Harbinger: Fate's Forsaken: Book One (51 page)

“What do you
mean?” he said as he handed the vial over.

She pulled the
cork out with her teeth and spat it away. “Nothing reeks quite as grandly as
fresh blood,” she said, waving the vial at him.

His stomach
twisted to think that he’d been carrying blood around in his pocket. “Whose is
it?”

“Lysander’s, of
course. I’m going to use it to mend the Lass,” she said, in answer to the
question on his lips. “Come along and I’ll show you.”

He stood to the
side as she pulled the Lass out of the flames. “What’s left to be done?”

“I’ve fixed the
blade, but now I’ve got to wake her up,” Kyleigh said. “Normal swords are one
thing, but the Lass has magic in her. In order to bring her back to her former
glory I need two things: blood of a pirate, and dragon flames. Lucky for me, I
already use dragon fire to light my forge.”

So
that’s
what she’d been doing in the
spell room with Jake. “How does it work?”

“I’m about to
show you.”

She held the
Lass over the forge and with a quick swipe, drizzled a line of blood on either
side of the blade. It met the steel with a hiss, it bubbled and popped as she
turned it, letting the blood run down to the very tip. Then she thrust it deep
into the coals.

A blast of hot
air erupted from the trough, knocking Kael a step backwards. The flames rose
and fell onto the Lass, batting it in angry waves. They made a strange,
high-pitched shrilling as they danced. His toes curled at the sound of it.

When Kyleigh
pulled the Lass free, she turned and immediately drove it into a barrel of
water. The blade sighed and steam billowed up in a giant puff.

“What
was
that?”

“I told you
— I had to wake her up.” She pulled off her gloves and waved him over to
the shelf. “While we wait for her to cool, I’ve got something for you.”

Not again. How
many debts must he owe her? Amos would be ashamed if he knew. “Well I can’t
accept it, whatever it is. I just needed to talk to you about —”

“The grand
sacking of His Dukeness? Lysander told me all about it this morning. You know
I’ll do my part.”

He was slightly
peeved. Had she appeared to everyone in the Kingdom but him? “Where were you?”

“In the library,
of course.”

“Oh, so I
suppose you were nicking books again. That’s really clever of you, by the way.”

“I don’t know
what you’re talking about,” she said lightly. “I hate reading.”

His astonishment
knocked whatever he’d been about to say right out of him. “How can you hate
reading? How can
anybody
hate
reading?”

“I don’t know. I
suppose I’d rather be killing things than reading about it,” she said, with an
impatient wave of her hand. Then she snatched something off the shelf and
handed it to him. “Here. These are for you.”

It was a pair of
gauntlets — so odd and remarkably made that he couldn’t stop himself from
staring. They were black as night and forged of what appeared to be iron. He
stood quietly while she pulled them over his hands, admiring how strangely
light they were. They stretched halfway up his forearm, their tops ridged and
slightly sharp. He imagined he could do a fair bit of damage just punching
someone.

The gloves were
the oddest part: they were cut off at his second knuckle on all fingers and a
circle had been cut out the bottom, leaving his entire palm exposed.

“That’s how Setheran
always wore his,” Kyleigh explained as she snapped the buckles into place. “He
said he couldn’t whisper properly if he couldn’t feel what he touched.”

“I suppose you
made him some gauntlets too, huh?”

His tone was not
lost on Kyleigh. She stopped what she was doing and pulled back from him, the
corners of her open mouth bent in a smile. “Ah, so
that’s
the problem.”

“What’s the
problem?”

“You think I was
in love with Setheran, don’t you?”

“What? No
—”

“You do!” she
said with a laugh. “You thought we were lovers! That’s why you’ve been so
particularly cranky, isn’t it? You think I’m so sad and brokenhearted, and now
you don’t know what to do with me.”

“I do not,” he
said, even though it wasn’t true. He shoved her hand away and fumbled with the
buckles on the gauntlets. He refused to stand down in that insufferably hot
basement and be made a fool of. “Here, keep your dodgy gloves.”

She grabbed his
arm, covering the buckles so he couldn’t pull them loose. “They’re gauntlets,
not gloves. I’m not a seamstress,” her brows dropped into a dangerous glare,
“and nothing I make is the least bit dodgy. He was married, Kael,” she said as
she released him. “He was madly in love with his wife they were expecting their
first child. So if you’ll kindly get your knickers out of a twist —”

“They aren’t in
a twist,” he said impatiently. “Setheran had a child? Why have I never read
about that?”

A strange look
crossed her face. She went back to synching up his gauntlets, undoing all the
work he’d just done to pull them loose. “The historians didn’t mention it
because it didn’t matter. Setheran only got to hold him once before Fate took
the child and mother away.”

He knew his
mouth was hanging open, but he didn’t care. Now he knew why Setheran the Wright
sacrificed himself in the final battle against the rebel whisperers. He must
have looked just as the songs described him:

Like heroes of old before, he knew what must
be done:

With sword in hand and eyes alight,

The cry he loosed shook the mountains down,

And buried foes with Seth the Wright.

He’d called the
mountains down upon himself because he had nothing left to live for. What the
Kingdom thought was a sacrifice was actually Setheran’s great relief …

“Do they fit
well?”

Kyleigh’s voice
brought him back from the battlefield, where he’d been watching Setheran meet
his end in a whole new light. “They fit perfectly,” he said, and it was no
exaggeration. The gauntlets molded to his skin. He felt as if they belonged
there. He reached up and ran his fingers across the material: it was smooth,
impossibly hard. Certainly not iron and yet … familiar. He grasped at a memory.
“It’s made of dragon scales, isn’t it? That’s why your armor doesn’t tear when
you change form —”

She clamped a
hand over his mouth. It was an involuntary movement; the shock in her eyes gave
her away. “Blast you whisperers and your memory for things,” she muttered.
“Yes, they’re made of dragon scales —
my
scales, actually. And no, before you ask, I won’t tell you how it’s done.”

“Why’re they
black?” he said from around her hand.

She pursed her
lips. “I blacken them to attempt to hide the obvious. But now that you know,
you have to swear not to tell a solitary person. Do you understand? This has to
stay between you and I.”

He had no idea
why she should be so defensive about it. But he thought if he didn’t agree she
might very well kill him and bury his body under the floor, so he nodded.

She studied him
for a long moment, her eyes hard, before she released him. “You can take the
Lass up to Lysander and leave me be. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

The Lass was
whole once again, but he could see very clearly where she’d patched the pieces
back together. The crisscrossing lines looked like the mends in a traveler’s
cloak.

“It suits her,”
Kyleigh said as she handed the sword over. “It reminds her of the urchins and
thieves she loves to protect.”

“You … talk to
it?”

He meant to hide
his skepticism, but didn’t do a very good job of it. She spun him around by his
shoulders and shoved him towards the door. “Off with you,” she snapped.

As he left, he
couldn’t help but think that the strokes of her hammer were coming down a
little more maliciously than before.

*******

It was a full
week before Geist returned, and he didn’t even bother to announce himself. Kael
simply came out of his room one morning and nearly tripped over what he thought
was a poorly placed chair. Then he looked down and realized it wasn’t furniture
at all: just Geist holding a traveler’s chest.

“I thought we
might practice your disguise, if you have a moment,” he droned.

“All right,”
Kael said, still a little taken aback. “Oh — hold on a moment.” He ducked
into his room and returned with the potion Jake had finished mixing the day
before.

“Ah, thank you,”
Geist said, slipping it into his coat pocket. “Shall we?”

Kael didn’t even
bother to ask whether Geist thought he would be able to sneak into the mages’
tower unnoticed. He just nodded and followed him to the meeting room.

Geist plopped
his chest down in the middle of the table, stirring up a cloud of ancient dust.
“The first thing we’ve got to do is get you properly dressed,” he said, with
all the same energy of the dust settling around their shoulders.

He popped the
chest open: first at its lid and then sideways, revealing a number of tiny
shelves. There were several jars of paint, labeled by color and arranged by
hue. Canisters of powder sat next to the paint, and a number of wigs hung on
hooks beneath them. But the most exciting thing by far was the vast collection
of fake mustaches.

Kael picked up
the bushiest one he could find and stuck it under his nose. He laughed when he
saw himself in the chest’s tiny mirror.

Geist plucked it
off and set it back in its place. Then he picked up another — one that
was slightly gray and shaped like an upside-down comb. He popped the cork out
of a small, green glass bottle and selected the tiniest of his many brushes,
which he dipped into the bottle. He swiped a bit of clear, sticky liquid onto
the back of the mustache without explanation.

“Why do you have
all of these things?” Kael said, partly to break the deafening silence. He
wasn’t even certain Geist was breathing.

“Why does the
mason carry a chisel, or the bard his lute? These are the tools of my trade,
whisperer.”

While he was
still in the process of being shocked, Geist stuck the mustache under his nose.
The paste was cold and dried quickly to his upper lip. “How did you know I was
a —?”

“It’s my
business to know,” Geist replied, as if it was easily the most boring business
in the Kingdom. “Let’s set all the questions aside for now and try to focus our
limited attention on the task at hand, shall we? Splendid. Am I right to assume
that you’ve never taken a character before?”

“What?”

“Hmm, I thought
so.” Geist sat up straight: a movement that seemed almost as laborious as it
was bothersome. “The manager you’ll be impersonating is a man called Colderoy.
He’s very fat, and most people find him annoying.”

Kael wasn’t
exactly sure what he should say in the long space Geist left him to respond.
“All right … so, how do I do this?”

“Every character
has his prop — the feature or mannerism he abuses to no end. Colderoy’s,”
he traced his upper lip with thumb and forefinger, “is his mustache. In fact,
ninety percent of his personality is in what grows under his nose.”

Kael suddenly
felt unsure. “Isn’t there someone easier I could impersonate? Someone less of a
character?”

Geist shook his
head. “I can hide your face and your body, but I can do nothing to hide your
eyes. Though he married a seas woman, Colderoy is originally from the forest.
He is the only one of the Duke’s managers whose eyes are brown.”

Kael scratched
at his nose, where the little hairs of his mustache were starting to tickle.
“But what about Aerilyn?”

“What about her?
Colderoy’s daughter is just now of age: this was to be her first official ball.
No one will know if she is the real Margaret or not — she’s a stranger
either way. Now, Colderoy has a very particular way of speaking. He thrusts his
words out through his mustache. Observe.” Geist closed his eyes and cleared his
throat. “Good ephening.”

He sounded like
a completely different person. His words were obnoxiously drawn-out: inhaled
through his mouth and breathed half out his nose.

Kael spent a
whole hour just trying to master the voice. Geist would ask questions that he
thought the Duke might ask, and he would have to answer as Colderoy. He
struggled to remember everything Geist told him about the tax collecting
business — Colderoy’s particular area of expertise — all while
trying to mimic the gestures Geist showed him.

“Bounce your
belly when you walk,” Geist said. He stood and took a step forward with his
stomach stuck out. “See how my shoulders are sloped down, how my neck juts out
like a condescending vulture? That’s how Colderoy walks. Give it a try.”

Kael’s attempt
didn’t seem to particularly impress him.

“I suspect it’ll
look better when you’ve actually got a belly. Things to remember when
pretending to be Colderoy,” Geist listed them off with his fingers, “chew with
your mouth open, talk with your mouth full, and get as many crumbs lodged in
your mustache as possible. Crumbs are useful projectiles — should anyone
begin to ask questions, spraying them with bits of pastry usually scares them
off. In fact, when you aren’t dancing, you should be eating —”

“Dancing?” Kael
said, slightly alarmed.

Geist frowned.
“Yes, you’ll have to dance. It’s tradition for a father to dance with his
daughter on the night of her first ball. You’ll have to take the first turn
with Aerilyn.” When he saw how much blood had gone from Kael’s face, he sighed.
“Another rut in the path, is it? Well, I suppose we’ve still got time to teach
you.”

*******

On their way
down to dinner, Geist vanished. Kael had no idea how long he carried on a
conversation with the tapestries before he finally noticed the man was gone.
Then something equally extraordinary happened shortly after dinner: Thelred
emerged.