The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (14 page)

And now he had returned, a purveyor of lies that might have threatened their nation, all so as to protect his own.

They couldn’t know that, of course. The general populace would have no awareness of the false reports delivered to King Thelin and his high-level commanders. But his own conscience cared little for such trifles, and a people’s ignorance did not equal forgiveness.

Besides, Thelin himself
did
know. And it was the king he now had to face.

Surprisingly, Thelin had not sent for him. Nevik had presumed that Troy would march him before the Souari ruler the moment they reached the city. Instead, the high commander had gone to meet with his sovereign alone, while leaving the baron behind to help oversee the accommodations granted his people. Nevik had done so for a time, until the continuing silence and his own guilt had gnawed holes inside him. Only after making his request for a royal audience this very night had that messenger returned with the mounted escort that now led him to the king.

Leaving his lieutenants and advisors to assist Ghellenay in the supervision of their people and hers, he had set forth straightaway, determined to account for his actions once and for all. However, as he’d made his way through the ascending, half-moon rungs toward the city’s elevated reaches, his thoughts had soon shifted. With the climb up each successive gateway ramp, he recalled the frantic retreat he had made alongside those seeking to survive the most vicious battle in the history of a city that had seen more than its share. The scars from that conflict had scarcely begun to heal, and here they were, on the verge of reliving it all again.

More than that, he had continued to marvel at the sheer volume of refugees come again to beg the city’s shelter. Even here, within the royal zenith, his escort had to carve a path through a sea of disillusioned souls—men and women of all ages and from all corners of Pentania—who had crammed within these walls to escape a common nightmare. When word of the Illychar had first begun to spread, back before anyone had even known what to call them, the Culmarils—King Thelin and his wife, Queen Loisse—had made it known that no one seeking Souaris’s legendary shelter would be turned away. In truth, many of those herded here by the invasions of wizard and demon
had never left, and those who
had
were quick to return. Few had forgotten the utter devastation of those prior threats. Fewer still were willing to wait around to see what horrors this one might manifest.

Nevik had heard some of the rough census counts, which had the city swelling to three and four times its normal capacity. But seeing it for himself was a visceral experience unlike any he had imagined. While many had chosen to divert to other Kuurian cities like Stralk and Tresc Thor, an almost equal number of citizens from those lesser strongholds had been received. Judging by the baron’s own arrival—and the thousands who had accompanied him from southern Alson—the situation promised to worsen before it improved.

Yet, rather than stem the incoming flow, the Souari were scrambling to accommodate the continuing inundation. According to the coordinators he and Ghellenay had met with earlier, refugees were now being tucked away in the mountain tunnels behind the city, taking advantage of an immense warren of caverns as ancient as the land itself. Food, water, light, medicines, and other necessities would be delivered as efficiently as possible. And a system of rotation was being designed so that those underground would not remain so forever. Extreme as it seemed, it was the last course available, for there was only so much space that could be shared with the armies who would protect the city against the inevitable invasion.

That the people had so readily accepted the idea spoke to their desperation.

It would also explain the vast number making their way up into the mountains from the lower levels of the city. Nevik took one last, lingering look at the slow-moving crush before rounding a bend onto the causeway that would carry him to the top of the plateau and the Palace of the Kings. At that point, he tried to put aside his misgivings at the sight of a prideful, warrior-like city become an asylum for the cowering population of an entire continent. Despite countless hours of reflection, he had yet to craft an apology that suited him. Not because he regretted his actions, but because, as Troy had pointed out, he should have trusted them with the truth. Never had that seemed so clear to the young baron than now, as his moment of reckoning with a very powerful—and very beleaguered—monarch drew near.

H
E IS A BARON, NOTHING MORE,
Nevik told himself, as he paced the marbled floor of a royal antechamber. After being led through a maze of halls and corridors decorated in the stark, militaristic style for which Souaris was known, he had been left here to make himself comfortable. An attendant had provided food and drink—both of which remained untouched—and stoked a fire to help keep him warm. As if his fitful pacing were not enough to fuel his anxious sweat.

For there was no deceiving himself. Though correct in the strictest sense, this “baron” of Souaris was perhaps the most powerful ruler in all of Pentania. With the deaths of Emperor Derreg and his eldest son, and the turmoil surrounding the Imperial Council, most of Kuuria’s nobles were imploring
Thelin to take the empire’s reins. While Thelin himself had urged patience during these troubled times, the latest crisis had only caused those pleas to intensify.

Nor had Souaris ever truly been a mere barony. At the time of the Proclamation of Man, when the empire of Kuuria had been formally founded, King Bannok had been the favorite to serve as first emperor, with the great City of Man as his ruling seat. But the Souari ruler—the guiding force behind the creation of the League of Man and the penning of the Proclamation itself—had refused the honor. Only with Bannok’s support had King Morgan been elected emperor in his stead, and Morganthur, the city of Derreg’s forebears, named the imperial capital.

There had been many changes within and without Kuuria in the nearly four centuries that had followed: the independence of Alson and Menzos; the Treaty of Duran; the dissolution of the League of Man; the formation of Kuuria’s Imperial Council—an outward appeasement by Derreg’s father that had in fact been used to strengthen the emperor’s rule; and, of course, the construction of Morethil, the city with which Derreg himself had replaced his realm’s ancestral capital. But one thing that hadn’t changed in all that time, amid all the various upheavals, was Souaris’s reputation as the first seat of man’s power upon these shores, and the respect accorded its unbroken line of rulers.

Barons though they might be.

“Sir!”

The sharpness of the tone snapped Nevik from his turbulent musings and spun him round with clenched breath. Thelin’s aide stood in the doorway, with a scowl to match his irritated voice—causing Nevik to wonder how long the man had been trying to hail his attention.

The face and tone smoothed. “My lord will see you now.”

Nevik gave a slight bow, then strode forward, summoning his wits and his courage as he followed the sweep of the aide’s arm through the inner doorway.

“My lord, the baron of Drakmar,” the man presented, upon entering behind him.

Nevik scarcely heard him. The baron had lost himself once again, this time to the startling appearance of the ruler seated before him. At first, he assumed the other to be an impostor. For the Thelin he faced was but a ghost of the man he had known just months before. Gray hair had turned white and wispy. A weary countenance hung from his brow like the wax of a melting candle. Eyes of steel had sunk inward, their wells thick with shadow in the room’s gently flickering light.

With the glow of the moon through an unshuttered window, Nevik wondered if he had ever seen a living man so pale.

“Thank you, Leyem,” the apparition managed. “That will be all.”

The aide bowed and stole from the room, closing the door. Realizing that he’d been staring, Nevik forced his gaze to the floor.

“Sit,” Thelin bade him, indicating another of the chairs adorning his private sitting room.

Nevik, still too disoriented to speak, found his legs and did as entreated, sinking into the padded cloth and feeling suddenly exhausted himself. At the same time, his gaze roamed the chamber, searching for sentries and finding not a one.

“You keep no guard, Your Majesty?”

The king found the strength to raise an eyebrow. “Do you intend me harm?”

“Of course not, Your Majesty. An observation only.” His voice resonated powerfully in comparison to the other’s, making him even more self-conscious.

“My soldiers these days have more important things to do than watch over a wasting old man. Besides, in these environs, one seldom knows who can be trusted, and is often safest when alone.”

Nevik searched long and hard for a fitting response. “Is Your Majesty unwell?”

Thelin replied with a strange hacking sound—a cough, perhaps, or a burst of mirthless laughter. “I am no Illychar, if that’s what you imply. I only wish I possessed their strength.”

“Your Majesty, I did not mean to suggest—”

“Your eyes speak volumes, young baron, that your lips do not. Your father, as I recall, had the same difficulty: much too honest to be politic.”

“I admired my father greatly.”

“I knew him not as well as I should have liked.” He waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “But he is not here, and you are. So tell me, what can I do for you, Baron Nevik?”

Nevik gaped. “Your Majesty, I’ve come to apologize for my part in Rogun’s deception, to beg your forgiveness for—”

“Commander Troy has informed me of what took place. You were doing what you could to defend your people, were you not?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, but—”

“At no real cost to mine, that I can discern.”

“The general and I disobeyed a royal edict.”

“And were correct to do so, as we now know. Edicts mean little if the ones giving them are as ignorant as those asked to follow.”

The baron could scarcely believe what he was hearing, and was almost as surprised by his reaction to it. Should he not be grateful that Thelin was so willing to absolve him of an act that had bordered on treason?

“From what Troy tells me,” the king continued, “you have received quite a tongue-lashing already. Whether a greater or lesser punishment is deserved, I cannot say. Now that your people are here, under my protection, I can trust you to defend mine as you would yours, can I not?”

“You can, Your Majesty.”

“Then you will forgive me if I claim to have more troubling concerns than those already past.”

Nevik bowed his head in due deference. The king need not have admitted as much, for his doubts and fears had made clear their torment upon him.

Nevertheless, the baron wished to make sure the other was fully informed, and so ventured carefully, “I presume the high commander told you also of the theft of the Crimson Sword?”

Thelin exhaled slowly, his chest rattling with the effort. “He did. And though I pray Rogun can recover it, I must confess that I remain uncertain as to how it might deliver us from this particular foe.”

Nevik understood that no news, however horrid, could inflict a pain the Souari king had not endured already. Both of his children had been lost. The near annihilation of his city, previously thought to be impregnable, had severely nicked the iron confidence of its citizens. And the current drain upon his resources could not be overestimated.

Even so, the baron was fast growing frustrated with the continued sense of battered resignation exuded by the once-proud ruler. Those who had come to Souaris had done so because they believed it to be the first great bastion of mankind—led by those who would be the last to falter. Yet here sat Thelin, haggard and defeated, causing Nevik to wonder if he had made a mistake in leading his people south.

“With respect, Your Majesty, we survived the dragonspawn. And matters are not yet as dire as they were then.”

“No? At least that was a corporeal threat. You slew the beast before you, or it slew you. Preferable to what we face now, don’t you think?”

“Your Majesty, think of Krynwall, of Atharvan. It would hardly seem fair to suggest…” He hesitated, not sure how he could phrase his argument without causing offense.

“Our sufferings do not match theirs. Is that what you would have me believe?”

“I only ask that Your Majesty take heart in the fine job you and your people have done in responding to this crisis.”

Thelin managed a wan smile. “You saw it yourself, did you not? There are more than a million people crammed within or stuffed back behind the walls of my city—at least five times our normal populace. More flow in every day. One cannot walk without stepping on someone else, and we have not the means to comfortably support even half their number.”

“Yet all seem to be handling it well,” Nevik insisted.

Though it seemed to require a great effort, the king shook his head in disagreement. “Tempers grow short, my friend. This city is like a tinderbox waiting for the flame to drop. Already we’ve had people murder one another over the most trivial of matters. Less than a week past, an elderly man was beaten to death by a young lad who had been refused a drink from the man’s waterskin.”

“People are scared.”

Thelin leaned forward, fixing Nevik with a half-crazed stare. “Three days later, that same lad was himself slain—by the very old man he had killed!”

Nevik groped for a response, and failed.

“A back-alley account, but there have been many like it—more than enough to suggest the obvious. The Illysp are among us. They hover about like flies, precipitating violent acts, then stealing our dead out from under us. Those with bodies—the Illychar—hide the freshly fallen until they are ready to rise again. We have hundreds of patrols whose only purpose is to follow such reports, to see the dead sequestered or destroyed, and to root out those already claimed. They are not enough. Civilian gangs have been formed, whose eager assistance I fear will only lead to greater bloodshed. If perhaps the number of soldiers and civilians were reversed…”