Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  By day’s end, he had worked through perhaps half the tiles. When his Squires called that they had prepared a meal, he stood up—finding himself less stiff than he expected—bowed to the shrine, and poured the tiles back into the box.

  The next day he began again. At times the pairings did seem playful—like a game—but at other times he found himself thrust deep into his own history and heart. He kept on, but for a rest in midday, and by evening had worked his way through all the tiles. The meanings of all were now clear to him, as was his past life. Choices he had made and where they had led. What lay behind those choices. He saw the choices before him more clearly than he had before. He looked at the tiles, took them into his hands, and put them into the box again.

  “We will return to Chaya tomorrow,” he said to his Squires. Their eyes held curiosity, but they did not ask.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Kieri woke at the turn of night; the ring on his heart-thumb glowed faintly. He had no idea what had wakened him—he felt no alarm—but he was too alert to return to sleep. Quietly, without waking his Squires, he dressed himself, belted on his sword, and eased out of the tent.

  Stars burned in the clear sky, giving more light than he expected in a forested place. Every leaf was edged in silver. Dew frosted the grass, the violets. The scents of violet and fern, rich damp earth, and mossy bark came to him. The same melody he had heard before ran through his mind, and he hummed it. He walked down to the shrine, knelt as usual, and waited. In spite of all he had been told—had even experienced with the Lady’s death—he was sure he felt a presence that must, he thought, be his mother’s.

  Silence and peace held the glade, deepening as he knelt there. No breeze stirred the leaves, no creature made the slightest noise. The sense of presence, of someone somewhere near, increased. He looked around, expecting nothing but layer upon layer of silver and darkness.

  Deep among the trees, something moved—pale—a glow of silvery light. He stared, his body prickling suddenly as if dipped in snow. What—surely it could not be a wraith of his mother? Elves vanished utterly at death, leaving nothing … but the shape was tall, slender, comely—a woman in raiment of the purest white, bathed in the silvery glow of elf-light, her face indistinct as she wandered nearer, turning here and there among the trees as if searching. And who else—

  “I am here,” he said, scarcely louder than a breath.

  For an instant the shape turned toward him, enough to show the elven bones, the gleam of eyes, but not close enough, in that light, to reveal the face he had long struggled to recall. Then she beckoned, and turned to one side, passing behind another tree, emerging just a little farther away.

  “Mother?” he said. His voice caught in his throat; he rose to his feet and stepped away from the shrine. The glowing figure did not turn toward him but held still for a moment.

  He had to know. He took a step, another … carefully, almost as if the figure were a wild thing that might take flight. It moved, but languidly now, circling around the glade away from the side where his tent stood. Deeper into the trees, deeper. Slowly, its glow spread, lighting his way through the denser trees, but more like a mist than the light the Lady had shed with the elvenhome or Paksenarrion’s clear and brilliant light. It blurred the details of the figure, but his certainty that it was elven in origin—alive or not—drew him on.

  “Who are you?” he asked, pitching his voice to reach the figure.

  “Who do you want me to be?” came the answer.

  Kieri shut his mouth but felt the wish pour out of him as if the figure had opened a door in his heart. Mother.

  A soft sigh reached him and then a gentle chuckle and an indistinct murmur. For an instant he felt it as soothing, as her hand on his brow, but then a chill ran down his back. He looked around, startled. He had come farther into the trees than he’d realized, out of sight of the shrine, the clearing, the tent where his Squires slept. His mother’s ring glowed brighter on his heart-thumb; the tiny dragon figure writhed. Around his neck, his mother’s torc warmed. Did it move a little? He wasn’t sure. He realized he had stopped walking; he stood half-mazed, feeling coils of power wrap him round.

  White mist swirled toward him, faster than the figure had ever moved. “She’s dead,” a voice said, its sweetness cloying. He had heard that voice before. He struggled to remember, though it seemed fog filled his mind as well as the forest. “Poor little boy … you still miss her…”

  Kieri’s hand found his sword hilt before he thought of moving; the green jewel in it blazed. His mind cleared; the power clinging to him lessened. As he drew it a few fingerwidths, his own light rose, holding back the other’s misty tendrils. Now he could see, within the mist, the figure running toward him. For the first time he recognized—

  “You,” he said. The elf-maid who had sought him out, who claimed to be his mother’s friend, whose proposal had chilled his loins. Understanding came in a rush, before she said a word: here was the traitor. He had only a moment to thank Falk that Arian had not drunk the potion she’d brought, before he saw that she wore elven mail and carried a sword of her own. On her head she wore jewels he remembered on the Lady’s head.

  Her smile was colder than the ossuary at Midwinter as she paused out of his reach, full of confidence in her power. “I thought it would work,” she said. “You are a mere child, after all. And now, boy, you will die, but not until I have had my full revenge.”

  Kieri waited. Elves liked to talk; she would likely spend time taunting him; he could attack any time, but better she thought he was held by her power. She would relax; she would come close.

  Sure enough, she paced back and forth, admitting what he already surmised. “I hate you. I hated you from before your conception.” She turned back. “I hated you when you lay in your mother’s arms…”

  It was not hard to make his voice sound strained. “Why? You were her friend—”

  “Friend?” Her laugh rang out jaggedly; she flung out her arms as gracelessly as he had ever seen an elf move. “She was no friend to me. I hated her long before you. She had everything—the Lady’s daughter, the elvenhome gift. She would have ruled us later … I wanted to be queen of something, and my one chance was your father … but she charmed him. I begged her—she had so much—but she would not relent. He would have married me, but she stole him! And swore she would not use the elvenhome gift, but pass it to you—”

  “But if you were not given it, you could not benefit by killing her—or me.”

  “Oh, but I shall,” she said, taking a step toward him. “Those things you wear, that you saw rise from the ground—when I take them off your living body, they will be mine, and with these—” Her heart-hand touched the jewels in her hair. “—I can command the rest: the sword, the dagger, and most of all that spark deep in your heart no mortal should have. My will is strong; in the old days, that is how elvenhomes were made, not only by gift. I shall rule and rule alone. Humankind will be gone from here, forever.”

  Kieri felt the pressure of her power again. It must be the jewels she had taken—surely not been given—from the Lady’s body. He flexed his fingers; nothing held him but his curiosity. He wanted to know more—most of all, he wanted to know if other traitors existed, if they were allied with her.

  “I lured her here in the first place, you know,” she said, her voice languid again. “And you as well.”

  “How?” Kieri said, making his voice harsh.

  She shook her head; her hair swirled. “I will not tell you,” she said. “But I will tell you that when I am done with you, I will kill your Squires … and then your lady and those unborn children you’re so proud of.” She looked down the length of her sword. “Ah … I think I have lingered enough.” She opened her heart-hand again and showed the bright silver curve of a small knife. “This, to start.”

  She walked toward him, utterly unafraid. Kieri judged the distance, drew the great sword and his dagger just as she came in reach, and struck. He missed her; she danc
ed back, laughing now. “Foolish boy; I have elven mail and sword, and I am far more experienced than you. I wondered were you truly snared.”

  Kieri had heard that elven mail could not be broken by humans, but his was an elven sword. Perhaps … He began a turn to the right; she matched him on the circle, perfectly aligned. She was, like all the elves, tall and lithe, in her first youth, perfectly fit. He reversed; she did the same.

  “You dance well,” she said. “But you cannot dance forever.” She moved in then, quick and sure with the correct move for her position; he blocked her thrust easily, and she parried his. As parry followed thrust again and again, Kieri tested her skills. He soon knew her for a novice—fast, strong, schooled in all the standard moves, but she had learned swordplay as recreation, as a dance, as anything but what it really was. Had she been other than his mother’s murderer, Orlith’s murderer, and the murderer of all those unborn babes, he would have warned her. Instead, he played on, testing which of her moves gave him the best openings given the mail she wore.

  She pushed harder with her magery, trying to slow him, but it had no effect. He pressed his own attack, forcing her to respond faster than she had. Suddenly her heart-hand flashed, and the curved knife sped toward his face. He jerked his head aside without dropping his guard; he’d seen such tricks before. But she rushed in anyway, not waiting, counting on a gap that wasn’t there.

  His response came automatically: the block with his dagger, the practiced thrust any soldier would have made to kill a novice crazy enough to make such a naive attack. To his astonishment, his blade slid through the elven mail as if it were not there and pierced her through.

  “For my mother,” he said, as her eyes widened in disbelief. Her knees buckled, though she still breathed, as strength left her and life ebbed. Her weight dragged his blade down; he stepped back, pulling it free. “And for my father, and my sister, and for me. For Orlith and the children unborn.”

  “You … will … never … know … who…”

  “I know enough,” Kieri said. She lay now on the ground, the silvery glitter in her elven blood dying away. He could not pity her, who had brought so much sorrow to so many. She struggled, trying to push herself up; he regretted the pain in her face and the undying enmity. But she was neither enemy soldier nor one of his, to whom he could give the death-stroke and end it.

  Her light was gone now. His own brightened, reflecting from her eyes. They widened. “You … cannot … have…”

  “What?”

  “Elfane…” Then a rush of blood from her mouth, and she sank back, unmoving, her sightless eyes staring upward.

  Kieri had no feeling of a spirit freed from its husk, as he’d often experienced when humans died … She died as an animal died, all at once, with nothing left. Her body looked dead, the white gown now dabbled with her blood, all luster gone from her skin. The elven mail crumbled to grit as he watched.

  Kieri took a deep breath, then another. He looked around. The last of the mist had gone; he could see every tree trunk, every fern and herb, each leaf and petal. The light—the light was his own, he realized. It spread, more silvery than sunlight, true elf-light. Silence held him, but the feel of the taig was stronger than he’d ever experienced. What it conveyed was … joy. It seemed to nestle into him as his first children had nestled in his arms. Within its bubble was peace, silence, joy, health … and a dead elf.

  He sighed. A dead elf must be laid straight with the sacred boughs upon her, whether evil or no. But … his mother’s murderer? Here, so close to the shrine he had built? She should be laid straight, yes, but … not here.

  Here. The word resonated in his head and seemed to shimmer in the margins of his light.

  Here? Why here? Was it not an insult to his mother … to the pain this elf had caused his father and his sister … and himself?

  Light flashed from his mother’s ring, from his father’s, from the pommel of his sword … warmth from the torc around his neck. Dazzled, he blinked against the light and saw—for an instant that lasted the rest of his life—his mother’s face, the face that once seen he could not believe he had ever forgotten, and felt the true embrace of her love.

  Here, closing the circle, completing the pattern, but in joy, not hatred. Tears sprang to his eyes, and now pity rose in him for the dead. His mother, beloved in memory by those who had lost her. And this elf, who had given up all hope of love and joy to seek lasting vengeance. He wept for them both, for the friendship they could have had, and finally for himself.

  Here it would be, then. The boughs he needed were outlined by light more green than silver and fell into his hands when he reached for them. He wondered, without pausing in the task, why this was so. When he had them all, he moved the dead elf as gently as he might to straighten her limbs—arms at her side, legs together, her spattered robe arranged neatly—and laid the branches in order. He looked at the jewels in her hair: they had been the Lady’s. Should he take them back to Amrothlin? Or as the dead elf had hinted, did they have some connection to his mother’s ring and torc? He hesitated. Robbing bodies was wrong. The jewels flashed at him. He put out his hand and touched one; it clung to his fingers; the others moved to join it. He held them a moment, still a little reluctant to rob the dead, then slipped them into a pocket. She had robbed others; he intended restoration.

  “Once you were the song the Singer sang,” he said to the dead face. “Once you were born of love and beauty and loved beauty. Let that be your memory.”

  When he looked around, he saw he was not even a hundred paces from the clearing where the shrine to his mother stood. As he neared it, radiance moved with him, spilled across the clearing, spreading to the tent where his Squires slept … and then beyond. He stood still, awestruck. This was unlike the first time light had come to him, when Torfinn was wounded. He felt no exhaustion, no sense of power leaving him. The light moved but had a definite edge, like … like the Lady’s elvenhome.

  He heard noise within the tent, his Squires rousing, muttering, then crying out, “The king! The king! He’s gone!” and they came out, half asleep, shading their eyes from the light. “Sir king!” they called, as if they could not see him.

  “I’m here,” he said, and, through the waning hours of night, told them all that had happened.

  Kieri rode in silence most of the way back to Chaya. He tried to imagine what he would tell Arian, what he would tell the Council, what questions he would ask of whom, in what order, but the wonder and horror of what he had seen, what he had done, dominated his thoughts. The light that now, as he rode, moved with him, barely perceptible in sunlight but clearly seen before dawn and after dusk, was a constant reminder that he was, at least in some measure, what the Lady had been and what his mother had hoped for.

  Impossible, Amrothlin had said, but what would his uncle say now? What would the other elves say? Or—given his Squires’ response—what would his human subjects say? He was not even sure how it had come to him. Was it all the elvenhome gift from his mother, or were the jewels the Lady had worn, the ring and torc that had been his mother’s, part of what created it?

  Around him the forest acknowledged his new power, the trees singing their slow songs he could now hear, the birds and animals calling to him, naming him their lord. As the power upheld him, he felt the weight of responsibility.

  All the beauty he had admired on his way into the old forest he must now take as his duty. As limbs had dropped into his hands after he killed the elf, limbs would drop or burgeon at his request. He shivered again. No mortal could possibly … and yet … he was. As with the unasked kingship, he must find a way to be what he had never imagined. Change nothing now, he thought at the forest. There is time. He hoped there would be time. Surely the Lady had not done something every day, every minute. Elves cautioned against haste. He would not be hasty.

  He tried focusing on the objects he had received. The torc, the ring, the belt clasp, the jewels from the dead elf’s hair … and the tiles. What was that wh
ite core of the torc? A sea-beast’s tusk? He had never seen anything like it, and he was not, he suspected, likely to see it again. The belt clasp, he thought, was of human origin; he had seen enameling like that—discounting the tiny letters that appeared when he touched it and disappeared shortly after—in Aarenis. The dragon in his ring, appearing and disappearing under the fern carved above it—what was that? An elf and dragon symbol, as the stone in his father’s ring was an elf and human symbol? That these were magical he knew, but not what the magic was, except that the traitor elf had said they had something to do with the elvenhome power.

  Halfway to Chaya, they met his Squires Ceilar and Jostin returning with supplies, and halted early.

  “Sir king …?” Ceilar looked shocked. Jostin shook his head, and Ceilar fell silent.

  “I will tell you,” Kieri said, “when we have eaten.” They both nodded, and all the Squires set about making camp. Kieri bespoke the trees for firewood and then with a gesture opened the carpet of moss that here covered the soil, making a bare space safe for fire.

  “It will close again when we have put the fire out,” Kieri said to the Squires. He left them to light it. That first hot meal in days seemed unduly rich to him; they all ate without speaking, but as soon as it was done, he spoke again.

  “What did you see, as you came near?” Kieri asked Ceilar and Jostin, with a glance for each.

  “That light, sir king,” Jostin said.

  “You looked like the Lady,” Ceilar said. “Because of the light. But like yourself—more than yourself.”