Summerblood (2 page)

Yet when he closed his eyes and envisioned the Overworld, and the sword ripping a gateway through to that place, and gathering up matter there like jam scooped onto a knife, he tried to make the smallest rent possible and retrieve the merest mite of Overworldly matter he could manage.

Even so, the sword tingled in his hand.

And when he could wait no longer—when the sword was like his impassioned manhood desperate for release in the throes of lust—he slowly lowered it until the blade was a finger above the ingots.

And let it fall.

Metal rang, and the sky rang, and power flowed out of him like water from a broken jar. The world turned stark white for half a breath, and smelled of hot ores and scorched wood. Rather like a forge smelled, actually. But if this was a forge, Avall was Lord Craft himself—and it was blasphemy to claim so close an identity with The Eight.

He was vaguely aware of Lykkon easing nearer, and of Rann hanging back, before his vision cleared enough to witness what he had wrought.

The sword had sheared through the wood like a scythe through new grain, and the path of its passing showed clear down to the underlying steel, which had also begun to part. The other ingots had likewise been sundered. Which he'd expected. What he'd been curious about was how the damage would manifest beyond the point of impact—to determine whether it was heat or some
other
energy that accompanied the weapon's use.

“What do you think, Lyk?” he asked his kinsman.

Lykkon fanned smoke away and squinted closer. “As best I can tell, there's no correlation between melting points of metal and extent of damage. The steel shows signs of damage farther out than the lead, and the tin's just cut straight through, with no sign of melting at all.”

Avall blinked within his helm. “And the glass?”

“Raise the sword.”

Avall did—and found that the blade did not come away cleanly. Instead, one glass ingot rose with it, as though the sword were a log that had frozen in ice. Lykkon touched the ingot gingerly, then gave it an experimental tug. It resisted briefly, then came free—showing a narrow channel where the blade had been. But no sign of melting.

“Not the same effect,” he mused. “Beyond that, I'll need to do some measuring. But my guess—” He paused and looked at Avall. “My guess is that some substances either go straight to smoke and vapor—or straight to the Overworld.”

Avall could wait no longer. Resheathing the sword, he snaked his other arm free of the shield, then reached up to remove the helmet, grateful to taste clear air and see open sky. Setting the regalia aside as though it were any Common Clan soldier's gear, he inspected the ingot more closely. “You're right,” he agreed. “Not much melting.”

“Which means?”

A shrug. “You tell me.”

Lykkon scowled. “I don't know
what
it means. But if we're right: If that thing draws matter from the Overworld, which manifests here as energy, like the shield sends energy from here to there, where it manifests as—well, we don't
know
how it manifests—I think what we have here is a case where you've sent
matter
to the Overworld. Otherwise, there'd be some sign of melting along all the relevant junctures, and there isn't.”

“You said it could've vaporized,” Rann reminded him.

Lykkon shrugged. “There's no way to tell at present. I'll have to think of some way to test that notion. For now—”

“For now,” Avall finished for him, “I've had enough experimenting.” Without waiting either comment or consent—he was, after all, King—he distributed the regalia among his comrades and shooed them back into the tower. A trickle of blood slid into one eye, from where the helm-gem's trigger had pricked him. He rubbed at it absently: the price one paid for knowledge.

They paused in the holding chamber only long enough to return the regalia to the table-safe and lock the door, before continuing down another level to a room that was far more opulent than the austere one above. These walls were covered with fine tapestries, the floors with luxurious carpet, and the furniture, though sparse, was comfortable. A small table by the door held a carafe of wine, chilling beside three golden goblets—which Lykkon filled without asking. Rann found a sofa and flopped down in it, looking listless. Avall settled beside him, closer than the sofa's size required. He stroked Rann's thigh absently, the familiar flesh hard and sleek beneath the thin sylk of summer hose. “So,” he began, accepting a goblet from Lykkon with his free hand, “what am I going to do with what's upstairs? I've given myself two days to decide, and two days aren't sufficient.”

“You've had two
eights
,” Lykkon retorted. “You've also had opinions from everyone from Tyrill and Preedor down to my brother, Bingg. I can't tally the times you and I have hashed this out, or—I imagine—you and Strynn and Merryn. And Rann,” he finished awkwardly, looking flustered.

Avall didn't know if he likewise looked flustered, but he certainly felt that way, given that Rann was paying them no mind at all. Not from spite or rudeness, he knew, but for another reason. Rann's Common Clan lover, Div, had departed Tir-Eron two eights ago as part of an escort for the royal harper, Kylin, who wanted to retrieve his chief-harp from Gem-Hold-Winter. Which was convenient, since Div also needed to secure a few things from the hold she'd appropriated in the Wild, before closing the place for good—so everyone assumed—and returning to Tir-Eron, where she had an
appointment in the Royal Guard. Rann had been listless and distracted ever since, in spite of Avall's efforts to keep him occupied. Not for the first time did he wonder how Rann comported himself when the two of them were apart. Then again, he and Rann had a formal bond, with the security thereby implied. Rann had no guarantee Div would return, beyond her word. Given the difference between their ages and stations, there was reason to think she might not.

Rann patted Avall's hand. “I'm sorry, Vall,” he murmured. “I just don't have anything to add.”

Avall stood abruptly. Suddenly furious, he stomped to the window and leaned against its casement, glowering. “Dammit, dammit, dammit!” he spat. “You lads are no help at all. You're supposed to be my friends. More to the point, you're supposed to be royal advisers, you're supposed to—”

“We're
not
supposed to make decisions for you,” Lykkon broke in harshly. “That's part of being King.”

“Which I never wanted to be,” Avall shot back. “Which you know perfectly well.”

“Because you've told everyone in sight every time you've seen them since it happened,” Rann muttered.

“And I still say,” Lykkon added, “that if you'd try to like it, you might find you actually do. It can't be that bad, Vall. Anything you really can't manage, you can foist off on someone else. If you're clever, you can foist off nearly everything.”

“Except the wretched regalia,” Avall growled.

“Which isn't necessarily bad,” Rann inserted. “It adds fear to the equation you've already got.”

“Which would be?”

A resigned sigh. “Liking and respect—which are
not
the same. Those of us who know you, by and large like you. Those who don't know you—which includes everyone who was at the Battle of the Storms last spring—still respect you for what you can do.”

“Story of my life,” Avall snorted. “No one cares who I am, only what I can do, and more to the point these days, what I
can do for them. I had no idea there were so many needy people in Eron—not in need of food or material goods, but for someone to
think
for them. I had no notion how badly the plague had gutted this country. How many whole clans have no one with passion enough to act quickly and accept change, yet who also have sufficient experience to distinguish between risk and foolhardiness.”

Lykkon chuckled. “You sound like you're a thousand years old.”

“I feel like it, too—sometimes. But the fact is, we're a nation of old people, who are mostly set in their ways, and those like ourselves, who are barely more than children and who get tired of running into a rule or a rite every time we turn around. We've
no
folk who are neither tired of making decisions, nor scared to make them. Look at us. None of us has either father or one-father. Lyk, you don't even have a mother.”

“Which has nothing to do with why you can't decide what to do about the regalia,” Lykkon observed quietly. “You also sounded like you had a second point—before you so conveniently distracted yourself into another whining session.”

Avall felt another stir of anger, though he wasn't certain if it was his
self
that felt it, or his uncomfortable royal persona. He fought it down ruthlessly.

“What I was going to say,” he continued with forced calm, “was that the mere existence of the regalia—especially the sword, which the lower clans seem to think is the key to everything, which it isn't—is a temptation to too many people. It represents too much power in too small a place.”

Rann chuckled grimly. “I'm not sure about everyone else, but I'd be willing to bet Priest-Clan would give one of The Eight to know where you store it.”

“Which is why I have the entire Citadel between it and the outer gates, and ten levels of well-guarded tower under the supervision of what's left of the Night Guard, and
that
under Veen, whom I trust as much as anyone who's martially inclined—besides Merryn, of course.”

“Forgetting that your wife is also from War,” Lykkon noted dryly.

“Forgetting.”

“Speaking of forgetting,” Rann took up, “one thing
you're
forgetting is that one reason you're so popular is that you command that which gave us victory over Ixti. People who've won something are generally happy people, even if it only restores the previous norm. People like heroes, and you've provided one. The fact that you're young doesn't hurt, either; nor the fact that few outside your clan and the Council had heard of you, which gives you an aura of mystery.”

“Nor does it hurt,” Lykkon went on eagerly, “that the new King of Ixti adores you.”

“Speaking of whom,” Rann put in, “what
about
Kraxxi? Do you think he'll be able to retain power, given that—”

“Given what?” Avall snapped. “He's the legitimate heir. He's been trained to be king since birth, which I certainly haven't. He's made the best peace we've ever had between our two countries.”

“Some would say he's sold Ixti's independence,” Lykkon challenged. “There are some—most of whom are beating a hasty retreat back to Ixti, fortunately—who would say that he's unable to decide anything without your permission—or Merryn's, even though we know he had exactly three private audiences with her before he and his army withdrew. But in any case, a big chunk of Ixti's army has now been to Eron. We're no longer rumor and myth to them. And they will have seen—or heard—how little resistance we gave them. For generations we relied on War-Hold to police the border, and the rumor of War-Hold's impregnability to forestall attack. The Eight know we've seen how much power rumor and reputation can manifest.”

“Countering that,” Avall replied, “is the fact that the people in Ixti are probably a lot like the people here. They'd rather be comfortable and happy than rich, powerful, and anxious—at least in their hearts. Most of them probably think that any
move against Kraxxi will bring down the wrath of Eron upon them—in the form of the Lightning Sword. Which brings us back to that.”

“So,” Rann sighed, “has this conversation accomplished anything? Has it changed your thinking? Has it brought you closer to decision?”

“It's made me decide that I'm going to get everyone I even halfway trust together for one final meeting on the subject and
then
decide.”

“And in the meantime?”

Avall shrugged. “Well, you know I'd
like
to get in some smithing, since that's what I've actually been trained to do.”

Rann cleared his throat uncomfortably, exchanging glances with Lykkon. “While we're speaking of uncomfortable topics, we might as well bring up the other one.”

“The gem,” Lykkon added. “We've no choice, Vall. It's another wild card in the Kingdom.”

Avall snorted. “A few more of those, and we can cheat for the rest of our lives.”

Lykkon's eyes narrowed. “It
is
getting better—so you said. The last time—”

“I said that to make you leave me alone about it,” Avall growled. “Clearly it didn't work.”

Yet his hand was already fumbling for one of the two fine chains that hung around his neck, one silver, one gold. It was the gold he sought and reeled from the depths of his tunic. A sphere of thick glass depended from the end, within which something gleamed murky red. A metal band also encircled it, with a minute clasp to one side. Holding his breath, Avall touched the clasp. A tiny click, and the sphere parted, releasing its contents into his palm.

A gem.

Like the three gems that adorned the regalia. Like the gems that Rann and Strynn—and he himself, on the other chain— wore around their throats.

But this was the master gem. The first-found gem. The
gem that had awakened so many things in the last half year, many of which should have remained quiescent. It had been the only gem, too—for a while—and Avall felt a unique bond with it. Certainly it was he who had found it in the mines beneath Gem-Hold-Winter. He who'd awakened it with his own blood by purest accident, and who'd discovered—and was still discovering—the powers its like could confer on humankind.

Unfortunately, those powers were not easily concealed, and first Avall's cousin Eddyn, then the late King of Ixti himself, Barrax min Fortan, had coveted that gem. And when a careless accident on Avall's part had resulted in Eddyn seizing it and promptly disappearing, only to find himself hundreds of shots away—which had, in turn, resulted in the gem falling into Barrax's hands—why, then Avall had feared he'd lost it forever.

He'd been devastated, too—at first—for the link 'twixt gem and wielder was stronger than he'd known. Which hadn't stopped Barrax from trying to master the gem in his own right—a mistake that had cost him his life.

Which was why Avall feared to use the gem now.