The Eighth Warden Bk. 05 Ch. 19-20

"A bracelet, you say?" Ellerie asked. "Well, we'll be sure to let you know once we figure it out." She ushered him out of the room.

"Wait--" Bobo started.

The elven woman closed the door in his face, then waited until they could hear him stalk away, muttering.

"Why would one of the gods care about any of this?" she asked.

"He must not like what the snake cultists are doing," Leena said. It was the only answer that made sense. "Something made my Seeking magic work differently than normal when I was looking for a way to protect my brother from them, and then Bobo became a priest when they attacked us at Tir Yadar."

"That... fits," Ellerie said hesitantly, as if she hadn't put the pieces together before.

Leena looked at the sketch again. "Does this remind you of the drawing you made after you tried the lore spell on the bracelet?"

"The three lines close together, you mean?"

"Yes. You thought it had something to do with where the Traveler was trying to go. What if the three lines were just part of the map, and now we have the rest of it?"

"But how can a few lines on a piece of paper tell you where to go?" Ellerie asked. "Are they supposed to be streets?"

"I'm not sure," Leena admitted. "It doesn't look like any place I've been before. Do you remember anything else from your vision?"

Ellerie shook her head. "Nothing useful. That place didn't feel like the real world, though--it was just a gray fog. Whatever it was, it scared the person who went there."

Leena laid the sketch out on Ellerie's desk. "The one you showed me had a mark on the lower of the three lines. This one doesn't." She touched the spot. "Is that where they were trying to go?"

"I don't know. The lore spell only gave me a shallow impression of what she was thinking and feeling at that moment. It didn't let me see her memories. Or his." The lore spell let Ellerie see past events out of someone else's eyes, but in those visions, she would take that person's place, so she couldn't always tell if it was a man or woman.

Leena went to the bedroom to retrieve the green bracelet from its hiding place in the wardrobe, slipping it over her hand. As always, it adjusted itself to fit securely around her wrist. She returned to the sitting room, pulling her sleeve back down to cover it.

"You're not going to try it now!" Ellerie exclaimed.

"Why not? If I end up in the wrong place, I can just return."

"You don't even know what the right place is! What if it's dangerous? We don't know who Bobo was talking to or what they want with you."

Leena hesitated. She'd taken on the responsibility of watching over her brother, and it wouldn't be right to put herself in danger while he was depending on her. And yet, her brother was the reason why she needed to do it.

"I'll come right back," she promised. "I'll just take a quick look. The bracelet is supposed to help me protect Udit somehow. I have to figure out how."

Ellerie frowned but didn't reply right away.

Leena tapped the sketch. "If it's a map, is it a map of somewhere or to somewhere?" The drawing wasn't enough to give her a location signature, and the pattern didn't match anything she could remember seeing before. How was the bracelet supposed to help? "You didn't like where the Chosar Traveler went. What if I try a different spot?"

"If you don't even know where you're going, how will you know if you went somewhere different? This is a bad idea. You should at least take me with you."

"Then I wouldn't have enough strength to bring us both back right away if we end up somewhere dangerous. Let me try it on my own first." Leena pointed to the middle of the three parallel lines. "I'll try this one."

She prepared to Travel, readying herself to teleport back again immediately in case she found herself falling through the air or landing in a body of water--neither of which she cared to experience again. When she tried the spell, though, nothing happened. It felt just like trying to Travel without having enough information to target a location.

"It didn't work," she said.

Ellerie breathed a sigh of relief. "Good."

Leena slid her finger over the sketch. One of the new lines on the map intersected the middle of the three parallel lines at an angle, while barely missing the lines above and below it. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the angled line. She didn't have a real location signature to target, but as soon as she thought about Traveling, a wave of nausea washed over her and she had to take a seat.

"What's wrong?" Ellerie asked.

"I think there are some spots on the map I just can't Travel to. And this one makes me sick." She indicated the line in question.

"Why not ask your uncle about it? He knows about the bracelet."

"He knows less than we do," Leena said. "I'm just going to try one more time."

This time, she selected the upper of the three parallel lines and Traveled. Somehow it worked, too quickly to warn Ellerie. There was a stretching and tearing sensation she'd never felt while teleporting, though, as if her body was punching a hole through a huge sheet of paper.

Then Leena was at her destination, the edge of a wide cliff of bare red stone which overlooked a canyon so deep she couldn't see the bottom. Or perhaps it was more than a canyon--it extended as far as she could see, dotted with skinny columns of the same red stone, like islands rising out of an invisible ocean. Waves of heat rose from below, and the sky above was filled with stomach-churning gray and yellow clouds.

The height made her dizzy, and she quickly backed away from the ledge before taking a longer look around. Unlike the other outcroppings, her cliff was no mere island. She couldn't see an end to it in any other direction. No vegetation grew on the hard stone, but there were tall, brownish-gray mounds scattered around.

The nearest of the mounds was only fifty feet away. Leena hesitated--she'd promised to return right away, but she hadn't learned anything useful yet. A few more seconds wouldn't hurt.

She approached the mound, then recoiled in disgust. It was just a massive pile of bones of various shapes and sizes, some still covered with decomposing flesh.

A small, green-skinned creature flew around from behind the mound, bobbing awkwardly in the air on leathery wings while it whistled a discordant rendition of a song. It carried what looked like a fish in its spindly arms.

When it saw Leena, it stopped in shock, its three eyes blinking in unison. Then it hissed and dropped its fish and rushed directly at her.

Leena Traveled, returning to the keep.

"What happened?" Ellerie said. "Where were you?"

Leena grabbed Ellerie's hand to make sure it was real, then took deep breaths while she waited for her heart to stop racing. She described what she'd seen.

"That sounds like an imp," Ellerie said. "But what was it doing here? Or were you in the demon realm?"

"Is that possible?" Leena asked.

"They can cross into our world, so there should be a way to go in the other direction," Ellerie said. "I've heard that a group of wizards can cast a ritual spell to do it, but I don't think anyone who's tried it has ever returned. You'd only be able to get back by using the same ritual again on the other side, and who has time for ritual magic if you're surrounded by demons?"

"The Chosar were fighting demons, right?" Leena said. "They must have needed a safe way to get to them."

"I didn't see any demons or red stone in my vision, though," Ellerie said. "Just the fog."

"Razai said something once, about hells--that there's more than one, and they're all different. Maybe you saw a different one."

"Maybe, but why would we ever need to go to the demon realm?"

Leena had no answer.

###

Chapter Twenty

Nedley sat down heavily on a pile of half-rotted roofing timbers he'd stacked outside his little cottage.

"But you're sure he's not a red-eye?" he asked. Razai had just told him his brother was under a demonic compulsion spell. Two years ago, Nedley wouldn't have known what that meant. Now he knew too much.

"I've never met a red-eye, but... yes, I'm sure," Razai said. "His eyes weren't red, for one. He could speak to me, he knew who you were, and he asked me to wish you good luck. That doesn't change things, though. Someone's still controlling him."

"Couldn't you have tried to save him?" Nedley asked.

A flicker of annoyance crossed her face, but it faded when she saw his expression. "No, Ned. I'm sorry. I was surrounded by Rusol's mercenaries, and your brother wasn't the only one under the spell. Even if I could have gotten him away from the others, I didn't have a way to free him from the compulsion. You'll need Treya for that, and I doubt Corec will want her going to Telfort."

"Leena..." Nedley started, then trailed off.

Razai sighed. "Ask the others if you want. Who knows? They can be stupid sometimes. But think about it--do you really want to send two women to face all of Rusol's mercenaries? Or were you planning to ask Corec? Do you think he can stop Rusol, his bondmates, and the entire Larsonian army? There's a reason why we're here, and not there. What's coming is going to be bad enough as it is. Don't make it worse."

Nedley didn't reply. She was right, but if he said it out loud, he'd be admitting that his brother was lost.

"Anyway, I thought you should hear it from me before I headed out," Razai said.

"You're leaving?"

"Yes, finally. I've got my pay, and there's nothing left to do here. I'm thinking about Deece--maybe renting a place on one of the islands for a year or two. Do me a favor, will you? When you talk to Ditte, call her Your Highness. She'll like that."

Nedley wrinkled his brow. "Uh, all right?"

"Maybe I'll see you around someday," Razai said, then strolled off, leaving Nedley alone.

He was still sitting on the wood pile when Kimi arrived.

"Hey, I found you!" she said with a grin. "I hope you weren't waiting too long." She paused. "What's wrong?"

"I just got some bad news about my brother."

"Oh no! What happened?"

He could see the concern in Kimi's eyes, but how could he tell her the truth about Bertram without telling her the worst things about himself? That he'd chased down wild animals and eaten them raw, drinking their blood, so that he and the other red-eyes didn't have to stop to make camp. That he'd murdered innocent people just because they were in the way.

It didn't matter that he hadn't been in control of his own actions, or even fully aware of them. Kimi was so innocent. Her life involved studying and doing chores, not magic spells and evil kings. If he told her the truth, she would never look at him the same way again.

"He decided to stay in Larso," Nedley said. "I was hoping he'd come east, but he didn't want to leave."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Kimi said. "Maybe he'll change his mind."

"Yeah, maybe."

She glanced at the cottage. "Is this it?" she asked.

Nedley stood, putting a fake smile on his face. "It's small, but it's sturdy," he said, patting the stone wall. "The houses were getting picked fast that first day. By the time I thought about it, there weren't a lot of choices left, but I like it."

"There's no roof."

"It collapsed, and I don't know how to build one," Nedley admitted. The new settlers had made good progress on rebuilding the rest of the village while he'd been away, but Nedley had grown up in the city. He'd never had to build anything before. "I'll have to hire someone. Do you want to see inside?"

"Sure!"

He showed her into the empty building, which only had two rooms. The main living area was open to the kitchen, so the heat from the cooking fire would warm the rest of the house. The kitchen didn't have a modern stove, of course, but it did have a chimney. The smaller room at the back of the cottage was obviously intended as a bedroom.

Kimi trailed her fingers along the wall, peering up at the open sky above. "Maybe you can add a second floor," she said.

"What?"

She gave him a mischievous grin. "You can't put your wife and your mistress in the same room, you know."

Nedley blinked. "Wife?"

"Of course. That is the proper order of things. And what if you have children someday?"

"I didn't think about that. I don't know if I can add a second floor." It seemed like taking a concubine might be more expensive than he'd anticipated. Was she suggesting he had to be married first?

"We should find someone and ask!" she said. "With another floor, you could fit three or four more rooms. Is there a cellar?"

"No, the ground is too rocky to dig down," Nedley said. Corec had suggested the hill was artificial, designed to make it difficult for an opposing army to tunnel under the walls.

"Then an attic, too, for storage!"

"That seems like a lot," Nedley said. A three-story house? He didn't want to seem like he was putting on airs.

Kimi's expression turned serious. "If you're an officer, you have to show it. People will trust you more if you look the part. That includes your home."

"Oh."

Her smile returned. "Do you have something to draw on? Where should the stairs go?"

Kimi's enthusiasm was contagious, and Nedley's mood improved--just a bit--as they discussed plans for the future. She was careful to never suggest she'd be living in the house with him, but he doubted she'd be so interested if she was just humoring him. And she'd stayed even after seeing he wouldn't be living a rich lifestyle.

Now he just had to figure out what to do about it.

She couldn't really mean he had to get married first, could she?

#

"I must welcome you back to Sanvara City, Warden Yelena," Empress Shereen said. "Or do you prefer the name Carise?"

Yelena stiffened and Leena tensed, preparing to Travel. She and Pavan stood behind Shereen's chair, in the same tea room where Leena had first met the empress. If Yelena were to attack, Pavan would attempt to teleport her into a warded holding cell while Leena took Shereen to safety. Five wizards and three dozen Imperial Guards were waiting in the surrounding rooms in case they were needed, but Leena and Pavan were the first line of defense.

The moment passed and Yelena relaxed, leaning forward to pour tea into the two waiting cups. "You are well informed, Your Majesty, but Carise died a long time ago," she said. "I am Yelena. For now."

Shereen nodded. "Of course. How was your trip from Tyrsall?"

"Uneventful, though I forgot just how bright the sun can be this far south. But something tells me you didn't invite me here for a polite chat about sailing ships and weather."

"To the point, then?" the empress asked. "Very well. We'll get the tedious bits out of the way first. I trust you won't interfere in my government or the functioning of the empire?"

Yelena raised an eyebrow. "That's your only request?"

"I'm pleased you've chosen to make your home in Sanvar once again, Lady Yelena. I won't hold you to a different standard than any other citizen. But perhaps there's something we can do for each other."

"Oh?"

"A year ago, you were looking for the services of a Traveler. Are you still?"

Yelena stared at her. "I'm curious as to how you get your information, Your Majesty. I haven't made any attempts to recruit in Sanvar--I've no desire to interfere with your people."

"I appreciate that. Yet, the warden bond offers certain advantages. Perhaps those benefits can be shared."

"What did you have in mind?" Yelena asked.

"You'll have to forgive me," Shereen said. "I'm not an expert on wardens or their abilities. If I understand correctly, the warden bond is best used with weaker mages, helping them to achieve much higher potential?"

Yelena shrugged. "That's how it works, but it's not something I've ever taken into consideration. There are more important factors."

"Such as whether the mage fits a need you have?"

"Yes."

"And do you still have that need?"

Yelena leaned back in her chair. "That would depend on the terms."

"I'll help you identify a candidate with the gift but who lacks the strength to use it. This Traveler would then split his or her time between the Travelers' Posts here in Sanvar and your own interests--with appropriate compensation and working conditions from both sides, of course."

"I'm not sure I can agree to that," Yelena said. "There are reasons why wardens don't announce themselves. I'm not in the habit of giving the bond away to mages with other priorities. My friends and I have duties to take care of."

"Duties that require travel?" Shereen asked. "You could have been in Sanvara City in the blink of an eye rather than spending weeks aboard ship. And I imagine someone with your business dealings has need for messages to be delivered around the continent."

Yelena inclined her head. "I can't deny that."

"Even just a portion of a Traveler's time is a powerful tool, and should be more than enough to meet your needs." The empress raised a finger. "But we must have measures in place to protect the mage in question. The Zidari are not warriors."

"What do you suggest?" Yelena asked.

"A cooperative effort. In Sanvar, Travelers have safe locations to which they can teleport. They don't need to be concerned about being ambushed by their employer's rivals, or by those who might be jealous of their powers. Leena, here," the empress gestured, "has begun those efforts in the north. Help us to complete that plan and you'll have what you want--access to the entire Travelers' network, both north and south, as well as a contract with the Traveler you bond, to cover more immediate needs."

Yelena considered that for a moment, then looked up. "Leena? I've heard that name before."

Leena gave her a respectful nod. "Yes, Warden. Sarlo told me of your offer. I was on my way to Tyrsall to seek your help when I was pulled away by something else." She allowed the rune on her forehead to flare.

Yelena narrowed her gaze. "Corec. That's how you knew who I was."

Shereen shook her head. "Leena told us of your interest in Travelers after your friend--Sarlo?--contacted her, but the imperial diplomatic service has known of you for a very long time."

Leena wasn't certain if the empress was lying about that last part, or if she simply meant her spies had already been aware of Yelena's previous identity. Shereen herself hadn't known about wardens when Leena had first spoken to her.

"I see," Yelena said flatly. "Assuming I'm willing to negotiate, there's another factor you haven't considered. I won't cast the binding spell on just any mage you suggest. I need to be sure of them first."

"I'll ask the senior Travelers to identify likely candidates," Shereen said. "We can tell them as little about wardens as you wish--or nothing at all, until you decide on someone. You can interview them in whatever way you'd like."

Yelena nodded. "I'll consider it."

"You are welcome to return here at any time if you'd like to discuss the details of the arrangement. I'll issue orders to that effect. I believe we can come to an agreement that will make everyone happy."

"I hope we can, Your Majesty," Yelena said.

A servant came to lead her out. Shereen departed too, giving Leena and Pavan a significant look. She'd already spoken with them before Yelena arrived, and their new orders were clear enough.

Once they were alone in the room, Pavan said, "I'm glad you were able to make it back today. It would have been Rohav here otherwise, and he's still touchy about the idea."

"He's touchy about everything these days, but he means well," Leena said.

Pavan nodded. "There's something else you should know--the wards on some of the snake cultists have started to fade. The Seekers and Seers found their encampment. They're in the Table Lands."

Leena could feel her heart pounding in her chest. "What are you going to do?"