The Scepter's Return (31 page)

Pterocles took it with poor grace. He was about Lanius' age himself—maybe even younger—and had no trouble reading it at the normal distance. He hadn't gone far before the frown disappeared from his face. A little later, one of his eyebrows rose. He raced through the rest of the letter. “I suppose, up in the heavens, Olor's beard collects all kinds of crumbs and scraps,” he said.

Grus gave him a quizzical look. “I'm sure you're going somewhere with that, but I can't for the life of me imagine where.”

“I am, Your Majesty,” Pterocles assured him. “The god can't even comb out what gets stuck in there, because things that touch him turn holy themselves. And so nothing ever gets thrown away or discarded. If it's in his beard, it's in there for good.”

“Queen Quelea has even more mercy than I thought,” Grus said.

Pterocles ignored that sally. “Our archives are just like Olor's beard,” he said. “If something gets in there, it's in there for good. And every once in a while we can fish something out, dust it off, and maybe—just maybe—use it again.”

“This does sound like the same illness to you, then?” Grus said. “It did to me. Maybe the Banished One got lazy.”

Pterocles stared, blinked, and started to laugh. “I can just imagine him going through his keep down there in the mountains. ‘Mm,' he'd say. ‘I had pretty good luck with this plague a few hundred years ago. They won't remember it, those miserable mayfly mortals. Why don't I haul it out again and see how they like it?'”

Grus laughed, too, in tones somewhere between admiration and horror. Pterocles had caught the Banished One's way of thinking almost blasphemously well. The exiled god often mocked men for their short lives when he came to them in dreams. He might well believe a disease not seen for centuries was forgotten. And so it would have been, but for Lanius.

“I didn't read the whole letter,” the king said. “What did they do about the pestilence, all those years ago? What
could
they do about it? Anything? Or do we know what's biting us without being able to bite back?”

“He's passed on the spell the wizards were using then,” Pterocles answered. “Whoever thought of it had nerve. It uses the law of similarity in a way I wouldn't try unless I was desperate.” His laugh was grim. “Of course, if I watched people dying all around me, I expect I'd get desperate pretty fast.”

“Can you use it? Can other wizards use it? Will it work again?” Grus asked.

“I can use it. So can others. It's not hard to cast—I can see that at a glance,” Pterocles said. “It's not hard to cast like that, anyway. You don't have to be a senior sorcerer to be able to get the incantation right. But it's going to be wearing on the wizards who use it. And you don't want to make a mistake about which direction the spell runs in. You'd be very unhappy if you did, and so would your patients.” He explained what he meant, and showed Grus the end of the letter to give him more detail.

The king read that part. He had no sorcerous talent to speak of, and no sorcerous knowledge, either, except the bits and pieces he'd picked up from talking with Pterocles and other wizards and witches over the years. He wasn't sure he would understand, but he had no trouble at all. The problem was nothing if not obvious.

“Well,” he said, “you don't want to do
that,
do you?”

“Now that you mention it,” Pterocles said, “no.”

If the plague came to the city of Avornis, Lanius realized he was one of the people likeliest to catch it. Couriers seemed intimately involved in spreading it, and couriers from infected parts of the kingdom kept bringing word of its progress up to the capital. And to whom were they bringing that word? Why, to him. He was the king, the man who most needed to know what was going on elsewhere in Avornis.

That meant other people in the palace were also among the likeliest to come down sick. And it meant—or might mean—he'd been wrong about what he told Sosia. Maybe getting Crex and Pitta away from the city for a while was a good idea after all. He waited for Pterocles' letter. When it came back from the south, it said,
Getting them away from the capital will not hurt, and may do some good.
Lanius wished the wizard would have said something stronger than that, but it was plenty to persuade him—and Sosia, too.

He wondered if he'd made a mistake waiting for Pterocles' response. If the children had gotten out of the city sooner … Three days after Crex and Pitta left the palace, Sosia came up to him with a worried look on her face. “Mother's not feeling well,” she said.

“What's wrong?” Lanius hoped dread didn't clog his throat too much. People had any number of ways of falling sick. Queen Estrilda wasn't a young woman. If she didn't feel well, that didn't necessarily mean anything. So he told himself, grasping at straws like a harness maker or a farmer. In some ways, all men
were
very much alike.

“She has a fever,” Sosia answered. “She says the light hurts her eyes, and she has some … some bumps on her face.”

“Bumps,” Lanius echoed tonelessly. His wife nodded. He knew—and Sosia obviously did, too—the pestilence showed itself with fever and with blisters. Not quite apropos of nothing, he said, “I wish Pterocles weren't down in the south.”

“I said that before,” Sosia replied—a handful of words with a world of worry in them.

Lanius had been so proud of himself when he sent Grus his letter along with Sosia's. He'd uncovered what might be a cure for the plague, and wasn't that wonderful? Wasn't
he
wonderful for being so clever?

Now he would have to test that cure, if it was a cure, on someone who mattered to him very much—and who mattered even more to his wife, and to the other king, and possibly even to his brother-in-law. He sighed and said, “I'd better send for Aedon.” Aedon was the leading wizard in the city of Avornis after Pterocles—a long way after Pterocles, unfortunately.

A servant went hotfooting it out of the palace to bring him back. He came within the hour. He was closer to Grus' age than to Lanius'—a stately man with a neat gray beard and with the pink skin and mild smile of a kindly grandfather. “How may I serve you, Your Majesty?” he asked.

“The plague is in the city,” Lanius said bluntly. “You will have heard of it?”

“Yes,” Aedon admitted. “But how do you know this to be the case?”

“Queen Estrilda has it,” the king replied, more bluntly still.

Aedon licked his lips. “What … do you wish me to do?” He couldn't have sounded more wary if he were an actor on a stage. If he tried to save King Grus' wife and failed, his head might answer for it. He said, “You do understand, I trust, that I have no experience in facing this disease.”

“I do understand that,” Lanius said. While waiting for Aedon, he'd gone to the archives and gotten the document on which he'd based his letter to Grus. “This seems to be the same plague as the one the Banished One used against us about the time the Scepter of Mercy was lost. Here is what the sorcerers of that time did against it.”

Like Grus, Aedon held things out at arm's length to read them. No one had found a magical cure for lengthening sight. By the time the wizard finished reading, his skin was less pink than it had been. He licked his lips again. “You wish me to attempt this untested sorcery on Her Majesty?”

“It's not untested. It just hasn't been used for a while,” Lanius said, proving technical truth could live in the same sentence with enormous understatement.

“If I understand the spell correctly, we will need one other, ah, participant besides the queen and me,” Aedon said.

Lanius nodded. “I read it the same way.” He pointed to himself. “I will be the other one.”

Now the wizard went from wary to horrified. “Oh, no, Your Majesty! Use a servant or someone else who will not be missed if something goes awry.”

“No,” Lanius said. “This is my responsibility. I found it. I was the one who thought it would work—and I still think so. I have … the courage of my convictions, you might say.” He'd been on a battlefield once, and never wielded a sword in anger.
This may be the first really brave thing I've ever tried to do in my life,
he thought.
I'm old to start, but I hope I can do it right.

He waited, trying to look as kingly as he could. Grus would have had no trouble getting the wizard to obey
him
—Lanius was resentfully sure of that. Aedon went right on grimacing, but at last he nodded. “Let it be as you say, Your Majesty. But please do me the courtesy of showing in writing that you have given me this order. I do not wish to be blamed if something goes wrong.”

“I suppose that's fair,” Lanius said, remembering the sorcerer would be trying a spell he'd never used before. Remembering that sent a chill through him.
Am I brave or just foolhardy?
Before long, he'd find out. He called to a servant for parchment and pen and ink, and also for sealing wax. He wrote rapidly, then used the royal signet ring. “Here,” he told Aedon. “Does this satisfy you?”

After reading the pledge to hold him harmless, Aedon nodded. “It does. I thank you, Your Majesty.” He tucked the document into his belt pouch, no doubt ready to pull it out if things failed to go the way he wanted. “And now, if you would be so kind, take me to Her Majesty.”

Actually, a serving woman led both Lanius and Aedon to Queen Estrilda. Lanius fought back a wince when he saw his mother-in-law. Estrilda had gotten worse since Sosia told him she was sick. Grus' wife seemed only half aware of who he was, and either didn't care or didn't understand who the wizard was. The blisters described in both Grus' dispatches and the ancient ecclesiastical document were plain on her face and hands.

When Aedon gently touched her forehead, he flinched. “She is very warm, Your Majesty,” he said. “Very warm indeed.”
If she dies, you can't blame me.
He didn't shout that, but he might as well have.

“Then you'd better not waste any time, had you?” Lanius said.

That wasn't what the wizard had wanted to hear. He said, “I also note that this spell involves a most unusual and uncertain application of the law of similarity.”

“All right. You've noted it. Now get on with it.” When Lanius wanted to get something done, he started sounding brisk and brusque like Grus. One of these days before too long, he would have to think about what that meant. At the moment, he had more urgent things to worry about.

Even with the pledge, Aedon seemed on the point of balking. After a longing look back toward the door, though, he seemed to realize he would take his reputation with him if he walked out through it.

He took a deep breath, gathered himself, and managed a dignified bow for Lanius. “Very well, Your Majesty, and may King Olor and Queen Quelea and the rest of the gods in the heavens watch over my attempt,” he said.

“Since the pestilence comes from the Banished One, I hope they will,” the king replied. Aedon looked startled, as if that hadn't occurred to him. Maybe it hadn't. A lot of things had happened to the wizard all at once.

He carried a stool over by the side of the bed and set the text of the spell on it. Lanius, who was a little shortsighted, wouldn't have wanted to try to read it from there, but Aedon seemed to have no trouble. For once, his lengthening sight worked for him, not against. “Please give me your hand, Your Majesty,” he said, and took Lanius' right hand in his own left.

Then he took Queen Estrilda's left hand in his right. Since the wizard had neither hand free for passes, the spell necessarily depended on the verbal element. Lanius hoped Aedon would be able to handle that. Avornan had changed some in the centuries since it was written down. Words that had rhymed then didn't anymore, while some that hadn't did now. If Aedon performed in a play and made a mistake on the stage, that would be embarrassing. It would be much worse than embarrassing if he made a mistake now—for him, for Lanius, and for Estrilda.

As soon as he started to read, Lanius let out a silent sigh of relief. He didn't know Aedon well, or know where the wizard had learned to cope with the old-fashioned language. But learn he had. It fell trippingly from his tongue, and Lanius felt the power build with each word that passed his lips.

The king was no sorcerer, but he had tried to learn something about conjuration, as he'd tried to learn something about everything. He knew what Aedon meant when he called this magic a strange use of the law of similarity. It treated the sick person and the well one as similar in everything save the sickness, and sought to transfer the well person's health to the victim. If the wizard got a couple of things backwards, it would work the other way, and send the plague to the well person—and probably to the wizard, too. Other things could also go amiss. Lanius had more than enough imagination to see several.

On Aedon went. He fought his way through a particularly intricate part of the spell. As soon as he did, his confidence seemed to rise. After that, he read more quickly. He almost stumbled once, but caught himself at a warning squeeze from Lanius. With a grateful glance toward the king, he saved the fluff and hurried toward the end.

Lanius watched his mother-in-law. He didn't know what to expect, even if the magic worked. Would she suddenly be better? Or would it be as though a fever broke, so that, while still ill, she was no longer in danger? He hoped for the one while expecting the other.

What Aedon and he got was something more or less in the middle. He could see the blisters shrink back into themselves on Estrilda's face. They had almost disappeared when the wizard finished the spell. Estrilda let out a long, long sigh as Aedon let go of her hand and Lanius'. “Better,” she whispered. “Much better. I thought I was on fire, and now I'm not.”

She wasn't her former self yet, either. She was plainly still weak from the pestilence. How long would that last? Lanius had no way of knowing. All he did know was that she was on the right track again. That counted for more than anything else. He nodded—he almost bowed—to Aedon. “Thank you. That was well done. Your fee will match your skill and your courage.”