The Ring of Eman Vath Read online

Holder Flynn watched the boy disappear. The initial panic that had flared inside him was gone now as if it had never been, and that age-old sense of well being that some called wisdom was with him. It was so strong now, watching the boy disappear into the night, watching the flash of the horse’s hooves as the mount disappeared around a distant corner, that he almost shook with it.

  One of the Viretorum reined in next to him.

  “Speaker,” the knight said breathlessly, “you wish us to lay chase, yes?”

  Holder Flynn did not respond immediately. There was a war going on inside him. If he’d been a younger man, he would have immediately said yes; he would have told the guard to chase the boy down, to bring him back at all costs. The ring he bore was the Ring of Eman Vath, and it did not belong in the hands of dirty urchin.

  A dirty urchin like Eman Vath. An urchin boy who spoke a Word of Unbinding with no training and no staff to channel it. Not even spoke it – sang it.

  “No,” he said quietly. Shock and alarm passed over the knight’s face, and Holder Flynn turned to him. “No, Gaolin. Thank you, but there is no need.”

  The knight’s mouth opened and shut soundlessly as he stared at Holder Flynn, but finally he settled back on his horse and gave in. The other two Viretorum – one dressed as a minor lord – were bent over the would-be-brigands, all of whom were on the ground, bound by the young Sorev Ael Pore, who had disguised himself as a servant.

  “Shall we take care of them, sir?” Gaolin asked. He was hesitant now, clearly questioning what was happening and whether his instincts were correct. Holder Flynn smiled brightly and in a way he hoped was reassuring.

  “Yes, thank you, please do. Bind them and lead them back to Var Athel. We will all return there, I think.”

  “But sir, weren’t we on our way to Caelron? I do not mean to question you, only to understand. You said you had urgent business with Baelric the Wise – ”

  “It would seem that I no longer do,” Holder Flynn said with another wide smile. “Yes, sir,” Gaolin replied, turning to the other knights to help them bind and gag the captured thieves.

  Holder Flynn turned back in the direction the boy had gone. He muttered Words under his breath and his vision strengthened until the mist and shadows of night parted and lifted for him so that he could see the boy as he rode through the city. Something about the fleeing figure struck a chord in him, and as he watched him run, clutching the ring various Sorev Ael had sought for a hundred years to find, that deep sense of peace came to him again, enveloping him like a warm blanket.

  This was as it should be.

  Therias said that there were others. That there was need. That Valinor and the girl must go north, and that I must take the ring to Baelric this specific night.

  A thrill went through him, and his smile widened. Holder Flynn, Thirteenth Speaker of the Circle of Var Athel and Master of Sagery, watched as Wren, dirty urchin boy and aimless thief of Caelron, ran into the darkness.

  Watched as he ran north.