Aydrian had claimed that throne as his own and so had started the great civil war, one splitting the secular and religious kingdom into two bloody factions. The war had culminated in involving the monastery St.-Mere-Abelle in the bloodiest battle of all.
But Midalis had spared Aydrian and had sent him into exile, because of Midalis’s respect for and love of Jilseponie, Aydrian’s mother, who had been both a bishop of the Abellican Church and King Danube’s queen. King Midalis had heard Jilseponie’s claims that Aydrian should be shown leniency because the man who had caused the trouble, the darkness who had brought war to Honce-the-Bear, had been possessed by the spirit of the demon dactyl itself.
“If you must kill me, then I only ask that you make it as quick as you can,” Aydrian answered. “And more than that, I beg of you to hear what I have to say, for the sake of all your lands.”
“You come to Ursal to tell of a threat to my people?” Midalis asked incredulously.
“A threat not from me, my king.”
“I am not your king.”
Aydrian bowed respectfully. “You are not. And I ask nothing more of you than that you hear my words.”
“You should have sent your mother.”
“Alas, Jilseponie left this world more than a year ago.”
He couldn’t miss Midalis’s wince at that. Yes, the man had loved Jilseponie—everyone, it seemed, had loved Jilseponie, and that made Aydrian feel comfortably warm.
“She was wonderful,” Aydrian said quietly. “I owe her everything—my life, my freedom. I think of her every day, a reminder to me that my work must continue.”
“Your work? A ranger? What is your work, Aydrian?”
“To do good wherever I can,” he answered simply. “I can never make amends, but what a lesser person I would be if I did not try.”
King Midalis sat back down, his gaze never leaving Aydrian’s.
“Strangely, I find that I believe you,” he said. “This is why you came, to tell me of Jilseponie? To be sure, all of Honce-the-Bear will spend a day and more of mourning at this news.”
“You haven’t time,” Aydrian replied. “For no, that is not the news that brought me to your court. I never again intended to walk this city, not for my own sake but for the sake of those in the city and the memories they should not recall.
“I have seen an army,” Aydrian went on, filling his voice with all the gravity he could manage. “An army greater than anything you or I have ever witnessed, even if we combined both of our forces at the ill-conceived Battle of Saint-Mere-Abelle.”
Midalis looked to Ohwan, who shook his head. “It is his word,” the abbot explained. “I have sent forth the magical eyes of my underlings but have seen nothing as of yet. I did not wish to wait for confirmation before you would hear the words of Aydrian, my king.”
Midalis nodded and turned back to Aydrian.
“They are far in the west, likely now somewhere in the region between the southern spurs of the Barbacan and the slopes of the Belt-and-Buckle,” Aydrian told him. “And they are coming, all the way, and are led by a giant being of great power who rides a dragon that swims through the sky. This, too, I have seen, in a faraway place.”
“A dactyl?”
Aydrian shrugged. “I know not. But darkness is coming, King Midalis. A greater darkness, I fear, than Honce-the-Bear has known in many years.”
“Greater than the darkness of Aydrian Boudabras?” Midalis asked sharply.
“Yes,” the man answered without hesitation. “For this is not an army of humans but of xoconai.”
That brought curious stares from the other two men in the room.
“Once, they might have been called the sidhe, but I cannot be sure,” Aydrian answered. “I know of them only what I saw in fleeing from them, along with the refugees who came to your gates earlier this week.”
“With the strange heads?” Midalis asked.
“Yes, it is a cultural tradition and nothing more. They are all who remain of several large tribes of people, overrun by the xoconai.”
“They have told us similar tales of these invaders,” Abbot Ohwan added.
“The xoconai are coming,” Aydrian declared ominously. “I do not know that anything can stop them.”
Midalis brought his hands up before his face, his fingers tapping as he tried to sort through this extraordinary news. “What do you next plan?” he asked Aydrian.
“I am free to leave?”
“Quietly, yes,” the king decided. “I would hope for your sword in this war, if there is to be a war, but I would not dare to put you among my troops, given…” He let it go there, holding up his hands.
“Saint-Mere-Abelle,” Aydrian answered. “I would go to Father Abbot Braumin with this dire news. The coming enemies are not without magic of their own, but I have witnessed the power of the Ring Stones against them. We will need the monks.”
“We?”
“You,” Aydrian corrected.
“No,” said Midalis standing and nodding. “We. If all that you say is true, son of Jilseponie, then I thank you for your warning and your courage in coming here. If it is not true, I will … Well, enough of that. I will write you an imprimatur to ease your access to Saint-Mere-Abelle, where the father abbot need not fear the anger of the Crown if he allows you admission. What else would you need from me?”
“I will need transport to speed my journey. Perhaps horses and a carriage.”
“How many?”
“I am with three companions.”
“Saint Honce will send emissaries beside him. A royal guard might be prudent,” Abbot Ohwan said.
King Midalis nodded, but there was no missing the sudden conflict on his face, as if in epiphany or reconsideration.
“King?” Aydrian asked quietly.
“We were enemies,” Midalis answered. “I remember what you did to my uncle and my cousins. Now here I am, with two young children of my own, being asked to accept your word.”
“Not his alone,” said Ohwan, to which King Midalis gave a little laugh.
“So clams Brother Ohwan, who is no friend to Father Abbot Braumin Herde and who sided with Marcalo De’Unnero in the war.”
“That is history, my king. I am a loyal subject to King Midalis and to Father Abbot Braumin, who has allowed me to serve as Abbot of Saint Honce for this last decade and more.”
“Only because it would cause him more trouble to try to remove you, I expect,” Midalis replied with a grin, but it was clear to Aydrian that the king was only partially joking.
“If you wish me to leave Honce-the-Bear, I will go,” Aydrian said. “If you wish me to remain here, even in your dungeon, that is your choice. In that event, I only ask that when the xoconai attack the city, you give me a sword, that I might fight them.”
Midalis gave another little chuckle, helpless and resigned. “I find that I believe you,” he said, “I know not why, but my heart is to believe you.”
Aydrian bowed.
“But truthfully, this is not about only my belief,” Midalis went on. “This is about my responsibility. You will remain here while the brothers of Saint Honce seek to confirm your tales. Abbot Ohwan, go and gather Aydrian’s three companions that they, too, will be my guests here in the castle as we seek the truth.”
He stood back up and looked Aydrian straight in the eye. “I am sorry—sorry to your mother—but a million souls depend upon my judgment, and I need more than the word of a man who brought civil war to the kingdom. If that proof comes, I will provide the imprimatur and an escort to speed you to Saint-Mere-Abelle.”
“I pray you do not delay in this search, either of you,” Aydrian said, accepting the judgment with a nod. “King Midalis, they are coming.”
* * *
Aydrian paced the comfortable suite King Midalis had given him, awaiting the arrival of his companions and fearing greatly for Aoleyn. Ohwan had been a follower of De’Unnero, which meant that he had once, and probably still, believed that the gemstone magic
was the sole province of the Abellican Church and of those whom they alone deemed worthy of gifts from the Church, like the breastplate that had been fashioned for Aydrian, with its set gemstones granting him enhancements and healing when he did battle.
Abbot Ohwan wouldn’t accept Aoleyn’s jewelry, he feared, tempering that only because Brother Thaddius, too, had been a De’Unnero disciple but had come to accept Aoleyn.
People could change—was there any better example of that than Aydrian himself? But Aydrian had not gotten the sense of any great transformation from Abbot Ohwan of St. Honce.
He stopped short and turned when the door to his main chamber opened. He was surprised to see King Midalis enter alone and close the door behind.
The man looked haunted. He moved over to Aydrian deliberately, but there was no spring in his step.
“You saw,” Aydrian reasoned.
“Saw?”
“The army in the west.”
King Midalis shook his head. “The monks continue their search but have found nothing, though some have spoken of a wall of light halting their vision.”
“That is the enemy’s front rank,” Aydrian explained. “Tell Abbot Ohwan that the only way to see beyond that foreign magic is to spirit-walk, but tell him to take care, because—”
“Spirit-walk? How would you know this?”
“Because my companion Aoleyn did it,” Aydrian decided to admit. “And Brother Thaddius of Saint-Mere-Abelle beside her.”
“Such acts can only be sanctioned by the father abbot.”
“He was not available in the lands beyond the Wilderlands.”
Midalis snorted at the sarcasm.
“We had no choice,” Aydrian said. “We had to know. For your sake as well as our own.”
“Brother Thaddius would find himself in serious trouble if the father abbot learned of his indiscretion.”
“Then Braumin Herde is not the man he used to be. Did not Saint Avelyn, too, bend the rules out of necessity?”
Aydrian relaxed a bit at that, for it was an undeniable truth. Braumin Herde had been a devoted follower of Brother Avelyn in the years of the demon dactyl, standing shoulder to shoulder with the great monk, and against the Abellican Church itself, in that time of schism.
“And this other companion?”
“I need you to protect her,” Aydrian said, drawing a surprised arch of Midalis’s dark and bushy eyebrows. “Her name is Aoleyn. She is with Brother Thaddius and Sister Elysant of Saint Gwendolyn. And she is very formidable, and very young, and very naive regarding our customs and laws.”
“Why would she need protecting, then?”
“Because she carries upon her many … Ring Stones, except that they are not … not in the manner of those collected by the Abellicans far out on the sea, at least. It is a long tale, and one that perhaps we will share when we find a proper time and less urgency, but it is enough now to say to you that the Abellicans might not understand the source of the woman’s magic stones or her magical power.”
“Considerable power?” King Midalis asked, and it seemed to Aydrian as if he was not grasping the depth of this matter.
“In my life, I have seen one person to rival the magical power of this young—very young—woman, and that is my own mother, Jilseponie,” Aydrian said.
Midalis’s expression changed quite dramatically.
“I am not exaggerating. Perhaps a few others, myself included. Saint Avelyn, too, I expect, though he was long dead before I was born. If the brothers of Saint Honce learn the truth of Aoleyn, they may well try to fight her, and if they do, they will likely defeat her, but I expect that their church will lie smoldering and half of their brothers will be well on their journey to eternity to learn the truth of their faith.”
“You tell me openly of a companion who is in violation of Church law and who presents a danger to my citizens? Why?”
Aydrian paused and took a deep breath. “Because I trust that you will do the right thing.”
That brought an unexpected chuckle from Midalis. “The right thing,” he echoed. “That is ever the pursuit, but so often it is hard to know which choice that might be.”
“You are speaking to a man who very often chose very wrongly,” Aydrian reminded.
“Because you were possessed by the spirit of the demon dactyl, so claimed your mother.”
Aydrian shrugged.
“And still you are haunted,” said Midalis.
“Forever I am haunted.”
“Many who would admit such a thing about their past would have ended their lives.”
“I will die in service, as I live in service. I cannot make amends, but I cannot help but try.”
King Midalis nodded and walked to the side of the room, where sat a tray on a table, set with a bottle of the elvish wine known as boggle and a pair of wineglasses. He popped the top and poured two drinks, then walked back to hand one to Aydrian.
“To making the right choice,” the king toasted, lifting his glass, and Aydrian did likewise.
“And to your mother and your father,” Midalis added. “May the world never need heroes of their caliber again, and if we do, may those heroes emerge.”
“I understand your dilemma,” Aydrian said.
“I expect it was quite clear in our earlier discussion with Abbot Ohwan,” Midalis replied. “My first instinct was to send you on your way to Saint-Mere-Abelle, but how can I?” He shrugged and gave a little helpless laugh. “I can because I know I must, nothing more.”
“You do right by your people,” Aydrian said, tipping his glass in a deferential toast.
“I do right by my people because that is my intent, and thus I do right by my people by following the course I know in my heart to be true.” He reached under the fold of his cloak and brought forth a rolled parchment, fastened with the royal seal.
“Go,” he told Aydrian. “I have decided against the horses. A ship and crew await you at the docks. Collect those you must and sail fast to Saint-Mere-Abelle. I will instruct Abbot Ohwan to double his efforts to see what is happening in the west. My own scouts have been dispatched, as well.”
“What of the other refugees who came in with us from the west?”
“They will be treated with all the hospitality Ursal can show, of course. And if this war comes, as you fear, is there a greater stronghold in Honce-the-Bear than this very city?”
Aydrian took the imprimatur, offering another tip of his glass before draining it. He might have argued that St.-Mere-Abelle was a greater stronghold, but he took King Midalis’s point as valid, anyway.
Because if mighty Ursal fell, what castle or city in all of Honce-the-Bear could hope to stand?
Soon after, a ship sailed from the docks of Ursal, catching favorable winds and current, with a skilled crew and captain and a team of ten Allheart Knights for protection. Aydrian, Aoleyn, Thaddius, and Elysant stood at the taffrail, watching the city fast recede behind them. They had a long sail before them, hundreds of miles, but, for Aydrian, the most difficult part of their journey, by far, would be the last few steps, from the docks of the great monastery to the great chapel of St.-Mere-Abelle, the mother church of the Abellican Order.
The place where King Aydrian Boudabras had been thrown down.
10
IMPENETRABLE
Talmadge began to reconsider his decision to explore this particular region alone.
The mountain peaks were distinct, and he had found a hidden ravine leading to a low forest and a bog, and thus he was fairly certain that he was in the area Aydrian had privately told him about, an area that included a reclusive band of elves who called themselves the Tylwyn Doc but were more commonly known as the Doc’alfar.
Until less than two decades before, no one knew of these elves, but the recent wars in Behren and Honce-the-Bear had changed all of that, for the Doc’alfar had been involved, a bit at least, and had helped the eventual victors.
Still, Aydrian had warned Talmadge repeatedly, this was a reclusiv
e people, and one known for dealing with intruders with extreme measures and, often, finality. Despite the warning, Talmadge had felt the side excursion worth the danger, for here, or hereabouts, was a tunnel through the towering peaks of the Belt-and-Buckle Mountains, a shortcut that would ease their journey to To-gai tremendously.
The skilled frontiersman carefully put one foot in front of the other on the muddy ground, quite aware that a misstep would likely get him swallowed by the bog. The smell of death hung all about him, and the rich odor of peat, of rot. The deeper he moved, the thinner grew the trees, all dead and skeletal in here—and yet it was darker here, for a constant pungent steam rose from the swampy ground, giving the area a mysterious and ghostly appearance.
Talmadge stopped abruptly, his head snapping to the side.
Something or someone had moved over there.
His head snapped back the other way at the sound of a slurping footstep.
The man moved closer to the nearest tree trunk and crouched low, trying to hide. He wasn’t alone, he knew.
“Aydr—” he started to call out, but he had to pause and catch his breath and clear his throat.
“I am sent by Aydrian Wyndon of Andur’Blough Inninness,” he recited, as he had been instructed, though he remained unsure of what or where Andur’Blough Inninness might be.
More movement to the left, to the right, and then right before him, and Talmadge clutched the tree tighter, trying to prevent himself from shaking. He peered ahead anxiously, silently cursing the fog, and gradually, so teasingly, a humanoid shadow came into view.
One shoulder hung much lower than the other, he noted, and it shambled weirdly, though perhaps that was just the sucking ground of the bog altering the gait.
Talmadge didn’t really believe that, but he kept telling it to himself.
Because he had to.
“Aydrian Wyndon,” he repeated, standing up and forcing himself away from the tree, which was no easy emotional task. “I am sent by—”
Song of the Risen God Page 18
