True Power

by Gary Meehan

  Afreyda and Megan followed at a more sedate pace. Not just to save the horses, Megan realized when Afreyda turned on her. A scowl clouded her face.

  “You should not have gone after those riders.”

  Megan reeled at the admonishment. “If they’d got through—”

  “They would have been dealt with in Hil,” said Afreyda. “Do you think a few soldiers posed a threat? We did not leave the city undefended. You forced me to abandon my men to make sure you did not get killed.”

  “I didn’t force you to do anything.”

  “You know I had to come after you.”

  Their eyes locked and Megan understood why Afreyda had had to come after her. It was the same reason she had gone after Afreyda at the pier. And she still had no idea what to do about it.

  Willas calling down from the wall broke the moment. “I’m sorry,” mumbled Megan. “It was instinct. I had to do something.”

  “That is my job now.”

  “It turned out all right, didn’t it?”

  “Only because I spend half my nights pleading with my ancestors to protect you.”

  They kicked into a canter and joined Willas at the wall. “The witches retreated,” he said. “All the way back to the tree line.”

  “Really?” said Megan.

  “You think I came all this way to lie to you?”

  “How do you know they’re not trying to lure you into a trap?”

  “If they are, I’m not biting,” said Willas. “Not with arrows and swords against guns.”

  “What about the guns I left you with?”

  Willas looked sheepish. “There was a small accident. The instructions you gave us were pretty basic.”

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  “We lost many eyebrows,” said Willas. “Standing well back? Good advice.”

  “How many men did we lose?” asked Afreyda.

  “Not sure until we match up all the bits of corpses. That’s the trouble with guns: they do leave you with a bit of a puzzle.” Willas grimaced. “I’d say a few hundred. Some of the men might fight again.”

  “And the witches?”

  “The same, maybe.”

  The bulk of both sides’ forces was still intact. This was a skirmish, nothing more. “They’ll try again,” said Megan. “Once they get over the shock of someone firing guns at them.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” said Willas. He pointed up at the western sky, where black clouds were gathering on the horizon. The first snowstorm of the winter. “Our reserves have arrived.”

  Megan and Afreyda made their way along the wall to an outcropping, behind which a temporary infirmary had been set up. Aldred seemed quite peaceful, which was surprising considering he was now missing his left arm. The soldier Megan had left him with was by his side, wiping off the blood from a hacksaw with a dirty rag.

  “What . . . ?”

  “Had to amputate, Your Majesty,” said the soldier. “Frostbite in his fingers. Very cold at the top of the pass, so I’m told.”

  “You had to take his whole arm?”

  “Can’t do fingers. Tricky little blighters.”

  “Where is the bag he was holding?” asked Afreyda. The soldier held it up. “We do not need the arm as well.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. He was holding on pretty tightly.”

  He moved to break the fingers off. Megan held a hand up. “Just cut the strap,” she snapped.

  The soldier shrugged and did so. He handed the bag to Megan. Ripping it open, she pulled out clothes, remembering whose they were only when Afreyda scurried around after them.

  “This is it?” she said, perplexed. “He risked everything for this?”

  Afreyda peered at the bag. “It is not hanging right.”

  She was right, it wasn’t, and it felt heavier than it should. Megan rummaged around in the bottom. She felt something hard beneath the canvas. She pulled out a knife and slashed at the material. Jewels spilled out on the ground—diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, rubies.

  “What . . . ?” said Afreyda.

  “A king’s ransom,” said Megan.

  “Or a queen’s,” said the soldier. Afreyda’s hand moved to her sword. “Just saying, ma’am.”

  Megan scooped up some of the stones. Even in the dimming light, they glittered in her hands with ethereal brightness. “Where did he . . . ?”

  “The house in Kewley,” said Afreyda. “Damon was not the looter. Aldred was.”

  “Damon was innocent?”

  “I would not go that far.”

  No, Damon had gone to the jeweler’s house for a reason; it had been his own fault he’d missed the boats evacuating Kewley from the witches’ attack. Still, that didn’t stop Megan missing him, wondering if there was something she could do for him, the by-now-traditional badly planned rescue attempt. However, she didn’t even know if he was still alive; she’d asked Fordel, but his spies weren’t able to get any information out of New Statham. Whatever mess Damon was in, he’d have to get himself out of it.

  Megan looked across to the sleeping lieutenant. What did you do? The question would have to wait until he recovered consciousness, if he ever did. Megan almost hoped he wouldn’t. She didn’t know if she could bear the truth, for Eleanor’s sake more than her own.

  fourteen

  From a balcony high up in one of the palace towers, Damon stared down at the boats sneaking up the Rustway under cover of the night. It was too far away and too dark to tell for sure, but the robes swirling around in the black looked awfully suspicious.

  “You’re bringing in Sandstriders?” he called out over his shoulder.

  “It’ll remind the people we’re really not that bad.”

  “And here’s me thinking summary executions and forced conversions were the way to everybody’s heart.”

  “We are not forcing anybody. We are liberating them from the tyranny of the priests.”

  Damon wandered back inside. On a bed used by kings, queens and supreme priests, Gwyneth was stretched out. She’d arranged the bedclothes so the most private parts of her naked body were just about covered. Damon assumed she thought it was alluring.

  He could stop coming here, face Gwyneth’s wrath, but girls didn’t take rejection well at the best of times and certainly not when they commanded the most fearsome fighting force the continent had ever seen. Why did she want him? To play with him? To exercise power? To put one over on her sister?

  Gwyneth patted the mattress. “Come back to bed.”

  “I’m not in the mood.”

  “I am,” said Gwyneth, her voice sharp.

  Damon rubbed wrists made raw by their last encounter. “Can you give me a few minutes?”

  “No.”

  There was a soft rap at the door, the knock of someone not wanting to be noticed. He was out of luck. Damon shouted an order to enter before Gwyneth could object. She glared at him and pulled the sheets up.

  A soldier pushed the door open and poked his head around the gap. He looked young, very young. The end of a very long chain of delegations.

  “I have a message for you, Mother.”

  “What?”

  “It’s from Hil.”

  Gwyneth beckoned to the soldier. He scurried over, placed a scrap of parchment in her hand and then got the hell out of there before Gwyneth could exact retribution.

  “Sometimes I think I have a reputation,” said Gwyneth, unrolling the parchment and squinting. She had self-awareness? That made things worse somehow. “Bring some light over.”

  Damon took a candle to the bed. He watched Gwyneth’s eyes flick as they read, her mood darkening with each word. She came to the end and screwed the parchment into a ball. It bounced off the crib her daughter had yet to sleep in and ended up in a dark corner of the room.

  “She’s declared herself queen!” screeched Gwyneth. “Queen! Her! How can she? She’s not True. She doesn’t even believe in the prophecy.”

  Damon retrieved the message, having to scrabble about in the black
ness. “I wouldn’t think that’s the basis of her claim.” He read the message.

  “Well?” demanded Gwyneth.

  “Father Galan does well to get so much text in so little space, doesn’t he?”

  “Why does she think she can be queen?”

  “She says she’s Countess of Ainsworth and the only known heir to the throne,” said Damon. He thought about the tangle of family trees and the pruning done by both the priests and the True. “She’s possibly right.”

  “How can she be Countess of Ainsworth? Isn’t it that”—Gwyneth waved, trying to think of something—“woman?”

  Damon’s heart tore as he thought of Eleanor. “She’s”—he had to swallow before he could get the word out—“dead. She must’ve named Megan her heir.”

  “That’s . . . silly.”

  “That’s the legal system.”

  Gwyneth took back the message, read it again, screwed it up again. “Who is this Father Galan anyway?”

  “You had him imprisoned and tortured and nearly executed,” said Damon. Gwyneth looked blank. “Sorry, that doesn’t really narrow things down, does it? He’s the High Priest of Eastport. More of a titular role these days, I guess.”

  “Oh, him.” Gwyneth frowned. “I don’t remember torture.” She jumped out of bed and prowled the room. “There should only be one queen in Werlavia—”

  “It does save arguments over protocol, who’s allowed the bigger hat and all that.”

  “—and that queen should be me.”

  That’s when Damon knew he had to get out of there.

  Tobrytan took the news as well as Damon expected. He glowered over the table, porridge sliding off his spoon. All around the vast dining hall—constructed to accommodate Edwyn the Third and a thousand of his closest friends—ranks of soldiers dutifully broke their fast. There were no Sandstriders among them. Were their newly arrived guests not housebroken?

  “She wants what?”

  “To be queen,” said Damon. “Regnant not consort, I’m guessing.”

  They were the only ones at the high table. No one else had seen fit to join Tobrytan. Damon couldn’t think why. He was such an outgoing kind of guy.

  “She can’t be.”

  “You’re supporting Megan’s claim?”

  “The Apostate is mocking us.”

  “Naughty Apostate.”

  “Remind me why I haven’t killed you again?”

  “Your undying love of humanity?”

  Tobrytan had another go at the porridge but gave up before the spoon reached his lips. He pushed the bowl aside. “She has to understand the world doesn’t revolve around her whim.”

  Damon leaned in close and lowered his voice. “Pity you removed the only person capable of controlling that whim.”

  “I can control her.”

  High up in the rafters, wings fluttered as two pigeons fought over a captured morsel. “And if not? Which side is your army going to come down on? Yours or hers?”

  “Being the Mother of the Savior is a sacred duty, but it isn’t absolutely sacred. There is a precedent for Mothers being . . . dealt with.”

  Yes, thought Damon, badly. “Why not let her be queen then? Would she be any less controllable?”

  Tobrytan called for water. He didn’t offer Damon any. “Werlavia has no need of a queen.”

  “Really? The Saviors did explicitly create a throne for Edwyn. To represent his secular authority as opposed to their spiritual one.”

  “That’s one interpretation.”

  “The people love a good crowning,” said Damon. Tobrytan gave him a look that suggested “the people” were the least of his concerns. “Big party, cement your connection to the old regime. Most people still think you’re—we’re—demon-worshipping witches. Show them you’re not. Rally them to your cause.”

  “The truth will rally them to our cause.”

  “But a piss-up doesn’t hurt.”

  Tobrytan ground his teeth. “Did she send you to talk to me?”

  “No,” said Damon, “but I am the one who’s going to get it in the neck if she doesn’t get her way.”

  “I thought you were getting it somewhere else?”

  “She is very adventurous for one so young.”

  “I’ll talk to the captains,” said Tobrytan.

  “Sener’ll be overjoyed.”

  “If he survives the Kartiks.”

  “In the meantime,” said Damon, “why don’t I do some research into coronation rituals? You know, rites, oaths, who stands where, who does what with the sacramental oil . . .”

  “I don’t care what you do.”

  What Damon really wanted to do was investigate the secret tunnel out of New Statham Edwyn the Third was rumored to have built. It stood to reason he would have done—the whole city was testament to his paranoia—but no one had ever found it, or no one had ever found it and lived to tell about it in a handy sequence of notes and diagrams. But if Damon was going to get out of the capital he was going to have to evade not only the witches but their Sandstrider allies. This might be his only chance.

  He licked dry lips. “I’ll need access to the records, both here and in the temple. If you could sign this pass . . . ?”

  He slid a piece of paper he’d prepared earlier across the table. Tobrytan glanced at it, his face showing little interest. Damon fished a quill and a bottle of ink from his pockets and pushed them in the pass’s wake. Tobrytan shrugged. He dipped the quill in the ink and made to sign. Then he stopped and read what Damon had written.

  “‘I hereby command the bearer of this warrant access to all areas and all materials he sees fit.’ Seems a little . . . broad.”

  “I don’t want to keep disturbing you because some pig-headed guard wants to argue technicalities.”

  Tobrytan considered, continuing to hold the quill in mid-air. A droplet of ink welled up on the nib and dropped to the paper below, blooming across the surface. Damon affected as much disinterest as he could manage while pleading inside, Sign it, sign it!

  Tobrytan dropped the quill back into the ink. “I’ll do it later.”

  “Sure, no problem,” said Damon. “I’ll just stick by your side, wait until you get a moment. It’ll give us a chance to bond.”

  Tobrytan grabbed the quill and scrawled a signature on the pass. Damon snatched it up before the general could change his mind.

  The temple was eerily quiet, with only the odd creak of timbers settling in the winter sun breaking the silence. After the embarrassment in Kewley, when the True had inadvertently burned the only source of maps, they had spared the temples in New Statham the ritual arson, but they still barred access to all but the bell-ringers, who were needed to toll the hours. One didn’t need temples and priests to communicate with God; one just needed to open one’s heart to Him. If you got the message confused, the True were always willing to clarify.

  Damon hurried along the circular concourse, his way illuminated by shafts of light penetrating the gaps in the stairs above his head, the delay in the echo of his footsteps making him suspect a stalker. He reached the offices, which he unlocked with keys the guards outside had surrendered. There was no point bothering with the junior priests’ rooms: what he wanted was far more sensitive than that. He pushed on, through the senior priests’ office—more a common room than anything else; the juniors did all the work—until he reached the Supreme Priest’s office.

  Damon set about searching. He went through every scroll, every sheaf of parchment, every sheet of crumpled paper. Personnel records, supply requisitions, dispatches from the first war against the witches—not going well, apparently—the odd bit of pornography. No, what he wanted would be under lock and key, but there were no safes, no lockboxes, no trunks. Maybe it was up in the temple library. Damon grimaced. That could take him weeks.

  Exhausted, he sat down on a couch upholstered in a hideous green. It was harder than it looked, the cushion soon giving way to solid wood and jarring his spine. He guessed certain priestly lei
sure activities appreciated a firm surface. The thought of what might have happened on the seat made him squirm. The seat squirmed with him. Damon frowned, pushed forward. The seat moved with him a little, then jammed.

  He scrambled off and with a little to-ing and fro-ing was able to slide the seat off. The entire bottom of the couch was a solid box, a single item breaking the expanse of oak: a lock. Damon grinned and tried each of his keys. One of them turned.

  There was a satisfying creak as he lifted the lid of the couch-cum-strongbox and an even more satisfying sound of a booby trap not going off. He poked about inside. Pouches of coins, the kings’ sovereigns noticeably heavier than those minted by the priests; relics of monarchs and holy men, body fragments swimming in jars of murky formaldehyde; and scrolls of paper and parchment, browning and brittle to the touch.

  Damon pocketed some of the sovereigns for form’s sake and carefully unrolled the scrolls. He found the one he was looking for—the plans of the palace—and laid it flat on the desk, weighing the corners down with three of the money pouches and a jar whose label claimed it contained the mummified testicle of Landon the Second. He pored over the plans for what seemed like hours but they didn’t yield the secret he had hoped existed.

  Not expecting much, he checked the remaining scrolls. One was another copy of the palace plans superimposed on a map of the city, drawn on paper so thin it was translucent. Another scroll of equally thin paper was marked merely by a pair of crooked lines and two crosses at opposite corners. Seemed a waste of expensive paper.

  Damon gathered everything up and made to drop them back in the base of the couch, when a thought occurred to him. He unrolled the scroll that depicted the palace and the city. Two crosses at opposite corners. He unrolled the almost-blank scroll, positioned it over the first, pressed them up to the window. The light streaming in through the glass merged the two sheets. The crosses aligned. The crooked lines became routes through the palace and the city.