Voice of the Lost

CHAPTER TWELVE

Illukar and Vorclase stood in temporary alliance before Queen Sendel. Medair very much wanted to talk to Illukar about Avahn and Ileaha, but had to content herself with joining the group standing before the long table which had been thrust to the back of the dining hall. Questions of retaliation, let alone broken friendships, were nothing to wild magic. The problem of Tarsus was paramount, and there was no sign of a search party being formed.

"I should be able to sense it," Illukar was saying. "That is what concerns me most. This device summoned and fuelled gates sufficient to transport tens of thousands – a feat beyond the capacity of any group of mages alive. It is an artefact on the level of the Horn of Farak and it should blaze its presence like a small sun. But I cannot sense it at all."

"And what does that mean, precisely?" Queen Sendel asked impatiently, glaring at Vorclase all the while, but willing to hear an explanation.

"That it must draw power from outside itself." Islantar, bracketed by Herald N’Taive and Ileaha, made an expansive gesture at the castle about them. "Wild magic."

Sendel was unimpressed. "Well, I cannot say I’m surprised. Xarus was ever one for the shortest path. You think it dangerous, do you?" They looked at her. "I see that you do. Then we will turn out that rabbit warren once and for all. You may consider yourself under charge, Vorclase, and on recognizance only until Tarsus occupies the next cell."

"Your Majesty." Vorclase bowed neatly, not losing his sardonic edge. "If we can now at last move on to the logistics of the problem?"

"Your deference overwhelms, as usual," Sendel replied, and made a dismissive gesture. "No doubt you have some elaborate scheme?"

He did indeed and, what’s more, a finer grasp of Falcon Black’s current resources than anyone else they’d encountered. Medair wondered what Sendel would do with him, after everything had settled down. And whether he’d allow it.

"One final point," Illukar said, after Vorclase had finished outlining his plan. "Any writings of King Xarus, and most especially any books of arcane research, must be destroyed untouched and immediately."

"Extravagant," Sendel commented, her eyes narrowing. "And hardly convenient. I am unlikely to be convinced that I must destroy State documents. They will need to be sorted."

"There should be no need to convince you," Illukar replied, quietly. "King Xarus discovered how to summon wild magic, and fashioned this device. Sorting the documents is too great a risk. We can allow no possibility of his knowledge being used by others."

Sendel was in a difficult position, especially if she hoped to convince Palladium not to take control of Decia while it was stripped of defenders. She did not hide her dislike of the situation. "I suppose you would have me destroy every piece of writing in Falcon Black?"

"That would be ideal," Illukar replied, and she snorted.

"I have no doubt. Tell me, Keridahl: do you know how to summon wild magic?"

"No." He said the word crisply, clearly, as a whole thing in itself. His chin lifted just a little and Medair realised he was insulted. But evidently he decided to make allowances, because after a moment he went on. "There are no exemptions." He looked toward Islantar, who inclined his head. "After the Blight," Illukar continued, "all knowledge of illegal magics was purged at every level. No-one is immune to temptation."

Sendel lifted a hand in compromise, although she looked anything but convinced. "Documents in Xarus' warrens will be destroyed, unexamined. For now, his apartments in Falcon Black will be sealed, and we can argue about the disposal of their contents another time. Go find Tarsus, so that we might move on to what is truly important."

Formalising peace. Planning the future. Medair watched as Vorclase began issuing orders, Sendel was claimed by a secretary, and Illukar sent Islantar and Ileaha to keep company with Avahn, since news of the device had postponed any attempt at gate-summoning. Then he had a chance to stop and smile at her, touch her hand and make her heart turn over. She was immediately overcome with dread that she might lose him; foreboding quite as strong as her previous conviction about Vorclase.

"I’d like to come with you," she said, trying to keep sudden dread from her face.

Illukar obviously sensed her unease, and glanced thoughtfully across the room to where Vorclase was instructing the few guardsmen left in Castle Black. "Do you feel he plans some sort of trap?" he asked, leading her into the next room, where a sparse meal had been set.

"Not yet. Though he seems anxious to preserve Tarsus." Medair did not feel equal to trying to explain what had prompted her request, and looked down unhappily.

"Stay close to me, then," Illukar said, not pressing her.

Vorclase was back with them before she had a chance to do more than outline her worry about Avahn and Ileaha. The Decian Captain spread a detailed map on the table and let them study it while he chewed on a fruit-studded bun. There were far more lines than Medair had expected, and she was distracted both by her inexplicable fear for Illukar, and by Vorclase. He was an uncomfortable ally.

"I’ve only marked the main routes," Vorclase said, keeping a businesslike tone. "Snares are circled and in the corridors you’ll see three score marks near the ceiling. Stay to the left, and you should avoid setting them off. I haven’t bothered noting the alarms – there’s no-one left to warn." His eyes flicked briefly to Medair.

"Where did you last see Tarsus?" Illukar asked, and Vorclase indicated the rough centre of the middle layer. There was the outline of a small room.

"You’ll be wanting to fire this place anyway, if you really do plan to torch everything worth reading. There’s half a dozen exits from it, and I’m only sure of the one he didn’t go down, which leads back to the southern stair. We’ll work on the assumption that he’s still in this area, block off these points and drive him into here." An unbroken stretch of looping corridor. "Then it will be up to you, Keridahl. Hold him still, knock him unconscious, do whatever it takes to get that thing off him without hurting him."

"Is Tarsus a mage?"

"No. Wanted to be, didn’t have the talent." Vorclase stood up, restive, and collected his map. "Let’s get this over with."

"And how long has this little affair of yours been going on?"

Medair glanced at Illukar, who stood a short way back from the line of men blocking the tunnel, engrossed in preparing a set-spell. There was no sign that he’d heard, that he had concentration to spare for listening. Kel ar Haedrin had. Medair could tell from the way the Velvet Sword had shifted her stance.

She turned to look at Vorclase, whose mouth was twisted into a cynical line. This would be only the first of many such enquiries, and not by any means the most contemptuous.

"One day," she replied, with quiet dignity.

His eyes narrowed. "A celebratory fling? Can you truly be Medair an Rynstar? Herald of the Empire? Grevain Corminevar’s Voice?"

"I am Medair," she said, feeling primarily sad. "I am no longer Herald. There is no Empire. Grevain died centuries ago."

"At White Snake hands."

"So I’m told." She shook her head. "Save your breath, Captain. I don’t need to justify myself to you." Nor did she want to try. It had taken her too long to reach this point as it was.

The look he gave her then reminded Medair forcibly of her location: deep under Falcon Black with two Decian guards for escort. "You consider yourself above reproach? What of Tarsus? You didn’t so much as attempt to discover the truth of his story. Why was that? What happened to all this not taking sides guff you were spouting in Finrathlar? Lasted until the Lord High here gave you a come-hither look?"

"It lasted until Athere was attacked."

"And then you decided a White Snake sat the throne better than your Emperor’s rightful heir. And killed half Decia. And you think you can convince me that was the right thing to do?"

"No." Medair sighed, then looked away as Illukar moved, lowering his hands. His face was that particularly expressionless mask which he wore when he was withholding all opinion. "I’m not trying to convince you that it was the right decision, because it wasn’t; not for Decia." Her voice wavered and she took a calming breath, her eyes on the guard standing behind Illukar, who made no effort to hide his hatred. "It was right for Palladium, however. It’s taken me a long time to accept that Ibisians aren’t my enemy any more, that my war is long over. Your war is over now, Captain."

"Forgive and forget? It doesn’t work that way, Herald."

"I know." She couldn’t begin to explain her struggle to rise above her own hatred.

Vorclase shook his head, and turned his attention back to the tunnel along which, if all went to plan, the heir to a dead Empire would soon be driven. Illukar’s fingers brushed the back of Medair’s hand and she tried to smile at him. A day was a very short time to have been together, and she wanted to touch and talk to him about things which had nothing to do with war. Constrained by the importance of their mission and the antipathy of the Decians, all she could do was stand at his side and wait for Tarsus.

After only a short eternity, she heard the scrape of a boot on stone, the sound of panting breath, and there he was. He staggered to a stop, arms full of faintly glowing glass, and stared at the people who blocked his way.

No-one had mentioned how young Tarsus was: not more than sixteen years, with curling dark hair, a smudged face and a jutting chin. With that jaw, he could well be of Grevain Corminevar’s blood, though the resemblance was not otherwise remarkable. And he was terrified, teetering on the verge of both hysteria and exhaustion.

Eyes wide, he whirled, only to find the guards who had pursued him approaching, swords drawn. For a moment it looked like he would try to run through them. Then he took a deep breath, visibly pulling himself together, and pivoted on his heel. His dark eyes found Vorclase’s.

"I would never have believed that you would stand at the side of a White Snake, Jan," he said. A Decian accent, and a careful way of speaking which was apparent despite his ragged breathlessness.

Vorclase looked briefly wry, not unaware of ironic repetition. "So I can read the lay of the land," he said, unexpectedly gruff, and Medair realised that he cared for this boy. "War’s over; we lost. Sendel will scuffle about trying to keep the country out of Palladian hands. And you’re still alive. I want to keep you that way."

"By handing me to a White Snake?" The boy shook his head, grieved. "You are trusting, Jan."

"Desperate." Vorclase broke the line, stepping forward with a hand held out. "I’ll do what I don’t like if the result’s worth the effort. Put that thing down, lad. Don’t you see what it’s doing to you?"

Tarsus glanced down at the heavy piece of glass he held against his chest. The size of a dinner plate, with a frame of dark wood, it seemed relatively innocuous until he clutched it closer and it sank through cloth and flesh to give them a brief glimpse of pink and white and something which fluttered and pulsed. The sight didn’t seem to faze the youth; he simply moved it out of his chest, then tightened his fingers on the frame. Into the frame.

"You’re delivering this to them as well," he said, earnestly. His gaze shifted to Illukar, who was standing quietly at Medair’s side, and Tarsus looked him up and down with open horror. "A thing of such power, to White Snakes. Jan, you have run mad."

His disbelief was palpable and, as he glanced down at the glass again, a bright shimmer flashed across its surface. That was all that happened, and Medair could barely sense the whisper of power which meant he must have tried to activate it. The effect on Tarsus was more notable: he shuddered and staggered, sweat bringing a slick and waxy sheen to his skin.

Vorclase took the opportunity to take a few more steps forward, but Tarsus backed into the wall as the Captain approached, lifting the heavy glass to chin-level. The Decian guards stirred and Vorclase gestured for them to be still.

"I’ll break it," Tarsus said, in a faint, breathless voice. "Get back, Jan, or I’ll smash it at your feet."

"Would that be bad?" Vorclase asked Illukar, as he took a reluctant step away.

"It could be disastrous," Illukar replied, then released the set-spell he had prepared. Tarsus flinched away with nowhere to go, and briefly the glass merged with his chest again. And nothing else happened.

Tarsus looked down at himself and smiled with uncertain triumph. "You can’t touch me, White Snake!" he said, eyes wide and voice incredulous. "Farak protects her own."

"The device absorbed the casting," Illukar said, glancing at Vorclase.

"Well, that’s helpful." Vorclase was disgusted, but spared little of his focus. "Tarsus, we can’t stand here all day. Tell me what you want us to do."

"Leave." The young man was collecting himself together again. "Leave me, clear me an exit and give me a horse."

"That’s what I’m trying to arrange, boy." Vorclase sounded frustrated. He looked at Illukar. "Better than stalemate."

"The device must remain," Illukar replied, sedately.

"I will not give it up! Not to a White Snake!"

"It must be unmade," Illukar said, ignoring the affront in Tarsus' voice. "It is fashioned from wild magic, it draws on wild magic. You, who would rule Palladium, must see the only course open."

The youth looked uncertain, shifting the glass in his arms. "Wild magic?"

"I won’t pretend that there are not reasons for Palladium to wish you dead, or at least in custody," Illukar said, blunt and cool. "Still, you have my word that you may leave, if that is your wish. But not with the device."

Tarsus stared, dark eyes wide. He looked terribly young, hopelessly driven. What had he done, after all, to reach this point? Controlled by Estarion, raised to hate Ibisians, to believe Palladium his by right?

"How can I possibly trust you?" Tarsus asked now, cradling the glass into his chest once again. "You are my enemy."

"I am Illukar Síahn las Cor-Ibis." Illukar said his name as if it was important to fix it in Tarsus' mind. "I have no animus toward you."

Strange how so profoundly Ibisian a speech could have the desired effect. Tarsus was considering it. Medair took a slow breath as he looked from Illukar to Vorclase and back.

"Were you there?" he asked abruptly, his voice high and strained. "At the slaughter?"

"I was on Ahrenrhen Wall," Illukar replied.

"Then I brought you here." Tarsus took a sideways step, toward the middle of the tunnel. "I meant to get the heir, the one called Islantar. You would have bargained for his life, wouldn’t you?"

"Certainly."

Tarsus looked down. "He has what is mine," he said, forlornly. "What I would have, now, if the Horn had not sounded." He looked with sudden suspicion at Medair, standing at Illukar’s side. "Were you the one who took that from me?" he asked, flatly. "Were you?"

Medair hesitated, aware that Tarsus' anger had returned in full. Denial might be worse than the truth, especially if Vorclase took it into his head to correct her.

"I sounded the Horn of Farak," she said, not wanting it to sound like an admission. This boy had been out there, when the Decian army had been cut down. He had been in the midst of that incredible slaughter, when certain victory had turned into overwhelming defeat. She had killed all who stood with him, who claimed to be fighting for his cause. If he had held a weapon, she would have killed him as well. This boy who might be Corminevar.

For a moment, it looked like Tarsus would simply throw the glass at her. He flushed with furious betrayal, but his disbelief seemed stronger than his anger. "How could you?" he asked, voice breaking. "How could you turn your face from the true Corminevar line to side with White Snakes?"

He pressed the glass so deeply into his chest that Medair could see his spine: a pale, sinuous gleam in a bloody mount. It was a horrible, immensely distracting sight. If he let go of it now, she thought, it would be completely inside his chest. They would have to cut him open to get it out. And she did not want that, did not want this boy to die. True Corminevar or not, there had to be something she could do to alter the course Estarion had set.

"Why do you want the Silver Throne?" she asked, slowly. "Why do you want to rule Palladium?"

The question had confused him. He shifted the glass again and now it was his pulsing heart they watched. How he held the thing at all, she couldn’t guess. It was like no artefact she’d ever seen.

"Because it is my birthright," he said. Utter sincerity. True or not, he believed it. And he was as out of place as she was, in the Palladium of today.

"And did you agree with Estarion, that the only way for Palladium to achieve peace is by killing all of Ibisian blood?"

"Yes." Tarsus looked at Illukar briefly and his eyes hardened. "Yes, it’s the only way. The rift is too deep, their crime too great."

"How much of Palladium do you think would be left, after that?"

"Enough," Tarsus replied, with only the faintest hint of uncertainty.

"And do you think they’d forgive you?"

"What?"

"You would be the invader, you see." Medair tried to fill her voice with the same inescapable certainty which had kept her from using the Horn a year ago. "You would have killed their friends, wrested the throne by force. No matter how true your bloodline, there is no just path to forcing your way onto Palladium’s throne. Five hundred years ago, the cause would be just, but it’s too late. That was what I had to accept, when I came to Athere, centuries late. That Palladium is Ibisian now." She couldn’t keep the sorrow out of her voice. That fact would always hurt.

"You’re wrong," Tarsus said, with a frantic pitch to his words. He backed into the wall again. "There are many in Palladium who would throw the White Snakes down, who would see them crushed into the dirt."

"Yes." Medair looked at him across that gulf of hate. "There are. But why do you think that they’re the ones who should choose the present? How more or less right are they than the ones who love the Palladium of today? Why should the will of the ones who can’t accept, who dwell in the past instead of living–"

"Stop talking!" Tarsus ran at her, tears streaming down his face, the glass raised as if to strike her down. Everyone moved at once, hoping to wrest the thing from him before he remembered himself and made good his threat to smash it. "You’re wrong!" he shouted, as Illukar moved between them. "You’re–"

The bloom of power was overwhelming, as like to the Conflagration as anything Medair had experienced. Bright light flashed, and she heard Illukar gasp, then the world dropped out from beneath her feet once again.