The Dark Queen (13 page)

*****

Vaananen might dismiss the suspicion, might laugh it away in his quiet meditation. But
there was something different about the citysomething strange and curiously out of line.
Vincus was accus- tomed to watching the streets, to sensing with eye and ear and an
insight more subtle than the senses when something had shifted, when something was not
right.

And it was that feeling, that insight, that took him back to Balandar's library. Always
before, the library had been a place of peace for Vincusa maze of sanctuary amid tower-
ing shelves, with its powerful smells of mildew and old leather emanating from the
long-neglected volumes. As a slave boy, illiterate at first, sold to the tower to repay
his father's debts, he had taken books down from the high, obscure shelves to pore over at
night after his master was abed. Slowly,

his intelligence had matched the illuminated drawings in the margins of the ancient texts
with the shapes of letters. It was like reading glyphs, this long process that had
translated indecipherable scrawls into meaning, into things and ideas. It had taken all of
a year, but he had taught himself to read in the shadowy, candlelit room.

Each time he returned he felt the same absorbing calm and quietude. This time he came as
an intruder, a spy, gathering intelligence. Silently, he thumbed through old Balandar's
records. In a shabby old book the priest had kept account of the temple wineries for
years, since before the Siege of Sorcery and long before Vincus himself had been born. He
had dwelt upon this very book learning his letters and numbers: “claret” and “malmsey”
were among the first words he could read.

Looking at the most recent records, those of the last several months, Vincus quickly
tallied the num- ber of wine barrels brought from the warm north into the Kingpriest's
cellar. The expensive claret was the Kingpriest's favorite, reserved for only the highest
clergy. One barrel^ month sufficed, and Vincus noted no change in the order. Nor in the
malmsey, which the lesser clerics and the officers drank with a certain . . . license.
Seven barrels this month, six the month before, and six before that.

Vincus nodded. A slight increase in the malmsey. Festival time. The port, however, was the
soldiers' wine. Rationed to the Istarian men at arms, it was issued in the barracks and
taken afield. The Istarian soldier was naked without his wineskin. Vincus smiled, adding
the numbers. Ten barrels, then eleven, and this month . . . twenty-two. Vincus absently
fingered his silver collar. There was a marked increase in the port wine, far beyond
festival allowances, beyond common sense. It definitely supported his suspicion. Someone
new was in the city. Unannounced, unaccounted for. And port was the wine of soldiers.

The first night of the Shinarion spangled the city with a gaudy light. In the quiet,
less-traveled pockets of the city, marbled squares and opal windows shone with the
borrowed glow of Lunitari, red and darkly brilliant like candlelight on wine. But the
lamps and the torches drowned the busy commons and thoroughfares with the flashy light of
commerce, and like a respected matron who has drained the glass once too often, the
elegant city burgeoned with a loud, inelegant life. Yet those who had been here before
knew otherwiseknew that this year was unlike any that had come before. This time the
celebration was fevered, almost desperate, and the promised thousands of pilgrims,
merchants, and performers had yet to arrive. Nonetheless, the festival caroused from the
center of the Marketplace, the beating heart of the trading, where jewelry, silks, and
spices changed hands, to the booths by the gates of the city, where vendors and hucksters
sold fireworks, knives, and the red glass bottles of godslightthe strange, everburning
mixture of phosfire and salt, dangerous and volatile, that, if handled wisely and
cautiously, would provide steady light for weeks. No one, however, expected wisdom and
caution from a drunken reveler. Already Peter Bomberus, commander of the city militia, had
been called to extinguish three fires by the city walls. Two had been simple wooden
lean-tosthe kind of makeshift dwellings that followed the festivals from Hylo to Balifor.
But the third was different: a permanent dwelling, hard by the School of the Games, the
dry wooden rafters and interiors igniting almost by themselvesa careless spark from a
torch, perhaps, or godslight discarded by a drunken reveler. By the time the commander
reached the building, black smoke billowed from a marble husk, and

the red flames joined with the red lamps of the Istarian night to create a harsh, hellish
light. Two hours of frenzied work had quenched the spreading, dangerous fire, but the
building still smoldered at midnight, the woodwork inside glowing faintly as the interior
slowly fell in upon itself. Reckless revelers tossed fireworks into the burst opal
windows, and the racket resounded into the dark Istarian morning. But Bomberus and his
militia arrested no one. By the time the fireworks began, they were far away, bound toward
the abandoned High Tower of Sorcery, where yet another fire had erupteda metal gate ablaze
with phosfire. On the road to the burning gates, passing through the cluttered Istarian
thoroughfares and alleys, Bomberus saw the sights of the Shinarionthe dreamlike arenas of
commerce and deception and curious, fraudulent magic. In a perfumer's booth near the
Banquet Hall, two Kharolian merchants stood smugly behind an array of uncorked,
parti-colored vials and bottles. The smell of a dozen colognes and attars and oils mingled
in the smoky city air, and, reflecting in the red godslight, a thin, transparent hand
snaked out of the mouth of each vessel, wavering like a desert mirage, like the blurred
air at the lip of a flame. The hands gestured and beckoned as the militiamen passed, but
Bomberus had instructed his troops well. On they trudged, past the hall, toward the
Welcoming Tower, where a game of chance spilled from a speculator's booth onto the cobbled
street, and an odd company of gamblers crouched and knelt and sat on the thoroughfare.
Dwarves from Thoradin, Ergothian merchants, and a kender from Hylo gathered around a
circle scratched on the cobblestone, the kender's hands tied in front of him according to
the house policy of any establishment frequented by the little folk, and the ten-sided
Calantina dice flickered through torchlight according to some obscure Ergothian rules.
Bomberus stopped at this booth, peered over a dwarven shoulder. Perfume and wine held no
attrac- tions for the commander, but gaming ... A rough hand at his shoulder drew him
away. Old Arcus, a veteran of some forty years, stared at his commander with black
glittering eyes. Smiling knowingly, he pointed up the road, where the red fire glowed on
the eastern horizon like a premature sunrise. “Best be gettin' there, commander,” he
suggested, shouting over the dwarven racket and the carnival come-hither of the gamers.
“Whilst some of it is standin', and the fire don't spread.” Bomberus muttered to himself
and followed. Now he found himself in an awkward spot, in the midst of his men rather than
at the head of the column. All around him the militia sheared off from the avenue toward
the dozen temptations that littered the lamplit center of the city, and together Bomberus
and Arcus collared the younger soldiers, scolded them, and set them aright on the eastern
road toward the tower. At first, ashamed at his own wayward behavior near the gambler's
booth, the commander was hard on the unruly and gullible boys, planting his foot firmly in
the backside of one who crouched beneath a beer barrel, openmouthed, to receive the
cascading beer from the opened bunghole. Swearing angrily at the young man, Bomberus
prepared to kick him again, but a cautionary wink from Arcus brought him to his senses. It
was bad as the dice, this anger. Bomberus took a deep breath, helped the beer-soaked
novice to his feet, and shoved the young man up the thoroughfare, where the light from the
distant burning suddenly vanished in the stronger glow from the central Marketplace.
Wisely, cautiously, Bomberus steered the militia around the well-lit square. From a
distance, in the faceted lamplight he could see the booths of the jewelers, the shimmering
silks draped over awning and counter. The expensive booths, heavily guarded by the private
soldiers of a dozen merchants. To stray into the Marketplace in armed company would be to
invite disaster. At Shinarion, the mer- chants governed themselves with little regard for
Kingpriest or clergy. No wonder that Istar had hidden a legion in town. Oh, no one had
told him of the hidden legion. Indeed, he had not spoken of it eithernot even to the
trusted Arcus. Bomberus knew of the army's whereabouts only through instinct, through the
inspired guess of a veteran constable who notices subtle changes on familiar streets: new
hands with

the calluses of crossbowmen, the unmistakable shape of a pike wrapped in canvas in a wagon
bed, swords carried with quiet, respectful wisdom. Standard security, to be sure. But more
than that. He had never seen concealed troops in these num- bers, not even at the great
festivals of five years past, whose opulence and magnitude dwarfed the sorry excuse for a
Shinarion unfolding this first, unpromising night.

What could they be planning in the Tower? He shook his head, continued up the wide street,
past the smithy and the Slave Market, to where the spellcraft flourished and the illusions
stalked. Translucent and flitting they were, like ghosts in search of solid flesh. Slowly,
in an almost stately dance, they cavorted on the battlements of the abandoned tower like
corposants on a stormy mast, and the night air rumbled in accompaniment with the sound of
fireworks and thunder, of the last combats in the raucous arena. Above the slack-jawed
guardsmen the air crackled as the watery smell of lightning reached them through the smoke
and powder and incense of the Shinarion. Peter Bomberus reached for his sword, then
laughed quietly, grimly. As if edged steel would fend off these mirages. In the fitful
firelight behind the burning gate, there at the base of the tower, the illusionists
gathered for duels and enchantments. Artificial stars glittered above them, spangling the
minarets of the tower with borrowed light. It was a show, the best of the Shinarion. A
second heaven formed around the deserted tower, and languidly the constellations, drawn
from the memories of the participating illusionists, wheeled about the spire of the tower
as though a year were passing in little more than a minute, a century in two hours.
Meanwhile, at the shadowy base of the tower a chorus of incantations rose on the air, a
great choir in all the known languages of Ansalon, from the watery vowels of Lemish to the
harsh Kernian brogue and the suave accents of Balifor. As the guardsmen covered the
burning gate with doused canvas, with earth, with ashes, smothering the strange flames of
phosfire, Peter Bomberus watched the spectacle in the western sky. In unison, as a hundred
languages choired below them, the imaginary stars and planets lifted into the higher
regions of air, sputtering and fading as they caught a sudden wind and scattered, in a
babble of fire and voices, over the bay of Istar. They were always good, these
illusionists, with their false light and treacherous mirrors. But this year, their flashy,
empty show seemed to suit the city and its festival. Peter Bomberus stood before the
smoldering gate and watched the smoke trail into the heavy sky. The festival was a showy
failure. This year was the worst of them allas many fires as pilgrims, it seemed. And
beneath the smoke and incense and the smell of new wine, the pungent, unsavory odor of
decay and death. The Kingpriest himself watched the illusions sail out and crumble over
the water. Like dust, he reminded himself. Like bright and magical dust. Turning from the
window, he closed the thin shades behind him and, oil lamp in hand, hastened to the table
where he kept the long work of his dreams. He was almost through with the gathering. The
opal dust filled two large vials already, and the third and final receptacle was
three-quarters full. But the mining was laborious, even under the skillful labors of the
Lucanesti, and the great day of the ritual might still be months away. Time enough for
that mad Prophet to storm the city. To ruin everything. His pale hand trembled as he
touched the last vial. Oh, might the gods speed the harvest! But the Prophet... the
Plainsmen and rebels ... 'They will not be enough to harm you," a dark voice breathed from
somewhere in his chamber. The Kingpriest was suddenly tense and alert. He had heard this
voice beforein the clerestory of the great encircling corridor, in the glossy dome of the
council hall, and finally, most intimately, in his own private chambers. Yet it never
ceased to surprise him, insinuating itself into the depths of his dreams, coming upon him
always in solitary and unguarded moments like a thief to an

unprotected house. “T-To harm me?” he stammered, mining for a false bravery. “What have I
to fear from . . . petty bandits?” “But there is one who is more than a bandit,” the voice
teased. The Kingpriest glanced to the window he had just closed. A dark heart at the
center of the opal sheet contracted eerily, like the eye of a reptile, and the voice
trailed through the brilliant translucent pane, filling the room with melody and dread.
“This one is close to you, my friend, and it would not be well for you to see him ... face
to face and eye to eye. It would be a hall of mirrors, in which you might well become
ensnared.” The Kingpriest frowned at the obscure threat. Then, dropping all pretense of
courage and confi- dence, he faced the window and asked the question that had kept him
sleepless for most of the week. “If I cannot face him, who can? If five generals have
failed, then who will stop him?” “Your commander is coming,” the voice soothed, a strange
opaque flatness in its tone. “Rest easy, my friend. I shall let no rebellion touch you.”
In the answering silence, the Kingpriest waited, attentive and expectant. What did it
meanthis dark, ambiguous promise? Soon it was apparent that the voice had left the window,
that its last sentence had been these odd words of assurance. Assurance, indeed. It would
protect him, deliver him. Then why did his hand still shake?

*****

It was an odd officer who made his way into the quartermaster's offices on the following
morning. His uniform was a ragtag assemblage, mixing rank, regiment and legion with almost
a clownish abandon. The lieutenant's tunic from the Istarian Twelfth Legion contrasted
strangely with the violet cavalry cape left over from the Ninth Legion, which had been
disbanded by the Kingpriest two years before. The green leggings the officer wore had come
from the Ergothian infantry and the helmet, fashioned of ornate boiled leather, was a
relic from some other time.

A mercenary, the quartermaster deduced, glancing over his shoulder as the motley man
entered the offices. No man to reckon with. Or cheat. The quartermaster might have been
more curious had he seen the officer emerge from a nearby alley not minutes earlier,
rolling the end of the cape around his silver slave collar, effectively hiding it from
curious eyes. He might have wondered who the man was, what was his business. And why he
wore the mark of a slave in the first place.

Busy with his inventory, the quartermaster noticed nothing more about the mannot even that
he spoke not a word to the other soldiers milling through the assembled supplies, but that
his hands flashed secretly with ancient Ergothian numerical signs as he counted, tallied,
and took his own inventory of the provisions gathered in the military offices.

The quartermaster scarcely took heed when the officer left, busy as he was with an order
for a thou- sand pairs of legionnaires' boots and as many water-skins. Nor did the armorer
in the shop three streets away pause to notice when an acrobat entered his establishment,
dressed in the black tunic of tumblers and fire-dancers. After all, festival performers
often came to the armory, searching for old throwing knives, older darts, and other
dramatic blunt weapons to lend a certain edge of danger to the torchlit midnight
productions. Bent over a used sword he was hammering into shape for a sergeant in the
Twelfth Legion, the stocky craftsman did not notice the acrobat's eye stray to the
spearheads, arrowheads, and the new short swords requisi- tioned by the garrisons of the
city.

Had he looked closer at the acrobat, the armorer might have noticed the metal band peeking
through the violet ruffle at the performer's neck. The silver collar was the sign of a
Temple slave, and would have caused suspicion and alarm.

The barracks keeper, four streets away, also did not think to be suspicious. He noticed
the fortune- teller stroll by the barracks, his conical hat tilted comically, his long red
robe unable to cover the fact that he was barefoot, no doubt penniless and desperate to
augur and forecast his way to a festival meal. When the man stopped in front of the
barracks and weaved drunkenly, he appeared to be talking to himself, and the keeper
snickered and shook his head, assured by the sighting of his first drunken wizard that the
Shinarion was about to begin.