Children of Enchantment Read online

  “What’s wrong now?” Roderic hastened to his brother’s side and looked over Brand’s shoulder. Six or seven men-at-arms, brandishing weapons, all hovered around the farthest corner of the room. Warily, he slipped past Brand. “What is it?”

  The duty officer pulled himself straighter and saluted. “Caught one of them, Lord Roderic.”

  Roderic tried to get a better look at the intruder, but in the shadowy corner all he could see was what looked like a pile of old clothes. “Stand aside.”

  “Careful, Lord Roderic! These things are dangerous,” the sergeant warned, but he motioned to the men to step away. The soldiers obeyed, but they did not lower their swords.

  Roderic peered through the tangle of legs and weapons and realized that the intruder was in fact no larger than a child. “Come here.”

  The bundle of rags shook itself like a puppy, and a clay-colored face emerged.

  “It’s one of them, all right,” muttered the sergeant as the other men made noises of disgust.

  “Shall I kill it, Lord Roderic?” One of the men-at-arms raised his sword.

  “Hold!” Roderic stooped, gazing at the little face peering back at his from the shadows. One dark eye, above and centered between the other two, stared back unblinkingly, and he shuddered with revulsion. But the rest of the face was thin, too thin, the reddish skin stretched tight across the delicate bones, and Roderic realized that this was, indeed, a child. A Muten child.

  He motioned the soldiers back. “Where did you say you found him?”

  “Kitchens, Lord Roderic,” was the reply. “Trying to steal food, filthy thing. We nearly cornered it there, but it was too fast. Led us all the way through the garrison, it did.”

  “Do you understand me?” Roderic spoke slowly to the child, who had not taken its eyes off Roderic’s face.

  The Muten gobbled a response and nodded.

  “Why were you in our kitchens?”

  The child made another series of noises and held out a thick crust of bread and rubbed its stomach with the other hand. Beneath the ragged clothes, its two secondary arms emerged and twitched involuntarily, the tiny appendages smaller than a human infant’s.

  “You’re hungry.” Roderic stared at the hand that clutched the bread. The fingers were bony claws, the skin dry and flaking across the swollen joints. He raised his hand without thinking, and instantly the child stuffed the bread in its mouth.

  “It’s got into the food!” cried Reginald. “Kill it.”

  “No!” Roderic turned furious eyes on his brother. “Can’t you see it’s starving? Let it—him—whatever it is—go.” He turned away, feeling sick and sad. “Let it go.”

  “But, Lord Roderic—” began the sergeant.

  “I said, let it go. I don’t make war on children. Starving children, at that. Increase the guards around the food stores. But take this one to the gates of the garrison, and if any harm comes to it, the man responsible will answer to me.” Roderic met the shocked expressions of the soldiers evenly. If he were ever to assume his father’s position, he’d better start playing the role. He knew Abelard wouldn’t have cared whether the child lived or died, but he was certain his father never let anyone forget who was King. Brand watched from the doorway. He pushed past the soldiers, who snapped to attention, and Brand gave a little nod of approval. “Come in here, Reginald. We need to talk to you.”

  “About what?” Reginald clumped into the room behind Brand, who shut the door as the child was led away.

  Brand resumed his place at the table. “If you’d been here, Reginald, instead of in pursuit of a woman, you’d have seen the King’s messenger come in—“

  “From Ahga?” Reginald’s raised brows were pale against his reddened skin.

  “From Phineas.”

  “And what’s he want? Updated body counts?”

  “Be quiet, Reginald.” Roderic leaned across the table.

  “Ho! The kitten shows his claws. Old man’s not pleased with the way things are going?”

  “Dad’s missing.” Brand’s glare expressed more clearly than words what he thought of Reginald.

  Reginald’s little eyes darted from Roderic to Brand and back again. “What do you mean, missing?”

  “Lost,” said Roderic. “Disappeared without a trace. Here—” He shoved the parchment across the tabletop. “Read it yourself.” If you can, he added silently.

  Reginald took the scroll and scanned it. When he finally looked up, his expression was serious. “So what should we do?” He spoke to Brand, but it was Roderic who answered.

  “Get this situation under control, so I can return to Ahga as soon as possible.”

  Reginald snorted. “You’re going to ‘get the situation under control’? How?”

  Brand cleared his throat. “We’ll call for reinforcements.”

  “From where?” Reginald drained the dregs of the wine into a clay goblet. “Everyone’s got their hands full—just who—“

  “Amanander,” answered Roderic, looking at the map.

  Even Brand looked surprised. Roderic tapped the map. “You’re right, Reginald. Everyone north and west is tied up in this rebellion. But Amanander has a full garrison at Dlas-for’-Torth and a clear march through Missiluse.”

  “And you think he’ll come?” Reginald leaned back in his chair, swirling the wine in the goblet.

  Roderic raised his head. His father had always relied upon his brothers; he would have to rely upon them as well. “What choice will he have? The kingdom is in jeopardy. He swore the same Pledge of Allegiance the rest of us have.” A memory flashed through his mind, of his father’s steady blue gaze and strong grip on his shoulder on the day that he, too, had knelt and sworn to uphold the kingdom and the King unto death. The words ran through his mind: I pledge allegiance to the King of the United Estates of Meriga and to the kingdom for which he stands, one nation, indivisible … Indivisible. With blood and sweat and sheer determination, the Ridenau Kings had forged Meriga into one nation after generations of chaos. And now the task had fallen to him. He met the eyes of both his brothers with squared shoulders. “What choice do any of us have?”

  Chapter Three

  The cold Janry wind wailed across the ocher sands of Dlas-For’Torth, whipping at stunted cacti. Even to the unaccustomed eye, the weathered rocks appeared to lie in long lines and right angles across the desert floor. In the eastern sky, the sun was a thin red crescent curving over the flat horizon, and the first streaks of gray and violet light blotted out the last stars.

  Sand shifted across forgotten highways, blew relentlessly against the high, crushed-rubble walls of the desert garrison. It made a sound like the hollow rustle of dead leaves. Above the rooftops, white smoke spiraled in thin lines, then dissipated in the gusty updrafts. It was the only sign of human habitation at this lonely outpost established to protect the borders of the Southern Estates against the incursions of the Harleyriders.

  In the middle of the dusty yard, two sentries rubbed their hands over a small watchfire and tucked the ends of their cloaks more securely against the cold. The watch was nearly over.

  “Cold last night,” commented the taller of the two as he laid his spear upon the ground and blew on his fingers.

  The other nodded. “Messenger come in late, did you see?”

  “I was patrolling the eastern perimeter all night, you know that. Where from?”

  “Hard to tell. But I saw he wore the King’s colors.”

  “Kingdom messenger, then. From Ahga?”

  His companion’s shrug was interrupted by the sudden pounding of hooves from the direction of the stables. A horse, nothing more than a black shape in the predawn light, burst into the courtyard, screamed in protest as his rider drew hard on the reins. “You, at the gate—open it!” The voice was imperious, impatient.

  On the other side of the wide yard, the sleepy gatekeepers jumped to attention, tugged down the heavy crossbars, and pulled open the high, massive gates to let the dark rider out. A low cl
oud of dust was all that remained of his passing. “Wasn’t that—?” The grizzled sentry turned incredulous eyes to the other.

  “Lord Amanander. Riding as though the wrath of the One were behind him.”

  The ruddy light cast by the rising sun brought little warmth. Amanander flexed his hands in the black leather gloves, the fur lining soft and warm against his skin. The stallion rode hard at his urging, hoofbeats muffled by the sand. He followed the straight line of an ancient roadbed, due south, his shadow growing darker as the red sun rose. His dark blue cloak billowed out behind him. He wore his black hair long, knotted at his neck in an intricate braid, and his face was shaved smooth despite the early hour. His square jaw and high cheekbones bore the unmistakable stamp of his father the King, but his eyes were so dark they were nearly black, and his brows swooped like crow’s wings across his forehead.

  An hour from the garrison he pulled the horse to a stop. The road lay in ruins: great chunks of ancient stone lay piled haphazardly like some giant’s discarded toys, and here and there metal sheets, scoured free of paint and corrosion by the relentless sand, stood at twisted angles from rusted poles.

  The wind tugged at his cloak. His horse whickered and stamped, its breath a great white plume in the dawn light. A barely discernible shimmer hovered just a foot off the ground. Amanander closed his eyes, and a thin line appeared between his brows. His lips moved silently, and the shimmer subsided. He touched his knees to the stallion’s sides and flapped the reins. The horse moved slowly off the road.

  At the base of a great pile of ancient brick, Amanander paused once more. He swung out of the saddle with practiced grace and tethered the horse’s reins to a twisted metal staff sticking out of the sand. He gathered his cloak and bent his back to enter the concealed cavern. No one would have noticed it without knowing it was there. Once inside, he stood straight, his head nearly touching the low ceiling. His boots scraped across a tilted floor of a material which had not been made in Meriga in centuries. Insects scuttled out of the dust raised by his passing, and in the dark corners, bats stirred with a leathery whisper of black wings. A lone torch burned in a crude bracket.

  In the far wall of the cavern, he pushed on a metal bar, and a heavy door shrieked open. Preserved by the climate, protected from the wind, faded white letters proclaimed in a language half-forgotten: RESTRICTED ACCESS. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Amanander did not hesitate. A long corridor lay before him: the low roof and squared walls gave evidence that this was no natural corridor. Clumsy brackets set at intervals three-quarters of the way up the wall held torches which cast an orange light. “Ferad!” His voice echoed down the length of the corridor. “Ferad?”

  With a sigh, he started down the corridor. Other doors were set in the walls; these he ignored. At last the corridor turned right. At the end of the hall he pushed against another door. It opened silently, smoothly on well-oiled hinges. A draft from some unseen crack in the ceiling brushed across his face. “Ferad?”

  A figure hunched on a high wooden stool beside a rusted metal desk looked up. “I was not expecting you, my Prince. At such an early hour.” A lone lantern flickered on a surface dull with the dust of centuries, the flame drawn back and forth by the invisible, nearly indiscernible breeze which filtered down from above.

  “I had a message last night.” Amanander drew the gloves from his hands, smoothed the supple leather and tucked them into his belt. His boots made almost no noise at all as he crossed the floor. He took another rudely carved stool and sat down on the opposite side of the desk.

  The other looked up, and in the candlelight, three black eyes gleamed flatly like a lizard’s. Amanander suppressed a shudder. He was used to the Muten, had known him more than fifteen years, but his initial reaction to Ferad’s deformities was always repulsion.

  “Well?”

  “Things aren’t going so well for my little brother in Atland. He requests aid. From me, of all people.”

  Ferad’s third eye, set in the center of his forehead, stared fixed and unblinking. He had no sight in it, of course, none of them did, although the ruling families of the Tribes did have full use of the small pair of secondary arms which in Ferad’s case dangled limply from his shoulders, lost in the folds of his robe. He set down his pen in the center of his parchment scrolls and shrugged. “So?”

  “I want you to keep my father alive in my absence.”

  Ferad glanced at a low door in a dark corner of the room.

  “Alive, Abelard Ridenau remains a formidable threat.”

  “I don’t want him dead yet.”

  Ferad’s smaller arms quivered in involuntary response. “And if Phineas sends the Armies of the King to search? Ten thousand, twenty thousand men will take the field, with twice that number in reserve. Are you so sure you want to take that risk? Is revenge worth it?”

  “Yes.” The word was a hiss. “I heard him say I would never be King—not with Magic or without it—and I swear I’ll make him live to see the day he regrets those words. I’ll kill him with his own sword and I’ll wear his own crown when I do it. But think of the confusion. No one knows whether he’s dead or alive. There will have to be a regency. Roderic’s just eighteen years old and he’s surrounded by old men like Phineas, who’ve grown soft in the peace of the last twenty years or more. He’s already run into trouble in Atland. What if the Senadors fail to support him? And there’s my twin—“

  “Are you so certain of Alexander?”

  “We are one. I don’t expect you to understand. From the beginning, we were one flesh. It was always so with us. Why do you think my father sent me to this godforsaken outpost, and him all the way to the Settle Islands? He thought to put the length of Meriga between us—“

  “Timing will be all, my Prince.” The Muten’s voice was soft. “Don’t forget the lessons Senadors like Owen Mortmain learned to their detriment—“

  “My father had the witch-woman by his side then, did he not? She used her Magic for him. She even used it to ensure he’d have a son by his Queen when all of Meriga knew she was barren. If he can use the Magic to disinherit me, what’s to stop me from using it against him?”

  The Muten’s face was inscrutable in the shadows. “And if you go to Atland, my Prince? What then?”

  “It will enable me to take Roderic’s measure. I’ve learned enough of the Magic for that. There’s Reginald—I have good reason to think that he will be more than sympathetic for the right price. Once I’m there, I’ll be able to gauge how much assistance he’s likely to be. And then what would be more natural than that I accompany my little brother back to the ancestral home? When the Congress convenes, the Senadors—“

  “Bah!” Ferad cut him off with a snort. “There is another way.”

  Amanander leaned across the desk. His eyes were like pools of water beneath a night sky, so black that light seemed trapped within their depths. “What are you talking about?”

  “Intrigue is all well and fine, my Prince. And you may be successful—who am I to judge? But the West was beaten long ago, and even though certain factions may rise against the young Regent, there is no reason why any of them should support you over him. Let Roderic have the regency. For a time. There’s something else you can discover in Ahga. You must find out Nydia Farhallen’s fate.”

  “My father’s witch? She’s been dead for years.”

  “And you believe that?”

  “He certainly had nothing to do with her since before Roderic was born. They say she used her Magic to help the Queen conceive a son, and then, consumed by jealousy, she took her own life. Personally, I think it killed her. That’s possible, isn’t it? Couldn’t that have been the result of causing a life to come into existence?”

  Ferad didn’t answer.

  “So you think Nydia may be alive?”

  “There were many rumors concerning her fate, my Prince.”

  “I’m not so naive I believe those stories about Phineas getting a child on her. Do you?”

  Ferad wa
s silent. Finally he said, “She either died or disappeared before Roderic was born. Besides the Magic she had other gifts which made her invaluable to Abelard. They say he never looked at another woman from the day she walked into his court.”

  It was Amanander’s turn to shrug. “He looked at Melisande Mortmain, didn’t he? Long enough to get a son off her. And while Roderic may be grandson to the old Senador in Vada, I’d wager half this kingdom Owen’ll not lift a finger to help.”

  “Forget Vada. Listen to me. You must find out if Nydia Farhallen bore a child. In all probability, that child would have been a daughter. And you must find that daughter and bring her to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Nydia was a prescient. She could see the future. Why do you think Abelard was so successful? So long as he had her, none of his enemies could ever surprise him. But something must have happened between them. Abelard would never have sent her away voluntarily.”

  “So that makes it likely that she died.”

  “But if she did not—if she bore another’s child—surely you know your father well enough to imagine his reaction to that?”

  “Well, what if she did?”

  “Listen, you fool. You play for high stakes at long odds, but there may be a way to even them. If you can find the daughter Nydia Farhallen bore, we will have the key to control the Magic—all Magic. We will have the power to do what even the men of Old Meriga couldn’t with their toys and their machines and their technologies which very nearly destroyed the whole world.

  “For the problem is not with the Magic. It is in the reaction caused by the Magic as the universe seeks to right itself. If we can find Nydia’s daughter, our victory will be assured, for the child of a prescient is always an empath. By an empath’s very nature, the imbalance caused by the Magic is corrected, even as it occurs. The empath need not know the Magic. One only need touch her. Think of what that would mean for both of us.”