Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (29 page)

– Ballad Avadain (232 PA)

Ballad stood at the scuffed little porthole window long after Kaellisem had vanished from sight. The glass city was beautiful, a shining jewel out of legend for a boy born on hard gray Prianus, but that was not what arrested Ballad's attention. It was the crowd that had turned out to bid farewell to the knights and workers on their way to Bherrosi. It was hardly all of Kaellisem, but the two hundred or so Arcadians who came to sing their farewells was a vision that would not leave Ballad.

He had fought with his parents – and those like them – for years, trying in vain to convince them to make something,
anything
of their new home on Prianus. But the Arcadians were resigned to their fate, to the disease and death that ran rampant across the planet. Ballad's own family never thought much of his desire to fight. Even when his younger sister, Aria, was raped and beaten to death by a gang of Prian boys, they would not raise a wing and sang sadly when Ballad did.

Kaellisem wasn't like that. Almost half of the Arcadians there were younger than the queen. Ballad knew that Xartasia was rejecting those fairies born after the fall of their homeworlds. Malla and Hannu talked about it often, always quick to assure their fellow squires how glad they were that Xartasia sent them away. No one ever accused the siblings of lacking loyalty, as far as Ballad knew. Hannu and Malla had been the first of Maeve's guardians. Her first Arcadian ones, at least. Logan Coldhand was first, Ballad knew. Back on Prianus, before anyone had ever heard the name Kaellisem, Logan had been by the queen's side.

Ballad couldn't help but feel a little perhaps undue pride in his human friend. He had been so broken when Ballad met him in Pylos. But now Logan fairly burned with purpose… if not joy these days. Ballad glanced out of the corner of his eye at his commander.

Anthem had landed on the hold's worn catwalk and was organizing the Arcadian volunteers in storing the canisters, boxes and crates they had collected to hold and then transport the sand they would gather from Bherrosi. The senior knight was admittedly handsome and glorious in his shining glass armor and twined blue and silver scarves. The wingless girl, Panna, stood next to him, reading something aloud from a datadex. Her hair was pulled back in a tail, not even trying to hide the surgically altered curves of her ears. Unconsciously, Ballad's wings pulled close against his back. He could not imagine giving up his wings. But despite the twinge of revulsion, Ballad had to admit to some admiration for the wingless fairy girl. Surrounded by her own natural-born people, it must have been hard not to question her decision, but she never seemed to. Panna Sul was always busy, always smiling as she worked.

"What is so fascinating?" asked someone beside Ballad. The voice had what he always thought of as the old world accent, though Ballad knew perfectly well that
he
was the one with a strange Prian accent. "You are staring."

"Sorry," Ballad said. He turned to find one of the new knight trainees standing at the airlock, holding an armload of collapsible shovels. It was the one with the strange eyes that reminded Ballad of a Lyran. "Syle, right? Let me help you with those."

"Thank you." The other Arcadian allowed Ballad to take half of the awkward load and secure it into one corner of the Blue Phoenix's hold. "But you still have not answered my question."

Ballad gestured with the tip of one wing at where Anthem and Panna worked.

Syle smiled. "She is pretty, even mutilated as she is. Or perhaps you mean our lord commander, Sir Anthem. He, too, is lovely. You would not be the first to think him so."

"You mean Queen Maeve?" Ballad asked. He caught himself scowling and tried to stop.

Syle's smile was as wolfish as his eyes. The older squire rolled up the sleeves of his dark red shirt and finished hooking a cargo net around the shovels. "There were others before her," said Syle, lowering his voice. "I did not even realize that Sir Anthem survived the fall of Arcadia, and now I learn that he has spent the last hundred years selling himself to coreworlder men and women."

"Selling…?" Ballad asked. "You mean he was a whore? Anthem?"

Syle nodded. Ballad looked up again. Sir Anthem Calloren was a prostitute? It was hard to imagine, but he knew that plenty of Arcadians who had turned to the sex trade on Prianus and all across the Alliance. Ballad couldn't bring himself to hate Anthem for that. But Syle's yellow eyes were narrowed.

"It seems strange, does it not?" Syle said, echoing Ballad's thoughts. "Sir Anthem is the paramount knight and consort to the queen herself, yet…"

He did not finish the words. Which ones? Ballad could not help wondering.
He has fallen so low? Given up? Sold himself? Tarnished himself?
He turned away from Anthem, frowning. What did it matter? Sir Anthem was training them to be knights, the first knights since the White Kingdom's fall. Whatever else Ballad felt about the man, Anthem deserved his respect for that. But what about the queen? Was Anthem worthy of her?

Ballad's thoughts were not comfortable. They fell down into his chest and would not sit still. He looked for Syle, but the other squire had vanished into the crowd of busy Arcadians. Anthem and Panna were gone, too, working elsewhere on the Blue Phoenix. Ballad stood under the swinging cargo net full of tools as the ship flew north over the desert.

________

"We will have to make more than one trip," Panna told Anthem.

The knight nodded. He was obviously uncomfortable at the mess table. "As you say," he answered. "I am here only to keep you and your workers safe. Economics and industry are beyond me, I fear."

"You're the prince consort," said Panna. She pushed her datadex across the table to him. "You represent Queen Maeve when she isn't here."

"You can simply call her for any decisions that need to be made," Anthem pointed out.

Panna had to laugh. "Yes, that's true. I don't know why, but Gripper stayed back in Kaellisem. If the com system breaks, we're on our own. And it's more than that. You know what Queen Maeve means to the people of Kaellisem. Without her here on the Blue Phoenix, that's what you need to mean to them."

Panna waited for Anthem to sigh, to argue or to tell her that it wasn't really
that
important, but the royal consort picked up the datadex and began to read. His brow furrowed as he struggled to read the Aver, but otherwise worked quietly. Panna blinked a few times and stood, not sure what else to do. She was so used to arguing with Maeve that this felt like cheating somehow.

Panna got herself a bowl of noodles, offered some to Sir Anthem – who declined – and then went up to the cockpit to see if Duaal was hungry. The Hyzaari captain sat in Tiberius' scarred old seat, eyes fixed on the clouds streaming by the Blue Phoenix. He actually jumped when Panna interrupted him.

"Bloody hells, woman," he gasped. "Don't do that!"

"Sorry," Panna apologized. "I just wanted to know if you wanted some lunch."

"Sure." Duaal glanced back over his shoulder, down the narrow corridor past Panna. "Where's Anthem?"

"In the mess. Do you need to talk to him?"

"God, no," snorted Duaal. "Just making sure he's not trying to call up Maeve."

"Why not? He
is
her consort. Sir Anthem will probably need to talk to her at some point during this trip."

"Good luck with that," Duaal said with a laugh.

Panna blinked. "What?"

"The external coms don't work."

"Why not? Gripper said everything was ready!"

"It was," Duaal confided in the small blonde. "Gripper broke it before we left. He can't repair it while he's back in Kaellisem, can he?"

"No," Panna agreed through gritted teeth. "He can't. Why under the bone heel of the Nameless would you do that?"

"Anthem's going to leave Maeve and Logan alone for a few days." Duaal sounded quite satisfied with himself. He grinned at Panna. "I'm sure we'll run into a few other snags along the way."

"Like contacting Bherrosi air control without external coms?" Panna pointed out.

Duaal frowned. "Yeah, like that."

________

Maeve watched the Blue Phoenix disappear into the wispy pink clouds with an unexpected weight in the pit of her stomach. She had been first mate and then a passenger on the old ship for almost five years. Not so long in the lifespan of an Arcadian, really, but so much had changed in those years. When Tiberius first found her on Stray, she had been struggling clumsily to slit her own wrists with her spear. Now she was queen of a city of her own people. Maeve had not touched any chems or even a narcohol bottle in over a year. The bounty hunter she had hired to kill her was her ally now, her friend and…

Logan stood between her and the small crowd that had gathered to bid farewell to the Blue Phoenix. Several of Anthem's students had gone with him, leaving fourteen behind in Kaellisem. But it was the Prian with his mismatched arms crossed over his chest that held the little mob back from their queen. His pale eyes were cold and unyielding.

Maeve retreated from the relentless heat of the crimson sun and into the slightly cooler shadows of Kaellisem. She dismissed her remaining knights – led by Malla until Sir Anthem returned – at the door to her tower. Logan climbed the stairs beside her without a word. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck, soaking and darkening his hair. It stuck like damp feathers to his skin.

At the top of the tower, Dain was filling crystal bowls with some sort of scented oil while Verra struggled with a boxy portable air conditioner. Both girls stopped and inclined their heads to Maeve as she entered. "What can we do for you, Your Highness?" Verra asked.

"Nothing," Maeve answered quickly. "I am fine."

Despite her assurances, the pair of Arcadian girls insisted on following Maeve as she went to the bathroom to rinse the sweat from her face. Dain offered to comb her hair and Verra suggested that it was time to polish the queen's nails again, but Maeve declined.

"Duke Ferris would like to see you at ten," Dain told her.

Suddenly, pointlessly preening her hair and nails did not seem like such a bad idea. Maeve sighed. "Did he say why?"

"His Grace mentioned an
enassui
," Verra answered.

Maeve had to admit that she was curious. That did not sound much like the tedious sort of stuff Duke Ferris usually wanted to talk about. She checked the clock next to the window. Nine forty-seven. Ferris would arrive soon.

Maeve's com chimed. Logan held it out to her. There had been nowhere to carry it in her cross-tied silver dress. Maeve pressed the worn button on the side. "Yes?"

"Hey, Glass. It's Gripper."

Maeve smiled at the little tube of metal and circuits. Yes, she had gathered that much. "What is it?" she asked.

"Is Duke Ferris there?" Gripper said, his voice flattened and tinny through the com.

"Not yet, though the girls say he wants to talk to me."

"Well, I um… need you to come look at something. You and Hunter. Both of you."

Maeve looked at Logan, who watched her without expression. Dain and Verra hovered in the doorway, supervising the queen and her guardian.

"What is it?" Maeve asked. "What requires our attention?"

"Just a thing," said Gripper. He sounded nervous. "Out at the new tower."

Maeve sighed. She did not understand what Gripper wanted, but did not want to dismiss her friend's concerns. "I am sending Logan to you," she said into the com. "I will join you as soon as I am done with Duke Ferris. He wishes to talk about an enassui."

"Enassui?" Gripper repeated. "What's that?"

"It is…" Maeve hesitated. Trying to explain Arcadian ways to non-fairies was like… like trying to tell them what it was like to fly. They could
almost
understand. "It is rather like an opera. A story told in song before an audience. I have not heard one since the White Kingdom's fall."

"So this is important?" Gripper asked, crestfallen.

"Yes."

"Oh."

Feeling obscurely guilty, Maeve turned off the com and gestured to Logan. "You heard that?"

"I'll go," said the Prian hunter.

Maeve watched him leave, staring at the door long after Dain and Verra had gotten out of Logan's way and he had vanished down the spiraling staircase. Dain asked if she wanted… something. Maeve ignored her.

Duke Ferris arrived a few minutes later, smiling broadly. Was it the enassui? Or was the old duke simply that pleased to find Logan absent? Maeve chastised herself for the thought. Duke Ferris' first and only loyalty was their people.

"Good morning, Your Grace," she said, hoping she did not sound as sullen as she felt. "The girls tell me that you want to talk about an enassui."

Ferris turned his approving smile on the two handmaidens. "Indeed so, a'shae," he said. "There is a troupe here in Kaellisem composing a new one."

A
new
enassui? Maeve blinked. "I thought you simply meant a performance. There has not been one in a long time."

"No," Ferris agreed. "But the enassuanii have a new idea. A story of you, my queen."