With that, Altra examined the ground further, and something occurred to Karal. Altra was going to expend a great deal of energy—and concentration. He wasn't going to be able to concentrate if he was shivering. He needed to be off the cold ground, but none of them had thought to bring anything for Altra to sit on.
Wait a moment—Florian was not wearing a saddle, but he was carrying an ornamental blanket.
As he turned to ask Florian if he could borrow the blanket, Florian reached around and pulled the silver-embroidered blue blanket from his back with his teeth, clearly with the same idea in mind.
:Here. There's something appropriate about Altra sitting on a Valdemaran blanket to bring Solaris here from Karse, isn't there?:
Altra pivoted to face them again as Karal took the blanket from Florian. His blue eyes went from Karal to Florian and back again. :Thank you,: he said simply. "This is why the Alliance will work.:
:At least it is why we three make a good team, pulling as one in the same harness,: Florian said with amusement.
Altra snorted, indicating a place for Karal to lay the blanket with a tap of his paw. :Trust a horse to say we work in harness. I would have said we were running the same prey.:
:So you would,: Florian replied agreeably, watching Altra settle himself on the blanket. :And you may have my share of the mice we take.:
:And you, my share of the corn they were eating. Gentlemen, are we prepared? Hansa is ready on his side.:
It was a rhetorical question, and they all knew it. Karal gave his tunic a last tug, while Florian positioned himself very carefully beside him. They both turned their attention to the stone arch.
Every muscle on Altra's body was tense; not even his tail twitched. The stones of the arch began to glow, faintly at first, but the brightness increased with every passing heartbeat. Then, between one moment and the next, there was blackness inside the arch instead of the view of the stones and weeds on the other side.
A few tendrils of energy licked across the blackness; slowed lightning was all Karal could think of. Every hair on Altra's body stood on end, puffing him up to twice his normal size. More tendrils appeared, and still more—
Then, just as suddenly as the blackness had appeared, it vanished. But the view through the archway was not that of the ruins; it was of a wall of books and a wooden floor—and Solaris, with Hansa sitting beside her, the precise mirror-image of Altra.
The scene held for only a single moment, not even as long as it took to cough. Solaris wasted no time at all in acting, stepping through the stone archway with all the casual aplomb of one walking from one room to the other—
Except, of course, that she was stepping across a distance so vast it had taken Karal weeks to cross it. And that she, too, was in her full formal robes as the Son of the Sun, the Voice of Vkandis, the ruler of all Karse.
She glittered with gold; her robes were sewn with plates of it rather than simply being embroidered with gold bullion and braid. Her jewels of office were twice the size of Karal's. She was as covered with gold and sun-gems as the statue of Vkandis Himself. Karal wondered how she could move.
But move she did, from Karse to Valdemar and away from the Gate quickly, so that Altra and Hansa could break the connection and close it down. The instant she was clear, that was precisely what they did; the Gate went black, then vanished completely, leaving only the view of the ruins in the picturesque archway.
Altra sagged, and Solaris bent quickly to support him for a moment until he regained his strength. "Thank you, Altra," Karal heard her say very quietly. "That was well and smoothly done."
If Altra made any answer, he made it only to her, for Karal "heard" nothing. When the Firecat seemed better, Solaris straightened and turned her attention to those waiting to welcome her.
Karal quailed beneath that direct gaze, as hard to meet as the full glare of the sun at noonday on the Summer Solstice. He shivered and tried to drop his eyes, entirely overwhelmed and not just by the fact that he was in the presence of his ruler. He now had what he had never wanted, the full and undivided attention of the Son of the Sun. But more than that he stood before Solaris with a heavy knowledge in his heart that he had failed her; he had broken his promise to her by failing to keep Ulrich safe.
He trembled, and her gaze softened; for a moment he saw the woman beneath the High Priest. Her mask dropped altogether at that moment, she took several swift steps forward, and before he could bow to her, she caught his shoulders in her hands, then embraced him.
"I need not be the Sun's Son just yet," she whispered into his ear as he forgot to breathe. "And Karal—I know. I know what you feel. You did the best you could, and if you can be said to have failed at all, it is because I gave you tasks suited for a score of seasoned mages and priests, not for one young man alone. The trouble is, I did not have those seasoned mages and priests to send here. I had only you, and hope, and you have repaid that hope by accomplishing more than anyone had a right to expect."
He felt caught in the silence and could not reply.
"Twice now, I have unthinkingly given you a task too great for you, and I am sorry. Can you forgive me?" She released him so that he could look into her anxious eyes. He nodded dumbly, and her eyes brightened with a suspicion of tears. "Oh, Karal," she breathed, "I miss him too!"
That was too much for him; with a spasm of heart and throat, he lost all of his control and broke down, weeping. But she was doing the same, and the two of them wept together in silence.
She regained control of herself first, though she did not push him away. Instead, she held him while he wept himself out, while the pain of loss ebbed, and released him only when he made a tentative move to free himself.
"Here," she said, handing him a handkerchief which she produced out of the capacious sleeves of her robes. "I had the feeling this would happen, and I came prepared." She managed a wan smile, for a moment more, no longer the Son of the Sun, but just a harried and weary woman. "The one thing these robes are good for is being prepared. I could hide a donkey, a week's provisions, and a small tent in these sleeves."
That made him laugh, as she must have known it would. He composed himself as she carefully removed the last damage from her tears and resumed her dignity. Karal blotted his own face, glad that the cold air would quickly restore him and that the redness of his eyes would be attributed to staring into the bright sun for too long. When he was ready, he nodded to her, and with Florian at her left and himself at her right, and a much-subdued and slightly shaky Altra bringing up the rear, they moved out of the Grove and toward the waiting delegation.
Selenay waited there, clearly visible among the rest in her white and gold, as impressive in her simplicity as Solaris was in her ornate robes. Beside her stood her Companion, as beaded and belled as Florian, but wearing full formal tack, including a saddle; behind her stood Talia and Prince Daren and their Companions, likewise bedecked, and the rest of the welcoming delegation behind them. Those who were not Heralds had dressed in sun colors as a tribute to Solaris; they made a bright and welcoming patch of warm color against the dead, gray-brown grass and barren branches.
It was an interesting moment; the first face-to-face meeting of two strong-willed, strong-minded women, both the rulers in their own lands, and each of them once the greatest enemy of the other. Karal felt the pressure of their gazes as Solaris approached with that graceful, gliding step he could never emulate. Neither of them had an iota of attention for anyone else.
Finally Solaris stopped, no more than a pace or two from her counterpart, both of them eyeing each other for a breathless moment of assessment.
Breathless, indeed; once again, Karal forgot to breathe. Would they hate each other? When they were so far distant from one another, personal feelings had meant nothing, but now that they were within touching distance, it was imperative that they at least be able to tolerate each other! What if they were instant enemies?
His heart pounded painfully in his ears as he waited for one or the
other of them to speak—or something!
Finally, though, it was Selenay who broke the impasse, and she did it with a smile.
"Talia told me that we were much alike, Holiness," she said, as Solaris answered that smile with a wary one of her own. "I suspect that she was being tactful."
"Very tactful, Majesty," Solaris replied, in that peculiar, carrying voice that never seemed to rise above conversational level, yet could reach clearly to the back of the Temple, "But I would expect that level of tact, knowing Our Priestess."
Cleverly phrased; Karal marveled at how clever—in the same breath, by saying "I" first, she had given Selenay notice that they were equals and she was claiming no special precedence for herself, even as Selenay had not. But by referring to Talia as "Our" Priestess, she reminded Selenay that unlike the Valdemaran ruler, Solaris spoke with more voices than her own. Talia was a Priestess to Vkandis as well as Solaris, and where Solaris was, so, too, was her God.
"I suspect," Solaris continued, reinforcing that status of equals with another "I', "that what she truly meant and would not say is that we are too much alike."
She raised a long, thin, elegant eyebrow at Talia, for the first time taking her attention from the Valdemaran Queen. Talia had donned Karsite Sun-priest robes—but they were in white and silver, rather than black and gold, in token of her dual duties as Priest and Herald. Another nicely balanced gesture.
Talia blushed, as Selenay chuckled very softly, and relaxed the tiniest bit. Karal relaxed a great deal more than that; finally letting out the breath he had been holding. They like each other! Oh, thank you, Vkandis! Solaris was never that frank except with people she liked and trusted. She would never lie, but she was a past master at partial truth and dissimulation. She had to be, after all; she could not have gotten as far as she had if she was not.
Then again, although he could not speak from personal experience, Selenay was probably just as clever.
Solaris moved forward the remaining few paces and held out her hand. Selenay took it immediately, clasping it heartily.
"Now, Holiness," the Queen of Valdemar said, turning adroitly so that she now stood side-by-side with the Son of the Sun, "if I may begin the introductions. Talia you know—and this is my husband and consort, Prince Daren...."
Karal took a discreet step to the rear, placing himself in a modest position behind his ruler; at last laying all the intolerable burden of authority on the proper shoulders to bear it.
Seven
Dear gods, it's a frozen wasteland out there. Commander Tremane—who no longer thought of himself as a Grand Duke, nor in any other context than as the commander of his men—gazed out at the now-empty courtyard of his stronghold. It was buried beneath snow that reached to the knee, and the weather-wizard from the town said that more was coming. Even though the old wreck couldn't change the weather anymore, he could still predict it, and he thought he could teach one or two of Tremane's mages the trick. Snow. I haven't had to deal with this much snow since the years I spent on my estate. In the Imperial capital, of course, all snow was neatly steered away from the city itself, except for a dusting that looked ornamental and could easily be swept from the streets.
Winter had arrived, bypassing most of fall altogether. But with the help of his men, the locals had gotten their crops in, the foraging parties had brought in bales of hay, baskets of wheat and root crops, pecks of nuts and fruits, and even some livestock that had not gone altogether feral. The armed parties had brought back some of the livestock that had gone feral, in the form of carcasses now hanging frozen in a locked warehouse in the city. Ownership of those carcasses was not a matter of dispute; Tremane owned them, traded one-for-one for Tremane's half of the living animals collected. The fresh meat would be a welcome change from the preserved and salted meat in the Imperial warehouses—having it so far from camp, while it increased the chances of pilferage, ensured that the cooks would do as he had ordered, and plan meals that alternated fresh meat with preserved. He didn't want the fresh meat used up all at once, leaving only preserved. The men would complain, and rightfully, if meal after meal was nothing but the salty stews and other dishes that were all that could be made with preserved meat. It was a little thing, but in winter, and under the conditions that the men were now living in, little things could amount to great problems of morale.
It could be worse. Snow is not the worst thing that could happen to us. He was happy enough with snow, actually, because two days ago what had come down out of the sky was an ice-storm. Snow was infinitely preferable to ice that made walking between buildings into an ordeal. There were two men down with broken legs, five with broken arms, and a half dozen with broken collarbones, according to the roster.
Such injuries were not the calamity they would have been a few weeks ago, when he had needed every able-bodied person. The walls were completed; so were the new barracks. The builders had arrived at a clever and elegant solution to the heating problem—or, rather, one that made the best use of limited fuel and equally limited time for building. It was a variation on the idea of a furnace that one of his own men had concocted.
The barracks were still being finished inside, but that could be done while the men were living in them. As long as there was room to put down bedrolls, that was what mattered. They were similar in design to the plan of the earth sheltered buildings he had looked at earlier, but instead of making the entirety of one wall into a chimney, these plans arranged for the warm air to run under the floor to the opposite wall, and there were additional chimneys built into the support posts. Directly above the furnace were brick ovens for baking and depressions shaped exactly like the huge army kettles for heating water and making soups and stews.
That meant there were no windows, so all light came from candles and lanterns. What the barracks lacked in light, they made up for in warmth. Tremane reflected that if a vote had been taken, the men would probably have voted against windows in favor of heat in any case.
Of course, since they had not been consulted, the men called the new barracks "the holes," or "the caves," and although they were not happy about living in such dank and poorly-lighted places, a fair majority of them admitted that the barracks were far, far preferable to not having solid shelter.
They had still been in their tents when the first ice-storm hit. They had been a great deal less happy about that, as fully half the tents had collapsed beneath the weight of the ice that had built up on them. It was amazing how quickly the last bit of building went up after that.
There was a faint but persistent smoky animal odor about the places, caused by the dung bricks and peat blocks they were burning instead of wood in the furnaces. It wasn't too unpleasant, though the men complained about that too, claiming it got into the bread and the soup. He had given orders that strong herbs be added to both to cover the scent and taste.
There were plenty of complaints; the rumor mill was positively acidic these days, but the complaints and rumors were all of the sort that appeared when people had an excess of time and energy, and none were the kind that presaged mutiny. In fact, in a strange way they were a sign of health; the natural result when men who were used to activity were confined in comfortable but boring surroundings.
I will have to find creative ways for them to use up all the energy. Wood gathering parties—hunting parties, too. But that won't take very many. Snow maneuvers? Or perhaps something in the town? But what? I don't want to have them take over the duties of the local constables this soon; that could only cause resentment.
Tremane had made certain that the men were given leave to go into town on a regular basis; there was no point in cooping them up in barracks when a mug of beer and an hour with a pliant girl would make them cheerful again. The townsfolk were getting along reasonably well with the men and vice versa; the only incidents had been caused by drunkenness, either on the part of the soldier or more rarely of one of the townsfolk, and all had been resolved. As might be expected, the man who was drunk was usually to b
lame, and punishment was meted out by the appropriate authority. Between them, Tremane and the Shonar council had established a list of infractions and punishments, based on the imperial Code, that was applied to townsman and Imperial soldier impartially.
On the whole, Tremane's world was in relatively good shape, as long as he kept his gaze within the walls of Shonar.
Outside, however—
From somewhere beyond the walls, out in the snowy gloom, came a high, thin wail. One of them. That cry had not come from the throat of a wolf, a lynx, or a feral dog; it had come from... something else. He heard them howling and wailing at night from dusk to dawn, and the sentries on the walls reported shadows by dusk and glowing eyes in the dark, gazing up at them and then vanishing. Whatever they were, they were smarter than the spider-creature, for they had not been caught—but he pitied the farmers who had declined the hospitality of the town for the winter. It must be terrible to hear those creatures crying beneath the windows, and know that only one thin wall of wood separated you and your family from them. Did they snuffle at the cracks under the doors, and sniff at the barred shutters? Did they scratch at the walls or gnaw on the doorposts? He hoped that long before the beasts became a danger, those farmers would change their minds and pack up what they could, and head for the high brick walls of Shonar, driving their stock before them. Thus far, whatever they were, the walls were keeping them out—but every mage-storm brought more and potentially worse creatures to roam the snow-covered landscape. And the winter had just begun....
Turn your eyes within your walls, Tremane.
The roofs of his barracks, like the roofs of most of the buildings in town, were thick thatch, and pitched steeply enough that a buildup of ice merely broke free and slid down the straw rather than collapsing the roof. That had been necessity rather than wisdom, but it was fortuitous; the same storm that had collapsed half of the tents had collapsed the roof of one building in town that had been covered with plates of slate rather than bundles of thatch. Yes, with thatch there was a danger of fire, and that was a consideration. By design, though, there would be no chance of a soot fire in Tremane's barracks, for all soot built up in the roof of the furnace itself, and could be poked loose when the furnace was stoked.
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