Return of the Guardian-King

by Karen Hancock

  No one understood. Even now, almost two months later.

  No one but herself. And Tiris.

  The desertion by Tiris’s ships had shocked and dismayed her, but not nearly so much as it had the Chesedhan generals who were counting on him. They had believed him true to the core and that Maddie was a fool for turning him down. Even now they wanted to blame it all on her, not seeing that he’d never been true. Not even close to guessing what she feared he really was.

  A far greater enemy even than Belthre’gar.

  “I’m surprised he didn’t fire on us himself,” Garival said after a few moments of silence.

  Maddie sighed and began to strip off her gloves. “We’ve been through this, sir. You have expressed your disappointment in my decision with splendid clarity—as has everyone else of note—and I do not need to hear it again.”

  “I fear he will retaliate, madam.”

  “I feared it, too, sir. But now I think he’s left the Esurhites to do the work for him.”

  He grimaced. “You should head up to Deveren Dol, madam. With your sons. Before they come.”

  “We have some time yet. And it will be hard to besiege Fannath Rill with the river providing a constant water source. Call a cabinet meeting for tomorrow morning. Late. We’ll discuss what can be done then.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  He left her. After a time she went and sat in the chair beside her travel bags, piled where the servants had left them, and pulled from them the small gray book of the Red Dragon, Abramm’s beloved letters behind its cover. The night she’d agreed to marry Tiris, she had cried herself to sleep, certain she had made the worst mistake of her life, but having no idea how she might get out of it. And no real reason why she should, except for want of Abramm. The next morning she sought out the gray book for the letter it contained, and for no reason she could clearly recall, she had finally begun to read it. As the days passed, her conviction that marrying Tiris would be a mistake had only deepened, like a suppurating wound buried within her, turning all her life sick with its poisons. . . .

  The Red Dragon, she learned, was one of the forms Moroq chose when he went about the earth. And a beautiful form it was—lean, lithe, covered with gleaming scarlet scales that reflected the light in a glory of iridescence. It was powerful beyond imagining, keen-eyed, its sense of smell so sensitive it could detect prey leagues away. And though its breath could spew poison or fire, its conversation was the most dangerous thing about it. For like its brother the serpent, the dragon could be quiet and slippery and subtle. It could wait for long periods to get whatever it wanted, could beguile and befuddle and bewitch. . . .

  It wasn’t until she saw the picture of the warrior with the breastplate and the long black braid that she thought about Tiris. For the man in the picture looked very much like him. From then on, she had begun to think of just how much the dragon motif permeated Tiris’s home and life. And when, one day in a cabinet meeting, Duke Elsingor happened to mention that the name “ul Sadek” had at one time meant “the dragon,” she had reverberated at the statement as if she were one of the great bells in the Kirikhal. It had not let her go, and she had returned to her chambers and read the rest of the book— about the dragon’s wiles, about the way he sought out power, and how he so many times came at the man through his woman. More than that, when he appeared as a man, he was—as he had been created—the most beautiful, the most talented, the most intelligent and charming of all Eidon’s creatures. Once he had been Tersius’s trusted retainer, his closest friend, his most reliable defender. . . . And in the world he could still walk about as that, if he chose. . . .

  By the time she was done she could hardly breathe, horrified by the conclusions that were forcing themselves upon her.

  But the next day she reviled herself as a fanatic, told herself she was just making up wild stories to justify her reluctance to marry the man when the real reason was that she wanted to wait for Abramm, as crazy and irresponsible as that was. Then Tiris had told her she was spending too much time in Terstmeet. . . .

  That one remark had been the turning point, though it was not until the eve of their wedding that she’d gathered the courage to call him to her audience chamber and inform him she would not marry him after all. And in that, unleashed disaster upon her people.

  Now she held the book with its precious letters to her breast and let the tears blur the room around her. Where are you, my love? Why have we not heard? Why have you not returned? You must know what desperate straits we are in. . . .

  It hit her then that if he did not know—or if he did know but had not yet returned—it could only be because he was in desperate straits himself. For if the rhu’ema were her enemies, how much more were they his? And how much would they oppose his return?

  The compulsion to pray for him swept over her, and she fell to her knees, pleading for his protection, for his safety, for his healing—at that thought she recalled the dark thing that had lived in her father’s side, and a terrible fear overtook her. What if Abramm had been shot by the same sort of arrow that had killed her father? For a moment she almost fainted at the horror of it. Then she fought her way free, and took that to Eidon, as well. Open his eyes, my Father. Remind him of who you are, and who he is in you. Remind him of all you have done and have yet to do. Of how much you care for him and us all. Help him to see whatever it is he needs to see to be victorious. . . .

  The words ran out, but she continued on, praying now for herself, for her children and those she loved, for all who wore the Terstan shield, and for the very freedom of her land and her people.

  She felt the evil one’s approach before she saw it. The cold sense of it intruded into her prayers, until she lifted her head and went to the window. In the darkened city below, kelistar streetlamps gleamed amidst the yellow glow of homefires through the myriad windows of homes and inns—not so many of them now as once. A good portion of Fannath Rill’s population had already fled to the northern plateau, though soon there would be an influx of refugees as the Esurhite army moved inland.

  Her eye caught on something out above the plain, a great bird, only not a bird. A veren? No. It was too big, and the wings were long, flexible . . . and featherless. She gasped. It was a dragon! Solid black, without any flicker of reflection, as if it were made of empty space winging its way to consume the entire city. She stood slowly, her mouth open behind her hands as she watched it approach, and the terror grew. So huge it was! She was but a worm before it. A helpless grub, worthy only to serve and grovel at such glory.

  Though everything in her wanted to cringe back against the floor, something held her upright. The Light within her, the renewed hope that Abramm was out there somewhere, and the knowledge that nothing in this world was stronger than the one she served. . . .

  It had something in its talons, which she did not notice until it was nearly upon her, flying low now, coming in at her at eye level. It let go its small burden as it swooped over the yard below her, where the soldiers all stood in a group staring up in silence. The burden was a man, dressed all in white, his arms and legs flailing as he fell, and she let out a cry as the great beast came right at her, the golden eyes catching her own. “You should have gone with me when you had the chance, my little iblis. . . .”

  The wings flapped downward hard, lifting the creature’s bulk up over the tower and away. She stood there, hands clenched, shocked to her toes as the wind of its passage rushed against the window.

  Tiris.

  For a moment she thought she might throw up as the realization gripped her of how close she had come to wedding him.

  The ultimate betrayal. In all ways. Abramm and Eidon, both. Oh, thank you, my Lord, that you did not let me do that. . . .

  Her eyes fixed upon the men in the yard below, the soldiers clustered about the body where it had sprawled, hardly visible as white upon the white tiles. They shouted to one another in alarm, and as the torchlight glinted off the fallen man’s blond hair, new terror overtook
her.

  She whirled from the window and fled through her apartments and down the stairs. The squad sent to alert her to the body’s presence met her as she crossed the Grand Salon on the ground floor, and when they told her it was Leyton—not Abramm—her first reaction was a shameful rush of thanksgiving.

  He wasn’t dressed in white. He wasn’t dressed in anything, and his body had been sorely abused. Five broken-off arrow shafts buried in his chest showed the means of his death, after which his corpse had apparently been dragged about, and the eyes put out. Seeing her brother’s empty eye sockets filled her with a horror she had to swallow whole, lest it amplify the distress that already vibrated in the men around her.

  Belthre’gar had already promised her this would be her own end . . . after she had watched her children die. That, however, was not going to happen. Even if she had to send them up to Caerna’tha—and she was seriously considering it—there was no way the Esurhites would get their hands on her children.

  She straightened and pulled her gaze from her brother’s corpse. “Bind it up right here. I don’t want anyone seeing this. He only means to distress us by it, and I refuse to give him that advantage. We’ll entomb Leyton tomorrow in his place beside my father. With as many of the honors due him as we can muster.”

  The squad’s commanding officer nodded, but the moment two of his men took hold of the body’s legs to straighten them out, a red light flowed from empty eyes and mouth and they jumped back. The light spiraled upward and hung there, turning like a tree bauble in the wind. Except there was no wind. In fact, somehow they had all come to be enfolded in a dark mist.

  The rhu’ema now spoke, the sound of its voice sending the men cowering to the ground.

  “King Leyton was killed in the arena,” it said to Maddie, “seeking to defend the regalia which he stole. Alas, he lost . . . slain by a common slave— one tall and blond with twin scars on his face.”

  Maddie stared at the thing, gritting her teeth with revulsion.

  “The slave is dead now, too, at Belthre’gar’s hand, and they threw the crown into the sea. Now they are searching for men to play the part of Queen Madeleine—to demonstrate how she will die, as well. . . .”

  She conjured a kelistar, and the thing shriveled into itself, then shot up into the sky and away.

  The men stood around her, staring upward, then at her, open fear in their faces. “It is gone,” she said abruptly. “Now see to my brother’s body. And do not spread this tale around. It was sent for one reason only—to frighten and demoralize us. But it needs our mouths and tongues to do that. Which means if you gossip about this, you will be helping them. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, madam,” the commanding officer assured her.

  She nodded and took her leave of them.

  Trap came to her a little later, already informed about the dragon and the rhu’ema. “They say you will not talk of it, though.”

  “I think . . . the dragon was Tiris,” she said softly, still shaken by that revelation herself.

  He stared at her, struck speechless. “You’re saying Tiris is a dragon?” he asked when he found his tongue.

  “Or at any rate it was Tiris’s voice I heard when it flew over.”

  “Maybe he was riding it.”

  “I don’t think so, Trap.”

  CHAPTER

  34

  For weeks Abramm and his liegemen rowed westward along the coast of Chesedh. Their Chesedhan companions went with them only as far as the mouth of the Elpis inlet, where they split off, heading for the fortress of the same name at the inlet’s head. Alone, the Kiriathans continued on, eventually turning southward along the Chenen Peninsula toward the Narrows. Day after day their vessel cut through smooth, heavy swells beneath an unchanging ceiling of flat cloud cover, their rate of travel slowed dramatically as they fought the prevailing current. A slight breeze stirred the air from time to time, but there was no wind, no rain. Nor were there sun or stars to guide by. With the compass befuddled by the mist, they had to stay close enough to shore to navigate—as well as to put in to land from time to time for fresh food and water.

  On the first day of the sixth week they rounded the end of the Chenen Peninsula and entered the Narrows, a network of channels threading their way through the archipelago that remained from the sinking of the Heartland centuries ago. Most of the islands were little more than rocky sentinels, but a few were large enough that people had settled on them—fishermen and traders mostly, for the Narrows was the quickest path from eastern Chesedh to both Thilos and Kiriath.

  It was early afternoon as they turned into a wide bay encircled by humps of land, not an Esurhite galley in sight. Of course, there hadn’t been for weeks now, and all aboard knew why: The Esurhites were occupied elsewhere, and the rocky, cliff-lined Narrows offered few places to land—none that would be practical for the disembarkation of an army.

  As they glided across the bay’s leaden surface, Abramm stood at the vessel’s prow, watching the rocky humps loom incrementally larger on their horizon. He stood there often these days, especially since he’d had to stop rowing. The captain’s cabin, which he’d made his own, was too stuffy and stifling to bear for very long. It stank, as well. Out here, even the small breeze that blew over the vessel’s prow helped to clear his head and cool his fever, and the hiss and slap of the waves parting before the bow soothed his agitation. If an attack of nausea came, he was standing right at the rail, no need for a pan that Rolland would have to empty. And out here he was free of the haunting images.

  Of course, there were days the brightness and the sight of the waters passing alongside the ship were too much to bear. There were days he was too weak or sick to make it out of bed, but it was getting better. I’m out here now, he told himself. We just need to get through the Narrows, away from it all, away from him. And then his power over me will be less. . . .

  He frowned at the humps before him, for though they were still a good ways off, they were disappearing behind a gathering gloom. He hadn’t thought it was that late yet . . . but perhaps he’d stood here longer than he knew. . . . That happened a lot. He’d come out at midday and would barely seem to get settled before Rolland was asking him to come in to supper. Which of course he never ate, so he didn’t know why Rolland kept asking him.

  He watched the once clearly delineated channels disappear into the gloom and reflected how like his life that was—once well lit and clearly defined, now lost in gloom. He didn’t want to think about that, though, because thinking only made him hurt more than he already did. Whether it was the past or the future, nothing could be considered without pain. He’d come out on the prow to forget.

  The swells were growing more pronounced, along with the increasing mist. That was odd, since usually the sea calmed as the mist dropped. In any case the boat had acquired a dismaying corkscrew roll that was not at all kind to the nausea simmering in his gut. And though he had been hot earlier, now he shivered with a sudden chill. Soon he was engaged in a serious debate over whether to stay here or return to his cabin. He wasn’t sure he could make it back before he needed the bedpan. On the other hand, the longer he stood in place the more pronounced his shivering became, and soon the everattentive Rolland, leaning now on the gunwale amidships, would be coming to ask if he was all right.

  It annoyed him no end the way everyone was always asking how he was.

  When it started to sprinkle and the tiny drops burned his skin so fiercely he expected them to sizzle, he hurried back to his cabin. He barely made it through the door before he began to retch. Only bile came up now, for he had nothing in his stomach. It burned his throat and nostrils, and when he was done, even repeated sips of water would not clean the burning away. As always the retching opened the wound in his side, the stench of it worse than that of the vomit. Shaking, weak and dizzy, he collapsed on his bunk, lying on his back and staring at the deck supports.

  After a time, when he had regained his strength, he pulled up his shirt. Sure
enough, the stained bandage had yet another dark spot at its midst as fresh spore leaked out of him. He sat up and unwound the long strips from around his midriff to reveal the black starfish living and growing under his flesh. If he didn’t get it out of his body soon, he knew he would die. But repeated purges hadn’t worked, and lately they’d left him so weak and drained, he’d given them up altogether. Now he probed gently about the edges and thought again about cutting it out.

  He’d have to do it alone. Couldn’t ask anyone to help him and risk getting the blackness into them. More than that it shamed him that he should be so weak he’d not been able to remove this thing on his own. He was the White Pretender! He was the Guardian-King. He was the man who walked with Eidon. . . .

  But Eidon had deserted him.

  He swung his legs over the side of the bed. When the cabin stopped spinning about him, he stood and pulled his dagger from its sheath, where it hung with his sword belt from a peg on the wall. Then he sat again on the side of his bunk, knife in hand, fingers probing at the corruption as he wondered how deep the thing might go.

  And all the while some part of his mind was shrieking at him. You cannot do this! You will kill yourself.

  I’m already dead.

  This is not Eidon’s will for you.

  I don’t care about Eidon’s will for me.

  Yes, you do. . . .

  He set his jaw and clenched his fist about the knife, but then his vision blurred and he had to wait for that to pass. When it had, and he was again nerving himself to plunge the end of the knife into his flesh, the door burst open. He looked up. Rollie stood in the opening, staring at him in horror. An instant later, the big man had crossed the deck and snatched the blade from his hand, Abramm too weak to resist him.

  “Eidon’s mercy, sir! What are ye doing?” He stepped back from Abramm as he spoke, disgust on his face, his eyes on the growth in Abramm’s side.