The Towers Of the Sunset (41 page)

THE MARSHALL READS the scroll upon the desk, then glances at the window, not even frosted over though it is early fall; in most years, the glass frosts well before the gathering in of the sheep and the reckonings of the winter stocks. She looks from the clear blue morning outside back to the scroll bearing the royal Suthyan seal over the signature of Weindre, Governess of Suthya. She picks up the document again. Finally she stands and walks to the door of her study.

“Get me the Marshalle and Aemris.”

One of the guards departs.

The
Marshall re-reads the scroll, frowns, and waits. Her eyes drift to the unseasonable warmth outside the gray granite walls. In time, she looks up to see Llyse and Aemris in the doorway.

She thrusts the scroll at Llyse. “Read this and tell me what you think.”

They wait while Llyse reads the ornate lettering.

“It’s a proposal to negotiate a permanent agreement for the use of the guards. Seems about standard. That business about the weather, though, is strange.”

“Why? The weather is changing, at least for now.”

“Do you really believe that rumor?”

The
Marshall snorts. “Do you believe that Creslin destroyed a bandit troop single-handedly? Or that he sank an entire Hamorian fleet?”

“The bandit troop? He could have,” offers Aemris.

“The ships? Yes.” Both Llyse and Aemris speak simultaneously, then look at each other.

The
Marshall takes back the scroll. “This is almost a veiled ultimatum. They’re saying that Creslin-‘your consort’-has created the disruptions that require greater protection of harvests and storehouses in the border regions between Sarronnyn and Analeria and Southwind, and they want us as the buffer. They’ll pay us, of course.”

“But not handsomely,” comments Llyse.

“Well enough for us to go there and talk about it.”

A moment of silence falls on the stone-walled room.

“I don’t like it, but this summer’s been as lean as any we’ve seen, and the winter doesn’t look to be much better. And Weindre had something to do with the losses we took at Southwind.”

“Why are you leaving the detachment there, then?”

“Do we have any better source of funds… now?”

Llyse shakes her head. “I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I. That’s another reason to go to Suthya, with Heldra-”

“Heldra?”

The
Marshall looks at Aemris. “Because, if anything happens to me-the Legend forbid-Llyse and Westwind will need you.”

Llyse swallows. “Couldn’t someone else go?”

“Weindre wouldn’t talk to anyone else.” Dylyss lifts the scroll. “That’s clear enough.”

“I TRIED TO be careful, and Megaera helped, but there’s still too much rain headed this way.”

“It’s like… like cabinetry. You need a delicate but firm touch, and a lot of practice.” Klerris looks out at the drizzle and draws his cloak closer.

“Fine, but we have more rain than we need, and half of Candar is ready to blow away. And the fishermen are complaining that there isn’t enough sunlight to dry their catch. Not to mention the time we’ve spent repairing walls and keeping fields from being washed away. We’ve already lost a lot of the maize… just washed out.” Creslin shakes his head in exasperation. “But I don’t want to go back to where we started, or worse.”

“Then it’s going to take time.”

“We don’t have time. Rather, I’m not sure that Candar has time. According to Freigr, a lot of the meadows in Montgren have actually caught fire.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Peasants don’t set their fields ablaze, and there haven’t been any thunderstorms since you- Oh . .

“I’m sure they’re blaming us. Me, actually. Or me and some renegade Blacks like you and Lydya.”

“Patience would have helped, you know.”

“I’m tired of hearing about patience, or time. I’ve never been allowed the luxury of either. Heaven knows I tried. We diverted water, and the streams dried up. I went out and found water-three springs in the hills beyond the fields. Fine. Two of them dried up within an eight-day. I spent half a day every day for eight-days on end desalting seawater, and it wasn’t enough. If I hadn’t changed the weather, half of the keep would be dying or dead, and everyone would be blaming me for that.”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“I don’t think so.” Creslin pauses to see if his stomach corrects him. It does not.

“You could be honestly mistaken. Being order-tied only means that you can’t intentionally lie, not that you’re infallible when you tell what you think is the truth.” Klerris turns from the rain. “In any case, you’ve already changed the weather. Let’s go in by the fire. I’ll tell you what I know, and then we’ll see what we can do.”

Creslin lingers for a moment in the welcome coolness on the porch before following Klerris into the almost uncomfortable warmth of the cot’s main room.

“THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG here, Heldra.” The
Marshall pauses and adjusts her formal sword-belt, then steps briskly along the corridor toward the doorway of the grand dining hall.

“Couldn’t it just be from the weather and the lost harvests?”

“Creslin is making things hard on everyone, us included.” A low half-laugh follows. “Poor harvests mean less trade, and less money to pay for guards. Weindre talks about more money, but Suthya hasn’t laid any coin on the table.”

“They’ve always been tight.”

“How well we know.” The
Marshall breaks off as she nears the entrance. Two guards and a page await them.

“The
Marshall of Westwind! All hail the
Marshall!” The page’s voice is thin but clear and piercing.

The Marshall steps through the tapestried archway and up toward the dais, Heldra close behind her, when a second page steps forward and murmurs a word to the training master, who pauses. Two paces, then three, open between the two women.

Hsttt… thunnk… thunk…

The crossbow quarrels sleet from the corner of the banquet hall like the briefest of thundershowers.

Heldra falls under the first of the quarrels, her body pitching on the polished stone floor.

“Darkness…”

The black-clad
Marshall staggers before her legs buckle under her.

“Get the healer! Now!”

The Westwind guard in charge of the ceremonial squad ignores the cries and gestures toward the corner. The Suthyan nobility dive away from the grim faces and bare steel.

The guards charge the stairs, ignoring the crossbows dropped behind the stone-walled balcony normally reserved for the Suthyan house guards. The blond guard pushes them onward, toward the palace gates.

On the dais, the lone healer checks one body, then another, pausing at a third before shaking her head.

The
Marshall lies facedown, three quarrels through her back and chest. Below her, Heldra’s body bears but a pair, one through the neck.

MEGAERA CUTS, DRIVING aside the other’s blade. The guard staggers from the impact of the hard wooden rod.

“Good!” Shierra glances from the guard to the regent. “But you’re still not recovering after the thrust. You’re not fighting a duel. You leave the blade down like that and you’ll be congratulating yourself while taking a gut shot. Get the blade back up. As for you, Pietra, you’re holding the blade too low.” Shierra steps forward and adjusts the angle of the wooden weapon. “Like this. You have it here, and you see how she beat past you?”

Pietra nods.

Megaera nods as well, finding her hand automatically repositioning her wand. Then she shakes her head and lowers it before wiping her forehead, damp from both the drizzle and her sweat. “That’s all for now.”

“Thank you, your grace.” Pietra nods again.

“Thank you.”

Megaera returns the wand to the rack, reclaims her blade, and walks quickly to the keep.

CRESLIN SITS IN the wooden chair that he has adopted for his vigils on the winds and casts his thoughts out to the west, toward Candar and Montgren. As usual since he has begun his vigils, there are no fleets in the waters around Reduce, only fishing boats and a three-masted bark headed back in the direction of Nordla.

The weather mage sends his perceptions across the winds to the west, toward the clear skies and drying lands, toward the unseen white miasma that cloaks both
Fairhaven and Montgren.

Smoke puffs rise from valley after valley as tinder-dry meadows burn. Yet there are no soldiers in Montgren, only tiny points of whiteness that flicker in and out of existence. And none of those points of light appear near Vergren.

The soldiers will come later, much later.

Creslin stands and walks out of the study, down the short hall, onto the terrace, and into the cold mist that blankets the afternoon.

Megaera is at the keep, finishing her blade practice. That he can sense. Should he see her first, or Klerris?

After strapping on his short sword, he looks for Aldonya, but she and Lynnya are not in the holding. He debates walking and decides that Vola would be quicker, even with time taken to saddle her. Besides the mount needs the exercise.

Vola’s strides are quick and sure, each hoof leaving its mark in the damp red clay of the road with each step northward to the black-stoned keep that may represent the hope of order.

The hope of order? Pushing away the self-importance of the thought, he hurries through the cool dampness of the day. Overhead, gray clouds shift, but only a fine mist shrouds the town and harbor. The fishing boats are out, leaving only the Dawnstar and the waterlogged boat that never moves. Creslin reminds himself that he should do something about the abandoned boat.

Megaera stands in the doorway to the keep. Her lips are tight. “Have you looked at what we’ve wrought, best-beloved? Really looked?” Her face is pale, almost blank compared to the inner turmoil that tears at her.

“Should I?” He shakes his head at the flippant comment that was meant to disguise his feelings.

“Should you!” Then her voice drops, as she senses his pain and his reaction to her anguish. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand what you meant.”

Creslin forces a smile. “I just meant-”

“I know.”

“-that I didn’t want to hurt you more.”

“I’m stronger than that.” She lifts a wrist, where a white scar remains. “And I want you to see and feel the chaos that you can create with pure order.”

“That’s why I came. I already have seen it. The wizards are burning Montgren.” Megaera raises her eyebrows… expected any less? “No. They’re setting hundreds of little fires in dry fields, meadows, houses,” he tells her.

“Anyone who can tell the difference would be identified as a Black mage, right?” she asks.

“Clever of them. I either change the weather back and bring on storms that will flatten and swamp anything that’s unburned, or Montgren burns.”

“Would you? Change the weather back?”

“I’ve been working with Klerris to make a new pattern, one with less rain here, more in Candar, but not as much as before. If I try to put out the fires… I don’t think it will work.” The cold steadiness of his stomach chills him as much as it confirms to both of them the truth of his statement… unless he is honestly mistaken, and that possibility worries him as well. Klerris is right, honesty is not infallibility.

Megaera looks at him. “They must have been waiting. They would have found some way to get at cousin dear.”

“I expect so.” Creslin is not thinking of Korweil but of Andre the shepherd and of his daughter Mathilde, who had insisted that Creslin was a “good master.”

“That doesn’t make it easier,” she adds… so much death…

“No. I’ll talk to Klerris, but I wanted you to know.”‘He has to ignore her feelings about death. “What are you working on? Right now, I mean.”

“Besides riding the winds to look at Montgren? Besides watching the wizards use you to destroy Montgren? A trading plan for the Dawnstar.”

“Perhaps the maiden voyage should be to the east, or as far west as Suthya.”

“Suthya was the plan. How do we know that the Nordlans or the Hamorians wouldn’t just seize her? In Candar, at least, they fear you. Even
Fairhaven will grant you that.”

Has it come so quickly to this? That for Reduce to endure, he must be even more greatly feared than the White Wizards?

Megaera’s smile is faint, but she reaches out and squeezes his hand. “We still need to finish the trading plan. Lydya has some ideas of what can be gathered. There’s a shellfish that makes a purple dye-”

“The trading plan… first. I still need to talk to Klerris.”

A SLOOP WITH tattered sails beats northeast from Tyrhavven, trying to clear
Cape
Kherra
before the war schooner, farther offshore, can intercept her.

Even with his senses so extended, Creslin can feel the whiteness of the war schooner, and he knows that there are but a handful of sloops that would risk the heavy seas. He shivers in his chair, nearly breaking his concentration, aware that he must do something to help the
Griffin. He has never tried to focus the powers of the storms or winds at such a distance.

Recalling what Klerris mentioned about technique, he searches and searches… until he finds the gaps in the winds. While he cannot precisely judge distances with his mind, the wind sheers are close enough, for the schooner has not yet neared the
Griffin. Creslin nudges, almost persuades, a further shift in the sheers, and withdraws.

He is gasping, nearly drained, his mind blank. Shortly he rises and walks to the kitchen, where he finds some cheese. He cuts a slab of black bread and trims the mold from it. Flour is in short enough supply as it is, and the continuing dampness is causing all the bread to mold. He rewraps the loaf and takes a bite of the bread and cheese.

He can see the changes that he and Klerris have worked on, but once again, doing things delicately takes time, and the excess of moisture will not disappear immediately.

The pearapples, at least, have recovered and retained what fruit remains, and the spice crops are promising, except for the dark pepper. He takes another bite of bread and cheese.

“You must be hungry, your grace, to eat that.” Aldonya stands in the doorway, carrying an openweave basket from which the odor of seaweed and fish emerge. On her back, Lynnya sleeps.

Creslin’s mouth is full, and he shrugs, then swallows. “Sometimes the weather’s hard work, Aldonya.” He looks at the basket. “Fish tonight?”

“There’s precious little else, your grace.”

“Sorry.” He takes another bite of bread and cheese, trying to ignore the taste of the bread. Lydya insists that the mold is not harmful, but the flavor is terrible. Still, he has bread, unlike most of those on Reduce. “Will her grace be here for dinner?”

“I think so. Excuse me.” Creslin remembers that he still has some work to do with the winds if the
Griffin is to escape the
Fairhaven schooner. Aldonya shakes her head. “Mmmmm…” Lynnya burbles. Creslin smiles at the red-haired baby, but the smile fades as he reseats himself in the study, where he looks out the open windows to the cloud-swirled north.

The white war schooner has almost reached the
Griffin by the time Creslin casts his senses to the winds and relocates the sloop. He edges the sheer between the two ships and watches the distance open between them as the schooner plows into a welter of chop and swirling head winds, while the
Griffin clears the cape full before the wind.

Klerris and Megaera were right-again. If he can only plan ahead and use time to his advantage, even more is possible. He frowns. His success with the sloop ignores the chaos from which the
Griffin flees.

Once again he quests toward Montgren, but he can sense nothing through the cloud of dense and dull whiteness that lies across the land. Fragments of fire, fear, and sickness escape the white gloom like arrows released at random. Vergren itself, Korweil’s stronghold, smolders, but whether the fire is real or magic, Creslin cannot say. Nor, he suspects, does it matter.

When he stands, his head again is splitting, and at first he must steady himself on the chair. Not all of the pain is his, and he wonders if Megaera knows what he has discovered.

“Are you all right, your grace?” Aldonya stands in the doorway.

“No, but it will pass.”

“Her grace is heading up the road, and I thought you might like to know.” She departs. Lynnya is no longer with her, but sleeping in her cradle.

Creslin steps toward the terrace, where, for the moment, it is not raining. The late-afternoon clouds have thinned to a mere haze, and he eases himself onto the stone ledge.

Both the faint thud of hooves on the damp clay and the warmth that is Megaera flow toward him in the dampness before the twilight. He rises and walks toward the stable.

Vola lifts her head and whinnies as Creslin steps forward. He is uncertain of whether he should offer Megaera comfort or whether he is the one who needs the comfort.

“Does it matter?” Megaera offers him a lopsided smile and dismounts.

They hold each other, she still with the reins in her hands. Then she breaks away. “You’re going to have to let me go, or I won’t be responsible for the consequences.”

He blushes. “I’ll take care of Kasma.”

“Thank you.”

As Megaera scurries for the Jakes, Creslin leads Kasma into her stall and begins to unsaddle her. Then he racks the saddle and removes the bridle. When he finishes, he walks around the holding to the terrace, where Megaera waits for him on the ledge, her trousered legs hanging over the edge above the slope leading to the cliff.

“Thank you again,” she says.

He shrugs, seating himself next to her. “What does Shierra think?”

“She’s worried, but Lydya thinks that the rain was soon enough for most of the pearapples to have some fruit, and the grasses on the plateau are already coming back. We can start grazing the horses there again in a day or so.”

“But?”

“There still won’t be enough food to get us through the winter, with nothing coming from Montgren.”

“I’m sorry about Korweil…”

“Best-beloved, there wasn’t much we could have changed.”

He squeezes her hand. “If I’d only known more earlier.”

“That’s the story of life.” She brushes a stray hair out of her eyes.

“The
Griffin’s on the way. How Freigr got her clear, I don’t know.”

“You had something to do with that. I felt it.”

“Oh, getting her away from the White war schooner, yes,” Creslin agrees. “But how he managed to set sail-that took some doing. He’ll have some supplies, knowing Freigr.”

“Anything will help.”

For a time, they sit quietly.

“Does Lydya know anything more about… about the
Marshall?” asks Creslin.

“No. Just that Llyse has taken over. The traders didn’t know anymore than that Westwind has a new
Marshall.”

“I should have felt… something.”

Megaera touches his hand. “She didn’t want you to be that close.”

He looks into the darkness of the
Eastern
Ocean
.

“But… something… ?” Mist settles on them, the faintest of drizzles as the overcast darkens into twilight.

“Dinner will be late,” Megaera says.

“I suspected that. Lynnya was giving Aldonya fits.”

“I offered to fix it, but Aldonya insisted that it was her job.” Megaera smiles. “She threw me out.”

“She does have definite ideas.”

“So do you.” She squeezes his hand for a moment.

Creslin’s thoughts are still on the whiteness that blankets Montgren, and he returns the gesture absently. Megaera withdraws her hand but does not move, and the misty drizzle continues to bathe them.

“While we’re waiting, could you… a song would be nice if…”

He clears his throat, moistens his lips, swallows.

… high upon highland, the brightest of days,

I thought of my lover, and his warm, loving ways…

The notes are cold copper, and his guts twist within him. He breaks off. “I don’t… somehow…”

Her hand touches his. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“That’s all right.”

But the song that would not sing worries at him, and they are both glad when Aldonya appears in the doorway.

“You two will become sick, sitting there in the darkness and the rain. And how will the rest of us fare with our regents ill? Your dinner is ready.” She gestures with a large wooden spoon, jabbing it at them as if it were a blade. “Come on.”

Creslin and Megaera exchange grins as they turn and rise to walk across the terrace.