A Path to Coldness of Heart (43 page)

“He won’t go far,” Yasmid promised al-Dimishqi after Habibullah stepped out.

“You misjudge me badly, Lady. This truly is a critical matter.”

“Please be quick, then. I am feeling…” More than just awful. She was entirely alone with a man who did not approve of her at all. There were no witnesses to her propriety, not even a slave.

“Yes. Of course. I don’t want to intrude upon your illness. This, then, is the matter. We found a cache of moldy registers from the earliest days of the movement. Most are in your father’s hand. A few were recorded by your mother. And there are two courtesy of the Scourge of God.”

“Wow!” She was amazed. Those might be important historical documents.

“Indeed, wow. Though the registers are in bad shape. They’ll be more valuable as keepsakes than as records—though I did see some interesting short notes on daily thoughts that did not get into your father’s formal writings.”

“Did these records produce some remarkable revelation? Or something painfully heretical? Is that your point?”

“Not at all, Lady. What was decipherable only reinforced my faith. The real matter I want to bring up is, what happened to the thunder amulet that your father got from his angel?”

Yasmid frowned, frankly puzzled. She had steeled herself for a confrontation. Al-Dimishqi was rambling about something more legend than… “Oh! That amulet! That amulet? The one he could use to call down the lightning or make boulders fall from the sky? That turned the tide at the Five Circles and on the salt pan?”

“That amulet, Lady. Yes.”

“It was lost.”

“Lady?”

“He lost it, Adim. For real and forever, to a western soldier after he went down outside Libiannin. The plunderers took him for just another dead warrior. My father spent years trying to find it again. He failed. Even his angel couldn’t trace it. You’d think he could have found it if it had survived. So it must have been broken up and melted down. But why are you asking about it?”

Al-Dimishqi seemed stricken. “The journal… Is all that really true? I was sure I’d stumbled onto something that could change everything.”

“You may have, just not the way you hoped. Find out more. But I can tell you this: the real amulet would not have been missed by the thieves who went through my father’s stuff. It was gold and weighed a good half a pound. And it had gemstones set in it. The angel didn’t want it to be missed.”

Al-Dimishqi sagged. “I am heartbroken. I was so excited. I was sure we were about to bring a powerful tool back to the holy struggle.”

Yasmid winced, pushed the pain down. “There may have been something. It might even have been given to my father by his angel. My father may have come to believe that it was the original amulet. I know he hated that thing. He sometimes risked disaster so he didn’t have to use it… After what happened outside Libiannin—another one of his narrow, miraculous escapes from a situation that should have killed him—my father deluded himself about a lot of things. So Habibullah tells me. He witnessed most of my father’s descent. I did not. I was elsewhere. So talk to Habibullah. He may be able to put you on to the real story.”

Al-Dimishqi’s shoulders slumped further. “I apologize for wasting your time. I will go, now.”

“No waste, Adim. Never. You give cause to reflect on secret history. And… Perhaps you did come across something important that you didn’t recognize because you jumped to this conclusion. Do keep after it. And do keep me posted.”

“As you will, so shall it be.”

Yasmid watched him go, hoping that all this would keep him from thinking about her health long enough for her and Habibullah to find a strategy that would get her through this intact.

It would take a miracle. If one occurred it would be the old man’s doing. She was capable of nothing but panic anymore.

...

Yasmid was back in her private audience, Habibullah attending, now with women watching from beyond hearing. She said, “I have to go get father’s opinion now that I opened my big mouth.” She was badly distracted after her discussion with al-Dimishqi. Had Haroun gotten hold of something of great potency? Had finding that been his true purpose for coming to Sebil el Selib?

Her stomach taunted her anew.

“You will, yes. But that is a necessary gesture, the more so because we have declared the Disciple almost recovered.” Habibullah watched closely. “Sharper questions would be asked if you did not consult him.” He knew al-Dimishqi had rattled her somehow.

“I know. But his advice is useless. He doesn’t realize that years have passed. If we bring him out to show off he’ll ruin everything by refusing to recognize that the world has changed.”

“True. But you have to go through the motions. He had to go through motions himself even when he was his most popular. Those who place their lives and honor at your disposal have expectations and have the right to have them. If you fail to meet those expectations you could face what seems to have caught up with Megelin.”

Yasmid grunted, not because she agreed but because her breakfast was making a bid to return.

She controlled it yet again.

So softly she barely heard him, her lifelong friend-companion-guard-worshipper asked, “Is there something you need to tell me?”

He knew.

How long before everyone did? How long till the bad end came?

With marvelous caution Habibullah observed, “All is not lost. You are a married woman.”

Who had a husband only she loved, whom her people all wanted to stay dead.

She shuddered, afraid.

“We will cope,” Habibullah promised.

She could not believe him. Her hours were numbered.

...

“I’m just not comfortable,” Mist said. “But there is no undoing what’s already done.” She tried to follow three things at once: Scalza manipulating his scrying bowl so he could spy on people at Sebil el Selib; Ekaterina and Ethrian, just staying close enough to warm one another with their presence; and Haroun bin Yousif, who was straining to follow developments in Al Rhemish. Skilled as he had become, Scalza had difficulties due to distance, and had no sound. When they did anything other than vegetate Ethrian and Eka usually only observed the shogi wars. Bin Yousif spent a lot of time muttering and being confused. He was not pleased about the troubles in Al Rhemish but could not form a solid opinion because he did not understand them, either. Nor was he even a little relaxed in the company of so many strangers, some of whom had held him prisoner not so long ago.

Mist was uncomfortable with his presence. Varthlokkur had not been forthcoming on how bin Yousif fit his own form of the Plan.

There were several of those, puffing along in parallel. The upside was, if Old Meddler knocked one down others would keep on rolling. The downside was, she and Varthlokkur kept tripping over one another’s feet.

...

Haroun concluded that Varthlokkur was right. Most of these people were supposed to be dead. He had been shocked to learn that some were still alive, Ragnarson in particular—though he had gone off to create excitement in Kavelin.

Despite explanations from Varthlokkur and the eastern empress, Haroun remained unsure where he stood. Mainly, he did not understand why they were so determined. Why try to thwart the storm?

The Star Rider was weather. Historical and social weather. You planned ahead and did what you could to endure. Prepared, you could ride it out. You did not tempt fate by trying to control the storm.

Old Meddler was no deity but he was the closest thing Haroun ever saw. The God of his childhood was a god of storms.

He could never be comfortable around so many people, in such a tight space. He did especially poorly with children. They recalled times he would rather forget.

The insanity in Al Rhemish was most worrisome. Angry people kept destroying things, venting frustration caused by years of incompetence. Men of standing kept their heads down and their mouths shut. Beloul barricaded his door once Lalla eliminated outside evidence that the place was occupied by a hero of the old days. He had chosen to weather the storm, then live with whatever coalesced under subsequent rainbows.

Haroun did not miss the parallels between Beloul’s attitude and his own.

...

There were no hours of the day when either Mist, Lord Ssu-ma, Lord Kuo, or Lord Yuan were not engaged in advancing some fraction of the eastern plan. Lord Yuan worked harder than any of the others. Their scheme was more complex than Varthlokkur’s, which risked little more than self and family, huge enough in his mind but trivial by rational comparison.

Another transfer portal arrived, again by means of the Unborn. It would connect to the transfer stream but none of its parts would be tainted by having passed through that poorly understood realm. So Lord Yuan had decreed.

Grinding her teeth against secret panic, Mist instructed Lord Yuan to key that portal to the life harmonics of Lord Kuo and the Old Man so they could escape but no one and nothing wicked could follow.

A third portal arrived. Mist had it keyed to Nepanthe and Ethrian. Ethrian and the Old Man were her most valuable assets. Scalza and Ekaterina were precious but did not have the power to save an empire. Their mother had to consider countless millions of lives.

She did not suppress maternal emotion indefinitely. When Radeachar delivered the next escape portal she had it keyed to her children. The elderly Tervola executed his instructions sullenly, making it clear that he thought her mind was clouded by personal concerns.

She had the escape portals provided with secondary keys that would allow selected others to use them if their primaries were not. Those designated as secondary did not see much hope for themselves if Old Meddler did launch a sudden thunder and lightning assault.

The mind specialists worked hours as long as anyone. They concluded that forming a useful information inventory necessitated rooting secrets out of minds other than those of Ethrian and the Old Man. There were three surviving witnesses to Old Meddler’s raid on the Wind Tower. The Old Man was the least reliable. The others were both available.

Varthlokkur came close to physical confrontation with Mist when those two proposed the research. He wanted no return to that night’s emotional storms. The Empress demurred.

Once again Varthlokkur was prepared to round on his allies and chuck everything down a well in order to protect his wife. As he defined protection. In truth, he was striving to appease his own insecurities.

His memories of that night were not pleasant. He thought that Nepanthe had suppressed hers. He did not want them resurrected.

But she snapped, “Varth, stop that right now! Am I an infant? You wouldn’t treat Eka or Scalza with the kind of condescension you show me.”

Startled, “Darling…”

“Stop! I made it past my fourth birthday. Yes. I’m more emotional than some. I get upset about things that don’t bother other people. But I am a big girl.” She touched his cheek gently. She did appreciate his concern. “I remember more than I want. But some of it might be useful—if I let the experts dig.”

“But…”

“Stop! I won’t hear any more nonsense.”

He suppressed a flood of the blistering, unreasoning rage that had swept him to the brink with King Bragi. That anger, unrestrained, was the reason today’s ugly world had come to be.

He clamped his jaw, went on with his work. He spent time with the mental specialists as needed. They proved deft at panning nuggets he did not know lay hidden in the lowest sands of his mind.

He left Fangdred, though, so he would not have to watch while Nepanthe endured the process.

He was sure he would lose his composure if he stayed.

He took bin Yousif with him.

†

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

LATE AUTUMN 1018 AFE:

BEYOND THE RESURRECTION

R
agnarson bellowed, “Silence!”

He had the voice of command still, and it was loud, yet the effect was neither quick nor comprehensive.

“I will have you beaten if you don’t stop running your mouths.”

Those people knew he was not given to idle threats. They knew, too, that there was no precedent for him doing anything of the sort. Only…

Only this was, clearly, not the man whose arrogance had driven him to disaster beyond the Mountains of M’Hand. This man had been chastened and tempered.

He had a harder feel, and, maybe, a new disdain for past tolerance. He might even have developed a streak of cruelty.

He had been in the thrall of the Dread Empire. Only the shell might be Bragi Ragnarson now. Best not to irk the possible monster concealed inside. Though, still, he was just one man.

Even so, the Thing hall so quietened that the proverbial pin would have sounded like a clash of cymbals. It seemed, almost, that everyone had stopped breathing.

In that desolation of sound a small voice asked, “Daddy?”

The tiny question had more impact on Kavelin than did all the murder and maneuver of the year just passed. Bragi Ragnarson, startled, looked down at the boy in the old-fashioned clothes, who looked back with puzzled hope.

The hard man changed. He scooped the boy up, settled him onto his left hip. He peered into the Sedlmayrese delegation, beckoned Kristen, shook his head slightly when Dahl Haas started to follow.

Ragnarson settled his grandson on his other hip, then declared, “The bullshit will stop.” That sounded certain as death. That made it plain who would be in charge. Special pain was in store for anyone who disagreed. All of which he sold without having one soldier behind him.

“I made a big mistake. It cost me more than I can calculate but it cost Kavelin even more. It almost cost everything that three monarchs did to make this a principality where every subject could be proud to live. I will not repeat that error. I vow that here, now.”

He was improvising, promising what many wanted to hear but meaning it. His intensity permitted no questions, however much future and established enemies might want to know about his relationship with the Dread Empire.

His piece said, he spoke past Kristen to Inger, “Give them the rest of today to get their minds around this.”