Grand Conspiracy (67 page)

‘Then our faith must sustain us. Or was the Blessed Prince not sent to Athera to oppose such unclean practice?' Cerebeld's priest produced keys to unlock the royal entry, which allowed direct access to the high dais with its gilt-and-white chairs of state.

Ellaine had no chance to wonder how he had come to acquire such privilege. The common floor of the hall was already packed with the realm's ranking dignitaries, showing the disheveled
signs of being rousted from bed. No doubt some had been called untimely from the arms of the courtesans they kept in cosseted luxury. Plumed hats slid askew, and aiglets dangled from half-laced points. Clamorous voices locked in shrill argument and rocked echoes off the hall's vaulted ceiling. The court herald blasted a quavering fanfare to announce the princess's arrival. His trumpet passed unheard. Everyone appeared to be shouting at once. The thin voice of the realm's aged seneschal was disregarded as the buzz of a bothersome gnat.

Ellaine gave the scene a raking, fast glance. The observant few courtiers who noticed her presence dismissed her with preoccupied contempt. Fired to rare annoyance, the princess ripped off her gold crown. She raked the rim in clattering dissonance over the gold-embossed arm of the regent's chair. As heads turned, she cried out, ‘I'm ashamed! Are we frightened schoolboys masquerading as men when the realm stands in need of strong counsel?'

The harsh edge to the tumult subsided, as much from surprise as embarrassment. Ellaine granted that reprieve little quarter. ‘We have sound walls! I hear no armed enemy battering our gates, nor do I see a war host outside equipped with rams and siege engines. I have seen lightning, but where is the sorcerer? Our prince has marched east to raise arms against Shadow. Is our courage pinned to his shirttails to the point where Avenor's high officials can do nothing else but cower and wail over threats that have yet to be manifest!'

A cosseted merchant with a Northerly accent puffed up and took spluttering umbrage. ‘But my Lady, the portents––'

The princess cut him short. ‘The portents are a warning! Wise men would not waste themselves arguing, but use what time we are given to prepare. Where is Lord Eilish? Has anyone sent for the captain of the watch? Let those two come forward and start with an accurate list of Avenor's trained men and resources.'

A gruff voice arose from the rear of the chamber. ‘Garrison captain's already here.'

Ellaine took charge before the crown seneschal could seize opening to force her aside. ‘Let him pass!'

Sweating guild ministers and agitated merchants made way for the heavyset officer who answered the princess's summons. He carried a field helm tucked under his elbow; his ceremonial sash with its sunwheel insignia had been left aside in a rush that left time for only his daggers and baldric. Hemmed in by
the fretful packs of courtiers who still jammed the dais stair, he squared his shoulders and delivered his report from floor level. ‘Princess, an unruly throng jams the square, chanting for Lysaer of the Light. Every guardsman we have who's fit to bear arms has turned out to form cordons at the gate. They carry standing orders to hold their ground in the event sweeping panic should cause an assault on the palace.'

‘Has a company been detailed to barricade the guildhalls?' The crown seneschal elbowed his way to the fore, his leathery, hound's jowls livid pink.

‘If iron locks won't stop trouble, armed men can't either.' Ellaine faced down the wiry old man, this once determined to wield the prerogative of her rank. ‘I will not authorize our city garrison to draw steel against our own terrified people!'

The incredulous yelp of a trade minister cut her off. ‘You'd risk the realm's wealth to riot and looters?'

Scarcely aware of the door that opened and closed at her back, Ellaine drew breath, without words. She clenched dampened hands, shamed for the fact she had no shining gift for inspired leadership. The despair became suffocating, that she saw no foothold to grapple rank greed. All the years Lysaer's policy had catered to self-interest had defined Avenor's solidarity. Confronted by courtiers decked out in the ostentatious, jeweled trappings of their arrogance, she sensed their dog pack readiness to tear down any obstacle between them and their threatened security. Ellaine tensed, made aware she lacked the authoritative stance to checkrein such ruthless hostility. As the disgruntled mutters from the chamber gathered force, she realized how gravely she had miscalculated the potential for uprising inside Avenor's headstrong royal court. One move, one word wrong, and two decades of crown rule could be torn down in a flash-fire outburst of mass hysteria.

Yet before the moment's impetus crossed the line into violence, someone interceded in a steady baritone that struck a clear note of reassurance. ‘Honest folk don't panic unless they are given no direction, and are left with nothing to do.'

Ellaine turned her head, astonished at how closely that tone matched the gifted, state poise of Lysaer s'Ilessid himself.

Yet the one who had spoken was not the Blessed Prince. Reed slender, clad in the crown and star blazon of Tysan, and a mantle with a sunwheel emblem, the newcomer assumed position at Ellaine's right hand. His hair was red-gold, not shining blond.
The ringless fingers that clasped hers were awkward and large, like the paws of a tiger cub not yet come into the power and grace of maturity. Set against the polished gleam of long-stemmed candelabra, white wainscoted walls, and the rich tinseled backdrop of tapestries, he was raw youth bearing the unmistakable stamp of generations of royal ancestry.

Before the gaping city counselors and high realm officials stupefied to amazement, Ellaine was first to recover herself. ‘Prince Kevor.' She swept into a curtsy that forced even the most stiff-necked state ministers to recall their lapsed form and propriety. They bowed before the royal heir who would one day assume crown rule over them.

Child no longer, Lysaer's son at fourteen had taken a leap toward his manhood seemingly overnight. His smile acknowledged his mother's support and melted her heart for its depth of adult sincerity. Then, restored to formality, he released her hand and addressed Avenor's belligerent courtiers. ‘Our princess speaks sound sense. Force of arms is no use when the people are frightened. Too likely the first fool who lost his head would incite them to needless bloodshed.'

‘How else to avert mayhem?' The cantankerous seneschal stabbed a bony finger toward the massive, closed doors of the council hall. ‘The rabble out there isn't rational or calm. In case you wainscoted noticed on your way from your bed, there are mounted guardsmen with lances keeping a pack of enraged tradesmen from storming in here for protection. They fear they'll be slaughtered by Fellowship Sorcerers. Right or wrong, they won't pause to hear pretty speeches before they start hurling bricks! If we don't use the armed guard to hold them in line, how would you propose to subdue them?'

Prince Kevor crossed the dais with that startling majesty inherent in Tysan's crown lineage. He took the grand chair of state reserved for his father, as Lord Regent, and with perfect aplomb, sat down. ‘First of all, that rabble, as you call them, are not faceless invaders. They're the same master craftsmen and shopkeepers who form the foundation of Avenor. Let one of them die at the hands of the guard, and I promise, they will become your enemy and mine. Would you risk our prosperity for the sake of a warehouse, or one season's stockpiled profits?'

Amid shouting detractors, one shrill voice prevailed. ‘What else can we do but show force when there are maddened men howling murder and rattling our gates?'

Unruffled as though the diadem of high kingship already circled his head, Kevor said, ‘I was going to offer to go out to the cupola in the square and ask the faithful to stand forth and light candles. The more flames they show in support of the Blessed Prince, the better the chance their prayers for deliverance will be answered. If the portents continue, we can encourage the belief that their faith is insufficient to enact a divine intervention.'

‘Such tactics might work.' The garrison captain rubbed his stubbled chin, thoughtful, and overrode the seneschal's objections. ‘Lighting candles will give the folk focus and calm. The organized presence of any group action would pull in the attention of those on the fringes who otherwise might turn to violence.'

Yet the fractious, ribboned ministers adhered to their divisive factions and rejected the strategy out of hand. ‘What about safeguarding our guildhalls? If you detail the garrison to look after the young prince––'

‘Enough!' Kevor cut them off. His eyes bored into them, arctic blue, and his inborn drive to seek justice charged him to lordly contempt. While the yammering courtiers bridled at his authority, he said, scathing, ‘If some of your gold had been turned to the greater good, we would have had more trained men defending our walls! Why should Avenor's populace not fear for their safety? They're not the fools who brought us to this pass.' He went on to use names. ‘You, Odrey, that emerald in your thumb ring would have outfitted ten men. Mennis, the gold and ruby buttons on your doublet would have kept our town armorers busy for a year!' Above pealing shouts, Kevor's leveling invective prevailed. ‘I dare to suggest that the jewels and bullion adorning your persons could have bridged all our shortfalls long before we found ourselves face-to-face with a crisis!'

While the subjects of his scorn flushed purple and bristled with self-righteous, humiliated outrage, the young prince pressed home his rebuke. ‘As for protection, I never asked for armed backing from the city garrison! Princess Ellaine has forbidden force of arms in our streets. Show her due respect and give thanks for her foresight. The word of the Light must prevail over Shadow without the bullying threat of bare steel. I say Avenor's people will honor my lineage. As heir to s'Ilessid, I'll go to the square and take only the two men on duty as honor guards outside the door of my chamber.'

Ellaine choked back fear, that Kevor was young yet to be wearing the mantle of royal authority. Despite his inspired instinct for
self-command, he was painfully young. Caught up in heady, adolescent heroics, he might not yet grasp the full impact of possible consequences. If events went amiss and touched off mass panic, he would be offering himself up as a target to assuage the mob's unleashed fury.

Yet to speak even a well-meant warning in public would undercut the firm hand with which he had taken first charge of the authority due him by birthright.

As though he understood his mother's paralyzing worry, Kevor gave her a swift glance and a smile. ‘I am Lysaer's son.' His confidence refreshed like new sunshine. ‘Who better to send?' The sapphire brooch at his throat shot blue sparks as his raised arm encompassed the press of Avenor's courtiers, still shamed into a seething, flushed stillness. ‘I might not have his Grace's powers to wield the blessed Light, but given the choice, our people would prefer to believe his gift will defend them.'

All unwitting, he had lifted the courtiers out of their narrow self-interest. His shining honesty had displaced in one moment the rancors of trade gain and politics. Under the gilt-washed glow of the candles, grown men and elders responded to the rallying cry of Tysan's untried young prince. ‘I am the promise of my father's intercession! Let this town see our strength, not our fears of failure. Nor will I be misrepresenting the truth. The Divine Prince's pledge to fight Shadow has called him away to the east. He would not choose his course without solid evidence. Others must stand in far greater danger than we. Let us rise to his trust, that we are equal to the task he has left us! Defense of Avenor is our charge and our duty. Let us stand strong and uphold the Light, as he would, and protect the weak and the helpless!'

Stunned to sudden tears for her pride in Kevor's courage, Princess Ellaine recovered the nerve to wrest back bold initiative. ‘Send a man for Gace Steward,' she commanded the seneschal. ‘The palace will be providing the candles to encourage the vigil in the square …'

Within the sealed chamber deep under the Mathorn Mountains, the spark sustaining the keyhole view of Avenor's council hall flickered out. The water drops spilled in continuous cascade from the blank face of the pool, tinged to softened, hazy light by the ephemeral play of forces that ranged through the interlocked rune patterns. For a handful of seconds, the sheer granite
walls mirrored their burnished reflections. Then the quiescent draft flicked to life out of nowhere. More sparks lit and blazed, whirled into flurried, frenetic existence like a madcap swarm of summer fireflies. They fell, a rain of slow-motion fire that excited the pool through a rapid-fire sequence of glimpses: of Cerebeld in his tower, opening a locked chest; of mounted crown messengers dispatched from Erdane to points south; of beacon fires lit to signal unrest at Isaer and Castle Point; of a galley flying a sunwheel banner cleaving a course at war speed through the frigid waves off the coast north of Camris. A return pass showed Prince Lysaer, emerged from his tent slightly pale, but restored to brisk confidence after a private consultation with the priest, Jeriayish. Then the view that did not fit in sequence: of a pack of Khadrim in wheeling flight against a backdrop of stars and forked lightning.

A pause ensued, dense silence filled by the unending ripple of water and the rinsed imprint of light across seamless walls.

The next spark, descending, wore a diamantine scintillance, born out of relentless, hard focus. Its word of command woke an aerial view, high over the volcanic ledges surrounding the mud pots at Teal's Gap. Fir stands and bare rock scabbed the snowy flanks of the foothills, the scarred gulches engraved by solidified lava softened under weak starlight. Against that vast tract of proscribed territory, configured in geometrics like folded lines starched in translucent ribbon, the ring wards demarking the Sorcerers' Preserve glimmered over the landscape. Yet where Asandir's recent work had lately framed a flawless, bright barrier, the erratic lane flux that ranged over Athera wore and stressed the locked seals of his handiwork. As a fresh static discharge ripped across the night sky, the spell boundary threw off a resonant flare of dull red. Wide, snagging gaps were already torn where the damaging range of low-frequency bursts had disrupted the integrity of the spellcraft.