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A knock pounded on the door, rattling the weathered planks.
Brok dropped his half-devoured bun on the scuffed table and took the flagon with him to the door.
Orielle swivelled in her chair to watch. Had Brok expected this visitor? Was it the man in leathers? Would it be about Grim?
He opened the door wide, but his stocky body blocked her view. The person was definitely smaller. She couldn’t hear their conversation. Brok must have dropped a Shield to prevent any eavesdropping.
Then he stepped aside.
The woman leader stood there. The mentor. What was her name? And why am I having trouble remembering? I remember Tobit and Fortis and Surrect easily enough.
“Fang’s blood, you keep it dark, Brok,” the woman scolded as she came deeper into the room. “Hello there, Orielle of the Wizard Enclave.”
She set aside her nibbled supper. “Hello. Lillias,” she remembered. She sparked another light sphere and sent it to hover between them.
The light revealed the state of the room. Brok’s discarded clothes on the chair—leathers, like his friend in the lane and the sentinels who guarded the Haven’s perimeter. A pile of wood dropped against the hearth wall. A bucket on the other side of the wood, with an empty flagon on top. The tacked-up quilt was stained from countless touches to sweep it aside. The shutter over the window had a broken hasp. Not filth, just a lack of care and attention.
“I thought you kept a neater home, Brok.” Hands on hips, the mentor gave critical eyes to the room. “This is a retreat. This is not moving forward.”
“Leave it, Lillias.” He grabbed up the remainder of his supper. “You’ll talk easier without me.” He brushed past the quilt.
They listened to his stomping feet.
“I think a little Shield?” The woman framed it as a question even as she dropped the spell over them.
Orielle folded her hands in her lap, resuming the guise of eager student. The pretense had broken Brok’s resentment against her. More politics. “Have we secret matters to discuss?”
Grey eyes narrowed. They looked like ice chips. The woman’s aura also equally chilled. “Who knows into what paths our conversation will wander?”
Orielle indicated Brok’s abandoned chair with a sweep of her hand.
Snow-white hair and fine lines around eyes and mouth revealed Lillias’ age. Large boned hands grabbed the chair to angle it toward Orielle. Her frame was slender, but her posture conveyed strength. The depths of her elemental power? Or a physical toughness? Both?
“Brok is Grim’s friend, but if you have complaints of him—.”
“I do not foresee any complaints. Grim trusted him. Besides, I can defend myself.”
The mentor’s thin lips curved in the faintest smile. “You did say that you fought and killed wyre.”
Orielle sipped her ale. “Do you have questions of me?”
“Nothing that I would ask outside the hearing.”
“Then why—?” She waved a hand to indicate the Shield.
“Precaution. A lesson I learned early which has stood for years. As you should learn it. I came, truly, to answer any questions that you have. I know Brok can be ... cross for no seeming reason. He has a short leash. His wife’s disappearance preys upon him.”
“His wife’s disappearance?”
“The strangest thing.” Lillias leaned back, as if she settled in for a long tale. “She disappeared while he was on sentinel duty. She was known for her little departures. She didn’t like the Haven. No one noticed, not until he returned. We searched, but we found no sign of her. She took very few things with her. Their arguments were the talk of the lanes, usually caused by her flirtations. When she did not return, Brok refused to believe that she had left him and the Haven.”
“Would she do that? Leave the Haven? The nearest Lowland farm is days away.”
“She wasn’t a Rho, and she’s from those Lowland farms. Her friends here say she talked about going home.”
She tore at the bun and worried the bite. “Did anyone check?”
“How could we? Why would we? She was unhappy. She said she would leave. She has. Either she will come back, or she will not. Brok cannot dwell on what is lost.”
To Orielle, the woman’s departure didn’t sound like a simple departure. Lillias had called it the strangest thing, but it didn’t sound like that either. It sounded ... worse. “That’s the reason you said Brok was retreating and not moving forward.”
“We in the Havens are used to Lowlanders not sticking to our lives here. It can be difficult for them. A valley filled with fields which means work is all you see, that and the forest surrounding us. Nothing but work inside the walls as well. And her family was days and days away from here. Once the excitement of coming to the Haven wears off, and the fine shine of lust leaves the relationship, it’s difficult for the mundane who come here. Even Rho can be tempted to resume hiding in the mundane world.”
“I thought a Rho’s element would burst out if it were not used.”
“So it is, unless it is a small wielding of the element, simple and easily controlled. Poor Brok. Zairantze had few incentives to remain here. Her departure has devastated him. His friends attempt to fill the gap, and Tobit assigned him extra sentinel duties to keep him occupied. He will leave again tomorrow night. But see, we stray far from the path I intended. I know you have questions. I doubt the Enclave kept adequate records of Rhoghieri lives, and in the decades since the alliance collapsed, they would not have cared to improve their knowledge of us.”
“That man in the crowd. He said enslaved to the Enclave.”
“The past is the past.”
“Until the past comes to your Haven, begging a renewed alliance.”
“Clever. I see the reason your ArchClan chose you as emissary.”
Clever. Grim would have a better word. And Orielle wasn’t chosen. Her more talented sister had been. Yet Adorée had backed out of the mission, and Orielle jumped to volunteer. Stupid.
“From the little I have gathered, from Grim and from your fellows today, I believe that the Rho will not want a return to the old alliance, Mentor Lillias. I have limited authority to negotiate new terms, Mentor Lillias. Iscleft Citadel needs Rho to fight the increasing forces of wyre that Frost Clime throws into battle.”
“Does Chanerro Pass not need Rho fighters?”
“I believe Commander Camisse did negotiate with a Rho Haven on that border. Their agreement can be the model for the Iscleft alliance.”
“Yet again we wander into intriguing paths that I did not intend. These are words for the Council. Ask me something more immediate, Orielle, wizard of the Enclave. Ask me about our Haven.”
She winced inwardly at that wizard of the Enclave, her lie of omission biting her again. Here, though, was her opportunity to discover information valuable to her mission. Grim had never shared any specifics. He hadn’t had time, with the Kyrgy menacing them and wyres and gobbers and the Ice Huldra attacking them.
“Tell me about Tobit and your fellow mentors. He is Earth element.”
Lillias smiled and let the words flow as easily as the Air of her element. Surrect controlled Water. His staff with its growing branches marked him as a healer, as Orielle had guessed. The newest mentor, Fortis, wielded Fire.
“Not a community gathered for a single element then?”
Lillias laughed before she launched into the founding of the Havens with their mix of elemental wielders. Iscleft Haven had held this ground in the Wilding for centuries, before the last dragon disappeared into the Wastes beyond the Wilding. Although nearly self-sufficient, the village still traded with the Lowland farms and towns.
As the woman described how everyone relied on each other, Orielle felt a growing shadow. That very dependence on each other would be part of Tobit’s accusation against Grim.
Lillias didn’t lessen Orielle’s worry. “Tobit will have other charges against him, including Grim’s alliance with you.” One white eyebrow lifted slightly. “The man has a long-standing grudge against all things wizardry. Brok is a brave man to commit to your protection.”
“Because Grim asked him to do so. How much danger is Grim in?”
“Do not fear, wizard. We Rho are too few in number to execute one of our best fighters with both element and sword. A punishment is necessary, but Grim can withstand it. After all, we cannot have our young ones deciding they can come and go at will, slipping away from their responsibilities to our community.”
“May I see Grim? Before his hearing?”
“You look as if you think he is in chains and Tobit wields a whip against him. That is not our way, wizard. Did he fight when he was led to the lock-up? No. He knew he would remain unharmed. Just as you have nothing to fear from us after your hearing. We live in the Wilding, elbow to elbow with the frontier, but we are not uncivilized.” She clapped her hands to her knees and stood.
And the pop in Orielle’s ears said the Shield was dropped, their conversation definitely over.
The woman paused at the door. “I hope I have answered enough of your questions to allay your worries, for yourself and for Grim. You do not need to fear our hearings. They are nothing like those in the Enclave.”
“Thank you, Lillias. Is this correct? Or do I say Mentor Lillias?”
She gave that rich chuckle so at odds with her ice-cold eyes and snow-hard appearance. “Mentor and Elder are necessary only in the hearing. Have you anything you need? I thought Brok would rejoin us. Tomorrow night he returns to his tri-night duty as sentinel. He’s likely asleep. The sentinels always run short of sleep. Do not wake him,” she cautioned.
“I will not.”
“Latch the door behind me.”
Orielle remembered how Brok had jiggled the latch to unlock it then kicked the door when it stuck but said nothing.
Yet as she latched the door, she wondered who had latched it behind Brok when he left.
Door shut, she stared around the room. The disappearance of Brok’s woman, Zairantze, explained the untidiness. Yet something felt wrong. Odd. Off.
Brok hadn’t offered a private chamber with a bed. A pallet before the fire would do. Here in the Haven, inside a dwelling, she would not worry about gobbers invading her campsite.
Or the Kyrgy.
She unstrapped her blanket from the pack and unrolled it before the fire. Then she unwove her braid, ran her fingers through it to loosen her hair. She scratched her scalp before she re-braided her hair for the night. Her boots went to the foot of the blanket. She wiggled her toes then decided to remove her stockings as well.
Brok had mentioned a place to wash. The idea of sleeping in all the dirt of her journey repulsed her. Surely she could find the scullery or washroom without disturbing him? She called the still-hovering light sphere, dimmed its glow, then sent it before her, past the hanging quilt.
The corridor was short and narrow, night-dark except for the pale moonglow of her sphere. She saw three doors, the second one so close upon the first that she thought it must be storage—or a staircase to the upper floor.
The first door gave off the sense of emptiness. The second one reeked of Brok’s essence. She could hear nothing behind the two planks that formed the door. Her hand hovered at the latch, and she sent an arrow of magic to the iron.
Her magic rebounded. It prickled through her hand, a thousand pin jabs, like returning circulation. She shook her hand to cast off the rebound. Brok must have spelled his door to keep her from blundering in.
Then she heard soft hissing, so muffled by the door she was shocked she heard it at all. And a groan. She snatched back.
The missing Zairantze. The door latched behind Brok. Maybe a stairway to the upper floor.
She headed to the end of the hall with its third door.
It opened easily, without a tingling spell to warn her away.
Her glowing sphere skittered around the room, showing another shuttered window and a barred door. She had found the scullery. On the outer wall ran a long bench with a dry sink beneath the window and beside it a basin and pitcher. Stacked beside the basin were folded cloths. Pegs on the inner and outer walls were joined by stretches of twine for hanging washing. Tucked beneath the bench were baskets with sprouting mounds, potatoes and onions and other root vegetables. She spied a bucket. The room felt dank, cold, and smelled of wet leather and lanolin.
The basin was empty, but the pitcher was full. Behind the basin was a small bowl with soap. Orielle splashed water in the basin, worked the soap into lather, then scrubbed her face. Then she rinsed away the soap and considered what more she could quickly do.
She shivered. Her hands prickled again. Her face prickled. Her back crawled. Ice shivered over her. Ice that felt like slime. Ice that felt weighty as stones. Skin crawling, she turned then took the two steps to see down the hall.
Light streamed under Brok’s door.
She hadn’t seen it earlier. Her own light sphere, dimmed though it was, had overwhelmed this faint light.
A faint greeny light, eerie and eldritch. Sorcery.
