Nightlord: Shadows (127 page)

“I got that,” I told him. “So, let’s spell this out. If the Prince is with the army and they take Carrillon, things get worse. Right?”

“Right.”

“If he’s not with the army and they take Carrillon, it’s just as bad, as long as the Prince is still in power somewhere, right?”

“Right.”

“So, we need to deal with Prince Parrin, either by dealing with him and his army, or dealing with him at his home. If he’s with his army, it’s simple; we just go there and defeat them, capture or kill the Prince, and everybody celebrates. If he’s not with his army, we march on Byrne, crush it, and repeat the process with the Prince. Is that it?”

“I believe so,” Kelvin said, “but which do we pursue? The army or the Prince?”

“Can we catch their army?”

“Possibly,” Kelvin said. “If we head for Bildar and they let us through with a minimum of argument. They may be very glad to see us, or they may shut their gates. Moving an army across the mud will take days; if we may use the bridge of Bildar, it will be hours. If we can also obtain more transport, and if the weather allows, then yes. Many ‘ifs,’ Sire, but there always are.”

“Got it. If we march after the army, maybe we catch it before it hits Carrillon, but we’ll certainly catch it before it can
take
Carrillon?”

“Without doubt, Sire.”

“So, if we do that, we either ruin Prince Parrin’s chances of ever conquering Rethven, or we just slow him down. And if we march on Byrne, we take it, and either ruin Prince Parrin’s chances of ever conquering Rethven, or we just slow him down. It all depends on where the Prince is, and we don’t know. Have I missed anything?”

Heads shook. That about summed it up. I sat down and regarded the map, hands folded in front of me, chin resting on my knuckles. Just as in a game of chess, you have to take the king—without, of course, getting your own king taken.

I did not especially like that
I
was one of the kings.

“That will be all,” I told everyone. Torvil, Seldar, Thomen, and Kelvin looked surprised. Huler, Kammen, and Lissette just shrugged.

I spent some time looking at the map and wondering.

One of the problems I’ve had with being king is that it eats into everything else.

That’s probably not too clear. Let me try again.

Everyone is made up of all the things they are. A person can be a student, a parent, an artist, a friend, and a dozen other things, all at once. Ask someone what they are and the answer will depend on when you ask them. When a mom is changing a diaper, she’s likely to identify herself as a mother. Ask her when she’s cleaning the house and she may tell you she’s a housewife. Ask her when she’s at night school and she’s a student.

We’re all made up of a dozen or more identities. I’ve got enough of them to stock a comic book convention.

But this thing with being a king has been eating into them. While I’ve been doing wizardly things, it’s mostly been to help do king-things. I’ve been teaching, too… to help with my role as the king. Nightlord? Yep, doing that as well as I can, considering I’m a king. Even being a parent and a grandparent has been colored by my responsibilities as a king. Amber is a princess, and Tianna may one day inherit the throne.

How much do I owe these people? They’ve placed their faith in me, and I owe them something for that, true. They trust me and follow me and obey me, so I have a responsibility, an obligation to them. I led their ancestors out of Rethven and into the wilderness, and I’ve tried to do right by them.

Do I owe them my soul? Do I owe them the very stuff of who I am? Should I give up all the other things I am, all that I could be or would be, just to satisfy their expectations?

I’m their king because they decided I should be—or some of them decided and everyone else just went along with it, maybe. I didn’t decide it. I didn’t even want it. I still don’t.

I can tell the so-called gods to go take a long walk off a short pier and hug a jellyfish. I have a harder time telling people I don’t want to be their king. So, what’s the difference? The difference is that I like these people and I think I can help them.

That doesn’t qualify me to be a king. I belong
on
the council, not running it. But who can I put on the dragon throne? There’s no one else that could sit on it.

On the other hand, it’s really part of the mountain. Who else would the mountain
allow
on it? Tort, maybe. Amber or Tianna, probably. But would they want to? And would I stick them with that sort of responsibility?

So, I’m stuck with being king. But am I stuck with letting it eat up everything else? Am I going to live my life as a king and subordinate everything else to it? If I’m a responsible king, yes; if I’m going to become a
good
king, yes. I’ll need to spend years, decades, just being a king and learning about that job. I’ll have to give up everything else if I expect to do it well enough to have a kingdom left by the time I’ve learned how to run one. Much like learning to drive a car, I’ll have to focus solely on driving if I expect to have a car left by the time I’m a good driver.

I’m immortal. What’s a couple of decades?

A long time. I may be immortal, but a boring afternoon is still an eternity; a year of hard labor is still interminable; a decade of politics and government is still forever.

Maybe that’s cheap of me, but that’s how I feel. I never thought, “Gee, it’s ten years of my life; I’m only going to live to about eighty-something. I can’t afford that!” Human beings don’t think in those terms. At least,
I
don’t, and I started out as human! I think in terms of enduring through that length of time, rather than spending some sort of temporal currency.

Besides, who’s to say I’ll live forever? I could die tomorrow in the light of the rising sun. You never know.

But the worst thing is that I don’t enjoy this job. It requires me to do things I don’t want to do in ways I don’t like.

Damn it, I’m trying to be a good king, but I suspect I’m a complete failure at it. It’s not like I can grow up as a prince, learning the job from older, experienced king, and then take over with the confidence that I know what I’m doing. This is all on-the-job training for me, and I hate that.

On the other hand… there
are
some things I do pretty well. I have a talent for being a soul-devouring monster that stalks in the darkness. Last time I tried my hand at being a Hero, I wasn’t too bad at that, either. I was okay at being a knight, too.

I need to get a crown. When you have to switch hats, it’s helpful to have a hat to take off.

I sent for everyone. They trickled in while I continued to sit and brood. I’m a vampire; I’m supposed to be dark and brooding. It says so on the label. I’ll put in some more work on angst and self-pity some other time.

They respected the brooding and didn’t say anything. We sat in silence until everyone was present. I activated the spells to shield the tent from eavesdropping and scrying; Thomen blinked at me and added his own efforts.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I began, “I’ve been thinking about our current mission objectives, namely, reduce Byrne’s political and military power. To that end, we have marshaled potent military force, quite capable of eliminating Byrne’s capacity to make war. What we lack is the ability to use that force in both arenas. We need to crush Byrne’s army, but we also need to crush Byrne’s ruler.

“That’s how I see our situation. Does anyone have anything to add?”

They looked at each other, but nobody spoke up.

“This is my plan. If you spot any holes in it, speak up; I want success, not a lot of well-meaning agreement. Got that?”

They got that.

“I intend to put T’yl on Prince-hunting duty—that is, he will watch Byrne and Byrne’s army, looking for anything that might be an escape by the Prince. If he spots one, I will personally chase it down and kill it; there’s no one faster or more deadly. —
Yes
, Seldar?”

“What of us, Your Headstrong Majesty?”

“Now is not the time for that, Seldar.”

“As you say, Sire.”

“And if you’re referring to my personal bodyguards, you’ll be guarding Kelvin—the Warlord—who will be organizing and commanding the troops.”

Seldar didn’t like it, but he was smart enough to nod and keep quiet.

“While T’yl is hunting for Prince Parrin,” I continued, “Tort will be doing her usual stellar job of gathering direct military intelligence for us. We will close in on Byrne’s army, defeat it, and then turn our attention to Byrne, itself. If the Prince is with the army our primary problems are then solved. If he attempts to escape, I hope to intercept him and so solve him. Probably by long division, certainly in fractions.

“If the Prince is not with the army, we will have dealt with his major strategic strength. We will then be engaged in a straight-up war with Byrne, rather than some half-assed rescue of the remains of Rethven from a conquering tyrant.”

“Sire?” Kelvin asked.

“Yes?”

“Will we conquer Rethven?”

“I don’t really want to,” I admitted. “I’d much rather just stuff Parrin’s head up his own—” I broke off, glancing at Lissette. She seemed happy and excited. Well, it was her first war. “That is, I’d just like to make Prince Parrin in particular and Byrne in general stop bothering Karvalen in general and me in particular. I’m pretty certain that he’s responsible for most-if-not-all of the assassination attempts, summoned demons, and military attacks. I’ll be quite happy with crushing him like an old beer can.”

“Beer can?”

“Crush him. Stomp him flat. Destroy him and any chance that he or his house will ever come to power.”

“Understood, Sire.”

“On that subject, once we have the army dealt with, I may hurry off to Byrne, myself, to see if I can kill the Prince. He will doubtless have some method of learning of his defeat in the field; he may try to run. He may also try to dig in, and I’d like to get there before he has a chance to do either. Otherwise, we may have to besiege a city, and those are costly in every way.”

“My Lord?” Lissette asked.

“Yes?”

“Would that not make you an assassin?” There were a number of sharp breaths around the table.

“Yes,” I agreed, unperturbed. “I’d prefer to think of it as personally killing the man who hired, conjured, or commanded innumerable entities to try and kill me, kill my daughter, and kill my granddaughter. But when you come right down to it, yes, it is my intention to murder the man.”

I stood up, placed my fingertips on the table, and leaned forward slightly to sweep my gaze over everyone.

“Do I hear any objections?”

“When you put it that way,” Lissette said, looking thoughtful, and let it hang there.

“I don’t like you going off alone into an enemy castle,” Kammen said. “Too much can go wrong.”

“I agree, but I plan to scout it out pretty thoroughly, first, while the army approaches at its best speed.”

“Still don’t like it. Sire.”

“Didn’t ask you to like it. Kammen.”

Kammen grunted and shrugged.

“Now,
Lord
Kelvin,” I continued, and everyone at the table got wide-eyed all of a sudden, “you have the full support of Karvalen and the confidence of your King. You have command. Pack it up and get us moving,” I said. “We’re chasing Byrne’s army. Let’s go.”

They went, or almost. As they filed out, Lissette sat tight.

Well, this could be interesting,
I thought.

Not a fire-witch,
Firebrand noted.
If you’re not in danger of being incinerated, how interesting can it be?

She’s not a fire-witch, but she
is
a woman. That makes her pretty interesting and plenty dangerous.

Dangerous, Boss?

To my mental health, if nothing else.

Ah. Well, at least that’s not in danger.

It isn’t?

Your mental health is like a beggar’s riches.

It exists only in my mind?

Firebrand was silent for a moment, pondering.

That’s pretty deep, Boss. I’m going to need to think about that one.

Take your time.

Lissette just looked at me as the tent flap fell closed and cut off the sounds of the camp; it was a good spell. I looked back with an expression of polite interest.

“You’re about to do something stupid, aren’t you?” she asked.

“What makes you say that?”

“Tort. We talked about you a lot.”

I had a moment of powerful ambivalence. I love Tort. That’s a fact. Exactly how to define that love is a bit beyond me. First, she was a little girl. Then she was a good friend. Then she decided to become my lover. Now, she’s simply a vital part of my life. She takes care of me. I suspect she comes close to being my keeper. If anyone is looking out for me, it’s Tort. Maybe I should see if I can encourage a cult of the Goddess of Nightlord Keepers for her.

But there are still times I wish she wouldn’t do things for my own good.

“Talked about me a lot, you say?” I asked.

“You would be amazed.”

“But not comfortable.”

“Probably not, no.” She stood up and circled the table to stand in front of me. “Are you going to accept me as the true Queen of Karvalen? Or am I just for show?”

“What?”

“You have no need to found a dynasty,” she said. “You’re King Halar, the Undying, so you may not need to… you may not be like other men, who seem to rush the consummation of a marriage. Tort tells me that you
can
, though, as long as the sun is in the sky. So, I have to ask. Are you going to seal this marriage? Am I going to be a queen? Or am I just a political piece? I don’t know if I want to be the mother of… well, the co-founder of a bloodline. But I have to know what I should expect.”

“Mother of what?” I asked. “You were about to say something else.”

“Please don’t change the subject. Are you going to do this, or not?”