by Carol Berg
I could not but grin when I saw his face illumined by Torvo’s torches. Not even when we were boys had I seen Max completely unmasked—which had naught to do with the pureblood silk that clung to half his face.
“Balls enough?” I called across the distance between us, opening my arms.
A slow grin broke through his awe. “Balls enough, little—Little bastard. Did you accomplish whatever you came here for?”
“Beware of Jakome,” I said, grinning back at him. I would not take his bait. “He’s false. But I’ve left you clean, do you but go now. If these Harrowers identify you…take my word, they will be out of humor.”
Whether or not he believed me, he must have decided he could work no more advantage from the situation. Laughing robustly, he wheeled his mount and rejoined his men. With a snapped command of dismissal, they vanished into the city. I sprinted back toward the hole in Torvo’s wall.
“Dead man!” I bellowed, quite unnecessarily, for Voushanti and a handful of leather-clad irregulars were already swarming out of the charred ruin of a tenement and inserting themselves between me and the oncoming Harrowers. Jullian was helping Osriel away from the wall. Between the two of us, we half carried, half dragged him toward the ruin where Voushanti had been waiting.
My back itched. I prayed that Sila had made it clear she wanted me alive. Bowmen on fortress walls in a night action could get twitchy fingers, and a glowing blue rock on a man’s back would make a fine target.
Battle erupted behind us. Weapons clanged and shouts of bravado warped quickly into cries of anguish as we ducked under a fallen beam and into the blackened skeleton of a house.
Half of a blackened wall leaned crazily against a snow-clogged hearth. With my gards and the faint wash of torchlight from the fortress the only light, the mottled floor was tricky going. Pools of sooty slush made it difficult to distinguish pits where foundation stones had been carted away. Bundles of unburnt straw lay around the place, as if someone was trying to blot up the slush. The ruin reeked of lamp oil.
“This way!” A pale light bloomed at the back of the ruin, where a stone stair led downward. “Mother of Night, Riel! And Thane Stearc?” She must have read our faces. “Ah, a pestilence on these vermin.”
Before we could blink, Saverian had Osriel seated on a bit of broken wall, draining vials of two different potions, Jullian wrapping the prince and himself in dry cloaks, and me dispatched to find us a way out. The physician’s practical fury seemed to cleanse the air of Ronila’s madness like a taste of fresh limes cleanses the palate. “Make it fast, Valen.”
I hurried down the broken steps into the ancient lane that had been uncovered two months ago by the raging fires of a Harrower mob. The noise of the fighting fell away quickly. The lane cut across a hillside, and its builders had installed high stone walls to hold back the dirt. But the stone houses that had lined the lane had vanished long before I was born, and the fires had burned off the vegetation that held the hill stable. Now mud had slumped down from the hillside, and I couldn’t find the place I was looking for…a courtyard…a way out…
The intoxication of my leap from the walls deserted me, leaving a profound uneasiness in its wake. I felt cold, light-headed. The place, the night…everything felt wrong. I needed to get back. Voushanti and his men were sorely outnumbered.
In desperation, I knelt and touched the frozen mud, pushing magic through exhaustion and confusion. And there in front of me lay a silver path. A Dané had once walked here. More than one, perhaps, for just ahead lay a knot of silver—not an unruly tangle, but layer upon layer of loops and windings as Kol laid down when he danced. In the center of the knot grew a winter-bare apple tree, vibrant with life and health here in the midst of a city gone mad. I should have guessed this was a Dané sianou when I’d first found it, but I’d not known how to look.
Racing back toward the others, I gave the final signal. Dead man. Harvest. Voushanti would retreat to the ruined tenement to join us. Bluejay. Harvest.
The physician, the prince, and the boy crouched in the lane behind a fallen beam. Osriel held a decrepit sword, while Saverian hefted a rusty ax—perhaps better were hard to come by in the city. Jullian seemed to be their rear guard and sagged in relief at the sight of me, lowering a dagger half the length of his arm. The combat was deafening and very close.
Voushanti’s bellow thundered through the din. “Fall back! To me! To me!”
“I’ve found the way out,” I said, “or would you three prefer to stay here and fight?”
Osriel conceded me only a glance. “Saverian has propped me up to scare off Harrower crows,” he said with a hint of laughter. “But altogether, I’d prefer a bed.”
“As soon as Voushanti steps under the beam, we can go,” said Saverian, dropping her ax. “Wait here and be ready.” She ran up the steps into the ruined house.
“Hold on!” I bolted after her. “Are you mad?”
She ignored me as first one and then another of Voushanti’s exhausted fighters yelled haven and stumbled through the crossed beams. Four…five…six of them…and then Voushanti himself burst through. “Now, mage!” snapped the warrior.
As Voushanti twisted and skewered the Harrower who tried to follow him inside, Saverian touched the bundles of straw nearest the opening. Green flames exploded from the bundles, consuming another attacker, who stumbled screaming over his dead comrade. The physician ran from one bundle to the next until the entire front of the ruin was walled in flame taller than my head. Only one of Voushanti’s goggle-eyed mercenaries stood his ground long enough to catch the bag Saverian tossed him. Payment in hand, he followed his comrades straight up the steep hillside behind the ruined house and into the night.
“Time to go,” said Saverian, as Voushanti hacked at another man who braved the flames. “The fire won’t hold them long.”
Voushanti held the doorway until we were down the steps, lining the opening with dead and screaming wounded.
“Now, dead man!” I yelled over the roar of the flames. “Stay with me!”
As I led them down the ancient lane, I had a vague impression of Voushanti descending the steps in one jump and green flames exploding behind him. Shoving the roused fear and anxieties of battle aside, I sought clarity and memory enough to make the shift. A small courtyard…healthy growth bared by winter…high walls and the knee-high ring of stones in the center…a pool of sustaining life—here an apple tree rooted deep in the hillside, there a well rooted deep in a mountain…air touched with winter and smoke, here from straw burning to preserve valuable lives, there from hearthfires and kitchens…
One by one, my charges hurried into the apple court, as I had named the strange little lane in Palinur—Jullian, fiercely determined; Osriel, flushed and wheezing; Saverian batting sparks from her jupon; and then Voushanti, blood-splattered and facing backward. From the smoke behind us burst another figure, a giant-sized warrior wearing a ragged cloak, dented helm, and orange badge.
When Voushanti took him down with an ax to his thigh, the Harrower bled his life onto the winter grass of the well yard at Renna, some two hundred quellae south of Fortress Torvo. It was snowing.
Jullian, who had spun around to watch Voushanti dispatch the Harrower, bumped into me when I halted at the stone circle of the well. I caught his arm before he stumbled over my feet and stuck me or himself with his dagger. “Easy, lad. I don’t think any others can follow us here.”
The mud-drowned lane, eerie flames, and rampaging Harrowers had vanished. Behind Voushanti stretched a colonnade fronting the cold inner wall of Renna’s keep. The boy heaved a quivering sigh as he looked up at me. “Magic again?”
I squatted beside him and held out my arm in parallel with my glowing thighs. “Aye. It’s one thing these are good for. You’ll note that Gram is fairly well astonished, too.”
Osriel spun so quickly with his neck craned up at Renna’s heights that Saverian stood ready to catch him should he topple. “Well done,” said the prince. “Oh, very w
ell done, Valen.”
Jullian leaned his head to my ear. “He’s not just Gram, is he? All three of you call him lord. And he brought down that wall.”
“He is Gram, but no, not just Gram. By now you’ve surely guessed his true name.”
The boy acknowledged without words, his face a pale blur in the night.
“You’ve no need to be afraid, Jullian.” I made no effort to keep my voice down. “Prince Osriel has found it necessary to keep people fearful of him…to protect himself and our cabal and his people here in Evanore. Abbot Luviar was once his tutor.”
But, of course, there was ample reason to be afraid of Osriel, not for Jullian alone, but for all of us together. Grateful as I was to stand in Renna’s shelter instead of Sila Diaglou’s tower, much as my legs felt like clay, my back wrenched, and my feet battered, my night’s work could not be declared finished.
“And Voushanti”—Osriel gripped the mardane’s shoulder and inspected him as if seeking the source of the blood that stained Voushanti’s hauberk and leathers—“a magnificently executed retrieval. Your valor and your skill in arms are unmatched.” His voice dropped a little. “You are well, Mardane? Saverian took care of you?”
“I am whole for now, my lord. The physician did as you commanded. I am bound to the sorcerer.”
“To Valen?” On any other night, I might have missed the hint of dismay in Osriel’s voice. He masked it quickly by a gallant bow in Saverian’s direction. “And your skills, physician…and friend…remain unmatched and irreplaceable. What greater wonder can I demonstrate to these present than walking up yonder stair without reclining on Valen’s shoulders or weighting my noble companion Jullian’s arm?”
“Your physician prescribes food, wine, bath, and bed,” said Saverian with no hint of sentiment, as she shoved her straggling hair away from her soot-smudged face.
“I must see Elene first,” said Osriel, his momentary lightness shed like an unwanted cloak. “Perhaps you would accompany me, Valen, and tell us what you can of Stearc’s end.”
Ah, Mother Samele embrace Elene, who must soon be torn asunder by sorrow and relief…and all the questions and fears this prince held for her. Her plight only hardened the resolution grown solid in my gut.
“I will, of course, lord,” I said, standing up, while keeping a hand on Jullian’s shoulder. “But I might suggest we not wake her to such ill news before I’ve had a chance to discuss the matter with you. Saverian, as the prince has downed multiple vials of your marvelous elixirs, would it compromise him too severely to speak with me for a little?”
She raised her eyebrows and twisted her mouth in her ironical fashion that illumined her awkward features with life and wit. “As Lord Osriel will tell you himself, I am not his keeper. He knows my recommendations and will likely do with them as he always has.”
She rummaged in a pouch at her waist and tossed me another vial. Then she held out her hand to the boy at my side, let her magelight swell to a soft ivory where he could see it glowing from her fingers, and smiled in a way that instantly dispatched his awe. “Come, noble Jullian. You, at least, will enjoy what I have to offer in the way of food and bed. Prince Osriel has told me a great deal about you these past few years. He lives in awe of your scholarship…”
As the woman and boy headed for the stair at the corner of the colonnade, Osriel glanced my way and dipped his head, then addressed Voushanti. “Mardane, perhaps you would notify the watch that we have returned, and that Mistress Elene is not to be disturbed until I wait upon her.”
Voushanti shifted his attention to me. Pinpoints of red centered his dark gaze. Only after I had given an uneasy nod did he bow to Osriel. “As you command, my lord prince.” He pivoted and followed Saverian and Jullian out of the well yard, leaving Osriel and me alone.
“So we are to have our reckoning before even we get warm.” Osriel spread his arms as if to welcome whatever I might bring, then seemed to think better of it. Shivering, he drew Saverian’s heavy cloak tight. “It hardly seems fair to ask me to take you on when I’ve just seen you leap to earth from a height no man should survive, clad in naught but mythlight, and you’ve carried me out of hell to my own house in less time than it would take me to walk my own walls.”
“Let us walk a bit, my lord. I’d not wish some lurking guard to hear what we might say.” I pointed to the colonnade. Rather than taking the upper stair to the Great Hall and bedchambers or the lower stair to the passages where Saverian’s workroom lay, we strolled along the covered walk so like those surrounding the cloister garth at Gillarine—the three-petaled lily of Navronne embedded in its stonework, the cherubic aingerou carved into the slender pillars, the square of grass alongside our path, centered by a springfed font. We rounded the corner in truth and memory…
…and we were there, staring up at the shattered tower of the abbey church, at the gutted remnants of the library and scriptorium, at the darkness of the deserted dorter. At the burnt and broken shell of a place once holy.
Osriel halted and stepped away from me, whipping his head from one side of the cloister to the other. “What have you done? Why have you brought me here?”
“I needed us to be in a neutral place,” I said. “Away from devoted warriors, away from swords and dungeons and magic—or, at least, magic that is outside of ourselves. I thought at first to take you into the wild, to some place where you could not find your way back if this discussion goes for naught. But I’ve no wish to harm you, lord. This place…I think we both care for it and will think twice before bringing any further evil to it. I thought perhaps to find my friend Gram waiting here.”
In the azure light of my gards, his gaunt face appeared carved in ice. “I am your king and your bound master. I need discuss nothing with you.”
He thrust this harsh rhetoric between us like the first feint in a dual. I didn’t think I needed to remind him of his promise that once I took him into Aeginea I would be free to go my own way. Nor did I mention that to abandon him here in his present state without Saverian’s medicine would likely mean his death. Instead I strolled down the west cloister walk away from the church. After a moment he joined me.
“I wish we were not so tired,” I said, offering him my arm. He shook his head. “I wish you were not ill. I wish we had more time to debate and reason.”
We rounded the south end of the cloister and walked past the refectory to the calefactory—an open room lined with stone benches and centered by a great hearth and a neat wood stack. “You need warmth, and I need open air. I doubt Nemesio would mind if we use his warming room. The brothers have taken refuge at Magora Syne.”
In normal times the brothers kept the calefactory fire burning through the winter for the monks to stop in and warm their hands as they went about their work and prayer. Once I had laid the fire, Osriel summoned a spell to set it ablaze. He sat cross-legged beside it, hunched forward as if hoping to draw strength and nourishment from the flames as well as warmth. I sat on the stone bench where I could breathe cold air and see his face.
Even the bright flames could not push back the shadows of Gillarine. Too much death and sorrow lingered just beyond the light. Stearc’s presence loomed very large. And I held the memory of the thane’s last fear as a shield before my own.
“So speak,” said the prince, once his shivering had eased. “You’ve not brought me here to play monk.”
“I will ask you to hear me out before argument or comment,” I said. “I’ve never laid all this out at once.”
He did not respond, so I plunged ahead. “You are my rightful king, son of a man I honored and vowed to follow to the death. You are a man I have been astonished and pleased to name my friend, for one of the things I’ve learned since first I came to Gillarine is that I never before owned a true friend—one who would hold me fast as I fell into hell and strive to pull me out again, one who would trust me in matters of importance, one who would know me, for I believed I could not allow anyone to know me.”
He prop
ped his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his clasped hands. Waiting for me to go on. Yielding nothing. A wall stood between us, and my purpose was to shatter it and expose what lay beyond—marvelous or terrible as it might be.
“I’ve not brought you here to explain why you betrayed me to those who would destroy me. I’ve convinced myself that you saw no other choices open to you.” His unguarded smile when he first looked full on my gards had but confirmed my growing suspicion. “I believe you held a hope that my uncle would do exactly as he did. I believe you brought Saverian apurpose on that journey, knowing that her nature would prompt her to do exactly as she did, or if the worst came to pass, to amend matters as she could.”
That surprised him. His head jerked up and his dark eyes met mine. Though he made no acknowledgment, I took his silence as confirmation.
I pushed on. “Rather I want to tell you what I’ve learned these past days, in hopes we can make some sense of it together before we fall off the edge of the world. Some you surely know, some you surely don’t. I told you and Jullian some of what Kol taught me, but I didn’t tell you about Picus.”
“Picus?” Another surprise that shocked him rigid. “Where? How did—?”
“Please, lord, hear me out. Picus lives in Aeginea…”
I told him of the monk and his sin, of Ronila and her web of hate, of Gildas and Sila, of the lost map and my conviction that it had depicted the tale of the world’s ruin. I laid out the evidence of Tuari’s humiliation at the actions of his half-human brother, his retribution on Llio’s wife, and his punishment by Stian. And I told how Saverian and I had both realized that Osriel’s quest for power from the Danae could backlash and make matters worse.