by Tom Deitz
“I haven't had time since the war,” he whispered into her hair, as he freed his fingers again.
“You haven't made time. You and Rann should do each other. I'll watch. That way we could all learn something.”
“So now I have to worry about him as well as Kylin?”
“You have to worry about no one, love,” Strynn gave back seriously. “But he does have to sire his three sometime, and Div can't give them to him.”
“Do you have any suggestions?”
Her hand guided his a certain way.
“Not that kind of suggestion—though that one's interesting, too!”
“Foolish boy! You're as full of questions as—”
“As you were full of me a while ago? We didn't talk then.”
“We'd no need to. Even without the gems there's that incredible closeness they give us unaware. I am so sorry, Avall, for all those other lovers who can't know that. It—Oh! Do that again!”
He did, and for a fair long while they spoke with their bodies alone. Eventually, however, they fell apart, sweaty and sated.
“Mates for Rann,” Strynn recalled abruptly. “I'd give him a child if you consented—once I've provided your three.”
Avall leaned up on his elbow. “And maybe one for Kylin? You're expecting a lot of your fertility.”
“My fertility owes me after what it got me into with Eddyn.”
He laughed in spite of the reference.
“As best I can figure,” she continued loftily, “there're at least two others, whom I suspect Div would also approve.”
“And who might they be?”
She rolled onto her side to face him. “Don't tell me you can't guess.”
“Humor me.”
“Someone you're very close to.”
He tried to shrug. “But I'm not close to any women except you, Div, and … oh, Eight, Strynn, you don't mean Merry?”
“They could both do worse, given that she's unlikely to wed. And it shouldn't bother him overmuch, seeing how she looks so much like you.”
Avall blinked back surprise. “Well, maybe … And the other?”
“Elvix, for variety.”
“I thought she and Krynneth—”
“For variety.”
“Speaking of which, what about Myx and Riff ?”
“They're the closest set of bond-brothers I've ever seen, except for you and Rann. They're also both betrothed, though I've never met either of the very lucky ladies in question— thanks, in large part, to the Fateing, which seems determined to keep them apart. They—” She broke off, cocking her head. “Avall, I thought you gave orders.”
“What?”
“Someone's at the door.”
He sat up quickly, the wind cool against his bare skin. At first he heard nothing, but then he caught it: two doors away, faint but clear, and in the cadence that signaled emergency. “Eight!” he spat, and rose, snatching up a maroon wrap-robe as he strode through the adjoining bedchamber. By the time he'd reached the common hall, the cadence was sounding again, this time accompanied by a voice.
Myx, by the sound of it, and very, very agitated.
“Majesty!” Loudest yet, and barely muffled by oak. He'd have to have a word with the man about discretion. Scowling, Avall wrenched the door open.
It was indeed Myx. But Riff was with him, and between them was a boy Avall had never seen. Clanless, to look at him, fourteen at most, and frightened out of his mind.
“They told me they'd kill me if I didn't …” the boy wailed. “They told me—”
“Who told you what?” Avall demanded furiously.
Whereupon the boy flung himself flat on the floor, sobbing wretchedly.
Taking a deep breath, Avall sank down beside the boy and laid his hand gently on his back, to comfort, not condemn. And though he'd never bonded with the lad before, some of the boy's emotions found their way through that link. Fear. Raw fear. Fear of what was and what had been and what would become, all three.
Riff joined Avall at the boy's other side. “Veen said he approached her at the main gate, scared out of his mind, but that he had something with him that alarmed her more than the boy's fear did. She didn't dare leave her post, so she sent for me.”
“And what was this thing?”
“I don't know,” Riff retorted anxiously. “He wouldn't tell me, nor would Veen, beyond the fact that it was important. She simply told me to see that he reached you at once.”
“There's something in his hand,” Myx noted.
“Lad,” Avall prompted softly, “you've done your duty now. Whoever gave you something to give me—I'm here to receive it.”
“It's two things, Majesty,” the boy sobbed, slowly sitting up.
“Two things?”
“I only showed the lady guard what they told me to show her so they'd let me in to see you.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“The men who said they'd kill me and my family if I didn't do what they said.”
Avall took the boy by both shoulders, trying to resist the temptation to give him a good shake. “What did they look like? Did they have on any livery?”
A helpless shrug. “Men. It was dark.”
Avall bit back a sharp reply. No point terrifying the boy more than he already was. “Let's see what you showed Veen. I'm interested to see what could make her countermand a royal order.”
The boy wouldn't look at him, but he finally opened his hand far enough to reveal something that gleamed gold in his grimy palm.
A ring.
A Hold-Warden's ring, by the configuration. But whose? Avall plucked it gingerly from the grimy palm and held it into better light.
“Gem-Hold-Winter,” he said dully. Strynn was at the door, he noted, wondering when she'd joined them. He passed the ring up to her. “I don't want to know what this means.”
“I have a message that tells,” the boy replied, patting the front of his filthy tunic.
“I'll take it, then,” Avall told him softly. “With thanks.”
The boy promptly fished a sealed copper message cylinder from within his ragged clothing. “They said they'd watch until I went in the Citadel,” he volunteered. “So I had to, Majesty. I had to.”
“No one here will harm you,” Avall assured him, rising. “But I may have to do some harming sooner than I thought.” He eyed his companions speculatively. “Riff, go find Rann and Lyk, then take this lad to Bingg and tell him to get him fed and pampered, but not to let him go until I say so. Myx, get Veen and send her here at once, while you relieve her. She ranks you, I'm afraid, and I need her level head just now. Have her pick up Vorinn, if she can find him. I'll tell you everything when I can, I promise.”
“As you will, Majesty.”
Riff was hesitating. “Anyone else, Majesty?”
Avall rounded on him. “Whom would you suggest?”
“Given that's the Warden's Ring of Gem-Hold-Winter,” Riff replied bravely, “I'd say the Chiefs of Myrk and Gem.”
“Tomorrow,” Avall grunted. “Someone needs to get some sleep tonight. Now, if you don't mind, I've got a message to read.”
And with that he and Strynn returned to their suite and locked the door. Only then did he realize that he'd left no one on watch outside.
But he forgot about that entirely when he read the message the boy had brought. And he almost forgot the message as well when he found what was inside a smaller cylinder within the roll of parchment, attached to it by a ribbon as though it were a pendant seal.
A finger: tan, slim, and of indeterminate age—but female, by the carefully shaped nail, and with a pale band around it that exactly matched the ring.
“Crim,” Strynn breathed. “Oh, Eight.”
“At least we have a name for them now,” Avall growled. “Look here.” He pointed to the bottom of the document. It was signed “Zeff, in the name of the Ninth Face.”
“Ninth Face of what?” Strynn wondered.
“The Ninth Face,” Avall repli
ed grimly, “of The Eightfold God. Or so I would assume.”
“Priest-Clan!” Strynn hissed.
A shrug. “Maybe. Probably. But somehow I don't think they know—not all of them.”
She yawned heavily. “And you really have to address this tonight?”
He regarded her wearily, through an untidy forelock. “I won't sleep regardless, and neither will you. Our guardsmen deserve answers, and I've already sent for half the council. I promise not to act until I've sounded everyone out. But I have to have ideas. This is—”
“Someone's coming,” Strynn broke in.
An instant later the door sounded with Rann's familiar cadence. Avall hauled the portal open, blinking in confusion when he realized that Rann was not alone. Two other figures stood with him, robed and hooded to disguise forms and faces, yet even at a span's distance he caught the stench of sweat, dirt, horse, and unwashed bodies. “These folks reached the main gate just before your summons reached me,” Rann explained, hair still wild from sleep, though he'd taken time to don a formal clan robe. He sounded unaccountably excited, and his eyes were alive with secrets. “Veen took one look at them and sent them straight to you. We met on the way. It's—”
“Div,” Avall finished for him. “And … Kylin?”
“Majesty,” Kylin managed through a sketchy bow, sounding as tired as a man could sound and live.
“Come in,” Avall cried, delighted, dismayed, and confused all at once. “All of you. And tell me what—”
“I know what,” Strynn announced behind him. “I'll bet anything I own they've just come from Gem-Hold-Winter.”
“With all their fingers?” Avall muttered absently.
“What's that supposed to mean?” Rann snapped. “She—”
“With a message that can't wait,” Div dared, loud enough to override him. “I'm sorry.” She took Rann's hand, perhaps in compensation.
Avall could only shake his head and usher them all inside. By the time he'd found them seats and stuffed their hands full of food and drink, Lykkon and Veen had also arrived, with Vorinn on their heels. Div looked more than a little startled at that, but it was Kylin who spoke first. “We appear to have arrived in the midst of crisis,” he ventured at last, sounding far too apologetic for someone as tired as he obviously was.
“And we bring word of another,” Div continued, trying to keep her hands steady as she sipped her drink.
Avall shook his head, then slumped down in a chair opposite them. “If it's what I think it is, it's another side of the one we were already addressing.” And with that, he spread Zeff's ultimatum upon the refreshment table, atop which he added, with deliberate conviction, Crim san Myrk's ring finger.
CHAPTER XIII:
DECISIONS BEFORE DAWN
(ERON: TIR-ERON: THE CITADEL—HIGH SUMMER:
DAY LV—SHORTLY PAST MIDNIGHT)
A proper council chamber adjoined the common hall of Avall's suite, and it was there that his council reconvened shortly past midnight, with half of them in night robes and most of the rest looking sleepy. By the time everyone had assembled, sense— and Div and Kylin's arrival—had overruled Avall's initial desire to keep the matter confined until morning, for which reason he'd dispatched heralds to summon Tyrill, along with Nyll of Gem, Eekkar of Myrk, and Preedor and Tryffon of War. Bingg was there as well, sleepy-eyed, but not complaining as he assumed the role of squire. The boy-messenger was sleeping off his fear in Bingg's quarters, full of calming posset. And under lock and key, pending further interrogation.
Avall waited until everyone had food and drink—spiced cauf, for most of them—before he cleared his throat for silence. “Some of you know what's happened, some don't,” he began, “but we'll all be equals, as far as that goes, as soon as I read this message I received a short while back.” He went on to detail the circumstances of its delivery, then cleared his throat again and read the entirety of the Ninth Face's ultimatum.
By the time he'd finished, Tryffon was having trouble restraining himself, and since he was the senior person present— saving Tyrill, Eekkar, and Preedor, who would all, as always, watch and wait—it was to him Avall appealed first.
“I don't want another war,” Avall said flatly. “But do you see any other choice?”
“There's always diplomacy,” Nyll offered. Which was reasonable, given that his craft had the most to risk.
“Which always goes better with an army at your back,” Tryffon retorted.
“That does seem to be the case,” Vorinn agreed.
“And Zeff's played this very well,” Tryffon went on, sparing his protégé a tolerant stare. “He's left us just enough time to get an army there and back before the cold season, thereby saving face for us, and making him look good in the bargain. Assuming we do what he asks.”
“But why should he save face for us?” Riff inquired, forgetting himself.
“Because it's the character of aggressors to try to look like the offended party—the other side of which charade is that they need to appear magnanimous,” Vorinn answered a little too quickly. “He's put us in a pretty trap, too: If we stay here, we're branded cowards, or else we're branded insensitive to the needs of our captive people, who are certainly suffering already, and who may die—”
“Though, to be blunt,” Preedor put in unexpectedly, “if he destroyed the hold now, we'd probably lose fewer folk than the army would lose from a siege.”
“But soldiers take those risks by choice,” Strynn shot back. “Prisoners don't.”
“And if he destroyed the hold—by which I assume he means that he'd blow it up—that would certainly paint Priest-Clan's face very black indeed,” Vorinn concluded.
“And mine,” Avall added. “I'd look callous at worse and weak at best.”
“It sounds like you've already decided to go,” Veen ventured.
Avall leaned back in his chair and stared at the edge of the table. “Maybe I have, though the point about diplomacy is well taken. There's always a chance, after all, that we could come to an understanding. We give them what they want—with the whole army of Eron at our back—and they go their way.”
“Thereby restoring to Priest-Clan power they've lost—or think they have—and more on top of it,” Tryffon rumbled.
“In any case,” Avall sighed, “I think a quick resolution is best. Either we stay here, which effectively gives them total control over what happens, or we go there and try to force the issue.”
“My, my,” Tyrill drawled. “It's quite the little soldier you've become.”
Avall glared at her. “I've become a pragmatist, Tyrill. Greatest good for the greatest number. Don't forget that if things go entirely in our favor—which, of course, they won't— we could utterly discredit Priest-Clan. If nothing else, we could certainly break the power of this secret arm.”
“Besides which,” Bingg broke in eagerly, “since we don't have the regalia anyway, we can give them the fakes and they won't know the difference.”
Avall rounded on him. “How do you know about the fakes?”
“I saw them being made,” Bingg replied innocently. “And I … it wasn't hard to figure out the rest. I saw Merryn leaving with something that looked like them, and—”
“They'll demand proof,” Tryffon thundered. “You can offer them the fakes if you want, but they'll want proof they're the real thing.”
“And I'll give it to them—on their rooftops,” Avall snarled, thrusting himself forward again, and slapping his hands on the table hard enough to rattle cutlery. “Let's see how they like having lightning called down on them. All I have to do is recall Merry.”
“You could,” Tryffon chided, through a grin that suggested he'd enjoy exactly that. “Unfortunately, if they're threatening to blow up the hold, they'll certainly have explosives in place, which lightning—or whatever that is the sword calls—would ignite.”
“And then it'd be my fault the place is destroyed—and I have revolt on my hands.” Avall flopped back in his chair again,
glowering at the room in general.
“Not that it matters,” Tyrill put in. “You don't know where Merryn is.”
“Then I'll—someone—will have to find her!”
“I'll go,” Div volunteered at once. “You've done more for me than you'll ever know, simply by accepting me. This is my chance to return that grace.”
“Div!” Rann protested desperately. “You just got back!”
“And I'll leave again as soon as I can. There's no way I'll be able to rest with this hanging over us, and if I'm looking for Merryn—”
“You don't know her habits! You have no idea where to start.”
“I've tracked birkits,” Div retorted. “Besides, which—” “I've got a finding stone,” Strynn put in. “Kraxxi gave me his because he said it reminded him too much of Merryn. And Merry's got Tozri's old one, if she didn't give it back before she left, which would be simple enough to discover.”
Vorinn raised a dubious brow. “So we could find her?”
A nod.
“But she's had a considerable start.” From Riff.
Another nod, this time from Avall. “Right. But I'm afraid it's something we're going to have to do.” He paused, shook his head. “I don't believe I said that,” he added quickly. “It's like I've completely ignored the human cost of such a venture. To Div, to Rann—”
“You're becoming a King,” Tryffon told him calmly. “That's all. And I, for one, am glad to see it.”
“And if I were to go,” Strynn broke in, “we'd be even more likely to find her. I know her habits. And if there's any need to persuade her—”
“There won't be,” Rann and Lykkon chorused as one.
“I don't think so either,” Tryffon agreed.
“So that much is settled?” Strynn breathed, blinking in surprise. “I don't believe it.”
“That much is tabled,” Avall corrected through his teeth, not looking at her. “We've still much to discuss. Like why, for instance, Div and Kylin are here—not that I'm not glad to see them. I think we've made them wait long enough.”