Limits of Power (40 page)

C
ortes Immer's broken walls had been repaired, its towers rebuilt. Filis had only a glimpse of this before he was dragged inside, then down level after level to the old dungeon. His belly clenched with more than hunger. He would die here, and die in some horrible way, he was sure. He tried to set himself to accept that and save what little honor he could. Whatever the threat, he would not betray his family.

When Alured the Black—the Duke of Immer, his guards announced—finally appeared, he looked Filis up and down with obvious contempt. “I could wish it had been any of the others,” he said. “I know about you. The troublemaker. Quarrelsome, gambler, drinker. Your father may count himself lucky you ran off, though he may worry about what secrets you brought.” He stood silent a long moment, while Filis tried to hold himself with dignity. Alured was much as his father and brothers had described: tall, well made, black hair in a braid now decorated with ribbons in his colors rather than the green feathers he'd worn in Siniava's War. He wore gold armlets, a wide collar set with jewels, and over that a necklace that flashed in the dimness like sunlit water, blue and white.

The necklace … he looked away, hoping his face showed nothing. Alured smiled. “You recognize this?”

Best not to answer. But pressure built in his head, as if to burst his skull, and he heard himself say the truth: “I never saw that before.”

“But you heard of it.”

“Yes.”

“And you know what it is part of?”

“I have not seen it.”

“But you have heard … no, do not answer. You must have heard; I know the gossip in Valdaire and Foss Council and Vonja, all the way downriver.” He shook his head. “If only you were more valued by your father, Filis, I would use you. But though we shall wait to see, I think he will not waste much to trace you. If that should be true, you will have no value to me. Think on that.” He turned away, said a few words Filis could not hear to the guards, and went back up the stairs.

What came next was a black hole into which he was shoved and a heavy lid slamming down over the opening. He had no way of knowing how long he huddled in the dark; it was too small to lie down in comfortably, the stone walls and floor rough, chill, and damp. Though he could stand, his outstretched arms touched the sides. Hunger and thirst tormented him; when he was finally pulled out, he was too weak to walk and fainted.

Cold water splashed on him, wetting cracked lips and dry tongue. He opened his eyes. Men stood around him, wearing Immer's colors. He lay on a platform; beyond the men he saw only dimness. They soused him again, rubbed him down with ungentle hands, yanked his head up by the hair. One got a hand behind his shoulders and shoved him upright so that his legs dangled over the edge. One offered a mug. “Drink this.”

Thirst rode him; he drank in gulps as the man held the mug to his mouth. Sour wine, certainly not of Andressat's vintage; he recognized the grape as a wilding that grew across southern Aarenis. He shouldn't drink it—he needed water, not wine—but he was too thirsty to resist the second mug offered.

The same hand took the mug away and shoved a piece of coarse bread at his mouth. “Eat.”

Maybe the bread would help. He ate. His stomach, roiling from the wine, settled. A small chunk of cheese followed the bread. He managed not to spew, and shortly after that found himself strapped upright to a wooden chair. Muzzy-headed as the wine made him, he was still trying to understand what might happen when Alured—Immer—came in.

“How much?” Immer asked without looking at Filis.

“Two mugs, m'lord.”

“Excellent.” Immer swung around, and the men brought forward a padded stool; Immer sat, facing Filis. He smiled—a smile that seemed all good humor for a moment before it vanished. “Now, then, Filis Andressat. You have had time to consider your position. I have had time to consider you.” He paused, put out his hand, and one of the men handed him a mug. He sipped, without taking his gaze from Filis, then held his hand out without looking, and the man took the mug, setting it on the table where Filis had been laid. “You stink less,” he said then. “I told them to clean you up. You've had drink and food. Let's see if you're worth your keep. Tell me, Filis, what value you have for me.”

The pressure he had felt before squeezed Filis's head; he fought the compulsion to say … to say whatever Immer wanted to hear. How could the man do this? It must be some kind of magery, but no one had said Alured—Immer—was a mage. Filis shut his eyes, trying to think clearly through the wine fumes and the pressure.

“Come now,” Immer said. “Open your eyes.” His voice was gentle, coaxing. Filis's eyes opened as if on springs. “You see, Filis, you will yield. Thirsty men drink whatever they can find, eh? You wished it were not wine. You feel the wine now, I see in your eyes, but it was not merely wine.”

Filis looked around the room, desperate for something other than Immer's face, Immer's peculiar eyes, to focus on.

“We're alone now,” Immer said, in the same gentle tone. “You need not fear witnesses to your weakness, your treachery.” In an instant, his expression shifted; the deep black eyes seemed flat as shiny river stones. “Any other witnesses, that is. You should fear me.” Then Immer's eyes gained their depth again, and the man's mouth curved in what could pass for a friendly smile. “But not yet. Now …
are
you worth your keep?”

Filis's lips parted against his will, and he heard himself say, “Yes … lord.”

“Good,” Immer said, his smile wider. “Very good. Tell me … did your father find my ancestry in his archives?”

Filis tried again to stay silent, but as Immer's expression shifted again and his eyes took on the fixed, flat stare … once more Filis heard his voice saying, “No, lord.”

“No Vaskronin in his archives?”

“No, lord.”

“And what of his own ancestry? Is it as high as he claims?”

“I…” His father had once claimed higher. Now he did not. Filis felt the wine, the drugs, and Immer's power compelling him to speak, but this time he did not know which truth Immer wanted. “When?” he finally said.

“When? That's not an answer. I ask the questions here.” Then Immer's expression softened. “Your father traveled north … I have word he went to Lyonya and Tsaia and spoke to Kieri Phelan and King Mikeli of Tsaia. Is that so?”

“Yes, lord.”

“Why did he go?”

“I … do not know. I was not there when he left.”

“But he told you when he returned, I'm certain. What did he tell you, Filis?” A pause, then, “I heard a story that he found something in the archives, something that upset him, and he told those in the north … and he would have told you later. The story I heard was he found his ancestry was tainted. Is that true?”

Filis almost choked, but the words escaped in spite of his resistance. “Yes, lord.”

“You see, it is no use resisting, Filis. The wine, the truth potion, my own powers—you are helpless. And yet you do have something I want and need.” Immer stood abruptly and walked around the chair, still talking, running his fingers lightly along Filis's bare shoulders. “Your father … has contempt for me. I will not tolerate that. He has refused my requests—my polite requests. He must be made to submit to my rule. If courtesy will not serve, then I must try something else. This scar here, on your shoulder—how long have you had that?”

“Since I was nine winters,” Filis said. He shivered; Immer's presence at his back was like a cold wind.

“Ah. So your family knows that scar. But one is not enough. Let's see … this looks like a blade-cut, here on your upper arm. You weren't holding your shield high enough.”

Filis felt a yank on his hair and Immer's fingers running over his scalp. “No scars here, that I can feel. But—how interesting. Your ears—”

His brothers had teased him about his ears when he was a boy.

“Very distinctive shape. So. Enough easy marks for your father to recognize.”

Filis did not flinch. He'd known from the first he was going to die in this place. His father probably knew it, too. If they sent his father his body, that would be no worse.

Immer sat down again in front of him, smiling pleasantly at first, as he had before, as a host might smile at a welcome guest. He said nothing, merely looked at Filis. The black eyes shifted again from the lively sparkle to flat opacity—first one then the other, several times, as Filis struggled to make sense of it. With that change came another; Immer's expression changed with the eyes. Why? What was happening? Then, past the hunger, the fear, the wine, and whatever had been in it, he remembered the story his father had told them, of the Fox Company sergeant blinded by a demon trying to invade him.

Something was
inside
Immer. Something … some
one
? Another memory struggled up through the thickening haze of wine and magery: stories from the north, of the Verrakaien who could move from body to body, taking over …

“No,” he said, his voice shaking with sudden terror. “No!”

The flat cold gaze lay on him now like snow. “No,” Immer said—or the being in Immer said. The voice had changed along with the eyes. “You do realize what I am … but no, I have no desire to move from this body to you. He is stronger even without me than you are. You will be spared that … but not the knowledge that you will never be able to tell your father—or anyone else—what you know.” Immer's hand touched his knee, almost a caress. “Your father will have proof of my power, but not that knowledge, when he unwraps the present I will send him.” Immer's expression changed again to the more lively one. “You know you want to ask, Filis. Every man wants to know at such times.”

He did not want to know; he knew already it would be more than he could bear, but pressure filled his head again, forcing his mouth to say the words Immer wanted to hear. “What present?” he asked.

“A work of art,” Immer said. “Leatherwork.”

Cold sweat broke out on Filis's body. He could imagine his father's face … his father's reaction … his brothers' faces. He told himself it was no worse than any other death. But he could not believe it, not with Immer's satisfied smile in front of him.

Chaya, Lyonya

M
idsummer. A year ago, Kieri had waited here for his grandmother, for the ancient rites that the human and elven rulers of Lyonya performed, singing the sun up. Now … he had no idea what to do. The Lady was dead; Orlith was dead; Amrothlin swore he did not know of equivalent rites. The old human rites would do for humans, but for elves? And besides, under that flower-strewn mound lay the remains of a mysterious settlement he still knew nothing about.

He started up the hill in the King's Grove two days before the ceremony, leaving Arian below with the Squires. Though the path marked with small white stones still led straight up, he stepped aside at an urge he could not have explained and began walking around the hill instead, climbing slowly in a spiral … but not a spiral exactly, for sometimes he turned back and sometimes paused, baffled. It felt almost familiar, and yet not familiar. It was midday when he finally reached the flattened summit where the Oathstone stood, where he had been crowned, where he and the Lady had pledged their commitment to the land and taig.

“And now what?” he asked aloud. “What am I supposed to do now, with no elf to sing the song with me, no way to repair the elvenhome?” He put his hand lightly on the Oathstone.

You
came.

Was that the voice of the skull he had found at Midwinter?

“I am here,” he said.

They
are
gone.

“If you mean the Lady and the elvenhome, yes, they have gone. That is not a good thing, I deem.”

It
is
almost
Midsummer. Come, then, and sing your own song, and see.

Kieri shivered despite the warm sun. “I will be here at the rising of the sun,” he said. “And I will sing.”

You
will
see. The King's Justice will restore us.

“This king wants justice for all,” Kieri said. “Not just for a few.”

Fair
deeds
must
match
fair
words.

That was clear enough. Kieri bent and kissed the stone, then walked back down the mound, once more in a spiraling pattern.

On Midsummer itself—had it been only one year before that he had first sung the sun up with the Lady, and first encountered the elf-maid who wanted to marry him?—Kieri followed all the rituals he had learned then. Dressed in the same white robe, he led the procession into the King's Grove and went up the mound alone, his followers forming a circle at its foot. He watched the stars move across the sky, waiting until the moment the Summerstar touched the oldest blackoak's crown.