The Red Sword- The Complete Trilogy

by Michael Wallace

  “Yes, but the viziers?” Chantmer asked. “Why would King Toth trust them?”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t. But he’s expanded west so quickly that he might have no choice. He needs ministers to raise taxes, conscript men for the army, and ensure that the city functions as it always has.”

  “Syrmarria is more than functioning, it’s booming.”

  “And why shouldn’t it?” Memnet asked. “Aristonia is the farthest west of the khalifates, the crossroads of Toth’s new highway. Wait until he builds south to the Spice Road.”

  “More strangers from foreign lands—the city is changing quickly enough as it is.”

  “Syrmarria is only half Aristonian now. Give it ten years, and it will be something else entirely. The entire khalifate will be transformed.”

  “I wonder how the Aristonians will feel when they’re only a remnant in their own lands,” Chantmer said.

  “Has any people anywhere ever been consulted by their invaders?” They reached the south side of the palace hill, and with it the stairway to the lower levels. “Go ahead, Chantmer. Find the library from here.”

  “A test?”

  “Practice.”

  Chantmer frowned in concentration. On past visits, he’d either relied on Markal to find the library or been greeted at the gates by an archivist. He led the master to the bottom of the stairs, took a wrong turn, and shortly found himself atop the stairs where he’d started. Chantmer tried again, took a left where he’d taken a right before, and somehow found himself in exactly the same place.

  He threw up his hands. “But . . . I went the opposite way this time.”

  Memnet leaned against his staff and looked on with an amused expression. “Not really, but I see how you might think that.”

  No offer of help was forthcoming, and Chantmer refused to ask. He tried again, and this time didn’t double back. But there were several more embarrassing detours before they finally approached the simple oak door that marked the entrance to the library.

  “There,” Memnet said, rapping the door with the end of his staff. “Remember that for next time.”

  The library door swung open, and an elderly archivist greeted them with a solemn bow. He clasped Memnet’s right hand with both of his own, and a broad smile broke over his face.

  “Master. Well met.”

  “Jethro,” Memnet said warmly. “Very well met indeed.”

  Chantmer struggled to respect the lesser members of the order, who were failed wizards after all, apprentices who had never risen above their limitations, but they had their purposes. The keepers tended to the magic of the gardens, maintaining their citadel against the outside world. The acolytes stored magic that could be called forth by their betters, and the archivists held tremendous amounts of magical knowledge in their heads, even if they lacked the power to summon it.

  Jethro was the most important of the five archivists who maintained the library beneath the Syrmarria palace, and he led the master and apprentice through the doors and into the expansive first room of the library. High bookshelves held thick leather-bound volumes, while niches in the wall contained scrolls and clay tablets.

  An archivist sat at a table with a piece of cut glass pinched to her eye and a quill gripped between stained fingers, with an open book on one side and loose leaves of parchment on the other. She was so intent on her work that she didn’t look up when Memnet and Chantmer approached.

  Fire was the enemy of most libraries, but here candles burned freely, including four lighting the copyist’s work as Jethro, Chantmer, and Memnet walked past her on their way to the Vault of Secrets. The runes and protective wards were so strong, even in the outer rooms of the library, that the copyist could have taken the leaf from her book, dipped the edge in camphor, and thrust it into the flame without it catching fire.

  They passed through an archway and into the small chamber at the rear known as the Vault of Secrets. The ribbed ceiling was low enough that Chantmer had to duck until he reached the center of the room, and not only was the vault smaller than the outer room, but to the untrained eye, the small number of books, scrolls, and tablets on shelves and in niches would have appeared unimpressive. Not that any untrained eye would ever see this place; the air fairly shimmered with protective magic. A palace guard or servant would never even spot the door leading to the library, wouldn’t even find the stairs that had given Chantmer such trouble, but if a guard were somehow dragged in by a member of the order, he would immediately double over and vomit before fleeing in unnamed terror.

  A table sat in the center of the room, with a massive book lying open across it. Curious, Chantmer approached and bent over the pages. Several leaves of the thick vellum had been removed, leaving a neat ridge where they’d been cut.

  “Is this it? The Book of Gods?” he asked.

  “How many cut books do you suppose we have?” Jethro said, and there was more than a touch of defensiveness in the old archivist’s voice.

  “I don’t know, you tell me. Once the necromancer sent one enemy to steal from our library, why not another? The first thief slipped in right under your nose, after all.”

  Memnet laid a hand on his shoulder. “Gently, Chantmer.”

  “Apologies, archivist. The protection in this room is as strong as ever. I didn’t mean to imply you had been neglecting your work.”

  “It’s stronger than it was, actually,” Jethro said. “Such little magic that we command has been set to strengthening our defenses. We’ve done little else these past weeks.”

  “The defenses certainly feel adequate,” Memnet said. “But they are obviously flawed, or the enemy wouldn’t have gained entrance.”

  Jethro winced, and it was apparent that Memnet’s words stung more than Chantmer’s open challenge.

  “Now that we’ve lost the walled garden,” Memnet continued, “there is no better-protected spot in the order than this. But we’ve seen these past months that our defenses can be breached. And I don’t like having our library sitting literally beneath the enemy’s feet. They know it’s here, and it’s only a matter of time before they make another attempt.”

  “What are you suggesting, Master?” Jethro asked. “Move the archives to the garden?”

  “It would be safer,” Chantmer agreed.

  “That is not an assumption I would make,” Memnet said. “It isn’t the distance from the enemy that gives a fortress its strength, but the height and width of its walls. And the walls here are higher than back home.”

  “But Master,” Chantmer protested, “it isn’t merely the size of the fortress that matters, either. It’s the strength of the army within its walls. Our army is at the gardens, not here.” He waved his hand at the archivist. “With apologies, friend.”

  “I understand,” Jethro said. “We maintain a guard post, nothing more.”

  “Read for me from the Book of Gods,” Memnet told Chantmer.

  “Which section?”

  “Anything will do.”

  Chantmer bent over the volume and touched a finger to the page. The vellum was warm to the touch, humming, almost alive. An illustrator had decorated each leaf with snaking vines, animals fancifully drawn, and strange, magical beasts, all done with vibrant colors of azure, emerald, and crimson. The letters themselves were neatly formed and artistically sculpted at the same time, yet when Chantmer tried to read the words, they swam in and out of focus.

  He got one word, skipped another, backtracked to repeat it, fumbled the next three, and started over. Finally, he gave up in frustration.

  “You know I can’t do it like this. I need to meditate first, and it helps if someone feeds me the words one at a time.”

  “Would you like my help?” Jethro asked.

  “No, I would not.”

  Memnet scooted Chantmer out of the way. The wizard bent over the page, traced the words with his finger, and began reading in a clear, steady voice with no assistance or preparation whatsoever.

  “You make it look so easy,” Cha
ntmer said when the wizard had stopped. “But I suppose that was the point, right? To show how much better you are at it than I am. Which is why I’m still an apprentice.”

  “Chantmer, I’ve been at this for centuries. Of course I’m better. If I weren’t, you’d be the head of the order, not me. But that isn’t the point.”

  “Then what is, Master?” he asked, somewhat mollified.

  “If we were to take the Book of Gods to the garden, my reading would be more like yours. I could do it, but only with a good deal of preparation. Meditation and the like, as you said.”

  “And I suppose that it would be pure gibberish to the likes of me.”

  “Yes, exactly.” Memnet closed the book and nodded at Jethro, who hefted it and carried it to a shelf. “This room functions as more than a mere fortress. What I could accomplish here in a week would take me a year outside this room. What would take you a month would cost a full decade. This library is its own center of power, the work of not only the Crimson Path, but the order that preceded it.”

  “So it must be protected at all costs.”

  “Yes, Chantmer.”

  “And that’s why you’ve brought me here, isn’t it? To care for the library.”

  A smile touched Memnet’s lips. “And this is why I know you will be a true wizard someday, and not an acolyte. You are too clever to be held down.”

  Chantmer wasn’t amused by Memnet’s teasing. He could only think about Narud and Markal, whom the master had declared wizards. If they’d been better than him, he could have stood for it, but his power was greater than both of theirs put together.

  Yes, but what about your knowledge? a small, bitter voice asked. How many spells have you mastered without Markal or an archivist feeding you the words?

  And that, he realized, as Memnet turned to question Jethro about the goings-on in the palace, was the master’s unstated purpose. Chantmer would be here, guarding the library, and at the same time, would be surrounded by all these books. Memnet must know that, spurred by his jealousy of Markal and Narud’s accomplishment, Chantmer would redouble his efforts to master the incantations and other arcane knowledge needed to progress from apprentice to full wizard.

  Jethro asked a question that Chantmer didn’t quite pick up, lost as he was in his thoughts, but he heard Memnet’s definite answer.

  “If that happens, you do whatever it takes to save the archives. The stone walls themselves are nothing. The order itself is only slightly more important. If necessary, we will sacrifice our very lives,” Memnet added. “Because whatever else happens, the works in this room must be preserved. The walls of a library can be rebuilt and new wizards trained. But knowledge, once lost, is gone forever.”

  Chapter Six

  Late spring, two months before the slaying of Bronwyn of Arvada on the king’s highway.

  Captain Wolfram waited outside the barbican while his servants assembled themselves. Some of them had rushed forward after he’d been announced, eager to embrace him after his long absence, including his old nursemaid, nearly sixty and grandmotherly in appearance these days, but they stopped when they saw that he was mounted, with his shield in hand and his sword sheathed, but at the ready. The other servants looked more circumspect as they emerged from the small chatelet and studied not only their master but the men and women he’d brought with him.

  Six other paladins had accompanied him. They were dirty from the road, and grim-faced after a long brutal struggle in the mountain passes that had seen the loss of several of their companions. The others waited until he gave the signal, then joined him in dismounting.

  Because he’d been away for so many months, he was able to study the family’s chatelet with a fresh eye, and what he saw did not please him. The gate towers needed repair, and ivy covered the wall behind the moat, giving an appearance that had once seemed homey and garden-like, but now presented nothing so much as an easy way for enemies to scale the walls and gain entrance to the courtyard of the small castle. The water in the moat was low, and outbuildings crowded its banks, and the wall walk was too narrow, with short, ineffective crenelations.

  An army could sack the place without much trouble, and his father’s castle on the opposite side of the kingdom was nearly as bereft of effective defensive structures. Situated far from either the hill country or the northern marches, the villagers and lords of the small free kingdom of Arvada were fortunate to face few threats of attack.

  He took in the crowd. “Is this everyone? Where is old Franklin?”

  “He passed away, Sir Wolfram,” one of the kitchen girls, Franklin’s niece, said. “A bad ache in his tooth, and then he took the chills. Two days later, he was gone.”

  His tone softened. “That is a shame. I am sorry to hear it.”

  Franklin had worked the family stables for thirty years, and while he’d grown too old to shoe the bigger draft horses, he was a mature and calming force among the younger hands. There seemed to be other changes, too, he realized as he saw one young woman with a babe in her arms, and another—that was Jameson’s wife, wasn’t it?—with a hand over a swollen belly. It made what was coming all the harder.

  “The stable hands will see to the horses. The kitchen staff will bring the biggest kettle you can find out to the courtyard and light a fire underneath it. Bring up a barrel of vinegar from the cellar, too.”

  This brought quizzical looks. “My lord?” the baker said.

  “See that it’s done, and quickly. As for the rest of you, bring everything out of the manor. I want it emptied.”

  “Empty the manor, sir?” a man asked.

  “Yes. Food from the cellars, crockery from the kitchens. Clear the armory, the treasury, the chapel. Take down the tapestries and haul out the furniture and bedding. Everything must come out. Everything.”

  “I don’t understand,” the same fellow said. “Is there an enemy approaching, sir? And what shall we do with it all?”

  “Bring it here to the gates and heap it up. Far away from the building. I’ll give you more instructions when that is done. Quickly now, do what I asked.”

  “As for you,” he said to the other paladins, “keep your shields and your swords, but leave the rest of your gear. My grooms will see that it is well cared for.”

  “You’re not going inside first?” Sir Marissa asked when the servants had scurried off and the horses had been led away. “One last time to see it how it was?”

  Wolfram’s stomach clenched. “No, that would make it worse. You’ll understand when it’s your turn.”

  Her eyes widened. “My turn?”

  “What is this all about?” Sir Andar said. He propped his shield against an oak tree that grew on the edge of the moat. It was painted with the sky-blue field and trio of stars representing Greymarch. “Are you really going through with this?”

  “You thought I was exaggerating last night?”

  “I thought you said it for effect, yes. I didn’t think you would go so far as to . . . well, this!” Andar swept his arm toward the chatelet, where servants were already emerging laden with bundles of clothes and stacks of dishes.

  “The manor and the entire estate was a gift from the king—my father—and it’s mine to dispose of as I see fit.”

  “And yet I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean this,” Andar said. “In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that your campaigning is only possible because of the bounty this property provides. Without it, you are nothing.”

  “Without it, I am a paladin and a defender of this land.”

  Wolfram took off his shield and propped it against the tree, next to Andar’s. The crescent moon of Arvada gleamed on its field of gray, and that reminded him of his pendant, and that reminded him that he’d given it to Bronwyn, and he couldn’t help but close his eyes briefly to look for her.

  The moon pendant he’d given her contained two pieces of magic. The first strengthened the courage of the wearer at the moment of maximum danger, when fears turned to hesitation, which then became either c
owardice or paralysis. And after surrendering the pendant to his sister, Wolfram had struggled in battle, fighting trembles in his hands, anxiety in his belly. He’d learned to overcome it with time, but still wished for something to calm the terror in those last seconds before one’s sword clashed with the enemy’s.

  The second piece of magic showed the one who’d handed over the pendant if the recipient was alive, and where she might be. But only in very general terms. It was like staring at a bright candle flame in the darkness and then closing his eyes. An afterimage of candlelight flickered on the edge of his vision—this was his sister’s soul, still burning out there somewhere, although much more distant and faded than it had been in the first few days—and when he turned his head, the light maintained its location relative to his position.

  She was east, always east. And like looking at a mountain from a distance, no matter where he rode, campaigned, or battled, that little light, that afterglow of the candle of her soul, was always in roughly the same direction. She must be over the Spine by now, in the khalifates and searching for the necromancer. Had she seen the extent of the sorcerer’s highway, already thrusting through the mountains and almost to Estmor?

  The other paladins set their shields next to his, until a ring of them encircled the oak tree. So many colors, so many proud little kingdoms, baronies, and freeholds represented by just these seven shields. Among the nearly hundred paladins who’d survived the spring campaigns, there were more than fifty different designs: snarling bears and rampant lions, crossed swords, and clenched fists. A green eye, a white crown, a golden hammer. Dragons, griffins, and giants, representing ancient battles, triumphs, and defeats.

  Wolfram turned back to watch the servants sacking his manor house, and the other paladins came up alongside him.