Summerblood (5 page)

Crim heard the mines before she saw them, and at that, the musty odor of raw earth and broken stone reached her before the noise. Still, the sounds waxed steadily as she approached: a grinding, most notably, but also a dull pounding, and the raspy jingle of the gears in the
trods
, as the vast, pedal-powered drilling machines were called. Before she knew it, she was passing the first of them, drawing curious glances from the sweaty, half-clad men and women pedaling beside the screw-shafts. An unlikely occupation for Eron's artist-elite, she acknowledged. On the other hand, it kept them fit and trim, and was a great equalizer besides, since most of this batch were, indeed, High Clan scions. Young, too: recently Raised adults in the first cycle of the Fateing, discovering that physical labor was a necessary adjunct to the crafting to which most of them aspired.

She paused for a moment, wondering whether—since the King was from Smith, which ruled machines—now might not be a good time to approach him about either replacing the oldest trod or adding a new one. Perhaps this coming autumn, when she made her first trek to Tir-Eron in five years….

Assuming she didn't go mad before then. Dismissing such speculation with a snort loud enough to make the nearest treader fix her with a dubious stare—even if her Warden's cloak and hood did not—she continued onward, steering her way toward the private veins. They revealed themselves slowly, tunnels opening off other tunnels, that in turn opened off larger chambers hollowed in the rock of Tar-Megon itself. Argen's
vein was to the right, the guard niches beside the entrance occupied by two weary-looking women in Gem-Hold livery. They straightened when they saw her, and nodded smartly, trying to look alert, and failing. Crim didn't blame them. This was dull work, most of the time. But now, regrettably, necessary.

“Any visitors?”

“Argen's Sub-Craft-Chief, about a hand ago,” the righthand guard replied

Crim grunted an acknowledgment and continued on.

The vein itself was fronted by a circular chamber three spans across, its walls covered with gold leaf and its marble floor marked by Smithcraft's sigil wrought of rustless steel. The same emblem was cut into the stone above the archway that gave onto the vein itself.

But where was the guard?
Besides the two she'd posted in the corridor beyond, Argen had started posting one of its own here. Yet the niche by the door was empty. Still,
her
guards had said nothing about anyone leaving. Therefore …

It was with considerable determination that she strode through the archway and into the vein itself. One span beyond the entrance, the floor became dirt and began to slope upward. Soon enough she had to stoop to continue, which was when she began to see the irregular openings of the side veins, most of them entering the main one at roughly waist level—dark, uninviting holes so small a person must crawl to work them, which had led to their being called crawls.

Propriety got the best of her beside the first one. This was her hold, aye, and the hold of her clan. But it was Argen's territory on which she actually stood, as much theirs as Argen-Hall in Tir-Eron. She had no right here save by courtesy and with permission she'd neither sought nor expected to have granted.

Still, Tir-Eron—and Argen-Hall—were a thousand shots to the southwest, and while their local representatives were among the more forceful representatives of that clan, she had a fair bit of experience with force herself, much of it recent, when bullying had become a fact of life. Unfortunately,
Brayl and Pannin, the old Argen chiefs she'd known for so long, were gone, having left the previous spring in ignorance of the war they'd found mustering upon reaching Tir-Eron. Their replacements had been two women who'd fallen from favor with old Eellon and been dispatched here. A new Sub-Craft-Chief had come with them.

Both Clan-Chiefs kept to their quarters, but Liallyn, Smith's much younger Sub-Craft-Chief, could often be found here, and was in fact in the vein even now. Which was just as well; Crim needed to talk to her. Indeed, she almost abandoned decorum in truth, and was actually removing her cloak with the notion of entering the nearest crawl in her shift, when she heard the sound of someone backing out of it. By the feet, which appeared first, it was male. The missing guard, in fact, looking embarrassed at being caught off his post and in such disarray. He wore no sword, but did sport a dagger. And given the closeness between Argen and Ferr, he probably knew how to use it better than most. Indeed his hands reached to it by reflex, before he realized whom he was confronting. A shadow of confusion crossed his face. This was his clan's vein, but Crim was the Hold-Warden …

He had already opened his mouth, when a second set of scrabblings issued from the crawl. He sighed relief and looked away—which implied that whoever he awaited ranked him, which meant he could abdicate responsibility.

More feet appeared, these clad in dirty boots and small enough to belong to a woman. Legs followed, cased in the leather breeches worn by both sexes when working the narrower crawls. Someone fairly young and supple, to judge by the way those hips were twisting.

Liallyn herself, as it turned out. The woman—she was roughly Crim's age, and they shared some history, years ago— brushed dirt off her tunic and was already inhaling the shaft's relatively fresher air, when the combined noise of the guardsman clearing his throat and Crim's pointed sigh made her start and spin around—but not before Crim noted that she held two
small leather bags of the sort used to store mined gems. Both were bulging.

Liallyn followed Crim's stare. “Dirt,” she said flatly. “Not that you have any right to know, here in Argen's sovereignty.”

“Dirt,” Crim echoed neutrally. “How interesting.”

“I can show you, if you like,” Liallyn replied, thrusting one of the bags at the startled guard, while reaching for the ties on the other.

Crim shook her head. “No need, though I suppose dirt is technically part of Stone—or Clay.”

“Both of which are Smith's allies,” Liallyn replied. “Still, honesty being better than subterfuge, I'll go ahead and tell you that we're curious as to whether there's anything special about the matrix in that vein. There's no reason to hide that fact from you, given that it's ours, anyway.”

“Actually,” Crim shot back, “I'm looking into that.”

Liallyn's brows lifted in annoyed surprise before she could hide it. The guard's eyes darted back and forth between them as his hand found the hilt of his dagger.

To Crim's chagrin, Liallyn took the initiative. “That old business about the original vein grants? Let me remind you that it was a Smith who first found this place and dug the initial tunnel.”

“Looking for ores, not gems,” Crim countered, though she shouldn't have. It was an old, old argument, but one that wouldn't die. Priest and Lore had been assigned to work out a settlement two centuries back and still hadn't. In essence, the argument went, Smith had made the excavation—with Stone's help—and established a small hold here. But when nothing useful to Smith had been forthcoming, they'd ceded the hold to Stone, of which Gem had then been a sept. Gemstones had promptly been discovered, which had given their miners sufficient clout to form a clan and craft of their own, but only with Smith's support, which they'd granted on the condition they be ceded a vein of their own to mine in perpetuity. Gem had reluctantly agreed, but the ensuing furor had resulted in all the
other clans likewise demanding private veins in exchange for supposedly equal considerations. The clincher had come when someone pointed out that, beautiful as they were, gems were essentially a luxury, the withholding of which troubled no one but their own.

All of which took Crim half a breath to recall. Which was still long enough for Liallyn to ready another volly. “You can bring it up at Sundeath,” she said. “For now, this is Smith territory. There's one of me, and I'm probably your equal in a fight. I have a guard. You can leave, or he can escort you. I'm sorry to be rude, but present right and ancient precedent both support me. You can challenge, but until then, I still have to report whatever I find and tithe the same—to your Mine-Master. If you want to confront someone, let it be him, who let first Avall, then Strynn slip at least two of these gems you're so obsessed with past his nose.”

“Rann also found some,” Crim snapped. “And he could only have come down here with Smith's grace.”

“He didn't,” Liallyn replied coldly. “If you want to pursue that, I suggest you address your complaint to Lord Eemon. For myself, I need to clean up, then take this sample to our suite— where I doubt it will tell me any more than it would have told you.”

And with that, she snatched the remaining bag from the guard and pushed past him, to stride back down the shaft, leaving Crim gaping in her wake.

“Lady—” the guard ventured, when they had returned to the entrance chamber. “Hold-Warden. I have to remind you that, as my Chief says, you are on Argen's earth. It would indeed be wise if you … departed.”

And somehow, without her being aware of it, he had set himself between her and the entrance to the vein, with his dagger now fisted ominously. Crim glared at him, but managed a marginally courteous nod as she started for the exit. The boy was only doing his duty. As was his Chief. As was she. But Eight, why did doing one's duty have to be so troublesome?

She had a headache, she realized, as she reached the cooler air in the larger shaft beyond. Maybe from anger, perhaps from fatigue, possibly from the closeness of the mines or the pounding of the trods she had to pass again to make her exit. Whatever the cause, tending to it was suddenly uppermost in her mind.

When had she become so impatient?
she wondered, as she strode past the assay station, passing an alarmed subchief in the process. And how would she deal with it?

Well, with wine, to start with, to calm her nerves a little. And a hot bath, and then … What? Music?

Kylin was back, she recalled, as she neared her apartments. Kylin, who was the best harper she'd ever heard. Kylin, who was also allied, very firmly, with that preposterous young power structure in Tir-Eron, by virtue, some said, of his being the Consort's lover. He'd arrived three days ago, with an escort of Royal Guard, ostensibly to retrieve his chief-harp. He'd also be leaving “soon”—but that was all he would say. But until “soon” arrived, Kylin was hers again. Her harper, as he had been before …

Before what?

Before last autumn's trek had brought Avall, Strynn, and Eddyn, and with them that which had changed the world.

But for a while, she could forget all that and listen to Kylin playing.

Strynn san Ferr-a-Argen settled the Cloak of Colors more firmly about her husband's shoulders and stepped back to let Rann syn Eemon-arr set the Crown of Oak upon his head, while Lykkon syn Argen-a passed him the Sword of State.
Not
the Lightning Sword, though it had originally been commissioned for exactly such occasions as they were about to undertake. Stepping back, she regarded him critically, there in the vesting chamber behind the Hall of Clans. Traditionally, squires did these things, but Avall eschewed squires in favor of his friends.

A glance around the room showed Strynn few enough of those, most in Warcraft crimson beneath the Argen maroon-with-crown of the Royal Guard: young Myx, with his bondbrother, Riff; Lady Veen; and Strynn's senior brother, Vorinn, newly returned from Brewing up past North Gorge, where he'd sat out the war nursing—and cursing—two broken arms. Only one of his younger allies was missing: Merryn, Avall's twin sister and Strynn's bond-mate. But Merryn was exactly where she wanted to be: guarding the Door of Chiefs. A position that
actually required she do more than stand around looking ritually pretty.

Strynn dusted imaginary lint from Avall's arm and grinned at him. “Well,” she announced, “you look magnificent.”

Avall grinned back, part excited boy, part bemused adult being forced to play a game that was still unreal to him, part frightened youth caught somewhere between. “There's still time to join me,” he murmured.

Strynn shook her head. “If you change your mind in the autumn—if you allow yourself to be confirmed as King at Sundeath,
then
I might consent to be Consort-in-fact. For now, I want this to be your decision alone. I don't want to get a taste for power and find myself urging you toward something for which you have no heart. And you've already said you've no desire to be
my
Consort, should they offer the Throne to me— nor will I sit it alone. Besides,” she added with a smirk, “it'll be more fun to watch.”

Avall tried to shrug, but the cloak was too heavy for that. Which might be an omen, Strynn decided. No one would argue that Kingship did not weigh heavily on her husband.

A rap sounded on the door behind them, and Riff, who'd recognized the distinctive cadence, opened it with a mixture of apprehension and relief, standing back to admit eight Priests in various robes and masks, who entered in solemn file to claim places on the inlaid sigils of the principal avatars of The Eight: Man, Fate, Craft, Law, World, Life, Strength, and Weather.