Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles (61 page)

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Authors: Katya Reimann

BOOK: Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles
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“Do it,” he said. He went on his knees before her, his chin rising as he knelt. “Break the God-chains, Kingmaker, and forge them anew with my blood.”
“My Prince.” She was shaking, not liking this feeling of unbalance, after all the euphoric joy of her power’s full control. Yet all the same, as if from a distance, she saw herself drawing up the blade to strike. “I appeal to the Great Twelve to guide me here. Their command must be above your own—”
A terrified scream cut through the haze. Looking up, Gaultry thought for a moment that she was dreaming. On the path that led into the dueling ground, Princess Lily was running forward, her arms outstretched. Behind were others, equally unexpected. Tamsanne and Dame Julie and behind them were Julie’s kin; also Mervion, Palamar, and Dervla. Martin too, wearing half his armor, a look on his face as though he had been summoned in haste from his expected morning of soldiering. The Common Brood, out in force.
Inexplicably, Elisabeth Climens accompanied them. She was wearing a black robe over a fluid green sheath of a dress that fell in supple flutes down to her ankles. It took Gaultry a moment to realize she had seen that dress before: It was the High Priestess of Tielmark’s most formal robes, reserved for rituals of the highest importance.
All this flashed by Gaultry in the instant that Lily came screaming toward her, ahead of the Brood-members and Elisabeth by several lengths.
“Monster!” Lily cried out. It occurred to Gaultry distantly that the Princess meant Gaultry herself, damned as she stood over the Prince, the Kingmaker raised. “Take me,” Lily implored, an expression of terrified sorrow contorting her features. “Don’t hurt him!” The distance between them seemed wide at first, and then unbearably short. “Take me instead.” The young Princess flung herself forward. Gaultry, holding the
Ein Raku,
stood frozen like a statue, still half-bedazzled by the vision Richielle had laid upon her. Lily, screaming, thrust herself at the blade, intending to take the blow intended for her husband.
Gaultry, by this time, had pulled herself just barely enough free of Richielle’s thrall never to intend the blow. But at that moment, the blade itself came to life. It swept downward, outside of Gaultry’s volition, plunging for the Princess’s breast.
A fabulous, tearing crackle of magic interrupted the fatal blow. Pure green power, shot through with the colors of all things living and dead, spasmed outward, creating a halo that opened out like a frame, freezing the world like ice engendered on a winter pond. Even Lily was suspended in time and place, her mouth frozen in a wail of woe, her hands outstretched.
Gaultry, half-blinded by the shards of light, was the only thing still moving. Slowly, like an ant suspended in treacle, but still moving. The bitter magic of the Kingmaker blade had its own momentum. Gaultry fought to turn it, but she could not. All she could do was lash out with her Glamour, sheathing everything over with golden light, but succeeding in no other discernable effect.
But then something else moved within the frozen scene. Elisabeth Climens. Her determined young face appeared at the center of the glowing frame. Her crisp red lips were drawn in an intense frown, and she made awkward-looking motions with her hands—as though what she was doing was unfamiliar and demanded the greatest concentration. Picking her way in through the glittering shards of light, she brushed past Lily and reached up to take the
Ein Raku
from Gaultry’s hand. There she hit a wall—she could not penetrate the shield of golden Glamour light that sheathed the huntress-witch and everything she was holding. Elisabeth paused, wrinkled her nose in concentration, trying to pierce the magic. Finally, stalled, she glanced into Gaultry’s eyes. Her expression changed when she saw that Gaultry’s consciousness was unfrozen. “Give me the blade,” Elisabeth said urgently. “I cannot hold this spell much longer. Give it to me or Lily will surely be hurt.”
“What are you?” Gaultry mouthed, even as she thinned the Glamour so she could cede the weapon.
“Tielmark’s new High Priestess.” Elisabeth grinned awkwardly, more nerves than humor. She shot Gaultry an anxious look. “I hardly believe it myself—but see? It cannot be other than true. Who else could command this power?” As she spoke, she plucked the blade from Gaultry’s hand, covered it with the edge of her robe, and stepped back. The green halo of power vanished.
Lily collapsed against Gaultry’s knees, the momentum of her rush fulfilling itself. She did not know for a moment that Elisabeth had plucked the knife safely away, and her hysterical determination to protect her husband was a terrible thing, until Elisabeth managed to calm her.
There was an unforgiving sullen look in the young Princess’s eyes, even when she understood.
The blazing morning sun, its rays delayed so long by Richielle’s
enveloping fog, had risen entirely over the edge of the earthworks. Elisabeth’s mouth thinned. “We must hurry,” she said commandingly. “Form a circle around the table-field.” Taking the Princess’s hand in her own, she gestured for Gaultry to step down into that circle. Richielle made a move as if to defy her, then stilled as Elisabeth shot her a steady look, laying her hand on her High Priestess’s girdle. There was a measured firmness to her gesture, reminiscent of a lady-knight making ready for battle. “We can’t fight Bissanty forever, goat-herder,” Elisabeth told her coolly. “Tielmark must have its King. By old Lousielle’s prophecy, Kingmaking must be shared among all the Brood, not just held to one person. Now take your place in the circle, or I will see you held there.”
Richielle looked as though she were about to choke. “I recognize you,” she said. “You are no more than blood of the blood of the Brood. That does not give you the right to order me.”
“You have defied your own pledge to Lousielle long enough,” Elisabeth said fiercely. “Besides, I am now risen to Tielmark’s High Priestess, and that gives me the authority to command you. You
will
stand there.” Elisabeth pointed. “There, with your face in shadow. Lady Gaultry.” Elisabeth gestured to the point she had fixed. “I will thank you to move the goat-herder to her place. You will stand at her left hand when we form the circle.” She glanced at the other Brood-members. “You know what
to do. Go to your places and make ready.” Only one other was unassigned. “The Stalkingman will take Richielle’s right.”
Gaultry, moving with Richielle into place, gave the old woman a wary glare, to which the goat-herder, her expression dull and closed, did not respond.
“What’s happening?” she demanded, as Martin strode up to Richielle’s other side.
He shook his head. “The gods only know. The Brood rode through the night to arrive for the dawn-hour. It seems Dervla has been deposed as High Priestess—and this young one has taken her place. I was just going forward to the lists when their runner called me back.”
In a few quick moments the Brood-blood were ranged around the earthen dais as Elisabeth had directed—some of them, echoing Richielle, very unwilling indeed, but submissive. Gaultry was not sure how to interpret what she was seeing. Dervla, stripped of her rank, seemed half-insane with rage, half-broken with sorrow. Palamar, inexplicably, seemed utterly dead of emotion, emotionally collapsed. It was obvious that the many days riding from Princeport to the border had left her completely exhausted, but there was something wrong beyond that. Gaultry had never imagined that Palamar commanded much of her grandmother Marie Laconte’s warrior magic, but the young acolyte’s appearance was so depleted and wan, she found herself mentally revising this presumption. What had happened in Princeport to bring Dervla and Palamar into disgrace?
Dame Julie appeared at Gaultry’s other shoulder. There was a faint reassurance to be found in the old singer’s composure: Though she barely acknowledged Gaultry, her gaze rested on Elisabeth with an expression of possessive pride.
“What’s happening?” Gaultry asked the singer.
Julie shushed her. “Follow Elisabeth,” she said. “Great Twins! We will see a god today, if only you follow Elisabeth.”
Gaultry looked helplessly over her shoulder, trying to spy Tullier. She had lost him since the moment her magic had swatted the
Ein Raku
from his hand. But the dueling ground was no longer empty—soldiers and servants and camp-followers of every description had followed the Brood-members in, eager to serve witness to their actions. She spotted Yveir, and near by him Fredeconde, and even young Elthois and the others of the courier’s party.
But before her eye could find Tullier in all this mêlée, Elisabeth called her attention back.
The young High Priestess had stood Benet and Lily side-by-side and faced them into the sun. She put the
Ein Raku
she had taken from Gaultry in Benet’s hand, and handed the knife that had once been Dervla’s to Lily.
“Cross the blades,” Elisabeth instructed, blinking as she too turned into the sun. “Commit yourselves to Andion’s grace, and cross the blades. Do it sudden and hard.” Richielle let out an angry sound, and made as if to break from the circle. Elisabeth glanced down at her coldly. “Hold her,” she snapped to Martin and Gaultry.
“It is not my will to be so used!” Richielle shrieked in protest, as Gaultry and Martin laid hold of her. The goat-herder’s skin felt clammy. She was frightened, but also for some reason desperate. Gaultry caught Martin’s eye as they struggled to subdue her, to conform her to the dutiful figure in the stark tableau as Elisabeth required. There was an unexpected moment as power sang, and Gaultry and Martin together wove magic in cords to subdue her. Over the top of Richielle’s struggling head, their eyes met again in pleased surprise, though her joy to be working with Martin in this way was much diminished by the sheer terror of the old woman they were binding.
“Free me!” Richielle pleaded.
“You have bound yourself,” Elisabeth said, implacable. “It is the Brood-prophecy that includes you in the circle—not my will. If you fear it—that is only because you must reap what you have sown.”
Richielle went deathly still. “This was not how I wanted it to be,” was all she said.
Elisabeth turned back to the Prince. “Quickly, before the sun rises higher! Strike your partner’s blade!”
“To what purpose?” Benet demanded. The spectacle of the old goat-herder’s struggles was disturbing, and he had not gotten used to the idea of this slim young girl as his new High Priestess.
“Do you want to make a King?” Elisabeth charged him.
“I do,” Benet said.
“Then you and your partner must cross these blades. As Elianté and Emiera Twins have always been your masters, show the Great Twelve Above the love you bear Tielmark. Breaking these blades will loose the magic within them, and then you can choose your own course.”
“But the King’s red—”
“Look there in the sky.” Elisabeth threw her hands open toward the sun. “Andion’s eye is on you. You alone can show him your faith. Your Brood—we will support you, meshing all our selves in magic to focus the god-call.” She stepped backward down off the dais and took a place in the circle between Palamar and Dervla.
“Join hands,” she commanded. Gaultry and Martin, with something of a struggle, took hold of Richielle’s. Dame Julie took Gaultry’s other hand, and the circle closed. Gaultry felt in a quick rush the powerful High-Priestess green of Elisabeth’s magic, the gold of Mervion’s, and then color after color of each of the other witches, unbroken in a conduit through their flesh.
For a dizzying moment Gaultry was lost in the earth as Tamsanne felt it: the secret spread of root and stem, the ancient dance beneath the earth’s crust. Then a taint of angry black-green, shrunken to almost nothing, purged of its magical power, touched her—that was Palamar. Martin was flashing blue, the power of the sea.
Elisabeth sent the many-colored skein of their combined strength spiraling upward, reaching for the sun.
Above the circle of witches, Benet and Lily turned to stare at each other, a little apprehensive, at the center of the dueling ground’s hummock. They had not seen each other for the best part of a month. Both saw changes that made the other a little strange. Lily: the pains her husband had suffered, fighting, and being himself wounded; Benet: his wife’s quickening motherhood and her travails leading his court.
Lily raised her dagger first. The blade caught the clear rays of the sun’s light. Her eyes were bright with hope. “Strike, my Love, for Tielmark’s future.”
Catching her mood, Benet too raised his blade. “For Tielmark!” he cried, and smashed it hard against hers.
As blade touched blade, Richielle let out a terrible cry. There was a fusion of power, a sparking. Lily stumbled back, overcome by the force of Benet’s blow. Both blades lit up and pulsed with white immolating heat.
“Again!” Elisabeth called. As she spoke, the magic of the Brood-member’s circle rose even higher, spinning upward, a tornado twisting, a vivid skein of power.
Benet struck again. This time Lily, expecting the blow, held steady. He raised his
Ein Raku
to strike a third time.
A shock of power, searing like flame, forestalled him. A lance of light slashed down from the sun, connecting ground to sky with a vivid train of fire.
—WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE OF ME?—
The very air trembled with power.
Andion was not a young god like the Twins of Tielmark. He was ancient, with his consort Llara and the Sea-god Allegrios, the deepest power that had formed the world. When the Goddess-Twins had come to earth, they had cloaked themselves with the human forms—terrible, awesome human forms, but human nonetheless. This morning, Andion’s power shriveled the mist to nothing, the reverberations of his words echoing along the lance of his fire, but there was nothing human about him, save for the form of his voice. Gaultry, twisting around, realized with a quaking heart that the Great God-King had no intention of showing himself as anything other than this raw force.
“A King!” After the reverberations of the god’s voice, Elisabeth’s voice sounded thin and pale. “Strike, my Prince, and show the gods you will be King!”
At the center of the hummock, the royal couple’s legs buckled, but they managed, by leaning into each other, not to fall upon their knees. Benet struck Lily’s blade again. White light shone out from the metal, and the Brood’s swirling power surrounded it, spiraling high to form a shape like a funnel, along the length of Andion’s lance of light.
Andion’s shaft of power momentarily intensified, but nothing beyond that happened.
Gaultry, holding Richielle’s clawlike hand on one side and Julie’s well-tended fingers on the other, sensed the doubt that assailed the circle. Something in this wasn’t working. All their power, all the strength of their magical fire—it was not enough.
A murmur of dismay swept the circle of witnesses. In the wider dawning light, the fire of the God began to diffuse, the moment of cataclysmic power dissipating. Across the circle, Elisabeth’s face twisted in frightened dismay. She had not expected her arrangements to fall short, to founder. In that moment, she looked to Gaultry, a question, a prayer in her eyes. “The circle needs more,” she cried. “Gaultry, give it more!”
Gaultry reached out with her Glamour, further than she had ever reached before, trying to keep the power of the god’s fiery lance concentrated. The whirling skein of the Brood-magic took on a golden hue—a hue which abruptly intensified, as Mervion, seeing what Gaultry was attempting,
joined her, also reached out with her rare golden strength. Gaultry felt a flowing warmth, the familiarity, of her sister’s love.
Andion’s shaft of fire, still, barely, connected to the
Ein Raku
by a fine thread, gleamed freshly red within the whirling embrace of their twinned power, momentarily refocused.
—AH—said the god,—GLAMOUR’S HEAT. THAT PLEASES ME, BETTER THAN THIS BROKEN COIL.—
These words—from the Brood’s lack of reaction, Gaultry understood that only she and Mervion had been privy to them. Looking across the circle, she found and met Mervion’s eyes. Her sister nodded, a private acknowledgment of the burning pain, the pleasure they shared, touched and touching the great god’s power.
“Put out more,” Gaultry called to her sister, redoubling her own efforts.
Mervion shook her head. “I can’t,” she screamed, all the while attempting to retain the level of her magical engagement. “You can’t. He is only toying with us. We do not have the power he wants. With the circle—the coil—broken, nothing we do will be enough.”
As she spoke, Benet smashed his
Ein Raku
against Lily’s again, growing desperate. The blades were streaming white heat now, the black of the souls within pulsing like pupating moths. But still—the transformation would not come.
Gaultry glanced around the Brood-circle, trying to understand what her sister—what the god—meant by the broken coil. There were no gaps in the circle that she could see. Every hand held another’s; even Palamar and Dervla, who had lost their magic, were doing their part.
Then, in a strange moment of revelation as she met Dervla’s angry eyes, and understood for the first time that her High Priestess’s magic had been stripped from her, Gaultry saw the problem. Where were the Brood-members not born to the gift of magic? Dervla’s niece; Martin’s sister? Others, whose names she did not know.
“Elisabeth,” Gaultry called out. “You needed to bring all the Brood, not just the sorcerers. Without the full Brood, the power will not be enough. Not everyone is here!”
The new High Priestess stared back, stunned. “But we have called Andion’s eye upon us!” she cried, dismayed. “This will be our only chance!”
“We have to try something else!” Gaultry screamed back. Her Glamour—and Mervion’s—it was enough to hold the god’s interest, but not
enough to push over and make the Kingship-change. “Elisabeth—we can try with both the Princes!” She twisted around to the crowd, trying to locate the boy’s face. “Tullier!” she cried. “Tullier! Where are you? If ever you sought redemption, join Benet and call to the gods! Tullier—this moment is what you were made for—not for death!”

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