Authors: Dan Chernenko
"He wasn't a Therving. He was a Chernagor," Lanius said. At first, he thought Grus a fool for not remembering. Then he realized his father-in-law was testing him, and felt a fool himself. "His name was Yaropolk."
"Relax, boys," Grus told his bodyguards. "This is the real King Lanius. Hello, Your Majesty. That fellow there" - he pointed to the corpse - "has your face and your voice. Or he did, till I let the air out of him."
"Looking like me let him get close to you," Lanius said slowly.
"I'd say you're right," Grus answered. "I'd say Corvus and Corax have a pretty good wizard working for them, too. Or Corvus does; Corax is dead. I came as close to being dead myself as makes no difference. But here I am, and I still aim to have my reckoning with
dear
Count Corvus." He sounded thoroughly grim.
"All right. Better than all right, in fact - good," Lanius said. "I don't like having my image stolen."
"Your Majesty, I didn't like it, either, not even a little bit," Grus said. "And remember, it could have gone - it could still go - the other way, too. Wouldn't you have let someone who looked like me get close?"
"Yesss." Lanius stretched the word out into a long, slow hiss. "Yes, I think I might have."
"We'll both be careful, then," Grus said. "But I'll tell you one thing more." He waited till Lanius raised a questioning eyebrow, then continued, "Corvus had better be more careful than either one of us."
"Yes," King Lanius said once more. Just for a moment, he too sounded fierce as a soldier. "Oh, yes, indeed."
General Hirundo pointed up the steep slope toward the castle perched at the top of the crag. "There it is. There
he
is," Hirundo said. "That's what Corvus is king of these days. The rest of Avornis is yours."
"True." Grus nodded. "That makes us better off than we were when Corvus decided to start calling himself king, and half the countryside hereabouts decided it would sooner have him with a crown on his head than Lanius."
That stretched the truth a bit, and Grus knew it. Corvus had proclaimed he wouldn't do anything to Lanius. The countryside in the south had risen against Grus himself, not against his colleague on the throne. He intended to go right on telling his version of the story, though. People would feel better about his crushing Corvus if they thought Corvus threatened the old dynasty. Grus was every bit as much a usurper as the nobleman who'd rebelled against him. The only difference between them was that Grus was more successful than Corvus.
That's the difference that matters,
Grus thought, and then,
One of these years, some dusty chronicler pawing through the archives Lanius loves so much is liable to realize Corvus' revolt was aimed at me, not at Lanius at all. He'll write it all down, and everybody will call me a liar.
Grus considered that, then shrugged.
People will call me a King of Avornis who was a liar. That's what counts.
Hirundo brought him back to the here-and-now by asking, "You don't intend to try storming that place, do you?"
"By the gods, no!" Grus exclaimed. "I'd have about as much chance as the Banished One would of storming his way back into the heavens."
Hirundo's expressive features showed his relief. He accepted the figure of speech as meaning Grus knew he had no chance of storming Corvus' keep. Grus had meant it that way, too. But he realized he didn't
know
what kind of chance of storming back into the heavens the Banished One had. All he knew was that the Banished One hadn't done it yet, not in all the time he'd spent here in the material world. By human standards, he'd been banished a very long time. By his own? Who could say, except for him?
Contemplating how to take Corvus' stronghold was more comforting than thinking about the Banished One's return to the heavens. What would he do, if he ever forced his way back? Nothing pretty - Grus was sure of that.
Up on the walls of the grim gray stone keep, men moved. Grus could barely make out the distant motion, like that of ants on the ground as seen by a man standing upright. Hirundo looked toward the castle, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. He stared so fixedly, Grus wondered if he could make out more than someone with ordinary eyesight might have done. But before Grus could ask, Hirundo turned to him with a question of his own. "If Corvus yields himself to you, will you let him live?"
Grus scratched at the corner of his jaw. "I
would
have, if he hadn't sent that sorcerously disguised fellow to try to murder me." He sighed. "I suppose I would even now, for the sake of having the civil war over and done with. We don't have time for it, you know - not with Dagipert still in arms against us and with the Menteshe ready to come to the boil whenever they choose." Another, longer, sigh. "Yes, if Corvus wants to live out his days somewhere in the very heart of the Maze, in a place he'll never come out of, I'll let him do it."
"All right, then," Hirundo said. "You should send a messenger and let him know as much, in that case. His keep will take a lot of besieging, and who knows what may go wrong while we're waiting down here to starve him out?"
Grus said one more time, "You make more sense than I wish you did. I'll do it."
He sent a young officer up the slope, a white banner in hand to show he had no hostile intent. The youngster went up to the wall of the keep. Grus made out his progress by keeping an eye on the white moving against the dark background. After a while, his officer trudged down the slope once more. Little by little, he grew from moving white speck to man once more.
"Well?" Grus asked him when he came back into the encampment.
"Sorry, Your Majesty, but he says no." By the indignation on the young man's face, Count Corvus had not only said no but embellished upon it. "He says he can't trust you."
"I like that!" Grus exclaimed. "He rebelled when I was crowned, he just sent a sorcerously disguised assassin against me, and now
I'm
the one who can't be trusted! Some people would call that funny."
"I said as much," the young officer answered. "And when I said it, Count Corvus called
me
a traitor."
"He can say whatever he likes." Grus' smile was predatory. "That's what he's got left - nasty talk from a mewed-up castle. I hope he enjoys it."
"I wonder how much grain he has in there, and how many men," Hirundo said.
"Yes, those are the questions," Grus agreed. "I'm sure he's wondering the same thing. The answer will tell him how long he can hold out. He doesn't have enough men to sally against us. I'm sure of that, or he wouldn't have let himself be locked away in his lair."
"Does he think we'll go away before he starves?" Hirundo said. "Not likely!"
"No," Grus said. But it was perhaps more likely than his general thought. If the Thervings or the Menteshe started moving, Grus knew he might have to break off the siege to deal with them. Corvus was playing a desperate game, yes, but not quite a hopeless one.
* * *
These days, Lanius needed approval from a wizard or witch before he could come into Grus' presence. That would have offended him more had not Grus required sorcerous approval of himself before he saw Lanius. He was equitable in small things. Maybe he thought that made his usurpation of all large things more tolerable to Lanius. Sometimes, it even did.
Having proved he was himself, Lanius told Grus, "I know how we can solve all these questions of who's who."
"Oh?" Grus said. "Well, tell me, Your Majesty."
"Send me back to the city of Avornis," Lanius answered. "I'm of no use to you here, and of no use to myself here, either. I'd like to go home to my wife. I'd like to go home to the mon-cats. I'd like to go home to the archives."
Grus eyed him. "And when
I
go home, Your Majesty, would I find the city of Avornis closed up tight against me? The question I'm asking is, How do I trust you?"
That he'd made Lanius his son-in-law apparently counted for nothing. And, perhaps, with reason. Had Lanius thought he could get away with revolt, he might have tried it. But this journey with Grus warned him he would only lose if he rebelled. And so he said, "Send enough soldiers back to keep an eye on me, if you feel the need. But send me home."
"I'll think about it," Grus said, and no more.
King Lanius thought that would prove nothing more than a polite dismissal. He wondered if he ought to be glad to get a polite one. Whenever Grus thwarted him, his first reaction was usually to get angry. His second reaction was usually to think,
Well, that could have been worse.
So it was here.
And, a couple of days later, Grus came to him. Alca the witch meticulously made sure Grus was himself before the other King of Avornis strode up to Lanius. "I've made up my mind," Grus said.
"Yes?" Lanius braced himself for the rejection he was sure would follow.
But Grus said, "All right, Your Majesty. Back to the city of Avornis you may go, if that makes you happy."
"Really? Thank you very much!" Only afterward did Lanius pause to wonder if he should have been so grateful. At the moment itself, glad surprise filled him too full to worry about such trifles.
"Yes, really." Grus seemed amused. "But you'll do it my way. I'm sending Nicator back with you to command in the city till I get back."
"Ah?" Lanius said cautiously. If he had been thinking about rebellion, that would have made him think twice. Nicator was not only altogether loyal to Grus, he was popular with the men he would lead.
"Yes," Grus said. "I trust you don't mind going back aboard a river galley full of marines?"
Lanius said what he had to say. "No, I don't mind in the least, as long as you haven't told them to pitch me into the Enipeus as soon as we get out of sight of camp here."
"Sosia would have something to say if I did," Grus remarked.
Lanius wondered how true that was. Even more than most in Avornis, his had been a marriage made for reasons having nothing to do with any initial attraction between the two parties most intimately involved. But he'd done his best to please Grus' daughter once they were joined. Thinking about it, he supposed she'd done the same for him. Maybe he'd succeeded better than he knew. He hoped so.
When he didn't answer, Grus asked, "Does it suit you, Your Majesty?"
"Yes - very much so." Lanius considered, and then added, "Thank you." He said that seldom; as best he could recall, he hadn't said it to Grus since the older man put the crown on his own head.
Grus noticed that, too. "You're welcome," he answered, the same note of formality in his voice as Lanius had used. He hesitated, made a small pushing gesture, as though urging Lanius to be on his way, and then held up a hand to stop him from leaving. When he spoke again, he sounded uncommonly serious. "We
can
work in harness together, can't we, Your Majesty?"
"Maybe we can," Lanius said. "Yes, maybe we can." Now he did turn to go. A moment later, he turned back again. "I'll see you in the city of Avornis ... Your Majesty."
Grus had always been scrupulous about using Lanius' royal title. Lanius had always been grudging about using Grus', which he hadn't reckoned - and still didn't reckon - altogether legitimate. Grus had noticed. By the nature of things, Grus would have had to be a far duller, far blinder man than he was to keep from noticing. Now a broad smile spread over his face. "So you will, Your Majesty - and, with luck, sooner than you think."
"Really?" Lanius pointed an accusing finger at him. "You have some sort of plot in mind."
"Who? Me?" Grus' smile turned into an out-and-out grin. For a moment, gray streaks in his beard or not, he looked hardly older than Lanius was. He asked, "Do you want to stay around awhile longer and see what it is?"
Lanius thought it over. He hadn't expected to be tempted, but he was. Tempted or not, he shook his head. His answer needed only one word. "No."
Grus and Alca walked along together at the base of the crag. The witch nodded. "Yes, I can do that, Your Majesty, or I think I can. You do understand that even if I manage it, it may not do everything you want? They may have other ways of solving the problem."
"Not from what the prisoners say," Grus answered. He looked up at the sky, which was fine and blue and fair. Motion on the battlements caught his eye. Someone up there in the castle, implausibly tiny in the distance, was looking down at him. Was it Corvus? No way to tell, of course, any more than Corvus - if that was he - could recognize Grus down here at the base of the mountain whose peak was all the kingdom he had left. "With any luck at all, we can do this quickly and get back to the city of Avornis."
Alca gave him a sidelong look. "Are you really so worried about Lanius?" she asked.
"Among other things, yes," Grus told her. "Some more than others, I grant." He sighed. "Now that I'm King of Avornis, I worry about everything. The only way I have of taking care of the worries is deciding which one to fret about first."
That made Alca smile, though he hadn't been joking. She said, "Well, Your Majesty, I will do what I can to make sure you need not worry about Corvus anymore. I think I can find everything I need."
"If it turns out that you can't, say the word," Grus replied. "Whatever it is, I'll get it for you."
"I thank you, Your Majesty," the witch said.
"Believe me, you're welcome," Grus said. "This is for my advantage, after all. And for the kingdom's advantage," he added, but he didn't think he was dishonest in putting his own first.
Alca began her magic the next day at noon, when the sun stood highest in the sky. She took from a silk sack a curious red and white stone, all branched like a tree. "This is coral," she told Grus. "It washes up on seaside beaches."
"I've heard of it," he answered. "Up till now, though, I haven't seen it more than once or twice in all my days."
"Coming out of the sea, it naturally has power over water," the witch said. Grus nodded. From everything he knew about sorcery - admittedly, not much - what she said made good sense.
Alca held the coral up high over her head and began to chant in an ancient dialect of Avornan. Grus recognized a word here and there in what she said, but no more than that.
Lanius would probably follow every bit of it,
he thought. After a moment's resentment, he shrugged. Yes, Lanius had more education than he, but so what?
I'm the one who makes things happen.