Springwar (17 page)

Avall counted on his fingers. “Rann was there when I discovered its power. Strynn helped me test it. And …” He broke off. “I forgot that another effect is that it slows down your senses and muscles relative to time, so that you can, for instance, hold your hand steadier than any normal person could. Which I used to good effect on the helm I’m making.”

“Other people,” Veen prompted.

Avall cleared his throat. “A harper named Kylin. And … Well, evidently Eddyn somehow got into my workshop and saw it. From what I’ve pieced together later, he was so amazed at the enhanced quality of my work that he became suspicious. He also told a Priest named Rrath. Young fellow, still in his service.”

“Each of whom probably drew the same conclusion you did.”

“Which was?” Veen broke in.

“That this was too important to wait when someone else might not, so that whoever first got word of it to their clan-kin would, at minimum, increase the prestige of his sept.”

Avall nodded. “We all know that Eddyn’s Tyrill’s creature, and that she’s determined to bring down the King.”

“As if she didn’t already have more power than anyone reasonably needs,” Eellon grumbled.

“We
were
attacked,” Avall noted. “And the nature of the attack wasn’t such that it seemed like random banditry.”

“Eddyn,” Eellon spat. “It’d be just like him. If he was desperate or felt cornered …”

“But not alone,” Avall stressed. “If it was him, he had allies.”

“Priest-Clan,” Eellon breathed. “Oh Eight!”

Avall nodded again. “That might be another problem. I’ve got proof that some animals can think. Therefore, by our definition, they have souls. But The Eight say animals don’t have souls. And … no, I won’t say more until the King arrives.”

“Please don’t,” Eellon sighed. “I need to puzzle over this for a while. The rest of you … I’d advise some very strong drink.”

Avall closed his eyes, as weariness came upon him again, and with it an odd new fire that he thought, perhaps, might be the magic stone keeping him alive.

“Wake up, boy!”

Avall started from the drowsy reverie into which he had
fallen while he, his kinsmen, and three near strangers awaited the arrival of the King. It took a moment to realize that it wasn’t him being addressed, but his cousin Bingg, who’d evidently nodded off amid his copyist duties, to judge by the smudge of ink pooling across the parchment on which he’d been taking notes.

“Wake up!”

Bingg jerked, yawned, then appeared to doze again. Eellon shook him—then looked at him intently and laid a hand on his brow. “He’s cold as ice!”

Veen joined him beside the boy. “He’s breathing, though,” she observed. “But this
is …
odd.” Her gaze shifted to Avall. For his part, now that he was awake again, Avall felt alert. He took a deep breath, and then he, too, felt Bingg’s brow. “I think,” he ventured, “this is another function of the gem. As I said, it seems to protect me somewhat. And I noticed when Rann and I were on our way here that it would sometimes steal energy from him to fortify me. It nearly killed him, actually. Myself—now—I don’t know what condition I’m really in, but I suspect that it’s drawing on Bingg, either because he’s sitting closest, or because he’s healthiest among my kin. In any case, he should be fine soon enough. You might want to wrap a cloak around him, though, and get some of that soup in him.” He paused, studying his cousin curiously. “How
do
you feel, Bingg?”

Bingg blinked sleepily, then yawned. “Cold, tired, and like … I’d had too much to drink and was kind of floating outside myself. And I’ve got a headache all of a sudden.”

“So do I,” Eellon acknowledged.

Avall gave Bingg a rough hug. “I’m sorry, cousin, but it’s not a thing I can control. In a way it’s a compliment that it picked you. And you
will
be fine, I promise.”

Eellon eyed Avall keenly. “Yes, but are
you
going to be fine?”

A shrug. “I hope so. As far as I can tell, all I need is lots of food and lots of sleep, which I intend to get as soon as tonight’s over, Eight willing.”

“Speaking of which,” Myx announced from the door, where he’d stationed himself—mostly, it seemed, so he’d
have something to do besides sit and wonder—“someone’s coming.”

Eellon was there faster than Avall could have imagined, given his age, edging past the guard to throw the door bolt and peer into the hall. Avall saw the tension leave his shoulders, and by then he’d identified the tread of two pairs of feet.

A moment later, Eellon stepped back, managing a sketchy bow in the process, which prompted Avall, Bingg, and Veen to rise—followed, a confused moment later, by Riff, who only just found his feet as the King of Eron strode in, trailed by Lykkon, looking very pleased with himself.

The King of Eron did
not
look pleased. Avall noticed that beneath the dark travel cloak he was already doffing he wore a short version of the Cloak of Colors and carried the Crown of Oak, which meant he was there in official capacity. Eellon had put up the hood of his robe, signifying that he likewise acted officially.

“Sit,” Gynn said offhandedly, motioning them all to their places. His gaze flitted about the room, coming to rest on Avall. A brow shot up. “For some reason, I thought you were elsewhere, cousin,” he continued with somewhat forced courtesy.

Avall couldn’t help but grin. “I was.”

“And the reason you’re here is the reason I’m here?”

Avall nodded, only then realizing that the King had arrived with no more entourage than Lykkon. Which he suspected meant that, irked or not, the King realized that Eellon wouldn’t have summoned him without good reason.

For his part, Eellon took a deep breath. “Well, Your Majesty,” he began, “how do you feel about impossible things?”

Gynn helped himself to some of Eellon’s liquor. “I assume that these impossible things may not be so impossible, else I wouldn’t be here.”

“Some of them remain to be tested,” Eellon admitted. Then, carefully: “I think, however, it would be best if they were revealed only under Sovereign Oath, and that you further swear everyone here to the same retroactively—
commencing at”—he paused, looked at Avall—“sunset, I would say.”

“A hand before,” Myx corrected. “If you want to be safe, from my point of view.”

A royal brow quirked upward again. “Very well. I would have you all kneel before me.” With that, he reached for what had heretofore been hidden beneath the Cloak of Colors: a very old and very keen sword. The Sword of Air, in fact, having come, so legend said, with The Ancestors out of the air. Avall had never seen it, though even now his wife labored to complete its descendant.

And then he was kneeling himself, just behind Eellon, who’d taken the lead, with Lykkon supporting him, and Bingg aiding Avall, accented by a wary grin.

“Touch the sword,” the King commanded.

Avall reached out with the rest, stretching past Eellon to rest his fingers lightly on the shimmering metal. He felt an unexpected thrill course through him at that, which he doubted was born of excitement alone. Indeed, it was not unlike that which the gem produced in him under certain circumstances.

Gynn cleared his throat. “I, Gynn syn Argen-el, for this time High King of Eron, and first of that name, do hereby command Sovereign Oath upon you gathered here, that nothing that is seen, witnessed, or referenced here, having occurred since one hand before sunset this day until dawn tomorrow will be discussed beyond those gathered here without my consent, on penalty of death for treason. Excepting those whom I, in my guise as voice of The Eightfold God, do deem it necessary to inform.”

Avall cleared his throat. “Majesty,” he ventured.

“What?” Gynn snapped.

Avall swallowed hard. “There are four who already know much of what has been discussed tonight and of what remains to be revealed. I would have freedom to include them in this as well, as those to whom it may be necessary to speak freely.”

“Who are these four?”

“My wife, Strynn san Ferr; my bond-brother, Rann syn
Eemon-arr; Kylin syn Omyrr; and a woman named Div of Common Clan, who saved my life and Rann’s.”

The King scowled, but nodded. “I will have their oaths of them when I see them. For now, your oath for them will suffice.” He cleared his throat. “Each of you will now swear as I have commanded, one at a time so that all may hear and witness, and so that none may say the others nay.”

And so they began, starting with Eellon, who came first in precedence, then continuing through Veen, Myx, Riff, Avall, Lykkon, and Bingg, the last of whom could barely keep his voice from cracking. Avall found himself wondering how it would feel to witness such events from the threshold of adulthood.

“I accept these oaths,” Gynn acknowledged when they had finished—whereupon the sword twitched. A wash of pain coursed across Avall’s fingertips, matched by a pulse of warmth from the gem. He found himself rocked backward, gazing at fingers that bled, though he’d have sworn they’d never touched an edge. A quick check showed the others likewise ensanguined.

So
, he decided, there was magic in the world beyond that wrought by the gem and The Eight.

“Now,” Gynn said, settling himself on the sofa Eellon had cleared for him. “What are these impossible things that have brought me from my bed?”

Avall told him.

To Gynn’s credit, he listened without judgment or comment save to request clarifications, and even took Eellon’s word that it was possible to join minds when Avall would have allowed his King to share his own.

In spite of the excitement of the evening, Myx was nodding when Avall finished, which reminded them that the young guardsman had a slight fever and had been promised a healer. “At dawn,” Eellon vowed, though he helped Veen lay the yawning youth on the remaining sofa and covered him with a double portion of furs. Riff helped where he could, then took over Myx’s post as door warden.

“Well,” the King said when they’d finished. “These are
all very interesting things, and you did right to call me here, never mind the time and the season. But you spoke, I believe, of one more thing.”

Avall took a deep breath. “Indulge me a moment, Majesty,” he replied. “You sometimes speak with the voice of The Eight in One, who, it is said, dwells in the Overworld. Tell me what you know of that place.”

Gynn took a deep breath in turn, looking distinctly unroyal, though perhaps that was a function of his having started out in a sept of this same clan before being Raised to the Throne by the Council of Chiefs. He was barely more than twice Avall’s age, anyway, so Eellon had probably seen him as a pink, naked babe.
Surely
had, Avall corrected, Eellon had been stationed at one of the remotest holds when Gynn was born there, which was how he’d survived the plague.

“The Overworld,” Gynn began, rousing Avall from his reverie. “It is the place The Eightfold God dwells when He does not dwell here. It is a place where time and space are as He chooses to make them, so that those things may cease to exist at need.”

“Is it a physical place?” Avall inquired. “I know you’re not a Priest, nor privy to all their mysteries, but you sometimes function as one. Sometimes the God speaks through you.”

Gynn shifted uneasily. “Some of these things are
hard
to speak of because there’s no vocabulary for them. It’s like trying to describe a color. Red isn’t blue, but how to explain the difference? The Overworld isn’t this world, but how to explain the difference?”

“You’ve seen it, then?”

“I’ve seen a place—visited a place—where I can see all this world at once, as from a great height. But I’ve never been able to move where I would there. Rather, it’s as though I were dust blown before the winds.”

“Are there people?”

“Shadows, maybe. Perhaps those parts of people here that exist there. I think it is as if … as if The Eight live there and are reflected here, and we live here and are reflected there.”

“So The Eight may only be people from that other place?”

“Blasphemy!” Veen cried.

Eellon regarded her mildly. “Not blasphemy if it is only an idea. And tell me that you have not questioned the existence of The Eight every day of your life.”

“
I
certainly have,” Lykkon dared. “What Avall has said of the gem makes it possible to suppose that someone has another gem of like kind, through which he or she manipulates events by—forgive me, Majesty—manipulating the King.
If
we have found such a stone, and Priest-Clan knows we have, that would go far in explaining their desire to prevent Avall’s appearance here.”

Gynn stared at him incredulously, then at Eellon. “Are all my kinsmen this accomplished?”

Eellon shrugged and ruffled Lykkon’s black hair. “You merely meet the more accomplished. In any event,” he continued to Avall, “what was it you had to say about the Overworld?”

Avall took a drink, pausing to let the warmth flow through him, wondering how long he’d sleep when this was over. Finally, the pressure of gazes upon him grew too great. “At one point on our journey here, Rann, Div, and I sheltered in a birkit den. It was a bifurcated cave, and the beasts had one fork and we the other. Eventually the three of us found ourselves joined through the linkage of the stone—joined with ourselves and with the beasts as well. We didn’t
intend
that to happen,” he emphasized. “But it did. In any event, we found ourselves going … somewhere else. Not in our physical bodies, I don’t think, we were more like … shadows of ourselves. It was the place I go when I speak mind to mind—and yet it wasn’t. It was both more material and more abstract. I’ll tell you one thing, though, it was frightening as the Not-World—so much so that I wanted to leave. I think I was the … leader then, that whatever Div and Rann experienced was only a reflection of what I did, perhaps because it was my gem that was taking us there. Anyway, we fled back to our bodies, but before we left, I grabbed a handful of … something—I don’t know why,
maybe I was just trying to hang on to anything solid so as to stay sane, or maybe I wanted proof. But when we came back—whatever it was—exploded.”