The Onyx Throne Ch 56 57

Chapter 56

"We are in luck," Allora said as she eyed the town from the tree line. "That is indeed Clayfaire. I know where we are and I know where we need to go."

"Do you want to enter the town first?" Mitchell asked from behind her shoulder, as the dawn light began to dispel shadows around the mostly wooden buildings. It looked to be a decent size, maybe a few hundred people housed within its walls. He couldn't help but eye it suspiciously as he had been told to expect danger at any moment and from any direction.

"No, not until I speak with Gilriel. I need to know what has been happening while I have been away."

"So how far to the grove?" Lethelin asked.

"If we push hard, I think we can make it by noon tomorrow."

Mitchell adjusted the pack on his shoulders and took a deep breath.

"Alright then," he said, feeling an eagerness to finally be done with their journey. "One foot."

"One foot," Allora repeated as she smiled up at him.

They stayed within the tree line as they circled the clearing around the town, and, this early, there was no traffic on the few roads they crossed before heading straight into the forest nor were there any paths.

"Gilriel's grove is warded against detection. She worked very hard to keep it hidden from wanderers and hunters and to block it from those that would scry for her. People who get too close are guided around it without ever realizing the fact. It is a brilliant bit of spell craft. She said it took her nearly a decade to perfect."

"You said she was a knight," Mitchell said. "Is she hiding from Milandris, too?"

Allora wobbled her head.

"No," the knight explained. "She left Lorivin around the time Baylor became king, almost eighty years ago. The world has forgotten about her."

"I thought knights never left the service?" Lethelin asked, intrigued.

"There is no rule against it. We are not slaves, but few ever do. Most view it as a calling and stay in the order until their death."

"So, what happened?" Mitchell asked.

"I do not know. She would not speak of it to me. But I sensed whatever it was, she still carries the pain with her."

"How did you find her if she's been hidden for almost eighty years?" Lethelin asked.

Mitchell looked at her and saw she was walking in pace with him and on the other side of Vras. It was a behavior he'd noticed more than once over the last three days since they'd entered the Shadow Glen. The comely assassin didn't seem to dread the shadow cat's very presence anymore. Mitchell reminded himself to ask her about it when next they stopped.

"I heard rumors," Allora said in answer, "of an old elven mystic who lived in the Shadow Glen. She would emerge from the forest once every decade or so, visit a town to buy supplies, and then vanish back the way she had come. Over the years a legend had sprung up and word spread about how people would scour the forest for a day in every direction and never find a trace of her. I felt that she could help me if I could but find her."

"How did you know? She could have been some crazy woman, or not even real at all!" Lethelin exclaimed.

"The same way Mitchell knew to take Vras with us," Allora replied. "I felt that she would be the one to teach me the ritual so that I could find the next monarch."

Lethelin looked at Mitchell and then at Vras and mumbled something under her breath. Mitchell only caught the word for 'crazy' and shook his head slightly in amusement.

"But if it was warded, how did you find it?" Mitchell asked, trying to get conversation back on topic.

"I did not. Not exactly. She found me."

There was a small break in the conversation as the group made their way around a large fallen tree before resuming their walk southwest.

"I traveled to each of the towns she was said to have visited and was able to triangulate where I thought she might be. It took several weeks of walking back and forth across the forest before I noticed the effects of the spell."

"How did you notice it?" Lethelin pressed. "You said people couldn't tell they were being directed away."

"I could not, but on one crossing I noticed my old tracks. They curved in a wide circle whenever I approached a certain area of the forest. But it felt to me like I was walking in a straight line. Once I saw the effect, I tried to correct it but every time I thought I had succeeded I would check my tracks and see that my efforts failed."

"What did you do?" Mitchell asked, genuinely curious.

"I began to shoot arrows through the wards with notes attached."

"They were able to pass through?" Lethelin said. "I thought you said you couldn't enter."

Allora looked across as Lethelin with a curious expression.

"I would expect you of all people to understand how attention wards work."

"What do you mean?"

"Your cloak."

Allora tipped her head to indicate the cloak that was tided loosely around the thief's neck and which had changed colors, much to Mitchell's surprise, upon entering the forest.

"I didn't enchant the thing myself; I paid a small fortune to have someone else do that. I don't know how it works; I just know that it does."

Allora rolled her eyes.

"When you activate the cloak's enchantments you don't really become invisible. They work on the target's perception. Actually, diverting the light around you would be much more difficult. Attention wards are far simpler. They make it so the person cannot actually look at you, even if they think they are. They will think they are looking right at the spot you are sitting or standing but instead their eyes are off to the side and attention wards distract them before they can think about it too hard. You did not know this?"

Lethelin shrugged.

"I didn't ask. I just told the enchanter what I wanted and he said to come back in a month."

It was Allora's turn to shake her head.

"Be that as it may, the protections around Gilriel's grove worked much the same way. It was not a physical barrier, but a ring of interlocking ward posts and stones that created a sort of net around the area she wished to secure. And, just as your enchantments do not work on animals, nor do the ones surrounding her grove. Animals could pass freely in and out."

"That sounds amazing. And difficult," Mitchell spoke up then.

"It is. The perception field she has crafted is a master-level of enchantment and warding. As I said, it took her many years to complete. But once I realized where the boundary was, I spent the next day writing small notes and affixing them to my arrows and firing them into the grove from all around the border. I told her who I was, why I was there, and where I would wait to meet her. Then I waited."

"How long?" Lethelin asked.

"Nearly a ten day. I suspect she was watching me long before I knew she was there. But then she appeared one morning with breakfast and we talked. She agreed to guide me into her grove and she taught me what I needed to know."

"So, she did know the ritual?" Mitchell asked.

Allora nodded.

"Gilriel was third in command of the Onyx Knights when she left Lorivin. One of the eight trusted with the knowledge of the ritual. It is meant to be cast with a minimum of four but, after some trial and error, we found a way to cast it with just the two of us."

"And then you found Mitchell?"

"Yes," Allora said, after a second too long in answering. "That is how I found Mitchell."

Mitchell didn't think Lethelin picked up on the hesitation, or the way she subtly changed the answer, but he did. There was something that Allora wasn't saying.

"Can't wait to meet her," Mitchell said.

Allora gave him a smile but there was a tightness around her eyes.

"It will be good to rest there for a few days. It is a beautiful place."

***

"What changed your mind about Vras?" Mitchell asked he sat with Lethelin for a bit before her watch started. Allora was already curled in her bedding, breathing deeply.

"What do you mean?"

Mitchell could see her try to hide the sudden panicked look in her eyes but all it did was tell him his instincts were right.

"You're acting differently around him. You have been for the last few days. And tonight, you offered him some of your meal without complaint or any jumping around or screaming. I just wondered what brought you around."

Lethelin looked over to where Vras was dozing and basking in the warmth coming off their small fire.

"He and I came to an understanding," she said at last. Her voice was slow and is sounded like she was weighing each word carefully. "That first night in the forest."

"But you don't want to tell me about it?"

Lethelin's green eyes studied him across the fire.

"I will if you order me to. But... I would rather not."

"I won't do that," he told her solemnly. "I trust that you would tell me if I needed to know."

Lethelin released some of the tension she was holding in her shoulders and gave him a grateful smile.

"Thank you."

"But, does it have something to do with how he got the limp?"

Lethelin winced.

"I hoped you wouldn't notice that."

Mitchell arched an eyebrow at her and waited.

"Did you ask him about it?"

"I did," Mitchell replied. "But he would only tell me he got it when he was playing."

For reasons Mitchell didn't understand, what little color Lethelin had in in her pale face drained away and he thought he saw her chest shudder as she drew in a breath.

Finally, she said, "He called it playing?"

Mitchell nodded.

"Balls and taint," she muttered under her breath. "Playing!"

She caught herself then and smiled somewhat apologetically.

"I'll just say I trust him a little more than I did since we found him in the mountains."

"Fair enough."

Mitchell stood and crossed over to her side of the fire and pulled her into him. She came without resistance and he kissed the top of her head. They sat like that for a moment, enjoying the night sounds of the forest and the crackle of the wood in the fire. Mitchell couldn't place exactly when it had happened but it didn't feel as foreboding as it had when they'd first entered. Whereas before the forest felt like it opposed their presence, that it wanted them out, now it felt... Mitchell wasn't quite sure. He still didn't feel welcome. It felt more like a grudging acceptance. An I've-got-my-eye-on-you sort of pressure as they walked.

"If you'd like, I've got a new song I can sing you before you take your watch."

"I would," she told him. "I like your voice. Even when I don't understand the words, it makes me feel warm inside. My father..."

Lethelin paused then and Mitchell's ears perked up. Lethelin rarely spoke of her mother or her father. She talked all about her life in Varset, some of her misadventures with the gangs she worked for, and heists she pulled off, but of her parents barely a word was ever said. Mitchell waited.

"I remember my father used to sing to my mother. When I was little. Old songs the fishermen sang at the docks, tavern songs. He even learned a love song in Elvish for her. I don't remember it, but my mother hummed it often when she worked around her shop."

"It sounds like music was a part of your childhood, too."

"Yeah, I guess so. I never really thought about it until you started singing all the time. At first, I thought you had sun sickness, but something about it was comforting. It just took me awhile to figure it out.

Lethelin placed the top of her head in that pocket of his neck between his shoulder and jaw. It fit so perfectly it was like it was always supposed to be there.

"What's the new song about?"

"It's a bit of a sad one," Mitchell explained. "It's about a man who lost his love and felt like he was nothing without it."

"Why did he lose her?"

"They had a fight and they said things they couldn't take back. But once she was gone, he realized what he had truly lost."

"Do you feel that way about what you lost when you came to Tewadunn?"

"Not like that, no. I miss home but I think I could be happy here, too -- if we survive. But if I ever lost you or Lora, yes, I think I would feel like I was nothing without you both."

Lethelin sat up at that and began to search his face. He watched the crystal green of her eyes as they glittered in the firelight. Then she leaned up and kissed him. It was a slow, soft kiss.

Her lips were warm and their tongues delicately probed at each other. He could taste the bit of wine that they'd indulged in with their dinner still on her lips.

Mitchell broke away first and kissed her each cheek and then her head. She gave him a smile and tucked her head back into his shoulder.

"This song is called Nothingman by Pearl Jam."

Chapter 57

"This is it," Allora said as they rounded a bend in the stream they had been following for the better part of two hours. The sun was approaching mid-morning and the light flickered through the heavy canopy, dappling everything around them. The cool sound of the water rushing, the smell of earth and plant, the cool wind rustling the leaves, made it all feel like some sort of nature scene that would play over one of those relaxation music videos Mitchell used to have going in the background while he was working. He half expected some lo-fi track to start playing as he looked around.

"Wait just a moment," Allora requested as she scouted the stream for a shallow place to cross.

Finding one, Mitchell and Lethelin waited as the knight picked a section and waded across. She approached a large tree that was growing out of a bank on the opposite side. Once there, she leaned down, shifted a rock about the size of a man's head where it lay nestled between some roots and stuck her hand into the recess beneath it. Standing up, Mitchell saw she held a small piece of jewelry. Smiling in triumph, she stepped her way back across to them.

Before she could speak, there was a loud splash behind them and they all jumped and turned, only to see Vras emerge from a deep pool with a decent-sized fish in his mouth, still wiggling. Mitchell watched in surprise as the water streamed off his fur while the shadow cat strode back to the bank where he plopped down to enjoy his meal. He looked almost completely dry. His fur repelled water almost the same way a duck's feathers did.

"You can swim?" Mitchell asked the beast as it tore into its snack as if he hadn't just eaten a few hours ago.

Vras paused only briefly, glanced at Mitchell, and flicked his ears. Then resumed his chewing. This was a gesture Mitchell had come to recognize as, "Of course, don't be stupid."

"He can swim, I guess," Mitchell said, shaking his head. "And he doesn't get wet."

"So that's the thing," Lethelin inquired, turning her attention back to the item in Allora's hand.

"Yes," she answered. She opened her hand fully and Mitchell could see it was actually a small pendant with a blue stone in the center attached to a simple silver chain. "This will prevent me from being distracted by the wards. I will put it on when we approach the boundary. You will need to hold my hands as we walk. And maybe close your eyes. The effect can be disorienting if you see where you are going. The warded area is about thirty meters before the effect ends and then we can continue as normal."

"As my lady commands," Lethelin said.

"Lead the way," Mitchell told her.

He turned back to where Vras was still consuming the fish.

"Catch up when you're done."

Ear flick.

Mitchell chuckled and they pushed onward.

Allora turned due east from the tree and began to walk in a straight line. After about fifteen minutes, by which time Vras had caught up to them looking very pleased with himself, Allora called for a halt. She stared straight ahead into a section of forest that, as near as Mitchell could tell, was no different than any other.

"This is the boundary."

Lethelin glanced around appeared unconvinced.

"Doesn't look like one."

"It is not supposed to look like one. But try to walk forward."

Lethelin shrugged and started to walk straight ahead. To Mitchell's amazement she began to angle left about one meter in front of Allora. Every step with her left foot moved her just a little bit farther along a gradual curve that Mitchell wasn't sure he would have noticed had he not been watching her so closely.

The thief walked forward and to the left for what Mitchell guessed was about ten meters and which actually placed her well to the side of where he and Allora stood staring.

"I don't feel anything," Lethelin called out and then turned to look back at them. Only they weren't where she thought they were. Her wide eyes found them immediately and she gaped.

"Stollar's balls," she muttered. "It felt like I was walking straight ahead. I thought I was placing each foot firmly in front of the other one. I even picked a tree to walk towards!"

"As I told you," Allora said with a grin, "It is a master-level bit of spell craft. She tried to explain it to me during my stay here last time but it is far beyond my capabilities. I am a battle caster, primarily. That is what I chose to focus on. I know a few pure utility spells as they were required, but I did not proceed much beyond that."

"Balls," Lethelin said in wonder as she walked back to them. "I mean, I know you said what it did but I thought I would feel something."

"Even when you know it is there, you cannot avoid it."

"I'm ready when you are," Mitchell said, handing Tammi's lead to Lethelin so he could free up his other hand to hold Allora's.

Allora unspooled the pendant and placed the chain around her neck, pulling her hair through so it rested comfortably against her skin. She held out a hand to both of them and, all together, they walked across the barrier.

***

"Lora!" the middle-aged elf called out as she saw them break the tree line and into the clearing surrounding a cottage that could have been painted by Thomas Kincaid. It was a somewhat squat building with a pitched roof that had actual grass growing on it. Mitchell could see several varieties of flowers sprouting. The pitch continued all the way to the ground on both sides and it resembled the sort of low A-Frame house that had become popular in the US in the post-war era. Creeper vines crawled up every vertical surface. Flowers were in bloom all around the cottage and he could see a well-tended garden on the side with a simple fence around it. Behind the house he could also see a shed, an outhouse, and what looked like some sort of coop. There was also a stream cutting through the clearing behind the cottage that reentered the tree line not too far past the animal enclosure. The thick loamy smell of the old forest was replaced by grass, tilled earth, and something that smelled suspiciously like honeysuckle.

At the sight of the older elf, Allora released Mitchell's hand and sprinted forward arms out and embraced their host.

"I knew you would be back," Gilriel said as she returned Allora's hug. "Fairy wings were blooming at the shrine this morning when I made my devotionals to Vish."

Gilriel squeezed Allora tightly who squeezed her right back.

The former Onyx Knight was, despite her advanced years, still lean and barely looked over forty as near as Mitchell could tell. She had silver-blond hair that she had cut short at her shoulders and which flowed freely in the light morning breeze. She was wearing a simple farm dress tied tight around her thin waist and she had a similar bust size to Allora, a fact apparent even with the loose-fitting attire. She was also wearing a krisa with four stones in it, not unlike Allora's own.

Even from five or six meters away where Allora had left him to dash to their host, he could see shockingly blue eyes. As Gilriel hugged her, Mitchell saw the older elf take in both he and Lethelin in quick appraisal and he got the sense right away that she was much more than the wise aunt or motherly figure that she appeared to be. Mitchell couldn't help thinking she looked like Heather Locklear circa the early 2000s. Getting older, but still a knock out. Granted, she looked to have several inches on the actress and there were also those pointed elf ears, but she could have passed for a sister easily.