“Your brother Vernt…he is most dedicated to the Magi’i.”
“He always has been,” replies Myryan.
“And your older sister?” asks Kharl’elth politely.
“She remains a healer. As you know, she has found healing to be her calling.”
“Without a consort, alas.”
“There is a need for some healers who remain without consort.” Myryan smiles politely, lifting her glass of redberry, but barely sipping any of the juice.
Kharl inclines his head to the thin-faced healer. “Your ability to assist the…lower…healers, and your aid to the officers of the Mirror Lancers, are most remarkable, Myryan. And your actions have bestowed much honor upon your consort and this house.”
Myryan bows her head. “What little I do but is but a trifle in the light that already shines forth from this house.”
“Modest, she is, as well.” Kharl turns his eyes from Myryan to the tall and broad-shouldered Ciesrt. “Yet she is talented in healing, and in teaching her craft, and from a most distinguished lineage, and with a garden with which few compare.”
Myryan lowers her eyes.
“She is most remarkable as a consort.” Ciesrt beams. “In so very many ways. I look forward to coming home each day.”
“And you are most fortunate, my son,” adds the white-haired woman who sits at the end of the table opposite Kharl. “Remember that in years to come.”
Myryan covers her mouth and swallows quietly, her eyes remaining downcast.
In the dimness of the dining room, and against the distant lightning of the fall storm over the harbor, the vague unseen luminescence of chaos perceived by four of those around the table, and with the flickering of the lamps in wall sconces, none remark upon the faint and also unseen mist of darkness that lifts away from Kharl.
Nor do any note the sudden pallor that crosses Myryan’s face. The healer takes a slow sip of wine, and steadies herself beneath the level of the table with her left hand-the one that had been resting in her lap. Her eyes remain demurely downcast, not meeting those around the table for some time.
When she does raise her head, ever so slightly, an enigmatic smile plays across her lips momentarily.
CXXXI
Ssssssss…. ssss…sssss…
Lorn is wide-awake even before the second hiss of the watchgeese, and the Brystan sabre is in his hand, even as he sends out his perceptions. The corridor outside the door is empty.
“What…?” Ryalth sits bolt upright almost as quickly as Lorn has.
“Bolt the door after me,” he whispers to Ryalth as he holds the Brystan sabre ready and pads toward the bedchamber door.
She follows him to the door, wordlessly.
He pauses, letting his senses recheck the hall, but it is empty, and he steps out, blade ready. The door closes behind him, Ryalth sliding the latch into place. Step by quiet step, he descends to the main level, but the house remains empty, and he moves toward the foyer and the steps up to the veranda.
Rrrrr…eeeekkk…. The dull squeaking, straining sound comes from the door from the veranda to the foyer.
Abruptly there is a single clanging sound, as if a long iron bar has fallen on the stone tiles of the veranda. Lorn’s perceptions tell him that two figures are beyond the heavy oak door. After waiting until his senses tell him that the two have turned from the door, he slides the latch-bar open and slips out, trying to use the blurring shield, then dropping it as he can sense it will distract him far too much.
Both intruders have blades in position and are moving toward the gray-haired form of Pheryk, who holds a lancer sabre at the ready.
Lorn steps forward silently, and from behind the two, his chaos-aided blade severs the taller man’s torso from his head.
The second figure glances sideways, momentarily, and both Lorn and Pheryk strike.
Pheryk’s blade cuts into the bravo’s sword arm, and the double-edged Austran blade clanks on the stones.
Lorn slashes through the man’s knee, using chaos as much as cupridium. “Don’t kill him.”
Two geese still hiss loudly-Lorn can see two other white shapes lying on the grass beside the walk.
As three other men in black appear on the edge of the veranda, longer blades flickering toward Lorn, he eases himself well around the fallen bravo, careful not to step on the fallen blade, and very glad of his ability to see in the darkness.
Two of the men attack Lorn, and the third goes for Pheryk.
Lorn parries the heavier Austran blade of the first to attack him, then steps back, mustering chaos, and flinging a crude firebolt in the face of the second.
“Aeeiii…” The man screams, dropping his blade.
The first bravo cannot help but gape, if but momentarily, at the chaosfire, and that gaping is enough for Lorn’s chaos-aided sabre to slash up through gut and ribs. As the man staggers, trying to turn his blade, Lorn’s second cut takes his wrist.
Clunnnggg. The sound of the Austran blade echoes dully across the veranda.
The chaos-fire-ravaged figure staggers, then collapses, and the sound of yet another fallen blade reverberates through the night.
Lorn turns, just in time to see Pheryk’s blade slash through the neck of the third bravo. Lorn then glances around quickly, sending his perceptions out past the now-silent fountain, but he can sense no movement, hears no sounds but those of the geese hissing, and the moaning of the fallen bravo who lies on the stones of the veranda. He looks at Pheryk, who cleans his blade on the black cloth of the tunic of the man he has dispatched.
Pheryk looks at Lorn. “Fine bladework, ser. Just bladework.”
“Just bladework, Pheryk,” Lorn agrees. “From what I can tell, there aren’t any more, and the geese are quieting.” He turns back to the one living figure lying on the stones, but addresses his words to the old lancer. “You watch the garden, just in case, please. I want some answers.”
“Yes, ser.” Pheryk, who, like Lorn, is barefoot, but who wears a pair of trousers, steps out to the edge of the veranda.
Lorn edges the fallen blade well out of reach of the badly wounded man. “Who sent you?”
The bravo grimaces and tries to spit. Lorn slashes his cheek.
“Was it Tasjan?”
The truth-reading tells him that the man doesn’t know.
“Bluyet House?…Hyshrah House…?”
“…don’t know…frig you…chaoser…”
“Assassins?”
In the end, Lorn leans forward and cuts the man’s throat. He stands and turns to Pheryk.
“No one else around, ser. Did you learn anything?”
“He doesn’t know who sent him. He was probably hired by someone acting for yet someone else.”
“That’s oft the way they work. So I’ve been told.”
Lorn looks at Pheryk. “I’d like four of these five to be found-but in the street away from here.”
“That be easy, ser. And the one who looked to have stuck his head in a stove?”
Lorn pauses. While he could use more chaos, that does not feel right. He pauses as the chill of a chaos-glass sweeps across him, then he looks at Pheryk. “He needs to vanish.”
“The harbor’s not that far, ser.” Pheryk smiles grimly. “I have my cart. I often carry refuse down there.”
“Can you manage it?”
“If I wait till just before dawn, no one will think odd of it. The others…you and I…”
Pheryk glances at Lorn. “Best you wear a cloak.”
Lorn laughs softly. “And boots and trousers.”
“A mite easier that way.”
“I’ll be back in a few moments.” Lorn walks back through the foyer door, sliding the iron latch in place behind him, then makes his way through the darkness up the stairs. The sense of a chaos-glass fades, but Lorn knows the watcher could return again at any moment.