In the House of Five Dragons
29. Verita et Illumina Lansinos
“Our strength holds worlds together.”
— a VEIL axiom
The new boy hit the ground with a thump and groan. He clutched his hands to his stomach and curled into a ball on the trampled grass like a newborn kitten. The tiny mewling noises he made did nothing to dispel the illusion. Ortho kicked the young squire one last time. The boy wailed.
“Stop your bawling and get up,” Jaesun barked.
Other knights laughed as the new squire tried to regain his feet. He was an Ocrissian, slender and long-limbed like a dancer. Ortho shoved him back to the ground with one boot and Jaesun nodded.
Ortho grinned down at the Ocrissian squire. Ever since the incident with the fake medal, the entire Star Court had been laughing at Ortho and it was good to finally have someone smaller, younger and less experienced to beat on.
“Get on your feet,” Ortho told the boy, then kicked him again. “Do you think a Fiori barbarian is going to back off?”
The squire’s legs lashed out again, but not trying to stand. He missed Ortho and kicked one of the other knights, a brawny Lyncean named Walthere. With a startled grunt, Walthere tumbled to the ground. A dozen other knights laughed uproariously and a few called out bets.
Walthere was furious. He twisted his body in the grass and grabbed, but the boy wriggled like a wet fish and squirmed out of his grasp. The others had backed away, including Ortho and Jaesun, unwilling to get in Walthere’s way. The squire was slimmer and faster than the huge Lyncean, and was back on his feet in an instant. But he had only a moment to savor his small victory before Walthere jumped up, too. The Lyncean’s usually pale cheeks were flushed red with rage. Ortho smirked. The boy had just made a bad enemy.
Realizing that his gamble hadn’t paid off, the squire spun on his heels to bolt for safety, but Jaesun shoved him back into the middle of the encircled knights.
“Fight, you coward!”
The Ocrissian stumbled back, almost falling again. He regained his balance just in time to see Walthere’s punch, but not in time to avoid it. The Lyncean’s blow connected solidly and the squire staggered and fell, bleeding freely from his split lip. The other knights took a quick step back.
“Walthere, get back. Gaeren, get a templar out here to clean this up at once!” Jaesun shouted.
Gaeren, a Carcaen knight about Ortho’s age, hurried into the archouse. Ortho polished his cannula on the breast of his saela and cursed Walthere’s short-sighted anger. Instead of an entertaining fight with a few good bruises and maybe some broken bones, they were waiting tensely for some old woman to clean away the blood. Ortho scowled at Walthere’s back. The hulking Lyncean seemed to feel eyes on him and turned.
“Nice work on that boy,” Ortho told him.
Walthere grunted and turned away, hastily scrubbing the blood from his knuckles with a handful of grass.
Gaeren bounded down the stairs of the archouse, taking them two at a time, and sprinted across the training yard to Jaesun. When he saw that Gaeren was alone, the squadron commander scowled.
“I told you to bring a templar. Where’s Tes Ren?”
Gaeren skidded to a stop, panting and red-faced.
“I went and… I saw… and he asked…” the knight panted, trying to breathe and speak at the same time and doing neither very well.
“Hae? Saw what?”
“It’s Captain Mazrem! He’s here!” Gaeren finally choked out.
“Gaius Mazrem?”
“Rikard Mazrem, sir! He’s just arrived and he was speaking with Tes Ren. He’s on his way out here!”
No sooner had Gaeren finished than a trio of figures appeared on the landing at the top of the stairs. One was the familiar white-robed bulge of Ren, a senior templar of the Star Court. The other two were less familiar, but not strangers. Ortho recognized Captain Rikard Mazrem, tall and strikingly handsome, just like his statues. He knew the Fiori girl in the fostral tabba at his side, too, but couldn’t immediately place her.
“Fall in!” Jaesun ordered.
The nearby knights scrambled into a crooked line. Ortho couldn’t tear his eyes off Captain Mazrem and was the last to take up a position at the end. Well, almost last… The Ocrissian squire limped into place beside Ortho. The boy’s eyes were glazed and his face swollen. Blood from his lip dripped down his chin.
Rikard Mazrem strode down the stairs, followed closely by the two women. He stopped in front of Jaesun, who saluted smartly. Captain Mazrem returned the gesture and peered down the line of knights.
Their famous visitor had not gone unnoticed. The archouse windows were full of faces. More knights and templars gathered on the stairs, watching and whispering to one another. Ortho shifted his weight uncomfortably and straightened his saela. Was Captain Mazrem looking at him? No, he realized, but the Fiori girl was. She stared, a frown tugging at her lips. Why did she look so familiar?
“Captain Mazrem, it’s an honor,” Jaesun said.
Rikard Mazrem looked right past him and fixed his eyes on the squire at the end of the line, then tracked beads of red dotting the grass. He knelt and touched his fingers to a tall blade of grass. They came away red with smears of the boy’s blood. Ortho gasped and heard the other knights doing the same. He was actually touching the blood…?
Captain Mazrem strode to the end of the line and reached for the squire, tilting his chin up.
“Gently, Rikard,” the girl told him quietly.
Ortho doubted anyone else could hear her warning. Captain Mazrem nodded and touched his thumb — gently — to the squire’s split lip. More blood. Fear rose sourly in Ortho’s throat. Captain Mazrem shot him an unreadable look, and then returned his attention to the squire.
“What’s your name?”
“Tyne, sir. Tyne Inos.”
“You know this man. He is your brother. Who will stand forth and heal his wounds?” Captain Mazrem called to the crowd. An unhappy murmur ripped through the courtyard. “No one? You will shed this man’s blood, but you won’t bleed for him?”
Captain Mazrem flicked open the cannula on his forefinger. Ortho took a step back from the line. Most of the other knights had done the same, or seemed on the verge of bolting.
Jaesun slapped his fist into his open palm.
“Hold your line! This is Rikard bloody Mazrem before you. Hold, damn it!”
Reluctantly, Ortho and the rest reformed the line. He smelled the salty copper tang of Tyne’s blood.
Captain Mazrem lightly touched his thumb to the bead of blood welling up at the gold-capped tip of his forefinger, mixing his blood with the squire’s and then drew a small red circle on the boy’s forehead. Tyne froze, terrified.
The Fiori girl touched his arm and Captain Mazrem looked down at her. She raised her eyebrows quizzically, but said nothing. The captain seemed to take some meaning from her look, however, and nodded. Captain Mazrem sighed heavily and then turned to address the entire courtyard.
“General Hern told me that you no longer make this gesture, this sign,” he said, pointing to the circle over Tyne’s eyes. “Thainna says that you’re afraid, that the men of VEIL no longer make pacts with the Alterra!”
“With respects, Captain Mazrem,” Jaesun responded, bristling visibly. “We fear nothing!”
“Legens. Emperor Tychon has named me legens over all of the courts of VEIL, Commander Jaesun. You all fear blood and the Alterra. You will not even heal one of your own! Why? Without Alterran aid, thousands of knights and soldiers would be nothing more than bones in the snow of Njorn Pass. There would be no Carcaen Empire!”
“That was your sacrifice, Legens Mazrem, not the Alterrans’,” Jaesun said stiffly. “For which we have–”
“Without the Alterra to hear my plea, I would have been a madman weeping and bleeding in the snow. We are knights of Carce! We do not fear blood and we do not fear sacrifice. We give of ourselves willingly for the empire and for our allies, for Terra and Alterra alike!”
Beside Ortho, Tyne cheered. Perhaps half of those watching the proceedings echoed him or applauded. Hundreds more shifted uncomfortably and gave one another significant glances. Jaesun was one of the latter. His nostrils flared and a red flush crept up like a rash along his thick neck.
“Thank you for the inspiring words, legens,” he said in a grating voice. “As you say, we’re giving of ourselves and should return to training.”
“Training?”
Now Legens Mazrem’s voice dropped dangerously low. Ortho strained to hear. Mazrem’s face darkened with sudden fury, as ominous as storm clouds. His Fiori companion’s eyes widened and she tensed visibly.
“Sir Gaeren told me very little about what happened out here,” said Legens Mazrem. “What he did not say was much more informative. I know what happens here. Men who thrash each other and anyone else they please!”
“Legens!” Jaesun protested.
“VEIL wasn’t always like this. It won’t always be like this. You watched while your own men beat a young squire, commander. You encouraged their brutality. Leave this court at once!”
“What? You can’t do this!”
“Go from VEIL, Commander Jaesun. Go with my best wishes, but go.”
Jaesun’s eyes bulged and he spun away, spluttering in fury. The training yard erupted into a riot of cheers, dismayed cries, loud hissing and applause. Ortho closed his mouth with an effort. By now, most of the knights and templars had poured out into the courtyard to watch. Legens Mazrem made a sweeping gesture that took in the courtyard and archouse.
“Brothers of the Star Court!” he called.
“Hae, legens!” came the loud, scattered replies.
There were other voices, but Ortho could not make out the words. He couldn’t find breath enough to speak a word of his own.
“We have lost our way. We’ve forgotten who we are. Men of steel, men of blood, men of two worlds!” Legens Mazrem raised his right hand, still stained red. “We have made our pacts with the Alterra and we must honor them.”
Rikard swung his hand in a broad, flat arc, flinging drops of his blood and Tyne’s. The moment hung, as grave and still as a stone frieze, and then the air filled with fire. A sheet of flame rippled out from Legens Mazrem’s fingertips, following the sweep of his hand baking the yard in hot red radiance. Even twenty paces away, the rush of blazing wind ruffled Ortho’s hair. As quickly as it appeared, the wave of fire was gone. The air smelled acridly of smoke. General Darius stood on a high balcony, his expression unreadable at this distance.
“The life of a VEIL knight is not an easy one,” Legens Mazrem told the assembled Star Court. “Take the day to yourself, brothers. Consider your choices here. Many of you joined our ranks after my time. Perhaps you don’t truly understand what I will ask of you. This is not a life meant for every man. If this court is not the place for you, then go in peace from our gates.”
The crowd murmured and stirred. Legens Mazrem held up his hands and they quieted once more.
“Any man who elects to leave VEIL will go with the love and prayers of his brothers, and a year’s pay to begin his new life. I would not send any of you into the Rows to scratch a living from the mud! If you wish to go, notify General Darius. For all those who remain, return to this yard tomorrow morning to begin again!”
Legens Mazrem leaned down and said something to the Fiori girl. She listened and then nodded. Rikard Mazrem strode across the yard and into the archouse, glorious as a god. A rolling thunder of applause and boot-stamping, cheering and shouting followed him, shaking the tall stone wall of the Star Court.
When he was gone, the rumble took on a new, curious note as knights and templars turned to one another, already deep in discussion of what had just happened, wondering who would go and who would stay. The legens’ Fiori companion pushed her way through the crowd to Tyne. Ortho lingered, wondering at her business. The dazed Tyne bowed deeply.
“Hae, mana,” he greeted her.
“Rikard sent me to take a look at you. Tyne, right? I’m Thainna Vahn,” she introduced herself.
The name meant nothing to Ortho, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew the girl. Thainna gently inspected Tyne’s face. She didn’t seem to be doing anything, as far as Ortho could tell, just looking.
“Does it hurt?”
“No, mana,” Tyne answered.
Thainna raised her red eyebrows at him and the young squire flushed.
“A little, hae,” Tyne admitted.
“Where?”
“Just my jaw.”
Thainna smiled at Tyne and lightly probed the side of his face, up to his temples.
“Nothing seems broken,” she said, then touched her finger to the bloody mark the legens had left. Ortho couldn’t believe it. “Can you feel this at all?”
“Hae, I can. It’s sort of… warm.”
“Well, it is blood.” She rubbed the sticky redness between her fingers. “No, this has gone cold. Are you going to stay with Rikard?”
“Hae!” Tyne nodded enthusiastically, then winced and put his hand to his bruised jaw. “If he’ll have me, I mean.”
The foster laughed. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. But Rikard’s not talking light when he says he’s going to ask a lot of you. Why don’t you go get some rest? Tomorrow’s going to be a long day, I’m sure. If the pain gets any worse, tell a templar.”
“Hae, mana.”
With one last bow, the squire departed and Thainna whirled to face Ortho. He offered her a deep bow. One much better practiced than Tyne’s, he thought. A foster did not demand such respect from a VEIL knight, but she was obviously someone of importance to Legens Mazrem, and so to the rest of Carce. When he straightened, Ortho found Thainna’s eyes narrowed to glowering green slits.
“Have I–?”
“Don’t you remember me, Sir Ortho?” she interrupted.
“No, mana,” Ortho stammered. It was mostly the truth. “I’m certain I would remember meeting such a beauty.”
Thainna laughed, but the sound was nothing like the sweet laughter she had given Tyne. This was bitter and twisted by anger.
“You called me Senna then. I sold you something, a medal you thought belonged to Captain Mazrem. And you gave me this in return.”
She turned her face to show him a faint yellow bruise. It was barely visible against her milk-white skin, a pale twin to the dark welt on Tyne’s jaw. Ortho started. Senna? The dirty girl from Mazrem Square? It didn’t seem possible.
Thainna stepped in close, standing up on her toes to hiss into his ear. “I know what kind of knight you are,” she said. “If you stay, then Rikard will know, too. Take your pay and go. VEIL doesn’t need men like you.”
Ortho could only stare in stunned silence as Thainna stalked away.
Flickerdim’s dimming crescent moon eyes widened and Stumble tightened his wispy tendrils into stone, taking his favorite malachite nightingale shape once more. The curiosity hopped excitedly from one half-coalesced talon to the other, chirruping in exultation.
He did it! He’s going to bring them back to us, rekindle the flame! But he never remembered the plan, Flickerdim. You never told him, even when he asked. How did he know what to do?
He had to come to it on his own. He must have passion in the days to come, more than any simple order. He always knew that, Flickerdim thought, as though he had known all along. Perhaps he had. And he knows that we need the Terrans. Without them, we are naught but formless dreams. Without them, our world breaks. He had to feel it, not simply remember it. Nothing lesser will do.
Flickerdim’s darkness-scaled head detached and floated free for a moment as he craned it up to look into the Shattered gray sky. The old wisdom carefully worked free a strand of night-shade from his body and twined it around their branch of the Uprising. The midnight black coiled down the tower and puddled heavily as guilt on the blade-fire ground of the Uprising. It boiled like tar for a moment, then suddenly stilled and went as smooth as ice.
Why isn’t anything better yet? Stumble whimpered.
It’s too soon… and perhaps too late to save us. He has told VEIL to strike a new bargain with us, but how many will leave? Some are taken by the beauty of it all now, but many will cool in time. A short time. They are frightened of us, of what we take, what we need from them. The Terrans can’t see us, the world they’ve created here. They don’t know its worth. They must believe, and these men lack faith.
Stumble’s beak sagged down onto his chest. He nudged it back onto his face with the crest of one wing. He cocked his head this way and that, looking.
The girl does. She knows. She believes, doesn’t she? She has seen into his heart!
Flickerdim flicked his tongue and didn’t answer.
“You just about stopped my heart, Rik,” Saul said.
“Sorry, Saul.”
The general sat behind his desk and gestured for Rikard to take a chair.
“Tes Ren,” Saul said, “can you please go get the legens something to drink? Starting riots is thirsty work, I’m sure.”
The templar bowed and left the study. Saul rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers under his chin. Rikard felt his friend’s conflicted, tangled thoughts like a snarl of brambles.
“A year’s pay, Rik? You’re kidding, hae? Do you have any idea what that is going to cost? You’re going to make the same offer to the Sun and Moon Courts, aren’t you?”
“Hae,” Rikard answered. “Saul, it must be done. Your men were beating one of their own and called it training.”
“It’s not completely without merit, Rik! It’s a rough lesson, I’ll admit, and not exactly how it was done in our day… but you can’t argue with the results. VEIL knights are still the toughest fighters in Carce,” Saul protested.
“It’s not just about results. A war fought by monsters has no victor!”
“Bloody hell, Rik, is that what this is all about? The Fiori war?”
“Of course not. It’s just as I rang… as I said, Saul. This is about VEIL, about the empire! I saw Emperor Tychon last night. Do you know what he called us? Lazy bullies! Based on what I’ve seen since my return, I can’t say he’s wrong.”
Saul recoiled as though struck and Rikard almost regretted his words. But they were true, no matter how they stung. Did Saul think it hurt any less to say than to hear?
“We have a chance to fix all of that,” Rikard said. “But I need your help, Saul. I need you to back me on this. If things are as bad as Thainna tells me they are, there’s going to be opposition.”
“Is Thainna that foster girl who came with you today? What did she say?”
“She’s the one who told me about things in VEIL, about the House of Five Dragons. Thainna says they’re everywhere, even inside your archouses.”
Saul paled a shade and stared intently at Rikard.
“Can’t say I’ve heard anything about that,” he said quietly. “It’s dangerous to go around telling people that you have.”
Ren returned, carrying cups of water that smelled of lemons and sugar. Rikard pondered the strangely circular statement from his one-time squire. Sensing the tension in the room, the templar served them and quietly retreated, closing the door behind her. General Darius rested his chin in his right hand and drummed his bloodcap against his cheek.
“You really want to do this, don’t you?” he sighed. “You’re right, Rik. You usually are. You’re going to set the world on fire, old friend. Backing you might not be the brightest move I’ve ever made, but the other generals certainly never accused me of an overabundance of thought. Hae, I’m with you, Rik. With the Alterra, against even the House. To the end, I’m with you.”
Marus’ toe caught on a stone in the road and he stumbled, swearing. He clutched the packages to his chest, but the top one slid and smashed to the ground with a muted tinkle of broken glass. The little glass rose for his mother, dashed to a hundred pieces inside its insufficiently protective velvet wrapping. Marus swore again. Why didn’t he think to buy her something a little hardier?
It wasn’t much further to the archouse, but the roads were busier than usual. Another mounted knight very nearly trampled Marus as he crouched to retrieve the broken rose. It was useless now, but no point in leaving it for some inattentive passer-by to cut himself on. A shadow fell across him and Marus heard a panicked whinny just in time to pitch himself to one side, scattering the rest of his shopping in the process.
He rolled to his feet with a grunt. The man atop a chestnut mare was a little older than Marus and wore the crimson of a Sun Court knight. He reined his jittery mount to a stop a few paces away and pulled her around, back toward Marus.
“Sorry there, brother!” the mounted knight called down.
There was a circle of blood on his brow that looked like it had been drawn there. Marus stepped closer and shaded his eyes to better investigate, but there seemed to be no wound beneath it.
“I’m alright,” Marus called. “Are you?”
“Well indeed!” laughed the other knight. “I’ve never seen a day like this one!”
“Why? What’s going on?”
Marus looked past the other knight, straining onto tiptoes to see over the other people filling the crowded street. He could just make out a knot of young men in Moon Court blue armor and saelae shoving their way out of the archouse gates. One of them streamed blood from his off-kilter nose and screamed obscenities at someone still inside the fenced yard. His friends tugged him away, out into the street. A wagoneer yanked on the traces in his hands, pulling his hump-shouldered ox aside too late. The knight with the bloody face bounced off the beast’s long, muscular flank and fell to his knees in the dirty street.
“Those who swore themselves to VEIL just for glory and greed are no longer welcome within VEIL,” said the Sun knight. “Legens Mazrem has decreed that they are free to go, of course, but those who pass out of those gates today are knights no longer.”
“Legens Mazrem? You mean Rikard Mazrem?”
The other knight spurred his horse a step closer. “Hae, Legens Rikard Mazrem. The emperor named him so last night. He says that it’s time to change the Verita et Illumina Lansinos, to remember the honor that was once ours.”
Marus blinked. “He… did? Are you sure? How does he plan on doing that?”
“He hasn’t yet said, but we know that it’s our choice whether or not to be a part of it. The legens has given any unwilling knight the chance to leave, without dishonor and with a year’s pay. That lot–” The knight in red nodded to the growing group of bloody-nosed knights outside the Moon Court gates. “–have decided that the life of a VEIL knight is not the one for them. What about you? Will you stay, brother?”
Marus gathered up his fallen packages. Most of them were dirty, many crushed, but that suddenly didn’t seem to matter. Rikard Mazrem was going to fix VEIL? Could he? Marus thought back to his last meeting with the great hero. He was so unhinged, so sick. But he remembered Rikard’s simple, sincere joy at finding Ephria alive, too. Rikard Mazrem might condemn all of VEIL to a bloody hell — the road to hell was paved in gold, it was said — but Marus decided that he would rather die under a good man than prosper under bad ones any longer.
He straightened and grinned at the Sun Court knight.
“Hae, I’m staying.”
Emperor Tychon considered having the pretty young messenger stay, but he dismissed her with a flick of his fingers. The girl bowed and retreated through the gauzy emerald curtains. He beckoned to the other two women, this pair draped across his bed and wearing nothing but the silver collars that he liked so much.
The emperor of Carce fell back into the soft silk covers and contemplatively stroked one of the girls’ soft ivory skin. A year’s pay? How many VEIL knights would Rikard scare off with his talk of sacrifice and blood, entice with easy money? If the number was too many, VEIL would be hard pressed to come up with the necessary laurels.
The concubine whimpered under his flagging touch and Emperor Tychon was momentarily distracted by her loveliness. She was younger than Laurael and thinner in the lips, but otherwise looked a great deal like the Mazrem widow. Tychon pulled her close and nuzzled her hair, inhaling the lavender scent he ordered her to wear. Just like the oil Laurael used.
Carce was Tychon’s empire and he knew how deeply the poison ran. He had poured more than his share. Every decree Tychon made earned him enemies. When he wearied of his enemies, he created the Lyceum to make the laws and take the blame when the provinces didn’t like them.
Tychon pulled a girl into each arm. He kissed them both, then sat back and told them to turn their affections on one another. Bringing about this new vision of VEIL would be more difficult than Rikard thought, but still…
The emperor couldn’t focus on the women in his bed. Gaius said that his father had no designs on the throne, but if that was true, then what in the worlds was he doing? A fat, lazy army did no harm in peacetime. A fit army was meant for war. What was Rikard Mazrem up to?
“There’s news from our VEIL sources,” announced one of the Eyes, a fat banker from the central district. He genuflected deeply before the Jade Throne.
The Crest shifted in his seat. His tabba rustled in the darkness like the restless tail of a true dragon. His fingers gripped possessively at the golden-green stone of his throne.
“What is it?” he asked in a brittle voice.
“With permission, one of your Flames waits just outside to deliver the news himself.”
“Hae, show him in.”
A moment later, a pair of Talons escorted a third man into the room and the Flame prostrated himself before the Jade Throne. His dark hair was in wild disarray. The Crest snapped slender fingers at him.
“Give me your report, Commander Jaesun.”
“It’s Legens Mazrem!” the knight exclaimed.
Nervously stumbling over his tongue and recoiling fearfully at every question from his master, Jaesun recounted the day’s events, Rikard Mazrem’s shocking announcement and mysterious plans.
“Changing VEIL?” mused the Crest. “How many of our knights have left?”
“I… I don’t know,” Jaesun confessed. He thought for a moment, jaw clenched angrily. “Rikard Mazrem is a powerful man and he calls on Alterra with impunity! He can uncover all of your agents, I’m sure. If he finds out that I serve the House…”
The Crest gave him a sharp, dangerous look and Jaesun seemed to think better of whatever he had been about to say. He fell to his knees on the slanted stone floor. His master drummed his fingers on the cold jade.
“It will not stop here. Rikard Mazrem will not be content until he has purified his beloved VEIL. We’ve just lost every agent inside the courts.” The drumming stopped and the Crest pounded his fist on the arm of his throne. “Curse his blood!”
“I can… should I pull our men out? Warn them?” Jaesun asked.
“No, they are lost. You will remain here until I have another use for you.”
The Crest dismissed his bought knight with a wave of his hand. Escorted by the Talons who had brought him, Jaesun hurried away. The Crest tilted his head to regard the row of silent Eyes that observed from the deep shadows.
“And what does Thainna have to say about her progress with Legens Mazrem?” he asked in a soft, deadly voice.
