“Beauregard…well, I would have said he’s about the most handsome man I’ve seen, until I met the Everfair King. He’s dark-haired, but fair in the face, and with a spot of freckles and a birthmark on his cheek that looks like the one true star of the North. I feel he is a great man, and I hope that he is alive to see that destiny through. His father, Devlin Fischer, is about as tough and tall as those changelings in a faery story: a bear, perhaps. My bear. You’d know him to see him; just look for the largest, hairiest man in the room. If you hear of them…” She was unable to finish, and embarrassed now that she had prattled on for so long. She turned to hurry off. “Don’t mind my troubles, please forget what I have said,” she muttered.
“I shall not. Neither their names nor their fates,” swore Magnus. His statement made her buckle at the knees, though she did not look back and was choked on a sadness.
“We are nothing if not the value of our word,” said Magnus to his hammer. “I do not make promises that I cannot keep. You know this, Erithitek.”
“I do.”
Then the king’s mood shifted, and Erik felt as if he were standing next to a block of ice. On the one hand, this was not an altogether unwelcome change from the heat. On the other, Erik understood where the king’s temperament was and could not stop his mind from slipping into thoughts on seasons. Winter particularly, and he was certain that he would see the king’s before all was said and done. He wondered what mark it would leave on the world. Another Lake Tesh, only frozen? All of Mor’Keth imprisoned in a glacier? Or a third untenable, imaginative devastation that would scar Geadhain beyond belief? Although he had never truly feared this man, as he shivered in the cold that grew greater and greater and flurried the air about them with snowflakes, as he saw the black winter storm brewing in Magnus’s eyes, he felt that he should.
II
As the king had told Tabitha, the Watchmen of Eod were a force to be reckoned with, and a battlefield of mortal strife was no exception. When Tabitha returned to Willowholme, it was to a flurry of fastidiousness: silver men shouting her people into orderly lines and dispensing waterskins from sorcerers; these shirtless, sweating men—and shirted women—who stood over buckets and squeezed liquid from the air itself as if it were a sopping cloth. Tabitha had not met many sorcerers, only the ones who discovered their craft and quickly left for cultured cities to train in, and she paused to watch their miracles. After a speck, the itching frostbitten ring around her wrist reminded her of another sorcerer, a man whose very touch could bring winter, and she hurried off to the responsibilities he had imparted to her.
Everywhere she went in Willowholme, the Silver Watch had arrived beforehand, and it was far easier to inform her kinfolk that they were about to become refugees once they’d been plied with food, blankets, and the care of fleshbinders. This uncanny art, fleshbinding, fascinated her as much the conjuring of elements: how these sorcerers reached under people’s skin and moved bits about like putty was equal parts grotesque and fascinating, and she tried not to become distracted by it. As she bustled along the ground and under the latticework of the trees above, delivering her message and witnessing wonders, she often returned to the king’s words. His insistence that change was imminent—and catastrophic, from the sound of it. The more she considered their meeting, the more pronounced his melancholy became, as well.
Throughout the day, in fleeting moments, she saw the king around; removed from his armor and dirty as a common man in wear and work. He was always fixing something: a person, a cart to be readied for the mortal migration, even the shoe on a child’s foot. No task was too small or too far beneath him, and while she respected this, she felt that much of it was penance. Whatever he spoke of back on the shore of Lake Tesh, these seasons and promises, the reason for his army marching south, it would end in tragedy. And she pitied him for it. She didn’t know why, and more than once she stopped to hold her tears as she thought of his sad, stormy beauty.
With evening’s kiss, the heat reduced itself to a muggy sweat. All the people of Willowholme, from the smallest to the eldest, had learned of their new fate and agreed to it. The wagons were loaded and drawn in a circle down the stone road from the king’s snaking camp, and Willowholme was darker than it had been since Lake Tesh was untouched in the wilderness. Tabitha had promised the king music, and that he would have. She rallied her kinfolk and their lutes, harps, flutes, and drums, and made a procession from their encampment down the stone road. King Magnus had been humble when praising the musicians of Willowholme, for here was the birthplace of some of Geadhain’s greatest minstrels. That night, they showed the Silver Watch what sort of magik they could weave: a miracle without sorcery that coordinated hands, voices, and hearts. Up and down the stone road, the people marched, so that all could hear them. And while war had not been mentioned—not by Tabitha or anyone—they sang songs of victory for the king’s men and songs of glory for when men fell with a sword.
In the morning, when Tabitha woke, it was to the earthquake of the legions heading south. Along with the other survivors of Willowholme, she raced to the road and shouted and wept for their safety in the South. As strange as the sentiment was, as implausible the notion that her family’s fate was somehow intrinsic to the mind and motives of the Everfair King, she felt that he would keep his promise. That he would bring her husband and son home. Once the dust faded, and even as the night fell on the caravan’s first day north, she held this promise to her, wishing upon it like a star, and certain that it would come true.
III
Even for men born in the desert, the heat was unbearable. As their horses made a dusty drumbeat over the fractured and ancient stones of the Bridge of Summer, the army’s mounts and soldiers huffed to make use of the syrupy air that stuck to their throats. Tabitha had been fair in her warning about the nauseating smell of Lake Tesh farther on, and the king and his sorcerers had to weave nets of wind to push the foulness away. Even so, the undercurrent of rot lingered, and the sight of sun-split fish coating the lake like scales on a dead leviathan left a taint in the mind that was just as unpleasant. The army crossed the bridge as the sun began to set, yet they were not granted the cool respite of evening, and against what they understood of nature, the land continued to stoke itself hotter. In the wavering heat, the desiccated grasslands took on the illusion of a savannah. Many men among them did not know how green and lush this land should appear, and it was simply another misery to add to a long, growing list. But the king knew the land differently, and saw dust instead of loam, dry veins instead of brooks, and insects and snakes, with not a furry creature to be found. Since they had committed almost half of their remaining provisions to the people of Willowholme, hunting in this wasteland would be a challenge, and the going from here on would be a hungry march, indeed. Magnus worried not so much over this as he did over what was causing the land’s dehydration. He was not, therefore, paying attention to material matters, certainly not as much as the unceasingly vigilant Erik, who noticed the wisps of smoke in the distance before the king, the scouts, or anyone else did. When Erik alerted his master, the king waved him away to investigate, and the hammer and a dozen other riders charged toward the signal on the horizon.
They rode hard and fast to the east of the king’s line, aiming for a cluster of hills to which a haze clung like the smoldering of a dead campfire. This was an old fire, Erik realized, the remains of a blaze long burned out, but so fierce at its height that it had polluted the area with ash. From across the stale air, it summoned them with promises of doom, and it did not disappoint as they cleared the hills and descended into a scorched valley of matchstick houses. Whatever village had been here was once grand and quite verdant, if judging by the withered trees that remained. The scouting party trotted through the wreckage, covering their mouths with their cloaks, shaking their heads, and wandering without much direction, for even their steeds could not make sense of the destruction. Among the black silt, they found puddles of cooled metal or tangles of wire, but no
thing with the frailty of paper, leather, or wood had survived the temperatures of the flames. No bones, either, and Erik could not decide whether it was a relief that these people were still alive, or a sadness that they were still alive and had been stolen for a darker fate than death. Magik, was Erik’s thought for all of this, for nothing but a sorcerer’s flame smelled so strongly of sulfur or burned hotter. Those with the hammer shared in this silent observance. He could see their concern over mystic powers at work carved on their faces like cruel scars. Once the scouts had dwelled long enough to paint themselves and their white steeds in soot, they rode from the ruins. The king had not waited for Erik and his riders, and it was not until dusk that they caught up with the nighttime fires of the army. The scouts rode through the camp bearing dark tidings with their stained presences, and while men wondered what the message was, they did not ask for fear of the answer. At the warmaster’s circle, the riders broke apart, and Erik approached the nine warlords and their pale king, all wise and still as owls upon their logs around the fire. Erik removed his helmet and bowed to his liege.
“What did you find?” asked the king.
“A village,” he replied. “Burned to the soil it was raised upon. Only magik could have laid waste like we saw.”
“Survivors?”
“I cannot say, my King. There were no bodies for me to make a claim for or against the living.”
“No bodies?”
“Not even a tooth.”
“I see,” said the king. He stood and dumped his cup onto the fire, which rose and sparked gloriously. “There are bodies, I am certain: able bodies, working bodies, bodies for foot soldiers, slaves, and whatever other meat cogs Brutus needs for his war machine. If they are not dead, those people are elsewhere. I believe that I have underestimated my brother. I had believed him to be a rabid beast, loose and mad. Yet he seems to be more cunning than I expected. He is prepared for us, likely more prepared than we are ourselves.”
Walking away, Magnus abandoned his warmasters with that chilly notion to tuck into their bedrolls and guarantee them a restless sleep. Erik ran after his master and found him reading the stars of the South, looking for a meaning or sign, perhaps, to tell them how doomed they could be.
IV
The days fled while the army marched farther south. There was no end to the heat, to the furnace they had entered, and when the men looked up to the shimmering skies they could imagine themselves walking upon the sun. What had begun as a plain became a wasteland where the dusty soil split like the lips of a desert castaway, and no life but the smallest and many-legged crawled. By night, the land was so viciously heated that just as relief would come, the dawn returned. For the army, there was little rest, less conversation, and dwindling food to quiet even the despair of their stomachs. They were hard men, though, and brave men, and it was their spirits that kept them moving ahead.
Each day this mettle was tested, though, as they passed another deserted and scorched tract that had once been a village. Whatever culling the mad Sun King had commanded, it had taken all the fiefs in his lands. Before long, the scouting parties were sent out no more, and if someone spotted a black haze, he turned his stare back to the road ahead and mentioned it to no one. Alone the soldiers marched, through sand and blistering heat, as if they were the sole wanderers in a primeval time that only Magnus and his brother had seen. Magnus thought of these earlier eras often; with every hoofbeat closer to Zioch, he slipped deeper into his state of waking memory. In those vast silences, where even the shuffling and clank of the army faded to a meditative hum no different than the thrumming of rain, Magnus lived amid the glories and strife of his long, long life. He was looking for the thread that had unraveled his brother, looking for whatever weakness had turned Brutus into this defiler of life, and yet he could not discover a single cause. Only a multitude of smaller signs precipitating the decay into madness.
We who slept like cubs in the Long Winter, you who nursed me like a mother with your blood. When I left you for Lila, any man with a head outside his bliss could have foreseen how you would have perceived my choice. Betrayal. Here I thought we were being men apart, learning to live above our natures. But you never wanted that, did you, Brutus? How long has that hate festered in you? That jealously and abandonment? How much has it worn down your spirit to let the dark voice in? I still hate you, my brother. I shall still rip you raw with thunder and ice for what you have done, but I shall do so with love as well as fury. We have drawn this line, and we shall cross it together. I made a terrible mistake for choosing to live as man. When this is over, if we cannot die, if you are to suffer for all eternity, then I shall do what I should have done a thousand years ago. I shall never leave you again.
Again and again, Erik watched his master sparkle with frost under the dreadful sun and knew that terrible broodings were taking place. But he offered the king no counsel, as he knew that this mood could not be broken by words. Erik’s own miseries kept him occupied anyhow, for the black villages and enervating march across a lifeless landscape were tipping the scales away from victory. What awaited them in Mor’Keth was uncertainty, and there was a chance that he would have to use the king’s gambit. While he knew he should not, he fondled the cold talisman the king had given him—playing with it when the camp was asleep or the king was lost in one of his trances—and pondered his responsibilities, each of them more than a man should bear himself.
Warn a kingdom. Prepare for a war. Protect the queen.
The third thought repeated itself more than the rest, and with the delirious heat, he found himself reflecting upon the queen, even though he had vowed to abstain from such fancies. His feelings were a weakness, and he should not be indulging them so near to battle. And yet he was no worse than the men and women whom he would see from time to time caressing a locket with a cameo of someone they loved back in Eod. Only she doesn’t love you, you fool, he would spit to himself. She was only kind to you in the most innocent of ways, and you have distorted her kindness into something it was not. But the mind played tricks of that fated instance, and no matter how many times he played the scene in his mind, he was no less convinced that he had imagined that spark, that connection.
He isn’t happy with the assignment: playing porter to Queen Lila while her Sword Rowena is away on unexplained business that he is told does not concern him. A woman’s troubles, he thinks, matters of which he is as innocent as a schoolboy, for he does not seek the company of women or know much about how they work. He does not seek the company of men, either. He has himself, which is enough, and a few quick sands of tugging when the desire boils in him like a kettle of lust that needs to be poured out. But otherwise, sex is a distraction from duty; release is a necessary oil to one’s armor, and it should be done as efficiently and frequently as the weekly hammering out of the kinks in one’s plate.
The presence of gyrating women in silk shawls is what has brought on these odd, distracting thoughts. He squints them away and makes note to tend to his desire tonight, lest it continue its imbalance in his humors. The Faire of Fates is busy today: Carthacian traders bickering over the value of their rarities, rivermen from the Feordhan all but throwing salted fish at passersby, the well-fed urchins of Eod doing tricks like trained dogs for fates. Still, danger can come from any shape, young or old, and he watches them all as if they hold a knife in their hands. His great feliron hammer might be upon his back, but it is a speck’s reach and a cat’s reflex away.
In an hourglass, they have completed whatever mysterious womanly duties the queen has set out for herself—visits to silk shops and perfumeries and bakers—and they are leaving the Faire of Fates when they pass the most obvious threat: a platform on which a wizened, manic-stared man rants about the injustices brought on since the Nine Laws. Since it has been only a decade since the Charter was written, not all of Eod’s citizens are happy with the decree that all men are equal. Some would have things return to the simpler state of master and lesser men, and it is known by
the court that the Iron sages of Menos secretly funnel coin to Eod to feed these dissenting voices and organizations, which the king has not cracked down upon, as the divisiveness of opinions is a quality of a free nation. After this incident, Magnus’s perception and ruling on radical voices will change.
“We are not the same! Not equal, not by blood, name, or right! None of us!” screams the anarchist. For a frothing madman, he has drawn a considerable crowd: the drunk and angry poor—men who can no longer use the excuse of class disparity for their failures; haughty masters and their trembling servants; and rough strangers in cloaks, who would be the sort upset when the Silver Watch did checks on their skycarriages to find people in chains.
“Why, then, do we still have a king?” continues the anarchist. “If all are supposed to be equal? Why do we not tear down the palace, tear down King’s Crown, and see this dream of privilege for all fully realized? Why am I—and you and he and they—made lesser than what we were yesterday, while our king rules the same as before? No charter, I say! No laws! No king to rule and certainly”—the anarchist has spotted the regiment; he points toward it and roars—“no queen!”
A roar is met by the crowd around him, and the hateful stares turn to the queen and her company. This is the perfect storm for violence, an alignment of forces and fates that could only have been arranged by the wickedest Menosian mind—although this will never be proven. Foolishly, the queen makes matters worse by halting her procession and trying to beseech the madman for calm. But her charm will not work on persons so filled with hate, and before she has even made a small pardon, the first stone is tossed. As the hammer, he is vigilant, he is a living weapon, and he sees the cruel old woman in the crowd reach into her kirtle and rear her arm back. His reflexes have moved faster than her malice, however, and he has spun his steed and intercepted the stone with his body. That act shatters the delicateness of the situation, and violence crashes out in a tidal wave: a wave of shouting bodies and fists and weapons drawn from hidden pockets.
Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) Page 53
