Twelve moons after their departure from Belzetarn, Keir stood atop a ridge looking to the west, out over many more dim ridges creasing the shadowed land for as far as she could see in this moment before the dawn. The sky was light, a pale blue with a golden tinge. She waited, a bit breathless, for the sun to rise behind her. Soon . . . soon . . .

Then the feathery tops of the strange trees just downhill from her flushed brilliant green, as well as those on the slope across the valley. Each trunk rose branchless to a great height, where a mop of fronds puffed out, sheltering fruits with hairy rinds. Keir had never seen the like of them, nor Gael either, although Gael said he believed they were common in southern climes. Beneath them, gigantic ferns thrust like fountains from between smaller-leaved shrubs and a tangle of vines.

The warm air stood very still. Later morning would bring a breeze.

With the light came birdsong, a cacophony of twitters and more raucous squawks.

The panorama was very like one of Gael’s sketches of a vignette from the frame of the fifth panel of Olluvarde, the one showing the airship safely arrived and the children disembarking. The vignette depicted an airship settling at a mooring tower surrounded by the bizarre branchless trees.

She and Gael had assumed that the airship of the ancients must have made regular journeys inland, until they studied the sketch more closely and realized that the airship in the vignette was different from the one in the larger mural—smaller, with different designs on the envelope covering its air bags, but possessing its own lodestone. Just one, not two.

The discrepancy had prompted them to scour the other sketches for details they’d missed. Gael cursed himself for not copying all of the elegant stonework. Keir was merely thankful that he’d rendered as much as he had.

As near as they could tell, more than one airship had survived the storm that had batted one vessel to its doom in the roiling sea. Definitely two, perhaps three, had escaped to the mainland. Which meant that there had been at least three lodestones—two from the largest airship, one from the smaller—and maybe a fourth stone, if the third airship really had existed.

Gael had been heartened by the possibility that—subtracting the gong’s lodestone from the total—they had two or three stones they might find. It raised their chances of success. Keir dreamed that they might unearth all of them. She could teach other healers how to use the lodestones and between them restore many more trolls to health.

She gazed a moment longer at the view before her, watching the long shadows of the ridges retreat as the sun rose, and inhaling the rich, spicy scents floating from the exotic foliage. Then she turned away, walking back to the short bluff that sheltered their tent. Was Gael awake yet?

She peered in through the open flap.

Her blankets lay where she’d left them, unfolded on her side of the tent. On the other side, still under the top fold of his blanket, Gael was just opening his eyes.

Keir felt the corners of her mouth turning upward. Gael looked healthier than ever before, far more robust than when he’d dwelt in Belzetarn. His ankle never clicked these days, and he moved easily, without the soreness in his joints that had troubled him. But the repositioning of his energea nodes had not only granted him greater comfort. His skin had firmed up and possessed a better color, with a slight flush beneath its clear olive tone, rather than pallor. The lines bracketing his mouth and eyes had faded. The eyes themselves were brighter. And his nose had returned to the merely aquiline, no longer elongated and hooked from his troll-disease. He looked human.

He is human, Keir reminded herself. All trolls were human; humans suffering from an illness. And once she acquired an intact lodestone, she would heal them, as many as were willing.

Gael smiled back at her, his eyes warm. “I think I’ll bathe in the spring after we’ve topped off our waterbags, if you don’t mind,” he said.

Keir grinned. “I’ve already refilled them,” she said. “And bathed.”

He sat up, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Have you, now? Then I’ll wash before we break our fast, rather than after.” He rummaged around in one of the haversacks, drawing out a piece of the knotted root that they’d learned developed a fresh-smelling lather when rubbed.

“Don’t you dare bathe before we’ve checked our direction,” Keir chided.

Gael lifted an eyebrow—teasing her—then tipped the polished teardrop from the pouch that he still kept pinned at his waist.

The constellation of its scrolling energea lattice had changed gradually over the moons they’d been traveling. The protrusion that pointed back to Belzetarn had retreated until the array filled a bumpy, but symmetric sphere. No lodestone was near enough to disturb its configuration.

They’d travelled onward, inspecting the array each morning.

Keir allowed her inner sight to open. What would she see this time?

Gael turned the teardrop as she watched, and her breath caught.

The scrolls of aching gold jostled one another as they twirled, moving to allow the longest of their number to protrude beyond the others. It pointed ahead, across the ridges.

“Gael!” Keir gasped.

“I see it.” He leaned forward, reached for her hand, and brushed the back of it with his lips. “We’ve been seeking hope,” he said. “Now we’ve found it.”

Keir realized she was crying. She’d thought she’d regained hope on the day when she’d healed Gael, but now she realized that it had merely been the lifting of despair. This was hope.

“Our world will change,” she whispered.

Gael nodded, smiling gently. “Yes.”

Sovereign Night is the next book in the series!

What dark secret lurks within the Glorious Citadel at the heart of the city-state Hantida?

Gael, an illicit mage, hunts redemption with Keir, a healer who helps all who cross her path. Gael loves her loyalty to her calling—and to him—but knows that mere friendship must suffice.

Together, the two seek a cure for the affliction that not only erodes their bodies and minds, but keeps them apart. The magical lodestone that holds their salvation lies hidden in the Glorious Citadel where the city-state’s sovereign dwells.

Posing as physician and physician’s aide, hired to preside over entertainments hosted within the Glorious Citadel, they find their quest for healing entangled with the corrupt and deadly undercurrents spiraling among the courtiers and servitors of the palatial stronghold.

The trail of clues—a would-be assassin startled from the shadows, twin handmaidens stealing from the library by night, and heavily-armed warriors called reavers smuggling kidnapped victims into the citadel precincts after sundown—leads toward the ancient artifact they need, but also to the risk of a horrific death.

Both Gael and Keir must learn honesty about who they love, who they hate, and who merits their championship, or lose not only each other but life itself.

Sovereign Night is the suspenseful second novel in the Gael & Keir epic fantasy series. If you like vivid characters, high-stakes mystery, and immersive world-building, then you’ll love J.M. Ney-Grimm’s riveting adventure tale.

Buy Sovereign Night to discover the real treasure at the labyrinth’s heart today!
Amazon I Apple I B&N I Kobo I Smashwords I Global Link

Previous scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 23 (scene 106)

Need the beginning?
The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

Gael described his final interaction with Carbraes to Keir as they made their way through the bailey toward the stables. One of the cohorts was drilling on the slope, marching in complex and everchanging formations which required considerable space, so Gael and Keir had to maneuver around the edges.

Keir had recovered her equanimity, but her eyes glowed as she listened to Gael’s narrative. “You actually argued him to a standstill,” she said, her tone appreciative.

“Not really,” said Gael. “I appealed to his good judgment, which remains his guiding principle. He’s never capricious, you know.”

Keir repressed a grin. Gael saw her lips twitch upward.

“Very well,” she said, “if you won’t accept my applause for your powers of persuasion, I’ll remind you that you earned Carbraes’ cooperation by your own loyalty to him. He could not have simply wished you farewell and goddess’ speed, if he’d not been certain you would never . . . oh,”—she tilted her head, considering—“turn over a map of Belzetarn’s defenses to his Ghriana foes, for example.”

Gael allowed his eyebrow to lift. “Is it so important that I accept your praises?”

She snorted, delicately. “You did save my life, Gael!”

At the stables, Barris had already obtained horses for them and conducted their mounts outside the citadel, so Gael led the way to the small sally port on the western wall. Had it really been only the day before yesterday that he’d traversed this same path in search of Nathiar?

The beech leaves rustled in a light breeze, sending dapples of sunlight dancing on the ferns of the forest floor and over the roots crossing the narrow track.

They discovered three horses—Gael had been expecting two—in the glade of cherry trees with its bubbling spring. When Nathiar stepped out from behind the mounts, wearing a gaudy robe of yellow suede embroidered with red, purple, and copper thread, Gael knew some surprise.

“Do you accompany us?” he asked.

Nathiar snickered. “Really, my dear Gael. Me? Camping rough? No!”

“Then why—?”

“When Barris asked my direction for the way to this clearing, I thought it simpler to do the job myself,” drawled the magus. “Delegation can be such a bore, don’t you think? Good afternoon, my dear Keir,” he added.

Keir wrinkled her nose, but nodded politely enough.

Gael frowned. What was Nathiar not telling him?

“Also,” the magus continued, “I thought you might like to have this.” He shrugged Gael’s satchel of sketches from his shoulder. “Barris had omitted to pack it, and that would never do.”

“Thank you!” Gael exclaimed, further surprised. He was not accustomed to having the magus as an ally. He hesitated, considering a moment. “Wouldn’t you prefer to keep them yourself? In aid of your magical researches?” Nathiar had expressed a wish—in this very glade—that he’d had access to the information contained by the sketches long since.

“I’ve made copies, of course,” said Nathiar. “I felt sure you would urge me to it, my dear Gael. Or. Really, what am I saying? I tested near three dozen messenger boys for their drawing skills and set the best of them to sketching. So much less fatiguing than doing it myself.”

Gael chuckled and slung the satchel across his own shoulders. “You know that Keir and I depart Belzetarn? For good.”

“I nearly think I know it all, my dear Gael. My dear Keir. Really, Carbraes is a fool,” said Nathiar, his characteristic drawl disappearing from that last remark.

“Oh?” said Gael.

“Dreben will be regenen inside a decade,” snapped Nathiar.

“I thought you liked Dreben.”

Nathiar glanced at Gael in exasperation. “It has always been prudent to cultivate the troll, our new march. But did I stand in Carbraes’ boots, I’d have Dreben’s head from his shoulders tomorrow. Sooner.” Nathiar shook his head. “Carbraes can manage most trolls, but he will not manage this one.”

“Sure you don’t want to accompany us?” asked Gael.

“I’ll give you a leg up,” said Nathiar, surprising Gael yet again. Would the magus really do anything so vigorous, so menial?

But he did, clasping his hands firmly beneath Gael’s foot and boosting him upward enough that it was easy to swing the other leg over his mount’s broad back. He did the same for Keir, and Gael was somewhat bemused to note that the magus engaged in no shenanigans, and that Keir exhibited no reluctance at the close contact. Apparently all Nathiar’s innuendos about Keir were just so much persiflage and nothing more.

The third horse did not bear a riding cloth, Gael saw, but a collection of leather haversacks strapped to a pack harness. Barris had obviously been thorough in collecting all the supplies they would need. If Gael had been more observant, he’d have known there was never any question of Nathiar’s company.

“Follow the brook,” said Nathiar. “You’ll find that after a short interval of rough going, there’s a track that heads northwest. I presume you’re going northwest? Unless you have access to a boat builder?” Nathiar’s drawl had returned.

Gael checked the bags strapped onto his own mount behind the riding pad, settled his seat, and picked up the reins. Only then did he reply to Nathiar, although not with an answer to his question.

“Watch yourself, my friend. Belzetarn will always be perilous.”

Nathiar snorted. “Your friend, Gael? I hardly think so!”

Gael smiled. “Have it your way, then. My rival? I can’t term you my enemy, you know. Not anymore.”

“I’ll watch out for Barris,” said Nathiar abruptly. “And the boys in the smithies.”

“Good!” That relieved Gael’s lingering doubts. With both Carbraes and Nathiar alert, the cook and the scullions should be safe.

Keir had fastened the halter rope of the pack horse to the strap of her riding pad and was gathering her own reins. “Will you look out for Kayd, too?” she asked. “He’s a decanen in the hospital.”

“I know him,” said Nathiar. “And, yes, I’ll be sure he prospers.”

The magus nodded, lifted one hand, and turned away.

Gael paused a moment, wondering if Nathiar might glance back over his shoulder, but he did not. How strange it felt to bid the magus farewell, when Gael was more in charity with the man than he had been in decades.

Nathiar’s robed form faded into the dappled woodland understory, and Gael kneed his mount, urging the horse through the brush growing at the spring’s outlet. The ground was moist and sucked at his horse’s hooves. Then it grew uneven, and Gael had to really grip with his legs to stay on. He could hear the twigs breaking behind him as Keir followed. An odd pang twinged within as he realized he was leaving his tally room forever.

The tally room had felt so secure. He had felt secure, with every element of the vaults and the smithies tallied, monitored, and controlled. He’d believed himself to be rooted there for the rest of his life. He’d believed himself contented. He’d liked the feeling that every scroll possessed its place—its proper pigeonhole—and that every scroll occupied its given place. There was comfort in the notion of order.

But his tally room had been a narrow refuge.

And its security an illusion founded on his own divided loyalty and beset by every troll in Belzetarn who coveted Gael’s power as secretarius.

This crazy quest he’d embarked on would be far more uncomfortable and uncertain than that illusion, downright chancy. Perhaps reality always was. But it would be honest.

The ground leveled out, and the undergrowth drew back. He’d found Nathiar’s track, with the brook chuckling alongside it over sun-dappled rocks and pebbles.

Gael let his mount move forward several strides before pulling the beast up and looking back over his shoulder. Keir smiled as she emerged from the brush.

“It feels good to be away,” she said. “Are you glad?”

He gazed at her, sitting comfortably astride her horse, her straight blond hair—chin-length—a little tousled, her gray eyes serene, and her face . . . what did he see in her face? Relief? An absence of a wariness that he’d never fully realized was there before? Pleasure in his company?

All those, he decided.

“I am glad,” he answered her.

Previous scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 23 (scene 105)

Need the beginning?
The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

When Gael reached the bottom of the straight stair, emerging into the artisans’ yard beside the hospital, Carbraes’ messengers were in motion, scattering like a flock of scratching pigeons surprised by a feline. As each boy received his regenen’s orders, he dashed off. No doubt one was headed toward the castellanum, one to the stables, and another to the new march. The boy directed to the brig was already ahead of Gael, disappearing under the arch of the gatehouse between the yard and the bailey.

The brig’s opteon would not be taken by surprise, when Gael removed Keir from his custody. Nor the troll in charge of the stables, when Gael requisitioned horses. Unless Barris had already acquired the mounts to leave in Nathiar’s clearing.

Carbraes had promised to extend his watchfulness to Barris in Gael’s absence, ensuring the cook’s safety and well-being. And the troll he intended to replace Gael in the tally room was someone who would protect the denizens of the smithies. Gael could leave Belzetarn with a clear conscience. He’d removed the heavy ring of keys from his fibula and handed them to the regenen, who would bequeath them, in turn, to the new secretarius. The reality of it had still not truly come home to him.

Had Gael’s argument to Carbraes actually worked? Was he about to descend the slope of the bailey and pass out through the lower gatehouse as soon as he released Keir? Really?

The messenger who’d preceded Gael burst out of the front guardroom, sprinting away just as Gael reached the door. Within, the opteon was on his feet, looking perturbed and upset.

“My lord Secretarius!” he exclaimed. “The regenen’s messenger tells me that Notarius Keir has been pardoned and is to be released to you, but Brigenen Dreben declares that he will carry out the sentence for treason as soon as the axe-wielder arrives. It seems the messenger sent to the brigenen has not found him yet.” The troll’s voice wobbled on the edge of hysteria.

“Where is Dreben?” demanded Gael, ignoring the opteon’s incorrect title for Dreben.

“Above, by the cells,” faltered the opteon.

Gael didn’t stay for more, but rushed for the inner chambers and the stair hall. If only the spiral of steps was less tight and less steep, he’d be taking them two at a time. Dreben’s barking voice sounded disastrously from above, echoing in the stone confines.

“Haul the traitor out! Which cell does she occupy? Don’t tell me you don’t know which it is! Lunkheads!”

Gael surged up the last three steps.

The two guards still held their stations at the opening to the corridor, looking uneasily at one another and shifting from one foot to the other. The cell doors remained closed, including Keir’s, thank Tiamar.

Dreben stood on tiptoe at the far end of the corridor, peering through the grating of one of the doors. He wore the brown leather cap that he favored—with its chin strap—and a knee-length tunic of dark orange, secured at the waist by his sword belt.

Gael strode forward, intent on intercepting Dreben before he eliminated the far cells from his consideration and started checking those near Keir. As Gael passed the guards, he murmured, “Stay out of this. It’s likely to get ugly.”

Dreben swung away from the cell door. His wizened face tightened at the sight of Gael. “You!” he snarled.

Gael halted. He was well past Keir’s cell, and it would be prudent to give March Dreben some elbow room. “The regenen has issued fresh orders concerning Keir,” he stated.

“The regenen!” spat Dreben. “I know how to deal with traitors, if he does not!” The march jerked his sword from its scabbard, and charged.

Cayim’s hells! It was just like their encounter on the Cliff Stair two deichtains ago, except Dreben had been armed only with his fists that time. He could do considerably more damage with a blade.

The march seemed to cover the half-corridor length between them in two bounds, jabbing forward with the point of his sword, since the corridor was too narrow to permit a full swing.

Gael, staring at the murder in Dreben’s face, realized he’d been a fool to eschew his magery in his first fight with the troll. And he’d be a dead fool, if he eschewed it now. He barely got his shield of energea up in time.

It was reflexive, not conscious, a remnant from the many times Gael had stood at Heiroc’s side on the battleground, protecting both himself and his king.

Blue sparks sprayed, and Dreben’s sword thrust grated to a halt.

The march adjusted instantly, stabbing high at Gael’s throat, low at his groin, high again at his mouth.

Gael backed hurriedly, slamming his energetic shield up, then down, then up, parrying Dreben’s blows awkwardly. The more comprehensive shield he’d conjured in that last battle—to bring Heiroc and himself safely through the storm of blades—took a deal of concentration and preparation. This more limited buckler required movement.

Dreben’s sword moved like a serpent striking, darting in, here, there, and there. His eyes were intent, and his rage had subsided into a sort of enjoyment. Dreben liked to fight, Gael knew.

The sword flicked in to the left, then the right, then the right again.

Gael found his rhythm, parrying more smoothly, but still backing steadily.

They’d reach Keir’s cell soon, which was worrisome.

Dreben lunged in with his body and elbow, sweeping his blade back and then overhead, just barely missing the vaulted ceiling with its point, which dove down at a steeper angle.

Gael was ready for it, successfully extending the energea of his shield to block both Dreben’s elbow and his sword.

Were the two guards staying out of the conflict as he’d urged them to? Or were they rushing up to strike him down from behind? He couldn’t spare even an iota of attention from the foe in front of him to worry about possible foes behind. Dreben would skewer him like a dead rat, if he did.

Gael met a trio of belly stabs with a thickening of his shield’s energea.

He heard a couple of meaty thuds—someone falling?—behind him.

He and Dreben would emerge into the stair hall momentarily, and then Gael would be in real trouble. Dreben would have room enough to bring his full repertoire as a swordsman to bear. Gael had to do something more than defend himself.

He could unleash the black-edged gold energea that would kill Dreben with a touch, of course. But that was troll-magery. It would slide Gael’s nodes far from their proper locations—the very nodes that Keir had returned to their anchorages just yesterday. And . . . Gael had already killed one march of Belzetarn. He didn’t want to kill another. It didn’t matter that this march had every intention of killing Gael.

He was parrying fluidly now, fully into the rhythm of the fight, his body knowing where the next blow would fall almost before his mind could register it.

The door to Keir’s cell lay at his left shoulder.

He had two more steps backward, and then he would be in the stair hall. He must develop his response before that moment, before Dreben’s options widened considerably.

Gael parried.

Parried again.

And then he stepped back hugely.

Dreben bounded forward, taking that first full swing afforded by the suddenly enlarged space.

Gael dropped his energetic shield to fling a net of energea around Dreben’s blade, ducking as the sword came around in a blow that would take Gael’s head from his shoulders.

Gael twisted the energetic net, pulling the sword from its edge-first orientation to flat-first, and then slammed the weapon to the farthest reach of its arc.

The flat connected hard with the side of Dreben’s head.

The march went down like a sapped wall collapsing.

Only then—as Gael stood panting—did he note that both guards lay in awkward heaps on the floor to each side of him.

Keir’s door burst open, slamming into the corridor wall and vibrating with the force of it. Keir herself emerged before the door was all the way open, leaping into the corridor and then over Dreben’s quiescent form.

“You’re all right?” she gasped, an instant before Gael folded her close. Her hair smelled faintly of summer clover.

“I’m all right,” murmured Gael. Her body felt very good in his arms, but he set her away from him. “You?”

“I could hear the fight,” she said, her breath still rapid, her eyes a little wild. “I was afraid the guards would join in support of Dreben. He is their march.”

Gael smiled. “What did you do?”

She smiled back, calming. “Used a healing discipline on them.”

“Oh?” said Gael.

“When a treatment will be too uncomfortable—or even painful—we sometimes send the patient to sleep.” She knelt beside Skinny, checking his pulse at the neck, then nodding and looking up at Gael. “He’ll awake shortly,” she said. “Shouldn’t we get out of here before he does?”

“Probably,” Gael answered her absently, his attention returning to Dreben. The march’s face was very pale. Was he breathing? Had Gael aimed that sword too hard? Gaelan’s tears! He fell to his knees, reaching for Dreben’s chest. It rose and fell again under Gael’s palm. Tiamar be thanked!

Gael looked over at Keir. “He’s alive,” he said.

She frowned. “That’s a good thing? Gael, he intended to kill you. And me, too.”

“But we will not be here to suffer him further. Or not much longer,” amended Gael.

Her face lit. “Carbraes said yes?”

Gael nodded. “We leave with his full permission.”

Previous scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 23 (scene 104)

Need the beginning?
The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

Carbraes stood alone on the rampart, gazing out over the lake and the forested hills beyond it to the line of ice-capped mountains on the horizon, his back to Belzetarn. The regenen’s blond hair glinted in the sunlight. The white thistlesilk cape shimmered on his shoulders, a hint of small rainbows in its tight weave. A breeze fluttered intermittently off the water, carrying the resinous scent of pine on the air.

Gael had climbed past a line of boys hunched against the right wall of the straight stair and looking nervous. Not a good sign. The regenen’s messengers were usually a contented, cheerful bunch. As Gael’s brisk footfalls rang out on the rampart’s stone surface, Carbraes turned, a measuring look in his eyes.

“I gather you do not come before me to take a renewed oath of fealty,” he said drily.

“If I did?” replied Gael, approaching to a more conversational distance.

“Then I would receive your folded hands between mine and hear your pledge, of course,” said Carbraes.

“And if I did not?” Gael stopped before his regenen.

“Then your head must be parted from your shoulders.”

Yes, that was rather what Gael had expected him to answer. The corners of Carbraes’ mouth turned slightly down.

“How if I gave you a third option?” Gael offered.

“You know there is none.” Carbraes waved a dismissive hand.

“I believe there is,” countered Gael. “Keir believes there is.”

Carbraes smiled derisively. “Keir is an idealist. Surely you, a realist, know her dreams to be impractical.”

“She could not heal all the north, no,” Gael agreed. “But she could help hundreds, even thousands. She could restore the nodes of every troll under you, my Lord Regenen.”

“Does the gong even work as it did before you reforged it?” Carbraes’ voice was skeptical.

“No,” said Gael deliberately.

“Then why are you wasting your time and mine with this fancy?”

“Another lodestone exists,” said Gael. “The murals at Olluvarde showed two, only one of which was amalgamated into the gong.”

“Myth,” scoffed Carbraes. “The ancients always liked groups of two, three, or seven.”

“The panels were quite accurate regarding the energetic work they depicted. Why would they be so factual in that aspect, but fictional concerning the number of lodestones required to stabilize an airship?”

Carbraes frowned. “An airship?”

“The lodestones were brought out of Navellys on the prow of an airship, one on each gunwale. Paired that way, they preserved the craft through a devastating storm.”

“And where is this second lodestone? Did Olluvarde show that as well?” Carbraes shifted his stance to look out over the lake again. “Keir used to sit here of an evening.”

So, the regenen had found that out, had he? Had he come to Keir’s vantage point intentionally? Not by chance?

Carbraes gestured across the wide vista. “How would you find the second lodestone in all of this? Can Keir not see how many leagues lie from horizon to horizon? And the north stretches far beyond the limits of the eye.”

“The iron from the gong splashed during its reforging, and one of the droplets was sufficiently large to retain nodal energea.” Gael extracted the metal bead from the pouch he’d secured on his fibula of keys. He extended his hand, palm up; the smooth surface of the teardrop flashed like water in the sunlight. “The node within this fragment points to the node from which it came.”

He allowed his inner sight to open, curious to know where the node would point from this location. He’d checked it only from within the bailey.

The searing gold of the energea was painful to the inner senses, but the protruding scrolls pointed at the tower. Carbraes’ narrowed eyes indicated that he, too, looked with magery.

“So?” said the regenen.

“Keir and I believe that this node will also point to the second lodestone, were we to get it close enough.”

“You believe?” said Carbraes. “But you are not sure?”

“No, we are not sure,” answered Gael.

Carbraes gave a soft snort, shaking his head wearily. “So the two of you plan to kite off into the hinterlands, searching—” Carbraes’ brows quirked. “Surely not. A more ridiculous scheme I have never heard.”

“But it’s worth doing,” said Gael. “Because the prize for success is so great.”

Carbraes scrutinized Gael for a long moment. “No. Just—” He shook his head again. “No. Enough of this nonsense.” He turned toward the slot in the inner parapet where the straight stair climbed from the artisans’ yard and where his messengers presumably still cowered. “One of the boys will run to fetch Theron—or Dreben—and then you shall either take oath, Gael, or one of Dreben’s warriors shall behead you.” He placed his circled thumb and forefinger between his lips and gave a sharp whistle. “Which is it to be?”

Well, Gael had expected that Carbraes would remain unpersuaded by Keir’s vision for the future. Which was why he’d led with his weaker argument. His stronger one depended on just how accurately he understood his regenen’s character. If he were right . . . he would prevail. If he were wrong . . . Barris would be getting Keir out of Belzetarn alone, while Gael’s bloody head rolled on this very rampart.

A messenger boy burst from the slot of the stairway and rushed forward to kneel at Carbraes’ feet. “Yes, my Lord Regenen?” he gasped, looking up.

“Presently,” said Carbraes.

The boy bobbed his head and rose to stand behind his overlord.

“Which is it to be, Gael?”

This was Gael’s cue. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

“You would agree that I am afflicted with Gaelan’s mark,” he began.

Carbraes disdained to answer, merely casting Gael an exasperated glance.

Gael continued. “Had I arrived in Belzetarn unafflicted, you would have ordered me executed with no debate.”

Carbraes nodded.

“But since I was a troll, you offered me a place in your hierarchy, also without debate.”

Carbraes sighed. “I required an oath of you, Gael.”

“Yes, you did,” Gael agreed. “But you required no proof of my loyalty. Merely a statement of my good faith.”

Carbraes stood silent again.

Gael pressed his point. “Is it not so? I gave my oath, and that was enough.”

“Yes, all right,” said Carbraes impatiently.

“And my faith was good. I served you well. Without even the lesser betrayals, as you deem them, exhibited by such as Theron and Dreben.”

“Very well, yes,” said Carbraes. “I’d even go so far as to say that you served me every bit as faithfully as my dear Lord Dreas. Are you arguing that I owe you, Gael?”

“That is not my argument,” said Gael. “But you would agree that my word is good? That I do not break it?”

“Yes, yes. Your word is good. What then?” The corners of Carbraes’ mouth quirked upward. Was his sense of humor beginning to emerge, however unbidden?

“If I were to swear to you that I would never act against you, then you would know that you could rely on that oath.” Gael held his stance absolutely firm, his feet pressing down into the stone of the rampart, his shoulders relaxed and down, his chin level, his gaze meeting Carbraes’ calmly. This was his truth, and he insisted the regenen acknowledge it.

When Carbraes’ had questioned Gael’s loyalty in the wake of Theron’s thievery, Gael had questioned it, too. He’d not known whether he might—or might not—betray Carbraes for Keir. But now he knew. He might choose Keir over Carbraes. He was choosing Keir. But he would never stab Carbraes in the back, taking him unawares.

That was why he was here, now. Carbraes should have the chance, instead, to betray Gael. Tiamar willing, he would not.

Carbraes started to answer, then stared at Gael for a moment instead. “I believe I can rely on your word alone,” he said slowly. “And do.”

“No matter where I awake to greet the dawn,” said Gael. “In Olluvarde. Or somewhere much farther.”

Carbraes’ nostrils flared slightly. “I would grant you my permission to depart Belzetarn—I would even sponsor your journey—but there is a codicil to your request, is there not?” The regenen’s eyes hardened. “You wish Keir to accompany you. And Keir . . . has been accused of treason.”

Gael refused to let his gaze fall. Nor did he nod. He would let Carbraes open this next phase of their negotiation. A bargainer who stated his terms first held the weaker position. Gael needed every advantage possible.

“Well, Gael?” asked Carbraes, his eyes adamantine. “Was Theron correct? Or merely reaching? I trust you do know—now—even though you clearly did not yestereve.” His tone disapproved the delay in Gael’s understanding.

Gael made his own gaze hard and allowed his jaw to jut forward slightly. “I know exactly what has transpired in my tally room, its vaults, and the forges it monitors,” he stated. This was the danger point, but it could not be avoided.

“Which is?” challenged Carbraes.

“Which is,” said Gael deliberately, “that Keir disguised tin as copper, and copper as tin, directing each astray, to the detriment of the blades emerging from the blade smithy.”

Carbraes looked as though he’d bitten down on bitter oak mast. “So. Theron was right. She has done me and mine only harm.”

“She has done you harm,” agreed Gael, “but not only harm.”

Carbraes’ mouth turned down. “You quibble, Gael,” he said, his voice testy.

“The good, however small in proportion to the ill, must yet be weighed in the tallying, lest the tally prove faulty,” answered Gael, his own voice utterly steady. Any hint of unease would be fatal to what he attempted here.

“I am not so nice in my measurements,” Carbraes growled. “She has done great harm to me and mine. Why should I release her?”

Gael could feel the pulse in his neck throbbing. Securing his own freedom would be worth little, if he could not secure Keir’s, and he suspected Carbraes’ allegiance to reason and logic might prove weaker than usual concerning Dreas’ killer. Gael would need to use emotion in his persuasion—a less facile tool to his hand. He repressed a desire to swallow. Any hint of vulnerability now would prompt Carbraes to simply issue a regenen’s autocratic decree, retracting the opportunity he’d allowed Gael for argument.

“When Theron next crosses your will or your authority, you will execute him,” Gael stated.

Carbraes’ face grew yet more stern. “I will,” he said, curtly.

“But you would not do so, if you could yet bring him to heel and make further use of him,” continued Gael.

A sardonic expression entered Carbraes’ eyes. No doubt he was ahead of Gael’s words. He would be. But would he cut Gael off?

“Your point?” said Carbraes.

“You will take Theron’s head because his use to you is finished, not because you intend his punishment.”

Carbraes’ scorn grew marked. “I do not execute the Ghriana spies because they possess no utility to me. I execute them because they are my enemies.” The regenen shifted his weight to one foot, and then stood square again. “Keir has been my enemy from first to last. She wormed her way into a position of trust, into your trust. She used that position to kill hundreds of my warriors, warriors I rely upon, and who rely upon me. She murdered my march. I see no reason that I should spare her a spy’s fate.”

“But you do not execute even the Ghriana spies in retribution for their deeds. You do it to prevent them from carrying their intelligence back to their military command.” Gael made his gaze unwavering.

Carbraes swallowed.

“Don’t you?” Gael kept his voice as hard as his gaze.

“This time”—Carbraes’ voice grated—“I want vengeance.”

“For Dreas,” said Gael, his voice still firm.

Carbraes’ breath hissed as it rushed in and out. “For my dead,” he confirmed.

“But what would Dreas want?” probed Gael.

Carbraes’ face twisted. “Damn you!” he rasped, and whirled. Striding to the edge of the rampart, he nearly mowed down the messenger boy behind him, who dodged aside late. The regenen’s shoulders heaved. He bent his head and raised a hand to his eyes, then straightened, apparently glaring out over the lake, judging by his stance.

Gael waited a moment, and then crossed the space to stand at Carbraes’ side, saying nothing. Sunlight glittered on the water below them, and the breeze picked up. The resinous aroma of the pines strengthened. Carbraes’ rigidity softened ever so slightly.

“Keir was devastated by Dreas’ death,” Gael murmured.

Carbraes turned his head, his gaze sharp. “So she says. So she fains.”

Gael shifted to face his regenen, rather than the lake. “I watched each step she took in Dreas’ healing. When Adarn dropped that cursed gong, Dreas’ root, belly, and plexial nodes occupied their proper places.”

Carbraes’ mouth crimped in pain.

“Keir hoped to heal every troll in the North,” said Gael softly. “Would not that have been a worthy redemption for her treason?”

“It’s easier to believe his death a murder than mere . . . mischance,” grated Carbraes.

“Yes,” agreed Gael, gently. “Vengeance is . . . better than bare grief.”

Carbraes sighed, and answered Gael’s earlier question. “Dreas would have had me pardon her, and send her on her way, to find this putative second lodestone. Not because he could forgive her the slaying of his warriors—that he could never do—but because he would not forego the redemption of those still living.” Carbraes shook his head. “Dreas was even more practical than I am.”

“But this is your decision, would still be yours, even were Dreas still with us.”

Carbraes turned away from the lake to confront Gael straight on. The regenen’s face possessed a peace that had not resided there before. He took his time, studying Gael, weighing . . . perhaps everything.

“You will answer for Keir’s conduct,” he said abruptly. “That she will never take action against those under my aegis again.”

“I will,” said Gael.

“Very well. So be it,” pronounced the regenen. “Take Keir and your droplet of iron and whatever other supplies you need, and set off on your crazy quest. I wish you well of it!” His eyes gleamed for an instant. Mockery? Relief? Resentment?

“Do you wish us to return, when we find the second lodestone?” Gael considered, and then added, “Perhaps you would prefer we keep our distance.”

Carbraes’ lips twisted. “A traitor and the secretarius who failed to unmask her?”

“It was my failure,” said Gael. “Although not my treachery.”

“I never supposed otherwise, Gael.” Carbraes sniffed. “You really believe you’ll find it, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Then be free to return or not as you deem most wise for us all,” said Carbraes. “I shall trust your word—the very first and only oath you swore to me. You need not swear another.” Did his eyes soften? “Be well, Gael.”

It was goodbye.

Previous scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 23 (scene 103)

Need the beginning?
The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

The guards outside Keir’s cell glanced uneasily at Gael as he emerged. The skinny one moved to secure the door, but halted when Gael touched his elbow.

“Leave it unlocked, please,” Gael requested. He didn’t like the idea of Keir trapped in there. She was a healer, not a mage who could move dead metal.

Skinny’s eyes pinched in worry. “Sir?” he said.

“You will stand guard, as you were ordered, ensuring that the prisoner stays within and that no one save myself, or Opteon Barris, or the Lord Magus, enters. But you will leave the locks disengaged. Is that clear?” Gael pinned both trolls with his gaze.

“Yes, Secretarius,” the pair chorused.

He surveyed them a moment more, remembering how he had identified Keir’s cell at once, merely by their positioning.

“Guard the entrance to the corridor, rather than her door specifically.”

They glanced at one another and then shuffled into the stair hall, one on each corner where the corridor opened into the larger space. Skinny cleared his throat.

“Like this, my lord Secretarius?” he asked.

“Just like that,” answered Gael.

“We’ll fain we don’t know which cell she’s in, sir. If you like,” offered Skinny.

“Yes. I would.” Gael nodded curtly and strode away.

He gave similar instructions to the prison opteon in the front room—allow only Barris or Nathiar to enter Keir’s cell—and then hurried toward the artisans’ yard. The sun had slipped slightly from its zenith, causing the gatehouse shadow to creep outward by a hair, but Gael hadn’t spent as much time in Keir’s cell as he’d feared.

His life now possessed an entirely new direction. Could a life change so extraordinarily so quickly? His had.

As he crossed the grassy lower level, he searched the yard for one of Carbraes’ messengers. That would be the fastest way to locate the regenen. A hum of activity and bustle floated from the windows of the workshops lining the edges of the yard—the artisans laboring busily within—but the only trolls in sight were a cluster of apprentices outside the woodcarvers’ lodge.

Gael took the steps from the lower level to the upper two at a time.

Someone burst from the door of the kitchen annex, racing down its ramp, just as Gael reached the top of the flight of stairs. When the runner veered, leaping the short drop at the middle of the ramp, instead of passing all the way to the bottom, Gael recognized him.

Short brown hair, lean stature, kitchen apron, bright brown eyes. Barris.

The cook nearly bowled Gael over, so rushed was his approach. He gripped Gael’s forearm.

“Sias! I’ve sent nearly every scullion I could spare from the regenen’s kitchen in search of you! Gael, Dreben’s taken Keir! The Mother only knows what’s happened to the boy since, but it can’t be good. Tell me what you need, and I’ll do what I can.” Barris looked thoroughly harried.

“It’s all right. I promise it’s all right.”

“No! It isn’t! It’s the worst!” Barris cast a harassed glance around the yard, as though some recourse lay upon its sunlight grasses, and then returned to Gael’s face. Some of the tension left the cook’s stance. “You’ve seen him,” he said. “You’ve achieved his release.”

“I’ve seen him just now,” agreed Gael. “He’s all right,” he repeated.

Barris exhaled loudly, then shook his head. “I might have known you were ahead of me on this. What did the brigenen accuse the boy of?”

Gael winced. Not only was he ahead of Barris, he was a long way ahead of him. Would it harm the cook to be seen talking with the secretarius, given what Gael intended to do? He thought not. And . . . he liked this vantage point. No one could approach close enough to overhear them without being seen.

Gael pressed his friend’s hand where it lay on Gael’s forearm. “Barris, Lord Dreas is dead, and Dreben is march in his place.”

Barris swallowed, all the animation draining from his eyes.

Gael continued. “Arnoll, too, has passed from this life.”

Barris looked hurriedly at the ground, passing one hand over his brow and eyes. He stood like that a moment.

Gael waited. He had more to say, but he knew Barris would need an interval—even if a short one—in which to assimilate these losses.

When Barris looked up again, Gael spoke, telling him as succinctly as possible about Keir’s attempt to heal the old march, Carbraes’ order for the immediate re-forging of the gong, Dreben’s elevation, Keir’s subsequent arrest, and Arnoll’s death in the smithy.

“Sias, Gael!” Barris muttered, both sounding and looking a little pale. “Between Theron and Dreben I won’t stand a chance. I may as well swallow down a brew of hemlock now.”

“Theron’s schemes lie exposed to the regenen, who will keep him in check. And Nathiar will stand your friend.”

Barris searched Gael’s face. “Nathiar. Not you?”

“I am leaving Belzetarn.”

Barris gulped. “Sias and every last handmaiden of the nine! Why?”

“The gong possesses a lodestone of the ancients within it. Keir believes that if”—Gael decided not to tackle the matter of Keir being a young woman—“he locates that lodestone’s twin, he can heal trolls. I go to help him in that endeavor.”

“Heal trolls?” Barris spluttered.

“As he healed me, before he attempted to treat Dreas.”

“Who he killed!” accused Barris.

“Check the position of my nodes,” said Gael.

Barris’ breath was too fast to permit the inner sight. With an aggravated glance at Gael, the cook brought it under control. The widening of his eyes told Gael when Barris saw the changed pattern of energea within him.

“So. This ballyhoo you’re feeding me is true.” Barris shifted uncomfortably. “And you’re really going. Will Carbraes let you?”

“I believe I have the means with which to persuade the regenen.” Gael could feel the unpleasant expression on his features.

Barris swallowed. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “I’ll miss him, too. I’m already missing him.”

The seeming change of subject might have perplexed Gael on a different day, in a different place, but now . . . it was all on the table, a world of change.

Gael clamped his lips and dropped his chin slightly in acknowledgment of Barris’ sympathy. “Will you come with us, Barris?” he asked.

“No!” The cook rocked back on his heels.

Gael refrained from response.

“You really mean that, don’t you?” said Barris in a wondering tone.

Gael nodded.

“No.” This denial was more considered. “I’m needed here,” Barris added.

Gael could make that argument for himself, of course.

“Not by Carbraes.” Barris gave a slight grin, then sobered. “By the boys. I cannot leave them to Theron’s caprice. And . . . you and Keir will manage fine without me. Better even.”

“You’re sure?” Gael probed.

“I’m sure,” said Barris. “But how can I help you, Gael? I’m not convinced the regenen will bless your venture.”

“Have you any clue where Carbraes may be found? The sooner I talk with him, the sooner I depart, the better. Even does Carbraes bid me farewell, there are others who will do their best to hinder me. And Carbraes can be convinced by cogent argument. Best mine be the first and last word he hears.” Gael’s eyelids dipped.

“He’s on the rampart”—Barris jerked his head—“the one Keir always favored.”

Gael’s brows knit briefly.

“Have you stowed what you need in saddlebags?” asked Barris. “Arranged for horses? You’re not planning on striding out Belzetarn’s gate in”—Barris scanned Gael—“the tunic and trews you stand up in and nothing else, I trust.”

Gael half-voiced a laugh. “I’d thought to send a messenger boy to secure the services of one of the porters. They know packing.”

Barris shook his head. “Then that is what I can do for you,” he said. “Go on, Gael. It’s the stairs between the hospital and the feltmakers. Get!”

Gael nodded. A porter could handle the gathering of gear perfectly well, but Barris—Gael was sure—had better access to the citadel’s supplies and storerooms. And an opteon-cook possessed far more authority.

“Barris—” Gael paused.

Barris flicked his bright gaze to Gael’s face. “Yes?”

“Get Nathiar to tell you how to find a certain glade in the forest. Tie the horses there, and return within the walls. If I am wrong—if Carbraes detains me—get Keir away!”

Barris gripped both Gael’s forearms. Gael gripped his in response.

“This is goodbye, isn’t it?” said the cook.

“One way or another, yes,” replied Gael. “Be well, my friend.”

“I’ll be eating regularly,” quipped Barris, even while his grip tightened. “But you, my friend? Do you even know how to cook?”

Gael laughed. Barris’ hands loosened. Gael let his own hands fall away, turning to stride toward the stair to the old sentry walk.

Previous scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 22 (scene 102)

Need the beginning?
The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

His body, which had been feeling so heavy through all this interview, felt suddenly light. To leave Belzetarn and the personal defeat that each day there represented, to embrace a new goal, a worthy one—Tiamar’s throne!—he wanted it, wanted it so much he felt dizzy. And he thought he saw his way to it.

Keir’s forehead wrinkled. “What?” she said, puzzled.

“The lodestone within the gong possessed no special attribute that permitted you to move troll nodes, did it?” he asked in return. “It provided merely a multiplying of your own energetic power?”

“Ye-es,” she answered, her thoughts still lagging his.

“It was your own skill that healed me, was it not?” he probed further.

Abruptly she understood, her torso straightening, her eyes blazing. “Gael! We have to find that second lodestone! It exists. The gong itself proves those panels recounted history, not mere myth.”

“Hold a bit.” He’d predicted this moment—when his answer would coalesce from thin air—but it all seemed to be moving too fast now. “The other lodestones could be anywhere. How in the north could we ever find one?” he objected. “They could be destroyed, and we would never find one.”

Keir’s fingers squeezed his wrist. “I doubt it has been destroyed. You and Arnoll and Nathiar, between you, could discover no way to destroy the iron boss of the gong. And if it has not been destroyed, then this”—she released him to touch his fingers, still curled around the iron teardrop—“will lead us to it.”

“It will lead us to the lodestone contained within the gong. We don’t know that it is also drawn to its twin, the other one affixed to that airship.”

Keir tilted her head to one side. “We don’t, of course,” she conceded. “Not for certain. But I think it likely that it will. And even if it doesn’t, the other lodestone is out there. Lost, perhaps. But what is lost may be found. The gong was found, even though no one was looking. We will be looking!” She grinned.

“Now will you come with me?” she demanded.

Gael started to laugh. He’d already answered that question in the affirmative, but it had seemed impossible even as he’d said ‘yes.’ Now the impossible had become . . . not easy, but . . . inevitable.

“There’s nothing I want more,” he answered.

Could her eyes blaze any brighter? “Then let’s go. Now! Using whichever is best of your three plans!”

He glanced around him at the dark cell in which they stood, with its meager necessities. The cold smell of stone chilled his spirit, while the shadows dimmed it. He’d almost forgotten where he stood in the intensity of the moment.

“I must tell Lord Carbraes that I intend to depart.”

Keir’s shoulders lowered. “Is that necessary? Or wise?”

“I cannot just scunner out in the night”—it was afternoon, but nighttime went with the metaphor—“as though I were a thief or a blackguard. Carbraes has dealt with me in all honor. I will not recompense him with cowardice and deceit.”

Keir sighed. “He may hold you.”

“He will not,” said Gael.

“Then I will come with you,” she said.

“No!” The denial burst from him. He moderated his voice. “No, you must not. Theron may well have convinced Carbraes of your role in the disguised tin. And Theron was correct. You cannot plead innocence. Your presence before the regenen would be fatal to our aims.”

“And yours will not?” she asked, skeptical.

“It will . . . precipitate matters,” he admitted, “but in a different way. And I—” he felt an unpleasant expression settle on his face “—I will hold Carbraes to my will in this.”

Her brows quirked. “So sure?” she said.

“No,” he admitted. “Carbraes has always listened to reason in the past, but . . . this is different. He would be reasonable in condemning you, and me with you for upholding you. This . . . will require that he be merciful . . . and concerned with his legacy. I do not know that Carbraes possesses such concern. Or such mercy.”

Keir’s face tensed with a strange blend of sympathy and irritation.

“Keir, I must speak with him,” Gael said.

She stayed silent a long interval and then nodded. “When?” she asked.

“Now,” he replied. “I will see him now. And then return to you. Or send Barris or—” he hesitated “—even Nathiar to you. Go with them, if I do so. Will you?”

Her eyes darkened. “Will it mean you have failed?”

“No, it will mean that my plans are shifting,” he answered. “I think we need to move quickly. So quickly that I should not stay longer with you, plotting and planning. Will you trust me?”

She stifled a chuckle. “Gael, I do trust you.”

“Well, then—” He smiled in return.

“Go swiftly,” she said.

He held her gaze a moment and then turned toward the door.

Previous scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 22 (scene 101)

Need the beginning?
The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

Standing beside Keir, confronting the window bars between her and freedom, he wished he’d managed to preserve—or create—better options. Perhaps better options simply could not exist within a troll stronghold. That was certainly the conclusion he’d drawn, over and over again, during his years in Belzetarn. The tower swallowed down hope like a dragon gulping knights errant.

Keir started to hand the iron droplet back to him, but then brought it closer to her, slowing her breath, and opening her inner vision again.

Gael followed her lead. “That’s strange,” he murmured.

“What’s strange?” she asked.

He took the droplet delicately between his fingers. “Do you see that the scrolling lattice is asymmetric?”

“I’ve not studied broken nodes,”she answered. “Couldn’t the asymmetry be characteristic of them?”

“Perhaps it is,” he said. “But watch while I turn the iron. I think . . .”

He shook his head and began to twirl the droplet slowly, scrutinizing the tiny array as it revolved. The energetic arcs did not maintain a static configuration as they spun. Rather, each curling scroll altered its position in relation to the others, so that the longest protrusion remained on the side of the node pointing to . . . what did it point toward? Gael worked out the orientation in his mind.

It pointed toward Belzetarn’s tower.

“What does it mean?” Keir asked.

Gael’s brows knit, then smoothed. “I have a hunch, but I’ll need to test it,” he said.

Keir gripped her lower lip with her teeth. “What does it involve?” she asked.

“No magery.” Gael smiled a little sadly.

“What then?”

“I must take it outside to different places within the bailey and check its configuration.” He nodded definitively. “And then I’ll come back and tell you what I see.”

Her mouth straightened in exasperation. “Can’t you just tell me?” she demanded.

Gael repressed a smile. “I could, of course. But I’d rather talk of a certainty than a mere possibility, and my test will not take long.”

She glanced at him sidelong, but gestured him toward the door.

Gael went on swift feet.

He got strange looks at every step of his test.

The guards outside Keir’s cell thought it odd that he would leave for only moments and then return. The opteon in the front room clearly thought the same. The sentries on the curtain walls watched and pointed as he walked to random locations in the bailey, stopped at each for apparently no reason, and then walked on to the next. And the messenger boy, who dodged around him at close quarters, saw him staring raptly at the small nugget of metal while turning it slowly in his fingers, and must have wondered if he were a madman.

But he was able to share the certainty he sought with Keir.

“No matter where I stand, it points always at the tower,” he told her.

“But it can’t be the tower that attracts it,” she stated. “That would make no sense.”

“It’s the gong,” said Gael. “The metal from which it came.”

“The lodestone from which it came,” corrected Keir, her expression wondering.

Gael nodded. “Yes. It has to be.”

“But how does that permit us to salvage . . . anything?” Keir asked.

“I’m not sure,” he confessed, “but there’s something—some idea, some possibility nudging at the edge of my thoughts—that promises an answer. This droplet”—he tapped its polished surface with one fingernail—“points the way, if only we can link the right pieces of our situation together.”

Tension tightened Keir’s face. “Gael . . . we don’t have much time to pull these pieces of yours together. I don’t have much time. Carbraes might push my sentencing until after the funerary rites and Dreben’s investment, but he also might not. He could sentence me this very afternoon!”

She was right, of course.

But Gael had the sense that just as the final snowflake falling on a steep snowbound slope might start an avalanche, so an idea inspired by the last two days of events might shift his perspective so radically that his way forward would not merely appear, but seem so obvious that he would wonder that he’d ever missed it.

He closed his fingers around the iron droplet, concealing it, and searched for words with which to reassure Keir.

“When I near the bottom of a tally sheet, with but a sliver of parchment remaining, I don’t require stacks of additional sheets to finish my tally. I need only one, and truly only the top of that one,” he said slowly. “I just need . . . a moment now, not a day, or an afternoon, or even a full turn of the glass. There’s something I know, or that I’ve seen, that I’m forgetting.”

Keir shook her head. “Gael, it’s not something you’re forgetting or that you’re overlooking. It’s something you’ve been resisting all along. You must leave Belzetarn. As must I.”

Gael shifted his stance, leaning one hand on the sill of the barred window. “How will that answer? Wandering the wilds until a band of renegade trolls cut us down? Or Carbraes’ own legions, sent to do just that? And should we escape either of those fates, a winter storm or a pack of wolves straying down from the northern wastes will take us.”

Gael had ruled out solitary roaming as a reasonable choice long ago.

Keir perched herself on the sill, facing Gael.

“But don’t you see?” she said. “The lodestone in the heart of the gong sat at the bottom of that ruined well in Olluvarde, lost and unused for uncounted ages. And yet, all the time, it was there for the finding. If only someone had been looking, we might have had healing for the truldemagar before I was even born. Our ancestors were not stupid! They must have created more than one solution in all the eons that have passed. We should be out there looking!” Her hand closed into a fist. “Finding that solution—or those solutions—is the one truly worthy thing we can do to end this long war between those who bear Gaelan’s mark and those who do not. Even if we seek and never find anything, we’ll have done the right thing, instead of merely tallying which evil is the lesser of the two wrong choices available to us.”

She was right again. His doubts and his caution seemed suddenly petty when viewed against the tapestry she portrayed. Doubt might be accurate, but a man could lose himself in always compounding for what was practical and prudent. He had lost himself. And Keir was offering a way by which he might seek redemption.

Yet he did doubt.

The quest she sketched was a young person’s dream, conjured by inexperience that had not yet seen how luck alone was rarely sufficient to solve even simple problems, let alone complex and longstanding ones such as troll-disease.

Keir’s gaze grew almost tender. “Will you help me? Can you help me? Can you get me out of here? And will you come with me when you do?”

Gael’s lips twitched. That ‘when’ of hers was telling. Even imprisoned, awaiting sentence of death, and surrounded by the whole of a troll citadel, she had confidence that Gael could assure her safety.

“I’ve been considering three different plans to remove you from your cell and from Belzetarn,” he said. “None are ideal. You do realize that it’s not the locks on your cell that pose the real difficulty? Those are trivial. A mere smattering of magery, and they click open. It’s the presence of fifteen-hundred warriors—plus guards—who comprise the real obstacle.”

“But will you come with me?” she persisted.

“Yes,” he said. That was a given, but too much else remained unsettled. Getting Keir free was only the start; he needed the steps that came after.

She leaned forward, resolution firming her expression. “Tell me your three plans. We should—”

He overrode her. “Keir, running away from Belzetarn isn’t a plan. Randomly searching for some unknown artifact of the ancients isn’t a plan. We need, I need, detailed and specific—”

The overlooked, disregarded, missing piece slotted into his awareness so abruptly he swayed, glad of the stone sill beneath his palm.

“The panels at Olluvarde depicted more than one lodestone!” he exclaimed. “Two, I think. Maybe three!”

Previous scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 22 (scene 100)

Need the beginning?
The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

Gael felt hollow inside as he gazed at her, her hands outstretched, eager and urgent, dismay chasing hope across her countenance. If only he had saved the gong for her. But he hadn’t. He’d thought he could save a fragment of the node that powered it—intact—but he’d failed to do even that. Would his failure in this one aspect mean that he’d failed her in every way? He hated that all-too-likely possibility.

Her brows crinkled. “You didn’t save it?”

“No.”

“But I heard it,” she protested.

“Keir—” his mouth felt dry—“I never intended to fully destroy it. I changed it, warped it so that it would no longer weaken trolls. Didn’t you notice the changed effect on you?”

All the taut anticipation ran out of her. Her reaching hands dropped. Her shoulders sagged. “Oh.” The very word was muted. “I had such dreams—” She broke off, turning back to the window.

Gael moved to her side. “I’m sorry,” he said, lowly.

She jerked around to glare at him. “Sorry! What good does that do? How could you? The one resource in all the North that could treat troll-disease, and you wreck it!” Her teeth gritted together. “Surely you don’t have to be a healer to understand its importance!”

He longed to reassure her, to comfort her, but there was no comfort in their situation.

“I tried to preserve a copy of the undamaged node,” he said, “but I did not succeed.”

Censure pulled at the corner of her mouth. “‘Tried and failed’ is no better than ‘sorry’!” she exclaimed. “Oh! What’s the use, when your only ally is so short-sighted!”

He could not blame her for her anger. He’d been just as furious with her, not so many moments ago. With reason. She possessed equal reason for fury. Had he known he would fail to preserve the node intact in a fragment of the lodestone from the gong’s central boss, he would have chosen differently. Events had overtaken him before he could rage at himself for more than Arnoll’s death, and he was long past mere rage now. But his regret intensified under her just criticism. And yet . . . her naming him as her ally heartened him.

She returned her attention back to the view through the barred window, her breath coming hard through her nose.

Gael stood silent beside her. He had more to say—more bad news—but they must settle his betrayal of her, or at least find some measure of truce, before he would add to her burdens.

Her breathing calmed. Still gazing out the barred window, she said flatly, “I don’t know what to do now.”

He didn’t either. It felt like all of their options had run out.

In the bailey, down the slope, the boys building the funeral pyres had stopped piling more wood on them and switched to hanging the banners of all the opteogints from the inner crenellations of the curtain wall.

“There is worse,” said Gael, reversing his decision to wait with his next disclosure. He felt Keir go very still. Strange how the difference between rejoicing and disappointment could be matched, or even exceeded by, the difference between disappointment and strictly-contained fear.

“Arnoll is dead,” he said quietly. “That is who will lie on the second pyre.”

She went even more still, and then turned to him. “Gael, no!” she said, heartbreak again in her tone.

His throat felt too tight to permit words.

Her hand, slender and strong, came to his. “I am so very sorry for your loss,” she said.

“It is your loss, too,” he managed to get out.

“Yes,” she said. “It is. But you and Arnoll . . . were like Carbraes and Dreas.”

“Not quite,” he said. “It is not fair to equate a friendship of five decades with that which merely approached one.”

“You cannot tally love, Gael,” she said. “When it fills the heart, it fills the heart entirely.”

How had she grown so wise?

He swallowed. He could not bear to dwell on Arnoll’s death. It was too raw a loss. Toward what other focus could he direct her attention?

“I did obtain a fragment of the meteoric iron,” he said.

“What?” Her voice reflected confusion.

“From the gong’s central boss,” he said. “And containing its energetic pattern.”

Her gaze shifted sideways, checking his expression. “But not before the change,” she stated.

He sighed. “No.”

“Ah.” She nibbled her lower lip. “Do you have it? May I see it?”

He removed the small pouch he’d secured on the fibula that also held his keys, and extracted the thumbnail-sized droplet of polished iron. “Here,” he said.

She turned it over briefly, studying the fragment with her outer eyes, before her breathing slowed to the rhythm that permitted the inner sight. Gael allowed his own inner vision to open, scrutinizing the energetic structure of the iron with her.

Open scrolls of aching gold energea formed an irregular lattice within a hazy glow. The tracery seemed less distinct than that Gael remembered perceiving in the reforged gong, and the radiance seemed dimmer.

“It is quite changed, indeed,” said Keir.

From the green node with the octahedral lines of force? “Yes,” agreed Gael.

She looked up from the gleaming droplet held in her fingers and exhaled shortly, her breath huffing, apparently coming to some decision. Her gaze on his firmed.

“Gael, I cannot forgive you for your destruction of the node at the gong’s heart that gave me the power to heal trolls,” she said.

He hadn’t really expected that she would.

“But,” she continued, “I doubt you can forgive my betrayal of you either.”

No, he hadn’t. He couldn’t. But he’d set it aside, somehow, for an interval, to be an ignored gnawing on his heart that he would deal with later.

The resolution in Keir’s eyes changed to a shy eagerness, and her face softened. “I wish we could trade: my forgiveness for yours.” Her smile was sad. “But it doesn’t really work that way, does it?”

“No,” he agreed.

“But could you set your just grievance aside?” she asked. “I think I can set mine aside. So we can plan. We have to plan, Gael, to figure out what comes next, or we’ll both be lost.”

He couldn’t help smiling back at her, his smile warm, where hers had been cool. “I already have,” he said.

“Really?” she asked.

He hesitated, then nodded.

“Good!” Her more usual poise seemed to be returning to her. “Because I have an idea. I’m going to test this fragment’s functioning,” she declared. “We might yet salvage something. Perhaps, even changed as it is, even as small as it is, the node in this droplet can yet multiply my energea the way the gong did.”

Surely not. And surely an unnecessary risk.

“On something harmless,” she added, perhaps noticing his frown. “On—” she hunted about her person and lifted a stray hair from her shoulder, holding it up “—on this.”

“What will you attempt?” Gael asked.

“Even a dead strand of hair possesses its own characteristic pattern,” she replied. “I shall attempt to shift that pattern so as to cause the color of this strand to change from blond to brunette.”

That seemed harmless enough. “Very well,” he agreed.

He watched as she settled more deeply into the relaxation necessary to manipulation of energea. Sparks of silver welled from the demi-nodes in her palms, chased one another in an aerial dance, and then coalesced to beam into the golden node within the iron teardrop. Its scrolling arcs flared and emitted a gout of amber. As the amber energea touched the regular silver lattice within the hair, the golden node flared again, and the silver sparks still flowing from Keir started to shift color, gaining a tinge of warmth.

Gael’s jaw clenched. Cool energea was safe; hot energea was not.

Keir closed down the sparking thread of yellow-tinged silver, and shook her head, decision and disappointment mingled.

“Did you see it?” she asked Gael.

“Dangerous,” he answered. “Exactly the prelude to innocent magery that goes astray and creates a troll.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “But not only that. Gael, how similar is the working of magery to the discipline of energetic healing?”

He shrugged. “As I’ve never done any healing . . .”

Her lips twitched impatiently. “No, but does a magus shape the inner structure of his flows of energea?”

His brows rose slightly. “Of course. Were one able to slice the flow across, it would resemble the intricacy of a snowflake.”

A puff of breath escaped her. “Well, the energea translated through this drop of iron was blurry,” she said, “and weak. Not only would it be dangerous to use, but you couldn’t accomplish anything with it. It diminished the force of my energea, rather than increasing it as I’d hoped.”

Her shoulders slumped in the wake of this admission, the vitality provoked by her initial idea—now failed—running out of her. He hated having no solution for her.

“I didn’t make this droplet,” he explained. “It was formed when Arnoll tore the node asunder, spattering the iron that held it. This one fragment was enough larger than the others to retain a copy—a blurred copy—of the torn node.”

“That’s why its focus isn’t sharp then,” she said, lifting her gaze.

“I expect so,” he agreed.

Enterprise was returning to her face. “If the focus had been crisp, I know I could have done something with this.” She tapped the shiny metal. “It still channels energea, even though its configuration is altered. It was the fuzziness that made the energetic flow ineffective, that diminished it. If it had been sharp . . .”

A twinge of alarm stirred in Gael’s belly. He didn’t like where her logic was leading.

“You’re forgetting that it was tainting your energea, twisting it toward troll magery, toward gold,” he said drily. “Too dangerous to use.”

Her gaze grew fierce. “It would be worth it!” she said. “What matter if I succumbed to my troll-disease, if I could remedy that of other’s. I would not be the first wounded healer in the North.”

He really did not like that idea.

“But the focus wasn’t sharp,” he reminded her.

“No,” she said regretfully.

She slumped again.

Gael stayed his reach for her shoulders. He didn’t want her to find any answers down this line of reasoning.

A moment later, her lips firmed, she jerked upright, and her hand shot out to grip his wrist. “Gael. If you were merely subdividing the gong’s node, the process would be less perilous, would it not?” she asked. “If you weren’t trying to alter its configuration,” she added hurriedly.

“Perhaps,” he replied, his tone as discouraging as he could make it.

“Because a controlled subdivision—not an accidental one—would yield a node that generated the precision I require!” Her face was alight again. “If you heated the gong afresh to extract a droplet containing a copy of its node, that copy would be crisp, not blurry!”

He’d thought he’d do almost anything to change her dejection to renewed hope, but not this. Never this. A vision assailed him of her channeling her energea through a fresh fragment obtained by him from the gong, her clear features and straight body sagging into the deformities of the truldemagar, as she poured out her health—her very self—in the healing of others.

Her grasp on his wrist tightened. “Will you do it, Gael? Harvest another piece of the gong’s lodestone? For me? For the afflicted? For the unafflicted?”

This, too, was a new Keir. He’d never seen her plead before.

“The changed node channeled your energea, but you don’t know that even a good copy—an unblurred one—would multiply it. And that is what you require, is it not?” he asked. “Also . . . Carbraes has consigned the gong to the new march,” he told her. “I doubt Dreben will allow me within sight of it.”

“Oh,” she breathed, all the air flowing from her lungs.

He’d only thought he’d seen her discouraged before. This was utter despondency.

Previous scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 21 (scene 99)

Need the beginning?
The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

Gael hurried down the several short flights of stairs that connected the tower’s entrance to the bailey, noting that two mounds of wood were rising in the lower flat near the main gatehouse. Pyres for the morrow’s funerals: Dreas’ and Arnoll’s.

He grimaced. His task was to prevent the necessity of a third such heap of wood. Or was it?

He had to talk with Keir.

He’d realized the necessity of such a conversation too late last night to seek it then. This morning, his duty to Carbraes and the gong had been paramount. Then Arnoll’s death—Gael swallowed hard—had torn all his coherence asunder. And then Carbraes had required his presence.

If any other obligation or summons sidetracked him now—

His jaw clenched. He was going to Keir and nowhere else. He had to be sure that she was well, that Dreben’s brutal guards had not broken her arm. Or broken something else.

Except . . . if Keir were a traitor—and all his logic pointed to it—her fate would be far worse than a noisome cell, a broken arm, or even a violation of her person. And he should not be vowing that he would protect her.

He quickened his pace, striding across the top of the bailey, where the grass was worn a bit bare, then along the massive wall dividing the bailey from the yard, and then nipping in under the first portcullis of the upper gatehouse. The shadows beneath the stone vault were chilly, and the sunlight of the exit arch beckoned, but Gael turned aside at the heavy bronze-bound door in the tunnel wall that led into the guardroom of the prison.

The prison opteon sat behind a broad counter and barely had time to rise and bow before Gael swept past him, through the inner guard chamber—with its complement of guards—and into the stair hall. The spiral stair winding upward in the center of the space possessed steep risers and narrow treads, the better to hinder an escaping prisoner. Not that the brig was ever especially full.

Dreas had always encouraged the cleaning of latrines for punishment, the digging of trash middens, or even flogging, over imprisonment.

Gael barely noticed that his weak ankle failed to click, despite the demands of the stairway.

Keir’s cell was immediately obvious when Gael’s line of sight brought the upper level into view. Multiple arrowslits shed plenty of light into the square stair hall. From it led a dark and narrow corridor lined by locked doors. The nearer doors were solid bronze-bound wood. The farther ones each possessed a small square grating in the upper portion. Beyond them, another large square hall with arrowslits allowed light in. Only one door was flanked by two guards. The nearest one on Gael’s left.

Gael halted before the pair and gestured to the door. “Unlock it,” he ordered curtly. “I am come to inspect the prisoner’s well-being.”

The skinnier of the two gulped, his larynx bobbing. “We haven’t the keys, my lord Secretarius.”

Gael observed that fully three locks—all imbedded in the dark wood—secured the door.

“Then get them,” he said impatiently. This was what came of hurry: inefficiency and annoyance. In all likelihood, he should just return to the opteon in the front guardroom himself to requisition the necessary keys, rather than waiting for the guard to return—keyless—and then waiting for the guard to fetch the opteon.

But Skinny had already departed.

Gael shifted his weight from one foot to the other and glowered.

The remaining guard cleared his throat. “My lord Dreben cautioned us that the prisoner was not to have visitors,” he said.

“I am not a visitor,” said Gael flatly.

The guard frowned.

“I am an auditor, come to inspect your work.”

And then Skinny was back. With a keyring holding three keys. Apparently the opteon was wise, recognizing that there was nowhere Belzetarn’s secretarius could not go, if he so desired.

The locks were balky, their stiffness worsened by Skinny’s shaking fingers, but they surrendered soon enough. Gael pulled the door open, stepped through it, and gestured for the guards to close it behind him.

Keir was seated on the deep sill of the barred window, looking out. She turned. Even with the light behind her, Gael could see her face change, from cool intentness to something lighter. Relief? Gladness? Her tunic and hose were rumpled and grubby; her chin-length blonde hair slightly tousled; her face smudged. But that was not what Gael was seeing.

He noted her straight and undamaged limbs, the way her body moved easily and without hurt, how her confidence remained undimmed, evident in her composed gray eyes, the firm set of her finely curved lips, and the lift of her gracefully strong chin.

And then he realized that he hadn’t the faintest idea of what to say to her.

Are you well? Manifestly, she was.

Are you a traitor? Gaelan’s tears! How could he accuse her of such?

Can I trust you? Tiamar’s throne! What was the matter with him? Gods, but she was beautiful!

Keir apparently knew no such awkwardness. She stepped toward him, her hands held out, her expression changing still, from a mere lightening to positive happiness. Radiance?

“Gael! You saved it! You preserved it! Thank you!” she exclaimed.

Abruptly his tongue-tied speechlessness vanished under a flood of scalding rage. Keir was unharmed. No one had hurt her in any way. Thank Tiamar. But Gael now wanted a nice fresh switch of birch with which to apply ten swift strikes to the palm of one of her outstretched hands. The ridiculousness of the notion—Keir was no school child—merely increased his anger.

“I trusted you!” he grated.

All her glowing happiness eclipsed. Her hands dropped. Faint hurt dilated her eyes for an instant, and then she withdrew into chilly composure.

Gael ignored all these symptoms of distress. His own face felt like stone, adamant and condemning.

“The secret you feared I’d discerned was not the secret of your gender, was it, Keir?” His voice came out very flat. “You feared I’d learned of your treason, did you not?”

Keir paled, but said nothing at all. Her whitening skin, so like the other two times she’d blanched, goaded him anew.

“Did you not?” he ground out, repeating himself.

Keir lost some of her poise, her voice catching. “Gael, it’s not—I didn’t mean—Gael, I am loyal to you!”

“How is it not?” he demanded savagely. “How did you not mean it? How are you in the least loyal to me?” His throat burned with his fury. “You stole tin ingots from my tin vault, disguised them to mimic copper, stowed them in my copper vault, and treasonously sent them down to my bladesmith, there to become weapons that would slay your fellows. You stole copper ingots from my copper vaults, disguised them as tin, secreted them in my tin vault, and funneled them into my privy smithy, thus to hide your perfidy. How is that not betrayal?”

He’d not thought she could pale further. She swayed, and he wondered if she would swoon.

Leaving her no opening in which to respond, he snapped, “Did you think my word to Lord Carbraes meant so little to me? Did you not realize that as my notarius your deeds became my deeds? Did you think my loyalty to my regenen of so little account that it could be ignored?”

His breath, labored and quickened, seemed not to bring enough air to his lungs.

“How dare you! How dare you!” he thundered.

Was that heartbreak in her eyes?

Stifling a gasp, she wrenched away from his accusing gaze to stare out through the bars of her window. Her shoulders hunched, but did not heave. Then her neck bent, and one hand went to her eyes. She stood, silenced and very still.

Gael reached one hand out to her—unseen—horrified. Through all her trials, she had passed undaunted, maintaining her composure upon capture, while concealing her sex, even while bilking the tally room at her utmost risk. Only now, confronted by Gael’s rage, had she broken. He had broken her.

His wrath slackened, permitting a glimmer of regret, and a realization that she’d not actually claimed either innocence or guilt. The guilt in her eyes had told him all he needed to know, but he needed to hear it from her lips. Or . . . not that exactly. He needed to know how she had brought herself to do . . . what she did do.

Keir still stood unmoving before her cell window.

Gael made himself draw in a long, slow breath, and let it out more slowly yet. He could not sort this matter through while in a molten rage.

“Keir . . . why?” he said, his voice cracking slightly.

She straightened, her back still to him, but did not turn.

He waited.

When she did turn, she did not speak, but studied him with a level gaze. Her clear gray eyes were not reddened, as he’d expected, nor did any trace of tears appear on her cheeks. So, even in desolation—he knew he’d not been mistaken in reading desolation in her stance—she disdained to cry. A reluctant admiration kindled within him, and he studied her in return.

The light touched the edge of her hair, causing it to gleam, and limned the curving line of her jaw. In his heart of hearts, he could not believe that she might be his enemy. He would always have her back, and she would have his.

But his mind and heart did not agree.

In the silence between them, he grew aware that the roil of feeling that had seethed within his breast since last night—doubt of her, trust in her, fear for her, and wrath toward her—had slackened, to simmer more quietly. Fear had marked his journey from the melee gallery to the brig. His anger had boiled over upon his arrival. But now he had a temporary interval of dispassion.

He and she must speak, if his inner conflict were to arrive at resolution.

His heart recoiled from reconciling the discrepancy. But it must be reconciled. He could not continue in his foolishness, no matter how devastating Keir’s truth—her whole truth—might be.

He drew in a short breath—for courage? for hope? to delay one moment longer?—and then put his question more collectedly than he’d managed heretofore. “Why did you disguise tin as copper and send it to the blade smithy, where Olix would make it into swords that shattered on the battlefield?”

She nodded slightly, and answered his question with her own. “Do you wish all the unafflicted slain? Or defeated and submitting to a troll overlord?”

He frowned. “Of course not,” he replied, his voice impatient.

“And yet you pledged your loyalty to Carbraes, who labors toward just that end,” she said. “He may not succeed. No troll has, since the centuries after the southern troll-kings. But what if he does? Would you be satisfied with your place in history?”

“Keir, we are trolls, and as such we have little choice where we stand in history,” he reminded her.

“I chose to make a choice anyway,” she said, lifting her chin. “I chose to fight for the people of Fiors.”

“And that worked so well for you!” His sarcasm discomfited him.

Her eyes flashed, but her tone remained even. “No, it has not worked well for me,” she agreed. “Not in the end. And I do not mean this—” she gestured toward the cell walls surrounding her.

“What do you mean then?” he asked, his moment of pique and mockery past.

“I have arrived at precisely the dilemma that confronts you, I believe,” she said.

Gael knit his brows, not following her reasoning. “How so?”

Her face softened. “You wish the unafflicted to live free and unthreatened by the troll-horde, but you cannot wish ill upon your friend Barris, the innocent boys in the kitchens and smithies, or even upon Carbraes himself. Can you?”

He looked at her silently. That was, of course, precisely the conundrum he lived with.

“Your loyalty is split. Which is what my own has come to,” she said. “I thought I could infiltrate the citadel of my enemies and work to weaken them for as long as it took them to reveal me and kill me. I did not understand that my enemies would come to be my friends.”

His heart went out to her, in wholly unexpected sympathy. He could not wish his personal difficulty on anyone, let alone her. And—against his will—he understood her choice.

He had chosen to ally himself with the troll-horde, even though they were his enemies. She had chosen to continue to fight the troll-horde, even though she herself was one of them. He could not but honor her for that. And yet . . . neither his choice nor hers could be sustained indefinitely.

They were both of them hard upon a dilemma. Or she was, at the least. He had managed to ignore his for seven years. He might manage to ignore it for yet seven more. But she could not do the same.

“What would you do now?” he asked. “Theron has told Carbraes of your treason, and the regenen will call for your death once that treason is confirmed, as it must be. I shall strive to gain his pardon for you, but—”

She finished for him, “—but he is unlikely to grant it. I know.”

“If I could gain his pardon for you, would you stay, as I have, in support of him?”

The muscles in her slim jaw shifted. “No.”

“Then I must try to secure your freedom—our freedom—and escort you to some other place of safety.” Except . . . where would such a place be found? He didn’t know, but he could not let her risk the Hamish wilds alone. Her summer journey had done her no harm, but autumn and then winter would come. And then what? Wolves, weather, and her seizure by another—more malignant—knot of trolls? A more disconcerting possibility barged across his worries. “Would you seek out a troll-queen to covertly undermine as you undermined Carbraes?”

“I shall neither support Carbraes in his warfare nor sabotage some other troll-sovereign. And you must not either.”

His brow creased slightly. “You have discerned a third path? One where we need not tally our betrayals, apportioning some to one side, more to the other, and all of them—” he knew it now, knew it in the marrow of his bones, in the inmost chamber of his heart: the corrosion of choosing between two utter wrongs “—all of them to ourselves.”

She nodded, her face lighting. “The gong, Gael. And the lodestone within it. The gong opens a door that has been shut ever since that artifact was lost.” Her words tumbled forth in her eagerness. “I was never so glad of anything when I knew you’d managed—chosen!—to preserve it! Without it”—she shook her head—“things would be dire. But with it! With it, we can change . . . so very much!”

Gael’s heart sank.

Keir’s enthusiasm faltered as she took in the expression he knew must be dragging at his features.

“But . . . I heard it sound!” she said. “It gave me hope!”

Gael swallowed. “Keir—”

Hells! How could he tell her?

Next scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 22 (scene 100)

Previous scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 21 (scene 98)

Need the beginning?
The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

Buy the book:
The Tally Master

When the trolls who captured Keir in Olluvarde had first burst around the corner in that marble underground passage, she’d been terrified. They’d seemed savage, monstrous, and intent upon brutality.

When they’d plucked her from the base of the column where she’d sought temporary refuge, they’d seemed more clumsy and inept than vicious.

During the journey from Olluvarde to Belzetarn, their demeanor had changed yet again. They bantered, teased, and told jokes, including Keir in their camaraderie as though she were one of them, and boasting to her about all the amenities available to them in their troll home. The shift had surprised her, but she’d taken full advantage of it to insinuate herself in their good graces. She bantered back, participated in the rude insults they enjoyed, and even joined a pair of them in devising a prank that involved the blankets of the lead scout.

After more than a deichtain of traveling through forested hills, they emerged from the trees into the meadow before the gatehouse in Belzetarn’s curtain wall.

“Whadya think?” asked Irren, the troll who—upon first acquaintance—had accidentally knocked her senseless when attempting to slap her back in greeting.

The ruins of Olluvarde had prepared her a little for what she would see, merely because they intimated what was possible when building with stone. Her home on Fiors was a round hut constructed of woven withies, as were all the dwellings of her people. The grandmother who governed the tribe inhabited a more impressive structure, five conical huts connected together! Olluvarde had prepared Keir a little, but not enough.

Constructed of massive blocks of dark gray stone, the gatehouse loomed malevolently, huge and dark and brooding, buttressed by guardtowers and fanged with crenellation. Beyond it, a vast grassy bailey within the curtain walls sloped gradually upward to an inner wall, with yet another gatehouse on the right, and a terrifyingly tall tower of the same dark stone on the left.

A strange rounded bulk with conical roofs and hulking chimneys clung to the roots of the tower on one side—the kitchens, as she would learn later—but she barely heeded it, following the great height with her eyes, up and up and up to the four claw-like prongs on the top battlements and a central spire that breathed wisps of smoke or steam.

Fiors was flat. The Hamish wilds, she’d seen as she passed through them, were hilly, with mountains on the horizon to the northeast. But this tower . . . was it as tall as those mountains would be were she to stand at their foundations? It seemed so indeed. She hardly knew how to answer Irren.

When she entered the passage through the gatehouse with her escort, she learned yet more of the properties of stone edifices.

The passage itself was generously wide with a high, arching ceiling, but the trolls stopped right at its inmost point, with the entrance too far behind her, and the exit too far ahead. The dark stone seemed to weigh upon her, pressing her down, squeezing the air from her lungs.

Woven withies, though water-tight when fashioned correctly, possessed an airiness to them. And white marble illuminated by magelight was positively elegant. But dark granite—was this granite?—was suffocating.

The lead scout was asking a gate guard something. She couldn’t hear their words, but the scout’s reaction was clear enough. He tensed and acquired a jittery manner that communicated itself to his fellows. The two nearest Keir gripped her arms when they started forward, manhandling her into the bailey in a way they had not since they seized her from the base of that column in Olluvarde.

The bailey possessed numerous lodges and workshops and stables along its edges, but Keir was focused on the change in her escort. Had they received unwelcome news? Did it bode ill for her reception by this Carbraes they’d talked of? She was worried.

At the base of the impossibly tall tower, they dragged her up a wide flight of steps to a generous landing, then up another flight to the terrace before the entrance and under its barbed portcullis into a passage considerably longer and gloomier than the one below the curtain wall gatehouse.

Stained holes the size of her thumbs dotted the vaulted ceiling. What had dripped from them onto enemy heads? Arrowslits pierced the highest reaches of the walls. Did archers stand in them, ready to shoot her down?

Keir felt as if she might faint. The entire tower rested above her now.

Her faintness fled abruptly a few steps later when her escort halted before an aristocratic troll with a strangely thin straight nose—the scouts all had blunt noses with an exaggerated upcurve. The aristocrat’s lips were equally thin, his pale skin lined, and his shoulder-length hair silver. He wore gorgeous robes of turquoise suede embroidered with silver thread.

Keir was forced bruisingly down onto her knees, while the scouts bowed deeply.

Was this Carbraes? He was clearly very important.

The aristocratic troll sniffed, looking disdainfully down his thin nose. “What is this?” he asked contemptuously.

“A prisoner, m’ Lord Theron,” answered the lead scout. “He says he’s a troll, but we can’t tell by his looks, you know. He looks human. So, since th’ regenen is away with th’ legions, we brought him to you.”

Theron scrutinized Keir, his eyes very cold. He sniffed again.

“Of course he’s human. There can be no doubt.”

“Please, m’lord. Lord Carbraes wouldn’t want a death when there needn’t be one. Could you—would you check with th’ inner seeing?” said the scout.

Keir’s stomach chilled. This troll could order her death? Just like that?

Lord Theron lifted his chin slightly. “Really,” he drawled. “Do I hear defiance?”

The scout bent his head and shuffled his feet. “No, m’ Lord Theron. But I believe the boy. I think he is a troll.”

“I say he is not,” snapped Theron. “Kill him!”

The scout’s mouth opened, then closed.

“Do you understand me, sir?” barked Theron. “Sever his head from his shoulders!”

Keir began to shiver, her limbs trembling.

As the scout swallowed uncomfortably, another robed troll stepped from behind Lord Theron.

He possessed a similar demeanor of command, but in every other way he differed from the troll who had ordered Keir’s death. His suede robes were of a muted hue—sage green—and lacked any adornment, save for the bronze fibula at his waist which secured a hefty ring of bronze keys. His hazel eyes were kind above the fleshy blade of his nose—curving down like a beak, rather than up. His skin was a clear, pale olive, lined around the eyes and firm-lipped mouth. He was of a medium height, but sturdily built, with muscular shoulders. His shoulder-length hair was very dark, with a few strands of gray. Most importantly, his assurance seemed more thoroughly rooted, not depending on any display of power.

“I beg your pardon, my Lord Castellanum,” said this new entrant, calmly authoritative, “the lad is afflicted. Although his nodes occupy exactly their proper spots, they float unanchored. It will be several years before his affliction is visible in his lineaments.”

Lord Theron’s nostrils flared slightly. “Do you say so, my Lord Secretarius?” he asked, his tone unfriendly, but not actively adversarial.

“I do,” said the secretarius. “And I could use a notarius. The lad looks intelligent.”

Lord Theron’s lip twitched. “Very well, my dear Gael. You may have him.” He turned from Gael back to Keir. “You will take your oath of fealty to the regenen when he returns to Belzetarn. In the meantime, the Lord Secretarius will be answerable for your conduct.”

With that, the castellanum swept away.

And so had Keir come under Gael’s wing, the perfect place—as it chanced—to interfere with the weapons borne by the troll-legions.

She never did take the oath of fealty that Theron had mentioned, whether it was because Carbraes was a good four deichtains returning from the field and the formality was forgotten, or some other reason. Technically, Keir owed him no loyalty. But that was mere quibbling. She’d accepted his protection for two years. She’d accepted her quarters from him. She’d eaten the food provided at his table. In all honor, she did owe him . . . something.

And her sabotage of the swords wielded by his warriors was treason.

But if she could heal those warriors of their truldemagar, perhaps even heal Lord Carbraes himself . . . mightn’t that atone for her treachery?

She pulled herself out of her memories of the past, aware of movement in the bailey on the other side of the bars in her window, aware of the pressing stones of her cell behind her.

Was the gong yet intact? Had Gael preserved it? Could she persuade Lord Carbraes to let her master its usage, to let her try again to restore a troll’s nodes to their proper anchorages? She’d succeeded once, with Gael.

As she sat there wondering, a low throbbing swelled on the air, deep and groaning, reverberating across all of Belzetarn and into every nook and cranny.

Strength flooded Keir’s sinews, her very bones, and she felt triumph cresting on a wave of well-being. The gong flourished, and all she dreamed of might yet come to pass!

Previous scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 21 (scene 97)

Need the beginning?
The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)