Valdemar Anthology - [Tales of Valdemar 02] - Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar (37 page)

Alberich suddenly found it hard to breathe, and Myste gasped openly. With Karchanek's eyes on him, he forced himself to take a breath, forced himself to think,
think
about this offer, so strange, and so unexpected.

And when he managed to get his mind focused, one thing leaped out at him.

“You read Solaris' words exactly?” he demanded, his voice harsher than he intended.

“Exactly,” Karchanek averred. “And there is just a little more.” He cleared his throat, and went on.
“And when the Sunlord had said this to me, I bowed before His will. “I shall send my trusted envoy with all speed,” I pledged, but He had not finished.
‘Not any Herald for so great a trust, not any Herald can bridge this gap between our peoples,'
He said unto me.
‘Send thou to the one they call the Great Traitor, for only his tongue will be trusted, and say that I require they send the one who stands at the Queen's right hand. Say that I call upon the Queen's Own to join My service, and be a bridge between Our peoples.'
And so He left me, and so I have done. By my hand and seal, Solaris, Son of the Sun.
”

The last words fell like pebbles into an abyss of silence as Alberich gave over any effort to keep his face expressionless. His mind was a total blank. If anyone had told him that these words would ever be spoken between Karsite and Valdemaran, he'd have sent for the Mind-Healers. Insane. Impossible.

“Gods don't ask for much,” Myste said into the silence. “Do they?”

“I will leave this with you,” Karchanek said solemnly, rerolling the near-transparent paper and inserting it in its metal tube, handing it to Alberich who took it numbly. “There are other sureties I have that I will bring to you later. I understand that you have a kind of magic that can determine if one is telling the truth, and I beg that you will tell your Queen that I submit to such willingly. This is no trivial thing we ask of you.” He stood up, and Gerichen belatedly did the same. “You will know where to find me when you are ready.”

Without asking leave—not that Alberich could have given it at the moment—he and Gerichen walked out. Alberich stared at the metal cylinder in his hands.

“ForeSight—” Myste said firmly. “We need someone with ForeSight.” She started to get to her feet, but Alberich shook his head at her.

“Eldan and Kero, these are who we need first of all,” he countered. His own ForeSight, limited as it was, hadn't even warned him that
this
was coming.

Then again, would it? It only tells me about disaster looming, not if something
good
is going to happen. . . .

Small wonder he was a pessimist by nature. “I shall get them—if they are where I think, none other would be paid heed to,” he continued, handing the cylinder to Myste. “If you so kind would be, would you with a scholar's eye look this over for tampering.”

“I can try,” Myste said dubiously. “But I don't exactly have a lot of Karsite documents to compare to it—or anything in Solaris' hand either.”

But she unrolled the document and bent her lenses over it, much to Alberich's relief. He didn't want her haring off to the Collegium in search of someone with ForeSight and letting fall
any
hints of this evening's revelations. At least, not until she had gotten over her own shock and regained a Chronicler's necessary dispassion for the situation.

Herald-Captain Kerowyn was the logical choice to be informed, since she was practically in the Lord Marshal's back pocket. And as for Herald Eldan—well, that worthy was Alberich's source of information on Karse and the goings-on there. Not to put too fine a point upon it, Eldan was a spy, and but for a single slip, had never once alerted even the Priest-Mages to his true identity.

Kero wasn't in her quarters; neither she nor Eldan were particularly pleased when Alberich interrupted them by pounding insistently in a coded knock on Eldan's door.

“I don't smell smoke and the Collegium isn't on fire, so this had better be
at least
that important, Alberich,” Kero growled, cracking the door only enough so that Alberich caught a glimpse of tousled hair and an angry blue eye in the light of a hall candle.

“It is,” he said. “A
friendly
visit I have had, from—Gerich's outKingdom visitor.”

Kero blinked. “Friendly?” she said dubiously.

“
Very
friendly.
Unbelievably
friendly. This cannot wait until morning. I think it should not wait a candlemark.”

“Right. I heard that,” said Eldan's voice from deeper in the room. “Give us a little; we'll be right on your heels and meet you in your rooms at the salle. Outside of the Queen's suite, you've got the most secure quarters in the complex.”

Alberich nodded and left them to put themselves back together in peace. Poor Kero! Eldan was only just back from his latest covert foray into Karse—which was how Alberich had known just who Karchanek really was—and already business had interrupted their time together.

But when had that not been the case with a Herald? Add to which, Kerowyn had been the Captain of her own Guild Mercenary Company, so she should be used to being interrupted by now. She might not like it, but she should be used to it.
She's been a mercenary for twice as long as she's been a Herald; Business always comes first for them,
he told himself. In fact, when they arrived at his door, he doubted there would be a single word said about what he'd just interrupted.

Nor was there, and the pair were, as Eldan had said, just about on his heels; he wasn't more than half of the way back to the salle when he looked back and saw the two white-clad figures emerging from Heralds' Wing. He'd barely gotten inside his own door and heard from Myste that if there had been any tampering with the missive
she
couldn't find it, when they arrived at his door, as neatly turned-out as if they'd just come from standing guard at a Court ceremony.

Alberich explained the situation to them in a few terse sentences and handed over the letter and its tube. Kero examined the tube; Eldan, who was second only to Alberich and Myste in his mastery of Karsite, scanned it quickly and whistled.

“Well, that explains something—” he said, “—why on this last time, even the most reactionary of the oldguard were being v-e-r-y careful to be good little boys, and if they had any complaints about the new Son of the Sun, keeping them behind their own teeth.”

Alberich shook his head. “Understand, I do not,” he confessed.

“It's quite simple, and a bit scary, old man,” Eldan replied, handing the letter on to Kero as they both took the seats so recently vacated by the visitors from Karse. “I'd heard all the stories about Solaris, but I hadn't talked to any eyewitnesses—not that it would be likely I could, since my contacts don't reside in such lofty circles. Still, the stories were all of a piece, and the Sun-priests were suddenly all acting like they'd put heart and soul into the reform movement. Karchanek's eyewitness account just clinches it.” He glanced over at Kero. “Doesn't it, love?”

Kerowyn nodded. “No doubt in my mind. Wherever He's been for the last couple of hundred years, Vkandis is back now in Karse, and He's cracking heads and taking names.
Just like the Star-Eyed.
Remember, I've seen this before, in my grandmother's Shin'a'in clan.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Mind, the Star-Eyed usually operates through Her spirit-riders and Avatars, but maybe that's what this Firecat is, a spirit-rider equivalent.”

Alberich went very, very still. Of all the things he had hoped for to happen in Karse, this, if true, was the best and the least likely. It might be frightening for Valdemarans, who had no history of direct intervention by their gods, but for a Karsite this would be the return of things to their proper ways, ways long since lost beneath the centuries of rule by a corrupt and cruel priesthood. “You are certain?” he asked carefully.

“I've heard all of Kero's stories, and factoring in the atmosphere down there right now—well, I'm as certain as I can be without walking into the Temple there and demanding Solaris conjure up a miracle to prove it to me,” Eldan said firmly. “Not that I'd give that approach a try. From what I've heard of the lady, she's got a pretty dry sense of humor, and might decide to ask Vkandis to teach me a little proper humility.”

Alberich closed his eyes for a moment.
What, exactly, is one supposed to do when the prayers of a lifetime are so fully answered?

:Be properly grateful,:
said his Companion Kantor.
:And don't question why it has taken the God so long to act. That wouldn't be a good idea.:

Kantor's reply startled him further. This statement, from a Companion, had a weight that went far beyond the simple words.

:There was probably something about Free Will involved,:
Alberich replied, voicing the thoughts that had occurred to him in the dark of the night.
:And making our own mistakes. :
Free Will figured largely in the theology of the older texts—the ones dating from before the Son of the Sun became the tacit ruler of all Karse and the priesthood began conjuring demons to enforce their will.

:And, just possibly, there was something about waiting to be properly asked to step in, prayers of the faithful and all that,:
Kantor amended.
:Gods don't go where they aren't invited, not the ones we'd call “good,” anyway. After all, as long as people seemed to be content to putting up with things as they were, there would be no reason for Vkandis to intervene.:

:That would be the “Free Will” part,:
Alberich reminded his Companion.

Kantor ignored the interruption.
:Vkandis, I suspect, has been dealing with wrongdoers on an individual basis once they died and were in His hands and in no position to dispute the error of their ways. I suppose even a God who intervenes regularly in the lives of His people cannot build a paradise in the world, since everyone would have a different idea of what paradise should be. But then again, I could be wrong.:

Alberich found
that
last statement difficult to believe. Oh, perhaps another Companion could be wrong, but Kantor had never so much as missed a single hoof-step in all the time Alberich had known him. Kantor never spoke unless he had something of import to say.

And Companions were not unlike Firecats. . . . Could they, as it was said of the Firecats, be able to pass the sincere prayer directly into the ear of a God?

His
prayer?
His
God? What was it that Kantor had said—“the prayers of the faithful?” Was this, in part, due to him?

No. He would not even think that. Coincidence, merely, and he would confine himself to rejoicing that things had changed in his lifetime. Events had turned to the redemption of his land. A new Son of the Sun, more like in spirit to those of the old days, sat on the Sun Throne. And
if
he could trust this overture, then perhaps there would be peace between Valdemar and Karse as there had been, in the old days, the times he had read about in long-forgotten histories in the Queen's library.

If it wasn't all a cunning trap. If he could somehow convince Herald Talia, who had already been through more than anyone should have to endure, to walk into the wolf's mouth a second time.

:It isn't Talia you'll have to convince,:
observed Kantor shrewdly,
:but her husband. And the Queen.:

Oh, yes. There was Dirk to convince as well. And Selenay. Neither of whom were going to be as ready to agree to this as Talia.

“If you and Kantor are quite finished,” Kerowyn said, with heavy irony, interrupting his thoughts, “the rest of us would like to actually discuss this.”

“Out loud,” Eldan added.

Alberich leveled a glance at them that would have made any of his pupils quiver where they stood. But of course, Eldan wasn't a Trainee anymore, and he'd faced worse than Alberich over his breakfast fire, day in and day out, for the past five years. And of course, Kerowyn never
had
been his pupil, so there went
that
particular hold out the window.

With a sigh, he sat down, and the discussion began in earnest. It as going to be more than a “discussion,” when it finally got to the Queen—it was going to be a battle, and Alberich was not going to go to that battle less than fully armed.

 

In the end, it was Karchanek who won the battle, which was shorter than Alberich would have been willing to believe. Perhaps things were more desperate than he had thought, where Hardorn was concerned; he made his case to Selenay to hear Karchanek out, supported by Kero and Eldan, then didn't learn anything more until Karchanek himself came to tell him that Selenay had agreed. Alberich didn't hear as much of what went on in Council sessions anymore, now that Kerowyn (with young Herald Jeri as her assistant) was taking over many of the duties he had performed, but for Selenay and for her father.

That had only meant he hadn't needed to sit through the candlemarks of arguments, for and against the invitation. Rightly or wrongly, this had been one session that Selenay had decided
he
especially should not participate in.

No matter; Karchanek had been his own best advocate, once Selenay actually heard him out. Perhaps his two
most
persuasive points had been that he himself would remain in Selenay's hands as a hostage, and that Alberich himself and one other Herald should go with her. Kero had objected to that, putting herself up as Alberich's substitute. But this was one duty he had no intention of giving over to Kero—well, for one thing, as
she
assumed his role, he became more expendable and she, less so. For another, there was no one living in Valdemar who could read his fellow countrymen as well as he could.