The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) (9 page)

Silence thundered through the room.  There, it was said.  Too late to take it back.  He was staring at her like she
’d grown a third eye.  He finally rocked back on his heels, ran a big hand through his hair, sent his eyes on a brief survey of the room, and brought them back to stare at her again.

“
A Kingsmeet?” he finally repeated.

She nodded, a picture of composure. 
“There are things we need to discuss—”

“
There hasn’t been a Kingsmeet in, what, 150, 200 years?”  He was beginning to look agitated as the implications sunk in.

“
Yes, well, that’s no reason we can’t—”

“
There very well is a reason we can’t!” he said pointedly.  “Several reasons!  One of them being we don’t currently
have
four kings!”

“
There have been women ruling the Empire for centuries, Kane,” she said with dry patience.

“
And none of them have ever been at a Kingsmeet, Sable!” he snapped.  A storm was beginning to brew.  He moved closer, his broad chest filling her view.  “By definition, Kingsmeets are DEEPLY traditional—”

“
Traditions may need to change!” she had to almost shout to be heard over his big voice.  “You and Melkin keep harping on me to keep my mind open, to consider all this evidence without preconceptions.  Well,” she all but demanded, “I would expect you to be pleased to hear that I think it’s time the four Realms came together again!  We need to compare notes, to weigh each other’s…evidence.  If they have any to share.  Perhaps even to come to some common understanding, a plan of action, if such is needed—Kane!” she interposed quickly at the look on his face, “It is madness that in this day of advanced communications, Cyrrh and the Ramparts are virtual strangers!  You have told me the Kings of the Borders never leave them!  That you are an anomaly and my ideas of trying to meet with the other rulers are foolish!  So what choice do I have?”

He was staring broodily at her, scowling.  His huge arms had crossed and he loomed over her now, eyes starting to kindle as the storm gained strength,
his words like the low, soft rumble of thunder on the horizon.

“
Sable, you are playing with something that you don’t begin to understand.  The Kings will expect a standard from you that you don’t even know
exists.
  These men are not the brainless, invertebrate chairwarmers of your Council—”

“
Please, Kane!” she snapped before he could gain any more momentum.  “Lord Khrieg is a barely upright septuagenarian that can’t even get my name right when we exchange our annual reports—”

He spun away from her,
displeasure barely contained, circling back around her slim figure like a wolfhound around a hare.

“
—and Rach Kyr is younger than
I
—”

“
That is exactly what I mean!” he snapped in a roar, swinging in on her.  She didn’t even flinch—their arguments had given her enormous and quite handy self-control.  As a side benefit, after facing his wrath, it was difficult to get too excited about her scrawny, pasty, squeaky opponents on the Council.

“
You will horribly underestimate these men, humiliate yourself, demean the whole ceremony to the realm of the laughable, and relegate any chance of effectively working together to the midden heap!  Khrieg may be old and apathetic after his Lady’s death, but he represents a culture we know nothing about!  We’ll be barely speaking the same language!  You think to share evidence?” he scorned.  “You can barely give credence to the idea of gryphons—which your grandfather can remember seeing—so how is it you think you’ll have the patience to listen to a discourse on white stag birth rates or the advice of centaurs???!”

She blinked at him.

“And Kyr may be considered barely in his majority in the North, but he’s been ruling since he was
fourteen
.  He’s lost a wife and two sons to an Enemy you’re still skeptical even exists, and has seen more of life in his few short years than you’ll probably know in your entire, pampered, existence!!!  Treat these men like simpletons,” he roared, “and you will finish the job of alienating them that your brainless predecessors have so idiotically started!”

He
glared angrily at her.  She stared obstinately back.  “It’s just a discussion, Kane.  Amongst the Rulers of the Realms facing a potential threat—”

“
With every word you say, you prove my point, Sable!  THIS WILL NOT BE A SESSION OF YOUR COUNCIL!  A Kingsmeet is a
WAR TABLE
!!!” he bellowed, eyes boring into hers.  “This is a thing of the Legends and the Ages of War—topics you’re so embarrassed about, they’re not even taught at your precious University!  This will be a joke to you, like kids at a party dressing up like Knights and Whiteblades, a patronizing parody of what it is intended to be!”

She was getting t
ired of all of this impassioned invective.  When he drew breath, she interjected crisply, “Do not mistake me for my predecessors, Kane, nor my thoughts and beliefs for those of my countrymen.  I am well aware of the North’s sense of self-importance.”

He just looked at her, huge hands on still-trim hips, grim and breathing hard through his nose.  She realized she was sounding defensive. 
“Look, I will heed your advice.  I confess I had not considered how the other Realms might see this.  This will be accomplished with the utmost attention to decorum and respect for the Old Ways…but it will be accomplished.”  She narrowed her eyes and began, slowly, to circle him.

“
You know as well as I,” she said in velvet persuasion, “that this is what is needed.  We must have more than a couple of annual sentences of formal froth between the Realms if an issue of the Enemy stirring is on the horizon.  You cannot deny this, and I would think you would embrace it.”

She stopped in front of him, grabbing and holding his eyes.  He scowled at her.

“This is exactly what is needed,” he finally growled out reluctantly.  “And I would leap for joy that you’ve finally seen sense…if you were a King.”  And with that he turned on his heel and stalked out of the Throne Room.

It rankled a little.  She was a grown woman with many years of experienced rule under her belt.  Now, Kane was notorious for his blunt advice; he had called her foolish, bumbling, amateurish, even stupid, over the years.  But, it had been a long time since his frankness had bothered her.

The si
lken, pale orange hem of her gown whispered as it followed her down the long, quiet back stairways…whispering, whispering.  Her thoughts flew restlessly, steps disappearing heedlessly beneath her slippers.  To imply she was a child, playing a game for adults!  Well, she had read the Histories, even ordered the newest manuscripts from the University Library to make sure she had the latest information.

So why this
great hole where her answers to Kane should have been?

Relieved to see the floor she wanted, she swept
off the stairs and over to the beautifully worked door of the side entrance to the Royal Archives.  She’d been down here many, many times over the years and the Master Archivist barely glanced up at her.

He looked dimly surprised when she marched up to his big desk.

“Master Vill, please tell me where I can find the oldest traditions and lore of the Realms.”

An agonizing minute passed while he absorbed this.  He was
a dour, orderly old thing, and he preferred matters sensible, predictable, and easily categorized.  It was apparent he was finding Her Majesty a bit frivolous.  With great dignity, he answered, “If you remember, Majesty, you have already read every volume we have of the Ancient Histories…”

“
What I’m looking for is not there.  I don’t want to read
about
old documents; I want to read the Old Records.  There must be some, somewhere.”

He frowned severely at her.  With a stately displeasure, he said,
“Of course we have some of the older Records, though by no fault of ours they are no longer well-preserved.  But, Majesty,” his voice became one of sepulchral disapproval, “these are the raw notes of the uneducated generations of the Ages of War.  They have not been interpreted, collated, proofed for accuracy, the perceptions provided being both biased and emotional—”

“
Yes,” she said, hiding impatience behind briskness.  “That’s just what I want.”

He looked at her in blank disbelief.  Slowly, as if he couldn
’t believe there was no other choice, he reached under the big desk, removed a set of keys, and tottered with a distinct air of reproach over to a small, arched, ancient-looking door in the nearby wall.  Sable curbed her royal temper, sparing a thought for Kane’s well-disciplined Fortress.  His staff
scurried
at even a hint of a command.  But, she chided herself, is it really worth the heavy-handedness to get it?   Servants were people, too, and as such deserved a certain amount of respect—

“
Your Majesty,” Master Vill turned to her in one last apparent effort, “I must discourage such an unwise—”

“
Open the flaming door!”

Even the old records were stored neatly.  Rows and rows of tomes
stretched away from her, some with their spines crumbling into dust.  The room was low-ceilinged, with no windows and few lights, smelling of musty paper and wood and, faintly, of rat.  She walked slowly down the dim aisles, fingers trailing across thin spines, fat spines, no spines with the binding cords clearly showing in the oldest—no, there were older yet.  Rolls of dusty parchment lay on top of the shelves, stacked to the ceiling.

With Master Vill
’s deeply offended help, she found it.  It was right in the middle of the middle row, a medium-sized, well-worn volume titled simply, “The Kingsmeet.”  On the leather cover were pressed the faded colors of the four Trieles:  the Diamond, the Sapphire, the Emerald and the Ruby.

She took it to a rough work table at the end of the row, gently opened it
—and felt a surge of triumph.  It was perfect.  A brief introduction detailing the original meeting, its quick ascension into a formal ceremony.  The most well-known Kingsmeets and the famous results.  Pages devoted to the role of each Realm at the actual meeting.  And, wonder of wonders, an entire chapter detailing each step of a Kingsmeet ceremony, step-by-step, word-by-required-word.  She felt a shiver go down her backbone, staring at the elegant script flowing across the page in front of her.  Kane was right.  She would have looked a complete and utter fool.

She pored over that book for hours, until her eyes were gritty and her neck and shoulders ached from peering at the faded pages.  She was exhausted by the time she finally left
with the book in hand, but grimly victorious.  And as she mounted the same staircase, she was not surprised to see grey mist lifting off the face of her waking Realm.  Her chin tilted, preparing for battle.  She had a meeting of Throne and Council in about an hour, and they were not going to like what she had to say.

CHAPTER 5

They angled s
teadily down across the green, sloping face of the Wilds.  It was like one huge, emerald lawn, flowing smoothly around solemn, soaring boulders that made up whole hillsides in a timeless kind of grandeur.  Deer, rabbits, and game birds bounded away from them a dozen times a day in the unending leagues of meadow.  At night, wolfsong drifted through the crystalline blackness, and owls hauntingly questioned their wisdom.

The first time they
’d heard the wolves howl, their spines tingling with a reaction as old as man, it was the morning after they’d left the Shepherd’s.  Melkin, bent over his girth strap, snapped his head up like the pack was rushing down from the hills right then.  Ari raised his fiery eyebrows at Loren—given all the game around and the size of their party, and the Master’s supposed familiarity, it seemed an incongruously nervous response.

“
Mount up,” he commanded, sharp eyes peeling away the distance in the direction of the howls.  Cerise and Rodge clambered up like the ground was on fire, but the boys exchanged another look, quite comfortable with the sounds of the wild—until he barked, “NOW!” and they scrambled onto their horses barely in time to move out with the rest of the party.

Kai, who usually trotted on ahead of them, was going the other way this morning, crouched low and tight, like he was hunting.  But the trip remained idyllic, that day and the several that followed
flowing into one long daydream of paradise proportions.

Ari was in love.  Somehow, he was convinced, he would find his way back to this
land.  The call of the high country was in his blood, deep and sure as if he’d spent his life here. He gave a huge sigh of vast contentment, and since they were all riding bunched up together rather than in single file down a trail, everyone heard it.

“
Are you all right?” Cerise asked sarcastically.  She had bags under her pale eyes from restless nights—may have been the wolves—and the lack of sleep hadn’t sweetened her disposition any.

Banion chuckled behind his rough covering of facial hair
, giving Ari a wink.  “It’s these mountains…got a nice big feel to them, like a tossing sea when a storm’s brewing.”  Rodge looked at him askance.

“
How is it we don’t see more Addahites?” Ari asked eagerly.

Banion scratched at his beard. 
“This here is blizzard country; snow and wind scream down off the heights like Raemon himself’s behind them and the whole center of the Wastes barely qualifies as habitable for most of the year.  We think most of the Addahites live in the East, where the Eastern Sea keeps the temperatures a little warmer and the winds aren’t as biting.  Don’t know, of course…not the type to fill out a census, and no one really knows much about them.”

“
How can that be?” Loren interjected, waving his hand absently at a bumblebee.  “We’ve been neighbors for centuries.”

Banion grunted. 
“Reclusive.  Mind their own business and don’t mix much except when they bring the sheep down for shearing.  And, of course, they’re Illians,” he added sourly.

“
So?” Ari said, continually surprised this was such a thorn in Merranic flesh.  “They just believe in a different god.”

“
It’s not that simple,” he muttered.

Ari looked at him expectantly.
  He was increasingly interested in Il, the God of this great, sweeping, powerful country, the God of his childhood.

“
They claim they’ve got the only
valid
one,” Banion explained darkly.  “There are four gods and a couple minor cult deities in the Realms, but they don’t seem to think they count.  Then, they have to proselytize all over the place.  Like we care about Il when we’ve got Vangoth.  Flaming Swords of Light…always infecting…” he was beginning to mutter vitriol, the words getting lost in the tangle of growth around his mouth.

The boys
glanced at each other, Rodge’s mobile face showing signs of amusement.  Seeing a chance for entertainment, he asked innocently, “These, uh, these Swords of Light…why are they always women?”

“
Because the original band was women!” Banion barked at him, definitely snappish.  “All shapes and colors and sizes, from all different Realms.  Girls today that decide they just can’t live without being missionaries for Il take on one of the personas, whichever fits them best, forget their old life, give their new one to the Ways of Il, and dedicate the rest to tormenting the Realms.  There’s a book,” he continued grimly, “they can use for reference, full of all twenty of ‘em with pictures and descriptions and their very own little life stories.  What they don’t know is that
we
use it to hunt them down.”

Ari almost fell off his ge
lding.  Memory inundated him, shocking him to his stirrups. 
He had seen that book. 
It came rushing back to him like someone had smacked him with it, and once more he was sitting in Lord Harthunter’s big library, gazing in delight at the bright pictures, the beautiful old paper…He must have still been pretty young, the memories of the nuns that had raised him still fresh, because he remembered staring at the portraits of pretty girls and imagining in his baby mind that his nuns were among them.  He had pored over that book for years, had known all the stories by heart, could almost see the fancy writing flowing across the rich, frail yellow pages.  The Book of Ivory.

How strange that his mind had be
come so enmeshed in his past, when right now it was his future that needed all his attention.  He’d even thought to ask the Shepherd about Il, what exactly his Illian nuns would have believed in, but Melkin had a fire lit under him.  They’d left after that one night.

Melkin had been morose
ever since, saying hardly a word except to Kai or Banion and looking so dour that no one dared approach him.  In class, he’d been fastidious, robes crisp and clean, beard neatly trimmed, speech as sharp and intellectual as it was scathing.  Now, well, the dingy cloak wrapped up behind his saddle had seen a lot of road dust, and its owner had taken on the quiet watchfulness of those who’ve lived in the wild.  Even Rodge, largely concerned with his aching back, which was being jolted hours on end from the steady ride downhill, had noticed.

“
Maybe he used to work for the Border,” he’d hypothesized one night.  Loren and Ari had snorted appreciatively—the Patrol that ranged the Empire’s Borders with Cyrrh were supposedly tough as forged iron, a whole different breed of Imperial Police, quiet, dangerous men that spent months alone in the western forests.  It was ridiculous, of course, but still…there was something.  The hilt of the sword riding in its saddle scabbard had as much wear as the cloak.

In spite of Rodge
’s complaints and Melkin’s damping silence, they were all settling into the camaraderie of extended traveling companions.  The routine of the road, the familiarity that comes from constant and close acquaintance, began to instill a sense of comfortableness.  One could argue too much comfort.  Occasionally, lines had to be redrawn.

One night
, Rodge, sick of Ari and Loren’s thousandth conversation about the Heroes’ Swords and cranky from the whole road trip, walked up behind Kai.  He was headed to his pack, but the sight of the Dra’s blades was too much.  “Do you have names for your swords, too?” he half-sneered contemptuously, reaching out to touch one of the hilts.

He
’d barely started the motion when he suddenly found himself flung by the neck and pinned against a nearby tree trunk.  His friends’ mouths dropped, horrified at Rodge’s gasping red face and Kai’s effortless, at-arm’s-length, muscle-popping stance.

“
Wait, wait, Kai!” Ari said, scrambling to his feet and running over.  “It’s just prattle,” he said hurriedly, anxious to pull the big hand off Rodge’s throat but not sure he wanted to touch the coiled lethality of the Dra.  He was fairly certain that Kai could handle both of them without too much inconvenience.  “He didn’t mean anything by it—you know Rodge!  He’s always spouting off.”

The
sharp, bronzed planes of his face were emotionless, but after all their days on the trail together, Ari was sure he’d be able to tell if the Dra was angry.  His eyes didn’t look angry.

He was right. 
As abruptly as he put him there, Kai released Rodge, and calmly walked away.  Rodge, who pooled into a rather unmanly heap on the ground, commenced a dramatic and noisy search for air, Ari and Loren bent worriedly over him.

“
Men have died trying to touch Dra steel,” Melkin said coldly from behind them.  His face was twisted with disgust.  “You’d better grow up,” he told Rodge by way of comfort.

It was sobering.  Also, it intensified this feeling that Ari had of being one of the children, a boy that needed men to look after him, that needed to do what he was told and keep his mouth shut. 
He stewed over it that night, and the next morning asked Banion if he’d mind some sword work in the evenings. You’d think from the ecstatic bellowing that followed that a large and hairy child had just gotten a bag of sugar sticks.  Melkin, after a few minutes of watching them spar that first night, was so convinced of the importance of further instruction that he absolved them of dinner duty for the remainder of their trip.  The Master was by far the best cook among them anyway, Ari told himself, trying not to be offended.

“
Banion, I hold you responsible for turning these worthy young men into skilled and well-muscled CRETINS,” Rodge said in mocking disdain, glancing at them trade blows from where he was gathering firewood.

Not to be outdone, Cerise ostentatiously removed her bow and quiver from her saddlepack and walked a short distance away to fire off several rounds.  When they all
came in for dinner, Banion curiously drew out one of her arrows and looked it over.  It was a beautiful, slim thing of golden wood and crisp white fletching, and its quiver was a veritable work of art.  There was even gold trim around the edges of it. 

“
Ought to work fine,” Banion rumbled, “if we’re attacked by rabbits.”  Rodge grinned at him.  Cerise glared at them all.

“
Men,” she snorted nastily.  “You all think there’s a war around every corner and an invasion force just up the road.  I’ve got some news for you—there is no “rising” and you’re not going to get to play with your weapons this generation.”  She did glance over to make sure Melkin was still talking quietly to Kai in the tree line.  “The Realms are as safe, stable, and secure as they have always been.  Probably would always HAVE been if you boys in men’s bodies didn’t have to have your ridiculous games.”

Banion stopped demolishing his grouse leg. 
“You don’t think there was an Enemy needed fighting all those years ago?” he asked, deceptively interested.

“
Of course there was an enemy,” she snapped impatiently.  “But there are other ways of dealing with conflict than to just blindly turn and swing.”

“
I think you’re right,” Banion agreed, returning to his grouse.

She looked at him suspiciously.

“In fact, if we ever end up facing them again, I vote we send you out in front to talk some sense into both sides.”

“
Seconded,” Rodge piped up.

Melkin
’s grim presence loomed up over them, then, and Cerise had to choke back her retort.

Ari dreamed of the Empress and Ivory that night.
  They were all sitting around a fire by the garden of his youth, tucking him into his bed—somehow set into the tangled growth of the garden patch.  He woke up thinking ruefully that he was losing his perspective.

Several days out from the Shepherd
’s Hall, they rode into Shearling.  The horses’ hooves raised desolate clouds of dust as they walked down empty streets, lined with row after row of deserted buildings.  After a week of riding through nothing but soft grass and wide-open space, it was a little creepy, like the world had moved on while they were wandering around in the maze of the Wolflands’ fairytales.  Clumps of wool fluttered everywhere, looking lost and lonely, but that was all they saw moving until they reached the river.  A few weeks out of the year, the only known town in Addah burst with bleating, wooly life, a cheerful cacophony of shearing and selling and buying of a year’s worth of basic necessities before the Addahites disappeared back up into their hills with their naked sheep.  It was the finest wool in the Realms, unfortunately for the reclusive locals.  Their quiet little business with the North had turned into a huge trade fair, famous throughout the Empire and attended by thousands. 

They were several weeks late for the shearing, but th
e banks of the Kendrick still rippled with steady activity.  Barges lined both sides of it for almost a half-league, barely bobbing in the smooth current.  Despite its width here, it only took about three of the enormous, flat boats to span the river. 

“
You’ve gotta be kidding,” Rodge said, looking over the scene as Melkin led them right down to the quay.  “He can’t possibly be thinking of going by water,” he said with dismay. 

“
It’ll cut the time to the Coast by over half,” Banion said cheerfully.  With a pleased rumble, he laboriously dismounted and headed to a nearby dock.  Another huge man, indubitably Merranic with that girth, threw up his hands at sight of him and bellowed something loud and utterly incomprehensible.