The Lens of the World Trilogy

by MacAvoy, R. A. ;

  I was sure Benar missed none of these nuances, for they were his life’s study and he was a sensitive man besides. But he did bow to the duke. “I have come alone—but for these few—in hope of mediating an end to this… fighting. This ruin of the countryside. This killing of Velonyan by Velonyan.”

  Mackim stared a long time at the king. He was rubbing his hands together as though cold. As he opened his mouth, there came a knock at the door, sharp and imperative. Somehow this sound was deeply alarming, and I imagined myself leaping the desk and duke together to reach Jeram’s weapon and wield it. But the door was cracked open by Sieben, who put his silent face in the opening and wagged his index finger in an admonishing manner. His arrogant humility and servant’s dress turned the trick; there was an apology, the door closed again and heavy steps receded.

  “This talk of mediation sounds very odd coming from the man who is waging war against us.”

  “I am not!” Benar snapped a large palm on the polished walnut of the desk. “You know better than that! The army follows parliamentary majority, and if it were to follow one man it would be Lord Gorham or Marshal Pere, not a civilian of less than one year’s experience of authority.”

  “He is right in that, my lord,” I added as Mackim looked unconvinced. “Despite what you hear in Norwess, the king is not the instigator of this conflict. He has only been swept about by it.”

  Mackim sat back in his chair as the king leaned over the desk. This was insufferable behavior, and even I, who have no manners, was shocked. “He may not be waging the war, but he is still the source of it.” Mackim cleared his throat. “The truth of it is, the honest men of Norwess will not accept you as king, Benar. Not for any amount of threats or ‘mediation.’”

  Benar did not move. “Why? Do they think I’m not my father’s son?” Mackim gave no reply to this, but played with a glove on the table. “Or do they think I killed my father?”

  At this the duke glanced up sharply.

  “Yes, I just recently heard that story—the man slandered is always last to know the gossip. Well, I will have you understand that I did not kill my father, nor do I know who did, if indeed he was killed and did not die naturally.”

  Mackim did not meet his eyes. “I never said you were guilty of that,” he said, though of course all in the room knew he had said that. “But it is the connection. Lowcanton. We will not be ruled by a foreign country nor by foreign customs. Not in Norwess.”

  Foreign customs will sweep through this country west and east, up and down, as they always have, I said, but to myself. Just as our customs will travel wherever we happen to go. And Mackim’s own dearest ways will change shape beyond recognition, yet he will not realize they have changed—not if he were to live a hundred years. Every day will be different, but man will see them all as the same.

  All this I said to myself, with no hope that Mackim might understand. Nor the king. Nor anyone else.

  Count Dinaos rustled politely at Mackim’s mention of his homeland, and he gave a bland smile. Timet of Norwess, distrust in his honest face, stepped behind the desk and next to the duke, where he could keep an eye on the Lowcantoner. I saw Navvie’s breechloading pistol in his sash, but he made no move to touch it.

  “I don’t intend to allow Velonya to be ruled by any foreign power, my lord duke. Even if I did, what would my desire mean to a nation with law legislated by three houses of parliament? If you use the person of the king as excuse for rebellion, you must be looking hard for an excuse.”

  Mackim glowered. “Now you are talking like your father. I thought your coronation meant a return to a strong monarchy.”

  The king sighed. “That language was no more than disguise for the creation of a strong military.” His arms braced against the desktop, Benar hung his head, his auburn curls falling in his face. “I need your help in ending this war, Mackim.”

  Mackim folded his arms before him and looked past the king’s belt buckle. “You admit you need my help, whereas I can end it without your interference at all… sir.”

  Now King Benar at last was getting angry. “Man, don’t you care for the lives of your own soldiers? I am told they are piled like kindling by the roadside, waiting for the thaw to be buried.”

  Mackim’s wince was barely perceptible. “Every man here is a volunteer. They are fighting for their own identity.”

  I said, “Shit!” I must have said it loud enough for all to hear, and strongly enough to get their attention. I took that opportunity to remove the coat I had stolen from Gorham, and the odor of the drying wolfskin that hung down my back rose unpleasantly. Its paws were tied beneath my neck and the nails clicked together as I tugged thoughtfully upon them. On impulse I hopped onto Mackim’s desk.

  “When a man starts to worry about his own identity he’s lost it already. It’s trying to board up the river to keep the water from flowing away. Soon you don’t have a river anymore. When a nation starts to hug its own particularities to itself it is showing fear and it will soon cease having any characteristics worth saving. Velonya can’t help being Velonya, and if the people are free and happy that’s all one could want of it. Besides…”

  I flipped the poor empty head forward until the nose overhung my face. “… Besides, Mackim, look what you have for alternative. Could anything be stranger, less comforting, more all-in-all foreign than myself?” As the duke glared, I displayed my barbaric suit, the bloody hide, and my own unVelonyan face. “Note the touches of Sekret, of Rezhmia, of academia. Recall my sweet little mother, murdered by Velonyan hands when I was a babe. I don’t forget her; believe me. And do mark my utter unpredictability—remember how many men have called me mad over the years. You’ve heard them.

  “And now be aware that I am what you have as choice. Not a Velonya ruled from Norwess, nor yet two snowy kingdoms at the west of the continent, but Nazhuret, king of Velonya (and all the Underworld, of course), at the head of a Rezhmian army of occupation. The sanaur’l will supply the army. I will supply the king.”

  I was prepared for a dangerous reaction from Mackim, or even from King Benar, though he had heard all this before. What I had not expected was to stare down the barrel of my own daughter’s experimental breechloading pistol, held by Timet of Norwess.

  I should have told the boy what I was doing, after all.

  “I can’t believe I let you use me for this,” he said, with a shaking voice. The pistol did not waver in his hand.

  “Don’t, Tim. Let Papa be. You are acting out of ignorance,” called Navvie, who was standing behind the king, in no position to interfere.

  “Ignorant, am I? Well, who kept me ignorant?” Timet’s eyes were almost soft; he was looking not just at me but at the whole room of men. His stance was ready, almost relaxed. He seemed very familiar with the firearm. I thought he was the most dangerous opponent I had ever faced, except perhaps for Powl. I felt a draft from behind, which crawled down my neck and told me I was sweating.

  I tried to equal his composure, though I was on the wrong end of the gun for that. “What did you think I was coming here for, lad? How can I end a war in which each side is willing to destroy its own people, except with a threat even worse?”

  “What you offer is certainly worse, Nazhuret. You tell no lie about that. Though I have studied the arts and sciences of Rezhmia for years, I will not endure to have that country ruling my own. That you could think of it…”

  Looking at this large, blond, long-boned young man behind the pistol, I found myself starting to smile. “Well, you see, Tim—you’re a Velonyan. I’m a half-breed. For me it’s different.”

  “But in all your writings you always claimed to be…”

  I cut him off before he could finish. “I have published no writings. Perhaps the philosophy you think mine belongs more properly to Jeram Pagg, here.”

  Jeram pounded the desk. “You lie, Nazhuret. I added nothing. Nothing!”

  I was chilled in the breeze from the door, but refused to allow a shiver to start, because f
ear would turn easily to terror. I heard the men around me shifting, and the hiss of Count Dinaos’s rapier along the scabbard. I wondered on whose behalf he was drawing it. Mackim looked behind us and then away. Jeram looked behind us and then carefully at me, a message in his eyes. Timet squeezed the trigger.

  The slug stung my ear and deafened me. For a moment I was back in time, when I was twenty-three and exploded in a petard set off by Rudof’s men. I was not able to hear the lead slam into the body of the man who had come into the room as I spoke, and who had pointed his own, less modern pistol at my back, and been slain by Timet of Norwess.

  “Foul, my lord duke!” shouted the king. “Unworthy and stupid!” He backed against the wall, seemingly shocked by the nearness of the shot and the stink of powder.

  After the first stagger, I did not move. “Mackim, you are a fool. Did you think killing me would dissolve the danger? You have the choice of Rezhmia with me or Rezhmia without me—a much less inviting plan, believe me—or of making my… I mean, this country single again. It is our weakness that forces the sanaur’l’s hand. They cannot afford a Velonya in service to Lowcanton. Neither will they accept a coup from Norwess, or the army.”

  “How do you know this: that the Rezhmians won’t accept a change in monarchy?” asked Mackim, who had not moved from his chair. “One Velonyan ought to be as good as another to a country that is perennially feeding ground glass to its own nobles.”

  I had to sigh. “My lord, you don’t understand the Rezhmians any better than the average Velonyan does, and that is very badly. Besides, the only Rezhmian nobles fed ground glass in the last fifty years or so were my mother and uncle, who were not poisoned by Rezhmians but by a Velonyan duke who once sat in the same chair you now occupy. Believe me, Mackim, they will take the present king—with a curb on Lowcanton influence—or myself, or a protectorate of their own. You have your choice.

  “That’s all. I’ve said what I came for.” I stepped toward the door and Mackim called to me, “And you don’t even wait for an answer?”

  “No. I’m through as messenger boy. Besides—my horse is tired.”

  As I strode out, I brushed by the king of Velonya. On impulse, I looked at him and added, “You have your choice, too. You can come with us. For your safety.”

  “My safety?” The king wore a predatory but not angry smile. “Nazhuret, you are the least safe companion I have ever known. I shall stay and mediate, as I said I would.

  “I may even enjoy it,” he added under his voice. Perhaps he still felt the brandy.

  I did not know if I would live past the moment I crossed that threshold. Mackim shouted after me, “We have men enough to stand against Vestinglon and Rezhmia!”

  I did not pause, but I heard Timet’s quiet, young voice. “My lord duke,” he said. “You haven’t as many men as you think. You have lost your banner. You have lost your wolves,” and he strode behind me. Ahead came Dinaos and his man, and the count shouldered me between them. Beside me stepped Nahvah, once more in possession of her experimental pistol. I bent to her ear. “It works,” I said. “Very nicely, eh?”

  She shrugged. “So far.”

  We passed through the door and past a clutter of uncertain guards in the finery of the duke’s personal service. Lacking orders, they did nothing. Sieben ran ahead, and by the time we came into the daylight, he had the horses. We mounted, watched by a dozen whispering men. As I watched out of the corner of my eye, Jeram Pagg squeezed out the door and ran to us. He stood below my gray mare and stared up at me, wordlessly, and then he walked to where Timet was lacing his snowshoes. I saw the young man shake his head, but did not hear the question. We came out from the camp almost as quietly as we came in, leaving only the king behind.

  “Don’t you want to stay with your nephew?” I asked Dinaos. “He may need some assistance, and as I am the threat which is to bind Velonya together, it is not appropriate that I give it.”

  Dinaos’s face was as ironical as Powl’s in his worst moments. “But I am the equal and opposite balancing threat, being from Lowcanton. Therefore it is also appropriate that I leave. And then, I do not like my nephew, O barbarian. I did not come all this way to baby-sit my nephew. Now that this dreary ride is over, it is for us to go somewhere more interesting. It is the time I spoke to you about, once before. Perhaps better than the first meeting. Perhaps worse. But different. I swear to you—different.”

  My ears were blushing. I knew this because the injured one was stinging like mad. “But I don’t know where I’m going, Count. And… I don’t know… I don’t know…”

  He grinned and his eyes glittered in the snowlight. “I know that you don’t know, barbarian. You don’t know a thing. So what?”

  We had entered the park by now. Timet, skimming over the snow at the side of the icy road, leaned over to me. “Would you have done it, Nazhuret? Would you have come in with an invading army? Or was it an act to make those fools get together? I need to know—would you have done it?”

  I was glad for any interruption: even this one. “Those fools? You mean the king and the duke? You have as little manners as I do, Tim. And my answer is that I would not like to do it. I hate war and I would hate being monarch, both for my country’s sake and for my own. But I would have done it. I still may.”

  He stopped abruptly, raising a little cloud of snow. “You said in there that it wasn’t your country.”

  I didn’t bother to answer that one.

  Not ten minutes later, Navvie bounced up on her snowshoes with a great deal of determination in each stride. “Papa,” she called to me. “You don’t need me anymore. Not with you all the time.” I said nothing and she went on. “It used to be you were so lonely I couldn’t bear to part. Then, I think my being with you kept you lonely. I don’t know any other way to say it but that. So I’m going away.”

  “It’s a good time for it,” I admitted.

  “With Timet.”

  “I guessed that part of it,” I added, and tried not to grin. Then I noticed my daughter was in tears. I slipped off the horse and held her awkwardly, hampered by the huge snowshoes. “Why be sad, Navvie? Nothing is lost. Nothing.”

  Timet was standing behind her, carefully not intruding. “That’s easy to say,” she sobbed, and she embraced me so fiercely I could not speak. Then she turned her snowshoes, spraying white powder, and ran lightly over to Timet.

  “It’s not,” I called after her. “Not really easy to say. It takes all my effort.”

  I got back onto my beautiful, bony horse and looked over at Dinaos, who was waiting patiently, all expression veiled. “So, barbarian?” he asked, and then he smiled. “What happens now?”

  I watched the sunlight sparkle on the snow, laced with shadows. I wondered where Sieben had gotten to, and the troublesome Jeram Pagg. For the first time in years, I felt no anger toward the fellow.

  I said, “I have no idea what happens now.”

  My father lived almost ten years after these events, and a number of portraits of him exist, all by Dinaos. Ironically, one is on display in the Royal Gallery of Lowcanton. After this narrative, however, it seems he wrote no more.

  My father begged me repeatedly that any manuscripts of his that might fall into my hands I would burn, to save trouble for all involved. Each time, I assured him I would do no such thing. Yet, I find I have been declared the executrix of his estate. (It is a small estate.) In this I perceive Papa’s ambivalence toward his own compositions. Or his idiosyncratic sense of humor.

  Since the day I left my father in the woods, I have never heard the voice of my dead mother. Though she was a good mother to me, she was always his companion first. Nor have I heard or seen my father since his death.

  But then, I am not lonely.

  N.H.

  About the Author

  R. A. MacAvoy is a highly acclaimed author of imaginative and original science fiction and fantasy novels. Her debut novel, Tea with the Black Dragon, won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She h
as also written the Damiano trilogy, the chronicles of a wizard’s young son, set during an alternate history version of the Italian Renaissance; The Book of Kells; and Twisting the Rope, the highly acclaimed sequel to Tea with the Black Dragon. She is also the author of the beloved and much-praised Lens of the World trilogy.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Lens of the World copyright © 1990 by R. A. MacAvoy

  King of the Dead copyright © 1991 by R.A. MacAvoy

  The Belly of the Wolf copyright © 1994 by R.A. MacAvoy

  Cover design by Amanda Shaffer

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-4802-6

  This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  New York, NY 10038

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