Song of the Sea Spirit: An epic fantasy novel (The Mindstream Chronicles) (32 page)

“Those are your books, aren’t they?”

She nodded. “They might be.” The question was what could she do about it? She had no proof, and accusing an elder and the temple of theft didn’t sound like the way to a long and happy life.

“Might be? You know they are. So what are you going to do about it?”

“Gil, there’s nothing I can do.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “If that elder had a hand in stealing my books, what can I do but report it like any other citizen would report a crime?”

He tapped the table with his spoon, still having not taken a bite of his meal. “You’re right. Maybe you should report the theft and see what comes of it through the regular investigation.”

She shrugged and took another bite of food. “I’ve looked through a lot of the pages of Elder Kassyl’s book. Not every one, but a lot. Enough to start a new book.”

“That’d be painstaking work, Mindstreaming into your own past and writing in the present at the same time. You won’t be able to see what you’re doing.”

Jora cocked her head. “Sure I can. I close my eyes when I Mindstream because the overlapping images in the physical world are distracting.”

“Huh. I don’t see a thing. Don’t hear anything, either. It’s like my physical senses are extinguished when I’m Mindstreaming.”

Jora was taken aback by that. Thinking back to her sessions in the Observation Request Room, she noticed that other novices and disciples reported the welfare of their clients’ loved ones after the fact, not while Mindstreaming. Jora had always been able to see, hear, and carry on a conversation while in the Mindstream, though it was a bit distracting. “How odd. Maybe I could beg my closest friend to write down the tones as I read them off.”

His eyebrows rose. “I’d be glad to help, but I don’t know what tones look like on paper.”

She smiled sweetly at him. “No matter. I’ll teach you.”

“Say, did you try observing the tree to see who snuck into your room? Maybe if we knew who the actual thief is, he’ll confess who recruited him to do it.”

“I tried it, but I couldn’t see him well enough to tell who it was. Let it go, Gilon. I’ll rewrite as many of the tones and my notes as I can. It’s not lost, just... inconvenient.”

“And hide the books better next time.”

“I doubt he’d try to steal them again. It was probably more about him getting the knowledge rather than keeping it from me.”

“Or was it?” Gilon asked in an ominous tone, wagging his brows.

She laughed and gave him a playful push.

Chapter 18

While Boden was eating breakfast with his friends, Korlan drew his attention to a squad of five men dressed for battle and mounting horses.

“I wonder what that’s about,” Rasmus mused. “Looks like they’re going to have some fun.”

“Bakston, Grone, Gimp, Zokor...” Korlan said. “Some of our most elite fighters.”

“Hey, they forgot me,” Rasmus said, starting to stand.

“Sit down,” Boden said, pulling his friend back onto the bench with a hand on his shoulder. “Those men are assassins who sneak in quietly and kill high-value targets. You’re more like a berserker who kills anyone in your path.”

Rasmus grinned, smacking his food loudly. “Damn right.”

They watched the five fighters ride off to the west toward Swan’s Crossing. Where they were going from there was anyone’s guess. How odd that they didn’t board a boat instead of traveling by horse. “I wonder where they’re going. Wouldn’t they reach their destination quicker by boat?”

“They’re probably going to Barad Selegal,” Korlan said.

Boden remembered what Pharson had said about Turounce sending a team of assassins to take care of the smugglers. He nodded approvingly to himself, satisfied his leaders were taking the matter seriously.

“If we live long enough, we might get missions like that,” Rasmus said.

“Not the way you fight,” Korlan said. “You’d have to learn the arts of subtlety and stealth.”

“I could be an assassin. Maybe when I finish my second year, I’ll put in for assassin training.”

Korlan and Boden laughed. “Good luck with that, brother,” Korlan said.

Boden picked up his empty bowl and spoon and dropped it off at the camper’s wash station on his way back to his tent. He found his knapsack moved, not out of place, but definitely not the way he’d left it. He always set it at the head of his bunk with the flap facing the bed. Now it was turned around. Could he have misplaced it in careless haste the night before, after finding his tentmates reading his journal? He didn’t think so. To be sure, he opened it and checked inside.

The journal was missing.

A surge of panic rose up from his gut. He hunted through his spare clothes and scant belongings, checked under the blanked on his bed, under the mattress. It was gone.

Hadar and Eron walked in, giving him barely a glance.

“Where is it?” Boden demanded. He stormed over, shoved Hadar’s shoulder to turn him about, and grabbed him by the shirt. “Where the hell is it?”

“What?” Hadar said, his eyes wide. He held his hands up in submission. “What are you talking about?”

“My journal. Did you take it again?”

“No,” Hadar said emphatically, shaking his head. “I swear it. After you took it back last night, I haven’t touched it.”

Boden turned his gaze to Eron, who at once put his hands up and shook his head. “I didn’t, either. You’re saying it’s missing?”

Boden released Hadar with a slight shove. “Why else would I be asking you where it is, dimwit?” He ran a hand over his bald head. “Did you tell anyone about it?”

“Hell no,” Hadar said, sitting on his bunk. “I’m not as dumb as I look.”

“I didn’t, either,” Eron said. “And I can’t imagine Voster or Rojyr did. That... business you wrote about is nothing any of us want to mess with.”

If they didn’t take it, who did? And why?

The answer made Boden’s heart shrivel.

Adept Orfeo.

Boden slept fitfully that night, worried over what would become of his missing journal. He dreaded the coming day, knowing that if Adept Orfeo had taken it and turned it over to Turounce, Boden’s life was forfeit.

Turounce warned you. And you really shouldn’t have written about it in your journal.

Retar’s words now seemed ominous. Had the god known something like this was going to happen?

He rose and dressed as usual, and spent the morning practicing drills with Korlan and Rasmus. The air was cool, a sign of the coming autumn, but the fog had burned off by midday and the temperature warmed enough to make Boden sleepy. He sat with his friends for the midday meal, thinking about having a doze when he was finished.

Corporal Pharson slid onto the bench beside him. None of the officers ever ate with the rest of them, and in fact, Pharson had no bowl, no food.

“Sir?” Korlan asked.

Pharson looked at Boden with a resigned shake of his head. “I thought you would learn from your last talk with the March Commander, but you must be sick in the head.”

Boden sighed heavily. “What’d I do this time?” he asked, though a sinking feeling told him he already knew. They had his journal.

“I can’t help you this time. I tried. Even Krogh tried. You’re on your own. Go on. He wants to see you.”

“What’s that all about?” Rasmus asked. Boden didn’t bother to answer as he stood, weary and filled with anxiety at the same time.

“Good luck, brother,” Korlan said.

Boden scooped the last two bites of food into his mouth and dropped off his dirty bowl on the way. When he entered the command tent, the one-armed soldier pressed his lips together in sympathy. The look in his eyes told Boden he might not make it out of this building alive.

Sergeant Keskinen, Staff Sergeant Krogh, and March Commander Turounce were in the room arguing, shouting at each other when Boden knocked on the open door. They all quieted instantly when they saw him there.

“Come in, Sayeg,” Turounce said. “We can’t come to an agreement over whether to hang you, behead you, cut off your hands and feet, or send you to Jolver for a court-martial. Me, I’d rather be done with you. You’re far more trouble than you’re worth.”

Boden was about to ask what it was he’d done when he saw his journal on Turounce’s desk. He stared at it, wondering whether he’d left something in it that had caused the commander’s ire.

“Look at me, boy. I’m talking to you.”

Boden looked at the march commander, standing as straight as he could. His head spun, and his thoughts whirled. He felt the heavy glares of the sergeant and staff sergeant on him. “I never thought anyone would read that. I kept it well hidden.”

“Not well enough,” Krogh said.

“What did you think would come of writing all that crap down, Sayeg?” Turounce asked.

How much did they know? “I only write for myself, sir. To remember my experiences.”

“For yourself,” Turounce echoed. He sounded unconvinced. “To remember the details of something you were specifically told to forget.”

“Sir, my tentmates only found it because they snooped in my knapsack. That bag has a false bottom, and—”

Turounce advanced on him, fists curled. “Your tentmates have nothing to do with this. Adept Orfeo found it. He saw what you wrote.” The commander picked up a couple of loose pages and waved them in Boden’s face. “He rewrote the pages you tore out.”

This close, Boden could smell wine on the man’s breath, but he didn’t back away. “With all due respect, sir, I’ve done nothing wrong.” Boden wasn’t generally one to talk back or defy authority, but this man, this officer in the Serocian Legion, was wrong.

“We see your treason right here.” He slammed the papers back onto his desk.

Turounce was the traitor to Serocia, not Boden. “My duty is to defend Serocia and the Tree, and to me, that includes its fruit. Until I hear a rational argument from my commander that explains why letting smugglers steal what’s rightfully ours, what I’m sworn to protect, I’ll continue to stand by my actions.”

A fist came seemingly out of nowhere and slammed into Boden’s left cheek and sent him stumbling. Hands grabbed him and steadied him. Turounce took a fistful of Boden’s shirt collar and hauled him up close. His opposite fist was cocked back, ready to fly once again, but Staff Sergeant Krogh put a hand over Turounce’s knuckles and forced himself between the two men. Turounce lost his grip on Boden’s shirt and Boden stepped back, out of reach.

“Sir, he’s a dedicated soldier,” Krogh said. “If we explain why we do what we do, he’ll be more cooperative.”

Turounce barked a laugh. “And tell the chief what? That this...” He pointed at the loose pages Orfeo had written. “...is not a problem after all?”

“Of course not,” Krogh said.

“Are you suggesting that we try to convince him that tearing out a page or two is going to stop her from seeing it?” Turounce asked, spittle flying. “That is, if she hasn’t already.”

Boden looked from one to the other, trying to follow their conversation. Did he mean Jora? They were afraid Jora would find out about the smuggling, but why?

“She’ll see this too,” Krogh said, indicating the room with his open arms. “Which is why I argue for a proper court-martial. We don’t want any of this coming down on us.”

“This could be coming down on us right this minute,” Turounce said. “What’s going to stop her from talking?”

“Let the Justice Bureau handle her. She’s their problem.”

A cold dread crept down Boden’s spine. He’d already come to terms with the fact that Jora was inducted into the Order of Justice Officials, but it never occurred to him that knowing about the smuggling could bring about her death. “Handle her how?” Boden asked.

“She’ll be our problem, too, if it starts a bloody civil war,” Turounce yelled.

He couldn’t be talking about Jora. “Jora’s not like that. She doesn’t incite people to violence.”

“Shut the hell up, Sayeg. Haven’t you said enough already?” Keskinen said.

Turounce wheeled on him. “She won’t have to, you fool.”

Boden was lost. He looked to Krogh for an explanation, but the staff sergeant merely shook his head, his eyes filled with regret.