“This is the means by which you’ve always escaped enchantments?” she’d said, staring at the trinket resting in her palm. “It looks like a brooch, and a rather dull one at that!”
He took it back. “Yoralyn told me many lives could be lost if word of its existence got out.”
“She’s right.” Valaran the historian put a hand to her chin, thinking hard. “Pakin Zan himself once owned a nullstone. He sacked the city of Ulladu on the western coast to obtain it from its owner, the priest Gomian.”
“Ulladu? I’ve never heard of it.”
“That’s because Pakin Zan razed it to the ground. Sixty hordes breeched the defenses. Those inhabitants not slain in the battle-men and women, young and old-were forced to sift the wreckage of their city with sieves until Gomian’s treasure was found, then they were executed. Burned alive, if I recall correctly.”
Once again, he was struck by the calmness with which she could relate the most horrific information. He didn’t know if this was due to her scholarly detachment or to her upbringing in the imperial palace, where plots, assassinations, and massacres were common occurrences. Perhaps it was a little of both.
“What became of Pakin Zan’s nullstone?” he asked.
She looped a stray strand of hair behind her left ear, and for a moment was again the bookish girl hiding in an alcove, reading dusty tomes.
“A rook stole it from him.”
As Pakin Zan lay on his deathbed in the palace, a large Mack rook had flown in a window and plucked the millstone from the dying emperor’s neck. Onlookers could only watch helplessly; Pakin Zan’s strictest edict decreed death to anyone who touched his amulet. The rook flew away with the ancient artifact, never to be seen again.
Some authorities, Valaran said, held the bird was simply attracted by the shiny metal. Others believed the rook was the familiar of a sorcerer or rogue spellcaster, perhaps even the Silvanesti mage Vedvedsica himself. In the intervening twelve decades, no millstones had surfaced. Until Tol’s.
Tol gripped her hands tightly and stared into her green eyes. “You will keep this secret?”
She did not wince or shrink away. “I have forgotten it already,” she replied calmly.
As he and Early clopped through the frozen farmland in the cold light of morning, Tol was melancholy. Departing without saying good-bye to Kiya had left him with an odd, unfinished feeling. Through strange turns of fate, she was the only companion of his youth still with him. Miya was married and soon would bear Elicarno’s child. Egrin ruled in the emperor’s name back in Juramona. Darpo scoured the seas in command of the imperial fleet. And so many of his other brothers in arms were dead-Narren, Felryn, Frez-
For the first time in his life, Tol felt old. Though wrapped in fur, his knees ached and old wounds pained him. The deep stab wound in his side, courtesy of his one-time friend Crake, was particularly troublesome when the air was this chilly. More than that, he felt lonely. He’d survived so many of his friends, and so many enemies, too. Surprising how much a fellow could miss his enemies.
“-until the whole house collapsed!”
Tol’s wandering attention returned. “What?”
“That’s how I became chief food taster for King Lucklyn. Weren’t you listening?” Early said, a little exasperated. Tufts of hair, stiff as broomstraw, protruded from his fur hood, framing his face with an orange fringe.
“Remarkable,” Tol replied, though he’d heard none of the tale. “How fares Lucklyn’s queen, Casberry? I met her once.”
He’d made the acquaintance of the wizened kender queen when he and his men had gone to Hylo to find XimXim. Upon learning they had vanquished the monster, Queen Casberry fined Tol for hunting out of season.
“Oh, Cas is gone.”
“Gone? You mean dead?”
“No, no. She left on a tour of Balifor the same day Lucklyn returned from his long walkabout.”
“Was it affairs of state that separated them again, after they’d been apart so long?”
Early gave him a disbelieving look. “I thought you said you’d met Queen Casberry?” Tol laughed.
Putting aside his own worries, Tol found the kender a diverting companion. Early had an endless supply of droll, bizarre, and amusing stories, including one explaining the origin of the topknot hairstyle so many of his people wore. Tol blushed like a new bride when he heard that one.
They rode northeast all day, through empty orchards and harvested fields. Tol stayed off the main road, wanting to make it more difficult for spies to track their progress.Well after sunset, Tol finally called a halt, and they camped in a windbreak of pines. The woods were silent. All sensible creatures were either hibernating or had shifted to warmer climes. Early settled on the other side of the small campfire, making a tent of his blanket. Only the tip of his nose and frosty puffs of breath betrayed his presence. Frost formed on the horsehair blanket Tol draped over his head.
Hypnotized by the flickering flames, Tol slept sitting up, Number Six lying across his lap. In the oblique, abrupt way of dreams, he found himself sharing the fire with two robed figures, one seated on each side of him.
At first the two seemed identical, cowled in dark gray fabric, their faces invisible. Tol tried to speak but could make no sound. Even so, he was not afraid. There was no telltale flicker of heat, so magic wasn’t at work. This was only a dream.
The figure on his left slowly leaned forward, hands extending from the sleeves of his heavy gray robe. The right hand was white, with short fingers, the left dark and lean. A memory of the apparition on the bowsprit of the galleot Quarrel flashed into Tol’s mind; it too had had mismatched hands. After a slight hesitation, the phantom on the right made the same motion; his hands were both dark.
The fire hissed and popped. Sparks lofted skyward, winking out against a background of brilliant stars. Rising above the sputter of burning wood came other sounds-indistinct, rapid whispers. Gradually, the scratchy sounds resolved into words.
Go back! Go back!
The words came from the specter on his left, the one with mismatched hands.
Tol tried again to speak, and this time he could. “I will not go back! “he stated.
There is grave danger. This came from the apparition on the right, yet its voice seemed identical to the first.
“I will not turn back,” Tol repeated. “Many wrongs must be righted.”
From his left: Go back, or all you love will suffer.
“Who are you?”
The figure with two dark hands pointed through the leaping flames at the other phantom: He is the one you seek.
Tol gripped his sword hilt, and glared at the phantom with mismatched hands. Mandes, of course! The sorcerer must have replaced his lost arm with a limb belonging to someone else.
The shade with mismatched hands gestured sharply. Pay no attention to him. He is dead!
Tol’s heart raced. A name surfaced in his mind, the name of one cherished and lost, one who had dark skin. “Felryn? Felryn, is that you?”
Go back, or all you love will suffer!
The words came from the Mandes figure, and this time there was no doubt they were not a warning, but a threat. Although his limbs felt oddly leaden, Tol shifted the heavy saber off his lap.
Mandes spoke again. Go back, Tol of Juramona. Give up this quest, or each night someone you care about will die!
“No! This matter is between us, Mandes! Leave everyone else out of it!”
He’s afraid, whispered the Felryn shade. You are his doom.
“Protect them, Felryn! Protect Valaran and the rest!”
He can do nothing! He is dead! Mandes said.
With a mighty effort, Tol swung the saber up, laying the blade flat on his right shoulder.