by Melanie Rawn
• • •
Kostas had small use for the gadgets Rohan enjoyed so much. Water clocks were interesting things, no doubt, but the day progressed whether one measured its passing or not; pens that held ink within them rather than needing to be dipped might save time, but the old ones worked just as well. On the twelfth day of Winter, however, Kostas had reason to applaud the High Prince’s fascination with innovative devices, and his habit of sharing them with others.
The Fironese who made water clocks also tinkered with other forms of glass. One of the results rested now in Kostas’ hands, lent him by Rihani, to whom Rohan had given it at the last Rialla. A long, thin tube with clear glass at one end and a lens at the other, it made the faraway loom close enough to touch.
Kostas sat back on his heels amid the trees, gazing once more through the lens at the swollen rush of the Catha River. A flatboat hugged the bank, not daring to venture out into the main current. It rode low in the water, as if wallowing with heavy supplies of grain and meat and other foodstuffs. Thick waterproofs were draped over lumps that could have been crates and barrels. On a thin pennant fluttering from short poles at the stern, the black deer of Meadowlord leaped on a field of light spring green. A nice touch; Saumer’s idea. Unhappily, it had been impossible to outfit the men on board with the appropriate tunics. Kostas hoped the flag would be convincing enough, and that none of the soldiers concealed beneath the tarps moved at the wrong moment. The slightest shifting to ease cramped muscles might prove fatal. And Goddess forbid a sneeze.
Taking the lens from his eye, Kostas tucked it in its leather case and crept back into the deeper shelter of the woods. “Only a little while until they reach the docks. Is everything ready?”
Rihani nodded. “Half the army at the roadside field, the other half on the rise Aunt Sioned guided us to.”
It could have been any Sunrunner, of course, but Kostas had chosen to attribute the Fire-tipped pine to the High Princess. It heartened the troops—and Kostas had had a feeling, anyway. He passed the lens to his nephew. “Keep watch for me.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Since sending Izaea back to Catha Heights, Kostas had worked on and rejected plan after plan for taking the keep. But two days ago a scout had returned with word that three boats were coming downriver. It had been too late to organize a battle, though he’d sent archers to kill as many as possible while the supplies were unloaded and carted up to the castle. But the event had given Kostas an idea. He’d ordered a similar craft made upstream, finding use at last for the six boatwrights from the Faolain who were among his soldiers.
Saumer’s notion about the pennant was truly inspired. The other three boats had carried no identification, but that meant little. If Chiana was sending supplies to the enemy, she could advertise it or not; all she needed to claim was that her good intentions had been thwarted by the enemy. But Meadowlord’s flag openly displayed might reveal much. Conspiracy with the Vellant’im would mean a peaceable unloading; armed efforts to seize the boat would prove Chiana innocent—perhaps. It could be that along with word of her cooperation had come orders to make everything look good for her sake. Kostas had his doubts about that, but Rihani thought it possible and the boy’s mind was a sharp one.
“My lord!” his nephew whispered, drawing his attention, and he scooted forward to the edge of the wood. Taking the lens, he peered through it and nearly yelped in delight. A mere five Vellanti warriors were coming down from the castle to the docks.
“So Chiana is guilty after all,” he murmured. “We’ve just given Tilal the excuse he needs to take Swalekeep!”
“I wish we had a Sunrunner so we could tell him,” Rihani said. “But with this sky, a Sunrunner wouldn’t be any help anyway. Shall I get a courier ready to leave at once, my lord?”
“We’ll wait until we can also send word of a victory.” He squinted through the lens once more, waiting, holding his breath as the warriors approached the arriving flatboat. “That’s it,” he encouraged softly. “Nice and humble, Saumer—you’re not a prince but a common boatman, scared half out of your wits by these savages—very good!”
Geography favored them beyond Kostas’ hopes. The docks were shielded by a stand of tall trees that provided cooling shade to workers in summer. Anything sailing downriver was seen from the castle long before it reached the docks, but once there it became invisible. He watched gleefully as Saumer, ragged and rain-soaked like the other two men who had guided the boat, bowed before the bearded enemy. No one at Catha Heights saw when the three Vellant’im who climbed onto the boat had their throats slit, and the other two died on the dock with knives in their guts.
Kostas watched his twenty soldiers conceal the corpses beneath the waterproofs. “Right,” he said briskly, casing the lens once more.
“How long before Saumer opens the gates once he’s inside?”
“However long it is, we’d better get to our positions.” He clasped his nephew’s shoulder. “I know you wanted to go with him, but one of you had to take command of the second wing.”
“Saumer’s a better actor than I am, anyway,” Rihani grinned. “Goddess watch over you, my lord.”
“And you.” But it was not the Goddess he thought of as he returned to his horse and rode to join his main army. It was the Father of Storms, who had dominion over Air and Water. The freshening wind and light rain in his face might be taken as omens of approval—along with sudden thunder above the hills, as if the Storm God laughed in anticipation of a good fight, a fine victory.
Kostas laughed, too, feeling more alive than at any time in his fifty years. He had been born for this—not to preside over law courts or listen to tallies of yearly yield in wheat and cattle and wine. Rohan might deplore the use of swords to settle matters, but not every prince felt the same. And a good thing, too. It was Kostas’ kind that was needed now—unafraid of fierce battle, of killing those who dared take what was his. His sword would be wind-swift today, and the blood of his enemies would rain on the land.
• • •
“Madness!” Shaking her head vigorously, Thanys blocked Meiglan’s way to the larger of the wardrobes. “You know your father—you can’t escape him.”
“I will leave here and he won’t stop me!”
“Even if you succeed in leaving, he’ll come after you.”
“Not if he doesn’t know I’m gone until it’s too late.”
“My lady, what’s come over you?” Thanys cried. “You’re safe here at Dragon’s Rest!”
“If you think that, you’re as stupid as my father believes me to be!” She gripped the servant’s arms. “I can’t stand it here any longer. It was bearable before my father came, but now—I can’t stay, I can’t!”
“So you’d endanger your children—”
“Goddess help you, don’t you see? They’ll be safer at Stronghold under siege than here with Miyon! It’s not just for me, it’s for them!”
It wasn’t the exact truth, but Thanys had no need to know that. Meiglan simply could live no longer with her fear and without Pol. She wasn’t Gemma or Alasen or Danladi, to hold her keep while her husband was at war. Laric and Edrel would do better without her. In freeing herself from her father, she was freeing them to defend Dragon’s Rest—and against him, if necessary.
Miyon’s arrival and his destruction of the cottage had pushed her that final step to real panic. All that kept her from tumbling over the precipice was the feverish need to flee to the only safety she had ever known.
Instead of the fifteen she had thought to take, it would be just herself, the girls, and two guards. Instead of ample food and clothing, they would travel only with what they wore and enough for a sketchy meal on the road. Instead of taking the usual two days, they would ride as fast as they could without killing themselves or their horses.
Meiglan had told no one but Laroshin, the guards commander, of her original plan. He had not been happy, but as his liege lady she had given her orders and sworn him to secrecy. She
knew that the fire had come as a relief to him, preventing what he considered a rash course of action.
This time only Thanys knew, and she would order Laroshin to have five horses saddled and ready at midnight, after Lisiel formally Named her new son. Meiglan would summon her daughters to her chambers after dinner to hear their lessons as usual. But she would tuck them up in her own bed, and when everything was ready hurry them through the hidden passage to their father’s rooms. Pol had long ago shown her the secret stairway there; she hoped she remembered how to open it.
Thanys sighed heavily and got out of Meiglan’s way. She busied herself refolding clothes the girls would wear tonight—warm woolen trousers and shirts, with matching dark cloaks—while Meiglan pulled out similar garments for herself. “My lady . . . I wish you’d reconsider and take me with you.”
“I need you to stay and keep my father from this room as long as possible. Tell him—tell him the children and I have caught chills and can’t be disturbed. He can’t find out I’ve gone before noon tomorrow.”
“He will ride after you.”
“I’ve a right to go to my husband!”
“But in secret? In the dead of night? What will Prince Laric and Lord Edrel think? What will I tell them?”
“Anything you like!” She tossed clothes onto the bed and rounded on the servant. “I don’t care! Don’t you understand? This isn’t my problem, any of it! I don’t know what to do, what to say, how to keep my father from destroying us all if he gets half a chance! I want Pol! I want to be safe and know my children are safe and—and—” Hearing hysteria in her voice, she clapped both hands over her mouth and shook.
Thanys embraced her, rocked her gently back and forth. “There, sweeting, there. You weren’t born to this, it’s not in your nature to be at war. When you married him, I sang inside. I thought, at last she’ll have the life she deserves, all elegance and joy and never an angry word from a husband who’ll cherish her. But he left you, and—”
“He had to,” Meiglan quavered. “This isn’t his fault, Thanys.”
“He should be here to protect you, little one. Hush now, hush. Just be brave, and soon you’ll be with him again, where you belong.”
• • •
The wind up from the southwest strengthened slowly—too slowly for Tobin’s temper. She needed sunlight, needed the clouds to blow away from Stronghold and Faolain Lowland. It was noon before the first wisps of sunlight threaded Desert air, but by that time she had summoned Sioned and in a halting, hesitant voice explained her idea.
“But that’s crazy!” was Sioned’s first reaction; her second, “Do you think it’ll work?”
“Need sunlight,” Tobin reminded her.
“And there’s none to be had at the moment, nor likely to be soon . . . .” Sioned’s face changed subtly. “Let me go look something up.”
Tobin waited in a storm of restless impotence for Sioned to return. She glared at the sky beyond her window, willing the wind to strength and the sun to burn away lingering haze. The water clock in the corner indicated just noon when Sioned came back, Pol in tow and the translated copy of the Star Scroll in her arm.
“One of you is going to explain this, right?” Pol asked.
Tobin, understanding the fierce, gleeful light in Sioned’s green eyes, gave him her half-smile. “Patience,” she counseled, blithely ignoring the fact that she herself possessed precious little of that commodity.
“I need a deep, wide bowl, preferably pure metal,” Sioned told her son. “And a cup of strong wine.” Holding up a small velvet pouch, she finished, “I never have liked the taste of this stuff.”
Pol turned pale beneath his tan. “Mother—that’s dranath.”
“Of course it is. I’ve never done this before and I need all the help I can get. Now, the bowl and wine, please?”
Chapter Twenty-five
The army of Syr paused below Catha Heights, just out of arrowshot. Vellanti warriors jeered insults but wasted no arrows, which Prince Kostas found interesting. He sat his horse and listened, a half-smile on his face.
“They seem to have picked up something of our language,” he commented to his captain. “And they’re creative with it, I’ll give them that.”
“It’s a new experience for me, my lord, being called the unnatural spawn of the diseased backside of a toad.”
“A castrated toad.”
“I was trying to be polite, my lord.”
Kostes grinned. “Havadi, we’ll make a courtier of you yet.” He glanced at the sky, where noon sun struggled against clouds. “Does a toad have balls?”
“I’ve never looked, my lord. But today we’ll find out if the Vellant’im do.”
The prince nodded, wondering how long it would take Saumer to sneak from the waterside of the castle to the main gates. He fanned his anticipation gently, keeping it controlled but glowing hot enough to burst into flame when he needed it. It was rather like making love: waiting, pacing himself, timing the moment. His wife’s delicate fairness and fragile skin came to mind, and another anticipation swelled in him. Perhaps after he’d taken Catha Heights and advanced up the river, he’d ride home and surprise Danladi. High Kirat was only two days from River Run; his troops would need rest by then, and if the roads held clear, he could—
“My lord! Look!”
Kostas did, and laughed. Predictably enough, when the gates swung open there was outcry both within and without the walls. The Vellant’im bellowed their rage; the army of Syr roared back. Kostas awarded the prize to his own people and gave the signal to attack.
Saumer had done his work perfectly. The chains, ropes, and iron bars holding the gates had been neutralized and they did not close up again. The enemy swarmed out in no order whatsoever. Kostas almost regretted that his battle plan did not call for annihilating them all on the spot.
• • •
Sioned sat back, wiping sweat from her forehead. “Damn! I can’t get anything beyond a quiver. I’m doing just what the scroll says, and I can feel the dranath, but it’s not happening.”
“Maybe Karanaya never used it before she gave it to you,” Pol suggested, peering into the broad silver bowl of water. A gold thimble glinted at the bottom, intricately carved with flowers. “Or maybe you’ve used it too much.” When Tobin’s brow arched eloquently, Pol grinned. “Sorry, Mother. You’re as rotten at needlework as you are at cooking.”
“Thank you, your gracelessness,” she replied, smiling wryly. “You may be right, and this doesn’t have enough association with Karanaya to do us any good. But I could swear I feel something. More dranath might do it—”
“No,” Tobin stated. “Let Pol try.”
“What?” They spoke together, staring at her.
“Diarmadhi.” She used only the single word not because she could not form any others, but because that was the only one needed. Her gaze flickered back and forth from mother to son, compassionate and inflexible.
It was the first time Tobin had ever acknowledged what he was. Pol felt his breath catch. Most of the time he forgot that Sioned wasn’t his birth-mother, forgot that anyone knew about him. But Tobin had been at Feruche the night he was born, and at Skybowl the night he was Named. She had always been there, loving him in spite of what he truly was. No, that wasn’t right; what he was didn’t matter to her at all.
“It might work,” he said at last, with a glance at his mother’s wary expression. “A Star Scroll spell ought to be worked by a sorcerer.”
Reluctantly, Sioned answered, “Rohan watched Urival do something like this once. And he was diarmadhi. I can do the kind of conjuring I used the night Andry became Lord of Goddess Keep, but evidently this is more complicated.” She picked up the drug-laced wine cup and set it out of his reach. “But no dranath. Urival didn’t use any. I don’t want you touching the stuff.”
“If I can’t get anything on first try, I may have to,” he warned.
“Let’s wait till that egg hatches, shall we? Here, read down to the
bottom of the page. It continues on the overleaf.”
He read carefully, but part of his mind remembered when his father had shown him the Star Scroll in preparation for his battle by sorcery with Ruval. He knew how to construct the ros’salath as well as Andry did—but his cousin had added some twist to the working that made it lethal. Damping the anger always associated with Andry these days, he read through the spell again and handed the scroll back to his mother.
“It’s straightforward enough. Don’t worry,” he said to reassure them—and then recalled that it was not Meiglan he was dealing with. Neither of these women had a timid bone in her body.
Sioned pushed the silver bowl across the table to him. Framing it with his hands, he fixed his gaze on the thimble, concentrating. Urival had shown him several things from the Star Scroll, all minor workings, little more than tricks. For the first time since reading the guidelines for the ros’salath, Pol saw how various small sorceries could be woven together—just so—to produce a more powerful spell.
Some of it was familiar. Mental and physical preparation, for instance—so automatic by now that he had to force himself to think about it. Calm the heartbeat and clear the mind, breathe easily and softly, relax outward senses and focus on inward function.
But there were differences, too. Sunrunners lit Fire across Water—but not in it. The most disturbing was the recurrence of an image first conjured at Radzyn: his own two hands, palms pressed together but unable to touch. One wore a single moonstone faradhi ring that had been Andrade’s. The other bore the great amethyst of Princemarch. Two halves, two inheritances, not touching. Some barrier lay between them like a pane of crystal ground to invisible thinness. Pol tried to press through it, shatter it, curve the fingers around each other. It seemed terribly important that he do so, though he could not have said why. The fingers curled, nails scraping glass with a horrible rasp that made him flinch.
“Pol? What is it? What do you see?”
Sioned’s whisper drew him from the troubling image. He opened his eyes, wondering when he’d closed them. “Sorry. It’s nothing—just a slight distraction. I’m ready now.”
