The Way Into Chaos (16 page)

But no, the king and that dead traitor were nothing alike. Tejohn stood, as did everyone else. The soldiers down on the floor muttered as Lar strode to his place at the table, but Tejohn couldn’t judge their tone. Did they disapprove?
 

It seemed not. Tejohn looked again at the hall floor--he hadn’t noticed at first that there were a number of civilians clustered in the near corner. They were mostly farmers and bargemen by the look of them, seeking refuge behind walls in a time of war.
 

What’s more, they seemed to be nodding and sharing hopeful looks. Lar was making a good impression here, something he’d never managed in the Morning City.
 

“My tyr, it is good to see your scowling face,” Lar said as he sat in the empty chair beside Tejohn. Everyone else sat a moment later.
 

“My king, I’m glad to see you as well. I take it you are fully recovered?”

Lar lowered his voice. “I tried to convince the medical scholar to cast a healing spell on me but she wouldn’t. Apparently, she is still suffering the effects of a midwinter raid. They had too many casualties for the sleepstones, and the repetitive spellcasting put her at risk.”

Tejohn glanced at the king’s armor and robes. There was no need to ask what she was at risk of. “I understand, my king.” It suddenly occurred to Tejohn that, with the Scholars’ Tower fallen, he had no idea how many medical scholars were left.

“Tomorrow, we—” Lar stopped and glanced out on the floor.
 

The fat-faced guard stood facing the king some distance away. By the sheepish look on his face, Tejohn knew what he would say next. “Permission to speak, my king?”

Lar smiled down at him. “My substitute weapons master! By all means, approach.”
 

The man stepped forward, knelt on one knee--which made him vanish below the edge of the raised table--then stood again. “I am sorry to approach during your meal, my king, but the others have... Actually, they bullied me into asking after your health.”

Tejohn felt his face grow hot. Was this common soldier questioning the king’s fitness?

But before he could respond, the king laughed. “Nothing a little snoring couldn’t fix. In truth, I’ve taken longer naps to recover from an attack by several jugs of wine.”

Soldier and king laughed together. “My king,” the soldier said more quietly. “The men have begun to call you The Laughing King.”

Lar absent-mindedly touched the white mourning scarf around his throat. “Better that than King Fast-Breaker. That’s what the beast would have made of me. But come. Get to your real question. I can see by your eyes that you are afraid to ask it.”

The guard worked his lips for a moment--clearly nerves had dried his mouth. Then he said, “Was that one of them, my king? Was that one of the beasts that invaded the capital?”

This was too much. Tejohn leaned forward and glared at the man. “How long do you intend to interrogate the king?”
 

The man flushed, stepped back and knelt. He’d gone too far and he knew it. “Forgive me, my—”

“Tyr Treygar is correct,” Lar said. “This is a question for your commanding officer, but as you have been my substitute weapons master, for the moment I believe that would be me. So! The beast you saw this morning was not one of the creatures that attacked Peradain and killed my royal parents, along with countless other good and blameless people. It was a gentle younger brother, slow of foot and weak of jaw, but not nearly as pretty. Do you understand?”

“I do, my king. Thank you, my king.” He glanced nervously at Tejohn.

“Now,” Lar said as a steward set a bowl of mutton soup in front of him, “since my weapons master has recovered, I no longer need a substitute. I release you. Resume your previous duties.”

The guard bowed again. “Always yours, my king.” He backed away, practically fleeing to his table.
 

Tejohn watched him closely for some sign of insolence but could detect none. “He was awfully free with your time, my king.”

“True, but I think I’ve won him to my side. Only a million more to go, eh? But tell me, Tyr Treygar, is it true about Col? Was he killed by the beast?”
 

Tejohn felt a familiar sour feeling well up in him. The steward set a bowl of soup in front of him, but he suddenly wanted nothing to do with it. It was time to talk of the dead. “It would seem so, my king. I am sorry. So many of us were wrong about him, and just as he proved himself—”

“Has his body been found?”

“No. The soldiers have searched every disused corner and old storage chamber in the fort, but there has been no sign. It appears the Freewell girl was correct; he must have been dumped over the wall.”

Lar’s face was pale and his lips were pressed together so hard they turned white. “You may call her ‘Cazia,’ my Tyr. That is her name.”

“My apologies, my king. Our oldest habits are the hardiest.”

“I want his body found. He and Timush risked their lives when everyone believed they would betray me. I may not be able to give my parents a decent burial, but Fire take us, I can do this for my best friend.”

Tejohn felt an odd thrill run through him. Lar Italga taking command? It was more than he could have hoped for. “I’ll speak to the commander tonight. And I’ll make sure he puts Cazia Freewell in charge of it.”

“Good. Now I hereby appoint you as my shield bearer and chief counsel.”

“What?” Tejohn bumped his soup bowl, sloshing half of it onto the table. “My king, you can not be serious.”

“The Laughing King is always serious. That’s what makes him so amusing.”

“Then my first counsel is this: find someone else.”

“Who?” Lar leaned close to him. “I mean this question most seriously. Who can I find? I know you dislike me, but you were willing to die for me. Who else deserves my trust?”

“Your shield bearer should be a diplomat. He should be clever, organized, and observant. I was born a farmer—”

“It’s a rare farmer who earns a tyrship.”

“A landless tyr.”

“Even better.”

Tejohn turned away and looked over the crowd. Now that the king had been served, they were eating again. But too many were glancing nervously toward the high table. Toward him.
 

He mastered his expression. “There must be someone more suitable.”

“There are,” Lar said as he lifted his bowl of soup and drank. “But they’re all dead back in Peradain. If you refuse to serve, I’ll have no one to turn to but Doctor Warpoole.”

“My king....”

“I agree. Tyr Treygar, we have an unfriendly history. This morning, I might have slain that grunt myself if I hadn’t shirked your training. I recognize my error. Must I command you to put aside your completely justified anger for the greater good?”

Tejohn held himself very still. “My king, that history was erased the moment I saw your royal mother fall. I swear to you that I will serve in whatever way you require, but this should be a temporary appointment, like your fat-faced guard over there, until you find someone more skilled in diplomacy.”
 

“Accepted.” Lar lifted his bowl and drank. “Have the driver ready to take us both to Tempest Pass in the morning, along with anyone else you think we’ll need. I want to bring the body of the grunt along for my uncle to examine. With the Sweeps headwinds, it will probably be a ten-day trip by cart.”
 

Tejohn took a deep breath. “My king, as my second counsel—”

“You mean to dissuade me from this trip.”

“I do. The tyrs will never pledge their spears to your cause if they believe you are in retreat.”

“I can not lose what I will never have. The only tyr in the empire who will back me is sitting across from me neglecting his soup, and he can field no armies.”

“But to divert for ten days—”
 

Lar lowered his voice. “Tyr Treygar, drink your soup while I tell you the true reason we are going to Tempest Pass. Go ahead, lift your bowl. I want our conversation to look as normal as possible. In truth, my uncle’s library is not tremendously large. He has a...reputation. It’s difficult for him to find literate assistants willing to join in his hermitage. So, while I do plan to speak with him about the portals and these creatures, in truth I’m hoping to learn a spell from him.”
 

Tejohn felt a chill run down his back. After what Cazia Freewell had told him about Doctor Warpoole’s wizard spell...

“Drink your soup,” Lar said. “I don’t want anyone seeing that expression on your face. The spell is not made by human beings, my tyr. It’s not a wizard’s spell. It’s derived from the Fifth Gift, the water-purification spell. And it is so deadly that my father trusted only one man with it.”

“His brother.”
 

“Yes.”
 

“What about the spell Doctor Warpoole cast at the top of the Scholars’ Tower?”

Lar sighed. “I wish I’d seen it. Caz is smart and well trained, but there’s an awful lot she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know how much work goes into researching the Gifts, or how long it took to change, say, a spell to create a flat stone for laying roads into one that creates huge granite blocks for walls and fortresses. She doesn’t know how many scholars live in seclusion so that, if something should go wrong, they would be the only ones to killed.”
 

“I’d heard rumors...” Tejohn wasn’t sure what else to say.
 

“Of course. I was not kidding when I said it was scholars who built the empire. They don’t just risk their lives. Why do you think no man or woman in this fortress has yet seen me, a scholar-king, shed a single tear for my royal parents? Scholars risk their sanity, their station in life, their—” He stopped himself, realizing he was wandering from the point he wanted to make. “The Fifth Gift can purify water at a distance. The variation my uncle is safeguarding can do the same to men. It can turn the insides of their skulls to water--at a distance--twenty or more at a time.”
 

“Fire and Fury,” Tejohn exclaimed. “You cannot.”

“Grunts tore my royal father to pieces. Do not try to tell me what I can not do. I don’t care whether it’s honorable or not. I will murder these beasts by the hundreds, if I can get near enough. And if any tyr dares oppose me, I will break their squares the way I break stalks of grass under the sole of my boot. I have plans for this empire, Tyr Treygar, plans that would end much of the misery and injustice my people endure, plans I have nursed since I was a small boy. But all will come to nothing if Kal-Maddum slips out of Italga hands.”
 

Tejohn gaped at the young king beside him. It was astonishing to hear such talk from his young pupil.
The Laughing King,
that fool had called him, but Tejohn realized he had no idea who Lar Italga truly was.
 

And this spell he wanted, this variation on the Fifth Gift, might have been the weapon he needed to hold onto his throne, but it made a soldier like Tejohn--and all the good men and women he’d ever served with--into useless stick figures. Irrelevancies. Could he serve a king like that?
 

Tejohn remembered the last moments of Doctor Rexler’s life, when the wizard had launched volleys of darts into the advancing square or sprayed huge clouds of naked flame. The wizard’s expression had been dull and slack and his face had been slick with tears. Not for the soldiers he was killing, no, but for whatever secret, endless grief hollowed scholars suffered. Tejohn later heard that Rexler had once been a loving husband and father, but his hunger for power had taken him too far and emptied him out.
 

Lar Italga was nothing like that. His face was alive with conviction, and it seemed to Tejohn that the young man had become acquainted with an old friend: the righteous urge to slaughter his enemies.
 

Tejohn nodded. “I’ll see that we are provisioned and staffed.” For one absurd moment, Tejohn imagined himself commandeering the entire Samsit garrison, but not even Ranlin Gerrit would allow that.
 
Still, if the king did not find spears to support him, he would never sit on the Throne of Skulls again.
 

But there was one thing Tejohn couldn’t deny: there was an undeniable thrill to seeing a leader speak with such conviction. Even someone like his former pupil could give heart to others when he had a plan and the will to carry it out. Fire and Fury, Tejohn was ready to believe they might actually succeed.
 

“By the way,” Lar said, “my substitute sword master kept trying to get me to narrow my stance. I did better when I used your techniques, my tyr.”

The king’s bowl was taken away and a platter of flat bread and roasted bird set in front of him. Tejohn received his a few moments later, but he ate without pleasure. An empire with him as shield bearer and Lar Italga as scholar-king... He could not imagine how it would work. He spent the rest of his meal wondering what the collapse of a empire would look like, and how he could tell if it had already happened.

After his meal, Tejohn met with the commander in his chambers. Ranlin was himself in the midst of his meal, and they talked comfortably about the journey the king would take the next morning.
 

Then Tejohn told him who he wanted to bring with him.

“You want to trust the king to the son of a Fourteenth Festival family?”
 

“His parents were overthrown by Peradaini troops,” Tejohn said, “and Reglis has become one himself. If he’s like most new citizens, he’ll be embarrassed by his father’s weakness and will cleave to the strength of his new masters. His children and grandchildren will be most likely to be nostalgic for ‘the old ways.’” Tejohn shrugged. “I know that’s not the usual way of looking at these things—”

“Never mind,” Ranlin said. “The greater portion of my objection was the difficulty in replacing him. I had planned to name him Watch Commander. Still, it will be even harder to pry that scholar away from Doctor Warpoole.”

“I have a piece of sharpened iron at my hip that will sever any connection nicely. But first, we must make sure she knows the proper spells.”