Starborn Page 4

  “Well…yes, I did, but not to stir up the thane and his followers. In fact, the captain didn’t bother to tell me the ghosts down there were Eidolon. He just said that if I wanted more of a challenge than what his people provided, I could find seasoned warriors sleeping in the crypt. And since we’d talked about searching there—and decided against it, because Thorn said Exodius gave the crypt a wide berth, having no wish to deal with the powerful spirits who resided within.”

  She cleared her throat and cast another quick glare at the captain, whom Hallow couldn’t help but note was looking smug.

  “Since we talked about searching there, I thought I’d combine two tasks into one, and get in a little sword practice while also making sure that the moonstone wasn’t there.”

  The captain sniffed. “And after you woke up the thane’s entire contingent of soldiers and enraged them by attacking their king before their eyes, you escaped and swore you would relate to the Master our conversation.”

  Hallow went so far as to raise his other eyebrow at Allegria.

  “My heart, I assure you that you are more than proficient with both your swords and bow. Challenging the spirits who sleep beneath Kelos will only end with the thane and his people seeking to avenge themselves upon us.”

  “It wasn’t like that at all—oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter now that we’re leaving for Aryia.”

  Hallow sent up a little prayer to Bellias Starsong for more patience than he seemed to have of late.

  “The captain wants you to beg him for his help,” Allegria added with a little sniff of her own.

  “Does he, indeed,” Hallow said mildly, and turned his gaze back to the captain.

  “What is it you want?”

  “You need my aid,” the captain said, a stubborn set to his jaw.

  Hallow sighed to himself. He wished to be on his way. He had spent long months locating two of the three moonstones, and now that the time had come to act, he was anxious to be underway. “For what?”

  “That I cannot tell you until you seek my assistance.”

  “I think we should run him down,” Allegria told him. “He keeps saying things like that, and it’s extremely annoying. Or I could lop off his head. It’ll take him a good hour to recover enough energy to put it back on, and we should be a long way away from Kelos by then.”

  Hallow’s shoulders shook but he managed to stifle the laughter that he knew from experience would only enrage the captain.

  “I was addressing the Master, not you,” the spirit said with injured dignity.

  “Captain,” Hallow said with as much composure as he could muster, “your assistance in maintaining Kelos is vital—”

  “Not Kelos,” the captain interrupted. “I serve the Master, not just Kelos.”

  Hallow frowned at him, for once wishing that Thorn was present so he could ask him what it was the captain wanted.

  “As the Master, I appreciate your assistance, but we are hours later starting than I wish, and—”

  “It’s the stone, you insane arcanist!” the captain bellowed, waving his hands—including the one bearing the sword—around wildly. Penn tossed his head again, backing up a few steps. “I’m talking about the stone you seek! The third moonstone! You ask me for aid, and I will tell you how to locate the third moonstone.”

  “You know where it is?” Hallow asked in disbelief. “How?”

  “Exodius told me. He had no qualms asking me for my help.”

  Hallow turned his gaze to Allegria. She looked as astonished as he felt.

  “I had no idea that’s what he was yammering on about,” she told him. “He said something about a talisman, but nothing about the moonstone.”

  They both looked back at the captain. “Where is it?” Hallow asked.

  The captain stared back at them.

  Hallow sighed again, then handed Allegria the reins and climbed down from the cart before making a bow that his former master had told him would charm even the hardest heart. He said in a voice that belied his growing sense of frustration, “Please, captain, take pity on this poor Master, and lend me your aid in locating the third of the moonstones that Exodius hid.”

  The spirit smiled and reached inside his armor to pull out a small metal object. It was covered in strange runes and consisted of a gently curved narrow pipe strung on a hide thong. He offered the object to Hallow. “Find the one known as Quinn the Mad. He lives on the Cape of Despair, in the town of Aldmarsh.”

  “Does he have the stone?” Hallow asked, thinking that although Exodius hadn’t been the most mentally stable of individuals—all arcanists had a touch of madness about them—the old man wasn’t flat out crazy. Hallow doubted if he’d entrust anything so powerful as a moonstone to someone who wasn’t worthy of such an honor.

  “Find him. He is a traveler, one who has seen more battles than you can conceive of. He will guide you to what you seek,” the captain told him with cryptic finality.

  “That means he has the stone? Or does he know where it is?”

  The captain’s form shimmered as he returned to an incorporeal state. “Find him, and he will guide you to all you seek.”

  “What interesting runes it has,” Allegria said, taking the thong bearing the strange whistle from Hallow as he climbed into the cart again. She traced a finger along the delicate silver pipe. “I don’t know some of them, but this is a rune of clarity, and the one here is of understanding.”

  “The others aren’t exactly runes as you know them. They are sigils, a type of symbol used by ancient arcanists to reach beyond the mortal world,” Hallow said, glancing at it when she slipped the thong over her head so that the whistle hung between her breasts.

  “It’s a ghost whistle?” she asked, looking at it askance.

  “It is a talisman,” the captain said abruptly. “A most important one that—no!”

  He lunged at Allegria when she raised the whistle to her lips, clearly about to sound it, but in his incorporeal form, he simply dissolved into nothing when he ran through Penn, causing the horse to rear up.

  “The only one who may use it is Quinn the Mad!” the captain’s voice came from nowhere. “For anyone else to do so is to court disaster. Heed me well, Master of Kelos—it won’t be easy to convince Quinn to help you. Do not waste your time offering the talisman to lesser beings.”

  And with that, the captain took himself off to wherever he went when he wasn’t busy patrolling Kelos and ensuring that the spirit citizens who dwelt there abided in peace. Hallow eyed the pipe, and took the reins from Allegria, telling Penn to walk on. “Why do I have the feeling that the captain’s talisman is going to give us endless grief, rather than resulting in locating the third moonstone?”

  Allegria smiled and pressed a kiss to his jaw. “Because you’re not only the most brilliant of men, but you’re also well aware that everyone who lives in Kelos is a bit twisted.”

  He pursed his lips.

  She laughed and patted him on the leg. “Yes, that includes us, although we’re not nearly so bad as the captain. I assume we’ll go find Quinn the Mad once we have the other stones?”

  Hallow hesitated a few seconds before answering.

  “I think perhaps we’ll head south rather than west.”

  She frowned. “To this Cape of Despair place?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you don’t know for certain that the talisman will lead us to the third stone. The captain didn’t come right out and say Quinn had it—which is just like him, speaking in riddles instead of answering the question put to him. Hallow, I want to find that third stone just as badly as you do, but at least we know the locations of the other two. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy to convince Sandor to give up the stone she holds, but I’d much rather have the two stones we can set our hands on than chase after the third, which may or may not be in the possession of
Quinn.”

  “Exodius told the captain where the stone was,” Hallow argued. “Or at least he left a clue that I could follow, although I really wish the captain had seen fit to tell me that three months ago when we started the search in earnest. Still, he told me, and handed over what is obviously an ancient talisman. I believe we must tackle Quinn first. It’s only a few days’ ride to the coast, and with luck, we can find a ship sailing to Aryia from a nearby port.”

  “You’re putting a lot of faith in the captain,” Allegria warned him.

  “No.” His lips twisted into a wry smile. “I’m putting my faith in Exodius. Which is far, far more worrisome, my heart. Now, do you think if I was to wrap the reins around the brake, you and I could go into the back of the cart, and indulge ourselves in a little sport celebrating the fact that we’ve been wed almost six months?”

  She laughed, her dark eyes lighting so that the little gold flecks in them glittered like sunlight. She pressed her lips to his, the warmth in them instantly lighting little fires of desire.

  “I think that would be an extremely ill-planned idea, although I appreciate the thought. Perhaps later, at night—Hallow! You can’t possibly mean to—anyone who rode up could see us!”

  He lay back on the soft furs and blankets that lined the bed of the cart, his heart singing a little song of happiness while Allegria sat astride him. He had no idea whether or not the captain was sending them on a chase that would end in success or sorrow, but he was content to face whatever befell him with Allegria at his side.

  He just really hoped for a success. Sorrow they’d had in abundance.

  Chapter 3

  Deosin Langton was bored almost to the point of insensibility. Racin’s yammering didn’t help matters.

  “Your death will mean nothing to me. Nothing to my queen. It will be completely trivial.”

  Not a man who was at all comfortable with inactivity, Deo yawned, and idly scratched a spot on his left pectoral. He wondered if something had bitten him under the silver harness that crossed his torso, tried to remember if he had seen signs of fleas on the rat that rode on the shoulder of the guard who delivered his meals, but decided that of the two, the rat was likely the cleaner.

  “I grow tired of asking you questions. Give me one reason why I should not gut you where you stand. Er…lie.”

  Now there was an itch on his back. He shifted a little on the cot, making a mental note to ask the woman who brought him water and took out his chamber pot to arrange for his bedding to be washed. No doubt the guard was the one with fleas.

  “You think your silence will save you, but it will not!” The man who stood at the door raised his voice until it echoed around the stone cell in which Deo had lived for almost an entire year. Deo paused at that thought, distracted, and glanced over to the opposite wall, where he’d used a sharp piece of flint to scratch out a tally of weeks spent imprisoned. He counted. “Kiriah blast it, I forgot last week!”

  “Nothing can save you, not your silence, not my queen’s pleas, not even your beloved twin goddesses,” ranted Racin, the captain of the Harborym, watching him with black eyes that were now tinted red, a color that almost perfectly matched his skin. “You will die as surely as the rest of your kind.”

  Deo made a neat mark next to a row that closed out that month and decided that his boredom warranted a little reward. He turned and gave Racin a long look. Nothing had changed about Racin in the last almost-year. He stood a good two heads taller than Deo; his body bound by leather and steel, his face twisted with anger. Long black hair slithered across shoulders bulging with muscles that were grotesque, a parody of mankind. Deo knew well how the use of chaos magic changed the body—he, himself, showed the signs of consuming chaos—but the changes wrought to Racin were extreme to the point of making him an abomination.

  He certainly had the personality of a body louse. Deo opted for a raised eyebrow to express his disdain. “Ah. Was that you speaking? I wasn’t paying attention.”

  Racin’s lips drew back in a snarl, giving Deo much satisfaction. There were few things he liked more than baiting Racin, although his mother had begged him to cease doing so after the last time.

  The last time was delicious. And look what it got you! A new domicile, new attendants, and the respect of the Speaker.

  Deo frowned to himself even as Racin ranted in front of him.

  Speaker? What did that mean? It was on the tip of his tongue to ask the chaos magic that spoke in his mind just what it meant, but in time he remembered his promise to Dasa. There would be no more deaths of innocents. Not at his hands, anyway.

  He eyed Racin, who was now gesticulating with one hand, little flecks of spittle flying as the monstrous man heaped verbal abuse upon Deo’s head. “Who is the Speaker?” he asked.

  “—just as soon as I learn how it is you have mastered that which eludes me—what?” For the time it took to count to six Racin stared at Deo, his eyes glowing hot with ire as he narrowed them. “I am the Speaker!”

  “Of what?” Deo thought for a moment; then, aware of the scars on his back from numerous whippings made by countless tutors who believed the only way to teach was to beat facts into him, he made a face and corrected himself. “Rather, to whom?”

  Racin seemed to swell. His chest puffed out until Deo was concerned the leather bands crossing it might snap, sending the steel rivets ricocheting around his small cell. “I am the Speaker of the Unseen Shadow, the Master of the Dark.”

  “I have not heard of this,” Deo said, frowning. He disliked it when people had knowledge that they withheld from him. “Who is this master?”

  Nezu, the chaos magic whispered in his mind.

  The name told him nothing. He was about to ask Racin who Nezu was when the captain did something he hadn’t done since the last time Deo had taunted him. He stepped into the cell. Just one foot crossed the threshold, but it was enough.

  The magic roared to life within Deo; the runes etched into the harness across his chest and bound on silver bands around his wrists and ankles lit up with a pale golden light. Rage boiled inside him that quickly narrowed into one bright, glittering intention: destruction of all things.

  Kill, the magic said, and with that one word, power flowed through his blood, making him burn from the inside. Kill the Speaker. Kill them all. Destroy this place, and become stronger, become what you are meant to be.

  The fire in his veins grew until it felt as if he was going to explode into a million white-hot embers.

  Embrace it. Use it. Kill the Speaker. Kill the unworthy. Cleanse the world and take your rightful place as master of it all.

  With a snarl of pain, Deo fought to control the urge that almost maddened him…and that threatened to consume him body and soul.

  The stone walls around him began to smoke and tremble, and Deo, desperate to avoid a repetition of the destruction of twenty-seven innocent Shadowborn, spun around and allowed the chaos power to burst out of him, blowing out the wall of the cell with a percussive blast that momentarily deafened him.

  The power in him rejoiced, flooding every iota of his being with a delirious sense of invincibility.

  As the noise of the crumbled wall and cries of people outside the wall faded, the air shifted behind him, and before Deo could leash the magic that claimed him, he was at the door, Racin’s throat in his hand. His fingers dug deep into the red flesh, but he felt no satisfaction. Rather than showing fear, Racin laughed, and slammed a red wave of pain into Deo, sending him flying backward into the rubble of what had once been a foot-thick wall.

  “Do you think to try your puny powers on me, savior of the Fourth Age?” Racin asked, his voice as rough as the sharp mortar and stone that pierced Deo’s back. “I am the Speaker of the Unseen. I walk in shadows, with death at my side. There is nothing you can do to me, as by now I would have thought you would know. This attempt proves once again that you are an
insignificant insect, as worthless as the dirt beneath my feet.”

  Deo snarled an oath. He hated it when people referred to him by the savior title. Moving with care in order to determine how badly he was injured, he got to his feet, his movements slowed by the tendrils of red chaos power that all but shackled his arms and legs.

  End this now, the power said to him, filling him again with the heat of a thousand suns.

  “I will,” he ground out, but rather than directing the power outward, he lifted his head and held Racin’s gaze while he allowed the power to slip just enough to encase him in a pale golden-red glow. It burned through the chaos bonds, then faded, the murderous rage once again controlled by the runes bound upon him. He made a mental note to add a few more, since he hadn’t liked how close he’d come to giving in to the voice in his mind.

  Always you fight me. And we could be so successful together…

  The smirk that curled Racin’s lips slipped as he beheld Deo marching toward him, free of the bondage of red chaos. He went so far as to step back, wariness tinging his black eyes when Deo brushed past him, heading to the cell across the narrow passageway.

  Deo looked around the cell. It had a view that looked out onto a valley in the distance. He nodded twice and said in a voice filled with the arrogance natural to him, “This will do. Have a servant fetch my things.”

  Racin spat out an invective, and before Deo registered that the larger man had moved, was confronted by his captor, chaos snapping in waves down Racin’s body. “You think to dictate to me?” he roared, making Deo’s ears ring.

  Pain laced his body, flaying him as no whip ever could, the magic that Racin poured over Deo cutting through flesh and muscle until it threatened to break his very bones.

  His own version of that magic, sensing the threat, came to life a second time, and gratefully, Deo pulled on it to buffer him from the worst of the assault.

  One corner of his mind absently wondered how and why his chaos had changed into something unique, but Deo had little patience for pondering the unknown, preferring instead to deal with whatever was in front of him.