by Unknown
"I know," said his father with a grin. "And he won't ever again. Our treasurer—you remember Janssen—has contacts on the baron's staff, and he's quite creative."
Edward fell silent, unable to speak. After a moment, he whispered, "He was kind to me when I was a child. He encouraged me when I asked how his tools worked. I played in his barn." He looked at his father. "He was your friend."
His father smiled. "Don't fret about it. There was absolutely nothing personal involved. It was just business."
* * * *
Edward and Alyssa retreated to the portrait gallery to make plans. It was out of the way of the preparations for the ball and large enough that they could see anyone approaching before the person could hear what they were saying.
Edward shuddered. "This is a nightmare," he muttered. "I expected to find the thing after I dealt with my father, not to have to take it away from him!"
"Well, there is one bit of good news. Two, actually: we know where the Sceptre is; and you don't have to take it away from him."
"I don't?" he said, nonplussed.
"No, you don't. It's not your responsibility until it's in your possession. It's my job to get it into your hands; that's why Logas and Sarras sent me with you."
"How are you going to do that?"
"I'm working on a plan," Alyssa said, wishing the plan she was coming up with was less risky. "What sort of dancing do we do at the ball tonight?"
"I forget what it's called," Edward said, "but we sort of walk forward and back very slowly. I think it's so people can admire—or sneer at—each other's clothes. Don't worry," he added quickly, "my mother has wonderful taste; I'm sure you'll look gorgeous."
"Somehow, Edward, that's not my biggest worry at the moment."
* * * *
As Alyssa had expected, the dance Edward had been trying to describe was a pavane. Edward led her into the first set immediately behind his parents. The dance dated from Alyssa's youth, so she probably knew the steps better than anyone else in the room. This freed her mind to concentrate on other things: things like the Blade, which was in a sheath on her right forearm. She was very thankful for the long gloves the ladies wore and the loose, flowing "angel-wing" sleeves of her gown. As her partner, Edward was on her left side, and, despite the fact that she was careful to rest only the tips of her gloved fingers on his sleeve, she could feel tension positively radiate off him. She sympathized with the feeling, but she was glad of it. It meant that he wouldn't try to catch her when she "tripped."
It was still a big risk. Alyssa prayed with all her heart that Alexander had been a basically decent person before ambition—and the Sceptre—had overcome him. If he wasn't, things could turn deadly in seconds. But this was the only plan she had been able to come up with...
The dance was ending, and Margaret released her husband's arm as they turned to face each other for the final bow and curtsey. Alyssa lifted her hand from Edward's arm, but instead of turning to face him, she stumbled forward, sliding the Blade out of its sheath as she did so. Alexander's right side was toward her, and she caught herself on his forearm with both hands, brushing the flat of the Blade against the bare skin at his wrist. She was very careful not to draw blood; just a bare touch would be more than enough.
It was. Alexander screamed, reflexively flinging her away before falling to the floor and trying to pull his large body into a small ball. Edward caught her—it was that or go down like a nine-pin along with her. "Get the Sceptre!" she said urgently in his ear as she got her feet back under her. She pulled a silk-lined shield bag out of her left sleeve and pushed it into his hand.
Edward rushed to his father's left side—his mother was already kneeling at his right. As Edward plucked the Sceptre from his father's sheath and thrust it into the bag, Alyssa took a moment to put the Blade into the second shield bag she was carrying and secure it back under her sleeve before trying to help.
Margaret, however, had things well in hand. Already she was giving orders for Alexander, who was sobbing and raving, to be carried to his room. She asked the nearest board member to do her the favor of leading the next set of dances, nodded to the orchestra leader to continue, and told the butler to make certain that food and drink continued to be served. Then she walked calmly out of the ballroom, with Edward and Alyssa in her wake.
As soon as they were out of sight of the guests, she led the rush to Alexander's rooms. Edward and Alyssa could barely keep up with her. She dismissed the servants before Alyssa could protest.
"He mustn't be left alone," she said urgently to Margaret, as the sitting room door closed. "He's probably suicidal."
"We're lucky if that's all he is!" Margaret snapped furiously. "Whatever possessed you to commit such a gross breach of hospitality?"
"I'll sit with Father." Edward edged nervously toward the bedroom.
Through the door Alyssa could hear Alexander's faint sobs. "—so sorry—was just business, never meant for you to die—sorry, so sorry—oh, Dermot, Dermot, Dermot!"
"Do what you can," she told Edward, "but for the love of God, keep the Sceptre away from him!"
She faced Edward's furious mother, who glared at her. "I felt it when you brought the Blade of Unmaking into my house," Margaret said, "and I looked you up to see what it was you carried. You're a Guardian; you have been for a long, long time. Why did you misuse what you are supposed to keep safe? Why did you harm my husband?"
Alyssa looked her straight in the eyes. "If you're Sensitive enough to notice the Blade—especially when it's in a shield bag—you could hardly have missed what your husband has been carrying with him for the past month!"
Margaret dropped her eyes. "I lined the sheath with silk," she said, "and I was doing research to find out what it was."
"The Sceptre of the Ungodly," Alyssa said shortly.
Margaret went pale. "'For the sceptre of the ungodly shall not abide upon the lot of the righteous; lest the righteous put their hand unto wickedness.' Saturday, the midday Little Hour."
Alyssa nodded. "That's the one. It's nice to find someone here who knows the Daily Office. From the way your husband spoke of the Nativity, I wasn't sure anyone in the household was observant."
Margaret smiled grimly. "Alexander doesn't speak for me. He just thinks he does."
Alyssa eyed Margaret with new appreciation. This was a type of power she understood; in fact, it was the kind she had held during her parents' frequent absences when she was a girl. It didn't matter who had the fancy title; if you were the one people listened to, the person who made certain that things got done... that was the real power.
"I'm truly sorry, Lady Margaret," she said. "I would not have used the Blade if I could have found any other method of getting the Sceptre away from him and into the hands of its new Guardian."
Edward returned, carefully keeping the shield bag with the Sceptre on the side of his body away from them. "Father's asleep," he said. "And I have a feeling that he's going to be all right."
"God grant it," Alyssa said prayerfully.
"Who is the new Guardian?" Margaret asked.
"I am," Edward said. "That's why I'm holding this instead of passing it off to Alyssa like the proverbial hot potato." He looked sober. "It's my responsibility now, for the rest of my life." He closed his eyes briefly, looking suddenly very young and completely overwhelmed.
"I think it would be best for everyone if we got that into a proper shield box and took it back to the College as soon as possible," Alyssa said.
Margaret nodded. "I have no desire whatsoever to be lacking in hospitality, but I can think of nothing I'd like better at the moment than to have both of those artifacts out of my house. Immediately."
"We'll go pack right now," Alyssa assured her, "and we'll leave a soon as you can arrange transportation for us."
"Twenty minutes," Margaret said, reaching out to tug the bell pull.
"The company," Edward said. "You know I can't be the one to run it."
His mother smiled. "That
should be no problem. Mr. Hartwicke would be the better choice, anyway. I think they'll see reason."
Edward leaned over and kissed her cheek, holding the Sceptre as far away from her as possible. "I won't be coming back here, Mother," he said, "but I hope that you will visit me at the College when you can."
"I'll do that," she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss her son's forehead. "And always remember, Edward, I love you. And I'm proud of you."
"I'll go pack." Edward practically fled from the room.
Margaret smiled fondly after him and shook her head. "I never expected this for him-"
"Nobody ever does," Alyssa said with feeling.
"-but I think he may be a good Guardian," Margaret said. "Running the family business was never something he wanted or had any talent for."
"True," Alyssa agreed. "He's a born academic. And there are several other Guardians at the College, so he'll have plenty of support as he adjusts to his new responsibilities."
"In other words, he'll have an easier time than you did."
"I certainly hope so," Alyssa said fervently. "I thank you for your hospitality," she continued, "and I am truly sorry for the breach of it I committed. I'll be going now." She turned to look back as she left the room. "I do hope that you'll visit the College."
* * * *
Fifteen minutes later, having packed the Blade into a sturdy shield box, done a quick change from ball gown to travel dress, and thrown everything else hastily into her bag, Alyssa joined Edward in the carriage. As they took off into the bright star-filled sky, Edward said, "We should get home around eleven. Midnight Mass?"
"Fine by me," Alyssa replied. We have a great deal to thank God for.
Material Witness
by Brenta Blevins
The Great Tapestry that hung above the throne in Muirgana showed the history of the kingdom, but not as a normal tapestry woven by human hands did. With the proper spell, the tapestry could reveal the truth about past events, which was how Princess Valyra discovered that her father had been murdered. So when she found herself inside the tapestry, she tried to change what had happened. The results of her efforts, however, were not at all what she expected.
Brenta Blevins lives and writes in the Appalachian Mountains, where she enjoys hiking with her husband. She has written audio dramas that have been produced for public radio in the United States and aired there, in South Africa, and in Australia. Her short fiction has appeared in ChiZine and a number of anthologies. Her white longhair cat, Snow Crash, assists with her writing by helpfully placing his tail over her keyboard.
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Eyes swollen with grief, Princess Valyra knelt alone before the Great Tapestry. Its amber background glowed with a rich golden light warming the limestone wall behind it, revealing the enormous textile was more than a normal wall-hanging.
Staring at the muted harvest scene, Valyra used her father's secret spell to will the blocky lettering across the top, "Testimony to Truth," to give her what she wanted, needed to see: how her father died. How could anyone believe he, the king of Muirgana, had been mauled to death when he'd killed his first bear at eight summers old? Had everyone fallen under a spell?
For most viewers, the magical tapestry hanging above the throne wove an incredible moving tableau of lessons from the kingdom's most historically significant events: King Deleon, Valyra's great-grandfather, protecting a village from invasion from an Eastern empire. Wrede, her grandfather, defending peasants from a band of outlaws. Ered, her father, sharing his crops with villagers in a drought.
At the least, Valyra would see her father again. Before she'd arrived home, her uncle Tolor—the new king—had already seen to the burial.
Valyra's heart leapt as the Great Tapestry transformed to show a new scene. At first, it seemed the firelight cast flickering hues on the embroidered golden shocks of gathered wheat with reapers raising silvery hooks to harvest more. The multicolored fabric appeared to sway from some breeze in the great hall, falling into shadow, then light again in fiber chiaroscuro. But, it became clear the vivid weft threads danced free of the warp, then dove again to re-weave together, forming new pictures. The threads knitted faster so the image of crop collection changed to one of glinting-armored knights riding across the castle's moat bridge. Again, the yarns unraveled and intertwined.
Valyra's eyes teared anew as the tapestry showed her father and her maid in the courtyard waving at her departure months ago. Her father had sent Valyra to study with her aunt after her mother's prolonged illness and death. As the sorrow of losing both parents in so few months swept over her, Valyra wrapped her arms around herself, the fire crackling in the knight-high fireplace doing nothing to warm her.
The wall-hanging changed, showing other events in the recent past: green-clothed entertainers dancing and juggling in the great hall, a courtier's wedding, delegations wearing the red and gold of Ramsa's northern kingdom meeting with her father to discuss...what? Valyra wished the magic tapestry emitted sound. The next scene showed her father riding his stallion over the moat bridge with a hunting party of dogs, courtiers, and nobles, including her mother's brother. They rode together into the rocky wooded White Hills, then pursued bears fleeing through the trees. The party split, divided, and separated again, chasing different bears until her father and his brother by marriage, Tolor, rode alone. Leading, Tolor reached into his saddle sack, then pulled on bizarre clawed gloves. He turned and suddenly clouted her father, knocking him from his horse. Before her father could rise, Tolor leaped down and beat Ered repeatedly, gashing him with long bloody streaks cast upon the tapestry in silken crimson threads, until the king lay immobile. Tolor then walked up the white rocky hillside to a tiny cave and cast the gloves inside.
Her uncle—the new king—had killed her father.
The scene unraveled and the tapestry again showed her great-grandfather. The yarns blurred as her Valyra's eyes filled. She would go to—go to-
Boot steps echoed in the great hall. Valyra's back stiffened.
"Valyra." Her uncle's voice filled the empty hall like the bitter wind before a thunderstorm.
She rose, whirling to face Tolor. "You!" Her body trembled—not with fear of a murderer, but with rage. "You killed my father!"
Tolor shook his head. "It's hard to be an orphan." He and her mother had lost their parents when they'd caught the fever that Ramsa traders had carried south. Tolor had always claimed the traders had intentionally brought illness with them. "You shouldn't be alone, not at your age. I will marry you into a good alliance."
"I will prove you killed him!"
Tolor's eyes narrowed. "Is this a desperate attempt to gain the crown? They'd never accept you—a child unprepared in governance, battle, or defending a kingdom." He twisted his hand dismissively.
Valyra's face flushed in embarrassment and anger. Her elder brothers, the trained and presumed heirs, had preceded their parents in death.
"Desperate? I didn't murder to become ruler!" Valyra's fists twitched with fury. Her combat experience was limited to playing swordfight against her brothers and cousins with the fireplace poker. She'd succeeded only in burning a hole through the Great Tapestry, creating a mar in the corner that her father had graciously forgiven. With Tolor now blocking the fireplace, Valyra had no weapons with which to defend the people from a treacherous murderer. If he'd killed to gain the throne, what might he inflict upon the residents of the kingdom?
"You should stop offering unsubstantiated accusations. As we might view such as treason." Using the royal plural pronoun, Tolor's lips twitched with arrogance.
Valyra's control slipped. She swung her fist at her uncle, desperate to make him hurt for his crimes of murder and deceit. All too easily, Tolor dodged the blow. In the blink of an eye, he punched her as he had her father. Her head spun and she stumbled backward. Her feet danced, struggling for purchase. Her heel caught on the uneven edge of a slate tile. Reeling, her hands flew out to catch herself against the tapestry.
Pain shot t
hrough her as pinpricks stabbed her entire body, as if she had been shot through by thousands of needles. They drove deep into her and she felt her mouth yawn toward a scream. The needles yanked hard, as if fighting to pull thread into her so she felt herself growing enormous and bound to explode. She felt the thousand perforations tugged apart, then together. A sound like fabric ripping filled her ears—and her scream fell silent.
She plummeted to ground softer than stone, her hands landing on damp grass. Valyra blinked, wondering how hard her uncle had hit her to make her hallucinate, but the green plants remained in focus. She gazed at trees, bushes. Patting herself, she was surprised not to feel blood spurting from thousands of wounds. She recognized the birches and limestone outcroppings of the White Hills, where the tapestry had revealed her father had bled to death.
Was this the afterlife? She gazed into the sky. Tolor loomed over her, enormous. She drew back, scuttling behind a rhododendron bush, wishing for more substantial protection, then peered around the glossy leaves, realizing he was impossibly taller than the trees and insubstantial as a ghost. She couldn't be dead; the forest felt too real. And there was no way her uncle could present so large in the sort of afterlife Valyra thought she deserved. Through puffy white cloud formations, she glimpsed faint outlines of the great hall behind him: the high fireplace, the pointed arches, the throne on its dais. Valyra realized she was looking through a window that was the tapestry. Somehow, she had fallen through the threads of the wall-hanging into textile memory.
Her eyes grew wide as she contemplated her situation in wonderment. She'd never known about this magic.
Her uncle raised an enormous diaphanous hand, poking the fabric as if searching for her hiding behind the cloth, but his ethereal fingertips didn't even stir the tree leaves overhead. His gaze never connected with hers, as if he watched some other scene.
She was safe from him. For now.
"Everything as planned." Tolor's voice from behind her caused Valyra to jump. Sliding through the dirt around the bush, she turned to face the scene the tapestry had shown her in the great hall. Her uncle stood over a man's immobile body. Her father! Valyra saw two horses, hunting equipment, blood. Too much blood. "The throne is mine now. You let Ramsa get away with the murder of my parents, your family by marriage. I will declare war finally to exact retribution."