Luck in the Shadows (30 page)

“Go on, then,” Alec told the cube. Floating across the room, it passed though the polished wood of the door in a decidedly unnatural fashion.

Behind him, the wizard chuckled again. “Be certain
you
open the door first.”

T
aking Valerius’ admonition to heart, Alec saw to it that Seregil drank the prescribed infusions. Still terribly weak, Seregil slept most of the time, rousing just long enough to take a little nourishment before lapsing back again.

Alec’s diligence quickly earned the brusque drysian’s respect, and he, in turn, grew comfortable with Valerius’ abrasive manner, recognizing the gentle sureness of his healing and liking him for it.

Nysander provided whatever he needed and visited several times a day. When Alec mentioned the writing lessons with Seregil, the wizard brought writing materials and a simple scroll for him to work on.

Alec and Nysander were playing nine stones in Seregil’s room the second morning after the purification when an old woman in a travel-stained cloak appeared at the door of the sickroom.

“Magyana!” Nysander exclaimed, rising to embrace her. “You should have sent word. I had no idea you were back.”

“I wanted to surprise you, my dear,” she replied, kissing him soundly. “Yet it was I who was surprised. Thero says Seregil has been hurt.”

Going to the bed, she laid her hand on Seregil’s brow.

She must be as old as Nysander
, thought Alec. The woman’s face was deeply lined and the heavy braid coiled at her neck shone white as moonlit snow.

She sketched a quick, glowing symbol in the air over the sleeping man and shook her head. “Thank the Light he is safe. Who did this to him, and how?”

“He ran afoul of Mardus and his necromancers in the north-lands,” Nysander told her. “Young Alec here brought him to me just in time. Alec, this is Magyana, a fellow wizard and my dear companion from the days of our youth.”

Magyana turned to Alec with a warm smile. “Bless you, Alec. Nysander would have been desolate to lose him, as would I.”

Seregil stirred just then, muttering hoarsely as he fought his way out of some panicked dream.

“There now, Seregil,” Nysander said, raising his voice as he bent over him. “Open your eyes, dear boy. You are quite safe. Are you awake at last?”

Seregil’s eyes flew open. Seeing Nysander and the others, he lay back with a sigh of relief. “I keep dreaming I’m back in Mycena.”

Nysander sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand. “You are safe now, and whole, thanks to Alec. He has told me of your adventures and you will tell me more when you are stronger. But for now you must rest. You very nearly destroyed yourself this time.”

“I know.” Seregil shook his head weakly. “Damn fool that I was, I’d have deserved it, too—”

He shifted to look up at Alec, a shadow of doubt in his eyes. “You all right? I—I wasn’t myself for a while there.”

“I’m fine,” Alec assured him, knowing in his heart that he was damned lucky to be able to say that.

Leaving Seregil to Alec’s watchful care, Nysander walked Magyana to her tower at the northern corner of the House.

“My dear, you were away too long!” he remonstrated gently, slipping an arm about her waist and pressing his lips to her cheek again.

“Surely the lovely Ylinestra kept you occupied in my absence?” she shot back, returning the kiss.

“You impossible woman! You with your damnable celibacy.
All these years I have filled my bed with lesser women and not a single spark of jealousy from you. You speak of them as if they were children, or lapdogs.”

“Have most of them been any more than that to you, you old rogue? But perhaps I do feel just the smallest spark, as you call it, toward this sorceress. I understand that she is as talented in the casting room as she is in the bedchamber. There, are you satisfied?”

“Perhaps just a bit,” Nysander replied, affecting a sulk. “The girl does have a head for magic, but in truth she is beginning to weary me with her demands, in bed and out.”

“Ah, the trials of the hot-blooded.” Magyana let him into her tower rooms. “You know you shall not have a jot of sympathy from me. But now to Seregil. You still have not told me how he came to be in such a state. It took more than ordinary magic to leave such marks on him.”

Pausing in the center of the immaculate workroom, Nysander watched as she set about the familiar ritual of tea making. “Evidently he and the boy stole something from Mardus in the northlands. It appears to be an object of little consequence but, as you saw, it proved to be extremely dangerous. I can tell you no more than that, I fear.”

Setting the kettle on the hook, Magyana turned and studied his face; they’d known each other too long and too well for her not to read the import of his silence.

“Oh, my dear,” she whispered, a hand stealing to her throat. “Oh, no!”

Seregil’s strength returned quickly over the next few days and, as Valerius had predicted, he soon grew restless. On the fourth day he’d had enough of bed rest.

“Valerius said another day at least!” Alec admonished, frowning down at him as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“I won’t tell him if you don’t. Bilairy’s Balls, I’m sore all over from lying around so long!”

As soon as he stood up, however, the floor seemed to shift under him. Drenched in a sudden cold sweat, he swayed heavily against Alec.

“There now, you see? It is too soon.” Alec helped him back
onto the bed. “Maker’s Mercy, there’s nothing left of you. I can feel your ribs.”

“I thought I heard voices,” Valerius rumbled, striding in to glower at the two of them. “Are you going to stay in bed as I ordered, or be tied there?”

“The former, I think,” Seregil replied contritely. Pressing a hand dramatically over his eyes, he sank back against the pillow. “I’m sure you know best.”

“I certainly do. Not that it’s ever made the slightest damn bit of difference to you!”

Still scowling, he lifted the dressing and went about cleaning the wound. “There, this shouldn’t give you any more trouble.”

Looking down as his chest, Seregil saw the scar for the first time and felt his stomach lurch. The last of the scabs had fallen away and the ridged imprint of the coin’s design was visible in the shiny pink circle of new skin.

“What is
that
doing there?” he demanded, fingering the area around the scar.

Valerius threw up his hands. “You’ll have to ask Nysander. I was all for having it off that first night, but he said to leave it. It should fade in time. I’m off for Mycena today, so you’re in Alec’s care now. Try not to drive yourself into a relapse if that’s possible, which I doubt. You won’t die, but you’ll land your ass back in bed for another week if you don’t take care. Maker’s Mercy be with you both.”

Stumping out, he slammed the door after him.

“See? He was angry with you,” said Alec, obviously glad not to have been the focus of his displeasure.

“Angry?” Seregil took a last worried look at the mark and pulled the shirt lacings closed again. “He wasn’t angry. When Valerius gets angry the furniture catches fire, or walls fall down, things like that. There’s no mistaking it when he’s upset.”

“Well, he wasn’t exactly happy with you, either.”

“He seldom is.” Shifting against the pillows, he settled with one hand behind his head. “Even the other drysians consider him an irascible old bugger. Still, we find one another useful on occasion. How’s your hand?”

“Better.”

“Let me see.” He inspected the circle of tender skin on Alec’s palm; it was smooth and featureless except for the small square in the center. “Has Nysander said much about any of this?”

“Only that the disk was something called a telesm.”

“Well, that’s obvious!” Seregil snorted. “I want more of an answer than that. Fetch him for me, will you?”

Alec found Nysander at his high desk in the workroom. “Seregil was wondering if you could come down,” he told the wizard.

“Certainly.” Nysander laid his quill aside. “I was expecting Thero in a moment. Could you wait and tell him where I am?”

It wasn’t until the old man had disappeared downstairs that it occurred to Alec to wonder why Nysander hadn’t just sent a message by magic.

Minutes passed, and there was still no sign of Thero. Impatient to get back to Seregil, Alec wandered restlessly around the room. The stairs leading up to the little gallery beneath the tower dome soon caught his eye and, climbing up, he looked out through a thick, leaded pane.

With a startled gasp, he caught at the ledge in front of him; the dome bowed out beyond the stonework, affording a view of the ground hundreds of feet directly below. He’d never been this far off the ground and the sensation was not particularly pleasant. Concentrating on the solid floor beneath his boots, he made himself look out over the city. Streets fanned out like spokes from circular plazas, or intersected to form ordered squares and commons. From this height he could also see past the citadel wall to the outer harbor, where boats bobbed at anchor in the shelter of the moles. On the landward side, open country quickly gave way to rolling foothills and jagged, snowcapped mountains beyond.

As he turned to go down the steps again, a blue message sphere suddenly winked into existence in front of him and Nysander’s voice said, “Alec, join us in Seregil’s room, please.”

He found Seregil and Nysander in the midst of a heated discussion when he arrived. Nysander was calm, if solemn, but there was a decidedly stubborn set to Seregil’s jaw.

“Are you certain you want him involved?” the wizard was saying.

“Come on, Nysander! He’s already involved up to the eyebrows, whether he knows it or not,” Seregil retorted. “Besides, you wouldn’t have let him stay here if you didn’t already trust him.”

“Those are two separate issues,” Nysander replied, giving Seregil a meaningful look. When the younger man maintained adamant silence, the wizard nodded gravely. “Very well. But the final decision is his to make.” He looked up at Alec for the first time. “Would you become a Watcher, Alec?”

A twinge of excitement shot through Alec. “Does that mean you both can tell me more of what’s going on?” he asked, guessing the import of this strange exchange.

“Certainly.”

“Then yes, I will.”

Seregil gave him a wink as Nysander took out his small ivory dagger and waved Alec to a chair. When he was seated, Nysander set the knife spinning end for end in the air mere inches from Alec’s eyes.

Alec’s mouth went dry as he listened to the angry buzz the blade made as it flickered in front of him; he could feel the breeze of it against his face.

“Alec of Kerry,” Nysander intoned solemnly. “A Watcher must observe carefully, report truthfully, and keep the secrets that must be kept. Do you swear by your heart and eyes and by the Four to do these things?”

“Yes,” Alec answered quickly, steeling himself not to lean away from the spinning knife.

“Good!” The knife fell out of the air into Nysander’s hand.

“That’s it?” Alec exclaimed, falling back in his chair.

“You answered truthfully,” the wizard told him. “Had you lied, the result would have been rather more dramatic.”

“And considerably messier,” Seregil added with a relieved grin.

“Considerably,” said Nysander. “And now, what have you to report, Seregil?”

Seregil settled his shoulders more comfortably against the pillows. “When I left Rhíminee at the end of Rhythin, I took ship to Nanta and spent two days listening around the docks. Rumor had it that there were an unusual number of ships being refitted at Plenimaran ports, Karia in particular. This confirmed what we’d already heard from Korbin.

“Moving north, I poked around Boersby, learning that a delegation of Plenimaran merchants had stopped there a month earlier to discuss overland trade routes. A contingent of fifty
armed riders had continued inland in the direction of the Fishless Sea.”

“To what end?” asked Nysander. “There is little in those barren hills but a few nomadic tribes.”

Seregil shrugged. “There were all sorts of speculations. Apparently local men were hired on as guides and haven’t been heard of since. If the mounted column did come south again, they came by a different route. Thinking they might have followed the Brilith River down toward the Woldesoke, I decided to check in with a friend at Ballton. There’d been no sightings in that area, but she said that similar parties had been seen to the east. The word is that the lords of the various mountain demesnes are being visited, but nobody’s certain of their purpose. It boded ill for Plenimar to be so far north, so I decided to work my way along the mountains and see what these riders had been up to. If they went as far as Kerry, there wouldn’t be much doubt that they were casting a greedy eye at the Gold Road again.

“I was right, but quickly learned that the Plenimarans had left their new friends with a healthy distrust of strangers. Even as a bard, I had one or two difficulties before Asengai finally caught me. Not everyone was taken in, though. Lord Warkill and his sons gave them the air. Lord Nostor seems to have been noncommittal. My old friend Geriss had just died, and his widow, a Mycenian by birth, would have nothing to do with the envoys.”

“Lady Brytha? I knew her as a girl,” remarked Nysander. “Her holding is very isolated, as I recall.”

“It’s a large one, though, and well populated. I spoke to her in private and warned her to be cautious. She has four sons, two of them grown, who seem reliable enough. If worse comes to worst, they’ll be able to hold out or flee.”

“Let us hope it does not come to that. I have had word already that some advances were made in Kerry, but that they were politely refused.”

Seregil laughed darkly. “If by polite you mean no bloodshed. The miners have been content with their situation for hundreds of years and are a hard lot to move. Still, if the mountain lords can be swayed against them, Kerry could be lost.”

“And who is leading these Plenimarans? What is their method?”

“Crafty, as usual. It seems that nobody spoke to the same emissary, which means there were either several groups going
among the various holdings, or they switched off leaders each time. I have the names, but I doubt they’ll amount to much. As for their method, it was the old wishing mirror game.”