The Rift War (28 page)

"A new war has come to us. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that we have come
forward in time to a new war." He looked around at all the nobles in their glittering finery. "We
have the knowledge to meet them on their terms, and take the weapons from their hands.
Education is needed. But loyalty and confidence is needed, first." He took a step forward, and a
collective indrawn breath swept across the crowded tables as he rested his hand on the hilt of
Braenlicach.

Grego glanced at the high table. Emrillian sat forward, lips parted, eyes bright with
anticipation. He held his breath, bracing for the first strumming of the chords in his chest when
Athrar drew the sword from its scabbard. He was almost disappointed when nothing but a sense
of warmth washed through him as the first rays of light from Braenlicach flared through the
gathering, across the tables, brilliant to the point of casting sharp-edged shadows. Many in the
crowd raised hands to shield their eyes, and murmurs and exclamations swept across the tables.
When he could see clearly again, Athrar sat down, holding Braenlicach pointing down, the tip
touching the ground, and both his hands resting on the hilt.

"In my father's day, a man who shared your salt and bread was considered a friend and
ally. Before we share salt and bread in this feast, I would have the nobles renew the oath of
loyalty their forefathers swore to my grandfather and my father and to me."

Emrillian stood and stepped down from the high table. Silence swept over the assembly
as she walked to the tables where the Archaics sat.

"My friends, you have come here at the risk of your careers, your former lives, and
possibly your physical lives. Will you be the first to pledge?" She lifted a hand, gesturing to
Athrar and the sword. "Show the old guard how the new breed acts with honor," she added,
lowering her voice.

"For Lygroes, for Quenlaque, for Athrar," Shalara said, standing.

The others joined her in moments, and Emrillian led the way to stand before Athrar.
Then she knelt before him.

"My daughter..." Athrar shook his head. "You have no need to take the oath of loyalty.
You have proven yourself."

"So have my friends, my lord, but I am pledging myself surety for my friends' loyalty
and their service. I have brought them here to our land. I am responsible for their actions and for
their deaths. May the Estall grant there be no death in this war."

"May the Estall grant it indeed." He bowed his head, took a deep breath, and when he
raised his head, his expression had hardened in determination.

Grego caught his breath as a shiver of anticipation mixed with apprehension washed
over him.

And to think it all started with a lonely, hurting boy wandering in the woods, who
stopped to make friends with a little girl and an old man,
Mrillis said. He nodded to Grego
when he looked to the high table and their gazes locked.

Braenlicach's light stayed quiet, a reassuring blue, as one by one the Archaics knelt and
rested a hand on the hilt of the sword and pledged their lives and honor to serve the Warhawk.
After them Baedrix came, with everyone who was in the welcoming party. Then the commanders
in the army came, to give their honor and stand surety for the men under them. Finally the nobles
came. Grego wished he had his datapad, to record the spoken pedigrees as each lord and lady
stepped forward and announced who their ancestors had been who served with Athrar, and with
Efrin, and with the first Athrar.

"It's going very well," he said, when he had calculated at least half the occupants of the
tables had come to kneel before Athrar and swear.

"That's because those who would swear falsely know better than to do it on
Braenlicach," Shalara said.

"What?" He thought about that for a moment, then stepped up to the chairs where
Emrillian and Ynfara sat to Athrar's right, watching the oath-taking. "What are you going to do
about the ones who won't come forward to swear?"

"We are aware, and taking the names of all who try to slip away in the night," Ynfara
said.

"What will you do with them?"

"We will remember, and we will treat them peaceably, but we will not trust them, no
matter what they say after the crisis is over." She took hold of Emrillian's hand, palm-to-palm,
and intertwined their fingers. "We have learned from our mistakes. We also know that now, on
the eve of war with an enemy who considers us fables, we cannot afford to dishearten our allies.
We must look for the hidden meanings behind friendly faces and the promises we want and need
to hear. We are using... What is the term, Emmi?"

"We are using psychology, Mama. I prefer to say simple common sense and long
experience." She sighed and tipped her head back to meet Grego's gaze. He saw her weariness
and ached for her. "The people are riding high on a crest of euphoria and wonder at the
fulfillment of prophecy. We must not fail them. They are depending on us to defend them, to
help them understand the world of the future that they have been pulled into. Capturing and
punishing the rebels and doubters will take the wind out of our sails far too much to risk losing
all the allies we need so desperately."

* * * *

Baedrix breathed a long, weary sigh of relief mixed with apprehension when the feast
ended. He reflected that the departure of perhaps a fifth of the nobles who had made the long trip
down the coast had put a damper on the festivities. That was a good thing. It meant the first
meeting of Athrar with the Council of Lords might even end around midnight. After the long day
they had, getting here to the coast in the first place, then facing down the Directorate's people,
they all needed a good night's rest. Especially when the other navies of Moerta were somewhere
out there on the ocean, arguing among themselves. And that was the purpose and topic of
discussion for the meeting.

It felt strange, knowing this would be the last council meeting he would call to order. He
would not close it, because he would officially return the throne to Athrar. He was relieved to be
free of his duty, and despite his sovereign's praise, he still felt ashamed to hand a kingdom
tainted with rebellion to the Warhawk. His head knew that there had always been rebellion. The
Warhawk's ancestors had faced treachery more insidious than nobles who wanted to believe
Athrar and
imbrose
and the world outside the dome were all fables, and who refused to
pay for the upkeep of the army and the defense against Edrout and his barbarians.

"What do those do?" he asked Karstis, as his new ally walked around the perimeter of
the Warhawk's pavilion, putting small wands that glowed with dots of green light in the ground
next to every other tent peg.

This modern world technology fascinated him, and he thought perhaps when this crisis
ended--it had to end, eventually--he would enroll in what Emrillian called a university and learn
about science and machines and how the Moertans could fly through the air without bird
wings.

"White noise generators." Karstis gave him an encouragingly wicked grin. "I
know--how can sound have color? These will set up a barrier so no one can listen to what we're
discussing inside the tent. They also have the advantage of acting as intruder alerts. Overkill, I
know, with all our Archaics standing guard outside, but you can't be too careful."

"Wouldn't it be easier to simply set a shielding spell around the council meeting, that
will let no sound out and no outsiders in?"

"The use of that strong a weaving of the Threads would attract unwanted attention,"
Meghianna said, coming up behind them.

She looped her arm through his, and Baedrix congratulated himself on not flinching. He
found it hard to reconcile how young Meghianna looked, despite her white hair, with the
knowledge that she was his grandmother, four generations removed. It was somewhat reassuring
now that she displayed genuine pride in claiming him as family, and affection toward him and
his siblings.

"Edrout, yes." Baedrix sighed. "I feel responsible for the fall of the dome,
somehow."

"Don't you start in on that, too." She lightly slapped his captive arm. "Emmi is rapping
her knuckles constantly. She has convinced herself that if she had worn her star-metal armor
from the start, Edrout wouldn't have attacked. I'm sure he would have, but simply been more
discrete. Poison in your food, perhaps."

"He wouldn't have had us to use against her," Karstis said. "She wouldn't have been
forced to such drastic steps to keep him from getting the sword."

"Perhaps. And perhaps it was the Estall's guidance, pushing us all beyond our schedules.
The Moertans were damaged and cast into chaos and confusion by the fall of the dome, and we
could not have managed that, no matter how prepared we were. Come, Grandson." She patted his
hand. "The council is about to begin."

The Moertan Valors were set up as perimeter guards around the Warhawk's pavilion, all
except Grego, Karstis and Shalara, who participated in the meeting. They silenced the lords and
ladies of the council when they set more modern world equipment down on the long trestle
table.

Athrar, Ynfara and Emrillian sat at one end of the table, with Meghianna, Mrillis and
Graddon on the other. Baedrix, Carious, and the three Moertans stayed standing. Athrar
unsheathed Braenlicach and set it on the table, glowing in ripples of white and blue and silver
light, pointing down the length of it to the three enchanters. Not a word had to be said, and
Baedrix bit his lip hard to fight his grin of appreciation at the elegance and eloquence of the
warning implicit in the presence of the glowing sword.

Taking a deep breath, he began the final recitation of the ancient ritual words, invoking
the blessing and guidance of the Estall to open the council meeting. Then he said the words that
had been written by Lycen, which each Regent had hoped to speak, ritually laying down the
authority and duty resting on his shoulders and giving it back to his sovereign.

"By the mercy and the grace of the Estall, prophecy has been fulfilled and the High King
has been restored to Lygroes. I do swear on my honor, on my vows as a Valor, on the loyalty of
my bloodline, I have fulfilled my duty, entrusted to me by my forefathers. Quenlaque is as strong
as it was the day it was given into my family's keeping. By the mercy and grace of the Estall, I
gladly return it into the hand of its true lord and king. May he find me worthy, and be
well-pleased with his most loyal servant." Baedrix bowed low, then went to one knee and held out
both hands, with the massive ring of chatelaine keys lying on his flat palms. He kept his gaze
focused on the keys and fought to keep his hands steady as Athrar reached out slowly, and gently
lifted the keys up.

He clutched the ring in his fist, letting the keys dangle, and reached with his free hand to
catch hold of Baedrix's hand before he lowered it.

"Well done, Regent. I know your grandsires would be most proud of you, and I am
proud to call you kinsman. The Warhawk throne owes you and your predecessors a debt that can
never be fully repaid." Athrar squeezed Baedrix's hand before releasing him.

Without being quite sure why, Baedrix looked for Emrillian as he stood up and backed
away from Athrar. She met his gaze, and though her mouth stayed somber, her eyes gleamed
with pride, and a light sensation settled in his chest.

"My friends, descendants of loyal, valued friends and allies." Athrar got to his feet just
as Lord Obaran, speaker of the Council of Lords, braced his hands on the table to stand and make
the first salvo. "We can discuss the condition of the kingdom later, when we have ensured the
peace and security of our borders. What concerns the council now is ensuring there is indeed a
Lygroes and a Quenlaque to discuss, and borders to argue over, and a place to play courtly
games. Here are the facts: the dome that has kept us in a different time, safe from the outer
world, locking us in with the remnants of our enemies, has been shattered. The Moertans are two
thousand years beyond us in terms of civilization, of tools, of changed society." He paused as
murmurs raced up and down the table.

Baedrix wasn't surprised at the reaction of the nobles. There were many who refused to
believe anything without concrete proof. They would have their proof from the devices Grego
and his companions had brought to the table.

"They can perform wonders that look like magic, without the use of the Threads and
without
imbrose
," Athrar continued. "They have discovered what our ancestors
knew--that star-metal is the source of the power that flows through the Threads--and they have come to
our shores with their devices to drain the power from the Threads for their own use, thereby
threatening our existence."

Athrar went on to give a brief history of Moerta. How the many small kingdoms had
squabbled through the centuries, sometimes devouring each other, forming new alliances,
splitting apart in revolution. And how much of the technology in the modern world came as a
direct result of the quest to subdue the enemies on all borders. Grego and his two friends took
turns bringing up images on the flat screens of their devices, impressing or shocking the nobles
in turns by projecting maps and images of vehicles and weapons of war into the air and making
them turn, to be visible from all angles.

Emrillian took over the lecture to describe how the history of Quenlaque had been
distorted by time and deliberate insertion of falsehoods by Mrillis and Meghianna through the
ages, to protect the truth. She explained the Archaics, and how they had grown through the last
several decades, dedicated to the values and ideals of Quenlaque. And how she had been trained
among them, made friends and allies, and tested everyone she met to discern the presence of
imbrose
among them.

"We shall need these allies in the days and years to come," she concluded. "Even now,
enemy warships are a hundred leagues out from our shore, primed for battle. The first ships came
to drain the power from the Threads, and the others followed them to steal the technology. Right
now, they are squabbling among themselves, wounded and disorganized by the damage that
struck them all when the dome fell. When they have recovered and have sorted themselves out,
they will attack us. Either working in concert, or every nation attacking us separately, it does not
matter, because they will all be attacking
us
, not each other. Grego?" She gestured for
him to step up to the table, and sat down at Athrar's left hand.