The Irda (3 page)

Before Naej could lead her away, Eadamm stepped forward and bowed. “Lady. . . This is for you.” From the front of his shirt he produced the rock Everlyn had been trying to free from the wall of the tiny room.

It was a bloodstone, smoky and black—so dark it seemed to suck in the light and hold it—and shot through with globs of carmine. It looked like huge drops of blood had been trapped inside. Too ugly for jewelry, too soft to be useful in making tools, bloodstone was mostly used by minor magicians for show. With the casting of a spell, they made the red glow and throb like fire. This piece was the size of a potato with three thumb-sized pieces like growths protruding from one end.

Everlyn laughed, taking it as gently as if it were an egg, with much delight. “It will always remind me of how I felt when I saw the light of your lantern burst through the wall of rocks.”

Eadamm bowed to her again and started away, but Igraine stopped him. He motioned for his guards to come forward.

“Put these slaves under arrest along with the other three.”

Everlyn looked up from the gray-black rock. “Why, Father?”

“They disobeyed my order to evacuate the mine.”

Eadamm met her solemn gaze without lowering his.

“I understand,” she said, softly, regretfully.

Igraine, governor of Khal-Theraxian, sat alone in his office, the only light coming from the glowing coals in the fireplace. He had moved his favorite chair, the one covered in elf-made cloth, next to the huge, floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked his estate.

Solinari, the silver moon, overwhelmed her sister moon, Lunitari, bathing the garden and fields and distant mountains in pale light. Igraine’s eyes saw none of the cold beauty spread before him, not the nodding heads of fall flowers, not the mountain peaks already beginning to display their snowcaps.

A tap on the door interrupted the silence. A shaft of light cut through the room as a guard opened the hall door and peeked through. “I’ve brought the slave, Lord.”

Igraine murmured an incantation, and several candles leapt into flame. A small fire hissed and crackled into life in the fireplace. “Bring him in.”

The guard gestured to the human who was waiting in the hall, then withdrew when Igraine motioned him away.

Eadamm came into the room. He was clean, wearing clean though threadbare shirt and pants. Only his hands, bruised, scraped raw, and bound with chains, showed the signs of the afternoon’s events.

Igraine regarded him in silence for several minutes, during which the human stood without moving, his gaze fastened on the windows and the view outside.

“There is something I would like to understand,” Igraine said finally, noting that the human didn’t flinch when he spoke, didn’t fidget in the silence that followed.

“I have always prided myself on being a fair master.” He saw, finally, some emotion on the face of the slave, a flitting feeling that he didn’t know human faces well enough to recognize, but perhaps he could guess.

“A fair master,” he repeated more firmly. “Harsh, but fair. My laws are harsh, but none of my slaves can say they don’t know them. Therefore, if they break them and are punished, it is their own fault.”

Again the twinge of expression, quickly suppressed.

Igraine continued. “But I understand their infractions. I understand the taking of things, for I, too, wish to have more. I understand the shirking of hard work. I understand running away. All of these are things which a slave thinks and hopes will not be discovered. I understand breaking rules when one does not expect to be caught. But what you did . . .”

If Eadamm understood that he was being offered a chance to respond, perhaps to beg apology, he didn’t show it.

“You knew that by disobeying my orders, you were condemning yourself.” Igraine said. There was just enough question in his tone to allow Eadamm to dispute him if he wished.

He didn’t. “Yes, Lord, I knew.”

“Then this I do not understand. A runner thinks only of the freedom of the plains, not of the capture. You knew you would be caught.”

“Yes, Lord.”

So vexed he could no longer sit, Igraine stood and paced the length of the windowed wall, then turned swiftly to face Eadamm. “Then explain this to me!”

In the face of Igraine’s agitation, Eadamm lost his calm. “If I had not disobeyed your orders, Lord, the lady would have died!” he almost shouted. Then he controlled himself. “The lady has been kind to the slaves. She has. . .”

“Continue.”

“She has a good heart. It would have been wrong to let her die.”

“Wrong?” Igraine tasted the word as if it was unknown to him. He had used it many times, in many ways, with his slaves. “Wrong to obey me?”

For the first time since he’d entered the room, Eadamm looked down, casting his gaze to the floor as a slave should.

Rather than being pleased that his slave was finally cowed, Igraine wished Eadamm would once again look up, that he might see the expression on the ugly human face. “You knew you could not escape. You knew the punishment would be death.”

“Yes. I chose life for her.”

Igraine sighed. He sat back down in his chair. He waved his hand in dismissal and turned back to the view of his estate. He heard the door open, then close.

As soon as it closed, Everlyn stepped into the room from the porch. She stood, flowing nightdress silhouetted in reverse against the night.

“You should be in bed,” he said gruffly.

“I couldn’t sleep. Father,” she whispered, her soft voice tearful, “could you not
choose
to let
him
live?”

The Audience hall glittered as if it were filled with burning stars, ashimmer from gilt embroidery on fine robes, gems dripping from throats and fingers and wrists. The flames of hundreds of candles danced in glass lamps etched with the symbols of the evil gods, reflected off the gold and silver of ceremonial daggers, and still the huge room was not illuminated. Shadows clung to the corners, filled the three-story-high ceiling.

The scent of heavy perfumes from a dozen provinces plaited and twined, choking the air, battling the aromas of melted candles, spiced wine, warm sugar cakes and succulent human flesh wrapped in seaweed and baked to savory tenderness.

The clamor of a thousand voices, the ring of goblet against goblet, had quieted as the Keeper of History stepped forward to the front of the throne platform and sent the Song spiraling forth to mingle with the glitter and the scents.

Khallayne Talanador paused on the first landing of the huge southern staircase and allowed her eyes to half close so that only pinpricks of light sparkled through, a thousand-thousand, four-pointed, multicolored pricks of light dancing against her lashes.

The sweet, siren voice of the Keeper, singing the History of the Ogre race, lulled Khallayne into almost believing she stood alone instead of in the midst of the best-attended, most brilliant party of the season.

As the Keeper sang, her elaborate, flowing gown shifted and shimmered around her feet. The many scenes embroidered on it, exploits of past kings and queens, glorious battles, triumphal feasts, exquisite treachery, seemed to come to life.

Khallayne’s gown was a copy of the Keeper’s, with shorter sleeves to allow her hands freedom and fewer jewels worked into the embroidered vestrobe. But where the Keeper’s gown had a multitude of scenes, hers bore only one. The depiction of Khallayne’s favorite story danced about the hem, the tale of a dark and terrible Queen. First she was alive and vigorous, then dying, then rising up from the shards of her burial bones, her subjects quaking before her.

She had come to be known as the Dead Queen, sometimes as the Dark Queen. She had ruled in the early times, when the mountains were still new. It was told that she was more beautiful, more cunning and clever, than any Ogre ever born. Suspecting that the nobles about her were scheming, she had her own death announced, then waited in the shadows to see who would grieve. And who would celebrate. The purge was quick and glorious; the Dead Queen left few alive to mourn their executed brethren. Three of the present Ruling Council families, all unswervingly loyal to the Dead Queen, had come to power during that time, replacing those who had not sung the funeral songs quite loudly enough. Khal-layne had loved the story since childhood, admiring and aspiring to such perfect cunning.

The last sweet notes of the Song ended, but Khal-layne remained where she was, held in place as if mesmerized by the shimmer of the Keeper’s gown, by the old story she knew by heart.

She could remember a time when she was a child, before her parents’ death, when the Keeper had walked, albeit a little unsteadily, to her performances. The Keeper had been ancient even then. The Ogres were a long-lived race, so near immortality they were practically gods, but even they had marked limits. For the good of the whole, no Ogre was allowed to live to the point of being a burden, not even the king. None except the Keeper.

For her extraordinary talent, she was allowed a rare privilege. Now, elite honor guards carried her everywhere in a litter, waiting in the background while she sang the History of the Ogre.

The guards, puffed with pride and importance, flanked the Old One now, and escorted her through the elaborately carved private exit behind the platform.

From where Khallayne was standing, she watched the honor guard give way to guardsmen who had been standing in the shadows, just out of sight. As the last one turned smartly and disappeared, she saw that his brown tunic was emblazoned with a blue diagonal slash down the arm, the uniform of the Tenal clan.

There, whispered the dark voice of her intuition. There is the thing you seek.
Khallayne touched the beaten copper crescent pinned to the lapel of her tunic.

“Thank you, Takhisis,” she whispered. “Thank you.” Her smile rivaled the glitter of the party for its brightness.

She stepped back into the pale shadow between the wall and a huge stone column and murmured softly the words of a “seeing” spell. It was a risky thing to do, casting in this room, where someone might be sensitive to a flutter of power, but she felt rash and exhilarated now—now that she knew how invincibility would soon be hers.

The roar of hundreds of voices muted to a whisper. Her vision faded until her surroundings became only a soft focus of brown and gray.

Below her, on the floor of the great hall, the pinpricks of light that were enchanted gems sparkled like embers. A hazy aura surrounded those who wore spell-enhanced finery. Such simple spells, like lighting candles and starting fires, were the kind of magic allowed anyone, regardless of position.

The auras that fascinated her were much different. She sought the magic of the most powerful nobility, the ones who were allowed to progress as far as their natural abilities permitted. Across the room, Lord Teragrym, for example—his was a seething aura of darkness, a great power.

She smiled, tasting the triumph to come.

“Looking for something, Khallayne?”

She tensed, then relaxed as the playful tone of the words was made clear through the distortion of the spell. The voice was filled with biting cynicism, yet still warm and sensual. It could only be Jyrbian.

She turned carefully, slowly allowing the “seeing” to seep away, colors and sights and sounds returning to normal. He was exactly what she required, perfect for her plans.

“Good evening,” she said.

Jyrbian bowed, smirking, managing as only he could to be both admiring and sarcastic at the same time.

“Good evening, Khallayne.” Lyrralt, older than Jyrbian, bowed more sincerely than his brother. He didn’t come forward to take her hand, but stayed back a step, his eyes tracing the fine slave-embroidered brocade of her gown.

As he stared in astonishment at her, she stared back, then broke into a wide grin.

Never were two brothers more alike in some ways, yet more different in others. Jyrbian and Lyrralt bore the same dramatic coloring, skin the dark blue of sapphires, eyes and hair like polished silver. The similarity ended there. Lyrralt was tall and lean, where Jyrbian was shorter and more muscular. He was also quiet while Jyrbian was brash, furtive where Jyrbian could be demanding, fierce and directed while Jyrbian played and joked and smirked.

Instead of his usual tunic, Jyrbian wore the sleeveless dress uniform of a soldier, form-fitting silk with bright silver trim.

As subdued as his brother was flashy, Lyrralt was wearing his simple white cleric’s robe. It was decorated with dark red embroidery that looked like drops of blood. His only adornment was a bone pin with the rune sign for his god, Hiddukel, burned into it, also in red. The formal robe, with its one long sleeve hiding the markings of his order, gave him an appearance of mystery and dignity.

“I didn’t realize this was a costume ball,” Khal-layne teased.

They had been playmates in childhood, before her parents had died, before the Ruling Council had reclaimed their estate for distribution to a worthy courtier, and she had been forced to live with cousins. Since her uncle had bought a place at court for her, she had learned that the two grown-up men were very like the little boys she fondly remembered. She and Jyrbian had become friends again. Lyrralt was more difficult to gauge.

They reacted to her teasing just as she’d expected. Jyrbian grinned, spread his arms for her to better see his uniform and the strong muscles it emphasized, while Lyrralt frowned. “This is not a costume,” he reprimanded gently.

“Oh, no,” Jyrbian said with a biting tone. “My brother has been blessed by his god.”

Lyrralt tugged at his long left sleeve proudly, symbol of his acceptance as a cleric of Hiddukel. “Yes, I have, more than you know. You could have chosen this path, too. But you are irreverent to a fault. Playing at being a soldier instead of applying yourself to something useful.”

Jyrbian scowled. “I do not play,
brother
. Just as you do, I look to the future, and I see what is coming. I see what will be needed.”

Khallayne stepped between the two, forestalling further disagreement. It was an old argument, one she’d heard many times in many guises. Lyrralt thought his brother useless and frivolous. Jyrbian was ever scheming, jealous of all that Lyrralt, as eldest, would inherit.