Melanthrix the Mage (11 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

“WILL IT BE WAR?
WILL IT BE PEACE?”

“God's breath, what in the seven circles of Hell happened here!” raged the king in council, which had been expanded with this meeting to include the Forellës. Even the guards in the corridor could hear him through the walls.

“Whatever possessed Dolph to do something like this? Arkásha?”

The prince stood up, motioning the rest of the room to silence.

“Sire, I'll have a detailed report for you later this afternoon, before this council ends. I ordered an immedi­ate death-probe of Prince Adolphos, and I hope we'll find it instructive.

“However, before we proceed further,” he said, “we need to draft a response to King Barnim's letter. That's why this session was originally called, and despite the tragedy that occurred this morning, we still must frame a reply. Ambassador Widdekin sails at the third hour of the morrow.”

Lord Gorázd agreed.

“Sire,” he said, “we need your guidance on this is­sue. Say the word. Will it be war? Will it be peace?”

Ezzö, Count of Bolémia and late King of Pommere­lia, then asked to be heard.

“Sire,” he said with a catch in his voice, blinking back the tears streaming from his hollow eyes, “I have lost a good son today. Your dear sister Teréza bore me five sweet children, three boys and two girls, and now all are gone but one. Adolphos was never the smartest of my children, but he was the dearest of them to me. Never once did he harm a soul until today.”

He turned to the hereditary prince.

“I can't blame you, Prince Arkády, for what you had to do. No one must violate the sanctity of the em­bassy, and my poor Dolph, well, he had to be stopped.”

He breathed deeply to regain his composure.

“Oh, he must have gone mad. He was possessed by Shaitán, or, more to the point, swayed by the devil's agents, those papal-loving Walküri. The Cæsarists con­tinue to persecute our people in Vorpommern, denying them the right to have their masses sung in Greek and for­bidding them their own clergy, and sending their Romanish priests and agents eastward into Kórynthia itself. All of you know this. The Holy Roman Cæsar was once content with the lands south of the German River in the west, and the Ister in the East. Now he wants it all.

“
Cousin
, I demand my vengeance! I demand a restoration of the old faith! I call for
jihad!
”

Murmers of approval trickled 'round the room. These men of action were sick of the senseless attacks that had been nibbling away at the realm, were tired of the La­tinist incursions into the east, and were determined to do something about them. King Kipriyán's eyes darted quickly back and forth across the table, measuring this lord's mind or that.

Finally, the king looked at his eldest son.

“What say you, Arkásha?”

The prince rubbed his short beard, trying to find some way to slow the rush of events.

“We have no proof, sire,” he said, “absolutely none, concerning the origin of these crimes against your person. We don't know who caused them, or why. We should first determine something definite about the attacks before taking action. And you lose nothing, father, by agreeing to meet with King Barnim.”

Prince Nikolaí stood up, his cheeks flushed.

“For once I must disagree with you, brother,” he said. “Whether or not the Walküri are responsible for this particular outrage, they've certainly given us more than their share of evil over the years. Maybe they're these Dark-Haired Men we keep hearing about.”

The councilors laughed.

“I say it's time we put an end to the sons of Walküre, once and for all. Let's clear out the lot of them, and install some responsible orthodox kings in their place.

“I too call for
jihad
,” Nikolaí said.

“And the rest of you?” asked the king.

Metropolitan Timotheos, sitting in the place of Pa­triarch Avraäm, lifted his hand.

“I'm afraid, gentlemen, that I must raise my voice in support of Prince Arkády.”

There were groans from around the table.

“Hear me, my lords. I bear no love for the House of Walküre or their Romanish ways. I know the crimes of which they've been accused, and I agree that they've over­stepped the bounds on too many occasions, persecuting, torturing, and killing thousands of innocent people whose only crime was their orthodox faith.

“But I too urge caution. Unlike the rest of you, I served in the last war with Pommerelia, fighting alongside King Makáry, Hereditary Prince Néstor, King Karlomán, King Ezzö the Elder, and Prince Kazimir, and participating in every major battle of that conflict. I was
there
, which is something no one else in this room can claim. And I saw all of those men, and many others be­sides, die horrible deaths.

“Even after we had killed King Michael of Pom­merelia, even after it seemed that we had won it all, the enemy rallied behind this very same King Barnim and drove us back. Do not think for a mo­ment that this will be a romp in the countryside. Our forces are very closely matched. We could still be fighting there a decade from now. We should wait.”

Comments were also heard from others in the room, all of them supporting war.

“Very well, I think I've heard enough,” the king said, cutting off further debate. “This is my judgment,
sieurs
. For their crimes against God and the true faith, for their crimes against Kórynthia, for their crimes against my house, we call the
jihad
against the Walküre. Let the word go forth to every town and dale, that the fighting men of the kingdom shall gather together at each castle and forti­fied place by the middle of April in this our
xli
st
year of reign, thence to gather at our fortress of Myláßgorod no later than the middle of the month following.

“Let the metropolitans bless our soldiers, let the pa­triarch bless the king and court, and may God smile upon our great enterprise.

“This is the word of Kyprianos
iii
King of Kóryn­thia. Let it be recorded.”

Thirty-five fists beat as one upon the council table, shaking the panes of glass in their frames, as Athanasios marked the words down in the Great Register.

“Jihad!”
they shouted.

“Jihad!”
echoed the king.

“Jihad!”
confirmed Metropolitan Timotheos, acting for the ailing patriarch.

Lord Gorázd motioned for silence.

“I will draft the proclamation this afternoon for the royal seal, which will be presented to Ambassador Wid­dekin before he departs tomorrow, and a second docu­ment will be dispatched to all of the meeting places of the king­dom. Now, let us adjourn briefly before taking up the matter of this morning's attack.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“
HOW
WAS IT DONE?”

Arkády promptly left the room to check on Fra Jánisar's investigations. He returned a few moments later with Alexis Andrássy Count of Görgoszák, an accom­plished Psairothi master.

Andrássy was a short, plump man in his forties, clothed in a rich maroon robe striped thrice in black across each sleeve to indicate the level of his proficiency. He frowned as he sat himself to the right of Arkády, and rubbed his beringed hands across the front edge of his re­ceding hairline, wiping away the sweat. He then pulled a sheaf of notes from his sleeve.

When the others had returned to the Council table, Gorázd Lord Aboéty motioned for order.

“Prince Arkády,” he asked, “are you ready?”

“Yes, grand vizier,” the prince said. “We all saw the unprovoked assault made this morning on Ambas­sador Widdekin and his son by the late Prince Adolphos Count of Einwegflasche. After questioning the partici­pants, I have concluded that the count believed that an at­tack was being pressed against the king, and responded ac­cordingly. When the ambassador advanced towards King Kipriyán, Adolphos somehow saw a poisoned knife or sword in Widdekin's hand, instead of the parchment, and when no one else came to my father's aid, bravely stepped forward himself. He is innocent of any crime, and I be­lieve that God will judge him accordingly.

“The question is ‘why?' What prompted this as­sault? I asked the king's physician, Fra Jánisar, to examine the count's body, and to arrange for a necroprobe of his latent memories.

“The doctor found nothing wrong physically with Prince Adolphos, other than the wound which was the im­mediate cause of his death. There were no malformations of the brain or other irregularities which could have fos­tered delusions in the man. His humours were in good bal­ance. Therefore, I propose that we must look to the psy­chic plane for the cause of Adolphos's actions, since the mildness of his character was well known to all of us here.”

Arkády cleared his throat before continuing.

“Count Alexis of Görgoszák, an instructor in necro­probing at the
Scholê
, will now report on his findings.”

“I thank you, Prince Arkády,” Görgoszák said. “I wish that you should understand that I was unable to per­form a completely thorough examination of the subject, due to the short amount of time that was available to me. Nor­mally, the elucidation of a death-probe of this complexity requires several days at a minimum, and preferably a week to assimilate all of the victim's subtleties, and to understand their devious interactions. However, such as that...that is, with all appropriate caveats having now been ex­pressed here, I can proceed with an account of my discov­eries, such as they may be.”

The count pulled an oval-shaped piece of glass from his pocket, and examined his notes more closely.

“Ahem, yes, this is most,
most
interesting. Beneath the surface level of the victim's thoughts, that is to say, his ordinary personality, there was an underlayer, a substratum of interference from some outside agency. Several triggers were introduced into the subject's brain, so that certain events would inevitably proceed if they matched the appro­priate visual and auditory stimuli.

“Specifically,” he said, “when the ambassador from Pommerelia was announced at court, one of these triggers was thereby enabled, and when the ambassador stepped forward toward the king with his hand outstretched, a second switch closed in the count's mind, the additional compulsion then forcing the victim into his attack mode. He firmly believed at all times throughout this process that he was taking the only right and necessary action to defend both king and country.”

He smiled his pedant's smile of supercilious tri­umph.

“It was most cleverly accomplished,” Görgoszák said.

“Count Alexis,” Metropolitan Timotheos asked, “specifically
how
was it done?”

“Well, as to that,” the adept hemmed and hawed, “well, I am not really certain. You see, it takes time to as­similate all the years of a man's life, and this was a most sophisticated working, very unusual in many respects. There are layers upon layers of interference embedded in the count's mind, some locked behind the green door, at least one of which I have thus far been unable even to crack. One must proceed very cautiously, because there are certain unscrupulous mages who will place traps in their workings, twistings that can destroy an investigator's mind if he does not unravel the thread in just a certain way. There is much...”

“Stop!” interrupted the metropolitan. “Just tell us this. Did a Psairothi fashion the spell?”

“I, uh, that is to say, I really do not know,” said Alexis, “at least not yet. There are t'ings about this, uh, this event that are very strange. Certain sins, that is, signs, that only an accomplished researcher such as myself would even recognize. Like, uh, for example, the frontal lobe being affected by the hyperthalmoidus. Which is to say, I see another's hand at work here. One who has made some weary, that is, very good stuff. I think.”

Prince Arkády tried to steer the proceedings back to some semblance of normality.

“Is there anything you can tell us about the level of training that would be required to place such a compulsion in a Psairothi, even one not especially accomplished?”

Alexis was sweating very heavily now, and he wiped his brow with his sleeve.

“Ahem, well, I do t'ink ve have to go with the flow in an investigation of this type. There are intrinsicacies of the nature that can be seen in the lodes of Prince Dolphin's mine. Like here,” he said, pointing to his own head and then rubbing the top vigorously. “In here we find much the same. I, uh, I can feel the nature of this coming through wery well, and hope you will do the same. I can feel them little fangers trying to work their way out of my skoal. Even so, princy, uh, princely, we see much in common between the work of Bózard de Guardrobus and, shall we say, Ludolf von Gegendreck. Or was it Rudolf. No, Waddolf, I fink. Anywho, you can see there sorta what I'm talkin' about. Jesu Christu, they're crawling all over my head. I, I find more t'ings to investiture...”—he started beating the top of his head with his right hand—“ah, got t'em suckers. Yes, now, as I was saying, they have to be wery good to do this. T'ey, uh, t'ey t'ink t'ey got me, but I knows better. T'ey comin' t'rough my eyes now. I most stup t'em. Most stop, must, must pop.”

Suddenly the count plunged his fingers into his sockets, scooping the eyes out with his fingernails, and popping them one at a time into his mouth.

“Ah,” he said, biting down and smiling his crocodile smile, “T'at's gut. Ha! Ahhh-ha!”

Then Alexis started screaming, and he couldn't be quieted, even when the guards dragged him away down the hall, kicking and biting and fighting.

“I sees you,” they heard him yell one last time, “I sees
you
, Kyp. Kyp, Kyp, Kyp-ri-yan-os the Brief, chief!”

“Someone clean up this mess,” Arkády managed to choke out, before running hurriedly to the garde-robe to void his lunch.

The king just sat stunned in his place, his face as pallid as that of the absent Doctor Melanthrix.

When the prince returned, he asked the question on everyone's mind.

“Do any of you know what just happened here?”

Metropolitan Timotheos rubbed the new lines etched in his brow.

“I would venture a guess, Highness, that whatever ‘claw' was planted in Prince Adolphos was assimilated by Count Alexis during his probe, and suddenly erupted in his mind, eating away his sanity from the inside out. Whatever it was, I would not want to encounter it myself. The Count of Görgoszák, in spite of his pedantry, was superbly trained, and certainly as proficient as anyone at this table. If this menace can whelm him, who was expecting it, then none of us is safe.”

All nodded soberly.

King Kipriyán suddenly gasped out, “Then, then, what do you expect us to
do?

“What!”

He pounded the table with his right hand.

“What!!”

He pounded again and screamed.

“What!!!”

Suddenly realizing what he was doing, he looked around at the faces staring at him, blushed, and abruptly said in a weak voice, “This meeting is adjourned,” before rushing out of the room without even waiting for his guards to catch up with him.

“God in Heaven,” said Prince Arkády, “the enterprise has begun. The Great Lord help us all.”