by Tim Stead
The king returned.
“You stepped in front of me,” he said. “To block the assassin’s shot.”
“I’m a lot harder to kill, Lord King,” Narak said. “Besides, he wasn’t aiming at me.”
“Well, I thank you for it all the same.”
“We were discussing your bold move,” Narak said.
There was that look of guilt again. The king glanced around, but there was nobody within earshot but the two from Col Boran.
“I am reluctant to share what I have done,” the king said. “But there is a plan to draw Bas Erinor away from the city, and when he is away he will be replaced.”
“You’re going to degrade the duke?” Cain was surprised that he said it. It had never been done in the kingdom’s history. “There will be civil war,” he said.
“It is a risk,” the king admitted. “But worth taking. It would be helpful to have the backing of Col Boran.”
“That will not happen,” Cain told him. “Eran Pascha will never consent.”
“If I do nothing, there will be war anyway,” the king said. “It will come later, but it will come, and perhaps be more bitter. You have seen what’s happening in Afael.”
Cain looked at Narak, and saw that the Wolf was nodding. That wasn’t a good sign.
“You must solve your problems yourself,” Cain said. “We have sympathy with your cause, but if we intervene the consequences could be worse than you imagine.”
“All I ask is a chance to succeed.”
“It is a fair request,” Narak said.
The king looked from one to the other, sensing, perhaps, a chance to salvage something from Cain’s obduracy. “You have already saved my life,” he said.
Cain met Narak’s eye. He shook his head, but Narak was not one to be bound by another’s will it seemed. He smiled.
“I cannot see the harm in continuing to do what I have already done,” he said.
Cain turned away and looked over the city for a moment. The banners were picking up in a late sea breeze, clamouring for attention as they spread themselves on the wind. Narak was right, probably. Cain had heard Pascha say a dozen times that Narak had a gift, a skill when it came to judging people, and he had found King Degoran worthy. Yet this went directly against what Pascha had said. They were not to get involved. Their task was simply to listen, to learn, and to bring all that back to Pascha.
Narak had cast that aside.
“You’re going to stay here?” he asked.
Narak paused before replying. It gave the impression that he was considering his decision, but Cain knew that he was just thinking what to say.
“I do not have any doubt, Cain,” he said. “This is what I must do. Tell Pascha that. She will understand.”
Cain doubted it, but he nodded. “I will.”
The king looked surprised by this turn of events and, truth be said, a little disappointed. “You are staying?” he asked. “But there is to be no help from Col Boran?”
“It is not my place to decide,” Cain said. “But you will find Brash here to be of considerable value – even as a bodyguard.”
Cain wasn’t looking forward to telling Pascha what had occurred. Even if Narak was right and she understood, even then she would be angry.
He left the king and Narak on the terrace and walked alone back to the reception room where the magical doorway was due to appear again, and as he walked he found that he was smiling once more. As much as he believed in Pascha’s wisdom, and that keeping Col Boran out of the mess of Avilian politics was the best course, he was glad that Narak was guarding the king.
Now something was bound to happen. Justice had found its champion once more.
13 The Books
Mordo could do without sleep. If he stayed awake the whole night he could function well enough the following day, but if he managed a few hours it seemed that he missed it not at all. He sat in his room, waited until all noise had died down in the building, then another silent hour.
He wore soft shoes. The passageways he must travel were floored with bare stone slabs, and he must make no noise. He collected his leather satchel, his lamp and his keys and stepped out into the corridor. There was a lamp on the wall here, so he could inspect the corridor without lifting the shutters on his own lamp. It was empty.
At the end of the corridor he came to steps and descended, lifting the shutter a little to illuminate his feet. He walked softly and paused every twenty paces to listen, but he heard nothing. He had the building to himself. Another corridor led to more steps and he descended again. There were no windows down this deep, and nobody lived here, so Mordo began to relax. He was past any prying eyes or ears.
He came to the door. The door had three locks, but as Under-Steward for Protocol he had all three keys. There were only three people who had all the keys.
He slipped each key into its place, turning each slowly until he heard the modest click that indicated it had opened. He lifted the latch and went inside.
As always he went first to the box in which Pelion’s Crown was kept. He opened it and gazed upon the jewels that adorned it, the three twisted metal bands that made up the circlet – gold, silver and copper. It was a pretty thing, if frail in appearance.
He closed the box. Mordo was not here for the crown.
He put his lamp down on a table and opened the shutters, flooding the room with yellow light. There were three books here, bound in thick, soft leather and filled with creamy paper. The paper was itself decorated with much writing and many drawings, and it was this that interested Mordo. These were the god mage’s books, the wisdom, so he had heard, that she had gleaned from Pelion himself. She kept them locked here so that another might not learn what she had learned.
Mordo opened his satchel and pulled out a thin sheaf of paper, a pen, and ink. He sat down, opened the first of the books to about the half way point, and began to carefully copy the script. This was not his first nocturnal visit to the locked room, and concealed beneath his mattress he already had sixty pages, painstakingly copied, an exact replica of the first half of the first book. In time he would have all three, and that would be important, but it was not enough.
Mordo did not know how he would use the books, but to have access to secrets such as these and not take advantage would be foolish indeed.
He set an hourglass, one that he kept here, on end. He knew that it would run down in about an hour and that would be enough. When it ran out he would pack up his things and return to his room and nobody, not even the god mage herself, would be any the wiser.
14 A Walk Among the Flowers
Callista had not really settled into Col Boran, or not as much as she had hoped she might. She was grateful to Sithmaree – how could she be otherwise? The Snake had saved her, provided her with the sanctuary that she so desperately needed, but when all was said and done the god was a difficult woman to like.
She was beautiful, but she was very aware of that. She seemed to have trouble speaking with people if they were not Jidian the Eagle. Somehow she had established a rapport with Jidian but apparently with no other. Her conversations seemed abrupt, peppered with challenges and unconscious insults, and lacking the salt of apology and respect. Sithmaree struggled in a world that had diminished her, and which she had never really wanted to be a part of.
Callista had taken to avoiding her whenever she had an excuse, and that made her feel bad.
Today she was walking in the high roof garden. It was a strange place, a garden that harked back to Avilian, a place hundreds of miles to the south and east. None of the plants that grew here had any right to survive in Col Boran’s harsh climate, but they did because Pascha wished them to. The garden was one of the warmest places in the god mage’s palace, and for that reason alone Callista liked to spend time there.
She had been in Col Boran a little more than a month, and was sitting on a stone bench wondering what she should do when a shadow fell across her feet. She looked up to see the god mage herse
lf standing beside her.
“Eran.” She stood up and bowed.
“Sit, please,” the god mage said, so she did, and Eran Pascha sat beside her.
“How are you?”
“I am well,” Callista said.
“And how are you finding life with Sithmaree?”
Callista looked down. “She has been very kind,” she replied.
Pascha laughed, but it wasn’t an unkind laugh. She put a mollifying hand on Callista’s arm, a gesture that surprised the younger woman. “Oh, she is kind enough, I’ll grant you, but she makes heavy weather of it. If it becomes too much to bear I will grant you your own apartment. You only have to ask.”
“I would not wish to offend her,” Callista said.
“And yet…” Pascha smiled again. “Come, walk with me.”
She stood, and, not being willing or able to refuse, Callista stood with her. They walked along the bordering path, surrounded by the scent of unseasonable flowers.
“You have studied our history?” Pascha asked.
“I was taught some things,” Callista replied. “The Benetheon is required learning in Afael, but I think much has been forgotten.” How could she not be aware that this woman, this god mage, had lived that history? She had been the King of Afael’s consort in the first Great War, and had stood at Fal Verdan with the Wolves in the second.
“Sithmaree was one of those who chose to live apart from men. She finds it difficult to change her ways now. I believe that if it were not for Jidian she would spend much of her time out on the plains. She is happiest there.”
Callista didn’t know how to reply, so she stayed silent and they walked a little further. Pascha stopped at the corner. Here the view was most spectacular. It almost seemed that you could see all the way back to Afael.
“How were things in Afael when you left?”
Callista started. It was almost as if the god mage had been reading her mind. She wondered if that was possible.
“Troubled,” she said. “I really don’t know. My uncle didn’t let me out very often, especially not alone.”
Pascha fell silent again, but remained at the corner, gazing towards the east. Callista gathered up her courage.
“May I ask a question?”
“It seems you have, but yes, you may ask another.”
“Why do you stay apart from the world? You could do so much good, save so many people, right so many wrongs.”
“Ah, the question of the age,” Pascha said. “It is the one that I am asked most often, usually followed by a plea that I should intervene on the questioner’s behalf. I can answer it in two ways. One is simple and glib, the other more difficult. The simple reply is that it is none of my business.”
“But justice should be the business of everyone,” Callista protested.
Pascha shook her head. “Once I might have thought like you, Callista, but age has taught me that justice, right and wrong, all the things that were so clear to us once, are almost unknowable. Narak can tell me what is true and what is false, but justice is more subtle. It resides only in the hearts and minds of men. There is no absolute.”
“Surely justice follows when truth is known?”
Pascha gestured to a seat, and they sat together.
“No. I may learn for a fact that one man killed another. I may know that he thought the killing was justified, but I cannot see into his heart, or the heart of the dead man. It is the secret that died with him that is the key to justice. Again, when I look at Afael I see a weak king and ambitious dukes. I see rebellious people. What here is justice? Anything I do would be seen as unjust by many, and if I do anything at all then it is I that would rule in Afael, and I have no desire to rule.”
“But you could bring peace, restore order.”
“I could, but in doing so I must favour the king, or one duke, or the populists. There is no middle course, and if I made a peace would I not be bound to keep it? And there begins the journey that I will not make. In truth I would be Afael’s monarch, called upon to sort out their differences whenever they arose.”
“You would be a worthy queen,” Callista said, but Pascha laughed again.
“I am immortal,” she said. “If there is one thing that history has taught us it is that immortals make poor rulers. The truth is that power alone is not enough. I can impose my will, destroy any force that opposes me, but it achieves very little. It is so much harder to create what is good in the hearts and minds of men.” She shook her head and smiled once more. “I am not explaining this very well.”
“You are afraid,” Callista said, and almost at once regretted the words. But Pascha didn’t seem offended.
“In a way,” she said. “But it is myself that I fear, and others like me.”
“There are no others.”
“Not yet.”
“The testing,” Callista said. “You are killing those who might be a threat.”
She saw a flash of anger on Pascha’s face, and it scared her. She had gone too far.
“You have no idea what I am doing, or why,” Pascha said. Callista didn’t reply. She did not know what to say, but Pascha seemed to calm herself. She looked out over the parapet to the endless view beyond. “It must seem that way, I suppose,” she said. “And in a way you are right. What do you know of the god mages, the ancient ones, Pelion, Cobran and their ilk?”
“They fought a war,” Callista ventured. “They made the dragons.”
“They were the very worst of men,” Pascha said. “All of them. Even Pelion. They lacked all kindness and fellow feeling, thought only of themselves, lusted after power, betrayed and killed each other as easily as you might pluck a berry from a bush. It was their war that destroyed Terras, and other lands as well. Cities, countries, hundreds of thousands of men and women were slaughtered at their whim.” Pascha looked down at her hands as though examining them for some trace of the blood that those ancient mages had spilt. “It is a natural consequence of this power that such men will arise again, and I am the only one who can prevent it. It is my duty. The test and the inevitable deaths are exactly that. I seek those with talent and weed out those with the seeds of evil because given time those seeds will grow.” She paused and looked Callista in the eye. “So yes, in a way I am killing those who might be a threat.”
“But it will go on forever,” Callista said. The prospect was terrible – an eternity of vigilance and all it would take would be one error and the world could be plunged once more into a mage war.
“That is why I hope, even now, that someone will pass the test, and then I will have an ally, perhaps many, and we can share the burden.”
Callista felt a sudden urge to take the test, to pass it, and help Pascha, but it was a silly thought. She was just as likely to die as those that had gone before, and she found that she cared greatly whether she lived or died. A few weeks ago she would not have believed it.
“How does the test work?” she asked.
“There are two steps,” Pascha said. “First we find out if you have the talent. That is done by wearing Pelion’s crown, which will show if your blood holds the seed, and after that comes the test itself, and that is where the danger lies. You are placed into a magical world and stripped of your memories, and it is your character that condemns or redeems you.”
“And all of them have died?”
“All of them.” Pascha looked troubled. “I would not ask you to take the test, Callista. I would not even suggest it. You have a chance at a fine and happy life. Why throw it away?”
“You are right, Eran,” Callista agreed. “I am no longer inclined to take the test.” Pascha smiled, but Callista wondered if her words had in fact been a lie. She had been certain enough when she had come to the roof garden, but something in her was attracted to the idea of the test. It would be a proof of her character if she passed, a final refutation of the slurs that her uncle and cousins had heaped upon her.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, Callista,” Pa
scha said. “It is pretty dry stuff, this history of mages.”
“Not at all, Eran,” the girl protested. “Nothing compares to hearing history from the lips of those who have lived it.”
Pascha smiled again. “I am not quite that old,” she said.
“Eran?”
The voice came from the other side of the garden, and Callista saw that it was a man, grey haired and dressed in a cream and brown robe.
“What is it, Belfair?” Pascha asked.
“I am sorry to interrupt, but there is a Durander delegation in the great hall, and they wish to speak to you.”
“About what?”
“They will not divulge the matter to a mere steward,” Belfair said with a thin smile.
Pascha stood. “Pompous asses,” she said, and then to Callista. “I must leave you. My duty requires that I listen – even to fools. Come and see me if you need anything.”
Callista stood and bowed again, and Pascha walked towards the bridge that crossed to the great hall. “I will see them on the terrace, Belfair. Keep them waiting ten minutes or so.”
*
Pascha liked to walk about Col Boran as others did, but her path to the terrace would take her past the Durander delegation, and she didn’t want to be waylaid. She took the short cut, disappearing from the bridge and appearing at the same instant on her terrace.
The terrace was empty. She walked to the rail and looked out. It was difficult to believe that she would tire of such a view, but it had become something that she no longer saw unless she really looked at it, and when she looked it reminded her of how far from the rest of the world Col Boran really was. Nobody could come within twenty miles without being seen from one of the many towers, and the distance was greater in the summer when the plain produced plumes of dust pointing to each traveller. In the distance she could see the line of a river, its shallow valley marked by the darkness of trees as it wound its way south.
There was not a house or habitation of any kind beyond the fringes of Col Boran below her.