Mother of All

by Jenna Glass

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I have considered that. But I’ve also considered the fact that Leethan brought Elwynne here because of a vision. She believes the Mother guided her into bringing Elwynne to us. Perhaps Waldmir is supposed to ally with our enemies instead. Maybe he needs to be defeated so that the people of Nandel might finally embrace the new world order instead of clinging to the past.”

  Zarsha let out a bitter snort of laughter. “I don’t suggest you present that line of reasoning to your council.”

  She smiled ever so slightly, trying to imagine the horrified faces of her councilors if she suggested such a thing. “I will keep them in the dark for as long as I can,” she said. “If we are lucky, this whole thing will be over before any of them dares to suggest I’m not telling the full truth.”

  In reality, she very much doubted such would be the case, and she knew from his expression that Zarsha did, as well. If Waldmir kept insisting that Elwynne was in their custody, and if he should get any more forceful or threatening in his demands for her return…

  Well, the council would support her to a point, but they would not allow her to make an enemy of Waldmir at a time like this. Her council had already agreed that they would need to help defend Aaltah and Women’s Well against the forces of Par and Khalpar, the tales of Delnamal’s new power so terrifying that there had been little in the way of argument. The last thing any of them would want was to make an enemy of their most dangerous neighbor.

  * * *

  —

  Draios could not see Delnamal’s expression thanks to the shadow of the hood, but he felt certain the man was scowling fiercely at the grand magus. From the pinched and nervous look on Lord Darjal’s face, it seemed he made the same assumption.

  “I do hope you’re not going to disappoint His Majesty once again,” Delnamal said in that whispery rasp of his, and Draios had to suppress a shudder as Darjal lost just a little bit more color. A nagging voice in the back of Draios’s mind muttered that a man who’d been chosen as the Creator’s champion should not feel so very…unwholesome. But Draios dismissed that voice as ever. The Destroyer’s power and influence were corrupting Delnamal’s worldly body, but Draios had to believe the Creator had full control of the weapon He had unleashed on Seven Wells.

  “I cannot make any promises,” Lord Darjal said, and though his voice came out sounding strong, the fear in his eyes and his tight, clenched body language spoke volumes. “This is magic such as the world has never seen, and there’s no telling…” His voice trailed off, and he gave Draios an imploring look.

  If the man were any more frightened, he might piss himself, and though Draios found the previous failures annoying, he did not think it particularly useful to threaten the grand magus. Fear was sometimes a good motivator, but spell crafting required a degree of creativity that might be hard for a terrified man to muster.

  “I understand the difficulty of this task,” Draios said soothingly, “and I believe that you will succeed, whether it is with this try or another. We still have at least a month before the winter eases enough for our invasion of Aaltah to begin.”

  He was eager to set sail as soon as possible, but even with his very limited training in military strategy, he knew that a winter attack was inadvisable, with storms both on land and at sea causing delays and costing lives. The navies of Par and Khalpar were the most feared in all of Seven Wells, but even their great battleships were vulnerable to those storms and would likely enter Aaltah’s waters scattered and damaged.

  “Yes,” Delnamal agreed in a croon designed to send shivers up the spine. “We have time. But if I begin to feel I am expending my Kai for nothing, I might find myself tempted to replenish it on the spot.”

  “Enough,” Draios said as he made a slashing motion with his hand. He wanted to reassure Darjal that he would not allow Delnamal to steal his Rhokai—it would be imbecilic to kill his most powerful spell crafter when the mission was not yet accomplished—but he did not want to show any sign of dissension. “Let us just try the spell and see how it works, shall we?”

  He held out his hand to Darjal, who dragged his eyes away from the looming threat of Delnamal with an obvious effort.

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” Darjal said, bowing his head as he held out his hand.

  Draios took the large, loose diamond that held the grand magus’s spell, cupping it in the palm of his hand. Once the spell was perfected, he would have the diamond set into a brooch that he would use to fasten his cloak over his armor when he marched into battle. He held the diamond out to Delnamal, who plucked an invisible mote of Kai from the air near his chest. Draios wondered briefly whose life would be fueling this test, but shoved that thought aside. The lives that Delnamal took were of criminals and heretics and traitors, and they were serving their kingdom far better in death than they had in life.

  The air seemed to shimmy and swirl when the mote of Kai activated the diamond’s spell, and Draios felt a quick stab of pain in his eyes. Pain that he could tell by Darjal’s gasp was not limited to his own eyes.

  The pain faded quickly, though his vision still felt blurry and indistinct, and he had to blink repeatedly before it returned to normal.

  When it did, Draios found himself surrounded by a veritable sea of men who looked exactly like him. Some of those doppelgängers were more perfect than others, he noted. The ones closest to him looked real and solid enough to touch, while the ones farther away were semi-transparent. One of those more distant copies had materialized right on top of Darjal, who made an undignified squeaking noise as he hastily backed away, brushing at his skin and clothes as if he’d walked into a spiderweb.

  Draios surveyed his miniature army as he took a step forward. He grinned with pleasure when he saw that although they stayed with him, they did not move in lockstep. Some mirrored his smile, while some of their faces remained impassive. When he took a couple more steps, he found himself no longer in the very center of the group, although as he continued to move left and right, forward and back, he found that there were always several doppelgängers surrounding him.

  Darjal cleared his throat, but when he spoke it was still impossible to miss his disquiet. “I did not want you to always be the very center of the grouping,” he said. “I thought someone might guess that would be the case and therefore figure out which one was the real you.”

  Draios nodded approvingly, while some of his doppelgängers nodded along and some frowned. He noticed that while Darjal had appeared to be addressing him directly, the man’s eyes darted back and forth between him and the two closest doppelgängers. He remembered those first few moments, when his eyes had stung and his vision had gone blurry and he’d been forced to close his eyes and then blink. Had Darjal in that moment of confusion lost track of which one of these images was real?

  “And do you know which one is me?” Draios asked.

  Darjal winced, and Delnamal let out a little snort.

  “Well, he does now,” Delnamal growled, and Draios realized that his doppelgängers had remained silent when he spoke. Delnamal turned to the grand magus.

  “You still have several kinks to work out,” he said, but he sounded less threatening than he had previously. “The visual illusion does less good if the enemy can identify His Majesty the moment he makes a sound.”

  Sweating now with nerves, Darjal nodded. “I’m certain I can fix that,” he said. “Just as I can make the ones around the edges more solid.”

  “And make it so they don’t appear right on top of someone or something so that it’s obvious they’re not solid,” Draios added dryly.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Draios smiled broadly as he looked once again at his little personal army. Darjal had put a great deal of careful thought into the spell, making the figures move and shift about constantly to add to the confusion. Flawed they might be, but he could only imagine the terror t
hey would strike into the heart of the enemy. Especially when the looming specter of Delnamal and his devastating power marched beside him.

  “You have done well, Lord Darjal,” he said, and the grand magus bowed with an audible sigh of relief.

  * * *

  —

  Tynthanal could see by the thinly veiled alarm in Lord Zauthan’s eyes that the lord chamberlain had some idea why he had been summoned. If Tynthanal had had any doubt of the man’s guilt, that look of alarm would have vanquished it. Zauthan glanced longingly at the chairs before Tynthanal’s desk—perhaps his knees were feeling a little weak—but Tynthanal had no intention of inviting him to sit.

  Without a word, Tynthanal pushed a piece of parchment across the desk. The parchment was covered with the untidy script of a man not much used to writing and detailed the confession of a commoner named Hunter. Hunter had twice previously eluded the night watch, who had caught him in the act of posting broadsheets calling for Tynthanal’s removal. Lord Lyslee’s men had quietly arrested Hunter and brought him to the marshal for questioning, and the whole sordid story had come out.

  Zauthan nervously read the first few sentences of the confession—which Hunter had defiantly signed “Hunter Rah-Zauthan”—and his face turned an unhealthy shade of gray.

  “Would you truly have acknowledged paternity if he’d helped you remove me from the regency?” Tynthanal asked in a conversational tone that belied the fury within him. He’d never had much patience with men who refused to acknowledge their illegitimate offspring, and he had even less for men who took advantage of household servants. Hunter’s mother had apparently been his wife’s lady’s maid. When she’d gotten pregnant, Zauthan had quietly transferred her to another household, where she claimed to be a widow. He had discreetly provided for his illegitimate son, but had denied the boy his name. Then, when he’d needed a rabble-rouser, he’d promised Hunter an official acknowledgment of paternity—and the right to use his name—if Hunter would post the broadsheets.

  Zauthan looked down at his feet and did not respond. According to Lyslee, Hunter was nearly thirty years old, and it seemed likely that if Zauthan were ever going to acknowledge paternity, he would have done so long before now. Tynthanal felt no small amount of pity for Hunter, although that could not excuse his decision to post seditious broadsheets—especially not when the kingdom was on the brink of war.

  “What is to become of me?” the lord chamberlain asked, and there was a slight quaver in his voice.

  Tynthanal grunted in disgust. “You’re not even going to ask about your son?”

  Zauthan’s eyes flashed. “He knew what he was doing, and he knew the risks. I told him he should stop after the first time he almost got caught, but he chose not to take my advice.” Anger made him bold, and he lost the submissive hunch in his shoulders. “Besides, my relationship—or lack thereof—with my son is not your concern.”

  Tynthanal had to acknowledge that was true, although the lord chamberlain’s lack of concern only deepened Tynthanal’s dislike of the man. He had agonized for a long time over what to do about Lord Zauthan’s crime, for though in ordinary times, the laws of the land called for Zauthan to be arrested, tried, and appropriately punished, these were not ordinary times.

  “If I have you arrested and you go to trial,” Tynthanal said, “you will be attainted for sure. All your lands and titles will be forfeit to the Crown.”

  Zauthan raised his chin. “I know what the punishment for sedition is.”

  “And what do you have to say for yourself?”

  Anger sparked again in his eyes, but Zauthan quickly lowered his gaze. When he spoke, his voice came out softly. “I did what I thought was best for Aaltah, though I don’t expect you to understand.”

  Tynthanal snorted. “No, I don’t understand how trying to sow discord when we’re on the brink of war is best for Aaltah.”

  Zauthan made a sound of frustration. “No, of course not. I told Hunter to distribute the broadsheets before we knew what was happening in Khalpar. Once I knew war was coming, I tried to stop him.” He met Tynthanal’s gaze, his expression one of challenge. “I never liked the precedent of giving the regency to a traitor, but I allowed myself to be persuaded because I hoped you might have the skills and knowledge to fix the Well. But it turns out you haven’t. Even so, I would not endanger Aaltah’s stability and unity by striking out at you now. I hope you will give me at least that much credit.”

  Tynthanal made a noncommittal sound as he studied Zauthan’s face. He believed there was some truth in what the lord chancellor was telling him—in Hunter’s confession, he’d mentioned that his father had asked him to stop distributing the broadsheets, but he’d been so desperate to be acknowledged that he’d kept at it anyway. Always before, Zauthan had served Aaltah admirably, and he had stopped challenging Tynthanal during council meetings as soon as they’d discovered that Draios had declared himself king and was preparing Khalpar for a holy war.

  Even so, Tynthanal did not believe that Zauthan’s motives had been as pure and innocent as he claimed. He might have convinced himself unseating Tynthanal was for the good of Aaltah, but there was no question that ambition had played a role in his decision making, as well.

  “So, are you going to arrest me?” Zauthan inquired.

  Tynthanal realized he’d already hinted at the answer when he’d framed the arrest as a hypothetical. Clearly, if he were planning to arrest the lord chamberlain, they would not now be having this fairly civil conversation. Even if such a high-profile arrest would not cause a great deal of strife and division, Tynthanal had other reasons for not wanting to do it, for the attainder would leave Zauthan out of the running for the regency. Tynthanal didn’t think the other members of the royal council were foolish enough to try to unseat him at a time like this, but he didn’t like to present the temptation by narrowing the field of possible replacements.

  “If you’re willing to meet my conditions, then I will let you off with a warning,” he said. “It’s a better fate than you deserve, but Aaltah is more important than either one of us.”

  “What are your conditions?” Zauthan asked with a hint of suspicion in his voice. “I will not become your lackey.”

  Tynthanal rolled his eyes. “I’ve no use for one of those anyway. I will always value your honest opinion during council meetings. But if I catch even the faintest whiff of sedition wafting from your direction…”

  Zauthan shook his head. “That ship sailed long ago. If we lose this war, the regency will not exist. And if we win this war, you will be the hero who saved Aaltah, and no one would dare question your right to continue serving as regent.”

  Not an enthusiastic declaration of support, but it was the best he could hope to get from a man like Zauthan. It was hard to think beyond the war that loomed on the horizon, but Tynthanal imagined if it somehow happened that they won the war without fixing the Well, his regency would come under fire again after the glow of victory wore off. But he would think about protecting his position later, after the dust cleared. For now, he would accept Zauthan at his word.

  “Very well, then. I will file this confession away, and it need never again see the light of day.”

  Zauthan raised an eyebrow. “File it away, eh?”

  Tynthanal shrugged. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “And what of Hunter? Will you ask Lord Lyslee to release him?”

  Tynthanal couldn’t tell if there was genuine concern in Zauthan’s voice, or if he was just pretending to care because he could tell Tynthanal expected him to. He gave the lord chamberlain a sharp-edged grin.

  “On the condition that he join the conscripts who will defend our walls. And that he does so under the name Hunter Rah-Zauthan.”

  Zauthan’s jaw dropped open in shock. “You would reward him for spreading broadsheets? At a time like this?”

  Tynthanal’s grin widene
d as he enjoyed Zauthan’s shock. “No. I would punish you. You are clearly not eager to acknowledge your bastard, but if you fail to do so, this confession may well pop up again when you least expect it.”

  Zauthan sputtered, but he was hardly in a position to argue. That he was escaping with his lands and titles intact was far better than he deserved, and he knew it. Lord Lyslee—who as Aaltah’s ultimate authority on law and its enforcement was naturally a stickler—had argued quite fiercely that both Zauthan and Hunter be punished to the fullest extent of the law, even if that punishment was to be deferred until after the war. But Tynthanal still believed that keeping his royal council intact and defending against internal division was for the best, and his marshal had grudgingly allowed himself to be convinced. Only time would tell if Tynthanal had made the right decision.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Corlin tried to hide the flutter of apprehension in his gut as he was shown into Lord Aldnor’s office. He had been a model cadet for months now, suppressing his temper with a skill that surprised even him. He’d half-expected Captain Norlix—who showed no sign of warming to him even after all this time—to hold him back from joining the ranks of the second-years when he turned fifteen, but he’d advanced without incident, Rafetyn following only a month behind. He anxiously reviewed his every recent action, searching for some incident that might have gotten him in trouble, but he could think of nothing. He wasn’t perfect, of course, but he had kept his word and not done anything to warrant another beating, no matter how sorely Cadet Justal and the rest of the bullies tried him.

  Corlin studied the lord commander’s face for clues as he stood at attention before his desk, but he could see no hint of Lord Aldnor’s agenda in his expression. At least he didn’t look angry, though he did not immediately turn his attention away from the paper he’d been perusing.