Shadow Over Kiriath

  It wasn’t him. He still had hope. He had only to find his own body and make them give it back. Make Abramm give it back. Or the Mataians, or whoever had stolen it. He’d dreamed of doing just that. . . .

  But now he was waking up again, feeling the bed around him and loath to come back to consciousness where he realized the face he’d seen last night had been but a thinner, frailer version of the one to which he was accustomed.

  Voices muttered nearby, pitched low as if they did not want to be heard.

  “So can you help him?” said one. It sounded like Prittleman—No! Honarille.

  Silence ensued, during which he heard the bird cries outside, the drip of water, the distant hollow clunk of buckets being dropped, and closer the crack and pop of a fire.

  “Nay,” said the second voice, deeper and rougher than the first, but also vaguely familiar. . . . “He was bound t’ the beast. What it took from him, it took fer good.”

  “So you’re saying . . . he’ll be like this for the rest of his life?”

  “Unless yer Eidon has powers I dunno about.” Irony sharpened the rough brogue.

  Gillard considered whether he should open his eyes and reveal that he had heard them . . . but didn’t. For fear he might start pleading. Already he was feeling ill again.

  “We should leave before he wakes,” Honarille said.

  “Afraid he’ll learn the truth ’fore ye can ply him with yer empty promises?”

  “They are not empty, sir.”

  “Well, time’ll tell, I wager.”

  Gillard heard the rustle of their clothing and the clink of spurs—unlikely apparel for a Mataian—and opened his eyes a slit as they were turning away. Honarille’s companion was a tall, heavily muscled man in border-lord fur and leather with a mane of blond frizzy hair falling halfway down his back. He wore it brushed back from his forehead, mostly loose except for a braid at each temple. His jaw was covered with a dark blond grizzle, sprinkled with gray, and like his voice, his form rang bells of familiarity.

  Gillard waited for the door to close, for the latch to fasten, for the sounds of their footsteps to descend out of earshot, then sat up and shoved back the blanket. The room whirled momentarily. When it settled, he swung his legs over the bedside and stood up, waited for another wave of dizziness to subside, then shuffled to the window. Only the fear of falling and being unable to get up restrained his steps. As it was, he reached the opening barely in time to see the mysterious visitor riding away on a large bay horse.

  Horsemen, likewise in furs and leathers, awaited him in the fringe of a leafless wood beyond the bridge, and they all galloped away together, their horses’ breaths steaming in a cloud around them. Border lords. Now he knew who his visitor was: Rennalf of Balmark.

  Gillard stared at the gray skeletons of the trees into which the men had disappeared, grinding his teeth as something close to panic rose within him.

  Not long after that the door opened and Honarille stepped in with a tray of porridge and tea. As Gillard turned from the window, he stopped. “Oh. You’re up.” He did not look pleased.

  “That was Rennalf of Balmark, wasn’t it?”

  Honarille’s expression became guarded. “Who?”

  Gillard made a face at him. “I heard you talking. I know who he is.”

  Honarille came around the bed to set his tray on the table. “I asked him to come because he has knowledge of the dark ways. I thought he might be of help, but I was wrong.”

  “He said I was bound to the beast, that it was responsible for my condition, not Abramm.”

  A crease formed on Honarille’s brow beneath his stubbled pate. “In truth no one knows save you and Abramm. And from what you said, you don’t recall either way. There’s a tale that it sucked Master Rhiad right into itself, though, so I thought, maybe . . .” He trailed off.

  “I do remember it biting me,” Gillard said, staring blindly at the green hills. “I remember it sucking away my strength. . . .” He fell briefly into the memory, then pulled out of it with a shudder. “He said I’ll be like this for the rest of my life.”

  Honarille stepped up behind him. “He knows nothing of Eidon, as he admitted.”

  Gillard snorted. “Eidon. Right.” He felt as if he teetered on a gulf of despair. To be like this for the rest of his life . . . Oh, can’t it be a dream? A nightmare? Surely it’s too impossible to be true. People don’t just shrink.

  Honarille came around to face him beside the window, his narrow face grave. “Truly, sir, all is not lost.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “Eidon can restore you. You must believe that.”

  “Well, I do not believe it, Prittleman!” He glared at the other man, slamming the window embrasure with his fist for emphasis—then gasped as he both heard and felt the bones in his hand snap like dry sticks. He gasped again as the pain took him, sharp and nauseating, bending him over the window ledge as Prittleman fluttered behind him, tormenting him further with alarmed and repeated inquiries as to what was wrong.

  ————

  Nine days before their wedding, Abramm took his midday meal alone with Briellen on the terrace. At least as alone as a king and princess could be with bodyguards and servants on every hand and a quartet of musicians playing back by the orange trees near the palace doors.

  The idea had been Blackwell’s, whom he’d come a breath from dismissing permanently as Royal Secretary after the fencing-match debacle. That he hadn’t was testament to his memory of how the man had stood by him when he’d first come to Kiriath and his conviction that Byron had truly thought he was doing what was best the other day, even if he had disobeyed a direct order. Which of them was right remained undetermined.

  In any case, the next day Byron had gathered his courage and approached him regarding the matter of Briellen. “I would suggest you spend some time alone with her, sir. Try to establish at least some measure of rapport with her before your . . . well . . . before you have to face each other on your wedding night.”

  The thought filled Abramm with such cold panic he knew his secretary was right.

  The day was bright, mild, and beautiful. He had ordered the linencovered table to be set up at the terrace’s edge where the view was best, the indigo bay with its scattering of white sails framed between the opposing stands of dark green cedars. She, fearing a breeze might disturb her coiffure or give her a chill—not unreasonable considering the depth of her décolletage— had requested the table be moved back to a more sheltered, though less pleasing, aspect.

  As always, she was an easy conversationalist, chattering away quite charmingly. He had only to smile and nod and interject an “uh-huh” or an “mmm” here and there. Unfortunately, not having to work for something to talk about left his mind free to wander, and wander it did—to the most inappropriate subject possible: Madeleine. She had Briellen’s same way of bouncing from subject to subject when she was excited, although Maddie’s conversation was enormously more interesting to him than Briellen’s. There were other differences, as well.

  Briellen sat before him perfectly coifed, and Abramm did not think he’d ever seen Maddie without that errant tendril dangling against her cheek. Briellen’s porcelain-white complexion made him think fondly of the freckles that spattered Maddie’s, often over a flush raised by wind or cold. Briellen’s pink satin gown could not contrast more with the muted tapestry weaves and sturdy blue-gray woolens Maddie preferred. As Briellen smiled and batted her lashes, Abramm saw Maddie’s solemn intensity, eyes flaring with the strength of her will or flashing with the quickness of her wit, all of it lit by the warm steady glow of Eidon’s Light dwelling within her heart.

  Then Briellen would say something requiring an answer and break him from the spell to wonder what in Eidon’s wide world was wrong with him. He was supposed to be getting to know his bride better, putting all his focus upon her. Supposed to be probing beneath that veneer of sparkling beauty to see who she really was, what her dreams and fears were, what mattered mos
t to her. . . .

  Not thinking about her sister. Who never intended to marry at all. And certainly not a Kiriathan. Nor a king. He almost smiled, thinking of the way she’d said that to him so primly the night they’d first met. Almost the first thing out of her mouth. . . .

  He caught himself again, and finally forced himself to take greater part in Briellen’s conversation, questioning her more actively on the details of her discourse, why she preferred this fabric to that one, where she thought the best lace could be found, who was her favorite composer, what was her favorite ballad. . . .

  It seemed she was not a lot deeper than what she appeared. A person consumed with entertainment, with the stimulation of social life, with herself and her appearance, with the gossip regarding the doings of other people. She lived one day at a time for no more than that, apparently, and he got the impression that, under the charm, she harbored no more feeling for him than he did for her.

  At one point he brought up Eidon, asking when she’d first taken the Star. She couldn’t recall and showed little interest in pursuing that line of conversation, save as it applied to her demands for her own chapel. Which he told her he was still arranging and which she informed him now would not be acceptable. “The East Salon is simply not large enough,” she said.

  He frowned, holding his temper and counseling himself to make an effort to understand. “My lady, truly, I wish I could accommodate you. But . . . we are preparing for war and have neither the time nor resources to start new building projects. Tell me why your chapel has to have all the things you’ve requested right now.”

  She looked at him as if he were a simpleton. “Because that’s how Eidon wants it.”

  “And why do you believe that?”

  “Because . . . What do you mean, why do I believe that?” She frowned at him. “That’s the way it’s done.”

  “Says who?”

  She stared at him. “Why, the kohali, of course!”

  “Well, here it is the Mataian brethren who would most agree with you.”

  She frowned uneasily for a moment, then her brow cleared and she shrugged. “Well, just because they do doesn’t make me wrong.”

  “I’m not saying it does. I’m only saying that, nice as those things are, in the end it’s the Words themselves that matter most. They tell us so themselves. And even logic supports it, since they are the only clear means we have of knowing who Eidon is and what he wants of us. Should we not then set ourselves to study them as we have never studied anything else in life?”

  She sniffed. “I don’t think it’s like that at all. I think we know him through our hearts. And the sparklers and the songs and the beauty . . . The Words teach that, too.”

  “True. But beauty is only superficial. I can look at your face and see great beauty. But that is not all of who you are. And beauty can be lost—will be lost if you live long enough.” She frowned at him, and seeing he trod on dangerous ground, he hurried on. “To know you, I have to know your actions, your words, your thoughts. I have to know the things that matter most to you.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, as if she didn’t quite grasp what he was talking about.

  “So it is with Eidon.”

  Her face grew blanker still. Then, “You talk as if he is a person. Like me.”

  “He is a person.”

  Her delicate brows flew up in surprise, then drew down again. “He is the almighty creator. He is Father Eidon over all.”

  “And he is Tersius, the son, who became a man to walk among us and take our punishments upon himself. Though he was perfect and deserved none for himself.”

  Her eyes were glazing. A moment more she stared at him. Then she huffed a half laugh. “You weary my head with such talk, sir, speaking as one of the kohali. What does that have to do with my request? I ask only what I need so that Eidon may be worshipped properly.”

  Recognizing the futility of continuing, Abramm abandoned his cause and turned to the much less prickly subject of the loveliness of her gown.

  After the meal he placed her hand on his arm and they strolled the East Terrace together, enjoying the warm midday sun and the embroidery-like swirls of newly planted orange and yellow flowers. For a time she was blessedly silent, and he listened thankfully to the rustle of her gown, the crunch of the gravel beneath their feet, and the distant calls of the seabirds.

  Presently he roused himself and asked her about the story she had told as prelude to his fencing match with her brother, specifically about the dragon she had mentioned.

  “Are there many dragon stories in your tales?”

  “A few. The older ones. My granny says they used to live up in the Aranaak. She thinks they might live there still. . . . Most people say that’s only legend. Though the southern races have dragon tales, I’ve heard. Great sand dragons that come out of the Waladi.” She paused. “They say it is a vast desert of sand with not a drop of water for hundreds of leagues—no trees, no plants, nothing but sand.” She chuckled. “But really, it seems quite impossible to me that such a place could exist, so I suspect those stories are untrue, as well.”

  “Actually it does exist,” he said casually. “Though how far it stretches I cannot say, for I’ve only been a few leagues into it. But it is every bit as bare as they say.”

  She laughed delightedly. “Oh, come, sir, you jest with me.”

  “Not at all. And while I have heard of sand demons, I’ve not heard of sand dragons. Though the words are similar.”

  “Words?”

  “In the Tahg. The word for demon and the word for dragon are similar: shemayah, chenaga. I could see one being corrupted into the other, particularly by foreign speakers. The question is, which was it originally, demon or dragon? Or are they both the same thing?”

  She frowned but said nothing, and he took his cue to move on to something of more interest to her. As they returned up the seaward side of the terrace, he saw that a group of courtiers had gathered to watch them from the landings of both stairways.

  To his surprise and immediate concern, he saw Simon, Trap, and Walter Hamilton among them. Not wanting to alarm the ladies nor mar the rapport he’d built with Briellen today, he walked past them with a nod and escorted her to the palace doors. There he delivered her into the embrace of the gathered courtiers and with a sense of relief watched them sweep her away up the vast corridor beyond the doors. He’d finished his assignment, though in truth he felt further from her than ever. In time, he assured himself. When we get to know one another. Surely there is something we can share. . . .

  Then, shaking her from his mind, he turned to greet those few courtiers who had lingered around him, paused briefly to listen to the personal concerns several hoped he would address, and finally returned to the landing outside where the three highest-ranking members of his war council awaited him.

  “There’ve been two more galley sightings,” Simon told him without preamble. “Two vessels yesterday by a fisherman returning to port at Tidewall and one this morning by a shepherdess off Dolphin Point.”

  “Drawing steadily nearer Springerlan,” Abramm observed.

  “Aye, sir.” There was a note of undeniable satisfaction in his uncle’s voice. Simon was convinced that if the rumors were true that Belthre’gar had demanded Briellen to wife in exchange for sparing Chesedh, there could be little doubt he would be furious to learn Hadrich had given her to Abramm instead. It was thus reasonable to think he might attack on the day they were to be wed. The Esurhites had already tried to ruin Abramm’s coronation. Why not his wedding, as well? Especially when they might even succeed in stealing the bride.

  “It’s never more than two or three, though,” Abramm said.

  “No doubt to put us off, keeping the rest hidden in the mist so we won’t know their full strength.”

  “He’s got to know I’d have a good idea of his strength. If they could hide some, why not all? Why tip their hand and give up the advantage of surprise?”

  “Maybe he wishes to
get us rattled before he comes,” Hamilton said. “A tactic you have used to advantage yourself.”

  “Yes.” Abramm stared out across the blue sea to the cloud bank lowering on the horizon. “Make the enemy think you’re far when you’re near, near when you’re far. Make him think you’re large when you’re small. . . .” He hesitated, then brought his eyes back to the men beside him. “And small when you’re large.”

  Simon nodded. “Exactly, sir.”

  “What, then, is your recommendation, gentlemen?”

  They exchanged glances and Simon said, “Implement your plan to defend against an imminent attack, sir.”

  In any other circumstances Abramm would have agreed without hesitation. But with preparations for the royal wedding fully underway, and the city’s population swelling daily with arriving attendees, a false alarm would cost much in both substance and inconvenience. Worse, it would reduce the people’s willingness to react as quickly the next time. He guessed from the glances his advisors had shared just now that they had the same reservations. Yet they still recommended going forward.

  A moment more he hesitated, then, “See to it.”

  Simon and Admiral Hamilton hurried off, but Trap lingered.

  “You’re thinking about the guardstar, aren’t you?” Abramm asked him.

  His friend nodded. “Have you been back up there at all since the day we dug out the mound?”

  “No. Truth be told, I don’t have much hope for that thing. I suspect it is just a cannonball. But even if it isn’t, I still have no idea how to ignite it.”