Zandru's Forge (74 page)

Carolin signaled to his men to be ready to take on Rakhal’s defenders. His fingers curled around the hilt of his sword.

“Oh, yes,” Rakhal went on, “I know your secrets, that
cristoforo
witch you kept as a wife, whispering the poison of weakness into your ears. I should have throttled the brats in their cradles, but you would have found out too soon. The castle was full of spies. Spies everywhere, mumbling in the corners, whispering in my dreams. You turned them all against me, even sweet Maura, but she would not let me—leave me—A plague on her, Zandru’s pestilence take them all!”

His face convulsed, a rictus of anguish. “Attack!”

“Hold!” Carolin cried with such force that Rakhal’s men hesitated. “You cannot win. You are trapped here, and greatly outnumbered. The city has surrendered. There is nowhere to run. Your deaths will serve no purpose. Will you not lay down your swords and save your lives?”

Lyondri craved power, but never pretended to the throne. Having once been king, Rakhal would never lack discontented or corrupt men ready to follow him. The price of mercy might well be to set the entire kingdom ablaze.

With a hideous cry, Rakhal pointed at Carolin. “Kill him! Kill them all!”

Carolin shoved the door fully open, pinning the third man against the wall. He turned his body flat against the door so that his own men could enter first. The next moment, the room exploded into frenzied action. The chamber had been small when they were children; half a dozen grown men, slashing at each other with swords, filled it entirely. Even if Carolin wanted to jump into the fray, he could not find an opening.

The door jostled Carolin’s shoulder. The trapped man was trying to get free. Carolin shoved back, as hard as he could, and was answered by a muffled yelp. Two more of his own men sidled past. He leaned against the door and shouted again for Rakhal’s men to surrender.

Within a few minutes, the fight was all but over. One of Rakhal’s defenders was down, disarmed and hamstrung. The other, faced with overwhelming odds, lowered his sword. Carolin, motioning to his men, released the door and the man pinned behind it tumbled free, only to face three sword points at his throat.

Carolin waited until Rakhal’s men had given over their weapons and been bound before he stepped into the room.

“It is over, Rakhal.” Carolin echoed Lyondri’s phrase.

Rakhal gathered his robes around him like tattered dignity. “So you would like to believe. You could not hold the throne before; what makes you think you can hold it now? No matter how deep the dungeon or how long the exile, I will not rest until I have set your severed head upon a pike outside the city gates!”

“Let us not bandy idle threats before the men, cousin. Do you yield, and give yourself into my justice?”

For a moment, it seemed that Rakhal would concede. Then his eyes shifted. “If I cannot be king, then neither will you!” In a lightning swirl, a sword appeared in his hand, hidden in the folds of his robes. He leaped forward, too fast for Carolin’s soldiers to react.

Carolin, forwarned by the slight movement of Rakhal’s eyes, was already raising his own blade. He deflected Rakhal’s thrust. Rakhal disengaged and swept in with a flurry, so fast and hard, it took all Carolin’s skill to fend him off.

Conscious thought vanished in the silver heat of the attack. Rakhal was pressing him hard now, fighting with reckless fe rocity. The impact of clashing steel shivered up Carolin’s arm. Nerve and muscle, drilled over countless hours in the practice yard, reacted—acted.

Breath and fire surged through Carolin, every sense sharpening. Adrenaline sizzled along his nerves. He caught the rhythm of Rakhal’s blows, the pattern of advance and recovery, of slash and lunge. It was like dancing, one partner stepping forward in the same instant the other stepped back.

Rakhal slowed a fraction, the merest delay between blows. Without conscious thought, Carolin flowed into the opening. His sword shot forward, an extension of his will and hand. He slipped past Rakhal’s guard.

The tip of his sword rested at the hollowed base of Rakhal’s throat.

I have you
now—

Rakhal twisted sideways, his eyes white and wild. The movement left a scratch, welling blood but not fatal. Carolin moved to close with him again.

Rakhal, instead of evading the attack, advanced, an oddly oblique charge. Carolin reacted, pivoting to meet him. His sword lashed out as if it, too, sought a speedy end to this deadly game. With a jerk, Rakhal’s sword clashed to the floor.

Carlo! His other hand!
Maura’s silent warning shrieked through Carolin’s mind.

Rakhal broke the distance, sidling to the outside and slipping past the outer reach of Carolin’s sword. Barely in time, Carolin swerved. Rakhal’s dagger stabbed cloth instead of flesh. Momentum carried Rakhal’s arm in an arc and he twisted for another attack.

In these close quarters, the sword’s length made it unusable on tip or edge. By some instinct, Carolin brought it up, vertical, like a narrow shield. He caught his cousin along the upper arm near the hilt and stepped into the blow.

Rakhal stumbled from the impact, but did not drop the dagger. He swung wildly, recovering to dart this way and that, as if in desperate hope to slip past Carolin’s guard again. Blood spattered from the wounds on arm and neck.

The dagger
—
it
’s
poisoned!
Maura cried.

Dark Lady, now I
must
kill him.

A terrible stillness gripped Carolin’s heart. He gave himself utterly to it. His weight shifted, his step lightened. It was as if the spirit of some predatory animal—a wolf or snow leopard—moved through him. He no longer saw a man before him, cousin—betrayer, playfellow, assassin—but only a pattern through which death might enter.

Rakhal scrambled back a step and then another until his back was to the open windows. His face convulsed, as if he realized his chance had passed. Carolin moved forward. He saw, under the spiral of Rakhal’s robes, the curve of ribs, the exact path and angle to the heart. In the space between heartbeats, his sword pierced the air. He threw all his force behind it.

As he twisted away, Rakhal screamed, a roar of fury and despair. Carolin felt the moment of contact, an instant of resistance, and then nothing. Momentum carried him forward,

Rakhal toppled backward over the window ledge, jerking free from Carolin’s sword. An instant later, his scream cut off.

Carolin rushed forward. Leaning over, he saw that Rakhal had fallen across a low wall surrounding the ornamental garden below. From the unnatural angle of the body, his spine had been broken. He did not move.

Dizziness, like a sickness of the soul, swept through Carolin. He would never, until the end of his days, be sure if he had slain his cousin or if Rakhal had chosen his own ending.

It did not matter. He had
meant
to kill him, and so bring to an end the degenerate monster who had seized his throne, but also the bright-eyed boy playing in this very room, the youth laughing as he danced with Maura and Jandria, the solicitous nephew tending upon elderly King Felix, the hunting companion and friend giving Carolin advice about court politics. The man who, for good or ill, had worn the crown of Hastur.

To be a king was to accept the full weight of what he had done. No excuses, no apologies. He alone.

Maura stood in the doorway. Her face was very white and tears glimmered in her eyes. “He chose to be what he was, even as I have. Even as you have.”

She took a step toward him, so that the gray light fell like a radiance upon her. “You are Carolin, King, Hastur of Carcosa and Hali,
bredu
to Varzil of Arilinn, savior of Orain, father and friend, a good man who has faced extraordinary challenges and has kept faith with us all. And by Evanda’s grace, you are also my beloved.”

His heart was so full, he could not speak. In those few words, she had given him back the man within the crown.

She took his hand and led him back down the stairs and into the city, where his people waited for him.

The thought came to him that there was a third power in the world. That of the Tower, that of the crown ... and that of the heart, and perhaps this last was the strongest of them all.

C
arolin Hastur stood at the window of his private presence chamber and allowed his shoulders to sag. He’d been holding himself upright, masking his fatigue, for a chain of tendays now. The official coronation had taken place in Hali, among the holy things and the invisible presence of his august ancestors. He would not rule there, but in Thendara: a new capital city for a new era. Despite the grumblings of the self-appointed keepers of tradition, he had moved his entire court to Thendara Castle. The last Hastur King to live here had been Rafael II, who had also reigned in times of upheaval.

The move complicated all those things that were needful for a king returning from exile. Trials, executions, pardons, replacements of staff, inventories, the list had seemed endless, even with the indefatigable Orain as his paxman. Now, most of these were well begun. There would always be more—pockets of resentment, Rakhal’s partisans, border skirmishes, and difficult legal cases—in addition to the ordinary business of running a kingdom this size. For the moment, though, he might take a rest and indulge his own pleasure. His promises to the people he would rule had been largely fulfilled.

There was one more promise to keep.

A rapping on the door that led from the outer chamber brought him to attention. Carolin signaled to the guard on post there, one of the young officers who had served him so well on the last bloody campaign. The door swung open and a man stepped in, slender in his robes of green and gold, his face calm and intelligent.

For a long moment, Carolin stared at the transformation of his friend. It had been years since they had last beheld one another, years of separate struggle. Somehow, in his mind, he had not realized Varzil would have changed so much—the frosting of white around the temples, the lines of suffering incised on his face. Varzil had never been robust and the years had pared his frame, yet there was an air about him of such power that Carolin thought not even a mountain could bend him.

Varzil inclined his head, more in salute than homage, the measured acknowledgment of the master of one type of power to another. Carolin thought of how true that was—Tower and castle, each a world to itself, yet interdependent. Now Varzil waited for Carolin to speak first, as befitted a host and king.

“My old friend, how good it is to see you again,” Carolin said. He started to lift his arms in a kinsman’s embrace and then thought better of it. Although Varzil’s expression was warm, he carried about him an ineffable air of detachment, as if he moved through the world, met it on its own terms, and yet remained essentially apart. He was, after all, a Keeper. And then Varzil broke into a grin and he clasped Carolin in a tight embrace.

“And you, Carlo. It has been too many years since we last greeted one another.”

“Too many years,” Carolin said, smiling a little more widely because of the familiar nickname. “Don’t remind me. Come, make yourself comfortable. Will you drink?”

Carolin led the way to a couple of padded chairs arranged around a serving table with pitchers of wine, both chilled and heated with spices, and a platter of artfully shaped sweets. The guard at the door stepped outside, leaving the chamber in silence. Varzil sat very still, hands folded in his lap. Carolin had not remembered how small they were, and the ring which his friend wore was unfamiliar.

Within a few minutes, they passed the awkwardness of long absence and settled into conversation. Carolin told only a small fraction of his adventures, skimming over much of the dark times and entirely omitting many episodes. He judged that Varzil was doing the same. It did not matter. Neither was the chronicler of the other’s life story. Far more important was the easy comradeship they slipped into, the flow of words and silence.

After a particularly long pause, Carolin said, “We have each suffered much and grown much, and yet it seems that only a little time has passed since we were boys together, sharing our dreams for the future.”

“Even when you were in exile,” Varzil said aloud, “and there seemed no hope of us ever meeting again in this world. Even then. I fear I have made somewhat of a reputation for myself in speaking out for your pact. Loryn of Hestral Tower started calling it the Compact of Honor, and so it has become for me.”

Carolin chuckled. The reports had not exaggerated, then. “From what I hear, half of Thendara thinks you’re a saint and the other half is equally convinced of your lunacy.”

Varzil’s hands moved, so that one lay gently over the other, covering the ring with an oddly tender gesture. “I do not care what they think of me as long as they listen to my words. The ideas are far more important than my own poor self.”

“Your own poor self? Ah, but you were always too modest, Varzil, putting yourself forth as less than you are. Fate and the world have caught you up. You cannot escape. The people call you Varzil the Good and the Lord of Hali. They still tell of how you appeared to the Tower there garbed in living light, like Aldones himself. Some of my own people took it as an omen of victory, a sign that Rakhal’s power was at last on the wane.”

At this, Varzil looked away and made a deprecating gesture. “It is too much. I never intended such a legend.”