Banner of the Damned

by Sherwood Smith

  I finished it in the Hour of Repose—the last before Daybreak—and tiredly raised my hand to gesture the last spell, revealing what was beyond.

  Shock gripped me by the vitals with such ferocity I stumbled back and fell over my wooden chair. I watched that incalculable darkness, terrified it would swallow me as I gabbled the spell to thoroughly eradicate the access way I’d spent all night constructing.

  Then I sat there on the floor, my arms and head on the chair seat as my heart thumped frantically and my mind struggled to comprehend the enormity of what I had discovered.

  I had it now. I had been given a mountain to climb, with a path laid out before me. As I toiled upward, here was the spreading tree representing prospective knowledge, and there was a towering cliff of glittering rock represented by the dyr, all of which filled my vision and guided my steps up the path. So I never thought to turn around.

  But now I’d turned around at last, and there was the world—the puzzle—the plan, laid out below me.

  The Herskalt had created numberless access ways like the one connecting to the Garden of the Twelve, in order to turn the castle into a massive Destination Chamber. Once the transfer was made, the entire castle could exist in Norsunder or in the physical world.

  That meant not only could the Herskalt take anyone in the castle to Norsunder, but Norsunder’s army—however many warriors they had accumulated over the centuries—could be brought from there to here, something hitherto considered impossible.

  I walked into my tower as dawn broke on New Year’s Lastday. The snow had cleared at last, leaving a sky as brilliant as gemstones and far colder.

  I found Anhar rushing around supervising the removal of jarlate belongings. They were all riding out.

  “Where is the king?” I asked. “I have to talk to him.”

  “With Lasva on the balcony, seeing them off,” she said. “They’re all leaving at once!” She threw out her hands in Bird on the Wing, then fled.

  What had I missed? Usually the jarls departed one by one. In Hadand’s letters we’d discovered that they didn’t like their trumpet salutes to be merged with anyone else’s, and fights could start over one expecting the other’s entourage to give way.

  Tired, shivering with both cold and reaction, I scurried down to the second floor balcony that looked out over the royal stable yard. Snow creaked under the horses’ hooves. Lasva was there beside Ivandred, but as soon as she saw me, she beckoned to me, her breath frosting as she said, “This is the last of them. I promised an interview. Will you accompany me, Emras?”

  I glanced past her at Ivandred. “I need to talk to the king.”

  Lasva’s gaze was wretched as her hand came up in the spywell sign, which I had not seen her use in years. Yet she did not move away from Ivandred, which I understood as conflict between honor and desire. “Can it wait? I think you had better be there.”

  “Interview.” Anhar had kept her promise to Kaidas, then. There was going to be no happy outcome to this interview, but if they needed the safety of me present as a third, I owed Lasva that much. Surely the king was not going anywhere for this moment, I thought dully as I followed Lasva downstairs to one of the warren of rooms adjacent to the stable. Here Kaidas stood, his gear set against the inside wall. Vasande was visible down the hall, talking in a cluster of other children.

  As soon as Lasva walked in, Kaidas said, “I have to go, Lasva. There is war in the air, which is no place for my son.” And when she bowed her head in assent, he said quickly, his voice pleading, “Come with me.”

  She recoiled as if struck.

  “Ah-ye! I beg your pardon,” he said, taking a step toward her, then halting as if he’d hit a glass wall. “Your ring.” He indicated her gloved hand and retreated into full courtly mode. “I honor your vows. I will not put you in that position.” He should have gone then, but he stayed, the words unsteady and quick. “If you will in turn honor me with one last conversation, do you think you can bring peace when no one seems to want it?”

  “I think they do want peace,” Lasva said—and she, too, should have gone, but she turned away and looked back, as if she could not deny herself this one last sight of him, the sound of his voice, the exchange of words, ideas. Connection. She walked randomly, her gaze lowered, her hands holding her elbows against her. “Though I don’t know if we understand the word ‘peace’ in the same way. A Colendi thinks, How can there be peace when…? When Ivandred was crowned, his first act was to have his best friend—more than a friend, his trusted… if he had had a brother, he would have been Haldren Marlovair. And yet he had him flogged.”

  “How is this possible?” Kaidas exclaimed, appalled.

  “Understand this. It made Ivandred very angry. He was forced into it by a political maneuver. But he stood there just the same, because it was the law. And afterward? As they all went away, did they exclaim We must change our laws! Or: How can we do this to one another and say we live in peace? No. They admired Marlovair’s bravery. Some had even counted the strokes, commenting about how long he’d held out before his legs buckled, before he passed out the first time.”

  “Did Ivandred explain the reasoning?”

  “Yes. He said that orders must be obeyed, or life would be far worse. And I’ve seen enough Marloven violence to believe that. All night long Ivandred watched over Haldren, offering him steeped leaf that he made up fresh himself, though we had to ride the next morning. Yet he said nothing about changing laws.” She looked Kaidas’s way. “Don’t you see it? When everyone agrees on accepting such violence as normal, talking about efficient killing of enemies in lance strikes, admiring a brother’s style when being flogged…. Yet they share the same emotions as us, it… is a consensus that defines what is real, what is possible, differently than we do. But I believe that could change, because there is also music in these people. Do you know how many ancient songs I hear traces of in their ballads, extolling the same emotions we value? Our souls share much. And I don’t believe a one of them wants to see any child of theirs die on the battlefield, or at a flogging post, in spite of all the fine words about glory.”

  She turned again. “As for those they fight, there is no innocence and peace. The former king of Perideth ran away and hid when he saw he was going to lose, and has been fostering unrest ever since. He, too, is willing to spend lives other than his own to regain his crown.”

  “Lasva. I know this much.” Kaidas’s face lifted. “If I share your work, then we are united in thought as well as memory. Let me help in this way: I was going to take Vasande south, and maybe west to Toar. But how about this? Stable hands always find work and always hear gossip. If I overhear something you might need to know when I travel through Perideth, shall I write to you?”

  I could see Lasva’s inward struggle, then she said, low-voiced, “Yes. Do that. Write to me.”

  She was permitting herself this one small connection with him. It was so clear to me, and it clearly was to him as well. Impulsively he took a step toward her, and another, and she didn’t move. He held out his hands in mute appeal, and slowly, slowly, hers lifted away from her elbows and opened. And their hands met, palm to palm, as Lasva and Kaidas stood there, gazes locked.

  For them the world had shrunk to one another. But pressing on me was the wider world’s need. I was edging backward toward the door, when I caught a shift of air, a quick step beyond my shoulder.

  When I turned my head, the open doorway was empty, but I heard the rapid diminishment of footfalls, and I knew who had been there with such dreadful certainty that I began to run.

  I was short of breath far too soon; I did not catch up with Ivandred until I reached the courtyard, to discover him in the middle of swarming horses and warriors, checking gear, strapping weapons to saddles, tugging on coats and hats.

  I ran to Ivandred, heedless of my lack of coat or hat. “It’s not what it looked like,” I said to him. “Please listen.”

  He paused beside his horse.

  I stood there sh
ivering, my lips rapidly numbing. “It’s not what it looked like. He was saying good-bye—Lasva would never—”

  His head bent, but I could see in the curve of his cheek the sharp pain of unhappiness, even grief. “I know,” he said as he flexed his ring hand, then dropped it. “I know. Everything honorable. The both of them. But she never looked at me like that.” He turned to grip the reins.

  “Ivandred-Harvaldar, you cannot leave,” I said desperately, hopping up and down on my toes. “I just found out what the Herskalt has done. Darchelde is a transfer chamber. That is, he—the Herskalt—Hannik—whoever he is, he can complete the spells, and all of Norsunder can be brought into Marloven Hesea through your ancestral castle.”

  His chin jerked up, his hand tightened on the bridle. I could see that he was too grieved to comprehend, or too angry to care that Norsunder was on his ancestral doorstep, so I said, “I think it’s the Fox plan again.”

  His head snapped my way. “The what?”

  “That is, Fox never had any such plan, but he wrote in his memoir about how Norsunder used that evil Venn mage who manipulated his king to come here in order to conquer. Remember what they intended? They were going to loose you Marlovens against all the rest of the Sartoran continent. I really believe that the Herskalt wants to do the same to you.”

  He said slowly, “That has to be what It’s just beginning means.”

  Now it was my turn to stare.

  Ivandred’s expression hardened. “This is why I’m riding out now, instead of next month. Why I went inside to take my leave of Lasva.” He paused, then went on in a flat tone, “Just before the watch bells rang, one of my people overheard Khanivar’s fool of a first runner complaining. I just finished choking it out of the idiot. Danrid and five others made a secret pact with Hannik. They mean to force me to ride north in spring to conquer the rest of Halia, in the name of Marloven glory. And Hannik promised them that’s just the beginning.” His teeth showed briefly. “Danrid won’t know I’m right on their heels. I’ll stop them cold.”

  “You won’t stop them if all Norsunder is coming through that gate. The Jarls and the First Lancers will find themselves under the Herskalt’s command.”

  “All the more reason for me to ride out,” he said. “The First Lancers won’t take orders from anyone but me, on pain of death.” He stopped, gazing skyward, and I suspect he was thinking the same thing that I was: what does pain of death mean when you are dealing with a place beyond time?

  He laid his hand to his horse’s bridle. “I have to go. I will try to stop him. But I can’t do anything about the magic.”

  “I can,” I said, though inwardly I was not sure at all. “And I will,” I vowed.

  His lips curled in what was almost a smile as he touched his hand flat to his heart in salute. “Good job, Sigradir.” His chin lifted. “Tell Lasva.”

  “I will,” I said inadequately.

  He vaulted into the saddle. Then—without any fanfare—they rode out and away.

  I stumped back inside, my feet completely numb as I sought Lasva. “Where did you go?” she asked.

  I looked around—and there was Kaidas, with Vasande at his side, each clasping an armload of gear.

  “You’d better not venture south,” I stuttered, my teeth chattering. “Whatever is going to happen, I think it’s going to start there.” And then, switching to Sartoran, I told them what had happened. Everything—Lasva and Kaidas each cut a fast glance at the other when I got to She never looked at me like that, but said nothing.

  At the end, Lasva said to Kaidas, “You know that nothing has changed. Except… we might need help. Will you stay?”

  The man had mucked stables across the continent on hope. “Love,” he said, “is stronger than armies, because when they are all dust, it lives. I will do anything. You have only to ask.”

  ELEVEN

  OF THE BANNER AND DAMNATION

  I

  t had taken the Herskalt twenty years to make those spells at Darchelde, and I had two to three weeks before the six jarls and Ivandred arrived there, after which it would probably be too late to act. But I also had Adamas Dei’s text. I still did not comprehend it completely. Even when I toiled word by word through a sentence, my head felt giddy, as if too many ideas tried to crowd into my skull. But I could build spells word by word, and I knew the structure of the dark magic that the Herskalt had taught me. These would have to be my advantages, because surprise had gone with the dyr.

  I opened the text, dipped the waiting pen in the inkwell, turned over the hourglass, and got to work.

  You have in the accompanying magical text my hour-by-hour notes on what I did, though perhaps those have been consigned to the fire by my judges. Think of it this way: my strategy was to use the Herskalt’s own structure against him, by building a chain of mirrors that reflected his chain of mirrors. I worked feverishly, each emptying of the hourglass recorded with intensifying dread.

  But time on this side of the divide is as remorseless as any Norsundrian lord.

  At noon midway into Firstmonth, under a light drift of snow, the six jarls clattered into the Darchelde stable yard. I stepped through my transfer wall, tousled and shrouded in my sturdiest winter gear, to report for the last time to Lasva. “They are gathering in the great hall. Ivandred cannot be far behind.”

  “Emras, I must be there. I need to see what transpires,” she responded, reaching for her coat. “Can you make that happen?”

  “I can, but I don’t know how safe we are,” I said. “I haven’t detected any sign of the Herskalt. That fills me with misgivings. It would be far better if I knew where he was.”

  “When Ivandred arrives, I must be there,” she repeated.

  And so I took her hand, made the sign, and we stepped through my wall into Darchelde. There, I picked up my two paper lilies, which after far too much time spent worrying and arguing with myself, were the physical vessels for the only two “cage” wards I’d been able to make: if I could get one to close around the Herskalt, it would force him back to Norsunder. I knew better than to assume success with one try. I wished, as I shifted us directly to the gallery above the great hall, that I’d had time to make a dozen.

  At least I had a transfer token, bound with a complicated interlocking of wards meant to get me past anything. I’d made it so strong that if I held onto Lasva, I was fairly certain it would transfer us both.

  We looked down at enormous fireplaces at either end of the vast chamber that hearkened back to another age. The walls were plastered, decorated with gigantic stylized horses and eagles and wind-blown riders, surrounded by interlocking knotwork patterns. These latter glowed ruby-red with magic potential.

  A mighty table built of timbers from century-old trees, each leg ending in raptor claws, had been arranged before one of the fireplaces. From the looks of the gathered jarls and their attendants, as they stamped and rubbed their hands, the heat from the roaring flames did not reach very far.

  The servants had just brought hot food and drink when Ivandred arrived at last. Everyone stilled as he walked down the center of the hall of his ancestors, Haldren at his left in shield arm position, their heels ringing on the icy floor.

  “Van,” Danrid said. His friendly tone, magnified in that vaulted hall, sounded false to my ears, his laughter a bark of anger. “This is a surprise.”

  Ivandred said, “Let’s understand one another. Here’s an order, plain to all. King to sworn jarls: disperse. Go home.”

  “But we have made a pact,” Danrid replied, standing away from the table. He reached to his shoulder and pulled his sword.

  “A pact for the good of the kingdom supersedes a bad order, even from a king,” the Jarl of Khanivar said pompously, looking at the others for support.

  His cousin from Tlen spoke up. “Your own ancestor, King Senrid, made that claim when he reunited us.”

  “Van, you’ve let a woman tie you by the prick,” Danrid stated with cordial contempt. “Do you really want to turn us
into a nation of shopkeepers and caravan guards?”

  Ivandred ignored Danrid and said to the others, “I do not want Marlovens riding under the banner of Norsunder. Our souls are our own.”

  Danrid’s brow twitched at that. Some of the others stirred and whispered.

  Ivandred looked upward, then around the chamber, and raised his voice. “I know you are listening, Hannik. Or whatever you call yourself—I refuse to malign ‘Herskalt’ any further, a once-respected title.”

  Between one moment and the next, the Norsundrian we’d called Herskalt appeared before the fireplace, facing Ivandred, who stood directly below me.

  I gripped my first lily as the Herskalt glanced sideways at the jarls. Desperation gnawed at me—I had to catch him facing away. He must not see the magic coming, not at this distance, or he’d have time to ward it. “Each one of you swore to ride to war and glory,” he said to the jarls, and to Ivandred, “What matter whose glory?”

  “My glory,” said Ivandred, “is in keeping faith with my wife.”

  Next to me Lasva stilled, unbreathing.

  “With her, I keep faith with my family. With my family, I keep faith with your families, Yvanavar, Tlen, Tiv Evair, Sindan-An, Khanivar, Fath. With our families, we keep faith with our kingdom. My mistakes are my own, but I can fix them. Because my soul is my own.”

  “Too late for that,” Hannik said.

  Then everything went awry. Ivandred raised his hand in a familiar sign—the Fire spell! Frantic with dismay I drew breath to halt him, for I’d been certain there would be sword play, and in the moment the Herskalt was busy with steel, I’d planned to make my move.

  Lightning flared; Hannik vanished a heartbeat before it could reach him. Lasva flinched as Ivandred’s lightning, which had been sent toward Hannik before the fireplace, rebounded as no natural lightning had ever done, and shot—aimed deliberately by a will expert in cruelty—straight at the six jarls, as Ivandred watched in astonishment.