by Rick Shelley
While I ate, I kept glancing at King Pregel, right next to me. He might be one hundred twenty-five years old, but he was packing in the chow as heartily as anyone else. Pregel was as sedentary as he could be, but he was still lean, almost gaunt in appearance. I couldn’t recall seeing any fat people in Varay. It started to puzzle me, but I filed the question for future exploration. I had a lot of questions about Varay.
When Pregel finished eating, he turned to me. “Barring great emergency it will be at least three days before we return to the usual business of the court,” he said. “We have much to talk about, you and I, but not right now. Take what time you need to yourself. See to your mother. If you need anything at all, come to me or to Baron Kardeen, any time of the day or night.”
I nodded and thanked him. A moment later, he stood and breakfast ended.
Timon had been at hand throughout the meal, serving me, making sure I got food from each new platter that was hauled in while the food was still hot. He knew more about a page’s duties than I did, but the attention made me uncomfortable.
“Have you managed to get yourself anything to eat this morning?” I asked when I got up from the table. Timon didn’t answer right off, so I assumed that he hadn’t. He certainly couldn’t have found much chance. He had been with me most of the time. “Then you’d better scare up some food for yourself before it disappears. I’m going up to the battlements.”
“I’ll go with you, lord,” he said.
“Not until your stomach’s bulging. It must be hell to stand around and watch others eat when you’re hungry. You can come up when you’re full. I won’t fall off.” He still hesitated. “Go on, eat!” I said firmly. Once it was a clear order, he seemed delighted to obey.
I wasn’t sure how to get to the battlements of the keep, but I knew they were up there—crenellations and smaller towers at two of the corners. The logical thing was to go out to the main stairway and climb until I ran out of stairs, so that’s what I did. Logic didn’t always hold in Varay, but that time I lucked out.
What I wouldn’t have given for a castle like Basil when I was nine or ten! Maybe it was no Caernarvon or Tower of London, but it would have seemed like it when I was a kid. The two watchtowers above the keep were the highest points in sight, off to the mountains that dimly wrinkled the southern horizon. I could see the sweep of the forest away from the castle and town, the line of the River Tarn, the patchwork greens of farms around the town and off into the distance, blending into the forest.
I climbed to the top of one of the watchtowers. There were crenellations, braziers, stands of weapons and piles of stones, a guard walking his post—in desultory fashion. The royal pennant flew on both towers, but below it flew a black flag of mourning and the pennant of the Hero of Varay. A mild breeze came out of the northeast. It wasn’t cold, but it was invigorating after the stuffy, smoky warmth of the great hall. Maybe Shakespeare sent me racing to the battlements, but there was a bright sun shining; it wasn’t midnight and I didn’t see any tattletale ghosts.
Varay spread out in every direction. The only boundary I could be certain of from my perch was the distant line of the Titan Mountains to the south. Parthet had said that they were unscalable, an absolute barrier. Not even magic could take a person over or through them. The Mist and the Isthmus of Xayber were too far north to be seen from Basil. I knew how far east of the capital the border with Dorthin was, also out of sight. Belorz was, according to the map, more than twice that far to the west. I wasn’t overly confident that the map’s scale had been accurate, but Varay seemed to be about 250 miles from east to west, somewhat more than that from north to south. The actual borders were vague. Varay and Dorthin argued and fought over the line in the east. The southern border depended on how far a person thought he could extend it into the Titans. And in the northeast, the border between Varay and Fairy fluctuated through Battle Forest, even out onto the isthmus at times, depending on how the fates or whatever were running. The only borders that seemed fixed were the coastline of the Mist and the line between Varay and Belorz. They were separated by a dandy river that both kingdoms accepted as a political divider.
If I believed the advertising, the kingdom would all be mine someday—if I survived my term as Hero of Varay. Now there’s a job title that could have been created by an ad agency. I could go back home and cash in on it for Saturday-morning cartoons, maybe a string of flashy movies starring some ex-musclebuilder or football lineman, license an entire array of toys, T-shirts, school supplies, and anything else that could carry a logo and fetch a price.
The thoughts and images went through my head, circled and danced, but I didn’t see much humor at the moment.
I looked down at my clothes. I had switched my fatigues and chain mail for an outfit of local manufacture during the night—loose trousers, coarse-woven shirt, and leather vest. The Basilier equivalent of Sunday-go-to-meeting duds. And my weapons. The Hero of Varay was expected to be armed at all times. The pistol holster inside my waistband was chafing. A knife and my sword showed.
“Highness?” I hadn’t heard Timon come up. I was staring toward the Titans, lost in my moody reflections.
“Yes, Timon. Did you get your fill?”
“Aye, lord, enough to last a week.”
I doubted that. “What’s going on downstairs?”
“Very little. Nearly everyone has gone to bed.”
“You must be tired too.”
“Not really, lord,” he lied. I had seen him smothering yawns at breakfast and before. “Perhaps you should retire for a few hours.”
“I couldn’t sleep if I had to.” I guess I was lying too.
“What will you do?” Timon asked.
“I don’t know. Stand here until I get bored, I suppose. Maybe find a full barrel of beer and empty it.”
“I mean, about …” He didn’t have to finish.
“I don’t know yet,” I said slowly. My voice sounded tired even to me. I had another answer for Timon, but I censored it before it could get out. What would I do? Kill the Etevar and his wizard. Maybe it would have to come down to that kind of an-eye-for-an-eye revenge, but I couldn’t fill the emptiness with a mad thirst for revenge at any cost. The Etevar has killed my father because my father killed his father. So I go off, kill this Etevar, and wait for his son to kill me? Madness, even though there were no police or law courts to run to for justice. This was so far removed from the society that I knew that I still couldn’t make the mental leap—not standing on the castle’s battlements, in a chilly breeze, not even just hours after we had buried my father. It all seemed so clear when I entered that dark cottage near Castle Thyme. No more.
“Everyone’s sleeping, you say?”
“Aye, lord. There won’t be much happening afore late afternoon, not even in the town.”
“Did they stand the vigil with us?”
“Many did, I hear. He was everyone’s Hero.”
“Maybe I should try to sleep,” I mumbled.
“Your chamber is prepared, lord.” As a member of the royal family, I rated a private room, more than the overwhelming majority of the people in the castle could say. For the soldiers and servants, bed was often whatever piece of rush-strewn floor they could claim and hold.
The bedroom was the one my father had used in Basil. I recognized it because I had seen it through the doorway in my parents’ bedroom in Louisville. Now it was mine. Mother had taken a different room somewhere else in the keep. I wasn’t sure where. Lesh was sitting across the doorway to my room, leaning against the jamb, snoring freely. Timon woke him so I wouldn’t trip or wake Lesh myself. Lesh came to his feet, forcing himself alert.
“Sorry, lord,” he said.
“Never mind. A little sleep is what we all need. But you might as well come inside, out of the hallway.”
“My place is at your door, lord.” I wanted to argue, but I didn’t think I could shake his sense of propriety without a long discussion, so I let it be.
“Come o
n, Timon.” I propelled the boy inside. “Find a comfortable spot and get some sleep yourself.” There was a bench piled high with cushions. I shoved him toward that and then I stripped off my weapons and collapsed across my bed. I guess I fell asleep almost immediately.
* * *
I found myself holding Yorick’s skull, standing in his grave and declaiming how well I knew him while the skull told me to wake up. I tried to tell Yorick to shut up, that I had immortal words to say, but someone was shaking me. I opened my eyes and saw Parthet standing over me, his face nearly invisible in the shadows. I had slept through the day. The only light was coming through the open door from torches in the hall. While I pried myself up to a sitting position, Lesh brought in a lit torch and wedged it into a wall bracket opposite the foot of my bed.
“What time is it?” I asked around a heroic yawn.
“Two hours past sunset,” Parthet said. “Quickly, lad, His Majesty waits.”
That shortened my next yawn. “What’s up? He said it would be three days before we got back to business as usual.”
“This isn’t business as usual. The Etevar has stolen those days from us,” Parthet said. “Come on, lad. You’ll hear it soon enough.” He started to pull me to my feet with more strength than I would have given him credit for.
“Okay, I’m up.” On my feet even. I flexed my shoulders and stretched. By the time I brought my arms down, Parthet and Timon were wrapping my sword belt around me. Protocol. The Hero of Varay must be armed.
It was a long walk, down from the mezzanine where my room was, through the great hall, up the main stairway on the other side, then back across to the king’s private dining hall. A huge parchment map was spread across the table, the edges of the scroll held down with weights. The map was four feet by seven and appeared to show just Varay and Dorthin, in much more detail than the map I had been given before. Mother and Kardeen were already studying the map with the king when Parthet and I arrived. Lesh and Timon waited in the hall.
“Sorry we had to disturb you, son, but this is urgent,” Pregel said.
I nodded and took the seat the king indicated, next to him.
“Our relations with the Etevars have never been good,” Pregel said. “The ambush the current one set for your father was just the latest in a long series of provocations. Now it appears that the attack on your father was merely a prelude to something more ambitious. Parthet, tell him what you’ve learned.”
Parthet stood to achieve his meager height advantage. “I was too restless to sleep this morning. I knew, of course, that the Etevar bore a bitter grudge against Carl, but I worried that there might be more to the scheme he used to draw Carl to Thyme. It had been troubling me for some time, but I couldn’t put my suspicions together until this morning. So I decided to do a little spying.” He paused to look around. Nobody questioned him. Obviously, the king had already heard the news; maybe the others had as well.
“I started by questioning Harkane at length with hypnosis and magic, probing for any clue he might have picked up at Castle Thyme, even subconsciously.” Parthet shrugged. “There was an aura of strong magic around his perceptions, but we already knew that the Etevar’s wizard was involved in the setting the ambush.”
“What’s the importance of that?” I asked. “Why did it take a wizard to set the ambush? I’d think any competent military commander could do it.”
“Part of the magic of the Hero of Varay is a considerably heightened perception of personal danger,” Parthet said. “Without a more powerful magic to conceal the ambush, your father would certainly have seen that there was more to the situation than it appeared, and been able to take his own measures.” He waited for my nod before he continued.
“I do make a good spy. I’m old and crippled-looking. No one would guess that I’m more than that without the talent to spot my magics, so I visited Carsol, the Etevar’s capital, and nosed around.”
“In one day? How did you get there?” I asked.
Parthet looked to the king for permission before he answered. “There is a passage from Basil Town to Carsol, one your father and I opened years ago, after your father defeated the previous Etevar.”
“You have a door into the enemy’s capital but you thought it was too dangerous to have one into Castle Thyme?” I suppose I was as surprised as anyone at the anger in my voice. It just flared. A doorway into Castle Thyme could have put Dad beyond the ambush, kept him alive.
“The secret way into Carsol was a risk we felt justified,” Pregel said. “Now, it’s easy to see how things might have been different.”
“The Etevar’s wizard would have looked for passages in Thyme,” Parthet said. “Even a poor wizard could spot a doorway, though it would take an extraordinary one to use it. The Etevar’s new wizard might be that good.”
“He could find one in his own capital just as easily,” I said.
“If he thought to search for it,” Parthet said. “That magic is much too passive to give itself away by chance. And this is the first time that passage has been used in years.”
Baron Kardeen cleared his throat. “The doorway on this end is in a cellar that is kept flooded except when someone who is authorized uses the passage. The other end is in a much smaller cellar. Anyone who managed to open the doorway from the other end—anyone not authorized to—would likely drown.”
I held up both hands. “Okay, okay. A justifiable risk.” I turned to Parthet. “So, you went to Carsol. What then?”
“There was an incredible amount of activity, people all over town. Part of it was celebration at the destruction of the king’s greatest enemy.” Parthet paused but wouldn’t meet my eyes. He was talking about people celebrating Dad’s death. “But part of it was anticipation. The Etevar has called for a general levy of his warlords and all Dorthinis who owe military service. He plans an all-out invasion of Varay. With our Hero dead, he feels that he can’t lose this time, especially not with his new wizard.”
“So what’s so special about this new wizard?”
“No one speaks his name. To the Dorthinis, he is just ‘The Wizard.’” Parthet sounded miffed. “They talk about him as a new arrival out of Fairy, perhaps a rebel there, but they claim that he is the most powerful wizard the seven kingdoms have ever known. They describe him as standing head and shoulders over the tallest Dorthini, which would put him well over seven feet—and makes him sound like an elf.” That last was an aside to me. “All sorts of impossible powers are ascribed to him. Magic is one thing, but some of the stories are clearly beyond any magic that could possibly work in the seven kingdoms.”
“How much time do we have?” I asked.
“The levy is to assemble two weeks from today at Carsol. The army will need ten, more likely twelve, days to get from Carsol to the border. An army travels more slowly than a small party. Most of them will be on foot.”
“So we have a little more than three weeks to get an army to the border to meet them. Where will they attack?”
“They’ll come by way of Castle Thyme, aiming straight for Basil across the middle of the kingdom. No other route would work.”
“That way will be slow,” I said, more to myself than the others.
“Slow, but not impossible,” Parthet said.
“It does give us time to get an army in front of them.”
“We have no army to put in front of them,” Kardeen said. “If we pull our men from the north, we’ll be overrun by the Elflord of Xayber. He’s a mad rebel against his own kind, but as long as he threatens the buffer zone and not other elflords, his people let him be.”
“Are you saying that it comes down to deciding who we want to lose Varay to?” I asked.
“If it ever does come to that, there can be no question,” Pregel said. “Letting Fairy cut the buffer zone in half might destroy the fabric of our existence. Our only purpose is to separate the realms, Fairy and Mortal.”
“What options do we have, then?”
“I don’t know. I only kn
ow that we have to find a way,” Pregel said.
Picture a light bulb going on above my head. “You mean that you hope I can find a way.”
“You are Hero of Varay,” Kardeen said. “We have always relied on our Heroes in our greatest need, all the way back to Vara himself.”
“Hey, I’m the rookie here, remember? I don’t have any miracles to pull out of a hat. How the hell can I take on an entire army single-handed?”
Nobody answered for a long time. But I kept my mouth shut, and eventually somebody had to speak. It was the king.
“Varay cannot fall while it is defended by a proper Hero.”
“Then I must not be a proper Hero,” I replied.
“You are,” Parthet said. “The magic is in you. You know that.”
I remembered the electricity when the king linked our rings, the sensation of power entering and surging through me, all of that. “I don’t know what the magic is, how to use it.”
“You mother and I can help with that, some,” Parthet said. “But more of the magic can only be known by a Hero. Your father would have explained it, but he didn’t get the chance.”
“Because he was too busy getting himself killed trying to live up to your idea of the proper Hero?” I asked. That caused another long silence. Mother broke this one.
“Your father did what he did because he felt it was right. He knew the risks. As you know them. He made his choice.”