As they waited, Er’ril considered her words. He was no fool. He knew what Mycelle was thinking. Once their corner of the rail was empty again, Er’ril spoke. “This elemental hidden in the swamp—you suspect this is the one who’s bewit’ched Elena.”
Mycelle nodded. “And the only one who can lift the spell and free Elena’s magick.” She picked at the girl’s loose sleeve that hid the spread of vines on her left arm. “This is her message to us. Bring Elena to her or she will kill the child.”
“So we have no choice?” Er’ril asked.
Mycelle remained silent.
Elena, however, answered, speaking for the first time, her voice sullen and resigned to her fate. “I hate snakes.”
FROM THE SHADOWS of the dock, Mogweed watched the barge leave with his brother and the wit’ch. Oars rose and fell as the boat drove for the deeper channel of the river. He noted the name carved and painted on the stern of the ship: Shadowchaser.
Satisfied that no last-minute switch would occur, Mogweed slipped behind the edge of a blacksmith’s shack. The hammering from inside the establishment echoed in his head as he wandered back toward their inn. He rubbed at his temples as he walked, trying to erase the seed of a headache that threatened. Still, he allowed himself the smallest smile as he reached the town square.
Er’ril thought himself so sly with all his secret maneuverings, yet Mogweed had found it simple to discover both the name of the barge and its destination. Almost all the dockworkers knew of the haughty woman with her one-armed husband. Her generosity with silver had attracted many ears and eyes. A few whispered questions and an exchange of coppers had bought Mogweed all the information he needed. Among the backstreets of Shadowbrook, gossip was a commodity traded as surely as baled tobacco leaf or casks of herb oil. Knowledge was a vital trade good, and Mogweed now possessed the most valuable tidbit of information in Shadowbrook.
He knew where the wit’ch was headed: to Land’s End.
With this knowledge and the satchel of shorn hair, Mogweed would buy himself a boon from the king of this land. He strode with a certain authority in his step across the threshold of the Painted Pony.
The innkeeper stopped him as he approached the back stairs. “Them large friends of yours be gone already,” the pudgy man hollered to him. “They told me to tell you they would meet you for supper.”
Mogweed nodded and felt generous. He fished a copper from his pocket and tossed it toward the innkeep. The man snatched the coin from the air and made it vanish. Mogweed turned to leave.
“Hold on there!” the innkeep added. “Some messenger boy came runnin’ in just after the others left and gave me this note for you folks that burned the warehouse.” He held out a folded scrap of parchment with a wax seal in place.
“Who’s it from?” Mogweed asked as he accepted the note.
“It bears the seal of the lords of the Keep.” The innkeeper’s eyes shone with curiosity.
“Who?”
“Lord Mycof and Lord Ryman. Them’s as live in the town’s castle. Odd birds, but their family’s been lords of the Keep since my great granddad was suckin’ his mammy’s tit.” The innkeeper leaned closer to Mogweed. “Now what would the likes of them want with circus folk, hmm?”
Mogweed hesitated, a spike of fear rising as he touched the seal. Would they have to pay for the warehouse? Should he wait until the others returned before reading the note? The hungry gleam in the innkeeper’s eye, though, reminded him of the important lesson he had learned in Shadowbrook this morning. Knowledge was a vital commodity.
He thumbed open the note and unfolded it. It took just a moment to read it.
“What’s it say?” the innkeeper asked, all but drooling on the scarred counter.
Mogweed folded the note. “They . . . they want us to perform at the Keep tonight, just at twilight.”
“A private performance! By gods, you must have caught them lords’ attentions. I’ve never heard of those birds asking for such a thing before. Quite an opportunity!” The news initially delighted the innkeeper; then the man’s piggy eyes narrowed. “If you think of moving to a richer inn after this, remember you booked your rooms for a whole quarter moon. You’ll still have to pay.”
Nodding, Mogweed retreated on numb legs. He stumbled up the steps. Behind him, he heard the innkeep already spreading the news.
Mogweed keyed open the door to his room and slipped inside. He leaned back on the door as it latched closed. He took his first deep breath since reading the note. He had expected to have a few days to plot and plan. He thought it would take some time to discover the whereabouts of the ill’guard and their seeker.
He opened the note again and looked at it—not at the words of invitation, but at the seal fixed in bloodred ink on the bottom of the paper. Mogweed had been in such a hurry to open the note that he had not paid heed to the same imprint in the wax. But he could not ignore the seal’s clear impression on the parchment.
The crest of the lords of the Keep was two creatures, back to back, scaled tails wrapped around each other, raised on hind limbs, teeth bared in menace.
Mogweed touched the crest with a trembling finger. “Rats,” he mumbled to the empty room.
He suddenly knew the identity of the two ill’guard in Shadowbrook.
He held their invitation in his hands.
As he leaned on the door, he took several deep breaths. A plot began forming in his head. He slipped a dagger from his waist sheath and carefully trimmed the parchment to remove the inked seal. He crossed to the lamp of the room and held the seal up to the flame. Its ink glowed bright red in the flame, as bright as the locks of Elena’s shorn hair.
He studied the seal. His fingers no longer trembled.
Though their circus troupe was divided, he must convince Kral and Tol’chuk to attend this command performance. Mogweed laid out his arguments in his mind. The lords of Shadowbrook would be powerful allies in their search for Meric. How could they possibly pass up this rare chance to gain access to the many resources available at the Keep? It could make the difference between saving and losing Meric.
Mogweed grinned sharply at the scrap of parchment.
How could Kral or Tol’chuk refuse?
He held the paper closer to the lamp’s flame until it caught fire. Then he dropped the burning scrap to the floor and ground its black embers into the planks.
Only he would know the real invitation behind the words written on the note—an invitation to death.
Mogweed rubbed the ash from his fingers.
Knowledge truly was power!
“DO YOU THINK they will come, Brother?” Mycof asked as he lounged back on his reclining sofa, a pillow cushioning his head.
“How could they not? Even if they suspect us, they will still come nosing for their friend. Either that, or they’ll simply flee from the city and solve our problem anyway.” Ryman lay on a matching sofa of the softest silks and down of goose. His brother’s constant questions began to grate on him. “But I still believe they will come,” he added. “They fought hard and will not flee.”
Mycof knew he irritated his twin, but he could not silence his concerns. “Do you think the . . . the d’warf suspects?”
“He is surely too busy with the new plaything we fetched him last night.” Ryman’s voice edged with exasperation. “He will think us too exhausted by last night’s hunt to plot against his goals.”
“Are you sure?”
“Our inquiries were discreet. Only we know the prisoner was the magician from the circus that rented the warehouse. Surely this other elemental whom the d’warf seeks is also among this troupe.” Ryman sat up straighter on his sofa and looked Mycof in the face. His brother’s smooth brow contained a single wrinkle of worry. Ryman’s heart went out to his younger brother. He had not suspected how deeply this scheme had unsettled his twin. He reached a hand to the neighboring sofa and touched Mycof’s silk sleeve. “This is just like a game of tai’man,” he consoled. “Moving pieces hither and
yon to our best advantage. Because of our skilled hunting last night, we must now contend with another who will share our private Sacrament.” Ryman could not keep the disgust from his voice.
“That is,” Mycof offered, refusing to consider this horrible prospect, “if the thin man survives the ebon’stone.”
Ryman patted his brother’s sleeve. “Yes, that would be nice if he died, but if we mean to keep yet another from intruding on our nightly hunts, then we must take matters into our own hands.” Ryman leaned back into his couch. “Before the hunt is called tonight, all in the circus must be dead and disposed of. The d’warf will think his prey have been spooked and run off, and we will again have the hunt to ourselves.”
“As long as the prisoner from last night dies.”
Sighing, Ryman closed his eyes. “Even that is being taken care of. Remember how skilled I am at tai’man.”
Mycof remained silent. He did not voice his private concern. Just yesterday, he himself had beat Ryman at tai’man.
So might not another?
SWEAT RAN IN rivers and streams across Lord Torwren’s naked flesh, a brackish swamp that stung his eyes and collected in the folds of his skin. In chest and belly, his two hearts hammered in discord as the ebon’stone sphere hovered in the air, spinning with furious fires. He wiped brusquely at his eyes and swore under his breath.
A seeker’s work required both strength of will and stubbornness of bone. To forge an ill’guard warrior out of a pure elemental was difficult work. Torwren, however, knew better than to complain. Being a seeker was far better than being an ill’guard. He, at least, had a measure of free will—unlike those bent to the stone.
Torwren studied his victim.
His prisoner hung in manacles upon the wall. The man’s shredded clothes lay in the mud under his hanging toes. With the first searing touch of the ebon’stone’s flames, the spell of sleep had been burned from the man’s eyes. In the prisoner’s gaze now, the d’warf lord sensed that the man knew what was happening. The prisoner’s silver hair had been singed from his scalp, and his lips had blistered from the heat. Even now his muscles spasmed and quaked from the d’warf’s last assault upon his inner barriers, yet he still stared with a cool indifference at Lord Torwren. He did not scream; he did not plead for mercy.
Scratching at his belly, the d’warf planned his next attack.
The thin limbs and sallow skin of the prisoner were deceptive. Where he should be weak, the d’warf lord found only strength. The man had a font of inner fortitude that had nothing to do with the richness of his elemental abilities. As Torwren worked on him, the flavor and depth of this man’s elemental fire was like a tantalizing prize dangling just out of his reach, but before he could possess this gift, he must dig free the prisoner’s spirit and give it to the stone where the dark magicks would twist it to his will. Then the magick would be his to possess, his to forge into the mightiest of ill’guard.
Torwren frowned at his prisoner. The man confounded him. His stubborn spirit still refused to burn with the bloodfire. Still, Lord Torwren knew the value of patience and persistence. A slow drip of water eventually wore through rock, and the power at his fingertips was much stronger than mere water.
Yet, to be so close to his centuries-long dream . . .
He pictured the Try’sil and let his thoughts wander to what he could do once he retrieved the lost treasure of his ancestors. He shook his head. He must cast aside these stray thoughts, especially as he worked so intimately with the ebon’stone talisman. He must not raise the attention of the Dark Lord.
He firmed his thoughts as he reached once again for the stone.
“Wh-who are you?” the prisoner mumbled, his cracked and blistered tongue forming words with difficulty.
The voice stopped Torwren’s fingers. Few of his subjects were ever capable of speech after the initial testing. Intrigued, he lowered his palms away from the sphere. Perhaps a bit of conversation might reveal a weakness in this prisoner. Besides, he had the time, and seldom did he come upon the pleasure of a true adversary.
He bowed his head slightly in greeting toward the shackled man. “I am Lord Torwren,” he said with a wave of a wrinkled hand. “And I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of your introduction.”
Even though his scalp still curled with tendrils of smoke, the man’s eyes were cool. “Lord Meric,” he said, his voice stronger, proud. “Of the House of the Morning Star.”
“Hmm . . . of noble birth,” Torwren grinned, his thick lips revealing the wide teeth of his people.
“I know you,” Meric said. “You are a d’warf lord.”
Torwren bowed again. “You are keen. Few of my people still live, and I am the last of the lords. How do you know my people so well?”
The prisoner’s head began to sag with exhaustion. The pain had finally weakened him. “We were once allies,” he said with a trace of sorrow. “We once called your people friends.”
His words crinkled Torwren’s brow. A knit of worry began to rise in his chest. “Who are you?”
The prisoner’s sky blue eyes rose to stare at Torwren. “Have you forgotten your honor? Your allies? I am of the elv’in people.”
“A stormrider!” Torwren could not keep the name from his lips. Surely this man was mad. D’warves were long-lived, known to reach an age numbered in centuries, yet none of his ancestors spoke of the elv’in as anything but fanciful tales, creatures of myth. And the most crucial story surrounding the stormriders concerned the gift that the elv’in had bestowed upon his people. Stunned, Torwren dared to speak its name aloud for the first time in centuries. “The Try’sil.”
“The Hammer of Thunder,” the prisoner mumbled, his head again falling. “Its iron forged by lightning borne in our magick-wrought thunderheads.”
Torwren backed from the prisoner. The man knew the secrets of his d’warf heritage! Could what he claimed be true? Could he truly be one of the ancient elv’in?
The d’warf lord studied the scorched and blistered figure: the thin limbs, the delicate features. His twin hearts rallied as he began to believe. Hope surged through his bones.
The prisoner had to be a sign. It could not be mere chance. Surely this elv’in, so rich in raw elementals, had been delivered into his hands by destiny, crude material for him to forge into a baleful weapon.
In his ears, old memories of his home in Gul’gotha echoed up from the past: the strike of hammer on iron anvils, the sighing song of the bellows, the roar of a thousand forges. Since the rise of the Black Heart among his people, the forges of the d’warves had gone cold, the smithies now empty and silent. At the bidding of the Dark Lord, his people had cast their lives upon these foreign shores until only a scattered few still lived.
Now, as the last of the lords, it was up to him to reclaim his heritage—and to accomplish that he must first possess the Try’sil.
With the fervor of one who knew his task was righteous, Lord Torwren reached for the ebon’stone sphere.
As his fingers touched the talisman, he merged his mind into the stone. His will became bloodfire, and wild flames swept out from the stone’s polished surface toward the elv’in. Black magicks crackled in the flames. Torwren saw the flames reflected in the prisoner’s blue eyes.
It was destiny!
“No!” the prisoner screamed, seeming finally to recognize his fate.
Torwren ignored his plea and swept his flaming will at the prisoner, forcing his way into the elv’in’s wracked body, working into his mouth, up his nose. The man spasmed with the touch of fire. With its burn, the prisoner’s heels beat at the stone wall of Rash’amon. The flames flowed into the man’s body, burning their way inside of him, violating him, carrying Torwren into the heart of the elv’in.
Once inside, the d’warf lord began his forging. Flame and hammer were the tools of the ancient blademasters, and they would be his, too. With centuries of skill, he burned at the stubborn spiritual attachments of the elv’in and hammered away at his barriers and r
esistance. Somewhere far off, he heard the prisoner howling at the assault.
A tight smile stretched the d’warf’s lips.
Long ago, elv’in nobles had granted his ancestors the power of the Try’sil. And once again, it would be the hands of an elv’in that would return the sacred Hammer of Thunder to its rightful heritage.
Such a balance of fate could not fail!
Torwren renewed his attack, like a mad dog upon the flesh of a newborn. Somewhere deeper in the ebon’stone, something scented the d’warf’s new fervor. Something ancient and corrupt of spirit twisted in Torwren’s direction, drawn by the sudden blood lust. Blind to his task and wrapped in the surety of his action, the d’warf ignored the red eyes that cracked open to stare out from the stone’s blasted heart.
Buried in the volcanic crèches under Blackhall, the Dark Lord stirred.
19
AS THE SUN touched the western horizon, Kral led the others toward the massive gates of the Keep. Tol’chuk followed, cloaked to hide his og’re form and burdened with their half-singed gear. Mogweed hung behind.
With their approach, Kral’s eyes appraised the fortifications: The moat was too shallow with too many trees growing nearby. Archers could easily harry the battlements. The mortar that set the stones had too much sand and would poorly resist a good battering by catapults. The iron portcullis that protected the gate of the Keep was more decorative than substantial. He scowled at the construction. It would not stand against a determined assault.
Still, his party had not come to lay siege to the battlements. They had come under the ruse of entertainment to try to win a favor from the lords of this town. Surely these leaders would understand the danger that lurked and hunted their streets, and they would want to protect their people. Kral again eyed the fortifications of the Keep. Then again, perhaps not.
But what choice did they have?
Kral, accompanied by a cloaked-and-hooded Tol’chuk, had wandered the dockside bars and inns, seeking information about the demon rats. Met with laughter and ridicule, all they had learned was that the town of Shadowbrook, like most river cities, had always been plagued by rats. Yet, after a few coppers had exchanged hands, darker stories arose. Over the past seasons, bodies had been turning up half chewed by the vermin. Unusual activity, the townsfolk claimed, but the past winter had been both harsh and long. What hungry creature would not seek imaginative means of filling its empty stomach?