It now only remained to see how long he could make it take.
ONE
“It hath more the look of a collar than of a
crown,” said one who looked on.
“Ay,” quoth the young King, “but if a collar,
‘tis for my throat, not thine.”
Darthene Tales: “Of Bron the Young”
The morning after the second Battle of Bluepeak, Freelorn found himself suddenly awake in bed, gazing up at the ceiling with the feeling that the past seven years had never happened, were all a dream. Under the covers, he was as warm as he might have been on any of those early days, in his bed strewn with furs and velvets. Outside the room’s unseen windows were sunlight, and city noises, and on the sill, brown sparrows chattering. This was Prydon, certainly. His father was the King, and he himself the Prince, and everything at peace. A very odd, very bad dream, it had been. He lay there purposely not remembering it.
Then he noticed that there was a crack in the ceiling; and though his bedroom ceiling had a crack in it, it wasn’t this crack. Regretfully he closed his eyes so as not to see: but it was too late, the crack was in his mind as well, and widening. For one thing, he was in bed, a real bed with a mattress, and good lawn sheets, and no bugs. How many years now had it been since he had been safe in any place with a bed? Hundreds of nights spent in the wet, in the cold, with only stars or clouds for ceiling, remembered themselves to him. No, it had all happened. Especially the bugs.
Lorn opened his eyes again. The walls were tan instead of white, and there were hangings where bare marble should have showed, and black wood bedposts instead of his own teak, and a light quilted cotton coverlet instead of his velvet one. Well, it was Midsummer after all. But most of the coverlet was on the other side of the bed. He turned his head to that side. There was a man-size, man-shaped lump on the other side of the bed, wrapped in eight-tenths of the covers as if in a cocoon. He’s done it again, Freelorn thought, resigned.
Herewiss was snoring. Freelorn turned over on his side and looked at what he could see of his bedmate. Precious little: the top of that curly dark head, and closed eyes, and a nose. The coverlet was wrapped tight around everything else. It was the old story: you could nail a blanket to the bed, but by morning Herewiss would have all of it. How does he do it? Lorn thought. It was an old pleasant habitual thought, meant to keep him from thinking something else.
Like the crack, the thought asserted itself anyway. This man, Lorn thought, last night this man took on the greatest created power known, and held his own against It. For hours. This snoring lump, this blanket thief, this bit of flesh and bone and blood. My loved. Herewiss.
“Herewiss,” he said quietly. No response; when his loved slept, he slept sound… and certainly today he had excuse. “Dusty,” he said, the old nickname—when they had played together, years ago, Herewiss had seemed to think that the way a prince got to be one with the land was by carrying as much of it as possible on his person. “Nnff,” Herewiss said, shifted position slightly, and snored louder.
There was another name, of course. Freelorn did not feel quite comfortable with it yet, though it was his alone to speak. Herewiss had found that Name with his Fire. All his Power was bound up in that one word, all his intent, his destiny, his whole self: that much Lorn knew from his own old studies. It made him nervous. Names, some ways, were their owners. And this name was a dangerous one, too great for a man. Even for a hero in an old story, such a name would have raised its wearer to glory, and then doomed him.
Unfortunately, this was no old story, but a new one. Asleep beside him, snoring, lay the vessel of a magic that had been busily making the impossible old legends come true for several months, and showed no sign of stopping.
Lorn let out a breath. His own names, his outer ones, were no safer or easier to live with. Lately he was feeling as if they followed him around and tugged at him for attention. “Freelorn stareln Ferrant stai-Héalhrästi”, said the one: so that there stood both his blood-father and line- Father, looking over his own name’s shoulder, reminding him of royal descent and royal responsibilities—neither of which he had handled well for the last seven years. Or “Freelorn of Arlen”, the short form, even more annoying because he was not enough “of Arlen” right now to set foot there without an army at his back. And worst of all, what Eftgan called him: “Lionchild”. It was a courteous, affectionate nickname, recalling her Line’s old kinship to his. Eftgan was very courteous. Lorn wished to the Goddess she would stop it.
And the name “Freelorn” itself….
He propped himself up on one elbow, looking at Herewiss. Herewiss snored on. Freelorn took a breath and whispered that other Name that made him so uncomfortable. It was short, but it made a silence around it. The snoring stopped. Blue eyes looked at him, suddenly wide awake. Then they smiled. “Lorn,” said Herewiss, muffled, half his face still under the covers.
“Morning.”
“Thank you for not saying ‘good’.” Herewiss stretched, and pulled the coverlet over his head. “Why do you always have to wake up so early? We had a battle all day yesterday, can’t you sleep in just for once?”
Freelorn was rescued by a knock on the door. “The Queen’s compliments to you, gentlemen,” said a voice outside, sounding entirely too cheerful; one of the chamberlains, no doubt. “Her Grace is fasting this morning, but breakfast is being served downstairs.”
“I want a bath,” Herewiss muttered from underneath the covers.
“Our regards to the Queen,” Freelorn shouted at the door, “and we’ll be down as soon as his highness here has had his first bath of the day. —Come on, get up.” He started laboriously to pull the covers off Herewiss. “I want one too. I refuse to be the only one who smells bad at this coronation.”
“My Goddess, I forgot.” Suddenly the covers were everywhere except around Herewiss, and he was fumbling for a robe. “Where’s Khávrinen??”
“Under your clothes, as usual…. You do this oh-Heaven-where-is-it business every morning. Sometimes I think you should sleep with that sword.”
Herewiss looked sidewise at Freelorn with the expression that meant some terrible joke was being smothered, and then went back to searching. “Under that tunic, the white one,” Lorn said.
Herewiss straightened up, clutching a nightrobe around him. The free hand held Khávrinen. Superficially the sword looked like just another hand-and-a-half broadsword, obviously amateur work though of good material… gray steel with an odd blue sheen. But in the hand of the man who had forged it in terror and blue Fire and his own blood, it blazed—the blade burning inwardly like iron at white heat in the forge, while blue Flame wrapped up and down the length of the sword from point to hilt, about the hand that gripped it and the arm that wielded it. Right now that Fire licked and wreathed leisurely as weed in water, mirroring Herewiss’s calm state of mind. But Freelorn had seen it when Herewiss was angry, or exerting himself. Then lightning came to mind, young gods wielding thunderbolts against the powers of darkness, defeating them—or being defeated. Freelorn swallowed, thinking again of the impossible becoming possible. It had been a close business, yesterday. The Shadow, the darkness cast sideways from the Goddess’s light, was surely annoyed with them all… and especially with this bit of flesh and blood that leaned Khávrinen safe against the wall, and yawned and rubbed his eyes.
“Come on,” Herewiss said. “The Queen may have to fast, but we don’t. Are you going to lie there all day?”
Freelorn got up, put a robe on and went out after his loved.
They went down the hall together and found even the palace living quarters unusually noisy. Children, the princes and princesses indistinguishable from the many other children of the household, were running in all directions, squealing, chasing pets, chasing one another; harried-looking chamberlains were chasing some of the children with clothes, or carrying bundles, messages, laundry. At the corner of their own hall, where it turned right, there were several children, all dressed in hos
e and buskins and tunics of dark- blue linen, clustered together and staring around the corner at something. Freelorn looked at Herewiss. Herewiss shrugged, sneaked up behind the children, and peered around the corner with them. Lorn followed suit.
Down at the end of the hall was this floor’s bathroom, and no one was waiting to use it… most likely because of the darkness lingering like a fog around the hallway’s end, half- hiding the bathroom door in a tangle of shadows that smelled of hot stone or metal. Looking straight at the darkness, one saw nothing; but avert the eyes slightly, and in the shadows something moved and glittered smokily, massive and indistinct.
One of the children, perhaps six years old, pert-faced and blond, looked up at Herewiss and Freelorn with an expression half annoyance and half great interest. “What’s that?” he said.
Herewiss shook his head. “Nothing… just magic.” He looked down, noting the shade of the child’s hair, and the White Eagle stitched small above the heart of the midnight- blue tunic. “One of your royal mother’s relatives. We’ll get her out of there. Shouldn’t you be having breakfast?”
“I have to go first.”
“You want to get in there and play with the plumbing,” Herewiss said. “If you have to go, prince, then use the privy. The other way. Hurry up or you’ll wind up standing behind all the tall people and not see any of the Hammering.”
The prince groaned loudly, and looked over at Freelorn in a bid for sympathy, but Lorn shook his head. Sighing, the princeling went off with his two friends.
“Some things never change,” Lorn said.
“Seems that way. Come on.”
They headed for the bathroom. From inside the door, as they approached it, came sounds of singing; a single strong contralto, nasal but true, and surrounding it, a chorus of approximately fifty voices from highest soprano to profoundest bass. Freelorn recognized the tune as a Darthene drinking song, but the words were in no language he knew. The smell of burning stone was strong around them as he knocked on the door and shouted, “Are you decent?”
The singing stopped, and the contralto voice laughed. “Eh’ae-he,” it said, “ssih esdhhoui’rae ohaiiw!”
Freelorn sighed and pushed the door open. The bathrooms in Blackcastle were justly famous for their spring-fed plumbing, a masterwork of engineering, sorcery, and blue Fire. The water came up from the ground naturally hot, and not even sulfurous; pipes guided it where it was wanted and spilled it out into tubs huge enough for any king, or any eight of his friends. The walls were decorated with bas-reliefs depicting the Goddess creating the sea-creatures, the windows were cunningly baffled to prevent drafts even in winter, and the floors were impossible to slip on. It was a dream of a place. The tub closest to the northern windows had a carved screen pulled in front of it… not that this was really necessary, for there the shadows were thick as night, and among them lay the very end of a massive tail scaled in what looked like black star-sapphires above and rough gray diamond below. The tail twitched like a thoughtful cat’s, and fierce rainbow flickers slid up and down in the spear-length, double-curved diamond spine at its end.
“You’re talking Dracon again,” said Lorn, as Herewiss came in behind him and shut the door. “Say it in Darthene. And how can you wash in the dark like this?”
“I said, Yes, I’m decent, but come in anyway. And it’s not dark here,” said the contralto voice. “Not to me, anyway.”
“Well, it is to us,” Herewiss said. “Lighten it up, or we won’t be able to see the dirt! Good morning, lhhw’Hasai. Lorn, which tub?”
“Yl’thienh, rhhw’Hhirhwaehs; u rhhw’Fvhr’ielhrnn.”
“Oh, right, ‘morning, Hasai. —That one, Dusty. Here’s the bathflannels.”
Laughter filled the room, not all of it human. “Dirt? On you? The six-bath-a-day man?”
“Ssha, ‘Berend, or I’ll turn you into something vile.”
“I’ll do it myself and save you time. Can’t be late for the Hammering.”
“What are you wearing?” Freelorn said.
Water splashed. “A bath flannel.”
“No, to the Hammering, you dolt!”
“All you ever think about is clothes,” said Segnbora, with infinite, affectionate scorn. The shadows thinned and she came out from behind the screen, wrapped in a flannel big enough for a blanket, and dripping. There was almost more of the flannel than there was of her, Lorn thought. She was a slender thing, wiry, narrow as a swordblade and with about as much curve; delicately featured, with deep-set eyes in a face with a sharp look about it. Her hair was slicked down from the bath, and even the wet couldn’t hide how it was coming in silver at the roots.
Lorn had to turn his head and smile as she sat down on a nearby bench, holding the flannel most carefully around her. On the trail Segnbora had been all business, never caring whether anyone saw her undressed, or whether she saw anyone else that way; there were more important things to worry about. But evidently old habits reasserted themselves when she came back to civilization. She reached under the bench for another flannel and began to dry her hair. “The full kit,” she said. “Formal surcoat, and Skádhwë. My presence there may confuse some people… and this morning, it may be wise to cause all the confusion we can.”
“And Hasai?” Herewiss reached for the soap-ball and knocked it into the bath. He began to fish for it.
“We shall be there if we’re needed,” said the chief of the many voices that had been speaking out of the shadows. Eyes as wide as a man is tall looked at them from the remaining darkness, burning with cool silver fire. “Now that we are becoming human, it would be pity to miss our first bout of your kind of nn’s’raihle.”
“Give me that soap. He keeps using that word,” Freelorn said to Segnbora, “and you keep giving me different meanings for it. A dance, a family argument, a word game— Which is it this time?”
Segnbora shrugged and scrubbed at her hair with the flannel. “It can be any of those for a Dragon,” she said. “It’s choice; but there’s a whole family of ways they make choices, and to them the way we do it looks similar a lot of the time. Though the motivations are different. We’re choosing a Queen—or rather, she’s allowing her people to exercise their option to get rid of her. We can dance with her, as it were, or else get rid of her and find another partner. But to we lhhw’hei, the important thing is the dance itself. The changing of partners is incidental; the choice matters. Not what it is, just making it.”
Freelorn’s gut turned over inside him. Last month Segnbora had been a new but trusted friend, a perfectly normal failed Rodmistress and sometime sorceress. Just another person. Now suddenly she had an extra shadow, and an invisible escort of what might be thousands, and odd overtones to her voice that had never been there before. We llhw’hei…
“Anyway, I’m worried.” Segnbora threw the small flannel away, shaking her hair out and running her fingers through it. “Someone is going to try something this morning.”
Herewiss, his hair full of lather, stopped scrubbing for a moment and looked at her. “Foreseeing? Or just a bad feeling?”
“Foreseeing. And underhearing. Careful, that soap’s going to get in your eyes. —Someone out there is thinking very bad thoughts about the Queen. And even though I’m in breakthrough now, and I can hear people thinking from here to Arlen, I still can’t hear details in this mind at all, or even identify the source.” She looked in bemusement at a straggle of her wet hair, and flicked it up with a finger. For a moment Segnbora had a curling halo of blue Fire. Then it went away, and her hair was dry. “Do you hear anything?”
Herewiss frowned a moment, then shook his head. “Not even the bad feelings. If it’s on the fringes of even your ability to perceive at the moment, that argues some powerful shielding. A sorcerer of considerable ability…. ”
Segnbora looked disturbed, and Herewiss did too, as he ducked to rinse the soap out of his hair. “I can’t see why, though,” Segnbora said. “Surely any sorcerer now knows that we’re at open war with t
he Shadow… if not yet with anyone else. Working against the Queen and her forces in that war can only ensure everything going to pieces sooner or later. Famine everywhere, whole nations dying…. “
“If that’s the case,” Herewiss said, wiping his hair back and the water out of his face, “whoever has chosen the Shadow’s side has to have been offered something that makes the chance of starving to death with the rest of the country, or being hanged and drawn and nailed up as a traitor, and possibly even rejected by the Goddess after death, look worth taking. That scares me.” He reached for a sponge. “What was the foreseeing?”
“I saw light down in the Square. A flicker of it, very fast. Two flickers. A still one, golden light; and then a quick one, more silver, I think. Lots of people standing around, but none of them reacting to anything in particular. They might not have seen anything, if it was an arrow or a crossbow bolt… or perhaps it was symbolic. You know how foretellings are, sometimes the message is abstract even though the image seems concrete.”
“And the gold was the Queen’s Gold?”
“Truly I couldn’t tell. Though—” Segnbora looked up over her shoulder. “Mdaha?”
“Your foreseeing is not like our remembering-ahead,” said the Dragon, in a slow uncertain basso scrape of song… one voice alone, not the usual chord. “We see the you- who-are-part-of-us… not the others associated with you. At least, not usually. We—” He paused, that single voice slipping into silence for a moment. “I see you in the sun, with your talon drawn. You stand quiet. Suddenly there is a movement from behind you, someone pushes you aside—” Another pause. “Nothing more,” Hasai said.