Green Rider

by Kristen Britain

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Shawdell shrugged. “As you wish, though I suspect if you consulted Captain Mapstone’s brooch, you would know the truth of my words. How else would you explain all this?”

  The brooch was gone, and it did not speak to her, but it did not matter. All that mattered was leaving this place, getting back to the king. “How do we get back?” she asked.

  Shawdell mocked her with his light and musical laughter. “You would trust me with the answer? You who will not believe the truth about where we are?” She glared at him, and he stopped laughing. He leaned forward and drew his eyebrows together in an expression of the utmost gravity. “To leave, we must finish the game. You must sit down and play. Won’t you have a seat?” He gestured at the empty chair.

  Karigan ignored the proffered chair but looked the game board over. On her side of the board, green pieces stood in formation. She looked closely, for their features were familiar. One carried a great ax on his shoulder—Abram Rust. Miss Bayberry leaned on a cane. Somial, Softfeather, Arms Master Rendle, the little boy Dusty, and others she knew all had their places. King Zachary sat upon the green throne. Weapons stood behind him with hands on the hilts of their swords. Captain Mapstone and Beryl Spencer faced one another with their swords drawn.

  Several pieces lay in the dead position: F’ryan Coblebay, Joy Overway, and numerous other Green Riders, Weapons, and soldiers.

  Amilton’s pieces consisted of Mirwellian soldiers and mercenaries. There was one-handed Captain Immerez flanked by Sarge and Thursgad. Mirwell faced the battling Captain Mapstone and Beryl Spencer. Jendara stood just outside the action.

  The very image of Amilton sat on the red throne. Likewise, Shawdell sat on the blue throne. The two pieces were close together. A black thread of energy flowed between them. One more piece stood before them, a green piece. Karigan did not need to look at it closely to know who it represented.

  Shawdell’s pieces thronged on the borders of the green king’s realm. They were groundmites and other twisted creatures with hideous faces, wings, and claws. Denizens, no doubt, of Kanmorhan Vane.

  “I don’t want to play,” Karigan said.

  “I thought you wanted to leave this place,” Shawdell said. “You must win the game to leave.”

  “No,” Karigan said.

  “No? You are the Triad. You have been throughout, the unexpected player of the game, the player none of us knew how to counter—not Mirwell, Amilton, or myself. Zachary, however, managed to woo you to his side early on.”

  “Don’t twist it,” Karigan said. “I chose—”

  “We never knew what you would do next,” Shawdell said as if he had not heard her. “Other pieces supported you, and others hindered you. I suppose it is too late for me to coax you to our side? We would make an incomparable match.”

  His smile was charming, his eyes warm. He held his hand out to her. Karigan recoiled.

  “I could show you things you never dreamed of,” he said. “I could give you power a thousand times that of the horse trinket you wear. A simple mortal king like Zachary is not good enough for you. You’ve a temperament that requires much, much more.” He folded his hands on the table, and with earnest eyes, he said, “It pains me to admit it, but I find you most intriguing for a mortal, Karigan G’ladheon. What do you think about immortality? I have the power to grant it.”

  Karigan sputtered, her mind awhirl and appalled by all he implied. “Is that what you offered Amilton? Immortality?” She glanced at the prince who was oblivious to everything but the game board.

  “What I offered Amilton is between him and me, and needless to say, it is quite different than what I offer you.”

  This couldn’t be happening, could it? Immortality? To spend all her days with Shawdell the Eletian? The one who unthinkingly killed so many for his own purposes? She could never cross over to his side. This one thing at least, she knew.

  “I made my choice long ago,” she said. “I made my choice free of false promises and coercion.”

  Shawdell’s expression was one of genuine regret. “My promises are not false. I wish you would join me, for we could share more than power.” He paused to allow his words time to sink in. “Since you have refused my offer, there is no alternative. I ask again, won’t you finish the game?”

  Karigan hated Intrigue. She always lost. By rising to Shawdell’s challenge, she doomed King Zachary, her father, all her friends. She doomed Sacoridia.

  She nodded toward Amilton who still muttered to himself and dithered over the game board. “Why doesn’t he make a move?”

  “He moves when I give him leave,” Shawdell said.

  “And when do you move?”

  Shawdell crooked a golden eyebrow. “I move when you sit down to play.”

  “You mean everything is just . . . stalled?”

  “It is a stalemate.”

  “And if I refuse to sit?”

  Shawdell slowly smiled. “We share an eternity in this place. But if you play the game, you have a chance to win.”

  “Why don’t you use your magic?” Karigan asked.

  “Play the game,” Shawdell said.

  “Why don’t you use your magic?” she repeated.

  Shawdell’s posture grew rigid. Amilton, too, tensed and his murmuring increased in urgency.

  “Play the game,” Shawdell said. “It is the only way you can leave.”

  Karigan laughed, giddy with sudden insight. The essence of her insight, the only truth to be found in this unreality, was far more mundane than simple magic. She was the Triad, the random element. She could spur the game on, or maintain the stalemate. She controlled the game.

  “I won’t break the stalemate,” she said. The colorful game pieces reflected on the shiny blade of the First Rider. She bent close to Shawdell and whispered, “You are too weak to break it yourself.”

  And if this place was a combination of symbols, images, and the corporeal . . .

  She raised the sword over her head. Shawdell quailed. The sword slashed down like a scythe.

  It plummeted down between the enthroned pieces of Amilton and Shawdell, severing the black thread that linked them. The blade bit into the cork game board and green, blue, and red pieces scattered. The sword carved deep into the table and through it. A roar grew louder and louder in Karigan’s ears like a great whoosh of air—the screams of Shawdell and Amilton.

  The table split into two neatly sliced halves. Shawdell and Amilton, one the mirror of the other, brought their arms up as if to ward off some invisible blow, their faces averted. Cracks crazed their images and they shattered into thousands of tiny fragments.

  Still the sword descended. It plowed into the white earth and sank deep. It kept sinking. The ground engulfed the blade, the hilt, her hand. It swallowed her wrist and forearm and elbow. Still the sword descended. The ground took her shoulder. It took her all the way.

  The blade rang on the stone floor of the throne room.

  Gold links from the chain that had held the black stone around Amilton’s neck rained to the floor in pieces. The black stone bounced again, and when it struck the floor, it cracked.

  Wild magic escaped from it.

  The magic crackled and shot across the room in a black streak, hungry and vengeful. It found Karigan’s sword and sizzled up the blade. She flung it aside, but still the tendrils leaped off it and lashed onto her like a live creature, a predator sustained by the screams of Shawdell and Amilton.

  She added her own scream as the wild magic twined around her torso and around each limb. It pulsed on her flesh, strangling the life from her. The other faces in the throne room blurred in her tearing eyes.

  Amilton’s arms were outstretched to the ceiling as if he reached for his father painted there. Even without her brooch, Karigan could see the ghostly, bloodied figure of the Eletian being drawn out of him.

  A black current of magic burrowed through Karigan’s flesh and into her shoulder. She writhed as the black thing sa
nk deeper, crawled under her skin, wriggled in her muscle.

  Smoke drifted up from the fabric of her coat. She smelled her own burning flesh. Old hurts reignited: the burns on her wrists from the creature of Kanmorhan Vane, the bite of Immerez’s whip on her shoulder, the countless knocks, bruises, scrapes, abuses . . . Her side was wet with blood.

  The thing probed deeper, and she moaned with pain. She knew with some part of her that it sought out her heart and strove to twist and twine like poison through every sinew of her body.

  On the periphery of her vision, a shadow with a sword looked down at her with steely eyes. The shadow tossed her mane of russet hair over her shoulder, and turned to the screaming Amilton. The sword streamed through the air like the tail of a falling star and plunged into Amilton. The scream stopped short though its residue clung to the stone walls of the throne room.

  Amilton crumpled. The silver fillet fell from his head and rolled across the floor to King Zachary’s feet. It spun there like a coin until he grasped it with a trembling hand.

  The Eletian faded from existence like a puff of smoke.

  Karigan groaned as the last vestiges of magic left her body and the accompanying pain dissipated. Her father’s face clarified in her hazy vision as he looked down at her. Sevano, and some blonde, green-eyed lady who looked vaguely familiar, also gazed down on her.

  “Kari?” her father said hoarsely.

  “Uh . . .” was all she could say.

  He clasped her hand. His hand was warm and its weathered texture felt good to her. It felt real. “Can you sit up?” he asked.

  She raised herself to her elbows and shook her head to clear it. Pain lingered, but its intensity was a distant thing. Her whole body felt battered; it was too difficult to pinpoint one single hurt more significant than the others. Where the current of magic had entered her shoulder, she felt nothing at all.

  She let her father and Sevano help her to her feet. Shakily she hooked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  An odd gray light stole the contrast of oil lamp and night from the throne room. With some surprise she realized morning had finally dawned and its dusky light had brightened the east side windows.

  Nobles murmured among themselves in weary tones. Brienne and Rory stirred on the floor, grimacing and rubbing their eyes. Fastion crouched by them. Captain Mapstone sat beside a dazed Beryl Spencer who cradled her head in her hands. Connly held his sword to the jowls of Tomas Mirwell.

  Jendara stood over the body of Amilton Hillander. Her bloodied sword hung loose in her hand. She shook her head and tossed the sword aside.The clatter of metal on stone woke everyone up. All eyes fell on her. Her eyes found Karigan.

  “We are even, Greenie,” she said.

  Karigan opened her mouth to speak, but just then, the throne room doors burst open and Weapons and soldiers dressed in silver and black spilled into the room. The door hidden behind the tapestry opened as well and Weapons, followed by Horse Marshal Martel and his cavalry soldiers, issued in. The opening of the doors dissipated the last of the spell that had cloaked the room.

  Horse Marshal Martel and the Weapons sought out the king to ensure he was well. Karigan could not tell from where she stood, but he seemed well, at least as well as she was. He looked dazed and exhausted, with blood staining his mustache and beard.

  “We need some menders here,” Marshal Martel said to one of his officers, “and double quick.”

  A Weapon knelt by the corpse of Devon Wainwright. Others joined him, and they spoke in low voices. They stood and turned to the king. “We seek the one who has killed Devon.”

  Before the king could respond, Jendara stepped forward and said, “I did.”

  Swords hissed out of sheaths. A black ring of Weapons closed in on her.

  “I know you, traitor,” one said. “Devon was our teacher.”

  “You shall suffer Saverill’s fate,” another said.

  Jendara stared coldly at each of her captors. “I was once Devon’s student, too. I learned much from her.” She looked them over critically, as if gauging them, as if they had fallen far beneath her standards.

  Then she lunged.

  One of the Weapons reacted by raising his sword to stop her. Jendara did not stop.

  “N-no,” Karigan cried, but her father enclosed her in his arms and swept her down the throne room runner, and through the great oaken doors.

  HOMEWARD

  Karigan walked along the pasture fence, in the bright blue silks her father had given her, feeling odd after so long wearing the uniform of the messenger service. The silk felt light and billowy on her skin, as if she wore nothing at all.

  She squinted in the sun, watching Condor frisk with some other horses. He cantered across the pasture, his tail held high like a flag and his ears pricked forward. Karigan laughed aloud when he halted in his tracks to roll and grunt in a patch of mud. Mel would not be happy when it came time to groom him.

  “Carefree, aren’t they?”

  Karigan turned in surprise to find Beryl Spencer standing behind her. Incredibly she still wore her scarlet uniform with the incongruous winged horse brooch fastened to her shortcoat. She held the reins to a bay mare tacked with saddlebags for long travel. The mare’s ears flopped back and forth and she nickered at the frolicking horses.

  Beryl patted the horse’s neck. “This is Luna Moth,” she said. “I just call her Luna. She would much prefer to be playing with her friends rather than leaving.”

  “Where are you off to?”

  Beryl glanced at the reins in her hands, then back up at Karigan. “Now that old Lord Mirwell is under lock and key and those in his army who will not be executed are marching home, I thought I would return to Mirwell Province and see what good I could do there. After all, I still hold an officer’s commission in the provincial army.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Karigan said. “They must know the part you played.”

  Beryl smiled brightly, an expression Karigan had never seen on the serious woman’s face before. “It is generally believed Green Riders are a reckless lot, always galloping off into trouble. More or less it is true, and hopelessly so.” She shrugged. “It may be no one in Mirwell is aware of my . . . affiliations. After all, anyone privy to the information has been killed or locked up, and may yet face execution.”

  “It isn’t just recklessness,” Karigan said. “You’re endangering yourself.”

  “Perhaps, but maybe the new lord-governor will welcome one who can help him ease into his new position. After all, no one knows that position better than I. Besides, King Zachary desires a liaison to watch over Mirwell Province, and, shall we say, influence the new lord-governor’s loyalties.”

  Karigan frowned. Her old nemesis from school, Timas Mirwell, was going to be lord-governor. In a way, his actions had precipitated the ultimate fall of his father: he had caused her to run away from Selium, which caused her to meet F’ryan Coblebay, which caused her to carry the message . . .

  “Bad things may await me in Mirwell,” Beryl said, “but I can’t try to change the province from here. Besides, I can be quite persuasive.” She touched her brooch. “How about you? What will you do? I know Captain Mapstone is keen to swear you in. We’re so short of Riders now.”

  Karigan smoothed some breeze tousled hair out of her face. “This afternoon I leave for Corsa with my father,” she said. “I could be leading my own cargo trains within the year.”

  Beryl reached out and clasped Karigan’s hand. “Good luck,” she said. “I find it hard to imagine you as a merchant. It sounds rather tame.”

  “Good luck to you,” Karigan replied. “Watch your back around Timas.”

  Beryl stuck her toe in the stirrup and mounted Luna gracefully. “That’s Lord Timas to you.” She grinned, and with a wave of her hand, she was off.

  Karigan snorted. Lord Timas? She did not envy Beryl.

  Her wanderings led her into the quiet of the inner courtyard gardens. She sat cross-legged on a stone bench warmed by th
e sun, and cupped her chin in her hands, intent on watching bees crawl in and out of the rose blossoms. A hummingbird buzzed by and chased another from a blossom. It was hard to believe she had killed a man in this peaceful place not so long ago.

  She rubbed the cold spot on her shoulder, the spot that stayed cold despite the heat that beat down on her. It was the place the tendril of black magic had scored her flesh, and although her various bruises, bumps, strains, and even the sword slash, were taking care of themselves, this wound was slow to heal. The skin was punctured and burned, but did not hurt. On the contrary, it lacked feeling. The menders did not understand it. They applied a variety of poultices, but nothing seemed to have much of an effect on it.

  So absorbed in her thoughts was she that she did not hear the approach of another until a shadow fell on her. She gazed up and discovered the tall blonde, green-eyed lady she had seen in the throne room. She was familiar, but Karigan couldn’t place just where they had met before.

  “Hello,” the woman said. “Am I intruding?”

  “No,” Karigan said.

  “May I sit?”

  Karigan dropped her feet to the ground and moved over so there was room on the bench for two.

  “I almost did not recognize you without the green uniform,” the woman said. Her own gown of aqua and deep gold was a summery contrast to the black Karigan remembered her wearing in the throne room.

  Karigan tried to figure out who she was. The accent was eastern, her bearing that of nobility. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but have we met before?”

  The woman’s eyes danced. “Yes, under very mysterious circumstances.’

  Recognition struck Karigan, and she wondered how she had missed it before. “Lady Estora!”

  “I am glad for this opportunity to talk to you without a veil on so you would know who it was you helped. I wish to tell you what a comfort it has been to have F’ryan’s final letter.”