by Alec Hutson
He returned to the bench and closed his eyes, sifting through the fragments of his past as he waited. He did this often, hoping for some new shred of knowledge to surface that would be the pebble that started the avalanche of his memories. He remembered vividly his life as a crofter in the Kingdoms, and perhaps a decade spent wandering as a minstrel before that, but the rest still remained shrouded. He could conjure up names from long ago and match them to faces, but he had no sense of his own relationship to these people. It was almost like he had read history books rather than having actually lived through those times. If Alyanna was to be believed, he had intentionally excised himself from his own memories. Why would he do that? What was he trying to forget?
The door opened, and the liveried boy again stepped into the waiting room. “Master bard, the harpist is finished. Please come with me.”
Jan stood and followed the serving boy into Saltstone’s great dining hall. As he had briefly glimpsed, the lower level was filled with dozens of long trestle tables, around which sat scores of gaudily dressed nobles. They had obviously been feasting for some time, as the servants were just now clearing the platters and plates and refilling goblets of wine from large decanters. Great white banners emblazoned with the dragon of Dymoria hung from the high rafters. Jan noticed one table closest to the tier of steps that led up to the hall’s second level where everyone was wearing the green, red-trimmed robes of Scholia apprentices. He searched briefly and found Malichai’s smiling bearded face, nodding slightly in his direction. There was an almost palpable crackle of sorcery emanating from that table. Despite his fractured memories, Jan knew he had not sensed such a gathering of magic for many ages.
Jan paused before ascending the steps to the dais where the queen and her favorites sat facing the rest of the room. He bowed deep, trying not to stare at the assembled high lords of Dymoria. He saw, in his brief glance, those who must have been the magisters of the Scholia, seven or eight men and women wearing robes of deep, almost wine-dark red. The waves of power flowing from these sorcerers was greater still than the combined strength of the table of apprentices below. There were also a few richly-dressed nobles, their faces showing the carefully cultivated air of bored indifference that was the mark of the truly high-born. And in their midst was a Shan, Jan noticed with some surprise. He was dressed in a simple gray tunic, but around his neck a scarlet cloak was clasped with a golden dragon broach. While the others at the table fidgeted with wine glasses or gesticulated with their hands as they spoke, the Shan sat in absolute stillness, his uptilted black eyes watchful. Here was a warrior, and a dangerous one.
Then there was the queen. She sat, like the Shan, without moving. Her skin had been whitened by some cosmetic, so that she almost could have passed as a marble statue, save for the rich red curls that fell past her shoulders. Her dress was dazzling, faintly shimmering and a lighter shade than the red of the magisters seated beside her, its neckline inset with moonstones the size and shape of quail eggs. A twisting silver diadem studded with emeralds rested on her brow, matching the green of her eyes. She did not look at Jan when he glanced at her, but seemed to be staring at something past him.
Jan realized, with a shock, that he felt no sorcery flowing from her, and since she was seated between several of the magisters that absence was jarring. There could be two explanations, Jan thought as he was led by the serving boy up the steps to the far side of the dais, where a beautifully carved chair awaited him. Either she truly had no power, and there was another sorcerer lurking somewhere behind the throne, or she had mastered the difficult art of hiding her strength, even from a Talent such as Jan. And that would mean she was very powerful indeed.
His performance passed in a blur. He played well, although he had to strain his voice to be heard over the constant hum of conversation in the hall. A few of the tables closest to him began stamping their feet and singing along to the most popular songs. He imagined he saw a few wet eyes when he sang of the tragic tale of Llewyn Tir. But before he even had a chance to start singing one of his Min-Ceruthan ballads a horn sounded somewhere nearby, and instantly every table quieted, the assembled nobles turning towards the dais. Jan paused his playing as well, uncertain what was happening.
Without saying anything the queen stood, and the others at the high table rose with her. They remained standing as she turned and stepped from the dais, vanishing through an arched doorway. The Shan followed close behind her, graceful as a hunting cat, and a moment later most of the Scholia’s magisters filed out as well. When they had all departed the feast hall the horn blew again, and the nobles at their trestle tables turned back to their conversations. Jan resumed his playing, but his thoughts were elsewhere, circling the strange conundrum that was the Crimson Queen.
By the time he had finished his last song, The Lament of the Raven Prince, all of the tables had emptied save for the one where the Scholia apprentices sat. They clapped loudly as the last tremulous notes faded, led by Malichai, who leaped to his feet in obvious excitement.
“Remarkable!” he cried, looking for affirmation among his fellow apprentices. “The songs of lost Min-Ceruth, preserved against all hope. Please, master Jan, you must come again. I will send a summons to your quarters at the Cormorant soon, yes? We at the Scholia are holding a feast next month to mark the summer’s end, and I deeply hope you can perform for us.”
Jan stood and bowed. “I would be honored, Master d’Kalas.”
The Scholia apprentices began to disperse, talking and laughing among themselves. As if by magic the liveried serving boy appeared again at Jan’s side.
“Master bard, I will lead you out.”
Keilan nodded and followed the servant, but they did not return by way of the performer’s door set into the side of the great hall. Rather, the boy led him through the same arched entrance the queen and her retinue had vanished into earlier. This was no servant’s corridor – intricate stone carvings graced the ceilings and the frames of the doorways they passed, and great tapestries depicting dragons flying over rolling forests hung from the walls.
“Are you sure this is the way?” Jan asked as the servant led him deeper into what he was starting to suspect were the royal apartments.
“I was told to bring you here, master bard.”
Could the queen or one of her sorcerers have penetrated his disguise? Impossible – Jan had learned his arts in a much more refined age, and not even the strongest of the remaining Talents in the world would be able to sense his sorcery at this moment, given the depths he had hidden it. Or could this be some sort of illicit rendezvous? It wouldn’t be the first time that a noble lady had summoned Jan to her quarters after a performance. He decided he liked that possibility much better than the first.
They paused in front of a large door fashioned from beautifully aged red wood. The servant hesitated briefly, as if unsure if they should enter, then pushed hard on the door. It swung open easily despite its size, and the boy stumbled inside, nearly falling over.
He glanced back, red-faced. “Master bard, enter please.”
Jan stepped carefully into the silent room, his boots sinking into a plush Keshian carpet patterned with red and white diamonds. It appeared to be some kind of audience chamber. A large, elegantly wrought throne of gleaming golden wood sat on a raised dais at the end of the long chamber, the carpet running all the way from where he stood to the base of the steps. There were windows of stained glass set high up on the walls, although with the night sky beyond them he could not tell what images they held. And the light in the room came from great candelabras placed along the path to the throne, each holding a dozen flickering candles. Shadows skittered across the numerous statues of crowned men that stood in heroic poses against the length of the walls.
“Please wait here, master bard. Someone will be with you soon.”
“Who?” Jan asked, but the serving boy was already pulling the doors shut behind him.
Alone in the room, Jan wished he could summon his wizardlight or extend a tendril of sorcery to probe the chamber’s shadowed recesses. But he did not. Instead he walked halfway to the throne and waited. His hand ached to stroke the fire opal set into his sword’s hilt, but he had left Bright hidden back in his quarters at the inn.
The attack came without warning, precisely coordinated.
Waves of sorcerous power billowed from different points in the room, smashing into Jan and sending him staggering to one knee. Gritting his teeth and trying to focus through suddenly blurred vision he saw three robed figures step out from behind different statues, their upraised arms coruscating with blue light. The hollow echo of wizard’s chanting filled the chamber, rising and falling, each thunderous peak a fresh explosion of power. With effort Jan climbed again to his feet, and the onslaught strengthened, wrapping him in coils of sorcerous energy.
They were trying to immobilize him.
He tested their strength, straining against the constricting bonds, and they gave slightly. He had their measure, and it was wanting.
But he was curious to see where this would go, so he let his struggles falter and give out. Immediately his arms and legs seized up, his muscles and bones aching at the sudden pressure. Only his head remained untouched – below his neck his body felt like it was now being held in a slowly crushing grip.
“Who are you?” Jan managed hoarsely, but the sorcerers ignored him and continued their chanting, shuffling closer.
“The question is, who are you?”
The voice came from the direction of the throne, and with some effort Jan twisted his neck to see who had spoken.
Surprise hit him like a cold wave.
Selene sat on the chair, dressed again in the frayed blue shift he had first seen her wearing at the docks, one leg draped carelessly over an upswept armrest.
“Selene?” he whispered numbly, trying to organize his suddenly scattered thoughts.
She smiled crookedly, leaning back in the throne. Something impossible hovered at the edge of his understanding. The hair, those eyes, if the whiteness was scraped away . . .
A second shock, greater than the first. “You’re . . . you’re the queen.”
She clapped her hands together slowly three times, in mock congratulations. “Very good Jan Balensorn, once of the Shattered Kingdoms. And now that you know my secret, I believe it is time for you to give up your own.”
Jan raised his eyebrows, in imitation of the last look she had given him the night before in the Cormorant. “Very well, if we are dispensing with pretenses.”
He gathered his power, forming it into a tight ball of raw sorcerous strength, and then thrust it outwards against the waves of energy binding him. The three magisters were flung through the air; two tumbled hard to the stone floor and slid backward, while the third, who had been standing too close to the wall, was smashed against it hard. She cried out sharply and crumpled into a heap.
The queen’s confident expression did not change, but Jan saw her grip on the throne’s armrests tighten.
The two magisters who had not struck the wall scrambled to their feet and began fluttering their hands and chanting. Jan grinned tightly when he saw the fear in their faces and began readying his own counterstroke.
“Stop!” cried the queen, rising. “Jonus, Kyrin, see to Eleria. Make sure she is all right.”
The two magisters shared an uncertain glance, but they stopped chanting, their forming magic dissipating.
“Now!” The queen stepped forward, fists clenched, and the cloak she had used to hide her own power suddenly fell away. She blazed like a fallen star, and the candles guttered before her shining strength.
Jan sucked in his breath, awed. She was a great Talent indeed – Alyanna was right to fear her.
The magisters hurried over to their colleague, who was moving feebly and moaning, and bent down beside the fallen sorceress.
“Your Majesty,” one called out after a moment, “Eleria will be fine. A few broken bones, perhaps, and she’s addled from striking her head on the stone. But there’s no blood in her hair, so I think her skull is intact.”
“Good,” the queen said, the glow of her power dampening. She settled back into her throne, her back as straight as when Jan had seen her in the feast hall, and turned to him, her gaze flat and hard. “Tell me who you are.”
“My name is Jan, as I said. But it is not Jan Balensorn. I have been known by many names, but I was born as Jan duth Verala.”
“Duth Verala. I do not know this name.”
“Nor should you. It is very old, from a place long vanished.”
“How old.” It was a command, not a question.
Jan thought briefly of lying to her, but he suspected she would somehow know if he did. “My lineage can be traced back over two thousand years. I am only half that age.”
Her stony expression did not change, but there was something different now in her eyes.
“You claim to be a thousand years old?”
Jan swept into a formal bow. “I was born in Nes Vaneth, Your Majesty, only a few decades before the ice swallowed the north.”
She blinked unsteadily, a tremor passing across her face. “The song you sang last night . . . it was in your own language.”
“It was.”
“You are Min-Ceruthan.”
“I am.”
For the first time she looked shaken. “Are there others like you?”
Jan hesitated. “I come on their behalf.”
“For what purpose?”
“To discover more about the Crimson Queen that has in such a short time remade the world. To ascertain whether you are a true Talent.”
“A Talent?”
“One who summons great sorcery instinctually, without the need of shaping it with words or gestures. The rarest kind of wizard.”
“And am I?”
Jan nodded slightly. “Most certainly.”
She studied him thoughtfully, her lips pursed. The moments dragged on as Jan watched her consider something carefully, and then reach a conclusion.
“Jan duth Verala, I wish to learn more about you and the past of which you speak. Will you stay awhile in my court?”
Jan allowed the sorcerous power he had been holding inside him to subside. “I will.”
They rode out of the spine of the Bones to find that autumn had arrived in the west.
Senacus and Demian had left the furnace of the plains behind them when they first climbed into the mountains, and there the treacherous paths that threaded between rocky gorges and clung to the side of sheer cliff-faces were high enough that when they awoke, frost often dusted the grass near their campsites. It was jarring, to see the peaks thrusting into the blue vault of the sky around them covered in snow, when just a few days past Senacus had been forced at times to ride without his armor, a cloth soaked in water wrapped around his head. And it was equally strange when they descended again expecting to be submerged once more in the heavy pall of late summer, and instead found brisk winds and an endless forested expanse just starting to blush with the changing of the seasons.
Entire days had passed in silence; Senacus had actually forgotten the sound of the shadowblade’s voice until they parlayed with a troop of imperial soldiers guarding a narrow defile in the Spine. The legionaries had not recognized them, as they had shed their traditional garments. Both of them were now dressed in leather and mail, pretending to be just a pair of sellswords heading west to find themselves a lord in the Shattered Kingdoms, and the white armor of the Pure was carefully packed away in Senacus’s saddlebags. The relic of Tethys hung around his neck, and it had been a shock for him to speak with the legionaries as a mere man, instead of as a paladin of Ama.
While they rode, Senacus studied his mysterious companion. The kith’ketan were the stuff of stories told to f
righten children. Assassins who walked in shadow, the servants of a dark power who dwelled beneath a mysterious holy mountain. Many did not believe they even existed, yet here one was, eating legion hardtack and checking his mare’s hooves for stones every night. A few of the legends swirling around shadowblades Senacus could already disprove: sunlight did not harm them, and animals did not shy away from their unnatural nature. However, he did feel a creeping sense of wrongness the longer they rode together, even with his powers dampened by the relic he wore. It wasn’t emanating from Demian himself, he realized eventually, but from the ancient sword at his side.
They had left the spine three days past and started on the Wending Way when Senacus finally broke the silence.
“I don’t like your sword.”
The kith’ketan did not look at him. “It doesn’t like you, either.”
Senacus started to say something in response to this, but then snapped his mouth shut. How could one answer such a statement? He settled back on his horse and watched the forest, wondering how he had found himself in the company of a madman.
The shadows lengthened as they rode on, dappling the ancient road. He was just drifting off into some pleasant daydream when Demian spoke again.
“Paladin, do you remember your life before?”
Senacus glanced curiously at the shadowblade. “Before what?”
“Before they made you into what you are.”
“You mean before I became Pure?”
“Yes,” Demian replied, and Senacus could hear the edge in his voice. “Pure.”
Senacus had never discussed such things. It was considered rude for the paladins of Ama to talk about their former lives between each other, or of what little they could recall, and the common folk were so intimidated by the holy warriors that none had ever dared to ask. But this long silence had started to weigh on him, and he had a few questions of his own for the shadowblade.
“I remember fragments. Standing in a golden field, watching a man that might have been my father thresh wheat. A newborn calf pressing its wet nose into my hand. The taste of milk freshly churned.”
