Aethersmith (Book 2) (43 page)

“He is no assassin. He is a swordsman and a coinblade,”
Brannis argued. “And you should have been one of the first to realize I was not
actually Kyrus; you saw me not so very long ago. How many men can fill out a
suit of armor so quickly, short of eating himself to ruinous girth?”

“You travel with a man who cheats at cards better than any I
have ever seen. I have no idea his trick, but I know he was not winning fairly.
And you … you had the potential to be a remarkably strong sorcerer. Even if the
tale of your magical adventure were false, I would have to guard against
deception by your own magic,” Stalyart reasoned.

“Well, since you might as well warn Zayne, it is Kyrus he
will be matching wits with. I am also receiving proper training in magic from
Rashan Solaran,” Brannis bragged. “As for my ‘adventure,’ it was an accident,
and I am making the most of my situation here. Had I known so many of my own
had twins on this side, I would have tried something like this all the sooner.
I had hoped that Captain Zayne would view Tanner’s presence as a compromise; he
gets his ambassador, and does not have to risk either me accidentally torching
his vessel or deciding that I would be best off with him dead, and tearing his
Source out.”

“Well, maybe you are Brannis and maybe you are Kyrus. To be
quite honest …” Stalyart began, then trailed off, changing his mind
mid-sentence. “You know, there is a fanciful old map in my quarters—perhaps you
have seen it more recently than I—that is decorated along the margins. It shows
the whole of the world as men once saw it, ending a bit east of Takalia and a
bit west of Acardia, with nothing between them—as if the world were not round
and no man had set foot on Elok. The edges show serpents and devils, whirlpools
and mermaids; there are even dragons there. If ever there were a man who might
find his way off the map, and find the land where dragons live, I suppose I
would have to think of Kyrus. He is too strong for his own skills—a hazard to
friend and foe alike.”

“I am not sure quite how to take that, but in any event, my
offer stands. You have until we reach Takalia to decide but I think it works to
everyone’s benefit. Jinzan gets a line of communication with Kadrin. You get to
do Zayne a service. Tanner gets to play pirate. I get some time with Soria
without him around, constantly watching her.” Brannis smiled.

Stalyart nodded slowly in understanding. “This is the man
who wrings Denrik Zayne’s neck at chess, I remember,” Stalyart congratulated
him. “I see now, you are a man who moves men as chess pieces. It is a noble
tradition, you know, among generals. A good tactician, whether on a chessboard,
a battlefield, or at sea, knows that he must place carefully each of his
pieces, not just the important ones. Battles are won and lost because a small
piece was in just the right place when it was needed.”

“Something like that.” Brannis shrugged.

“And pawns are meant to be used and discarded, when they
serve their purpose best in death,” Stalyart observed ominously.

“I do not intend that Tanner is being sacrificed, you know.
If I thought Zayne was going to kill him—if he could, mind you, the man is a
demon with a blade from what I hear …”—Brannis immediately regretted his choice
of words, but there was nothing to be done about it—“… then I would not send
him at all.”

“Denrik Zayne is a man who thinks freedom is worth dying
for. He understands that to make Megrenn free was a great thing, and worth the
risk to himself. He sees freeing Kadrin much the same way. He would like to see
the people free, and your nobles and sorcerers ground to dust beneath his boot
for how you behave. For all those noble thoughts, he would think nothing of
sacrificing a pawn to advance his ends. Would you not do the same?” Stalyart
asked.

Brannis found himself wondering about the dashing
swashbuckler, whether there was more to him than met the eye—and not just his
eye for detail or quick wit. He did not know the man well, but was seeing for
the first time that he was perhaps a bit of a philosopher. “I would. I have a
job to do, and sometimes I have to order men to risk their lives based on my
plans. Munne fell despite my efforts. We gave up Temble Hill as a diversion and
a trap, knowing it would never hold, but I sent a lot of men to Munne who died
because of it. They died trying to keep Munne free, but it fell anyway.”

“The tragedy is that they died for freedom but never had it
to begin with,” Stalyart said.

“How do you mean? Of course they were free,” Brannis said.
He suspected deep down that he knew the gist of what Stalyart’s argument would
be, and hated himself for it.

“Free? What would have happened if a soldier had said ‘No, I
will not fight. I wish to go home,’ and he did so?” Stalyart asked, but he did
not wait for Brannis to answer. “I will tell you that he would be called a
deserter. I do not know your custom for such matters, but I suspect he would be
killed or thrown in a dungeon. That is the Kadrin way. A Megrenn soldier would
be called a coward. They would take back any weapons and armor he had been
given, any provisions the army had provided. It might mean that he walked home
naked, begging at farmhouses for food, but it would be his choice. That is a
free man.”

“It sounds much the same. He would likely die of starvation
as no one would feed a known deserter, or he might turn to brigandry. He is not
really any better off than the Kadrin deserter, except the Kadrin would get a
cleaner, quicker death,” Brannis said. No army would hold together long should
there be no punishment for desertion. Megrenn merely made it unpalatable in a
different way than Kadrin did.

“You really cannot see the difference?” Stalyart asked
innocently, shaking his head. “I had hoped that maybe you would see more
clearly, but the rot that the Empire brings has corrupted you as well, I see.
Too much power, too close to the top, to see how little freedom there really
is. The Megrenn will fight for real freedom. They have gotten their own, and
they will bring it to Kadrin. They are even willing to die for it.

“And that is where we differ, the Megrenn and I,” Stalyart
stated, reminding Brannis that Gar-Danel was allied with Megrenn, not a part of
it. “I am willing to kill for my freedom. I am even willing to kill for someone
else’s, if the right situation comes. I will not die for my freedom, though;
that is the height of folly.”

“A lot of men die for their freedom. Entire wars are fought
over it,” Brannis said.

“Freedom is the ability to choose your own path. The dead do
not have that choice any longer,” Stalyart noted.

Brannis could not argue the point. He merely made a note of
it in the back of his mind, wondering if someday knowing that Stalyart valued
his life over his freedom could be put to use. Brannis found himself conscious
of reducing the person of Stalyart to a chess piece in his mind. He was a part
of a much larger game than chess, and it was a game where the players had to be
constantly learning more of the rules as they played. He had just discovered
one of the rules for moving Stalyart.

Chapter 24 - Forging Chains

The room had a military smell to it. The air was fresh and
crisp from the window he had opened, but it could not overpower the heavy scent
of leather oil and steel that saturated the building. Brannis had spent less
and less time at the army’s headquarters as he became embroiled in the politics
at court, and in Rashan’s schemes. Kyrus had gone a step further in his brief
tenure as Brannis’s replacement, never having set foot in Brannis’s office
until that morning. General Sir Hurald Chadreisson had emptied the room of many
of the accoutrements of command. The desk was bare, and the rack of scroll
canisters was empty as well; scouts’ missives had been redirected to Brannis’s
suite at the palace. The personnel records had been moved to some major’s
office (Kyrus had already ordered them returned). The large map he had been
using to track the Kadrin deployment, and reports of Megrenn forces had been
removed, but the little statues were left strewn across the table. Monohorns
and stripe-cats lay with their feet up in the air, Megrenn infantry swept into
a pile. The Kadrin forces had been bunched at one end of the table, all
together, but someone had at least taken the care to leave them standing
upright.

Kyrus had awakened with a plan, conceived largely by
Brannis, but with which he wholeheartedly agreed. He sat at Brannis’s desk with
stacks of officers’ files at his left hand, and a pile of blank parchment to
his right. With a quill in hand, he was going to rearrange the army just a bit.

In all the files, there was one name he was looking to find:
Elmin Tanner. Soria had told him that Tanner was assigned to Naran Port, so it
would not take a great deal of searching to find him or his file. What Kyrus
needed was to find enough other officers to reassign to cover the inclusion of
Tanner among them. His pretense would be sending more of the senior leadership
of the army out into the field, and bringing the inexperienced ones back to
Kadris to get them logistical training, and vet them for higher positions, as
the army was destined to grow in size as the war effort took hold.

Kyrus spent a good portion of the morning arranging for
promising middling officers to be brought to army central command, and
assigning irascible old veterans to apply their oft-touted expertise where it
could be more immediately used: on the battlefront with Megrenn. He looked for
men with unusual skills and circumstances. Ronnad Darkhorse was accounted one
of the best archers in the Empire; he would train recruits at the School of
Arms while in Kadris. Sir Hanliy Garlent’s career had foundered after a falling
out between Lord Jomon and his son; he would get a chance to prove himself.
Elmin Tanner was an arrogant sword captain who had been reprimanded on occasion
for insubordination. Well, he would be a project, certainly, but “Sir Brannis”
really could use a good sword instructor. Kyrus smiled.

He picked a half dozen other officers who he thought could
avail themselves of a change in locale, and found plausible assignments for
them as well.
Do other commanders make these sorts of assignments as well?
It would certainly explain the grousing among the men of nonsensical orders
coming from the top levels of the army. I had always thought they were just
looking to place blame for things that inconvenienced them, and had no clear
purpose from their viewpoint. I had never considered that the orders were as
capricious as those men had claimed. The maligned wisdom of the downtrodden, I
suppose.

Kyrus looked over the sad, empty table from which Brannis
had plotted their defense against the expected Megrenn invasion. His first
thought had been to get the map back from wherever it had been taken, but then
he remembered the spell Rashan had shown him the night before.

“Huaxti janidu deldore wanetexu elu mulaftu sekedori
puc’anzu margek lotok junubi
,”
Kyrus intoned, carefully weaving his
fingers through the complex motions the spells required. As he did so, he could
picture the colored lines hanging in the air that the warlock had provided for
him to trace with his fingers.

The table transformed. The glossy wooden surface turned
rocky and brown, and the edges turned to water, outlining the continent of
Koriah as best Kyrus could remember it from maps. Giving in to fancy, he let
the water cascade off the edges like a waterfall, in a small tribute to
Stalyart, and his ideas about old maps. Kyrus approximated the locations of the
Cloud Wall and Stone Talon mountain ranges, and they rose from the continent
like erupting teeth of stone. Using those mountains as a guide, he set about
creating rivers and lakes, forests, roads, cities, and towns as best he could
remember them. He knew the scale and proportion were awful—he would have to
retrieve the map to consult it, at the least—but certain locales he was more
familiar with were likely accurate enough for tactical use: the vicinity of
Kadris, Raynesdark, the ogrelands, Kelvie Forest. The little figurines
representing the armies floated up out of the illusory map at Kyrus’s command.
He was going to place them where reports had last claimed them to be, but then
redirected them over to a bookshelf, where he set them down safely out of the
way. Upon the topography of the map appeared the forces of Kadrin and Megrenn,
and all their allies, in fine detail, though not to scale.

Kyrus spent much of his morning reading through reports, and
making alterations to his map accordingly. He also got hold of his original,
flat, paper map, and adjusted his aether-constructed one until it matched as
exactly as he could make it. From his limited experience in such things, he
judged that the construct would last several days before needing to be
reinvigorated with aether. While he was away, the illusion of falling water,
some little waves crashing against the coastlines, the flow of rivers, and some
swaying of the trees and prairie grasses would continue on their own. Kyrus
thought a moment, and added some clouds above; those would continue to laze
across the continent on their own as well. The rest of the map would be
unchanging except by the application of aether by a sorcerer.

Kyrus left orders for some of the officers to study the map,
and make note of anything they were aware of that was based on outdated
intelligence or erroneous reports. He had not spent nearly enough time
digesting every report that Brannis had received to ensure the map’s complete
accuracy, but it ought to have been close enough for military strategists to
work from.

There was one last order he wanted to send. It really ought
to have been a request. He wanted to offer a position to someone who was not
under his command. For that matter, the position he intended to fill was
neither vacant, nor under his purview. It would be a test of the leeway that
Rashan allowed him, but he rather expected that it would work. The captain of
the palace guard was sixty-three autumns of age, and no longer the hard-eyed
sentinel he had once been. The man managed the palace guards well enough, but
lacked vigor, fire, and the ability to provide much protection by his own sword
anymore. Kyrus somehow suspected that it would not be too difficult to convince
Varnus to accept the position.

* * * * * * * *

Kyrus left the army headquarters shortly before noontime. It
was a warm, mild day of the sort that southern Kadrin rarely got so early in
the season. He should have been glad of the fact, but found that it only
reminded him that the exotic cavalry of the Megrenn would be all the more
comfortable; the blue skies and sweet-smelling breezes were lost on him.

He made for a home he had scarcely imagined he would have to
visit. Celia Mistfield had so dogged his steps since their return from
Raynesdark that he half-expected that he could merely look over his shoulder to
find her. Ever since Iridan and Juliana’s wedding, however, she had left
Brannis in peace. Now Kyrus set about actively seeking her out. He had needed
to ask one of the palace messengers that morning just to find out where she
lived; he had never thought to ask.

Rashan may be playing at something. I cannot risk it,
though; the bait is too tempting and he knows it. A drunken demon? Even
one-quarter in his cups, he ought to have been more politic than to drop such a
juicy morsel accidentally. He had some motive and I will not divine it without
speaking to her.
The warlock’s sudden recognition when Abbiley’s name was
mentioned suggested that it was not the first time he had heard it.
Was it
feigned or a genuine reaction?
Kyrus could not tell.

He had not, in fact, found Juliana awaiting him in his
bedchambers the night before. It would have been well past impulsive, even for
her, to antagonize Rashan again so soon. With the peace of a solitary
pre-slumber, Kyrus’s sleepy mind had wandered its way back through the
conversation between himself and the warlock. What details he had given, what
tricks might have been played on him, what sort of motive he might have had for
deception—all sloshed about in his mind like the water in a carelessly carried
bucket; most had fallen out.

The sweetmilk had helped him to a wondrously restful night’s
sleep, but he recalled little of the detail of his deliberation. He had no
reason to suspect the warlock of poisoning him or drugging him; the effect of
sweetmilk was tried out on children from the age of two summers clear through
to …
How old am I now, twenty-two summers?
Kyrus shook his head at his
foolishness. It was as good as wine for putting you out cold for the night, but
with no hangover afterward, and more importantly, no violent, drunken outbursts
while awake and under its influence.

When he arrived at the modest home that had been provided
for Celia, Kyrus knocked at her door, standing smartly at what he thought was
military attention as he awaited a response from within. He studied the door,
noting its construction and estimating how sturdy it was as a defensive
bulwark; he had no intention of assaulting the place, but his preoccupation
with military planning since his arrival in Veydrus was beginning to leak into
his thoughts more and more.

“Good morning, your lordship,” a young maid answered the
door. She was pretty in the plain sort of way that even rather ordinary girls
are at a certain age; flush in newly found womanhood, and not yet worn out by a
life of work and childbearing. Her sleeveless grey dress was cut thigh-length,
with plain trousers showing beneath them. Brannis would have thought nothing of
it, having been around such garb all his life, but Kyrus found it cynical. The
dress was a mere covering for work clothes: arms bare for washing and
scrubbing, no long skirts to catch on things, trousers for kneeling for truly
lowborn tasks.

“I am here to see Sorceress Celia,” Kyrus informed her,
brushing aside his thoughts on the class system evident in Kadrin. He had too
many other matters to worry about right then.

“Milady is not in the house. I can prepare tea and tarts for
you, if you care to wait for her, or you may return in the evening,” the girl
replied with all deference, not even looking Kyrus in the eye.

“Where can I find her now?” Kyrus asked. He did not have the
sorts of days that permitted waiting in Sixth Circle sorceresses’ sitting
rooms.

“I do not know, your lordship,” came the reply. It sounded
honest enough; she was just a maid, not privy to all Celia’s affairs. Had she
been better dressed, he might have taken her for a ladies’ maid, and not the
cleaning sort, and his expectations of her knowledge would have been more
demanding.

It was then that Kyrus noticed something subtle in the
aether. The girl’s Source was hiding it partially, but there was some sort of
aether construct about her. The girl squirmed and blushed under Kyrus’s
scrutiny but voiced no complaint.

At length, Kyrus spoke to her. “Do you know that someone has
put a spell on you?” he asked bluntly. He had no reason to worry about
offending her. Had that been his aim, he would have known better than to stare
at her so long to begin with.

“Of course, my lord,” she replied, her voice a tiny thing,
as if she were trying to keep her answer a secret from her own Source.

“To what end?” Kyrus asked, annoyed that Celia—or possibly
someone on her behalf—had enspelled the poor girl. He had not puzzled out the
exact nature of the spell, but he could not see any protective effects in
evidence. He suspected that the girl’s ignorance was not entirely of her own
making.

“It was a condition of my employment, your lordship,” she
confessed.

Kyrus seethed. Taking commoners as thralls was a
time-honored—and widely condemned—practice among sorcerers. The Imperial Circle
expressly forbade it, and Kadrin law made it a crime punishable by banishment.
It was in many ways worse even than the practice of necromancy, since not
everyone was convinced that the suffering evident in the bodies of the dead was
felt by the individual whose consciousness had once inhabited that body.
Thralls were worse than slaves, with no freedom even in their own minds.

“Who cast this spell on you? Just give me a name, and I will
be on my way.” Kyrus focused on the construct and it shattered, spilling its
aether loose and succumbing to his draw.

“Thank you, your lordship, but I have no name I can give
you. I remember the fact of it, but I can recall no details. I may as well
remember events from before I was born, it is such a blackness in my mind,” the
girl explained, relieved but worried that she was not able to provide what her
benefactor wished to hear.

“I will find out by other means. Until then, if Celia
returns, tell her to report to me immediately,” Kyrus ordered.

“If I might beg your pardon, my lord, but what name should I
give her?” the girl asked diplomatically.

Of course! I am growing arrogant indeed to expect that
the whole of the Empire knows me by my face, especially since I only somewhat
look like Brannis.