The Red Sword- The Complete Trilogy Read online

  “And your idea?”

  “Kill her.”

  Markal blinked. “Here?”

  He looked around. The air hung heavy with the scent of fruit and flowers, and bees the size of his thumb filled the air with their gentle buzz. Honey from the gardens was said to cure leprosy, and the peaches that grew from the trees sold for ten silver dinarii in the Grand Bazaar of Marrabat on the far side of the southern desert.

  The master was dead, and the thought of bringing violence to his garden filled Markal with horror. This was a place of learning, of healing. And he had no evidence the woman intended to finish what her predecessor had nearly accomplished. Perhaps she wanted something else.

  Chantmer thrust a hand within his robe where his silver-threaded belt encircled his waist. He withdrew his hand, but not before Markal caught a glimpse of something lumpy shifting within the folds. What was that, a coin purse? A meditation stone? Strange.

  “Don’t look so disturbed,” Chantmer said. “This place has seen violence before, or there wouldn’t be so many wards and runes.”

  “You think we can do it without the master?”

  “Of course,” Chantmer said. “You and I alone could manage. You will hold the incantation in your mind, and I will draw it forth with my strength.”

  “Did you see the red sword?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s magic in it,” Markal said. “More than you or I possess. Anyway, this woman has done us no harm.”

  “Other than violating the sanctity of the gardens.”

  “And we won’t fight her until we know her intentions.” Markal shook his head, more determined now than ever. “No. We won’t do it.”

  “You forbid it? Ha!”

  “We agreed already—there are four apprentices. Three of us must agree on any major departure from Memnet’s command, and this certainly counts. Nathaliey is in Syrmarria. Go for her if you wish. Then try to convince Narud.”

  Chantmer reached for his waist, then stopped and clenched his hands together, and Markal thought of what he’d spotted in the folds of the man’s robes.

  “What are you hiding?”

  “Nothing.”

  “There’s something in your robe, what is it?”

  Chantmer reared to his full height and peered down at Markal. “This . . . Bronwyn,” he said, the barbarian name spitting off his tongue, “has come to the gardens for one purpose, and you know what it is.”

  “Then help me rid it of her.”

  “Do it your way, when you tell me to, is that it?”

  Markal only hesitated a moment. “Yes. Without violence.”

  “The Harvester take you.” Chantmer’s jaw clenched, then slowly relaxed. “Very well. But when your way doesn’t work, we will resort to stronger measures.”

  Chapter Two

  Markal and Chantmer made their way out of the walled enclosure where they’d buried the head of Memnet the Great. The path to the Golden Pavilion led through two more courtyard-like gardens, down a stone staircase to the pond and fountain, then over a footbridge that spanned another pond, this one long and narrow, before turning into a forest path. It then branched toward the little stone cottages in the woods where the members of the order lived.

  Bronwyn had left evidence of her passing along the way. Here and there she’d departed from the path, her boots trampling moss and kicking up mats of leaves. She’d hacked her way through a thicket of vegetation that grew along an old stone wall and left severed vines oozing sap.

  “Curse her,” Chantmer said, slowing to study the wounded plants. “Pointless destruction.”

  “Hardly pointless,” Markal said. “There’s a method to it.”

  He pulled back the vines and exposed the wall. A rune had been carved in the stone, a word in the old tongue, it edges eroded with time, but the impression still deep. It was cool to his touch, not warm, as he’d have expected had it still been active. Yet Bronwyn had discovered it and damaged it before it could harm her. How had she spotted it?

  “I see,” Chantmer said. He bit his lip and looked troubled. They continued on.

  Visitors were not unknown here, although the gardens couldn’t be found, couldn’t even be remembered. The high king himself had once lived here many years ago, and even he had forgotten how to find the place once he’d left the order and moved to Veyre. But outsiders could be led to the garden and visit safely. So long as they were welcomed.

  Earlier in the year, after a spring rainstorm on the western plains carried the false promise of an end to the drought, Markal had brought an engineer from the king’s road building detail to the gardens upon request of the high king. The engineer badgered Memnet about cutting the king’s highway through Aristonia instead of skirting its northern border as had been agreed. When the wizard denied the request, as the observing apprentices had known he would, the engineer sputtered and threatened.

  “Damn you, stubborn old man. I could send ten soldiers and take this whole blasted garden. Cut off your beard and sell you to the nomads.”

  “You left your horse and entered on foot, did you not?” Memnet said. “Where was that?”

  The engineer didn’t look at the paths, as most men would, but glanced at the sun in the sky, then smugly pointed in a direction vaguely northeast. He had correctly identified the direction of the stables outside the gate.

  “Very well,” the wizard had said. “Find your way there. Bring me the king’s order from your saddlebags by sundown, and I will grant you leave to build your road where you wish.”

  Two days later, the dazed engineer staggered past the Golden Pavilion when Markal was meditating in the shrine. There was water everywhere in the gardens—it flowed from fountains, coursed through stone-lined waterways, and collected in ponds, before draining into the lake alongside which the man now walked, but his lips were cracked and bleeding from thirst. Markal had felt sorry for the poor fool and broke from his meditation to show the engineer to the stables and send him on his way.

  There were two entrances to the gardens, one in the north, and the other in the south. Neither had a watchtower. There were no armed guards, no barricades to impede an enemy’s progress, no visible defensive fortifications of any kind. Nevertheless, the gardens were a fortress in their own way. And that was assuming one could find them in the first place.

  Yet Bronwyn of Arvada had found her way inside and was methodically overthrowing their defenses, battering their gates and scaling their ramparts. Markal wasn’t surprised to emerge from the forest into the meadow and see the paladin sitting on the steps of the Golden Pavilion on the far side. Her sword rested across her lap.

  The Golden Pavilion had been built by Memnet the Great’s own master, who had founded the order of wizards to which Markal and his companions dedicated themselves. Its gold leaf gleamed in the sunlight, and red pillars supported the roof, which overhung a porch encircling the building. Through the open doors, a great brass bell dominated the inner platform; when rung, the sound reverberated for miles, all the way to the stone bridge over Blossom Creek. That platform was their shrine and the holiest spot in the gardens, dedicated to mastering the knowledge left them by the Brother Gods. The only spot to rival it in Aristonia was the Sacred Forest that guarded the length of the northern border of the khalifate.

  Behind the Golden Pavilion lay the backdrop of the graceful curves of the lake and its tiny islands covered with twisted, carefully cultivated trees. A path curved around the lake, entered the woods on the far side, and finally left the gardens via the south gate.

  “Unbelievable,” Chantmer said to Markal as the two apprentices crossed the meadow. “She’s desecrated our shrine.” Indeed, Bronwyn had been busy, as evidenced by the shards of wood lying on either side of her.

  Markal stared in horror at the two pillars on top of the stairs that supported the roof on this side of the pavilion. They had been carved and painted with fire salamanders, writhing dragons, and the heads of mammoths from the snowy wastelands of
the north, but Bronwyn had hacked loose chunks of red-painted carvings and exposed the bare wood below. The wounds ran several feet up and down the columns, destroying nearly all of the subtle art limned into the surface. Those figures had concealed more protective wards. Why hadn’t any of them stopped her?

  Five other people stood in the meadow leading to the lake-side pavilion. Two were keepers, their scythes still in hand from when they’d been cutting grass. Two more were acolytes, younger than Markal and his companion, and the fifth was Narud. He spotted the newcomers and walked over to join them, waving for the other four to stay where they were and keep an eye on the intruder. The apprentices stood about fifty feet from the pavilion.

  “Who is she?” Narud asked.

  “A barbarian,” Chantmer said, tone disgusted. “What else is there to know?”

  “What is she doing now?” Markal asked.

  “Says she is waiting for the master,” Narud said. “I warned her not to move, but told her nothing of the master. I guessed the two of you would arrive soon enough.”

  “And she agreed to stay put?” Markal asked.

  “She neither agreed nor disagreed. I don’t think she follows orders.”

  Narud was the youngest of the three apprentices present, only twenty-five, but due to the curiously inconsistent aging of those who embraced magic, he looked at least ten years older, while Markal and Chantmer looked considerably younger than their years.

  Markal often thought that their role as students left the apprentices stunted in youth emotionally while magic filled them with knowledge and power. He’d always known they’d need to emerge from their master’s long shadow to complete their growth, but never guessed that an assassin would force that so suddenly. Memnet the Great was dead these three weeks, and Markal desperately needed his wisdom and power.

  Narud glanced first at Markal, then Chantmer. “What do we do?”

  “Curse this woman,” Chantmer said in a low voice. “We’ll send her miserable soul to the Harvester.”

  “No,” Markal said. “We do not fight her.” He glanced at the woman, who watched with a sharp expression. Not exactly hostile, but there was violence lurking below the surface.

  “We must fight,” Chantmer said.

  “Not in the way you mean it. We don’t kill her—is that even possible?”

  Chantmer glared. “Oh, it’s possible. It’s most definitely possible.”

  “Then what?” Narud asked, not Chantmer, but Markal.

  Markal had been turning over a strategy since leaving the walled gardens, and now explained to his two companions the mixture of incantations he intended to use to rid them of the intruder before she could do further harm. Skepticism deepened on both of their faces.

  “We need Nathaliey,” Narud said when he’d finished. “Where is she?”

  “She left for Syrmarria this morning,” Markal said.

  “To see her father?” Narud asked.

  Chantmer shook his head. His eyes were deep and thoughtful beneath his heavy eyebrows. “The libraries. She’s searching for information that might help us with the master’s head.”

  “That’s only a day’s ride,” Narud said. “She might be back by tomorrow. Could we wait?”

  Markal glanced back at the paladin, who was still watching. “She might be back then, or she might be in the libraries for days. Weeks. It’s hard to say.”

  “So we send for her,” Narud said.

  “No. We don’t have time. Who knows what damage the paladin might do before then?”

  “Markal and I are in agreement on that much,” Chantmer said. “We must drive her out, one way or another.”

  “You can’t manage this,” Narud said. He glanced at Chantmer. “Either of you. Me, either. Not without Nathaliey.”

  “Markal only needs to hold the words,” Chantmer said. “You and I will do the rest. And when Markal’s scheme collapses, we’ll resort to stronger methods.”

  “You keep saying that,” Narud said. “With our strength spent? How would we manage that? Bleed ourselves to death?”

  Markal had laid out his plans, but that didn’t mean he was disinterested in Chantmer’s thoughts. But before the taller apprentice could speak, Bronwyn rose to her feet and stepped down from the stairs where she’d been perched since Markal and Chantmer arrived. She reached over her shoulder and sheathed the two-handed sword. Again, it seemed so light in her hands as to be almost insubstantial.

  The keepers and acolytes that Narud had left in place moved to block her, and the muscles in the woman’s shoulders tensed. “Stand aside,” she told them. “I’m warning you.”

  “Let her through,” Markal called.

  The others parted at Markal’s command, even the older keepers, many of whom surely held more knowledge in their heads than the raw, untested apprentice now giving them orders. Doubt washed over Markal, as corrosive as hot tea poured on a cone of hardened sugar.

  “Give us space,” he told Narud and Chantmer. “I’ll try once more with gentle words.”

  “I hear you, boy,” Bronwyn said.

  She reached a hand over her shoulder to caress the hilt of her weapon, and when she stopped walking, she was within striking distance of Markal’s head. One swift motion and the sword would strike him down.

  He held out his hands, palms up. “No harm has been done. Nothing that can’t be repaired.”

  “Where is he? Where is the sorcerer?”

  “You must be tired from the road. Sit in the pavilion and we’ll bring you water from the fountains and fruit from the orchards. Bread—I baked it this morning, and it is still fresh. Take it with honey and dates and you’ll be restored. Surely you have heard the reputation of food from our gardens and kitchens.”

  “I know what this means, to confuse and distract. Black wizardry—I won’t take your poison.”

  “Flour, egg, salt, leavening. There’s no poison in it. Just bread with honey. Fruit, water. It’s the soil of the land that makes them potent, and it’s no black magic, I promise. Be reasonable. You haven’t killed anyone, and the damage to the shrine can be repaired.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I told you, the master is dead. You’re too late.”

  “He’s not dead, that is a lie.” Her hand tightened on the hilt. “I will kill you all if you don’t tell me. And then I will put this garden to the fire. No two stones will stand one atop the other, no living thing shall grow, no patch of ground will remain unbroken until I find him.”

  Markal didn’t need Chantmer to tell him it was time to act, that his attempt at reconciliation had failed. His two companions stood behind him, one at either shoulder, and he could feel them gathering strength. Magic crackled beneath Chantmer’s skin, controlled, tense, like a drawn bowstring. Narud’s was wilder, less precise, more like water building behind an irrigation dam, ready to flood loose. Markal’s own magic was beneath the surface, strong enough in its way, but unharnessed. He would lose it all if he tried to call it.

  And so he wouldn’t. But he could act as archivist for his two companions. He’d be their own library of incantations in the old tongue, recollecting the words that refused to fix themselves in the other apprentices’ heads.

  “Animum, ut obliviscatur.” Turn her mind, make her forget.

  The words were slippery on his tongue. They wanted to drip off his lips, to be swallowed, to be chewed like gristle between the teeth until they were incomprehensible. It took great concentration to pronounce them correctly.

  Neither of the other apprentices could yet hold that particular spell in their mind, not even after lengthy meditation, but as Markal spoke, Chantmer repeated them as he lifted his hands and fixed the intruder with a hard stare. A great drop of blood rolled down each of Chantmer’s forearms and fell to the ground.

  Bronwyn blinked. Her hand slid from the hilt, and her arm went limp. She turned and looked about her with a dazed expression. She faltered as if she would fall, the weight of her armor suddenly more than she cou
ld bear.

  “Quickly, Markal!” Chantmer said. He was panting, his face flushed, and a violent shiver worked through his body. “The other spell.”

  Markal turned toward Narud. “Indicem ire uiam hinc abierit.”

  Narud repeated these words. The magic uncoiled from him like snakes and buried itself in the already confused and staggering woman. Blood ran down Narud’s arms and dripped off the end in tiny rivulets. Bronwyn turned sharply toward the path leading away from the pavilion and back toward the north gate.

  Chantmer let out his breath. “What was that last incantation? You told me before—I can’t remember.”

  “I sent her home,” Markal said. “Or started her toward it, at least.”

  Narud had bent over double, gasping, but now raised his head. “And how long will it last?”

  “Long enough.” Markal glanced at the woman, whose pace was picking up. “A day, perhaps two, before she shakes it off. She’ll ride west toward the mountains. By the time she comes to her senses, she’ll have to find us a second time. That will be even harder, and we’ll have time to rebuild our wards.”

  He gave Chantmer a sharp look. “What were you intending? You had something else in mind.” His eyes fell to the man’s waist. “What are you carrying in there, anyway?”

  “Never you mind.”

  Suspicions were growing in Markal’s mind. “Tell me, Chantmer. We have no secrets between us.”

  “Are you hiding something?” Narud asked. “Markal, what is it? What did Chantmer do?”

  Chantmer crossed his arms and turned away. “It is nothing. An idea, a thought is all. We have work to do. Explain to the keepers what you—” He stopped and his eyes widened. “Why Markal, you fool!”

  Markal followed his gaze. Bronwyn had stopped some two hundred feet distant, between the white trunks of two enormous beech trees that flanked the path as it entered the forest, forming an arcade with their limbs. What was she doing? Why didn’t she continue?

  By the Brothers, don’t stop. Go!

  The paladin reached for her sword, slid it carefully from the sheath, and held it in front of her. One hand took the blade, and she turned around to face the meadow again. She was a few hundred feet away, her face caught in the dappled light coming through the leaves overhead, but Markal swore he could sense her mind clearing simply by watching the change in her posture. She suddenly strode toward them, her face a mask of cold fury.