The voice reminded him of a leather bellows. He had sandy brown hair that was shorn like a soldier. When Exeres looked at him, through the medium of his blind eye, he noticed another man in the room as well.
Turning, Exeres glanced at the corner where an ageless man in black robes sat, regarding him with cool green eyes. It was frightening looking at someone who would never die. Exeres had a different impression looking at the ageless man than he had when first meeting the Sleepwalker. There was no sign of aging in him, no Life magic that seeped from his pores, but it seemed as if the very earth poured its Life magic into him. He knew, somehow, that he was in the presence of a man who was older than the world.
“Zerite!”
Exeres turned back, broken from his thoughts by the Bandit commander’s voice.
“I’m sorry,” Exeres said. The soldier in front of him leeched life like a normal human would. But the older man in the corner was a wall—not even a mote of Life magic fell away from him. “I…I was sent here with a message for you.”
A pressure tickled the back of Exeres head and a musty smell bloomed in the air.
“I gathered that. Were you planning on sharing it with me? I’m banned tired, boy. Out with it then.”
Exeres looked at the soldier, waiting, feeling a serpentine tendril of Earth magic gather around the ageless man in the corner. His nervousness grew even stronger. He had no idea what to say.
“I…” He stopped, waiting for a voice, a sense of direction. Jaerod had said the message would be given to him there. “Are you Tsyrke Phollen?”
“Yes. That is my name. Speak.” He walked over to the table and picked up a goblet and gulped some of its draught down. “Speak!”
Still nothing.
What had he done wrong? His mind raced for something to say. Anything. He could see the burn of impatience in the man’s eyes.
“I’m sorry, sir. I was sent here to deliver a message to you. But I was not told what the message was. I…I was expecting an answer when I came here, but…I’m sorry, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing.”
He felt like a complete idiot. Sweat stung his armpits and trickled down his ribs. The cloying smell in the room made his stomach quail. Why did I agree to come here? What was Jaerod intending to happen?
Tsyrke’s eyes bored into his. “You came down to Landmoor for this? To stammer and fidget?” He shook his head and muttered something.
“The message wasn’t the only reason, sir. I was sent to Landmoor by the Druid sect in the Isherwood. I am here to heal the injured and the sick among you. More stuffings make a better pie, as my father liked to say.”
“More stuffings?” Tsyrke snorted and put the goblet down. “You Druids have always had odd expressions. You can’t remember the message?”
The ageless man in the corner spoke. “He wasn’t supposed to.”
A feeling of heavy blackness slammed into Exeres like a pallet of paving stones. He could not tell whether he had fallen to the floor with the jolt or not, only that the feeling had reduced him to utter helplessness. He tried to summon up a spark of Earth magic to defend himself, but it was as if the fingers he used to grab at it were crushed beneath a massive weight. Panic flooded his heart. He could do nothing.
Voices.
Despite the haze of thought, Exeres heard the ageless man speak with Tsyrke. A part of his mind was aware that it should not be possible to do that. The magic shrouding him like a veil should have prevented it. But there was a little crack, a peep-hole in the shroud. Exeres could not begin to explain how it worked through him, but it opened a way that he could…
—Be still and listen—
It was Jaerod’s voice in his mind.
The ageless one was speaking. “…because he was expecting me to read the boy’s past. The Zerite is nothing but the Sleepwalker’s pawn.”
“How did he make it all the way here before we realized it?” Tsyrke said, his voice angry. “What is his mission?”
“His mission is what the Isherwood Druids commissioned him to do. Parath-Anatos is aware of Ballinaire’s army massing down here, but they won’t get involved with one side or the other. The Sleepwalker met the priest in Castun last night. His only intent was to send him to you.”
“But why, Mage? That doesn’t make any sense? If there is no message, does he expect us to send him one through the priest?”
“No, Tsyrke. There is a message written in the priest’s mind. A memory that the Sleepwalker obviously wanted you to have. He knew that I would be able to read it for you. He is a cunning one, Tsyrke. The girl is alive.”
Something heavy thumped.
“What?” It was Tsyrke’s voice, as strained as a bowstring.
“She is in Castun—or she was up until last night. The priest met her there while tending the wounded. She was helping him. She is alive.”
There was a strangled sound, a cough or a choke—a seething noise in the back of Tsyrke’s throat. Exeres felt the pain and relief in it.