The Soldier King

by Violette Malan

  By the time they had reached the caves the evening before, the spasms that had started in Dhulyn’s lower back had moved to her abdomen, and she was certain the pain from her woman’s time would keep her from sleep. But her inability to take the major drugs for pain—and to have them used against her—did not prevent her use of minor drugs and remedies. While Parno and Ayania had tended to Edmir, Ilyan, the older of the Cloud’s two young apprentices, with five feathers tattooed on the left side of his face, had heated stones for Dhulyn, while his fellow apprentice warmed water with valerian in it. Both had watched her out of the corners of their eyes, even the Clouds’ legendary reserve insufficient to stifle their curiosity.

  They would have helped her with the stones, too, anxious to perform a service for a Seer, had not Parno shooed them away. “Best you don’t touch her skin to skin,” he’d told them. “Her Visions come more often and stronger with her woman’s time, and you don’t want her to See anything about you, now do you?”

  From what Dhulyn had seen in their faces, she rather thought they did. And it seemed that Parno had seen the same expressions.

  “Better you shouldn’t know, believe me,” he’d told them. “If it’s good, it makes your delight in it smaller, and if it’s bad, you’ll only feel your pain and your fear for that much longer.”

  “We could avoid it, though, couldn’t we? The thing that would cause the pain and fear?” The younger apprentice, with two feathers tattooed on her left cheek, showing that she’d had her Racha only two months, had said before Ayania had cuffed her quiet.

  “You might, if Dhulyn Wolfshead’s Visions were clear, complete, and either you or she could understand them,” Parno said. “When I say it’s better you shouldn’t know, I speak from knowledge.”

  “Leave the Seer be,” Ayania said. “She’s not here to help us, yes? We are here to help her.” An attitude that Dhulyn had been counting on. She rarely revealed her Sight, but the Cloud People considered themselves the ancient and traditional protectors of the Marked, and she was as safe with them as she would have been with her own Brotherhood.

  Dhulyn shifted, trying for a position that would relieve the pain in her back. What Parno had said was true, her Visions were often incomplete, and for that reason misleading. All the same, she thought now, as she drifted off to sleep, she should try to See in the morning. Her Visions were stronger, clearer, at her woman’s time, as if the blood brought them. And sometimes a partial glimpse of the future was better than none.

  When Dhulyn woke again, daylight was coming in through the hole in the cave’s roof, and her stomach was rumbling from the smell of cooking meat. She was alone in the bedding—in fact, alone in the sleeping cave but for the prince in his cot.

  The stone against her belly had gone cold, but it seemed the worst of her pains had gone with the heat, as was often the way. Dhulyn tossed back the coverings Parno had heaped on her and rolled to her knees, automatically making mental note of the location of her boots, her sword belts, gloves, and weapons. All close at hand. She got to her feet and stretched, holding each position until the stiffness in the muscle slowly loosened. She squatted by the prince.

  They had unwrapped and cleaned the wound, packing it with herbs they had brought with them to draw out the poisons. The Clouds had no iocain, but poppy syrup they did have, laced with fens bark tea, and Edmir still slept, his breathing heavy under its influence. His black hair, thick and curly, had fallen back from his face, and only his scanty beard stubble betrayed his age. Otherwise his face in repose was as unlined and innocent as that of a young child.

  He had one hand tucked under his chin. Lower lip between her teeth, Dhulyn wrapped her fingers around his exposed wrist.

  Edmir’s hair is still curly, but the black shows streaks of steel, and his face is more oval, now that he has a grown man’s forehead. There’s a straight scar on his left cheek. And his hair is shorter now, much shorter, the close-cropped head of a man who regularly wears a helm. He is wearing a heavy wool tunic, finely woven and warm, with a dark red lining thrown over his shoulders. It is night, and Edmir is alone.

  This is a tent. There is torchlight shining faintly through the canvas behind him. He is sitting at a camp table, like the one Commander Kispeko had, like many Dhulyn has seen. Edmir is writing; his ink, in a ceramic bowl, is kept warm over a small burner that provides both heat and light. The point of his pen splits. Cursing, his breath making small clouds in the cold air, Edmir searches the tabletop before rising and fetching a knife from the belt pouch that hangs on a tent support.

  He lives, Dhulyn thinks. And he keeps the leg. . . .

  A tall woman with hair the color of old blood hanging in a thick braid down the center of her back strides along a path in a small formal garden. Dhulyn has Seen this woman before, and knows this Vision is of the past, and not the future. But what would bring her mother into a formal garden? When and why? Is it before Dhulyn herself was born? Her mother looks younger than the last time Dhulyn has Seen her, and she wears a pale blue gown, embroidered with vines and leaves in darker blue lines. She turns, and Dhulyn prepares to be greeted. She know this much about the Sight, that if she can See her mother, her mother can also See her. But the expected smile does not come, instead her mother’s brow furrows, her smile fades, and she reaches for the weapon that does not hang from her belt. . . .

  A hawk-faced woman with hair the color of summer wheat sits at a narrow table polishing something in a dark blue cloth. Dhulyn’s heart skips a beat, she has SEEN this coloring before. A lamp like nothing Dhulyn has ever come across is attached by a metal bracket to the side of the narrow table, and light shines straight down on the woman’s hands, and reflects upward to harshen the bladelike planes of her face. She peels back the polishing cloth, revealing a blue crystal rod. She smiles, satisfied, and fits a jeweler’s lens to her left eye. She picks up a carving tool, so fine Dhulyn can hardly glimpse the tip of the blade, and begins to work close to the edge of the cylinder . . .

  The vibration of sword blade striking sword blade shivers through the hilt she holds in her right hand. Another thrust—the man whips his blade around hers, but he’s not fast enough to disarm her. She leaps back, dodges forward with her blade, avoids the parry, and draws blood from her opponent’s arm. A lunge to the right, followed by two steps back, he jumps on a bench and begins to rain blows on her from above—she knows this Shora, but if this is practice, why, then, has blood been drawn? The next blow comes from . . . there, and can by countered with—a gasp of indrawn breath as her sword enters her opponent’s side. But it is Parno who falls to his knees as she withdraws the blade from between his ribs. She puts out her hand to touch his face.

  Wait, this is wrong. This is not how Parno dies—she wills herself to wake, the Vision to clear, before the decks slant, and the wall of water comes to wash Parno overboard into the churning sea . . .

  Dhulyn sat back on her heels, lifting her hand from Edmir’s wrist. Her heart was racing and there were tears in her eyes.

  “Never seen the Shora before?” Parno dropped down next to Edmir on the rock shelf that served the Clouds as an outdoor bench. He had a fold of soft leather in his hands, along with a few knives that needed cleaning.

  The prince turned toward him, wincing as his body began to follow the turn and his leg moved. Parno knew the arrow wound had much improved in the two days since they’d come into the Clouds’ mountain stronghold, but a little more time would be needed to be sure all the heat was gone from the wound. The Racha woman Ayania was very pleased with the healing, and none of them were in any mind to undo her good work. Before going off into the hills in the early morning light with her apprentices and their Racha birds, Ayania had handed Edmir a walking staff, with the warning not to press himself too far.

  “Lionsmane.” Edmir acknowledged Parno’s question with a nod. “I’ve seen my mother’s Guard practice what they call Shora. But though there have been Mercenary Brothers at her court from time to time, I have never s
een . . .” At a loss for words, the prince gestured toward Dhulyn. “She doesn’t even look down.”

  “That is the Mountain Goat Shora,” Parno said, putting down the bundle of knives between them. He turned his own eyes to where Dhulyn Wolfshead moved as surefooted as the Shora she was practicing. About two thirds of the way through, he noted. “It’s specially designed to perfect your technique on rocky terrain. If you’d been up earlier, you’d have had a chance to watch me.”

  “Can you do that?”

  Parno nodded. “The Mountain Goat’s one of the twenty-seven basic Shora all Mercenary Brothers must learn to be considered Schooled. There’s eighty-one all told, some with more moves, some with less. I know a few more than the basics,” he shrugged, unrolling the bundle and laying out on the wide strip of soft leather five knives of differing lengths, along with the honing stone. “Not as many as Dhulyn Wolfshead, she must know close to sixty now. But then it is her ambition to be a Schooler herself one day, if she lives. If we both do.” Parno fell silent, picking up the honing stone in his left hand and a long straight dagger in his right. We’ll live, he thought. He caught Edmir’s worried look and raised his eyebrows at the boy. But the prince turned away before speaking.

  “Will she not use her magic to stay alive?”

  Parno fell silent again, automatically finishing the stroke on the blade before he let his hands relax into his lap, and looked at the prince with new eyes. There was a tension to him, a staring to his eyes, that had nothing to do with pain from his wound.

  “What has my Partner done to you to deserve that tone, besides rescue you from an embarrassing captivity?”

  That drew Edmir’s head around. He tried to draw himself upright, difficult to do on the uneven seat of the stone. “I may use what tone I wish,” he said. “I am the Lord Prince of Tegrian.”

  Parno blinked, but even the long-practiced habits of courtesy could only do so much. Dropping the stone, he slapped his knee, and laughed out loud. Dhulyn froze in her Shora and looked their way.

  Color flooded the prince’s face. He began to stand, but Parno took his elbow in an iron grip before he got very far.

  “Sit down, you blooded brat.” The words were harsh, but Parno was still half laughing. He released Edmir’s arm and the boy sank down until he had perched himself on the edge of the bench. Parno picked up the stone, and ran it once more down the long blade.

  “You speak to a Mercenary Brother,” he said, keeping his eyes on his work. “Not to one of your Tegrian Houses—though the Caids know, if it comes to that, I left behind me a more noble House even than yours when I became a Mercenary Brother.

  “But I did leave it behind me, so I’ll say no more of it. Courtesy is something you owe all men, Lord Prince, even those you intend to kill—and even those who have rescued you,” Parno continued. “And it’s for the sake of that courtesy I’ll explain to you now.”

  He glanced up. Edmir was watching him out of the corner of his eye, but his mouth was twisted to one side in what was clearly a sheepish apology.

  Parno smiled, put down the cleaned weapon, and picked up the next, a wrist knife. “Dhulyn Wolfshead is no Mage. First and last, she is a Mercenary Brother, and my Partner. Though she is the younger, she is Senior Brother, having been a Mercenary longer than I. She is also Marked—you know the Marked?”

  Edmir nodded. “I’ve seen some, a Mender and two Finders, though no Healer has ever come to be licensed at my mother’s court.”

  “Licensed?”

  “They say that in my father’s time there was a rash of fakery in the country, a group of people claiming to be Marked, and cozening all who came to them for aid. My father arranged for anyone claiming to be Marked, or claiming any other kind of magic, to be brought to the capital to be examined and licensed. It’s gone on ever since, but fewer and fewer come now.”

  When Parno glanced at him, Edmir was looking to where Dhulyn Wolfshead once more fought her invisible foe. The boy licked his lips. “And there’s never been a Seer.”

  “Not surprising, they’re so rare. What have you heard of the Seer at Delmara?”

  “Only that there is one again, after so many years that the Seers’ Sanctuary stood empty. And that news came fairly recently.”

  “If there are Marks living in Tegrian, licensed, why do their numbers grow fewer?”

  Once more, Edmir nodded, as if it was a question he’d thought of himself. “We have no Guild here, so most of the newly Marked go elsewhere to be trained, to Imrion for the most part, or Berdana. They rarely come back.” Edmir shifted in his seat until he was facing Parno more directly. “That’s one of the plans we have,” he said. “My sister and I. We want to send to the Tarkin of Imrion for help to establish a Guild here in Tegrian, so that Marks can be trained here, and stay to help the people as they do in the lands to the east.”

  Parno blew out a sigh. “There’s fewer Marked even in the east these days, though your plan is a good one, for all that. You’re the elder child, correct? And it’s your mother who’s the queen? Not your father who was the king?”

  “That’s right. He was the consort, just as Avylos . . . as the Blue Mage is now.” The boy looked down and away, but Parno took note of his stumbling over the Mage’s name.

  “And is the Blue Mage licensed?”

  Edmir squirmed on the hard seat. The last thing he wanted to talk about right now was Avylos. But he’d taken heart at what Parno Lionsmane had said about putting his own past behind him. And the man was right, he owed the Mercenary Brothers for saving his life, and rescuing him from the Nisveans. And if information was what they wanted from him . . .

  “He’s the only Mage, so far as I know. Certainly I don’t remember any others. Though he wasn’t the Blue Mage when he first came. He called himself that, but he had only small magics.” Edmir looked at Lionsmane out of the corner of his eye. “Real, mind you, not the tricks of the stage magicians. He could light candles, cause small objects to come to him. Sometimes he could tell you what people were doing in other rooms. Such things. He was very kind to us when we were children, my sister Kera and I. He and my father were friends, and my father gave him a place among his retinue, and helped him in his studies.” Edmir swallowed and fell silent.

  “Lord Prince. Clearly there is some heavy matter between you and the Blue Mage. That was not all fever talking the other day, nor is it fever that makes you avoid speaking of him now. Consider what I’m telling you.” The Lionsmane waited until Edmir raised his head and looked him in the eye. “Either my Partner and I are in league with the Mage, in which case we already know what you are keeping to yourself.Or, we are what we seem to be, your friends and rescuers, and what you know may be vital to keep us all alive.”

  What Parno Lionsmane said made sense, and Edmir’s instinct was to trust the man, not that either his instincts or his judgment had been very good of late. Why hadn’t he listened to Kera? She’d warned him nothing good was going to come of this.

  “I wanted to show my mother the queen I could be a good commander, as my father was.” Edmir licked his lips and swallowed. “I planned a small foray over the border—just a display of tactics and strategy—”

  The Lionsmane coughed. “You mean something your mother could explain away as youthful high spirits, something that didn’t violate the treaty that exists between Tegrian and Nisvea?”

  Edmir felt the heat rise into his face. “Something like that, yes. But somehow the Blue Mage learned of it, and instead of forbidding it, somehow it became, because of his backing, a true test of Nisvea’s defenses, not just—as you call it—youthful high spirits, but something that could be useful in the future. Still, we’d keep it secret, so that my mother the queen could deny any knowledge of it diplomatically.”

  “So the Blue Mage was supporting you, and your forces should not have lost.”

  Edmir rubbed at his eyes. “The magic didn’t work. There’s a . . . a ceremony, a ritual that the Blue Mage gave me and I swear I did it prope
rly, just as I had practiced it.”

  “But it did not work.”

  Edmir shook his head.

  “So perhaps he isn’t as friendly to you now, as he has been in the past.” The Lionsmane set down the dagger he was working on and stood, stretched by putting his fists in the small of his back and leaning into them before sitting down again. “And so they’ve prospered, these studies of his?”

  Edmir blinked at the change of subject. “He’s had books and scrolls brought from everywhere, and Scholars are always coming with more. He’s commissioned copies of many.” Edmir frowned as he considered the full depth of the Mercenary’s question. He hadn’t really thought about it until this moment, but there were so many magics Avylos could do now, that he couldn’t do before. “Yes. I’d have to say his studies have prospered.”

  “Dhulyn Wolfshead is called Scholar, but she’s not that kind. And though she’s Marked, you understand that the Mark’s not magic, it comes down from the Caids.”

  “A gift from the gods isn’t magic?”

  Lionsmane picked up another, shorter dagger and examined one edge of the blade with a critical eye. “The Caids weren’t gods, however much they might seem that way. Go to any Scholars’ Library and they can tell you, show you the old books. They were people just like us, very long ago.” He squinted along the other edge and rubbed at an invisible spot. “True, they knew more, could build better, but they were people just the same. There were Marked among them, and so the Mark’s passed down to our time.”

  “Like curly hair or blue eyes?” Edmir smiled, sure the man must be joking.

  “Well, yes. Though I think of it more like a good singing voice, or a good eye and hand for knife work.” He gestured with the blade in his hand.

  “The Scholars who taught me said nothing of all this.”