“Take it,” Kemses said.
I bowed my head, slipped my hands beneath it and let him roll it onto my palms and it was so very heavy, heavy as all the people it had destroyed, would destroy, heavy as the wood of the raging fires that burned in all the arenas in Serala. It was an evil thing, that to kill required such torment. It was unnatural. I heard the screams.
Kemses let out a breath and nodded, stepping back. “Now you are prepared.”
The drake lay down so I could mount and the genets pulled themselves into the saddle before and behind me. As the drake rose, Kemses said, “Do you know whither your errand takes you?”
“To Suleris.”
“Suleris.” He stepped out of my way, his curtain of hair shimmering like sunlight over a running stream. “You go into the heart of iniquity.”
“Apparently so,” I said.
“How appropriate. The pearl of a people ensconced in the festering dark of its most sadistic blood-flag.” He looked up at me; only sitting astride the drake did he have to do that, and not by much. “I can’t protect you there. Not all my papers and sigils will.”
“I’m not expecting it,” I said, weary. “In truth, Kemses, I want only to keep moving. To stop... well. I may never move again.”
“Somehow I doubt it,” he said. “Permit me to accompany you to the harbor.”
“Of course,” I said, and waited for him to have a horse brought to him but... he didn’t. He waited for me to press the drake forward, one hand resting on the saddle. “Sir?”
“No,” he said. “If you are the prince, then I will walk. And you should not be calling me sir, but liegeman.”
A rush of heat flooded me, setting my body a-quake. “You mean that.”
He glanced up at me. “Of course.”
I stared at him, transfixed with conflicting emotions. The thought that someone so powerful would put himself at my knee was exhilarating, to the point of setting all my hair on end. And the thought that I could react that way to the mere idea... I shuddered. I wanted no part of the corruption of a feudal system. I had done nothing—nothing—to earn such devotion. What if I came to expect it, merely by existing? Down that path I saw ruin.
“Master?” Almond whispered.
“You should ride,” I said, and as I said it my spine relaxed. I had conquered the impulse. Everything would be fine.
“No.”
Had he... yes, he had. I glanced sharply at him. “I just said—”
“It’s not appropriate,” he said.
“I haven’t done a thing... a single thing! To make you treat me this way.”
“You’re going to retrieve our king,” he said. “You have discovered that he lives and you go to free him.”
“I discovered he lived by chance,” I said. “At the whim of an insane sorcerer!”
“And you are the one on the drake, insisting that you cannot wait a single day to save him.”
“Because I want the reward promised me for his return!”
“Are you certain?” Kemses asked.
I gaped at him.
“Blood calls to blood,” Kemses murmured. “Among us there is no greater truth. You will see soon enough. Shall we go, my liege?”
I couldn’t move. It was Kelu who rolled her eyes and jabbed me in the stomach with her elbow. “Come on, ‘Master’. The day’s not getting any younger.”
And then I laughed. I wasn’t sure I could ever become arrogant with Kelu in my vanguard. “Well enough. If you insist.”
“I do,” Kemses said. “And you might consider developing a touch more graciousness in accepting the offerings of your liegemen, my prince. We do take offense if we are rebuffed.”
I checked... yes, there was humor there in his eye. I sighed and shook my head, nudged the drake into an easy stroll and left the stable.
That long walk off the estate and down the main thoroughfare to Erevar’s great harbors... I struggled with it. It is forever emblazoned in my mind, the sun on my head, the liquid warmth of the drake beneath me... and at my side, head bowed and serene, a great power, a knot of the world’s magic given gracile form and set at my knee, pacing me, patient and noble. Around us the crowds stepped back, made way; we were such a small train that it was only the most subtle of perturbations in the traffic, but the deference they awarded us was unmistakable. What did they think, those humans and elves, seeing their master walking at the side of a mounted human?
By turns I suffered humility and embarrassment, discomfort and wonder, but by the time we had gained the city’s center it had begun to slough from me, leaving me with a mate to Kemses’s tranquility. And in that peace, sun-gilded and timeless, we finished the journey to the harbor. There I set a hand on Kemses’s shoulder and he helped me dismount, and for once I felt no shame at needing aid with this wreck of a body I’d been bequeathed.
“Godspeed, my liege,” Kemses said as the ship-hands led the drake up the plank.
“Do the elves believe in God, then?” I asked.
“We used to,” Kemses said. “Perhaps we will again.”
I turned with trepidation to the plank, thinking of my unsteady feet.
“You see, this is why you have a staff,” Kemses said from behind me.
“You are an impertinent vassal,” I said.
He laughed and so did I, and the genets helped me up the ship and... it was good. For once, it was good.
The channel crossing was short, but not so short as to prevent the full flowering of my remorse. Blood or no blood I was no prince, and to accept at all (much less with any ease!) the humbling of another man for no reason other than heredity... no. No, it was not meet. I had hardly guessed myself capable of this particular sickness.
Almond observed my brooding with the expected distress; Kelu only followed me with her narrowed orange eyes, and I wondered what she thought. For once she kept her counsel, leaving me to huddle in my bunk and question my sanity alone. Princes and kings and magic and heroics. Ridiculous. I was not living in one of my own folk tales.
By the time Kemses’s ship had brought us to Kesína, I had recast the entire incident in dark shades and used it to foretell my own corruption. This insidious society was trying to wiggle into my spirit, change me. I would have to be on guard. I thought I should recite the Articles of Freedom every morning on waking as a reminder of the principles I held dear, only to realize that I couldn’t remember them and perhaps never had been facile with the particulars of our new republic’s constitution. History had never been my strong suit: more Chester’s bailiwick, and Guy’s. I’d been the one drenched in the embroideries that had seemed so much more grand, tales of errant royalty petitioning fairies, betraying them, of witches setting tasks to desperate mothers, to battles with dragons. Standing at the ship’s bow, turning my name in my hands, I managed a self-deprecating laugh. Perhaps Kemses was right. Perhaps it was in the blood, all of it, from the magic to the decadence and cruelty.
Well. If I was destined for despotism, I would still fight it on the way down.
As per previous arrangement with the captain, we were lowered in a dinghy some distance from the port and rowed to shore. Kelu led the drake through the shallows and I splashed after her, leaning heavily on Almond’s thin shoulder. The sailor wished us no fortune, no luck, spoke not at all; no hostility in him, but no sympathy either. What a reflection on my time in Serala that I’d come to think of this as an expression of great tolerance.
“So,” I said, once we were alone on the strand. “Suleris.”
“We know the way,” Kelu said. “No genet ever forgets the way.”
I glanced at her, but she was already pulling herself into the saddle.
Kesína was the Archipelago’s granary; as we rode, the drake’s taloned feet dug into soft, fertile soil, and we skirted the edges of vast plantations of rice and wheat. They were farmed in surprisingly beautiful terraces, low ziggurats of green stalks, silver grains and bright blue waters. The rich scent of growing things perfumed the bre
ezes that blew back the drake’s mane as we passed. Mountains hove into view in the deep distance, slopes of purple and gray shadow; they encircled the island like a bowl’s walls, the genets told me. I found it incongruous and beautiful, and it disturbed me to find such a perilous place so pastoral.
I spent the days of our travel as wretched as ever, and surely without the aid of the poppy, the genets and the hunting prowess of the faithful drake I would never have survived the trip with sanity intact. And as we drew closer to our destination I was ever cognizant of Kemses’s protection, for his prophecies came true: seen from afar dressed in rich coat, armed and in the company of genets while riding one of the rarest beasts on the islands, I was taken for a particularly parched elf and left to my own devices with one... notable... exception. We were pacing a field looking for a likely place to camp for the evening, ignoring the human workers as recommended in order to present the proper façade of elven arrogance; elves were not the only people who avoided us, as humans also gave us a broad berth. The day had been particularly difficult and when we stopped beneath a tree I found I couldn’t dismount. It was in my mind to ask for help when someone behind me said, “You’re not wanted here.”
Kelu twirled around. Almond squeaked and hugged my waist and I... I was so cramped I couldn’t even turn my head to look for the source of the voice.
“We’ll sleep where we please,” Kelu hissed. “Go back to work.”
“We’re done with working for the day,” the voice said. “And we don’t want your kind sleeping near us.”
Several humans coalesced out of the dusk’s maze of shadows with moonlight gliding off their nude chests and the long poles in their hands.
“I don’t want any trouble,” I said.
“You won’t be,” the human said. “Not so drained as you sound. Believe us, we know what you should sound like, bastard. You should never have come here so weak.”
“Master!” Almond said, clinging to me.
The humans saw an elf when they looked at me; the elves saw a human. I wondered at how easily my task would go if only they’d agree to trade impressions.
“We’ll move on,” I said. “Let’s go, Kelu.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“I thought you said you didn’t want me sleeping near you?” I asked, arch. “Very well. We’ll leave and you’ll have your wish. Or were you lying? Let me guess. You wanted me to leave when you thought I could hurt you. But now that you believe you can take me on, you’d prefer to savage me in revenge for whatever hardships you and your fellows have suffered?”
Startled silence.
I said, “No better than your masters then, are you?”
“We have to start somewhere,” the leader said. “One elf at a time.”
“You’ll get nowhere that way,” I said, irritated. “You want to win a revolution? Give them no warning. Amass your strength, pick your time, and make the blow count. Or if you must choose a single incident, don’t settle for some out of the way encounter no one will ever hear or see. Make it symbolic, and for God’s sake do it someplace more populous, where the message can get out.”
A brief silence. Then one of the others said, “Who the hell are you?”
“A friend,” I said. “Now get out of my way or tear me to pieces, but make up your mind. I’m tired and I want to sleep.”
The leader circled around in front of me and stared up into my face. “Are you—”
“Don’t,” I interrupted. “Just get back to what you were doing. Sleeping, farming, drinking, planning the overthrow of your oppressors, I don’t care. Forget you saw me.”
“Hey!” one of them said. “No! We want our blood price!”
“Then hurry up and exact it,” I said. “But don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s justified.” When they didn’t move, I said, “Go ahead. Experiment. Figure out what it takes to torture an elf.” With a trembling, aching arm I pulled the staff free of the saddle rack. “You can even use my staff. It’s gutted plenty of elves before. You’ll have to build a bonfire, though. Shall I help you with the wood?”
Now they were backing away and I could read the unease on their faces.
“Don’t go now!” I said. “You want grim reality? Just to kill an elf you have to torture him! But if you’re inventive enough I’m sure you can devise a heinous series of punishments. And since you will have to make a special effort to ensure my death, you can be assured that you will be able to draw the agony out for as long as your angry hearts decree! How many times should you break my fingers to pay for your years of slavery? They’ll knit back together until you decide! Or if you prefer you can burn me... that will take longer and hurt more to heal. Slice my throat for every one of your relatives you’ve seen raped! I’ll live through the thousands!”
Now they were truly aghast. I finished, “Come and get me, then. I’ll let you. But it may take generations of you to make me pay for all the elven crimes. Pass on that bleak rot in your spirit to your children... make them the instruments of your revenge. I’ll pay your blood price if it eases your spirit. But somehow I doubt it will.”
The leader said abruptly, “Let’s go,” and we were alone.
Both genets were staring at me, wide-eyed. I kneed the drake back into his ground-eating lope, and as I rode I ignored the tears that spilled, endless as rain, from my gray eyes.
“Suleris,” I said.
Behind me Almond was silent. Said Kelu, “Yes.”
Amoret and Kemses had both had impressive manors, though the palace in Evertrue, converted into the city’s governmental seat after the fall of the monarchy, rivaled them for size and beauty. But both their estates had been limited by their locations, cramped in cities or shoved flush to rivers and coasts.
Suleris had no such limitations. It spilled across the countryside, its impossible arches and towers vaulting into the cloudless sky, a stone and tile sprawl in azure, cobalt, silver and rust red. It consumed the same amount of space as the city of Erevar, if I was any judge, and even from a distance I could see its sculptured gardens.
“No gates,” I said.
“Suleris owns Kesína,” Kelu said. “Every elf on this island answers to their blood-flag. Why do they need gates? There’s nowhere to run.”
“Even among elves there must be internecine conflict,” I said. “Surely there are those who seek the protection of Suleris who resent them, wish to steal their power, make their secret plans.”
“You don’t understand,” Kelu said, shaking. “I don’t think you’ll ever understand. You don’t cross someone like Suleris. You don’t cross them and live.”
“Let’s hope you’re wrong,” I said. “Because I’m about to.” With a grunt I heaved myself from the drake’s back. I wobbled, grabbed for the stirrup to steady myself, wished my sickness, enchantment, whatever it was, to the nearest hell. “You and Almond, take the drake and hide.”
“What?” Kelu asked. “You’re going in there alone?”
“How am I supposed to explain you?” I asked. “A human fleeing a farm in search of softer work I can carry off. But a human followed by a couple of genets and riding in on a drake? Don’t be ridiculous.” I pulled the loops free of their closures and drew the coat from my body in slow, aching movements. “You’re going to have to make yourself scarce in the countryside. Once I have the king free I’ll come find you.”
“How?” Kelu asked, staring at me with splayed ears. “Will you do a divination? Ask the wind? Loose your pack of hunting cats?”
I sighed and pulled down a small pack: food, water, the last few vials of the poppy. Squinting, I glanced at the countryside, then pointed at a distant tree. “There. We’ll congregate at the nearest tree of that kind.”
“That’s vague,” Kelu said. “Didn’t you notice the size of that estate?”
“We’ll manage. And the fact remains: you can’t come with me.”
“If we’re caught—”
“If you’re caught I’ll do my best to
free you too,” I said. I smiled wanly. “I’m already working on a king. Surely adding a couple of genets is a minor crime by comparison.”
Almond slipped off the back of the drake and caught my waist in a hug, pressing her cheek against my bare midriff. “We will do as you say, Master,” she murmured. “Only be safe, please.”
“That goal is one of my foremost, if not the foremost, I assure you,” I said gently, cupping the back of her head. “I don’t know how long this will take. Maybe a day. A week. Several.” In stories the infiltration of enemy households often took years. I had no desire to spend so long here; if truly I was immortal, a year or two was meaningless, but I was far too aware of the time passing on the mainland where my family and friends awaited me. Even without knowing whether I could effect a cure, I wanted to be home, if only to escape the menace and corruption of Serala.
“I think this is a stupid idea,” Kelu said, hopping off the drake. “But I hope it works.” She gathered the beast’s reins and said, “We’ll leave signs. Not obvious ones, though. You’ll have to work at it.”
“I look forward to the mental exercise,” I said with a smile. Before she could duck away I kissed the top of her head, and then Almond’s. “Go to your task and I to mine. I will return with king in tow, God willing.”
“We will see you then, Master,” Almond said. She bumped Kelu gently with her nose. “Come, sister.”
“Wait,” Kelu said. She turned to me and caught her clawed fingertips in the steel chain. “What about this?”
“Don’t worry for it,” I said.
She met my eyes but said nothing, and for the first time I wondered if she was capable of trusting me... of trusting anyone. What had the elves done to her that they had not done to Almond? I watched them walk away, wondering if they would remain free, or if truly all of Kesína was riddled with Suleris’s spies. I hoped not... I had my own observations to make before I could approach this vast manor, and it would spoil my plans to be discovered too early.
An Heir to Thorns and Steel Page 24