mere flashes of silver at this distance. The warning bells of the city rose higher and louder, spreading from church to church in a ripple from the bay upwards toward the palace.
“What’s happening?” Matthais turned to Tyrik, his eyes edged with panic. “What’s happening?”
Tyrik opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. He had no explanation. He had never seen anything like this, had read nothing of its like in all of his studies. He groped for an answer, his mind flailing for comprehension.
Matthais didn’t wait, his eyes glinting with madness. “You did this,” he spat, and he struck, his arm impacting with Tyrik’s chest, flinging him back against the doorway. Glass shattered as Tyrik cried out and fell, shards cutting into his side as he landed hard and rolled. Gasping, he drew himself to his knees, a shadow falling across him a moment before Matthais’ booted foot kicked into his stomach. Something in Tyrik’s chest snapped and a piercing pain stabbed into his side as he struck the stone frame of the balcony door and collapsed to the floor. He groaned and tried to rise to his knees, expecting Matthais to kick him again.
Instead, he heard a low roar, growing in intensity. Not like the roar they’d heard earlier from the west. This was lower, and escalating at a slower rate. Tyrik craned his neck upwards, saw Matthais’ attention diverted back toward the harbor. In two quick steps, the traitorous advisor moved to the balcony’s edge. “This can’t be happening. He promised me. He promised me Corsair!”
Tyrik shoved himself upwards, used the door frame for support, his clothes splattered with blood from numerous cuts from the glass. All of them were minor compared to the sharp, grating pain inside his chest. But he ignored it all, focused on Matthais, on the councilor’s exposed back, even as in the background he saw the water that had receded all the way back to the cleft in the cliffs that was the harbor’s only seaside approach begin to gush forward again. It came hard and swift, rushing forward with a speed that was stultifying, so fast that it began to spout from the stone rift, spewing outwards like a fountain, rising higher and higher. It roared forth, devouring the exposed bay in a torrent, crashing over the derelict ships and boats left behind, until it reached the docks. But it didn’t stop there. Tyrik heard screams as the water surged over the wharf, over the warehouses and taverns and up into the streets of the city behind. And still it fountained from the cleft, the roar growing into a rushing growl. Tyrik saw figures running, but the water was too fast. It ripped the ships from their moorings, tossed them up into the buildings beyond, charged down the street and gouted from windows and doorways. Entire buildings collapsed, the debris swept inland.
Before him, Matthais barked, “No, no, no! Stop this! He promised. He promised!”
Then he spun, his rounded face purple with rage.
Tyrik plunged the letter opener into his chest.
Matthais gasped and flung out an arm, catching Tyrik with a staggering blow before stumbled back himself, falling against the balcony’s balustrade, one hand rising to the blade, the other grasping ineffectually at the stone for support. Tyrik caught himself against the doorframe, then shoved forward, reaching to yank the knife from Matthais’ chest. The councilor cried out as he ripped it free, blood soaking his merchant’s jacket, obviously hurt but not mortally wounded. The shock that suffused Matthias’ pale face transformed into rage.
Before he could gather his strength again, Tyrik sank the knife into his neck.
Matthais’ tirade cut short. He looked toward Tyrik, the aged councilor standing over him as the muted screams of the dying drifted up from the harbor. He heaved in a ragged breath. “He promised me Corsair.”
Then he collapsed to one side.
Tyrik sagged against the stone balustrade, looked out grimly toward the raging ocean as it continued to pour from the cleft and surge through the city. It had spread across the entire bay, had engulfed both shores and half of the streets and buildings up the slopes of the shoreline. But the roaring force appeared to be subsiding.
He didn’t know what had caused the ocean to recede and return so forcefully, whether it was an act of the Wraiths or an act of Diermani, but whatever the cause, Corsair had been damaged badly.
Already sick with the death and destruction he knew he would witness, he reached down to Matthais and retrieved the key to his chamber doors, then strode across the room purposefully. He needed to rally the Legion. And the caddonis, arruli, and patri.
Drawing a deep breath, he winced at another sharp pain in his chest. “And I need to see a healer.”
21
Wind scoured Colin’s face as he let go of time at the northern edge of the salt flats that had nearly killed Eraeth. The wind was hot, blowing out of the Thalloran Wastelands from the northwest, and he felt his skin turn slightly waxy. His nostrils burned with the tang of the salt.
Far to the north, at the very edge of his vision, he could see a thin stretch of darkened clouds. He’d watched them for the past day or so, but they hadn’t shifted farther south. The stormfront had stalled. His eyes drifted toward the west, toward dwarren lands and the Alvritshai beyond. His heart ached to find out what had become of both races. The Wraith army—Walter’s army—had been marching to the west, its numbers far greater than Colin had expected. He hadn’t known about the disillusioned Alvritshai who had flocked to the Wraith’s banner, believing their honor lost when they’d abandoned their homeland. He hadn’t counted on the Snake People from the wastelands, either. The dwarren had warned him of them and the other creatures of the Turning, but he had discounted them. He’d thought that most had died out since the last Turning.
Instead, they’d been living in the twisted and treacherous desert, in the city at its heart.
Raising one hand to his chest to grip Karen’s vow beneath his shirt, he wrenched his gaze away from familiar lands—from the friends he knew must be fighting Walter and his armies even now—and back toward the wastes. He could help the races now, he knew, could turn the tide of a few battles, perhaps even save thousands.
But it wouldn’t matter. He couldn’t stop the entire Wraith army himself, couldn’t stop Walter’s carefully planned campaign against the races of Wrath Suvane. And he saw it had been carefully planned now. He wondered how long Walter had waited before setting it in motion. Had the Seasonal Trees interfered? Had they forced him to postpone his destruction until he could find a way to circumvent them? And what of the battles he’d waged with the Wraiths in controlling the Wells in the years before? Had they slowed Walter down?
He didn’t think he’d ever know the answers, even though he could travel back in time. And it didn’t matter. Walter’s plans were in motion, and from what he’d learned in Yhnar, the three races weren’t faring well at all. The Accord he had established so many years before had done nothing to help.
And the real problem wasn’t the Wraiths and their armies. The real problem was the Source—the Well in the Thalloran Wastelands that Walter had managed to tap into. If Colin and the three races were to have any hope of defeating the Wraiths, that Source and its power had to be eliminated.
Or blocked.
One hand reached unconsciously for his satchel, but he caught it before he could touch the worn leather. Checking for the Spring Tree’s seed within had become a nervous habit. Snatching his hand away, he reached out to seize time again, but something flickered at the corner of his eye.
He hesitated, then turned west as wave after wave of sheeting white light washed across the wide expanse of the empty sky. It flickered and flashed, like the dancing lights in the far northern icy wastes, except those lights were full of color, vibrant and ethereal and free. This light was completely white and harsh, beautiful in its own way, but it carried an underlying sense of purpose. It didn’t dance. It announced.
Colin had no idea what it announced, but he knew whatever it ordained, the lights meant destruction. They meant Walter’s plans had advanced. They almost certainly meant death.
Trembling, Colin gazed up into the skies until the white lights faded and died. Then he spun, snapped out with his power and seized time, stepping out into the Thalloran Wastelands.
The stakes had just risen. He didn’t know how, or why, but he knew the Alvritshai, the dwarren, and the human races had little time left.
* * *
“I don’t know what the lights were,” Roland growled to the array of Legion commanders who sat mounted before him in the morning’s light. He could see their unease in their eyes, in the nervous twitching of their reins and their restless mounts. “Nor the thunder that followed. But you have your orders.”
A few of the men traded glances, others straightening in their saddles at the undertone of reprimand in Roland’s voice.
Terent nudged his mount forward a step. “Then we still intend to reach Temeritt in two days?”
“Nothing changes, by order of the king.”
Terent motioned to the rest of the commanders behind him to fall out.
He turned back as soon as the others were out of earshot. “The men are already nervous, what with all of the destruction we’ve seen since leaving Goran. Those lights, that Diermani-blasted rumbling from the west, and that storm constantly hovering on the horizon to the north…it’s all setting everyone on edge. I’ve had to break up a dozen fights between the men, reprimanded more than a few. Any word from the king as to what’s causing these strange occurrences would go a long way toward settling their fears.”
“If I knew, Terent, I would tell you. I’d tell all of the men.”
“Makes me wonder what the dwarren knew when their envoy came to visit. They have legends about these things.”
Roland’s eyebrows rose, although he should have known that the dwarren envoy’s visit would not have gone unnoticed. They hadn’t tried to keep it secret at the time. He was surprised that someone had remembered after this long a time—remembered and connected it to their current problems. “I wonder as well. But the dwarren aren’t here. We are. And from what we’ve seen since Goran, there’s an army attacking Province lands. Tell the men to focus on that army, not the dwarren, and certainly not the Diermani-damned lights or storm!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
Terent slammed his left fist into his right shoulder in salute, then kneed his mount into motion toward his unit. Roland heard him calling out orders before he even reached his men, knew the Legionnaire was venting his own frustrations on them. After a quick scan of the Legion army arrayed behind him, he wove through the ranks back toward the front of the line and King Justinian’s tent. As he did, he eyed the distant town ahead of them. He could already see that nearly every building was a burnt-out husk, knew that they would find the dead scattered in the roads and fields, left for the carrion birds. It had been that way in every village and town they’d passed since leaving Goran. Each nightfall, when they stopped their march to camp, an entire unit was set to burying the dead they could find.
As he neared the tent, he caught sight of a rider approaching from the south bearing the Legion’s scouting flag. Pulling up to the guards at the king’s tent, he dismounted and handed off his reins. “Find out who that runner is and bring him to me immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
He ducked into the tent, removing his gloves as he proceeded through the outer chamber and into the king’s inner room.
Justinian sat at a small folding desk, papers spread before him, surrounded by three servants clearing away a tray containing the remains of the king’s breakfast. The arrulis Civaldi stood to one side.
“There is nothing within the Diermani Codex that would explain the lights or the thunder that followed,” Civaldi was saying, his aged voice quavering.
“No miracles? No signs from Holy Diermani that are even remotely the same?”
“No, nothing. There are many references to Diermani’s holy fire, but that has always originated from the ground. There is mention of heavenly lights from sailors and sojourns to the far north, lights that can occasionally be seen in Taranto and Avezzano and the island chains belonging to those Families, but those were described as ‘curtains of colored light of every hue and distraction.’ I would not have described the lights we saw yesterday in those terms.”
