The Path of the Sword (76 page)

And he finally did scream. It was a scream of eternal torment, a scream of never ending agony.

The scream suddenly cut short and the husk of dessicated flesh and dusty bones that was Xandru An Tifons collapsed to the floor like a discarded rag. The empty eye sockets stared terrified into the darkness. The room fell to silence except for a dry hissing sound and those unearthly voices whispering and moaning their ceaseless sufferings.

And if someone had paid attention, if someone had listened very carefully to those voices, that one would have heard an extra voice, a voice that was not there moments before.

Chapter 66

He sat though he did not remember sitting. He did not remember the actions of bending knee, or checking balance, but nonetheless he sat. His vision was narrowed to two horizontal diamond shapes; verdant grass speckled with crystal dew was surrounded by hard edges of darkness. He pondered this strange fact for a moment, certain he should feel concern that his vision was so limited, but certain also that he did not feel much of anything except perhaps a hint of sadness, of regret that edged his numbness as his eyesight was.

He pondered and he realized that his vision was limited because he wore a helm. Now when had he donned a helm? He reached up and felt cold hardness, strange impressions, and he tugged until the strange thing came off his shoulders and up over his head. Clean smells poured in: grass, honeysuckle, wild roses and tulips and jasmine. He looked at the thing in his hands, a helm all of black, black as the night, so black it seemed to drink the light around it, and there were strangely compelling gilt swirls around the eyes and on the forehead. He looked down and saw he wore the matching armor and his father's sword rested in the sheath that hung at his hip. He looked up to a sky that was featureless. It was not cloudy, nor could he see the sun. It was bright but the light came from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

He remembered this place then. He turned his head left and then right but something was missing. What? He rose to his feet and turned and almost fell again when he saw the two armies behind him. He seemed to recall that those armies were supposed to be facing each other across the empty plain, snarling silently, brandishing weapons threateningly. But it was not so. They sat together around a hundred campfires—a thousand—and they ate and they laughed. Some honed weapons, others mended broken armor straps. He perceived that they were a noisy bunch, his armies, but he did not hear them. No. He heard them, but he had to strain to do so. It was like listening to snow fall.

He watched them for a time—he knew not how long—and somehow it heartened him. A faint smile twitched his lips. They belonged with him. He knew that now. Or perhaps he belonged with them? No difference really. He took a step forward, then another. One of the creatures looked up at him and he saw his smile reflected in its own not-quite-human features.

“So there you are then,” a voice said from behind him and he whirled and he saw the old man with the blue eyes that seemed to contain the whole of the sky, the craggy face that seemed to be the whole of the world. The old man who was a God, who was his father.

His smile broadened until it was almost joy.

“Father,” he said simply.

“You have passed your first trial it seems. You know now, don't you?”

He did know. He knew who he was. It was bitter-sweet that knowing. It was life and death, war and peace. “Yes father. I know.”

“There are still trials ahead. This was but the first.”

His father gazed at him with a mixture of pity and reproach as if Jurel was a child who had done some task he thought would be helpful but instead only made matters worse.

“I know father.”

He turned and faced the army that camped in the field, that broke bread together, mended armor, performed all the mundane tasks that made the camp seem peaceful though it was a war machine. He watched them, knowing he was one of them, knowing he was first among them.

“What comes next, father?”

“Ah ah, not so fast, young man,” the God said and raised a finger, and Jurel heard amused forbearance in that eternal voice. “You remind me of my other children. So hasty. So impatient. All will become clear in time.”

“I understand. But I have to say, I'm awfully curious.”

The old man laughed and it was a sound like birds singing, like thunder rolling, like stars twinkling in a clear sky. “Of course you are, my boy. Of course you are. You would not be my son otherwise.”

Knowing he would get no more out of his father, he decided to ask something else. “What is this place? I have been here a few times and still I don't know where we are.”

Gaorla's eyes widened in surprise. “You do not know yet?”

“No. Should I?”

“Well, yes. Though perhaps it is too early for you to understand that part of it. Here I will begin you on the path: It is your place.”

Confusion made Jurel's features twist, made him cant his head like a curious puppy. His father laughed.

“Do not look at me so. I say it true. This is your place. You will understand more in time.”

“Yes father.”

“I think it is time to be off. There is much to be done and there are those who need you. Times will be difficult but you must persevere. Even when your path is unclear, even when you would wish to lay down and rest, you must continue. Can you do that?”

“Yes father.”

And he knew he could.

* * *

When he opened his eyes, he wished he had not. His head ached and he thought it might fall off if he moved too quickly. His legs burned like he had just run a hundred miles uphill at a dead sprint and his arms felt like an elephant had decided to use them as a platform. He groaned and curled himself into the smallest ball he could, wrapping himself around a gut that must have been preparing some kind of daring escape from the confines of his abdomen.

“Kurin. He's waking up.”

Mikal? What was he doing there? How did he...?

Memory flooded back. Of
course
Mikal was there. Had he not saved Jurel and Kurin from those dungeons? Had he not been accompanied by...? Had he not...?

With memory came a different kind of pain, the kind of pain that could not be eased by changing position, by relieving the tension of muscle or sinew, and Jurel wept. Visions of his father floated before him, smiling at him, glaring at him with those relentless hawk's eyes.

I love you son.

I love you too father.

His father was dead. His second father. Dead because of Jurel. Guilt and shame and rage and sorrow intertwined, fused until it was one ball of blackness, one angry bruise to his self.

“There, lad. It's all right. You're safe,” Mikal crooned and Jurel felt a wide, calloused hand pat his back.

Jurel wept and he could not stop the great wracking sobs that shook him, that threatened to tear him apart as more memories rose all unbidden to his mind: quiet talks by a warm fire sipping brandy, a cuff upside the head for some silly act or other, a smile and a fiercely warm gaze.

I love you son.

He wept with the pain of emotions scraped raw, as raw as flesh scoured by a flail, bright and stinging and sour all at once. He wept until he felt something press against his lips. A cup. Something entered his mouth, a bitter liquid that burned like acid but he barely felt
that
pain.

I love you son.

“Drink Jurel. Drink this,” Kurin's kind voice said softly. “It will help.”

And he did. And in time, the pain melted, the memories turned from stone solidity to ephemeral phantoms, the light of the day darkened, and color washed away to leave everything gray and lifeless, and he closed his eyes.

I love you too father.

And he gratefully fell into empty darkness.

* * *

It was night and the velvet vault of the sky shone with stars as though someone—
his father?—
had pricked the darkness with a pin a million times over to let what was beyond glimmer through. The air was cool but not so cool that it was uncomfortable. Rather, it was the cool that told of spring finally quickening, rising up, taking command of the world as winter slinked away like a beaten dog to lick its wounds for the next two seasons.

When Jurel woke, he was still sore. So achingly miserable that he groaned with every movement. Even blinking seemed to bring its own kind of agony. He raised himself and felt a fire warm him, saw the golden light dancing merrily in its prison of stones.

“Good evening sleepyhead,” Kurin said from his seat on the other side of their campfire.

He had shadows under his eyes and he was wan, truly emaciated now, but when he smiled, Jurel saw some of the old sparkle there. It was almost hidden, cloaked by the memory of another place and another darkness but it was there and Jurel was gladdened.

“Where are we?” asked Jurel.

“Nearly back to Merris.”

Mikal materialized from the shadows beyond the firelight and sat with his usual fluid grace near Jurel's side.

“Merris? Already? How long have I been asleep?”

“Near a week.”

He gasped. “A week?”

With a laugh, Kurin regarded him and his amusement seemed to increase. “It's been quite a journey.”

A week. He had slept for a week. He could barely wrap his mind around it. It was hard enough to believe they had gotten away from Threimes, that they had managed to get away from that fat priest—what was his name? Calen. Though in retrospect, Jurel imagined it was pretty easy to understand how
they had eluded Calen's grasp. He remembered very clearly the feeling of shattering bone, of ripping flesh. There was a shocking amount of blood in the human body. It covered a huge area when allowed out of its flesh confinement. He shuddered, shying away from the memory.

“
Aye, some journey,” Mikal growled though his own eyes twinkled in the firelight. “If it's all the same to you,
you
can feed your own self from now on. And
you
can take care of your own...emptying needs, if you catch my meaning.”

Gaven's voice drifted out of the darkness, from the other side of the fire, “You're a heavy
bastard, you know that?”

Jurel laughed sheepishly. A week. And his friends had cared for him, kept him clean and dry and fed. A blossoming of warmth in his chest brightened the sadness, mitigating it at least a little. But there was something he needed to know and the sorrow rallied and came back with a vengeance.

“Can I ask something?” Jurel asked and when the men nodded, said, “How did my father come to be there? How did he...?”

“It was me,” Mikal said quietly. “After I took that injury, I knew I needed some help. You told us he was a soldier, remember? You said he brought you out of the siege at Killhern. He was the closest ally I knew I could find and trust. So I went and found him in that midden heap of a town—what's it called?”

“Tack town?” Jurel supplied.

“Aye. Tack.”

“What was he doing there?” Jurel asked.

“He left the farm. Not long after you actually. He said he almost finished the job you started on the new owner. I didn't know what that meant but I figured it was better for him that he avoided it. He took a job in town at the sawmill.”

Jurel chuckled. Lucky for Valik.

They spoke for a while about Daved, Jurel recounting tales from his childhood and Mikal telling of his journey to Threimes, and by the time the sky began to lighten, he found the pain had lessened. Oh, it was still there and he knew it would be there for the rest of his life, like a scar, but perhaps he could live with it. He would carry it with him, and cherish it. He would
never let the memory of his father fade. He replayed moments from his life in his mind's eye, trying to fix them forever, to imprint them permanently so that whenever he wished, he could
take a moment and think back on the man who was not his true father, but was most definitely his Pa.

But there were other considerations. There were other matters that pressed, that needed attention in the here and now.

“What do we do now?”

Kurin stretched, grunting lightly as he pondered. “Well, first thing is to get you to the Abbey. There's a lot you need to learn yet and I think that would be the best place to start.”

The Abbey. So that's where they were going. The seat of power for the Salosian Order, Kurin's heretical brotherhood.

“Will you finally tell me where it is?” Jurel asked and he tried to hide the exasperation in his voice. How many times had he asked as they had traveled there? How many times had the answer been, “Just a little farther.”

“It's just a little farther. Haven't I said that?” Kurin said mildly.

Jurel could have screamed.

“Will you at least tell me what it's like there?”

Kurin leaned back and his eyes glossed over, lit by fond memory. “It's a quiet place. A place of solace and peace-”

“What he means to say,” Mikal broke in, “is that it's as boring as a stone in a rocky field.”

“-and a place of learning.” Kurin glared at Mikal but the swordmaster ignored it with a wink at Jurel.

As the light broadened, as the sun peeked its fiery gaze over the horizon, they ate their fill of bread and dried beef and wrinkled apples that Mikal had purchased at the last tiny spit of a village they had passed through. When their bellies were satisfied, they stowed their belongings in their saddlebags, and climbed into their saddles. It was a long journey. There was much to do, much to learn.

And as Jurel turned his horse southward onto the broad caravan route that connected the great western ocean to the City of Killhern, and Threimes to Grayson City, and continued into a far off kingdom that Jurel only knew from stories told in a cozy warm cabin he had shared with a man he would love for all time, sitting before a pot bellied stove, his heart lifted. There was a long journey ahead, and he was certain that the Abbey was only the first step. And somehow, he was glad.