Chapter I
It was an awkward thing for the barter’s son to be gagged. It was impossible to negotiate, reason, or articulate very well with a wad of leather forced between his teeth and tied with a strong knot behind. The Crimson Wolfsmen had gagged Thealos Quickfellow three days earlier to stop his arguments and protests. Tough cords bound his wrists as well, a leash controlled by one of his captors. It was one of the most humiliating times in Thealos’ life. But he said as much as he could with his eyes, and he hoped his glares stung.
Thealos wanted to scream with frustration. Not that it would have done any good in his situation, but the feeling had settled right below his stomach, all twisting and squirming, until he thought it would make him burst. Each day brought them closer to Avisahn, the Shae kingdom he had abandoned. It felt so long ago that he did not think to recognize the foaming river or the huge redwoods and pines on the other side. Each day he expected to be rescued by his protector, and each day ended in torment. Was Jaerod coming? At night he lay awake, listening to every whisper in the dark, every cricket and whistle, waiting for the tingling feeling on the back of his neck that told him the Sleepwalker was near.
It never came.
The quaere of Crimson Wolfsmen bundling him back to the Shae homeland stopped to rest in a small grove of elm trees near the border of the Trident river. They did this more for his benefit than theirs, and they did not speak to him when they loosened the gag and gave him water. He knew that if he tried talking, they would gag him again quickly, even though he had stopped speaking the day before. Everything he had said had been met by coldness and disgust and sometimes anger. Anger that earned a cuff to the side of his head or bonds fastened just a little more snugly. He resented them, especially their leader, Xenon. How he hated the man. His obsession with his mission clouded everything else. Thealos wondered if he could even think for himself or if abandoning that was a prerequisite for becoming a Crimson Wolfsman.
The Wolfsman named Nymir gave him some more water. Thealos gulped it down and took a few strips of boiled beef to ease the hunger raging in his stomach. Sweat trickled down his sides. He wiped his brow with his forearm and tried to ignore the pain throbbing from his swollen wrists. Glancing around, he wondered how far away he was from the place where he had first stumbled onto Tannon’s band weeks ago. He had worn bonds in those days as well, but had managed to talk his way free, despite their distrust of the Shae.
A loud scree announced the arrival of a red-feathered hawk that lighted down on Xenon’s leather bracer. The Wolfsman caressed the bird’s plumage and fed it a morsel from his pouch before taking the tiny cylinder from its claw. One of the other Wolfsmen broke the seal and twisted it open, then unrolled the tiny missive. Thealos rubbed his jaw and watched them. They wore subdued tones and colors without protective armor like hauberks or shields. Most wore their hair long and braided, festooned with red strips of leather or cloth to mark their order. They spoke with their hands as much as their mouths and carried weapons of the highest quality and make—longbows made of pale white yew wood and tassled with silver, short swords with leaf-shaped blades that thrummed the air with Silvan magic, short spears and belted daggers.
The one Wolfsman finished perusing the contents. “Nordain wants the Kilshae boy brought in at night to avoid attention,” he said in Silvan and wrinkled his nose. “Politicians—they make me sick. What does it matter who witnesses his shame? The trial will begin the next morning before the Council of Elders.”
“That will give the Sunedrion enough time to begin debating,” Xenon said and chuckled. “It would save a lot of time if they just prepared a cell now.” Turning his head, he gave Thealos a small smile. “But with such excitement these days, it would be best to see this handled fairly. And none may argue that our Lady Silverborne is fair.” The others joined in with laughter at his play on words. “You may have gray hairs before you see the light of Eroth again, boy. That is a long time indeed.”
Thealos held his tongue. Granted, his mouth hurt a great deal from the gag, but it had gotten him into trouble in the first place. He still remembered what he had said to the Council Elder of Vannier the night he had fled Avisahn. It amounted to treason if taken literally, though it was only an outburst of anger and frustration that he had been goaded into making. So hollow now after everything he had suffered in the Shoreland. He had nothing to show for his journey either. Not the Silverkin. Not even a stub of Everoot. Memories were all he had left. The memories were painful.
Xenon stroked the bird’s neck. “Put this in the reply.” He waited while the other Wolfsman drew a small slip of thin paper and a stylus. “One day from Avisahn. Will cross at Moonwell and arrive from the south as ordered. No sign of the Sleepwalker.”
The other two Wolfsmen stretched to loosen their muscles and practiced some strange grabbing techniques that looked vaguely familiar to Thealos. They were movements similar to those he had seen Jaerod do. The magic of their weapons sang to his blood, making him crave the blade he had lost in Landmoor. He was weaponless and helpless. Within the next day or so, he would be across the river and surrounded by those who hated him. Would he be given a chance to see his family again? He missed his sister, and the memory made his side ache. How would his parents feel about him now? His Correl and Sorrel were furious when he elected not to choose a calling—he was certain they would still be. But he also imagined that they would be worried as well. Contrition was not one of the emotions churning inside him. No, he should have left Avisahn sooner.
The reply message was rolled and inserted into the small whistle-like case tethered to the hawk. Xenon shrugged his arm and the creature took to flight to deliver the message.
It was while the hawk swooped upwards that the familiar prick of awareness went down Thealos’ spine, sending a shiver of gooseflesh down his arms.
Xenon must have seen the look in his eyes, because the Wolfsman drew his elegant leaf-blade, gazing around the grove.
“He is here,” Xenon said in warning. One of the other Wolfsmen went to Thealos and clamped a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to kneel. The other three surrounded him as well, blades at the ready.
Thealos saw him first.
There was a flicker of movement in his side vision. He turned and looked there, but he saw nothing save the trees and featherfern. But he knew Jaerod was there, looking at him. He wiped his mouth again, feeling the soreness.
“Come, Sleepwalker,” Xenon said, using the language of the king’s common instead of Silvan. “Why reveal yourself now? There are other quaeres waiting for us. If it takes a hundred, we will hunt you down. You are a fool to strike us so near Avisahn.”
“A fool I may well be,” came the reply. The four Wolfsmen turned to the source of the sound—a man in a black cloak approaching from behind a stunted elm. “But who is the greater fool, really? I suppose we will wait and see.”
“I have no doubt it is you, Sleepwalker,” Xenon said. “I have been waiting for you. We have expected you would try to free the boy. The other quaeres are coming. They see you, Sleepwalker. They see you right now. There is nowhere you can take him that we can’t find you. There is no safe haven for either of you.”
Thealos felt a pinch of worry. He watched Jaerod draw near, until he could see the cynical twist of his mouth despite the shadow cast by the deep cowl. The Sleepwalker wore black from head to boot, a loose tunic belted at the waist and sturdy pants that made no sound as he approached.
“Let him go,” Jaerod said.
Xenon lowered and tensed, dropping into a strong stance as he faced off with the Sleepwalker. “I don’t think so.”
Two of the other Wolfsmen positioned themselves separately. The final Wolfsman stood at Thealos’ back, one hand digging into his clothes.
Thealos felt the presence of Silvan magic grow stronger around them. Other quaeres were rushing in quickly. He stared at Jaerod, willing him to move—to do something.
He did.
Thealos did not see Jaerod strike. It was only a blur of black and then Xenon fell, struck in the temple and jerked off his feet to land with a crash. Jaerod was on the right then, moving like the wind as another Wolfsman slashed and stabbed at him with a blazing short sword. In a blur, the Sleepwalker had moved farther, spinning around the man to strike the Wolfsman clutching Thealos. It was like watching a raven swoop and dance, pecking at crickets. Thealos’ shirt jerked backwards and he fell as well.
Thrashing against his bonds, he rolled to the side as the Wolfsman almost trampled him in his haste to get to his feet. Thealos brushed his hair out of his eyes and watched the Sleepwalker exchange a flurry of attacks and blocks with one of them. Punch caught, deflected, re-attack parried, blow after blow, hit after hit. The Wolfsman tried kicking Jaerod’s knee, but the man was too quick to pin down, too deft to subdue. It was like watching someone fight the wind.
The Wolfsman snarled with pain and went down. A loud snapping sound followed and the Shae was left writhing and seething in the scrub. Two attacked Jaerod at once while Xenon shrugged himself to his feet. Thealos felt the prickle of calm down his back again, as if to warn him to stay put. A fist met one of the Wolfsmen in the face, dropping him to the ground.
Xenon lunged at Jaerod but did not attack as wildly as he had that night in the streets of Sol. He was careful, more deliberate, and Thealos knew what he was doing. Hold the Sleepwalker there until the next quaere could arrive. There were limits to any man’s endurance.
As if to answer that thought, four more Crimson Wolfsmen bounded into the grove of elm, as silent as shadows.
“You cannot take us all, Sleepwalker. We were waiting for you.”
A prickle of earth magic fluttered in the air as Jaerod struck Xenon in the chest with both palms. The Crimson Wolfsman went down a second time, thrown up and backwards so that he crashed into an elm hard enough to rattle its branches.
Jaerod whirled and faced the next quaere.
Thealos brought himself up to a half-crouch, ready to run if Jaerod asked it. He licked his lips, watching Jaerod hungrily, wondering what gave him such power against the best trained warriors of Avisahn. His movements were too quick to follow, his attacks short, precise, and effective.
Another Wolfsman went down. In the end, they all did.
Thealos stared at Jaerod as he stood alone, his hands poised in front, his body rotating this way and that, listening and sensing and ready to continue the fight. Sweat dripped off his chin. He turned and looked at Thealos, the gray eyes pointed and almost accusing. As if they said—look what I had to do because of you.
Straightening, Thealos stepped forward and held up his bonds for Jaerod to cut with a small knife. The long tapered blade the Sleepwalker normally wore at his side was gone.
His hands tingled and stung as blood rushed back through the chafed and swollen marks on his wrists. “Your sword…where is it, Jaerod?”
“The Sorian destroyed it when I faced her. I’m glad I didn’t have it though—I’d have been too tempted to use it this time.” He wiped his face and breathed heavily for a few moments. “I wish I did not have to do that,” he said with a sigh.
Thealos touched Jaerod’s shoulder. “I wish I could do that.”
“Do you?” His smirk became very bitter.
“I wish to be a Sleepwalker, Jaerod. I want you to teach me.”
“But there is no time to teach you right now.” Jared looked heartsick. “There is so little time.” His eyes widened. “There are more. We must go.”
Thealos felt the presence of Silvan magic growing stronger. Some of the Wolfsmen started to stir as well.
“Where? To Safehome?”
Jaerod shook his head. “No…not yet. Stand near me.” Thealos did and Jaerod gripped his shoulders. “Accept the Earth magic. Let it touch you. Let it take you.”
Thealos held his breath and closed his eyes as the magic swirled around him.
* * *
At first, the magic felt like being thrown in the midst of an ice-cold lake. It was a familiar feeling, so he did not panic as he had when he had felt it down in the catacombs below Landmoor in the lair of the Silverkin. His mind and body wanted to fight against it, for the feelings were akin to drowning. Something inside him, a core part of his being, ripped loose. There was the sensation of movement, of flying. This had happened to him during the foretelling when he had entered the small sacred room enclosed in a Silvan warding. He opened his eyes and found himself clutched by Jaerod, like a man dragging a friend through a blizzard, and that they both were walking. Yet they were walking faster than the hawks. It caused a dizzying feeling in the pit of his stomach that grew stronger and stronger. He had to shut his eyes to keep from losing all sense of himself.
It ended as quickly as it started, the surging feel of magic replaced by deep darkness. Thealos collapsed and would have landed on his face had Jaerod not been holding him so tightly. The Sleepwalker eased him down to his knees where Thealos flopped forward and emptied his stomach. Three rounds of the nausea racked his body and left him shaken and weak.
“You’ll need to eat,” Jaerod said in a quiet voice.
Food was the last thing he craved. He looked back up at the Sleepwalker and wiped the cold sweat from his brow. “Does this happen to you?”
Jaerod smiled. “Not any more. Eat this.”
Thealos took a small loaf of spiced pumpkin-bread and nibbled on it. It gave him back his strength in morsels. It was after nightfall and darkness cloaked them in shadows. Trees surrounded them, but there were lights painting the sky as if a great city was nearby.
“Where are we?”
“The gardens behind Silverborne palace.”
Thealos sat up, his eyes widening with shock. “Jaerod!”
The Sleepwalker gave him a wry grin. “It is the last place they will think to look for us. I need rest and so do you. Walking the Crossroads is exhausting.” He settled down nearby and pulled out another small loaf, starting on it himself.
Thealos was pleased to see Jaerod, but he wanted to talk to him. He had been fighting his feelings for days. He was weary of wrestling against despair. “I failed, Jaerod. Down in the tunnels. I didn’t get the Silverkin.”
“I know.”
Silence.
“What does that mean though? Do we have another chance? Can we have another chance? If I had you with me, I would have been able to take it. But at the time…”
“I already know, Thealos. Allavin and Ticastasy told me everything.” Thealos nearly interrupted him, but the Sleepwalker gripped his shoulder. “Please. I’m tired, Thealos. They are both safe and waiting for you in the Shoreland.” He took another bite from the bread and chewed it slowly, sighing. Thealos kept quiet and ate as well.
Questions churned inside his mind. How could he ask them all? Images from the Foretelling flickered through his memory. The continent of Sol-don-Orai and the devastation caused by the Everoot. The blood shed by the armies fighting to control it. He remembered images of the Shae kingdom as it had once been. And the city in the clouds that had come to offer the talisman that would save them. Safehome—not a city of myth that would return for the Shae. A city that had, as Jaerod said in Castun, never left.
“Much better,” Jaerod said, finishing off the meal with a cool drink from a flask. He offered it to Thealos, who accepted and drank the cool leathery-tasting water. “I imagine you want to know what happened when we parted. I’ll answer you. But I have some questions first. You made it into the warding beneath Landmoor, didn’t you?”
“I was given a Foretelling. But it said I would die and the Silverkin would be given to a Sorian. I…I chose not to take it for that reason.”
“That was always a possibility. I had seen it in my Foretelling as well.”
“Yours?”
“I had one before coming to this valley to find you. It set my feet on the path leading to this point. But some of it does not make sense, even now. I was also supposed to find someone else—someone who would help defeat the Sorian.”
Thealos leaned forward. “I thought that wasn’t possible.”
“I told you in Castun that only a Sorian could defeat another Sorian. But in my Foretelling, I saw a young man with Shae blood, though not a Shae, whom I was supposed to meet in Castun. I would recognize him if I saw him. He wore a patch over one eye.”
“A patch? He’s blind?”
“Not blind. He can see, but he does not understand what he sees. I searched the Shadows Wood and the surrounding lands for him. When I scouted the Bandit army, I searched among the prisoners for him. I waited in Castun as long as I dared. He never came.” Jaerod shrugged. “But I must keep looking for him, Thealos. The Sorian must not control the Silverkin. If that happens, we fail.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Did your Foretelling give you any names?”
Thealos wiped his face, feeling exhaustion seep inside him. “I have so many questions, Jaerod. But I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open. What do we do now?”
“That’s for you to decide, my friend. I’ve given you enough nudging. You know the dangers. You know the task. You must find a way to accomplish it.”
“But surely you will come with me. I…I can’t do it alone, Jaerod. I know that now.”
“I’m glad you do. Now you know how I feel. I’ve mentioned before that many who start out following our order do not make it in the end. The Sorian want us dead. The Shae do not trust us, nor do the other religions of the humans. For some, the price is just too costly. They cannot give what it takes to earn the right to wear this medallion.”
Jaerod hefted the medallion he wore and let the moonlight glimmer off its polished edge. It had always fascinated Thealos—the strange offset cross in an octagon. It was the symbol of Jaerod’s order—an order, he claimed, that had originated with the Shae.
Thealos let his fingers graze the medallion and felt magic whisper from its touch. It was a quiet magic, a subdued magic that he could barely sense.
Jaerod smiled. “There are other magics, Thealos, than the ones you’ve been taught. This symbol is an ancient magic. It goes beyond this world to the world the Shae came from. The magics of this planet are kindred to it. But it is older and deeper. It is the Oath magic. You can see how the words themselves have evolved…have been lost. In this world, you say Earth magic. Such a subtle difference, isn’t it? A small pronunciation twist and the meaning changes drastically. This medallion protects me from Firekin. But it comes at a great price.”
“What is that price, Jaerod? What must I do to earn it?”
“What do you think? What does its name suggest?”
Thealos nodded and his eyes drooped. He pinched his hand and muttered a little curse. “I have never felt so weary. I must make an oath then? You know that the Shae do not enter oaths lightly.”
“The founders of my order were Shae. My father, grandfather, and uncle were all part of it as well. In the Shae tongue, we are called Ravinir. Another interesting Silvan term.”
“It is. The word Ravin has two meanings in Silvan,” Thealos said. “It means literally ‘to break is to be broken.’ When we destroy something, we destroy a part of ourselves. It is a very difficult word for humans to understand. The nuances of it…”
“Are?”
“To be a Ravinir, you are a breaker…a destroyer. Yet you are also broken yourself.” He looked up at Jaerod and saw sadness in his eyes. The look was heartrending, so intensely personal that it clutched at Thealos’ throat. “What is the cost you must pay, Jaerod?”
“The cost is the oath we take. The agony is in keeping it. Sleep, my friend. You’ll need your strength. I’ll watch over you while you rest.”
“But I have so many questions. Please, can we talk a little longer?”
“You can hardly keep your eyes open. Think about what I have said. If you would be part of my order, you must be prepared to give away everything you hold dear. Even Avisahn.”
The thought sent a pang through Thealos’ heart. Give up his homeland? Forever? He looked at the Sleepwalker and felt the heaviness overwhelm him. “I’ve missed you, Jaerod.”
A little smile in the darkness. “Go to sleep, Thealos.”
Thealos stretched out on the cool grass and let the drowsiness take him.
* * *
Jaerod unbound the clasp that held his cloak closed and spread its warmth over Thealos as he lay sleeping. He stared at the young Shae’s face. The mouth and nose—so like his mother’s. He was a handsome young man. He had always been so. Jaerod sighed and patted his shoulder. So helpless now. So fragile in thought and sentiment.
Carefully, Jaerod knelt down in the grass, one knee up, and planted his right hand on the soft garden soil. He bowed his head and let the Oath magic swallow him up again, hiding himself from the eyes and ears of others.
“Correl,” he whispered in Silvan, though he did not need to. “I have done as I was meant to do here. The boy’s life is in your hands. I know the suffering that awaits him, Correl. Give him courage to face it. Give him strength to overcome it. Heal his heart when it is broken. It is such a hard thing he must do.” Jaerod paused, feeling the strangling pressure of the future. “He is so young. So very young, Correl.”
Jaerod reached out through the magic and laid his hand on the back of Thealos’ head. He watched a shiver run through his body.
After rising to his feet, the Sleepwalker left.
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