Children of Enchantment

by Anne Kelleher Bush

  “You know your lessons well.”

  “I have no wish to slaughter your people, Ebram-taw. Could you not tell your brethren—“

  “I am not your messenger. We are not your slaves. We are the Children of the Magic.”

  “Then use the Magic against us, Child of the Old Magic.” Amanander purred from the shadows, and the hair on the back of Roderic’s neck rose.

  The Muten looked in the direction of the sound, and Roderic had the unnerving thought that he could see Amanander in the darkness. Ebram-taw answered so quietly, Roderic had to strain to hear him. “The Magic must not be used—“

  “Must not?” Amanander flowed like a shadow into the center of the tent. “You cannot use it, though your lives might depend upon it.” He laughed, low and cruel. “Go back to your warrens.”

  The Muten drew himself up, and the muscles of his arms and chest strained against his bonds. He sat on the crude camp stool as proudly as the King upon the throne of Meriga. “We keep the memories—”

  “But can your memories keep us from your walls?”

  Roderic was confused and disturbed by Amanander’s words. There was an undertone, a meaning that Roderic could not quite grasp. “Do you know the Magic?” he asked the Muten curiously.

  Amanander stood behind the Muten like a predator poised for the kill. “It’s not enough to know it, is it, Ebram-taw? One must understand it.”

  “That is not for such as you to know.”

  “And not for such as you, either. For not one among your warriors can raise the smallest flame, shift the smallest pebble, bend the thinnest steel.” He clapped the Muten’s shoulder in a parody of comraderie, and even Roderic winced.

  “Roderic—Brand—” Reginald burst into the tent. “To arms—the camp’s attacked!” Blood ran from a wound on his leg. Brand reacted instantly. He drew his sword and ran from the tent shouting orders, with Reginald at his heels.

  Outside, soldiers ran past the open flaps, and Roderic heard the clash of metal and the thunk of arrows and spears. The guards snapped to attention as he stood up.

  “Stay here. Guard the prisoner.” He beckoned to Amanander. “Come.” As they reached the opening, Roderic hesitated and stepped aside.

  Amanander smiled. “Always cover your back, little brother. Always.”

  Then they were in the midst of the confusion. Men ran past, hastily buckling on leather armor, unsheathing swords, or slinging quivers over their shoulders.

  Black smoke billowed from tents set afire. Roderic stopped short and tried to assess the situation. Horses screamed, frightened by the fire, and the sergeants of the regiments frantically tried to rally their men into some semblance of order. His eyes watered from the smoke, and he coughed. In that instant, three white-painted Mutens attacked.

  Roderic swung his broadsword blindly, dodging the vicious slash of the long razor-edged spears. One whistled through the air near his head. He ducked and fell to one knee, wondering briefly where Amanander was. His broadsword connected with legs, and a Muten fell screaming as the tendons were severed.

  He whirled around and sliced his backstroke across another’s midsection. As another puff of smoke blinded him, he heard Brand cry: “Hold!”

  Roderic crouched, warily. A razor spear sang through the air. He blocked it, and with a swift motion, brought the Muten to its knees, the edge of his sword held against its throat. The razor spear clattered to the ground.

  “Well done, Roderic.” Brand materialized out of the hazy smoke, wiping his hands on his bloody tunic.

  “Is it over?”

  “Of course. They must have been trying to rescue Ebramtaw. I don’t know what possessed them to try it—I suppose they thought to take us unawares.”

  “How many are still alive?” Roderic prodded the Muten with the flat of his sword as two guards grabbed it by the arms and jerked it up roughly. Behind the mask of paint, its three eyes stared fixedly, its feet twisting as they dragged it away.

  “Lord Prince.” One of the lieutenants saluted. “Captain.”

  “Well?” asked Brand.

  “Thirty-five of ours dead. Twenty-three injured. One horse trampled.”

  “And them?” Roderic wiped the blood from his blade.

  “It was just a small party by their standards, Lord Prince. Forty dead. Sixteen more captives.”

  “Where are they?”

  “We’ve put them in the pen with the others. Lord Prince.”

  Slowly Roderic drew a deep breath. The light was no longer gray; through the mist, the flat red disc of the sun shone just above the tents. Red like the color of the blood on the weeds. He tried to ignore that thought and looked at the lieutenant. Blood stained his uniform, and a thin slash along his cheek seeped red droplets down his unshaven face like slow rain. Roderic stared, fascinated.

  Time seemed to slow, drag, and he turned to look at Brand with a puzzled look on his face. But Brand was staring in the other direction, and Roderic panicked. He felt a desperate urge to regain his self-control. And then, as though something deep within had been released, some savage instinct he had only felt in battle or at the hunt, uncoiled itself, and his blood began to burn.

  “Bring them here,” he said through clenched teeth and thickened tongue. A kind of slow fire seeped through his veins, one that sparked and flared at the prospect of the prisoners, bound and at his bidding. “And gather the men.” His voice sounded the same, but the words were heavy with threat.

  He looked up to see Brand frowning. “What are you planning, Roderic?”

  He avoided Brand’s gaze, and as he looked away, he saw Amanander watching from the side of the tent. His dark eyes were hooded, but his mouth was curved in a thin smile, and in the weird light of the ruddy sun, his lips were coppery red. His hand curved over and around the hilt of his dagger, caressing it like a woman’s flesh.

  Roderic felt the sudden urge to smile back. “Maybe Reginald’s right,” he said to Brand. “Maybe these animals do understand only one thing. I’d like to find out.” He gave Brand a smile that matched Amanander’s. “Bring out the prisoner,” he barked to the guards in the tent.

  When the troops had crowded around the smaller circle of captives, Roderic stood with Ebram-taw in the center, who still stood straight and unbowed. “Well, Ebram-taw, I asked you before, I ask you again. Shall we have peace? Or shall your kind be wiped out?”

  The Muten did not answer. Roderic caught a glimpse of the wary frown on Brand’s face, but before it could register, that sight was replaced by Amanander’s enigmatic smile. He signaled to two of the soldiers. One of the Muten captives was dragged out into the center. “Peace?” Roderic asked once more.

  Again, the Muten did not speak. Without another word, Roderic signaled to the guards.

  They raised their blades and began.

  It seemed to him that they knew exactly what he wanted, although he couldn’t remember giving the order. But that had to be impossible, he thought, in some rational recess of his mind that recoiled at the sight unfolding before him. He knew that though Brand stood shocked and horrified, his brother did not dare countermand his orders. Besides the urgent bloodthirst, there was a heady sense of his own power. It was like a ritual, a dance, a ceremony, for as each hacked and flayed and ruined body was dragged away, Roderic turned to Ebram-taw and put the question to him once again. “Peace?”

  And at each silence, Roderic gave again the signal, and another wretch was thrown in the red-brown mire which soon was ankle deep. Finally, when only four remained alive, Ebram-taw, agony on his face and sweat pouring from his skin, shouted “Stop!”

  Roderic shook his head. He felt dazed, drunk, as though the blood had satiated every appetite and left him sodden, stupid. The silence thickened. It seemed to be a tangible thing, one that crept and swayed with a life all its own, and Roderic knew that Amanander stood just beyond the inner circle. Something in him recoiled at the realization, and something else, some sense that this reaction was the true one, the right on
e, threw off the heavy, sickening feeling like a shroud. It seemed that the fog cleared then, though the mist was still as thick as ever, and the hot scent of the carnage before him was suffocating.

  “Peace?” he asked slowly, wonderingly.

  Ebram-taw, shoulders slumped, spoke in a hoarse and ragged voice. “Peace. I cannot kill my son.”

  Chapter Five

  On a cold day at the beginning of March, Roderic left Atland garrison, riding beside his brothers Brand and Amanander at the head of the weary army. Reginald, as the commander of the garrison, stayed behind, charged with overseeing that the terms of the peace were honored. Roderic was only too glad to turn his back on Atland at last.

  He preferred not to think about that terrible day when he had forced Ebram-taw to accept his offer of peace. The knowledge that he was capable of such cruelty was a greater burden than any other he contemplated on that long ride across the stark landscape.

  He was silent and listless for the most part on the journey across the Pulatchian Mountains. He avoided Amanander’s company altogether; there was something in Amanander’s expression when their eyes met which reminded Roderic of the bloodlust he had felt when he had ordered the soldiers to do their terrible work. He knew that Brand watched him with concern. But he did not want to know what his brothers thought of him, and in his worst moments, he wondered what the people who had known him all of his life would think of him: his tutor, Garrick, who had taught him that honor was at least as important as strategy; Brand’s wife, Jaboa, who had taught him that the weaker were to be treated with compassion, who had treated him like a son. He wondered what the scullions and stable boys would think, the ones who had been the playmates of his youth, from whom he had learned that birth is not the measure of a man’s worth. And he wondered what Phineas would say.

  Phineas—old and blind and lamed, who nonetheless was first among all his father’s advisors, the one voice Abelard listened to before and after all the others, whom Abelard trusted as he trusted no one else. It had been thus for as long as Roderic could remember. Phineas never hesitated to say what he really thought. Phineas wasn’t afraid of Abelard’s wrath. What would he say to Abelard’s heir, who had brought peace at the price of slaughter? What kind of prince—what kind of king—could he be?

  And then there was Peregrine. He began to think of her more and more as the distance from Ahga gradually shortened. He remembered the first day she had caught his eye. He had championed one of the weakest of the scullions against the others, and he remembered the admiration he had seen in her eyes. But what would she think about this? He could imagine the disgust darkening her brown eyes, her full lips pursed in disdain. What sort of man would she think he was?

  Once across the Pulatchians, riding almost due north, they followed the course of what had once been a mighty river, but now was nothing more than a trickle in the center of a deep gorge. The weather held clear, the spring promised to be mild, but nothing could lift the weight which seemed to hang like a brick around his neck. The villages they passed through were few, comprised only of a few rude shacks built by baked earth, with roofs of ancient metal, scoured bare by the ever whining wind.

  Roderic remembered that his history tutor had taught him that before the Armageddon—before the Magic-users of Old Meriga had discovered the Magic and nearly destroyed everything in their attempts to make it work—once the Arkan Plains were vast fields, where wheat and corn grew from horizon to horizon in all directions, and the whole world fed on the bread of Meriga. Roderic found that hard to believe. The land which lay around him, stretching on for miles, was a wasteland of stunted, wind-whipped trees, the earth itself worn down in many places to polished bedrock. Beside the ancient highways, twisted pieces of corroding metal lay like skeletons along the road. Roderic shuddered at the ruin. How could the men of Old Meriga have allowed such a terrible thing as the Magic to be used? Had they no idea of the cost?

  In the villages, ragged children stood in doorways, with dirty fingers in mouths full of rotted teeth. At the first such place they stopped, Roderic was so horrified by their plight that he ordered the food and blankets be shared with the villagers.

  In a dry voice, Brand remarked that if the Prince intended to distribute goods at every place they passed, they would have nothing left for themselves for the long march back to Ahga.

  Frustrated by the truth of Brand’s observations, feeling helpless, Roderic dictated orders to his scribe for the relief of the villagers to be sent on to Ahga.

  The scribe said nothing as he penned the Prince’s words, though he looked at him with something like pity when Roderic finished.

  “What is it?” Roderic picked up the pen the scribe offered.

  The man only pushed the paper closer and said nothing.

  “You look as if you want to say something. Well, speak, Henrode. Do you think I’m wrong?”

  “Lord Prince, it is not for me to question your orders. It is not for me to offer counsel or advice.”

  “I’m not asking for either. Just say what you have on your tongue.”

  “Do you think there is more misery here, Lord Prince, than elsewhere in Meriga? There are those who live in the shadow of the walls of Ahga who have not much more than these. Will you order them fed as well? You will bankrupt the treasury and exhaust our food stores.”

  “But what else can I do? These people are my father’s subjects. They look to me for protection. How can I leave them in such misery, without hope?”

  “The Ridenaus never sought to alleviate people’s suffering. That would be impossible. You fulfill your obligation if you preserve the peace of this land. That is your task, Lord Prince. Not to feed the hungry or clothe the naked. If you could rid these lands of the Outlaw Harleys, they might some day be able to provide for themselves. But there is no point in you giving them things which others will only take away.”

  In disgust, Roderic tore up the parchment and reached for his cloak. Outside, night had fallen, and in the black sky, countless stars glittered. Heaven itself is more populated than this lifeless land, he thought as he walked the perimeter of the camp, watching the fires of his men flicker in the dark.

  Beyond the camp, nothing moved. A sentry came to attention and raised his spear. “Who’s there?”

  “The Prince Regent.”

  “Your pardon, Lord Prince,” the guard answered, but his spear remained high until Roderic came closer and pushed the hood back from his face.

  Roderic stood within the circle of the watchfire and held his hands over the flames. “It’s cold tonight.”

  “Indeed it is, Lord Prince.” The sentry lowered the spear and leaned upon it. “What’re you doing out on a night like this, when you could be warm inside your tent?”

  “It’s not so warm inside. Besides, I’ve never seen a land like this.”

  “Nor did you ever want to, I bet.”

  “It’s so empty.” Roderic raised his hood and tucked the ends firmly around his neck.

  “Empty?” The grizzled sentry snorted. “So much blood’s been spilled on these plains, I wonder the old river don’t run red with it. This is my twenty-seventh year in the army, Lord Prince, and I’ve spent most of them in places much like this.”

  “It’s not the place I’d choose to be.”

  “This is better than some. Farther south, this turns into swamp, and you’ve no idea of what misery is until you spend a night breathing the stink from the poison pits. The mists hang in the air, and deeper in the desert, the beastworms hunt at night. Believe me, Lord Prince, cold and empty is not so bad.”

  Roderic nodded and continued on his way. The few shacks which made up the village were almost indistinguishable in the starlight from the rocks piled along the ancient gorge. From the low black shapes no light shone, no smoke issued, and nothing marked it as a place of human habitation. As Roderic stood and watched, a cry rose out of the dark, high and wailing, the sound giving voice to all the misery of that wretched place. It made the hair a
t the back of his neck stand up as gooseflesh rippled down his arms. Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped, and the night was once more quiet under the silent stars.

  Was it not for these that the Ridenau Kings had striven to unite the Estates of Meriga? he wondered. His father and Garrick and all his tutors had stressed repeatedly that a united Meriga was a stronger Meriga, a Meriga at peace. And yet what was the good of that peace, if it were only for the strong? A united realm was his birthright—Abelard had charged him over and over again to keep the kingdom whole. And yet, what was it that Phineas had said, one day, as Roderic had watched his father preside over the Court of Appeals? “It is a sacred trust,” the old man had said from where he lay, propped upon pillows on his litter on the floor. “A sacred trust between you and your people, as sure a pledge-bond as any made between the King and the Congress.” Roderic looked out over the bleak landscape. He was, he supposed, as well prepared as his father could have made him for the task at hand. But what about this other trust, he wondered, this other bond, unspoken and unacknowledged by most? He had the unsettling feeling that little had prepared him for that.

  He started to find a tall, dark shape standing by his side, well-wrapped against the weather.

  “Sleepless night?” Brand’s voice was muffled almost beyond recognition by the depths of the hood which covered most of his face.

  “Brand.” Roderic wondered why he felt so relieved to realize it was his oldest brother who stood beside him in the dark. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Looking for you. A messenger came in from Ahga a few minutes ago.”

  “What now?” Beneath his cloak, his shoulders tensed involuntarily.

  “The Senadors are beginning to arrive at the Convening. Let’s walk a bit, shall we?” For a few minutes Brand said nothing. “We haven’t had much chance to talk, you and I. Not since Amanander arrived.” The soil crunched beneath their feet, brittle as old bones, and Roderic waited for his brother to continue. “Now that he’s in his tent there’re things I thought at first that Phineas should tell you—but I don’t think it’s wise to wait. The Convening is scheduled for the first day of Prill. Most of the Senadors are expected, and at this pace, we’ll get there just in time. But I think you should know that Amanander may make a bid for the throne—and Alexander will probably support him.”