Green Rider

  Amilton drew out a round bloody mass. “What jest is this?” he hissed. A headless chicken still dripping blood dangled from his hand.

  Mirwell laughed again and Amilton turned his fiery gaze on the old man. The chicken hit the floor with a soft, wet sound. “Tell me why you laugh, Mirwell.”

  “Where is my chair?” he demanded.

  Amilton blinked, not comprehending.

  What in the name of Aeryc is going on? Stevic wondered.

  “Imbecile.” Mirwell’s eyes were dark. “I ask you, where is my chair? The guard you sent after it . . . where is he?”

  Amilton glanced about wildly. “Guard!” he cried, but the man did not reappear. The remaining guards shifted nervously.

  “There are those who are not what they seem,” Mirwell said. “You think you have won the game, but your opponent has deceived you with his strategy.”

  Understanding dawned slowly on Amilton’s features. A muscle spasmed in his cheek.

  Everything fell to stillness again; the air did not stir, and the light did not flicker. Those who watched held their breaths in the uncertain atmosphere, waiting to see what Amilton would do next. Stevic felt caught in the clutches of some spell and thought he must burst, his inaction gnawing at him with new ferocity.

  Amilton broke the spell. He faced the Gray One squarely. His cheek twitched again. With a trembling hand, he reached out and threw back the Gray One’s hood.

  “Captain Mapstone!” Stevic said in surprise.

  The Green Rider folded her arms and grinned.

  Amilton’s face took on a deathly pallor and he staggered back as if struck. A confused babble broke out among the nobles.

  Amilton’s lower lip quivered. “Guards!” he shouted, but only half of them appeared, looking just as bewildered as he by the turn of events. “Jen-Jendara!” She did not answer. She had vanished completely, and she had done so with such stealth that no one had seen her go.

  Amilton groped at his black stone, and it seemed to calm him. Color slowly crept back into his cheeks. His guards stood uneasily about him, their swords drawn.

  A tapestry not far from the throne fluttered aside, and two black-clad Weapons, followed by a very much alive King Zachary, entered. The king looked exhausted beyond measure and as if his bound and splinted arm pained him.

  “Aeryc and Aeryon preserve us,” Lady Estora said.

  “Breyan’s gold!” The darkness that had pressed down on Stevic dissipated and was replaced by a lightness of heart. “I never believed in miracles . . .”

  The clack and whiz of a crossbow broke the stunned silence. The bolt hit its mark with a loud thwack and King Zachary staggered backward, but did not fall. He glanced down in disbelief at the bolt stuck in his splint. By the time everyone looked to see who had fired it, the soldier lay dead on the floor with his throat slashed open, and a third Weapon stepped out of the shadows.

  King Zachary wrenched the bolt out of his splint, and a cheer went up among the nobles. The king waved everyone to silence and faced his brother. “You are unfit to rule. Give up.”

  “Hear, hear!” cried the nobles. A convivial mood took them and their courage swelled with the king’s presence and brave words.

  Zachary motioned them to silence again, and fixed his attention on his brother. “My soldiers and Weapons stand ready to retake the castle.”

  “Your soldiers are being held prisoner, or are dead.”

  “Others are seeing to their release.”

  “Then if you want the crown, take it off my head.”

  Amilton’s voice was a low growl, like that of a cornered wolf. His eyes were half slits. He stroked his stone and it glowed with a black aura. He swept his hand out.

  Slam! Slam! Slam! The lights dimmed and flickered with the onrush of air as the great oak doors of the entrance, followed by the secret door Zachary had come through, shut in quick succession.

  Amilton closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The stone flared with power, and he flung his arms wide as if to embrace it. Moments later, the power slowly ebbed away to a glimmer. He dropped his arms to his sides. When he opened his eyes, gasps issued from those who stood before him. His eyes were no longer brown, but light blue.

  “Now,” he said, “no one can enter or leave.” His facial muscles relaxed and the fire burning within him cooled. Each movement he made was controlled, steady; more like a wild predator stalking its choice of prey.

  Stevic had seen Amilton demonstrate his power several times already this night, but it still raised the hairs on his arms. And why were his eyes blue? That had never happened before.

  The nobles, who had begun to see a return of sanity with King Zachary’s miraculous arrival, now spoke nervously among themselves, their feet shuffling on the stone floor. Captain Mapstone, Stevic noted, was looking less certain.

  Two of the Weapons approached Amilton with their hands on the hilts of their swords.

  Black energy pulsated to life about Amilton’s hands. The Weapons drew their swords. Amilton flung his hands out, and strands of black energy surged off his fingertips. The ropy tendrils of magic twisted up their sword blades and forked into their faces. It knocked them senseless to the floor.

  The third Weapon hesitated, and when Amilton cast his gaze his way, he stopped his advance altogether.

  “Fools.” Two voices in unison, issued from Amilton’s mouth. One of his own biting tenor, the other was lighter and melodious.

  Amilton’s blue eyes rested on King Zachary. With a flick of his hand, Zachary fell hard to his knees. Captain Mapstone started forward to aid him, but he shook his head. “Stay put, Laren,” he said. Of Amilton he asked, “What has happened to you, brother?”

  Amilton held his hands up before him, letting the magic weave between his fingers. “We have learned much,” he said with the strange double voice. “Together we combine our strengths.”

  We? Stevic wondered. Our?

  Zachary attempted to stand, but Amilton’s hand swept down, and the king fell to his knees again.

  “You must observe proper obeisance,” Amilton said.

  “You are not a king,” Zachary replied.

  The Amilton of old would have exploded with fury, but now he simply gazed down at his brother with cold, alien eyes. “You may capitulate now and save yourself pain. Or you may make life not worth living for you and your minions.” He turned his attention to Captain Mapstone. Stretching out his hand, he clenched it into a fist.

  Captain Mapstone’s eyes bulged, and she clasped her throat, gasping for air. Her breaths were raspy and ineffective. She sank to her knees.

  “Stop!” Zachary said.

  Amilton dropped his hand, and the captain fell the rest of the way to the floor, panting and gagging. Stevic thrust Lady Estora into Sevano’s arms and stepped over to her, his heart hammering against his chest.

  “Are you all right?” he whispered.

  She was white around the lips, but she looked up at him with wide hazel eyes. A strand of red hair had escaped her braid and fallen across her pale face. For the first time since he had met her, she looked truly frightened. She opened her mouth to speak, but could only choke. He helped her to sit up.

  “Does this mean you capitulate?” Amilton asked.

  “Your argument is with me,” Zachary said. “Leave my people out of it.”

  Amilton’s eyebrows bobbed up in mock surprise. “We think not, not after your spies and messengers have hurt us. One nearly destroyed us. They must all be punished, but it is up to you how severely.”

  King Zachary’s gaze roved over the worried nobles, his injured Weapons, Captain Mapstone, and the woman who assumed the role of the Mirwellian officer. His brown eyes even settled on Stevic and held him for a fleeting moment. It was enough time for Stevic to sense the grave consideration in the king’s eyes and to mark how his features were carved by grief.

  It was enough to break Stevic down to despair, but the king held himself with such unbending dignity, though he was for
ced to his knees at the tyrant’s feet like a common dog, that Stevic felt strangely uplifted.

  “I have loved this land from birth,” King Zachary said. His voice was calm and firm. “The rugged seacoast, the heart of the Green Cloak, and the mountains. The land shapes the people, and the descendants of the Sacor Clans are strong.” He looked up at his brother. “You should know that. Whatever evil you are in league with will not take Sacoridia so easily.”

  King Zachary turned his gaze back to his people. Now his expression was fierce. “The people who defend me and stand with me serve Sacoridia first—always first. We serve out of love. Therefore, for the sake of Sacoridia, though it means I may sacrifice myself and a few others, I dare not capitulate.”

  “Well said, Sire,” the Mirwellian officer said.

  Others murmured their agreement and Stevic found himself adding his voice to theirs. There was no better man to be king, he thought, than this man who knelt humbly when all others should be on their knees before him.

  “And we,” Amilton said, “are not displeased.”

  One by one, lamps along the west wall blinked out, throwing the room into half shadows. Stevic wondered what new, terrible torment was about to come upon them, but Amilton appeared just as surprised as everyone else. His eyes searched the wall as if he were trying to see something. For once, he was not the source of strange happenings.

  Captain Mapstone grabbed handfuls of Stevic’s cloak and drew him close to her. She tried to speak, but could only choke and wheeze. Finally, she mouthed one word: Karigan.

  Stevic’s heart leaped and he looked wildly about. He saw no one, but more lamps blinked out. And King Zachary vanished.

  Karigan placed her hand on the king’s shoulder, and he started at the unexpected touch.

  “Shhh,” she whispered to him.

  Karigan absorbed him into the gray world, and he became a filmy ghost in her vision. She bent and whispered into his ear, “You are invisible.”

  His shoulder flexed and jerked beneath her hand. He looked up at her . . . through her . . . with startled eyes. “Karigan! I cannot see you.”

  “Shhh.”

  He staggered to his feet and nearly broke contact with her to charge at his brother, but she grabbed his arm. “No. We must be touching, or the spell will break. And you will not stop him by simply leaping on him.”

  Indeed, Amilton—or should she say Amilton-Shawdell? —had become more than he seemed. With the spell of fading upon her, she could see the transparent form of the Eletian overlapping Amilton. She was not sure if he could see her, but he did not seem to. When she had last disappeared in his presence, he had vanished from her own sight, but now it was not so.

  The Eletian’s image flickered and waned, and he was hunched as if in considerable pain. Blood soaked his gray cloak. Good, she thought, and she wished him more pain and then some, but Amilton stood with him lending him strength. A direct current of power, like a bloated vein, flowed from Amilton’s stone and into the Eletian’s chest.

  Amilton-Shawdell glanced vaguely in their direction, but his eyes did not fall on them. So far he seemed blind to them. He put his hands on his lips. “It seems the Greenie has decided to join us.”

  Karigan backed away, drawing the king with her. “Slowly,” she breathed in the king’s ear, “so no one detects movement.”

  “I thought I told you to stay with the horse marshal,” the king whispered.

  Karigan grinned though he could not see it. “And miss the fun?” Just before Amilton had slammed all the doors shut, she had vanished in the secret corridor, and against Marshal Martel’s protests, slipped into the throne room. A good thing, too, or she would have been cut off from her father and the king.

  A black ball of energy, the type of which Karigan was already too familiar with, formed above Amilton-Shawdell’s hand. He smashed it on the floor very near where they had stood. Currents of energy slithered away like black snakes.

  Karigan guided the king into a shadowed alcove.

  “Do you see the Eletian?” she asked.

  “The Eletian! No. I thought you destroyed him.”

  The king must not see the world as she could even when under the spell of the brooch. Karigan bit her lip. “He was not destroyed. Now he stands with your brother, weakened, but feeding off him.”

  “The eyes and voice were familiar to me.” Zachary leaned against the pillar, this new despair weighing down his shoulders.

  “Come out of hiding,” Amilton-Shawdell said. “We shall see you soon anyway. Why not preserve your strength?”

  “If he is weak now, how can we stop him before he gets stronger?” Zachary asked. “Even Brienne and Rory could not close in on him.”

  Karigan gripped hard on the hilt of the sword of the First Rider as she thought. “Perhaps we must force him to expend a large amount of energy at once. Using my magic has a weakening effect on me, and maybe it is the same for him.”

  Zachary did not look pleased by her answer. His features in the dimness of her gray sight were taut.

  “It’s that,” Karigan said, “or we try to get that black stone away from him. That is where the power is coming from.”

  Amilton-Shawdell paced in front of the throne chair, his eyes darting into the shadows. The half light of the chamber skewed the shadows of the assembled into monstrous shapes on the walls and ceiling.

  “We could send our guards to relight the lamps,” Amilton-Shawdell said, “but we would hate to destroy such an appropriate ambiance.”

  The king glanced at her . . . through her . . . with concern. His eyes were blackened sockets in her gray world.

  “Can you sustain this?” he asked.

  Karigan sighed, deeply tired. The events of the day and night combined had taken their toll on her long hours ago. Her gray vision had turned leaden, and though she did not wish to admit it and thus disappoint the king, she felt as though she might drop from the weight of the magic she used, “Not much longer.”

  “Perhaps we can persuade you to come forward,”Amilton-Shawdell said. His eyes scanned the assembled as if searching for someone. “You there!” He pointed into the group before him and beckoned with his finger. Stevic G’ladheon walked forward with halting steps as if he were trying to resist but could not.

  Karigan clenched the king’s wrist hard.

  “Uh . . .” The king grimaced, and squirmed in her grip. “I will hold onto you. You are crushing my good wrist.”

  Karigan obeyed only half aware as he fumbled for her hand. “This is peculiar,” he muttered. “I talk to a pillar and hold onto air.”

  Karigan wasn’t listening. Her attention was riveted on her father.

  “Yes,” Amilton-Shawdell said. “This one is related to the Greenie, is he not?” He stepped close to Stevic, looking him up and down. “A merchant. A merchant by the name of G’ladheon. We know this name.” Another black ball of magic formed over his hand.

  A small gasp left Karigan’s lips.

  “Your offspring,” Amilton-Shawdell said, “knows well how this feels.”

  He lobbed the ball at Stevic. The magic exploded on his chest and ropy tendrils of black twined around his shoulders and arms. Stevic threw his head back in a silent howl of agony.

  THE FINAL PLAY

  The tangle of black currents snared Karigan’s father. They blanketed his chest and wove between his arms. They rippled down his legs and up his spine. Her father could not move, he could not speak, he couldn’t even scream.

  When Karigan wavered on her feet, the king’s grip firmed and steadied her. She knew her father’s pain. She knew it too well, but how could she choose between protecting the king and helping her own father?

  The king made the decision for her. “You had better go help your father,” he said. “I cannot defeat my brother by hiding in the shadows anyway.”

  She looked at him, at his earnest expression, and she knew she looked upon a man unlike any other. This was why he must be king; this was why he had to succeed
. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice hoarse.

  “I know,” the king said, “though it is not your doing. The heavens know there has been enough suffering this night.” And he let her go.

  Karigan strode from her hiding place on shaky legs. “I am here,” she said, dropping the cloak of invisibility as she went. The colors of the normal world collided into place in her vision, and the startled expressions of those who watched sharpened as though a veil had been lifted from their faces. She felt exposed as if she had suddenly shed all her clothes.

  She halted before Amilton-Shawdell. The Eletian was now gone from her sight except in the light blue coloring of Amilton’s eyes. She did not permit herself even a brief glance at her father trapped in his agony, for she would snap if she looked, lose her self-control, and reveal her weakness to the tyrant who stood before her. Then all would be lost.

  She licked her lips and tried to put on her best merchant’s face, a mask that gave nothing away. “Release my father,” she said.

  Amilton-Shawdell lifted a brow.

  “I came out like you wanted,” Karigan said. “You let him go.”

  “I rather like this,” he said. “You trying not to show your pain. Why should I let him go?”

  Karigan trembled with anger. “He has done nothing to you.”

  “But you have.”

  “Then punish me!”

  Amilton-Shawdell smiled. “Such spirit,” he said. “We shall reward you with what you request—your father’s relief from pain, and your own punishment.” With a flick of his hand the magical currents dissolved.

  Karigan hastened to her father’s side to support him just as his legs gave out. Sevano took the other side.

  “Father?” she said.

  His eyes shot around the throne room, unfocused. He swayed on his feet. “What?”

  She shook him gently. “Father, it’s me, Karigan.”

  He looked down at her, at first without recognition. Slowly his eyes focused. “Kari?”

  She embraced him soundly, and all she had held pent up since leaving Selium threatened to gush out then and there; the hurts and struggles, the loneliness. Yet she knew this was not the time to give in to her emotions. She pressed into him hard. When she looked up, his cheeks were wet.