The Singer's Crown (21 page)

“Never say that! Never again! He is a murderer and a blasphemer who should be hanged from the highest tree, then buried in the deepest hole!” Brianna tore away and stumbled into the temple, but he caught her hand and fell to his knees, eyes shining.

“I'm sorry, Brianna.” Fionvar stared up at her. “Please don't turn from me. Goddess's Tears, Brie, I am sorry.”

“You've been spending too much time with your brother.” She shut her eyes, chin tilted toward the ceiling as tears ran down her cheeks.

“I know. There is so much I can't say to him that when I am with you I want to speak all the words in the world.”

She nodded, sniffling.

“I wish I had not said that. I didn't mean to hurt you, and I know that you are right.” He fell silent at last, and she squeezed his hand, then jerked away. She ran the few steps to where Kattanan lay still on the ground.

“Holy Mother!” Fionvar touched the singer's wrist, and let out the breath he had been holding. “Just a faint, I think. He hasn't been eating.”

“It had better be; they would never forgive you if something happened.”

“I wouldn't forgive myself; he may never be a great king, but then again, he may yet rise to the challenge.” Fionvar glanced toward the wall Kattanan had been reading and frowned. “Can't make out much of it. ‘Now comes the bless-ed'—something I don't recognize—‘he who sings with the stars.'”

“Forget it, Fion. Let's get the king back inside.” She touched his pale forehead, and Fionvar watched her sidelong.

“Before you feel it necessary to revive him,” he muttered. He gathered Kattanan in his arms and rose.

“I hope you don't think I can be wooed away from you by a mere fainting spell. It would require at least a severe concussion.”

“GET UP,
they're gone,” the wizard urged, still looking anxiously toward the road. She tugged the chain. “I'm the one who nearly drowned, not you.”

Jordan groaned. “I had to swim for both of us and haul you up the bank.”

She glared down at him, saying finally, “Well, we could do with a fire, or at least a walk. Lying around in the underbrush won't get us any warmer.”

Jordan dragged his eyes open and sighed. “True.” He regarded the arm's length of chain that tethered them together. “We should look up that friendly blacksmith.”

“It was a joke,” she said flatly.

“No, a possibility. We have made it this far, Finistrel will provide a way for us.”

“You can't possibly believe She cares what happens to a killer like you.”

“I have no illusions about my own salvation, but I may yet have a part to play in that of others.” He bent to pull up a bouquet of wildflowers. “Camouflage,” he said, “take my hand.” He flipped the chain over her head, his arm across her back so that their joined hands rested at her hip.

The wizard, nestled against him, muttered, “I suppose this will keep us warmer.”

He thrust the flowers into her off hand. “If any one asks, we're betrothed.”

“Nice wedding bracelets.”

They ducked under the branches to emerge on the road. Jordan kissed her forehead as a wagon drew near, feeling the stiffness that shot through the wizard's body.

“Nice night for it,” the driver called.

“Aye,” Jordan returned. “The king's guards passed us more than once, though. Do you know anything of that?”

“Someone tried to assassinate the king and escaped. Not to worry, the town's been searched, so whoever it was must be long gone.”

“Thank the Lady,” the wizard said dryly.

“Indeed.” The driver reined on his horse and soon left them behind.

As they approached the town, they crossed a little bridge, and Jordan glanced at the stream below. “This'll likely lead us to the smithy.”

“You don't really propose to ask for his assistance.”

“I might. Are you always so contentious?”

“I'm a wizard chained to the Liren-sha; should I dance for joy?”

“All I expect is cooperation so that both of us can get out of this intact. If you'd prefer, I can chop off my hand right now and have done with it.”

She cocked her head to look up at him. “You didn't suggest my hand.”

“I can fight equally poorly with either hand, and I can't guarantee the survival of the patient, in which case you are the one who must live.”

“Is King Rhys so important to you?” When he did not answer, she mused, “Or perhaps that you think this self-sacrifice will redeem you in Finistrel's favor.”

He snorted. “Nothing I do can outweigh what I have already done.”

“How many men have you killed?” she asked, the tone solemn.

“Of ordinary men, I lost count at one hundred. Of wizards, fourteen.”

“Would they not have killed you if they'd gotten the chance? I would have.”

“It's not really my life they sought, but that of the Liren-sha. How can I hold it against them that they seek to destroy what makes them powerless?”

“That's absurd! Your purpose is to kill wizards, and part of ours to be sure your power does not spread. And you claim to have no grudge against wizards?”

“How can I hold against any man what birth has made him? You were formed with the ability to perform magic, I with the ability to nullify it. I do not spend my time looking for wizards to kill simply because I can do so. Responsible wizards don't look for people to ask them questions simply to take advantage of them.”

“So every wizard you've met is irresponsible, and that's why you killed them?”

“Did I say that I killed every wizard I met, or even that all of them would kill me?”

The wizard looked to the path ahead. “What about me? If I hadn't cast the king's voice, would you have killed me?”

“What crime have you committed that would require your death at my hands?”

“I caused King Gerrod's illness; you yourself said I deserved a public execution.”

Jordan stopped suddenly. “I wasn't passing judgment on you, I was giving them a reason not to kill you right then. I know next to nothing about King Gerrod except that he hates his son and intended to force me to stay there against my will. You made a choice to antagonize a king, knowing that the punishment for your choice is death by their law. I may not approve of your choice or their law, but I have no control over either.”

“My choice. Yet if my choice had been to kill the prince rather than release him, I doubt you would have stood by quietly.”

“If it is in my power to prevent a wrongful death, I will do so.”

“Bold words from one who has caused so many.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “Finistrel forgive me.”

“That could be it ahead.” She pulled him into motion again as they came up to a house with a broad three-sided structure off to one side. It harbored a great hearth, with the coals still glowing. Hammers, tongs, and bars of iron decked one wall. The wizard uncoiled herself from Jordan's arm, dropping the flowers. She plucked a chisel from the shelf and was reaching for a hammer when Jordan flung both of them sideways, landing heavily on top. An arrow glanced off the iron and fell to the dirt.

“This would all be so much easier if you'd stay still, my good wizard.” A round face, painted by the fire's glow, peered under a table at them.

“Anything for you, Broken Shell,” she hissed, scrambling to her knees, but keeping the table between them. “You were always the first to hunt down our own.”

“It's been too long. No one can insult me the way you do. Where is it?”

“I burned it.”

The other laughed lightly. “A treasure of our kind, and you burned it. Hardly likely, but I'll get it from you the other way.” He raised the bow again.

Jordan lunged against the table, shoving Broken Shell off-balance. The shot flew wild, and the bow likewise. Grabbing Nine Stars by the hand, Jordan dashed around the table and drew his sword. “What is this about?”

“Great wrongs that I mean to right, if you will just give me a clear shot.” The other man heaved himself up, smirking.

“You will not kill her.”

“The Wizard's Bane, protecting a wizard? Legend of legends! I won't leave you chained to the body. Indeed, I'd be delighted to release you before she breathes her last.” He slipped a long knife from his boot, but did not raise it.

“Why? What is her crime?” Jordan asked.

“Lying, stealing, seduction under false pretenses—what crime is not hers?”

“Murder, for one,” she said, “torture, rape, to name a few of yours.”

“In service to the pursuit of knowledge, a virtuous pursuit, if fraught with hardship.”

“They were children! We were children.”

“You make me out to be a monster,” he chided. Facing Jordan, he added, “Sometimes the search for truth is not a bloodless one; no one regrets it more than I.”

“There you are wrong!” spat the Wizard of Nine Stars.

“If I had not done what I did, you might have no name, or not one so intriguing. Haven't you wondered, Liren-sha, how she got her name? I admit they died under my care, but she took the nine stars, then she took my property, and I want it back.”

“You weren't bright enough to use it when you had it, or my friends would not have died. Give me the sword, I'll kill him myself.” Her yellow eyes flamed as she turned to Jordan. “There were ten of us, wards of the Church. He petitioned the king, claiming noble intent, to take us into his home, and we went.”

“Oh, you liked it, you liked me,” the large man insisted with a smile. “Life on my estate was better than any orphan could wish. And the cause was noble. You see, I had come into possession of a certain religious text and was eager to discover the truth of it.”

“Religious? The
A-strel Nym
is a vile heresy!”

“And you read every word,” the other snarled.

“You killed nine children trying to make the blood magic work without knowing what would even happen if it did—and you failed! You didn't understand what that power is about. If I had not absorbed their power, it would have driven me insane!” Her hand clenched the chisel.

“If I'd only known you were gifted, I'd have done you first.” He caught Jordan's cold gaze and said, “The power has so many possibilities: to heal using one's own blood, or to pass on knowledge. Surely you can see the value in that. But there must be a wound to heal, and I'd done so well on the cuts and scrapes.” He frowned a little.

“You killed these children to find out if you had the power to heal them”—Jordan raised an eyebrow—“and now, for some unholy reason, you are holding a grudge against this woman.”

“She took the power, don't you see?” Broken Shell swayed a little, his tone near pleading. “I didn't realize until the last that she was taking the power, drawing it from them, so she is really the reason I couldn't heal them.”

“I was eight years old, I didn't even know what I was; but I learned fast.”

“Thanks to the book you stole from me!” The knife flashed forward, swept aside by the longer blade, but not before it had drunk blood. Jordan's sword hacked the air, answered by a cry, then by shouts of alarm as two men bearing lanterns rounded the corner of the house.

“Hold that chisel!” Jordan cried, stooping to pull his companion over his shoulder before plunging into the night. Crashing through brush, Jordan slithered on the muddy bank into the stream, regained his balance, and ran on, sword still in hand. After following the water some distance, he staggered to his knees and splashed under the low bridge. The wizard wriggled from his shoulder to collapse, breathless, against the stone beside him. They lay half in water, not daring a sound, as their pursuers pounded across the bridge, then trudged back again moments later, grumbling as they receded.

Jordan slid the sword home to its scabbard. “Where are you hurt?”

“My leg, just a cut, though, and I'm sure this water will do it a world of good.” She inched forward. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “You did what you could.”

Jordan stared numbly at his hand and did not answer.

“What? What's wrong?” She tucked the chisel through her rope belt and studied his palm. The thin slash across his hand seeped blood around his trembling fingers. The wizard tore a strip of cloth from her already ragged shift and held it out to him. “Sorry, Bane; I would not really have killed the prince.”

The chain clinked as he wrapped his wound. Jordan glanced to their bound wrists. “Perhaps you'd better do the honors.”

Her hands searched under the water and came up with a stone. As she held the chisel against the chain, Jordan did his best to steady it. A few strikes with the stone—painfully loud under the arch—and the chain dangled in two, severed a couple of links from his wrist. The wizard set her tools to the bracelet then, and struck through the hinge pin. She wrapped the length of chain about her wrist. “Once I'm far enough from you, I can take care of this on my own; and you're in no condition to hammer.”

He nodded. “I'll wait here and let you get ahead.”

“You'll be all right, Bane?”

“I've made it this far, and your enemy won't be able to follow as long as I'm in the area. Goddess walk with you.”

“And you, Wizard's Bane.” She started to move toward the entrance and looked back at him. “I wonder where we would be if you and I were just ordinary people.”

“Fare thee well, my lady,” he said, then added, in the most ordinary tone he could muster, “My name is Jordan.”

“I don't think I've ever been called ‘my lady,' at least not in my natural form.” Their eyes met, and she murmured, “‘Alswytha' used to be my name, a long time ago.”

“Take my best wishes to King Rhys, Alswytha”—Jordan gave a little smile—“whether he wants them or not.”

“I'll do that.” She vanished out into the night.

 

ROLF WAS
nodding as his relief arrived, but sleep was not to be. A panting Thomas trotted up and bobbed into a little bow. “His Highness begs your attendance.”

“Begs?” The huge man chuckled. “Aye, lad, I'm coming.” He unfastened his helmet as he walked, slinging his shield over his back, where it beat the rhythm of his steps.

They chatted about the boy's studies until they reached the library. Thomas gripped the handle of the massive door, but Rolf caught it over his head and swung it open easily. When their eyes adjusted to the dim light, they worked their way back to the prince's desk. Several large maps spread haphazardly over the desk and bench, with Wolfram yawning as he bent over one, following a line with his finger.

“Good morrow, Your Highness. I trust you had a productive night.”

Wolfram flashed him a brief smile. “I think I solved the Lirensha's riddle.”

“‘There is no map,' he said, Highness, so why all these maps?”

“Look here,” the prince said, pointing to a parchment. “Bernholt, right? And this”—he plucked another from the pile—“is Lochalyn; this river forms the border.”

“Aye, Highness, nice and wide.” Rolf leaned on the desk to peer at the maps, while Thomas lifted his chin to look on.

Wolfram traced it with his finger to a point near Gamel's Grove where the river bent its course away from the high ground toward the ocean. “If this ran straight, we'd have some extra land in the highlands on the other side.”

“But it doesn't, Highness.”

“On the Lochalyn map, the same river, but the bend is in the opposite direction.”

“None of these maps are entirely accurate, Highness, even the ones where they get wizards to fly overhead.”