by Byron Preiss
XXVII
Monarch Ephrion stepped carefully onto the bridge. It was very old, and the elements had taken their toll of its construction.
He grasped the woven railing tightly and began to cross. In the pocket of his robe of state was a written message, which revealed what he had told Ceria, and in brief terms recounted his instructions to Amsel, the Fandoran. With this knowledge, Ephrion hoped Hawkwind would be able to quickly resolve the conflict in the Kameran Valley.
He walked slowly, knowing that any sudden move might break through the delicate floor of the bridge. He had decided upon this path because of its relative isolation. He could not afford to be seen leaving the center of Overwood alone. He would transfer the message to an old and trusted friend who could get it to Hawkwind without suspicion.
He rested for a moment at the center of the bridge. Looking down, he could see the river winding out of the forest. Then he looked ahead, and was startled by the appearance of two children running toward the bridge from a connecting tree. He waved his cane at them, hoping to ward them off, but they ran straight ahead. They were playing at war; both brandished wooden swords, the second yelling loudly as he pursued the first.
“I’ll kill you, Fandoran!” he shouted.
What terrible words! thought Ephrion. We must put an end to this war. He tensed as the first child hopped carelessly over a hole in the bridge. It quivered under their weight. “Slow down!” Ephrion cautioned them, but they ignored him and were quickly gone from the bridge.
Ephrion continued, again treading softly until he had reached solid ground. He rested a moment, then walked quickly through an archway toward a little-used path. This would take him back to the main road, a safe distance from Evirae’s guards.
“Monarch Ephrion!” a voice said suddenly behind him. “Monarch Ephrion! Do you need help?”
Ephrion sighed. He needed only to get away from whoever was calling. He looked back and recognized a tall sentry from the lower floors of the palace. “No,” he replied. “I am quite all right.”
The sentry approached him, smiling. “Surely I can be of assistance, sir! You should not be walking unescorted in these parts. A spy is still missing in the forest!”
“I am merely taking a short stroll,” said Ephrion.
The sentry was persistent. “Then may I have the honor of walking with you?”
Ephrion shook his head. “You have my thanks, but I would prefer to walk alone.”
“I do not think I should leave you alone,” said the sentry, who now stood only a few feet away.
Ephrion glared angrily at him. “How dare you object to my privacy!”
The sentry continued to smile, but in his eyes Ephrion could readily see a threat. The man was not merely concerned for the welfare of an old Monarch. He was one of Evirae’s agents. “A Family meeting is to occur shortly,” he said. “The Princess requests you presence there. What shall I tell her, Monarch Ephrion? I have been following you for a while now, not knowing when to interrupt. I did not dream you would be walking so far from the palace.”
The meaning of the sentry’s statement was obvious to Ephrion. The sentry knew he had departed on some sort of mission. If Ephrion did not attend the meeting, Evirae would suspect a plot to aid Hawkwind.
Ephrion stared angrily at the fellow. He would not be threatened by an ambitious sentry! The Princess could suspect whatever she wished! He had governed Simbala for over forty years, and in Hawkwind’s absence he would do it again.
“In that case, fellow, you can indeed be of help to me,” he said. “Return to the Princess and inform her that no Family meeting will be held until I return.”
“Will you not accompany me, Monarch Ephrion?” The tone was still mockingly respectful, but there was an edge to it now.
“I will not,” Ephrion said. “I have other concerns. Please return without me.”
The sentry looked at Ephrion anxiously. He had not expected this.
“Are you refusing an order from the Monarch-Emeritus?” asked Ephrion. “Why do you wait?”
The guard looked puzzled, then turned and went back toward the palace. Ephrion sighed. Evirae grows bolder by the hour, he thought. The sentry’s report would not favor him, but he had no alternative. Hawkwind had to be alerted as quickly and as safely as possible.
* * *
It was dark in the wooded hills that bounded the Kameran Valley. The full moon’s radiance did not penetrate the foliage. A few small, carefully shielded fires burned here and there, and huddled around them were the remnants of the Fandoran army, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.
Lagow stood in the darkness on the edge of one of the small clearings. His mind was full of images of Jelrich Town, of his wife, his son, and his daughter. Normally at this time of year, business would be picking up—people would want repairs done on wagons and farm tools, and the selling of spring crops would encourage some to order new furniture built. Instead of balancing a wheel or polishing a chair, he was here, with all these others, facing dragons and warriors in the dark. He looked around him at the men rolled up in blankets. He had come to know many of them, and he was shocked by their worn and tired appearance, compared to that festive night in Tamberly Town. It seemed so long ago now! It would be longer still before this madness would end. He hoped peace would come soon.
There were others, as well, who could not sleep. Dayon sat beside Tenniel, who groaned and muttered in his sleep, feeling pain as an endless succession of nightmares. The son of Jondalrun stared into the embers of a fire. He had not known what to expect from their foes, but he had thought about the possibility of some horrible, supernatural doom. Had not a dragon appeared? True, the beast had not attacked them, but this inexplicable fact was in itself sinister. Were the Simbalese toying with them? Dayon shook his head. He shook his wrist; the dry rattle of the seed pods was loud in the silence.
Dayon stared at the glowing coals. There was a slight sound nearby, and he turned to see Pennel, staring at Tenniel.
“He does not sleep well,” Pennel said softly.
“Few among us do,” Dayon replied.
Pennel looked up at the few stars visible through the black weaving of branches. “Here, at least, we are safe from the windships and the dragon,” he said.
“Or here we are trapped by them.”
“Do you think that the Simbalese have summoned the dragon, Dayon?”
“It seems likely.”
“I wonder,” Pennel replied. He stirred the embers with the toe of his boot. “There is more happening in this war than your father expected. He has said little about the dragon since it flew into the forest.”
“Where did the dragon come from, then, in your opinion?”
Pennel shook his head. “I do not know. I can think of only one person knowledgeable enough to shed some light on the subject.” He glanced sadly at Tenniel.
“You refer to Amsel the hermit?” Dayon asked. “Was he not a traitor?”
“I wish now that we had listened to him further.” Pennel sighed. “Things are happening that we do not understand. I wonder if the Simbalese are not the least of our worries.”
He walked off then, away from the feeble firelight, leaving Dayon alone with thoughts about a man he had known only through the words of others. “Amsel,” he murmured, “was accused of plotting my brother’s murder.” He shook his head. “I shall never know if that is true, I guess. The hermit’s body lies beneath the wreckage of his tree house.”
* * *
Word reached Hawkwind after darkness, but it was a different message than Ephrion had originally written.
Hawkwind held the vellum scroll on an angle to the full moon in a clearing between the forest and the valley. To his left stood General Vora, scowling as he tried to read it over Hawkwind’s taller shoulder. “What does it say?” he asked.
“The Princess has found evidence of treason,” Hawkwind replied. “She seeks to have me removed from the palace.”
“Impossible!” said V
ora. “You have been here all the time! What evidence of treason could there be?”
“It seems that Evirae has implicated Ceria in the activities of the long-lost Fandoran spy.”
“Nonsense!”
Hawkwind shook his head. “This is a serious charge. According to Ephrion, Ceria took the spy into the palace in full view of Evirae and Baron Tolchin.”
“Is the Rayan mad?” Vora reached for the scroll. Hawkwind turned the vellum so that the General could read it. “According to Monarch Ephrion, my lady acted in the best interests of Simbala. The spy claims that Fandora has acted to avenge the murder of a child—a murder much like that of the child in the Northweald. Evirae has found a way to use the spy’s encounter with Ceria as evidence of an alliance between the Fandorans and me. As a result, Monarch Ephrion suspects that Evirae will call a vote of the Family on the matter of my deposition.”
“Surely it will not succeed. There will be dissension! Not all the Family will vote against you! Without a unanimous decision, the meeting will have little effect.”
Hawkwind rolled the scroll back into the tube in which it arrived. “Who will stand by me? Certainly not Kiorte.”
“Monarch Ephrion will support you.”
“Yes,” Hawkwind answered, “but he elected me to succeed him. He may defend me or call for my removal, but he may not vote on the matter.”
“Then the Baroness will support you! You have spoken of her with admiration; she is not foolish enough to fall for Evirae’s plan.”
“Alora and Tolchin both saw Ceria take the spy into the palace. Will they ignore evidence that they themselves have seen? To do so would be tantamount to treason.”
General Vora nodded in dawning realization. Jibron and Eselle would back their daughter, as would the petty Ministers and other Family members who had more to gain with the Princess as Queen than with a miner in the palace. “There must be a way to prove your innocence,” he insisted.
Hawkwind nodded. “How long will it take to ride to the southern plains?”
Vora was shocked. “You cannot be thinking of escape!”
“No, General, but I must use what Monarch Ephrion has told me. Ceria has escaped from Evirae to complete a mission for Monarch Ephrion. She seeks a jewel known as the Dragonpearl, which may be hidden in the Rayan camp of her childhood. It contains evidence of the dragons’ affairs and may explain the reason for their actions against us. I must find Ceria and the Dragonpearl! It is imperative that we learn the truth about the dragons. They are as unfathomable as this war—and more dangerous than the Fandorans.”
“You cannot abandon the army!”
“I will do nothing of the sort, Vora. In going south, I will be able to rally the Southland troops on their way back to the forest. With our men united, the Fandorans will run toward shore like a tree bear from a fire.”
“I do not like it,” Vora grumbled. “There is no telling what the Princess will do in your absence.”
“Perhaps,” answered Hawkwind, “but we know exactly what she will do if I remain.” He smiled ruefully at the General. “Any man convicted of traitorous acts will immediately be imprisoned. Which appears worse to you? A missing hero or a Monarch in chains?”
Vora did not reply.
Hawkwind mounted and raised his arm, whistled, and the hawk streaked down from the sky. Perched on Hawkwind’s shoulder, it watched silently as he turned his horse eastward. He would slip unseen into the forest and then ride toward the Valian Plains.
* * *
Ceria rode hard and fast, pushing Lady Tenor’s horse with a relentlessness the beast had never known. She did not like to treat it so, but she could waste no time. Her mission was urgent, and she knew not if Evirae had sent agents to find her.
It was evening now. The sky was clearing. To her right, the sun was beneath the horizon, and the clouds about it were russet and amber. The air was clean and fresh, the ground moist, but Ceria had no time to notice the beauty about her as she might have in earlier years.
If indeed she had seen the Dragonpearl hidden in the camp as a child, then it had to be jealously guarded. If it is such a treasure, Ceria thought, it will be difficult to convince them to give it to me.
True, she was the foster daughter of Zurka, the head of Shar Wagon tribe, but she had been a foundling, discovered by and raised as a woman of Shar Wagon. She had always felt a faint degree of difference in the way she had been treated by the other Rayan, but she hoped that the mystery of her past would not work against her now. She knew Zurka’s daughter, Balia, had never thought of her as a true member of the wagons. Balia was not without influence.
She rode on over the gently rolling hills toward that area of the Valian Plains where the tribe would be camped at this time of the year. Near a crossroads, she passed the ashes and mounds of buried trash that indicated a recent encampment. She knew it had to be the caravan, escorted by the rest of the Simbalese troops. For a moment she was tempted to turn and ride after them, to tell them that they were needed in the defense of the forest in Overwood. She could easily overtake their slow and circuitous route home, but she knew that her quest for the Dragonpearl had been delayed far too long already.
It was late by the time she approached the huge semicircle of the wagons. She could smell the embers of the cooking fires and the rank scent of the giant goats that pulled the wagons. As she reined in her gasping horse, stiff-backed dogs sidled out from beneath the wagons, growling and sniffing warily. Ceria swung down from her horse, speaking to them softly, and though it had been years since they heard the sound of her voice, they licked her hands as she stepped over a wagon yoke.
Her horse would have to be walked and rubbed down immediately. The wagons were dark. She assumed the camp was sleeping. Then a shadow moved suddenly across a wheel. She started, then relaxed as she spotted Boblan, a mute dwarf, her mother’s personal aide. He came toward her, smiling. “It is I, Boblan,” she said, “Tabushka—I have come back. Tend to my horse, please—I must speak to my mother.”
The dwarf nodded and hobbled off. Ceria turned toward the wagons, but as she did, a familiar voice called her name.
Ceria saw a woman step out of a wagon into the moonlight. She was the same age as Ceria; her hair was a dark, curly cascade, falling past her waist, and she wore an ankle-length dress covered with baubles and chains. It whispered as she walked.
“Balia,” Ceria said softly. “Hello, my sister.”
The other looked at her and said, “Do not address me as such. We are not sisters.” Moonlight made her expression even colder than the words.
“Not by blood,” Ceria answered, “but I have always loved you as such.”
Balia folded her arms. She thinks me a traitor for leaving, Ceria thought. In her eyes I am no longer of the Rayan. Ceria felt sadness at this, but no surprise. She had known for years that Balia was envious of her. Ceria started to defend herself, then changed her mind. She had no time for the reconciliation of old rivalries. She had already made her feelings clear.
“I have come for the Dragonpearl,” she said. “It is urgently needed by Monarch Ephrion.”
Balia’s eyes widened at the mention of the Dragonpearl, but she denied any understanding of what Ceria had said. “It is odd that you rush here on a mission for Overwood, Ceria, but ignore the people you claim to love.”
These words puzzled the young Rayan, but before she could speak, Balia continued. “I am head of the camp now. Mother is ill. She has been confined to the wagon.”
“I did not know.”
“Of course,” snapped Balia. “You were too busy with your lover.” She wrapped a chain around one finger. “A Monarch is quite a coup, sister, but it means little to Shar Wagon. Leave now. You are not welcome here. We do not have what you seek.”
“You are lying,” Ceria said with calm assurance. “Do not forget that I have the sight. I know the pearl is here, and I must have it. Fandora has declared war on Simbala, and it may aid us in the battle. Let me see Mother. She
will understand the urgency of my task.”
Balia glared at her. “I am Queen here, and I do not take orders and insults from a miner’s courtesan!” She turned and came toward Ceria, hands outstretched. “Begone, ere I have you driven forth!”
Surprise immobilized Ceria for a moment—she had not realized how deeply her sister’s envy had taken hold. Balia’s hand pushed her backward, away from the wagons. Ceria was suddenly angry. There was no time for such petty squabbles! She saw lights go on in some of the wagons as she tried to dodge past Balia. Her sister grappled with her. As she struggled to free herself, Ceria saw Boblan run past them. He knocked on the door of another wagon. Ceria pushed Balia away. At the same time, the wagon door opened, and the yellow light of an oil lamp spilled across the camp. The sisters looked up and saw an old woman watching.
“Mother,” Ceria whispered, and ran up the stairs to the waiting embrace.
An hour later, when the faintest touch of dawn began to pale the stars, Ceria finished explaining the circumstances of the war, and how Ephrion had sent her for the Dragonpearl. “I must know if it is real,” she said to Zurka.
There was no discussion among Zurka and the other Elders of the camp—only meditation. Balia watched Ceria, evidently desiring to speak, but the custom was to allow the Elders their say first.
The Elders discussed the matter in low tones. Ceria shook her head to keep her eyes open; despite her anxiety, she wanted to sleep. She had not yet rested from the journey south.
Zurka at last said, “Any opinion I give on this matter will be only opinion, as I no longer bear the burden of the camp. The decision must be Balia’s.” She paused. “You did see a Dragonpearl as a child, Ceria. It was not just a dream. Those of us who have had the sight have tried to probe its secrets. It has revealed some lore to us, but by no means all. The dragons did exist in olden times, but what became of them, I do not know.”
Zurka rose slowly and went toward her wagon. Ceria watched anxiously as she climbed the worn, wooden steps. When Zurka reappeared, it was as though she had plucked the full moon from the heavens and carried it in her hands.