The former queen sighed. “This used to be such a beautiful town,” she said. “I remember the day this palace was dedicated. It was spring, and the scent of hyacinths was intoxicating. Hundreds and hundreds of the living flowers were brought into the square and arranged in a mosaic of colors.”
Kerian could scarcely conceive it. Today there was only smoke, sweat, and the reek of blood. She looked beyond Alhana into the audience hall. Porthios wasn’t in sight. She spoke privately to Nalaryn, telling him to find his leader and bring him here.
Nalaryn was not confident. “If the Great Lord chooses not to come, I cannot force him.”
“Fair enough. But tell him I intend to show Alhana the treasure.”
Nalaryn departed. Alhana’s retainers, Chathendor and Samar, were discussing their rout of the bandits.
“They never could stand up to us in a fair fight,” Samar said. “If the beast Beryl had not weakened us, if the Knights hadn’t ridden in, those bandits would never have found a haven here!”
Yes, Kerian thought sourly, and if horses had horns, they’d be cows.
Shifting the subject, she asked Alhana how they came to be here.
“Word reached me of a rebellion, led by a masked figure with great skill in war. I summoned my old guard from around the lands of the New Sea and came at once to lend my support.”
It sounded very simple but also rehearsed. Kerian had been among royalty long enough to recognize a diplomatic lie. Could word of Porthios’s little victories have reached so far so soon? If so, the elves’ enemies would know of them too.
The audience hall was a sight. Torches illuminated a makeshift scaffolding knocked together from fire-blackened timbers scavenged from the slave cages. The tower of planks and posts rose in the center of the hall to a gaping hole cut in the painted ceiling.
At Kerian’s invitation, Samar scaled the scaffold. He stood with head and shoulders inside the attic and studied the space by torchlight. It did not display the usual airy delicacy that marked elven construction. Thick beams had been added to supplement the slender ceiling joists, and planks had been laid over the whole to make a floor. Heavy planks, he noted. Overhead, a beam still bore signs that a block and tackle had been attached. Whatever had been hidden there, it was very heavy. All that remained were snippets of rope and cloth sacking. He turned and climbed back down the scaffold.
In the hail below, Chathendor had made his own discovery: several sacks discarded in a heap. The linen sacks were too flimsy to have held bullion. Steel ingots would have torn right through. Samar caught a faint odor coming from the cloth. The smell was mineral oil, and something else. He thrust a hand into an empty sack and felt along the seams. His fingers came out covered in sticky yellow beeswax.
He uttered an oath. Chathendor chided him, reminding him of the presence of Alhana. “And of Lady Kerianseray, of course,” the elderly retainer added, somewhat belatedly. Kerian snorted in amusement.
Samar knew the significance of the sacks. He gave her a keen look, demanding, “How did you find them?”
“Them?” asked Chathendor.
Kerian told of the dying councilor’s cryptic clue regarding treasure in the sky.
Although her confusion was plain, Alhana was too well bred to insist on quick answers. Chathendor had no such compunctions. “What treasure?” he demanded. “What are you both talking about?”
Samar said, “A trove not of steel or jewels, but of weapons!”
Kerian confirmed his deduction. A parchment left with the cache in the attic had told the tale, she explained. In the waning days of Qualinesti, the great arsenal of Qualinost was stripped of weapons, part of a desperate plan to arm every elf of fighting age in the country. The royal arsenal was divided into three parts. One part was kept in the city and was lost when Beryl destroyed it. A second part was sent to the fortress at Pax Tharkas, but never arrived. A fast-moving band of Nerakan cavalry intercepted the caravan and stole the arms. The final third was intended for a new army being raised in the Forest of Wayreth. It, too, never reached its intended destination. Events overtook the caravan, and the weapons were hidden in the mayor’s palace in Bianost. In the ensuing chaos, only the single councilor of Bianost who remained remembered where the arms had been concealed.
“Olin’s men heard rumors of a secret cache and assumed it was treasure,” said Kerian. “They tortured Kasanth, but he kept the secret. He passed on a single clue to”-she stumbled only slightly-”our leader, who deduced the cache’s location.”
Alhana gazed at the ruined ceiling. “Amazing. Where are the weapons now?”
“Divided into lots and hidden in buildings around town. We were collecting wagons and draft animals when Grayden’s army showed up.”
“Where did you plan to take it?” Samar asked.
“The forest. We’ll raise the banner of Qualinesti and rally all able-bodied elves to our cause.”
Samar and Chathendor didn’t think much of that plan. A few thousand elves remained in the whole of Qualinesti, and that included males, females, children, and a large proportion of Kagonesti who cared little about repairing the Qualinesti state.
Kerian thought of the seasoned warriors she’d led in Khur. If only she had them with her. But they were in the desert, chasing Gilthas’s foolish dream of a new homeland.
“I would speak with your leader.”
Alhana’s voice broke in on Kerian’s grim thoughts. “I sent Nalaryn to find him. He’s a very mysterious fellow. Comes and goes at all hours, and keeps no counsel but his own.”
Alhana seated herself on the pedestal of a broken statue, once the proud image of a former Qualinesti leader and, thanks to Olin’s despoilers, reduced to scattered lumps of stone.
“I shall wait.”
Kerian nodded. It would be worth waiting for, she thought. Alhana deserved to hear the truth.
“I’ll make every effort to send him to you,” she said, “Until then, I must see about finding more carts and horses. We’ll gain nothing if our enemies retake Bianost with the arsenal still here.”
She departed and Samar followed, intending to see how the royal guards were faring in their patrol of the outer edges of the town.
* * * * *
The sun set, and the diffuse glow of twilight faded slowly. Chathendor moved around the ruined hall, commenting on the decorations and architecture. His lady returned no answers, only listened politely to his chatter. At last, exhausted by the day’s events, he righted a large chair and seated himself. The first stars appeared in the hail’s high windows. The sound of voices outside was a low, soothing murmur. Chathendor began to snore.
Alhana sat immobile, her face reflecting none of the uncertainty swirling in her heart. Could this masked rebel leader be her husband? She had barely glimpsed him before his abrupt departure. So she waited, with the considerable patience of a long-lived elf, a well-trained queen, and a wife fully intending not to stir one inch until she had the answers she sought.
The sound of footfalls caused her to flinch, revealing how thin was her veneer of calm. They came from the shadows at the far end of the hall, deliberate and steady, like the tread of a herald determined to be heard. Alhana clenched her hands, cold as ice, in her lap. A silhouette appeared twenty feet away, featureless in the weak starshine. Her heart beat faster. She drew a shaky breath.
“You have nothing to fear.” His voice was low, hoarse, and completely unfamiliar.
Her back straightened. “I am not afraid.”
“You are. Your heart hammers like a gong.”
“I’m not accustomed to holding conversations in the dark.” Without moving from her perch, she looked around. “Is there no candle or lamp?”
“Light one, and I will go.”
It was her turn to offer reassurance. “You have nothing to fear from me. I am unarmed and”-Chathendor’s snores increased in volume-”well, not completely alone.”
He came a few steps closer, resolving into a shadowed form clad in a tattered, loosely fitting robe.
Face and head were completely concealed by the robe’s hood.
“Why did you come here?” he asked.
“To lend my support to this rebellion.”
“You could have sent soldiers. Why did you come?”
With deliberate emphasis, she said, “To find you.”
“And who am I?”
His voice had changed. The difference was subtle, but to Alhana it was clear as a beacon. The timbre and cadence, the very feel of it, was excruciatingly familiar. He was Porthios!
Relief so strong it made her head swim was followed immediately by a surge of adrenaline. Her heart began to pound again. She wanted to hurl herself at him, to hold him in her arms, to demand answers. Most of all she wanted to tear away the ragged mask that stood like a wall between them.
She wanted to, but she did not. Instead, terrified of frightening him away, she held herself utterly still, a living statue seated on the broken alabaster plinth. Her only movement was the shifting of her eyes as she studied him.
“You are-” She cleared her throat. Even so, it came out as the barest of whispers. “You are someone I love.”
He withdrew suddenly, and Alhana feared he had gone, but when he spoke again, his voice came from the darkness to her right.
“If that were true, you would have stayed away.”
“Stayed away! How could I? As a queen, I lost my country. As a mother, I lost my child.” Her voice broke. From the corner of one eye, she saw him take a step toward her then subside again into stillness. She drew a deep, shaking breath. “I don’t live. I merely exist in the center of a great emptiness. It does not matter where I go or who I am with; the void is always with me. To answer the smallest part of ‘why,’ I would plunge to the bottom of Nalis Aren or climb the Icewall. Coming here was nothing!”
Giving voice to words carried so long unspoken calmed her. Not so Porthios.
“You want to know why?” he hissed. “Sometimes there is no why! Sometimes there is only what fate delivers. When the gods left us, they didn’t take Fate with them. It stayed in the world, cruel, capricious, and callous. It took away my life, but would not allow me to die. So here I am, caught between the two. Alone.”
She turned toward him. She sensed him shrink back but couldn’t stop herself. “You need not be alone! Will you not take my hand?”
Her question and her outstretched hand hung in the air for a long moment. Finally, he whispered, “Go back to where you came from. Leave your warriors if you choose, but go. I will win this campaign, then I shall die. It’s my reward for saving our people. If you stay, you’ll die too, and I should not have to endure that. Everything else I will bear but that, Alhana.”
The rustle of a ragged hem through the debris on the floor told her he was gone. Instead of loss, elation sang in Alhana’s veins. During his speech, she’d felt a growing despair, until he’d said her name. He imbued the single word with such emotion, she knew at last that her quest had not been a hopeless one. He might be as cold and unreachable as the stars above, but Porthios was alive.
Voices announced the return of Samar and Kerian. The Lioness carried a flaming torch.
“Alhana?” Kerian called, surprised to find her still seated in the dark. “Are you all right?”
She flicked a hand over her cheeks. “I’m fine.”
“Were you talking to someone?” asked Samar.
“Only Chathendor.” Her aged retained was just now awakening, giving the lie to her words, but Samar would never contradict her.
Neither would Kerian since she knew the truth. Alhana had been talking with Porthios. Her tears alone were proof of that.
* * * * *
Two days went by without any sign of Porthios. At first Nalaryn and his Kagonesti were not worried by their leader’s absence. He frequently went off on his own. But in their present situation, his continuing absence began to feel ominous.
The residents of Bianost were restless too. They had rallied to the mysterious masked leader and overthrown their oppressors, but their leader was missing, and no one knew what to do.
Kerian made sure military matters were attended to but wasn’t concerned by Porthios’s absence. It struck her as only right he should be overcome by the sight of the wife he had abandoned. In away, she understood how he felt. If Gilthas had arrived at the gates of Bianost, she might want to run away, or clout him. Either was equally likely.
Samar was in charge of the royal guard, but he was disdainful of the Bianost militia and suspicious of Nalaryn’s Kagonesti. He told Alhana none too diplomatically that at the first sign of trouble, the townsfolk would run away and the Kagonesti would vanish into the woods, leaving the rest of them to fend for themselves against whatever army Samuval sent against them.
Angered by his arrogance, Kerian reminded him the Kagonesti and the folk of Bianost had defeated Olin’s entire company.
Samar waved a dismissive hand; Olin’s cowardly mercenaries had crumbled even before their leader was dispatched. He implied Olin’s death had been the result of dumb luck rather than any skill on the part of Kerian and the Kagonesti.
“A bold conclusion from one who wasn’t even here!” Kerian retorted. “Do you always fight your battles with your mouth?”
Before even hotter words could be exchanged, Alhana and Chathendor diverted the headstrong warriors. Chathendor asked Kerian to take him around the town to review the caches of weapons from Qualinost. Alhana sent Samar out with sixty riders to sweep the countryside around Bianost for signs of bandits.
As the sun began to decline on the second day of Porthios’s absence, Alhana realized she must meet with the townsfolk to help calm their growing fears. She sent Chathendor to invite the leaders of the Bianost volunteers to attend a council that evening after sundown.
The city square had been cleared of wreckage and bodies and a bonfire kindled. Alhana seated herself on a camp stool three steps above ground level before the mayor’s palace. Standing below on Alhana’s right were Chathendor and Samar. Kerian stood with Nalaryn on Alhana’s left.
The Lioness was not happy with Samar’s report from his reconnaissance of the area around Bianost. He had found nothing. Kerian was sure the town was being watched, and she didn’t think much of Samar’s skills that he failed to find any bandit scouts or spies.
The townsfolk of Bianost sent three representatives: Vanolin, a scrivener; Theryontas, a goldsmith; and Geranthas, a healer of animals. Alhana welcomed them graciously, praising their valiant actions in helping to save their town. The three were clearly awed to find themselves in her presence, but anxiety gave Theryontas, their spokesperson, the courage to speak his mind.
“Great Lady, the people of Bianost are alarmed by the disappearance of Orexas,” he said.
“Who?” Alhana blurted, and Kerian suppressed a snort. The Qualinesti word meant merely “director” or “manager,” but Kerian knew that in the eastern homeland it was applied to those who led orchestras or chorales. She found the implication of gentle artistry singularly amusing considering Porthios’s cold, calculating leadership style.
Theryontas was explaining how the people of Bianost had bestowed the name on their masked deliverer, having no other name by which to call him. Kerian interrupted his long-winded speech.
“Whatever you call him, it won’t change the fact he’s missing,” she said bluntly. She looked to Alhana, who had last spoken with Porthios before his disappearance. “Is he coming back?”
The wavering firelight deepened the lines of Alhana’s face, and for a moment her alabaster beauty appeared an aged mask. It lasted only an instant, and might have been a trick of the wavering firelight, but Kerian, standing closest to her, felt she’d glimpsed the agony the elegant lady kept carefully concealed.
“I’m not certain,” Alhana answered. “But until he does return, we must carry on.”
Theryontas and the town delegation were plainly distressed. “What does this mean?” he asked. “We’ve begun a revolt. Is it over now because Orexas is
gone?”
“No, it’s not over!” Kerian said quickly. “We can carry on. Remember, we have weapons to equip a great army.”
“What army?” Samar wanted to know. “Three hundred royal guards, twenty Wilder elves, and a few score townsfolk?”
Theryontas corrected him, deferential but precise, giving the total number of Bianost elves as three hundred forty-nine.
“Still not much of an army,” Samar said.
“We took Bianost with far less and defended it too,” Kerian said tartly.
“The bandits were surprised. When Samuval learns what happened here, he’ll take the field himself. He has twenty thousand men and can call up at least that many more goblins. How will you trick a host of forty thousand warriors, lady?”
Kerian crossed her arms over her chest, hands gripping her upper arms tightly in anger. “It has been done. I fought the Knights to a standstill with much less.”
“You had safe havens then. Where are your havens now? You had the clandestine support of the Speaker of the Sun and most of the population of Qualinesti. Where are they now?”
“Enough.”
Silence descended at Alhana’s command. Samar, his professional pride aroused, had taken a step toward the Lioness during their debate. He moved back.
“It is clear we have difficult choices to make,” Alhana went on. “First and foremost, we must remove the cache of weapons and hide it safely elsewhere.”
She was interrupted by the arrival of a rider. One of her guards came cantering across the square. His easy approach told them that whatever news he bore wasn’t urgent. Samar went to receive the courier’s message. After a brief exchange, Samar returned and reported to Alhana.
“Two strangers have been found. Elves. One is gravely injured. They have the look and manner of warriors, but their arms and clothing are most strange.”
Samar waved the rider forward and asked him to explain further. “They are ragged,” the elf said. “Obviously they have come a very long way. The injured one has a sword wound in the ribs, badly festered. He was on horseback. The other was leading the horse. Each was wearing an ankle-length, straight robe, once light in color, but now very dirty. Their helmets are conical, with a spike on top.”
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