Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) (30 page)

His skin prickled with sudden excitement. Danger? Here in the palace, surrounded by guards? His first thought was for Mikeli, and he took three steps before his mind caught up. Running to face danger in his nightshirt, barefoot and unarmed, was … stupid. He had been stupid before; he was older now.

His clothes for morning weapons practice lay ready, as always. He put them on, trying to think clearly through the pounding of his heart. Mail? Should he wear mail? What kind of danger?

Danger. Evil. Come!

Evil. He should rouse the Marshal-Judicar, the Knight-Commander, any Girdish at all. He wriggled into the mail shirt—it no longer felt so heavy though it struck chill through his arming shirt—fastened the gorget around his neck, and set the helmet on his head. His sword—a gift from Mikeli this last name day—a check to be sure his dagger and saveblade were in place, and he went out the door to the anteroom where his guards should be. And where they stood stiff and still, eyes open, staring at nothing.

He touched them, spoke to them. No reaction. He shivered, suddenly cold. A spell … an evil spell. It must be another renegade Verrakai. One? More? He should find someone to help him—but if he could not rouse his guards, and if it took too long—

Light spread down his sword from his sword-hand. “Holy Gird and Camwyn,” he murmured. “Help me now.” It was not a magic sword, not that he knew; Mikeli had said nothing of it … it must be his own magery …

As if his sword were alive, it tugged him down the passage, turned him away from Mikeli’s quarters—he saw nothing that way but the motionless guards in their places—and up another flight of stairs, another turn. He knew now where they were going, the treasury, and what the attack must be.

The Verrakaien wanted the crown back. One at least had been in league with that pirate in the south who had the necklace; another must be stealing the rest to take to him. He rounded the corner. In the light of his sword, he saw the guards by the treasury door—the
open
treasury door—and with belated caution flattened to the wall, rather than charging through.

He heard voices like no voices he had heard before. Silvery, musical, cold as snowflakes, patterning sound into what was nearly song but … not. He had heard elves speaking elvish once or twice—similar to this but not quite the same.

Danger!

Elves? Danger?

Iynisin! Danger!

He stood, listening. What were “iynisin”?

Not elves! Elves no more! Danger!

Kuaknomi. For a moment his skin crawled with horror. Kuaknomi, blackcloaks, dark cousins … creatures of the Severance … they had cursed Gird and his line; none of Gird’s line survived. And here he was alone—the only one awake to them in the whole palace? His knees weakened; he clenched his teeth and through that fence muttered, “Gird! Camwyn!”

Warmth returned. He hurtled into the room, light blazing from his sword, to see five dark shapes crouched around the chest, chanting. The chest itself trembled.

Faster than he had imagined, the iynisin spun to face him; in an instant all held blades, two already slashing at him. He ducked, shifted, blocked one, the other, and felt the tip of his blade caught for an instant as the other’s blade squealed on his, sliding toward him.
Disengage and refuse!
He remembered the armsmaster’s words barely in time; the iynisin’s blade missed him by a finger’s breadth.

He yelled, “Gird and Camwyn, Falk and the High Lord!” hoping that someone would wake, break whatever enchantment, and come to aid him. He could not face five alone—but Beclan had, he remembered. Beclan had called on Gird—and indeed, in that instant, as one of the iynisin blades screeched on his mail shirt, his own pierced one of the shadows and he felt the familiar resistance of muscle. The creature
hissed, spat, and spun away. That left four, and one … yes … was edging around to get behind him.

Camwyn retreated toward the door—he could back into a corner there—and continued to fend off his attackers. He heard a yell from the distance—far down the corridor by the sound. Footsteps, running. Help? And for whom? Another near miss—and then a spike of pain in his knee. He’d never seen the blade that stabbed him; he tried to limp back another step—and another blow took him in the side, throwing him off balance. He missed a parry; the thrust at his chest was hard enough to force him back. His injured knee gave way, and he fell, rolling to avoid two more thrusts.

He caught one of the iynisin in the body when it leaned over him to finish him; another in the thigh; another in the calf. But they were too many, and he was only one; he took wound after wound to his legs, though the mail protected his body. Finally he saw—too late to dodge it—the foot aimed at his head.

Aris Marrakai woke in the pages’ quarters as if someone had stabbed him with a hot needle—all in one instant, he was out of bed, standing, heart pounding. The room was almost dark, the single tiny lamp burning in its niche, just enough to help the younger boys find their way to the jacks. The flame was steady—it had not been any gust of wind. As a senior now, on duty with the younger boys, he usually slept clothed and needed only to put on the low boots he wore in the palace. He did that and hesitated before pulling a short blade from the rack and hooking it to his belt.

Outside, all was still. He knew something had wakened him—what? Then he heard a faint cry … from … where? He went toward the sound and came to the guard station where corridors crossed. The guards said nothing. He cleared his throat. Still nothing. He risked touching one on the shoulder. No reaction.

It was a dream. It had to be a dream. He pinched himself hard, and that hurt. Another faint sound that brought his heart into his throat—the screech of metal on mail.

He was moving before he thought, running toward the stairs; he was sure the sound had come from above. He passed guards who did not move or speak; he yelled “GIRD!” “HELP!” No one answered. Up the stairs, grunting a cry at each step in the hope that someone would wake. Was it Camwyn the attackers had come for? No, surely the king. And some enchantment held all in thrall. He made it to the floor with the royal apartments—Camwyn that way, the king the other—and now he could tell the yells, the clash of arms, came from higher yet, up where the treasury was.

And here, nearby, was the bell pull that went, he’d been told, to no bell but summoned—if anyone—immortal aid. Unused for centuries, collector of legends no one could prove. But it was all he could think of, and he pulled it hard, then charged up the last flight of steps.

Outside, over his head, a great clangor rang out, bells upon bells, louder than he’d ever heard bells while inside the palace. A waterfall of sound it felt like, shimmering and dancing around him as he went up. He reached the top, and sight of the treasury door, where two guards changed from rigid immobility to startled alertness. Dark shadows rushed from the treasury; one guard fell before he could draw a weapon, throat slashed by one of the shadows. The other tried to stab another shadow, but it evaded him. For a moment, the dark figures loomed over Aris, staring at him; his tongue blocked his mouth; he could not make a sound.

Then, with a single word in a voice cold as Midwinter night, they turned and ran the other way, the bells’ clangor following them like hounds.

Now, as the bell sound followed the intruders, Aris could hear noise from below. Booted feet running, voices shouting questions. Help, if they thought to come here. He worked his tongue in his mouth, tried to swallow, and yelled down the stairs: “Up here! The treasury!!”

Flickering light approached the foot of the stairs.

“Here!” he yelled again.

“Gird’s blood—it’s the prince!” the remaining guard called from inside the room. “Get help, lad! Quickly!”

“The prince is hurt!” Aris called down the stairs; torches lit helmets and drawn swords, the soldiers blurry below the light, and he waved, then turned and ran into the treasury.

Camwyn lay sprawled in a welter of blood. In the light of the torch the guard held, his face was pale as beeswax, his blood shockingly red. Like horse blood, Aris thought for a moment. Camwyn’s helmet had a deep dent in one side that connected with a purpling bruise on the side of his face. Aris took out his dagger and slashed at his own sleeve.

“What happened?” the first guard asked. “Did you—” He looked again at Aris and shook his head.

“Shadows,” Aris said. “I saw them—five in dark cloaks. They made a spell.” He had a length of sleeve off now and tried to stanch the wound in Camwyn’s thigh; blood soaked through almost at once. “Bandages,” he said, ripping at his other sleeve one-handed. “Quick!”

“Yes …” One of the guards hurried out, calling for a Marshal, bandages, more help.

Others pushed into the room; more noise outside … the bells had quit, Aris realized. He used his teeth to rip loose part of his heart-hand sleeve, balled it up in his sword-hand, and pushed it down on top of the red sodden lump of the first.

“Let me through!” That was Master Plostanyi, one of the palace physicians; Aris knew his voice. “Have none of you any sense? Why are you standing around doing nothing, and only this lad trying to keep the prince alive?” He knelt beside Aris, unrolling his case without regard to the blood on the floor. “Lean on that,” he said to Aris. To the guards he said, “Get me sheets; rip them in strips. Now!” That last at a bellow.

“I was too late,” Aris said. Tears filled his eyes and dripped onto his arm; he couldn’t help it.

“You may have saved him,” Plostanyi said. “Were you the one pulled the bell cord?”

“Y-yes.”

“Thank Gird for your good sense.” Plostanyi’s hands were busy, feeling for Camwyn’s throat-pulse, ripping Camwyn’s trews, exposing
the wounds. He pulled wads of washed fleece from his kit, stuffed one into a bleeding wound, and pointed to one of the circle of guards. “You! Push down on this, here!”

In the corridor outside, Aris heard his brother’s voice and then the king’s. “I don’t care!” the king said. “Let me through!”

“Not yet, sir king,” Plostanyi said without pausing in his work. “This may be iynisin work; I see the telltale sparkle in the blood. Their blood’s poison to us.”

Aris had not noticed it, but now, in the greater light of many torches, he could see something odd about some of the blood on the floor. “It’s not all Camwyn’s?” he said.

“No. Too much of it is, but not all. He wounded at least one of them. You’ll need care yourself when this is over.” Plostanyi handed him another wad of cloth.

“Will he live? Tell me he will live!” That was the king’s voice from just outside the door.

“If the gods will,” Plostanyi said. And then muttered under his breath, “If I can stop the bleeding, if the iynisin poison has not gone too far, if his brain is not reft … The gods have their work cut out for them this night.”

Aris struggled with an urge to giggle or scream.

“Steady, young Marrakai,” Plostanyi said, as if he knew that. “You’ve done well so far, but your work is not over.”

Aris clenched his teeth and through the next turns of the glass did whatever Plostanyi told him, trying not to think about any of it—Camwyn, kuaknomi, the contamination of their blood, the cramp in his back from crouching over Camwyn, the king’s mounting anger until at last he was allowed in to see Camwyn, and the king’s grief when he saw the prince looking as near to dead, Aris thought, as a live person could look.

“He yet breathes,” Plostanyi said to the king. “That is all we know now.” Plostanyi directed the guards, who shifted Camwyn onto a litter and carried him out. He made them hand off the litter to four more who had not entered the treasury and had no blood on their boots, pulled off his own boots, and padded sock-footed ahead. The king pulled off the cloths wrapped over his own boots; a physician
checked to be sure he had no blood on him, and then he followed the procession with Camwyn.

Aris started to follow, but one of the other physicians stopped him. “No—you’re bloody all over, the prince’s and the kuaknomi’s. No farther than the door for you. Strip and bathe.” In the time he’d been with Camwyn, a tub and buckets of water had been carried to the corridor outside.

Aris stripped to the skin, surprised to find out how much blood had soaked through his clothes. One physician hovered by him, pointing out or scrubbing off spots he hadn’t noticed and looking for any injury that might need treatment. Only when he was pronounced clean enough did a palace servant hand him a length of cloth to dry himself on and another hand him a robe far too long for him.

He heard steps coming up the stairs and turned to see his brother Juris. “They’re cleaning all the blood off the prince,” he said. “The king asked me to check on you, Aris. Are you all right?”

“He’s fine,” said the nearest physician—now supervising one of the guards who had helped Plostanyi. “No cuts, no wounds of any kind.”

“Let’s get you some clothes, then,” Juris said. “Back in the pages’ quarters?”

Aris nodded. “How is he?”

“Still breathing, Master Plostanyi says. He’s worried about the wounds—if they’re poisoned—and the effect of iynisin blood in the wounds as well. And that knock to the head. Did you see any of the fight?”