Antiagon Fire ip-7

by L. E. Modesitt Jr

  For a time thereafter, there was little conversation, but after a bit, Quaeryt turned to Arion. “What is the road like from here to Saendeol?”

  “Much like it has been. If the weather holds, we should reach Saendeol by Samedi evening.”

  “How large a place is it?”

  “Perhaps twice the size of Rheon. It does have more inns. There was little destruction.”

  “Why was that?”

  “There is little of great value grown there, and no mining, and the Bovarians like to trade by canals and rivers.”

  Others asked a few questions after that, and Arion was more than happy to tell the officers about Khel.

  Quaeryt and Vaelora mostly listened.

  As they rose after eating, Quaeryt leaned toward Vaelora. “I need to talk to Khalis and Lhandor.”

  “I would have suggested it, if you hadn’t.”

  Quaeryt gestured to Lhandor, the nearest of the two. “I’ll need a moment with you and Khalis after I escort Lady Vaelora to her chamber. If you’d wait here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt escorted Vaelora through the public room and then up the stairs, again shielding her until she was inside their chamber. “You will bolt the door.”

  “Yes, dearest. I’ll even unbolt it when you return.”

  “I’d hope so.”

  “There are times, dearest, when you hope too much.”

  Quaeryt let the wince show.

  She lifted her hand to stroke the side of his face. “Do what you must and hurry back.”

  Quaeryt returned her smile. “I will.” But he waited outside in the hall until he heard the bolt slide into place.

  The two Pharsi undercaptains were waiting at a table in the corner of the public room. Quaeryt gestured for them not to rise and eased a chair into place across the table from them. “As you both know, I speak little Pharsi. I have little idea what’s being said. What have you heard?”

  “I don’t catch everything,” replied Khalis. “They speak a bit different here, but you scared the innkeeper when you came into the inn and took off your cap and he saw you and the lady together. The serving girls were whispering about it.”

  “One asked me if you were a lost one,” added Lhandor, “or maybe an ancient.”

  “An ancient?”

  “One of the old Pharsi from the east.”

  A Naedaran Pharsi? “Were there Pharsi in Naedara?”

  Lhandor shrugged. “I don’t know. There are tales that the oldest Pharsi fled into the west.”

  “I never heard that,” said Khalis.

  “My grandmere talked about them. My father told me not to believe her, that all good Pharsi came from the west.”

  Quaeryt nodded. In that light, the road and some of the legends made sense. “Did they say anything else?”

  “One of them asked me why all your hair and your nails were white, if you painted them to look like the son of Erion. I told her that your hair and nails turned white, that it was part of the price you paid for calling down the ice on the armies of Bovaria. It was, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” Quaeryt said quietly. But only a part.

  “She got real quiet then. The other one whispered something about telling her father. I got the idea he might be the innkeeper.”

  “Was there anything else?”

  The two shook their heads.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep listening. Any little thing could be important.”

  “Because of the High Council?” asked Khalis.

  Quaeryt nodded. “I don’t want Lord Bhayar to bring an army into Khel. The Pharsi don’t want that. We’d all be better off if we can work something out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt could sense the doubt in their voices. “It won’t be easy, but it’s something we have to find a way to do.” Because that’s best … or because you don’t want to destroy thousands more? “Thank you both. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  With a parting nod, he turned and headed back to the room … and Vaelora.

  When he had bolted the door, he walked to the armoire and sat on the stool, where he began to pull off his boots.

  “Dearest … I’ve been thinking…”

  “Yes?” he replied warily.

  “There isn’t anyone, except perhaps the Autarch, who can threaten Khel. By defeating Kharst, Bhayar has removed the threat of Kharst. Weak as it is, Khel poses no threat to Telaryn or Bhayar. Not now. Why are you going to press the Council to accept Bhayar’s agreement?”

  “Besides the fact that he dispatched us to do so?”

  “If it’s not a good idea, it’s not a good idea.”

  “You’re right about that, but uniting Khel and Telaryn is a good idea, even if the Council doesn’t like it.”

  “Go on. Tell me why. You’ll have to tell the Council why.”

  Quaeryt turned on the stool to face Vaelora, who sat on the end of the double bed.

  “First, Khel can’t protect itself from the factors who flee Bhayar and move to Khel, especially those in the north and west of Bovaria. If Khel doesn’t accept Bhayar’s terms, he certainly won’t have any interest in pursuing those factors. Why should he protect Khel from them? Second, what’s to stop traders from Jariola or Ferrum or other places from trying to establish themselves in Khel? If they do, and it’s against the interests of Telaryn, then Bhayar will have to do something in the future. The Khellans certainly won’t like that. Third, if Khel accepts his terms, the Pharsi will have Bhayar’s protection, under law, against factors and others who try to exploit them, and they will have the ability to trade freely throughout all of Lydar except for Antiago. That will make them far more prosperous.

  “Equally important, Khel can get better terms now because, sooner or later, he will take over Khel. If he has to fight to do it, Khel will suffer far more than it already has. If the High Council agrees to terms he can accept, then there’s no war, and everyone benefits.”

  “That makes sense … and they won’t agree,” said Vaelora sadly, glancing toward the window and shivering.

  Quaeryt rose and walked over to close and fasten the inside shutters. Then he turned back to face her in the dim light. “I’m afraid you’re right. Do you have any better suggestions?”

  “Not tonight, dearest.”

  Later, much later, outside the window, even with the inside shutters closed, Quaeryt could hear the wind and the beat of heavy rain on the roof and the walls of the inn, but his mind drifted back, time and again, to the same words.

  What can you do to persuade them? The question kept circling in his thoughts, and yet he had no answer-none at all.

  At some point, he finally drifted into sleep with the beating of the rain on the walls and the roof.

  33

  Quaeryt woke abruptly in the darkness and turned toward Vaelora. She wasn’t there. He ran his fingers over the covers, but the bed was empty, except for him, and the sheets were like liquid ice. He bolted upright and looked toward the alcove behind the screen, but there was no one there, either. The door was still bolted, and the shutters were closed, tightly fastened, just as he had left them.

  Where could she have gone?

  The chamber was so cold that his teeth began to chatter as he kept looking around, but he knew better than to try to image warmth. No telling what damage that could do.

  Where was Vaelora? He threw back the blankets and stood. The stone tiles under his bare feet felt like ice, but he walked to the armoire. Surely she couldn’t be hiding there. He opened it, and all he saw were clothes. From there he went to the screen, but the washing area was vacant.

  He turned back and looked at the bed again. He could see the rumpled blankets where he had been lying, but the covers were smoother where Vaelora had been. Had she gotten up earlier? But how could that have been?

  He walked back to the bed, then turned as a glimmer of light seeped into the room from the closed shutters, followed by streams of silver light flowing through
the shutters of the window … and then the shutters melted away to reveal the figure of a man with hair like flowing silver, standing at the end of a road of reddish silver that stretched into the night sky. In one hand he held a dagger with a blade of brilliant light. Across his back was a mighty bow, and in his other hand was something shimmering so brightly that Quaeryt could not determine what it might be … a key, a small book, a coiled chain of gold…?

  The silver-haired figure smiled at Quaeryt, almost sadly, before he spoke. “You cannot hold a daughter of the moon, for not even a son of mine can do that.”

  “I haven’t tried to hold her,” Quaeryt protested.

  “You have not. So far … but women and lands cannot be held against their will, not and prosper. Nor can you force peace with a blade or even the power I have given you. You can only stop others from fighting by destroying them or by the threat of destruction. The absence of fighting is not peace. It is only the absence of fighting that may resume at any time.”

  “But why won’t they see?” Quaeryt finally asked.

  “Do not argue over what is not and may never be,” said the silver-haired man.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You have heard those words before. You know their meaning more than most.”

  The light faded, and Quaeryt shivered a last time, then realized that Vaelora was sitting up beside him.

  “What was that light?” she asked sleepily.

  Light? “There was light? I thought I was dreaming it.” After a moment he said, “You’re here. You’re really here?”

  “I am indeed. You were talking to someone, but there’s no one here.”

  “I had the strangest dream…” Quaeryt shook his head. “You were gone, and Erion was standing in a flow of silver light before the window. He told me … that I could never hold you … because you’re a daughter of the moon.”

  “Of course you can. You do every night.”

  “No … he was right. You choose to stay, but if you chose to go, I couldn’t hold you.”

  Vaelora took his hand, the left one, with the two fingers that could feel but not move, and held it. “Isn’t that true of you as well? I could never hold you against your will, even with Bhayar behind me.”

  “But I want you to hold me.”

  “That’s not the same thing,” she said softly, “and you know it.”

  “He also said that lands and women were the same, that with all the power I had been given, I could not force peace. That I could only use destruction to stop fighting for a short time. He was right about that … too.”

  “If it was a dream, you were telling yourself that.”

  “Was it a dream?” he asked. “You saw the light coming through the shutters.”

  She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, then put her other arm around him. “Does it matter? Truth is truth.”

  Tired as he was, Quaeryt felt as though more than a glass passed before he drifted back into sleep and uneasy dreams.

  When he woke the second time on Meredi morning, close to sixth glass, Quaeryt thought, he walked to the window and unfastened the shutters. A wave of coldness radiated from the thin panes, completely covered with frost. He scratched away enough of the frost to peer out and to see that white covered the hills he could barely make out over the roof of the stable, and that gusting flakes continued to fall, swirled here and there by the wind. Through the swirling flakes, he found it hard to tell just how much snow had fallen or was falling.

  “What is it?” asked Vaelora.

  “Snow, and it’s still snowing.” Quaeryt refastened the shutters and turned back to face her. “We’d best get washed and dressed and see how bad it is.”

  “Should we be traveling through a snowstorm?”

  “Probably not, but it’s hard to tell from here if it’s a light passing storm that’s almost over, or the beginning of something bigger. I’d like to see and to talk to Arion and Zhelan. The sooner we get to Saendeol, the better, but we don’t want to be frozen to death on the road.”

  Vaelora sat up, the covers drawn around her. “Have you thought about your dream?”

  “Not much,” he protested. “I just woke up. Have you?”

  “Only that it means you shouldn’t force the High Council to agree to Bhayar’s terms, even if it means Khel will not be a part of Telaryn so soon.”

  “So soon?”

  “It will happen. Of that, I am convinced.”

  “Just as you were convinced we would be together?”

  “I knew that it would be so.” She smiled.

  “Have you had any farsight visions on this? On Khel becoming part of Telaryn.”

  “No, but I feel it will be so. Without force.”

  Quaeryt fingered his stubbled chin. “What is force? What’s the difference between persuasion and force?”

  “You know very well, dearest. So does every woman.”

  “There sometimes is a narrow line…” He grinned.

  “Only men think it’s narrow.” Vaelora sniffed.

  Quaeryt knew she was teasing … slightly. He sighed, loudly. “We need to get dressed.”

  Once he had washed and shaved … and dressed, pulling on his winter riding jacket and lined gloves last, he ended up pacing around the chamber.

  “Stop pacing!” snapped Vaelora. “Or wait for me downstairs.”

  Quaeryt forced himself to sit down and not to say a word. Nor to sigh or groan.

  Finally, in less than half a quint that felt like a glass to Quaeryt, Vaelora was ready, and they walked from their chamber down the corridor and the steps into the main entry hall. Recalling his near mishap of the night before and feeling a certain stiffness in his bad leg, Quaeryt was especially careful on the steps.

  Both Arion and Zhelan were standing, talking, by the front doors to the inn. In the side corridor leading to the stable courtyard, Quaeryt noticed a man in gray leathers, talking to an older gray-haired man. Neither looked at him.

  At that moment Zhelan turned. “Commander … we’ve been talking. The cooks are feeding the men, but I don’t like the look of things.”

  “Let’s walk outside,” suggested Quaeryt.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt grinned. “I know you two have already looked, but I’ve only seen it from the window.”

  “It doesn’t look any better outside,” replied Zhelan.

  Arion nodded.

  “At least give me the illusion of being in charge.” Quaeryt nodded to Vaelora, then held the door for her as they stepped into the gusting winds and swirling snow.

  Once outside, he looked up and down the street. The snow hadn’t piled up that much, only a digit or two, if that, but there were small drifts deeper than that against the inn and the walls of the other buildings Quaeryt could see. On the other hand, he didn’t see any riders or wagons anywhere on the street.

  “If you walk downhill, to your left, sir,” said Zhelan from behind Quaeryt and Vaelora, “you can get a better view of the hills.”

  Quaeryt stayed close to Vaelora, holding shields around them both as they walked down the edge of the paved road a good fifty yards so that he could look across a meadow that showed some brown grass protruding from an uneven cover of snow. Through the swirling snow that was lighter than it seemed, he could just barely make out the outline of the hills to the west. Even through the falling snow, he could see that the higher hills were definitely snow-covered, although it was difficult to tell just how deep the snow was.

  “What do you think?” Quaeryt turned to Arion.

  “It doesn’t look like that heavy a storm, now, but the sky to the north is darker. That’s where it’s coming from. It might not get worse, but you can’t tell. Were I you, I wouldn’t hazard men and mounts.”

  Quaeryt chuckled. “And if you were just you, traveling with your squads?”

  “I’d stay here and wait for the weather to change.”

  Quaeryt looked to Zhelan. “Major?”

  “I’m with
Major Arion.”

  Lastly, Quaeryt looked to Vaelora, who nodded. “Then that’s what we’ll do. Let’s head back to the inn and let the undercaptains and the men know.”

  They turned, and the majors stepped aside to let Quaeryt and Vaelora lead the way. After they had walked fifteen yards Vaelora pointed past the inn. “There’s a woolens shop up there.”

  “How can you see that?” murmured Quaeryt.

  “I can always see the important places.”

  He wasn’t about to respond to that.

  “If we’re not traveling today, I can see what they have.”

  “I’m sure that you can, dear.”

  “Dearest … that sounds patronizing … disrespectful, my brother might say.”

  Thankfully, Quaeryt could hear the teasing note in her voice. “I’m being most respectful. I agreed that you could visit the shop.”

  Quaeryt and Vaelora turned toward the front door of the inn, some ten yards away. Just then a strong gust of wind swirled a wall of snow at them, strong enough that Quaeryt’s shields diverted the snow, leaving them untouched as they walked toward the inn.

  At that moment Quaeryt saw the two bearded men in leathers, the younger of whom had pointed at them. More likely at seeing the snow avoid us.

  “Why are those two men looking at us?”

  “My shields diverted that gust of snow. They saw it.”

  “I didn’t notice that.” Vaelora paused, then said, “They’re both wearing leathers. Didn’t Arion say something about that?”

  Quaeryt frowned, trying to recall. “Oh … he said that the Eleni hunters, the women, wore red gloves and red leather shoulder rests.”

  “They’re definitely men,” said Vaelora.

  “And not wearing red leather,” Quaeryt pointed out.

  Quaeryt watched as the two men reentered the inn, but by the time he and Vaelora had reached the door and stepped inside, neither of the men in leathers were anywhere to be seen.

  “Since we’re already up, and the men have been fed, we might as well eat some breakfast,” suggested Quaeryt.

  “I could use some tea. Then … what do you have in mind?”

  Quaeryt said nothing.