The Starfollowers of Coramonde (21 page)

“First of the
demon’s levers was Skaranx, whose high honor was to warder the Lifetree, but
who destroyed it. Then there was Temopon, trusted Seer, who delivered false
counsel. So too fell Vorwoda, taken with Amon’s promises, betraying her husband
Dorodor; she had been his mainstay. She lusted for Kaytaynor, Dorodor’s closest
friend, who slew him for envy of his wife and took her. Lastly was Dorodeen,
the Flawed Hero who, failing to win the loftiest seat in the Unity, would take
no second place, and set about to bring it low.

“Together,
the Five compacted to annihilate the Life-tree and slay the Unity’s most
puissant overlords. They would throw open the Infernal Plane, unleashing the
hordes of the lower regions. In those first two aspirations they succeeded; the
flower of the Unity perished, and the Lifetree with them. But in the final days
of the Masters’ plan, their Great Blow, remnants of us gathered to rob them of
total victory. A portent appeared in the sky, the Trailingsword, to call
together all persons of good intent. We won our resistance, but the world was
tottered and changed forever.

“There are
omens showing themselves,” the Trustee finished, “which are products of those
bygone days. I cannot share my every datum with you; proof will be
forthcoming.”

“We worry
not,” Angorman said in confidence; “chip by chip is the oak hewn.”

As the
Trustee was about to respond, Birds of Accord flocked down through the garden
in a soft-winged cloud. Gil was nervous, remembering the aerial attack on the
Tangent, but these Birds only lilted their song. Many hopped through the
trellis, flitting from it to Red Pilgrim, then the Trustee’s Crook and back
again. One perched on the old woman’s extended finger, singing as if telling
her something, but she didn’t have its language.

“Here is a
good omen, surely,” Angorman remarked.

“Aye,” she
answered, “they bode good luck.”

“How lucky
can they be?” Gil injected. “They’re dying out.”

The Trustee told
him, “You may yet learn. It is sometimes the inoffensive, the forgotten
creatures who set the gears of fate turning.”

Gil felt
squirmy. “What about Yardiff Bey?”

“He did not
come back south, or I would have known it. Among his own kind I could not single
him out, but if he were abroad near me in these lands of the Bright Lady, I
could not have failed to. Thus, he meant me to stay occupied with battle.”

“We have a
two-edged problem,” Andre declared. “Yardiff Bey must be found, but it is as
important that Blazetongue and Cynosure be taken to Veganá.”

“You cannot
ignore the sorcerer,” Swan objected.

“We will
not,” the Trustee proclaimed. “Here, his magic is small. Force of arms will net
him. You will supply that, High Constable. Where we mean to take Cynosure and
Blazetongue there will be magic in plenty; Andre, the Saint Commander and I
will all be needed. You take to Bey’s spoor with half this force I brought; run
him to ground if you can. He may be in Glyffa still, but I cannot permit that
to divert me. What’s more, I do not have full confidence in my Lord
Blacktarget. He already has his harpers composing odes to his own bravery
yesterday. I fear his vainglory may lead him to folly.”

Gil was
thinking it over. Andre and Angorman were still determined to escort the baby
and the sword to their final destination. But if Swan was going after the Hand
of Salamá with a full squadron, Gil no longer needed his companions. He’d be
content with those odds; if Bey were caught here in Glyffa, Gil MacDonald meant
to be there.

“All these
things were best done as soon as may be,” Andre was saying.

Gil told him,
“I’m going after Bey.”

“You have
seen our charges into friendly hands, where they belong,” Angorman announced,
“and you go now to chase their enemy. You are no longer bound to us by the
Faith Cup, therefore.”

“Thanks.”
As
if that’d stop me!
He went off to collect his gear. On his way back, he
remembered Ferrian. Asking around, he found his way to where the Horse-blooded
lay in bed, leg bandaged. In his lap was a book. Gil told the former
Champion-at-arms what had happened, then asked how he was.

“I shall
survive, and walk again. There may be a limp, the Sages tell me, but a
Horseblooded’s feet are only for stirrups anyway, is it not so?”

Gil left the
subject. “When you leave Ladentree, you’ll have to figure out what to do by
yourself. If I can, I’ll come back this way, so leave word.”

“I shall.”
Ferrian swept his hand at the shelves of books. “There are worse places to
convalesce. How many days and nights would you have to listen, how far would
you have to ride, to gather the wisdom that is met here?”

Gil admitted
he didn’t know.

“Exactly!
Strange for a Wild Rider to say, but I have come to love the elderly mustiness
here. Thus, mending will be quick.” His face was luminous, but then lost its
rapture. “Gil, Andre has told me of your Berserkergang.”

Gil’s
features clouded; the Horseblooded hurried on. “That was less a betrayal than
it seems. It was, in part, for fear that Dunstan’s fits of the Rage had passed
to you that Andre wanted me in the traveling party. I am Dunstan’s kinsman, you
see; the wizard thought I might be of some help. But all I can lay forth is
that Dunstan had the seizures of his father, though he could often channel and
control them.”

“Does it mean
Dunstan’s alive?”

“There is
good chance of it, aye.”

“Then, I’ll
find him. Be seeing you when you’re up and around.” They traded grips. Gil left
Ferrian bent over his book.

The Trustee,
Andre and Angorman were back on their horses. They made quick good-byes, then
the deCourteneys’ mother turned to Gil. “You are not unimportant in this.
Kindly consider your every action accordingly.” She called to Swan. “High
Constable, what was that you did say in my tent, two nights gone? My legacy
will be human weal?”

“And your
name will live forever,” Swan finished in subdued voice. She withheld her
concern, that her Liege was overtaxed. The Trustee took the thought with her,
lifting her Crook. Half the Sisters of the line wheeled into ranks and followed
her away smartly, banners popping on the breeze.

With Swan’s
contingent readying for speedy departure, Gil stepped inside to fetch his
baggage. His steel cap had been dented. He’d dug out the wide-brimmed,
weather-beaten hat Brodur had given him in Earthfast; he’d wear it for shade
and protection until he could find another helm that would fit him.

Silverquill
came to say good-bye. The American tried to apologize for his rudeness; the
savant set it aside. “I hope your way is clear, your hardship small. I have no
proper leave-taking gift for you; accept, if you will, this token, to say there
is no resentment betwixt us two.” He handed the other a writing plume,
silver-tipped for his name’s sake. Gil thanked him. Silverquill went off about
his duties, and the younger man took the plume and pinned up the left side of
his hat brim with it.

Swan
appeared, pulling on gauntlets. She wore a baleful look; he asked what was
wrong.

She eyed him
ruefully. “The Trustee took me aside for a moment. She said my
lips
are
puffy.”

Then she broke
up. They roared together, out of the sight of the Sisters of the Line. Making
himself straight-faced for the ride, he began to think what life could hold if
he lived to see the Hand of Salamá die.

Bright star! would I were as steadfast
as thou art!

John Keats

“Bright Star”

WYVERN Boulevard was alive again,
decked for celebration. Deliverance had come to Veganá.

For months
the city of Midmount, capital of the country, had been somber in its captivity.
Today a parade of triumph marched down the boulevard, through myriad flower
petals drifting down from its balconies. People crowded twenty deep at either
side, screamed, laughed, wept, hugged one another, waved pennants and hailed
the captains or lords they recognized, scanning the ranks hopefully for the
face of a loved one. Panegyric songs filled the air, many of them to Lord
Blacktarget, propagated by his own advance guard. Occhlon banners could be
seen, trampled and burned, in the gutters.

Weeks of
sharp clashes had dislodged the Southwastelanders from resolute positions just
south of the Glyffan border. The returning army of Veganá and the Sisters of
the Line, fueled by shattering wins to the north, had sent the desert men
reeling in one onset after another. Their numbers had swollen with militiawomen
from liberated regions of Glyffa, and Veganán men freed from the southern yoke.
These had been the most aggressive fighters, out for redress.

The
Southwastelanders had been thrown out of central Veganá. Crows had circled,
blotting the sky, awaiting a rare feast. Shrewd gray wolves skulking in the
hills had licked their white chops, knowing their time would come. The Occhlon
had lost nearly fifteen thousand men since the cream of their army had marched
north to screen Yardiff Bey’s stealthy mission to Ladentree.

Lord
Blacktarget led the parade to a halt before the temple of the Bright Lady,
lifting his hand to the cheers. He raised Blazetongue aloft, and Woodsinger
held Cynosure. Veganáns were not far from a happy brand of hysteria.

After the
general came the Trustee, who’d actually directed the campaign, with Andre
deCourteney and Angorman, both risen as commanders in their own right. The
crowd pressed in against their honor guard as they dismounted.

The temple
reared above them, largest in the Crescent Lands; late-afternoon sun splashed
from its gilded domes. Atop the front steps stood its archdeacon. When they
came up, he kowtowed. “All praise for this day. I will take charge of the babe;
she goes to the keeping of the temple virgins.”

Woodsinger
didn’t move. “It is not yet the time for that,” the Trustee said.

Lord
Blacktarget became incensed. “Come, madam, your prerogatives do not run to
this.”

Patiently,
she explained, “There is more to her homecoming than that. Prophesies must be observed,
a Rite performed.”

Their uneasy
alliance was close to fracture. He’d never liked taking a secondary post to
hers, and no longer needed to. But the archdeacon said, “If the Trustee refers
to the child’s Vigil, that would be commensurate with custom. Cynosure is,
after all, the last of the Blood Royal.”

Blacktarget
yielded one last time. At the foot of the steps, a Glyffan captain let herself
breathe; the call to arms hadn’t been far from her lips. Her Liege had been
specific; nothing was to keep the child from her Vigil. Woodsinger gave the
child over to the archdeacon.

Andre,
Angorman and the Trustee accompanied the old churchman inside. Lord Blacktarget
insisted on coming too. Climbing from stairway to stairway, on stone worn away
by ages of footfalls, they made a winding ascent to the little chapel where
only royalty of Veganá held ceremony. Its walls and roof were all of glass
roundels, like distorted gray lenses, that created an eerie half-world as the
sun set.

The new
monarch must, by tradition, stand a night-watch. For the first time in
generations it could be done, as it was supposed to be, with the ancestral
sword. Usually, the Vigil was kept in solitude; tonight was the most singular
exception in Veganá’s history.

The chapel’s
altar was a waist-high cube of jasper. Inset at its center was the emblem of
Cynosure’s house, a wyvern picked out in gold on a black field. A short rod
supported the crescent moon of the Bright Lady over it. The archdeacon set the
baby down between the sparkling claws of the inlaid wyvern, then went away,
having discharged his duty.

The others
knelt or took seats on low divans. Andre removed the rod and in its aperture he
stood Blazetongue. The child made no sound, attuned to the moment. “That is a
liberty to take,” commented Blacktarget, “with a sword not your own.”

“Yet he has,
by rights, some ties with it,” the Trustee observed, “for it was forged by his
grandsire, my father, for a King far back in Cynosure’s line.” The general was incredulous.
“Yes, Lord Blacktarget, our magic is there, and far mightier enchantment
besides, though Andre never knew any of that until I told him. Blazetongue is a
vessel of the Bright Lady’s energies, and complies with her still. Did you
think it came into my hands at random? There is transcendent purpose to it
all.”

“What do you
hope for, from it?” Lord Blacktarget snapped.

“The keeping
of a promise given long ago. The Celestial Mistress brings many threads
together tonight.”

They were
closeted with their own thoughts. Andre fretted about Gil MacDonald, and
wondered, too, how things boded for Springbuck, for Reacher, Katya and Van
Duyn. He said a prayer for Gabrielle.

The stars
appeared, warped and rearranged by the roundels. The crescent moon rose, magnified
in the roundels, hanging over Cynosure and Blazetongue. The Trustee watched it
carefully. Angorman chanted softly to himself, Lord Blacktarget halted his
devotions. Andre simply waited.

Blazetongue
came to life in this appointed moment; it had no ruinous flames to spew, but
rather a blue aurora that made them shield their eyes, and a high-pitched
humming, music of the spheres. All of them knew their deity had come.

Angorman was
about to raise his voice in praise. The Trustee shushed him and stepped to the
altar.

Her arms
lifted imploringly. “We are assailed, hard-put even as we were long ago. One
great portent must we have, to lift hopes, and set hands against the Masters.
We look to your promised Omen.”

The humming
grew louder, Blazetongue’s aura more brilliant. The baby didn’t seem to mind at
all. Monarch of Veganá, she’d been born for this, an hour implicit in
Blazetongue’s forging. Among the crowds keeping their own nightwatch in the
streets below, a shout went up. They’d marked the glass-walled chapel’s
radiance.