“He is a caretaker,” Brienne said. “They are overwhelmed by the living.”
“Yes, yes,” the creature whined.
“Arise, Agemon,” the king said in a commanding voice.
The quivering mass stood up and turned into an old man with long gray hair and a curiously pale, unwrinkled face. His robes, though not old or worn, were of muted and dusty tones, like that of the linen-wrapped dead. He held the sword possessively to his chest, and adjusted a pair of specs on the tip of his nose.
“You need not fear us,” King Zachary said.
“Honored,” the man squeaked. “Honored to have you, great king, and your Black Shield. But these others. These blues, this green. These do not belong in the presence of the great ones. These colors do not belong unless they be heroes. Unless they are dead.”
“I tolerate their presence,” King Zachary said. “And among them are heroes worthy of traveling these avenues.”
“But they live,” the man said desperately. “They breathe. They contaminate the dead.”
Zachary placed his hand on the little man’s shoulder. “I’ve the right to bring them here. I’ve broken no taboo.”
“They must stay and be caretakers. They must never see the living sun again.”
“No,” Zachary said. “They come with me. They all protect me. They all protect the tombs.”
“As you say, my lord. As you say.” Agemon adjusted his specs again, his features full of despair. “But this one,” and he pointed at Karigan, “has touched the great Ambriodhe’s sword. She must stay.”
“No,” the king said. “You must give her the sword back, and she must leave with me. I promise the sword will be returned. I don’t think the First Rider will mind.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Agemon shook his head his expression of despair deepening.
“Give it to her,” Brienne snapped.
Agemon jumped, then thrust the sword out to Karigan. Karigan took it and stepped back.
He gave her a wizened look, his eyes shifting from her head to her toes as if to deem whether or not she was worthy. “She is touched by the dead already, anyway. I guess I will not mind.”
His pronouncement was like a cold hand on the back of Karigan’s neck.
Agemon turned back to the king. “The Birdman will not be happy about this.”
“Westrion understands,” King Zachary said. He glanced at Brienne. “We haven’t the time to debate it.”
“Understood, my lord.” She took Agemon’s arm and pulled him aside. “Agemon, you must continue your duties. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes.” He waved her off and started ambling down the corridor. “I polish the great Heath’s armor. Yes, yes. Heath the Ironhanded. I polish his armor.”
Brienne sighed. “I’m sorry, my lord, but he is the chief caretaker, and he feels responsible for the intrusion of the undead.”
“I know,” King Zachary said. “I suppose the others are too timid to come forward.”
She smiled. “They are. Some won’t even talk to us.”
“How many are down here?” Karigan asked, wondering with revulsion how anyone could live in this mass tomb.
“Perhaps fifty, perhaps a hundred. It is difficult to say, for they are secretive. Some have family that have lived here for generations. From time to time, we try to move families up above, but often enough they can’t adjust. The move goes against anything they have learned about not seeing the living light.”
Karigan frowned with distaste. “Where do they live?”
“Not too far removed from the dead, in their own chambers. It is their way. It has always been so.”
“Shall we move on?” King Zachary suggested. “I am guessing Beryl and Captain Mapstone are somewhere within the city walls by now. It would not be well for them if we were late.”
A WEAPON’S WRATH
“Remember, old man,” Beryl said, “I will have a dagger to your back the whole time. If you speak one wrong word, I will use it.”
Mirwell sat hunched in his saddle, bone-weary and cold under the blanket of night. The city lamps held no warmth, only an icy glow. If only he had his bear pelt to throw over his shoulders. His Beryl Spencer of old would have fetched it for him without hesitation, but now she wasn’t his. She never was.
She rode knee to knee with him as they approached the second city gate. Mapstone rode behind, her gray hood drawn over her face, and next to her, the Rider Connly dressed in D’rang’s scarlet uniform. To complete the illusion, Mapstone rode Connly’s gray mare.
If Mirwell were a less pragmatic man, he might have been amused by the irony of his situation. He and Beryl had virtually switched roles, he now the captive, she the captor. He had been fooled by her pretty face, hard work, and seemingly unfeigned loyalty. She had been the spy in House Mirwell all along while he thought her to be his most trustworthy officer, above Captain Immerez and all others.
Mirwell admitted it to himself: he had been duped. Yet the ultimate move of the game of Intrigue had not been played out. He still possessed the Gray One’s magic words of power to use at the most appropriate moment.
They halted before the city gate, and the guards in his own color of scarlet held a lantern up to see who rode in.
“Lord Mirwell!” the guard said in surprise. “And Major Spencer.” He and the others bowed. “We are glad to see you. Prince . . . I mean King Amilton was concerned about you, seeing how late it is. He sent word for us to keep watch.”
“Then send a messenger up to the castle and tell him we come,” Beryl said. “Tell the king we bring him a great prize.”
“Yes, Major.”
The lantern light showed on Beryl’s ruthless smile. A great prize indeed, Mirwell thought. He glanced back at the basket Mapstone carried. How long before their ruse would be discovered?
At Beryl’s signal, Mirwell prodded his horse forward and he rode beside her through the gate. The guards bowed respectfully, but he knew their eyes were on the gray-cloaked figure riding behind bearing the basket. Ahead of them, a messenger rode off at a canter, and the clatter of hooves receded into the night.
Beryl might be pleased by her little charade, but Mirwell could reveal it at any moment knowing that whatever happened to him, his soldiers would see to her death. She had promised to kill him should he reveal their deception, and he knew she spoke the truth. But he must exercise patience and play along for now. He was not ready to sacrifice himself. He still had one move to make, and her plan, after all, was flawed.
“Don’t you think someone will not see through your plan?” he asked her. “Amilton has met the Gray One,” he said. “That woman is not the Gray One.”
His pronouncement was met with soft laughter from behind. “No,” Captain Mapstone said in a low voice, “I am the Green One. We need but little time in the throne room to accomplish what we must. It won’t matter who we really are.”
A pity Beryl had not killed the woman during the battle. It was unfortunate timing the spell broke when it did. Such things could be rectified, however.
“You are Mirwellian born, aren’t you?” he asked Beryl.
“Yes,” she said.
“Don’t you wish to see our province as great as it once was? Don’t you wish to feel the glory?”
Beryl surveyed the quiet streets, her expression cool and unreadable, just as he had seen it so many times when he believed her to be his loyal aide. She shifted the reins to one hand, and rested the other on her knee. “Do you remember,” she said, “a young soldier named Riley who served in your house guard?”
“Riley? No, but there would be no reason for me to.”
“It was some ten years ago. He was a simple private who did his job honestly and with good faith. His officers had nothing to complain about. He believed in the greatness of Mirwell Province and he thought it superior to any other. Then one day, someone in your household marred the leather of a new saddle you favored. You did not know who it was, but you decided to make
an example of someone. You chose Riley. You cut off both his hands so he would not drop another saddle. Do you remember?”
Mirwell thought hard, but could not remember the incident, or could not distinguish it from many others of a similar nature. “I do not. I suppose you are going to tell me this Riley was your father.”
“No,” Beryl said, watching the street ahead. “My father died in one of your bloody tourneys just before I was born. Riley Spencer was my brother. He was proud to serve House Mirwell, as our father had, but you took that away from him. The glory died. When he returned home, he lived for a few years, but a man without hands cannot plow his land. He could find no use for himself and killed himself. But he had already died, I think, of a broken heart.”
Mirwell snorted. “How does a man with no hands kill himself?”
Beryl looked at him with baleful eyes. “He threw himself off a cliff.”
“A weak man, then. It is good I removed him from service. Only a weak man would allow his infirmity to get the better of him.” Mirwell scratched at his gray streaked beard. “I suppose you want me to ask forgiveness?”
“No. I would not expect you to. I know you.”
The castle loomed upon its hill over the sleeping city. The horses climbed steadily, their hooves clacking hollowly on the empty street. The moon had begun its descent into the western sky.
Mirwell shifted uncomfortably on his horse, his bones protesting at this late night ride. “Yes,” he said. “You know me well enough. Evidently better than I knew you. I had thought you wanted to see Mirwell restored to greatness the same as I did.”
“Oh, but I do,” Beryl said. “That is why I have done what I have done. I wanted to see Mirwell become a great province once again. Everything I have done has been for the province.”
“Then I don’t understand—”
“Of course you don’t.” Beryl shook her head emphatically. “We envision two different provinces. Yours would be oversized and bloodthirsty, interested in glory only.”
“And yours?”
“Mine . . .” Her voice grew very quiet again. “I envision a province without Mirwells. Without Mirwells who seek glory from blood.”
Mirwell’s belly shook as he laughed. “What would you call the province then? Spencer Province?”
“No,” she said. “There are other clans.”
She was clearly obsessed, Mirwell decided.
As they rode by silent houses and shops empty of all light, he said, “Your visions and dreams are one thing, my dear, but if your timing is off, or if someone notices the Gray One is quite a bit shorter than he used to be, or if one of D’rang’s comrades notices he looks different, then your scheme will fail utterly and will bring about Zachary’s destruction. You will never see the province you envision.”
Beryl twisted in her saddle and smiled coldly at him. “Nor will you. Should the plan fail, I am taking you down with me.”
“You are,” Mirwell said, “more like me than you know.”
“I am a Green Rider,” she said, looking ahead at the brightly lit castle gates emerging out of the darkness. “I will do what I can to fix what you have tried to destroy. We are not alike at all.”
“How I never knew you to be a spy . . .” Mirwell shook his head.
Beryl grinned at him, amusement dancing in her eyes. “As a Green Rider, I am gifted with the ability of deception, to assume a role. You were not difficult to deceive.”
Stevic paced in agitated circles, his cloak aswirl about his ankles.
“You’ve got to stop,” Sevano told him. “You don’t want to attract his attention.”
Stevic paused and peered down the length of the throne room where Amilton sat in his chair. Another dead, or nearly dead noble, at the base of his dais was being dragged away. The ranks of those whose loyalty was to be tested was thinning rapidly. Amilton had put the Lady Estora in reserve. She had been placed in a chair next to the dais. Amilton reclined in the throne chair, his fingers pyramided as he gazed at the half dozen nobles before him. In the shadow of his chair stood the woman Jendara.
Stevic turned on his cargo master. “Sevano, I’ve got to talk to her.”
“You do not,” Sevano said.
“She said Karigan wasn’t dead. She had blood . . . blood on her sword. How do you think it makes me feel?”
Sevano grabbed his arm roughly and pulled him close. “I can guess how it makes you feel. Aye, I can. I know also that it makes you reckless.”
“Then I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to find Karigan. If she is somewhere here in the castle . . . Somewhere hurt . . .”
Sevano dropped his arm. “How do we get out of here?” He glanced meaningfully at the soldiers guarding the doors.
“We walk out. After all, I am but a simple merchant.”
Sevano snorted.
“We’ve got to try, old friend.”
“And bring about unwanted attention?”
“They won’t even notice us.”
Sevano rolled his eyes. “Aeryc and Aeryon have mercy on fools.”
They turned toward the entranceway as one, and with matching strides, walked down the runner. The guards watched their approach with some interest, but did not move to intercept them. Stevic thought they might actually make their way out, but just as they drew abreast of the guards, pikes were crossed in their path.
One of the guards smirked. “No one leaves but the dead. Orders of the king.”
Stevic and Sevano turned on their heels and headed back.
“So much for that,” Sevano said.
“It was worth a try,” Stevic said.
Instead of returning to their half hidden alcove, Stevic walked past it and approached the throne more closely.
“What are you doing?” Sevano whispered.
“I want to see if I can talk to that Jendara woman.” He paused a few paces from the remaining nobles.
Amilton’s attention was presently on Lady Estora. He twined his fingers through her shining gold hair. “Wine, my dear?”
In a soft but firm voice, she replied, “I am not your dear.”
Amilton’s face went white with rage. He grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her head close to his lips, and she screamed.
“You are,” he said, “whatever I tell you.” Then he pushed her away, and she curled up in her chair with a sob.
Amilton looked as if he were about to say more, but a soldier entered the throne room at a trot. He fell to his knee before Amilton.
“My lord,” he said, panting hard. “Lord-Governor Mirwell rides through the city. He brings you a great prize.”
Amilton stood, triumph shining on his face. “Sacoridia is mine,” he crowed. “They did it! They defeated my brother.”
Stevic’s shoulders drooped. He could feel it from the others, too, from Sevano and the old woman, Devon, from Lady Estora, and even the nobles who had sworn themselves to Amilton. He could sense their loss of hope.
Fastion clapped Karigan on the shoulder. “Good to see you again. Thank you for bringing the king.”
Karigan smiled weakly. “He brought himself.”
But Fastion did not hear. He was already talking to Brienne, the king, Marshal Martel, and about ten other Weapons. They had left behind the hundreds of slabs encumbered with the dead. She could see a row of slabs through the open doorway from where she sat in an anteroom. Several chairs and a coffin rest were the only pieces of furniture here. Glyphs and runes similar to those she had seen throughout Heroes Avenue ornamented the walls here as well. Some were covered by more recent tapestries depicting heroic events, or of Westrion carrying souls off to the heavens. A statuette of Aeryc holding the sickle moon stood by the fireplace.
The roaring fire felt good to Karigan. The penetrating cold of the underground tomb had clung relentlessly to her, and she wondered if she would ever be able to shake it off completely. She watched the blaze. The fire was alive and warm compared to the denizens of Heroes Avenue. The bare sword lying
across her knees reflected dancing flames. She wished it was her old sword . . . F’ryan Coblebay’s. He had been hero enough. But to take the First Rider’s from her tomb? She shuddered, and this time not with the cold.
“We must go on,” King Zachary said to them all. “We must not miss our appointed time.”
They all waited by a set of double doors, again wide enough to admit the dead and pall bearers. Fastion and Brienne stepped through into a dark outer room. In moments, they returned.
“It is secured, my lord,” Fastion said.
One by one they slipped into the darkness of the outer room. The air was immediately warmer. It was as if Karigan had been released by the grips of the tomb and its dead. The ceiling vaulted into a high arch instead of pressing down on her, and she could breathe easier.
The room was a Chapel of the Moon with religious tapestries hung on the walls, and a coffin rest which must also serve as an altar. Wood benches faced the coffin rest. Unlike the tombs, there were no glyphs, no images of Westrion. The chapel must have been built long after the tombs, and it was not one used by the royal family. It was plain and lacked the heraldry of the ruling clans. Instead, there was a shield of black and silver upon the wall. A chapel for common soldiers and their families.
They had left the tombs behind, but in the glimmer of Brienne’s lamp, she saw four figures strewn on the floor and one slumped over a bench. They wore the colors of Mirwell. There had been no sounds of fighting or cries as the soldiers died. Weapons might not possess magical talents, but as Fastion had once said, they had their secrets.
“There will be more soldiers outside the chapel,” Fastion said.
“Then we shall not go that way,” King Zachary said.
Fastion nodded.
“My lord,” Brienne said, “we understand the dire situation you are going into, but we are sworn to protect the dead. I must leave a few Weapons at least to guard the entrance to the tombs.”
“I know,” he said. “I would not want to see the caretakers harmed, nor the sanctity of the tombs desecrated. Besides, there are relics of the past down there that should not be handled. Their disturbance should prove more disastrous than a simple coup.”
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