Legacy of Kings (21 page)

“In that one task you did well enough, Majesty. But there’s no telling when other weaknesses may surface.” He shrugged his shoulders; his joints cracked audibly. “There are reasons why we don’t use witchery to enhance the bodies of our warriors. The process can backfire in any one of a hundred ways. I imagine Ramirus would rather have you test for any problems now, in the safety of your own home, than risk an unhappy surprise in the midst of battle.”

“Such as?”

Favias twisted his head to one side and then the other. He was in good shape, thanks to a warrior’s regimen of diet and exercise, but he was no longer young, and sometimes it showed. “The Guardians’ archives are full of tales of those warriors who used witchery to enhance their martial capacity, only to discover later that such tricks aren’t as simple as they seem.”

“You really think there is danger in my case?”

He stepped toward her suddenly, swinging his fist sideways toward her head. Startled, she blocked the blow. For a moment they stood locked in position, strength against strength, as he tried to press forward, and she tried to push him away. Her shoulder burned with pain from the exertion, but she refused to give in.

Finally his hand fell away. “Gwynofar Aurelius . . . you are smaller and more delicate in frame than my youngest daughter. Yet right now you can match the strength of my best men. What happens to a human body when those two qualities are combined? Nature doesn’t normally allow such a combination to occur, but we have forced her to accommodate our needs. What price will she demand in compensation?”

“You said that others tried it in the past. What happened to them?”

He took up the lances they had been practicing with earlier and began to put them back in their rack. “One man had his bones shatter in battle; apparently they were too slender to support the kind of force his altered muscles were exerting upon them. One woman had her heart fail; it was too small to support the kind of creature she had become. And it is said that one man who survived the process in body later lost his mind; he would no longer accept the altered limbs as part of his own person, but believed they belonged to someone else, who was trying to take control of him. They found him face down in the barracks, in a pool of blood, after he had attempted to saw his own legs off.

“Now, I am sure that Ramirus knew of those particular episodes and took them into account when he bolstered your strength, so your heart and your bones and key internal organs were no doubt strengthened along with your muscular capacity. But the warning is still a valid one. How many elements of the human body must be in perfect harmony in order for it to operate at peak efficiency? And then there is the religious element. If you believe that some god created man in his current form, wouldn’t it be the ultimate hubris to assume we could improve upon his design? Might he not strike us down for our efforts, just to prove that point?”

She smiled slightly. “I believe it is only the god of the Penitents who lays claim to infallibility.”

“Yes.” He chuckled. “Egotistical bastard, isn’t he?”

As he put the last weapon in its rack, he caught sight of a liveried youth standing in the doorway, waiting for one of them to notice him. “Yes? What is it?”

The page bowed toward Gwynofar. “Magister Ramirus requests that the Queen Mother and Master Guardian come speak with him. As soon as possible, if you please.”

For Ramirus to ask for both of them was uncharacteristic; usually his counsel was channeled through Gwynofar. Favias looked at her. “Any idea what’s going on?”

“Not a clue.” A shadow passed over her face as she put the last of her equipment aside. “But given the nature of the message, it’s not likely to be good news, is it?”

“That depends on what you call
good news
,” he reminded her. “In wartime the distinction is not always so clear.”

She set the last pieces of practice equipment aside, leaving them for servants to clean and store, and they headed back toward the keep.

The High King was in his study when Gwynofar came to see him. Danton’s study. There was no longer blood on the floor, but he could sense where it had once been splattered across the wooden planks, and where it had pooled beneath his father’s body. And his brothers’ bodies. So much death that day, due to one man’s treachery. It tested his Penitent spirit to the utmost, trying not to imagine what he might do to Kostas if he had him in his hands right now. What it would feel like to wring that lizard’s neck with his own bare hands, to slowly choke the life out of that unholy creature.

Hatred corrupts the soul
, he reminded himself.

But vengeance heals the spirit
, his father would have countered.
Embrace your rage. Give it outlet. Self-denial is a vampire that bleeds a man of strength.

And there was the reason his father could never have become a Penitent, in a nutshell.

“Excuse me, Sire.”

Salvator looked up from his papers to acknowledge his servant’s presence.

“The High Queen Gwynofar wishes to speak to you.”

Surprised, Salvator nodded, and he gestured with the quill in his hand for her to be brought to him. This early in the day he would have expected her to be training with Favias. Was that not the schedule they had set? What news could not wait until later?

It was clear from her appearance that she had indeed been practicing with Favias. Thin strands of blond hair were plastered to her face, and her coarse soldier’s clothing had long creases in it from where the practice armor crushed it against her body. But the sweat on her face was dry now, and she was not breathing heavily, as she was wont to do when her lessons had just ended. So she had not come straight to Salvator. Stranger and stranger. His brow furrowed in concern as he put the quill down atop his work, and stood to greet her.

She drew in a deep breath, trying to settle her spirit. Clearly something had shaken her badly.

At last she said, “There is a Souleater in the High Kingdom.”

He could feel his heart skip a beat. Suspecting such a thing was one matter; having it finally confirmed was another. “How do you know?”

“Ramirus brought us word.” There was a shadow of defiance in her tone, as if she were daring him to question her source. “Another Magister picked up the trail. They think it may be a queen. A female of the species.” Her clear eyes fixed on him, and he could sense her trying to read his expression, but he made sure that his face was composed, controlled, and offered her no clues. “They think the Witch-Queen herself may be involved.”

“We knew she was somewhere,” he said quietly. Trying to keep all that emotion out of his voice.

“You are not surprised.” It was a question.

“I have . . . suspected. “

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“Tell you what? That I had dreams the enemy was in my realm? That sometimes late at night I imagine I can smell the creature herself —”

He stopped himself, but not in time.

“How would you know her scent?” she demanded “The one that served Kostas was long gone by the time you returned home. There haven’t been any other Souleaters around for you to smell.” She paused. “Have there?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then how . . . . ?”

What was he to tell her? That their scent came to him in dreams? That Siderea had appeared to him once, soaked in some strange, disturbing perfume, and he had sensed without knowing how he did so that the source of that smell was not human?

“Dreams, Mother. I’ve had dreams. Nothing more.” He waved away the question. “Where is this Souleater hiding?”

“North in the Spinas Mountains.”

He drew in a sharp breath.

“What is it, my son?”

He did not answer her, but turned back to his desk. Leafing through the pile of correspondence on top of it, he sought a particular letter, from one of his Penitent informants. He scanned it once more, his eyes narrowing as he did so, then began to read aloud.

 . . . as you have commanded us to report to you any oddities we observe, I must report a series of events for which no one here has any explanation. Children have been disappearing from this area, and no human cause can be found. Most often it is babies that disappear, but a few older ones have gone missing as well. They are stolen from different locations, at different times of day or night, with no clear pattern. One infant was stolen out from under the watchful eye of his mother. No man can say how or why it is happening, but they are sure it is not the work of common slavers. One witness described a dirty and disheveled young girl who appeared just before her child disappeared, but her identity is unknown, and even the most powerful witches cannot seem to establish a link to her. As far as their spells are concerned, it is as if she does not exist.

Families have taken to keeping their children locked up inside the house, but even that is no sure protection; one man returned home to find his wife in a coma-like sleep and his infant daughter missing.

There is some speculation that the child thieves are operating out of the Spinas, for all the towns that suffered losses are clustered about the northern branch of that range, the so-called “dragon’s tail.” But expeditions into the mountains have turned up no sign of human activity, or anything else that would explain the attacks . . . .

He stopped reading. His expression was grave.

“You think these two things are connected somehow,” she said.

“The coincidence would be remarkable if it were otherwise, don’t you think?” He put the letters back in place. “Is she gathering food, do you suppose? But no, why bother doing that? The Souleaters don’t require physical proximity to drain men of life, and if a queen wanted human flesh . . . there are surely easier ways to get hold of it.”

Memories flickered faintly in his brain. He shut his eyes, trying to bring them into focus. “There was some trouble in that region during my father’s reign. Cresel told me about them when I first returned. Something about a town where all the people disappeared, or died . . . I don’t remember exactly . . . . I’m pretty sure that was in the same region. So whatever is out there, it may have been there for a while.”

“Favias says that they think the Souleater invasion began some time ago. Early spring, at least.”

“Just after the skies turned red,” he mused. “Do you recall that? The clouds to the north turned deep crimson when the sun was setting, as if the sky itself were bleeding. Our priests declared it to be a sign from God, but they could not come to any agreement on what it meant. So now you say that these creatures may have arrived in the human kingdoms about the same time. Souleaters would certainly fit the omen.” He shook his head in frustration, unable to make the puzzle pieces fit together. “But why? Why
children?
Nothing in the ancient legends even hints at something like this.”

Gwynofar drew in a deep breath. “Ramirus might know.”

Salvator stiffened. “A Magister? No, thank you.”

“He knows a lot about these creatures. And there are others of his kind who know even more. He is ancient, Salvator, he was alive when men still told stories from the time of the Great War—”

“
No,
Mother.” His tone was firm. “I agreed to be polite to him for your sake, even to allow him in my house, but please don’t mistake that for true acceptance.”

“It’s foolish to turn away a source of useful information because of religious prejudice.”

Anger stirred within him. “It’s more than
prejudice,
Mother. His power is corrupt, and a man who wields such power is doubly corrupt. All that he touches is unclean.”

“That’s your belief.”

“It is fact.”

She glared. “Like the ‘fact’ that the
lyr
gift is nothing more than idolatrous fantasy? Your Church was wrong about that. Perhaps it is wrong about this.”

His jaw clenched tightly. He said nothing.

“Salvator, please.” She walked up to him and took both his hands in her own. How tiny her fingers were, how delicate! Yet he knew they were possessed of a strength that could crush men’s bones. The abomination of it made him sick to his stomach. “I know you’re a rational man, deep inside. I know that you don’t accept anything blindly, even in matters of faith. Our world is threatened now, and these Magisters are offering to help us. Explain to me why it’s so important that we shut them out. Help me to understand.”

He sighed heavily, squeezed her hands, and then pulled free of her. Steepling his hands before his face, he shut his eyes for a moment, struggling to find the right words for what he needed to say. She had never asked this of him before. She might never ask again. He had to do this right.

Help me, oh, God, to open her eyes, that she might see the truth and accept it.

“Witchery is God’s most sacred gift to mankind,” he said at last, “not only because of what it can do for us, but because of what we must become in order to wield it. A selfish man is not able to access such power directly, because he will not sacrifice his own life to do so. Thus are the ambitions of tyrants held in check, and men of greed forced to bargain with men of conscience. This was all part of God’s plan for us, which He wove into the very fabric of our nature upon the day of Creation.