The Poet King

by Ilana C. Myer

  “That’s useful.”

  “I hope so,” said Eldakar. “In years to come I’ll need every skill I possess.”

  “What do you mean?”

  For some moments he was silent. The brazier threw an orange glow on his features, still fine, despite all he’d weathered in the last year and more. He had many good years ahead of him, Lin thought. And now the threat of war, at least a war of the enchanted sort, had been put to rest.

  When at last Eldakar spoke, his mouth had a sardonic tilt. “I’m not going back to Majdara.”

  She blinked. “I know it’s not the Zahra,” she began.

  “It’s not that,” he said. “I’m not returning to rule. I’m leaving this land. Probably not forever, but we’ll see.”

  “You … you are king.”

  “I was,” he said. “And I hoped, when I went back, that I could put behind me what I’ve done. That the graceful rooms of a palace, the love of the most beautiful woman in the world, would help me forget. But it follows me. Into every corner and cranny of every chamber, no matter how gilded. Underneath it all is blood.”

  “You mean—”

  “My father bought his throne with the blood of a city. And the only way to hold that throne is to keep feeding it—more and more blood.”

  “Does the queen know?”

  “I told her,” he said. “I told her she could come with me, if she likes. Mansur would make a good king. After all the upheaval, the people would accept him, I believe. But I think I already knew her answer.”

  She didn’t want to ask. The hiss of the brazier filled the silence for a time. At last Eldakar spoke again. “She wept,” he said. “More than I’ve ever seen. But she stayed. She is made for the throne in a way I never was.”

  “Does anyone else know this?”

  “Not yet. Mansur would try to stop me.”

  “Eldakar,” she said. “The things we’ve done—we can’t leave them behind. Our shadows accompany us where we go.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And it does. It will. But my throne stands on innocent blood. I refuse it.”

  These three words he said with an expression only a king could wear. She wondered if he knew. The cold nobility in the way he held himself; that certainty. I refuse it.

  He went on. “As long as my people needed me, I had an obligation to them. But they don’t anymore. The people cheer her name in the streets. Majdara has its queen.”

  Lin swallowed the lump in her throat. She had counted on Eldakar to be there, across the border, for years to come; a friend she might visit and reminisce with until they both were old. But he didn’t need to hear that. “I hope we meet again someday, Eldakar.”

  “I, too,” he said. “What are your plans?”

  “Well,” she said. “The king of Eivar is dead. The former king and queen were exiled, and I’m pleased to hear they are safe—but they will not be restored. No one wants that. Likely there will be a ruling council for a while. Bids for succession…” She trailed off. She’d been trying not to think about these political concerns. They had seemed trifling after the past few days. After the Underworld.

  Now they rushed to the surface: the messy, tangled problems of the living.

  Eldakar looked sympathetic. “Here,” he said. “Have some wine.”

  * * *

  AT dawn Nameir Hazan was saddling her horse. Checking and re-checking each saddlebag again. The stench of the pyre clung to her nostrils, but nonetheless she felt the beginnings of something inside her. Something light and free.

  She had done her part for the king. For the last time. She had come with him to help put to rest the slain, and now she was done. She’d bidden farewell to everyone. To Aleira Suzehn, who had hugged her and given her a blessing. In Galician, of course, words Nameir didn’t know but that had the chime of home.

  Home was nowhere, but that didn’t have to be a bad thing. And it might be waiting beyond the horizon. She was taking a chance to find it, or at the very least, to be free.

  Predictably, Mansur Evrayad was aggrieved when she told him. It had been late at night, but she had not joined him in his tent; she feared what he might try if they were alone there. Not that she feared him, but her own capacity for resistance.

  Even when she knew there was pain behind that door, she didn’t trust herself.

  In the shadows of the trees they’d argued. He was impassioned, pleading. Then threatening. Then pleading once again. At last in a fit of characteristic generosity, he’d given her a gift: a silver-hilted dagger that was in his family. “Come back,” he said. “You have to.”

  She had allowed herself then, once more, to touch the curve of his cheek. Then knew she had to escape, and said nothing else, not even a good night.

  Maybe she would return someday. She didn’t know. The world was large, and she had seen only a corner of it. Someone with her skills might see much more. At the dawn of the next day she wanted to think only of the road ahead, not what lay behind. She was hardly immune to sadness; she only knew she might find something more if she went in search of it for the first time in her life.

  What she didn’t expect was an approach from the king himself, just before she was to ride off. She was checking her horse once more. When she saw Eldakar Evrayad emerge from the trees, she braced herself. He had taken the news of her departure quietly the night before. He had given her a gift, too, a ring with a single ruby. In gratitude for her service.

  He had not tried to convince her to stay, but she could imagine it easily enough. The offer of a title, of more land.

  “I’m leaving,” she said.

  “I know,” said Eldakar. “I was wondering if I might come with you.”

  She stared at him. “That depends,” she said. “I’m done with kings and princes.”

  Eldakar’s laugh rippled through the glade. “So am I.”

  * * *

  AFTER the talk with Eldakar Evrayad, Lin couldn’t sleep. Her mind was like a courser in the hunt. Racing, racing ahead.

  So much work to do when she returned. It was staggering to contemplate. No way to know, as yet, what had happened to the palace. The work it would take to make it habitable again … and for whom? All the lords of Eivar would try to assert themselves. Some would claim royal ties. There would be battles.

  And where would she be, in all this?

  There was the Academy. Now that she knew about the Lost Isles, the proximity to the Otherworld, it explained so much. And made it imperative to strengthen that fortress for the years to come. The Academy must be again what it was long ago: a sentinel against things like the White Queen and the Shadow King, from countless other threats that might engulf their world from the one beyond.

  There was the body of Marlen Humbreleigh to put to rest. Her enchantment would conceal him until she returned. And she already knew what she would do. Marilla, years ago, had confided to her that Marlen wished more than anything to be buried beside his friend. Beside Darien Aldemoor. And so he would be. Lin would see to it.

  The Underworld would have more mischief in it now, she thought. Between those two.

  That realm of the dead was like a dream to her, hazy and undefined. She remembered only one thing clearly: calling the souls of Vesperia to her, and her disappointment when she did not see Zahir Alcavar in the crowd. Disappointment, followed by relief. His death had been true at the end; there was that.

  She didn’t know what had become of Syme Oleir. For his sake she hoped his soul had departed cleanly. She would issue a formal request to the queen of Kahishi, Lin thought. To find the body of Syme Oleir in the ruins of the Zahra, and send him home. And to erect a stone or cairn to mark the spot where he’d fallen, for Lin would explain: this was the man who had saved Kahishi at the end. Who’d saved them all.

  When her eyes had met those of Archmaster Hendin in recent days, she thought she saw a reflection of what she felt. A sadness and relief that permeated every thought.

  She shifted on the hard pallet, suspecting sleep w
ould never come. And tomorrow, the start to the long ride home.

  Her eye caught a sliver of lantern light at the tent flap. Someone was there. Lin sat up.

  A woman’s voice, a murmur. “Am I welcome?”

  Instead of answering, Lin rose. Went to the tent flap to show Aleira Suzehn inside. They had only spoken briefly since Aleira had arrived with the king’s entourage. Only of business. Never mind that they had spoken nearly constantly across the distance of many miles, ever since Aleira had mastered that skill. Lin sometimes forgot it had been a year since they had really spoken face to face. In her mind that time was hazed in its own strange light, for it had been in a crypt beneath the earth, the lair of the Fire Dancers. When she and Zahir had knelt at their sacred pool and heard the prophecy. A forecast of death.

  Aleira had watched them leave the crypt fully expecting Lin would die. Lin had seen it in her face. The Magician—then only known to her as the bookseller—had looked hopeless, lost in mourning.

  Entering the tent with her lantern, the other woman didn’t seem much changed. She still favored the color red. Her hair was still a shining glory past her shoulders. The lantern light softened her, for Lin knew well that in other times, by other lights, she was pitiless as marble.

  “How did you know I was awake?” Lin asked, leading her inside. She sat on her pallet. Motioned to the tent’s only chair.

  Aleira didn’t sit down. “I guessed. I know you take responsibility for everything that happens, like Eldakar. Worse than him. How could such a one ever sleep?”

  Lin smiled. “It has been a problem.”

  “I’ll be riding back tomorrow to my queen,” said Aleira.

  “In a few hours.”

  “Yes.” Aleira paused. “I have thought of you since our last meeting,” she said. “What I would have felt if you’d been killed in the Fire Dance. And I’ve thought of how it must be for you, must have been. It all makes me angry.”

  She was standing nearer now, and even in the dimness Lin could see the color rise in her face and throat.

  Aleira Suzehn said, “My lady, if you would let me ease your cares just this night, I’d consider it an honor.”

  She reached out a hand; their fingertips brushed. Lin was taken aback. Yet a part of her recognized this as one of the paths she had foreseen, somewhere deep within her all along. Still she said, “I don’t—I don’t know if I can.”

  Aleira stroked a strand of hair back from Lin’s forehead. “What if you didn’t have to do anything? Just this once.”

  Lin choked a laugh. “I suppose I can try.”

  She let the other woman take her hand. Then, before anything else, Aleira blew out the light.

  * * *

  THAT same night in a dimlit room in the same country, two women faced each other across a table: one dark-haired, the other fair. On the table was a board of checkered squares. The pieces arrayed upon the board were locked in a still, silent combat.

  The space around the table was candlelit; great tapers in brass sconces with clawed feet. They were massive, made to burn through the night. Myrine was known for keeping odd hours; for seldom sleeping much at all.

  Behind Myrine—also known betimes as Rihab Bet-Sorr—the window began to show the first signs of daybreak. Before her were her pieces, carved of onyx. The queen always took the side of black.

  “You’ll be leaving me soon,” she said to the woman across the table.

  Rianna selected an ivory piece from her side, at last, and played it. Knowing as she did so that the other woman, far advanced in skill, with a mind that made Rianna think of the moving parts of a clock, would use it to advantage.

  No matter. They passed the time this way.

  “I’ll be going back to my life,” said Rianna. “As will you. Queen of Kahishi.”

  With a quick movement, half-absent, the queen knocked one of Rianna’s pawns from the board with her priest. Too easy. Her mind elsewhere.

  Her eyes, turned to Rianna, were nearly wistful. “You and I know what it is to find ourselves at a crossroads,” she said. “To make a choice that alters everything. And not know how in later years we will be judged … or come to judge ourselves.”

  “Everyone alive has some experience of that,” said Rianna. She motioned to the board. “It’s what we do here. I thought that was why you liked it.”

  “No,” said the queen. “I like this game because it makes sense. Because when I construct a perfect strategy, bringing all the parts together, the results can be foreseen.”

  Rianna recalled a castle of underground passageways twisted around a secret. Of the way she’d become bound up in its web, despite her plans. “People aren’t pieces,” she said at last, but gently.

  The queen considered. Turned to the window, which had brightened further. Now could be seen a white illumination; the sun pressing through a density of fog. When she turned back again, to the warmer glow of candlelight, she smiled. Almost tremulously. “I feel as if I’ve known you all my life,” she said. “Promise you’ll visit.” She reached across the table for Rianna’s hand. “Promise you’ll write.”

  EPILOGUE

  SPRING had come to Academy Isle. Soon it would be a year. When Manaia came, after the students had gone out to gather wood and build the need-fires, that would make it a year to the day. The colors the island wore in spring—the bright blue of the water, bright green, the snowy white of the rowan trees—met Dorn Arrin’s eye when he turned to the window. The same view, every year.

  He’d come back to graduate. Student life had resumed, once word had got about that it was safe to return. Soon he’d have his ring and be on his way. He’d be sad to leave; but also knew he couldn’t stay longer. There was too much of the past here, and nothing else.

  Some evenings he sat in the kitchen with Owayn and Larantha and Julien after everyone else had gone to bed. No one asked him questions. Sometimes they sang. Sometimes Julien told of the battle between the White Queen and Shadow King. Other times she told of Labyrinth Isle; how Marlen Humbreleigh had come to her as her guide. That made Larantha cry, but there was happiness mixed with her grief. She’d always said there was good in him. He’d proven her right at the end.

  At nights Dorn would crawl into bed. Once he slept in Etherell’s bed, as if that might lead to dreams of him. Some clue where he was. But there was nothing. There was not even a scent on the bedcovers. Etherell Lyr, the man who came from nowhere and had gone the gods-knew-where, had left nothing behind.

  Archmaster Hendin had promised to move along the procedure for choosing a gem for Dorn Arrin’s ring. Then Dorn would be on his way. He knew now that there was a purpose to the enchantments beyond power and aggrandizement; he understood that. But he still wanted none of it. And he thought, perhaps it could be allowed that he’d done his part. That he’d earned some time to wander and understand who he was outside these halls.

  There was a part of him that refused to believe Etherell Lyr would not one day walk into the room humming, beginning to change his shirt or shave or idle away the time. A part of him that wouldn’t accept it, not as long as he was here.

  Once, in the kitchen, Julien Imara had regarded him solemnly. As solemn as anyone could look while gnawing bread and cheese. She had said, “I know you don’t want to talk about it. But perhaps, someday, a song?”

  Dorn had smiled at her. “If I do that,” he said, “I’ll make sure you’re first to know.”

  It was an idea that had been spinning in his mind for quite awhile. Since New Year’s Eve. The night he’d sung in an enchanted hall, to an audience of beings from another world, of the devastation of his own.

  Not yet, as it turned out. Spring had come again.

  * * *

  THE first thing Julien Imara had done, upon returning to Academy Isle, was go to the Hall of Harps. She felt as if she prepared the way for those soon to arrive. With reverence and some regret she’d set the Silver Branch on its dais. Once more, the Hall of Harps was illumined in its soft light.
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  Next she checked the carvings. And saw that the great tile that had shown an antlered king on a throne surrounded by skulls in a double spiral—it was blank now. Not a mark remained.

  As the last days of winter rolled by, students and Archmasters began to arrive. There were those in Eirne who, for a fee, would make the run in their fishing boats when the waters were calm. Soon the Academy halls were ringing with voices again. Julien was still the only girl, but now she had private lessons with Archmaster Hendin. More girls would enroll eventually, he predicted; but until then, he wanted to make sure she was caught up.

  Cai Hendin was appointed High Master following a vote; it was hardly a surprise. No one was sure what his actions in the battle had been; but he was the only Archmaster who had taken action. He began to steer the Academy to a new mission. The enchantments were a necessity, he taught; a responsibility. Poets stood guard at the edge of the world.

  No one had ever viewed the work of the Academy in that light—not in centuries, anyhow. Some might feel it as a loss, removing the focus from their art. Julien Imara did. Dorn had taught her to see it that way, and she could not help but see it, in part, through his eyes. But it also gave her a sense of purpose that was exhilarating in its own way. Archmaster Hendin had told her that if she stayed the course she could become a Seer again. This time with a mark of her own.

  There were nights she dreamed of their sea journey and Labyrinth Isle; some days she felt an essential part of her was gone. She didn’t know if a new mark could make that right. Someday she’d see.

  One day she ran into High Master Hendin’s chambers. She had not made an appointment and was breathing fast from running up the stairs.

  He sat at his writing table. Julien knew he was in regular communication with Lin Amaristoth about affairs of government in Tamryllin. Lin was attempting to mediate talks among the nobles, but tempers ran short. A war of succession was inevitable. Fortunately Lin could expect aid, whatever she required, from the queen of Kahishi.