“Auntie –“
“Boy, you’d better do as I say or I’ll get after you!”
Ehv hopped up and dashed to Mar’s side. “Yes, Aunt Celhis!”
Ehv was not much older than Kheaelie. Mar placed a hand on his shoulder and began reading the ether.
“Does he have to do one of those naked dances where he’s covered in calf blood?” one of the other boys wondered with bright-eyed interest.
“Hush, Thyryl!” Celhis scolded.
Telriy grinned. “The King is a magician, not a sorcerer, Thyryl. He does his magic with his clothes on.”
This brought a laugh from all the children, even the nervous Ehv.
Mar released Ehv and turned back to Kheaelie. There were hundreds of differences between the flux that flowed inside of and around the two, but the most glaring was one that only the girl possessed: a sinuous string of ringing violet that seemed to be fighting with ribbons of eager umber. Where an umber managed to trap a violet, it bonded itself to the offending flux and then the new construction evaporated. The problem seemed to be that the umbers were few in number and the violets many and multiplying. The apparent solution seemed to be to increase the umber ribbons. How could he do that?
Needing time to study the problem, he stole it with hardly a contrary thought, humming The Knife Fighter's Dirge, and the tent and its occupants faded.
Tediously and exhaustively, he experimented, stirring the ether with tentative strokes. Eventually, he discovered that an involved miasma of rumbling seashell, coughing jade, and squeaking coal would birth an umber ribbon if nudged in a specific fashion. With careful precision, he began producing the helpful umbers and was gratified to see the numbers of violet strings quickly diminish. In moments, all the violets were gone. For good measure, he strengthened any sound-colors in the girl’s body that had the feeling of weakness and carefully left everything else as he had found it.
When he slipped back into the normal stream of time, Kheaelie sat up from her pallet, the flush gone from her face. “I feel better now, Aunt Celhis. Can I have something to eat?”
The woman placed her hand on the girl's forehead. “Fever’s gone. My thanks, my lord.” No exuberance, no celebration, just another task accomplished.
Mar got to his feet.
“Ah, my lord ... king? If you’re not rushed?”
“Yes?”
“The Lady Zilsmhaer, she’s in the next tent and has got a nasty burn on her arm.”
Mar took a deep breath. “Show me.”
THREE
142nd Year of the Reign of the City
(Firstday, Waxing, 3rd Summermoon, 1644 After the Founding of the Empire)
Still feeling the draining effects of the battles of his last day in
The Greatest City in All the World, Eishtren sat down heavily and leaned his back against the post that would be one corner of the shelter. The freshly cut pine sapling tilted a bit as his weight rested against it. With nothing but the split end of a plank to use as a shovel, he had only sunk the posthole a bit less than half an armlength. He thought it would do, though, as rumors suggested that this current bivouac was to last only a matter of days.
Aelwyrd handed him a cup of water.
"Thank you, Recruit."
At fourteen, Aael's grandson was yet two years shy of the minimum age for a provisional enlistment, but that hardly seemed to matter now. He had fairly leapt for joy when the quaestor had promoted him from the Youth Auxiliary.
Aael, sitting nearby on the ground with stumps outspread so that he could scratch at another posthole, waggled his hand at Aelwyrd. "Bring me some of that, grandson."
The boy snapped to and dashed to the wooden water bucket. Eishtren's band had only the one pottery cup, but Aael did not rinse it before filling it again for his grandfather; the stream was half a league away and they had no water to waste.
Kyamhyn moaned on his pallet and Eishtren got quickly to his feet and crossed to the injured clerk. Fugleman Truhsg had rigged an awning from the poles of Aael's litter, two stout branches, and their three spare blankets to give the dying man some shade, but they had been unable to do more to make him comfortable on the hard ground. The legionnaire opened his eyes as Eishtren knelt beside him.
"Quaestor, is there anything to drink?"
Eishtren nodded. "Recruit Aelwyrd! Fetch some water here!"
Kyamhyn managed only three weak sips before his eyes closed once more. Eishtren handed the cup back to Aelwyrd and felt the clerk's forehead. Kyamhyn's fever, if anything, was worse.
"How long has he got?" the boy asked. Now no stranger to death, Aelwyrd apparently accepted it as a natural course of events. Most of the Auxiliaries, the children, seemed to have become equally fatalistic; they did not cry, wonder after vanished parents, or talk of the life that they had known in Mhajhkaei.
"Tomorrow or the next day or the day after." Eishtren stood, retrieved his split plank, and walked to the X scratched into the turf where the third posthole needed to be dug. The quaestor squatted and started work.
Their bivouac lay on the western edge of the encampment, the first open spot that they had been able to find upon disembarking from the skyship two days before. Their nearest neighbors were an extended family group of more than twenty who had tents, bedding, and some utensils, supplies that they had trucked with them when they had evacuated to the Citadel. The patriarch of the group had loaned Eishtren the blankets and the water bucket, but had apologetically admitted that they had little else to spare.
When Eishtren had almost finished the second posthole, the Auxiliaries came tumbling along the meandering shoe-trampled trail from the main section of the encampment, returning from their scavenging mission. All laughed and talked excitedly, displaying more energy and spirit than they had at any time since the quaestor had first seen them.
A disgusted look crossed the Signifier's face as he observed this complete lack of discipline.
"Recruit Aelwyrd," Aael barked, "Take muster of Auxiliary Task Force One!"
The boy ran to the arriving group and snapped an order. Quieting abruptly, the children scampered into two irregularly spaced ranks and made ready to sound off.
About Aelwyrd's age, the leftmost boy carried a large bundle of branches secured with a cord. He called out his name first. "Hryen!
"Lyeut!" That was Hryen's sister, though she had hair the color of dry sand rather than the seared brown of her sibling.
Siel, Mlehn, Dehnl, Polg, and Bieldu, five black-haired brothers with closely spaced ages from thirteen on down, all of whom carried bundles of branches, declared their names next to finish out the front rank.
The second rank consisted of Tsyie, Klyvett, Mhye, Pertwie, a tight-knit group, four girls, who were simply playmates and not siblings, and the fraternal twins, Daymion and Oeryhm, who were just barely seven.
Aelwyrd pivoted and saluted. "All present, Signifier!'
Miraculously, of the twenty-one children that Eishtren and his band had shepherded aboard the flying ship the night of the evacuation, eight had been repatriated within the first few hours of the next day to relatives or near-relatives amongst the refugees, including, to the quaestor's great relief, the five youngest.
Using an awkward, strained, and painful-looking ambulation involving his good arm and two stumps, Aael toddled over to sit in front of the formation. "Report, Hryen."
"Signifier, we have brought the firewood, as ordered, and also discovered some dewberries!"
Aael looked at the juice-stained fingers and smeared cheeks of the Auxiliaries and scowled. "That'd be right fine, Auxiliaries, if you'd have brought some back for the rest of the detachment!'
"But we did!" Tsyie piped up, squeezing between Mlehn and Dehnl to display her harvest. She had caught up the berries in the hem of her blouse and the once white fabric had turned the color of red wine. "Almost a whole quart!
"Heh! Well, it'll be spoiled in a day. You all might as well divide it up amongst yourselves. Aael, get that firewo
od stowed away and then you, Hryen, Siel, Mlehn, and Dehnl head out east toward the border of this field. Farmers generally don't shift any stones farther than they have to. See if you can find some to line the edge of the fire pit that the rest of the Auxiliaries will be digging."
At the end of his rank, Daymion, clearly unable to contain the news any longer, burst out suddenly, "We saw the King!"
"Well, did you now?" the Signifier queried sourly. "And what did the King have to say?"
Daymion, irrepressible, grinned. "Not much, but he did make me fly!"
Before the Signifier could express the scathing comment evident on his face, a young woman approached the group from the neighboring bivouac.
"It's the Queen!" Tsyie, Klyvett, Mhye, Pertwie screamed in unison, almost as if they had practiced the chorus. The Auxiliaries shouted and bounced, exulting as a group, and their formation dissolved. Babbling and jostling, they surrounded the visitor, who received the attention with affable grace.
"Auxiliaries!" Aael barked. "Return to your formation! Now! Get after it! I said MOVE!"
As the children threw themselves back into their ranks, Eishtren drew near the young woman and braced to attention. He had seen her once before, during the night of the evacuation. A marine had pointed her out to him as the pilot of the leading skyship and proclaimed that she was a magician. The distinction had already come into common usage amongst the refugees, marines, and legionnaires: the magery done by the despised Phaelle'n was vile sorcery; that of these new champions of the Principate was gods-blessed magic.
"Greetings, my lady. Welcome to the 4th Payroll Section, Mhajhkaeirii Logistics Legion. I am Quaestor Eishtren. May I be of assistance?"
The lady took in the quaestor curiously, and then gave him an odd, out-of-focus look. "I'm Telriy nhi' Celiy ez' Mar," she murmured distractedly
Her use of the out-of-fashion form, most often encountered only in legal documents, introduced her as the daughter of Celiy and the spouse of Mar, the King. Somewhat unusually, she had not appended the matching prefix nh' to indicate her paternal line. Eishtren did not concern himself with what this omission might mean.
The lady's eyes refocused and her expression became circumspect as she regarded him. "Have you any sick or wounded here?"
"Yes, my lady. Clerk Kyamhyn has taken a hard fever from his wounds. My fugleman does not believe that he will survive longer than a few days."
"My husband will see to him when he's done with the broken foot in the last camp. Do you have food for the children?"
"The Auxiliaries? Yes, my lady, we received a distribution of rations this morning."
"Water?"
"Yes, my lady. Sufficient for our drinking needs, that is."
She looked by Eishtren towards the two flimsy corner posts. "You've no tents?"
"I have dispatched Fugleman Truhsg and a team to seek canvas. I expect that we will have our shelter completed by nightfall. The Auxiliaries have been able to supply us with a quantity of firewood and we have enough blankets."
He had given what he had thought were logical orders, but his experience on field exercises outside the walls of the Citadel was minimal. "If have been in some guise deficient in command, I will correct those deficiencies immediately, my lady."
"I wasn't being critical, Quaestor. We've come just to provide any aide that we can with magic, and I've also been gathering information on conditions."
"Yes, my lady."
The Lady Telriy -- the Queen, he amended -- gave him another odd look.
Then the King of the Mhajhkaeirii appeared from between two of the neighboring tents and with impatient steps came to join his wife.
Eishtren felt an immediate surge of pride. He, like all of his band save the youngest of the Auxiliaries, had made the Blood Oath. It had been a sight to behold, the thousands kneeling to shed blood and recite the words. Even those who had not been able to see the king directly had been moved -- by the sacred power of the Forty-Nine in concert, many said -- to swear their allegiance. The cut on his right hand had already healed to a thin, white line, a clear sign of the miraculous nature of the wound. Everyone in the encampment save the very young or very sick had that scar, or one like it on finger or cheek or bicep. It was a mark of unity and shared identity.
Eishtren sank to one knee and saluted. He had seen that in a theatrical once and it seemed the proper thing to do in the presence of his king. Aelwyrd followed suit immediately and, at Aael's urging, the Auxiliaries belatedly also copied him.
The magician sighed tiredly. "Don't do that. Get up. And don't ever do it again."
Eishtren shot to his feet, coloring. "Yes, my lord."
"My lord king," Aelwyrd whispered loudly, his prompt surely heard by everyone present.
Eishtren ignored the recruit. He had no idea of the protocol that the King expected and, as did any good officer, he knew the first rule of encounters with superiors -- keep your mouth shut as much as possible.
"Mar, this is Quaestor Eishtren," the Queen introduced.
"I know who he is," the magician's mouth compressed into a tight line. "Where's your bow, Quaestor?"
"It is here, my lord." He strode to his pallet and retrieved the bow, which he had wrapped in his blanket in order to keep it out of the direct sun. He had no oil to rub into the wood and he feared it might dry unduly and suffer warp. He removed the blanket, passed that to the attending Aelwyrd, and presented the heirloom to his sovereign with both hands as if it were an offering to the Gods.
The King did not touch it as he bent to examine it.
The Queen sucked in a sharp breath. "Mar, I can see it."
"It's a wonder that everyone can't see it. It's worse than it was. Quaestor, does it glow in dim light?"
Eishtren blinked. "Glow, my lord?"
"It does glow at night, my lord king," Aael spoke up from his place in front of the entranced Auxiliaries. "Not yellow like a fire, but sort of blue or sometimes orange. I noticed it the first night during the evacuation and every night since."
"Don't ever break it or allow it to be damaged," the King ordered. "Not by accident and certainly not on purpose. Understand?"
"Yes, my lord king." If it had been anyone other than this magician-king, Eishtren would have taken offense. To suggest that he might somehow misuse his grandfather's bow was absurd.
The King nodded brusquely and marched toward Kyamhyn's pallet. "Now, what's wrong with this man?"
"A fever from battle wounds, Mar," the Queen supplied.
The Auxiliaries appeared on the verge of rushing after the King to watch. Eishtren looked down at Aael. "I heard mention of the Auxiliaries collecting stones?"
"Yes sir! Auxiliaries! Tsyie, Hryen! Form quads! To your duty!"
Doing nothing more obvious than sitting at the man's side quietly, the King, with the Queen observing from a few paces away, spent less than five minutes with Kyamhyn and, to Eishtren's eyes at least, there was no open sign of his magic.
With no expectations of significant improvement, the quaestor simply waited. To his amazement, when the magician stood and moved away, Kyamhyn sat up, clear eyed and vigorous, though apparently dumbfounded, and then got to his feet.
Scratching inattentively at a bandage on his shoulder, the clerk pulled it away to reveal undamaged flesh where there had previously been a grievous, purpled gash. Then, with a sharp indrawn breath, Kyamhyn raised both hands to his jaws. The ragged rips that the quarrel had made when it passed through had been healed completely, with no blemish or scar. Sticking one finger inside, the conscript opened his mouth wide to count his teeth, in the process showing pristine white molars amongst his otherwise stained snags.
"They're all back!" Kyamhyn marveled. "Even the ones that I'd lost before! It's a miracle from the Gods!"
Grinning for the first time in days, Eishtren clapped the legionnaire's shoulder. "How do you feel, Kyamhyn?"
The man stretched, full of energy and profoundly hale. "Hungry."
"Aelwyrd, bring so
mething for him to eat," Eishtren ordered, his spirits suddenly lifted. There could be no doubt that this magic and this king had been ordained by the Forty-Nine.
Eishtren compelled the clerk to sit and eat and with a much lighter step returned to wait upon the King. Arriving at the tail end of a conversation, Eishtren found the magician talking quietly with Aael.
"I'll think about it, my lord," the Signifier offered. "I'm some used to the way I am."
"If you decide to try it, come find me. I can't guarantee anything, and I think it'll take a long time if I can figure out how to do it, but I'd like to try. I should learn a lot from the attempt."
Still unconvinced of whatever the King had asked of him, Aael tucked up one corner of his mouth. "As you say, my lord."
Lady Telriy turned as Eishtren approached. "Quaestor, I'd like your section to take a billet aboard Number One. I think she needs a permanent crew."
The King raised his eyebrows but did not interrupt.
"I exist to serve, my lady. However, I must point out that the Auxiliaries may not find reassignments in the short term."
She awarded Eishtren a slight, understanding smile. "I intend them to remain attached to your section. I'm going to set up quarters for the King and myself aboard Number One. This afternoon, gather up your legionnaires and auxiliaries and report to us there."
"Yes, my lady."
A deafeningly loud screeching sound began to traverse the sky from the south to north, causing Eishtren to look up. After a quick search, his eyes locked on a pair of dark, silvery objects just beneath the clouds. These were moving at an extreme speed and passed immediately above the encampment, shooting away into the distance. The quaestor turned to follow and saw the objects make a wide turn before they crossed the horizon and then drive directly back along their path, headed straight for the Mhajhkaeirii.
"Get under cover!" the King shouted. With a rush of air, the magician rose away rapidly, accelerating as he sailed out to meet these new and unknown skyships.
FOUR
Key to Magic 03 King Page 3
