The Scepter's Return (52 page)

A shudder—that was what it felt like, anyhow—from the Banished One made Grus shudder, too, in involuntary sympathy.
Enough!
the exiled god cried.
Enough! I will do as you say. That accursed thing you carry is a torment like a lash of scorpions!

He told the truth. The Scepter of Mercy let Grus be sure of it. The King of Avornis let out a relieved and weary sigh. The Scepter had let him win the contest of wills, but hadn't been able to disguise that it
was
a contest, and a hard one. He felt as though he'd been pounded from head to foot.

“You could do so much good in the world,” he said wearily. “Why do you work evil instead?”

Now only incomprehension greeted him.
I do good,
the Banished One answered.
I do that which is good for me. Of other goodness, I know nothing.

Again, the Scepter told Grus he meant it.
No man is a villain in his own eyes,
the king thought. Much experience with rebels and brigands had taught him as much.
It must be the same for gods. Too bad.

He wondered if he could use the Scepter's power to show the Banished One the error of his ways. He tried—and felt himself failing. Nothing he did made the exiled god see his point of view. It was not a matter of giving orders and enforcing obedience. He would have had to change the Banished One's essential nature. And that seemed beyond even the Scepter of Mercy.

Would he be able to figure out how to make the Scepter do more than he had on this first try? Would Lanius? Who could say? One thing was sure—now they would have the chance. For centuries, Kings of Avornis had had to do without.

Since he couldn't change the exiled god's nature now, he decided to work with it instead. “Remember,” he said, “the game is more even now. We have the Scepter, and this time we intend to keep it. If we have to, we'll use it again.”

I am not likely to forget,
the Banished One said.
Strength is strength. Power is power. Who would have thought
men
could do such a thing?
He might have been a man talking about moncats.

Who would have thought Pouncer could do such a thing? Lanius had, and he'd made Grus see the possibility, too. Pouncer was less than a man, much less, but Lanius hadn't underestimated the beast. Grus and Lanius were less than gods, much less, but the Banished One hadn't fully taken into account what they
could
do. And now the exiled god was paying for it. When had he last had to pay? When his ungrateful children cast him down from the heavens?

Grus had always wondered who had the right of that, whether the one who had been Milvago the god deserved to spend—eternity?—trapped down here in the material world. He still didn't know. He doubted he would ever know. But now he had a stronger opinion than he'd had before.

Be thankful you did not push me further, little man,
the Banished One said.
Even that accursed Scepter will only go so far.

Maybe he didn't realize Grus had already discovered as much. And maybe that was just as well. A lion tamer could put his beasts through their paces, and they would obey him. Did that mean the man, even backed by his whip, was stronger than a lion? Every so often, a lion forgot its training—or recalled what it was. And when that happened, a lion tamer got eaten.

“Yes, no doubt it will,” Grus said, not showing the Banished One the alarm he felt. If a lion tamer showed fear, his beasts would be on him in a heartbeat. Still boldly, the king went on, “You would do well to remember you have limits of your own.”

The burst of rage that came through the Scepter of Mercy then made his hair stand on end. That was literally true; it rose from his scalp, as it might have done if lightning struck close by. And he knew that what he felt was only the tiniest fraction of what the Banished One sent his way. The Scepter brought it down to a level a mere man might grasp without being left a mindless idiot afterwards.

With what would have been a petulant shrug from a man, the Banished One in effect turned away, breaking the channel between himself and Grus. Grus let him go. The king had done what he'd set out to do. He looked down at the Scepter, which he still held in his right hand, and shook his head. That he held it … If he'd imagined he ever would when he first took the throne, he'd have been sure he was doing nothing but exercising his imagination.

He walked out of his pavilion into the morning sunlight once more. The guards in front of the tent bowed very low. They didn't usually do that for him—they took him for granted. They gave their respect to the Scepter of Mercy. Pterocles waited out there, too, and Collurio and Crinitus, and Hirundo—and Otus and Fulca.

Grus laughed. They were all waiting to see how he'd done—or to see if he'd survived. He held up the Scepter of Mercy. The sun made the jewel sparkle as though alive. When Grus looked at the sun, he was amazed to see how low in the eastern sky it still stood. By the way he felt, the confrontation with the Banished One might have gone on for hours. In fact, though, it had lasted only a few minutes.

When Grus didn't speak right away, Pterocles and Otus and Collurio all asked, “Well?” at the same time, and in identical anxious tones.

That made Grus want to laugh again. He didn't. This was a serious business, as no one knew better than he. “Very well, and I thank you,” he said. “I have met the Banished One, and he has no choice but to obey the Scepter of Mercy.” He held it up again. The jewel sparkled once more. Maybe that wasn't the sun glancing off it. Maybe it really did have an inner fire, an inner life, of its own.

They crowded around him then, exclaiming and congratulating him. So did the pavilion guards. Hirundo took the liberty of slapping him on the back. Grus didn't mind at all. The general, a practical man, asked, “What did you squeeze out of him?”

“First, he won't help or incite any of our neighbors to war on us again,” Grus answered. Everyone who heard him cheered.

He did wonder whether that pledge was good for all time. He wouldn't have bet on it. If the Scepter was ever lost again, or maybe even if Avornis had a king who lacked the will or the strength or whatever it was that he needed to use the Scepter as he should … In that case, the exiled god might well stir up trouble once more. But Grus did dare hope that evil day, if it ever came, lay many years away.

“You said
first,”
Pterocles remarked. “That should mean there's a
second,
maybe even a
third.”
He waited expectantly.

“There is—a second, anyway.” Grus nodded. “He will no longer make or back up spells of thralldom, or even the weaker sort of mind-dulling magic he used on the Menteshe this campaigning season.”

This time, Otus and Fulca cried out louder than the rest. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. He enjoyed that liberty more than the one Hirundo had taken, and squeezed her for a moment before letting her go. He wondered if he could have gotten more from her, and wouldn't have been surprised. A little regretfully, he put the idea aside. He'd enjoyed himself with a good many women, before and after he was married, but he'd never tried to sleep with a friend's wife. He thought that record worth keeping.

“Is there a third?” Pterocles asked.

“Aren't those two enough?” Hirundo said.

“Those two
are
enough,” Grus said. “The Banished One … is what he is. I don't think even the Scepter of Mercy can make him anything else. The only way he'll ever change is by deciding he wants to or has to, if he ever does. If he hasn't for this long, I don't suppose he will any time soon.”

He looked at the Scepter again. Did the fault lie in it, or in the Banished One, or in his own ignorance of how to use it? He didn't know. Thanks to that ignorance, he couldn't know, not now—maybe not ever. But he wouldn't have been surprised if all three were involved.

“What happens next?” Hirundo asked. “Are you going to go on with the siege of Yozgat? Or is the Scepter of Mercy enough?” He eyed it with something not far from awe of his own. After a moment, he resumed. “Heading for home might be better. The sooner we can get it back to Avornis, the less chance the Menteshe have of stealing it again.” After another pause, he added, “The choice is yours, Your Majesty. I know that. I was just—thinking out loud, you might say.”

“I understand. I've been thinking about the same thing—only more quietly,” Grus said. Hirundo made a face at him. The king went on, “I think we will go back. I told Korkut he was welcome to this place if he gave up the Scepter, and I meant it.”

“It's all right with me,” Hirundo said. “I just hope the Banished One doesn't whip the nomads into a fit to get it back, that's all.”

“He can't. His Majesty made sure he couldn't,” Pterocles pointed out. He also kept staring at the Scepter of Mercy. Some of his expression was awe like Hirundo's; the Scepter naturally brought it out. But his face also showed intense curiosity. He wanted to know what all the Scepter could do and how it did it.

That worried Grus for a moment, but only for a moment. He was sure of one thing—the Scepter would not let itself be used wrongly. If the Banished One hadn't been able to do that, Pterocles wouldn't be, either. Grus said, “We'll need to be careful no matter what. The Menteshe will probably strike at us whether the Banished One whips them on or not. They really do worship him.”

“I'll do everything I can, Your Majesty,” Hirundo promised. “I suppose it's possible they can beat the whole army. You can have my head, though, if they catch us by surprise.”

If the Menteshe caught the Avornans by surprise,
they
would probably have Hirundo's head, and Grus', too. Grus didn't point that out. Instead, he gestured with the Scepter. By the way everyone's eyes, even his own, followed it, he couldn't have found anything more effective to do. He said, “Let's get ready to go home.”

The soldiers wouldn't be sorry to break off the siege. Most of them liked having campaigned much more than they liked campaigning. Since Grus felt the same way, he couldn't get angry at them for that. And they would likely stay healthier on the move than settled down here. Fluxes of the bowels and other sicknesses cut short more sieges than enemy soldiers did.

“When we first met—when you were a river-galley skipper and I ran a troop of horsemen—did you ever dream it would come to … this?” Hirundo asked.

“No,” Grus answered. If he tried to say yes, Hirundo wouldn't need the Scepter of Mercy to know he was lying. He pointed at the general. “How about you?”

“Me? Back then, all I worried about was driving the Menteshe out of the kingdom. It seemed like plenty, too—plenty and then some.”

“It did, didn't it?” Grus agreed. Hirundo sketched a salute and went off to start readying the withdrawal from Yozgat.

“Your Majesty?” Otus asked, and then paused. Only when Grus nodded did the former thrall go on, “Did you really mean that, Your Majesty? Thralldom is gone? All the thralls are themselves again?”

“I … think so,” Grus answered cautiously. “When we go back, we'll send out riders to villages where our wizards have never gone. We'll find out for sure then. But that was the promise I got from the Banished One. I don't believe he can break a promise he makes through the Scepter.”

“This is good. This is gooder—
better
—than anything I can think of.” Otus looked at the Scepter, then toward the south. When his eyes swung back to the king, they had a twinkle in them. “I would kiss you, too, but I know you like it better from Fulca.”

Grus laughed. “Well—yes,” he said, and Otus laughed with him. The world seemed fresh and new and wonderful. When was the last time he'd had
that
feeling? After his first girl, maybe. He shook his head. As far as he could see, this was even better than that, and he'd never imagined anything could be.

What's left for me to do?
he wondered. In the short run, several things needed taking care of. He knew what they were. He intended to deal with them. But after that? Once he'd recovered the Scepter, wasn't everything else an anticlimax?
I'll worry about it when I get back to the capital,
he told himself.
I've had plenty of worse things to worry about, by the gods.

One of the things that needed taking care of now was a talk with Korkut. He approached the moat under flag of truce, but with enough shieldsmen and other guards to make sure the Menteshe couldn't hope to break the truce and kill him. When he called for Korkut, one of the defenders who understood Avornan shouted back, asking him to wait. He waved to show that he would.

The Menteshe prince came up onto the wall half an hour later. “What do you want?” he called in his fluent Avornan.

“You know I have the Scepter,” Grus said.

“I know it, ah, disappeared,” Korkut answered bleakly. “If you say you have it, I will not call you a liar, though you could show it to me.”

“No,” said Grus, who'd left it in his pavilion under guard. Bringing it anywhere near the wall would have been all too likely to tempt the Menteshe to attack to get it back. “I have it. Believe me or not, as you like. The Scepter is what I came for. I told you that before. Since I have it, I'm going home. As far as I'm concerned, you're welcome to Yozgat. Your loving half brother may have a different idea about that, but the two of you are welcome to each other, too.”

“You are—going home?” Korkut sounded as though he couldn't believe his ears.

“I said so from the beginning,” Grus answered. “If you'd handed me the Scepter then, we never would have had a siege to begin with. But you need to know I'm leaving because I want to, not because I have to. We've won every stand-up fight against the Menteshe. We can win one more—or three or four more—if we have to.”