Chapter Fifteen: The Road Ahead
I did not get far before I ran into an unexpected face. I had made it to the Hall of Lords, draped in its ominous darkness, alone and empty, holding a certain forgotten power, when I saw Aryl through the shadows. The braziers had all been extinguished, laid to simmer grey and dull, the remaining light spilling from the wan sconces upon the detailed walls, flickering overtop the man I had come to love and admire. He stared back at me, impassive as always.
I allowed our silence to settle first, letting my thoughts gather, and spoke through the emptiness with a small, delicate voice. "I thought..." I managed, but his own warm and comforting speech embraced me like a warm fire in winter, kissing down to the bones.
"Yes," he said, almost whispering, nodding softly as he walked towards me. "I almost did. Almost." He placed a hand on my head and tousled my hair. "But I couldn't."
I smiled briefly as he continued. "A torn mind is a terrible thing. It rips and pulls and tears like a summer storm, forever ringing with the dull ache of a twin tempest, and without a fault." He paused. "I could have said no, Kaedn, and probably, I should have."
He stepped back and eyed me. "I'm risking a lot for you, you know, letting you out of the city. What you read in that book is forbidden across most of the Empire, and punishable by immediate death, if not a painful torture before hand.
"They're searching for me, have been, truth be told, and now they're searching for you, because you know these things, these secret things, these dangerous things. I had a good cover here, Kaedn, an honest one as Keeper of Shadows of Secrets, but I suppose it would have ended someday. Doesn't everything end at some point?" He said it to be encouraging, but to my ears, it sounded dour, grim.
"I'm sorry," I said, not knowing exactly what I was apologizing for, but that it felt right.
"No need anymore," he said. "It has been done, and we cannot change what has been done. Only fools seek such, and we are not fools." He crossed his harms, looking very pleased with himself, then turned and walked across the marble floor, his footsteps echoing.
"I'll be coming with you," he said, and I didn't believe it a first. Had I more time, I would have burst out, but he was quick. "Far too dangerous to let you roam unattended. One thing goes wrong, leads to another thing, and well, wouldn't be surprised if you find yourself in Antur or Avryn, a prisoner. I'll be protecting you, best I can."
"Lord Riveiar?" I began again, failing to finish my thought.
"Has already agreed," Aryl said, smiling softly. "There are also things I too seek in this cavern, being Keeper of Shadows and Secrets. Old things."
I let our conversation quiet as he continued across the dais, and then I stopped walking and waited for him to turn around. When he did, I looked him in the eyes, like I had during the trial. "If you were risking so much letting me go, why did you? Why did you let me leave?"
Aryl narrowed his eyes. "You spoke from the heart. You spoke honest and true and I knew you meant every word you said. Love is a powerful thing, primal and ancient, an old magic we cannot hope to control. It exceeds our grasp, our judgment our rationality, our mental capacity.
"You loved your father, as I loved mine." He paused and I felt my heart thumping, and I thought I saw a brief tear shimmer on his eye, but I could never be sure. "I let you leave because it was the only human thing to do, and that is what we are: humans. If we neglect humanity, our own sanity, then what are we?"
I bit my lower lip, not out of sadness, but out of genuine admiration, out of honest compassion, the purest form of it, the likes of which is a fleeting thing upon eht world, and that itself is something worth my tears.
And so instead, I simply smiled a smile of pure happiness, rich and beautiful, and followed the man called Aryl, a true human like none other, into the Silver Hall.
***
There were thirteen of us in all, and if that isn't bad luck, I don't know what is.
There's a saying in Emic: On the thirteenth day Tarten opened his maw to the worlds and devoured them. If that isn't enough, then there are the thirteen demon riders known as the Valdemar, the thirteen swords of the Witch King's crown, the thirteen nights in which the Hero was tortured upon the mountaintop. Thirteen is an ill-favored number anywhere in the world, but especially in Lent. It was no mere coincidence that Lord Riveiar assembled a party of twelve, for me to become the thirteenth. It was simply his way.
Aryl led me in through the copper doors, at which point the thirteen of us gathered around a large oak table in the center of the hall, drawn up in a richly decorated work of silk and thread. Lord Riveiar loomed over it like a hawk, two hands arched menacingly on the tabletop, smirking at me through dark eyes as I filed in. His teeth glinted almost as much as the various styled swords and hatchets and armors, which adorned the walls, giving the room a certain dangerous quality. Beside the lord's tall, lean figure, a man stood, shorter by a head, and garbed in boiled leather, a deep rip in his ringmail hauberk, his face dark and worn.
The man unfurled a rolled page, and laid it across the table, setting inkwells at each of the corners. Unfolded, it displayed a map, freshly detailed and drawn, the parchment bright as day and the ink dark as night. It depicted Lent, a vast, sweeping space, dotting all its cities and towns and all its forests and roads and rivers. It must have taken days to complete.
Just north, maybe a little less than a hundred miles, there was a red circle, drawn by the lord, it appeared, and he pointed to it with a gloved finger. "There have been rumors. No doubt you have heard them by now, however unfortunate. I sent a raiding party near five weeks ago, hunters, the very best of them, to squash these foul rumors before they grew into anything vile and disgusting. As you may now see, only one has returned." The man beside him dipped his head.
"A mile or so off the road here, a group of rogue highwaymen, bandits, outlaws, all the same, have been stealing my gold, hoarding it in this cavern. The tax collectors I sent out across my kingdom were overrun on their route back to Raenish." He lifted his head from the map and smiled easily, his lips curling as he blinked a slow, tired blink. "It's a simple task, I ask," the lord said. "Kill these rogues, return my money and each of you will be rewarded kindly enough at the end of it all."
"And the treasures inside the cavern, my lord," said one of the assembled party, a short man, garbed in a loose white shirt and dark black pants. He had a sharp face, sharper than most. "The site at which we speak was once, believed, of course, to be the seat of an ancient Lentish town, before the Idan Empire, from the times of the Leantis. Those remarkable treasures, my lord, are they for our spoil? Or shall they be returned to your lordship when we ourselves return?"
"Recover what you may, Master Elend," said Lord Riveiar. "What you uncover in the ruins of that cavern is for your personal plunder. My taxes, my gold, that returns to me!" And he spat the last words. When nobody ventured forth an objection, he continued. "Now then, on the matter of guidance, you shall be led by a skilled and learned ranger: Viven," he said, introducing the man standing beside him. "He captained the initial hunt." Lord Riveiar backed away and began walking out of the Silver Hall. "You will obey his word, as he speaks with my voice. Safe travels. I will be waiting."
With that, he left, and a silence stirred in the vacant hall, teeming in the deep pools of shadow upon the walls. Aryl remained dark and impassive as ever, and I followed suit. I was clearly the youngest of the party, younger by maybe five years. The youngest before me I spotted was much taller than me, and skinny like I was, with sandy hair and a freckled face, and grey eyes, making me look the youngest if there was no question already.
This meant two things. One, I was probably the least competent person on this entire expedition. This also meant they didn't know me. As long as I could, I intended to keep up a sense of competence about me, because as long as they believe I know what I'm doing, my reputation will not fall any lower than it should, although I was playing a tricky game, and I knew it.
Then, a large fellow in a full leather chest plate bounded forward, his voice low and gargling from beneath his burnt-red beard. "This is suicide. You lot know it is. Don't lie to yourselves. Riveiar sent his best men, and only one came back," he said, pointing at Viven. "What's to say any of us come back this time? Hell, I need the coin badly, truly I do, me wife's gone ill and I need to buy medicine for her, but God's body, I need my life to that!"
"He's sending us into a hole," said another voice. "And we'll never come out if we go into it. He doesn't care about us, doesn't give two flying fucks if we don't return. Sure, we've all served him, all hold power within his ranks, but, what's that at the end of the day to a lord. He'll hire knew men to replace us once we're gone. He has everything to gain and nothing to lose."
The man with the burnt-red beard continued: "And we've all to lose."
"Calm down," said Viven, waving his hands in a quieting fashion. "It's not as bad as it seems, not in the slightest. Calm down, please." He sighed and put his hands on the table. "Look, last time, we didn't know where the bandits were camped out. They could have been anywhere. We would have had a better time knowing which way the moon spins. This time, though, I know where they're set."
"And if they've changed location?" asked a hooded man, a bow strung on his back. "We'll be in the same shit."
"They wouldn't change location," Viven said. "Doesn't make sense."
"The sky's blue, that don't make sense," said the bearded man. "Life don't make sense. They could have done whatever the hell they wanted since last you were there."
"No," said Viven. "It was too set, too established. Highly unlikely they'd scrap it; no, they wouldn't tear it all up after they've successfully defended it. Not their way. It's a strong fortress, true, well made, and well planned, but if we could form a trap, draw them out, we have good odds at living to tell the tale. I promise you."
"You a plan, then?" asked another man, large, rippled muscle, and block-headed.
"Not yet," said Viven. "But we've got a ways to go until we get there. I've time to think up a plan. Which brings me to the trail we'll be taking." Our attention switched as he brought our eyes to the map, and pointed at Raenish. "The road goes half-way," he said, dotting where the track ended. "It's fairly straightforward sailing, really, a couple inns, a town, easy terrain. But after the road dies, we head into a thick forest, probably used to be part of the Wold some time ago. It's thick there, and just on the rim of a range of highcountry, spurred from the Stormfather Mountains. The forest parts and clears as we wind our way through here, keeping to the banks the river at its northern edge, and opens to a relatively flat plateau of a kind. There's a drop off here, and just beyond that, in a spattering of woodland, the cavern, the treasure, the gold, and the bandits."
Silence reigned for a moment as the party took in everything.
"How long we looking at?" asked a woman, blonde and fair, but weather-beaten, as though she'd lived on the road most her life.
"Depends, really," said Viven. "Ten days or so on the road at best. Could be fifteen days once we get into rough country, could be thirty."
When nobody responded, the reality of the situation evident, Viven curled up the map and cleared his throat. "We'll gather provisions tomorrow at Durdn and stay the night. After that, it's a long hard road, so sleep well tonight, what little night remains, that is. Second bell, we'll meet at the stables in Southgate, gather supplies, coin, information, whatever we need." He tightened his jaw. We leave at dawn."
END OF ACT I
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