Limits of Power (71 page)

“Animosity toward my grandmother, according to Amrothlin,” Kieri said.

“But she's dead.”

Kieri stiffened. “Maybe … maybe they do not know. When was it they arrived in Fin Panir? It could have been before the Marshal-General knew about the Lady's death. If they think she's still alive—”

“They would think my father still alive,” Arian said, eyes wide. “If he was reporting to them, they will expect a report.”

“In their own time, which is not our time. I know the Marshal-General said the king she spoke to seemed in haste, but haste to them is not the same as haste to us. It may be they will arrive here next year or ten years from now and think it but a few days.”

“I would like to meet them,” Arian said. “For my father's sake and for my own.” She patted her belly, clearly bulging now. “And for these, who elsewise will have no family but the four of us.”

“And how is your sense of them now? To me they are clouded by your own taig.”

“Healthy, growing, and very, very active.” Arian shifted in her chair. “They do seem … different since you came back with the elvenhome. They would respond to it, I think.”

Autumn continued into winter; Arian's pregnancy progressed normally, according to both human and half-elven midwives. Kieri could not use his elvenhome ability to travel, as the Lady apparently had, so his brief trips to check on the various projects removed the elvenhome protection from Chaya, to his annoyance. Arian, he felt, should be protected in the elvenhome at all times. His councilors regained the ability to disagree with him, but at the same time he began to see the stamp of his own vision more clearly on the taig and on the projects he had begun.

Along the scathefire road to Riverwash, the ugly hard-burnt ash surface darkened and softened a little. The route west from Chaya to the Tsaian border was smoother on the way back than the way out; tree limbs fell out of the way, and the track seemed to widen of itself. Only the stone outcrops resisted the elvenhome influence—but once clear of undergrowth, were easier to work.

Kieri found himself thinking about the magelords enchanted in Kolobia, as he had before. Could they be connected to the outbreaks of magery in Tsaia and Lyonya? Mikeli had shared Arcolin's notion that this was all coming from Gird, through Paksenarrion. Yet Gird was not a high god and had never concerned himself with elves, so far as Kieri knew, so … how could he be involved in Kieri's growing powers? He touched his ruby. How could Falk, for that matter?
Someone
chuckled in his mind, and he smiled in response. Whoever, and whatever, and however, the great changes had come, and were still moving in the world.

Immerdzan, Aarenis

T
he Duke of Immer reviewed his plans. This winter: Cortes Cilwan along the river and Rotengre to the north. He could cut the Northern Trade Road. He could invest Dwarfwatch, which—as his spies told him—had once more been vacated in the peace following Siniava's War as too expensive to garrison.

At one time Aliam Halveric and Kieri Phelan had used that pass, though not—he thought—to move large numbers of troops. How many troops would he need to keep Phelan's attention on his southern border? At the least, a few spies could go over and learn what they could of Lyonya and southern Tsaia, reporting back in the spring.

He spread his hand across the map before him. Was it too ambitious, this plan? Should he go at it piecemeal, tackling first the Guild League cities one by one? But that, he was certain, had been Siniava's mistake. Phelan had defeated Siniava with boldness and planning; Siniava had given Phelan time to plan, time to gather allies. He himself, with his mentor within … surely boldness would serve him best. Phelan had just fought a war against Pargun; he must be tired now.

So … a feint, but a strong one, against the western Guild League, to draw Fox Company in and keep them occupied defending the pass at Valdaire. A fleet—even now assembling at his orders—to sail around the Eastbight and up the Honnorgat. A force to pin Phelan in southern Lyonya, so that his force could invade on the river.

He reviewed his forces. No one knew where all his warriors came from; no one knew what ships dared thread the dangerous shoals outside Slavers' Bay or what cargo unloaded or loaded there. Coastal caravans kept well inland from it, the caravan masters well paid to see nothing and tell less.

It
can
all
be
yours.
That voice whispered to him night and day now: praise, warning, advice, promises. So far, in the years since he had accepted the gift, it had led him truly, if slower than he wished, from one triumph to another. He had not always understood its reasons—why, for instance, he had not been given leave to slay Kieri Phelan in Siniava's War—but in the end Phelan's reputation had protected him from others' suspicions.

Why not, he wondered now, assassinate the young, inexperienced Fox Company captains while their commander was away? Why not kill all the mercenary commanders? If their troops were in disarray …

Not
yet.
That was clear enough, and he had learned not to disobey.
For
now
you
want
the
cities
to
think
they
can
trust
those
companies.

What, then? Send spies to infiltrate them?

Patience. You are not as old as I.

No, but he would be. He had been promised that. Life beyond life, without aging. If not immortality as the elves knew it, still life far beyond other men. He would see the other kings die, and then … his vision blurred to the glory of it. Himself, in a radiant glow, crowned with the mightiest of all crowns, and all bowing before him.

No one would ever command him again.

Except
me.

Who was part of himself now. That, he told himself, was different.

He bent his mind to the practicalities of war and issued orders. It had begun.

Cortes Andres

“My lord Count!”

Andressat looked up from his work. One of the scribes—Hastan—was waving a scroll as if it were a torch. What could he have found?

Hastan came nearer. “My lord, you know the rumors from the north—”

“Which rumors?”

“About the magelords in the mountain. The Girdish expedition found them, far to the west of Fin Panir.”

Andressat now had an idea where Fin Panir lay, west of Vérella. West of Fin Panir, in his imagination, was a vast empty wilderness … but then, he had once thought all the North a tiny place, kingdoms no bigger than Andressat, and the reality … had been different.

“What about the rumors, Hastan? And what are you holding there?”

“Pedigrees, my lord. During the Girdish rebellion in the north, one of the Finthan lords sent a list of all the noble families and their relationships back to the south in case local archives should be lost.”

“We have something of that in the list of those who came from Old Aare.”

“Yes, my lord. But this is some hundreds of years later, and it mentions, in the holdings of one family, ‘jewels of great power, once the pride of Aare, which have been sent for safekeeping to the east, as far from Gird's raiders as feasible.' This may be the regalia said to be found by Duke Verrakai and now in the king's treasury of Tsaia.”

“What family?” Andressat asked.

“Here—” Hastan spread the papers out on another table; Andressat came over and looked where he pointed. “The Sier of Grahlin was the Finthan king's close relative and actually in closer descent from Declan of Valdaire. My lord will recall that the realm was vacated before the Girdish rebellion. By this, Grahlin had possession of the regalia. He was killed at the Battle of Greenfields, along with the king; his widow sent the jewels eastward, believing that even if Tsaia fell to the Girdish, a noble in the east might hide them.”

“Why not send them south?”

“Ah.” Hastan smiled. “We have a good history of the Girdish wars in Fintha and Tsaia, my lord. Girdish forces dominated the south of both realms, blocking access to Valdaire. The jewels, as you know, cannot be hidden in a pocket. They were originally housed in a golden casket, and that is how they were transported. According to this, they were sent to the easternmost name she knew, Verrakai, to hold in trust until, it says here, ‘a king will rise again with both power and right.' The jewels are listed, along with a scroll giving the same history and Grahlin's pedigree. Except that we know of no scroll and the golden casket is missing, they are the same we know to be part of the regalia King Mikeli holds.”

“And the Duke of Immer now holds the necklace from that suite,” Andressat said. “And my son.” He closed his eyes a moment; he could not help it. Cortes Cilwan had fallen; the Duke of Immer's army was poised on Andressat's border. He was surprised they had not invaded yet, but perhaps subduing the lands they'd conquered so quickly would keep them busy through the winter. Even—though he had scant hope of that—the next spring. Though what his son must suffer in that span—if he was not already dead—broke his heart.

“There is more, my lord,” Hastan said, shuffling the scrolls to put another on top. “This … we thought of Prince Mikeli's as being the most complete listing of those who came out of Aare, but here is another. Declan of Valdaire's pedigree claims him to be a descendant of Mikeli's elder brother—thus a prince of Old Aare—by a child brought to Aarenis as a suckling by his mother. And here, my lord, your own line connects. With all respect, my lord, your right to that necklace is as clear as Grahlin's.”

For only a moment, Andressat's heart leapt at the thought that he might, after all, have royal blood, but he put that aside and shook his head. “I am no magelord, Hastan. I have no magery, nor did my family before me that the record shows. If those jewels had power, I would have no idea what to do with them. Immer has magery—”

“Evil magery, my lord!” Hastan said. “Only evil, like Siniava.”

“Probably. But I know from Duke Verrakai and Tsaia's king that blood magery controlled the other regalia. If, as we both think, Immer is a blood mage, then he could control the necklace.”

“Verrakai, you told me, did nothing with the regalia but hide it with blood magery,” Hastan said. “They did not use it. Perhaps the necklace cannot be used that way.”

“Perhaps. We shall hope so. Come spring, we must get this information to those in the north. Somehow.” Past Immer's spies and agents … how? He must find a way, just as he must defend Andressat no matter the cost to his son and himself. “I wish Count Arcolin were still in the south.”

Chaya, Lyonya

K
ieri woke to a room full of elf-light as silvery as the Lady's had been. At once, he realized it was both his and another elf's. Facing him, across the foot of his bed, was a tall figure, clearly elven, wearing a crown of silvery metal set with pale stones that glowed. His arms were folded, his expression stern.

Even as his heart stuttered and then raced, Kieri realized there must be another unblocked pattern in the palace. He felt no pressure from the other's glamour—was it his own elvenhome protecting him?

“You might have come at a better time,” he said, glad to find his voice steady. Arian, he could tell, was still asleep.

“I would not have come here at all if someone had not blocked the patterns in the public rooms,” the elf said. He sounded annoyed. “That was foolish. And discourteous. I am lord of the western elvenhome.”

Kieri scowled. “And I am king of Lyonya. We had good reason to block those patterns.” And again he wondered why this one, every bit as hazardous, had not been blocked. A question for Amrothlin, when he had dealt with the elf.

“And I had good reason to come here,” the elf said. “An urgent reason. Rise, dress yourself. I must talk to you.”