The Keys to the Realms (The Dream Stewards) Page 22

  “I suppose you’re asking if I care for her.” Rhys was reluctant, but not so much that he ended the conversation. “It’s a fair question.”

  Thorne was amused but kept a sober expression. “Have you an answer?”

  Rhys used a half-withered oak leaf to wipe the soot from his hands. “I have feelings for her, but not the ones I ought to.”

  This was a far more interesting answer than Thorne had expected. “Do you love her?”

  “Not in the way I should.” Rhys let out a weighted sigh. “Not in the way she needs.”

  “But it is love, nonetheless, isn’t it?” Thorne counseled. “How are you so sure it is not what she needs from you? Have you asked her?”

  “No, which is more my point, actually,” Rhys said, pulling absently at the moss on the stones they’d used to ring their campfire. “That is a conversation I honestly don’t want to have. As fond as I am of her…”

  “As much as you lust for her,” Thorne interjected wryly.

  Rhys let half a grin slip. “In whatever ways I may admire her, my affection for Glain does not run as deep as hers for me. And even if she were to claim herself satisfied with that, I would not.”

  “Ah,” said Thorne, a little sadly. Men of deep passions were destined to know suffering. “So you are a seeker of soul-met love.”

  Rhys gave a rueful shrug. “Whatever it is I am seeking, it has to be more than this.”

  “Seekers of soul-met love pine for something which is almost impossible to find,” Thorne warned, noticing Maelgwn’s ears, which were alert and pointing toward the woods on the far side of their little clearing. “Such a journey is long and lonely, and often ends in despair.”

  “So you think me foolish.”

  “No,” Thorne countered. “I like that you know your own heart so well. I only mean to point out that there is a reason that most men, and most women for that matter, will make do with whatever measure of love comes their way. The alternative might well be a life without any kind of love at all.”

  “A risk I seem to be determined to take.” Rhys grinned.

  Thorne gave in to a chuckle, watching Maelgwn again. His head was up now. Something in the woods had the warghound’s attention. “A true adventurer, you are.”

  “And what about you?” Rhys’s tone was more direct. “Have you a wife or a woman waiting for you somewhere?”

  Thorne almost winced. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t anticipated this question, but it never got any easier to hear. “We are alike, you and I,” he said, “Determined to take the risk.”

  “Good.” Rhys grinned at him. “I was starting to wonder if the Brotherhood required a vow of chastity or some such nonsense.”

  “There was a time, long ago, when the virtues included chastity,” Thorne explained, “but that was quickly abandoned. The men of the Ruagaire are devout men, but they are men nonetheless. The life is lonely, and a woman is welcome comfort from time to time.”

  “The Ruagaire don’t marry, then?”

  “It isn’t forbidden, but most hunters forego a family of their own.” Thorne wanted to answer his young friend honestly, but the conversation put him in mind of things he didn’t like to think about. “It is difficult to keep a wife and children when your calling claims your soul.”

  “So, are you still searching for love,” Rhys wondered, “or have you given up on it altogether?”

  “Eh,” Thorne scoffed, trying to keep the melancholy from settling over him. “A true seeker never gives up. But he might learn that finding what he’s been looking for isn’t the end of the journey.”

  “You sound like my father just now,” Rhys said. “He is fond of saying that loving my mother is the easy part—it’s what comes along because of it that’s hard. But there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for her.”

  Thorne nodded. “And that’s what you want for yourself, that same depth of devotion.”

  “Yes. Though I don’t think I’ve found it yet.”

  “Trust me,” Thorne counseled. “You’ll know when you do.”

  Maelgwn let out a low, deep-throated growl and gathered his hind legs under his haunches. Thorne kept his eyes on the trees beyond the clearing and slowly reached down with his left hand to retrieve his blade from the scabbard laid out on the ground beside him. “We have a visitor,” he murmured.

  Rhys pulled to a crouch beside the fire, meaning to look as though he were casually tending it, and pulled his boot knife. “There are two.”

  Thorne was impressed, and annoyed to have been bested. He hadn’t picked up the second set of footsteps. “Where?”

  “They were together, near the tree line across the clearing,” Rhys whispered. “But now I don’t know.”

  Thorne could sense someone, or something, stalking the perimeter of the clearing. Whoever was out there was circling them. Suddenly, a shadowy, hooded figure stepped out of the trees opposite them, and Rhys rose to confront it. In the same instant, Maelgwn sprang to his feet and spun on his tail, snarling at something behind Thorne. Before Thorne could fully react, a ropey bundle flew over his head, and Maelgwn let out a muffled yelp. He had been muzzled by mage tether.

  A strong hand gripped Thorne’s left shoulder, hard, and steel slid cold and sharp against the base of his throat. “You’re slipping, Edwall.”

  “Am I, Steptoe?” Thorne tensed, waiting for the realization to set in. He had managed to reverse and tuck his sword under his left arm so that it was at just the right angle for a quick gut-tearing upthrust, starting at the groin.

  The shadowy figure stepped toward the fire and pushed back his hood. Eckhardt held out his empty hands to show Rhys his weapons were still sheathed, all the while grinning at his brother. “Well played, Thorne.”

  Gavin pulled back his blade and the threatening grip on Thorne’s shoulder relaxed into a friendly roughing. “I owe your mutt an apology.”

  Thorne laughed. “I dare you to take off that tether.”

  Gavin stepped around to join the group, and then gawked at Maelgwn in utter amazement. “How is that even possible?”

  Rhys had already unwound the tether from Maelgwn’s muzzle and was scratching him between the ears.

  “Maelgwn likes him. Rhys, son of Bledig Rhi,” Thorne announced, “meet my Ruagaire brethren—the brothers Steptoe. Eckhardt there, and Gavin here.”

  “Remarkable,” said Gavin, extending his hand to Rhys in greeting, and then to Thorne. “Other than you, Martin was the only man that beast ever let near him.”

  “We’ve been looking for you.” Eckhardt flashed a warning glare at his brother and then gave Thorne an apologetic look over a warm handclasp. “We have sad news.”

  “I’ve heard. Master Eldrith informed me just before he tried to have me taken into custody.”

  “Eldrith?” Gavin looked at Eckhardt and then again at Thorne. “So you’ve been to Banraven. When, exactly?”

  “Nearly a week now.” Thorne cocked a suspicious eyebrow in Gavin’s direction. “Tell me what you know.”

  Eckhardt let out a soft whistle, and two chestnut geldings walked out of the woods. He pulled the bags and bedrolls from both horses and tossed them to the ground near the fire. “Settle in, my friend. There’s much to tell.”

  “What about him?” Gavin gestured at Rhys. He remained standing, but Eckhardt sat cross-legged on his bedroll next to Thorne.

  “I trust him.” Thorne threw the rest of the wood they had gathered onto the fire. “You can speak freely.”

  “He is not one of us, Thorne.” Gavin was more guarded than his brother. That was usual, but his terseness was not. “The canons of the Order exist for his protection as well as ours.”

  Thorne’s jaw set tight and he shot a glare at Gavin. He did not like to be questioned, not even by a man he called friend. “I said he is with me. Speak, or don’t. It’s entirely up to you.
”

  Gavin returned the glare with a look of aggravation and concern. He still stood, as though he were seriously considering not joining the group. The dread that had settled in Thorne’s gullet turned cold and hard.

  “Then so be it,” Eckhardt said, attempting to move past the moment. “There isn’t time for this, Gavin. It should be enough that Thorne trusts him, unless you no longer trust Thorne.”

  Thorne’s gaze was still fixed on Gavin, whose resistance wavered at his brother’s challenge but did not collapse altogether. This troubled Thorne deeply.

  “If we no longer trust each other,” he said, “then there is no Brotherhood left to honor.”

  Still Gavin hesitated a few moments more, before relenting at last. He sat next to his brother, opposite Rhys, wary and watchful of the younger man.

  “You say Eldrith tried to have you arrested,” Eckhardt began. “We heard the same thing happened to Martin, only he did not escape.”

  Thorne felt daggers stabbing at his innards now. “If it were not for Algernon, I would have shared Martin’s fate.”

  “It seems Eldrith is no longer in control of Banraven,” said Eckhardt. “There have been rumors for weeks of an insurrection, that the Stewardry has fallen.”

  “It still stands, though no longer under Madoc’s leadership,” Thorne interjected, tipping his head toward Rhys. “The new Sovereign is his mother.”

  Eckhardt arched one eyebrow in surprise, though he continued as though he were not the least bit impressed. “Martin returned to Banraven to report what he’d heard, but discovered the bad news had arrived well ahead of him. The dark mage had already stolen the sanctuary right out of Eldrith’s hands.”

  Thorne recalled the burning he’d felt as he shot down the chute into the cesspool, and just how close he’d come to meeting the dark mage. “What would Machreth want with Banraven?”

  Even as he said it, Thorne knew. Gavin’s eyebrows arched as if to reinforce his worst suspicions. The most devastating of betrayals might already have befallen them all.

  “Martin’s body did not survive the torture,” Eckhardt said gently, “but his secrets did.”

  Thorne nodded because it was the only way he dared respond. The kind of suffering black magic could bring to a man was beyond imagining, and Thorne felt sick. He was also enraged.

  “So, Eldrith sacrificed Trevanion to save himself and would have done the same to me. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Eckhardt offered up an empathetic shrug. “Sooner or later Machreth will discover that Master Eldrith also holds the secrets to Elder Keep, but in the meantime he searches for the three of us.”

  “What is Elder Keep?” Rhys had been quietly taking in the discussion until now.

  Eckhardt and Gavin both looked to Thorne. What Rhys asked was not unreasonable or even unexpected. But having the answer would force him over a threshold that once crossed could never be uncrossed. This was not Thorne’s decision to make.

  He turned to face his would-be apprentice. “From this moment forward, I will answer any question you ask. But be clear, Rhys. Do not ask unless you are willing to accept the responsibility that comes with having the knowledge. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  Rhys gave a sober nod. “I think so.”

  “Be certain,” Thorne warned. “You may not be sworn to the Ruagaire, but we will hold you accountable as if you were.”

  “I understand.”

  Though Thorne believed him sincere and committed, he wondered if Rhys had a firm sense of the singularity of the moment. Were the circumstances any less desperate, were they not already in pursuit of a common quarry, and were his mother not Sovereign of the Stewardry, this conversation would never have taken place.

  “Alright then,” said Thorne. He looked to Eckhardt and then Gavin. Neither man objected, but neither did they offer encouragement. “Has Alwen told you anything of a sacred well hidden beneath Fane Gramarye?”

  “Madoc is entombed in the Well of Tears,” Rhys confirmed. “My mother almost drowned in it.”

  Gavin was concerned. “How far has word of the well spread?”

  “Not beyond my mother’s small circle of trust,” Rhys said. “But obviously, it is known to the three of you.”

  “It is our duty to know,” Thorne explained. “In the beginning, the Stewardry was comprised of five orders, and each of those orders had a Sovereign, like Madoc. As the end of their reign drew near, each Sovereign would make a final pilgrimage to the well at Fane Gramarye to shed the wisdom they had collected into the waters so that it was preserved. And then they would journey to their final resting place, to the tomb at Elder Keep.”

  Rhys was astonished. “A wizards’ crypt?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Thorne explained. “While the Well of Tears is a bastion of knowledge, Elder Keep is a bastion of souls. Within its walls is the portal through which a mage’s essence returns to the beyond.”

  “A thin place,” Rhys realized.

  “The thinnest place,” Thorne corrected. “Nowhere else are this world and the next so close.”

  “So what have the Ruagaire to do with Elder Keep?” Rhys was nothing if not focused on the point.

  To Thorne’s surprise, Gavin interjected. “The Brotherhood first existed to protect the balance of power between the five orders and enforce the rules of governance set forth by the Sovereign’s council that oversaw the collective. We were once a peacekeeping force thousands strong. Eventually the sects were destroyed or withdrew, until all that remained of the Stewardry were Fane Gramarye and Elder Keep.”

  “The Fane survived by virtue of the veil, which to this day remains an effective concealment. And of course, its unrivaled military,” Thorne added. “The original Cad Nawdd was formed by members of the Ruagaire, you know.”

  “The Fane also survived by virtue of a pact,” said Eckhardt, “as did Elder Keep. Both exist today because the Ruagaire long ago pledged to keep safe the secrets it was created to protect, and to do so at all costs.”

  Thorne was unwilling to deny the uglier truths. “Not that the Ruagaire Brotherhood hasn’t known its dark days. Survival has required sacrifices, and not all of them were noble. Like the Stewardry, our numbers have dwindled to nearly nothing, and our purpose has been altered by time, but we are more than our reputation implies. We are not just a band of mercenary mage hunters.”

  Rhys took it all in as though it were as easily digested as quail eggs and warm milk. Either he knew more than he admitted, or he was accustomed to hearing unbelievable stories. “So what do we do now?”

  “We continue to Banraven and stop Machreth there, if we can,” Thorne said.

  “It won’t be easy travel,” Eckhardt warned. “Machreth’s demon soldiers search the woods for you every day, Thorne. I’m surprised you haven’t encountered them yet.”

  “The Hellion,” Rhys said, his tone edged with bitterness. “It was them that Machreth unleashed on the Fane. It takes three men to bring one of them down, but it can be done.”

  Thorne was more convinced than ever that his admiration for Rhys was well placed. His experience would be helpful. “I wasn’t sure what I was working so carefully to avoid,” he said, “but I have sensed something unusual skulking about.”

  “Never after dark,” Gavin observed. “It’s strange, but we’ve never seen them in the forest after sundown. We have been skirting their patrols for the last two days and traveling at night.”

  “Have you encountered the Cythraul?” Thorne was hoping to confirm his bearings. “We have been following the scent toward Banraven.”

  “No,” said Eckhardt, “but we came from Elder Keep.”

  “Does Drydwen know?” Thorne had been trying to avoid speaking of her.

  “It was she who sent us to find you,” Eckhardt said. The careful tone and half-hidden empathy in his eyes only made Th
orne feel worse. “Algernon has been sending word from Banraven to us through a new boy he’s taken to tutoring, and then we take the news back to Elder Keep. That’s how we learned what had happened to you.”

  Thorne shook his head in bemused exasperation. “Another of Algernon’s woodland waifs.”

  “He calls this one Gelf,” Gavin said. “He’s a clever lad, and reliable. Or at least he was. We haven’t seen him in nearly a week.”

  “Who is Drydwen?” Rhys asked.

  Gavin answered so that Thorne wouldn’t have to. “Drydwen is the prioress at Elder Keep.”

  Thorne stood abruptly. His mood was turning surly, and he was tired of the talk. “We’ll sleep in turns,” he said, “just to be safe. Two to rest and two on the guard, in two-hour stretches until dawn. Eckhardt and I will stand the first watch.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  By the time they had finished in the orchard and returned to the Fane, the night was edging toward dawn. The great room was empty, and the castle was quiet. There were guards posted in the vestibule and in the halls, giving Glain all the more reason to worry about what had come of Alwen’s interrogations.

  She dismissed the remaining men of the escort Emrys had assigned and stood staring at the main staircase. At the moment it seemed an insurmountable obstacle. She hadn’t the heart or the strength to climb it.

  “She’ll be waiting for us,” Nerys reminded. “The sooner we tell her, the better it will be for us all.”

  Glain wanted to believe that was true. “I wonder what she did with Euday.”

  “I would kill him,” Nerys said too easily. “But Alwen will let him live. Come on.”

  Nerys started up the stairs and Glain followed, dragging one foot after the other. She had never known such exhaustion, not even in the long, morbid days of funeral pyres and nursing the wounded after the Hellion had been defeated. But then Alwen had been stronger, and Glain had still had hope. Then she had still had Rhys and Ynyr and faith in her own judgment.

  When they passed the second-floor landing, Glain realized that she needed to take the lead, to protect Alwen’s secret. She forced herself to pick up her pace and passed Nerys on the stairs. A soldier was stationed outside the Sovereign’s chambers.