Crown of Vengeance (Dragon Prophecy)

by James Mallory Mercedes Lackey

  “You are Green Robe and scholar, and once you were friend to me, when I had none. I would tell you a story that is no story. Will you hear?”

  “Yes,” he answered heavily. “I will hear.”

  * * *

  Almost he could imagine himself back at the Sanctuary of the Star on some lazy afternoon when there was nothing better to do than to try to unravel the mysteries of their long and unfathomable history. Vieliessar spoke not of herself, but of Celelioniel’s quest to discover the beginnings of the Lightborn, of how they had learned to wield their power.

  “In the Sanctuary we are taught that each thing implies its opposite,” Vieliessar said. “It is the foundation of our spellcraft. Heal or harm. Make fertile or blight. And not only in our Magery: we see in the world around us that each thing possesses its opposite. Creatures who fly and creatures who burrow, grass eaters and flesh eaters, and for this cause we have always been taught that the Beastlings are the shadow of all we are—but Celelioniel did not believe that could be so. If the Beastlings possessed a Darkness as great as our Light, surely they would have used it to make a desert of all the Fortunate Lands.”

  “Not if they want to live here,” Thurion commented dryly, and Vieliessar made a rude snort of amusement.

  “Perhaps. But surely they would make some desert. And they would feed their spellcraft upon blood. And we would have learned that those things are wrong from their example. We have learned those things are wrong, but not from the Beastlings. From who, then?”

  “Everyone knows the Lightborn—some Lightborn—break the Covenant,” Thurion said hesitantly.

  “And why is there a Covenant?” she asked implacably.

  For a moment Thurion was a Postulant still. “Because—it must have been a long time ago—some Lightborn did those things, and…” He stopped, because Vieliessar was shaking her head.

  “Each thing there is implies—creates—its opposite,” she reminded him.

  “Theory is no validation of prophecy,” Thurion answered, almost sputtering.

  “No,” Vieliessar agreed. “And Celelioniel did not begin with the Prophecy, but with an attempt to discover how we learned to do as we do. It was Mosirinde Peacemaker who first taught the Covenant—and she also who founded the Sanctuary of the Star.”

  “But—” Thurion said.

  “But no one knows why, or how the Light came to us before the founding of the Sanctuary,” Vieliessar agreed. “I will ask you to simply take as true that Celelioniel searched for that answer for years, that The Song of Amrethion was the end of her quest and not the beginning, that she discovered that what seems like nonsense to our eyes is instead a simple list of events that will come to pass before…” She stopped, and when she went on, her voice held sudden urgency. “Thurion, do you believe that evil can be done in the service of good?”

  “Of course not,” he answered promptly. “By its very nature, evil destroys and taints all it touches, so anything it touches cannot be good.”

  Vieliessar bowed her head, and Thurion didn’t think he’d given her the answer she hoped to hear. But it was what they had both been taught in the Sanctuary.

  “Imagine all the good things in the world. Everything you can. Everything that has given you joy, or a moment’s pleasure, or made you happy,” she said.

  “The Light,” Thurion answered softly. The look on Vieliessar’s face frightened him, though he could not say why.

  “Now imagine that all these good things have an opposite. Not the petty cruelty of the Hundred Houses—for the War Princes may be as kind and generous as they are cruel and petty—but an opposite. A being. A race that can only be named Darkness.”

  “You cannot know this!” Thurion exclaimed.

  “High King Amrethion warned of them—every Astromancer, every great Seer from Mosirinde Peacemaker to Celelioniel has Seen them. Hamphuliadiel has swept all the books of prophecy from Arevethmonion—did you know?—so no other can discover that Celelioniel spoke true.”

  “It is only a theory, Vielle,” Thurion said desperately.

  “Yes,” she answered. “A theory. But suppose it is not. The Prophecy says this Darkness comes, not to conquer us, but to destroy us. If I am the Child of the Prophecy, it will come in my lifetime. If the Hundred Houses do not act as one when that day comes, our defeat is certain. So tell me, my oldest friend, what would you have me do?”

  There was only one true answer he could give: If the Prophecy is true, you must do everything you can, no matter what it is, to make the Fortunate Lands ready for the day we must fight as one.

  He could not bear to give her those words.

  “All right,” he said into the silence. “Let us suppose the Prophecy is as you say.”

  “You do not believe,” she said harshly.

  “I want to,” he answered helplessly, knowing only as he spoke that the words were true. “But I cannot imagine … How can you hope to unite the Hundred and make the War Princes swear fealty to you? Serenthon—”

  “Serenthon of Farcarinon intrigued to make himself High King with vows and promises, yet his strongest ally turned against him. Caerthalien was able to turn his allies against him and unify his enemies—because they feared what their lives would hold were he to rule,” she answered unyieldingly. “I know his errors. I would not repeat them. But I ask again, Thurion: what must I do?”

  His life had trained him to love the Light. His years in the Sanctuary of the Star had trained him to think. “You must fight,” he answered, hanging his head. “If we die in battle, the Hunt will claim us for its own, so … Vielle, you are the most powerful Mage I have ever seen. Could you—if you were to break the Covenant—”

  “—call down lightning from the sky to slay all their armies in an instant?” She gnawed at her lower lip, as if choosing her next words with care. “That thought was in my mind. But I might render the Fortunate Lands a desert without destroying the Darkness. Or the Lightborn might slay me as I fought. Or I might succeed—” She broke off. “One chance in three of victory is not such a match as I would wager upon. If we are to face a great army, we will face it with a great army.”

  “But you have no proof!” Thurion cried. “You cannot make the Hundred bend the knee without giving them proof!”

  “No,” Vieliessar agreed. Her voice was hard. “Nor would I offer it if I had—they would only fight among themselves over who was to lead the army, just as they have fought all these centuries over which of them is to be Amrethion’s successor. And so I will not ask anyone to believe in anything but me. The War Princes will swear to me, and to each other, and we shall face the Darkness an army of princes. All of us, Thurion. All.”

  “Did you…?” Thurion said. His voice trembled, and he could not finish the sentence. Did you use Magery to defeat Rithdeliel and gain Oronviel?

  “I will do what I must, Thurion.” There was no triumph in her voice.

  Tears glittered in Thurion’s eyes. He wiped them away before they fell, not caring if she saw. “Vielle … Is it worth … surviving … if we cast aside everything that makes us what we are?”

  “Once Amrethion and Pelashia reigned over a land without death, without war—without Landbond and craftworker sold as if they were cattle when the luck of battle did not favor their masters. We have already cast aside what we were. I would see us live to regain it,” she answered softly.

  “I … I must…” With great effort, Thurion collected himself. “I suppose I have always known. Who you were. What you were. What you would become. I have thought, you know, since the news came to us of Oronviel. About you. The Sanctuary never finds Light in the Lines Direct, you know. I think something must have happened that forced Caerthalien to send Prince Ivrulion to the Sanctuary. Perhaps all of you—”

  “I am no different than you, Thurion,” she said, but he went on as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “—perhaps all of you have great power. Perhaps the Sanctuary fears the return of Lightborn like Mosirinde Peacemaker. They sh
ould. Have you ever thought about how miraculous Lady Nataranweiya’s escape from Farcarinon was? She could have died a thousand times on the journey. She did not. She could have miscarried of you, lost you to cold, a fall from her horse, a dozen things. She did not. She gained the Sanctuary. You were born alive. Celelioniel knew all you say you know, yet she feared your birth as if it were the summoning of the Darkness, not our defense against it. And still she set her Master Spell upon you so you could grow up safely beneath the rooftree of your House’s greatest enemy.

  “You might have died there. Babies do. Children do. A kick from a horse, a fall from a wall, and all Ladyholder Glorthiachiel would have needed to do was not summon a Lightborn to Heal you. But she never got the chance. So you went to the Sanctuary, and there you were no one. Nothing. Powerless. Hamphuliadiel could have slain you and gained favor with any of a dozen Houses. He never did—and then it was too late, for not even the Astromancer may raise his hand against one of the Lightborn without cause. You have walked barefoot among adders every day of your life and never been harmed. Your destiny was always waiting for you. A task set upon your shoulders by Amrethion Aradruiniel himself, ten thousand years ago.”

  He had not meant to say any of this. It was admission that he believed. But he could not hold back the words.

  “I think it has made you … more,” he said in a whisper. “I do not know why others do not see it. Perhaps you keep them from seeing it, as you kept Hamphuliadiel from seeing you. But they will see it. And they will fear you as you fear the Darkness to come.

  “I cannot stand against what you have become, Vielle. The time when I might have is long past.”

  “Do you fear me?” she asked, and in her eyes Thurion saw sorrow, not triumph.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “And I grieve, for I had a friend whom I loved, and she was but an illusion, a shadow cast by a Great Power.”

  “I am no Great Power!” Vieliessar protested. “You said yourself—Nataranweiya was my mother—Serenthon was my father—”

  “And now you are Child of the Prophecy, not of Farcarinon,” Thurion said with gentle finality.

  “Will you serve me still?” she asked.

  Thurion closed his eyes as if the sound of her voice hurt. “Yes,” he answered, opening them again.

  She smiled painfully, and in that moment she was so beautiful his heart broke for her. “You will curse my name before we are done,” she told him.

  “I don’t care,” he answered steadily. “I will do all that you ask of me.” He took another deep breath. “So let us now consider what I am to tell Bolecthindial, and how I am to keep Ivrulion from discovering the truth.”

  * * *

  Vieliessar’s Midwinter Court was a dazzling affair. Through her Lightborn, by spellbird, she had extended invitations to the princes of all the Hundred Houses. Only those of the forty Houses of the West could possibly attend, for the eastward passes were closed by winter, and the journey from the Western Shore was long and arduous. It did not matter. Every word spoken within Oronviel’s walls on the first night of the Festival would reach the farthest castels of the Grand Windsward before the seventh.

  “I still say you’re mad.”

  “Say I am imaginative, Prince Thoromarth, it sounds better,” Vieliessar answered.

  “I’ll say you’re the Mother of Dragons if that’s what you want,” Thoromarth growled in reply.

  First Night. The feast had gone on from sunset to midnight. Two dozen Lightborn envoys were guests of Oronviel, and if they weren’t spies in truth, their so-called servants certainly were. No one from the High Houses had attended, but what Ulillion knew, Cirandeiron knew in the same breath. The Twelve were present, even if they were not here.

  “Say I shall be High King, for I mean to be,” she said. She walked through the outer room to the inner as Thoromarth followed. “Wine?” she asked, gesturing to the sideboard as she seated herself in a chair beneath the window. A spellshield cast a faint shimmer over the opening.

  He raised a cup toward her in silent question, nodding at her demur before filling it for himself. “Giving amnesty to losels and wolfsheads is one thing—a prince may do as she pleases with her people and I won’t gainsay you. But … not sending Candidates to the Shrine? What will the Astromancer think?” Thoromarth asked.

  “I have not made up my mind to it.” But soon Oronviel would be set against the rest of the Hundred Houses, and she had promised her people she would not take their children from them to be held as hostages. “Forester Lonthorn has been to the Flower Forest. She says the Vilya looks likely to fruit this spring, so we shall have a new Astromancer.” She gazed down at the surface of the inlaid table beside her. The silver wires crossing the wood gleamed faintly violet in the spellshield’s light. “Thoromarth, why doesn’t the Light ever appear in the Lines Direct?”

  Thoromarth frowned and glanced back toward the outer room. He was obviously displeased by this change of topic—he had little patience for discussions which seemed to him to be idle speculation—but knew he had no choice but to follow Vieliessar’s whims. “It does,” he protested. There’s you, and … Ivrulion Light-Prince of Caerthalien, and…” He stopped.

  “Let us not forget Ternas of Celebros,” Vieliessar said dryly. “But … two, from all the Hundred Houses in all the years of the reigns of the last three Astromancers? And I was not expected to have the Light, and Ivrulion’s Light was not supposed to be discovered. What we do at the Sanctuary is flawed, Thoromarth.”

  Thoromarth reached to touch the silver shoeing-nail he wore about his neck. “Hunt defend us, is there nothing you do not mean to overturn?” he asked.

  “Perhaps I shall like the new Astromancer better than I like Hamphuliadiel,” Vieliessar answered obliquely. “We shall see.”

  “Perhaps you will not live to see him—or her—chosen,” Thoromarth grumbled. “Ah well. It is time I sought my bed, to receive the overtures of all those who wish to cast you down and set me once more in your place.”

  “And I to give these same answers to Gunedwaen and Rithdeliel,” Vieliessar answered lightly. “I wish you good rest, such as it will be.”

  * * *

  On the Fourth Night of Midwinter, Lightbrother Thurion of Caerthalien Called the Light in the children of Oronviel Great Keep. It was a graceful nod to Oronviel’s clientage to Caerthalien, and if everyone at the Festival already knew that Vieliessar meant to break those ties, the fact that she still played a double game was obscurely reassuring.

  It brought back odd memories of her childhood, when she was Varuthir, not Vieliessar. Of watching the castel children walk up to the High Table in Caerthalien’s Great Hall where Ivrulion and other senior Lightborn waited to Call the Light. The storysinger sang The Song of Pelashia’s Gift and each child received a honeycake and a ribbon when the Lightbrother was done. Silver for those who would make the journey to the Sanctuary of the Star, gold for those who would not.

  Now it was a lifetime later, and she sat in the War Prince’s great chair in another Great Hall, and presided over the selection of Candidates who might never see the Sanctuary.

  Oddly, with all she said, privately and publicly, and despite the very fact of her existence, the thing that caused the most talk that Midwinter was Vieliessar’s treatment of the commons. Night after night, her vassal lords and the Lightborn envoys stood upon the battlements of the keep and looked out over the tables she had erected for the commons’ feast.

  A waste of good food, they said.

  They’ll come to expect such tender treatment, and grow lazy.

  She cossets them out of weakness.

  Sanctuary softness has no place in a War Prince.

  But beneath the mockery and disbelief, she sensed … fear.

  Fear of change.

  Fear of ways they did not understand.

  Fear of her.

  And on the morning of the eighth day, those who had kept Festival within Oronviel’s walls rode forth, while Vieliessar stood upon t
he battlements and watched them go. It was hard to watch Thurion ride away, knowing that his pledge to her made all of Caerthalien a danger to him.

  But spring was coming.

  And War Season.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BATTLE CITY

  For twice upon five hundred lives, the Throne of Shame shall sleep

  And Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor a haunt of shadows lie

  The Happy Lands shall ring to blood and battle through the years

  While all who husband hidden secrets die.

  Though many seek to gain the crown, no hand shall gain its light

  And brother vie with brother for a prize no House can claim

  While Darkness breeds in lands unknown, its armies bought with blood

  Against the day false promise is made true.

  —The Song of Amrethion Aradruiniel

  The remains of the Free Companies ravaged the countryside as bandits. As she had vowed, Vieliessar hunted them relentlessly. As she had also vowed, she gave each of her prisoners a choice: pledge fealty to her or die in battle.

  “I wish to offer you and your people a full pardon.”

  There was a long moment of disbelieving silence.

  “Why?” Nadalforo asked suspiciously.

  “So you will swear fealty to me and fight for me,” Vieliessar said patiently. “It is better to be my vassal than my enemy. If you or any of your followers have committed offenses in another domain, I do not care. If any offense was committed in mine, I will pardon it. But you must swear to me.” She meant to become High King over a realm that held neither High House nor Low, and that was not a thing she could plan to do later, for she did not know how much of “later” there might be. It was a harder path, but she would begin her destruction of the Hundred Houses with the army that would fight to make her High King.

  “But I—I ran off a steading. And Belgund—he broke parole when his lord wouldn’t ransom him. And Findron—”