Stronghold Page 3

  Only magical terms and personal names were still as they had been. Logical enough; the terms were evocative of power in and of themselves, and a Naming was a very solemn ceremony—also magic. Many places retained their old names in sometimes corrupted forms. Veresch translated into “silent wolf”—appropriate to those mountains. Dorval, home of the Sunrunners before their arrival on the continent, meant “loyal sword”; Catha was a particularly potent word combining Water and breath, or Air. But it was anybody’s guess what Ossetia or Zaldivar or Ussh had originally been. Even some personal names were puzzling. Jolan, the scholar among his devr’im, often spent whole nights working on a single term. Intellectual puzzles appealed to her.

  Andry translated the last lines back and forth from one language to the other, enjoying the unison of four differing voices.

  Protect us from the dark time of night

  (Vis-tiel wis’im se’eltan la bellia)

  Until the Sun brings light and life.

  (Josclen dev edeva.)

  He and his devr’im had no reason to feel helpless without sun or moons. But common Sunrunners were not taught to use the stars. Gathered down below in the courtyard, they found great meaning in this daily ritual conducted by their superiors.

  He and Jolan had spent a whole winter and spring working out the specifics of the Elements. No one had ever codified belief before. This amazed Andry—for there was much satisfaction to be had from organized, definitive tenets. Surely Merisel had known that. But she had allowed no formalization of the attributes of the Goddess and the Father of Storms, and no rituals other than the ancient ones of Naming, Choosing, and Burning. Faith was a casual thing, casually observed. Andry suspected she had overreacted to the complex ceremonies of the diarmadh’im; this “Nameless One” he had heard sorcerers swear by had evidently demanded elaborate rites. Andry did not propose the same. What he was doing he likened to what Rohan had done at his first Rialla as ruling prince. Just as Rohan had used ancient maps and treaties to clarify borders and set every princedom’s boundaries so everyone would know literally where he stood, Andry found clues in the histories and the Star Scroll to set the boundaries of belief.

  The four voices rose in unison for the final verse, praising the Goddess and the Storm God. Air and Water were obviously Elements of the latter, each capable of bringing both life and destruction—but not to each other. Fire, the most sacred, could scorch Earth to ashes. This was the source of tension and thus of power, for it was the Goddess’ strength that kept her two aspects under control. Sunrunners were first and foremost servants of the Goddess, drawing their power from her.

  All persons were made of all four Elements: the Air of breath, the Water of blood, the Earth of bones and flesh, and the Fire that was the life of the mind and heart. Their tensions were reflected in everyone. It was a tidy system, and appealed to Andry’s sense of order.

  For example, Sunrunner physicians now knew exactly where to direct their energies to effect a cure. A broken bone required no Water-rich potions, nor cauterizing Fire, nor inhalations of herbs on Air, but rather splints made of Earth-born wood. Likewise a poisoning of the blood’s crimson Water could be helped only by certain plants that grew in rivers and lakes. It was entirely fitting and logical that dranath, the herb of the mind, should require baking in hot ovens or drying in the sun’s Fire to reach its full effectiveness. These remedies had been known before, but now physicians knew the why of them.

  Andry was not responsible for the medicinal aspect of belief. For that he credited a young man who had come to Goddess Keep two years ago after training in Gilad. Evarin had been only nineteen, the most brilliant student ever known at the school for physicians. But he was also faradhi gifted, and knew it, and had left Gilad before receiving his certificate.

  “I won’t waste a weary year as a drudge for some idiot who couldn’t soothe a skinned knee, and then pay over part of my earnings for three more years to support the school. Especially when I’ve known what I really am since the first time I set foot in a fishing boat! And besides that, my Lord, you need me.”

  Evarin offended many with what they saw as arrogance. Andry knew it was the supreme confidence of someone born to a specific work; after all, he was called arrogant, too. Valeda had had Evarin’s man-making night, reporting with amusement that the boy’s pride had suffered a serious hurt remedied just before dawn. This secretly increased Andry’s liking for him—his own first night had not been a resounding success. He’d made up for it since. So had Evarin, if rumors were to be believed. He now wore eight rings, and it was for him and at his suggestion that the eighth was reserved hereafter for Master Physicians. Andry alone kept that ring without having to qualify for it; his devr’im, who wore nine, had mostly chosen to give it up. Deniker, Oclel, and Nialdan had no talent for healing; Jolan and Rusina couldn’t be bothered. Ulwis attended Evarin’s classes every so often, halfheartedly. Torien, as chief steward and senior devri, felt it incumbent upon himself to earn the Master Physician’s ring. But Valeda showed a true gift for advanced medicine, and the eighth ring was back on her left thumb before Evarin had been at Goddess Keep a year.

  Utterly self-confident, convinced that only Sunrunners should treat the sick and injured, Evarin might have become Andry’s rival within and without Goddess Keep. A physician’s power was formidable and Evarin was prodigiously gifted. But Andry was not only Lord here and grandson of a prince, but had possession of that which earned Evarin’s instant respect: the Star Scroll. In it were encoded the spells and potions of the diarmadh’im, lost for hundreds of years—even to them. The sorcerer Mireva had sent one of her own to steal it if possible, and had failed. It was never read except in a closed, windowless, hearthless room, so that no conjuring by light could gain a glimpse of it. Urival had given Sioned a translated copy, which infuriated Andry even at this late date. But she was afraid of using power—like her husband and like the man she called her son.

  Knowledge of Pol’s true birth was a power Andry had not yet decided how to use. He had come to believe that the Goddess would not have allowed him to know if there was no purpose for the information. He had not yet found one. He would not reveal it for childish spite; there was no point in that except his own satisfaction.

  He had almost revealed it once, during an ugly confrontation at the Rialla of 731. Three years earlier, Andry had gone secretly into the Veresch to kill any diarmadh’im he could find. Gloves had hidden faradhi rings; he and Valeda and Nialdan had been careful to draw no attention to themselves, posing as simple travelers. The mountain folk knew only that certain people who had lived among them vanished without trace, the doors of their homes marked with a sunburst pattern burned into the wood. The mark of the Goddess, it came to be called. No one ever connected them with the executions.

  But somehow Pol found out. He had waited through the first days of the Rialla, treating Andry with a cool, distant respect. Then, on the morning of the races, while Andry stood at a paddock fence admiring his father’s horses, there came a flash of colors so blindingly intense that if not for the wooden rail at his chest, he would have collapsed.

  Surprised, cousin? said a coldly furious voice in his mind. I ought to do to you what I did to Ruval three years ago. How would you like a Star Scroll spell used on you, cousin? How about the same one you used to kill citizens of my princedom?

  He saw nothing but the angry swirl of Pol’s colors imprisoning his senses. He tasted acid emerald edged in black, felt the slice of diamond brightness, smelled stinging topaz-gold smoke. Pol’s power staggered him.

  Oh, yes, I know all about it. I know how you came into my lands in defiance of the edict against you and murdered my people. “In the Name of the Goddess,” you’d say, wouldn’t you? Justified because they were sorcerers, and therefore evil. Why didn’t you go after Riyan? Or Ruala? Why don’t you kill Princess Naydra—she’s the last living daughter of High Princess Lallante. Or is it only the obscure and nameless you have the courage to kill?


  They merited killing, he managed, and Pol’s grip on him increased until he felt his head would split like a ripe apple in a clenched fist.

  That was for me to decide. Not you. I am the law in Princemarch. Not you.

  He had almost revealed it then. Almost flung the damning words at Pol: I know about you, I know whose son you really are. But he had not.

  I won’t warn you again, cousin. If any more die, if any more of those ludicrous sun patterns are found, I will come after you.

  There was a cruel, deliberate wrench at his senses, and then his mind was his own again. He discovered that his fingers had clawed so deeply into the wood that splinters were embedded in his palms and under his nails. When sight returned to his aching eyes, he turned his head, seeking Pol. Standing far away across the paddocks and the track was the tall figure, blond hair glowing in the sunlight. Pol was looking straight at him and even at a distance Andry saw rage in every line of him.

  He should have told Pol then, should have shattered that insufferable insolence. But he had not. It was not yet time. It would have served no purpose but to vent his own anger, soothe his own pride.

  It suited him that Pol ruled Princemarch and would be the next High Prince. Better him than Rinhoel of Meadowlord or Daniv of Syr, who were also grandsons of Roelstra. But the right moment had not yet come to reveal what he knew. Whether he would tell only Pol in private or proclaim it to all the princedoms, he did not know. But someday . . . .

  The ceremony ended with the day itself. Andry leaned one shoulder against the crenellated wall as the faradh’im left the battlements. Torien approached, murmuring something about meeting to plan the harvest, but Andry shook his head and smiled.

  “No, not tonight, my friend. Jolan wouldn’t thank me for depriving her of your company this evening, if her eyes are any indication.” He laughed as Torien looked flustered, and slapped his friend’s back. Deniker and Ulwis came to Andry soon after to ask if he would join them for a little music later on. He politely declined this offer as well. Not that he would spend the night alone. He would share it with Brenlis.

  Of the five women who had given him children, Brenlis was the only one who held more than a small piece of his heart. The daughter she had borne him of her first night was three this year, and bid fair to becoming the enchantress her mother was. From the moment Brenlis had come to Goddess Keep, everything about her had captivated him. Her beauty was unusual and compelling—golden-brown hair framed eyes that changed from gray to turquoise depending on her mood, and her face was as delicately perfect as her body. But more fascinating was her strangeness. He had never met anyone quite like her. Even the memory of Alasen faded when he was with Brenlis.

  She was the daughter of a Syrene farmer, born within sight of the sea. She had been fostered for a short time at Stronghold, where Sioned had detected her gifts. Andry still remembered the morning Brenlis had arrived, appearing before him like a conjured vision, sunlight making her long braids twin rivers of shadowed gold. She had given the stunned Andry a letter from Sioned—the two of them never communicated through faradhi means anymore—and waited for his verdict.

  I ask that you take her in and teach her Sunrunner ways, my Lord, Sioned had written in a formal style that betokened their estrangement, going on to detail the signs that meant possession of great gifts. But then she had added a personal note; he could hear her voice in the words, wistful with memory. When I look at her, I see myself as I was when even younger than she—called “fey” and looked on askance by my brother’s wife, who did not wish so strange a girl in her household. But in Brenlis there is something else, something deeper. I have taught her only how to call Fire—I am not qualified to nurture such gifts as she possesses. They are not easily explained, but within a few days of meeting her you will see.

  He had seen the instant those blue eyes met his own. She had been only fifteen. A year later Merisel was born. But if Andry had expected his feelings for Brenlis to settle into the same comfortable friendship he had with Valeda and Rusina and Ulwis, who had also borne his children, he was mistaken. The girl bewitched him. He had not felt this even with Alasen in his youth.

  Andry sometimes feared he made himself foolish with this passion for a girl half his age. But none questioned or gossiped—not only due to respect for him, though he commanded vast reverence, but because the gifts Brenlis evidenced were so awesome. Her talents as a conventional Sunrunner were negligible—she had earned but two rings in the four years of her training, where most wore a fourth and often a fifth. She could call Fire and Air, and go Sunrunning with difficulty, and that was all.

  But she needed no flame to see what would be. She warned of oncoming storms before the most careful Sunrunner observations could discern them. She saw Milosh of Fessenden’s wife die days in advance of that lady’s fatal accident. She knew when Sionell of Tiglath would be brought to bed of a child, and that it would be a son Named Meig. She knew things, as if the Goddess and Father of Storms, having decided an event, shared knowledge of it with her.

  During her first year here, people had come to her with all manner of questions about their futures. The farmers who served Goddess Keep had consulted her about the best days for planting and harvest. To such questions she could reply only with a helpless shrug.

  “I don’t see simple things,” she had told Andry. “I see what happens to princes and lords, or storms and winds that affect many people. I suppose it’s like dreams sent by the Goddess—only my dreams come when I’m awake. Nothing I’ve ever seen is more than a few days into the future. My Lord, please tell them that if I could see in response to their needs, that if I could look far into the future, I’d do it. But I can’t.”

  Andry had forbidden people to bother her with questions she could not answer. Some grumbled that what use was such seeing, but the rest knew that Brenlis’ gift was something out of the ordinary, understanding that the small doings of everyday life were not the stuff of which the Goddess’ visions were made. Was there not a circle of mighty trees in the forest for such questions—who would one marry, how many children, what would old age be like? Visions were reserved for great matters and great warnings.

  The sky darkened as the first stars appeared. Andry had no fear of being powerless under a night sky all dazzled with distant light; he had learned from the Star Scroll how to use that brilliance, so different from sun and moons. The diarmadh’im might consider the stars to be a Fire different from that of the Goddess, coming instead under the power of their Nameless One. Andry knew that Fire was Fire, but just the same there was something different about the stars. More subtle than other light, they burned not with the white-hot intensity of noon sun or the cool silvery glow of the moons, but with a fierce, icy brightness. All his dreams of war and terror and destruction had come when stars alone ruled the night.

  He had not had such a dream in several years. Someone less wise would have believed that the danger was no longer imminent, and having done everything possible to prepare against disaster, could now relax the vigil. Andry did not fool himself. War was coming as surely as the sun would rise tomorrow. And it would come in autumn, when hatchling dragons darkened the sky.

  He had seen them in the last dream. While funeral ships were sent out to sea, there to burn with their sails like great flaming dragon wings, the dragons themselves flew over Radzyn, shrieking. The invaders, gold beads glinting in their long beards, fell on their faces in the sand. All groveled but one—a tall, dark, regal man, a prince among these savages, who grabbed up a bow and shot a defiant arrow at the hatchlings. One was wounded, and screamed as she fell from the sky. Andry woke thinking, Rohan will be furious that someone killed one of his dragons.

  No dreams had come to him since, but the ones he’d already had were burned into his brain. Each expanded on the first—Radzyn and its port town sacked, ruined, ablaze. Next had come sight of the looting, then the loading of dead warriors and living captives onto ships to be burned at sea, and finally the hatchling dr
agons. Autumn, unmistakably autumn, in a Dragon Year of mating when the young tried out the strength of new wings.

  “My Lord? The evening is soft, but you look like thunder.”

  Andry turned and the heavy dread left him at beholding Brenlis. She was dressed in white silk, her hair lighter than usual after a long summer of sun, her skin glowing like moonlight on thick cream. Her lashes and brows and the rich wine-colored curve of her lips defined her face; otherwise she was all pale shadows as she drifted toward him across the stones. Sometimes, when the dusk touched her the way it did now or a single candle lit her face, and she tilted her head in a certain manner, he could almost believe she was Alasen. But it was not the poignant pain of recognizing another in her that stopped his breath; it was her beauty, hers alone, as if Alasen had been a mere foreshadowing of this woman.

  He smiled and held out his hands. “No thunder. Although in that gown you make my blood roar so I can hardly hear. Do you think it’s quite fair of you, my lady, to grow more lovely every instant?”

  She shrugged, embarrassed. She didn’t like compliments, no matter how sincere. He gave them anyway. He couldn’t help himself. She was so exquisite—and so elusive. Words about her beauty made her seem more . . . here. If only she would blush, giggle, arch a brow, tease, or any of the other things women did when complimented—but then, if she did those things, she would not be Brenlis.

  And despite the elusive quality of her mind and heart, she always came to him. Sometimes he wondered if this was because she wished to, or because she understood that his position would never allow him to be the one to come to her. Was it her own desire or her care of his pride that brought her?

  Such thoughts left him as he turned her face to the stars with a gentle finger under her chin, intending to kiss her. But there was that in her eyes he knew meant seeing. “What is it, dear heart?”