“Caution is such an extremely useful thing,” said a familiar voice from the end of the table. Jermain turned his head and saw Amberglas. She looked just as vague as he remembered, but there was something warm and welcoming in her manner that made him feel as though he were returning home.
The sorceress smiled in his general direction and went on, “Though of course it isn’t always necessary. Rather like wearing shoes; one frequently doesn’t need them at all, but what with things like thistles and pins and dogs and so on it’s usually quite wise, and people generally like to be thought wise even if they aren’t, very, which is a good thing for the cobblers under the circumstances. I expect that’s why you’re still standing there.”
“Yes, please join us,” said Crystalorn. She smiled at Jermain from her place beside Amberglas.
Jermain bowed again, feeling a bit light-headed, and looked at Eltiron, who motioned to the place beside Vandaris. Ranlyn remained standing for a moment; then, in a single motion, he went down on one knee before Amberglas. The sorceress tilted her head to one side and regarded the nomad with absentminded curiosity as he began to speak.
“I have seen the power you gave to the good of my people,” Ranlyn said. “And I say to you that I and all the clans of my people owe you a debt that is longer than the length of the wind. We owe you water for your refreshment and your pleasure. We owe you blood for your healing and your renewal. We owe you life for your service and your protection whenever you desire it. Your debts are ours; if you owe a debt of water, we will supply it; if you owe a debt of blood, we will give it; if you owe a debt of life, we will pay it whatever the cost to ourselves. This I swear, for myself and for the clans of the Hoven-Thalar, to be binding for all—”
“No,” Amberglas said.
“Your pardon?” Ranlyn’s face was impassive, but Jermain knew him well enough to hear the anger in his voice.
“I haven’t the least objection to your making oaths and promises for yourself, though of course what you were suggesting does seem a bit extreme. But binding other people for all time is an exceedingly dangerous thing to do, particularly when they aren’t there, no matter how justified it seems, and it frequently has rather unpleasant consequences for everyone. So I’d rather you didn’t, though it’s extremely good of you to offer.”
“As you wish it. But for myself, my oath still stands.”
“That’s very kind of you, though not at all necessary. And I expect it will be quite inconvenient if every Hoven-Thalar I meet insists on repeating it; but then, I don’t generally meet very many, so it may not matter. Hoven-Thalar, I mean. I meet quite a number of other sorts of people, and it would be far more inconvenient if all of them did that whenever I saw them, though I can’t think why they should, since most of them don’t see things quite the way the Hoven-Thalar do. So perhaps you had better sit down and explain.”
Ranlyn rose to his feet and seated himself beside Jermain; when he began to speak again, the undercurrent of anger in his voice had been replaced by a trace of amusement. “Little enough is there to explain. In this time does the Red Plague come northward, and then the Hoven-Thalar must move or be destroyed, as the grass must bend or be broken by the wind. Yet it seemed we had less choice than the grass, for the only road open to us led north, and to move north would bring war. Therefore the clans went to the Lady of the Tower, and asked of her some way to avoid both war and the Red Plague alike. This has she provided, and so I and all who count themselves of the clans of the Hoven-Thalar stand in her debt.”
“I believe I, too, owe Amberglas something,” Jermain said into the silence that followed. “Though in my case it is only my life twice over, not my entire country.”
“That is
quite
enough of that,” Amberglas said, looking faintly irritated. “Unless of course you wish to be tiresome, which would be rather foolish and not at all like you. At least, I hope it wouldn’t. You might try simply explaining what you’ve been doing instead.”
Jermain grinned and plunged into the story of his past seven months. He stuck to a straightforward recounting of events, leaving out his emotional reactions to Eltiron’s supposed betrayal. When he reached his meeting with Carachel, Vandaris and Eltiron exchanged frowns, but they did not interrupt until he told them of Salentor’s appearance.
“Do you know where he is now?” Eltiron said, leaning forward.
“Trying to explain his life to the Judge of Souls,” Jermain replied. “He was killed trying to steal Blackflame.”
Eltiron’s lips tightened briefly; then he sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but not for his sake; there were some questions we wanted to ask him.”
“I may have a few answers.” Rapidly, Jermain summarized his conversation with Salentor and finished his narrative.
“That fills in a lot of gaps in our information,” Vandaris commented. “I’d been wondering why that map in Lassond’s room showed such strange troop movements. But if Carachel was trying to hold the Hoven-Thalar long enough for the Matholych to eat them, he’d have to keep everyone in the thing’s path, whether it made sense as strategy or not.”
“You seem to know a good deal more than I’d expected, and I heard some rather odd rumors on my way through the city. What’s been happening here?”
Jermain was looking at Vandaris as he spoke, but it was Eltiron who answered. Jermain shifted uneasily, then realized with a slight shock that the idea of talking to Eltiron was making him uncomfortable. He concentrated on listening, and after a moment found it easy to slip once more into the role of King’s Adviser, weighing every word and every scrap of information.
Though he had guessed the general outline of the story Eltiron told, most of the details were unfamiliar. He was surprised to learn that Terrel had actually dabbled in sorcery. He noticed that Eltiron made a point of mentioning that the plans for his marriage to Crystalorn had not been changed by Marreth’s death. For a moment he thought that Eltiron was remembering Jermain’s long-standing opposition to an alliance between Sevairn and Barinash; then he saw Crystalorn listening intently and realized that Eltiron was being careful not to look in her direction. Jermain made a mental note of the interaction, and turned his attention back to Eltiron’s story.
Eltiron continued by summarizing the investigation of Terrel’s rooms. “That reminds me,” Vandaris interrupted. “You never told us what you found in your batch of Lassond’s papers. Anything interesting?”
“Jermain’s already told you most of the things involving Carachel,” Eltiron said. “Terrel had some things about his own plans, but I don’t think they matter much anymore.”
“Maybe not, but I’d still like to know.”
“All right, then, listen.”
The papers Eltiron had taken included some old letters from Carachel to Terrel, some official documents that belonged in the castle archives, and a number of Terrel’s private papers. These included proof of Terrel’s treachery and Jermain’s innocence, should it be needed. Terrel had been instructed by Carachel to remove Jermain and take his place; sending Morenar to murder him had been Terrel’s own idea, because he’d feared that Jermain would become more useful to Carachel than he himself. Eltiron’s marriage to Crystalorn was also part of Carachel’s plan, though Terrel had apparently had some idea of marrying Crystalorn himself. Vandaris’s reappearance had offered an easier way to power in Sevairn—marry her, poison Marreth, and blame Eltiron for the King’s death, then use the herrilseed love potion to acquire the kingship formally. He’d had the covert support of a fair number of Sevairn nobles, though he had told none of them the full extent of his plans.
“And what did he think Carachel was going to do during all this?” Vandaris demanded. “For that matter, what was that snail wit going to do about the Matholych? Or didn’t Carachel tell him that part?”
“Carachel told him,” Eltiron said, “but I don’t think Terrel believed him. I think Terrel thought Carachel was just using the Matholych as an excuse to get control of the Seven Kingdoms and that Carachel wouldn’t care who was on the throne of Sevairn as long as the King did what he wanted.”
“Dumb-brained lack wit,” Vandaris muttered. “If he didn’t believe in the Matholych, why was he trying to learn sorcery?”
“Maybe he thought Carachel would approve, or maybe he wanted to take Carachel’s place.” Eltiron seemed to be thinking of something else; he glanced at Amberglas, then his eyes came back to Jermain. “There’s only one more thing you should know, I think.” He hesitated, then looked down at the table and went on with a rush. “Amberglas thought that Salentor must have used some of his herrilseed on one of us, and when she checked everyone yesterday . . . well, she was right. He gave it to me.”
Jermain stared at Eltiron, stunned both by this calm announcement and by his own reaction to it; he’d thought whatever affection he’d had for Eltiron was dead. The news appeared to be a shock to Crystalorn and Vandaris as well; Crystalorn went white, and Vandaris glared ferociously at Eltiron and Amberglas. Eltiron glanced up and shrugged slightly, then returned to his contemplation of the tabletop.
“You realize that there’s a good chance that Salentor told Carachel what he’d done, don’t you?” Jermain said after a moment.
Vandaris snorted. “He’d have been the biggest fool in the Seven Kingdoms to do that.”
“He was,” Jermain replied. “But he almost certainly talked to Carachel that night at our camp, and he’d have been a bigger fool not to tell Carachel everything, once he realized how much he’d given away. And Carachel is following me to get his ring back. Isn’t there anything that can be done about that poison?”
“I’m afraid not,” Amberglas said. “That is, one could do a great many things about Eltiron’s having been given herrilseed, but none of them would work very well, which is quite unfortunate just now.”
“Then we’ll have to do something about Carachel,” Vandaris said. “He’s the immediate problem, anyway; that Matholych thing won’t get here for another month at least.”
“There is truth in what you say,” Ranlyn said from beside Jermain. “Yet has the Red Plague reached out once already to touch one within your city.”
“We can’t do anything about it now,” Vandaris retorted. “And Carachel’s a lot more likely to get here in the next day or so than the Matholych is. Assuming that you’re right about him chasing you instead of that red blob.”
“One way or another, we’d have one less problem if he were,” Jermain said moodily. Vandaris raised an eyebrow, and Jermain continued. “Carachel said he’d been gathering power to face the Matholych; and according to Ranlyn, the Matholych gets weaker as it eats power. If Carachel fights the thing, either he’ll use up a lot of power winning, or he’ll lose and the Matholych will eat him. Either way, the winner wouldn’t be nearly as hard to deal with.”
“Too bad we can’t persuade him to do it, then.”
“I don’t quite think so,” Amberglas said thoughtfully. “I’m afraid it seems a little too much like what Carachel was planning to do to the Hoven-Thalar, feeding them to the Matholych to make it weaker so he could win, you know, though of course there aren’t nearly as many of him, which is quite fortunate for us even if it’s not for him.”
Jermain opened his mouth to reply, then shut it with a snap. Amberglas was right; what he had suggested was exactly what Carachel had planned to do.
“It matters less than runes drawn in sand,” Ranlyn said. “The Servant of the Red Plague is not foolish, to attempt to face power without power of his own, and we hold the source of his power. So will he follow us, until the Ring of Two Serpents is once more in his keeping.”
“That’s it!” said Vandaris suddenly.
Everyone looked at her. “What’s it?” Eltiron said.
“If Carachel’s power is in the ring, he can’t do any harm as long as we keep him away from it. So we set a trap for him.
“And we use the ring as bait.”
CHAPTER 21
E
ltiron did not participate in the lively discussion that followed Vandaris’s suggestion. He listened with barely half his attention while Jermain, Vandaris, and Ranlyn argued about the advisability of the idea and the details of the trap, and as he listened he watched Jermain.
He had been prepared for the awkwardness of their meeting, and he had anticipated the difficulty of making at least a semipublic apology. He had not been ready for the hard lines around Jermain’s mouth, or for the bitter tone in which he spoke of Carachel. He had not expected Jermain to avoid speaking to him and address most of his comments to Vandaris. He had not expected Jermain to be a stranger.
He shifted slightly, and tried to concentrate on the discussion. Ranlyn was saying something about a Hoven-Thalar spell that might be used to hold Carachel harmless.
“You’re a magician?” Vandaris said skeptically when Ranlyn finished.
“No more than you, in things of every day. But the charms that hold the Red Plague will ofttimes hold its servants, and many such spells are in the keeping of my clan.”
“It sounds as if it might work,” Eltiron said. “But Carachel’s the King of Tar-Alem; what will his army do when they find out he’s a prisoner? And the other kings won’t like it much, either; it sets a bad precedent.”
“When the other rulers of the Seven Kingdoms find out what Carachel’s been trying to do, they’ll be fighting for the privilege of chopping his head off,” Vandaris said.
“And I doubt that Carachel’s men are particularly loyal to him,” Jermain said. “They won’t do anything immediately, and with a little encouragement they might even be persuaded to support Elsane. I don’t believe she’d object to having her kingdom back.”
“Do you really think this has a chance of succeeding?” Crystalorn burst out. “Carachel’s a sorcerer!”
Jermain looked at her. “Do we have any other choice?
“Nearly everything has
some
chance of succeeding,” Amberglas said absently. “Of course, sometimes the chance isn’t a particularly good one; but then, a great many highly unlikely things happen anyway. People accidentally growing blue roses, for example, or crossing the ice fields of Mithum alone in the middle of winter, though I believe the woman who did that was a hero. Still, heroes are highly unlikely, though it’s quite understandable when one thinks of the sorts of things they do, which may account for their being quite rare and so seldom around when they could be useful. Not that it’s likely to matter much in this case.”