Braumin started to answer, but truly had no reply, and so he just stood there, shaking his head.
“You know who he is, of course,” De’Unnero continued. “You know that Duke Kalas announced him honestly. Jilseponie came through here and told you.”
“Told me the truth of this monster, Aydrian,” Braumin replied.
“The truth?” De’Unnero mused, and he moved inside the doorway and stepped to the side. “That is a curious term. So many truths are bantered about, are they not? The truth of Markwart. The truth of Avelyn. The truth of Father Abbot Fio Bou-raiy. Abbot Olin might not agree with that last one.”
“It is not his place to disagree with the College of Abbots.”
“An infallible body indeed,” said De’Unnero. “Here is your truth, Brother Braumin. Aydrian, the son of Jilseponie, the son of Elbryan, is king of Honce-the-Bear. The noblemen support him. The army supports him. The Church supports him.”
Braumin stared at him doubtfully.
“Oh, not the imposter church of Father Abbot Bou-raiy and misguided Braumin Herde. The real Abellican Church, rising once more from the disaster that was Avelyn. Aydrian is king of Honce-the-Bear. That, Brother Braumin, is the truth.”
Braumin steeled his gaze at the hated De’Unnero.
“It is a pity that you cannot see that,” De’Unnero went on. “We are enemies only by your choosing.”
Braumin nearly choked at that remark.
“I do not hate you, brother, though I know you are misguided,” said De’Unnero. “I offer you now a chance to reassess your actions, to see the light of the former and greater Abellican Church.”
“Spare me your lies!” Braumin interrupted strongly, and when De’Unnero laughed again, he added, “And your mercy!”
Braumin started forward then to attack the monk, though he knew that De’Unnero would surely and easily dispatch him. He stopped short, though, as another figure entered the room.
“Meet your new king,” remarked De’Unnero, who had not even flinched at the charge.
“Greetings, Brother Braumin,” said Aydrian. “I have heard so much about you.”
“Save your soft words for those who do not understand the truth of Aydrian,” Braumin countered as strongly as he could manage, though he was surely shaken by the spectacle of the young king in his shining silver-and-gold armor, at the gemstones glittering across his metal breastplate, at the familiar sword strapped at his hip. “How dare you come here in conquest?”
“How dare you deny me entrance?” Aydrian calmly asked.
“If you are the rightful king, then you have nothing to fear from us, for when Prince Midalis accepts you as such, the people of Palmaris—”
Braumin stopped, unable to breathe, as an invisible hand clamped upon his throat. He could hardly believe the strength of that magical grasp, denying him breath, even lifting him up to his tiptoes.
Braumin surely thought his life would end then and there, but Aydrian’s magical hand let him go. He nearly fell over, his hands going to his throat.
“Brother Braumin,” Aydrian began, slowly and deliberately, “the people of Palmaris, the people of all Honce-the-Bear, will accept me as their king, or they will be put out. It is that simple.”
“Murdered, you mean,” Braumin managed to gasp in response.
“A king defends his kingdom,” said De’Unnero.
“But you can help to prevent that tragedy,” Aydrian said to him. “It need not lead to violence and death.”
Braumin looked up at him, the now-former bishop’s eyes narrowing. “You wish to manipulate me into approval, in the hopes of securing Palmaris against the doubts that will grow when the rightful king marches south from Vanguard,” he reasoned, spitting every word with utter contempt. “I will say nothing to aid the usurper Aydrian!”
Aydrian smiled and looked at De’Unnero, then back at Braumin. His smile only widening, the young king held up a gray stone, the same color as the stone that Braumin held in his hands.
“Or perhaps Bishop Braumin will say whatever Aydrian wants him to say,” the sinister De’Unnero replied.
That voice was with me on the battlefield, guiding my hand—the same voice that I found in the mirror at Oracle.
I still do not know what it is!
The Touel’alfar taught me that humans are not immortal. I am doomed to die, in flesh and in consciousness. I and all akin to me are doomed to nothingness. And yet, at the same time, the Touel’alfar taught me Oracle, that state of meditation where I could find my way in the darkness. At Oracle, I am supposedly guided by my forebears, by Elbryan the Nightbird, my father. But if Elbryan is no more, if his consciousness is gone, rotted with his body, then how do I subsequently contact him? Or do I? Is Oracle, perhaps, merely a place where I can more deeply see that which is in my own mind? This is what I initially believed it to be. Were my instincts correct from the very beginning?
There’s the confusion, for I know from personal experience that Elbryan’s consciousness lives on. When I went to the grave of Elbryan and claimed Tempest and Hawkwing as my own, I reached that spirit and pulled it forth! I nearly pulled it completely from the realm of death, and believe that I could have done so, had I chosen to pursue that course!
Is it that the spirit lives on, but is trapped in emptiness unless brought forth by a living person, such as at Oracle or on the cold field that day by Elbryan’s grave? Do we become in death huddled and trapped blurs, shadows of what we once were, and wholly dependent upon another conscious, free-acting being to summon the power to temporarily break us out of death’s bondage?
It is an intriguing thought, for if that is the case, then is there, within the gemstones, a way for me truly to cheat death? To live on beyond the span of Lady Dasslerond’s years? To live on forever? Is there, within the gemstones, a way in which I might offer eternal life to those around me?
This is what Duke Kalas believes, and it is the only reason he follows me so devoutly. On one level, Kalas knows me as a usurper, as the one who stole the throne from the bloodline of his beloved friend and king. Kalas hates my mother and was no friend to my father—and the duke steadfastly believes—or rather, believed—that the throne of Honce-the-Bear must be reserved for the select few who are properly bred to be king. And yet, he is one whose loyalty I do not doubt, not for one instant. I hold Duke Kalas solidly in my court because he was dead, by my hand, and I gave him back his life! Duke Kalas, who long ago lost faith in the Abellican Church, who long ago lost all of his faith, now sees in me the promise, or at least the hope, of immortality.
He will never go against me.
Can I offer that which he so desires? Am I the way to eternity? I honestly do not know. Twice now I have waged battle with death, and in neither instance was I impressed by the netherworld’s grasp on the departed spirit. And there may be something more, something tangible and physical—a joining of mind and body and spirit in a union untouched by pain and age. The shadow in the mirror has hinted of this, has told me quietly that I can achieve such a union through the powers of the hematite and that in that state, I will be beyond the reach of spears and disease and death itself. Perhaps I will find my answers, to my own immortality and to that of those around me. Perhaps I will find my answers, will find all the answers, within the swirl of a soul stone.
It is all too confusing, I fear, and all too distracting. Of one thing I am certain: only the great are remembered. Those people who stand above the populace, those people who stand above the kings, they are the ones spoken of as the years become decades and the decades become centuries.
It is my destiny to rule. I know that. The voice on the field, be it that of Elbryan or one merely expressing that which is in my own thoughts and heart, speaks truly. I prefer that my march be a peaceful one. I do not enjoy the killing. But I know I lead the world to a better place. I know that when Aydrian is king of all mankind, the world will come to realize greater peace and prosperity than ever before. And so the end result is worth t
he bloodstains of the ignorant. And so those who die in the name of King Aydrian are dying to create a better world.
It is in this knowledge and confidence that I am able to deny the screams of the dying. It is in this sense of destiny that I find my way along the road of life.
There was another voice on the field outside of Palmaris that day. When I hesitated, there was one beside me, reminding me.
Sadye has come to understand my march. Sadye, wise Sadye, knows the profound difference between mortality and immortality, between living and surviving, between invigorating excitement and deathly routine. She fears nothing. She shrinks from no challenge. She engaged Marcalo De’Unnero because he was the weretiger, not in spite of that fact. She exists on the very edge of disaster because she knows that only there can a person be truly alive. She is keeping me there, as well, herding my march along a straight and determined line. She is holding me on a precipice, and the stronger the wind that blows behind us, threatening to blow us over that cliff face, the wider is her smile.
Sadye knows.
—KING AYDRIAN BOUDABRAS
Chapter 10
His Widening Sphere of Influence
FOR AS LONG AS ANYONE COULD REMEMBER, THE PIPING OF THE FOREST GHOST had haunted the forests of the Timberlands about the towns of Dundalis, Weedy Meadow, and End o’ the World. And so it was this night, the delicate melody drifting through the trees, seeming so much a part of the night that many of the folk of Dundalis did not even notice until a friend pointed it out.
The three visitors to the town surely marked the piping of the Forest Ghost as soon as it had drifted in on the evening breeze, though, for they had come here in the hopes of finding that very piper.
“Bradwarden,” Roger Lockless said with great reverence. “It is good to hear his music once again.”
“I’m thinking that Pony’s agreein’ with ye,” Dainsey remarked with a smirk. She stared at Pony, drawing Roger’s gaze there, as well.
There sat Pony, on the front porch of Fellowship Way, the town’s single tavern, her eyes closed and rocking gently in rhythm with the music.
Roger and Dainsey looked to each other and smiled wistfully, glad to see that a measure of calm had come to tortured Pony’s beautiful face. They let her sit there for a long, long while, basking in the moonlight and the melody, before Roger finally remarked, “Bradwarden is not far.”
Pony opened her eyes sleepily and looked over at the couple.
“Shall we go?” Roger asked her.
Pony hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “Not we,” she said. “I wish to speak with Bradwarden alone, at first.”
Roger hid the wounded look before it could blossom on his face.
“ ’Course ye do!” Dainsey said. “But ye best be goin’, then. Bradwarden’s not one to stay about for long, from all that I heard o’ him.”
“You heard right,” Pony agreed, and she pulled herself from the wooden chair and straightened her breeches and tunic, pointedly adjusting the pouch of gemstones hanging on her belt at her right hip. With a nod to her friends, she started away, skipping down the few steps to the main road of Dundalis village. With a look around at the quiet routines of the Dundalis night, she headed straight out to the north.
The forest night swallowed her in its profound blackness, but Pony was not the slightest bit afraid. These were the haunts of her childhood, where she and Elbryan had run the same trails that she moved along now. Far out of town, the music floating in the air all about her, she seemed no closer to finding Bradwarden than when she had been sitting on the porch. That was part of the centaur’s magic. His song was simply part of the night and never seemed to emanate from anywhere specifically. It was just a general tune, filtering fully about the trees. Standing there, turning slowly, Pony could not begin to guess the direction of the piper.
With a determined nod, a reminder to herself of what Dasslerond had done to her, the woman reached into her gemstone pouch and brought forth a hematite, a soul stone. She moved it in close to her breast and closed her eyes, focusing her thoughts on the smooth feel of the gray stone. There was a depth to this one above all the other enchanted gemstones, an inviting richness, and into that gray swirl went Pony’s thoughts, and into that gray swirl went Pony.
She escaped her mortal coil and moved out, looking back at herself as she stood motionless, clutching the stone that had become the link between her body and her spirit.
Free of her mortal bonds, Pony soared out on the same night breezes that carried the centaur’s melody. She floated up high, above the canopy, and willed herself along at great speed, covering the distance more quickly than even mighty Symphony ever could.
When she found Bradwarden, she found, too, a warmth in her heart as profound as that she had felt when she had first seen Braumin and Roger again. There he was, eight hundred pounds of muscle. From a distance, an ignorant onlooker might have thought him a large rider on a small bay mount, but up close it became evident that the rider and mount were one and the same, for Bradwarden’s muscular human torso, waist up, rose where the neck of his horse body should have begun.
Intent on his music, the centaur’s eyes were closed as he held the bagpipes tucked under his powerful arm, while his hands worked the many openings along its neck. His hair was still black and wild, with a full beard and great curly locks, and though he was older now, no slackness had come into his corded muscles. The centaur looked as if he could crush stone under that powerful arm as easily as he was squeezing the air out of his musical pipes.
Pony’s spirit slipped down near to him and hovered about for a few moments, until the centaur, apparently sensing the presence, popped open wide his intense eyes. His song ended with a discordant shriek.
The centaur glanced all around, seeming on his guard and confused.
Pony didn’t move her spirit any closer. One of the great risks of spirit-walking was the ever-present instinct of the spirit to dive into a corporeal body. Spirit-walking was a prelude to possession, and possession, Pony knew, was nothing to be taken lightly. Still, the woman dared to reach out to Bradwarden, to impart to him a rush of warmth and friendship.
“Bah, but it can’no be,” he muttered, and then he blinked and looked about curiously, for the sensation was gone.
With Bradwarden located, Pony wasted no time in setting out as soon as her spirit rushed back through the soul stone and into her corporeal body. She had marked the way well and knew enough of the area to measure accurately the distance and the time it would take her to reach the piping centaur. When she heard the song renewed, she gained confidence, and a bit of a smile, that she had reassured Bradwarden enough to keep him in place.
A short while later, the piping stopped again, but this time it wasn’t because Bradwarden had felt the presence of a ghost, but rather, that he had recognized the presence of a dear old friend.
“Ah, so many’re the times I’ve wondered if I might be seein’ ye again, Pony o’ Dundalis!” he said as she walked out of the shadows of the trees before him.
Pony’s lips began to move, but she couldn’t begin to get a word out at that moment, and so she just rushed across the small clearing and leaped up against the centaur, wrapping him in a tight hug.
“The queen is out without an army at her side?” Bradwarden asked, finally managing to push her back to arm’s length. “But yer husband’d not be happy by that …”
He stopped and looked at her curiously.
“My husband is no more,” Pony admitted. “King Danube has passed from this world.”
“Then ye’re on yer way to find Prince Midalis,” the centaur reasoned, but his tone was quite telling to Pony, revealing to her that he held more trepidation at her announcement than perhaps he should have.
“When Prince Midalis comes through here, it will be at the head of his army,” Pony replied. “And that army had better be a formidable one if he is to hold any hopes of taking the throne that is rightfully his.”
Bradwa
rden looked at her knowingly and slowly nodded.
“You knew of him,” Pony stated.
“Midalis?”
Pony shook her head and stepped back, out of the centaur’s reach. “Do not play coy with me, Bradwarden. For too long, we have been friends. How many enemies have we stood against, side by side? Was it not Bradwarden himself who saved me and Elbryan at the Barbacan after we did battle with the demon dactyl?”
“Oh, but don’t ye go reminding me o’ that!” the centaur wailed dramatically, his tone going lighter. “Ye got no way o’ knowin’ how much a mountain hurts when it falls on ye, woman! Ye got—”
He stopped short, for Pony stared at him hard, not letting him change the subject and wriggle away so easily.
“You knew of him,” Pony said again, sternly. “And I speak not of Prince Midalis. I speak of Aydrian, my son, and you knew of him!”
Bradwarden’s lips tightened and seemed to disappear beneath his thick beard and mustache.
“You did!” Pony accused. “And you did not tell me! Were you in league with Lady Dasslerond all along, then? Do you find it so easy to deceive someone you name as friend?”
“No!” the centaur shot back. “And no.” His voice softened, as did his expression. “I met yer boy two years ago, when winter began its turn to spring. He had Tempest and Hawkwing, and had brought Symphony to his side.”
“So I have learned,” Pony said bitterly.
“Ah, but it’s a sad day for all the creatures o’ the world when Symphony’s at the side o’ that one,” the centaur lamented. “And no, woman, I was no party to Lady Dasslerond on this, and though I’ve e’er seen the wisdom o’ the Touel’alfar, never before has such a mistake been made.”
“You’ve known for years, and yet you did not come to me and tell me,” said Pony in the voice of a friend betrayed, a voice thick with sadness and disappointment.
“And how might I be doing that?” the centaur said. “Ye’re thinking I might be galloping into Ursal to talk to the queen?”
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 188
