A Path to Coldness of Heart (48 page)

Silence followed. Everyone eyed the Colonel. Ragnarson figured he was paraphrasing somebody. Gales did not go on, nor did he give credit.

Michael said, “That’s true. But it doesn’t matter. That kind aren’t a problem now and they won’t be if they’re given no fuel for the fires they want to set.”

“We’ll find a way.”

Everyone looked at Ragnarson. That made no sense. He added, “You wanted to engineer unity by showing off a transfer gate.” He looked at his wife. “A good idea, only some Nordmen obstructionist will claim that it was left over from the occupation or when Mist was here.”

Gales said, “That point did not elude us. It wouldn’t stand up, though. Everyone knows that Varthlokkur has been underfoot. The Unborn has been around a lot, too, and easterners have been seen by people definitely not part of our cabal.”

Nathan Wolf offered his first comment. “Most people want an excuse to get along. Today’s divisions mostly start right here, with us.”

Gales grunted agreement. The sorcerer did the same.

Ragnarson said, “You’re right.” He waited. Nobody else had a comment. He looked Inger in the eye. She looked back without flinching.

Memories were in the air, not all nostalgic. Sherilee was on both their minds. Ragnarson did understand that his liaison had hurt Inger.

He had not thought that way before. He got caught in the moment… Which was not unusual. People did not think ahead and did not worry about consequences. But now he had positioned himself so that thinking that way was expected. His role demanded it. Making bad personal choices promised bad choices made as a ruler—and had that not shown itself clearly in the east already?

“Understand this. The Bragi Ragnarson you see here isn’t the Bragi Ragnarson who roared off through the Savernake Gap. That Bragi’s ordeal forged a better man—I hope.”

Ozora Mundwiller proclaimed, “Here comes the part you won’t like.”

Ragnarson scowled. She was not intimidated. He was half her age and a man besides. She had spent the night with him, observing, chiding, once threatening to paddle his behind if he kept on being immature.

“The most excellent lady from Sedlmayr is correct. This won’t be popular but it will help you stop wondering about my relationship with Shinsan.”

Inger said, “Do talk about that, husband. The Thing will bring it up, I promise.”

Everyone wondered how he and Michael could materialize so suddenly. Michael might have been close by all along, yes, but they all knew that he had not been.

“Both… Varthlokkur and Shinsan have joined forces. Haroun bin Yousif and the Disciple are with them, too, believe it or not. They have combined to battle the world’s oldest fiend. The prospects don’t excite me but I may choose to get in on that, too.”

Michael gestured a demand for quiet. “Yes. Him. The first step on that path is that we no longer mention him directly. We don’t name anything commonly associated with him, either. There are spells floating around that warn him whenever people start talking about him.”

Ragnarson said, “Michael may choose to participate, too.”

Inger announced, “I don’t understand. Why?” The others nodded.

Even the sorcerer’s girlfriend seemed curious.

“I’m not sure I get it all myself. You’d need to be Mist or Varthlokkur to do that, I guess. It’s like the Kavelin disease, only for the whole wide world. On the surface it does seem like a good idea to get shot of the mind behind the world’s pain.”

Michael volunteered, “We’re like soldiers on the line. We’re letting the generals do the fine thinking. Maybe we’ll fight. They hope we will. They’ve conveyed their reasoning. We can do our part without grasping the nuance. No one can make a case that this enemy is good for the world.”

Ragnarson and Trebilcock understood a fraction of what Mist and Varthlokkur were up to—which was an order of magnitude more than anyone else did. The Star Rider was not just weather, he was weather that happened somewhere else. He was not really real to most people.

Ragnarson stipulated that. “I don’t expect conviction from you if we get caught up in this, just that you give us the benefit of the doubt during the struggle.” He sounded like he was leaning toward getting involved.

Michael gave him no chance to clarify. “We’ll probably participate because it will require the combined efforts of a lot of people—most of whom spend their lives at each other’s throats because of him.”

Ragnarson added, “If his victims gang up… It wouldn’t mean an end to conflict. I’m not naïve enough to think that. But persistent aberrations like Hammad al Nakir, grotesqueries like the Great Eastern Wars and Shinsan’s massively destructive conflicts with Matayanga and Escalon, that will all be a lot less likely. That old villain won’t be shuffling from faction to faction, stirring the cauldron. He won’t be pushing Magden Norath and Greyfells types in where things would stay peaceful otherwise.”

Inger said, “You can only put some of what happened off on other people.”

“Too true. I paid in pain, misery, and loss, and I’m still paying.”

Trebilcock said, “You meant to whip up support by making Shinsan a boogerman. Well, Shinsan has been up to mischief involving Kavelin, but nothing wicked. The Empress wanted…” He could not explain just what Mist had in mind. That could be nostalgia at work instead of Kavelin being a cog in the machinery meant to silence the tyranny of the Star Rider. Her invisible engine remained perfectly hidden inside her own mind. Her progress toward assembling its parts remained obscure.

Ragnarson thought he knew all the people and parts but he could not get them to sift down into a recognizable pattern.

He did see that she had stripped the villain of resources—if you called people he used resources, like timber and ore.

Old Meddler must still be whining about the loss of Magden Norath.

“Bragi!”

He started. Inger was barking. “What?”

“You stopped talking in the middle of telling us how Shinsan has become our beloved friend. Where did you go?”

Sarcasm? He had not seen that side of his wife before. “The land of confusion. Boggled by the awesome scope of my ignorance.” He paused, chose his words. “I don’t trust anybody much anymore. Not even me. Maybe especially not me. But I do trust Mist, on this, as far as I trust anybody.”

Michael grumbled, “You’re saying the same stuff over, pretty much.”

“I’m out of practice saying things out loud.”

“He was in solitary confinement.”

“Hell, I wasn’t even conscious for a long time. Luck and a good turn I did earlier are the only reason my bones aren’t scattered across that hillside, too.”

He went away again, to that day and the last angry hour of his embarrassment, when men ran at the critical instant, the moment when a touch of stubborn would have claimed the day. For half his captivity his purpose had been to get back here so he could inflict deep and abiding pain on those who had abandoned him.

He was not over that yet. The rage remained but he had a harness on it now. It no longer obsessed him. And, he realized, he no longer recalled exactly who he had scheduled for the headsman’s ax. Anger had become habit.

Inger demanded his attention again. “You haven’t made clear what you hope to accomplish personally, nor have you given us any convincing reason why we should put up with you trying to do it here.”

There it was, on the table, not bluntly, but insistence that he make a case for his right to stroll in and take charge.

The suggestion that he had lost that right caught him on the wrong foot—despite his having spent months wanting to make war on his own people. But that had been a lust for draconian vengeance, not an assertion of a right to rule. Not even his enemies could argue that he was not king. Could they?

He said it. “I am the King.”

And Michael said, “There it is. The gauntlet thrown down, without forethought, in an unfavorable venue. Majesty.” The latter spoken with an edge.

“Huh?”

Oh.

Babeltausque suddenly wore a bland, inane, innocent expression.

Not good, that.

Bragi had trotted right into a diminutive version of his disaster in the east. Once again he had moved without thinking, never really considering the chance that these people would not accept him.

Well, yes, he had thought about it, some, but not seriously. He did have that blind spot. Why would they resist? He was the King.

But it was clear that Inger’s men would resist if she wanted that. They could make this as unhappy a day as the one on that hill.

Castle Krief’s dungeon would not be as comfy as the Karkha Tower.

Babeltausque, Gales, and Wolf awaited their cue from Inger. Even the babysitter seemed ready to act. And her potential was entirely unknown.

Michael did not look ready to sacrifice himself. The others, Kristen included, showed little interest in anything but watching. Which was exceedingly irksome.

He tried to remain calm. “I didn’t come here looking for a fight.”

Inger said, “Of course you didn’t. It never occurred to you that anyone would do anything but jump when you barked.”

He was perplexed. Maybe Inger was not articulating clearly.

She continued, “I’ll take a passive approach. I’ll give you your head. A dole out the rope strategy. Will you embarrass yourself?”

She was less frightened and rattled than she had been. She had a plan. She would let him strangle himself. He had shown that he could.

Would her thugs try to nudge him off the precipice?

She said, “I paid attention back when I was your new bed bunny.”

That hurt. He had not thought of her as a toy, ever. He never thought that about any woman he loved.

He nearly broke a smile. Some of his lovers might not agree. Women saw things through different eyes.

Inger said, “So I will defer, publicly. I’ll be the dutiful wife. I won’t make your road any rockier. I’ll help where I can and I’ll remain blind in the matter of that…girl. Your mistress. Purported.”

Kristen hissed. There was no readiness to forgive in her.

Inger said, “I had nothing to do with what happened.”

Ragnarson nodded. “I know. I got to interview the assassin, courtesy of Varthlokkur and the Unborn.”

Kristen hissed again.

“I’ve made my peace with that, as much as I can.” He had made arrangements to bring Sherilee to Vorgreberg. She would lie not far from Fiana and Elana… Where their ghosts might meet?

Inger’s henchmen were more relaxed now. Wolf seemed mildly disappointed.

Inger said, “Let’s stay focused on the Thingmeet. You can explain Shinsan’s plans then.”

“No. Mist wants to be remembered as the one who saved the world from its worst ever plague. We can’t just shout out and let him know it’s coming.”

Babeltausque asked, “Will her feelings be hurt if you don’t convince us?”

“I think that if what it takes to win is her having to look like the bad guy lurking in the weeds she’ll put on the ugliest mask she can find, then sing weird songs while she prances and postures… Michael?”

Trebilcock was laughing. “Sorry. I was imagining her putting her dignity aside far enough to dance where somebody might actually see her.”

“Villain. You have a filthy mind.”

“Hey. She is a good-looking woman.”

Ragnarson grinned himself once the image got inside his head. “She would be a vision, wouldn’t she?”

...

Ekaterina asked, “Do you have a dancing girl outfit, Mother?” deliberately provocative.

Mist glowered.

In her most naïve voice Nepanthe said, “You’d look good. Not like me. Twenty years ago, maybe. Now I’m all doughy.”

Lord Yuan was past being interested in women in scanty attire. “Ladies, can we focus?”

Mist turned away from spying on Ragnarson, irked but also arching the back of her vanity like a cat inclined toward more petting. She was disappointed, though Ragnarson had achieved more than she had expected. He could have concerned himself more with her mission and less with her physical form, however.

Even so… No. Good as it felt, the effect would fade. “Lord Yuan?”

“The instrument favored by that one is now in frequent play.”

“You said it isn’t worth tracking, yet you have been keeping watch?”

“Yes. I have men underemployed because of the peace. It keeps them occupied. The old devil did get busy. For a while he was up to something involving the man who killed the king of Hammad al Nakir.” He checked the proximity of the desert people. “Once he finished…”

“He headed east. Scalza has been tracking his mount, which has been giving him trouble. It acts like it’s coming down with something.” Louder, she asked, “Anyone know if horses get arthritis?”

Swami Phogedatvitsu responded, “Probably. Most domesticated animals do if they live long enough.”

Snide Scalza asked, “Does that mean people are domesticated?”

“A strong argument can be made for just that, youngster.”

Ekaterina flashed a ha-ha! face from where she hovered over Ethrian.

Mist grumbled, “Worry about that some other time. What is the villain up to right now? Anyone know? Where is he headed?”

Scalza said, “He’s already there, Mother. He was headed east-northeast, avoiding towns and cities. He’s missing now, but there’s no obvious destination out there. It must be somewhere hidden.”

“Show me on a map. Varthlokkur has a whole raft of those things around here somewhere.”

He had scores. It took just minutes to root out one of a scale small enough to show the world from the ocean in the west to the barren shores of the east. It was particularly detailed where the Dread Empire was concerned. Mist was not pleased.

A dozen people crowded round, Ethrian and the Old Man among them. The latter indicated an archipelago off the eastern coast. “Ehelebe.”

Ethrian added, “Nawami.”

“Nawami,” the Old Man agreed. “That way,” indicating the nothing beyond the eastern edge of the map. “Yesterday. Long time.”

“Where is Sahmaman?”

The specialists attached to them crackled with excitement.

Lord Yuan had to be the killjoy. “Intriguing matters but not what we should concentrate on right now.”