Chapter Seventeen: The Lands of the Kindred
As they rode, the Prince began remembering what the Imperial scholars had told him about the Kindred, and also what he had been able to glean from forbidden texts in the secret Fortress Library that held accounts of the generals who had attempted to invade the Kindred’s sanctuary. What it came down to in the end was that while the Empire had far superior numbers, strategists, and all the resources of war, they could not bring these things to bear on the Kindred. The Pass of Roarke forced the Empire to invade through a single fixed point. A number of times, an ocean attack had been tried, but the shores that bordered the nation south of the mountains were a series of treacherous cliffs and murderous tides, impossible for a large force to navigate. But even given these obstacles, the Empire should have conquered long ago. It was, in the end, the ingenuity of the Kindred themselves that had fended off the Empire for nearly one thousand years.
Any invading army that managed to pass beyond Roarke, through the mountains, and into the land of the Kindred, found itself wandering aimlessly through lands that turned from desert to forest overnight. Rivers would erupt from bare rock, cutting an army in two. Days and nights were not fixed – darkness would fall sometimes barely hours after the sun rose, and sometimes day would continue on for an entire week. The only man who had been able to successfully invade the Kindred lands was the Prince of Oxen, and only because he had pushed his army with no concern for his men’s wellbeing. Twice he had invaded with a force numbering in the hundreds of thousands and tracked down the Exiles, but twice he had been repulsed, his army too worn down by attrition to win the day.
The Prince had never heard more than wild speculation as to how the Kindred were able to manipulate the land. Some said it was an ancient magic that had existed before the Empress had come from across the sea; others said that one of the servants who had come with Her had betrayed Her and taken Her secrets to the farthest part of the Empire. Still others, the most zealous of Her followers, insisted that it was the Empress’ will to allow the Exiled Kindred to remain, and that She would, on the day of Her Reckoning, lead an army into the heart of the lands and wipe them from the face of the earth, turning illusion into reality.
Once they had descended from the mountains, the Prince was informed by the Exiles that the city of Vale, nexus of the Exiled Kindred’s power, and final stronghold against the ever-looming shadow of the Empress on her Diamond Throne, was located barely more than a full day of travel from the Pass of Roarke. The Prince reined in his horse abruptly and the others all stopped to look at him.
“What?” he asked in shock. “That’s impossible!”
The red-eyed Eshendai laughed; the sound rang out with a rich baritone quality that, again, seemed to mock the Prince.
“I thought you said he was one of the Most High?” the young man said to Leah. “I thought he’d be more intelligent.”
The Prince’s blood boiled and he had to fight to keep his hand from reaching for the dagger at his belt. Tomaz seemed to have read the Prince’s mind and hastily broke in with a deep rumble.
“The magic of the Council of Elders makes it so that anyone without an Anchor is unable to see through the protections we have in place. It’s the greatest of our defenses against the Empire.”
Davydd, still chuckling, rode on ahead with Lorna, and the Prince sullenly followed, Leah and Tomaz hanging back with him.
“What’s an Anchor?” the Prince asked.
“It’s a kind of totem, unique to each person who carries it,” Tomaz responded. He gave the Prince a brief look of interest mingled with excited anticipation.
“I wonder what will happen to you without one?”
“Wait – why can’t you give me one?”
“What part of ‘unique to each person who carries it’ didn’t you understand, princeling?”
The Prince looked over at Leah. She had cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Even if we somehow had a spare Anchor it wouldn’t work for you.”
“Why not?”
“An Anchor is only given to those who have sworn loyalty to the Council of Elders above the Empire, for the preservation of the nation of Aemon.”
“What is Aemon?”
“Aemon was the first Exiled Kindred,” Tomaz responded. “He founded the Kindred with the help of the land’s original inhabitants.”
“The savages?” the Prince asked skeptically.
Leah and Tomaz exchanged a glance.
“Keep that opinion to yourself,” the big man rumbled. “Most of the Kindred are not Exiles from the Empire like we are. We joined them, yes, but they have been here for longer than living memory – before the Empress came. The people who live in Vale are their descendants, mixed with those like us who they took in.”
“The Exiled Servant,” the Prince said slowly.
“What?’ Leah asked sharply.
“A story,” the Prince explained, “I was told when I was growing up. A servant who came over with my … with the Empress when she crossed the sea. He stole one of her greatest secrets and fled, taking refuge in the mountains. He was never found.”
“Aemon,” Tomaz said, nodding. “That man was Aemon.”
The Prince looked up, and suddenly they were now in the middle of the strangest forest he’d ever seen.
“Argh!”
He turned around and looked behind them. There was foliage as far as the eye could see, large trees he had no name for dripping long ropes of what he assumed must be vines. A bird the size of an eagle flew over his head with a bill made of the colors of the rainbow. There was no sign of the mountains they had just crossed over, and heat lay heavy on him like a wet blanket.
“How – how are we in forest?” he asked, fighting to keep his voice calm.
“A forest?” Tomaz asked excitedly.
“Yes, a forest!”
“We’re not in a forest, princeling,” Leah said. “We’re walking through a field.”
As soon as she said the word ‘field,’ the world gave an odd sideways lurch as if someone had pulled a tablecloth out from under a set table, leaving everything where it was but revealing what was underneath. The Prince saw a field of wheat flowing around them, felt a cool breeze on his cheeks, saw that the sun was dipping down toward the horizon before him - and then the world lurched back, and it was a forest again. There was no breeze, the sun was only just rising in the east, and everything was back to normal.
“So – so this is the defense you were talking about?”
His voice came out somewhat choked.
“Yes,” she responded with a grin, “and it looks like it’s working.”
“So – you don’t see that rather large … cat? Over there?” the Prince asked, motioning off to their right.
“Nope. And neither do you.”
“No, I see it, it’s standing right there. It’s huge!”
“Your mind isn’t Anchored,” Leah said. “You see whatever your mind cobbles together from past experiences, things you’ve read. But it’s all illusion. Not reality.”
“Whatever I imagine seeing?” the Prince asked confused. Leah nodded.
“The genius of the defense is that it doesn’t change your mind at all,” she said, “it simply makes the world look like a blank canvas. Your brain fills it in however it sees fit. Your default image must be of a forest, or, from your description, a jungle even. Strange – I would have thought you’d be walking through the corridors of the Fortress or the streets of Lucien.”
As soon as she mentioned the Fortress the world gave another lurch, this time so violent that the Prince felt his stomach protest and bile rise in his throat. He was in a long stone corridor, tapestries on either side of him depicting famous battles, a small alcove to his right holding a gaudy golden chalice –
The forest - jungle? - returned, and the Prince abruptly leaned over the side of his horse, feeling he was about to retch.
“Whoa there,” Tomaz said, reaching over and holding o
nto the neck of the Prince’s shirt, “what did you see that time?”
“Fortress,” he managed to get out, breathing heavily, his stomach settling back down as the cold air calmed his nerves.
“Interesting,” Leah said, “is it because I mentioned the Fort – ?”
“Don’t say it!” the Prince snapped. The world did a half-lurch, but the Prince was able to squint his eyes and keep himself in the forest.
“Ugh – how long is it going to take to get to Vale?” the Prince asked, doing his best to keep his mind blank.
“We‘ll have to camp for the night, and then we‘ll get there early morning tomorrow,” Leah said.
“Shadows and light,” he cursed. They lapsed into silence and the Prince noticed that the forest had begun to shift unsteadily at the edges of his vision. A twist in the contours of the land reminded him vaguely of a stream he’d seen in the Elmist Mountains.
“Keep talking,” he pleaded as a stream suddenly sprung into being running alongside them.
“About what?” Tomaz asked.
“Anchors,” the Prince said at randomly. “How are they unique?”
“It’s the nature of Valerium,” Tomaz responded.
“You mentioned that before – what is Valerium?”
“It’s a type of metal,” Tomaz began. He was cut off abruptly by Leah.
“It’s a type of metalworking,” she corrected.
“Well, why don’t you tell the man about it?” Tomaz responded with a grin, motioning her to continue. She smiled apologetically but kept talking.
“A type of metalworking that takes iron ore and combines it with pure Valerium ore - only found in the mines east of the city of Vale – at extraordinary temperatures. When the alloy cools, what’s left behind is then reheated and oxidized – the same way that steel is made – and the result is a pure white metal that is denser than steel and can be honed to a razor’s edge. It’s powerful – a weapon made of Valerium is as much better than the best Tynian steel as steel is over the copper or bronze weapons people used at the beginning of Cumrunian Era, which was nearly three millennia before – ”
“No history lessons please,” the Prince said through a tightly clenched jaw. “Why don’t you use it then?”
“It‘s deadly against any kind of magic and stands up well against other weapons. But it’s extremely difficult to wield, owing to the fact it’s heavier then steel and that if it’s struck just right, the blade shatters.”
“What?” the Prince asked, confused. “I thought you said it was denser than steel?”
“It is,” Leah‘s brow furrowed as she continued, trying to remember, “but something about the way the blades are forged makes it brittle when struck at the right angle. That’s why all Valerium blades are curved and single sided. It actually makes better axes then swords - you saw Lorna’s? Good - but daggers made from it are terrible. The smaller the metal, the weaker the alloy, for a reason no one has been able to explain. Daggers made from it are good for throwing, not much else. They’re just too heavy. And the swords made from it have never felt right to me. So, I stick with steel. I’ve never had problems.”
The Prince nodded. He had been trained in single-edged swords and found them easier to wield then their double-edged brothers, but if you could handle daggers like the girl could, why bother with anything else?
“So Anchors are made of Valerium. How do you make it unique to a person?” he asked. The conversation was helping him keep his mind off the shifting landscape, which was a blessing. It had settled for the moment into a scene from the Elmist Mountains, and he wanted to keep it that way as long as possible.
“When the metal is forged, the first person to touch a drop of their blood to the Anchor becomes linked to it.”
The Prince looked up sharply and the world spun round him. He closed his eyes for a second before speaking to let the vertigo passed.
“Blood magic?” he asked.
“Not the way you think of it,” Tomaz rumbled.
“Bloodmages are a corruption of the art the Council has perfected.” Leah said hotly. “Their magic involves blood of others, sacrifices, even sometimes – ”
“I know,” the Prince said, and then lowered his voice so only they could hear him. “Prince of Ravens, remember?”
“Oh. Right. I suppose you would know more about it than I do.”
“I’ve seen it,” he said darkly. To his surprise the world remained stable even though he was thinking of a distinct place in his memory. There was a brief silence as both Tomaz and Leah seemed to contemplate what it was he was talking about, but neither of them questioned him about it.
“How’re the illusions?” the girl asked.
“Good, as long as I don’t focus on them.”
“Well, hold on a bit longer,” Tomaz said. “The enchantments only exist around the borders with the Empire. A few hours into tomorrow and you’ll be fine.”
“Tomorrow?” the Prince asked weakly.
“You’re lucky,” Leah said. “The enchantments used to cover the whole land south of the mountains, days in every direction.”
“What changed?”
“No one knows,” Tomaz rumbled. “But the world’s moved on, and some things start to fail.”
“What happens when it fails completely? What do you do?”
“Hopefully we have a long time until that happens,” the big man said. “But when it does … I pray that we’re strong enough to face the Empire on our own.”
They lapsed into silence, and the Prince closed his eyes. It was easier that way, and with his horse obediently following the rest of the group, he was able to remain close.
That night they camped in the middle of a lake. Or at least that’s what it looked like to the Prince. A lake complete with waves rolling beneath and around his feet, and fish that stared up at him in alarm as he sat on the glassy blue-green surface.
When Tomaz asked what he was seeing now - the big man seemed to have a sick fascination with the illusions - the Prince said as much, and Leah’s brother Davydd began to make jokes at the Prince’s expense, until Leah told him to stop because the Prince was looking decidedly green in the face. Which, of course, only encouraged another round of jokes from the red-eyed young man about seasickness. The Prince was distinctly starting to dislike the man, no matter whose brother he was.
In the end, even when Davydd had stopped mocking him, the Prince found he couldn’t choke down any food at all, and so he simply curled up in his bedroll and blanket - thankfully, both of these were solid objects that did not shift - and closed his eyes and did his best to will himself to sleep.
But in the middle of the night he woke and opened his eyes to find himself back in the Seeker’s lair, with the Seeker himself standing at a nearby table, unrolling a long collection of metal implements in a leather sheaf. Each was longer and sharper than the last, and the Prince knew, beyond a doubt, that he would be tortured to death for what he’d done. As this thought solidified in his head, the Seeker pulled out a long, wicked, three-tined instrument, crossed to the Prince, and bent to begin his work.
In a matter of seconds, he’d woken the rest of the group with his screams. It wasn’t until Leah and Tomaz came, inexplicably walking through the walls of his prison and shouting at him to close his eyes, that he was even able to grasp what was truly happening. Tomaz grabbed him by the shoulders and was able to convince him to stop screaming, but it was Leah who managed to bring him out of the vision altogether by unexpectedly taking his hand and holding it tight, giving it a quick, almost apologetic squeeze - and then slapping him so soundly that his ears rang and his brain did a somersault.
The shock blanked out his mind, and suddenly the world resolved into a long, rolling grass plain, with the moon high above them, and wind flicking back the girl’s hair.
“What … how did you do that?” he asked her.
“Well, you cock your arm back like this - ”
“No no! Please, no need to demonstrat
e.”
“Good,” she said with a sly smile. The wind gusted again and blew her hair back, and his mind seized this thought and started working again - and just that quickly, the plain had disappeared, replaced by a mountainside, a river, and Leah without her clothes.
He recoiled in surprise, thinking she’d be angry, but she just stood there. Which, of course made sense, because only he could see the illusion. Except, this time it was real also. He suddenly felt extremely guilty about what was happening, and he quickly looked away.
“Is everything all right?” Leah asked cautiously, taking a step forward.
“Yes!” he exclaimed, his voice several octaves too high. She reached out toward him, and he jumped back as if she was wielding a smoking cattle brand instead of offering a friendly shoulder pat. Keeping his eyes firmly on the ground, he turned, went back to his bedroll, and covered himself with the blankets.
“Thank you, but I’m fine now. Time for bed. Good night.”
For a long moment there was just silence, and the sound of wind blowing across the plain/mountainside. And then Davydd spoke:
“You brought us a halfwit. Yay.”
“Just go back to sleep, idiot brother,” Leah said.
The Prince managed, after a time, to sleep as well, and this time he slept until morning, when he was awoken by a huge hand on his shoulder and another covering his eyes.
“AH!”
“HEY!” roared a voice like a crashing waterfall as the Prince jumped up and moved to attack the source of the hand, “don’t panic, it’s just me. It’s Tomaz. Don’t look around yet, just remember where you are and what’s going to happen when you open your eyes.”
The Prince realized what a fool he’d just made of himself, but then decided that, with his nerves as frayed as they were, he was lucky he hadn’t done something truly stupid. He took a deep breath and nodded beneath the hand, steeling himself.
“Right. Thank you, Tomaz.”
He opened his eyes, and found himself in a world covered in a thick white blanket. He must have gasped, or made some sign, because Tomaz tensed, and asked him a question, but the words didn’t register as more than sound.
“Snow,” he whispered.
And so it was, piled high all around them. He had seen it before, particularly in the streets of Lucien when winter came, but the snow there was fast to melt, and often gray or black with the soot in the sky or the grime on the streets. Here he found himself in the middle of a picture that he had seen when he was barely old enough to walk, a picture of perfect, new fallen snow. Everything was covered in the soft, white blanket, making the world look fresh, and clean, and beautiful.
“What are you seeing?” asked a voice. He looked up into the eyes of Tomaz, those chips of black ice that glowed with kindly fire, and he shook his head.
“Snow, I think. But like I’ve only ever seen in a picture. And parts of it I don’t think I’ve ever seen. Then again, with all the …”
Suddenly the Prince was conscious of Davydd standing nearby, and he changed the end of his sentence.
“…stories people have told me, maybe what I’m seeing is some kind of amalgamation of images.”
Tomaz nodded after a brief hesitation, understanding.
“Stories?” Davydd asked. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work. Only things you’ve seen can be shown to you - only memories.”
“He’s got an overactive imagination, brother,” said Leah, coming up on the Prince’s other side. “And he certainly does hound people for stories. And tells them to you too, whether you want to hear it or not. We couldn’t get him to shut up on the way here - have you heard this one, have you heard that one.”
“He doesn’t seem too talkative now,” Davydd said. “He can’t have forgotten them all. But then again, stories are as easy to forget as identities.”
And then the young man’s red eyes fixed on the Prince’s black ones. The Raven Talisman grew hot, and somehow the Prince knew, though how he could not say, that Davydd was playing them all for fools.
He knew exactly who “Raven” was.
The Prince’s hand twitched instinctively, about to move under his drape-over to grasp the hilt of his dagger, but stopped. The red eyes were watching him closely - and watching him with unmistakable intelligence. How much did he know? How much did he guess?
And would he tell the Elders in Vale and have him taken by force?
Leah and Tomaz were both making up more excuses, but the Prince knew it was useless. Somehow something he had done had revealed his true identity, or maybe Davydd had simply heard rumors of the Prince of Ravens moving south and put the pieces together. He was one of the Exiles who operated in the Empire after all; who knew what sources of information he had access to?
But Davydd didn’t speak. He simply nodded, and gave the impression that he believed what Leah and Tomaz were telling him, all the while watching the Prince, holding him with his fiery red gaze.
“Well,” Tomaz rumbled, “let’s get going. Shouldn’t keep the Elders waiting, now should we?”
“Certainly not!” Davydd said, breaking eye contact and resuming his foolish ne’re-do-well older brother character. The Prince was amazed at how easy the transition was, and how oblivious the others were to it. “Though I’ll bet five golden stags none of them but Crane remembers you even left.”
Tomaz and Leah laughed, though it was somewhat forced, and they all went about packing up their temporary camp. As they did, Davydd went over and spoke in a low voice to Lorna. She made no sign that anything he said had any import, and the Prince found himself wondering if the young man was keeping this a secret from her as well.
But why? No Exiled in their right mind would let the Prince of Ravens into the lands of the Kindred.
He means to turn me in. That’s what he must intend to do.
But what could the Prince do? He couldn’t go back, not now. Assuming he found his way through the illusions - a huge assumption, but for argument’s sake say he could - the bridge they’d come over was out. His only other option was equally impassible: even if he could make it through any Exiled patrols between here and the Pass of Roarke, upon arrival he would have to contend with his brother Ramael, and that was not a confrontation he felt confident he would survive.
No, he realized as he mounted his horse and followed along behind the Exiles, the landscape flickering but he too lost in his thoughts to notice, there was nothing he could do but go to Vale and hope the Exiles all held their tongues.
Another thought came to him, one that whispered sweetly and deadly in the deepest corners of his mind: Davydd wouldn’t need to hold his tongue if the Prince silenced it for him. It was what Geofred would do. What any of the Children would do.
No, the Prince thought harshly, I do not kill unless I have to.
And as he sat his horse and did his best to ignore the changing world around him, he also did his best to turn a deaf ear to the voice that repeated, over and over, a single line full of haunting possibility:
So what if you have to?
But slowly, as they walked along, all of them in the early morning silence that comes from hastily banished sleep, he felt a sense of resignation settle on him, and he knew he would never be able to do it. He wasn’t his brothers or sisters. He’d never be able to strike down Davydd in cold blood. He couldn’t say why … in fact, he didn’t know. Even a week earlier he might have, knowing that his safety depended on it. But suddenly, that didn’t seem to matter anymore. Nothing, really, seemed to matter to him much anymore. And with that thought, his mind fell silent.
They reached Vale some three or four hours later. The Prince knew that they were close because suddenly the world - which was currently a long corridor from the Fortress, the corridor that led to his Mother’s audience chambers - morphed slowly into a forest that didn‘t shift or change. A forest full of tall trees that had … golden and red leaves?
“How are the leaves this color?” the Prince asked Tomaz, almost bre
athless. The sight was … oddly beautiful.
“You can see them?” The big man asked, immediately interested.
“Yes … I think the illusions have stopped. Everything seems steady.”
“What’s over there?” Tomaz asked, flinging a hand out toward what appeared to be a shrubbery of some kind. The Prince said as much, and was rewarded by a huge laugh and a cry of praise.
“By all the gods,” Davydd said, sticking a finger in his ear as he looked back at Tomaz, “no wonder your throat is so thick. You’ve managed to stuff a full grown bull down there.”
“What is it?” Leah asked, arriving from a short scouting trip up ahead in a flurry of leaves.
“He can see again,” Tomaz said, with the too-solemn air of a parent announcing that his son, blind from birth, had been granted the gift of sight.
Davydd sniggered and Lorna cracked a smile as well. The Prince was glad to see the woman, who hadn’t spoken a single word to him since their initial meeting, at least had a sense of humor.
“Yes, thank you,” the Prince said, “but the leaves - how are they gold and orange and red? I thought all leaves were green?”
“Not as green as you,” Davydd said, and spurred his horse forward with a wicked smile. “I’m going home - catch up when you can!”
Immediately, Lorna followed him on her identical, if larger, gray horse, and Leah and Tomaz motioned to the Prince as they too took off with cries of excitement.
The Prince, somewhat irked that his question had been disregarded, nevertheless heeled his horse in the ribs and shot after them. He lay low over the horse’s flowing mane, the long brown hair streaming back in the wind of their passing, leaves stirring around them, and a clean, crisp smell in the air that made the Prince feel awake and alert.
He caught up to the others easily enough - the forest road wasn’t made for speed, and as he wound around trees and rocks, heading upward at a quickly increasing incline, he was soon riding only slightly behind Tomaz and Leah, with Davydd and Lorna a few yards ahead of them.
The incline took them farther and farther upward, until they burst out of the treeline, quite suddenly and dramatically, and found themselves looking out over a valley several miles long and wide.
A valley filled to the brim with a sprawling, white-stone city.
“Welcome to Vale,” Davydd said.
Row after row of tall buildings made of white stone spread out before them, those in the middle taller and grander. Trees rose up in-between the houses, something the Prince had never stopped to contemplate as a possibility until Banelyn, and there were no barriers to separate the buildings one from another. No cordoned off sections where lived the Rogues, or the Elders, no plot of land for the Commons to sleep on should they find no housing for the night.
“Where do your Elders live? I see no area walled off for their use.”
“They live wherever they want,” Leah said, watching him with interest, her green eyes big and intent.
Slowly, what she was saying, and the meaning of it, sank into the Prince’s mind, and he didn’t know what to say. He simply stared out over the city, watching the people go from building to building, all walking down the same streets, all breathing the same air. How did they know who they were? How did they know what their place was in society?
“Well,” Davydd said loudly, interrupting the Prince’s thoughts. “Lorna and I are going to report to Captain Autmaran. He’s expecting us. Stay out of trouble while we’re gone.”
And with that, he kicked his horse into a gallop and rode down the side of the hill into the valley, and was soon lost in the wide boulevards.
“So what’s the plan?” Tomaz asked, turning to Leah.
She looked at him, quirking an eyebrow, and then turned back to contemplate the Prince, eyeing him critically.
“Well, I need to report to Eshendai Jensen. He needs to know we’ve returned, and I don’t doubt he’ll have a thing or two to say to me about being so late behind schedule. Why don’t you and … Raven … spend the night in your cabin, Tomaz? After I report to Jensen, I’ll need to make an appearance with the General.”
“Very good,” Tomaz said. “That way you can tell Jensen we have sensitive information that needs to be heard by the Elders immediately. Likely they’ll see us within the next few days.”
“I think so too,” the girl said, “and then we can give them our report in person.”
“And what about me?” the Prince said.
After he spoke, both Tomaz and Leah took a deep breath and wouldn’t look at him. He felt his heart sink.
“Am I prisoner of war?” he asked, quietly, slowly. “Will your report tell of me as Raven, the runaway child of the Most High, a friend and possible ally, or as the Prince of Ravens, a treasure trove of knowledge should you manage to pull it out of me?”
For a long time, Leah looked blankly at the ground, and the Prince realized that, just as he had been struggling with the realization that she, while an Exile, could be a good person, she was going through a similar battle, trying to reconcile him as the person who had saved her life with him as the Prince that she hated for oppressing her people.
“I see no reason to make the final choice today,” Tomaz rumbled softly, looking now at Leah with tender fatherly regard. “Go home. Sleep on it - I think that’s what we all could use. And tomorrow, the three of us together,” he looked here at the Prince, including him, “will decide the best way to move forward. The Council will not see us for a few days at least, no matter how urgent we tell them our message is.”
For a long time, Leah remained silent, and then, slowly, she nodded. Tomaz looked at the Prince, and he nodded as well. Like it or not, he couldn’t force the issue.
“We’ll meet tomorrow at midday,” Leah said abruptly, “at the Bricks.”
This apparently meant something to Tomaz, because he nodded, and then, without another word, Leah was off, riding down the hill in the same direction Davydd had gone.
“Well then,” Tomaz said cheerily, his tone completely at odds with everything the Prince was feeling at that moment. “Follow me!”
He urged his horse into a slow walk, and the Prince followed suit, moving down the hill at a slight angle to the city. The Prince, lost in his thoughts, didn’t notice that they took a trail that branched off the main road, until he looked up and realized the city was now hidden by a screen of tall pine trees, which, the Prince thought harshly, knew what they were doing and had kept their green needles instead of changing them for red and gold.
“It’s a bit small, and it’ll be snug with two of us in there,” Tomaz said. “But I think it’ll be all right.”
They continued down the road, made of hard packed dirt, a decent ways. They came to an opening in the trees, and the Prince saw a wooden cabin with a tall stone chimney off to their left in the shade of a large tree with white bark and fading red leaves. A path, which looked as though it were accustomed to being well cared for but was currently in disrepair due to its owner’s absence, led from the dirt road up to the front door, and also around to the back.
The cabin itself was actually rather large - but then again, so was Tomaz, so no doubt to him it was simply adequate. They dismounted, tied off their horses to a hitching post, and approached the door, the giant sweeping fallen branches and leaves off the path with his huge boots as they went. When they reached the front door - a huge slab of wood over twelve feet tall - the big man pulled out a dull silver key from a breast pocket inside his leather jerkin, inserted it into the dirty silver door handle, and pressed down on the latch. The door swung open easily, though the hinges squeaked, another sign Tomaz had been absent for several months.
The Prince’s first thought upon entering was that he had somehow shrunk. Everything was Tomaz-sized, and as such it made him feel like he’d returned to childhood and had just entered an adult house for the first time. The cabin was made of three rooms - the first was the main room, which contained a large couch, an equally oversize
d rocking chair, two rugs made of some kind of furry - hairy? - animal hide, and several hunting implements that hung about the walls. Visible off to the left was a corner room taken up almost completely by an enormous bed and an equally gigantic carved wooden dresser, on top of which was a water basin, a mirror, and various shaving implements. Off to the right was a small door - this one only some ten feet tall - that led to a kitchen full of bright, polished silver pans and dark black pots. Even the cooking utensils were too big for him.
“Well, this is it,” the big man said, and the Prince turned and realized Tomaz was actually nervous to see what the Prince thought of the whole thing.
“Like I said,” he continued, “we might be a little squeezed, since it’s just the three rooms, but I’ve only ever had myself living here, so - ”
“It’s perfect, Tomaz,” the Prince broke in. And truly it was, all else aside. It was no luxury apartment in the Fortress of Lucien, but it was … a home. It had a lived-in feel to it that almost evoked memories of homesickness in the Prince, and carried with it the smell and sense of a hard-won, well-lived life. The Prince smiled, feeling true affection for the big man, and Tomaz, after taking a minute to confirm this wasn’t sarcasm, positively beamed back at him through his beard.
“Well,” Tomaz said gruffly, swinging his arms back and forth unnecessarily, “let’s get the bags unpacked, eh?”
And with that he nodded once, swung his arms to and fro one more time, and then turned and went back to the horses, moving with a jerkiness that was half pride and half self-consciousness. The Prince stifled a smile, and followed the Ashandel out to the horses.
Once they had unpacked, the Prince helping Tomaz since he really didn’t have anything of his own that he wasn’t wearing, it was well past midday and they were both ravenous. Tomaz took the Prince out back and set him to chopping wood, even though there was a large pile already stowed against the back wall of the cabin.
“That’s for winter,” Tomaz rumbled when the Prince mentioned it. He’d taken the time to trim his beard properly, instead of the hasty shavings he’d done when on the road, and now he truly did look like a giant warrior-woodsman from some half-remembered legend. His long black hair, which the Prince noticed for the first time was graying ever so slightly at the temples, had also been combed and pulled back, though it was so thick and wild that “combed” was a relative term.
“Never touch the stockpile unless you have to,” Tomaz said. “Always chop fresh wood when you can still get it. Now get me some good-sized logs so we can start a fire and get a stew going. I’m going to see what kind of meat I can find us.”
And with that he set off into the woods, a longbow that was nearly eight feet long over his shoulder.
The Prince’s stomach rumbled, so deep it was as if it was trying to imitate Tomaz’s voice, and he set to work with the simple axe. It was easier than it looked – as long as he put the wood pieces on the stump the right way, he was strong enough to split it in half with a well-aimed blow. Before long he’d worked up a sweat, and Tomaz was coming back through the trees with a trio of rabbits and three or four birds the Prince couldn’t identify.
“That’ll do nicely,” the big man said. “Take some kindling and a big stack of wood and set it up in the fireplace like I showed you. I’ll handle the rest.”
The Prince did as told, all the while grateful to have something to do to keep his mind off the situation at hand. His thoughts kept trying to stray to Davydd and Leah, imagining what they might be telling members of the Kindred about him as he sat here in the woods and helped cook dinner. But as soon as he was in front of the fireplace, trying to remember exactly how to make a fire, these thoughts went away and he found temporary peace.
In no time at all it seemed, though by the setting sun it was several hours later, Tomaz had cleaned the rabbits, chopped and sliced a number of roots and herbs the Prince couldn’t begin to know the names of it, and slid it all into a black pot that could have been used by the Prince as a slightly undersized bathtub. The Prince, who had finally managed to construct the fire and get it lit, sat down on the large, well-stuffed couch, and found himself idle for the first time since arriving.
Immediately, like the air bubbles rising to the surface of the stew, his thoughts of Davydd and Leah and the Council of Elders returned, floating to the top of his mind and releasing little bursts of fear and panic that he knew would build into something dangerous if he didn’t head them off.
“You said once that Leah is a Spellblade,” the Prince said, picking a topic at random. Tomaz was bustling around the kitchen, putting things away, and also keeping an eye on the stew. “What does that mean?”
“Ah, well … some of it is secret. A ritual is involved that I don’t fully understand as I’ve never been a part of it – but the effect is that a man or woman, one that has decided to give their life to the cause of the Kindred, is bound to a weapon. It is traditional for Eshendai to do this – though it isn’t necessary. I never liked the idea – what happens if my sword breaks? Or it’s stolen? No, I’ve seen too much battle and used too many weapons to pick one. But Leah – and her brother Davydd with that sword of his – both became Spellblades.”
“But what does that mean exactly? Why would they bond themselves to a metal?”
“Well,” Tomaz said clearing his throat, “it gives you certain advantages. The metal lends you strength, for one – it’s harder to wound a Spellblade, and they heal faster. At least, when they’re in contact with their weapons that is. And they can command their weapons to a certain extent – like you’ve seen Leah do. She can’t make it dance or anything, but she can make it do things that no normal dagger would be able to do. Fly farther, hit a target more accurately, return to her if it’s close by. Oh, and if anyone she doesn’t approve of tries to pick it up, it gives a nasty burn.”
The Prince instinctively closed his hand into a fist – the hand that had been burned by the girl’s dagger when he’d escaped to Banelyn. The burn had healed well, and there was hardly any mark left behind … but the memory was still clear and strong.
“Usually they’re Eshendai, like I said, and usually they’re Rogues, not Rangers. Rangers tend to, like me, like to use the weapon that suits the situation if they can. Though we all have our favorites of course.”
The big man turned and smiled at the Prince.
“What’s the difference between a Ranger pair and a Rogue pair?” the Prince asked Tomaz, hoping more conversation would drown his thoughts, or else re-submerge them. The big man didn’t even turn from stirring the pot, simply spoke in his rumbling mountain-slide voice, knowing it would carry in the cabin no matter how softly he spoke.
“Rangers, like Davydd and Lorna, are sent out to patrol certain areas, scout out and relay troop movements, sometimes set ambushes or raid along the border if the Empire is mobilizing, as the Prince of Oxen does every few months. Rogues on the other hand, that’s Leah and me, work much more subtly. Where Rangers actively fight the Empire, Rogues do so passively. Indirectly is the better word. We gather information, on members of the High Blood, the Most High, and the Children themselves. We are saboteurs as well, if the need arises.”
“Saboteurs?” The Prince asked, interested in spite of himself.
“Yes. Most of it goes unnoticed. Little things, such as delaying this or that project, or convincing certain members of the Empire not too look too closely into the affairs of the Kindred.”
“Convincing?”
Tomaz looked over his shoulder and smiled wickedly.
“Euphemisms are sometimes the best way to describe things.”
“Right.”
They lapsed into silence again, Tomaz stirring the stew and the Prince sitting on the couch, staring into the fire. He really did feel like a child; his feet dangled a good six inches off the floor, even when he was slouching, and the high back went up over his head. As the silence lengthened, the Prince once more felt tension creeping into his shoulders and chest. H
is hands started to ball up into fists, and he had to make the conscious effort to make them lay flat on his lap.
“So you and Leah are Rogues. Have you been a part of one of these?”
“Sabotage missions? I’ve been part of a few. It’s useful to have a big man on your side to deal with … crowd control.”
He winked at the Prince as he used this euphemism, and the Prince smiled, knowing Tomaz thought himself exceedingly clever for coming up with it.
“You said most of the sabotage goes unnoticed, but what about the things that do go noticed?”
“Ah, yes. You’ll most likely have heard of some things, though they were no doubt concealed in propaganda. Your brother Geofred is quite the master of turning disaster into opportunity.”
The Prince felt a swell of anger at this, but it quickly faded. First, because Tomaz was right. One of Geofred’s main responsibilities - and indeed talents - was keeping the citizens of the Empire informed of what events transpired throughout Lucia. And second, because he realized he didn’t truly care what anyone thought of the Children, or what they said of them. In the Empire it was death to voice a negative thought about one of the Children in public. But here, in the woods, with just a stew and a giant for company, such things seemed remarkably unimportant.
“All right, so try me. What have you done?”
“Personally, I’m responsible for the ongoing problems in expanding the granaries in Tyne.”
“What?” the Prince asked, shocked. Tomaz nodded, still watching the stew.
“Of course, it’s passed off as the Exiled Kindred burning crops and killing farmers, and I know that’s the story you’ve been brought up with. But for the past ten years I’ve done something very simple that’s suspended the granary construction, and I haven’t killed a single farmer in order to do it.”
“What?” The Prince asked, warily. He was unsure if he wanted to know.
“I break the dams. Easy enough. Bloodless - unless a guard tries to gut me, like what happened a few years back. I nearly didn’t make it out; some hotshot captain had set an ambush. Too bad he wasn’t expecting an ex-Blade Master. In any case, break two or three dams and the crops below them fail, flooded with water or else parched. It’s a common enough thing to happen by accident. We just make sure to target the ones that Rikard is planning to use for one of his special projects.”
The Prince, who had known for years that a certain number of dams broke every year in the Tynian Fields that produced wheat and other grains for the rest of the Empire, was shocked. The official story had always been that the dams were poorly constructed, or else they were torn down by the Empire in order to make way for better ones.
“That’s incredible. But … how could you do that? The grain shortages that were caused in some years … you’re responsible for that.”
Tomaz was shaking his head.
“There are no grain shortages,” he rumbled. “In Tyne there are nearly ten acres of silos full of grain stored every year by the merchants and farmers for sale and distribution across the Empire. The extra grain, the grain we won’t allow them to grow, is the grain needed to feed an increased military under the command of Rikard.”
“But there’s been no military increase in nearly half a century,” the Prince protested. “Not since Rikard attacked - ”
“You’re sadly misinformed, princeling,” the big man rumbled. “Rikard builds his military every year, in secret. I doubt the other Children know, but I’m certain the Empress does. And the dams I break are the ones that control the water to the grain he’s trying to grow in secret to feed those armies.”
“But that grain goes to common citizens.”
“No,” Tomaz said, somewhat forcefully. “That grain goes to feeding the soldiers that oppress common citizens and try every year to invade this land.”
The Prince let it drop, but the subject still felt unresolved. How could the man be sure? How could he know he wasn’t hurting innocents?
“That’s quiet an undertaking,” the Prince said, not knowing what else to say.
“Indeed. Do you remember the Haven Dam that broke up in Tyne, the one that was being built for twenty something years?”
“No!” the Prince said, astounded. How had they managed to do that? The whole dam had collapsed the day before its completion, which was intended to be a day of celebration.
“Yeah, that wasn’t us. Just bad luck. But I had you going, didn’t I?”
The giant turned around and winked, and the Prince shook his head. Tomaz frowned slightly.
“Is something wrong, princeling?”
“No,” the Prince said, though there certainly was. “No, don’t worry, it’s nothing.”
The Prince had somehow managed to forget that this man was an Exile. He’d been going along, treating Tomaz as if he were nothing more than a hunted fugitive, living with other fugitives, trying to escape from a place where they were no longer wanted.
It wasn’t that simple, though. This man wasn’t just a passive victim, he was an active outlaw. He had just admitted to high treason and sabotage, and beyond that it wasn’t some isolated event, it wasn’t something he’d done to free or protect himself from harm, it was something he’d done as an attack on the Empire. And what was more, he wasn’t the only one. There must be many Rogue pairs, though how many the Prince couldn’t say. How many other things had the Kindred done to the Empire?
And how many of them, really, had the same good intentions as Tomaz?
All of this passed through his mind in the few seconds it took Tomaz to turn back around, and as the big man went back to stirring the stew, a light went on in the back of the Prince’s head, and the Talisman around his neck seared red hot, and then went cold. Immediately, the Prince turned his head to the left, and knew he was looking north, toward Roarke.
Because the glow he felt was the distant glow of the Prince of Oxen, at the head of an army. Marching right toward him.