by Melanie Rawn
Chapter Twenty-three
Stronghold: 34 Spring
The old woman acted with stunning speed. The effect of her sudden blaze of sorcerer’s power on their senses was devastating. Pol, Riyan, and Rialt were strong, athletic young men—but she ensnared them with her strange gray-green eyes and they had no more chance against her than newborn infants.
Rays of sunlight became swords of golden crystal plunging into their eyes. The very air turned to tiny needles tipped with acid stabbing their skin. Their own cries were transformed into black knives sinking into their skulls. And with these knives came unconsciousness—but not surcease from pain.
By the time sense returned to Pol’s lacerated mind, the old woman was gone and Ruala with her.
He gathered his legs under him, but his knees didn’t seem to be working right. Riyan was similarly sprawled nearby. Rialt, lacking the gifts that had made the attack much worse on the other two, was already on his feet. He gave Pol a hand up and steadied him when he tottered.
“Gentle Goddess,” Pol breathed when he was sure his voice would hold steady. “What in all Hells was that?”
“Sorcery enough for her to escape with Lady Ruala,” Rialt said bitterly. “Are you all right, my lord?”
“I will be.” He helped Riyan to his feet.
Rialt had started for the door. “We have to find them, though Goddess knows how much time they’ve had to disappear in.”
“Where do you suggest we look?” Riyan asked in bleak tones. “It’s hopeless, Pol. You and I both know from playing here as children that there are scores of places to hide in Stronghold.”
“Just follow the trail of felled servants and guards,” Rialt suggested.
Pol shook his head. “Once they’re out of here, the only person she’ll have to control is Ruala, to keep her quiet. Who’d look twice at a servant helping a lady to a place where she could rest?”
“Well, they can’t get out of the castle,” Rialt maintained. “Riyan’s order to the guardhouse—”
“She got past the three of us. What difficulty would a few guards pose? We could turn Stronghold inside out and not find them unless we were very, very lucky. You said yourself we have no way of knowing how much of a lead they’ve got.”
Rialt nodded unhappily. He went to a bedside table and poured wine from the pitcher there. Pol glanced around, suddenly realizing whose chamber they were in. Meiglan lay in a froth of white silk and lace, looking as innocent as he had only yesterday believed her to be. He absently accepted a wine cup from Rialt and was just about to drink when Riyan dashed the goblet from his hand.
“Smell it,” he said, holding out his own cup. “I didn’t show much talent in medicine at Goddess Keep, but I learned how to recognize certain odors. One sip of that and you’d be laid out on the floor until noon.”
Not having inherited his mother’s nose for wine, Pol could detect nothing out of the ordinary. But he was more concerned with why the wine was drugged—and who it was meant for. He stared at Meiglan. She was barely breathing.
“She’s been drugged,” he said slowly. “But why?”
“Silence?” Rialt guessed. “She was removed from the Great Hall last night in hysterics. She might know something.”
“I don’t give a damn what she knows or doesn’t know!” Riyan’s patience had snapped. “Not when that diarmadhi witch has Ruala—”
“Hostages aren’t harmed until demands go unmet,” Pol said grimly.
“There’s another interesting thought,” Rialt added. “Why Lady Ruala? Why not you, my lord? You’re more valuable to a sorcerer undoubtedly in harness with Roelstra’s grandson. They could kill you outright and claim Princemarch.”
Pol was still gazing at Meiglan. “It has to be done publicly. I have to acknowledge Ruval’s right to challenge, then accept it prince to prince.”
“And by taking Ruala,” Riyan said with anguish thick in his voice, “he’s ensured your acceptance.”
“She’ll be safe enough until then.” Pol approached the bed. “Silence,” he said, echoing Rialt’s earlier suggestion.
The chamberlain nodded. “The old woman was one of her servants, brought from Cunaxa to Tiglath and now here. What is it Lady Meiglan can’t tell us as long as she’s drugged into a stupor?”
“And how long has she been so?” Pol lifted the girl’s wrist, felt the pulse flutter weakly like a tiny bird trapped within the delicate cage of bones. “Rialt, find one of my mother’s maids and have her keep watch in here. And post guards outside the door. No one is to enter this room, not even her own father. I don’t think there’ll be any more trouble from sorcery here, but when she wakes I don’t want anybody but one of us hearing what she has to say.”
“Not even her other serving woman?” Rialt asked.
“No.” He set down her hand and rose. “We’ll stay here until you return.”
“Very good, my lord.”
With Rialt gone, Pol turned to Riyan. “How did Ruala sense it, even before your rings began to burn?” he asked quietly.
“You know as well as I. And we both know something else, too.” Riyan held his gaze steadily.
Pol replied unwillingly, “We three felt it out in the hallway. Rialt did not—and I know very well he hasn’t a drop of Sunrunner blood. Either Ruala is one of us, a Sunrunner, or she and I are the same as you. Diarmadh’im.”
“The rings would argue for the latter.” Riyan spoke without emotion.
“Doesn’t it bother you that—”
“That she may be what I am? My mother was of the Old Blood. So was Urival. It’s not one of my prejudices,” he replied with a shrug.
“She must know what she is. Why hasn’t she said anything?”
“Wouldn’t you keep it secret?” Riyan would not look at him.
“Secrets are exactly what I’m concerned with. If this is true, and I really am—” He tried to keep his voice level.
“It can’t come from your mother, Pol. She’s full-blooded faradhi. Her rings don’t burn in the presence of sorcery.”
“She hasn’t worn any Sunrunner’s rings for as long as I’ve been alive. It might come from my father. And if it does, our whole family—” He pulled in a deep breath. “If they don’t know, how can I tell them? And if they do know, they’ve been lying to me my whole life. Keeping it secret. Secrets give power,” he quoted bitterly.
“Andry can’t learn this one,” Riyan warned.
“Damn Andry! He can take his devr’im and his Sunrunner rings and—”
“Rings—that’s the reason, Pol, it’s not that you’re diarmadhi at all!” Riyan snatched up Pol’s right hand. “This is Andrade’s ring, isn’t it?”
“What does that have to do with—”
“It didn’t burn the way mine did. No burning, no sorcerer’s blood. The gold is special—a ceremony, something Lady Merisel did to it, Ruala says. This would still have the power within it.”
Pol hesitated, then said, “No. It’s not the original. It didn’t fit me. We took the moonstone out and used dragon gold to make a new setting.”
Riyan gripped Pol’s hand for a moment, let it go. “That doesn’t prove or disprove anything.”
Making an effort, ashamed of his reaction to the prospect of sorcerer’s blood, Pol said, “I am or I’m not. It’s not important right now. Ruala is.”
“If they hurt her, I’ll kill them with my bare hands.”
“She’ll be safe, Riyan. They need her to keep me cooperative. And it won’t be long now. The challenge is sure to come within the next day or so. They can’t hide forever. And even if they got out the gates—the Desert’s not a place to spend more than a single night, even in spring.”
Riyan nodded, but his rings glinted as fists clenched and unclenched in impotent fury.
Rialt came back with two guards and a maid who wore the emerald-green badge of personal service to the High Princess. Pol gave his instructions tersely, then said to Riyan, “Come on. It’s time my father knew of t
his.”
Yet he could not help one last look at Meiglan. She could have taken the drug last night to prohibit any questioning after—after. He wanted to believe she had, was desperately afraid she had not. For if sorcerers could shape-change, the woman he had been with last night might not have been Meiglan at all.
Chay and Andry stood on ramparts that overlooked the Desert beyond the cliffs sheltering Stronghold, father and son struggling one last time to understand each other. The one, a powerful athri and renowned warrior who had seen sixty winters, had never been comfortable with faradhi abilities despite being surrounded with Sunrunners. The other, half his father’s age and Lord of Goddess Keep from his twentieth year, had instigated changes in Sunrunner practices that had culminated last night in something the ungifted would never comprehend. Each knew the other’s doubts and prejudices as men; but they were father and son. They had to try.
“Listen to the word you just used,” Chay said. “Magic. It’s something I heard maybe a dozen times in my youth.”
“It’s a convenient term—”
“For something everyone used to take for granted as simply a part of life. What Sunrunners did was just what they did, not magic.” He braced his hands on the stone wall and squinted into the sunlight. “We used to say ‘arts’ or ‘skills’ when we spoke of Sunrunners. Now we’re beginning to say magic. Andry, don’t you hear the difference?”
“If people choose to call it so. . . .” He shrugged. “What we do isn’t ordinary.”
“It’s damned inexplicable to somebody like me. People fear what they don’t understand.”
“Father!” Andry began to laugh. “You’ve never been afraid of anything in your life, much less your own wife and sons!”
“It isn’t me I’m talking about. A Sunrunner at work is an odd sight, but it’s not threatening if you think of it as a skill like—like skills in war. Magic is something else entirely.”
“You and I are different kinds of warrior, that’s all. Besides, what you’ve seen is respect, not fear.”
“Is it?”
“Exactly the same respect that you receive when you carry your sword at your side,” Andry said firmly.
“Ah, but any other man with a sword can meet me on equal terms.” Chay began picking at the mortar between stones. “Swords are useless against what you did last night at Dragon’s Rest.”
“I’m not interested in Dragon’s Rest right now. What concerns me more is that you seem to be blaming me for something. I’d like to know what it is.”
Chay was silent for a moment, then turned and folded his arms across his chest. “Not blame. It’s a responsibility you and Andrade share. She began it by marrying her sister to Zehava and then Sioned to Rohan. She pushed Sunrunners into the lives and bloodlines of princes. That made you more visible.”
“And what of it? We’re meant to serve—and not just princes.”
“But don’t you see that you’re being woven into the everyday fabric of life? You’ve put faradh’im in all princely courts and every major holding. You’re working on the minor ones. When Sunrunners were remote beings, nobody had to think much about you. But now people must deal with you more directly.”
“And isn’t Rohan’s name attached to all the new laws that have found their way into people’s everyday lives? He’s the most visible High Prince in a hundred years. People are dealing with him a lot more directly, too. I don’t see the difference. Besides, it’s not my fault if people choose to believe we’re some mysterious—”
“What happens when news of your devr’im spreads, as you know it will? Use of Sunrunners as—as weapons of combat—Andry, it’s so complete a departure from what you’ve always been that only a fool wouldn’t be afraid of it!”
Andry hesitated. Then, because this was certainly the last time he would ever stand here with his father looking out at the land of their birth, he said, “You don’t know what I’ve seen.”
“Seen?” The furrows deepened on Chay’s wide brow. “Explain yourself.”
Andry bit his lip. “Forgive me, but I must have your word not to repeat any of this.”
Chay stiffened. “My word?”
“I’m sorry. Believe me, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t so important. Please.”
A reluctant nod. Andry sighed his relief. The knowledge was suddenly too much for him to live with alone; this was the one man in the world he could share it with.
“Father, the day I became Lord of Goddess Keep, there was a . . . a vision.” He conjured it in memory and as he forced himself to relive the horror he heard its shadow in his voice. “Hundreds of dead. Castles lying in ruins—terrible destruction. Unimaginable battles in a war we’re destined to lose if something isn’t done. Yes, the devr’im are a departure from tradition. Didn’t Andrade shatter precedent by marrying Sioned, a fully trained Sunrunner, to a prince? For all I know, this war will come about because Pol is who he is, Sunrunner and prince both. I don’t know. I can’t be sure. But I’ve seen the agony, Father. I’m doing all I can to defend against it. Do you think I’d stand meekly by? Would I be your son if I did?”
The gray eyes searched his. “You saw all this?”
“I’ve seen Graypearl gutted,” he murmured. “Medawari in Gilad, Faolain Riverport—even Stronghold, even Radzyn.” Chay gave an involuntary flinch. “All in ruins,” Andry insisted. “As dead as Feruche before Sorin rebuilt it.” He choked at mention of his twin.
“I don’t disbelieve you,” Chay said slowly. “But . . . could you be doing things that will bring your—vision—into being that much faster?”
“You’ve never had much use for faradhi, have you? It doesn’t matter, I suppose. I believe in what I was shown. And I also believe I’ve been given the means to defend against it. What other use for the Star Scroll? And if a growing fear of Sunrunners saves thousands, is the price too high?”
“If fear is the price, count the cost to yourself, my son.”
“How can I make you see?” he cried. “I’m not seeking power for its own sake or to set myself up as Pol’s rival. Whatever I do, it’s not greed or ambition that drives me. I’m terrified of what the future looks like.”
“Be careful what you sacrifice to that future,” Chay warned.
“I would sacrifice my own life if it would stop what I know is to come.”
For the first time his father looked truly shaken. “Andry—you’re right, I don’t understand Sunrunners. I ought to. I’ve lived with your mother for—Goddess, thirty-eight winters now!—I’ve two faradhi sons, and it looks as if my grandchildren will be Sunrunners as well. The destruction you tell me is coming—”
Andry stiffened. “You don’t believe in it.”
“You do,” Chay said softly. “So I must.”
He had never felt so proud or so humble in his life. He put one hand on his father’s arm, unable to speak. But the moment of warm communion dissolved with Chay’s next words.
“I said before that people fear what they can’t understand. It’s also true that they can’t be afraid of something they do understand. You’re turning Sunrunner arts and skills into magic. It’s not merely that you can do things the rest of us can’t. You’re rubbing our noses in it. These invocations to the Goddess, all the words taken from the old language that no one understands, elaborate rituals within your own community—”
“Who’s been watching?” he demanded. “Pol? Sioned?”
The gray eyes held his in a level stare. “Your brother. And he doesn’t much like what he’s seen.”
“Maarken?” The betrayal crippled his breathing for a moment. Alone—he was alone in this. Forbidden his home, undefended by his own parents, suspected by his family—and now this. Maarken, spying on him.
Chay’s voice was heavy with weariness. “Andry, is it truly respect you’re after? Wouldn’t it be better to strive for trust? To work in the open so all can see and understand?”
“You do fear me,” he whispered. “All of you do.”
&nb
sp; “You’re my son,” Chay rasped. “I want to trust you, but you’re making it almost impossible. Why didn’t you come to us when you first heard about the army marching on Dragon’s Rest?”
“Why are you objecting to the use of Sunrunner power against Desert enemies? Isn’t that what Andrade wanted?”
“She wanted a line of princes who were also Sunrunners. Not Sunrunners behaving as if they had all the rights and privileges of princes.”
“Oh, I understand now,” he said, bitterly angry and hurt. “All of you were amazed that I’d lift a finger to defend Dragon’s Rest! You thought I’d watch laughing while it was destroyed!”
“Andry!”
“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” he raged. “Well, Ruval can destroy Pol for all I care! Neither of them matters. Compared to the horror that’s been in my mind for nine years now, no one else matters at all!”
“Except you?” Chay asked harshly.
Andry froze for an instant, then turned on his heel and strode off.
Rohan listened to Pol and Riyan without question or comment. When they had finished he said only, “Come with me.” He led them to the library and office he shared with his wife and locked the door. This coupled with his silence made the young men fidget slightly. But their eyes popped half out of their skulls when he opened the secret place where the translated Star Scroll was kept.
“This is a copy of what Meath found on Dorval years ago. The original and another translation are at Goddess Keep. You know about the Star Scroll, Pol, even though you’ve never seen it. Urival and Morwenna taught you some of what’s in here. But only your mother and I knew where it was hidden. When I put it back, I’ll show you how the compartment works. One day you may have to get at this in a hurry.”
Pol came forward as he set the case on the double desk. But Riyan held back. Rohan glanced over at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, knowing full well what troubled him.
“This is . . . a lot to trust me with,” Riyan said uneasily.
Rohan smiled slightly as he unrolled the parchment. He’d guessed right—not too difficult. The son was much like the father, and he’d known Ostvel for half his life. “I trust you with the secret of dragon gold,” he pointed out.