“Good,” Val said. He turned to Oldo and his men. “Come with me.”
Oldo nodded. He gave orders to the troops standing before him, and they went up the Street of Stones toward the palace.
Val kept an eye on the cages above him as they walked, in case Taja had been wrong. But he did not find Narrion, though he saw a few people he recognized from court. The courtiers all turned away as the troops passed, clearly hoping that Val had not seen them in such reduced circumstances.
At last they came to the courtyard of the palace. Wind ruffled the water in the fountain of Sbona. Val stood for a moment, trying to decide what to do next.
Someone called out in the gloom; someone answered. In less than a heartbeat the palace guard had assembled before them, their swords raised for battle.
Once again Val was not allowed to fight; Oldo and the other rebels kept him away from any danger. Instead the troops looked toward him for guidance, for strategy. He stood at the edge of the palace courtyard and wondered, not for the first time, what he had wrought. The lives of these men were in his hands.
More guards came from the palace. He could barely see the clashing figures in the darkness. If the information Narrion and Andosto had brought him was correct then the palace was unprotected now; all the guards had come out to meet his men. He raised his arm and motioned Oldo and the others toward the outer door.
“Good,” someone said near him. “Exactly what I would have done.”
Val turned quickly. Narrion stood there, his slight smile barely visible in the dim light.
“Narrion!” Val said. “Where have you been?”
“Escaping the watch.”
Val looked back toward the battle. The sound of sword on sword came to him clearly through the darkness. In the gloom he could not be sure, but he thought that no more guards issued from the palace.
More people were coming up the Street of Stones toward the palace. Some of them carried ancient swords; others had no weapon but a kitchen knife. “King Valemar!” someone called, and for a brief, crazy moment Val wondered who it was the man meant.
“Salute them,” Narrion said, his tone amused.
Val gave what he hoped was a royal salute. A few men cheered. More and more joined in, their voices ringing out in the empty street; Val heard his name echo from the stone and marble around him. Now he could see a crowd of men, a darker river flowing through the streets of the soot-black city. Some wore the homespun cotton of the lower rungs; they had come all the way from across the river.
He began to laugh, covered it by motioning the men forward. But it looked as if the battle was breaking up, the guards falling back. Some of them lay dead or wounded; others had fled. Could it be that easy? Would they overrun the palace now, take control of the city?
“Behind you,” Narrion said.
Val turned quickly. Shai soldiers had come up the Street of Stones, dispersing the men of Etrara as they went. Some of them rode horses; all wore the golden helmets and armor Val remembered.
The men in the courtyard turned to face the soldiers. The Shai pushed their way though the men in the streets. They were hemmed in now, fighting on either side of them. For a brief moment Val wondered if his people could overwhelm the Shai, if both sides would be able to join forces.
Then the battle swirled around them, became confused. He could not see distinct armies anymore, only individuals fighting one another. A soldier on a horse moved forward to cut down one of the rebels. Another of Oldo’s men hurried forward but he was too late; he was trampled by the horse as the sword killed the first man.
Val heard horses screaming, and the clash of swords. Someone was calling out orders in the barbaric accent of the Shai.
Through it all the Shai pushed forward, toward the palace. Finally they cleared a path through the fighting and gained the door to the porter’s room. They filed through the door and hurriedly pushed it shut behind them.
Early night fell; inky blackness surrounded the men on the streets and in the courtyard. They looked at each other as if waking from a dream. The silence seemed tangible after the noise and confusion of battle.
“What happens now?” Narrion said.
“Now it becomes a battle of magic,” Val said. “We’ll make camp here, and Taja will fight in the morning. If, that is, there is a morning.”
Fourteen
VAL’S WORDS PROVED PROPHETIC: NO dawn lit the streets of Etrara the next day. A thin rind of frost lay over the water of Sbona’s fountain. Val stood, shivering, and wrapped his cloak closer around him.
Pale, weak light grew up around them, almost as if seeping from the stones. All around him men were waking and peering at each other in the dim light, expressions of disbelief and amazement on their faces. Val could almost guess their thoughts; each wondered if he had truly fought with the Shai the day before.
In another minute, Val thought, they would disappear, melt back toward the shops and houses of Etrara, become once more the obedient citizens of an occupied country.
Then one man turned toward him, and another. Silence spread out in waves from where he stood. Slowly, all the men around him went to their knees.
He should speak to them, he knew. But what could he say? He did not even know what to call them; he had never spoken to so many of the lower rungs before.
“My friends,” he said. Suddenly it was easy to continue. He told the men of his love for Etrara, the seven-gated city, once proud but now fallen to the Shai. He spoke of his hope to see Etrara free again, and he saw the long rows of men nod.
Callia could have done this long ago, he thought. If she hadn’t treated her subjects so cruelly, if she hadn’t fled to the countryside, she could have been one of the heroes of Etrara. Triumphal arches would have been built in her name; generations yet unborn would have written songs to her.
As Val watched, a group of men at the edge of the crowd broke away and began to hurry down Palace Hill. He thought he saw Oldo and the rest of Andosto’s rebels among them. The sight unnerved him. They had decided not to fight for him.
Would the others follow them? What could he have said that would have kept them here? He paused in his speech and looked out over the crowd. No one else moved.
He finished speaking. The men cheered, their voices loud enough to be heard by the Shai. As if in answer he heard trumpets sound from the palace. The porter’s door was flung open, and the Shai marched out into the courtyard to do battle.
But Val could not spare the time to watch them. Someone moved in the window of a high turret in the palace. Val recognized the face; he had come to know it well in his sojourn in Shai. “Kotheg,” he said. The name felt like a curse in his mouth.
He looked around for Taja, saw her make her way toward the rise by Sbona’s fountain. Her face was impassive; her eyes seemed to see to a place beyond the battlefield.
Kotheg said a few words. At first Val could not hear the wizard over the clamor of battle in front of him. His voice grew louder, stronger, until he was almost screaming. Was he mad, as Oldo had said? Was it true that all poet-mages were mad?
Kotheg chose solid words for his keystones, as Anthiel had recommended, “stone” and “sword.” He wove the two together in a sentence so intricate Val did not see how he could possibly finish it, but the poet-mage reached the end of his verse easily, with a phrase that seemed inevitable. Val gasped in wonder at his cleverness.
A great chorus of bells pealed out over the courtyard. Soldiers on both sides dropped their weapons and put their hands to their ears, cringing away from the sound. Val felt panic in the pit of his stomach; he wanted to flee the battlefield and never return.
Some soldiers around him did run, their hands still clasped over their ears. The men of Shai fled too. Kotheg must be confident indeed, Val thought, if he thinks he can win this battle without soldiers.
Something gleamed in the air above him. Val looked up and saw a vast thicket of swords, all poised to plunge downward to the men below.
Taja spoke. He had nearly forgotten her; the panic Kotheg’s spell had raised had driven every other thought from his mind. To his surprise she took Kotheg’s keystones—“stone” and “sword”—and began to weave them into her own verses. He had never heard of anyone doing such a thing.
But as he listened he understood that she was turning the words against the other poet-mage, subtly shaping her verses so that she made the keystones her own. The swords became a dazzling silver rain and dropped harmlessly to earth. Some men lifted their faces toward the rain and laughed with delight.
Taja continued to recite her verses, introducing a third and then a fourth keystone, juggling all four in intricate patterns. The maddening noise of the bells diminished. Mist began to rise from the marble paving stones in the courtyard.
Kotheg spoke over her. For a moment Val wondered if he would use Taja’s cleverness against her and take over her keystones as well, but he introduced new words instead. Val thought that he might be less able to shift his strategy when he had to; he was older and therefore less resilient. But he would also be more experienced; Val could easily imagine him poring over old books for their lists of keystones.
But Taja had had access to the old books as well, Val thought, remembering the books of the wizards she had shown him, and the long lists of what he knew now were keystones. He watched with fascination as Taja took up Kotheg’s challenge. They cast their spells and counterspells across the courtyard, braided verses in which keystones sparkled like jewels. She understands him, Val thought, and he her; no two people on Sbona’s earth are so well matched.
The noise of the bells subsided, calmed by Taja’s verses. Kotheg spoke a few words and the mists Taja had called up disappeared. A last bell tolled out over the courtyard, but the unnatural fear it had caused was gone. Soldiers hurried to the battlefield.
The soldiers were too eager, Val saw; they were excited at the opportunity to return to the battle. They flung themselves against the Shai without caution. “Wait!” Val called.
“What a mess of things you must have made in Shai,” a voice said near him.
This time Val didn’t need to turn to know who stood there. “Everyone made a mess of things in Shai,” he said.
“You should have waited for me here.”
“There was no time,” Val said, finally looking at the man next to him. Narrion yawned and brushed his hair from his eyes. “How in Callabrion’s name did you sleep through that unearthly noise?”
“I’m awake now. Hold some of the men back—the Shai might have more soldiers to send against us.”
“I know,” Val said.
But there were no men to hold back; everyone had joined the fighting in the courtyard. Val shouted into the confusion.
No one seemed to have heard him. He shouted again. The trumpet sounded, and more men issued from the palace.
The first rush of enthusiasm had carried the men of Etrara far into the courtyard. But as more and more soldiers came toward them they began to look around in horror, as if realizing only then where they were. A few turned, trying to retreat, but they were quickly surrounded. Others stood as if enchanted, rooted by panic and terror.
Kotheg spoke into the confusion. Taja shouted over him. Val looked at her quickly; every muscle in her body seemed strained in her attempt to hold Kotheg back. Val had not thought wizardry was such terrible work.
Men wearing the clothing of Etrara rose up from the battlefield. The Shai soldiers closed with them, only to stand back, amazed and fearful, when their swords met with nothing but air. More soldiers formed; the courtyard filled with people.
Kotheg spoke quickly. His loud, rough voice seemed to be reciting lists of curses. The phantom soldiers grew transparent. The Shai soldiers pressed forward, heartened by their mage’s skill. Taja spoke louder, her eyes closed in concentration, but the soldiers she had called up continued to fade.
In the gloom the Shai soldiers in armor seemed to shine with their own light. A wave of gold swept the courtyard, pressing forward toward the fountain of Sbona. As he watched Val saw one Shai soldier after another overwhelm his opponent. The Shai began to close ranks, marching steadily toward him and Narrion.
Narrion grabbed his arm. “We have to get to safety,” he said. “Quickly.”
“No. Wait.” Val shrugged Narrion away and put his hand on the hilt of his sword. But how much help he could possibly be against the might of the Shai? He looked again at Taja. Her eyes were closed; she seemed almost defeated.
“Awake!” Oldo called as he and his men hurried down the Street of Stones. “Awake! The city has risen against the Shai. Awake and come join us!”
The men pounded on doors and shuttered windows with the hilts of their swords. “Come join us!” they called, their voices exultant. The men of the watch had all gone to the courtyard; this time no one would cage them for speaking their minds.
Up and down the street men and women were stepping outside, carrying the lamps required by Shai law. In almost every doorway the same drama was repeated as men hastily grabbed old swords and armor and hurried out to follow Oldo and his men. Others ran down the twisted streets and narrow alleys of Etrara, shouting breathlessly to Oldo, “I’ll get my cousin!” “My father will want to join us!”
But Oldo did not turn back to the courtyard. He continued down the Street of Stones until he came to the cage he remembered. He motioned to a man carrying a lamp, and as the man stepped forward he managed to make out Andosto in the dim light.
“No,” Andosto said. “Go away—the watch will come.”
“The watch is busy elsewhere, my lord,” Oldo said. He lifted a ladder away from one of the houses and set it against the cage support, then said a brief prayer to the Ascending God and climbed to the top.
“A saw!” he called down to the men waiting below, and one of them ran back to his house to fetch it.
The man returned with the saw and handed it to him. He put it between the bars of the cage and began to work to break the lock. “No,” Andosto said, almost incoherent with terror now. “Oh no. Please.”
A crowd gathered at the base of the cage to watch. Some of them called encouragement; others looked around uneasily for the watch.
The lock broke. Oldo opened the door and helped Andosto down the ladder. The other man went slowly, hesitantly, picking his way past the ribbons and bells twined in the rungs as decoration. “Don’t worry,” Oldo said gently. “You’re free now.”
When he reached the lowest rung of the ladder Andosto became frightened again. “The watch,” he said, turning as if to climb the ladder. “They told me they would bring the watch.”
The crowd stirred uneasily, clearly wondering why Oldo had gone to such trouble for this coward. A young woman pressed forward. A tall, broad-shouldered man came with her. As the man approached Oldo saw the lines in his face, the white-gold hair that rayed out from his head; he was older than he seemed.
“Move aside, grandfather,” Oldo said, not disrespectfully. He turned to Andosto. “Come, my lord.”
“He’s—that man is my grandson,” the old man said.
“Your grandson,” Oldo said, surprised. “Well, then, tell him who he is and what he has to do. He thinks he’s a man called Borno.”
The man touched Andosto lightly on the face. “My son,” he said. “You are my child Andosto, the grandson of my beloved Torath. Do you remember?”
Andosto shook his head.
The man touched Andosto again. Andosto’s eyes seemed to clear, and he looked closely at the man standing before him. “Aye,” he said. “My grandfather. Callabrion.”
Oldo stared at the two men. He had heard the rumors, of course; some said that Andosto was the grandson of the god Callabrion. He had never believed it, thinking that people had invented the story to explain away their own cowardice. “I could be as brave in battle,” they seemed to be saying, “if I were descended from a god.”
Could it be true? Could his commander be the child of Callabrion? A light se
emed to shine from Andosto, the immanence of the gods. Oldo felt shaken with wonder.
But he knew that they could not stand here forever. He was a practical man, unused to these holy matters. “We must hurry, my lord,” he said to Andosto.
“Aye,” Andosto said. He signaled to his men, and they turned to go up the Street of Stones. The men Oldo had gathered followed them.
A son of Callabrion, Oldo thought, a child of summer. Well, it would give them an advantage in battle, if nothing else.
Something moved up the Street of Stones. Narrion turned quickly, unwilling to take his eyes off the battle in the courtyard.
A group of men marched toward them, more Shai soldiers, probably. It was over, then. Beside him he saw Val draw his sword.
“Don’t be a fool,” Narrion said urgently.
The men came closer. In the darkness it was hard to make out their features, but as they approached Narrion saw that these could not possibly be soldiers from Shai. Some wore silken tunics, fur collars, and the great chains of their houses. Their hands seemed weighted with their land-rings, and they carried swords with lineages as great as their own, from battles so ancient they had become legends. Others wore faded and patched homespun, and held scythes and pitchforks: farmers, from the land outside the city walls. And someone had freed the people in cages, now that the watch was occupied with the fighting; Narrion saw noblemen he had last seen caged.
At the end of the procession came Oldo and his men. Val laughed, a strange sound in the gloom. “I thought they’d run away,” he said. “I thought they’d had enough of fighting.”
He turned to Narrion. “I won’t forget that you called me a fool,” he said. “If we win this battle I expect to be made a member of the Society.”
Narrion said nothing. He had miscalculated again, had thought the battle over. Callabrion’s optimism had triumphed over Scathiel’s pessimism.
He looked at the man he had thought he knew so well, the innocent courtier he had used to further his own ambitions. Val had turned; his hands were stretched out to Oldo’s men in welcome. His cloak was thrown back, and his eyes held strength and wisdom. He seemed a king out of legend, a son of Sbona.
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