In the House of Five Dragons
11. Everstones
“His own wife barely knew him. Captain Mazrem was the hero of all Carce, the legendary martyr who gave his life to save those under his command, to save the fledgling empire from the Fiori. Can anyone truly say they knew the man behind the legend?”
— From Honoring Our Heroes, by Persus Ravine
Rikard wasn’t alone when he woke up. He could smell other people, the scents of skin and sun-warmed cloth. Their voices were soft, whispering like old things. How long had Rikard been gone this time? The stiff feeling in his joints suggested that it had been a while.
Where am I?
Something beneath him was much softer than the road Rikard had fallen asleep on. He felt light, too, as though a part of him was missing. But he was still alive, wasn’t he?
Curious, Rikard opened his eyes. The sky was gone. Instead, a smooth white something stretched overhead, blank as a sheet of paper. It didn’t seem to be the source of the voices, however.
Rikard sat up slowly. His body protested painfully. Every inch of him was stiff and sore, but he could move more easily than before.
It was his armor that was missing. Someone had dressed him in a new black saela and pants. Without his husk of leather and steel, Rikard felt very naked. He pulled the blanket up tight around his shoulders.
On the tip of his right forefinger, someone had carefully cleaned and polished the gold bloodcap. Rikard pressed the metal against the blanket weave until he felt his pulse in the cannula. It tingled down the length of his finger. Reassured by the living throb of his own blood, Rikard turned his attention to the rest of the room.
A pair of old women huddled to one side, whispering to a man in a collared blue saela. He was a handsome gentleman, younger than the women, but not by much. Despite his silvered hair and age-lined face, Rikard recognized him.
Nikas. Nikas Hern of the Moon Court.
One of the women in white — templars, servants and helpers to the VEIL knights, Rikard remembered suddenly — noticed him sitting and hurried to his side, motioning to the other two.
“General Hern, sir,” she said. “He’s awake.”
He turned to look at Rikard, brows raised. Though his face had aged gracefully, Hern’s eyes were tired. Rikard reached for a better feel, pushing past the old knight’s curious gaze. More than tired. Stretched out thin. Pulled taut like the head of a drum until every poke and prod quivered through his entire being.
His only thought is to push away the beating hands. His every word is civil, softened until it can move nothing at all.
“Blood and bond, Rik,” said Hern. He sat beside the bed and laced his fingers together. “You’ve been asleep for a day. Is it really you sitting there?”
Was it? Rikard wasn’t sure. He stared blankly at Hern. In Fiore, Nikas had been a young man, but still older than Rikard by several years and much more experienced.
Thirty years… Was this the same man who gave the too-young Star Court captain his first drink of mulso?
Captain Errain died of his wounds, screaming away his last breath as he cursed the Fiori. When the noise finally stopped, you brought me a cup of hot mulso, so strong it made my eyes water. “The captain’s dead,” you told me. “You’re in command now, Rik. Drink deep.”
Hern seemed disappointed at the lack of immediate reaction. He leaned closer, furrowing his lined brow. “Rik? Say something.”
“Where… is this?” Rikard asked. His voice sounded so strange, flat and uninflected. How did Terrans manage to communicate anything this way? It was so slow. Clumsy. But at least it didn’t hurt.
“We built new archouses in the city twenty years ago. You’re in the one that belongs to the Moon Court. One of my knights, Marus Gallard, found you in the street and brought you here. A templar identified you. Gods, it’s really you, Rik!”
“Why are there Fiori in Dormaen?”
Hern clasped Rikard’s shoulder through the blanket and gave the sore muscles beneath a light squeeze.
“We won the war, Rik,” he said. “It’s over. You wiped out the entire Fiori army. There weren’t enough of them left to fight after that. Everyone else is a citizen of Carce now.”
“What of Crast? Po’Mar? Nian and Lyncea?”
“All provinces of the empire. Every one of them,” said Hern. “All fifty nations have joined the empire.”
All? Even secretive Nian and bold Lyncea, whose rivalry and hatred of one another was legend across the worlds? How? How many wars did Emperor Tychon wage to build his empire?
“How?” Rikard asked. “I don’t…”
“It was you, Rik. After word spread about what you did, how one man devastated an entire army, no one wanted to fight Carce anymore,” said Hern. His thoughts shuddered, lurching away from something unpleasant, but none of it showed in his face or voice. Nikas Hern smiled steadily at Rikard. “You saved us all, you know. There hasn’t been a single war since Njorn Pass. You’re a hero. The biggest damned hero in the world.”
All of Terra spun. Rikard closed his eyes. No more wars? But the Alterra fought every day. Didn’t the Terrans know about that? The fighting that ravaged the other world, turning the sky to ashes and water into gray nothing? A single glimpse into Hern’s tumbling thoughts gave Rikard his answer.
No. They don’t know. Or else they don’t think about it.
But Rikard himself had not remembered the Alterran war until just that moment. Everything was still so confusing, so overwhelming. A broken jumble. What did it all mean? It was too much. Rikard pulled the blanket up over his head, blotting out the sounds of Hern’s breathing and the rustling of the templar’s tabbae.
“Captain Mazrem?” Hern asked. His interest would not be so easily quieted, it seemed. His voice was all too audible through the blanket. “Rik, what’s wrong?”
“I want to go home,” Rikard mumbled petulantly.
“We’ll get you home, sir. We need Lady Mazrem to make the final identification, anyway. My vote’s got as much weight as anyone else’s in the Lyceum — except your son, of course, and the emperor — but they’re not going to believe your return until she confirms it,” Hern said. He tugged the blanket away and the resurgence of light made Rikard squint.
“The Lyceum… My son?”
Gaius… We named him after Laurael’s father. He was just a baby when I left. Tiny and fragile and screaming and pink.
“Hae. Your son, Rik. He’s a captain in the Star Court, just like you.” Hern clapped on Rikard’s shoulder. “Let’s get you home.”
“He’s still injured, general,” one of the templars reminded him. “Please, be careful!”
Hern stood. “Captain Mazrem is made of bricks and brambles. Tell the men to step quick. Rik says he wants to go home and we’re going to take him there.”
The women bowed and scurried from the room. When they were gone, Hern helped Rikard to his feet. He couldn’t remember the words to tell the other man about his gratitude.
“Blue sky,” he fumbled.
Hern gave him an odd look. “I’m sure. Now let’s get you back to your wife and boy. We’re not far from the Everstones. Nothing puts the world right at the end of a long day like going home.”
Nikas Hern led Rikard through the halls of the archouse, down the stairs and out into the sunlight. Rikard squinted until the blindness passed. The archouse was well named. It was a tall and starkly beautiful building. The outer walls were tiled all in marble and granite, arched like a drawn bow. The archouse bordered on acres of training grounds, fenced off on the northern face by a tall iron gate. A large, circular courtyard was resplendent with its own statue of Lord-Captain Rikard Mazrem.
The yard was full of people, all staring up at Rikard: two thousand VEIL knights girded in freshly polished banded blue armor. Every shoulder was emblazoned with the crescent moon of their court. There were others, too: Moon Court templars and groundskeepers, blacksmiths and a hundred more that worked in service to the knights. The gate that separated the archouse from the rest of Dormaen was thick with spectators from the city, hanging from the iron posts and crowding behind.
Hern led Rikard out onto a raised terrace. The crowd roared. VEIL knights pounded their fists against their armor and held swords upraised like sharp steel blades of grass. The rest shouted and cheered, laughed and cried and pointed. Their exultation rose, crashing over Rikard, threatening to deafen him, drown him. He recoiled, but Hern was standing right behind him.
“So much for awaiting a confirmation, hae? We tried to keep it all quiet, but this place is leaky as an old roof when it comes to secrets,” Hern said into Rikard’s ear. “All of Dormaen will hear about your return before long, Rik.”
Hern gently but firmly propelled Rikard to the raised stone rail. The roar of voices surged deafeningly. What was he supposed to do? Speak to them? Even if Rikard could make himself heard over the tempest howl of voices, what could he say? There was too much to tell them, or else too little. Rikard wasn’t sure which.
He raised his right hand and thumbed open the cap on his forefinger. Beneath, tiny gold prongs held open a small circular wound, little bigger than a pinprick, and funneled the blood to a point, like a pen. Uncovered, the puncture began to ooze with bright red blood. Rikard brought his finger to his brow and drew a circle there, the mark of the bond he and all VEIL knights shared with the Alterra, a mark visible and bright in both worlds.
The closest knights and templars fell suddenly silent. Whispers rippled through the crowd — Wind through the brown grass. He’s bleeding! — and told those further back what was too distant to see. Hern grabbed Rikard and pulled him into an ostensibly brotherly embrace. The Moon Court general wiped the blood off Rikard’s forehead with his sleeve.
“No one does that anymore, Rik,” he whispered.
“Why?”
“It risks Alterran attention and no one wants that,” said Hern. “We use more… casual gestures these days.”
Rikard didn’t understand. The circle of blood had served VEIL knights as a sign of respect and good will for more than a century. Nikas’ words made no sense at all. Risk Alterran attention? But that was the very purpose of the bloody salute, to show Terra and Alterra that their bond remained strong. Without their Alterran allies, VEIL knights were no more than common soldiers.
He reached deeper, hoping for some kind of understanding, but Hern’s thoughts were slippery and elusive, as difficult to grasp as raindrops.
Bewildered, Rikard followed the aging VEIL general down the stairs and toward a group of knights arranged in neat rows on either side of a moon-emblazoned chariot. They banged their fists against their breastplates once at the officers’ approach and then spread out to encircle Rikard and Hern.
“Hae! Close ranks!” called a man with scarred cheeks. “March!”
The knights formed up as Hern and Rikard climbed into the chariot. The general flicked the reins and urged the pair of black horses into a quick canter. All around them, the knightly escort cut their way through the crowded Moon Court yard. The crowd had overcome their astonishment enough to resume the riotous cheers. They parted and pulled open the iron gates for Rikard and his entourage.
While the knights and templars reluctantly returned to their duties in the archouse, the Dormaen citizens were caught up in the moment. They followed the chariot into the city streets, fanning out behind them like a bridal train and chanting his name.
“Mazrem! Mazrem! Mazrem!”
“For the love of all the gods, Mother, you look fine,” Gaius snapped. “Stop fussing!”
Laurael Mazrem gave her son a withering look.
“You heard the templars,” she told him. “Your father is coming home.”
“I heard nothing of the sort, Mother. I heard a couple of hysterical girls screeching about some drunkard who looks like my father. Exactly as he looked the day he died. It’s ridiculous, Mother! The man died thirty years ago!”
“No one has ever been quite sure of that, Gaius,” Laurael told her son primly. “VEIL knew your father better than I ever did. If the Moon Court templars are correct, the whole empire will soon be celebrating. We can’t afford to appear hesitant. We must be at the forefront of this.”
“They’re dragging some poor, stupid man here for your identification! Can you even do that? You’re getting on, after all. Would you even remember him without all the statues and paintings?”
“Watch your tongue. I am your mother. Show some respect.”
Lady Mazrem gestured impatiently to a pair of her slender Jumaari servants. The women bobbed their heads obediently and hurried forward, hands overflowing with bottles of exotic perfume, cakes of powder and rouge for their mistress’ skin, soft black sticks of wax and charcoal to line her eyes and lips. Laurael sat stiffly on her lushly overstuffed divan, curling her fingers into the upholstery.
The years had been kind to Laurael Mazrem, or the expensive physics and their cases of costly preservative extracts had been. Even after almost fifty years of life, her beauty still rivaled the youngest women of Carce. A strict daily regimen of pungent herbal creams and oils kept her flesh firm, her skin unlined. Her complexion had picked up a certain translucent quality in the last decade, but the nobility of Carce agreed that the moonstone cast only added to the revered Mazrem widow’s loveliness.
Her decadent life, however, had somewhat widened Laurael’s hips and waist. One of the young islander girls strained red-faced with the laces of a leather corset until she could finally tie them off. Still puffing, she draped her mistress in a glittering, gauzy tabba that was fashionable this season.
Gaius crossed his arms and leaned in the doorway of the ornate dressing room. Gaius Mazrem was the very image of his father. His mother made sure of that. He was tall, broad-shouldered and wore his long hair pulled back from his square jaw and sharp, hawkish nose. As a boy, Gaius’ hair had been a shade or two lighter, taking more after his mother than his father. But a glossy black dye purchased each month by Lady Mazrem ensured that Gaius remained a fitting homage to his sire.
“You’re more worried about your makeup than this impostor!” Gaius said. “Damn it all, Mother! This is going to ruin everything.”
“And why should I worry?” Laurael asked. She paused as her maids smoothed the edges of her black lip paint. She prodded the dark makeup with her tongue and made a distasteful face. “This tastes horrid. Have some pride, Gaius. You’re a knight of VEIL, just like your father.”
Her son’s jaw clenched. Urged by his mother and easily promoted by the family name, he was already a captain in the VEIL Star Court. The prestige of his bloodline could have carried him to a higher rank, but it was poetic — as Lady Mazrem had pointed out in terms that brooked no argument — that Gaius aspire to his father’s rank and no higher. Not within VEIL, at least.
“It can’t be him!” Gaius said, slapping the wall hard enough to make a nearby urn jump. “My father’s been dead… gone… my entire life. And now he appears on the streets of Dormaen, not looking a day older than he did in Njorn Pass? Just like that?”
“No one knows for certain what the Alterra demanded of him, Gaius. And you know no one’s ever asked,” Laurael said. She gave her son a pointed look before continuing. “Most of Carce assumed your father dead, but there have always been fringe elements that questioned his disappearance.”
“That just makes it worse! Those are the same bloody people who hate me. What do you think his reappearance is going to do to my standing? Who wants Rikard Mazrem’s son when they have the great hero himself? And if the reports are true, he hasn’t aged a day. He’s younger than I am! I won’t even outlive him, Mother. He’ll ruin me!”
Laurael rose gracefully, scattering servants in all directions. Her dark, kohl-lined eyes were dangerously cold.
“I said to watch your tongue,” Laurael said. “Your father was a great man, and neither you nor anyone else will say otherwise.”
She placed her hands against her corseted midsection and sat again, wincing as though the outburst had physically pained her. Perhaps it had.
“Be the wise, respectful son you’ve always been,” she said more softly. “Even if this man is not your father, we must seem hopeful that he is. Who would not welcome Rikard Mazrem’s return?”
A brisk knock on the door interrupted his response. Laurael waved one of her maids over to admit the newcomer. An aged manservant bowed deeply from the doorway.
“They have arrived, my lady,” he announced.
Laurael nodded and brushed a curl of brown hair back from her face. Her expression was one of suitably excited anticipation.
“Come along, Gaius. Let us welcome your father home.”
By the time they reached the Mazrem estate, nestled deep in the Everstones, Rikard’s train of spectators filled the road. Charioteers and drovers cursed until they learned the crowd’s purpose, then joined the ever-swelling throng. At a well-guarded gate, most of the VEIL knights broke off to redirect the crowd while General Nikas Hern drove Rikard up the long avenue paved in fine white stone.
Rikard twisted and turned in the chariot to stare. Was this his home? All of this? It was in the right place, but it looked nothing like the place he remembered. Before the war, Rikard was just a young VEIL knight, only recently promoted to captain and full of worry about his new duties. Rikard certainly had no time to tend the rocky ground or plain house his father had left him. Laurael’s dowry was enough to buy food and clothes, but not for the servants she wanted, nor nights at the theater or expensive books. When young Rikard Mazrem had left for the brewing war in Fiore, he wasn’t sorry to leave the place behind. His family, certainly, but not his house.
It had grown like a flower garden in his absence. Surely even the imperial palace was not half so lovely… or vast. The grounds were sprawling and lush, as perfectly sculpted and painstakingly colored as a lady’s face. Beds of bright-blooming flowers, arches twined with roses, copses of slender birches and willows, even silvery streams artfully crisscrossed by tiny wooden bridges. No rocks. At least, none that weren’t prettily arranged into mossy hillocks skirted in soft purple heather.
His old house was gone, too. Two manors crowned the smooth green hill, with expensive red-tiled roofs and deep colonnades that shone gold in the afternoon sun. A half-dozen other buildings encircled them, all carefully placed as the flowerbeds. Rikard didn’t recognize any of it and had no idea where to go.
It was dizzying, like some kind of twisting maze, even worse than the ones children drew in the sand. Those ones had walls and corridors that pushed the hapless wanderer one way or another. This one was impossible, a lovely and sweet-smelling blur where home was supposed to be.
Home. Where’s my home?
The knights escorting Rikard shared none of his confusion. They guided the chariot unerringly toward the northern house. A golden star dominated the central frieze, carved in stone above the rows of columns, a star with eight points and cardinal tips half again longer than their neighbors — the mark of the VEIL Star Court, Rikard’s company.
“Almost there,” Hern said.
“Home,” Rikard repeated. “I want to go home.”
“And your family wants you to come home to them, too, Rik. Look there.”
As the chariot rumbled to a stop, Hern pointed to the broad, carved steps of the great house. A dozen servants in colorful tabbae stood in the shadows of the gold-fluted columns, whispering and wondering. Every eye was on Rikard, but he saw only the tall, beautiful woman standing on the steps — Laurael, his wife. Older now, but still lovely as the moon-goddess for whom she was named. Perfect.
So beautiful.
Home. I’m home.
And the man at her side, so handsome and proud, dressed in the black saela of a Star Court knight. A little heavy, but not yet gone to fat. Hair the color of pitch and eyes the same dark brown as Rikard’s own, but with his mother’s fine-boned face. Gaius, his son.
My son. My son is grown. And a knight!
Rikard’s eyes filled with hot, stinging water. It tasted like the sea when it fell down his cheeks and onto his lips. How fitting — it felt like an entire ocean filled his heart to bursting.
The knights surrounding him pulled hastily aside as Rikard leapt from the chariot and ran to his wife and son, pulling them into his arms. His wounds protested, but the entire sky could have crashed down on Rikard in that moment and he would not have cared. He clung to his family and swore that he would never let go.
“I’m home,” he wept. “I came home to you.”
