Blade of Empire

by Mercedes Lackey

  Riann listened without speaking, and when Runacar was finished, said: “A good plan. See, Runacar? It is not that hard to be civilized. It just takes a little effort.”

  Runacar found it hard to decide whether he was flattered or insulted. “It doesn’t mean no one will die,” he felt compelled to add. “But you won’t have to kill any of them.”

  Riann fluffed out her neck feathers in gentle amusement. “Oh, Runacar. If I see it and don’t stop it, I am as complicit as if I did it myself. And no matter what happens here, they are all going to die, anyway. Just because we chase them into the Darkness and hope it will take them and leave us does not mean our feathers are clean of blood.”

  It doesn’t mean it will work, either. You don’t know the Darkness—if it exists—will stop with the alfaljodthi. Vieliessar didn’t think it would. And if it will be satisfied with my race alone, will your Woodwose nobly sacrifice themselves as well? You don’t know any more than I do. You have hope and I have none. Which of us sees more clearly?

  “Do what you can,” he said. “That’s all I can ask.”

  “I know.” Riann lowered her head and rubbed her face against his. Her beak was smooth and cool, and her feathers were soft and warm. “Poor child. You were never raised to think of such things, were you?”

  “I was raised to fight, and to win,” he answered. “And I will.” This time, though, it will not make up for the battle I lost.

  “And we shall help. But first, we must speak with the Ocean’s Own, and call the winds.”

  Riann stepped back and gave a long harsh cry. The scattered Gryphons gathered around her again, and then the entire Ascension took to the sky in a great rush of golden wings. They circled once, and then began to fly seaward.

  “There’s an island a little ways offshore,” Pelere said. “They’ll meet there, I guess. What should we do while we’re waiting?”

  “Keep going,” Runacar said, walking back up the sand to where Hialgo stood patiently. “And keep on breaking things.”

  * * *

  Runacar told himself he was not worrying over the outcome of Riann and Meraude’s discussion, but even though he knew Gryphons did not fly at night, Runacar was still up and watching before the sunrise. In the early-morning fog the air was wet and bitterly cold. He walked to the edge of the camp and helped himself to a mug of tea and a piece of bread at one of the sentry posts, greeting the two Bearwards who watched there and taking their reports. The night had been quiet. If the enemy were on the march, or massing to attack, the Brightfolk would have seen it and brought word. In one sense, the sentries were unnecessary, as the Flower Forest was friendly to the Otherfolk in a way Runacar had never imagined. In another, sentries and sentry-posts were as vital as they were in any other war Runacar had ever fought, for the Brightfolk could only see and warn—and even among the Otherfolk, not everyone could understand their meaning.

  He continued down to the shore, thinking idly of the strange mystery of the sun. It was something he would never have known to wonder about without the Lightborn, but when Caerthalien had ridden to put down the Windsward Rebellion, much of their planning had been done through Lightborn, sent ahead and using Farspeech to make their reports. And so Runacar knew that even though the brightening sky held no glimmer of sun, on the vast golden plains of the Grand Windsward, it had already risen. It was as if the Grand Windsward and the Western Shore were two different realms, each with its own sun, instead of being all one place across which he could ride over the course of a handful of moonturns.

  Or I could have done so, once. Does anyone remain to hold the east? Or have they all flocked to the High King’s banner? What joy she must have found in Haldil and Bethros and all the rest of those ill-starred cattle. I wonder if she …

  Something flickered among the clouds, a dark smudge of body, there and gone in an instant. Runacar put his hand on his sword, frowning in puzzlement as he gazed upward.

  Then the first Gryphon knifed through the clouds. It was still too dark to see anything other than shape, but even blurred by fog, that shape was clear. A strong downward sweep of wings, and the Gryphon vanished into the clouds again. Barely had it done so when two more appeared. Their paths crossed, then they were gone again.

  The sky continued to lighten.

  Four appeared next, then two. Then four again, and eight. Sixteen (it must be, to keep the pattern) and eight. And then there were too many, moving too fast, for him to count their appearances and departures. Slowly Runacar began to understand what he was seeing. A dance. Not a dance merely of back and forth, but a dance of up and down as well—as if the Gryphons were fish who swam in air instead of water. He followed the path each individual Gryphon took with the ease of one who has watched mounted komen drill in formation since before he could walk, and slowly a great latticelike image began to shape itself in his imagination.

  The sky lightened further, though of course the clouds remained. The elaborate dance of the Gryphons expanded in width and depth. A hundred times it looked as if a collision was about to happen; a hundred times such a collision was avoided. And as the dawn wind freshened, and the low fog began to break up, Runacar at last realized what the dance was for.

  No wonder Radafa told me a whole Ascension must agree on a spell to be worked. It takes a whole Ascension to cast one.

  For the first time in sunturns, the sky was scrubbed clean of clouds. And then the Gryphons were all rising, soaring, towering above the earth until they were nothing more than a single speck against the bright colorless sky. The tiny speck burst into a myriad dots, each flung away in a different direction, and then it was true day.

  * * *

  “How does it look to the south?” Runacar asked, over a bowl of breakfast porridge. Those of his generals who were not with the southern army were gathered with him—as were many of the other veterans of the war band—but as friends gather, not as a War Prince and their staff.

  “The forest still burns,” Radafa said, looking as despondent as a Gryphon could look.

  “Steams, say rather,” Pelere said, switching her tail back and forth as another might drum their fingers upon a tabletop. “Many are dead—but fewer than would have been without your intervention,” he added, addressing this last directly to Runacar.

  “The wind will blow for a moonturn, Riann says,” Radafa added. “But such fires as this can burn for far longer.”

  “If the little glittersparks have not found the wit to run to safety in a moonturn, then they never will,” Drotha said sweepingly.

  “The Angarussa will have turned by then,” Pelere said, ignoring the Aesalion. “It will keep the fire from going north, though I would not wish to have the farmland below the burnt-over place.”

  “We’ll be at Daroldan High Keep in a moonturn,” Runacar said thoughtfully.

  “And how is that more important than the lives of the Folk?” Andhel asked. “Oh! Of course! The affairs of Elves are always of more importance than the lives of beasts!”

  “It’s plain to see you know nothing of farming,” Runacar said mildly to the Woodwose, startling a snort of amusement from Pelere. “But my thought is this: Damulothir Daroldan wishes to hold the Shore at all costs, but neither his Warlord nor his Swordmaster are fools. I would wager it’s Martenil Swordmaster of Daroldan who was behind the fires—a dangerous gamble, since Delfierarathadan is the wealth of the Shore—and by the time we are at Daroldan’s walls, he will see that it has failed.”

  “Leaving us to besiege the castel and take down its walls,” Audalo said. “Well, that is easily enough done. You have said all the Children of Stars will be gathered inside it.”

  “That has been the accepted military doctrine since Elvenkind first took the Shore,” Runacar answered, “for your people have never had the organization or the numbers to besiege a castel long enough to force it to fall. And while that has changed, to slaughter all of Daroldan is not in our best interests.”

  “Because the holy alfaljodthi mean to extend
the hand of alliance and comity to we poor and humble outcasts?” Andhel asked with poisonous sweetness.

  “Because Damulothir can’t fight Hamphuliadiel for control of Areve if he is dead,” Runacar said, just as sweetly. “And we must destroy Areve next, and … deny the use of the Sanctuary of the Star to the alfaljodthi.” Somehow, Runacar thought. To profane the Shrine of the Star is not a thing I would dare to risk, but the Lightborn who serve it are Elves, not gods. There must be a way. “Which means we must convince Damulothir to run rather than fight.”

  “I’d like to see you convince a Houseborn of anything,” Andhel scoffed.

  “But I shall,” Runacar said. “First I am going to throw stones at them for a fortnight or two. And then I am going to offer to parley.”

  “Throw stones?” Pendor asked, just as Andhel said: “Parley!”

  “Stones,” Runacar said. “Very large stones, falling from very high up. And while it’s true the War Princes won’t meet with Otherfolk under a truce-banner, I think they will meet with Runacarendalur Caerthalien.”

  * * *

  It was the tenth Springtide since the start of the High King’s War, the ninth since the founding of Areve. In all things, today should have been a day for calm rejoicing, but Hamphuliadiel could not rejoice. Tonight he would go into the Shrine.

  When he took up the mantle of Astromancer, Hamphuliadiel had held all the secrets of the land—only to find them bitter fruit, for what was knowledge without power? But the stars aligned, and Hamphuliadiel spun secrets into power, and the thought that the War Princes might return to take away all that Hamphuliadiel had gained was like a cold stone in his belly.

  But the War Princes did not return, and his power continued to increase. Areve, his king-domain, grew and flourished—as did all the land, for over the Mystrals poured the beasts of field and forest—both wild and tame—and with them, the birds of the air. It was as if a great fire raged in the east, and all things that could flee, fled west.

  But there was no fire.

  Hamphuliadiel’s disquiet grew. Why had Vieliessar not returned to the West to rule? Why had none of her vassals come to rule in her name? Why had no War Prince returned to reclaim their lands and chattels? Why, of all the living things the world held, was Elvenkind the only one that did not flee over the Mystrals into the west?

  These unanswered questions formed an insoluble riddle. But even the most irresolvable riddle could be deciphered by someone. The Sanctuary of the Star held the Shrine of the Star, where sacrifices were given to the Starry Hunt, where favors could be asked and Foretellings could be granted. It had been the custom of the Hundred Houses to make sacrifices at the Shrine of the Star for luck in War Season, and again at Harvest for victories granted. With the Hundred Houses vanished, the springtide and harvest sacrifices ceased. The summer sacrifice—made for matters other than luck in battle—had also been in the hands of the Hundred Houses, and it ceased as well. Only the Midwinter Sacrifice had been traditionally performed by the Sanctuary alone, and none had been made since the Snow Moon before Vieliessar’s victory.

  No one noticed, for certainly Hamphuliadiel had done nothing to give any of the folk he ruled—either Lightless or Lightborn—any reason to believe the sacrifices were not being made. But among the many changes made to the Sanctuary of the Star since the beginning of the High King’s War had been to move the entrance to the Sanctuary, so that the great bronze doors of the Shrine were no longer the first thing a visitor saw upon entering. The Shrine of the Star, which by ancient custom was open to any who had the courage to enter it, had been locked away as carefully as Hamphuliadiel had locked away the Great Library … but it was still here. And Hamphuliadiel knew that the Silver Hooves could give him the answers he sought—if he dared to ask.

  In his time, Hamphuliadiel had scoffed at many things and named them folklore, falsehood, and country superstition—from a secret truth in The Song of Amretheon, to the idea that an Astromancer might only reign until the fragrant Vilya flowered, to the idea that the Code and the Covenant must govern every act of Lord and Lightborn. Among his inner circle, he called Pelashia Flower Queen and the paradise of the Vale of Celenthodiel the wondertales of Landbonds … but though he wished to say that the Starry Hunt was more of the same, he could not quite bring himself to do it.

  Hamphuliadiel had only been inside the Shrine once: on the night he became Lightborn. It had been long ago, and he remembered nothing that had happened there. He knew he did not wish to go back, but if he sent someone into the Shrine with a petition, he would have to trust them to give an accurate report of what followed, and Hamphuliadiel trusted no one.

  The only alternative was to go himself.

  It took him Wheelturns to admit to the necessity of consulting Them. Still longer to reason his way to the unpalatable truth that he could not send anyone in his place. And longest of all to admit that no time was better than another for the doing of this thing he so very much did not want to do at all.

  And so at last Hamphuliadiel bowed to necessity.

  * * *

  He had already chosen his sacrifice: two colts, twins, of Mangiralas lineage and destrier bloodlines. They were a year old, identical in every way, and without flaw. They had been brought into the walled garden, and were being carefully watched over by Lightborn who were themselves from Mangiralas. All was ready.

  In the Hour of the Wolf, Hamphuliadiel set forth from his private chambers to keep the appointment he had never wanted to make. He went first to the garden, where the young Lightbrother on watch silently handed him the colts’ lead-ropes, and then through the garden gate to a door only he could open. It was on the western face of the Sanctuary, looking like nothing more than another panel of the decorative limestone cladding. This, and the equally-hidden entrance in his personal chambers, were now the only two entrances to the Shrine. Hamphuliadiel had enchanted both so that only his touch could open them—should some future Astromancer wish to enter the Shrine, let them build their own entrances, as he had.

  The young stallions, bespelled to docility, followed him as meekly as dogs into the gently curving corridor, the sound of their hooves muffled by the thick straw matting that covered the floor. Silverlight cast on crystals mortared into the wall glowed just brightly enough to show the way. There was no door blocking the far end of the corridor, and the Silverlight that had been cast by generations upon that chamber’s walls and ceiling was so bright that Hamphuliadiel narrowed his eyes against it as he emerged from the dimness of the corridor.

  To the left stood the cyclopean bronze doors of the Shrine with their deep-carven images depicting the Starry Rade. To the right, the radiant curving wall swept onward around the circular chamber, the doorways which had once interrupted it erased as if they had never been. The hooves of the colts clicked as they passed from straw to marble, crossed the mosaic floor inlaid with its compass rose, and stepped beneath the ceiling inlaid with the star-pictures edging the Hunt-road.

  Hamphuliadiel stopped before the doors of the Shrine, so close he could easily reach out and touch them. Once he opened them, there would be no turning back. He hesitated, wishing yet again that there was some other way. In that moment, if he had possessed the power to speak across the years to his younger self, he believed he would have set Hamphuliadiel of Haldil on a different path—on any path that did not lead to this moment and this place.

  But here he stood, the prince he had made of himself with vision and ambition, and if all he had amassed was not to pass into dust and ash, there were things he must know. They were things he would have paid any price to obtain if that meant he did not have to come here, but he had at last learned there were things neither power nor wealth could buy.

  He took a deep breath and reached out to touch the tuathal door.

  Both doors immediately swung noiselessly inward—a thing that needed no magic, he reminded himself, just engineering and careful counterweighing. The warmth and scent of a Springtide forest rushed out as if
to draw him in, for there was neither roof nor floor in the Shrine. The chill pale radiance of the moon at midheaven shone down, showing him three tall stones beneath the open sky. A fourth flat stone was set into the ground between them, for the Sanctuary had begun as a wall about the Shrine, built so the stones could never be moved.

  Nine Shrines are given to the alfaljodthi; nine places where the breath of first creation still can be felt upon the skin. Nine where the Powers must hear us when we call. Arevethmonion was first among them by custom only: all of the Nine were equal.

  Hamphuliadiel just barely remembered to remove his slippers before he stepped across the threshold. He could not repress a shudder as his bare feet sank into the soft, fecund earth.

  Slowly, cautiously, he led the colts into the Shrine. For a moment he thought he saw a light glimmering through the trees—but that could not be. The Shrine occupied less than a twelfth-hectare of ground, and was surrounded by the Sanctuary’s stone walls. He told himself that the darkness all around him was because the doors had closed noiselessly behind him. He told himself he did not hear the wind rustle through nonexistent branches where no wind could be. He was Hamphuliadiel Astromancer: he knew what tricks and illusions both the Light and the pretense of the Light was capable of.

  He took the last few steps forward, until he stood before the standing stones. He felt as if they somehow exerted a tangible pressure upon his body, as if at any moment they might rush forward and crush his body between them.

  No. He would not give himself over to fantasy.

  He took a deep breath, and cast the spell that caused the twin colts to step forward and kneel placidly upon the flat stone; to continue to kneel as Hamphuliadiel withdrew a blade of black glass from his sash of office and cut first one throat, then the other. Hot blood spurted out, splattering the standing stones, pooling upon the stone between them. Hamphuliadiel dropped the knife of sacrifice, a further gift, into the pool. The raw scent of meat and metal rose up from the gouting steaming blood, and it seemed to Hamphuliadiel that the blood was too red, too bright, for something illuminated only by the moon’s light.