by Karen Miller
With an effort he pushed himself away from the door. The chamber shimmered softly in the candlelight. No glimfire now, not unless he asked Asher to conjure it for him. He felt his guts twist. Like a child, running to its nurse for sweetmeats. Please, Asher, may I have some glimfire? Please, Asher, can you make it rain?
Fane’s stony sweet face mocked him... and all his rage broke free.
“I don’t understand it!” he shouted at them. “Did you know this could happen? Asher made it rain, he made it snow, he fixed your face, Father! And you’d have me repay him with death!”
Unmoved, unmoving, his father’s face slept in the gently flickering light.
“I helped you murder Timon Spake! I forced Asher to watch! Why! To make sure we maintain our stranglehold on power in this land? To keep the Olken ignorant of their magic? To continue this shameful legacy of lies and deception? We didn’t save Lur, we stole it. Conquered it. Somehow managed to bury the truth of the Olken’s own magical birthright. Robbed them of their heritage and history. Do you know what that makes me? The inheritor of a criminal crown, no better than the monster Morg!”
No one answered him.
“And now we are punished. I am punished. What do I do next? How do I proceed? My magic is extinguished. Vanished as though it had never existed. Durm remains unconscious, teetering still on the brink of death, and Conroyd...” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Conroyd is circling and he won’t wait forever. All that stands between your kingdom and disaster, Father, is an uneducated Olken fisherman! How did this happen? Why did it happen? Tell me, please, what does it mean?”
His anguish echoed in the small stone chamber, bounced from wall to floor to ceiling in concentric circles of grief.
Flinging himself to the floor beside his mother’s coffin, he seized her cold stone shoulders in his hands and willed her spirit to hear him.
“Mama... Mama... I grew to manhood watching you treat everyone you met with grace and courtesy, no matter who they were or how they lived; Baker, butcher, nobleman or nurse, Doranen or Olken, they were all the same to you. Everything I know of living Barl’s legacy, of honoring her teachings and upholding her laws, I learned from you! And now I’ve learned it was likely all a lie. So what do I do now, Mama? Guide me, I beg you! I swore an oath to protect this kingdom and its sacred laws with my life! If I hold true to that oath I have to kill Asher. And in killing him I’ll kill our kingdom with him. So no matter what I do, I’m forsworn! Is that what you want for me?”
Releasing his mother, he turned again to Borne. “You were never ambitious for ambition’s sake. If you’d wanted this kingdom’s future placed in Conroyd’s hands, if you’d trusted he’d do right by all the people, not just our own, you never would’ve bullied the Councils into giving you Fane. You’d have named him heir, to us if not to the population. But you didn’t. I know you don’t want me to abdicate. I know you don’t want Conroyd as king.” He stared into his father’s marble features, searching for answers. For hope. “I suppose I could be wrong. It could be that Asher is the only Olken who can do magic. And if that’s so, isn’t it some kind of miracle? That he’s with me now, in my darkest hour? Doesn’t it mean he was born special for a reason? Don’t I have to keep him secret, and safe, even if it means breaking Barl’s Law myself?” He glanced over at Fane. “I know what you’d do, sister dear,” he said, derisive. “You’d say the risk was too great. You’d round up every last Olken and put them in prison. Or send them to the axe, just in case he’s not the only one. You’d say it was what Barl wanted but I won’t believe that. How can he be Barl’s enemy, our enemy, and also be the key to the kingdom’s survival?”
Fane stayed silent. She always did, when the questions proved not to her liking. Exhausted, he let his body slump against her coffin. His head was aching badly. “And if Durm does wake, what then? Where will his loyalty lie? With Barl? The kingdom? With the memory of a dead king he loved like a brother... or with the crippled failure his friend left behind as heir?”
He pressed his hands to his face. “I’m so tired, Father,” he whispered. “I’m confused. Afraid. I’ve no one to talk to. Asher’s the only man I can trust now and he’s more frightened than me. Barl save me, I wish you were here. I wish I knew what you wanted me to do ... what you would do ...”
His father didn’t answer, which might have meant any number of things.
At length, chilled and hungry and empty of answers, he returned to the Tower where, mercifully, people left him alone. After a half-hearted meal he crawled into bed, fell asleep ... and dreamed of Fane, laughing. Of a scarlet sky bleeding red rain. Of the Wall’s demise.
Try as he might, he couldn’t wake.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Pother Nix sat in an easy chair, rereading his notes on the applied uses of lorrel seeds. A peculiar piece of flora, lorrel, good for gangrene and bloody flux. Found only along Lur’s savage east coast, where it clung precariously to life along the barren cliff tops; just one of many unique Olken plants. Without magic, their healers relied on natural remedies and for that he was profoundly grateful. Like it or not, and most Doranen abhorred it, magic could only do so much. Olken herb lore had saved many a Doranen life, and praise Barl for it.
In the bed beside him, wasted and wan, Durm shifted, sighing. Nix glanced up, anxious, but it was dreaming only. No new fit or seizure. He released a grateful breath.
Praise Barl for herb lore indeed. He thought it was the only thing keeping Durm alive, for his healing magics had long since reached their limits. Durm stirred and sighed again, bald head rolling on the pillow. Nix reached out an absentminded hand, intending to check his patient’s pulse—
Durm’s fingers curled around his own.
“Barl save me!” cried Nix, and leapt to his feet. Durm’s eyes were open. Unfocused, but open. “Kerril! Kerril, to me!”
The chamber door flew open and Kerril practically fell into the room. “Sir? Are you—”
“He’s awake! Barl be blessed, he’s awake! Fetch me a wet cloth, quickly!”
As Kerril fled, Nix sought the pulse point in Durm’s throat. It thrummed beneath his fingertips, fast but strong.
“Mmneeugh,” said Durm, struggling to speak. “Hwheee...”
“Hush, hush,” he soothed. “You’re safe, man. Lie still.”
Despite their best endeavors, Durm’s lips were dry and chapped with flaking skin. When Kerril returned, followed by the inevitable gaggle of colleagues, Nix took the cloth she handed him and pressed its wetness to the Master Magician’s mouth.
At its touch Durm’s gaze sharpened. Breathing harshly, he tried to sit up. Nix restrained him. “No! Durm, no! You must stay still!”
Durm frowned, tugging his scars into tangled new shapes, and his lips framed soundless words. He stared around the healing chamber, searching for something, or someone. “Borne,” he gasped, his voice harsh, guttural. “Borne!” Tears leaked from his bloodshot eyes.
“Somebody fetch the king,” said Nix.
As Kerril bolted, scattering pothers like so many skittle-pins, Durm spoke again. “Nix? Nix, help me!”
“I’m trying,” Nix told him, and felt tears of joy, of shock, pricking his own eyes. “But you must lie still.”
Durm shuddered, a mighty convulsion that lifted his shoulders from the mattress. His eyes opened wide, and his mouth, and the most extraordinary expression of triumph and ecstasy and virulent relief washed over his face.
“Awake!” he roared. “At last, at last, awake!”
“Yes, awake, but poorly yet!” said Nix. “You must—”
“Let me up,” Durm demanded, and struggled to throw aside his blankets. “I have wasted too much time here, I have spent more of myself than I can spare, healing this rotten carcass. Let me up, I say! Or be blighted where you—”
Heedless of newly knitted flesh and bone, Nix threw himself across Durm’s chest. “Fetch me ebonard! Now!”
As someone scuttled to do his bidding, he spread his right h
and flat and pressed it against Durm’s thundering heart. “Quantiasat! Boladuset!” It was a calming invocation, useful when a patient was conscious but agitated. “Boladuset, Durm, Barl curse you with hives! Be still!”
The invocation caught, and Durm flopped back against his pillows. Somebody thrust a vial of ebonard into Nix’s hand; he tossed the contents into Durm’s gaping mouth and slammed closed his jaw for good measure.
Durm swallowed. Gagged. Snorted. His staring eyes rolled, fogged, and a foolish smile melted over his face. Nix sagged, then turned to scowl at his goggling underlings.
“Be off with you! His Majesty will arrive soon.” But it wasn’t the king who answered his summons. “What’s amiss?” demanded Asher, striding into the sick man’s chamber as though he owned it. Nix, staring, remembered the rough-spun young Olken he’d once treated for a split eyebrow and thought he’d not have achieved a more perfect transformation with magic.
He stood. “I requested His Majesty’s presence.”
“His Majesty ain’t available. Why do you need him?”
In the bed between them, momentarily forgotten, Durm shifted and sighed and said, “Borne...”
“He’s awake?” said Asher, incredulous.
Nix smiled. “Awake, and seemingly with all his faculties.”
Still staring at the recovered Master Magician, Asher said, “I’ll fetch the king,” and left as abruptly as he’d arrived. Nearly half an hour later he returned, this time accompanied by His Majesty.
Gar looked worn to the nub and ripe for dropping. Not surprising, perhaps, since he’d interred his family only yesterday. Still...
Nix bowed. “Your Majesty.”
Gar barely acknowledged him. Pushed straight past and dropped into the chair beside Durm’s bed. Snatched up Durm’s fleshless hand and pressed it to his lips.
“Durm. Durm, I’m here.” When Durm didn’t respond, Gar looked up, displeasure unhidden. “What is this? You said he was awake!”
Nix exchanged a glance with Asher and cleared his throat “He became agitated, sir. I was forced to gentle him with ebonard. He’ll stir again presently, I’m sure.”
Unmollified, Gar turned back to Durm. “You had no business drugging him, Nix. You know I need him alert and—”
In the bed, Durm sighed. Stirred. Dragged his eyelids open. “What... what...”
Breathing hard, Gar leaned close. “Praise Barl. Durm, can you hear me? Do you know me?”
Durm smiled into Gar’s anxious, waiting face. “Of course,” he said. His voice was soft and slurring. “You’re crippled Gar, Borne’s runting regrettable offspring “
Nix stepped forward. “Ebonard is a powerful soporific, sir, and oft tickles the tongue to unfortunate utterances. It would be unwise to—”
Gar’s face was bleached of blood. “You think I’d hold a sick man’s words against him?”
Another exchange of glances with Asher. This time the king’s friend frowned and shook his head. Nix abandoned remonstrance. “Of course not, Your Majesty.”
Durm stirred again, querulous now. “Borne? Where is Borne?”
Subdued, Gar leaned close. “He can’t be here at the moment. But he sends you his love.”
Durm smiled. “Borne. My friend. Give my love to him. Tell him I shall see him soon.” He sighed and slid again into sleep.
Gar released Durm’s hand, stood and moved to the window. “He has no memory of the accident?”
“It’s too soon to say for certain,” replied Nix. “But given his injuries ... likely not. Once he’s strong enough I’ll—”
“No. I will tell him.”
“As Your Majesty desires.”
“How soon before he can return to his duties?”
Nix hesitated. Everything about this grieving young man urged caution. “Sir... it’s a miracle Durm lives at all. Perhaps it’s not wise for us to look too far into the future.”
Gar glanced over his shoulder, a cold look. “You know I need him, Nix.”
Caution was all very well, but he’d not be bullied into harming a patient Not even by a king. “I know that whatever your needs may be, Your Majesty, Durm’s will always come first.”
“The king knows that,” said Asher. His tone was conversational, his eyes sharp. “Just do your best, eh, to bring Durm about as fast as possible. That’s all we’re askin’.”
We.
Nix felt the faintest stirring of unease. “Your Majesty?”
Gar turned. “That’s right. Of course you must protect his health. Protect, but not coddle. I’m asking for him as much as myself, Nix. Durm is not an idle man. He’ll heal faster knowing there’s work to be done. Knowing he’s needed.”
It was a fair observation. Still, Nix felt unsettled. Some new stress was carved into Gar’s face. Something apart from WeatherWorking. “To be sure. And how does Your Majesty? You seem to me a trifle ... peaked.”
“I’m fine.”
To satisfy himself, Nix reached for Gar’s wrist and laid a palm to his forehead. The king suffered his swift, impersonal touches with a thinly veiled impatience. When he was done, and grudgingly satisfied, Nix retreated. “You should rest more. I warned you, these first weeks of WeatherWorking will break you if you let them.”
“I’m fine, I told you,” Gar snapped. “Save your energies for Durm.”
He risked a smile. “I have enough energy for both of you, sir.”
Gar stepped forward, furious. “You think this amusing!”
“Majesty, no. I—”
“Heal him, Nix! Or I’ll not be answerable for the consequences!”
Shaken, Nix watched him leave. Frowned, affronted, as Asher, on the king’s heels, gave him a look of filthy disgust.
In his bed Durm slept on, smiling like a babe.
———
Conroyd Jarralt was in his bath when the message arrived. Durm has woken and is in his right mind. Sp great were his rage and disappointment that the cooling water began to bubble with heat and he had to leap out naked before he scalded himself.
“Tell Frawley to wait in the library,” he told the flustered maidservant. “I’ll see him directly.”
“Sir!” she gasped, and fled.
He wrapped himself in a rich brocade robe, dried and ordered his hair with an impatient finger-snap, then descended the stairs to meet with his henchman.
“My lord,” said Frawley, bowing low. Wrapped in his customary gray cloak, hat pulled low to his forehead, he looked, as ever, usefully nondescript.
“Our fat friend sent you a note, I take it?”
Frawley shook his head. “No, sir. He tracked me down to the Whistling Pig and accosted me in the privy.”
“Were you observed?”
Frawley looked hurt. “My lord.”
He couldn’t care less about Frawley’s feelings. “Is that all he said?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Jarralt sat at his desk and drummed his fingers. “Willer is laggardly in his task.”
“I did mention you were eagerly awaiting good news, my lord,” said Frawley. Uneasy now, he pulled off his hat and let his fingers nibble at the brim. “I made a point of telling him.”.
“I think it’s time he was reminded of his mission’s urgency,” said Jarralt. “Where is he now?”
“His lodgings, most like, sir, this time of night.”
“Find him. Escort him to the west gate of the City Barlsgarden. I will meet you there.”
“My lord,” said Frawley, and took his leave.
Ethienne was amusing herself at her spinet in the music room. “I’m going for a walk,” Jarralt told her.
“A walk?” she said, astonished. Mercifully she stopped playing and stared at him as though he’d sprouted wings. “At this hour? But you’ve just had your bath.”
“Please don’t distress yourself in staying up till I return. I feel a trifle restless this evening. I might well walk for some time.”
She stretched out a hand to him. “Oh, Conroyd. Are you st
ill so very sad?”
“We live in sad times, my dear.” For many reasons, and one more just added to the list.
“But you got over loving Dana years ago,” she said, pouting just a little. “And you never had a fondness for Borne. Not as a man, I mean. As our king, of course, you revered him, as did we all.”
She’d have to know, sooner or later. “Durm has woken. I just received word.”
And now his second-best wife understood. “Oh, Conroyd!”
“Yes,” he said softly, and indulged in the thinnest of smiles.
Ethienne rallied. “We cannot despair,” she announced, rising from her music stool. “Awake is one thing. Unimpaired and able to function as the Master Magician is quite another. My dear, do not abandon hope. You will be Master Magician one day, I know it.”
She had no idea of his true ambition, of course. He would never dream of confiding in a woman like her. She was challenged enough to keep her mouth shut on his supposed desire to take Durm’s inferior place at Gar’s side.
He shrugged. “Whatever happens, it will be according to Barl’s will.”
Flushing, she fingered the holy medal on its chain around her neck. “Of course.”
“Pray continue with your music-making, my dear,” he added, nodding at the spinet. “And I shall see you in the morning at breakfast.”
He escaped her enthusiastic butchery of a popular dance tune and exchanged brocade robe-and slippers for sober-hued tunic, trousers and boots. Muffled in a black cloak, with a low-brimmed hat to encourage concealing shadows, he left his townhouse and made his brisk way out of the exclusive Old Dorana residential district and towards the City Barlsgarden.
The night was clear, with no rain set to fall. According to the current Weather Schedule—Borne’s last—there’d be no rain in the City for another five days. The temperature was due to start dropping, though. Gar would need to take care of that soon, or the River Gant wouldn’t freeze over and there’d be no skating parties. He’d not stay popular long if that annual delight was unforthcoming. The idea made him smile.