Novels by
C. S. Friedman
available from DAW Books:
The Magister Trilogy
Feast of Souls
Wings of Wrath
Legacy of Kings
The Coldfire Trilogy
Black Sun Rising
When True Night Falls
Crown of Shadows
The Madness Season
This Alien Shore
In Conquest Born
The Wilding
Legacy of Kings
C. S. Friedman
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Copyright © 2011 by C.S. Friedman.
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Jacket art by John Jude Palencar.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1558.
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This book is for Jen Kuiper:
Awesome role-player
Valued friend
Mensch
Acknowledgements
L
ITERARY THANKS go to Cordwainer Smith for his stunning story “The Game of Rat and Dragon” and Anne McCaffrey for her Pern series, for sparking my interest in the linkage of human and animal consciousness. While the theme has appeared in more books than one can count, the ways in which those two writers handled it raised questions in my mind that took on a life of their own over the years, until they helped give birth to this series. Those were benign relationships, of course, involving domestic cats on one hand and a species genetically altered to interact with humans on the other. Being of a much darker bent, I found myself wondering what such a relationship would be like if the species in question were one whose mind was not naturally compatible with the human psyche, but a truly wild creature with whom we had no common ground. And thus began the creative journey that culminated in this book.
Creative thanks go to Betsy Wollheim and Russ Galen, who helped me take that idea and mold it into a truly great story. No writer could possibly ask for a better editor or agent.
Revision thanks go to my reading team, who labored tirelessly to provide an answer to the writer’s eternal question, “Hey, how do you think it’s going?” That’s Carl Cipra, Zsusy Sanford, David Walddon, Steve Rappaport, Paul Hoeffer, and Jennifer Eastman.
Research thanks go to Christian Cameron, Jon Herrmann, Aleksandra Kleczar, Dr. Julian Redditt, and Markus Ofner for providing the kind of information and assistance you just can’t get from books.
Artistic thanks go to John Palencar for my beautiful covers. All I can say is . . . wow. Seriously. Wow.
And last—but definitely not least—very special thanks go to the people who helped keep me sane while I was writing this book. I have had a few speed bumps in my life during the last couple of years, and these people helped me overcome them and get back to the keyboard: James and Jenny Wood, Carmen C. Clarke, Jen Kuiper, David Williams, Anthony C., Jed Stancato, Cathy Wallin, Kristi Kelly, Hugh Montgomerie, Melissa Hendrix, Amanda Spikol, Chazz Mahan, and Tonya Druin. You guys were great. Thank you for being there when I needed you and for helping me stay grounded. (Well, as grounded as I ever get.)
What will future minstrels sing of the days leading up to the final battle?
They will sing of the Souleaters with their stained-glass wings, who feasted upon the life-essence of mankind and brought down the First Age of Kings. And of the army of martyrs that gathered to fight them, led by the world’s last surviving witches. By fire and faith they herded the great beasts into an arctic prison, where the incessant cold and long winter’s darkness would rob them of strength, and hopefully of life. And the gods themselves struck the earth with great Spears, it was said, erecting a barrier born of their Wrath, which would hold any surviving Souleaters prisoner until the end of time. For forty generations the Wrath held strong, so that the Second Age of Kings could thrive. But it was not truly a divine creation, merely a construct of witches, and when it finally faltered, the Souleaters began their invasion.
They will sing of the Magisters, undying sorcerers who wielded a power that seemed without limit, and of how they were bound by their Law to the fates of mortal men. But no minstrel will sing of the secret that lay at the heart of that dark brotherhood, for no mortal man who learned the truth would be allowed to live. The Magisters fueled their sorcery with the life-essence of human consorts, offering up the death of innocents to assure their own immortality. Perhaps that practice was what corrupted their spirits, so that they became innately hostile to their own kind . . . or perhaps there was another cause. Colivar alone seemed to know the truth, but even his most ancient and determined rival, Ramirus, had not yet been able to pry that information out of him.
They will sing of Kamala, a red-headed child destined for poverty and abuse in the slums of Gansang, who defied the fates and became the first female to learn the art of true sorcery. But her accidental killing of Magister Raven broke the brotherhood’s most sacred Law, and even her reclusive mentor Ethanus dared not give her shelter any longer. Forced to masquerade as a witch, she traveled the world in search of some knowledge or artifact that she might barter for her safety, so that she could bear the title of Magister openly and claim her proper place in the brotherhood of sorcerers.
They will sing of Danton Aurelius, who ruled the High Kingdom with an iron fist until the traitor Kostas brought him down. They will craft lamentations for the two young princes who died alongside their father, even as they celebrate the courage of Queen Gwynofar in avenging her husband’s death. Alas, it was not to be the end of her trials. For when prophecy summoned her to Alkali to search for the Throne of Tears, an ancient artifact that would awaken the lyr bloodlines to their full mystical potential, the gods demanded her unborn child in sacrifice, and later her beloved half-brother, Rhys.
They will sing of the Witch-Queen, Siderea Aminestas, mistress of Magisters and consort to kings, whom the sorcerers abandoned when her usefulness ended. And of the Souleater who saved her life, at the cost of her human soul. Vengeance burned bright in her heart the day she fled Sankara on the back of her jewel-winged consort, seeking a land where she could plant the seeds of a new and terrible empire.
They will sing of Salvator, third son of Danton Aurelius, who set aside the vows of a Penitent monk to inherit his father’s throne, rejecting the power and the protection of the Magisters in the name of his faith. Songs will be crafted to tell how he was tested by demons, doubt, and the Witch-Queen herself, even while the leaders of his Church argued over how he might best be manipulated to serve their political interests.
And last of all they will sing of the confrontation that was still to come, in which the fate of the Second Age of Kings—and of all mankind—would be decided. And those who hear their songs will wonder whether a prince-turned-monk-turne
d-king could really save the world, when the god that he worshiped might have been the one who called for its destruction in the first place.
Prologue
T
HE BATTLEFIELD was silent.
Bodies lay strewn across the blood-soaked ground, corpses of enemies intertwined like lovers. Thousands upon thousands of men who had once been the pride of their nations—strong and loyal soldiers—were now reduced to carrion. With death they had lost all dignity, all purpose. It no longer mattered who they had fought for, or how deeply they had believed in their causes. The ravens that were gathering over the battlefield cared nothing for such human niceties.
Silently, Colivar walked among the corpses. The battle had not brought him as much pleasure as it should have. The heady intoxication he had once experienced when he caused men to turn against their brothers, back when the sport was still new to him, was now dulled by familiarity.
All these men had died at his call or at the call of some other Magister. Oh, they’d thought they were dying to serve their kings—giving up their lives for a cause that was worthy of sacrifice—but the sorcerers knew better. By now the leaders who had ordered this conflict were dead, along with all their counselors. Perhaps their heirs as well. It might not even have been Colivar’s opponent who had killed them all. Human conflict on this scale drew Magisters like flies. What greater exercise of power was there, than to cast an entire nation into chaos? Few could resist such temptation.
While Colivar’s blood still became heated at the thought of such a contest—that perverse spark within him would probably never die—his human soul, a distant and wounded thing, remained cold. The kind of events that had once moved him to ecstasy no longer had that power. Did that mean that the ancient wounds were healing at last? Was it a sign that his humanity, rent to pieces by madness so many years ago, was slowly pulling itself back together? Or were the final fragments of his battered soul simply expiring from sheer exhaustion, starved to death by this cold, callous existence? If so, what would he become when they were finally gone? Uncomfortable questions, to be sure.
“This has to end.” The voice came from behind him, shattering his reverie. “You know that.”
The sudden awareness of another man so close to him triggered Colivar’s most primitive territorial instincts. Whipping about, he called forth enough soulfire to defend himself from any manner of assault—or to launch an attack himself—and held it at the ready while he took stock of his visitor. That the man was a Magister himself was immediately apparent, from his bearing if not his dress. Hatred keened inside Colivar’s brain, primitive impulses surging through his veins with undeniable force. Drive the invader away! Tear him to pieces if he will not flee! If Colivar had been a weaker Magister he might have lost the connection to his human self entirely at that moment and launched himself at the intruder like an animal. The sensation of what it was like to tear open an enemy’s neck with razor-sharp teeth was not so distant in his past that he had forgotten it. Even as he struggled to fight back the tide of bestial instinct, part of him longed to surrender to it.
But finally, with effort, he recovered enough self-control to shape human words again. “Why are you here?” he demanded. His voice sounded strange in his ears, hoarse and halting. He did not talk much to anyone these days. “What do you want?”
“To speak with you,” the stranger said calmly. If he felt the same territorial passions coursing through his veins he showed no sign of it. “Nothing more.”
Magisters rarely socialized with one another. Once they were no longer students, but had fully established their independent identities, the territorial instinct in them became too strong to allow for it. Each sorcerer went his own way in life, and if the paths of two should happen to cross, thousands of morati might die as they competed for supremacy. Whole kingdoms had been swallowed up by such rivalries, knights and princes waging war for causes they believed to be their own, when in fact their hearts were manifesting the territorial rage of the sorcerers who controlled them. Not that it mattered what morati believed. Even if such men had known the truth, they could not have resisted.
But . . . a strange Magister was here now, in his domain, and Colivar had managed to resist the immediate impulse to destroy him. Perhaps the recent battle had drained his inner beast of strength, at least enough to make civilized discourse possible. It was an interesting concept. Perhaps worth exploring further.
He absorbed back into himself the power that he had conjured. No doubt the stranger knew how quickly he could summon it again if need be. “Speak,” he said hoarsely.
The stranger was a tall man, solidly built, with fine wrinkles about his eyes and a hint of gray at his temples. Which might mean that he had undergone First Transition while in his 30s or 40s and ceased to age physically at that point. Or it might mean that he had been a gangly youth, or even an elderly cripple, who was now using his power to provide himself with more attractive flesh. There was no way to know. Using one’s power to find out a Magister’s true appearance—or true age, or true anything—was considered a mortal offense.
“You heard my words.” The man’s voice was quiet but compelling, in the manner of one who knows he does not need volume to make his point. “This has to end.” A sharp, sweeping gesture encompassed the battlefield, as well as Colivar and the whole world beyond him. “All this.”
“You mean . . . the war?”
“I mean what we bring to it. Our excesses. Our internecine violence. The price that the morati world pays for our boundless self-indulgence.”
The corner of Colivar’s mouth twitched. “So we should be more . . . considerate?”
“No. Simply more practical.”
“For the sake of the morati?”
The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “Once there were great kingdoms scattered across the earth. What is there now? Chaos. Barbarism. Barely a memory of great things and no energy left to restore them. Is that the world we wish to live in?”
“We were not the ones who caused the First Kingdoms to fall,” Colivar pointed out.
“No. But we keep them from being rebuilt.” The stranger’s eyes were clear and bright, the pale blue color of arctic ice. It awakened shadows of memories in Colivar that he would rather forget. “Do you not wish to see the great towers rise up once more? To live in the kind of world that the First Kings once enjoyed? We, who feed upon death, will never create such things ourselves. We are too obsessed with destruction, too blinded by our instinctive hatred for one another. And in our madness we are dragging the morati down with us. Soon there will be nothing left in them that is capable of greatness. And that will be a loss for us all.”
How arrogant this man was, Colivar thought, to lecture another Magister as if he were a schoolchild! In another time and place he might have been infuriated by such behavior. It might even have caused him forget his self-control and end this interview in bloodshed, as the beast inside cried out for him to do. But there were other emotions stirring inside him also, strange and disturbing emotions, that spoke to his more human side. And so he denied the beast sovereignty. For now.
The stranger was right about the future of civilization, of course. No Magister knew that better than Colivar. He alone understood the full measure of what mankind had lost. He yearned for that ancient world in a way none of the others could possibly comprehend. He also understood enough of the Magisters’ true nature to know that mankind would never reach those heights of greatness again. The Souleaters had simply destroyed too much. And now the Magisters were here. Mankind might recover from the first plague, but the second was far more dangerous.
“We are predators,” he said harshly. “Not caretakers.”
“And what good will that distinction do us when the world is swallowed up by chaos? For that is where it’s headed right now; you know that. It may bleed but slowly from the wounds we have dealt it thus far, but it bleeds nonetheless. We must stanch the wound while healing is still possible. Else our very world wil
l slip through our fingers, and not all the sorcery in existence will be able to restore it.”
“You care about the morati,” Colivar challenged. Not because he believed the stranger really did, but to stir up his inner beast and put him off his guard. Accusing any Magister of human compassion was a powerful insult. He was curious to see how this one would respond.
But the stranger did not flinch. “And you were once willing to die for them, Colivar. Or so the legends suggest. Is that true? Did the welfare of the common man once mean that much to you?”
Memories—true memories!—came welling up from the darkness where he had buried them long ago. They had been rent to pieces by the madness and suffocated by years of neglect, but even in their damaged and disjointed state they still had the power to shake him to the depths of his soul.
He looked away from the stranger, not wanting to meet his eyes, and gazed out over the battlefield. Ravens had come down to earth and begun to pick at the flesh of the fallen. Some of the solders were not quite dead yet, but they were too wounded to fight the birds off. Colivar was closer kin to those ravens, he knew, than to the morati. He accepted that. The beast that was within him would have it no other way. Once, long ago, he had tried to deny it, to pretend that he was still human. But the beast was a part of his soul now, wedded to him by his own willing submission, and was not so easily banished.
If you understood the true source of our power, he thought, you would not question me thus.
“There may once have been a morati named Colivar, who cared about this world.” He kept his voice carefully neutral, so that this stranger would not guess at the maelstrom of emotion that his words had inspired. “Perhaps he would even have been willing to offer up his life for it. But that man is dead now.” He turned back to the intruder. “We are what we are. Not all the sorcery in the world can change that.”