Betrayer's Bane Read online

  Tom appeared uncertain, but Tyrion spoke up, “Sarah is absolutely correct. We don’t want anyone that truly doesn’t want to come, but they must see it before they decide against it. There is no possibility of a true choice unless they are allowed to see what they are accepting or rejecting first.”

  “What is it you want us to do, exactly?” asked Tom hesitantly.

  Tyrion could feel the other man’s capitulation already. Tom Hayes had given up, although he hadn’t really had any other options to begin with. He smiled, “Just share the news. Talk to your neighbors. Gather a group of Colne’s more successful citizens and convince them to come see what we have to offer. Afterward they can return and share what they’ve seen with everyone else. People will be flocking to move to our new city after that.”

  “How soon do you want them to visit?” added Alice.

  “In a year,” announced Tyrion. “We need time to build our perfect city first.”

  Tom frowned, “That’s still a long time away. You could have waited to share this with us until you were nearly ready.”

  “There would be no point in investing our time and energy in such a thing if you didn’t think it was a good idea, Mr. Hayes,” said Tyrion politely. “Surely you didn’t think I would try to force you into this if you were opposed?”

  “Of c—course not!” stammered Tom. “You’ve shown your true intentions since that time.”

  Liar, thought Tyrion. You were ready to piss your pants in fear. But now you’re a more perfect tool than I could have hoped for, thanks to Sarah’s quick thinking. He caught his daughter’s eye for a moment, wondering if she could see his admiration for her clever words. “Thank you, Mr. Hayes,” said Tyrion. “I appreciate that. I assume since it is already late that you’ll be staying with us tonight?”

  “If that’s alright,” answered Tom.

  Tyrion looked further down the table. “Do we have enough prepared to accommodate our guests, Kate?” he asked, deferring to her judgment.

  She raised one coppery hued brow, “We practically feed an army every day now, two more will be no trouble, quite the opposite. It will be a delight to have some civilized company.” She gave Alice a welcoming grin.

  Tad leaned toward his mother, “Wait until you hear his playing. Tyrion is a genius with the cittern…”

  ***

  Dinner went well. As usual Kate sat on one side of him and Lyra sat on the other while his nearly grown children sat scattered up and down both sides of the table. Alice sat next to Lyra, between the alien She’Har woman and her husband Tom, who seemed to have trouble not staring at her.

  Tyrion could hardly blame him. Lyralliantha was beautiful, certainly, but there was no shortage of beauty in the room. It was her exotic coloring that made it difficult for both Tom and Alice to keep their eyes off of her. Vivid blue eyes and hair that shone like spun silver were a novelty not to be underestimated.

  It wasn’t their first time to Albamarl, but they had never spent any considerable amount of time there, nor had they ever been seated so close to one of the She’Har. Tyrion couldn’t help but wonder what their reaction might have been if there had been some of the more bizarrely colored She’Har in the room, like the Mordan with their blue skin, or the Prathions with their black skin and golden hair.

  Once the food was finished Kate rose from her seat with a mysterious smile and left the room before returning a moment later carrying Tyrion’s cittern. The sight of the stringed instrument brought audible sounds of approval from most of the people in the room. She handed it to him before retaking her seat and leaning toward Alice, “You’ll enjoy this.”

  Tyrion pulled his seat away from the table, creating some space between himself and his audience. It had been several months since he had played for them. Normally he played every evening, but he had been gone for a while and after returning from his secretive journey he hadn’t resumed his usual habits.

  The instrument felt strange in his hands.

  Idly he strummed it and then began to tune it, making sure it was ready. It was an old ritual for him, but it seemed almost foreign to him now.

  The people of Ellentrea had never heard music until he had arrived. The She’Har, despite their ancient history had never indulged in it either. He hadn’t understood that at the time, but now it made sense. The Elders had no ears and their children had little in the way of culture or a desire to find ways to entertain one another.

  The true society of the She’Har was a silent one. A rich world full of complex minds connected through the root systems of the god-trees. He had felt it first-hand, so he understood its beauty. A lifetime of sun and wind and shared thoughts, but it was missing one thing that was fundamental to human beings, music.

  Warming his fingers with a few chords he started into a lively rendition of ‘The Merry Widow’. It was a favorite tune of his and it never failed to arouse smiles, but today it felt off. His timing was good, his execution without mistakes, but it didn’t ring true, somehow the melody had lost its humor.

  When he finished everyone clapped politely, but their eyes didn’t give the impression that they had enjoyed it. Kate was frowning at him, as if confused by something.

  Undeterred, he launched into an improvisational piece. During his years in Ellentrea he had been without much to do other than play, aside from brief moments of forced combat. As a result, he had composed long melodies with no names, tunes that frequently changed with his whims and moods. These days it was his favorite way of playing, for it allowed him to express his heart directly, changing the tempo, style, and feel of his music to match his inner world.

  ‘The Merry Widow’ simply hadn’t suited his inclinations. Letting his fingers find their own desire seemed to work better and he picked his way through a meticulous series of notes and chords unlike anything he had played before. It was a harmonious structure built of symmetry and balance, with sharp edges and well defined patterns.

  His song spoke of order and precision, and it was filled with cold intelligence. It went on for fifteen minutes before he realized that it had no heart. It was a dead thing, sterile and alien, much like the interior of his soul. The looks on the faces of those around the table mirrored that judgement. Some of them looked bored, while others seemed almost imperceptibly disturbed.

  Irritated with himself, Tyrion struggled to infuse the notes with life, but the only emotion that answered his call was anger. Rather than give up he embraced it, letting the fire inside him burn away the calculated geometry of his playing, replacing it with the rage that grew ever greater as he fed it fuel.

  That garnered a better response. Brigid and some of his other children looked as though they were enjoying it, even Tom and Alice had warmed to it, their feet tapping in time with the savage tempo.

  Kate didn’t like it, however. Once he had finished she rose and apologized for retiring early. “I’ll take the private room tonight, Lyra.” The two women had a simple system for their sleeping arrangements. When they were both home they alternated sleeping alone and sleeping with Tyrion, but frequently if one or the other felt the need for privacy they would simply volunteer for the smaller room.

  Lyralliantha frowned but nodded, “If that is what you wish…”

  Kate was already on her way. As soon as she had closed the door behind her she sat on the bed and cradled her head in her hands. Tyrion’s playing had upset her more than she had realized. The first song had been clumsy, disorganized, and while the second had been meticulous, it hadn’t been her husband playing. It felt as though a stranger had taken his place, a man with a stone in the place where his heart belonged.

  The latter part had been more human, at least, but the violence of the melody disturbed her even more. I’m losing him, she thought. If there was even anything left of him when he returned… In her mind she saw a vision of Tyrion, skin stretched over a stiff wooden manikin.

  A small knock made her look up to see Lyra peeking around the edge of the door, “Are you all right
Catherine?”

  Kate rubbed her face, surprised to find tears on her cheeks, “Yes, I’m fine. I just wasn’t feeling well.”

  Lyra shut the door behind her and sat on the bed beside her, “You said we should be honest with each other.”

  Kate stared at the She’Har woman for a moment, startled, “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Will you share it with me?”

  “What did you think of the music?” asked Kate.

  Lyralliantha’s expression became thoughtful, “I liked it.”

  “Did it sound like Tyrion playing?”

  Lyra’s face was quizzical, “Who else would it have been?”

  Kate sighed, “I mean, did it sound the same as his playing in the past? Did you notice a difference?”

  “It was unlike the music he has made in the past, but I enjoyed it. I have never heard anyone else play music, so I can’t compare it other than that,” said the She’Har woman, picking her words carefully.

  “He sounded like a stranger,” declared Kate. “It worries me.”

  “It will be fine,” stated Lyra firmly.

  “How do you know that?”

  “His heart cannot change,” she replied, placing her hand on the left side of Kate’s chest. “His heart is here, in you. It cannot change without you. If he is losing his way, we will help him hear its beat.” Leaning over she kissed her human friend softly on the cheek.

  Kate hugged her tightly. For such a strange person, Lyra is sometimes the kindest one of us all.

  Chapter 11

  The head was missing.

  Tyrion stared at the flat wooden table he had left it on. A table in the center of a stone chamber hundreds of feet below ground. A chamber with enchanted doors that would only open when given the proper command. To reach those doors someone would first have to go through other doors that were not even properly doors, but special creations of the earth that only responded to someone with the special abilities that thus far only he and Emma had displayed.

  It couldn’t be gone, but it was.

  With a thought he activated the enchanted light-globes that hung from the ceiling, giving his purely mundane eyes a better view of what his magesight wasn’t seeing. They still didn’t see the head either. It had vanished. The long worktable in the middle of the laboratory was simply not there.

  He was about to step forward, to walk around the table, when he noticed something else. Instead, he activated his shield tattoos and leapt backward, moving him fully away from the doorway. Something struck his shield as he moved, sending him into a spin and knocking him sideways into the wall.

  Only his instincts had saved him and now that his adrenaline was pumping Tyrion’s rational mind had shifted into the background, making plenty of room for the beast that had kept him alive for so many years in the arena. Light flared as his arm blades slashed outward, cutting through the invisible spellweaving that had nearly caught him head on a moment before.

  As he destroyed it his magesight saw a flicker within the room itself, revealing a spindly sapling beside the table. It vanished again almost as fast as thought, but the beast within him didn’t need to think. It existed in a place beyond thought, a place where life and death stood side by side and only pure action and reaction separated the two. Leaping forward he used his aythar to push himself through the air like an arrow leaving a bow.

  His arms moved as he flew, slicing through the second attack as his opponent responded to his entry. The leap carried him thirty feet in, over the traps that he assumed were lying in wait on the ground by the doorway and taking him completely over the table. He turned in midair to let his shoulder and back take the hit when he struck the opposite wall, trusting in his shield to protect him from serious injury and hoping that there wasn’t a trap waiting there as well.

  Tyrion’s luck held. The force of his collision with the stone wall sent him bouncing back, off balance and falling, but it was just a plain wall. As he stumbled he lengthened his armblades and swept them across in front of himself in a scissoring motion. He felt the resistance when they met in the air beside the table and then his foe became visible.

  The small tree fell into two parts, cut cleanly through the middle.

  Wasting no time, Tyrion followed that attack with several more and quickly cut the spindly roots and branches away from the two trunk sections. He considered cutting the two long truck pieces apart as well, but his rational mind had begun making itself felt once more. The She’Har elder was dead already. He would save the two larger pieces for a trophy of some sort later.

  Taking a deep breath, he let his heart rate slow down and surveyed the room. Using his arm blades he carefully destroyed the spellwoven traps that surrounded the entrance to the chamber. They were visible now that the Prathion that had been hiding them was dead.

  I was a fool, thought Tyrion, and I almost paid for it with my life. He should have realized that the seed within the Prathion She’Har’s head would germinate. Even without soil or light it could survive on the flesh of its human host. The head wasn’t large enough to allow it to grow very large, but it had been enough.

  Left alone in the lightless chamber it would have shriveled and died eventually, but that might have taken a week or longer. He knew from personal experience that She’Har god-trees could last for long periods without much in the way of sustenance.

  The fact that it had been a Prathion also made it exceptionally dangerous. Their ability to become invisible, coupled with their skill with illusions made for a deadly combination when it came to ambushes.

  He spent half an hour cleaning the chamber and disposing of the ruined and desiccated remains of the skull that had nourished the She’Har elder. He paused before cleaning the table, though, studying the blood stains that remained. That had been the clue that tipped him off to the illusion hiding the true contents of the room.

  No thief would have bothered cleaning the surface of the table after taking the decapitated head, but when he had looked into the room it had appeared completely smooth and unblemished.

  Tyrion took the leaves, branches, and roots to the surface and incinerated them. The two long pieces of the trunk he stored. One they had dried he could make something out of them, just for spite. The thought made him smile.

  Returning below he opened the cell that held the stasis box that contained his sole prisoner. His encounter had cost him almost two hours, but he had all day.

  The She’Har woman had been asleep when he had placed her in the box and she remained so when he removed her and used his aythar to lift and carry her over to the table. He felt her consciousness begin to stir but he used a quick spell to force it back down into the darkness. It wouldn’t do for her to wake up before he was ready.

  He removed the thin garments she wore and used the leather straps he had brought with him to secure her to the table. As an added precaution the leather had been enchanted to make it exceedingly difficult to break or cut, although he had no doubt that if she were left alone and conscious she could probably create a spellweaving that would free her. But he had no intention of allowing the woman that much free time.

  Tyrion already knew of several spellweavings that would have made her imprisonment much easier. Ways to draw away her aythar, or to seal her mind up within an internal prison, but he couldn’t create them on his own. He would have to design enchantments to do the same thing and figuring out how to convert the knowledge he had gained of those spellweaves into his system of enchanting would take time.

  Fortunately, he wouldn’t have to worry about her being able to escape for very long.

  Keeping a tight grip on her mind, he released the sleep spell and roused her to consciousness. Her eyes opened slowly and then focused blearily on his features. She tried to raise one hand, possibly to rub her face, but the straps prevented it. Alarmed, she quickly realized she was bound.

  Tyrion could see the panic spreading through her heart as her magesight reported her surroundings to her. Waking up b
ound and trussed on a table in an underground chamber would probably be a disconcerting experience for almost anyone. “Relax,” he told her, speaking in soothing tones.

  “Where am I?”

  He ignored the question as he leaned over her, “I apologize for waking you. It would have been much less stressful for you if I had left you asleep, but I’m afraid I need you awake.”

  She remained silent for a moment, thinking hard. She thought she recognized the man looking down on her, but she wasn’t certain, “Who are you?”

  Tyrion put one hand on her forehead, brushing the hair back gently. “You already know the answer to that. A better question is, who are you?”

  A surge of aythar answered his question as the woman tried to spellweave, but he was ready for that. He clamped down on her mind before she could begin. He had done the same in the past with human mages. With them it was purely a matter of strength once he was past their defenses, but with a She’Har it was more complicated. The children of the She’Har produced aythar in the same way a human did, but when they were spellweaving the energy was routed to the seed-mind where it was organized and formed into complex structures.

  To stop her he had to keep a firm grip at all times, if enough aythar reached her seed-mind and a spellweave began to emerge he might be unable to counter it without withdrawing and using his tattoos. That would effectively end his experimentation and probably produce a dead opponent rather than a test subject.

  She fought hard. Even though the children of the She’Har considered themselves effectively expendable they still had the same instinct for survival that every human is born with. Fear and desperation made her stronger than normal and for a moment Tyrion almost lost control. Snarling he drove his fist into the bound woman’s midsection. Air exploded from her lungs with and her concentration abruptly disappeared as she fought to draw breath.

  “Being unable to breathe can make magic difficult,” Tyrion commented. “When you manage to get enough air, answer the question. What is your name?”