A NEW ASSIGNMENT

In the days and weeks that followed, Karigan had to reassess her sanity for wanting to continue her training sessions with Drent. He took her desire to learn how to fight in fancy attire to heart. He didn’t make her wear corset and dress, but he found other ways to simulate the difficulties presented by restrictive garments. He made her strap on a forty pound pack to represent the weight of her skirts, then ordered her to run around the practice grounds and participate in weapons practice while wearing it.

To train her in footwork, he buckled modified horse hobbles around her ankles to limit her movement as skirts would. He used the device, he said, on his swordmaster initiates to teach them economy of movement. Swordmastery, he said, was not about jumping around and flailing the sword through the air. It was about making each action count. There was an elegance and efficiency in simplicity.

Karigan agreed for she had seen such skill at work among swordmasters and Weapons during practice bouts and in battle. It turned brutal conflict into beauty in motion; deadly beauty.

Trying to make that economy of movement work for herself, however, proved to be another matter entirely. She could not keep count of the many times the hobbles tripped her up and she spilled unceremoniously out of the practice ring and hit the ground hard enough, thanks to the weight of her pack, that dust rose up around her. Her opponents won automatic kill points each time she fell, and while she couldn’t keep track of the points, she knew Drent and his assistants did. The points were posted at the field house at the end of every week, and competition was fierce among the trainees to attain the most points, a matter of pride and honor and desire to win Drent’s approval. Invariably Karigan was at the bottom of the list.

Her sessions left her bruised, exhausted, cut up, limping, and discouraged, but slowly, ever so slowly, she noticed her strength improving and her swordplay becoming more precise.

If trying to fight while hobbled made her feel ridiculous, knife throwing humiliated her even further. She realized, to her chagrin, that clobbering the thief at the museum with her shoe had not been a matter of skill, but of luck.

“Retain your line of sight,” Drent said during one such session. “Focus and see the knife in the target.”

Karigan squinted at the straw-stuffed dummy hanging from a wooden frame some yards away. The weight of the knife felt good in her hand. It was specially balanced for throwing. When she first received the pair, she had been quite impressed with herself and showed them off to her fellow Riders, wearing them around in her new boot sheaths. However, when Drent saw how abysmal she was at throwing, he decided to hold onto them when she wasn’t training so she wouldn’t endanger herself or others, which resulted in a good deal of ribbing from her friends.

She licked her lips and concentrated. She held the tip of the blade in her fingers just as Drent had shown her. As soon as the other trainees saw her with a knife in her hand, they scattered out of throwing distance. One wild throw had nearly killed one of them during her first session and now only Drent had the nerve to stand anywhere near her.

She would hit the target this time. She would show them. She stared hard at the dummy’s “heart” imagining the knife sticking through it. A bead of sweat trickled down her lip and she tasted salt.

Her expression set and determined, she flung her arm back for the throw, but the blade slipped from her fingers and flew over her shoulder. Someone yelped from behind. Grimacing at what she might find, she slowly turned around. The knife was planted in the ground between the feet of a Green Foot runner.

“Oops,” Karigan said. She snuck a glance at Drent whose veins were popping out on his neck.

“Oops?” he repeated quietly. Too quietly.

Karigan flinched in anticipation of the storm that was about to blow over her, but it never came. Drent passed his hand over his spiky hair, nostrils flaring. “You are hopeless,” he said, his voice full of despair. “Absolutely hopeless.” And he wandered away shaking his head and mumbling to himself.

Karigan blinked in surprise, then turned her attention to the runner who had not moved, as if still shocked by her close call with death. “Sorry,” Karigan said. “I, um, I didn’t meant to—” She gestured at the knife.

“Ung…” The girl shook her head, her eyes bulging. Moments passed before she was able to focus on Karigan and speak. “Um, the captain would like you to join her and the king in his study.”

Chills prickled along Karigan’s nerves at the girl’s words. “Thank you,” she managed to say.

The runner nodded and took off at a trot. Karigan pulled her knife from the ground and slipped it into the boot sheath, wondering what this summons might be about. She avoided the king as much as possible for all the pain and desires he stirred in her, but she knew that in the course of her duties she could not avoid him indefinitely. And now she had been summoned.

She glanced in Drent’s direction. He was busy bellowing at a pair of swordsmen across the practice field. She shrugged off the weighted pack and informed one of his assistants that she must leave, and she hurried to the castle, stopping in her own chamber in the Rider wing just long enough to change out of her work tunic and pull on a fresh shirt and shortcoat and to splash water on her face. It would not do to appear before the king covered in dust and sweat.

When she arrived at the king’s study, the Weapon at the door let her in.

“Thank you, Travis,” she murmured.

He nodded in reply, more acknowledgment than most would receive from one of the king’s stern guardians.

Sunlight glared through the study’s many windows that faced the courtyard gardens. The room had once been a queen’s solarium, and Karigan wondered if, when the king married, it would be restored to its original use and become the domain of Estora. She took a deep breath to help resist the bitter thoughts that conjured.

The king sat at his desk, its white marble surface glowing in the sunshine, reflecting onto his face, making him appear ethereal, a creature of light, while all else around him fell into shadow. His hair and beard blazed with fine gold and copper strands instead of the more subdued amber, and contrasted with his rich brown eyes.

He sat there with his hands folded before him, and the light brought to sharp relief how strong they were as it outlined muscles and tendons, his fingers adorned only by simple gold bands. Hands that wielded a sword, hands that wielded a scepter, hands that wielded power. How she wished, how she desired, those hands of light to unfold and caress her in tender strokes. Karigan shivered.

His face, however, told another story. As king, he had acquired the skill of concealing his thoughts and feelings from others, an advantage when he did not want enemies, or politicians, or supplicants to know what he was thinking. He now donned that mask, and it staggered Karigan that he should use it in her presence. She supposed it was for the best, for it gave them distance. She would wear a mask of her own as well, that of a dutiful Green Rider.

She bowed to the king. “You summoned me, sire?”

“We did.”

He was not using the royal “we,” she knew, for he never did. Someone cleared her throat and Karigan squinted toward the windows to find Captain Mapstone seated there, with legs crossed. The sun glared around her, making her a silhouette, but Karigan recognized her shape and the flare of red hair at her crown.

“Good morning, Karigan,” she said.

Karigan opened her mouth to return the greeting when a third person barreled out of the shadows at her with his arms thrown wide open.

“Garth!” she cried.

He wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug and lifted her off the floor. How could she have overlooked his presence when she entered the study? Garth was hard to miss!

“Welcome back,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest.

His laugh rumbled against her face, and he patted her on the back before setting her down. She staggered a little when he released her.

“Good to be back,” he said, grinning.

“Please be seated,” the king said. His mask remained intact, unmoved by Garth’s boisterous greeting.

After the two Riders settled in chairs next to Captain Mapstone’s, the captain cleared her throat again and gazed at Karigan.

“As you know, Garth was on an errand to the wall to check on Alton’s progress there.”

Yes, Karigan did know. She glanced anxiously at Garth, hoping to convey in that one look how much she wanted to speak to him after this meeting adjourned.

“To our dismay,” the captain continued, “Alton has been unable to make any progress whatsoever.”

Karigan’s mouth dropped open.

“It’s true,” Garth said. “The wall rejects him—won’t let him in. It refuses to trust him.”

“Doesn’t…trust him?” Karigan’s echoing him must have sounded idiotic, but Garth’s words overwhelmed her. Over two months had passed, and there was no telling when Mornhavon the Black would reappear in Blackveil Forest. And if Alton could not communicate with the wall and fix it, how much more time would be lost before a way was found?

“You more than most understand the gravity of the situation,” the king said, “which is why you’ve been chosen for a new assignment.”

“To go to the wall?”

“No,” Captain Mapstone said. “Dale is actually heading that way.”

“Dale? But how?” The Rider had been gravely wounded during the battle at the breach in the wall and remained in Woodhaven to mend.

“She wanted to go,” Garth said, “and I really thought one of us ought to be at the wall to help Alton communicate with Merdigen. She was tired of being cooped up in the mending hall at Woodhaven and Lord D’Yer’s chief mender deemed her fit to travel, so long as she did not participate in strenuous activity and rested frequently.”

“I don’t understand. How could Dale communicate with Merdigen if Alton can’t?”

“We,” and Garth jabbed his thumb at his Rider brooch, “can enter Tower of the Heavens even if Alton can’t. The wall still trusts us.”

Karigan shook her head in incredulity.

“With each passing day,” the king said, “we chance the return of Mornhavon. We must use well the time you’ve bought for us.” For a moment, the mask slipped from his face, and she saw in the depths of his eyes his concern, not just for what could lie ahead, but for her and all she had already endured. Karigan averted her gaze.

“What’s my assignment?”

“It’s actually threefold,” Captain Mapstone said. “We are sending you west, first to Selium.”

Karigan managed to refrain from jumping out of her chair and cheering. In Selium she’d get to visit with her friend Estral Andovian but she was curious to know what Selium had to do with the wall.

“One of our most frustrating issues,” the captain continued, “is our lack of knowledge, or rather, our loss of knowledge concerning the arcane arts and ancient craft, such as that used to construct the D’Yer Wall. Why or how we lost it, who can say?” She shrugged. “If certain knowledge were to fall into the hands of the enemy? Then perhaps it was deemed necessary to destroy anything that documented important creations like the wall to safeguard them. There is a chance, however, that one document has survived through the ages. Merdigen told Garth he had a dim recollection of a book kept by one of the mages who helped build the wall, a log of sorts that may offer Alton clues as to how he can bypass the guardians and begin restoring the wall.”

“You believe this book is in Selium?”

Captain Mapstone sighed. “We don’t know. Chances are it no longer exists at all, but if it does, the one person who might know something about it is the Golden Guardian.”

“Ah.” The Golden Guardian, Aaron Fiori, was Estral’s father. He was, in a sense, the lord-governor of Sacoridia’s arts, history, and culture, and he oversaw the school of Selium and the city of the same name that surrounded it, though more often than not he was traveling the countryside collecting stories and songs, playing music, and seeking talented children to bring to the school. Actual day-to-day management of the city and school was left to the lord-mayor and the dean.

“Lord D’Yer is already having his people turn their archival collections upside down for the hundredth time,” Captain Mapstone said, “and Dakrias Brown and his clerks will be doing the same here.”

Karigan smiled when the captain named the king’s newest chief administrator. Recognizing the immensity of the undertaking, she didn’t envy him his task, though he might receive aid from a ghost or two.

“It may be that the book is under some spell of concealment,” the king added, “which is why it has not come to light before. If Lord Fiori can search for it with this in mind, it may guide him. You will bear a message directly to Lord Fiori, personally written by me so he understands the urgency of the matter. And if he is on one of his travels, then I suppose you will have to approach Dean Crosley.”

There was a knock upon the door and the king’s secretary, Cummings, poked his head in. “Pardon me, Your Majesty, but the Huradeshian delegation is awaiting you in the throne room.”

The king nodded and stood, all three Riders rising with him. On his way out he paused in front of Karigan, no longer an ethereal being of light, but an ordinary man, his king’s mask slipping again. “May your journey be a safe one, Karigan,” he said. “And may it prove successful.”

Karigan could not meet his gaze. “Thank you, sire,” she murmured, but he had already left the room, the door sweeping shut behind him.

She tore her gaze from the door only to find the captain watching her closely. Then with a blink of her hazel eyes, the captain shifted her attention to Garth.

“You may be excused,” she said. “The rest concerns Karigan’s other errands and I’m sure you’ve much to catch up on now that you’re back.”

“Thank you,” Garth said. On his way out, he squeezed Karigan’s shoulder and said, “We’ll talk later.”

Karigan nodded and smiled at him as he departed.

“Now then,” the captain said, settling back into her chair, “shall we continue?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“As I mentioned, the errand is threefold. Your first and most urgent errand is to Selium. If Lord Fiori should produce this book we’re looking for, or if he should know something of it, you are to return immediately and report, and disregard the other two errands. They are of lesser importance, understood?”

“Yes.”

“The likelihood of the book existing is slim in any case, so should nothing come of your visit with Lord Fiori, the king is permitting me to send you on two additional errands while you are in the west.”

“These are not king’s errands?”

“They’re Rider business. As you may have noticed, we’ve more Riders than horses these days.” Here the captain smiled, as she often did when the subject of her new Riders came up. “I need you to visit with the man from whom we purchase our horses and tell him our needs. I’m afraid we aren’t likely to get the horses till spring or summer, but it will have to do.

“The horse trader’s name is Damian Frost and his farm is located on the outskirts of the town of Aubry Crossing.”

Karigan searched her mental map. “The border with Rhovanny?”

“Yes, and also where the boundaries of Wayman and Mirwell provinces meet as well. It’s something of a crossroads as the name implies.” The captain unrolled a map that had been lying across her lap and spread it over the king’s desk. She planted her forefinger on a speck in western Sacoridia. “Aubry Crossing’s small. People mainly use it to travel between Rhovanny and Sacoridia. There’s a garrison of boundary guards there, a few shops and outfitters, and a couple inns, and that’s about it. You’ll have to ask around for directions to Damian’s place. Everyone knows him. And if anyone else tries to sell you horses, we buy only from Damian.”

The captain told her how many head she had in mind. “We’ll give you an official certificate that Damian can redeem for currency at the garrison—much safer than carrying around purses of king’s gold. Damian will receive the rest of his payment when the beasts are delivered. Don’t worry about haggling for a price; that comes later, and it will probably be Hep closing the deal anyway.” Then she rolled her eyes. “Not that Damian has any competition, and he knows it. We just try to keep things fair.”

Karigan nodded, a trifle disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to flex her merchanting skills.

Captain Mapstone then gazed out the window and into the gardens with a whimsical smile. “I rather envy you getting to visit with Damian. He’s…well, he has a way with horses.”

And Rider horses were special, very intelligent. Karigan found herself looking forward to meeting the man who supplied them.

“My third assignment?” Karigan asked.

“Lord Mirwell,” Captain Mapstone said.

An image of gruff old Mirwell with his bear hide draped over his shoulders flashed through Karigan’s mind before she remembered he was dead. The captain meant his son, Timas, who had made Karigan’s life unpleasant during her school years at Selium. Now he was a lord-governor and she knew he would love the fact that she was a lowly messenger who must grovel before him no matter what abuse he chose to heap on her. Maybe he’d matured since those days. Maybe he wouldn’t even remember her. But how could he forget how she humiliated him in front of all their classmates that day during a bout of swordplay?

“Actually,” the captain said, “Lord Mirwell is an excuse. You’ll deliver him some innocuous message from the king. I’m more interested in you contacting Beryl. We haven’t heard from her in a good while, which leaves me a little concerned.”

Beryl Spencer was a Green Rider whose special ability allowed her to portray a role and convince others of it, which made her an ideal operative for the king. Placed in the Mirwellian militia, she had quickly earned rank as a major and gained the old lord-governor’s confidence. He had handpicked her as his aide, never suspecting her true allegiance till she helped to bring about his downfall. Afterward, Beryl returned to Mirwell Province to resume her role in the militia and as an aide to Timas, keeping an eye on him lest he decide to follow in his father’s footsteps or was approached by any of his father’s fellow conspirators who had escaped king’s law.

“If you can’t see or meet with Beryl,” the captain said, “make some careful inquiries, but nothing more. If something untoward has happened to her, do not get involved. Return to report immediately. I don’t want you endangering yourself. Most likely she is out on maneuvers with the militia—it would not be the first time we’ve had silence from her because of this.” Then she gave Karigan a penetrating look. “Are you clear on this? You are only to observe, not to get yourself in trouble.”

“Clear,” Karigan assured her. She had already had enough adventures to last a lifetime, and steering clear of potential trouble was fine with her. “Is that all?”

“Actually, no,” the captain said. “There’s one more thing. I’m sending Fergal Duff with you.”

“But he’s new—”

“Precisely why I’m sending him with you. As horses become available, I’m pairing up other Riders in hopes our new people can get a feel for being on an errand before actually having to do a solo run.”

Karigan clamped her mouth shut. It had been part of her training, too. She had accompanied Ty on several errands, but none so far afield as this one. She would be stuck with Fergal for quite some time.

“You will leave in two days. I’ll brief Fergal myself.” The captain rose from her chair and smiled again. “I’m sure you’ll leave Rider accounts in good shape so Mara can handle them—until you return.”

Karigan suppressed a groan. It appeared her least favorite aspect of the merchanting business would haunt her forever.

She found Garth in the Rider wing in the large chamber they had converted into a common room. With a long oaken table that was a gift from the king, some comfortable chairs, and a warm hearth fire blazing, it wasn’t too bad. Shelves even began to collect new books and games, replacing those that had been lost in the fire.

Garth’s bulk overflowed a rocking chair beside the hearth. He held a teacup that looked ridiculously dainty in his hands, and a book lay open across his knees.

She crossed the room and dropped into a chair opposite him, relieved no one else was around. Most senior Riders would be out on message errands and the new Riders were at lessons. Some were learning to ride, others were learning to write and figure, and still others would be at weapons practice with Arms Master Gresia.

“How did the rest of your meeting go?” Garth asked.

Karigan outlined her assignment and Garth let out a low whistle. “That should keep you busy for a while.”

“I haven’t been on a long-distance errand since forever. I hope it doesn’t snow.” She shuddered and gazed into the hearth fire. Avoiding snow was unlikely now that it was mid-autumn, and she briefly thought about all she’d have to pack to stay warm.

“At least the Grandgent won’t be frozen,” Garth said.

“True.” If they were unable to use the ferry crossing, it would lengthen the journey by weeks. She shook off thoughts of her impending travel and said, “How’s Alton? Did he mention me at all?”

Garth blew on his still steaming tea before sipping. “I’m sorry, Karigan, but he refused to talk about you. I tried, I really did, but he just wouldn’t talk.”

“Then I suppose he didn’t respond to my letter.”

“I’m afraid not.”

A silence fell between them and the fire popped. Crestfallen, Karigan could only look at her knees.

“Alton hasn’t been well, Karigan,” Garth said. “The mender down there tells me he’s still fighting the forest’s poisons in his veins. He doesn’t look very good. And the wall is frustrating him. He’s more than frustrated. You would hardly recognize him.”

“Probably not,” she mumbled.

“Be patient with him. He’ll come around—he’s had a hard time.”

Karigan frowned. And she hadn’t? Who had born the consciousness of Mornhavon the Black within her? Who had been assaulted, stabbed, and manipulated? Why did Alton get to have excuses when it was his behavior that had been execrable? Abruptly she stood and strode out of the chamber.

“Karigan, wait!” Garth called after her.

She kept walking and did not stop till she reached her own chamber. She stepped inside and heaved a long breath. Without a hearth fire to warm her room, it was cool, which in turn helped to cool her temper.

To her surprise, she discovered a white cat sitting in the middle of her bed, staring at her with pale blue eyes.

“Hello,” Karigan said.

The cat stood and stretched, then leaped off her bed, darting past her legs through the doorway. Karigan peered into the corridor, but there was no sign of it.

“Strange,” she murmured. Either the cat was phenomenally quick or she was seeing ghosts again. Ghost kitties? That was all she needed.

She shrugged. The comings and goings of the castle’s mousers, supernatural or not, were the least of her worries. She would sit down and list all the things she would want along with her for her impending journey. It would help her keep her mind off both Alton and King Zachary.