The Gems of Raga-Tor (Elemental Legends Book 1) (25 page)

“Now is not the time to play the idiot with me,” he warned.

“But the new moon isn’t for ten more days and you came over the wall as a man. You shouldn’t have changed back until at least the battle at the gate.”

“Really?” Eris said with heavy with sarcasm. “Not even the mighty Raga-Tor knows the complete insidiousness of this curse. I thought you knew all the twists and turns of Red Vale sorcery.”

Eris stood up and shook the sand from his cloak.

“Don’t look at me as though you don’t understand. You know very well what happened to make me change back.” He shook an accusing finger at Raga. “You probably knew all along, but kept it from me. That’s why you wanted to watch and listen in on that whole sordid night and get some perverse pleasure at my expense.”

“In truth, Eris, I didn’t know. That’s why I asked you before we even reached Reshan what would happen. Had I known for sure, I wouldn’t have asked. But now that the subject has come up…some details? Just for curiosity’s sake,” Raga assured. His eyes glowed a little too brightly and gave him away.

“Absolutely not. I don’t want to remember what happened, much less give you the details.”

“Don’t be so stubborn. It’s only a natural part of life.”

“Natural?” Eris said incredulously. “That was anything but natural.”

“Oh, come now. It’s just the two of us out here in this desolation. It’s not like we’re telling stories at a tavern. What was it like?” Raga needled.

“Let the witch put the curse on you and find out for yourself.”

“One word.”

“You should quit pestering me while you’re still seated comfortably in your saddle,” Eris warned, losing his patience.

Raga merely smiled and looked at him expectantly with a rise of one bushy brow.

Eris let his shoulders slump and made a sound of exasperation.

“Damn you, Raga. One word and then you will never ask me about it again?”

“Agreed.”

“Disgusting.”

“That wasn’t a very creative word. I know you can do better,” Raga complained and Eris scowled furiously at him. Then from deep inside a low, rumbling chuckle rose up from Raga’s paunch and tumbled loudly into the night. “No wonder your saddle bothers you so much. Now I understand.”

Eris looked at him and thought the sorcerer had finally lost his mind. Raga tried to contain his laughter and wiped the tears from his eyes.

“Who would have thought that of you, Eris? As a woman, you were a virgin.”

“You bastard!” Eris swore and glared furiously at Raga, who had started to snicker again. Eris grabbed the bridle of his horse and trod off into the night.

Raga followed a safe distance behind and laughed until he thought he would burst.

The Reshan night was complete. The moonlight was the only witness to the tracks left in the sand by travelers seeking the colder climes of the north, and the third gem to the magical bow.

As night came to the stunned city of Reshan, so fell the headsman’s ax on the necks of the scheming guards; and the woman-child, Pashtine, fell into a terrified swoon as she was chosen to replace the bewitching Erisa as the wife of a wrathful Sultan.

Beneath the gray-green branches of an ancient, sprawling spruce, whose massive limbs had long ago tangled with those of its neighbors, a small fire flickered brightly in the blackness of a moonless night.

Eris, dressed in familiar black and green, and with weapons tucked into every possible place, leaned against the trunk. Neatly spread upon the ground to his right were the daggers he had taken from the Sultan’s chambers. One, carved with strange runes, caught his attention. He picked it up and idly turned it over in his hands.

During their frantic escape, he had completely forgotten about the daggers tucked away in the folds of Hofa’s sash. In the wee hours of the night, when he stopped to relieve himself and change into more suitable clothing, the daggers fell from the sash. His fury was akin to that of the fireball Raga blasted across the sand and only the briefest moment of sanity kept him from running the sorcerer through with razor-sharp steel. At the time, he rerolled the blades into the silken sash and shoved them to the bottom of his saddlebag and refused to talk to the sorcerer for several days.

This caused Raga considerable distress and on at least one occasion he threatened to send Eris to Riza’s Pits and forget the whole affair. Eris obliged him in his threat and offered himself with a silent, taunting gesture.

Eris tried to ignore the weapons’ existence, but his interest in the beautiful and unusual blades always drew him back. When it did, it also led him to believe that the curse on the Sultan’s palace was only a rumor. Or, a lie Raga had made up to force him into that humiliating situation for reasons he likely would never find out. It gave him reason to believe that the purported animosity between Raga-Tor and Charra-Tir was not to the level implied.

Eris tensed as a twig snapped in the darkness. The image of Raga stepping into the fire’s light relieved him. The sorcerer, arms laden with a bundle of dried wood, grunted as he stooped over to drop the logs close to the fire. Raga wiped his face with a cloth and sat on the ground across the fire from Eris.

“I thought you never wanted to see those again,” Raga said.

“They may have their use,” Eris answered with a glance to Raga.

“About time you uttered a word,” Raga grumbled.

Eris continued to turn the carved dagger with his fingers. “Don't think it means anything.”

Raga felt a familiar sense of unease. Eris’ voice was much too calm. His fingers played with the balance of the dagger. The sharp steel glinted in the firelight as he practiced flipping it end-over-end.

“A rather interesting collection, don’t you think?” Eris continued in a low voice.

Raga didn’t like the look on Eris’ face. The firelight sharply defined his arrogant features, and the contempt in his deep-violet eyes seemed to devour the flames’ brightness. Nor did he like the way Eris’ dark glance seemed perfectly timed with the flipping action of the strange little dagger, which moved deftly and quickly between his fingers.

“I still don't know how this it possible? You should have—”

“Because you lied to me,” Eris accused and continued furiously. “How many other lies have you told me? In return for tormenting me, does Riza promise to save you from the Seventh Hell after I kill you? Or, perhaps, it’s really Chara-Tir who holds the pieces of this little game. The world is full of fools you can play. If I were you, I’d find another.”

“You judge me unfairly. Why would I lie about something I’ve seen with my own eyes?”

“How do I know what fiendish plots go through your head, Raga-Tor, the Great Destroyer,” Eris sneered. “And how long ago did you see this? Last year, or two centuries ago?”

“It doesn’t matter when. And why should I lie to you? Had I wanted to destroy you, I could have done it many times over. Not that I haven’t been tempted, mind you.” Raga shook a finger at him. “Mark me, Eris, what I say is true. In a year or two, go back to Reshan and bribe some fool to steal something from the palace. See it for yourself.”

With an eye still on Eris, he reached out and pulled his bedroll closer and spread it on the ground close to the fire. For more than a day he had wondered where the last of Eris’ anger was and when his fury would escape. It wasn’t like Eris to have kept something like this buried for so long.

Eris was silent. One by one he examined the daggers and knives and then rolled them one at a time into the lengths of crimson cloth he had cut from the pantaloons.

“You are a puzzle to me,” Raga said after a while. Feeling that maybe he could let down his guard, he stretched out on his side to watch Eris. “You can do things no other mortal man can do, yet you say you have no ties with any form of sorcery.”

Eris remained silent. He tossed two more logs on the fire.

The sorcerer continued. “Perhaps the answer is in your family. Tell me about your mother and father.”

Eris sighed and leaned back against the tree. Why couldn’t the red-beard just leave him alone?

“My mother died when I was very young. I’ve been to her grave many times, but always with a strange feeling that she wasn’t really under those mossy stones. Only a child’s wish…” He paused. “I was raised by my grandmother, a pleasant woman, and by my father,” he said quietly.

“And what kind of man was he?”

“He was huntsman to the king. He was a hard man of authority, and had a great sense of personal discipline. But at times, with family and close friends, he had quite a sense of humor.”

“Obviously that part was lost on you,” Raga commented, but Eris ignored him and went on.

“This forest reminds me of my homeland. I can still see and hear my father in places like this. Hunting was his passion, and the king often gifted him with great favor, which is why we lived in the keep. In times of crisis, he was a soldier to be envied,” Eris said. His voice sounded as far away as his memories.

“He taught you his trade well. Surely there are few men who can match you in a contest of arms,” Raga said. The compliment was sincere.

The words brought a faint smile to Eris’ face.

“I suppose he did. He used to tell me that the disciplines of the hunt, and of the sword, are the two most valuable lessons in life. When I was old enough to understand, he drove me in relentless pursuit of the mastery of both. And also discipline in work and duty to the king. Night came and sometimes it seemed I barely had the strength to eat and fall into bed. Often times, before I nodded off to sleep, I heard my grandmother chiding him for treating me so. In the end, it wasn’t a bad thing, I suppose, to keep a boy out of trouble,” Eris admitted.

“And where is home for you?”

“Far to the northwest of here. You’ve heard of the Kingdoms of Fen, I’m sure.”

“Of course, though I don’t recall ever being there. Or at least not in a very long time.”

Eris nodded. “I’m from the land of Fana-Fen, the middle kingdom.”

“And does your father wait for you there?”

In spite of the blackness of the forest night, Raga was sure a blacker shadow, a shadow of hatred, crossed Eris’ calm face.

“No. He was murdered,” he answered quietly. He picked up the wrapped daggers several at a time and put them back into the bottom of one saddlebag. “He died in my arms and there was nothing I could do to prevent it,” he added in a voice that was barely above the noise of the fire’s smoke as it drifted skyward.

“I didn’t mean to bring up unpleasant memories,” Raga said, uncomfortable with Eris’ sudden openness and vulnerability. He hadn’t thought such a tenderness was in him and yet there it was. Where was the anger, the flurry of venomous words and threats?

Raga decided he preferred Eris’ indignant rage to this. He noticed that while his voice might hold the hurt of a younger man’s loss, the firm line of his mouth and the vigilance of his gaze told him that Eris understood the warrior’s code. That vengeance comes in its own time, and that the life of the warrior, from the day he first picks up the sword, is precariously balanced on the sharp edge of that finely-honed weapon.

Eris was silent a while longer then tossed another log onto the fire. The wood popped loudly. Red embers danced on jets of heated air and pieces of burning ash boiled up in curling coils of white smoke.

Eris took a deep breath. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.” His voice was back to normal. “Is it not the wish of every warrior to die, sword in hand, with the frenzy of battle slowly ebbing with the flow of his life? To see the host of your enemies slain before you, and the ground dark with their blood?”

Raga shivered at the increasing intensity in Eris’ voice and wondered about the particulars of the attack that had taken the life of a much-honored father.

“Aye, Eris, that it is,” Raga agreed quietly. However, sorcerers rarely had the occasion to use such brute force. They preferred less physical ways.

Eris fell silent. It was a pensive silence that didn’t sit well with Raga. It was possible, Raga surmised, that the encounter with the Sultan had somehow disturbed Eris more deeply than it appeared on the surface, but that would be a dead inquiry the moment is was spoken. The mind-bond was useless Raga discovered after a gentle probe. Eris had his thoughts drawn so deeply within himself that had he not been sitting up and breathing, Raga would have thought him dead.

“Sleep, Raga,” Eris said at last. “I’ll take the first watch. With any luck we should reach the Caverns of the Dragon King tomorrow. Then we’ll see if our information about the third gem is correct and what sort of sorcery we face.”

“You’ve hardly slept at all in the two weeks since we left Reshan. Why don’t you let me have the first watch,” Raga offered.

Eris turned his gaze on Raga. The sorcerer felt himself pushed into his blankets by the coldness of it. In that moment, Raga knew he was looking on the true face of Eris Pann. A face honed by the keen edge of discipline, and behind that a mind taught to be wary, ever vigilant, for treachery in others.

Underlying Eris’ grim countenance, Raga sensed coldness, a primal force, and a detachment from the world itself. As an elemental of fire, of warmth, he found it difficult to understand these emotions--cold and deep flowing like that of a cavern’s river. He found this unexpected aspect of his mortal companion troubling.

“You wish to say something else?” Eris asked. He drew his sword and laid it across his lap.

“No. Wake me when you tire and I’ll take my turn,” Raga answered. He grunted as he rolled over putting his back to Eris. For some reason, he couldn’t bear the thought of those piercing eyes upon his face while he slept. They didn’t do his back much good either.

High in the jagged crags of the mountain known for a millennium as the Hall of the Dragon King, sunlight filtered through a wide doorway that led inward from an expansive, granite balcony. From the ground far below, it was seen as naught but a massive ledge of heavy, gray stone. Within the room to which the balcony belonged, a fire burned in a large, circular, stone pit. Fire-like flashes appeared on the walls as rays of orange light struck tiny slabs of exposed mica.