The Bastard King tsom-1

by Dan Chernenko

  “What do you want to know?” the young king asked him.

  “Suppose I was holding the Scepter of Mercy right this minute.” Grus held out his arm, his hand closed as though gripping a shaft. “What could I do with it? What would the Banished One be afraid I could do with it?”

  “Remember how Alca said merely human wizards are all very small and weak when they’re measured against the Banished One?” Lanius asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Grus nodded and shivered at the same time. “I’m not likely to forget—not after that snow turned to blood and boiled.”

  “No. Neither am I. Neither is Alca, I expect,” Lanius said. “Well, if you were holding the Scepter of Mercy, you wouldn’t be small anymore. That much is pretty plain.”

  “So I’d be able to face him on something like even terms, would I?” Grus said, and Lanius nodded. Grus went on, “Suppose I was holding the Scepter, then, like I said. How could I use it to smash the Banished One, to give him what he deserves?”

  “That’s where things get tricky, or maybe just where I don’t understand,” Lanius answered. “The Scepter of Mercy isn’t a weapon, or isn’t exactly a weapon. It is what it says it is—the Scepter of Mercy. The way you’d use it is tied up in that—tied up tight.”

  “Tied up how?” Grus demanded. “This is the important stuff, you know, or would be if we had the Scepter.”

  “Yes. If.” Lanius’ tone made it plain how large an if that was. “It’s also what’s hardest to understand in the old writings. Some of the Kings of Avornis who used the Scepter of Mercy wrote down what they did and felt while they held it, but how can I know what that means when I haven’t held it myself?”

  “I don’t suppose you can,” Grus admitted with a sigh. “But I’ll tell you something, Your Majesty—I wish you could.”

  King Lanius sighed, too. “You aren’t the only one. But I don’t suppose it’s very likely, not when the Scepter’s been gone so long.”

  “I’m sure that’s what the Banished One wants us to think,” Grus said. “How long has it been since anybody seriously tried to take the Scepter of Mercy away from him?”

  “Two hundred and”—Lanius paused to count on his fingers—“twenty-seven years. The expedition didn’t get even halfway to Yozgat. Only a few men came back. The rest either died or were made into thralls.”

  “Oh.” Grus winced. Down in the south, he’d seen more thralls than he cared to remember. To his way of thinking, a clean death was preferable. Still… “Maybe, if the time ever seems ripe, we ought to think about trying again.”

  “Maybe.” But Lanius didn’t sound as though he believed it.

  Despite Lanius’ frowns and shrugs, the idea wouldn’t leave Grus’ mind. Ortalis greeted it with a shrug, too. He said, “I never have been able to understand what good the Scepter of Mercy was in the first place.”

  King Grus sighed once more. That sounded altogether too much like his only legitimate son. But even Estrilda had a hard time following him here. She said, “It would be nice, yes, but how can you hope to do it? You might want to leave well enough alone, don’t you think? Would you like to cross the Stura and end up a thrall?”

  “No, of course not,” Grus answered. “What I’d like would be to cross the Stura and win.”

  “Well, yes,” his wife said. “But how can you?”

  And to that reasonable question he had no answer, none at all. He drank more wine than he might have with supper that night, and went to bed earlier than usual. He soon fell into a deep, deep sleep—and then wished he hadn’t, for out of the mists and confusions of the dream world came an image neither misty nor confused nor, for that matter, a proper part of the dream world at all.

  The king hadn’t seen the Banished One in his sleep for many years, but the superhuman beauty of the exile from the heavens hadn’t changed a bit in all that time. When the Banished One spoke, his words reverberated inside Grus’ mind. “You think to trifle with me, do you? To rob me? To take what is mine by right and mine by might? Little man, you are a fool. You cannot harm me and my purposes, any more than a buzzing gnat could hamper you and yours. And if a gnat does somehow annoy you, what do you do? You crush it. Think on that. Think on it well. If you annoy me, gnat of a man, you will wish you were only crushed.”

  Quite suddenly, he was gone. Grus woke with a groan. Sweat drenched him. His heart pounded. He hadn’t known such terror since… since the last time the Banished One came to him in his dreams.

  Only in dreams could the Banished One reach him here. If he ever went south over the Stura, that might well not be so. Better to die than to fall into his hands, Grus thought. Or maybe better just to stay here safely in the city of Avornis.

  But would the Banished One have delivered such dire threats if he weren’t worried about what Grus and Avornis might do? How can I know? Grus wondered. Is he trying to lure me south with false hopes? He got no more sleep the rest of the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  King Lanius saw the Banished One in his dreams, too, as he hadn’t since he was a little boy. Confronted by that coldly handsome, coldly perfect visage, his first urge was to run and hide. Had he been able to, he would have, but the Banished One ruled the kingdom of his night.

  “Think you to trifle with me?” he heard, the chambers of his skull suddenly a prison. “You had better think again. Son of a dozen kings, are you? Have you any idea how little that matters, how small a stretch of time that covers, what a weak and puny land Avornis truly is?”

  Contempt radiated from him like light and heat from a fire. In his dream, Lanius answered, “Say what you will, but this is mine.”

  “No.” Contempt turned to something harsher—absolute rejection. “No, and no, and no. Stupid little man, ugly little man, the world is mine. It is not much, not when I have had better stolen from me, but it is mine. And I will use it as my stepping-stone to return to what truly belongs to me. Rest assured, I shall step on you, too. Rest assured, the more you make your maggot wriggles against me now, the more I shall enjoy it. Rest assured, your slimy, stinking, puling brat will not enjoy even what you do. Rest—”

  He might have gone on, but Lanius, who could rest no more, woke then with a gasp of horror. He sprang out of bed, waking Sosia, too, and rushed to the nursery to make sure Crex was all right. The baby slept, peaceful as could be, snoring a little around a thumb stuck in his mouth. Feeling a little foolish, or perhaps more than a little, Lanius went back to his own bedchamber.

  “What was that all about?” Sosia already sounded half asleep again.

  “A bad dream,” Lanius replied. Sosia grunted, nodded, and started to snore herself. Lanius lay awake for a long, long time afterward. Calling the Banished One’s visit a dream didn’t begin to do justice to what had happened. His memory was as precise, as real, as though they’d spoken face-to-face. The visit held none of a dream’s usual blurriness and ambiguity. It was real. He would have staked his life on that.

  Maybe he slept again that night. On the other hand, maybe he didn’t. Either way, he was yawning and fuzzy-headed the next morning. When he saw King Grus, he found his fellow sovereign in much the same straits. “Bad dreams?” he asked.

  Grus nodded. “You might say so. Yes, you just might say so. You?”

  “The same,” Lanius agreed. “It might be better not to name any names.”

  “Yes.” Grus nodded again. “It might. Do you believe your dreams?”

  “Do I believe I had them? Of course I do,” Lanius said. “Do I believe what I heard in them? He has reason to lie.”

  “I tell myself the same thing,” Grus said. “I keep telling myself the same thing, over and over, doing my best to convince myself of it. I’m glad you’re doing the same thing. He would be easy to believe.”

  “He would be easier to believe if he didn’t hit so hard,” Lanius observed. “But we’re only mortals, after all. Why should he waste his time finding out the best ways to get us to do what he wants?”

  “Not what
he wants,” Grus broke in. “What he requires. There’s a difference.”

  “Well, yes,” Lanius said. “Of course, you have your ways of getting me to do what you require, and—”

  His father-in-law’s face froze. Lanius had had that same thought many times. He hadn’t spelled it out in Grus’ hearing before. Part of him was glad to see he had at least struck a nerve. A good deal more of him was frightened. Every so often, he managed to get Grus angrier than he really wanted to. This looked like one of those times.

  “You don’t even know what a spoiled brat you are and how soft you’ve had it,” Grus said quietly. “I ought to beat the stuffing out of you for that—it might give you a hint. But I won’t dirty my hands with you. If you want to see the difference between the Banished One’s methods and mine, cross over the Stura and try thralldom. That will tell you what you need to know, though I doubt you’d care for the lesson.”

  “I—I’m sorry,” Lanius said. “I went too far.”

  “Yes, you did, didn’t you?” Grus still steamed. “Even if I’d married you to the headsman’s daughter instead of my own, you’d have gotten off easier from me than you would from the Banished One.” He turned his back and walked away.

  Lanius’ ears burned. The worst of it was, he knew Grus was right. He’d said something cruel and stupid, and Grus had pinned his ears back. But knowing he’d gotten what he deserved didn’t make getting it any more pleasant.

  He muttered something he’d heard an angry guardsman say. The trouble was, his own words had held some truth, too. He couldn’t do as he pleased, and the reason he couldn’t was that Grus wouldn’t let him. That didn’t mean Grus thought the world was his by right. It just meant Grus didn’t like to take chances.

  No doubt that made a difference in how the gods would judge Grus when he came before them at the end of his days on earth. He did—Lanius grudgingly supposed—have hope of a happy afterlife. Where it seemed to make little difference, though, was in its effect on Lanius. Grus can say whatever he wants. I may not be a thrall, but I’m not free, either. And if he thinks I like that, he’s wrong.

  Grus made a point of not seeing Lanius for the next few days. Had he seen him, he still thought he might have punched him in the face—the temptation lingered. Only little by little did he realize Lanius was as irked with him as he was with his son-in-law. Grus didn’t think Lanius had any business being so irked, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t.

  Lanius didn’t come seeking him out, either. Maybe that meant the younger king was embarrassed, too. Grus wouldn’t have bet on it. More likely, Lanius was still fuming, too. Eventually, they would need to work together again. As far as Grus was concerned, it could wait.

  He didn’t seek out Alca. Things hadn’t gone as he wanted the last time he tried that. They could undoubtedly go worse still if Estrilda found out what he wanted to do with her. But Grus didn’t flee the witch when they met in a corridor, either. Instead, he asked her, “Have you had bad dreams?”

  “Oh, yes.” Had she answered any other way, Grus would have been sure she was lying. Her face was pale, skin drawn tight across her bones. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. “I have had dreams. He does take his revenge.”

  “Did you know he would?” Grus asked.

  “Not that way,” she replied. “I knew I would pay for the spell somehow or other. He might have done worse. He might yet do worse.”

  “Do you believe what he tells you in the dreams?” Grus thought for a moment, then decided to change the way he’d said that. “When he tells it to you, you can’t help but believe it. How do you make yourself stop once you wake up?”

  “Because I know he lies,” Alca answered. “When we’re face-to-face, so to speak, I must believe him, as you say, because he is so strong. But even then I know I’m going to wake again, and when I wake I’ll know he was trying to befool me.”

  “If I had the Scepter of Mercy, what could I do to him?” Grus asked.

  Alca raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know, Your Majesty. The Scepter of Mercy has lain under the Banished One’s hand for a long time. I can’t begin to tell you what it might do. You would be wiser to ask King Lanius. He studies times past and the things of times past, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, but he’s no wizard,” Grus replied. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me more than he can.” I was hoping not to have to listen to another one of his lectures, too. “After all, the Scepter of Mercy is a sorcerous tool, and—”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Alca shook her head. “I don’t think so at all, Your Majesty, not in the sense you mean. No wizard made it—no human wizard, I mean. It wouldn’t have power against the Banished One if it came from the wit and will of an ordinary wizard.”

  “No? I always thought—” He’d never sought to learn where the Scepter came from. Maybe that was a mistake on his part. But he’d always had more important things to worry about. And I probably still do, he thought. He tried a different tack. “If no ordinary wizard made it, where does it come from?”

  “I don’t know that, either, Your Majesty. Maybe the gods gave it to us, a long, long time ago. Maybe the power was always in some part of it, and wizards recognized power and made the Scepter around that one potent part. Maybe—” The witch broke off. “I can guess for as long as you like. But I’d only be guessing, for I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows, except perhaps the Banished One.”

  Grus’ fingers twisted in a sign of rejection. “I’m not going to ask him.”

  He’d meant it for a joke, but Alca nodded seriously. “That’s wise, Your Majesty. That’s very wise. If you plan to have anything to do with the Scepter of Mercy, the less the Banished One knows of whatever you have in mind, the better.”

  “Yes.” Grus hadn’t thought of it in quite those terms. He hadn’t thought hard about trying to regain the Scepter of Mercy, either—not till recently. The more he thought about it, though, the better he liked it. If I could somehow bring it off, I’d be the greatest hero Avornis has known for hundreds of years.

  And if I fail, I’ll die a thrall, knowing the Banished One is laughing at me.

  Not till later did he realize that wasn’t necessarily so. He could order an army—led by Hirundo, say—south across the Stura, while he stayed here safe in the city of Avornis. He could. He didn’t think he ever would, though.

  He wondered why not. What could he do that Hirundo couldn’t? He had no answer for that. But he knew what he thought about officers who sent men into danger they feared to face themselves. And something else also applied—or he thought it did. One day not long after that, he asked Hirundo, “Have you ever dreamt of the Banished One?”

  “Me?” The general shook his head. “No, and I thank all the gods I haven’t. I can’t imagine a worse omen. Why, Your Majesty? Have you?”

  “Now and then,” Grus answered. “Every now and then.”

  “May you stay safe,” Hirundo said. “Have you got a wizard or a witch keeping watch over you? You’d better.”

  “I do.” Grus didn’t know how much Alca—or anyone else— could do if the Banished One seriously sought his life. No, that wasn’t true. He did know, or at least had a pretty good idea. He preferred not to think about it, though. Instead of asking Hirundo anything more about the Banished One, he said, “What do you think the Thervings are likely to do come spring?”

  “They’ll be trouble, I expect. They usually are.” Hirundo accepted the change of subject with obvious relief.

  But the answers he’d given left Grus thoughtful. Why hadn’t the Banished One shown himself to Hirundo? He had come to haunt the dreams of Grus himself, of Lanius, and of Alca. Why not Avornis’ best general? Because they offered a real challenge, and Hirundo didn’t? But how? That, Grus did not know.

  How could a mere man hope to outguess, hope to outsee, the Banished One, who, if he wasn’t immortal, certainly came closer than any human being? You can’t, he thought. You will always face— Avornis will always face— an enemy wis
er than you are.

  Then how to win? Logic said he had no chance. Yet Avornis had survived all these centuries despite its great foe’s wisdom and strength. The Banished One makes mistakes, too, Grus realized. No matter how wise he is, he can’t help underestimating mankind. That costs him. Sometimes it costs him dear.

  Hope, then. Hope in spite of logic. But Grus was not greatly reassured. He played a dangerous game indeed if he relied on his opponent’s making a mistake to give him any chance of winning.

  These days, King Lanius was not only a father but felt like a grandfather. Not only had Bronze presented him with a new litter of moncat kittens, but Snitch, whom he’d helped raise from a tiny thing, had also bred. He worried a little about breeding family members, but his books seemed to think it was acceptable for dogs, so he put it out of his mind. He had no choice, anyhow. Both new litters consisted of a male and a female. Lanius was growing convinced moncats usually did things that way.

  “Before too long,” he told Sosia, “they’ll be as common around the palace as ordinary cats are.”

  “Is that such a good thing?” his wife asked. “Ordinary cats can be a nuisance. Moncats can be even more trouble, because they’ve got hands.”

  Part of Lanius knew she was right. The rest did its best to reject the idea. “They’re wonderfully interesting beasts,” he said. “I could write a book about them.”

  “I’m sure you could,” Sosia said. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t nuisances, or couldn’t be if they got the chance. If they started swinging through the trees here in the city, we wouldn’t have any songbirds left before long.”

  “Don’t be silly. Songbirds can fly away,” Lanius said.

  “Grown songbirds can,” Sosia replied. “But what about the ones in their nests? What about eggs? Do moncats eat eggs?”

  “I don’t know.” Lanius felt harassed. He probably sounded harassed, too. But his stubborn honesty made him add, “When the Chernagors gave me Iron and Bronze, their leader did say the islands they came from didn’t have a lot of squirrels.”