A march of two days brought the mountains no closer. But Arion had made it through, certainly. And yet Arion had had the queen’s wizard to guide him.
Had the duke used wizardry to reach the mountain range? But if Penriel had helped him then why hadn’t they waited?
For the first time Val doubted the duke. He remembered that Arion had asked him about Tobol An, and he wondered why the other man should have been so interested in such an insignificant village. And he remembered too that he had been tricked before by a member of the royal family, and that that had been in connection with Tobol An.
Something had happened to him in the months he had spent in exile; he had grown older, less willing to trust those around him. Narrion had spun his plots and had risen like a spider on the thread he wove, and Val had been enmeshed for a brief time in his cousin’s web. He shook his head. The duke was not nearly as cunning as Narrion; there was no reason to suspect treachery from him as well.
A day later the land grew stonier, harder, and the tall grasses gave way to matted weeds and small yellow flowers. They had reached the foothills, but instead of being encouraged by the ground they had gained Val felt tiny, dwarfed by the bulk of the mountains. And it had started to rain, a cold, driving rain that made him shiver despite his warm cloak.
For a long time they climbed over the large rocks that lay at the feet of the range. Val had to dismount and lead his horse over the stony ground, watching closely to see that the animal did not break a leg in the treacherous crevices. Boulders and stunted trees, formed into fantastic shapes by the wind, blocked their way more than once, and several times they had to retrace their steps, giving ground to the mountain.
Finally Val found a path that led upward. He waited for the company to catch up with him, and when they appeared rested enough he mounted his horse and set off.
The sun was setting. It was starting to snow. Behind him he could hear his men complaining, and he stopped to allow one of them to mount up and ride behind him.
Something white beckoned to him from the path. He reined in his horse. But no—it was the snow falling, nothing more. He could barely see in front of him now, and when he glanced over his shoulder the sun was a blur of gold along the horizon.
He turned back. The white figure waved to him again. Its sleeves were long, and billowed outward a little in the wind. He could almost hear words, and although he didn’t understand the language its speech froze him into cold despair.
The figure was right; they should turn back. There was nothing for them here, nothing but cold and aching misery. Slowly, as if moved by a will not his own, he lifted the reins. The man behind him on the horse began to speak.
Val turned, a little annoyed. He did not want his men to panic; he was already doing all that was necessary to protect them by leading them off the mountain. But the man’s voice sounded clear and strong, and Val realized with a sort of dull surprise that he was speaking poetry.
Wizardry, Val thought. The Shai wizards had sent the apparition, and this man behind him was trying to counter it with his own halting verse. Now, paying close attention to the words, Val realized that the man had not received any formal training as a poet-mage, that his verses were cobbled together from village songs and chants and barely rhymed.
But the figure in front of them wavered a little, like a flag blown in the wind. The man redoubled his efforts, playing with the names of gods and heroes, repeating one or two of the words he had spoken in the first verse. As he went on he seemed to gain in brilliance, manipulating alliteration and meter as Val had heard the great poet-mages had done.
The figure seemed to fly toward them. Val held the reins tightly and watched as it frayed outward in the wind. It passed over them as a gust of snow. He let out a breath he did not realize he had taken.
He turned to the man behind him. “I didn’t know I had brought a poet-mage along with me,” he said.
“I learned a few tricks in my village, that’s all,” the man said, grinning.
“More than a few, I’d say. I’m certain you’ll rise on the ladder for this. What’s your name?”
“Anthiel.” The man grinned again. The snow had stopped, perhaps as a result of Anthiel’s efforts, and Val decided that his company had gone far enough for one day. They went back to where he had seen the road widen and made camp.
It was only when he had eaten and settled into his blankets for the night that Val wondered why he hadn’t spoken to the apparition himself. He had written poetry, after all, unlike the man from the lower rungs whose verses had hobbled like a lame horse. But he had not sensed the presence of magic until it had been too late. Perhaps there was more to being a poet-mage than the ability to create poetry. He tried to think what it might be, but confused images whirled in his mind—Pebr’s cottage, and tall white mountains, and the sound of the sea—and he found himself drifting off to sleep.
Over the next few days they met with more of the illusions: a giant white bird with a snowy crest, a tree with branches burdened by snow, an icy brook that appeared suddenly in their path. But Anthiel spoke his verses to them and they dispersed, spreading across the wind.
Val wondered if the Shai were toying with them, if they were saving their greatest magic for the battle ahead. It seemed to him that anyone could counter these child’s fancies, even a man who had had no formal schooling. But whenever he faced the apparitions he stood as if enchanted, without a rhyme in his head.
As they picked their way along the mountain path Val spoke to Anthiel, trying to understand how he had banished the apparitions. “Why do you repeat the same words over and over again?” he asked.
“Those words hold the spell together,” Anthiel said. “A traveling wizard once told me they’re called keystones.”
Keystones, Val thought. He remembered the lists of words in the ancient books Taja had shown him: wizard’s commentary, she had said. And he had seen locked books, bound in brass and iron, that Taja had not been able to open. The mages must have guarded their keystones jealously. How did this man come upon words it had taken the wizards a lifetime to discover?
“How do you choose the words?” Val asked.
“I don’t really know. I use solid words—tree and rock, table and door—they seem to stand better against something like those illusions.”
Anthiel had had to repeat his keystones, each time in a different context, and weave them in with a spell of banishment, and an invocation to the gods, and keep in his head all the while the meter he had chosen, and the alliteration.… It seemed to Val, who sometimes took an entire day to write one sonnet, that what Anthiel had achieved was very nearly impossible.
“Why didn’t you apprentice yourself to a mage?” Val asked.
“We were too poor. I grew up in a small village, and my family couldn’t afford to lose my labor.”
Val nodded. Anthiel was a man to cultivate, someone who might become a great poet-mage. If Anthiel came home alive from the wars Val would reward him generously.
Finally they reached the crest of the mountain range and began to descend. From the path Val could see Etrara’s army ranged across the plains, and he wondered how the others had crossed the Teeth of Tura. The uneasiness grew that had started when Arion’s company had pulled ahead of his.
They reached the plain a few days later. The sun was setting and he felt cold as the snowdrifts in the mountains, felt as if his bones were made of snow. He told his men to make camp and went in search of Arion, walking quickly to get warm.
The duke was standing before a large bonfire, talking to three of the commanders. “Arion!” Val said.
The duke turned. Even in the fading light Val could see his face go pale, as if he had seen a ghost.
“What in Callabrion’s name is happening here?” Val said. “Why didn’t you wait for us?”
“I—we thought you lost in the mountains, Val,” Arion said. “It’s good to see you.”
“We encountered magic. It was our good fortune that t
here was a sort of poet-mage among us. If he hadn’t been there I have no doubt we’d still be wandering in the snow.”
“Magic? I saw nothing.”
“Come with me,” Val said shortly, leading Arion away from the other commanders. When a man came to accuse a member of the royal family of deception, he thought, it was best to have as few witnesses as possible. “Surely you saw the things we did, the white birds and trees—”
“I swear by Scathiel’s toe—”
“You’re a very poor liar, Arion. Who asked you to kill me? Was it Callia?”
“No—”
“But it might well have been, isn’t that so? The Queen’s Axe, then?”
Arion said nothing. “You were told to lose us somewhere in the mountains, weren’t you?” Val said.
The duke nodded slowly. “Why, Val? Why would Callia want you dead?” he asked.
If Arion didn’t know that he certainly wasn’t about to tell him. He had seen the capricious gods turn the ladder of fortune on its head so that the high became low and the low high, and he had no doubt that the man in front of him might someday be king. “I don’t know,” Val said.
“She wants something in Tobol An, I know that much. And you were there, weren’t you? But what is she playing at? She has no talent for strategy—”
Val said nothing.
“It’s Mariel who’s behind her, Mariel who plots Callia’s every move,” Arion said. “My treacherous half-sister. She warned me about civil war, said that the chaos of King Galin’s time would come again if I didn’t cast my vote with Callia. We’d be fighting the battle of Arbono all over again, she told me. And at the same time she insinuated that Callia would be easy to overthrow, that I would soon be king in Etrara. But all the while she planned to rule in Callia’s name. I should have waited, should have gathered my forces.…”
How easily these brothers and sisters disposed of each other, Val thought. He had been right to be careful, right not to lay immediate claim to the throne. “What about me?” he asked. “Did the Queen’s Axe tell you what to do if I came out of the mountains alive?”
“Yes. Yes, he did. I was to see to it that you were sent to wherever the fighting was the thickest. He said that Callia would be very disappointed if you returned to Etrara.”
“And will you?”
“No,” Arion said slowly. “No, I don’t think so. She has spies in my company, men who would tell her if I refused to follow her orders. But a great deal can happen in the confusion of battle. I swear on my honor I’ll do everything I can to bring you back alive.”
Val thanked him and returned to his men. Arion had not told him everything, he was certain of it. A thoughtful note had come into the duke’s voice as he spoke, as though he had made other plans.
Val scowled. He had been used as a counter once before in the great game the brothers and sisters played with one another, and he did not want it to happen again. But what did Arion have planned?
Seven
THE FIGHTING IN SHAI STARTED EARLY the next morning. The men woke to the sound of trumpets, harsh and discordant; they reached for their swords and shields.
A messenger from Arion rode into Val’s camp as they were arming themselves. “That’s the Shai’s poet-mage,” the messenger said. “He’s calling for Penriel. It’ll be a duel of magic, for now.”
A duel of magic, Val thought. He remembered the first time he had seen Penriel, remembered wondering why the queen had wanted a sorcerer when magic had died out of the world. But he had been wrong, he realized; magic was very much alive. He had seen that much when he had come over the mountains.
Penriel left his tent and climbed a small grassy rise near Val’s camp. He looked small and a little foolish in his cloak. Val saw him stare across the plain at the Shai forces.
The noise of the trumpets grew louder. Clouds formed overhead, obscuring the sun. The clouds thickened, layer on layer of them; the sky became dark as night.
Heavy rain fell to the camp, plummeting like knives. Water drenched the men through to their skin. They wrapped blankets around themselves and brushed the wet hair from their eyes. Drops resounded against the commanders’ tents.
Penriel began to speak, raising his voice to be heard above the rain. Val listened as the poet-mage chose his keystones, “sword” and “glass.” Penriel recited an invocation to the god Callabrion, playing with the sound of his keystones and with the god’s name, weaving in spells of illusion and banishment.
For a moment the rain seemed to lessen. Then the torrents returned, heavier than before. Wind tossed the rain into towers, spires, a city made of water. Land and sea had changed places; Val felt he might drown with the force of the waves.
Penriel spoke again, shouting. A loud wind gusted across the plain, blowing the rain before it. The clouds overhead tore, thinned to rags. The rain began to subside.
Penriel hurried through a few more verses. But the rain did not end, though the sun shone weakly through the remaining clouds.
The drizzle continued all day. The men grumbled and pulled their cloaks around them for warmth. A few whispered against Penriel, but others, loyal to the queen, swore by Scathiel that the rain was natural and no wizard’s sending.
Val wondered. Even he could see that Penriel was much more accomplished than the ignorant villager who had brought his company safely out of the mountains. And yet something seemed missing from Penriel’s verses; at times he seemed almost lost, unable to understand the Shai’s magic.
Over the next few days the Shai’s poet-mage sent several apparitions toward their camp. Penriel countered them all, but his verses were weak, uninspired. His illusions would waver and become dispersed, and several times a sending of the Shai’s passed over the camp, causing panic and despair.
Val wondered if he should offer Anthiel’s services to someone, to Arion, perhaps, since Penriel seemed unapproachable. But as the days wore on he realized that he understood almost nothing about the arts of the wizards, and he decided to keep silent.
As long as the battle was fought between the poet-mages he and his company remained idle. He spent the days drilling his men and going for long walks through the camp. His walks always seemed to end at a small grassy rise overlooking the plain, the place from which Penriel worked his magic.
Five days after the battle began he stood on the rise and gazed out at the Shai camp. The grass of the plain, tall and sharp as swords, bent backward in the wind, shifting color as the wind passed, gray and yellow and green.
Something moved toward him, a line of mounted men riding toward the camp. Horses’ hooves beat against the plain. The soldiers held their lances straight in front of them, their golden armor and helmets burning far brighter than anything else in the weak sunlight. As they came closer Val could see that they were very tall, nearly twice the size of ordinary men.
He turned to look for Penriel, but the poet-mage, summoned by the sending of magic, was already climbing the rise to look out over the plains. Penriel hesitated a moment, studying the strength of the illusion sent against him, and began to speak.
He started with a ritual opening verse and then moved quickly to a spell of banishment. Perhaps because of the brightness of the soldiers he chose the word “shining” as his keystone. But the men ranged against them continued onward without slowing. Val could hear the ring of the horses’ bridles, the shouts of the men. He braced himself for the horror he would feel when the apparitions rode through the camp.
The illusion began to waver. Penriel spoke louder, faster. He began another verse, chose another keystone—“jewel”—and made the two words dance around each other in intricate patterns. Then Val saw Penriel frown, hesitate for a moment, and he knew that the poet-mage had forgotten something, that he had failed to hold all the vast complicated verse in his head. He spoke another line, but it did not rhyme with the line before it, and it used no alliteration at all.
The mounted men reached the camp. Their forms had started to break up and dissolve;
Penriel’s verses had been effective enough for that, at least. The soldiers from Etrara ran from the path of the illusion. The touch of a sending was enough to drive men to despair, and already one soldier had died from it.
The apparition reached the camp as a confused blur of color. One of the mounted men formed again for a brief moment and touched a soldier with the point of his lance, and the man fell to the ground, screaming. Then the sending passed over them and dispersed in the mountains.
Val had been out of the path of the illusion but he had felt the bleak hopelessness of their position, the terror at being exposed to such an uncanny power. His heart was pounding loudly. We can’t survive much more of this, he thought.
Men came forward to lead Penriel to his tent. Val left the rise and sought out his own tent, drained.
A few hours later he emerged. He had seen some of the tricks Penriel had performed for Queen Callia; the man was doubtless talented enough for court magic. But Penriel could not hold his own against the trained wizards of Shai. Something had happened to the wizardry of Etrara, Val thought; when Tariel’s poet-mages died an entire generation of knowledge had died with them.
If Arion agreed Val would offer him Anthiel’s services. Penriel wouldn’t even need to know that another wizard was helping him against the Shai. Two mages working to counter the illusions might be able to succeed where one, almost certainly, would fail.
But when he came to Arion’s tent his second-in-command told him the duke was studying the battlefield, planning strategy. Val returned to his company and ate a light supper with his men.
The next day Val found Anthiel and drew him aside. To his surprise the other man, who had been so quick with his help in the mountains, began to shake his head. “One poet-mage knows another,” he said. “If I speak my verses Penriel can’t help but be aware of it, just as he’s aware of the sendings from Shai.”
“Well, then, he’ll have to agree,” Val said.
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