A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales

by Scott Fitzgerald Gray

  He finds a respite when she stumbles in a patch of thistle, winter-grey and invisible in the dark. He unleashes a savage windmill strike, fast as an uncoiling thicket-serpent, but she slides past it as if he was standing still.

  The best blade in his Father’s court at twelve summers. Memories and lies.

  The White Pilgrim fights like a man half his age, strength and speed a reminder of the skill he once has. The Golden Girl fights like a veteran twice hers. Her prowess is a reminder of something else.

  He is as fast as he ever is. As fast as he can be, but she is faster. Her blade weaves a mandala in the firelight as she strikes, furious now.

  The darkness in her gaze is a thing the White Pilgrim recognizes. A thing he cannot face.

  She forces him left, left again, pushing him back as she tags his sword arm twice. The fire is behind him now, blocking further retreat. A fool’s error. She comes in low, a blurred stain of red and black, fire and shadow, and through it the flash of steel as the rapier bites deep at his shoulder.

  Then Nàlwyr, seeing this Captain Guderna in the foreguard, called to him and said ‘Our companies are even matched and the river’s flood a third foe that all face at our peril.’ Then both approached under sign of Herald, and Guderna who was Gilvaleus saw that this captain of the best armed and armored Knights wore only a shirt of chain set of dwyrsilver links, and that his blade was the slender silver of a serpent’s tongue that looked like any blow might shatter it.

  The White Pilgrim feels the bright shard of pain. He feels a numbness that wraps him like the embrace of a lost friend.

  He sees himself reflected in her eyes as he stumbles back. Sees a fear in that reflection that he does not feel for so long now.

  And Nàlwyr spoke and said ‘In the even fierceness of our force, this fight shall be decided by my blade and thine, so let us spare the blood that should not stain the hands of any Knight so noble as thee and me, and make a pact of single combat that shall decide the day.’

  The Golden Girl’s movements are a deadly song, are a dirge of blood and iron that will best him in the end if it continues. But it is a deeper blow that drives him back, sets his feet to falter.

  The blade in her hand. The rapier, recognized in a heartbeat.

  And Captain Guderna agreed, who had never lost a bout, and so faced Nàlwyr who had never been bested at arms, and both fought within a narrow bend of stream that fed the torrent of Konides down a bright falls, and where their forces were lined, and watched amazed. And through a long day the two did clash, sword to shield and sword to sword, and in the end did the speed and sharp bite of Nàlwyr’s blade draw blood from Guderna whose true name none knew, and did send him down.

  He feels all the space of memory filled in. Black water seeping to fill the cracks of the soul. He knows the speed of her movement, the singular grace that is the form of the greatest warrior who ever lives, long ago. The greatest friend.

  He tries to not think on these things.

  The Golden Girl drives past his defenses, slashes an arc of red across his sword hand. The strong of her blade catches at his hilt, snapping the shortsword free of his hand to twist and fall six strides away.

  The White Pilgrim freezes before her, weaponless. The rapier touches his own throat now, a look of fury in the Golden Girl’s gaze. Justain, her name is. He remembers.

  She sees the recognition in his eyes. Falters. She looks past him, around him like she realizes only belatedly where she stands, what is happening. Who she fights.

  “Gilvaleus…” she whispers.

  And the White Pilgrim falls to his knees. Justain stands over him, still poised to strike. Not letting her guard down, always expectant. The old lessons learned well, the rapier held stone-steady in her hand.

  And all the force of Magandis was wroth and prepared to attack against their Captain’s fall, but Guderna the War-Captain felt the nobility of Gilvaleus whose name he did not know, as he spoke and called ‘Hold, for this Nàlwyr is a noble Knight whose grace and skill hath saved ten score lives today.’ And as Captain Guderna, he ceded the river to Nàlwyr and to his Prince Sestian, though he knew what wrath his own King Astran would extend against him, and retreated to Kalista with his host. And Gilvaleus marveled well at the skill that had bested him, and thought for the first time of the goodness of those he fought against, and wondered at the part he played in war that threatened all Gracia now with steel and fire.

  At the last, the White Pilgrim sees the father in the Golden Girl’s eyes.

  “Nàlwyr…”

  A moment’s memory is let free of the darkness that is the past. The White Pilgrim sinks fully to the ground, Justain watching, unable to speak. Stepping away at last. Stumbling back in tears to the fireside.

  The night passes. The half-full Clearmoon drifts to darkness in the west. The fire is dying, so the Golden Girl gathers wood again, feeds it to a bright blaze once more. The White Pilgrim stares into the twisting weave of flame, shivers despite its heat.

  The Golden Girl is watching him. She is Justain, he remembers. Named for the justice and the peace that is the legacy of the true high king.

  She waits for him to speak, but he is mute in the shadow of his memory. In the end, she speaks instead. “My mother was a healer. In the house where my father was brought after Marthai.”

  And with weeping eye, he beheld that of his Companions, yet lived only Nàlwyr, who had returned to his High King…

  “He tried to follow you but was too badly injured,” she says. “She nursed him there. Cared for him. I was born there.”

  And Gilvaleus cried out, saying ‘Woe to all that this day should come, and an end to all we fought for.’

  “You should be with her,” the White Pilgrim says. Barely a whisper.

  “She’s dead,” Justain says. “Four years past. When my father took me with him for the first time on the long road.”

  And as Gilvaleus the High King lay dying, he was cradled in the arms of Nàlwyr, who spoke his grief and rage to the empty field.

  “I am sorry,” the White Pilgrim says.

  “Thirteen years, he searched for you. He picked up your trail again as soon as he was able. The plains folk spoke of wounded soldiers passing west and south in the aftermath of the battle. And one that more than a few remembered. A pilgrim in white, sick with fever. Crying to the old gods for forgiveness for the death of his son.”

  ‘Father, remember me…’

  “He thought he’d found you once. He missed you by days, he said. Down south in Aldona where he said you were born. For a time, he thought you’d gone over the mountains. He feared that you knew he was following you.”

  The White Pilgrim sits in silence a long while. “You don’t know,” is all he can say in the end.

  “I know you are Gilvaleus. You are the high king, lost at the Plains of Marthai in the battle against Astyra, the king’s-bastard of Mirdza.”

  “There is no name…”

  “Do not forsake who you were, my king. Who you are.”

  “There is no name!” The White Pilgrim circles around and away from the fire. The Golden Girl is shifting past him, careful. Afraid that he will run, he realizes. He does not remember rising.

  “Legend supplants the truth of what a man is,” he says. A weakness threads his voice that he cannot fight. “The sins of the father, too quickly forgotten.”

  “Gilvaleus is legend now,” she says. “Legends cannot die…”

  “The blood of children on my hands…”

  He hears the words hanging, not sure whether he speaks aloud until he sees the Golden Girl’s questioning look. She waits for him to say more, but he will not. Cannot.

  “When my father pursued you, he had one goal.”

  “In the morning,” he says. He shakes his head. Watches her with clouded eyes, the tracks of tears fallen and dried along the grime of his cheeks. “We must talk of this in the morning.”

  “My father wanted you…”

  “In the morning, c
hild. Justain. Please.”

  He is on the ground again, cannot remember sitting. He closes his eyes, the lines of age on his face etched by the light of the fire. Seams of black and red like a patina of blood across the skin.

  She watches him for a long while as he lies down on moss and gravel, cloak drawn tight around him. When he closes his eyes, he can see himself through her gaze. A weary old man. Something broken in him where the weight of the world presses down.

  Time passes. She keeps the fire burning hot and low, harder to see it from the woods. The White Pilgrim knows this spot, though. He knows that their isolation will keep them safe from the sight of anyone passing by night, even along the nearest trails.

  When he closes his eyes, he can sense what the Golden Girl feels as the talisman lies cool against her skin, tells her they are safe for the night at least. She trusts its power to warn her of enemies close by, as it does since the cold day at High Winter when her mother slips it to her neck and breathes her last.

  Time passes. The White Pilgrim curls up in exhaustion, not stirring when the Golden Girl pulls his cloak tighter about him. She watches curiously as his eyes flicker beneath heavy lids, cracked lips twitching with unheard words.

  Time passes. She sits with her back against the standing stone closest to his, trusting its cold touch to help her stay awake. Shivering with the descent of the deep night, she closes her eyes for just a moment, the rapier across her legs and clutched tight in her hand.

  The haze of light is bright in her eyes as the Golden Girl shocks herself awake, groping blindly for the talisman by force of habit. She is cold as the shroud of mist that rises with the dawn, sends fingers of light twisting through the screen of trees.

  Across from her, the fire is burned down. The White Pilgrim, Gilvaleus, High King of Gracia who her father serves and loses and seeks and dies never finding, is gone.

  A VILLAGE SITS AS A BRIGHT CROWN atop a cluster of green hills, familiar to the White Pilgrim from one of the endless seasons that bring him here before. A wide road is set with grass-graded flagstones, speaking at once to some importance in the past, and how that importance is forgotten now.

  This place has a name, but he cannot remember. He does penance at the fane there, long ago. Bright walls, whitewashed. Twelve mosaics newly cut for the twelve gods, set deep in alcoves of stone. Twelve carved columns line the portico, for the twelve mountains from which the gods watch over these lands of Gracia, whose every tree and blade of grass they first sowed in the dark before time began.

  He glances back at intervals, looking for something. Someone behind him. He tries to recall who it is, but his gaze is blank. Images like sifting sand in his mind. Gone.

  He walks the day away. Red cloud seethes in the west as he passes through twisting stands of apple and pear, their first green shaking off the dark of winter’s sleep. He sights the farms as twilight presses down, heightening the light of bonfires scattered across spring fields. Wreaths of wicker and woven straw are lashed to masts, set alight beneath the shroud of darkening sky.

  The White Pilgrim judges the feel of the air. He judges the warmth of the season, the length of the day. This is the celebration of life and new growth. The rites of High Spring. Danassa is the god of field and fertile sowing, who wears the flaming wreaths that are the sacrifice of spring, and whose bonfire smoke seeds the spring rains that are the goddess’s soft breath.

  He hears bright voices on the dark air, singing in Gracian and in the common trade tongue that is the Imperial tongue of Lothela before that. He sees the fires grow closer together where fields turn to farmsteads, as farmsteads turn to the low walls marking the edge of the meadows that are the village’s start and end. Tight points of red and gold are strung against the darkness of cloud and night. A circlet ring of firelight, above which the half-globe of the Clearmoon is a silver blur.

  The crowds are thickest where the road reaches the wall. The village is small to judge by its scattered houses. Ten score souls dwell here, perhaps, but ten times that number are here this night, flocking from all the nearby farms and thorps. Ready to eat and laugh and drink and love through these seven days and nights beneath the goddess’s bright blessing.

  Copper kettles blaze brightly, steaming with the scent of fruited stews and spiced wine. Slow-roasting mutton glistens and turns on a dozen scorching spits, and the White Pilgrim is drawn toward the feast even before he becomes aware of the tight knot of hunger twisting in his gut.

  From the corner of his eye, a shadow crosses the Clearmoon’s pale haze. A twisting ripple of great wings, carried fast on the wind. Then gone within the shroud of cloud and night. Too quick to see had he not been looking.

  It reminds the White Pilgrim of something. Gone now.

  He slips through the crowd, feeling the course of laughter and song push past and around him like a warm wave. But in the voices, he hears the undercurrent of fear that laughter and song hides.

  In his mind, he sees a ruined village. A cluster of a dozen farmhouses, sod walls and ridgepoles, canvas and plaster and thatch shimmered by the gusting wind.

  In his mind, he sees folk divided from and against themselves, a surge of anger spilling out between friends and neighbors along a rough line marked by fear.

  He shakes his head, feels the memories fade. Gone now.

  The mutton is thick sliced, dripping blood and grease to his fingers. Its taste is autumn grass and winter grain and sweet roots, and he knows to eat slowly, sparingly. Pacing himself, he chases the meat with bread and water to prevent the iron pangs of an empty belly suddenly overfull. A soldier’s instincts, drawn from long campaigns fought on the barest rations.

  “We share the warmth of firelight, welcoming the bounty of spring with the sharing of the last of winter’s stores. By the green spirit of Danassa, life is restored to the land and its people, whose faith weathers the dark season and its storms.”

  The voice is deep, ringing out like the tolling of a great bell to still the sea of closest voices. The White Pilgrim feels a shadow thread his thought.

  “The Triad of Brothers protects our rite with thunder and hammer, blesses us with skies swept clear by the wind of the sea. Beneath those skies, we give our thanks to Danassa the sister-daughter. Sharing our joy that the Twelve might hear us. Sharing our laughter and song that the Twelve might know our love, and that they might hear our contrition for the breaking of our faith under the yoke of heathen Empire, and our prayers for the heroes of faith who have thrown our conquerors down and will do so again.”

  A broad rise of white stone stands within the triangle of the three gods’ fires that burn brightest of all at the center of the celebrations. The fires are the sign of the Triad, the white slab the spring stone of Danassa, and the stage where the speaking figure stands.

  “These are dark days for the faithful. War crosses our borders. But we remember other days and other wars, and those whose allegiance to Gracia made the difference in those wars.”

  Safe in the leeward shadow of a woodpile close to the fires, the White Pilgrim sits alone, unseen by those closer by. Over their heads, he spies the speaker’s bearded face. His arms are spread wide, grey robes unfurled. A priest of the Orosana, an oaken staff in hand.

  “We remember that when word came that Ulannor Mor had fallen, with it came the joy and hope that all the Lothelecan was fallen with it. But even so, the Lotherasien who were the Imperial Guard, the blood and steel that bound the Empire, did endure to threaten that the rule of Empire would not pass, and that as its power was once, so it would be.”

  The White Pilgrim holds a mug of wine. He cannot remember who thrusts it into his hand, some one of the dozen laughing maids that skip up to embrace him as he eats. He holds it for warmth, avoids the temptation of its sweet scent for the sake of the sleep already rooting deep in belly and mind.

  “But in those dark days that were the First Wars of Succession in Gracia, even as Telos the King dwelt in exile in Vanyr and sought to build the army that migh
t challenge the unjust rule of Thoradun the Usurper, there came word of the dispersal of the Lotherasien. And it was said that the Knights of the Imperial Guard had vanished from the face of Isheridar.”

  Farther from the circle of listeners pressing in around the priest, dancers robed and unrobed circle within the gleaming light in a frenzy of song. In the even farther dark where the White Pilgrim watches, forms shiver and twist and come together in the passion of the rites of spring. Caressing and coupling, oblivious to inhibition and the chill of the clear night.

  “But in Gracia’s darkest time did one such knight of the Empire turn from that heathen path, and she claimed a place among the gods and her people by denying her past. And this was Irthna the Silver Sorceress of Aynwel, and lover to Telos the king and mother to the young prince Gilvaleus who dwelt in Magandis, broken from his past and the name that was his. And neither Telos nor his princeling knew of Irthna’s place among the Lotherasien, nor had the fallen Eurymos, nor Garneus the Great who was father to Eurymos and Telos, and last regent of Imperial Gracia and first king of this reborn land. So with her vow to the Lothelecan broken for the greater good of the land she loved, the Silver Sorceress to her lover came, and she spoke, saying ‘By my word and oath have I kept secret these long years a power that might save all for which you and your line have fought.’ ”

  The White Pilgrim feels the chill of night suddenly, cutting the warmth of fire and wine that spreads through him.

  “And saying so, the Silver Sorceress took Telos to a secret cove of the Bronae Ashtal, which is the Whitewater of Maris. And at that ashen lakeshore, she summoned for him Ankathira, called by legend the Whitethorn, sword of kings, that for those thousand years of Empire had been lost to Gracia.”