The Coin of Kenvard
Page 34
“Soon he’ll be ready to start taking on his princely duties,” Myranda said. “Frankly, I think bringing him along to Ulvard helped smooth over some of the tensions. He’s a born diplomat.”
Sadie took the boy. Myranda gave Leo a kiss on the forehead, and the nobles left Sadie to put him down for the evening.
As they paced the short distance to their own room, Deacon was uncharacteristically distant.
“Is something bothering you?” Myranda asked.
“I don’t think I should be a part of future diplomatic trips to Ulvard.”
“That’s absurd. You are the king. You will be expected.”
“King Terrance and Queen Tanya don’t trust me. And with good reason. I nearly shattered the world.”
“What’s done is done.”
They stepped into their quarters.
“It is all well and good to say that, but what’s done is going to echo through generations. You must have heard the latest from Ravenwood. Wolloff’s tower still hasn’t returned to normal.”
“I wouldn’t call it a hardship, having a tower that exists in perpetual spring.”
“Hardship or not, it is seemingly permanent. It is a scar my actions left in the world.”
“You weren’t yourself.” She set her crown on its pillow. “Now that the stain on your mind is gone, we won’t let something like that happen again.”
Deacon removed his crown but hesitated. He surveyed the gleaming masterwork. To any but the palace staff, there wouldn’t have been any reason to imagine it was anything but the one and only crown of Kenvard’s king. The truth was made clear only on close inspection. It was grander, more precisely and elegantly crafted. In that way it was a match for the queen’s crown.
Deacon had not worn a crown for most of the last few months. The people of Kenvard believed the previous one had been lost during the chaos that had consumed the world and had only just been found and returned. There was no telling how the rumor started. Myranda had her suspicions Ivy had dreamed it up to keep people from asking unpleasant questions. In truth, this was a new piece. It had been finished in just the last few weeks. The more exquisite design was due in part to the fact that this crown had no purpose but to stand as a symbol of status and power. Its predecessor was enchanted and needed to bear runes and weave in mystically attuned gems and metals. Without such restrictions, the new design needed only serve the whims of dignity and grace. But there was another, far simpler reason for the subtly different design. The original crown had not been available to duplicate.
He set the new crown down and shifted his gaze to a sturdy chest on the display beside it. “I wasn’t myself…” he murmured.
Deacon opened the chest. Myranda stood beside him as he looked down into the dim interior. A ragged bundle was nestled into the bottom of the chest. It was the very package left at the mouth of the Cave of the Beast and delivered by Calypso when the worst of the crisis had passed. It had not been opened. He tugged the package from inside.
“I think it is time,” he said.
He set the bundle on his desk. The thick cloth it was wrapped in still bore the faintly sparkling silt of the Cave of the Beast.
“You seemed rather insistent that the package not be opened,” Myranda said.
“When I’d prepared the package, I didn’t expect… well, I suppose that will become clear.”
He shut his eyes. A flicker of magic dispelled whatever sorcery still clung to the bundle. He pulled it open. The bulk of the contents was, perhaps predictably, the original crown of Kenvard. It was dingy from its time in the cave and badly marred from having clacked and clinked its way down a long tunnel. His ring lay beneath it. The mad rush to restore peace and order to the world in the time since the crisis had consumed their attentions such that they had yet to replace the ring. It was no longer needed to treat an affliction, and neither Deacon nor Myranda needed to be reminded of their love and devotion to one another.
The final object within the bundle was a tightly folded piece of parchment. Deacon plucked it up. He took a breath and handed it to Myranda.
“For Myranda and Leo, if I am lost.” She handed it back. “Are you sure you want me to read this?”
He nodded.
She opened the message.
Leo,
I write this in the darkness by the dim light of my fractured crystal. It is cold here. My hands are unsteady. The future is uncertain. I pray this note finds you in a place of light and hope. I do not know what will have become of me by the time you read these words. I may have fallen for nothing. I may have succumbed to forces beyond my control. But I could not bear a future in which you did not know the truth. First, you must know that what I do today I do for you. Second, and of far greater importance, you must not blame yourself for my actions. In a few moments, I shall seek the wisdom and council of the last vestige of the D’Karon in our world. The trials of our world and the route to safety are a puzzle, and the one called Epidime holds the final pieces. He is weak, and I shall take what precautions I can, but I cannot guarantee he will not get the better of me. What I do now, I choose to do because I believe it is right, because I believe it is necessary. I may be wrong. This may be the latest, and most disastrous, of my many lapses in judgment. But I know that whatever becomes of me, you are protected by beings of wisdom and honor. You will grow into a great man. Know that my last clear thoughts were of my love for you.
Myranda,
I am sorry. I am sorry for the weight I have placed upon you. Even if I succeed, I am sorry that my rash decisions have left you with the weight of the world on your shoulders. I am sorry that I have left you to raise Leo on your own, but I know you will rise to this challenge as you have to all others. And, if the worst has come to pass and my life has been lost to you or the other Chosen, know that I understand what you had to do. I forgive you. And I will always love you.
The queen blinked tears from her eyes and folded the message. She searched her mind for the proper words for the moment. Deacon saved her the trouble.
“I meant all of those words, and I still mean them. But you need to understand something. I wrote that message, I abandoned the crown and the ring, and I communed with Epidime. My thoughts were clear. For all that came after, I was addled by the affliction and blinded by the knowledge that Epidime had given me. But in that moment, when I made the choice to take the first steps down that potentially disastrous road, my mind was my own. I did this. Me.”
“The world survived, Deacon.”
“But at what cost? I damaged the fabric of our existence. I angered the forces that govern us. And in my defense, you stood in opposition to them as well. Everything that happened was because of me, in order to take away the gateway that might allow the D’Karon and those like them into our world. If this chapter of our history has a villain, it is me. And though the world survived, it is changed. Changed in the very way that I sought to change it. The villain won this time. And what of Epidime? I have locked the door that allowed the D’Karon to invade, but in doing so I have trapped him here with us. He may be locked away in the cave, but he still lives.”
He tightened his fists. “And most treacherous of all, even in giving me what I asked of him, he has found a way to deny it to me. I wanted the answers. All of them. I wanted to know what events had shaped the world that I’d yet to record. I wanted his point of view. And I have it. I have every conversation and memory he had with the Chosen, with the other D’Karon. I know the depths of D’Karon magic so intimately it will take me years to unravel it. But after all that has happened, I only have more questions. As best as I can determine, the affliction that gripped my soul when I first made my ill-advised escape from Entwell was a thing of pure chaos. And yet, by the time it was torn from me and cast away, it had grown into something that could only be Epidime. We cast it out, the last being to pass through the doorway before it was sealed for good. It was hurled from this world, and in its throes it set the
time sigil in motion. I can only assume it was cast back, far, far into the past. Did it grow in exile, only to return, to attack, and to tell us its name? Where did the name come from? And Epidime’s arrival with the other D’Karon is what spurred the Chosen to action, which endangered your life, which inspired me to cast the spell that caused the affliction that created Epidime. Where does the loop begin? Where did Epidime really come from? Was my affliction truly the seed from which such an evil was formed? Was Epidime an inevitability, a thing that is its own beginning and end? The answers aren’t even in the blasted creature’s own mind.”
Myranda placed a hand on his shoulder. “Deacon, if we cannot find the answers, we learn to embrace the mystery. There are more than enough challenges ahead to keep us busy through the rest of our years.”
He nodded. “That, I suppose, is the greatest wisdom of all.”
“Come to bed. There will be much to do tomorrow.”
Deacon took a seat at the desk near the bed and summoned his stylus to hand. “I shall join you shortly.”
“What are you planning to do?”
He flipped open his book. “As I’ve said, Epidime was able to fill many of the gaps in my record this momentous time. I began recording the adventure long ago. I’m very nearly through. I think the time has come to finish the tale…”
From the Author
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Discover other titles by Joseph R. Lallo:
The Book of Deacon Series:
Book 1: The Book of Deacon
Book 2: The Great Convergence
Book 3: The Battle of Verril
Book 4: The D’Karon Apprentice
Book 5: The Crescents
Other stories in the same setting:
Jade
The Rise of the Red Shadow
The Redemption of Desmeres
The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy
The Big Sigma Series:
Book 1: Bypass Gemini
Book 2: Unstable Prototypes
Book 3: Artificial Evolution
Book 4: Temporal Contingency
Book 5: Indra Station
The Free-Wrench Series:
Book 1: Free-Wrench
Book 2: Skykeep
Book 3: Ichor Well
Book 4: The Calderan Problem
Book 5: Cipher Hill
Collections:
The Book of Deacon Anthology
The Big Sigma Collection: Volume 1
The Free-Wrench Collection: Volume 1
Other Stories:
Between
Fallen Empire: Rogue Derelict
Structophis
The Other Eight