by Tom Deitz
Div glanced at Kylin, who'd remained silent since the actual council had begun. To Avall's surprise, it was the harper who spoke. “We're here to tell you what you already know,” he began. “But with one modification. That letter is just a sham: They don't intend to make a bargain at all; they almost certainly do plan to destroy the hold regardless, so that you'll get the blame whatever happens.”
“They'd just prefer to have the regalia in hand when they do it,” Div added, through a scowl.
“They do, and they've lost Gemcraft forever,” Nyll exploded. “I've tried to keep out of all this,” he continued, glaring at Eekkar. “But this! All I can say, Avall, is that if you don't go, I still will. I'll summon every gemsmith in Eron, and call in every favor, I'll—”
“You'll do nothing,” Eekkar broke in mildly. “We, however, will do all those things—if it please the King that we do them. Don't seek contention when you already have potential allies— probably have them,” he amended. “That's exactly what Priest-Clan wants. And if it costs us favors, we're also owed favors.” With that the old Chief fell silent, though his gaze was fixed firmly on Avall.
“I assume,” Tyrill put in acidly, “that they won't destroy anything until they've evacuated their own. They don't need to be there for that.”
“Eight damn it!” Tryffon all but shouted. “They've got us both ways, then. If we stay here, they'll destroy the hold, and we get blamed for inaction; and if we go there, they'll still destroy it, and we'll get blamed for pressing the issue.”
“Which means that we have to recapture the hold without it being destroyed,” Vorinn observed pragmatically.
“Any idea how?” Riff wondered, looking at Avall.
“No,” Avall sighed, “but I'm sure we can think of some once we're under way. No one here is stupid, and we know things the Ninth Face doesn't—and vice versa.”
Rann shot him an appraising stare. “So you're saying we should muster out—”
“As soon as possible,” Avall finished. “Decisive action would be to our advantage right now.”
“And don't forget you're popular, Avall.” From Veen.
A shrug. “I'm not so sure, after a few days ago.”
“They'll follow the King,” Veen assured him. “And if not him, they'll follow the Lightning Sword.”
Avall looked her straight in the eye. “Even if it's not the Lightning Sword?”
“By then there's a good chance we'll have the real thing,” Strynn countered. “And all that goes with it.”
“Speaking of which,” Lykkon broke in. “I hate to mention this, Avall, but there might be a way to expedite this situation.”
Avall raised a brow in his direction. “And what might that be?”
“You could try to contact Merryn with your gem. Barring that, you could even space-jump into Gem-Hold and put an end to things that way.”
Avall's face went white. “You don't know what you're asking.”
“And why not?” From Tyrill.
“First of all,” Avall explained, “for the benefit of those who didn't already know, we no longer have the other gems. Merryn took all of them—except the master gem, which I've retained, only because it's effectively insane, and therefore too dangerous to entrust to anyone right now.”
“So, use that one,” Tyrill snapped.
“You don't know what you're asking, either.”
“I know what you're risking if you don't!”
“She's got a point, Vall,” Rann agreed. “You've said yourself that it's slowly getting better. And we already know that it's need that drives it to extraordinary efforts. Space-jumping itself doesn't matter so much—you can attempt that anytime, even on the road. But if you had the sword, and could jump into the hold with it—”
“They'll have thought of that,” Tryffon rumbled.
Avall studied him keenly. “Maybe not. We've been very circumspect about who knows about that little bit of witchery.”
“—Except most of the Ixtian army,” Tryffon snorted.
“But it was mostly the rank and file who saw Merryn's attack,” Strynn shot back. “They won't know how she got there, and—”
“They had contact with the Ninth Face,” Rann reminded her. “The Face was already selling us out before any of their present move began.”
“What do they want, anyway?” Bingg yawned.
“Power!” From several mouths at once.
“They've got power,” Riff retorted.
“We're letting ourselves be distracted,” Lykkon inserted pragmatically. “If Avall can contact Merryn, now would be a good time, before she gets even farther away. If she can't meet us here with the regalia, she could still meet us in transit.”
“A hand from now we could know,” Veen agreed.
Avall felt a fist of fear clamp around his heart. This wasn't real, simply wasn't happening. These were his friends, yet they were trying to force him to do something he feared beyond all reasonable fear. He was King, too, and they his council. If he said no, his word had the force of Law.
And if there was civil war in Eron, it would be his fault.
There was not, he realized dully, any option that didn't result in pain. One way or another, he was doomed. It only remained to work out what form that doom would take. Trouble was, he wanted to be a good King, to be remembered as such, and wanted his friends and counselors to be recalled that way as well.
Still, as someone pointed out, a hand from now they'd know.
He recalled how, the last time he'd worked with the master gem, it had sucked him in, though not quite as badly as the previous occasion. And he also remembered what a short while that link had lasted. And one could endure anything if one knew how long it must be endured.
“I'll do it,” he announced. “But I'm not responsible for the consequences.”
“Consequences?”—from Tyrill.
Avall regarded her levelly. “This could kill me or drive me mad,” he informed her flatly. “I'd suggest you start considering my successor—if you aren't already.”
Strynn rose abruptly. “Avall, are you sure about this? We can wait until you're more relaxed. Rann and Lyk and I can link with you, maybe, and—”
“Me too,” Kylin volunteered.
“No,” he told them softly. “Now that I've decided to do this, I just want to get it done. But I will say one thing. Once I make the effort, that's the last thing to be said about it unless I bring it up. And it's the last thing any of us does tonight. We have to get some rest, people. Tomorrow will be a difficult day, and we need to be alert. Anyone who wants to stay in the Citadel tonight is free to do so; The Eight know we've got more than sufficient quarters. But by noon tomorrow—if I'm still King—I want a muster list drawn up, starting with what forces I have on hand now. There should still be some about who missed the last war. Vorinn, would you mind handling that? And I want everyone to know exactly what's happened and who's behind it.”
“Everything?” Riff inquired.
“Not the plan to level the hold regardless. We need to be seen to act, not only by the folks here, but by the Ninth Face. They don't need to know that we know about their deception, and if they see an army approaching, which is what they expect to see, they're less likely to suspect.”
“And if you're not still King?” Rann teased with forced good cheer.
“Be kind to my successor.”
Silence, then, as no one found anything to say that wouldn't shift conversation into new, but equally troublesome, directions.
“Well,” Avall inquired eventually, “who has the sharpest knife?”
More silence. Then, from Kylin: “I didn't think you needed to do that anymore.”
“I may not—but I think in this case, since I've got an actual goal in mind, I ought to. Don't forget, too, that mind-speaking eats up massive amounts of energy unless the target is immediately to hand.”
“Sorry,” Kylin yawned, “I did forget.”
“You're tired,” Div told him sweet
ly.
Avall studied the square of faces dubiously. “Most of you have seen this done,” he began. “If you haven't, I need to warn you about a few things. What I'm about to do will take more energy than I have by myself, and that's at the best of times. It will therefore draw on your strength—probably most strongly from those who are physically strongest and from those to whom I'm most closely bound emotionally. The other thing, is that there may be some spillover. I've bonded with several of you enough times that I may pull you into the link even without the other gems. Everyone here will probably feel something, and it's unlikely to be pleasant. And—”
“You're stalling,” Rann said. “Let's get to it.”
Avall didn't reply. Rather, he lowered his eyes until all he could see was the bit of table before him, on which a golden dish gleamed, empty of all but crumbs. With one hand he fished into his tunic for the master gem, but it was Rann to whom he passed the chain and globe once he'd found it. “You seem to have an affinity for this. You open it.”
“I would be honored if you would use my knife,” Preedor murmured, from the other end of the table. “Strynn made it for me, and it seems right that you use it now. That way I can say Warcraft and Ferr were in this from the start.”
“It will be my honor to accept it,” Avall replied formally. Preedor rose at that, moving briskly to where Avall sat. By which time Rann had freed the gem, handling it carefully with a double-folded napkin. “I had gloves,” Avall chided him, under his breath.
Rann simply blinked at him and tried to smile.
“Very well,” Avall breathed, and accepted Preedor's knife. Another breath, and he closed his eyes and drew the blade across his palm. The edge was so keen, he didn't feel the pain at first, and by then he was acting—quickly, so as not to lose his nerve. It was easy enough, really. He simply extended his bleeding hand to where the gem lay in the napkin, snared the ruddy stone, then folded his other hand across it and set both hands before him on the table. And by then, the gem had hold of him.
If it had been greedy before, it was twice as greedy now. Already death was gibbering at the gates of his mind. But where before he'd simply tried to link with it, this time he had a specific goal, so perhaps the gibbering could be overruled. Trying his best to ignore the nothingness that gaped just beyond his self, he sought to fix his desire firmly on that other goal—to ignore the warnings and the madness as one ignored jeers on an orney field.
Instead, he tried to picture Merryn's face as he'd last seen it. And with that, he tried to call to her: to fix her name above all other names in his head, her face above all other faces, his desire to contact her above all other desires—and all other fears.
He had it—maybe. Certainly he felt that strange wrench of consciousness leaving the bonds of body. But as he reached eagerly for what he'd not expected, something else found him instead. It was like reaching for a friend's hand across a yawning chasm, only to have that chasm yawn wider as he started to leap—so that he fell.
The madness surrounded him: the worst part of his own fears and Barrax's fears and pain commingled, so that the former enemy king was suddenly the only thing in the world, roaring around him like a whirlwind of furious thought. It wanted him to share its own death. It wanted—
Pain—light—and a floating that was like the fall turned inside out, and he was nowhere for a moment, then saw light again, and felt hands upon him, even as he felt such cold as he hadn't felt since that timeless time in the Ri-Eron. And then more hands touched him, and someone was dragging his eyelids open, forcing him to see—to receive stimuli, at any rate— and someone else was pouring wine down his throat. The fumes exploded through his head like the lightning called down by the sword. And then he heard voices, and had sense enough to realize that he was back in his own world, and that Rann had one hand and Lykkon the other, and they were dragging them apart, even as the gem rattled and rolled on the plate before him, demanding that he take it up again, and rejoin that trip to death.
“Get that thing away from me,” he choked. “I don't want to see it until tomorrow. And no, I didn't contact Merry. Now go! All of you! I've done what you asked, and it's cost me dear, and for now—I don't care—just go!”
For once, no one argued.
Two hands later, with dawn fast approaching, Avall was still awake and pacing around his common hall. He couldn't believe how much reality had changed since—since sunset, he supposed. Why, as recently as supper he'd had no firmer plans than trying to fix a date for his planned conclave regarding the succession and related problems. Oh, he'd been worried about Merryn a bit, but who wouldn't be? And he'd leavened even that concern with the knowledge that she was probably as happy now as she'd ever been, being completely on her own for the first time in her life.
And now another war loomed—or something like a war, something that would require him to function as the commander of an army, in any case. Only it wouldn't be foreigners he'd be fighting, it would be his own folk. Granted, it was a new thing in the world, and he still had time to think of creative solutions, and people at his call who could surely provide them. But he'd still have to make the decisions and give the orders, when the only decisions he wanted to make concerned which gauges of metal to use in smithing projects. It seemed unreal, too, coming as it did in the middle of the night, with such an unlikely mix of people—Nyll and Eekkar, to name two, but also Div and Kylin. And what would they do with Kylin, anyway? Take him with the army, he supposed, since he was certainly the best source they had to hand of the particulars of the invasion and the state of the actual hold itself. Assuming, of course, that Kylin would be willing to return to the site of so much pain.
In any case, he'd have to work on it in earnest—tomorrow, for he didn't dare let much time elapse before making his intentions known. Every day he delayed put Merryn farther away, and that was something he didn't want to face, for all that every King before him had faced battle with no more resources than Avall already had to hand, and less reputation.
He paused in mid-stride, considering. If he were ruthless— or brave—or stupid—or all three—he might indeed call the Ninth Face's bluff. Sanctioned or not, they were part of Priest-Clan, and Priest-Clan was based in a dead-end canyon off the main gorge, not far away. He could always lay siege to them, if the Ninth Face didn't release Gem-Hold.
But that would be a public move against one of the people's primary sources of comfort—and that, he feared, they would not tolerate.
So what should he do?
It was in the hands of The Eight, he supposed.
But he was King. And, outside the ranks of Priest-Clan, only the King had the right to drink of the Wells of The Eight, and only then on specific occasions as part of a formal rite. But typically one also drank of them before battle, if one was brave enough to face what they might show. Gynn was reported to have done that, though he'd never learned what the King had foreseen.
In any case, Avall had little to lose by trying. If nothing else, it would be one more piece of advice he could choose to heed or not.
And tomorrow was fast approaching. He had to act now or wait another night, and who knew what another day might bring?
It took but a moment to find outdoor boots and a light hooded cloak that didn't proclaim his status. Yet even as he paused at the door, he heard someone stir in the shadows of the guard niche beside it.
“Majesty?” a sleepy voice inquired.
“Bingg?”
“Where you goin'?”
“Out.”
“Alone?”
“I have to.”
“You shouldn't.”
Avall didn't know he'd decided until he said it. “You can come, too, but only so you can report in case something happens. No questions, understand. And no conversation. Not because I don't like you or appreciate your company, but because I don't need any distractions.”
Bingg's only reply was to draw himself up and say, very softly, “I am Argen-a. Argen-a supports the King; theref
ore, I support you.”
Four main corridors, three side staircases, and five levels later, they stepped out a postern gate into the River Walk.
It was the soft time between midnight and dawn, but three moons were shining so that Avall needed no torch to light his way, though torches flared at intervals, here by the Citadel's wall, and there by the wall that divided the pavement from the river. Always steamy from the hot springs within it, the Ri-Eron was veiled in frothy white, though real fog from the cooler land by the Gorge walls vied with it here and there. Beside him, he heard Bingg's breath hiss in what might be a nervous shiver. But he was King, and had nothing to fear—not here.
Still, he had to hurry. Setting his shoulders, he strode off at an angle to the left, following the wall for most of a shot south, to where it was pierced by the only bridge on North Bank that led to the Isle of The Eight, which lay within the Ri-Eron. A Priest stood guard at the inner end—which Avall had expected. The man stepped out smartly as Avall and Bingg approached. By his mask, he was a priest of Law, and a fairly high-ranking one, but everyone in that clan stood guard eventually, regardless of age or rank. Avall flipped his hood back when he came within the span dictated by courtesy for acknowledgment. The man started when he realized who faced him, then tensed. Avall thought he might challenge his right to approach the Isle so unconventionally, but he did not, though his folded arms and stiff posture spoke clearly of disapproval.
“I have an appointment with Fate,” Avall murmured as he passed. “This is my herald, should Fate likewise have an appointment with me.”
“May Fate show you what you seek,” came the reply.
Avall left the man behind.
The Isle itself was so cleverly laid out that, though it contained the fanes of all eight Faces, and fairly close together, none was visible from the others. Fortunately, Fate's fane was nearest. A copse of hollies surrounded it, their trunks so closely planted that the temple at its center was visible from beyond them only in sporadic glimpses of rough-piled stone. The path wove among the trees, its frequent branchings symbolizing the turns Fate made in men's lives.