“Hopefully that’ll be soon, and with a win for our side.” I finished off my coffee. “Now, if everyone will excuse me, I need to take a nap and make a date with a Guardian.” I indicated the cabin’s other bunk, presently buried under maps and papers. “Can I borrow that for a few hours?” I asked Phaelan.
In response, Phaelan stood and started cleaning it off. Except his idea of cleaning involved mostly transferring the pile from the bed to the top of a nearby trunk.
I pulled back the blanket and sat down on the edge of the bunk. “Wake me if we’re about to be slaughtered.” I meant it as a joke, but it didn’t quite come out that way.
Phaelan probably meant to smile. It didn’t quite make it either. “Other than Eiliesor, don’t worry about any interruptions. We’ll make sure it stays quiet for you.”
From his serious tone, I had no doubts. But as I lay down and pulled the blanket over myself, my last thought before drifting off hoped those wouldn’t turn out to be famous last words.
Chapter 14
Sleep didn’t take long finding me, and I didn’t take long finding Mychael Eiliesor. I had no idea how I found him, but if the beacon could talk, I was sure it could tell me.
I found myself in an unfamiliar and lavishly decorated bedroom. Only the best and most expensive furnishings and linens, and my eye for such things was very accurate. I’d come to realize that if I liked it, it was expensive. Another Benares family trait. I heard movement from the canopied bed. The embroidered bed curtains were pulled back, and the occupant shifted in sleep. I stopped breathing.
Mychael Eiliesor lay on his side with a pale sheet draped loosely over his waist. One arm was curled under the pillow, and the other stretched across the bed. His coppery hair gleamed in the light of a single bedside lamp and one loose curl brushed his temple. My eyes were drawn lower, down the leanly muscled torso and beyond. If he was wearing anything, it wasn’t obvious to me. He moved and the sheet slipped farther. Nope, he definitely wasn’t wearing anything. I felt my face flush, which shouldn’t have been possible considering that I wasn’t really there. I looked away. Then I looked back. I couldn’t help myself.
His glorious sea blue eyes were open and watching me. I didn’t like water, but I could drown in those eyes and die happy. I froze in shock. He could see me. I looked down at myself. I could see me. But I was asleep onboard the Fortune. I couldn’t be in both places at once. Or could I? But how?
Eiliesor was now propped up on one elbow. He was still watching me, but now there was the beginning of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Heart-stopping.
“This is unexpected,” he said.
He was telling me.
“We need to talk,” I heard myself say. It didn’t sound quite like me, but then I wasn’t quite here, or there. I had a fluttering moment of panic and disorientation. Actually, I didn’t know where I was.
His smile had turned into a grin. “We are talking.” Then his eyes widened slightly. “You’ve never done a sending before, have you?”
I shook my head. “The past two days have been full of firsts.” I swallowed, and looked back down at my hands. “I’m not supposed to be this solid, am I?”
“I know of only two mages on Mid who can manifest that well, and you’re doing it through three layers of my best shields.”
That did it. I had just gone from being merely creepy to truly scaring myself. I wondered if I could faint. I think it must have showed, because the Guardian started to get up.
I waved my hands. “No, no. Stay.” Seeing him get out of bed, now or anytime, would not soothe my rattled nerves. Quite the opposite.
He stayed. But he moved so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed, the sheet gathered around his waist. He motioned me to a chair. I looked at it and wasn’t exactly sure if it would work; that is, whether I could actually sit down when I wasn’t really there. I gingerly sat down—and didn’t fall through. A pleasant surprise, disturbing, but pleasant. Much like the unobstructed view of the elf’s smoothly sculpted chest.
Having never done this before, I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to stay, so I thought I’d better get to the point.
“I have questions; you have answers.”
“I have some questions myself,” he said.
I’ll bet he did. “I’ll make you a deal,” I told him. “You answer mine, and I’ll answer yours.”
“I’ll tell you what I can.”
I nodded. It was as much as I would be doing myself. There were some things about myself I’d rather a Conclave Guardian didn’t know.
“I’ll start,” he said. “Sarad Nukpana hired your partner to steal the beacon. He called you by name. You can use the beacon. This isn’t a coincidence.”
“You get right to the point, don’t you?”
“I don’t have time for anything else. Neither do you.”
Looking at our mutual situation from his point of view, I guess my involvement did look rather shady. To a point he was right. I couldn’t exactly walk the moral high road here. But knowing a thief didn’t make me one; and a psycho knowing my name didn’t make me one of those either, so I felt entitled to get on my high horse, however briefly.
“I didn’t steal anything, Paladin Eiliesor. And I resent being treated as if I did. I deemed you the most likely to help me solve my problem, and the least likely to try and kill me afterward. That’s why I’m here. It’s not how I normally choose sides, but it’ll have to do.”
He just looked at me. “Then how did you get the beacon?”
I told him. However, I completely neglected to mention Quentin by name at all, or Phaelan or Piaras or anyone else I cared about. Amazing how little details can get glossed over in relaying the bigger picture. I’m certain Eiliesor wanted to know the details, but I didn’t think they were necessary. If he felt otherwise, he didn’t show any sign. Apparently only one thing was important to him, and it was hanging around my neck.
When I had finished, he just sat there, watching me, no doubt weighing my words against his own version of the truth. My tone had betrayed no emotion, nor doubt as to my sincerity. And I knew he didn’t believe me for a minute. His problem, not mine. Yet.
He finally spoke. “So you know what you have.”
It wasn’t a question.
“More or less. Chigaru Mal’Salin told me last night. Though I think he told me because he didn’t expect I’d be going anywhere.”
“Probably. How much do you know about the Saghred, Mistress Benares?”
“More than I did yesterday, which is a hell of a lot more than I ever wanted to know. I know what it is, some of what it supposedly does, and that a lot of people want to get their hands on it, yourself included.”
“Let me tell you what I know, Mistress Benares. Your partner”—he paused and smiled slightly—“who apparently has no name, discovered the beacon the night before last in the home of a prominent Mermeian necromancer. The moment he opened the containment box was obvious to me, as it was to many in this city. I know the beacon passed into your possession at Simon Stocken’s warehouse. I sensed it again, a few hours later on the edge of the Sorcerers District. The signal was subtle. I sensed it only because I knew what I was listening for.”
He stood, and holding the sheet loosely around his waist, reached for a long dressing robe draped across the foot of the bed. “What I heard last night in The Ruins was not subtle, nor was it the small magics innate to a beacon. I followed it and found you and a spellsinger far too young to be that powerful. You had just destroyed six fully formed Magh’Sceadu. A casual observer would say you had accomplished this feat all by yourself.” He paused. “I’m not a casual observer.”
He turned away from me, put on the robe, and let the sheet drop to the floor.
I swallowed.
He tied the sash, and turned to face me. “Forgive me, Mistress Benares, but your natural gifts are marginal at best—at least they used to be. What you accomplished last night is a level of craft you should not be capable of. You reached through the beacon and used the Saghred. How, I do not know. I’ve never agreed with Sarad Nukpana on anything, but in this instance he is correct. You’re playing a dangerous game.”