First Rider's Call (36 page)

It was almost a miracle how she could formulate strategy, as though she’d suddenly been endowed with the ability. Instead of seeing disparate, individual pieces, she saw patterns drawn on the gameboard like the lines of a map she could follow. It was so clear to her now—why hadn’t she seen it all before? How could she have missed it? How easy it was to annihilate Yates’ knights, assassins, infantry, courtiers, and archers, and how easy it would be to do the same to Justin.

When Yates finally surrendered, she turned on Justin, pulling him into an intricate trap that killed off more than half his pieces. He gazed at her slack-jawed, even as she moved in to take his king.

Afterward, she slumped in her chair exhausted.

“You’re the most merciless Triad I’ve ever played with,” Yates told her in awe.

“She’s not the Triad,” Justin said, “she’s an empress.” He looked up at her. “I thought you didn’t like this game.”

Karigan gazed at the game board as if seeing it for the first time and could not believe the carnage. She had led a conquest, taking over all of Yates’ and Justin’s countries. She had done it with trickery and cunning, and excellent strategy. She had been cold and calculating.

A part of her congratulated herself on doing what was necessary to expand her holdings and win domination. There had been major casualties, but that was the price of power.

Another part of her was so appalled her stomach lurched.

Abruptly she pushed away from the table and sprinted from the common room, leaving behind two baffled Riders.

She ran into her room and slammed the door shut behind her. She felt so—so unclean—tainted even. That hadn’t been her who played so ruthlessly, had it? She hated the game, and whenever she was coaxed into playing it, she always lost. Except this one time.

“Madness,” she said.

She went to her table and grabbed her mirror to see if she had sprouted horns since the last time she looked.

The mirror had once belonged to her mother, a wedding gift from her father, part of a beautiful silver dressing set, etched with wildflowers. Karigan remembered, as a little girl, slipping out of bed and peering into her parents’ room. There in the candlelight sat her mother on the corner of the bed in a white shift, looking into the mirror and giggling while her father tenderly brushed her long, brown hair. Karigan had watched, enraptured, until one of her aunts found her and sent her back to bed with a pat on her bottom.

Karigan smiled at the memory. It lent her balance. But when she looked into the silvered glass of the mirror, it was not her own face she saw.

The power of Blackveil is rising,
said the face in the mirror.

Karigan squawked and flung the mirror across the room. It stopped a hair’s breadth from smashing against the wall. It hung there, floating in the air.

Madness, madness, madness,
she thought.

It got worse. The mirror floated straight toward her as though carried by a phantom’s hand. Karigan raced for the door, but the mirror flew there before her, and advanced on her again. She backed away, until she got wedged between her wardrobe and the wall.

The mirror “faced” her. Blue-green eyes peered out at her, from leonine features framed by tawny hair. A face Karigan had seen a thousand years in the past.

Time is short,
Lil Ambrioth said,
before the door closes again, so listen to me for once, hey?

Inanely Karigan wanted to know
what
door.

Lil’s face vanished and the mirror plummeted toward the floor. Karigan snatched it from mid-air. She pressed it to her chest, and slid down the wall to sit dazed on the floor.

Barston Grough puffed on his pipe as he took in the dimming light of day over the rolling grasslands of Mirwell Province. The stem of his pipe fit comfortably between a gap in his teeth, and white smoke twisted up into the air.

Polly and Bill watched over the flock, tongues lolling, alert for wanderers or predators. Sheep bleated and munched on the grass with great contentment. Their woolly backs sheened against the lush grasses in the waning light.

Barston was as content as a ram this fine summer evening. In a couple of days he and the collies would bring his fat, woolly flock to market in Dorvale, and he’d get himself a bulging purse in return.

Good feeding was the key. He didn’t have to compete with anyone else for these grasslands. The good feeding helped the mommas make strong lambs in the spring, and when the lambs weaned, they grew eating that same fine grass. All the other grasslands were overgrazed and trodden to death by other farmers’ livestock. If Barston had chosen to graze his sheep there, he’d have scrawny, sick lambs, instead of the fine, strong beasties dotting the land before him now.

As dusk deepened, mist crept along the rolling countryside. On a near hillock, the huge old cairn and the obelisks that surrounded it turned into menacing silhouettes.

Barston grinned.
Mad Grough,
the other farmers called him.
The crazy old man.

“Crazy? Bah.”

He’d have thought they’d figure it out when at every market he got the best prices for sheep and wool. The rest of them were a bunch of superstitious crybabies.

“All the better for me,” he said with a scratchy laugh. He didn’t have to share with anyone.

The old legends claimed this was haunted ground, that a demon spirit inhabited it, and that anyone who lingered here was doomed.

Barston admitted the old cairn was forbidding enough, the ground within the circle of obelisks barren of the grass that grew so prolifically elsewhere. The obelisks were carved with strange sigils, but he figured they did nothing more than tell the story of the one interred beneath the cairn. Probably a clan lord.

He was surprised grave robbers hadn’t broken into it to plunder whatever treasures had been buried with the clan lord, but he supposed the legends kept off thieves as well as sheep farmers. Or, better yet, maybe the fact the tomb had no entrance had discouraged thieves.

The clan lord probably had been terrible in life, spawning the legends, but the fact remained he was dead. Dead for a good, long time, Barston guessed, and gone to dust. Not a threat to one sheep farmer, two collies, or a flock of sheep.

The legends only served to keep others away, much to Barston’s profit. He’d been bringing his flocks here for a very long time, and no demon spirit had bothered him yet.

He turned back to his little campfire and stirred up the embers. He had made himself a little shepherd’s hut here on the grasslands, lugging all the materials himself, piece by piece, except for the sod that covered the roof. He found that aplenty all around him.

Barston was just contemplating making himself a modest supper when the ground began to tremble beneath his feet.

“Wha—?” His pipe slipped from his mouth and landed in the fire.

A silent concussion slapped the air, followed by terrified bleating by the sheep. Polly and Bill started howling.

Barston whirled about, holding his shepherd’s staff before him. What in the five hells was going on? Were wolves on the prowl? He hadn’t heard any, nor seen sign of them. This was more than wolves, though; the ground had shaken.

When lightning exploded in spidery arcs between the obelisks, crowning the hillock of the cairn in white-blue light, Barston threw himself to the ground. His sheep stampeded. They stampeded right past the dogs, right past him. Some even trampled over him. Polly and Bill ran off whining, tails tucked between their legs. They ignored Barston’s calls and whistles.

Silence followed, and Barston did not move. He dared not. Immense, cold dread fell across him like a blanket. When he risked looking up, he saw a shadow form with the face of a gaunt cadaver staring back down at him with pale, dead eyes. A length of chain dangled from a manacle on its wrist.

Skeletal fingers twined around the hilt of an ancient sword, the blade etched with strange jagged runes that burned Barston’s eyes and made tears stream down his cheeks.

All the others who had forsaken these grasslands had not been so foolish after all. They were right: a demon haunted these grounds.

The slit of the demon’s mouth parted, and there was a subtle shoosh of breath that had not been released for a very long time. It moved its jaw as if to speak, but at first nothing came out. When it did, the voice was cracked and grating like rusty hinges.

“I seek the Galadheon.”

With those words of death ringing in Barston’s ears, his heart failed from pure terror.

TRUE AND FALSE

Laren had to hurry to keep pace with Zachary. He swept through the castle corridors leading the way, his attendants and Weapons striding behind him. They were headed toward the throne room for the day’s public audience. There was no urgency despite the haste, but she knew that expending physical energy was Zachary’s way of coping with unpleasant problems, namely Lord-Governor D’Ivary. Hopefully he’d scheduled a bout with Drent for later in the day, to take off some more of the edge.

More reports had come in confirming D’Ivary’s ill treatment of refugees. Laren could not believe the lord-governor’s gall, going against the king’s word and hiring mercenaries to impersonate Sacoridian troops. It was tantamount to treason. Zachary would have to deal with D’Ivary swiftly and decisively.

He’d also have to handle the situation with great care. He could not risk causing the rest of the lord-governors to align against him if they perceived him misusing his powers toward one of their own.

There had been very little grumbling at the punishment of the old lord-governor of Mirwell, because Mirwell had been the engineer of a plan that had killed many nobles and their children. Zachary performing the execution himself, however, had stunned them. For better or worse, they witnessed a new side of their king, and Laren believed it unsettled them knowing how willingly he shed noble blood. Not just any noble blood, but that of a lord-governor.

In D’Ivary’s case, the lord-governor had not acted aggressively toward the crown itself, unlike Mirwell, nor had he threatened the other lord-governors. No one, in fact, beyond his borders.

The only ones who had suffered were the refugees. Yes, the other lord-governors thought D’Ivary’s behavior stupid and appalling, but the people he hurt, they believed, were leeches to Sacoridian society. They looked to no lord-governor, paid no taxes, yet lived within the borders of the kingdom, using its resources and demanding its protection.