Of Limited Loyalty cc-2

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Bethany stepped forward, slipping her arms around him, and he settled his around her. He said nothing, just feeling her there, feeling the brush of her hair against his cheek. Though he ached and felt exhausted, he wanted the world to stop so this moment would last forever.

  Again he kissed the top of her head. “What I want you to know is that I love you. I am bound by vows which, ultimately, led me here to you, and yet keep us apart. A small piece of me wishes we had the courage that Nathaniel and Rachel have, but I understand that there are greater issues which mightily complicate things. While it would be easier to give in to our desires, it would destroy us.”

  She hugged him a little more tightly. “Promise me you will always let me see your journals, that you will share that intimacy with me. If you will do that, I shall survive.”

  “I promise.”

  “Thank you.” Bethany pulled back, and starlight glinted from the track of a single tear. “Now, if you would be so kind, Captain Strake, please conduct me to my quarters. I’m certain Clara will be waiting, and I should not want her to fret.”/

  Chapter Sixty-one

  4 June 1768 Octagon Richlan, Mystria

  Ian Rathfield again cast a glance at the flask a subaltern had left on his camp desk. He felt certain the man meant it as a gift, to ward off the chill and perhaps to celebrate the victory. He couldn’t have meant it as a tonic against the void creeping through Ian’s guts, eating him up like a cancer. Ian was certain he had given no clue as to what troubled him, and was just as certain that to take a drink would erode the dam behind which his fears pooled.

  No matter how he tried to distract himself, he could not escape the certainty of death as he lay there at the troll’s ponderous feet. He’d given up. He’d closed his eyes. He was ready to die, his only regret that he would never again look upon Catherine’s smiling face, that he would never again feel her caress, or her breath warm against his skin. And even as he thought of her at the very end, he knew he did that because he believed it right and proper. It was the honorable thing an honorable man did as he lay dying.

  But he had not died. And even giving free rein to the monster could not erase the image of Owen wrenching the troll’s head back, slashing its throat. Ian could see that first spray of arterial blood arc out, each drop like rain softly falling, a crimson mist in the air. The troll’s bellow drowning into a gurgle, shrinking to a burbling squeak. The sour scent of fear-both the troll’s and his own-still acrid in his nostrils. And Owen, tall, lips parted in a savage grin, acting more savage than any of the Twilight People, his eyes blazing as he saved Ian’s life.

  As he saved his wife’s lover’s life.

  For a heartbeat Ian wondered if Owen, had he known, would have saved him. The Owen Strake Ian had come to know certainly would have. He was an honorable man, a valiant man, full of courage. He would not have let the troll finish Ian. It was not in his nature to let another do a job for him.

  And yet, were our roles reversed, I would not have been so honorable. That realization shook Ian and started his hand reaching for the flask. Had Owen been down, he would not have helped him. He now understood that he moved away from Owen in the battle simply so he would not have been pressed to make that choice. And so no one would notice if I failed to save him.

  Ian’s hand retreated, empty. Empty, as I feel inside. He had known for a long time, since he surrendered to the monster at Rondeville and even before, that he was not a hero-not in the way Owen or Nathaniel or Kamiskwa were. Ian had always played by the rules and used them to judge himself honorable. And even when he broke the rules, others allowed him to escape the consequences simply because to expose him would be to expose themselves. They played by unwritten rules, and he was willing to abide by them when the outcome benefited his cause.

  He glanced at his shaving mirror, but he had turned it away so he could not see himself. He really didn’t want to see himself because he could see the rot behind his eyes. He had long since abandoned any true claim on being honorable. In doing that he had lost himself. He was not worthy of the love of a woman like Catherine. He’d been willing to die so she would never be forced to learn the truth about him. About the monster…

  He rose stiffly from his camp chair and pulled a cloak around himself. He knew what he had to do. He had to go out into the night and find Owen Strake. He needed to confess having had an affair with the man’s wife, and agree to a duel to settle the matter. He expected pistols at dawn, and he resolved that he would not shoot. He had no doubt that Owen would make his shot count, and took some solace in the fact that he could die with honor even if living with it was denied him.

  Again he looked at the flask, but eschewed drinking. He would have welcomed the warmth and the false courage, but that would continue his unmanning.

  He stepped from his tent and nodded at his men, who sat drinking and mending clothing or themselves. “You all fought splendidly today. This was the Fifth Northland’s finest day.”

  The men cheered and saluted him with battered tin cups. He smiled and continued on his way. He really had no idea where he might find Owen, but did not stop to ask. He told himself that he needed the time to properly word the confession. He knew that to be a lie. He dreaded the confrontation and was happy for the delay provided by his aimless wandering.

  And then he saw them standing together, Bethany Frost clinging to Owen, and Owen kissing her head. He could not hear what they said. He shrank back into the shadows and watched, making certain it was indeed them. When they began to walk off, arm in arm, he forced himself to remain hidden-an act which went against every fiber of his being. And when they had passed into shadows, he discovered he’d clutched the tree behind which he’d hidden so hard that his fingernails had sunk into the bark.

  Ian could not believe it. How dare Owen Strake dishonor his wife? How dare he show her so little respect as to walk freely with his harlot through the Mystrian camp? His brazenness stunned Ian. Suddenly things became very clear. Owen had used his influence with Prince Vlad to place his mistress in the Prince’s entourage. Certainly the Prince must have known of their adulterous relationship-that he would condone it boggled Ian’s mind.

  He stepped from behind his tree and almost made for them. He would demand satisfaction! Catherine’s honor must be upheld. Ian could not allow the woman he loved to be humiliated in this way. No true man could. He would find Owen and challenge him to a duel. Handguns at dawn, and his aim would be true.

  A small part of him realized that to challenge Owen in order to defend Catherine’s honor was the very definition of irony. Ian didn’t care about that-this was about love and honor, respect and chivalry. Had Owen not been carrying on with his Mystrian whore, Catherine never would have sought sanctuary in Ian’s arms. This much was so clear that no one could deny it.

  What stopped him was his recalling that Owen was Duke Deathridge’s nephew. Ian had no love for Deathridge given the man’s having had an affair with his wife. He had never gotten any indication from Owen that the two of them were close, or even on speaking terms, for that matter. Still, Deathridge, even if he hated Owen, likely still thought of him as a possession. Killing Owen would invite Deathridge’s retribution, and that was an ax Ian had no intention of letting fall on his neck.

  He returned to his tent and never gave the flask a second thought. He came to the quick realization that he could not live a life of honor, but that he could arrange things so he could lead a life of pleasure. He might not be the man he once had hoped he would be, but he could be the man who was Catherine Strake’s lover. He could do it by framing his Mystrian adventure as a great success, win honors and rank in Norisle. He would get for himself all those things that would make life worth living, and use them to wall off the void in his chest.

  He turned the mirror around and smiled at his image. Ian Rathfield had died in the wilds of Mystria. With him died the sins of the past. And he had been resurrected. This new life shall provide everything I desire, and rain misery upon
those who would oppose me.

  Prince Vlad returned to the medical station, which had been set up on the very spot where he’d stood to oppose Rufus. He paused for a moment, reaching out, feeling the magickal energy coursing through the earth. He connected to it, adding that flow to the magick that was coming to him straight from the Norghaest Octagon. He should have been exhausted, and could feel fatigue nibbling around the edges, but the energy filled him and kept him going.

  The wounded had been sorted long since, and those with minor cuts and bruises had been sent off to fend for themselves. The most serious had been brought to him immediately, but he found he could help precious few of them. Some had had limbs torn clean off. He knew no way to reattach them, nor to replenish their bodies with blood. For most, all he could do was to invoke a spell that dulled their pain and provided them enough lucidity that they could put their affairs in order and bid friends good-bye.

  As much as men like Bishop Bumble had accused him of conducting “Ryngian studies,” he wished he’d done more of it, especially as concerned medical magick. His understanding of physiology, based on dissections of animals and men, did help him. When an obviously broken arm presented itself, it was relatively simple for him to invoke magick so he could practically see through the skin. He would hold the mental image of a healthy bone in his mind, then use magick to impose that image over the broken bone. Though such magick was not without pain for the patient, it did prove effective in knitting the bone together. Still, he had things splinted and urged the same cautions on them as any doctor might have.

  As he progressed through cases, he refined his magick. He learned to confine spells to dealing with the broken bits of bones, not the entire bone. He did the minimal amount of work for the maximum effect. This worked very well on bones, and unfortunately less well on damaged organs, precisely because his understanding of their true function was insufficient to set things completely to rights.

  A torn muscle presented little trouble. Using magick, Vlad could weave it back together as a tailor might have used to patch clothing. He could have done the same for cuts, but having someone else use a needle and thread saved him considerable work. Herniated muscles, ruptured bowels, and similar things which required stitching up, he learned how to do efficiently, but this didn’t always save his patients.

  Only one of them died while he worked on them. A young man had come with his family. His mother sat outside the tent, weeping. He’d been struck in the head by a troll. Vlad’s diagnostic spells had found bone fragments driven deeply into the youth’s brain. Otherwise he was in perfect condition, without a scratch or bruise on him. He lay motionless, his breathing shallow and getting shallower as Vlad used magick to tease pieces of his skull back into their proper place.

  The youth stopped breathing and something changed inside. When Vlad worked, the bodies responded. He found that initiating the healing process was almost like teasing a kitten with a feather. First you used magick to get the body’s attention, then you convinced it that it should begin healing. Yet with this young man, the body just quit, as if a stiff wind had snuffed a candle.

  And as with a candle, a tiny ember still burned in the wick. Prince Vlad saw it, went for it, improvising. The same magick he used to tease the body into healing he used to tease that ember back to life. It brightened for a moment, and he had hopes, then it began to die again. He tried, shifting to other spells, to those he used to pull tissue together. He tried to grab that spark to hold onto it. He thought he had it and then a force beyond his comprehension yanked it away.

  The Prince had stood there, staring down at the young man. Despite the grey pallor, he looked vital. Had he sat up, it would not have surprised Prince Vlad. In that one moment the Prince felt frustration over the waste of that life, and in the next he understood why Guy du Malphias had been willing to raise people from the dead. For Prince Vlad the act would have been one of compassion, so the boy’s mother could know joy, but for the Laureate, the boy would merely have been a resource, a means to an end that had nothing to do with who he had been.

  Prince Vlad finished dealing with the last of the wounded. Over the course of the day more and more of them had come to address him as Doc, instead of Highness. He smiled at that, and knew others would have been offended. He was not. It was very Mystrian for him to be identified by what he did-and quite un-Mystrian for him to presume to be any better than anyone else. They’d looked at him with gratitude instead of any awe, and that warmed his heart.

  Kamiskwa and Nathaniel entered the tent, along with a hobbling Count von Metternin. The Kessian seated himself on the edge of the cot that had served as the Prince’s examination table. “You would have time to fix my leg now?”

  The Prince shook his head. “No. If I fix you now, you’ll be foolish enough to do other things that require fixing.” He nodded to Kamiskwa. “I’m very sorry your father is gone.”

  The Shedashee frowned. “How…?”

  Vlad scratched at the back of his neck. “You did your job well. Your magick redirected the Norghaest flow to me. It’s how I’ve been able to help so many. Your magick, however, bears a trace of you. I get a sense of your grief. I had it when I sent Nathaniel to you. I, too, wish your father were here, Steward Fire as well. What they taught me, they taught me well, but they taught me far too little.”

  “Kamiskwa and me is going to take our leave at Fort Plentiful. The Shedashee have a powerful lot of jawing to be doing, then we’re finding Msitazi and bringing him back.”

  The Prince nodded. “Yes, him and Ythsara.”

  Kamiskwa’s eyes became slits. “Who?”

  “The woman, from your dreams. Ythsara is her name.” Prince Vlad shook his head. “No, no, no, this is wrong. I should not know that. You do not know that. Which means, I don’t have that information from you.”

  The Shedashee glanced back to the southwest. “You can only have it from the stone. Which means she helped create it.”

  “Yes, she did. She did it to help us destroy Rufus.” Vlad pointed. “She did it so we have the power to stop the Norghaest.”

  “I reckon that ain’t a bad thing.”

  Vlad drew in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “It is, Nathaniel, a very bad thing. It was Norghaest power that seduced Rufus. It destroyed him and those settlements out west. It’s power beyond the imagining of any man, the power to heal and restore, to make bountiful what was barren. A wonderful and terrible power.”

  Nathaniel gave the Prince a half smile. “I reckon you’ll be using the wonderful half of it. Rufus was weak, soes he used the terrible.”

  “Rufus may have been weak, but no man is that strong.” The fleeting memory of his desire to pull that boy back from death flickered through his mind. “Before you go, I have one service I would ask of you, Prince Kamiskwa.”

  “As you wish it, it shall be done.”

  Vlad nodded toward the southwest. “Go back out there and destroy that stone. I don’t want the power. If we are to defeat the Norghaest, we will just have to find another way.”

  Chapter Sixty-two

  9 June 1768 Fort Plentiful Richlan, Mystria

  Prince Vlad returned General Rathfield’s smile as the Norillian officer entered the wurmrest. “You wanted to see me, Highness.”

  “Yes, I wanted to thank you and your men for helping with… everything.” The Prince pointed off toward the north side of the valley where a hill had been leveled off and the dead had been buried. “Given that so many of your comrades can’t be buried…”

  Rathfield clasped his hands at the small of his back. “This place has been watered with the blood of the Fifth Northland Cavalry. Upon my return to Norisle, I shall recommend that we establish a garrison force out here. I should like this to be the Fifth’s Mystrian home.”

  “That would likely be a good idea.” Vlad patted Mugwump below his left eye. “I had some questions I hoped you would answer. I want you to answer freely. I shall deal with the consequences of your replies, regardle
ss of what they are.”

  Rathfield nodded. “I am at your service.”

  “What will you tell Bishop Bumble about Ezekiel Fire?”

  The Norillian officer smiled. “I never saw him. I share Count von Metternin’s grief on the loss of his aide, and shall mention the man’s bravery in my reports. Bumble may have concerns about Fire, but the man is gone. This is not a matter for me to be concerned with.”

  One down. “And what will you say to him of my use of magick?”

  “Again, Highness, I never saw you using magick. I know many people, including some of my men, benefited from your medical skills. To the best of my knowledge, you set bones and closed wounds, using means less brutal than wrenching and cautery.” Rathfield glanced toward the ground. “I understand the Bishop might have concerns, especially as he sees magick use over which he has no control as being heretical. I would say that your use-again, which I never witnessed-certainly fell within the compassion preached by the Good Lord. I have no intention of denouncing you to Bishop Bumble.”

  “Thank you.” Vlad exchanged a sidelong look with Mugwump. “I asked you to swear to keep the fact that Mugwump can fly a secret. I know this information would be of interest in Launston. I said I would release you from your vow if we lived.”

  “I shall keep your secret, Highness.” Ian gestured toward the dragon. “While one cannot deny that this wurm has wings, I have never seen him fly. While he has a martial spirit, as do all wurms to the best of my knowledge, and as is made apparent by how easily his wing was broken; the wings are vestigial, ornamental at best, and of little practical use, much as the wings of a variety of flightless birds.”