Eidolon (7 page)

Ildiko’s stomach had flipped at her first sight of House Senemset on the list. Only a catastrophic event enabled a house that far removed from the direct line to have a chance at ruling Bast-Haradis. The
galla
attack was catastrophic. The Senemset matriarch had already sent a message that she, her married son and three unmarried daughters were traveling to Saggara seeking sanctuary. A possible queen with both male and female heirs to inherit from her. And no matter where in the blood line one stood, uniting with the last remaining Khaskem ensured the strongest claim to the throne for any family with aspirations to rule.

Despair seeped into her bones, weighing her down. “Oh Brishen,” she said softly. “The prince of no value has become the most coveted Kai in all of Bast-Haradis.”  She, on the other hand, was worse than valueless. She was an obstacle either to overcome or destroy.

She gathered up her notes, blew out the candles and left the library. The manor house was a hive of activity, with servants scurrying this way and that, preparing the great hall for the evening meal. All the tables were set and the benches pulled forward to seat the greater number of guests staying at the redoubt.

Ildiko almost missed Brishen’s arrival, catching sight of him only as he strode through the throng toward her. The hard cast to his expression warned of a dark mood, and people scattered out of his way with quick bows and worried glances. He motioned to her, indicating she follow him to the smaller, private study where he met with visiting councilors and vicegerents.

She closed the door behind her, pitching the room into perfect blackness. The clink of ceramic against pewter let her know he had made his way to a table near the shuttered window and poured himself a dram of whatever throat-scorching libation filled the bottle.

Even if she knew where the candles were, she couldn’t light them. The hearth lay cold and unlit. She shivered in the darkness and waited, silent at the door.

“Forgive me, wife. I’m distracted.”  Brishen’s carried a wealth of apology before he threw open the shutters, allowing in streams of moonlight that bathed him and part of the chamber in silver light. Their shadows stood in sharp relief on one wall, while other shadows flowed across the floor to huddle in corners and under the table.

Brishen’s throat flexed as he tilted his head back and downed the goblet’s contents. He gasped and coughed before pouring a refill. He raised a second goblet and met her questioning gaze with a singular one of his own. “Did you want one?”

She shook her head and crossed the room to stand in front of him. His bicep was tense under her touch, quivering beneath the layers of leather and fabric he wore. “What happened?”

He tossed back the second goblet before dropping it to the table with a careless thump. The heady fumes of fermented Dragon Fire drifted between them. Brishen’s voice was clipped, despite his having imbibed enough of the Fire to make most people incoherent and likely senseless if they drank so much at once. “We scouted the Absu south of Escariel until we reached the town itself. Victims of the
galla
are littering the banks. What’s left of them.”  This time his fingers wrapped around the bottle’s neck and lifted it. “The first one ended up wedged between a pair of trees. Half a horse with even less of its rider still trapped in the saddle.”

Ildiko gasped, tempted to ask him to share the drink once he finished the healthy swig he tipped into his mouth. The image his words conjured made her stomach lurch. “Are you certain it was
galla
?”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and set the bottle down. “As certain as I can be without seeing them myself.”  His nostrils flared. “The corpses have a smell to them. Nothing as pleasant as decay.”

His face was gaunt in the silvered dark, aged beyond his natural years not only by the horror he’d seen but the horror he would inevitably face. Ildiko laced her fingers through his and led him to one of the chairs. He threw himself into the seat, pulling her with him until she perched on his lap.

She rested her hands on his shoulders. “I’m sorry you saw that. Sorry for that rider and the others.”

Warm breath drafted across her jaw where he nuzzled her cheek. “I’ve seen death,” he murmured against her skin. “Dealt it myself. But nothing like this. This was...unclean, soul-sick. It seemed like even the river tried to flow away from the corpses.”  He shivered in her arms. “The malevolence trekking toward Saggara with the Haradis survivors is unlike anything any Kai warrior has ever faced in this age.”

His words terrified her, and she wasn’t the one plagued with memories of the grotesque images he briefly described. “How do you kill
galla
?”

“I don’t know that they can be killed. Not with steel at least, and I can’t begin to imagine how much magic it would take to cage them, much less destroy them.”  He leaned his head back against the chair’s top rail and exhaled a long breath.

Ildiko straightened in his lap. “But the Kai have done it. Your histories record that a Kai shaman named Varawan trapped a dozen and banished them back to the void during the Age of the Red Seas.”

The grim set of Brishen’s mouth relaxed for a moment into a wan smile. “Raiding the library, were you?”  He twined a curl of her hair around one claw. “I know the story. Every Kai does, but the Red Seas was a long time ago when the magic of the Kai wasn’t faded as it is now. And this is more than a dozen
galla
. It’s a horde, a
hul
galla
. A nation of shamans can’t defeat such a force. All we can do at the moment is keep the rivers and streams between them and us.”

Ildiko pictured the Absu, the settlements, both Kai and human, perched on both sides of its flow. One side now the open maw of death, the other a chance at sanctuary. “Water is more valuable than gold now.”

A gust of frigid night air hurled itself through the open window, whipping strands of Brishen’s hair across his face. He scraped them away with an impatient swipe of his hand. “Half my garrison will spend its time keeping the waterways flowing and free of debris that might block them. The other half will be put to controlling the Kai who’ll descend on Saggara from every holt and dale, not to mention those fleeing Haradis.”

“All those Kai gathered in one place.”  They’d need three times as many storerooms and barns bursting with food to prevent a famine. Ildiko clenched her teeth against the swell of panic threatening to choke her.

“We’ll be a beacon to every demon spilling out of the void.”  His next words, spoken in a voice strained with helpless anger, encapsulated her every fear and shot it skyward. “Gods, this is a disaster.”  She squeezed his shoulder but didn’t reply. What was there to say?  He was right.

“If I didn’t think the journey too hazardous to take, I’d send you to Gaur for safety.”

She scowled at him. “I’d refuse to go if that were your reason to send me.”

He tilted his head to one side, considering her. “Then what would convince you to go?”

“If you sent me to act as ambassador or envoy. I could ask for aid from Gaur. They are your allies now, not just Bast-Haradis’s uneasy neighbor.”

It was his turn to frown. “I don’t see how they’d be much help. If Belawat got wind of Gaur sending an army to support Bast-Haradis, they’d declare war on us both so fast, we’d be on the battlefield by dawn of the next day.”

She escaped his lap to stand in front of him. “As you said, steel doesn’t work against the
galla
. You don’t need an army of soldiers but one of mages. The Kai aren’t the only ones graced with sorcerous power. Some humans are born with it as well. Hedges witches, court magicians, tribal shamans and holy monks. They can wield it with various levels of skill. Gaur can employ such people. Belawat does. The raiders who captured you had a battle mage with them. Remember?”

He folded his hands across his belly and stared at her with one glowing eye. “Were you Gaur, with a diseased kingdom next to you, would you give up your sorcerers?”

She shrugged, undeterred by his reasoning. “I might if I thought their help solved a common problem, and I have a difficult time believing the horde will only linger within Bast-Haradis. They have no understanding of borders. Prey is prey, no matter where it resides. They’ll cross into Gaur, into Belawat. Wherever they smell magic and blood.”

“I’m sure they already have by now. Gaur’s safety is that most of its territory sits between the Absu and the ocean, but its outland settlements are vulnerable on the wrong side of the river and any place there’s a break in the river’s flow.”  He shook his head. “I’d be mad to send you on such a journey. You’d be safe once you arrived. It’s getting you there that’s the challenge.”

It would be dangerous, but if they hugged the river or even sailed it where the rapids weren’t as treacherous, they had a chance. “Don’t rule it out, Brishen. You can send a Kai, but who in this entire kingdom knows the Gauri court better than I do?  The king is my uncle. I can at least beg for safe haven for Kai exiles. Temporary refuge. We have to tell Gaur something anyway if they don’t already know. This isn’t a secret that can be kept, and it will be better if revealed by me.”

Brishen rose to stand in front of her. He wore riding leathers instead of his heavier armor, and there were tears in the vest and water stains splashed across his front from chest to knees. A cold draft sneaked in under the door to rifle her skirts, revealing damp spots from where she’d sat in his lap earlier. He’d been at least waist-high in the river at some point and was still drying off.

“You haven’t considered something, wife. If my scouts return with news of my family’s fate that confirms the messenger’s, then our roles will change. The Kai won’t allow their new queen to leave the kingdom.”

The despair that had earlier nailed her to her seat in the library returned in a conquering tide. “I think they will” she said softly, remembering the list of noble houses related to the royal Khaskem and those that weren’t but with daughters of acceptable bloodlines and the ability to bear heirs.

She was saved from explaining her answer by a sharp rap at the door. At Brishen’s call to enter, Mesumenes opened the door. “Your Highness, you have visitors.”

Ildiko groaned. “More?  We’ve had them all evening. Your devoted steward is being run to death trying to find accommodations for everyone.”  Mesumenes touched his forehead and bowed in her direction.

“Who are they?” Brishen asked in a dull voice. Ildiko patted his arm.

Mesumenes’s own voice was a study in contrasts to Brishen’s, filled with wonder and surprise. “
Kapu
kezets
from Emlek. Three of them. An
Elsod
and her
masods
.”

Ildiko’s eyes widened at Brishen’s reaction. His back snapped straight, losing its exhausted slump, and his voice now echoed Mesumenes’s in its amazement. “Are you sure?”  The steward nodded and threw the door wide as Brishen strode towards him. “Where?”

“Great Hall, my liege.”

Brishen practically bolted from the room, Ildiko and Mesumenes hurrying behind him. She pummeled the steward with questions as she chased after her husband. “Explain,” she commanded. “What is a kapzetet, a elsie person and their
masods
?”

Mesumenes jogged beside her. “
Kapu
kezets
are the memory wardens of Emlek, guardians of the mortem lights housed there. The principal
kezet
is the
Elsod
. Her apprentices are
masods
. An
Elsod
always has two.”

He got no further with his explanations. They both almost cannoned into Brishen when he abruptly halted at the doorway leading from the corridor to the great hall. Ildiko settled next to him, her jaw dropping in disbelief at the sight before her.

The hall was full of people, crammed together like bundled cordwood. They might have held each other up with ease except for the fact every last one of them had fallen to their knees. Their expressions were as slack-jawed as hers as they stared at the three people in the hall’s center.  Ildiko rubbed her eyes to assure herself she wasn’t delusional, but no, there was sha-Anhuset, almost prostrate herself next to an equally humbled Mertok.

A space had opened up around them, a near perfect circle of what had seemingly become sacred ground. Right in the middle of Brishen’s fortress.

An ancient Kai woman, her silver hair woven into complicated braids, faced Brishen in regal silence. She wore robes of green and indigo, and her face and arms were heavily tattooed. Two younger Kai, a man and woman wearing similar robes and skin markings stood behind her, as silent and almost as regal as their elder.

Brishen’s stride was far more measured than the earlier headlong flight down the hall. Like everyone else, he fell to his knees before the old
kezet
. Ildiko did the same, even though she had no idea why this woman, despite her commanding presence, earned the willing supplication of every Kai in the building.

Brishen raised his hands, palms cupped upward as if to present some invisible gift. “
Elsod
, it is an honor. I extend all of Saggara’s hospitality to you.”

The
Elsod
placed her knobby hands in his, her black claws caging his fingers to curve around his wrists. “Rise, Interrex. King between kings.”  A collective gasp went up at her words. “We humbly accept.”

He rose to stand once more. Ildiko hesitated, at a loss as to what protocol demanded in this situation. She stood more slowly and only when the rest of the hall’s occupants gained their feet.

Brishen reached for Ildiko’s hand. His fingers were warm against her icy ones. “Forgive my lapse of decorum. This is Ildiko, once of Gaur. My wife and
hercegesé
.”

Ildiko bowed briefly, still marching blind through a nest of unknown rules of etiquette. “It is an honor...
Elsod
.”  She mimicked Brishen. The gods only knew if she addressed the memory warden correctly.

She must have done something right or else not terribly wrong, because the
Elsod
nodded in return. “The pleasure is mine, Your Highness.”

The gravid silence in the hall grew more pronounced when the
Elsod
turned her gaze back to Brishen. “We’ve come to speak with you regarding the
galla
.”