Keeper of the Eye (The Eye of the Sword Book 1) (43 page)

The apparition paced, circling Michael. “Hmm, and what would you do in this quiet life?”

“I’d be a carpenter like I was before this insanity started.”

“A carpenter,” the apparition said, drifting into thought as he paced around Michael, hands behind his back. Michael turned, following his movement. “Did you build homes for people? Perhaps furniture to fill them?” he asked.

“Yes, both.”

“Was it all plain or did you place your signature touch; rich carvings here, a special design there, to make it something more, something special?”

“I always tried to put something unique into my work,” Michael replied, not bothering to hide his indignation.

“And perhaps you built a large dining table for a family. One they could eat at, visit at, and grow stronger as a family at for years and generations to come.”

“Yes, I like to think so.”

“And, did you gouge your prices? Ask large sums for your labor?”

“Never! My prices were always fair.”

“Then you are a hero.”

Michael snorted. “For what?”

“You served people, giving them shelter and furnishings that enhanced their lives. And in return you only asked for what was fair. I suspect you did more than you were paid for. Why?”

Michael shrugged his shoulders. “I love working with wood. I love creating something people can use.”

“You love people,” the apparition corrected him. “Carpentry simply allowed you to meet your purpose.”

Michael sniffed. “That’s fine and good, but my old life has been obliterated.”

“Heroes do not seek glory and honor,” the apparition stated. “I’ve seen frail farmers stand and protect their families against odds that caused paid soldiers to run. Why? For glory? Honor?” The apparition shook his head, derisive to such an idea.

“No greater power than love. And no greater love than a person who will lay down his life for family and even more so for strangers. Heroes are simply those who serve their fellow man in the mundane events of life or in the direst of circumstances. Such actions become legend because they are so rare. People have a hard time forgetting such events because all men aspire to be as much, but few ever find the mettle to be so. Now, Michael Ashguard, Keeper of the Eye, King of Shaladon, Lion of Righteousness, who do you love? Do you possess such mettle?”

Michael looked away. The people he loved were dead and mettle had been useless when he needed it most.

“Why would the Creator give us such power when it can cause so much destruction?” he finally replied.

“Everything has as much potential to be good as it does bad.”

“But why? Why give a flawed being such power?”

“Because He chose to. It is not your place to question the Creator’s motives.”

“No. No, I can’t accept that,” Michael replied. “It makes no sense. Why not just make everyone normal, spare the world the dangers and destruction we pose? There must be more than just because.”

“Can you explain how the sun rises or why the stars sparkle? Can you explain how the power that courses through your veins actually works?” The apparition leaned close to Michael. “Hmm?”

Michael took a step back from those hard eyes.

“No, you cannot and yet the sun rises, the stars sparkle and you can level buildings with little effort. It’s not because you can explain them or understand them. It’s because you can sense them. You can see the sun, feel its warmth. The stars exist to us merely by sight. We can’t touch them, can’t taste or even hear them. But see them, oh yes, we can see them. And that is enough.

“You can feel the power within you, waiting to be released. You don’t know where it comes from, you can just sense it. When you control it, you do so by your senses. Understanding comes from comprehension, comprehension comes from experience and to experience something you must sense it. Deep down inside, beyond consciousness, lies the greatest thing we can sense, the Creator, Yesula ha Malisha.

“Sensing Him will lead to experiencing Him, which will lead to comprehension and then understanding. Not the understanding of trivial things like how the sun rises, or the stars sparkle or even why He gave us such power. No, the understanding will be to grasp the answer to the most important question: What were you created for?

“Why you have power, why you have talent, why you are who you are will answer themselves when you realize what you were created to do.”

“How do I do that?” Michael replied.

“You chose to walk the path He has laid before you regardless of how much of it you can see or how much it will cost you.”

“I haven’t got the foggiest idea where to go from here,” Michael said.

“Have you not been listening?” the apparition chided. “Is the Sword you carry not evidence of what you were created for? You were called to serve people. Go where you’re needed most.”

Michael looked northward, an inexplicable pull drawing him there and one word left his lips, “Dalarhan.”

He turned to ask another question, but the apparition was gone. A sense of stark loneliness overwhelmed him and Michael fell to his knees, hanging his head. How could he bear such a burden alone?

A memory of Jorgen praying slid across his mind’s eye. “Meshema Donai,” he prayed, “I’m not capable.”

The clink of armor caught his ear and he looked up. Before him stood hundreds of apparitions, wispy and opaque, with more and more appearing beside and behind them. In moments, the army of ghosts solidified into pale representations of soldiers. Watching him.

He looked around the expanse, seeing the Heart with different eyes. The story of the massacre came into focus; no longer a tale of an ill-fated band of unknown soldiers, but a tragedy of his past. The loss of those who cared for him most. What would his life have been like had he grown up around men of such devotion? All his life he had felt a sense of loss he could not explain. Standing before him now was that loss. Not just the men who had died so he could live, but the family, the life, the love that had been stolen from him. It all crashed in on Michael and he realized who the apparition had been.

“Dad?” he called out.

His father appeared again, a woman standing beside him. Her blonde hair and blue eyes struck a chord or remembrance in his mind. She was the woman who had been crying over him in his vision the night he first grasped the Sword.

Tears streamed down his face. “Mom?”

She smiled the warmest smile he had ever seen.

His father saluted him, thumping his fist to his chest. The soldiers followed his lead, filling the air with the thunder of one thousand gauntleted fists slamming against breastplates.

A gust of wind blew and the apparitions wisped away with the swirling snowflakes, leaving Michael alone.

He turned his eyes northward. Those men had not been capable of fending off the ambush, but they had fought to their last breath anyway. His parents had given their last vestiges of power to ensure he survived. How could he do less for them?

He stood, a huge weight lifting from him as he took the first step. With each step his resolution grew, stoking the embers of purpose smoldering within him.

A voice cried, “Long live the king!”

He looked back, but no one was there. He nodded to the Heart and broke into a trot. He had business in Dalarhan and he couldn’t get there soon enough for his liking.

C
HAPTER
48

The Perfect Job

Garen looked askance at the wooden sign. “The King’s Champion” it proclaimed in gaudy red letters trimmed in gold. The iron rings creaked as the sign swayed with a gust of bone-chilling wind. Garen pulled his wool cloak tighter. Bloody northern winters! What fool would choose to live in such a place?

Two lanterns above the door gave off a pool of light that touched the adjacent buildings, but not much further. Garen looked down the street. Only a handful of shops kept their lanterns lit, intermittent pools of light casting dim, yellow hues on the snow drifts lining the cobblestone. Black maws every fourth or fifth shop indicated narrow alleyways. Perfect place for a mugging...or worse.

“You sure about this?” he asked Max, glancing down the dark alley facing the tavern door. Dalan and Darela were back there somewhere, shrouded in shadows.

“You got a better idea?” Max replied.

This was their third tavern. The sun had been kissing the horizon when they arrived in town. They had sought out an inn and procured rooms but found no answers to their questions about Jerrod. It couldn’t be that easy.

The second place they had visited was a seedy tavern near the inn where two thugs accosted them for money. “To guarantee a safe stay in the city” as they had put it. The payment was hefty and Max had handed them his small purse with his crest embroidered on it. The thugs smiled widely and darted for the door, obviously their biggest score for the night.

Dalan tossed Max the same purse when they left the tavern. “Stupid fools tried to extort us in the alley,” he had said.

Darela was arranging some barrels against the alley wall a little further back. A limp hand fell from behind the barrels, slapping the pavement. Darela tucked the hand back out of sight and put a crate in place to complete his makeshift hiding place.

“So where to next?” he had asked like nothing was amiss.

Garen looked at the swaying sign again, the red and gold letters catching the lantern light. He shook his head. Despite all the troubles, he had no better plan to suggest.

Max opened the door; light, laughter and the din of conversation spilling into the street. Chandeliers hanging from rough cut support beams lit the room nicely and glass lanterns hanging from wall hooks chased any remaining shadows away. Garen counted three dice games and another table near the large fireplace with five men engrossed in a card game. It was a working man’s tavern, knurled hands and leather lined faces glad for a chance to relax. Not enough coin came through to hire a bard to make it vibrant, only a single lutenist who managed to get most of the notes correct, though he lacked a certain feel for the tunes he strummed out.

Max led the way to a booth near the door. Garen sat down heavily, thankful to be off his feet. Seven days in the saddle took a toll on anyone, seasoned rider or not. Garen rubbed the table with his thumb then rubbed his first two fingers against his thumb feeling the slight grit between them. Not the dirtiest tavern he had been in, but far from his preference.

“I didn’t realize asking the whole city where we could find your friend was part of the plan.”

Max fixed his eyes on Garen, an eagle staring down his prey. It reminded Garen of his father, a pang of homesickness striking at his heart. He regretted his comment but refused to back down. Max’s so-called plan seemed to be ill-conceived at best. How was he supposed to get home on such a vapid plan?

Max glared at him. “Next time I send someone into hiding I’ll make sure they send word where they are.”

Garen raised his hands slightly from the table, relenting. ‘No place for tempers when you find yourself in a pit of vipers’ his father often said. “How are we supposed to find one person in this city?”

“He has been here for sixteen years, that means friends, a craft, customers. Someone will know him. His father was a cobbler so I suspect he took the trade back up. I’ll visit the tanneries in the morning, should not be hard to find him through his supplier. I predict we will be reunited by noon.”

“What if he’s dead?”

Max leaned across the table, his stern look adding weight to his words. “Then our task will be far more difficult. Pray the Creator has blessed our plans and Jerrod lives.”

Garen looked away, seeing Michael blown off that tower in his mind’s eye. “I’m not sure my faith extends that far.”

“Then your faith is truly small.”

Before Garen could reply a blonde barmaid stopped at their table, holding two tankards in her fist. Her velvet maroon bodice showed an ample amount of bosom. “Mead, fine gentlemen? We serve the finest in the city.”

“Ale, please,” Garen replied.

“Mead will do,” Max replied on top of him.

Garen cocked his head slightly. “Sure, why not.”

The barmaid smiled weakly and set the tankards down.

Max slid her two coppers and a silver mark. Her eyes widened. “Would you happen to know a man named Jerrod? Brown hair, brown eyes, short and muscular, but older, say forty.”

Her eyes darted between Max and Garen then down to the silver mark on the table.

“Please. I knew him once, did some of the finest leatherwork I ever saw. I’m traveling through and hoped he could make me another pair of boots.”

She glanced at the bartender nervously, but he was occupied with patrons. “He was a sweet man, always made sure I smiled.”

“That would be the Jerrod I know,” Max replied.

Her eyes lit up, her face relaxing a bit as if Max had won her confidence. “You won’t find him in the morn. A week ago four soldiers walked in, clubbed him silly and carried him out. None of them said a word. I don’t know why. People have been disappearing the past few months. Good people.”

Max slid a second silver mark next to the first. She smiled and slipped both coins under her bodice.

“Please, sir, whatever trouble Jerrod got mixed up in, it doesn’t have to be yours. Leave Mistenthar in the morn and don’t look back.” Her voice became a whisper like she was afraid to even speak her thought. “Something evil dwells here now.” She darted away, tending to other tables, never looking back.

“So, now what?” Garen said.

Max nodded to the door. “We rescue Jerrod.”

Garen knocked back his tankard, the strong flavors of hops and honey hitting his pallet. Not his favorite brew but that was no reason to let the only beverage promised him for the night go to waste. He set the empty tankard down and looked at Max, head swimming from the rush of alcohol. “Bloody fool. I knew you were going to say that.”

***

The gates of Mistenthar castle loomed at the end of the street, a torch lit maw in a stone wall with its raised portcullis of dagger-like teeth. Garen knew it was his anxiety playing with his mind. Still, it felt like a trap waiting to be sprung.