A Draw of Kings

by Patrick W. Carr

  His lungs needed prompting. “I know. I’ve always known.”

  “Has Aurae told you?” Liam asked softly. “Have you succeeded in casting where the entire conclave has failed?”

  Honesty forced him to shake his head. “No.”

  “Then do not esteem yourself more lightly than you should.” Liam pulled the plate back in front of him, and Errol departed.

  He set his path back toward his own chambers, but a sudden indifference overcame him, and he turned left to make his way to the archbenefice’s quarters. Only the occasional servant walked the halls of Escarion at this hour, and loneliness filled him. At the door reluctance stole over him, diminishing his knock to the barest tap. Instead of trying again, he turned away, but the door opened to reveal Martin Arwitten’s bluff features.

  “Errol.” He smiled. “I thought I heard someone.” He stepped aside and motioned Errol into his apartments. When Errol entered his sitting room, he saw a chair perched in the glow of candles with a copy of the book of Magis on a reading stand in front of it.

  Errol gestured toward the book. “How much have you read?”

  Martin gave him a self-deprecating smile. “Not as much as I’d like. I’ve been skimming mostly, looking for some weakness in our enemy you and Liam might be able to exploit.”

  Hope kindled in his chest, pounding in time to the racing of his heart. “Have you found anything?”

  Martin lifted his shoulders. “Much of the language of the book is difficult to understand, written as it was untold centuries ago, but it is clear the malus are not omniscient, despite what they would have us believe. That is reserved for Deas alone.” Martin eyed him, his gaze intense. “Our own history tells us as much. If the malus had known of the covenant Magis made with Deas, they would never have killed him. It may be possible to use their incomplete knowledge of Deas’s intent against them.”

  Errol leaned forward, eager. Perhaps, despite the answer of his lots, there remained some way to achieve victory. “How?”

  Martin shook his head. “To answer that question, we would have to know Deas’s intent ourselves.” He sighed “We’re not even sure which of you is supposed to be king and savior.”

  Martin didn’t say it, but within the vaults of Errol’s mind, he finished the archbenefice’s thought. And which of you therefore must die.

  He wanted to leave, but fear and curiosity rooted him to the floor. “What does it say about . . . about dying?”

  Martin’s eyes welled, but his voice remained steady enough. “Our knowledge is imperfect, lad, but Deas has made us eternal, hard as that may be to understand. Death is only a passage.”

  Errol tried to grasp the truth within those words as he walked the halls of Escarion, but the fear remained—a bulwark within his mind impervious to hope. Back in his chamber he fashioned lots, as he did every evening to reassure himself Adora still lived. An ache to see her hollowed him out inside. “I hope she marries someday.” In the emptiness of his room, no one replied.

  40

  Soter Regia

  MAY DEAS BE WITH YOU.” Martin’s voice, quiet and subdued, still filled the expanse of the audience chamber where Errol and Liam knelt on opposite sides of the dais.

  “And with all who gather in his name.” Luis intoned the traditional reply on Martin’s left.

  Errol’s head filled with memories of a distant cabin so many months before. The crude vessels had been replaced with the finest implements the most skilled goldsmiths in the kingdom could create, but the voices were the same.

  “Lift up your praises,” Martin exhorted.

  Fear, not sickness, clenched Errol’s stomach now. He hoped he wouldn’t throw up or soil himself. A tremble started in his hands.

  “Do not be afraid; lift them up to Deas, and Eleison, and Aurae,” Luis responded.

  “Let us give thanks to the Father Deas,” Martin said. His voice sounded different, as though he could hardly force the words through his teeth.

  “It is right for us so to do,” Luis said, but the clear tenor almost failed to reach Errol’s ear.

  “It is right and our bounden duty, in all times, in all places, to give thanks unto thee, O Deas, Father, ever-everlasting.”

  The smell of fear, a sour stench of panic sweat, drifted from the archbenefice and the secondus, mixing in Errol’s nose. Bile, metallic and salty, sat on the back of his tongue, and he gagged with the realization this might be Illustra’s last sacrament.

  “For by Deas, through Eleison, and with the unity of Aurae, the heavens were cast and the world found purchase in the firmament. All glory be unto thee, Deas, Eleison, Aurae, world without end.”

  A picture of their world, nothing more than a casting stone set in the heavens, intruded on Errol’s dismay. World without end. Was Illustra, their entire world, nothing more than a lot for the ultimate reader, too small and insignificant a thing to care about?

  “Lift your voices,” Martin said, his voice firming. “Eleison our champion has triumphed.” The last words rebounded from the walls.

  Whatever fear had gripped the archbenefice, he had somehow worked through it.

  “The body of Eleison, interposed to keep us safe so long as the world lasts.”

  Martin slipped a wafer into Errol’s waiting hands. The bread, unadorned but made with the finest flour, melted on his tongue.

  Luis leaned forward, the light glittering off the wine and polished gold like jeweled blood. “Errol, this is the offering of Eleison, the champion of our world.”

  He took a sip, the first drink of ale or wine since the tavern in Windridge. The red liquid wet his lips, filled his mouth with warmth and hints of oak before sliding down his throat to his belly, where it spread its heat outward. The room canted, swung, before righting itself.

  “Are you well?” Luis asked. His dark Talian face rippled before coming into focus.

  Errol forced his head into motion. “Yes.”

  Luis moved to Liam, who held the chalice to his lips before rising. His face, framed by his lamp-lit hair like a halo, looked utterly calm and assured.

  Errol pushed on the rail, forced his unwilling feet to take his weight, and walked the few steps to meet Liam at the center aisle, where they bowed. The archbenefice and the secondus bowed in return.

  Commotion erupted in the hallway and shouts seeped through the closed doors. Errol raised his head, saw Luis looking at him, his eyes staring, showing the whites all around.

  Adora urged the shaggy-haired pony over the heavy-timbered bridge that served as Escarion’s last defense. At the broad stone archway leading into the fortress, she threw herself from the back of her mount and paused long enough to throw her arms around its neck, burrowing her fingers in the warmth of its shaggy coat.

  “Now, Your Highness,” Ablajin said in his lilting voice, “you know why we prize our horses so.”

  She pulled her face away, her cheeks wet with hope and relief. She’d made it in time. “You are right to love them, honored Ablajin. They are magnificent.”

  “They are not so handsome as some,” the chieftain said, “but their worth is there for those who have the eyes to see.”

  Errol. “Yes.” She turned and ran with her bundle into the fortress, Rokha and Waterson at her side.

  Doors and lamps flashed by as they ran for the archbenefice’s hall. When she saw the entrance, she yelled over and over again, crying his name.

  An attendant who managed to recognize her despite the sweat and grime of her travels opened the door. She entered holding the cloth-wrapped sculpture of her father in her hands, as if Martin and the rest had the power to see through the fabric to the truth.

  The look on Luis’s face, staring back and forth at Errol and Liam as though he’d seen a horror within himself, stopped her, but she hugged the sculpture close and forced her feet into motion once more to stand before Martin.

  “Liam is the king,” she said as she handed him the package. “He will save us.” A corner of her mind accused her, say
ing what she hadn’t: He will die and rebuild the barrier.

  Luis shook his head as Martin unveiled the bas-relief of Adora’s father, his face lit with disbelief.

  “Soteregia,” Luis said. “Oh, Deas, I am a fool!”

  Martin lifted the carving as if he held something holy, the likeness of Jaclin—Liam’s likeness—plain to see.

  “The herbwomen,” Martin breathed. “They guarded him. For twenty years they safeguarded Prince Jaclin’s child from the ghostwalkers and the conclave.”

  Liam stepped forward. He studied the sculpture Martin held in his hands, ran his fingers across the features beginning with the nose, as if familiarizing himself with some forgotten memory, as if comparing each to his own.

  He leaned over her then, bending down to brush his lips against her brow. “Thank you, sister, for giving me my birthright.”

  Inside, her conscience railed at her for sending her brother to fight the malus.

  Liam clasped Errol by the arm. “This is my battle, Errol. I was born for this.” His eyes included Adora in his blessing. “Stay here in Escarion. You’ve done enough.”

  Luis’s anguished wail cut across Adora’s jubilation.

  “No, oh, Deas, no. They are soteregia.”

  Martin turned at the sound of Luis’s cry.

  The secondus pointed, his arm shaking, at the two men, one dark and one fair, at the foot of the altar. Errol and Liam. He struck himself with his free hand, beating his fist against his skull as imprecations coursed from him. “Fool. Stupid, stupid, fool. Of course they both came out of the drawing. I asked the wrong question.”

  Adora stood before him, basking in her revelation, her eyes glowing as she looked upon Errol. Liam held the sculpture of his father’s face. Already he appeared taller, as if the revelation had uncovered the identity anyone could have seen if only they had looked.

  But Errol looked at Luis with comprehension beginning to dawn in his eyes. Martin’s chest hurt. Oh, Deas, they could not afford the chances of intuition now. “Luis,” he commanded. “Be plain.”

  The reader’s face looked as if it would crumple any moment. “Don’t you see? Soteregia means savior and king. Magis was both. We assumed Deas would send a Magis to us again.” He stumbled as he took a step toward Errol and Liam. “But they’re different this time. Errol is soter. Liam is regia.”

  Adora nodded. “Errol has saved the kingdom twice over. Liam is Illustra’s king, and her king will save her now.”

  One look at Luis told Martin that Adora was wrong. “My friend, you know we cannot leave this to chance. We must cast.”

  Yet even as he said it, a voice in his mind, as if the wind spoke to him, told him a draw of kings was unnecessary.

  Adora shook her head. “To what end? You know Liam is to be king. He’s the greatest fighter Illustra’s ever seen. Who else can defeat the malus?”

  Martin stepped from the dais, bringing his eyes on a level with hers. By the three, why did he have to be the one to do this? Someone else needed to be archbenefice, someone who could do what needed doing regardless of the cost.

  He bowed low. “Your Highness, we do not know what to do. We must ask the conclave.”

  Her head jerked back and forth with denials.

  Errol stepped beside her, took her hands in his. “There’s no need to call the conclave, Your Excellency. Luis is here, and so am I. I’m sure he has wood with him, and I have my carving knife.”

  Martin wanted to weep at the resignation in Errol’s face. He knew. By the gift of the three, he knew. The cast would be a mere formality. He pulled his knife from somewhere within his cloak and approached Luis, the secondus refusing to meet his gaze.

  Errol put a hand on his shoulder. “It will be quicker if both of us cast at the same time, but I need blanks.”

  The wood, the familiar pine he’d worked so often, rested against the ridges of his skin. He savored the touch of it, the feel of the open grain against the ridges of his fingertips, the smell of the resin embedded within the fibers.

  “What question would you have me cast, Omne?” Luis asked him.

  Errol accepted the secondus’s deference with a nod, then considered and rejected half a dozen queries, each which seemed inconclusive, before settling on one. “Which one of us, Liam or I, should go to battle?”

  Luis smiled his approval. “Clever. By assuming it should be only one of you, you’ve saved us the effort of a second cast.”

  “Please explain, Secondus,” Liam said.

  Luis turned. “If Errol’s assumption is incorrect and both of you should go, the outcome of the cast will be gibberish. He’ll pull both lots in equal amounts. But if his assumption is correct, then I’ll cast a preponderance of one lot or the other. In effect, we’re answering two questions with a single cast.” Errol felt Luis’s gaze upon him. “Master Quinn would have been proud.”

  The secondus pulled a pair of blocks from within his ceremonial blue robe. “And what question will you cast, Omne?”

  Fear threatened to burst from the bonds of Errol’s control, and he stifled it, but tremors, like the onset of ague, shook his hands, defying his efforts. As the question came to him, he ignored the palsied spasms of his fingers to give Luis the best smile he could summon. “I will keep my cast simple. It’s difficult to concentrate just now.”

  Adora’s eyes begged him to find the answer that would let him live. His fingers slipped, and the knife marred the edge, forcing him to turn the block to remove the imperfection he’d put upon it. He bent over the cube, striving to lose himself in the question and the answer.

  Over and over in his mind he repeated the answer Yes in time with his laboring heartbeat. Even before a rounded piece of wood lay within his palm, he knew it to be true. He put the lot aside. Only he could see the word upon it, but even had the kingdom possessed another omne, they would still be unable to decipher the question he’d locked within his heart.

  For a moment temptation gripped him. Whatever else he might be, he was his own man. The power to choose was as much his birthright as it was anyone’s. Deas might want him for this, but not even the three could force him to the path if he refused.

  A breath of laughter ghosted from him. Powerless. Even Deas was powerless in this. He could not force Errol to battle. The creator of the universe required men to be the instrument of his will. What would happen if he refused to go? The ludicrousness of it struck him. He laughed again, felt the bitterness as the burst of air scraped his throat. If he said no, he would die, and everyone else with him—or worse, the malus would take them as slaves.

  He bent to his task, pointless as it seemed. As he carved, No echoed repeatedly in his thoughts, but even as he thought it, he knew this lot would not be chosen. When the second sphere lay in his hand, smooth and complete, he looked up to see Luis waiting for him.

  The secondus shot Adora the briefest of glances. “I don’t think I should be the one to draw this question,” he murmured.

  Errol understood. He accepted the drawing bag Luis offered and held it open for the secondus, who dropped his lots in. With a trio of brisk shakes he mixed them, then drew, catching Luis’s look of surprise. “We should probably do this as quickly as possible.”

  His name.

  He put the lot back in the bag without speaking.

  His name again.

  Ten times in a row he drew his own name. He’d never seen pine behave with such consistency.

  He returned the lots to Luis, then dropped his own lots in before fear could unman him. Without explanation or pause he drew, his motions stiff as a marionette’s. When the first lot gave him the expected answer, he almost wept, but he shoved the emotion aside and continued. After the tenth draw yielded the same answer, he left the lots in the bag and returned it to Luis. “I don’t think there’s supposed to be any doubt.”

  Luis nodded, staring at his own lots as if they’d become strange to him. “They might as well have been durastone.”

  Errol faced the archbenef
ice. It would be easier if he didn’t have to look at her. He needed to pretend that he could somehow put aside his feelings and do this thing. Perhaps if he pretended hard enough, he could. “I have to go.”

  “Liam has to stay,” Luis said.

  Martin tried to ignore the broken sobs that tore themselves loose from Adora’s throat. Liam filled his vision.

  “I have to fight. This is what I was made for.”

  “Do you?” Martin asked. “Are you the one who must die?” He threw his questions at Liam as if they were physical weapons he could use. “Didn’t the herbwomen raise you to be solis? What does Aurae say?”

  He overtopped Martin by half a hand, his shoulders stretching the fabric of his shirt, his blue eyes showing the struggle within his mind. After a moment, Liam exhaled. “Not yet.”

  Martin nodded. “Come, Liam, we must convene the Judica and the conclave. Illustra has been without a king for too long.”

  They turned together, but everyone else in the room stood watching the spot where Adora had buried herself in Errol’s arms, her limbs slack, deprived of strength. Errol held her as though the princess had become as brittle as glass. Soft cries came from her, muffled where she’d buried her face into his shoulder.

  Rokha and Waterson looked on, their cheeks wet, but Luis gaped, stricken, as if he’d been forced to kill Errol himself.

  One by one, each of them turned away as the moment stretched and Adora and Errol showed no signs of parting. Waterson left first, followed by Liam, then Rokha. Martin stepped to the entrance, determined to bear witness, unwilling to spare himself. He stood at the doorway, his heart laboring.

  His resolve failed him at last, and he turned his back. “Oh, Deas, how can you bear it?”

  41

  Savior and King

  THE CAPTAINS WAITED for him across the drawbridge, questions written in the surprised pain of their expressions and darting glances. Storm clouds seethed overhead, dimming the light until the midmorning resembled dusk. Errol forced his unwilling legs to obey him and swung into Midnight’s saddle, the horse calm beneath him while the other mounts shied, hooves shifting in response to their mood. “Captain Liam . . .” He caught himself. “His Majesty, Liam, won’t be coming with us.”