Lesson of the Fire (4 page)

“You are trying to boil soup in a wooden
bowl,” she said quietly, stepping in very close as though
congratulating him. “When it burns through, you will have neither
bowl nor soup.”

Sven leaned back and met her stony green
eyes. He looked away, annoyed. “I refuse to show mercy to
Marrishland’s enemies.”

“Volund and his reds are not Marrishland’s
enemies — only yours.”

“Nor are they Marrishland’s allies — only
your master’s.”

She frowned. “The path you are taking
prevents you from taking any other roads.”

“Are you now my enemy, too?”

“A fire does not refuse to bend in the wind.
It bows that it might spread more quickly.”

“A friend of mine tried that, once. The wind
snuffed him out.”

“Mother would have said ...”

Sven’s patience slipped. This was an old
argument. “Mother was enslaved by your precious dux before I was
eight,” he said coldly. “Tyra Gematsud raised you, not me.”

She closed her mouth. Her eyes glistening
with tears, she teleported away.

Sven marched toward the citadel, Einar at his
heels.

“Old lover?”

Sven opened his mouth to
answer but changed his mind.
If he knows
who she is and who she serves, he may yet turn against
me.

“I am in no mood, Weard Schwert.”

Sven knew he should be horrified by the day’s
activities, sick to his stomach for his behavior on the square. Two
men dead by his hands, but he felt nothing.

It was the only way to win three consecutive
duels. My display of superhuman power today will keep other wizards
from challenging me each year. My enemies will have to find other
ways of fighting me, ways that don’t force me to give away my
weaknesses.

Sven removed the gloves from his utility vest
and returned them to the pouch at his side. He had killed men who
had done nothing wrong before, as he protected innocent people from
the wrath of a magocrat. Horik and Solvi had deserved their
fates.

For Marrishland, I must beat those who would
be her enemies. I must learn their strengths and weaknesses and use
that knowledge against them. Now I am the most powerful wizard in
Marrishland. I must use this position to my advantage.

Slaves and mundanes of the Citadel stepped
forward until they surrounded him, asking his command. Sven
flinched slightly at this servility in fellow Mar.

This, too, will I change.

He gave them instructions patiently, asking
for food and a room. Sitting at a table before a narrow opening, he
ate the soup they brought. It was delicious and thick with meat. He
ate it in silence, noting with some sadness that it was the best he
had ever tasted.

While many mundanes risk their lives daily
in the swamps to feed themselves, the most powerful weards do not
even have to boil their own soup.

He vowed he would not allow such meals to
become a habit. Wild rice and laurita soup with a little meat had
sustained him all his life. There was no reason he should eat
better food than that.

If I did, I would be no better than
Vigfus.

When he had finished his meal, he withdrew to
his quarters to rest. He stayed awake just long enough to offer a
prayer of thanksgiving to his patrons for his success in battle
that day, and for the gifts they had given him.

Chapter 4

“
The oldest Mar stories are more symbolic
than literal. Oral tradition loses details of fact in just a few
generations, replacing them with details that reinforce existing
values. When these stories are written down, it preserves them, but
traps the tales in time. As the centuries pass, the symbolic
details lose their strength as metaphors and come to be regarded as
literal facts.”

— Weard Eira Helderza,

Unavoidable Problems in Literature

Sven Takraf’s dramatic victories over three
contenders for the Chair on his first day effectively ended all
formal resistance to his ascent, and he faced no further challenges
the next day. Existing political pressures, clever planning and
turns of good fortune often attributed to divine intervention
allowed him to lay the foundation for his rule after only one
forty-five day month as Mardux.

Sven chose an ideal year to seek the Chair —
the same Duxfest when more than a dozen reds conspired with Dux
Feiglin to topple Mardux Rorik Beurtlin. Five reds died at Rorik’s
hands in two days before he fell to Ozur Betrun. Rorik’s old friend
and master duelist Weard Einar Schwert arrived from the frontier to
issue a challenge of his own.

Volund’s allies were still implementing a
revised plan to take the Chair when Sven Takraf arrived in Domus
Palus. By the end of Sven’s first day of duels, nearly a third of
all the reds in Marrishland lay dead in the year’s battle for the
Chair. If he had not spared Weard Schwert, though, he may still
have faced more challengers. However, while the remaining reds
could not know with certainty that Weard Schwert would issue a
fresh challenge against anyone who defeated Sven Takraf, no point
of Law forbade him from doing so. Dux Feiglin and his surviving
supporters decided not to take this risk.

Minutes after Nightfire announced Sven’s
ascent to the chair, the four hundred seventh-degree wizards
belonging to the priesthoods of Domus Palus’ temples arrived at the
citadel without warning or explanation to swear loyalty to Sven.
The priests had not given an oath of loyalty to a Mardux in a
century, and few people knew that one of Sven’s friends, Weard
Horsa Verifien, was behind it. Some saw divine approval of Sven’s
rule in this gesture, but no one could ignore the magic resources
hundreds of yellows represented.

Sven acted quickly to consolidate his power
within Domus Palus. The Mardux was little more than a dux of duxes.
He was the dux of Domus, equal rank in rank to all the other duxes,
except that by law and tradition, the ruler of Domus led the
Council. His authority ended at the edge of Domus. But as a
stranger to Domus, he wanted to make certain of his people’s
loyalty.

He ordered all wizards to attend a banquet
celebrating his ascendancy to the Chair. During the days-long
celebration, he greeted all in the government, stripped them of
their ranks and titles and demanded an oath of fealty like those
the priests and Einar had given him. He banished anyone who refused
from the Duxy of Domus and confiscated their property — the Law
wouldn’t let him execute them. While his education and experience
had not equipped him to analyze and restructure the bureaucracy of
the capital after banishing so many wizards, he gave Einar and
Horsa full authority to act on his behalf. Sven personally and
severely punished any magocrat in the capital caught committing an
act of bad faith, and the others soon learned he had no patience
for the tears and pleas of corrupt officials.

Eighteen days into his rule, Sven met with
the Council to tell them of his plan to unite Marrishland. He met
fierce resistance from Volund. Nightfire and the Duxess of Pidel
reiterated their neutrality. The Dux of Wasfal offered suggestions
but would not declare his loyalty outright. The Duxes of Skrem,
Gunne and Piljerka swore fealty with little encouragement.

Little noted but of great importance to the
course events would take was the arrival of the Traveller and
storyteller known as Pondr. He played only a minor role in
spreading the Mardux’s legend, but his stories had a profound
effect on Sven that may have altered the course of Mar history.

* * *

The celebratory banquet evolved into
something else during the fifth nine-day span of Sven’s reign. He
stood on a balcony overlooking the revelry, viewing the celebrating
crowd. Einar stood at his shoulder.

“I should stop this soon,” Sven mused. “It is
devouring resources we will need later.”

“Food and drink can be replenished,” Einar
said. He swept an arm out over the crowd below. “These are the
resources you must watch most closely.”

“They have all sworn their loyalty to me
before the Oathbinder. Even a mundane knows the consequences of
breaking such an oath.”

Einar chuckled.

“You do not trust their word.”

Einar shrugged. “I trust it for what it is —
a promise to obey you as your position demands.”

“Many of the faces out there are my students
and friends. They did not have to come all the way to Domus Palus
to swear fealty to me.”

“Wizards flock to powerful leaders for many
different reasons,” Einar said, leaning against the crumbling stone
rail of the balcony. “Some are here for you. Some hope for money or
advancement. Some may even join you because you share an enemy with
them. Most just want to keep the positions they have here in the
city, and they really did not have any choice but to swear fealty
to you.”

“Will they resist me?”

“Some may, but most will not risk your wrath.
They did not keep their posts this long by refusing to bend in the
wind.”

Sven gazed down at the colorful crowd of
magocrats.

Normally, the greens would have outstripped
any other color, but at this function, the bright green had soon
been weeded out and ambers and higher colored the room. Amber,
cyan, lavender and yellow made lively patterns across the floor.
Among them, Eda Stormgul — the woman who had led the patrol the
night Sven had arrived — wandered, no doubt currying favor from her
new superiors while commanding those now below her.

She joined me because mine
was the winning side,
Sven
thought.

Rustiford had given eight others besides Sven
to Nightfire’s Academy, and none would have gone willingly. He
frowned as the thought crossed his mind.

I went willingly,
he thought, a part of him trying to recall
why.
For knowledge,
he decided,
and to protect Erbark,
who is not as intelligent as I am.

Below, a man of middling years gained the
stage and gathered his grey cloak about him in a flourish. Sven
peered at him. The man was no Mar, but it was hard to place his
origin.

He began speaking and then singing in adhi
tetrads, and the crowd became fixated.

“Oh come sit by my hearth tonight

And warm your hands near golden flames.

Here, have some meat and soup as well.

Sit, eat, and hear what I will say:

I am not ready yet for sleep.

The night is just as long as day.

What stories do your people tell?

Who are your heroes? Give their names.

For it is hours ’til morning’s light.”

We are known for our love
of the legend,
Sven thought,
smiling.
Perhaps that is another reason so
many have sworn to serve me — to be a part of my story.

The crowd, too, from lowliest slave to
highest yellow, was mesmerized already. The speaker raised his hand
toward Sven and appeared to stand taller.

“I tell of our Mardux’s humble beginnings,”
he cried, and the crowd roared approval. The storyteller appeared
to be waiting for Sven’s permission.

Sven was surprised by the
choice.
Is this a story to tell now? But
the people below do not know me well yet. Let them hear what I have
done. They will see soon enough what else I can do.

He waved the storyteller on, and the man
bowed extravagantly as the wizards cheered.

“Sven Takraf was born i’the wild’ress of
Gunne, a secret child of Marrish an’ Fraemauna. Seekin’ to protect
her lover from the wrath of his wife, Dinah, Fraemauna aban’oned
her son. Seruvus, who sees all, took pity on the babe, blessed the
boy with his own memory an’ gave him to Pitt Gematsud to raise as
his son.”

All worries of the storyteller vanished from
Sven’s mind. The man certainly didn’t know any truths, if that was
how he began. And though he spoke in the rural, uneducated Mar
dialect, he certainly could have picked that up. Trained
storytellers could do many things.

“Pitt an’ his wife had no child’en, an’ they
were happy to do as the god asked. But they didn’t reckon on the
jealous wrath of the Bald Goddess. Dinah called a ban’ of damnens
to raid the villages of Gunne, promisin’ them all the slaves they
could catch as lon’ as they killed any child with Marrish’s eyes of
green fire.”

Now Sven found Eda, her back
to the storyteller, her brown eyes seeking him. Another face was
turned toward him, a man not three years older than him, wearing
yellow.
Horsa Verifien,
Sven thought.
There were
six of us who finished: Brand and Tosti, who are dead, Eda, Horsa,
Katla and myself. Is it coincidence these two are here now? The
gods have played their games with me before.

“The list of people taken an’ green-eyed
child’en killed grew daily, an’ th’ones left lived in fear of
Dinah’s child’en. The people of Gunne cried out to the gods for
deliverance, an’ Seruvus heard them an’ brought the message to
Fraemauna.

“She sent her servant, the great wizard
Nightfire, to spirit her son to safety in his Academy. The son of
Fraemauna would receive the gifts of Marrish an’ become a wizard
who would be the Guardian of Marrishland — the one who’d lead the
Mar to vict’ry over Dinah an’ Domin.”

Sven started at the
line.
Can he know that I believe this too?
The storyteller paints myth as truth, and truth as myth. What does
he really know?

“Marrish objected. This wasn’t how wizards
chose their students. Fraemauna’s son would have to prove himself
worthy of his father’s gifts, first. The goddess saw the wisdom
i’this, but she didn’t wish to leave Sven an’ th’other towns to
Dinah’s damnens. Actin’ as her han’s, Nightfire led Pitt Gematsud
an’ all the other Mar through the Dead Swamps an’ to a new place
near his Academy. Many didn’t survive the journey, but those who
did foun’ed a town at the edge of ravit territory, which they
called Rustiford.