Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  It was full dark indeed, the muddy track having slowed him more than he expected, when he reached the vill. If not for the mud, he’d have ridden on to the outskirts of Cortes Cilwan—on a dry track only a half-day or -night’s ride—but he and the horse were both tired.

  The village headman opened to his knock and lit the way to the barn with a clay lamp that he set on a ledge inside. He helped Filis untack and rub down his horse. “My lord, I’m sorry, but my two youngest are down with fever. You should not stay in the house.”

  “The barn’s fine,” Filis said. “I’m sorry to come so late, but the storm—”

  “Of course, my lord. I’ll bring you something hot in just a little.”

  Filis made a bed of his blankets and a pile of hay, and by then the headman had reappeared with a basket: a bowl of good-smelling stew, a half loaf of bread, a small jar of fruit jam, and a large jug of ale.

  “It’s m’own wife’s brewing,” the headman said. “Last time you came, we was short—”

  “This is bounty indeed,” Filis said. He fished coins from his belt pouch. “After the day I’ve had, this is luxury.”

  “Nay, my lord, you needn’t—” Polite refusal preceded grateful acceptance.

  “I must,” Filis said. “For your kindness—and if it is too much, pray help the next stranger who needs a meal.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” the headman said. “And sleep sound.”

  “I’m sure I will,” Filis said. “And I’ll be off in the morning.”

  He ate the stew, hot with the spice mix preferred in Cilwan; smeared the fruit jam—plum and peach mixed, he thought—on the bread; and drank deep of the ale. Yes, the goodwife here had a gift for brewing. He drifted easily into sleep, deep and dreamless.

  Filis woke to a nightmare that lasted days—cramped in a box in what he presumed was a trader’s wagon, jouncing on the road somewhere. He guessed east to Lûn or even Cortes Immer, but he had no way of knowing. He was allowed out once a night for necessities, which did not include a full meal or a full draft of water but plenty of knocking about by those who surrounded him. He had no chance to attempt escape—they had stripped him, bound him, and even as he squatted beside a tree, his arms were bound and his captors stood over him.

  He cursed himself for the stupid decisions that had led to this. If he had brought an escort, if he had camped apart, if he had not drunk that ale … He wondered if the regent in Cortes Cilwan would search for him—if anyone would recognize his horse, any of his things—but reason told him his captors would have found ways to dispose of them. His father—he did not want to think what his father would imagine. The family hothead running off in anger to turn traitor, sell his father’s secrets to his father’s enemy? Surely not. Surely his father knew him better than that.

  But every day took him farther from home, closer to the man even his father feared. He saw no chance to escape, no hope in any of the hard faces around him that one might be bribed to help him.

  Cortes Immer’s broken walls had been repaired, its towers rebuilt. Filis had only a glimpse of this before he was dragged inside, then down level after level to the old dungeon. His belly clenched with more than hunger. He would die here, and die in some horrible way, he was sure. He tried to set himself to accept that and save what little honor he could. Whatever the threat, he would not betray his family.

  When Alured the Black—the Duke of Immer, his guards announced—finally appeared, he looked Filis up and down with obvious contempt. “I could wish it had been any of the others,” he said. “I know about you. The troublemaker. Quarrelsome, gambler, drinker. Your father may count himself lucky you ran off, though he may worry about what secrets you brought.” He stood silent a long moment, while Filis tried to hold himself with dignity. Alured was much as his father and brothers had described: tall, well made, black hair in a braid now decorated with ribbons in his colors rather than the green feathers he’d worn in Siniava’s War. He wore gold armlets, a wide collar set with jewels, and over that a necklace that flashed in the dimness like sunlit water, blue and white.

  The necklace … he looked away, hoping his face showed nothing. Alured smiled. “You recognize this?”

  Best not to answer. But pressure built in his head, as if to burst his skull, and he heard himself say the truth: “I never saw that before.”

  “But you heard of it.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know what it is part of?”

  “I have not seen it.”

  “But you have heard … no, do not answer. You must have heard; I know the gossip in Valdaire and Foss Council and Vonja, all the way downriver.” He shook his head. “If only you were more valued by your father, Filis, I would use you. But though we shall wait to see, I think he will not waste much to trace you. If that should be true, you will have no value to me. Think on that.” He turned away, said a few words Filis could not hear to the guards, and went back up the stairs.

  What came next was a black hole into which he was shoved and a heavy lid slamming down over the opening. He had no way of knowing how long he huddled in the dark; it was too small to lie down in comfortably, the stone walls and floor rough, chill, and damp. Though he could stand, his outstretched arms touched the sides. Hunger and thirst tormented him; when he was finally pulled out, he was too weak to walk and fainted.

  Cold water splashed on him, wetting cracked lips and dry tongue. He opened his eyes. Men stood around him, wearing Immer’s colors. He lay on a platform; beyond the men he saw only dimness. They soused him again, rubbed him down with ungentle hands, yanked his head up by the hair. One got a hand behind his shoulders and shoved him upright so that his legs dangled over the edge. One offered a mug. “Drink this.”

  Thirst rode him; he drank in gulps as the man held the mug to his mouth. Sour wine, certainly not of Andressat’s vintage; he recognized the grape as a wilding that grew across southern Aarenis. He shouldn’t drink it—he needed water, not wine—but he was too thirsty to resist the second mug offered.

  The same hand took the mug away and shoved a piece of coarse bread at his mouth. “Eat.”

  Maybe the bread would help. He ate. His stomach, roiling from the wine, settled. A small chunk of cheese followed the bread. He managed not to spew, and shortly after that found himself strapped upright to a wooden chair. Muzzy-headed as the wine made him, he was still trying to understand what might happen when Alured—Immer—came in.

  “How much?” Immer asked without looking at Filis.

  “Two mugs, m’lord.”

  “Excellent.” Immer swung around, and the men brought forward a padded stool; Immer sat, facing Filis. He smiled—a smile that seemed all good humor for a moment before it vanished. “Now, then, Filis Andressat. You have had time to consider your position. I have had time to consider you.” He paused, put out his hand, and one of the men handed him a mug. He sipped, without taking his gaze from Filis, then held his hand out without looking, and the man took the mug, setting it on the table where Filis had been laid. “You stink less,” he said then. “I told them to clean you up. You’ve had drink and food. Let’s see if you’re worth your keep. Tell me, Filis, what value you have for me.”

  The pressure he had felt before squeezed Filis’s head; he fought the compulsion to say … to say whatever Immer wanted to hear. How could the man do this? It must be some kind of magery, but no one had said Alured—Immer—was a mage. Filis shut his eyes, trying to think clearly through the wine fumes and the pressure.

  “Come now,” Immer said. “Open your eyes.” His voice was gentle, coaxing. Filis’s eyes opened as if on springs. “You see, Filis, you will yield. Thirsty men drink whatever they can find, eh? You wished it were not wine. You feel the wine now, I see in your eyes, but it was not merely wine.”

  Filis looked around the room, desperate for something other than Immer’s face, Immer’s peculiar eyes, to focus on.

  “We’re alone now,” Immer said, in the same gentle tone. “You need not fear
witnesses to your weakness, your treachery.” In an instant, his expression shifted; the deep black eyes seemed flat as shiny river stones. “Any other witnesses, that is. You should fear me.” Then Immer’s eyes gained their depth again, and the man’s mouth curved in what could pass for a friendly smile. “But not yet. Now … are you worth your keep?”

  Filis’s lips parted against his will, and he heard himself say, “Yes … lord.”

  “Good,” Immer said, his smile wider. “Very good. Tell me … did your father find my ancestry in his archives?”

  Filis tried again to stay silent, but as Immer’s expression shifted again and his eyes took on the fixed, flat stare … once more Filis heard his voice saying, “No, lord.”

  “No Vaskronin in his archives?”

  “No, lord.”

  “And what of his own ancestry? Is it as high as he claims?”

  “I…” His father had once claimed higher. Now he did not. Filis felt the wine, the drugs, and Immer’s power compelling him to speak, but this time he did not know which truth Immer wanted. “When?” he finally said.

  “When? That’s not an answer. I ask the questions here.” Then Immer’s expression softened. “Your father traveled north … I have word he went to Lyonya and Tsaia and spoke to Kieri Phelan and King Mikeli of Tsaia. Is that so?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “Why did he go?”

  “I … do not know. I was not there when he left.”

  “But he told you when he returned, I’m certain. What did he tell you, Filis?” A pause, then, “I heard a story that he found something in the archives, something that upset him, and he told those in the north … and he would have told you later. The story I heard was he found his ancestry was tainted. Is that true?”

  Filis almost choked, but the words escaped in spite of his resistance. “Yes, lord.”

  “You see, it is no use resisting, Filis. The wine, the truth potion, my own powers—you are helpless. And yet you do have something I want and need.” Immer stood abruptly and walked around the chair, still talking, running his fingers lightly along Filis’s bare shoulders. “Your father … has contempt for me. I will not tolerate that. He has refused my requests—my polite requests. He must be made to submit to my rule. If courtesy will not serve, then I must try something else. This scar here, on your shoulder—how long have you had that?”

  “Since I was nine winters,” Filis said. He shivered; Immer’s presence at his back was like a cold wind.

  “Ah. So your family knows that scar. But one is not enough. Let’s see … this looks like a blade-cut, here on your upper arm. You weren’t holding your shield high enough.”

  Filis felt a yank on his hair and Immer’s fingers running over his scalp. “No scars here, that I can feel. But—how interesting. Your ears—”

  His brothers had teased him about his ears when he was a boy.

  “Very distinctive shape. So. Enough easy marks for your father to recognize.”

  Filis did not flinch. He’d known from the first he was going to die in this place. His father probably knew it, too. If they sent his father his body, that would be no worse.

  Immer sat down again in front of him, smiling pleasantly at first, as he had before, as a host might smile at a welcome guest. He said nothing, merely looked at Filis. The black eyes shifted again from the lively sparkle to flat opacity—first one then the other, several times, as Filis struggled to make sense of it. With that change came another; Immer’s expression changed with the eyes. Why? What was happening? Then, past the hunger, the fear, the wine, and whatever had been in it, he remembered the story his father had told them, of the Fox Company sergeant blinded by a demon trying to invade him.

  Something was inside Immer. Something … someone? Another memory struggled up through the thickening haze of wine and magery: stories from the north, of the Verrakaien who could move from body to body, taking over …

  “No,” he said, his voice shaking with sudden terror. “No!”

  The flat cold gaze lay on him now like snow. “No,” Immer said—or the being in Immer said. The voice had changed along with the eyes. “You do realize what I am … but no, I have no desire to move from this body to you. He is stronger even without me than you are. You will be spared that … but not the knowledge that you will never be able to tell your father—or anyone else—what you know.” Immer’s hand touched his knee, almost a caress. “Your father will have proof of my power, but not that knowledge, when he unwraps the present I will send him.” Immer’s expression changed again to the more lively one. “You know you want to ask, Filis. Every man wants to know at such times.”

  He did not want to know; he knew already it would be more than he could bear, but pressure filled his head again, forcing his mouth to say the words Immer wanted to hear. “What present?” he asked.

  “A work of art,” Immer said. “Leatherwork.”

  Cold sweat broke out on Filis’s body. He could imagine his father’s face … his father’s reaction … his brothers’ faces. He told himself it was no worse than any other death. But he could not believe it, not with Immer’s satisfied smile in front of him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Chaya, Lyonya

  Midsummer. A year ago, Kieri had waited here for his grandmother, for the ancient rites that the human and elven rulers of Lyonya performed, singing the sun up. Now … he had no idea what to do. The Lady was dead; Orlith was dead; Amrothlin swore he did not know of equivalent rites. The old human rites would do for humans, but for elves? And besides, under that flower-strewn mound lay the remains of a mysterious settlement he still knew nothing about.

  He started up the hill in the King’s Grove two days before the ceremony, leaving Arian below with the Squires. Though the path marked with small white stones still led straight up, he stepped aside at an urge he could not have explained and began walking around the hill instead, climbing slowly in a spiral … but not a spiral exactly, for sometimes he turned back and sometimes paused, baffled. It felt almost familiar, and yet not familiar. It was midday when he finally reached the flattened summit where the Oathstone stood, where he had been crowned, where he and the Lady had pledged their commitment to the land and taig.

  “And now what?” he asked aloud. “What am I supposed to do now, with no elf to sing the song with me, no way to repair the elvenhome?” He put his hand lightly on the Oathstone.

  You came.

  Was that the voice of the skull he had found at Midwinter?

  “I am here,” he said.

  They are gone.

  “If you mean the Lady and the elvenhome, yes, they have gone. That is not a good thing, I deem.”

  It is almost Midsummer. Come, then, and sing your own song, and see.

  Kieri shivered despite the warm sun. “I will be here at the rising of the sun,” he said. “And I will sing.”

  You will see. The King’s Justice will restore us.

  “This king wants justice for all,” Kieri said. “Not just for a few.”

  Fair deeds must match fair words.

  That was clear enough. Kieri bent and kissed the stone, then walked back down the mound, once more in a spiraling pattern.

  On Midsummer itself—had it been only one year before that he had first sung the sun up with the Lady, and first encountered the elf-maid who wanted to marry him?—Kieri followed all the rituals he had learned then. Dressed in the same white robe, he led the procession into the King’s Grove and went up the mound alone, his followers forming a circle at its foot. He watched the stars move across the sky, waiting until the moment the Summerstar touched the oldest blackoak’s crown.

  At that moment, he began his song. To his surprise, Arian—below in the circle—sang the responses. The sky lightened, color returned to the trees; he felt the taig’s response as well as his own. Relief: he was doing the right thing; all would be well.

  Then—as the sun cleared the treetops and the first ray of light struck the Oathstone—the ground
shivered. The Oathstone itself sank slowly, finger by finger, into the green grass. Kieri struggled to keep his voice steady. As the Oathstone sank below ground level, leaving a smooth shaft behind, the ground heaved up, then down, as if it were an ocean wave. Kieri staggered as it subsided beneath him, around him and the Oathstone’s shaft, spreading as it lowered until he stood below a circular dyke.

  The Oathstone, once more almost waist-high, stood in front of him. An old skull, the earth still clinging to it, poised delicately on top, its ancient grin challenging. Though he had not seen the skull in the dark at Midwinter, he knew this was the same one.

  Kieri looked around. His court lay scattered in disarray on the dyke; most had fallen as the ground rose, but Arian stood, arms outstretched for balance. He looked at them, then at the skull and the level circle around it. On two sides, sunrising and sunsetting, gaps in the dyke led away into the King’s Grove.

  He bowed to the skull. “Elder,” he said. “Be at peace.”

  Justice is worth more than peace.

  “True, but you have earned your rest.” He picked up the skull and once more kissed its forehead. “There will be green leaves for you, or a place in the royal ossuary, as you wish.”

  My people were here, and here their bones remain, but scattered. Build them a house, O king, and you will have my blessing.

  “It shall be done,” Kieri said, laying one hand on the skull and one on the Oathstone. “My word on it.” A song of thanksgiving seemed appropriate; he began the one he knew best, and his court—somewhat raggedly—joined in. As they sang, bones rose from the soil, through the grass, and the grass grew together again beneath them. Soon the ground within the dyke was covered with bones—bones that slid clicking against one another to form assemblages—one skeleton after another.