by Carol Berg
Fiona spread her arms and touched the shoulders of her Wardens. “Know this, petitioners,” she said. “For a thousand years my people have given of themselves to ward human souls from demon ravaging, yet we neglected the true demons that live here in our world, even those who tormented our own brothers and sisters. Never again, Aveddi. We swear to you and to this mighty assembly that from this day forward, we will be vigilant.”
As the crowd murmured its wonder and approval, Aleksander nodded and motioned Yulai and Marouf and W‘Osti forward. “Then my mission is done, Lady, and I yield the leadership of these forces to those whose rightful place it is.” He held out his hand to his wife, and they withdrew their mounts behind the three rulers. But Fiona held up her hand to stay him, and silenced the swelling voices of the crowd.
“You have come here today as a war leader, Aveddi, forswearing all state beyond victory in the name of these who follow you. You have raised the banners of these rightful rulers as they reclaim sovereignty of their own lands. But what of Azhakstan itself? For five hundred years, the Derzhi kingdom of Azhakstan has perpetrated crimes against these brother kings and their subjects. And before the sun sets on this day of judgment, the matter of your own history must be considered. You were once the voice and hand of a cruel empire, sharing in the miseries it created, heir to its tyrant’s throne, and so you, too, must submit yourself for sentencing. What say you all, noble kings and princes?”
Shouts of agreement rang out from every side.
Fiona gave Aleksander no opportunity to protest. “If you accept your culpability in these matters and yield your future to the wisdom of this company, then dismount, Aveddi, and stand before me, as a sign to us that you indeed abjure rank and privilege and right of birth.”
Aleksander hesitated only long enough to lay his hand on that of his wife and on the head of his sleeping son. Then he slipped gracefully from his steed and walked forward, only the set of his jaw and a slight flush betrayed any ruffling of composure. The crowd gasped as one as he unsheathed his sword, and breathed again when he laid it across Fiona’s outstretched hands. Though his head was unbowed and his lean form towered over Fiona, any observer would know which of the two was supplicant.
The young Queen nodded in satisfaction, and her voice soared through the bright morning. “The Ezzarian Council has considered the matter of Aleksander, once heir to the Derzhi Empire, and has taken counsel from these assembled lords of Manganar and Suza, of Thrid and Kuvai and Fryth, and all the lands that the Empire once claimed, and we have spoken with these noble Derzhi who have pledged life and honor to right the wrongs of the past. Aleksander Jenyazar Ivaneschi zha Denischkar, have you anything to say in your own defense?”
Aleksander shook his head.
Fiona nodded and continued. “Because the Derzhi have broken the ordering of the world, so must the Derzhi repair it. Because the Derzhi have stolen their neighbors’ wealth, so must now the Derzhi return their good service to these same neighbors. And as the Derzhi have assaulted their neighbors, so must they now stand in their neighbors’ defense. To repair and serve and defend, so must Azhakstan be strong and capable of bearing such responsibility. Therefore, the Council has decided that the Derzhi Kingdom of Azhakstan will stand, with boundaries as writ in this map from ancient times before the bloat of empire. As repair for past injustice, the Kingdom of Azhakstan shall claim no seat of power, no royal capital; Zhagad and Capharna will now be as any other city, with no restriction and no preference in trade or residence. The imperial palaces will be sealed by my hand, their continued existence a reminder of greed and tyranny. And to rule this kingdom, an Azhaki king or queen shall be named by the Derzhi tribe’s good counsel and serve with the consent of the neighboring rulers, the candidate’s own strength and wisdom to be his or her only recommendation.”
Fiona pointed toward Kiril and the Derzhi, and so forceful was her query, I thought flame might shoot from her fingertip. “Noble lords of the Derzhi hegeds, who say you all should be the First of Azhakstan to lead you in this service of redemption?”
As one voice, the Derzhi lords cried, “Aleksander!”
Then Fiona swept her arm across the multitudes and cried out, “And you who are owed this service and defense, would you have this Aleksander, the Aveddi, firstborn of Azhakstan, become your Protector?”
And the ayes rang out in thunderous splendor, echoing across the desert, joined with shouts of “Aleksander!” and “Aveddi!”
Fiona nodded. “So be it. We render this judgment: Aleksander zha Denischkar, at dawn tomorrow, if you be willing, you shall be anointed and crowned King of Azhakstan and Protector of the Living Kingdoms, charged to spend your remaining days, not in aggrandizing your own realm, but in rebuilding and defending these which you have helped rebirth.” She offered Aleksander his sword. “Will you serve, Aveddi?”
Aleksander reclaimed his weapon, and in a voice as clear as the desert morning and as strong as a paraivo, gave his answer. “I will. By mighty Athos’ head, I will.”
The cheering could have been heard all the way to Kir‘-Vagonoth.
And so came the time for me to look to the future.
In the mild evening of the day of judgment and witness, Aleksander asked Fiona and me to accompany him to Drafa, where he would keep vigil in the holy city on the eve of his coronation as had been the custom of the ancient kings of Azhakstan. Qeb stood waiting by the tamarisk grove, unsurprised as we rode out of the desert, his sightless eyes as brilliant as the starlight. As he led Aleksander to his cave, a solemn, wide-eyed girl-child of six or seven years guided his steps.
After Sarya and Manot had their fill of smiles and weeping at our return, and a quick approving assessment of Fiona, the two old women took up a guard beside the cave entrance, and Fiona and I strolled through the ruined city. We talked of Catrin and Hoffyd and their child, expected any day, of old Talar and her new school of forest lore, of friends and pairings, weather and trees.
But Fiona was not one to shy away from more personal conversation. As the hour grew late and we crested the rise, dragging our fingers over the fallen stone lion, she looked up at me expectantly. “And now of you, my friend and mentor. How are things with you?”
“Improving overall,” I said. In most ways, at least, that was true. Time and quiet living had done me a world of good. “Having the chance to be with Evan has been the best medicine.”
“And his mother, too?”
I glanced quickly at Fiona to see what she was asking. Few things could make my face hot anymore, and I kept telling myself that Elinor should not be one of them. Despite the pleas antries of the last months, some things were impossible. “I could ask no better loving for Evan,” I said. “And she has helped me immeasurably. Did you note that I can hold a wineglass now? And speak a whole sentence without forgetting who and where I am?”
To my relief, Fiona’s question was innocent and quickly past. “It’s fine to see your arm stronger, and that you’ve put on enough weight to cast a shadow. But back in Kuvai, when I examined you, you said that you might need something from me later, and I had the notion that it might be something important. Is there anything I can do for you before I go home?”
My steps slowed with a burden I had explained to no one and wasn’t sure if or when I could. “Only one thing. Someday ... I’d like to come back to Ezzaria.”
She burst out laughing, but sobered quickly when she looked at my face. “Why ever would you need to ask?”
“Last time I heard, I was forbidden on pain of death to return. You’ve seen for yourself that I am demon-joined. And you don’t yet fully understand what I was those months in Tyrrad Nor or what I could have become.”
She pulled my head down and kissed the top of it. “Gods above, foolish man, I trust you beyond anyone I know. Ezzaria is your home. We will be honored by your coming.”
I was gratified by Fiona’s trust and acceptance, but I came to the conclusion that I could not take advantage of it. Not yet. I yea
rned for Ezzaria’s green embrace, the peace and healing I believed existed in its hills and forests. But I could not abandon my child and his mother. This decision was not based solely on my desire to remain near Evan, but on hard reality.
The world had changed from top to bottom. Aleksander was a king without a palace, and would need to learn how to live and work within the bounds of his new role. He would spend a great deal of time outside of his own kingdom, seeing to the borders and the safety of those he served. His wealth was now limited to his personal holdings in Azhakstan, and he had already asked the lords of the Mardek to determine how to divest him and other Derzhi of the houses and lands they could no longer afford. Kiril was to be the commander of the young King’s troops, charged with retraining Derzhi warriors to be defenders and not conquerors, and Blaise was no longer the Yvor Lukash, but Aleksander’s First Dennissar, the King’s personal representative to the adjoining kingdoms. Blaise’s outlaws were returning to their towns and villages; everyone who had depended on the outlaw band for sustenance was going to have to find a place to live and new means of support. That included Elinor. Our refugee encampment in Kuvai was already half deserted, so I’d heard.
On the road from Drafa to Zhagad on the morning of his coronation, Aleksander had asked me to remain with him as his First Counselor. “Athos knows, I need someone to help me figure out how all this is going to work. It’s not exactly the living I offered you four years ago, but you’ll never want. And as it’s all your doing, it seems only fair that you should haul about with me to see it finished.”
I told him I would think about it. And so I had, and about Evan and Elinor and Ezzaria as well.
On a late afternoon, five days after Aleksander’s coronation, I knocked on the door of a modest dwelling in the outer ring of Zhagad with a brace of chickens hanging over my shoulder. Blaise, Evan, Elinor, and several of Blaise’s outlaws were temporarily housed with a dye maker, the father of one of the outlaws, who still wept with relief every time he saw his daughter walking openly about the city, wearing a badge of valor granted by the new Azhaki king.
“I’ve brought dinner,” I said when Elinor opened the door, “courtesy of Yulai and Magda.”
Elinor expressed surprise to see me. “Blaise staggered in an hour ago,” she said, pointing to the body sprawled across one corner of the hot little room, snoring profoundly, “but he fell asleep while taking his boots off. He said he’s been talking for five days straight, and that the King looks to go five more without stopping. I assumed you were with him.” Gingerly she took my proffered fowl. “Shall I cook these or are you going to join the snoring?”
“Chickens are hard to come by right now,” I said. “It would be a shame to waste them. But first, I’d like to talk with you a bit about—”
Evan barged into the room just then, insisting on showing me a new sling that Roche had made him for his third birthday. “Mam said that you will show me how to use it properly. I am to use the very smallest stones, and call out before I let one go, and never, ever, ever use it inside a house.” His blue-black eyes were wide and solemn as he pronounced the rules. Elinor’s wry expression, along with a pile of broken pottery sitting on the table, told me the source of his solemnity.
“Those sound like very good rules,” I said. “And it looks to be a fine sling. When the day cools a bit, we’ll go out and try it.”
While Evan regaled me with unending chatter about Roche and the sling and his small disaster with Dyana’s favorite pot, Elinor shrugged and took the chickens out into the courtyard behind the house to clean them. All through the cooking and eating, as I held Evan on my lap and showed him how to hold his sling, as I listened to the exuberant conversation of the dye maker and his family, and laughed as they made jokes about Blaise’s trumpeting snores, I watched Elinor move through the noise and heat of the cramped house with quiet humor and grace. When the shadows were long across the city, the dye maker’s family set off for the market to drink nazrheel and listen to the day’s gossip. I took Evan into the courtyard and spent an hour laughing and dodging his small leather pouch as it whirled about his head and showered us with pebbles. When the boy and I had collapsed on the paving, spent with our efforts and good humor, I noticed Elinor standing in the doorway of the house watching us.
“You wanted to talk,” she said.
Evan’s head was bent over his pebbles as he began arranging them carefully by color and size in the cracks of the paving. Though he took no notice and concentrated on his private game, I stroked his dark hair. “I heard this morning that Aleksander had asked you to travel with Blaise-a dennissar in your own right—but that you had refused him. I assume you understand what it meant for him to offer-the respect he has for you—”
“—and that I’m a woman. Yes, I understand. And I was honored. But I told him I wished to live quietly for a while. A child should not grow up knowing only war and politics.”
She said nothing more. Just stood there. Waiting. She didn’t make things easy.
“Yes. Exactly so ...” What was it I had come to say? It seemed so feeble. So presumptuous. “... and so I thought ... you’ll need some way to live wherever you plan to settle ... and I could find work as a scribe, perhaps, now my hand is working better ... so I could be close by ...”
“But the Aveddi relies on you. His First Counselor, I’ve heard. Will you not roam the deserts with him?”
Her manner was impassive, curious, while my face was surely as hot as the aforementioned deserts. “He can come wherever I happen to be or call on me as he wishes. I’ll always answer his need. But I’ve no more yearning to roam the deserts than you do, and some things are more important even than Aleksander and his kingdom.” I pushed a pile of black pebbles toward Evan’s hand and watched his small fingers place them in the cracks. “Unless you tell me not, I’ll go wherever you go.”
“And what if I say I choose Parnifour or Hollen or some other place far from Azhakstan ... far from Ezzaria? Would you truly go there and do scribe’s work to keep us?”
“I will do whatever is necessary. I told you that before. It has not changed.”
“Aye, so you said”—a change in her voice drew my eyes upward to meet her own—“and so you have done.”
So much spoken in those simple words. Faith. Trust. Understanding. A generous spirit ... waiting. Her utterance opened a door in my heart and gave me a glimpse of possibility. I searched her strong and lovely face and saw nothing to contradict my hearing.
Quickly I packed Evan’s fist full of pebbles, hefted him onto my shoulders, and stood up, praying he would stay occupied and quiet for a little while. “Mistress Elinor, would you honor me by walking out this evening ... to the market ... for a cup of nazrheel?”
She tilted her head as if giving the matter due consideration. Then she nodded. “Perhaps we need to take up our conversation exercises again. This would be a fine evening for it.” Her mouth curled ever so slightly at the left corner.
Before I could so much as get across the courtyard and take Elinor’s arm, a barefoot, yawning Blaise walked out of the dim house behind her and, without a single word, snatched a giggling Evan from my back and disappeared back into the house. One might have thought he was standing there waiting for the opportunity.
Our conversation exercise wandered slightly farther afield that night; Elinor wanted to know all about Ezzaria and what it might be like as a place to raise a shapeshifting child. We would need to discuss a great deal more as the days passed, but the evening’s conversation was pleasant. Exceedingly pleasant.
Seven days after the Day of Judgment, and six days after Aleksander’s coronation, I stood in the evening light at the top of a towering dune awaiting the King of Azhakstan. He had sent word that he was determined to ride out on this evening, to take one hour away from advisers, petitioners, stewards, and job seekers, and that he would appreciate the company of someone who didn’t want him to do anything.
I was smiling when he rode up the dune
, his red hair flying, for I had just spent an afternoon with Lydia and young Sovari Ly diazar Aleksandreschi zha Denischkar. Life would never be dull for the royal family of Azhakstan. The tiny boy’s hair was fiery red, and after giving me a toothless grin charming enough to melt stone, he took up yelling louder than a chastouain prodding his balky beast through the desert.
Aleksander slipped gracefully from his white horse and whispered whatever command ensured the beast would stay patiently where it was left. Part of his own special magic. “Holy Athos, I had to threaten everyone with hanging to get them to stay behind. You haven’t let anyone slip you a petition just in case you saw me, have you?”
“Not a one. Perhaps I could come up with something, though.”
He groaned and motioned me to walk with him across the crest of the sand until we were out of sight of the haffai-clad guards clustered at the base of the dune. The empty desert stretched out before us, splashed with purple and gold. As we slipped and slid our way to a second crest where we could see no one and hear nothing but the quiet stirring of the wind, his shoulders relaxed and he sighed in pleasure. “Here, let’s sit for a while. I need this.”
He spread his cloak on the sand and settled there, leaning back on his elbows. He cocked his head as I sat beside him. “You’re not going to stay with me, are you, Seyonne?”
I laughed and shook my head. “How can you tell so quickly? We haven’t spoken in almost a week. And I only just decided.”
“This time I cheated. Fiona told me you were talking of going to Ezzaria. And something’s been troubling you since you came back—no wonder that. So, will going home remedy it?”
Of course Aleksander would be the one to notice. I scooped up a handful of the warm sand and let it trickle through my fingers. “I hope.”
“Tell me, Seyonne. You owe me that. I came a gnat’s eyebrow from killing you, and you insist that you intended it, though you knew it would be a deed that would haunt me the rest of my life. You took your son to that place not knowing how things would fall out. That tells me the magnitude of your fear, and that you have accomplished some dreadful task that we ordinary folk will likely never comprehend. Whatever happened between you and the old man before he died brought you back safely, and I thank the everlasting gods for it. But you are my friend and brother, and I would know what grieves you.”