Denser surged from the chair to stand eye to eye with the Tower Lord.
'Don't even think of trying that horseshit with me,' he grated. 'Your Quorum's damned pride and politics has kept me away from the search for my daughter and the woman I love for six bloody wasted weeks. They could be absolutely anywhere by now. What exactly have your searches turned up?'
Denser could see the beads of sweat forming on Vuldaroq's red, bulbous face.
'Vague clues. Rumoured sightings. Nothing certain.'
'It's taken you six weeks to find out 'nothing certain'? The entire and considerable might of Dordover?' Denser stopped, seeing Vuldaroq's squinted gaze dart momentarily away. He smiled and stepped away a little, half-turning, his fingers playing idly with a stack of papers. 'She really took you by surprise, didn't she? All of you.' He gave a short laugh. 'You never had any idea that she might leave or where she might go, did you?'
Vuldaroq said nothing. Denser nodded.
'So what did you do? Send mages and soldiers to Lystern? Korina? Blackthorne? Even Xetesk perhaps. Then what? Scoured the local woodland, sent word to Gyernath and Jaden?'
'The search area is large,' said Vuldaroq carefully.
'And with all your great wisdom, none of you had the wit to know her well enough to consider in which direction she might have headed, did you?' Denser tutted, and tapped his head, enjoying, for a moment, Vuldaroq's embarrassment. 'No instinct, was there? And so you sent for me, someone who might know. But you left it so very, very late. Why is that, Vuldaroq?'
The Dordovan Tower Lord wiped the cloth over his face and hands before pocketing it.
'Despite your relationship to both Erienne and Lyanna, they were both under the care of Dordover,' said Vuldaroq. 'We have a certain image to uphold, protocols to observe. We wanted them returned to
us with the minimum of apparent… fuss.' He spread his hands wide and tried a half-smile. -
Denser shook his head and moved forward again. Vuldaroq took a pace back, struck his leg against the seat of a chair and sat heavily, face reddening anew.
'You expect me to believe that? Your secrecy over Lyanna's disappearance has nothing to do with risking public embarrassment. No, there's more. You wanted her back in your College before I even knew she was gone, didn't you?' Denser leaned over the sweating face, feeling the warm, faintly alcohol-tainted breath spatting quickly over his cheeks. 'Why is that, I wonder? Scared she would fetch up at the door of a more capable College?'
Again a slight spreading of the hands from Vuldaroq. 'Lyanna is a child of utterly unique talents. And those talents must be channelled correctly if they are not to provoke unfortunate consequences.'
'Like the awakening of a true all-College ability, you mean? Hardly unfortunate.' Denser smiled. 'If it happens, we should celebrate.'
'Be careful, Denser,' warned Vuldaroq. 'Balaia has no place for another Septern. Not now, not ever. The world has changed.'
'Dordover may speak only for itself, not for Balaia. Lyanna can show us the way forward. All of us.'
Vuldaroq snorted. ' 'Forward'? A return to the One is a step back, my Xeteskian friend, and one talented child does not herald such a step. One child is powerless.' The old Dordovan bit his lip.
'Only if you stop her realising her potential.' What started as a retort finished as a whisper. Denser paced back, his mouth slack for a moment. 'That's it, isn't it? By all the Gods falling, Vuldaroq, if one hair on her head is harmed-'
Vuldaroq pushed himself out of the chair. 'No one is going to harm her, Denser. Calm yourself. We are Dordovans, not witch-hunters.' He moved towards the door. 'But do find her and bring her back here, Denser. Soon. Believe me, it is important to all of us.'
'Get out,' muttered Denser.
'Might I remind you that this is my Tower,' snapped Vuldaroq.
'Get out!' shouted Denser. 'You have no idea what you are toying with, do you? No idea at all.' Denser sat back down in his chair.
'On the contrary, I think you'll find we have a very good idea indeed.' Vuldaroq stood for a while before shuffling out. Denser
listened to his heavy footsteps receding along the wood-panelled corridor. He unfolded the letter they hadn't even found, though it was barely hidden in Erienne's chambers. Denser had known it would be there, addressed to him. And he had known they wouldn't find it, just as she had. No instinct.
He read the letter again and sighed. Four and a half years it had been since they had all stood together on the fields of Septern Manse, and yet The Raven were the only people he could possibly trust to help him, depleted as they were. Erienne was gone and Thraun presumably still ran with the wolf pack in Thornewood. That left Hirad, with whom he had had a bad falling out a year before and no contact since, Ilkar who was working himself to an early grave in the ruins of Julatsa and, of course, the Big Man.
Denser managed a smile. He was still the lynchpin. And Denser could be in Korina in a little over two days if he flew all the way. A supper at The Rookery and a glass of Blackthorne red with The Unknown Warrior. A pleasant prospect.
He decided he would leave Dordover at first light, and turned to ring for a fire to warm Erienne's chambers. There was a great deal of work still to do. Denser's smile faded. The Dordovans would continue their search and he couldn't risk them finding Lyanna first. Not that that was very likely, given the contents of the letter, but he couldn't be certain. And without certainty, his daughter was at risk from the very people Erienne had turned to for help.
But there was something else too. Something serious nagging at him that he couldn't drag from his subconscious. It was to do with the awakening.
A strong gust of wind rattled the windows, almost over before it had come. Denser shrugged, switched his attention to the desk and began leafing carefully through its papers.
Korina was bustling. Trade had been excellent throughout the summer and the seasonal change had brought little diminishment, other than the falling numbers of itinerant travellers and workers, who had begun to take ship for the southern continent, following the heat.
After two years of rumours of more battles, increased taxation and Wesman invasion, following the end of the war, confidence was
returning to Korina's once-deserted docks and markets, with every trader seemingly determined to wring out every last ounce of profit. Market days were longer, more ships sailed in and out on every tide, day and night, and the inns, eateries and hostels hadn't seen such a boom since the halcyon days of the Korina Trade Alliance. And of course, out in the Baronial lands, the bickering had begun in earnest again and the mercenary trade was seeing a return to profitable days. But it was a trade without The Raven.
The Rookery, on the edge of Korina's central market, groaned at the seams from early dawn when the breakfast trade began, to late evening when the nightly hog roasts were reduced to so much bone and gristle on their spits.
The Unknown Warrior closed the door on the last of the night's drunks and turned to survey the bar, catching his reflection in one of the small pillar-mounted mirrors. The close-shaven head couldn't hide the spreading grey that matched his eyes, but the jaw was as strong as ever and the powerful physique under the white shirt and dark tan breeches was kept in peak condition by religious exercise. Thirty-eight. He didn't feel it but then he didn't fight any more. For good reason.
The watch had just called the first hour of the new day but it would be another two before he walked through his own front door. He hoped Diera was having a better night with young Jonas. The boy had a touch of colic and spent a good deal of the time grumbling.
He smiled as he moved back toward the bar on which Tomas had placed two steaming buckets of soapy water, cloths and a mop. His happiest times of the day were standing over his newborn son's crib at night and waking next to Diera with the sun washing through their bedroom window. He righted a stool before slapping his hands on the bar. Tomas appeared from beneadi it, a bottle of Southern Isles red-grape spirit and two shot glasses in his hands. He poured them each a measure. Completely bald now he had entered his fiftieth year, Tomas' eyes still sparkled beneath his brow and his tall frame was upright and healthy.
'Here's to another good night,' he said, handing The Unknown a glass.
'And to the wisdom of hiring those two extra staff. They've taken a weight off.'
The two men, friends for well over twenty years and co-owners of The Rookery for a good dozen, chinked
