by Keyes, Greg
The gilded knight—who hadn’t been beneath the fall of rubble—looked up in time to receive a brick in the face, and then another. Stunned, Cazio bent to retrieve Caspator as z’Acatto dropped down from above the arch of the cellar door.
“I told you, boy,” the swordmaster grunted. “You don’t fence knights.”
“Granted,” Cazio said, noticing that the gilded knight was regaining his feet. With what little remained of his strength, Cazio leapt forward. The broadsword came up and down, but he turned and avoided it, and this time Caspator drove true, through the slit in the helm and further, stopped only by the steel on the other side of the skull, or the skull itself. He withdrew the bloody point and watched the knight sink first to his knees, and then to a prone position.
“I’ll follow your advice more closely next time,” he promised the older swordsman.
“What have you gotten yourself into, lad?” z’Acatto asked. He looked past Cazio, then, and shook his head.
“Ah,” he said. “I see where the trouble is.”
Anne and Austra had come to the top of the stair and were staring at the tableau.
“There will be more,” Cazio said.
“More women?”
“More trouble.”
“The same thing,” z’Acatto remarked.
“More knights,” Cazio clarified. “Maybe many more.”
“I’ve two horses,” z’Acatto said. “We can ride double.”
Cazio crossed his arms and gave his swordmaster a dubious look. “It’s fortunate you brought horses,” he said. “Also very odd.”
“Don’t be an empty bottle, boy. The road to the coven goes near the well at the edge of Orchaevia’s estates. I saw them arrive.”
“What were you doing there?”
Z’Acatto grinned and drew a narrow bottle of green glass from beneath his doublet. He held it up to the light.
“I found it,” he said triumphantly. “The very best year. I knew I would smell it out.”
Cazio rolled his eyes. “At least we were saved by a good vintage,” he said.
“The best,” z’Acatto repeated happily.
Cazio made a weak bow to the two women.
“My casnaras Anne and Austra, I present to you my sword-master, the learned z’Acatto.” He hesitated and caught the old man’s eyes. “My master and best friend.”
Z’Acatto held his gaze for an instant, and something glimmered there Cazio did not quite understand. Then he looked to Anne and Austra.
“My great pleasure, casnaras,” z’Acatto said. “I hope one of you will not mind my company on horse.”
Anne bowed. “You’ve saved us, sir,” she said. She looked at Cazio significantly. “The two of you. I’m in your debt.”
It was then Austra shrieked at something behind Cazio. Cazio sighed and turned, ready for anything.
Anything except for what he saw. Slowly, tremulously, the gilded knight was trying to rise. Blood ran from his visor like water from a fountain. Cazio raised his sword.
“No,” z’Acatto said. “No. He’s not alive.” Cazio couldn’t tell if it was a statement or a question, but z’Acatto drew his own sword and jabbed it through the other eye. The knight fell back again, but this time started to get up immediately.
“Diuvo’s wagging—” Z’Acatto didn’t finish the curse, but instead picked up the knight’s abandoned broadsword and hewed off the man’s head.
The fingers continued to claw at the dirt.
Z’Acatto watched that for a moment. “I advise rapid flight,” he told them. “And later, some wine.”
“We’re in agreement,” Cazio husked.
The rage had almost left Neil when the horz exploded. The Sefry archer on the point of his sword was gaping at the otherworld, and with no other enemies at hand, the red cloud was lifting, allowing reason back into his head.
He had heard of the rage before; his uncle Odcher had had that gift. In all of his years of battle, Neil had never experienced it before.
Watching the Sefry slowly relinquish his life, he stared at the carnage around him, trying to remember what he’d been doing when the lightning had entered his soul.
The sound of shattering stone turned him, and he saw what appeared to be turbid coils of black smoke billowing through the rent walls of the garden. He staggered toward the horz, remembering that he had left the queen and Fastia within. It was only when he actually plunged into what he’d believed to be smoke that focus came, though not comprehension.
Black tendrils groped past him, gripping at his limbs, fastening to the stone of the walkway. He cut at them, and they fell writhing to the ground, but they were merely the vanguard of the thicker vines they sprang from, wide as a man’s legs and growing larger with each moment. The sharp points of thorns tore at Neil’s armor. The briars pushed him back to the edge of the causeway, though he hacked at them with Crow. It had been a long while since he’d understood much of anything, and he no longer cared. He’d left the queen in the horz; he had to return for her.
So he pitched himself forward, sweat and blood sheening his face and stinging his eyes, slowly fighting through the impossible foliage, until his sword hit something it would not cut. He looked up and green eyes stared back down at him.
It was far taller than a man, the thing, entirely wrapped about in the black vines. They tugged at him, as if trying to pull him into the earth from which they sprang, but he ignored their grasping just as he ignored Neil after a single glance.
Neil smelled spring rain mingled with rotting wood.
The green-eyed thing strode past the young warrior, snapping the vines and tearing them from the stone as he went, but wherever his feet trod new growth sprang up. Neil watched him, gape-mouthed, as he stepped into the canal, the deepest waters of which came only to his waist.
He’d never seen a monster before, and now he’d seen two. Neil wondered if the world was coming to an end.
The queen, you fool. The end of the world was not his concern. Muriele Dare was.
He turned to what was left of the horz, slashing at the thick vines with Crow, weeping, for what could tear apart stone must be able to do much more to human flesh.
But he found the queen untouched upon the stone from which the largest of the vines had emerged, staring at where the dark briars had crept over Fastia’s form. Numb of all human feeling, Neil took the queen in his arms, stumbling through the path he had cut in the vines, through the courtyard full of corpses and out the front gates. He saw the thorn-giant again, striding up the canal where it bent around toward the front gate of Cal Azroth, where others stood watching. Neil lay the queen on the grass and fumbled for Crow; they were surely more of his enemies—
But Saint Oblivion beckoned, and he had no power to resist her.
The greffyn rolled and pitched beneath the water, and Aspar’s lungs would stay shut no longer. His hold loosened, and he was flung away. He struck toward the surface, the dirk still in his hand.
He came up near the edge of the canal and clambered at it, pulled himself from the water with little more than strength of will. He fought to stand, tremors running through his entire body, watching the roiling water for a quicker doom he felt certain would emerge.
Everything in him felt broken. He vomited, and saw that it was mostly blood. Far away he heard his name, but he hadn’t time for that, for the greffyn did come out of the water, sinuous and beautiful, like something a poet might sing made flesh. He marveled that he hadn’t seen it that way from the start. That he’d wounded it seemed almost a shame—except that of course it had to die.
“Come here,” Aspar told it. “There’s not much left of me, but come get what’s here, if you can.”
It seemed to him that it moved a little slower, this time, when it lashed at him with its great beak. It seemed he shouldn’t have had time to drive the dirk into its eye, but he did.
Just like Fend, he thought, wondering where the Sefry had gone. Then the greffyn hit him with a weight like a h
orse in full barding. Everything went white, but he kept hold of consciousness, flexing his now-empty hands, knowing they would do him no good at all, but happy he could at least fight to the end.
But when he turned, he saw that the beast lay still. It had hit a stone piling, and its neck was crooked at an implausible angle.
Well. Easier than I thought. Grim, if that luck was sent by you, my thanks. It’s good to see your foe die before you. Now if Fend would be so good as to drop dead nearby …
Aspar lay there, coughing blood, the now-familiar feel of poison deepening. He hoped Stephen would keep Winna away, but then she had enough sense not to touch his corpse anyway, didn’t she?
He turned his head and saw her there, standing beside Stephen, on the other side of the canal. She was weeping. He raised his hand weakly but didn’t have enough strength to call out. “Stay there, lass,” he whispered. “By Grim, stay there.” There must be poison every place the greffyn had spilled blood.
But now something else went across Winna’s face, and Stephen’s, as well.
A shadow fell over him, blocking the morning sun, and Aspar wearily raised his head to look once more upon the Briar King.
Stephen dropped Aspar’s bow from trembling hands. He’d been trying to shoot the greffyn, but he’d feared hitting Aspar, and now, incredibly, the beast was dead.
Winna, by his side, started forward, but he held her back.
“There’s nothing you can do for him,” he said. “If you go near, you’ll die, too.”
“I don’t care,” she said huskily. “I don’t care.”
“But he would,” Stephen told her. “I’ll not let you.”
She opened her mouth, probably to argue further, but then around the corner of the keep, wading up the canal, came what could only be the Briar King, dragging a train of thorns behind him. One great step brought him out of the water, and with large and purposeful strides he started toward the King’s Forest.
But then he paused and lifted his nose as if scenting something, and his antlered head turned to regard the fallen figures of Aspar and the greffyn. It moved toward them purposefully.
“It’s happened,” Stephen whispered. “Saints, but it’s happened.” He saw in his mind’s eye the scrifts and tomes he had pored over, the bits of time-shattered clues, the terrible prophecies. And he felt something, in the earth and sky, as if something were broken and sifting away, as if the world itself was bleeding.
As if the end had truly begun.
Which meant nothing much was worth doing, was it?
But he ought to try, he supposed.
He picked up the bow and shot the single remaining arrow. He didn’t know if he actually hit the monster or not, but it certainly didn’t notice. It stooped first upon Aspar, and vines writhed all about him. Then it left him there and moved on to the greffyn. Stephen saw him lift the slain beast in his arms, cradling it like a child, and then walk away, leaving a trail of black springlings in his footsteps.
Behind them, the stones of Cal Azroth began to slowly shatter as the vines pulled it down.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
OBSERVATIONS QUAINT AND CURIOUS
“STEPHEN DARIGE?”
Stephen glanced up at the page, who wore orange stockings and a fur-trimmed coat of black. He supposed, from his brief acquaintance with her, that this was the best the duchess of Loiyes could do in the way of mourning clothes for her servants, at least on short notice.
Observations and Speculations on the Multicolored Popinjays, he began in his head. Or, the Assorted Maladies of Royal Blood.
“My lord,” the servant repeated, “are you Stephen Darige?”
“That I am,” Stephen allowed wearily, his gaze languidly tracing the carefully manicured lawns of Glenchest. In the distance he could see Crown Prince Charles, the poor saint-touched oaf, playing a game of jackpins with his Sefry jester. Stephen had met the prince four days earlier, on their arrival at Glenchest. Charles hardly seemed aware of the butchering of his family. He hadn’t been in the keep at Cal Azroth when Fend and the changelings came, but was sleeping in the stables after a day of childlike play.
The small footguard assigned to him had much to be grateful for, for they were the only survivors of the household guard that had accompanied the royals to Cal Azroth. While the fortress was rent to pieces by the unnatural thorns of the Briar King, they had easily managed to get Charles out of danger, then sent to Glenchest for help.
“Her Majesty Muriele Dare requests your presence in the Chamber of Sparrows.”
“At what bell?” Stephen asked.
“If you please, you are to follow me.”
“Ah. This instant?”
“If it please you, lord.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
The page looked confused. “Lord?”
“Never mind. Show me the way, good fellow.” He wished the page would stop calling him lord, but the duchess insisted all of her guests be treated as nobility, in address at least.
He followed the boy through the hedges and up a path overarched with twined willows. He mused that while he had once enjoyed such gardens, he found them somehow claustrophobic now. He remembered the great trees of the King’s Forest and had a sudden, powerful urge to be among them, even if it meant enduring Aspar White’s sarcasm and disdain.
What good did I think thousand-year-old maps would be? he wondered. Sometimes it was hard to comprehend that earlier Stephen Darige, so much of him was gone now.
Faint voices touched his saint-blessed ears, intruding on his thoughts.
“… found the bodies. They were monks, as was said, but then so is this Stephen Darige. And of the same order, too.” That was Humfry Thenroesn, councilor to the duchess of Loiyes, such as he was. Stephen could smell the sour brandy of the fellow’s breath on the autumn breeze, though they still hadn’t even entered the manse.
“Darige risked his life for my children. He took wounds for them.” And that was the queen herself.
“So he says,” Thenroesn replied. “We have only his word for that. Perhaps he was one of the invading force, and when he saw they were losing—”
The queen interrupted. “The holter with him slew half of the remaining assassins, and the greffyn, as well.”
Thenroesn sniffed. “Again, Majesty, that is based on hearsay. It is a grave risk to trust this Darige.”
Stephen passed into the arched foyer of the manse. He noticed the walls were patterned with gilded sea serpents.
Humfry’s voice grew prouder. “I have sent a rider to his eminence, Praifec Hespero,” he boasted, as if taking such initiative deserved high praise. “He will surely send someone to confirm Darige’s story. Until such time, I recommend that he be incarcerated.”
There was a pause in which Stephen heard only his own footsteps, and then the queen’s voice came, so chill that even at this distance Stephen shivered.
“Am I to understand that you contacted the praifec without my knowledge?” she asked.
Stephen followed the page down a long hall as Thenroesn suddenly became defensive. “Your Majesty, it is within my prerogative to—”
“Am I to understand,” the queen asked again, “that you contacted the praifec without my knowledge?”
“Yes, Majesty.”
“Duchess, do you have a dungeon in this … this place?”
Stephen recognized the duchess of Loiyes answering. “Yes, dear Majesty.”
“Have this man placed in it, please.”
“But, Your Majesty,” Humfry Thenroesn began, then the duchess cut him off, just as Stephen came to the entrance to the chamber.
“You really should be more careful not to offend my sister-in-law, dear Humfry,” the duchess said. She turned to one of her guards. “Drey, please escort Lord Humfry to one of the danker cells.”
The queen glanced at Stephen, as he stood in the doorway, waiting to be admitted. She was as beautiful as her reputation, but her features were tightly composed. She might have been
in fury, or despair, or felt nothing at all, if one had only her expression to read. Yet to Stephen’s senses her voice revealed a heart in turmoil and a soul in torment.
“Dispatch a rider to intercept Lord Humfry’s courier,” the queen told the duchess. “Do no harm unless needs be. Just return him here with his message.”
The duchess signed, and another of the Loiyes guard bowed and rushed off on that errand.
The queen turned her attention back to Stephen.
“Fraleth Darige. Please join us,” she said.
Stephen bowed. “Your Majesty.”
The queen sat in a modest armchair and wore a gown of black brocade with a collar that stood stiffly up her neck. The duchess, seated in a chair next to her, was also clad in black, though her neckline was less modest.
“Fraleth Darige, two of my daughters are dead. Tell me why.” To Stephen, her voice was a raw wound, despite its flat and measured tone.
“Your Majesty,” he said, “I do not know. As I told the duchess and her councilor, I discovered the plot by chance at the monastery d’Ef, when Aspar White, your holter, came to us injured. We followed Desmond Spendlove and his men to near here, where they met with Sefry outlaws and performed forbidden encrotacnia. I believe that is how they had the gates of your keep opened from the inside.”
“Explain.”
Stephen explained the rite as best he could. He expected disbelief, but the queen nodded as if she understood. “My late handmaiden, Erren, suggested as much before she was taken from me,” she said. “Is there any protection for us? Must we continually fear these changelings in our midst?”
“There are protections against encrotacnia,” Stephen said. “If Your Majesty wishes, and can provide me with a scriftorium, I can discover them, I’m certain.”
“You will have access to whatever this kingdom has,” the queen assured him. “Now, tell me. Do you see anything of Hansa in all of this?”
“Hansa, my queen?” Stephen asked, confused. “Nothing. Desmond Spendlove was from Virgenya. The Sefry owe allegiance to no nation.”
