by D. J. Butler
Sarah stiffened.
Bill wasn’t sure, but he thought that as he heard the man’s voice with his ears, he simultaneously heard it in his mind. The mind-voice was dry and crackling and it sounded vaguely familiar to Bill.
It sounded a lot like the voice of Robert Hooke.
“We’ll be a delegation of three now.”
The Lazars grinned.
“Don’t speak to me of sentiment. This is a thing of power.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Sarah cursed mentally. She had no fully-formed plan, but the ideas she did have (stall, try to stalemate the parties chasing her against each other, gain time so her reservoir of magical strength could be replenished, and look for an escape route) were jeopardized by the Lazars’ presence. They were impatient, aggressive and imbalancing.
At least Hooke was gone.
But what was happening to the Martinite?
Until the moment when the Lazars had reappeared, she’d felt satisfied with the course of events. She had recovered the regalia. Sir William had avenged her father’s murder upon the body of the dragoon Berkeley (though Thomas had yet to pay his due). Enemies loomed, but they had kept each other in check, and she had felt confident that with time, she would be able to prevail.
If nothing else, with time she would recover enough mana to fly her party down from the top of the bluff and make an escape. She imagined them all leaping off the head of the Serpent Mound, and herself drawing energy from the ley as she got close enough, and at the last second, catching them all in mid-air.
But the presence of the Lazars, and the possible transformation of Ezekiel Angleton into…something else…were oil thrown onto the coals. What would he do? She trembled at the memory of Hooke’s deathly magic, of herself pointing a gun at Thalanes’s head and pulling the trigger.
Ezekiel Angleton stepped closer to the Lazars, nodding a welcome.
They nodded back.
Angleton nodded again. Was unspoken communication passing between them?
The Martinite looked pale, tired, nervous, and sick. There was something wrong with his aura; black spots dotted it, almost as if it were dirty. His face was filthy, too. The Yankee priest stepped forward and knelt beside Berkeley’s body, fouling his boots and trousers in the captain’s gore, and then his sleeves as well as he laid both his hands on the dead dragoon’s bloody skull.
“I suppose this ends the pretense of a kind invitation from my loving relative.” Sarah said. Sir William and Cal had both drawn closer to her, and Sir William had reloaded his pistols.
“My invitation, however, remains,” the chevalier reminded her. He stood with his arms crossed; did that reveal impatience or discomfort? “Tell me, Your Majesty, what you would require in order to find my proposition attractive?”
Was there any condition under which Sarah would submit herself to the chevalier’s control? Of course there was. If the alternative were death, or capture and carting off to Philadelphia, she’d surrender to the chevalier.
Otherwise, though…
Besides, however collected and commanding the chevalier might appear to her normal sight, when she looked at his aura she saw shiftiness, deceit, malice, and greed. She didn’t trust him at all.
She had the regalia. She had her rights to vindicate.
And she had her brother and sister to protect.
“I’m considering the question,” she said.
What was Angleton doing? He still knelt by the dead Cavalier’s body, cradling Berkeley in his arms. And talking to him. Her heart beat quicker as she noticed with her Second Sight that wisps of black smoke coiled up from Ezekiel’s mouth.
Sir William couldn’t see the smoke, but he must have shared her sudden unease. “Get up from the body, Father. It’s too late for last rites.”
Sarah looked again at Sir William’s wounds and saw the dark red trickling down his trousers from his chest. Could the regalia help them? The Orb of Etyles—it was magically powerful, Thalanes had said. No, that wasn’t quite right.
He’d said it was a thing of magical power.
But what did it do? Might it be a reservoir, like Thalanes’s brooch? She slipped a hand into the satchel and brushed the cool metallic sphere with her fingertips, willing it to surrender its power to her, to open its secrets.
Nothing happened.
“Yaas, he accepts.” Angleton looked over his shoulder to the Lazars. They grinned.
“That’s enough, suh,” Sir William ordered the priest. “Stand back.”
Angleton leaned closer over the body and kissed its mouth, breathing into its lungs. “Ani mekim otakh mehakever.”
A voice in Sarah’s head screamed.
The black smoke curling from Angleton’s mouth plunged into Berkeley’s body, filling it from head to toe.
Sir William pointed his pistol at the Blues’ chaplain and cocked it. “Now, damn you!”
Ezekiel Angleton stood. His mouth was twisted into an obscure, devious smile, and he had blood on his lips and chin, smearing the charcoal mark underneath. “Too late.” The priest staggered and nearly fell.
A long, slow hiss escaped the lips of Daniel Berkeley, pulling with it thin tendrils of the black necromantic fog. As Sarah stared, the dragoon captain twitched and his eyes rolled slowly back into his head, leaving him with bloodshot white orbs. The Cavalier’s wounds blackened and clotted over, his skin grew pale and a curled rictus seized his lips. His nails and hair lengthened.
Slowly, as if testing new muscles, Daniel Berkeley the Lazar rose to his full height. He stepped across the still-drying slick of blood left by Berkeley the man, and stooped to gather his pistols.
“Hell’s Bells!” Sir William growled.
Sarah wanted to scream.
“Now, child, I believe it’s my turn.” Ezekiel Angleton stepped forward, as did the three Lazars, all reaching for weapons on their belts.
“Stop!” Simon Sword cried. A shimmering curtain of green fell across the plaza in the sight of Sarah’s witchy eye, and the Martinite and his Lazars all froze.
“Let me go!” Angleton shrieked, but the little blond man ignored him and faced Sarah.
“Your Majesty.” Both the blond man and the great heron-headed spirit bowed, together, as they spoke together, mouths synchronized like a puppeteer and his doll. “You impress me with your resolve and your knack for survival.”
“I’m Appalachee.” She shrugged as nonchalantly as she could manage. “We’re tough.” Simon Sword was about to propose marriage to her again. Could she accept? And on what terms? On the same terms on which she could accept the chevalier—if there were no other choice. But didn’t she have to come to some sort of agreement with him, or face the imminent attack of the Lazars, not to mention the gendarmes and the beastkind?
And what did the mysterious Heron King really want from her? Was it, after all, marriage? Or was it only marriage? The golden sword of her great-grandfather, with its crested bird’s head on one side of the hilt and plowshare on the other, came to mind.
“I admire toughness,” Simon Sword said. “My friend Bill is tough.”
Bill snorted.
“Do you have a proposal?” Sarah asked, instantly regretting her choice of words.
“My proposal remains the same. Marry me, Sarah Elytharias Penn. Marry me and I will destroy your enemies. Marry me and you and I together will rule the Mississippi, and the Ohio, and all the lands between the saguaro deserts and the polar ice. In Cahokia you will be a queen, east of the Mississippi I can make you empress, and in Pueblo and the Great Green Wood, we will be worshipped together as gods!”
“I expect that would be a wedding that would make the social calendar,” she mused.
The blond man and giant green thing nodded together. “Wouldn’t you say that is a more appropriate mating than with a…how did your friend Calvin say it?... a jumped-up mayor’s son?”
“If you wish to marry a beast, Your Majesty,” the chevalier said, sniffing, “I have the finest stabl
es and kennels west of Philadelphia. I believe I can still offer you the better match.”
“You’re generous,” Sarah said to Simon Sword.
Cal ground his teeth so hard Sarah feared he’d shatter them.
“But you don’t really want to marry me,” she finished.
“I don’t?” The blond man smiled.
“You want this,” she said, and drew the golden sword from its improvised hanger. It glittered in the air in the center of the plaza, surprisingly light in her hand and pulsing green in her Second Sight.
“Careful,” Cal cautioned her under his breath.
Simon Sword’s eyes gleamed and his smile became stiff.
She was right.
“You can’t have the sword by marriage,” she told him, “but I might be willing to make a trade.”
The Frenchman’s aide suddenly became very agitated. “Don’t do it, Your Majesty.”
The chevalier looked sharply at his seneschal. “Is there some reason I should care about the sword, René?”
The Creole shook his head and averted his eyes.
“I know that blade,” Simon Sword admitted. “It belonged to me, before my father gave it away. I would like to have it back, for sentimental reasons.”
“Don’t speak to me of sentiment,” Sarah said. “This is a thing of power.”
“It is.”
“This is a thing of your power,” she continued, “and you want it back. What is it worth to you?”
“Yes, it’s a thing of my power, as you have your crown of oaths and your ley magnet.” Simon Sword considered. “Very well, let us bargain. I have already offered to make you a queen, an empress, and a goddess, and you have rejected these things. Perhaps you should tell me what you desire.”
Du Plessis strangled back a cry.
“Silence!” his master ordered him.
“Make him pay,” Cal counseled her in a whisper. “Iffen he’s chased you all around and done all he’s done because of that there sword, then he really wants it. The advantage is yours, and you shouldn’t ought to git less’n jest about everything.”
She nodded. Ley magnet? Did Simon Sword know what the Orb of Etyles did, and had he just told her? No time to explore now, and she didn’t want to expose her own ignorance by asking questions. She needed to get off the mountain.
“Three things,” she said finally. “First, my enemies. I want the Lazars obliterated.”
“Easy,” said the Heron King.
Ezekiel Angleton scowled.
“I want the Imperial officers returned to Penn lands and the chevalier and his men to New Orleans.”
“That can be done,” the Heron King agreed, “also easily.” The Creole looked pale and the chevalier uneasy. “Do you intend this all as one of your three requests? By my count, you have asked for three things already.”
“I’m not done asking,” Sarah told him. “Besides, you’ve already told me the things I’ve asked so far can be done easily.”
Simon Sword was quiet a moment, then laughed. The little man’s chuckle was modest and soft, but the great green spirit behind and above him threw back its head and roared in hilarity. “Well done, Sarah Elytharias Penn. Very well, I would like to hear the rest of your requests.”
“Second, I want all the beastfolk you brought with you today to swear an oath of loyalty to me. A binding oath on the Sevenfold Crown.” Sarah was continuing to guess, and from the look of surprise and interest on Simon Sword’s face, she thought she was guessing right. Thalanes had described the crown as a thing of power, and Sarah had a hard time believing its power was purely symbolic, that the mere absence of a symbol of unity could result in fifteen years of strife among Cahokia’s nobles. The crown must have some less symbolic power, and that power must have to do with oaths and binding.
She thought ahead in time to the step beyond Wisdom’s Bluff. Escaping her immediate enemies would do her little good if it left her defenseless. She wanted a force, an escort, protection; she wanted to ride into her father’s kingdom at the head of an army.
“That is no small request.” Simon Sword’s faces were solemn. “But it may be possible, provided they are willing. I may use strong persuasion, but I must respect the free will of my subjects.”
“Of course,” Sarah agreed. Was he telling the truth?
“And there is a final thing you desire,” the Heron King prompted her.
Sarah took a calming breath and made her wildest guess of all. “The sword has a complement. A plowshare, stamped with the image of a heron’s head and a sword. You have it, and I want that as well. In exchange for all those things, yes, I will give you the sword.” She wasn’t sure such a plowshare existed, and she didn’t know what power it would have if it did, but it seemed like it must exist, and if she was going to surrender the power of the Heron King’s sword—whatever that was—she should at least get its counterpart.
Simon Sword was quiet.
Sarah turned to the chevalier. “And as to you, My Lord Chevalier, I must respectfully decline your offer at this time. However, I would like to be at peace with your land, and I welcome future embassies, including any future emissaries carrying more articulated proposals of marriage.”
“What?” Cal gasped. The chevalier’s facial expression looked perplexed, but Sarah thought that his aura had an angry tone to it.
Simon Sword broke his silence with a loud and hearty laugh. “You are bold, Sarah Elytharias Penn! I admire that, too. You ask too much, however. The plowshare you refer to is part of my own regalia, one of my things of power. Why would I ever give it to you?”
Bull’s eye.
“Because,” Sarah said, “you want the sword more. You are Simon Sword, not Peter Plowshare, and whatever bargain my forefathers made with yours…or, perhaps, with you, it has stripped you of power. Maybe that was the purpose of the bargain, to contain your might on the day when the reign of Peter Plowshare ended and the reign of Simon Sword recommenced. Very well then, I will help restore you to power. I will give you the sword. For the price named.” If she was right, she was unleashing a dark power on the world. So be it.
It fell to her to decide, and decide she would.
The blond man smiled, but the specter of Simon Sword frowned. “I will give you everything but the plowshare. That is generous on my part.”
“Hold out, Sarah,” Cal whispered. “You got him.”
“It’s not enough,” she said. “I need it all.” She couldn’t possibly get everything she asked for; what did she need most? If she asked for the removal of her foes, could she ride alone into Cahokia? If she asked for the loyalty of the beastkind soldiers, would that be enough to help her defeat the Lazars, the Blues, and the gendarmes? Or might she get the chevalier on her side? And could she, after all, figure out how to use the Orb of Etyles, not at some future moment, but now, today, here on the bluff, and in time to use it against her enemies?
“You can’t have it all, Your Majesty,” the Heron King said. “I’m not a giving man, and the price you ask is too dear. If you insist on having the plowshare, very well, you may, but you will have it and nothing else.”
That wasn’t enough. The plowshare was as large an unknown to her as the sword, and at least if she had the sword she could poke it into one of the Lazars and see if it did anything. “The plowshare and one of my other requests,” she countered.
Simon Sword smiled on both his faces. “Very well,” he said slowly, “I will give you the plowshare and one of your other requests. Not one of your other two, but one of your other four. Do you need reminding of what they were?”
“I remember.” Destroy the Lazars, get rid of the Imperials, get rid of the chevalier and his men, receive the loyalty of the beastmen. Sarah pondered. The Orb of Etyles was a thing of power. Simon Sword had described it as a “ley magnet,” and it seemed he ought to know what he was talking about—the more she heard, the more Sarah found her family was entangled with the Heron King.
She opened her satchel and
took out the Orb. She looked into it, and with her witchy eye she focused on the blue glow of the Orb’s aura, trying to see into it, through it, not looking for a vision, but a hint at the device—
there it was. Now that she knew what she was looking for, she saw it. Magnet was not a good description; the Orb was a connection, a tunnel, and looking through that tunnel Sarah saw chambers of light, rooms pulsating with the green of the great rivers below. The Orb was a conduit, and she knew that with it she could draw power from distant leys. Might she also be able to draw out power in a larger stream?
The plain gray iron ball was quite literally a thing of power.
If only Thalanes were here, he could use such a tool to work mighty magic.
Could she simply now fly away? She looked at the angry faces of the Lazars and Ezekiel Angleton, the anticipating look in the eyes of the Heron King, and the cool façade of the chevalier. They all wanted her, and they would not willingly surrender.
The time had come for resolution. No more running.
She looked at the chevalier, and he met her gaze with guarded eyes. She thought she could get him to ally with her, or at least persuade him to stand down. The Creole twitched, which gave her pause, but she addressed the Frenchman anyway.
“My Lord Chevalier,” she said, “shall I expect your embassies?”
He held his face impassive for long moments, then turned to look carefully at Simon Sword and at the frozen Lazars. Finally, he nodded. “I will send them, Your Majesty.” His aura glowed with a tone as guarded as his expression.
“I agree to your terms,” Sarah said, turning again to the Heron King. “I want the loyalty of the beastfolk.”
“No!” The Creole pulled a pistol from his belt.
“René!” the chevalier shouted, spinning on his own man and grabbing for the wrist of his gun hand.
The seneschal pointed his gun at her—
Bang!
Acrid smoke stung her eyes and Sarah flinched, but no bullet touched her flesh.