R. Salvatore - The Ancient

“Their boat is beached on our shore,” said Cormack, his tone noticeably short of enthusiasm. “Tell them you spied it from afar.”

“My people will come for them,” the woman promised ominously.

“I pray that a bargain will be struck,” said Cormack. “Perhaps this is an opportunity for a better understanding between Chapel Isle and Yossunfier.”

But Milkeila was shaking her head with every word. “There is no bargain to be found,” she explained, her tone even and full of certainty. “My people will go to Chapel Isle in full force to demand the release. Anything less will incite war.”

Cormack stuttered around a couple of insufficient responses before settling upon “What will Milkeila do?”

She stepped back and stood staring at him in the moonlight for a long while, obviously waging an inner struggle. “I am Yan Ossum,” she said, and reached up to her neck to separate her second, secret necklace from her more traditional shamanistic attire. She pulled the gemstone necklace over her head and held it out to Cormack, who widened his eyes, too stunned to respond.

“I am Yan Ossum,” Milkeila said again. “If there is to be war, I battle on the side of Yossunfier.” She tossed the necklace to him, and he caught it. “It would be wrong of me to use your gemstones against you in that event. I would not so betray your trust.”

“As you perceive I am betraying yours?”

Milkeila shook her head and managed a thin smile. “I am Yan Ossum, and you are Abellican. We both battle the limitations of our heritage-I am no more in Toniquay’s favor than you are in the eyes of Father De Guilbe. But we cannot escape the truth of who we are, not in the event we both fear. My people will come for our lost brethren, and your brothers will not likely release them. And so we are left in the most awful place where our hopes collide with our realities.”

Cormack stood there on the sand, staring at this extraordinary barbarian lass, a woman he had come to love, and he had no answers to her simple and straightforward logic. His shoulders slumped, his arms fell limp by his sides, and he smiled meekly, almost apologetically, back at her. He didn’t know whether he should go to her and hug her again or kiss her to assure her that everything would be all right. It was a moot point anyway, for there was no strength in his legs at that moment, powrie beret notwithstanding, to propel him.

Her waning smile carried Milkeila back to her small boat, and she pushed it away from the sandbar and hopped aboard it with the grace only one of her heritage might know.

In moments, the mist enveloped her, and Cormack stood alone.

And never in his life had he been more aware of exactly that.

Two Birds

It is a lie,” Brother Pinower remarked as Dawson, stepping lightly as if the weight of the world had been removed from his shoulders, started out of Father Artolivan’s audience hall.

Dawson stopped with a small hop and turned to face the younger monk, but Artolivan spoke before he could reply.

“A tale of mutual benefit,” the old priest said.

“A tale untrue,” said Brother Pinower. “We know the fate of Brother Dynard.”

“Do we?” asked Artolivan.

Pinower licked his lips and glanced over at Dawson. “We know at least that Dawson’s concoction has no basis in any known facts, Father.”

“Vanguard is a large and untamed place,” said Artolivan.

“We make a leap of circumstance based on less than compelling reasoning, Father. To spin such a claim, without cause, seems the very definition of…”

“Prudence,” Father Artolivan interrupted. “Play it out to logical conclusion in your thoughts, young Brother, absent this ‘concoction,’ as you deem it. The benefactors of your veracity would be?”

Pinower’s gaze went from Artolivan to Dawson and back again, and again. After a few moments, he could only sigh, having no practical response.

With an appreciative nod to Father Artolivan, Dawson McKeege took his leave.

“Go with him,” Father Artolivan instructed Pinower. “Supply to his tale the imprimatur of the Abellican Church.”

Brother Pinower’s expression showed his ultimate dismay, but he did not argue and did not respond, other than to bow politely and rush away in pursuit of the Vanguardsman.

Named because she sat below the peak of the northern cliffs and thus offered protection from the cold winds that howled down from the gulf, Weatherguard nevertheless still afforded her residents and visitors a magnificent view of Chapel Abelle, so strong and solemn and crisp against the steel-gray sky beyond the high rise.

Bransen, Callen, and Cadayle stood and enjoyed that view for a few moments when they first came in sight of the renowned abbey, with the two women flanking Bransen and holding him relatively straight, as he had been for most of their journey, particularly those parts when they neared more populated areas. Today he walked in genuine Stork form.

“Built by the hand of God, so they say,” Callen whispered, awe evident in her voice. For how could it not have been? Many of Honce’s traveling bards named this the most impressive structure in all the land, even above the magnificent palace of Laird Delaval.

Bransen slipped a hand into his belt pouch and clutched a soul stone. He had become quite adept at making this movement unobtrusive and even more so at accessing the power of the stone, almost instantly transforming himself. “We know the Abellicans far too well to make the mistake of listening to ‘they,’” he reminded. “How might Chapel Abelle measure against the Walk of Clouds of the Jhesta Tu?”

“One day we will know, my love,” Cadayle whispered to him. She nudged him gently to make sure he was aware of people walking by.

Anytime Cadayle rubbed his upper arm and said “my love,” it meant that he should revert to his disguise. Bransen took the cue and let go of the gemstone. Any hint that he was faking his malady would surely land him on the front lines of the vicious war as both sides scrambled for more and more fodder to feed their kingly designs.

Cadayle and Callen helped Bransen to Weatherguard’s long inn, a ramshackle old structure so warped and aged that the floor showed stains of the water that easily crept through whenever it rained or snowed. Still, the common room’s hearth was enormous and well stocked. The fire, seeming like three separate conflagrations, worked its way through the jumble of logs piled high behind an iron grate, their flickering ends sometimes joining, sometimes flaring in opposite directions so that they resembled a trio of dancers acting out the tragedy of a failing love triangle.

The patrons in the room showed no such intrigue. Old men and women young and old littered the many small round tables set about the generous floor. Glances both scornful and bitter came at Bransen immediately as he entered. Only as he staggered storklike, drool wetting the corners of his mouth, did many of the patrons nod their understanding and let go of that resentment. Few men of Bransen’s age remained in Weatherguard, and everyone in the room had suffered the loss of a husband or son or brother in the seemingly endless war between Ethelbert and Delaval.

“Wounded in the South,” Cadayle explained to a gaggle of old women who stared incredulously as Bransen staggered into a seat.

“Ah,” they all said together.

“A pity he weren’t killed outright, then, ye poor girl,” one dared offer.

Cadayle merely nodded, accepting their misplaced pity. She’d heard that one often enough.

Cadayle noticed then that one middle-aged man in the tavern seemed quite out of place. Sitting in a back corner, his weathered boots up on the table, he was surely of age and fitness to be at the front. He cradled a mug of mead in one hand, absently running the index finger of his other hand about its thick rim. And all the while he stared at her and at Bransen with more than a passing interest. Too much so!