Ash and Silver (50 page)

As the last parchment passed down the line, one and then the other of the judges rose. By the time it had reached the end of the curved table they were leaving their seats in a flood, gone to touch a sorcerer of Caedmon's bloodline, clamoring to know more of him. How would any who had not heard de Serre's voice comprehend such instant willingness to believe?

The Marshal received each one with a nod and his hand, and I knew the flood of warmth they would feel, as if he looked into their souls and knew their strengths and weaknesses, his gaze promising to make them better men and women. Had any leader of men ever been gifted so generously with a quality so befitting a king? One and then the other bent a knee before him. As the uproar grew, Damon stood to the side, serene. Fool that I was, I still wanted to believe.

And then the Marshal raised his hands and spoke. “Know this about me, noble judges: I shall be no
ordinary
king.”

Every one of them cheered at this, which struck me as unseemly. They were judges, vowed to be impartial in their considerations.

“I have served the past seven years in a strict military order,” he continued, “learning of duty and justice and the power of magic to fight for them. I cannot change what I am. So you'll not see me dressing myself in silks and furs and dallying with rich men's daughters. Nor shall I mutilate the dead to bargain with Magrog or sail the coastal waters playing pirate captain to prove myself a worthy king.”

They nodded, comparing him to Eodward's vile sons.

“From the day I am acknowledged by the Sitting of the Three Hundred, Geraint de Serre will be no more. Every hour of every day will I live masked to remind all that I have been and will ever be a bearer of a divine gift. When the day comes that I claim my birthright, I shall be known only as the Sorcerer King. Ordinaries, peasant and noble alike, will kneel to the power the gods have given those of our kind, and I and my heirs shall rule Navronne with righteous magic until the end of days.”

So wild was the cheering, one would imagine him anointed already. My heart soared as well. As ever he spoke directly to my spirit, nourishing my deepest hopes. What a king he would make.

I'd said that before. Fix had said it. But did I believe it?

That glorious voice . . . that noble sympathy that woke my spirit . . .
And yet where I saw a man of passion and vision, Dunlin believed the Marshal a man of ferocious rigor—which his own wild spirit craved. Fix believed the Marshal entirely pragmatic, yet could not shake faith in his honor after a single face-to-face meeting. The Archivist believed him devoted to the Order, even knowing he had violated the Order's most sacred trust by destroying my relict and setting a mind-destroying trap aimed at brother knights. Surely it was Geraint de Serre's bent to make others hear what they wanted to believe.

What had he actually said? A masked king. Apart. No face to present to the world. Separate. Elite. Pure. Would what worked so well for a small fraternity focused on works of justice be the right thing for a great kingdom?

Eodward had been a wise, generous, truly noble man who had brought Navronne out of war and into glory. His subjects saw his face, fought alongside him, and adored him. It was only his last years were blighted with the sad truth of his sons and the terrible turn in the weather, a mystery which no pureblood had been able to solve. If no one knew the identity of the Sorcerer King . . . then who would know his successor . . . or when his successor took over? Even more important, who in the world would hold him to account?

Misgivings festered in me like Xancheira's vines as the lauds faded and the hall emptied. What of Eodward's lost will? Navronne's succession was not based solely on primogeniture. Our king was empowered to choose his heir from any of his blood.

As darkness fell, the sickness of depletion had me dizzy, my thoughts blown to nonsensical. When they came for me, I was asleep.

I didn't fully wake when they moved me. And it was likely in my dreams I heard Damon.

“Did I not promise a day of triumph, Greenshank? Now we need to put you away for a while. Sleep well, knowing that the Remenis have determined the future of Navronne in glorious ways you cannot yet imagine.”

When an iron door slammed, I embraced the dark.

“M
other's blessing for this day.”

I was astonished. “I'm not dead?”

“Nay,
still
not.” Lantern light revealed a skinny old man as pale and dry as a withered turnip and just as expressive.

“What's the time?” I sat up on a hard bed, unhappy to find shackles and silkbindings still in place. I could have batted this man down with one elbow.

“Third hour of the morning watch. Sorry about the hobbles. The curator would not have you misbehave.”

My execution was set for midday, not much time for misbehavior.

My fingers twitched in their bindings. Why did they bother with silkbinding? It had been late when they retrieved me from the viewing gallery, so I could have slept only a few hours. Far too short a time to replenish such depletion. And I couldn't recall the last time I'd eaten. My belly felt like to devour itself. Or perhaps that was just sickness at such abject failure at everything I'd tried to do.

The turnip and four guards soon led me out. Damon awaited us at the top of the dungeon stair.

“Will you not just get on with things?” I snapped. The hobble chain made going difficult. “Or feed me lest I puke bile on your executioner's boots.”

“We'll get you cleaned up. But you'll likely appreciate not having anything in your stomach for the next few hours.”

I didn't like the sound of that. Surely they didn't remove the hands while the condemned sorcerer yet lived.

A labyrinth of deserted, barren corridors brought us to a stone closet furnished with a drain, a tin tub, an incongruous lump of lavender-scented soap, and a servant who proceeded to strip, bathe, and shave me. Not just my chin, but head as well. It was unnerving for both of us, with four
enchanted sword points touching my bare skin and Damon eyeing every move.

When I thanked the nervous youth for his care with the razor knife, he shook his head and pointed to his ears. Deaf. Goddess Mother . . .

Though the air on my hairless scalp was strange, it was glorious to be clean, and the underdrawers and sleeveless tunic given me were of decent linen. But false bravado died unspoken, for at Damon's gesture my hands were silkbound, separately this time, and the shackles replaced. He didn't speak. Nor did he smirk or patronize or provide additional garments, save one. When the black mantle enshrouded me bald head to bare toes, even covering my eyes, the sickness in my gut gnawed deeper. Indeed I was glad not to have eaten.

A short, brisk journey later, the mantle came off. We'd arrived at a chamber very like a smaller version of the Evanide armory, worktables littered with weapons, sharpening stones, engraver's tools, boxes of metal scraps, flasks of oil, and such. No headsman's block.

“Place him as I instructed you,” said Damon. “Once he's fixed to the wall, remove the chains, but leave the silkbindings.”

Fear brought back the dizziness, and my mind scrambled for some way to stay the devil spider's weaving before I lost my wits entire. Silkbound, I'd no way to work magic.

“It's too early,” I croaked. “I've got till midday.”

No one spoke. Guards bound me to a wall with leather straps, facing out. Even when they were done with all the buckles, I was not particularly uncomfortable. But I couldn't move anything the width of an eyelash, not even my head. Certainly not my hands.

“Deunor's fire, Damon, you value our magic and believe it should be protected. You know mine is unusual. How can you throw it away?”

“I do value you.”

“Then what is all this?”

“Preparing you for your destiny. You're a stubborn man and I can't have you arguing or interfering. Once it's done, all will be clear.”

“Give him wine at the least. I don't like my subjects twitching.” The ever-present irritability, voiced in tones so like rusty gate hinges, came from my left, but of course, I couldn't turn my head to see if it was truly the Archivist, come all the way from Evanide.

And the Archivist's
subject
? No, no, no . . . “Merciful Goddess, Damon, what is this?”

“Better he should feel what's coming,” said another man before my panicked question got an answer. “Sooner or later we must all pay for the power we bear.”

The words' harsh meaning was wholly at odds with the mellow warmth of the speaker. But it was indeed the Knight Marshal who strolled into view alongside the Archivist. The three of them here together. Damon. The Archivist. The Marshal. Inek had warned me.
Fool, fool, fool.

As the Archivist left the others and joined me, he dropped his rust-red hood and removed his mask. I'd never seen him in the flesh. Scant white hair and beard lay like frost upon a scarred, cragged landscape of experiences, not just his own, but those of uncountable knights, parati, squires, and tyros. His lips were thin and arid, and pond ice in the frozen realm of Hansk could be no colder than the blue eyes examining me so intimately.

“You will thank me,” he whispered, entirely without mockery.

I would have laughed at such a solemn assertion, save for the knuckle-length splinter of silver he held in front of my eyes. With a blink of magic, he plunged it into my left wrist.

“What are you—? Gah!” A second splinter pierced the right wrist. Was this how they cut off a doomed sorcerer's hands?

Anger bloomed like balefire, blunting fear. “Magrog's unholy triumvirate. One servant, one puppet, one puppetmaster!”

Another splinter a finger length above the first, just above the strap that immobilized my wrist. A matching sting on the left.

“Knight Marshal, you can't believe Damon will allow you to rule.”

The Marshal chuckled. Damon remained silent. And as the Archivist placed new splinters, the previous ones shot blazing spikes into the veins of my arm, into the bones, erasing sensible thought. I'd felt this before. . . .

The Archivist's deft hands moved quickly leaving a chain of fire up the inside of both arms. When he moved away to the worktable, I prayed he was done, for I would swear a dagger had opened my flesh from wrist to shoulder.

The Marshal stepped closer, tilting his head as if I were a curiosity. “I told you Damon had great plans for our future, Lucian. Yours just requires a bit more pain. Pain has always been the difference between us. While you dabbled in your art and learning, a soft youth of divine promise and nurturing family, I was arrested for practice of illicit magic. The Registry knew well how to teach halfbloods their proper place. Now I'll direct the course
of their dissolution. Amusing, isn't it, how my
impure
blood will give me the life you assumed was yours alone?”

“I believed in you,” I said, breathless from pain and the weight of my blindness. “I believed in the Order. You believed, too.”

For an instant his eyes reflected the man he had been . . . yearning . . . focused on a righteous future just out of reach. But a blink left them hard again, and he flashed the rakish smile I'd glimpsed a lifetime ago in his dressing closet. “Ah, paratus, you shall certainly serve the Order's future.”

Then he leaned close and spoke softly so that only I would hear. “All that was before I remembered how much I despise purebloods like you and Inek. Yon Archivist doesn't quite understand that Caedmon's heir is not so devoted to his arcane fraternity as he is. The Order will be useful these first few months. But then, just between the two of us, I think it will be time for those self-righteous pricks to drown. Perhaps I'll have you do it.”

I couldn't respond. The Archivist had returned with a handful of splinters longer than the first ones. Where was he going to put these?

The inside of my left ankle. And then the right. My legs soon blazed from ankle to groin.

Another handful. Tiny ones. Merciful Goddess.

He planted the first just in front of my left ear, the next a knuckle length higher. The initial sting was bad enough, but it was the penetrating magic that cracked my skull as it shot all the way down to my gut. The Archivist had to step aside as I vomited.

“Get it all out now,” he said, and then returned to his work. Another and another, across my forehead, down past the other ear, then another. I tried to stay sensible by counting or estimating what pattern he made, but I could not. None of this made sense.

The Archivist stepped away. Only the leather straps held me upright. Breath came ragged. Spittle and bile dribbled down my chin. Though legs and face yet blazed, the pain in my arms had settled into to a grinding ache, as if every bone was fractured.

Damon hurried over and I flinched when his hand reached for my face. But it was only a towel he offered to blot my chin. And then a sip of water from an earthen cup. Even if I could have spoken, I would not have thanked him. Whatever this was, it was his idea.

The Archivist returned and placed a basket at my feet. I could not move enough to see what it held. Instead I tried to slow my breathing and
remember all that Inek had taught me about enduring pain.
Focus outside yourself . . . erase emotion . . . erase the body . . .

It didn't help. Not when the Archivist knelt down and wrapped something about my left ankle atop the first splinter. It felt as if it ripped out a ring of flesh, and I could not hold back a cry. And then another ring, and another . . . My body shook and heaved. I vomited again.

A long interruption allowed my vision to clear. Damon and the Marshal stood together, drinking, well away from their puking, sweating prisoner. The aroma of wine near made me heave again.

The Archivist, his brow wrinkled, examined my shoulder, then ran a finger down the outside of my arm. He paused and snapped his gaze to mine. “Fix!”

Panting, trembling, I could not imagine what his quiet exclamation meant.

“Allow the pain to become a part of you,” he said softly, “altering the body without obliterating the spirit. That will make this go easier.
Fix
would tell you so.”

Fix. The Archivist had found the Knight Defender's splinter in my arm.

When he wrapped something . . . metal . . . around my right wrist, I panted through the burning and considered Fix and his splinter.
Threading?
Is that what this was about? But that would change everything . . .

I sought his eyes. “Archivist—”

Another band went on and ate its way into my arm.

This time, I let go of reason and followed the snaking fire into a well of pain.

•   •   •

“T
ime to move forward, Greenshank. Geraint and the Archivist are off to breakfast. We've an hour to alter the course of history.”

It was an effort to open my eyes. The lids were stuck together and weighed of lead. “Don't want to move.”

I hadn't lost consciousness. From some great distance, I had felt them take me down from the wall, sit me on a bench, and wrap me in the black mantle. Now Damon crouched in front of me, solemn and sympathetic. “Come, you survived it, did you not?”

“What have you done to me?” My ribs ached with every breath. To speak made the pounding in my head thunderous. However unlikely, arms, legs, and face no longer pained me. All I could feel was a certain tightness. But I was shaking so hard my teeth rattled.

“I told you the truth. We prepared you for your proper destiny.” He leaned close. “Though not everyone who watched understands that destiny entirely.”

Damon, ever the spider.

Spice-scented steam bathed my face. “Drink this. You need your strength and your magic.”

“Can't.” My gut was too unsettled as yet.

He held the cup to my lips. “Drink. Two hours hence you will stand before the Three Hundred.”

He poured it down me slowly, giving it time to work. The flavorful posset was gloriously hot, the milk thick and soothing, the wine strong. For the first time in an aeon, the shivering stopped.

He refilled the cup and did it all again. Muscle and bone felt stronger already. Power swelled between my eyes and behind my breastbone. I slurped the third cupful like an infant at its mother's breast.

“What destiny?” I said, as the edges of the world became exceedingly sharp. The castle around us teemed with waking life . . . with householders . . . with strangers . . . hundreds of people.

Damon rose and picked through the items on the worktable. He returned with a bit of purple fabric dangling from his finger. Silk, it appeared, embroidered in gold. “This. Take it. It's yours. Well deserved and fairly earned.”

But when my hand found its way out of the black mantle, my gut hollowed. My arm was banded in bracelets of hammered silver, finely engraved with a variety of sigils. No embossing. Trigger points weren't needed, because the bracelets were embedded in my flesh. Threaded. Like Fix's splinter, like Fix's own bracelets, their magic could be triggered with will alone, not touch.

I ripped off the mantle. My other limbs were banded the same. Six on each arm, eight on each leg. I fumbled about my face, and hairless scalp, relieved to find no trace of metal. Perhaps that part had been delirium.

“What
are
these?”

“Tools. You'll need the support they can provide for great magics.” Damon sat on the bench beside me and held out the slip of purple again. “
This
is the answer you've been seeking, Greenshank. This is yours, do you but choose it so.”

A full-face mask. Silk, yes, a deep purple. The mask told the tale of
Damon's use for me, for the purple of Caedmon's Ardra was bordered with a chain of three-petaled lilies worked in gold.
Royal
lilies.

“You are entirely mad,” I said, hoarse.

“Many would say that. Navronne needs a Sorcerer King. But it needs one with brilliant magic and the discipline to use it, one with a true passion for justice and the strength to pursue it, not an ill-educated marketplace charlatan with a golden voice. You heard him. Geraint will use the cleansing of the Registry to make himself a tyrant. His voice will gather men and women to his side, and they won't know what's happening until it's too late.”