She straightened the folds of my vest, smiling, and this was a painfully complicated smile, and had too much of sorrow in it for my taste. “Tell me, my dearest… what happens after we return to Troth? Presuming our confederates are successful in their mission, and Troth is willing to acknowledge the elves as a new nation on their northern border.”
“Then, I suppose, we build that nation,” I said.
“You have duties for us, then?” she said. “I will marry you and, I suppose, read the books of the athenaeum and write a treatise on the use of magic against revenants. Chester will do all that he can to avoid marrying Minda, and probably fail, and in desperation turn to becoming the king of all the new trade routes to the Archipelago. Guy and Radburn will… find something to occupy themselves, but it will probably involve elven brothels, if they have such things. Guy may eventually go into politics to please his uncle. Radburn—will probably become a poet and die young of dissipation.”
“Radburn a poet!” I exclaimed.
“I can see it,” Kelu muttered, ears flat.
“Can you imagine us thriving in that life?” she finished, resting her palms flat on my chest.
Obediently I made an effort. Radburn the dissipated poet… God help him. And me, for no doubt he’d want to foist his first efforts on us before publishing them. If, I thought suddenly, I had the time to hear them. What guarantee that I would have the leisure I had before this began? I was now a prince, and my brother’s people were obstreperous when they weren’t actual villains, and teaching them to once again behave like normal folk rather than tyrants would necessitate all my living energy.
This was Ivy’s point, wasn’t it. “You suggest that I have come out of all this with purpose and a position and work to do… and none of you have that security. Despite having become accustomed to living in the high excitement of a fairy tale.”
She nodded. “And here you have the Archipelago, which has been rent asunder by the conflicts between human and elves, and which desperately needs… people like us. Who weren’t born here, to this history of oppression. Who know elves who don’t want to be masters. There may be many ways to heal this rift, but the surest one must be the influx of third parties. Third parties like us.”
“You’d want to come here,” I said. “And brave the political climate that will develop.”
“I’ll come here with you when you brave it,” she said. “And come here for you, if you need a representative and you are otherwise busy. But I imagine you’ll want Chester here first, as he speaks both languages. There will be more than enough work for Guy and Radburn as well if they wanted to undertake it. We could be years, helping to mend the quarrels here, or facilitating those who want to immigrate—or emigrate. We could be useful.”
“It’s good to be useful,” Emily murmured, and started when Ivy nudged her with a foot.
“We will need genet liaisons as well.”
“For all the ten years or so it will take for the remainder of the genet population to live out its lifespan, and die,” Kelu said.
“Then for that decade, you will not want for work,” Ivy said firmly. “It is awful to want for purpose. To think of a life in which you can do nothing useful.”
How long ago it was that Ivy had sat with me on a blanket and confessed to being unable to imagine what she would do with her education once she’d completed it. How melancholy she’d sounded! She had hoped for something more; so did we all, perhaps.
“So you think,” I said to Amhric, “that I was raised among humans in part so that I would be able to bring this unique perspective to the task of unifying the Archipelago.”
“I think,” Amhric said, choosing the words carefully, “that the situation here calls for more sensitivity than we assumed.”
“And you are a sensitive elf,” Emily offered.
“Our task, then, is to win the trust of the people currently in control of large portions of Serala, I assume?” At Ivy’s nod, I said, “And this we should not anticipate happening instantly.”
“These humans don’t have a king the way the elves do,” Ivy pointed out. “Humans don’t operate on mysticism.” At my look, she laughed. “Yes, I know, fine words from someone lately mired in the muck made from decaying undead bodies, of which we were warned by folk tales and a Church created by angelic visitation. But you know it’s true. We live in an enlightened age. We all struggle toward fairness and liberty and equality—” Kelu snorted and Ivy continued, “Even when we fail.”
“So we should pave the way for Chester and Radburn and Guy, and you when I can bear to have you from my side,” I said. “Well, let’s see what we can do, then.”
“What you can do is find out who’s been killing all the men we send out to this corner of the isle,” Ikaros said, pointing out an area on the map. A seething Diantha stood behind him, but kept her peace.
The map was itself a revelation. Staring at it wove it into the landsense, which began to tug at me, urging me to look west. Would it always be thus, I wonder? That I could navigate by sight and magic? Like some preternatural bird, always flying south for winter? How peculiar!
Other than the landsense’s prodding, I could discern nothing of the locale. Because, being the man of leisure that I was, I had not had time to ask Chester to teach me the glyphs. “Some elven hold-out, I presume.”
“And deadly.” Ikaros nodded. “I don’t fear to tell you that no one’s come back alive from there. I’m tired of losing people, and so is Jonthil—my counterpart over in Ekadet. But whoever’s over there is creeping into our territory and we can’t afford to let them keep winning land from us.”
“So you’d like us to go and find a way to make them stop,” I said. “Shall I bring them to a parley table?”
“We don’t parley with elves,” Diantha said.
I raised my eyes from the map to her face and she blanched—anger, not fear.
Ignoring her, Ikaros said, “If you can bring them back to talk, I’ll listen. No other guarantee.”
“I wouldn’t expect one,” I said politely. “Will you send someone to accompany us?”
“They’re elves,” Ikaros said. “I suspect they’ll respond better to you if you show up without a company of armed humans.” He grinned, showing teeth.
“I suppose,” I said. “So long as I can take my entire party with me.”
“Not Tchanu,” Diantha said.
I glanced at Ikaros, who smoothed the edge of the map before saying, “She stays. She can hardly keep the pace you’ll be setting as injured as she is.”
Meeting his gaze, I said, “I trust she’ll be in one piece when I return. And by that I mean ‘alive’ as well as in one piece.”
Ikaros held up a hand to stay Diantha’s protests. “In one piece, and alive, yes.”
“And my guards?”
“Are dead,” Diantha said. “Didn’t you believe us when we said so?”
“All of them?”
“All of them,” she repeated with spiteful pleasure.
I had schooled my face, I thought, but something in my countenance caused Ikaros to say, “We were ambushing what we thought to be an enemy force. To give them the time to respond would have been suicidal.”
“You ask me to believe all of them died in the fray? I suspect,” I said, “some of them were subdued, and then killed in cold blood.”
“We thought they were our enemies,” Ikaros repeated.
“Take care lest you become like them.” I stood. “We’ll go find your elf. But if you kill them at your parley table—”
“We won’t,” Ikaros said quickly. “I am not an unreasonable man.”
I nodded and took my leave of them.
“So that’s it? We’re leaving?” Emily asked.
“Nothing’s that simple,” Kelu muttered.
“No,” I agreed as our horses were brought out to us. The wind ruffled the grass on the slope leading from the courtyard, where we were waiting. I had not wanted to tarry, given permission to go.
I spoke in Lit, lest we have eavesdroppers. “No, they believe they have sent us to our deaths, obviously. They want no parley.”
“Are you certain?” Amhric asked, quiet.
I glanced at him and sighed. “Their leader might,” I said. “In his mind, perhaps. As an intellectual exercise. ‘Why yes, it would be a good idea to seem a reasonable man, open to compromise.’ But in his heart he doesn’t believe we’ll succeed. If we return with whomever it is responsible for their troubles, he will not be glad of it.”
“So what are we going to do?” Ivy asked.
“We are going to go see if we have an unexpected ally in the corner of the continent. Or if, as Kelu is about to remind me, most elves are perfidious and this one will welcome a king even less than a human army.”
“So… in keeping basically with our habits so far,” Kelu said. “Throwing ourselves into stupid situations and trusting they’ll work out.”
“I have put together a plan or two, here and there.”
She flipped her ears back and snorted. “At the last minute.”
“As any student will tell you, nothing focuses the thoughts like a deadline.” The horses arrived and we grew quiet, seeing to the packs. The deaths of our guard had left us with a sufficiency of mounts, but Emily still preferred to ride behind Ivy. Kelu, though, chanced a beast of her own; one of the more placid ones consented to bear her, despite her odd smell, and she lifted her chin, holding the reins in her furry fingers with obvious pride. It was the one moment of pleasure I had that day, seeing her thus.
As we rode out, I tried not to notice how sadly deficient our train had become and failed. “I am glad to be going. But I had not anticipated leaving behind the graves of most of our party already.”
“You didn’t really know them,” Kelu said.
“They were mine to safeguard all the same.”
“No,” Kelu said, tail twitching over the back of the horse. “That was their job. To give up their lives for you. Which they did a little more enthusiastically than necessary, but still.” She fingered the reins, letting them slacken in her grasp, watching the horse’s reaction with more interest than mine. “You need to start getting used to that. You’re the prince of elves now. The last one left you the title and everything. You have one job—protecting the king. Everyone else has to fend for themselves, or for you.”
I winced.
“She’s right,” Ivy said.
I did not reply, and spurred the horse on. Nor did anyone trouble me for leaving the conversation unfinished. I led because the landsense drew me, and they followed, and that was well for several hours. To be free of Nudain was a relief; to be allowed the silence to struggle with my ambivalence over Tchanu and my distress at my own lack of reaction to the deaths of the guard… Kelu was right, I hadn’t known them well and it was their duty to die for Amhric, and for me. But I did not want to be the kind of man who didn’t mark their passing, save as a matter of tired duty.
When at last my attention strayed outside my own skull, I found Amhric riding alongside me. His mien was solemn by nature, though it was the solemnity of one in love with God, that found both wonder and joy in equal measure to sorrow… but even so, I could tell his mood was graver than usual, and I knew what had presaged it. I waited, head bowed, for the inevitable.
When it did not come, I looked over at him.
“Did you expect me to say it?” he asked.
I grimaced. “I did, yes.”
“Did you need me to?”
I hesitated over that answer, fingering the reins the way Kelu had. How had they felt to her? Knowing that she was directing a beast by herself for the first time? Those responsibilities did not find me gladsome. Grateful, perhaps, for that I never wanted to become the sort of man who could shrug them off. But not glad, the way Amhric could be glad in duty. Could I?
I said, “Please,” and realized I meant it with all my heart.
He stretched over to rest a hand on my wrist, and fearful that he would fall I reached back for him and we rode hand-in-hand. “This is what it has always felt like for me, knowing you would die for me.”
“I hate it!” I exclaimed. And then, marshaling myself, “I beg your pardon. That was not very politic of me.”
He laughed. “No, it wasn’t. But I would never want you to be politic with me.”
“We are always politic with the ones we love,” I said. “To spare them pain.”
His fingers squeezed mine. “Spare me none of your pain, my brother.”
I flushed. “I don’t suppose it grows easier. To accept the sacrifices of others.”
“No,” he said. “And I don’t think you will forgive yourself easily for counting the sacrifice of those you love higher than the strangers you have not had the opportunity to befriend.”
“But I knew them,” I whispered. “I touched them in their souls, where magic dwells.”
“Then you knew them, a little, as God knew them. But a spirit is... like a pearl underwater. Some keep their hearts and minds so clear we can see straight through the surface to the treasure of that pearl. Others bury that pearl so deeply, and under so much silt and mud, that we may never find it. May in fact lose ourselves in the attempt, and drown.”
The metaphor struck me, and for some time I rode in silence, holding his hand, concentrating on keeping our horses abreast so I wouldn’t have to drop it. At last, I said, “What shall we do about Tchanu?”
“What we must.”
“Hardly an answer,” I said.
He chuckled. “As surprising as it might seem, dear heart, I don’t have them all.”
“And that,” I said, “comforts me. I cannot love an angel as I might a saint.”
“I hope you will love a brother best of all, because I hardly qualify for sainthood.” He grinned, merry suddenly. “We will see all of this through. We were born for the task and we will not fail.”
“No,” I said. “If only because failure would occasion such inconveniences as to make any respectable man succeed.”
He let my hand go. Pressing it to my breast, I said, “I wish things were easier.”
“Wish rather that we might be strong enough for the things that come to us.”
When he had fallen back to ride with Kelu, Ivy joined me. “Feel better?” she asked, her tone all that was tender.
“A little,” I said. And, hesitant, “It does not distress you, that I might need him?”
She looked away, a blush tinting her cheeks. Laughing self-consciously, she said, “On the contrary. I like it very much, to love a man who does not fear to have an open heart.”
“Do you think I do?” I said, finding the notion unlikely.
“Oh, Morgan,” Ivy said, and nothing more.
24
Our destination was not close, but we put the distance to use when Ivy requested that we begin teaching her Angel’s Gift. Kelu muttered about having already done this before but willingly began anyway. Between the three of us, myself and the two genets, we spent the ride profitably in the advancement of my beloved’s education. Amhric rarely contributed to these lessons, not out of any reticence, but because his attention was elsewhere.
“What is it?” I asked one day after we’d stopped. He was staring toward the horizon with the breeze brushing his hair off his shoulders, as if petting him.
“Would you like to feel?”
Startled, I said, “If I can?”
He set a hand on my upper arm, fingers relaxed. I trained my gaze on the distant edge of the world where the haze of grass met the pellucid blue of the late afternoon sky, thinking that this was what had drawn his attention… and I continued in that belief until the sky and the world around me grew dense with currents, coiling and spilling in slow motion from one side of the vista to the other. I could not see them, but my sight strove to render them; I could not hear them, but there was something of the sound of water in it anyway, or wind. A smell, of distant lands and near ones, sun-bronzed grass and snow mingling in harmo
ny, a taste like pepper and mint and yet not a taste.
Amhric’s voice was close and yet seemed attenuated by these sensations. “When the continent’s magic was freed, it was as if a great constriction on the world released. Now it pours freely, following patterns I only barely grasp. But I am meant to grasp them.”
“And keep demons from us thereby?” I asked.
“On that count I am no longer so certain,” he admitted. “I had believed that it was magic demons craved, for that was what we were taught. But I begin to think that where there is power, there is temptation toward darkness. Magic merely exaggerates that potential. So where there is magic….”
“Then there are people at risk for their blandishments?” I tested the revelation against what we’d survived while watching the tide of magic wash through the field, unhurried, obeying its own natural laws. “I think it a more credible hypothesis than the one we’d held before.”
He chuckled. “I suppose we will have the testing of it in our lifetimes.”
“Perhaps.” I glanced at him. “And you? If you believe that the work of the King-Reclusive is no longer necessary?”
“I think it is, just not for the reasons we’d assumed. I have been watching, now that we have leisure to do so. And there are still places where the magic of the world is pinched or trammeled. When I can, I loosen them. If magic is an expression of joy close to God, it belongs in movement. Like us. We live only so long as we move through life.”
“A philosophy of magical stewardship.” I smiled, a flicker of my mouth. “Why not. We will have time to see if it suits, or if you really should be building dams rather than opening channels.”
He nodded. And added, “I apologize if I am distant.”
“You’re not distant,” I said. “You are more here than any of us.” I gathered his hand off my arm and kissed the palm. “Come, our supper is calling.”
So it went, with Kelu and Emily explaining the lack of verb conjugations to Ivy and playing vocabulary games, and Amhric continuing his study of a world freed of the continent’s knotted magics, and me, wondering what lay before us.
On Wings of Bone and Glass Page 25