Moth and Spark (5 page)

“It was typical Sarian outlaw work, but if they were bandits I’m a seamstress. We were staying at a wretched little inn in Stede’s barony when we heard they had fired a barn. There were a dozen of them, with five war-lights and good clothing. They were all in excellent condition and fought well, though not well enough. If they had been bandits they would have scattered as soon as they saw they were losing. Some of them had the warrior marks, too.”

“Well,” Aram said softly. “Well, well, well.”

A draft touched Corin’s skin, and he shivered. For an instant he felt as though he were being watched. A gust of wind blew rain hard against the windows. They were thick glass in iron frames, unlikely to be broken by even the fiercest storms, but he started at the noise. He was glad he had gotten inside before the weather turned this much worse.

“What’s the matter?” Aram asked. “You’re on edge.”

He shook his head and felt his damp hair. “Just expecting to be rained on again.” His father would see through the lie but would not press it.

After a moment, Aram said, “I had the sense from your reports that there was something you didn’t want to commit to paper.”

It was strange, there in the north,
he tried to say. His tongue tangled as though he were speaking another language while drunken. He wondered if he would be able to write it. If only he could remember everything. He hoped he had not left a trail of forgotten ill judgments. He felt sweat on his forehead. His body sang to him that something bad had happened.

“Corin?”

“The dragons.” His mouth did not want to shape the word.

“Tell me.”

It was hard to say. “They were observing.” Faltering sometimes, the words slipping away, he described the constant presence of the dragons. He remembered the way the sun sparked on their wings, the curl of the garrison pennants in their passage. “I don’t know if they were watching that hold alone, or others. There’s not—since—I haven’t seen others. But I can tell you that I was not the only one. To notice. There were plenty of men looking up. No one said anything. I take it there’s been nothing from the spies in Mycene to suggest anything amiss.”

Aram shook his head. “Nothing.”

“I don’t like that.” The spies were too good for silence to be convincing. Someone should have known why Hadon sent his dragons north.

“It may be the least of our worries,” Aram said. “You saw them the entire time you were there?”

For a moment he was mute. Then he found his voice. “Yes,” he said. “They’d been seen by others before I got there, too.” The words were clear, spoken by someone else. He could not remember if it was true.

Aram broke a wooden stylus in half with a loud snap. That was something he never did either. He said, “Then whatever plans he’s
making in that tangled mind of his, it’s probably not to do with the Sarians. Set it aside if you can for now.”

Corin looked sideways at his father. Now it was Aram who wasn’t saying all he thought. He decided not to push it. The king would tell him when he was ready. He said, “Does Hadon know about Tyrekh?”

Aram said, “God knows what his spies have told him. But I sent to him as soon as I heard, we should have his response in a day or two. We can only hope there’s time.”

“What have you planned?”

“Coll’s beginning to organize the troops, and we sent out more scouts. I called a formal war council. Most of the dukes were on their way here anyway for the summer court, so it will take place fairly soon, perhaps even tomorrow. I told the ones who have already arrived, but they’re to keep it quiet. You can tell Bron, but no one else.”

Summer court, he should have stayed away. He hoped his younger sister Tai was coming too, she would keep him sane with her dry wit and mischievous suggestions. She had married last fall and he was still not used to her absence. He was very glad she had not been made to marry one of Hadon’s sons.

His gaze went to the dog, who was sleeping on her pillow in the corner. Why had she jumped him? “Tell me what else you know about Tyrekh’s movement.”

They pulled the chairs closer together and spent some time going over the details of Aram’s reports. It felt like something acted, done over and over. Three years ago Corin had spent many hours staring at maps, discussing numbers and formations and movements of soldiers, planning defenses. There was not much in the way of alternatives, and Tyrekh would deduce the plans accurately. They had little choice in what they did. The land forced them into certain stances.

A river ran the length of the Caithenian border with Argondy. The northern half, coming down out of the Fells, was steep and rocky. The river was swift and cut into deep gorges with sheer treeless sides or cascaded down falls several hundred feet high. South the land softened to low hills, but the river widened to a lake, eight miles wide and a hundred miles long, with marshes and bogs on either side. Eventually it narrowed back to a river, but it was still as wide as a mile in some places and even boggier. Several crossing points could be made across the lake, but
ferrying an army was impractical. The only viable entry for a large mass of men into Caithen from Argondy was the main road with its many-arched bridge across the river. It was still hill country there, and an army would be vulnerable to ambushes and attacks from above. That was the sole tactical advantage Caithen had. It would take a few days of steady marching through the duchy of Harin for Tyrekh’s troops to move far enough west into Caithen to be able to go quickly and in the open.

Eventually Aram pushed the papers aside. He rose and walked to one of the bay windows. Corin had the sense that he was waiting for someone or something else. After a moment of indecision, he joined his father. Their reflections were wavy from the water running down the glass. Sika got up and came toward them, her claws clicking on the floor. Both men tensed, but she only wagged her tail and sat.

Aram turned from the window to stare at Corin. “You can’t let yourself get killed, Corin, not even in battle. If the worst happens, you’ll have to hide somewhere so you can fight back later. The spies will survive. You know what is in place.”

“But—”

“I’m not giving you a choice.”

Aram was right, he always was. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He put his hand on Corin’s shoulder.

“What about you?”

“You don’t really think I’m going to get out of this alive or free, do you? I’ll try to, certainly, but if I can protect only one of us it has to be you. You’re young, you can keep an insurgency going for another generation if you have to.”

It depressed him. He said nothing, and after a moment his father’s hand dropped. The king returned to his seat. Corin went to the map table and looked at the map of southern Caithen, the coast along the Narrow Sea. The best port for ships to put in was Dele, and it was an easy march from there over gentle country to Caithenor. The Sarians were not either shipbuilders or sailors, but the Argondians were.

“We have to secure the Port of Dele,” he said. “Once Tyrekh gets hold of the Argondian fleet, he doesn’t need to come overland.”

“Yes,” Aram said. He sounded distracted. Corin glanced at him. He was leaning forward with his chin resting on clasped hands, looking into air. The grimness on his face was one that Corin had seen before,
but not often. It was hardly surprising. The king said, “Was it peaceful in the north?”

“Yes,” Corin answered. It was an odd question. He felt words threatening to slip away again. “But the people are all afraid of something anyhow,” he managed to get out. “Spirits. Curses. It’s nonsense.” There was a white emptiness in his mind that he could not go around. He had forgotten. The thorny briars would grow instead, blocking him, stabbing him when he tried to push through.

What was he thinking? Was he going mad? For a second he felt it, everything around him a waxwork, a reflection, unreal. Then he grounded himself fiercely in the crackle of the fire and the smooth darkness of the wine in his cup.

Aram said, “It’s superstition, yes. But it’s riding the back of something else. Fear can’t be tamped down forever. It’s the same here. Everyone knows Tyrekh has yet to be dealt with, even though no one will say it. The waiting is coming to an end. Bad things are going to happen, Corin. Don’t let them take you unaware.”

The heaviness of it settled in him. He had been told that history had tides, but this felt more like a chain, one cold thick link added at a time. He had the sense that Aram was speaking of something more than Tyrekh.

“I won’t,” he said. What else could he say?

Neither of them spoke again for a few minutes. Corin randomly turned pages in the map book. He lingered over a map of the northern mountains, with their fierce names—Tower Peak, Mount Fang, the Bloodhorn—and wondered if there was anything there that Hadon could be looking for.

He was about to excuse himself when someone knocked. The king called an entrance as Corin sat back down. It was Joce, which sent a shiver of apprehension through him. The Basilisks were Aram’s secret servants, not called upon for ordinary matters.

They were remnants of the race of true wizards, nothing like the conjurers and magicians who claimed to be able to cast spells and tell the future. Every village had its witch who murmured over potions and laid the cards to no effect. In cities men tried secretly to conjure up the dead and find the path to immortality and got nothing for their trouble but a reeking mess of oils and entrails and candlewax. It was not so with
Joce and his people. A thousand years ago, longer, they had been able to do all manner of things: change into animals, call the wind, speak mind to mind, see in a puddle of water what happened miles away. They needed no incantations or tinctures of antimony. But power over people was not something most of them sought—there were always a few, the evil sorcerers of tales and legend—and as the ordinary men built armies and made laws, the wizards were hunted and driven into hiding, killed or enslaved. For a while kings tried to keep them as advisers, but all the jealousies and treacheries of courts brought that to an end. If they were not killed, they were discredited, and the kings with them. They diminished, the learning and power diminishing with them, and when the persecutions of the Fires came three centuries ago they were destroyed.

Or so it had always been thought. Aram’s grandfather had found them out, hiding and desperately poor, but not yet completely powerless. That king had been overly fond of his wine and his women but not dim-witted, and he bargained to provide protection for them all in exchange for the service of a few. The pledge had been kept unbroken ever since. The wizards who served, the Basilisks, were deadly, superbly trained in armed and unarmed combat, and virtually fearless. Much power had been lost, but they still could hold a man immobile with a single glance, or throw up illusions to protect themselves. They had enough of the shapechanging power left to disguise themselves as other men for a short time. Aram’s grandfather had called them
Basilisks
because of their paralyzing stare; Corin thought it might also have been a private lament for the loss of the dragons.

It was a tightly guarded secret; Corin was not sure if even his sisters knew. The spymaster knew only that they were Aram’s personally selected men, to be used for the most dangerous or important spying. Joce had been a spy among the Sarian soldiers for nearly three years. There was nothing distinctive about his looks, which had caused more than one person to not pay him enough attention. Sika padded happily over to him; he was good with animals, as most wizards were. He gave her his hand to lick.

Aram said, “What is the latest from Dele?”

“Nothing new, my lord. All’s been steady for some time.”

“When were you to go again?”

“Next week.”

“Leave it for now,” Aram said. “I want you to roam about and find the weak places here. That includes people. Lay traps if you need to.”

“Weak against what?”

“Tyrekh.”

Joce appeared unsurprised. Corin had never seen him startled. He said, “Anyone to exclude?”

“Not this time. Consider everyone from the washmaids to the dukes. If something takes you into the city, go ahead and follow it. Don’t speak to anyone about this.”

The first time Corin had heard his father give orders of this sort he had thought they were uselessly vague and redundant. He had learned the importance of redundancy soon enough, but it had been longer before he understood what Aram was doing with the broadness of his commands. Some parameters did not need to be stated. Joce knew the few people he never had to watch. He was like a cat. He would prowl and wait and sniff out everything, vanishing into shadow if he was seen, and he would notice what Aram would never have thought to look at.

“How long?”

“Come back in three days, or sooner if you find something. Corin, have you anything to add?”

Memory rose in him, a white face with water beading on it. “Why would Sarian soldiers paint their faces white?”

Joce said, “There’s something in the paint that makes them stronger and more fearless. It dulls pain. Tyrekh gives it to his best.”

“Eight of us killed twelve of them,” Corin said. “Nine hand to hand, three went down from bowshots.”

“You have good men. But—” He stopped.

“But what? Say it.”

“War against Tyrekh is not an even match like that.”

We’ve the Empire, Corin thought. He did not speak it. Tyrekh might move faster.

Joce said, “Is that all, my lord?”

“Yes,” Aram said.

Joce bowed and stepped back. On impulse, Corin stood up and walked beside him to the antechamber. The room was dim and deserted, though the shadows of the guards in the hall could be seen.

“Be careful,” he said, clasping Joce’s forearm in the soldier’s gesture of good luck. The man’s body jerked hard at the touch.

It was an insult. But it was clear to Corin that it had been a movement of the body that could not have been prevented, like a dead muscle twitching when a current ran through it. Joce looked almost frightened.

“My lord,” he said after a few seconds that seemed to last years, “you’re dangerous.” He held out his arm, and there on the skin were burns the size and shape of fingertips, red and new.