Return of the Guardian-King (49 page)
I cannot be queen of Chesedh! Not without Abramm. Or Papa or Leyton.
Oh, Father Eidon, what will I do?
She wanted to run away, to tell them all she was not suited, could not do this . . .
But the words of abdication and refusal would not come, and she knew it was no accident. She’d been sold off to Chesedh’s enemies by her sister-inlaw, the queen, and now it had all been turned about. Ronesca was dead. A massive wave had decimated the Esurhite fleet. And brought her back with hardly a scratch to this very beach.
Queen of Chesedh. Her scalp crawled, but warmth was slowly returning, and with it, her fear subsided. Eidon had called her to this duty, and he would see that she had whatever she needed to carry it out.
Nor will you leave me to
do it alone. You will always be here to guide me, won’t you? One moment at a
time
.
So she lifted her chin and looked around, trying to think what Abramm would do. The answer came easily: First he would take stock.
The situation was as Brookes had described it: The sudden wave had swamped a third of the Esurhite fleet as well as a good portion of Chesedh’s. It had also severely damaged the quays and structures all along the shoreline, the breastwork defense on the river, and about a quarter of the city of Peregris. The damage to the fleet, though, was the most alarming, for they had already been at a numbers disadvantage.
The remnants now limped along, commandeering the swamped Eshurhite vessels if possible, sinking those too damaged to save. As for prisoners . . . They weren’t taking any, the reporting admiral had told her.
“You’re just letting them drown?” she’d exclaimed in horror.
He’d shrugged. “We’re letting all the galley slaves go. As for the others, we don’t have a place to keep them, nor food to sustain them . . . and we can’t just let them go to fight again.”
He had a point, but she couldn’t bear it as a policy. “It would make us no better than they. Try to capture as many as you can.”
He hadn’t liked it, but he’d agreed to it.
The bodies of Queen Ronesca’s sons were found that same morning on the shore northeast of the island. They were brought to the palace, where preparations were made for them to lie in state with their mother. Maddie quickly passed the details of that operation off to others.
The burning question of her day was what had happened to Trap. She’d immediately assigned Brookes to find out, and he’d returned shortly with the horrifying news that Meridon had been stabbed in the back and pitched off the stern of the queen’s galley after they’d left Peregris. Lieutenant Whartel and his men, were following along just behind when Meridon plunged into the sea before them. They’d picked him up at once, pressed the water out of him, got him breathing again . . . only to discover a knife wound. Seeing their original plan had already gone irrecoverably awry, and sensing that Trap was on the verge of death, Whartel had returned to shore, and two of his men disembarked with Meridon under orders to find the royal physician as soon as they could. None had been heard from since.
She could hardly believe Trap been stabbed in the back and questioned Whartel repeatedly on that point. He stuck to his story. At last she summoned Captain Romney.
When she told him what had befallen her friend, Romney’s mouth gaped. Then his jaw firmed and his eyes turned flinty. “Captain Meridon was supposed to accompany you ashore, and we feared he’d make too much trouble for the handoff to go smoothly. Madam said she’d see that he was taken care of.” He shook his head. “She was so devout. How could she deliberately order such an act?”
“She hadn’t been herself lately,” Maddie murmured, recalling with a shudder how hateful she’d been at the last.
It was midafternoon before she finally found Trap. The two soldiers who had brought him ashore had avoided the royal residence on account of not knowing who exactly had tried to kill him. They had taken him, instead, to the home of a prominent physician. Because Trap had been bleeding internally, the physician had to cut him open to sew up the vessels and organs that had been damaged. He finished about the time they all got word that Ronesca was dead and Maddie had been made queen in her stead, and one of the soldiers hurried to the royal residence to tell her what had happened.
In all the chaos, though, it had taken him a while to catch up with her, but when he did, she dropped everything and bade him bring her to the physician’s house at once. There the doctor explained what had been done as he escorted her up to the spacious second-story bedchamber in which the captain of her guard was recovering after his surgery.
She entered to find him propped up on pillows, with a white linen bandage wrapped about his chest and a small tube sticking out from it dripping blood in a bowl.
She was surprised to find him awake and aware enough that he recognized and smiled at her. “They didn’t get you after all. Or . . .” His eyes lost focus as a frown creased his brow. “Or do they have us both now?”
“No. We’re back in Peregris.”
“Ronesca . . . you can’t trust her.”
“She’s no longer a concern.”
He blinked up at her dazedly.
“Eidon took her,” Maddie said softly.
A brief focused intensity came into his gaze; then he nodded and lapsed back into vagueness. She left him then and spoke at length with the physician in the sitting room downstairs. Trap’s prognosis was not good. “He’s lost a lot of blood. Lungs are still congested . . . and there’s the danger of fever.”
“What are you saying, sir?”
The man was soberly direct. “I’m saying . . . I don’t know how much longer he’ll last, ma’am. Maybe a week, if we’re lucky. More likely only a couple of days.”
She felt as if he’d slammed a door in her face.
A couple of days?
She wanted to scream and wail. But she was queen now, and she hadn’t the luxury of falling apart. Returning to the palace in Peregris, she instructed her newly instituted secretary to send word to Carissa in Deveren Dol. “A pigeon tonight, and another in the morning.”
“But, madam, even a post rider would take near a week to get here from Deveren Dol.”
“I know,” Maddie said grimly. “Tell her to hurry.” She paused, then added, “Better send riders to Fannath Rill, too—just to be safe. Tonight and in the morning.”
As the man hurried off, she sagged into a chair by the fireplace, dropped her head into her hands, and began to pray.
Abramm dropped swiftly through whiteness, the wind rushing by him, tossing his beard up into his face, tugging his hair straight up from his head, and shoving his robes up around his chin. He was falling fast and thought he should be afraid, but he wasn’t. Instead he felt euphoric—safe, protected, and given an experience as close to flying as a man would get in a mortal life.
He was not aware of slowing, but he must have, for suddenly he touched down on a hard surface, landing lightly in the bleached-out tableau of a huge chamber. It stretched away from the foot of the dais on which he stood, rows of stone pillars marching away from him beneath a ceiling of intricate vaulting. Though he heard nothing, a great wind whipped his robes and hair while light swooped from the dais into the multitude of shaven-headed priests and black-helmeted guards gathered there and knocked them flat.
Slowly his hearing returned to a distant roar filled with shrieks. The stench of burned flesh and oil and wood filled his nostrils as the brightness faded and he realized he was standing in an Esurhite temple where the only illumination seemed to be coming from his own body.
Men sprawled unmoving on the apronlike dais stair before him, and as the brightness continued to fade, he saw they were badly charred. Most were priests, but a number wore the armor and breastplates of soldiers in the Army of the Black Moon. In fact, beyond the sea of red-robed priests surrounding the dais, the chamber was filled with soldiers, now picking themselves up. The bodies of those closer lay in a long line between the bodies of the priests, and he realized they had been waiting to pass through the corridor he’d just destroyed.
For a moment all was still, the survivors staring up at him, as he tried to figure out where he was. Then, out in the crowd, a tall priest straightened, eyes blazing crimson. Rhu’ema. He pointed at Abramm.
“YOU! What are YOU doing here?”
Other lights flickered in the eyes of the priests around the tall one, and Abramm felt the shock of their recognition, the fear that followed, then the fulminating fire of their hatred—even as he realized he was weaponless, barefoot, and badly outnumbered.
Red fire glowed at the tall priest’s throat as the rhu’ema worked his voice and mouth to speak. “He’s an Infidel! Seize him!”
Immediately the priests broke ranks and a stream of temple guards burst past them, racing up the aisle. The white glow surrounding him was fading fast, and the angry men racing toward him seemed anything but intimidated. All he could think was that the only combat practice he’d had in over a year was the stickwork at Caerna’tha.
My Lord? I know you didn’t send me here to kill me, so—
The floor wrenched under his feet with a roar, and he fell flat on his face, barking elbows and knees on the suddenly heaving marble. A deep roar tore at his ears. He pushed up onto hands and knees and tried to crawl, but the floor leaped and bucked as if intent on flinging him down again. Dust burned his nose and brought tears to his eyes as streams of crumbling rock rained upon him. And all the while the ground roared and shook, on and on and on, until he thought it would never end.
But it did. The floor stilled, the rumble faded, and eventually all he could hear were small streams of still-falling dirt and rocks, and people coughing. He pushed himself up and sat back on his heels. Dust veiled all that lay more than ten feet away from him, glowing now with the light that poured in from above. To his right, the nearest pillar lay half buried by the ceiling and wall debris that had fallen with it. At Abramm’s side, the ground had ruptured, one edge of it thrusting four feet higher than the piece upon which he lay. Huge ceiling slabs surrounded him, one having fallen but a handspan from where he had crouched. The floor’s displacement had kept them from crushing him. Eidon’s doing . . .
As the dust continued to settle he stood and, wiping the tears and grit from his eyes, peered around at the slabs and rocks and piles of rubble covering the temple floor. The multitude of men, who moments ago had been intent on killing him, all lay dead—he saw a triangle of red robe here, a hand there, a bloody foot beyond. Even the coughing he’d heard earlier had ceased.
He considered searching for survivors, but a brief aftershock reminded him the rest of the temple’s vaulted ceiling could yet come down. Even if it didn’t, the place would soon be crawling with Esurhites. Let them find the survivors. He must seize his opportunity while it was still an option.
As swiftly as he could without shoes, he picked his way through the rubble toward the opening, moving along with a handful of others. Around him silence reigned, broken only by the small sounds of their movement.
The displacement had shattered the porch outside and collapsed its columns, the portico piled in huge chunks around them. Not far from the doorway, vents spewed steam from the barren ground. Between them a stairway switchbacked down to what appeared to have been a large tent camp, though most of the tents lay as piles of canvas. Bright purple banners bearing the silver-limned device of Belthre’gar’s black moon hung from canted poles, and tiny black figures in the hundreds, maybe even thousands, massed at the base of the hill.
Beyond the camp, a city sprawled along the bank of a wide gray river beneath a layer of gray clouds. Only above the temple was the sky clear, and that was filling in as he watched.
He squinted at the river and city, at the distant blue mountains behind them. Nothing looked familiar, but from the temple, priests, and soldiers he knew he was somewhere in Esurh. The biggest temples he knew of stood in Aggosim, Oropos, and Xorofin. He’d have recognized the latter two, so maybe this was Aggosim and that river the Okaido. He sure couldn’t think of any other river that big in Esurh.
He started down the steps, and his legs wobbled as a wave of dizziness swept him. The aftermath of his trip through the corridor?
Loathe to follow the front stair right into the midst of the enemy’s camp, he found a smaller side stair that descended into a ravine beside the temple.
As he did so, his weakness intensified. So did the dizziness. Several times he nearly fell down the stair. His tongue clove again to the roof of his mouth, dry and cottony against suddenly chapped lips. His head throbbed, his ears rang, and his stomach churned.
He had no idea what was wrong with him.
Sporesick?
But when he turned his awareness inward, he found no sign of it. Besides, he’d taken Eidon’s route back there in the domed room. He’d made the right choice. So how could he be sporesick? But if not sporesick, what? It was as if he had been utterly drained of life and strength, his body turning in on itself, consuming itself as he walked.