The High King's Tomb by Kristen Britain
He closed the window behind him and latched it shut. He peeled off his mask and stood there in the library releasing a long, tired sigh and flexing his sore arm. It would be fine in a few days. He just wouldn’t scale any more walls in the meantime.
He’d left himself a lamp at low glow and now he turned it up, only to find, to his surprise, his manservant sitting in the shadows by the unlit fireplace.
“Morry!” Amberhill exclaimed. “What are you doing up?”
The older gentleman was in his sleeping clothes and a robe, but quite awake.
“You did not tell me you were going out tonight.”
Amberhill ran the silk mask between his fingers. Usually he told Morry precisely what he was up to when he went out as the Raven Mask, but even so, it rankled that Morry should need to know his every move as if he were still a boy.
“It is not necessary for you to wait up every time I go out,” he replied.
“The idea is that I be included in the plan in case there is trouble,” Morry said.
“I wasn’t anticipating trouble.” There easily could have been, but Amberhill wasn’t about to admit it.
“Well, then, what treasures did you bring home?”
“Er, none.” Amberhill hadn’t expected to be interrogated upon his return, and he found himself grasping for an explanation that would not reveal what he’d really been up to. He didn’t care to imagine Morry’s rebuke if he found out the Raven Mask had been scaling castle walls and peering into Lady Estora’s window. “I was out practicing my skills. More of a walk in the shadows, really.”
“Is that why your arm seems to be sore?” Morry demanded. “Because you were walking?”
Amberhill frowned. Morry would know just by glancing at him that the slightest thing wasn’t quite right. Even minor pain could alter a man’s posture, and after all these years of training together, Morry knew him as well as he knew himself.
“It is of no matter,” Amberhill replied.
A suspicious gleam remained in Morry’s eye, but the older gent, as paternal as he might be, was still a servant, and Amberhill knew each of these conflicting roles fought to assert itself over the other. The servant won this time, at least for the moment, and Morry did not pursue the matter.
“I was afraid you’d gone and done something rash,” Morry said.
“You know I’m more careful than that. I won’t do the job until the conditions are perfect.”
Morry shook his head. “I’m not sure the conditions ever will be. It’s not a proper sort of—”
“Nothing the Raven Mask does is proper,” Amberhill snapped, aggrieved he must always defend his decisions. He strode over to a table that held a bottle of brandy. He splashed some into a glass and downed it in a single gulp, then poured some more.
“Some things are less proper than others,” Morry said, undeterred. “Especially when they are traitorous.”
“Such things were commonplace centuries ago, and were considered an honorable way for one noble to express disagreement with another, or to show himself as a rival for an intended wife and to benefit from a token ransom as solace.”
“I doubt the women involved ever saw it as ‘honorable,’” Morry said. “In any case, King Smidhe outlawed the practice of honor abductions long ago because it created disunity among the clans. In some cases it was an excuse for them to commit war upon each other.”
“You know as well as I do that honor abductions still go on in remote provinces where the king’s law holds less sway. Coutre, for instance. And to my thinking, there is still a place for some of the old traditions.” It had been a long night already, and Morry’s interrogation was not soothing Amberhill’s irritation. If anything, it added to it. “Did you always question my grandfather’s decisions this way?” he demanded.
“Your grandfather,” Morry replied, stroking his chin, “practiced and practiced his art to its fullest, and was well-seasoned before he attempted some of his more dangerous thefts. Such tasks were extensively planned before execution, creating a seeming effortlessness on his behalf that baffled the authorities. That was the art of it—no one knew just how much work went into it. They saw only the results. A man who could melt into shadows and charm the most happily of married women. A man who could steal a highly guarded gem without being detected. An act of seeming ease that was in fact an exercise of great intellect and the culmination of much sweat.”
“So you are saying I’m an impulsive whelp.”
“That is what you are saying,” Morry replied. “Your grandfather was a man full grown when I came to serve him, and I was just a boy. He’d been the Raven Mask for several years already. Did I question your grandfather’s motives and actions? No. Not at first, but as time went on and I grew in experience, I learned to question him if I thought an endeavor too risky. Usually it turned out everything was so well-planned, I was the one who learned from it. After all those years of serving your grandfather, I should think I have some words of value to share with you. I offer it out of love, and offer it now, especially since you have been the Raven Mask but a short time.”
“I’ve been very successful,” Amberhill said, still irked.
“And I do not deny it, for I have trained you well.” Morry smiled, but it was fleeting. “You must understand, Xandis, that it is only because of my regard for you, and my concern for the young woman, that I raise questions. And certainly I do not trust the plainshield. He will not reveal to us his liege lord. Who is this noble who seeks an honor abduction of the most prestigious lady in all of Sacoridia? The whole scheme smells rotten to me.”
“I will see to the lady’s safety myself,” Amberhill said. “I swear it.”
“Even plans well-laid sometimes go wrong.”
Amberhill tightened his grip on the glass, then relaxed. “I’ve already agreed to this thing, and on my honor, I will finish it. The Amberhill estate will be restored, and the Raven Mask can retire once again.”
“What is the greater honor, I wonder,” Morry muttered, but before Amberhill could retort, the older man stood and said, “It is late and I need my bed.” He started away, but then paused. “Your new boots were delivered today. Good night, sir.”
“Good night,” Amberhill murmured. He watched Morry make his way from the room and into the dark corridor beyond. He was trim and unbent despite his years, and worked hard to maintain himself, mostly by training with Amberhill. Amberhill loved Morry, but as a son will chafe against a father, so he resented Morry’s challenging his decisions.
It is, after all, my decision, Amberhill thought. He’d become the Raven Mask with one goal in mind: to restore his estate. And so he would. As an impoverished noble, he couldn’t hope to win anything but a wife of mediocre status with a scant dowry, and then he’d never be able to establish the horse farm he dreamed of. He would die wanting, his life unremarked upon.
At one time, his family had been very wealthy and powerful within Clan Hillander, owning vast expanses of land. Now he had but a crumbling manor house and the small acreage it sat upon to call his own, despite the prominence of his ancestors. The gold the plainshield offered would help him reclaim much and launch the horse farm, and he’d manage it all scrupulously to bring the estate back to its former splendor.
No more pinching jewels from the bedchambers of ladies. Unless he felt like it.
As determined as Amberhill was to see this through, the tension between him and Morry hurt. Never did Morry call him “sir,” except in public.
He shook off his feelings of guilt and doubt when he espied the package on the large library table. His boots! He set his glass aside and unbound the boots from their protective linen wrappings, inhaling the intoxicating fragrance of new leather.
This purchase represented one of his few extravagances. With the currency the plainshield advanced him, he’d gotten fitted for the boots in the finest shop in all of Sacor City. He chose only the best grade of leather, pliant but sturdy, which he now caressed, the lamplight gleaming o
The expense was unbelievable, but he grew tired of wearing old things, things his father and grandfather once wore. He owned some garb specifically for thieving as the Raven Mask, but could not wear it when he was being himself, so he had to settle for the old things. He wished he could purchase a whole new wardrobe, but not only did he dare not squander his funds all at once, it would appear suspicious for him to suddenly dress like a well-off aristocrat. Comments would be made, and questions asked. He’d be noticed. Too many knew his father had gambled away the family holdings, and questions would lead to guesses about where he’d acquired the funds. He could not take the chance his role as the Raven Mask be revealed.
No, Amberhill dared only make careful purchases for now, and by the time his fortunes were transformed, no one would think to ask questions.
I will tell them I made a profitable business deal, he thought. And it will be the truth.
For all that Morry might worry, Amberhill saw only a bright future of opportunity and wealth.
THE WALL SPEAKS
We stand sentry day and night, through storm and winter, and freeze and thaw.
From Ullem Bay to—
The storm batters us.
From Ullem Bay to—
The storm weathers us.
To the shores of dawn we—
are cracking.
Hear us. Help us. Heal us.
Do not trust him. He nearly brought us to ruin.
Hate him!
We cannot trust. We hate him.
Yes, hate him.
THE STORM
Dale’s condition delayed Alton’s search for answers. He’d tried to hide his impatience from her—it wasn’t as if it was her fault. According to Leese, the Rider’s slowly healing wounds and the travel from Woodhaven had strained her and hampered recuperation. She’d been allowed to leave Woodhaven too soon, Leese had insisted, and Tower of the Heavens would have to wait a few more days for Dale to rest up.
It was true, Alton reflected as he approached the tower. He’d observed dark rings beneath Dale’s eyes and that she moved stiffly. She would not admit being tired or in pain, and he chose blindness, not wanting to see what was right in front of him because he needed answers, and he needed them now. Leese, however, had other ideas, and Dale was forced to take bed rest and swallow noxious teas that were supposed to help her heal. When Alton left her, he saw her expression of guilt for letting him down.
He could have said something reassuring to her, but he hadn’t. He’d just left her tent, bridling with frustration, frustration verging on anger at the delay. Now he stood before the tower, his hands clenched at his sides, needing to vent all he held within.
Delay!
His urgent need to fix the wall rose in him like a fever. He could no longer abide waiting. Every day lost meant another day closer to disaster. As if shadowing his mood, clouds built all morning, blotting out sunshine and turning day to dusk, and now they hung bloated and leaden above, ready to loose torrents of rain. The tips of trees wavered in the growing wind, as restless and unsettled as he felt. The wind carried the tang of the sea. This was a sea storm brewing, the kind that racked the coast in late summer and into fall, and here they were not all that far from the ocean.
He could practically feel the oncoming storm throbbing through him, and when he closed his eyes, he saw winds peeling spray off the crests of waves, layers of waves that plunged and reared gray-green and spewed foam. That turmoil roiled inside him.
Wind whooshed through the encampment snapping tent flaps and banners and sending sparks from campfires showering through the air. Columns of smoke bent, coiled, danced. It was as though the Earth had made a great exhalation.
Then everything stilled.
“We’re in for a good blow, m’lord,” said a nearby soldier on guard duty by the tower.
“Yes,” Alton replied, his voice quiet and tight. He gazed up at the sky and the first fat drops of rain fell from the heavens and splattered on his face.
The storm deepened the dark of night, the wind whipping the walls of Alton’s tent. He secured his shelter as best as he could with extra lengths of cord, and so far it was holding, but rain battered its way in through any hole it could find, and the wooden poles that supported the tent braced against the force of wind. He thanked the gods the tent was on a platform or he’d be swamped.
When his candle’s sputtering and twisting light added to his growing headache, he blew it out and went to his cot, which he’d had to move from beneath a leak, and laid down, pulling his damp blanket over him.
The shriek of wind and groan of tree boughs became voices in his mind as he drifted into uneasy sleep, and the drumming of rain on canvas was the hammer blows of a thousand stonecutters.
It was the voices, though, that bore deepest into his mind, their wailing, their despair. Their hatred. Walls of stone closed in on him and he tossed on his cot. The voices screamed at him.
He turned to his side, breathing hard, fist opening and closing even as he slept.
Go away, cousin, the voices said. Stay away. Die, cousin, we hate you.
Alton cried out, his own voice lost in the storm. The maelstrom raged on.
The residue of Blackveil’s poison flamed in his blood, bringing on the fever and the dream that haunted him. Karigan came to him in the ivory dress, her brown hair sun-touched with gold. His head rested on her lap and she caressed his temple, her touch warm and soft.
Behind her the limbs of trees swayed and groaned, turned black and snarled, reaching around her for him. Karigan’s hair fluttered in the breeze, and she began to transform into a loathsome creature with yellow eyes and claws that scratched his cheeks.
Betrayer! Alton screamed. He launched from her lap, fell from his cot onto the tent platform. A peal of thunder extended his scream.
He knelt there, panting, sweat dripping down his face. He was insufferably hot and the storm without only seemed to fuel the storm within. The wall hated him, and he hated it back.
He stood, kicked over his chair, swept a pile of books off his table. He staggered out of his tent without even donning cloak or pulling on boots, lightning illuminating the way.
Outside rain pelted his face and instead of quelling his fever, it empowered him. As the storm ripped tents from their ties around him and snapped branches, Alton reveled in his own power and screamed at the wall, screamed in fury at Blackveil and Mornhavon the Black.
“I hate you!” he yelled. “I’ll find a way! You can’t defy me!”
He then cursed the gods and lightning filled the sky above him, but he continued his tirade, no longer conscious of his words or the destruction the storm wrought around him.
Even when Dale rushed out to him, her greatcoat draped over her shoulders, and tried to drag him out of the rain, he didn’t stop his cursing or shaking his fist at the heavens.
“Idiot!” she cried at him, and she slapped him.
He hit back.
The world clarified around Alton. He saw the devastation as if for the first time, and all he felt was cold and tired, his inner storm spent. A flash of lightning revealed Dale in the mud at his feet, struggling to rise, but obviously hurting.
“What have I—?” He bit off his own question and helped Dale up, then, supporting her, led her through the rain back toward her tent, its flaps whipping in the wind.
“I’m sorry,” he told Dale.
“I know,” she replied.
TO SELIUM
A torrent of wind and rain forced Karigan and Fergal to seek shelter at an inn a couple days out of Rivertown. They blew into the courtyard of the Cup and Kettle amid broken branches and deep puddles. The inn’s proprietor ushered them into the stable and Karigan sighed in relief to be out of the storm and in the relative warmth and dryness that four walls and a roof provided. She had lived near the coast long enough to recognize a sea-driven storm, even this
They were all soaked to the skin. Condor was one wretched-looking, drenched horse, with his mane and tail hanging limp and straggly, and water runneling down his sides. She slapped his neck splattering drops everywhere. He gave a pathetic, deep-down sigh that made Karigan laugh.
Condor nudged her shoulder with his nose as if to say, “Look at yourself if you want a good chuckle.” It only made her laugh harder.
In the gloomy light, she saw Fergal gazing her way with a slight scowl on his face, observing her interaction with Condor. Since the Golden Rudder, he’d been remakably cooperative, and she noted he continued to be dutiful in his care of Sunny.
Dutiful. And that was all. She still saw no growing affection for Sunny on his part, and suspected he put as much energy into horse chores as he did only because it was his duty. He did not do it to please Sunny. He must regard her in much the same way he regarded his boots: He needed them to perform his job, they required some care, but beyond that, they did not inspire love. They were useful, and that was that.
It saddened Karigan, even as Condor playfully nibbled at her braid, that anyone could regard a living, breathing creature as no more than a useful object. She hoped Fergal would grow to—if not love Sunny—at least like and appreciate her.
“Hey!”
Fergal’s cry jolted Karigan from her thoughts. He had just removed Sunny’s saddle, and the mare was enjoying a full-body shake, showering him with water.
Karigan started to laugh, but stopped dead when she saw the anger on his face. He rammed his saddle down on the stall door, and turned to Sunny and yanked on her reins.
“Stupid animal!” he shouted.