Furies of Calderon (13 page)

Amara nodded once. “It lies just over the isthmus between Alera and the plains beyond. There is only one pass through the mountains, and it runs through the valley. If anyone wants to come into our lands afoot, they must come through Calderon Valley.”

“Anyone meaning the Marat, of course,” Gaius said. “What else do you know of the place?”

“What they taught at the Academy, milord. Very fertile land. Profitable. And it was where the Marat killed your son, milord.”

“Yes. The Marat horde-master. He killed the Princeps and set a chain of events into motion that will clutter the lecture halls and plague the students for a century to come. The House of Gaius has led Alera for nearly a thousand years, but when I am gone, that will be done. All that is left to me is to see to it that the power falls into responsible hands. And it would seem that someone seeks to make that choice in my stead.”

“Do you know who, milord?”

“Suspicions,” Gaius said. “But I dare not voice more than that, lest I accuse an innocent man and lose the support of the High Lords altogether, loyal and insurgent alike. You will go to the Calderon Valley, Amara. The Marat are on the move. I know it. I feel it.”

“What do you wish me to do there, milord?”

“You will observe the movements of any Marat in the area,” Gaius said. “And speak to the Stead-holders there, to learn what passes.”

Amara tilted her head to one side. “You suspect that the Marat and the recent insurgent activity are related, milord?”

“The Marat are easily made into tools, Amara. And I suspect that someone has forged a dagger of them to thrust at my heart.” His eyes flashed, and the river rippled around the feet of the water image, in reaction to the emotion. “I may pass on my power to someone of worth, but while I live and breathe they will
not
take it from me.”

“Yes, milord.”

Gaius gave her a grim smile. “If you should stumble over some connection between the two, Amara, bring it to me. If I had a scrap of
proof
to lay before the High Lords, I could settle this without needless bloodshed.”

Gaius said, “No. I need your eyes open and unprejudiced. Get to the Valley. It is where events are centering. I want you representing my interests in them.”

Gaius frowned, more lines appearing on his face. He remained silent for a long moment, before he said, “There are some people who will never understand what loyalty means. They could tell you what it was, of course, but they will never
know
. They will never see it from the inside. They couldn’t imagine a world where something like that was real.”

“More than that. You live within it. You couldn’t imagine a world in which you didn’t. You could no more betray what you held dear than you could will your heart to stop beating. I am old, Amara. And people reveal themselves to me.” He was quiet for a moment more, and said, “I never doubted your loyalty. Only your ability to survive the mission. And it appears that I may owe you an apology, on that count, Cursor Amara. Consider your graduation exercise a success.”

Amara felt pride stir in her, an absurd feeling of pleasure that Gaius would praise her so. She felt her back straighten and her chin lift a little higher. “I am your eyes and ears to command, milord.”

Gaius nodded, once, and behind Amara the wind began to rise, rustling over the trees like surf over sand, making them whisper and sigh in a vast, quiet chorus. “Go with the furies then, Cursor. For Alera.”

“I
will
find what you need, Your Majesty. For Alera.”

Chapter 7

Fidelias hated flying.

He sat on the litter, facing ahead, so that the wind sliced into his eyes and blew his hair straight back from his high forehead. On the seat facing him sat Aldrick the Sword, huge and relaxed as a newly fed lion. Odiana had curled up on Aldrick’s lap to doze off hours before, and the water witch’s dark hair danced and played in the wind, veiling the beauty of her features. Neither one evinced any signs of discomfort at the flight, physical or otherwise.

“I hate flying,” Fidelias muttered. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the wind, and leaned over the edge of the litter. A brilliant moon, looming large among a sea of stars, painted the landscape below in silver and black. Wooded hills rolled slowly beneath them, a solid darkness, broken here and there by silver-kissed clearings and winding, half-luminescent rivers.

Four of the Knights Aeris from the camp bore them through the air, one at each pole of the litter. They wore harnesses that fitted them to the litter, supporting the weight of the three people inside, while the Knights’ weight, in turn, was borne by the powerful furies at their command. Another half-dozen Knights Aeris flew in a loose ring around the litter, and moonlight glittered on the steel of their arms and armor.

“Captain,” Fidelias called to the lead Knight. The man glanced back over his shoulder, murmured something, and drifted back through the air toward the litter.

The Knight shook his head, eyes cooly scanning the sky ahead. “Fortune favors us, sir. The furies of the south are stirring and have brought us a strong wind to speed our way.”

The former Cursor frowned. “That’s highly unusual at this season, is it not, Captain?”

The man shrugged. “It’s saved us hours of flight time and made it easier on everyone. We haven’t even had to spell the men bearing the litter. Relax, sir. I’ll have you in the High Lord’s palace before the witching hour.” And with that, the soldier accelerated, moving to take position ahead of the litter again.

Fidelias frowned and resettled on his seat. He glanced over the side of the litter again, and his stomach jumped and fluttered with an irrational sensation of fear. He knew that he was as safe flying in the litter, escorted by Knights Aeris, as anywhere in the realm, but some part of his mind simply would not casually accept the vast distance between himself and the ground below. Here, he was far from wood and earth, far from the furies he could call to his service, and that disturbed him. He had to rely upon the strength of the Knights with him rather than his own. And everyone other than himself had, in time, inevitably disappointed him.

He folded his arms and bowed his head against the wind, brooding. Gaius had used him from the very beginning. Used him with a purpose, to be sure, and never carelessly. He had been far too valuable a tool to waste through misuse or neglect. Indeed, at times, the precarious peace of the entire realm had occasionally hinged upon his ability to accomplish on behalf of the Crown.

Fidelias felt his frown deepen. Gaius was old—the old wolf that led the pack—and it was nothing more than a matter of time before he was hauled down to his death. But despite that brutal, simple truth, Gaius continued to fight against the inevitable. He could have turned over power to a nominal heir a decade ago, but instead, he had held on, wily and desperate, and delayed matters for a decade by pitting the High Lords against one another in bids to see who could position his daughter or niece to marry the First Lord and give birth to the new Princeps. Gaius (with Fidelias’s aid, of course) had played the lords off of one another with merciless precision, until every High Lord of Alera spent years convinced that
his
candidate would surely be the one to wed Gaius. His eventual choice had pleased no one, not even High Lord Parcius, Caria’s father, and even the most dense of the High Lords had realized, in time, that they had been played for fools.

The game had been well played, but in the end it had all been for nothing. The House of Gaius had never been a fertile one, and even if he had proved physically capable of producing an Heir (which Fidelias remained unsure about), the First Lady had not, as yet, shown herself to be with child, and palace rumor held that the First Lord seldom went to the same bed in which his wife slept.

Gaius was old. He was dying. The star of his House was falling from the heavens, and anyone who blindly clung to the hem of his robes would fall with him.

Like Amara.

Fidelias frowned, while something nagged at him, distracted him, burned in his belly. It was a pity, to be sure, that Amara had chosen a fool’s crusade rather than making an intelligent decision. Surely, if he’d had more time, it may have proved possible to encourage her to see a more rational point of view. Now, instead, he would have to act directly against her, if she interfered again.

And he did not want to do that.

Fidelias shook his head. The girl had been his most promising student, and he had let her come to mean too much to him. He had destroyed some three score men and women in his years as a Cursor—some of them as powerful and idealistic as Amara. He had never hesitated to perform his duty, never let himself be distracted by anything so trivial as personal attachment. His love was for Alera.

And that was really the issue at hand. Fidelias served the realm, not the First Lord. Gaius was doomed. Delay of the transfer of power from Gaius’s hands to another could only cause strife and bloodshed among the High Lords who would wish to assume Gaius’s station. It might even come to a war of succession, something unheard of since the dawn of Aleran civilization, but which was rumored to have been commonplace in the distant past. And should that happen, not only would the sons and daughters of Alera die pointlessly, fighting one another, but the division itself would be a signal fire to the enemies of the Realm—the savage Icemen, the bestial Marat, the ruthless Canim, and who knew what else in the unexplored wilds of the world. Above all else, such weakening of the Realm’s unity had to be circumvented.