While Hilary brushed her hair, she turned to see Cynric.
“You’ve had a bath,” she said. “You look fresh as a baby.”
“A baby who was nearly killed.”
Hilary stood up and came to him, touching his face, stroking his little bronze beard.
“I never saw how young you were until now. So many responsibilities, and yet we are both so young.”
“I do not feel young,” Cynric said.
“Nor do I. We’ve both been badly used.”
“I…” Cynric began, “are you alright? When I saw you, covered in that bastard’s blood… It must have been terrible.”
“It wasn’t terrible,” Hilary said. “It was wonderful.”
Cynric studied her, as if he had never seen this tall, dark haired woman before.
“He who had raped me, abused me, overpowered me, dishonored my friends, who was about to kill the man I love… I plunged a dagger into his throat, and though he lied and said he could not remember what he did, he certainly knew me then. Awash in his blood I felt…”
“Like a Valkyrie!”
“Yes,” Hilary said.
“Like a shieldmaiden of old.”
And then Cynric said, “You aren’t fragile at all, are you?”
“No more than you.”
Cynric laughed and he said, “I think I may be a little fragile.”
Hilary moved away from him. She went to the door and she locked it.
“I don’t care anymore,” she said. “Life is not fair. You must make your own fairness.”
She stood before Cynric, and in a swift movement, she loosened her dressing gown so that it fell to the floor.
Cynric’s mouth went dry, and then he swiftly pulled off his tunic and pulled down his trousers and stood before her naked, his penis rising.
“Gods!” Hilary’s voice sounded as if it would break.
She took him by the hand and brought him to the bed. She pulled him on top of her, wrapping her legs about his waist, gripping his back in triumph. He sighed in relief while she kissed him savoring his mouth and the softness of his hair, lifting her throat for his kisses down her throat, between her breasts, on her nipples, lower then lower still.
In time she opened for him. Cynric, above her, desire concentrated in his firm cock, concentrated even more at its tip, pressed himself inside of her and sighed with relief while Hillary closed then opened her eyes at his entry. Slowly, he fucked, awakening love and a thing beyond naming while her work roughened hands rested, at last, on the wings of his broad shoulders, traveled, in time, down his back to his buttocks, and as he groaned in contentment, she matched the rhythm of his thrusting.
“You don’t,” she whispered in the shell of his ear, “you don’t… have to be gentle.”
“I want to be,” he whispered as he thrust, “For you I want to be so gentle.”
Her fingers wrapped themselves in his hair and tugged, and she whispered into his ear, and then, as her fingers became claws, raking his ass, he was fucking her, and she was crying out, and when she cried out so did he and in the end he said, “I don’t…. I don’t.”
“Come inside of me,” she hissed. “Please come inside of me.”
With a groan he did, both of their bodies tightening into a ball, fused, Hilary’s nails digging into his back, Cynric’s body arching, his face raised almost to the ceiling as he lifted her and he spilled and spilled inside of her, his body still frozen in the orgasm before he lowered her, and the lamplit room with its window looking on the setting sun was silent but for the shallow sounds of their exhausted breathing.
THE UNDERLAND PASSES
After the power of the Alcot, this traveling through the dark was cold and wearisome. That night, as Conn had sang around the fire, a secret fire Soren had never known burned in him, greater and fuller than anything he had ever called power before. He understood, in the end, the warning he and Ethan had been given. Life was so solitary, though there were those few nights when someone came to his bed or he came to theirs. Theone was here again, but they were still not whole, and his feelings for her were fraught with anxiety. The night of the Alcot there had been no anxiety. Though he had not turned to Kenneth since, and had rarely turned to men before, he looked back wistfully to that night, when Conn’s music had filled him with lust after the long sexless time in the land above, and he had ridden Kenneth, and then Arvad all through the night, all of them giving vent to their need.
They had not told the women about it, or anyone who had not been there. Now, Soren looked on Conn with care, for the magic had exhausted him and, wrapped in a great blue cloak, he rose his pony half asleep.
“Are you sure this is the right way?”
Ohean fixed Essily with a gaze and she said, “It’s only that it seems like we’ve come this way before.”
“Have I led you wrong in the past?”
“We’ve never been underground in the past.”
Ohean’s eyes narrowed, and Anson touched him on the shoulder saying, “Mother may have a point.”
“Am I going to have to deal with this from now on?” Ohean murmured.
Anson said, “This path does look familiar.”
“Well, in that case,” Ohean said, “Let Essa lead. Let anyone lead.”
He left the path and sat down on a rock.
The path they had taken led out of the dust cave where Ohean had read cards and over the lip of the shelf that overlooked it. It was wide enough while they traveled with torch light and occasionally they were light, but Ohean wished Yarrow had remained with him to add her magic. The path seemed to go straight for the space of a day, and when night came they camped in the midst of it. By the second day the path was rising up and narrowing considerable. Anson wondered if they could bring a horse through, and Kenneth said that there was no choice seeing that, if his stayed down here he would rot with him. Ohean said there was no need to talk of rotting just yet, and the path went up and up, narrower and narrower until, coming through a small way, they saw it drop into a long, cavernous country, still a main road with many caves hanging off of it. There was plenty of air down here. One path, like a great mountainous highway, rose up and carried them out of this, to a place that was obviously carved out over time, an undermountain road for people they did not see. After a time it emptied into more caves, and here they were now, uncertain.
“Ohean,” Essily said. “You have guided us well in all things. I do not say that I know the way better. Only that you might need to rest.”
Anson looked between the two of them and Ohean, at last, smiled and, laughing, shrugged.
“We should rest here for a while. But these caves oppress us all and it will be good to get out of here.”
“They don’t oppress me,” Dissenbark said.
Ohean and Essily looked at her.
“I’m only saying,” her voice echoed lightly off the wall, “I feel enlivened here. I don’t know why.”
She pointed to the right of them.
“Ohean, Bir—Essily is right. We have come here before, and right there is the way we should go. I know it. Trust me.”
Ohean was not untrusting, not when the knower was so certain. He rose from where he sat, banged his staff three times and said, “We go. That way. After Dissen.”
“What,” Anson murmured beside Ohean, “is that noise?”
Ohean had deftly rolled a ciragrette, and now Anson could smell it burning. The wizard said:“What noise?”
“You cannot hear it?” Anson looked, incredulous. “The stamping of feet. Many feet. Walking. Padding.”
Then he said, “You do hear it. I know you do.”
Ohean turned to Anson, the cigarette hanging between his fingers, and said, “And what does my hearing do about it? We are far under the earth. We are in the territory of other peoples. It is them we hear. Let us hope they do not hear us, or if they hear, that they do not mind.”
Arvad heard Ohean and Anson murmuring. Now and again he heard moving in the walls, and then courage came to him when he saw Kenneth trembling and shaking. What has this man he cared for been through. He loved him. He knew it. That was, oddly enough, one of the reasons he had not been with him in the Alcot. They could not happen like that. Not then. Arvad rocked him awake and Kenneth, clammy and exhausted shot up, Arvad putting a quieting hand over his mouth.
“It’s me,” he said, gently. “You’re safe. Go back to sleep.”
That night, when they rested, Theone moved her blankets closer to Soren.
“Thea!” he said.
“Tell me,” she said, settling down. “Are we together? Or aren’t we?”
“What do you mean?”
Theone adjusted her cushions and said, “Surely you cannot be so obtuse. I mean what I mean. Are we together or not?”
“Well,” Soren looked flustered, he steepled his fingers and said, “we haven’t had time, Thea. We’ve been separated for so long.”
“Yes,” Theone agreed. “Only I loved you a long time after I never saw you again, after I thought you were dead, and seeing you was like being hit.”
“It was the same,” Soren said, breathlessly. “It was the exact same thing for me.”
“I’ve been so startled,” she said, “that I did not know if, I still do not know if I can tunn back into me. If we can turn back into us.”
Soren did not look at her. He placed his hand lightly in hers and murmured, “I feel the same way.
“But.”
She looked up at him.
“But,” he repeated, “we will become us again. We have come through so much that is so much harder, my dear friend. Now, the only thing we need is time.”
IMMRACHYR
Hai un espírito que o sento
Deliciosos para non facer mal,
Nin vingar ningún mal,
Pero se deleita por soportar todas as cousas,
Na esperanza de gozar do seu propio ao final ...
Nunca se regocija
Pero a través de sufrimentos; Para o
A alegría do mundo é asasinada.
Noon light shone bright the the stainglass windows of the Minster, and below, as the choir sang above, the richly dressed folded and unfolded their robes and hands. Beneath the altar lay the bier of Queen Ermengild Fourth of that Name, draped in burgundy velvet. At each corner, burned a taper of beeswax, and everyone in the minster held their own burning taper.
The voices of the choir rose higher, swelled singing:
Atopei en solitario, sendo abandonado.
Teño bolsa
Alí con eles que viviron
En densos e desolados
Lugares na terra, quen
A través da morte obtida
Esta resurrección e vida santa eterna.
“Already there are many wondering how we can upset the succession and choose a new Queen,” Ronnerick whispered to his nephew.
Dessanon’s lips hardly moved as he said, “I sympathize with them. But every time we fight over succession, every time we assume there is no heir, all the princedoms split and that is when an invader comes in. We are only strong together. If we resist now, not only will the army of Solahn still come, and this time as conquerors, but we will have no one to stand behind.”
“They would stand behind you.”
Dessanon looked at his old uncle.
“Do not tempt me.”
“They would have stood behind your son.”
Dessanon looked about the Minster, around at the many lords and ladies, caramel skinned, mahogany faced, ivory colored northerners in their silks and velvets and their high hats.
“Would they have?” he said. And then, “I wonder.”
Ronnerick gave a sharp intake of breath and pointed.
“Maud,” Dessanon murmured.
Entering from the side of the minster she came, tale, in pale blue, her hair veiled in white like the Goddess Allayah, and she bore a spray of small white flowers. Looking neither to the left nor to the right, she made her stately way down the great aisle of the cathedral until she faced the Queen’s bier, and then, kneeling before it, kissed the velvet and laid the flowers on it.
“She would have been my daughter,” Dessanon said.
“She will be at the council,” Ronnerick said. “She has standing.”
The woman called Maud was gone from their side, and the page said, “Who is she, sirs?”
“She is princess of Thaary,” Dessanon told him. “Thaary and Vand are the two princedoms who were never ruled either when the Solahni and the Yrkroon came into Chyr. Their princes have the blood of the Alcontradi, and they are descended from the men of Solea and Handrustar. Now they are independent, but still they show allegiance to Chyr, and out of respect call their rulers princes, not kings.”
“Her mother and father were killed when she was just a girl,” Ronnerick said, “But because her mother was a princess of Laujinesse she had a godmother of the fairy people. One Yarrow. Yarrow raised her in the south, and Queen Ermengild sent a steward to oversee her lands. She and Ethan would have wed and been Prince and Princess of Vand and Thaary, but he disappeared searching for the Stone years ago. As Ermengild believed her grandchildren would return to her one day, so Maud believed she would again see Ethan. That bond of belief made the old woman and the young one close.”
“It will be something,” Dessanon said, “to know what light the Princess Maud will bring to tomorrow’s council.”
“But as the Lord Dessanon himself has said,” Ryderch of Palance noted as he stood, “if we do not accept this new King, this Bellamy, then who will we choose? Ermengild clearly had a next in the line of succession, which was Tealora, who is even now being crowned Queen in Solahn.”
“But you forget that Ermengild always believed one of her line would return,” Duncan of Bathmark said.
“Does senility excuse what is?” another demanded.
“You hold on now,” the Marrquis of Dalmant said. “Even now you will not speak ill of the Queen.”
“The Queen is dead,” said Northrus, who sat beside the offending lord, “and speaking the truth will not make her less so, or this land more safe. Bellamy is on his way and we must choose what to do.”
Ronnerick turned to watch the young lord, Verge, speak.
“Lord Ronnerick, who is the next heir after Tealora?”
“It splits threeways with the Duke of Vetch, the Duchess of Amblin and a princess Lara who is of the House of Vamanesse, living in North Hale, and who has never lain eyes on Chyr.”
“At least Tealora was raised here in the city,” another lord said. “And who knows, maybe we make too much of it? Maybe Bellamy will be so busy with his own country he will leave Chyr to the governance of his wife or,” he shrugged and gestured to Ronnerick, “the care of a steward.”
“Maybe… Maybe… Maybe he won’t come here often?”
The voice was low and it was a moment before everyone heard it, before they saw that it was the red headed Maud speaking.
“Maybe he’ll let Tealora rule by herself. Maybe he’ll hand over this land, our land, the Land of Iffan, the land of the Children of Famke, to a steward.”
She rose and her eyes roved the chamber.
“That is the worst thing of all, to have the Council hand over our kingdom like a rag, to have a land with a Queen, without a true King, or without one who is unfit to rule.”
She was silent, and Dessanon and Ronnerick;s eyes were fixed on her.
“Years ago my lord and prince Ethan left to find Ermengild’s heirs, and bring back the Stone Elladyl gave to Julian in the Time of Trouble. Ermengild died believing that he would succeed, that they would return. I live and I believe. I believe that the heir or heirs will return. I believe Ethan will not return without them. But if that were not to happen, it would not matter.
“Now, I am of the House of Thaary, of the line of Julian who fell from the Stars, and my fathers and mother never yielded to Solahni, not even when a Solahni sat on the Throne of Chyr. We never accepted a Solahni as our King. And we never shall,” she declared, her voice impassioned.
“I never shall.”
“Do you have a name?” Maud asked the page.
“I’m Sebastian, Ma’am.”
Maud shook her head as he poured her glass of wine and said, “I am not yet old enough to be a Ma’am. Maud will suffice.”
Sebastian, circling to pour for Lord Dessanon and then for Ronnerick, thought on this and said, “How about Lady?”
Maud raised an eyebrow and said, “Lady Maud. My lady. Um, I like it.”
She turned to the others and said, “My lords, the plan for this lady is to leave for Thaary in the morning. If things were to turn out the way we hoped, then Ethan and I would have been married here, and Ermengild would have been present to oversee my coronation. But there’s nothing for it now. I’ve already sent a message to Haul Prince of Vand, and I need someone to ride to the Commots.”
Sebastian put down the pewter jug, understanding that he was privy to something important now.
“Bellamy will be here in a matter of days, and the Parliament and Council of Lords will hand over the Kingdom to him and Tealora. Tea in name, but she was never strong of will, and her heart belongs in Solahn. If the nation of Chyr proper will not rise against him, then the Commonwealth will.”
Ronnerick nodded.
“With the border princes, the Commots, Vand and Thaary behind us, surely there will be Chyri lords who go over to our side. I will return to Thaary, and at the palace call the counts, and they will crown me as Princess. Then I and the Prince of Vand will mobilize.”
“Perhaps the dukes of the Southlands will take courage and go to your side,” Ronnerick suggested.
“But what after that?” Dessanon said. “A whole mass of people without a King, without a Queen.”
“There will be a King,” Maud said, “or if not a King a Queen. And until then there will be a people, a free people who refuse to bend the knee to another conquerer.”
Ronnerick nodded to this and linked his long fingers through his beard.
“There is something,” the old man said.
“Vand and Thaary, the Commots, the Border Princes… They cover the far west and the east. What if… what if somehow you could establish yourself in the South. Make a buffer against the Solahni or… even squeeze them in?”
“You could establish yourself in the Crystal City,” Sebastian said brightly.
They all looked at him and Sebastian was caught off guard.
“Repeat yourself, boy.” Ronnerick charged him.
“I did not mean to speak out of turn.”
“But speak you did,” Ronnerick said, “and maybe your speaking will be our salvation.”
Sebastian bit his lower lip and then repeated: “You could make camp in the Crystal City.”
