Ash and Silver

by Carol Berg

  “With all respect, Domé Canis-Ferenc, Curator Pons, and worthy purebloods of the Three Hundred, this arrest is not yours to make.” The Knight Defender waved a hand.

  Swords and shields clattered to the floor. Soldiers dropped to their knees. Pons and Canis-Ferenc halted, not of their own accord.

  “We mean you no harm.” Fix held out his hand to the curator and the lord. “Take one of these tokens and it will tell you, all who serve you, and all who are guesting under your protection, everything you need to know about who we are.” Memory-wipe tokens, certainly, to ensure the Order’s anonymity.

  The Knight Defender opened his hand in Fallon’s direction. I shook my head. Fallon deserved to understand what he’d done for me and Navronne.

  After dispensing a few more tokens, the Knight Defender came to me. “I’ll see you before you leave here. You’ve some things to learn about metallurgy. Silver tarnish is as annoying as a bastard cousin. And no matter what you decide about the future, you will do some work with me before embarking on it. You’re something like a sword without guards or hilt—all points and sharp edges.”

  I dipped my head and laid a fist on my breast. He laughed, nodded to someone behind me, and plunged into the fog.

  By the time the fog dissipated, Fix, the Marshal, and the Order knights had vanished with it. Arcs of magic had spit through the air of the Great Hall, leaving those remaining in that chamber, and likely hundreds of others, scratching their heads in confusion.

  Though he’d released me when my resistance ceased, my captor of the stern and powerful voice had shielded my back until the Marshal was gone. I turned around and knelt up on one knee, fist on my breast. As with Fix, I most improperly raised my eyes and affirmed that he was indeed the only man who could have bested me in such a fight or reached me in the midst of raging frenzy. There was no measure for my gratitude . . . or my pleasure.

  “Knight Commander Inek,” I said hoarsely, “I report my mission complete.”

  In stern solemnity that helped soothe my lingering tremors, he shook his head. “I disagree with your assessment, paratus. You seem to have set forces in motion that will not be denied. You cannot abandon a mission in progress.”

  His strong hand pulled me to my feet. From a tumbled chair, he picked up my hooded mantle and threw it over me. “You’ll want this. The weather’s turning and there are three hundred purebloods in this castle ready either to kill you as an imposter, hang you as a traitor, or anoint you king of Navronne.”

  Inek strode toward the doors and I limped along beside him. I could scarce think beyond putting one foot in front of the other. Every part of me seemed stretched thin.

  A clamor of voices rose from the rotunda. Now the ground had stopped shaking, a sea of bodies flowed through multiple doors from the outer courts and gardens. However unlikely, townspeople milled about the castle. Like the Gouvron Estuary where salt water and fresh mingled with the surge of the tides, so did streams of men and women in worn, patched garb surge through the flood of jeweled brocades and frothing lace. Yet from everywhere in that mingled tide, spears and nets of magic flew out to support pillars before they toppled, to strengthen walls and settle dust.

  A disgusted Pons stood at the great doors, hands on her hips. She was dispatching Registry guards to search for Geraint de Serre, who had disappeared out from under her nose. I started toward her, anxious to learn of Juli.

  Inek held me back. “Not yet,” he said. “What you have to show the girl will not be easy for her to see, and what you have to tell her will not be easy for you to say or for her to hear.”

  “True,” I said. Juli believed her brother dead. As he was. Only now they were gone did I understand the ghostly threads that had bound the girl and me. My spirit was a desert.

  Inek and I moved unremarked through the throng. Only when I stumbled into a woman and she looked straight through me, puzzled, did I realize Inek had drawn a veil over the two of us.

  “I recall distinctly. There were two of them, master and servant,” said a young woman, swathed in black fur. “The servant had no face.”

  “His face was a mask,” said another. “So he was the true Pretender. The Pretender promised the judges that he would wear a mask every hour of every day. . . .”

  “It was the medallion in his flesh tells me the bodyguard was the true Pretender,” said a man with a pointed white beard poking out from under his half mask. “That’s how you would hide who you are, while making sure you and your evidence can’t be separated. And the magic . . . Great Deunor did you feel his power?”

  “Where did they go? I don’t see either one of them. A king of our own kind . . . what a fine way to clean up the mess. Patronne has named the curators greedy gatzi for years.”

  “Over here, carpenter! We need you to hold these arches until we strengthen the supports, else the dome will fall in.” Juli directed several of the townsmen into an area of fallen masonry. Pale dust smudged her half mask and mourning gown of black velvet. An elegance of power flowed from her hand as she helped clear a passage. So her art manifested with masonry and buttresses, not pens and ink. A smile teased at my lips. Such a small thing she was to build so large.

  Inek tugged at my arm. “Your mission awaits.”

  “Where?” I said, swallowing regret. “Much farther and you’ll have to drag me. Never would have thought you could best me just out of your sickbed. Though I suppose the Archivist—” He must have moved Inek from the infirmary when he found the proper counter to the trap spell. Even then he didn’t trust the Marshal.

  “He is retired to Evanide and will never leave. His successor is already in place.”

  “And what of the Marshal?”

  “De Serre will die. A new Marshal is already named, but Fix will command for a time as we go through our own cleansing.”

  The gray evening was frigid as we emerged onto Castle Cavillor’s deserted ramparts to a view that thrilled the eye. A lake of magelight lanterns pooled in the bailey just below us, rivers of them flowed through the town, and a sea lapped the town walls. “Is this Damon’s legion?” I said. “The Marshal said he had long-laid strategies in place . . .”

  “Not Damon’s. Look there.”

  In the courtyard below, Canis-Ferenc and a troop of his soldiers were surrounded by ragged men and women bearing every manner of weapon, all bristling with dire magics. Horror snatched my gut. Harrowers, armed with magic?

  But three horsemen headed the ragtag legion—a tall man with hair the color of old honey, a woman almost his twin but with a scar blighting half her face, and a cadaverous man whose black hair was threaded with gray. Benedik, Signé, and Siever. Above them flew a black ensign, its blazon a white tree.

  “Deunor’s light,” I whispered, joy, relief, and wonder mingled in equal parts. “However can they be here?” Yes, I’d been kept asleep for ten days, but that was hardly enough time to bring them from Xancheira . . . and Siever from Evanide . . . and Fix and Inek, unless . . .

  My gaze roamed the darkening world beyond the torchlit bailey and the streams of lanterns. Had I not known what I was looking for, I would have thought I glimpsed a phantasm or a trick of the light. Atop a round tower outside the light stood a naked man alone, his muscular body sculpted in cerulean light, his long hair bound into a braid that fell over his shoulder and almost to his waist. Kyr Archon. Pale blue gards . . . not silver.

  Was it joy at his redemption or the certainty that Safia would have stood there instead if she yet lived that made my chest ache so fiercely? Or perhaps it was the release of despair held close since my abrupt leaving. They lived, the Xancheirans and the once-silver Danae. The Severing was undone.

  Voices rose from the confrontation in the bailey.

  “. . . but I don’t know who you mean,” said Ferenc with stern dignity. “And I don’t know who you are or how your people got inside my gates, but you will withdraw
them immediately. If you are servants of the imposter de Serre, know that his plot has failed. If you are Curator Damon’s allies, know that the curator is dead and his noble plan left in splinters. Give me the name of the one you want, and I’ll see him brought down. Lay down your arms, and I’ll hear your grievance and his.”

  “We call him the Deliverer,” said Signé. “But he goes by many names, some of which he says are not safe to use.”

  “We’ll not leave without him,” said Benedik. “He has brought us back from beyond time, and we hear he is prisoner in this place. We will have him, and then will I, the Duc de Xancheiros, have speech with the Southern Registry about the ordering of magic in the world.”

  “Xancheiros! You’re mad. . . . Leave this house and take your rabble with you, else the power of Navronne’s sorcery will be brought to bear.”

  “Dismiss my lord and his rabble at thy peril,” said Siever, spreading his arms wide. As he slowly raised his hands from shoulder height, a pillar of whirling white light rose between the Xancheirans and the outer wall of the castle. The display was not illusion, but a palpable construction. Eye and mind told me that my hand could wrap my arms about the pillar and feel an impossible solidity.

  But when Siever’s hands met above his head, the white light reversed to unlight—that’s all I could think to call it. Not simple blackness. The portion of the castle wall his pillar crossed—wall, parapet, tower—was not masked, but empty.

  “If I breathe the word, this void in thy demesne becomes permanent,” said Siever, coolly sober. “Though if I’m mad, that’s not likely, is it? Wilt thou see this city fall to ruin or wilt thou treat with my lord as a civilized man who happens to be graced with magic, as art thou?”

  Inek nudged me. “Only you can settle this. I’ll release your veil when you say.”

  Of all things, I wanted to be sitting in the Aerie at Evanide, feeling the sea wind on my face. Or asleep in my quiet cell as the storm tides raged outside those sturdy walls. But the moment must not be lost if we were to hold on to whatever good Damon had accomplished. Purebloods must take care of our own guilts. Then, perhaps, we could find a righteous course to heal the rest of the world.

  I removed hood and mantle, shirt and tunic, so that my hairless head, fearsome mask, and threaded silver arms would distract from any familiarity. I nodded to Inek.

  “Hold thy wrath, Xancheiran!” I called as the veil fell away. “My lords, in the name of those who have fallen to bring us to this day, I command you hear me!”

  My bellowing drew every eye to the ramparts. Siever’s enchantment vanished, but the veiled Inek provided light for all to see me. The bands on my arms reported the swelling whispers: Caedmon’s true heir . . . the Pretender . . . the Sorcerer King . . .

  Fending off guilt, I took advantage. “Summon the Three Hundred.”

  It took very little time for those in the rotunda to join the crowd in the bailey. Which was good, as the wind was freezing my bare flesh . . . and the non-flesh parts of me were colder yet.

  “Domé Canis-Ferenc, I commend your forbearance. And I ask forgiveness for the damage I’ve wrought to your noble house. I was bound by an enslavement of will that is the exemplar of the corruption we have now abjured. Be assured that the one who perpetrated that most heinous of all crimes against the divine gift will never do so again.

  “My lord of Xancheiros, Lady Signé, Lord Siever, the one you seek has himself been set free from a great evil. His deeds—and those of his friends and brothers—have released me from prisoning, as they did you. I cannot doubt that, wherever the gods have taken him, he rejoices to know of your deliverance and blesses you for your care, and that he would beg you treat with this worthy Canis-Ferenc and these ancient families who are assembled in the name of purification. Those who were once your enemies have heard the horror of your city’s fall—and have vowed to ensure such things never happen again. But they don’t yet understand the full truth of what happened to you. Nor were they ever told of the great discovery that lay at the root of the divergence between Xancheira and the Southern Registry. In the face of the world’s upheaval, the time for that truth to be told must be chosen with wisdom and care. But it must be told. Make peace between you first, heal, and then it will come clear how to move forward.

  “And lastly, to all of you, the time for a Sorcerer King is not yet. Unlike the man who preened as Caedmon’s heir—our salvation from corruption—even as he paraded me in front of you as a living mockery of our most sacred law, I do not intend to claim the throne that time, history, and tradition have granted to good King Eodward and his heirs. Rather I will serve the divine gift in ways that forward the cause of justice. I ask all of you to do the same. But in the same way this mask proclaims that I serve Navronne and not my own interest, so will I take a new name to replace all other names. From this day I shall be known as the One-Who-Waits. I shall wait to see if we can purge ourselves of corruption. I shall wait to see if Serena Fortuna reveals King Eodward’s intended heir or the gods impart some measure of redemption to his sons. But be sure, my gift will see these things done.”

  Raising my hands, I released the magic I’d fought to hold at bay—magic born of history and art, pain and outrage, of loss, betrayal, and grief, of joy at freedom and hope of healing, and of unbridled wonder at the glory that flowed through every part of me. For that moment, the ground trembled and boundaries faded. Dressed stone reverted to cliffs, paving to grassy hillsides. Lamps and torches vanished, leaving the world lit only by starlight. The sweet airs of the Everlasting mingled with Navronne’s oncoming winter, and faint music twined with the scents of meadowsweet and sea wrack on the breeze, speaking of beauty and mystery just beyond what we could see.

  When my hands began to shake, I released the thread of power and whispered, “Enough.”

  The crowd, as one, drew in a great breath when Inek’s veil made me vanish. As they exhaled in a rising murmur of awe, I dropped to one knee, lowered my head, and laid a fist on my breast. “Knight Commander, I report my mission complete.”

  “Blessed return, Aros, the One-Who-Waits, Knight of the Ashes.”

  CHAPTER 43

  THREE MONTHS AFTER THE SITTING OF THE THREE HUNDRED

  Late autumn brought deep snow and bitter cold to central Ardra. The wood was quiet, every bare branch, every twig, every dormant bud coated with snow. My footsteps were muffled. Now and then a bird startled at my passing, fluttering wings causing small showers of fine snow. But the war had moved south to Evanore, and in such quiet, knowing the season’s change was so close upon us, it seemed as if the world held its breath.

  I was on a dual mission coming south. I needed to lay some ghosts. And I had a few people to speak to about the future, now it seemed I would have one. That had been doubtful for a while.

  • • •

  The first few days after the incidents at Cavillor, I spent encamped with Fix and Inek. Fix helped me deal with the practical problems of the threaded silver bracelets, everything from bathing to investing the bands with my own spellwork without singeing my skin or setting off rebounding enchantments. The two of them together helped me work on the discipline required to manage the bracelets’ magic and the steadily increasing awareness of the world around me.

  But the work was difficult and I couldn’t concentrate. I fretted about Juli, about strife between the Xancheirans and the purebloods and the certain resistance to dissolving the Registry now there would be no Sorcerer King to ease the pain of it. I felt like a tattered blanket, all holes and loose threads, no pattern, no weaving.

  The result was I couldn’t sleep. Every attempt ended in nightmares of prisons or cages, of chains, of body parts removed and replaced with swords or brooms or animal feet. At least half my nightmares involved cutting away the mask to find some horror . . . or worse, nothing at all. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Come to Evanide,” said Fix, at the end of the thi
rd day, when I could not set a twig alight without setting the whole tree afire. “We must do something about that mask. As long as you wear it, you’re a walking dead man.”

  I huddled by our tame fire and stared stupidly at a rapidly cooling tisane meant to put me to sleep. “Can’t go back,” I said. “Greenshank is a deserter. And I’ve things to do.”

  “We’ll keep you anonymous,” said Inek. “Knights come and go.”

  “I don’t— I’m not sure I can ever go back,” I said. Though I still believed in the Order, and I very much craved the peace and purpose it represented, how could I ever offer the submission it required? I trusted Fix and Inek and many of my brothers, but I had trusted the Marshal, too. I was not ready to yield so much again.

  The warm tisane sloshed over my hands. The tremors got worse whenever I thought of Geraint de Serre commanding me to slaughter everyone in Castle Cavillor. If not for these men and Fallon and Pons and the half-mad Archivist, I would have done it.

  Fix added a few drops more of his soporific to my cup and forced me to drink. “On the ramparts of Cavillor, Inek named you a knight to honor your choice and to acknowledge your clear qualification. That was no idle gesture. The Order needs you—your magic, your discipline, your devotion to our cause. As ever, it is your own choice to accept that naming. But not on this day. The Knight Defender will never allow a knight, squire, paratus, or tyro to leave the Order while he is wounded.”

  And so we returned to Evanide. I near wept when I got inside fortress walls, sneaked in via private ways, given a cell in the commanders’ barracks. But even the sea could not soothe me. No sooner had I dropped off to sleep that first night than I woke up screaming. Fits of the shakes attacked me with the regularity of the tides. I dubbed myself a weakling ninny.

  Fix and Inek assured me that time and peace and work would mend what was only to be expected from such wounding as the Marshal’s leash. The only serious matter they discussed with me was the royal mask. No matter what I chose to do, no matter where I went, it marked me as the man on the ramparts. I was of no use to myself, my friends, the Order, or the kingdom if I flaunted a symbol that could see me dead in an eyeblink. Despite the risks of undoing intricate magic never meant to be undone, I agreed to their recommendation to be rid of it.