“Don’t assume too much.” Arcadius shook a menacing finger at him. “I keep tabs on you. So what brings you here?”
“Just a few questions I thought you would be able to shed some light on,” Royce told him. “Why don’t we talk in your study while Hadrian and Arista settle in and get out of their wet things? Is it all right if we spend the night here?”
“Certainly. I’ll have dinner brought up, although you picked a bad day; the kitchen is serving meat pies.” He made a grimace.
Arista stood stiffly, feeling her heart still racing. She narrowed her eyes and glared. “I hate all of you.”
Barrels, bottles, flasks, exotic instruments, jars containing bits of animals swimming in foul-smelling liquids, and a vast array of other oddities cluttered the small office and spilled out into the hallway. Shelves of web-covered books lined the walls. Aquariums displayed living reptiles and fish. Cages stacked to the ceiling housed pigeons, mice, moles, raccoons, and rabbits, filling the cramped office with the sounds of chirps, chatters, and squeaks, which accompanied the musky scent of books, beeswax, spices, and animal dung.
“You cleaned up,” Royce said with feigned surprise as he carefully entered and stepped around the books and boxes scattered on the floor.
“Quiet, you,” the wizard scolded, looking over the top of his glasses, which rested at the end of his nose. “You hardly ever visit anymore, and you don’t need to be impertinent when you do.”
Royce closed the door and slid the bolt, which drew another look from the wizard. Then from his cloak he pulled out a silver amulet hanging from a thin chain. “What can you tell me about this?”
Arcadius took the jewelry from him and moved to his desk, where he held it near the flame of a candle. He looked at it only briefly, then lifted his spectacles. “This is Hadrian’s medallion. The one his father gave him when he turned thirteen. Are you trying to test me for senility?”
“Did you know Esrahaddon made it?”
“Did he?”
“Remember when I spoke with him in Dahlgren last summer? I didn’t mention it before, but according to him, the church instigated a coup against the emperor nine hundred years ago. He insists that he remained loyal and made two amulets. One he gave to the emperor’s son and the other to the boy’s bodyguard. He claimed to have sent them into hiding while he stayed behind. These amulets are supposed to be enchanted so only Esrahaddon could find them. When Arista and I were with him in Avempartha, he conjured images of the people wearing his necklaces.
“And you saw Hadrian?”
Royce nodded.
“As the guardian or the heir?”
“Guardian.”
“And the heir?”
“Blond hair, blue eyes, no one I recognized.”
“I see,” Arcadius said. “But you haven’t told Hadrian what you saw.”
“What makes you say that?”
The wizard let the amulet and the chain fall into his palm. “You’re here alone.”
Royce nodded. “Hadrian’s been moody lately. If I tell him, he’ll want to fulfill his destiny—go find this long-lost heir and be his whipping boy. He won’t even question it, because he’ll want it to be true, but I don’t think it is. I think Esrahaddon is up to something. I don’t want either of us to be pawns in his effort to bring his choice for emperor to the throne.”
“You think Esrahaddon is lying? That he conjured false images to manipulate you?”
“That’s what I came here to find out. Is it even possible to make enchanted amulets? If so, is it possible to locate the wearers by magic? And you knew Hadrian’s father. Did he ever say anything to you about being the guardian to the Heir of Novron?”
Arcadius turned the amulet over in his hand. “I don’t have the Art to enchant objects to resist magic, nor can I use magic to seek people, but a lot was lost when the Old Empire crumbled. Preserving him in that prison for nearly a thousand years makes Esrahaddon unique in his knowledge, so I can’t intelligently say what he is or isn’t capable of. As for Danbury Blackwater, I don’t recall him ever telling me he was the Guardian of the Heir. That isn’t the kind of thing I would likely forget.”
“So I’m right. This is all a lie.”
“It may not be a lie, per se. You realize it’s possible—even likely—that Danbury could have the amulet and not be anyone special. Nine hundred years is a long time to expect an heirloom to stay in the possession of one family. The odds are weighed heavily against it. Personal effects are lost every day. This is made of silver, and a poor man, in a moment of desperation and convinced any story he was told is just a myth, could be tempted to sell it for food. Moreover, what should happen if the owner died—killed in an accident—and this medallion was taken from the dead body and sold? This has likely passed through hundreds of hands before ever reaching Danbury. If what you say is true, Esrahaddon’s incantation merely revealed the wearer of the amulet and not the identity of the original owner’s descendants. So it’s possible Esrahaddon may be sincere and still be wrong.
“Even if Danbury was the descendant of the last Teshlor, he might not have known any more than Hadrian does. His father, or his father before him, could have failed to mention it because it didn’t matter anymore. The line of the heir may have died out, or the two became separated centuries ago.”
“Is that what you think?”
Arcadius took off his glasses and wiped them.
“For centuries people have searched for the descendants of Emperor Nareion and no one has ever found them. The empire itself searched for Nareion’s son, Nevrik, with all the power of great wizards and questing knights at a time when they could identify him by sight. They failed—unless you accept the recent declaration that they found the heir in the form of this farm girl from Dahlgren.”
“Thrace is not the heir,” Royce said simply. “The church orchestrated that whole incident as theatrics to anoint their choice for ruler. They botched the job and she accidently caught the prize.”
The wizard nodded. “So I think common sense decrees that an heir no longer exists … if he ever existed to begin with. Unless …” He trailed off.
“Unless what?”
“Nothing.” Arcadius shook his head.
Royce intensified his stare until the wizard relented.
“Just supposition, really, but, well … it just seems too romantic that the heir and a bodyguard could have lived all alone on the run for so long, managing to hide while the entire world hunted them.”
“What are you suggesting?” Royce asked.
“After the emperor’s death, when Nevrik fled with his bodyguard, the Teshlor Jerish, wouldn’t they have had friends? Wouldn’t there have been hundreds of people loyal to the emperor’s son willing to help conceal him? Support him? Organize an attempt to put him back on the throne? Of course this organization would have to act in secrecy, given that the bulk of the dying empire was in control of the church.”
“Are you saying such a group exists?” Royce asked.
Arcadius shrugged. “I’m only speculating here.”
“You’re doing more than just speculating. What do you know?”
“Well, I’ve come across some odd references in various texts to a group known only as the Theorem Eldership. I first discovered them in a bit of historical text from 2465, about the time of the Steward’s Reign of Glenmorgan the Second. Some priest made a brief notation about a sect by that name. Of course, at that time, anyone who opposed the church was considered heretical, so I didn’t give it much thought. Then I spotted another reference to the same group in a very old letter sent from Lord Darius Seret to Patriarch Venlin dating back to within the first twenty years after the death of Emperor Nareion.”
“Lord Seret?” Royce asked. “As in, Seret Knights?”
“Indeed,” Arcadius said. “The duke was commanded by the Patriarch to locate the whereabouts of Nevrik, Emperor Nareion’s missing son. He formed an elite band of knights who swore an oath to find the heir. A hundred
years after the death of Darius the knights adopted their official name, the Order of Seret Knights, which was later shortened out of convenience. Quite ironic, actually, as their responsibilities and influence broadened dramatically. You would hardly know it, as the seret work mostly in secret—hidden so they can perform their duties invisibly. They still report directly to the Patriarch. It’s really just a matter of perceptive logic. Given that there is a pseudo-invisible order of knights seeking to hunt down the heir, doesn’t it seem sensible to conclude that there is another unseen group to protect him?”
Arcadius stood up and, with no trouble navigating his way through the room’s debris, reached the far wall. There a slate hung and with a bit of chalk he wrote:
Theorem Eldership
Then he crossed out each letter and underneath wrote:
Shield the Emperor
He returned to his desk and sat back down.
“If you decide to search for the heir,” Arcadius told Royce in a grave tone, “be very careful. This is not some bit of jewelry you seek and he may be protected and hunted by men who will sacrifice their lives and use any means against you. If any of this is true, then I fear you’ll be entering into a world of shadows and lies where a silent, secret war has been waging for nearly a thousand years. There will be no honor and no quarter given. It’s a place where people disappear without a trace and martyrs thrive. No price will be too great, no sacrifice too awful. What’s at stake in this struggle—at least in their eyes—is the very future of Elan.”
The number of students at Sheridan always diminished in summer, so Arcadius arranged for them to sleep in the vacated top floor, known as Glen’s Attic. The fourth-floor dormitory in Glen Hall lacked even a single window and was oven hot in summer. Home to the sons of affluent farmers, the upper dorm was deserted this time of year, as students returned home to tend crops. This left the entire loft to them, a single long room with a slanted ceiling so low even Arista had to watch her head or risk hitting a rafter. Cots jutted out from the wall where the ceiling met the floor, each nothing more than a straw mattress on simple wooden frames. Personal belongings were absent, but every inch of wood was etched with a mosaic of names, phrases, or drawings—seven centuries of student memoirs.
Arista and Hadrian worked at drying their wet gear. They laid everything made of cloth across the floor, and damp stains spread across the ancient timbers. Everything was soaked, and smelled of horse.
“I’ll get a drying line up,” Hadrian told her. “We can use the blankets to create a bit of privacy for you at the same time.” He gave her a quizzical look.
“What?”
He shook his head. “I’ve just never seen a soaking-wet princess before. You sure you want to do this? It’s not too late. We can still head back to Medford and—”
“I’ll be fine.” She headed for the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
“To bring up the rest of the bags.”
“It’s probably still raining and I can get those just as soon—”
Arista interrupted him. “You have ropes to tie and, as you pointed out, I’m already soaked.” She descended the steps. Her shoes squished and her wet dress hung with added weight.
No one thinks I can handle this.
Arista knew she had led a pampered life. She was no fool, but neither was she made of porcelain.
How much fortitude does it take to live like a peasant?
She was the Princess of Melengar and daughter of King Amrath Essendon—she could rise to any occasion. They all had her so well defined, but she was not like Lenare Pickering. She did not sit all day considering which dress went best with her golden locks. Arista stroked her still dripping head and felt her flat tangled hair. Lenare would have fainted by now.
Outside, the rain had stopped, which left the air filled with the earthy smell of grass, mud, and worms. Everything glistened, and breezes touched off showers beneath trees. Arista had forgotten her cloak. It lay four flights up. She was going only a short distance and would be quick, but by the time she reached the carriage house, she regretted her decision. Three gown-draped students stood in the shadows, talking about the new horses.
“They’re from Melengar,” the tallest said with the confident, superior tone of a young noble speaking to lesser men. “You can tell by the Medford brand on that one.”
“So, Lane, you think Melengar has fallen already?” the shortest of them asked.
“Of course. I’ll wager Breckton took it last night or maybe early this morning. That’s why the owners of these horses are here. They’re probably refugees, cowards fleeing like rats from a sinking ship.”
“Deserters?”
“Maybe,” Lane replied.
“If Melengar really did fall last night, it might have been the king himself who fled,” the short one speculated.
“Don’t be a rube!” the second tallest told him. “A king would never ride on nags like these.”
“Don’t be too sure about that.” Lane came to the little one’s defense. “Alric isn’t much of a real king. They say he and his witch sister killed their father and stole the throne just as he was about to name Percy Braga his successor. I even heard that Alric has taken his sister as his mistress, and there’s talk of her becoming queen.”
“That’s disgusting!”
“The church would never allow that,” said the other.
“Alric kicked the church out of Melengar months ago because he knew it would try to stop him,” Lane explained. “You have to understand that the Melengarians aren’t civilized people. They’re still mostly barbarians and slip further back into their tribal roots every year. Without the church to watch over them, they’ll be drinking the blood of virgins and praying to Uberlin before the year is out. They allow elves to run free in their cities, for Maribor’s sake. Did you know that?”
Arista could not see their faces as she stood beyond the doorway, carefully keeping herself hidden.
“So perhaps this is the nag the king of Melengar escaped on. He could be staying in one of the dorm rooms right now, plotting his next move.”
“Do you think Chancellor Lambert knows?”
“I doubt it,” Lane replied. “I don’t think a good man like Lambert would allow a menace like Alric to stay here.”
“Should we tell him?”
“Why don’t you tell him, Hinkle?” Lane said to the short fellow.
“Why me? You should do it. After all, you’re the one that noticed them.”
“Me? I don’t have time. Lady Chastelin sent me another letter today and I need to work on my reply lest she drives a dagger into her chest for fear I’ve forgotten her.”
“Don’t look at me,” said the remaining one. “I’ll admit it—Lambert scares me.”
The others laughed.
“No, I’m serious. He scares the wax out of me. I was sent to his office last semester because of that rabid rat stunt Jason pulled. I’d rather he’d just cane me.”
Together they walked off, continuing their chatter, which drifted to Lady Chastelin and doubts of her devotion to Lane.
Arista waited a moment until she was certain they were gone, then found the bags near the saddles and stuffed one under her arm. She grabbed the other two and quickly, but carefully, returned across the commons and slipped back up the stairs of Glen Hall.
Hadrian was not in the loft when she returned, but he had the lines up and blankets hanging from them to divide the room. She slipped through the makeshift curtain and began the miserable task of stringing out her wet things. She changed into her nightgown and robe. They had been near the center of her bag and only slightly damp. Then she began throwing the rest of her clothes over the lines. Hadrian returned with a bucket of water and paused when he spotted Arista brazenly hanging her petticoats and corset. She felt her face flush as she imagined what he was thinking. Not only did she travel unescorted with two men, but she was bedding down in the same room—albeit a large and segmented hall—and now she
hung her undergarments for them to see. She was surprised they had not questioned her more intently. She knew the unusual circumstances she traveled under would eventually come up. Royce was not the type to miss something as suspicious as a maiden princess traveling alone in the company of two rogues, no matter how highly esteemed by the crown. As for her clothes, there was no other way or place to dry them safely, so it was this or wear them wet in the morning. There was no sense being prissy about it.
Royce entered the dorm as she finished her work. He was wearing his cloak with the hood up. It dripped a puddle on the floor.
“We’ll be leaving well before dawn,” he pronounced.
“Is something wrong?” Hadrian asked.
“I found a few students snooping around the carriage house when I made my rounds.”
“He does that,” Hadrian explained to Arista. “Sort of an obsession he has. Can’t sleep otherwise.”
“You were there?” she asked.
Royce nodded. “They won’t be troubling us anymore.”
Arista felt the blood drain from her face. “You … you killed them?” she asked in a whisper. As she said it, she felt sick. A few minutes earlier, listening to their horrible discussion, she had found herself wishing them harm, but she had not meant it. They were little more than children. She knew, however, that Royce might not see it that way. She had come to realize that for him, a threat was a threat no matter the package.
“I considered it.” No tone of sarcasm tempered his words. “If they had turned left toward the chancellor’s residence, instead of right toward the dormitories … But they didn’t. They went straight to their rooms. Nevertheless, we’ll not be waiting until morning. We’ll be leaving in a few hours. That way even if they do start a rumor about horses from Melengar, we’ll be long gone by the time it reaches the right ears. The empire’s spies will assume we’re heading to Trent to beg their aid. We’ll need to get you a new mount, though, before heading to Colnora.”
“If we’re leaving as soon as that, I should go see Arcadius about that meal he promised,” Hadrian said.
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