by Tom Deitz
“And you are certain you saw no one leave?” Preedor inquired carefully.
Forima shook her head. “Not on the side on which I stood, on which lay the only proper exit. I am told there was no sign of anyone cutting a way out elsewhere.”
“They space-jumped,” Veen concluded flatly. “Simple enough. Zeff would have had to use the master gem in order to wield the sword as he did. We know he had it, because Avall was wearing it when he was captured. Kylin must have sensed its presence as well, and taken a very large risk that he could use it to jump away.”
“But the thing’s mad!” one of the younger Warcraft chiefs protested.
“Apparently that madness is variable and subjective,” Vorinn retorted. “I gather that Avall had regained some control over it. And we already know that the gems seem to act to Avall’s benefit, since he’s the one who found the first one. Even mad, it might act—or incite one to act—in Avall’s favor if given the chance. Maybe. I know it’s a stretch, but it’s the only one we have.”
“And what about what happened in Lykkon’s tent?”
Vorinn shrugged. “It would make sense for Kylin and Avall to jump back here when they disappeared from Gem-Hold. I would have thought they would reappear in Avall’s quarters, but perhaps they wound up in Lykkon’s because that was where the largest concentration of their comrades was. Or—more likely—because that’s where Rann was—we all know how close he and Avall are. In any case, whatever happened there happened very quickly and may well have involved some degree of impulse—even madness, given that the mad gem was a factor.”
“And what did happen?” From a confused-looking Stonecraft subchief named Dessann, who had been asked to join the Council at the same time Vorinn had taken the Regency—mostly to represent Stone, which had lost Rann and Myx.
Vorinn leaned back in his chair, fingers laced across his chest. “It appears that Avall—and Kylin, Rann, Lykkon, Bingg, Myx, and Riff—and about half the furnishings in that tent—jumped away. We have no idea where they went, but it doesn’t seem to be nearby.” He paused. “No, actually, I do have an idea, but it’s only that. We know that the gems often act on pure instinct and will, and I can easily imagine that Avall—if he was in control of the gem, which makes most sense—wanted nothing more at the moment he found himself free than to join his sister, or else his wife. In either case, he’s shots away by now.”
Tryffon tugged his short gray beard. “But if they went to where Merryn is, and she has the real regalia, they could be back here anytime.”
Dessann looked even more confused. “Forgive my ignorance, fellow Councilors, but I appear to have missed some crucial information—”
Vorinn glanced at Tryffon. “No one told him? I tend to forget who knows how much about what.”
“Apparently not everything,” Tryffon replied, scowling at Dessann. “Where did we lose you?” he asked tolerantly.
Dessann shook his head. “I know about the gems—all subchiefs do, at least those who came from Tir-Eron. That is, I know their history, and I know that they power the regalia. But this talk of replica regalia and space-jumping, and—”
Vorinn lifted a brow at Tryffon. “It appears we keep secrets better than we thought.” A pause, then: “Very well, to catch you up very briefly, with a promise of details filled in later, the situation is this:
“Not long after Avall became King, he began to feel that the regalia—the magic regalia, I mean—constituted a threat, both from people who might want to steal it and to himself or any successor who might use it too eagerly or capriciously so that it came to be regarded as a crutch. For this reason, Avall had duplicate regalia made—very fine duplicates, I might add—and had false gems inserted into the various items, since he reasoned—rightly, I think—that a great deal of the regalia’s power came from people’s idea of it—power their fears and beliefs subsumed upon it, as it were—which has nothing to do with the effects produced by its actual use. Once the duplicates were completed, he dispatched the only person he could truly entrust with such a mission—his sister, Merryn—to conceal the real regalia in a place only she would know. With her, he sent all the other gems, except the mad one—the master gem, we sometimes call it.”
“The one he was wearing when Zeff captured him?” Dessann ventured.
“Correct. And of course he was also wearing the duplicate regalia then, though very few outside this Council knew that at the time—either that he was wearing it, or that it was ‘false’—”
“Not false enough, apparently,” Dessann muttered.
Vorinn glared at him. “Suffice it to say that far too soon after Merryn was dispatched to hide the regalia, we received word that Gem-Hold had fallen, and that the regalia was required—one way or another—to ransom it. Obviously we needed to retrieve it, and before anyone could stop her, Avall’s Consort-apparent, Strynn, took that task upon herself—she and a woodswoman named Div. The fact that neither she nor Merryn has reappeared with it tells us that she has not yet succeeded.”
“And this ‘jumping’?”
“Simply stated: the ability to disappear in one place and reappear more or less instantly in another, using the power of the gems—which suck heat from anything alive nearby when they are used thusly. It actually happened a few times at the Battle of Storms, but most people missed it.”
“And that’s all?”
“That’s enough for now.”
“Indeed,” Tryffon echoed. “Which brings us back to Merryn.”
Vorinn nodded. “So I was thinking. And that, in turn, presents two scenarios. Either Merryn has not yet hidden the regalia, in which case—should Avall have jumped to where she is—they should indeed be back here very soon; or else she has hidden it, and they will have to retrieve it. And in the latter case, they could either jump to the hiding place quickly—which I doubt, because of the number of people involved, but which could have them back here by sunrise, since Avall will know about the ultimatum—or else they will have to proceed afoot—which will take who-knows-how-long.”
Tryffon looked troubled indeed. “So we basically have to contrive three plans: one in case Avall returns before dawn with the regalia, one in case he returns without it, and one in which he does not return.”
Vorinn regarded him solemnly. “Correct.”
“At least the balance has shifted,” Veen offered. “Two hands ago Zeff had two major bargaining points: He had the King, and he had the master gem. Now he has neither. If we move in the morning, we could very well force his hand, even without the regalia. Why, if Avall can do all this jumping, there’s nothing to keep him from jumping into the hold itself and settling matters there without us even being involved.”
Tryffon looked startled. “That’s true. It would also be just like him.”
“Two good points,” Vorinn conceded. “Which I think mean we’ve decided that the least we do at dawn is remain where we are.”
Tryffon grinned through his whiskers. “A siege is still a siege, eh, boy? And even without magic on our side, we’re stronger.”
“But they’ve got blackmail on their side,” Veen warned. “Avall was the King, but he was only one man. There are still a thousand innocent people in that hold. Who’s to say who Zeff will serve up on a tabletop next?”
“The subchiefs of War and Ferr, I’d be willing to bet,” Tryffon growled. “Or Crim herself.”
“Or all the chiefs,” Preedor suggested. “That’s what I’d do, if I was ruthless.”
“Maybe even Rrath,” Tryffon took up again. “To show they would even sacrifice their own.”
Vorinn snorted. “Rrath? Well, they probably do consider him a traitor, so he’d be expendable in that regard. On the other hand, he was unconscious the last we heard of him. Besides which, they don’t dare kill him, because—conscious—he knows more about the gems than anyone else they’ve got to hand.”
Veen cleared her throat. “Speaking of Rrath, has anyone told Esshill about all this? He’ll have heard anywa
y, by now; but I think we owe it to him.”
Vorinn scratched his chin. “No, and I suppose we ought to.” He glanced up at the squire. “Do you know where—?”
The girl nodded and darted out—only to return an instant later with a spare, tired-looking young man of twenty, dressed in plain Argen-a livery, for all he was not Argen-a. His eyes were grim, his mouth a thin, hard line.
“He was on his way here,” the squire explained. “We met in transit.”
“And I can imagine why,” Vorinn murmured, motioning Esshill to one of the spare seats they always kept open in the Council Tent. “You are Rrath syn Garnill’s bond-brother, is that correct?”
Esshill nodded glumly. “I am,” he added after a breath, for courtesy.
“And you are no doubt aware that affairs have changed, as far as the King’s captivity is concerned?”
Esshill looked uncomfortable. “I know that Avall disappeared from the arcade at Gem-Hold, that Kylin might have been involved, and that they may have returned here, and vanished again, with half the Regency Council.”
Vorinn nodded in turn. “And what you want to know is whether this in any way involved Rrath?”
Esshill tensed, but would not look at anyone. “I’m grateful anyone remembered him,” he said harshly—“and surprised.”
“He’s a prisoner the same as everyone else in the hold,” Vorinn replied with forced calm. “We’ve as much concern for him as for anyone—except the King, of course—and you have to understand that.”
“I do—in theory. That is, my head does. My heart doesn’t. My heart says that Rrath has been used over and over—and I’ve had to suffer through it at least as badly as Rann has suffered because of Avall.”
“Agreed,” Tryffon rumbled. “But you must in turn concede that Rrath is very smart, for all he might also be a fool. But in either case, it was his choice to cast his lot with the Ninth Face—of which decision, so I am aware, you were not informed.”
“I wasn’t,” Esshill retorted. “And believe me, I will have an accounting of him for that if he ever regains consciousness. Until then”—he looked down again, eyes bright with tears—“it would—Forgive me, Lords, but I must say this—It would be nice if I had any sense at all that even one of you cared a broken stone about my bond-mate’s fate.”
“If you have strong words to say,” Tryffon broke in, “you would be wise to say them now. I’d rather we knew where we stood with you than have you suddenly go rogue and betray us.”
Esshill looked up sharply. “I’m no traitor,” he snapped. “Never to my Kingdom, and only to my clan when they moved without me. For his part, I have no choice but to respect Avall for doing everything he could for my bond-brother. But you must be aware that Rrath’s in danger in there. He knows as much about the gems as anyone, and that information is valuable. Unconscious, he’s safe. But they’ll want to revive him, and since he’s already betrayed them, they’ll have no reason to go easy on him. Which is why I pray every moment that he doesn’t revive.”
“So do we,” Vorinn agreed.
“Is there—I don’t suppose there’s any chance that he got out when Avall did, or as part of that?”
Vorinn shook his head, grateful that he didn’t have to explain about jumping—and that Esshill seemed to have kept silent about it as well; they didn’t want the whole army knowing. “Not that we’re aware of. From what little we’ve been able to piece together, when one jumps with the master gem, one generally takes any human one is touching along with one, together with whatever clothes and accoutrements he or she is wearing. Depending on circumstances—and this would seem to involve two people jumping together—it also appears to take whatever easily portable objects are in the vicinity: a rug one might be standing on, for instance; but not something otherwise fixed, like the tabletop to which Avall was clamped. That’s the only way we can explain how Avall and Rrath jumped away with all that gear that was in Rrath’s caravan when we were back at the Face’s citadel on the day they both got captured: because both of them were in the bond, and those two minds were strong enough to … attract their immediate environment.”
He broke off, because Esshill’s face had gone cold again. “Damn him for that, too.”
“I think it took them both by surprise,” Vorinn responded. “I can’t imagine that Avall would have tried to jump into the Ninth Face’s citadel, and certainly not with Rrath. We’re all but certain that he was seeking information and the whole affair went out of control.”
“Bond-brother as exploitable resource,” Esshill growled. “That’s another one Avall and I will have to work out between ourselves.”
“As is your right,” Vorinn conceded. “But that assumes much and in any case is for later. For now, we wanted you to know that we are aware of your situation and that we’re doing as much as we can—but that there are a great many variables at work here which no one has ever faced before. In the meantime, consider yourself at liberty. You can fight if you want; you can be a squire if you want; you can sleep all day if you want. The only constraint is that you must remain in camp. We don’t dare risk your doing something brave and foolish like Kylin did. It appears they underrated him. They won’t repeat that error, especially now that matters have shifted in our favor.”
Esshill looked up again, his face not one whit warmer. “I appreciate the intent,” he said formally. “Now, if you have no further need of me—”
“Not now,” Vorinn replied. “You may let yourself out.”
“Lord,” Esshill acknowledged stiffly—and with that he rose and departed.
“We’ll have to watch that one,” Tryffon opined, when a hand of breaths had expired. “He’s balanced on the knife edge between loyalty to Priest-Clan and to us. More importantly, he’s balanced between love of his bond-brother and anyone who can ensure that brother’s survival, and hatred of anyone who threatens him—either of which, depending on circumstances, could be us.”
Vorinn nodded grimly. “Trust me, Uncle, that watch him I shall.”
CHAPTER II:
SHELTERING
(SOUTHWEST OF ERON–HIGH SUMMER: DAY LXXIV–EVENING)
“Finally!” Div groaned shamelessly, pointing through curtains of cold gray rain toward a deeper darkness in the canyon wall to their left that might indicate a cave in which she, Strynn, one birkit, and two horses could shelter for the night. They had been toiling up this barren, rocky defile for what seemed like days (though it was barely an eighth of one), all the while keeping close watch on the quick mountain stream beside them, lest it rise far enough to constitute a threat. The parent threat—the rain—had caught them out three hands past noon, but the stream—blessedly—still frothed and rumbled half a span below the level stretch of bank that comprised what passed for a path in this particular part of the Wild. The Eight knew there were no actual trails here, three days southwest of War-Hold-Winter, because nobody in their right mind came here; one way was therefore as good as another.
Which was fine, if one were wandering aimlessly about on holiday, but not if one were trying to track someone—two someones, actually, since the previous evening. And that extra body complicated things, too, because most of their initial progress had come from Strynn knowing Merryn so well she could second-guess her. But that had been before Merryn had acquired a companion—probably her war-shocked former comrade-in-arms, Krynneth syn Mozz-een, if a few scanty, and somewhat disturbing, clues were any indication.
Now they had to rely mostly on the birkit, because the finding stone Strynn wore on a chain around her neck merely indicated the direction in which Merryn’s matching stone lay, not the distance between them. Unfortunately, even that sketchy information was often rendered useless by cliffs too sheer to climb or rivers too wide to ford, which obliged them to take detour after detour, and required them to recheck their route a dozen times a day, which further slowed their progress.
Nor was Div’s woodcraft of much help, since the ground was too rocky to show prints—t
hough she had spotted scrapes upon the stones that could have been made by horseshoes. The birkit—which mostly tracked by scent—agreed. Indeed, it was that semisapient, bear-sized carnivore that had insisted they turn from the wide alpine meadow they had been traversing, and into this darksome declivity between two fire mountains, one of which was still alive and rumbling. Never had Div been so close to one, nor wanted to be so far away. They would be totally at the beast’s mercy after today, too, because this downpour would erase any other tracks that might be present. That it would also wash away a great deal of scent did not brook contemplation.
Then again, most of what she wanted to contemplate right now centered on being warm, dry, and asleep—for that day’s trek, as no other, had worn both her and Strynn down to the nubs of their endurance, with the result that they were panting heavily, stumbling often, yawning frequently, and having trouble thinking at more than an instinctive level.
