Reckoning (The Empyrean Chronicle) (20 page)

Bryn glowed as she watched Elias and the wine-colored mount
vanish into the horizon. Lar and Danica hooted, while Phinneas shook his head
to himself, a wide grin splitting his face.

Bryn eyed Oberon cooly. “What was that you said about
Marshal incantations?”

†

Elias waited with his companions, save Bryn, in his
appointed rooms. He had not expected such generous accommodations, furnished
with both a bedchamber and a sitting room. Thick carpets woven with intricate
designs, worked wooden tables, ottomans, and linen drapes adorned the lavish
chambers. He was perplexed to discover that the bed, in addition to being of an
adequate size to sleep three men, also had curtains that drew around its
breadth.

Servants had brought plates teeming with cold pheasant,
honeyed breads, cheese flecked with tomato and basil, roasted potatoes, and
grapes. Elias had embarrassed himself by offering the incredulous server some
silver coin. His companions of course enjoyed a vigorous chuckle at his
expense. Despite their grim beginnings, he found it heartening that he traveled
with such a mirthful party. With the savory victuals, the server had brought a
flagon of wine and water. While the others sampled the vibrant vintage
judiciously, Elias abstained.

“So,” said Danica as she chewed on a grape, “what was that business
with the horse?”

“What do you mean?” Elias asked.

“You said that you didn’t want to learn magic, but it sure
looked like you beguiled that stallion,” she replied.

Elias waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “That was
nothing. It’s an old song Dad taught me to calm down animals. It’s a
superstition really. The sound and rhythm calms them. That’s all.”

Danica rolled her eyes, but her reply was curtailed by a
knock on the door. She opened it to reveal a guard clad in a polished
breastplate, studded greaves, and a crimson cloak who proclaimed that they were
to follow him to their audience with the queen.

Far from the grim escort Elias had expected, the guardsman
turned out to be quite a chatty fellow. He inquired about their trip and
pointed out portraits, statuary, and decor of note.

Elias wondered how anyone could make his way unnoticed in this
place—their steps clapped and echoed off the marble of the vaulted ceilings and
wide corridors like thunder. The palace had a formal, cold design, the compare
of which he had only seen in a mausoleum. The guardsman noticed his roving eyes
and favored him with a wry grin. “When I first received my appointment to the
Palace, I felt the same way my friend,” he said. “Don’t worry, you’ll grow used
to it
soon enough.”

After what seemed an interminable labyrinthine course they
arrived at a set of alabaster marble doors embossed with the Denar crest in
shimmering gold, a stag standing before a tree with seven stars caught in its
boughs. A pair of guards, similarly garbed as their escort, but with gilded
breastplates, half-plate greaves, full helms, and white, shield-shaped
pauldrons on their right shoulders, stood before the doors, one hand each on
the door ring and the other on a thick-hafted halberd.

“I will await you outside,” their escort said as his
compatriots hauled open the ponderous doors.

Elias took a breath and stepped across the threshold. The
vast chamber glowed as slants of light illuminated the alabaster marble that
walled and floored the room. He glanced up and saw a massive dome situated in
the center of the ceiling, which featured a skylight and frieze adorned with
sculptures of cherubs and other mythic figures in low relief.

Eithne Denar offered him a warm smile and beckoned him to
come closer. “You may step all the way inside, Master Duana,” she said. “I
promise I won’t bite.”

Her manner put him at ease at once and Elias concluded that Bryn’s
vibrant sense of humor must be a familial trait. He found the queen to be a
striking woman. Penetrating hazel eyes peered at him from beneath a thin
platinum circlet, which sat amidst a tumble of chestnut tresses gathered atop
her head. When she tilted her head to give him a quizzical look the sun caught
her hair and revealed auburn highlights that gleamed like spun copper.

The queen was attended by Bryn and a white-haired man, each of
whom stood on a small dais a step down from the throne. Elias approached the trio
and stopped at what he reasoned was a respectful distance. The queen stood. He
hooked his thumbs into his belt and waited for her to address him. The queen’s
smiled widened, flashing white, and her eyes crinkled at the corners. Bryn
shook her head with a bemused snort of laughter, while the man opposite her
beamed.

At a loss, Elias cast a quick glance to Danica only to
discover that she along with his other party members had dropped to a knee. His
ears burned as he made to follow suit.

“That is quite alright, Master Duana,” the queen said around
a laugh. “You needn’t kneel, and please, Miss Danica, Master Fletcher, Doctor
Phinneas, rise.”

“You remind me of your father, young man,” the white-haired
man said, his bright eyes almost disappearing beneath the fold of his wrinkled
eyebrows. “He wouldn’t bend knee to any man, or woman for that matter.”

“You knew my father?” Elias asked, unable to conceal his
interest.

“Yes. He was a good man. No, he was the best of us.”

Elias tilted his head. “You were a Marshal, sir?”

“Not quite,” he returned with an apologetic smile, “but we
were both…let’s just say that we shared similar interests.”

The queen sat after sharing a look with her elder. “This is
Ogden Vandrael. He is the Steward of my household, and chief advisor.”

“Well met, sir,” said Elias, but his curiosity had been
piqued at the mention of his father and he pressed his inquiry. “I must
confess, that I do not quite understand. How did you know my father? Were you
colleagues or friends?”

Ogden exhaled slowly. “I see you share his dogged persistence.”

“Indeed,” said the queen dryly, and Elias thought again how
similar the queen and her cousin were. “However, I must confess, Ogden, that I
too am curious.”

“I apologize for my vagaries, friends, it’s just that the
sight of these two young people, so like their father, has caused old memories
to surface. I had occasion to meet your father during the war. I will tell you
all about it—and sooner than later, I suspect—but I suppose now is not the
time.”

Much to Elias’s surprise, the queen did not appear rankled
by Odgen’s dismissal, gentle as it may have been, but perplexed.

She turned her attention back to Elias. “In a better world
none of us would ever have met, but under the circumstances I am glad to have the
support of citizens such as yourselves. First allow me to offer my condolences
for the tragic circumstances that befell you and your kin. Your house has
sacrificed more than enough in the service of Galacia; it is a cruel fate that
has taken yet more from you.

“I owe you—all of you—my sincere and heartfelt gratitude. The
seeming plot you have uncovered is a grave threat, and more dire than any of us
had expected.”

The queen paused and the party from Knoll Creek looked up at
her, solemn and stone-still to a man. “It is my understanding, Elias Duana,
that my cousin,” she looked down at Bryn and offered her a wry smile before
continuing, “vested you with crown authority to take down the conspirator
Viscount Roderick Macallister in the capacity of a crown appointed Marshal. Since
their inception the Marshal order has been responsible for enforcing crown law
in all of Galacia, accepting commissions from the crown as it sees fit. However,
you are unaware that the Marshals have been disbanded, albeit not by official
mandate.

“Having been conscripted into service in the war effort, what
remained of the order after its end grew old in obscurity, as I have continued
my father’s policy of pouring the virtual entirety of the military budget into
repopulating and outfitting the standing army. There hasn’t been a new Marshal
appointment since the war. As a matter of fact, your father may have been one
of the last.”

“He took the oath at nineteen,” Elias said, “and received
his first commission at twenty. He went to war three years later. He was
younger than I am now.”

Eithne found herself transfixed by Duana’s intense,
black-eyed gaze. “Ah,” she said, before continuing. “Still, it is my wish to
reward you and your companions. Master Duana, I am prepared to offer you lands
confiscated from House Macallister as reparation, and the Constabulary of the
district of Knoll Creek. For your companions, a purse of gold stags. Does this
please you?”

Elias answered almost immediately, without thinking. “My family
has land, Your Highness. And I don’t want Oring’s job.”

“We didn’t come all this way for your coin,” said Danica.

The queen arched an eyebrow and exchanged glances with Bryn,
who said, “I told you.”

“Why
have
you come all this way, Elias?” the queen asked

Elias felt the eyes of all present fall upon him. He raised
his head and looked his queen dead in the eye. “I have held the woman I loved
as she died, with an arrow as thick as a child’s wrist in her heart. My father
was cut down by a necromancer for reasons that I cannot seem to comprehend. All
that remains of him is a patch of blasted earth as hard as black glass. The
most powerful man in my duchy conspired against my house with a story-book
assassin’s brotherhood that has never left a single witness alive.

“The question, your majesty, is not why have I come to
Peidra, but how could I possibly have remained in Knoll Creek after what I’ve
seen? That life has been taken from me, by a ghost of an enemy that would see
both our houses destroyed. And so, here I am.”

Elias was met with silence as his queen continued to hold
his gaze, her expression unreadable. Ogden bent and whispered in her ear,
although she offered no indication that she heard him.

“Like the knights of old,” the queen said at last, “the
appointment of a Marshal was always the sole province of the crown. It will not
be easy being the first Marshal appointed in two score years. Is it your wish
to serve me in this capacity, Elias of Duana?”

Elias stood tall and could hardly believe it when he heard
himself say, “It is.”

“So be it,” the queen said. One of her eyebrows arched as
she nodded in approval. “Marshal Duana I would like you and your companions to
join your queen and her court tomorrow for a banquet. You have had the fortune
to arrive on a very special day.”

Eithne briefed them on the circumstances leading up to the crown
having agreed to host a delegation from Ittamar, and their recent arrival not a
day ago.

“Avail yourself of any hospitality my household has to
offer, and I will see you all at the banquet.”

With that said, the queen rose and disappeared through a small
door behind the throne, which had escaped Elias’s notice, Ogden close on her
heels.

Once the quasi secret door closed, Bryn bounded down from
the throne platform, wearing a broad smile. “Welcome to Peidra, Marshal.”

Snake in the Grass

“Is that him?” asked Lord Vachel Ogressa.

“Yes,” replied Oberon. “What have you learned?”

Ogressa shrugged. “Not much. Rumor and conjecture mostly. The
man I had tailing Bryn had to be careful. She kept an eye out for being
followed and covered her trail well. Word has preceded him only by a couple of
days, which is rather astounding considering how great a distance Knoll Creek
is from here.”

“What of your sources in the guard?”

“Only what they have seen, which is not much. His father was
one Padraic Duana, who served as a Marshal before and during the war. His
father and his betrothed were killed by some marauders, whereabouts he fell in
with Bryn. A whiskey distiller by trade, word of him taking up the sword to bring
his family’s murderers and the rancher who hired them to heel have spread like
wildfire. He’s already become something of a folk hero. Hell,” Ogressa added
with a chuckle, “courtiers are already gossiping about how he crossed wits with
you and broke your ill tempered stallion in five minutes with some bit of old
time Marshal magic.”

“I’m just tickled you find it so amusing, Vachel,” Oberon
growled.

“Perhaps we should go over and say hello. What do you
think?”

“Be my guest.” Oberon turned his back on Vachel stiffly and went
to seek more rewarding conversation.

Sarad Mirengi fixed his eyes on the Marshal as soon as he
set foot into the Grand Hall. Duana wore his full Marshal regalia, save his
hat, and a strange, exotic sword hung at his waist. The blade with its curved,
crimson scabbard and unique ovular guard looked reminiscent of swords from the
far-east. He had no doubt that this was the man he had seen in his scrying
mirror. His dark and glittering eyes swept the room intently, and he walked
with casual, feline grace. Whatever else could be said of the man, he had
presence.

Sarad remembered he was conversing with the queen, but he had
missed her last comment, so absorbed had he been in watching the Marshal’s
entrance. He turned his eyes back to her with a sheepish smile.

“I see you have taken notice of Marshal Duana,” the queen
said.

“Duana?”

“Yes, Prelate. Elias Duana. His father, Padraic, served the crown
as a Marshal during the war.”

“Ah. I figured he’d be taller.”

The queen arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Maybe you would like a
closer look.” She beckoned to Duana.

Sarad cursed himself for making such an ignominious
statement, and not better concealing his interest. “Indeed. I have heard so
much talk of this man since he arrived at court yesterday.”

Padraic Duana
, thought Sarad, rolling the name around
in his mind. He had heard that name before. After a moment’s consideration he
recalled that Padraic Duana was something of a legend, reputed to have been a master
swordsman. The arrogant Slade likely couldn’t resist testing his mettle against
one of the best swords in Galacia, and thus had unwittingly stirred a worthy
adversary.

Duana approached with Lady Bryn Denar in tow and a trio of
companions. It appeared the nascent Marshal had already secured an entourage,
albeit a motley one. The queen introduced Duana and his traveling companions.

Sarad took Duana’s hand. “It as a pleasure to meet you,
Marshal,” he said, affecting his most winning smile. “Despite having only been
in Peidra for scarce a day, your reputation precedes you. I daresay, if you bring
a criminal to justice or even tame another horse the bards will have a song for
you before the week’s out.”

When he took Duana’s hand in his own, the Marshal’s face
changed. He didn’t so much frown as the corners of his eyes narrowed ever so
slightly and his head tilted a fraction as if listening to something no one
else could hear.

Sarad’s blood went cold. As a student of body language he
read the almost imperceptible clues with ease: Duana had received him with
distaste at the least, suspicion at the worst.

“The pleasure is all my own, your holiness,” Duana said in
an even tone. His accent and bearing marked him as an educated man.

“Your words are kind, but I assure you unwarranted,” the
Marshal continued. “I am merely the latest bit of gossip. I can only hope to
live up to my title in the days to come.”

“Modest as well,” Sarad said. “I insist you come visit me at
the Abbey so that we can get to know each other better.”

Duana offered a gracious smile. “I would enjoy that very
much, your holiness.”

With that the two men went separate ways, each feeling
uneasy.

Sarad noticed Duana idly trace a finger along his badge as
he walked away. The Prelate’s thoughts darkened. He had to put an end to the
brazen upstart, and soon. Now he could but hope that Duana wouldn’t ruin his
painstakingly laid plans for the evening. Success tonight was paramount in the
eventual triumph of his plot against the crown.

Other than the unknown entity of Duana, his plan could only
have been more certain if he bent the emissaries themselves to his will, but it
proved impossible to get at them as they had been well-guarded ever since first
setting foot on Galacian soil. Dominating the will of a man required time—time
that he did not have thanks to the Marshal, for his intelligence indicated that
the queen suspected a plot against her.

Fortunately, Talinus had acquired him a couple of suitable substitutes,
and given the work he had done to soften the loyalty of certain members of the
queen’s council, his artifice should prove sufficient a catalyst to rekindle
the smoldering animosity between Ittamar and Galacia.

Sarad remembered himself and snuffed out the nagging spark
of doubt that had nettled him since the visitation of Slade’s ghost. A wizard
of no mean power, he would not permit some whelp pretending at the arcane and intrigue
to put an end to the culmination of a coup that had taken him nigh a decade to
orchestrate. He would deal with the meddlesome Elias Duana directly.

Agnar Vundi and his companions sat at the queen’s left in a
place of honor. He sipped on a glass of wine and offered the regal Eithne of
Denar a smile. The preliminary negotiations had gone better than he could have
imagined. The queen proved judicious and did not hold Agnar as personally
responsible for the war his former king had waged, like so many other Galacians
he had encountered. “It was our fathers’ war,” she had said, and without
further preamble asked him to present Baruch’s proposal.

Barring any unforeseen complications, his people would have
grain, and Galacia would have gold and ore to firm their position in the
southlands. This would be the first enduring alliance in Ittamarian history
south of the Sheer and would improve the strategic position of both countries.

After all had been seated and served wine the queen rose. The
court quieted and awaited her words. “Today marks a momentous occasion: The
beginning of an abiding peace between Galacia and Ittamar and a mutually
beneficial trade pact. Gone are the days of extended and useless bloodshed
between our peoples—campaigns born of ancient blood feuds and border disputes. The
tenuous truce of the last two decades has become concrete and lasting.”

Eithne looked to Agnar, who stood. “On behalf of my people and
my King, Baruch of clan Rachman, allow me to offer my sincere gratitude for
your hospitality, sons and daughters of Galacia. It is the vow of my monarch to
honor the pact begun here today. It is my hope that we can put aside the enmity
of the past and together forge a brighter future for ourselves, and for our
children. I thank you.”

Not everyone present appeared pleased by this turn of events,
Elias observed. While they all clapped and affected glad expressions, many of
the courtier’s smiles did not touch their eyes. This troubled him, but not as
much as his encounter with the Prelate.

When he shook hands with the high cleric, the white robed man
had expressed pleasure at meeting him. He lied. As soon as the Prelate mouthed
the words Elias felt the electric tingle radiating from his shield that
indicated a lie. Why the man would possibly harbor him ill will was beyond him.
Perhaps it was nothing more than the Prelate simply didn’t care to meet a man
at arms.

Elias tried to allay his doubt, but a nagging suspicion
tugged at him nevertheless, and in his gut he felt that something was off about
the cleric. He found that he couldn’t articulate why, but he distrusted the
dapper, impeccably groomed man. He decided to discuss it with Bryn at the
earliest opportunity.

Sarad waited until dinner was served and the courtiers had
become complacent in the stupor induced by vintage wine and rich foods before
sending his mind out to summon his thralls. They waited beyond the servant
door, tucked into an alcove behind a tapestry, rendered invisible by a spell
that caused them to blend into their surroundings. If they moved around the
subterfuge wouldn’t last, but via his domination spell his thralls waited
stock-still in a state of hypnosis.

Now.
He kept his face expressionless as he sent the
mental command. He hazarded a glance at Duana from the corner of his eye. He
cursed to himself as he saw the Marshal straighten in his chair, alarm written
clearly across his features.

Elias listened attentively as Bryn explained the politics of
the capital and
the agendas of the five houses. The distiller, for his
part, required no prodding from her to foster a dislike for Lord Geoffrey
Oberon, who seemed to relish in nettling the queen. Vachel Ogressa was guilty
by his association with Oberon, according to Bryn. Elias’s impression of
Ogressa darkened further when Bryn explained that he was a recent confidant of
the Prelate. Rabidine, as Bryn saw it, found greater interest in a flagon of wine
and a pleasant turn of ankle than matters of state unless House Rabidine’s coin
was involved, or they stood to make some. Conversely, Dekel Mycrum, with his
long, oiled mustache, was all business. According to the ancient histories, the
House of Mycrum sprung from a line of knights that served the clan kings of
antiquity so admirably that they earned a place among the five great houses in
time beyond reckoning.

“The House of Antares, led by Lord Josua, is the queen’s
only firm ally on the council,” Bryn said. “One would expect as much
considering he’s her uncle on her mother’s side, but he is widely respected as
an equitable and wise man.”

Elias began to make a comment but the words died on his
lips, for, without preamble, the runes on the underside of his forearm burned
as hotly as they had when he had first been branded with them. The tingling
sensation that announced the presence of the arcane wound its way up his spine
in a shuddering rush. In the pit of his stomach Elias knew that something was
amiss, but if he drew steel here unprovoked, his would prove the shortest
military career in the history of Galacia. Yet, if his hunch was correct and he
stayed put, it could mean that he had sat idly by while his queen was
assassinated in a crowded chamber in full eye of the court.

Throwing decorum aside, he grasped Bryn by her bare shoulder
and pulled her close. “There’s a fell wizard nearby,” he hissed.

Bryn cast a look across the room. “Are you certain?” she
asked, but Elias was already up, springing across the room with a hand on his
sword. Bryn hesitated only momentarily. The former distiller had an uncanny way
about him, and she’d rather look the fool than suffer the consequences if Elias
was right.

Bryn shot to her feet. “Redshields, fox in the rabbit-hole!”

Elias had closed the distance to the queen’s table in a
handful of quick steps before anyone had time to react, except for Sarad. The
Prelate screamed a silent order to his thralls:
Kill the man in the brown
coat!

The Whiteshield’s posted at the queen’s table drew steel and
made to intercept Elias, unsure from what quarter the threat issued as the
Redshield’s formed ranks, but Eithne stayed them with a motion of her hand. The
queen arched an eyebrow and looked up at the fledgling Marshal, apprehension
and irritation written on her features in equal portions.

Elias felt the eyes of the entire assembly on him as he scanned
the hall with frantic eyes. “Get down,” he barked to the queen. “There’s
danger.”

As the words left his mouth the servant’s doors crashed
open. A whir of motion passed through the archway, indistinct and blurry. A
trio of men materialized from out the arcane cloud. Their long, loose hair,
braided beards, and dress marked them as men of the north.

Elias felt the flow of time slow, as if he waded through a
dream. He watched the wicked, curved hand-axe rotate end over end as it spun
through the air, arcing toward them. He loosed his sword from its scabbard even
as he turned to shield the queen, his blade but half drawn. He braced himself
for the bite of northern steel as he twisted the flat of his blade to face the
whirring axe.

The blue tinted steel of his sword vibrated but held as the
axe rebounded off it with a mighty
twang
.

In some partitioned corner of his mind Elias registered the din
of hysterical voices as he dropped into a fighting stance and leveled his sword
at the charging northmen. “
Feora!
” he cried in a thunderous voice he did
not recognize as his own. He acted on impulse, wondering with detachment if the
spell Macallister discharged from his ring had in fact been absorbed by his
ensorcelled blade.

Elias found himself ill prepared for the ensuing outcome. His
sword transformed into a lightning rod of arcane force and pushed back at him
with tremendous recoil. He felt his feet slipping and clasped his other hand
around the hilt of his blade. He cried out with the effort, but the sound of
his voice became consumed by the roar of fire that discharged from the point of
his sword.