Beyond The Shadows (35 page)

Vi woke to Sister Ariel shaking her. The windows were still dark, and the only light in the room was from a single candle.
Vi sat up and gazed blearily at the maja, who was red-eyed and wearing the same tent-like dress she’d worn the day before.

“What are you doing?” Vi asked.

“I found it. I can help you.”

“Help me with what?” Vi asked.

“Get up, I’ll tell you on the way.”

Vi dressed and followed Sister Ariel. Sister Ariel said nothing until they were on one of the punts that would convey them
to the Chantry. Even then, she spoke quietly, leery of how voices traveled over the water, even in the pre-dawn fog that wreathed
the lake.

“Long ago, there was an Alitaeran emperor named Jorald Hurdazin. By all accounts, he was a skilled and wise leader. In his
younger years, he solidified Alitaeran control from what is now Ymmur in the east to the west coast of Midcyru. What is now
Waeddryn and Modai were his last conquests, and with his marriage to Layinisa Guralt, the Seeress of Gyle—essentially its
princess—the lands that are now Ceura came under his control as well, and there he stopped, mostly because of her influence.
He spent the next twenty years consolidating his empire and for the most part bringing justice and prosperity to the lands
he had conquered. He was, however, magically poisoned by one of his many enemies. The poisoning was caught early, but the
magi could only delay its effects. They treated him every day, but soon determined that Emperor Hurdazin would die within
two years. Obviously, this was a closely held secret, and obviously, they called as many green magi and magae as they could.
To make matters worse, there was no heir, and in agreeing to bring Gyle into the Empire, Gyle’s king had insisted that Jorald
and Layinisa be married with rings like yours. For a man of his power, finding such rings was no problem, and though their
marriage was first political and magical, all the histories I’ve read agree that Jorald and Layinisa deeply loved each other.
The green magi found nothing to heal Jorald, and they soon found that Layinisa was infertile. Women with great Talents sometimes
injure themselves with their magic, and infertility is common in those who use too much magic, or too much too soon.

“The emperor put as many magi as he dared trust to work on both magical problems. He believed that Layinisa might hold his
empire after his death, but if she were infertile, that would only delay the collapse, and he didn’t want to be yet another
emperor whose empire died with him. In the end, it was Layinisa herself who discovered a way around the rings’ bond.”

“She did?” Vi asked.

“Don’t get excited. Now we’re here, say nothing until we reach the library.”

They walked silently through the dark halls of the Chantry. Vi wondered for a moment that the building was beginning to feel
like home. The dim magical torches that illumined the walls and followed them seemed normal now, the austere marble arches
comforting in their strength rather than menacing. In a few minutes, they were deep in the Chantry’s storerooms, far below
the waterline, a place Vi had never been allowed to go. It was neither dark nor dirty, but it did have an air of abandonment.
Numbered oak boxes lined the room to the ceiling. The one small desk had an oak box already upon it.

Instead of opening the box, however, Sister Ariel closed it and put it back on a numbered shelf and grabbed a different box
two rows down. Vi understood that she had left out the wrong box in case some spy checked what she was studying. At first
Vi wondered why the boxes were oaken, but then she looked again and saw the spell sunk into the wood. Each oak box had one
spell to strengthen the box and make it watertight, one to make it fire resistant, and one to suck air from the box as it
closed to preserve whatever was kept inside.

“Magically reactive materials are kept in special rooms on the next floor; these archives are for mundane records only. Because
of how they’re preserved, they only have to be copied by industrious tyros such as yourself every few hundred years—if they’re
not frequently opened,” Sister Ariel said. The box opened with a hiss, and she gently lifted out sheets of bound parchment
that to Vi’s eyes looked scarcely ten years old.

“At the time of Jorald and Layinisa’s marriage, binding rings had been forbidden for almost fifty years. They were still common
among royal families, of course, who were rarely willing to surrender them. The rings continued to cause misery wherever they
were used and all magi became more and more convinced that banning them had been one of the best decisions the Chantry and
the brotherhoods had ever made. Every group eliminated knowledge of them and how to make them to the best of its ability.
This did lead to bloodshed a number of times, especially among the Vy’sana, the Makers, who to this day are a small brotherhood.
When Layinisa figured out how to circumvent the magic, there was a great debate among us. Some wanted to follow her research
to find a way to fully break the bonding. The majority, however, feared that any dabbling in those arts again would lead to
a full rediscovery of how to bond. The suffering of those few who were presently bonded was weighed against the possibility
of vast suffering if bonding were rediscovered by the unscrupulous. I don’t know if you’ve experimented with your bond, Vi,
but it does have an element of compulsion. That’s what made it break the Godking’s compulsion on you. The order of the ringing
makes the compulsion in your rings flow from you to Kylar.”

“What?” Vi asked. “You mean . . .”

“I mean if you told Kylar to walk on his hands to Cenaria, you’d find his body somewhere in a mountain pass with stumps where
his hands had been. It’s a compulsion stronger by far than what the Godking used on you.”

“But there’s a way out?” Vi said, her throat tight.

“Not out, child. Because you’re the mistress of the bond, however, you can do what Layinisa did.”

“Which is?”

“She used the compulsion of the bond to force Jorald to divorce her and marry a princess. She was then able to suspend the
bond to allow him to produce an heir.”

“What happened?”

“He died but the empire lived, minus the country of Gyle, which was deeply insulted by Jorald divorcing their Seeress. Layinisa
served Jorald’s new wife and supported her regency for five years, until the new empress marched against Gyle, at which point
Layinisa committed suicide. The enmity between Alitaera and Ceura didn’t cool for centuries and would probably be raging right
now if the countries still bordered each other. The point is, if you wish it, you can suspend the bond—partially. A maja named
Jessa worked with Layinisa on the rings. Jessa was in the camp that wished to learn about breaking them, and when the Chantry
forbade it, I suspected that she tried to defy them. Jessa was a Healer, but she was also interested in gardening, so I’ve
been looking through her books. They’re not terribly enlightening; others did far better, and she wasn’t an important maja,
so I think no one ever studied her books. If they did, they would have found what I have. She’s hidden it in plain sight,
and not well. She was no cryptographer. After I read the books, I began applying ciphers, then I worked on her marginalia.
If you could read Old Ceuran you’d see how ridiculous this is—she’d capitalize a strange word in her margin notes and everything
from that capital to the next capital was part of her secret message. If you look at all the marginalia from the last to the
first, the message unfolds. I don’t even understand everything Jessa wrote, but I think you will. Oh, one more thing: Vi,
I haven’t told Kylar or Elene about this, and I won’t. This is your burden. It is yours to decide if the price is worth it.”

Twelve hours later, with dark circles under her eyes, Vi found a cheerful Elene making breakfast.

“What is it?” Elene asked. “Are you well?”

“I know it’s a month late, but Elene . . .” A timid smile broke through Vi’s fatigue. “I have a wedding present for you.”

They were calling him Solon Stormrider. They said that his hair was growing in white because of the snow-laden seas through
which his longboats had plunged. Or they said it had turned white after the winter sea had chewed on him and found him too
tough and spat him back out. His boat had capsized once, and even his magic had barely saved him as he swam a mile through
storm-whipped seas. Of course, his hair had been growing in white since he’d used Curoch—long before this mad winter—and he’d
explained that to the soldiers and sailors who’d begun to follow him, but they preferred their own versions.

Now it was spring, and Solon was heading back to Queen Wariyamo, having destroyed her enemies. He had bowed before her after
saving her life, and she had told him, fury edging her voice, that the price for her hand was cleansing the isles of the rebellion
he had started by killing Oshobi Takeda. Kaede didn’t like being weak, didn’t like needing anyone, but her temper always cooled
in time. At least, it used to.

Everyone had expected Solon to wait for spring and take an army to each of the Takeda isles. Instead, he’d begun at once,
alone. In a canoe, he’d paddled the eighteen miles to Durai. There, he’d given the ultimatum he would give a dozen times through
the winter. Surrender, swear fealty to the queen, and give me all your weapons, or I shall slay every man who fights and take
those who surrender as slaves.

Gulon Takeda had laughed at him, and died, along with eighteen of his soldiers. Solon had returned with twenty-four awed soldiers
in a longboat. He had delivered them to the new Mikaidon and slept in a dockside tavern, not seeking so much as a word with
Kaede. By the time he’d woken and gone out to his canoe, a score of the craziest sailors he’d ever met and a captain with
a vendetta against the Takedas volunteered to join him.

Soon, storms battered them every time they left port, and Solon’s command of weather magic grew by necessity. But Sethi winter
storms were tamed by no mage, and it was a fight every day. Several times, the Takedas who had faced them were so stunned
that anyone should be able to make the crossing they had surrendered on the spot. And when Solon returned to Hokkai yet again,
victorious yet again, he found the Takeda soldiers he’d conscripted were a fully trusted part of the Sethi army, oddly proud
to have been defeated by the Stormrider.

Now it was done. The Takedas’ home island, Horai, hadn’t expected an army for at least another six weeks. The leaders were
totally unprepared, and having almost three thousand men to Solon’s four hundred did them no good. Before the Takeda army
could be rallied, its commanders were dead, and Solon’s magic-enhanced voice had offered generous terms to the living. The
rebellion was crushed and nearly all the dead were Takedas.

With the first day of spring, the first day clear enough that the merchants would be on their boats preparing for the first
spring runs, checking for damage, repairing sails and nets, shouting orders at men rusty from months spent ashore, Solon’s
little fleet sailed into Hokkai harbor.

They were greeted as heroes, and the crazy sailors who had joined Solon first were now soldiers in truth. Sailors dropped
their gear to greet them, captains forgot their shouting, and the shorebound traders and vintners streamed through the streets
to greet them. The flood carried them to the castle, and Solon’s heart thudded with fear and expectation. Kaede, please, my love, don’t take my glory as an insult. Without you, it all means nothing.

The crowd brought him to Whitecliff Castle, shining in the spring sun. Kaede stood on the dais where months before she had
almost been deposed. She wore an ocean blue nagika and a platinum tiara with sapphires. She raised her hands and the men and
women quieted. “How fare the isles, Stormrider?”

“The isles are at peace, Your Majesty.”

The people cheered, but Kaede’s face was still somber. She let the people cheer, then raised her hands once more. “They say
you are a mage, Stormrider.”

“I am,” he said.

The crowd grew quieter, noting the queen’s solemnity. That solemnity brought to not a few minds the questions people had asked
when Solon had first been sent to school with the Midcyri magi: where would his loyalties lie?

“They say you are a god, Stormrider, to have defied the winter seas alone.”

“Neither a god, nor alone, Your Majesty. A loyal son of Seth who tracked the seas with men and women fearless as tygres, fiercer
than storms, and hungrier than the seas. Not even winter seas could stop such from serving you.”

The crowd stirred with hope, and Solon’s Stormriders swelled with pride that he should share the glory so liberally, but Kaede
cut it off quickly. “They say you were our prince, Stormrider. They say I’ve stolen your throne.”

Silence.

“A prince I was, of an ancient house that my elder brother debased and dishonored. He broke the holy covenant between king
and country, and I stand a prince no more. Should you command, I will sail to the sunset or to death’s rocky shores. I am
but a man.” He lowered his voice, but still it carried across the silent crowd. “A man who loves you, my queen.”

She stood silent and the crowd held its breath, but Solon could see her eyes shining. “Then Solon Stormrider, Solon Tofusin,
come forward and receive your rewards as a mage, and a loyal son of Seth, and a man.”

He was in a haze as the crowd pulled him forward, laughing and cheering and shouting. Kaede first presented him with a pendant
with a glowing ruby lit from within, burning with ancient magics. He’d never seen it before, never heard of such an artifact,
but before he could consider it, she put a crown on his brow. It was his father’s crown, a circlet of seven golden grape leaves
mingled with seven golden waves. “A ruby fit for a mage, a crown fit for Seth’s most loyal son, and—if you will have me—a
proud and troublesome woman ill-fit for any man.”

“Except one,” Solon said, and he swept her into his arms and kissed her.