The Born Queen (37 page)

“Be still, Mery,” Leoff said.

Ilzereik went back to the bodies. “Haukun was stabbed,” he mused. “The others just fell dead. Whatever you did, Haukun wasn’t affected. A puzzle.”

He went to the music Mery had packed and began pulling it out.

Someone in the yard called the knight’s name.

“Ah,” he said. “That will be the sacritor, won’t it? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather tell me? You’ll still be lustrated, but at least you won’t be questioned.”

“I’ve been ‘questioned’ by the Church before,” Leoff said, holding up his hands.

“I see. There’s a history, then. Well, it’s a shame. I was really enjoying your company. I can’t believe I was so deceived.”

He rose and went to the door. Leoff closed his eyes, trying to think of something,
anything,
to do.

Nothing came to mind.

CHAPTER TWO

A F
INAL
M
EETING

F
RATREX PELL
turned quickly when he heard Stephen sigh.

“You!” he gasped. Beneath his graying brows, his eyes glimmered with disbelief.

Stephen wagged a finger at him. “You’ve been a bad little boy,” he said. “You and your Revesturi playmates.”

Pell drew himself taller. “Brother Stephen, there is much you don’t know, but even so you should not presume to talk to me in that fashion.” He cocked his head. “How did you get here? This tower is twenty kingsyards high.”

“I
know
,” Stephen replied. “It’s wonderful. Like a wizard spire from the phay stories. And so well hidden! You Revesturi are so clever-clever.
Really
clever. You couldn’t walk last time I saw you, Fratrex Pell.”

“I healed.”

“Oh, you
healed
. That’s impressive. Not as impressive as surviving the explosion at d’Ef, though. My ears are still ringing from that.”

“We were trying to stop the waurm.”

“You didn’t, though. It chased me right up into the mountains, like it was supposed to. Died like it was supposed to. And I—I found everything I was supposed to find. I came here, I suppose, to tell your superiors about your tragic and heroic end—and see what I discover.”

“I have no superiors,” Pell said. “I am the Fratrex Prismo of the Revesturi.”

Stephen crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the wall. “Well, I see that now,” he said. “I can feel your power. Desmond was really lucky to get you from behind.”

“I’m stronger now than I was then.”

“Right,” Stephen said. “As the sedos power waxes. Feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Brother Stephen, time is short. Did you find the answers? Did you discover how Virgenya Dare healed the world?”

Stephen laughed.

Pell watched him impassively. That seemed even funnier than the question, and Stephen’s laughter became uncontrollable. Tears sprang into his eyes, and his ribs hurt.

“Come now,” Pell said after a moment.

But that just made it harder to stop.

When, some time later, he was able to talk again, he wiped his eyes. “She didn’t heal it, you old idiot,” he said, fighting the hiccups. “She poisoned it by drawing on the sedos power. When she realized what was happening, she abandoned the high throne of its power and hid it away to try to control the damage.”

“Are you saying there’s nothing to be done? Did Kauron discover nothing?”

“Of course there is something to be done,” Stephen said. “And Choron discovered the best thing of all: himself.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“That’s wonderful,” Stephen said. “Because I
love
to explain things. It’s my forte, as you must remember from our first meeting. Such a funny trick you played on me, that bit with you pretending to be a simple fratir cutting wood. I didn’t really appreciate it then. I assure you, now I do.”

Pell’s expression grew even more guarded. “What do you have to report, Brother Stephen?”

“Well, first of all, you were completely right about that business about there being no saints, about power being the only reality. It’s true. The sedos power is what holds the world together. It tames and orders the other energies of existence. It keeps everything from rotting into unchecked chaos. And anyone who walks a faneway takes some gift for using that force with him and becomes the conscious agent of that particular energy. But any given faneway allows only limited access to the total possibilities of the sedos—even the greatest ones, such as the one I’ve walked and the one the Fratrex Prismo walks in z’Irbina. And the one
you
walked in the Iutin Mountains, the faneway of Diuvo.”

“How did you know—?”

“Oh, I can see them all now, like constellations in the sky. That’s one of the particular gifts of Virgenya Dare’s secret faneway.”

“Then you can walk them all?”

“I tried walking one near the Witchhorn,” Stephen said. “It’s not enough. Take my analogy that the faneways are like constellations. Now imagine the night sky is a black board with thousands of small holes drilled in it, and the light shining through those holes from behind is the real source of the sedos power. It’s not all the little holes you want to control; it’s the one light behind them. What we call the Alwalder, I suppose. That’s what I’m after.”

“But why?”

“To save the world. To bring order and balance to its eldritch principalities.”

“I thought you just said the sedos power was the source of all of our problems.”

“The source and the solution. Virgenya Dare never saw that. She imagined the problem would just go away, but it was already too late. Still, she must have had an inkling. She made a shortcut for her descendants.”

“What?”

“Never mind that. See, it’s the lack of control and imprecise vision that’s led us to where we are. If someone—one person, not two, or three, or fifty, but
one
—could control the source of the sedos power, one person with a clear vision, all of this could be fixed. I’m sure of it.”

“And who will do this fixing? You?”

“Right,” Stephen said. “Without the mistakes of last time. I think I just got frustrated back then. Ruffled some feathers.”

“What
are
you talking about?” Fratrex Pell asked. “What other time?”

“I told you, already. Choron found himself. I found myself. Me.”

“You’re Choron?” Pell asked incredulously.

“Yes. Or yes and no. Like everything, it’s a little complicated. See, time is a funny thing in the Not World. The man you called Choron and the man you call Stephen are each echo and source of the other, and both were always working toward the promise of the one who will rise when we find the throne. As Choron I never found it. As Stephen I will.”

“Are you saying you are Choron reborn?”

“No. Imagine a plucked lute string. It vibrates side to side, a blur that appears wider than the string, and in doing so produces a tone. Let’s say Stephen is the farthest reach of that vibration on the left and Choron is the farthest reach of it on the right. But it’s the same string, the same tone. We’re one and always have been, even before the string was plucked.”

“This is a lot to ask me to take on faith.”

“Oh, I don’t care if you believe me. After all, you’re Revesturi, always questioning. That’s fine. And I won’t say there wasn’t some fiddling with things to bring them along. As Choron, I broke the law of death and made myself immortal, hoping to survive long enough to find the throne. Of course, my enemies found a way to destroy my body, but I already understood about my echoes in the past and future, and at some point they all understood about me, so together we managed—this. It’s all really very interesting.”

“So you aren’t Stephen anymore.”

“You really aren’t listening, are you?”

The fratrex frowned. “When you talk about Choron becoming immortal, breaking the law of death, being defeated—”

“Yes!” Stephen cried. “I was wondering how long it would take you. This is every bit as much fun as I imagined it would be.”

“You’re the Black Jester.”

“I never called myself that, you know. I think it was suppose to be a bit of an insult.”

“Saints,”
the fratrex breathed.

“Phoodo-oglies!”
Stephen breathed in imitation. “I just made that up,” he confided. “They aren’t real, either.”

“You can’t be the Black Jester and at the same time Stephen Darige,” he said. “Fratir Stephen is good, incapable of the evil things the Jester did. If you are whom you claim to be, I believe you have possessed Brother Darige. Either that or you are merely Brother Stephen gone mad.”

“That’s disappointing,” Stephen said. “You talked so fine about the intellectual purity of the Revesturi, about how your method of reasoning sets you apart from your rivals, and yet here you start with good and evil. It’s sad, really. Was Choron a good man? And yet I promise you, I walked into the mountains as Choron, and a few years later I was the Black Jester. The difference is in power; him you call Stephen is merely the Black Jester without it. But at our center we are the same. Good and evil are judgments, and in this case judgments made without understanding.”

“The Black Jester strapped razors on children’s heels and elbows and made them fight like cocks,” Fratrex Pell said.

“I told you, I was frustrated,” Stephen said. “Maybe to the point of being a little mad.”

“A little?”

“It doesn’t matter. Things have changed, and I see the way clearly now.”

“And what do you see?”

“The sedos throne is emerging again, as it never did in Choron’s time. In fact, it has already emerged in a sense—the waxing of the power has reached its peak. But the complete claim of it by any one person isn’t possible yet. I control a lot of it. The
other
Fratrex Prismo, whoever he is, also has a strong claim. The strongest is that of Anne Dare, because Virgenya left a shortcut to the power that privileges her heir—and founded a secret organization dedicated to making certain that heir would be led to it if the time ever came.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps she thought a descendant of hers would follow in her footsteps, deny the power, hide the throne for another two thousand years.”

“Maybe she would.”

“In the first place, that’s not enough this time. The law of death is broken. The Briar King is dead, and the forests of the world are dying, and when they are dead, we will certainly follow. But do you never
see
? Don’t you have visions?”

“Of course, at times.”

“But you haven’t seen what the world will become if Anne sits the sedos throne?”

“No. I’ve not sought such a vision, and none has come to me.”

“A three-thousand-year reign of terror that makes my small epoch look like a child’s party. And at the end of it, the world passes into nothingness.”

Pell looked troubled but shrugged. “I have only your word for that,” he said. “And visions do not necessarily come to pass.”

“That’s true. And that’s why I’m here.”

“Why?”

“Well, two reasons, really. Like the others who have walked one of the greater faneways, I can see you, at best, in a cloudy fashion.”

“You just said you saw Anne.”

“Only after a fashion. I can see the world she will make. Were you always this obtuse?”

“I—”

“Rhetorical question,” Stephen said, waving him down. “It’s you I’m talking about now. I wasn’t sure who you were, how much you knew, who you are allied with. So I came to discover all of those
fascinating
answers.”

“And the other reason?”

“To strike a bargain. You don’t control enough of the sedos power to challenge Anne. Neither do I. But if I had your gifts, I would have a fair chance.”

“Walk the faneway of Diuvo, then.”

“It doesn’t really work that way, and I think you know it. The power is finite. With minor faneways like that of Mamres or Decmanus, tens or hundreds might have gifts at once and never be diminished. But those such as we have walked are different. For me to gain strength, you must relinquish your gifts to me—a simple process that won’t do you any real damage—or I can take them from you, which will unfortunately involve your discorporation.”

“I can either give you, who claim to be the Black Jester, the power you need to seize the greatest power in the world or die? Are those my only two choices?”

“I’m afraid so,” Stephen said apologetically.

“I see,” Fratrex Pell said, brows lowering.

It wasn’t a long fight, and when it was over, Stephen felt the new gifts settle under his skin. Then he called his captive demon and made it fly from the tower and for several leagues to the south. As he had expected, Pell had unleashed the same explosive power on him that he had on the waurm, and although he could protect himself from that, he didn’t want to risk Zemlé or his faithful Aitivar.

When he came to ground, Zemlé rushed to meet him.

“I heard the sound,” she said. “The sky was full of strange colors. I feared the worst.”

He kissed her and smiled. “I’m glad you worry about me,” he said. “But here there was no need for that. This isn’t where my real test will come.”

“You’ll win there, too,” she said.

Later that night, in their tent, she seemed less certain.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked. “Is this really your task, to challenge the queen of Crotheny?”

He rolled back a bit and propped himself on his elbows. “I’m not sure I understand,” he said. “We went through this back in the mountain. It was you and the Aitivar who were so convinced I was Kauron’s heir, back when I believed it was mere insanity. Well, you were right. Where is this sudden doubt coming from? Are your allegiences still mixed? Do you still think Anne is a savior?”

She gave him a tentative smile. “No. I suppose it’s that I never quite believed it. But I believed in the shy, smart man I met in Demsted. I thought he would find a way to help somehow.”

“Am I so different?”

“No. Stronger. Bolder. All of the things you were becoming anyway, now that I look back. It just happened so quickly.”

“Well, do you still believe in me?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good, then. Do you still want to help me?”

“I don’t see what help I can be,” she said.

He smiled. “You just said it. You believed in me. You still do. That is a strength I can always use.”

“And I love you,” she said.

“And I love you, too,” he said.

He knew she would be a lovely queen. Or mistress, depending on how things went.