Duty (Book 2) (20 page)

“Marin,” Athan ordered, face red and eyes wide. “He is trying to jump. Take over.” The plump Padra stepped forward and concentrated, Athan slumping back against the wall.

“We should get the Chalaine away from here,” he gasped. “Tell everyone to say nothing of where we are going until we are well out of Gen’s earshot.”

Kaimas concurred, closing his eyes. “Joranne is coming in from the woods behind the inn. She is some distance off, still. I will remain behind to stall her approach, if I can.”

Ethris furrowed his brow. “Are you sure?” he asked concernedly. “You will be of little use now. I must stay with the Chalaine and cannot help you.”

“I will do what I can, Ethris. Hurry!”

Kaimas opened the back door, shutting it behind him and yelling at Cookmaster Broulin to clear everyone out, pots and dishes packed or no.

“Orviss,” Athan said weakly, “you stay with Marin and hold the jumper here for as long as you can. If it appears you will fail, do not release the hold until you are out of his sight or he’ll jump to you.”

“Yes, your Grace.”

“Let’s get them out, Ethris.”

By the time Marin’s strength failed, the noise in the common room had faded. Gen heard the First Mother and the Chalaine and others coming down the stairs and leaving in a rush. Regent Ogbith poked his head in and told the Padras that horses would be left for them and that Athan would contact them mentally with instructions. After a brief glance at Gen, the Regent left. Orviss, Gen could see, would not last as long as his predecessors, nervousness sapping his strength.

The jumper was perfectly content.
She will come and free me,
he thought to Gen.
She is at the doors.
The sound of Kaimas howling in pain nearly broke Orviss’s focus. He said, “I cannot hold any longer, Marin.”

Marin nodded and both men backed toward the door, Orviss hanging on until the door shut.
She is here. Fear not. You are not to die.
The door at the rear entrance of the kitchen opened. Unexpectedly Kaimas entered, back rigid. His face was pale, waxy, and slack, and only the whites of his eyes showed. As Gen watched, blood poured from his eye sockets and dripped from his mouth. He coughed and gagged, staggering about spitting blood on the wall before vomiting and collapsing. Flecks of blood spotted the lantern on the table as Joranne, in appearance a wrinkled old woman, shuffled through the doorway.

“You have done well,” she said, addressing the jumper. “I will release you.”

“Into whom?”

“I am afraid no one is available, and I don’t have time to take you back to your body.”

“Betrayer!”

“Hardly. Gen is more important than you, and I must speak with him.”

“No!” The jumper tried to release himself from Gen and pass into Joranne, but Joranne grinned mischievously as he failed. Frustration and fear gripped the jumper, sending him into desperation. He pulled and twisted Gen’s arms against the ropes and the chair, bruising and rubbing raw his flesh. Joranne closed her eyes. “Kill him, Dethris.”

“You’ll pay for this, Joranne!” the jumper yelled, thrashing.

In a moment, Gen felt freed, regaining control of his mind and his body. Joranne smiled pleasantly at him, as a grandmother might smile at a grandchild who had just arrived for a visit.

“At last,” she said, “we get to talk. It is hardly fitting that someone who practically raised you should not be able to find herself in your company without all this effort. But I understand now how deeply you were interfered with and that you do not know what gratitude is owed me or what place in history awaits you. Of course, I have gleaned from Kaimas that the magic used to hide the knowledge and teachings from you is powerful, but I’m sure with a little effort I can overcome. But first, I need information for my master.”

She stared at him, and Gen felt her push into his mind easily despite his attempts to shut her out. She quickly sifted through his memories, going further and further back, his life a blur. The first memory she could find, the furthest back Gen had recollection of, was when as a child he had been stumbling through the woods of the Alewine forest by himself, cold and wearing nothing but a ragged shirt. His feet hurt as he trod through on the rough, dry ground. They were scarred. He heard a strange noise in the woods ahead of him and climbed a tree out of fear and curiosity. There were men in the clearing before him, the first he could recall seeing, chopping at a tree with heavy axes. One looked up and saw him. The memory vanished.

“So they concealed my care for you,” she stated bitterly. “Then you will need some of my memories before you really understand. Learn from whence you came.”

As with the memories of the three masters of his Training Stones, Joranne’s thoughts played out before him as if he were her, watching through her eyes.

She waited. It was the night appointed by the Millim Eri for the Ha’Ulrich and the Chalaine to be born, and it was the night Mikkik had chosen—out of spite—for his servant to come forth. The ground before her was muddy and soft from the rain that had fallen on the twisted, thorny trees of Goreth Forest in sheets during the day. The perpetual mist that stirred between the boles threatened to conceal the spot where she had buried the seed that Mikkik had given her. She used her magic to clear the mist so her view of whatever creature was born from the seed would not be obscured.

The seed was little bigger than an acorn made of what appeared to be molten glass. Mikkik had given the task of planting the seed her, not trusting his followers, the Mikkik Dun, with knowledge of its whereabouts. He had slaved over the stone for months. She understood only dimly what he had done. From what she knew, Mikkik had not created the stone, but rather modified it, changed it somehow to suit his purpose, struggling to complete the work in secret as his power failed. When complete, he had found her and brought her to Goreth, entrusting her with the seed and the animon before disappearing into hiding. With Trys eclipsed, Mikkik was only a pinch more powerful than she was.

During the night, she jammed a stick into the mud and worked it around until she had a hole big enough to drop the stone into, covering it once complete. Now, with night ending, she held the animon for the new creature clutched in her hand. The animon would be the creature’s life force, for Mikkik did not trust the creature to have life unto itself. Joranne thrilled in anticipation. She could hardly fathom what kind of creature the Ilch would be or what the manner its birth would entail. She had simply followed instructions and dared ask no more. Here would be one that would join her on the thrones of Elde Luri Mora in eternal splendor. Surely Mikkik would choose his own form or that of the Millim Eri for his servant.

She checked the sky. Any time now. Joranne’s body was that of a youth as it always was when dawn was near. She was grateful she would have the day to arrange things before she was returned to dust to be reborn. If the creature were born while she was yet an infant, she feared it would overtake her in her weakness.

The dirt before her stirred with the faint signs of dawn, the first strong rays of light piercing through the gloom of the wood. She cast a spell to illuminate the still dim spot, light diffusing eerily in the mist. Slowly, strands of dirt writhed, at first giving the appearance of a mass of worms squirming just beneath the surface. Gradually, the dirt churned faster and took a more definite shape—it was humanoid, a child. Joranne was surprised. Why not create the Ilch fully grown? The brown and gray of the dirt changed into the white hues of bone, the red of muscle, and the peach-white of flesh. The eyes and ears formed last. A human child. A boy. It lay lifeless in the hole created from the material of its creation.

Joranne looked at the animon. The glass ball in her hand now glowed in the center, and she stretched out her hand and touched the chest of the infant with the animon, the flame inside bending toward the body. Muscles stirred as the power of the animon ignited the life of the Ilch, and in the pre-dawn chill, it bellowed, voice a clarion call through the trees. Mikkik’s servant was born with a power for Trysmagic to rival that of his creator.

Joranne pocketed the animon carefully; breaking it would kill the child. She wrapped the baby in her cloak and comforted and quieted him as best she could. It would be a couple more hours before she had breast enough to feed the child, and Goreth forest was not a safe place. She could not disappoint her master by letting a wolf or a Gek destroy his creation before it took but ten breaths on Ki’Hal. Pulling him close, Joranne found her bearings and walked southwest. Goreth was no place to raise a baby.

The vision ended and the room returned to focus, Joranne stopping so her face was close to his. “And so it was, Gen. I took you south to the warm Plains of Ellinin. No one lived there but you and I by the river. I brought you up from a babe. You sucked my breast, slept on my shoulder in the afternoon, and learned the true nature of things as I taught you to speak. But in your fourth year the Millim Eri discovered me and took you and your
animon
. Do you want to know how it was? I have found those seals upon your mind, quite cleverly concealed. Let me release the first. . .”

As she bent forward to place her hands upon his head, her eyebrows scrunched together and she pulled back, casting about fearfully.

“My time here is at an end. Remember what I have shown you. Remember this most of all: the Chalaine and the Ha’Ulrich are not what you believe. You can master them both.”

Joranne fled, flinging open the door and darting out into the night. Gen breathed out heavily, feeling the air in his lungs for the first time he could recall since coming under the control of the jumper. Kaimas’s body lay still on the floor, blood settling around his head.

Gen struggled against his bonds, casting his eyes about the kitchen in search of a knife or sharp edge he could rub against to slice them. As he turned, he saw runes as shadows on the wall behind him. They read, “He has already won.”

Turning back toward the lantern, Gen saw that the spittle of blood sprayed by Kaimas had dripped and streaked to form the message on the lantern panes. Gen shivered at the malice that would send a man to such a death.

Clearing his mind, Gen turned his attention toward freeing himself. He guessed that the Chalaine and her party could not be more than twenty minutes gone. He assumed they would push as quickly as they could to the Portal, as it was fortified. For such a large company to pass through the small Portal would take the better part of a day, and he could arrive in ample time to join them before they sailed across the lake.

Only after searching for several frustrating minutes and failing to get hold of something to help him did he realize that the chair he sat in had become rickety from all his scooting about. Leaning forward, he got to his feet and rammed backward as hard as he could into the wall. The chair held but was weakened considerably. Finding the stonework stove, he slammed into that next. The chair splintered and fell apart, but he fell awkwardly, hitting the back of his head on the edge of the stove. His vision swam, and he lay still on the stones, trying to fight off unconsciousness. Wings flapped somewhere nearby.

“You can tell them nothing of what Joranne showed you,” Ethris counseled Gen, standing well away from the rest of the column as it passed through the shimmering Portal. The advance riders had found Gen lying face down in the middle of the road the day after the incident, unconscious and bruised from the night before. The entire column had stopped in the middle of the wood a good half-mile away while Ethris and Athan rode forward to inspect him and ensure that he was himself and no longer compromised by the enemy.

Despite Ethris’s proclamation of his health and self-possession, Athan had ordered Gen quarantined from the rest of the caravan for observation for at least three days, dismissing all objections leveled against the measure. Mirelle and Fenna were allowed to inquire after him, but only at a distance. In return, Ethris demanded that Gen not be questioned until he had eaten and been healed. Athan agreed, and a Pureman had been fetched to care for his scrapes and bruises. Once the Pureman had gone, Ethris pulled Gen aside and Gen told him everything.

“I am smart enough to know to conceal that,” Gen answered, feeling anxious. “The question is, what do I tell Athan and the Padras? They’ll be back to inquire about the whole thing soon enough, and if I lie they’ll know it.”

Ethris rubbed his chin. “There is much of the truth to be said, and we can only hope that will suffice. Just say she had my brother Dethris kill the jumper, interrogated you magically to find information about what we are planning, and then fled unexpectedly. That should do it.”

Gen nodded his assent. One hint that he was the Ilch would see him dead in an instant, no matter how ridiculous the notion would seem to everyone else. He hoped the rush of getting the caravan through the Portal would spare him deep questioning. The Shroud Lake Portal was small and relatively unadorned, its size slowing the passage of the caravan. A rough stone arch was constructed to mark the Portal’s location, a rutted road leading to it and not beyond. Gen thought it ironic that the entrance to the most important shard should be so plain and narrow. The Chalaine’s wagon had been constructed with the Portal’s dimensions in mind, and it barely fit.

To complicate matters further, the Portal opened onto the middle of a lake on the other side, and since its discovery two years ago, a hand-chosen group of craftsman had labored unceasingly to construct a large floating dock and a host of barges to convey the Ha’Ulrich and his party across the immense Shroud Lake, a water journey of four days to the east shore. Gen had heard about the floating dock and the mist-covered lake in the council outlining their plan and was anxious to see them, but as the Padras Athan, Orviss, and Marin approached in company with Regent Ogbith and Shadan Khairn, Gen felt his chances slim. All were severe—all save Torbrand, who looked festive.

“Gen,” the Shadan said happily, giving his former student a slap on the back, “good to see you in control of yourself. I hope you noticed that I saved your First Mother for you. She hasn’t shown me nearly as much gratitude as she showed you for similar service, but I suspect she’ll warm to me sooner or later. She’s had a pretty rough trip so far, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Enough of this banter,” Athan growled. “Tell us what happened, Gen? We don’t have much time for this.”

Gen rehearsed the events as Ethris had instructed, noting the general lack of surprise that Kaimas was dead.

“I felt Kaimas’ passing,” Ethris explained after Gen finished and asked. “Kaimas, Dethris, and I have always been connected in that way, despite our differences.”

“What I would like to know,” Athan continued, “is why go to all the effort to secure Gen in the first place? As devastating as the attack was, the whole purpose was not, as I reason, to do any physical harm to the First Daughter or the Ha’Ulrich, but to capture Gen. What does Joranne want with him? Did you get any sense of her purpose, boy?”

Gen remained as calm as he could. “She wanted to use me to gather information for her ‘master,’ as I said earlier. There was more she wanted to do and say, but something frightened her off before she could complete her interrogation. She wants to use me, but I do not know to what end.”

“And how did you end up in the middle of the road ahead of the party?”

“I have no recollection of what happened after I tried to break the chair to escape,” Gen answered truthfully.

“This business vexes me greatly,” Athan grumbled aloud, dissatisfied. Gen was grateful, however, that the questioning appeared to be at an end.

Athan stared at Ethris. “A great deal has happened to the Chalaine of late, and at each turn of events Gen is at the center of it. I want him accompanied by you, Ethris, or one of the Padras, at all times for the next three days. We will examine him again at that time. If it were up to me, Gen would be left behind, but a certain aristocrat is against it. Gen, I implore you to abandon the caravan for the good of the Chalaine and whoever else you count as friend. You are drawing danger to them rather than the reverse.”

Athan held Gen’s eyes for a moment before walking away.

“That went as well as can be hoped,” Ethris commented after everyone had left. “One of these times he will want to inspect your mind himself, and that would likely be the end of you—and of me, for that matter. Do try to keep out of trouble from now on, if you don’t mind. It is obvious that despite his pronouncements after the first betrothal, Mikkik is anxious to recover you, unless Joranne is acting alone.”

“Why doesn’t she simply expose me? I would be on the run and more accessible.”

“She may do just that, if it comes to it,” Ethris speculated. “But your position is advantageous to her, and to Mikkik. If they could convert you to their purpose while you are still in a position of trust, the damage you could wreak would be immense, indeed.”

“Do you still trust me?”

“You have given me no reason not to,” Ethris said catching his eye. “I have examined your mind and your character deeply, and I find no shadow of wavering. Even if Joranne were to unlock the seals in your mind, I doubt you would turn.”

“Athan is right about one thing,” Gen said. “I may need to leave the caravan voluntarily to guarantee its safety.”

“I doubt it will come to that. Just serve the Chalaine, Gen. Whatever you were born to do, protecting her is the best use of your talents and your forthcoming power. Eldaloth and an increasing number of people know that Chertanne cannot do it.”

They were the last to pass through the shimmering field. The Portal Mage, clearly exhausted, shut the Portal down after following them through. It was midafternoon on the Shroud Lake shard, a few hours ahead of the Rhugothian shard cluster. Gen glanced about, impressed by the floating dock, which was twice the size he had imagined it to be, nearly ten thousand square feet. Great sections of wood were lashed together, forming a solid platform stable enough for horses and wagons.

“The first small section was the hardest to build, given the size of the Portal,” Ethris recounted. “They were quite enthusiastic once they completed it and quite disappointed the next day when they stepped through the Portal and fell into the water after it had drifted away during the night. It is well-anchored, now.”

Gen and Ethris walked forward to where they could watch several barges departing laden with supplies. The soldiers had sailed first to form a protective ring about the Ha’Ulrich and the Chalaine on the water.

The day was hazy but calm. The Portal was in easy viewing distance of a large cliff a mile away, a towering limestone wall with scraggly plants and trees gouging a living from the rock. Looking east, Gen tried to make out the Chalaine’s carriage atop one of the barges, but it had already passed out of sight into the mist.

“We’d best hurry,” Ethris said. “The last barge is for us.”

To Gen’s dismay, Athan stood among the bags of supplies awaiting their arrival. The thought of spending the next four days in the company of the overzealous Padra made him suddenly fond of swimming.

“I thought I should be near at first in case I think of anything I neglected to ask previously,” Athan explained defensively, though arrogantly, at noting their displeasure.

As they pushed out into the water, Gen wormed around the supplies to the front of the barge, peering forward into the hazy afternoon while the bargemaster pounded a steady beat on a small drum for the rowers. Ethris joined him and both expressed a wish for a good wind to clear the way ahead. The limited visibility was discomfiting, and—while Gen could sense in which direction the Chalaine’s barge pushed across the lake—he felt uncomfortable not being near her or able to help. Of course, he didn’t know if she, Fenna, or the First Mother would feel comfortable in his presence after his actions the night before.

Fortunately, Athan either thought of no more questions or declined to ask them. An hour before dusk approached, all the barges were pulled together and lashed one to another. Gen found his barge on the outer edge, even beyond the last ring of soldiers, though he could now just barely see the Chalaine’s large wagon in the distance. Much to the relief of the entire crew of the barge, Athan left and did not return that evening.

For the next two days, Gen grappled with boredom. The oppressive mist and haze never lifted from the lake, and everyone on the barge complained of being smothered. To pass the time, Gen started taking turns rowing, spelling some of the burly men who pulled the oars day after day. At first they simply said, “Nobles don’t row,” but after Gen’s diligent nagging and the promise of a song or two, they relented and let him try it, impressed with his endurance. On the second day, Gen even took over the bargemaster’s job from time to time, chanting ridiculous impromptu limericks with the beat.

By the third day on the lake and his confinement to the barge, the bargemaster reclined among the supplies smoking a pipe, for Gen, by popular demand, had usurped his position. Gen, feeling more levity than he had in some time, was grateful for the employment; it helped take his mind off Athan and the dull trip. To liven things up, Gen invented a rhyme and taught the oarsmen to chant it loudly when he steered them within earshot of other barges:

Row and row

Row and row

We are fast

You are slow

Water splashes

Water swirls

We row like men

You row like girls

While not the cleverest of rhymes, owing to its impolitic nature they enjoyed several spirited races with other barges during the day, though the oarsmen were exhausted by the end of it.

Athan returned that evening, and—after another examination from Ethris and a series of mistrustful questions asked with the most pointed stare he could muster—Athan gave Gen permission to leave the barge the next morning and resume his duty to the Chalaine the next evening. Gen had difficulty sleeping, excited to be able to see his friends and his charge again, and when the morning came he wolfed down his meal and bid farewell to the disappointed barge crew. He set off across the great collection of barges, Ethris accompanying him, in search of Regent Ogbith and the First Mother.

The mist was thick that morning and the barges wet, and Ethris had difficulty getting over the myriad of barge rails they crossed on their journey toward the center of the floating conglomeration. They found Regent Ogbith first, and after a quick greeting, Gen left him with Ethris and continued forward, hopeful to gain the Chalaine’s barge before the order came to break up. Her wagon appeared and disappeared in the fog only a few barges away. He could just make out Jaron or perhaps Tolbrook—whose life the Chalaine had saved—sitting atop of it.

As he crossed to the next barge, Regent Ogbith yelled the order to unlash the barges and row forward, bargemasters echoing the command. Gen hurried as fast as he could, jumping, dodging, and throwing himself over barge rails with enough agility and lack of concern for others that he elicited both awed stares and annoyed grumbles. His last leap from one barge to the next as they separated was truly acrobatic. He landed and balanced on the next barge rail—one barge short of his intended destination—and received a round of applause from the bemused oarsmen.

“What is going on?”

Mirelle stood from where she sat behind a pile of supplies which had been worked into a rough hut. Gen’s face nearly fell upon seeing her, and he quickly substituted a smile for his look of surprise. The First Mother’s countenance had always reflected command and energy, whether in heated argument, moments of levity, or even sitting absolutely bored through some pontification of one of the members of her court. That life had withdrawn, a gravity and worry taking its place. Cadaen turned with her, and her unhappiness reflected upon him as well. Gen executed a bow from the barge rail.