It was as cold as an ice-store, and the only light was the faint glow of magic emanating from the sigils and spells chalked on the wall. There were two separate spells, one keeping the high and slender tower standing through even the winter storms, the second to carry people up the tower.
Dermeness Chirialt, a mage from the College of Magic, had gladly taken upon himself Isak's magical education, though his speciality was the production of armour; the price for his help was that Isak help him with his own research. One of the first tasks he'd set the young lord was to translate each of these runes, letting the syllables flow through his mind until he gained a sense of their shape and power.
He passed a hand over them as they passed, remembering those lessons, then asked Xeliath, 'Where do you want to walk?'
'Walk?' she replied as she hobbled through the doorway towards the Great Hall. 'Tonight I want to ride.'
'There's a heavy ground-frost again. It won't be safe.'
She rounded on him, her expression changed all of a sudden. 'Safe? I tell you something: guess how many times I have longed Cor the death you hide from? The months I lay in bed unable to move at all, only to find if I could move, still I was manacled to it because they thought I was a prophet?' Her accent became thicker the angrier she got.
'The pain, the loss of my beauty and strength! Pretend your future was tied to another's like a dog, as twisted as your broken body. Not safe? You entered Scree with just a bodyguard, was that safe? I will not again ride well, but I will ride. If I risk death to avoid white faces staring, I choose it.'
She turned back towards the Great Hall, adding under her breath, 'It is the only choice I have left. Everything else is decided by a saviour who cannot even save himself.'
Isak watched her go, not trusting himself to reply. His hands had tightened into fists with the effort of keeping silent, but the next voice to echo down the corridor was Xeliath's, snapping at a servant on duty in the Great Hall, demanding a horse.
'Bloody white-eyes, eh?' said a voice to Isak's right. He turned and saw Carel standing halfway up the wide stone staircase that led up to the state apartments. His former mentor wore a long green overcoat with a white collar as befitted his status as a former Palace Guard, his left sleeve was pinned back, while his right hand held a silver-headed cane. Carel claimed his balance was still a little off since Isak had performed a battlefield amputation on his right arm, but the Duke of Tirah wasn't convinced.
Tila had confirmed his guess that duels could only be demanded of to those in the habit of wearing a sword, and Carel, having passed his sabre, Arugin, on to Major Jachen, was now officially a pensioned retainer of Lord Isak's. The net result was that he could pretty well be as rude as he liked to any nobleman, and any demand for apology in the form of a duel would have to be offered to Lord Isak instead. Of course, if Isak judged his friend correctly, any illegal attack on Carel's person would see the former elite guardsman thumb a catch on his cane and suddenly regain the balance of forty years' superb swordsmanship.
'Reminding you of anything, old man?'
'No, not at all,' Carel replied breezily. 'You were much worse.'
'Were?' Isak said sourly. 'You heard her; I'm now a Saviour who can't even save himself. At the moment I'm inclined to think that might be worse than a petulant child.'
'So a petulant child might claim, but I know which one I'd prefer to share a pipe with out in the moonlight.' Carel gestured towards the Great Hall and they walked in side by side. The servant now tending the fire still had a shocked look on her face, the result of Xeliath's passing. It took a moment of panic before she remembered to curtsey to Isak as the three rangers sitting at a table rose and bowed.
Once out on the moonlit training ground, Isak took Card's proffered tobacco pouch and thumbed a wad bf tobacco into his pipe. He lit it and took a deep breath of the warm smoke before passing it over.
'I cringe every time I hear the word "Saviour".'
Carel nodded, his face partly obscured by the shadow of hair made silvery in Alterr's light. 'Don't surprise me, that's a bastard term to live up to no matter who you are.'
'I never realised how powerful the word was, the hold it takes on some folk.'
'Ah, folk are dumb as mules, you know that,' Carel declared carelessly, gesturing to the other side of the training ground where they could just make out a flurry of activity at the stables. 'Sometimes as stubborn too.'
The sky was dark. It was well past midnight, and all they could see ahead was the moonlight catching the frost on the many peaked roofs of the palace.
'Whether a saviour is needed or not, that don't matter to some. We're mortal, whatever tribe or colour.' The veteran shrugged, the stump that was all that remained of his left arm nudging Isak's sleeve. ' "Frail mortals, weak and fearful" — isn't that what it says in the Devotionals, the one to Lord Death? That's what we are, my boy, frail and weak. We don't lead perfect lives and deep down every one of us knows we could be better, as people, and as servants of the Gods. Who then wouldn't want a saviour to be the light showing us the way?'
'And they look to me?' Isak shook his head in disbelief. 'Because at some point years ago the Gods feared Aryn Bwr's revenge, only to have their tool twisted awry? I'm no example.'
'Ah, but you are, like it or not,' Carel said firmly. The man handed back the pipe then knocked the head of his cane against Isak's massive thigh. 'Whatever playing was done with your destiny, it made others see a leader in those oversized boots of yours.'
'And what about me?' Isak countered, rounding on the veteran and ducking his head so he could look the smaller man in the eye. 'Who do I look to when I run out of answers? I'll tell you now I've got sod-all clue how to deal with the fact that I can feel my own death creeping up behind me, let alone whatever games Azaer is playing. So do I look to Kastan Styrax, perhaps the only man in this Land more trouble than I am? The man I feel in my bones is going to kill me?'
'No need to take that tone with me,' Carel said sternly, 'I ain't saying I've got all the answers.' He jabbed his cane against Isak's chest and after an angry moment the white-eye stepped back. 'I'm just out here for a smoke,' Carel continued with an approving grin as he watched Isak swallow his temper, 'and who'm I to say what manner your salvation might come in?'
Isak hesitated as Carel's words seemed to rush through his body. 'Salvation? Gods, is that what I'm looking for?' Suddenly aware of the swirling winds up above him, the energy and power coursing through the darkness, he felt the cold of night fall away. Some instinct kicked into action, sending a tremble through his veins and clearing the last remaining vestiges of alcohol from his body. In its place was a sensation he couldn't place, almost like a trickle of energy waiting to be shaped into magic.
'Don't know what you're looking for,' Carel said, oblivious to what was happening to Isak as he watched Xeliath struggle into a saddle and set out at a walk for the open space of the training ground, a terrified groom at her side. 'Think Mihn's the better man to ask about salvation, even if he's getting a little strange of late too. You seen those tattoos of his? I'd never call the man a savage, no matter where he's from, but he's starting to look it with those arcane symbols tattooed onto his skin.'
'There must be a purpose to it,' Isak said distantly, prompting a snort from Carel.
'Purpose to everything, so the priests say, but sometimes you got to wonder.'
Oh, too true, my friend, Isak thought, staring blankly into the black sky, and wonder I do. Death and salvation, they're strange com-panions in any discussion. But if the strands of life and destiny are woven together, what happens if I grab one and give it a tug? If nothing works as intended around me, what would happen if I faced death head-on?