Judgment at the Verdant Court

by M. C. Planck

  Christopher felt the sudden shift from comedy to deadly menace, like ice cracking underfoot.

  “No, my lord. She’s an elf.” He swallowed, hard. “But she’s a good elf. I mean, she’s White.”

  “Priest,” the King said, “that is not a good answer. That is not an answer that will keep your head from the chopping block. Try again.”

  There was nothing else to try. Lalania had been right from the beginning. Christopher had argued with her until she changed her mind into either underestimating the King’s hostility or overestimating his sanity. Christopher could not think of a thing to say, and Lalania, trembling and white, was not allowed to speak. Cannan put his hand on his sword. Though his face did not change, his eyes communicated a distant regret at what was to come, and what the outcome must surely be.

  Christopher shook his head. He could not fight his way out of this. Nor would the gloating Gold Apostle make the same mistake twice. This time they would burn every shred of his body and scatter the ashes. And if the Saint spoke up in his defense, it would only mean that the White Church would burn with him. There was no defense against treason, and treason was anything the King said it was.

  But by the gods, he was not going down alone. He stood up, the better to deliver his charge against the Gold Apostle. The two of them could share the same gallows.

  “My lord,” he said, but he didn’t get any further.

  A knight stumbled into the room, shouting. Men rushed to stop him, but once they got close enough to understand his ranting, they joined him. A growing knot of madness was sweeping toward the King.

  “For the sake of all that is Dark and Light,” the King said. “Is this one of your damn stratagems, priest?”

  Even now Christopher could not lie. “No, my lord. Although I wish it was.”

  Treywan drew his sword. The men around him, in their colored cloaks, moved back in fear. Save for the Saint, who stood directly behind the King and laid a hand upon his shoulder. Christopher figured that had to be worth a few brownie points.

  “Hold!” cried a nearby man Christopher recognized as Ser Morrison, although it was the real one this time. The man blocked the crowd’s rush to the King with his body, backed up by a handful of other knights.

  Unnecessarily, since the crowd stopped at the edge, spilling forward the provocateur.

  “My lord,” the man cried, his anguish too deep and real to be feigned. “My lord, I beg for royal vengeance. I have ridden three horses to death to fall at your feet and beg for vengeance.”

  Christopher’s stomach began to twist. The man was wearing blue armor. Bright, beautiful blue armor stained with blood and dirt.

  “Vengeance for who?” the King asked, because he had to.

  “Vengeance for my Lord Duke Nordland,” the man cried. Tears streamed down his face. “The most valiant Duke, my lord, and his lady wife. My wife. The town. It is all fire and ash!”

  “Speak clearly, man,” the King growled, fearsome as a thunderhead about to break. “You make no sense.”

  “Castle Nordland burns,” the man said. “A dragon has come.”

  “They will think it is your doing,” Lalania said. “I know better, because I know you cannot lie, and yet even I find myself thinking it. How terribly convenient, that at your trial for treason, your worst enemy should be obliterated by terrible force.”

  They had retreated to the Cathedral, temporarily forgotten in the confusion. The King, after turning several shades of pale, had thrown Christopher a murderous look and then stalked off to muster his army. Haste was pointless, of course, and everyone knew it. The dragon would have already burned everything, had burned everything days ago. Still, for the sake of appearances, something had to be done.

  “He wasn’t my worst enemy,” Christopher said. “The Gold Apostle is. If I had a pet dragon, I would be sending it there, not against Nordland.”

  “As always, you are sensible, and yet insensibly surprised when others are not.” The Saint shook his head in dismay.

  “There is a way out of this rumor,” Lalania said. “If the King slays the dragon, and yet Christopher’s power remains unabated, then it will be clear that the dragon was not the source of his power.”

  “If?” Christopher said, unclear on why there was uncertainty. Cardinal Faren had traveled with the army, offering his phenomenal healing power and Captain Steuben’s markedly less phenomenal fighting power to the effort. In addition, the Gold Apostle, the King’s wizard, and a horde of lesser knights, priests, and wizards had joined the short march north. It was an awe-inspiring collection of prowess, and there were still the peers and their armies to summon.

  “He has killed one,” Saint Krellyan said. “Why should he not kill another?”

  “He has?” Christopher exclaimed. That was even more amazing news than that he might or might not kill this one. Why didn’t anyone ever tell him this stuff?

  “It’s not just a dragon. It’s a goblin horde. Apparently they got tired of waiting for Nordland to fall into their trap, and brought the trap to him.” Lalania, as usual, was more informed than anyone. “First reports imply that the monsters have retreated, but that could be a ruse.”

  “Or an effective ploy,” Krellyan said. “The King will now feel bound to pursue the monsters into their own realm to administer justice. This may lead him into the traps set for Lord Nordland.”

  “This is nuts,” Christopher complained. He might not like the ruling class of the realm, but he wasn’t prepared to replace it just yet. If the King died, civil war seemed inevitable. The druids would secede, the Black would destroy the White, and the Greens would destroy each other. “We’ve got to stop him.”

  “How?” Lalania said. “Unless you’re volunteering to do it for him.”

  That was a thought. But he couldn’t, not yet. He had finally paid attention to the books in the Cathedral’s library; he knew what spells came with his next rank, what pinnacle of power he had been fighting so hard for.

  “One more rank,” he said, sighing. “One more rank and Marcius has to keep his promise. Then I could kill dragons.” Then he wouldn’t need to, because he wouldn’t care about the King’s life.

  Lalania stared at him, her attention speared by his words. He didn’t care anymore. It was way past time for keeping secrets.

  “Do you speak truly?” Krellyan asked him. “If you could travel home, you could return and save our Kingdom?”

  He thought about what Earth had to offer. Automatic rifles that made his weapons look like hobbyist’s toys. An anti-aircraft gun to reach up and claw that dragon out of the sky. Artillery that could deal destruction at ranges measured in miles instead of yards.

  “Yes,” he said. “A few sacks of gold would buy more than everything I have made here.”

  “Is death all you would bring us?” Krellyan asked sadly.

  He thought about other things, like democracy and women’s rights and chocolate.

  “Not all. But for now, it is what we need.”

  The Saint looked older and grayer than Christopher had ever seen him.

  “I do not know if this is the right thing to do.” The Saint spoke uncertainly. “Yet I cannot pretend the decision is not mine to make. There is a clear signal, a pressing need, an obvious path. Every fact but tradition and caution drives me forward.”

  “What?” Christopher asked. “You were right to stay behind.” Although the Saint had even more healing than the Cardinal, he was too valuable to risk. There was only one person in the realm who could revive a savaged corpse, and everyone agreed that death by dragon was likely to be savage.

  “Not that,” Krellyan said. “This.” From a cord around his neck he produced a silver flask, and from the flask he produced a rock of tael so large that Christopher was practically blinded. It was equal to all the tael he had ever seen in this world.

  “The Church has saved long and hard for my replacement, and yet it still must save another thirty years. And yet, if the realm perishes, of what v
alue is all this saving? Brother Christopher, if you can truly save the realm, then I must lend you the means if they are at my disposal.”

  “You would make him a Prophet?” Lalania asked. “This troublesome, mysterious stranger, who rattles our entire realm like a drum even though he has been here a scant two years?”

  “If he is a drummer, then the music would appear to be written by a god,” Krellyan said. “What else accounts for the rhythm of our lives of late?”

  Lalania shot Christopher a triumphant look that clearly said, I knew it. So many times he had professed his ordinariness to her, only to have it all stripped away as a lie here in the Cathedral, under the shadow of the Bright Lady. He fought the truth, out of habit if nothing else.

  “Lord Krellyan,” Christopher argued, “I can’t accept this.” He had already printed a fortune in bonds he had to be responsible for. This amount of debt was too much for him to conceive of.

  “You cannot refuse it,” Krellyan said, “if your words are true. The safety of the realm is more important than your conscience.”

  Maggie. He would get to see Maggie. It would be short and hurried. He would be unable to rationally explain where he had been, or why his nose was straight now, or why he was spending gold coins on heavy weaponry. But he would get to see her again.

  “It’s not what I planned. But it will speed up my plans.” He could only carry armloads, but that would be enough. A shoulder-mounted rocket launcher to kill this monster, and then blueprints for factories and machines. The Chinese had made AK-47s in conditions that didn’t include running water or regular electricity. He could bring back calipers and drill bits, tools that he could use to make other tools. He wouldn’t need magic anymore. “I’ll need gold.”

  “Gold is the least of our worries,” Krellyan said. “The spell will let you carry ninety pounds; will that be sufficient to your needs? If so, I have that much in our vault and easily to hand.”

  At a thousand dollars an ounce, that was over a million dollars.

  “Yes,” Christopher agreed. “That will do for now.”

  “Then begin,” Krellyan commanded, “before I lose my nerve. Gain your rank today, and tomorrow we will send you home to do what you can do.”

  Christopher took the lump of purple and ate it before he lost his own nerve. It was not just a contract for a staggering debt, but also for changing a world.

  “Look at the bright side,” Lalania said weakly. “When you kill the dragon you’ll be able to pay the Saint back.”

  He had forgotten that part. It was also a contract for killing a dragon.

  The next day they waited fretfully for the rank to manifest. It was ironic. Christopher had finally achieved the pinnacle of power in this world—he could revive the dead now—and yet the first spell he would cast would be to leave it.

  “It will take me days,” he warned them. “Stall the King as long as you can.”

  “He will not invade the goblin lands without mustering the peers,” the Saint assured him. “This will give you a week at least. In any case you can send to me, and I to you. Do not spoil your mission through false urgency.”

  Christopher had forgotten about the sendings. There were probably lots of things he was forgetting, but right now it didn’t matter. He was going to go home and find Maggie and squeeze her until she burst.

  He picked up a thick leather satchel in each hand, holding a combined ninety pounds of gold. Heavy, but no worse than the plate armor he had once worn, and his time in this world had made him strong. Chanting the unfamiliar words, he prepared himself for the unimaginable. Although, come to think of it, his first trip through a portal had been so subtle he hadn’t even noticed it. Suspicious, he looked around to see if he had already made the transition, but he was not on Earth. Or in the Cathedral. Instead, he stood in an unending field of soft white mist curling around his ankles like cotton, under a dull white sky that stretched out forever.

  “I am here to keep my promise,” Marcius said. “Though honestly you should have contacted me before jumping into the spell. Still, we can’t fault enthusiasm.”

  “Right.” Christopher nodded. “You promised me the key to my home. So bust loose. I’ve got places to go and important people to kill.”

  “Very well, but before I tell you the secret, promise me you won’t add me to that list.”

  Christopher cocked his head. Marcius sighed.

  “The key to your home is you. You, and you alone, can contact the ancestral plane of man. I give you nothing, because you require nothing. Anytime you try to travel to your plane, you will succeed.”

  “Why can’t other people?” Christopher asked.

  “Because they were not born there. You can only reach the plane because you came from it. The way is blocked to any other, including even I.”

  “So . . . I am special.” Lalania would be glad to know a god had said she was right.

  “Only by an accident of geography,” Marcius said.

  Christopher thought out loud. “That explains why no one else goes there. That explains why Earth isn’t constantly being invaded by curiosity-seekers wanting to buy technological marvels.”

  Marcius had a different viewpoint. “It also explains the lack of murderous invasion by hjerne-spica.”

  “Ha,” Christopher said. “They’d be pretty cheesed off to discover they had wasted their time. There isn’t any tael on Earth.” Dead people didn’t give off purple stuff when you boiled their brains. If they did, he was sure somebody would have noticed by now. The AMA, or the CDC at least.

  “They might well do it for mere sport,” Marcius said. “But that does not matter now. The terms of our bargain are fulfilled. So I wish to take this opportunity to thank you for all that you have done for our world.”

  “I’m not finished,” Christopher objected. “Don’t thank me yet. I still have time to screw it up.”

  Marcius smiled wryly. “Nonetheless, you have sown the seeds of change, and I hope for the best.”

  “Like I said”—Christopher grinned—“you ain’t seen nothing yet. But before I go, can you answer one quick question? I mean, I can figure it out once I get there, but I’d like to know as soon as possible so I can start planning.”

  “One question is not out of line,” Marcius agreed.

  “Can I revive the dead over there? I mean, on Earth.” It had finally occurred to him that raising the dead—indeed, even merely healing cancer—would be worth more than any amount of gold he could carry.

  “No,” Marcius said carefully. “As you noted, there is no tael on Earth.”

  “Damn.” Christopher frowned. “I’m not looking forward to making more trips weighted down like this. . . . Wait a minute.”

  He stared at the god’s inscrutable face.

  “Wait a minute. Spells don’t work on Earth. You just said spells don’t work on Earth.”

  “That is correct,” Marcius said.

  Christopher gaped, at a loss for words. Logic and desire warred inside him until curiosity won.

  “Then how can I come back?”

  Marcius smiled, so sad and noble that Christopher wanted to cry. Or punch him. Or both.

  “You cannot. Your power will let you open the gate to your world from here, but it cannot reach from the other side. Once there, you will not be able to cast magic of any kind. But consider: you will keep your regenerated body. You will keep your fortune in gold. You will be reunited with your wife, after only a few years. We consider these gifts small payment for all you have done for our world. If you choose to go home now, the gods will not blame you.”

  The gods might not, but plenty of other people would. The Saint, who had just invested the future of his Church in him. Cannan, who had been promised a miracle. Karl, who had learned to hope.

  And himself. He could not walk out on these people, who had fought and died for him, who had believed in him even when it made no sense to do so. He could not do that to himself.

  “I can’t do this,”
he said. “I can’t quit on them. Why did you let me believe I could go home when I can’t quit on them?”

  “You can go home,” the god told him, “whenever you want. The spell will even let you take your horse. You just can’t take your obligations.”

  “Was it all a lie?” Christopher asked. “Was it all a lie from the beginning?”

  “No,” Marcius said. “There is still a way in front of you. And there is still more I hoped you would do. But all of the challenges you have defeated will be like paper lions before the challenges that lay ahead.”

  “And I can quit anytime. You’re betting on a horse that can quit the race anytime.”

  “I am not betting,” Marcius said. “I am hoping. It is an entirely different kind of beast.”

  The god began to fade. Christopher knew he had to make a decision, a decision he would have to keep making every day until it wore him down into a broken nub. And why would he go home then? Who would want him then?

  He let the spell die on his lips, its beautiful syllables an inaudible good-bye to the woman he loved. The mist cleared and left him standing in the Cathedral, dropping heavy bags of gold to the floor in a defeated clatter. Krellyan and Lalania stared at him in alarm.

  “What happened?” Krellyan asked.

  “I met a god,” Christopher said. “He gave me some advice for travelers lost far from home. ‘Do not make promises.’”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks for the encouragement of the Loyal Crew who have been with this series since the beginning: nephews David, Alex, Dylan, and honorary nephew Fletcher, and compadre Josh, half a brother half a world away; to my agent Kristin for her inexhaustible patience; to my copyeditor Jeffrey, for counting missing fingers among many other clarities; to my editor Rene, for making me look in the interesting corners; to Sophie, for finally starting prep so Mommy and Daddy can have writing time; and always, to Sara.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  M. C. Planck is the author of Sword of the Bright Lady (World of Prime, Book 1) and Gold Throne in Shadow (World of Prime, Book 2). After a nearly transient childhood, he hitchhiked across the country and ran out of money in Arizona. So he stayed there for thirty years, raising dogs, getting a degree in philosophy, and founding a scientific instrument company. Having read virtually everything by the old masters of SF&F, he decided he was ready to write. A decade later, with a little help from the Critters online critique group, he was actually ready. He was relieved to find that writing novels is easier than writing software, as a single punctuation error won’t cause your audience to explode and die. When he ran out of dogs, he moved to Australia to raise his daughter with kangaroos.