The Assassin King

by Elizabeth Haydon

  Rhapsody closed her blouse and swaddled the child again.

  “I will, for him,” she said. “I will go to Ylorc and help Achmed with his infernal Lightcatcher, in the hope that it may both protect the mountains and help turn the tide to end the war more quickly. But I tell you this, Sam: when Meridion is weaned, and safe, I will return to the front. I am the Iliachenva’ar; I have no business bearing a sword of elemental fire in hiding. It would be an insult to Oelendra and the training she gave me to stand by for the sake of my own safety when others are dying.”

  “I would expect nothing less,” Ashe said. Rhapsody smiled at him. “And should you receive word that something has befallen me, let Anborn prosecute the war until you are ready to assume command.”

  Rhapsody’s smile faded. “Come; we should be returning,” she said. She rose and gave Ashe her hand again, and together they headed back to the small, dark room beyond a hidden door.

  He stopped one last time at the window just before the tapestry, in a pool of light from the nearby windows, and sat down on a bench beneath it. Rhapsody sat down slowly as well.

  “You have not told me of Llauron’s death,” he said quietly. “Did my father suffer in the end? I know you will tell me the truth, sworn to it as you are, being a Namer, but do not spare me the blow of the words as my wife. Just tell me.”

  “He did not, in my estimation,” Rhapsody said gently. “He stepped between Anwyn and me, with Meridion in my arms, and surrounded us with his ethereal essence—and then he was gone, his body a shell of elemental earth, a mist lingering within it. There was no pain, no hurt your grandmother could have inflicted on him, though I suppose there was regret in the last knowledge of her being willing to take his life, after all he had done and sacrificed for her throughout history. You saw the expression in his eyes, Sam; it was peace, and resignation—he knew he had saved his grandchild from certain death. I think, if nothing else, that will bring him to the door of the Lord and Lady Rowan, and to life everlasting.”

  Rhapsody watched for the hint of water in his cerulean blue eyes, eyes scored strangely and beautifully by draconic vertical pupils, but there was no such sign, an absence that betrayed an even deeper sorrow, one beyond tears.

  “I don’t know what possessed me to be so cruel to him the last time we saw each other,” Ashe said. “He was so excited about Meridion, so desirous to make amends so that he might be part of his grandchild’s life. And I spurned him, turned him away, told him he would never gain what he wanted. I don’t know what possessed me.”

  She took his hand.

  “The same thing that possesses me to leave all that I know, all that I love,” she said simply, without sentiment. “The duty—and the desire—to keep our son safe at any price.” Her small calloused fingertip caressed his palm. “Llauron understood that as well, more than anyone I have ever known. He Ended, protecting his grandchild. Only once more in all of history has such a sacrifice been made. When he is older, Meridion will know how much Liauron must have loved him to make it. And, though I can’t be certain, it seems as if he may have passed some of his lore along to Meridion—I thought I beheld a mist hovering in the prison of Llauron’s body that the baby breathed in.”

  Ashe continued to stare out the window of the keep at the silver trees glistening black with the onset of Second Thaw.

  “It’s nice to think so, anyway,” he said at last, rising from the bench and pulling her up with him. “Come, let us go back and finalize what we have decided. Then we can have Meridion’s Naming ceremony before you leave. At least one happy memory should come from this day.”

  He pulled aside the tapestry and led her carefully down the stairs to the secret entrance, then opened the door to the hidden room, where the rest of the group meeting in secret was finishing their repast.

  They returned to their places at the table. Ashe placed the sleeping baby back in Rhapsody’s arms.

  “Thank you for your patience,” Ashe said. “The decisions we have come to are dire ones, and will be difficult on each of us to enact. Each requires sacrifice that in many cases is almost too great to be borne—but that is the way of leadership.”

  “Alas,” said Anborn.

  “First, I wish to officially ask the Firbolg king a boon.” Ashe looked at Achmed.

  “You’re asking me for a favor?” Achmed said incredulously. “If it is the commitment of troops, the answer is no. The Firbolg army has already come to the aid of Roland once, at the Great Moot. Under the circumstances, I’m going to need every soldier I have.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” said Ashe archly. “My request is this: take my wife and son tonight, under cover of darkness, and travel off the road, over the desert to Ylorc, where I ask you to keep them hidden and safe within the Teeth. Something hunts our son; knowing this, I cannot rest, nor can I prosecute this war correctly until I am certain that he is as safe as it is possible to make him, as well as his mother. Since Rhapsody has agreed to assist you with the building and development of your Lightcatcher, she may as well have the protection of the mountains to hide her and the baby. Do you agree?”

  Achmed and Grunthor exchanged a glance. Then the Bolg king’s mismatched eyes returned to Ashe.

  “Ylorc was Rhapsody’s first home on the continent,” he said. “She has title to a small duchy there. She’s always welcome in the Teeth.”

  “Yeah, and the Bolg will be glad ta see the baby, too,” Grunthor said, chuckling.

  “First recipe I see with his name on it, I will light a whole tribe of them on fire,” Rhapsody said.

  “I now ask the Lady Cymrian to assess what she has heard from each of us, and tell us what she thinks,” said Ashe.

  The Lady Cymrian exhaled.

  “It sounds to me like the war that is coming is more a war arising from men’s greed than from the demonic desire for destruction,” she said. “But that matters little. Chaos and anarchy are magnets for the F’dor, sooner or later there will be a power beyond these days, from the old times, that we will be facing. For that reason, the Lightcatcher is a wise investment.

  “I would also guess from what I have heard that there are more allies involved on Talquist’s side than we know about. For all that Sorbold was a more or less solitary nation under Leitha, the Emperor Presumptive is a former merchant. He no doubt has friends and trading partners all around the world. We must discover quickly which ones beyond our borders he has recruited to aid him in his attempt at conquest of the Middle Continent.”

  “I would guess the Hintervold,” Anborn said.

  “Perhaps, though the Hintervold is dependent on Roland for foodstuffs, and Sorbold cannot easily provide that,” Rhapsody said. “It will be interesting to turn over as many rocks as possible and discover what crawls out.”

  She turned to Rial, her loyal viceroy. “This is my final command to you, my friend: go back to Tyrian and serve, as you did before my crowning, as her Lord Protector. Safeguard the forest for now; we do not need to involve the Lirin at this point, though you must instruct the woods guards and the Lirin border guards to prevent any troops that would pass from Sorbold to Roland from doing so, even at the cost of a martial challenge. And Rial—go to the palace at Tomingorllo, where the diadem rests in its case. Make the attempt to pick it up, as I once did. Perhaps it is time for the crown of stars to change heads; I will be too far away to act as titular queen for a long while. The Lirin deserve better.”

  “The crown, and the Lirin, have already made their choices, m’lady,” Rial said.

  “Even a diadem of ethereal diamonds has the right to revisit a decision every now and them,” Rhapsody said, smiling at her confidant. “We must be ready for what is to come; while this may be only an upworld war to begin with, I suspect it will not remain such.”

  “Rhapsody is correct,” Ashe went on. “While the footprints of those that once dwelt within the Vault of the Underworld are not discernible here, the bloodshed and violence that is to come is a bait for the demonic, a temp
tation that may draw them in. So we must be prepared to repel not only the forces driven by greed and the desire for conquest, but be ready to grapple with darker forces, evil from the First Age that can only be destroyed by lore from the same time. For this reason, I wish to pronounce the decisions of this makeshift council, comprised of members of different factions of the Alliance and the church, in the presence of a Lirin Namer, that history will record our actions as defensive, and undertaken for the sake of safeguarding the Middle Continent, and its people, against the threat of invasion by those who would conquer the earth, and those that dwell beneath it.”

  “Do so, then, nephew,” said Anborn. “I am happy not to be in your place this day; you will not know how painful this moment really is until years from now, when the pages of history are written about it. Believe me when I tell you this.”

  The Lord Cymrian’s voice was steady, kingly. “Very well—this is my decision, made in concert and with consent of all present, pending their assent,” he said. “Anborn has always been best in the command of men. If you will agree, Uncle, to take up the mantle you cast aside centuries ago, and again serve as Lord Marshal to the forces of the Alliance, it would put the best leader in the field. You also have personal friendships among some of our more tentative allies—the Nain, the Icemen of the Hintervold, the Blesser of the Nonaligned. States—all of these at one time or another were brothers-in-arms of yours. Though there is no need to drag any of those allies into this war if they are not needed, it would be good to know that we can count on their loyalty if they are—loyalty either to the Alliance or its military commander.”

  “As you wish, nephew,” Anborn said. His voice was quiet and circumspect, with none of the condescending tone in which he generally spoke, especially about things martial.

  “It therefore falls to me to hold the land itself,” Ashe went on. “The draconic part will guard the Tree and serve to sustain the shield of the world. That which is man, the Lord Cymrian, must fight to protect the people who dwell upon that land. In the name of Llauron, my father, and that of Elynsynos, my great-grandmother, I will do both. I will call the Council of Dukes at once, and take over command of all of the provincial armies, putting them under Anborn’s direct command.”

  “Tristan Steward will not like that,” Gwydion Navarne said. “I believe he has expected to be given that post as Lord Regent.”

  “He will think otherwise when he sees the scope and scale of what we are up against,” said Ashe. “But we do not have time to wait for the gathering of the provincial forces, if what you suspect is coming is nigh, Your Grace. Anborn should accompany you back to Sepulvarta immediately, taking with you all of the forces you can muster from the outposts and garrisons in southeastern Navarne and southern Bethany. I will draft up articles of command that will give you authority to conscript any military forces you can reach; there should be almost ten thousand along that route, give or take however many are in the process of guarding mail caravans.”

  The Patriarch nodded. “That seems wise. I would hope that you would not leave Roland vulnerable to aid Sepulvarta; that would be a fool’s errand.”

  “Indeed,” said Ashe. “Anborn, will ten thousand be sufficient for your rescue of the holy city?”

  “More than enough to break a siege, if one has begun,” said Anborn. “But I have to tell you, Nephew, that I suspect they will not be of the caliber needed to do so. I have been warning you for three years, since you took on this bloody lordship, that war was coming, and that preparations needed to be made.”

  “And I heeded you,” Ashe said patiently. “You may be pleasantly surprised, Uncle.”

  “I am never pleasantly surprised,” the Lord Marshal muttered. “The very concept of surprise is an innately unpleasant one”

  “I will conduct the strategic aspects of the war—the defense of the Middle Continent and the rest of the Alliance—from the fortress at Highmeadow. I will send ships immediately to our allies in Manosse and Gaematria across the Wide Central Sea, to alert them to what is happening and request their aid; Talquist has the naval advantage, but with their assistance, we can even the field.

  “I will also heed the wisdom of my wife, much as I fear my own repercussions of our decision,” Ashe went on. “I will entrust her, and our son, to Achmed, king of the Firbolg, who is not only our ally but her dear friend, for the purpose of safeguarding her and Meridion from whatever evil seeks him. Rhapsody has agreed to go to Ylorc with Achmed, and to aid him in the development and utilization of the instrumentality he calls the Lightcatcher, a remaking of Gwylliam’s Lightforge designed and built by the Nain before the Cymrian War, for the purpose of protecting the lore it uses. The Bolg king reaffirms his commitment to the Alliance, though makes no promises of troop involvement, and asserts that the use of the instrumentality will be for the defense of the said Alliance, if and when possible. Have I characterized your position correctly, Achmed?”

  The Bolg king snorted. “For the purposes of history, certainly. History means nothing to me; I have yet to see an example of it that I have believed.”

  “Perhaps this will be the first, then,” Ashe said mildly. “Rhapsody, Lirin queen and Lady Cymrian, has asked Rial, Viceroy of Tyrian, to expand his role to Lord Protector and to see if the diadem in Tomingorllo assesses him to be worthy of the kingship in her stead. She reiterates her primary fealty to Tyrian, second only to that of the Alliance as a whole.” The Lady Cymrian exhaled and nodded her agreement.

  “I cannot tell you how sad this makes me, m’lady,” Rial said. “I remember fondly the day you picked up that diadem, made from the shattered pieces of the Purity Diamond, destroyed by Anwyn in a pact with the demon against her husband. It came to life in your hands, a symbol of the unity you would bring to the Lirin kingdoms—and the Cymrian Alliance. To think that you may have to give it up to protect both of those entities now is tragic.”

  Rhapsody shook her head. “I’m giving up nothing, Rial. In my heart I will always be a daughter of Tyrian, whether I wear the diadem or a kerchief on my head. I only wish I could have brought about an era of peace to that united kingdom, rather than having to take up arms to defend it once again. At least this time the Lirin have Anborn fighting on their side, and not against them. That alone is worth the loss of the crown.”

  “What is to come will change us all in ways we cannot even contemplate now,” said Ashe. “But know this—it will surely come to pass. We cannot avoid it, but at least we are united in our determination to stand together against it. In this way, the second Cymrian era could not be more different from the first.”

  Anborn nodded. “And we will prevail. In this way, it could not be more different, either.”

  “Glad as I am to have you with us, Lord Marshal, even you cannot hold back the raging ocean; its will cannot be stopped,” Rial said somberly. “The best you can do is build a seawall and keep patching it. With any luck the storm will pass before it gives way.”

  “I’d rather think of a way to drain the sea,” Anborn muttered. “But, as I can’t, sandbag duty it is.”

  “Yes,” said the Patriarch, rising with the others as the council meeting came to an end. “But on that day when you discover such a way to drain the sea, I am with you, bucket in hand.”

  As he ambulated noisily down the corridor leading away from the Great Hall, with its many porticos and side hallways, Anborn reached effortlessly behind the drape of an alcove where a small stone statue of Merithyn the Explorer was displayed and grasped a handful of gold ringlets, dragging their owner’s head out from behind the heavy velvet swath. A high-pitched gasp echoed up the Grand Staircase to the floors above.

  “Ah, yes, you do make a fine little spy, don’t you now, m’lady?” he said with exaggerated courtesy, smiling at the shock in the glittering black eyes. “But apparently your assets are not as valuable as you thought. Keep working at it, though.” He released her curls and patted her head affectionately, then made his way down the rest of the hallway, the
clunking metallic sound of his walking machine reverberating through the whole of the quiet keep.

  The girl remained in shock, still watching him, until the echoes faded into silence again. Then she hurried back to the buttery in the dimness of night, the light from the great lamps seeming to cause her shadow to lengthen, her hair to darken and fade into the gloom.

  10

  Eastern Navarne, at the border of Bethany

  The wind off the sea was strong in the fading winter’s ebb, growing as the advent of spring approached. The gusts of the prevailing winds were steady enough to carry weather for miles inland, the vapor from the warming ocean blanketing the coastal towns and forests like a dream from which the land struggled to wake, winding its misty way eastward.

  Rath cursed as yet more icy water whipped around his head, drizzling down his neck. The ability to step between gusts of wind, letting the updrafts carry him great distances and sparing his feet the walking, was a great advantage of his race and profession, but it was not without cost. The arc along which he traveled in this way was an invisible wave of sound, oftentimes inaudible to the human ear, borne on the wind and anchored on each end at two points in the physical world. Rath had been upworld long enough to be able to recognize the beginnings and endings of such waves, and therefore more often than not was able to manipulate the wind to his benefit, as if opening a door at one end of the gust unto the other end, saving time in his travels and passing unnoticed across the wide spaces of the world.

  Occasionally, however, the wind was temperamental, refusing to be ridden the way a rogue horse or a jackass might. When this occurred, Rath found himself far off his planned course. Sometimes a fair wind turned foul when he was wrapped within its arms, following what had been a clear, strong wave, only to dump him unceremoniously short of the mark in a swamp or midden, or even in the middle of a pond. Whatever weather the wind was carrying was also unpredictable in its path, and as a result he would sometimes find himself bathing in sleet, being pelted on all sides by hail, or drenched in rain even though it had been a fine, dry gust into which he had originally stepped.