James Clemens - Shadowfall

“The same could be said of that beard of yours.”

They clasped hands.

The sun-crinkled eyes of the pirate traveled past Rogger to Tylar and Delia. “I see you brought the godslayer with you.”

Tylar started, his fingers tightening on his sword.

Rogger merely shrugged.

Krevan released the thief’s hand with a short laugh. “Then again, you always kept the strangest companions. I remember that blood witch from Nevering who-”

“Please!” Rogger interrupted. “There is a lady present.”

“Of course.” Krevan broke into a soft smile, gentle and respectful. “My lady, be welcome.”

Delia offered the smallest curtsy.

Rogger opened his mouth, but Krevan cut him off with a lifted hand.

“Yes, a boat. I know. Arrangements are already under way.

The Flaggers know how to repay a debt, even one owed as long as yours. But…?” His smile faded into harder lines.

Rogger nodded. “To cross ships downline, many palms will need pressing.”

Krevan sank back to lean on his desk.

“We have this sword to trade,” Tylar said, stepping up.

Rogger shook his head at the offer.

Krevan leaned back. “He is amusing. Wherever did you find him?”

Rogger shrugged. “Dungeons.”

“Ah, same as the blood witch.”

The thief scratched his beard thoughtfully. “You’d be surprised what can be found abandoned with the rats and chains.”

Tylar flipped the sword hilt up. “What about this diamond on the pommel? It must be worth a handful of gold marches.”

Krevan sighed. “Aye, but you’ll need ten times that to press the proper palms.”

Tylar’s eyes widened.

Rogger explained,“To silence the passage of someone of… well, of your reputation, does not come cheaply. We’ll need to hide your trail in gold.” He turned to Delia. “But luckily we brought with us something of considerable worth.”

Delia paled and backed up a step.

Tylar put up a protective arm. “I will not trade in flesh.”

Rogger raised an eyebrow. “Do I look a slave trader? Remember I’m a thief… specializing in certain sacred objects.”

Tylar suddenly understood, remembering what Rogger had been caught stealing in Foulsham Dell. “Repostilaries.”

Delia gasped, growing even more pale.

Tylar remembered the crystal vial she had used to douse her hand and send the daemon back inside Tylar. A repostilary bearing the blood of Meeryn.

“I cannot give it up,” Delia said, clutching the vial hidden in a pocket over her heart. “It holds the last drops of her blood.”

“Can you just imagine its worth?” Rogger said to Krevan. “The blood of a dead god?”

The pirate’s eyes had grown large, plainly yearning for such a prize. “The price it would fetch among the Gray Traders…”

“Enough to book passage safely away?” Rogger asked.

Krevan slowly nodded, unblinking.

Delia still clasped tightly to the pocketed vial.

Sighing, Tylar knew the trade was the only way. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to her. “But if we’re to ever solve the mystery of what’s inside me… ever to learn the truth about Meeryn, we’ll all have to pay a stiff price.” He parted his cloak to reveal the black palm print. “If you would serve your god still, then it must be done.”

She closed her eyes and bowed her head. Her fingers reached into her pocket and removed the single repostilary. She held it out to Rogger.

He gently took it and passed it to Krevan, who handled it as if it were the most precious jewel.

“I will arrange everything,” the pirate said. He held the vial up to the flame of a wall torch. Fingers gently touched the crystal. Oddly, tears rose in his eyes. His next words were softly spoken but as hard as iron. “If I thought you had really slain Meeryn, Tylar de Noche, you would not be walking out of here.”

Krevan rose and crossed to a glass cabinet shelved with books, a few scrolls, and several boxes.

As he hid away the repostilary, Tylar whispered to Rogger, “Can this fellow be trusted?”

The pirate heard him. “I am not the one who broke my vow. I know how to swear an oath.” Krevan turned back to the torchlight and used his wrist to rub at the corner of an eye, smearing away the ash.

Three dark stripes were tatooed on his skin, the same as on Tylar’s face.

Tylar choked on his words. “You… you’re a knight.”

Krevan turned away. “Rogger, take your guests to the east wing. They can rest until the morning tide, when your boat will be leaving.”

Rogger waved them back toward the two loam-giants.

Tylar whispered to Rogger. “A fallen knight heads the Black Flaggers?”

Rogger glanced back to the tall figure. “Who said he had fallen?”

Tylar cast a sharp look at the thief.

“Not every knight breaks his vow,” Rogger said firmly, staring Tylar in the eye. “Some simply walk away.”

With his brow pinched in thought, Tylar left the room, bearing more questions than when he entered. He had thought himself wise, but now he felt like a swaddling babe, new to the world.

As the sun rose over the Summering Isles, Tylar stood at the rails of the deepwhaler. The ship had ridden the tide out and now swept toward the deeper seas. At midnight, they were to change ships in the waters off Tempest Sound, then again at Yi River, hoping to shake any hunters from their trail.

A scrape of boot heel sounded behind him. Rogger stepped to the rail. He looked a new man, in the fresh clean clothes of a whaler and his beard neatly trimmed.

He noted Tylar’s attention and ran a hand through his clean beard. “That Delia knows a thing or two about brushes and shears. Makes me almost want to lead a better life.”

In silence, the pair watched as the ship escaped the morning fog and sailed under open skies. Behind them, the misty isles appeared ghostly, more a dream of land than real.

“What now?” Tylar asked.

Rogger shrugged.

Delia was belowdecks, ill already from the roll of the ship in the swells. She had refused to remain behind, casting her fate along with Tylar, sensing in him a way to still serve her god. Tylar wasn’t sure why he had allowed her to come. It was something in her eyes, a pain and longing he could not deny.

Rogger’s motivation for accompanying them had been far simpler: “I have nothing better to do.” Sentenced as a pilgrim, he had been punished to wander the lands until he had collected all the branded sigils. But now, tied to the story of the godslayer, he figured his best chance of survival was to “walk beside the fellow with the big black daemon.” Still, despite his flippancies, Tylar sensed Rogger, like Delia, left much unspoken and unexplained.

Like that snippet in ancient Littick.

Tylar repeated it now, fingering his chest. “Agee wan clyy nee wan dred ghawl.”

“Break the bone,” Rogger whispered to the waves, “and free the dred ghawl, the dark spirit. I think that’s an apt enough description of the beastie.”

“What was it? A daemon? Some naether-spawn? Its attack was similar to the creature that killed Meeryn and her Shadowknights.”

“Outward appearances can fool the eye. As you well know, Godslayer.” He stressed the last word but offered nothing more.

The silence grew heavy between them.

Sighing, Tylar flexed his sword hand and held it up. “Break the bone,” he mumbled, switching to the first part of the phrase, to something easier. “What about that?”

“Aye, it seems I was right back in the dungeon. Clyy means bone, not merely body. The dred ghawl appeared only when the bones of your hand were crushed, not while you were whipped to the edge of your life. I find it interesting that Meeryn healed all your bones at the same time she blessed you with the spirit creature. It was as if she had made a cage out of your healthy bones, requiring only one crack, one broken bone, to set it free.”