Honor's Paradox-ARC

by P. C. Hodgell

  “Well,” he said, “that’s it.”

  Wither made a face. “As you say. This time. Fare you well, my lord.”

  On his departure, Adric emerged from the shadows where he had retreated to avoid being trampled in the uproar and to mop off his wine-soaked clothes. “About Pereden’s ring . . .” he said.

  Holly shot Torisen a look, then drew himself up with a gulp. “I gave it to the Highlord,” he said. “It was on the finger of a corpse being burned on the common pyre at the Cataracts along with the renegade changers.”

  Adric breathed a sigh of relief. “My boy, why didn’t you say so in the first place? Obviously it was worn by the changer who impersonated my dear son. Tori, you should have given it directly to me.”

  Torisen meekly agreed.

  “If you will come with me, m’lord,” said Holly, scrambling to recover himself, “I would be honored to host you for the night. Tori?”

  “I’ll join you later.

  Left alone with Kindrie, Torisen searched for and found a bottle with enough wine left in it for two small cups. His side wrenched at him as he bent to pick it up and the stain on the linen grew.

  Kindrie moved as if to help him, but Torisen waved him off.

  “It’s only a cut. Let’s not push our luck. The question remains: what in Perimal’s name just happened?”

  III

  Kindrie drew a deep breath. He was still shaken by how deeply Rawneth had tricked him into despair. She had almost stolen everything that he valued most: friends, family, self-respect . . . all the things that the Priests’ College also sought to destroy.

  She could have broken me, he thought. She almost did. But not quite.

  He accepted the cup of wine, waited until his hands stopped shaking, and then drank from it. Warmth spread outward from his empty stomach. Breakfast had been a long time ago.

  “To begin with,” he said, “you were attacked by a changer.”

  Torisen snorted. “That much I guessed. I have come up against such creatures before, you know.”

  “Yes, of course. I should have started further back. My lord . . . m-my cousin, our great-grandmother Kinzi stitched a letter on the night that she died. A copy came into the hands of the Jaran Matriarch and she translated it for us.”

  “Who, pray tell, is ‘us’?”

  Kindrie heard the warning in his voice like steel half unsheathed. Who knew what, and why hadn’t he been told?

  “Kirien, Ashe, I, and . . . and your sister’s sneak Graykin. I told Jame myself what we had learned and was going to tell you when I got to Gothregor. As you see, I never made it.”

  “Then tell me now.”

  Kindrie gulped, tried to organize his thoughts, and began again, adding as many details as he knew. When he was done, he anxiously regarded the Highlord who sat before him frowning.

  “Let’s see if I understand this correctly,” said Torisen. “Kinzi writes, no, stitches a letter to her lover Adiraina but is interrupted by Bashtiri shadow assassins. Both the letter and the contract proving your legitimacy are sewn onto the back of Tieri’s death banner.”

  He shot Kindrie an unreadable look. “Congratulations, by the way, on not being a bastard and welcome to our small but interestingly inbred family.”

  “Thank you. I think.”

  “Condolences on your paternity, though.”

  “To continue, the banner disintegrates, dropping its secret into Jame’s hands. She turns both the fragmentary letter and the contract over to you, and you seek a translation of the former from Lady Trishien. She reports as follows: Kinzi saw Rawneth and Greshan together in the Moon Garden several days after the latter’s death. They made love, in the midst of which Greshan’s face changed, presumably into Gerridon’s. Jame now reveals that last Autumn’s Eve she had a series of visions of that night in which she recognized Rawneth’s ‘servant’ as the infamous and apparently immortal changer Keral. She assumes, therefore, that Keral was Rawneth’s lover and the father of Kenan. When Kinzi summoned Randir mother and son to Gothregor for Adiraina to test the bloodlines of the latter, Rawneth forestalled her by taking out a contract with the shadow assassins on all the Knorth women. Hence the Massacre. But it doesn’t end there. To bring us up to date, I have just been attacked in the vicinity of Wilden by a changer. According to the above reasoning, Lord Randir has changer blood. Therefore, I have been attacked by Lord Randir, who has since run away.”

  Kindrie sagged in his chair, feeling the emptiness of defeat.

  This time when he had first come into Torisen’s presence, he had felt a subtle change in the other’s attitude toward him—not quite acceptance, but something close, and he had wondered: could the Highlord really be changing his attitude toward the Shanir? To know for sure, he would have to touch Torisen’s soul-image, but he had specifically been warned not to do that. Perhaps that harsh voice behind the locked door only waited like a snake in a hole for the provocation to strike. He thought, now, that he heard it stir.

  “You don’t believe me,” he said numbly.

  “On the contrary,” said Torisen, dropping his sarcastic tone, “I do. But will anyone else?”

  “Your sister does. So do Kirien, Ashe, and Trishien.”

  “Three at least of whom are sensible women. However, I have to deal with the High Council, and that will require solid proof.”

  “Jame said the same thing.”

  “Four sensible women, then. The attack on me is nothing. A farce, as it turned out, thanks to whatever it was that you blew into that changer’s face. The slaughter of the Knorth women, though . . .”

  Torisen ran a hand through his hair, ruffling white streaks in the black. “We seem to have fallen into an old song:

  ‘Formidable foes (female or male)

  Bought the Bashtiri, blades for hire,

  To kill the Knorth. Unanswered questions

  Haunt the wide halls of the High Lord’s home:

  Who kens old quarrels that cost us Kinzi?

  Who now will whisper a name to the wind?’

  “Do we really now have the answers to those questions and, more dangerous still, a name? If so, what do we do with them? What happened here today is confusing at best. Someone who appeared to be Holly tried to stick a knife in me. No one but you and I saw his contortions after you spread that powder. It’s a long reach from there back to the slaughter of the Knorth ladies. Even with proof, we’re talking about one of the most powerful houses in the Kencyrath, an ally of the Caineron. To challenge it could lead to civil war.”

  “So all of those blood prices will go unpaid?”

  “I didn’t say that. My instinct is that today’s assassination attempt and the previous one were clumsy crimes of opportunity, instigated by Kenan, with Rawneth no more prepared to follow them up than I am to pursue her. The time isn’t ripe.”

  “And when it is?”

  “Oh, then we’ll see.” Torisen’s expression made Kindrie shiver. “Sooner or later, there will be a reckoning.”

  CHAPTER XVI

  Tests

  Spring 48–54

  I

  The horse eyed Jame warily, no less so than she did him. He was a chestnut gelding with a white star and white legs, tall enough so that she could hardly see over his withers. As she saddled him, he shifted restlessly in the crossties. When she slipped off his halter and attempted to bridle him, he backed up in the box stall and raised his head out of her reach.

  “Here.” The horse-master entered, clouted the horse on the jaw to settle him, then forced the bit between his clenched teeth.

  “This one had a wildcat land on his back once. See the scars? Mind you, it didn’t exactly attack, more like fell out of a tree on top of him. Try telling a horse that there’s a difference, though. He’s hardly a mount that I would have chosen for you.”

  “It was the instructor’s idea.” Jame glowered at the Caineron randon watching from outside the stall.

  “Huh,” said the officer and moved on, shouting, “G
et a move on, you bed of slugs!”

  The horse-master tightened the chestnut’s girth.

  “Remember,” he said under his breath, “you may be able to ride a rathorn and a Whinno-hir, but to the average horse you’re a predator, to be gotten away from as fast as possible. If you’re scared—and I can see that you are—try not to show it.”

  Fine for him to say, thought Jame as she led the horse up the ramp with her ten-command and their Caineron counterparts clopping around her. The rathorn Death’s-head obeyed her, if unwillingly, but she was only able to ride him because the bond between them allowed her to feel his shifts an instant before he made them. As for Bel-tairi, anyone could ride that sweet-tempered mare if they had her consent, never mind that only Jame did. All other horses to her were large, powerful, unpredictable creatures—and to them she was a thing with claws.

  Outside the northern gate, the cadets swung into the saddle. They were paired this time with Gorbel’s ten-command. Gorbel himself sat on his dun gelding to one side, not meeting Jame’s eyes. He still hadn’t spoken to her since his return from Restormir nor attended the Falconer’s class. She wondered what his father had said to him.

  “To begin with, once around the college,” said the instructor. “Walk, trot, canter, gallop. Keep in formation. Off you go.”

  The others walked off. Jame’s mount backed up, shaking his head.

  The randon slapped it on the haunch and it bolted to catch up, barging between Fash and Higbert at the far end of the line from her own ten. Their horses snapped at hers. Fash, laughing, gave her a not-so-playful shove.

  The instructor caught up on the far right next to Brier.

  They rounded the front of Old Tentir and began to trot. Jame could sense the pent-up energy in her mount, or was it his terror? Whichever, it felt like bestriding something on the verge of explosion. She tried to relax. The chestnut lurched sideways into its neighbor and began to buck, throwing Jame forward on his neck. She rapped it on the head. Instead of quieting, it bolted ahead of the line to a shouted curse from the instructor. Her own ten picked up the canter to keep pace.

  They swung around Old Tentir to its southern side. The right flank hugged its wall, the left veered into the wild moraine area where the egging exercise had taken place. Jame’s horse dodged trees and leaped over rocks. An outcrop of the latter separated her and her stirrup mates from the others.

  Fash rammed the chestnut, lifting it half off its feet. On the other side Higbert lashed at her with his whip. Suddenly she was in a running battle through undergrowth, over treacherous ground. What in Perimal’s name . . . ? The other horses crowded in on her. Fash grabbed her jacket and jerked. Already off balance, she fell between his mount and her own, down among the pounding hooves.

  They thundered over her head.

  Jame lay very still for a long moment, waiting for the stab of pain. In its place came a dull ache across the shoulders and down the back. All of her limbs still seemed to work, her brain as well (or ill) as usual. Only when she sat up did she remember the phantom touch of a tree trunk at the back of her neck . If she had fallen a moment later, it would surely have broken her neck.

  “Hoom.”

  Jame looked up at the sound of someone nearby clearing his throat, but no one was there.

  Before her lay a steeply ridged, wooded landscape sprinkled with spring flowers, patches of vivid green, and a few pockets of late snow in the deep kettles. In the distance, Perimal’s Cauldron fumed and muttered.

  “a-HOOM.”

  Pebbles and dirt clods rattled down the nearest slope, expelled from a hole under a stone ledge. Boulders on either side gave the impression of puffed up cheeks. Shifting her position, Jame could make out two deep nooks above that might almost have been sunken eyes.

  “Mother Ragga?”

  “Hack, ack . . . ack . . . pu-toom!”

  A family of hedgehogs, unceremoniously expelled, tumbled down the slope, unrolled at the bottom, and hastily shuffled off single file.

  “So, this is the sort of game you cadets play.”

  The Earth Wife’s voice came from the back of the hole, muffled, as if it spoke within close-set walls.

  “Not usually,” said Jame. She started to rise, but realized that with her change of perspective the earthen face had disappeared. When she subsided, it was back.

  “Humph.” More debris spat out. “I have a warning for you, missy: don’t forget Summer’s Eve in the hills.”

  “That’s only twelve days away. What’s so important this time?”

  “Remember last Summer’s Eve? That idiot Chingetai tried to claim the entire Riverland by laying bonefires up its length instead of using ’em to close the boundaries of his own land.”

  “Surely he’s not going to try that trick again.”

  The hillside rumbled. Stones rattled down it. “I should hope not. This time he’s got to do it right or stay open to more raids from both north and south. But the Noyat are already on Merikit ground, waiting. He’s going to need help.”

  “Will he accept it from me?” For that matter, Jame thought, given past experience, was it wise to ask her for anything short of an apocalypse?

  “He’s a fool if he doesn’t take all the help he can get.”

  Of course, they both knew that Chingetai was a fool; how big a one remained to be seen.

  Voices called her name through the trees. Jame rose to answer them. In so doing she lost sight of the Earth Wife although a subterranean mutter pursued her:

  “Remember Summer’s Eve.”

  Brier and Rue rode toward her leading her horse, in a high lather with wild eyes and a limp. Rather than mount him again, Jame swung up behind Rue. The randon instructor was waiting for them by the north gate where they had started their chaotic run.

  “So there you are,” he said to Jame while the other Caineron snickered.

  Fash and Higbert looked at Gorbel as if expecting him to speak, but he continued to glower into space, jaws clamped shut.

  “I think you Knorth have had enough excitement for one day,” said the randon. “Here. You’ve earned this.”

  Jame stared at the black pebble that he had dropped into her hand.

  “What was that all about?” she asked as they led their horses back down the ramp to the stable.

  Brier regarded the stone with lowered brows. “So. The final testing has begun.”

  Seeing that Jame was still confused, Rue rushed to explain. “The first time we competed against each other, remember?”

  “Oh yes. Vividly. I barely earned enough points to enter the college.”

  The horse-master shook his bald head at the state of her mount and felt his hock, but didn’t comment. She led the horse into his stall and began to rub him down. He still quivered whenever she touched him.

  “Then the Randon Council cast the stones,” continued Rue, busy in the next stall.

  Another near miss, thought Jame. If she hadn’t redeemed the Shame of Tentir in the person of Bel-tairi, even the Commandant had been prepared to throw her out.

  The chestnut continued to fret. Losing patience, Jame slapped him on his sweat-slickened barrel. “Behave!” He bounced nervously and settled down somewhat.

  “Then there was the Winter War.”

  “But that didn’t count, did it?”

  “Not officially. It should be good for something, though, shouldn’t it?”

  Rue called to the other cadets for confirmation. No one knew for sure, but it only seemed just: after all, the Knorth team had won, if through a series of maneuvers on Jame’s part that still perplexed most of her house.

  “So,” said Rue, finally getting to the point, “this time the instructors have most of the say.”

  “Each senior randon is given six pebbles,” cut in Dar from across the aisle. Trust him not to be able to keep quiet. “Three white and three black, for the best and worst performances in their classes. They can give them out all at once, but more likely one at a time. The Commandant has a
set too.”

  “Randon aren’t supposed to give white tokens to their own house,” Mint added from her other side, “but they can give black.”

  “Anyway,” said Rue, “how many white you get by Summer’s Day determines where you go on graduation.”

  “If you graduate,” muttered Damson.

  “True, some don’t,” Erim agreed. “Next worst is to have to repeat your first year here at the college.”

  Which Tori would never let her do, Jame thought.

  “Kothifir is for the best,” said Mint. “Next best is some other foreign post. Then there are the cadets who are sent home to join their house garrisons.”

  “How many white pebbles qualify you for Kothifir?” asked Jame.

  “It varies from year to year. Usually one white will do it, or one black for failure. There are some twenty randon with six tokens each. Most of us never get one at all, which means that we get sent wherever we’re needed. That could be good or bad. Ten-commands may also get broken up as in the second cull, say, if the commander gets a black, or a commander’s white might pull through his or her entire ten-squad intact. Then too, black cancels white and vice versa, so you’re already one behind, Ten.”

  “Lovely,” muttered Jame.

  It wasn’t until she and the others were on their way to the next lesson that it struck her: if she was going up into the hills for Summer’s Eve, she would miss the last day of classes with its potential tests. Well, never mind, she thought, setting her jaw; she would just have to earn enough white tokens before then.

  II

  From then on, each lesson taught by a randon became a test of nerves, if nothing else. Would the instructor award a pebble or not? Which color, and to whom? Some handed out all six immediately, based as much on past as present performance. Others seemed to be waiting until the last minute. A few with particularly strict standards had the reputation for only distributing as many as they truly believed to be earned, black or white.