Upon the Flight of the Queen

by Howard Andrew Jones

“I think it’s going to be difficult. The Naor have brought another large army.”

  Irehna grew grave. “Do you think the Naor are coming back here?”

  She shook her head. “Vedessus is safe for now, and probably for a good long while. But we might be in for another long war. And there’s more to it than that…” She fell silent, wondering how much she should say about the queen and the conspiracy, even here, within her own home and to one of her very favorite relatives. In the end, she decided to provide more detail. Word was going to go out to the populace one way or another, and it would be better if some of it was the truth. “The queen’s the one who betrayed N’lahr,” she said finally. “She knew he was alive, locked him away, and spread the lie that he was dead.”

  Irehna’s elegant eyebrows rose in astonishment. “Why?”

  “She’s completely caught up in magical studies,” Elenai said. “And she traded him for more magical secrets. Dark ones, we think.” That was a fair enough summary of what they guessed was happening, even if it left out the specificity of the hearthstones. “She needs to be brought up on charges. But that’s going to be kind of hard to do right now with an invasion under way. Queen Leonara sent people to try and kill Kyrkenall and me, once we found out about N’lahr. And we’re worried about what she’s going to do now that N’lahr’s back and exposing her misdeeds.”

  Irehna could only stare. “By the grace of Elahn,” she said. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  She shrugged. “It’s not something you mention in casual conversation, is it?”

  “What are you going to do about it?” Irehna asked in growing alarm.

  “N’lahr presented testimony to the governor this morning. We’ll try to let the governors handle it. Meanwhile, we have to find a way to win the war.”

  “Hail, Alten Elenai,” Irehna said quietly, and reached for the bottle. She raised it in salute. “And here all I was asking about was whether you were sleeping with any Altenerai. You’re really in the thick of it, aren’t you? Like a hero from legend.”

  Elenai snorted.

  Irehna drank. “I won’t be surprised if your sister ends up writing a play about you.”

  “Gods,” Elenai said. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

  And then her aunt spoke with surprising insight. “You just want to be you, for a little while, don’t you? Before you have to run off and play soldier some more.”

  Elenai answered her softly. “I’m kind of afraid that I’ve become a soldier, and I had to run off and play Elenai.”

  Her aunt put her arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “You still seem like Elenai to me. Just sadder, and wiser. And a lot more dangerous, apparently.”

  “And you certainly seem like Irehna. Beautiful and flirty and a little dangerous yourself. Are you still breaking hearts? Is there anyone important in your life?”

  Irehna laughed. “I opened my own little shop across the street that specializes in more high-end work. Lots of ornamental railings and decorative wall hangings and that sort of thing. Between that and arranging the timber shipments, I’ve been very busy.”

  “But not too busy?”

  Irehna smiled, pleased with herself. “There’s a certain broad-shouldered potter who’s been taking up some of my time,” she admitted. “He’s a little intense. And very brooding.”

  “That sounds like nearly every man I serve with,” Elenai said. “I’d be mad to get involved with any of them.”

  “There’s involved, and there’s involved. But you be careful,” she admonished, as though she might instill caution when she herself practiced so little.

  Late that afternoon, as Elenai made farewells to all, she reflected on Irehna’s admonition and how it dovetailed with that of her father’s and her sister’s. Nearly everyone had told her to be careful. She hadn’t dared tell them a whole host of things she’d been involved in over the last month. It wasn’t that she hadn’t attempted to act with care, but that dangerous things were occurring to her with astonishing frequency, and no amount of care would shield her from experiencing them. Skill and planning could compensate, but a careful person wouldn’t be readying to ride off into the shifts with Kyrkenall the Eyeless and a kobalin lord sworn to slay the commander of the Altenerai.

  There had been no point in trying to explain or discuss any of that. They wouldn’t have truly understood.

  Her visit hadn’t been easy, but she knew a sense of loss as she passed through the streets on the way to the barracks. People hurried back and forth from the markets with last minute purchases for supper, and there was something about their bustle different from that she’d seen after the city woke. She realized that word had spread that the Vedessi Guard was leaving. The city’s unease was palpable, though whether it was because they feared for their departing warriors or for their own welfare with them gone, she couldn’t say.

  Once within the barracks, she bypassed a line of squires queuing up to eat, asked N’lahr’s whereabouts, and found him in his office.

  He opened the door and gestured for her to enter. “How was your visit?”

  She took the bench across from him and waited while he retook the chair. A square of light thrown from the window illuminated his desk and the paper, inkwell, pen, and blotter awaiting his return.

  “It was good,” she said.

  “Did you see both sides of your family, or only the one?”

  “Both,” Elenai said. “One side is rather small. The Naor wiped out my maternal grandparents’ village,” she explained. “While my mother was visiting.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She was surprised she could speak of it so plainly. “One of my mother’s cousins survived because he happened to be visiting a library in Vedessus. And she died because she happened to be visiting her parents.”

  He nodded solemnly. It was enough. She knew his own background was even more dire—in a similar raid he’d lost most of both sides of his own family.

  “He’s just gotten married, and has a small child, so I guess that side of the family’s a little larger now.” She wasn’t sure why she told him that, but his expression cleared a little. “How are things here?”

  “Much to do and little time, as you’d expect. You could have stayed away longer.”

  “It was time to leave,” she said. And that seemed explanation enough for him. “Now tell me about this hearthstone problem you’re having.”

  N’lahr opened a lower desk drawer. From it he withdrew a pair of fragments and set them on the dark old wood. “My hearthstone.”

  He didn’t have to say as much—Elenai recognized the two small halves. Seven years ago he’d sliced it in two with Irion and ended up encased in a crystalline prison.

  Knowing that N’lahr never wasted words, she looked to him for an explanation.

  Yet it was a while in coming. The commander was silent in thought for a long moment. “I can feel the thing when I’m away from it,” he said, with the air of someone admitting a minor infraction. As though he’d been caught filching desserts.

  He’d asked for the pieces back as the celebration had wound down last night, and she’d obliged without question. “I assumed you’d wanted it for security reasons.”

  “I wanted to test my ability to know its precise location in relation to me. Even over in the governor’s palace I could feel right where it was, down to a finger’s width. Is that what it’s like to be attuned with one?”

  “Not entirely.” Her first instinct was to reassure him, for there was no missing his concern, muted though it was. But she didn’t want to mislead him, either. “Mine’s in my quarters. Give me a moment.” She paused to slip into the inner world and reached out with her senses, encountering his life force, the glow of Irion, the duller energy of the shattered hearthstone, the life forces of all those in the building, and after a time she latched on to the faint energies of the inactive hearthstone in her quarters. The moment she did so she felt that longing to open it t
hat had so begun to worry her, so she resisted its pull.

  With a breath of effort she let go of her magical sight and spoke to the commander. “Do you sense other things when you’re reaching for it?”

  “I don’t reach for it. I just know. And I don’t sense anything else. Only the stones.”

  She stepped up to the desk and held one of the pieces up to the square of light framed by the door’s window. Even in her grasp she barely felt its power. She knew from before that the shattered remnants held only a fraction of the energy of a fully formed hearthstone, but she considered it with her inner sight and confirmed her earlier impression.

  “Do you sense a connection between it and me?” N’lahr asked.

  “No. But your life force was enmeshed with this stone for years. I guess it’s not too surprising you have a connection to it.”

  “It goes beyond detecting the thing,” he said with mild annoyance. “My sense of time is off. And I think it’s getting more obvious to others.”

  At her hesitation, he continued. “Kyrkenall thought I was simply pausing too long during our chat this morning, didn’t he? It didn’t even seem a pause to me, until he started prodding. From his tone I gathered it wasn’t the first question. How long was I quiet?”

  “A good long time,” Elenai admitted. She was growing more troubled about the symptoms and their possible dangers. “What about when you delayed during the breakfast, or held the one-legged stance so long this morning? Were those the same things?”

  His blank expression changed to one of true unease. “I didn’t realize I’d done anything of the kind.”

  Elenai wasn’t sure what to say. “Suppose that happens while you’re in the midst of a battle?”

  “Yes.” Being N’lahr, he didn’t bother stating obvious worries.

  “Does your sense of time ever seem to speed ahead?”

  “No. But then that’s not what being imprisoned was about.”

  “Maybe we should keep it farther away from you,” she suggested.

  “Do you think that’s the answer?”

  “I’m not sure.” She thought. “I might be able to tell more if I opened one. Unless you think that’s dangerous.”

  “You tell me.”

  She considered the possible dangers and decided they were slight. “I’d like to try it. I’m going to step out into the courtyard so I’m a little farther away from you, but so we can signal one another.”

  He acquiesced with a nod and opened the door for her.

  She walked over the old pavers and moved for the point farthest from the door, in the shadows of the second-story eaves. Once there, she labored to focus on what she had to do and not upon N’lahr’s well-being, but it was a challenge. What if N’lahr were to get worse and worse? What if he were on his way to becoming a permanent statue?

  For that matter, though, who was to tell what would happen if she tinkered with a broken hearthstone? Slicing it open the first time had introduced a completely unforeseen and catastrophic result. Suppose just poking at it when the stone was damaged did the same? To her? Or would it act against the person it was apparently linked with and encase N’lahr again?

  The more she thought about it, the more she realized she’d too quickly dismissed the dangers.

  She had an errant thought that she ought to consult with someone who knew something more about hearthstones, instead of relying upon the limited knowledge of an amateur like herself. But while there were certainly more experienced mages in Vedessus, when it came to hearthstones she was the best resource N’lahr had. And that was a little surprising.

  Opening a hearthstone had grown simpler and simpler, but this proved a challenge. She searched and searched for the flaw and got to thinking it might be on the other half. Rather than return and search that piece, though, she considered the dead center of the stone, usually unreachable, and touched it with a clockwise spiral of energy as she would when facing an actual opening.

  The stone flickered to life in her hands and she felt the soothing brush of its power, dull though it was. When contrasted with the blazing heat of the activated hearthstones she was familiar with, this thing was but a coal lately removed from a dead fire. It retained only a hint of energy. It seemed uninclined to encase her in crystal, or to subdue N’lahr once more. She glanced over at the commander, peering with interest through the window and suddenly she was in his thoughts.

  She had practiced a few linking exercises over the years, where two mages shared memories, but this was nothing like that. She was suddenly aware of everything he thought and felt.

  He ruminated upon an old memory. A dust cloud billowed. His oft smiling, now wide-eyed father shouted to mind his sister and whirled from the horses and new plow to snatch a hoe. He, N’lahr, was pulling the little girl away from the seedsack and dragging her into the drain ditch, feeling her shake with each fresh scream from their mother or older sister. He pleaded with her to stay quiet, even when the screaming stopped and the hairy strangers grunted and cheered. He was filled not with fear, but impotent rage.

  She didn’t know he’d sheltered a sister. N’lahr was famously the only survivor from his village.

  She died of high cough in the refugee camp later that spring.

  “You can hear my thoughts, too?” she asked, thinking it at the same time.

  I can. The rage, she felt, had never fully left him.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “About your family.” She worked to set aside the deep grief and anger he’d shared, and looked down at the stone, seeking in vain for some sign of obvious connection between it and the commander. There was nothing visible in the outer world, much less glowing threads of energy in the inner.

  Intrigued, Elenai shut the stone down, relieved when it cooperated with little effort. She walked back to N’lahr. He opened the door and eyed her, apparently waiting for her judgment, but she still wasn’t sure what she’d say. Finally, she began with the obvious. “This could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.”

  He seemed unfazed. “How far do you think you can go with it?”

  That question didn’t truly make any sense to her. “What?”

  “How far do you think you can take it and still communicate with me?”

  She answered honestly. “I have no idea. I don’t even know how it works.”

  “Do you think the other stone needs to be near me for the trick to work properly?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m not sure you should keep either near you.”

  “All right. You can take one with you. I’ll have someone else hold the other half, but keep it away from me. At the rear of the baggage train, say.”

  She didn’t care for that at all. “You should leave both pieces here, where the Naor are in no danger of getting hold of it. You’d be in extreme danger if this stone were to fall into enemy hands. I’d just as soon see both pieces destroyed, if I knew how.”

  He shook his head. “There’s an advantage here you may not appreciate. It’s just possible the stones can give us a way to communicate from a distance.”

  The full force of his idea caught her off guard. “You think that I can reach you while we’re traveling?”

  “We know a talented weaver can use a hearthstone to send messages, even between realms. Why not send a message to me? I’m no mage, but I’m somehow attuned to this stone.”

  “Not in a good way. Or in a controlled way, at least.”

  He turned over his hand, as if casting off a worry. “We should experiment. I’ll have you ride to the far side of the city, on the wall, and try there.”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Good. And then if that works, it may work when you’re farther out. In either case, it will be farther away, which may limit the stone’s effect upon me.”

  “I suspect. I don’t know for sure.”

  He nodded. “Good. I want to be kept abreast of your progress.”

  Didn’t he understand the risks? “You’re overlooking the dangers of your con
nection with this broken hearthstone. I have no way of knowing what prolonged involvement with it, or proximity to it, is going to do to you.”

  When he met her eyes, she realized that he understood completely. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.” He jabbed a finger at the broken pieces. “That thing stole seven years. It’s about time that it helped me for a change.”

  8

  A Brother’s Word

  Alone among the dozen or so weavers Vannek had met, Syrik had a warrior’s physique. He was broad shouldered and deep chested, with massive legs and thick arms. If he didn’t spend so much time studying spell work, he’d probably be even bigger. Almost all Naor mages were mocked, even if they were feared. The most powerful were only disparaged behind their backs. No one, though, ridiculed Syrik, in part because he was born from one of Mazakan’s lesser sons, and thus had some blood of greatness in him, but also because he could land a solid punch if you crossed him. He’d been pulled unwillingly into the company of mages during his twelfth year, soon after he had personally slain an adult wyvern—what their enemies called ko’aye—in the most elite rite of passage available to aspiring men.

  By ancient traditions, children who had visions or other weird behaviors were turned over to the mages, no matter their birthright. Syrik had kept his oddities secret for longer than most, but Vannek’s eldest brother, Chargan, had eventually noted Syrik’s magical taint in his aura and secured a confession. Thus the young man had been forced into training and, outside of occasional forays, his hunting days were now over.

  Vannek had grown up surrounded by cousins and sons and daughters of other lordlings and chieftains and kings. Syrik had been a favorite. He was blessed with strength and speed but didn’t make a show of it. And he possessed a rare ability to laugh at himself when he made mistakes. Vannek had no idea how he’d developed that particular quirk, for his father had been a brash and sullen braggart and his mother inconsequential.

  When Vannek was eight, he had sometimes wondered if Syrik, only two years older, might make a good husband. One who would listen, and maybe be kind, and not take too many other wives. But then Vannek had been declared a man, and he could no longer look on men in a womanly way.