Banner of the Damned

by Sherwood Smith

  “Warriors ride into battle knowing that they may have to kill someone. Knowing that their own lives are at risk. War is a different moral paradigm.”

  “There is nothing moral about it.”

  “Emras, look again at the map. Listen to what you were told. Perideth intends to make war against Marloven Hesea. Ivandred is sworn to protect his people, and the only means he has to do so is to meet violence with violence.”

  My throat had closed. The Herskalt touched my arm and shifted us by transfer. Once again it was painless, as effortless as stepping from one room to another. I looked around the Darchelde chamber, blinking tears from my eyes—tears that stung the worse because of the dust on my face from my day of labor on the wards.

  I clasped my hands, determined to get control. “I find it so difficult to believe. Is this King of Perideth so different from other humans that he will not negotiate, he cannot understand that people in other countries have the right to live in peace? Is he no respecter of laws? How do they function in Perideth with no laws?”

  “He is using war to gain an end. War is a form of human endeavor. The protection of law cannot exist until Ivandred controls the threat of violence.”

  “True.”

  “Further, you have to admit that war creates no new situation. It simply worsens the strife that is already there. One of the ugly truths about the human condition is how close we are to strife at any given moment.”

  I wiped my eyes, my voice unsteady. “It does not help when strife is consistently seen as glory and honor.”

  The Herskalt said gently, “It’s bearable—just—if they know that their families will mount their weapons on walls for future generations to venerate, that there will be songs with all their names. Emras, Ivandred knew that you could not bring yourself to give him spells that would supplement fighting tactics. He took the responsibility for altering those spells himself.”

  I was about to point out, with all the bitterness in my soul, that I would be responsible, that I would be condemned for that magic, but I did not. My reputation was not the important matter here, and I had to accept my part of the blame—if anyone would blame me besides Lasva. The Marlovens were far more likely to heap praise on my head, while avoiding contact with my person.

  The Herskalt said, “Ivandred reached them in two weeks. It was an astonishing ride, the more because, tired as they were, they ran straight into battle, Ivandred every step of the way with them.”

  I made the shadow ward. Someone else could admire this martial expertise, but I could not.

  The Herskalt said, “The First Lancers took the advance force utterly by surprise. This was in part due to your road spells, which struck snow out of the way, and in part due to their constant drill. Would you condemn yourself for the road clearing spell?”

  “I condemn war,” I said.

  “This attack appears to be bringing about a peace negotiation far earlier than Ivandred had hoped,” the Herskalt said. “He had foreseen a long, grim winter of chasing down the disparate Perideth attack teams one by one. Have you ever seen this kind of search? What happened today—yesterday—was on the field of battle, between people who had, at least in some part, chosen to be there. Emras, you will have to come to terms with the darkness in our natures. Surely you have been seeing that in your dyr studies.”

  I had no answer to that. I would have argued, but he said, “I am afraid I have to return to my own duties. I owed Ivandred that much time, but I can spare no more at present.” He faded through the wall again, leaving me alone.

  I stared at the Fox memoir on the table, unable to form a coherent thought. Possibly because I was so overwhelmed, my mind reached past the recent horror to the problem I’d been struggling with before Lasva’s appearance: the vexing structure of the tenth level. As I stared at that manuscript, it gradually dawned on me that this Fox had written the memoir around the time that tenth layer had been put over the castle.

  The Marlovens had been ignorant about magic, that much I’d gathered. I knew that many monarchs hired mages for important spells, on the understanding that they would perform their spells and then promptly leave.

  But this tenth hand was so different from those who had formed the previous nine layers, what if I might find a name, or even a hint, in the Fox record?

  I think it was no more than desperation to escape the inescapable that I reached for the top page of the pile that I’d been ignoring for several years. Once again I commenced reading. But this time, I forced my way determinedly past the detailed account of Inda the Elgar’s early life in search of any words about magic.

  I did not transfer back to the royal castle until my head was sodden with exhaustion, my body aching from the base of my spine to my skull. It was the only way I could hope to get some sleep; I was afraid to lie in bed with my mind lurching and spinning around my errors, the consequences of my magical studies, and how could I not have foreseen what Ivandred would do with my spells?

  As soon as I lit a glow-globe in the always gloomy main chamber, there was a sound from without the double doors. A tall guardswoman opened the door. “I was instructed to inform the gunvaer as soon as you returned,” she said, pointing to the light.

  “Which watch are we in?”

  The woman glanced at me in muted surprise. “Sunset watch change half a glass ago.”

  I’d read all night and most of the day, then. No wonder I felt as if I’d fallen from a roof. Or had transferred four times since the last time I’d slept.

  She stepped aside in a manner that made it clear I was to go, just as I was. So I forced myself to follow her to the queen’s suite, which seemed an intolerable distance. Glances and whispers relayed ahead of us, and Lasva came scudding out of her chambers to meet us in the staff room. “Emras, you are back at last! Where did you go? Never mind. About your magical affairs, I am certain. Come. Let me show you.”

  She led me to her own room and pointed at a battered carved trunk. The usual Marloven symbols decorated it, unevenly made. But when I saw a row of notches along the top, chills rung through my nerves.

  “Gdan sent it to me,” Lasva said. “In thanks. Did you know that Ivandred agreed to a treaty? That is, the people from Perideth are to withdraw beyond Totha’s border. The First Lancers will ride through and see them gone, but there is to be no fighting if the retreat is orderly. Oh, my dear, apparently there were more of them than anyone thought. Far more. Before I transferred back here—Ivandred gave me one of his tokens—Gdan gave me this. You haven’t read Hadand’s letters, so you won’t understand who Tdor Marth-Davan was, but—”

  “I do know,” I said, staring down. “She was Inda Elgar’s jarlan.” Some of Fox’s record was written from Tdor’s own view.

  “This trunk is four hundred years old,” Lasva said. “Sent back to the Algaravairs from Enaeran. It is regarded by the Tothans as a treasure.”

  I scarcely heard her, because I was staring at that chest while thinking. How could I not have seen? Those memories written so vividly from inside the minds and hearts of people Fox had never met: someone—either Fox or someone he interviewed—had a dyr.

  FIVE

  OF SWORDS AND THE ABSENCE OF CATS

  A

  s winter passed, Lasva wrote ceaselessly to the jarlans in her effort to weave her net of peace among the women. I made a conscious effort to involve myself more in others’ lives, though the cost was a reminder of why I’d gradually withdrawn. I did not know half the names in local gossip; I was not amused by the interminable anecdotes about what little Prince Kendred said and did. Everyone smiled on his noisy antics, and Lasva—if she was present—praised him and kissed him before he ran out again, to my great relief. Pelis had finished the tapestry, which was duly borne off and hung in the antechamber outside the throne room. She then got the idea to begin another one as a surprise for Lasva, so she talked about it only when Lasva was busy elsewhere. Pelis, still homesick, was inspired to make it a Colendi tapestry—completely forgettin
g, or ignoring, all Lasva’s reasoning for making the Marloven-styled one. After all that I had seen with the dyr, I knew why reminders of home pained her. But how could I explain, and not open myself to questions that might lead to Kaidas?

  I tried. “Have you noticed that Lasva does not have any cats?”

  “Cats?” Nifta repeated—for she was there, a rarity these days. She traveled a great deal, seeing to the burgeoning silk trade.

  “Cats?” Pelis said, hands up. “She hasn’t cats because she has a child now.”

  “I would love to see a tapestry with the rose garden, seen from the Grand Skya Canal,” Anhar said, to which Pelis and Nifta at first agreed, but soon began to amend to include other symbols of Colend, and I gave up.

  Before a month had passed, I found reasons to make my visits to the gunvaer’s suite shorter and shorter… until I began skipping days. I divided myself between the wards, the Fox memoir, and the dyr.

  All three had become inextricably entwined. In the Fox memoir I found the mage—a Venn named Signi Sofar. Her magic was layered so evenly that the “draw” from magic’s pool of potential was minimal. Her skill was such that it took me a long time to perceive just how very complex her structure was.

  It also gave me clues to the magework beneath, which was different yet again. Far older: the layers beneath were not separated by a generation or two, as the previous had been, but a century apart, maybe more. And this work, in turn, led me to experiment with the dyr. I proceeded very carefully, for the spells binding it were so powerful I could feel the brush of them against my bones if I stretched my hand just above the object—I did not dare to touch it. I wrote down those spells, one by one.

  I don’t think I would have dared to try what I did next, had I not still carried a residue of anger against Ivandred, underscored by anxiety that he would use magic in war again. I’d been trying with little success to see Ivandred through the dyr. I knew he was not warded against transfer, and the Herskalt had helped me to see from Ivandred’s eyes the first time we used the dyr. But for some reason it was extraordinarily difficult to glimpse much from his perspective for very long, and most of that was about Lasva or his journey across the continent—and there, Macael Elsarion’s perspective was far easier.

  Then there was shifting in time. One stormy day I dared the two-fingered gesture that I’d seen the Herskalt perform. I was amazed when the wall vanished, and there was the garden. Why not experiment?

  I picked up the porcelain bowl, careful not to touch the dyr, stepped into the garden, and reproduced the Herskalt’s gestures. I finished with Kivic’s memories until his death, then moved back in time to Torsu. Knowing what would happen to her—and its swiftness, catching her by surprise—was rendered easier to bear by her contempt for me and for the rest of Lasva’s staff.

  Because those memories were so easy to call up and see, without the usual physical cost, I experimented further. Where in the world was this garden? I tried several spells, all of which were warded in such a way that I got this disturbing sense of the unseen walls and ceiling silently closing in on me. The fact that the timeless garden, with its lack of direct sun (and its absence of shadows) showed no change was even more disturbing. I became aware that I was breathing through my mouth, my skin was clammy, and my shoulder blades itched unbearably; in haste I made the access gesture, stepped into the Darchelde chamber, set the bowl down, and stood there trembling.

  “How can this be?” Marnda’s voice was shrill with distress.

  I had avoided the staff room for several days. In spite of the fact that the next day would be Kendred’s Name Day (which would of course provide the content of the day’s conversation) I was determined to keep my promise to myself. I walked over there at Daybreak to discover the Colendi gathered in a knot. None of the Marlovens were present.

  “How can he do that?” Marnda exclaimed.

  Lasva entered through her door a moment after my entrance. The Colendi all whirled around, and eight years of exile among Marlovens could not prevent any of us from making the profound court bow to Lasva.

  Lasva did not pretend she had not heard us. “The king has decided to start Kendred at the academy earlier than is customary,” she said, her hands pressed tightly together. “He has explained his reasoning: there is so much for a future king to learn. Kendred must begin early on the purely physical training, so that he is accepted as a leader by his future captains. And when they are refining their training, he will be learning statecraft.”

  She used the future-must-be mode in Kifelian, which prompted another full court bow. Now there could be no more public discussion, though of course the staff would continue to opine and wonder in private.

  Lasva sat down to join us and, into the silence, requested Anhar to read us some poetry.

  After the meal, everyone went about their duties in a suitably chastened mood. Lasva put out her hand to stop me. “I get the sense that there is something missing. You know they will not talk about what happens. But Ivandred… ah-ye, I can feel his… ambivalence. When I asked, he said that Kendred must begin early, because one of the things he would have to study would be magic. With you.”

  Back came all my feelings of resentment and betrayal. There was no use in declaring to Lasva that I would not teach the boy war magic. As I’d read in the Fox memoir, once evil magic was used, it was difficult to suppress short of killing everyone who knew it.

  And that was another problem. As I walked back to my tower, I reflected again on those deceptively easy labels, light magic and dark magic. The definitions were too facile to mean much. Dark magic spent magic, yes. But the most benign spell, sloppily performed, could spend magic. So did that change it from light to dark? Or was darkness a question of evil intent? Transferring stones into the hearts of enemies, as those Venn mages did in the Fox memoir—definitely dark magic. But my Rock spell, so small, meant to sting and not to kill, I would have characterized that as light magic. Yet Ivandred had magnified that same spell. At what point did it change to dark magic? And did that make him a Norsundrian?

  I knew he was not a Norsundrian. I had seen enough of his memories to grasp that his entire life was dedicated to his kingdom. Lasva was second in importance, and his son came close after. This was not an evil man, but he had done an evil thing. Yet he did not believe it to be evil. He was convinced he had done right, according to military strategy, and to his oaths.

  So I transferred to Darchelde, picked up the porcelain bowl, made the transfer to the garden. I would not attempt any ward magic. I meant to focus the dyr on the current moment, though hitherto it had always been memories. I would proceed with caution—and choose a first host who was unlikely to notice anything amiss, if the magic somehow obtruded itself into notice. Someone I knew but with whom I had no affinity. Who better than a child? I chose Kendred for my first experiment.

  Again, it was extraordinarily easy. I looked up through Kendred’s eyes at Ivandred, full of love, a little awe, and a little impatient. “I know, Da. They been telling me all week, tonight we will have my Name Day, and tomorrow, when it’s my real Name Day, I get to go through the gate.”

  Ivandred looked away, then back at his son. “You don’t know what it means, to go through the gate.”

  “But I get to find out tomorrow.” Kendred hopped from toe to toe. “Cam and me, we’re going up to the shooting range after my riding lesson, ’cause the captain said he’d let me pull his bow, if…”

  Ivandred looked around again, then knelt and put his hands on Kendred’s shoulders. His strong grip held “me” steady. Kendred’s impatience turned to question. “Da?”

  “Remember what I tell you, son. We all went through it. And we survived. Will you remember that?”

  Kendred spoke in a scoffing voice, but his fear knotted in my middle. “The big boys said they beat you up and throw you in the dungeon. But that’s just stupid. They can’t do that to me. I’m going to be king.”

  “The big boys who have never been through
the gate are stupid to talk about something they don’t know,” Ivandred said. “Your mother wanted you to learn her ways. They are good ways in her country. But you are Marloven. Yes, you are going to be a king, and that means you don’t defend just yourself, you defend the kingdom.”

  Kendred recovered a little of his bravado and said stoutly, “I know. I have to be the best. Everyone tells me that. And I will try, I promise, Da.”

  Ivandred bent down, kissed the boy on his forehead then walked away. Kendred did not spare his father a thought. The impatience was back, impelling him to run his fastest to the stable as he thought about bows, arrows, and some other children whose images flickered through his mind and whose names I did not try to catch.

  That night, I attended Kendred’s party in the queen’s rooms. All his friends were there; sturdy castle children whose parents were guards or artisans. From their talk, they were all war-mad. One solid little girl was deferred to because she could already pull a bow and hit the center of the target at fifty paces. The children teased Kendred with the freedom that no court child would have had in Colend, and several expressed envy because they knew they would never get chosen to go through the gate.

  Since my experiment had been successful (leaving me wondering if I had managed to learn something that the Herskalt did not know) I was curious enough to return the next morning. I had taken my place in the garden, the dyr bowl on my lap, as Kendred walked down to the castle and through the mossy stone archway between the great hall and the throne room, to the tall gate beyond which lay the mysterious Academy. He shivered with excitement, a little fear, and some impatience as he tried to tug his fingers free from Marnda’s tight grip. But she held on. At his right, his mother walked, her hand warm and gentle on his fingers, her thumb caressing the top of his hand.