She held out two folded squares of parchment sealed with blobs of red wax. “Uncle Walker left these letters for you among the pile entrusted to me.”
“And it has taken until now for you to deliver them?” I growled, snatching them from her.
She shrugged, not concerned in the slightest about angering me. “He told me to wait and watch, and only to hand them over if you decided to leave on a stupidly suicidal quest. His words of course, annoying bastard.”
I opened the first letter and began to read aloud. His handwriting was atrocious.
Dearest Eva,
If you are reading this then I am dead, which sucks arse. Still, surprise! Just because I am dust and ash does not mean I am done annoying you just yet.
If you have this letter then it means you are determined to go off and get yourself killed. I get it. I have felt your pain. I know that only duty kept you going. You fought to save Setharis in its
darkest hour. You fought to save the world. It was a worthy cause to endure agony for. Now you no longer have any reason to.
If you want to die then go right ahead. I’m dead so I can’t exactly stop you. You might want to try something first of course, a way to find peace and freedom from your pain. Do you recall I said that there is supposed to be a sacred valley deep in the Clanholds, a place that only the despairing can find? There, the God of Broken Things dwells. Apparently he cannot heal, for that is a rare talent indeed, but they believe that those wounded in body will feel no pain, and for those wounded by the past, they are gifted with forgetfulness.
Worth a trip to check it out, right? Do it for me – one last request. If it doesn’t work out, have a drink for me and then go pick a fight with something big and nasty. There will be plenty of such things loose up here for years to come.
I have also sent you a map. Apologies for my artwork. It’s about as grand as my poetry. Note to self – leave a letter for Layla to burn the contents of that damned box.
Well, I guess this is farewell. I hope you find peace, one way or another.
–Walker.
PS – Did you see how fucking awesome I was at the end? At least, I hope I was. If everything went to plan then that should be worth an epic tale or two from those bloody bards.
I opened the map and stared, then showed Layla. She burst out laughing at the uneven scrawls and child-like drawings of trees, mountains and towns. I couldn’t help but smile. It was truly, truly awful, but it would serve.
I looked to Layla, who was studying me intently. “Did you burn whatever was in that box?”
She grinned. “Oh gods no. He’s a hero don’t you know, and it might be worth something one day.” She handed me another slip of paper, old and yellowed at the edges. “Have a read later and you will see why he wanted it burned. It really is that bad. So, what will you do?”
I instinctively liked her. We might have been friends in different days. “I’ll go; I owe him that. One last request to try and find peace… hah, I expect it to prove superstitious nonsense, but there is nothing lost by taking a look, and daemons roam the Clanholds as well as the rest of Kaladon. That place is as good as any other to die.”
Layla stuck out her arm and I clasped it. “I hope you find your peace,” she said. “I will help look after this place, and Cillian is not a bad choice of archmagus.”
“She will do well,” I said, as the stable boy brought my readied horse over. I mounted and lifted a hand in farewell. “I wish you well, Layla. May life treat you kindly.” With that I rode down into Docklands, past new housing being built and rubble being cleared. One day all of this would be a distant memory. A horror recorded only in crumbling scrolls and weather-worn statues, read only by scholars and remembered in inflated tales told by bards on dark and stormy nights. That was no bad thing.
Walker’s memories offered me conflicted feelings as I left Setharis behind and made for Westford Docks to take a ship north to the Clanholds. He had been forced to leave his home once, with no intention of returning, and now I too had no expectation I would ever set foot here again.
Somebody was waiting for me at the docks, currently deserted with all the sailors cowered in their ships’ holds. They’d had more than enough of magic and monsters, and even gods like Shadea. She was clad in flesh of shining bronze with a golden skull, steel wires and pulsing human veins.
“Magus Evangeline Avernus,” she greeted me.
I dismounted and offered her a hand, a huge breach of etiquette when facing an Elder, never mind a god. She had always been good to me and I think some of Edrin Walker’s boldness bid me to treat her as human one last time.
She took it, careful not to crush even my knight’s body to pulp. “I would heal you if I could, but I do not possess the skills required. If you do not wish to wait the years necessary for me to learn then I could construct you a new body immediately?”
I ran my eyes across her body of brass and blood and shook my head. “I am tired. I think I would rather rest than become something inhuman. No offense meant, elder… ah, my god.”
Shadea smiled, cogs turning, wires pulling. “Then I hope you find the rest you seek.”
Behind me the sky flashed purple and the ground trembled. One of the gods towers shook and spat a stream of fire into the clouds – the one belonging to the Hooded God.
Shadea laughed, a tinny, unnatural sound but no less filled with undisguised glee. “That sly boy! He was always trouble. He had a letter delivered to a certain group of scribes along with a bag of gold. Copies of it have spread all through the city.”
“What did this one say?” “It truthfully detailed every single illegal act, every murder and machination that Archmagus Byzant once carried out when he was in charge of the Arcanum, or asked young Edrin to do on his behalf. The boy has spilled every last one of Byzant’s dark secrets, and placed the guilt at the foot of the Hooded God’s temple. All now know who that god was before he ascended, and what he did. I suspect, however, that the additional stories of Byzant’s dalliances with a pig might have been false. It would seem in line with Edrin’s perverse sense of humour. False claims or not, the god is now a laughing stock and utterly reviled.”
Laughter erupted from my mouth and my eye burned with tears. “Couldn’t happen to a better piece of shit.” Shadea joined me in my mirth. It was a lovely shared moment, but passed all too soon. She had so much to see to, and never enough time.
As she sank down into the stone below her feet, frightened faces peered out from portholes and cabins, gazing on me with wonder. I turned my back on the rage of Edrin Walker’s old mentor who had tried to have him killed, and made my way aboard my ship with a wide smile under my mask.
This was goodbye.
Chapter 38
The Clanholds on a sunny spring day was quite a sight. The endless white snow-bound valleys and frozen streams had given away to lush grass and budding trees. Sheep dotted every hillside and long-horned cattle with shaggy red hair had been put out to pasture, barely even noticing a horse and its steel-masked rider winding through the valley. It was serene without hordes of screaming daemons and bloodthirsty warriors trying to hack your head off. Hawks circled lazily overhead and small blackbirds flitted through trees and bushes, singing their hearts out. I was in no great hurry.
Banks of vibrant yellow blooming gorse bushes lined the path on either side, prickly and fragrant. A riot of small white flowers, delicate as single drops of snow, bloomed outside the squat, drab farmhouses and atop picturesque rises.