fulfilling a vow
It
was in the two hundred and twelfth year following the Unthralling that Hodra
Blindwind took a wolf’s shape and came out of Riddlewood to pay a visit to the
Autarch of Meining Shaan.
It
was the end of a grey, cold, long winter, and even as a wolf he felt the sting
of the winds that blow across Meining Shaan’s wide plains.
He had learned a little of the Knack of Journeys, and the great distances
between the eldest forest and the Autarch’s palace in Hwaan were lessened for
him, but it was still a long and wearying trek.
He slept little, ate little, and gave himself only to thoughts of going
forward, forward, forward. Nor did
he fear for his safety; it was death in Meining Shaan to kill a wolf, and even
those who didn’t fear the Autarch’s law would find him a harder quarry than
he seemed. So the days slipped past without his counting them, and he
came at length to the gates of the City of Amber and Fire in the shadow of the
northern mountains.
It
was in wolf shape still that he padded through Hwaan’s streets and markets,
quiet as a shadow, hardly noticed among the thousand strangenesses thronging its
avenues. Here was a trio of horned
men philosophizing over bitter wine; here a pale woman in armor playing cards
with a bird-headed dwarf; here a rickshaw drawn by a blue giant, bearing what
looked like a fat serpent covered in eyes.
In among them, the native Shaanir in their long, loose tunics and
gartered breeches went about their business, many with bundles slung over their
shoulders or jars on poles. The air smelled of musk and spiced smoke and honey
bread. On every street a glowing
iron fire-pot shielded its little circle from the cold.
It
had been a long time, but Hodra remembered the way. The maze of Hwaan’s streets was laid down in the deeps of
his mind, and not much had changed in the time he had been away.
There was only a moment’s hesitation when he almost went the route to
the old palace, before he remembered that it was now a temple, its gardens given
over to hives of cloisters. He turned and continued toward the tall-windowed spires of
Opal Eyes, down a wide street flanked with banners showing the black lion of
Meining Shaan on either side.
On
one corner a Shaanir brewer, smelling of yeast and pipe-smoke, was passing a mug
with a tall Gannell and telling a joke. The
Gannell was in human shape, leaning on his spear, but he smiled and nodded at
the passing wolf. Hodra bowed his
head back. He remembered the days
when the city was forbidden to the Gannellu, and how bitter the fighting had
been on the Wild Plain. It was a reminder of just how much he had stepped out of
Riddlewood into a new age.
There
were guards on the wall outside Opal Eyes, in long blue coats with a black lion
on the right breast and the Autarch’s frog standard on the left, green on
gold. They had tall halberds with
firespitters at the heads, and short scimitars at their belts.
The one on the left had a beast’s face with a grid of fangs.
The other was a topknotted Shaanir with red tattoos, a Kussan.
When
he was before the gates, Hodra took his own shape – a slender Shaanir man in a
hooded gray cloak, with long, tangled hair and a wild beard spilling out of the
hood. The lines of an ageless,
androgynous face with dark tilted eyes could just be seen under the beard and
hair. Hodra lifted a hand from
beneath the cloak and called out:
“Peace
to the Autarch and the City. I beg
admittance to the house of the Lord of the North. May the Mountains never
wake.”
The
Kussan shifted the halberd in his hands. “That’s
an old greeting, shape-changer. Who
are you?”
“I
am Hodra Blindwind of Gao, a Master of the Valari and an emissary of Riddlewood.
I come on behalf of the Remaker, and to fulfill an old vow.”
They
let him in, after only a little wrangling, and he was taken by a green-robed
page to an audience chamber where he waited on one of the low couches,
meditating on the Nine Litanies. He
was interrupted twice, first by a girl who brought him a tray of fruit and
spiced tea, and second by an errant banter-bird that seemed to have escaped from
a garden somewhere in the depths of the palace.
It flew in from a window above and perched on the couch opposite him, the
long pennants of its green and purple feathers falling like ribbons to the
floor, and cocked its crested head to one side.
“Mrrrrp-wrrrp?”
it said. “Wrrp-krrrrh?”
Hodra
smiled and cut off a piece of plum, dipped it in dark honey, and held it out.
“Krrrh-wrrrrh?”
said the banter-bird, and its shape dissolved; sitting on the couch in robes of
green and purple, with clasps fashioned of golden frogs, was Chzen-Xan Djemara
Kuzao, Lord of the North and the Wild Plain, Master of
the City of Amber and Fire, Autarch of Meining Shaan.
She
smiled.
“Oh,
Uncle Hodra! I’m pleased to see you haven’t lost your soft spot.
I was so glad to hear you’d come.”
She
had the features of a Shaanir in her pale-golden skin and her dark,
short-cropped hair, but her eyes were green-gold, Gannell eyes, and there was
something in the beautiful, ageless face that was slightly unearthly and
inhuman. Her hands and feet were
bare and marked in red Kussan tattoos. On
her left thumb was the Autarch signet with its frog device in jade with eyes of
amber; at her throat was a pendant showing a Kiru rampant, horned and scaled, in
green and gold with a tiny fire opal as its eye.
Hodra
bowed his head. “You shouldn’t
call me that, Autarch. Sharing your
blood is not an honor I have.”
“And
yet you were an uncle to me, when I came to Riddlewood as a child.
How long has it been now? Fifty
years?”
“Nearly
twice that, Autarch.”
“Oh,
yes. And before the beard, I
believe. Not to mention you were
less grim then.” She laughed. “And
here I am, less than twenty years on the Lion Throne, and with Hodra Blindwind
ready to prostrate himself before me – the great Master of the Valari who used
to hold me upside-down over Kavla’s Pool just to make me scream with delight.
What happened, Hodra? Why
have you come to Opal Eyes?”
Hodra
clasped his hands in front of him and bowed low. “I’m here to fulfill a vow
I made a long time ago, to the Autarch Gorao Xangai, in the days before the
Unthralling. I swore I’d come
back to the Autarch’s service if I was needed, and I swore it twice – once
before I became Valara, and once after. And
I am bound as Valara to keep it.”
“Ah,
yes. I always forget you were in
Ironeyes’ court back then. You
were his concubine, weren’t you?”
“I
did have that honor in my youth, Your Glory.”
“Mmm.
I hope you haven’t heard I’m in need of that, Hodra.
No, no, that was a jest – really, when did you become so humorless?
But I do have to wonder what you think is so dire to bring you out of
Riddlewood after two centuries.”
Hodra
sighed. “I’ve come with word
from the Remaker of Orwn Dvarra, who speaks for the Eldritch and the Powers.
He tells me you will come to have need of my counsel.
The Emperor in the South means you no good.”
The
Autarch poured tea over fruit and honey in a bowl, stirred it slowly and
deliberately with a carved spoon. “The
Emperor means no one any good save himself.
That’s not a secret, my friend. There’s
been more bad news than good out of the South since the first one cast away the
High Kingship to make himself an empire. Since
then every ruler in Wonderstone has been some variation on vicious, stupid or
mad. Why did you think Meining
Shaan fought so hard for its autonomy?”
“It
will be a harder fight still, Your Glory. Wonderstone
means to come north. The Emperor
has claimed that his predecessor’s treaties are unlawful and null, and accuses
the Lion Throne of secession to his court.
He’s claiming the right of the High Kings to Meining Shaan’s
vassaldom. He means to bring all of Orwn Dvarra under his rule, from Eidelon
Spire to the Sea of Knives. And I
believe he may be mustering a force capable of doing so.”
The
Autarch was silent for a long moment. Her
eyes were on her signet while she thought, green and gold reflecting each other.
When she spoke at last, she did not look up, but there was a change in
her voice. “Is this what the Lord Remaker believes as well, Hodra?”
“It
is, Autarch.”
“He
will have a hard fight of it.” The
Autarch brought up her eyes to meet Hodra’s, and they were full of green fire.
“Vicious, stupid, or mad. And
this one may be all of them. The
right of the High Kings! When there
hasn’t been a High King in Orwn Dvarra for the last century and a half.
Well, then.” She smiled,
suddenly cold and terrible. “I’m
told that there are stirrings of rebellion in the Empire. Willow Rock and Baska are already restless under
Wonderstone’s yoke. Abulouris
must be as well. What do you think,
Valara?”
Hodra
nodded, slowly. “I think it may
well be true, Your Glory.”
“I
mean to see that it is. I mean to
use that restlessness to keep the Emperor’s hands tied, and his attention away
from us.” She drew herself up
before him, and he could see the power that burned in her, on her face, in her
eyes. “I am all my land, Hodra.
I am Gao and Kussa and the Plain. I
am Shaanir and Gannell, and I am a scion of the Kirian line.
I am iron and amber and fire. The
wild magic of Riddlewood is in me, and the Eldritch change-power flows in my
blood. More than any Autarch before
me, I speak for all my peoples. We
will not yield.” She came to him,
and without a thought he knelt before her.
She placed a pale-golden hand on his head.
“Go south, Hodra. Go into
the Emperor’s lands and stir up whatever discontent you find there. Gather any of your order that will aid you, and whatever
power Riddlewood will lend our cause. And
give my thanks to the Remaker. Will
you do this for me?”
“I will, Your Glory.”
“Good.
And then return to us. We
will plan, then. And wait.”
Hodra
gathered his robes about him and drew up his hood. She stopped him as he turned to go.
“Welcome
home, Uncle. Welcome back to the
service of the Autarch.”
He bent then, and pressed his lips to the signet. “Until death takes me, Your Glory.” And he swept out.