Hidden Warrior

Just then he heard a sigh, so close to his ear it made him jump up and look around.

“Hello?” He should have been afraid, but he wasn’t. “Queen Tamír?”

He thought he felt the cool brush of fingertips against his cheek, though it could have been nothing more than an errant stir of breeze through one of the broken windows. He heard another sigh, clearer this time, and just off to his right.

Following the sound with his eyes, he noticed a long, rectangular stain on the floor beside the dais. It was about three feet long, and no wider than his palm. The rusted stumps of iron bolts and a few bits of broken stonework still marked where something had stood.

Something. Tobin’s heart leaped.

Restore …

The voice was faint but he could feel her now.

Feel them, he amended, for other voices joined in. Women’s voices. “Restore … Restore …” Sad and faint as the rustle of wind through distant leaves.

Even now Tobin wasn’t frightened. This felt nothing like Brother or his mother. He felt welcome here.

Kneeling, he touched the place where the golden tablet of the Oracle had stood.

So long as a daughter of Thelátimos—

From Ghërilain’s time, through all those years and queens, the tablet’s carved words had proclaimed to all who approached this throne that the woman who sat upon it did so by Illior’s will.

Restore.

“I don’t know how,” he whispered. “I know I’m supposed to, but I don’t know what to do. Help me!”

The ghostly hand caressed his cheek again, tender and unmistakable. “I’ll try, I promise. Somehow. I swear it by the Sword.”

Tobin said nothing of the experience to anyone, but spent more time that winter reading in the library. The history Arkoniel and his father had labored to teach him came to life as he read firsthand accounts of events written by the queens and warriors who’d lived them. Ki caught his enthusiasm and they sat up late into the night, taking turns reading aloud by candlelight.

Raven’s chalk drawing battlefields took on new meaning as well. Watching the old general push his pebble cavalry and wood chip archers about, Tobin began to see the logic of the formations. At times he could imagine the scenes as clearly as if he were reading Queen Ghërilain’s account, or the histories of General Mylia.

“Come on now, someone must have an opinion!” the old man snapped one day, tapping his stick impatiently on the diagram in question. It showed a large open field flanked on either side by curving belts of trees.

Without thinking, Tobin stood up to answer. Before he could change his mind everyone was looking at him.

“You have a strategy, Your Highness?” Raven asked, raising a bushy eyebrow doubtfully.

“I—I think I’d hide my horsemen in the grove of trees on the east flank under cover of night—”

“Yes? What else?” His wrinkled face gave nothing away.

Tobin pressed on. “And half or more of my archers over here in woods on the other side.” He paused, thinking of a battle he’d read about a few days earlier. “I’d have the rest set stakes here, with the men-at-arms in ranks behind them.” Warming to his subject, he squatted and pointed to the narrow strip of open ground between the copses, at the Skalan-held end of the field. “It would look like a thin front from the enemy’s side. I’d have my horsemen keep their mounts quiet, so the enemy would think it was only foot soldiers they were facing. They’d probably make the first charge at dawn. As soon as their horsemen were committed, I’d send mine out to cut them off and have the hidden archers shoot at the enemy’s foot soldiers to panic them.”

The general tugged thoughtfully at his beard, then rasped, “Divide their forces, eh? That’s your plan?”

Someone snickered, but Tobin nodded. “Yes, General Marnaryl, that’s what I’d do.”

“Well, as it happens, that’s very much like what your great-grandmother did at the Second Battle of Isil and it worked rather well.”

“Well done, Tobin!” Caliel cried.

“He’s my blood, isn’t he?” said Korin proudly. “I’ll be glad to have him as my general when I’m king, I can tell you.”

Tobin’s pleasure dissolved to panic at the words and he took his seat quickly, hardly able to breathe. For the rest of the day, his cousin’s praise haunted him.

When I’m king.

Skala could have only one ruler, and even Tobin couldn’t imagine his cousin simply stepping aside. When Ki was asleep that night, he rose and burned an owl feather in the night lamp flame, but he didn’t know what prayer to send with it. As he struggled for some words to say, all he could think of was his cousin’s smiling face.

Chapter 13

A cold draft across his bare shoulders woke Arkoniel.

Shivering, he fumbled in the darkness and pulled Lhel’s bearskin robe up to his chin. She’d let him spend the night with her more often since midwinter and he was grateful, both for the companionship and the chance to escape the haunted corridors of the keep.

The bracken-stuffed pallet crackled as he burrowed deeper under the covers. The bed smelled good: sex and balsam and smoky hides. But he was still cold. He groped for Lhel, but found only a patch of fading warmth where she’d been.

“Armra dukath?” he called softly. He was learning her language quickly and always spoke it here though she teased him, claiming his accent was thicker than cold mutton stew. He’d learned the true name of her people, as well. They called themselves the Retha’noi, “people of wisdom.”

There was no answer, only the clacking of the bare oak branches overhead. Assuming she’d gone out to relieve herself, he settled back, longing for her naked heat against his back. But he couldn’t get back to sleep, and Lhel didn’t return.

More curious than worried, he wrapped himself in the fur robe and felt his way to the small, leather-curtained doorway. Pushing it aside, he looked out. In the two weeks since Sakor-tide it had snowed less than it usually did here; the drifts surrounding the oak were only shin deep in most places.

The sky was clear, though. The full moon hung like a new coin against the stars, so bright on the sparkling snow that he could make out the fine whorls on his fingertips by its light. Lhel said a full moon stole the heat of the day to be so bright, and Arkoniel could well believe it. Each breath showed silver white for an instant, then fell away in tiny crystals.

Small footprints led in the direction of the spring. Shivering, Arkoniel found his boots and followed.

Lhel was squatting at the water’s edge, staring intently at the little circle of roiling open water at its center. Wrapped to the chin in the new cloak Arkoniel had given her, she held her left hand over the water. Her fingers were crooked to summon the scrying spell and Arkoniel stopped a few yards away, not wanting to disturb her. The spell could take some time, depending on how far she was trying to see. He saw only undulating silver ripples across the spring’s black surface, but Lhel’s eyes glinted like a cat’s as she watched whatever it was that she’d summoned. Shadow filled the lines around her eyes and mouth, showing her years in a way the sun never did. Lhel claimed not to know her age. She said her people reckoned a woman’s age not by years, but by the seasons of her womb: child, child bearer, elder. She still bled with the waning moon, but she was not young.

Presently she lifted her head and glanced at him with no apparent surprise.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I had a dream,” she replied, kneading the stiffness from her back as she stretched. “Someone is coming, but I couldn’t see who, so I came out here.”

“Did you see in water?”

She nodded and took his hand, leading him back to the tree. “Wizards.”

“Harriers?”

“No, Iya and another I couldn’t see. There’s a cloud around that one. But they’re coming to see you.”

“Should I go back to the keep?”

Smiling, she stroked his cheek. “No, there’s time, and I’m too cold to sleep alone.” The years fled her face again as she reached under his robe and stroked a chilly hand down his belly. “You stay and warm me.”

Arkoniel returned to the keep the next morning, expecting to find lathered horses in the courtyard. But Iya did not come that day, or the next. Puzzled, he rode up the mountain track in search of Lhel, but the witch did not show herself.

Most of a week passed before her vision proved true. He was at work on a transmutation spell when he heard the sound of sleigh bells on the river road. Recognizing the high-pitched tinkling, he went on with his work. It was only the miller’s girl, making the monthly delivery to the kitchen.

He was still engrossed in the complexities of transforming a chestnut into a letter knife when the rattle of the door latch startled him. No one disturbed him here this time of the day.

“You’d better come down, Arkoniel,” said Nari. Her normally placid face was troubled and her hands were balled in her apron. “Mistress Iya is here.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, hurrying to follow her downstairs. “Is she hurt?”

“Oh, no, she’s well enough. I’m not so sure about the woman she brought with her, though.”

Iya was sitting on the hearth bench in the hall, supporting a hunched, bundled figure. The stranger was closely wrapped but he could see the edge of a dark veil visible just below the deep hood.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

“I think you remember our guest,” Iya said quietly.

The other woman lifted her veil with a gloved hand and Nari let out a faint gasp.

“Mistress Ranai?” It was an effort not to recoil. “You’re—you’re a long way from home.”

He’d met the elderly wizard only once before, but hers was a face not easily forgotten. The ruined half was turned toward him, the scarred flesh standing out in waxy ridges. She shifted to see him with her remaining eye and smiled. The undamaged side of her face was soft and kind as a grandmother’s.

“I am glad to meet you again, though I regret the circumstance that brings me to you,” she replied in a hoarse, whispery voice. Her gnarled hands trembled as she laid her veil aside.

Centuries ago, during the Great War, this woman had fought beside Iya’s master, Agazhar. A necromancer’s demon had raked her face into this lopsided mask and crippled her left leg. She was much frailer than he recalled, and he could see the reddened weal of a recent burn on her right cheek.

The first time they’d met, he’d felt her power like a cloud of lightning so strong it raised the hair on the back of his arms. Now he could scarcely feel it.

“What’s happened to you, Mistress?” Remembering his manners he took her hand and silently offered her his own strength. He felt a slight flutter in his stomach as she accepted the gift.

“They burned me out,” she wheezed. “My own neighbors!”

“They got wind of a Harrier patrol on the way to Ylani and went mad,” Iya explained. “Word’s been put round that any town that shelters a dissenting wizard will be put to the torch.”

“Two centuries I lived among them!” Ranai gripped Arkoniel’s hand harder. “I healed their children, sweetened their wells, brought them rain. If Iya hadn’t been with me that night—” A coughing fit choked off her words.

Iya gently patted her back. “I’d just reached Ylani and saw the Harrier banner in the harbor. I guessed what that meant in time, but even so, I was nearly too late. The cottage was burning down around her and she was caught under a beam.”

“Harrier wizards stood outside and held the doors shut!” Ranai croaked. “I must be old indeed if a pack of young scoundrels like that can best me! But oh, how their spells hurt. It felt like they were driving spikes into my eyes. I was blind—” She trailed off querulously and seemed to shrink even smaller as Arkoniel watched.

“Thank the Light she was strong enough to hold off the worst of the flames, but as you can see, the ordeal took its toll. We’ve been nearly two weeks getting here. We rode the last bit in a miller’s sledge.”

He brushed at a streak of flour on Iya’s skirt. “So I see.”

Nari had disappeared at some point, but she and Cook returned with hot tea and food for the travelers.

Ranai accepted a mug with a murmur of thanks, but was too weak to lift it. Iya helped the old woman raise it to her lips. Ranai managed a slurping sip before another rattling cough took her. Iya held her as the spasm shook her wizened frame.

“Fetch a firepot,” Nari said to Cook. “I’ll make up the duke’s room for her.”

Iya helped the old woman take another sip. “She’s not the only one driven out. You remember Virishan?”

“That hedge wizard who takes in wizard-born orphans?”

“Yes. Do you recall the young mind clouder she had with her?”

“Eyoli?”

“Yes. I met him on the road a few months back and he told me she and her brood had fled into the mountains north of Ilear.”

“It’s that monster’s doing,” Ranai whispered vehemently. “That viper in white!”

“Lord Niryn.”

“Lord?” The old woman mustered the strength to spit into the fire. The flames flared a livid blue. “The son of a tanner, he was, and a middling mage at best, last I knew. But the whelp knows how to drip poison in the royal ear. He’s turned the whole country on us, his own kind!”

“Is it so bad already?” asked Arkoniel.

“It’s still just in pockets in the outlying towns, but the madness is spreading,” said Iya.

“The visions—” Ranai began.

“Not here,” Iya whispered. “Arkoniel, help Nari get her to bed.”

Ranai was too weak to climb the stairs, so Arkoniel carried her. She was as light and brittle in his arms as a bundle of dry sticks. Nari and Cook had made the musty, long-empty room as comfortable as they could. Two firepots stood beside the bed and someone had laid life’s breath leaves on the coals to ease Ranai’s cough. The pungent smell filled the room.

As the women undressed Ranai to her ragged shift and tucked her into bed, Arkoniel caught a glimpse of the old scars and new burns that covered her withered arms and shoulders. Bad as they were, he found them less worrisome than the strange ebb in her power.

When Ranai was settled, Iya sent the others out and pulled a chair close to the bed. “Are you comfortable now?” Ranai whispered something Arkoniel could not catch. Iya frowned, then nodded. “Very well. Arkoniel, fetch the bag, please.”

“It’s there beside you.” Iya’s traveling pack lay in plain sight by his mistress’s chair.

“No, the bag I left with you.”

Arkoniel blinked, realizing which one she meant.

“Fetch it, Arkoniel. Ranai told me something quite surprising the other day.” She looked down at the dozing wizard, then snapped, “Quickly now!” as if he were still a clumsy young apprentice.

Arkoniel took the stairs two at a time and pulled the dusty bag from under the workroom table. Inside, shrouded in spells and mystery lay the clay bowl she had charged him never to show to anyone except his own successor. It had been Iya’s burden for as long as he’d known her, a trust passed with the darkest oaths from wizard to wizard since the days of the Great War.

The war! he thought, seeing the first inkling of a connection.

Iya saw Ranai’s eyes widen when Arkoniel returned with the battered old leather bag.

“Shroud the room, Iya,” she murmured.

Iya cast a spell, sealing the room from prying eyes and ears, then took the bag from Arkoniel. Undoing the knotted thongs, she eased out the mass of silk wrappings and slowly undid them. Wards and incantations winked and crackled in the lamplight.

As the last of the silk fell away Iya caught her breath. No matter how often she held this plain, crude thing, the malevolent emanations always rocked her. To one not wizard-born, this was nothing but a crude beggar’s bowl, unglazed and poorly fired. But her master Agazhar had felt nausea when he touched it. Arkoniel suffered a searing headache and feverish pain through his body in its presence. Iya experienced it as a miasma like fumes from a rotting, ruptured corpse.

She glanced at Ranai with concern, fearing the effect it would have on her in her weakened state.

But instead the old woman seemed to find new strength. Lifting her hand, she sketched a spell of protection on the air, then reached out hesitantly, as if to take the bowl.

“Yes, there’s no mistaking it,” she rasped, withdrawing her hand.

“How do you know of it?” Arkoniel asked.

“I was a Guardian myself, one of the original six … I’ve seen enough, Iya. Put it away.” She lay back and sighed deeply, not speaking until the cursed thing was safely wrapped again.

“You understood the Oracle’s meaning all too well, even without the knowledge lost when your master died,” she told Iya.

“I don’t understand,” said Arkoniel. “I never heard of other Guardians. Who are the six?”

Ranai closed her eyes. “They’re all dead, except for me. I’d never have revealed myself to your mistress, but when I saw that she no longer had the bag with her, I feared the worst. You must forgive an old woman’s weakness. Perhaps if I’d spoken when you came to Ylani a few years back—”

Iya took the clawed left hand in hers. “Never mind that. I know the oaths you swore. But we’re here now and you’ve seen it. What is it you have to tell us?”

Ranai looked up then. “There can be only one Guardian for each secret, Iya. You’ve passed the burden to this boy. What I have to say, only he can hear.”

“No, she only left it with me for safekeeping. Iya’s the true Guardian,” Arkoniel told her.

“No. She passed it down.”

“Then I give it back!”

“You can’t. The Lightbearer guided her hand, whether she knew it or not. You are Guardian now, Arkoniel, and what I have to say can only be said to you.”

Iya recalled the Afran Oracle’s cryptic words: This is a seed that must be watered with blood. But you see too far. And she thought of the vision she’d had that day, of a grand white palace filled with wizards, but seen from a distance, with Arkoniel looking out at her from a tower window.

“She’s right, Arkoniel. You stay.” Unable to look at either of them, she hurried out.

Sealed out by her own magic, she sagged against the wall and covered her face, letting the bitter tears come. Only then did the demon child’s cryptic words come back to haunt her.

You shall not enter.

Arkoniel stared after Iya in disbelief, then turned back to the ruined creature in the bed. The revulsion he’d felt the first time he’d seen her rushed back now.

“Sit, please,” Ranai whispered. “What I tell you now is what was lost with Agazhar’s death. Iya has acted in ignorance. No fault of hers, but it must be made right. Swear to me, Arkoniel, as all Guardians before you have sworn, by hands, heart, and eyes, by the Light of Illior, and by the blood of Aura that runs in your veins, that you will take on the full mantle of guardianship, and that as Guardian, you will lock all I tell you away in your heart until you pass the burden to your successor. Protect these secrets with your life and allow no one who discovers them to live. No one, you understand me? Not friend or foe, wizard or plain-born, man, woman, or child. Give me your hands and swear. I’ll know if you lie.”

“Secrecy and death. Is that all the Lightbearer will ever ask of me?”

“Many things will be asked of you, Arkoniel, but none more sacred than this. Iya will understand your silence.”

He’d seen the grief in Iya’s face and knew Ranai spoke the truth. “Very well.” He grasped Ranai’s hands and bowed his head. “I do swear, by hands, heart, and eyes, by the Light of Illior and by the blood of Aura in my veins, to carry out whatever duty is required of me as Guardian, and to reveal the secrets you give me to no one but my successor.”

A blast of raw energy shot through him from their clasped hands, engulfing him. It was like being struck by lightning. It seemed impossible that Ranai’s wasted body could still contain such power, but when it passed, it left them both gasping.

Ranai regarded him solemnly. “You are truly the Guardian now, more so than your mistress was, or even her master. You are the last of the six to carry that which must be hidden. All the rest have failed or laid their burden down.”

“And you?”

She raised a hand to her scarred cheek and grimaced. “This was the price I paid for my failure. But let me speak, for my strength is going.

“The greatest wizard of the Second Orëska was Master Reynes of Wyvernus. It was he who rallied the wizards of Skala to fight under Queen Ghërilain’s banner, and he who led those who finally defeated the Vatharna. You understand the word?”

Arkoniel nodded. “It’s Plenimaran for ‘the chosen one.’”

“The chosen one.” The old woman’s eyes were closed now, and Arkoniel had to lean closer to hear her. “The Vatharna was a great general, chosen by the necromancers to take on the form of Seriamaius.”

She still held his right hand, but he made a warding sign with his left. Even priests hesitated to speak the name of the necromancer’s god aloud. “How could such a thing be done?”

“They forged a helm and the one who wore it, the Vatharna, became an earthly vessel for the god. It did not happen at once, thank the Four, but gradually, though even the initial guise was terrible enough.

“The helm was completed and their general put it on. Reynes found him only just in time. Hundreds of wizards and warriors were killed in that battle, but the helm was captured. Reynes and the most powerful wizards still alive dismantled it somehow. But before they could do more, the Plenimarans attacked again. Only Reynes escaped, and with only six of the pieces. He never revealed how many there were in all. He put a glamour on those he had, wrapped them as yours is wrapped, and placed them in a darkened tent. Then he chose six of us—wizards who’d taken no part in the other ceremonies—and sent us in one at a time. We were to take the first bundle our hand found in the darkness, then depart alone, unseen. No matter what the cost, the pieces were to be scattered and hidden. Not even Reynes would know where they were.”

She coughed weakly and Arkoniel held a cup of water to her lips. “So they couldn’t put it back together?”

“Yes. Reynes was very careful, not trusting even himself to know the full truth. None of us had witnessed the ritual of dissolution, or the true form of what we carried. None of us knew what the others had, or where they went.”

“So Agazhar was one of the original Guardians?”

“No. He wasn’t powerful enough to be considered. Hyradin was the first of your line. He and Agazhar came to be friends later on, but Agazhar knew nothing of the burden he carried. It was only by chance that he was with Hyradin when the Plenimarans found him. Mortally wounded, Hyradin gave Agazhar the bundle and held off the enemy long enough for him to escape. Years later when he and I met again, I saw what he carried and knew Hyradin must be dead.”

“And all the other pieces were lost?”

“Mine was, and two others that I know of. Hyradin’s you carry. But one of us returned, saying she’d accomplished her purpose. The sixth was never heard of again. As far as I know, I’m the only one who failed and lived. It was years before I healed, and longer before I learned of Hyradin’s fate. By rights Agazhar should have killed me and I told him so, but he wouldn’t, saying I was a Guardian still. As far as I know, yours is the only fragment yet in Skala. I told Agazhar it should be hidden somewhere secure, but he thought he could better protect it by keeping it with him.” She fixed Arkoniel with her good eye. “He was wrong. It must

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