Another transfer portal arrived, again by means of the Unborn. It would connect to the transfer stream but none of its parts would be tainted by having passed through that poorly understood realm. So Lord Yuan had decreed.
Grinding her teeth against secret panic, Mist instructed Lord Yuan to key that portal to the life harmonics of Lord Kuo and the Old Man so they could escape but no one and nothing wicked could follow.
A third portal arrived. Mist had it keyed to Nepanthe and Ethrian. Ethrian and the Old Man were her most valuable assets. Scalza and Ekaterina were precious but did not have the power to save an empire. Their mother had to consider countless millions of lives.
She did not suppress maternal emotion indefinitely. When Radeachar delivered the next escape portal she had it keyed to her children. The elderly Tervola executed his instructions sullenly, making it clear that he thought her mind was clouded by personal concerns.
She had the escape portals provided with secondary keys that would allow selected others to use them if their primaries were not. Those designated as secondary did not see much hope for themselves if Old Meddler did launch a sudden thunder and lightning assault.
The mind specialists worked hours as long as anyone. They concluded that forming a useful information inventory necessitated rooting secrets out of minds other than those of Ethrian and the Old Man. There were three surviving witnesses to Old Meddler’s raid on the Wind Tower. The Old Man was the least reliable. The others were both available.
Varthlokkur came close to physical confrontation with Mist when those two proposed the research. He wanted no return to that night’s emotional storms. The Empress demurred.
Once again Varthlokkur was prepared to round on his allies and chuck everything down a well in order to protect his wife. As he defined protection. In truth, he was striving to appease his own insecurities.
His memories of that night were not pleasant. He thought that Nepanthe had suppressed hers. He did not want them resurrected.
But she snapped, “Varth, stop that right now! Am I an infant? You wouldn’t treat Eka or Scalza with the kind of condescension you show me.”
Startled, “Darling…”
“Stop! I made it past my fourth birthday. Yes. I’m more emotional than some. I get upset about things that don’t bother other people. But I am a big girl.” She touched his cheek gently. She did appreciate his concern. “I remember more than I want. But some of it might be useful-if I let the experts dig.”
“But…”
“Stop! I won’t hear any more nonsense.”
He suppressed a flood of the blistering, unreasoning rage that had swept him to the brink with King Bragi. That anger, unrestrained, was the reason today’s ugly world had come to be.
He clamped his jaw, went on with his work. He spent time with the mental specialists as needed. They proved deft at panning nuggets he did not know lay hidden in the lowest sands of his mind.
He left Fangdred, though, so he would not have to watch while Nepanthe endured the process.
He was sure he would lose his composure if he stayed.
He took bin Yousif with him.
Chapter Twenty-Six:
Late Autumn 1018 AFE:
Beyond Ressurection
R agnarson bellowed, “Silence!”
He had the voice of command still, and it was loud, yet the effect was neither quick nor comprehensive.
“I will have you beaten if you don’t stop running your mouths.”
Those people knew he was not given to idle threats. They knew, too, that there was no precedent for him doing anything of the sort. Only…
Only this was, clearly, not the man whose arrogance had driven him to disaster beyond the Mountains of M’Hand. This man had been chastened and tempered.
He had a harder feel, and, maybe, a new disdain for past tolerance. He might even have developed a streak of cruelty.
He had been in the thrall of the Dread Empire. Only the shell might be Bragi Ragnarson now. Best not to irk the possible monster concealed inside. Though, still, he was just one man.
Even so, the Thing hall so quietened that the proverbial pin would have sounded like a clash of cymbals. It seemed, almost, that everyone had stopped breathing.
In that desolation of sound a small voice asked, “Daddy?”
The tiny question had more impact on Kavelin than did all the murder and maneuver of the year just passed. Bragi Ragnarson, startled, looked down at the boy in the old-fashioned clothes, who looked back with puzzled hope.
The hard man changed. He scooped the boy up, settled him onto his left hip. He peered into the Sedlmayrese delegation, beckoned Kristen, shook his head slightly when Dahl Haas started to follow.
Ragnarson settled his grandson on his other hip, then declared, “The bullshit will stop.” That sounded certain as death. That made it plain who would be in charge. Special pain was in store for anyone who disagreed. All of which he sold without having one soldier behind him.
“I made a big mistake. It cost me more than I can calculate but it cost Kavelin even more. It almost cost everything that three monarchs did to make this a principality where every subject could be proud to live. I will not repeat that error. I vow that here, now.”
He was improvising, promising what many wanted to hear but meaning it. His intensity permitted no questions, however much future and established enemies might want to know about his relationship with the Dread Empire.
His piece said, he spoke past Kristen to Inger, “Give them the rest of today to get their minds around this.”
Inger managed a nod. She looked to Josiah Gales, who nodded in turn. “Don’t we all? Need time?”
Bragi Ragnarson carried his son and grandson down to the floor of the hall, followed by Kristen Gjerdrumsdottir. He set the boys down, took each by the hand, walked out, headed for Castle Krief. He was not armed. Today he had no need.
He was improvising still, going on instinct. For the moment instinct and timing were enough.
The news had gotten out already. People came to see. Most remained quiet and respectful. There was almost supernatural awe in their attitudes.
There was, as well, hope.
Nature had blessed Kavelin. A tide of economic improvement was rising. But the political situation remained calm mainly because the contenders were exhausted and, in Inger’s case, impoverished. Ordinary folk dreaded the day she obtained fresh resources.
This might herald the possibility of avoiding all that.
A wondrous hope it was.
…
Inger stared at Josiah Gales as the excitement oozed out of the Thing hall. He said nothing. Neither did Babeltausque, nor did Nathan, who had rejoined them, still shocked. Dr. Wachtel fidgeted but kept his mouth shut.
“What do we do?” Inger murmured. “What do we do?”
She harvested no advice. Josiah, though, looked like a man who had shed a huge moral burden. Nathan was afraid. His future no longer looked as sweet as it had-that age of bitter almonds. Babeltausque stared in the direction the Heltkler girl went as Ozora Mundwiller led her tribe away.
Inger was worried about the sorcerer. Something was going on with him. Something obsessive. It might be a harbinger of a darkness to come.
She hoped she was wrong. She hoped she was imagining it. She hoped he was not just one trivial mishap of an emotional trigger short of crossing over into the night land that had claimed Father Ather Kendo.
She hoped, but, this morning, she had no confidence that she would ever see anything good again. Hell had become impatient. Hell was coming to her.
Josiah said, “What do we do? How about we go home, hunker down, and see what happens next?”
Bragi was back. He had come in like some natural force, gathering the ley lines of power and expectation to himself. Nothing would happen ever again without his hands being on it, in it, or taken into account. He had managed it so easily, so instinctively.