Knightfall: Book Four of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  “No,” Lissette countered, “they were only partly wrong. They were not wrong to trust you, I think, but only because you were willing to give them what they needed.”

  “Oh, yes. They were wrong,” I insisted. “I’m no king. I’m not even a good baron. I’m not sure I’d make a good mayor. I’m a teacher who had no desire to become a dean. I have a severe anemia of ambition.”

  “But they were right to trust you.”

  “But I’m terrible at being a king!”

  “Maybe you are—I’ve only seen the Demon King on the throne, not you.”

  “And I’m sorry about that,” I told her as I moved to sit on a much heavier chair. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. Let’s talk about you, not him.”

  “Uh, okay. What do you want to know?”

  “I hear you take the duties of King seriously. Very seriously, if your knights are to be believed.”

  “I am proud of them. They’re the one thing I ever did right for the kingdom.”

  “What about the roads?”

  “That was accidental. Although I do admit I hated the muddy rivers you used to call roads.”

  “How did these roads come about?”

  “I presume they were trails hacked through the countryside by people following footpaths, but I’m not sure.”

  “I meant your roads.”

  “Huh? Oh, the stone ones. My mountain. It grows through stone. It formed the roads because it knew how much I hated the dirt tracks.”

  “And the bladed plows?”

  “What bladed plows?”

  “The chariots that make six furrows at a time?”

  “Oh, those. What about them?”

  “And the peace with the Eastrange? And your ideas for peace with the viksagi? Who was it went north to meet them, greet them, and learn something about them before sending ambassadors?”

  “That’s not a sense of duty. That’s me being annoyed with things. And who’s comforting whom, here? You’re the one who was crying. Aren’t I supposed to be holding you and rocking you until you shove me away and hurry off in embarrassment?”

  “Depends on who’s being embarrassed,” she argued. “I’m hardly the fainting flower type. And I’m allowed to avoid talking about things I do not wish to discuss. A queen must have some privileges.”

  I had to admit this was true.

  “I admit this is true,” I admitted. “So, why did you decide to talk about all the nice things I’ve accidentally done?”

  “Were all of them accidents?”

  “Well, no. But I sort of tripped and fell on good fortune a lot.”

  “It doesn’t look that way to me.”

  “Fine, but you haven’t answered my question,” I persisted. “Why bring these up?”

  “I think… I think I’m trying to remember you. Who you were before. No,” she corrected, “I’m trying to remember you. I never knew you, not really, not deeply. I knew the Demon King, and he confused me about you. I’m trying to remember the man I thought you were. I liked him.”

  “And this list of accidentally doing the right thing helps?”

  “It does. That man was a nicer man. He had his faults, but he wasn’t evil. He was… he was someone I could have loved.”

  “Does that mean I can unwind this sash from around my head?”

  Lissette made an exasperated sound and did it for me.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to me. She looked at my face for a while, searching it for I know not what. “You have the same face,” she said, after a while, “but you… wear it differently.”

  “Faces are masks. They conceal us, even as they reveal us.”

  “Deeply philosophical.”

  “I heard it somewhere. I didn’t make it up.”

  “Well, then, maybe it’s true.”

  “Thank you, too much.”

  “Now, perhaps, you might reveal the mysteries behind some other matters.”

  I stood up and re-wound my sash about my waist before moving to a heavy-looking couch. It didn’t even creak when I settled on it. It was also rather poorly padded.

  “Name it. I’ll pull back the veil of uncertainty and reveal all. Assuming I know what you’re talking about.”

  “What are your plans?”

  “That’s a pretty sweeping question.”

  “Oh? You have a lot of plans, do you?”

  “I suppose I do,” I admitted. “First off, I plan to put you firmly between the Crown and Throne, assuming you feel like ruling a kingdom.”

  “There has never been a ruling Queen in Rethven.”

  “Who was it told me this is now the Kingdom of Karvalen?”

  “Hmm. Go on.”

  “My idea is to hold formal court and hear the various nobility of the kingdom. I can explain the new system of judgment and appoint people to oversee it. The nobles can complain at me about it, or anything else they don’t particularly like. I’m sure they’re not fond of taxation, no matter how much or how little it is.” I paused in thought.

  “Maybe we can add canals to this side of the Eastrange, too. I think I can explain to the mountain how to make staircase locks, and the Averill seems like the perfect supply for north-south canals, once the riverbed gets raised a hundred feet or so. We can probably do something similar with Oisen, Quaen, and Caladar, too. People can ship stuff in bulk instead of by wagon train. The places where we need staircase locks can be toll areas, helping finance the Royal Treasury. Hmm.”

  “Stop.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Stop it. You’re chasing sheep.”

  “Chasing sheep?” It took me a second to catch the metaphor. Going off on a tangent, or a wild-goose chase, or chasing rabbits, or something like that. Chasing sheep.

  “Sorry about that. I was just thinking a government might do well to provide services for a fee, rather than do everything through taxation. Either way can be abused, but it would be nice if we could keep things simple. Plus, having more canals would provide irrigation water in more places—”

  Lissette moved over to my couch and gently placed a hand over my mouth to shut me up. It’s possible I was babbling nervously. I can’t have heart palpitations or cold sweats, but I can yammer pointlessly.

  “You have many ideas,” she said, fingers still covering my lips. “You might make an excellent advisor, perhaps even more so than a king. But, for now, you are a king, and you have things you wish to do. Tell me of them.”

  She didn’t remove her hand until I nodded.

  “Once I get the nobility feeling as though I listen to them and will take them seriously—sort of on my side, as it were, warmed up and open to me—I plan to announce I’m going on a trip and leaving you in charge. Oh, I’ll soften it with the idea that I’m also leaving my most trusted advisors with you and that I’ll check in with them regularly, but I’m actually going to have you run the place.”

  Lissette sat beside me on the couch and adjusted her sword more comfortably. She seemed thoughtful.

  “It will work,” she said, slowly, “but not well.”

  “Why is that? You’ve been ruling the place for nine years, haven’t you?”

  “In essence? Yes. Things which require royal authority generally fell to me to do, aside from those amusements you… I’m sorry. Those amusements the Demon King kept for himself.”

  “Then where’s the problem?”

  “It is one thing to bow before the Queen to avoid the attention of the Demon King. It is quite another to acknowledge a woman rules over you.”

  “But that’s why I’m leaving ministers to help, and lying about checking in regularly, staying in touch, and so on.”

  “That is not what they will hear. They will hear only that you are leaving, as the Lords of Night fled through the Door of Shadows in Zirafel, possibly never to return. And, once you are gone, the princes—for they are all princes in their hearts, no matter what their titles—will begin to plot, form factions, and break away.”


  “Banler won’t. Bob will also be on your side. I bet Jorgen will also help.”

  “Yes, and some others with them,” she agreed. “But so many more will wonder why they listen to a woman with a fancy hat hundreds of miles away.”

  “Hmm. All right. You’re more intimately familiar with the various boneheaded chauvinists in charge. What do we do to make this work?”

  “Are you so determined, then, to abdicate?”

  “I’m a terrible king no matter what sort of good fortune I’ve found on the throne. I want someone to rule who can do a decent job. Someone better than me. And you’re my candidate, Your Majesty.”

  “It is not so simple,” she stated.

  “Enlighten me.”

  “I’m not sure I can. You don’t seem to… there’s something about you that…” She frowned. “It is said you came back through the Shadowgate from wherever it is the blood-drinkers fled. Did you?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. I come from another world, a different kingdom. A time and a place radically different from this one.”

  “Yes… yes, I recall, now. You tried to explain it to me, once, so long ago.”

  “Yes.”

  “It shows.”

  “What does?”

  “You are from somewhere else. Somewhere different. So many things I take for granted—we all take for granted—but you do not. You think a woman can rule a kingdom. You think slavery is wrong. You insist on honoring the druids of the woods. You defy the gods with one hand and offer them honors with the other. You think reading and writing are for everyone, regardless of their profession.”

  “I’m with you on all of that, except the part about the druids.”

  “You have an edict demanding saplings be planted for every tree cut down? And you have brokered a peace with the dryads.”

  “Of course. That’s just good forestry, not honor to the druids. Although, now you mention it, they’re probably pleased about it. But I’ve never even met a druid that I know of. I don’t think so, anyway. If I have, I’ve forgotten.”

  “Regardless, the rest of it still stands. You look at the world through your nightlord eyes and see it in ways no one else sees it. It’s like a painting. I look at it and see a pretty glade with dancing animals. You see canvas and brush-strokes, pigments and lines, shading and borders, and perhaps some scenery.”

  I looked at her for several seconds.

  “Lissette, I may have mentioned this before, but it was a long time ago and I’m no longer certain what I said and what I only thought. But I would like to think that, given time and opportunity, I might have decided to marry you and make you queen even without your father’s urging.”

  Lissette blushed and looked away.

  “You did say something along those lines, yes.”

  “I’m glad I said it. Okay. So I don’t see the world the way you see it. This lets me do things no one else would ever dream of, but it also handicaps me in dealing with people because I don’t see what they see. I can’t understand what they do or why. As you said, we’re looking at the same painting, but we don’t see the same picture.”

  “I think so.”

  “Anyone perceptive enough to grasp that is perceptive enough to handle this for me. You figure it out and I’ll do what you say.”

  “I—you what?”

  “I want you to rule the place. What will it take? No, I said that wrong. You are the Queen of Karvalen—unquestioned ruler of all of it. Your word is law. I’m the King. I can do that. I just did. What do you need from me to make sure it stays that way? Pick a noble house that’s likely to be trouble. I’ll remove it and you can appoint governors to serve at your pleasure until they prove they’re worthy of a title. Point at a city that will never bow to a woman ruler. I’ll bring it around to our point of view. Tell me we need a whole new crop of nobles—aside from a few who I know will help our plans—and I’ll eat them all tomorrow night.

  “When I say you’re in charge, I mean you’re also in charge of me. All I want is to be allowed to leave in peace, subject to occasional recall to help you out. I have my own troubles and worries and can’t deal with them and a kingdom, too. So tell me what we need to do and I’ll do it.”

  Lissette stared at me with a thunderstruck expression as I explained. She took a few moments to gather herself before she could reply.

  “I… I’m not sure, exactly. I need to think.”

  “Go ahead. Take your time. The days of the Demon King are ended. Hail the Queen of Karvalen, Lissette the First, Lady of the Something-Or-Other, and similar such stuff.” I stood up from the couch and she caught my hand.

  “Halar?”

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing,” she said, releasing my hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  “It was nothing. Forget it.”

  “Already forgotten… Your Majesty. With your permission, I’m going to go see my rooms and get some stuff done.”

  “Of course.” She sat up straight and waved a hand to dismiss me. “You have Our leave to depart.”

  “That’s my Queen,” I encouraged, and bowed, backing away.

  Seldar and Torvil were waiting for me out in the hall. Seldar had the box with the crown in it. He tried to give it to me, but I appointed him temporary guardian of the thing.

  We took the nickel tour of the palace, just to keep me from getting too lost if I went out on my own. This gave me time to remember I wanted to present the new crown to Lissette and explain its operation, as well as discuss other things—the children, for one, as well as Tyma and her broken magical instruments.

  But it was late for mortals and tomorrow promised to be a busy day. We headed for the dungeons.

  Basement. I meant basement. The first floor below ground level. That thing.

  The King’s Chambers were wonderfully appointed. The outer room was suitable for dinner with friends, the bathroom large and tiled, and the bedroom, like the other two rooms, completely lacking in windows. The Demon King chose big, solid furniture, all suitable to heavy loads—a must for anyone who weighs in at close to three times what he should. A wardrobe held a variety of formal clothes while chests held quite a lot of more practical things. The bathroom featured a high-mounted water pipe, complete with an actual valve. The bedroom was done in black leather and red velvet, with an eye to providing mounting points for ropes, restraints, and various forms of immobilization. The racks on the walls held a number of implements not normally found in a bedroom. At least, not in any normal bedroom. Not even in most deviant bedrooms. I think even Mary might have been a trifle intimidated by the selection.

  Somehow, I doubted he slept there. Just a suspicion.

  I discussed my meeting with Lissette with Seldar and Torvil before sending them off to get some sleep. A pair of red-and-grey sashes replaced them at midnight, anyway. I fired up my ring gate and peeked through to the library, checking on Diogenes.

  Sure enough, Diogenes had prepared a reply. It was a large pane of glass or clear plastic with a colored backdrop. The message was written on it. In short, his laboratory was ready to preserve a tissue sample and grow it into a larger sample for experimentation, but full-scale cloning of an organism was still beyond his capabilities. He felt he was making good progress on increasing his industrial capacity—power, materials manufacturing, and so on—but until he got a real power plant on-line, he was sadly restricted in his ability to operate large numbers of robots. Solar worked, but it had obvious limitations.

  He also included a digital display labeled “elapsed time.” If I was reading it right, it was nine days, eleven hours, and sixteen minutes since I left. We really needed to get him some more power production and a larger battery supply. Diogenes could work his robots non-stop if he only had a steady power source for them.

  I closed the ring gate and considered. The library looked considerably more put together than I recalled. Was Diogenes tidying up with his excess processor cycles? Or was he putting the library in
order so he could access the information in it? Or, since he’s capable of creative thought in a limited sense—extrapolation, if not originality—has he started expanding his industrial base in preparation for mass-production cloning?

  Oh, my. Have I started a Von Neumann process? I think I have. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, considering. The planet is pretty well ruined as far as any human population is concerned. Putting it back together in an environmentally responsible fashion might be worthwhile.

  I also wondered about the time rate. There seemed to be a rapid progression on the far side. Was it doing that before I went through, or did the protracted duration of the open gateway cause a backlash? I really wish I could see a graph of power consumption. It’s possible the cycling of interuniversal geometries along a time axis might have caused a stretching of the wormhole, necessitating greater and greater energy input. I should have checked the rate of discharge when we came back and compared it to the initial levels. Of course, I would also need some sort of measuring device for that, and for that I need a measuring scale…

  Someday, when I’m sitting quietly in a hermit hut on some random mountainside and nobody’s bothering me, I’m going to invent a measuring scale for magic. I don’t care if it’s as arbitrary as an Imperial pound. At least I’ll be able to apply mathematics.

  Thaums. From “thaumaturgy.” If I remember right, it’s from the Greek for “miracle.” One thaum, one miracle? No, that won’t work. How do you define the minimum for a miracle? I’ll have to think about it some more.

  I shut the ring gate and spent a few minutes with an illusion spell, giving Diogenes instructions. I opened the gate, cast the illusion through into the library, and closed the gate to let the illusion run. Then I tugged on the bell-pull by the bed on the theory it connected to servants’ chambers, somewhere. I must have guessed right. Someone knocked on the outer door in less than a minute.

  Once he passed through the personal guard gauntlet, I sent him back out to find Bob. The page or houseboy or whatever he was dashed off and found him more quickly than I expected. I suppose when you have an elf-duke residing in the palace, the people who work there tend to hear about it. The two of them reported to me in nothing flat.