Isak leaned over the desk and drew the shield out from the footwell. Bahl frowned when he saw it, once again reaching out his senses to touch the gleaming silver. He still could not place whatever spell it contained: it wasn't complex, but that simplicity confused him. 'Can you read any of the runes on it?'
'There aren't any.' Isak held up the shield for Bahl to see, keeping a tight grip on it. Bahl made no attempt to touch it as he inspected the surface.
Not on either side?' Isak turned it over to show his Master the inside. There was nothing, not even written on the leather straps for Isak's arm.
‘I did dream of a rune the night I got this. Tila found me a book to look them up in.'
'Them?'
'It- there were, ah, lots, of runes in the book. It was a core rune, meaning something like "Merge" or "Union".'
'Ah.' Bahl drew back from the shield, understanding suddenly dawning as he remembered the thread of magic that had wormed its way between the flagstones of the Great Hall that day. That makes sense – although I suspect the connotations will be a puzzle.'
'Why? What makes sense?'
'Best you see for yourself. Come.'
The pair descended the main stair side by side. The chaos of preparations for the army's departure was strangely absent here; the running feet and bellowed commands were distant, behind thick walls of stone. As they neared the bottom, a scampering soldier in Tehran's livery appeared before them, on an errand to his lord's chambers. Startled by the two white-eyes, the man accidentally careened into a wall, then pressed himself up against it to make room for them. As soon as they had passed, he took off again, and they heard his feet pounding heavily on the stair as he made his way to the suzerain's suite.
In the lower level of the tower, the air was cold and dank. With no fire burning, it felt like a dungeon. Since the advancing elven army had first been drawn to their attention, the call of Isak's gifts had intensified. Bahl was sure Isak had felt it too; more than once he had left his room in the morning to find Isak lingering at the base of the tower, instead of eating breakfast in the Great Hall.
Isak pulled his paral shirt tighter against the clammy air, which pushed the dragon brooch pinned to it to a strange angle, snout down, as though it was digging into the ground. It reminded Bahl that he had not spoken to the beast below in six months. He had no idea how it would react to Isak's presence.
The cycle of a dragon's life consisted of long periods of rest and sleep, then perhaps half a century of destruction and terror in the mating rituals. In return for a safe haven for this beast, Bahl had secured the promise of assistance in battle when it was required, and that the destructive phase would take place far from Farlan lands. It was a strange bargain to have struck, but the cost of feeding a dragon was far less than maintaining troops enough to match the dragon's worth.
Down they went, deep into the belly of the earth, far from prying eyes. Isak, used now to the tower's magic, guessed the distance to be half the height of the tower – a long way down to put a strong-room;
when he announced that, it elicited only a humourless snort by way of reply.
Now it was pitch-black, and Isak could see nothing at all, not even the hand he reached out in front of his own face, until Bahl muttered a few words under his breath. Isak detected the dirty-sour smell of magic as a ball of flame appeared in Bahl's palm. Although the words were too quiet for Isak to hear, they rose in his memory: one of many spells he'd memorised over the past few weeks but couldn't make work.
They were in a cave, a hollowed-out space some ten feet high and wide, unfinished walls still marked by the tools used to carve out the hole. The flame gave off only enough light to see that not even an iron brand adorned the walls. Bahl led him through a hole in the wall into an undulating tunnel, wide enough only for one at a time. Isak trailed along behind, wondering where this was taking them.
He tried another attempt at conversation, something that had been nagging at his mind for a while. 'My Lord.7'
'Hmm?'
'When we return from Lomin, what will I do7'
'You're the Krann, you do what you like.'
'That's not what I mean. If I've proved myself in battle – if I have gifts like yours – what should I be doing with my life?'
Isak knew it was a strange question, but in a nation of allotted roles, he could not now see one for him – at least until he became the Lord of the Farlan, and that was a long way ahead.
Bahl stopped, his expression hidden by his mask. 'What should you be doing with your life? A good question, I suppose.' Abruptly, he started walking again. 'You're a suzerain. You have an estate and a shire to manage; just getting your lands in order may take years. Lesarl will provide you with records of the suzerain's possessions in Anvee – I think you'll have quite a lot of evictions, rent collecting and deal-making to do. Crops grown on your land now belong to you, no matter who planted them, your nobles will have redrawn boundaries, your shire seat will be in disrepair, your bondsmen need accounting-'
'Oh, playing with bits of paper, measuring land, counting money,' Isak couldn't hide the boredom in his voice.
'Hunting, hawking, practising your magic, horse-breeding, bullying old aristocrats and charming their innocent daughters; I assumed you'd enjoy it. Estate managers can be found to deal with the administrative side. Did you expect more?'
'I suppose-' Isak sounded a little diffident now. 'Well, I had wondered whether you'd be sending me on diplomatic missions.' 'You? A diplomat? What a curious concept.' Isak smiled at Bahl's tone, glad for any levity between them. 'There will certainly be lots to keep you busy here if you want it, but our relationships with other states are limited. We are too powerful for them to attack us, and trade agreements are already in place, so your principal official role if you want it would be patrolling our borders to discourage raiding.'
'What if-'
Isak got no further as Bahl interrupted, 'Another time. We're
here.'
Isak realised he'd forgotten to count the paces as he'd intended, but guessed they'd covered a hundred yards or more. Another twenty paces and Bahl stopped in front of the outline of a doorway hewn in the rock: sharp, irregular lines edged in the faintest of green.
As they'd been walking, Isak had been more and more aware of the presence of magic of some sort up ahead, but the scent was unlike any he recognised. As he followed Bahl inside, the smell of wet lichen, animal dung and a piercing acrid odour grew hugely, as did the magic in the air. There were powerful streams of energy present, not building up, but attracted to this place for some reason, presumably his gifts. The smell of dung bemused him, though: it was not quite like a stable, nor a slaughterhouse, but the aroma was similarly pervasive.
As Isak took in the proportions of the room, he faltered: this was a cavern stretching off into blackness, not the strong-room he'd been expecting. The faint green tint that outlined the walls and uneven floor had no apparent source, other than the magic he could sense swirling all around. The cavern was not one regular open space; the roof dipped and rose as it pleased and the floor rose up in the centre around a group of thick pillars clustered with quartz. Two large holes had been hacked into a side wall, presumably tunnels leading to more chambers. One had great chunks of rock lying broken at its entrance. 'Where are we? What is this place?' He found himself whispering-'I keep some of the artefacts Atro collected over the years here. We cannot keep them in the palace itself, nor can we destroy most of them, for fear of releasing the magic inside – for the same reason