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Authors: Steven Brust

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BOOK: The Phoenix Guards
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They were challenged once more before being admitted into the wing itself. They were in a hall wide enough for a party twice their size to walk abreast. The walls were of marble, and unadorned save for occasional oil
paintings of great battles, none of which, we are forced to admit, Khaavren recognized.
The apartments of the captains of the Imperial Guard were located in the west sub-wing of the Dragon Wing of the Palace, which was reached through a wide hallway that jutted off from the main entrance at a sharp angle, passing beneath a plain arch and sweeping in a gentle curve away from the central area of the Palace. In it, each of the captains had apartments arranged in this way: a large foyer or waiting room, a private audience room for the captain, and audience rooms for up to six lieutenants. Behind the captain’s audience room was a stairway, leading up to the captain’s living quarters. Each captain also had a small stairway which communicated to the audience quarters of the Brigadier-General of the Imperial Guard, to whose person and household the entire third floor of this sub-wing was devoted. The fourth and top floor was a vast meeting hall, where the Brigadier could address as many as three thousand Guards at once.
There were quarters in the Palace for six captains, although there were, at present, only two. Each captain could command as many as six lieutenants, although Pel’s captain, My Lord Count of Gant-Aerethia (or G’aereth, as he was then known) had only troops enough for one, and had therefore chosen to have none. We should note in passing that this decision of Captain G’aereth’s had the effect, not entirely accidental, of leaving his troops with the belief that anyone who could show himself worthy would be promoted to fill the spot.
Khaavren and his companions entered the foyer of this captain, which was nearly empty except for them, and Pel addressed a few words in a quiet voice to one of the Guardsmen. This man, a tall Dragonlord with two shortswords, nodded and stepped over to the Captain’s door. More words were spoken quietly, then the Dragon nodded to Pel, who motioned his companions forward. Khaavren’s heart was pounding as they stepped toward the door, but he attempted to look as cool as Aerich, or, failing that, as haughty as Tazendra.
However, before they reached the door, there was the sound of commotion behind them, and a cry of “Make way! Make way for Lord Shaltre. Make way!”
Khaavren, whose keen eyes missed nothing, saw Aerich’s back tense as this name was pronounced, but the Lyorn coolly moved to the side when Pel, who was leading them, did so. Khaavren and Tazendra followed this lead, and as they did, two things happened. The first was that an old, powerfully built Dzurlord appeared from the door in front of Pel, walking quickly into the middle of the room. This was plainly the Captain. His eyes were fixed on the opposite door, so Khaavren looked there also. A man and a woman, both Dragonlords and both in Guardsmen’s cloaks, entered and stepped to the sides. Then another came through the door, dressed in the golden-brown and red of the House of the Lyorn, but wearing long, loose
breeches instead of a skirt, and no vambraces. Khaavren glanced quickly at Aerich, but the latter’s face showed no expression.
The Lyorn noble and the Captain looked at each other, then nodded and the captain signaled that the other should enter his audience chamber. This chamber, we should note, was supplied with a hard oak door, on leather hinges, set into a wall of stone, so nothing said within could be heard from the antechamber, unless one pressed one’s ear directly to the door.
Pel shrugged, as if to say, “Well, it may be a while then,” and walked casually over to the woman who had accompanied the Lyorn. As he did this, Khaavren leaned over and whispered to Aerich, “Who is he?”
In a tone without inflection, Aerich said, “The Count of Shaltre, Marquis of Deepsprings, Baron of—”
“Pardon me, good Aerich,” said Khaavren. “But you perceive that these names tell me nothing.”
“Well, he is a chief advisor to His Imperial Majesty.”
“Ah!”
Then Khaavren noticed that Pel was in deep conversation with the woman who had escorted the Lyorn. She smiled and shook her head, and, from the back, Khaavren fancied he could see Pel smiling at her. After a moment, Pel shrugged and seated himself next to the door, and leaned back as if resting—with his head remarkably close to the door itself. Aerich and Khaavren exchanged a glance full of meaning.
“Well?” said Tazendra to Khaavren.
“Well?” said Khaavren. “I should think we could wait. What is your opinion, Aerich?”
In answer, Aerich seated himself and said, “This appears to be a waiting room.”
Khaavren nodded and also sat down, on a backless stone bench that caused him to wonder briefly who had done the labor of bringing it there, how many it had taken, and if they were well-paid for their trouble. Tazendra looked unhappy but also sat down. A moment later, Pel stretched lazily and leaned forward, and at just that moment the door opened and Count Shaltre emerged. His eyes flashed fire, but he said nothing. He collected the two Guards who had escorted him and departed.
Tazendra said, “Well, should we—”
“Hush,” said Aerich. Pel turned back to them and sat down next to Tazendra.
“Well?” said Khaavren. “What did you learn?”
“Learn?” said Pel, frowning. “Do you pretend I learned anything?”
“I nearly think so,” said Khaavren. “Or, at any rate, I should think you were trying to.”
“Not the least in the world, I assure you,” said Pel.
Before Khaavren could answer, the Dragonlord who had been in the room said, “The Captain will see you now.” The four stood as one. Pel led
the way into the audience chamber, with Tazendra close at his heels, followed by Aerich and Khaavren.
They found themselves standing before a long desk, covered with papers. Behind the desk was the Captain, and behind him a window that looked out into a courtyard, where several Guardsmen could be seen engaged in sword practice. A cool breeze came through the window, disturbing the papers, which were only held in place by stones set on them.
G’aereth gave them a greeting with his hand. Pel said, “My Captain, I have the honor to present to you the Cavalier Aerich, the Cavalier Tazendra, and the Marquis of Khaavren.”
“Welcome, my friends, welcome. So, you all wish to join His Imperial Majesty’s Guards?”
They signified that this was, indeed, the case.
“Well, well,” he said. He addressed Aerich. “It would appear that you have no blade.”
Aerich bowed as a sign of agreement.
“Can you use one?” asked the Captain.
Aerich shrugged, as if to say, “Who cannot?”
“Are you then, a sorcerer?”
This time when Aerich shrugged it meant, “Only a poor one.” Aerich, as we can see, was very expressive with his gestures.
The Captain looked at him closely for a moment, his keen eyes taking in the skirt that is the mark of a trained warrior of the House of the Lyorn. Then the Captain grunted, as if to say, “I have no worries about your fighting abilities, my friend.” The Captain’s grunts, as we can see, were nearly as expressive as the Lyorn’s shrugs.
G’aereth turned his attention to Tazendra. He said, “I see that you have a blade.”
“Well, so I do.”
“Can you play with it?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Ah! And are you a sorcerer?”
“If my lord would be good enough to try me—”
The Captain grunted, which meant, this time, “There is no need for the moment.”
He continued, “Can you ride?”
“I was born on horseback,” she said.
“Hmmm. And you, my good Khaavren?”
“My lord?” said Khaavren, who felt a sudden tightening in his throat. “Yes, I ride.”
“Are you a sorcerer?”
“No part of me, I must admit.”
“And your swordplay?”
“I only ask that you try me, my lord.”
“That’s well,” he said. “That is what we’ll do.” He reached into a cupboard that was next to his chair and found three purses. He passed one to each. “Guardsman Pel will show you where you may purchase uniform cloaks. Come back when you are attired, and we will give you a trial duty, during which each of you will experience a patrol as a Guardsman, and a report will be made of how well you perform your duties.”
“Thank you, Lord,” said Khaavren, taking the purse. Aerich bowed his head, which amounted to the same thing.
Tazendra, however, bowed without accepting the purse. “I am well provided for,” she said. “I have no need—”
“Ah! So much the worse!” said G’aereth.
“So much the worse?”
“Yes. It is my wish that I, and I alone, you perceive, outfit and equip my Guardsmen. I wish them to be dependent upon me, as I am upon them.”
“Oh. Well then—”
“Yes?”
“I shall give up my funds from this moment.”
“That would be well. And I have just remembered something else.” He found, from within the same cupboard, a handful of gold Imperials, which he gave to Aerich. “These are to allow you to purchase a sword.”
Aerich shrugged again, this time to indicate, “I will obey, naturally.”
At this, they understood the interview to be at an end, and filed out of the room, after bowing to the Captain.
“Come now,” said Tazendra to Pel, “let us adjourn to the tailor with whom we saw you speaking earlier. The sooner we are outfitted, the sooner we may be tested. And the sooner tested, the sooner we shall be able to cover ourselves with glory.”
Aerich shrugged again.
In Which Aerich Acquires a Sword
And our Friends are Assigned their Duties
O
N THE WAY TO MEET with the Chreotha tailor, Pel had occasion three times to point out to Aerich that they were passing a weapon-smith, but each time the latter merely shook his head. The third time, Pel said, “I should mention, I think, that the Captain expects you to be armed.”
“I will be,” said Aerich laconically. Even as he spoke something seemed to catch his eye, for he stopped, and indicated a door leading down into the basement of a hostelry. They were on a tiny, unnamed street between the Street of the Dragons and the Street of the Seven Trees, perhaps half a league from the Dragon Wing. The hostel was a squat, two-story building, of whitewashed brick, and had a large sign depicting a fat partridge. The door to the basement had a small sign, depicting a simple longsword.
“Here?” said Pel.
“Do you know this smith?” asked Aerich.
“K’sozhaleniju,
I do not,” said Pel, falling for a moment into the Serioli speech then fashionable at court.
Aerich, without another word, made his way down the stairs. The others followed, and found themselves in a small, stuffy basement, which would have been damp, smelly, close, and dark, were it not, in fact, well-lit, which prevented it from being dark. An old Vallista, with scraggly grey hair and bright eyes, sat at a table honing a hiltless blade by use of a small whetstone. As the four friends entered, he looked up and pursed his lips, as if trying to decide why someone could be coming to see him. Then he shook his head and said, “May I have the honor to be of some service to you, my lords?”
Aerich nodded. “I would like a sword,” he said. “It is to be three and three quarter pounds, forty-seven centimeters of blade. The width is to be a uniform three and one half centimeters. The steel must be Kanefthali, tempered in the Dui’clior way and crystal-forged. The balance must be within one centimeter of the guard, which must be plain. Double-edged, oak-covered hilt.”
The Vallista listened to this quietly, then bowed, “Length of the hilt, lord?”
“Anything within reason.”
The smith nodded. “I have one that is made of a fine alloy, woven, as is said, in the techniques of—” He paused, seeing that Aerich was uninterested in these details. He continued, “It fits all of the particulars you mention save hilt and balance.”
“Balance is necessary,” said Aerich.
“Of a certainty it is, lord,” said the Vallista. “But with a few words, I think, I can satisfy you.”
“Pray do so, then.”
“I shall.”
“How?”
“Well, this way: I shall remove the hilt and replace it with one of oak, and I will hollow this out and fill it with lead shot until the balance is correct. You perceive, then, that we will have solved both problems at once.”
“Admirable,” said Aerich.
“To be sure, I will also sharpen, clean, and polish it. Would you like leather grips on the hilt?”
“Exactly.”
“And will you have a stiffened scabbard? Or perhaps a soft leather sheath?”
“Just so,” said Aerich.
“A belt then as well, with a small chain for a side draw?”
“Precisely.”
“Very good.”
The Vallista disappeared into a back room, whence the sound of sawing could be heard for a few minutes, then other sounds which Khaavren recognized as smoothing and polishing. The companions occupied themselves by describing the coach-ride to Pel, and discussing their strange companions, who were dressed as Issola, yet seemed to be Phoenix. When Khaavren explained his observations about the candlebud, Pel’s brows came together, and then Khaavren observed a faint smile land upon his lips, hover for a moment, and fly off. Yet when he asked about it, Pel denied having any thoughts on the matter; Tazendra, we should add, was amazed that this deception had taken place before her, and demanded several times of Khaavren and Aerich if they were certain of the truth of their observations, to which they replied without hesitation that they were.
In a surprisingly short time, the smith appeared with sword and sheath, along with belt and chain. Without deigning to inspect any of them, Aerich placed on the table the Imperials he had been given by the Captain for the sword. The Vallista seemed satisfied, and bowed deeply. Aerich led them out of the basement.
“Come then,” he said. “Let us see about our uniform cloaks.”
This was done in due course, after which they repaired to The Campaigner, which inn they had noted earlier, and had a meal while waiting for their cloaks to be finished. Their host brought them several bottles of
wine from the Ailor region, and a dish involving darr meat rolled around chunks of delicately seasoned beef and covered with a sauce in which butter, cream, and tarragon figured prominently. For a while, the only sounds from the four friends were those scrapings, of wooden spoons in wooden bowls, so beloved of the hungry, the epicurean, and the cook. At last Khaavren gave forth a sigh and announced that he was finished with the meal.
“That is well,” said Aerich, “for I think it is time we take our uniform cloaks and return to the Captain who will, no doubt, assign us trial duties.”
“Well spoken!” said Tazendra. “For my part, I am quite ready to begin.”
“As am I,” said Khaavren.
Using the money given them for the purpose, they paid their account, and picked up their cloaks from the Chreotha across the street. Each cloak was made of linen and silk brocade, of a fine golden hue, and was fastened at the neck by a cunning clasp made of copper and inlaid with a stylized phoenix. On the left breast was a small pair of boots, embroidered in red thread. Khaavren, Aerich, and Tazendra had half-cloaks, while Pel’s was knee-length.
After settling with the clothier, they returned to the Imperial Palace and informed G’aereth that they were prepared to take up their duties.
We will pause, then, long enough to say two words about Captain Gant-Aerethia. He had arrived in Dragaera City, the poor younger son of a poor Dzur baron from a marshy south-western lake region, late in the Seventeenth Teckla Republic. He joined the army of the Jhegaala, and was involved in the fall of the Republic and the establishment of Empress Viodonna the Sixth, of the House of the Jhegaala. He then enlisted in the armies of the Empire under the command of Lady Yaro e’Lanya, and came to her notice during the Island Wars, especially at the Battle of Near P’iensotta, where he received a battlefield promotion to officer. He ended the Wars on Lady Yaro’s staff, and it was actually in his arms that she died in the famous Charge of the Brown River.
At the end of the Wars, and the subsequent beginning of the Reign of Cherova III of the House of the Athyra, the entire battalion that had been Lady Yaro’s was eliminated, but by then Lord Gant-Aerethia had earned many friends at court, not the least of whom was Sethra Lavode herself, who served as Warlord during the last half of the Island Wars. For these reasons, then, Empress Cherova was unable to dismiss him. She finally found a spot for him commanding her personal guards, thinking thus to keep him from doing anything noteworthy. When she next noticed him, these guards had become an elite fighting corps—none other, in fact, than the famous Featherhats, although this name wasn’t given them until hundreds of years later.
After that, he was involved in the Lavode scandal, although in what capacity is not clear. He emerged in good form, however, appearing, somehow, not to have made an enemy on either—or, rather, any—side. When
the fires died, as the saying is, he had earned such powerful friends among the courtiers and allies of the Empress that her own personal dislike for him was unable to harm him.
Among his friends for many years was the young Prince Tortaalik, to whom he had, in fact, given some lessons in swordplay before the Prince became Phoenix Heir. Their friendship grew no weaker as the years wore on, and Tortaalik never stopped admiring G’aereth’s blunt manner, harsh tongue, and fiery temper. G’aereth became Captain of the Gold Cloaks the very day Tortaalik took the Orb.
This Captain, then, this G’aereth, was just coming into his prime, just arriving at the station for which he had worked all his life, and he accepted this as he accepted everything life threw at him: with a bold eye, good humor, a clear sense of what mattered, and unbending principles. Thus his first words when the friends arrived were to say to Pel, with something of a glint in his eye, “Your cloak appears somewhat different from those of your comrades.”
Pel bowed. “I am honored that my Captain should deign to notice.”
G’aereth chuckled, but said no more about it. Khaavren said, “My lord, we are prepared to assume our duties.”
“That is well,” said the Captain. “Are you aware of what these duties consist?”
“No, my lord,” said Khaavren frankly.
“But we hope to learn,” said Aerich with a slight bow.
“Then I will tell you,” said G’aereth. “There remain two more days of festivities in the city. Those who enjoy these festivities may, in their enthusiasm, become a menace to the other more restrained citizens. It falls upon us, then, to make certain there are no, or at least few, needless injuries. We must also strive to our utmost to see that the dueling code is upheld.”
They nodded.
“Very well,” said the Captain, “you are to enforce the laws of the Empire.”
“And what laws are these, Captain?” asked Aerich.
“Heh,” said G’aereth. “Use your judgement. If it looks illegal, then it probably is.”
“Very well.”
“Furthermore, if necessary, you may act as judges and Imperial Witnesses, but only if no other duty presses you.”
The four friends nodded once more.
“And remember, from this moment forward, your lives belong to the Emperor first, to the Warlord second, to me third, and to yourselves last. Is this plainly understood?”
They all agreed that it was.
“That is well. Now, have you found lodgings?”
All except Pel shook their heads.
“Well,” said the Captain, “the evening’s revelries will not begin for yet a few hours. Make use of this time to secure lodgings. Then you will meet outside of the Dragon Gate. Here you will find those I have chosen to be partners for each of you. Be warned,” he added sternly, “that your partners will report to me on how well you have carried out your duties. You perceive that admission to the Imperial Guard is not a favor to be earned lightly—especially when it is to my brigade that you wish to attach yourselves.”
They all bowed. The Captain’s words suited Khaavren well, for he would have found little value in a prize too easily won. Something occurred to him, then, and he said, “All of us? Isn’t Pel admitted?”
“He is, yes,” said the Captain. “His test was completed two days ago. But he has not yet made a patrol, and I wish for him to be guided by someone with experience.”
“I understand,” said Khaavren.
Pel, in his turn, said, “How long will this patrol last, my Captain?”
“You will begin as I have indicated, three hours hence. Continue until dawn, then you may retire. Tomorrow, present yourselves to me again. You, Khaavren, at this hour. Tazendra at the next hour, and Aerich one hour later and Pel last.”
There being no more questions, then, the foursome took their leaves and went out to secure lodgings. This was quickly done, but, as we have already taken up much of the reader’s valuable time with descriptions, we do not intend to try his patience with yet another at this moment—rest assured, however, that we will return to the matter of lodgings soon enough, as it plays a part in the history we have the honor to relate.
BOOK: The Phoenix Guards
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