Summerblood (24 page)

Bingg's only reply was to draw himself up and say, very softly, “I am Argen-a. Argen-a supports the King; therefore, I support you.”

Four main corridors, three side staircases, and five levels later, they stepped out a postern gate into the River Walk.

It was the soft time between midnight and dawn, but three moons were shining so that Avall needed no torch to light his way, though torches flared at intervals, here by the Citadel's wall, and there by the wall that divided the pavement from the river. Always steamy from the hot springs within it, the Ri-Eron was veiled in frothy white, though real fog from the cooler land by the Gorge walls vied with it here and there.
Beside him, he heard Bingg's breath hiss in what might be a nervous shiver. But he was King, and had nothing to fear—not here.

Still, he had to hurry. Setting his shoulders, he strode off at an angle to the left, following the wall for most of a shot south, to where it was pierced by the only bridge on North Bank that led to the Isle of The Eight, which lay within the Ri-Eron. A Priest stood guard at the inner end—which Avall had expected. The man stepped out smartly as Avall and Bingg approached. By his mask, he was a priest of Law, and a fairly high-ranking one, but everyone in that clan stood guard eventually, regardless of age or rank. Avall flipped his hood back when he came within the span dictated by courtesy for acknowledgment. The man started when he realized who faced him, then tensed. Avall thought he might challenge his right to approach the Isle so unconventionally, but he did not, though his folded arms and stiff posture spoke clearly of disapproval.

“I have an appointment with Fate,” Avall murmured as he passed. “This is my herald, should Fate likewise have an appointment with me.”

“May Fate show you what you seek,” came the reply.

Avall left the man behind.

The Isle itself was so cleverly laid out that, though it contained the fanes of all eight Faces, and fairly close together, none was visible from the others. Fortunately, Fate's fane was nearest. A copse of hollies surrounded it, their trunks so closely planted that the temple at its center was visible from beyond them only in sporadic glimpses of rough-piled stone. The path wove among the trees, its frequent branchings symbolizing the turns Fate made in men's lives.

And since it was bad luck to stray from those paths, Avall stayed on one until, later than he liked, he came at last to the stone-paved plaza before the fane itself.

But that was not his destination. His interest was in the Well that rose waist high in the center of the pavement. He
started toward it eagerly, then remembered himself. He had a choice now. He could approach as King, in the prescribed regalia, and Fate would presumably recognize him as King and provide a response appropriate to that role.

But he could also approach the Well naked, so that Fate recognized him only as a man. So did he come here now simply as Avall syn Argen-a, or as the High King of all Eron?

It was his choice, and he feared to make it.

But Fate itself had several aspects, he recalled, Choice and Chance among them. Perhaps Fate had its own idea about how he should proceed. Squatting where he stood, he reached into his pouch and withdrew a coin—one of the new ones, with his face on one side and Strynn's on the other. It was a good likeness, but it made him feel strange. In any case, the male side was traditionally Chance's face, because men took chances. The other side was for Choice, because women made more considered decisions. Chance would represent Avall the man; Choice would represent the Sovereignty of the Kingdom.

With no other thought than that, he flipped the coin into the air. Torchlight caught it and made it gleam, and then it was falling again—to land, half on the pavement, half on the soft moss on which he stood.

Which might itself be an omen.

The face he saw was his own.

That was all he needed. With a soft “wait here,” he divested himself of his clothes, handing them to Bingg to fold away. If anyone else was about at this time of night, it would be a Priest, and most of the Priests had seen him naked when he'd stripped for final proving of his physical perfection before they'd made him King.

A final pause for breath, and he stepped out into the plaza, feeling the stones pleasantly cool against his bare feet, as the wind was cool against his body.

Too soon he reached the Well and gazed down into it. He'd tasted of the Wells before, of course—at his coronation—but
they'd told him little. Sometimes they didn't. Hadn't The Eight made their will known clearly enough by giving Eron victory in the war, and making Avall, untried as he was, King?

Well, that King needed guidance now! No, he countered,
Avall
needed guidance. He could abdicate tomorrow if he chose. But he knew already that he would not.

His face looked up at him when he peered into the darkness. The moon was behind him, which made him seem crowned with golden light. Perhaps the Well was telling him that regardless of his coin toss, it was his Sovereign aspect it was addressing. Or maybe it was saying that it would address the man, but that the Sovereignty would be an underlying factor.

He wouldn't know which without trying. Steeling himself, he slid both hands into the cold, clear water, cupped them beneath the surface, and drew up enough to drink. It tasted sweet, with maybe a hint of moss, stone, and earth.

But it tasted of something else as well. It tasted of moonlight on stones, the way an imphor high could rearrange one's senses, so one could taste colors, feel tastes, and smell textures.

“I am here, oh Fate,” he whispered, his voice loud as thunder in the silence, though he knew that only he heard it, so softly did he whisper.

Nothing replied, though he could feel the wind caressing each hair upon his body, like the mist creeping up the gorge. For a moment he
was
the gorge, and then he was all Eron, and then he was himself again, and the Well had shown him nothing.

Disgusted, he started to turn away, then realized he hadn't begged The Eight's pardon for the intrusion. Scowling, he stared once more into the depths.

And saw that water stretch, flow, and expand, until he gazed upon a lake of clear blue water, and inside that lake, an island. And upon that island, people.

And then the image shattered, as something cold lanced into his shoulder like a dart of direst pain.

It took a moment to realize that, though it had already been foggy when he'd set out, it was actually raining now— scattered drops, true, but big ones.

Bingg was asleep when he returned to where he'd left the lad, and only when he checked the glimmer of the one moon that still struggled with the massing clouds, did he realize that a full hand had passed while he stared into the Well, though it had seemed to him that his vision had lasted barely a breath.

“Did you learn anything?” Bingg dared, as Avall dressed.

“I don't know,” Avall replied sadly. “I got an answer, but it wasn't to any question I thought to ask.”

Sometimes, Avall discovered two fingers later, as he trudged up the stairs to his suite, one didn't truly consider something until long after one had first thought it. So it was now. Back at the council, the notion had crossed his mind that they
could
lay siege to Priest-Clan, or at least confront its chiefs directly. And while that was far too risky, he nevertheless had a member of that clan to hand right here in the Citadel, if only he'd cooperate. In any case, it would take half a hand to find out—that and turning right at the top of the stairs instead of left.

He opened Rrath's door carefully—but not carefully enough, it appeared. Someone rose from the floor almost at Avall's feet, all in a scramble of blankets, night robe, and startled countenance beneath tangled hair. Hands fumbled for a paring knife, even as Avall reached for his own sturdier blade.

“Don't—” Esshill began. Then paused, blinking, as he realized who he faced. But he remained where he was, blocking access to Rrath, who seemed not to have moved since the last time Avall had seen him.

“You always sleep on the floor?” Avall asked casually, though his hand never left his knife hilt. “Devotion's a fine thing, but—”

“Don't hurt him,” Esshill hissed, still blinking, and shaking his head uncertainly.

“What?” came another voice from Avall's left. The door there had opened as well. Beejinn stood there, a dagger sparkling in her hand. Avall weighed the odds and didn't like them. There was caution, and there was threat, and Esshill, at least, had little cause to love him.

“It's me, Beejinn,” Avall said carefully, trying to keep an eye on Rrath's official nurse and his unofficial one at once, and finding it impossible. “I need to talk to Esshill, so I'd appreciate it if you'd leave us alone a few moments. You can sit in the hall, if you don't trust me.”

The knife wavered, then lowered. Beejinn managed a wary— and weary—smile, then padded toward the door through which Avall had just arrived. “I didn't tell him he could stay there,” she murmured. “But I didn't think it would hurt. As for Rrath … no change.”

Avall nodded absently. “Nor did I expect any.”

Not bothering to observe her exit, Avall reached out and steered Rrath's bond-brother toward the door to the right, which opened on his quarters. It was no more than a cell, really, but Esshill was still a novice in Priest-Clan and therefore used to austerity.

Closing the door behind him by feel, Avall motioned Esshill to sit on the bed, while he claimed the single chair. Light from the torches on the battlements trickling through a window to the right was the only illumination, yet it glanced off Avall's blade like sunfire. Esshill dropped the paring knife on the rug, and folded his hands before him, head bowed.

Avall started to ask him to raise his head, to stare him straight in the eye, then reconsidered. “The Ninth Face,” he said instead, keeping the inflection neutral.

Esshill did look up then, but his face showed nothing but confusion.

“What? Majesty, I'm sorry, but I don't understand. What—?”

“Rrath never told you?”

“What?”

A pause, as Avall wondered how much he should reveal. “Who his allies are,” he dared at last. “Those who got him into this.”

Esshill's face went hard with conviction. Anger and indignation pulsed off him so strongly Avall could feel them as a thrust against his consciousness. More of the gems' doing, he supposed. Even apart from him they were still of him, never mind the master gem. “If I knew who they were,” Esshill said clearly, “I would kill every one of them I could.”

“Though it cost you your own life?”

Esshill nodded toward the door to the room where Rrath lay. “The best part of me is dead already.”

Avall started to tell him he was a fool to invest his feelings in one as flawed as Rrath. But then he remembered that he'd liked Rrath as well, and had himself been hurt when Rrath had transferred his friendship to Eddyn. More to the point, he remembered how he felt when anything threatened his bond with Rann.

Abruptly he stood, wondering why he'd bothered coming here at all. Wondering, more to the point, if he should trust his intuition and believe Esshill's vow of ignorance. Well, it wasn't as if Esshill was going anywhere. “If you think of anything,” Avall said, from the door, “anything at all—or anyone who might know more—let me know at once.”

He was already a stride into Rrath's room when he heard footsteps behind him. “Nyllol,” he heard Esshill whisper into the gloom. “Not a fact, but a guess. That's all I can offer.”

“It won't hurt,” Avall sighed, and left Rrath's chamber. Beejinn was sitting on the floor blocking the door as he entered the corridor between it and the world outside. She rose fluidly, but in her own good time.

“No one was hurt,” Avall muttered as he passed her. “No one here will be, if I can help it.”

The lock snapped shut behind him. It was less than a hand until dawn.

The note on Avall's pillow didn't surprise him, only that it had appeared so soon. He snatched it up and read it one-handed as he fumbled with his dagger belt with the other. No surprise in it, either; the silence had already told him what it said, though not the physical silence of his and Strynn's suite, but the more subtle silence inside his head that told him without thinking that she was nowhere nearby.

The note had to have been written hastily, yet the script showed no sign of that. Rather, Strynn's script was as neat and measured as ever.

The note still in his hand, Avall fell, fully clothed, onto the bed and remained there, oblivious, until two hands after sunrise, when Vorinn arrived with the first of the muster roles.