Return of the Guardian-King

by Karen Hancock

  “Even if the field had been ours by then,” Hadrich muttered. “At least that speylcur Belthre’gar won’t be able to make me watch him slay my children.” He breathed out a long sigh. “Just wish I could’ve seen my grandsons before I went.”

  “Oh, Papa, don’t talk like that. I have a friend, more skilled than I. He’ll know what to do. You rest and I’ll be back later with the boys.”

  “Yes. The boys,” he murmured, his hands loosening their grip on the sheet, his face slackening. “Have to see the boys. Before I die . . .”

  She frowned but did not correct him this time, for he had already fallen asleep. Besides, she no longer had the heart for it. The way the mass had repelled her Light filled her with dread. It had him. It was probable that only his own use of the Light against the thing would save him. And he lacked the skill and strength.

  Still, she wouldn’t give up. Before even leaving his chambers she sent a rider to Ang’s Tavern with a summons for Trap.

  The meeting of the Kiriathan exiles at Arvill Ang’s Tavern, convened by Oswain Nott at eleven in the morning and running through the afternoon, involved a good deal of shouting and arguing, with everyone offering his opinion, as they had for a month now, on what was to be done regarding the survival of Abramm’s sons and their duty to retake Kiriath.

  Though Thornycroft’s tenuous rumor of Abramm’s alleged rescue had been thoroughly debunked by now, there remained the concern Maddie might remarry a Chesedhan, which many viewed as intolerable. The boys belonged to Kiriath, not some Chesedhan nobleman—and certainly not some Sorite heathen. They seemed to have forgotten that the boys were Chesedhan as much as Kiriathan. Or perhaps they didn’t care. They had a legitimate heir to the Kiriathan throne, and now their planning could begin in earnest.

  Trap listened with guarded skepticism, less concerned that the boys should ascend to the throne than that they lived to reach adulthood. Indeed, he found he didn’t much care what happened to his homeland any longer. He wanted only to see Simon and Ian safe and happy.

  Nott and the others made strong declarations that, as Abramm’s son and the rightful king of Kiriath, little Simon must be properly groomed for his destiny, and that such grooming could only be accomplished by a Kiriathan. Darnley was the one who suggested the idea of foster parents, with Kiriath’s former First Minister and his wife being the perfect candidates. Trap could even serve as regent.

  “We have the power to determine that right here,” said Nott.

  When they got around to asking Trap what he thought about it all, he told them flatly that he would not take them from their mother, as Abramm would never countenance such an action and it was to Abramm that Trap was sworn, not Simon.

  Nott snorted. “Abramm is dead. You can’t hold an oath to a dead man.”

  Hamilton protested, and the argument veered off on the tangent of whether or not an oath made to a dead man need be kept. Eventually, they got back to Trap, whereupon Darnley offered additional support for his suggestion: “Queen Madeleine has no power in Chesedh. Her first loyalty will be to her blood family and then, if it ends up that way, to her new husband. You, however, as you have just stated, are Abramm’s sworn liegeman. Regardless of these others, you believe such oaths are binding, and the very fact you’ve sworn to Abramm means you’re bound to little Simon. I don’t see it stops you from swearing liege to the boy, as well.”

  Aversion hardened in Trap. He’d sworn an oath to Abramm to protect his sons, and he would do so. But he would not swear an oath to the son. Not yet, anyway.

  And why is that? he asked himself. Because deep down even after eight and a half months of silence, part of him hadn’t accepted the fact his dearest friend was gone? On that day last month when Thornycroft had suggested Abramm lived, the realization of his own dividedness had taken Trap by storm. He still fought it—knowing with his mind what was true, waiting for his heart to believe it.

  His refusal to go along with their plan launched another lengthy discussion. If Maddie remarried, might she agree to accept Trap as the boys’ guardian? Could she even make such an agreement? Her father might not force her to go against her desires, but her father wouldn’t live forever.

  Everyone was arguing and proclaiming emphatically on this subject when Maddie’s messenger appeared at Trap’s side and whispered her summons in his ear. Cold with sudden dread, he left immediately, his departure unnoticed in the uproar. Outside he pressed the messenger for details, but the man had none to give.

  Trap took his horse, clattering through the streets to the palace, where Maddie awaited him in her quarters, more distraught than he’d ever seen her. Words tumbled out of her willy-nilly, explaining the situation, hoping he would be able to heal the old man where she had not.

  He shook his head. “I am no more skilled in the Light than you, madam.” Actually he suspected he was less so. “If your Light had no effect—”

  “I thought perhaps the two of us. Ronesca has brought in Minirth and a team of clerics. Along with the doctors . . .”

  “I don’t see what—”

  “He is my father, Trap. And he’s dying.” She drew breath in that sounded more like a sob, and the look of utter desperation in her eyes caught at his heart.

  He didn’t know exactly how it happened, but somehow she came into his arms and he held her, awkwardly, as she cried upon his shoulder. It was too much for him to bear. He told her finally he would do what he could.

  Thankfully she’d already pulled away and was wiping her tears when a servant burst into the room with the typical Chesedhan disregard for privacy.

  “My lady, the crown princess bids you present yourself in His Majesty’s quarters immediately. The king’s had a seizure. Dr. Lavek says this is the end. He’s asking for you and your sons. In fact, they’re being brought to him now.”

  Maddie turned to Trap in horror, and they rushed from the room together, Trap ordering Channon to come with him as he took the lead. Hearing little Ian’s screaming while they were still crossing the courtyard below the Royal Apartments, he took the steps two at a time and caught up with the guards as they were heading into the king’s chambers. Ian saw him and reached toward him over the shoulder of the man who carried him, his screaming escalating to ear-piercing pitch.

  In moments Ian was safe in Trap’s arms, clinging fiercely to his neck, his terrified screams subsiding to more modulated sobs. As Maddie jogged up the stair into view, Simon pulled free of his own escort and ran to her.

  Through the apartment door, an old man shouted for Leyton to attend him, despite the fact the crown prince was, as far as Trap knew, still in Peregris, commanding the army.

  The doorman looked simultaneously relieved and worried as they approached. “It’s good you’re here, Highness. He’s getting more agitated by the moment!”

  “Where is Madeleine?” Hadrich roared from within. “Where are my grandsons? I want them here now.”

  A woman’s voice sounded in soothing response, her syllables too faint to be distinguished as words.

  Maddie stepped around the doorman, holding Simon’s hand, and hurried through the arched opening into the darkened bedchamber beyond. Trap followed, carrying Ian, the boy’s face buried in his chest.

  He had known the king was ill, but nothing could have prepared him for the scene that met his eyes. Princess Ronesca had preceded them and stood ar her father-in-law’s bedside, High Kohal Minirth and his clerics lurking in the shadows behind her. Her two grown sons stood in their dress uniforms at the foot of the king’s bed, with First Minister Garival in his gold-edged robes of state beside them.

  The old man himself lay propped on a pile of pillows, shriveled and gray in the light of the banks of candles on the bedside tables. His sharp, restive eyes flicked to Maddie as she entered, and the raspy voice said with startling strength, “What have you been doing, girl? Didn’t they tell you I’m dying?” His gaze fixed next upon Ronesca. “Leyton is still not here?”

  “He is in Peregris, Sir
e.”

  “He told me he would be following me on the road.” The fierce eyes darted to little Simon, still at Maddie’s side. “This is your firstborn?”

  Maddie edged toward her father, pushing Simon ahead of her. The boy moved unwillingly, back pressed against her skirts. “Yes, Papa. This is Simon.” And to her son, “Simon, say hello to your grandpapa.”

  In Trap’s arms, Ian hitched around to watch his brother. Simon looked at the floor and murmured a hesitant hello.

  Hadrich frowned. “Is that any way for a crown prince to speak?!” he boomed. “Show some poise, lad! And some manners. Stand straight and look me in the eye when you speak to me!” He glared at Maddie. “Have you taught them nothing?!”

  Ian pressed his face against Trap’s lapel again and whimpered, both movement and sound drawing the old man’s attention. His scowl deepened. “That is the younger one? Mewling like a babe and needing to be carried?” He turned his gaze back to his daughter. “What sort of spineless worms are you raising here?”

  Ian must have understood, for the whimpering became outright crying, which only irked the old king more. He grimaced fiercely and bared long yellow teeth as his arm waved at Ian. “Stop that crying at once, sir. I’ll hear no more of it.”

  The sudden deepening of the darkness in his eyes sent a chill up Trap’s spine, as all the uneasiness he’d felt upon entering crystallized into outright alarm.

  The skinny arm waved. “Bring him here. I’ll straighten him out.”

  Ian wailed in terror as Ronesca turned to Trap and hissed, “Get him out of here!”

  Trap was already pulling the boy’s arms from his neck. He passed him off to Channon, who wheeled for the door. Seeing them leaving, Hadrich lurched up in the bed with a great shriek of “NO!” and everything went to chaos.

  The king’s eyes and mouth turned black, only emptiness where once had been tongue and teeth and lips. The shadow flowed out of his side, a great bloom of darkness soaking the covering sheet beneath his hand as a ragged stream of inky liquid spread down toward the hem and dripped onto the floor.

  Trap had never seen anything like it, but its cold malevolence was unmistakable. Yelling at Channon to “Go! Go!” he threw himself at Simon, who had pulled back from Maddie to stare down at the oily liquid rising toward his shoe tops. Trap swooped the boy up into his arms as Ronesca screamed and Maddie stared dumbly at her father. The old man’s eyes and nose and ears and mouth all ran with the black oil that by then had eaten a hole through sheet and bandage, bubbling up from the wound in his side.

  As Simon’s arms tightened around his neck and the darkness rose around them, impossibly fast and cold, Trap caught Maddie’s arm and jerked her backward.

  “They must die,” the ancient voice boomed. “They must all die! There can be none left.”

  He did not know who spoke. It seemed like Hadrich, and yet . . . it did not.

  He sought for Eidon, and the white light exploded in his mind, blinding him, driving off the darkness. When it faded he stood with Simon still in his arms, Maddie hugged to his side, and Ronesca clinging to all three of them. They stared at the king, who had fallen back onto his bed. His eyes and mouth were normal again, save that his mouth lolled open and the eyes stared blindly at the ceiling. The black oil had vanished, leaving the sheets gray-stained and riddled with holes.

  Lavek sprang to the king’s side, searching for pulse or breath. Before he could voice his pronouncement, however, Maddie said quietly, “He’s dead.”

  Ronesca moaned, stepping away from them and shaking her head even when the physician agreed. “He’s gone.” He stared at her, swallowed once, then went to one knee and bowed his head. “My queen.”

  A moment after him, the others in the room followed his lead, including Maddie, and finally Trap, still holding Simon.

  “Please, get up,” Ronesca said, shaking her head at the doctor. “You must be mistaken.”

  “I am not, madam. He is gone. You are queen.”

  She wrung her hands, looking from one of them to the other, her face pale and sweat-sheened, her dress blotched with the spore’s gray stains. Then her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed. At the same moment, Maddie put her hands to her swollen womb with a cry. She looked at Trap in surprise, and her face whitened as she bent over, cradling her distended belly with both hands as she gasped, “No! It’s not time yet. It’s not time!”

  CHAPTER

  12

  “She’s out there again, isn’t she?” Rolland’s quiet statement carried in the wind’s lull.

  Abramm straightened from where he had just pounded the pivot pin through the knuckles of the barn door’s bottom hinge and looked up at his companion. Light from the kelistar lantern hanging on the stone wall beside the gate illumined Rolland’s face, his beard and mustache coated with ice. His heavy brow cast his eyes into shadow, but it seemed he was looking down the twilight-filled valley. “You see them?” Abramm asked.

  Rolland nodded. “Standing on that knoll out there. She and her offspring, looks like—though I can’t make out how many.”

  “Seven,” Abramm said. “Like before.”

  Rolland shook his head. “Discomforts me how ye can see in the dark like that.”

  Abramm had felt their approach an hour ago, when he and Rolland had come out here to fix the sheep barn door, torn off its hinges by last week’s storm. The light was beginning to fail then, and now, barely four o’clock in the afternoon, night was nearly upon them.

  Even so, Abramm saw them as clearly as if it were day: dark, shaggy, hump-shouldered forms standing on the snow-covered knoll on the near side of the stream. The monastery walls were still plenty high to keep them out, even with all the snow, but that wouldn’t matter if someone opened one of the outside gates for them. . . .

  “I thought Laud said the villagers wouldn’t return again until spring,” Rolland muttered.

  “He did.”

  The wind kicked up again, whipping at Abramm’s fur-lined hood as it carried his breath away in a long feather of white. With mittened hand he knocked away the ice clots from his mustache, then gestured at the top hinge. “You got that set?”

  Rolland nodded.

  “Let’s try it, then.” He stepped back and kicked away the block of wood they’d used to support the door’s end, and the wooden planking swung back, banging against the frame. Abramm worked it back and forth. “Looks good.”

  He glanced up as the tanniym howled, and darkness flowed across his vision like a curtain of black oil. It brought with it a deep, breath-seizing, irrational fear for Maddie. He stood rigidly, shivering as the tanniym’s howl coursed over his skin. Then it ended and his sight returned, the seven tanniym watching him from the knoll as the hairs on the back of his neck stood upright.

  Maddie was in grave danger. Right now. But how could he help her, trapped in this icy prison? Unless he’d been deceived. Maybe there really was an easy way down. Maybe the villagers knew. . . . Maybe—

  “Ye alright, friend?” Rolland’s voice tore through the web of maybes. Abramm looked at him blankly.

  “She was talking t’ ye again, wasn’t she?” the blacksmith guessed.

  “No.” Abramm’s eyes drifted back to the dark shapes on the knoll. “It was more a feeling.” Abruptly he scanned the night sky, fearing the dragon’s return, as beside him Rolland did likewise. But the expanse of starry heavens held nothing unusual.

  “A feeling,” Rolland said.

  “Maddie’s in danger.”

  “Maddie? That your wife’s name?”

  “Aye . . .” Another rise of wind whistled around them, making the gate shudder. Inside the barn, the sheep baaed nervously. Abramm wiped at the ice clots stuck to his mustache again. The fear returned like an incoming tide. She was in danger. The boys, too. He needed to go to them. Maybe one of the villagers would be willing to take him south. . . .

  “Ye sure she’s not talkin’ t’ ye? ’Cause ye keep fadin’ out on me, like ye’re liste
nin’ to something else.”

  Again, Abramm shook free of the spell, then bent to pick up his tools. “We’d best get on with the feeding.”

  But even inside the barn, out of the direct line of sight of his enemies, the sense of being watched remained. And the thoughts of Maddie’s peril kept coming, anxiety thrumming in his belly.

  The sheep continued to baa and mill restlessly, after they were fed, and Abramm wasn’t sure whether they sensed his jumpiness or he sensed theirs. He kept hearing things—breathing, a voice—but every time he stopped there was nothing. Only the sounds of the sheep and the rustle of Rolland’s pitching straw onto the floor. He noted, too, that the shadows looked especially dark, appearing to flow from place to place, like pools of pitch-black oil. And overhead, where they were the deepest, he glimpsed the glowing colors of several rhu’ema. Which distressed him even more, since it seemed the rhu’ema only came out to watch when something significant was about to happen.

  Whatever it was, it didn’t take place in the sheep barn. But when they stepped outside, though he could no longer see the tanniym, he felt them out there, waiting.

  Terstmeet gave him an hour’s respite, but soon after the meeting ended his anxiety returned. And again, it seemed to spread from him to the others. At supper everyone had been cheerful. Now they grew increasingly irritable. Arguments broke out, and the children kept crying—now this one, now that one . . . now the other—their shrill voices grating at Abramm’s nerves. Then, around nine o’clock, Jania shrieked and leaped to her feet, both hands pressed to her swollen belly. And when Abramm saw the rush of water that darkened the carpeting beneath her feet, he went cold with sudden, profound terror.

  The women hustled her off to a corner of the room—no one was willing to brave the dark corridors of the monastery tonight—while some of the men rigged a screen using ropes and blankets. But blankets couldn’t block out her gasps and screams of pain, and these affected Abramm even more profoundly than the crying children. For he had heard Maddie’s birth pangs with both Simon and Ian, and could not forget how often—and easily—women died in childbed. It was like that now, his concern as visceral and irrational. As if somehow it were not poor Jania who lay on that bed behind the screen but Maddie herself. He kept seeing her—and Simon, for some reason—swallowed up by a rising tide of blackness.