Try just asking next time, he thought. “I… I must be missing something. Is that all?”
Darien del Darien snorted. “Yes,” he said, his lips white against his skeletal face. “That is all.”
Hosea shook his head. “That is much, as well you know. Ian Silver Stone doesn’t have any of the jewels, and—”
“Yes, yes, yes, and you’ve carefully cut the knowledge of where you hid the rest from your living brain,” Darien del Darien said, his voice low and angry. “As best I can tell, three of them remain hidden.”
Three? But—
“Three?” Hosea cocked his head to one side.
“Three,” Darien del Darien said. “I… I think—that the Vandestish have the emerald.”
Hosea turned to Ian. “He is certain,” he said, in that sibilant language he had used before, that Ian somehow recognized as Old Harvish. “His spies in—in the country in which you were asked to undergo the Pain say that they do.”
It took Ian a moment to realize that Vandescard would still have been “Vandescard” in Old Harvish, and that Hosea had to circumlocute if he wanted to keep what he was saying secret from Darien del Darien.
“And you know this? …”
“As surely as it is possible to know anything. He thinks that this will be common knowledge shortly, or he would not have mentioned it. He seeks to ingratiate himself with you through honesty.”
“I shall—” Ian choked on the words that he started to say, then said, “That’s fine with me,” in English. In Old Harvish, the closest he could have come to that figure of speech would have been I’ll not eat his children, then rape his women before his eyes, in my vengeance. Whoever the Old Harvish were or had been, Ian hoped there weren’t many left around.
“There’s a rumor,” Darien del Darien went on, “that the sapphire was found in Finvarrasland recently.”
Ian looked to Hosea, who nodded.
“Ian Silver Stone has found two—the diamond and the ruby.” The klaffvarer looked over the Hosea. “Ages go by with all seven hidden. The Aesir and the Vanir and the Sidhe and others of the Old Ones fade away, and all seven remain hidden. The Tuatha have the Cities carved from impermeable rock; they grow too old to live in cities, and vanish, one by one, like soap bubbles popping—and all seven remain hidden. The Tuarin—and races and people I’ve never heard of come and go—and the Brisingamen jewels remain hidden.
“And then, within less than two years, two of them appear—and then another two? Do I smell the Fimbulwinter coming, perhaps?” He raised his hand. “I know, I know: if that is so, then none of this matters, for nothing matters. If it’s going to be the end of it all, then—” he waved it away. “Then what we do is of no import. I have to believe otherwise. If it is to be otherwise, I must serve the Scion, and in order to do that I need the use, the possession of, for one day, one of your Brisingamen jewels.”
Well, actually, Torrie had found the ruby, and Arnie had found the diamond. But Ian had had them conveyed to Freya, and she had safely hidden them away somewhere.
But this was the first Ian had heard that another two gems had been located. He and Torrie had been talking about going in search of the Brisingamen gems once Torrie graduated, if only as a reason to spend time in Tir Na Nog.
“And through some coincidence,” Ian asked, “I have—we have—come here accompanying a dwarf who has conveniently—for you, perhaps?—disappeared just as you wanted to see me to ask me this favor.”
Darien del Darien spread his hands in surrender. “I understand your suspicions; were I you, I would suspect much worse, perhaps. But if I had tried to bring you here, don’t you think I would have found a way less cumbersome? Less hostile?” He leaned forward. “Yes, I could send Sons through the Hidden Way that His Warmth controls, and they could go to your home village just as easily as could I.
“But they wouldn’t know any more about your world, about your country, than I would. This city where Sons seek Thorsen blood is far away from your village—is there some trail that they could follow, that would tell them where to seek Thorian del Thorian the Younger?” Darien del Darien sat back in his chair. “Doesn’t that seem impossible to you?”
Impossible? No. Darien del Darien was being too much the advocate. Ivar del Hival had spent some time in Hardwood. But giving out the sort of information that would have enabled Sons to travel hundreds of miles from Hardwood to the city? Any questions that would have elicited that would have awakened his suspicions.
Sure, Ivar del Hival could have led a Son or some Sons to Minneapolis. But he wouldn’t have, not to go after Torrie. You can’t go through life trusting everybody, Ian had long learned, but you couldn’t go through it trusting nobody, either. It would be nice if Ivar del Hival was here. Yes, he was fealty-bound to the Fire and to the Sky, but he was a friendly, familiar face, and somebody Ian had trusted, and could trust.
“Very well,” Darien del Darien said, “perhaps not impossible, but does it not seem unlikely?”
But if the Dominions hadn’t sent Sons after the Thorsens again, who had, and why? Was Valin lying?
It would be nice to know. And he was, perhaps conveniently, absent. But if Darien del Darien hadn’t released Valin—if the dwarf hadn’t been given the secret to the jail cell—where was he?
That was the center of it all, and Ian’s mind was spinning around the center of it all.
It wasn’t just that none of it made any sense. Ian had grown up in a home where nothing made sense, where the hands and voice that were supposed to support and comfort you beat and abused you.
What bothered him was the feeling that this all did make sense, that if only he looked at it from the right perspective, it would all fall into place and he would know what to do.
But that was just an artifact of his childhood.
He ached for the feel of the fencing strip beneath his feet, where there was only one opponent, that opponent was identified and in front of you, and while it was important to beat him every time, if you lost a point, all you lost was a point.
Unbidden, Harbard’s ring pulsed hard against his finger. “I have to think about this,” he said, “but I have to know: if I choose to, if I can, bring a Brisingamen jewel here, can you swear that it will be safely returned?”
Darien del Darien started to nod, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I wish that I could, but I cannot.”
Well, that was honest of him, at least.
“I can promise that the Scion and I will do all we can to see that it is returned, but anything more than that would be a lie. I can tell you that I believe it would be, and that I’d agree to any conditions you would set, that… please, just think on it, please, Ian Silver Stone.” He looked up and beckoned to somebody apparently far across the room, and then he rose. In a moment, his manner had changed from that of the ruler that he clearly was—in practice, if not in theory—to that of a butler, perhaps, or a host.
“In the interim,” Darien del Darien said, “if you would, let us show you that the hospitality of the Old Keep has no superior at Falias, or anybody else. The Heir informs me that the Magnificent Lady Diandra has asked the pleasure of your company at the dance.”
Hosea had long been asleep when Ian staggered into their rooms, tired in a remarkably pleasant way, for once.
There had been worse evenings in his life, and that was a fact. It turned out that there was a reason that the small corridors off the ballroom were dark, with small but remarkably comfortable rooms off of them., And the Magnificent Diandra had been fun to dance with, and incredibly funny as well as easy on the eye, and it turned out that there were fringe benefits to this becoming a legend thing…
… And there was a dark shape in the chair next to Hosea’s bed.
Ian snatched at Giantkiller’s hilt. “Hosea!” Panic washed over him in a quick cold wave that scrubbed every trace of that luxurious languor from his nerves and veins.
Hosea sat up instantly, only his eyes visible in a band of the
dim light that streamed in through the translucence of the windows.
“There is no need to panic, Ian Silver Stone,” the Scion’s harsh voice said. “I won’t harm either of you.” He chuckled thinly. “Not that, even on a much better day, I’d have been much of a match for the Promised Warrior, or even a green ordinary of the House of Wind. But keep your sword out and at the ready, if it pleases you.”
“How did you get in here?” Ian asked, realizing that it was a stupid question the moment the words were out of his mouth. The guards at the door wouldn’t have hesitated to open it for their ruler, after all.
“An astute question,” the Scion said. “I congratulate you on your presence of mind.”
“You’ll find Ian has more of that than you’d want to bet against, Scion,” Hosea said.
Ian could barely make out Hosea reaching for something; the Scion gestured him into motionlessness. “Please.”
“As you wish, of course,” Hosea said. “I can see—”
“Yes, yes, of course you can see in the dark, you can see the past and the future, you can see anything and everything, but leave some things unspoken for now; I promise you that you’ll have the chance to speak of them later.” He shifted in his chair. “If… you were to go into your sleeping room, Ian Silver Stone, and stand on the headpiece of your bed, reaching up as high as you can, you’d feel a row of studs at the juncture of wall and ceiling, each with a small bit of give. Press the third, fifth, and sixth stud only, then quickly leap off the bed before your weight atop the headpiece resets the mechanism, and a portion of your wall will swing inward, giving you ingress into what appears to be a hidden closet of sorts.”
“But it is not a closet,” Hosea said.
“Oh, yes, it is. You’ll find some old armor stacked there, and a rolled tapestry or two, as well as a few other odds and ends.”
“It’s not just a closet,” Ian said. “If you know where to open another hidden door, you’ll find that it’s an entrance to one of the hidden passages that run through the Cities.”
“That could, perhaps, be the case. I really couldn’t say.”
“And you know that passage.”
“That passage?” The Scion laughed. “That one? Why, Ian Silver Stone, I know them all.”
How, Ian Silver Stone (the Scion had said), do you think a ruler maintains his rule? What is it, finally, that makes people who certainly often have other notions do what he tells them to?
Oh, there are plenty of things, you’d no doubt say. There’s a sense of legitimacy that comes with tradition and authority; there is, perhaps, the acknowledgment that somebody must decide, and if not this ruler, then whom?
And all that would be true.
But, truly, the final essence is force. You do what the ruler says because if you don’t, you’ll face the consequences. Men will come to your village and haul you away, or strap you to the whipping rack and lay your back open with a lash made of braided bull hide. You’ll dance on the end of a rope or over a bed of coals.
Don’t you like the picture? Well, since when does what you like have much to do with the way of the world?
You may think of us in the Cities as decadent, as long past our prime as a race, as a people, and I will not argue the point, because it is true. There was a time when the Crimson and Ancient Cerulean companies bought with their blood and bone not only peace for us of the Dominions but also comfort, and life in the Cities has long been comfortable. Our walls are solid; the fields and villages that feed us are lush and productive, and even the ordinaries of the Houses spend as much time in their City quarters as they can.
To do that, though, brings them under the hand of their rulers. It’s a common pattern throughout—one way a ruler has of enforcing his will is by forcing his nobles to place themselves and their families, from time to time, under his roof, where their necks are exposed to his blade.
And if life under his roof is more comfortable—more interesting, more exciting, more lavish where lavish is good and more spare where spare is pleasant—then all the better, no?
But by doing that, by keeping your people close to your hand, you keep them close to your throat. What would you do, say, if a dozen nobles or a dozen dozen were to surprise you, and announce that they—or perhaps they and your klaffvarer, say—were now the rulers of the Cities?
In another place, at another time, a ruler might surround himself with trusted men, men whose brutality earned the enmity of all, so that it was only through the survival of himself and his line that they, too, would survive. But they would have to oppress the rest, wouldn’t they? They would have to keep them in fear.
And that sort of fear breeds conspiracy, which breeds instability. A ruler needs, then, an army to keep the nobles in line.
And, of course, there is a danger there. Keep too large an army, be too dependent on it, and its leaders will decide that they can better rule than these foppish nobles. Perhaps the general will overthrow the ruler and take his crown himself? Or perhaps not.
In the long run, it matters little. Forces will sway forward and back; factions and movements and conspiracies will move about like a square of squares on the dance floor, slave that nobody will ever know what the pattern of the next round is to be.
Unless…
“Unless,” Ian said, “there is one man, and one man only, who can reach out and touch anybody, anywhere.”
Such a thing couldn’t be in most places. A ruler couldn’t be his own hatchetman, not for long.
But the Cities were different. They held their secret passages, as the universe itself was honeycombed with the Hidden Ways. And one man who knew all those passages could, if he was the only one who knew them all, reach out and strike anywhere, at any time.
And if his residence was the highest spire, unapproachable without warning—
“There’s some sort of passage down the center of the spire,” Ian said.
“That is, of course, possible. If so, the Scion would know,” the Scion said, “for what do you think ‘Scion’ means if not descendant, if not inheritor, if not Heir?”
Ian sat back, trying to line up all the‘ ducks in a row, as though that might do some good.
And it might, for once.
The Scion maintained his rule because he was the only one who knew all the hidden passages and abditories in the Cities—not just the Old Keep, but all the Cities—and because that let him reach out, either in person or through a trusted servant, to touch, or grab, or, if necessary, kill anybody in the Cities who was a threat.
Of course, he’d want to do most of the reaching out himself, but it was like with any other sort of classified information. There would be the passages that were widely known, and those that were known to only a few, and then there would be as many as possible that the Scion would keep to himself.
Hell, the hidden closet in Ian’s sleeping room here wasn’t all that useful, not unless he could find a way from there into a passage, and given the proclivities of the designer of the Cities, it was likely that there were plenty of false entrances into the passages.
Or even, perhaps, routes that led to traps?
Possibly.
“Then what the Heir inherits is,” Ian said, letting himself think out loud, “the secrets. Not all of them—if he has all of them, then he becomes too vulnerable, too much of a prize, and too powerful. He might be tempted to take over.”
“There is no temptation; once he reaches his majority, my Heir can become the Scion the moment he wishes it. I would not stand in his way when he thinks himself ready, just as my father did not stand in mine.”
“But he has enough so that he can pry the rest out himself, and pass them down to his Heir, when he becomes Scion.”
“Now? Not quite yet.”
“Shared key cryptography,” Ian said.
“Eh?”
He had, of course, spoken in English. “He has enough, and your klaffvarer has enough, and probably one or two other people have enough of the informati
on to put together …” (What? The complete map of the Cities’ secret? No, that didn’t seem right.) “… to figure out where the complete map of the Cities is hidden.”
The dark shape nodded. “Yes,” he said. “You will, I hope, understand if I don’t choose to discuss all the details of how that would work.”
“All? I’d rather I didn’t know any of them.”
The Scion chuckled thinly.
“So it was you who let Valin out?” Ian asked.
“No. It was Valin who let Valin out—that exit only opens from the inside, not the outside. It was I who followed his tracks through the dust of the passageways and assured myself that the vestri … took a route to the outside that he would be hard put to return by, and it was I who dragged myself here.”
The Scion shook his head. “No, I don’t know who sent your vestri any more than you do, nor do I know who put Sons on your friends’ scents. But I do know one thing,” he said. He made a sudden motion with his hands, and yellow light flared, suddenly bright, in the table lantern.
He had been a handsome man, once, and that still showed in the left side of his face, in the strong jaw and firm cheekbones.
The right side of his face was a horror. The flesh looked, it looked … melted was the only word that came to Ian’s mind. Open lesions had eaten into skin, revealing the muscle and sinew beneath. The right ear was gone, and the hair and most of the skin were gone from the skull on that side, white bone showing through in spots.
Amazingly, except for the juncture of the lips, the lips were still intact, and a thin layer of muscle covered the cheek. Soon, if this rot progressed, that would be gone, and with it the Scion’s ability to speak.
A bandage covered where the flesh of his neck was red and raw and open; the cloth hung, soggy and limp, soaked with some sort of yellow fluid speckled with spots of red—like bloody lemonade.
“I know that if you do not help me, I do not have much longer. My flesh rots more daily, and it is all that my chirurgeon and the Old Vistarü woman who prepares my medicines can do to keep the maggots at bay.” Moving slowly, perhaps so as not to give any reason for alarm, he reached into the front of his tunic and pulled out a folded square of white linen, which he quickly unfolded and pressed up against his cheek.
The Crimson Sky Page 24