The Wounded Shadow Read online

  Chapter 8

  In the days after Ealdor’s miraculous appearance and even more startling disappearance, Toria peppered me with questions and speculations as if I could divine meaning from Ealdor’s strange behavior. After the second day of her interrogations I took to greeting her with my bare arm extended, my offer to be delved plain.

  Two times she accepted. After that it became pointless. Even Fess, new and cruelly young to the Vigil, delved me at Toria’s insistence. If I hadn’t been scared witless by Ealdor’s appearance and behavior, I would have wept at his solemnity. After the fifth day I changed my mode of greeting. When Toria and Fess passed me in the hallway, I said, “I don’t know,” as their lips parted to ask yet another question that I couldn’t answer.

  Bolt kept his accustomed place at my side, but I hardly noticed. Somewhere in our expansive villa north of Cynestol, he’d lost his habit of dispensing soldierly wisdom. Perhaps Pellin’s sudden and unexplained disappearance, as though he’d become one of the Fayit himself, had something to do with it.

  Wag seemed to care for nothing except when we might hunt next. His thoughts carried visions from his dam of running the border of the forest, his strides eating the ground until his paws hardly touched it. With Custos having returned to his research within the Vigil library in Cynestol, only Gael, ever and always Gael, sought my company. I could no more answer her questions than Toria Deel’s, and she trusted me enough to know that I’d said everything I would or could, but that didn’t keep her from asking them.

  “What happened to him, Willet?”

  Despite the events of almost a week past, she still had the power to shape my name in a way I felt with my skin as much as I heard with my ears.

  I rolled my shoulders as if I could shed the weight of responsibility that rested there. “I don’t know. When I saw him in the Everwood, Ealdor looked perfectly normal.” Ironic laughter burst from me for an instant. “Normal for him, anyway. He didn’t leave footprints, and he managed to move through the church without disturbing any of the debris.” I shook my head. “But when I saw him in Bunard afterward, he did something he’s never done before. He walked through me to prove he existed only in my mind.”

  “Why would he need to do that?” she asked.

  I’d already had this conversation with Toria and Fess, but they hadn’t worded the question exactly that way. We’d taken the question of how to bring him back and had pounded away at it until nothing remained, but we’d never asked what Ealdor needed. I came to a stop, afraid that if I kept walking I might lose the opportunity to see . . . something.

  “Need,” I said. “Suppose Ealdor needed me to believe he wasn’t real.” I shook my head. “But why? I believed he was real for years before Bronwyn took me to his church and showed me it was impossible.” Even now, I could feel the absence of my friend like a hollow place in my chest. “In all the years of celebrating haeling and confession I was as certain of his reality as I was my own.”

  Gael nodded. “What changed?”

  I thought back. “The Everwood.” The answer might have come from someone else’s lips it was so quiet. “He told me something I didn’t know.” I looked at Gael, at the glorious shining blue of her eyes and gave voice to the insubstantial thread of intuition that ghosted through my mind. “I think Ealdor broke the rules when he told me about the bation leaves.”

  She nodded. Gael knew the sequence of events from that point nearly as well as I. Without the bation leaves to keep Wag alive, we would have never been able to track Cesla to Vaerwold, where the only remaining witness to Elwin’s murder was being held. Only Branna had survived the string of killings in Bunard that had wiped out those who could identify Elwin’s killer.

  “We’re almost back where we started,” I said. “Cesla is alive, and knowing that was so important that one of the Fayit was willing to risk . . .” I stopped. “What? What’s he risking?”

  “His life?” Gael asked.

  “Or worse,” I said. “Maybe he’s risking his existence. You saw him. He wasn’t dying, he was fading, as if he couldn’t hold on to himself anymore.”

  “It couldn’t have been the first time he broke the rules,” Bolt said.

  I turned, surprised to find him leaning against the wall, but of course he’d never left. “What do you mean by that?”

  “How did you learn his name?”

  The soft hiss of my breath in the air announced my answer. “I don’t know. Neither do Pellin or Toria Deel. They both delved me, sifted through every memory of Ealdor without finding the beginning. It’s as if someone whispered his name in my sleep.”

  Bolt’s expression didn’t change, but his body stilled in a way that usually prefaced killing, and the hair on my neck urged me to leave. “Maybe someone did.”

  I nodded, but it took Gael a moment to catch up. “You think Ealdor’s name came from Willet’s vault?”

  My guard shrugged. “The Vigil is nothing if not thorough. If Willet had a memory of meeting Ealdor for the first time and learning his name, they would have found it.”

  I didn’t much care for having my guard and my betrothed talk about me like ten pounds of mutton at the butcher’s, but we were running out of options. “I could call him.”

  Bolt shook his head. “Pellin forbade it.”

  I shrugged. “What good is a sword if you don’t draw it?”

  His brows lifted a fraction. “I like that. It’s pithy and it’s appropriate, but Pellin’s right. Ealdor couldn’t maintain his contact with us. How many more times can he appear before he fades completely?”

  “How can we possibly know that?” Gael asked. “It could be once or a hundred.”

  Deep inside, not in my mind, but in my chest, I felt a whisper, like the softest caress of a breeze against my skin. “I could try to find an abandoned church,” I said half joking. “Maybe I’m not supposed to summon him at all. Maybe he’s supposed to come to me.”

  Gael shook her head. “This is the southern coast. We’re fifteen miles from Cynestol, and you can hardly tell where the city stops and the next town begins. There are no abandoned churches here.”

  Bolt looked at me for a moment without blinking. “There’s one, in Aeldu, a village half a day east of here. The swamp overtook it.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” I asked. “We’re practically within spitting distance of Cynestol and the Archbishop. I’m surprised Vyne hasn’t scooped us up already.”

  Bolt rolled a shoulder, dismissing my objection. “We’ll take Rory in case there are dwimor about. If we leave at first light we should make it back by sunset.”

  I could feel an unfamiliar smile working its way through me. “You know Pellin and Toria Deel would forbid this if they could. What prompted this rebellion? I thought Vigil guards were the soul of unquestioning obedience.”

  He shook his head with a hint of a smirk that on anyone else would have been a full-fledged grin. “It’s a recent development. I’m probably keeping bad company.”

  The next morning we saddled four horses Bolt had hired for the day, clean-limbed cobs that pranced as though they’d just been broken. A suggestion of orange lit the wispy clouds overhead as we worked to muffle the tack.

  Rory, still less than confident as a rider, scowled as his bay tossed his head. “Stupid growler. You’re trying to kill me, yah?”

  Bolt watched the horse lift in a half rear and stamp the ground with both feet. “Consider it part of your education. Sometimes speed comes at a price.”

  Gael swung into the saddle with a grace and confidence that quieted her mount. I felt more like Rory. “Couldn’t you find horses that were a little less enthusiastic?”

  “I wanted fast, not tame.”

  I nodded, but I missed Dest. We’d been together for years, and I used to talk to him when companions were scarce. I couldn’t seem to hang on to friends, no matter how many legs they had.

  Bolt didn’t bother to hide our path out of the village. Almost as ancient as Cynesto
l itself, Edring was one of innumerable villages attached to the great city and occupied a series of hills to the northeast. If the Archbishop discovered the village we were hiding in, it would be a short search, even if he took the time to go building to building. We rode east into the sun, but the orange-yellow light failed to encourage me, despite the fact that I’d had seven nights of uninterrupted sleep.

  “What’s Cynestol like?” I asked Gael.

  “That’s a short question with a long answer, Willet,” she said. “The customs are different, especially in court.” She gave me a smile that was just short of laughter. “The good news is they tend to view our northern propensity for challenges and dueling as somewhat barbaric.”

  I frowned. “That’s not what I meant, but since you brought it up, how do they settle disputes between nobles?”

  She smiled without showing her teeth in a way that curved her lips into a bow that her gift made unfairly graceful. How was I supposed to concentrate?

  “They get married,” she said.

  “What?”

  “She’s right,” Bolt said. “It’s their national passion. The nobles in Moorclaire raise hounds, those in Bunard fight, but the nobility in Aille get married. Alliances are formed and split based on each family’s extensions into other families. The fact that the Crown allows marriages to be dissolved for almost any reason means keeping track of those alliances is an ordeal. Queen Chora has a whole ministry devoted to the job. Then again, she has a ministry devoted to almost everything.”

  “Sounds like a nightmare,” I said. “And I should know.”

  Gael laughed, and I let the clean high sound wash over me like a benison. “I don’t think it’s the type of place you would enjoy, Willet, but Kera and I savored every visit. It’s where we mastered the nuances of our game.”

  We rode for four hours, and as the smell of salt intensified, the landscape gradually changed from sandy scrub to marshland. An hour before the sun reached its zenith, Bolt pointed to a spot in the distance that wavered in the heat. “There.”

  I couldn’t see anything except shimmering air and said so.

  “You don’t know what to look for,” my guard said. “From this point on, make sure you stay on the road. The ground on either side isn’t as solid as it looks.” To demonstrate, he dismounted and tossed a rock the size of his fist onto ground that looked to be perfectly solid. The rock bounced once and stopped for a pair of breaths before sinking out of sight, leaving the sandy soil perfectly undisturbed. We fell in line immediately.

  Bolt picked his way through the marsh along a path that might have been a road in the past. I couldn’t see much difference. The smell of the sea came to us on the breeze, but it wasn’t the cold, clean scent I’d experienced in Vaerwold. This was heavy with the humidity of the south and held so much decay within it, I wondered how it managed to stay off the ground.

  After another mile, we put enough of the shimmering waves of heat behind us that I could just discern the outlines of a village. Houses made of yellowish clay formed a broad arc defining the boundary of the village, but I couldn’t make out the rest of the details.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a village laid out in a circle before,” I said.

  Bolt shook his head. “You wouldn’t have. None of the villages, towns, or cities in Collum is old enough.” He pointed at the sweep of buildings ahead of us. “This is Aeldu. We don’t know if it’s the oldest village on the continent, but if it’s not, it is close. It’s been deserted for the last hundred years.”

  We were close enough to now make out hints of color that had been used to decorate the houses, suggestions of blue and green that still showed beneath the brown stains of weather. “Why?” Gael asked.

  “Something changed,” Bolt said. “Either the sea rose or the land sank, but the villagers couldn’t keep the salt water from poisoning their fields. Eventually it crept into the village itself. Everything was taken.” He sent an unblinking glance my way.

  “Are we still talking about the village?”

  He abandoned his regard of Aeldu long enough to consider the question. “Are we? I don’t know. Maybe if the villagers had fought a little harder they could have held on to their lives.”

  “How do you stop something as big as the sea?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but if you don’t try, you certainly won’t.”

  “Pellin doesn’t know what to do,” Rory said.

  During his silence as we rode, I’d forgotten he was with us. I’d also forgotten just how perceptive the little thief could be.

  We coaxed our horses forward, and the ground under their hooves squelched with each step as we passed through the outer ring of houses and came to a smaller inner ring of buildings somewhat larger than those on the outside.

  “These were homes as well,” Bolt said.

  “For those who were wealthier.” I nodded. “That never changes. Money gets you access to power.” We passed through two more rings that I recognized as belonging to craftsmen and merchants before we came to the center of the village, a broad church that could have housed every occupant of Aeldu and then some.

  I knew why Bolt had brought me here, but until that moment I’d been less than hopeful that Ealdor would appear. Now I feared that if I didn’t see him, I never would.

  “The entire village is a children’s game,” Gael said. “It’s laid out in four circles.”

  “I thought it was supposed to be a circle of four,” Rory said.

  “No,” I said, feeling inside my mind for the door of memories that belonged to Custos. “The game is so old, we don’t know what it’s supposed to be, or even if it matters. More than one account of the children’s game says whoever calls the Fayit must die.”

  “It hasn’t happened yet,” Bolt said.

  I nodded. “It’s the yet that bothers me.”

  The church squatted in the middle of a plaza, but the stones of the encircling street were mostly covered with mud. I dismounted, and a swarm of gnats floated up to surround me like some warped idea of a halo. No one else moved. “You’re not coming?” I asked Bolt.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think we’re supposed to. You don’t need protection. Nothing’s here except us.”

  Rory slapped his neck. “And the bugs.”

  Bolt nodded. “Watch for snakes, Willet. If you see a blue one with a wedge-shaped head, give it a wide berth.”

  I was about to say that the snakes in Bunard didn’t crawl on their bellies, but that wasn’t entirely true, so I let the comment pass. Two sets of steps led up to the church in groups of six and nine, of course, and I passed beneath a wide gray stone lintel that still showed a pair of intersecting arcs, the universal symbol of the faith. Broad double doors of thick reddish wood greeted me, closed. I grabbed the tarnished lever and pushed, but weather and disuse had swelled the panels. I backed up a step and, in a gesture that felt like sacrilege, rammed my shoulder into the right-hand door.

  Toria stood in the small stable yard behind the estate in Edring, preparing for the journey Ealdor had assigned. A century of changing location every decade had taught her the importance of preparation. A quote from Elwin when she’d first come to the Vigil hung in her mind. “If I had seven days to make a journey, I would spend the first making sure I was prepared.” And this journey would be longer still. Aer willing, she and the rest of the Vigil would return from their travels.

  “Strange,” she murmured.

  Across from her, Fess raised his head from his inspection of their supplies. “Lady Deel?”

  She started at the sound and turned, struck again by how impossibly young Fess looked for the burden that Aer had placed upon him, for the burdens he had taken upon himself. For a moment she considered demurring, but there might be few opportunities for unguarded conversation on their trip north, and despite her position within the Vigil, she needed companionship as much as anyone.

  No. She was Elanian, born and bred. She required companionship more.
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br />   “Lady Deel?” Fess prompted again.

  “I was just thinking how, after watching him lead the Vigil these past months, I’ve never seen Pellin so sure of himself,” she said. “It seems ironic.”

  Fess almost smiled. Almost, but not quite. “Ironic that he seems more decisive in following the Fayit’s guidance than he ever did enforcing his own?”

  She nodded, noting the formal turn his speech had taken since Bronwyn’s death. And Balean’s. “Yes. I hope he’s not making a mistake.”

  “It is difficult to argue with someone who’s been alive so long they make Pellin seem young by comparison,” Fess said.

  “Does age equate to wisdom?”

  He gave her a direct look. “I’ve no experience with which to answer. Few in the urchins live long, Lady Deel. They die from the wracking cough in winter, or they’re caught stealing from the wrong man. Even if they live, age forces them to leave the urchins and join their lot to the thieves’ guild or the night women, where the chances of a long life are just as thin.”

  His bleak assessment roused more in her than he’d intended, and she blinked to clear her eyes. “That seems a very wise answer to me, Fess. Perhaps if we survive this war, we can venture north and west to Bunard once more and see how Lord Dura’s bargain fares.” To secure the aid of the urchins during the slaughter of Bas-solas, Dura had wrung a concession from the church—they would adopt every urchin who was willing into homes where the children might find love and a future.

  He nodded. “I’d like that, but I have the feeling that the city and the people in it will be as strange to me as I would be to them.”

  “We should—” she began, but Fess held up a hand.

  He cocked his head. “Someone is out front.” He paused. “Make that several someones.”

  She knew better than to question him. The footfalls of their company were known to him, and they weren’t expecting any other visitors. “Bring Wag,” she ordered. “If they are not friends, we must be on our way.”