by Andre Norton
The officer tramped to the foot of the dais. Judging by his badges of rank, one would say he was the First of some regiment, and he was fairly young. His dark features were a mask of excitement, and he was breathing fast, as if he had indeed raced to be where he now stood.
Raising his hand, he gave the salute to a commander, which Ramsay had wit enough to acknowledge. Then the man spoke.
“Supreme Mightiness! Our great Emperor Pyran has departed through the Final Gate. Trumpets have sounded his farewell from the towers of Lom. Now they call the summons to the Heir-of-Blood. Supreme Mightiness, may your rule be long of day and unshadowed!”
So the dying Emperor was at last dead! But certainly they were not proclaiming Kaskar in Lom!
Ramsay schooled himself as he noted Ochall had taken two steps forward, almost as if he would grasp the messenger, drag him aside for some private word. There was no time left now for any bargaining. The Empress’s party would have Berthal standing ready, perhaps near to crowning at this very minute. Ramsay’s own small chance for any safety in this world had lessened—halved, been made a third, even a fourth, by the messenger’s report.
“I think they do not hail Prince Kaskar—” For the first time Ochall took the initiative.
The officer showed his teeth in a grimace.
“No, Your Dignity. They have brought forth Prince Berthal and stood him high upon the Place of Flags. However, as yet he has not taken oath.”
Now there was a rising mutter, exclamations from the court. Again Ochall asked a question that had already risen in Ramsay’s mind.
“Yet, Jasum, you have come to Vidin, to see one proclaimed dead. What knowledge existed in Lom to bring you here?”
“There was word from the Enlightened Ones, Your Dignity. One came by night to my chamber with this news: that our Prince had truly not been dead, but hidden away, and that he had won to Vidin. Thus, knowing that he must be told—Supreme Mightiness!” Now Jasum addressed himself directly to Ramsay. “They will swear allegiance to this usurper. Already they plan his enthronement in the Hall of Light, his quick wedding thereafter to the Duchess of Olyroun. Let him be sworn and wed, and there shall be many who would otherwise raise standards in the name of Kaskar who then will be persuaded not to make trouble lest such split Ulad!”
Ochall caressed his jaw with his wide-palmed hand.
“An astute observation, Jasum. I wonder now why this message was brought only by your voice, why the wire talkers of Vidin have not carried it. Unless, of course, those in Lom would do just as you have said before any loyal Vidinian has had time to object. Supreme Mightiness”—now he spoke to Ramsay—“let word now be sent throughout Vidin and the trumpets sounded at once—thus assuring that the usurper shall not be seated upon the throne with no voice raised against him. With protest raised, this becomes a matter of public knowledge, of confrontation with those who have named Berthal— maybe even of a Last Challenge!”
Ramsay had no idea what Ochall might mean by the letter, but Ochall spoke the words with such emphasis that Ramsay guessed it was some extreme of serious opposition.
“Let us take council as you have urged, Supreme Mightiness—first let it be known to the Lords of Thousands—yes, and even the Lords of Hundreds—that they must gather to show true allegiance.”
“So be it,” Ramsay agreed readily, though he had a feeling he had lost all control of the situation and that authority had slid smoothly into Ochall’s grasp, exactly as the High Chancellor had always intended it should at this long-awaited hour. So it was with a small warning chill inside that Ramsay again dismissed the court, watched the nobles of Vidin drain from the chamber until only he and Ochall remained there.
Much as Ramsay had earlier wished for this personal private meeting, he willingly would have foregone it at this particular moment. Yet he felt he must wait for Ochall to take the lead, in that way perhaps learning what would move the High Chancellor.
“Time—” Ochall’s fingers had ceased to caress his chin; instead with thumb and forefinger he plucked at the thickness of his lower lip. “What time may we have? Did the foretelling of the Enlightened Ones in turn enlighten you, my lord, to any answer on the subject? Time we must buy somehow—” The last sentence was uttered as if he were thinking aloud.
However, Ramsay had a shrewd idea that the High Chancellor never so forgot himself as to utter any words of which he was not entirely conscious, both of the subject and of the person to whom any random-seeming remarks might be made.
“I was told,” Ramsay answered deliberately with part of the truth, “that my own person was of significance in events to come, also that any choices I would make would in turn lead to changes in the foreseen future to an extent the Enlightened Ones were not yet able to assess.”
“Kaskar—” Ochall eyed him from head to foot and back again with a detached measurement. “Life—or rather death—has been your portion in ways unknown to us who are but mortal men. First you die and lie in your last sleep in the Hall of Lords Gone Before.
“Then it is discovered, with the coming of the day, that four guards, plainly bemused, their recollections tampered with, corner an empty bier. Kaskar has risen, say the ignorant. There is talk of a miracle, such as those of the very ancient of days were supposed to effect. Yet if Kaskar has arisen and walks his land, none has seen him.
“Once more a body is discovered, this time in such a state that only the clothing, certain well-known peculiarities of size and being, can identify it as the strangely lost prince. For it would seem that Kaskar perhaps did rise from the dead, perhaps mindlessly, and wandered from his royal bed, to crash from a convenient window. Perhaps his brush with death made him believe the tales of legends, that those of exemplary character, when they pass the Final Gate, are no longer bound by the limitations of this world but can ascend by their own desire into the skies about. Believing this, our half-dead prince strove mightily to prove legend fact, but merely learned that he had not yet discarded his mortal body.
“Thus we have a body which is buried with pomp and much outward grief, much inward satisfaction. Ochall,” he smiled grimly, “has been outwitted, outplayed. So cleverly done, and if any have suspicions they are keen-witted enough to keep them shut tightly behind their teeth, not stupidly voicing them aloud. Yet in this hour Kaskar the lost, the—as you might say—‘oft-buried,’ stands here in his very loyal holding of Vidin about to lead a loyal march against a usurper.”
He shot a glance at Ramsay. “You speak of the Enlightened Ones. I will not doubt one word of what you have said of your relationship with them. Their games are well known to be devious, beyond the unraveling of those who have not their peculiar gifts. They say you are Kaskar. Thus it is for us to accept a second miracle. Only, perhaps even the Enlightened Ones are not above the side effects of miracles. That we shall in time come to see.
“Time”—he came back to his first statement— “is what we must have. No man can push wind, water, a flyer, a ship, a rail runner, faster than it is designed to go. I have not been idle, Supreme Mightiness. Given time, I can prove Ochall is not a piece to be easily swept from any playing board. Even that of the Enlightened Ones.”
FOURTEEN
“But it now seems,” Ramsay pointed out, “that such time may not be granted us, High Chancellor. You state my appearance in Vidin is a miracle. Well enough, but the news of that miracle must spread beyond Vidin if we do not wish to find Berthal enthroned lawfully.” He was probing now. That something lay behind Ochall’s preoccupation with time was very apparent. “How much time must your plan be given to bear the fruit desired?”
For a long moment the High Chancellor did not answer. Once more he kneaded at his lower lip with thumb and forefinger.
“It would seem that, momentarily, you have the favor of the Enlightened Ones. Or, if not their favor, their desire to cast a very large stone into the pool of Ulad, disturbing affairs—working now for you. As to time—perhaps five days—”
Once
more he played with that glittering key, and Ramsay averted his eyes. Then Ochall spoke again.
“Who are you?” He asked his question bluntly, as if such simplicity might well invite full truth in return.
Ramsay found a second smile less difficult than the first. “Kaskar, come out of great danger to claim his rights again.”
Ochall uttered a strange sound. Though there was little that was jovial in it, it might have been a bark of laughter.
“Well answered, Supreme Mightiness. Kaskar you have claimed to be, Kaskar you shall be. But I wonder if you realize that you have put out your hand perhaps too willingly to grasp at a very unsteady crown. If you have fallen for the trickery of the Enlightened Ones, a man could find himself ready to pity you—”
“A warning, High Chancellor?” queried Ramsay. “I take it kindly of you to show concern. I only know that there are those in Lom with whom I have certain scores to settle. If claiming my rights will bring me closer to that settlement, then I shall outshout any of your trumpets of the tower. Be assured of that. And what”—he struck back for truth, if truth could ever be gained from such as Ochall—“will your needful five days bring?”
“Weapons, out of the North,” the High Chancellor returned as frankly as Ramsay had asked. “There are certain new ones, as yet unused in any large combat, but well proven, as my own Ears and Eyes report. The merchants of Norn promised their efficiency, and all that they said is true—”
“Tested in action?” Ramsay schooled himself to what he hoped was only a small show of interest. What action? That in which the Company had been ruthlessly done to death? Had that only been a show, put on to impress such a buyer as Ochall of the worth of his projected purchase?
“Tested in action,” agreed Ochall. “Proven. I know not what new secrets those of Norn have now chanced upon, but such arms have not been seen upon these shores since perhaps the last days of the Great Era.”
“And those last-used arms,” Ramsay pointed out, “are reputed to have left this world half dead. Even to rule in Ulad an ambitious man would be a fool to lay hands on such as those!”
“Oh, these are not the Ultimate Forbidden. No, these are still but as pebbles flung from a boy’s sling in comparison with them. To use these would not break the Everlasting Covenant of the People Alive. In fact they are merely superior modifications of two already known.” However, Ochall went into no details.
“And where were those new weapons demonstrated—upon whom?” Ramsay pressed.
Ochall shrugged. “In a small skirmish of no importance, between pirates and a relatively inefficient mercenary company which had been hired by the Thantant of the Marches in Olyroun. It is to our interest, of course, that those of Olyroun be kept occupied by nuisance raids for the present. That the duchy should continue free is not to be supported. But to move outwardly against it, no.”
The High Chancellor was watching Ramsay with a measuring stare as he spoke.
“With the Duchess Thecla united to Ulad in marriage,” Ramsay returned, “such matters in the future can be quietly and carefully arranged without any need for outright invasion.”
“Just so. Still it is well that Olyroun be kept occupied with internal difficulties until that auspicious date. Any encouragement on the part of such as the Thantant, his hiring of mercenaries and the like, must be prevented. To try the weapons so thus accomplished two needful results. I do not think that the Thantant will find another Free Company to accept his offered employment, and the pirates of Lynark are invited to make themselves successfully busy—”
“The pirates!” Ramsay repeated. “Those were so armed? Is there not danger in that?” Inwardly he marveled at the calm he was able to maintain. The realization that that hell along the ridge had been in the nature of a planned experiment awoke a rage which perhaps earlier in time he could never have kept under the control he now exerted. To discuss the death of those men who had accepted him as a comrade as the end product of a demonstration—! He seethed and fought his own emotions. The Empress and the Shaman—they could condemn one man to exile, and then to an assassin’s sword under the pious cloaking of that conscience they labeled “duty.” While Ochall could accept the horrible death of nearly a full company of men because it gave him another lever for his ambition—
“You plan to march then on Lom,” Ramsay said as evenly as he could, “with such weapons in hand, given your five days?”
He had been so overwrought behind the facade he fought to maintain that he had not been this time as careful of his choice of words.
“I, Supreme Mightiness?” Ochall shook his head. “My power rests only as a shadow of that you lawfully wield. Nor do I give any commands, except in your name—”
Ramsay did not need to close his eyes. There seemed to him now to be a weaving veil of illusion between him and Ochall. He did not see clearly this stocky man who was an embodiment of power, rather than a yellow fog torn through with flames in which men twisted and died screaming. This was no dream vision, yet the sight was as deeply engraved on his mind at that moment as any of those Osythes had turned upon him to begin this nightmare.
Work with or through Ochall ? He had been supremely foolish in believing he might do that. In this world he had no touch with any man except Dedan. And the First Captain lay far away—his wounds keeping him from any immediate summoning. An awful loneliness shook Ramsay during that second or two of true realization.
He was not aware that he wavered as he stood, that he reached behind him for support and laid hand upon the arm of the massive throne. Then that mind-wrenching memory thinned as he saw Ochall’s eyes, avid, greedy, fixed on him. What knowledge the High Chancellor had gained from those few seconds of loss of control Ramsay dared not speculate upon. But surely the High Chancellor believed that he dealt with another weakling prince, and Ramsay knew that, whatever move he made from this moment forth, he could not follow, even outwardly, any suggestion from Ochall.
To send that fog, those flames into Lom—that was unthinkable! Could the Enlightened Ones have known what Ochall planned? If so—then they were rightly the treacherous menace many thought them. He owed nothing to the Empress and her party. To go to Lom was to invite another attack from some hidden assassin. Still—where else might he now move? Even if he were somehow to disappear from Vidin as quickly and strangely as he had come, his very appearance here, his recognition of Ochall before the court, would give the High Chancellor the power to act in his name. No one would question any order given him in his supposed master’s behalf.
“Five days—” Ramsay seized upon the first excuse he could summon. “Five days’ wait may be too long. Let Berthal be proclaimed, then there will be, as has been pointed out, those who hesitate to support my dear cousin, but who would close ranks against me should there arise a hint of war between two factions in Ulad.”
“Your answer then—?” Ochall asked.
“That you, High Chancellor, and I, and such dignitaries from Vidin as can best back us in a righteous cause, go to Lom. Not in threat, but as we should to support a claim that no man can question.”
He wondered if Ochall would dare refuse. However, the High Chancellor seemed prepared for such a challenge.
“You go directly into a nest of enemies, Supreme Mightiness. Yet, too, courage is rightfully the virtue of any emperor, and with a guard of liege men, they cannot come at you secretly. Just as they dare not question openly the one who is so plainly Kaskar. When would you go?”
“Now, as soon as it may be readied.” Ramsay did not doubt that Ochall had his own loyal followers, who would carry out to the letter any orders their master left. But he himself would gain some time to—to what—warn? He did not know. The only small satisfaction he had was that Ochall would be with him, and that half vision of the High Chancellor advancing upon an undefended and helpless city behind a cloud of fog and flame would not now come to pass.
The flyer that took them from Kaskar’s holding was far larger and more luxurious (be
ing divided into several cabins of varying degrees of appointment) than Ramsay had heretofore seen. He noted before he boarded that there had been some hasty painting of insignia on the side, a reproduction of that fierce bird which he had seen on the hall paneling in the palace. It would appear that his liege men were determined that he make his entrance properly, with the bearings of a rightful ruler in full display.
“The Place of Proclaiming?” Ochall had not seated himself too near the well-padded and gilded seat Ramsay had chosen as properly being his. He had to lean forward now from his more lowly position in order to ask that.
And Ramsay, in relief at the solving of one of his problems, nodded. To enter the Palace of Lom without his presence being known to the city at large had worried him. This “Place of Proclaiming” sounded open enough to satisfy the most demanding of publicity seekers.
Having agreed with Ochall, he was apparently to be left to his own thoughts, for the High Chancellor settled back with a wriggle of his broad shoulders, closed his eyes, and gave every appearance of desiring a discreet withdrawal from any further conversation. Ramsay closed his own eyes. What had they told him—those unfathomable Enlightened Ones? To dream? But there was no way he knew of summoning dreams at will.
Instead he recalled in detail again those cards and the fluttering hand of Adise as she dealt and fingered the final ones that foretold his fate. Fate—yes, and Fear—Dreams—with only the promise of Hope at the end of it all.
Events were moving too fast, and he knew far too little. This was like being pitched blindfolded into some battle where everyone else he blundered against had both sight and purpose. Ramsay had had just one purpose—to save the skin of one Ramsay Kimble. Now he had moved by emotion to try to save a city—perhaps a nation. His mouth twisted bitterly. What allowed him to yield to the anger Ochall’s matter-of-fact explanation had evoked?