Lord of the Silent Kingdom (48 page)

“I understand.”

Sergeant Bechter followed Hecht out of the mill. Several lifeguards did the same. Hecht wanted to tell them all to go away. He did not waste his breath. They would not go. Bechter said, “Sir, I saw that man in brown again this morning.”

“If he’s being that obvious he must want to talk.”

“Sir?”

“I know who he is, now. He’s all right.”

“Who is he?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. An Instrumentality in his own mind. But he’s no danger. Except to the fool who gets in his way.”

“A sorcerer?”

“Of the first water. Let’s walk down to those meadows south of camp. Where they pasture most of the animals. We’ll watch traffic on the river.” He felt like a stress-free conversation about mules or oxen with Just Plain Joe. Joe and his mule Pig Iron were completely comfortable with their lives. What a wonderful peaceful, prosperous world it would be if everybody in it was like Pig Iron and Joe.

Six lifeguards tagged along. They remained at a distance once Hecht left the confines of the camp. They knew where he was headed.

A breeze stirred the meadow. It carried the perfume of late season flowers. There were few trees this side of the river, and only scattered shrubs. The hillsides to the east bore splashes of yellow, carmine, and violet, and several shades of green. The army’s animals had not yet stripped the land of fodder. In the distance a bleak gray ruin of a castle watched over the river. Hecht did not know its name or story. The river itself was a sluggish band of olive drab syrup, showing no hint of current. On the Connecten bank Patriarchal troops had raised a palisade round the hamlet of the ferrymen. There was plenty of timber over there. Hecht had work parties harvesting some to build rafts. He had a few more men cross over every day. A casual, slow invasion.

This appeared to be fertile land. Some calamity must have befallen it. Else these meadows would be wine country or farmland like the rest of Ormienden.

Curious. That river down there, the Dechear, was one of the great traffic ways of the continent. Traders had been sailing it before the rise of the Old Brothen Empire.

He did not see Just Plain Joe. Pig Iron, the unmistakable mule, stood out, lording it over the cavalry mounts.

Hecht asked, “Does it feel like the wind is getting cooler?”

No response. He looked around. He was alone. He had wandered away from his protectors. Who didn’t seem to have noticed.

His amulet itched something fierce.

He started toward the lifeguards.

“Wait.”

Cloven Februaren stood a dozen feet away, having materialized out of nowhere.

“Ah. Ah?”

“Enunciation, Piper. Enunciation. Don’t make people think you’re a lackwit.”

“I’d heard you were lurking around. What is it?”

“You did? How can that be? I’ve used the strongest sorceries to remain unseen.”

“What is it?” The man in brown frightened him. Little else did. He was testy because he considered that a failing.

“I want to caution you. There are schemes afoot with you as their target.”

“Not really news.”

“True. But arrows are in flight. I don’t know what. Or where. But it’s coming. Also, it’s time to rid you of that amulet. I’ve created a replacement that will do everything it does, including cloud men’s minds when they start asking you about your background. And it may polish up your personality besides.”

Februaren laughed outright at Hecht’s expression. “That’s not true. But, face it, Piper. You’re a bit of a stick.”

“Why are you here?”

“To swap your amulet for a new and improved version that won’t let your great enemy track you. And for the same reason I’m always nearby. To be your guardian angel.”

Hecht prepared to quarrel.

“How many times have they tried to kill you?”

Hecht counted off, starting with the effort by Benatar Piola, in Runch, on the Brotherhood island of Staklirhod.

“Very good. At least you do recall the ones you were aware of at the time.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, you thickheaded and ungrateful excuse for a descendant, that you’ve survived another two attempts for every one you know about. Thanks mainly to your great-great-grandpa. Since the end of the Calziran Crusade, you’ve become the focus of an assassination industry.”

The old man made no sense. He never had. Hecht said so.

“You’re right, Piper. Insofar as your argument goes. You’re a talented military personality. You’ve had some luck. You’ve had support from some hidden sorceries. But there’s no reason to think you’re likely to reshape the world. Easier to assume you’ve triggered a lethal obsession in someone of immense power.”

“That’s easy. The Rascal. I’ve never been close to anyone else who has his connections with the Instrumentalities of the Night.”

“The Rascal?”

“Er-Rashal el-Dhulquamen. The great …”

“I know who he is. From the little I’ve been able to find out, he seems the most likely candidate for being your great enemy. And he’s completely mad.”

“Really?”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Piper. Let’s get this amulet change done. Your bodyguards have begun to develop a vague notion that something is going on. Give me your left hand.”

Whatever happened next, it did not stick in Hecht’s mind. After some vague fumbling around his left wrist, there was a moment when he felt like he had been relieved of the weight of the world. Then he was standing in the middle of the meadow, alone. His left wrist itched horribly.

For an instant he thought he must be something more than just Piper Hecht, Captain-General of the Patriarchal armed forces. The word soultaken came to mind. He drove it out.

He might be something wicked, after these years with the Unbeliever, but a tool of the Instrumentalities of the Night he was not, nor would he be.

Before he shook his disorientation completely disconcerted lifeguards surrounded him again.

He had had enough fresh air.

“Bechter! Titus! What is this?” Hecht had found four similar rings on his map of the End of Connec. The map lay on its own crude table. It never got put away. Three rings were silver. The other was gold.

Bechter and Consent arrived. Consent said, “I don’t know.”

The rings were covered with symbols, none Chaldarean. Two lay atop sites where serious setbacks for Sublime’s cause had occurred. Places where Arnhanders and Grolsachers, striving to do God’s work, had suffered severe defeats.

Another ring lay on Viscesment. The last rested atop Antieux, eighty miles to the southwest in the End of Connec.

“Sergeant Bechter, see if you can’t find the Principatè for me.”

“Which one?”

“How many do we have? Did Doneto sneak back?”

“No. But two more showed up last night. The Bruglioni and Gorin Linczski from Aparion.”

“Linczski? I don’t know him. And that name doesn’t sound Aparionese.”

“I think he’s from Creveldia, originally. Sedlakova could tell you about him.”

“Why are they here?”

Bechter shrugged. “Aparion? Sonsa?”

“The old man is the one I want.”

“On the way, then.”

“Bechter, when people like that turn up I want to hear about it when they’re still on the horizon. Not the next day. No exceptions. No excuses.”

Principatè Delari said, “The meaning would be between you and grandfather. You talked to him?”

Hecht nodded. “Mostly he talked about saving me from people who want me dead. You’re sure it was him?”

“Yes. The rings may have belonged to someone who had you marked as a target. Though that’s just a guess. I couldn’t understand him half the time when he explained things face-to-face. Let me study the rings.” Seconds later, “They all have the same symbol stamped inside.” He indicated a trident that looked like a diving bird. “Piper?”

“Sorry. I was startled. I’ve seen that before. It’s a pagan religious symbol. From antiquity.”

“Eastern?”

“I saw it there. But I think it turned up everywhere before the Old Empire tamed the Instrumentalities of the Night.”

“Let’s look at the map again.” After fifteen seconds’ study, “Has anyone plotted the appearances of the revenants in the Connec?”

“Revenants?”

“Hilt. Rook. Weaver. Shade.”

“Never heard of those last two.”

“More of the same. Personifications. Discord. Crop disease.”

“Saints?”

Delari chuckled. “You might say. Answer the question.”

“I can’t. Titus can, I’m sure.” He called downstairs for Consent. When Titus arrived, Hecht said, “We need to know where all those weird things were seen. In the Connec.”

“Sir?” Consent seemed unfocused.

“Rook. Hilt. Those things. I know you’ve heard the stories. We’ve talked about it”

“Oh. Yes. I kept a journal on that.”

“Show us some whereats on the map.”

“All over here. Where the Grolsachers first turned up. The Sadew Valley.” Consent went on. Sightings had been grouped closely where two of the rings had lain. But the ande Lette area had produced the most sightings. No ring lay there.

“What about Antieux? Or Viscesment?”

“No reports there yet.”

“Interesting,” Delari said.

“Is something wrong, Titus?” Hecht asked.

“Sir?”

“You seem distracted.”

“I just got a letter from Noë. Anna and the kids are fine. They’ve moved back to her house.”

Hecht knew. As the Captain-General’s woman Anna could take advantage of the courier service.

“She had bad news?”

“My uncle Shire. You met him. Shire Spereo. He died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. But it isn’t your problem. What I don’t understand is, he committed suicide.”

“Wow! That doesn’t seem like him.”

“You’re right. But there have been several unlikely suicides since Gledius Stewpo went.”

“Is something going on?”

“If there is I can’t work it out. They were all old guys. Except for Stewpo and another refugee from Sonsa, they hadn’t left the quarter in twenty years.”

Principatè Delari asked, “Were they wealthy?”

“Sure. That’s about all they had in common. Though they all knew each other.”

Delari nodded to himself. “Bring me your notes about sightings of old Instrumentalities. On the other matter, ask how those men became wealthy. Could their consciences be catching up?”

Consent cocked his head slightly, mouth open. ‘That’s an interesting thought.” He shuddered. “I’ll get the journal.” He clumped down the stairs.

Before Hecht asked, Delari said, “No. Not me.” Then, “But maybe Grade’s mission didn’t die when he did.”

“Small world. If that’s it.”

“It is a small world when it comes to the people who shake it. And there are far fewer coincidences than we want to believe. The Instrumentalities of the Night weave schemes that arc across generations. We can’t see ourselves caught in the web.”

Hecht had created Piper Hecht so thoroughly that he was not tempted to challenge that heresy.

“You’re amused?” Delari asked.

“The normal course of business here could put us on the Society’s list. To do my job right I have to take into account the misbehavior of beings that I’m not supposed to believe exist.”

“You can believe. You just can’t call them gods.” The old man chuckled. “We need to find out what unusual things have happened in the areas the rings marked.”

“But …”

“Not just something that might be Rook scattering maggots. Any unusual, unexplained events. Any unusual histories. At this remove, even the most ancient folklore.”

“Titus could send people to find out. But we can’t twiddle our thumbs while he does.” The Connec was growing less restive. The flood of Grolsacher refugees had begun to dry up. The disorganized bands of Amhander crusaders had decided to wait on Sublime because it had begun to look like the Patriarch meant to let them do the dying before he swooped down on a province too exhausted to resist.

“Doneto’s party must have the upper hand, now. That can’t last. But I’ve had a thought about the ring business. Suppose those are places where someone liberated scattered bits of the Old Gods?”

“Deliberately?” Hecht asked.

“Deliberately.”

“Why would anyone do that? The Night is bad enough now. Who’d want to bring back the Old Ones?”

“That would be the question, wouldn’t it? Who and why. And is it real? Is it just a partisan campaign using fragments to create terror? Are the fragments themselves genuine? I could pull together an artificial monster able to ape the more blatant traits of one of the Old Gods.”

“There was a god in the north. Who predated the Old Gods, even. Kharoulke the Windwalker. Who couldn’t come past the edge of the ice. There’s a Windwalker supposedly loose, now. Almost as bad as the original. That couldn’t be a modern recreation, could it?”

‘Today’s Kharoulke the Windwalker is an example of an unforeseen consequence.”

“Your Grace?”

“Certain fading Old Gods sent soultaken to destroy someone they called the Godslayer. Because they did, several unwittingly positioned themselves to be slain. One of the soultaken, connected too intimately to divinity, ascended to become a Great Demon himself. The ascendant, lusting after revenge on those who conscripted him, went after those still surviving. He confined them in a pocket world he created inside the pocket universe they had created for themselves as their realm of the gods. That isolated them so completely that they couldn’t constrain the monsters they put down in the dawn of their time. So things like the Windwalker can now come back.”

Hecht stared. He realized his mouth was open. “Uh … How did you put all that together?”

“I pay attention. You can pick the trick up if you want.”

Titus Consent rematerialized. “Here’s the journal, Your Grace.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Are we in imminent danger from a ferocious Connecten horde?”

“There may be ferocious Connectens, Your Grace, but those people couldn’t put together a horde if they promised twenty gold pieces to every man who showed up.”

“Then you can afford to take time to relax, Piper. That would be good for your soul.”

Pinkus Ghort returned. In his train were prisoners, plus hostages given by the Three Families of Sonsa.