The Way Into Chaos

by Harry Connolly

  Cazia, realizing the stewards intended to wrap her up tightly and escort her someplace comfortable and far from the prince, rushed to her brother’s side and slipped under his arm. “Hold on to me,” she whispered. “I’m coming, too.”

  Col grabbed a fistful of her wet sleeve, and a steward draped a woolen blanket over both of them. Her brother leaned on her as if he needed her.

  They followed Lar, the commander, and Tyr Treygar into the tower and up the stairs. Timush had been laid out on a blanket, with three stewards taking a corner and Bittler holding the fourth. Cazia knew Bitt would make sure their friend was cared for.

  Doctor Warpoole lingered in the courtyard, squabbling with Vilavivianna about whether she was permitted to follow the prince. They were attracting a lot of attention, which was to Cazia’s benefit.

  “What do you think is going to happen up there?” she whispered.

  “I think we’re going to ruin their day,” Col answered.

  Stoneface trudged up the stairs like a man going to his own execution. He was clearly exhausted and in great pain, but he kept going. Cazia had always thought of him as one of her most dangerous Enemies, but now she wasn’t sure what to think.

  At the top of the tower were an attendant’s chamber and a council room. Commander Gerrit opened the council door to admit Lar, then glanced back at Cazia and her brother, as if noticing them for the first time. Gerrit turned toward the captain of the guard. “Admit the prince and Tyr Treygar.”

  Cazia was about to protest that she had already climbed all those stairs when Lar said, “And my cousins.” He glanced back at them. “I want them there.”

  “Admit Freewells to my council room!” Gerrit exclaimed. “My prince—”

  “Ranlin,” Stoneface interrupted. “They’ve proven themselves. More than.”

  Cazia was honestly startled by that. Old Treygar saying something nice about her? She thought she might fall over from the shock of it. Gripping her brother more tightly, they went into the room together.

  The captain stayed outside and shut the doors with a startling bang. The tower room was small, but she should have expected that. This wasn’t the palace, after all.

  There were two guards inside the room, both wearing short swords and holding platter-sized shields. Cazia knew the parts of their armor and weaponry had their own names, and if this war continued, she was sure she’d have a chance to learn them. Beside the commander was a pair of stewards, each holding a stylus and wax tablet. A single wool tapestry hung on the wall, looking like a crude blanket. There was no fire in the fireplace but the oil lamps had been lit.

  Cazia Freewell, daughter of a traitor, was attending a royal council. Amazing. This was what she’d longed for, and she finally had her chance. She was torn between a desire to avoid attracting attention and saying something so brilliant that Lar kept her at his side always.

  Lar pulled out a chair for Col to sit and Cazia helped him settle in. Stoneface wearily dragged a chair away from the table. When he had settled in, he tenderly laid his injured arm on his lap.

  “Tejohn,” the commander said. “We should summon a medical scholar for you.”

  “That would confuse and delay things. After we’ve done our work, I’ll go down to a sleepstone.”

  “The longer you wait—”

  “Ranlin, I was not exaggerating when I told you the empire is at war. The Morning City has been overrun and destroyed, and the King and Queen are both dead.”

  “Dead?” Gerrit collapsed into the chair at the head of the table. Cazia looked to Lar and saw his expression on his pale face was stern. “How?”

  Tyr Treygar briefly told the story of the attack through the portal, the retreat to the Scholars’ Tower, the rescue of the princess, and the flight across the marshes. He did not go into detail, but neither did he stint on praise for Timush’s or Colchua’s bravery, and her own, too, even though all she’d done was cast spells from the safety of the cart.

  When he finished, Gerrit said, “The Evening People attacked us! I never would have thought—”

  “These aren’t the Evening People,” Lar interjected. “These aren’t people at all.”

  Her brother raised his injured arm and peeled back Cazia’s clumsy bandage. “No person bites like this.”

  Gerrit did not seem moved by sight. “It sounds to me as if they unleashed these creatures on us. Yes? Consider the potency and will of the Evening People. Do you think they could have been conquered by beasts, even ones as deadly as you describe?”

  Lar rubbed his face. “I agree. It hardly seems possible.”

  Gerrit sighed. “To be honest, I’m not surprised; we have lied to them for generations. We knew the day might come when they discovered the truth and turned on us. We’ve talked about this before, Tejohn.”

  “We have. It’s a common conversation in some circles. But I don’t want to assume that’s what has happened simply because we’ve been waiting for it.”

  “Let me know if a better theory ever shows its face, because I don’t think it will. How many were there?”

  “I don’t know.” Tyr Treygar wiped sweat from the end of his long nose. Could pain make a person sweat? Cazia was afraid she was going to learn a lot of unpleasant things very soon. Treygar continued, “They were charging through so fast. How many were on the other side to come through in the first rush? Did the scholars manage to block the whole of the portal before their cart was knocked out of the sky? If so, how long before the creatures dig it out? I’ll tell you something: they are fast and they are strong. You need a squad of men to handle one or two of them.”

  “Truly?”

  “They’re as large as bears,” Col said, “but faster. I hunted bear in the Furrows with Kellin Pendell. Bears are strong and fast, but these are swifter and more economical in their movements, and they feel denser. Like a big cat.”

  “But they look like men.”

  “If men had hands where their feet should be,” Lar said. “And fur. And fangs.”

  “So they’re animals,” Gerrit said. “It sounds like what you need is a hunting party, not an army.”

  “What we need is information,” Lar said. “How can we defeat this enemy without knowing more about it? What happened on the other side of the portal? Is there another way to get through it to seek out the Evening People and discover why they did this, if it was indeed their plan? Can we close the portal early?”

  Those words made Cazia’s damp skin prickle. Yes, she wanted to shout. Yes, this is exactly right.

  But Commander Gerrit scowled and shook his head. “The best way to learn about an enemy is to ram a spear into his belly and watch how he dies. If the spear misses, then the sword, or the torch. We learn best through battle. I’m sorry, my prince, but this is the honest fact of it.”

  In a low voice, Stoneface said, “You are not addressing a prince, Ranlin.”

  Gerrit opened his mouth, then shut it. Lar was standing, so the commander stood and bowed low. “Forgive me, my king, but these old gears spin slowly; that’s why I’m hunkered down in this fortress rather than out in the field, commanding troops. But you have my service, and my loyalty, too, for whatever good it will do you. I swear on it, just as I swore to your father.”

  “Thank you, Commander Gerrit. I will not officially be the king until I am crowned, but until then--and after--I welcome honest counsel.”

  “May I offer more?”

  “Please do, and reclaim your seat.”

  “I’ll stand, thank you, my king. You should sit while your men stand, and you must command them, not ask with a please or an if you would. No one will believe you a strong king unless you actually rule over them. If you would retain the throne, you must use the power it grants.”

  Col’s hand tightened on Cazia’s arm and Tyr Treygar pushed back his chair to stand, his mouth twisted with embarrassment. Lar waved at him to stay where he was. “You make sense, commander, but those injured while protecting me may rest in my presence.”r />
  “What do you mean, retain the throne?” her brother asked, his voice sharp.

  “Scholar, priest, trader, explorer,” Gerrit said, “these are the occupations of princes, of younger brothers who will never perch upon a throne. The Tyrs pledge their armies and turn over their taxes to warrior-kings, and even then they do it grudgingly, with the knowledge that they must pay or face the king’s spears. That’s how your father nearly died.” Gerrit stared at Lar intently. “Freewell had sent only half his summer duty, and King Ellifer stopped at Kirlik Witt’s lands to commandeer a few extra fleet squads when he suddenly found himself surrounded by spear points. Luckily, Freewell wanted to use his own marriage to your Aunt Ulia to claim the throne for himself and his children, and she forbade his murder.”

  Cazia had heard this story from Lar years ago--no one else would even speak of it.

  Lar said, “My father spared Freewell’s life, too, in the end.”

  The commander and Stoneface looked at each other, and Cazia knew there was a history there that even Lar didn’t understand. “For his reasons,” Gerrit continued, “he did, although Freewell fights on the Durdric Frontier now, standing off near-constant raids. But my point is that my father rode to the King’s defense because he respected the man. Yes, he’d sworn an oath to the throne. Yes, Freewell had raided Gerrit and Finstel lands along with his Witt and Bendertuk allies.” He glanced at Tejohn as he said this, but Stoneface stared resolutely at the tabletop. “Yes, Freewell would have been the worst king since Edrl Spearshaker. But would the Holvos, Grimwoods, and Redmudds have mustered for a scholar? In this world of Indregai serpents, sea giants and mountain raiders, I do not think so.”

  “Sibilan was a scholar-king,” Lar said quietly.

  “Sibilan Italga reigned for three years before he lost his head, which was longer than anyone expected.”

  “Sibilan the Scholar fell from a tower, didn’t he?” Cazia asked. “I know the song. He learned how to turn the flat stone spell into a building stone, then he built a tower...” The way they were staring at her made her realize she was being foolish and she felt herself flush. So much for saying something that would impress them all, although she wasn’t sure what she’d gotten wrong. “It would have worked in peacetime,” she said, changing course. “The tyrs would have accepted him as king if it had secured peace in the east.”

  “King Ellifer thought so, too,” Treygar said. “That was his gamble.”

  “Can’t we just replace the tyrs who refuse to take an oath of loyalty?” Col asked. “Including my father?”

  Treygar shook his head. “It’s not as easy as that. A tyr is more than just a boy with an inheritance. He has relationships. The commander of his troop will be his closest friend, and his spymaster will be a beloved cousin. The master coin collector will have found a place in his tyrship’s retinue for his two eldest children, and the harbormaster will love him like a long-lost brother. If he’s a clever tyr, at least, and if they’re still alive after a few years, it’s because they’re clever. It’s as easy to execute and replace a well-established tyr as it is to publicly murder a man and hope that all his dearest friends will accept you in his place. You must first turn his people against him, or replace them all afterward.”

  Cazia glanced at her brother. It had never occurred to her that he would not be welcomed as the new Tyr Freewell, when the time came.

  “And there are some who will question Ellifer’s death,” Gerrit said. That was met with silence. “Not me, my king. I have known Tejohn since before Pinch Hall, and his word is good enough for me, even in a matter such as this. But it won’t do for everyone. There are many who will be unwilling to muster troops and swear an oath based on this story.”

  “They are welcome to visit Peradain to see for themselves,” Lar said bitterly.

  “Many will. It will help that you have brought your cousins with you.”

  Cazia sighed bitterly. “Am I still a hostage?”

  “Yes,” Stoneface said, “Both of you have proven your loyalty beyond any doubt, as far as I’m concerned, but your father hasn’t. Tyr Freewell knows that his children love the prince--I’m sorry, my king--his children love King Lar, and that you love them in return. But he also knew that Ellifer Italga would have dropped their heads onto the roof of his house if he had sent so much as a scout onto another tyr’s lands.”

  “I don’t...” Col couldn’t finish the sentence, whatever he wanted to say. “It’s not clear why I’m still alive. I know my father has no love for me or Caz, and I don’t see how our lives could hold him in check all these years.”

  “It’s not love,” Gerrit said. “I’ve met your father several times--I may have spent more time with him than you have--and I don’t think he’s capable of love. But causing your executions would be a tremendous blow to his authority. After all, he’s nothing more than an ambitious commoner who earned King Ghrund’s favor, all those years ago. His own people already think Song shows him no favor, and if his own children were Fire-taken, someone would see to it that he was, too, to placate Fury.”

  “It’s to the king and queen’s credit that they did not stage something that would have given his people cause to remove him.” Treygar said. “But we need the hostages to remain hostages still, and we need the tyrs to believe their children are in danger.”

  Or they will turn on the Italgas was the unspoken truth there. Cazia felt sick to her stomach.

  “We still have to warn them,” Lar said. “Loyal to the throne or not. I’m king to all of them.” There was something bitter about the way he said it, and Cazia wasn’t the only one to notice.

  Gerrit nodded. “I will make my mirror available to you immediately, my king. And I recommend that you have each Tyr’s child with you when you give your warning; their word will give credibility to your story.”

  It would also remind the tyrs that their children were still held hostage, Cazia knew.

  “I saw the Bendertuk boy being carried away,” Gerrit said. “And the Witt was with him. Where is the Simblin girl?”

  For some reason, they all looked at Cazia. Was she supposed to look after the little girls and the grown women, too? “She didn’t make it.”

  “That’s bad,” the commander said. “Rolvo Simblin is the roughest, least honorable of them all. He’s practically half sea-giant himself. Still, he’s the farthest from Peradain, so we will have time to prepare if he marches against the king.”

  “Prepare what?” Lar said. He spoke as if he was half strangled. “Peradain is gone, and the king’s armies... Tyr Treygar, what of the king’s army?”

  Stoneface answered as though he was confessing to a crime he had long kept secret. “A full tenth was inside the city, disarmed, so they could compete in the games. They were the cream at the rim of the pitcher. There were five hundred or so militia fighters inside the city as well. Another thousand would have been stationed at each of the outer forts: the southern, northeastern, and northwestern holdfasts. Third Splashtown was a fifth of the strength of the northeastern, and they were utterly destroyed.”

  “Third Splashtown is gone?” Gerrit sounded shocked.

  “In minutes,” Col said. “Short minutes.”

  Cazia realized she was holding her breath. Peradain was gone, and when it vanished, so did the power and authority that protected them all. That power had been such a part of her life that it had been invisible to her, but now, with nothing but a burning, overrun city down in the grasslands, Lar had nothing left to protect him. The same name that had safeguarded him for his whole life now made him a target for any tyr who wanted a crown of his own.

  She felt as though she’d been cast out into a storm to fend for herself. How could they restore that power? Yes, the society she’d grown up in had been full of Enemies, but this was Lar’s life they were talking about. This was everything. The emptiness she perceived in the world was like a collapse of a city wall or the destruction of an army. How could they feel safe again? How could they bring it
all back?

  “I suspect there is little chance that I have any troops at all,” Lar said quietly. “And I’m not sure troops can even address the problem. The creatures are enchanted; the one advantage of being a scholar is that you recognize magic when you get close enough. Their entire bodies are suffused with it.” He took a deep breath. “That’s why I intend to travel to Tempest Pass.”

  “My king—!” Stoneface said.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” Lar told him. “My father died in the face of the enemy, and what did I do? Ran away. That’s how the tyrs will see things, yes? And now, instead of rallying support and leading a force to retake the city, I’m fleeing to the far end of the empire to talk with a hermit scholar.”

  Stoneface nodded to show that Lar had understood. “The tyrs will be expecting certain behavior from their king.”

  Cazia stood beside Lar. “That’s because they don’t expect enough,” she said defensively.

  Lar laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Living among the tyrs while they gather their armies, I would have only the authority they were willing to grant me. And I would have to be constantly on the lookout for the edge of a tall tower so I didn’t end up like Sibilan the Scholar.” He gave Cazia a sly, sideways look. “But my uncle is at Tempest Pass, and he’s been studying portal magic all of his life. I expect he will be able to examine the spells holding this creature together. With the Scholars’ Tower at the palace fallen, he is probably the last theoretical scholar in the empire. The rest are clerks, builders, miners, and healers. I don’t think spears are going to hold this tide back, any more than serpents or mountain men will.”

  Gerrit made an unhappy face. “Spears built this empire, my king.”

  “Magic built this empire,” Lar responded. He leaned forward and tapped his index finger on the table for emphasis. “The Gifts of the Evening People gave our spears an advantage over every other tribe’s spears. Healing, clean water, healthy crops, building stones, breaking stones: the empire would not exist without those spells. I don’t say this to denigrate the brave soldiers who have fought and died for us; they deserve our respect. But so do the scholars. In fact, our next council should include Doctor Warpoole; see that she is made welcome. The empire has always relied on its scholars; we just don’t like to admit it.”