For the Killing of Kings Read online

  “See that the weapon’s properly cared for,” he instructed. “Replace the leathers.” He bent to retrieve a slim brown cloth sack with handpicked materials he’d set down earlier. “You can use the table in the records room, but keep the work to yourself.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Elenai took the sack but paid it no heed, for she fairly goggled at the weapon in her right hand, holding it out from her as though it were a fragile glass construct she feared to drop; then she sought his eyes once more.

  “I’ll meet you back here before nine bells.”

  “Yes, sir.” She looked once more down at the sword, then back at him. She seemed to want reassurance.

  So did everyone. But at the moment he had none to give. “I’ve other duties to attend to. Farewell, Squire.” He turned and strode back to the case. As he closed and locked it, he heard her footsteps recede into the south corridor. He looked once to the massive cedar doors leading to the Hall of Remembrance, then turned into the west corridor, the polished gray and blue stone pillars sliding past regularly.

  If Irion had been moved by someone in the court other than Denaven, there was one person who might know.

  Sareel, the longtime Keeper of Keys, had given access to Irion’s case the previous hour with a quirked eyebrow of surprise. Asrahn guessed she’d have pressed with impertinent curiosity if she weren’t so busy. It took almost three-quarters of an hour to track her down this time. Like many in the palace complex, Sareel was harried and cross owing to the influx of visitors for the three-day celebration that began tomorrow. Her staff in particular was spread thin, for they were tasked with decorating rooms and passages normally kept empty or minimally adorned.

  He found the woman in a rear parlor off the Grand Hall, bent over a book of inventories, holding it close to a large lamp while three of her assistants fussed with the top of a dusty wooden crate. It was strange to see her so gray and lined, a reminder of the long years they had held their posts. It seemed only yesterday that she had been a pretty, sharp-eyed thing that Tretton had courted.

  She saw Asrahn as he approached, and straightened at her table, blinking. When he asked if Irion had a duplicate, she looked at him as though he were demented.

  “No. Of course not. Why do you ask?” Her tone was more cutting than usual.

  He would have to be careful how he proceeded. He didn’t want to spread alarm unduly. “Has Irion ever been stored anywhere else?”

  Her brow furrowed. “What’s this about, Asrahn?

  He thought quickly and pulled himself a bit higher. “That sword’s a national symbol, an inspiration. I simply want to ensure it’s been handled correctly.”

  Sareel sighed and Asrahn realized she took his inquiry as a punctilious drill of some sort. “As you well know, the actual article’s been hanging on the wall, properly labeled, ever since N’lahr got dropped into his marble box.”

  It was Asrahn’s turn to furrow his brow at her callous words as she continued.

  “And I’m the Keeper of Keys, so I should know. All those artifacts are in order, unlike these damnable staircase urns.” She scowled down at her book to end the interaction, then looked up as Asrahn turned to go. “Do you have the key?”

  “I’ll need to hold onto it a little longer. I can have it back to you before the night is out.”

  “Well, I’ll apparently still be here,” she said testily, “I have a few dozen hallways left, and no one but gaping fools to aid me.” The assistants buzzed more intently as her voice rose in conclusion.

  He left her, deeply troubled.

  Was he imagining things? Maybe it was he who’d changed, not the sword. N’lahr was dead seven years, but Asrahn himself hadn’t held the blade for nearly nine. Maybe he’d forgotten what it felt like.

  Asrahn wished he could sound out Melagar about the matter, but his husband was still making finishing touches to a frieze in the temple of Darassa. He wouldn’t be available for hours. And Tretton was on long patrol, helping to see to the safety of the pilgrims as they passed through the Shifting Lands. He’d be unlikely to know the answer, but it would be a comfort to confide in an old friend.

  More than anything, he wanted Kalandra’s advice. Her nimble intellect had always pierced straight through to the heart of any matter. Yet he’d had to go without her input for as long as he’d gone without N’lahr’s.

  His mouth tightened at the thought of her. So many now were dead and gone.

  Resigned to no other possible solution, he turned his steps to the south palace wing, marked with less expensive but still skillfully arranged ceramic tiles, and stopped at Denaven’s office, only to find his commanding officer absent. The second ranker on duty suggested several likely locations, but Denaven wasn’t in any of them, so Asrahn returned before long. When the squire assured him the commander would check in prior to retiring for the evening, Asrahn drafted a terse note explaining his concern and requesting a meeting at eight bells, which gave him just over an hour. He sealed the message with wax and instructed the squire to pass it solely to the Altenerai commander.

  The Gods only knew how Denaven would react. He’d probably be livid but Asrahn had expected a dressing down from the start. Hopefully, the commander would focus less on the insubordination and more on the greater matter at hand—but how would he weigh the unsolicited suspicions of an aging veteran? The commander seemed somewhat impatient with tradition of late. Not to mention oblivious to the precarious state of the borders. Yet surely the disappearance of Irion would alarm even him.

  Lost in reflection, Asrahn slowly retraced his steps, traversing the length of the southern hall to return to the empty display.

  He looked away from the darker pattern in the velvet where the blade had hung and considered the other treasures from centuries of Altenerai service: the arrow Kerwyn had plunged through the burning heart of a kobalin lord; the spear of Jessaymyr, bent with age though its blade remained sharp. Asrahn knew precisely how sharp, for as a squire he’d tended many of these weapons—just like today’s squires tended all but N’lahr’s. The black ax of Alvor remained mirror bright, and he paused to consider the broadened, shortened image of himself in its reflection.

  He was old. Weighted with time. Perhaps Irion felt different because his strength had faded. Asrahn little resembled the heroic figure woven into a nearby tapestry. There he was, depicted beside blue-tinted Varama as she sank to her knees on the battlefield. Tall, broad shouldered, his short brown hair windblown, although in life he’d worn a helm that day. He, like the rest of the Altenerai, was artfully rendered in a dark blue khalat, belted at the waist, with a tiny bit of azure silk on his left hand to indicate the ring denoting his rank. All about the tableau were shattered lances and bodies of the slain, but the tapestry worker had placed these aspects in shadow, as though the Second Battle of Kanesh had taken place under stormy skies.

  The work was titled The Fall of N’lahr, and it was long enough to have draped the great hero’s coffin twice over. On the tapestry N’lahr lay more handsome dead than he’d been in life. Kyrkenall cradled his friend’s head in his hands, his black eyes leaking linen tears, while other Altenerai and squires sat on horses in the background, their faces pale in exaggerated grief. N’lahr’s dead hands still clasped the great sword that had led him again and again to impossible victories.

  His death hadn’t happened like that at all, but it made for an arresting picture. The wound that slew him had seemed a tiny thing.

  But the lie to the scene didn’t trouble Asrahn so much as did the image of the sword.

  He turned from the tapestry, bootheels echoing along the marble foyer, and pulled open the oversized and overembellished cedar doors in the north wall. There had to be a reasonable explanation about what had happened to Irion.

  He just hadn’t thought of one yet.

  He paused, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. He breathed deeply the stale incense that always lingered in that vast shrine. Light from the sinking sun starkly lit the na
rrow windows, burnishing metal shoulders on the regularly spaced statuary and striping the planks of the parquet floors.

  In the lighter days of his youth, the bronze renderings of Altenerai heroes had intimidated him, seeming to look down in judgment from their cool stone pedestals to find him wanting. Even after he’d earned the sapphire ring, necessitating his own cast semblance join theirs, he never lingered. But as more and more of his colleagues left the living world he’d found himself drawn to the sterile exhibit more and more frequently. He craved the counsel of the people they represented. He missed their company.

  His heels beat a hollow rhythm as he entered, scanning the faces. There was bold, cunning Renik, his hand raised in greeting, long since vanished on one of the queen’s mad errands. To his right was sad-eyed Rialla, dead the day after winning her ring, forgotten now by all but the few who’d risen through the ranks with her. How many of those were left?

  He held off counting. As usual, he avoided consideration of his own simulacrum as he passed.

  He had almost reached Kalandra, halfway down. Of all those lost to him, it was she whom he missed the most. Wise, capable, hers had always been a grounded, calming presence.

  A man’s voice rang through the chamber. “‘Who dares to walk these halls while I yet live?’”

  Asrahn’s heart sped and he pivoted, sun-wrinkled hands rising to a guard position, until he realized the words were quoted from the poet and playwright Selana, from her masterwork, The Rise of Myralon. And by that tone and timbre and certain exaggerated stage diction, the speaker could only be … A smile crept unbidden to Asrahn’s lips. One of the missing had returned. He looked left. “Kyrkenall?”

  “Wrong way,” called the voice, a warm tenor.

  “Kyrkenall the Eyeless,” Asrahn called. He strode automatically toward the Alternerai’s bronze likeness.

  “Over here,” the voice drawled. “You have me confused with the sot in bronzed breeches. I’m only Kyrkenall the drunk.”

  Asrahn willed his sapphire ring to light as he stepped past a solemn looking statue of a bearded ancient. A man in a familiar deep blue robe, mirror to his own, reclined against the wall.

  Kyrkenall slouched beside the statue of a tall man with a long, angular face. N’lahr, of course. He raised a hand holding a bottle. “Asrahn! Join me.”

  Kyrkenall; mad, brilliant, impossible Kyrkenall. Sweet gods but it was fine to see a friend once more, even if he profaned the hallowed hall with inebriation. “Hail! What are you doing here?”

  “I think that should be obvious.”

  “No, I mean why are you here, drinking?”

  He hadn’t changed a day, Asrahn realized as he moved closer. Kyrkenall was beautiful as a young god, smooth skinned and even featured. He might as well have stepped from the past twelve years ago when he was still a reckless squire. Radiance from Asrahn’s ring stained the archer’s neck-length black hair and nut-brown skin shades of indigo. His “eyeless” orbs threw back an unearthly violet. Legend had granted him that sobriquet because the whole of those weird eyes, sclera and all, were midnight black, though, Asrahn knew, the lithe archer saw better than most men.

  Asrahn waved away the offered bottle and crouched stiffly beside the smaller, scruffier warrior, noticing then the sword belt, the quiver, the curved end of the famed ebon bow poking out from behind Kyrkenall’s pack. Kyrkenall hadn’t even bothered to find a room after what had surely been a lengthy ride from some distant realm. He’d just taken up station here, with all his equipment and his wine bottles, two of which lay empty.

  “You shouldn’t drink here.” Asrahn suppressed a wry grin, remembering his chiding never moved this former student.

  “Pfft. I’ve been drunk with some of these. The people, I mean. Not the statues. Sit!” Kyrkenall patted the floor. “You were always so formal, even when you … even in the old days.”

  “The Gods have blessed you.” Asrahn couldn’t quite conceal a note of envy. “You look exactly the same as when I saw you last. Six years ago? Six and a half?”

  Kyrkenall neither agreed nor disagreed. “The Grandmothers have smiled on me. You look fit still.”

  For an old man, perhaps. “I’m older, and rounder. Your blood holds true.”

  “May mine hold as true when I’m your age. How have you been? And how’s…” Kyrkenall spun his fingers as if trying to unspool a memory.

  “Melagar’s fine,” Asrahn said.

  “Sorry. I forgot his name. Drunk.”

  Asrahn doubted Kyrkenall would remember the name of his espoused when sober, no matter that Melagar was one of the finest sculptors in the realm.

  Kyrkenall took another pull from his bottle. “How’s the court, and all the little squires? Are they an insufferable lot of yankers?”

  “A few have shown real promise. Like you did, once. Before you crawled off to sulk.” He couldn’t keep the disappointment from his voice. Kyrkenall had abandoned the corps when he was needed most.

  “Sulk?” Kyrkenall’s eyebrows rose and Asrahn was reminded of the early days of their acquintance, when rage oft lurked in the shadows of his eyes. “The city of Darassus,” Kyrkenall continued with the faintest of drunken slurs, “is a great, diseased canker that infects all who dwell within it—present company excepted—and tarnishes what it cannot rust. Pardon my mixed metaphor. As for what I’ve been doing, surely some word has reached the court. Righting wrongs, slaying monsters. Drinking. Fucking. A whole lot of fucking, actually. It never gets old, does it? Melagar good to you in bed?”

  How like Kyrkenall to reduce the most complex and rewarding relationship of Asrahn’s life to a matter of sex. “We’re happy. And that’s private.”

  Kyrkenall snorted. “You sound like N’lahr.” At that, he raised his wine toward the statue profiled before him and drank once more.

  “I’ve heard about your doings, Kyrkenall,” Asrahn said seriously. “Some of the tales are a little troubling.”

  He laughed. “Like what?”

  “That you whipped a Kaneshi stablemaster half to death.”

  “That guy? He had it coming. He was beating his horses. And his children.”

  That held the ring of truth. Altenerai were entrusted with meting justice wherever the local constabulary was overstretched, like in Kanesh. And it would be unlike Kyrkenall to consider how his handling of an issue might reflect on the prestige of the corps.

  Kyrkenall was apparently still thinking of N’lahr. “He would never have accepted that peace treaty,” he said, for the hundredth time. “We’d have been on the Naor doorstep in a few more months.”

  It was the natural lead-in for a discussion about the sword, yet Asrahn delayed. He wasn’t certain why he hesitated. Kyrkenall was no Kalandra, true. Yet for all that he was an irresponsible egoist, the great bowman always spoke his mind. And it was a sharp mind whenever it occasionally turned from focus on self.

  His own indecision was an irritant. It was mostly an unfamiliar sensation.

  “Hey, who else is here?” Kyrkenall broke into the silence. “In Darassus. Altenerai, I mean.”

  Asrahn named the old guard first. “Tretton, though he’s shepherding pilgrims. He’ll be back tomorrow. Decrin and Varama. Denaven—”

  Kyrkenall made a face.

  “And the newer ranked.”

  Kyrkenall rolled his eyes. Perhaps rightly. To Asrahn’s mind, most of them had been promoted too soon. But it had been hard to argue with Denaven’s insistence that the upper ranks had grown thin.

  “Kalandra?” Kyrkenall attempted to sound but mildly curious and didn’t quite succeed.

  “No one’s heard from Kalandra. Still.” And then it was as though the words were torn from him. “I need her advice.”

  His companion nodded very slowly. They sat there together in silence for a while, and Kyrkenall didn’t even raise the bottle to his lips.

  “Did you…” Asrahn paused. “Did you ever examine N’lahr’s sword? After his death, I mean?”

  “Sure.�
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  “I mean really look at it.”

  The archer focused bleary eyes, and for a moment Asrahn sensed he had the full attention of that shrewd intellect. “What’s your aim?”

  “The notches are the same. The pommel’s the same. But I swear it’s a different blade.” He shook his head, suddenly worried he was making a fool of himself. “The heft is wrong. Irion practically begged to be swung the moment you picked it up.”

  “I never held it,” Kyrkenall admitted. “What were you doing with it? Isn’t it retired, on display?” He nodded his head toward the immense double doors through which Asrahn had entered.

  “Vermin were chewing the hilt wrappings.” Asrahn couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. “Someone needed to take care of it. Tomorrow’s the anniversary of his greatest victory. We’ll sell a hundred thousand mugs of mead but can’t be bothered to tend his weapon?”

  “Mice have been eating at the soul of this city for years.”

  Asrahn sighed. “I don’t want politics, Kyrkenall.” Even if he partly agreed with the sentiment, the last thing he needed was to encourage Kyrkenall, who had no compunctions about venting his vitriol on matters of state. “I just want an explanation. Where’s the real sword, and who has it?”

  “Maybe the one on display’s an official copy.”

  “No. Not according to Sareel’s records.”

  “Is it there now?” Kyrkenall looked as though he might rise and go see for himself.

  “No—the blade I removed is with Squire Elenai. I asked her to repair it. I didn’t want to draw attention to any irregularities. You know how rumors can start.”

  “Rumors—you mean that the Naor have the sword and are coming for our heads?” Kyrkenall cursed colorfully. “Is that what you think’s happened?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Kyrkenall was starting to sound more sober. “If word gets out we don’t have the sword, it might be all the inspiration they need.”

  Asrahn had worried the Naor would return to invade ever since N’lahr’s death, for the actual prophecy foretold Mazakan would be slain by the great general with the sword. Yet as the years had passed with only sporadic raids from “renegade Naor clans,” common sentiment held that the sword itself might be enough of a deterrent.