The caretakers they encountered in the corridor gazed curiously at Karigan. “Have you brought us a new caretaker, Brienne?” a man asked.
Like all the caretakers Karigan had ever seen, his skin was smooth and pale from never having seen the sun, and he wore robes of muted gray.
“This is Sir Karigan,” Brienne replied, “a Green Rider and honorary Weapon. She has freedom of passage.”
The man bowed. “Welcome, Sir Karigan.”
“Thank you.”
As they continued on, Brienne said in a hushed voice, “A green uniform is a novelty down here, but most will know who you are and that you are not trespassing, and that this isn’t your first time here. Ah, here we are.”
They halted at a door, and Brienne knocked and entered. Agemon’s office was not large for all that he was the chief caretaker, but it was crammed with books and scrolls of all sizes, and broken bits of sculpture. Paintings on the walls depicted ocean and forest scenes, almost as if they were windows into the outer world, one he had never seen.
Across his desk lay what appeared to be a schematic of the tombs. Karigan gazed curiously at it, but it looked very complex. He rolled it up before she could make sense of it.
“Greetings, Agemon,” Brienne said. “I have brought Sir Karigan as you requested.”
“You are late,” he replied in the querulous voice Karigan remembered well. His specs slid down to the end of his nose. Though his long hair was gray, it was difficult to judge his age with his smooth skin. His manner, however, indicated someone in his elder years.
“Not by much,” Brienne replied. “I’ll wait outside.”
“No, no you will not,” Agemon said. “What I ask this—this green may be useful for your ears, as well. What is this world coming to that Black Shields are bringing green into the silent halls?”
“You know, Agemon, that Sir Karigan is our sister-at-arms.”
“Yes, yes, but to me it has no meaning. You Black Shields are turning the world upside down. What is it coming to? ‘Here, Agemon, translate this. Here, Agemon, translate that.’ The Silverwood book, you remember? It left me in the ward of the death surgeons for an entire week. An entire week!”
“I remember,” Brienne replied, “but it is the king who requested these things of you.”
“Yes, yes, His Majesty. Then I am set to impossible tasks. Seek and find. Does he realize how great this domain of the sleeping is?”
“I think he has some idea.” Brienne’s tone was placating, and Karigan knew she had to deal frequently with him. “Can’t you get anyone to help you?”
“I do have scholars assisting with the translations of the Green Rider material.” He looked pointedly at Karigan. “But this . . . this cryptic thing, this dragonfly device I am to seek in the vastness of these halls . . . Do you know how many objects, how many artifacts lie hidden here?”
“Yes, Agemon,” Brienne replied. “Why don’t you tell us why you wished to see Sir Karigan.”
He peered through his specs at Karigan. “You,” he said. “You disrupt my tombs at every turn. You, you, you.”
THE BIRDMAN’S VOICE
“Me?” Karigan said.
Agemon pointed a shaking finger at her. “Yes, yes. You take the great Ambrioth’s sword; you turn my tombs into turmoil. You come as a false Black Shield. You take royal robes from the dead and stain priceless carpets with blood. You.”
“Agemon!” Brienne snapped. “You know it was the king who wanted Sir Karigan to have the use of the First Rider’s sword back then, and you know it was returned unscathed. As for the other things, she saved your hide that night, and prevented the Silverwood book from falling into the hands of Second Empire.”
Agemon glowered in response.
“May I remind you,” Brienne said, “that you are the one who asked her to come here today?”
Karigan placed her hand on the Weapon’s arm. “It’s all right, Sergeant. It seems I am overdue to offer an apology.” The tombs were Agemon’s entire life, one of order and serenity, until she had come and disrupted it all. She imagined that before that first time she and the others had entered the tombs, there’d been almost no contact between the caretakers and the outside world and its problems, with the exception of the tomb Weapons doing their duty as they had for centuries. Now the outside world was interfering with Agemon’s day-to-day routine by asking him to translate old documents and search for an artifact that may not even exist.
“Please accept my deepest apologies,” she said, placing her hand over her heart, “for my transgressions.” She bowed low.
“Well, now.” Agemon pushed his specs onto the bridge of his nose. “That is tolerable. But I would like Sergeant Quinn’s assurance that this highly suspect status of ‘honorary Weapon’ is not a sham.”
“As a matter of fact,” Brienne said, “I can give you that assurance.” She pulled two letters from beneath her cloak. One held the king’s seal, and the other a seal of black wax imprinted with a black shield.
Agemon took the letters.
“One,” Brienne told him, “was personally written by the king ordering you to accept Sir Karigan’s presence here, and to reassure you she is not breaking taboo. The other is from Counselor Tallman certifying Sir Karigan’s status.”
Karigan shifted her weight with a sense of unease. It seemed like people had gone to an awful lot of effort on behalf of her honorary Weaponhood. Now she couldn’t back out of it even if she wanted to, and it felt like there were those who wanted to ensure she didn’t.
When Agemon finished reading the letters, he said, “I suppose these are genuine.”
“Oh, for the sake of the gods,” Brienne said in exasperation. She was uncharacteristically expressive for a Weapon, but Agemon was enough to try the most patient of souls.
“It is quite unorthodox,” he said. “There is no precedent.”
At that moment, a light gray cat rubbed against the door frame, entered the office, and jumped onto his desk.
“What are you doing here, Lizzie?” Agemon demanded of the cat.
“Meow.”
Stepping lightly over papers, books, and pens, the cat looked at Karigan and unceremoniously leaped into her arms and started to purr loudly. Karigan scratched her under her chin.
Agemon sat hard in his chair, looking confounded, or perhaps even betrayed. “Lizzie likes her.”
“One of the others has claimed Sir Karigan,” Brienne said with a smug expression. “She calls him Ghost Kitty.”
Agemon shook his head mournfully. “I guess I must accept it, this green. Not because I want to, but because I cannot ignore the signs.”
Karigan set Lizzie down on the floor. Letters from the king and the head of the Weapons had not convinced Agemon, but a cat did?
“There may be no precedent for this,” Brienne said, “but Sir Karigan is the precedent. Shall we get on with business?”
“Yes, yes.” He blinked at Karigan like a wizened owl. “The king tells me, ‘Agemon, you must search for the dragonfly device.’ And I say, ‘Dragonfly device? I do not know what this is.’ The king says, ‘It may be in the tombs.’ You—” and he pointed again at Karigan, “—you put this notion in his head.”
Agemon’s various accusations were wearying, but she took a deep breath. “Yes? What of it?”
“Do you realize the hundreds of thousands of artifacts down here? The time it would take? And what is this thing, this dragonfly device?”
“I don’t . . .” She tried to remember. When she’d returned from the future, she’d attempted to tell the king and captain everything she could before her memory failed completely. Fortunately the captain had made a transcript. Karigan had written down her recollections, as well. It must have made sense at the time, but a certain amount was garbled nonsense, and trying to understand it was like trying to apply logic to a strange dream. Her memory of the drago
nfly device was really what she recalled of what had been recorded in the transcript. “It’s a . . . an object that is supposed to repel Mornhavon’s great weapon. If found, we might be able to prevent the fall of Sacoridia.”
“You were informed,” Brienne told Agemon, “that Sir Karigan brought this information back from the future, that she knows what a defeated Sacoridia looks like.”
“Yes, of course. There are many layers of the world.” His dismissive tone was almost amusing. “But what kind of object is it? I do not know what we are looking for.”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Karigan had drawn a stick figure that appeared to be holding a shield and sword or spear. She could not remember the source. “Something about the Sealenders,” she murmured. “Were you shown a drawing?”
Agemon sighed loudly. “Yes, yes. You know nothing more?”
“I’m sorry. Just that maybe the stick figure is holding something that is the dragonfly device.”
“Waste of time.”
Karigan clenched her hands at her sides. It was perhaps the single most important piece of information she’d brought back. She stepped up to his desk and looked down at him, no longer apologetic. A great cold fury overcame her and it was like frost drafted off her body. Darkness closed on the edge of her vision where stars shone searing and infinite. In a voice that wasn’t quite her own and was layered over by the frozen depths of the heavens, she said, “So you prefer a world in which your country falls? In which Sacor City is destroyed and your countrymen oppressed and enslaved?”
Brienne gave her a sidelong glance, as if not sure what it was she was witnessing. “It is pointless, Sir Karigan. Agemon’s world is here, and he has no connection to the outside except on the occasion of a royal death.”
Karigan stared unwaveringly at Agemon. “If you believe you are safe here, you are mistaken. In the future I visited, the tombs remained and were attended by Weapons and caretakers, but they were soon to be breached and invaded by those who wanted the dragonfly device to eliminate its threat to the empire.” She leaned over his desk in her intensity, and he quailed in his chair, his face paler than normal. Her voice took on added power and authority. She felt great wings beat the air about her. “Do you wish outsiders to invade your tombs? Godless invaders with no reverence for the dead? What do you think they would do to those you’ve cared for all these years, and all the artifacts? What would they do to the living? Your descendants?
“You have no idea,” she continued in a harsh tone, “what was sacrificed so I could return to bring back this one hope that might save our people.”
“Of—of course I do not wish this. Not upon my tombs or my people.” Agemon fiddled with his specs. “Not upon my king or country.”
“Good,” Brienne said. “I, for one, am relieved to hear it. Frankly, I was beginning to wonder.”
Karigan staggered back then, Brienne steadying her. She felt drained, addled, unsure of what had come over her. Both Brienne and Agemon looked at her like they’d seen one of the tombs’ corpses rise from the dead.
“Long day,” she murmured.
“Hmm,” Brienne said. “Well, I think this interview is over.”
Agemon stood and rounded his desk. He looked up at Karigan with a contrite expression. “It is my turn to apologize, yes, yes. I did not mean to disregard your sacrifices, and I assure you, we will seek the dragonfly device until we find it, wherever, and whatever, it may be.” Then he leaned toward her and whispered, “You speak with the voice of the Birdman, yes, yes. You are his, and you are welcome in the tombs.”
Karigan stepped back, disturbed. The god of death? What was he talking about? The next thing she knew, he was ushering them out of his office, and he slammed the door behind them.
Brienne’s expression was both inscrutable and annoyed as she stared back at the closed door, like she wanted to say something, but only training stayed her tongue. She turned and led Karigan back down the corridor with quick strides. When they emerged into the tombs, she carefully closed the secret door behind them.
Brienne gazed at her. “I do not know . . .”
“Know what?” Karigan asked.
“I do not know what happened back there.” Brienne peered at her as if to divine something about her that lay beneath the surface. Apparently not seeing what she sought, she said, “Whatever it was, you got Agemon to come to his senses.” She started walking again. Karigan hurried to catch up. “He is not a bad person, just very focused, short-sighted even, and often he forgets about the living. He takes a lot of patience to deal with.”
“I noticed,” Karigan said, keeping pace along the rows of sarcophagi.
“Yes, well, somehow I am the one who has been given the duty of liaising with him over the years. You did well, apologizing and bowing to him like you did. It disarmed him. And the rest?” Whatever else was on her mind, she did not speak it, but rapidly led Karigan out of the tombs and into the living world above.
By the time she reached the castle’s main hall and heard the bell for five hour, all Karigan knew was that she was sore from her session with Drent, and maybe a hot bath would not only soothe her muscles, but tease out the chill that had overcome her in the tombs.
AUREAS SLEE
The aureas slee drifted as an ice vapor upon the arctic winds as it had since it lost the battle among the humans. Slee nursed its wound, where the female had hacked its limb off. The limb would re-form just as winter’s snow replenished the great ice fields of the far north, but it was still grievous to be wounded, and even more so to suffer defeat.
Slee remembered, from long ago interactions with the humans, that they fought savagely to protect their own, especially in defense of their young. Slee should have been more subtle, but the compulsion, the calling for the attack, had been strong—a calling Slee resented, as it resented being ordered about by any mortal being.
Now that Slee had seen the irresistible prize that was the beautiful queen and her unborn children in the large dwelling of the humans, however, the desire to return was great. Yes, soon, soon, Slee would return to claim what was Slee’s, and to seek vengeance. This time there would be no defeat.
TRAINEES
When Karigan arrived at the field house the next morning to assist Arms Master Gresia with sword training, she’d been expecting the trainees to be a group of the newer Riders, not her captain, lieutenant, and chief.
“Well,” Captain Mapstone said, “isn’t this interesting.”
An understatement, Karigan thought.
“Are you here for remedial training, too?” Connly asked.
“She’s a swordmaster,” Mara said. “Drent beats up on her regularly.”
“I know. I was trying to make a joke.”
“Ah, very good,” Arms Master Gresia said, emerging into the weapons room. “Everyone choose a practice sword and let’s warm up. You, too, Sir Karigan.”
Karigan picked out a wooden sword and followed the others out into the main training room and started stretching. One thing was certain, if she kept working with Gresia in addition to her own training with Drent, she was bound to be in better condition than ever. She was still stiff from her first training as a swordmaster, but already, with the stretching, she was loosening up.
When it came to running and other exercises, the captain lagged, which was not surprising since her work required that she spend so much time sitting. She also had a few years on the rest of them. Gresia ran with her, not pushing her, but encouraging her, and allowing her to stop before everyone else.
They did some basic exercises with the swords, Karigan demonstrating as necessary while Gresia explained the finer points of various defenses and offenses. She soon realized she had also been requested to assist so they could pair up for bouts; otherwise, one of the three would have to spend time just watching, which was not efficient.
She was relieved to be paired up wi
th Mara. The idea of trying to fight her captain was rather intimidating—not because the captain would best her, but because the captain was the captain. Inevitably, they’d end up switching partners and they’d have to face one another at some point, which she did not look forward to.
Gresia had them go through more basic exercises, first slowly, then picking up momentum, the clack of wood sounding dull compared to the ring of steel Karigan recalled from her swordmaster training session.
As she and Mara worked, she caught movement in the corner of her eye. Three others had entered the training chamber. A quick glance told her one was Drent, and one a Weapon, and . . .
She focused on parrying a swift blow from Mara.
“Not bad,” Karigan said, pushing her back with a quick exchange.
Mara grinned. “I practiced staff fighting with Donal while you were gone. Some of the moves and principles are similar.”
It showed. Mara was quick and Karigan needed to pay attention, but now a bout had begun in one of the other practice rings with Drent overseeing the Weapon and the third person. She squinted and saw, with some surprise, that it was King Zachary. She supposed she shouldn’t be too surprised because he was, after all, a swordmaster himself and must keep up on his training, and it certainly was not the first time she had encountered him working with Drent.
As he faced off with Fastion, Karigan tried to return her attention to her own bout, but as she thrust and parried, her gaze kept slipping away to the king. He was even more adroit with the sword than a poker, and his exchange of blows with Fastion was lightning quick. Their steel sang, counterpoint to the dull clatter of the wooden practice swords the Riders used. She could not help but admire how the king—
Whack! Mara swatted the side of Karigan’s thigh.
“Ow!” She hopped about the ring while Mara looked on with her hand on her hip.
“Someone wasn’t paying attention,” Gresia said.
Karigan was about to protest when she hopped too far and tripped over one of the planks that bounded the practice ring. She spilled unceremoniously onto the floor. As she looked upward, she decided she was getting much too familiar with this view of the ceiling. She raised herself on her elbows to find Gresia, the captain, Connly, and Mara gazing down at her. Mara looked particularly smug. Then to Karigan’s dismay, Drent stomped over to join them.