Limits of Power (5 page)

“I must talk to her,” Kieri said. “I do not want her leaving without some understanding of what I intend for her and the children. She will need help on the journey, as well. Do you think I should visit there, where the children are, or ask her to come here?”

“Here,” Maelis said. “If the children are in the room, she will break down again, and then they will cry.”

“Then, since she knows you, it would be better if you were her escort. I will speak to her in Garris's office, mine being unusable at present.”

“I heard you were injured after all, sir king,” Carlion said. “You must not train today if you were.”

Kieri nodded. “I need to ask you for advice on new mail,” he said. “If I face such an enemy again—and I expect I will—I don't want to be left without mail while a damaged or tainted suit is being purified.”

“Your father's mail is in the armory,” Carlion said. “And other pieces from earlier. It's all kept sound, cleaned regularly. It would be quicker to modify that, I'm thinking, than to have someone make you a new suit.”

His father's mail did not fit as well as his own, but he could wear it. When he came back into the palace, he found Lady Tolmaric already there.

He could see the effort she made to stay calm, and she answered his questions about the estate, about the children. Clearly she had been involved in management of the steading; she knew how many farms they had, the harvests of each, and how much land had been lost to the scathefire. Dealing with practical matters like this, she seemed much more competent than she had the day before.

“Much of our steading is swamp forest, you see,” she said. “It is large, I know that, but not all can be farmed, and the products of the swamp, valuable as they can be, are scattered and time-consuming to harvest. I would ask, sir king, if you find it in your power to extend our grant, if we might have some higher ground, not just that along the river to the east.”

Into Kieri's mind flashed the proposal made by Master-trader Geraint Chalvers. Some of the land he'd proposed for a port overlapped Tolmaric land. “I will certainly recompense you for land lost,” he said, “and grant you good land, suitable for farming. But I have a thought—would you be interested in a venture, you and the Crown together?”

“A venture?” Her brows furrowed.

“Master-trader Chalvers, who is now on my Council, suggested digging out a harbor in that swamp and trading directly with the coastal cities and all the way south to Aarenis, as Pargun and Kostandan do. No more need to transport goods by land across Tsaia, paying their tolls. His best estimate of location included some of your land. If he is right, a town or even city there would bring income from the trade—and you, as part owner, would have money to improve your new lands.”

“I don't know anything about making a harbor.”

“Nor do I, but Chalvers seems to. I am not asking an answer now, but only that you consider it.”

“If it brought a way to pay for a new house for that family the Pargunese burnt out … cattle … farm tools…”

“Those you will have from the Crown,” Kieri said. “But such a project as this could profit us both.”

Her back straightened. “I … I think it might be a good idea.”

“Good. I will talk more to Chalvers. It cannot be done in a day or ten hands of them—perhaps a year or two—but it seemed a good idea to me.” He reached out and laid his hand over hers. “Now … you can of course take Sier Tolmaric's body to bury in your own burial ground, but we have a ground here where he could be laid with all honor, and when his bones are raised, you could take them instead.”

“You said he was bad to see. Maelith and Naren told me it's better not to look sometimes. I thought it was my duty.” Her eyes filled with tears once more, but she did not break down this time.

“I think not in this case,” Kieri said.

“Does he look … normal … in the shroud?”

“No,” Kieri said. “And that, besides the honor due him, is another reason I offer the royal burying ground, to prevent distress to your people.”

“The children,” she said. “Do you think they would notice?”

“We could not lay him straight,” Kieri said, hoping such bluntness would not start another storm of emotion.

Her lips trembled, but she did not sob. “Then … to spare the children … lord king, you are so gracious … let him be laid in the ground here, and maybe Alyanya will mend his bones.”

“That is my hope as well,” Kieri said.

“I will dream badly,” she said, “if I do not at least see him in his shroud. Let it be as unnatural as you say, for me—I am a plain woman—it is better to know than to imagine.”

“Very well,” Kieri said. “Come with me, then.”

She stared a long time at the crooked bundle, lips pressed tight together. “He was a good man,” she said finally. “A good man to me, a good father to our children, a good Sier to our people.”

“He was indeed a good man,” Kieri said. “I honor him.”

She bent her head and turned away. “Tomorrow?” she said.

“Yes, tomorrow. I will send for you when all is prepared.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

K
ieri found the Kuakkgani in the rose garden, humming with the bees. Pearwind, he saw, was having a lesson in controlling the flow of springtide, letting her staff leaf out and then restraining it. Kieri found the sight disturbing. They stood up when Kieri appeared, but he waved them back to their seats and sat down on a bench himself.

“You have told the others what I told you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Elmholt said. “And we have learned a little that may help you.”

“You were correct that treachery was done there,” Larchwind said. “The oldest bones in the ossuary itself had no memory of it, but the roots we could feel beyond the ossuary did … and elves had a part in that treachery. They raised the mound to hide all evidence: underneath is a place sacred to old humans, who lived there before the magelords came from the south. The Oathstone was theirs first. Against elven magery they had no power but endurance, even in death.”

“What must I do?” Kieri asked. “Do they desire my death?”

“No, sir king. They desire to be restored to their rightful place. We do not know how you will accomplish that, but we know it should be done at Midsummer. Perhaps the usual rites there, without the Lady present, will be sufficient.”

“The rites … I do not know all the rites without her,” Kieri said. “She and I sang together.”

“And the power of her singing and the elvenhome silenced them. Without her, they may be able to speak to you.”

“I will do what I can,” Kieri said.

“No one can do more,” Elmholt said. “We will stay another few days, if it please you, to be sure your Squire continues to mend.”

“You are welcome,” Kieri said.

In the palace, the work of cleaning his study continued; furniture not damaged by iynisin touch or blood had been moved to another room; the carpet was gone, and Kieri met servants carrying away buckets of water from cleaning every speck of blood from walls and floor. The floor, patterned in squares of green and gray stone, with a central design of more colors in a complicated interlacing pattern, had been impervious to iynisin blood that leaked through the carpet. Kieri looked at the design he'd never seen, since it had been covered by carpet. It teased his gaze, almost as if it moved, forcing his eye to follow.

Elven, no doubt. Annoying, in the way it compelled the gaze; no wonder someone had chosen to cover it with a carpet. He turned to his Squires—this day, Jostin and Harin. “Do either of you know what this pattern is? Some symbol sacred to elves, maybe?”

“No, sir king,” Harin said. “I have no elven blood. Maybe one of the part-elves would know.”

“Nor I, sir king,” Jostin said.

“It may be in the palace records,” Kieri said. “I'll ask the steward.”

The steward, Garris told him, had gone out with the party that had cut up and removed the carpet for burning. Kieri went out into the courtyard. A column of smoke led him to the site.

“Sir king!” the steward said. “As you see, we have been careful, as the Kuakkgani told us.” He pointed to a stack of turves set well to one side.

“You have indeed,” Kieri said. “Tell me, do you know anything of the history of the stone floor in that room?”

“No, sir king. That carpet has never been lifted for cleaning in my lifetime; it has always seemed unnaturally clean. There was not even dust beneath it when we picked it up this time. I supposed the elves who made the carpet had bespelled it so.”

“I expect they did,” Kieri said. “To me, the pattern underneath—that one in the middle—looks elven as well. Yet as far as we know, the palace was built for humans, the first of the human kings. Is there any carpet that could cover it? I will find it distracting when I move back in there.”

The steward shook his head. “No, sir king. We have no elven carpets in storage, I suppose because they never needed to be taken up for cleaning. We have smaller rush-mat carpets I could put down, but nothing as large as this one—” He tipped his head toward the burning pile.

“That will do, as long as it covers that central design,” Kieri said. “In the hot weather to come, the stone floor will be cooler anyway.”

“You don't think that pattern had meaning, do you?”

“I don't know,” Kieri said. “I know elves use patterns for various things, but I don't know what they are. Orlith was supposed to teach me that when I was advanced enough, he said.”

“Do you want me to come back with you and have a mat put over that one right away?”

“No,” Kieri said. “It's not that urgent. When you're through here, or even tomorrow, will be soon enough.”

He walked back to the palace, thinking. A pattern laid down by elves. And then covered by elves with a carpet. Why would they lay such a pattern in a palace meant for humans? And why cover it up? It must be connected in some way with the joint rulers, but how?

He found something to write with and went back to his office. Before another mat or rug covered it, he wanted a record of that pattern. Someone might know what it was.

He found it hard to draw. As his eye followed the lines and colors to mark them down, he felt a pull from the pattern, and he could not remember, except in the briefest glances, how the pattern fit together. Even the squares of green and gray that had seemed so flat and simple before now seemed to move, as if flowing down into the central pattern.

How, he wondered, did the elves see such a pattern? Did it move, for them, or did it stay still? He did not hear Arian approaching until she spoke his name.

“Kieri—what are you doing?”

“Trying to draw that pattern on the floor,” he said. “I think it means something, but I don't know what. And it seems to shift about.” He turned to look up at her; her expression showed surprise, even shock. “Do you know what it is?”

“I think that's the same pattern I saw in that underground place where the Lady was trapped,” Arian said. “I had to mend it so that she and the others could come out. That one had the power to allow movement.” She took a step forward and stared at it. “Does it suggest that to you?”

“Other than an urge to go stand on it and turn certain ways, no,” Kieri said. “Is that what you feel?”

“Yes. I think this must be the same. The Lady's power could take her anywhere from that one. If we had her power, we could probably go to Vérella or Fin Panir or anywhere.”

Kieri frowned, thinking. “I wonder if these mark destinations as well as origins. I did not see it, but when I went to Fin Panir to speak for Paks, I heard that the expedition to the far west had returned by means of some ancient elven pattern. They arrived in the High Lord's Hall there to find a pattern graven in the stone like the one they'd started from. Their archives said Luap used it to help the magelords in Fintha escape to the west.”

“So if we tried this, there is no certainty where we would arrive?”

“You weren't thinking of trying it, were you?”

“No-o. But should we not know where the other end is or if this can be used by someone …?” She looked at Kieri; when their gazes met, uncertainty faded from her eyes.

“The Lady,” they both said. Arian nodded.

“She came here whenever she willed it,” Kieri said. “I always thought the elvenhome brought her, but the elvenhome emanated from her: she brought it, as well. And the iynisin—was it using the pattern?”

“Yes,” Arian said. “Unless it focused on the Lady herself and her power. Elves must have put the carpet here to hide the pattern from human eyes. I never sensed anything strange in this room until now, but elves must have been able to feel that pattern even when it was covered.”

“Or perhaps only the Lady,” Kieri said. “Perhaps other elves need to see or touch it.” He stood, shaking his head. “We don't know enough. It's been like this since I came—what I did not know brought great harm, and what I do not know now might bring more. I will press Amrothlin when he returns and make clear to him—I hope—how dangerous these secrets are.”