What if he stands in front of the Scepter of Mercy, sets his hand on it – and up it comes? That was Lanius'… oh, not quite nightmare, but worry. If the Scepter judged Ortalis worthy of being King of Avornis, Lanius knew he would have to do the same, as he'd said he would.
And then his long, slow, patient, often painful task would have to start all over again. He'd needed years to win back even a fraction of the kingship from Grus. Would he have to begin anew with Ortalis, who would probably be even more suspicious of him than Grus had been? Could he steal out of the shadows an inch at a time again?
Grus in the Maze! Grus in a monastery! Lanius tried to imagine that, but the picture didn't want to form in his mind. Grus was made for giving orders. If he was suddenly made into a monk, he'd have to take them instead. How would he like that? Would he be able to do it at all? Lanius had a hard time believing it.
He wondered if he ought to tell Ortalis about How to Be a King. He shrugged. If the Scepter accepts him, maybe I will. Ortalis could use a book about how to rule Avornis. Lanius thought Sosia was right – her brother had no idea on his own. But would he care to look at it, or would he only laugh?
Ortalis, from what Lanius had seen, got few ideas of any kind on his own. The ones he did have often involved hurting people or beasts. How had he pulled off such a neat, smooth usurpation? It was almost as though he'd had someone else, someone competent, whispering in his ear all the way through it.
"Your Majesty," the Voice whispered. King Ortalis had liked hearing that from his subjects the past few days. He liked just about everything about being king – he'd especially liked sending his father to the Maze. But most of all, he thought, he liked hearing the Voice acclaim him.
As always, what he saw in these dreams was better than what he saw in real life. The sky was bluer. The sun was brighter. The air smelled sweeter. The land was greener. And, in these dreams, the Voice told him what a wonderful fellow he was. And when the Voice told him something, he had to believe it, because how could a Voice like that lie?
"Your Majesty," it whispered again, caressingly. "You see, Your Majesty? Everything went just the way you hoped it would."
"Yes," Ortalis murmured. "Oh, yes." He wriggled with pleasure. Nothing compared to this, not even taking the lash in his hands.
The voice might have said, Everything went just the way I told you it would. That would have been as true. Without the Voice urging him on, Ortalis never would have had the nerve to move against his father. The price for failure was too high. And he would have failed; he could feel it. He wasn't very able most of the time, and was miserably aware of it. But with the Voice behind him, with the Voice seeing things he missed, he hadn't made a single mistake. And so he was King of Avornis, and his father was… a monk. Good riddance, too!
"Now all I need to do is take care of the stupid Scepter, and then I'll be king for – a long, long time," he said happily. He'd almost said, for the rest of my life, but he didn't want to think about life ending. He wanted to think about doing what he wanted, and about making everybody else do what he wanted.
He wondered which he would enjoy more. Both, he thought, and wriggled again.
"Take care of… the Scepter?" the Voice asked after a longer pause than usual. Maybe Ortalis was imagining things (well, of course Ortalis was imagining things – this was a dream, wasn't it?), but it didn't seem quite as smooth as usual.
"That's right," Ortalis said. "It's nothing, really. I've got to keep Lanius happy, that's all. He can pick up the stinking thing, and my miserable excuse for a father could pick up the stinking thing, so now I'll pick up the stinking thing, too, and then I'll go on doing what I was going to do anyway."
"You – agreed – to this with Lanius?" No, the Voice didn't sound smooth anymore. It didn't sound happy, either. If Ortalis hadn't known better, he would have said it sounded angry and disgusted.
He nodded even so, or his dream-self did. "Sure. Why not?" he said. "One more stupid thing to take care of, that's all."
Suddenly, the sun in his dreamscape wasn't just bright. It was too bright. The sky was still blue – as blue as a bruise. The leaves on the trees remained green – the green of rotting meat. The air smelled of carrion, and carrion birds flew through it – toward Ortalis.
"You fool!" the Voice cried thunderously. "You idiot! You imbecile! You ass! Better to kill Lanius, better to slaughter him, than to play his games!"
"But everybody expects it now," Ortalis protested. Trying to tell the Voice something it didn't want to hear was much tougher than going along with everything it said. He did his best to gather himself. "Don't worry. I can do it."
"Lanius tricked you – that cowardly wretch," the Voice growled. "Better, far better, you should have slain him when you pushed aside your father."
"I don't think so," Ortalis said. "His family's given Avornis kings for a long time. There'd be trouble – big trouble – if I knocked him off. Even my old man never had the nerve to do that."
He made the Voice backtrack. He never understood what a rare achievement that was. "All right," it said grudgingly. " All right. If you must be soft, then I suppose you must. I thought you would have enjoyed the killing, but if not, not. Still, you would have done better to send him to the Maze along with Grus."
"Maybe," Ortalis said, not believing it for a minute. Lanius in the palace could be a puppet, but he was still visibly king. That was how Grus had worked things. Ortalis' father could go to the Maze and stop being king without having too many people pitch a fit. He was only a usurper himself, if a highly successful one. But if Lanius went into exile.. Riots didn't come to the city of Avornis very often. Ortalis wasn't sure enough soldiers would go on backing him to keep him safe if people rioted for Lanius.
The Voice sighed a heavy sigh. The dream-landscape around Ortalis came back toward what it had been – but not quite far enough back. Nor was the Voice back to its usual smooth self when it said, "I suppose we shall just have to hope for the best – but oh, what a feckless fool you are!"
Ortalis woke with a start, with his eyes staring, with his heart pounding, with cold sweat all over his body. His father had awakened like that – just like that – a good many times. So had his brother-in-law. Either of them could have told Ortalis exactly why he felt the way he did, exactly what – or rather, whom – he'd been confronting. They could have, yes, but he'd sent the one away and estranged the other. He had to try to figure things out on his own – but he, unlike Lanius, had never been much good at figuring things out.
Limosa stirred beside him. "What's the matter?" she asked muzzily.
"It's nothing. Go back to sleep. Sorry I bothered you," Ortalis answered. "I – I had a bad dream, that's all."
That wasn't all, and he knew it. What he didn't know was how many times his father had told his mother the same things, and how many times his brother-in-law had told his sister. He didn't know they'd been lying each and every time, either. He did know, and know full well, he was lying now.
"Poor dear,'' Limosa muttered, then started to snore again.
Ortalis lay awake a long, long time. Eventually, though, he fell asleep once more, too – a small miracle, though he also did not know that. What he did know when he woke was that the world around him looked better than it had for some time. He had a less highly colored memory now of the country of his dreams.
He drank several cups of wine with breakfast – to fortify myself he thought. Limosa beamed at him. He looked away. He didn't feel like being beamed at, not this morning. After he lifted the Scepter of Mercy, after he held it in his hand, after he showed Lanius and his father (though his father wouldn't be there to see it)… And after I show the Voice, he thought. The Voice, after all, had found him imperfectly wonderful. Therefore he found it imperfectly wonderful as well, and much in need of showing.
His followers – he would not think, let alone say, such a vulgarism as henchmen – were among the officers gathered around the Scepter. They all looked confident. And h
ere came Lanius. Ortalis wondered if he should have Serinus and Gygis and the rest of his – his followers – pack Lanius off to a monastery after the Scepter was his. Maybe the Voice hadn't had such a bad idea there after all.
"Well," Ortalis said lightly, "let's get it over with." No one else even smiled. Other people were much more serious about this… this folderol than he was. It was all foolishness and a waste of time. Ortalis knew that. If his somber subjects didn't, he'd show them by
…
He set his right hand on the Scepter of Mercy. It felt like ordinary metal under his hand – cool and hard, but warming rapidly to his touch. He lifted – or rather, he tried to lift. The Scepter might have held the weight of the world. Ortalis tried to lift again – and, grunting with effort, failed again. Strain as he would, the Scepter of Mercy refused to budge.
"It will not accept him," an officer – one of his men – said, even as he strained. All the guardsmen, even Serinus and Gygis, turned to Lanius and bowed very low. "Your Majesty!" they chorused.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Lanius had been crowned when he was still a little boy. Now, at last, he truly was King of Avornis. No one could tell him what to do, and there were no rival candidates. Ortalis had eliminated the last two, though he'd intended to take out only one.
"Your Majesty!" The officers wasted no time acknowledging him. Serinus, who'd been strongest for Ortalis, bowed almost double. "How may we serve you, Your Majesty?"
"I think you had better lay hold of my brother-in-law," Lanius said reluctantly. They did, not without a scuffle. Lanius eyed his brother-in-law with bemusement. "What shall I do with you?"
Ortalis' reply was colorful but not altogether relevant. Even some of the guardsmen, who used obscenity as a bad cook used salt – too much, and without even thinking about it – seemed impressed. Lanius knew he heard words and combinations he'd never run into before. He tried to remember some of the better ones in case he ever needed them.
When Ortalis ran dry at last – it took a while – Lanius said, "I know what seems fitting. I am going to send you to a monastery, the same way you sent your father to one."
He rapidly discovered Ortalis hadn't used up his store of bad language. Lanius marveled that the table and other fixtures in the Scepter's room didn't catch fire. "And your stinking horse, too!" Ortalis roared.
"That will be enough of that," Lanius said. "Take him to his bedchamber and confine him there."
"Yes, Your Majesty," the guards officers said, and they did. Lanius watched to make sure men he was confident were loyal to him outnumbered the officers who'd cozied up to Ortalis over the past few months. He didn't want his brother-in-law spirited out of the palace, out of the city of Avornis, so he could cause more trouble.
A couple of minutes later, a woman's screams erupted from the direction of the bedchamber. Lanius sighed. Limosa must have discovered that her husband had had what Lanius thought to be the shortest reign in the history of Avornis. He recalled there had once been an arch-hallow who died of joy on learning of his promotion, but no king had ever ruled for only a handful of days.
"How may we serve you, Your Majesty?" asked one of the officers still standing near the Scepter of Mercy.
After a moment's thought, Lanius answered, "Summon Hirundo and Pterocles to the throne room. I will meet them there in half an hour." He paused again, then added, "Pick some soldiers you can rely on and confine Serinus and Gygis in a place where they can't escape and can't communicate with their closest comrades."
"Yes, Your Majesty!" Several officers saluted and dashed off to do Lanius' bidding. Was it just that they wanted to make sure to seem loyal? Or was it that, since he could handle the Scepter and Ortalis couldn't, no one doubted he was the only legitimate king? It looked that way to him.
The guards officers who hadn't raced away in one direction or another escorted Lanius to the throne room. Servants bowed or curtsied as they passed him. "Your Majesty!" they murmured. They sounded much more sincere than usual. Had news traveled so fast? One of them said, "Much better you than Ortalis, Your Majesty!" so evidently it had.
After Lanius sat on the Diamond Throne, the men in his escort bowed low. He wondered if they would knock their heads on the floor for him, the way supplicants were said to do at the courts of some of the Menteshe princes. To his relief, they didn't.
Hirundo reached the throne room before Pterocles. He too bowed himself double before Lanius. "Your Majesty!" the general said, and then, "Am I to understand you're His only Majesty right this minute?"
"So it would seem," Lanius answered. "How does that sit with you?"
He tried not to show that he worried about the answer. Hirundo was popular with the soldiers. If he wanted a crown for himself, he had a real chance of taking it. But he said, "Suits me fine. I've always been loyal to the dynasty, and I don't aim to quit now."
"Good. Thank you," Lanius said.
"So Ortalis couldn't make the Scepter work for him, eh?" Hirundo said, and shook his head without waiting for an answer. "Can't tell you I'm very surprised. Never a whole lot of what you'd call mercy in him."
"No, I'm afraid not," Lanius agreed.
"What happens next?" Hirundo asked. "Are you going to bring Grus out of the Maze?"
"I… don't know." Lanius had wondered about that, too. He was saved from saying more when Pterocles came up to the throne and bowed to him. He nodded to the wizard. "Ah. Here you are."
"Here I am indeed, Your Majesty." Pterocles bowed again. "Very much at your service, I might add. I've tried to stay out of the way the past few days – "
"So have I, as a matter of fact," Hirundo broke in. "Wasn't so much worried about Ortalis, you understand, as I was about some of the young pups who ran with him. They might have wanted to see if they could bite an old hound's backside, and he wouldn't have told 'em it wasn't a good idea…"
"No," Lanius said. "I don't suppose he would."
"But the wizard's right," Hirundo said. "We are at your service, Your Majesty. Better yours – much better yours – than his." He did not name Ortalis, not this time, but then, he had no need to.
"Much better yours," Pterocles agreed. "I wondered if the Scepter would put up with him. Since it didn't.. well, that says everything that needs saying, doesn't it?"
"Everyone thinks so," Lanius said. "I don't think we'll ever see another king who can't pick it up." Had that been so before the Menteshe seized the Scepter? He couldn't remember reading anything in the archives that said it had. But then, would birds have written in detail of the air through which they flew? The chroniclers of bygone days must have felt the same about the Scepter of Mercy. Why go on about what everybody already knew?
Sounding apologetic for being so persistent, Hirundo asked, "Uh, Your Majesty, what are you going to do about Grus?"
At almost the same instant, Pterocles asked, "What are you going to do about Ortalis, Your Majesty?"
"I don't have to make up my mind about Grus right away," Lanius answered, and he knew more than a little relief when both the general and the wizard nodded with him. He went on, "I know exactly what to do with Ortalis, though.."
Ortalis slumped against the side of a boat. He would have said there were few worse postures in which to fall asleep – and he would have been right. But when exhaustion pressed, posture mattered less than he would have imagined possible. And so, despite the awkward position, despite the musty smells of the Maze all around him – and some of those smells worse than merely musty, too – sleep he did.
No sooner had he fallen asleep than he also fell into a dream. It was, he saw at once, one of those dreams, the dreams that seemed brighter, realer, truer than mere mundane reality. This dream, unlike the ones that had gone before, did not paint a whole world. No, all he saw was a face.
But what a face! – inhumanly calm, inhumanly cold, inhumanly beautiful. And the voice that came from the face was the Voice that had urged him on to the kingship… for a little while. "You failed me," the Vo
ice said.
Instead of warming Ortalis, praising him, pushing him to do great things, the Voice made him feel even smaller, even worse, than he had before. "It's not my fault," he whined. "I did the best I could."
The Voice laughed, a sound like a lash of ice. "Yes, and that was our great mistake."
"What do you mean? What are you talking about?" Ortalis demanded.
"The best you could do – the best you could do – was not very good," the Voice said, still laughing that wounding laugh. "It was not good enough to satisfy the stinking Scepter, was it?"
"No." Ortalis didn't want to admit it, but what choice did he have? Failing had been bad enough. Failing with Lanius there to watch him do it was ten times worse. His miserable slug of a brother-in-law
… Yet the Scepter of Mercy that refused him accepted Lanius without a qualm. Savagely, Ortalis said, "I should have killed that scrawny bastard while I had the chance!"
"Oh, now you see wisdom!" The Voice's sarcasm flayed worse than its laughter. "I suggested this, you will recall, but you did not care to hear me then. Oh, no. You were too good to hear me then. Too good, yes, but not good enough. I told you you would not be. Your best was not good enough, and never will be. Otherwise, I would not have been interested in you. But if you had done your worst, your very worst, you likely would still be King of Avornis today."
"I see it," Ortalis said miserably. "I see everything."
"I told your father his successor would not be able to lift the Scepter," the Voice said. "I told him, but he called me liar. Well, he has gotten what he deserves, and now you are getting what you deserve. I daresay he will have something sharp to tell you when you follow him into that selfsame monastery."
"What?" Ortalis yelped. Lanius hadn't said anything about that when he sent Ortalis into the Maze – a monastery, yes, but not that one. Ortalis hadn't imagined Lanius could come up with such an ingenious and nasty revenge. "I'd do almost anything not to see my father again."
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