Mirya took the cup, and drank deeply of the sweet black tea. It had a faint oily taste, and it seemed to cling to her tongue and teeth. The vapors filled her nose, and she felt a mild dizziness. “Good,” Sennifyr said softly. “Now close your eyes, dear, and think of your handsome lordling. Fix your mind’s eye on Geran’s face, the sound of his voice, the color of his eyes, the shape of his mouth.”
She did as Sennifyr instructed, bringing to mind Geran’s features as she thought of him standing in front of the counter at Erstenwold’s on a sunny afternoon, a small smile touching the corner of his mouth as he listened to her recount some story of Selsha’s doings. It was a memory from a few tendays after he’d foiled his cousin’s plots, a brief carefree time in the summer when it seemed that all that was wrong in Hulburg had been set right. Then she felt the power of Sennifyr’s magic begin to take hold; the memory simply drew away into darkness, and she groped blindly after it. Instead, she found a confusing jumble of images, Geran as seen in dozens of brief moments, each lasting for only the blink of an eye before it vanished again into the next. She shook her head and tried to fix the flickering visions in her mind.
Geran was making love with a golden-haired woman, their limbs entwined in the candelight as they lay together in a darkened room. Stunned, Mirya could only stare; as he shifted and drew back for a moment, she saw Nimessa Sokol, her eyes half closed. Somehow Mirya knew she was seeing something that had happened not long before-the divination’s magic at work, she guessed. He slept with Nimessa? she thought dully. How could he do that? A familiar ache welled up under her breastbone, and Mirya hugged her arms close to her body. She wrenched her eyes away, horrified to have stumbled into such an intimate moment, and the vision complied by vanishing from her view. Then she caught a glimpse of Geran dressed in the colors of a Sokol armsman, jogging along on a horse as he rode alongside a creaking caravan leaving Hulburg along the Coastal Way. Two of the gray guardians watched impassively as he rode by, but they did not stir. “He escaped Hulburg,” she murmured aloud. Sennifyr did not reply.
Now she saw Geran standing by the rail of a merchant caravel that plunged and pitched over a sea of leaden gray, bitter spray blowing back from each dip of the bow, his tattered cloak flapping around him. This time she sensed that she saw something that was happening as she watched. “He is at sea,” she said, “but I can’t tell where he is bound.” Hulburg’s port was still icebound, so he had to be on his way to another Moonsea city. A gray coast loomed ahead in the mists and rain, but before she could make out any more, the vision fell away to be replaced by another.
This time she saw Geran fighting in some strange, shadowy place, a great chamber of stone where ghostly warriors streamed from the darkness to beset him. He wielded a black sword in one hand, and his mouth moved silently as he shouted the words of a spell. “Now he’s fighting in a dark place,” she said. Mirya reached out to him, sensing the danger that he was in, but then she realized that what she was seeing hadn’t yet come to pass. The image began to flicker, and she called out, hoping to see just a little more. “Geran! Wait!”
“He does not hear you, my dear,” Sennifyr said.
Mirya blinked her eyes, realizing the visions were over. She surged to her feet, still trying to make sense of what she’d seen. Geran was safe, for now, although terrible danger waited for him soon enough … but the vision that she couldn’t drive out of her mind was the image of Geran lying in Nimessa’s arms. It’s none of my business! she fumed at herself. Why should I care? I have no claim on him, nor does he have any on me. But if that was true, then why did her heart ache as if she’d been pierced with a knife? Mirya, you foolish girl, she told herself. You’ve fallen for him again, and that’s why your heart is breaking. You foolish, foolish girl!
Sennifyr watched her carefully. “Mirya, my dear, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“I–I have to go,” Mirya replied. She took her cloak from the peg where Lana had hung it and hurried out of the mansion into the clean, cold air.
THIRTEEN
13 Alturiak, the Year of Deep Water Drifting (1480 DR)
Nine days of hard travel brought Geran, Hamil, and Sarth to the outskirts of Myth Drannor. They’d sailed from Thentia aboard a Double Moon merchantman; unlike Hulburg, Thentia’s port remained ice-free through the winter. Still, it was enduring a difficult three-day Moonsea crossing against the westerly winds. In the city of Hillsfar, they bought riding horses and provisions for an overland journey, setting out southward along the Moonsea Ride. Deep snow and cold, damp weather had made the hundred-mile ride far more tiring than Geran remembered it, but at least they’d run into no trouble with bandits or monsters; it seemed the bad weather had driven them into their lairs, leaving the roads open to any who were foolish enough to travel in such conditions. They spent their nights huddling around campfires beneath the forest’s mighty boles, trying to keep dry and warm.
In the middle of the afternoon on the ninth day of their journey, Geran found that the endless woods around the elven road they followed had begun to take on a familiar character. The stirring of long-buried memories washed over him. He shortened his reins and brought his horse, a big gray gelding, to a stop on the snow-covered elven road, sitting motionless in the saddle as the wet snow floated down, sticking to his woolen cloak and the horse’s mane. The woods were still, and the snow muffled the hoofbeats of his companions’ horses, leaving no sound but the faint creaking of leather and the animals’ heavy breaths. Without even realizing it, he leaned forward, listening with all his might for something that stirred at the very edge of his awareness.
“What is it?” Hamil asked, reining in beside him. Sarth, a little way ahead of them both, glanced over his shoulder and halted as well.
Geran gazed at the snowy forest that surrounded them. He recognized this place. “I first met Alliere and Rhovann at this very spot,” he said. “A little more than seven years ago, I suppose. It was winter then too-Midwinter’s Eve-and I could hear the elves singing the Miiraeth len Fhierren.” He shook himself, raising a hand to brush the snow from his eyelashes and the memories from his sight. “It’s only a mile more to the city.”
“Good!” Hamil replied. “I’m more than ready for a hot meal and a warm bed tonight.”
“As am I,” Sarth said. The sorcerer had argued vehemently against completing Aesperus’s task, but once Geran made his decision, he’d grudgingly agreed to go with Geran and Hamil so that he could view the missing pages of the Infiernadex himself before the lich took possession of them. Geran had agreed that if the pages held some lore or ritual that seemed too dangerous to hand over, he’d destroy them rather than deal with the King in Copper-an alternative that he sincerely hoped he wouldn’t have to exercise. There was no telling how Aesperus might react to such a refusal.
Hamil tapped his heels to his mount’s flanks and started again, but Geran hesitated a moment. This was the point of no return; if he continued forward, he’d be in defiance of the coronal’s judgment. He was not quite ready to discount all his misgivings yet.
Sarth glanced around the woods to make sure of their privacy, and then spoke to Geran. “You need not go any farther,” he said. “Hamil and I can find the pages Aesperus requires. There is no need for you to risk the coronal’s displeasure.”
The swordmage shook his head. “It might take you months to win the trust of the right people, and we can’t afford much delay. I still have friends here-I think. But from this point forward, my name is Aram, and I’m only a Red Sail armsman here to guard Master Hamil from any trouble on the road.” He was dressed the part, with an armsman’s scale coat, the red surcoat with its yellow slash, a little pigment to darken the eyesockets and make them appear deeper than they were, and a thick goatee in the Vastar style. His elven sword was disguised in a false scabbard, its hilt of mithral wire covered with a simple leather wrap; it likely would have been better to leave the weapon in Lasparhall, but once upon a time it had been bestowed on Geran by Coronal Ilsevele herself, and if things went poorly, he hoped that it might serve to remind the elves of the service he’d rendered their queen in years gone by.