“And meanwhile, I think something can be made of this,” Segnbora said, shaking out the sheet of cast skin that she held. “Once all the connective fibers are out of it, anyway. But the mercenaries.” She picked a fiber out from under a nail. “Ouch. We’ve seen several groups from the west of the country, and two from the south, moving north and east and joining with others as they go. I would make it no more than three thousand at the moment. A better count would mean getting closer—a Dragon’s eyes are as good as an eagle’s, but not that good—and we’ve been at some pains to keep ourselves secret.”
“How about your other business?”
“With the DragonChief?” Segnbora laughed, a slightly bitter sound. “We failed in that, I’m afraid. She’ll give us no help, nor will the other Dragons. But—” She looked again at her half-transparent hand, let it drop and leaned against Hasai again. “We were given something else—I just wish I knew what it was, and what to do with it.”
Herewiss looked from one to the other of them. “We know what it was, sdaha,” Hasai said. “It was the Draconid Name.”
“Well, so you say. I wouldn’t know the Name if it came up and bit me.”
“And so it has,” Hasai said. “See the result!”
Herewiss looked from one to the other of them. “Who gave—”
“I don’t know!” Segnbora said. “I saw the Eorlhowe Gate. Or it saw us—and it passed me—this. This knowledge, this—” She shook her head. “It’s immense, it’s—”
“It is difficult to describe,” Hasai said, with gentle irony. “It is the inner Name of every Dragon ever born. And much else, I suspect.”
“You told me that only the DragonChief knows that Name,” Herewiss said.
“So she does, as a rule. But I am not sure that the Name she was told is the same one we were.”
“But what’s it mean to us? And why should you be given it?” said Herewiss. She shook her head. “You know as well as I do that something like this never happens without a reason. It scares me. We’re obviously meant to use it in some way—we could use it to compel the Dragons, some of them anyway, to our will. But that would be playing right into the Shadow’s hands, that kind of force. So, I supposed we’re meant to become something as a result of the Name. But what?” She looked at her hands, and laughed, a shaky laugh. “Except perhaps more abstract than I’ve been previously…. ”
“If you get any idea of what this means, you’ll let me know…. Meanwhile, I should be glad if you were in the close neighborhood of Prydon about a tenday from now. The Queen will have her people in place somewhere around the eighty- sixth of summer: she won’t want to leave it much longer than that. I’ll give you more when I know more.”
“Right enough.” Segnbora looked at him. “Have you heard any news of Lorn?”
Herewiss shook his head. “No, and I don’t dare go looking, even in mind. You or I or Eftgan can protect our end of a conversation, but he can’t, and at this range, I couldn’t protect him either. And anyone who can find his mind, can find him, soon enough. He’s just going to have to get along by himself.” And how the fear went through him, like a spear, when he said it.
“Well, if you should hear anything, tell him the child is well…. ”
Herewiss looked at her. “I was going to mention. There are rumors in the court that they’re looking for a child of Lorn’s line. To make a regency for, they say.”
Segnbora snorted. “As if any child would survive that.”
“No, but that’s not my main concern at the moment. It seems that there’s—an unnatural level of interest in the subject. They want a royal child for something else… I don’t know what. Keep an eye on your child!”
Segnbora nodded. “As for the other, we’ll be where you need us, and when.”
“Just in case,” he said, “if you find it comfortable to be in the city near the time, there’s a house—” He showed it to her in mind. It was a private rooming-house near the outer wall, one that had a lot of Darthene travelers staying there in normal times. “You shouldn’t be noticed there.”
“If I can solidify myself a bit, I may do that,” she said, “and a bit sooner. Living on light and air gets boring after a while: I want to get into the marketplace and taste bread and cheese again.”
“Ah now sdaha, what could be better than the good sun, like wine—”
“You haven’t had enough wine to make a judgment,” she said, poking him, “and neither have I, of late—!”
Herewiss knew an argument starting when he saw one, especially one so affectionate. He raised a hand in farewell and made his way back, stepping out through the doorway waiting for him, into the cool stone dimness of the old Hold in his mind.
He wandered a few doors further down, looking through them as he passed them; strange landscapes filled with fiery mountains, barren places burnt by their suns, seas with no shore. At last he came to the doorway that looked into that quiet closet at the back of Eftgan’s rooms in Blackcastle. He seemed to be looking through the opening that should have been the Kings’ Door. But it was his own door for the moment: he stepped through.
The Queen was sitting there in her nightshift, brushing her hair in a reflective way—not that she had a great deal of it to brush. She looked to Herewiss after glancing at his reflection in her mirror, and said, “Take the seat there.—What news?” she said.
He handed her first the letter Andaethen had given him. Eftgan took it, glanced at it, set it aside along with the many other pieces of parchment or paper that lay there. “Nothing I hadn’t expected,” she said. “How goes your work?”
“Slowly. There’s a fair amount of support for Lorn among the Four Hundred, but most are afraid to speak.”
“Where will they be when the war starts?” said the Queen.
Herewiss shook his head. “You’ll need a foreseeing for that. Most of them seem to be waiting to see which side is stronger… then that’s the way they’ll jump, quick as a cat into cream. Too few of them have the right of the situation at all on their minds.”
“Nothing new there,” Eftgan said, mild-voiced. “Now, the troop movements.”
He told her what Hasai and Segnbora had given him, and then showed her the map he’d made. She took it, scratching idly at the parchment. “The two fords… there seems to be some interest in the southern one.”
“Queen, it might be a trick to distract us from their real plans. It’s too soon to tell, anyway.”
“But you should at least have a guess,” she said. “How will you earn your name, otherwise?”Herewiss groaned softly. “I do the best I can. But most of my battle-experience is out of books, excepting a few skirmishes with Reavers. I thought you might have put Erein in this job: she seems to know which end of a battle is up.”
“So she does, as far as regards troop movements, the mere matters of materiel and strategy and so forth. But your specialty is sorcery and Fire, which we have to take into consideration in these battles as well: and I need your advice from the ground up, as I’ve been taking Erein’s. Now tell me how you see it.”
He breathed out, huff, gathering his thoughts. “There’s a great ingathering of sorcerers going on here at the moment,” Herewiss said. “Almost two hundred of them, now. That means we’ll have at least warfetter to worry about… especially since Rian isn’t the kind to worry about the ethics of what he’s doing. Nor the small matter of whether his own sorcerers’ brains are burned out by what he forces them to do.”
“That we can work to prevent: by killing the sorcerers, if necessary. I’m more interested in the troop movements at the moment. Cillmod’s whole business is going to be to push as far into our territory as possible, to keep us from bringing the battle close to Prydon. Ours, of course, is to break through his people, and cross the river. But for the meantime, it would buy me time and hinder their arrangements if something can be done about the border from their side.”
“Such as?”
The Queen shrugged at him. “Keep th
em from crossing for as long as you can. Find out where they’re going to do it… then come up with something. You are still in breakthrough, aren’t you?”
Herewiss thought about that. “The Power is beginning to plateau out somewhat.” Just as well, he thought: another month like the last one would burn me out like a cinder, and leave me a husk, or a corpse. “But I can still do some fairly large things.”
“How far in do you think they’re meaning to push?”
“It’s hard to tell. Certainly it’s to their advantage to push you off the Kings’ Road as soon as possible: just as it’s to yours to stay on it for as long as you can.”
“Yes,” said the Queen. “But when and where I leave it, that I’m at some pains to keep them from knowing. All we can try do is hold them here, and here, west of Limisba, and you keep their main force from crossing! I chose the day of this battle, and we will have this battle on the day I chose.”
“All their will, of course, will be leaning toward preventing that, Queen. And as for Rian—” He shook his head.
“No progress on that front?”
“None. I need to tempt him out into the open. I need to do something—blatant.”
“Goes against your grain, does it? Well, listen, my lad, such nicety is something we have no time for just now. You go off and be blatant… but do it in some way that you can stay in the city, close to the heart of things. I will not have you tossed out of there.”
“It seems unlikely enough to happen, at least because of anything Cillmod might do,” Herewiss said, rather ruefully. “We seem to have some kind of understanding.”
“Oh?” the Queen said. But Herewiss did not amplify. He understood the matter poorly himself.
“Well,” Eftgan said, “never mind that. But as for Rian, force that issue any way you like. I do not want him in the battle.”
“You have a foreseeing, then.”
“I do. Disaster for all of us, if he’s there. I am reluctant,” she said, “to tell you to kill without giving defiance. But if you must, to keep him out of that battle…. ”
“What have you seen?”
She shook her head. “Death. Death everywhere. Just—” She broke off. “Undo him. One way or another, undo him. By power, by preference. But if you must, use other means less subtle.” She sighed, and looked at Herewiss with an expression of weariness and disgust. “That’s all for tonight. More than enough, I’m afraid.”
Herewiss nodded. They made their farewells to one another, and he got up and stepped out the doorway, back into the cool, dim hall of the old Hold. For a long few minutes he stood there wishing that he dared to go a few doors further down, in search of the one where Lorn could be found. But he didn’t.
He sighed and opened his eyes on his circle. The Fire of it was burning low: he was tired. Just outside the circle, tipped back in another of the nontippable chairs, Sunspark sat and watched him. It looked like the young russet-haired man he had seen the other evening, except that this time it was a woman.
Herewiss sighed and waved the Fire out, and stood, staggering slightly. “No, it’s all right,” he said to Sunspark, who was by him instantly. “Bed for you,” Sunspark said. “Now.”
Herewiss laughed weakly, but was in no mood to argue. “Just another of your ploys. Do you ever think of anything else?”
“You’d be surprised,” Sunspark said.
***
Much later Herewiss still lay awake in the dark. He kept hearing Eftgan’s voice, cool, certain, and seeing a man’s face, assured and smiling.
He has a wife and a daughter. They don’t know what he is. They’ll grieve him. They’ll hate his killer.
That was the clinch, wasn’t it? He remembered how when his mother died, for some months after, he had almost hated the Goddess. You took her from me! You took her! Why did You take her?! And it was just the wasting that had killed her… the unavoidable price of using Fire. You used it, you burned out young. She had used it. She had not shirked. And quite simply, she had leaned back in the chair one day, and died. How he had railed at the Fire, and its Maker: doubly bitter, for he knew then what was inside him too. Knew that if he ever managed to achieve his Fire, that fate was waiting for him too, unless something happened that he couldn’t foresee.
There’s enough death about, Herewiss thought. Let’s not have more than we need. If I can spare him, make him harmless— But it was already less than an “if”.
“Loved,” Sunspark said.
Herewiss looked at it lying there, in woman’s shape, but the unpredictable mind showing clearly behind the eyes. It had seemed asleep. But did it sleep, truly? Did it need to? Herewiss wasn’t sure. It was working hard at being human, and had certainly achieved the semblance of it. “Loved,” it said, “what’s on your mind?”
“I’m worried.”
Sunspark laughed at him softly. “That’s mostly what you do these days. How can I help?”
He lay there gazing into the darkness. “I’m worried about Lorn,” he said. “And I dare not simply reach out to him now: if I should slip, if someone should ‘overhear’ where he is from me—” He shook his head. “I think you should go find him, and make sure he’s all right.”
“And when I find him?”
“Bring him here,” Herewiss said, “by any means that will keep him unseen and unnoticed by the people keeping this city.”
Sunspark gazed at him, a long, considering look. “I’ll go. How soon?”
“Tomorrow will do.”
“Tonight,” it said. And it was gone. Just like that: a warm place left on the sheets, and nothing more.
Herewiss lay back and sighed, and stared into the darkness again. He thought of the people standing around Cillmod’s throne. He would be one of those, when Lorn came into his own. And there would be others: some from the old guard, feathering their own nests: some from the new. Moris would be there, and the rest of Freelorn’s group: Eftgan and some of her people in the background, making sure things ran smoothly. He would still have Lorn’s ear, of course: there was no changing that. But now there would be a lot of other people competing for the same position, as there had not been when he was merely loved and confidant to a runaway outlaw.
What if he— The thought died half-formed, then sat up again. No, we love each other, nothing’s going to change that —
Oh indeed, his thought answered. Kingship— He had seen the kind of work and commitment it required of a man. He had seen Lorn’s father, wearing himself down in that work, until his weary heart rebelled and killed him on his own throne. Nor had there been a Queen competing for his attention. How would it be?—a ruler with a loved, but with something more important to pay attention to, a country that had been neglected and needed much more care than usual for the years to come. Where would Herewiss be then?
But this was what he had been working for, all this time. Lorn, in command, in kingship, on that Throne, doing what he was meant to do. It had never occurred to Herewiss in all this while that achieving his goal at last would bring him, not joy, but pain: worse pain than the company of Lorn unfulfilled.
Fool, he thought. You didn’t think it through.
And if you had? the rest of him said, sterner. Would you have done otherwise? Kingship is his by right. You want his rights for him. There’s no wrong in that.
And Cillmod, Herewiss thought. What about him? Easy, in the old days, to think about merely killing the usurper, running him through—ordering him, in the words of the declaration, to be over Arlid, over Sea, or under stone, within so many days. But he was not going to be that easy to get rid of. And besides, the face—the frank, open, slightly amused, slightly annoyed face—almost Lorn’s face—came back to haunt him. Herewiss shook his head. To just kill him? just “undo” him. Make him vanish—
He sighed. He’s done right, by his lights, all this while…
So has Rian, that sterner voice said. It’s hard to define a villain, since villains don’t think of themselves as such. What right h
e thinks he’s doing, Goddess only knows. But his ‘right’ will kill the world… and for that reason, you see no problem with setting him aside, undoing him. How is Cillmod any different?
Herewiss shook his head into the pillow, and moaned. He rolled over on his back again. The sound of his own anguish surprised him. No more of this, he thought. But there was going to have to be more of it. Sooner or later, he was going to find himself standing in front of Cillmod—or Rian, or both—with the Power in his hands. And use it, or not… and answer for the consequences.
Goddess and Queen, what am I to do?…
***
From the night he left Elefrua, Freelorn had become clear about his options. Since Eftgan’s illusion no longer protected him, he was going to have to manage matters himself. As a result, he already looked less like himself than he had in a long time.
He helped the effect by staying out in the far countryside for nearly a tenday, cheering on the hurried growth of coarse beard that until now he had always sworn at. He pulled and cooked blackweed to dye it, and dyed his hair as well: he cut reeds from a reedbed near the Arlid, dried them with care, and slipped a short piece of one up each nostril. They hurt, but they changed the shape of his nose enough to make a difference.
Blackmane was, in his own way, a bigger problem. He was even more likely than Lorn to be recognized, at this point, and was a bit more difficult to disguise effectively—a thoroughbred can’t be made to look like a sumpter-bred, no matter how you try. At least he was badly in need of a clipping, which helped, and he was fatter than usual from having been on grass so much of the time lately. But more was needed. Lorn therefore barbered Blackie’s mane and tail disgracefully ragged, and afterwards resorted to another weed, healwell, that old favorite of dishonest horsetraders everywhere. Shortly thereafter, Blackmane was black all over, and stamping and snorting with the itch of the applied liquor from the boiled root. Lorn spent one more day waiting for the itch to go away—it was a sure sign of what had been done to the horse in question. He then got on the main road north, and rode straight into Hasmë early the next morning.