Hidden Warrior

She was wandering disconsolately through the half-deserted market in Dolphin Court one evening when she was suddenly engulfed by a searing blast of pain. Struck blind, she couldn’t hear or cry out.

They have me! she thought in mute agony. What will become of Tobin?

Then, as in a vision, she saw a face framed in white fire, but it wasn’t Tobin’s. Stretched with agony surpassing her own, the man seemed to stare straight into her eyes as the flesh shrank and sizzled on his skull. She knew that face. It was a wizard from the south named Skorus. She’d given him one of her tokens years ago and not thought of him since.

The tortured face disappeared and she found herself sprawled facedown on the dirty cobbles, gasping for air.

He must have had the talisman with him when they burned him, she thought, too overcome to move. But what did this mean? The little pebbles were minor charms, containing the tiniest spark of magic to find and draw the loyal ones when the time came. She’d never imagined they could also act as a conduit back to her. But this one had, and through it she’d experienced a fraction of the agony he’d felt as he died. Dozens of wizards had been burned, perhaps scores, but he must be the first of her chosen to be caught. She was amazed at how quickly the pain passed. She’d expected to find her own skin blistered, but fortunately the charm had channeled only the dying wizard’s last feelings, not the magic that killed him.

“Old mother, are you ill?” someone asked.

“Drunk, more like it,” another passerby laughed. “Get up, you old hag!”

Gentle hands helped her to her knees. “Kiriar!” she gasped, recognizing the young man. “Are you still with Dylias?”

“Yes, Mistress.” He’d been an apprentice the last time they’d met. He had a proper beard now and a few lines on his face, but his clothes were as ragged as a beggar’s. Only the Harrier badge at his throat marked him for what he was. His number was ninety-three.

He was looking at hers, as well. “Two hundred and twenty-two? It took them longer to find you, I see.” He gave her a rueful look. “It’s something we notice nowadays, sad to say. Are you feeling better? What happened?”

Iya shook her head as he helped her to her feet. Kiriar and his master Dylias had always struck her as good sorts, but she was still too badly shaken to judge or trust. “It’s a hard business, getting old,” she said, making light of it. “I could do with a drink, and a bite to eat.”

“I know a good house, Mistress. Let me stand you a hot dinner for old times’ sake. It’s not far and the company’s good.”

Still wary, but intrigued, Iya leaned on his arm and let him lead her out of Dolphin Court.

She felt a moment’s alarm when Kiriar turned his steps back toward the Palatine. Was he a clever betrayer after all, luring her to the Harrier stronghold?

A few streets later, however, he turned aside into one of the goldsmith’s markets. Hard times had struck here as well, she noted; many of the shops were deserted. She’d passed half a dozen before it struck her that most of them had belonged to Aurënfaie artisans.

“Gone home, a lot of them,” Kiriar explained. “The ’faie don’t hold with the new ways, as you can well imagine, and it’s growing clear that the Harriers don’t trust them. Now, if you’ll just stop a moment.”

He disappeared into a darkened stable. A moment later he returned and led her through a lane behind it. This in turn led to a narrow alley, overhung by sagging balconies and the strange, spicy aromas of ’faie cookery.

Narrow side ways branched off among the buildings here and there. Reaching one such juncture, her guide stopped again. “Before we go any farther, Mistress, I must ask you this. What do you swear by?”

“By my hands and heart and eyes,” she answered, catching sight of a crescent moon scrawled on the wall just above his shoulder. The telltale shimmer of a blast aura flickered around it as she spoke. “And by the Lightbearer’s true name,” she added for good measure.

“She may pass,” someone whispered from the shadows to their right, as if that wasn’t already evidenced by the fact that the blast aura had not struck her down. Iya looked at her ragged companion with new interest. He hadn’t left that powerful spell there, or his master; she could count on one hand the wizards she knew who could have.

Kiriar gave her an apologetic shrug. “We have to ask. Come, it’s just down here.”

He led her into the dirtiest side street she’d yet seen. The smell of piss and decay was strong. Skinny, notch-eared cats slunk past in shadows, or hunched watching for rats in the garbage piled along the wall. The buildings on either side nearly touched overhead, shutting out the waning winter light.

Three cloaked figures emerged from the murk just ahead. Another appeared from a doorway behind them as they passed. They looked like footpads, but all four bowed to her, touching their hearts and brows.

“This way.” Kiriar pointed her down a set of steep, crumbling cellar stairs. The door at the bottom looked ordinary enough, but magic of some sort tingled pleasantly through her fingertips as she lifted the rusty latch.

To an ordinary person, the blackness beyond would have been impenetrable, but Iya easily made out the long blades protruding from the walls at various heights along the subterranean passage. Anyone blundering blindly here would soon come to harm.

At the far end she opened another magically warded door and found herself blinking in the cheerful firelight of a tavern. A dozen or so wizards turned to see the newcomer and she was delighted to find familiar faces among them. Here was Kiriar’s master, stooped old Dylias, and beside him a pretty sorceress from Almak named Elisera, who’d turned Arkoniel’s head one summer. She didn’t know the others, but one of them was Aurënfaie, and wore the red-and-black sen’gai and facial tattoos of the Khatme clan. The blast aura was probably her work, thought Iya.

“Welcome to the Wormhole, my friend!” Dylias cried, coming to greet her. “Not the most elegant establishment in Ero, but surely the safest. I hope Kiriar and his friends didn’t give you too much of a turn.”

“Not at all!” Iya looked around in delight. The paneled oak walls gave back a cozy golden glow from the brazier flickering at the center of the room. She recognized bits and pieces from many of their old haunts—statues, hangings, even the golden brandywine distillers and water pipes that had been the pride of the now deserted Mermaid Inn. There was no menu board, but she smelled meat roasting. Someone put a silver mazer of excellent wine in her hand.

She sipped it gratefully, then raised an eyebrow at her guide. “I’m beginning to suspect you didn’t just happen upon me today.”

“No, we’ve watched you since—” Kiriar began.

Dylias silenced him with a sharp look under his beetling white brows, then turned to Iya and laid a finger to the side of his nose. “Less known, the better kept, eh? Suffice it to say the Harriers aren’t the only ones who keep an eye out for wizards in Ero. It’s been years! How are you, my dear?”

“Not well when I found her,” Kiriar told him. “What happened, Iya? I thought your heart had failed.”

“A momentary weakness,” Iya replied, not yet daring to say more. “I’m fine now, and better for being here with all of you! Still, isn’t it risky, gathering like this?”

“Those are ’faie-built houses over our heads,” the Aurënfaie woman told Iya. “It would take an army of those paltry Harriers to even find all the magics here, and another army to break through them.”

“Bravely stated, Saruel, and we all pray your trust is well-founded,” said Dylias. “All the same, we are cautious. We have a number of guests who depend upon it. Come, Iya. We’ll show you.”

Dylias and Saruel led Iya through a series of cramped cellar rooms beyond the tavern where more wizards were living.

“For some of us, this stronghold is a prison, as well,” Dylias said sadly, pointing out a hollow-eyed old man asleep on a pallet. “It would be worth Master Lyman’s life to show his face in the city. Once you’re on the Harriers’ hunting roster, there’s little chance of escape.”

“Twenty-eight have been burned on Traitor’s Hill since the madness started,” Saruel said bitterly. “And that’s not counting the priests murdered with them. It’s hideous, how they kill the Lightbearer’s servants.”

“Yes, I have seen it.” Iya now knew better than most what a death that was.

“But is it any worse than being buried alive here?” Dylias murmured, closing the sleeping man’s door.

Returning to the tavern, Iya sat with the others and listened to their stories. Most were still at large in the city, carefully pretending loyalty and earning their living in the small ways the king’s ordinances still allowed. They could make useful items and cast helpful household spells for pay. The greater magics were reserved for the Harriers. The mere charming of a horse was a capital offense now.

“They’ve made tinkers of us!” an elderly wizard named Orgeus sputtered.

“Has anyone tried to resist?” Iya asked.

“You haven’t heard about the Maker’s Day riots?” a man named Zagur asked. “Nine young hotheads barricaded themselves in the temple on Flatfish Street, trying to protect two others who were marked for execution. Have you been by the place?”

“No.”

“Well, it isn’t there anymore. Thirty Harriers appeared out of nowhere, and two hundred grey-backs with them. They didn’t last an hour.”

“Did they use any magic against the Harriers?”

“A few tried, but they were mostly charm makers and weather tellers,” Dylias replied. “What chance did they have against those monsters? How many in this room could strike back? That’s not what the Orëska teaches.”

“Perhaps not your half-blooded Second Orëska,” Saruel said disdainfully. “In Aurënen there are wizards who can level a house if they choose, or summon a hurricane down on their enemies.”

“No wizard has that kind of power!” a Skalan woman scoffed.

“Do you think the Harriers would let one of us live if they thought so?” someone else said.

The Aurënfaie retorted angrily in her own language and more joined in.

Dismayed, Iya thought again of Skorus, dying alone in agony.

It is time, she thought. She held up a hand for silence.

“There are Skalans who know such magics,” Iya said. “And it can be taught to others who have the talent for it.” Rising, she downed the last of her wine and placed the silver cup on the stone floor. She could feel the others watching her as she spread her hands above it. Chanting softly, she drew the power down and focused it on the cup.

The rush came more quickly than it normally did. It was always so in company, though it took no power away from the others.

The air around the cup shimmered for a moment, then the rim began to melt, slumping in on itself like a waxwork on a hot summer’s day. She broke the spell before the cup collapsed completely and cooled it with a breath. Prying it loose from the flagstones, she handed it to Dylias.

“It can be taught,” she said again, watching the faces of the others as they passed it from hand to hand.

Before she left the Wormhole that night, every wizard in the room—even proud Saruel—had accepted one of her little stones.

Chapter 12

Tobin had only just gotten used to having Iya at the house when she announced that she was leaving. He and Ki watched glumly as she packed her few belongings.

“But the Festival of Sakor is only a few days away!” exclaimed Ki. “You want to stay for that, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” Iya muttered, stuffing a shawl into her bag.

Tobin knew something was troubling her. She’d spent a great deal of time down in the city and didn’t appear to approve of what she found there. Tobin knew it had something to do with the Harriers, but she wouldn’t even let him speak the word aloud anymore.

“Stay away from them,” she warned, reading his thoughts or his face. “Don’t think of them. Don’t speak of them. That goes for you, too, Kirothius. Even the magpie chatter of little boys doesn’t go unnoticed these days.”

“Little boys?” Ki sputtered.

Iya paused in her packing and gave him a fond look. “Perhaps you have grown just a bit since I found you. All the same, the pair of you added together are nothing but a blink of a wizard’s eye.”

“Are you going back to the keep?” asked Tobin.

“No.”

“Where, then?”

Her faded lips quirked into a strange little smile as she laid a finger to the side of her nose. “Less known, the better kept.”

She wouldn’t say more than that. They rode with her to the south gate and the last they saw of her was that thin braid bouncing against her back as she cantered into the crowd on Beggar’s Bridge.

The Festival of Sakor was celebrated with great fanfare, though everyone said that the king’s absence and the rumors of ill luck brought back by returning veterans put a damper on the usual glory of the three-day celebration. But to Tobin, who knew only the rude country observances in Alestun, it was impossibly grand and magical.

On Mourning Night the Companions and principal nobles of Ero stood with Korin in the city’s largest Sakor Temple, just down the hill from the Palatine gate. The square outside was jammed with people. Everyone cheered as Korin, standing in his father’s place, killed the Sakor bull with a single stroke. The priests frowned over the entrails and said little, but the people cheered again when the young prince raised his sword and pledged his family to the defense of Skala. The priests presented him with the sacred firepot, the temple horns sounded, and the city began to go dark, as if by magic. Beyond the walls, in the harbor and distant steadings, it was the same. On this longest night of the year, every flame in Skala was extinguished to symbolize the yearly death of Old Sakor.

The Companions stood the vigil with Korin all through that long, cold night and at dawn they helped carry the year’s new fire back to the city.

The next two days were a blur of balls and rides and midnight parties. Korin was the most sought-after guest in the city; Chancellor Hylus and his scribes had prepared a list of homes, temples, and guildhouses he and the Companions must appear at, many only long enough to pour the new year’s libation.

True winter soon set in after that. Rain turned to sleet, and the sleet to wet, heavy snow. Clouds sealed the sky from the sea to the mountains and soon Tobin felt like he’d never see the sun again.

Master Porion kept up with their mounted battle practice and the morning temple run, regardless of the weather, but sword fighting and archery were moved indoors. Their feasting hall was cleared and the bare floor chalked with archery lists and fighting circles. The clash of steel was deafening at times, and everyone had to be careful not to walk between archers and their targets, but otherwise it was not unpleasant. The other young bloods and girls of the court hung about as always, watching the Companions and sparring among themselves.

Una was there most days and Tobin noted with a guilty pang how she followed him with her eyes. His duties had kept him too busy to make good on his promise, or so he told himself. Every time he looked at her, he seemed to feel her lips on his again.

Ki twitted him about it and asked more than once if he was going to keep his word.

“I will,” Tobin always retorted. “I just haven’t found the time yet.”

Winter brought other changes in their daily routine. During the cold months all the noble boys had lessons with General Marnaryl, an elderly warrior who’d served King Erius and the two queens before him. His hoarse, croaking voice—the result of a blow to the throat in battle—had earned him the nickname “the Raven,” but it was said with great respect.

He taught by recounting famous battles, many of which he’d fought in himself. Despite his age, the Raven was a lively teacher and salted his stories with amusing asides about the habits and peculiarities of the people he’d fought with and against.

He also illustrated his lectures in a manner Tobin admired. When describing a battle, he would get down on the floor and sketch out the battleground with chalk, then use painted pebbles and bits of wood to represent the different forces, pushing them about with the ivory tip of his walking stick.

Some of the boys squirmed and yawned through these lessons, but Tobin enjoyed them. They reminded him of the hours he and his father had spent with the model of Ero. He also took secret delight whenever Raven talked of famous women generals and warriors. The old man made no distinction and had only cutting looks for those who snickered.

Tobin’s friend Arengil was among the noble youths who joined the Companions for lessons and his friendship with Tobin and Ki soon deepened. Quick-witted and humorous, the Aurënfaie had a great talent for acting and could mimic anyone at court. Gathered with the younger Companions in Tobin’s room at night, he’d reduce them all to helpless laughter with his haughty, mincing impression of Alben, then seem to transform into another body as he became hulking, sullen Zusthra or stooped old Raven.

Korin and Caliel sometimes joined them, but more often now the older boys slipped out on their own to the lower city. The morning after such excursions they’d turn up for the temple run with bloodshot eyes and superior smirks, and regaled the younger boys with their exploits when they thought Porion wasn’t listening.

The others listened with a mix of admiration and envy, but Ki soon grew concerned for Lynx. Everyone knew he was hopelessly smitten with Orneus, but his lord now thought of nothing but keeping up with the prince in drinking and carousing, something Orneus was remarkably ill suited for.

“I don’t know what poor Lynx sees in that wastrel anyway,” Ki would grumble, watching the sad-eyed squire clean up his friend’s sour vomit, or carrying Orneus back to their room when he was too drunk to walk.

“He wasn’t like that when they first came here,” Ruan confided as they sat toasting lumps of hard cheese over the hearth at Tobin’s house one night. Snow was falling and everyone was feeling cozy and grown-up without the older boys around.

“You’re right about that,” Lutha agreed around a mouthful of cheese. “My father’s estate is near his and we saw each other often at festivals and parties before we came to the Companions. He and Lynx were like brothers, but then—” He shrugged, blushing. “Well, you know how it goes with some. Anyway, Orneus is a good enough fellow, but I think the only reason he got chosen as a Companion was on account of his father’s influence at court. Duke Orneus the Elder has a holding almost as big as yours at Atyion.”

“If I’m ever allowed to go there, I’ll see what you mean,” Tobin grumbled. Even with Orun out of the way, bad weather had put an end to their travel plans for now and Korin seemed to have forgotten his promise.

“That’s how it goes,” Nikides said. “It’s not like I’d be sitting here if I wasn’t the Lord Chancellor’s only grandson.”

“But what you lack in fight, you make up for in brains,” Lutha replied, always quick to bolster his friend. “When the rest of us are getting bravely hacked to pieces on some battlefield, you’ll be here with your grandfather’s velvet ashcake on your head, running the country for Korin.”

“And poor Lynx will probably still be tying Orneus into the stirrups because he’s too drunk to ride,” Ki added with a laugh.

“It’s Lynx who should be the lord,” Barieus piped up hotly. “Orneus isn’t worthy to do up his boots.” When everyone turned to stare at him, he hastily busied himself with a toasting fork. The swarthy little squire usually said very little about anyone, and never against a Companion.

Ki shook his head. “For hell’s sake, doesn’t anyone like girls but me?”

Tobin kept quiet during Raven’s lessons for some weeks. He didn’t always understand what the old man was talking about, but listened intently and questioned the other boys afterward. He always made certain to ask Korin, but quickly discovered that Caliel and Nikides were more knowledgeable. Caliel, the son of a general, had a good mind for strategy. Nikides had the best head for history and had read more books than the rest of them put together. When Tobin and Ki both showed a genuine interest in the old stories, it was Nikides who introduced them to the royal library, located in the same wing as the abandoned throne room.

In fact, it took up nearly that entire wing, room upon room overlooking the eastern gardens. At first Tobin and Ki felt lost among the endless towering racks of scrolls and tomes, but Nik and the black-robed librarians showed them how to read the faded labels on each rack, and soon they were delving into treatises on arms and battle, as well as colorful books of poetry and stories.

Tobin soon learned his way around and discovered a whole room devoted to the history of his family. He asked the librarian about Queen Tamír, but there were only a few dusty scrolls, dry records of the few laws and taxes she’d passed. There was no history of her brief life or reign and the librarian knew of no other sources.

Tobin recalled Niryn’s strange reaction, that day at the Royal Tomb, when Tobin had mentioned what he’d been taught of her murder. The wizard had vehemently denied it, though both his father and Arkoniel had told him the same story. Her brother had killed her, and ruled briefly in her place before coming to a bad end himself.

Disappointed, Tobin slipped away from his friends and walked down to the sealed doors of the old throne room. Pressing his palms to the carved panels, he waited, hoping to feel the murdered queen’s spirit through the wood the way he’d sometimes felt his mother’s ghost at the tower door. The Old Palace was supposed to be haunted by all sorts of spirits. Everyone said so. According to Korin, their own grandmother’s bloody specter still wandered these halls on a regular basis; that was why his father had built the New Palace.

It seemed every chambermaid and door warder had some ghost story to tell, yet except for one glimpse of Tamír inside the throne room, Tobin had never seen anything. He supposed he shouldn’t complain—he’d had enough of ghosts already—but sometimes he wished Tamír would come back and make herself clearer. Given what he now knew about himself, he was certain she’d been trying to tell him something important when she’d offered him her sword. But Korin and the others had distracted him, and before he could speak to her, she’d vanished.

Was she trapped inside, unable to come out? he wondered.

Returning to the library, he found an unoccupied chamber not far from the throne room. Unlatching one of the windows, he pushed it open and climbed out onto the wide stone ledge that ran along the walls just below. Snow filled his shoes as he inched along to the broken window they’d entered by the night Korin and the others had played at being ghosts.

It had been too dark to see much then. Tobin squeezed through and found himself standing at one side of a huge, shadowy hall. Pale winter light filtered dimly through cracks in the tall, shuttered windows.

The worn marble floor still showed the marks where benches and fountains had been. Tobin got his bearings and hurried toward the center of the room, where the massive marble throne still stood on its raised dais.

He’d been too scared to examine it closely last time, but saw now that it was beautiful. The arms were carved like cresting waves, and symbols of the Four were inlaid in bands of red, black, and gold across the high back. There must have been cushions, but they were gone and mice had built a nest in one corner of the broad seat.

The chamber had a sad, neglected air about it. Sitting down on the throne, Tobin rested his hands on the carved armrests and looked around, imagining his ancestors hearing petitions and greeting dignitaries from far-off lands. He could feel the weight of years. The edges of the dais steps were worn smooth in places, where hundreds of people had knelt before the queens.