The Jack of Souls

by Merlino, Stephen

  At first he seemed no man at all, but a god—some separate race as far above men as mountains above mounds—for he wore naught but gold and violet, and his skin seemed flushed with lavender, as though his blood were truly the purple of the gods. Yet his stature was not great. She surely outweighed him. Nor was he tall or physically powerful; rather he was thin, almost waiflike in face and body, with fragile features and exceedingly fine white hair that fell straight to his shoulders.

  The power of his presence came instead from a sense of calm that suffused the space around him like a perfume in a pleasant room. The calm violet eyes especially drew her. They did not judge her, nor prejudge anything, it seemed, but rather beheld each thing anew, seeing past the temporary to the eternal. He seemed to her somehow outside of time as she knew it, and things moved more slowly, and calmly, where he was. It calmed her nerves simply being near him—so much, she noticed, that her trembling ceased altogether.

  She bowed low. “Your Majesty, I’m sorry to bother you, but it ain’t for me I come.”

  “Yet it seems you have some cause, for your cheek is injured,” he replied, his voice as calm as his eyes.

  She stared at the golden carpet at his feet, unable to look up. Words tumbled from her lips as if he’d uncorked her heart with those eyes. “There’s a girl here works for me, Highness. She disappeared since you arrived, and I’m powerful worried for her. I don’t ask for much, but if Your Majesty could see to sending her back to me I’d be obliged and your humble servant.”

  “Send her back? Good lady, do you believe I or my servants have delayed her?”

  She glanced up, uncertain whether he took offense at her assumptions. She wrung her big hands before her, then hid them behind her back, for they seemed suddenly ugly and profane in his presence. “I know you arrived before Sir Bannus did, but I guess he must be with you, Majesty, and—he…”

  The prince stood. “Sir Bannus. He abducted your girl?”

  “I tried to fetch her back, but I daren’t try again.” She indicated her cheek with a thumb, and the prince’s cheeks flushed.

  “Good lady, it grieves me to hear it whispered I am his master. Indeed, I think he no longer has a master. But he may yet respect a prince, so I shall attempt what I can for your girl.”

  Mother Ganner fell to her knees weeping in gratitude, her love rising near worship. “Gods leave Your Majesty!”

  *

  When the guards ushered the hostess from his presence, Prince Jamus turned to the brandy set and poured a crystal of the amber liquor.

  “Come out now, Carlon, and tell me what you saw.” A hanging behind his chair stirred and his nephew emerged, ten years old, eyes sparking with interest.

  “You lied to her, Uncle Jamus,” Carlon said. Accusation shaded his tone.

  “Yes. But why?” Jamus could see the boy knew the answer. He saw just as clearly that his pride kept him silent. Jamus smiled. “Because now I own her trust.”

  “My father says a prince should never fear to speak the truth.”

  “And your father is a wise man, Carlon. Wise enough to send you here with me, to learn what he cannot teach you. Remember this: nothing that serves the greater truth is a lie. Are we not right? Do we not have the god’s seal and canon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then if all we say is in service of his cause, our lies are not lies at all, but holy things.”

  “Will you save this girl?”

  “I won’t need to. Sir Bannus will release her when he’s done. What better way to remind these people of the Old Ways than to leave a sacrificial survivor? But I will surely tell the hostess it was I who saved her, and further win her trust.”

  “But why should you want it, Uncle? She’s a stupid, smelly cow.”

  “Hence the incense prior to her coming.”

  The boy smiled in spite of himself. “It is smoky in here.”

  The prince sat, and waved Carlon to a chair beside him. The boy slipped onto it, pulling his legs up to his chest on the seat. He was very much like Jamus in appearance: slender, fair almost to albinism, small for his age. He’d never be a warrior, like his father. But also like Jamus, he was uncommonly clever, well suited for statecraft.

  “There’s more to the incense than my dislike of smelly cows, and there’s more to her dullness than mere stupidity: there is sacrium in the incense. You’re used to the drug, but for her it dampened her wits and amplified good feelings. But to answer your question, I want her trust because trust is often more powerful than fear. And she knows this area and all in it, so her goodwill is a useful thing.” Carlon squirmed a little in his chair. “What else did you see, Carl?”

  “It happened just like you said it would with Bannus. He attracted bad attention to us.”

  “Yes?”

  “But now she’ll say we aren’t allied to him.”

  Jamus nodded. “Ironically, tonight I must approach Sir Bannus and win him to our family.”

  “Tonight, Uncle?”

  “To delay would show I fear him, which is worse than confronting him in his rage. Do you remember your great grandsire when he’d taken the Blood?”

  Carlon nodded, eyes widening. “He scared me.”

  “He scared us all. But you never saw me show it. Once you master yourself in the presence of an immortal, few things in life will trouble you. It’s a shame we can no longer learn that from him.”

  Jamus stood, signaling the end of his lesson. He glanced at the tiny gold clock on the table, and frowned. “Before you retire, find Prince Ellentane and send him to me. He is late.”

  Carlon nodded, but hesitated, frowning. “Why do you call Ellentane a prince if his blood rank is only Sapphire?”

  The rigid views on Blood Purity—so sacred to the boy’s father—now echoed through the son, and they caused Jamus’s shoulders to stiffen. “Prince Ellentane has married my sister, your aunt, and she is as royal as Krato himself. The title is a courtesy, Carlon, that you will use at all times. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  A commotion sounded in the hall beyond the tapestries. A moment later the guards announced a young knight, who entered in haste and dropped to his knee.

  “Your Majesty…six men,” he panted, as if he’d been running. “Slain. It was Sir Willard, Your Highness. Here in the stable yard.”

  The prince closed his eyes briefly as a spike of anger passed. He put his brandy aside. “Who saw it?”

  “Prince Ellentane survived it, Your Majesty. He saw it all.”

  “Ellentane? What in the name of the Black Moon was he doing in a fray?”

  “I don’t know, Your Majesty. He was unconscious when they found him, but sitting when I left. He said himself they were hexed, and he bid me find you.”

  *

  Jamus found his brother-in-law sprawled against the back of the lodge with a burly squire at either shoulder. His sapphire silks bunched in dusty disarray, and a nasty red lump swelled above his right temple, with a slight break in the skin. He held his head motionless, eyes barely open, as if he strove to placate a titanic headache.

  “Ellentane,” Jamus whispered. “As the last of your line, you ought to be more careful.”

  Ellentane smiled weakly. His voice was faint, as if speaking might aggravate his pain. “Lovely skirmish. Pity you missed it.”

  Jamus dismissed the squires and produced a small leather box, which he set in Ellentane’s lap. From it he removed a dark vial of Phyros blood. Ellentane sighed in relief as Jamus prepared it.

  “What were you thinking?” Jamus muttered. “You were supposed to meet with me, not follow a brawl.”

  “Willard was here. Couldn’t find the ambassador.” He gingerly indicated his swollen temple with a gloved finger. “He found me.”

  “If you had come to me instead of attacking, we’d have captured them. Sir Bannus is here, Ellentane. Here. Why did you abandon our plans?”

  Ellentane groaned. “Hexed. I’d swear it. Doesn’t make sense…” His hand
trembled as he wiped the perspiration from his brow.

  Jamus sighed. “Willard seems to have that effect on people these days,” he murmured. “First your squire breaks rank and delays your pursuit, now you go after Willard in your dinner silks. The Mad Moon appears to have affected your wits tonight. Here.” He held the vial to Ellentane’s lips. “Drink this.” Jamus tipped the vial to Ellentane’s lips, and he swallowed.

  “Willard had help. A Cobalt, or a Sapphire.”

  “Surely you would know the difference.”

  Ellentane frowned. “I was too occupied at the time to compare my sleeve with his.”

  “Either way, it was undoubtedly the same knight my grooms found in the bastard’s apartment. The stable master claims this Sapphire is but a horse-touched half-wit in blue armor.”

  “The big girl? The one that broke Keeter’s lance.”

  Jamus nodded. “There is only one Cobalt house that might have such a one. I suspect she could be Moss Isle’s oddling daughter.”

  Ellentane chuckled. “The First Sword’s sister? Oh, that’s rich.”

  “It would be rather awkward for the family, I should think, were it known.”

  Jamus studied the lump on Ellentane’s head, which the Phyros blood had shrunk substantially, turning it from red to faint purple. “Feeling well enough to stand?”

  “I think so.”

  Jamus helped him to his feet, and signaled to a young knight sorting the bodies. The youth joined him, face grim from his work, and slick with perspiration. He bowed. “Your Majesty?”

  “Did you find the witch’s stone?”

  The young man stiffened, looking for a moment like he would make the sign of the heart as a ward against the Black Witch’s spirit, but stopped himself as if to hide his discomfort from his prince. “I…searched him, Your Majesty. I didn’t find it. And the squires scoured every cranny with torchlight, but still nothing.”

  “Hardly surprising,” Ellentane said. “It probably goes back to its moon when the witch dies, wouldn’t you think?”

  This time the young knight made the sign of the heart without hesitation. “I should hope so, Your Majesty.”

  “Have Dilbury search the witch again, and I want you to personally search the yard again with torches. Look in barrels; dismantle woodpiles. He may have hid it before he died, and we can’t have it rolling about causing more trouble for us here. If we find it, contain it, and bring it to me so I may fling it in the river and be done with it.”

  The youth nodded and left, just as one of Ellentane’s grooms brought the flustered stable master before them. The groom forced the stableman to his knees before Jamus.

  “I was beaten!” the stableman pleaded. “Robbed! I couldn’t do nothing, I swears.”

  “You stink of ale vomit and ragleaf,” Jamus said. “You were easy prey.”

  “Your Maj—”

  The groom boxed the stableman’s ear, cutting his protest short, and the prince continued as if uninterrupted.

  “Gentlemen perished here. Our horses taken. For this, someone must pay. Either you, for your negligence…or another. Do you understand?”

  The stableman stared, eyes like peeled eggs. He nodded.

  “Listen carefully, then, while I tell you what you saw here tonight. There is a peasant priest camped with his flock of masterless slaves to the north. Tonight he and his slaves murdered several gentlemen here in the yard and stole all the horses from the stables.”

  The stableman nodded vigorously. “I seen him, Majesty.”

  Jamus rose, and signaled the squires to aid Ellentane in standing. Without looking at the stableman, he said, “Then you know what you must do.”

  The groom holding the stableman jerked him to his feet and released him as a crowd of inn lodgers swarmed from the south side of the lodge, shouting and following torchbearers to the stables.

  The stable master lumbered to intercept them, bellowing, “Robbery! Murder! Lords is dead and the stables empty! It was the peasant priest done it! He and his lordless slaves!”

  Jamus and Ellentane watched from the far side of the yard as the stableman stoked the crowd to a mob with what seemed a practiced hand. In the time it would have taken them to pour a cup of brandy and raise it in salute to Ellentane’s health, the mob hit the road with torches and swords and ropes held high.

  “You’ve always been a gifted motivator,” said Ellentane.

  Jamus scarcely heard him. Now that the crisis was over, he let his anger have rein in his blood. “Had Sir Bannus been alert tonight and not gorging like a boar at a trough, our business here would be finished, our future secure, and tomorrow we’d board my brother’s waterwheel for a comfortable cruise down the river.”

  Ellentane winced. “I’m sorry. I should have told you we had Willard—”

  “I do not hold you accountable, Ellentane. I believe the ambassador’s magic witched you, just as it witched your squire today in the market. Sir Bannus is a different matter. He is wild, and requires a master. I must bring him to heel as my grandsire did before me.”

  Ellentane raised his brow in surprise. “Bannus. To heel.”

  “Come. Shall we see if I’m as gifted at motivating immortals?”

  “Er. Tonight? Wouldn’t tomorrow be best?”

  Jamus studied the wounds on two of the corpses Willard left in the dirt—efficient cuts, just deep enough in just the right spots. He frowned. “There is no best time for dealing with immortals.”

  *

  Two knights waited by the bodies in the stable yard as their squires inquired after carpenters to construct coffins.

  One rested against a water barrel, gnawing a fingernail. The other squatted beside the glassy-eyed corpse of Sir Yolan, whose face seemed stuck in vain astonishment. The squatting knight tried to shut Yolan’s eyes with his hand.

  “His eyes won’t close.”

  “Leave him, poor chap. A decent fellow, was Yolan. Ate like a Phyros-rider. That Willard seems as stout as ever, what?”

  “Shouldn’t have tried to take him. I don’t care how big you are, you can’t take a Phyros-rider. And they were fools to try without armor. What do you think came over them?”

  The standing knight crossed to peer down at the body of the Iberg, and shuddered. “Glad to be rid of that witch, though. I don’t know why His Majesty brought him, but he gave me the cold shivers. He and that horrid moon cat.”

  “Haven’t seen it, have you?” said the other, still fussing with Yolan’s eyes.

  “Not a glimpse, and I don’t care if I ever do. Even dead I wouldn’t touch it.”

  “Pah. It’s just an animal.”

  “I beg to differ. I’ve seen it do things.”

  “Like?”

  “Where do you think the witch’s stone went?” He raised an eyebrow and waited out a meaningful pause.

  “You think a cat took it.”

  “I most certainly do. That cat isn’t natural, I tell you. I’ve heard a witch keeps spirits in his moon cat. Dead ghosts from the unhallowed moon that he feeds with the souls of his victims.”

  “You’re afraid of a cat.”

  “I’m afraid of witches, and so you should be. When you look in the eyes of that cat, it’s the witch’s spirits you see looking back out. Unnatural is the word. And with no one to feed them now, there’s no telling what trouble may come of it.”

  Arkendian royal blood is represented by violet in the colors of the blood-arch, and is allowed only to families married among royals for five or more generations. Each generation of royal-to-royal marriage is signified in the coat of arms with a gold “bar,” or ray, radiating from the central device. Shields of the oldest royal families have so many bars that their emblems appear as sunbursts of golden rays, hence the moniker “Suns of Arkendia…”

  —From A Study of Arkendian Heraldry, by Chani of Losif Major

  15

  On Treating with Gods

  Jamus and Ellentane entered the south wing of the lodge, where six of their kni
ghts stood watch over the hall in which Bannus chambered.

  Sir Grennit, a stocky knight in green armor, stepped forward officiously. “It has been a quiet watch, Your Majesty.”

  “Sir Bannus remains within?”

  “He does, Your Majesty.”

  “He took a girl from among the staff.”

  Ellentane raised an eyebrow. “Same Bannus, I see.”

  “The girl is gone now.” Grennit nodded toward an adjacent servant passage. “Seems to have slipped out of a hole His Holiness created in a wall.”

  “Send word to the hostess that I secured the girl’s release.”

  Grennit signaled a squire, who left with the message. “Sir Bannus’s shield bearer is on watch,” he said, as he ushered the princes to Bannus’s door. “It’s said that he…” The knight seemed to search for appropriate words. “That he’s become a…” Grennit frowned.

  “You refer to Titus,” said Jamus. “Indeed, a sad story. A bastard of my father’s making.”

  Grennit bowed, signaling his gratitude to be so deep in the prince’s confidence. He opened the door to a dark passage, giving Jamus a candlestick.

  Jamus met Ellentane’s eyes only briefly, to assure himself his brother-in-law was prepared, then led him into the paneled hall. Grennit closed the door softly behind.

  *

  In the light of Jamus’s candle, Sir Bannus’s shield bearer cut a lean, straight figure upon a stool outside his master’s door. He sat erect as a pillar, wrapped in clothes and capes of deep royal violet, his gloved hands folded in his lap. Before the princes’ arrival he’d sat in complete darkness. He did not stir when they approached, nor did he turn to meet them, but remained in profile, as motionless as the carving of a man.

  The yellow light reflected from his partly hooded face in little glimmers, as though his cheeks were made of glass. When they halted beside him, they saw he wore a glassy red-stone mask concealing his features.

  “Gods leave us,” Ellentane whispered.

  Jamus fought back his own revulsion. Titus had become a Faceless One. Bannus had resurrected the vilest cult of the worst days before the Cleansing, and imposed it upon his squire.