A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales (36 page)

The White Pilgrim is moving with them, does not remember standing.
He limps shadow to shadow, pushing for the scattering edge of the crowd where
it breaks around Arsanc’s riders and their winged mounts. And even then, the
Black Duke motions with a tight circle of a mailed fist for his warriors to
unleash the fear for which the banner of the black boar is known.

The hassas shriek as they charge. Spell-fire flares to all sides,
reflected in the clash of blades. The White Pilgrim does not look, seeking only
the space to move, but his way is blocked by white wings unfurled suddenly
before him and a dozen others. A wind-beating wall lashes him, one of the Black
Duke’s beasts vaulting skyward to drop into the midst of the seething crowd.

The White Pilgrim stops short. He stares at the hassa’s rider beneath
his black helm. The face is burned by wind and sun, pale hair long, beard
short, both knife-cut roughly. Seamed with the faint scarring that healing
magic leaves behind. The scar at his nose, broken and healed, is freshest of
all.

The sergeant stares wide-eyed. Gareyth, the White Pilgrim remembers,
though he knows not why.

“My duke!”

The shout rises over the cries of the fleeing, reaches the ears
of Arsanc as he wheels. The sergeant Gareyth lurches his hassa back with a
great beating of wings, his sword drawn. The White Pilgrim holds where he
stands, movement to all sides as other riders break away from where they drive
into fleeing villagers with spell and blade, wing and hoof.

At their center, the Black Duke strides forward, still on foot,
his night-black steed following two paces behind. He takes in the White Pilgrim
at a glance. A flicker of memory in the depths of dark eyes. A look to Gareyth,
who speaks. “He travels with the girl.”

“No, lord.” In the White Pilgrim’s voice, in his eyes, is an
honest confusion that drives the young warrior to a state of rage.

“Perhaps your memory needs refreshing, old man…”

A quick spur drives the hassa forward, a pulse of wing-beaten air
nearly knocking the White Pilgrim off his feet. He casts his head down, does
not understand. More hassas rear around him even as the Black Duke stays his
sergeant with the barest movement of his hand.

So did Gilvaleus take a host of twenty Knights once more along
the Unseen Pathways, and using the sight of the Whitethorn did he sense a gate
close by to the Keep of Kalista. Then riding forth from that gate by cover of
dark, the company made for the Keep and made their way within by secret ways
known to Gilvaleus, who spoke not of what he sought, which was the King Astran
and his Daughter Cymaris. For none knew that the Young Prince had dwelled in
these lands, understanding only that they followed their liege.

“When she escaped, along the farm roads south of the Vouris,”
Gareyth hisses. “He was there.”

“Then search the road and the field tracks from here to the
forest,” the Black Duke says, and the bright wings of the hassas are a thundering
storm as they take to the air. Their wake batters the White Pilgrim where he
stands, stirring all the nearest fires to a corona of sparks and white-hot ash
before the silence descends once more.

“Well met,” the Black Duke says. “Again.” The light plays across
the dark eyes, the etched face as he sheathes his sword. Thoughtful.

And when Gilvaleus found King Astran, he was met with fury,
for the King had read the message the Young Prince left in secret for his
Daughter, and in it, he saw the confessions of a traitor and intelligencer. So
was he sore amazed to see his late captain, for word of Gilvaleus’s flight from
Beresan had only just reached the Seers of Kalista, and fearing Sorcery, the
King attacked with no warning. And Gilvaleus, though the love he had borne for
his King was strong, was blanched in heart by the death of Mother and Father
both, and swore ‘So be it,’ and set upon his once-liege with a fury, and by the
Sword of Kings was Astran slain.

The White Pilgrim feels the shadow of memory press down, the pain
a burning brand behind his eyes. “You send your riders to search the road,” he
says, because he must say something to try to force the vision from his mind.
“For the girl. Why do you not search the houses?”

The Black Duke laughs. “For you to ask the question confirms you
do not know her. She is the butcher-knight’s daughter, possessed of all the
arrogance, all the hubris of her father and the king he killed for. Whatever
else the fault of her blood, this girl does not hide.”

Then did Gilvaleus see that Cymaris whom he loved was hidden
close and had watched her Father die. But even as she came to him, he felt his
vision clear as from the shadow of a fever, and saw in her the betrayal of his
love, and said to her ‘Thou hast forsaken me who once loved thee, and who might
have turned thy Father’s heart against the Usurper and to the cause of right,
and dead he lies for thy dark
betrayal
.’

“I do not know her…” The White Pilgrim tries to hide his uncertainty,
feels the Black Duke’s dark gaze on him.

“But you met her.”

“She came to me,” he says slowly. Remembering. “On the road. She
spoke to me.”

“Spoke to you of what?”

“She spoke… words, but I cannot…” The White Pilgrim tries to
summon up her voice to mind, but all that comes is the memory of the blue eyes,
burning bright with accusation. A name slipping down into shadow.

And Cymaris denied her deceit, saying that the messenger it
was who was betrayer, whose trust Gilvaleus had claimed. For with devious
thought had the words of the fleeing Young Prince been brought to Astran his
King, whose wrath was great. Then did Cymaris tell how she had been brought
before her Father, who accused her of complicity in Gilvaleus’s plots, and
though she swore her innocence, she was kept under guard and lost favor in her
Father’s sight.

No. Something is wrong. He feels it.

Cymaris does love him. He feels the pain of her lost touch, knows
that the messenger betrays them both. He remembers, but he knows not why.

And Gilvaleus was sore enraged, and with the power of the
Sword of Kings, he saw through the fair Cymaris’s deceits, and thought of all
the times of their love turned to ash in memory now, and so he made their love
one last time at the place where her Father lay. And when it was done, she had
paid for her unfaithfulness, and Gilvaleus raised the Whitethorn in triumph
over her and in warning, and spoke, saying ‘This blade of my Father and of the
Kings of Old is the scale of my justice, on which all my betrayers shall be
judged.’

“I have forgotten many things, lord…”

He loves Cymaris with all the passion of his youth, but the
memory is cut through by seeping shadow. Twisting within the grain of his mind
like the rot that sets into aging wood.

“Including forgetting to name me duke, old man. That can be dangerous.”

“I am sorry, my duke.” The White Pilgrim feels a shame he cannot
explain. He will not meet Arsanc’s gaze.

“For the girl’s interest in you, I might have taken you for one
of the companions. The butcher-knight’s fellows of the white table. All the
blades of Gilvaleus and of Mitrost who stood by and watched their king debase
and abandon the throne they won for him. But the companions are dead. I’ve made
sure of that.”

Arsanc paces to circle the nearest of the gods’ fires. He wraps
his cloak around himself, thoughtful. A weariness fills him suddenly that the
White Pilgrim senses more than sees. A thing that the Black Duke will not show.

“High Spring is done in three days, and my company and I must be
in Mitrost then,” he says. “I have captains there already, who curse me quietly
for my absence, but the girl is near and I have searched for too long. Do you
know Mitrost, old man?”

Then when Gilvaleus and his Twenty fled the Keep of Kalista,
they returned not to Aldona where his host rested and spread the tale of the
new King. But instead, Gilvaleus sought in the Unseen Pathways of the
Lotherasien a route to the Ruin of Mitrost, which once had been the seat of the
Kings of Old but was now fallen and forgotten. And Gilvaleus saw the Domed Hall
where stood the Marble Throne, impervious to time and age by the ancient
Sorcery that pervaded its stone. And he saw the floor where the White Table
once stood, whose twelve panes of stone were cut from the Twelve Peaks of
Orosan, and which was a sign of that gift of the Gods that was the rule of
Gracia, united as it once had been.

“Aye, my duke…” The White Pilgrim feels the touch of a chill he
cannot name.

“The king’s conclave convenes there when the High Spring passes.
When the conclave is done, it will have named me Gracia’s high king, and I will
be the easiest man in the nation to find.”

And before all his company, Gilvaleus named Mitrost the seat
of a High King, and vowed that though his home was the Southlands, this place
would be the center of his rule. And he said ‘So shall these ancient stones
form the foundations of a great city that shall be capital over all Gracia, as
the greatness of our past shall form the foundations of the future!’ And the
Twenty of his company became Heralds and the first of the King’s Companions,
riding forth from Mitrost even before dawn to send the word forth in Marthai
and Veneranda that Gilvaleus was High King, the first that Gracia ever knew and
a King to rule all other Kings and Princes of the realm, and that the Usurper’s
time was done.

The White Pilgrim starts as something flashes before him. Two
coins that the Black Duke tosses to him, fumbled and caught with unexpected
dexterity. Not just coins, he sees. It is the Black Duke’s face struck there in
profile, his name beneath. The pale gleam of gold is bright against the grime
of the White Pilgrim’s hands.

“I know wealth means nothing to a man of principal like
yourself,” the Black Duke says. “So I will ask your favor instead. Do you know
the story of Nàlwyr?”

A heavy silence. The crack of pitch flares white-hot in a dying
fire at the White Pilgrim’s back. “I have forgotten many things, my duke…”

Where it stands stock still behind him, the Black Duke’s hassa
watches the White Pilgrim with a too-thoughtful gaze. Its bright eyes catch the
fire, pulsing blood-red.

“You might have forgotten the legends. Not many ever knew the
truth behind them.”

In the sky above, a flare of white wings eclipses the Clearmoon’s
light. The hassa riders are returning, no sign of their quarry. The Black Duke
looks up, staring to the darkness. “I seek the butcher Nàlwyr’s daughter,” he
says at last.

The White Pilgrim simply nods. He knows that the Black Duke
carries more that might be said, but he does not ask. He cannot ask.

“There is unfinished business between my house and hers. For the
blood of a brother.”

Through the shadow of his sight, the White Pilgrim sees the
Golden Girl’s face through firelight for a moment. Then gone. “I understand, my
duke.”

“Understand this. One of the coins is for you, and spend it well.
Save the other. Use it as a token. If the girl seeks you again, whatever her reasons,
stay with her and send coin and word to Mitrost by any soldier of the black
boar you find. Keep her close until we get to you. Deliver her to me and your
reward will be yours to name.”

The great shrieking crashes down on them as the hassas alight.
The sergeant catches the White Pilgrim’s eye, staring darkly. The Black Duke
turns to where his own steed stands behind him, vaulting to the saddle with a
single swift leap.

As he seizes the reins, he looks down to the White Pilgrim.
Considers
.
“For most of a man’s life, he has the luxury of killing only when he needs to.
For honor. Against the threat of being killed.”

“Yes, my duke.”

“I live a life wherein people die at my word only because killing
them is easier than finding a reason to let them live. You are alive because
you amused me once, pilgrim. You are alive again because I have use for you. If
we meet a third time, I might need more.”

The night passes with no memory. The White Pilgrim is walking,
recalls having slept but not where.

The sun is barely risen, mist hanging between him and the dawn
that tells him he makes his way east. A muddy pathway follows the edge of
orchard and field, the village familiar to him from one of the endless seasons
that bring him here before. Passing out of mind again as it disappears into the
long shadows, a bright crown atop the green hills behind him.

He glances back at intervals, looking for something. Someone behind
him. Images like sifting sand in his mind.

He sees movement against a distant stone fence. A dark figure
walks a white horse turned to gold where the dawn touches it. The image
blurring from the wet of the White Pilgrim’s eyes as he strains to see.

He looks back again, sees the horse and the figure gone. A great
white bird soars above where they stood just a moment before.

The image is fled from his mind by the time he no longer turns
back from the light of the eastern sky.

THE SUN IS LONG BEHIND HIM when he finally stops, a hard
day’s walking firing the pain in his chest, in his leg to the touch of a
white-hot blade. He does not slow, does not stop save to drink at a stream
reached at midmorning, whose banks he follows in the time since with a hazy
familiarity. A winding ribbon of muddy water twists west, joining other
streams, other rivers in a chaotic course to the sea. A path starts, disappears,
starts again before it finally becomes a rutted track that makes him quicken
his painful pace.

Now in Hypriot, the Prince Sestian had long held Marthai and
Veneranda from the conquest of Thoradun, as the Usurper directed the iron and
fire of his armies against Telos in the South. And from his Seers at dusk of
one day, Sestian heard of the fall of Telos who was his friend and King, and
the Prince despaired, having pledged his sword and his realm to Telos who was
fallen, and he wondered at what fate and the gods might hold for Free Gracia
now. But then came the name of Gilvaleus who had returned and who carried the
Sword of Kings, by Herald at the rise of sun. And the call was sent forth
through the Northlands by spellcraft and messenger that the new High King was
come, who would revenge himself upon the Usurper for his Father and his Mother
and for all Gracia.

He cannot recall how long the visions walk with him. He knows
where he is, cannot remember it against the storm of shadow that scours his
mind. The waking, walking dream.

But Sestian asked how it were possible for the Son of Telos to
appear at his Father’s side and claim the Sword of Kings, it being known that
the Young Gilvaleus had been hidden away far from Thoradun’s dark magic long
ago. And Nàlwyr, captain to Sestian, came to the Herald as he rested with his Prince
and awaited fresh horse, and he heard the tale of Guderna who had been Captain
in Magandis and was Gilvaleus, Son of Telos in secret hiding for long years.
And Nàlwyr remembered the ceding of the River Konides and the honor of this
Captain, and said ‘My Prince, I know this High King, and as I will follow any
King with a heart as noble as he hath shown me, so must you.’

Isolated stands of black oak shimmer leaf-bare branches, a rising
wind driving shoals of cloud before it, wet from the east. Beyond the trees, broken
walls of vine-cloaked grey mark the edge of a once-great estate, lost to the
upheaval of the half-century since the Empire falls. A manor house beyond it
slumbers now as shards of marble swallowed by grass, scavenged to the bare
bones of rubble too large to carry away.

Then Nàlwyr assembled a host in Hypriot and rode for Mitrost
before six days had passed, by which time all the North knew the name of
Gilvaleus the High King. But the Usurper Thoradun, laughing dark in his citadel
in Beresan, called his allies and armies of the Northlands to him through
Mundra and Liana, and bade his forces of the South turn toward Veneranda and
Marthai. For there, Prince Sestian declared openly his allegiance to Gilvaleus
at Mitrost, whose ruin was a camp now, where all the forces of Sestian were
gathering to the High King’s side. And Thoradun’s challenge was to cage the
upstart High King, and press him on the field with forces to all sides, and
destroy this Gilvaleus as his Father was destroyed.

In the fading light beyond the ruined house, he sees the shrine
that is raised where once stood an outbuilding of the main. Weathered
fieldstone is packed with sod, growing green on three sides. Blackened by mold
along the northern wall, out of sight of the sun.

A bathhouse, the White Pilgrim thinks. He knows it, cannot remember.
A hot springs that are once a noble’s private retreat, benched with white
marble and gold leaf. Turned to a shrine of the Twelve and Crecinu the healer
now. A quadrangle of four long wings flanks a central open court unseen at the
center, hidden behind roofs of cracked and weathered slate. Tall windows bound
with white shutters. The sign of snake and staff above the rough-hewn planks of
the door.

And many Knights were wary, for Gilvaleus tarried to build his
force, but knew that even all the host of Marthai and Veneranda would not stand
long against Thoradun’s unified strength. But Gilvaleus told them ‘Fear not,
for the power of the Lotherasien is ours to command, and as the Empire held
peace through the Unseen Pathways, we shall now wage war, and the strength of
Thoradun’s host will not avail him.’ And saying so, he chose just one hundred
of the best Knights who swore to serve him, saying to the Prince Sestian that
all the forces pledged to the High King would be his to command, and would
defend the lands and folk of Marthai and Veneranda from the Usurper’s spells
and steel.

A half-dozen acolytes break the ground of spring fields, digging
in the winter-rotted vines of pumpkin and snowroot as he approaches. They pay
him no mind, recognizing him as one of their own. The last sun passes cold,
touching his robes that are the pilgrim’s white once, long ago.

He stops at the well for water, finds two coins in his pocket.
The pale gleam of gold is bright against the grime of his hands. He sees them before.
Cannot remember as he places them in the stone bowl before the well. A
scattering of copper is set there. Polished stones, tokens and totems of wood
and bone for those who carry no coin but give the thanks of travelers to Menos
all the same.

But though Nàlwyr had shaped the will of his Prince and led
Sestian’s host, and was accounted First Captain of Marthai and Veneranda, he
turned away from Gilvaleus when called to the High King’s company. And
Gilvaleus was sore amazed, and asked him why, to which Nàlwyr said ‘In the host
of the new High King come many from Magandis, and the most of those speak only
of their love for the Captain Guderna who was Gilvaleus. But from Magandis also
comes word of the High King’s killing of the King Astran, who was a noble man,
and of the High King’s defilement of Cymaris, his Daughter.’

The shadow is sharp behind his eyes as he collapses before an ancient
ash. Its black branches are limned with green and gold in the first days of
spring, the last light of the sun. Its twisting trunk is the span of his outstretched
arms, for so he kneels before it.

He cannot remember how he comes to be here. He stares to see the
shrine before him. The acolytes finish in the fields, the faint echo of a
day’s-end song heard above the call of crows that rises with the dusk. He turns
behind him, looking for something. He tries to recall what it is, but his gaze
is blank.

And Nàlwyr would not take the King’s Commission, which was the
Dragon of the High King’s house in red on gold, and he spoke to Gilvaleus,
saying ‘These acts of thine were not the acts of a King, nor of the Captain I
fought with honor. And if that honor I saw is not the true heart of thee, then
I cannot follow thee.’ And Gilvaleus was chastened, and said ‘Then stay by my
side, my friend, to help remind me of what I have done in anger, that such
anger might not be part of me again. For thou must be sent to me by the grace
of the gods, thou whose heart will not quail beneath any darkness, and who will
help guide my own heart when the haze of loss and anger obscures my sight.’

The White Pilgrim gazes upon the ash as he does long ago. The
ground is loam and gravel where he kneels. It is spring now, but in his memory,
he kneels in the spring before, and the spring before that. At the base of the
great tree, he sees the stone whose carefully carved letters are flecked with
mold, worn smooth with the passing of years and the weeping of the sky.

A single name is graven there. He reads it. Remembers.

Then in Cosiand and Valos, the forces of Thoradun held all
folk and Knights in a dark grip of ruin, but there were many who broke and fled
north, and so did even more Warriors and War-Mages and Healers and Seers come
to Mitrost and pledge themselves to Gilvaleus for the freedom of all Gracia.
And in the ranks of those Healers was the Daughter of two noble Gracian lines
of Human folk and Ilvani, but her Father and Mother had been executed for
fighting against the Usurper’s rule, and her name was Aelathar.

“Nàlwyr is dead,” he says. He recognizes his voice as he speaks,
but the words take longer.

The name of Aelathar atop the stone echoes in his mind,
half-remembered at first. Held for a moment, gone again. And then it is there
and a part of him, and all the pain of all the lost years twists through him
like a blade.

From the shadow comes the light. He remembers where he is. Touches
the stone with a shaking hand. “It is good,” he says, “to see you again.”

And when Gilvaleus first saw the Lady Aelathar among the ranks
of the Healers, he swore his love for her upon the Sword of Kings, saying ‘Thou
art most fair of all the courts of Gracia, and the Forest Kingdoms of the
Ilvanrand, and all the isles and far lands of these Elder Kingdoms, and when
this war is done, with my love will I honor thee.’

“I should have wept before,” he says. “There should have been
tears for you then. For all the grief I caused you, and for all the thousand
hurts I inflicted upon you for the love you granted me.”

And Aelathar’s power was the old magic of the Druidas, so a
garden Gilvaleus vowed to make for her at the King’s Seat at Mitrost, to which
she would call the splendor of Summer in all seasons. And they walked together
in the empty ruins where that wonder would be raised, and he told her they
would pledge their love beneath bowers white and green.

“I curse this fate,” the White Pilgrim says. “I curse this life
that denies me death and the chance to be in your arms once more. And so I am
glad,” he says, “that Nàlwyr is with you again. Watching over you as once was
his charge. Kept for too long from the side of those who loved him…”

Then her laughter rang on the white stones that glimmered by
the stars that were fair Aelathar’s name, and whose light was in her silver
hair and pale eyes. And Gilvaleus the High King kissed her for the first time
beneath those stars, that watched them both with all of fate and history’s
unseeing eyes.

“And when you see him, tell him that folk still remember the good
we did. Tell him the virtue and greatness of Empire lived in him. Tell him he
was the best of us all, and bound to the goodness that lived in him as in no
other.”

His eyes are wet, voice breaking. The wind is rising from the
east, stealing the last warmth of the day. His sight blurs through shadow and
tears, the visions faded but the gloom of sunset wrapping him now.

“Tell him I am broken for what I have done, and that the sins of
his king are washed from him by the penance and pilgrimage I make. And by the
grace of the Twelve that keeps me alive to pay the endless price for the blood
on my hands. And when you see Astyra, tell him his father weeps for his birth
and life, and pays now for ending that life before its time. And when you see
Cymaris, tell her I loved her, and that I beg forgiveness of her and will
always, and that I am spared the death that should be mine to spend a hundred
lifetimes in pilgrimage that might pay for my sins.”

He hears footsteps behind him. A faint whisper of boot leather
and gravel caught by the wind. He turns slowly, feels the ache of the road in
his chest, his back, his legs.

The Golden Girl stands there. Watching him.

He remembers the road. Remembers her blade bright in the firelight.

He turns back to the stone, squeezes one hand to a shaking fist
that is touched to his dried lips and kissed. Pressed down to the cold of the
graven name for a heartbeat that is a life of lost time. “I bring the greeting
of spring,” he whispers, as he whispers every year on this day for long years.
“Fare you well, my love. I pay the price that must be paid for wronging you.”

Familiar words. The memory twists through him for a moment. Gone
again.

He rises stiffly, shaking as he limps toward the lantern light
glowing warm now at the shuttered windows of the shrine. He hears a whisper of
leather and gravel behind him, remembers that the Golden Girl is there.
Following him. He does not look back.

Incense mingles with a haze of smoke to shroud pillars of blackened
pine, marching in ranks down the length of the main hall of the shrine. The
White Pilgrim slips in the open doors, the Golden Girl behind him, still
silent. Rough stone walls are smooth with whitewash, ash-flecked from the fire
that smolders in a great brazier. Set on three stones to mark the triad,
venting smoke to a rough hole in the rafters above. The healing altar stone of
Crecinu stands beyond it. The shuttered windows are touched by rising wind that
twists the light of torches along the walls.

“The Black Duke searched for you,” the White Pilgrim says. “At a
village…” He remembers suddenly. He holds the image in his mind’s eye, feels it
fade.