“He wouldn’t talk, you know,” the one eyed man told Vaelin over his shoulder. “You should be proud of him. Refused to share your Order’s secrets, although now you’re here in person I daresay my questions will be answered in full.” He placed the knife against Frentis’s chest, pushing the point half an inch into the flesh and tracing a cut from the breast to the ribcage. Frentis’s teeth were white on his gag as he screamed.

Vaelin tried to gather his arms under him, manoeuvring the ice numb limbs beneath his chest, then trying to heave himself upright.

“Oh don’t bother,” the one eyed man said, turning back from Frentis, bloodied knife in hand. “You’re tightly bound I assure you.”

Teeth gritted, Vaelin managed to push himself off the stone floor, his entire body shaking with the effort.

“Strong indeed!” the one eyed man said. “But I can’t have that.”

The same icy numbness seized him again, flooding his arms and legs spreading into his chest and groin, forcing him back to the floor, exhausted.

“You feel my power?” The one eyed man stood over him. “At first it frightened me, even one such as I can feel the chill of looking into an abyss, but fear fades.” He held up the knife stained with Frentis’s blood. “I have the secret now. The knowledge to make myself immune to all enemies.” He placed a finger on the knife blade, drawing a bead of blood from the metal and placing it in his mouth. “Who could have thought it would be so simple? To be a king amongst outlaws requires the spilling of much blood. These past years I have bathed in it as I sought victims to sate my anger against your young brother here. And as I bathed I found my power growing so that now, even one as strong as you cannot stand against my will. I was told your destiny lay elsewh-…”

Caenis leapt through the wall of fire, his sword held high in a two fisted grip. He brought it down as his feet touched the floor, the blade cleaving the one eyed man from shoulder to sternum. The look on his face as he stood impaled on the sword was one of complete astonishment.

“Fire without heat,” Caenis said. “Isn’t fire at all.”

Vaelin’s paralysis faded as the one eyed man’s corpse slipped to the floor, the fire wall he had raised vanishing in an instant. Vaelin felt hands lifting him, his limbs still shaking with lingering numbness. Barkus and Nortah cut Frentis’s bonds and took the gag from his mouth. Free of his ties the boy went wild, screaming hate-filled curses at the one eyed man’s inert form, taking up his knife and plunging it again and again into the body.

“You stinking bastard!” he screamed. “Think you can cut me, you fucking filth!”

Vaelin waved the others back and let Frentis abuse the corpse until he collapsed from the effort, slumped over the body, bloody and exhausted.

“Brother,” he said, placing his cloak over Frentis’s shoulders. “Your wounds need attention.”

Chapter 8

“Sister Sherin is still in the south,” Brother Sellin told Vaelin at the gate of the Fifth Order, his eyes flicking to Frentis, hanging bloody and unconscious between Barkus and Nortah. “Master Harin has undertaken her duties. Come brothers.” He opened the gate wide, beckoning them to enter. “I will take you to him.”

Master Harin spent over an hour stitching and dressing the cuts on Frentis’s body, ordering them from the treatment room when their unasked for advice and constant questions became too irksome. Vaelin found Aspect Elera waiting in the corridor.

“I can see your day has been hard, brothers,” she said. “There is food waiting for you in our dining hall.”

They ate in silence, their conversation stilled by the presence of so many members of the Fifth Order. The healers stared at the blue robed, grim faced interlopers, a few familiar faces offering greetings to Vaelin, receiving a only a curt nod in response. Their table was piled high with food but Vaelin found he had no appetite. His hands retained a slight tremble from whatever the one eyed man had done to him and the vision of Frentis tied and bleeding was still at the forefront of his thoughts.

Aspect Elera joined them an hour or so later. “Master Harin tells me your brother will recover. He will have to stay with us for several days whilst he heals.”

“Is he awake, Aspect?” Vaelin asked her.

“Master Harin gave him a sleeping draught. He should wake in the morning. You can see him then.”

“My thanks, Aspect. May I request that word be sent to our Order? Aspect Arlyn will be expecting my report.”

She sent Brother Sellin to the house of the Sixth Order and gave them a room in the east wing. Vaelin insisted on sitting with Frentis and Caenis waited with him whilst the others slept, cleaning his weapons to pass the time, laying his sword and knives out on the floor, metal gleaming in the candle light as he ran cloth over each blade with meticulous care. Scratch had been confined to an empty pen in the stables. He ignored the food he had been given and howled continually, his plaintive cries reaching them through the walls.

Vaelin studied the long bladed dagger he had taken from Frentis, the blade the one eyed man had used to cut the web of scars into his body. It was Caenis’s by right but he had refused to take it with a grimace of distaste. Vaelin decided to keep it on impulse, it was a finely made weapon of unfamiliar design, the blade well tempered and the handle elegantly fashioned with a silver pommel. The guard bore writing with unfamiliar letters. Clearly it was a weapon from across the sea. One Eye had a long reach it seemed.

“The fire was an illusion,” Vaelin said. His voice sounded listless and dull to his ears, reminding of him of Brother Makril and his jaded tales of fire and slaughter.

Caenis glanced up from his weapons and nodded, his hands continuing to guide the cloth over the blades.

“The Dark,” Vaelin said. “The blood, it gave him power. That’s what the bodies were for.”

Caenis’s didn’t look up, but nodded once more, still cleaning his blades.

Vaelin felt the tremor return to his hands, his anger flaring at the memory of his helplessness before the one eyed man. A helplessness not shared by Caenis. Caenis could leap through Dark borne fire and hack down the man who called it forth. You know so much more than you tell me, brother, Vaelin realised. It’s always been this way. “There are no secrets between us,” he said.

Caenis’s hand paused in mid stroke as he worked a cloth over his sword blade. His eyes met Vaelin’s and for the briefest second there was something there, something different from the affection or respect he normally saw in his friend’s eyes, something almost resentful.

The door opened and Master Sollis entered with Aspect Elera. “You two should be resting,” he said shortly, moving to the bed to check on Frentis, his eyes tracing over the blood stained bandages covering his chest and arms. “Will he scar, Aspect?”

“The cuts were deep. Master Harin is skilled but…” She spread her hands. “There is only so much we can do. Luckily his muscles are intact. He will be strong again soon.”

“The man who did this is dead?” Sollis asked Vaelin.

“Yes, master.” Vaelin gestured at Caenis. “My brother’s stroke.”

Sollis glanced at Caenis. “The man was skilled?”

“His skills were not with weapons, master.” Caenis glanced uncertainly at Aspect Elera.

“Talk freely,” Sollis instructed him.

He told Master Sollis all that had transpired since their departure from the Order House, from the Black Boar inn to their confrontation with the one eyed man beneath the city. “The man had knowledge of the Dark, master. He could call up an illusion of fire and he bound Brother Vaelin by his will alone.”

“But not you?” Sollis asked with a raised eyebrow.

“No. I expect I surprised him by seeing through his illusion.”

“You made sure of the kill?”

“He’s dead master,” Vaelin assured him.

Master Sollis and Aspect Elera shared a brief glance.

“I hear the Aspect had been gracious enough to provide you with a room,” Sollis said, turning back to Frentis. “She would feel insulted if you failed to use it.”

Recognising their dismissal they rose and moved to the door. “Tell no-one else of this,” Master Sollis ordered before they left. “And do something to shut that bloody dog up!”

In the morning Master Sollis questioned them closely about the route to the One Eye’s chambers and the ancient temple to the Faith they had found. Vaelin offered to guide him but received only a stern refusal. When he was satisfied with their directions Sollis told them to return to the Order House.

“Brother Frentis…” Vaelin began.

“Will heal just as well with you at your training where you belong. The Test of the Sword is but eight weeks away and none of you are ready yet.”

They trudged back to the Order House without Master Sollis who had given them another warning to keep silent before going off to investigate their findings. Scratch had whined in protest when they led him away from the House of the Fifth Order, needing much reassurance from Vaelin before following their steps.

To Vaelin their tower room seemed to have shrunk in their absence. A night of fear and mystery made it feel so small, a child’s room, even though it had been a long time since he felt like a child. He stowed his gear and lay back on his narrow bed, closing his eyes to see again the one eyed man’s wall of flame and Frentis's tortured form. I believed I had learned so much, he thought. But I know nothing.