A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales

by Scott Fitzgerald Gray

  She hears the muddy drumming of frantic hooves behind her as the riders rein up, spin around. The thought-magic. The incantation of detection.

  She is running, not bothering to look back. Vaulting the low stone fence takes her away from the road, into the cluster of houses and poultry pens just passed. A voice comes from behind her, threaded with a rage she hears too many times before.

  “The girl! There!”

  But she is already gone.

  The Golden Girl runs furiously through the village still just coming to morning life. She dodges surprised folk at walk, slips with ease through sheep bound for the spring meadows. Behind her, she hears the horses thundering along the track, then breaking hard to cross onto the muddy turf of the common in the direction where she disappears. She counts on that, cuts hard around a stone shed and back to retrace her steps.

  She risks a glance behind her, sees the company slowing, searching. Their leader is tall, hair shorn in the manner of a seasoned campaigner. She recognizes him from twice before. Three times? Her memory blurs the faces, each new set of pursuers. No telling how many of the Black Duke’s forces are searching for her.

  Chaos erupts behind her as the riders plow through the common without care. Villagers scramble to get out their way, a cart overturning when its startled horse bolts. She slips beneath the slats of a rude wooden fence, a handful of goats bleating sudden surprise. A shout from behind, horses spurred on as she is seen.

  As she races toward the cottonwoods where they spread close to the rutted eastern road, she feels a pulse of power behind her. She drops by instinct a stride from the low stone fence, hears the crack of shattering stone as the bolt of white light meant for her bursts to tendrils of seeking flame above her. Then she is up and over, two more blasts of spell-fire lashing out behind her as she disappears into the shadow of the trees.

  She hears them clear the fence but knows they cannot follow, needing to cut around the wood and pick her up on the other side. She breaks hard south, races back to follow the road where it twists to meet the creek and the mill there.

  The Golden Girl is slowing, tired. She fights to adjust the bulk of the tight-wrapped burden on her back as she sprints for the millhouse door, pushes through. Rough planks slam shut behind her. No bar there and a latch a child could break, so she grabs up a battered shovel set nearby and rams it between door and frame like a wedge.

  Her eyes draw detail from the shadows as she slips within. Three rough-walled storerooms frame the millworks, loud where the stone turns in steady motion. The movement of the wheel can be glimpsed where the creek flows by below the wide-gapped mouth of the floor.

  She moves quickly, seeks out a second entrance and finds it off the larger of the rooms. A narrow window above grimy sacks of grain, haphazardly stacked and the perch of three bone-thin cats that eye her warily. It opens south, out to the forest and the road beyond. The cats scatter as she pulls herself up with tightly muscled arms. She holds there on the wall long enough to gauge the width of the opening against her shoulders.

  Then footsteps behind her bring her back to the ground, and from beneath her cloak comes a flash of steel. The rapier is out of its scabbard in a fluid motion. Silent as a serpent, steady in her hand. Her body locks in a warrior’s crouching stance. Ready.

  A boy stands before her. A millhand, gone from startled to deathly afraid in the blink of an eye. He is young, not much older than her. Thirteen summers behind him.

  A distant shout from outside. Faint hoofbeats along the road. She raises the tip of the blade in a smooth arc to alight at the boy’s throat.

  “One chance. You tell them I slipped out through there.” The Golden Girl nods to the window. The millhand boy can only stare. A dull gleam in her other hand. Five copper coins that are likely a month’s wages for the boy are slipped to his shaking palm.

  “One chance,” she says again.

  Then the rapier is back in its scabbard even as she moves to the open space of the floor, the wheel flashing below in its steady thrashing movement. No hesitation as she jumps, catches the wheel’s edge in a sure grip, swings off it and down. No sound of her fall over the steady hiss and thrash of dark water below.

  She does not cry out as the sharp chill cuts through her. She is gone from sight where she wraps the cloak tight around herself, slips into the flow of shadows. Her gear draws her down, but she holds herself high in the water with strong kicks, arms pumping, only her face exposed to watch.

  Above the line of the riverbank, she sees horses at the mill, raised voices faint over the wheel’s steady din. She has time to watch the four warriors mount up again, heading south along the road and away from her. Then the creek twists round a bend and she is gone.

  THE DREAMS ARE THE LAST SIGN of madness. Last coin paid to the unseen weaver spooling out the endless thread of life, never-ending by the doom of failure, of weakness, of all mortal sins.

  The White Pilgrim remembers these things. He feels the thoughts come to him as he walks, but he knows not why.

  He does not recall the point when he comes upon the creek, but he follows it. Its banks are steep and spread with crocus and aconite, flanked by the ruts of intermittent wagon traffic, and by the muddy tracks of sheep and cattle that tell him folk dwell nearby. A village ahead. He remembers.

  He remembers also a village behind, filled with the unburned dead. How long ago, he does not know. He remembers the dream of the Golden Girl, knows the vision comes only that morning. He counts the days by the dreams, tries to remember when last he ate but cannot.

  He remembers other dreams. Of a friend he betrays, looking for him. A Golden Girl walks with the friend, close at his side. Faint images, half-remembered. Sticking in memory like a bone cutting the back of the throat.

  So it was that in the seventh year of his reign, Garneus the King, who had led all Gracia through the Fall of Empire, was called to Orosan in his greatness, to be Herald to the Triad and the Twelve. So did Eurymos ascend to the marble throne, and pledged to uphold his Father’s justice and the strength of Gracia reborn. But those also were the days of Thoradun who would be the Usurper, who ruled as King in Sannos, and who with sorcery and secrecy tainted the minds of the Lords of the Northlands. And those Lords railed against the rule of Eurymos, and did fight among themselves and against the Southlands for long years. And in the end did the Lords of the Northlands send messages to Aldona, which said ‘Eurymos is King in the South, but we of the North must choose our own path.’ And Thoradun was named their King, and the Wars of Succession had begun.

  As the rough track twists around the edge of an ancient alder copse, the farmland fane swings into view. Set within stony fields edged on three sides by twisting lines of younger trees, it stands broken-walled and hunched like some great beast.

  Farm thorps scattered to the distance are faint beneath the gleam of sun and muddy fields, low stone fences following the ebb and flow of hilly soil. No sign of burning here, save for the fane. The walls are whole when last the White Pilgrim passes by. Now he sees a slack-fallen spread of stones, splintered beams, charred thatch.

  Then in the ninth year of the reign of Eurymos as King, which was the third year of the struggle of the Southlands against Thoradun the Usurper, there came the black Day of Death. And on that day in the courts at Aldona and Aynwel, Charath and Valos, Maris and Cosiand, Princes and Lords and their Overseers, their Captains and Advisors were stricken by the Fell Sorcery of Thoradun’s Necromancers.

  Scorched lines along the ground and around the fane run too straight to mark the heat of anything but spell-fire, burning itself out as it unleashes the full potential of its destruction. The sign of the black boar is etched across the stones of a still-standing wall.

  And Eurymos the King was slain with all the rest by the Dark Magic that despoiled body and soul, and prevented the return of the soul, and among all his kin and people, there was despair.

  The day is high and hot, and burning in concert with the pain in his chest to sear
the dreams from the White Pilgrim’s mind. He knows the road from two seasons before. Three seasons. He shakes his head, cannot remember. No matter anymore.

  As he approaches the fane, he watches them work with unceasing effort beneath the heat. A dozen. No. Fourteen he counts as he limps toward them, tracking along rough islands of dry pathway twisting through the mud. They shore up what remains of the roof of the fallen building with fence rails. Woodworkers labor to plane new posts as the tumbled wall is carefully taken apart, sized and reset again, course by slow course of stone.

  They see him approach. They hear him. No one looks up.

  “By the grace of Denas and the Twelve, take the blessings of this wanderer upon you.” The White Pilgrim speaks slowly, fights to remember the words.

  They work on in their sullen silence, the weight of stone and timber made heavier by injury. The White Pilgrim notes the mark of fire and blade on the arm and shoulder of the broad-nosed farmer who is the only one who speaks. “A blessing on you, old man, and best you move on.”

  “Keep your tongue civil in Denas’s house, Olan. And mind your manners.”

  The new voice comes from the one who directs the efforts of the carpenters. A priest by the grey of his tunic, its color not noticed beneath the grime of his labor until he turns.

  “Denas’s house has no roof, and won’t if every beggar passing by interrupts the work.” The man Olan sends a dark look toward the White Pilgrim, who sets his eyes down before the priest’s gaze, speaks humbly.

  “I am no beggar, lord, but am willing to work for my share of whatever repast you might spare. All hands do the gods’ work if the gods’ plans are the work of the heart.”

  “We got folk enough we can’t feed already without…”

  The priest’s raised hand cuts Olan off. A power in the gesture that speaks to the strength of the gods’ laws among the folk of green fields and grassland.

  “We have men enough on the wall, pilgrim,” the priest says gently, “but could use more stone from the fields. Our repast is yours to share, of course, in Danassa’s name.”

  Danassa is goddess of field and furrow, her breath the touch of spring ready to bring new life to the world. The White Pilgrim nods as he turns back, shuffles into the mud and bends to the task appointed him.

  And on that day, Telos, Brother to Eurymos and Father to Gilvaleus, was with his Brother, and would have been slain by the Usurper if not for the intervention of Irthna the Silver Sorceress, who was Mother to Gilvaleus and had counseled Eurymos long years since leaving Telos her lover’s side. And Telos had pledged his life to his Brother and King through long years of fealty, and wept at Eurymos’s side now, and said to Irthna ‘Why did thou not leavest me to save him, our King and best hope for our land?’ And Irthna swore that for the love she granted Telos and always had, she saved him, and that their love that had saved him was the sign of fate and the choice of the Gods that Telos be King and avenge his Brother for the sake of all Gracia.

  The White Pilgrim blinks. The sun moves, sloping toward the line of sky westward, burning gold against twisting cloud. Around him, stones are set in three piles by his labor, equidistant. The sign of the Triad of Brothers. Denas, the storm lord. Rhilos, the hammer and shield. Phion, the earth and sea.

  He stands silent a while to quell the pain at his heart and in his leg. His back and neck are set with the full ache of the afternoon’s stooped labor. He watches to see where the others work with focused determination, one ruined wall of the fane rising near to full height once more. So it is that he is the first to see the dark figures advancing along the field walls.

  His eyes are watering, blinking back dust. The figures come from the east along the dusky line of the sky, so that it takes time to recognize that these are more farm folk, advancing with fork and staff in hand. Their voices follow them, angry words caught and lost on the rising wind. The White Pilgrim sees the reaction in the priest and the others, their work forgotten as they spread out before the fane’s fallen doors.

  “Caris!” The one leading the group stands one-eyed and hulking where he shouts. Bare-chested and clad in leather below the waist. The labor of countless seasons twists along his arms like knotted ropes, beard flecked with grey and a staff in his hand. “You and all the rest, get back to your families. Your work here’s done!”

  The priest answers to the name called. “Hold there, Gadro.”

  “I’ll hold not while you and your faith-snakes call down the wrath of the black boar again! You played the fool for dead gods once and paid the price. You won’t make me and mine pay it a second time.”

  A surge of anger spills out between both groups as the advancing farm folk slow. They face friends and neighbors along a rough line marked by fear. Subtle movements, eyes shifting side to side. Tools are held tight to become weapons in work-worn hands.

  “The Black Duke is usurper and tyrant…” the priest begins, but he is quickly cut off.

  “Arsanc’s peerage is no concern of mine!” the one called Gadro shouts. “Nor do I care who sits on Mitrost’s broken throne. I’m Sannos-born and bred, and paid tithe all my life to a duke that’s never set foot on my lands. Paying tithe to Arsanc instead is no care to me, so long as me and mine are left to our lives in peace, and you and your gods stand in the way of that!”

  “These are the Orosana’s lands.” The priest Caris speaks in a voice of booming authority, meant as much for the farmers at his back as for these newcomers, the White Pilgrim knows. Fear pushes all folks’ minds too quickly to the edge of changing. “The dukes of Gracia once governed by the Twelve’s laws, and will again, gods willing. Arsanc and his heathen law…”

  “If it’s no gods at all that Arsanc will bow to, then I’m heathen with him. Ten generations, my folk have farmed these lands, and never once saw the hand of your gods in any harvest, good or bad. Nature is as nature does, and mortal magic makes its difference when it needs to.”

  “Our magic is the gift of the gods…”

  “I call down the weal of the druidas as well as any in my line ever did, priest, and I never asked no god for the gift.”

  The priest spits. Unexpected anger in him. “Your Empire’s faith of self is a shell of deceit. You raise your hopes and dreams on fragile ground, and they will fall.”

  “Weren’t my Empire anymore than Arsanc is my lord, but I leave well enough alone so I can go my way. Farm my lands, heal my folk…”

  “The beasts of the field know not that Denas the high father bestows the sanctity of life and speeds the blood in their veins. By the same ignorance, you ignore that it is the gods’ healing power that flows in you…”

  “You want to believe it, that’s your right and welcome to it. But Arsanc has no patience for your gods, and Arsanc’s band made clear when they smote your gods’ hall. You raise those walls again, they burn our farms!”

  Druid and priest press close, and a sudden surge of power sends followers on both sides scattering. Caris clenches one hand to his chest, the other raised to a fist that pulses suddenly with white light, squeezed out from tight-locked fingers. Gadro raises the staff and whispers a fragment of incantation, the old magic, black oak at his hands suddenly studded with a surge of thorns that gleam in the golden light of setting sun.

  “Peace be with you both…”

  With a start, priest and druid turn in equal surprise. Each is so focused on the other, on the dark uncertainty twisting between both groups that the White Pilgrim hobbles forward without being seen. He stares darkly as his words hang. Hesitates as if uncertain whether the voice that speaks them is his.

  “The way of folk is to choose sides,” the White Pilgrim says. He feels a weakness in him suddenly, the pain in his chest flaring. He shuffles a step forward that he does not mean to take, the closest in both groups shifting back, cautious. “The way of gods is too often to divide faith from faith, but it need not be this way.”

  The priest appraises him with a dark curiosity. The druid merely laughs. “One pri
est intent on burning in the name of faith is enough for us, old man.”

  “I am no priest. Only a pilgrim in all the gods’…”

  A twisting of gnarled hands, and the thorn staff is a blur of black as it swings for the White Pilgrim’s flank. But the White Pilgrim is gone, two steps to the side suddenly as a blow that would lay him out lashes only empty air.

  The druid Gadro stumbles back. He is off balance, nearly falls before he rights himself. All the anger in him is redirected from the priest in an instant.

  “Spry for your age, father,” he says darkly. “The gods’ grace be with you?”

  Another swing, too fast to see. The White Pilgrim shifts with it, feels the staff slip past him by a finger’s width. From behind the druid, two figures move, rough cudgels of firewood raised. A dangerous energy threads the air suddenly. Anger and fear twist through friends facing neighbors, seeking opportune release against this stranger.

  Then even as Telos swore his hate of Thoradun the Usurper and took up his Brother’s crown to quell the fear of the Lords of the Southlands, he bade Irthna take Gilvaleus their Son, now the Young Prince, and keep him safe from the Usurper’s shadow lest it strike again at him and those closest to him. So was Gilvaleus, with fifteen Summers behind him and ready to take his place in the ranks of his Father’s Knights, taken from his Father by Irthna his Mother, and then were great Spells of Enchantment placed upon him that hid away his name and memory, to a secret place that only Irthna’s choice or death could unlock.

  He blinks.

  Something is changed. The fight is done.

  The druid Gadro, the priest Caris both lie in the mud to either side of him. Gadro is motionless, choking breath through the haze of blood from a shattered nose. Caris is moving, scrambling back with one arm hanging, the bone broken to judge by the pallor at his face and the pain that turns his breath to a rasping hiss.