skillful cook, although anything would have tasted good
after prison fare. The cabin was crowded; she had
moved to the chair and left the benches for Burningstar
and the four men.
Winter's fingernails had grown in and his chin had
sprouted a whimsical little beard, so being an
ex-Blade must agree with him. He beamed when
asked about Dian. "Safe in Ness Royal,
Your Grace. The gatehouse is unmanned and
there is not even a seneschal just now." He grinned
bashfully. "She is counting the days until
Ninthmoon!"
"Congratulations! I am sure Dian will be a
wonderful mother. That is wonderful news." It was
terrible, horrible news. It was going to make things
much harder. "Sir Jongleur? Considering my
intemperate language to you the first time we met,
I am doubly in your debt for your gallant
service tonight."
"Your remonstrance on that occasion was well
deserved, Your Majesty. I am glad to have had
the chance to redeem myself." Jongleur's beard
seemed grayer than she remembered, and his left
arm was in a sling, but he was as pompous as ever.
"You do recall the subject of our discussion
upon that occasion?"
"The query posed in your letter?" he said
cautiously. "Yes, of course."
"Six months in the Bastion have provided me
with unlimited time to think over what you said then."
He paused a moment as if to plan his words.
"I shall never again make the mistake of
underestimating Your Grace's learning in the spiritual
arts."
"I am only an amateur, but perhaps my
lack of formal training allows me to see paths that
have never been adequately mapped. And in my
dungeon, I was free to let my mind roam,
if you understand that expression."
He nodded warily. "Of course."
"A certain inquisitor once revealed to me
that the Dark Chamber obtains prophecies, which it
refers to as readings, by a sort of inverted
necromancy. It summons the spirits of the dead from
the future instead of the past."
"That is a gross simplification of ... Your
Grace has stated a very generalized
view of a very complex process, which rarely works as
well in practice as it does in theory. Few
authorities would place as much faith in the
procedure as the Office of General Inquiry
seems to."
"But the point I wish to make is that spirits,
unlike material objects, can be in two
places at once! Minds can roam! Don't
you agree? Please do not digress into the distinction
between spirit and mind."
"We can agree that both may wander freely in
space and time, certainly."
"So why is the translation Dog wanted not
possible?" Alas, Dog's spirit was gone,
disassembled, returned to the elements.
Jongleur seemed as genuinely puzzled as the
others were. "You are talking now only of the mind
going back to a specific date and time in the
past, not a corporeal body?"
"A mind--a word--an idea." Malinda
resisted the temptation to grab the man's broken
wrist and twist. The ship was winding and turning as it
edged its way down the river, but Captain Klerk
was probably having much less trouble than she was
trying to extract a straight answer from this
pompous oaf. "Do go on, Sir Jongleur."
"The hypothesis would seem to have some theoretical
merit, but I still believe that such a conjuration is
impossible in practice."
"Why?"
Jongleur stared very hard at her for a moment.
"You are still speaking of the dead boy, Your
Majesty? You are not contemplating essaying this for
yourself?"
"Just list the difficulties."
"There is a saying, my lady, that a little knowledge is
a dangerous thing."
"I could hardly have any less knowledge than I have
managed to drag out of you so far. Are you loyal
to me or the Usurper?"
Jongleur's plump face turned very red.
"I am Your Majesty's man."
"Then answer my questions. Is what Sir Dog
wanted possible or not?"
Audley looked completely lost. Winter was
frowning, hanging on every word. Burningstar was
probably keeping up also, for although the White
Sisters' knowledge of enchantment was more empirical and
empathic than theoretical, the former Mother
Superior was a very bright lady.
"Even if it were," Jongleur protested,
"it would be futile. When the subject went back
in time, he would be faced with the same situation he
had met before, so he would act in the same way as
before, and nothing would change. Unless, of course,
he was possessed of the experience and memories he
had gained in the future. Since he has not yet
lived that future, that cannot be. You create a
logical circularity, and the Prohibitions of
Veriano still apply."
Malinda said, "Are you familiar with
Hoffman's Uncertainty Principle?" She
saw Winter jump and raised an eyebrow
to invite him into the conversation. "You are?"
""Chance is elemental," my lady?"
"Meaning?"
He put a finger to his mouth and hastily
removed it. "It's why no conjuration works
perfectly every time. The Destroyer General
doesn't always hit the target. Ironhall
bindings can kill."
"But in this case, the uncertainty is an
advantage. Right, Sir Jongleur?"
Hating to admit anything, he muttered,
"Possibly ... You imply that translation
might not be instantaneous. True, there could be a
slight overlap, a few seconds or minutes
when the subject should be regarded as existing in both
times. If so, he would carry a transitory
memory of the future and of his reasons for making the
translation. Do I correctly comprehend Your
Grace's hypothesis?"
"Those few moments might be enough for his
purpose."
"Perhaps so," the conjurer agreed, adding with a sour
hint of triumph, "however--with all due
respect, Your Majesty--the same uncertainty
must apply to the overall translation, and on a
larger scale. Even if we could invoke time
elementals to carry us back, we cannot hope to aim
them like crossbows. The boy would have had to revisit
one exact instant in his past, because an hour too
late or too early would make the exercise
futile. Going back many years, as he wished,
might introduce an error of weeks. Chance
wins again. He presented an intriguing problem,
but not one with any practical applications."
"That is the only objection you can raise?"
"It is enough, my lady."
Winter had turned as white as snow.
He had seen the next step in the path.
"You have a suggestion?" she asked.
He gulped. "Necromancy?"
Sir Jongleur sat bolt upright,
Burningstar muttered, "Oh, no!" and everyone
stared in horror.
"The moment of death," Malinda said. "The
deaths of many men occurring very close together. Instead
of invoking elementals to send you back, Sir
Jongleur, consider invoking compound spirits, the souls
of the dead, to pull you back to that climactic
moment. And, yes, you could trust their aid in this
instance, because what you want for them is what they
want--a chance to live again!"
Pompous or not, Jongleur must be clever to have
won admittance to the College after a career as a
swordsman. His eyes glazed as he weighed the
possibilities. "You mean Wetshore, of
course ... But the risk, Your Grace!
Invocation of the dead is the only conjuration I know
where the enchanters stand outside the octogram. For
what you propose, the--subject? the traveler?
--would have to be inside with the reassembled souls.
The danger of death or madness ..."
"I am on intimate terms with danger. What
other objections can you raise?"
"One spirit likely would not be enough ... as you infer,
you would have to invoke several, but those men did not all
die at the same instant. You might be
scattered. ... Then there is the problem of a key,
or bait, as it is vulgarly called. Some
object the soul can recognize and crystallize
around, something long familiar to--"
"Their swords?" Winter wailed. "It would have
to be their swords. But Ironhall was sacked,
Your Grace! All the swords are gone."
"I doubt if the swords of the Wetshore dead
were ever hung in the sky of swords. Sir
Lothaire will know. Assuming we can find them,
would it work? I never loved my father, but he was
a strong and capable ruler. Chivial has suffered
greatly since he died and seems doomed to suffer
more. If--and this is what I need to know--if the
souls of the lost Blades can call me back ...
all I need is a minute! Just one minute!
If I can be returned to the moment when I left
the longship and walked along the jetty; if instead
I can run along the jetty shouting a warning to the
Guard ... Surely if I just cry,
"Crossbow!" to them they will bury my
father under a mountain of flesh and Radgar will lose that
easy shot. All our troubles come from my father's
death. One word of warning--"
She had grown too emphatic.
"More soup, Your Majesty?" Burningstar said,
reaching for the jug. "This is a fascinating concept you
spring on us. Don't you agree, Sir
Wasp?"
Winter and Jongleur were staring hard at each
other. Then the older man turned again to Malinda,
but now he spoke without patronizing.
"It is a terrifying concept! I need to think
about this."
She found no satisfaction in being right, having
had so long to work it out. "Time may be something we do
not have! Lambskin--or Smaile or whatever his
name is now--will be searching for me already. If his
spies and arts gain him one whisper of what we
plan, then he can block us utterly." Every day
they delayed was one more day when Dog was dead. "The
answer lies at Ironhall. When Seahorse
has cleared the river, Sir Wasp, pray set
course for Ironhall."
Into the frigid silence stepped Countess
Burningstar. "Your Grace, you have just emerged from a
terrible ordeal. A few days' rest to regain your
strength will--"
"No!"
"Sir Lothaire is in grave need of an
elementary," Audley said. "We did bring
conjured bandages, but he is still in great pain. And
we have funerals to arrange."
"No!"
"Your Majesty," Jongleur protested, "you
are proposing a major innovation in conjuration. I
would expect to take months to finalize the
invocations and revocations required, and many
trials before it would work."
"You can have all night. Get to work."
Worried glances were passed around. Sir
Wasp tried next.
"We lack adequate supplies for that
voyage, even if we do not expect to return.
Furthermore, although Seahorse is very
close-winded, we should have to tack off an unknown
coast, lacking both charts and pilot."
"Stop making excuses!"
Winter said, "If Lambskin has spirits
seeking you, then you must not head for Ironhall. A
day or two in Thergy will put him off the
scent."
Malinda turned away from the look of horror
on his face and felt her resolution deflate like
a pricked bubble. "I suppose I am being
hasty. To Drachveld then, Sir Wasp, if you
please."
I just wish his wife wasn't quite so crazy about
seahorses.
RADGAR AELEDING
Drachveld, the capital of Thergy, was laid
out on a perfectly flat surface with the
precision of a formal table setting. Seahorse
sailed right through the city on a busy canal and
continued a mile or so inland, to Sir Wasp's
desirable waterfront residence; there she tied
up at the edge of the rose garden. His house was
smaller than a royal palace but few dukes
would have spurned it. The designers' flair was
to golden cupolas on the roof--wealth and good
taste in perfect unison. Even a queen could be
impressed, and an escaped prisoner who had
spent half a year in jail was overwhelmed. Had
she been compelled to find fault, Malinda would
most likely have criticized an excessive
use of seahorses as a motif. The gateposts
were marble seahorses of more than human height;
lesser seahorses appeared on china, towels, and
cushions; in mosaic, fresco, and tapestry;
as doorknobs and bedposts.
Lady Wasp, who greeted her guests at the
front door, combined the beauty of a porcelain
figurine with the sparkle of diamonds. Her
earrings were jade seahorses.
Sir Lothaire and the other wounded were rushed to an
elementary for healing. The other Blades set to the
sad task of acquiring lumber and building a
funeral pyre for the dead. Burningstar made
repeated attempts to tuck Malinda into bed, but
Malinda refused to be tucked. She greeted
other members of the Queen's Men--Fox,
Jarvis, and several she knew less well.
Informed that certain other exiles driven from
Chivial by the Usurper dwelt in the city, she
insisted on summoning them. She tried
to help with the funeral preparations or at least
assist Sir Jongleur with the incantations he was
outlining. By the time she had been persuaded that her
help was actually a hindrance, the pyres were
ready, the wounded
had returned healed, and the
funeral could proceed. They let her light the
balefire.
It took several hours to burn out, but she
stood watch there with the swordsmen. Many of them
wept, but she shed not a single tear. She could not
regard Dog's death as permanent--she was
resolved to go to Ironhall and revise the course
of events. He would live again; they would all
live again. When at last the evening shadows
lengthened, Burningstar managed to drag her
indoors and feed her. She still refused to go
upstairs, or even sit down for more than a few
moments at a time. She wanted to talk
politics with Winter, inspect the conjurers' work,
see to the outfitting of Seahorse--anything at
all except rest.
It was then that Queen Regent Martha arrived,
coming incognito and without ceremony. The two
queens were left alone to talk and Malinda found
herself talking--as she never had before, even to Dian
--about the man she had loved and had now lost. The
storm broke. She fell into Martha's arms and
wept inconsolably until the recently widowed
queen joined and wept with her.
She barely remembered being led upstairs and
put to bed.
It was about noon the next day when she met with
her council-in-exile: Burningstar, Audley,
Wasp, Jongleur, and Lothaire, who was now
healed but obviously still shaky. They were all
grim-faced. Yes, the conjurers admitted, what
she proposed seemed possible.
"The risks of outright failure," Sir
Lothaire put in, "are less than the risks
of disaster--death or madness. With respect, my
lady, you would be utterly crazy to stand within that
octogram."
"If I am already crazy, that halves the
risk." Dog had gone into danger to rescue her;
could she do less for him?
Jongleur had been up all night and was having
trouble smothering yawns. "But we must have the swords
and we don't know where they went."
"I am sure they were returned
to Ironhall," Lothaire said. "The law
required that. I don't remember them being
mentioned. What happened to them would be up to Grand
Master. He was hanged a month ago, so we
can't ask him. Master of Rituals or Master
Armorer would know, but where they are ..." He
shrugged. "Seventy swords? Even if they
hung them in the sky without a ceremony, I'm
sure I would have noticed. Most likely they were
taken to the Forge and disassembled, blades and