Thinking back on what he’d been though, Mark found himself remembering Idaho Springs. This morning he was especially missing the steaming-hot coffee served up by the Springs Cafe. Coffee. It was high time someone introduced the coffee bean to Eldarn.
Moving softly, trying not to wake Brynne, he slid out of bed and padded over to the washbasin near the window. The clear river water was freezing; as he splashed his face he tried not to cry out. At least he was now fully awake.
Mark hadn’t mentioned Gabriel O’Reilly’s warning last night, that one of them was a traitor. Sallax. It had to be, although it didn’t seem feasible. His condition had improved since Mark last saw him: Sallax was beginning to act more like the determined partisan he and Steven had first met back in Estrad. He once again spoke in confident tones, certain of their eventual victory over Prince Malagon. But there was undoubtedly something missing; he had changed – though Mark couldn’t pinpoint what had altered. When talking with the others, Sallax exhibited his old familiar strength, but when he sat by himself, his countenance changed. Mark noticed the difference as Sallax sat near the fire: his face was that of one who had lost hope.
The wraith said he had temporarily weakened the Ronan’s convictions, but Mark didn’t know quite what the spirit meant. Now he cast about inside his mind for the banker’s ghost. Looking back at Brynne, lying naked beneath the blankets, he really hoped Gabriel was elsewhere this morning. After a moment’s concentration, he was convinced the spirit had not returned – Mark hadn’t felt him since the previous evening. Just moments after entering the cabin, he felt the ghost break their connection, calling out in a hoarse whisper before disappearing, ‘I have failed.’
Failed at what? Mark thought back, but Gabriel O’Reilly was already gone and his friends were pulling him into the welcome warmth. There was a lot of news to exchange, including Gilmour’s death. Mark could see Garec felt responsible; his eyes had filled with tears when he talked of organising Gilmour’s funeral pyre. Mark finally understood the smoke over the mountains.
Now, watching the sun creep slowly across Brynne’s blanket-wrapped body, Mark pulled his filthy red sweater over his bare torso and felt it hang on him like a dead sail on a wooden spar. He had lost weight. They all had. Steven looked worst of all. They had talked about Steven’s battle with the grettan – there was something impossible. Although Mark was getting used to believing in a dozen impossible things before breakfast, this was a bit harder: how the hell could Steven have killed the beast after losing consciousness? Lahp insisted that he had not come upon the scene until after Steven had torn the grettan apart. A powerful force must have intervened on his friend’s behalf – maybe the curious wooden staff, working of its own volition to save his life? That possibility was unfathomable too. Mark laced up his boots and left the bedroom.
Except for Lahp, who was already gone, no one else was awake. Mark poured a full skin of water into a cast-iron pot. If he couldn’t have a triple espresso, heavily sugared, he would drink an entire pot of Eldarni tecan by himself. Using some of the dry kindling near the fireplace he coaxed a small flame, added a log or two and began heating the water.
‘The whole pot, mind you,’ he whispered to the room. ‘Don’t test the mettle of my conviction.’
Conviction. There it was again, swimming just beyond his grasp. What did Gabriel mean? He attacked Sallax’s convictions, temporarily weakening them. Sallax’s convictions about what? He was a partisan. He hated Malagon and fought for Ronan freedom, for Eldarni freedom. Why attack his convictions? The mysterious wraith had said, ‘One of them is a traitor to your cause.’ A traitor to our cause. That’s not Sallax; he gave birth to this cause. What other cause could there be? Killing Malagon? Keeping evil at bay and imprisoned inside the Fold? Stirring the simmering tecan with a section of kindling, Mark, frustrated, wished Gilmour were there to help him work through these questions.
Gilmour.
‘Oh, no,’ Mark said, and swallowed hard. ‘Gilmour?’ He turned slowly to gaze at Sallax, asleep near the fireplace and asked himself more than the Ronan leader, ‘Did you kill Gilmour? Why would you do that? What convictions do you hold that need weakening?’
Brynne had told him Sallax began to improve almost immediately after Gilmour’s death. Could it be that whatever magic the ghost had used to weaken Sallax had worn off after Gilmour died? ‘No,’ Mark muttered, ‘not worn off, rather, became obsolete. Sallax’s convictions were no longer an issue, so the wraith’s power no longer had a target.’ Mark’s heart began to quicken. He needed to discuss this with someone – but not Brynne, not yet.
Steven was in the second bedroom. He had retired much earlier than the rest of the group, a fresh poultice of querlis making him drowsy. Now Mark tiptoed to the door, stepping gingerly to avoid noisy floorboards. Once inside, he pushed it closed on its leather hinges before attempting to wake his roommate.
‘What?’ Steven groaned, rolling over. ‘What is it?’
Mark was struck by how thin and weak Steven looked, but he grinned broadly, hoping to raise his friend’s spirits. ‘Hey, it’s me,’ he whispered. ‘How’re you feeling?’
‘My shoulder hurts, my ribs ache and my leg was nearly bitten off by a prehistoric creature with a bad temper and a glandular disorder. I feel like I want to sleep for another twelve hours or avens or whatever the hell they call time here, but you, my former friend, are waking me up at the crack of whatever time it is.’ He paused for breath, then asked, ‘What the hell time is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mark laughed. ‘I haven’t known in weeks – do they even have weeks here?’
‘Never mind,’ Steven sat up. ‘I smell tecan.’ He rubbed the back of one hand across his eyes. ‘Well, if I can’t think of a better reason, good strong tecan is enough for me to be glad to have you back.’
‘Sorry, this morning I can’t help. I promised myself I’d drink the whole pot.’
‘Really? No sharing? That’s not like you, Mister Public School Teacher.’
‘Nope, not a drop. It was cold where I was. I’m still warming up.’
Steven grunted, ‘Okay, I’ll join you for a second pot after I sleep until noon or whatever they call the time a whole lot later than right now.’
‘Sorry, you can’t do that either.’ Mark was suddenly serious. ‘We may have a big problem.’ Steven raised one eyebrow and Mark continued, ‘No, another big problem: Gabriel O’Reilly told me that Sallax is a traitor.’
‘Oh, shit.’ Steven was instantly awake and lucid. ‘Why? What reason did he give?’
‘He didn’t.’ Mark gestured in the air above Steven’s bed. ‘He’s a bit-’
‘Dead?’
‘Cryptic. But I believe him. He says he crippled Sallax’s confidence – no, his convictions – that night in the forest when Malagon attacked you. And last night, when I finally got here, he fled my mind right after telling me he had failed.’
‘Failed to do what?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he failed to save Gilmour.’
‘But Sallax didn’t kill Gilmour.’
‘Right, but maybe he was working with the killer. Remember Gilmour told us someone had been tracking us all the way from Estrad? That’s probably who killed him.’
Steven nodded. ‘And twice I woke up before dawn to find Sallax creeping back into camp. I thought he had just gone off for a pee or something.’
‘Sonofabitch.’ The word lingered in the room. ‘What do we do?’
‘We should confront him.’
‘Yes, by all means, confront me.’
Sallax was standing in the doorway, his rapier drawn. Mark cast his eyes about the sparsely furnished chamber for a weapon. An old wooden chair stood below the window and he rested one hand on it as he asked, ‘Why?’ His grip tightened. ‘You’re their leader; you’re a revolutionary.’