Call Of The Flame (Book 1) Read online

  “Even at low tide you have to go this way.”

  Grunting softly and leading with his left side, Aiyan hauled himself up into the hole and signaled Kyric to follow. A jumble of loose mossy stones lined the floor of the place, and Kyric’s empty stomach turned at the smell of rotting kelp. They climbed a twisted stairway of bricks, then a long jump down into a shallow pool of mud, duck though an arch, and they were inside the city. A garbage-filled alley led them to a cobbled harbor road.

  This was the old harbor, now used for smaller vessels. The docks and quays there overflowed with catboats, skiffs, dhows, longboats, and a few small caravels. A crowd milled in the harbor square at the gate to the docks where more soldiers in Lekon’s livery blocked the way. They were searching those who wanted to enter.

  “It doesn’t matter if you only want to sleep on your boat,” a red-faced lieutenant was saying to a wiry old man shouldering a duffle, “we still have to look in your bag.”

  “We’ve already had our goods searched,” said another man standing aside in a group of four. “Why are we still waiting?”

  “All boats must be inspected before departure. All the inspectors are busy right now, but it will be your turn next.”

  “Just keep walking,” Aiyan said.

  A distant clock tower struck midnight, but the street looked like early evening on a Fireday night, with people and carriages in each other’s ways, pipers and lute players working the sidewalks, shouts and laughter echoing in the taverns. Across the square, Kyric spotted a stall where they sold grilled sausage on a stick and pushed through the crowd to pay an outrageous six pence for two skinny bangers, handing one to Aiyan as he took too big a bite and scorched the roof of his mouth.

  The clatter of hooves on cobblestone turned their heads. More of Lekon’s cavalry came trotting down the street, a man in a red hat leading them, and Kyric’s insides went hollow.

  “It’s him,” he whispered to Aiyan.

  “I know. Don’t look at him,” Aiyan said, slowly sidestepping to place a large statue of some ancient seafarer between himself and the riders.

  Morae signaled his troops to halt at the gate to the docks, all too close. Kyric tried not to look at him but couldn’t help it. Beneath the wide-brimmed hat, his dark eyes fell in turn upon each man waiting at the gate, and those who met his stare stepped back, looking down, or quickly turned to a companion. Kyric didn’t even notice when his sausage fell off the stick.

  Morae stood in the stirrups, his head back as if catching a scent on the breeze. Kyric wanted to get away, but found that he couldn’t move. Suddenly Morae looked straight at him, and Kyric felt something stir in his breast. Inexplicably, he wanted to go to him. So drawn was he that he could hardly stop himself.

  “Sir!” the lieutenant said to Morae, snapping to attention directly in front of him, “how may I be of service?”

  Morae looked down at him, not sure now if he had scented any prey. “Has anyone sailed for the open sea this night?” he said in a voice sounding a bit too high for a tall man.

  “No sir,” returned the lieutenant, “they’ve all been ferrymen and those rowing out to anchored ships and the like.”

  “Be sure to look in everything,” Morae commanded. “Even in water barrels or casks of wine. And don’t forget that you can hide half a house under a woman’s skirts.”

  “Yes sir,” stammered the lieutenant, now even redder in the face than before.

  Kyric felt a tug at his sleeve as Aiyan dragged him into a dark place behind the sausage stall, and from there into a narrow side street. If Morae turned to look for him after dismissing the lieutenant, he wasn’t there to see.

  “His horse was lathered,” Aiyan said. “He may have followed your scent all the way from Karta.”

  “When he looked at me, I almost walked over to him.”

  “That’s the draw of the blood. It will fade. And I will tell you something. He may have followed the weird to the old docks, but when you allow it to lead you, the weird sometimes takes you to places that have nothing to do with your life or what you want. So he couldn’t be sure why he looked at you.”

  Aiyan hurried him along until they ran into the main boulevard and a river of people. “Like worldly eyes,” he said. “It’s harder for the spirit eye to see us in a crowd. Still, try to stay empty.”

  “I’m so tired I really do feel empty.”

  “Not far now,” said Aiyan. “We’re only a mile from Sedlik’s house.”

  The street was the famous Way of Kings, and Kyric tried to take in the ancient grandeur of the old city, the columns and arches and wondrous facades. This was all he had thought about during the last years of his servitude, coming to Aeva, the birthplace of his civilization, the source of the artwork, history, and literature of the Aessian culture. He had dreamed of standing in the Palace of the Old Kings, and in the Balerius, the great hall of the god and goddess. Sevdin might be the center of commerce, but if one would seek to know the soul of Aessia, he would come to Aeva.

  They passed into the theatre district, where folks clustered thickly in front of cabarets. Below brightly-colored marquees, the tall commedia houses disgorged patrons onto the street while carriage drivers vied for places in the side lanes. Aiyan kept looking behind, once even stopping and waiting in a dark alley, but never spotted a follower.

  At length, Aiyan led them down a dim side street, still flowing with tourists, the little paper lanterns they carried bobbing in the dark, and they entered a neighborhood where narrow lanes ran chaotically, crossing each other at odd angles. Stopping at an unmarked door, Aiyan tapped lightly with the knocker. They waited a minute and he tapped louder.

  Something rattled behind the door and a tiny hole opened. “Who is it?” squeaked a girl’s voice.

  “Jela, it’s me, Aiyan. Let us in.”

  Another rattle and the door flew open. A young woman wearing little more than a shift leapt upon Aiyan, her slender arms around his thick neck.

  “Uncle Aiyan!” she squealed. “But it’s the middle of the night. Are you alright?” She pulled them into the house.

  A heavy-set man in a nightshirt thumped down a staircase next to the entryway with a candle in one hand and a shortsword in the other. He looked at Aiyan. “Well?” he asked.

  Aiyan did his best to sound cheery. “Sorry to come at this hour, Sedlik, but we need a place to stay for a couple of days.”

  Sedlik frowned. “You’re in trouble and you need a place to hide.” He looked down at the shortsword. “This is my house, Aiyan. My daughter lives here. You know that you’re always welcome down at the warehouse, that you can commit any heinous act you want there — in the name of your noble order, of course. Old Dendi is still there and I know he would love to see you. I’m sorry, but you can’t stay here.”

  Aiyan looked him in the eyes, the unsaid words heavier than the silence between them. “Not this time,” he said gently. “This is too big.”

  “All the more reason for you to go elsewhere.”

  “There is no elsewhere.”

  Sedlik stood staring at him. At length he lowered his eyes and handed the shortsword to Jela. He shook Aiyan’s hand warmly despite his stern words. “Look at you. You’re filthy. Go down to the wine cellar and get out of those clothes. I’ll loan you a couple of tunics.”

  Kyric tried to not look at Jela. Her shift was cut with a short hem and a plunging neckline. And it was so sheer he could almost see through it. With her large eyes, loose wavy hair and the shortsword in her hand she looked like one of the statues atop the arches over the Way of Kings.

  “I also need you to talk to your friend the magistrate. I need to know the latest in the Senate.”

  “Aiyan, the Games of Aeva are starting tomorrow.”

  “I need to know right away.”

  “Alright,” Sedlik said. “Who is the kid?”

  “Someone with whom you have something in common.”

  Sedlik led them down a stone stairway behind the kitchen and
into an open storeroom. A heavy door with a heavy lock was set in a nearby wall. Behind a wine rack lay a few sacks of straw.

  “This is the best I can do for now,” Sedlik said. “Tomorrow I’ll rig some kind of bed for you.”

  Jela brought down a plate of cold meat and hard bread, and some blankets to lay over the straw. Thankfully, she had put on a robe. After a few bites Kyric’s muscles turned to lead. He barely managed to slip his boots off before he fell back on the straw, instantly asleep.

  This time he stood in an ornate library with tall windows and a vaulted ceiling. Fine wood paneling reflected the light emanating from statues of dragons, serpent headed horses, and strange preternatural birds. He found a secret panel and opened it, stepping into a cave with glowing stalactites. A man appeared before him, dressed very much like the black knight in the dream at the jail, except that he wore a long tunic over his chainmail and his greathelm had no visor, only eye slits and holes for breathing. All that he wore, tunic, sword belt, boots, all had been dyed black.

  A sparkling light shone through one of the eye slits.

  “Kneel,” came a deep voice from within the helm. And Kyric knelt.

  The knight had a small spur on the thumb of his gauntlet, and, removing the other armored glove, he used it to open a vein in his wrist.

  “Drink,” he commanded.

  Kyric took his hand and drank from the flowing wound like it was a fountain. It was sweet, and it charged him with power, and the more he drank the thirstier he became, drinking more and more until he was filled.

  CHAPTER 6: The Sundering

  Sedlik was already gone the next morning when they came up from the cellar. Jela insisted they bathe before breakfast, and while they were at it Aiyan decided they would wash their clothes as well, so they spent the early morning fetching and heating water. Throughout all this, Aiyan made sure to keep his sword within reach. By the time they made it to the kitchen table for chickpea and spinach pie Kyric felt like he could keep food down. He hadn’t told Aiyan about the dream.

  “Why have you been gone so long, Uncle Aiyan?” said Jela. “What have you been doing with yourself?”

  Today she wore a plain housedress and had her hair tied back, but in the morning light her eyes were brighter and her smile softer, and Kyric caught himself staring at her.

  “You know how it is, sweetie,” said Aiyan, quaffing a bowl of honeyed milk, “the less I say the better. I have spent the last two months on Esaiya. Before that, I was in Kandin, and before that, Aleria.”

  Jela smiled ironically. “Where good Avic-speaking folk are taming a wilderness in the face of hostile savages.”

  “It’s not so bad there,” Aiyan said. “I’ve been to other former colonies where it is much worse for the natives.”

  The two of them chatted while they ate, Aiyan telling her about a play he had seen in Kandin, asking her why she hadn’t married yet. Kyric discovered that she was nineteen, a year younger than he, and that she had had a suitor but no longer saw him. He could tell she was smart, and wasn’t too surprised to learn that she studied accounting to help in the family business, which was mainly the wine trade but included a gambling parlor and some shady dealings in antiquities.

  “Shall we all go to the games today?” she said.

  “Kyric and I need to wait for the news your father is bringing. We also need some rest. Besides, the first day is mostly ceremony and entertainments. The only contest will be spear throwing later this afternoon.”

  “Well I’m going out to see some ceremony and entertainments,” Jela said, leaving the kitchen.

  “Be sure to take a friend,” Aiyan called after her.

  “What now?” Kyric asked.

  Aiyan shrugged. “Sedlik could be all day. More of the story I think.”

  “Wait. You told me last night that you know someone who was there two hundred years ago. Who would that be?”

  “Be patient. You will know that when I have finished my story.”

  The knight who stood guard over the rear entrance to the castle, the gate above the tiny quay, was a young man. But his face was of the ageless sort, neither young nor old.

  The night had grown unseasonably warm. Breaking off his restless pacing, the sentry slipped out of his surcoat and leaned out over the parapet, letting his thin inner tunic catch the last hint of moving air. All was still, as if the world held its breath.

  A sound. A shadow on the battlements. He whirled, hand on his sword. “Who goes?” he challenged.

  “Fear not, Zahaias. It is only me.” Sorrin stepped forward.

  “I’m sorry, Master Sorrin. I expected no one till dawn.” Zahaias saw him clearly now, saw that he was dressed for sleep and for battle. He wore leather breeches tucked into war boots, and he carried his sword. But his only armor was a nightshirt.

  Sorrin leaned in close with a pale and moist face. “Has anyone come to this gate since you’ve been at watch?”

  “No. No one.”

  Sorrin nodded and stood still.

  “But,” said Zahaias, lowering his voice, “I have been uneasy this night. Tell me what it is that troubles you, Master Sorrin.”

  “I do not know,” he said, turning to face the sea.

  Zahaias looked at him. “Some of our brothers say that you at times have strange dreams. Dreams that hold meaning.”

  “Yes,” said Sorrin, his voice distant, “I have dreamed tonight. I dreamt I saw the world as a great egg. It cracked and split open and leaked forth a black bile.” Sorrin blotted his face with a sleeve of his nightshirt. “But who can say what meaning this holds?”

  Zahaias said nothing. Sorrin turned to him sharply. “I charge you this, Zahaias — watch well tonight and let no one pass these walls without my word. No one. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I shall be vigilant.”

  “Who has the watch at the gate to the bridge?”

  “Sir Allin.”

  Sorrin tugged at his loose hair. “Perhaps I should warn him as well,” he said to himself, “in case of threat from the land.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “But watch the sea, Zahaias. Send word to my cell if anyone comes.”

  “I will.”

  Sorrin nodded a curt farewell, turned, and walked away along the parapet until he was just a ghost on the far battlements. Zahaias returned to his watch. A faint wind was rising with the incoming tide.

  Kyric interrupted him. “Who was this Sorrin and what made him have dreams like that?”

  “He was our founder, the greatest knight of our order,” Aiyan said. “And I don’t think Sorrin himself knew why he had those visions, waking and sleeping. I know that some magicians learn the art of dreaming and can enter the dreams of others. In your case, I think the Unknowable Forces are intruding on your dreams, and that happens to some of us. But I believe that Master Sorrin was so immaculate a warrior that his dream self was like a mirror, and that it was he who looked into the dreams of the Powers. Now let me continue. This next part will reveal much.”

  Sorrin returned to his cell and dressed in the tunic of his office. Sitting cross-legged on his pallet, sword laid bare on the floor before him, he waited, studying the runeblade that had been carried by all the first masters before him. In the last hour of the night the candle burned low, then out.

  Now he became aware of the faintest light; a dim grey dawn outlined the shutters of his window. He heard a rhythm, steady, unyielding. An echo. Close now. Footfalls. He rose quickly, sword held low but ready, then he froze, listening, hearing only his own heartbeat. At the door of the room, shadows clustered thickly, a chill seeping in.

  “Come then, if you will,” he whispered fiercely.

  The door slowly drifted inward. Black against the dusk, a huge helmeted figure entered with a single stride.

  “It,” Sorrin said, faltering, “is you.”

  “Yes.”

  “I . . . I heard you coming.”

  “I made no sound,” said Cauldin, removing the greathelm. The pupils o
f his eyes, enormous, scintillated with crimson streaks deep within, like those of a nocturnal predator.

  “Tell me what has happened.”

  “Aumgraudmal is slain and by my hand.”

  Sorrin nodded slowly. “Then he did not speak.”

  “Oh yes,” spat Cauldin with a sound that served as laughter, “he spoke. After I had looked into his eyes and he took my will from me, he revealed all. He told me how he devoured Temma while the old man’s heart still beat, how the living blood of the magus mixed with his own and gave him this new power, and how I would be the first of a dark cabal — men skilled in the ways of the unseen, all strung on invisible lines across the realm of power, puppets of the will of Aumgraudmal. He would have become our god.”

  Sorrin strained to see him clearly. All of Cauldin’s vestments, his tunic, corselet, breeches, even his gloves, were stained inky black — the black blood of the sea dragons.

  “But,” Cauldin continued, “the final act, intended to forge the link of his domination, allowed me to share his power instead of becoming subject to it.”

  “Tell me,” said Sorrin, a fear he did not understand beginning to rise.

  “You already know.”

  “Tell me.”

  “He opened an artery and I drank his blood. My power unfurled like a great sail, and it was I who rode the wind of the realm of power. Then he gazed into my eyes. And for a moment it was he who knew fear. Aumgraudmal opened his jaws, but before his poisonous breath could issue forth I thrust my sword into his palate and pierced his brain.”

  Sorrin stood motionless, sword still in hand.

  “Why do you look at me so?” Cauldin said.

  “Because I fear my oldest friend and I do not know why.”

  “I know why. And you as well. It is because I came here to share the dragon power with you.”

  “Dragons do not share power. They horde it.”

  Cauldin held his arms wide. “I have not a dragon’s essence. Can you not see me? My essence is still that of the warrior.”