King's Blades 03 - Sky of Swords Read online

  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?"

  Dog stopped his foreplay. "I won't understand

  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

  Dog the letter to Grand Wizard, but he had

  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