Artesans of Albia: 01 - King's Envoy (7 page)

Cal frowned and Taran paused before adding, “Cal, I killed someone.”

He heard Rienne gasp. Cal’s dark eyes widened and he slumped to the bed, staring in disbelief.

“How the hell did that happen?”

Taran saw Rienne retreat to the foot of the bed. The healer looked anxious. She might be confident and knowledgeable when dealing with medical matters, but she was shy and uncomfortable when out of her depth.

He tried to reassure her with a smile but her expression didn’t lighten. As he pushed himself higher on his pillows, Taran took a steadying breath, trying to force down the humiliation he felt. So much for reversing his run of bad luck, he thought. Now he was a killer as well as a failure.

He forced himself to tell his tale, beginning from when he had found himself alone among the parched Andaryan hills. Cal and Rienne listened, sympathy and horror in their eyes, not even interrupting when he described the noble’s killing. But when he related the tangwyr’s attack and his desperate use of the Staff, Cal gasped in understanding.

“So that’s why I have the ancestor of all headaches. I thought it couldn’t just be the effort of bringing you through the Veils.”

Panic engulfed Taran. “You did remember how to close the portway, didn’t you?”

Cal nodded. “Of course I did, I followed the procedure you showed me. But … it didn’t work quite right. There was … resistance.”

“Resistance?” Taran felt himself go cold. What lengths might the noble’s companions have gone to in order to find him?

“Don’t worry, I handled it,” said Cal. Taran shot him a look and he added, “No, it’s alright. Really. I dealt with it. But … there might be a problem.”

“What problem?”

“Well … you brought something back with you.”

Taran groaned, guessing what it was. “Oh gods, it’s the Staff. Where is it?”

“Still in the cellar. I didn’t like the look of it but we had our hands full trying to stop you battering yourself to death. It was all we could do to get you up the stairs, so we left it. Why did you bring it back?”

Taran flushed, shamed by the terror he had inflicted on his friends. His many previous incompetent attempts at furthering his knowledge were humiliating enough, but none was as destructive as this.

He tried to force down a tide of self-blame but couldn’t escape the fact that he had killed an Andaryan noble. No doubt the man’s retinue would call it murder, and they would seek vengeance. That, coupled with Taran’s theft—however unintentional—of a weapon the Andaryans would surely want back, meant this situation was far from resolved.

In his fear, he ignored Cal’s perfectly reasonable question.

“Did you lock the cellar door?”

Cal nodded. “I never leave it, you know that.”

There was nothing Taran could do right now. He was weak, he was sore. “I’m not up to dealing with it now,” he sighed, “I need to sleep. Maybe I’ll feel stronger when I wake. We’ll open a new portway, send the thing back. I don’t want it here any longer than necessary.”

Rienne watched Taran close his eyes and sink back onto the pillows. Glancing at Cal, she left him sitting on the edge of the bed.

She left the sleeping room, moving through the cottage until she reached the cellar door. There was more to this than Taran had said, she was sure. Something in his eyes … It was fear, she realized, and felt herself go cold.

Standing in front of the cellar’s wooden door, she regarded the lock as if it might undo itself. She trusted Cal, yet couldn’t resist giving the lock a tug. It was firmly secured, as he had said.

Reassured by that if by nothing else, she returned to the warmth of the living room fire and sat staring into the flames.

When Taran next awoke, it was daylight. Tentatively, he moved his limbs, relieved to discover only the soreness of his wounds and the aches to be expected after the previous day’s exertions. This was a good sign, so he decided to try his powers by reaching out to Cal. Gently, he gathered his will and released a quiet call.

Instantly, he wished he hadn’t. White-hot slivers of fire licked his brain and he gasped in shock. Had the Staff done permanent damage?

However, the experiment was obviously successful because he could hear someone thundering down the stairs. Cal burst into the room and, despite his pain, Taran couldn’t help but smile. Cal had dashed from his bed, totally naked.

“Taran, what is it? You sounded like you were in pain … ?”

Taran hastened to reassure his Apprentice even though he felt far from happy about his condition.

“Sorry Cal, I didn’t mean to startle you. I was testing myself, but I’m obviously not recovered yet. Sorry.”

He was sorrier still when a sleepy Rienne came into the room, a blanket clutched around her body against the early chill. Her soft gray eyes were full of anxiety, but when she realized it was a false alarm, she gave Taran a reproachful look and dragged Cal back to bed. Taran sighed and lay back, wondering how long it would be before his mind recovered. He didn’t dare think it might not.

Such depressing thoughts eventually forced him to rise. He couldn’t go back to sleep and tossing in his bed did him no good. He dressed, his muscles stiff and sore, and left his room. As he crossed the living space, he lit a taper from the banked fire. He approached the cellar door, seeing with satisfaction that it was securely locked. Taking the key from around his neck, he unlocked the door and descended the steps. A musty smell hit his nostrils. He touched the taper to a lamp resting on a nearby shelf and held it up, illuminating the center of the floor.

There lay the abandoned Staff. Setting the lamp down, Taran crouched to examine it.

Even in the warm lamp light there was something cold and vicious about it. His skin crept as he remembered the deadly energy that had flashed from its tip. Memories of blue-green light flared before his eyes and gooseflesh rose on his skin. How had it been made, he wondered? More importantly, why? He felt sure the noble’s challenge had something to do this terrible object, yet what he had hoped to accomplish, Taran had no idea. He knew that the Staff was a metaphysical instrument, some kind of amplifier of metaforce, but whether it had uses beyond the offensive, he couldn’t tell. He had never heard or read of anything like it before.

He stared—had light just rippled down its surface? Or had his hand trembled, causing the lamp to flare? Suddenly, he didn’t want to be here, squatting next to this deadly weapon. He straightened and extinguished the lamp. As he climbed the stairs, he resisted the impulse to run.

Nearly a week passed before Taran felt strong enough to attempt the Staff’s return, despite his growing sense of urgency. Badly frightened by his first painful attempt to use power, he waited two days before accessing his metaforce again. To his great relief, the pain was significantly less. Even so, he waited another day before believing his sore brain had returned to normal. His confidence was only restored after two more days of careful experimentation.

He knew Cal was relieved to see he’d recovered; his Apprentice had been hovering around him even more than Rienne did. Now the two of them stood side-by-side in the cellar, preparing to open another portway.

Despite the risks of opening a breach in the Veils in a populated area, Taran felt safe building the portway in the cellar. He was hidden from prying eyes and the cellar’s thick stone walls and deliberately concave floor helped contain the small leakage of Earth element he wasn’t yet strong enough to control.

The Staff still lay in the center of the floor. Taran didn’t want to touch it again and he had forbidden Cal to do so. His intention was to raise Earth force directly under the Staff and form the portway with the weapon already inside. Once the Veils were breached, he would use his metaforce to push it through to Andaryon. He did worry that it might damage whoever picked it up, but he forced himself to ignore his conscience. He had to get rid of the Staff.

Now the two men stood side-by-side, eyes closed and arms outstretched, palms facing downward to direct the flow of metaforce into the rock of the floor. Quieting his mind, Taran felt deep within until he could access his psyche. Its familiarity surrounded him, flooding him with metaforce.

Turning his attention to Cal, Taran could feel him doing the same. Cal was slower, less confident, but his strength was growing. Soon he was ready and Taran felt him give control of his power to his mentor.

Linked to Cal, Taran isolated the areas of their psyches that were attuned to the element of Earth. His senses sank into the rock beneath his feet, calling to the forces buried there. With a thrill that never failed to move him, he felt the weighty rise as the primal element responded to his call. Trying not to lose concentration, he drew it into the shallow depression in the floor. Slowly, as he called for more power, sluggish tendrils of Earth force began to lick at his feet.

Opening his eyes, he nodded to Cal. It was his Apprentice’s task to mold this energy into a spherical portway, but it had to be done slowly and carefully so no gaps appeared in the construction.

When Cal had completed the portway, he opened his eyes, looking to Taran for approval. Forming portways was his latest achievement and he was proud of his new ability.

Taran smiled. “Well done, Cal.”

He anchored the structure within the substance of the Veils so it would remain firm. Pushing aside the slight headache he always felt when expending power, he drew a breath and prepared to activate the portway.

The Staff still lay quiescent; it hadn’t reacted to the primal element. But when Taran’s metaforce touched the portway, there was a subtle change. Frowning, he glanced at Cal, but his Apprentice hadn’t noticed. When he looked back at the portway, his skin began to crawl.

Slowly, ominously, its color was changing. Usually portways were translucent, an opalescent mist shot through with the odd spark of silver or gold, occasionally red. This one, however, was beginning to take on a greenish tinge, much like the color of the Staff. Taran didn’t like it one bit.

Either Cal sensed Taran’s unease or he finally noticed what was happening. He shot Taran a look. “Why’s it doing that?”