by Garon Whited
They held their salute. I returned their salute and they lowered their weapons, laid them on the floor, and stood to attention again. I strode up over the snout of the dragon throne, between the horns, and settled into place like a traditional dragon-rider.
I ruthlessly suppressed the sudden memory. Someone, sometime, had known about people who rode dragons. But that wasn’t something I wanted to focus on right then. Later. Probably much later.
Among the cadets there were few visible signs of the battle, aside from Beltar’s absence and a some dings around their armor. The magical signs of healing spells were visible, but those were the equivalent of red badges of courage. My own armor was mostly mended of its various scuffs, and Kavel had handed off the repairs to Galar, our new armorer. I expected a new bracer and gauntlet by the end of the day. As a result, I was missing my left arm’s armor, but I was otherwise looking rather formal, right down to the full cloak and sash.
In Rethven, ruling lords wore gold tassels; nobility who stood to inherit a title wore silver. Everyone else just wore red tassels, the same color as the sash. In Karvalen, the custom of wearing tassels at the end of the sash went out of style with the lack of noble families.
Mine are black.
What does that mean? I don’t know. I asked Tort and she just smiled and told me not to worry about it. For her, I can do that.
So I took my seat and told everyone to stand easy. They relaxed, mostly, but wondered silently why we were here.
I held up a sheathed sword, complete with scabbard, belt, and baldric. It was all loosely held together with a red sash. They knew, then, why we were here. A hush fell on the room, and I thought it had started out silent. Every eye in the room looked hungrily at the weapon. Sure, they all had swords taken from enemies in battle, but that wasn’t the same thing. That was why the weapons were lying on the floor, rather than sheathed at their sides.
“A knight,” I began, “has certain responsibilities, as well as certain liberties. He has the High Justice; he can mete out punishment or mercy in the pursuit of justice, and in accordance with the will of his King. In his life, he must comport himself in a manner that brings honor to his kingdom, his king, his house, and himself. In peace and in war, he must not only lead and inspire men, but be an example to them in the proper way for a soldier of the King to conduct himself.
“And, as we have seen so recently, a knight must use his initiative and his judgment in accord with circumstances in order to carry out the will of his King.”
I paused to sweep everyone with my gaze. I had their full attention. I’ve never had a classroom so riveted on me.
“A knight takes his life in his hands every time he disobeys his King,” I said, softly. “If he is wrong about what he thinks is the will of his King, then he has betrayed his King. Perhaps the King will be merciful, and pardon him. Perhaps the King will see that what was done, was done for the good of the Kingdom, rather than fulfilling the King’s will.
“But the only people who can reasonably expect mercy for that disobedience are knights, because the King has chosen to entrust them with the authority to make those decisions in his absence. The King trusts their judgment. The King trusts them.
“And there is the burden of a knight.”
I wasn’t sure I could hear breathing. I know I could hear the heavy thud of heartbeats. I gestured to my personal guard. The three of them marched along the front rank to Kelvin, then escorted him up to me. They stayed a step behind and down while Kelvin reached the top step and stood before the dragon’s head. They all went to one knee and planted a fist on the floor.
“Kelvin, surrender your sharmi.”
The room sucked in a breath.
Kelvin, unconcerned, unbuckled the belt, wrapped it around the sheathed weapon, and laid it on the dragon’s snout. He returned to his fist-on-floor position.
“What is your oath?” I asked.
Kelvin, looking at the floor, began to speak.
“To my King—”
“Stop!” I commanded. “You do not swear to the floor!”
Kelvin raised his head and looked me squarely in the eyes.
“To my King I swear loyalty and bravery,” he said, as magic started to crawl around him. “To the Crown I swear to be just and fair as far as my mortal wisdom will allow. At my King’s command, I swear to grant mercy, or to withhold mercy; to take life, or to grant it; to harm those from whom my King shall lift his grace; to heal and help those upon whom my King’s grace shall descend.”
I drew his sword and echoes of it rang through the hall. Then I violated all precedent for a king. I gestured Torvil, Kammen, and Seldar to join Kelvin on the top step. Then I said:
“While you serve me, I will honor you, respect you, and ask no service of you that will bring dishonor to my house or to yours. I will heed your councils, that we may find wisdom together. I will stand with you to defend those who cannot defend themselves. I will be faithful in love and loyal in friendship. I will uphold justice by being fair to all. I will forgive when asked, that my own mistakes will be forgiven.”
Crawling lines of magic circled me as I spoke. I didn’t feel them, but I could see them.
“This is the oath of kings, and I give my oath now to you.”
I moved forward, stepped down from the dragon’s head, stood before Kelvin. He held up his hands and I laid his sword in them.
“Rise, Sir Kelvin, Knight of Karvalen.”
The rest of the day was one hell of a party.
Nightfall saw the party still going on, albeit more a widespread celebration than a feast. It wasn’t just for Sir Kelvin, of course; it was also for the first victory over invaders.
It’s hard to slip away quietly when you’re a king. Fortunately, the party was fairly scattered by then, mostly divided into a bunch of smaller parties. I also have the excuse of sunset. Enough people are familiar with my peculiarity that I can excuse myself without putting a damper on a gathering.
Tort also escaped about that time and joined me down in the gate room. Bronze was waiting for us, keeping watch over my whole prisoners and prisoner parts. I didn’t want any of them skittering away.
“You have been busy,” she observed, looking around the place. I saw her look long and hard at the archway, then her lips thinned as she looked over the not-exactly-alive prisoners.
“Yeah, I suppose I have,” I agreed.
“I do not think I understand some of these spells.”
“You’re not alone.”
I explained about draining the vitality out of living prisoners to add more power to the scrying shield and to the gate.
“It’s like putting them to work at hard labor—they may as well be useful,” I finished.
“Indeed. This is nightlord magic, I take it?” she asked, leaning close to a semi-entombed subject.
“I’d have to say the spell is, yes. I guess you could argue that the mountain is, too.”
“And this one is unconscious because he is too weakened to be otherwise?”
“That’s right.”
“Very good. Your technique with structure is improving.”
“Why, thank you,” I said, and meant it. I think she referred to the chalked symbols of the original spellcasting; Jon had a lot to say about my awful penmanship, but if it was improving, so much the better. “I have your example to follow.”
“And what is the purpose of these?” she asked, indicating some of my other experiments.
“I decided to get a little more detailed on the how and what of being a nightlord,” I explained. “I’ve tried turning several living things and several dead things into nightlords, as well as seeing what happens when living nightlords become dead ones.”
“Oh?”
“Yep. Apparently, you can turn a live someone into a nightlord without much trouble. If they get killed during the day, they pick up and keep going at night. Dead people don’t seem to react at all if you try to transform them. But if you kill a live subject that
hasn’t completed its transformation, it’ll still animate at night, but the spirit that moves it is of a different order.
“What I think happens,” I went on, “is that you get a shadow of the original occupant—basically, a flawed copy, left over as an imprint on the brain. If the subject dies after the first few hours, this is good enough to make it walk and snarl and feed—at least, it will try to bite, but not much else. The longer you wait, the closer the process is to complete, the better the copy.”
I morosely regarded a pile of twitching heads. Jaws worked; eyes rolled and blinked.
“It also means that what I was taught was wrong,” I added.
“Wrong about what?”
“If you die as a nightlord—well, during the day—it appears that you’re actually dead. What gets up at night doesn’t have a soul; it’s just a copy of your personality and memories, sustained by feeding. Whoever was in there gets evicted and whatever is left just carries on. I can see how it would be hard to tell, though, especially if it’s been alive for a long time. The copy gets better with age.”
“My angel,” Tort began, hesitantly. She placed a tentative hand on my forearm. “May I ask… why did you do this? Why the interest in this particular subject? Why now?”
I patted her hand reassuringly.
“I wondered if I could create a variation in my species of vampire, one I could control,” I admitted. “Back home, there are legends about vampires that have some sort of power over the ones they create. Some sort of supernatural, occult, mystical thing that forces their… progeny?... to submit to the will of their creator. They could be summoned, for example, across great distances, or forbidden to pursue some course of action. I wanted to see if I could exert that kind of influence over one.”
“…why?”
I moved over to the raised rim of the central pool and sat down on it. Tort stood next to me and put her hands on my shoulder.
“I don’t… My thinking isn’t usually about war,” I explained. She waited, silently. “I think about other things. I don’t like to think about dragging a few thousand people off to kill or be killed just because… well, just because I say so. It’s just that I want to kill something, maybe a lot of somethings, while still not wanting to drag other people into it.
“That’s what it comes down to, I think. I want to hit something until it breaks, or kill until there’s nobody left. I’m angry, Tort.”
“I know,” she said, softly, and stroked my hair. If she was in any way afraid, she didn’t show it. “I know. Who is it that deserves this anger?”
“I think it’s Keria, the so-called Dark Queen of Vathula and Empress of the Undermountains. I’m pretty sure she sent an army to kill me—but that doesn’t really offend me, as such. It’s kind of par for the course, really, even if I don’t know why she did it. I suspect she just wants to be Queen and is afraid I’ll show up and take over.
“What pisses me off is that she planned this for a while, and she deliberately planned to hurt Bronze. She didn’t just attack me, she attacked someone I love. Deliberately. With malice and intent.
“I have a problem with that,” I admitted. “So I started thinking about what could be done about it. I don’t know of anything, besides killing her and everyone who had anything to do with it and anyone who might possibly be loyal to her. If I don’t, she’ll just keep trying.”
“But I can’t just order everybody in Mochara and Karvalen to take up arms and follow me into her city. This is a personal matter. I don’t want a war; I just want her to pick up her marbles and go play somewhere else. Failing that, I want to frighten her so badly that she’ll never even think of risking my wrath. And, if I can’t do that, maybe find a way to force her to go away… and, as a last option, just kill her outright and be done with it.”
I gestured toward the pile of heads.
“I wanted a weapon. I didn’t find it. So I have to come up with another idea.”
“What was the plan?” Tort asked. “Assuming you could make these things and control them, what could you do with them?”
“I was thinking that if I sent a dozen or a hundred of them under the mountains to kill everything they came across, they would be, well, not unstoppable, but certainly a force to fear. If I could then mentally recall them, I could destroy them, but keep the threat of doing it again in reserve. Sort of a big ‘leave me alone’ sign, if you get what I mean.” I chuckled, darkly.
“It struck me as appropriate, in a way,” I added. “She sent soldiers to kill me, so I would send them back as weapons against her. At least, that was the idea. It won’t work, though.”
“I see they are still moving,” Tort noted. “Surely, they are difficult to kill?”
“Oh, certainly. I could easily create a mob of quasi-mindless killing machines, but they wouldn’t be smart enough to avoid being captured, nor would they necessarily stay in the mountains. I couldn’t exercise any real control over them, either, so I couldn’t summon them home. I thought I might be able to exert my will over them, as creations of my blood and spirit. Instead, I’d have to use spells, and under the mountains there’s no telling what they’d encounter. They might get loose from that sort of control.” I shook my head.
“Too risky. I don’t dare try it. But I had to find out everything I could to determine if it was even possible.” I shrugged. “It was an idea, and if it had worked, the whole undermountain would stop being a problem. As it is… I guess I’ll have to come up with something else.”
“I see.” She sat next to me and squeezed my arm. “I am sorry you are sometimes an idiot.”
“So am I,” I replied, automatically. Then I realized what she said. “Wait, what?”
“I said that you are an idiot.”
“Um. Okay. I provisionally agree with your assessment. Could you, maybe, justify your opinion?”
“You are the King, yes?”
“Yes.”
“What happened on the night of the attack? Did forces from another nation march on the capitol?”
“Um. Yes, I suppose they did. They were after me, though, not the city, not really. It was a personal matter.”
“Then, you say that a foreign power tried to kill the King of Karvalen?”
“Yeah…”
“And you have the ego to think it is a personal matter, not a political one? You think that the kingdom as a whole will not want to counter-invade and wrest satisfaction from them for such insult?” Tort asked.
“I wouldn’t think they’d really want to risk their lives for me,” I pointed out. “I’m the blood-sucking monster that sits on the throne, you know. I’m only King because I founded the place.”
“You know,” Tort said, thoughtfully, “you do not look stupid. Is it the armor, perhaps? Does it slow the thinking processes? Or did Firebrand do all your thinking for you? Perhaps you are so used to seeing with supernatural vision that your heart is blind? Could that be it?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You are quite amazingly correct.”
“So, dragging a bunch of people off to defend the royal monster—”
“Correct,” she interrupted, “in that you truly do not understand!”
I stared at her. She looked annoyed. Her eyes were glowing from within, a faint crimson light. I remembered, then, that a magician sometimes has little signs like that when highly emotional.
And, remembering, I did not have a headache. Excellent!
“Um,” I said, helpfully.
“Did you not listen when I spoke of your role in the kingdom? Or did you not believe?” Her look softened, then, and the crimson glow vanished. “Or are you incapable of believing it?” she asked. “You are the King. Any of your knights would fight to defend you; most of your people would, as well. Many would die to defend you, or offer themselves in your place.”
“Then why are they all so formal and standoffish? They don’t act like people who care about me. They act like they’re fragile, and afraid I’ll accide
ntally break them!”
“You are the King,” Tort reminded me, gently. “Yes, you are the monster—but you are their monster. If you were a dragon that lived atop this mountain and acted as their guardian and protector, they would love you no less.
“You are also their King. You brought their ancestors out of a crumbling kingdom, through darkness, fire, and water.
“You are a Hero, and those are rare—and an old Hero, which is almost unheard-of.”
She sighed, laid her head on my shoulder and squeezed my arm.
“I do not know how I can convince you,” she said. “I will give it thought. But, for the nonce, please take my word: I swear to you, my King and my angel, that you are loved, more than you can possibly imagine.”
I sat there for a while, thinking. Tort seemed quite content to stay right there all night, if necessary.
Could she be right? I wondered. Could they just not know how to talk to me? Or do they think that being formal is the way to talk to their King? Is it a case of hero worship and kingship that makes them awkward and uncomfortable around me?
Is that why my personal guard are so scared of failing as knights? If I have a problem I can’t deal with, are they afraid that they will be expected to deal with it?
Maybe not everyone is afraid of me. Well, not just afraid of me. Could they really be… what’s the word I want? Amazed? Intimidated? Overawed?
I’m not sure I believe it. I’m not sure I can believe it.
Why do I have so much trouble believing it? Because… because if it’s true, then they really are looking up to me, trying to live up to my example. And I’m not cut out to be King.
Good reminder: I had better bloody well try.
“Okay,” I finally said. “I can try to… I dunno. I’m not sure what this means to me, but it means something, and I’m going to have to let it process for a while. It’s a lot to take in. Being your angel is easy; being a king is not.” I paused for a second. “How am I doing at being your angel, anyway?”