Antiagon fire, p.1
Antiagon Fire, page 1
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For Susan and Gary,
who proved fast friends in time of need
CHARACTERS
Bhayar
Lord of Telaryn
Aelina
Wife of Bhayar
Kharst
Rex of Bovaria [deceased]
Aliaro
Autarch of Antiago
Quaeryt
Commander, Imager, and friend of Bhayar
Vaelora
Wife of Quaeryt and youngest sister of Bhayar
Khaern
Subcommander, Eleventh Regiment
Alazyn
Subcommander, Nineteenth Regiment
Zhelan
Major, First Company
Deucalon
Marshal of Telaryn
Myskyl
Submarshal, Northern Army of Telaryn
Skarpa
Submarshal, Southern Army
Fhaen
Subcommander, Third Regiment
Meinyt
Subcommander, Fifth Regiment
Kharllon
Commander, Fourteenth Regiment
Paedn
Subcommander, Fourth Regiment
Dulaek
Subcommander, Fourteenth Regiment
Fhaasn
Subcommander, Twenty-sixth Regiment
Calkoran
Subcommander, Fifth Battalion [Pharsi]
Eslym
Major, First Company, Fifth Battalion
Zhael
Major, Second Company, Fifth Battalion
Arion
Major, Third Company, Fifth Battalion
Voltyr
Imager Undercaptain
Shaelyt
Imager Undercaptain, Pharsi [deceased]
Threkhyl
Imager Undercaptain
Desyrk
Imager Undercaptain
Baelthm
Imager Undercaptain
Khalis
Imager Undercaptain, Pharsi
Lhandor
Imager Undercaptain, Pharsi
Horan
Imager Undercaptain
Smaethyl
Imager Undercaptain
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Characters
Map of Lydar
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Tor Books by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
About the Author
Copyright
1
Quaeryt shivered. He opened his eyes to find himself looking up into a white sky, a sky from which flakes like icy needles jabbed at his exposed face. The low moaning of a deep winter wind filled his ears. Yet, for all that the icy needles fell upon his face, each one freezing, then burning, before penetrating his skin with a thread of chill that combined into a web that bled all warmth from his body … there was no wind.
Standing around and above him, in a circle like pillars, looming out of the icy mist drifting down over him, were troopers in the blue-gray uniforms of Bovaria. Each Bovarian was coated in ice, and each stared down at him, as if to demand a reason why they stood there, frozen and immobile … why he still lived and breathed.
Breathe?
Quaeryt tried, but his body was so chill, with the ice creeping up from the pure white fingernails of his immobile hands and from his equally white and unmoving toenails, that his chest did not move. Nor could he utter even a sound, his words as frozen as his body.
As he froze in the whiteness, the complete and utter stillness behind which moaned the winter wind of devastation, the dead troopers reproached him with their unmoving eyes and their silence …
2
Quaeryt stretched, then rose from the table in the breakfast room in the summer chateau of the late High Holder Paitrak. Bhayar had eaten and departed before Quaeryt and Vaelora had come down from their tower chamber.
“You don’t have to rush,” Vaelora said quietly, in the high Bovarian she and Quaeryt always used when alone. “You should have more tea. You had another dream last night, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “They’re not quite as often.” After a moment he added, “But I do need to get ready.”
“You’re not meeting with Bhayar until eighth glass.”
“I worry about it.”
“What can he do? You handed him a great victory, and he’s now ruler of both Telaryn and Bovaria.”
Quaeryt raised his eyebrows. They’d talked about that the night before.
“All right. Ruler of the eastern half of Bovaria … and maybe the west and north,” his wife conceded. “He can’t exactly punish you for success.”
“No … but he can keep me as a subcommander and send me off to subdue the north, the northwest, the south, or the southwest.”
“The High Holders of the south already pledged allegiance,” she reminded him.
“Just those in the southeast.”
“Has he heard anything from the lands of Khel?”
“He hadn’t yesterday evening, and if the new Pharsi High Council there rejects his proposal…” Quaeryt shrugged.
“They’d be fools to do so.” Vaelora sighed, shaking her head slightly so that the wavy curls in her light brown hair seemed to ripple. “No, dearest, you don’t have to tell me how many fools there are in this world.” She smiled.
As he looked into her brown eyes, he couldn’t help but smile back at the woman who had raced across half of Lydar to bring him back from the near-dead. After a moment he replied, “I fear that he may send me as an envoy.”
“To prove to the Khellans that you are everything that Major Calkoran was sent to tell them you are?”
“Something like that.” Quaeryt walked to the window, where he reached out to pull back the curtains, then stopped for a moment to reposition his hand slightly. The two fingers on Quaeryt’s left hand still didn’t work, more than two weeks after Vaelora had finally roused him from a semicoma. While they didn’t hurt, and he could move them with his other hand, neither finger would respond to his desire to move. At least, with his thumb and the other fingers, he could hold and lift things. Or draw curtains. He was still disconcerted when he saw his fingernails—snow-white, just like every strand of hair on his body.
He eased back the curtains and looked out to the west. Most of the snow and ice his imaging had created to end the battle of Variana had melted, but the land was brown and sere, and the extreme chill had destroyed or rendered unusable many of the buildings on the west side of the River Aluse, excepting, of course, the Chateau Regis, whose walls were now alabaster white and nearly indestructible, not that anyone within had survived.
“You think the Pharsi will balk?” asked Vaelora gently.
“You know they will. That’s not the question.” Quaeryt released the curtains and turned, catching sight of himself in a small mirror on the wall. His brown-tinted green uniform—the only one of that shade in all of the Telaryn forces, reflecting his background as a scholar—looked trim enough, although he knew it was looser than it had been, if somewhat darker than he recalled. “What happens after that
is what matters.”
“That’s why he’ll send you and no one else. Khel is two-thirds the size of old Bovaria. He doesn’t want to reconquer what Kharst already bled Bovaria dry to gain.”
“If he wants them to agree to his rule, he’ll have to allow their High Council to act as would a provincial governor. Perhaps he might appoint the head councilor as provincial governor.”
“I’m sure you can persuade him of that, dearest.”
That meant, Quaeryt knew, that Vaelora was telling him he needed to. “Thank you.”
“You’re most welcome.”
A slight cough at the archway to the breakfast room reminded Quaeryt of the serving girl. He turned. “Yes?”
“Would there be anything else, sir and Lady?” asked the serving girl in the rougher accent of low Bovarian. Even after almost two weeks, the girl would not look directly at either of them.
That was hardly surprising, Quaeryt reflected, and something that he’d likely encounter for some time to come. But that too will pass. Everything passes in time.
“Another pot of tea, if you would,” said Vaelora, in high Bovarian.
“Nothing more for me,” replied Quaeryt, also in high Bovarian.
Once the girl had provided more tea and retreated to the serving pantry, and Quaeryt had reseated himself across the table from his wife, he continued. “How would you suggest that I approach the matter? He is your brother.”
“Just tell him.”
Quaeryt laughed softly. “That’s easier said than done.”
“You haven’t had problems in the past.”
“That was before we wed.”
“I’m certain you’ve done so since then, dearest.”
Quaeryt shook his head. “Perhaps it’s not about that at all.”
“He has no other choice. Why are you so worried about it? You’ll do what’s necessary, and he’ll accept the inevitable.”
“I … don’t want to leave you. Not after … everything.”
“I don’t want you to leave…” Vaelora looked down.
“But?”
“We both have to do what must be done. And if Bhayar has to settle Khel by force, it will be so much the worse.”
“He still might have something else in mind.”
“How likely is that, dearest?”
“With Bhayar, it’s always possible.”
Vaelora raised her eyebrows.
Quaeryt decided against further speculation as to what Bhayar would do, and asked, “How are you feeling now?”
“Much better … after the first three months, my stomach settled.” She made a wry face. “Now it is merely growing. What will you do after you meet with Bhayar?”
“Return and tell you, then, if necessary, gather officers and imagers and tell them…”
They continued to talk until Quaeryt rose to make his way to meet with Bhayar.
At half a quint before eighth glass, Quaeryt arrived in the second-floor corridor outside the study Bhayar had appropriated until the repairs and the refurbishing of the Chateau Regis were completed.
The captain stationed there inclined his head, more than perfunctorily, “Subcommander, sir.”
“Just wait until the bells strike the glass.”
“Yes, sir.”
Quaeryt did note that as soon as the first chime echoed down the wide hallway, the captain turned, walked to the study door, and rapped upon it. “Subcommander Quaeryt, sir.” Before Bhayar finished speaking, the captain opened the dark oak door and motioned for Quaeryt to enter.
The study of the late High Holder Paitrak was located on the north side of the chateau, designed to be cool in the summer. Overlooking a walled garden, now brown, with snow and ice in the shaded corners, the north outside wall held narrow floor-to-ceiling windows, each separated from the next by dark wooden bookshelves exactly the same width as the windows. The shelves also ran from floor to ceiling and, with the inside shutters open, the small leaded panes radiated a coolness not entirely dispelled by the fire in the hearth set into the east wall.
The wiry Bhayar rose from behind the wide table desk positioned before the bookshelves comprising the west wall. His shortish brown hair was disarrayed, as it often was, but his dark blue eyes were intent. “You’re looking well this morning, almost back to your old self.” His Bovarian was impeccable and far more precise, Quaeryt had discovered, than the language used by most of the chateau functionaries, unsurprisingly, since Bovarian had been the court language at Solis.
“I’m feeling well.” Quaeryt smiled.
Bhayar gestured to the chairs before the desk, then reseated himself.
Quaeryt took the leftmost chair and waited for the Lord of Telaryn and Bovaria to speak.
“Matters have been going well,” Bhayar said. “The shops and factorages in Variana are all open. The High Holders in the east and south, except for those in the southwest and those within two hundred milles to the north and west, have pledged allegiance. Most have remitted token tariffs.”
“Token?”
“Bovarian tariffs are due in the first week of Feuillyt. Most claim, and have receipts to prove it, that they had already paid. We did recover over thirty thousand golds from the strongrooms in Chateau Regis. I insisted on a token of a hundred golds from each High Holder.”
Quaeryt nodded. “What about the lands farther north and northwest?”
“Messengers have barely had a chance to reach that far.” Bhayar shrugged. “There’s also the far southwest. The clerks who survived claim that there are High Holders along the border with Antiago who haven’t paid tariffs in years. We can’t tell. Your winter freeze turned those records to mush.”
Quaeryt doubted that the cold had, but most likely the thawing had rendered poorly entered ledger entries illegible. “It’s sounding like Kharst didn’t actually rule all of his own lands.”
“He may not have. I’m not Kharst.”
“Is there anything else?” As if that weren’t already more than I wanted to learn.
“I’m pleased about the way your imagers have finished rebuilding and restructuring the interior of the Chateau Regis…”
“They did well. I rode there on Lundi. Or is there something else you would like done?”
“No … The furnishings will come as they will … but that’s not why I wanted to meet with you.” Bhayar’s dark blue eyes fixed on Quaeryt, but he said nothing more.
Because he disliked Bhayar’s gambit of using silence to force another to speak, Quaeryt nodded once more and smiled politely.
“There is the problem with Khel…”
“I can imagine. Have you heard from Major Calkoran?” The former Khellan officer had been dispatched—while Quaeryt had still been unable to hear or communicate—with the other Khellan companies to present Bhayar’s suggestion that the resurgent Pharsi High Council agree to Bhayar’s rule, under far more lenient terms than those imposed by the late Rex Kharst.
“I made him a subcommander and constituted all the Khellan companies as a battalion. He sent one dispatch from near Kherseilles. He was heading to Khelgror to meet with the new High Council.”
“What happened to the provincial governor?”
“We can’t even find any records about one. Maybe they didn’t have one. Whatever happened, I doubt it was pleasant for Kharst’s functionaries. Before Calkoran left, I revoked all the holdings of Bovarian High Holders in Khel. There weren’t many.” Bhayar frowned. “I haven’t granted any of those lands to new High Holders.”
“It might be wise not to,” suggested Quaeryt. “Not yet, anyway.”
“I’ll need to create some new High Holders…”
“I’m sure you will. I suspect you can find enough existing high holds in the former lands of old Bovaria whose holders died or who would not fit your standards to meet that need. I even ran across a few I’d be happy to recommend.”
“I’ve read your reports. There may not be enough.”
“There will doubtless be more before the consolidation is over, but you’ll only buy the same troubles you had in Tilbor—except worse—if you try creating high holdings in Khel. Besides, you need fewer High Holders, not more.”
