The Crimson Queen

by Alec Hutson

  Vhelan shrugged. “Who can know the whims of gods? Or perhaps Ama does not even exist. After all, the Pure’s powers come from the corruption of their own gift for sorcery, not a divine wellspring. But whether Ama is real or not, I do know that there are things out there, in the Void. The queen has glimpsed them, and she has spoken of them to us magisters. Are they demons? Gods? I suppose it depends at which temple you pray. But I will tell you something that I strongly believe, Keilan. They did not make this world. They do not sit in judgment of us. Our souls will not be consigned to the abyss because we are gifted, so do not let that frighten you, or dissuade you from pursuing sorcery.”

  Keilan considered this as they rode on, and the magister left him to his thoughts. After a while the trees did thin, but it was not a village like the one he had left far behind that could be glimpsed in the distance.

  A great city spread below them, its tangled streets hemmed by buildings of wood and brick. There was nothing orderly about the way it sprawled beside the bay, as if it had been allowed to grow without any guidance or plan, like a garden left untended. The city’s northern flank swept up a steep hill, upon which perched a great fortress of dark stone. Keilan knew, without being told, that the Crimson Queen waited inside. He could almost feel her, and gooseflesh prickled his arms. But that must be his imagination.

  They descended a hillside cleared of trees, the road twisting around great jagged chunks of white rock that emerged from the long grass like shards of broken bone. As their horses began to pick their way down the steep slope horns sounded from the distant walls, and the few rangers who had survived the horrors beneath Uthmala and the wraith ambush let out a ragged cheer. Captain d’Taran unslung his own silver horn and returned an answer, just as a pair of horsemen passed out of the city’s closest gate and spurred their mounts toward them.

  When the riders arrived at the vanguard of their host they clasped forearms with Captain d’Taran and inclined their heads toward Vhelan. Keilan was close enough that he heard one of the Dymorian guardsman questioning d’Taran about their Visani escort, but d’Taran shook his head and brusquely told the young warrior that such news was for the queen’s ears first.

  They entered Herath accompanied by another pealing of horns. Of the two large cities Keilan had already seen, Theris and Vis, the Dymorian port more resembled the Shattered Kingdom’s largest city. Vis had been encircled by walls of gleaming black iron, and its buildings were soaring edifices carved of basalt and limestone. Its people had seemed to move slower, and with more gravitas, as if they were players upon a stage or minstrels before a crowd. Herath, like Theris, was a riot of activity, the streets of churned mud filled with hawkers and performers and bleating animals. Vividly dressed men and women turned the streets into a swirl of colors as they hurried on their daily business, and many stopped to knuckle their brows and dip their heads when they caught sight of Vhelan in his dark robes riding among the warriors of Dymoria and Vis.

  As they progressed through the city their small host gathered a retinue of ragged children, who ran alongside and begged the warriors astride their horses to draw their swords or throw them treasure. Vhelan winked at Keilan, then tossed out a handful of small coins. The crowd of urchins scattered, laughing.

  “Their lives are much better under the queen,” Vhelan said, leaning towards Keilan. “Before she ascended to the throne, they were treated like vermin by the city guard. The queen constructed several orphanages and poor houses to shelter them, and gives enough silver to keep hot food in their kitchens. Several members of the city watch have been flogged for treating the waifs harshly.”

  Keilan felt some of his apprehension about meeting the queen subside. How could a ruler who cared so much for the least among her subjects frighten him?

  The dirt beneath their horse’s hooves gave way to cracked tiles, and the houses along the street grew in size and grandeur. Many boasted elaborate porticos and balconies. The urchins trailing their company gradually fell away, and Keilan suspected that despite the queen’s largesse they were still not welcome here, in the richer districts of the city.

  The great fortress swelled larger and larger, until it filled the sky with battlements and soaring turrets. Keilan mouth had gone dry, and Vhelan must have caught him staring, because he nudged his horse closer.

  “Saltstone. Herath has been sacked by the Skein a dozen times over the centuries, but never have the barbarians overrun these walls. Your new home.”

  My home. The thought made him dizzy.

  They entered the fortress though a massive gate, then dismounted in a courtyard that could have easily contained his entire village, with room to spare. Vhelan motioned for Keilan to follow him through a set of double doors twice the height of a man and carved with the twisting dragon of Dymoria. Captain d’Taran and Nel fell in beside him, while the rest of the rangers and the Visani royal guard stayed behind. As they departed, a horde of stableboys and servants swarmed the courtyard to take care of the horses and unload their baggage.

  “Nervous?” Nel asked, jabbing him in his side with her elbow.

  “Should I be?”

  She shrugged, as if to say perhaps, and Keilan felt his heart take a little jump.

  Vhelan led them down a wide corridor lined by armored warriors, their long spears angled so that the barbed points formed an arch for them to pass beneath. Windows of colored glass set high up on the walls drenched everything below in shades of green and blue and red, and the light made the guard’s plate flash.

  Another massive door swung open, and they entered the audience chamber of Cein d’Kara, the Crimson Queen of Dymoria.

  She was like a statue upon her golden dragon throne, her back straight as a sword, her skin unnaturally pale. Fiery red curls tumbled around her long white neck and lay upon the ruffle of her scarlet dress. A dozen men and women in wine-dark robes clustered at the base of the steps leading up to the throne on its dais, and they gave way as the four of them approached.

  Vhelan dropped to one knee, and Keilan followed suit. “My Queen,” he said, his eyes fixed on the chamber’s floor, “I have returned.”

  There was a rustling as the queen shifted. “You have,” she said. Her voice carried a tone of command that Keilan had never heard before, not even from the prince of Vis. “But you are late.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty, we encountered the Pure and – ”

  “Silence.”

  Vhelan’s mouth snapped shut, so abruptly that Keilan heard the click of his teeth coming together.

  “My cousin in Theris dispatched birds telling of the Pure. And Prince Lyn sent riders before you that informed me of the ambush along the Wending Way.” The queen rose from her throne and began to descend the steps. “I am pleased that you have completed the task I set before you.”

  She halted a few span from where Keilan knelt, and he had to struggle to control his breathing. There was a palpable warmness emanating from her, as if her bright red hair truly was aflame.

  “Keilan Ferrisorn,” she said, and he forced himself to look up at her. “Will you pledge fealty to me, and enter my Scholia?”

  He swallowed away his fear, his fingernails digging into his palms. “Yes, Your Majesty. I will.”

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Magister d’Terin’s staff guided him as he descended the odeon’s limestone steps, toward where the tree of knowledge spread its pale limbs over the apprentices. They waited for him upon stone benches, six in all, their gray robes dappled by the early morning light. Behind d’Terin, rising above the topmost tier of the amphitheater, Saltstone bulked dark and jagged against the cloudless blue. The fortress was a gnarled fist raised in defiance at whatever sky-gods held sway in Dymoria. A few months past, Keilan had believed heaven to be the abode of the Shael, the great titans who cast down spears of lightning at the sea when they warred with the Deep Ones. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Ama, the Silver Lady, the Ten, t
he spider-demon of Uthmala – it seemed that every city and town they’d passed through on the way to Herath venerated different gods and spirits. How to know which one was the truth? Or did they all exist side by side, yet intangible to each other, like reflections in a hall of mirrors?

  The cowl had been pulled back from the magister’s age-spotted head, wispy strands of gray hair stirring in the breeze, and as he approached the apprentices he slowly turned so that his milky eyes passed over them all. D’Terin was blind, yet in the fortnight that Keilan had spent in the Scholia he had never seen the magister stumble, or fail to realize when one of his students had not appeared for his lessons. He seemed to possess an almost magical sense of when the attention of his charges was wandering; more than a few times, Keilan had felt the sting of the magister’s ashwood staff on his arm while he had been gazing up at the crenellations of Saltstone, or watching clouds drift between the tree’s skeletal branches.

  Magister d’Terin passed close to the bench where Tamryl sat beside Halix Keviling and reached out to trail his fingers in her dark hair. Tamryl’s silver eyes blinked in surprise, but she did not flinch away at his touch. Then he was past her, within the crescent of stone benches facing the tree. Slowly he shuffled closer, laying his palm upon the ghostly white bark of the trunk, and bowed his head, as if in communion with the spirits hanging from its branches. The wind suddenly strengthened, causing the silver skulls dangling on their silken cords to spin and dance, a few even clicking together in a faintly musical clamor.

  Past the magister and the tree was a low stone railing, and beyond that was the edge of the white cliffs, which plunged down more than a thousand span to where the ocean endlessly gnawed on the rocks below. The first time Keilan had recognized the magister’s blindness he had spent half the lesson on the edge of his seat, prepared to dash across the odeon if he strayed too close to the edge. But very quickly he had come to realize that d’Terin was more aware of his surroundings than every one of his students.

  Including Keilan.

  He tried, he really did, to concentrate on what d’Terin or the other instructors were lecturing about, but invariably he found his attention drifting away like the shreds of clouds in the wide blue sky. It was just so much more interesting to disappear into the rabbit hole of his memories, reliving the terror below Uthmala, the soaring beauty of the silver tree in Vis, or the tingling awe he had felt while floating in the presence of the godlike creature he’d found in the ocean’s depths. Rambling explanations of the Lyrish political structure, or the great Keshian contest that determined who became padarasha – delivered in desiccated husks of statements, all energy leached from them – simply could not compare with his adventures over the summer months.

  That, and the boys who sat behind him were quite distracting. There were three of them, all around Keilan’s age: big, broad-shouldered Karik, smaller Sevanil with his quick smile and laughing eyes, and the darkly handsome Belin Sorelsorn. Karik and Sevanil both hailed from the Gilded Cities, Ver Anath and Lyr. Belin was from Theris in the Shattered Kingdoms, and intensely proud of it, though it seemed like he had lived in Dymoria for more than a few years. They called themselves the Tradesmen, as all three were the sons of skilled workers – Karik’s father had been a mason, Sevanil’s a tailor, and Belin came from a long line of famous goldsmiths. He had looked almost affronted when Keilan had claimed to have never heard of his father, since they were both from the Shattered Kingdoms. By his account, every noble and merchant in Theris thought Sorel to be the finest jewelry-maker of his generation.

  Even though his father was just a simple fisherman the boys seemed well-disposed toward Keilan; maybe it was because he shared the same homeland as Belin, or perhaps because he said little during the morning lectures. Most of their whispered attentions were directed at the two students sitting in the benches directly in front of the magister, Tamryl and Halix. Every time the dark-haired girl rang her little bell – they’d all been given one, to alert the instructor that they wished to speak – an audible groan would rise up behind Keilan. It must have been loud enough for Tamryl to hear, though she never showed that she had.

  She did ring her bell often, Keilan had to admit. And when she spoke her accent and diction suggested that she was high nobility, born far above the rest of them. But now they were all apprentices in the Scholia, and their past titles had been set aside. In the court of the Crimson Queen, at least, they were all considered nobility. Keilan had wondered why anyone born into wealth and power would trade their damask and silks for the simple gray apprentice robes of the Scholia – but then he remembered the sorcery he had seen Vhelan perform, and he suspected he knew the answer.

  Not that they had learned any magic yet. Instead there had been an interminable series of lectures on history, philosophy, ethics, botany, astronomy . . . Keilan knew he wasn’t the only one of the new apprentices who was aching to be instructed in some real sorcery.

  But as had been explained to him weeks ago, knowledge must come before power. A sorcerer ignorant of the world and its workings was a threat to all.

  This morning’s lecture was on the final days of the two great magical empires, Min-Ceruth and the Kalyuni Imperium. Keilan struggled to focus on what the magister was saying.

  “And so,” Magister d’Terin said, his voice like the crackling of dry paper, “a balance was reached after centuries of rivalry. Two distinct streams of sorcery had diverged in the years following the dissolution of the Warlock King’s kingdom in Menekar. The northern holdfasts – cold, aloof, dominated by tradition and honor – could never understand the wild, unrestrained south, where the sorcerers in their Star Towers pursued every avenue of magical study. Indeed, the internecine strivings between the various schools of the Mosaic Cities were often even more intense than their conflicts with the wizards of the far north. Though greater in number, the sorcerers of the Imperium were so riven by these internal arguments that they had never managed to unite themselves and establish the magic of the Star Towers as preeminent in Araen.”

  “But perhaps the greatest deterrent to outright war between these two people was the knowledge that both the holdfasts and the Star Towers had developed a spell of such cataclysmic power that it would utterly destroy their rival. Who would dare cast such a sorcery, when the counter-stroke ensured your own destruction?”

  Ring-ring.

  “Yes, Apprentice Tamryl?”

  “Magister, how did the Sundering come about, then, if both sides knew casting that final spell would doom them as well?”

  D’Terin paused, reaching up to cup one of the silver skulls hanging from the tree. “Child, in the end they were not as wise as they thought they were.”

  “What happened?”

  The magister spun the skull on its silken cord. “There is only speculation. Perhaps the most authoritative account came from one of the few Min-Ceruthans to escape the fall of Nes Vaneth, the greatest of the holdfasts. He wrote that an emissary from the Imperium had been found guilty of murdering the beloved royal princess, and in her rage and sorrow the queen unleashed the spell that sent the Derravin Ocean flooding into the Imperium, and thus creating the Broken Sea. But even as the water thundered toward their Towers the greatest of the Kalyuni sorcerers sent their own counter-stroke hurtling north, and the black ice crept down from the northern wastes to swallow the holdfasts.”

  “Why would this emissary have done such a thing?” Tamryl continued.

  Keilan heard the boys behind him shift and mutter. They certainly didn’t want the history lesson to go on any longer than necessary, as almost every day the boys slipped outside the Scholia to eat their midday repast. But Keilan found himself interested in what the magister was saying. He had been told various stories about the fall of the old empires, but this was the first time any had been imparted by a true scholar.

  The magister shrugged. “Who knows, child? Revenge, madness . . . the human heart is often
guided not by reason, but by these fraught and dangerous emotions.”

  Another bell sounded, and d’Terin turned slightly toward the boy sitting beside Tamryl.

  “Yes, Apprentice Halix?”

  “M-m-magister d’Terin,” the boy said, fighting through a stutter. Keilan had wondered before how Halix would be able to cast magic with such an affliction, but he supposed the magisters must have believed it still possible, otherwise he would not be here.

  “Excuse my im-mpertinence, but my f-f-father’s seeker once told me that some in the Reliquary believe that it was the sorcerers of the Star T-t-towers that struck first. They had thought they’d gained some advantage, and that they could destroy the holdfasts b-b-before any response was made.”

  “My f-f-father’s seeker,” Belin whispered mockingly. “Too bad the little rich boy can’t buy himself a new v-v-voice. He’ll cast every spell in triplicate.” Karik and Sevanil sniggered at this.

  Magister d’Terin nodded. “As I said, there are several theories as to what happened. Various factions within both the Reliquary and the Scholia believe different things. But whoever struck first, the lesson here is the same – power, no matter how great, does not ensure wisdom. It is a stark reminder of why we fill your head with knowledge before we teach you any real sorcery.” The magister raised his head so that he seemed to be looking at the boys clustered towards the back benches. “A prudent decision, do you not agree, Apprentice Belin?”

  The low laughter stopped as suddenly as if a bolt of lightning had flashed out of the blue and struck the odeon’s tree. Belin cleared his throat. “Oh, aye. Of course, Magister d’Terin. Very prudent.”

  “I’m glad you concur,” the old man said dryly, a slight smile playing at the edges of his mouth as he turned away.

  Following the morning’s lecture Keilan was so lost in his thoughts that he did not notice Nel until she came up beside him in the corridor and hooked her arm through his.