Warautumn

by Tom Deitz

  There was a murmur of approval at that, and, though the idea had not occurred to Avall, now that he considered it, it did have considerable merit. “And who would lead this second expedition?” he asked, though he already knew the answer he would receive.

  “I would,” Vorinn replied promptly. “I’ve had some experience with Zeff’s regalia—more than anyone else here, at least. And if it comes to actual fighting, I’m as good as anyone hand to hand.”

  Avall gnawed his lips. “But if you go and I go, and we take those I suspect the two of us might choose, and then something terrible befalls us, it leaves the army under … whose command?”

  Rann cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should hear suggestions as to who will comprise these groups, then decide.”

  Avall—almost—glared at him. “Very well. Since time grows short, I had thought to ask Merryn and Lykkon. I wanted you back here to command the army, Vorinn, but I know Merryn’s as good a fighter as we’ve got, if it comes to that, and that Lyk’s as good with the gems, if it comes to that plus he simply thinks well on his feet. Though frankly,” he added, “I can’t imagine suffering much injury if I’m wearing the regalia, especially in a closed space like a cell.”

  “And now?” Veen prompted.

  “I stand by those I have named,” Avall said flatly. “Vorinn, who would you propose accompany you?”

  “My uncle, Tryffon,” he replied at once. “He can fight, and he can play the power game if necessary. If anyone can bully down Priest-Clan, it would be him, but that should only be a factor if we get captured.”

  “And you would only take one beyond yourself?” Avall challenged, scowling.

  “I had thought I might also take Veen,” Vorinn conceded, “for much the same reason Your Majesty wanted to take Merryn.”

  Veen looked startled but flattered. “Which leaves who in charge here?”

  Avall vented a heavy sigh. “My bond-brother, Rann, if he will take it. He’s been Regent before, and, from what I hear, was actually quite good at it. He’ll have Preedor to advise him, as well as other good folk. Besides, that’s only a factor if we fail—and I don’t see how that can happen if we act expeditiously.”

  Rann checked the time candle in the corner. “If you’re going to give yourself a comfortable pad before dawn, you’d best be at it,” he said. “It’s going to take another half hand to get everyone ready. And you still have to figure out whence you want to depart and what your targets will be. Oh, and I have one more suggestion: I think Vorinn’s right: his group should leave a finger after Your Majesty’s group, in case Your Majesty’s group is in need of aid. Of course he might not be able to help, but I truly do think it would be useful.”

  Seeing nothing more to be gained by further discussion of minutiae, Avall rose abruptly. “Well, good Councilors,” he announced, “I thank your for your presence, your advice, and your eagerness to support your King and kinsmen in what may indeed prove to be an ill-conceived endeavor. That said, I think that if we do not act, we will be cursing ourselves for the rest of our lives, and not only that, assuring that our names will be cursed forever. Merry and Lyk, I will meet you on the top of this hold in half a hand if you can be ready by then. Vorinn, Tryffon, Veen, you be there as well if you can manage. Anyone else who wishes to see us off is welcome, but do not seek to interfere.”

  “As if anyone would,” Rann murmured into Avall’s ear, as Avall went to help Lykkon change.

  Avall met his personal target time with almost a finger to spare; then again, the quarters he had chosen were closest of all to the top of the hold and separated from it only by a private stair, which he, Merryn, Lykkon, and Rann used. Vorinn would be coming by another route, from the quarters Clan Ferr and Warcraft had claimed, and by the “public” stair.

  In spite of their haste, they had managed to do well in terms of arraying themselves for what they hoped would be stealth but which might as easily prove to be public display. With the former in mind, they wore hooded black cloaks—but they wore them over surcoats of Argen maroon and the best mail and leather their own, or raided, resources could provide. Merryn and Lykkon had swords, small targe shields, and half helms, the better to see in close quarters; Avall had the regalia, newly freed from the table-safe in which it was kept while traveling, but still in the individual cases to which it had been consigned.

  While they awaited their companions, they claimed places on four stone benches that faced inward around a tiny, glass-smooth pool. Shrubs surrounded it, along with a few small trees, and there was even a low, rustic-looking pavilion that faced a larger pool that was obviously meant for swimming. None would be visible from the ground, of course, and Avall felt vaguely guilty just sitting there. It was the soft time between midnight and dawn, and, as Rann had predicted, the sky was ablaze with stars, a situation abetted by the fact that one moon had not yet risen, one was a hand before setting, and the third one was already down. There was no wind, and the air was warm, but a fair bit of that warmth was the last of the previous day’s heat melting from the rocks, the upshot of which was that Avall was sweating. An eighth from now the weather would be markedly different, he supposed. And one beyond that, this outcrop would be capped with snow.

  He hoped he was alive to see it. So much could change between now and then. For one thing, Sundeath would be over, and with it the grace period he had granted himself in which to choose whether he would claim the crown in truth or abdicate it. Still, he had more choices now than he’d had two eights ago, while a fair number of people had fewer. Or none.

  But what was keeping the others? Time really was of the essence, and though he had not naysayed them, he had massive misgivings about letting so many of his best strategists and fighters commit themselves to so risky a mission without backup.

  Of course Fate would decide, as Fate always did, and Fate did seem to favor him. But what about this supposed Ninth Face? He had drunk from that Face’s well twice, and both times it had seemed to act to his benefit. But, again, he wondered.

  And then light showed from the door in the cleverly disguised turret opposite him: the one that anyone from the ground would have seen only as a spire of hard, dark stone twice as tall as a man. An instant later, Vorinn led Veen and Tryffon through it. They had dressed much as Avall’s group had, down to wearing their own colors—Ferr’s colors—beneath black cloaks. And if Warcraft crimson was perhaps too bright to ensure proper stealth, still, it was also a color that most in Eron were conditioned to respect, if not actually fear. Even Priest-Clan, if history prevailed. Even the Ninth Face, if those who opposed that rebellious sect were lucky.

  Tryffon raised his sword in salute. Greetings and admonitions of luck followed quickly, and then it was time for business, as Rann began to uncase the royal regalia. Avall waited to be vested. It was better that way, he told himself, and helped him focus his thoughts for what he was about to attempt. Veen and Tryffon, he noted, took their cues from him.

  First came the shield, then the sword, and finally the helmet. Rann made a fuss about adjusting straps and setting the helm’s chin strap, but Avall understood, even if it made him sad. That was another thing this might eliminate: these endless rounds of partings.

  In any case, with the lowering of his helm, the world abruptly narrowed to what he could see straight ahead and a few degrees up and down and to either side. He could feel the gems, too, waiting there a twitch away from his palms, so eager to taste his blood that they were already singing to it. Had they always done that? he wondered. Or was this a new attribute of the regalia that had only manifested since he had used that regalia to jump through the waters?

  “Time passes,” Avall said tersely, to distract himself from further speculation. “Assuming we actually manage this thing,” he added, facing Vorinn but including them all, “wait half a finger—Rann will tell you when—and follow. If you don’t arrive, we’ll assume you’ve failed and act without you. Whatever happens—assuming we succeed—we’ll try to jump Tyrill back her
e—or to the safest place we can find—and return for Ilfon just in case. Remember, the only way this is going to work is through absolute desire. And be careful: The gems can detect desires your surface mind doesn’t even suspect you possess.”

  “Heard and acknowledged,” Vorinn replied soberly—“Your Majesty and my King.”

  And with that he returned to his fellows.

  Avall likewise turned away, then took a deep breath, and murmured a quiet, “All right, Lyk and Merry, it’s time to blood yourselves.” He waited for them to draw their weapons, but, to his surprise, they reached forward and slid their hands down the naked steel of the Lightning Sword instead. He heard Lykkon gasp at the pain, but his cousin was up to it, he reckoned, and the gems, when they had time, would heal any physical damage he might have incurred.

  This was it, then. A final breath, and he closed his eyes, slammed his fist into his forehead to set himself bleeding there, and squeezed the triggers in the sword and shield. Power flooded into him at once, like a river that had breached a dam and now sent its waters outward, seeking equilibrium among three distinct tributaries. And this time—It was hard to explain, but it seemed as though the regalia felt more comfortable with him, as though it had accommodated itself to him, though it had been made for High King Gynn.

  “Merry, Lyk,” he called softly, “I can feel it awakening now, so put your hands on my hands on the sword, and as soon as you feel anything untoward start to happen, try as hard as you can to completely merge with me, and if you’re thinking anything at all, wish with all your might to be where Tyrill is.”

  He felt their hands slide over his, so slick with blood he could barely distinguish them—and then it didn’t matter, because their power was pouring into him along with the power of the gems, and with it came their consciousnesses and their wills. And where they touched his deepest self, parts of that self awoke that normally stayed quiescent: parts last stirred by Strynn and Rann, not his sister and his cousin. Yet his self welcomed them eagerly, and bound them to him, and directed their power into strange new channels, which made him stronger in turn.

  He wasn’t certain, but he thought the sword began to glow. Wish now! he thought at the others. And then there was nothing but the flow of power and the power of wishing.

  He thought he heard the snap of their bodies vanishing from atop Ninth Hold, but could not be certain. The only surety was that he wasn’t for a moment, and then he was once more, and that two other shapes were pressed close against him, then falling away, gasping in surprise and relief, while their blood vanished with his into the sword.

  It was Merryn’s muttered curse that warned him that things had not gone as expected, though he felt the stirring of wind against his face even as he heard it, and opened his eyes the barest instant later.

  They were not in Tyrill’s prison cell.

  Nor were they alone.

  In the predawn darkness, it took Avall a moment to determine their actual location. Even then, he only truly believed when Lykkon proclaimed it aloud: “Oh Cold, cousins! We’re on the Isle of The Eight!”

  And so it was. They had arrived somewhere near the center of Priest-Clan’s sacred isle in the middle of the Ri-Eron, where rose the various Fanes of The Eight. At the moment, in fact, they faced the Fane of Fate from before its Well. Indeed, they stood where he had stood almost a quarter ago when he had come here with Bingg seeking advice, and been shown the island in the lake for his pains, then gone home to discover that Strynn had already departed in search of Merryn.

  So it was full circle, then—which could not be coincidence.

  But these people—

  Who were these folk who stood around, staring gape-faced and—not so much fearful as mightily surprised? He squinted in the gloom, trying to read colors or insignia, but the gloom washed most of both away. As best he could tell, there wasn’t much to see, anyway: merely the dull colors that were clanless’s lot. There were a goodly number of them, too: maybe two hundred.

  And then he realized that what he had taken for a rising wind was in fact a low murmur of cautious wonder, even joy, that flowed from mouth to mouth. And in his shock at finding himself outside at all, when he had expected to confront Tyrill in her cell, it took an instant for their words to register. Yet when they did, they filled him with awe and wonder.

  “Avall, Avall, Avall,” they were saying. “The King has come again and Fate has sent him. The King! The King! The King has come to feed us. The King has come to call the lightning down on those who have ruined our land. Avall, Avall, Avall.”

  But in nowise so eloquently stated or well organized. Mostly it came as a rush of emotion that he actually felt as a physical force flashing through his veins. Which was reminder enough that he needed to release the triggers in the sword and shield and, as carefully as he could, ease the helm away from his face.

  “Majesty,” a man dared finally: sturdy, tall, and bare-armed, in clanless dull brown, yet handsome and well built for all that. And without more word, the man was on his knees. “Majesty, command us and, if you will, set us free.”

  Avall thought fast. He had no army at his back save Merryn and Lykkon. Yet these people had seen what would surely to them have been a wonder, and he was not fool enough to doubt the force of faith. And as man after man and woman after woman knelt before him he realized two things together. One was that this was an extraordinarily large crowd to have assembled here at a time of night when the Isle of The Eight was supposed to be closed to supplicants—which in turn implied that either they were here without leave, or that those charged with enforcing the ban had abandoned that enforcement. The other thing was that these people were both ripe and eager to be led. And if he lacked his usual army, still these folk made up in fervor what they might lack in steel. Besides, he had the Lightning Sword against which no other blade could stand, and also the shield to ward off any harm.

  And time was wasting, and he would lose the momentum of the moment if he did not act at once. Obviously it would be something akin to madness to attempt a jump to Tyrill’s cell amid so volatile a situation; he must therefore contrive some other plan—before Priest-Clan got word that anything untoward was afoot.

  “Quick,” he demanded of the man who knelt before him. “Three things. First: What is your name?”

  “Taravan.”

  “Second: The Lady Tyrill; she is to be executed today. Will that be in the Court of Rites?”

  “Majesty, it will, and at dawn, and a curse on those who do such a thing, and forget the Ancient Laws by so doing.”

  “Finally: Will you be my man and follow me for this morning only? Or if not me, will you follow the Lightning Sword?”

  “Ah, Majesty, we will follow.”

  “But we have no weapons,” someone protested—someone young, by the sound of it.

  “No,” Lykkon replied, glancing around, “but the Fane of Law lies yonder, and the fence around that Fane is made of very real swords, one added there per year. If Fate has given us an army, surely Law will see that army armed.”

  “And what of Vorinn?” Merryn murmured, as Avall’s makeshift militia began to rise.

  “Perhaps he even now fulfills our errand, or that on which he came. Or perhaps he will arrive here in our wake. We have no time to wait, if we would lead these good folk to the Citadel.”

  “Well,” Lykkon laughed roughly, “let’s be at it, then.”

  Merryn stared aghast. “And here I thought I was a warrior.”

  And then, with a tide of two hundred hardy souls behind him, Avall syn Argen-a turned and strode away from one manifestation of Fate in order to face another.

  CHAPTER XXXIV:

  INVASIONS

  (ERON: TIR-ERON–NEAR-AUTUMN: DAY XVI–SHORTLY BEFORE DAWN)

  Tyrill had been staring at the door for most of the night—ever since young Avall had come to her in what she increasingly believed had been a dream, promising a deliverance that still was not forthcoming. In spite of herself, she had almost g
one to sleep after that … occurrence. Indeed, had once drifted off in truth, only to sit bolt upright in the light of the single candle they allowed her and whisper his name into the shadows: “Avall … Avall … Avall.”

  And with that it had all come tumbling back to her. It had to be him, had to be, for she knew that he commanded that which allowed him to speak across distance, though he had never spoken to her in such a manner. But he had come to her in the night—his mind to her mind, like clandestine lovers—and she had relayed her situation, and Ilfon’s along with it, and he had promised her release.

  It had been the most vivid dream she had ever experienced, too, and so she had risen and dressed, and made herself ready for anything—for Avall to appear out of a veil of smoke, she supposed.

  But Avall had never come, and now dawnlight was creeping down that maze of mirrors, and in something less than a hand, as she reckoned it, they would come for her, and a hand after that—or sooner—she would be dead.

  Not that being dead concerned her overmuch, for death would bring an end to what was effectively constant pain. But it would also mean leaving a great many things unfinished, and worst of all, it would mean leaving Eron a worse place than when she had entered it—and if there was one lesson she had learned at her mother’s knee, it was to leave the world better for having been alive.

  And so she sat and waited, and was only a little surprised when she heard booted feet approaching, heard the familiar tentative knock and that same nameless Ninth Face woman’s voice warning her that she was about to enter.

  She found Tyrill dressed in the set of clan regalia they had let her keep since her trial—let her keep, she supposed, so that she could wear it to her execution and so be more easily identified. So that she could drive home Priest-Clan’s message that not even one as mighty as Tyrill san Argen-yr was exempt from Law.

  Which was a travesty and a farce, since, as best she could tell, Law barely existed anymore. And so she composed herself to calm, and rose when her guard approached, gently took her hands, and bound them only with soft rope in lieu of chains, then stood aside for her to walk through the door and into the corridor beyond. She didn’t know if these were the same four guards who had escorted her before, because they had drawn their hoods far forward over their faces and wore mouth-masks besides. One thing she did note, however: They had left the door open behind her. She wondered whether the candle would expire before she died or after.