Read Banner of the Damned Online
Authors: Sherwood Smith
Banner of the Damned (111 page)
Greveas said something. I shook my head and pointed to my ears.
Olnar’s expression of extreme reserve broke into wide-eyed dismay, and he said something, reaching out to me like a brother rather than a judge.
“It’s done,” I whispered.
And so, my judges, am I.
HE
E
ND
F THE
S
CRIBES’
T
HIRD
R
ULE
T
I was taken by Greveas and Olnar to Sartor as a prisoner. In my warded rooms deep in the Mage Guild, a healer was sent to me. She was able to restore the hearing in my right ear—one painful pop, and a rush of slightly flattened sound filled the silence—but my left was damaged so severely that it would take years to repair, I was warned. The implication was, who would pay for it, given my anomalous position? I said that it could wait.
Half a year after my arrival, they brought me a letter from Lasva:
Emras,
I hope this will get to you. Your friend Birdy promised to send it to a herald in Alsais who knows your brother. Such a torturous route begins to sound like the diplomatic circles I grew up with.
The truth is that I write to you for reassurance. I do not trust my memory, though I see those terrible final moments over and over in nightmares still. The disappearance of the First Lancers, that I heard about from too many witnesses to disbelieve, and I did see the skyward gateway to darkness, high above the trees.
What I cannot believe is that Ivandred killed those six men, foresworn or not, and I am fairly sure I never heard him claim the Fox Banner as the “banner of the damned.” Rumor rippled out ahead of me, as it does, and by the time I had dealt with the people of Darchelde, establishing them with others in the farther reaches of Montredaun-An, I returned to Choreid Dhelerei to discover that Ivandred had become the evil king who slew his staunchest supporters then rode into Norsunder to escape retribution.
Every jarl had sent a relative seeking justice, or pre-eminence; they were prudent enough (perhaps scared enough, after hearing what happened) to stay home themselves, to guard their own territories.
Tdiran Yvanavar was there for both her adopted territory and for her brother’s, as Haldren and his cousin were with Ivandred. I told Tdiran that Ivandred sent the lightning at Hannik, then it leaped sideways to strike the six.
She said, whether Ivandred killed them or not, would it do anyone any good to believe the dead foresworn, much less allies of Norsunder? I understand that, but my heart grieves to hear people justifying themselves by tarnishing Ivandred’s good name—the same people who praised him on every side during their foolish war game last year.
But I understand the kingdom-wide sense of dishonor. Marloven Hesea has had enough trouble, and there is more promised. Gdan and Bluejay have stayed staunch, riding back and forth along their border with the Second Lancers (now called the Southern Wing), in case the King of Perideth carries out his threat to take revenge by carrying a war of destruction to my doorstep. I am going down there over Midsummer to win a treaty if I can.
The Olavairs have allied themselves with the northern kingdoms by signing the Compact. I am told they made great ceremony of burning all their arrows and breaking their bows, though the Jarlan of Marthdaun muttered that every basement is probably stuffed with extras that can come out at a moment’s notice.
Nanjir Olavair used her influence to get the allies to agree not to cross our border, as long as the Marlovens do not carry bows and arrows outside of our border. In spite of the heated words, I suspect none of them really want to test their prowess against the Third Lancers, who though not Ivandred’s chosen best, are deemed formidable enough.
I closed the Academy just before spring. I do not think I could have done it had not the kingdom still been unsettled by the events of winter, and I believe somewhat reluctant to send their children here. Kendred is
angry with me one day and glad the next. He brags about how tough they were, but oh Emras, when he flinches if someone raises a hand at the edge of his vision, or wakens crying in the night, my heart aches. He is also angry with his father in a way I cannot understand or explain, though to other children he brags about him.He talks of all the things he will do when he turns twenty and becomes king.
Kaidas stayed true to his offer, so I sent him in his capacity as Duke of Alarcansa to Sindan-An when it looked like fighting was going to break out between Fath and Tlennen over that area. Kaidas has managed to make himself popular—the Iascan language retains enough Sartoran roots for him to have learned it fast. The remnants of old Iasca seem to value his being a Colendi, and they are united in not wanting to be subsumed under any of the neighboring jarlates.
At New Year’s Convocation I am thinking of giving out medals and awards to ease the sense of dishonor. If people are going to re-envision history, let them get a sense of glory for protecting the border and working for the common good.
Your brother Olnar sorted all your papers and sent them away. He said that he will make the ten year rounds of the protections, but that we will have to find another mage after that—and he trusts that we will go through accepted channels. I agreed, but I told Anhar that I quite understand my sister’s opinion of mage tact.
Before Olnar left, I tried to make him promise to send for me to testify on your behalf. His reply was diplomatic, which is to say, polite but noncommittal. So I am writing in hopes that you will see this and be able to answer. As for the cup, it is back on my mantelpiece, but in spirit only, for now. I think you will understand what I mean.
I thought I understood. She would defer to Kendred, so bewildered by these violent changes, and she would defer her own happiness because everyone in Marloven Hesea had to be expecting (or dreading) another mysterious opening between sky and ground through which the First Lancers might come thundering back at the head of a howling army of darkness. But she had given her word to Ivandred. Only the conviction that he was truly beyond life could release her.
The mages let me write to Lasva, so I explained that I believed that Hannik deflected Ivandred’s magic to strike the six jarls, but I suspect no one will listen to her. I’m sure my reputation had also suffered. What Marloven would believe the peacock mage?
Soon after that came a letter from Tiflis:
Em:
I never thought that you, of all people, would find herself at the center of all kinds of rumors. Did you really blow up an entire city with magic? Did you send the evil Marlovens into Norsunder, or did you escape when they tried to take you there? They won’t tell me anything, just sent me a formal notice that I have to travel to Sartor—at my own expense, though Mother said I can stay with the diplomats—to testify about that magic book I had managed to forget all about. And I will have to pay a thumping fine on top of it, Cousin Olnar says, for breaking the rules about magic books. I was peeved with you until Kaura pointed out how much notice we will gain from the whole affair, and that cheered me, you can imagine. If you write up what happened, remember your loving cousin—
Tiflis
Then came the one I had been waiting for. It was short:
Your commission executed.
Wherever we go, you will always have a home with us.
Martande Keperi—your Birdy
It was after I received that one that the wall inside me broke, and I cried.
Greveas made certain that my prison was comfortable, two rooms deep in the Mage Guild’s building, with a window that overlooked fountains and a park. If I craned my neck, I could see spires of the royal castle.
I never tested the wards they put around my rooms. I suspect they knew that I could break anything they put up—as I knew that the smallest spell testing those wards would instantly bring them upon me. One cannot unlearn things, however one might wish. I had become a liability—an embarrassment— a mage ignorant of most forms of magic outside of basic protections, but extremely powerful with wards, the most difficult magic of all. Too powerful, judging from the way they pounced
on the Adamas Dei text. Apparently it had been missing for centuries, and the likes of me should not have even seen it, much less translated it.
From time to time, as I wrote my defense, I was visited by this or that mage, and requested to go over exactly what I found in Darchelde and what I did. I had written out all my magic notes, but they wanted to comb over every detail so much that gradually I became aware that some of my skips—my shorthand—constituted important steps for them. Only then did I begin to comprehend that mirror wards were both rare and dangerous.
They were not happy about my summary disposition of the dyr, but as I had foreseen, they accepted that it would become the future’s problem. Whatever Birdy chose to tell them was sealed up in their archives.
He continued to write to me. It gave me solace to write back, explaining exactly what was going on. His letters were full of news that could be read by any number of censors. He and Anhar went to Sindan-An to run Kaidas’s household, once the house he had built was finished. Anhar’s lover, the pastry-cook, soon followed to join them, and took over the kitchen. Birdy wrote cheery letters about cats, all their children, and the colts that Kaidas had begun raising, straight off the Nelkereth plains south of Sindan-An.
Lasva wrote as well, reporting on her ongoing work to hold Marloven Hesea until Kendred turned twenty—and her determination to educate a prince who would foster peace.
Two years after I commenced writing it, I handed my defense to Greveas. She took it away, and another year passed before they sent for me.
I was not permitted farther than one floor up, and down to an archive where a young scribe sat, poised to record every word spoken.
To my surprise, the first interview was with no less a personage than Scribe Halimas, white-haired and irascible. He grumbled a great deal about politics, then finally said, “They spent half a hear arguing about who would judge you. Queen Hatahra maintained that Sartor had no political rights to judge you, only her sister Lasthavais did. And Hatahra claimed secondary rights, as the one who had sent you to Marloven Hesea.”
I had to laugh at that.
“They then asked if she wanted you back in Colend, and… ah-ye, it’s that business about Norsunder, and no one quite knows what happened
at the end. There are witnesses who insist that it was you who slaughtered those nobles by lightning, not the king.”
“Neither of us did that.”
“But they believe what they saw.”
“What they thought they saw.”
Scribe Halimas, said ironically, “And you saw to it that this mysterious disc, a means by which they could look back in time in order to corroborate what you did and didn’t do, is safely removed from anyone’s access.”
“It’s a Norsundrian artifact,” I said.
“It’s an artifact of Old Sartor,” he corrected. “This much I’ve learned from colleagues at the northern end of the world, where more records survived the Fall. Probably had all kinds of safeguards in the olden days.” He leaned forward. “The mages are in a hum because it’s beyond reach, but I’m glad you did what you did. And so are many others. We have no defense against that thing, and a powerful mage corrupted by it… Ah-ye! Let the future worry about it.”
“What’s going to happen to me, Scribe Halimas?” I asked.
He looked down at his hands. “I don’t know, Emras. Nobody does.”
After him came heralds and royal representatives from various places. The most difficult interviews were with people from along the coast of the strait, where the Great Flood effects had been the worst. I told my story over and over again, to a range of reaction from sneering disbelief to knowing skepticism to a wary, conditional acceptance that I might really be as stupid as I sounded.
The only visitor they permitted other than official ones was my aunt, Tiflis’s mother, who was too high in diplomatic circles to shut out. She caught me up on family news, and when she left, she said, “If they let you out, hold your head up, as a smiter of Norsunder ought. Remember the family
melende!
”
Nobody brought Marlovens to Sartor to speak in my behalf. The only witnesses spoken to were survivors of the magical duel at Darchelde—which, Olnar reported to me, was so blasted that it was going to take centuries for the dark magic to leach away. The mages traveled to Marloven Hesea to interview the former residents of Darchelde.
