by Glen Cook
“I believe so.”
“Does a weak link matter at this point?”
“Trebilcock obtained leverage. A lever is a tool any hand may wield.”
She nodded. “Too true. Speak to him. Find out what the leverage was, and the extent of the compromise. Use your own judgment afterward.”
“As you wish, Princess.”
Dantice got a cold, pale look. He stared at the bookshelves, shuddered.
Cham Mundwiller sucked on his pipe and said nothing. His face remained a mask of stone.
Mist glared at Aral and tried to force a thought into his mind. This isn’t a game, Aral. We’re playing for an empire.
“Where is this Trebilcock?” Kao E asked. “His testimony might be enlightening.”
“Nobody knows,” Aral replied. “He disappeared a while back. Somebody attacked General Liakopulos one night. Hurt him bad. Next day Michael was gone. Nobody knows if there’s a connection.”
That was the night the King visited me, Mist reflected. The night that Haas creature dragged him away, acting like he thought I was the villain of the day. “I’ve looked for him,” she said. “I like to keep track of him. He’s a dangerous man. I can’t find a trace.” She frowned at Aral, who could not conceal his distress. She wondered how he had become professionally successful with so little aptitude for conspiracy.
Aral asked, “Do you think he’s dead? That maybe he found something and it was too much for him to handle?”
Not a good conspirator at all. He let his concern for his friend distract him completely.
“I wouldn’t know, Aral. Lord Ch’ien, don’t interfere with Trebilcock. The King and Varthlokkur are much too fond of him.”
Kao E rose, nodded. “As you will. I’d best return. I do have my duties. And I have to relay the news to our friends.”
“By all means,” Mist said, concealing her delight at his going.
Kao E strode toward one corner of the room. He vanished as he was about to collide with the bookshelves. A column of air coruscated momentarily.
“That’s one spooky critter,” Aral said. “I don’t like him at all.”
“Don’t let him put you off,” Mist replied. “He’s stuck with me a long time. He’s one of the few Tervola I trust.”
“You know your own people.” And, “What he is to you and what he is to me aren’t necessarily the same thing. He probably thinks of me as a useful trained dog.”
Mist turned quickly, hoping he missed her surprise. That was exactly the way Lord Ch’ien would view a western collaborator. “Master Mundwiller. You haven’t said a word since you got here.”
Mundwiller looked down at the silver bowl. The scene therein continued, mouse-sized players arguing in silence. He harrumphed. “I’ll say good-bye, then. I’m not needed here.” His eyes twinkled.
Aral started to say something, thought better of it. Mist, too, found herself short on words.
Mundwiller paused at the library door. “I’ll leave you with a thought. My friends and I will be more comfortable knowing you’re working with the King.”
“What did he mean by that?” Aral asked once the door closed.
Mist smiled. She ran her tonguetip along the edges of her perfect teeth. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I care.” But she did, of course. Those old moths tumbled and giggled in her stomach. She had dodged fate’s hammer today. Obviously, Mundwiller had allowed himself to be drawn in only so he could apprise the King of the course of her plot. She shivered and concentrated on Aral.
He took a backward step, then retreated round the table. Sudden sweat moistened his face. He looked like a man running from a dream.
He did not escape.
Mist smiled wickedly. From this dream he would never recover. Nor would he want to. She would see to that.
Varthlokkur glanced up as the King stepped into the small room where he held his most private conferences. Bragi seemed smugly pleased. He said, “Mist will be here in a few minutes.”
The woman arrived ten minutes later, ushered in by Dahl Haas. Aral Dantice ran at her heel like a faithful pup. The wizard observed through hooded eyes. Something had changed. There was a new shyness between them. He looked over at the King, who had been acting that way himself. Over a bit of fluff young enough to be his daughter. Must be something going around, he thought.
“Sit down,” the King suggested. “Let’s get to it. I’ve been cooped up in the castle all day, so I don’t feel like arguing. We made a decision. You already know what it was. Now we implement it, Mist. But first, I want to know who the Tervola was and what he was doing in Kavelin without my permission.”
Even Varthlokkur was startled. And a little disgusted. This young man had started with such promise. Now he had spies everywhere, like the worst tyrant.
If he was startled, Dantice was stricken. He made a sound, half belch and half mouse squeak. His eyes widened. And Mist, for one of the few times Varthlokkur could recall, was taken completely off guard.
That amused him. He enjoyed watching a colleague caught short.
“I have my resources too,” the King said. “The Tervola is important to me. Call it a gesture of good faith.”
Mist recovered. She spoke honestly and, Varthlokkur noted, said a few things which surprised Dantice.
The King glanced at the wizard, soliciting an opinion. Varthlokkur had detected no outright falsehood. He nodded. Bragi said, “It sounds good. Assuming Kuo isn’t in on the planning from the other end. What’s your timetable?”
“It’s still iffy. We move when Lord Ch’ien thinks the Matayangan attack has peaked. We seize the key points of the empire. We don’t bother Southern Army till the Matayangan attack ebbs. Only then do we replace Lord Kuo.”
“Right. If he lets you. What if he negotiates his way out of trouble with Matayanga? If he doesn’t attack?”
“The plan isn’t perfect. I’d lose.”
“You wouldn’t try to force that war, would you?”
“No! No more than Lord Kuo is. Shinsan can’t stand much more warfare.”
The King glanced at Varthlokkur once more. Again he could only indicate that he believed she was telling the truth.
The King nodded. “All right, Mist. What can I contribute?”
“You’re doing it. Giving us a safe springboard. The only other thing might be the loan of a few shock troops for the strike itself.”
Varthlokkur studied Dantice, and in his little twitches read what his part in the plot was to have been—before the King had become involved. He was to have gathered the financing for mercenary forces meant to do the job now in the hands of royal soldiery. The lad is a fool, the wizard thought. But this is a woman who can make fools of men far wiser.
The King said, “Sir Gjerdrum, put together the forces she needs. And keep it quiet.”
Varthlokkur turned to the young knight. Poor Gjerdrum. He was bitterly opposed to this venture. None of the King’s arguments had swayed him the least. Yet he was going along, because it was the King’s will.
He’s probably right, Varthlokkur reflected. When you come right down to it, we’re all going along because that’s easier than arguing. And chances are Bragi is being a damned fool. He can’t separate his private feelings from what is politic. If he doesn’t learn soon, Kavelin is in for hard times.
Nepanthe stalked the bounds of her apartment like a thing caged. She was tormented by a diffuse, unconquerable certainty that her world had shifted around her, that suddenly she was a foreigner in her own time. Nothing seemed quite real anymore.
She knew why. All her lost anchors, all the missing friends and loves. She had no more family, and few friends—just no anchor left. Except her husband, and hers was a marriage of convenience, from her viewpoint. She needed a protector. She had accepted the protection of a man who wanted her. Any romance existed only in Varthlokkur’s imagination.
These days she just drifted above and away from everything. Her lack of touching points ached. Sometimes she wondered
if she were quite sane.
Her life was one long necklace pearled with dissatisfaction and unhappy moments. There had been good times, but those she had to struggle to remember. She had no trouble recalling the misery. Indeed, she dwelt upon it.
She paused to stare out her window. The sky was a heavy grey. More bad weather? It seemed the sun had vanished with their arrival. Did gloom follow her like a doleful hound?
“Maybe it’s just being pregnant,” she murmured. “I can’t be this way all the time. Right now even I can’t stand me.” A weak, mocking smile toyed with her lips. “I have had friends.”
The baby kicked. She rested her hands upon her stomach, tried to guess if she were feeling an arm or a leg. “Guess you’re going to be a boy. They say boys are more active.”
The baby kicked again. She gasped. It was strong. “Varth?” But he wasn’t there. Out with the King again, probably. What were they up to, anyway? She still didn’t know why Bragi wanted Varth here. Not really. He had his tale to tell, but he was tricky. You never knew. Even Varth might not know.
She hadn’t gotten out of the apartment much, but still had sensed the deep currents twisting through Castle Krief. Servants chattered and speculated. There was trouble with the succession. Bragi had been chosen King, but his family hadn’t been made hereditary custodians of Kavelin. The crown would be up for grabs if he died. Several parties wanted control of the succession.
Then there was the eastern situation, and the sporadic civil war in neighboring Hammad al Nakir, which could have considerable impact here.
And, of course, there were the traditional ethnic frictions within Kavelin itself, frictions three enlightened monarchs had been able to ameliorate only slightly.
She stared out her window and thought of her distant mountain home. She had been no more happy at Fangdred. Each day had witnessed its prayer that the outside would call them forth. Now they were free of that isolation, and she only longed to retreat to the safety of her mountain fastness.
“I must be mad. I can’t even be satisfied when my prayers are answered.” The baby moved again. “What are you doing in there? Jumping rope?” She tried to relax. There was surcease in sleep, sometimes.
Sleep was slow coming. Her back ached. Her legs and feet hurt. Her mind would not abandon its neurotic harping despite her efforts to silence it. And the baby would not lie still.
But sleep of a sort did come, and with it visions as disquieting as anything her mind threw up while awake.
They belonged to a family of dreams she had begun to know well. She dreamed about Ethrian, a desert, and a great, frightening shadow. Her son was calling for help. His voice was weak and remote. The shadow was amused. It lashed out at her child, inflicting intolerable torment. She reached out for Ethrian, but he couldn’t tell she was there.
She had had a lot of Ethrian dreams lately, mainly when she wasn’t too deeply asleep. They varied, yet always showed her son alive, trying to evade some shadowy peril.
Varth claimed it was just pregnancy doing strange things, that her dreams had no parallel in the real world. But she had been through this before, several years ago. She hadn’t been pregnant then.
She believed cluster dreams reflected truth. There was great magic in dreams, though she hadn’t the knowledge to interpret them. Her own touch of magic was severely diminished now she no longer had brothers. Their grasp of the Power had always required the concentration of the entire family….
Varth was no expert, either, but he should know enough to realize her dreams had significance… or did they? Suppose he was right? Suppose they were manifestations of her fears and insecurities?
She was coming out of the twilight into which she’d fallen. She wasn’t chasing every will-o’-the-wisp notion. She was trying to think linearly… And she was disappointed. For an instant she’d felt she’d reached a half-open door, about to capture an unsuspected glimpse of the truth.
She heard a soft rustle, quiet footsteps. She recognized the maid’s step. “I’m awake, Margo.”
“Ah, Lady. I didn’t want to interrupt your nap. Your husband asked me to check.”
“Tell him to come in.”
Varthlokkur seated himself on the edge of her bed, held her hands. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good. What’s happening in the rest of the world?”
“The usual. They’re being born, they’re dying, and generally acting silly in between. Four hundred years I’ve watched them and they haven’t changed. They keep right on doing the same stupid things.”
Disappointment trickled through Nepanthe. There would be no discussing her dream while he was like this. “You’re in that mood again?”
“What mood?”
“All is vanity and chasing after the wind.”
“Hunh! Sometimes it’s the only realistic philosophy.”
He was just within the penumbra of melancholy. He would be unfit to live with if his mood deepened. But he was salvageable now, if she kept him from losing himself inside. “What set you off?” Let him roll it out. Let him look at it and get mad. That would break the chain.
“It’s Bragi. He’s changing. A few years ago his eyes were wide open. Nothing got by him. Nobody fooled him. And he never fooled himself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He isn’t that way anymore. There are intrigues here in Kavelin. Conspiracies about to explode. And he won’t see what’s happening. He goes off and plays Captures or plots against Shinsan. While the real danger grows like a cancer, right behind him.”
Victory! He was angry. “Why do you care? Kavelin isn’t your home. And you’ll outlive its troubles.”
“I don’t know. You’re right. Since Ilkazar fell I haven’t been attached to any particular place. But maybe I like what the old King, Queen Fiana, and Bragi wanted to do here. Maybe I like the promise of their dream, if it succeeds. Maybe I’m aggravated because Bragi has gotten distracted from the real issues. Maybe he’s changing into somebody I don’t like.”
“And maybe you’re misjudging him, Varth. He’s tricky. You never know what he’s doing. He might have his thumb on the pulse of whatever it is that’s worrying you. You can’t ever forget that he’s got Michael Trebilcock. The way people talk, Michael is everywhere and nowhere, and not a whisper of intrigue gets past him. My maids say the nobles are scared to death of him.”
“Uhm. Bragi does have good help. But what happens if he gets so weird they stop agreeing with what he does? Never mind. It’s beyond my influence. I shouldn’t worry. How was your day?”
He had slipped into a more pliable mood. Not a good mood, but the best she would see. “I had another dream. Ethrian was calling for help again.”
Varthlokkur’s face folded into a dark scowl, like a savage old thunderhead. She half expected lightning to prance across his brow.
She chose her words carefully. “I don’t think this is just pregnancy and wishful thinking, Varth. There’s something touching me. I’m not saying it’s Ethrian. Probably it isn’t. But I think you should take me seriously and try to get to the bottom of it. It might be important in some way neither of us can see right now.”
“All right. I’ll do that.” His voice was cool, unhappy. “I’ll let you know if there’s anything to it.” He rose. “I have to go out. I shouldn’t be long.”
She watched him leave. Run, she thought at his back. Get away. Why do you get so upset when I talk about Ethrian?
Several days had passed. Varthlokkur encountered the King in a hallway. Amidst the dancing shadows cast by oil lamps, they paused. Varthlokkur asked, “Any word on Michael yet?”
“Aral found a cold trail. A friend of his saw Michael in Delhagen a few days after the attack on Liakopulos.”
“Strange.”
“Everything is, these days. How long till Nepanthe’s time?”
“Two weeks. Three.”
“Nervous?”
“Very.” The wizard’s smile felt weak. He was beginning to
worry. He was getting tied up here, and he had promised Nepanthe that he would take her home before the birthing.
“Nothing to worry about. She didn’t have trouble with Ethrian.”
“Do me a favor? Don’t mention that name. She’s got a bee in her bonnet about him lately. She’s decided he’s still alive. Thinks we should try finding him.”
“Is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“A couple weeks ago you said…”
“I know what I said. This isn’t the time to worry about it. We’ve got a baby to get born.” He was surprised at himself. He was snarling. Did the possible survival of the boy so threaten him?
“I’ll check back later, in case something turns up.”
“It won’t.” He watched the King depart. The man’s shoulders were stiff in a carrying-the-weight-of-the-world fashion. “My friend, you’re going to have to learn to mind your own business at least some of the time.” He wheeled and stalked toward his apartment.
EIGHT: YEAR 1016 AFE
WARLORD OF THE DEAD
“This one is coming right at us!” Ethrian shouted. “Let’s get out of here!” Sahmanan ran down the stone beast’s neck. Ethrian pursued her.
A flash of silver plunged out of the blue. The beast shunted it slightly. It hit his side. He responded with a great bellow of rage.
“What are they?” Sahmanan asked, rising from the beast’s back.
“I don’t know.” Ethrian surveyed the destruction wrought among the beast’s soldiers. “But they’re effective. Let’s get down from here before one of them gets us.” He gave her a gentle shove.
He looked out across the desert. The Tervola remained standing atop their dune. They did not seem dismayed by the advance of the armies of the dead.
Ethrian and Sahmanan were almost to ground level when another shaft arrived. It plunged almost straight down, in front of the beast’s nose. It released its energy in Sahmanan’s pond.
Huge gouts of steam flung skyward. Chunks of stone fell out of the beast’s forelegs. The paving blocks between them churned and tossed. The exit from the caverns collapsed.
Sahmanan wept for her shattered project.
“Your Great One isn’t doing so hot,” Ethrian observed. “They’re cutting us to ribbons. Maybe I made a mistake, giving him the power to defend us. He’s just wasting the armies.”