Blood and memory, p.41
Blood and Memory, page 41
The King gestured that it was of no matter. He resumed his meal and nodded to someone who immediately poured Aremys some wine. “Try this, it’s my favorite,” Cailech encouraged.
He did and it was delicious. Aremys told the King as much. “I’m fairly certain I haven’t tasted white wine of such a crisp, fresh flavor in years. The south favors the red grape.”
The King nodded. “It was also Romen Koreldy’s favorite,” Cailech said conversationally.
“Oh? Koreldy…” Aremys frowned. “Who is he, my lord?”
“I thought you knew him,” Cailech replied, not looking up from his baked water fowl. “Myrt tells me you mentioned his name.”
“Did I?” Aremys asked, looking around, and even Cailech believed his confusion was genuine. “When?”
Cailech looked toward Myrt, who stood back near the window.
“Wait!” Aremys interrupted. “I do remember now. I said ‘Koreldy’ when I was preparing to spar with Firl.”
Myrt nodded at Cailech.
“So you do know him?” the King continued, pleased that this newcomer was being honest.
“I must, but I can’t dredge up from where or how I know him. It was…” He searched for the answer. “That’s right, it had something to do with a sword that reminded me of him. Is he a Grenadyne?”
“He is,” came the reply.
Aremys shrugged. “That’s how I know his name, then. I have no other recollection.”
“He carries a sword of a bluish hue, my king,” Myrt said softly.
Cailech said nothing in response, but Aremys nodded. “I’m not remembering anything at all about him, sire. Is this man important?”
“To me, yes.”
“May I ask why?”
“We have unfinished business to settle,” Cailech said, unfathomable eyes glinting over the rim of his goblet. “To your full health returning, Cullyn,” he said, raising that goblet now.
“I’ll drink to that, your majesty,” Aremys replied. “What is your plan for me?”
Cailech resumed his eating. “Well, as you have no memory to draw upon, I presume you’re in no hurry to be anywhere right now, so why not remain with us? Myrt tells me you can help with teaching my men some sword skills.”
Aremys could see no harm in it. He rather liked the mountain dwellers. He could not help but rather like the direct man who ruled them. “I’ll be glad to. Do I remain on as your prisoner?”
Cailech smiled now. “I think ‘guest’ is a nicer word,” he suggested.
Aremys understood. It was true. He had no idea where he should be or why, so he might as well accept the hospitable imprisonment of the Mountain King and make the best of it until his memory returned fully.
“Oh, and Cullyn. With regard to the Morgravian King. Do you have any thoughts on him…any memories coming to mind?”
It could not hurt to be honest with this question, Aremys decided. He knew within himself that he hated the man called Celimus but could not remember why…not yet anyway. “I hate him, sire…I think. When Myrt mentioned his name, my hackles rose. It must mean something, though I’ve yet to learn what.”
The King nodded thoughtfully. “That makes two of us. I hate him enough to do battle with him. But I fear a war right now would only waste my men.”
Aremys looked startled. “I’m sure my limited recall serves me faithfully when I suggest that to take on the Morgravian Legion would be suicide for your men. The Legion are well-drilled soldiers. I know your people are hard and don’t lack for courage. But I would avoid out-and-out war with Morgravia.”
“Unless, of course, we could bring them into the Razors. If we fought on our own territory, we would win.”
“Undoubtedly,” Aremys agreed, and believed it. “But Celimus would not be lured, sire. He’s too smart.”
“You have met the man, I presume.”
Aremys scratched his head and frowned. “You must be right—I suppose I must have met him to feel so assured of his ability.” There were thoughts niggling at the fringe of his mind; they were just out of reach, which was frustrating but Aremys reminded himself to hold faith. His memory would return.
“Do you have another suggestion?” the King asked, more in conversation than with genuine expectation that the injured man could offer sage advice.
“Yes! Parley. As long as you’re talking, no mountain dweller is losing his life.”
Cailech fixed Aremys with a hard gaze again. There was humor in it this time, though, because the stranger had taken him by surprise. “Go on.”
“Why fight? For what reason? Do you truly want Morgravia?”
“I might,” Cailech said, not prepared to share his thoughts.
“No, sire. Why would you want Morgravia? Your people belong here among the mountains. But what if trade was free and your people could come and go across the border without fearing an arrow. That would be worth striving for—not dying for, though.”
Myrt smiled to himself in the background. Cullyn was turning Cailech’s own creed back on the King. He had preached negotiations all his early life and, in so doing, had united the tribes of the mountains.
Aremys pressed on. “And by the same token, sire, Celimus might think he wants the Razors, but in truth, why would he want the Mountain Kingdom? What is he going to do with it? No Morgravian would survive easily up here, save a few hardy northerners perhaps. And he certainly isn’t going to move his palace up here, my lord. It’s pointless. From talking with Myrt—and I mean no offense, sire—I believe this situation is just two obstinate Kings, neither prepared to give ground. Why not get together and work out a solution? Spill no blood. Who knows what good might come of it.” It was a long speech for Aremys, but as much as he knew he hated Celimus, he did not for a moment believe the mountain dwellers were a match for the Legion. A new thought struck him. “And should you escalate these skirmishes I’ve been told of, my lord king, if I were Celimus I would unite with Briavel to crush you. Between the Morgravian Legion and the Briavellian Guard, I don’t care how brave your people are, sire, they will die and in numbers. You are a nuisance, for want of a better word, and Morgravia might well put its differences with Briavel behind it temporarily if it meant getting rid of the nuisance from the north.” He had no idea where his assurance had come from and could only assume that his knowledge was returning at a rapid rate now.
He expected a harsh reaction from Cailech. But the King nodded. “You speak sense, Cullyn. I just want to teach the upstart King a lesson, let him know we are not the simpleton barbarians he believes us to be. In truth, I could not leave my beloved mountains.”
“But that’s precisely what you would have to do, sire, should you conquer him. And anyway, there are many ways to skin a rat, sire.”
At this old northern adage, the King laughed, green eyes twinkling with his mirth. “You mean there are other ways to teach the southerner a lesson.”
Aremys nodded. “Precisely. It doesn’t have to be by proving you are mightier. Intelligence is the key here, sire. Prove you are the King with the vision for peace.”
“Do you think Morgravia and Briavel will unite?” Cailech asked suddenly.
Aremys could not guess at this. “It was a theory, your majesty, but one with merit.” He shrugged. “If I were the Morgravian King and faced war with you, that’s what I would seek to do. I think I’m right in saying that the Briavellians are less warlike people, but they have their own suspicions about the mountain dwellers. Faced with fighting you, yes, I think they might strike up a tentative bargain as neighbors to work to defeat you.”
“And that’s precisely what he is doing, Cullyn. Your instincts are sharp, but your faded memory has not told you that Celimus is petitioning Queen Valentyna of Briavel.”
At the King’s words, old memories resurfaced and slotted into place. A man called Wyl suddenly came to his mind. He could not see him, but he was thinking orange-haired…a general. Morgravian, no less. Try though he might, he could not put a face to the memory. He kept seeing a woman’s eyes…feline and sensual. The naming of the Queen had prompted this memory of the Morgravian—were the two connected? He shook his head to rid it of the disjointed thoughts; he would have to consider them later.
“All the more reason to parley, King Cailech. Seek friendship, seek trade, seek peace. You will be the winner; it’s your people who will benefit more than the Morgravians, in truth.”
“I like your style,” Cailech said, after draining his goblet. “What do you suggest?”
Aremys thought about it and the King did not seem to mind the pause. “Don’t be too proud,” he finally said. “Lead the talks—show his people and your own that it was you who had the vision rather than he. Celimus is not trustworthy, so you must tread carefully. And should the talks fail, then no one can accuse the Mountain King of acting in anything but a chivalrous manner. They will know you held out the hand of peace.”
Cailech stood, impressed and a little startled. He needed to think this audacious idea through; perhaps have the Stones read. “I like you, Cullyn of Grenadyn. We shall talk more. Join me later for a ride. You must see Galapek, my new stallion.”
Rashlyn moved the Reading Stones about before him. He was alone and he was baffled. They spoke to him of change. Big change, but he could make no sense of it. He cast again, specifically looking for any indication that might spell his greatest fear—the death of King Cailech. He had saved his life once previously, when Koreldy had threatened it all those years ago, and he now regularly searched the Stones for answers with regard to Cailech’s longevity.
Alas, change, once more, was all the Stones would yield. What did it mean? Without Cailech he had no power. He must not allow the King to be threatened in any way and yet here was Cailech murmuring about escalating his dislike for the Morgravian King to out-and-out war with Celimus.
Rashlyn moved restlessly to the window of the stone chamber he liked to work from, well removed from the hustle and bustle of daily life in the Cave. In his increasingly rare lucid moments, such as now, Rashlyn himself knew he was losing his mind, but it was a slow and tormenting process and he hoped this inability to get more out of the Stones was not part of that disintegration. He pulled angrily at the wild beard he hid behind and admitted to himself that his periods of lucidity had shortened significantly while the time spent in the prison of his dark thoughts had increased until he wondered if each sane period would be the last. Only he knew that spells that were once so easy for him to concoct and use were now challenging him. Oh, he was still brilliantly skilled, but the talent was beginning to elude him. Stranger still, he was beginning to recall, in vivid detail, memories of his childhood playing with his brother.
Elysius! Curse him! Rashlyn felt sure he was dead and felt no remorse for causing his brother’s death.
Emil had met Rashlyn first and flirted recklessly with the plain young man. And she had done so just because she could, picking her target perfectly, for it was obvious Rashlyn was starved for female attention. As much as Rashlyn desperately wanted to touch, to kiss, to lie with a woman, none would have him willingly, so Emil was a revelation for him. Even the whores of Pearlis thought twice about taking his money. There was something about his wild eyes and disturbing manner that frightened them. And they were right to be scared. Rashlyn’s insecurity had caused the death of two prostitutes on separate occasions when he had been unable to see their brief, paid couplings through to their normal close. Neither woman had laughed or made him feel in any way inadequate—if he’d known the truth of how frequently this happened in their work, he might not have overreacted. Instead, embarrassed to the point of anguish, he had lashed out with his powers and murdered both cruelly and painfully.
This was not his first taste in killing, of course, and since tasting its feel of power, he wanted more, needed more. He loved the sense of power that death brought. He wished he had killed his brother sooner so Elysius would never have met Emil, for as soon as she had clapped eyes on his handsome brother, the humiliation for Rashlyn had been complete. Her passing interest in him was done. So be it, he had decided, I will find my pleasures in other, darker ways. And he had.
He had hated his brother for his looks and his easy manner with others, but mostly he had hated him for his ability to work magic with animals, for as helpless as they seemed to Rashlyn when he had them pinned out or trapped, he had no control over them…no relationship with the natural world at all.
He hoped Elysius had fought death hard before the sea consumed him, and if by chance he had cheated the waters, he hoped his brother had died a pitiful death as a freak in some corner of the realm.
He had not felt his brother’s magic since that dark day of death, but then Rashlyn could not be confident that his waning power could still detect something as subtle as Elysius at work. He had always pretended that he found it easy to trace his brother’s magic, but in truth it was the opposite. Elysius’s magic was artful and delicate while at the same time so potent it took his breath away. He had feared that as Elysius matured, he would learn the key to cloaking his magics. Perhaps he had…perhaps he was alive and practicing his art right now?
Since his brother’s presumed demise and his own defection into the Mountain Kingdom, Rashlyn had devoted his energies to unlocking the secret to achieving power over the animals and birds, the mountains and the trees. One could rule the world with that sort of power at your call. His own sort of skills simply made him a sorcerer; he knew this, which is why he had attached himself to the far-thinking, highly intelligent King of Mountains. Using him as his cover and indeed his tool, Rashlyn could imagine himself manipulating power…and not just in the Razors.
But right now Cailech was being rash. He was howling for Morgravian blood too soon. Rashlyn knew the King had this notion that Rashlyn’s magics and prophetic ability would serve to keep him utterly secure. It was on this confidence that the King was riding, believing that even in war, his barshi’s magics would ensure as few casualties as possible among the Mountain Dwellers.
Rashlyn needed more time to shore up his defenses, work new spells. Recently he had come to the startling realization that death was easy to inflict, but crafting a spell to prolong an agonizing life was the challenge. Changing Lothryn from man to horse was the culmination of years of practice in his wing of the mountain fortress where no one could hear rabbits and squirrels scream. And now that he had at last harnessed these new powers, his magics were failing him. He remembered how he had only just managed to hold on to that glamour of Elspyth.
A few moments more and the vision would have crumbled. The breathtaking spell on Lothryn—which so impressed his king—had been achieved brutally. There was nothing subtle or beautiful about what he had done, even though the result seemed so miraculous. It was an abomination. Elysius would never do something so tainted with wrongness…but he was not Elysius.
He considered Lothryn, wondering at the pain he was probably in. If Elysius had conquered the spell to shapechange, Rashlyn knew in his heart he would have achieved it effortlessly and without the smashing and distortion of limbs and breaking of the mind, and without the torturous pain, both mental and physical, he had put the courageous man through.
Rashlyn did not mind Lothryn suffering the pain, in truth. His despair was all selfish—he wanted his magic to be subtle…more like the magic of Elysius. Instead it was messy and clumsy.
Would Lothryn die? Rashlyn had no idea if the man’s spirit would survive the trauma and keep the beast alive, or whether it would wither and kill Cailech’s beautiful new stallion. The anxiety of not knowing the answer infuriated the barshi, but Rashlyn comforted himself with the belief that this time of discomfort would be brief. The madness would descend any moment now and his mind would once again swirl itself back into its dark and twisting pathways that held no questions about his work, no remorse, no sympathy, no love for anything but power and corruption.
Next to the shapechanging of Lothryn, being able to tap into Cailech’s mind was his most recent diabolic act. He had learned how to roam the King’s thoughts and influence his decisions to suit his own base ends. But he could not wield this magic unless the King stood near him and was receptive to that manipulation. There were times when Cailech was utterly closed to him. And without direct and undivided attention, he had no hope of influencing the King through magic. That was his weakness.
The door opened and Cailech, as if acting on some silent signal, entered. He pulled Rashlyn from his musings and the sorcerer felt the familiar drag downward from rationality into his other, deranged self. No one but the King ever came to his rooms.
“My king,” Rashlyn said, not turning yet. “I was just admiring the day out there.” He used the moments to compose himself.
“How serene for you,” Cailech said, clearly agitated. “We must speak. I want you to do a reading for me.”
“I just have, my lord king.”
“And?”
“The Stones predict change.”
“Oh? What sort of change?” Cailech asked, his body language suddenly intent and eager.
Rashlyn turned now and noticed the flush on his king’s cheeks. Something had created high excitement. “This they don’t tell me. I have cast the Stones several times, your highness. Each time a prediction of change is prophesied.”
Cailech surprised his barshi by clapping his hands and laughing. It was a cheerful response to something that would normally disturb his king. Rashlyn frowned, unsettled by this reaction.
“Perfect!” the King muttered. “Do you have any wine here?”
“Er…why yes, of course. Let me pour you some,” Rashlyn offered, intrigued. He poured for both of them and waited for the toast he sensed was coming.
“To change,” Cailech obliged, holding out his cup before swallowing it contents.
Rashlyn copied his king and put his cup down. “So you are happy with my prediction, your highness?”
