Banner of the Damned

  “Yvanavar, Tiv Evair, Khanivar,” I said.

  “Not just them,” Birdy said. “Sindan-An, Tlen, and Fath as well. They seem to have united in one purpose, to regain their hereditary lands. Their cry is ‘river to river.’ I guess that means the glorious Marlovan empire of old, which was bordered between the rivers all up and down Halia. But Ivandred has held out against declaring war against the northern kingdoms. He says that no one has broken any treaties.”

  “A moment,” I said. I shut my eyes, released the shield and concentrated on Lasva, partly to test my reach with the dyr—and there she was, desperate to keep her voice even, to hide her anger as she said, Danrid, permit me to disagree. Heroism is not overlooking wounds, tiredness, fear, in order to kill others, but in overlooking wounds, tiredness, fear, to save others.

  I snapped the shield close again.

  “Em?” Birdy had knelt down directly in front of me.

  I took a deep breath. “I believe I am in trouble,” I said. “And if I am right, so is Ivandred. And Lasva. And the kingdom.” I reached for the water. “This will take some time.”

  Anhar said, “Then you had better eat something. You look dreadful, Emras. No trouble, I’ve found, is the easier to solve while hungry.”

  “You are right,” I said. “I’d be grateful for some bread and cheese.”

  Anhar whisked herself out. Birdy stomped purposelessly to my desk, glared at it, then came back, decision in his face. “Emras, the truth is, I came back because of you. Not so much because you didn’t write—people do get tired of other people and move on, I understand that, I’ve done it myself—but there was something in your last letters, an evasiveness that was so unlike you. Unlike who I thought you were. Ah-ye! That is not what I meant to say. I thought, ah, how to say it? That you were turning into a Marloven. And it was all right,” he added hastily. “Lasva had married one, she meant to be one. But Anhar said you were in trouble.”

  “Anhar? Trouble?”

  “She couldn’t tell me what it was. Only that you worked harder than anyone else, but you didn’t talk to anyone, and you seemed to be living under the shadow of Thorn Gate. And we began to wonder what they were making you do.”

  “She never said anything to me about that.”

  “Oh, she did. She tried. You fended her off.” He gave the old gesture for south-gating, and when I stirred to protest, he went on quickly, “She told me early that Lasva and Kaidas had been lovers right before they both married, which made sense of all his questions about Lasva. Because each year, he always came to me for news of her. So last year, when the duke wanted to leave Colend, Anhar and I thought of Marloven Hesea—so Kaidas could speak to Lasva, and I, you.” He gave a short sigh. “But you didn’t want to talk to me. Ah-yedi! This was much easier in my head, when I thought it out a thousand times, crossing the continent. I’d say how much I cared, and you would fall into my arms.” He hugged himself, making smooching noises, then grinned crookedly.

  “Birdy, I can’t do that.”

  “I know. I know. It is not your nature. I am joking, see? Only it’s not a joke if no one laughs, is it? The other thing I thought you might say would be, Birdy, I was so lonely.”

  And I said unsteadily, “Birdy, I was so lonely.”

  He dropped down beside the bed, all the humor gone. “Talk to me, Em. Just talk. Tell me why you pushed us away, even after we found out you were a mage.”

  “Yes,” I said. “That is what I intend to do.” Now that the time had come, I did not know where to begin. With my first lie to Birdy? Or should I begin at the end and work backward? “Kaidas and his son. Are they still here?”

  “Yes.” Birdy frowned down at his hands, then said, “Fan practice had become the best part of our day. I am willing to guess it was Lasva’s, too. All we did was talk. But there was one day, late in spring. Kaidas was telling a story about one of his colts. It was funny—he’d been kicked several times, and then this colt nipped him, and he fell… yedi! The point is, we were all laughing. Anhar could not remember hearing Lasva laugh since she was first hired, back in Alsais. Kaidas and Lasva looked at each other, and she turned away, and wiped her eyes, and next thing we knew, she and some of the guard women were riding for the north.”

  “I can find out what happened,” I said, figuring that this was as good an entry as any.

  “You can?”

  “Right here. Right now. At least, I think I can hear a memory from here.” I closed my eyes and concentrated, but the moment I lowered the shield and reached for this memory of Birdy’s, there were his thoughts: worried, tender, fearful, uneasy. I forced the shield up again, before my mind could delve into his.

  “Emras?” he said, on a new note.

  “I think I’d better begin back in Alsais,” I said. “When Tif sent me a magic book, because I asked.”

  I was still talking when Anhar returned. The sight of food woke my appetite, and though I kept talking as I ate, which is vulgar behavior in Colendi, the other two gave no sign that they noticed. They were concentrating too hard on my words.

  When I reached the recent events at last, Birdy said, “Have you listened to me?”

  “Only that once.”

  “Can you hear me now?”

  “I have the shield up.” I tapped the top of my head.

  “Try,” he said, watching me intently.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I just want…”

  “Proof?” I asked, knowing that I deserved his disbelief.

  “Ah-ye, I believe you, it’s just that I want to know what that thing can do. May I see it? I won’t touch it.”

  I took the dyr out of my pocket and laid it on my hand.

  “How can a thing make others hear thoughts? Might I try it?” he asked.

  Fighting my intense misgiving, I laid it on his hand. He looked at me, then quickly to Anhar, as if to avoid hearing my thoughts, then stiffened. He was within arm’s reach of me, which was the distance I’d always maintained from the dyr, so I heard the clamor of his emotions, Anhar’s, and mine echoing back at me through the distortion of Birdy’s perception.

  He gasped and snapped a strained look my way. “It’s like you poked me from inside my skull.” He threw the dyr in my lap. “That’s enough of that. It’s…”

  I heard evil. I put up the mental shield again.

  “Dizzying,” he said. “So this is what mages learn to use?”

  “Yes. That is,” I corrected myself, wondering how much of what the Herskalt had said was true. “So I was given to understand.”

  He grimaced. “I think you’d better start by questioning everything that man told you.” He shook his head. “I can’t even think, my head hurts too much. Anhar, what think you?”

  “I’m not a planner.” She gestured Rue.

  “You are deft at seeing what is there.”

  Anhar said slowly, “That kind of trespass, it is almost as evil as days before written history, when there was sex without consent.”

  I made a warding, too distressed for words.

  She gave me a glance of sympathy, but went on. “You could say no, not the same—the person doesn’t feel it—but this is even more intimate, and the scars here and here.” She touched her head and heart. “Would be terrible if you revealed these things to others. And what if you can use it to force ideas into someone’s head? Like the enemy commander that you mentioned, could you bend this commander’s thoughts by your will to force him to lose a war?”

  Birdy turned my way. “Can you?”

  “I do not know. I never tried any such thing. I only listened.”

  “Without consent,” Anhar repeated, and I winced. This is a direct consequence of my actions. “So far, from what you say, the only evidence we have of any mage using this dyr is Ramis, who you think is your Herskalt.”

  “From Norsunder,” Birdy said. “So we can assume evil intent.”

  “Can we?” I said. “Oh, make no mistake. I will never again step into that garden. I se
e it was set up to lure me, and the trap could snap around me any time. I even know the magic for it. But why would someone from Norsunder spend all this time to help Ivandred train his army? Is that evil? Lasva thinks any war is evil, but the Marlovens all seem to want their kingdom reunited. They aren’t evil people.”

  Birdy said, “I don’t think we can define Norsunder and its goals while sitting here.”

  “We have to figure out this man’s goals if we are to convince the king,” I said. “And the key is Darchelde. That much I am certain of.” The euphoria from the meal had worn off, leaving my body feeling leaden. My throat hurt, which I attributed to the amount of talking I’d done—more than I had in years. “I beg your pardon, the both of you. Though I know how inadequate it is.”

  Anhar said, “You have mine. Easily given, as your trespass against me was so small.” Birdy nodded as she said, “The hardest pardon lies ahead of you.”

  Lasva.

  “I know. But first, perhaps, I ought to contact the king about the greater matter.”

  Anhar put her palms out in Do not cross my shadow. “Carefully, yes? Because the single advantage you have is that this Norsunder mage might not know yet that you know.”

  Birdy said soberly, “If this Hannik-Herskalt finds out you have that dyr thing, he’s going to come after you.”

  My bath did not refresh me. Instead, I emerged shivering in spite of the warmth, and my skin hurt. By the next day, I was so ill with fever that I could not get out of bed, much less do magic. But I wrote to Ivandred, saying, I am here and have news for you.

  He wrote back almost immediately, telling me to transfer and use his scrollcase as a Destination.

  I was sitting stupidly in bed, the scrollcase and note on my lap, when Anhar came in with a tray of food.

  I showed her the note, then croaked, “I don’t know what to do. I need more information—Ivandred is going to want proof, he’s going to ask questions I cannot answer.”

  “Emras, tell them you cannot transfer. You are clearly ill. Birdy also told me to tell you that he knows where to begin some research, that is, with whom. Eat this. I’m going to take away this cider and brew you some listerblossom.”

  Oh, the relief just to be able to share! My already raw throat tightened with tears as I wrote to Ivandred.

  The answer was almost immediate, and it was from Lasva.

  Emras! You vanished! Hannik feared that your experiments had done something dire to you, for he says that he has not had any contact from you, either. Emras, we are riding for home. All around me everyone talks unity, loyalty, the bond of the ancient Marloven. They sing the Hymn to the Beginnings with fervor on Restday. But the word peace seems to recede farther into the future.

  For three days I tossed on my bed, my mind crowded with nightmarish images. Even after I remembered the dyr long enough to crawl out of bed and close it in with Lasva’s lover’s cup, the fever raised every fear I’d endured, going back to childhood. I was in the kitchen again, but it was not the kitchen at Alsais where I’d spent six months. It was Darchelde’s kitchen, only seen once, a distorted room filled with bread dough to knead, but my hands were tied. Sheris, who I had not thought about for over ten years, followed me up to the secret chamber, reaching with her fingers and saying, Your family hates you, Emras, everyone hates you. She metamorphosed into Carola, who offered me a cup full of poison, the cup beaten from gold, with the raptor-eyed fox etched round its rim. Drink it, before the Sartorans catch up with you.

  I ran away, into the jarlan’s old room, where the walls had been replaced with mirrors that reflected one another into infinity, as I ran and ran and ran, ever more lost in darkness.

  But the worst of all was Lasva, presiding sorrowfully as she whispered over and over, Why did you betray me? Bring me the dyr, so we can have peace at last.

  I’d wake up gasping, to find myself drenched with sweat. Anhar was often there, and once, Birdy, holding out a cup. Frightened, they brought me green kinthus as well as willow bark, and that enabled me to sleep dreamlessly. When I woke at last, I found Anhar sitting beside my bed, teasing a small kitten with a feather tied to a string.

  “What is happening?” I whispered, my voice quite gone.

  “The king and queen are riding back,” Anhar said, flicking the feather up. The little cat arched its tail, wiggled its behind, and pounced. “They’re going to celebrate harvest up in Sindan-An. Something bad happened there, that’s the rumor, anyway.”

  I hoped whatever it was had not happened to the jarlan, who was one of Lasva’s staunchest supporters. She’d already lost her middle-aged son and her older granddaughter at Olavair’s battle. But I could not waste my strength on politics, about which I could do nothing. With recovery came the weight of anxiety and the sense of impending trouble.

  “If you are awake, I’m going to get you some food.”

  “I am ravenous,” I discovered.

  “Excellent! The healer said an appetite means recovery.” She smiled and scooped up the kitten. “Come along, Rosie.”

  I had to know the dyr was safe, and I could use it to assess what was going on. I got out of bed, clutched at the wall as I swayed, light-headed, then I trod to the box, and banished the illusion. The dyr was safe, exactly where I’d laid it. I picked it up, ready to project myself—and back came Anhar’s words about intimate trespass.

  I knew that. I’d known all along that there was something wrong with what I did, but the urge to listen, to know, was so strong. And the danger was now so great. Given how many times I’d used it, what was wrong with one more?

  I reached, and there was Lasva, her lower back aching as she rode, her lips gritty with dust as Ivandred and Haldren talked. I could hear a few words, all of them military. I delved into Lasva’s memories for her last sight of Kaidas, and there it was, so powerful I reeled back and fell into my chair.

  … and there I was, mud to the eyebrows, and that colt dancing around with his tail up and his ears saying, “How smart are you now, two-leg? Put a halter on me, will you?”

  Lasva laughed. And the laughter released an overwhelming flood of anguish, sweet and yearning and sorrowful, and so intense my throat constricted as she thought, Oh Hatahra, how very wrong you were. Love does not always die, but how can death’s pain be worse?

  “Emras? Are you here?”

  I jumped, glanced around my room as my head panged—and somewhere on the road days and days north, I felt Lasva looking back down the long column of riders. “Emras?” she said again.

  She’d heard me! I flung the dyr to the stone floor, where it rang and spun. Some of those spells I’d removed must have been a protective ward of some kind that prevented victims—objects—targets—people—from hearing my thoughts when I listened.

  I forced myself to my feet, retrieved the dyr, my mental shield firmly in place, and I threw it in the box.

  Then the long journey to my bed, where I dropped flat. I had time to take two steadying breaths when Anhar was back. “You’re flushed. Is the fever back?”

  “I walked to my desk,” I said—and hated the lie. “To test the dyr,” I forced myself to say.

  She grimaced. “Don’t. Eat this instead.”

  I was halfway through a thick savory soup, accompanied by a hot rye bun slathered with honey and a hunk of cheese when someone scratched at the door.

  “Birdy,” Anhar said. “Enter!”

  Birdy walked in, greeted us, then gave me another of those puzzled, slightly wary glances.

  “What’s wrong?” Anhar said.

  “Remember tall Nashande, who was a year ahead of me when we were scribe students?” Birdy asked. “He’s a royal archivist now, and I trust his discretion. So I asked him to do some excavation into the records about this dyr. Apparently just looking at those records sends some kind of spell alert, because this just arrived, after three days of silence.”

  He held out a tiny scroll. “It’s addressed to you, Em,” he added. “It’s from your brother.”
r />   “Olnar? But I haven’t heard from him since…”

  “Read it,” Birdy said gently.

  Birdy, will you share this with Emras after you read it? Exhort her to respond!

  Emras: I am going to assume that your friend Birdy, who is known to be in Marloven Hesea, is inquiring after an object made of a substance called “disirad” that vanished from the world during the Fall of Old Sartor four thousand years ago. This much you would have learned had you been properly taught. We do not know the purpose of dyra because so many records were destroyed in the Fall, but we do know that there is at least one in existence. It is in the possession of a Norsundrian commander, and it has been used to throw kingdom-wide enchantments. There are other rumors of uses, some too harrowing to describe, but this much I can tell you: All of these uses are evil. If you have even seen a dyr, we have to know! I do not know why you never answered any of my letters, but Emras, what are you doing and why? Who have you become?

  I looked down at my half-eaten meal, sickened. I set aside the tray and covered my face with my hands.

  “Emras?” Anhar asked.

  “I can’t eat any more. I am sorry. The food is good, but…” I tossed the letter down, my mind working rapidly.

  Anhar picked up the tray, sending a worried look at Birdy, then left us alone.

  “Birdy,” I said. “You’ve read this.”

  “Yes.”

  “First, I never received any communication from my brother. When we came to this kingdom I sent a Name Day greeting, describing our journey, and received no answer. Then the Herskalt convinced me that Olnar would only scold me for learning magic on my own, and that once he found out, he’d be jealous at how much faster I’d learned. I believed that, because Olnar hadn’t answered me.”

  “You were always competitive,” Birdy observed.

  “We all were. We worked harder because of it.” He assented, and I said, “Do you have any desire to use the dyr?”

  His hands flicked out in the shadow-ward, his upper lip curling with repugnance.