Cobweb Empire (36 page)

He remained silent, unable to respond just
yet, then managed at last: “What—what was your dream? What did
you . . . see?”

“That statue!” said Percy, pointing again at
an upright form of a lithe golden female, nude except for a
covering of snow and garlands of jewels in a collar around her
neck, and a headdress over her braided crown of hair. “The same
golden woman, except in my dream she was seated with one leg folded
under and the other raised and bent at the knee, and her hands were
folded. Who is she, what does she represent?”

At her unexpectedly safe line of
questioning, Beltain felt his high color drain away and a cool
relief to replace it. “Oh,” he said. “She is an antique. I believe
she is the Goddess of Tradition. I forget her name now, but she was
worshipped by Ancient Rome and before that, the Greeks.”

“Why would Queen Mab send me a dream of
her?”

Beltain smiled. He was charmed somehow that
she would remember his words and a childish tale. “So, you paid
attention to my story.”

“Of course!” Percy continued looking at the
statue in her little garden spot amid the frozen fountain. “I
remember all the kind things you said to me—
everything
.”

And like a damned fool, Beltain blushed
again.

He recovered well by giving a light snap to
Jack’s reins, and the warhorse was gladly moving again.

In minutes they had reached the opposite end
of the citadel and approached the lofty inner walls of white
granite and the great gates of the Silver Court.

Here, the circumstances that Beltain had
been worried about, confronted them. A company of military guard
stood at the open gates, blocking the general free exit and entry,
and evaluated all prospective traffic in both directions.

They waited for long moments while a few
carriages and riders before them were stopped and examined and
questioned.

When their turn came, an officer of the
guard in Imperial colors of black and silver with a fine trim of
gold and red over his chain mail drew a polished iron lance to
block the way and inquired about the black knight’s business.

“I am Lord Beltain Chidair of Lethe and my
business is my own, in Morphaea.”

The mail-clad officer paused, looking
sharply at him, and then noticed the girl seated in the saddle
before him. Truly, it was something out of the ordinary, since the
girl looked to be a peasant. “Chidair?” the guard considered, and a
frown grew on his face.

“Yes,
Chidair
,” Beltain retorted, and
his low voice resonated well enough so that a few other heads
turned in their direction. “Is that a problem?”

Before the guard could respond, an energetic
voice sounded a few steps away among the back of the guard company.
Their ranks parted and a high-ranking youthful officer with an air
of undeniable authority approached the black knight.

“Chidair! Lord Beltain, is that you? I’d
recognize your accursed black armor anywhere! And that monster
beast of yours!”

The words were spoken with deep laughter,
and immediately Beltain showed recognition on his face in turn. He
turned to the man, acknowledging him with a respectful nod of his
head. “Your Grace! Duke Andre Eldon! It is good to see you! How
fare you? How long has it been?”

“Well, let me think—since you unhorsed me at
that tourney in Duorma, and then trounced me so soundly that I
could not sit on my arse for days—what, two years ago?—I’ve fared
quite well indeed!”

Beltain grinned. “As usual, Your Grace, you
exaggerate.”

But the Duke of Plaimes laughed again,
slapped him on the armored leg and then waived the guard away, so
that Beltain rode a few steps from the main roadway and they could
talk without blocking traffic. The moment his back was turned to
the Imperial guard, the Duke’s grinning handsome countenance became
serious.

“Now then,” he said in a much lower voice.
“What in Tartarus are you doing here, Beltain, and what must I tell
these men to let you pass? You know, my friend, that the name
Chidair does not evoke particular love these days. We’ve just had
word of the siege at Letheburg. Ugly news, first thing in the
morning. Your father has crossed each and every line.”

“I know,” the black knight said, his
expression also becoming grave. “I am come from Letheburg, but from
within the city, not from the occupier side. I can tell you only
that my father is dead and has gone insane. As of last week, I am
forsworn to him, and serve the Emperor directly. To be precise, I
serve Her Imperial Highness, Claere Liguon. It is on her orders
that I travel.”

The Duke’s expression grew alert. “What do
you know of the Infanta?”

And Beltain told him. “She is reasonably
safe for the moment, under the protection of the new King of Lethe.
You’ve had news, I assume, of Her Majesty’s passing?”

“Oh yes. Something having to do with a
mysterious girl from one of your northern villages—”

And in that moment as he spoke, the Duke
seemed to have noticed Percy. He threw her one astute stare, then
looked up again at his friend. “This is
she
, the very girl
who is responsible for—?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s true then. She really can perform
the deadly miracles?”

“I have witnessed it myself. And—they are
not miracles so much as—”

“Please . . .” Percy said
suddenly. “Your Grace must let us go.”

The Duke of Plaimes watched her, narrowing
his eyes, thinking.

“What exactly are you, girl?” he said
softly. I have heard the term ‘Death’s Champion’ used by men I
usually consider fools. So, what is it, really?”

“I’ve been to Death’s Keep,” Percy admitted,
knowing somehow it was not a bad thing to speak the truth now,
before this man. “And there I have been given this ability and a
purpose. Now I seek the Cobweb Bride, for I have the means to know
where she is and to recognize her. I must bring her back to Death,
in order to stop all this—this broken world.”

“Ah, yes, we live in a broken world
indeed . . . now, especially. So, where is she, this
Cobweb Bride who is the cause of all our earthly despair?”

“There!” And Percy pointed in the direction
of the open gates.

The Duke raised one brow in surprise. “What,
in Morphaea?”

Percy shrugged. “She is south of here, is
all I know. I
feel
her.”

“You mean, like a bloodhound?” And the
Duke’s serious face momentarily eased into a smile. “Can you sense
her with your nose, you’re telling me?”

Beltain intervened. “That’s about as much as
I understand it too,” he said. “She can somehow feel the dead,
sniff out each individual death shadow, if you will.”

“You know,” the Duke mused, “this ability of
yours can come in very handy.” He folded his arms, lingered, then
ran one hand through the back of his stylishly trimmed dark
hair.

Beltain and Percy both regarded him with the
beginnings of worry.

“In fact,” Duke Andre Eldon said, “I will be
heading in the exact same direction as you . . . so
I think having your miracle girl along for the ride will be an
excellent thing indeed. And no, fear not, I will not hold you back
on your quest. In fact, I condone this mission of yours with all my
reason, and will support you—discreetly—in any way I can. However,
let us ride together, at least as far as the common direction takes
us.”

Beltain nodded with some relief. “Yes, that
will work out well.”

“Indeed it shall!” The Duke brightened
again, and once more slapped Beltain’s armored thigh, making the
metal plates ring at the minor impact. “It’s settled then, we ride!
My way, incidentally, lies all the way to the Balmue border, which
right now is a sorry mess. There’s been fighting, since before
dawn, if not earlier, we have learned—possibly through the night.
According to the latest reports, they are barely holding the lines.
And so, I do believe your presence—both of yours, the girl and your
own damn self and your force of arms—will be a boon. What’s your
name, by the way, girl?”

“Percy Ayren, Your Grace.”

“Well met, Percy Ayren! Now, both of you
give me a few moments to prepare my horse. I thought I’d be riding
with only a single man-at-arms to have at my back—since, by my own
orders, no more men can be spared from the citadel’s Imperial
defenses—and instead I get the blessed unholy likes of you,
Chidair! Hah! Fortune has smiled on me!”

And the Duke went off in a hurry to make
himself ready for the journey.

A
s soon as the Duke
of Plaimes joined them, armored and astride a blood bay charger,
they rode through the southern gates of the Silver Court and into
the Kingdom of Morphaea.

Percy gazed before them in relentless
wonder, for until last night she had never stepped foot outside the
Kingdom of Lethe, and the Silver Court was such a world unto itself
that it had not really sunk in that she was away from her native
land—not until now.

Ahead of them was a snow-covered plain.
Nothing too drastically different from the basic landscape of
Lethe. That is, until she cast her eyes upon the distant
horizon.

There, among the white pallor, was a faint
shadow of green and earth-brown, as the distant and verdant rolling
hills of Morphaea revealed themselves through the haze of morning
mist.

Eventually, winter would come to an end.
Morphaea was a land of temperate transition, from a mixed weather
clime on the northern tip near the Silver Court—where they were
now—to the southern border with the Domain Kingdom of Balmue where
began endless summer. At the lower bottom end of Morphaea was the
capital city Duorma, just a little away from the foreign
border.

However, that warm portion of the Kingdom
was many, many leagues away. First, they had to ride through snow
along a familiar winding road that looked very much like Lethe.

“So, tell me,” Lord Beltain Chidair said to
the Duke, “what is really going on in the Imperial Realm? What is
this sudden great war that comes to us?”

“Not sudden at all, but the culmination of
oh-so-many things,” replied the slightly older man.

And for the next hour, the Duke of Plaimes
spoke of things that made very little sense to Percy, as she
listened, while leaning drowsily against Beltain’s chest. There
were intricate army movements and details of chain of command, and
talk of Kings and generals, and something about the one referred to
as the Sovereign—an all-powerful woman who was the supreme ruler of
the Domain, and the equivalent of the Realm’s own Emperor. They
called her Rumanar Avalais, and the Duke’s voice dipped into a
half-conscious whisper every time he mentioned her.

“Who is she, this Sovereign?” Percy suddenly
asked. “And why does she want to invade us?”

“A fine question,” retorted the Duke,
without being the least bit patronizing—which Percy appreciated.
“We have all asked this question for years, as we bade our time and
continued to send our skilled agents into our hostile neighbor’s
house. And we discovered no easy answer—for indeed, it turns out
that despite all our watching and careful investigating, no one
truly knows
who
the Sovereign is, or the full extent of her
motives for conquest. And thus, an even better question arises: why
now?
Why attack the Realm during a time of common crisis?
Death’s cessation affects the Domain and the rest of the world as
much as it affects us.”

“Maybe,” ventured Percy, “Death’s stopping
is somehow related to this—this war.”

“What a smart girl you are, Percy Ayren.”
The Duke looked at her with a sharp look of appraisal, and then
glanced back at the black knight. “I see now why you have
undertaken to look after her, Beltain. She is no mere country
wench.”

“I have been instructed to see her through
till the end of her quest, and assist in any manner possible,”
Beltain replied in an even voice, looking directly ahead at the
road, and his expression remained entirely impassive.

So impassive it was, that His Grace the Duke
of Plaimes took careful note.

A
t around noon, as
they continued following the road, among occasional cart and
pedestrian traffic, there came a strange sense of unrest.

It was nearly impossible to pinpoint, and
the only comparison Percy could make was the time at Letheburg when
she recognized the heavy sensation of the many dead.

This time the uncanny sensation had a
different quality—not a tightly enclosing fist or circular vise,
coming to choke her from all directions, but a general loose
oppression, approaching like a wide sweeping wave from the south,
and behind it an ocean of immense power rising, looming at the
edges of the horizon.

“There is something
coming. . . .” whispered Percy, straining her face
into the oncoming cold wind.

“What is it?” said Beltain.

“What? What can you see?” Duke Andre Eldon
asked, with an expression of immediate concern.

“I can tell that the Cobweb Bride is still
far beyond, in that direction. But, she is no longer as far away as
she was only moments ago. . . .”

The Duke frowned. “I am not sure I
understand.”

Percy strained to see, hear, look, into the
south. She reached out with all of her being, willing herself to
take flight like a hawk into the noonday winter sky. With a
tingling at the back of her head, with tiny hairs rising along her
skin, she could just about feel it, the sense of aerial
lift
, the soaring.

She imagined what was before her. Death,
through its infinite shadow manifestations, was present all
throughout the fabric of the mortal world, permeating it. By seeing
death’s many locus points of entity-shadows, like dots on a map,
she could
see
the geography of the land itself. Yet in that
boundless panorama of her inner vision, the many leagues of the
world spreading out before her had suddenly lost cohesion, became
malleable—rising like bubbles on the surface of a boiling liquid,
then popping out of existence. As a result, the surface area of the
entire land became
abbreviated
, then came together at
the newly formed seams, only now it was
shorter. . . . In each spot the land was pulled,
compressed, then shrunken down upon itself, as though a pocket had
been taken out of the fabric of the world.