by Jim Butcher
“Thank you,” Tavi said quietly. “Are you finished with me?”
Foss nodded and seemed to gather himself, focusing on his job. His voice reclaimed its confidence and strength as he did. “I cleaned the wound and closed it. You’ll need to drink plenty of water and get plenty of food. Red meat is best. Get a good night’s rest. And I’d rather see you on a wagon than a horse tomorrow.”
“We’ll see,” Tavi said.
“Sir,” Foss said, “this time you need to trust me.”
Tavi eyed him and found himself smiling. He waved a hand. “All right, all right. If it will stop you from nagging. Done.”
Foss grunted in satisfaction, saluted, and departed the tent.
“Crassus,” Tavi said, “we’re near enemy territory. Make sure the earth furies have been positioned to spot any takers. And get those Canim pickets out as far as you can. Their night vision is invaluable right now.”
“I know,” Crassus said. “I know, Captain. Get some rest. We’ll make sure we survive until morning.”
Tavi started to give Crassus another string of warnings and instructions but forced himself to close his mouth. He was tired enough to make it remarkably easy. He and Max and the rest of the Legion would do their jobs properly even without Tavi telling them all how to do it. After all, what was the point in all that training and discipline if they didn’t get the chance to display their capability once in a while?
He sighed, and said, “Fine, fine. I can take the hint. Make sure I’m awake by first light.”
Max and Crassus both saluted and departed the tent.
Tavi sat up enough to drain the large mug of cold water from the stand beside the cot, but the thought of eating the meal beside it was revolting. He settled back down again and closed his eyes. A moment’s concentration, and he drew together a windcrafting to ensure private conversation. Steady rain drummed on the tent’s canvas roof. “How much of this is the loss of blood?” he asked the empty tent. “And how much of it is the result of holding that weathercrafting?”
One moment the tent was empty, and in the next Alera stood over the sand table at its center post. She chuckled warmly. “It took Sextus more than a year to be able to recognize my presence. How is it that you have learned the trick of it so quickly?”
“I’ve spent most of my life without any furycraft to help me,” Tavi said. “Perhaps that’s had something to do with it.”
“Almost certainly,” Alera said. “Very few of your people realize how much furycraft happens without their knowledge.”
“Really?” Tavi asked.
“Certainly. How would they? Watercrafters, for example, gain a sensitivity to others that becomes a part of their very being. They have few, if any, memories of what it was like to exist without that sense. Nearly everyone in Alera has their senses expanded in some way, to some degree. If they suddenly lost access to their furies, for whatever reason, I expect that they would feel quite disoriented. I should think it would be something like losing an eye.”
Tavi winced at the image. “I notice,” he said, “that you haven’t answered my question.”
Alera smiled. “Haven’t I?”
Tavi eyed her for a moment. Then he said, “You’re saying that I’m crafting without realizing it?”
“Without feeling it,” Alera corrected. “You make clear to me what it is you wish to accomplish, and I set about ordering it, within my limitations. But the effort for it still comes from you, as with any other furycrafting. It’s a steady and gradual process, one you don’t feel happening. You only become aware of it when physical symptoms begin to trouble you.” She sighed. “It killed Sextus; not as much because he pushed too hard—though he did—as because it made him dismiss the symptoms of his poisoning, incorrectly, as part of this process.”
Tavi sat up and studied Alera more closely. She held her hands in front of her, folded inside the opposite sleeve of her misty “gown.” More of the gown was gathered over her head in a hood. Her eyes looked sunken. For the first time since Tavi had seen the great fury manifest, she did not look like a young woman.
“The weathercrafting,” he said. “It was a strain on you as well. It’s hastening your . . . your dissolution, isn’t it?”
“It was a strain upon all of Alera, young Gaius,” she replied, her voice quiet. “You upset natural order on a scale that is rarely seen—in concert with the eruptions of two fire-mountains, to boot. You and your people will feel the aftereffects of these few days for centuries to come.”
“I sincerely hope so,” Tavi said.
The great fury glanced at him and smiled, briefly. “Ah, there it is. I sometimes think that if one cut open the scions of the House of Gaius, they would find well-chilled pragmatism flowing in their veins instead of blood.”
“I have provided abundant evidence to the contrary, today, I believe.”
“Have you?” she replied.
“And again,” he said, “you have avoided answering my question.”
Her smile widened, briefly. “Have I?”
“Infuriating habit,” he said. “My grandfather must have learned it from you.”
“He picked that one up very quickly,” she acknowledged. “Sextus was strongly devoted to the idea of being as mysterious as possible when it came to his capabilities of furycraft. He would have looked at his staff and shrugged when they wondered how such a thing as an unthinkably late freeze and a steady breeze for several thousand miles’ worth of travel would be possible.”
“When in fact, anyone with a High Lord’s talent could manage it,” Tavi murmured. “If he had, as his partner, someone such as you, who could direct his power to precisely when and where it needed to be to have the greatest effect, however widely dispersed those places might be.”
“I suspect the scions of Gaius did not wish the notion to become widespread,” she said, “for fear that all of those folk with a High Lord’s talent would immediately set about creating such partners of their own.”
“Could such a thing be done?” Tavi asked, curiously.
“Almost certainly—to one degree or another. It is also nearly certain that they would not be able to create a . . . shall we say, a balanced being.”
“Someone like you,” Tavi mused, “only mad?”
“I suspect the results of such an effort would make the current definitions of madness somewhat obsolete.”
Tavi shivered. “The potential for conflict on that scale . . . It’s . . . unimaginable.”
“The House of Gaius is many things,” Alera said. “But never stupid.”
Tavi sighed and settled back down on the cot again. He rubbed wearily at his eyes. “Where is the main body of the vord now?”
“Closing on the mouth of the Calderon Valley,” Alera replied.
“Aquitaine is still trying to draw them all there?”
“It would appear so.”
“Playing the anvil to our hammer,” Tavi mused. “With all those civilians at stake, behind his lines. I’m not sure if he’s brilliant or a bloody fool.”
“His foolishness has been limited to a fairly narrow spectrum, all in all,” Alera replied. “His tactical ability in the field has been sound. If he can force the vord Queen to oversee the assault on Calderon, he effectively pins her in place for you. My suspicion is that he expects you to lead a team of Citizens to find and neutralize the Queen.”
“Of course. That’s how he would do it,” Tavi mused. “But he doesn’t know about Varg and his warriors.”
“Indeed not. And I think it possible that the vord do not, either. The path ahead of us is empty of anything but token enemy forces.”
Tavi grunted. “The Queen is laying a trap of her own. Expecting me to march in with a pair of Legions and drive straight toward her, find her, and send all our finest furycrafters after her. So she’ll let me through in order to know where the strike is coming from. And she’ll have something in mind to counter it. Once she’s destroyed me, she’ll be able to finish Calderon
at her leisure.”
Alera opened her mouth to speak, paused to consider, then simply nodded.
Tavi grunted. “Have you been able to locate her any more precisely?”
Alera shook her head. “The croach remains . . . foreign, to me.”
“Impenetrable?” Tavi asked.
She mused over the question for a moment. “Imagine the way your skin feels when aphrodin paste is applied to it.”
Tavi grunted. It was often used upon cattle, minor injuries, and in certain cases of the healer’s craft. “It goes numb. You can’t feel it at all.”
“Just so,” Alera said. “I can guide you to within a mile or so, if she holds position for any length of time. But where the vord have claimed the territory . . . I am too numbed to be of use in any task so fine and focused.”
“I’ll find her,” Tavi said quietly.
“I expect that you will,” Alera said.
He looked over at her. “Can I defeat her?”
Alera considered the question for a time, her face looking more sunken. “It . . . seems doubtful.”
Tavi frowned. “She’s that strong?”
“And growing stronger by the day, young Gaius. In a way, every vord is nothing but an extension of her body, her mind, and her will. So is the croach.”
Tavi assembled several thoughts into a logical order. “As the croach grows, so does her furycraft.”
Alera inclined her head. “What I lose, she gains. When she fought the campaign against Sextus last year, she was already his equal in raw power. By now, she is stronger still. Considerably so. When one adds that to her native strength, speed, resilience, and intelligence, she becomes a formidable opponent. More so than anyone in your kind’s history has seen, much less defeated.”
Tavi inhaled deeply and blew his breath out very slowly. “And you cannot help me.”
“I was created to advise and to support, young Gaius,” Alera said. “Even when I was at the height of my strength, I could not have helped you in that way. I can and will help you find her. I can and will support your efforts to close to grips with her, as I already have since you landed at Antillus. But that is the limit of my power. You will prevail, or not, on your own.”
Tavi was quiet for several moments before he said, “I’ve been doing that my whole life. This is no different.”
Alera lifted her chin, a small smile on her strained mouth. “He used to talk about you, you know.”
Tavi frowned. “You mean . . . my grandfather?”
“Yes. When you were at the Academy. After. He would watch over you, though you never knew it. Often, he would look in on you while you slept. Making sure that you were safe seemed to give him . . . a kind of satisfaction I never saw in him, otherwise.”
Tavi frowned quietly up at the ceiling of the tent. Alera said nothing and let him think. She had, literally, inhuman patience. If it took him a week to consider his answer, she would be there waiting when he was ready. It was a portion of her personality that was both reassuring and annoying. One simply couldn’t employ stalling tactics against her.
“I . . . We didn’t speak to one another very often,” Tavi said.
“No,” she replied.
“I never understood . . . if all that time he knew who I was, then why didn’t he ever . . . ever want to talk to me? Reach out?” Tavi shook his head. “He must have been lonely, too.”
“Horribly,” Alera said. “Though he never would have acknowledged such a thing openly, of course. He was, perhaps, the most isolated Aleran I have ever known.”
“Then why?” Tavi asked.
Alera turned to one side, frowning thoughtfully. “I know your family well, young Gaius. But I cannot say that I knew his thoughts.”
Tavi squinted at her and thought he had picked up on what she was hinting at. “If you were to guess?”
She smiled at him in approval. “Sextus had the gift of many of your bloodline, a kind of instinctive foreknowledge. You yourself have demonstrated it, now and then.”
“I had rather assumed that was you,” Tavi said.
She smiled whimsically. “Mmmm. I’ve already noted tonight how much your folk do without being aware of it. Since I am created by them, perhaps it follows that I am just as blindly unperceptive. I suppose it is possible that I am somehow unaware of knowledge I am inadvertently sending you.”
“Sextus?” Tavi prompted.
Alera nodded and lifted a hand to draw a fallen lock of her hair back from her face, a very human gesture. The nails of her hand had turned black. Veins of darkness had progressed over her fingers and wrists. Tavi steeled himself against the further evidence of the fury’s decay.
“Sextus had the gift more strongly than any scion of the House I have served,” Alera said. “I think he sensed the storm coming years ago, since shortly after Septimus’s death. I think he thought that he would be the one to guide your folk safely through the troubled times—and that you would be safer kept at a distance, until matters had calmed down.” She sighed. “If not for the poisoning, he might have been right. Who can say?”
“He wanted to protect me,” Tavi said quietly.
“And your mother, I think,” Alera said. “Whatever Sextus may have thought of her personally, he knew that Septimus loved her. It carried weight with him.”
Tavi sighed and closed his eyes. “I wish I’d known him better. I wish he were here now.”
“As do I,” Alera said quietly. “I’ve taught you all that I can in a limited time—and you’ve been an able pupil. But . . .”
“But I’m not ready for this,” Tavi said.
Alera said nothing for a long moment. Then she said, “I think he would be proud of what you have done. I think he would have been proud of you.”
Tavi closed his eyes quickly against a sudden irritating heat that flowed into them.
“You should rest, young Gaius. Regain your strength.” Alera walked close and touched his shoulder lightly with one hand. “You will need it all in the days to come.”
CHAPTER 30
Amara eyed the Knight standing guard outside the Princeps’ command tent, and said, “I don’t understand why you can’t at least go in and ask.”
The young man stared coldly over Amara’s head at the Marat clan-head, and said, “No barbarians.”
Amara fought down her irritation and remained expressionless, neutral. Doroga, for his part, returned the young man’s stare steadily, leaning one elbow on the head of his cudgel. The massively muscled Marat showed no reaction at all to the half dozen very interested legionares commanded by the young Knight. He exuded a sense of patient confidence and let Amara do the talking—thank goodness.
“Was that your specific order, Sir . . .”
“Ceregus,” the young Knight spat.
“Sir Ceregus,” Amara said politely. “I must inquire if you are acting on a specific order from your lawful superiors.”
The young Knight smiled woodenly. “If you recall what happened to the last Princeps who came into the presence of the barbarians in this valley, Countess, you’ll find all the reason you need.”
Doroga grunted. “Gave him a ride on a gargant and saved him and his people from being eaten by the Herdbane. Then your First Lord, old Sextus, gave me this shirt.” Doroga plucked at the fine but worn old Aleran tunic, with its radical alterations to fit his frame.
Ceregus narrowed his eyes and began to speak.
“The good clan-head forgets to mention the retreat from Riva,” Amara cut in, interrupting the young Knight. “At which time, Doroga and the other members of his clan saved the lives of tens of thousands of fleeing civilians and prevented a division of forces, which might have killed hundreds or thousands of legionares.”
“You dare to suggest that the Legions—” the young Knight began.
“I suggest, Sir Ceregus, that you are going to be sorely disappointed in your officers’ reactions to your decision, and I advise you to seek their advice before you find yourself in an unpleasant
situation.”
“Woman, I don’t know who you think you are, but I do not take kindly to threats.”
“I am Calderonus Amara, whose husband’s walls you are currently sheltering behind,” she replied.
Sir Ceregus narrowed his eyes. “And I am Rivus Ceregus, whose uncle, High Lord Rivus, gave your husband his title.”
Amara smiled sweetly at him. “No, boy. That was Gaius Sextus, if you’ll recall.”
Ceregus’s cheeks gained spots of color. “The matter is closed. The barbarian doesn’t go inside.”
Amara looked steadily at him for a moment. The nephew of a High Lord could potentially have a great deal of clout, depending upon how favored he was by Lord Rivus. It might be worth it to give way for the time being and gain specific orders to admit Doroga next time around.
But there really wasn’t time for that kind of foolishness. The vord had not assaulted the first wall as yet, but it wouldn’t be long before they did. Already, their scouts, skirmishers, vordknights, and takers were haunting the western edge of the Valley.
Footsteps sounded behind her, and Senator Valerius, along with a pair of civilian-clothed bodyguards, approached the tent. He beamed at Ceregus, and said, “Good evening, Sir Knight. Would you be so kind?”
Ceregus inclined his head to the Senator, smiling in reply. He jerked his head to his fellow sentries to tell them to move aside, and waved the Senator and his men by without so much as taking note of the group’s sidearms. Valerius glanced over his shoulder, just before disappearing into his tent, and gave Amara a smug and venomous glance as he did.
Ah. So that’s how things stand.
Amara took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and calmed her mind. Then she opened them again, and said, “I believe I have had enough of this sort of partisan idiocy. It’s what got us into this mess in the first place.”
“You are welcome to the Princeps’ Council, Countess,” Ceregus said, his voice cold. He pointed a finger at Doroga. “But that creature goes nowhere near the Princeps.”
When she spoke, her voice was very calm, and perfectly polite. “Are you sure that’s how you want to do this?”
