The King of Forever

by Kirby Crow

  “I’ve always wanted to try smithing,” Scarlet said, tracing his finger down the bridge of Liall’s fine nose.

  “You mean with a forge?”

  “No, with a shank of mutton, want-wit. Of course with a forge. And tongs and hammers and all sorts of things that turn a piece of iron into a blade.”

  Liall frowned. “You want to learn to make swords?”

  “I can already make them. Well, a little anyway. I used to hang around the forge in Lysia where my father bought horseshoes. The smith used to give me metal to play with, and I had a little hammer. The handle was broken off but it was just right for my hand. I used to pretend I was hammering armor to ride off to battle, maybe to fight for the Flower Prince.”

  An odd note touched Liall’s voice. “You wanted to be a soldier?”

  “Don’t all little boys want to be soldiers? I grew out of it. Anyway, there was a forge in Ankar, too, across the souk from Masdren’s shop. The smith was named Jao, which is a funny name for a Morturii. It means ‘ouch’.”

  Liall chuckled. “I like this story. Go on.”

  “I worked at Jao’s forge betimes, picking up some extra coppers. He taught me some, but I always wanted to learn more. He said learning the science of metal was difficult, but all the rest was just long practice and hard work, which I’d have to apprentice with him to really master. And then,” he sighed, “well, you know what then.” Lysia was burned and everyone driven out or dead. He was silent for a moment, thinking. “My sister’s husband is a blacksmith, too.”

  Liall nodded. “Shansi. I remember. It’s a good trade in Byzantur, especially for Hilurin, who are so clever with their hands.”

  “Scaja had a way with carving wood and painting, and Linhona could embroider better than the queen’s maids in Morturii.”

  “Clever hands, all of you,” Liall repeated. He raised Scarlet’s hand—the narrow left one with the missing finger—to his mouth and kissed it. “But I don’t know if I want these hands near molten iron. Many accidents happen with forges, love, and this hand in particular could be a liability to you.”

  “My hand is fine,” Scarlet said steadily. “I’ve plowed with it and ridden and traveled from Ankar to Omara and even killed a man with this hand. There’s nothing wrong with my hands.”

  “Save that they are very small. I shudder to think of them near a forge fire.”

  “You could find someone to teach me. Rshani smiths are the some of the best I’ve seen in the world,” Scarlet coaxed, knowing he had no chance of it without Liall’s help. There wasn’t a tradesman in the kingdom who would take him on as apprentice without the king’s approval, even if it wasn’t dangerous.

  Liall’s frown darkened. “You’d have to promise to be very careful,” he warned. “And—”

  “Thank you,” Scarlet said quickly, kissing his cheek.

  “And if it becomes no longer safe, you have to stop,” Liall finished.

  “Fire burns, steel melts. How could blacksmithing become any more unsafe than it already is?”

  “I don’t know. A thousand reasons, and not all of them having to do with smithing. All I can promise is to find a man from whom you can learn. Do you think I like to see you mired up or bored? There are only so many rabbits to hunt, and you haven’t taken to reading like I thought you might.”

  “Too slow,” Scarlet muttered resentfully. “Every word in those books is a boulder, and I’m like a tortoise bumbling over those rocks one by one. I’d rather be out doing rather than sitting down and reading what someone else has done.”

  “You could always read standing up.”

  Scarlet pinched him and watched the grin spread over Liall’s face in the darkness. “What’s writ about riding a horse isn’t the same as riding one. Life isn’t for watching. If I can’t travel where I will, then I want to be a part of the life around me, not just hear about it. I’ve never been much of a layabout, but if I sit on my arse much longer it will be too big even for you.”

  Liall choked on laughter.

  “You know what I mean,” Scarlet said crossly. “I’m not ready to be idle like an old grandfather. Not yet.”

  “You will not be. I swear it,” Liall vowed, laughing as he drew the covers and furs up over them. “I will begin the search tomorrow. But now, we really do have to sleep. My life just became immeasurably more complicated.”

  Scarlet was silent for a moment as they settled into the bed comfortably. “Because of me,” he added softly.

  Liall’s arm was tight around his waist and their bodies were warm where they pressed together.

  “Only in part,” he said. “When the alternative is not having brought you to Rshan at all, I count my blessings. We knew life would not be easy for us here, redbird.”

  “In my wildest daydreaming, I never thought I’d end up here, with you. Scaja used to say my head was in the clouds, and that I had too many grand notions about myself, but I only ever wanted a simple life.”

  Scarlet drifted off to sleep, listening to the steady thump of Liall’s heart. A simple life, was his last thought before mist closed around his mind and he dreamed of a land so cold it froze the lungs, and of a wall of fog that rose up around an immense tower shaped like a wheel.

  Fading Dreams

  Ulan was an eerie copy of Melev. Liall could tell one Ancient’s features from another only with long familiarity of their race, and he did not know Ulan very well. For a short time in his childhood, Ulan had been his teacher and protector, but the memory was foggy within him.

  Girded about Ulan’s lanky, towering frame was a simple linen tunic knotted with a leather cord, leaving his flat, broad feet and ropy arms bare. His eyes were as large as apricots and as colorless as moonstones, and his skin was like a wind-blasted oak, reddish-amber and rough. His nose was hooked, his jaw like a block of wood, and each knotty finger of his plate-sized hands had an extra joint that the Rshani lacked. An Ancient standing very still in a forest could be mistaken for a bare tree in winter.

  Liall knew that some trees in the deep forests beyond the Greatrift actually were dormant Ancients, but it took a deliberate effort of will for them to shift to such a latent state, and once it was done they must remain so for many years. Whenever he witnessed an Ancient in motion, he could sense the burning life within them, and how very alien they were.

  Ulan stood waiting in Liall’s solar, his body a broad, rough scrawl against the elegant folds of a tapestry. He bowed his head slightly: as close to homage as any Ancient would ever render to a Rshani, royal or no. “King Nazheradei, the wolf.”

  Liall returned the bow with a wry smile. There were two kinds of power in the room. One stemmed from the realm where a king ruled the lives of other men with simplicity and directness. The other ruled from a place of ice and legend that no mortal Rshani could ever fully understand.

  “Not a very complimentary address, is it?” Liall said. “Perhaps they should have called me the Bear when I was in Byzantur. It would have translated so much better.” Wolves were considered scavengers and pests in Rshan, not the romantic mountain beasts of the Southern Continent; the land that Rshani crudely called Kalaslyn. In more polite moments, they referred to it as the Brown Lands or just Outland, if they spoke of it at all.

  “Wolves have their place. Bears have their place,” Ulan said.

  The deep rumble that his vocal chords produced seemed to sink into the timber beneath Liall’s boots and vibrate.

  “Ah, but it’s finding that place that matters, yes?” Liall answered. “Here, a wolf is scorned and the snow bear is honored. I might as well have been named for the bat or dragonfly for all the respect wolf lends me here.” He motioned to the banner of Camira-Druz on the wall: scrolling lines of silver across a field of blue. Nearby was the shield of Camira-Druz with its lumbering white snow bear and golden star shining above. The eyes of the bear created two more golden stars below; a symbol of the Longwalker constellation that winked pale and lonely over the horizon of Rshan na Ostre during
the dark winter.

  The great lamps of Ulan’s eyes followed the direction Liall indicated. “We have heard that your t’aishka was blooded by the bear.”

  “That part is true,” Liall said carefully. He was not fond of recalling that fateful hunt last winter, when Scarlet had been injured and nearly crushed by the charging snow bear, and Vladei had been revealed for the traitor he was.

  “The bear perished by your t’aishka’s hand. Sun hinir, the great hunter of the ice, slain by so small a hand.” Ulan looked at his own palm and moved his fingers reflexively. “We hear that our Rshani scions name him Keriss, meaning the flame flower. We are very curious to hear more of Scarlet of Lysia.”

  Liall felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. “Is my t’aishka welcome in the eyes of the Ancients?”

  Ulan nodded his great head. “More than welcome. Ten thousand welcomes. Our races have been sundered too long. It is the old way.”

  Melev had said the same, and Melev had also claimed that Scarlet was welcome. The truth was that Melev had considered Scarlet an object, a thing to be used to achieve a goal, as evidenced by the way he had kidnapped Scarlet and aided in the murder of Cestimir.

  Liall sat down, never taking his eyes off the Ancient. Ulan stared back at him without blinking. It was difficult not to be cowed by such eyes. Like Melev, Ulan was intensely interested in all things Hilurin, or Anlyribeth as they had been known in Rshan more than an age ago. Deliberately, Liall had kept the details of Melev’s treachery under wraps.

  “The old way,” Liall mused. “Very few know how far Melev went, either to satisfy his interest in Scarlet’s magic or his own personal quest for power.”

  “I know.”

  Liall nodded. “And I am afraid your curiosity runs along similar lines, and carries with it the same quest for the lost knowledge of the Shining Ones.”

  Ulan was silent. His eyes were steady, giving Liall nothing.

  Liall tried a new tack. “That the Ancients have kept the Rshani people ignorant of the true nature of the relationship between the Anlyribeth and the Shining Ones is deeply disturbing to me.”

  After a moment, Ulan nodded again. “You know of these matters?”

  “I’ve put it together, more or less. Most wouldn’t, but I’ve been surrounded by Setna since I was a child, and I dwelled in Kalaslyn for many years. The Hilurin haven’t changed much, have they?”

  “They had no need,” Ulan rumbled. “They were complete. Perfect. It was our ancestors who were lacking. We needed the magic of the Anlyribeth to survive. We were their channels, they were the source. Or, no...” Ulan swung his head from side to side in negation. “No, not the source.”

  Liall could not recall ever witnessing an Ancient correct himself. He leaned forward. “Then who... what is this source?”

  Ulan made a sound in his throat like a wave pounding a shore. Liall frowned. Ulan made the noise again, and Liall realized it was a word.

  He had no hope of reproducing that sound. “What does it mean?”

  “Deva.”

  Liall snorted. “You want me to believe in the legends of the Flower Prince? That the goddess favors the Hilurin, speaks to them, protects them and gives them magic?”

  “Their magic is of Her. She deeded it to them before She dispersed.”

  Deeded. It seemed an odd choice of phrase, as did dispersed. “It was a gift?”

  Ulan nodded. “The Gift. The Anlyribeth speak the truth.”

  “I’ve found they rarely lie.”

  Magic. Liall did not trust it, and he was deeply suspicious whenever the topic was mentioned. Because Scarlet was new to the jaded court and such a novelty to them, the topic came up quite often within Liall’s hearing, especially since Scarlet had chosen a very public way to reveal his magic. Now everyone knew, and everyone was curious about what more there was to know, how far the mysteries went. It was a danger.

  Liall decided to maneuver from a new direction. “You know of the revolt in the north, of Magur and what happened there.”

  Ulan nodded slowly, as if he expected this change of topic. He turned his gaze to the casement and looked at the land spreading out beyond. “Many deaths. Vladei brother-prince sought to use the Ava Thule in his bid for the throne. Melev helped him.”

  “And so they’re all dead, as it should be,” Liall said. “The last great incursion between the Rshani and the Ava Thule was the Tribeland campaigns. Before Magur, decades had passed without a whisper of them. My people hoped they had all perished, swallowed up by the winds beyond the Greatrift. The freeriders knew they were still sheltering in the foothills of Magur, but that information never seemed to reach the south.” He watched Ulan, but could read nothing from him. “Until the revolt. Then there was no more pretending.”

  Ulan splayed a large hand against the glass, as if seeking the cold outside.

  “How could you do it? How could you permit those savages inside the temple mountain?”

  Ulan was unmoved. “Wars are things of men. They do not last. Only the sky lasts, and the suns that wheel in the heavens, and the language of stars. It is not our business to deal death and swing swords.”

  “Then it’s not your business to take sides, either.”

  “We have taken no side. The generations of mortals rise and fall like wheat. Fissures open in the land. Mountains collapse. Ice melts. Only we endure.”

  “You’ve sheltered our enemies,” Liall accused. “Given them food and a safe haven to gather and breed more rebellion.”

  “When brothers fight and a father comforts one of his injured sons, is that taking sides as well?”

  “They’re not children,” Liall said in disgust. “You know what they’re capable of. You know what they’ve done. We’ve shown them mercy before. We always harbored hope that the Tribelands would eventually bow to the rule of the crown, as they should have from the beginning. It’s been too long now and their nature has changed beyond recognition. Since the days of Ramung, they’ve ravaged the northern lands, preying on outlying settlements, murdering travelers, stealing from the very cradles of the village folk to swell their numbers. They’re animals, answering to no law, respecting no boundaries, living like wild beasts of the glacier and cave. Their numbers have grown great and the Ancients have not only kept their secret, but now you aid them against us.”

  “How have we aided them?”

  “You allowed them to enter Ged Fanorl.”

  Ulan shook his head in his slow and plodding way. “They found the entrance to the temple mountain and unlocked her secrets. We did not help them. We simply did not prevent.” The Ancient’s lassitude was deceptive. Liall knew that Ulan was capable of moving faster than sight if he chose to. The fey ancestor-race of the Rshani were unknowable. It would be perilous to mistake either their motives or their capabilities. A misstep either way could prove disastrous.

  Liall decided honesty was best. He doubted that he could hide anything from Ulan anyway. “We will make war against the Ava Thule. It’s already begun. You knew that might happen one day, if your secret got out.”

  Ulan’s voice turned deeper with displeasure. “It was you who opened that door, king.”

  Liall’s jaw clenched. He had kept the secret nearly all his life, but now silence was a hazard at best, and treason if his subjects choose to see it that way. “I had to. The temple mountain is sacred to all Rshani, and your friends grew bold, attacking deeper inside our lands. It was only a matter of time before the truth broke. If I had not done this, the monarchy would have been destroyed. It might still be, no matter what I choose.”

  Ulan dropped his hand from the glass. “If the Ava Thule are not Rshani, then what are they? Where do you imagine they sprang from, if not the Shining Ones?” He made a discontented noise like a chair sliding on wood.

  “Could it be that you wanted them to open the mountain for you?” Liall pressed. Ulan was not required to answer him at all. An Ancient could arrive in Nau Karmun clad in a ragged tunic and demand an audi
ence with the king at once, and not only be tolerated, but venerated. He had nothing to pressure Ulan with.

  To his surprise, Ulan’s chin rose and his eyes seemed to burn like sunlight glinting off a shard of ice. “Many years ago, they found the way inside. Now the Ava Thule have learned of the return of the Anlyribeth. Many have journeyed to the temple mountain,” he rumbled. “Many. A pilgrimage. They said they would open the temple and unlock the secrets of the hidden power, the lost magic. We have let the mountain rest these thousands of years. Now, one of them has returned of his own will. Not a captive, not a slave or subject, but one driven by love. The Ava Thule say it is but the beginning. More will follow. It is time to wake the magic.”

  Liall’s heart clenched. Scarlet had spoken with him before about the Creatrix, said that his deadly encounter with Melev had shown him the location of the ancient magic of the Shining Ones.

  “I won’t allow you to harm Scarlet. I won’t allow them to. My mother refrained from annihilating the Ava Thule on your word. She let the fleas live for your sake, for the Ancients and for the blood we share with them, but no more.”

  “You would kill them all?”

  “They killed themselves when they entered Ged Fanorl,” Liall answered. “I fought in the Tribelands campaigns when I was young. We hunted and burned them out of our lands. We drove them beyond the borders of Uzna and into the ice before the Ancients asked us to stop. You had never asked anything of us before.”

  “You showed mercy.”

  “We showed weakness. Why were you so merciful? Do you know what the Ava Thule really are?” Liall was angry now, remembering those battles, the atrocities he had witnessed. He stood up and paced the room. “If you had seen for yourself what they did, you would not call them your sons. They kill to win their mates. They cast their dead into pits with no burial, and they expose their female infants on the hillsides. Why waste food on raising a female when they can simply steal one of breeding age? The boy-children are tied arm-to-arm and made to fight over food and shelter, or for girls barely old enough to bleed. And they do worse. Much worse. Nothing grows in the North but mushrooms and lichen. The Ava Thule’s knowledge of growing is gone, and they don’t hunt the village-lands only to steal carrots and sheep and women. They have hunted men as food.”