For the Killing of Kings

by Howard Andrew Jones

  He cleared his throat. “We need answers, not angst. I want to know if you’ve any ideas where the real sword could be.”

  “Have you asked Denaven? Pardon me. Commander Denaven?” Sarcasm dripped from Kyrkenall’s words.

  “Not yet. I left a message for him, though.”

  “He’s probably busy preening in the mirror or kissing the queen’s bony white ass.”

  “Kyrkenall!”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  It was, from a coarse perspective, but Kyrkenall dishonored the corps by talking that way. “The queen rules us all, and Denaven’s your commander so long as you wear that sapphire.” Kyrkenall looked down at his own ring. “He’s kept you on the rolls, despite your long absences. He didn’t have to do that.”

  Kyrkenall snorted, then took another sip, his finger rising as he did so, and Asrahn braced himself for one of Kyrkenall’s invectives against Denaven or the queen. But he returned instead to the topic of the sword. “Have you checked with Varama?”

  It took a moment for Asrahn to unravel meaning from the question. “About the sword?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. Why ask her?”

  “She was always on about measurements and ratios and all that. I think she weighed Irion once, or calculated a density or whatever else she does. Trying to figure out why Irion was so much better, even than my sword. You could have her compare the old measurements with the sword on the wall. That was on the wall. You know.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “You’ll notice it’s not a great idea.”

  Asrahn felt a lightness in his chest as he stood. “Thank you, Kyrkenall. You’re wrong—it’s a far better direction than I had before now.”

  “I’m occasionally useful.”

  He had been far more than that, once.

  “You need any help?”

  “No.” The last thing he wanted was a half-drunken Kyrkenall indelicately agitating this evening. Especially when he spoke with Denaven. “I’ll look into it, then tell you what I find. Will you be there tomorrow then? At the parade?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it.”

  “You should go.”

  “I’ll have to salute Denaven.”

  “He respects you.”

  “Sure he does.”

  “Why not join me and Melagar for dinner afterward?”

  Kyrkenall’s smile was refreshingly genuine. “That sounds nice, Asrahn. You still live in the suite over the Idris?”

  Neither mentioned that it was near Kalandra’s long-empty flat.

  “Yes.”

  “All right then.”

  Asrahn nodded once, turned to go, then considered his old charge. “Kyrkenall.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re better than this.”

  Kyrkenall shook his head. “The queen and the court never deserved you. Neither did I. Would that you lived in a better world.”

  Bemused, Asrahn replied, “Would that we had the strength to make one. I’ll see you tomorrow. I hope you find a more comfortable place to sleep.”

  Kyrkenall laughed. “Hail, Alten.”

  “Hail and farewell.”

  Asrahn left Kyrkenall in the darkness and departed the palace through the heliotrope garden. As he passed under a wisteria trellis and into the vast open grounds of the complex, the sun stretched a dark finger of shadow after him as it sank below the high hills west of the city.

  Asrahn smiled as he saw smoke curling from the chimneys of Varama’s work buildings behind the Altenerai stables. His old comrade was working late, as usual. With her analysis, surely he’d be able to put his concerns to rest. But he’d have to hurry if he was to return to Denaven’s office by eight bells.

  He heard his name called.

  Asrahn turned to find a broad-shouldered figure approaching, trailed by a tall woman in an unflatteringly high-necked dress. After a moment he recognized the first as Cargen, one of the newest Altenerai. With him was that mage sometimes used as supplementary instructor for Altenerai squires—what was her name?

  Cargen halted before him and raised his hand, his blue ring flashing in the dying light of sunset. “Hail, Alten.” His voice was low, clipped. His heavy, beard-fringed jaw was thrust forward truculently.

  “Hail,” Asrahn replied, eyeing them both. The woman, light of hair and eye, was lean, clean featured, and moved with grace and confidence. He wished he could recall her name.

  “I’ve been looking for you this evening,” Cargen said quietly. “Do you mind if we talk?”

  “It’s not a good time.”

  “We can walk with you if you’re in a hurry. This shouldn’t take long.”

  “Very well.” Asrahn started forward.

  Cargen fell in step and indicated the woman with a sweep of his hand. “This is M’lahna.”

  Ah, now he remembered, and felt foolish. This was Gyldara’s sister; even if he’d only met her a few times M’lahna’s resemblance to the alten should have sparked recognition. She had covered focusing spells with mid rankers last month. There was a time when all martial mages were trained in Altenerai schools, but this one had never served under his direction. “Well met.” Asrahn tried not to sound brusque. “Come along then.” He picked up his pace toward the bridge that would take him to the workshops. It arched over a walled tributary of the river Idris winding its way down to the heart of the city.

  “I’ll have M’lahna mask our conversation. I don’t want anyone else to hear.”

  Asrahn halted in mid-stride and studied them both. The failing light caught Cargen’s dark eyes.

  “What’s this about?” Asrahn asked.

  Cargen answered softly. “The sword, Irion.”

  He almost breathed a sigh of relief. “Did Denaven send you?”

  “Yes. It’s all right, we can walk.”

  Asrahn stepped forward, Cargen at his side.

  “Does he know where the real sword is?”

  Cargen raised a finger. “One moment. Did you talk to anyone else about the sword being missing?”

  “One or two,” Asrahn answered. Cargen’s manner was unusually tense. Perhaps he was worried that his more senior comrade had been indiscreet. Asrahn sighed inwardly, and not for the first time in dealing with Cargen.

  They reached the midpoint of the bridge, and Asrahn glanced over to the woman, whose face had the glassy-vacant expression of someone in the midst of sorcery. She rubbed a charm dangling from her necklace between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand. Cargen stepped close enough that Asrahn could smell the mint he’d chewed, and the faint breath of a dry wine behind it. “It’s important I know, Asrahn. Was it one, or two, and who were they?”

  “Sareel.” He paused, for some reason reticent. Owing to the oath that had been the lynchpin of his life, lies never made it past Asrahn’s lips, and even one of omission was a difficult prospect.

  “What did you say to her?”

  “I asked if Irion had ever been kept anywhere else.”

  “And that’s it?”

  He held back from mentioning Kyrkenall’s name, despite a strong compulsion to speak on.

  “You didn’t mention anything to, say, Melagar?”

  “No. I haven’t seen him since this morning.”

  Cargen nodded. “What about the squire, Elenai?”

  How did Cargen know about her involvement? Asrahn sensed that he should have been more worried, but he found himself strangely untroubled. “Not really.”

  “So you said something to her? What was it?”

  Why were his thoughts so muddled? There was something bothering him about this conversation, and he frowned as it came to him. “Cargen, you sound far more worried about who I spoke with than you are about the true sword. What if our enemies have it?”

  “I’m worried about both. Believe me. We can’t have people thinking their hero’s sword has gone missing, can we? The day before his big celebration?”

  Something was wrong. “It’s g
etting dark,” he said, and willed his ring to life.

  Upon calling its power, the mazing M’lahna had woven around them loosened, though she still retained a sluggish hold upon his perceptions. Asrahn sensed her spell wrapped about his thoughts almost as though he’d blundered through a web in the deep woods. The strands stretched with the light of his ring, but still touched him.

  He saw that he was not upon the bridge, but beneath it, beside the river itself in its stone channel. The bridge’s shadow was a black stripe across the water.

  “His will’s strong,” M’lahna whispered, which wasn’t true. Asrahn had no mystical ability; likely the woman just wasn’t used to fighting the power of one of the sacred rings.

  Asrahn wore no sword this evening. But he was Master of Squires. He had trained the last five generations of Altenerai. Asrahn took Cargen’s thick chin with a solid right that snapped the man’s head back, then advanced with a left to his liver. Cargen threw up a block, but Asrahn’s fist brushed past his arm and caught him with a blow to the cheek that staggered him. Cargen reached for his knife hilt.

  “No marks on the body,” the woman hissed.

  So that’s how it was. Did they think he’d go down easy?

  He partly turned so he could see them, and M’lahna pressed at his will. His sapphire ring shone.

  Cargen lowered his head and came in with his arms. Asrahn brought his knee into Cargen’s gut and tried to pivot for a side kick to set his assailant off-balance.

  Unfortunately, the leg that would have been solid under him even two years before betrayed him. The muscle seized up, and what should have been a graceful pivot was more of an awkward slump. Before he could compensate, a bloody-faced Cargen slammed into him and they stumbled.

  No amateur, the woman threw her next sorcery while Asrahn fought for balance. Cargen suddenly disappeared. She’d blocked sight of him from Asrahn’s view, an old trick. A good trick.

  But a good spell couldn’t last if its caster were injured. He rushed her.

  She was fast and limber and sidestepped one blow, ducked another, then slid in to deliver a rabbit punch to his ear.

  It wasn’t a solid hit, but it was the one that decided his fate, for as he shrugged away Cargen grappled him from behind, pressing Asrahn’s arms to his sides.

  No longer restricted to keeping Cargen invisible, the woman hammered him with all her best magics. The world twisted and tilted as if Asrahn had just spun a hundred times in some childhood game.

  A cool hand dug at one of his pinioned arms, pried at the ring that gleamed on his finger.

  Not the ring. If she took the ring, he knew he was through. It was the final chance, and he bent his fingers tightly even as the man put a knee to his back. He struggled, cast back his head to catch Cargen in the forehead, missed …

  And then all was still and he had no cares. The dizziness ebbed, and he seemed to float in a cool, dark place. The troubles of the moment before were but the lap of distant ocean waves.

  He heard voices.

  M’lahna panted. “For an old guy, he’s pretty spry.”

  Cargen’s response was sharp. “He’s Altenerai. Ask him. This has taken too long already.”

  The woman’s voice was soothing, like cool water on a dry throat. “Asrahn, did you tell Sareel you were afraid the sword was a fake?”

  “No. I didn’t want to alarm anyone.”

  M’lahna spoke softly to her companion. “We can easily manage this. Asrahn, what did you say to the squire Elenai about the sword?”

  Graceful gray-eyed Elenai. So much potential. “Nothing.”

  Cargen sounded exasperated. “Nothing?”

  “No.”

  Asrahn heard her speak but knew that she didn’t address him. “I can see the memory—he speaks the truth. His manner might have confused the girl, but we should be able to manage it.” And then she spoke to him. “Alten, I regret this. You were a loyal servant to the queen, and the realms. You shouldn’t have asked questions.”

  “Someone smarter wouldn’t have,” Cargen added. “Someone dumber wouldn’t have noticed.”

  “Shut up, Cargen.” M’lahna’s voice was still soothing. “What of your husband, Asrahn? Did you say anything to him?

  “Melagar,” Asrahn said tenderly. “I haven’t seen him all day. He doesn’t know.”

  Again he sensed that the woman wasn’t talking to him. “I think Asrahn need be our only loss. I have one last question, Alten. Did you speak to anyone else about the missing sword?”

  Asrahn had only a dim understanding about what he was experiencing, but something drew him up short before he could answer. A sense of lingering unease came to him.

  “He’s fighting me,” M’lahna said.

  “There’s someone else, then,” Cargen said. “Push it!”

  M’lahna’s voice rose in anger. “I’m already masking and silencing us. My magic’s stretched—”

  “Push!”

  Asrahn gritted his teeth. He was Altenerai, one of the exalted champions of his people. He had served under bold Renik, and before him, brave, doomed, Anara, and he had trained some of the finest champions of the realms. He had sworn the oath and stood with his brothers and sisters before the enemies of Darassus. Confused as he was, his loyalty yet was a bulwark against the assault by a master sorceress.

  “He’s thinking of a hand, holding a bottle,” M’lahna said. “It’s some-place dark.”

  Asrahn snarled. They would know nothing more. There was one shield left him. “When comes my numbered day,” he said slowly, as if he had to tear each word from the muck of his muddled consciousness, “I will meet it smiling. For I’ll have kept this oath.”

  Cargen’s voice rose in consternation. “Why’s he reciting the Altenerai pledge?”

  “He’s using it to block me!”

  “Make him stop. Push!”

  But Asrahn would not stop. At the whispered words that formed the framework of his life, a spark flared within him and his speech grew easy. “I shall use my arms to shield the weak. I shall use my lips to speak the truth, and my eyes to seek it.” That spark flared to flame and his voice strengthened. “I shall use my hand to mete justice to high and to low, and I will weigh all things with heart and mind. Where I walk, the laws will follow, for I am the sword of my people and the shepherd of their lands—”

  He heard the woman’s warning cry and suddenly he saw them, dark shapes against the stones beneath the bridge, Cargen grasping at him.

  They were too strong. He had to get away, warn Renik.…

  But as he spun, stumbling as fast as he could manage, he remembered Renik was gone. N’lahr was dead. Kalandra was missing. He had to warn the few who were left, for it was too much for him alone. Asrahn had always been a lesser light, and he knew it. He served the state as best he could, to lift those with potential to greater heights than his. Though he was Altenerai, he’d known, even when young, that he’d never join the ranks of the legendary.

  Cargen’s footsteps pounded behind him and M’lahna’s weavings reached again for his senses, thrusting him into blackness even as he dove into the dark waters of the Idris.

  The water was cooler than he’d anticipated. A surprise.

  Mages loved surprises. Anything that gave the mind something new to wrestle dropped your guard. So had Kalandra always warned. If he’d yet worn the ring, awarded him in sacred trust, he might still have brushed M’lahna’s spells aside.

  She clamped down hard, and all went dim. His body fought, spasmodically, and then everything left him.

  2

  A Changing World

  Elenai had been an Altenerai squire long enough to know her superiors didn’t have any special compulsion to keep her informed of their comings and goings. Still, as she woke the next morning in the predawn gloom her mind turned almost immediately to Alten Asrahn. He’d never come back to inspect her work or replace the sword.

  Last night she’d wondered if his absence were some deliberate test of her chara
cter or initiative, and after waiting for more than an hour, had decided to rouse Sareel, the aged and surly Keeper of Keys, to restore Irion to its case.

  Sareel had been astonished to learn Asrahn had given Elenai the blade, cross that she’d been wakened (apparently Elenai’s intrusion was the capper to “an insufferably interminable day”), and frustrated because she felt duty bound to accompany Elenai rather than loan the only other key to Irion’s case.

  Elenai offered no explanation, as Alten Asrahn had provided none, so she just squirmed uncomfortably and tried to placate the angry woman with “yes ma’ams” or “no ma’ams” whenever appropriate. Afterward, she had sought her own bed in a swirl of uncertainty, hoping to consult with the Master of Squires in the morning both for reassurance and to confirm the repair was completed to his satisfaction.

  She rose at the usual time, despite a long day of parade drills before her late-night activities, and sleep clung to her fitfully. She swung her legs out of the covers, then reached across a narrow distance to turn up the oil lamp to maximum burn. As a squire of the fifth rank, she had earned a room of her own, but not one of any real space—just a small rectangle, with nightstand, bed, and storage chest arranged along the wall leaving only a narrow aisle between the door and shuttered window. A proper stretch would have to wait until she left her quarters.

  She lingered on the bed’s edge, reviewing her options. A visit to Asrahn’s quarters was as unthinkable this morning as last night. He maintained private lodgings somewhere in the city—she’d have to ask precisely where—and visiting his home seemed a presumptuous, and embarrassing, invasion of the old gentleman’s privacy. Even inquiries about his whereabouts would invite questions she couldn’t answer without disobeying him. No. He would take a dim view of her cravings for reassurance, and she didn’t want to diminish the trust placed in her when, no doubt, he’d been called to a more urgent duty.

  So, she’d carry on with the activities she planned for this morning. It wasn’t likely she’d encounter Asrahn on the practice field, but she might be able to speak with him before the parade. He’d be there to inspect the squires’ formal turnout before public presentation. Once everyone was in place at the lineup, he might have a spare moment to appraise her work. And he’d surely have stopped by Irion’s case on his way to the assembly, if he hadn’t already checked on it last night.