Fleeing Peace

by Sherwood Smith

  Keriam said slowly, “If it’s true they want us whole, then we might have time on our side.”

  “That’s what I think,” Senrid said. That’s what I hope. “They’re going to need armies in our world if their rifts don’t work. If that happens, then we turn on them and fight. But their main effort, according to Hibern, is to create and maintain a big rift in Sartor.”

  They stirred, one shaking his head, another rubbing his chin.

  “Back to us. Tdanerend is ensorcelled. It’s not him anymore, it’s Detlev controlling him. He wants to sit on the throne—that’s about all of his will that’s left. If you act like nothing is changed, I really think there won’t be any battles, any fighting. Yet. It’s a gamble, because you know I can’t promise anything.”

  “And?” one of the foot commanders asked, folding his arms.

  “Sit tight,” Senrid said. “But be ready to act.”

  “What if Tdanerend commands us to attack Perideth or Telyerhas or one of the other kingdoms?” Gherdred asked. “In the name of Norsunder?”

  Senrid sighed. “That’s what I mean by acting.” He saw that only Keriam followed his mental side-step, so he said, forcing himself to slow down, “If they let my uncle play at being a conqueror-king, then yes, you’re going to face that choice. If what I think is true, and Detlev is in control—Detlev or some other big blade who has some kind of big plan—then he’s just going to want you in place for the gathering of forces on a world scale. But you have to be careful. Detlev is not stupid enough to believe for a heartbeat that your lack of resistance to Tdanerend means you can be trusted.”

  Senrid watched his war leaders, who had trained all their lives to defend the kingdom. He had just asked them to effectively surrender without lifting a sword. He waited for their reaction, heartsick with anxiety.

  Gherdred flicked his hand open, and Keriam said, “And the benefit of non-resistance is . . .?”

  “I think . . . I think the first struggle is going to be magic. Even if we had three times our numbers, we can’t fight that. Detlev may be a war leader—the history books hint at that, though he might have used other names—but we know he’s a deadly powerful mage. Look, here’s the important thing. If he’s ruling through my uncle, it means nothing will happen here until they get their rift and their larger force, and if that happens, every kingdom around us is in danger.”

  He paused.

  Keriam looked up. “You keep saying ‘you.’ Are you leaving?”

  “Yes. Here’s the second thing. What they’ve done to Tdanerend they might want to do to me. Would you follow my commands if Detlev took over my mind and caused me to order you against every kingdom around us, fighting until you are dead?”

  They exchanged uneasy glances.

  “It would not be you,” Gherdred said slowly.

  “How would you know? I’m terrified.” Senrid flung his hands wide.

  They could see how scared he was—Senrid, who had never had much of a boyhood, living under the constant threat of death from his uncle. Senrid’s courage was already legendary, though he didn’t know it.

  “I was Detlev’s prisoner, that last day before we defeated my uncle. The only reason I’m here is because one of Detlev’s mage enemies came to my aid, but I don’t expect that twice. And I can’t stand against him alone. You know how little training I’ve had, and for how long.”

  When his leaders began to utter reassurances about how smart he was, how hard he’d worked, Senrid curbed his temper. They were loyal, they meant well, but they didn’t understand. “Norsunder exists outside of time. Detlev’s had the equivalent of four thousand years to concoct some lethal magery. So here’s my job. I’ve got to get out into the world and find magic allies strong enough to help me take him on. ”

  He paused again; the commanders’ reactions were subtle. No more than a stirred boot, a hand still rubbing a jaw, but Senrid knew that the mention of Norsunder dismayed them. None of them knew magic, for Marloven law was strict about the military and magic-wielders being separate—except for the ruler.

  Keriam finally said, “So if we do get orders to march under Norsunder’s banner, then we are free to organize, mark out Tdanerend’s Norsunder guard, and act at once.” He snapped his fingers.

  Gherdred’s old face tightened. “We will raise our banner one last time—and strike it.”

  To the Marlovens, that meant a fight to the last warrior, who takes his knife to the banner and then dies. “But we don’t want that, because glorious as it sounds, it just means we lose,” Senrid said. “So we’re going to try a ruse. Let Detlev see from a distance that you’ve fallen into line under my uncle again. Maybe he’s so busy he’ll think that Marlovens have fallen obediently back to the old ways. And I mean the old bad days of factions, duels, sloppy drills. Slow moving because regs about how the horses are shod are more important than anything else. Use up as much time as you can if you get orders. I’m hoping that the mages training Hibern are going to be keeping Detlev on the hop magic-wise.”

  They saluted, fist to heart.

  “So you will keep yourself from Detlev’s hands in your search for allies, will you?” Keriam asked, not hiding his worry.

  Senrid straightened up and grinned.

  It was a toothy grin, arrogant and challenging, and his uncle had detested it since Senrid was small. He appeared to be little threat, standing there, short and slight, in his plain white linen shirt and dark trousers and riding boots, for he refused to wear a uniform he hadn’t earned.

  What the old commanders saw in that face and form was a glimpse of his coldly determined grandfather, but in his light voice, and in his manner, there was an echo of his brilliant father, who had been the first Marloven king to talk of justice in many, many years. That taste of a new concept of government, so brief before Tdanerend’s knife in the back had ended Indevan’s life, had lingered during the long, grim years of regency, to surface when Senrid had at last faced his uncle and proclaimed a return to Indevan’s Law.

  But now, in the face of far greater threat?

  “I intend to make Detlev sorry he ever crossed our border.”

  Chapter Three

  Kitty’s throat hurt from yelling, pleading, and yelling. Leander wouldn’t budge.

  She stomped along, angry not just with Leander, but with the entire universe. Her brother had just managed to get their little kingdom back to peace again, and they deserved to live happily ever after. They did not deserve the sudden shock of her horrible mother coming, with Norsundrians at her back, to retake her throne.

  “I still think we should go directly to Hibern,” she stated, as she had at least a dozen-dozen times.

  “We can’t, Kitty,” Leander said yet again.

  He felt oppressed as well as cold. The gray sky seemed to hang just above his reach, the clouds about to drop an avalanche. His leg ached.

  Kyale trudged unhappily at his side, her shoulders hunched and her arms held against her body. Why were boys so dense? “Why are we going into Marloven Hess? We should go anywhere else! Who nearly got me killed just a few months ago?” she retorted.

  Leander suppressed a sigh. How many times had they had this conversation?

  “Senrid,” he said. “But obviously he changed his mind. You spent a month with him afterward, and he didn’t kill you!”

  “That’s because he needed something from me.”

  Leander sighed. “Who saved both our lives when his uncle stampeded into Vasande Leror with the east end of his army?”

  “Senrid could have changed his mind again, now that he’s got his own kingdom and his skunk of an uncle is gone,” Kyale announced.

  He’s not gone, Leander thought, but he hadn’t told Kitty what he’d overheard right after Mara Jinea appeared.

  “And Marloven Hess is twenty times bigger than Vasande. Fifty! And it has that huge nasty army, and they’re all evil Marlovens, so no one is going to help us if you’re wrong. If we go straight to Hibern, at least we know she’s
on the right side.”

  Leander gritted his teeth against reminding her that Hibern was a Marloven, too. Kitty was exaggerating, and she knew it.

  Yes, Senrid had originally tried to have Kyale executed, along with that red-headed girl from Mearsies Heili. But that was because he’d been ordered to. Senrid hadn’t known any other kind of life before he was permitted outside his kingdom. Leander had seen Senrid’s regret when they all got smashed to that weird water world.

  And Kitty knew it. The real problem was jealousy. She worried that Leander and Senrid would become instant friends, and leave her out. Everyone in her life had left her out. He had to be the first not to do it, too.

  Kitty quieted only when they spotted a kid their age driving a weaver’s cart, who cheerfully offered them a ride. She didn’t complain about the kid, even though he was a Marloven, or about being squeezed in with a load of wet-smelling carded wool, not after he invited them to spend the night at his family’s farmhouse. “We’re always taking in travelers on their way to the royal city,” he said.

  “Probably to use as target practice,” Kitty whispered, but in Crestellian, and she didn’t really mean it. She was thankful not to have to walk, and looked forward to the prospect of hot food.

  Though a princess shouldn’t have to do any of those things.

  o0o

  It was noon when they first spotted the pale, honey-colored stone towers of Choreid Dhelerei, Senrid’s capital. By mid-afternoon they trudged through the city gates.

  Leander scanned the alert sentries walking back and forth along the walls. As they passed through the gate, walking behind a string of slow carts carrying wicker-barrels of vegetables, no one gave them a second glance.

  He knew it would be different when they attempted to enter Senrid’s castle.

  “Which way?” he asked as they walked into the great crossroads just inside the gate. Several streets gave off the wide, cobbled expanse.

  Kyale hunched her shoulders and peered around. “You can see the castle from there,” she muttered, pointing at the towers to their left, visible above the rooftops; Choreid Dhelerei covered three round hills, the castle being on the highest, and the city spread southward on the others.

  They reached another pair of gates. Sentries walked alertly along it, but again, they totally ignored the two—though the man right after them got halted, as someone called, “Your business?”

  Kitty was relieved. For her, notice meant threat, but Leander sensed something very wrong, and his neck tightened.

  They approached the grand assembly areas where Marloven kings of old had held court, but not one of the black-and-tan uniformed warriors, or the runners in their longer tunics, paid them any heed.

  Leander stepped in the way of a boy his own age who was carrying papers. The boy’s gaze flitted over Leander, then switched to Kitty. He side-stepped and walked on.

  Kitty said, “He was looking for one of those stupid uniforms on you.”

  “I saw that,” Leander said. He was also thinking, He recognized you.

  “Good thing these splat-brained Marlovens are too busy to harass us, huh?”

  Leander didn’t answer, but mentally braced to transfer the instant he saw trouble. If he could—if they weren’t walking into some kind of trap.

  They trod down long halls toward the residence wing; instead of the bare stone Leander had expected, the halls had been plastered over, and someone had made frescos of highly stylized raptors in flight in subtle shades of gray.

  He winced at every painful step, wondering if Senrid was gone. He could even be ‘gone’ elsewhere in this vast castle. The place was so big that Leander figured his entire capital city would fit into it. Not that Crestel would qualify as a city anywhere else but in Vasande Leror; anywhere else in the world it was a market town.

  Finally a young man just a few years older than Leander sped past—and Leander said loudly, “We’re here to see Senrid.”

  The runner did not pause, or speak, but the way he jinked sideways and darted up a stairway caused Leander to whisper to Kitty, “Let’s follow him.”

  Leander grimaced as they did their best to stay with the runner’s swift pace, but at least they didn’t have far to go, just up two flights of stairs and down a hall. The runner left them at an open door, and there was Senrid, seated at a desk.

  “Yuk,” Kitty said, by way of announcing their presence. “Here’s the king of creeps himself.”

  Senrid’s head came up quickly. Leander thought in relief, He didn’t even hear Kitty’s crack.

  He was wrong, but Senrid had gotten used to ignoring Kyale.

  “So Uncle was correct for once,” he said cheerily. “I told my people not to see you, so officially, you’re not here.”

  “Huh?” Leander and Kitty said together.

  Senrid eyed them. Kyale was a pretty girl—if you liked spoiled brats, which Senrid didn’t. As usual, she looked sulky, but he wasn’t going to comment on that because she’d helped him regain his kingdom, however reluctantly.

  He shifted his attention to Leander, tall for fifteen, lanky, pain in his brow and around his mouth. Oh. He was limping.

  Senrid began stacking things on the desk, speaking quickly as he worked. “My esteemed uncle said I had a chance to redeem myself by turning you two over to him.”

  “I knew it!” Kitty looked around for something to bat Senrid over the head with.

  “Kitty. Senrid’s not doing it.” Leander sighed. “Is it all right if I sit down?”

  “I don’t trust him,” Kyale muttered loud enough to make sure Senrid heard.

  Senrid said to Leander, “What happened?”

  “Ice.” Leander dropped onto one of the chairs.

  “A Norsundrian chased us!” Kitty said, arms crossed.

  Leander said, “Mara Jinea walked into Crestel with a host and took over. All my magical protections swept away like so many cobwebs.” He sighed, thinking of his weeks of hard work.

  Senrid grimaced, and Leander knew he recognized the cost—not just of losing all that work, but of walking out and leaving his kingdom to the enemy.

  “So we escaped,” Leander said. “Like a pair of scuttling spiders—”

  “Better than staying just to get crunched,” Kyale stated in a loud, angry voice.

  “Absolutely right,” Senrid said, and snorted a laugh at Kyale’s blank surprise. He turned to Leander. “Same thing is about to happen here. Detlev sent my uncle, which means the war is magical first.”

  He was angry, and he looked angry. Even Kyale saw it.

  “We can’t stand up to Detlev and the rest of them. And I have no allies. Apparently you two don’t either, despite your being allies with the so-called all-embracing, mutually supportive lighters.” His sardonic tone made Kitty flush in rage.

  Leander sensed Senrid’s question. “I don’t know anyone. Vasande is so small. Probably, for all the big and powerful countries know, Mara Jinea never left. Maybe they’re facing their own trouble.”

  Senrid said, “I think we’d better get down to Sartor and help them fight against that rift being made. That’s where Hibern is right now. Maybe we can find allies there.”

  Kitty turned on her brother in triumph. “Even he thinks we should go to Hibern.”

  Leander nodded slowly. He said in a low voice, “There’s more.” Then he cast a quick look over at Kyale, who watched him with an expression midway between annoyance and fear. “I transferred Kitty to the border, and went back to spy a little.”

  Kitty sucked in a breath.

  Leander raised a hand. “I didn’t tell you because I only wanted to have this argument once.”

  Kitty’s face reddened, but she kept her lips tightly shut.

  Leander said to Senrid, “I overheard Mara Jinea talking—to your uncle.”

  “Are you certain of that?” Senrid asked.

  Leander’s mouth twisted sourly. “I will never forget that voice.”

  “What did they say?”

&nb
sp; “I only heard a bit, until a third one showed up. Mara Jinea made a remark about my cowardice in ducking out, and hoola-loola, hoola-loola— making a public example of me and hoola-loola. Your uncle said something about you, and I didn’t hear all the next bit, but this I did hear: when the northern rift is made.”

  “Northern?” Senrid repeated, his gray-blue eyes wide.

  “Yes. Then a third one showed up, a man. Laughing voice, faint accent—I don’t know what it is. He knew I was in the closet. But no one could have seen me because I transferred straight to it.”

  Senrid’s breath whooshed out. “Detlev. Mindreading. Had to be. But he doesn’t have a laughing voice. Like you said, I will never forget that voice. It’s low, and calm. Even. And no accent whatsoever.”

  “This was what the musicians call a tenor voice, a singing voice. Music in it, and laughter.” Leander shook his head. “I don’t know if it was Detlev or not. The only Norsundrian I’ve ever seen is Mara Jinea. What I do know is that I’ve got to warn someone about that rift in the north.”

  Senrid rubbed his eyes. “You might be the only one who knows about that. Detlev told my uncle to make that offer to me just to make sure I stayed put.”

  “Trap all three of us,” Leander said.

  “Time to get out.” Senrid finished stacking his work, closed his eyes, and muttered a short phrase. The air scintillated. Leander felt that dry-wind sense of major magic as the papers and books on Senrid’s desk vanished, then Senrid threw open the lid of a trunk beside the desk.

  “At least Tdanerend will never find that stuff,” Senrid said as he shrugged into a heavy winter tunic. The muted clink of metal indicated pockets filled with coins. The tunic was plain green, not the Marloven military black and tan.

  Senrid plucked from the trunk a cape, gloves, and a knit hat. “Shall we leave?”

  Kitty put her hands on her hips. “But I’m hungry!”

  Senrid snorted a laugh. “Want to make a wager my uncle has a grab squad lurking right outside my door?”

  He grabbed them by the wrists, and they endured the humming inner-vertigo of a long transfer.