A Path to Coldness of Heart (4 page)

True. Her twitchy memory left him impatient when she asked the same question over again. More frustrating was the fact that the problem was intermittent and unpredictable.

“You’re helping him get back, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Haroun may be the last hope of the west.”

“What?”

“The Dread Empire is approaching the end of its terrible trials. The threat from the east has been eliminated. The talismanic focus of defiance in the west, Bragi Ragnarson, has been swept from the game board. The war with Matayanga is winding down. Matayanga has exhausted its resources and will. And, as always, Shinsan remains willing to fight for as long as it takes. Stability exists at the Imperial level. Mist has eliminated everyone willing to challenge her.”

Nepanthe wondered about her sister-in-law’s personal life. What did Mist intend for the children Valther had fathered?

Varthlokkur said, “If bin Yousif gets home in time, and reclaims his place, there’ll be a strongman who can resist the next onslaught.”

“Will you be involved if that happens?” Nepanthe’s gaze was hard. She was unhappy with Varthlokkur these days, though she did not always remember why.

He had made choices, on her behalf, without consulting her. Neither those choices nor their results pleased her, when she did remember.

“I will play a part.”

That offered a chance to carp. She let it go.

She wanted desperately to stop fighting about things that could not be changed. She wanted to make him do the right thing from now on.

...

The Lady Yasmid stood atop the wall of a fortress her father had built as a boy, on deciding to establish himself here at the place called Path of the Cross. War had not troubled Sebil el Selib after El Murid moved on to Al Rhemish. But time had seen him disestablished there. War was back.

War’s aftermath was back.

The survivors of the conflict with Throyes and Shinsan had assembled below. The fighting had been unkind to them but they considered themselves the victors. The invaders had gone away.

Yasmid knew the truth. The enemy had gone because of a shift of political wind inside the Dread Empire. Bragi of Kavelin had penetrated the Roë Basin, forcing the enemy to realign his assets. Shinsan’s Lord Hsung had been replaced by Tervola interested in concluding the wars Shinsan already had elsewhere.

But let the warriors believe. Let them be proud. Another enemy was coming. Her son, Megelin, was coming. That stupid boy, with Magden Norath skulking through the shadows, behind monsters sent to spread terror and destruction. Magden Norath, who was the maddest and possibly most powerful sorcerer in the west.

Megelin. Her son. The King of Hammad al Nakir.

What insane whim had driven Haroun to pass power to the boy? He had known that Megelin was unfit.

Three men shared Yasmid’s vantage. The nearest, physically and emotionally, was old Habibullah, who had been her bodyguard when she was a child and was her closest conspirator as an adult. He had helped purge the Faithful of the worst lapses of her father and his fellow founders. Habibullah’s clarity of vision had become the foundation of her rule. Without Habibullah, she feared, she would be lost.

A second man was an enigma.

Elwas bin Farout al-Souki was a self-made champion. His mother had been a prostitute in the foreign quarter of Souk el Arba, beyond the Jebal, on the coast of the Sea of Kotsüm. Elwas had risen from recruit to commander of ten thousand by acclamation of the men with whom he rode. He won battles and brought his followers home. That overrode all else with the war fighters.

Yasmid knew little about Elwas. His rise had occurred while she was elsewhere. He was a solid Believer. His coloring and shape said that his father was a black man. Other characteristics suggested that his mother had been a refugee from over the Sea of Kotsüm. Those things mattered little in the forest of swords. They did matter at court, where men of old families felt slighted if an outsider received honors.

Yasmid refused to be distracted by pettiness, nor did she tolerate it.

The third man, able to stand only with assistance, unable to communicate rationally, was El Murid, the Disciple, Yasmid’s father, the salt trader’s son whose calling had set the west awash in blood. Whose inspiration, invoked, could send thousands to the slaughter even now.

El Murid was old before his time. He was crippled. He was partly blind. Incessant pain had led him to opiate addiction. He was so enslaved by the drug he could no longer be drawn into the real world long enough to generate a useful thought. He had no say anymore but remained a powerful symbol. He could be shown and men would gallop to their deaths screaming his name.

That the Disciple was in bad health was no secret. But his appearances were staged to leave fanatic rank and file convinced that their prophet could not be overcome by mundane evils.

The warriors looking on today had not yet recuperated from the Throyen campaign. They had not had enough time with their families. They were tired of war but war was not tired of them. They were pulling themselves together for one more campaign. If they did not, war would devour them and theirs.

The King, Megelin, son of Haroun, son of Yousif, would show his mother and grandfather no mercy. He would attack till he ended the long contest between Royalist and Believer.

Yasmid prayed that her son’s followers were more war-weary than her own.

In an introspective moment she wondered how much responsibility for the state of the world lay with her family. Of late, every people, every nation, every kingdom seemed to be at war all the time, indulging in civil strife when no other war was available.

Warfare had been much less common before El Murid began to preach.

†

CHAPTER THREE

WINTER, 1017 AFE:

SCATTERED VIEWS

I
nger had schooled herself to be cruel when that was appropriate. Her attempt to produce a fierce face for her regime failed. Most supporters still thought she was too soft toward her opponents and too entangled in her husband’s reforms.

Her enemies called her a tyrant determined to eradicate all the good that Bragi had done.

She had support amongst the Wessons, regionally. That largest ethnic group had liberated themselves from feudal concepts in place since the Nordmen imposed themselves as the ruling class.

The Siluro were almost extinct. They played no significant political role anymore. The Marena Dimura had abandoned the cities after Bragi went down. They ruled the forests and mountains and made themselves obnoxious by supporting Bragi II. Inger’s advisors thought they would be nothing but a nuisance.

When it came to the day to day, only Wessons and Nordmen counted. Sadly, too many Wessons in the eastern and southern provinces allied their ambitions with those of the Marena Dimura. Only the Nordmen Estates and Inger’s cousin backed Fulk. And the solidity of that might be more show than iron fact.

Rage seized Inger. This chaos existed only because one wild man had not been able to control his dick.

Heat filled Inger’s cheeks. She reddened further, recalling a rumor that Bragi had found yet another lover when his lust for her cooled down. A brat barely old enough to bleed if the gossip was true. A girl younger than some of his children.

His dead children. The survivors were pre-adolescents. If they survived. Dane had tried to kill them.

Inger’s conniving Greyfells blood considered starting a rumor that Bragi II had been sired by the King on his own son’s wife. She laughed. There was no chance that was true but it was the sort of canard that spread from border to border overnight. If she could produce one believable witness…

“Josiah, I can’t believe the ugly things I find inside my head.”

Gales grunted, rolled over. Only his eyes shone from beneath the covers. It was freezing. Servants did not visit the Queen’s bedchamber during the night.

He was not interested. He was being courteous because his lover was speaking. All he wanted was to sleep. But that was impermissible. He could not be here when morning brought Inger’s dressers.

“Get up. You have to go.”

Grumpily, groggily, Gales dragged himself out, got halfway dressed. A peck of a kiss and he was gone, sliding out via one of the hidden passages that worm-holed Castle Krief and had played so large a role in the stronghold’s checkered history. Even the late Krief had not known them all.

Inger watched the panel shut, heard the catch click. She was not quite sure of Josiah. She did know he loved her. He had since she was a maid. But she was a Greyfells and the Greyfells reality consisted of layered schemes, schemes within schemes, and conspiracies so convoluted the conspirators themselves lost track of what they hoped to accomplish.

Josiah said he was working for her. But he told Dane the same thing. He told each of them that he was setting the other up. He admitted that Dane was no longer confident of his loyalty.

But she was in no position not to rely on Gales.

Josiah was her best hope for maintaining herself and Fulk.

Inger was not religious. Few of her people were. The Greyfells outlook was that God helped those who forced their way to the head of the line. But now she got down on her knees and prayed.

...

The Empress looked too young for the role. Her appearance did not deceive her associates. Her vanity was legendary. Her seventeen-seeming had aged only a year in centuries, though she had borne two children.

She was exhausted. She had not had a good night’s sleep in months. Neither had anyone else amongst the soldiers and lords of the Dread Empire. Top to bottom, frontier to frontier, wars and scrambles for power had imposed intolerable stresses. Only the hardy remained.

Beautiful even in distress, Mist asked, “They want a truce?”

Lord Ssu-ma said, “They want to negotiate an armistice.”

“That got lost in translation. Grant them twenty hours of peace. I’ll pull rank and get some sleep. The rest of you should indulge yourselves, too.”

Lord Ssu-ma said, “An indulgence I mean to urge on everyone, Illustrious. The Matayangans have no capacity to take advantage.”

“Can we get up and moving again if we lie down?”

“In a limited fashion. Locally. After further rest.”

After a lot of rest, Mist suspected. Even the most hardened veterans had reached their limits. That Matayanga had begun to collapse was due entirely to the stubborn warrior culture of the legions. Matayanga had spent every treasure, every sorcery, every soul, trying to swarm and swamp its enemies before Shinsan, already battered and distressed, could steel itself on that frontier.

“I’m quitting now,” Mist murmured. She wanted to ask if she dared demand unconditional surrender. She wanted to ask if anyone had heard how her children were. She had not seen them in months. Most of all, she wanted to question the Tervola about the potential consequences of peace.

She did none of those things. She collapsed. Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i, the pig farmer’s son, placed her on a field cot.

...

Queen Inger’s liaison with the commander of her bodyguards was a deep secret, yet there were those in the know. The far sorcerer Varthlokkur knew via the Unborn.

Another who knew was the invisible Michael Trebilcock. Michael had been out of sight so long he had been forgotten by most people. But he was not far away. People who knew him saw him all the time without recognizing him.

He appeared to have aged considerably.

...

In far Itaskia interested men within the War Ministry noted that most rumors about the Greyfells party were proving to be true. It was an excellent time to squeeze that clutch of troublemakers. That wicked, traitorous family appeared unable to withstand sustained financial and political pressure with Duke Dane off on a mad, expensive adventure.

...

The missing Guild General Machens Liakopulos, having gone unseen for months, came to the attention of outsiders while crossing a courtyard at High Crag, the mother fortress of the Mercenaries’ Guild. He had just spoken to a council of the Guild’s old men.

The witness who recognized him and cared enough to ask questions learned that the General had retired in one of the grand apartments that had come available when High Crag cleansed itself of the Pracchia disease.

The General felt badly about abandoning Kavelin but he felt no compulsion to sacrifice himself on the altar of kingdom worship that had claimed so many old companions. The King was dead. His dream died with him.

Wicked Inger could fry in her own drippings. Machens Liakopulos was old. He was tired. And he was done with ungrateful Kavelin.

...

One-time Lord Kuo Wen-chin was weary of exile but only exile let him enjoy any life at all. Once he had been overlord of all Shinsan. Those who had displaced him would eliminate him instantly should they learn that he lived. But the wishful heart will so often not attend the practical mind.

Kuo’s world was a lifeless island off a desert coast far from civilization and farther still from the heart of his homeland. It was a storied island but most of its tales were ancient beyond recollection. Three living beings knew what part it played in the Nawami Crusades. A handful more had heard of the laboratories of Ehelebe. The most terrible horrors subsided into still darkness after a few millennia.

Kuo amused himself by learning what he could from his surroundings. But months fled. Learning became tedious.

He had moments when he cursed Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i for having harkened to his appeal for sanctuary.

Kuo Wen-chin appreciated the honor his friend had done him. And Kuo was a patient man. But his patience was wearing.

He was too much alone. Food came unannounced and anonymously, arriving through a one-way portal. Nothing left the island.

Maybe Lord Ssu-ma had fallen fighting the Deliverer, or in the war with Matayanga. Or politics might have consumed him.