Dragon Bones (Hurog #1)(32)
I bowed shallowly to acknowledge the compliment. Even Oreg didn't see the whole truth. Everyone I portrayed, including the lord, was an act as well. He was gleaned from stories of Seleg and from Seleg's journals hidden in the library. I hadn't been a real person since I was twelve.
"A younger son," I said out loud. "Too many people have met Tavern."
"What?" asked Bastilla.
"I can't be Ward of Hurog; he's too likely to get sent to Estian, eh? Everyone knows he's an idiot who belongs in the King's Asylum. I think I'll be a younger son in disgrace and trying to restore his good name. I took horses and money from my home when I escaped in the night with my faithful retainer...Now, let's see, should that be Axiel or Penrod? Penrod, I believe, he has that old-retainer air about him - and my squire, Ciarra, whom we shall call Ciar because it's safer for her to be a boy. Axiel will be a man we met upon the road, destitute, a fighter whose master died due to illness...the scourge. Oreg will be my cousin or bastard half brother or something."
"Is he?" asked Bastilla, sounding faintly intrigued.
Drawn back from my tale-telling, I frowned. "Yes, but he doesn't like to talk about it."
"I don't?" asked Oreg, raising an eyebrow.
"No," I replied firmly.
"What about me?" asked Bastilla leaning forward.
"She's the cause of your disgrace?" offered Oreg.
"No," I shook my head. "Too melodramatic. I think we hired you at Tyrfannig. An Avinhelle-born wizard stranded at a northern seaport."
"Rescued from a shipwreck?" she offered enthusiastically. "Stranded too far from home to afford passage back, so I took employment with a likely-looking group of soldiers?"
"Sure," I nodded. I liked her, and not just because she was beautiful.
"I thought you were against melodrama," muttered Oreg.
"This is strange," Bastilla said with abrupt seriousness. "I would never have thought to end up here, so far from home. Cholytes are forbidden to leave the Tower. Some of them walk around with a permanent glow from talking to the goddess. But I never felt her. The potions that we were given to help us reach her never worked on me. The Cholynn was very upset because I did neither the goddess nor the Tower any good." Underneath the stiffness, I heard shame.
Oreg snorted. "Drugged the lot of you so they could siphon your powers. You don't need drugs for the gods to touch you. Ask the ascetics at Menogue. They have Aethervon's power, enough to crisp the Acolyte Tower, and their people aren't drained husks after a year's apprenticeship."
I cleared my throat, hoping Bastilla, Avinhelle-born, didn't know much Tallvenish history.
"Menogue? The ruin outside of Estian? I was told it was destroyed in the Reformation Wars." Several hundred years ago. "And Aethervon's order with it."
There was a long silence, then Oreg said, "I'm something of a historian. Sometimes I think I live more closely to the past than the present."
Of course she accepted it. The truth was much less believable.
"How did you two meet?" asked Bastilla after a moment. "Axiel and Penrod don't know you. You're too young to be as good a wizard as you are; even the Cholynn couldn't teleport herself without a complicated ceremony, and you do it in the blink of an eye."
I assumed she was talking to Oreg, as I hadn't teleported myself anywhere.
"Oreg's one of the family," I said.
"Bastard," confirmed Oreg truthfully enough. "I'm older than I look. There was this spell..." His voice trailed off, then started up again briskly. "I decided I wanted to see the family estates. It was easy to get in without anyone knowing, but Ward and his sister found me out."
He lied as well as I did; use as much of the truth as you can to give the wrong impression. Perhaps it was something in the blood.
The night was still dark, when I awoke to a touch on my shoulder, and Penrod kneeling beside me. I rolled to my feet with as little noise as I could and gathered my sword. I followed him into the woods and back to the rise I'd occupied earlier, where Oreg was waiting.
I saw immediately what he'd brought me to see. Not a half mile away was the unmistakable orange glow of a campfire.
"Have you checked it out?" I asked.
Penrod shook his head.
"Stay here. I'll take a look, but you keep watch. If you see a scuffle, wake the others."
Walking quietly in the woods is difficult. Doing it in the dead of night with nothing but the light of the moon proved impossible. I was fairly sure that unless the campers were deaf or asleep, they knew I was approaching before I got there.
There was only a single figure visible in the camp. He was wrapped in a thin cloak and perched on a large rock in front of the fire with his back to me. There was only one bedroll.
"I thought it would be safer if you found me than if I tried to ride all the way to your camp," said my brother conversationally, though I was fairly sure he couldn't see me where I crouched under a nearby tree.
"Staring into the fire is bad for your night vision," I commented without approaching closer. I couldn't imagine what Tosten was doing here.
"I don't want to study with the harpers in Estian," he said. "I don't want to be a cooper. I don't want to work as the entertainment for an inn. Most especially, I don't want Hurog." His voice was tight with strain. "I'm sorry, Ward. If not for you, I'd be buried in the hillside with the rest of our ancestors who took the easy way out of this life."