"The Swordsman's Oath" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKenna Juliet E.)

The house of Viltred Sern, west of Cote in the Clay, Caladhria, 9th of Aft-Spring

A sturdily built hut of logs and wooden shingles stood under a shallow crag in a forest clearing, a knot of figures gathered on the smooth turf before it. Their prisoner was an old man, withered with age, hair and beard frosted with white. Bound on his back to a freshly felled log, twigs and splinters pierced him not by deliberate design but through simple carelessness. Manacles were tight around wrists blackened with old blood, drawn by repeated writhing against the cruel restraints. His captors stood in a loose half circle, black-clad in leather and metal, faces flat with disinterest, men with unvarying blond hair and stocky builds. Their leader stood at the head of the hapless victim, calm as his irons reheated in the small wood fire. The smoke rose and coiled away into the clear blue sky, the first leaves of the new season green and fresh on the trees. Blood dripped slowly from ruined hands, fingers broken, jagged edges of bone jutting through skin, nails ripped out with calculated brutality. The victim’s ribs heaved in sudden spasm, skin stark white through the smears of blood as his chest fluttered like a half-killed bird and abruptly stilled. Gory pits where eyes should have been wept tears of anguished blood.

“That’s a grim prospect, I grant you, Viltred.” The speaker swallowed hard as he stared at this stark picture. It hovered within a gleaming diamond hanging from the upper point of a crescent of hammered copper set before him on the table, a tongue of flame licking upwards from a candle at the bottom of the arc.

“When did you first see this fate in your augury spell?” He cleared his throat and looked around the homely clutter of the small cabin as if to reassure himself the vision of anguish and malice was no more than foul illusion.

“Four days past,” the old wizard grunted, face dour as he looked at the image of his agonized death, scant paces from his own threshold. “So what do you make of it, Shivvalan? What has this to do with you turning up after the mighty wizards of Hadrumal have ignored me for close on a generation, believing me to be either liar or fool? When I was Azazir’s apprentice and we made our voyage, no one believed us when we said we had found islands in the far Ocean.” He gestured toward the gem with one gnarled hand. “Islands where a race of fair-haired men lived, as like to these as hounds bred from the same pack. Now you come to tell me that the wise and noble wizards of Hadrumal have discovered these islands for themselves and deign to believe me at last. Is it coincidence that I now see these curs hunting me? What trouble is Planir stirring up for us all now?” He huddled back into the worn and faded cushions that lined his heavy oak chair.

Shiv rubbed a hand over his sallow chin, dark eyes thoughtful. “Well, certainly the Archmage must be told at once. Believe me, Viltred, I told you the truth. Planir sent me to find out what you could recall of your own voyage to the Ice Islands with Azazir. I’m sorry, I should have explained; it seems these unknown islanders, Elietimm they call themselves, have some means of enchantment that we know nothing of in Hadrumal. Worse, they had some role to play in the fall of the Formalin Empire, most likely by means of magic, but you know how much lore was lost in the Chaos. Planir is hoping to recover some of that knowledge. We had no idea that these men would be seeking you out as well, I swear, but that must be what this means.” He paused for a moment before continuing briskly. “Still, now that we have this warning we can make sure none of this comes to pass. How often is an augury fulfilled in all its particulars? Not above one time in a handful, less maybe.”

“I’d prefer longer odds of seeing the Solstice than four chances in five.” Viltred drew a shuddering breath, and as he did so the vision in the crystal shook and dissolved. With evident effort to regain his composure, the old wizard leaned forward to rest his hands on the table once more and slowly turned the stone with the shimmering fingers of azure light that revealed the mage’s elemental link with the air that surrounded him. The answering amber glow rising within the heart of the gem spoke of magic born of the earth as slowly a shimmering haze cleared and new pictures focused on the bright surface.

The image sharpened; a knot of figures standing in a large airy room, framed in an open window behind them, masts and rigging moving gently with the motion of unseen waves, sails square-set on stubby spars.

“There you are, Viltred, and showing no signs of ill treatment.” Shiv sighed with relief.

“I’ll allow being caked to my eyebrows in the filth of the road and looking nigh on exhausted is preferable to dying spitted like a festival hog,” muttered Viltred.

“Those galleys, they’re the kind that ply the Caladhrian Gulf,” continued Shiv thoughtfully.

“What I want to know is who are all these other people,” the old man snapped.

Shiv frowned as he studied the tiny figures in the spell’s vision. “The woman with red hair is called Livak. She travels Ensaimin, a woman of many talents, a gambler for the most part.”

“That sounds dishonest as well as disreputable,” snorted Viltred.

Shiv stifled a sudden smile before continuing. “The tall man at the back is the sworn man to Messire D’Olbriot—Ryshad, the one who should be here any day now. You recall me telling you about him?”

“I am not yet in my dotage. I can generally remember things I have been told the same day,” the old wizard replied acidly. “Who’s the plain-faced piece with shoulders like a farm hand?”

“That’s Halice,” said Shiv slowly. “She’s a friend of Livak’s who’s been laid up over the last few seasons with a broken leg.”

“And what possible reason could I have for being with such an ill-assorted crew, down in Relshaz?” demanded Viltred, his sunken eyes flashing with annoyance. “And before you ask, I recognize that beacon tower. I knew the city well enough in my youth.”

“That other man’s face is weathered like sailcloth and with those rope scars on his hand, I think it’s safe to assume he’s a sailor,” Shiv murmured, more to himself than to the old man. “Those parchments that Livak’s weighting with tankards would probably be charts, don’t you think? Are we taking ship somewhere? Relshaz is certainly the biggest port on the western side of the Gulf, but in a city that size a lot of other things could be going on. We could be looking to meet a ship?”

Viltred shrugged wordlessly, his lined face grim under his straggly gray brows. Shiv sat motionless at the dark oaken table, deep in thought, before suddenly slapping his hands down on the scarred wood. “There’s no point trying to second-guess these things, is there? Still, contrasting visions like these generally mean achieving one outcome precludes the other, doesn’t it? We can make a good start down that route by getting everyone we’re seeing together, and Ryshad’s already on his way.”

“I wish you would curb your enthusiasm for telling me things I learned as a first-season apprentice before you were even thought of, Shivvalan. How do you propose we go about this, anyway?” Faint hope warred with the suspicion in the old man’s faded eyes.

“I think I can find Halice, at very least, and I imagine she’ll know where Livak may be.” Shiv rose from his stool and fetched a ewer from the old-fashioned dresser behind him, taking a little silver vial from his breeches pocket. Viltred watched in silence as the younger mage sprinkled black drops of ink on the surface of the water. A greenish glow began to gather in the water, rising above the rim of the jug to trickle over the sides and sink into the stained table top. “A friend of mine was helping tend her leg,” Shiv explained in increasingly animated tones. “He found he had a boot buckle of hers and passed it on to me. As he said, you never know when you might want the means of scrying for someone.” He dropped the trinket into the water, caught his lower lip between his teeth and bent closer to his magic, expression intense.

“Just get on with it,” muttered Viltred.

A sudden sound of rushing air and water filled the room and Shiv stood abruptly upright, his eyes meeting Viltred’s where he saw his own consternation mirrored.

“You set wards of warning on your way here?” asked the old man, a quake of fear in his voice. “Could that be this swordsman arriving?”

“No, I’m afraid my spells are woven only for the Elietimm,” Shiv replied breathlessly. “After traveling to those accursed islands, I’ve no desire to find myself in those bastards’ hands again, believe me. One of our number suffered much the fate we have to protect you from.”

“Let’s remove ourselves to the safety of the village,” said Viltred more robustly. “You have sufficient mastery of air to achieve that?”

Shiv scowled in frustration. “We daren’t take the time to gather all your valuables and if we just translocate ourselves away, we’ll have no idea what the Elietimm do or where they go.” He swiftly crossed the dusty floor to open the varnished shutters just enough to see out. “We’ll be trapped like rats in a barrel if we stay here, though. No, we’ll find a vantage point in the woods where we can hide ourselves,” he said decisively. “With the greater moon dark and the lesser at last crescent, this is the blackest night of the season and that can help us as much as them.”

“If I see them coming for us I’ll be away, clear to Hadrumal, if I can,” warned Viltred, grim-faced. As the old mage rose stiffly from his chair Shiv drew back the bolts on the sturdy wooden door. He caught the shorter man under one arm and, throwing open the door, half hurried, half carried Viltred into the concealing gloom gathering beneath the trees as the sun sank slowly in the clouded western sky.

“Wait,” commanded Viltred a touch breathlessly.

Shiv bent his head close to the old mage’s. “What is it?”

“I’ve a few spells of my own woven hereabouts,” Viltred murmured grimly. “I can set them for two-footed beasts as well as those with four.”

He rubbed knuckles swollen with joint evil and a faint blue glow gathered into a ball between his hands. Viltred released it with a gesture and it floated away like a wisp of marsh gas, alighting here and there on the fringes of the forest to leave a small, fast-fading imprint on the grass.

“We have to conceal ourselves,” whispered Shiv urgently. “I’ve some means of confusing their enchantments but we have to stay absolutely motionless.”

Viltred nodded and the two wizards drew further into the shadows. A flicker of multi-hued light at the edge of seeing gathered around them, evaporating to leave the mages no more visible than the patterns of darkness merging with the twilight.

The final golden shimmers of the sun were scattered by a waterfall tumbling into a brook but everything else was muted to myriad shades of gray. Black as the night deepening under the surrounding trees, the shape of a man suddenly ran across the open ground to the hut, crouching low and moving swiftly. His yell ripped through the silence as a shock of lightning erupted from the ground beneath his feet, throwing him backward to scramble in confusion for the shelter of the trees. Smoke drifted away on the night’s chilly breath.

After a long still moment, two more figures slowly paced across the turf to vanish in the dark lee of the hut. A sudden flare of blue light outlined the frame of a window and startled curses were hastily hushed. After a tense pause a hooded individual strode boldly from the cover of the woods and stood in the middle of the grass, a handful of others respectful in his wake.

The stout wooden door exploded inward in a soundless shower of splinters and the black-clad men rushed inside, only the faintest gleams of starlight catching on their swords and one pale, uncovered head. Faint sounds filtered through the ruins of the door, the scrape of nailed boots on the floorboards, the heavy drag of furniture being hauled aside, crashes spoke of shattering crockery while a series of dull thuds suggested treasured books being tossed angrily to the floor. One liveried figure emerged from the door, head down and stooped shoulders betraying failure and fear. The hooded man crossed the grass with impatient strides and struck him with a gesture of disgust. The others emerged, one proffering something that stayed his leader’s punishing hand. With a sweep of his cloak, the hooded man led his troop away to melt into the forest night.

The pallid, wasted arc of the lesser moon rose over the sheltering crag. Slowly tendrils of smoke began to ooze from the windows and door of the cabin. Greedy flickers of flame began to lick around the timbers, startlingly orange against the deepening night. In an impossibly short time the roof collapsed in on itself and the red glare of the inferno defied the soft light of Halcarion’s crown of stars, now riding high and uncaring above the smoke. Feathery drifts of ash swirled across the glade as grass withered and the bare earth began to steam. Suddenly the fires melted away, leaving only a ruin of blackened wood.

A motley-colored cat made a tentative foray from the edge of the woods but something startled it and it dashed up a tree. On its second attempt, it reached the forbidding heap of charred timbers and paced cautiously round, sniffing and occasionally prodding with an inquiring paw. After a while, a second cat appeared, ears down and tail clamped close to its gray-striped side. The two animals explored the edges of the ruin for a while, the air around them shimmering oddly, the size and colors of the creatures shifting and altering until the spell faded away to reveal the wizards in their own forms. Neither man paid any heed to the magic unravelling around them and continued to search intently, pulling wreckage aside.

“Let me.” Shiv hauled a blackened beam aside to reveal the smashed and burned remnants of a trap door. Viltred pulled at a twisted tangle of wood and metal with an effort, struggling with a racking cough as the ash and cinders were puffed up around them both. Shiv helped him clear the choking debris then made to go down the rock-cut stair now revealed.

“No,” snapped Viltred. “This is still my home, what is left of it.”

Gathering his faded jerkin around himself, Viltred descended the steep steps awkwardly while Shiv waited, arms folded and one impatient boot raising little flurries in the soot as it tapped.

Viltred’s cough echoed harshly as he emerged from the cellar some while later. “Well, the Archmage is going to learn nothing new about these mysterious islands, their vicious peoples or their arcane arts from the few treasures I won from Azazir.” He spat into the dust and clinker. “They’ve taken every last piece, so where does that leave Planir’s hopes now, Shivvalan, tell me that!”