DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (124 page)

“I do not wish to live my days wandering from unimportant village to unimportant village,” Aydrian called after them.

De’Unnero stopped and slowly turned to regard the young man. “Palmaris, then,” he said. “You will enjoy Palmaris.”

Aydrian grinned from ear to ear and clutched his pouch of gemstones, the confirmation that he had won the trust of these new companions, that he had found some friends at last, ones that he could honestly respect. He was learning so much from them, from Sadye’s old songs and Marcalo’s incredible skills, an entire new perspective on the martial arts gleaned from the wisdom accumulated by the Abellican monks throughout the ages.

At that moment, in that nondescript, completely unremarkable and unimportant village, there happened a joining of Church and State as profound as the one that had placed the Queen of Honce-the-Bear as a sovereign sister of St. Honce: a joining of powers secular and spiritual that, when realized, would forever change the world.

A
t that same moment, hundreds of miles away, Queen Jilseponie watched as Fio Bou-raiy was elected father abbot of the Abellican Order.

Was that a good thing? Jilseponie wondered, for the best that she could say about Fio Bou-Raiy was that he was the lesser of two evils. That thought brought her attention to the side of the great hall, where sat a scowling older man, his gray hair thin and standing straight out as if it had been pulled. The top of his head was bald, and showed all the more clearly to Jilseponie because he sat hunched forward, a pronounced hump on his back. Even as Fio Bou-raiy took the sacred oath, the other man, Abbot Olin, rubbed a skinny, shaking hand across his eyes.

His arms were spindly and wrinkled, his skin leathery from so many decades in the bright southern sun. But there was no aura of weakness about this man, Jilseponie knew, and he wasn’t quite as old as he appeared. He could deliver a speech with fire and passion, as he had during the nominating process. Jilseponie had seen several of his detractors shrink from his iron stare. Most of the abbots and masters in the hall recited communal prayer now, as Jilseponie should have been doing, but Abbot Olin was not praying for the health and wisdom of Father Abbot Fio Bou-raiy. He sat there, staring hard at the man who had stepped ahead of him to win the Church, wincing every so often, his skinny hands clenching, fingers rubbing against his palms.

If Olin had a crossbow in hand at that moment, then Jilseponie did not doubt that Fio Bou-raiy would fall dead.

“There will be trouble in the Church,” Jilseponie said to Bishop Braumin later on, when the two caught up with each other outside the great hall.

“There always is,” Braumin replied flippantly. He started to chuckle, but when he saw that his companion was not sharing his mirth, he sobered. “Abbot Olin?” he asked seriously.

“He does not accept this,” Jilseponie remarked.

“He has no choice,” said Braumin. “The decision of the College cannot be questioned.”

Jilseponie understood the truth of Braumin’s words, but that did little to diminish the feeling in her gut, her perception of Abbot Olin. “There will be trouble,”
she said again.

Bishop Braumin gave a great sigh. “Indeed,” he agreed—or at least didn’t disagree—in a resigned tone. “It is the way of man, I fear, and even more the way of our Church, with its continual positioning for power.”

“Fio Bou-raiy would say that those words are strange, coming from a bishop,” Jilseponie pointed out. “Coming from a man still young, who has achieved so much in terms of personal gain, a man who was likely third behind Bou-raiy and Olin for the pinnacle of power in all the Church.”

Braumin considered her words for a few moments, then chuckled. “That perception can be logically justified,” he admitted. “But I seek no power for the sake of personal gain. Never that. I accept responsibility for the betterment of the people, nothing more.” He looked at her directly and chuckled again. “Can you claim any different of your own ascension?”

Jilseponie stared at her friend long and hard, her grim expression gradually melting into a smile. For she knew the truth of Bishop Braumin Herde, the man who had stood beside her and Elbryan at risk of his own life, and she knew that he was speaking honestly now. And, indeed, Jilseponie could speak of her own ambitions in exactly the same manner.

“Perhaps God will take Abbot Olin to a more enlightened place before he can cause any mischief,” Braumin said with a wink, “though I fear that our Church will prove more boring by far without the whispers and the subterfuge.”

Jilseponie couldn’t resist her friend, and she laughed.

Still, there remained an uneasiness within her, a sense that the pond was not as quiet and peaceful as the calm surface would indicate, either concerning the Church or the State.

So much have I learned in the months I’ve spent with Marcalo De’Unnero and Sadye the bard! I shudder to think that I meant to kill this man, who has taught me so much about the history of the world long past and even the relatively recent events of which he was a great part
.

He did not hate my father. That truth surprised me at first, nor did I believe his words, until I went to Oracle and confirmed them. The image in the mirror—and that image seems far more singular and unified now—that I can only assume to be the spirit of Nightbird imparted many feelings about Marcalo De’Unnero, respect being the most prominent. They were rivals, to be sure, but it is possible, I think, for rivals to love each other even as they engage in mortal combat
.

Marcalo De’Unnero has taught me physically, as well. His fighting style is very different from the one the elves showed me
. Bi’nelle dasada,
I have come to understand, is mostly a balance and footwork technique, a method of fast retreat and fast attack. Uniting this with De’Unnero’s flying hands and feet makes for a dangerous combination indeed, one that we both are experimenting with in our early sparring. I am truly thankful for that sparring! We have been at peace since we came to civilized Palmaris several months ago, with the only important action being a near-riot on the eve of God’s Year 842. In previous days, when I walked the edge of the Wilderlands, I would have considered that night as nothing remarkable and certainly nothing dangerous, but here in Palmaris, it came as a welcome breath of excitement
.

There are times in this interminable lull when I think I will simply go wild with energy!

But Marcalo De’Unnero is always there, calming me. These days, these months, are preparation, he says, a time for me to learn all that I can about this world around me. I do believe that he has something grand in mind for us three, though he won’t begin to hint at it
.

And so I spar and so I listen, and carefully, to his every word. And I take those lessons, physical and mental, with me to Oracle each night, where I find the other tutor, the spirit of my father—or perhaps it is the power of my own insight—and expand the knowledge Marcalo De’Unnero has imparted
.

I listen carefully to the lyrics of Sadye, as well; and in these old songs, I have found confirmation of my suspicions. The immortals among my people are not the generous and the kind, not the meek and the quiet. Nay, those whose names are immortal
are the warriors and the conquerors, the bold and the strong. Even the namesake of the Church, St. Abelle, was a warrior, a gemstone wizard who single-handedly—so say the ballads—tore down the front walls of a great fortress, a yatol stronghold
.

Now he is the patron of the greatest church in all the world, a man whose name is uttered daily by thousands and thousands. Thus he is alive. Thus he is immortal
.

They will remember Aydrian the Nighthawk in the same manner, I am sure, and my friend De’Unnero does not disagree with the claim. Whenever I speak of such things, he merely grins and nods, his dark eyes twinkling. He has a secret from me, concerning our road and concerning something else, something more important. I ask him about it every week, and he merely chuckles and bids me to show patience
.

Patience
.

If I did not believe that the gain would be so great, so monumental, I would have little patience during these uneventful days and nights in the city of Palmaris. But I have come to trust Marcalo De’Unnero and Sadye. They know what I desire, and have promised to show me how to find it. In truth, I suspect that Marcalo De’Unnero desires the same thing for himself
.

And so together, we two, we three, will walk into immortality
.

—A
YDRIAN THE
N
IGHTHAWK

Chapter 20
 

T
HE WINTER WAS LONG AND SEVERE
. T
HE TURN OF
842
HAD COME TO
U
RSAL AMID
a raging blizzard, the snows piling unusually high about the castle and St. Honce. Jilseponie was one of the few who regularly ventured out of the castle, aiding the poor and healing the sick with her soul stone, but the severity of this storm stopped even the determined Queen from her daily rounds, or slowed them considerably, at least.

Her husband was busy with Daween Kusaad, the ambassador from Behren. She found the man distinctly unpleasant, so rather than remain at Danube’s side, trying constantly to hide her dislike of Daween, she had opted to wander about the immense castle, enjoying the intricate designs on the tapestries and the magnificent carvings on doors and walls, the delicate glass of the larger windows, and simply the views of the snow-enshrouded city.

On one such foray into the castle’s east tower, Jilseponie heard the cracking sound of wood striking wood and recognized it immediately as a sparring match. It seemed strange to her that any would be fighting up here, but as soon as she made her way to the room and recognized the participants, she understood.

Merwick Pemblebury Ursal was fourteen now, a year older than his brother and several inches taller. But Torrence favored his father, King Danube, in build, and was the stockier of the two.

Jilseponie watched in amusement, and a bit of admiration, as the two continued their fight, apparently oblivious of her. She could see Merwick’s mistakes clearly—he was fighting like a brawler, when his superior reach and speed could have been used to keep the more ferocious Torrence at bay.

She had seen many who fought in Torrence’s style—it was the most customary one, using heavy weapons to bash and chop and bludgeon an opponent to the ground. It was the style best suited to the weapons made by the crude smithing skills of the day, of inferior metals that made a larger and thicker sword or other weapon more likely to survive a heavy strike.

It was the style that
bi’nelle dasada
was designed to defeat. And easily.

Jilseponie continued to watch the two boys at their match, and the fact that the frenzied pace had not lessened spoke well of their training and their determination, and, to Jilseponie, said something important about their characters.

It did not surprise her how much she liked these two, though she didn’t often see them, for Constance worked hard to keep them away from her. But the truth was, she liked their mother, too, and always had. The customs of court called for women to be ornaments, rarely speaking their minds, and never in public; but Constance had ever been one of Danube’s closest advisers, an outspoken and
strong person, with a good heart. The fact that she had been Danube’s lover in the years before he had come to love Jilseponie was of little concern to Jilseponie, for she trusted Danube’s love for her and could no more begrudge him his past than he could her own.

Her relationship with Constance was surely strained, now, though. The fact that Constance could hardly hide her feelings when she saw Jilseponie told the Queen that Constance was still in love with Danube and that she also wanted to protect the inheritance of her children.

For that, too, Jilseponie could hardly fault Constance.

So they were not friends, by circumstance rather than personality, and Jilseponie did not envision how their relationship might mend. One thing she was fairly certain of, though, was that she was no threat to the inheritance of Merwick and Torrence. These were Danube’s heirs, behind Prince Midalis of Vanguard. Watching from afar, as they grew, Jilseponie believed that they were training well for their lot in life.