The Eighth Warden Bk. 02 Ch. 07-08

Treya decided to give Shavala's idea a try, but when she reached out with her healing senses, the mass of information she received made it impossible to meditate. In some ways, her different abilities worked together, such as when she was fighting, but in other ways, they were at odds with each other. Which seemed fitting, since she was at odds with herself.

Ever since Shana had defeated the bandits who'd killed Treya's parents, Treya had wanted to be like her. And she thought she could be, if she wasn't constantly being pulled in other directions. The day she'd spent in the almshouse had been an eye-opening experience. There'd been nearly a hundred sick and injured people in that house alone, including children. There were broken bones, infected cuts, and internal illnesses that she didn't even know the names for, and none of those people had been able to afford a healing priest on their own.

The administrator had been thrilled to have her help, and he wasn't inclined to inquire too deeply about which temple she belonged to. Besides Treya, the volunteers for the day were two other healing priests, a chirurgeon, and an herbalist. That was enough that not only did they keep up with all the emergencies and serious problems, but they also made some progress on the patients with less serious conditions.

Treya's own magic had given out after an hour. The other healers had warned her not to overextend herself, but she'd continued working throughout the day, helping in other ways. She resolved to bring Bobo with her the next time, and to mention to Mother Ola that the Three Orders herbalists might spend some time there themselves.

Being a healer wasn't what she'd wanted for her life—it didn't give her the same thrill she got from training as a mystic—but at the same time, she couldn't just ignore it. She needed to find a balance between the two parts of herself.

That reminded her that she was supposed to be meditating. She shut off her healing senses and did her best to blank out all of her thoughts and concerns. A stray worry crossed her mind about what Lastal had said about godborn, but she pushed it away.

As her thoughts quieted, she slowed her breathing and concentrated on the sensations her body was experiencing. The feel of her tunic on her skin, and then her leggings and the blanket she was sitting on. The strand of hair brushing against her eyelashes. The slight stress in her left thigh that would become painful if she stayed too long in the same position. The sound of Shavala's breathing.

As each feeling and sensation came to her, she blocked it from her mind so she could look internally instead. She could feel her heart beating, but not in the same way she felt it with her healing senses. This was a sense that went deeper than the magic. She couldn't use it to heal, but she could use it to know. It was the thing that made the mystics what they were. They didn't have a name for it, though Shana sometimes referred to it as a sense of self.

Treya slowed her heart beat, and felt the rest of her body slow down in response. In this state, she'd always found it easier to ignore external stimuli and focus on the internal. She could trace the path of the blood as it left her heart and passed through her body. She could almost feel the muscles and tendons that lay beneath her skin, could almost feel the tingling of air against her body...but not quite. Somehow, Shana could regulate her body temperature, and harden her fists enough to punch through a drake's scales, but Treya couldn't. Very few mystics had ever mastered the arts as well as Shana. Was it just a matter of knowing her body, or was there a level beyond that?

#

Barnabas hadn't been lying when he'd said it would be a long way south until she reached civilization again, Leena reflected as she walked on, trying to ignore her aching ankles. It was still just as cold out, but at least the snow was gone, and her new clothing was helping to keep her warm.

It had been eight days since she'd left Barnabas and Rana's village—which she belatedly realized she'd never asked the name of. Rana and the other women had found enough odd jobs for her to do to allow her to buy everything on the shopping list, but now her food was running low again. She'd passed through a village on the third day out, but at the time she'd still had plenty left, and since she didn't have any money, she hadn't stopped. That was the last time she'd seen any sign of people.

At least there were trees now to block the wind, and firewood was readily available. Here, it was water that took effort to find, since she'd left the road that had been following the stream. She'd crossed other streams on the way south, but she only had the one waterskin, and sometimes it ran empty before she found another source of water. Even when the skin was full, she had to keep it bundled inside her new thick coat so her body heat could keep it from freezing.

To the south, she saw a faint stream of smoke curling above the trees. A chimney? Barnabas had said she'd eventually reach farmland again.

She rounded a curve in the road and saw a man standing near a campfire, looking her way. He was wearing a hat and a long coat, and was leaning on a quarterstaff.

Leena stopped, not certain how to react. "Hello?"

"Hello," he replied. "The name's Sarlo. What's yours?"

"Leena."

"Leena, care to join me? The fire's warm, and the food is good."

"Thank you."

They sat on pieces of a fallen log near the fire, and he served the meal he'd prepared.

"What brings you to the middle of nowhere?" Sarlo asked.

"I'm meeting some friends to the south."

"Oh? You're Sanvarite—Zidari if I've got your accent right. That's a long way south."

She blinked in surprise. "How did you know?"

He pulled up the sleeve of his coat to show a tattoo with three interlocking circles in a row on his wrist.

"You're not Zidari!" she exclaimed. He was as light-skinned as a northerner.

"My grandmother was," he said in her native tongue. "I got the tattoos when I went to Sanvar to be trained." He rolled up his other sleeve to show the mark of a Seeker.

Leena stared at it. What were the odds she'd run into another Zidari mage here of all places?

"How...?" she started. "I didn't know any outsiders had trained as a Seeker."

"It was a long time ago," he said. "A very long time ago."

He couldn't have been more than twenty years her senior. Surely she'd have heard about it if a northerner had sought training so recently. Was he lying?

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"I thought you might need some help."

"What?"

"Seeking is a funny thing. Did you know that you don't have to search for something specific? Sometimes I seek out where I need to be, even if I don't know why I need to be there. It started pointing me in this direction a few weeks ago, but with no indication of why, so I had to seek out the reason. And then it told me about you. Not in words, but I eventually figured out that there was a lost Traveler out here. Why are you lost? Can't you just teleport yourself back to Sanvar?"

"I never completed my training—I became a baker instead. Every time I teleport myself, I make things worse."

He raised an eyebrow. "You gave up the life of a Traveler?"

"After nearly dying a few times? It was an easy decision."

"Perhaps you just need a better teacher."

"I'd rather go back to baking."

"What if I help you get home? I can teach you how to do short, controlled hops."

"You're a Traveler too?" she asked. Sometimes the gifts crossed over.

"I can only teleport myself, and only at short range. It took me five days and twenty jumps to get here, but I can teach you how to do it safely."

Leena thought about that for a moment. "I'm scared. Are you sure it would be safe?"

"Yes. We'll take things slow, and I'll teach you the same way I learned how."

"All right. I'll try."

"Great. And then in the future, perhaps you might be willing to do a favor for me someday."

#

Shavala sat up in her bedroll when she heard the flap of her tent rustling. Katrin peered at her through the opening.

"How are you always awake before I wake you up?" the other girl asked as she squinted in the darkness.

Shavala grinned. "The camp sounds different when we're change shifts. I can hear the difference." She stood and pulled on an extra tunic, then her long coat. "Did anything happen on your watch?" she asked as she stepped outside the tent.

"No, it was quiet."

"Is Treya awake?"

"Corec's waking her up. I'm going back to bed; I'll see you in the morning."

When Shavala and Treya were on watch together, they usually stood on opposite sides of the camp and made a slow circuit around. They were discussing where to start when Venni crawled out of her own tent, buckled her sword belt around her waist, and strode over to join them.

"Hello, ladies. Nobody woke me up."

"Oh," Treya said. "I didn't know you were taking a shift." This was the first time they'd had to keep a watch since Venni had joined them, since villages and inns were plentiful along the North Road.

"I want to help," Venni said, then looked at Shavala. "Do you mind some company?"

The tall woman had spent the trip talking to everyone, asking them probing questions. Corec and Boktar got along with her, but everyone else seemed mostly resigned to the conversations, hoping to keep a good relationship with their only link to another warden.

Shavala had managed to avoid the questioning so far, but it looked like her turn had come. She nodded to Venni, and hid the grimace she made in Treya's direction. Treya just grinned at her, then pulled her coat and cloak more tightly around herself and strode across the camp.

"If you don't mind me asking," Venni said as she and Shavala started off on their route, "how old are you?"

"A hundred and twenty."

"That's still young for an elf, yes? I'm two hundred sixty-eight, which is something I never imagined when I was growing up. I met Yelena when I was, oh, twenty-five or twenty-six. It was so odd to stop aging after that—sometimes I've wondered if it's similar to being an elf."

"You stopped aging?"

"I haven't gotten any older since Yelena bonded me."

"My friends don't know whether to believe that part," Shavala said. "You don't seem that old to me, but the idea bothers them. What's it like?"

"It seems normal now, though I went through a period of adjustment when I was sixty or seventy. Something seemed...off at the time, but I eventually got over it."

"How old are the other wardens?"

"We don't know for sure, but when we first met Shayliel, she claimed to have just celebrated her thousandth birthday...and that was quite a while ago now. Of course, she's an elf, but there are at least two humans ahead of her."

"I've never heard of an elf living more than seven or eight hundred years."

Venni said, "Then I guess that part of the warden bond must affect elves, too. Well, not the bond itself, since she's a warden. Yelena stopped aging ten years before we met, even though she hadn't bonded anyone yet. I didn't really believe her, you know, back at the beginning. Oh, I knew she was a wizard, and I knew she wanted to cast a binding spell on us, but the rest of it seemed too silly to be true. But I was young and in love, so I went along with it. And here we are, two and a half centuries later."

"And you've stayed together since then?" Shavala asked. She'd originally planned to go home after a year or two of traveling, but after the meeting with Yelena, she hadn't been sure what to do. Corec and Katrin wouldn't be allowed into Terrillia. Of the entire group, only Ellerie would be granted entrance.

"Oh, no, not at all. I love Yelena, but two hundred forty-some years? We have to go our own way sometimes. Sarlo and me more than the rest, because of our relationships with her, but even the others go off on their own when they need to. Tarsi had her fill of the city three years ago and went away to be a hermit. Yelena can call her back if there's an emergency, but she tries not to disturb us while we're gone."

That sounded better, Shavala thought. Perhaps she could split her time between Terrillia and her new friends. "Tarsi?" she asked.

"She's an elder witch," Venni replied. "I guess it must be something like a druid."

"I don't know much about other elder mages. Among the dorvasta, all elder mages are druids."

"One of Shayliel's bondmates is a druid, but he's seaborn, not elven."

Shavala cocked her head to the side. "There are seaborn druids?" Meritia had suggested there were rare cases of druids among humans and lizardfolk—or at least elder mages who called themselves druids—but Shavala had never heard of any from the seaborn.

"That's what he said, anyway. Shayliel mentioned that he can change the wind and the storms to keep their ship safe and get it to where it's going quickly."

Shavala smiled to herself. She'd been right after all—a druid's magic could help move a ship. She just hadn't been strong enough the last time. She needed to practice more. She would do what she could on land, but hopefully they'd travel on a ship again soon.

###

Chapter 8

They arrived in High Cove after dark. Ellerie was riding at the front of the procession with Boktar and Venni when they reached the outskirts. There was nobody out on the streets, but lights could be seen through windows. As they rode past a cottage, an old woman opened her shutters to stare out at the noise, then closed them with a bang.

"This is strange," Venni said. "I've never seen it like this. Where is everyone?"

"Asleep?" Boktar guessed, though his voice was uneasy.

"It's late, but it's not that late. I suppose there aren't that many houses out here. It should be different when we reach the old city."

They continued on their way, but now Ellerie glanced from side to side, looking for any sign of people. They passed a tavern and she stopped her horse to peer through the open door. From where she sat, she could only see the tavern keeper and one patron at the bar. There was no window, so she couldn't tell if anyone else was inside, but she didn't hear any talking or laughing.

On the next block down, a man scurried across the street in front of them.

"Hello?" Venni called out, but the man didn't stop. He continued down a side street until he was out of sight.

Corec rode up to join them. "It's quiet out for this time of night."

"Maybe there were rumors about the imps?" Venni said. "They don't usually attack people, but that doesn't mean you'd want to meet one in a dark alley."

The breeze shifted, and brought with it the scent of sea air.

Corec said, "If we can smell the harbor, we must be getting close to the old city. I've only been here a few times though, so I'm not sure I remember the way in the dark."

"It's just up ahead," Venni said.

A few blocks later, they passed through an archway in what had once been a stone defensive wall, though the structure was crumbling now. On the other side of the arch, the street changed from granite pavers to rounded cobblestone. The group dismounted so the horses would have an easier time on the unfamiliar surface.

"Does anyone know of a good inn?" Ellerie asked.

"There are some closer to the baron's palace, if you want to follow me a bit farther," Venni said. "I should probably head there now to find out what's happening."

Just then, a group of men carrying torches and lanterns turned onto the street and headed toward them. They waited until the men stopped in front of them.

The one in the lead, who wore a constable's uniform, said, "You can't be out on the streets after dark. There's a curfew in place."

"A curfew?" Corec asked. "Why?"

"Haven't you heard? Demons are killing people!"

Venni said, "Duke Voss of Tyrsall sent me to help. What's going on? I was told there were imps killing stray dogs."

"That's how it started, but then old Marlo, the baron's wizard, tried to track them down. When they found him the next morning, he was in pieces."

"Imps can't do that."

"It's not imps. People have seen things walking the streets at night, things as big as humans, but they don't look human. They killed some beggars too, and after that, the baron said nobody can be out after dark unless they're in an armed group." He motioned to his companions, all dressed as constables or guardsmen. "We're trying to hunt them."

"Well, I'm armed, and I need to speak to Baron Anders as soon as possible." Venni glanced Corec's way. "I may need to take you up on your offer to help."

"Of course."

Ellerie tightened her lips. She knew Corec was making that decision for himself, and would expect the others to decide on their own, but she doubted Venni would interpret it that way.

Throughout the trip, it had been apparent that the other woman considered Corec to be in charge of everyone in the group besides herself. To his credit, Corec always conferred with everyone when a question came up, but that hadn't helped. Venni would make a decision or suggestion, then ask Corec what he thought. Even if he had little to say on the topic, Venni would wait until everyone else had spoken, then look to Corec for a final answer. He would simply repeat the most persuasive argument, regardless of who'd presented it—which was how they'd made group decisions before Venni joined them.

However, since she always waited for Corec to agree, it gave the impression that the others were merely advising him while he was making the decisions. It was done subtly enough that Boktar had told Ellerie she was imagining things, but it kept happening, and the more it happened, the more frustrated she grew.

Katrin and Bobo seemed content to follow Corec's lead, and Shavala only chimed in if she had a suggestion. She never seemed particularly interested in making the decisions, and often didn't even appear to be paying attention to the discussion. Treya would continue debating if she didn't agree with a decision, but even she seemed to believe that Corec's statements were a decision.

Ellerie figured it all came down to that warden nonsense. Venni clearly considered Yelena to be in charge of her own group, and she expected Corec to play a similar role. The sooner they found a way to end the binding spell, the better.

"We should all go," Ellerie said pointedly, just to remind them that she was still there. Agreeing with Corec might play into Venni's plan, but at least her voice would be heard. And in any case, disagreeing would be petty, at least until they found out whether these people actually needed their help.

"I can take you to the palace," one of the guardsmen said. "If you were sent by Duke Voss, the baron may be willing to grant you an audience tonight."

"Then lead on," Venni said.

They followed the guard east, down a narrow street with old buildings that were four or five stories tall, built so close to each other that they were touching. Shops and other businesses lined the first floor of the buildings, though most were closed for the night. The lights shining through the upper-floor windows suggested apartments. There were more people out and about here, which helped to relieve the eerie feeling they'd had since arriving, but any time they encountered someone, the guard stopped to warn them to stay inside.

"This is the oldest street in the city," Venni said. "If we followed it all the way, we'd reach the docks, but we'll turn north before then to go to the palace."

"I didn't see it when I was here," Corec said. "Is it really a palace?"

"Anders has High Cove all to himself, which makes him the richest baron in the kingdom. The only reason the Duke of the North doesn't make his home here is that when the duchy was established, High Cove was just a small fishing town, and the first duke thought Ironholt was more important with all those mines. And it probably was, but the mines had to sell their ore, and High Cove was the nearest port, whether you go by road or river barge."