Banner of the Damned

by Sherwood Smith

  And anyway, how would I explain my sudden expertise to Lasva? Telling her about the dyr was impossible, not without admitting what I had seen. Because I suspected that her first question—it was only human nature—would be, Did you use it on me without my being aware?

  It was a relief one morning when she said, “If you are busy with your own tasks, Emras, you are free from practicing the Altan fan. I am teaching some of the guardswomen—I find that nothing reinforces good form like being required to explain it. But I fear it would be unforgivably dull for you to revert to the very basic steps.” She smiled. “But you are welcome to continue eating with the staff, as always.”

  I bowed and withdrew.

  By then I’d been back to the dyr three times. I’d begun with Tatia, Falisse Ranalassi, and Carola, separately at first, and the day before the above, the three together the day of the fight in the salon.

  I was so deeply involved that I actually forgot about my letters to Birdy, until I woke up after falling into bed, and discovered his last letter on the floor; though servants did come through to clean my rooms, I had told them not to touch any papers or books. They obeyed assiduously, apparently unwilling to have any interaction with anything that might be magical, and therefore dangerous.

  So I picked up the letter from the floor and read it through. After a day of work at the wards, I sat down to answer:

  Birdy:

  If I read your words correctly it appears to you as if Lasva has turned on her homeland, and because of that, I’ve done the same. Oh Birdy, the truth is very different. I have resisted reading Marloven history because I am so busy dealing with Marlovens in the present, but from what I hear in ballads and stories the Marlovens tell on themselves, they imposed their empire by military force onto people who had no loyalty or interest in being Marloven. They demanded loyalty through fear and punitive laws instead of inviting it. Worse, they claimed pre-eminence of a cultural entity, the Marlovens, which by our definition is evil. Colend does not claim pre-eminence of any cultural entity.

  We do make it plain by misdirection, however, that we consider the Chwahir a sub-eminent cultural entity. But the Chwahir do the same to us, according to what we were taught. The Chwahir as well as the Marlovens exalt themselves by praising the violence by which they prevail, and they constantly seek to advance in the skills of war.

  I am merely attempting to look at how and why kingdoms form. As a child, I understood that they just were, with King Martande bettering everyone else. I am looking at all my unquestioned assumptions as there is little else to do in the grip of winter. How I envy you in Colend’s temperate weather!

  I was so busy with my secret pursuit (meted out to myself as a reward for work) that Birdy’s letters sat for longer and longer periods before I’d remember to answer them. I had closed myself completely into the world of magic and other people’s lives.

  … but according to what we heralds are taught (and I will search out the sources in just a moment), each development of war, from stone to fire, steel to arrows, has cost the civilization that made them.

  Next day. Last night the duke came to visit. I brought up this topic. He corroborated my point, quoting what the queen said to him the first year he was appointed Commander: War material has to be made, like everything else, but unlike everything else isn’t used in trade, in sustenance, or to make life better. It is spent to cause death.

  You remember our class in the history of kingdoms. First tenet, humans like hierarchies. Second tenet, shifts from small kingdoms to large was in part due to the need to raise, train, and supply royal armies. King Martande did away with royal armies, requiring his nobles to supply said warriors on need. Then he set about creating policies that would preclude that need.

  Do we claim moral superiority? Sometimes. But what does it really mean? That Colend’s determined policy of avoiding war is simple practicality? We can look at the world in terms of survival and necessity, denying such ideals as honor and loyalty, compassion and mercy, and so on, but in that case you may as well deny the existence of knowledge and wisdom, because such an argument also denies the validity of human reasoning—and renders meaningless such concepts as virtue, because it denies free choice. And virtue depends on free choice….

  I ran my gaze down the rest of the letter, and saw Lasva’s name. Again, Birdy intuited that my quotations from the Herskalt were not my thoughts, but he seemed to be attributing them to Lasva. And again, here was Kaidas involved. Might this protracted discussion be an indirect way for Kaidas to communicate with Lasva?

  I should straighten out the misunderstanding, I thought as I laid the letter down. But later. Writing such long letters, engaging every point, was more fatiguing than interesting when I already had so much to do: there were still kingdom emergencies and castle spells of various sorts to repair, from new water-purifying spells on buckets to wands to make for the stables. The stewards brought their lists to Gislan, who gave them to me once a week. I found that I was much faster if I dispatched these tasks in the middle of the night, when there were fewer people around to distract me with their questions and curiosity or to offer me unwanted advice.

  The second layer of castle ward spells had been easier to dismantle and replace than the first, but then overconfidence nearly caused me to fall into a very nasty magical trap. I might have but, as a way to perceive wards, I took the time to refashion my spells into colors. In the middle of a very tangled chain there was a single wink of blood red. I almost overlooked it. The “red” spell was a transfer worked into the structure around it. This transfer would have sent me between time and place, with no destination.

  That frightened me into slowing down to beginner’s deliberate pace again.

  When I discovered Birdy’s letter and forced myself to take a night to answer it—with an introductory paragraph about how Lasva had been too busy to talk these things over with me—Birdy responded within two days.

  … In our first class as heralds, they taught us the four characteristics of monarchy: the stability resultant to dynastic succession; protection, which your Marlovens seem to put first, but we define through awareness of our neighbors and constant negotiation; independence of other nations’ problems and demands, and law and custom.

  In Colend, each branch of service emphasizes the public good over the monarch’s personal interests, and we are assured by the queen that royal education teaches the same. Loyalty is to Colend, not to the body sitting on Colend’s throne; even though she serves as its symbol, she still serves, as do we.

  The duke wishes me to remind you that common law is the law of custom. That can be as strong as a king, and the heralds give that legitimacy, as opposed to so-called natural law, or the law of strength. This is not to say that natural law precludes moral precepts, but it requires far more prudence because while there is the chance that political decisions may be wrong, who can prevail against someone who uses strength instead of communication to “convince” those who do not agree?

  Was that last bit a moth-kiss aimed by Kaidas at the Marlovens?

  I pulled paper forward to reply, beginning with a fair statement about Marlovens (who, I had witnessed personally at the border of Totha, were ready to sacrifice themselves for what they believed was the good of the kingdom, whereas I couldn’t name any Colendi who would) when I thought, But Anhar told Birdy about that incident. Which ended with mass slaughter because of my magic.

  Birdy might be trying to delve deeper into my life, this being an indirect prompt to get me to talk about magic. I tossed the letter aside to deal with tomorrow.

  Two months of tomorrows later, I forced myself to answer it, quoting from Scribe Halimas’s lectures about kingdoms, service, and the Scribes’ First and Second Rules, which were still the guiding principles of my life.

  Unnoticed by me, half a year passed.

  With the removal and reestablishment of the Choreid Dhelerei’s top, or most recent, set of wards, Ivandred now had complete access to the city. I kne
w that he wanted more spells. I wanted to give him as many as I could that would make warfare impossible, or at least difficult. The spells I’d already given him I’d named Fog, Water, and Rock, and the specifics are in my magic books, which you already have.

  But the Herskalt still did not have access—the wards against him had somehow been placed deeper. And so I continued the ward project.

  As spring ripened into summer, Fire’s idea came to me when I reached the bath, to find it full of kitchen staff. They were commiserating with a young kitchen worker who had become impatient while making cabbage rolls, and had dropped water onto the hot flatsheet smeared with pressed olives. The result was horrible splatters that flew up and burned her hands and her cheek.

  What if I could send little globs of water-encased oil into torches, causing them to splatter? It would sting, like my rocks, but no one would be hurt. The sting might be enough to cause horses to break order. Torches would waver and even be flung down as untrustworthy. No one could be busy killing other humans if their horses and torches were fractious.

  I took torches and oil into my experiment room. By now I was not only at home in my tower, but I also could not imagine how I’d existed without four rooms and Andaun’s library, scant as it was, all to myself. I worked until the acrid stink nearly choked me, but the result was worth it when I showed Ivandred. He listened with his customary lack of expression, then had me take him through the magic a step at a time. At the end, he said, “I can take this with me to practice with the First Lancers on Midsummer games. Excellent work, Sigradir.”

  That praise I used as an excuse to visit the dyr, though I’d been the day before.

  By now I had finished with Falisse Ranalassi, known as Larksong, whose life I am not detailing here. But I had reveled in her audition. In fact I had twice revisited that particular event. Oh, the joy, the power of looking out at a room full of people and knowing that you have the ability to bind them in awe and wonder! It was more intoxicating than using magic to burst little stones and drive off warriors set to kill you. We all want to be admired, emulated, remembered.

  If I was to be a great mage, then I needed greater understanding. And so I left the pleasure of Larksong’s happy life and turned my eyes to her most vivid memories of Carola… from inside Carola’s mind.

  Why am I cold? I thought impatiently. Summer shouldn’t be cold.

  But when I glanced through the tall, narrow windows set deeply in the thick stone walls of my work chamber and thrust my fingers into my armpits, I was astounded to discover the sun setting. I had not eaten all day.

  I walked out and down the hall to Lasva’s staff chamber, where I found the others finishing a meal. They greeted me with muted surprise, and I realized I had stayed in my rooms for… how many weeks?

  Pelis said, “She’s alive!” And sang the carillon for the Welcome at Lily Gate, causing Anhar to laugh. The Marloven runners ignored this sally with the absence of long habit. Then Pelis said, “Did you really throw lightning and thunder at warriors from Totha, the spring before last?”

  “It was stage illusion,” I said.

  “Told you,” Anhar put in, as she reached for the clay pot full of freshly steeped leaf. (I had recently visited her past. Never any memories with Birdy, but I’d looked at her audition with the players and discovered that she was very good indeed, especially at comedy. But it was clear in the faces of her judges, who responded to every quip with a twitch of affront, that they were seeing a Chwahir mocking the Colendi.)

  “The lancers all insist Emras’s lightning was a real attack,” Pelis replied.

  “I didn’t tell them that it was illusion,” I said.

  The others laughed, then Pelis said, “That was probably smart. Much more frightening for those terrible people and their arrows to think you could shoot back lightning at them. “I wish you knew spells for mending clothing! Marnda insists these Marlovens don’t know a proper silk-stitch.”

  “We don’t,” said a new runner, a teenage girl with freckles and braids the color of cream. The other Marlovens regarded the peacocks with tolerant scorn, as the Colendi regarded the barbarians with tolerant scorn.

  The conversation shifted to Kendred. Anhar led by relating little details of the prince’s life—adorable mistakes he made in his reading and writing. I was amazed that everyone seemed to find them as entertaining as Anhar did. But I did not know the child, and so, my mind turned back to a particularly involved knot of wards. By now I could discern the different creators of the wards and how they thought. I was five layers down, but this next was horrific, and I did not have to look up the history of that period to know that whoever reigned had been afraid of his or her own shadow.

  “… Emras?”

  I looked up at the sound of my name, to discover that everyone had left except Anhar.

  “I asked,” she said patiently, “if you would like me to bring you anything from Colend. I’m going to Alarcansa next week.”

  “Next week?”

  “It’s nearly New Year’s,” she said and then regarded me intently. “What is it you are working on now, to make you so absent?”

  Irritation flashed through me, and I banished it. The question was perfectly normal. I busied myself with a bite of honey-smeared biscuit until I knew my face and voice were under control. “Wards,” I said.

  “Which are?”

  “Elementary magic, but very, very tedious. Like stonemasons’ workers, you don’t want them laying stones awry.” I patted the bare wall behind me. “I have to clean up all the old wards and lay new ones. Thousands and thousands of spells. Like laying walls, it might be tedious, but it has to be done.”

  It was all true, except for the elementary magic part, but who would know the difference?

  Then she unsettled me by saying, “It’s just that we never see you. I thought you might have been sent on some exciting tours for the king. And glad I am not to be sent along!” She warded Thorn Gate.

  “I am as busy with tasks for the king as you are in training the prince,” I said, knowing it was inadequate.

  She seemed to accept my words, then indicated my hand, in which I held my biscuit. “Do you want me to do your nails? You don’t like Starand?”

  “She’s adequate. But not as good as you were, so it’s easier to do them myself. I have a clipper,” I said. “And I thank you for the offer, but are you not free of that duty?”

  “I still do it for some. Like Birdy—he likes my touch, though they have the best of everything at Alarcansa. Which they will remind you, if they think you might have forgotten.” And when I bowed my thanks, “Ah-yedi! If you ever change your mind, you can always find me when I’m off duty. As for my visit, if you can think of anything you’d like me to bring back besides cream-cakes and nut-rolls, let me know.” She fluttered her fingers, then whisked herself out of the room, and I was alone.

  I helped myself to another biscuit and turned back to my problem—if I could see a way to the center of the knot, I promised myself, I’d look at Carola’s last day at court when she was seventeen.

  THREE

  OF CINNAMON AND ZATHUMBRE

  A

  nother year passed, the only event to report being Ingrid-Jarlan’s death. She was sitting with her women in the morning, as always, and interrupted a series of orders to ask for some listerblossom steep for a headache. The runners were debating whether or not to summon a healer, as the jarlan had never mentioned any kind of physical weakness before, but by the time they got back with the requested leaf, she had leaned her head on her hands and died. You could see the generational divide among the guardswomen by the sincere mourning in the older faces. Lasva and Ivandred went to Darchelde for the memorial bonfire. On her return, she summoned the entire staff, saying briskly, “Since there are no cousins to inherit, the king has decided that Darchelde will be set aside for his son as a retreat. Anyone who would like to be transferred there as caretakers, speak to me.”

  It was an opportunity for the old
er staff to obtain an easy post. None of the Colendi volunteered, and life returned to normal.

  I reached the seventh layer of wards—and with it, discovered that some mages had the skills to bury nasty transfer traps or personal wards—that is, warnings that an individual had crossed a particular boundary—into lower layers. I had been all ready to report to the Herskalt (saving the news until I saw him face to face) that the seventh layer had been put down roughly two centuries before, so he should be perfectly safe entering the city.

  But now I understood why he told me I must replace them all: while I did not believe that Andaun-Sigradir could have inserted personal wards so low in the entire structure, someone else might have had the skills to do so.

  With the dyr, I discovered that all Carola’s waking thoughts seemed to be bound up in conjecture about the smallest details of Kaidas’s life, and a horrible, distorted semblance of Lasva. The motivations that Carola attributed to Lasva reflected her own.

  I went back to that day in the salon, which I’d already seen from Falisse’s and Carola’s eyes. This time I looked at it through Tatia’s eyes. Tatia, who had tried to contrive the death of a baby.

  Tatia inspired the same horrified fascination that I think causes others to travel to witness executions, or to walk over the sites where some terrible event occurred.

  Since the Herskalt was gone, I got into the habit of writing him long letters, discussing my reactions and surmises, letters I would find exactly where I had left them on my return. But I did not cease to write them, for I discovered when I read them through that they functioned to give me distance from my own mind.

  There was also Ivandred’s standing order.

  I saw him rarely, but he always asked about my progress, accepted my words with a gesture, and I would be left to retreat to my tower, freshly motivated to have something better to report at our next encounter. Each time I saw him was a reminder of how terrible war was, and how I must find ways to circumvent it.