Book Three: Avigon

XVII. June 774

"It was a long time ago," said the Countess Vivian of Clane.

"Tell me about it," said Ellean Rain, as she and the Countess and Willd rode a trail up a long steady slope in north central Amari. Higher mountains rose ahead of them: the peaks of the Clanish border. "Since that first diet, when we first met? Six years and then some."

"I was thinking of something else," said Vivian. "Weren't we talking about something else?"

"You were brooding. You haven't said anything in half an hour. You or our noble escort. What was a long time ago?"

"The sprouting of the old seed," replied the Countess. "The seed of the plant whose seed grew into the plant whose seeds--are sprouting all about us now, or so it seems."

"Thank you for filling me in."

They rode along for a while in silence. Ellean was sure that if she waited, more would come out, and that if she pressed for information she would get no better than riddles. They reached a ridge crest and began descending into a river valley filled with moist forest. The weather retreated from drizzle to thin mist. In Amari in summer this was the best one could hope for: if the sun came out, it would soon boil the air to a steam that dizzied the brain and filled the eye with rippling uncertainty. They had been riding for more than a week, since the Duke of Samarra's ship had ferried them from Avigon to Syrud in Amari. They were now a little more than a day from the mountainous border of the County of Clane.

The trail wandered among great trees, and birds and small mammals flitted about in the shadows, and it had been all day since they had seen sign of humanity. That sign had been a subsistence farm where a large happy poor family had put them up the previous night, thinking them indigent wanderers. Vivian had left a gold florin--but with Duke Salvar's face, not hers, on its obverse.

"So what do you think the Dukes will do?" asked Ellean. "Do you suppose their coalition will hold together? Can they beat Salvar?"

"It's not just Salvar," said Vivian. "But I'd have to say it looks good for them. Samarra has twenty thousand, Orzali thirty, they'll get five or ten from the rebel lords in Allor, and Rahavon has at least thirty thousand. Add in dribs and drabs from the smaller counties, and that's nearly a hundred thousand men. An old Imperial army."

"A hundred thousand! We can barely manage three."

"It's hard to picture, isn't it? Well, our new Emperor can probably manage forty or fifty, with the majority from Farlain. Of course they've been fighting a lot, and they win most of their battles."

"Not against us!"

"Well, we're different. We've got the Rain Sisters. And Sir William Willd. But our task in the coming month or two is just to hold down some of those Farlain forces: with our three or four thousand, we're supposed to keep Neil and five thousand occupied. It's the Dukes' plan, and of course it's foolproof, and even little Clane has its part to play."

"You say it's foolproof," said Ellean, "as though that were a bad sign."

"Well, the Farlainers do have an Emperor on their side."

"Aha! So you do think he's a real Emperor! Come on, stop evading. You have to at least let us in on what your researches in the Library told you about him."

"All right," said Vivian at last, as their horses tiptoed along the bank of a stream. "Let's start with the Annals. Emperor, they say, succeeded Emperor, although it was all one Emperor. Where did the Emperor come from?"

"The First Emperor rose from the Sea in the Year One," Ellean recited.

"Very good. Obviously a fable, right?" Ellean only raised her eyebrows as she let go of all she had learned as a child about the origin of the Empire. Vivian went on. "He rose from--from something; but he was flesh and blood, just as you are. Just as I am. Only he had some sort of Power."

"He could read the minds of his subjects," said Ellean, "and he was a great leader of men, and he could see far off, and he walked in other worlds too, where he fought monsters and made great journeys. And he had knowledge of magic."

"Magic, isn't that what all of that is? Reading the minds of subjects. It's not so hard, if you're an observant ruler. Ha, you're thinking I can't read your mind!"

"Lucky guess. Or, educated guess."

"What else is mind-reading? But, no, I don't consider those things to be fable. Indeed, my dear Ellean, I am sure they are true. Ask me how I know--after we get across the Clanish frontier."

"If we get across," said Ellean. "It was quite clever of you to defeat Sir Rogier's opposition, but what if he'd been right? I mean, he was right, to say that going to Avigon was dangerous. He didn't even know the half of it."

"We were both right," said Vivian. "I know him so well, and he me, but there's danger in my knowledge of him--I risk my life and my line because I think I'm right, and yet is he not wiser than me?"

"I wouldn't go around saying so in front of you. No, actually, Vivian, I think you're as wise as anyone I know. It doesn't mean you don't take risks."

"No--and thank you, I do appreciate compliments, whether or not I believe them. But this isn't a daredevil stunt, no matter how it looks to a rational observer such as Sir Rogier. I did not bring up the sovereign lord's obligation on the ascent of the new Emperor just as a pretext. I needed to go to Avigon, to see for myself. If he is no Emperor, then I had to find that out; if he is Emperor, then I had to know him."

"You weren't going to kiss his ring, were you?"

"Never fear. Yet the Emperors had signs by which they could demonstrate their right in times of doubt like these. Do you know of those signs from your reading?"

"Yeah, I've heard of them, as in the First Emperor showing the Signs, but I don't know what they were."

"It's not the fault of your study habits. They aren't written down. It only says that there were signs--and it only says it in a few places, because usually the succession was clear. The Last Emperor showed the signs, they say, for his claim was not directly from his predecessor--that was less than sixty years ago, but even then nobody felt like writing them down. I can imagine why."

"So how do we know he--?"

"Oh, we know. Count Theodred was there. He definitely saw something. When he wrote of it, his hand was shaking--you can see it in his handwriting, which was usually quite neat. But he didn't say what he saw."

"And did you hope to see these?"

"Oh, I hoped not to see them. Yet how else to--to know our enemy?"

"Ah," said Ellean, "but how do you know he's the enemy?"

"My lady," said Willd, "there are men on horseback ahead."

"What? Great. All right, no more 'My lady' until we're past them." They rode out into a clearing with only a few trees, and coming the other way were a dozen more riders: cavalrymen in dirty white frocks over chainmail, some bearing crossbows, most with swords. The three travelers rode cautiously up, and the cavalrymen, at a signal from their officer, spread out to block them. These were suspicious times.

"Name yourselves," called the officer.

Willd rode forward. "We are mountain folk," he answered, "riding home from Syrud, where we sold ore."

The officer considered this, consulted with his lieutenant. "Dismount," he called to them. They did as he asked, exchanging glances that were meant to be meaningful, but unfortunately meant nothing. The officer, with three of his men, rode up to them. He looked down upon Willd. "Disarm, mountain man."

Willd complied, dropping his bow and his long knife. The officer dismounted and looked Willd straight in the eye--they were of equal height, girth and age, but otherwise looked as different as could be. The officer looked at the two women briefly, then back at Willd.

"Mountain man, where is your money? And are these your women?"

"This one is," said Willd after a moment spent deciding which question to answer.

The officer looked the two women up and down. "And the money?" he asked again, but he wasn't thinking about it. He was thinking about Ellean, and Vivian was impressed with his skill at seeing her nude. There was little else about the men here that impressed her, but she was curious about their loyalties. Were they just bandits? They bore no badge of Amari or of Farlain, and they had the deep tans and straight dark hair of the sea people of the Grand Duchy.

"We have little money," said Vivian, just to get his attention. He looked at her, then back at Ellean, who squirmed under his gaze.

"That one," he said to his men, indicating the girl. The three who came up with him dismounted and grabbed her before she could decide whether to pull out her knife. It was happening too fast. He turned back to Vivian, who spent a moment hoping it wasn't happening at all. "Now about that money."

"You're a fool," she muttered. He leaned close to her, opened his mouth to say something really clever. She raised her blue eyes to his green ones, and he was held. There inside was a mind like a messy bedroom. Old stories lay scattered about, and food and drink from nights past, and floozies snored among the blankets with only their sexual attributes exposed. And there on the wall hung a picture: in it, this man knelt before a throne, flanked by Duke Salvar and the Grand Duke of Avigon. On the throne sat a man in a white robe, his hood thrown back, a winged crown on his shaven head. The face was one with features that could not readily be remembered--except for a crooked nose. Vivian pulled back with a sudden shock of fear.

He shook the dizziness out of his head. "Take them all," he said. Willd was about to grab up his knife and stand in defense of his lady; several more riders dismounted; still others raised their crossbows.

Vivian, unable to think of any better idea, kicked the officer in the shin. He turned back to her, green eyes blazing. Everyone else only saw her staring into his eyes: but she dove in, reached as far as she could, and found where his brain flowed down into his backbone. She grabbed and hauled on it. He staggered. She twisted and yanked, like a gardener pulling at an obstinate root. He gurgled and stepped sideways. She finally got a good grip and threw all her mental weight against his brainstem. There was a snap and she almost fell backward. The officer blinked at her. He gurgled again. Then he opened his mouth to speak and instead blood came pouring out. He crumpled to the ground as she stepped out of the way.

The other riders stood gawking at him. Then they gawked at Vivian. Their weapons froze in space as they waited to see what else she might be able to do. She turned on them, her blue eyes gleaming. "Next?" she said.

The cavalrymen were remounted and roaring away past them in ten seconds, leaving Vivian, Ellean and Willd and their horses--and the officer's horse--staring down at the dead man. Then Ellean and Willd looked at Vivian. She shrugged, wiped her hands on her pants. "Poor fellow," she said. "Some sort of hemorrhage, I think."

They were camped in dense woods by a small swift river that night, with the peaks of the borderland dominating what they could see of the northern sky. They had just finished an excellent dinner of squirrel on stick, when next they made any more than superficial conversation. Their horses, now four in number, stood placidly nearby. "So," said Ellean, "what were the signs?"

"I was worried the moment he asked us to dismount."

"No, Viv. The signs of the Emperor."

"Oh. Well. I mean, how would I know? They weren't written down. We could've lived in the Imperial Library for the next fifty years and not found out. It wouldn't have been that bad--the food was scarce, but the floors weren't uncomfortable to sleep on. I didn't get cold. And it was abandoned but unlooted, both of which I thought were good things."

"It was like the clerks forgot to lock the place when they cleared out," said Ellean.

"Well, that's exactly what happened, but it happened forty-three years ago when the Last Emperor fell. The last Librarian was killed in the streets, nothing to do with his job I suppose, and the rest of the staff headed for the hills. The Grand Duke of Avigon had already moved his own seat to the port of Dukesfal, and once the Emperor was gone, there was really no civil authority to help or harm the Library. The place has gone practically untouched since then, except for the poor folk living in the great gallery. There's nothing worth looting--it's just a library, after all."

"But what a library!" said Ellean. "And so quiet."

"Yes. And we could take up as much space as we wanted, make ourselves at home in the stacks, and make it our base while Willd went back and forth to the Duke of Samarra. And of course no one thought to search the library for spies from Clane."

"No one thinks to search anywhere for spies from Clane," said Ellean. "Except in Sand Point Inn. Ask me how I know. But two weeks in the Imperial Library was about a week and six days too many, for me."

"Well, two weeks in Avigon the Dirty was two weeks too long, for that matter. But I would've stayed longer, except for bumping into Chalris in the hall. What a nasty coincidence. Thank goodness for the Duke of Samarra."

"It's fortunate," said Willd, "that all the Dukes were still in Avigon."

"Duke George certainly was handy when we needed to get out of the city. But Chalris, on the other hand: I never thought I'd say this, but he's changed for the worse. I used to be able to read him like a book, as the saying goes, but now he's all black inside."

Ellean and Willd exchanged looks. Ellean pressed on. "The signs, Vivian."

"I still don't know what makes you think I know."

"You were reading and chuckling and shaking your head and jotting notes and piling up stacks of books for two solid weeks and you think we think you don't know?" She stuffed a wad of leaf into her clay pipe. "Do we also believe that cavalryman died of a brain hemorrhage?"

"It can happen in an instant."

"Just like Torak."

"Look, kid, they were both in situations of high tension, and both had things to feel guilty about. The same thing happened to both."

"Oh, I believe that. They both died of guilt. And it was coincidence that you were staring both of them right in the eye at the time."

Vivian sulked for a few minutes, while the other two stared into the fire. She reached out furtively and found Ellean's mind. It was confused and yet sure. Vivian could get no further, because she knew Ellean very well. She brushed against Willd's mind, and felt an immediate and unthinking reassurance. His soul had a pleasant, familiar scent. Vivian cleared her throat. They looked at her.

"Um, you know," she said, "I can't bring myself to come right out and--I mean, it's kind of in the family tradition--"

"To keep secrets from your best friends," said Ellean. "Not to mention the man you love."

"My lady," said Willd, "I don't want to know what you don't want to tell me. We've had this discussion before, after you were stabbed. I understand your point of view now."

"I don't," said Ellean. "How can I understand it when you won't say anything? Something comes over you in Tarnhold. Then this weird guy attacks you in Angren. You keep mysteriously disappearing to your secret room. In the middle of the siege of Hvanar, you disappear, at the height of the attack. Everyone's looking for you, then you reappear, like you were just using the commode--for an hour. And then Torak. And then today. And you did something to Chalris, when you ran into him in the hall of the Library. It looked like you punched him in the stomach, but you were twenty feet apart. Oh, and this: 'He's all black inside.' What's that?"

A smile took over Vivian's worried face. She actually laughed. "That's a good one. You've got me. All right, let's see, we're what, a day from Mount Farag? And--pardon me--" She half-closed her eyes and swayed her head this way and that, softly humming. Then she came out of it and said, "My awesome magical powers sense that no one's near. So pass me that wineskin and I'll tell you a bedtime story."

"Oh, goody," said Ellean, taking a pull before handing the wineskin to the Countess. "Just think, Willd, we're the first ones any Count of Clane has ever given a straight answer to."

"Her answer to that officer was rather straight, I thought."

"All right," said Ellean, "on the subject of the Empire, then."

"On the subject of the Empire," said Vivian. She took a swig of wine, shifted on her bedroll and looked into the fire. "A story. A long time ago, the land was ruled by nature alone. Animals and fairies-you believe in fairies, don't you? And people. Innocent people hid in the shadows of the trees, danced in the light of the full moon, hunted in the twilight, mated and gave birth and died. Then some came to the sea and built the first towns, some sailed to other coasts, but still in the darkness hid dark folk, practicing dark arts. Ever and anon the wild folk would come down upon the cities, with their ferocity and their fecundity and their magic. The Old Tales say that there were priests and wizards among those folk, and that the cities could be nothing more than sand castles until one came to rule them who could defeat the old magic. And so, the Old Tales say, after unnumbered centuries the First Emperor rose from the sea.

"Of the ancient days, we have only the Old Tales, and no reason to dispute them. But the Emperor rising from the surf? He was flesh and blood, much as he sought to make us think otherwise. I have no record, no text, but I know it could not have been as the stories say. No, I think he was one of the great Wizards, the greatest of all, and yet he also had the knowledge of the scholars, whose works and very names he caused to be erased from written memory. The cities welcomed him as their salvation, and he went forth and conquered the countryside. Avigon he took as his capital, and in a century they thought he had built the place. The early Annals speak of a Priestly Circle that was enslaved to him, from which the Emperor got his wives, and into which He placed his daughters. I think this was the residue of the workers of magic among the conquered peoples. Five centuries later, they were not spoken of anymore: I think the succeeding Emperors thought it too dangerous to have so many together who might be so strong.

"The Empire began as an alliance of the Seven Dukes: Avigon, ruled by the Emperor's closest friend Amadis, and Farlain and Amari and Rahavon, and Orzali and Allor and island Samarra. They were allies, but the Emperor was too great to be a mere ally. They were nothing without him. And by the time the First Emperor, after fifty years, gave over his realm to the Second, the dukes were wealthy and powerful and their realms circled the Gulf of Almery. They grew, until the Empire's tendrils went far up the Lavan and the Allor and out into the island chains of Kel and Panthalla. Tithean was given its Count, and Vendrezu founded, and then Umoro and Terandra, and the sea lands and the plains below the first great range were filled with people who saluted the Emperor. They spilled over into the lands beyond: Liath, then Inzil, and finally, in the year 430 of the Empire, the general John Zimmish defeated the people of the darkness in a great bloody battle at the point where the wild country river called the Rocky flowed into the Lavan. And that--"

"That was the founding of Clane," said Ellean. "The last of the Sovereign States of the Empire. He was your great great et cetera grandfather. And that was where Vonnis was built. That part even I knew. What's it to do with the Emperor, but a footnote?"

"I guess," said Willd, "that it's something to do with what you've been pressing the Countess to admit."

"And what is that, my prescient love?" asked Vivian.

"Well, it seems as if the Counts have some secrets. Have you not, my lady, received special attention from the allies of this supposed Emperor?"

Vivian smiled ruefully. "Special attention indeed." She looked from one to the other and back. "You two I ought to be able to trust," she said, "but you're the first to hear of such things from any Count or Countess of Clane."

"We'll never repeat what you tell us tonight," said Ellean. "I swear it on my father's memory."

"I knew your father, and that's good enough for me," said Vivian, "and I need not worry about you breaking trust, my darling Willd."

"No, my lady. I swear on my father's memory."

"Of course, my handsome knight. Yes. We do have our secrets, and I have had the honor of special ill-treatment from Farlain and the Khan of the Avars and, yes, from the man on the throne himself. But you err in using the word 'supposed'. He is the Emperor, in all useful senses."

"Vivian! It was him, wasn't it!" said Ellean. "At Angren."

"Yes, you might say that he showed me the signs: at Angren, and twice in trance or upon awakening, he has tried to kill me."

"But then you can beat him! He ran away from you at Angren!"

"Well," said Vivian, grimacing as though the knife had just left her belly, "it was on my own ground, and that accounts for a lot of it. And he was not Emperor then. Even in Clane, I don't know how I'd fare today." She shivered. The other two looked at each other and waited. She shook her head. "You don't know how much I've wished I could talk about this. But it's always been our little secret, me and my father and my grandfather and Countess Tereza and so on, back to Lady Penelope. Count John Zimmish was the only one of us who didn't have it."

"You mean the Counts of Clane are descended from the Old Priesthood?" guessed Ellean.

"I mean the Counts of Clane are descended from the Emperors."

"The Emperors!"

"That's what I said."

"But Vivian," said Ellean, "that means you could claim the throne!"

"Oh, right. That'd be a lot of fun. Besides, I haven't shown anyone the Signs. And as you know, no woman was ever considered a candidate for Emperor. It's a good thing: imperial daughters were always getting lost in the histories. It was Penelope who brought in the Imperial blood. I thought so all along--there were a number of Imperial Penelopes unaccounted for. But now I'm as sure as I'll ever be, until I stand beside her in the halls of my ancestors and I can ask her myself. Lady Penelope, the mother of the Counts of Clane, was the youngest child of the Tenth Emperor and his sister Ranere."

"That story's true?"

"Oh, yes. I have translated their diaries. To tell the truth, I'm not sure John Zimmish even knew that's what she was. The Emperors never showed any sign of recognizing special powers in Clane, even among those who most showed it, like Mattas the Old, and Robert, and Tereza. And I don't even think the Emperor knew what had become of Penelope. I think it was her little secret, and maybe you two are the first to hear it said out loud in three and a half centuries."

"But my lady," said Willd, "did not the power dilute over the centuries? Thus were the Emperors diminished."

"Most of the later ones were, anyway," said Vivian. "But the Counts did not diminish. Why's that? Well, of course, the Priestly Circle gave the early Emperors wives of nearly equal stature, but the Priestly Circle disappeared or was destroyed. And, as you know, the rise of a new Emperor was accompanied by the execution of his brothers, but eventually the Dukes made sure that the least frightening sibling was elevated. As for the Counts, well, this too I learned really only from our stay in the Library. In 532 a new Emperor rose; at exactly the same time, a man named Alquin, supposedly a noble from Avigon, came to Vonnis to serve Count Theodas. The Count allowed his only child, Helenna, to marry this Alquin, and their son was Count Robert, who was famously strong. His sons Rodric and Raymond succeeded him, and Raymond was married to a princess from down South named Siphann. Oddly enough, there was an imperial daughter of that name who disappeared with her mother in about 570. Her daughter, Raymond's heir, was Tereza."

"She must've been something," said Ellean. "Even her painting seems to look straight into your mind."

"Believe me, I know the feeling. I wonder what happened to that painting--we didn't think to send it to Nikolad. Her painted eyes spent a lot of time glaring inscrutably at me." She sighed and took another sip. She went on in a very soft voice. "And while she was Countess, for fifty years, six Emperors died, most under peculiar circumstances, and some of those were in her presence. No, it wasn't our blood that was diluted."

"So you're saying," Willd recapitulated, "that the Counts of Clane have had regular infusions of Imperial blood over the years, and that the powers that the Emperors gradually lost were being picked up by the Counts."

"Something like that," said Vivian. "But we never ever had the power that the first dozen Emperors had."

Ellean smiled and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Viv, but it's going to take some time to get used to the idea that you, good old Countess Vivian, you have--power. I mean, just because I know you. But maybe it just shows how little we know you."

"Oh, you know me. For all my secrets, you know me. Besides, as I say, any 'power' I have is nothing compared to his."

"Can you be specific?" asked Ellean.

Vivian looked uncomfortable. "I don't know if I can bring myself to be specific. But I'll try. In trance, I can look far away, although I risk revealing myself by doing so, and it's tiring. Sometimes I see the future and the past, but the foresight is, well, not as much help as one might imagine; no, I can't say if you're ever going to marry, or how any of us is going to die, nor do I want to know, nor would I say if I did know. Oh, I can sense emotions. I can read a little of the book of the mind. Never fear: the better I know someone the less I can see inside them. I know you because I know you, but I can't sense any more of your thought than I can read in your face."

"Well, that's nice to know. What about Torak and that captain?"

"Honestly, I had no idea I could do that till I did it to Torak. He once killed a girl, a Selacan, brutally murdered her and more than murder besides. I saw it in his mind, the whole thing played out, just as he was exchanging insults with Sigrith. I--reacted instinctively."

"Did you mean to kill that captain?"

"Well," replied Vivian with a sigh, "all right, I suppose I did. I don't like it much, but there it is. I would have shot him without a second thought, but I didn't have my bow. This is different. It's more like kicking someone to death. I don't like it."

"So you can kill people," said Ellean. "Anything else we might want to know?"

"Well, my father taught me some alchemy, but then Miranda knows alchemy. You could do alchemy. One does not need to be the descendant of Emperors for that. It's just a matter of having the recipe. You have to be able to read, and follow instructions, and you have to be able to measure. Some people lack that, if you like, power, but if you can cook you can do alchemy."

Ellean stared into the night, putting things together. "I don't know," she said, pushing back her auburn hair with her hand. "But I guess some of it makes sense now. You told me there were things you couldn't tell me, that I'd have to trust you."

"And you did. And now I have to trust you."

"May we assume," asked Willd, "that this new Emperor possesses the same skills as you, my lady?"

"Oh, yes," said Vivian. She recalled again the knife, and her other encounters with the shadow figure, each, in one way or another, a close call. Even now he lurked on the fringe of her senses. "Oh, yes. All of them and more."

"He can kill?" asked Ellean.

"Kill? A single person, like I did, in a moment of peril or a fit of anger? That's nothing. The old Emperors could change the course of a battle--they could cause panic with a glance, or they could make their men fight on in the face of certain death. They could certainly kill, effortlessly and emotionlessly. All that were near them were under constant threat. The minds of all their associates were rooms with uncurtained windows. The Dukes dared not confront them. No plot could be undertaken, no secret kept. They had married, literally married, the sheer savage power of the wizards and witches of the wild lands to the spiritual reserves of the Priests. To that they added the sophistication and scholarship of the alchemists of the seaports. And--something more besides, I don't know what. They could even change the weather. The Emperor was Law, as the saying goes, but under the Sun, the Emperor was All."

"It doesn't sound like life was much fun in the old Empire," said Ellean.

"I daresay it wasn't. It goes to show, stability isn't everything. I guess the First Emperor must have seemed like a good thing to his subjects, and after that it was seven centuries before they had any choice in the matter. Your imperial knowledge is all from the Annals?"

"Well, yes. I mean, it's not family history to me."

"What about you, my love?"

"It's not my family history either," said Willd. "I have not read of the old days. My father was a horse breeder, and while we had somewhat more of a library than our neighbors, which is to say we had a few books, we did not possess Annals of the Empire. The times of Clane are enough for me, and the poets, of course, Lassant, Dreyas, Tyr de Calway."

"Tyr de Calway, huh? So that's where you get all that romantic talk. I like a man who studies."

"But alas, my lady, I do not know more than this of Imperial History: there was an Empire, and in 731 there was no more Empire."

"Then let us continue the story. Ellean, how long were the reigns of the old Emperors?"

"Each? Oh, forty, fifty, sixty years."

"And after, say, the first dozen?"

"I don't know. Things sort of went downhill, didn't they?"

"You could certainly say that," Vivian replied. "But the decline was in stages. Twelve Emperors there were, and they pushed the frontier of their bright day out into the world's night by the force of their will, and they met and destroyed enemies that the greatest of the sealords before the Empire would have run headlong from, and they made and battled and overcame new foes like the Roganites and the Praxists and the Selducars, remnants of the strange cults of pre-Imperial times. And of course they held close to them those of the priests that joined their cause. These formed the Priestly Circle, and it was among these that they married, of course, and among these also were placed the daughters of the Emperors. When an Emperor died--Ellean, does your reading extend to how the succession was decided?"

"Sure. Like you said before, the first worthy son to reach the throne had all the others killed. Didn't they sometimes have sword fights in the throne room?"

"Oh, yes, and it wasn't just swords of course. The strongest must rule, to keep the Empire strong. But after the Twelfth Emperor's death, in the year 468, it seems from the chronicles that the son who became the Thirteenth Emperor sought assistance from his friend the Duke of Rahavon. All the Annals admit to is that they were close friends both before and after his ascending the throne, but it seems that the Duke helped out against the Emperor's brothers, for fear perhaps that a different new Emperor might mistrust him. Now the Thirteenth Emperor was no weakling, and perhaps he needed no aid from his friend, and it must have seemed an innocent thing, but of old the Emperor had needed no friends, certainly no allies. Now this became the way: when the death of the Thirteenth Emperor approached, in the year 508, his sons all sought allies among the dukes, and this time it was the Grand Duke of Avigon who prevailed. The Fifteenth Emperor was raised up by the Duke of Orzali--that was in 532, and it was presumably his brother who called himself Alquin, and wedded the Countess Helenna. At this point, perhaps, the Dukes realized that the new system threatened civil war at the end of every reign, which was exactly what was not in their best interest. So with the Sixteenth Emperor, in 570, and from then on, all seven of the Dukes were always present at the claiming of the throne. It was evident that they were choosing the new Emperor."

"That's never in the Annals," said Ellean.

"No, of course it's not. But it's in all sorts of diaries. It's in letters and notes and it's implied in the records of court. There are many sources concerning the late Empire. The First Twelve Emperors ruled so completely that none wrote of what they did except for the authors of the Annals. The Autocrat knew all, and the Autocrat told all stories. But the later Emperors no longer dominated the lives of people to the point of controlling what was said and written and sung. For the people, it must have been a much better time to live. Certainly it was for the Dukes and Counts. But over the next century, the Emperors diminished steadily in every sense. Lesser sons were elevated, while the greater ones were isolated and killed off. Weak Emperors tried to flex their muscles and were killed. Some of course escaped, but they could hardly claim the throne. It became downright dangerous to 'show the signs'. And the last remnants of the Old Priests were scattered and persecuted and, supposedly, wiped out. No longer would a strong Emperor marry a strong Priestess.

"But a weak son of an Emperor was still too strong for the Dukes--so by the end of Countess Tereza's reign, the chosen Emperors had little more than a theoretical descent from the Imperial Line. Tereza herself says so in her secret diaries, although if she can hear me tell you this, she's probably quite pissed off at me. I don't think this whole conversation would make them very happy in the Halls of the Ancestors."

"I think," said Ellean, "they're proud of you. You're in a situation that none of them had to face. You trust your friends. You don't have to worry about your ancestors' disapproval."

"I concur, my lady," said Willd.

"Well, I care what you two think. The dead, I guess, have less concern with our affairs than we might hope. All right. Anyway, Tereza was sure she could whup the boy who was put on the throne in her old age. She may have whupped more than one Emperor in her life. Twelve Emperors had ruled for more than four and a half centuries; the twenty-second Emperor died in 677; there were ten more between then and 718. The frontiers fell back. Clane and Inzil and Liath were on their own. Terandra fell to the Suafi. Things slowly dissolved; that's just the nature of things. And then something strange happened."

"The Last Emperor?" asked Ellean. Vivian nodded slightly, staring into the fire.

"My lady," said Willd, "are these not the three great mysteries that the Empire leaves us: whence came the First Emperor, and whence the Last Emperor, and whence has come this new Emperor?"

"The First I have only the vaguest supposition about," said Vivian. She took a moment to choose her words. "This new one, I don't know. I know he was in Vonnis for a while, but--well, not here, not here. As for the Last Emperor: I have learned a little, and you deserve to hear the tale as I make it out. It's no sort of bedtime story, but it'll have to do.

"The Empire was falling to pieces, the Dukes fighting, the barbarians making inroads. Clane, under my grandfather Theodred, was on its own--so was Inzil. The County of Terandra was a memory. Avigon was in a state of anarchy, and the world was especially perilous for Imperial Heirs. And then this man appeared, who claimed descent from the Old Emperors, and he is said to have 'shown the signs', and he was tested by rebellion and resistance, and for a while it seemed as if verily the First had returned, risen anew from the sea."

"But where had he come from?" asked Ellean. "The Annals aren't at all clear."

"No, they aren't. But I think I know."

They looked at her across the fire. The wind blew, and as she paused all they could hear was the pine boughs shaking, and the waters of the stream, and the cracking of sticks burning. Vivian seemed to be putting the sentences together in her head before speaking them.

"I still don't really understand," she said at last. "There's much that I don't get about the Last Emperor. Why was he so powerful? Why did he return? Why did he think he could pull it off? Why didn't the Empire just dwindle until it went out, like a fire will if you stop adding wood? But as for where he came from--" She laughed nervously. "It's strange. Just speaking of him frightens my heart somehow. He at least is gone, gone these, let's see, forty-three years." She sighed.

"I'll get more firewood," said Ellean.

"No, no, it won't drive away the night. Don't leave us now. We are stronger all together."

"My lady," said Willd, reaching out his hand to hers.

"My Willd," she said, and sighed. "Let's see. It was a brother of the Sixteenth Emperor that escaped and fled northward, around the year 572. Apparently he and a female cousin, or perhaps one of the scattered remnant of the Priestly Circle, decided to make a go of it on their own. They founded a manor called--Arrenuim, in the north of Farlain."

"Oh sunspots!" cried Ellean. "That's the town you had me find out about, the last time I went to Avigon!"

"Yep. Now we know. There they gathered their household, servants and all, and set about becoming just another noble family. You only found it once in the Imperial records, but you didn't have much time to delve. The place is mentioned in the tax rolls of the Duchy for about forty years, starting in, oh, 607, I think, but my guess is that it was founded by 575."

"By imperial descendants? And they were a going concern?"

"For a while. They could have been a little version of the County of Clane, I suppose, except that a grandson of this pair tried to claim the Imperial throne in 648 and was captured and beheaded--and not just him; the whole family was wiped out, and Arrenuim laid waste. From that time, roughly, dates the rebellion in North Farlain; I wonder if there's a connection. Hmm. Arrenuim--the name itself stirs something in me. Not evil, but not good either. I have dreamt of it, just as I dreamt often of Nikolad years before we went there. I don't know what it is about Arrenuim. Something of death--but not dead. If you know what I mean."

"Nope," said Ellean, "haven't a clue."

"Well, each time someone tried to extirpate the surplus seeds of the Empire, they merely spread them about. Count Lenward, for instance, Tereza's second son, he wed a lady named Saranna, who was described as being from the South. His own father is unknown, and he was born a decade before the fall of Arrenuim. Who knows where else these refugees turned up, with their aristocratic air and their mysterious hearts? I, even I, Ellean, Willd my love, am one of them, it seems. And one at least found his way over the Fire Pass, for there among the Avars still were some who practiced the old arts of the Priests and the wild magic of the Wizards. As of old, the wild powers were married to the intensity of the Imperial Line, and so, I believe, it was out of the north that this peculiar man came to claim the throne in the year 718. How do I know? I don't, but I see--"

She stared into the fire as though she were seeing it there. She was turning something over in her mind, trying to decide which way to go. Several times she opened her mouth to speak, then shut it. At last she said quietly, "I have seen something that makes me think so. This question of origin--I don't know. I guess I don't think it's really a matter to be told in the dark of night."

"Was he from Clane?"

"What? No, no. He must have passed through, of course."

"Can you say what happened at the end of his reign?" asked Willd.

"Well, he couldn't for all his force and lineage stay on the bucking bull forever. The Dukes could be made to answer to him, one or two or three at a time, and the people around him were under his power as it had been of old, but there were too many enemies. Finally Orzali and Amari and Farlain and the Count of Shadewind tried to put up another pretender. They had not asked for a restoration of the Old Empire, nor did they wish it, and his forces were far too weak to fight them off. Apparently he was captured and killed just as the residents of Arrenuim were."

"Apparently, huh?" said Ellean.

"Oh, it's certain he was killed," said Vivian. "Not that anyone who witnessed it ever said anything about it. And he never had children, as far as anyone can say."

"But," Ellean pointed out, "whenever anyone tried to kill off the Imperial Line, some escaped. So maybe that's where this--"

"I don't want to talk about it any more," said Vivian.

"What? Why not?"

But Vivian had said as much as she would say that night. She sat, her knees pulled close to her chin, and stared into the dying fire.

The next morning Ellean woke just before sunrise, left the warmth of her blankets, crept out into the woods, returned to get the pan to gather water, and noticed that Vivian was still crouched before the coals of the fire. Willd sat beside his lady, his arms around her. Ellean went down to the stream and got water, set about making tea, got some fruit out of her pack and returned to the side of the campfire. She gathered her strength and looked Vivian in the eye.

"I saw him," said Vivian. "Again."

"You mean, like in the library?"

"You saw him in the library too?" said Willd. "From what you said when I woke up, I thought this was the first time on this journey."

"Yes," said Vivian, "I saw him in the library. He stood at the far end from where I was sitting. I'd fallen asleep--it was just before dawn."

"Then it was just a dream," Willd suggested comfortingly.

"There's no such thing," said Vivian, "as 'just a dream' of the Emperor. I'd fallen asleep at one of the tables, my head in an open book, Ellean beside me, asleep, her head in another book. And there he was--the same figure who stabbed me in Angren, only he wore glowing white, not the dark robe. He was looking, looking but he couldn't look directly at me. He couldn't quite see me."

"She startled awake," said Ellean. "That startled me awake. I couldn't make head or tail of what was bothering her, but I've learned to trust the Countess's little feelings about things. We grabbed everything and got out of there. That was when we ran into Chalris."

"Chalris," Willd repeated. "My lady, would you say also that there is no such thing as a coincidence, where the Emperor is concerned?"

"Mmm. Yes. Chalris is in his power. Perhaps He did see me, or almost did, and sent Chalris to physically look."

"But this," said Ellean, "this dream you just had last night--"

"You don't quite understand," said Vivian. "I did not sleep last night."

They stared at her. Willd got up, went over to the other side of the fire. Ellean was still trying to get things straight in her mind. "So you saw him again, last night, and you think you weren't dreaming. So why didn't he attack?"

"Who says he won't?"

"He was standing here?" asked Willd.

"There," she replied, pointing with one hand and holding her head with the other.

"You don't have a headache, do you?" asked Ellean.

"Well," said Willd, "maybe there are footprints. I mean, there are footprints, but--well, I don't know, but--"

"But what?" asked Ellean.

"But they're not from any of our boots," he said. "They don't come from anywhere or go anywhere."

"Sui generis," Vivian muttered.

"What's she say?" asked Ellean.

"I think," said Willd, "that the question of origin is at the heart of it all."

They ate, had tea, packed and took off without another word. The day was brilliantly sunny, as they rode up out of the last woods of North Amari and into the stony ridges of the borderland. By early afternoon they were in the close company of Mount Farag, and his jagged brethren ranged across their way. They recognized a great flat-topped pier of rock where once upon a time Prince Frenerac was beset by pursuers and rescued by a force led by Captain Edwy Sallier and Lady Ellean Rain. The smaller pier upslope from it came into view, where Lady Valerie and the archer girls had first proven themselves. In the middle of the afternoon they passed the larger rock and came to the foot of the smaller one, and they paused for a bite to eat.

Vivian had hardly spoken all day, and she had nothing to say now. Ellean looked up at the rock. "I'd like to climb up there," she said, "to have a look around, and just for old times' sake."

"Go ahead," said Willd, "but we can't stay long. I want to get over the ridge top by nightfall. Then we'll be back in Clane."

"I won't be long." She walked around the base of the rock, while Vivian sat down in the shadow and Willd knelt beside her. Ellean presently found the point at which she and the archer girls had climbed to the top, a three-sided cleft a little wider than the width of her shoulders. She shinnied up it, about twenty feet, and came out on top. There she turned around and around looking and listening and smelling and feeling. On one side lay the forests of the north Amarian upland through which they had come; on the other, the towering peaks of the frontier. There was not a cloud in sight. The fresh breeze, the startling view, the intense sunlight: it was all she could do to tear herself away. There was certainly no threat to be seen, no black-cloaked apparition of death, no marching army, no building storm of menace. It was an innocent day in a summer like any summer. She turned away from the wide world, returned to the cleft and shinnied back down.

Willd and Vivian were standing beside the horses, each with an arm around the other. "How is she?" asked Ellean.

"I'm all right," said Vivian.

"Let's get going," said Willd.

They remounted. The horses picked their way up the rocky slope. They reached the top and turned to look back down on Amari once more. It was an hour before sunset. They rode down into the dell where they had camped two years ago. Willd and Ellean jumped from their saddles.

"Shall we camp here, my love?" Willd asked in a cheerful voice.

"Oh, my head," said Vivian. "No, no."

"Shall we go on then? We can go on up the next slope and--"

"Oh, dark wings, dark wings, my darling," said Vivian. Suddenly she drooped and slid from her mount. Willd and Ellean managed to catch her and lower her to the ground. She was struggling with something, beating something back with her hands. Then she opened her eyes and looked straight into Willd's face. "Ah, my love," was all she said, but their eyes remained locked together.

Not shifting from her gaze, he said, "Let's climb up a little further. I don't know just where the border is, but maybe we haven't quite crossed it."

The spell passed. The three riders and their four horses made it up into the trees on the other side of the dell, and they camped on a ledge sheltered by short pines. There they made do with dried meat and Amari oranges and some old cheese from an Avigon market, and no fire. Little was said. All were exhausted, but while the other two gradually slipped into slumber, Vivian sat against a rock with the blanket pulled around her. She felt the menace still circling high in the air, no longer imminent.

The night wore on. Midnight passed. Beyond the grove a billion stars flew in a sky left empty by the silver half-moon. The breeze dropped to a faint breath. Then he was there. He stood among the trees a few dozen feet away, as though he had stood there unnoticed all night. He gleamed slightly, and his expressionless face was pale white in its shadow, but his strange eyes fixed upon Vivian. They stared at each other across a wide gulf of starlight.

Salute me, came the dark eyes' command. They were used to getting their way, but there was no answering call inside Vivian.

You are no Emperor of mine, she shot back. This is my soil. Still they faced each other, he gaunt and stiff among the pines, she sitting on the ground in her blanket, the rock behind her.

This is all my soil, came the reply. Your title comes from me.

My title comes from my father, she replied.

And where did your father come from, or your mother? We are of the same house, only I am the greater. As it was, so it will be. All who have the Powers shall behold the signs of the Emperor, and they will either submit or be destroyed.

Then destroy me, she told him, for I will never submit.

The next thing she felt was an almost physical concussion, as he hit her with a force like a great stone on the side of her head. She reeled--and reached down to find a force of her own. I know the very stones of this land, she thought, as she struck back at him. He staggered back, then grappled her and tried to find her spirit's throat, but ever as his great strength came to bear on her, ever did she grab and claw and gouge. He pressed his advantage in mental weight, and she tired, but still she escaped his grip and gave him a faceful of claws. He slammed her and she tore at him and they cursed one another, and slowly he got the upper hand. She was penned in a narrow spot, he had her by the wrist, and soon he would make an end of her, whatever damage he had to endure from her first.

She reached about near her and found the sleeping Willd. She touched him and felt instantly that reassuring familiar gentleness. Underneath it she found that inexplicable well of strength. She made a weapon of some of his strength, and raised it against the Emperor. He stepped back into his form standing in the shadow of the pines. She swung her weapon in the mental space between them, and he retreated, uncertain. She laughed at him: Don't you remember what I told you in Angren?

You are mine, came the answer. You owe allegiance to me.

I owe allegiance to no one but Clane and my people, she told him. Leave us in peace.

The starlit figure softly laughed. Then it was gone. Vivian felt suddenly light as air. She stood, or floated, up. Then she looked down at Willd. His blue eyes glittered in the night.

"I saw him," he said.

"So the plan is," Ellean summarized, "that we hold down five or six thousand Farlainers, while the Emperor with fifty thousand faces off against the Dukes with a hundred thousand?" They were riding down the track along the Little Glass River, two days later, and they had seen neither a cloud nor a shadow figure in that time. Now as they rounded a cliff, riding along a ledge, they could see far ahead the end of the Little Glass canyon, where this rushing stream poured into the Glass River by Nikolad's High Bridge.

"That's the plan. And the Emperor's pursuit of little me has probably cost him some preparation time. I don't think Salvar's that great a general, and these aren't a hundred thousand militia we're talking about."

"And you came up with this with help from the Duke of Samarra?"

"Oh, I made no contribution to the plan. Duke George was the strategist, along with the Duke of Rahavon. When they dropped us in Syrud they were still putting the finishing touches on. But I have every confidence in it. The Dukes will make the Emperor meet them in the plains around Avigon, or he will lose his capital. The situation is exactly like the one that faced the Last Emperor forty-three years ago, except that this Emperor is even less secure on his throne, and his opponents don't have their own claimant to complicate things. And, of course, they have me."

"A significant advantage," said Willd.

"But do you really think they can beat him?" asked Ellean.

"They have to," said Vivian, "and so they will."

"My love," said Willd, "are you all right?"

She smiled. "I am," she said after a moment's thought. "I'll be fine. I have your strength, and yours, Ellean--and I'm back in Clane, and that helps."

"While we're on the subject of great plans," said Ellean, "what are we going to tell Sir Rogier and the Council?"

"Well, first of all, nothing at all about the signs, or about anyone's powers. Mine, or the Emperor's. And nothing about Arrenuim."

"So we're the only ones who get to know?"

"Yes. Aren't you privileged? Not even Angeline, unless I change my mind. Not even Jen. No one but you two. That way, if it gets out, I'll know to blame you, Ellean."

"Me? What about him?" Willd just smiled.

"And as for the Dukes' plan, I'll tell the Council what has to be done, and I'm sure they'll be eager to do it."

"And what about the whole reason for going? I mean, they're bound to ask questions about why you had to go there, how you know he's the Emperor, just what happened, and so on."

Vivian smiled. It was obvious she was feeling better. "I can handle them," she said. "I'm looking forward to it."

"I'm looking forward," said Willd, "to grabbing up my beautiful daughters and hugging them one and then the other and then the first one again, and so on."

"That sounds like an excellent strategy," said Vivian.

And so it was done. They hadn't even gotten to the stable when Jen met them, hauling both the girls. As they stood in the square of Nikolad, the Countess hugging Susan and Willd hugging year-old Anne, out of the keep came Sir Rogier de Clatu and Thane Horst de Fugad.

"We were extremely worried," Sir Rogier informed her. "You could at least have sent a messenger pigeon."

"If we'd had a pigeon, we would have eaten it on the way home. I mean, really, weeks of dry fruit and rock-hard cheese and Avigon jerky. I hate to think what goes into that. Even those wonderful Amari oranges got kind of tiresome after a week. Anyway, I need a bath as well as a hot meal. Oh, and a pint of ale sounds wonderful. But there's time for all that later," she added, tweaking Suzy's nose.

"What now, then?" asked Thane Horst. "Will you separate yourself from your daughters long enough to tell us the story?"

"Time for the story later too," said Vivian. "Send messengers out. We muster at Tarnhold in two weeks."

"We're going back to Vonnis?" asked Sir Rogier.

"Only as a feint," she replied. "For now."