The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) (5 page)

“
Dra Kai is on Queen’s business,” she snapped, with crushing authority. “Obviously, since he has her trust, any ignorant, misguided, mindless decisions on the part of a backcountry bigot are completely inconsequential.”  This unique barrage of insult, reason, and verbosity seemed to be just the thing.  One last nervous look at the Dra, some obsequious head bows, and the man collected his tirna and scuttled back inside.

          
Kai, not the type to overwhelm a person with fulsome gratitude, not only ignored the whole incident, but disappeared for the rest of the night.  They bedded down early, in the way of travelers wishing to make the most of daylight, and the next morning Ari and Loren waited considerately for the room to empty before arranging themselves on either side of Rodge’s still-snoring head.

Then i
n perfect unison, they bellowed at the top of their lungs, “WAKE UP RODGE EVERYONE’S LEFT YOU’RE LATE GET UP GET UP GET UP!!!”

He jerked
upright, gasping, eyes wide, flailing around for wakefulness, then threw the covers off and managed two steps out of bed…before he let out a shriek of agony.  Ari and Loren grinned, deeply satisfied, as he staggered—very stiff-legged—around the room, spewing profanity concerning them, Master Melkin, this trip, his legs, and his completely innocent pony.

Melkin wasn
’t amused.  He gave them such a tongue-lashing for the delay they caused that it was a very subdued party that headed out into the new day.

It didn
’t last long.  They weren’t half an hour out of town when they took a turn off the main Way, and shortly afterward began to hear the dull roar of a monstrous waterfall through the trees.  The air seemed to tremble with anticipation.  Suddenly, they broke out of the forest and in front of them the great, long, green slopes of the Wilds seemed to shoot straight up into their view, on and on and on until they blotted out almost the entire northern sky.  It was the biggest country Ari had ever seen, swards and swards of green pasture, all on edge, stretching on forever.

They were at Aepont, the first place the Kendrick could be crossed in all it
s foaming, thundering white fury, and Ari stared in awe at the enormous, gushing riverine mouth every moment across the bridge that spanned its tumultuous fall.  The big stones that made up the bridge had been placed so that two wagons could easily cross abreast, but the thing seemed fragile as glass set so close to the raw power of the river.  Roaring with life, seething and churning out of the mountain far above, it roiled its way down the chasm of gigantic boulders and broken trees to level out hundreds of feet below them.

It was impossible not to feel exhilarated—like they
’d survived something—once they’d reached the other side.  Rodge and Cerise both had white faces, lips pursed and eyes wide, but Loren shook his head, laughing and soaked with spray, and shared an exultant grin with Ari. 

It was
a fitting gateway.  Like the Kendrick, the High Wilds were so stupendous, so enormous, they seemed to consume their little lives, suffusing them with brilliant light and soaring space.  The trail was nothing but a wide, well-beaten dirt path, climbing steadily, lined sometimes with firs and pines and sometimes open so that they could see the land rising precipitously up around them on all sides.  It was almost impossible to grasp the sheer size of the place; Ari’s head bobbed around on his neck like a toy as he tried to get some perspective.

It wasn
’t long before they rounded a bit of mountain, the roar of the Kendrick faded, and a little community appeared in the trees ahead.  Out of the corner of his eye, Ari caught Cerise craning her neck curiously, and for once he instantly understood the female mind.  What kind of people would live in such undeveloped, unprotected wastes?  These were harsh, empty lands, their emerald green beauty buried in snow nine months out of twelve.  The only thing that Ari knew about Addahites was that they were…well, mysterious.  Oh, and Illian, which was probably why they chose to stay in Addah.

The houses
here were rough-hewn timber and were all small, no more than huts, organized around a single and much larger building…with a familiar look.  Ari’s jaw dropped as they passed through the outer buildings and he saw the unmistakable flash of a Diamond, Marek’s triele, across the front of that biggest one.  A Temple of Marek?  In Addah?  Addah was virtually synonymous with Il.

Sure enough, the few
people who came out to meet them wore the neat, simple white of Marekite disciples.  Melkin dismounted respectfully, as did Cerise and Loren.  Ari, stubborn, just moved his horse in to hear what was being said.

“
How can we help you?” one of the strangers asked, cool, courteous, and obviously not shocked to see travelers.  Several other disciples in the background didn’t even glance up from their work.

“
We’re looking for the nearest Addahite settlement,” Melkin asked with what might be considered gruff courtesy, with a little imagination.

The man gave a
small, tight laugh.  “As you know, I’m sure,” he said with an edge to his voice, “such things are hard to find, as Addahites are never anywhere on a permanent basis.  Believe me, we have looked, so as to bring these poor, base creatures learning, and knowledge, and true order.”

Melkin, obviously not interested in irrelevant issues of evangelism, simply waited.  Ari wondered if
he was the only one aware of that faint sense of patronizing sanctimony.  Most Northerners never seemed to notice, but Melkin was a whole different breed of cynical.

After waiting for a moment—what, for him to agree?—the disciple eventually conceded,
“The nearest sheepfold lies about a day’s ride along the First Path here.  No guarantee it will be occupied, as most of the flocks have moved to higher pasture by now.”  He had a definite don’t-get-your-hopes-up shrug to his shoulders.  “May I ask your business?”

“
Cerise,” Melkin prompted, turning and mounting up.

She blinked. 
“Er, Queen’s business.” Glancing with just a hint of reproach at Melkin, already turning his roan, she leaned forward with a gracious smile and clinked several tirna into the disciple’s hands.  “For your good work here.”  He seemed completely unaffected, moving on to take Loren’s offering—who realized belatedly he should be giving one, and had to scrounge hurriedly in his moneybag—with smooth efficiency.  The Empire was so great, it was said, because Marek was so organized, adept, and full of common sense that he wouldn’t have his people any other way.  Privately, Ari thought all the clinking coins didn’t hurt either.

Their horses
started to climb again as Melkin led them on, and Ari’s spirits seemed to rise with the land.  The ground began to drop away from them on one side or the other, and the vastness, the stillness, the great, majestic beauty completely surrounding them brought with it a heady timelessness.  It was as if nothing was happening that hadn’t happened before, as if all of Ari’s problems were faint and far away and inconsequential, petty puffs of air in the great winds of the Ages.

They hobbled the horses
when the sun was straight up—Rodge wasn’t even interested in learning, doing more than a little hobbling himself—then stretched out in the sunny little meadow.  Some of the packed foods were more perishable than others, and Banion nodded approvingly as Ari and Loren pulled the bread, cheese, and the ripened fruit out of their bulging saddlepacks.  Cerise sat waiting to be served and Melkin and Kai talked quietly with their eyes on the road ahead and their backs to the group.

“
Some cheese, Rodge?” Loren asked solicitously.

“
I’m a little bitter right now,” Rodge observed hostilely, chucking a clod of dirt at him.

“
Keep that dirt out of the food,” Melkin cracked as he and Kai joined them.  He swept a scathing, truculent glare around the gathered group, and Ari felt resentment stir in his guts.  He felt like a boy, still needing disciplining by his elders.

Perhaps in defiance of the surly quiet, he asked,
“How can there be a Temple of Marek in Addah?”  Both Loren and Rodge stopped mid-bite to stare at him.  He never spoke in public unprompted.  Master Melkin didn’t seem the least disposed to answer him, however, taking a big bite of bread and ignoring him completely.  He didn’t seem as crazy out here on the trail, the eccentric drama he flung at them in the classroom changed somehow into more of a taciturn intensity.  He was no stranger to living out, either.

Banion had no misgivings about answering, bread or no.

“Addah doesn’t really have any formal borders,” he said, waving expansively with one of his huge limbs.  His beard moved mysteriously as his mouth, hidden somewhere amongst all that prickly brown growth, completed its business with his bread.  “And the Addahites are not only hard to find, but they don’t seem to give a barrel of fish whether there are Marekites, or Vangothics, or anyone, for that matter, looking for them.”

He caught Cerise staring at him, lips pursed in prim disapproval at the whole talking-with-your-mouth-f spectacle. 
“Which makes it kind of a challenge for them.”  He grinned unrepentantly at her. 

It was a quick lunch, the horses left saddled and Kai not even eating.  He squatted instead a few paces away, gazing with his hooded eyes over a swale dropping out away from them in a plunging fall of gr
een.  He’d been ranging ahead, sometimes disappearing for a half hour or so, ever since they crossed the Kendrick.  Keeping up with the horses obviously was not going to be an issue for him.

It was as they were mounting up again that he rose suddenly into a half crouch, hands going to steady his blades
.  He threw one meaningful look at Melkin, who came off his horse so quickly that he was at the Dra’s side before the rest of them even knew something was up.

Over their heads, far across the swale,
Ari could see a small party of mounted men disappearing into the distant tree line.  Kai and Melkin shared a long look, and Ari was struck again at the two of them.  How did a man of the most lethal race in the Realms and a sour old Master of Applied Sciences ever get to know each other?

“
Who were they?” he asked them.

Melkin rose wordlessly, face set, and
remounted.  Kai flowed out of his crouch and swung down the trail, but Cerise moved her high-spirited mare to block Melkin from following.

“
If there are significant events that might necessitate a report to her Majesty,” she said pompously, “I need to know about them.”  Her narrow nose flared like it could smell news just out of reach.

“
All right,” Melkin said flatly.

“
Who were those men?” she demanded insistently.  “If they are not enemies, then why didn’t you hail them?  It’s not like we couldn’t use the help.”

Melkin stared at her coldly. 
“You want no part of those men, believe me.  They brook no foolishness.”  He urged his horse forward, the roan’s big body easily pushing the lighter mare aside.  “I’ll let you know what’s significant and what isn’t,” he growled as he passed.

Cerise
was forced to be content with that, looking miffed, and the whole party became more alert; even Banion, whose face had been issuing sounds very similar to snores, kept his eyes open.  But the rest of the day was uneventful.  They stopped early in a halcyon little glade ringed with evergreens, and the horses, feeling the day’s climb, grazed like they hadn’t seen grass in a week.  They’d cocked a leg and dozed off by the time the rest of camp was set up, the water drawn, and the fire going.  Twilight fell, fast and breathless in these high lands, and soon their small voices and the crackle of the fire were the only evidence of life under a very, very big night sky.

“
Why do people come out here?” Rodge muttered, huddled between Ari and Loren and peering nervously out into the blackness.  “Aren’t there things that eat us out here?”

“
Don’t worry, young ‘un,” Banion said heartily from where he was bent over the fire doing dinner duty.  “You’re too skinny to be worth the trouble.  Now me, I’ve got to worry.”

Loren chuckled. 
“Banion, do you know any Stories?”  Ari looked up in eager longing.  Campfires needed stories like summer needed swimming holes. 

“
Wonderful,” Cerise drawled in high disdain, “Campfire tales.”

“
Oh, aye,” Banion rumbled.  “I’ll introduce you to tale-telling Merranic style.  Soon as everyone’s eaten.”

True to his word, once the water was heating to clean their few dishes, he
sat back, scratched his stiff beard, and said, “Hm…what shall we have?  Perhaps we should start at the beginning…”                             

An owl hooted in the far trees, the fire glowed deep and orange in front of them, and against the infinity of darkness closing in around them, man did what he has done since the beginning of time.  He cleared his thro
at, dropped the timbre of his already deep voice, and with wonderful smoothness, began:

“
There came a time, before all things, when the gods grew lonely and the world seemed to them a dull and empty place.  It came to them to create a new world, ordered as they desired, that they might have pleasure and amusement and companionship.  So, in a great twisting and heaving and uprooting, with many storms and floods and quakings and great winds, they brought the lands into being.  And upon them they brought forth all the creatures that are.  Man was their special creation, and those first that walked upon the earth were fairer and stronger and keener of mind than any that came after.  The gods chose from amongst them those that were the most wise, of the deepest compassion, the sharpest intellect and soundest judgment, to be their leaders—a Royal Line of chiefs.  The first ones lived in great peace, for the gods taught them what was good to eat and how to raise it from the soil.  They taught them how to make snug homes and how to store for times unplentiful, how to live amongst the wild beasts and the forests and to gather from both so as to live in harmony with all.”