Others became aware of it more slowly, or refused to recognize it, or recognized it but refused its call—this latter including Kâna and his cousin, as well as Tsanaali. If there was one reaction that was most frequent, it seems to have been a certain confusion and disorientation, as those who were once citizens became aware of a peculiar sensation, perhaps a familiar one, but one which left them unable to concentrate for a length of time more or less prolonged.
Those who had been conceived or born after Adron's Disaster had no experience of the Orb, and were unaware of its return, and so had to recapitulate the experience of those of our ancestors who lived at the time of the formation of the Empire: they had to make a conscious choice to become citizens, and, as they were as yet unaware of it, they could not yet make that choice.
We should add that by using the locution "conceived or born" we have avoided one of the controversies upon which hundreds of magical philosophers have been debating ceaselessly: Where between conception and birth falls the moment when the Orb insinuates itself from a mother who is a citizen to an infant who is to become one? We cannot, in this brief work, take the time to explore this question with the thoroughness it deserves, so we will say only that it seems to be the case that the connection comes somewhere toward the end of the mother's term of pregnancy. We hope the reader will be satisfied with this explanation, because it the only one we are offering. Our point remains that those who had never known the experience of citizenship would be required, at some point in the future, to make the decision as to whether to accept this connection, and that those who had known it were able to make at the very instant of awareness.
That is, at this moment, the question of citizenship in the Empire was once more up to the individual.
And this, then, is the answer to the question we did ourselves the honor of asking above, and the historian humbly suggests that it is inarguable. The Interregnum ended upon that well-known winter's day in the two hundred and forty-seventh year, when Zerika emerged from the Halls of Judgment bearing the Orb (not, as many have it, having found it upon the ground after leaving the Halls of Judgment, or, as others have it, having searched the Paths of the Dead far and wide for where it had accidentally fallen after being blasted from the domain of men by Adron's Disaster, or having been handed it by someone else who retrieved it from the Paths—the candidates for this nonexistent honor being as diverse as Lady Ithanor and Lord Morrolan—or, indeed, having carried it within her all of her life, at last giving birth to it as if to a child, as a few ludicrous mystics have suggested).
That day, that moment, all past and potential citizens of the Empire had the choice to become so again, and, therefore, at that moment the Interregnum ended, and if there are words to mark the event, as there often are in moments of high historic drama, they would have to be Tazendra's remark, "It has returned, or I'm a norska."
The proof that these words marked the event, and the beginning of the spread of the influence of the Orb over all of those who had once been citizens of the Empire, is the very fact that no other words have ever been recorded; and it is well known that "historians" of the popular school dearly love to mark great events by the words which accompanied them. What reason would they have for ignoring words to mark the occasion except that these words fail, in their judgment, to convey the proper sense of the occasion?
This does not trouble us for the simple reason that we have set as our goal the reporting of what occurred, not the pandering to public taste that corrupts and defiles the work of some of our fellows.
That the words uttered by the brave Tazendra are not as grandiose and full of pomp as Kieron the Conqueror's, "The sea has brought our salvation," or Undauntra the First's, "Let him who doubts the victory wrest the banner from my hand," or Sethra Lavode's, "I speak for the Mountain, and the Mountain speaks for the Orb," or Lord Kuinu's, "By all the Lords of Judgment, it is proved at last," or expressive of the elegant understatement of Tigarrae's famous "Turn around, my lord; I am behind you," or Deo's "Welcome, my lady, to my home"; still they are what was said, and so our duty as historian places before us the necessity of laying them before the reader. "It has returned, or I'm a norska" are the words that ushered in the end of the Interregnum, if not the restoration of the Empire and the reign of Zerika the Fourth.
They also ushered in certain events of more immediate concern to the reader who has done us the honor of following the unfolding of this story; which events we now propose, without further delay, to describe.
Chapter the Forty-Third
How Four Old Friends Met
After Being Apart for a Long Time
Some historians have expressed the belief that Grita would have given the order to halt the attack if she had been able to—that is, if there had been time for her to issue an order of any sort. The author, for his part, has no way of knowing for certain if this is true, but begs to submit that none of his brother historians has any way of knowing either. It must be the case that Grita, having at one time been a citizen, and being, moreover, in close proximity to the emerging Orb, was aware that it had returned; yet, it is worth considering that three hundred years earlier she had shown no especial loyalty to the Empire of which she was a citizen; why, then, should she now?
But, as the matter cannot be proven one way or another, there is no reason to dwell upon it—the moreso as we know, if not how she was thinking, at least what she did. The command had been given, and the two or three ropes went over the bluff, and Grita's small troop went sliding down these ropes, each holding a weapon at the ready. The surprise was complete: Piro, Kytraan, and Tazendra were all on bended knee, and Lar was actually prostrate upon the ground. The brigands landed with the additional advantage of numbers—there were ten or twelve of them, compared to four of our friends with the addition of a lackey.
It should, from all of this, have been over quickly—a most appalling slaughter.
But there was one thing that changed the entire nature of the battle, and, in the event, determined its outcome: the Orb. That most vital of all artifacts wasted no time in making its presence felt; indeed, it began to play a rôle in its own defense within seconds of its re-appearance. It did so, to begin with, in the simplest possible way: merely by existing.
That is, several of the attackers were old enough to have been citizens before the Interregnum, and, even as they were going down the rope, they, each in his own way, became aware of the sensation of the Orb's return—a sensation to which each, of course, reacted in his own way. And, when they reached the ground and the first thing they saw was Zerika, with the Orb sedately circling her head, well, the reader can understand that some of them became more than a little agitated. Indeed, two or three of them, upon seeing her, at once dropped their weapons and prostrated themselves, even as Lar, alarmed by the sudden intrusion of briganded ropes, began to rise and reach once more for his cooking pan. Some of the others, while not going so far as to take themselves entirely out of the fight, were, at least for a while, sufficiently discomfited to impair their ability to mount an attack.
Of the remainder, the reader should recall that these were the younger ones—that is, those who had not yet been born at the time of Adron's Disaster, and so had no connection to the Orb, nor awareness of it; and the reader should understand that Grita, in planning her battle, had placed the older and more experienced brigands in such a position as to land first, on the theory that they had cooler heads, and would thus be better able to handle effectually any unforeseen circumstances. Unfortunately for Grita and her force, the particular unforeseen circumstance that occurred tended to remove from combat those upon whom she had depended to handle any emergencies. With several of these individuals shocked into immobility, the others, coming down the rope, became entangled with them, with the result that, instead of being confronted by an overwhelming force, our friends were, in the event, confronted only by three of their enemy in any condition to pose an immediate threat—a number which very quickly became two when
Tazendra, the first to recover, stood up and neatly took the head off the one who was nearest her.
Kytraan and Piro recovered at almost the same instant, which might have been an instant too late, except that their opponents found themselves distracted by observing their companion's head fly from its shoulders, which delayed them just long enough for the Dragon and the Tiassa to assume their guard positions and engage those who were about to attack them.
Of them, Kytraan struck first, at once giving his opponent a good cut on her sword arm, causing her to drop her sword and retire from the contest in confusion. Piro took a defensive posture and received the attack with good style, first parrying a cut for his shoulder, then leaning back to avoid a cut for his head, and then slipping sideways away from a thrust at his chest, after which, his enemy being slightly off-balance, he gave this worthy a thrust through the upper part of his thigh which left him stretched out on the ground unable to rise, and which forced him to surrender his sword, declaring himself beaten.
Another of the brigands, disentangling himself from the others at the base of the rope, attempted to rise, but was met unexpectedly by a heavy, cast-iron object in the form of a cooking pot, wielding by Lar's strong right arm; after receiving this, the bandit exercised the only option then available to him: he fell like a dead mass.
Tazendra stepped forward, looking for another—but this was too much for the brigands. One of them, a man named Grassfog, ran past Zerika into the cave, only to emerge a moment later, hands raised in token of surrender. Two or three others dropped their weapons and declared themselves unwilling to continue the contest. The remainder ran, picking the direction away from Tazendra and her greatsword, running to the southeast, leaving, in all, five uninjured prisoners to have their weapons collected, these being, in addition to Grassfog, a woman named Iatha, a woman named Thong, a man named Ritt, and a man called Belly, named for a rather remarkable paunch that he had developed from living a sedentary life and in eating, as his friends said, "Like an Easterner."
It is worth asking why Tazendra had not, in this battle, used the remarkable powers she had been developing under the tutelage of Sethra Lavode. Alas, we cannot answer this for certain. It is possible that it was her innate sense of fair play that prevented it; that is to say, she feared to take unfair advantage of her opponents. It is also possible that matters developed too quickly for her mind to organize itself into the necessary patterns required by wizardry. In the opinion of this author, the reason is more simple: it didn't occur to her. In any case, the fact remains that she did not, and the reader is welcome to draw his own conclusions as to the reason.
"Well," said Tazendra, lowering her sword and frowning. "That was hardly worth the trouble."
"You think not?" said Piro, staring out to the west once more. "But perhaps there is more to come. If all of those horsemen are to attack us, well, I nearly think we will be required to break a sweat in order to defeat them."
Tazendra looked in that direction and said, "You may be right. But first, while we have the time, I must bow once more to my Empress."
"With this plan," said Piro, "I agree. Only, I beg leave to observe that we cannot all do so at once while still maintaining a watch on our prisoners."
"That is true," said Kytraan. "But then, in what order shall we go?"
"Tazendra first," decided Piro. "You next, and I shall go last."
"But what of Lar?" said Kytraan.
"Oh, Lar can make his obeisance after me."
"Very well," said Kytraan. "I have no more arguments to make."
"Nor have I," said Tazendra, who then, without further delay, made a courtesy to Her Majesty, which salute the Phoenix acknowledged with a grace and aplomb which belied a certain discomfort she felt in accepting such a gesture, not being used to it. Kytraan went next, and then Piro, and finally Lar, while Zerika did her best to accept the reverences, reminding herself that it was to the Orb and to the Empire it represented, not to her, that the honor was being done. The only sign betraying her distress was a slight orange cast that crept into the Orb.
At this point, Zerika cleared her throat, in order to make her first speech as Empress, or, at any rate, to respond to the obeisances done her. She was prevented, however, by a voice saying, "Our arrival appears, on this occasion, to have been rather less timely, but not so urgently required." We hasten to add that, just as it was the last time we referred to a voice, rather than a person, as if it could speak, the speaker was none other than Aerich. This time, instead of rescuing Khaavren in the company of Tazendra, he was rescuing Tazendra in the company of Khaavren—although, as he himself said, their arrival was not as urgently required as it had been on that day more than two hundred years before to which we have done ourselves the honor to refer.
These words having been spoken, everyone at once looked in the direction of the voice, and there were gasps of astonishment from several of those present.
"Father!" cried Piro.
"My lord!" said Kytraan.
"Ah, it is Khaavren and Aerich," said Tazendra, rushing forward and throwing herself into their arms.
"Bah!" said Khaavren. "It could not be you! You have not changed by so much as a hair."
"On the contrary, my dear Khaavren," said Aerich. "It must be she, for who else would prevent us from paying our respects to Her Majesty?"
"Ah, how you take on!" said Tazendra. "Empires come and go, but friendship is rare."
Khaavren, still holding her, chuckled and said, "No, it cannot be Tazendra. The Dzurlord I know is incapable of such profundity."
"Ah, you jest with me! Well, there is no doubt that you are Khaavren!"
We should add that Röaana and Ibronka hung back rather shyly, unsure of what they should do or say. At last the embrace ended, and Tazendra stepped back and looked at her two friends, while Piro rushed forward, in his turn, to embrace his father. As he did so, Tazendra remarked, "Well, that is three of us. I wonder where Pel is?"
"Why, my dear, I am behind you," said the Yendi, coolly standing on the bluff from which the brigands had just launched their attack.
We hope the reader will permit us, even as these words are pronounced, to say two words about our ineffable friend, the Duke of Galstan. We do not know, in fact, when he realized that it was Khaavren's son he had been following with malicious intent. We do not know what went on in his heart upon realizing that he was faced with conflict between his unquenchable ambition and the friendship that he treasured more than he was capable of admitting, even to himself.
But from all we know, we can be certain of this: When these two powerful emotions—ambition and friendship—at last faced each other in the crucible of his heart, the decisive push, as it were, came from the same source for him as for so many others: the Imperial Orb. He could not deny, even to himself, the flood of emotion that accompanied its return. And so, even as made the cool announcement to which we have alluded, "Why, my dear, I am behind you," the contest within his heart was over: ambition had surrendered, and friendship had triumphed.
Tazendra turned. "Pel! But, was it you who launched that attack upon us?"
"I?" said Pel. "Not the least in the world. My attack is coming from that direction, and will be more severe."
At these words, Tazendra, Khaavren, and Aerich, who had been staring at Pel open-mouthed, suddenly turned in the direction he had indicated, and realized that, in fact, there was a sizable group of riders bearing down on them, looking as if they had no intention of stopping.
"Cracks and Shards," said Tazendra.
"Who are they?" said Khaavren.
"They are a detachment of Kâna's army," said Pel. "Sent to intercept the Orb."
"How, they know of the Orb?" cried Piro. "And, Father, who is this man? And Zivra—that is to say, Zerika—how did you survive the fall from Deathgate? And who are these girls you have brought? And what shall we do about these forces about to descend upon us?"
Khaavren chuckled. "I believe, my son, that we should begin wit
h the last question."
"You are, as always, full of wisdom," said Aerich.
"No, my friend, you are full of wisdom. I am merely clever on occasion."
Aerich smiled and didn't answer.
"And I agree as well," said the Yendi. "Only—this is the son you told me about?"
"Yes," said Khaavren, with a fond smile at the Viscount.
"The deuce! And I have been spending all of this time tracking him, and attempting to thwart his mission. And to make matters worse, there is Tazendra with him."
"How, you have?" said Khaavren, frowning,
"Yes, alas, it seems I have."
"Well, and now?"
"Ah, and now? Well, certainly, now it is different. We must find a way out of this. Give me a moment, and I will come down to you that we may consider the matter."
"Not the least in the world," said Piro.
"How? What do you mean?" said Pel.
"Instead of you coining down, I would suggest the rest of us go up. After all, the ropes are already there, and I think sufficiently strong to support us."
Aerich smiled. "Your son, my dear Khaavren, takes after his father."
"Then you agree?" said Khaavren.
"I nearly think I do."
"As do I," said Pel.
"And I," said Tazendra.
"Only—"said Aerich.
"Yes?" said Khaavren.
"What of Her Majesty?"
"Ah! That is true!" cried Khaavren. "We cannot require her to climb up a rope."
"And there is, in addition," said Aerich, "the question of whether Her Majesty will condescend to retreat."