CHAPTER 9: Rumors and Resolve
“He certainly has the warrior essence to him,” said Pitbull, wiping the foam from the stubble above his lip. “I got close enough to the bastard to see that. But I can’t tell if his blood runs black.”
Aiyan took a sip of his sherry. “Seems likely, if he has the essence. But Morae could still be teaching him, not quite ready for the ceremony with Cauldin — ‘kissing his hand’ I believe they call it. You were face to face with him, Kyric. What do you think?”
“He has no love for Morae. I can tell you that.” Recalling the dream of blood drinking, his wine suddenly tasted too sweet, and he set his glass down on the table.
Aiyan had wisely chosen a corner table at The Peacock’s Tale before it began to fill. Kyric could then sit with his back to the room and avoid all the back patting and shouts of “nice shooting,” and the ones who just wanted to chat with him for a while and tell him all about themselves. He couldn’t imagine the attention he would have got had he won the gold arrow.
When he had finally found the judge who had collected the arrows, the man had only half of them. The rest had been taken as souvenirs, the magic arrow among them. Might as well tell them now.
“Pitbull, I lost your enchanted arrow.”
Pitbull answered him with a wide grin. “It doesn’t matter to me. It belonged to Aiyan.” He tried to conceal his laughter by burying his face in a gigantic tankard.
Aiyan visibly struggled with some kind of secret mirth. “You see — “ he began to say, but then Pitbull laughed into his beer and Aiyan broke into a chuckle he couldn’t speak through.
“What?” said Kyric.
“The thing is,” Aiyan managed to say. Pitbull threw his head back with spasms of hard laughter and Aiyan had to pause again. “There was nothing at all magical about that arrow. It was a good arrow; I bought it from the best fletcher in town, but it wasn’t enchanted.”
“I don’t have the slightest idea of how to make a magic arrow,” said Pitbull, wiping tears from his cheeks. “I don’t know anyone who does.” His giggles started up again. “The symbols I painted on the shaft don’t mean anything — I just made them up.”
“But it worked,” Kyric said to Aiyan.
“It opened you to the possibility of a spiritual link between the archer and the arrow. This is the key to the essence of the warrior. The way the Unknowable Forces enter your dreams tells me that this has been coming for some time. You just needed a little push.”
Suddenly serious, Pitbull made a mournful sound. “Communion with the Unknowable Forces at your age, and with as little as you know, must be both terrible and sublime.”
The food came and they dined on shellfish, spiced greens, and cold tomato soup. The waiter recognized Kyric and he had to stop and pull out the silver arrow so the waiter could see it up close.
When they had finished, Pitbull said, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Aiyan. Ever since the games started I’ve been hearing stories about creatures in the sewers that come out at night. They’re the size of a large dog, and they crawl around on walls like lizards. As many as three have been spotted together. Here’s the strange part — they’ve been seen trying to open shutters and windows on folk’s houses. You hear all sorts of things when the games are on, so I didn’t think much of it until a constable I know brings me a strip of hairless hide. Seems that a doctor caught one climbing in his daughter’s bedroom window and shot it. It got away, and there was no blood, but he apparently blew a piece of its skin off.”
“Did he say what the creature looked like?”
“Only that it had hands. Anyway, in layman’s terms this hide is naturally magical, like a firebird’s tooth or a dragon’s scale.”
Aiyan leaned forward. “A creation of Derndra?”
“That was my thought,” Pitbull said. “No one really knows how much of Derndra’s Palace lies intact beneath the new city.”
Kyric blinked twice. “You think these creatures have been down there for a thousand years?”
“Why not?” Pitbull said, picking at his teeth with a fingernail. “Firebirds and dragons live many thousands of years.”
Kyric thought for a moment. Something about this rang familiar. “This reminds me of a passage in the Edda of Derndra, but I can’t remember it.”
“I thought you knew them all,” Aiyan said.
“I can recite them, but it’s hard to pull a line out of the middle of a given book. I just need to sift through my memory. I’ll think of it eventually.”
Aiyan said to Pitbull, “So these creatures have only been spotted in the last few days?”
“That’s what I hear.”
“Curious. Let’s say for argument that the enemy has been digging around and came across these things. What would it take to control them?”
Pitbull held up one finger. “Control is iffy with any magical creature and it’s very complicated. If they have a magician skilled at touching minds he could send them out on simple errands.”
“Such as looking for a missing book?”
Pitbull drummed the table for a moment. “Not likely. They would have to show the creatures which house to look in. But if a magician had one of Derndra’s original grimoires, then yes, it could be done.
“Of course the kind of devices Derndra built leads to all sorts of possibilities. No one has mentioned seeing any kind of collar around their necks, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find one. The creatures would then be linked to a controlling device, something like a ring or an amulet. Some of the ancient artifacts were so powerful that they would cast their magic in anyone’s hands.”
“If they had a magician,” Aiyan said, “wouldn’t they have found me and the book by now?”
“Many of us aren’t finders. If there was another finder in town I would know it.”
“How’s that?” Kyric asked.
“We would have found each other.”
“It may not have anything to do with us,” Aiyan said. “Except that I don’t believe in coincidence.”
The taper in the middle of the table had burned low, and Kyric let his finger play with the tiny flame. “What are you going to do about Stefin Vaust?”
“I’m not sure,” Aiyan said. “See what happens at the royal soiree tomorrow night. To be honest, I keep expecting one the masters of Esaiya to appear.”
Pitbull shrugged. “The barrier around that little island sometimes works both ways.”
“Still, being so close to home, I thought that Grandmaster Alessi would have sensed them.” He patted the pocket pistol beneath his vest. “I should have sneaked up to their box today and shot him in the head myself.”
“You know you can’t take them unawares.”
Aiyan nodded.
“Then go to the narrows and signal the masters,” said Pitbull.
“I would have to find a horse and ride all night in order to make it to the reception. I’ll do that if I have to, but we’ll go to the reception first.”
Pitbull placed one hand in the other. “I tell you this, Aiyan. I feel something connected to this little party — a significant vibration.”
Kyric made a leap of thought. “What is the moment?”
They both gave him a sharp look, Pitbull breaking into a grin. “It is the moment of the dance.”
“Then we must step lightly,” Aiyan said.
Kyric looked from one to the other. “I take it that we’re not talking about ballroom dancing?”
“What’s happening now between Aiyan and Morae,” Pitbull said, “that is the dance.”
They sat quietly and listened to the rise and fall of the dinnertime hubbub. Pitbull drained the last of his beer. “Well, I’m off. The wife and children are probably home by now.”
“My love to Estia,” said Aiyan.
Kyric was surprised that he was married. He couldn’t help but ask, “Your wife, is she . . . “
“A little woman??
?? said Pitbull with a wry smile. “Yes she is. But the kids are all full size.”
Aiyan tried taking the back ways to Sedlik’s house. The streets lay jammed with more people each night, and even the quiet narrow lanes had their share of traffic. After turning a corner Aiyan pulled Kyric into a dark doorway. “The crowded streets certainly make it easy to follow someone without being seen,” he whispered.
Kyric held still in the dark. “Are we being followed?”
“If we are, we’re in much more trouble than I thought. Still we must take every precaution. For the sake of our friends.”
He watched for a time, then, still watching, he said to Kyric, “You can still walk away from this.” When Kyric didn’t say anything he said, “I have my invitation. And I think you would be safe on your own now.”
Kyric looked at the people drifting past, their paper lamps bobbing like bright flowers in a flowing stream. “I don’t have anything else to do.”
Aiyan turned to him. “You have plenty to do, such as making a life for yourself. With your education you could easily get work as a tutor. Young as you are, I think you have the temperament to be a teacher. And then there’s making friends and meeting girls.”
“What was it you told me earlier — you don’t get over it in a few days?”
Aiyan nodded. “So you wish to pay them back. Don’t worry. Stay with me and you’ll get your shot at them. But you’ve heard the expression, ‘Be careful what you wish for?’ It doesn’t say nearly enough. If you wish to do violence to these men, you may get that, but if you do there will be so much more.”
Kyric thought about it as they walked on. He was angry. He did want to pay them back. And more. This felt strange. His mother had raised him to never fight back, and the rune sisters always preached non-violence.
When they arrived at Sedlik’s house, Jela was in her sewing room facing four evening dresses hanging on wooden racks. And when Aiyan told her that he was going in her place she wailed so loudly that Sedlik came down to see what was the matter, instantly angry at the mention that Stefin Vaust could be a Knight of the Dragon’s Blood.
“You don’t know that for sure,” Jela said to Aiyan. “What if I promise to have nothing to do with him? I just want to meet Princess Aerlyn same as you.”
“No!” Sedlik shouted. “You will not go. If I have to lock you in your room for two days you will not go near them. You know what they are.” His pointed stare at Aiyan was clearly an accusation.
“Listen to me, my sweet,” Aiyan said gently. “While this appears to be a simple party, we will in fact be playing a deadly game. And your presence there would make it even more dangerous for Kyric and me. You wouldn’t want to see either of us hurt would you?”
She shook her head, a slow tear leaking from the corner of one eye.
“Besides, I need my name on the pass.”
Jela wiped her eye. “It’s being held at the fairground, not the residence. Someone like you could easily find a way to get in.”
Aiyan smiled. “Perhaps I could, but this is better. For all of us.”
She tried a different tack. “Kyric could stay here and I could go with you. That way you would be there to keep an eye on me.”
They all shook their heads at her.
She glared at Kyric. “I don’t why you’re involved in this anyway. Why are you even here?”
He had no answer for her.
“You, you . . . men!” she said with more than a little contempt. She gathered her dresses into a great wad and stamped up the stairs to her bed chamber.
Later, as Kyric lay in the guest bed listening to the endless revels out in the streets, he realized that she had called him a man. Aiyan had done so as well at the games. All his life it had been boy, or kid, or son, or lad. He smiled. Jela liked him. He was sure of it.
She still seemed a little miffed the next morning, answering politely only when spoken to, but she smiled at them all, humming a lively tune as she packed her lunch for the last day of the games. Kyric spending the day with she and her friends was apparently out of the question now. When she left the house she carried an extra bag and one of her formal evening dresses.
“I’m going to Sercey’s after the closing of the games,” she told Sedlik. “There’s a dance at New Market Square tonight. Don’t wait up.”
“Even more impertinent than her mother,” Sedlik said to the closed door after she had gone.
Aiyan and Kyric returned to the tailor’s shop at noon for the fitting. A small adjustment, a few stitches, and it was done. They stood in front of the tailor’s glass, looking like a pair of barons in a painting, Aiyan in the white and silver of Sedlik’s finest doublet, Kyric wearing charcoal with pleated sleeves of sky blue, a match for his hair and eyes. Fashion required both of them to wedge themselves into uncomfortable shoes with large buckles.
They strolled past the Games Pavilion on the way back, Aiyan stalking through the crowd like a hunting beast. Looking for Morae, Kyric imagined, ready to cut him down should he come upon him unguarded. But Senator Lekon’s box lay empty that day. At least Kyric was able to watch a few footraces.
Later, after they had returned to Sedlik’s house, they sat at the kitchen table. The sun had passed zenith, and the windows lay in shadow now, the thick stones of the kitchen wall a fortress against the afternoon heat. They spoke of small matters for a while, then Kyric asked Aiyan, “How did you come to be a Knight of the Flaming Blade?”
“That’s not so long a story,” Aiyan said, darkly amused. “My parents were actors in a traveling troupe, and I grew up in the towns along the highroad thinking that I would be the same, even going onstage at times when they needed a child in a scene.”
“I see,” Kyric said. “That’s how you know about makeup and Captain Bombasto, and why you can speak like a bumpkin or an aristocrat.”
Aiyan nodded. “That all changed when I was seventeen and Jakavia went to war with Sevdin and Kandin. We were trapped in Sevdin during the siege, and the Jakavians were firing bombs into the city. Everyone was afraid and food became scarce, so it seemed sensible for me to volunteer for the army. One night while I was on sentry duty, a shell hit my parents’ wagon, killing them both.”
Kyric could see a momentary blankness cross his eyes, remembered feelings of helplessness.
“Soon after that,” he continued, “I heard about a man named Thurlun, a mercenary captain employed by the Doge to raise a small band of raiders. I went to him at once. He must have thought me a bloodthirsty kid because he signed me without a question. His idea was to have small boats land us behind the siege lines at night, and for us to attack supply depots. But the depots turned out to be too well guarded, so what we ended up doing was killing soldiers with important skills. We would sneak into the camps and quarters of artillerymen, sappers, junior officers and the like and kill them as they awoke in confusion. We began staying out for a week at a time, hiding in the woods by day and killing and looting at night.
“The Jakavians started sending out night patrols against us and the game got trickier. We learned to move silently and leave no trace, and to paint our faces and be invisible. Thurlun was a master hunter. We set ambushes that left no one alive, and I shot plenty of men in the back on those nights. At length, the Jakavians learned our art, and one night it was us caught in an ambush. It was a clumsy one and most of us survived, but after we started taking casualties of our own it got even uglier.
“But at last the war ended in something like a draw, and the Jakavians went home. And in thanks, the State of Sevdin accused Thurlun of war crimes and refused to pay us for our months of killing in its name. Many of us had no home to return to, so we became brigands of a sort. At first just stealing food so we could eat. Later, outright robbery. It all came to a head when my friend Jussin killed an elderly man who tried to hit him with his cane. He didn’t have to shoot the old guy; he could have simply pushed him down
into the dirt.
“They sent the cavalry to hunt us down, but Thurlun proved to be a clever devil and we eluded them for some time. In the end a man named Bortolamae helped them trap us in the hills after a running fight. He had known the old man that Jussin killed. Half of us were wounded and I had one of his arrows in my gut. He told us that if we would name the man that had killed the old fellow and lay down our arms, the rest of us would be granted amnesty. He also said that if any of us sought redemption for what they had done, he would lead them to it.
“I was badly hurt and filled with regret. Jussin had saved my life twice, and there had been a time when I would have stepped in front of an arquebus for him. But when I saw that no one else would do it, I named Jussin and begged for redemption. I was barely eighteen and had killed more men than I could count.
“I awoke alone in the back of an open wagon, a nicely sewed spot where the arrow had been. I remember that it was a cold grey day and Bortolamae was driving us into the highlands. Snow flurries swirled on the wind. He took me to an old magician named Niebo and told me he would return in a few months when I had healed. Pitbull was his only student and that tells you how long he and I have been friends. Niebo told me the saga of the Knights of the Pyxidium and introduced me to the weird arts and other non-magical ways. The knowing of moments and places. He was hard on Pitbull and easy on me. We all liked a funny story and I remember laughter in the evenings, and when the springtime flowers bloomed more than my wound had healed in me.
“Bortolamae came back on the last day of spring and I spent four years traveling with him and learning from him, and hardly a single day passed without him drilling me mercilessly with longsword or bow. He would lead us headlong into ugly situations, and we were in some very bad fights. In time I came to see his blade flame and to see the black blood, and I came to know much of the truth that lies beyond the veil of reason. Then one morning in the middle of practice, he stopped and asked me what I was doing still following him around. I left for Esaiya that day.”
“What happened to him?” Kyric asked hoarsely.
“He is now a master of the order and lives on Esaiya as a teacher.” Aiyan’s voice dropped to a low whisper. “If no one else, I thought that he would come to my aid.”
Anticipating a long night, they rested a time before beginning the elaborate task of bathing, shaving, and dressing to meet a princess. Aiyan shaved all his beard except for a tasteful spot on the tip of his chin to go with his moustache, and left his hair unbraided, letting it fall to his shoulders in chestnut waves. When every button had been fastened, and all cravats and sashes fashionably tied, Aiyan removed his sword from its belt and carefully unwrapped the weathered deerskin from scabbard revealing a rich dark wood lying beneath. A splash of seed oil on a cloth and it ran with streaks of light. Peeling away the old leather from the grip unveiled a hilt of polished ivory inscribed with fine lines and set with pearls. It looked like a different sword.
He threaded his locket beneath the doublet and tucked it into his sash, then he slipped the sword through the silver sash and stood before Kyric and Sedlik. “It feels out of place with this costume. Does it look awkward? Is the hilt too long for dancing?” For a moment the warrior was disarmed and he became a nervous actor on opening night.
“It’s not as subtle as the dress sword currently in fashion, but it is surprisingly elegant,” Sedlik said, his voice edged with amusement. “Less gaudy than those ceremonial sabres that the military men will be wearing.”
Kyric thought of Elistar, the mythological warrior who rode to Aerth on the back of the eldest firebird, armored in light. “You look magnificent,” he said.
Sedlik examined Kyric, adjusting his cravat. “Are you not going to wear the silver arrow?”
“Yes, wear the arrow,” Aiyan said.
While Kyric hung the arrow around his neck, Aiyan found his pocket pistol and hid it in the small of his back, under the sash. “I need both of yours as well,” he said, turning to Sedlik, “for Kyric. I know you have a matched set.”
“Yes,” Sedlik said, going to get them, “you gave them to me. And I’m glad to never have used them.” He handed the little pistols to Aiyan. “Going armed to royal receptions — I so envy your social life, Aiyan. You must let me toady along next time.”
Aiyan loaded the pistols and showed Kyric how to tuck them into his sash so that they did not show.
“By the way,” Sedlik said, “they’ve stopped searching everyone at the gates and docks. You can take that book and leave the city anytime you want. Tomorrow if you want.”
“Tomorrow then,” said Aiyan. “Or maybe the day after. And thank you.”
Sedlik handed Aiyan a handkerchief to carry in his sleeve. “I never meant to say that I was merely repaying a debt, Aiyan. That was foolish of me. I am your friend.”
Aiyan took the handkerchief. “I’ve always known that.”
Going to a front window, he peeked out. “Probably impossible to get a cab at this hour. We’ll slip out the back alley and walk there.” Turning to Sedlik he said, “Bar the door after us. In fact, keep all the doors and windows locked at all times until this is over.”
Sedlik nodded. “Already done.”