Crown of Vengeance (Dragon Prophecy) (18 page)

For long moments Vieliessar stared, exhausted, at nothing. Amlunan’s breathing had evened into true and restful sleep. She knew she should rouse herself and bring the news to Hervilafimir, but she could not find the strength. She came to herself at last as gentle hands lifted her to her feet.

“The jewel of Aramenthiali lives,” she heard Maeredhiel say. “As does nine-blessed Arevethmonion, despite your efforts. Now sleep.”

*   *   *

By the time Vieliessar could rise from her bed once more, Aramenthiali had departed the Sanctuary, but it had left behind it unexpected treasure.

“All I know is what I have said,” Hamonglachele said. “
Komen
and great lords may speak before us as if we are nothing more than chests and tapestries, but they would surely notice if a tapestry were to question them!”

Vieliessar laughed, and shoved her counter across the
gan
board with one fingertip. Even as a Postulant, she had never entirely abandoned the Servants’ Hall, for it seemed uncivil to her to abandon old companions merely because of a change in fortune. Though she now wore Lightborn green, the servants still welcomed her as one of their own—and in truth, who else might she call friend? Candidates stayed for a scant wheel of seasons; Postulants for a decade or two. She could number upon her fingers the Lightborn who tenanted the Sanctuary for even half an Astromancer’s reign—and she did not call Hamphuliadiel or his court of sycophants ‘friend’.

“Did a tapestry hear that the Child of the Prophecy had risen in Haldil, I think even it would cry out,” Vieliessar said dryly.

“
‘Aramenthiali helps to hold the West without thought for its own advantage because in the East, the Four Score behave as unruly children,’”
Hamonglachele quoted mockingly. “Think you such a marvel can be true?”

“If Malbeth of Haldil is Child of the Prophecy, anything is possible,” Vieliessar said. “And I have you surrounded, Mistress ’Chele.”

Hamonglachele looked down at the board and laughed. “The student surpasses the master!” she cried. “I have nothing left to teach you.”

Vieliessar smiled, then scooped her counters off the board, for it was nearly time to dim the lamps. She tidied away the
gan
set and thanked Hamonglachele for the game, then walked from the Servants’ Wing back to her chamber.

It was a place less stark than her Postulant chamber had been. Her clothing belonged to her now, rather than being from a common store, and she possessed a fine carved chest that held winter and summer robes and underrobes. A shelf hung upon her wall, deep enough to hold scrolls borrowed from the library plus cherrybark canisters of her special tea blendings and a flat book where she recorded her experiments and recipes. Beneath it was a table at which she might sit to read or write, and a cushion on which to kneel. Though her bed was no softer than her Candidate’s bed had been, its frame was carved and polished and her blankets were of new wool.

She did not set the walls alight as she entered, but went to the window and folded back the shutters. Fire Moon was waning. Soon it would be Harvest—and what of Haldil then?

She was certain ’Chele knew as well as any here that Celelioniel had named her—and not Malbeth of Haldil—Child of the Prophecy. But to the Sanctuary servants, the title was empty words, a riddle meant only for scholars.

Or, as Haldil clearly had decided … a pretext.

There were a Hundred Houses divided into Great and Less, but any child of a great court knew there were more divisions than two. There were the Great Houses whose position was unquestioned—Caerthalien, Aramenthiali, Cirandeiron—which had held their places since Amrethion High King ruled. There were Less Houses which would never aspire to greater rank—Hallorad, Penenjil, Kerethant. And there were Less Houses which swore themselves High—but when one spoke of the “Four Score,” one spoke of the Less Houses of whose status there was no dispute. Those were the Houses held in clientage by this High House or that. In exchange for its protection, a High House demanded a yearly tithe, the right to call upon its client’s levy knights in time of war …

… and the renunciation of the Less House War Prince’s claim to the Unicorn Throne.

But Haldil did not look so high as to make itself High King’s House. Haldil was a House of the Grand Windsward; in claiming Malbeth as the fulfillment of Amrethion’s Prophecy, War Prince Gonceivis had declared “The time of High House and Low” was ended.

Which meant Haldil—and those who followed Haldil—renounced their clientage to their overlords in the West.

The tale had been played out a thousand thousand times in the histories she had read. The Hundred Houses fought among themselves. They would fight until the end of the world over who was to be High King. They had fought for thousands of years.

Haldith knows it does not hold the Child of the Prophecy. Enerchelimier has only to ask Celelioniel Lightsister to bear witness to that—should Enerchelimier wish to avow itself loyal. That she named me is—I think—no secret.

Haldil’s gambit was a clever pretext, nothing more.

And the Twelve will fling themselves upon the pretext like a hawk upon a lure, and never ask the question they should ask.

Why do the Four Score rebel against their accustomed masters? Why now?

Such speculation was only another game for her—like
xaique
, like
gan
, like
narshir
. She was Lightborn, of no House. The strivings of the Hundred could not affect her.

So she thought.

*   *   *

“Beru, I cannot find the
Jade Mirror
scroll,” Vieliessar complained.

Beruthiel Lightsister, Arevethmonion’s Mistress, laughed quietly. She had succeeded Cirthoriach Lightsister as mistress of Arevethmonion in the usual way: beginning in her Postulant days with a taste for scholarship and a fascination with the Great Library’s mysteries, she had returned many times through the centuries to assist the then-mistress of Arevethmonion in her tasks, before gaining a boon of her War Prince that permitted her a longer stay. The Astromancer served from fruiting to fruiting: the Mistress—or Master—of Scrolls served until age or disinterest made them lay aside their duty.

“How sad it is to see one once so promising in scholarship set that promise aside!” Beruthiel teased. “
The Jade Mirror
has been archived. No one thought it of any significance, and there is little enough space for scrolls as it is.”

“But … I cannot find
The Book of Days
, either. And I was certain there was more than one copy. Or
The Fire Alphabet
. Or
The Book of Veils
. And I was looking at them, well … not so long ago.”

“What do you wish to know?” Beruthiel asked, her smile fading. “I have but little skill in walking the Veiled Path—but if something troubles you, there is no reason you should not go to the Shrine and bespeak the Silver Hooves yourself, you know.”

“It isn’t the future I wish to see, but the past,” Vieliessar said. “I suppose I must go into the storage archives, then.”

“It is … you must seek the Astromancer’s permission,” Beruthiel said, sounding embarrassed. “Those books are in the Locked Cases, and … I know you are no Postulant, but the Astromancer has given orders that all the books of spells and prophecy are not to be released except upon his word.”

A word Vieliessar knew she was not likely to receive, now or ever.

“It was a few moonturns after you took the Green Robe, I think,” Beruthiel added.

“So long as that?” Vieliessar forced herself to smile, as if her heart was untroubled. “It was but a fancy, Beru. Do not distress yourself.”

The news of Haldil’s rebellion had sparked her curiosity—for
The Song of Amrethion Aradruiniel
seemed an odd and esoteric pretext for rebellion. She would have set the notion aside, save for a chance remark Rondithiel Lightbrother had made.

Hamphuliadiel Astromancer’s house was Haldil.

There was no proscription against knowing the Houses of the Lightborn. In fact it was often a matter of vital importance, for the swiftest messages went forth by spellbird or Farspeaking, and such communication lay solely within the hands of the Lightborn, who would render no aid to a House not their own. If Gonceivis Haldil had taken his cause for war from some meddling of Hamphuliadiel, perhaps the reasons lay within the scrolls that spoke of the Prophecy.

But what she found was more troubling to her than any news of distant rebellion, or thinking the Astromancer of the Sanctuary of the Star chose to make the Hundred into counters on a
xaique
board.

There was no longer a full copy of
The Song of Amrethion
anywhere on the shelves—the last scroll in every available copy, the scroll containing the Prophecy-or-Curse, had been altered so it no longer contained it. The commentaries on the Song were either missing entirely, or the vellum had been cut and re-glued so the chapters analyzing the Song were gone. And as she’d just discovered, it was not just the Song.
The Jade Mirror
was an important text, how could Beruthiel, could anyone, say it was of no importance?
The Book of Days, The Book of Veils
,
The Fire Alphabet
 … every book recording prophecies was either missing entirely or locked away as if it contained dangerous spellcraft.

All those texts should be here, so the Postulants could learn from them.

Those lacunae led her to investigate the Histories, but there were disturbing gaps there too. The scrolls detailing the lives of the Astromancers were gone. She could find their names, from Mosirinde Peacemaker down to Hamphuliadiel—but no texts of their lives more recent than Timirmar Astromancer’s, and there had been thirty Astromancers since Timirmar’s reign. Where were the lists of decisions made, of Postulants who became Lightborn in each reign, the lists of spells cast, Healings performed, Foretellings and interpretations made?

A library of magic without magic is a poor library indeed,
Vieliessar thought sourly.
If I make known those things Hamphuliadiel has done, I will have no allies to help me make all as it was. Nor will his fears of me be allayed. Yet he fears me already …

And Hamphuliadiel had always found fault with her even when both law and custom were on her side.

He has often mocked Celelioniel’s obsession with Amrethion’s Prophecy. But I think he must believe in it, or why would he take such pains to render it impossible to prove? It cannot merely be for Haldil’s benefit. No War Prince truly seeks his causes in ancient lore. He has done this to us—to the Lightborn.

To me.

Celelioniel had named Vieliessar Child of the Prophecy, the one whose birth would—so Amrethion had written—herald the coming of the Darkness and bring an end to the Hundred Houses. Celelioniel had chosen Hamphuliadiel to carry on her work. It was why she had supported his bid to become Astromancer. But once he had, Hamphuliadiel had betrayed her. Clearly he meant to dismiss all thought in anyone’s mind that the Prophecy might be true. He’d already removed every scroll that would help the Lightborn decide for themselves.

If the question arose.

When
it arose.

Foretelling was not Vieliessar’s spell to call. She did not know what the future held, and in truth, she had never wanted to, for what she had learned in her vigil within the Shrine had frightened her more than she had ever wished to admit. Now she wished she had tried harder to master it. At least then she would know when the Darkness her birth had foretold would come.

Perhaps it is I who am the Darkness. Why else would Hamphuliadiel hate me so?

*   *   *

Those words came back to Vieliessar many times the following winter. It was the hardest winter she had ever spent.

She spent it outside the Sanctuary.

They had learned of the Windsward Rebellion in Fire, and it had taken her through Rade to discover what Hamphiliadiel had done to the Great Library. Through all that winter she had stayed quiet and meek, but then Flower came, and a new year of Postulants were chosen.

There were only six Lightborn residents at the Sanctuary these days, a fraction of the number there’d once been, and Hervilafimir’s and Beruthiel’s duties occupied so much of their time that they could not be spared to shepherd new Postulants into the knowledge of the Light. Vieliessar’s practice of spellcraft had never been either elegant or conventional enough to satisfy her fellow Lightborn—Rondithiel thought it must be because of all the time she had practiced in secret; Pamaneith Lightbrother thought it was because she had come to the Light so late. But even if no one wished her to teach the Light itself, Vieliessar knew as much about its theory and history as any here.

And more than some.

She began innocently enough. But moonturn followed moonturn, and she turned from teaching the Candidates what they could still find upon the shelves of Arevethmonion to teaching them of those scrolls which now existed nowhere but in her memories. She could not bear for these Postulants to go forth into the world crippled and half educated.

She hadn’t thought what she did would be discovered at all; Hamphuliadiel paid little attention to the Postulants and no one else would think what she was teaching was at all unusual. But one morning, a sennight after she’d begun, she’d barely settled herself in her seat in the Refectory, thinking of little more than the Postulants she would see today, when Momioniarch Lightsister came to stand behind her chair.

“Hamphuliadiel Astromancer summons you to attend him at the Shrine, Lightsister,” she said.

Puzzled, Vieliessar nodded. “I come,” she answered. She got to her feet and waved away the young Candidate who was serving breakfast.

When she reached the antechamber of the Shrine, Hamphuliadiel stood in its center. Everyone was at the morning meal, even the servants; there was no one to see. Behind him, as if he were a great prince and they his
komentai’a,
stood Galathornthadan and Sunalanthaid.
Two more from Haldil
, she noted automatically, for of the four Lightborn who seemed to attend upon Hamphuliadiel as if it were their only task, only Orchalianiel was not from Haldil—and Orchalianiel was from Bethros, to which Hamphuliadiel also had ties.