Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  “I’m not trying to lay a glamour on them,” he said to Arian one morning. “It just has that effect. I’ve wondered if that’s an effect of the elvenhome itself. If the Lady, for instance, did not intend the intensity of the glamours she laid.”

  “The elves are certainly more cooperative,” Arian said, grinning. “Surely you don’t mind that.”

  “What worries me is that everyone is more cooperative. Not that I want to deal with troublemakers every day, but honest disagreement keeps commanders—and I assume kings—from making stupid mistakes. No one is right all the time. That’s why I have a Council. I want my Council members to say what they think, even if I don’t agree.”

  “Could you tell them that? Maybe if you say you want disagreement when they feel it, they’ll cooperate by disagreeing.”

  “I had not thought of that,” Kieri said. He stretched. “And then there’s all that mess in Tsaia and Fintha. King Mikeli wants to know if we have magery emerging here … and how would we know, with so much elven blood in the realm?”

  “I’m more concerned about those elves showing up in Fin Panir,” Arian said. “That must be where my father came from, so why did they not come here as well?”

  “Animosity toward my grandmother, according to Amrothlin,” Kieri said.

  “But she’s dead.”

  Kieri stiffened. “Maybe … maybe they do not know. When was it they arrived in Fin Panir? It could have been before the Marshal-General knew about the Lady’s death. If they think she’s still alive—”

  “They would think my father still alive,” Arian said, eyes wide. “If he was reporting to them, they will expect a report.”

  “In their own time, which is not our time. I know the Marshal-General said the king she spoke to seemed in haste, but haste to them is not the same as haste to us. It may be they will arrive here next year or ten years from now and think it but a few days.”

  “I would like to meet them,” Arian said. “For my father’s sake and for my own.” She patted her belly, clearly bulging now. “And for these, who elsewise will have no family but the four of us.”

  “And how is your sense of them now? To me they are clouded by your own taig.”

  “Healthy, growing, and very, very active.” Arian shifted in her chair. “They do seem … different since you came back with the elvenhome. They would respond to it, I think.”

  Autumn continued into winter; Arian’s pregnancy progressed normally, according to both human and half-elven midwives. Kieri could not use his elvenhome ability to travel, as the Lady apparently had, so his brief trips to check on the various projects removed the elvenhome protection from Chaya, to his annoyance. Arian, he felt, should be protected in the elvenhome at all times. His councilors regained the ability to disagree with him, but at the same time he began to see the stamp of his own vision more clearly on the taig and on the projects he had begun.

  Along the scathefire road to Riverwash, the ugly hard-burnt ash surface darkened and softened a little. The route west from Chaya to the Tsaian border was smoother on the way back than the way out; tree limbs fell out of the way, and the track seemed to widen of itself. Only the stone outcrops resisted the elvenhome influence—but once clear of undergrowth, were easier to work.

  Kieri found himself thinking about the magelords enchanted in Kolobia, as he had before. Could they be connected to the outbreaks of magery in Tsaia and Lyonya? Mikeli had shared Arcolin’s notion that this was all coming from Gird, through Paksenarrion. Yet Gird was not a high god and had never concerned himself with elves, so far as Kieri knew, so … how could he be involved in Kieri’s growing powers? He touched his ruby. How could Falk, for that matter? Someone chuckled in his mind, and he smiled in response. Whoever, and whatever, and however, the great changes had come, and were still moving in the world.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Immerdzan, Aarenis

  The Duke of Immer reviewed his plans. This winter: Cortes Cilwan along the river and Rotengre to the north. He could cut the Northern Trade Road. He could invest Dwarfwatch, which—as his spies told him—had once more been vacated in the peace following Siniava’s War as too expensive to garrison.

  At one time Aliam Halveric and Kieri Phelan had used that pass, though not—he thought—to move large numbers of troops. How many troops would he need to keep Phelan’s attention on his southern border? At the least, a few spies could go over and learn what they could of Lyonya and southern Tsaia, reporting back in the spring.

  He spread his hand across the map before him. Was it too ambitious, this plan? Should he go at it piecemeal, tackling first the Guild League cities one by one? But that, he was certain, had been Siniava’s mistake. Phelan had defeated Siniava with boldness and planning; Siniava had given Phelan time to plan, time to gather allies. He himself, with his mentor within … surely boldness would serve him best. Phelan had just fought a war against Pargun; he must be tired now.

  So … a feint, but a strong one, against the western Guild League, to draw Fox Company in and keep them occupied defending the pass at Valdaire. A fleet—even now assembling at his orders—to sail around the Eastbight and up the Honnorgat. A force to pin Phelan in southern Lyonya, so that his force could invade on the river.

  He reviewed his forces. No one knew where all his warriors came from; no one knew what ships dared thread the dangerous shoals outside Slavers’ Bay or what cargo unloaded or loaded there. Coastal caravans kept well inland from it, the caravan masters well paid to see nothing and tell less.

  It can all be yours. That voice whispered to him night and day now: praise, warning, advice, promises. So far, in the years since he had accepted the gift, it had led him truly, if slower than he wished, from one triumph to another. He had not always understood its reasons—why, for instance, he had not been given leave to slay Kieri Phelan in Siniava’s War—but in the end Phelan’s reputation had protected him from others’ suspicions.

  Why not, he wondered now, assassinate the young, inexperienced Fox Company captains while their commander was away? Why not kill all the mercenary commanders? If their troops were in disarray …

  Not yet. That was clear enough, and he had learned not to disobey. For now you want the cities to think they can trust those companies.

  What, then? Send spies to infiltrate them?

  Patience. You are not as old as I.

  No, but he would be. He had been promised that. Life beyond life, without aging. If not immortality as the elves knew it, still life far beyond other men. He would see the other kings die, and then … his vision blurred to the glory of it. Himself, in a radiant glow, crowned with the mightiest of all crowns, and all bowing before him.

  No one would ever command him again.

  Except me.

  Who was part of himself now. That, he told himself, was different.

  He bent his mind to the practicalities of war and issued orders. It had begun.

  Cortes Andres

  “My lord Count!”

  Andressat looked up from his work. One of the scribes—Hastan—was waving a scroll as if it were a torch. What could he have found?

  Hastan came nearer. “My lord, you know the rumors from the north—”

  “Which rumors?”

  “About the magelords in the mountain. The Girdish expedition found them, far to the west of Fin Panir.”

  Andressat now had an idea where Fin Panir lay, west of Vérella. West of Fin Panir, in his imagination, was a vast empty wilderness … but then, he had once thought all the North a tiny place, kingdoms no bigger than Andressat, and the reality … had been different.

  “What about the rumors, Hastan? And what are you holding there?”

  “Pedigrees, my lord. During the Girdish rebellion in the north, one of the Finthan lords sent a list of all the noble families and their relationships back to the south in case local archives should be lost.”

  “We have something of that in the list of those who came from Old Aare.”

  �
��Yes, my lord. But this is some hundreds of years later, and it mentions, in the holdings of one family, ‘jewels of great power, once the pride of Aare, which have been sent for safekeeping to the east, as far from Gird’s raiders as feasible.’ This may be the regalia said to be found by Duke Verrakai and now in the king’s treasury of Tsaia.”

  “What family?” Andressat asked.

  “Here—” Hastan spread the papers out on another table; Andressat came over and looked where he pointed. “The Sier of Grahlin was the Finthan king’s close relative and actually in closer descent from Declan of Valdaire. My lord will recall that the realm was vacated before the Girdish rebellion. By this, Grahlin had possession of the regalia. He was killed at the Battle of Greenfields, along with the king; his widow sent the jewels eastward, believing that even if Tsaia fell to the Girdish, a noble in the east might hide them.”

  “Why not send them south?”

  “Ah.” Hastan smiled. “We have a good history of the Girdish wars in Fintha and Tsaia, my lord. Girdish forces dominated the south of both realms, blocking access to Valdaire. The jewels, as you know, cannot be hidden in a pocket. They were originally housed in a golden casket, and that is how they were transported. According to this, they were sent to the easternmost name she knew, Verrakai, to hold in trust until, it says here, ‘a king will rise again with both power and right.’ The jewels are listed, along with a scroll giving the same history and Grahlin’s pedigree. Except that we know of no scroll and the golden casket is missing, they are the same we know to be part of the regalia King Mikeli holds.”

  “And the Duke of Immer now holds the necklace from that suite,” Andressat said. “And my son.” He closed his eyes a moment; he could not help it. Cortes Cilwan had fallen; the Duke of Immer’s army was poised on Andressat’s border. He was surprised they had not invaded yet, but perhaps subduing the lands they’d conquered so quickly would keep them busy through the winter. Even—though he had scant hope of that—the next spring. Though what his son must suffer in that span—if he was not already dead—broke his heart.

  “There is more, my lord,” Hastan said, shuffling the scrolls to put another on top. “This … we thought of Prince Mikeli’s as being the most complete listing of those who came out of Aare, but here is another. Declan of Valdaire’s pedigree claims him to be a descendant of Mikeli’s elder brother—thus a prince of Old Aare—by a child brought to Aarenis as a suckling by his mother. And here, my lord, your own line connects. With all respect, my lord, your right to that necklace is as clear as Grahlin’s.”

  For only a moment, Andressat’s heart leapt at the thought that he might, after all, have royal blood, but he put that aside and shook his head. “I am no magelord, Hastan. I have no magery, nor did my family before me that the record shows. If those jewels had power, I would have no idea what to do with them. Immer has magery—”

  “Evil magery, my lord!” Hastan said. “Only evil, like Siniava.”

  “Probably. But I know from Duke Verrakai and Tsaia’s king that blood magery controlled the other regalia. If, as we both think, Immer is a blood mage, then he could control the necklace.”

  “Verrakai, you told me, did nothing with the regalia but hide it with blood magery,” Hastan said. “They did not use it. Perhaps the necklace cannot be used that way.”

  “Perhaps. We shall hope so. Come spring, we must get this information to those in the north. Somehow.” Past Immer’s spies and agents … how? He must find a way, just as he must defend Andressat no matter the cost to his son and himself. “I wish Count Arcolin were still in the south.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Chaya, Lyonya

  Kieri woke to a room full of elf-light as silvery as the Lady’s had been. At once, he realized it was both his and another elf’s. Facing him, across the foot of his bed, was a tall figure, clearly elven, wearing a crown of silvery metal set with pale stones that glowed. His arms were folded, his expression stern.

  Even as his heart stuttered and then raced, Kieri realized there must be another unblocked pattern in the palace. He felt no pressure from the other’s glamour—was it his own elvenhome protecting him?

  “You might have come at a better time,” he said, glad to find his voice steady. Arian, he could tell, was still asleep.

  “I would not have come here at all if someone had not blocked the patterns in the public rooms,” the elf said. He sounded annoyed. “That was foolish. And discourteous. I am lord of the western elvenhome.”

  Kieri scowled. “And I am king of Lyonya. We had good reason to block those patterns.” And again he wondered why this one, every bit as hazardous, had not been blocked. A question for Amrothlin, when he had dealt with the elf.

  “And I had good reason to come here,” the elf said. “An urgent reason. Rise, dress yourself. I must talk to you.”

  As arrogant as the most arrogant of the other elves he’d met. And where were the King’s Squires? Kieri fought his anger down. “Over there—” Kieri pointed. “—is the bathing room. You may wait there while I dress.”

  The elf raised his brows. “You are ashamed of your body?”

  “Ashamed, no. Are you? If you choose to disrobe yourself, then you may stay.”

  Beside him, Arian stirred. Kieri put a warning hand on her shoulder and squeezed a little. She lay still at once.

  The elf stared a moment, brows raised, then shrugged and moved to the bathing room, disdain in the set of his shoulders. Kieri bent to Arian’s ear. “It’s an elf-lord, from the west, he says. Showed up here; apparently there’s a pattern we didn’t know about. I’m getting up.”

  “We knew they might show up any time,” Arian said. “I’m getting up, too. Where are the Squires?”

  “Elven magery, I expect.” He swung out of bed and put on the clothes that lay ready on a chair. Arian threw back the covers and levered herself out of bed on the other side. She, too, dressed as quickly as she could. It took her longer, which Kieri knew annoyed her. He stood where he would block a view of her if the elf should be discourteous enough to peek.

  When Arian had tied her hair back, Kieri walked to the door of the bathing room and found the elf staring at the bathtub with an expression between amazement and amusement. “Do join us,” Kieri said, with an edge to his voice. He stepped back from the door, and the elf followed, his eyes widening when he saw Arian.

  “You’re—you’re Dameroth’s daughter! And with child!”

  “And my wife and queen,” Kieri said.

  The elf turned to him. “And you’re … Flessinathlin’s grandson?”

  “Yes,” Kieri said. Arian moved closer to him.

  A spate of elvish, too fast and complicated for Kieri to follow, in a tone between exasperation and distress. Then the elf quieted, gave a short twitch of the shoulders, and met Kieri’s gaze. “I see,” the elf said. “I did not know the Lady had agreed to this match.”

  “Is there a reason why you should have known?” Kieri asked.

  “I would have thought so,” the elf said. “When was it that you wed?”

  “The Spring Evener,” Arian said. “And our engagement was announced, with the Lady’s consent, at last Midwinter.”

  “Flessinathlin is more fool than I realized,” the elf said. “She knows—I will speak to her—”

  Kieri shook his head. “You do not know she died?” he said; though he had suspected the elf had not heard that at Fin Panir, he was still surprised.

  The elf flinched as if someone had hit him. “Died! She is dead? When? What happened?”

  “Last spring,” Kieri said. “Not long after our wedding.” He told it as concisely as he could, ending with “several elves, including Arian’s father, were killed defending the Lady.” He paused, startled by the elf’s shift of expression. Was that grief? Tears in those strange eyes? The elf said nothing; Kieri went on. When he finished, he said, “I thought all elves would have known.”

  “So … that was why I could not reach the elfane taig…”
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br />   “That was gnomes,” Arian said. “The Lady gave up the elfane taig; the gnomes will have destroyed the pattern there, I’m sure.”

  “She—I never thought she would do that!” The elf looked more closely at Arian.

  “You spoke of a reason why you came,” Kieri said. “Would it be related to your visit to Fin Panir?”

  “You have heard about that?”

  “Yes, but no details other than you wanted the Marshal-General to waken the sleeping magelords.”

  “It is necessary. We must close the rock, and we cannot while they are there. The magery that holds them prevents it.”

  “And you think someone here can do it?” Kieri asked. “Why?”

  “Not you alone, perhaps. As I sense the spells, they were woven of multiple mageries: elven and human, and of the human, both mageborn and something … other. As you are half-elven, you must have at least two of these mageries. And I was told you know a mageborn in Tsaia—”

  “Yes,” Kieri said. “But she owes allegiance to Tsaia’s king, not to me. I cannot command her. And without knowing how a spell was contrived—”

  “It must be done!” the elf said, his voice rising. “The Eldest has told us it is the only way to keep iynisin from more destruction.”

  “Eldest?” Arian asked. “An Elder other than Sinyi or rockfolk?”

  The elf stared at her. “I cannot say,” he said after a moment.

  “An Elder with whom one might touch tongues?” she said. “An Elder who values wisdom?”

  “You know…” The elf looked at Kieri, then back to Arian. “You both know. Have you—?”

  “Yes,” Kieri said.

  “Then you must—at once—you must try—”

  “No,” Kieri said sharply enough that the elf stepped back a pace. “No, not at once. What you tell me suggests great risk. A trifold magery, or even more, to be unwoven at a distance—”