'Oh, I know,' said Bear. 'That's why it's funny. Got a good holler on him, hasn't he?'
That he had, conceded Renir, trying not to look sheepish while thousands all around roared their approval for the new King.
Me, he thought, and for the first time since donning the crown he found he felt very queasy indeed.
*
Chapter Fifty-Six
It was a week of mourning, of funerals and of cleaning up the dead.
By the second night, the pyre burned steady. The noxious smoke, thick and oily, poured high into the sky and thankfully the hard autumn winds pushed the stink north, clear of the city. The mound of Draymen dead was a sight to behold. A mountain, squat, perhaps, but there was no mistaking it for a simple pyre. Renir wanted it piled high, so that the bones themselves would form the skeleton of a new, man-made mountain. It was high enough.
It was surprising what the city folk could bear. Sturmen and women were not, by nature, squeamish. They were accustomed to hard work, to death, even. They did not shirk their duty, awful or not. The new men, under their Thanes (even Yerrod) set to work, too. Piling the dead higher and higher, dragging corpses with horses, or with strength of back, or on carts and wagons. Wood and oil and anything that would burn was used.
The fire burned until the evening of the fourth day.
Funerals, too. The Sturman dead were buried, not in mass graves, but surrounding the site of a new shrine, to be built by the finest stonemasons in the land. Word was sent far and wide for quarry stone and masons to come. They would, in time. Stone was heavy, stone work took time.
But soldiers, guards, women, men, even some of the older children, all took a hand shovelling out damp dirt for the dead to sleep in.
Every man whose name was known was marked, every citizen.
'Quintal...' began Renir, as the first day of funerals began.
But Quintal forestalled him. 'Renir, the Sard would be honoured, I think, to be interred here, among so many brave souls. A simple marker, same as the others. No more.'
Renir nodded, and so it was.
He searched, same as his friends, for sign that Shorn had died, or returned...any sign. Hopelessly, not expecting to find anything, but nonetheless relieved that Shorn was not dead in the mud, somewhere, having died alone.
It felt strange, to lose a friend without even saying goodbye.
'He'll be back,' he told himself, and watched the first day of funerals with his back straight and his face, at least, clean. Drun, the only priest he knew, presided. He looked deathly sick, to Renir. He tried to speak to him, but Drun always left as soon as he could, and in some ways, Renir was glad. To speak to Drun, now, would feel like saying goodbye, too...and he did not know what to say.
It was a week of mourning, both for the dead and friends lost to who knew where.
But also, it was a week of dreams.
*
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Do Gods dream?
Caeus still wondered, often, as the Elethyn showed him the way to his death.
Of course they dream, he decided. Everything dreams. Gods and ghosts dream just as dead men in the dirt. Dogs and horses and the lowing cows in their fenced-in fields dreamed and grew skittish when their eyes were closed, and their legs skipped like they were young again, or running free.
Even the land dreams of summer, does it not? While the winter lays a heavy blanket down upon it, the seedlings dreamed of the warm suns' glow.
Caeus dreamed a week-long death, and when Gods dream people turn in their sleep and hear the will of those Gods like nightmares that will not fade on waking.
When Gods die the suns dim or sometimes blaze with fury.
The Elethyn were without mercy.
Once, I was as they are. I was cold and knew nothing of love, or wonder. Only power.
Their power, all their power, tore at Caeus' soul, whipped and scoured his flesh and flensed muscle from bone. A shell, his core, his being, holding on within his ravaged body and little else.
The merest spark of a creature that had known, perhaps, the greatest power of all: The ability to change his own nature.
And now Caeus felt death's loving embrace around him, closing him down, the leveller ever swimming down deeper until he could pluck that small pearl of life that remained to Caeus, he found that he was unafraid, unremorseful. He had...tried.
Failed?
Maybe. Such a thing, once, was unthinkable. Like a God, he was full of pride.
A fool, yes...but he had embraced life and love and learned a strange thing, despite the distance that such powers gave a being like him. He had learned humanity's greatest folly and their greatest achievement, in all the terror and wonder of the worlds without end.
Caeus had learned to hope.
He felt himself slipping, even his tenuous grasp on thoughts begin to disappear.
I Die.
But with one last blast of the power at the core of him, he sent forth a message. His one, solitary regret in millennia of living. He sent it toward that splinter of darkness that had forever evaded his remarkable sight. He was no fool. That sliver, that splinter of utter blackness, that thing which he could not see?
A gamble, perhaps, but hope was a gambler's best friend, was it not?
'Sister!' his soul spoke, his thoughts and words no more than a whisper to be carried on the wind, 'If it is you, then this is my death, my gift to you...with my death I rob them of what lives and knows the light, what little remains in them I shear away with my love. All that remains in them now is the darkness...and that, sister, if you hear me...that is your domain. This, I give to you.'
The champions of the light are not always pure, or perfect, or even good. But they are true.
The Elethyn destroyed Caeus, and as they did so lost what little light that remained in them. All hope of redemption, gone. Leaving them nothing but the darkness, nothing of the soul, just bodies bereft of hope.
The Elethyn, stripped bare now, were dark vessels, waiting to fill with power, and never realising what the Red Wizard had done. With his death, he left no sign he had spoken his last, but that whisper of hope would carry on the wind...sigh across the lands.
And witches knew the winds and lands both.
*
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Renir's dreams were often vivid. Sometimes, too real. But the night before his coronation, he visited the dream world and instantly knew it for a dream.
Hertha sat on a chair Renir remembered making. It slanted oddly to one side. On occasion, Renir remembered, he would attempt to fix the thing. Figuring he'd made it, he'd fix it. But he couldn't, and had never had the knack for working wood. From time to time he took a little from one of the legs, set it back down and crossed his arms, satisfied he'd got the thing right. Then Hertha would sit on it, and it would still look wonky to him. She'd lean to one side one month. He'd fix it. Next month she'd lean the other way, until he took a little off a leg again. By the time she'd been killed, she'd been sitting on the floor, pretty much.
Renir knew it for a dream, not because his wife was in his dream and she was dead, not because he was hundreds of miles distant and slept in a castle now. He knew it for a dream because Hertha was knitting. Furiously.
'You never knit,' he observed. He couldn't see himself in the dream, nor feel himself. Just a sense of observing. He was there, but not in body.
'Got to keep your hands busy, haven't you?'
'Have you?' he asked. He'd never found that to be true. His hands were happy enough idle.
'When you're waiting on a little one. Got to keep your hands busy.'
'Who's having a baby?'
'You are.'
'You're with child? But...Hertha...'
'What? I'm dead? You can say it. And no, not me.'
'What? I...this is a dream, right?'
'Yes, husband. Now, shush. I'm knitting, and I'm not very good at it.'
'You're knitting your hair,' said Renir, fully aware it sounded rid
iculous. 'It would be better to knit wool.'
'Are you knitting?'
'No, I...'
'Well, then, best keep out of it. Now, hush.'
Renir felt, even within a dream, that it was mildly rude to be told to shut up. It was his dream, after all.
'Hertha...'
'I like her, you know.'
'What? Hertha...you're not making sense.'
'The witch-woman. She's good folk.' Hertha sniffed, looked up to the ceiling and smiled. Renir realised he was observing his dead wife from above. And she looked...sad.
'You keep on knitting you're going to end up bald,' he said, trying to lighten her ghost-mood.
'Watch for the man with two faces,' she said. 'I did love you, you know. In my way.'
Renir was shocked on two fronts. Suddenly, a sense of foreboding, and then a shock to follow.
'I never...I didn't know...but I, too. I loved you, wife.'
'Just wasn't meant to be,' she said. 'Like this chair. We tried to fix it, but it was always...askance. But I loved that you tried, Renir. He hasn't really got two faces, you know. He used to have many, now he has none.'
'Hertha...slow...' but she looked back to him, and he saw she really had knitted herself bald, and in her hands she held the results for her furious knitting.
A baby, but one made entirely of her blonde hair. The babe opened its white eyes and began to wail its first breath.
Renir woke and bolted from the comfort of his bed, the freezing stone floor chasing away the last of his sleep, but the sweat still dampened his body.
*
Drun Sard, too, dreamed darkly. His breath laboured, he sweated.
A man with two heads. A man with many faces and with none.
In Drun's dream, no words passed, yet when the man with two heads and many faces and no real visage to call his own stood before him, Drun knew his own purpose was not to worship the suns or to guide Renir Esyn. No quest, no watching, no amount of knowledge gained or power would stand before this...thing.
The man took his faces away, and on the bone beneath Drun saw the history of time written in lost languages. He saw, too, that he would die by this thing's barren hands.
Drun woke, coughing, and when he lit a candle stub he saw his chest and bed both were drenched in his dark blood. His lungs, finally, were undone. To gain a single breath felt like he battled wet fire.
He had no energy to rise, nor clean himself. No strength to call for aid...and if he could?
What man could heal death?
There was none.
With a heave, he managed to pull himself to sitting. He crossed his legs and closed his eyes and entered the dream again, but this time, one of his choosing. One, he hoped, that would lead him to peace.
*
Selana never slept.
For some reason, undeath had always affected Roskel differently. He slept, like his dead body refused to forget his humanity. He has a soft heart. Always had, she thought, as he lay with his head on her chest.
She closed her eyes for a moment. It seemed to her that sorrow was better felt with eyes shut, with darkness and silence. She wanted that sorrow to fill her, so that through her long, long years, she would never forget this feeling.
Perhaps, she thought, this is what humanity is...their loss...their constant loss...
It feels...unpleasant.
But she stayed that way, with Roskel's head on her chest, while he rested, and she listened to the tiniest whisper of the wind. Down in the dark, the air was still. The wind was distant...but the wind could be heard...always.
The wind was nothing but the messenger. And this night it carried word of her brother.
'Sister, if it is you, then this is my death, my gift to you...with my death I rob them of what lives and knows the light, what little remains in them I shear away with my love. All that remains in them now is the darkness...and that, sister, if you hear me...that is your domain. This, I give to you.'
She sighed, and with her sigh released the wind back to its work.
He was ever a fool, but a beautiful one, I think. And I was never immune to the charms of this race, these humans, was I?
She smiled, there in the dark, and for a moment she cherished the feel of Roskel's weight against her.
Humanity is frail. But always, we have been their champions. Caeus in light.
And I, too...ever their champion...in the dark.
Selana placed a kiss on Roskel's lips. He murmured, but the kiss was not to wake him, but to still him. This wasn't his work. It was hers. Selana, sister of Caeus. Once, his kin, she'd chosen death and a un-life in the dark places. While he'd chosen the magelings and the rahken, she'd birthed the witch-kin. Named herself their Queen, and ruled the thieves, and held the covenant and allegiance of all the dark clans, too.
She alone could call the remaining witches. She could bind the thieves and scoundrels, the assassins and the killers.
But above all, she was the only one who understood the dark places and the dark deeds needed to end this war forever, for Selana had always understood the dead.
*
Tirielle slept, but she did not need to sleep to hear Selana's voice.
When Selana spoke, Tirielle woke, though she remained still, there in the warmth of her bed, coddled in and by the very darkness that belonged to the Witch-Queen, the Queen of Thieves...and more...more than anyone could imagine.
'Tell Renir. Tell him it is time. Caeus always had a great weakness, Tirielle...he could not see the dead.'
Tirielle listened, easily, but her small fists bunched against the covers on her bed.
'So, Caeus is dead? Was this all for nought?'
'No, child. Listen, and save your despair for it serves nothing. Listen. Caeus died, but not for nought...he was a fool, perhaps, but never would he throw away life easily. Perhaps that was his one failing. He loved life. But I am different. Death...this is my gift, one my brother refused to take. He held to his own path. My gift, Tirielle...I see both sides. He was ever the champion of the light. But he never understood that sometimes the light needs the dark.'
'I don't understand...Renir...tell him...what?'
'Tell him the end is near. Tell him when hope seems gone...when the light dies...there are still friends in the darkness. Tell him not to fear the dark. Guide him. He will need friends...he will need...you.'
'I will tell him, but today he will be a King and I am...'
'You are Tirielle A'm Dralorn and you are witch-kin and I am the COVENANT. You are my hand as you are his. Tell him he need not fear me, Tirielle. But do not mistake me. I am the dark, Tirielle. I am all that is left to the Elethyn...and I'm coming for them...'
Tirielle lay awake until dawn. And even when the first suns' light hit the shutters over her window, she knew the day would stay cold.
*
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The morning of the coronation was a strange affair. The air was still and dry, but chilled with a wind that seemed to find each crack in the Naeth Castle and whisper all together, so that it sounded as though the entire building, each stone, each tapestry, the armour of old displayed in the many halls and even the venerable weapons and shields of dead heroes strapped to the walls were all gossiping about the new King.
A strange affair, for who could give the king the crown? He already wore it. Renir elected to make the coronation more of a celebration, instead. A renewal and affirmation of the life left to all. A simple thing; him, as he was rather central to the affair, his new council and trusted friends, the Thanes, the city folk and the guard and the servants and dignitaries and functionaries of the thanedom and emmisaries of the other thanes. New accords would be hammered out, trade agreements, friendships and enemies to be forged. A new world for Renir, but one not so alien to Tirielle, not the Thane of Spar, already a fast friend to Renir, a man with no guile about him and that worked for Renir.
He rose and donned his armour. His, not the gaudy, uncomfortable thing that the Sard had o
rdered made for him. Perhaps people would call him the King in Rags, instead of the Laughing King. He didn't care. He would not pretend to be greater than the people, nor, more importantly, did the damn armour fit. He did conceded defeat and allow his manservant (Kingservant, he wondered...) Small Peter to draw him a bath.
So it was that Renir stood on a raised dias that had been constructed in the keep, looking out over his people.
My people...Renir shook his head.
Tirielle gave him an encouraging smile.
'Shall we?' said Renir to Garner, who sat on the dias. The dias was heavy with power...and armour. Renir hoped the carpenters had done their job well.
Garner nodded, and Renir stood.
'I wish...I wish,' he said, his voice echoing through the castle and city both, 'that friends and lovers, children, fathers, mothers...I wish they could be here to witness this day. This rebirth. But we have honoured our dead and well. Now? Now it is time to celebrate the living!'
*
Of the friends the new king had that still lived, Drun Sard was conspicuous in absence.
Drun still sat atop his bed.
His brothers Quintal and Cenphalph knew. He was not dead. Dying, yes. Weak, yes.
But not dead.
'Soon,' he said to his remaining brothers, communing across the distance so only they could hear his thoughts. 'Soon. Watch with care. I cannot...see...I...he has two faces and none and...soon.'
'We heed, brother,' said Quintal. He sat on the dias, his eyes closed for a moment.
'Mourn me not, brothers,' said Drun, within their minds. 'The day is for the living. Renir is right. Celebrate...when our duty is done. Mourn me not.'
'Brother,' said Quintal. 'Friend.'
The paladin who had once been a leader to the Order of the Sard opened his eyes. He pushed down his sadness, and turned his attention from Renir to the first of the emmissaries as they came forth to honour their king.
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