SKY OF SWORDS
A Tale of the King's Blades
by
Dave Duncan
Volume IV of Four Volumes
Pages i-ii and 605-796
Published by:
EOS
10 East 53rd Street
New York, New York
Further reproduction or distribution in
other than a specialized format
is prohibited.
Produced in braille
for the Library of Congress,
National Library Service for the Blind
and Physically Handicapped,
by Braille International, Inc., 2002.
Copyright 2000
by Dave Duncan
SKY OF SWORDS
It is not true that calamities come only in
threes. They often come in sixes or nines.
ANON.
After that, the day could get no worse, but it
certainly did not improve, at least not until
close to midnight, when Malinda was able to cuddle
into Dog's embrace and weep all over his
fuzzy chest. The wonder was probably that her
Council had not just resigned en masse and left
her to her fate. Why appoint a Council and then
make crazy decisions like that without consulting it?
"So why did you?" Dog growled.
The Queen sniffled in very unregal fashion.
"I was being kind! Neville had done nothing
wrong. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Dominic
tried to tell me and I shouted at him! I
didn't see that Neville had inherited his father's
claim and would be just as dangerous or even worse,
because he was born in wedlock, which will carry weight
with the snootier nobles. Even if he would have a
baton sinister on his arms, plenty of them do.
He can turn Granville into a martyour."
"He swore allegiance?"
"He can always claim he did it under
duress."
"I'll kill him for you. Where is he?"
"We don't know! I sent him to Constable
Valdor, who says he never showed up--but he
may be lying, playing on both teams. Grand
Inquisitor says the Dark Chamber has a
sniffer spell it could use to track him if we
had a suitable key--meaning something closely
identified with him, that he'd owned for a long time.
Which we don't. He's almost certainly far away
by now. ... Oh, Dog, I feel such a
fool!"
Her father would never have made that mistake.
Ambrose would have let Neville molder in a
dungeon for years, just in case. If she ever
did get to sleep tonight she was going to have nightmares
of her own head on a spike alongside
Granville's.
Nobody had been so disrespectful as to call
the Queen an idiot, but the Duke and Chancellor
together then took over the proceedings and
abandoned any pretense of being mere advisors.
They arranged everyone in chairs around the table and
kept the meeting going until sundown.
The Council agreed that nothing could be done about
Neville unless and until he showed up, and
nothing should be done about the holdout garrisons at
present. The Council summoned Parliament for the
fifth day of Tenthmoon. The Council decided
it needed more members and discussed names; Malinda
humbly agreed to appoint the half dozen
selected. The Council even found some money,
or Master Kinwinkle did, when he pointed out that
a tax known as "relief" must be paid whenever a
vassal of the crown died. The Treasury and the
College of Heralds, he said, had been working
all summer, calculating the relief due for the
nobles who had died in the Wetshore Massacre,
and most of it had not yet been collected. With
ill grace, the Dowager Duchess confirmed that the
De Mayes relief was still owing; Baron
Dechaise was ordered to raise ready cash
by mortgaging these prospects.
The Council even had the audacity to start
discussing possible royal husbands. Then
Malinda slammed her fist on the table and shouted
that when she wanted advice on that matter she would
ask for it. The Chancellor frowned at her as if
she were still only nine years old and changed the
subject, but the implication remained that the sooner
they found a man to take the stupid girl in hand the
better.
"So what can you do?" Dog growled.
"Just this." She kissed him. He needed no more
encouragement than that, having managed to lie still in
uneventful embrace while she recounted her
woes. The resulting frenzy drove her
worries away, for a while.
They returned later, when she had her breath
back. "It isn't fair. A man makes
mistakes and he needs experience. A woman
makes them and she needs a husband!"
"You've got a man already." The turmoil had
left them turned over so that Dog's head lay
on her breast.
"And a wonderful one, the only man in the
kingdom who isn't seeking preferment." The
Council meeting had been followed by a long
audience and even longer dinner, honoring the
nobility flocking to court to pay its
respects to the new Queen. "They all want
appointments or settlements or their daughters
made maids of honor or grants of this or that.
You don't expect me to dress you up in
jewels and make you a marquis ... do you?" The
thought of the Council's reaction made her mind
boggle.
Dog just snorted.
"You never ask me for anything," she whispered.
"What do you want?"
He took a while to answer. "To be your man
always. To have you as my woman." He nuzzled her
breast.
She stroked the massive muscles of his arm.
"All the Guard knows you're my lover, so I
don't suppose it will stay a secret much
longer."
"What the Guard knows Ironhall knows.
Heard you're going there to harvest more Blades."
"That's a state secret. Nobody's
supposed to know that, except Audley and
Dominic and Chancellor Burningstar."
"Probably just someone's lucky guess, then.
Makes sense. I heard Grand Master has a
dozen ripe ones for you to pick."
"So did I," she said, annoyed. "Why can't
men keep secrets? I expect you're the
subject of political classes. You
suppose they're holding you up to the juniors as
Royal Gigolo, an example of rewards
available to the diligent student. You want that?"
"No."
He moved his tongue and lips to her other
breast, making it even harder to concentrate on other
matters. They were experienced lovers now, knowing every
pore of each other's bodies, every secret
whim,
every unspoken thought--and also every evasion.
"You haven't told me what else you want.
Crave a boon, Trusty and Well-Beloved
Subject. Anything."
"Send me back to Sixthmoon of 350
to tell my pa not to kill my ma by making me."
She shivered and stroked his hair. There was no
arguing with him on this. No such enchantment existed
or could exist, she was certain, for it would create
an impossible paradox. He wanted to cancel out
his own existence, but if he did not exist he could
not do that, so he would exist after all and could do it, and
so on, round and round forever. Conjuration could do many
things, but that was not one of them.
"Then you will never meet me and become my
man."
He did not answer. He could not accept that his
desires were contradictory, let alone
impossible. Crushed by guilt for deeds that were not his
fault, Dog was not always entirely rational.
"Listen, love," she said. "As queen, I can
give you a letter to Grand Wizard ordering him to find
you the spell you want or make it up. If he
says it's impossible, will you believe him?"
his talk. Can I take Winter with me?"
"Yes, love, you can take Winter with you."
They lay in close and sticky silence for a
while, then she said, "Aren't you going to finish what
you were doing?"
"You go ahead," Dog said. "I'll catch
up."
On the twelfth day of her reign, Queen
Malinda rode off to Ironhall, escorted by the
entire Royal Guard. Her purpose was not
only to raise the strength of the Guard by adding a
dozen recruits; she had also summoned a
general assembly of the Order. She left
by moonlight and did not travel the most direct
road--precautions her father had taken during the
Monster War, and which seemed only sensible now,
when a dozen garrisons scattered around the coasts
had either declared for King Neville or refused
to declare allegiance at all.
Circumstances had changed since her first
visit to Starkmoor. The presumptuous
princess had become queen, overturning a
revolution while losing only a single Blade.
The entire school was assembled at the main door
to cheer her arrival, and Grand Master had become
a model of cooperation. Hammered by the Old
Blades and forged in the fires of necessity, he
declared, a dozen sharp and shining youngsters were ready
to serve Her Majesty; indeed he would now
venture beyond his written reports and release
fourteen. Starting with Prime and Second, they were
summoned in groups and asked in turn if they were
willing to serve. Each declared his readiness and
knelt to kiss the royal hand. With a couple of
exceptions, they all looked absurdly young, but
of course she did not say that; she reminded them
instead that they were special, because they were the first to be
bound by a reigning queen in almost a
hundred years. She did not mention that they might
be the last Blades ever bound, if Parliament
proved as antagonistic as she expected.
The following day she had no trouble finding food
for thought during the hours of meditation that must precede
a binding. On her first visit she had spoken with the
candidates out of boredom, this time she did so
to take her mind off her troubles. Hunter and
Crenshaw she recognized, but there were another
dozen names to memorize: Lindore with the smile,
Vere the tall one, Mathew the freckled one,
Loring the gorgeous, Terrible the fidget ...
all eager, all scared. They all had their
sword names ready: Avenger, Glitter,
Lady, Gadfly, and so on.
Several times Sir Lothaire, the Master of
Rituals, came around in his fussy,
absentminded fashion. Uncertain how to address
his sovereign when she was sitting on the floor
leaning back against the side of a raised hearth, he
tried to bow while kneeling, which was not a success.
And once, after a fatuous query about her
preference in wine for the banquet, he said brightly,
"Sir Dog is performing satisfactorily?"
Anything the Guard knew, Ironhall knew.
Malinda turned to him in shock. Did he not
realize she could have his head for that remark? His
eyes were hidden by the reflection of firelight on
his glasses, but the inane grin on his mouth seemed
innocent enough. Giving him the benefit of the doubt,
she decided that the school bookworm was unaware
of the gossip. The onlookers were not--fourteen young
faces around the octogram struggling very hard not
to leer. Her cheeks were probably as red as the
coals in the grates.
"Of course. He wields a mighty
sword," she said.
Vere and Terrible developed coughing fits,
confirming her suspicions.
Lothaire was still not flying with the flock. "Ah.
I am pleased to hear that. It is wonderful how the
binding solves problems, sometimes." There must have
been some other purpose behind his question. Here it came
--"I was just talking with Sir Jongleur ...
old classmates ... both here and later at the
College. He mentioned that Sir Dog came
to see him, posing a problem in conjuration.
Apparently--"
"Sir Jongleur is here?" She had given
not taken Winter with him when he went to the
College--probably because he still could not bring
himself to reveal his secret past to a friend. Grand
Wizard had referred the question to another conjurer.
Dog had refused to say much about their discussion,
meaning he had not understood a word of it.
"He's come for the assembly. Lots of
knights--"
"Go and fetch him," the Queen said. "Now!"
As Lothaire scrambled to his feet and
scurried away, she glanced around the circle.
Twenty-eight eyes avoided hers. She was almost
as angry at herself for being embarrassed as she was
with the conjurers for discussing Dog's private
problems. She rose in silence and headed for the
stair.
The door led out to a grassy space between the
gym and the perimeter wall at the northeast corner
of the complex, not overlooked by anyone. She was standing
there, studying cloud shadows on the sunlit tors,
when Lothaire came hurrying back with another
sword-bearing knight. He was in his forties, with a
belly and jowls, which were unusual on any member
of the Order. His beard was streaked with gray and
hung halfway down his chest, but he bowed
nimbly enough. Lothaire fidgeted, uncertain
whether to go or stay.
Malinda ignored him, concentrating on the
conjurer. "Last week we sent Sir Dog
to see Grand Wizard. He told us later that he
had been sent to you."
Jongleur chuckled lightly. "Blades in the
raw unnerve the old gaffer, so he always refers
them to me. Sir Dog is a deeply troubled young
man, as I am sure Her Majesty is
aware."
Her Majesty was mainly aware of hunger and
worries and shortness of temper. "Then why do you
breach professional ethics by discussing his case with
an outsider?"
His eyes narrowed. "I am sure Sir
Lothaire will be discreet."
"Why should he be, when you are not?
Furthermore, the letter Dog brought bore our
seal. That made it crown business. You have
violated your oath of allegiance."
He fell on his knees and bowed his head. He
said nothing, which was his wisest option. Malinda
looked at Master of Rituals, who promptly
dropped beside his friend. She let them shiver
for a moment before she spoke.
"Taking the inquiry on that basis, what
answer did you give our messenger?"
"What he wanted would not have worked, Your
Grace," Jongleur told her shoes. "It would
violate the laws of conjury." He was almost as
pompous as the Duke of Brinton.
"What laws of conjury?"
"Well, to start with, Damiano's Axiom and the
Prohibitions of Veriano, my lady."
"I am aware of Damiano's Axiom:
"Action prescribed without available resolution
will dissipate the assemblage." Alberino
Veriano's Prohibitions are merely a list of
things that he considered conjuration could not achieve, many
of which have been accomplished since his day. Be more
specific." Malinda had put her mother's
library to use during the summer, seeking either a
solution to Dog's problem or proof that it had
none. She had found neither.
The men looked up in surprise. Sunlight
flashed on Master of Ritual's spectacles;
Jongleur tugged nervously at his beard.
"Your Majesty shames me. ... The
principle of superposition."
"Continue."
He gulped, worried now. "To assemble
elementals and command them to perform an
impossibility is extremely dangerous,
leading to uncontrolled release of spiritual power.
It is impossible for one thing to be in two
places at once, which rules out traveling in time
--even conjury will not let you go back and strangle
yourself. Nor can you exist when you do not exist, that being