In the House of Five Dragons
31. Truce and Trance
“In the early days of VEIL, Alterran understanding of the Carcaen language was a mystery. How was it that we could communicate with the spirits of another world? It was only later scholars came to understand the bond of dreams and desires between Terra and Alterra. They knew our language because they were born out of it.”
— From Our Red History, by Avilla Sallusi
Thainna wasn’t really sure what she was looking for. Even a real foster had no experience with this sort of exhaustion. Rikard leaned against the wall of General Castor’s office, sweating. She touched the back of her hand to his brow and looked at his dark eyes. The pupils were constricted to black points like dots of ink and his skin was warm, but they had been out in the sun all day. Did that mean anything? Rikard took her wrist and pulled her hand away.
“Is he well, mana?” Castor asked.
He almost sounds like he cares, Thainna thought.
“I’m fine,” Rikard assured her.
He stood, wobbled and then steadied himself again.
“What’s wrong with you?” Castor asked.
Rikard scowled up at the Sun Court general. “As far as you’re concerned? Everything. But I’m not ill, Castor, and I’m not done for the day.”
“I’ll call the next company into the yard. Is this strictly necessary, Legens Mazrem?” General Castor stressed the title like a curse.
“Hae, it is. Please, summon the knights and warn them of what’s to come. Give them their chance to go, if they decide to.”
Castor saluted and strode out of the office. Rikard sat on the corner of the general’s desk, rubbing his temples. He looked so tired, but otherwise quite pleased with himself. He lifted his head and smiled at Thainna. She couldn’t help smiling back. No longer consumed by the disoriented madness that had tormented him weeks before, Rikard’s smirk was distinctively boyish.
Like a boy who has found his father’s sword and can’t wait until he’s old enough to swing it.
“We should finish with this soon,” he said. “Then the real work can begin.”
“You have something even harder in mind? Rikard, I’m supposed to be taking care of you. I know that I’m mostly here to tell off people like Castor, but I actually want to help, if I can. You’re already tired.”
“I’m not used to reaching so far or so deep,” Rikard admitted.
“Not to sound callous, but why not? After thirty years, I thought you’d be used to this sort of work.”
“No. War in Alterra is nothing like this,” Rikard said and made a strange snaking, looping gesture with his bloodcapped forefinger. “Or at least, only a little. When the Alterra of the Uprising pulled me through the veil, everything I was became something else. Every passion, every dream and desire and fear and memory became my body, like any other Alterran. My allies and enemies were all… what they were. There was no deception. Except the deceptions, but even they were obvious ones. What I reach for now is deeper, harder to find. Terrans are so… complex. We’ve been at it for days and I feel the strain against my own skin… against my memories.”
You don’t seem to find it difficult with me, Thainna thought.
You’re different, little Fiori, he returned. Fiori was no longer tinged with anger or bitterness, but with affection and even a delicate sort of respect. You invite me into your thoughts, Thainna. You want me here. Sometimes. It’s easier to step through an open door than to kick one in.
“But the knights know what they’re getting into, Rikard,” she argued out loud. “You gave them a chance to leave. You’ve instructed the generals to warn them and then you give them another chance to go, pay and all. No questions asked. And their minds are still closed to you?”
“Not objecting to something isn’t the same thing as wanting it.”
Thainna blushed. “Hae, I guess. There are still about three hundred knights left in the Sun Court to go. Are you well enough to do it?”
Hae, I can do it. I want to, Rikard thought. “Let’s go.”
“Don’t push too hard. If you faint, I don’t know that I can drag you all the way back to the Everstones. You’re very heavy.”
Rikard laughed and let Thainna pull him forward a few steps.
“In the old days, I couldn’t have done this at all. There were more than twenty thousand VEIL knights then,” he said, suddenly sobering. “There are fewer now. And those that remain are… afraid, as you said.”
“Like Karl. He wanted to join VEIL, but he was terrified of the Alterra,” Thainna sighed. “Still, there are a lot of knights. Your head must be splitting.”
“Hae, but it’s well worth a little pain. I can’t ask sacrifice of my men that I’m not willing to make, too.”
I can’t imagine any of the generals saying that.
Thainna’s thoughts were cool and soothing as water running over hot stones, over Rikard’s raw and reddened mind.
Agreeing with her would have been the worst sort of boasting. Rikard looked down at the floor, flattered and unsure what to say or think.
Come now. Time to get back to work, he decided.
They made their way through the red- and gold-tiled halls of the Sun Court archouse once more, back outside. The yard was full of knights in armor and saelae, all talking and pacing nervously. A stout commander saw Rikard and Thainna descending the stairs again. He stood on a painted podium and whistled sharply.
“Company five, form up!” he called.
One hundred crimson-armored knights ordered themselves into ranks. Not very straight ranks, Rikard noticed. In many cases, Emperor Tychon was right… Too many of these men were lazy, self-centered and lacked anything like discipline. But maybe that was only because they had never known anything else. Rikard hoped to give them something more.
The Sun Court knights fidgeted in meandering ranks. Their namesake burned clear and white-hot high in the cloudless blue sky. Though the air was starting to cool with the onset of autumn, the sun beat down on the sweating armored men like great golden blades. To one side, General Castor stood in a ring of his aides, reading over boards and papers.
“How many left?”
Castor looked up at Rikard’s approach.
“Five,” he answered. “That makes thirty-seven today alone. How many more of my men do you intend to poach?”
“I don’t want anyone to leave, general. I want them to stay, just as you do.”
“Then stop this insanity, Mazrem.”
“Insanity is letting corruption rot the heart of the strongest fighting force in the two worlds, Castor. Terra needs us, and so does Alterra. You have no idea the kinds of things we can do together, but we must give of ourselves to do it. Not take.”
“Hae? What are you giving, Mazrem?” Castor asked under his breath.
Rikard gave Castor a long, weary look and then paced back across the field to the Sun Court fifth company. He opened his cannula and traced a circle on his brow. Some of the knights had cheered, some very few had returned the salute. Most murmured uncomfortably, just like that first day in the Moon Court yard. Rikard raised his hand.
“Does this bother you, brothers? You know why I’m here, what I want, what I’m looking for. Corruption, cowardice, brutality. Most of you have nothing to fear and fear nothing. I offered you the chance to walk away, to choose a less demanding path than that of a knight, yet you remained! But there is word of spies from the shadows of Dormaen, dragons from the darkness. You know what is being asked of you, hae?”
A general murmur of assent and a slow wave of uncertain nods rippled through the company. They understood. Most of them disliked the idea, but were willing to let Rikard search their minds for anything dangerous. Blood and sacrifice, they remembered. These men were knights, willing to give for their people. Rikard smiled at them and closed his raised hand into a fist.
“What I ask of you, no man should have to give,” he said. “What I ask is unfair to ask of anyone. But we are more than men! We are Verita et Illumina Lansinos! Thank you, brothers, for all you sacrifice. Are you ready?”
“Hae, legens!” shouted most of the Sun Court knights. “Hae!”
“You will feel me among you. Be brave. Stand fast and strong.”
Feeling the world with his Terran senses was distracting: the sun’s amber light, Thainna’s stony-sweet scent, the clatter of sword and armor. Rikard closed his eyes.
The courtyard was gone. He cast about in a field of words and winter, worries and wonders. The knights’ thoughts were a storm. A hundred uneasy storms over a hundred peaks and valleys of life’s highs and lows. Rikard spread himself flat and thin, a brindle cloud floating on the currents of curiosity and questions. Just like Stumble taught him.
They felt him, as he had warned, ruffling their storms as he passed. Rikard touched the knights’ minds as lightly as he could manage. Most of these were good men, or at least not bad ones. They startled at first, rippling like disturbed water. When Rikard did nothing more intrusive than brush his mind against theirs, they gentled. Calmed, the roiling knight-storms coalesced, drawing together and settling down into laurels and willows and oaks, the trees that meant home and life.
Roots wormed down into stone, stable old memories and loves. Family and friends. Some of the trees were twisted or stunted where they grew from misplaced ambitions and scarred losses. Rikard reached among them like a farmer wandering through an overgrown orchard. Leaves flickered as he passed, full of faces and songs and late, drunken nights. Brawls in taprooms and courtyards, clinging fingers of boys and girls eager to give and to take. Springs and summers and autumns and winters. Whispered secrets behind doors — some closed, some wide open. Youthful dreams and cold adult realization that were rimes of thorns, frosty realities that stung Rikard as he blew past.
Flame.
Rikard stopped in a crevice of deep midnight. Two trees twisted in the cold, heaving like weeds at the bottom of the sea, but their bark was cracked like something burned. Embers seethed beneath the charred skin of the first tree and tongues of flame licked out at Rikard, forcing him back with sharp blades of suspicion. Fear.
Rikard brought himself together to build himself better, more precise senses. Mind’s eyes. He reached sideways, drawing on Thainna’s faith and determination to protect himself against the fear to craft a shimmering, sheltering caul like a Caspian veil. Rikard drifted closer, until the trees were not trees, but twisted, branching serpent-shapes with snatching claws and fierce, hard eyes.
Dragons, in the House of the Five.
Flame.
Rikard turned to the second serpent-tree. And what of you?
It replied only in a sandy, opalescent rustle. This one was more subtle than the first. The second knight’s mind was smaller — no, only more closed — with leaves of molten bronze on long, drooping branches. Rikard ignored them aside, revealing the body beneath. Twining serpents, much like the first, but these had huge, empty black eyes like a starless night. Even old Flickerdim would have envied the secrets of such eyes.
One of the sinewy dragons lifted its long, thin neck away from the others. It chuffed gouts of greasy green flame at Rikard.
Get out, it hissed. Go away. I am not here.
What are you? Rikard wondered.
The dragon-thing turned away, slithering into the formless shadows of its fellows. Before it could vanish, Rikard grabbed for the serpent. The other knight’s mind shuddered and the scale-bark slithered, as slippery as oil. Flaming oil. It burned, but Rikard held fast. The serpent hissed and snapped at him with long white-wink fangs of hatred.
What are you? Rikard asked again. He squeezed. Not hard enough to damage the knight, just enough to hold him still. I fear, too. I fear for the future of Carce if left in hands like yours. The House of Five Dragons. Thainna told me about you.
Recognition. The leaves shivered and several of them blackened as though burned.
Traitor. She said, she spoke. Traitor.
Traitor? Rikard didn’t understand.
Little traitor!
The knight would reveal no more without reaching much deeper, cutting away into the vital places that were too delicate to withstand such abuse. Rikard knew enough.
But Thainna shuddered once in unease, then more violently in fear. Something was wrong.
Rikard tore his Terran senses open once more. A tall Jumaari knight with scarred cheeks was pushing his way through the crowd toward Thainna.
Rikard shouted and the Star Court knights who had accompanied him converged on the Jumaari, but the man was quick and strong. He shoved and ducked past, charging forward again with his gladius in hand. The other Sun knights fell back with dismayed cries.
“Hold your lines, damn it!” bellowed the company commander, waving his hand over his head. “Munos, Lancer! Get that bloody blade away from him!”
Finally spurred into action, a pair of Sun Court men leapt on their brother, finally dragging him down to his knees. One of them twisted the sword free and it thumped uselessly into the grass. The House spy spat a curse and dug his fingers under the shoulder of his armor, emerging with a short, sharp throwing knife. With a snap of his wrist, he flung it at Thainna’s throat.
No!
Rikard snatched at the sharp, shining shard of steel. It was flying far too fast to catch, but the blade was too small, too light to cut through much. It sank into the meat of his hand and sliced free a red ribbon of blood. Rikard flung the short knife to the ground and closed the short distance to the Jumaari spy. The other knights scrambled back, staring at their legens. Rikard flicked blood onto each of the spy’s wrists.
Bind him like vows. In trade, I give you the names of the philosophers’ dragons, the damned enemies on this very field: Lust and his sister, Greed! Rage hand in shaking hand with Fear! And Pride. Such pride in Castor, even in this low moment…
The man arched his back and grunted as an invisible force — an Alterran force — seized his bloody wrists and yanked them behind his back. Fine silvery-black chains flashed into being around his gauntlets, slender but unbreakable as faith. Rikard snarled and grabbed him by the front of the armor.
You spied on us, corrupted us from within. You tried to kill Thainna! You are the traitor!
Rikard’s fury built to a razor edge, sharper and deadlier than the spy’s holdout knife. The bound knight screamed and writhed in his grasp.
There was a light touch at Rikard’s shoulder, and then another against his seething mind. He looked down to see Thainna — even paler than usual — standing beside him.
Don’t, Rikard. Please, don’t hurt him.
He tried to kill you. He called you a traitor!
I’m fine… Please, let your men throw him out and I’ll take a look at that hand.
Thainna was more upset than she wanted him to know. Somehow, despite the attempt on her life, Rikard sensed a deep, simmer-soft sympathy for the spy. Why?
Rikard gestured to the other one that he had discovered, a Carcaen who stood in silence, perhaps hoping that he would be forgotten. Rikard had not.
“Send him away. Let him find his own way, his own life.” Rikard dropped the Jumaari man into the grass. “But this one tried to kill Thainna. Take him to a lawery. He will be tried in court for his crimes.”
Black-armored knights led the two House spies away. The Sun company commander ordered the remaining men back into line. Rikard thanked and then released them for the day. As the fifth company filtered out of the yard, General Castor motioned stiffly to one of his adjutants to summon the sixth. He wasn’t pleased and refused to meet the legens’ eye.
Thainna pulled Rikard over to one of the archouse steps and told him to sit. She inspected his gashed palm in sullen silence. She was angry with Rikard and it hurt. Not as her fear had cut into his mind, or even as the knife had cut his flesh. This pain made his heart and gut twist as though ripped by a Fiori spear.
“Thainna, I’m sorry,” said Rikard.
“Why didn’t you let that man just leave? You’ve let everyone else go, even the ones who tried to lie to you!”
“He tried to kill you!” Rikard cried. He couldn’t help matching her anger. He yanked his hand away from Thainna and shook it at her. “This could have been your throat! He wanted you dead! Why do you defend him?”
A hot blade-edge of pain flared behind Rikard’s eyes as Thainna fought down a surge of fear. She bit her lip and took his hand again.
“I think it’s fine,” she said. “The cut’s not deep. I’ll get something to cover it. You’ve been bleeding enough from that.”
Thainna tapped one fingertip on the cap of his cannula. As she stood to find some bandages, Rikard caught her wrist in his uninjured hand and tugged her back to the stairs.
“Thainna, I’m sorry,” he said again.
“Then tell your knights to let him go.”
“I can’t. I didn’t want him to hurt you, but even if you hadn’t been his target, I couldn’t just release him. He had no intention of leaving peacefully, Thainna. He’ll have a fair trial. VEIL will pay for his defense.”
“Fair trial?” Thainna scoffed. “No one gets a fair trial.”
“He will, I promise,” Rikard vowed impulsively. “I’m legens of VEIL. That must be worth something.”
Thainna paused. “Really? You’ll do that?”
“I will.”
Rikard wasn’t sure about the details, but he would find a way. Thainna squeezed his hand gently, gratefully, and then sprinted up the stairs in search of a templar. Rikard watched her go. The pain in his chest had become something much lighter and brighter, but which squirmed no less.
The sixth company marched into the yard, flowing through the archouse doors like blood from a wound. There was more work to do.
Gaius burst through the curtains that covered the reading room door, very nearly tearing one of the blue velvet drapes free of its bronze hooks. Laurael looked up from a scroll draped across her lap. She gave her son a cold look, but laid the paper aside.
“Dust of Saerus, what is it now? I was reading.”
“Bleed on that, Mother!” Gaius hissed. “Have you heard what he’s doing? What he can do?”
“Your father? Hae, of course. The man tells me more about his days than I ever care to know. He’s putting a comb to VEIL and picking out the louses. What do I care? He is busy and leaves me alone to my days. I’ve business enough to fill them without his boyish lust and babbling.”
“And do you know how he’s doing it?” Gaius almost screamed.
Laurael put her finger to her lips. “Softly now, unless this conversation is meant for the entire house.”
“He can read thoughts, Mother, like you read your letters and ledgers!” Gaius’ voice was softer now but burned with no less rage. “Father’s been pouring through the minds of every single VEIL knight, easy as walking through this library!”
“So?”
“So? So? Mother, do you know what this means for us? For me?”
“Hae, I’ve heard the stories. If your father could pull my designs from my thoughts or yours, he would have done so already. With you and I, he thinks only with his heart or even lower organs. He knows nothing.”
“Even if you’re right… what then? While he’s out of your way, he’s in mine! Three hundred knights left on their own and Father’s removed another forty-eight. But those who remain love him for it, or think him an even greater hero. His popularity grows every day! All Dormaen knows of what he’s done. But no, that’s not enough for Rikard bloody Mazrem!”
“Gaius…”
“Father protects even those unfit for VEIL. One of them tried to kill Thainna today! He’s arranged a trial for the man, hired one of the best lawyers in the city to defend him. Does anyone admonish Father for it? No! They only love him more. Tychon will never let it stand. You have to stop this!”
“Patience, Gaius.” Laurael took her son’s flushed cheeks in her hands and kissed his brow. “Have you forgotten what work it is that I do now?”
“Have you found a way, then, to… to kill him? A man to do it?”
“Not yet,” Laurael said.
“What? Why not? Don’t tell me you can’t find anyone! Even Rikard Mazrem must have enemies.”
“I can find a man to do anything I wish, though it has been… difficult,” Laurael said primly. “The usual House assassins have refused to take the job. Still, it is a matter of timing, not resources.”
“Timing? What in Terra are you waiting for? Every day is one more that Father might find out what you’re doing, another day that he’s out there sowing chaos!”
Lady Mazrem pursed her lips. “It’s a delicate matter, my son. Not yet. Not now.”
“How can you just–?”
“Return to your father, Gaius. As you say, he can see into our minds if he so desires. Give him no reason to question you,” Laurael said firmly. She waved Gaius toward the door. “In thirty years, I have never missed an opportunity to better your lot, Gaius. I will not miss this one. Let me worry about it. You have much more important concerns.”
He stiffened. “Like what?”
“How you’ll celebrate your martyred father when he’s gone. Now go.”
“You’re a cold woman, Mother,” Gaius said. He smoothed his hair and then left Laurael alone in the library once more.
“How many has he found?”
“All of them. Everyone on the books. Six left during the first two days. He found the other twenty-eight, as well as nine knights we had targeted for assorted uses,” the Eye reported in her high, delicate voice.
The Crest traced his fingers in circles on the wide arms of his throne. “That’s every last man we had inside VEIL. What about the templars?”
“The legens found all thirteen and removed them.”
“Where are they?”
The Eye looked over her list. “Twenty-seven of the knights and twelve templars reported back to us. Six knights and one templar tried to run. I set Talons on each of them. None of them made it out of the city.”
The Crest’s fingers went still on the green stone.
“That leaves one more. What happened to him?” he asked.
“Horrus. He’s awaiting trial in a lawery. Legens Mazrem seems to have taken a particular interest in him. Eulian said that he tried to kill the foster.”
“Thainna? He better have failed!”
“Hae, my Crest.”
“Good, I need that girl alive. Make sure no one else gets that same idea. Have Horrus’ family drowned and make sure everyone knows why.”
“It will be done.”
“And summon Thainna! I need to regain control of this.”
