“Oh Father!” Kirin knuckled tears from his eyes, clutched Pieter’s hand with both of his.
Pieter’s eyelids drooped. “So tired. I love you, Kirin. You are . . . the best son . . . I could . . . ever . . . have.”
Kirin stared numbly as Pieter’s eyes sagged closed. Fresh blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. The red trickle pulsed, then slowed and stopped. Pieter’s chest sagged down and did not rise again.
Kirin put his forehead against the bedside and wept.
It seemed a long time later when he finally stopped. He raised his head, found Penghar still patiently waiting. The knight had sheathed his sword but kept one hand on her hilt as he spoke. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Kirin managed a nod of acknowledgement. He rubbed his eyes on his dirty sleeve. I should get up, he thought, but the effort required seemed beyond him.
Penghar got to his own feet, said, “Terrell should wake soon according to the Dona. I suspect he’s going to want both of us there. There’s a plot against him and the Twenty have been called, so there isn’t much time left to counter it.”
He held out his hand.
My son is in Aretzo, Kirin thought. Where Chisaad is trying to do—what?
He took Pen’s hand, let the knight heave him to his feet. Kirin lingered for a last moment, looking down at Pieter’s still body. The youth in the next bed still breathed with his face turned away in sleep. The priestess came in and began a benediction for the dead. Kirin turned his back on the room and followed Sir Penghar out.
They hurried across Sulmona through the fading desert heat. The suns poised above the hills west of the city, the day nearly spent. Kirin and Pen reached the palace courtyard as Kirin’s mental connection to his twin awoke.
*Kirin?*
*Terrell! I’m glad you’re alive.*
*You too. Where are you?*
*On my way into the Sulmona palace.*
*Did you find your father?*
*Yes.* Grief followed the word.
For a moment their minds merged in shared sorrow. Fathers, mothers, all dead. Kirin paused on the palace doorstep. Then, with an effort of will, he followed the knight and said to his twin, *You know how this Choosing works. What do we have to do to prevent Chisaad from winning?*
*We must fly to Aretzo as soon as the Master of the Air arrives. Tonight.*
*How did I know you were going to say that?*
Terrell chuckled. *Because you’re in my mind. Oh, poor Pen is going to be so confused by us.*
Kirin’s back stiffened as he followed Pan down a corridor. *Don’t tell him.*
*You mean you haven’t?*
*Not, not yet. I have to get used to this first. This brother-ness. He won’t—he’ll find it hard enough. Let’s first see . . . who becomes King. Before we tell anybody.*
There followed a moment of silence while Terrell’s busy mind wrestled with the implications of Kirin’s words.
Kirin blinked and steadied himself against a wall. All those thoughts running in tandem with his own, like two rivers joined in the same bed yet running side-by-side. One clear and quick, the other muddy and slow, and he wondered which one he was.
*If that’s what you want, then very well,* Terrell answered slowly. *We’ll do it your way, my brother Ryghar-called-Kirin.*
*Thank you.*
Pen opened a door where guards braced to attention and led Kirin into a room. Terrell looked up from the bed where he sat.
Kirin knelt and bowed like a peasant. He could feel Pen’s happiness at the gesture as the standing knight used the half bow that was his privilege.
*You are wiser than you know,* Terrell sent to Kirin whimsically. Then he bid them both rise, welcomed them, and said to Pen, “Does this place have decent baths? I haven’t had one in days, and I’d like to be clean when the Ilvars arrive to take us home.”
Kirin saw the happy grin on Penghar’s face and didn’t have to guess the knight’s joy at having his lord back.
For now. But the Throne awaits, he thought to himself. We’re still halfbreeds; what if it just kills both of us?
CHAPTER 56: CHISAAD, TERRELL AND KIRIN
The spider nestled in his hair itched abominably. Worse, Chisaad had to constantly dedicate part of his mind to monitor the golem no matter what else he did. The sheer effort required wracked his nerves and shortened his sleep.
Chisaad had the Golem’s illusion spell running in a loop reprising the last several hours of its connection to Terrell, before it had gone abruptly silent. But the loop eventually repeated, with minor but real consequences for the Golem’s physical appearance. The resulting shortened cycles of fatigue and health could only be glossed over, not hidden. The Hierarch didn’t know the prince well enough to notice, but Dona Seraphina did. At any moment Chisaad feared she would become suspicious. If she sent her aura into the golem without the active connection to Terrell, she’d surely realize that the prince’s Light had deserted this body. Chisaad knew he couldn’t fake that flow well enough to pass a serious inspection.
He squinted at the suns, morning-bright here on the little plaza at the foot of the Five Hundred Steps. The succession ceremony had begun. The Hierarch intoned her blessing on the gathered Twenty, though only seventeen were actually present. Two more waited in the crowd of nobles, still stunned that they had not heard the Call despite established bloodlines that should have guaranteed them a place.
They don’t know about me, Chisaad thought with smug relief. Mulghar DiMerio is still bedridden from the wound Darnaud dealt him, which is perfect. He was the most dangerously competent candidate after Terrell. And there’s probably another bastard at large somewhere too, one meek enough to keep his head down. Everybody else is here.
He fought down impatience once more. If he could get the golem climbing the Five Hundred Steps, he could keep it separated from Seraphina for a while. The procession had lined up, the ‘prince’ in the lead and Chisaad standing subserviently at his left to operate the voice-carrying spells and the rest of the customary magical panoply. The space where Baron Sir Penghar should have been on the right remained conspicuously empty.
I should have received word of his death by now from Darnaud, Chisaad fretted in a corner of his mind. Did that fool bungle his opportunity? Is Penghar on his way back right now with Darnaud’s head in a saltbox and vengeance in his heart?
Relief flooded him when the Hierarch finished her speech and she and the old Healer got into their separate sedan chairs. Chisaad silently directed the golem to graciously wait a few steps to let them get ahead, then ordered it to start climbing. It took the steps with mechanical precision, face composed in a smile that revealed nothing. The men lined up behind followed with the customary three steps between each. The older among them would find the Hill a serious challenge; tradition insisted the rest wait for them, and the sluggard’s pace made him want to scream his frustration.
Even so, Chisaad thought, plodding along beside his ‘Lord.’ In less than a full candlemark we’ll be at the top, and moments after that I’ll be King. Then nothing else will matter.
* * *
Terrell squinted at the land beneath them. The rising suns’ light had swept down from the peak of God’s Footstool to illuminate the Valley floor. From a hundred feet up he could see the works of humanity in road and canal, fields and towns. It exhilarated and terrified him. The wind of their passage bit harder and the carpet twitched beneath him.
“Master of the Air, are we going to make it in time?” he asked.
“Now that we have daylight I can see our route easier, and fly faster,” answered the senior Ilvar wizard happily. “We’ll make it in time, Your Highness.”
Terrell had been watching the King’s Road unreel a hundred feet below the carpet’s edge ever since they reached Amm Crossing. He knelt behind the older man as he’d done with the wizard’s nephew when flying from Skyrock, clinging with one hand to the mage’s belt while gripping Kirin with the other. They had warm robes now over cle
an clothes that Pen had extracted from Gwynned’s stores, and thick kerchiefs around their faces to cut the wind, but it had still been a long chilly trip. This method of travel has its benefits, but I suspect flying on a carpet is never going to be popular.
Kirin had locked one arm with him and held the mage’s belt with his other as Terrell fed him Light to calm his Shadow. Their minds mingled and withdrew, mingled and withdrew again as each wrestled with his own role in the event racing towards them.
*We’re nearly there,* Terrell told him, trying to be encouraging. *That bump straight ahead is the Hill, barely ten miles away.*
*Terrell. If it kills me?* Kirin asked. *Will you take care of my son?*
*Absolutely. I’ll have him brought into the Royal House and raised as the Prince he’s entitled to be. After all, he’s my nephew. But it’s not going to kill you. If you aren’t chosen, you simply won’t be able to move the crown. If it really doesn’t want you, it’ll warn you when you approach it. Remember to keep your shields down so you can hear it.*
*You told me. But I haven’t got any shields. I told you I’m not really a mage at all.*
*Then keep your Shadow caged under your heart, that should be good enough.*
*Thank you.* Kirin’s mind withdrew again into a muddy contemplation that Terrell couldn’t follow.
Terrell glanced back over his shoulder. Another carpet followed with Pen, who hadn’t been happy at being assigned to seize control of the Gray Fort. But he was the only man other than Terrell himself with sufficient rank to give orders to everyone in it, Gwythlo or Silbari. He’d swallowed his objections and agreed.
I think he found it harder to see me take Kirin with me, Terrell thought sadly. Jealousy from Pen was a new thing, one Terrell hadn’t known Irreneetha’s bearer could feel. Even though I told him I needed a mage on the Hill to counter anything Chisaad tries. Which I do. A mage, or Kirin.
“Five more miles,” the Ilvar chieftain said. The carpet’s speed increased again. “I’ll have to charge at the Hill as fast as I can fly to get us up it, Your Highness. We’ll have to trade speed for height on a slope like that.”
“But you managed much higher slopes in the Black Mountains,” Terrell answered, puzzled.
“Their nodes are under Ilvar control, they won’t resist me. The Hill of Sight most certainly will, though I hope it will recognize you and refrain from blasting us out of the air.” The Master of the Air grinned. “This will be a new and exciting challenge!”
Kirin looked at Terrell and rolled his eyes.
“Four miles!” The Ilvar mage shouted joyously into the rising wind.
* * *
At every landing on the Five Hundred Steps the procession paused, an acknowledgement that the eldest candidates found the climb a serious challenge. Chisaad curbed his impatience, stuck to the Golem’s side, and watched the Priestesses’ carrychairs ascending ahead of him. Their bearers stopped at the ninth landing as planned to let the women off, turned and came back down to the eighth to wait.
“Welcome to the Fifth Landing,” Fantillin, the Palace Majordomo, intoned as servants fanned out along the line to offer watered wine to all. “Please drink sparingly, My Lords. You resume in forty breaths.”
Chisaad had the golem decline, and did the same himself. He glanced over the balustrade down the slopes of the Hill. The roofs of the Palace and the Gray Fort were packed, every Silbari soldier in the Fort waiting and staring. There hadn’t even been a protest when the prince ordered Gwythlo soldiers to man the city gates today, which would simplify Ap Marn’s seizure of power when the Choosing ended.
He thinks. Chisaad forbid himself to smile. He doesn’t know half of what the Hill can do with a King in control. I can send a cleansing fire through both gatehouses and rid myself of most of the Gwythlos right there. Then I’ll arrest Ap Marn and send him home in chains with a list of his thefts and his stolen wealth as tribute, that ought to buy off Osrick for a while. Time enough for me to organize the mages the way they should be organized, and to make Silbar supreme and independent. The people will hail me for that!
“It is time, My Lords,” Fantillin declared as his staff withdrew from the line and the last candidate swallowed a final gulp. “Please resume.”
Chisaad had the golem incline its head slightly in acknowledgement and set forth once more. The procession continued in lockstep. DiSolera and the elder DiMerio candidate and a couple of others were already panting like dogs. The younger men looked solemn, suitably awed by the ritual in which they were participating.
Chisaad smiled a grim smile and matched his creation’s pace. His mind caressed the hidden spells he had planted in the Hill. Soon.
* * *
“Last mile,” the Ilvar Master of the Air shouted into the roaring wind, and Kirin gulped. He pried his gaze from the blazing purple cone ahead to look down.
The outer edges of Aretzo flashed beneath the speeding carpet, the fishermens’ village, the stockpens and slaughterhouses, the cemetery wall and the arcing rows of graves that wrapped half the Hill. He saw thousands of faces turning to look up at them with mouths agape. He’d never seen the cemetery so packed. The Hill approached like a giant hand about to swat them out of the sky. He clenched his teeth as they crossed the thirty-foot wall around it and plunged into the purple fire.
Then they were rising.
Kirin’s stomach tried to drop through his groin. Every particle of his body got dragged down, down, like the fastest trapeze move but much stronger. The Hill’s defensive spells besieged them, tried to penetrate them and slow them down.
His Shadow awoke, surged to his skin and fought back. Attacking spells ripped where they touched him, leaving a trail of flinders as the carpet soared up, up, and still up, slowing with every breath but still climbing.
*Help me stand!* Terrell’s mind shouted as his legs fought the dragging weight.
Kirin shifted his grip to catch the prince about his hips. Terrell stood, raised his hands against the drag, and addressed the defending spells.
“Let. Us. Pass!” he ordered.
The spells obeyed.
Vertigo slammed them as the carpet leaped.
* * *
At the ninth landing the procession paused again while the eldest men panted and trembled. It wasn’t unknown for a frail candidate to collapse or even die before reaching the top. The Hierarch took station on the other side of the golem from Chisaad and Dona Seraphina stepped to her far side, the four of them arrayed in a line facing the final flight. The Hierarch raised her censer and chanted; the golem smiled beatifically, looking like a man too rapt to speak.
Chisaad glanced aside over the crowds below the Hill. The mass churned oddly, arms pointing at something behind the towering cone.
Then the Hierarch and the golem stepped forward simultaneously to approach the last fifty steps. Chisaad moved in lockstep with her, the long tail of candidates on their heels. He was so close to success that he could taste it.
A shout wafted up the Hill from the crowd. His pulse began to pound.
The Hill’s defensive spells activated—on the back side. Streamers of magic wreathed the top. He gaped and missed a step, as did everyone else in the procession with any magesight. What?
Then the defending spells furled themselves exactly as if commanded.
“Excuse me,” Chisaad muttered. “I must attend to the Hill.” Through his spider he ordered the golem to ascend slowly, then hurried up the steps ahead of the sedate procession. The Hierarch frowned after him but did not object. She set her aged feet on the first step at the measured pace of the golem. Everyone else, bound by tradition, followed.
* * *
The carpet topped the Hill with a last bound and settled roughly to the pavement between the first two bollards. The Ilvar mage sagged, spent and stunned by the tremendous effort he’d put forth. Kirin staggered off the fabric onto gleaming pavement. He caught Terrell as the prince nearly fell in his wake.
“You must offer yourself to
it first,” Terrell panted to him. “It has to know you before you can try for the Crown. All of the Twenty have been brought here before to meet it. It’s your turn.”
Kirin stared at the gleaming marble chair. He’d never seen anything as pure white in his life. The silver and amethyst Crown shone quietly on the seat. *I have to touch the throne?*
*Open yourself to it first.*
Kirin swallowed, his throat tightening. He could see spells wreathing the Throne, the Crown, the whole top of the Hill, a bewildering abundance of spells. The node below rose from an unimaginable depth to a point right beneath the pavement. He’d never been so close to any node before Skyrock, and this one was immeasurably stronger.
His Shadow quailed into a hard ball under his heart, afraid. Not of the power, he understood, but of what ruled it. Something lived inside that marble chair, something that watched him with an enormous concentration.
This is it, he thought, frightened down to his toes. I either do it, or I don’t. And I’ve got a feeling that whatever-that-is will not let me choose ‘don’t.’
The air seemed to ripple in affirmation. The Stone Throne waited.
Kirin took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and walked towards the snowy marble block. Magic bathed him, threaded through him, cradled him, and his Shadow only curled tighter. He reached the little dais, hesitated, then stretched out his right hand and laid it on the corner of the Throne’s left arm. The marble felt cool to the touch and strangely alive.
“I’m Kirin,” he began, paused, said, “I mean, I think they named me Ryghar DuRillin DiGwythlo when I was born, but Kirin is the name I’m used to. And I’m here.”
The white marble began to glow. First rose, then orange, yellow, through green and turquoise, to blue and violet and finally, the royal purple of the flag flying above the Aretzo Palace. The glow filled the top of the Hill like a giant candle flame. A voice spoke inside his head, sexless and ageless, as scorching as the Suns and as soft as a butterfly wing. It filled him to the skin.
Shadow and Light Page 55
