“Oh, yes, dear, of course. A delegation of them came to your father’s coronation. I wasn’t betrothed to him yet, but I was in his mother’s court. They seemed uncomfortable at first, but they became an elemental part of the celebration afterwards, I do believe.”
“Men and women?”
The queen tilted her head in thought. “No, just men, I think. Yes, that’s right. It was rather fun to see them dancing with the ladies-in-waiting, barely coming up to the girls’ waists. They were game, I must give them that. And good dancers, as well. Now that you mention it, I have never met a female smallfolk.”
“They don’t usually travel outside their homeland.”
“Well, possibly not,” his mother said thoughtfully. “If the men are so easily overlooked, the women must be small enough you would worry about stepping on them. You may ask them yourself. A contingent is expected from Ivirenn. They are coming upriver with some of the seafolk. Now, go get changed, please. You are expected at the temple, and it’s well past midmorning!”
Magpie kissed her and went into the robing room.
Ganidur was wrong. There were twelve courtiers, not eight, awaiting him. The first two deprived him of his dressing gown and slippers before he’d set more than a foot in the room. He heard an embarrassed giggle, and caught a glimpse of a couple of blushing girls hurrying toward the upstairs before the door to the landing was shut. Magpie hoped his cheeks weren’t burning. With the greatest of ceremony, the courtiers, all of high rank and conscious of the privilege they enjoyed participating in this ritual, led him onto a low dais and helped him into one garment after another, even moving his arms or legs for him. Magpie stared at the antique blue tapestries that lined the walls of the room and studied the history of his family while pretending he was a tailor’s mannequin. First, smallclothes, of the finest silk. Plain, for which he knew he must thank his mother. He’d helped many a noble bridegroom on
with his wedding clothes, and the embarrassing embroideries that were frequently doodled by loving hands onto the most intimate garments made great telling at the feast afterwards, when plenty of wine had loosened the attendants’ tongues. Black silk hose and garters followed, with loose trousers over those. A thin shirt of the finest weave he had yet seen went on over his bare chest. He reached for the laces, and his hands were batted away by a solemn-faced lordling from the southern reaches of the kingdom.
“My mistake,” Magpie said apologetically. No doubt territory had been staked out regarding each precious garment long before he had arrived, and he was upsetting the balance by attempting to dress himself.
“My honor,” the lordling said with grave courtesy.
The light shirt was followed by a heavier shirt of glossy white silk, softer than water running over his hand. He sighed as the next, higher-ranking attendant fastened the high neckline with gold pins. The cloth cost more than a trio of fine horses, and in the summer’s heat he immediately began to sweat into it. The embroidery on this shirt was exquisite: he assumed it had been done personally by his mother, his sisters, and his aunts. Yes, there in her kindness, his eldest sister had embroidered a motif of musical notes around the waist at the sides, where the belt would cover it. No one would know it was there but he—and of course, the twelve servants who robed him. But he appreciated the courtesy.
“Sigrun,” he said to one of the young nobles, who was fastening on his left boot, when they were nearly alone, “would you undertake a small task for me?”
“Why, whatever I can, my lord,” Sigrun said, in surprise. He was the son of a scholar-knight, who served a very different abbot than Sharhava. A young man of wit, he showed no interest in following his father into the Scholardom. He seemed to be very pleased to be entrusted with an errand.
“Here,” Magpie said, fishing one out from the full purse that would shortly be fastened around his waist, “is a gold coin. Will you ensure that my jitar makes it to the celebration feast later today? I know that I am not supposed to be carrying anything except a bouquet of flowers and a full heart, but I have written a poem for my love, and I wish to declaim it to her at the feast, and I would prefer to accompany myself. On the quiet, I do not trust my father’s lutenists. They were fine musicians … once.”
Sigrun grinned. Everyone in the court had suffered through a festival
or two or six at the hands of the king’s minstrels. “I will, with good heart. If you will excuse the cheek, it’s a pity you were born of noble blood, sir. My family would have been proud to have you in our household as court musician. I shouldn’t say that. I beg your pardon, of course.”
“I take no offense; in fact, I thank you for the compliment.” He showed Sigrun where the jitar was stored, then was chivied back to the official dais to go on being dressed as though he was a life-sized doll.
Well, he’d done what he could to ensure that
he
would enjoy the feast, if nothing else. Obediently he let the next lordling fasten on the handsome belt, with plates of black onyx trimmed with gold. Between the music and Inbecca, good food and wine, he could put up with a great deal of ritual nonsense, dull speeches, and tasteless toasts from his friends, not to mention railing against his uselessness from his father on one side, and his profane character from Inbecca’s terrible aunt Sharhava on the other.
That woman was poison
, he thought, holding his arms up to make way for the purse of gold at his hip. What she had been telling Inbecca on the day he had returned he had no idea, but she had gone too far in trying to convince Inbecca to cast off her earthly bonds and join the Knights. Magpie was forced to admit that he had not been much help, disappearing on and off the way that he did. What else was the girl to do? She had intelligence, talent, skill in all the courtly arts, drive as well as extraordinary beauty, yet the man to whom she was planning to tie her life was never there. He could hardly ask a woman of her dignity to go out on the road with him, as much as he enjoyed that life, because she would not enjoy it. She wouldn’t find peace in the service of the Scholardom, either, but her aunt would convince her that it was for a holy cause.
Yet again he wondered where Edynn, Serafina, and little Tildi were at that moment.
The final garment arrived, escorted in the hands of no fewer than four high-ranking courtiers. Some clever soul, a thousand or so years ago, and certainly by now dead, so that Magpie could not take revenge upon him, had come up with the proper symbolic presentation of Father Time for prospective grooms who were about to take their betrothal vows. Fortunately it would not be worn at the wedding itself. It consisted of a long robe that shaded from black at the shoulders, where it made even the healthiest complexion look muddy and gloomy, down through all the gray tones to purest white at the hem, where it could get dirty the very first time one walked across a dusty floor. This was bestowed upon Magpie
with some ceremony, as well as the traditional overbelt of solid gold that represented the imperishable circle of time.
Everything he wore was as symbolic as it could possibly be. All the ornaments that followed were of stone or glass. There would be no wood, no leather, no bone, no other metal on his symbolic, exterior self. He wondered if Time was ever as personified in every groom and every priest, or in every young person stepping up to the altar for confirmation, acknowledging for the first time those twin forces that were greater than himself, greater than anything that had ever lived, that commanded his everyday life. And if Time and Nature did exist, anthropomorphic, what had they thought of what some of their creations had done ten thousand years ago, when the Makers had perverted what they had set in motion. Magpie might have, if he was with Olen and for the sake of argument, stated that if a creature or thing existed, then it was natural, and Mother Nature could not object. The priest of the temple was an old, old man sorely lacking in a sense of humor or any sense of exploration. He had not risen to his present state of dignity by entertaining concepts that were not written down in the book that stood upon the altar longer than anyone could remember. Magpie promised himself he would not start any religious arguments or cause any trouble. This was Inbecca’s day, and he was there to serve her.
Magpie surveyed himself in the mirror, turning this way and that to get the full effect. In combination, just purely from a fashion sense, it looked completely ridiculous. Magpie wanted to laugh, but his attendants were conscious of their own dignity, so he kept his amusement to himself.
“Highness, would you like to open your presents now?” inquired a slender courtier with the rare dark red hair of the northwestern province adjacent to Levrenn.
That was evidently his honor, to preside over the opening of gifts.
Magpie allowed himself to be led to a table, where the redheaded courtier stood ready to hand him whichever box he pointed to. The table itself was an object of great antiquity, used only for occasions such as weddings and birth celebrations. It was made from a single piece of translucent white stone. The base was carved as a succession of puffy white clouds supporting the wide, polished top in which was set a brilliant golden sun. The carefully arranged boxes of white and red in the center of the table on top of the sun were gifts from Inbecca’s family. He knew at once which items were from her. The smooth goblet carved from pure carnelian, with the symbols of both Orontae and Levrenn, the
eagle and the tiger, intertwined on one side, was just the kind of gift she would choose. It was exquisite, the red agate as pure of color as if it had been painted by an artist. He hoped she would be pleased with the gifts that he had sent to her, including a box made from Silvertree’s own wood, shed branches that were a gift to him while he had been wandering in the garden. He knew the tree—He? She?—thought that he moved too quickly for a thoughtful being, but had never refused him admittance to any part of the great building except the wizard’s quarters, where the doors always seemed to unaccountably stick fast, even when he picked the locks.
“My thanks for your assistance,” Magpie said, with a courteous nod to the redheaded visitor, as the last of the parcels were dealt with. By custom, most of the gifts were given to the bride, as the representative of the creative force of Nature. Chances were that Inbecca’s home was being filled up with beautifully wrapped parcels, silken bags, baskets, containers, and any number and type of celebratory livestock customary during this event. He was glad he didn’t have to make polite chatter over a sow and piglets, or try to keep a straight face at some of the offerings he knew would be forthcoming.
The importance of the ceremony meant that not a few of the guests who had been at Olen’s secret conference would be coming to the betrothal. He wondered if he should behave as if he had seen them there or not, since he had been there in his guise as Magpie. Wouldn’t that be a surprise to King Halcot, who did as yet not know his true background, and probably did not believe Olen when he used Magpie’s honorific to try and make him behave. More fool Halcot. Olen knew more about the royal houses’ heredity and their genealogy than they or any of the kingdom heralds did. Magpie assumed it was mainly because the wizard had lived through quite a bit of it. Olen had never said how old he was, but Magpie would not have been surprised if he was the father of one of the Makers of the Great Book. Still, as much as Magpie would have enjoyed seeing the dignified king react to his favorite fool marrying the heir to the throne of another country, the matter had to be breached, and Hawarti promised to speak to the king privately before he attended the ceremony. It wasn’t fair to surprise and possibly embarrass him in public like that. Halcot might, and quite rightly, take the appearance of a former spy in a place of honor as a dire insult.
Magpie shut the lid on the final parcel, and turned back to the hovering courtiers. He forced himself to smile warmly at them.
“Gentlemen all, I thank you for your service, in the name of Father Time. I must now go. I look forward to greeting you after the ceremony.”
They all seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as he released them. The battle for supremacy was not quite over. Magpie watched in amusement as they jockeyed for position to leave the room according to their order of precedence. Sigrun, carrying the jitar, tipped him a wink as he departed behind them, last and least, but the only one Magpie thought was worthwhile.
Inbecca’s party was probably arriving within the capital city even now as Magpie began to make his way toward the temple. It was pure cheek on his father’s part to insist upon having this ceremony in the temple of his homeland, instead of the one in Inbecca’s country. She was the crown princess, and Magpie was only the third son of an impoverished king. But Inbecca’s mother had a little bit more kindness and was inclined to grant her friend and former rival that one honor that he craved, knowing what he had suffered in recent years.
The sun was moving ever higher. He must go.
N
emeth hurtled through the chilly air above the clouds, faster and faster, until he had nearly left his breath behind him. He wanted to put as much distance as he could between himself and the violated forest. The voices in his head were joined by the spirits of the altered trees. They cried out, wondering why they were suffering. Nemeth had no answer but that of his expedience. They must dispose of his enemies so that he could remain free. He would apologize if he could, but his need was greater than theirs. Time had been lost. He must hurry. The distance left to cross was so small compared with what he had already traveled. If he rose high enough he could see the tops of the gleaming white mountains. Among them lay his goal. So close. So close!
He meant to ruin the world. He was almost looking forward to it. It had done him no good. He would have his revenge. All of those people,
their homes, their lands, would cease to be! He had long waited for the chance to change the painful reality of his existence, and it had come to him.
Nemeth the Nameless they had called him, unworthy namesake of a long-ago wonder-worker. Humiliation had been thrust upon him, time and again. He had been Soliandur’s good adviser. If only the fool of a king had listened, he could have had a much more powerful hold over the enemy to their south. They could have driven the intruders away and had a sound victory, with honor and glory for all. Instead, Soliandur signed a namby-pamby peace, with terms as poor as if the enemy—who was losing!—had written them to his own advantage—which he did!
Nemeth had sworn to the king that his visions revealed that Soliandur was being influenced by the enemy’s wizard. He had seen it as clearly as he saw his own surroundings. Hodylla must have guided the king to place his troops and ordnance to the Rabantavians’ advantage, so that more of the Orontavian army had been lost. Soliandur had laughed at him in open court, stating that no wizard had a hold on him. Nemeth had been disgraced and finally sent away from the court. Halcot, who had surely given the order for Soliandur’s subversion, was pleased to make Nemeth’s dismissal part of the “lasting peace.”
He had been cast out. No position of honor, no comfortable retirement to look forward to with grand estates as he had always assumed he would have, when one day he chose to retire from active court life—which would have been never! Hadn’t these stupid conditions proved they needed him for now and always? But
they
said he was a fool. His predictions didn’t come true. Well, of course not—when he revealed the future, they changed what they had been planning to do, so those foretellings could never come true. He gave them the fate they would have had if they had not changed their path.
They
said his magic could not withstand the force of the enemy’s mage. Not true,
not
true. He had been betrayed by his own assistants, and by others who spied upon him—did not the ruler see that his own court was infested with traitors? To Nemeth’s humiliation, he had not. He should have known: he was the one with the true sight.
Having been so publicly disgraced meant that no other monarch would ever sponsor him. No amount of hastily given gifts or apologies would suffice to assuage him. The courtiers told him to let the insults go. The memory of them would pass in time, and kings would once again clamor for his services. Nemeth knew that was not true, and the sycophants
were only saying those things because they feared him. They seemed sympathetic in person, but he knew they talked behind his back. They, too, deserved to be punished. The only solution he would accept was to wipe them out, all of Orontae. It would be the last act of his pathetic life. But that required a Great Working, one they claimed he was incapable of performing. Ah, perhaps
then
, ah, then but not now.
The pursuers behind him could never have suspected that he had begun as they did, with a single curious fragment of parchment. It had been a gift from Soliandur himself. The king had delivered the tool of his eventual undoing into Nemeth’s very hands.
The first clue. Yes, he could see it now—if he closed his eyes—burning like a brand in his mind’s flesh. A portion of a book. A leaf a yard or two long, pages that had been cut out of the middle of a scroll, with some interesting symbols on it, unfamiliar words drawn with an intricacy that hadn’t been used since the world was young. Nemeth had studied runes, like every apprentice wizard, but he had never seen any like these. A curiosity, that was all the ruler had believed it to be when he tossed it to Nemeth as a sop, a magical item that scorched the bearer’s hands like fire. It was so beautiful that it tempted the unwary to pick it up to look at it, then exacted its revenge. The fragment was meant to take away the sting of the first great insult, the humiliating public accusation of incompetence that Soliandur had made against him. Nemeth had crept away, chastened, to his tower, clutching to himself the scroll and the knowledge that he had been right.
The scroll did indeed burn, but not so brightly as Nemeth’s curiosity. From where had such a thing sprung? How old was it? Who had made it? What was it for? His vision led him to the next discovery, that the runes of an object became prominent when the page was placed near it, like a candle illuminating objects on a dark table. An accident showed him that he could break those runes, and make one thing into another when the pages were close. What a treasure for a wizard who had never had much skill at Transformation, or even Healing! He experimented with anything that came near him, always in secret, mainly because his experiments were almost always failures. He had not the knack for detail needed to make the transformed items work.
Curiosity led him to find the next clue, there in the very realm, a most aptly named chapter of the Knights of the Word. Their archive contained a rich source of information, telling him that there was an ancient book of great power that lay buried and guarded far away. He realized
that his possession must be a portion of it. If he could do such wonders with a fragment, what miracles could be wrought using the entire tome? He was convinced that the rest of the magical tome, if he could find it, would contain the information he needed to learn how to do true transformations.
During the long months of the war, he scryed for his king by day, but at night he researched the location of his goal, the rest of the book. He tried to help his nation in the war effort by harnessing the talents of the page and attacking the troops on the ground, but it had not been enough to make a difference, and it was not appreciated by Soliandur, who continued to chide him for his ineptitude. At almost the same time that he had discovered the whereabouts of the Great Book, Soliandur dismissed him from his service. Nemeth had tried to tell himself he did not care. He had a more pressing task ahead of him. He had to possess this book.
It lay far distant from Orontae,—but ah!—it would be worth the seeking. His research in the chapter house had led him to believe that the book was capable of undoing all of existence. At that time he was bitter enough to vow that he would rather see the end of all rather than go on being humbled and taunted the way he had been. So be it. He promised himself he would show these sad, deluded fools he was no bungler, just at the last moment before he wiped them out.
The journey had been hard for one who had seldom had to walk a mile under his own power, or shield himself from the elements. Revenge, the lust for it, kept the urge, the impetus, the goad to his back, alive in him when pain, privation, and frustration would have once turned him back. He admitted he had been a weaker man when his ordeal began. He considered all these setbacks as further stairs he had climbed as he overcame each by each. Ah, the satisfaction he gained as he rose higher in strength, thanks to his king’s gift.
He had through sheer determination reached the place where the Great Book resided, a mountain fastness guarded by fierce beasts and myriad spells. He could feel the power of his fragment’s mate calling to him through the very stone itself. He had begun the climb, heedless of the rocks and grass on which his feet and hands slipped. He pulled himself upwards by sheer will.
The first guardians, stone beings of indescribable beauty and great antiquity, had risen from the earth itself at the mountain’s base, and had warned him to turn aside or they would be forced to kill him. Nemeth realized that these had once been human. He was determined that they
would not stop him. They knew the power of that which they guarded. What they could never guard against was that part of the book that still existed in the outside world. His fragment showed him their runes. They were vulnerable to him—him! The pathetic seer of Orontae, the deluded fool, the weakling. He pleaded with them, assuring them that he did not want to destroy them, but they could not stand between him and his goal. At once, he had been driven to his knees with pain. He knew they were fools. If they had been wise, they would have killed him on the spot. Instead, they gave him a chance to strike back. Nemeth had been shocked into action. Without another thought, he had reached into the first creatures’ runes, and unlocked them.
The stone wizards had cried out as they crumbled into the dust they should have been centuries before. Nemeth had continued upward, and more guardians challenged him. Winged lions rose from plinths and flew down at him, claws at the ready. He tore them to pieces. Dragons, sphinxes, giants, and others followed. Nemeth was in a trance at the thought he was so close, and felt no fear at their approach. He must pass them. Therefore, they must die.
They were far from defenseless against him. The dragons alone were accomplished wizards as well as dangerous creatures. They drove him back down the mountainside, wounding him, terrifying him. The book called to him, blinding him to his fears. What did it matter if the dragons could wipe him out with a breath, or sphinxes slice his body into five pieces with one swipe of a taloned paw? He had greater magic than they. These, too, he changed. Their bodies could no longer support life.
They realized what he was doing in a moment, and attacked, hoping to kill him before he could finish his spells, but many were already dying. The winged lions fell at once, roaring so loudly that their voices echoed for miles down the valleys.
They mustered their forces to bring him down before he could kill all of them. He did not like to think about the battles, which were bloody and terrible. Fighting the pain and fear, he had struck against his enemies, filling the air with nightmares until they couldn’t tell if they were fighting him or one another. Subtly, under the cover of chaos, he broke them, ripping out their hearts, tearing off their wings in midflight. He could still see the guardians in his mind, withering as he twisted their symbols and shouted words of destruction. They died, crying out for mercy. Their bodies twitched and smoldered upon the mountainside for days.
Once they all lay dead, Nemeth realized what he had done. He huddled in a fearful heap under the shadow of a boulder, out of the sight of his victims. He waited and watched for days—or was it months?—until the feeling of the Great Book, so near to him, almost drove him mad with longing. No more guardians came to challenge him. He climbed the mountain.
Once again, the fragment gave him the key. No door lay hidden to him, since the runes of concealed passageways illuminated themselves at his touch. With his seer’s skill he deduced how to open the mystic locks that caused the stone doors, each a hundred times the weight of a man, to roll aside and admit him. The enameled and gilded corridor rose until he stood under the peak of the mountain itself, and all the walls glowed with the golden glory of the Great Book at its heart.
He was not prepared for the beauty of the Great Book itself. It lay upon a pedestal inside a massive cavern, covered by a dome of perfect crystal. He realized upon comparing them that his precious leaf was no more than a segment of a lesser copy. The Great Book was whole and perfect, and he felt its power radiate throughout his entire body, a volcano compared to the fragment’s simple flame. The latter, cherished as it had been, looked like a sad little rag. Still, it served him for one more task. It provided him entrée to the passage left, then sealed, by a long-dead wizard who thought no one would ever use it again. As he penetrated into the dome, the leaf rose up in a puff of smoke. Nemeth felt he might do the same. Just standing beside his treasured goal made him feel as if he might melt out of existence. The Great Book was more real than he.
His first attempt to touch it was painful, so painful he could scarcely remember how it felt. It took longer yet for him to be able to handle the Great Book freely. He forced himself to be near it, as agonizing as it was. He adored it. He felt his own rune burning within him, the fundamental description of his existence, and sensed its echo within the pages. Time meant nothing, since he was to achieve his goal. Willpower allowed him to alter himself slightly every day, painfully, a little at a time, until he was of a substance the book would permit to touch it. That final moment, when he lifted the Great Book in his arms and embraced it, was the happiest of his life. In itself, obtaining the Great Book would have been enough, but he knew that it was also the ultimate means of achieving his goal to destroy Orontae. Nothing in existence could stand before it.
Then, he had carried it away, confident that no one alive could have done what he did.
A
head of him, the rounded shapes of the mountains and clouds gave way. Before him, glinting in the sun, lay his destination. Oron Castle—first stronghold of the first kings of Orontae—had been abandoned for more than a thousand years, yet its shape resonated with the force of the personality of those long-dead rulers who had pulled their unruly, nomadic people into a civilization that was the envy of the rest of humanity. A road, still navigable after millenia, wound through the mountain passes to six sets of double gates. The gates were long gone, the metal stripped for other, long-forgotten purposes, but the stone pillars, majestic in size and form, guided his flight to the outer walls. Oron stood on a plateau among peaks with a unique view that revealed the great, fertile valley, a thousand miles wide and many hundreds of miles long, that was its first settled province. He stayed high enough that the farmers working the fields below would not spot him. No one would have an inkling of his presence.