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"I do. Will you share with me what happened there? Then I can help Aejys."
"Why?" Josh glared suspiciously, moving away from Brendorn. Belatedly Josh
saw his flask lying between them. "Why didn't she tell ya?"
Brendorn picked up Josh's flask.
"Thas mine."
"I know," Brendorn extended it to him.
Josh regarded Brendorn with an odd intensity, measuring him with that inner
eye awakened by booze and the holadil, the sylvan drug that would never leave
his system. For a fleeting moment Brendorn felt like a pinioned bird beneath
that gaze. The skin on his neck prickled as he felt a pure ethereal power rise
around him. He could smell power, taste it as a dry metallic sourness on his
tongue.
Then Josh snatched the flask, and swigged from it. He wiped his mouth on his
shirtsleeve, and then capped the bottle again. His eyes, red and rheumy
looking, gained a sudden clarity. The ethereal energies came together around
the sot like a brilliant cloak. He leaned so near to Brendorn that he nearly
tipped himself over.
Brendorn stayed still, afraid the smallest movement would frighten him. He
had the sylvan gift of gaining the trust of small creatures: At that moment
the sot seemed like a small, suspicious, maybe a little frightened, creature
to Brendorn. So, although the Josh's reeking odor made the gardener's stomach
queasy, he did not move, enduring the strange examination in silent stillness.
"She didn' tell ya, cuz she din tell anyun. Jest me. Told me so. Talkin' bout
it hurt. Saw inner face." Josh folded his arms across his stomach and bent
over them in mock pain, rocking slightly. "Yer not so special, husband," Josh
sneered as he straightened.
"I guess I'm not. But I love her every bit as much as you do. I want to help
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her. I have come to die for her if need be," Brendorn said with such sadness
that Josh softened.
"I see that," Josh said suddenly, moving to sit beside Brendorn again.
So Josh told, in as great a detail as he could remember, of how Aejys had led
her warriors in the assault on Bucharsa Temple, of how she wanted revenge for
the massacred innocents at the West Temple where Thendaric died. She got
separated from her advance guard. Josh told it in a sometimes jumbled order,
going back and forth to correct himself.
Brendorn's face softened as he listened. Tears ran down Brendorn's sensitive
face. "Aejys. My dearest Aejys, why didn't you tell me? Why did you leave me
to guess?"
Josh leaned over, his shoulder pressing Brendorn's, his head on the sylvan's
shoulder, round ear pressed to pointed one, and patted Brendorn's hand
sympathetically. "Aejys jest don open up much. Not easy fer her ta do. 'Cept
with Tagalong. Yer know whut I mean."
Brendorn hugged Josh. "You've answered the last questions. I understand now.
You've given my love back to me as whole as she was before the war."
Josh shoved his flask in Brendorn's face. "Then celebrate."
Brendorn accepted the flask, wiped the mouth off with his sleeve, and took a
swig. It burned going down.
* * * *
Aejys settled on a wide smooth rock beside the falls. She ignored the water
splashing over her and turned deep within herself. She felt some small
surprise at how easily she entered the full reflective state after seven years
away from such things.
Slowly she walked through the memories that surfaced in the stillness. Aejys
stood in her ma'aram's rooms looking out the window over the courtyard where
the levies were gathering. She watched the fluttering mosaic of brightly
colored banners of clan and house; and the personal ones belonging to the
heroes granted their own mark by the queen. She saw her own banner: three
rowans circled by the ouroborus, evergreen against a royal purple.
"Do you know what you are asking, Ma'aram?" Aejys turned from the window, her
crested helmet hung from her hands by the chinstrap; she wore a silken surcoat
over her mail hauberk and leggings. "Margren hates me! That promise would
destroy me more surely than any Waejontori hell I march into."
Tears ran down Kaethreyn's strong-featured face. She was a handsome woman,
her face a perfect oval, "Margren is not your enemy! You just don't understand
her, that's all."
Aejys snorted and moved off, it was like talking to a wall. "I am not
Margren's enemy. But she makes herself mine."
"That is not true! I know it even if you do not. Promise me, Aejystrys ...
promise me you'll do nothing to harm her."
"I can't."
"For the love of God! If you cannot make me this promise, then you hold no
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love for me or your God! Go on! Go die in Waejontor! But don't come back here!
Because I'll set my life between you and your sister!"
Aejys paled, turning sick to her stomach, She threw herself down at her
ma'aram's knee. "Don't say that! You don't mean it. You can't mean it."
Kaethreyn pressed her hands to her weary face, weeping harder. "No, Aejys. I
don't mean it. I'm tired. I love you, Aejys," she lifted her daughter's face
and kissed it. "But the problems between you and Margren make me feel so sad,
so desperately sad. You are the strong one. Margren is so weak, so
vulnerable..."
"Ma'aram, stop crying. Please stop crying. I promise I will never do the
smallest thing to harm Margren. On my honor, my life be forfeit to God, I
swear it.."
My life be forfeit ... my life be forfeit ... forfeit...
* * * *
Tagalong hit the streets that night, going from taproom to taproom on the
dockside of town, discretely asking to buy a red raven. Red raven was a code
name for members of the Assassins' Guild. You let them know you were looking,
but you never went to them, they came to you.
Toward midnight she settled down in a grimy booth in a tiny hole in the wall
called The Barking Spider. Hay covered the floor to absorb the spills and
vomit which Tagalong could already smell. Down in the far corner a lean,
gnarled old mon drew on a long stemmed pipe and regarded her through the
smoke. He looked vaguely familiar, but Tagalong could not place him. The
proprietor appeared with a tankard of watered ale: as he set it down, his gaze
followed hers and he said, "Don't go messing with the gaffer, mon. Don't want
no trouble here."
Tagalong gave him a sneering headshake. She picked up her ale and pushed past
him, starting toward the old mon. Two young toughs rose from another table to
block her path.
"Gaffer don't wantta talk to ya," one of them drawled.
"Take your business elsewhere, dwarf."
The contempt in the second one's voice rankled. It had been a long day, a
longer night, and Tagalong Smith was fresh out of patience. With the
tremendous strength of her race, which always astonished the humans, Tagalong
picked up the second one and threw him across the room. He slammed against the
wall and slid down overturning chairs and a table as he went. The first
reached for his sword, but Tagalong already had her hammer out. She gave him a
poke in the stomach that doubled him over. He spewed his night's drinking all
over himself, the floor, and Tagalong. She backed off with a disgusted look,
caught sight of the proprietor approaching with three more myn and decided
that discretion was the better part of valor: especially since she did not
want to chance killing one of them and put herself at odds with the Guild if
that was what they were. She wouldn't talk to the gaffer that night, but she
felt sure that he was the man she was looking for. There would be other
nights. Tagalong whirled and raced out the front door.
She dragged home in the wee hours of the next morning, tired and worried.
* * * *
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At sunrise Suthana came out with a plate of bread and cheese and a pitcher of
frothy beer. Aejys stirred from her reverie and glanced at the food, realizing
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