by William King
“Not in this matter, Guardian. I am under orders from one whose authority exceeds even yours.” Kormak knew he could not push the matter. He had been defeated before he even began. King Aemon’s gold trumped any objections he might have to obey the man’s will, at least as far as Grand Master Darius was concerned.
He would have to do what the king wanted. Anything else he did here would just be a formality. Still, formalities needed to be observed. He must make his report while he was able.
“I must send a message to Mount Aethelas,” Kormak said.
“Of course.”
The Farspeaker turned and opened a wooden case. Inside lay a yellowish crystal inscribed with mystical runes. With great gentleness, the old man lifted it from its velvet setting, placed it against his forehead, then against his lips and then set it down upon the table. He intoned a prayer to the Holy Sun, and then looked up at Kormak and said, “What word would you send to Mount Aethelas?”
Kormak knew how things would go now. He would tell the old man what needed to be said, and the Farspeaker would memorise it.
“The message is in two parts,” Kormak said. “The first part of the message is that Abbot Gerd is dead. I witnessed his passing into the Light with my own eyes.”
The fact that someone had already told the Grand Master this was irrelevant. The death must be confirmed by a reliable witness.
The Farspeaker nodded, as if Kormak was not telling him anything he did not already know. Kormak continued, “He was killed doing his duty by an Old One, who is now also dead. Vorkhul was its name. It may now be erased from the scrolls of record. It was slain by the Guardian Kormak.”
He paused to make sure that the old man had comprehended what he said. The Farspeaker sat there with his eyes closed, and a frown of concentration on his brow. He repeated the words silently to himself, and then nodded.
“Continue, Guardian Kormak.”
“The Lunar Ambassador in Trefal is a sorceress of the highest order. Her name is Marketa. Her ostensible purpose here is negotiations with the king about the return of a still-functioning moongate. Guardian Kormak suspects she may be here for other reasons.”
The old man repeated the words then asked, “Is there anything more?”
Kormak shook his head.
“I will send your messages at once, Guardian Kormak. Do you wish to await a reply?”
“Any reply can be sent to me at the palace.”
“If I may, I would like to say something, Guardian.”
“Speak whatever you have in your mind.”
“The presence of Lady Marketa is known here and on Aethelas. As is the presence of the moongate.”
“I suspected as much.”
“Then why repeat this in your message?” Sending messages through the eyes of the sun was enormously taxing. Kormak wondered whether the old man was simply trying to avoid the strain.
“I am leaving tracks in the sand for any guardian who comes after me,” Kormak said. As he spoke, he heard the thoughts of his death implicit in his words. “It is possible I am going on a journey from which there will be no return.”
“You are certain he did not see you?” Lady Marketa hid her uneasy expression with a flick of her fan, as she stared at the changeling’s nondescript face. It had entered her luxurious apartments through the secret passage, wearing the robes of a monk. Even as she talked, it was donning the formal tunic of one of her retinue. None of her servants would dare to behave in such a disrespectful fashion, but the changeling ranked at least her equal in the service of Alena Mercurion, True Born Daughter of the Lady, Mistress of Magic at the Courts of the Moon.
It pulled the linen shirt over its muscular torso. In the light of the magically glowing moonstones, it looked so normal—attractive even, if you did not know what lay beneath. Its features started to blur, becoming darker and more aquiline in the way of an easterner. The eye colour became brown. The fair-skinned, fair-haired blue-eyed monk had disappeared as if he had never been.
“I am certain, mistress,” it said in a light, pleasant voice. “After Kormak left the chapter house, I followed him through the market and the noble quarter and up to the palace. At first, I took the form of a beggar, and then a merchant, and finally a monk.”
Marketa sank down on the thick pillows of her divan and took a pull on the hookah of swiftweed as she tried to gather her thoughts. The message from the Courts of the Moon had been a strange and disturbing one, but she was obliged to pass it along.
The soothing smoke from the water-pipe entered her lungs and began to calm her frayed nerves. She needed it; it had been a long night, full of terrible news. This whole day, messages had flickered through her magical mirror from her patron Eldrim in the realms far to the east. She felt the strain of that sorcerous contact almost as much as she had felt it from Vorhkul’s terrible blighted presence within the palace. A corrupted Old One, a servant of Shadow—it did not seem possible in this day and age, but now she knew it was. No wonder the Mistress of Magic was so upset.
“He did not notice, and he was never out of your sight?”
“He did not see me.” The changeling pursed its lips. Were they thinner now than they had been a few moments ago? It looked very striking and aristocratic now, almost like her first husband. Did the changeling know that? Most likely. It would have been briefed very thoroughly at the Courts of the Moon. Useful as it was, she would not be sorry to see the back of it. Its presence made her deeply uneasy. If the king or his damned brother found out that her retinue contained a changeling, the consequences would be awful.
Of course, they could not find out. Changelings were impossible to detect by any known sorcery. The things that let a changeling alter its form were not magical; they were a product of the way its body had been altered by the fleshsculptors.
She recalled a class long ago. A corpse laid out on a dissection slab, and a scalpel going in. The body had belonged to a changeling, one that had displeased its master. The Old Ones had no trouble spotting a changeling, even if everyone else had.
She recalled the flesh being peeled away from the face, and the strange webs of muscle and tendon beneath. She recalled the pouches containing odd fluids that had burst under the instructor’s knife, and the vein-like channels writhing like living things away from the blade. Those cords and cables could tighten, alter the shape of the face. The sacs could pump liquids into sub-dermal reservoirs, making the owner look fatter or thinner at will. The same arrangements could be found all over the changeling’s body.
Tiny dye pouches near the tear ducts enabled the changeling to alter the colour of its eyes. Its bones could telescope and its spine lengthen, allowing the creature to become taller or shorter. Changelings’ voice boxes were altered to allow them to imitate almost any speaker. They could even change their scents so that guard beasts could not spot them.
The changelings were a breed apart, taught to fight and to kill with their bare hands. They learned scores of languages and dialects, as well as acting and dancing and courtly graces. They were trained by masters of poison and the blade. They were perfect assassins, spies and courtiers.
No one knew where they came from or who had originally made them. She just knew what the rumours told her, that they were everywhere within the Lunar realms, reporting back to their masters, the all-seeing eyes of the Moon. She wondered if this was the only one in her retinue. She doubted it. There was probably at least one more, reporting her actions to the Courts.
The only way she could tell would be to perform a dissection on each of her people. She had tried various spells, but they had all failed.
“Mistress?” The words broke into her reverie.
“Yes?” Marketa said, trying to recollect what the changeling had been saying.
“I said, the Guardian is now within the palace. Do you want me to keep him under observation or not?”
Marketa shook her head. Her mistress had spoken to her directly through the mirror that connected its counterpart
in the Courts of the Moon. “I have new orders for you. You are to continue with your infiltration of the Terra Novan rebels. You will travel with the rebel leader, disguised as one of his bodyguards. You will offer the rebels all assistance and all possible incentives to throw off the shackles of their Siderean oppressors.”
“Very good, mistress.”
“Additionally, you have a new and more important mission.”
“More important than inciting rebellion in the colonies of our most unshakable enemy?”
Marketa shrugged. The gold from the Far Colonies was the source of Siderea’s wealth, and that wealth was the source of King-Emperor Aemon’s power. Cutting the supply off would defang the Solar snake at a stroke. What could be more important than that? But the urgency of the Mistress of Magic’s sending had been unmistakable.
“You are, and I quote these words exactly as the Mistress of Magic sent them, to make finding the source of Vorkhul’s coffin your highest priority. You must locate where it came from, and find out whether there are any more like it. This is a matter of the utmost importance to the safety of the Courts of the Moon and all their loyal subjects.”
Marketa paused for a moment and then spoke the code phrase she had been given. “This is a geas of uttermost compulsion. The willing servant accepts his fate.”
The changeling froze. Marketa could almost see the geas taking hold. The changeling’s muscles flexed. The tendons in its neck stood out. She wondered at the power of the spell that it could have such visible effects on its subject. It was true then—the changelings were imprinted with deep compulsions enforcing their obedience to their master’s will.
“I will obey in word, thought and deed. I will not cease in my endeavours until this mission is accomplished. Only death will keep me from it.”
Marketa wondered if she could have given the changeling different instructions, ordered it to kill her enemies while under the spell’s compulsion. It was an interesting thought but she would never dare put it to the test.
The changeling paused for a minute. Its smile was blank, unreadable. Perhaps it was only leaving the expression on its face as a placeholder as it thought. “Would I be right in thinking this has something to do with the Guardian also being dispatched to Terra Nova?”
“How do you know of that?”
“Our agent within the chapter house told me.”
“You went into the chapter house?”
The changeling smiled and nodded. It was confident indeed if it would do that. Few Lunars would voluntarily enter the precincts of the Order of the Dawn. Fewer yet had ever come out.
“That was unwise.” The changeling shrugged. She did not like the way the creature treated her with sly disrespect.
“You will travel to Terra Nova. Give any aid you can to the rebels while you are there. Offer them any inducement to rise against the usurper Aemon. But most of all, you will keep watch on the Guardian. If he gets any leads on the provenance of the sarcophagus of Vorkhul, you must get them too, and find it first.”
“And if he gets in the way, Mistress, shall I kill him?”
She considered it. The killing would take place far from here, and it would not lead directly back to her. The Order of the Dawn was known to be obsessive about avenging its people. “If you must,” she said. “We must find out where that coffin came from and if any more of the Eldrim are imprisoned there.”
“It was not sent by one of our agents then?” the changeling asked.
“We are not so stupid,” she said. But she wondered whether that was the case. At the Courts of the Moon, often the right claw did not know what the left claw was doing.
“Be about your business,” she said, dismissing the changeling from her presence, if not from her mind.
Chapter Four
The bodyguards showed Kormak into the king’s study. Portraits of the royal family stared down from the walls. Racks of scrolls and cabinets full of books hugged the walls. A large table dominated the centre of the room. On it sat a chessboard with pieces made of gold and silver. King Aemon stood beside it, garbed in a simple monk’s robe. A pitcher of water mixed with wine sat on the table, along with two crystal goblets. Aemon leant on the table studying the position on the board. It looked like a game was already well under way.
There were no servants, and the bodyguards withdrew. Kormak watched them go. It made him wary. In his experience, kings rarely spoke in private with the likes of him, and never without bodyguards. Aemon was a powerful mage, but he must know that a guardian could kill any mage at such close range. Maybe the king was making a statement of trust, or maybe he was just as mad as some people suspected.
“Have you made up your mind about my request, Sir Kormak?” Aemon asked.
“I will go to Terra Nova on your behalf, your majesty. The matter of the sarcophagus must be investigated.”
Aemon looked up from the game and measured out his thin smile. “That pleases me, Sir Kormak.”
“But it does not surprise you, Sire.”
“No, it does not. I knew you would find the right path.”
“That’s one way of looking at things.”
“There are usually many ways of looking at something, Sir Kormak. Most people can find one they agree on, given time.”
“There are some things I will need to aid me in my investigation.”
“Name them.”
“I will need your authority to investigate in any way I please, and help from any of your officials I encounter.”
“Naturally. All cooperation will be given.”
“I need your permission to follow this investigation no matter where it may lead, no matter who it incriminates.”
Aemon turned that over in his mind. He was aware that such an investigation might have consequences that might prove uncomfortable. He said, “I would expect nothing less.”
“And I want Captain Rhiana to accompany me. She has proven useful in the past. She can sense the Old Ones and the use of power, and she can look after herself.”
“She is free to accompany you if she wishes.”
Aemon looked up at the portrait of King Varlan. It sneered down at him. He noticed Kormak watching him, and rubbed his eyebrow with his left hand.
“I hated my father,” Aemon said. “He was a gross brute who ran the kingdom into debt to pay for his pleasures. He broke my mother’s heart and very near led Siderea to ruin. He took out his temper on any who were within his reach. All his rages were justified. At least to him.”
He paused, looked at Kormak sidelong. “Does that surprise you, Sir Kormak? How unfilial I am?”
Kormak shook his head. “Very little surprises me these days, your majesty.”
Aemon nodded and gave his attention back to the chessboard. He moved a knight towards the centre, got up and walked around the table, and sat on the other side of the board. “I vowed I would be nothing like him. And I have done my best to keep that vow.”
“I believe you, your majesty.”
Aemon leant forward, squinted down at the rows of silver pieces. He reached out to move a prelate, then pulled his hand back. “Did you hate your father?”
“I barely knew him. He died when I was eight years old.”
“Killed by the Old One Adath Decurion, the so-called Prince of Dragons,” Aemon said, almost to himself. He reached out and moved the prelate, decisively this time. He glanced at Kormak and said, “Oh yes. I know all about it. My intelligencers would hardly be worth the gold I pay them if I did not.”
“Yes, killed by an Old One, your majesty.”
“And you don’t remember him?”
“He was a big man, black-haired. A blacksmith.”
“That is a position of some significance in Aquilea, is it not? Maker of weapons, shaper of iron, brander of runes and so on.”
“As you say, your majesty. He was a brave man. He died trying to save me from the Old One.”
“And the Old One spared you. How curious!” Kormak sensed that the king wa
s trying to provoke, and he could not work out why. He refused to rise to the bait.
“Only so I could bear the word of what he had done to others. He claimed he would come back for me another day. He had done such things before, many times, over the centuries.”
“And that made you the man you are today. It has driven you to kill more Old Ones than any other Guardian in history.”
“Has it, your majesty?”
Aemon got out of the chair, walked around the board again, studied it from many angles. He tucked his hand under his chin, stroked his mousy beard, looked up at the portrait of his father again. “You do not like me, do you, Sir Kormak?”
Kormak kept his mouth shut.
“You don’t deny it. Good. You dislike me and you dislike my brother. You think I am a pious-sounding hypocrite. You think Taran is a vain and angry man who likes to dominate others.”
Kormak simply looked at the king, wondering where all this was leading.
“You are correct,” the king said. He flexed his fingers, placed his hands on either side of his nose and rubbed it. “On all counts.”
He gave a short high-pitched titter, reached out and moved a rook to take a pawn. “And now you are wondering why I am telling you this.”
Kormak remained silent. Aemon walked around the board again, studied the gold pieces as he would study those of an adversary. “Do you play chess, Sir Kormak?”
“I know the rules.”
“I used to play for pleasure when I was a youth. I was rather good too. I won more often than I lost. Now I never lose—do you know why that is?”
“Because you play against yourself.”
This time, there was real mirth in the king’s voice. He looked much younger. When he spoke, he sounded pleased. “Very good, Sir Kormak. But I meant when I play against others.”
“Because you are king.”
Aemon slammed a piece down on an ivory square. The sound echoed through the room. “Precisely. Because I am king. There comes a time in every game—when I am playing against someone—when I can see them make the decision to lose, even if they could win. You know why people do it?”