Once A Hero

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Though built by the Reithrese, I found the stone ocean interesting. The room in which it had been placed had been constructed to appear to have been rough-hewn out of black basalt. The floor had been covered to a depth of nearly a foot with knucklebone-sized marble stones of the purest white. Big jagged hunks of azurite and turquoise decorating the floor erupted through the white stone ocean like fangs tearing through flesh. I knew they were meant to be islands, but because of the throne, the tooth image stuck in my mind and would not go away.

  A mahogany shoreline hemmed the ocean in and provided enough of a walkway for observers to circle the ocean and study it from all angles. Caretakers—once slaves, now respected freemen and part of the imperial household—raked the marble stones into patterns that corresponded to constellations or anything else that struck the caretakers' fancy, I imagine. The patterns were not openly representative, but held shapes the way clouds do when you take the time to look at them on a lazy afternoon. Depending upon the angle and your mood, the still waves of the stone ocean could form anything.

  I had taken to spending a lot of time there. I appreciated the quiet, yet liked being nearby in case a question arose upon which the emperor might like or tolerate my opinion. I also know the stone teeth and the white stones reminded me a lot of the Mountain Men trapped to the south and also reminded me of my home. I found I did a lot of thinking in that room, which is not a bad thing in and of itself, but having spent my life preferring action to contemplation, it marked a new and slightly scary change.

  Larissa's face brightened as she passed through the threshold. "Oh, this is magnificent."

  I blinked away surprise. "You like it?"

  "It is beautiful. Of course I like it."

  "But it's so devoid of life, I thought . . ."

  She stopped and looked at me. "You spend a lot of time here, do you not, my vitamora?"

  I nodded.

  She smiled and stretched out her arms. "I can feel your presence. This may once have been a Reithrese place, but you have made it your own. And as you love this place, so do I."

  We sat down in silence, studying the flow of stones. Though no signal passed between us, I knew we were letting our eyes track across the same frozen waves and swirls in the pattern. As we traced our way through the ocean's currents and eddies, the two years since we had seen each other evaporated.

  "It has been so long, yet it feels as if we danced together yesterday." I wanted to reach out to her, and started to, then withdrew my hands. "It is very good to see you again."

  Her chin came up and her eyes sparked with mischievous fire. "We have seen each other since then, my love. There have been dreams."

  I blushed. "The dreams, I remember many. I often feared for my life if I mumbled in my sleep, since your brother and I often shared a tent or a room during the campaign. Never did I dare tell him about the dreams."

  "Nor did I speak to my husband of them."

  I frowned. "You speak as if we had the same dreams."

  "We did, Neal." Larissa knelt on the floor and delicately shifted a stone from the crest of one wave to the next. "This is but an aspect of being vitamorii. My brother would never have noticed your midnight whispers because likely he was sharing dreams with Marta. At least, she says it was so."

  I smiled, but felt cheated. Had I known those dreams were more than just my imaginings, I would have clung to them more tightly and fought to remember them. "I had no idea."

  She pressed a gloved finger to her lips. "Nor do any of the others. If they imagined we shared dreams, there is no telling what the reaction would be. This is our secret."

  "Agreed." I leaned back against the wall. "How is it that you have come here?"

  "When Beltran's missive arrived in Cygestolia, the Consilliarii decided to send an ambassador to open relations with this new Human empire."

  I did not conceal my surprise. "That is a change from the last time they dealt with a Human empire."

  "And that change is largely your fault, my vitamora." Larissa plucked at a fold of her skirt and smoothed the cloth against her thigh. "Your example helped blunt the forces that wanted a second crusade."

  "Of that, then, I am thankful. Still, that explains why Sidalric is here. Why have you come?"

  "I had no choice." She adjusted the folds in her brown dress's skirts. "As vindicatrix, I had to be present at the time when Marta presented her Petition of Fecundity to the Consilliarii."

  "Her what?"

  Larissa nodded, her eyes narrowing for a moment; then she smiled. "When Levicius and Alosia created us, they gave little thought to reproduction. For them it was sufficient that there was a mechanism by which we could increase our number. They chose, therefore, to make Elven women fertile for the period of a month or so after ingesting the fruit of the apple tree."

  "Apples?"

  "Not the red and green fruit you know, but a special apple with golden skin that grows in a single grove in Cygestolia. Because we have long lives, we determined that access to that fruit should be limited and only those who have done something remarkable should be allowed to bring offspring into the world. This is why Elven children are rare and treated as a great gift to the parents and to both of their families."

  Part of me thought that tyranny; then I remembered seeing hordes of children running through the streets with no one to tend them or care about them, and I wondered if the Sylvan system might not have advantages. "Marta has petitioned the council to be allowed to have a child?"

  "She has, and the Consilliarii have granted the petition." Larissa shrugged. "As much as they might like to deny it, Aarundel's exploits here in the Manworld have been remarkable, and having a child will mean he wilt not venture from Cygestolia for the next half century."

  Half century? She said it so matter-of-factly, yet I knew I would be dead and gone before that time had passed. "So you accompanied Marta here so she could tell her husband about the petition grant?"

  "Yes, and for another reason."

  My spirit buoyed up. "And that was?"

  "I am the vindicatrix and you are the vindicator. As we stood with them at their wedding, it is our duty to stand with them when they are given the golden fruit."

  I folded my arms over my chest. "But we don't have to be there for the conception part, right?"

  Light Elven laughter filled the room, forever banishing the last bit of gloom from it. "No, we do not, though remembering those dreams, were my brother to require instruction, you would be an excellent tutor."

  I fought to keep a blush from my face. "I tend to dream larger than life."

  "What harm fantasy if it gives pleasure?"

  "None." I laughed to myself, then rubbed a hand over my face. "So is the ambassador speaking to the emperor about where the ceremony will be held?"

  "I do not know, but of what concern it would be to the emperor I don't know."

  "Larissa, the emperor owns this city. Everything is his concern."

  "Ah," she smiled, "I see your confusion. No, he is not speaking to the emperor about that aspect of the ceremony."

  "Then what are they discussing?"

  "Among other things, the ambassador is conveying to the emperor a request from the Consilliarii." She innocently tucked a lock of golden hair behind her left ear. "The presence of his Knight-Defender is required in Cygestolia for a ceremony, and Sidalric is requesting permission for you to travel there with us immediately."

  Chapter 19:

  The Hospitality Of A Strange House

  Spring

  A.R. 499

  The Present

  ***

  GENA WATCHED IN stunned silence as Berengar shifted his shoulders to loosen them. "Being an assassin come to slay I' you, uncle, I will cause to be brought here a company of nubile girls who will sorely test your virility. I will give you a week, no two weeks, for you to exhaust yourself."

  The old man's jaw gaped open ever so slightly. "Two weeks of wenching would not slay me."

  Berengar shook h
is head. "I know that, uncle, but after the two weeks, when you lay in your bed, I would sneak up and tell you that your wife was again alive."

  Atholwin's eyes widened, and Gena thought for a moment that his heart had ceased beating; then he began to laugh aloud. His laughter reminded her of the raven's call, and the black bird joined its master in cold mirth. "Hildegarde! The sight of her alive nearly slew me, so after forty years in a vault she would be my death. You win."

  Berengar bowed his head. "I win only because my mother is not here."

  "There are many who are not here." The old man's voice drained of pleasure, and he seemed to refocus his eyes on Berengar in a way that made Gena uneasy. "Who is this you have brought with you? Have you a wife now, Berengar?"

  "No, uncle, I have no wife, though were I to marry, I could think of worse matches." The count turned and gently guided Gena forward with slight pressure on the back of her elbow. "May I present Lady Genevera of Cygestolia."

  "An Elfess?"

  Berengar frowned slightly at the use of the clumsy term. "Yes, uncle, she is Sylvan, and a companion in an important quest. We are bound for Jarudin."

  The old man nodded for a moment, then his head froze in position and his eyes focused distantly. Gena felt uncomfortable because his eyes looked beyond her, as if into a world she could not sense and could not influence. "Elves have not been about in the land for a long time. Last one I saw was with Neal Elfward."

  She started, and Berengar gave her elbow a gentle squeeze. Gena looked up at him and he shook his head slightly. His eyes promised an explanation, so she controlled further reactions to the old man's words.

  "Uncle, we have ridden a long way. If you would grant us the hospitality of your home."

  "Yes, yes." The old man clapped his hands inaudibly, but the servant who had shown them in appeared as if summoned by magick. "Tobert, take them to rooms. Give my nephew Osberic's room and this Elfess, give her Mildred's room. They will join me for supper, so we will have the best of the house."

  "As my lord wishes." The servant bowed toward them. "If my lord and lady would follow me."

  "Until this evening, uncle."

  The old man nodded, then slipped into another fugue that left him staring at the goblet on the table. The raven cawed defiantly and hopped to the man's shoulder. Gena shivered and gladly left the room.

  The upper floor of the main building had not been cluttered with debris and weapons' caches, but it seemed only slightly less forbidding than the hall below. In her room Gena found a layer of dust thicker than that which the road had deposited on her boots. Dust kittens followed in her wake, snatching playfully at her heels before they rolled beneath the bed. The bed itself, with musty sheers and sour straw mattress, creaked horribly when she sat upon it. She imagined the whole thing collapsing, bringing all four posts and the canopy they upheld down on her as if they formed a snare.

  Berengar gently knocked on her half-open door. "May I?"

  Gena nodded. "Please, and you might want to close the door."

  "Agreed." He started to sit in a chair, then tipped it forward and banged it against the floor to knock free most of the dust. "I had heard stories about Atholwin, some of which I related to you, but I did not think things had gotten this much out of hand. His sons' deaths have clearly hurt him, but he's harmless, I'm fairly certain."

  She arched an eyebrow at him. "Forgive me if the Man hanging in your oak does not reassure me of that. When he asked you to tell him how you would kill him, I started looking for a way out."

  "Yes, I can imagine how odd that appeared." Berengar seated himself and slowly stroked his beard. "Uncle Atholwin has forever been obsessed with inheritance, death, and ancestors. I don't know why, he just has been. He used to tease my brother and me with his 'secret knowledge' of our plans to do away with him so we would inherit his holdings. I know he did this with his own sons and grandsons as well, so it was not isolated behavior."

  "Nonetheless, it is ghoulish."

  "True, though I guess I always just saw it as an eccentricity." He sat forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "His obsession led to his petitioning the emperor to legitimize our line. I don't think he did that to give him or his descendants a reason to try to overthrow the emperor as much as he wanted it to be part of his legacy. I think he felt our gratitude to him would mean that he would live forever in the annals of his family,"

  That made an odd sort of sense to Gena. "But you said before, that his sons had been killed because of throne politics."

  "Well, that is the rumor, I don't know that for certain. Still, there are a number of families with imperial holdings that take claims to the throne seriously. The legitimization of our line has effectively distanced older families from the throne, since we descend from one of the more recent emperors."

  Gena frowned. "Your uncle seems to think he met Neal and Aarundel."

  "Atholwin was a scholar of folktales and legends in his younger days. I learned all that I know of Neal from him during the summers I spent here. Atholwin thought it his duty to keep Neal immortal. Like the emperor, he has sought and cataloged a great deal of information about the history of the empire and its establishment. Since uncle always willingly shared his information, and corresponded voluminously with the current emperor, the emperor looked kindly upon the suit to legitimize our line." Berengar shrugged. "At least, this is my belief."

  "So you are suggesting your uncle's mind is failing him?"

  "I think he so loved stories of the past that he is now retreating into them. It is a pity, really, because he was quite witty and charming. His wit, for example, spawned the assassination game, which you witnessed. The object was to come up with the most entertaining method for killing him." Berengar chuckled lightly. "My brother Nilus was given to elaborate devices and grand plots. I usually appealed to Atholwin's vanity and had greater success."

  Gena walked over to him and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "I am sorry the Man you remember is being lost to you. For us, when an Elf reaches an age where he tires of this world, he travels beyond and begins a new life there. We are spared watching our relatives age so severely."

  Berengar patted the back of her hand. "What is this 'beyond'. I have heard it mentioned at various times concerning Elves, but I do not understand it."

  Gena folded her arms and began to pace as she considered how much she could tell him. "In the time of the gods, when the children opposed their parents and drove them out, the Elves stood by the parents. As a reward we are allowed to pass from this world into the place where the gods have taken up their exile. It is a parting from our kin, but it is not as sorrow filled as death because we all know we will meet again there, when we go beyond ourselves."

  "If you are not slain in this world."

  "Correct."

  Berengar glanced up at her. "Men are barred from this place?"

  "That is also correct. I do not know if children of mixed parentage would be allowed to go or forced to stay because none have survived to the point of asking to go beyond."

  The count sat back and smiled slightly. "So those Elves who believe Neal's influence has destroyed Sylvankind do have a place where they can retreat from Men after all."

  "True, but I do not think Neal would gainsay them that sanctuary." Gena smiled as she remembered something her grandaunt used to say when speaking of Neal. "Neal Elf ward was a hero for this world. Not a hero for Men, but for the world itself. He would be happy nowhere else and would begrudge no one what they had, if they would permit him and his world to remain at peace."

  "It sounds as if the world now has not changed much since his time." Berengar stood and headed toward the door. "Let us hope we can change it for the better before his dream dies forever."

  Gena used the two hours between Berengar's departure and the call to dinner to rest. Dreams came to her in broken pieces that included a gang of men wearing masks and white robes dancing around the oak tree while a man twitched at the end of a rope. That scene brought h
er awake in a cold sweat. She tried to sort through the symbolism in the images, for she did not believe the dream prophetic or clairvoyant. She decided she had imagined the scene at the tree in the worst possible way, and clad the men in ghostly white robes because they had to have been vassals of Atholwin, and she already saw him as a living spectre of a man.

  She washed up in a basin and changed her clothes, using her old blouse to wipe the dirt from her boots, then went down the stairs. Tobert met her at the bottom floor and conducted her to a dining hall, which, though many times larger than the audience chamber she had first entered, had been illuminated by only four more candles.

  He seated her in the middle of a table over two Man-lengths long and a quarter that in width. Berengar sat at the end of the table on her right hand, with Atholwin and his bird taking up the other end. Tobert brought the food in seven courses, though, sum and total, what he served each of them would have filled only two normal plates. Gena thought, at first, that she might have been slighted because of a mistaken belief that she did not eat meat, but she noticed Berengar's rations were as small as hers, and both of them were given food in generous proportion to that which was placed before the master of the house,

  While possessed of a healthy appetite normally, Gena did not regret the meager amount of food offered. The soup, a largely vegetable dish, came thin and neither hot nor cold. She understood that its being springtime meant fresh vegetables were rare, but the grit of sand beneath her spoon as she ate made her wonder why the food had not been washed before preparation.

  She picked at what was served and largely contented her stomach by consuming some potatoes that were small and odd looking and only slightly mealy. The bread likewise proved edible if bland, but the slatherlard was rancid, so she avoided it. She was offered a tiny cut of a greasy meat that Tobert called "rock rabbit," but she gently refused it, having no desire to learn what rat or squirrel tasted like.

  Atholwin hardly ate at all. He spent most of his time talking, and chances were, when he remembered to eat something, the raven had already consumed most of what had been served in that course. The old man showed no affection for the bird, nor gave any sign he even noticed it, yet Gena sensed a bond between them. The old man would stop all speech and movement until the bird shrieked, bringing him back to the present with them.