Crown (The Manhunters Book 3) Read online

  “I am here to talk to you about Fannalis and the Thorn Brothers. We came in force in case you were not ready to meet, but time is growing short and I need that dagger.”

  Rayph felt the world pull in tight. His head lightened and he stepped forward. “How do you know about Fannalis?”

  Roth held his hands out where Rayph could see them. With his left, he reached into his robe and pulled out a long keen rapier. He held it before Rayph’s eyes and laid it out on his palms.

  “Have you ever seen this?” Roth said.

  Rayph nearly passed out. He struggled to keep his feet and stepped closer. As he neared the boy, the group of wizards grew more nervous. They pulled in tight and The Manhunters did as well. Rayph held them all back with a gesture.

  “That can’t be Ran-toc,” Rayph said.

  Roth closed his fingers around the rapier handle, and it sprouted thorns that skewered the boy’s hand. “This is Ran-toc. Are you ready to talk?”

  Rayph nodded dumbly and ushered them all into the city.

  “Roth, I have heard your name from a great friend of mine, but I have not had time to come look for you.” Rayph looked at the boy again and back to the rapier.

  “Who mentioned our Roth?” Ithyryyn said. He smiled with a pleasant face.

  “His name is Glimmer, he is—”

  “Glimmer knows of me?” Roth asked, excited. In that moment he looked nothing more than a child.

  “He does,” Rayph said. “He told me to find you, that you would help me complete my quest. Said you could help me go home.” At the word home, Rayph felt a sudden tolling in his heart. A longing jumped up and seized him. He looked at Smear who nodded and walked away.

  “Do you still have Fannalis?” Roth asked.

  “And Leteral and Geterel.”

  Roth laughed. “You jest.”

  “About this, I never jest. I have them. They were given to me by Glimmer.”

  “Then all we need is Betamus, Harloc, and the Smith.” Roth said it so simply, as if the feat was nothing to fear or find daunting.

  “It will not be as easy as that,” Rayph said. “I’ve been trying to unite them for ten thousand years.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t know Quill.” He motioned to the woman beside him. “And you had no Table of Glistening to attend you,” Roth said.

  “What do you need?” Rayph said.

  “I need a laboratory and a summoning room,” Roth said. “I will need to bring in a few things from home, and I will need you to accompany me after I find the others. You will go a long way toward smoothing things out. You are known everywhere.”

  “Look about the city and take any building still vacant,” Rayph said. “Will your friends be staying?”

  “They will be in and out,” Roth said. “You will deal mostly with me.”

  Rayph stopped and stepped before the young man. “We are going to set them free. This is not about slavery.”

  “I am of the Callden Collective. We do not tolerate slavery, nor unwarranted captivity. Since I first heard of the Thorn Brothers, my only goal has been to set them free.” Roth smiled. “I think we can do it.”

  Rayph looked the young man in the face and felt a kick of excitement. He had no reason to, but when he looked into Roth’s eyes, he felt the warm glow of hope.

  The Lord of Mestlven

  Roth stood in the crumbling warehouse and sighed. He liked that the center of the upper floor had collapsed. He liked that it had no windows on the first floor. He liked the thick, ironbound door of immense size and the sturdy roof.

  He did not like the utter disrepair the entire building was in. He would have to clean most of this place, blow out all the spider webs and clean every speck of mildew and mold, but he was pretty sure once he did, this room would be exactly what he needed.

  He touched the center of his circlet and loosed the pulse of the Callden Collective. Five portals ripped open, and Roth turned to look at his coven.

  Father stepped out of his portal and looked around the room. They were supposed to call him Gale in public. Reminding the citizens that Roth, and his twin, Tate, had not been raised by the Callden family was frowned upon back home. Gale smiled and nodded. “Roth, it looks okay,” he said. “What will you do about the gaping hole in the center of the second floor?”

  “That is actually the reason I love it so. Watch this.”

  Roth spoke a spell that sanded away all the ragged edges of the hole, rounding it off to a perfect curve, kind of a bean shape, which left a good amount of the second floor in place.

  “I can see where you are going,” Ithyryyn said. He grinned and held his hands up to the sides of the room. Glowing pillars appeared to lift the second floor to its original height and brace it. “The light will never fade and will keep the room in perfect brightness whenever you perform the summoning. You can dim it on command, and the pillars extend to the upstairs to provide the same light.”

  “We will need to clean this,” Thrak said. He summoned up a dust devil in the center of the room. It was three feet tall and humming. The wind funnel twisted and churned, and as Thrak moved his finger around the room, the cyclone sucked up all unwanted dust and grime. When the funnel came within a few feet of Thrak’s mohawk, his hair bobbed and swayed, and Roth giggled.

  Quill lifted off the floor and hovered into the hole in the second level. Roth could hear her casting, and Gale pointed at Tate.

  “What is she casting?” Gale asked.

  Gale did this all the time. It was constant teaching, a concept the Callden Collective had mastered years ago. It was both useful and annoying in equal measure.

  Tate ran fingers through his long, black hair and frowned. “She is sealing the windows, shading them with a dimmer function and casting a word that can cause the glass to vanish and one to return.”

  “How does she do that?” Ithyryyn said, turning to Roth.

  Roth rolled his eyes and looked at Tate. The twins shared a huff.

  “She names the windows and grants them a language. In this case, it is the word ‘shine’ in ancient Syphere. She coils a summoning spell on them and commands them to stay. She places a dismiss command which is simply ‘douse’ in ancient Syphere, and she has vanishing windows.”

  “What have I been reading today?” Quill yelled down from the second floor.

  “How can I possibly know that? I have been here,” Roth stated.

  “Think,” Thrak said. Roth looked down at the crystal ring on his finger and shook his head. He and Tate thought when they earned their portal rings this sort of inane questioning would cease, but it had only increased.

  “She was reading the maps of The City of the Jinn,” Tate said.

  “Very good. How do you know?” Quill said as she hovered to the first floor again.

  “Shine and douse are words used to command portals to the city. And you cast them in ancient Syphere, so I guessed,” Tate said.

  “The upstairs is done.”

  “What do we do with the trash?” Ithyryyn said.

  “This is not trash,” Roth said, motioning to the items littering the room. The rest of the room laughed at him, and he scowled. “There are tools everywhere, and lots of scrap metal. There is a bit of paper and a few crates of books. I am not banishing this stuff. We are moving it to my—”

  “Junk heap,” Thrak said.

  “Trash pile,” Gale said.

  “Unholy mess,” Ithyryyn said.

  “Supply stack,” Roth corrected. “Are you going to help me?”

  “I have to get back. I am needed in Beacon for the birth,” Gale said.

  “My maps of Jinn are not going to pore over themselves,” Quill said as she opened a tear in the air that led to her sitting room.

  “I will banish what you don’t need,” Thrak said. “I can stay for a while.”

  “And I will help you with the spare metal,” Ithyryyn said.

  Tate opened a portal to a dark room with details no one could make out and he grinned. “I
need everyone’s help later tonight,” he said before walking into the darkness and zipping the portal closed behind him.

  “We will be there,” Ithyryyn said, though Tate had left already.

  “Did you say books?” Thrak said.

  Roth showed him a few crates of books before turning to his new workspace.

  Roth and Ithyryyn opened portals to Purgatory, to the piles of treasures Roth had been accumulating for years. He had never tried to sort it all. That would take months. He simply added it all to the heaps. He tried to get all the tools in one place, but Thrak kept asking if Roth wanted this or that. The Librarian was looking for a reason to throw most of it away, and Roth was not going to let that happen. Ithyryyn was doing a wonderful job saving most of the scrap metal from Thrak’s banishing wand, and Roth loved him for it.

  Ithyryyn had long been Roth’s favorite family member. He was funny. He was smart, and he understood Roth’s weapon fascination. Ithyryyn had bought his gratitude for life when he tracked down the family sword Roth now wore on his back.

  The blade had been Roth’s and Tate’s father’s. Roth had been prepared to share it with his brother, but Tate dismissed it as useless the moment he found out it had belonged to father. Tate’s disdain for the man’s memory angered Roth. Ruther Callden had been a simple man by every account the boys had uncovered about him: a warrior, a nobleman ninth in line for his father’s inheritance, friend, and leader. Roth had been very excited to hear about his hero of a father, far more impressed than he had been to find out his mother was a jewel thief and assassin. But Tate had clamped on to her memory, taking all the things that had belonged to her and claiming her city as his own.

  Roth had been left worrying again for his brother’s soul.

  When the room had been cleared and the dust devil had blown it clean, Ithyryyn painted the walls with a spell and a flare of a wand. Thrak had taken the books and gone home. Ithyryyn colored the walls red.

  This was why he loved Ithyryyn.

  It took Roth two days to copy the summoning circle just right on the floor of the warehouse. Every one of the Collective checked it. The circle that would summon a demon into the room when the time came was deemed perfect by every member until Tate arrived.

  Tate had to change the depth of a letter.

  Then it was perfect.

  Roth felt a tremble in his heart at the fact.

  When Roth stepped into the streets of Mestlven, he looked up at the tower standing in the dying light in the middle of the city and frowned. The Scribe’s Tower was the only section of the castle left standing after a vandalous mage had collapsed it eight years ago. The tower was all that was left of Sorrow Watch, their mother’s castle, the house seat of the Mestlven family. Tate had taken the tower as soon as he found out his mother had owned it.

  Tate had papers drawn up, had the deed surveyed and been declared the legal owner of the tower. He had done this without asking Roth for permission. In fact, Tate never mentioned the idea of the two of them sharing the deed. As Roth looked at his brother’s tower, a budding resentment rose for Tate’s new home.

  Both twins had been named Callden. They had been given the name of their father, but Tate had months ago petitioned the crown of Tienne for the right to bear his mother’s last name and take over his title as the Lord of Mestlven. After a few hearings and promises, Tate’s name had been officially changed to Tate Mestlven.

  Roth’s last name had remained Callden.

  “He will be late,” Father said. Roth turned to look at Gale and shook his head.

  “He has been working towards this day for months. Tate will not miss it,” Ithyryyn said. Quill appeared and Thrak with her, his arm wrapped around her middle. Roth looked away from her shapely hips, confusing emotions rioting within him.

  Tate opened the front door of the tower. He was hidden perfectly by the darkness before stepping out of the shadow of Sorrow Watch wearing black robes.

  The whole of the Collective held their breath.

  “I thought we decided on red robes for you, Tate?” Gale said. If he was angry, he hid it well.

  “The house colors of Mestlven are black and silver. I have decided to take my mother’s colors. I trust it will not be a problem,” Tate said.

  The whole courtyard remained silent. The shattered remains of the ruined castle ticked around them before Roth spoke.

  “I think they look amazing,” he said, though he hated the color on Tate. “I say why change what looks so perfect?”

  “Black robes on a wizard makes a statement,” Quill said. “It says there is a thing sinister about that man, that not everything is on the up and up. I wear white for this reason. Ithyryyn blue, Gale green, Thrak brown and Roth red. There has never been a black robed member of the Callden Collective.”

  “In the six years it has existed, you mean?” Tate said. “Why would we want to mar such a long-standing tradition?”

  Roth stepped forward and stood beside his brother. He turned to face the rest of them with a firm look on his face. Tate’s red and white circlet strobed once, and he was talking to Roth in his mind through Roth’s circlet.

  “Thank you for standing beside me, brother,” Tate said.

  “They saw your circlet strobe. They know you are talking to me,” Roth said.

  “Yes, I know, but they don’t know what I am saying.”

  “I hate it when you do things like this,” Roth said.

  “This is not decided,” Gale said. “We need a vote.”

  “No,” Tate said. “No vote as to the color of the robes I wear. It is my choice. It is my family and my city. I will not be dressed by you, Gale Summerstone, as if I am still your child. You were a caregiver for us, not a father. I am Meredith Mestlven’s son. Not Gale Summerstone’s. Black robes, that is decided.”

  Gale turned and walked away. Roth heard the stones grinding under his footsteps and hissed in Tate’s mind.

  “That was unnecessary,” Roth said.

  “Tell me where I am wrong,” Tate said.

  “That is not the issue.”

  The Callden Collective gathered outside the courtyard and, as one, opened a portal to the main hall of the Castle of Chains, where the king of Tienne stood ready to inaugurate Tate Mestlven as lord of the fiefdom. The Collective stood beside him as Tate, at the age of fourteen, became the youngest lord the city had ever known.

  When Tate received the title and the ring, he hissed in happiness.

  Roth tried not to feel betrayed. But it was impossible.

  Cosmo’s Theory

  There was a stench to the place, the heavy fetid stink of old feces. Rayph held his sleeve to his nose as he entered the playhouse. He searched for Cosmo under the balcony in the darkness of the room. His foot dropped into something spongy and he groaned.

  “Cosmo, are you in here?”

  Darkness ebbed slightly and Rayph spat out a word to summon forth a small ball of flame to light his way. The floor was filthy with crap and stagnant puddles of piss, and Rayph shook his head, wondering not for the first time if he should grant Cosmo a servant. “Cosmo, where are you?”

  A slight laugh betrayed his friend in the shadow to the left, and Rayph sent his ball of flame there to see Cosmo in disarray, naked and streaked with filth. “Cosmo, I’m sorry. I should have had someone with you.” Rayph joined his friend and helped him to his feet.

  Buddy snapped his stone jaws on Cosmo’s left and Rayph smiled at the creature. He stared at it before sending more light toward Buddy and seeing the dog scrawled over with ink. Words in a strange language covered the stone canine, and Rayph turned to Cosmo and shook his head.

  “You have written all over him,” Rayph said. He noticed a stain of ink on the hound’s head and touched it gingerly. An indention had been carved in the beast’s head, a tiny well that held ink for the scribbling. A hole had been pierced in the hound’s ear to hold a quill, the back sanded away to provide a flat surface for writing.

  “Made some modificat
ions, I see,” Rayph said.

  Cosmo looked up with a giggle. His face warped suddenly, and Rayph helped him to his feet.

  “You summoned me, Cosmo. Do you need something?”

  “He has lost his grip,” Cosmo said. “He has dropped the hold and is now running for his life. Your enemy has changed. Your troubles have just begun.” The man tugged his white tufts of hair and his face creased into a mask of terror and confusion.

  “Who has lost his grip, Cosmo?” Rayph asked. “What troubles do I now face?”

  “The student master is now the quarry. The army has gone rogue.”

  Rayph looked at the rest of the playhouse. The chairs had been torn away. Great pillars had been driven into the floor and cords were stretched from these pillars to every section of the room.

  “What have you been doing, Cosmo?” Rayph spoke a word and the ball of flame rose to light the entire room. Rayph gasped and Cosmo whimpered as he grabbed a wide brimmed hat and stuffed it over his head to shield his eyes. Rayph walked into the center of the room to see six pillars driven into the floor, all surrounding a seventh. Cords, thin and black, stretched from these six pillars to reach out to other sections of the room, walls and balconies where carvings had been made. From the cords hung scraps of paper, all containing words and symbols of some language Rayph did not know. The floor beneath the pillars showed a silhouette of a man in robes. The mouth had been drawn screaming.

  “Cosmo, what have you done?”

  “It’s the Stain,” he said. He sat in the only chair still standing in the playhouse, and he hunkered down to hide from the light. “It’s what’s left of it.”

  A chill ran through Rayph’s bones as the words hustled out of Cosmo’s mouth. He turned to his insane friend and fought to craft a sentence that would make sense. When he had quite given up, he decided to say nothing at all. Cosmo stared at Rayph before scratching his nose. He stuffed his finger in his nostril and pulled out a glob of snot. He wiped it on the hound at his side and turned back to Rayph.