Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) (17 page)

The boy nodded, a gesture full of
sadness. “They say she’s unsuitable.”

Ah. Now Laral understood why the
king took such an interest in his choice of brides. “Is she … Aralorri?”

That earned him a grin. “No. Worse.
She’s five years older than I. They say that’s too old.”

“She’s what, twenty-one then?”
Laral asked, incredulous. “My wife is twenty-three, Your Majesty, and I hardly consider
her old. Another one on the way, remember? Whoever your lady is, she’s got
years and years left to give you heirs.”

The White Falcon flinched. “Y-yes …
I suppose so.” The weight of the cloak finally became too much. He unclasped
the silver latch and let it drop behind him as if it were the cares of the
world. He groaned and stretched his shoulders and popped his neck. There was
something endearingly humble and human in it.

“There has to be more to their
objection than her age, sire.”

Arryk drifted back toward the
tables, a hand kneading a knot in his shoulder. He pulled out one of the
chairs, sat with his back to the Mantle at the door and gestured for Laral to
take the chair next to him. Bracing his elbows on his knees, Arryk whispered,
“They say it’s possible that she’s my father’s bastard.”

And there was a mire Laral didn’t
want to step in. “That does make things more complicated.”

“Not one of those old men listens
to reason. Uncle Raed—
Lord
Raed, I mean—says it’s absolutely impossible.
Istra’s mother was never alone with my father when he visited Éndaran. He would
know, wouldn’t he?”

The plea carried impossible notes
of innocence. Was it for Laral to teach this youth about the existence of clandestine
meetings by moonlight?

“They’ve all miscalculated anyway,”
Arryk went on. “Istra’s mother was already carrying her. If my father is
Istra’s father then she would’ve been born four months early, and Lady Eritha
assures me that she was not undersized or unhealthy. But all twenty of my
advisers insist Eritha is lying. How can they all believe something that’s
nothing more than nasty rumor? Do you want wine?”

The sudden pause in Arryk’s rant sent
a jolt through Laral. He found the wine service amid the table and poured for
both of them, all the while turning over the information. “Have they raised any
other objection?”

Arryk winced. “Even if we can
disprove the slander, they will not love her now. She’s fiercely protective. Of
me. You know? Every time she comes to court, she butts heads with the worst of
them. She’s fearless in that regard. And last time, well, it leaked out that
she called them greedy, brainless horses’ arses who have lost their way and
their wisdom.”

Laral managed to clear his throat
and swallow the bark of laughter desperate to break free.

“That’s a direct quote. I heard her
say it myself. So did the wrong servant, apparently. I can’t trust anyone
inside these walls. Rance is my only friend here.” He gestured over his
shoulder at the Mantle. “But you, Laral, you won’t run to them with what I’ve
said, will you?”

Still such a child. “Of course not,
sire.” He sipped the wine. “Let’s see if we can lay our finger on the truth
here. It seems to me that your advisers mean to take advantage of farfetched
rumors to discredit your choice, because they want an inexperienced, biddable
queen, one who will urge you to do as they wish.”

“That is my suspicion. But I do not
want to thumb my nose at them and lose their favor either.”

Laral choked on the wine. When he
caught his breath, he said, “You have it backwards, sire. They should be
terrified of losing
your
favor. Use your spies, find a reason to
discredit a couple of them, and exile them. That will make the rest uncertain,
then
they
will be biddable.”

Mischief lit the king’s eyes. “You
are
dangerous.”

Bite your tongue, fool!
If Laral
wasn’t careful, he’d find assassins leaking through every crack and cranny. He
had little reason to trust that this boy would keep his council private.

“Very well. If
you
were one
of my advisers, what would you suggest I do about the lady?”

Given his history, Laral could give
only one answer without sounding hypocritical, and he suspected this boy knew
it. “It’s your heart and your bed, isn’t it, sire?”

Arryk sat back and his face flushed
intense scarlet. Embarrassment drove him from the chair. He paced, raked his
hands through his hair, and declared, “They’ll say you encouraged me.”

Laral grinned. “Fomenting rebellion
must be my secret talent, after all.”

Arryk stopped pacing abruptly, and
his stern, cautious face broke into laughter. He laughed so hard that he
doubled over. “The irony—!” he began but couldn’t finish and finally sank onto
the bottom step of the dais.

Uncertain what to do, Laral glanced
at the White Mantle and was astonished to find him, too, smiling at the sight
of his king’s happiness. Aye, it must be rare, indeed. The Mantle caught Laral
glancing at him, straightened his expression, and snapped to attention.

Arryk’s laughter trailed away after
a good long while. He leaned back on his elbows and crossed his ankles as if he
lounged on a hearthrug in a parlor rather than in the cold, hard center of
Fieran government. “When you hunt, do you prefer hounds or hawks?”

Laral sighed, relieved. “I prefer
to stalk the snow elk without either. Unfortunately, I’ve not had the
opportunity since I moved so far south.”

Arryk sat up. “That’s troublesome.”
He appeared to mean it. “We don’t have elk in the Shadow Mounds? We shall
import some for you.”

“There is no need—”

“Of course, there is. I want you to
show me how this is done.”

“As it please you.”

“Would you … would you be imposed
upon if I paid you a visit in the spring? For this purpose, of course.”

“Imposed upon? Greatly honored,
Your Majesty.” This boy wasn’t like Nathryk at all. Laral decided he liked him
immensely.

Arryk pushed himself to his feet
and hurried to the window to reclaim the heavy cloak. Clasping it upon his
shoulders, he said, “Very well, Lord Brengarra. I will expect an invitation
from you early next spring.” He climbed the dais to resume the throne and recalled
his advisers. By the time the panel of old men reclaimed their seats at the
long tables, Arryk had rebuilt that stony mask, and Laral felt no dread as he
bent the knee to speak his oath of loyalty to the White Falcon.

~~~~

The Mother’s hand lays all
roads.

Men have but to walk.

—Lyric
3, “Morning Praise”

Songs
of Dan Ora’as

T
he Elarion of Linndun rose
with the sun. All across the city, they stepped out onto chilly balconies tinkling
with agate leaves, and into dewy gardens turning brown with autumn, and raised
their hands toward the dawn.
“Arga bi’ev er Ana-Forah”
—“Blessed be the
Mother-Father!” they sang. Notes from harps and flutes accompanied the chant.
“Lithyan
ola vri ya shath’anna. Trechilë chinál. Trechilë van’tav”
—“We praise you
for a new day. Teach us ways of kindness. Teach us songs of joy.”

Thorn had no time to join them. He hurried
through the marble corridors of the Lady’s palace, shrugging into his velvet
robe as he ran. His eyes ached from suffering dim lamplight all night, and his
hand throbbed from clutching the quill. Ink stained his fingers. His history of
the Human-Elaran War was proceeding nicely now, and he left his writing desk
only when forced to. Now that morning had come, he needed sleep more than food,
but Lady Aerdria sent an invitation requesting his presence for breakfast
promptly at the eighth hour. That hour had come and gone.

“Late again, Dathiel?” someone
called as he passed. He didn’t take the time to see who it was, but raised a
hand in a cursory greeting and hurried on, dodging youngsters carrying
breakfast trays and towels warmed in the ovens for morning baths. Up and up the
stairs he ran and arrived breathless and sweaty at the top of the Lady’s tower.
He spared only a moment to straighten his robe, dry his face, and curse his
neglect before opening the door to the breakfast room. Morning sunlight danced
across the tops of the tallest andyr trees in the Northwest and spilled over
the crystal table settings. Aerdria stopped pacing and turned to face him. She
wasn’t alone. None of her guests looked happy. This was not the usual breakfast
crowd. Thorn winced.

On one side of the table sat
Cheriam, Captain of the Dardra, the Lady’s personal guard, and Tíryus,
Commander of the Regular Army. Thorn had never had occasion to dine with the
Commander. As if his scowl wasn’t fierce enough, the red marks of his rank gave
his cheeks and chin the appearance of having been smeared with blood.

On the other side sat Master
Aegulon, who oversaw civil order across the city and claimed to know everything
that was happening within Linndun’s walls. As such, he acted as Aerdria’s chief
eyes and ears. Saeralín occupied the chair next to him. She reigned as Madam
Keeper over the Tower of the Veil. Her casters maintained the illusions that
hid the Wood’s true nature from human eyes.

Lyrienn circled the table, pouring
hot tea. She cast Thorn a sharp, warning eye.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “I
didn’t notice when my hour candle burned out.”

Commander Tíryus ruffled at Thorn’s
lack of discipline.

Lady Aerdria pressed on a smile and
took her seat at the head of the table. “You’re not late, love. I know to request
your presence an hour earlier than everyone else.”

He slid into the empty chair next
to Madam Saeralín, shame heating his face. The feeling was too familiar to
trouble him for long. He gulped the tea, scorching the back of his throat, and
reached greedily for the baked peaches that his aunt knew he loved. A sweet
roll and butter whipped with delicate spices found their way to his plate
before he realized no one else helped themselves to the food.

“When was the last time you ate,
nephew?” asked Aerdria.

“I can’t remember. I hope you don’t
mind if I dive in? I’m famished…” The mood around the table failed to lift.
Thorn set down the butter dish. “You didn’t summon us just for breakfast, did
you, Aunt?”

“Love, you incriminate yourself.
You didn’t read the entire summons.” Aerdria looked wounded.

Commander Tíryus’s sigh closely
resembled a growl as he whipped a parchment from his sleeve and flicked it
across the table at Thorn.

“We’ll save you the trouble,” said
Saeralín. “Another of the Moon Guard has gone missing.”

“And Iryan Wingfleet,” added
Aegulon.

Thorn laid aside Tíryus’s letter. “Wingfleet?”
That, he never expected. For the last three hundred and sixty years Wingfleet
had acted as Captain of the Dranithion Uthiel, thoroughly devoted to his vigil.
When they first met, he and Thorn, he regarded the young avedra with eyes as
cold and blue as glacial ice. “A faster runner you’ll never find,” Laniel had told
him, “but he doesn’t laugh enough.” In fact, in all the years Thorn spent
hunting ogres with the dranithion, he’d never seen Iryan Wingfleet crack a
smile. Nor had he warmed to Thorn’s presence.

But what troubled Thorn most was
the timing. Dranithion didn’t mingle with dardrion. A difference in temperament
and opinion about what mattered most. That they should disappear at the same
time didn’t bode well.

“Which of the Dardra?” he asked.

“Ruvion,” replied Captain Cheriam,
shame shading her voice.

Ah, Ruvion, with that human-colored
hair and cool sneer. “I wish I could say that surprised me,” Thorn muttered.
What he kept to himself was that Ruvion’s absence delighted him. Thorn was not
a favorite among many in the city. The hostility that emanated from Ruvion, as
from so many others, might be compared to the faint stink rising from a
well-maintained sewage pit. Under control, but unmistakably present.

“Was foul play involved?” he asked.
“I mean, might Iryan have caught Ruvion trying to slip away and been murdered
for it?”

Cheriam shook her head; her golden
hair shimmered like beaten gold. “They left by different paths.” She explained
that Wingfleet’s troop found his trail low among the ferns and high in the
branches. He struck out alone and, unmolested, crossed the boundary of the
Wood. The dranithion tracked him as far as the Leathyr River, but beyond those
banks they lost all sign of him.

“And Ruvion?” Only three of the
original ten guardians who had served under he-who-is-not-named remained. Aerdria
and Cheriam usually kept the matter quiet. The truth leaked out only because a
new face appeared among the Lady’s guard. “What’s so special about his
disappearance that you would call us together?”

“The Lady needs us to decide on a
trustworthy
replacement,” snarled Tíryus. “From among my regiments, no doubt.”

Aegulon cleared his throat.
“Soldiers from your regiments have disappeared as well, or have my sources
deceived me?”

Red stripes between the commander’s
eyebrows pinched together to shape an arrowhead. “Only half a dozen.”

“So far,” Aegulon purred.

Aerdria intercepted before an
argument broke out. “The matter is more grave than that of replacements.”

The Elders leaned forward, curious.
Ah, so here was information they had not yet heard.

“Most of you know that … after our
first tragedy … when he-who-is-not-named committed his crimes against us, I
moved the Dark Tomes to a new vault, whose location I hoped was known only to
me. But my guards are vigilant, it seems.”

Madam Saeralín sat back with a
groan.

A chill crept up Thorn’s nape. He
tugged his robe snug about his throat, remembering a darkness so complete that,
had it captured him, he would still be falling into it.

“Which of the tomes did he take,
Lady?” asked Aegulon.

“As soon as Cheriam reported his
absence, I ran to the vault. He hadn’t even bothered closing the door again.
The tome I did not find was the Book of Barriers.”

A gasp from Saeralín implied she
understood the full meaning behind this particular theft. The others looked bewildered.
Thorn was no exception. “Barriers?” he asked.

“It contains the only copies of the
Spells of Impediments,” Aerdria explained. “The original scrolls were brought
from Dan Ora’as by Dorelia herself and have long since disintegrated. I copied
them, with Saeralín’s help, into this volume.”

The Keeper elaborated, sounding
sick, “Many of the spells are well-known by all Elarion, even you, Dathiel. The
spell-word for the Veil that we all use is recorded there, and so are the
incantations my keepers use every day to hide our city’s towers from sight.”

“Then why is this book among the
Dark Tomes? Surely these spells are good.”

“Well, the Veil is a barrier of sorts,
isn’t it,” Saeralín went on. “So is the formula for baernavë, the iron of
un-magic. So it really depends on how these barriers are used, whether they’re
dark or not.”

Aerdria took up the thread, words
terse with a hint of impatience. “
I
classified the Book of Barriers
among the Dark Tomes when I learned that among the Impediments there is an
incantation that renders our Veil obsolete. There’s the heart of the matter.”

For a long moment, no one spoke.

Thorn glanced at Lyrienn. She sank
into the chair opposite him but avoided his eye. Deep, old pain lurked under
her brittle mask, and he didn’t need to pry into her thoughts to know that she
thought of her oldest brother as well. He-who-is-not-named had been dead for
nine years, slain by ogres in the Gloamheath, but long-lived Elarion are slow
to set aside their sorrow.

“If you two alone copied the spells,”
asked Aegulon, “how would Ruvion know what the book contains?”

The Madam Keeper cleared her throat.
“He could have asked some of my students. They would know enough of its
contents to answer some of his curiosity. You see, I found him lingering about
the towers during the last few weeks. He may have seduced one of my girls for
the information. I’ll ask.”

“My concern is
why
,” said
Tíryus. “Ruvion couldn’t possibly want to expose the city to the outside. What
is the advantage in that?”

Cheriam sat back heavily. “Ruvion’s
loathing for humans and everyone dwelling outside the Wood was unchanged when
he left. This was once something we valued in him, because it meant passionate
devotion to his responsibilities to the Lady. No, I cannot believe his motives
are to threaten the Wood. If we can find him, we can ask him ourselves.”

“Have you looked into the scrying
pool, Aunt?” Thorn asked.

“Of course.” Aerdria’s complexion
had dulled to gray. “As soon as I found the book missing. But I couldn’t make
sense of what I saw. The pool showed me a shimmering field.”

“Field, what do you mean?”

“A curtain of sorts. Like oil on
water. Or oil on light, actually. It blinded me to Ruvion’s location.”

“The result of one of the spells in
the tome?”

“Likely. He must’ve known I’d look
for him and made quick use of it.”

“One cannot simply start using
spells,” said Saeralín, then cast a snide glance in Thorn’s direction. “We are
hardly avedrin.”

Thorn shrugged. “I set fire to the
wrong things more than I like to admit, Madam.”

“You argue my point for me,
Dathiel. ‘Make quick use’ seems unlikely. Captain, did you see Ruvion
practicing innocuous spells?”

Cheriam shook her head. “But he did
spend more and more time alone.”

Thorn shifted uneasily in his
chair. Neither why nor where could be established. “What about the other six dardrion?
Did you look for them when they vanished?”

Aerdria picked up her teacup, set
it down again untasted. “I tracked Lasharia as far as the foothills of the
Silver Mountains, then she disappeared from the waters. Not dead. Just gone.
Removed elsewhere and the pool could not keep up. It was the same with all of
them. Solandyr, Elyandir, Tréandyn.”

“Transported? In the blink of an
eye?” The tea did not satisfy. Thorn needed something stronger. “That is
massive magic at work, Aunt. How can they have access to spells of which we are
ignorant? Ruvion, yes, but the dardrion who left before this book was taken?
Are you sure there’s not another book missing?”

“Besides the Tome of Sigils?”

That felt like a slap to the face.
The book stolen by he-who-is-not-named was never recovered. Consulting its
pages, Lothiar had summoned the rágazeth and changed the course of many lives. Likely
the tome moldered in some dank cave in the Heath now, lost forever. Unless Lothiar
told his dardrion where he had hidden it.

“Lasharia disappeared years ago,
Lady,” said Aegulon. “Have you looked for them since?”

Aerdria’s eyes narrowed, as if she
peered into the waters even now. “As of a moon’s turn ago, Lasharia appeared to
be deep inside a castle with sheer stone walls and torches for light. A
well-furnished room, not Elaran things, human rather. No windows. The room had
the feeling of a dungeon, but she was not a prisoner. She was even armed and
polishing her sword. She looked up suddenly, and I thought perhaps she had
detected me. But she rose to inspect something, a space of darkness I did not
understand, then she stepped into that darkness and was gone.” Aerdria rose to
pace behind her chair, silver robes flowing like water behind her. “Why do they
flee our beloved halls and our sunlit trees to live in these dismal places?”

“Surely they gather together,”
Tíryus suggested. “Surely the dardrion do not leave to go their own way. That
is a long loneliness beyond the Wood.”

“I trusted them!” Aerdria cried,
and Lyrienn surged from her chair to offer comfort. “I trusted them with my
life and the safety of our city. But their loyalty was not to me. That is more
than clear.” She shook off Lyrienn’s hand. “No, there is something happening that
I cannot see.” Turning to Cheriam, she said, “Gather the Guard, all of them. I
want them interrogated.”

“Lady—”

“All of them! Iryan’s troop, too. Someone
must know something. Go.”

Cheriam gathered herself from the
table and bowed from the breakfast room.