The Eynan Page 9

  It was frustrating, but all was balance in the use of talent of the magi. This young man was his balance. This young man would, he prayed, solve the mystery and find the prize.

  Suvran would find the strands of time.

  Chapter 11

  "A man out of legend...that's a stretch, isn't it?" Jhond asked with a grin. "Some of the other lines might fit, I suppose. But that last line? Okay, beyond the sea is fairly obvious. But what and where are the pillars of history? Then there are the strands of time. The description makes it sound like that's a place. Those last two lines I have come across before, and for many years I have been trying to understand them. I didn't know they were part of a larger...prophecy."

  "You have to remember the prophecies are couched in such a way as to confuse the uninitiated. Unfortunately, they sometimes confuse the rest of us as well." Ninian smiled. "A man out of legend? That could even refer to something he--you--will do. As for the rest, I'm not entirely positive, but I believe it is a word map."

  "Word map? Presuming you can decipher it, leading to where?"

  "Have you heard of the Isle of Truth?"

  "Good Lord, yes. It's mentioned any number of times in the archive. But like most other things, it isn't explained any too well. Someplace where could be found the secrets of time immemorial. Of course! You're right, that line was mentioned in conjunction with the Isle of Truth."

  "Beyond the sea, I believe that's from the Temple of Magi and the only way to go would be either north or west. We're already south, and to the east, the way is virtually locked by Tendril's Whirl at the exit from the Estan Narrows. No ship has ever made that trip. North seems extremely unlikely; it contains too many well-used shipping lanes from the southern lands to the north. No island there could remain undiscovered. But to the west, there is just the open vastness of the great ocean."

  "Okay, that makes sense, but why have you made the Temple of the Magi your starting point?" Jhond queried.

  "Pillars of history. I believe those are part of the Temple of Magi. There's not much left of the temple now, but the entrance walkway was lined with pillars of marble, engraved with pictograms depicting the greatest legends of the earliest magi."

  "Well, you already seem to know your starting point and a rough direction, so that just leaves the strands of time. Any ideas?"

  "Yes, and that's my reason for being here."

  "I can't say I really know my reason." Jhond pondered. "I was...I suppose I was drawn here. After I had...had to leave, I needed a path to follow. I realized it had always been there, but I had never had the push I needed to follow it."

  "It was always meant to be. All of it, you do realize that? It was foretold many centuries ago, whatever this...situation of yours is."

  "If that is really true, why did they have to be so cruel?"

  "No, things are not meant to happen because they are seen. They are seen because they are meant to happen. The way we were meant to meet on the journey here. I have been here before, but I could never make that work," he said, pointing at the tray on the black stone plinth. "I know what it is, how it should work, but I can't do it."

  Jhond had wandered over as Ninian was talking. "What is it?" He picked up one of the small pieces of crystal and rolled it around in his hand.

  "As I said it's a scrything block. Those crystals, when placed in the correct holes in the block, should project a message of some kind, in a visual form, I believe. I have tried, but..."

  As he had been speaking, the crystal Jhond held in his hand began to glow, just a little.

  "I have never been able to make them do that," Ninian added excitedly. "Put it in one of those holes."

  Jhond did as he was bid, but as soon as he released it, the glow faded.

  "Try another one," Ninian said, pointing at the largest one.

  Jhond reached for it and immediately when he touched this one, it glowed, stronger than the first. He looked at Ninian, who nodded briskly. Jhond looked at the block carefully and noted one of the holes was larger than the others. He took out the small crystal presently laying in that hole and placed the large one there, where it fit perfectly. The glow increased, until he began to remove his hand.

  "Leave it. Don't let go," Ninian instructed sharply.

  Jhond held on, tightly. "It's getting warmer," he said nervously.

  "Hold on!" Ninian demanded.

  The glow grew and spread out from Jhond's hand until it was about the size of large watermelon, with a hazy orange tint to it. The haziness faded and a picture began to form. They saw a small ship at sea. A figure stood in the stern, the figure turned looking backward. The view shifted to show the ship leaving the bay as seen from the Temple of the Magi on the cliff above, shining bright and whole the way it must have looked so long ago.

  The perspective changed again to show the inside of a ship's cabin, obviously a stern cabin by the size of the windows all along the wide back wall. Then the view settled on a table in the center of the cabin where there was a chart. Ninian drew in his breath sharply, but kept quiet. The view moved, angling above the chart, moving in hesitant jumps from the coast to the open sea, then on to a small group of three islands, where it stopped above the one farthest to the right of the three.

  Suddenly, the pain in Jhond's hand increased dramatically and, with a cry, he released the large crystal. The image disappeared as if it had been cut with a knife.

  "Sorry, it suddenly burned terribly." He lifted his hand, but aside from a slight red patch he was uninjured. "I don't understand," he commented in wonder. "It was agony."

  "It's all right. You saw all you were meant to. It was the crystal's way of turning itself off."

  "I wish it could've found a less painful way," Jhond murmured. "Was that it? The way to the Isle of Truth?"

  * * * *

  "I do believe so. And if you're not convinced now that you were meant to be here, you never will be. I've been here three times in the last fifteen years and I never got one of them to do that."

  "Fifteen years?"

  "I'll be thirty-four next birthday," Ninian explained. "I've been searching for you since I reached the age of maturity."

  Jhond frowned, digesting this. "Okay, but why was I able to make that crystal work if you couldn't?"

  "Because whatever magic is needed to work those, you have it and I don't. Unless..." Ninian moved over to the scrything block and picked up a crystal. Nothing. He tried another and another. On the sixth try, the crystal glowed. He swung to Jhond, excitement in his eyes.

  Jhond hurried over. "Look for the hole with the size and shape that seems to fit it."

  Ninian looked carefully before hesitantly placing it in the very central hole. It fit perfectly. He held on as the glow increased and swelled in size. It didn't reach the same size as the image of Jhond's crystal, but again there was an orange haze that slowly cleared.

  This time, they saw the inside of a building. It seemed they followed a torch lighting the way down a dark, narrow passage. Eventually, the passage opened into a room, an underground room. The walls were roughhewn stone with no windows or apertures of any kind. But as they approached, the room lightened and they could see the walls were not just roughhewn. They were full of indentations of varying shapes and sizes, not unlike walls of scrything blocks. The view moved back toward the center of the room and they saw huge chests made entirely of long, narrow drawers. One of the drawers was open and it was full of crystals, all shapes and sizes, laid out on a soft cloth lining.

  Even as Ninian recognized what he was seeing, the crystal became too hot to hold and he swiftly let go of it, shaking his hand as if that would somehow alleviate the pain, though he, too, was uninjured.

  Jhond spoke first. "Was that what I thought it was?"

  "It was the Library of the Magi. It was never here at all; this was just pointing the way. Once you showed me how, I could see what I was searching for."

  "I thought you were searching for me."

  "I was because I knew
you were the key to returning the power to the world, but to accomplish that we would need the library, the real library. Lords of Light, I can hardly believe I finally know where it is."

  "And now we have to find a way to get there."

  * * * *

  As he watched, Suvran began to feel a fear he hadn't experienced in a long time. He didn't know exactly where the stranger was, but he knew what it meant. The young man was on the trail. At long last, fate had taken a hand and it had begun. Suvran hadn't used the strands for a while; he had been too busy. The last time he had looked at the stranger, he had been where he always was, where Suvran assumed was home. But this certainly wasn't home. Wherever it was, it reeked of power and knowledge. Suvran didn't know what the young stranger and his friend were doing with the scrything crystals. The strands hadn't shown him any more than the two men apparently having some kind of discussion. The crystal in the stranger's hand was the center of the power he could sense, however far away.

  Suvran had never fully understood the strands and what they could do, but he never doubted their power. They had come to his family from the time of the magi, and along with them had come the warnings--that they were irreplaceable, that they were dangerous, that they were powerful beyond knowledge. He'd known it was all true, but now he believed that maybe it was an understatement. Whatever he'd expected, it hadn't been to sense such power through the use of the strands.

  All he knew of the strands was what had been handed down in his family: that they had been appropriated during the hectic time when the magi had been finalizing all their plans, setting all their traps into place, creating the spells, charms and sigils of power that would come into their own at the right time. His ancestor had only been able to gather a small quantity, an amount that would never even have been missed when the receptacle was being created; the receptacle Suvran needed, but that he wasn't destined to find. Suvran had a very strong belief in destiny; predestination had always been the talent of his ancestors. It had long been foretold: 'In the time of need, the young one with the eyes of time would come, with history but no knowledge, with power greater than he knew.'

  Such prophecies were confusing because they were so vague. Any number of interpretations could be put on them, and were, but his family had long studied the prophecies and believed they knew how to read them. Suvran's father had told him when he'd been but a child that it would be his destiny to face the one in the prophecy and take the prize from him. The time of need had arrived and it was his destiny to help create the need long foretold. It seemed to Suvran what he'd really been taught was that prophecies were only made so that, when it suited, someone could choose to fulfill it. It was probably blasphemy, he supposed, but he couldn't help seeing it that way.

  But whatever he thought about the facility of prophecy, it was now more important than ever to keep a watch on the young stranger. Suvran would need to use more of the precious strands. He would pray to the Lords that he had enough to complete his destiny.

  * * * *

  Rhou hadn't been able to understand what had happened. He knew damn well Jhond and Gallia loved each other. He'd wondered whether the duke would allow them to marry, but that obstacle had been surmounted, so he found it doubly difficult to understand what in the hells had gone wrong. Rhou was pretty sure his father knew, but Lord Girau only denied it when asked. Of course, Gallia knew, but she hadn't returned home that day or since. Instead, she had moved back into her old family home and he'd rarely seen her since. His mother hadn't known, though she was terribly upset, especially as Jhond had left that very night without a word to anyone. Everyone knew Father had received some sort of note from Jhond to pass on to Gallia and it was generally believed he had received a note himself, but that he denied, too.

  All that was confusing enough, but now this. After so short a time, Gallia was to marry someone else? Some foreign prince who barely a sennight ago no one had heard of! Rhou hadn't seen her from the day everything had gone wrong until now--this morning when the family had been invited with the rest of the local nobility to hear the formal announcement at the palace in the capital city of Timen.

  They had all gone expecting some announcement about some political alliance perhaps, or even that war had finally been declared. It had been a long time coming was the consensus. The last thing anyone had expected was to be introduced to this foreign prince from across the Estan Sea and then to be told he was to marry the king's niece, the Lady Gallia Talchel.

  For one moment, Rhou had entertained the idea the king had stopped the match between Jhond and Gallia just to allow this royal alliance, but that idea had been dashed by the utter astonishment on his father's face. Clearly, this was new.

  Rhou paced up and down the central walkway of the garden. He stopped and looked at the Garden Room window, where he expected his father was either pacing, too, or possibly watching him pace outside of the window. One of the major differences between Rhou and his father was that while Girau was generally a careful, deliberate man, Rhou was never the kind to sit and think when action would suffice. He came to his decision there and then and promptly walked toward the estate office to put it into action. In all probability it would fail; he didn't really have any good idea where to start, but he simply couldn't do nothing. Jhond deserved to know. Whatever had gone wrong between Jhond and Gallia, even though it was probably way too late, his brother deserved to have the opportunity to do something, or to do nothing.

  At least the choice should be his to make.

  There was a way, perhaps. It might not work, but he could think of no other. There were two methods to send messages across country. One was by messengers traveling on horseback, using relay stations where exchange horses were kept.

  The second method was by messenger birds. Specially trained birds would fly specific set routes between the larger cities to provide a service for the ordinary populace. But all the larger estates had trained birds for their own regular traffic, trained to fly between specific landmarks. This proved a very efficient method, especially for an urgent message. An efficient bird would always beat a man on horseback.

  Both forms of messenger were under the control of the chief wardens on the estates. The chief warden was responsible for the efficient running of the farm land, park and gardens of the estate. His responsibility also included the security of the estate. The chief warden on the Reeve estate was very efficient and had held the post for a good many years. He was the king of his own castle. Even the Reeve family themselves took their lives in their hands if they tried to alter his long-standing systems and well-oiled machine, but it was well known he was extremely loyal and had the best interests of the family at heart.

  Rhou approached the door of the estate office just as the chief warden opened it to leave. "Ah, Chief Harrad, I was just coming to see you. I need one warden, more if you can spare them, to go and search for Master Jhond."

  Chief Harrad, a big barrel of a man with a shock of thick, almost white hair, stared at Rhou before he replied, "Master Rhou, this isn't a good time to take my wardens. We have more trouble with poachers up on the tops and I need to increase the watch everywhere."

  "I do understand, but this is important. You know as well as anyone the situation with Master Jhond."

  Harrad nodded knowingly, but never said a word. Exactly how much he knew wasn't the point...he knew enough to be acquainted with a problem within the family. Rhou went on, never expecting an acknowledgement. "I need to get a message to him if it is at all possible."

  Harrad hesitated before asking, "But, sir, I thought the family was...unaware of his current plans?"

  "We are somewhat vague on the subject, but I believe he has made for the coast, possibly to the west in the region of Tsarn." This was rather an arbitrary choice on the part of Rhou, based purely on the interests he knew held sway in Jhond's mind. He knew only of one major interest in his brother's life besides Gallia--the history of magic and the Temple of the Magi at Tandera was a fair guess, he judg
ed. The nearest large city to Tandera was the port of Tsarn. "I know you have contacts with most, if not all, the chief wardens in this part of the country, Chief Harrad. Surely you could put out some feelers and have a couple of men track him down? I assure you, I would not ask if it were not so important."

  "As you wish, Master Rhou. I will send out all the messenger birds and also two of my best horse messengers. If any of the birds bring back news, I will send out wardens. Trust me, if he's to be found, I will do it."

  Chapter 12

  Jhond was totally exhausted. He could barely raise his head to look at the man riding beside him. Even though Ninian was about ten years older than Jhond's twenty-three, he hadn't shown the exhaustion Jhond was feeling. Jhond assumed Ninian must be using some sort of charm to increase his stamina, and he wished Ninian would've used it on him. Or at least taught him to use it.

  Ninian had made it clear Jhond had the talent, but he'd just never been taught how to use it. According to Ninian, the premonitions Jhond had, which his family had tried to dismiss, were an indication of his latent talent.

  Jhond wanted to know a lot more about Ninian. Why he no longer used his full name? What exactly were his talents, and who had taught him? How long would it take Ninian to teach him? And many other things he couldn't even put a name to yet. But all Ninian would say was, "All in good time, all in good time," as if saying it twice would convince him.

  They'd left the Temple of the Magi eighteen hours earlier and had been on the move ever since, with just short stops for food. Ninian had insisted they reach the port of Tsarn posthaste and from there, they could hire a ship to carry them to the isle.

  "Hire a ship?" Jhond had questioned. "How are we going to afford that? I told you, I have little money. Do you carry that large an amount?"

  Ninian had laughed. "I'm a mage, remember? What I need, I procure."