Crown of Renewal

by Elizabeth Moon

“Me?”

  “What if they try to enchant you?”

  “I—?” Seklis stared, then recovered himself. “Gird will protect me.”

  “Will he? I have no doubt he could, High Marshal, but consider what happened to Paks. His protection is more distant and less sure than mine.”

  Seklis said nothing. Kieri got up and came out from behind his desk. “We will work together, High Marshal, and not at cross-purposes. They have enough of modern Common now—and should they talk among themselves in their own tongue, elves can understand it.” At Seklis’s look, he added, “It is the language they brought from Old Aare, and elves knew them there and learned their speech.”

  “Will elves be there, then?”

  “Yes. I’ll ask one of the western elves. They might actually have met some of these people back in Gird’s day.”

  Dorrin’s last view of Verrakai House, with the early sun shining on its face, the water meadows speckled with grazing cattle, tore at her heart. She had thought herself resigned to the necessity, but everything she saw reminded her of what she had hoped to accomplish. Though Beclan had promised to take care of it for her and clearly hoped she would return in a season or two, she did not expect it. She would die, she was sure, on this venture even if she was successful. Yet she had no choice. Not only her king’s command but her own reason told her the regalia must go somewhere else. The coast of Old Aare? Perhaps.

  All the way to the border she could not stop grieving for what she was losing … the first home of her own, the work she had started, the people she had come to love and care for. She would never see trade moving on the road she had begun; she would never see the children grown and know whether her intervention had done them good.

  Her escort, silent out of respect, did nothing to distract her from her thoughts. Not until the border itself, where five Lyonyan rangers waited, did her escort speak. “My lord Duke—” That was Natzlin. Her voice sounded thick. “My lord—we will hope for your safe and soon return.” The others murmured assent. Natzlin came forward and bent her knee; Dorrin clasped her shoulder.

  “Natzlin, you will do well, and I know you will be a strength for my heir if I do not return. All of you—I believe your lives will continue to prosper. Beclan will have his father’s advice and help; the king himself wants you to prosper.”

  “My lord—” Natzlin stepped nearer and lowered her voice. “Will you return? On your oath?”

  “I don’t know,” Dorrin said. “I can’t know. If I can, I will return. But if I cannot, then I believe you are in good hands.”

  “But not your hands,” Natzlin said. “I will do my utmost for you, my lord, but I hope you do return.”

  They stood beside their horses as she remounted and rode forward to join the rangers, into the tall forest of Lyonya. Dorrin did not know these rangers. They greeted her politely but talked little. One handed her a letter from Kieri welcoming her to Lyonya but warning her about magelords … she read the rest of that with astonishment. She would not have believed the tale from anyone else. He and Paks had caused the enchantment the elves wanted him to break? He and Arian had then broken it? She looked at the rangers, but they showed no sign of knowing what she read.

  When they stopped for the night at one of their way stations, Dorrin tucked away Kieri’s letter and unloaded her packhorse herself. She set the pack saddle in the back corner of the three-sided shelter, in a row with the rangers’ saddles. The rangers were busy with camp chores; she rested on one of the logs and watched them work until supper was ready.

  “You were at the king’s wedding last year, weren’t you, lord Duke?”

  “Yes, I was. And I was in Chaya still when the queen lost their child. I look forward to seeing the twins. I’ve known the king since he was at Falk’s Hall … I’m sure you know I was one of his captains when he commanded his own mercenary company.”

  “Yes, lord Duke. He made sure we knew you were his friend of old. He also said you have mage-powers.”

  “Some, yes,” Dorrin said. “Blocked for years by the Knight-Commander of Falk but released by the paladin Paksenarrion.” She waited for someone to ask about the reason for her visit, but no one mentioned it. One of them turned the conversation to horses instead.

  “That chestnut you’re riding—is that a Marrakai-bred?”

  “Yes, it is,” Dorrin said. “Your king wanted a mare of that breeding, and Duke Marrakai asked me to bring her, since I was coming this way.”

  “I always thought Tsaia bred heavy horses, like Pargunese Blacks only not black.”

  “The royal stables breed a heavy gray,” Dorrin said. “But they’re too slow to be useful for a mercenary company or ordinary travel. Mahieran, the king’s family, breed horses as well, but they’re taller and leaner than the Marrakai.”

  The rest of the evening passed in horse talk—breeds, colors, stories of favorites—not a word about magelords from Kolobia who had lived in Gird’s day. Well, if they weren’t going to mention it, she would not ask. Dorrin slept soundly, to her surprise, and woke refreshed. She remembered that feeling from her travels with the Duke’s Company—often a reluctance to leave, followed—once on the road—by an eagerness to reach a destination. Only then she had known the destination. This time …

  She pushed herself out of her blankets and went to check on her horses. Soon they were riding again. At the next way shelter, they met four King’s Squires, who took over as her escorts on the following day. From them, she heard a little about the magelords and about Kieri’s concern for her and what she carried.

  “They’re not like anyone here,” a young woman said. Dorrin had met Lieth the year before and remembered her. “And though you’re a magelord, they’re not like you, either. They thought if they ever wakened again, it would be a world where magelords ruled.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Fewer than were enchanted. Some turned to dust when the king broke the enchantment. Eight hands, perhaps? More men than women, no children. The children were sent away. They were afraid of Lyonya, afraid of elves. And some of them are sickening—two have already died. The physicians suggest it is a form of traveler’s ill but do not know for certain.”

  “What kind of magery do they have?”

  “They can lift things—they don’t walk across a room to get something; they make it come to them.”

  Others chimed in with more. “They can make two rocks from one … they can cut rock without tools … grind grain by making a rock roll in a bowl …”

  “Do they fly?” Dorrin asked, thinking of Camwyn’s visit the year before.

  “Not that I’ve seen or heard,” Lieth said. “Do you?”

  “No,” Dorrin said. “But one of the younglings who came to magery unexpectedly could rise off the ground.”

  “We leave the main trail here,” Lieth said, pointing ahead to where a narrow trail veered off to the sword-side. “We’re circling around—the king said you would understand why. Tell us at once if you feel any danger.”

  “I will,” Dorrin said. The crown in its wrappings had not spoken to her since she had left Verrakai House; she hoped that meant the magelords could not detect it. Kieri wrote that he had arranged a tour for them to get them out of Chaya for her arrival, but he did not know how far their perceptions could reach or if they could follow his directions.

  The party finally emerged from the forest onto the Royal Ride, just out of sight of Chaya. There they met the queen and her Queen’s Squires.

  “Well met, sword-sister,” Arian said, touching her ruby. Dorrin did the same. “You have read Kieri’s letter, no doubt.”

  “Indeed. You think these magelords are evilly inclined?”

  “We can’t tell. They are different from anyone we’ve known, they speak archaic Common and the language of Old Aare, and one of them has asked about your family and some Finthan treasure sent to it for safekeeping in their time. Perhaps it is because they’re so far out of their time, or perhaps it is because they have
nothing to do, but they are not … easy guests. One of those who had left for the north came back this morning, claiming to feel unwell.”

  Dorrin’s neck prickled. “Do you think he … she? … was faking?”

  “Less now than when he arrived. He was pale then and now clearly has a fever. But the sooner we get your packages into the ossuary, the happier Kieri will be.”

  “Why does he think that’s a good hiding place?”

  “The bones. These magelords are afraid of the ossuary, disgusted by bone-houses. Kieri believes the bones will themselves protect the … whatever it is. Also … he has been adopted into a tribe of Old Humans.”

  “You have a tribe of them here?”

  Arian shook her head. “No … not alive. But remember what I told you of Midsummer last year?”

  Dorrin nodded.

  “Since then, as he tried to find in himself some trace of the Old Human magery the elves told him was there, he asked those bones for help. And was adopted into their tribe. We haven’t explained that to the elves; those bones and Kieri’s elves do not get along.”

  Dorrin stared at her. “Kieri as half-elf I could believe. So when he seemed younger, I understood that as his elven heritage showing once he was here and around elves. Even what you wrote about him and the elvenhome. Kieri communing with his father’s bones I could believe, with some difficulty. But—this?”

  “That is not quite all,” Arian said. She glanced around, then leaned a little closer to Dorrin. “Our children … have our magery.”

  Dorrin wanted to ask how she knew, but if the children’s magery was secret … She nodded instead.

  “Since you told us you are the only one who can handle your—what you brought—we had to find a way for you to get to the ossuary without any of the magelords seeing you. That’s why Kieri sent them north.”

  “What about the sick one?”

  “One of the elves is sitting with him in his room. This is the first of the men to get sick, and I hope it doesn’t spread. All but one of the women are sick now, though the first may be recovering. The elves are sure none of them are iynisin in disguise—I am not—but they cannot tell if any of them are … Do you have a word for those who take another’s body?”

  “Evil,” Dorrin said.

  “I wondered if an iynisin could invade a magelord—and if that magelord then invades another—would that hide the iynisin from elves?”

  “I have no idea,” Dorrin said. “I thought iynisin sometimes tried to impersonate true elves—but why would they want to invade a human? They would gain no additional powers.”

  “Except the ability to fool humans and possibly conceal themselves from elves.”

  “I hope that is impossible,” Dorrin said. “It sounds too much like one of those fancy dishes at feasts—the pigeon inside the chicken inside the ham, and everything stuffed with mushrooms. I cannot imagine an iynisin giving up an iynisin body—taller, stronger, and certainly longer-lived—for a human one. What made you think of it?”

  Arian chuckled. “Probably my annoyance with the elf who told me. They complain of the arrogance of the magelords, but that is nothing to elven arrogance.” They rode on. “And we have High Marshal Seklis from Tsaia—”

  “I know him,” Dorrin said. “He can be difficult.”

  “He is not,” Arian said, “a congenial man. I will be glad when he has finished interrogating the magelords.”

  Dorrin nodded. “He wants to know everything they remember about Gird’s time, am I right?”

  “Yes, and he finds them insufficiently humble and apologetic for magelord misdeeds. Kieri has had to send both parties to their rooms more than once, like a parent with quarreling children.”

  “An uncomfortable situation,” Dorrin said.

  Arian changed the subject. “That’s a Marrakai-bred you’re riding, isn’t it?”

  “The mare Duke Marrakai sold Kieri, yes. He asked me to bring her.”

  “Kieri will be delighted. He’s put Oak to good local mares, but he wants to breed the true strain. How does she ride?”

  “I wish I’d followed his advice and bought one years ago,” Dorrin said.

  Once in the palace courtyard, amid the bustle of grooms and servants, Arian led Dorrin away to the ossuary, as if the bag slung over Dorrin’s shoulder were nothing of importance. The Seneschal greeted Arian but ignored Dorrin, even turning slightly away from her.

  “The matter we spoke of several days ago,” Arian said.

  “Yes, my queen. If the queen will ready herself.”

  Arian went to the bench beside a door with a green wreath above it, sat down, and took off her boots. With a finger to her lips, she pointed to Dorrin. The Seneschal, Dorrin noticed, had his back to her, humming a tune she did not recognize. She sat down and pulled off her boots, then her socks.

  Arian rose, pushed open the door under the wreath, and Dorrin followed her into a room unlike any she had ever seen. Whitewashed stone walls, a stone floor, and rows of racks on which were laid brightly painted skeletons.

  Arian closed the door and said softly. “The Seneschal did not see you. He will not speak to you. You were not here. Come, let me show you Kieri’s father.”

  The decorated bones looked grotesque to Dorrin. She could not read the writing; Arian read a few of the things on Kieri’s father’s bones then said, “Choose a place for your treasures that you can find if we are busy distracting the magelords.”

  Dorrin untied the sack and pulled out the crown in its wrappings. “Do you want to see them?”

  “No,” Arian said. “Then I can truthfully say I have not seen them. King Mikeli described them for us. Do you know yet what they are?”

  “I think so, but I think I should not say it aloud, even here. The dead do not talk, but—” Whispers rose in the room, a susurration as of crowds in the distance. Dorrin shuddered. “Pardon,” she said. “I meant no disrespect.” Silence again, heavy around her shoulders.

  “Quickly,” Arian said.

  Dorrin felt no attraction to any part of the ossuary but the door out; she put the crown back in the sack and the sack itself under the table on which Kieri’s father’s bones lay. When Arian opened the door, the Seneschal still faced away from them, now near another door, and stayed there while they put their boots back on.

  “Thank you, Seneschal,” Arian said in a normal tone.

  “My pleasure, my lady,” he said without turning around. “I am always honored to see you.” The faintest emphasis on “you.” Arian led Dorrin up the steps to the courtyard and from there to the palace entrance.

  “Your rooms are where they were before,” she said. “I must go feed the twins … Come see them when you’re refreshed.”

  Dorrin could have found the room, but servants led her anyway. She bathed, changed, and spent a pleasant hour with Arian and the twins before Kieri returned.

  “How is Mikeli?” he asked after greeting her.

  “Worried, grieving, and angry,” Dorrin said. “He loves—loved—Camwyn dearly, scamp though the boy was.”

  “Any evidence that Mikeli himself has magery? With both a brother and a cousin—”

  “I have felt nothing in him yet, though like you, I think it is certainly possible.”

  “And will tear Tsaia apart if he has and it’s found out,” Kieri said.

  “If it manifests, he will confess it,” Dorrin said. “You know how he is.”

  “I do indeed.” Kieri leaned back in his chair. “You’re looking well, Dorrin, but … this journey … do you know where you need to go?”

  “South,” she said. “That is all I know.”

  “Aare?”

  “Yes,” she said, not surprised he had guessed.

  “I can help you—partly shield you—if you go across Lyonya to Prealíth and take ship from there.”

  “Is there a road?”

  “Not exactly; you would travel with an escort who knows the way. I have met the Sea-Prince … You did, too, at the wedding, didn’
t you?”

  “Yes, but just an introduction.”

  “Still. We have written back and forth. He gave me warnings about Alured, admitted he knew him well years ago. I believe he could arrange passage for you.”

  “Should I leave before the magelords return?”

  “That is your decision. I wish—we cannot tell, you see, if they are what they claim, magelords who were driven out by Girdish hatred though they tried to fit in. We cannot tell if they were blood mages who took over others’ bodies—if any of them are like that.”

  “You want me to—”

  “It is your choice, Dorrin. You’re not my captain; you’re Mikeli’s vassal, not mine—”

  “He released me from that oath. He said I must be free of concern about him and his realm.”

  “Well, then. You are free of all oaths but Falk’s.” Kieri touched his own ruby. “I will not urge this on you. It would be a service to me, yes, but a danger to you and your mission. I cannot gauge how large that danger is, because I do not know enough about the things you brought. Mikeli described them but not their powers. I would ask—do you think you must try to get the necklace away from Alured?”

  Dorrin shook her head. “No. The … the crown has said nothing about it. If it is part of the same set—and I think it is—then I believe Alured will find he cannot keep it from the rest. My task is to take the crown where it wants to go.”

  On your head. Together.

  She stiffened. Not here, she thought back to it.

  Safe now. No dangers near.

  “What was that?” Kieri said.

  “It told me something. I asked it not to talk to me here. Arian said one of the magelords was in the city. It thinks there’s no danger.”

  Kieri gave a low whistle. “I’m glad my crown doesn’t talk to me.” Then he stood. “Time for dinner—I hear stirrings outside the door. I must go down; will you ladies come, or shall I have yours sent here?”

  “Let’s go down,” Arian said.

  Dinner reminded Dorrin of dinners at Kieri’s old steading or her own at Verrakai House. Squires, the king and queen, and the other guests all talked freely, as if with equals. Kieri had invited two of his Siers, both women, and a couple of merchants. Dorrin had seen Lady—now Sier—Tolmaric before, but she was entirely different from the distraught and helpless widow Dorrin remembered. Confident, she discussed the progression of the river port constructed on land she had ceded and the revenues coming in from both the port and an inn she’d built. Sier Davonin, much older, spent most of her time in Chaya, where she also had commercial ventures. One of the merchants traveled regularly to Tsaia on the River Road and wanted to know from Dorrin when the Middle Road would be open. The other had come to the new port from Immer. Squires chimed in with their observations from their courier trips about the kingdom. Nobody mentioned the reason for Dorrin’s visit except Sier Davonin.