With a sharp ache in his chest, Guerrand watched them go. He wondered darkly, distantly, if they would be the ones to slay his family.
"Northern Ergoth," muttered Lyim, scratching his head. "Isn't that where you're from?" Guerrand squeezed his eyes shut and nodded numbly. "Do you know anything about the notice?"
"Too much," Guerrand acknowledged wearily without thinking.
"The local lord… wouldn't that be your brother?" asked the other apprentice.
"Look, Lyim," Guerrand said, backing away, "I really can't talk about this."
Lyim's hand flew up to clasp his friend's arm, holding him tight. "All right, I'll do the talking. Your family is in trouble, and you're angry. That's understandable. What's not is why you're still in Palanthas. When are you returning to help them?"
"Help who?" Guerrand asked, avoiding Lyim's eyes.
"Come on, Guerrand, I'm not stupid. I understand why you feel you can't trust me, but…" He regarded his friend through one eye.
Lyim's tactics crumbled Guerrand's resolve. "I can't go back!" he confessed.
"What do you mean? Your family won't let you?"
Guerrand shook his head miserably. "They don't know where I am, or that Berwick means to attack them."
Lyim caught on quickly. "It's Justarius, isn't it? He won't let you leave to help them." Incredulous, Lyim shook his head. "Does he mean to tear you in two, choosing between him and your family?"
Guerrand found himself in the odd position of defending his master. "He requires me to be true to my vow. Besides, he hasn't forbidden me to go, only told me what the consequences would be for me here."
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know." Guerrand looked to the notice on the post. "And I haven't much time to decide."
Lyim's eyes shifted from side to side as he considered something. He snapped his fingers. "Let me go to Northern Ergoth and at least warn your family. I could help them, if it came to that."
"What?" exclaimed Guerrand, scarcely believing his ears. "What would you tell Belize?"
Lyim's expression turned eager with enthusiasm as he warmed to the idea. "I'll tell him nothing. Then I won't be violating any rule like Justarius's, will I? Besides, Belize won't even notice I'm gone. He told me after my tongue-lashing that he's retreating for weeks of meditation and work on his newest book of spells." Lyim waved it away. "He does that all the time."
"But what'll you do at Castle DiThon? Who'll you talk to? You're a stranger! Why would they listen to you?"
"Give me some credit, will you?" said Lyim. "I'll come up with some convincing story about, I don't know, being in the Berwick's hire, then defecting out of a sense of justice, or some such rot. They'll have no choice but to believe me." He shrugged. "If they don't, I'll be there to help your family magically. You know my magic is better than yours."
Guerrand snorted. "Cormac would no sooner let you employ magic than kiss him."
Lyim grabbed Guerrand by the shoulders. "That's the beauty of this whole plot! They don't know me from the great wizard Fistandantilus. No one has to know I'm using magic!" He frowned at his friend. "Now stop trying to think of reasons it won't work and tell me what I need to know to make it work."
Guerrand shook his head vigorously. "It's more than I can ask of you, Lyim."
"You didn't ask. I offered." Lyim looked at him slyly from the corners of his eyes. "You got a better plan, or are you just going to let them die?"
Guerrand stopped shaking his head, slowly softening to the idea. Lyim was right about them believing a stranger over him, and also about his spellcasting abilities. Under the circumstances, it seemed like the perfect solution, when moments ago there had been none. Guerrand would be able to keep his apprenticeship, and his family stood a better chance with Lyim. Guerrand peered closely at the other apprentice. "Why would you do this for me?"
"I'd be doing it for me," he corrected Guerrand, his tone unusually earnest. "Maybe it'll help me feel like I've atoned for my behavior at the Jest." He shrugged, trying to lighten the mood. "Besides, I could use the field practice-it's tiresome learning spells I have no occasion to use."
Awash with relief and affection, Guerrand gave his friend a grateful smile. "Then I accept your offer."
Whooping his victory, Lyim slapped an arm around Guerrand's shoulders and hustled him toward the tavern. "You can buy me a drink while we come up with a plan of action. It would help to devise a quicker means of travel than the mercenaries who are signing up, but that seems unlikely. Is there anyone I could trust with the truth? A servant, a sibling…?"
Chapter Fourteen
Lyim waited with growing impatience in the chilly seaside cove, listening to the gentle crash of waves from the Strait of Ergoth. The fresh white tunic he'd donned two days ago to meet Guerrand's sister had turned yellow under the arms and was stained with damp red clay. Yet he couldn't leave. Kirah might show up at any time. And after having spent more than two weeks aboard ship with sweaty, lice-ridden mercenaries headed for the Berwick shipping line's port of Hillfort, he'd be damned if a chit of a girl would keep him from his promise to his friend.
"This is all Guerrand's fault," Lyim growled aloud in his growing frustration. "He was the one who told me to wait in Kirah's usual refuge, instead of seeking her at the keep." If he hadn't listened to Guerrand, Lyim would have thought of some pretext upon which to call for Kirah at the castle. I'd be talking with her now," he said, "instead of sitting in this damp, dark cave."
You could still do that, the young mage reminded himself. And yet Lyim hesitated, feeling like he'd invested too much time here to leave just as Kirah might finally show.
Pushing himself up with a sigh, Lyim stepped through the mouth of the cove to find distraction in the sea. Even its too-steady rhythm would break the monotony. The apprentice felt the tide lapping at his boots as he watched the seabirds wheeling overhead. Among their screeches he thought he heard a faint gasp.
Lyim held himself still, listening. Something was nearby. He heard a second gasp, the rustling of stiff cloth, and then someone scuttling away overhead. Lyim spun around and looked on the rock shelf above the cave, shading his eyes from the sun.
Curled in upon herself against a rocky crevice, like some enormous cornered spider, was a slip of a girl with stringy, shoulder-length blond hair. She wore the tattered remains of a once-fine dress, and was barefoot.
"Kirah?" Lyim called, incredulous.
The girl's eyes went dark with fear, and she would have scrabbled back farther if her spine weren't already pressed against the rocks. "Wh-Who are you? Leave me alone, or I'll scream!"
Lyim was surprised. This was not the spunky tiger Guerrand had described, but more a scared rabbit. He put on his most disarming smile, the one that showed his dimples and the sparkle in his eyes. "I was told you were a girl, not a lovely young lady"
Kirah wrapped her arms around her bent knees and seemed to pull into herself even further, until all that was visible among the shadows of the rocks were her wide, white eyes.
"I am Lyim. Your brother sent me to find you."
"Cormac?"
"No, your other sibling. Guerrand."
The young girl shook her head vigorously, limp hair swinging in pale yellow ropes. "I no longer have a brother by that name."
Lyim's eyebrows rose in mild amusement. "Guerrand said you might be angry."
"Angry!" scoffed Kirah. "That's an understatement." She abruptly pinched her lips into a tight, pale line, unwilling to be drawn further into the subject.
"I can see you're more than angry," Lyim continued in his most soothing tone. "And I know that seeing me is nothing like having your brother back again. But he did send me; I was with him less than three weeks ago."