Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  “Marshal Sofan,” Arianya said loud enough to be heard in the passage, where she knew others listened, “has demanded a trial of arms to settle whether I am fit to lead the Fellowship.”

  “An’ me!” Rort said.

  Arianya ignored him. “See them safe to the High Lord’s Hall. I will come with the required witnesses—”

  “An’ don’t be takin’ all day about it,” Sofan said, sticking his thumbs in his belt. “If you think you can tire us out waitin’…”

  “Within the glass,” Arianya said. She turned back to the knight. “They are not to wander alone. They may have water at need. Escort them to the jacks at their request.” And to Sofan, “I suggest you pray, Marshal and yeoman-marshal, asking guidance of Gird.”

  “You need it more than we do,” Sofan said.

  That was possibly true, Arianya thought, especially since Sofan wasn’t going to take guidance of anything but a blow to the head.

  On her way through the complex toward the High Lord’s Hall, Arianya gathered witnesses: the Marshals waiting for the tribunal, two High Marshals, Camwynya to represent the paladins, three yeoman-marshals, three Knights of Gird. She also considered weaponry. Traditionally, Girdish trials of arms used the weapons Gird himself had used: hauk, staff, and unarmed wrestling. But Gird at the Battle of Greenfields had a sword and used it. He wore a sword through the last year of the war, in fact. And Sofan had challenged her, insulted her … which under the Code meant she could choose any weapon she wished. Or, she corrected herself, that Gird wanted her to use.

  Sunlight poured into the east window and south windows of the High Lord’s Hall, painting splotches of color on the platform. Sofan and Rort, arrogance in every line of their bodies, stood on it already.

  “Come down from there,” Arianya said. “You know the ritual: first we pray.”

  Sofan shrugged and stepped down; Rort merely scowled and followed his Marshal. Arianya led them to the altar, where all the light was blue or silver. The witnesses knelt with her. Sofan and Rort waited and knelt after. Arianya ignored them, fixing her mind as best she could on Gird and the High Lord. Was there a way to end this without violence? She could think of none. Then how was she to proceed? She let the weapons run through her mind: hauk, staff, pike, sword, bow, ax … a phrase from a later revision of the Code came to mind: Whatever custom is for a grange or group of granges, it is always meet for the commander to bear a sword.

  She sensed a touch on her head and then a presence moving away, but still within the hall, and stifled the part of herself that wanted to ask the outcome.

  When she rose, the others did as well. Prayer had left her clearheaded, her anger cooled to a reservoir of determination. “You have challenged me,” Arianya said to Sofan. “Do you renew that challenge in this holy space?”

  “I do,” he said. “And further: I intend to prove with your life’s blood that you are no fit Marshal-General.” A murmur rose from the witnesses, and he shouted at them. “She is not. She has brought magery on us by her weakness. She punished my aunt’s daughter, Marshal Haran, for naught but telling the truth to that so-called paladin Paksenarrion. We saw that craven in our vill, saw her feared of the sheep she was hired to herd.”

  “Do you dispute that Paksenarrion is a paladin?” Camwynya said, her light filling the hall as if a sun had risen inside it.

  “She was not a paladin then. She was weak—”

  “Let it be, Camwynya,” Arianya said. “His real quarrel is with me, not Paks.” Camwynya’s light lessened.

  “Indeed it is,” Sofan said. “But I am not surprised you bring in a paladin to take your part. You are afraid to face me alone.”

  “No,” Arianya said. “The Code requires witnesses to any trial of arms between Marshals. High Marshals, bring forth the swords.” She unwrapped her own sword belt; Sofan and Rort had been disarmed already. Now Sofan looked uncertain for the first time.

  “Swords are not traditional—”

  “They are when you challenge a Marshal-General,” Arianya said. He made no more complaint. She took one of the three blades the High Marshal offered her after testing the balance of each. Sofan took one of the three offered him. They stepped up on opposite sides of the platform; the witnesses closed in around it.

  Arianya expected Sofan to come in fast, but instead he shifted about, watching her reactions to his moves as she watched his. He handled the sword well, but how much experience did he really have with it? Was he able to analyze while moving? She began a slow circle to the left; he turned, balanced and almost in time with her. His previous behavior indicated a hasty man, a man who would want to bring this to a climax quickly. He had expressed contempt—would some instinct now teach him caution?

  She closed the distance slowly, two steps on the circle, one diagonal that came closer. Again. Again. When would he notice? She let her gaze soften, and in that instant, as she expected, he charged at her … where he thought she would be with her next step. But she had moved the opposite way. He was not quite in reach, but when he whirled, their blades clashed.

  Very fast, he was, and strong, as she expected with those shoulders.

  “You’re scared!” he said again, contempt in his voice, but his slightly puzzled expression revealed that she had surprised him. Then it hardened again. He thought he understood her now, Arianya saw. That had been her trick, the spiral in, the reverse, the softened focus of her gaze. His confidence returned, obvious in the way he stood, the way he held the sword.

  Arianya said nothing but smiled. She continued circling to her right now, the mirror of what she had done before. This time he moved in first, only one step on the circle before the diagonal. She stayed on the circle, moving a little faster now. He seemed less concerned about his unprotected heart-side than most. Faster yet … but he charged again, his sword’s blade a blur, this time blocking what he thought of as her retreat. And in his heart-hand, the knife he had hidden from everyone, the knife that could cripple her sword arm or kill her. She knew later that she had heard the gasp of shock from the witnesses, that someone started to move, to say something … but at the time she was not aware of these things.

  It happened too fast for analysis; only experience saved her. She moved into him, a high sweeping parry that forced his blade down and away, between her and the knife strike, a long stride that took her past him, her blade on reverse drawing a line of blood across his thighs—he staggered—and finally, the stroke to the back of his neck that severed his spine as he fell. The little knife clattered to the boards, skittering almost to the edge.

  A hand grabbed it; the yeoman-marshal Rort jumped onto the platform, eluding the hands that tried to stop him. “You must have used magery! He was the best swordsman I ever saw!” He had another knife—his own, she assumed, in his other hand. “I accuse you! I demand a fair trial of arms!”

  “No,” Arianya said. “Your Marshal’s death decided his claim; under Code, you are bound to that outcome. You will face the tribunal for your own crimes.”

  For an instant, none of the witnesses moved. Then one of the yeoman-marshals from the training college swung a staff and knocked Rort down. A punch with the staff immobilized him, and the yeoman-marshals took him away.

  “I apologize,” one of the knights said. “I did not find that knife on him; it is my fault.” He bent over the dead man, stripped back his sleeves, and found the strap from which the knife had come.

  “Honesty is more easily deceived than dishonesty,” Arianya said. “And he was a Marshal. You could not expect it; I did not. We must clean this up and hold a ceremony to purify the hall.” And decide what to do about Rort, and convene that council, and consult the judicars about what new phrasing of the Code would exclude evil magery but allow children to grow up without violence if they lit candles with their fingers.

  By nightfall much of this had been accomplished … not the solutions but first steps to what might become solutions.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Excus
e me, Marshal-General—”

  Arianya looked up from a report from Tsaia, where concern about the possible reappearance of magery was also growing.

  “It’s the elves, Marshal-General. They just … just appeared in the High Lord’s Hall, and they say they must see you at once.”

  “They traveled the mageroad from Kolobia?” Arianya asked.

  “I—I don’t know. They won’t leave the High Lord’s Hall … they’re standing in a circle staring at the floor.”

  “Gird’s right arm,” she said. “I wonder what it is now. Come with me.” At least this was unlikely to involve another dead or battered child. She picked up the heavy chain of office she wore only when she had to and put it over her head, settling the links automatically as she strode down the hall, down the stairs, and out across the courtyard. Almost normal activity, she noted, except that the yeomen posted by the entrance to the High Lord’s Hall were peering inside instead of keeping watch outside. At the sound of her boots on the stone, one of them whipped his head around and jabbed an elbow into the other’s ribs.

  “We have visitors, I understand,” she said to the more alert guard.

  “Yes, Marshal-General. Elves. Just standing in there. Looking at their feet.”

  “I doubt that last,” Arianya said. She passed through the entrance and into the main vault of the High Lord’s Hall. Esea’s Hall it had been in Gird’s time; Esea’s window lit the eastern end. Now light splintered through the window, cut by the blue and clear glass into streaks of silvery sunlight and blue like flame that patterned the floor. Far up, near the altar, she saw a cluster of tall figures that glowed with a different light, a softer silver.

  Before she could speak to them, one turned. In that silvery light—elf-light, as she knew—the shape of face proved beyond doubt this was an elf.

  “Marshal-General of Gird,” the elf said. “We are met at great need.”

  Their need or hers? she wondered.

  The others turned to her now, stepping away from one who stood with his back to the window. The elf wore a crown; the jewels seemed made of light itself. Despite the light from the window streaming past him, she could see his face clearly. Power, majesty, wisdom … an elf king, it must be. Arianya felt her knees loosening and consciously fought the impulse to kneel. This was her place, not theirs.

  “What is your need?” she forced herself to say even as the glamour beat on her will. She glanced down just for an instant: she stood on Gird’s own stone and in that moment felt the pressure lift.

  “It is not ours alone but yours,” the elf said. “I am Master of the Kingsforest.”

  “The Kingsforest …?”

  “In the far western mountains. North of the land you know as Kolobia.”

  “Ah … and what is this need you speak of?”

  “You must leave.”

  “Leave … here?” She hoped they did not mean that, for she would have to refuse, and then … She did not want to contemplate what might come of her refusal.

  “No. There. The west. Leave entirely.”

  “Did you make Luap leave?” Arianya asked.

  “He … broke his word.”

  “I do not think I understand,” she said. “We were surprised, you know, to find records of his time there. We had not known—”

  “You were not supposed to go there,” the elf said. “All were to leave after his treachery. We sealed the patterns.”

  Arianya had realized for the past several years that local archives and the writings of Luap in the west did not agree, but was that what the elf meant by treachery? She asked.

  “He found the place by mistake,” the elf said. From his tone, this was a tale he did not want to tell and would tell only once. “We were never sure how he found the first pattern and came to the west. He brought his master Gird, and to our amazement, the High Lord, the Singer of Songs, the Maker of Worlds, and Namer of All, opened for him a way. So we guardians—we Sinyi, and the dasksinyi and kapristi as well—made treaty with Selamis, Luap of Gird, and gave him leave to make use of that place and bring others. We set limits on that right, which he swore to uphold, and warned him of dangers. But he opened his heart to evil and from the rock freed those imprisoned there, with great effort and danger…”

  Freeing prisoners … Falkians laid great store by that, but Luap was not supposed to be Falkian. The Marshal-General’s head began to ache. “Who was imprisoned?” she asked.

  “Those we do not name,” the elf said.

  At a guess … “That would be iynisin,” Arianya said. “Unsingers, haters of trees and elves and men, is it not so?”

  “It is so,” the elf said, through clenched teeth.

  “And so more were loosed on the lands,” Arianya said. “A great wrong; I understand that. He broke faith with you, is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And so you prisoned his spirit in a wraith on the stone bridge?”

  “No. That was not done by us. Nor were the men in the great chamber enchanted there by us. Had they been, we could have removed them. We cannot.”

  She felt adrift again. “Then … who? Luap himself?”

  “No. We do not know … we could not tell … but they must go.”

  “How?” she asked. “If you cannot remove them, why do you think I could?”

  “You must find a way. It is not … it is not safe. Not … stable … as it is. We must close the stone. There is evil—”

  “There is always evil,” she said. “Evil has existed since the beginning—”

  “No.”

  The Marshal-General blinked. The elf must be wrong, but she realized arguing theology with an elf would not lead to anything useful. “When do you think evil began?” she asked.

  “I do not know,” he said. “But I know the Singer sang no wrong notes, and the Maker’s hammer struck the anvil truly, and the Namer spoke true names. Some of us think it began with the coming of the lateborn—humans and others—and some think it came with the First Tree’s response—but we do not know. It was long and long—it would seem the beginning to you—but it was not.”

  “And now you think more is coming.”

  “Dragon flies,” he said, waving one arm sinuously. “The dasksinyi say Dragon removed his grace from them—”

  She could not follow this, but it was not the time to ask questions. She had heard of the dragon that visited Vérella from High Marshal Seklis, though he had not seen the beast. He had also said something about Count Arcolin fostering a tribe of—was it dwarves or gnomes? She could not remember.

  “We must close the stone forever,” he said. “And all humans must leave first or we cannot do it.”

  “Do you have the iynisin confined again, then?”

  “Not all. But your people must leave—both those you sent to study there and those enchanted.”

  “I can order my people home,” Arianya said, “but I don’t know how to wake the others.”

  “Someone alive now does,” the elf said. “We can feel that.”

  “Who?”

  “We do not know. Beyond—I have not been so far sunrising since the first years after we came north.”

  They had come north. That was more than Arianya had known. Questions sprang to her lips, but she held them back. Instead, she said, “Forgive my rudeness … we stand here talking when you could rest at ease and take refreshment. There is a garden.”

  The elves all looked at the one with the crown, who finally nodded. “I accept your offer.”

  They followed her from the hall, and she studiously ignored the looks cast at them by everyone in the courtyard. Instead she said, “It is a walled garden with fruit trees and flowers—the climate here is harsh for these things in the open. We will go through the building.”

  Once the garden had opened to the courtyard—larger then—but now the only way to it was down a hall, through the small dining area, and then—on the left—it appeared. As they passed through the dining room, she spoke to a cook’s assistant swab
bing down one of the tables. “We’ll need cool water, fruit, and some of those spiced cakes in the walled garden.”

  When all were settled and had been served, Arianya tried to think what questions to ask. Enchanted magelords, yes … but how could the elves think that someone here knew how to wake them? And who could that be?

  Dorrin, perhaps? Dorrin Verrakai, a magelord who still had mage powers. Could they have sensed Dorrin from afar? How? And should she tell these elves about Dorrin or send word to Dorrin herself, warning her?

  “What do you know of the situation here?” Arianya asked. “Do you send messengers back and forth to the Ladysforest, for instance?”

  “Never,” said the king. His face expressed extreme distaste.

  Arianya blinked. She had assumed elves communicated from one of their realms to another just as humans did. She could think of nothing to say for a moment. Then she said, “You do know Lyonya has a new king … Kieri Phelan. I met him when he was Duke Phelan of Tsaia and none of us knew his parentage. Did you?”

  No answer to that. She felt pressure in her head, almost like the start of a headache before a summer thunderstorm.

  “Stop that,” she said without heat; the feeling vanished. She went on. “The king is half-elven; the Lady of the Ladysforest is his grandmother.” Again he said nothing; she went on. “But to your main problem, as you state it—the mageborn in that hall. I have no idea how to break that enchantment. We Girdish do not deal in magery. There is but one magelord I know of who is presently capable of effective magery.” Should she have said that? What would Dorrin Verrakai think if an elf king showed up in her house?

  “You must tell the magelord to come to us and break the enchantment,” the king said.

  “Me?” Arianya felt her brows rising. “I am not her commander. She is not Girdish but Falkian, and she is the vassal of Tsaia’s king. You must go to her directly—or, better, to Tsaia’s king—and gain his permission for anything she does.”