The Way Into Chaos (2 page)

The queen wasn’t fooled by that, but she let it pass. “I should go. There’s so much to do. Tejohn, after the Evening People return to their home, the city will be bustling for a month at least, and we expect the scholars will have a new Gift to argue over.... I believe I have some messages to send to East Ford. Would you be willing to deliver them for me? And wait a month for the responses? Lar is full-grown now; I’m sure he can practice in the gym without you for a while.”
 

If only he would.
But there was no need to say it. Tejohn and the queen both wanted the prince to redirect his energies toward his martial training and away from his...other pursuits. “Thank you, my queen,” Tejohn said. “It would please me greatly. Thank you.”

Queen Amlian smiled and turned away. “Just be sure Lar is in his place today and that he’s sober. He’s not planning to sing a bawdy song, is he? It seems I heard a rumor to that effect.”

“If so, I will do my best to dissuade him.” Tejohn took his leave. A chill drizzle had begun to fall, and he returned to his room first, to put on the long black coat his wife had made for him. The whole city would be wearing bright reds and yellows--even blues, for those wealthy enough--but for the man who wrote “River Overrunning,” Laoni thought it best to wear something somber.

After that, he put on the polished bronze bracers. He wasn’t permitted to carry a spear or shield today, but the weight of the metal on his forearms was reassuring.
 

Tejohn had just refused the queen. She could have punished him in a hundred ways, including taking away his honorary title, but she had shown him kindness instead. She understood.
Grateful am I to be permitted to travel The Way.

At the end of the last Festival, the leader of the Evening People had stared at Tejohn with those terrible golden eyes as though he’d wanted to take Tejohn’s soul home with him. As if he hadn’t already taken too much.
We will meet again,
Co had said. Tejohn had dreaded it ever since.

Tejohn hurried through the palace. It didn’t matter. If Co hoped to feast on another piece of Tejohn’s grief, he would be disappointed by the simple, decent life the soldier had created for himself over the past twenty-three years. And Tejohn was prepared to hide his pleasure at that disappointment very carefully.

It was time for Lar’s lesson in the dueling gym, but of course he wasn’t there. An allowance could be made because of the Festival, but the truth was that Lar often made excuses to be absent from Tejohn’s sword and spear lessons. In fact, he’d skipped so many over the winter that it was just about time to bring it to the king’s attention. Again.

Colchua Freewell was there, of course, along with the Bendertuk boy, Timush. Nothing Tejohn had done could discourage them from sneaking into the gym, and eventually, Lar had convinced his father to grant them full access. The first day that Tejohn had been forced to teach the use of weapons to a Freewell and a Bendertuk had almost brought him to the brink of treason, but he had done his duty.

They stopped their exercises to bow to him formally, to show the respect every student owed their teacher. He kept his expression carefully neutral, nodded in return and walked out.

Tejohn went crossed the tiny southern gate yard to the south tower. When Lar wasn’t in the dueling gym, he was either still abed--and drunk--or he was playing at magic at the top of the Scholars’ Tower.

Not that the yard was really a yard any more. There was so much foot traffic in the palace that no grass could grow in the yard except in ugly patches, and it had so bothered old King Ghrund that he’d ordered it covered over with scholar-created pink granite. Everywhere Tejohn turned his head he saw the same blurry pink color, broken only by the darkness of windows, barrows, and people.
 

Inside the Scholars’ Tower, Tejohn’s left knee ached by the time he was halfway up the stairs: too many battles, too many years on the road, too much sparring. Not that the medical scholars seemed interested in relieving him of the pain. Someday soon, the twins would be old enough to join him in the gym, and Tejohn could send them on missions like this. It was one of the privileges of parenthood to make your children run errands for you.

Until then, he laid his hand on the mottled pink and black stone blocks—he could only see the detail when he was this close—and trudged upward.

On the last flight of stairs, he could hear Lar and his friends inside, playing with spells they already knew by heart.
 

Tejohn knocked loudly. There was another pair of loud impacts inside the room, then the sound of desultory cheering. After a short while, the prince called, “Enter!”

Tejohn did. Prince Lar stood at the center of the room. He was wearing his spellcasting robe, which was rough white cloth with a set of odd symbols down one side. Beside him stood Cazia Freewell. She was a talented scholar, having already learned just about every spell the tutors were willing to teach her by the age of fifteen. She was also sly, secretive, and too often in the library. Her elder brother Colchua might have been reckless and proud, but Tejohn thought this sneak had been born to treachery.
 

Little Jagia Italga, the king’s nine-year-old niece, was also wearing her robe, but she stood well back against the wall. Possibly she had not learned this spell--or any spells. She was still so young.
 

“My Tyr Treygar,” the prince said, pushing his long black hair out of his face. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your cuirass. You look...almost human. In size, I mean.”

The Freewell girl turned away to hide her laughter, but Pagesh Simblin and Bittler Witt laughed openly. In all likelihood, they had been the ones offering the halfhearted cheering. Neither had the interest or inclination for magic, and the Witt boy was hopeless in the gym, doing little more than complain about pains in his belly. Pains no scholar could relieve.
 

And Tejohn didn’t know what to make of the Simblin girl--well, she should surely be called a woman now, since she was older than the prince. However she had no interest in magic, marriage, or anything at all that he knew of.
 

Not that Doctor Twofin hadn’t tried to teach them all, per the prince’s wishes and the king’s indulgence. He was a better tutor than Tejohn had ever been; the weapons master had humiliated himself by asking the old scholar for advice on more than one occasion. But a teacher can do as little with an unwilling student as a blacksmith can do with a fired clay pot.

Out of habit, Tejohn confirmed that Doctor Twofin’s cheeks were dry. Of course they were. The old tutor was the only scholar Tejohn could bring himself to trust, even partially.

“I’m sorry, my Tyr Treygar,” Lar said immediately. He wore a mischievous smile that had been charming when he was twelve, but on a man of seventeen made Tejohn want to knock him to the floor. “My jest was not intentional.”

The prince was a bad liar. “My prince, you are late for your lesson in the gym.”

“Do you see?” Lar asked. He gestured toward the wall. A dozen cloth-covered hoops had been pinned to a wooden wall with iron darts nearly a foot long. This was the prince’s favorite spell. “I like to think little Caz and I are becoming genuinely dangerous.” He turned to the Freewell girl. “Don’t you agree?”

She beamed up at him. “We’re at least at the level of a nuisance.”.

“Oh, I’ve been a nuisance for years,” Lar answered, and the young people laughed again. They always laughed, even when the jokes weren’t funny. Tejohn wished he had some of that easy charm, but he didn’t have the knack.
 

He glanced back at the wall of targets. The ribbons tied into the loop at the back end of each dart were brightly colored, almost as though they’d been made for the Festival. Those darts the prince—and other scholars—used were heavier than arrows and, depending on the skill and sanity of the spellcaster, deadlier than anything that could be shot from a bow. But there was one advantage that an arrow had that no scholar’s dart ever would: they were shot by soldiers.
 

“See?” The prince gestured toward the pinned hoops. “Why should I practice dueling in the gym when—”

Tejohn suddenly rushed at him, springing across the distance between them in a few long strides. Lar was startled, then raised his hands to begin a fire spell.

Of course, the prince didn’t have time. Tejohn slammed a shoulder into him, upending him onto the wooden floor and kneeling atop him. Then he seized the young man’s scrawny neck.

An iron dart flew between them, striking hard into the wooden floor. Tejohn spun toward the source, and saw the Freewell girl glaring at him, preparing another spell.

Chapter 2

“Enough!” Doctor Twofin shouted. He rushed at Cazia, and the furious expression on his face froze her with terror. The sharpness of his voice had already disrupted her spell gestures, but he clasped her hands to be sure. “My dear, you don’t need to protect the prince from his own weapons master and bodyguard. Never cast at this man again! Do you understand?” The old teacher’s voice became high and shrill.

Doctor Twofin had the authority to bar Cazia from the Scholars’ Tower, and he would do it, too. The idea made her sick. She looked down at her feet and said, in a carefully miserable tone, “I understand. I’m sorry, Tyr Treygar.”

Old Stoneface Treygar stood without replying. He gave her a look full of cool hatred, but she was used to that. Of all the Enemies in the palace, he was one of the most obnoxious.

Lar tried to roll to his feet but got tangled in his robe. He fell to his knees, prompting Jagia, Pagesh, and Bittler to laugh. For once, Cazia wasn’t in the mood to join in. “Caz, you’re not supposed to kill him
after
he’s assassinated me,” Lar said. “Mother and Father couldn’t have questioned him then. Am I correct, Tyr Treygar?”

Stoneface didn’t answer, so Doctor Twofin answered for him. “That’s correct! Have you been neglecting your other studies to come here, my prince? If you have, I’ll bar you from the library and the practice room.”

Lar was startled. “You can’t bar me from parts of my own palace. I’m the prince!”

Doctor Twofin was highborn, the sixth son of some minor Fifth-Festival mountain tyr, and he was less intimidated by royalty than most. “You just try me.”

Lar stepped back and raised his hands to placate the old tutor, laughing. “I promise! No threats needed.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Cazia saw Stoneface scowl. He probably thought Lar should stand up to his teacher--or threaten him--but he played those games. Cazia turned away to slip out of her robe, but she kept Treygar in her peripheral vision. She’d had a lot of practice keeping an eye on Enemies without seeming to.

Doctor Twofin wagged his finger at them. He was forever wagging that finger. “You have practiced enough for one day already. Remember, do not practice your magic—”

Lar finished the sentence with him. “--unless we are in this room with you. We’ve heard it a thousand times, doctor.”
 

“You’ll hear it a thousand more, my prince. I won’t have you going hollow under my tutelage. Think of the consequences!”

Cazia thought of the consequences every day: Lar would never become king. Twofin would lose his head. Cazia would lose her fingers like Doctor Whitestalk, if she was lucky, and she almost certainly wouldn’t be. And there was always the damage that hollowed scholars might do.

The prince’s thoughts were on other subjects. He turned to Treygar. “Tell me, my tyr: Is that how you slew Doctor Rexler?”

Stoneface looked directly at Cazia, so she had to turn her back--just for a moment--as she hung her quiver of darts on a peg. Apparently, this Doctor Rexler had something to do with her...or with her father. Treygar said, “Your mother the queen has asked me to accompany you to the Festival today, my prince.”

“I hardly think I need a bodyguard to meet the Evening People. From the stories everyone tells, they never offer more than a cutting remark.”
 

“That’s true,” Treygar said, “nonetheless...”
 

“Nevertheless, she wants me to be sober.”
 

“She does, my prince. Is it true that you plan to sing a comedy?”

“Yes!” Lar exclaimed, as though he’d been asked this question a hundred times. “But it is not a bawd, I promise you. There are no mighty warriors, no wizards, and no overenthusiastic lovers, Song knows.”
 

Pagesh spoke up from the bench against the wall. “The Evening People don’t care for comedies, do they? I thought they liked sad songs.”
 

Everyone glanced at Stoneface, and Cazia noted how uncomfortable that made him. Interesting. “It’s true,” Doctor Twofin said. “The more they appreciate our performances, the more powerful the spell they give us. The nail-driving Gift they offered after the Tenth Festival was seen as a rebuke for that event’s emphasis on slapstick and farce.”
 

A flush of annoyance ran through Cazia. “And yet, look what we’ve made of it.” She
 
gestured toward the darts and hoops on the wall. They’d spent the whole lesson on that spell--well, on the somewhat-altered spell humans had created from it. It wasn’t as useful as the other Gifts, but it was the most fun. How could people call it a rebuke?