Limits of Power (48 page)

When he looked around, he saw he was not even a hundred paces from the clearing where the shrine to his mother stood. As he neared it, radiance moved with him, spilled across the clearing, spreading to the tent where his Squires slept … and then beyond. He stood still, awestruck. This was unlike the first time light had come to him, when Torfinn was wounded. He felt no exhaustion, no sense of power leaving him. The light moved but had a definite edge, like … like the Lady's elvenhome.

He heard noise within the tent, his Squires rousing, muttering, then crying out, “The king! The king! He's gone!” and they came out, half asleep, shading their eyes from the light. “Sir king!” they called, as if they could not see him.

“I'm here,” he said, and, through the waning hours of night, told them all that had happened.

K
ieri rode in silence most of the way back to Chaya. He tried to imagine what he would tell Arian, what he would tell the Council, what questions he would ask of whom, in what order, but the wonder and horror of what he had seen, what he had done, dominated his thoughts. The light that now, as he rode, moved with him, barely perceptible in sunlight but clearly seen before dawn and after dusk, was a constant reminder that he was, at least in some measure, what the Lady had been and what his mother had hoped for.

Impossible, Amrothlin had said, but what would his uncle say now? What would the other elves say? Or—given his Squires' response—what would his human subjects say? He was not even sure how it had come to him. Was it all the elvenhome gift from his mother, or were the jewels the Lady had worn, the ring and torc that had been his mother's, part of what created it?

Around him the forest acknowledged his new power, the trees singing their slow songs he could now hear, the birds and animals calling to him, naming him their lord. As the power upheld him, he felt the weight of responsibility.

All the beauty he had admired on his way into the old forest he must now take as his duty. As limbs had dropped into his hands after he killed the elf, limbs would drop or burgeon at his request. He shivered again. No mortal could possibly … and yet … he was. As with the unasked kingship, he must find a way to be what he had never imagined.
Change
nothing
now,
he thought at the forest.
There
is
time.
He hoped there would be time. Surely the Lady had not done something every day, every minute. Elves cautioned against haste. He would not be hasty.

He tried focusing on the objects he had received. The torc, the ring, the belt clasp, the jewels from the dead elf's hair … and the tiles. What was that white core of the torc? A sea-beast's tusk? He had never seen anything like it, and he was not, he suspected, likely to see it again. The belt clasp, he thought, was of human origin; he had seen enameling like that—discounting the tiny letters that appeared when he touched it and disappeared shortly after—in Aarenis. The dragon in his ring, appearing and disappearing under the fern carved above it—what was that? An elf and dragon symbol, as the stone in his father's ring was an elf and human symbol? That these were magical he knew, but not what the magic was, except that the traitor elf had said they had something to do with the elvenhome power.

Halfway to Chaya, they met his Squires Ceilar and Jostin returning with supplies, and halted early.

“Sir king …?” Ceilar looked shocked. Jostin shook his head, and Ceilar fell silent.

“I will tell you,” Kieri said, “when we have eaten.” They both nodded, and all the Squires set about making camp. Kieri bespoke the trees for firewood and then with a gesture opened the carpet of moss that here covered the soil, making a bare space safe for fire.

“It will close again when we have put the fire out,” Kieri said to the Squires. He left them to light it. That first hot meal in days seemed unduly rich to him; they all ate without speaking, but as soon as it was done, he spoke again.

“What did you see, as you came near?” Kieri asked Ceilar and Jostin, with a glance for each.

“That light, sir king,” Jostin said.

“You looked like the Lady,” Ceilar said. “Because of the light. But like yourself—more than yourself.”

“I will tell you what happened,” Kieri said. When he finished, he asked for news of Chaya. “Are many elves in the city now?”

“Not many, sir king,” Jostin said. “Though they come and go. Amrothlin is there, staying in that inn they favor, according to Queen Arian. What do you think they will do when they see you with … what you have?”

“I don't know,” Kieri said. “Amrothlin told me repeatedly that it was impossible I should have this power … but I am sure he will recognize it. I hope he will help me learn to use it.”

“With branches falling into your hands and the moss opening at your hand to make a fire-pit, I would think you already know,” Ceilar said.

Kieri chuckled. “I know a little, true, but the whole … As I understood Amrothlin, an elvenhome binds elves within it to the vision of the one who generates the elvenhome.”

“And humans?” asked Panin.

“I don't know. Do you feel bound by anything other than your oath as Squire?” Kieri looked around the circle. Four Squires looked back, serious, thoughtful.

“I am not sure,” Linne said after a moment. “I—I feel strange. Like you, sir king, I am half-elven; I feel … something … when I am inside the glow … that I do not feel outside, and it is new. It is as if the two parts of my heritage are more … are aware of each other. As if I had two persons inside me.”

“Does that trouble you?” Kieri asked.

“Not … now,” Linne said.

“I feel nothing different than I did before,” Jostin said. “Aside from the wonder of it. I admired you from the first. That's what made me want to be a King's Squire. But I have little elven heritage, if any.”

“What is your vision for this land?” Panin asked.

“What it was before,” Kieri said. “For this beautiful land and those who live in it to be healthy, to prosper, to flower into greater beauty as the gods give grace.”

“It does not take elven magery for me to want the same,” Panin said.

The next morning, as the Squires packed the horses, Kieri fetched a bucket of water to quench the last coals. As the first drops hissed, water rose from below, faster even than the water pouring from the bucket. The soil opened; the burnt sticks and ash swirled downward with the water. Soil closed back over it all, and moss flowed across the soil as swiftly as a carpet unrolled, leaving no trace. Kieri stared; he had not consciously asked such a thing. “Thank you,” he murmured, but whether to the taig or the gods he did not know.

O
n the last day of travel, Kieri discussed with the Squires what might happen when they reached the city. “Though I can contract the elvenhome almost to myself alone or expand it to cover us all—and more—it will be obvious to any elves and, I suspect, to most Lyonyan humans.”

Jostin nodded. “It will be seen, and it will surprise people. Frighten some but please others.”

“Questions,” Kieri said. “I'm sure there'll be many questions, and to some I have no answer. For others I have answers, but I must speak first to Arian, my uncle Amrothlin, and the Seneschal.”

“The ring and torc will be noticed as well, sir king,” Linne said.

“It is likely,” Panin said, “that this new power will help you silence questions you are not yet ready to hear.”

“A dangerous precedent,” Kieri said, shaking his head. “I do not want to evade questions, merely delay answers, and only briefly.”

“Do you still believe that elf was the only traitor in the Lady's domain?” Jostin asked.

“I do,” Kieri said. “But not the only danger. The iynisin—we may have blocked them from entering the palace, but we do not know where all such patterns are.”

In the long summer afternoon, they rode into Chaya itself. The bubble of light that had been scarcely visible in the sun now brightened and expanded as they neared the inn the elves favored. Even as Kieri glanced at the inn, elves hurried out the door, Amrothlin in the lead, and stared at him. The elvenhome transmitted their reaction—the mix of hope, disbelief, fear, with touches of anger … and more longing.

“You … I cannot believe it, and yet I must—” Amrothlin had tears in his eyes and took a step forward, one hand out as if to touch something fragile. “It is … real,” he said. “
Real.
How?”

“It can't be!” another elf said. He pushed past Amrothlin, drawing his blade, and the light blazed … He cried out and staggered back. “It's not the elvenhome—it's some evil—”

“Put down your blade,” Kieri said. “And then see. You cannot come within, intending to harm me.” He wasn't sure that was true, but it made sense. “Amrothlin, come within and tell them.”

Amrothlin came without hesitation, his eyes shining. The change in his expression once he was within astounded Kieri, for he had not witnessed an elf moving from without to within the elvenhome before. A relaxation, a joy, lit Amrothlin's face with his own light. “It
is,
” he said. “It is real.” Two more elves pressed nearer, then another. As they did so, the light expanded again, as if enfolding elves enlarged it without Kieri's intent.

The elf who had drawn his blade sheathed it and edged forward, still wary. Kieri smiled at him. “Come,” he said. “I intend you no harm.”

“If indeed you have done this without harm to the Sinyi, I honor you,” the elf said. “If not—”

“See for yourself,” Kieri said. As quick as his thought, the elvenhome light engulfed the doubter, and his face, too, relaxed.

“How did this happen?” Amrothlin asked.

“I do not know,” Kieri said. “But I have much to tell, and more questions for you, Uncle.”

“Will you restore the elvenhome and keep it apart, my lord?” asked one.

“Not the way it was,” Kieri said. “But there will be an elvenhome, do not fear.”

With a half dozen elves walking beside the riders, and the elvenhome glow shimmering over them all, people in the streets stopped and stared. Some shrank back; some pushed forward. One ran pell-mell toward the palace. Kieri smiled and waved at them, but did not stop to explain, riding on at a foot pace. The elvenhome enlarged his elven senses; he understood the elves around him better than he ever had.

At the palace he met the same astonishment mixed with concern and joy. Only Arian, who had known the secret of his heritage, showed unalloyed joy, a joy he felt directly when the elvenhome welcomed her in.

As soon as he could, using the excuse of his travel, he escaped to his own suite to bathe and change.

“What was the Ladysforest like?” Arian asked.

“More beautiful than I can say,” Kieri said. “I thought Lyonya's forest was beautiful the moment I arrived, but this … this was more. You must see it for yourself.”

“I want to.”

“I found the place where we—” His voice broke for a moment. “Where my mother was killed and I was taken.”

“Kieri, how horrible.”

“It was … but it wasn't, in the end. Let me tell you.” He told it all—the memories the place brought back, the treasures restored to him, the traitor elf, the revelation of his new powers. “I feel whole in a way I never have before.” He leaned closer to where she lay on the pillows. Her eyes widened.

“Kieri—where did you get that neck ring?”

“This is one of the treasures that appeared. It was my mother's. So was this ring.” He held it up. He was not surprised when the light in it flared and the tiny dragon shape flickered, all fire.

“That's … Dragon.”

“Yes, but I don't know how or what it means. I remember my mother wearing this ring on her thumb, and this on her neck, and this—” He stood and pointed to the belt clasp he now wore.

“They're beautiful, but … I've never seen a torc like that.”