ZYGRADON (24 page)

* * * *

Two days later, the copying work was done, with the help of Le'esha's two
finest scribes. It was time-consuming, with one person reading and another writing. Then
a third and fourth took the finished pages and compared them to the original before
sewing the specially preserved, hair-fine leaves of parchment into a book. The finished
product held all the knowledge of star-metal and the record of the efforts to purify
Moerta.

Mrillis spent three hours going through the finished work with Le'esha. Then she
taught him the weaving of a protective web of magic around the box that held the book,
to preserve it from theft, fire, flood, and the ravages of time.

"Someday, my lad, you will need to know this particular magic," Le'esha said,
her eyes going misty with a Seeing. "It will be the greatest magic you will ever weave,
and it will change and preserve the world." Then she blinked and sighed wearily, and
summoned up a smile from somewhere. "Not for many years, though, so do not let it
trouble you."

Mrillis did let it trouble him. He thought about her words and envisioned the
weaving of the web around the box as he walked the halls and levels of the Stronghold,
searching for Endor. Their task here was done, and it was time to take the copy to the
Warhawk. His thoughts were so tightly bound to what he had just done and learned that
he was startled when he came upon Ceera and Endor alone in a quiet spot where three
hallways intersected. There were benches in the small room, carved from the stone of the
walls. Ceera and Endor sat together, facing away from the hallway Mrillis traveled. The
flickering light from the lamps hung in the three archways cast their faces in masks, so he
almost didn't recognize them.

Even this deep inside the Stronghold, the howl of winter winds came through
clearly. Mrillis heard the winds and knew he wouldn't be able to leave for another day
or two, and he was glad. Then he saw Ceera and Endor, opened his mouth to greet
them--and paused, feeling his stomach drop unpleasantly. He didn't like the way they
leaned close together, their shoulders touching, Endor's head tipped toward
Ceera's.

"Do you like it?" Endor asked.

"Very much." Ceera laughed and held up her hands.

Mrillis recognized the fine silver chains set with bits of rose-colored quartz. He
had helped Endor make them, as winter solstice gifts for his two sisters.

"How much?" A rich note entered Endor's voice, and an answering throb of
heat shot through Mrillis. He clenched his fists and felt the pulse of anger-based power in
his fingertips. He could blast his friend through the wall as easily as he had knocked over
Nixtan all those years ago.

"I will wear them to dinner tonight and tell everyone you made them for me. If
you weren't Rey'kil, with so much power, you could make a fine living as a jeweler.
Every woman in the land would adore you." Ceera laughed and started to stand.

Mrillis stepped back into the shadows, unwilling to have her see him. He
wanted to shout that Endor lied, that he had helped make the necklaces, but that would
be childish.

"Do
you
adore me, pretty Ceera?" Endor caught hold of her hand,
tugging her back down onto the bench. She lost her balance and he caught her, drawing
her up tight against his chest.

"Don't do that." Fire sparked in Ceera's silver-gray eyes. She squeaked, shocked,
when Endor pressed his mouth against hers.

Mrillis raised his hand to let the furious magic shoot from his fingertips--stopped
by an image of hurting Ceera.

Ceera slapped Endor hard, with the hand holding the chains. They wrapped
around his face. Endor shouted as Ceera leaped off the bench.

"Don't ever touch me like that. You have no right!" Her face burned white with
fury, her cheeks streaked pink. Blue sparkles of magic crackled along the ends of her
braids and fingertips as she bolted down the passageway--to Mrillis' relief, away from
him. She would have been hurt, shamed, if she knew he had seen what just
happened.

Endor cursed under his breath as he picked up the chains. Then he turned and
saw Mrillis, his hand raised, with sparks of white-hot magic fading from his fingertips.
Something ugly twisted across his mouth and burned black in his eyes. Then he shook his
head and forced a cracking laugh.

"Saw all that, did you?"

"She is Le'esha's heir," Mrillis said. Far easier to say those words than the ones
that burned on his tongue. "No man has any right to touch her."

"Yes, I just learned that." Endor rubbed his cheek. Mrillis guessed the stones had
stung, even through his rich curls of beard. The howl of the distant storm filled the
silence. Then Endor shook his head and a rippling laugh burst from him. "We're both
idiots, wanting what we can't have. You were ready to shred me a moment ago, weren't
you?"

Mrillis shrugged and dropped his hand, making a fist. Except for Ceera, no one
was closer to him than Endor. He still felt anger, that sick feeling roiling in his belly. He
could still see Endor kiss Ceera. He felt as he did when he was four and an older child
had snatched a cherry tart from his hand. One of their nurses saw and made the boy give
it back to him. There was only a tiny bite taken and it wasn't spoiled, but somehow the
tart didn't taste as sweet.

Mrillis wanted to be Ceera's first kiss of womanhood--the first to kiss her, as
well as the first one she kissed. It amazed him how much he hated Endor, just for a few
moments.

"She's the next Queen of Snows," Mrillis said. "Do you know how many women
here would tear you to pieces if you touched her improperly? Be grateful it was only me
who saw."

"Be grateful you were about to blast me, instead of a thousand shrieking hags?"
Endor burst out with that rich, rolling laughter full of mischief. "Small mercies."

Mrillis shivered, deep inside. A sensation like a cold knife blade pressed against
his soul.

That night, as he entered the dining hall, Mrillis saw Endor sitting with his
sisters, far from the head table. He laughed and entertained all the girls at the round
table, his face flushed and his hands gesturing, illustrating some wild story. Endor sat with
his back to the high table. His two sisters wore the chains that Ceera had thrown back at
him.

That little change of gifts, from one recipient to another, sat wrong with Mrillis.
He knew better than to mention it to anyone, even if only to ask for advice or to work
out his feelings about the whole incident. He made sure he sat with his back to Endor,
when he joined Le'esha, Ceera and Theana at the high table. Ceera said nothing about
the incident, and though he watched her all through the meal, she seemed unaffected.
Mrillis was relieved.

He dreamed that night of trying to kiss Ceera.
She didn't grow angry, didn't
hit him, didn't stomp away. She just stood there, waiting, and an invisible wall that felt
like ice stood between them, so he could never touch her.

* * * *

Endor never spoke of Ceera, when he and Mrillis passed messages from Moerta
to Wynystrys or the Stronghold through the Threads, or when they met infrequently
over the next few years. Mrillis was relieved, despite a prickle of unease from time to
time. Endor had never given up on a pretty girl when she initially rebuffed him. Why did
he give up on Ceera so easily? Mrillis welcomed his friend's tales of the pretty Noveni
girls on Moerta who flocked around him. He was relieved, because his loyalty wasn't
threatened, torn between his two closest friends. Did it have to be torn? He couldn't
decide--and he couldn't talk to anyone about his quandary, either.

The years of service with the Warhawk continued. Mrillis carried a sword and
his skill with the bow earned the admiration of the Warhawk's elite archers. He
sometimes acted as spy, using magic to cloak his movements. Encindi did manage to sail
past the ships that patrolled Lygroes' shores and set up hidden camps from which they
sent out raiders to steal supplies, kidnap slaves and burn villages and farms. Mrillis led
teams of spies, hiding their footsteps and movements with webs of magic. They brought
back information that saved many villages from destruction. And when they were able,
with their smaller numbers, Mrillis and his followers killed Encindi invaders.

He didn't like battle. He didn't have a squeamish stomach, but there was a vast
difference between the blood spilled when he acted as a healer, and when he took a life
with sword or bow. Mrillis had seen strong warriors grow pale when they watched him
sew up wounds, so he knew there was no shame in his attitude toward warfare. He
knew he had been called to be a healer and protector, rather than a soldier. He left the
killing to others and spent his strength and knowledge preventing battles whenever he
could.

Even then, he had a hard time avoiding the nightmares after every battle where
he had killed with his own hand. His recurring nightmare was of stabbing a raging
Encindi warrior and of the blood gushing out of the man without end, until Mrillis
drowned in the hot, coppery flood.

Lyon understood his preference for avoiding battle, and the warrior didn't
mock him. He used his influence over his brother, so the Warhawk sent Mrillis more
often on scouting missions, rather than ones that could end in skirmishes. Lyon proved
just how much he respected Mrillis when he entrusted him with his son's safety. Athrar
was ten years old when he came to ride with the soldiers.

"I want him to be a scholar, rather than a soldier," Lyon confided to Mrillis and
the Warhawk. The three men sat alone in the tent used for planning and meetings.

"The Estall bless us, we won't need a soldier, by the time he's a man," the
Warhawk said, nodding. "Teach him, Mrillis. Everything you think a boy who will rule
the Noveni would need to know." He sighed, a rueful smile brightening his scarred,
tanned face, parting his beard with the streaks of silver running thick through the
golden-red curls. "Make sure the friendship between Rey'kil and Noveni stays strong, when my
nephew rules in my place."

"So you've decided on the boy and given up on your lady?" Mrillis said. He
liked Queen Elysion, with her sharp wit and mellow singing voice. He knew it pained her
not to have given her husband another son to follow him as High King over the
Noveni.

"Not given up on her, only faced the truth. Do you remember when she was so
ill two summers ago? Yes, of course you do." The Warhawk nodded. "If you hadn't
insisted on sending her to the Stronghold, she would have died. We've managed to keep
it quiet, thank the Estall. Elysion was poisoned."

"Over a long time. Perhaps years," Lyon said. His voice had an edge of fury. His
knuckles whitened, his hand tightening around his brass cup of spiced wine, until Mrillis
thought he would dent the thick metal. "We caught the woman who did it. The poison
worked slowly. It wouldn't have killed her for years yet, but the traitor was distracted
and spilled an entire moon's worth of poison into Elysion's cup one day, and then
couldn't throw it out. When Elysion fell ill, the woman panicked and tried to flee, so we
took her prisoner."

"Why poison her so slowly? Why attack the queen at all?" Mrillis said, thinking
aloud.

"The poison makes men impotent and empties a woman's womb," the
Warhawk said. "If taken long enough, it makes her barren."

"I'm sorry. Do you know who sent the woman?"

"Someone killed her before we could question her." Lyon gulped the last few
mouthfuls of his wine and slammed his cup down on the low table set between them.
"So, my brother is deprived of his heir, and my son must now bear the burden of the
crown and sword."

"May the sword only be for decoration and the taking of vows," Afron
murmured.

"May the Estall make it so." Lyon tried to smile, but his lips were stiff. "We are
glad you stood with us at the naming for Athrar. The bond we created that day will be
stronger than ever now. I trust you more than all the nobles of the Noveni combined to
teach Athrar what he needs to know." His smile went crooked. "And to keep him safe
from flattery and treachery. I ask you as a friend, not as the Warlord."

"And I swear it as your friend. I know I speak for the Queen of Snows and the
High Scholar, when I vow the Rey'kil will stand with Athrar as we have stood with you,"
Mrillis added. He stood up from his folding camp chair and bowed low to the Warhawk,
then to Lyon.

* * * *

Athrar was too aware of his future responsibilities. Mrillis pitied the boy for the
burden put too soon on his young shoulders. He made sure he acted as a friend to the
young prince, as well as his teacher. Despite his own responsibilities and years of service,
he chafed against the rules, regulations and fuss that attended anyone of royal blood. So,
whenever he could, he and the boy went on short excursions to explore and scout and
simply to talk. The Warhawk and Lyon never questioned Mrillis about his choices and
actions.

When Mrillis acted as courier, he took Athrar with him, whether riding to the
Stronghold or Wynystrys. Sometimes Nixtan rode with them, and Mrillis discovered his
boyhood friend knew how to tell outrageous stories, so entertaining that at the end, it
didn't matter that they were total lies. Athrar enjoyed the adventures, despite the
draining, rapid pace. Mrillis imagined his young charge welcomed the chance to get
away from the constant stench of blood and pain, sweat and dirty leathers and sword
metal that accompanied the camp and soldiers.

He used travel to teach the young prince the geography of Lygroes, and took
small detours to Rey'kil villages, and to investigate the vales under his protection. Athrar
made friends with the scholars and enchanters of both Rey'kil enclaves. In their turn,
most seemed to approve of the boy. If they guessed that he was his uncle's heir, they
never indicated, and Mrillis never told anyone.