The Born Queen

by Greg Keyes

  “You’re the man that wrote that sinfonia?” she said at last. “The one that started the riot in Glastir?”

  “Yes,” Leoff confirmed. “I’m afraid so.”

  “And the other thing, the play that the people liked so well?” The way she said “people” made it clear that it wasn’t a term that included everyone—not, for instance, herself.

  “Yes, lady.”

  “Yes,” she repeated drily.

  Areana arrived with the tea, and they sat sipping it in uncomfortable silence for a few moments.

  “How well did you know my sister-in-law?” Lady Graham asked abruptly.

  Leoff practically could feel Areana stiffen and a warmth flush his face.

  To his surprise, the lady laughed. “Oh, dear,” she said. “Yes, Ambria was a generous soul in some ways.”

  Leoff nodded, not knowing what to say, his mind suddenly filled with the sensations of that night, the warmth of Ambria’s skin…

  And, a few days later, her pitiful murdered gaze.

  “Not to the point,” Lady Graham said, shrugging. “The thing now is what’s to be done with Mery.”

  “I think she should stay with us,” Leoff said.

  “Personally, I’m inclined to agree with you,” the lady said. “I’ve no use for another brat underfoot. It’s bad enough taking her brother in, but we’ll soon have him married off. Still, she is William’s bastard, and she is family, so my husband has other thoughts on the matter.”

  “She’s safe here,” Areana said. “And she’s still heir.”

  “And you will be her parents?”

  “Yes,” Leoff said.

  “In fact, perhaps. But technically, hasn’t Duke Artwair made her his ward?”

  “That’s true,” Leoff said.

  “One would imagine Artwair would have reason for doing that. And for giving you this lovely house on the grounds of his even more lovely estate.”

  “My husband and the duke are friends,” Areana said. “The house was a wedding gift.”

  “I’m sure it was,” Lady Graham sighed. “But he’s also keeping her close.” She looked up sharply. “What’s wrong with the girl, by the by? I’ve heard some very strange stories. Something about a music that kills?”

  Leoff pursed his lips. The story had gotten around, somehow, but he didn’t know if he should confirm it.

  “They say that Prince Robert forced you to write a melody that slays anyone who hears it, and that Mery played it and did not die,” she amplified.

  When he didn’t react to that, she sighed and signaled for her maidservant, who produced a folded paper sealed with wax.

  He took the proffered document and found Artwair’s seal on it. He broke it and read the contents.

  Dear Friend, feel free to relate any and all particulars concerning Mery to Lady Teris Graham. She deserves to know the facts of the matter, and I trust her to be discreet.

  —A.

  Leoff looked up, feeling abashed. “Sorry, lady,” he said.

  “Your discretion does you credit. But do go on.”

  “It’s as you said, except that Robert did not commission the piece. He wanted—or claimed to want—another singspell, one that would counteract my earlier work and make him popular with the people again. I think he always knew I would try to kill him.”

  “Ah. He tricked you into writing it. But it didn’t kill him because he’s already dead.”

  “Something like that. But it slew everyone else in the room.”

  “Except you and your bride here—and Mery.”

  “The music advances,” Leoff said. “It’s not a single sound but a progression that leads toward death. The last chord kills, but only if the entire piece is heard. I taught Mery and Areana a counterchord to hum to dilute the effect. We almost died, anyway. And Mery—she was playing the hammarharp, so she got the worst of it.”

  “Yes, I suppose she did.” Lady Graham leaned back and had another sip of tea. “What do you suppose Robert will do with the music?”

  “Something very bad,” Leoff said.

  “I’m trying to imagine. A band of pipers marching across the battlefield? A choir of trumpets, and everyone on the defending wall dropping dead?”

  “It’s not impossible,” Leoff replied, feeling sick. “Hard to coordinate, but someone skilled enough in arranging and composing could do it.”

  “Someone like yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe that’s why you’re here, so well protected. Maybe Artwair has commissioned you to write the piece again.”

  “I won’t. He knows that. He knows I would die first.”

  “But Mery might remember it?”

  “No.”

  “She is a prodigy.”

  “No,” he repeated, almost shouting.

  “Not even to save Crotheny?”

  “You stay away from her,” he snapped.

  Lady Graham nodded and drank a bit more tea. “What about your counterchord? Could you compose a music to neutralize whatever Robert may be up to? If he is up to anything other than his own amusement?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Have you tried?”

  I don’t want to be tricked again. He wanted to shout. I don’t want to be used again.

  “You let something terrible into the world, Leovigild Ackenzal. You’re responsible for that.”

  “Who are you?” Areana asked suddenly. “You didn’t come here to talk about the custody of Mery.”

  The lady smiled. “I admit to practicing a bit of deception,” she replied. “But I’ve come here to tell you certain things and to perhaps give you a bit of a slap in the face.”

  “Who are you?” Areana repeated, looking askance at the lady’s armed guard.

  “Hush, child, so I can tell your husband something important.”

  “Don’t speak to her like that,” Leoff said.

  The lady set her cup down. “Don’t you wonder why, since the days of the Black Jester, no one has ever discovered what you discovered?”

  “Robert placed certain books at my disposal.”

  “Yes, my point. There are books! They describe armies being slain by choirs of eunuchs and water organs. They explain how the modes function. These books are well known to scholars. Do you think in all of this time no one else with the talent to do so has attempted what you did?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” Leoff admitted.

  “It didn’t happen because it wasn’t possible,” Graham, or whoever she was, said. “The music you created can only exist when the law of death is broken, as it was during the reign of the Black Jester. As it is now.”

  “The law of death?”

  “The thing that separates life from death, that makes them different states.”

  “Robert!” Leoff exploded.

  “Robert wasn’t the first, but before him the law was only compromised. His return from death was the breaking point, and once broken, the law is more easily violated again and again, until the boundary between quick and dead is entirely gone. And when that happens—well, that’s the end of us all. Imagine the law as like a dike, holding back deadly waters. When it’s first compromised, there’s just a small leak. Left alone, the hole gets wider no matter what. But when vandals start poking at it with shovels, it widens very quickly, and eventually the whole thing collapses.”

  “Why would anyone do that?”

  “Well, you might put a small hole in a dike to run a water mill, yes? And you turn a profit and need a bigger mill, a larger stream of water? There is great power in violating the law of death. Robert can be stabbed in the heart and keep walking. You can write a sinfonia that murders, and that’s only the start. As the law grows weaker, those who break it grow stronger. This is especially true now, as other powers of destruction are waxing.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Your music made the hole, so to speak, considerably wider.”

  “But what can I do? How was the
law of death mended before?”

  She smiled. “I’ve no idea. But consider the possibility that if the right song can weaken the law—”

  “Then another might strengthen it,” Areana finished.

  The lady stood. “Precisely.”

  “Wait,” Leoff said. “That’s not nearly enough. Why should I even believe any of this?”

  “Because you do.”

  “No. I’ve been duped before. I’m not off on another fool’s errand that might make everything worse.”

  “If that’s true, there is no hope,” the lady replied. “In any event, I’ve said what I came to say.”

  “Wait a moment.”

  “No, I shan’t. Good luck to you.”

  And despite his further protests, she left, mounted her carriage, and was gone, leaving Leoff and Areana staring after her.

  “Artwair knew she was coming,” Areana said. “Perhaps he can shed some light on this.”

  Leoff nodded and absently realized he still had the duke’s letter in his hand. He held it up, and blinked.

  What had earlier appeared to be Artwair’s seal was only an unmarked dab of wax.

  PART I

  THE UNHEALED

  The land bristles shadow and shrugs off the sun

  Frail voices sing beneath the wind

  It all ends soon

  In health, courage comes easily

  Death is still a dream

  But I watch now

  I see the true heroes

  Stagger up on shaking limbs

  And face what must be faced

  Unhealed

  —ANONYMOUS VIRGENYAN POET

  Iery cledief derny

  Faiver mereu-mem.

  Even a broken sword has an edge.

  —LIERISH PROVERB

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE QUEEN OF DEMONS

  ANNE SIGHED with pleasure as ghosts brushed her bare flesh. She kept her eyes closed as they murmured softly about her, savoring their faintly chilly caresses. She inhaled the ripe perfumes of decay and for the first time in a very long time felt a deep contentment.

  Anne, one of the phantoms simpered. Anne, there is no time.

  A bit irritated, she opened her eyes to see three women standing before her.

  No, she realized. They weren’t standing at all. Feeling a weird tingle that she knew ought to be more, she turned her gaze around her to see what else there was.

  She was elsewhere, of course, couched on deep, spongy moss grown on a hammock in a blackwater fen that went beyond sight in every direction. The branches of the trees above her were tatted together like the finest Safnian lace, allowing only the wispiest of diffuse light through to glisten on the dew-jeweled webs of spiders larger than her hand.

  The women swayed faintly, the boughs above them creaking a bit from their weight.

  One wore a black gown and a black mask, and her locks were flowing silver. The next wore forest green and a golden mask, and her red braids swayed almost to her feet. The third wore a mask of bone and a dress the color of dried blood. Her hair was brown.

  Their undisguised lips and flesh were bluish-black above the coils of rope that had cinched about their necks and wrung out their lives.

  The Faiths, those obtuse creatures, were dead. Should she be sad? Part of her thought so.

  Anne.

  She started. Was one of them still alive? But then she felt the ghosts again, tickling against her. Now she knew who the ghosts were.

  Should she be frightened? Part of her thought so.

  “You’re dead,” she observed.

  “Yes,” the faint voice replied. “We fought to linger here, but too much of us is gone. We had something to tell you.”

  “Something useful? That would be the first time.”

  “Pity us, Anne. We did what we could. Find our sister.”

  “That’s right, there are four of you,” Anne remembered. Was she asleep? She seemed to be having trouble recalling things.

  “Yes, four. Find—ah, no. He’s coming. Anne—”

  But then a cold wind started in the depths of the quag, and the canopy was alive with strange dark birds, and Anne was suddenly alone with corpses.

  But only for a moment. Then she felt him, as she had another time when in this place. All of her blood seemed to gather on one side of her body, and all of the branches of the forest yearned toward his invisible presence.

  “Well, there you are, little queen,” the voice said. “It’s been too long.”

  “Stay back,” she said. “You remember last time.”

  “Last time, I was weaker and you had help,” the voice replied. “This is not last time.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Your company, sweet queen. Your hand in marriage.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Your king.”

  “I have no king,” Anne bristled. “I am queen, regent in my own right.”

  “Look deeper in your heart,” the voice purred.

  “Who are you?”

  “You want my name? What do names matter when one is as we are?”

  “There is no ‘we,’” Anne protested. But her belly tingled, as it had when Roderick had kissed her there.

  The presence moved closer, and though she could not see him, she felt as if the shadow wore a wicked smile.

  “Why did you kill the Faiths?”

  A deep chuckle rustled through the branches, and the water stirred into circles all about.

  Then a ruddy light fell on the broken surface of the fen, and Anne felt heat behind her. With a shriek, she turned to confront him.

  But it was no male thing that stood behind her; there was no mistaking that. The body that shone like a white flame was willowy but certainly female, dressed only in locks that billowed and curled like strands of liquid, living fire. Her face was so terrible in its beauty that Anne felt as if icicles had been driven through her eyes and deep into her brain. She screamed so loudly, she felt her throat was tearing.

  “Hush,” the woman said, and Anne felt her larynx instantly close. Then the horrible gaze went through and beyond her.

  “Leave,” she commanded.

  “You only delay the inevitable,” the male voice muttered.

  “Leave,” the woman repeated.

  Anne felt the weight of him lessen.

  “I didn’t kill your friends,” he said, and was gone.

  Anne felt the woman’s gaze on her but could not look up.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  “The Kept gave you my true name,” the woman replied. “He gave you some of my old epithets—Queen of Demons, and so on.”

  “Yes. But I don’t…” She trailed off in confusion.

  “You wonder rather what I am. What I want. Why I’ve helped you.”

  “I guess so,” Anne said weakly, feeling suddenly presumptuous.

  “Am I demon or saint?” the woman sighed, so close that Anne could feel her breath.

  “Yes,” Anne barely managed.

  “If there were a difference, perhaps I could tell you,” she replied.

  “And the man…”

  “He’s quite right, you know,” the woman went on. “He didn’t kill the Faiths. I did. For you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You led me to them. You rejected them, withdrew your protection, and I ended their existence. All but the one, and I shall find her.”

  “But why?”

  “You don’t need them,” she said. “You never did. They were poor councillors. And now you have me.”

  “I don’t want you,” Anne protested.

  “Then say my name. Tell me to leave.”

  Anne swallowed.

  “You won’t,” the woman said. “You need my help. You need all the help you can get, because he will come for you and will either make you his or destroy you. Which means you must destroy him. And that you cannot currently do. Your friends will fall first, then you.”

  “And if I believe y
ou, how can I stop that?”

  “Strengthen yourself every way you can. Let me teach you the ways of your power. When he comes, you will be ready, if you trust me.”

  “Trust you,” Anne murmured, finally lifting her gaze to the woman’s face.

  This time it wasn’t so terrifying. There was something in the set of the woman’s eyes that seemed truthful.

  “Give me a reason to trust you,” Anne said.

  A smile slit the woman’s face. “You have another enemy, one you haven’t noticed yet, one that even I have difficulty seeing, for he—or perhaps she—sits deep in the shadows of the Reiksbaurg Palace. Like you, he is able to look across leagues and through time. Haven’t you wondered why you manage to surprise the forces of the Church but Hansa is always one step ahead of you?”

  “Yes,” Anne replied. “I assumed spies and traitors were involved. How can you be certain it’s shinecraft?”

  “Because there is a place I can never see, and that is the sign of a Hellrune,” the woman replied.

  “A Hellrune?”

  “A Hellrune sees through the eyes of the dead, who do not know past from present. Because the law of death has been broken, that is an even more powerful gift than it once was. But you get your visions directly through the sedos power. You can be stronger: See the consequences of his visions and act against them. In time, you will even be able to command the dead to give him false visions. But before you achieve that mastery, he can do much harm. If you act as I say, you may stop him sooner.”

  “How is that?”

  “Send an embassy to Hansa, to the court of Marcomir. Send your mother, Neil MeqVren, Alis Berrye—”

  “I’ll do no such thing,” Anne snapped. “I just got my mother back; I won’t send her into danger.”

  “Do you think she isn’t in danger in Eslen? Try to dream about that. I promise you that you will not like what visions come.”

  A sick dismay was starting to grip Anne, but she tried to stay strong. “You’re less use than the Faiths,” she said.