Crown of Vengeance dpt-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  To discover how the Elfling had managed to escape into death in the heart of the World Without Sun became King Virulan’s obsession. He gave Uralesse command of the Dark Guard and sent it forth to hunt—this time not for sport nor for food, but for knowledge.

  First Uralesse scoured the Goldengrass, and found it empty from the Winnowing Sea in the east to the shores of Graythunder Glairyrill. West of the Glairyrill, he found those creatures he was accustomed to find: Centaur and Minotaur, Bearward and Faun, Hippogriff and Aesalion and Gryphon. All of these were of the Silver, and to each of them had been given some spark of Light. Many of them had fanned that spark into magic, though no sorcery they possessed was so much as a guttering ember by comparison to that with which He Who Is had blessed His most glorious creation. The merest touch of the Endarkened had always been enough to drain their power to nothing.

  Uralesse went next to the cities and great castels of the Teeth of the Moon, and found them deserted, crumbling away to dust.

  There were no answers there. And so he sought his answers in the only place that remained.

  * * *

  The Elfling died in silence. Every scream, every whimper, every tear had been taken from him during the moonturns of his agony. Uralesse gazed into the sightless eyes, already clouding in death.

  He was no closer to an answer.

  He had discovered the silver cord that linked the Elven spellcrafters to the source of their power. He had traced that cord back to its wellspring, summoned Lesser Endarkened to the World Above and drove them with whips and threats into each one. Sometimes the Lesser Endarkened died. Sometimes the Flower Forest died. Uralesse was no closer to the answer King Virulan had demanded of him. That the Elflings wielded any magic at all was nothing more than a mockery of the Endarkened. Once the Elflings had possessed no magic. Then they did.

  Some unknown enemy challenged the inevitable victory of the Endarkened.

  * * *

  “We must attack now, my liege,” Uralesse said. “We are many and powerful. Surely victory will be ours.”

  “Do you say so, dear Uralesse?” King Virulan answered. “Then tell me this: who gave to the Elflings the sorcery that courses through their veins?”

  “It is but weak…” Uralesse said, daring to protest.

  “You do not answer me, my dear brother,” Virulan said. He cupped Uralesse’s face in his taloned hand caressingly—then clamped his hand tight, his talons shearing through scarlet flesh. Golden ichor welled over his fingers, his claws grated over bone and fang. Uralesse did not dare even to whimper in pain.

  Virulan released his grip with a shove that sent Uralesse sprawling to the blood-sanctified floor of the Heart of Darkness.

  “Find my answers,” Virulan said softly, beginning to lick his fingers clean.

  * * *

  Uralesse came no more to the Audience Chamber, nor was he to be found anywhere within the World Without Sun, and Virulan came to believe he had chosen exile over confession of failure. Virulan sought him in the Obsidian Mirror and discovered there were now places he could not see. It had been a long time—hundreds of centuries, as the Brightworlders reckoned time—since he had gazed into the Mirror, and now there were places of … blankness.

  A Brightworlder would have said they were dark, but there was no darkness to those who lived in the World Without Sun. The blankness spread, he discovered, from those places where the Elfling Mages drew their power. Some, Virulan’s sorcery permitted him to penetrate, allowing the Obsidian Mirror to show him vague and misty shadows. Others remained blank no matter his efforts.

  If Uralesse seeks to hide in such a place, that is nearly punishment enough, Virulan thought. But he cannot conceal himself in such stinking precincts forever. And when he emerges …

  Then Virulan would teach Uralesse the true cost of disappointing his king.

  But that was a pleasure he was willing to defer for a time, for there were other matters to concern him. The Endarkened continued to hunt the Elflings for sport, but now, the hunting parties began to report failure where they had once only boasted of success. They had become used to tracking their quarry by the stink of Brightworld sorcery flowing through its veins, for the stench was unmistakable and penetrating. But now, fewer and fewer of the Elvenkind reeked of magic. It was another change in creatures that already changed far too fast for Virulan’s taste. He distrusted it.

  And at last, Uralesse returned to Shadow Mountain.

  Virulan had him dragged to the foot of the Shadow Throne in iron chains heated red-hot by magic. The stink of Uralesse’s eternally burning eternally regenerating flesh was sweet incense in his nostrils.

  “You left me, my brother,” Virulan said, pouting. “You left me for a long time.”

  “I … sought to fulfill your command, my liege, my master, my king,” Uralesse answered, gasping with pain. “I have discovered what you seek. I have found that power which granted magic to the Elflings.”

  Virulan raised his lambent gaze from the sweet spectacle of Uralesse’s suffering, frowning in thought. There was no power in the universe as great as the power He Who Is had given to the Endarkened … but it was not any part of Virulan’s plans to provide his subjects with every sharp stick and large stone of the Brightworlders’ armory. He inspected the avidly curious expressions of his courtiers’ faces for a long moment before coming to a decision.

  “Leave us,” he commanded.

  His court obeyed him reluctantly. Uralesse was not the first of the Endarkened to be erased from existence by their king’s wrath, nor even the first of the Thirteen to suffer his fury. But Uralesse was surely the greatest of them to be brought low, and all the Endarkened wished to relish his pain and his punishment.

  “Now,” Virulan said, when they were alone. “Speak.”

  “I cannot—” Uralesse began, his words strangled by agony as a gesture from Virulan caused the chains to tighten around him, their heat kindling from red to orange. His skin split from the heat and the pressure; drops of golden ichor welled up to be charred to ash instantly. “I must— The Mirror! The Mirror!”

  Virulan permitted the chains to loosen, to cool. “What of the Mirror, my beloved?” he purred.

  “I must—I must show you,” Uralesse gasped. “In the Mirror! Then you will see—I have never betrayed you, my liege! My heart beats as yours, my only desire the scouring of the Bright World!”

  “Truly?” Virulan said, as if he had been suddenly convinced. He rose to his feet, and as he did, the chains loosened further and fell from Uralesse’s body. “Then let us go at once.”

  And if Uralesse’s information disappointed him, there was another chamber, beneath that of the Obsidian Mirror, that would be Uralesse’s last sight in the world of Time and Matter.

  * * *

  The Mirror Chamber was just as it had been in the long ago time when Virulan first forged it. Walls, ceiling, and floor were all of mirror-bright obsidian, so that even within its lightless compass, Virulan and Uralesse seemed to walk through an infinite realm, in which they, too, became infinite.

  Both brighter and darker than that which contained it was the Obsidian Mirror itself. It seemed to draw into its polished surface even the memory and possibility of light, radiating the breath of the Void as a forge might radiate heat.

  “It is … beautiful,” Uralesse said softly. He, like the rest of the Endarkened, had known of the Mirror—for Virulan made no secret of his greatest weapon—but until this moment, none save their king had been privileged to gaze upon it.

  “You have but to think of what you wish to see, and it will appear,” Virulan said proudly.

  “And so I shall, my master,” Uralesse vowed. He knew that to disappoint his liege here would mean his death; there would be no second chance to prove his loyalty. “But first I must tell you why I hid. It was not from you, my king. Never that. But from that which I knew to be my quarry. It took me a year of Bright World time to weave about me such spells as would utterly disguise my
true nature.”

  He saw King Virulan frown. A sorcery such as he had just described was unheard-of among the Endarkened. More to the point, it was unnecessary, for the Endarkened were the greatest sorcerers Above or Below.

  “It was needed,” he said quickly. “We had never suspected the existence of that which I came to hunt, for it always fled before we sensed it. Had we done so … we would have seen the source of Elfling Magery at once.”

  “Enough of your babble,” Virulan growled. “Show me—and then tell me why you did not slay it and bring me its body to prove your claim.”

  Uralesse bowed his head in quick submission. He turned to the Mirror and concentrated.

  The Bright World appeared. The whole sweep of it was held in the curve of the Obsidian Mirror, bounded by high crags to the north, burning desert to the south, trackless water on either side. Patches of numinous blankness dotted the image.

  “Some are Wardings,” Uralesse said. “Some are strongholds of the Light.”

  “Do not show me what I have already seen and tell me it is my answer,” Virulan said dangerously.

  “I do not, my king!” Uralesse protested. “Only, see—here—”

  The image changed, the patches of blankness vanishing as Uralesse focused on what he meant to show: a high meadow, where a waterfall spilled from the height into a crystal pool. The meadow was edged by dense forest, whose misty seeming showed it was a wellspring of the Light.

  From the edge of the forest, a Unicorn stepped.

  The Obsidian Mirror began to whine, as faintly as crystal, at what it was forced to display. A Brightworlder would have called it glorious, beauty incarnate. The two Endarkened did not. Virulan hissed, spreading his wings. Uralesse shuddered. In that instant, he knew his king had seen what he himself had seen: the Unicorn was not merely a creature of the Light. It was Light Incarnate.

  With every fiber of his being, Uralesse yearned to debase it.

  The Unicorn seemed to realize it was being watched. It threw up its head, and for an instant, gazed directly into the Obsidian Mirror.

  And in that moment, the Obsidian Mirror exploded.

  CHAPTER NINE

  FIRST BLOOD

  The Starry Hunt and the Starry Huntsman do not favor one cause, one army, over another. Make sacrifices and petitions for victory in their season, as is right, but know that the Hunt care only for honor and skill. The Hunt reward the valor of the Lords

  Komen

  with immortality and endless battle—but They do not choose the victor.

  —Arilcarion War-Maker,

  Of the Sword Road

  Rain became Flower. In a few sennights Sword Moon would mark the beginning of War Season, when the formal battles arranged among the War Princes moonturns and even decades before would be fought. Border raids began as soon as the weather could be trusted: trials of strength, sport for younger knights, the settling of old grudges and the foundation for new ones.

  The army of Ivrithir rode Oronviel’s borders, if not tirelessly, than at least dutifully and without complaint. By now the whispers Vieliessar had loosed by Nadalforo and her mercenary comrades had reached every intended ear: Come to Oronviel and swear to fight for her War Prince, and receive amnesty and sanctuary.

  The first who came sought fresh prey and easy victims, thinking they could slip across the border unnoticed and say to any who asked that they were Oronviel’s sworn knights. They did not reckon with troops of komen who rode the borders as diligently as foresters might walk their lords’ estates, nor did they expect to be greeted with sword and spear and bow at every farmstead.

  For that was another new thing Vieliessar had done in Oronviel. Nowhere in the Fortunate Lands were Farmholders or their tenants permitted possession of the sword and spear and bow. The sword was for a knight to carry to war. The spear and horseman’s bow were for knights and lords and princes to hunt with; the walking bow was for their foresters to clear their lands of beasts that would spoil their hunts. Farmholders might use the sling to take hares or birds and to frighten wolves, and use the cudgel and the stave for defense. To own or to wield a spear or a bow had brought harsh penalties. To possess a sword had meant death. And so those farmsteads which could not call upon a nearby manor and its knights for protection had been easy prey for raiders.

  No longer.

  She had set forth her proclamation in Woods Moon, knowing a knife could become a spear easily enough. Skill in bow and sword could not be granted by decree; it would be enough, she thought, that the weapons would no longer be forbidden. Gunedwaen had laughed, hearing her speak her thoughts, and told her she was wrong. Foresters, he said, who could slay a boar with one arrow loosed from the formidable walking bow, did not come from thin air, but from Farmhold families. Not only skill, but bows, were sown wider than she imagined, and as for swords … well, it was well known that any battlefield on which the fallen lay for more than a night or two would be found mysteriously bare of blades when the dead were gathered up.

  And so all who entered Oronviel seeking to prey upon its folk were slain or captured, and the prisoners were brought to the Great Keep, and those who could not swear truly under a Spell of Heart-Seeing that they meant to pledge fealty to Oronviel were slain, for Vieliessar would loose no more wolfsheads to plague her people.

  Those who swore truly swelled the numbers of those who inhabited her Battle City. Some had been komen in other domains and would fight for their new liege as they had fought for the old. Those who had not been, Vieliessar sought to train in a new way: as foot knights.

  As infantry.

  Their weapons would be the walking bow and a heavy pike-spear such as castel guardsmen carried. They would wear chain instead of plate, for foot knights could not be asked to bear the weight of a mounted knight’s armor through a long day of fighting. Such swords as they carried would be shorter than a mounted knight’s sword, to be used when pike and bow failed.

  Some called the presence of such lowborn warrior-candidates in Oronviel a burden and a curse. Vieliessar called it a blessing. She could not have taught her knights to become infantry. They would have needed to unlearn too much, and they would have thought fighting on foot to be a foolish and menial task. But she had offered arms to any who asked them—Farmholder, craftworker, or Landbond—and many of the mercenaries who flocked to Oronviel’s standard had learned their battle skills not as children, but as men and women grown. Her ex-mercenaries saw the advantage of a dismounted force, and her Commonfolk had nothing to unlearn.

  But even if she had wished to, Vieliessar could not spend all her time teaching her army new ways to fight. If her war for the High Kingship was to be won, it would not be won on the battlefield. It would be won because the people of Jer-a-kalaliel joined her freely. She had never planned to win by defeating or allying with the Ninety-and-Nine. She meant to win by drawing everyone else to her standard.

  When Vieliessar is High King there will be a Code of Peace. One justice for all, be they highborn or low, and all voices heard.

  When Vieliessar is High King, domain will not war with domain, for all domains will be one.

  When Vieliessar is High King, the Lightborn will not be taken from their families and hoarded as a glutton hoards grain. They will go where they will and do as they wish. Nor will any children be forced to the Sanctuary against their will.

  When Vieliessar is High King, lords will not steal from vassals, from craftworkers, from Landbonds—

  When Vieliessar is High King, any with skill may become a knight, or a weaver, or a smith—

  When Vieliessar is High King, any may own a horse, or a hound, or a sword—

  When Vieliessar is High King …

  The folk of Oronviel believed her—believed in her—because what she did as War Prince of Oronviel was exactly what she promised she would do as High King of the land entire. Her Lightborn were her greatest weapon in that secret war, for at least half of them came from Farmhold or Landbond families:

  And i
f her knights and lords were disappointed by the fact that they could no longer hang poachers as they wished—or beat their tenants for their amusement—they were reconciled by the knowledge that Oronviel would soon be going to war.

  * * *

  I wonder when my good cousins and fellow princes will notice I have stolen half their lands? Vieliessar mused. It was a whimsical thought, but a serious one as well. She’d cleared her domain and much of the domains it bordered of bandits. Half by patrols, half by recruiting those bandits to serve in her army. She’d sent her Lightborn to tend the people of the border steadings on both sides of her borders. And in truth, even if Harvest were to see the paying out of tithes, many of the folk of the border steadings would not be there to pay: a vast army needed wagons and animals to pull them, servants to cook food and pitch tents and saddle and unsaddle horses. Landbonds had many of the skills her army needed, so she encouraged them to leave their holdings and come to her.

  But if her strength and her victory lay in the commons, it did not mean she could neglect either her lords or her knights, for if she won through to peace when she sat upon the Unicorn Throne, she would fulfill the last of Amrethion’s promises to his future: the end of High House and Low. Equal justice for all meant not merely that there would no longer be great lords and lesser lords. It meant that none could be set above another: she changed little if she simply set those who were now low above those who were now high.

  Vieliessar thought idly of how different Oronviel now was from the other domains of the West. In the springtide the War Princes usually went on a progress, traveling with an escort large enough to protect them from treachery or attack. Bolecthindial Caerthalien had taken no less than five hundred of his Household knights when he rode out, but Vieliessar could ride from corner to corner of her own land alone, certain not she would not be attacked. She thought of the story she had so often been told in her childhood: And the knights of the High King’s meisne were all great kings, and each was as sweet-tempered as a sleeping babe, as loyal as a hunting hound, as beautiful as the Vilya in fruit and flower, as strong as the storms of winter, and pledged to care for all they met as ardently as the Silver Eagle tends her hatchling.