Unforgivably, irretrievably stupid…
CHAPTER 1
“Ce’na davonet, Giré D’Arnath! You’ll dance at my daughter’s naming day. I bring you the key!” Jayereth, late again. She danced into the council chamber, the garish beads that dangled from her hair, her neck, and her waist clacking as she whirled across the stone floor on her toes. I could feel Ustele’s hackles rising. Jayereth scandalized many of the elder Dar’Nethi, who had not yet recognized the wisdom beneath her youthful irreverence.
“And what key is that?” I felt unremittingly dull, perhaps because I’d been sitting in this Preceptorate meeting since breakfast. Men’Thor had just left the chamber after sitting all day in the row of six auditors’ chairs, here again at his father Ustele’s invitation. Between them they had added another six hours to their four years of argument that my plan to defeat the Lords of Zhev’Na without bloodshed could never work.
To successfully counter an eminent Historian and a silken-voiced Effector who could make the most outlandish schemes sound as simple as planning a trip to market required more muscular debating skills than I possessed. Many people urged me to appoint Men’Thor to one of the vacant seats on the Preceptorate. But I suffered nightmares of having the father at one ear and the son at the other.
“You really must attend our meetings on time, Preceptor Jayereth,” snapped Ce’Aret. “Happily, we’ve just begun our regular order of business.”
Not so happily. That meant we had at least three hours of minutiae still to discuss. My mind had been wandering across D’Arnath’s Bridge for half the day, conjuring the gleaming impertinence of my wife’s brown eyes and the throaty richness of her voice. It had been far too long since I’d seen her… months. I needed to bury my face in her sweet breast and let her remind me again of who I was and what perverse path of fortune and duty had decreed we must remain so far apart.
Ignoring Ce’Aret’s admonition, Ustele’s glare, and Gar’Dena’s and Ven’Dar’s amused stares, Jayereth twirled once more, halting just in front of my chair, teetering on her toes until I thought she must fall into my lap. But she settled to her feet, pushed away the bead-woven brown curls fallen across her eyes, and swept a graceful bow, stirring the stale air of the stone council chamber with the scent of ginger soap. “I’ve brought the key to unlock the chains of your people, my lord! Is that not what you commanded me? No Dar’Nethi need fear the seal of Zhev’Na ever again.”
At last her words penetrated my daydream and caused me to pay attention. “Mordemar… ”
“… has no power over any who wear this.” She dangled a tiny silver medallion from her fingers on a fine silver chain that chinked lightly as she teased my eye. “It can be embedded into armor, or jewelry, or inset into a boot.” The slip of metal she dropped into my fingers might have been a sliver of ice, setting my every hair crackling with frost, every pore stinging with life and health - monumental enchantment.
The key, indeed! I’d sworn that no Dar’Nethi would wear the slave collars of the Zhev’Na one moment longer than I could prevent, and the companion vow was to rob the Lords of the mordemar they used to seal the collars, the vile material that stripped a Dar’Nethi of the substance of his soul and with it all power for sorcery. And against all advice and expectation, I had entrusted the search for an answer to this thoroughly unconventional young woman. “You’ve found the countering enchantment.”
“Give me a fortnight, and I’ll refine the working until no metal is required. Let me show you.”
Like a whirlwind reshaping the landscape, Jayereth laid a crucible filled with gray powder and two thin, battered straps of metal side by side on the council table. As the other Preceptors gathered close, a burst of invisible fire from the young woman’s hand caused the powder to slump into gray sludge. Even after four years, the stink of it wrenched my gut.
“Now watch. Feel.” She poured the molten mordemar from the crucible into the narrow space between the two strips of metal as if to seal the closure of a slave collar. The liquid fell in thick, soft plops, spreading quickly as it touched the surface of the table, dissolving the steel edges of the collar and filling every bit of the space between. In moments it had hardened to a dull gray ridge. I closed my eyes and felt its vile enchantment swell into a dark knot in the path of life, a wretched blight that was the death of power and hope for the unlucky slave.
“Now touch it with the medallion.”
Swallowing the memory of despair, I opened my eyes and laid the slip of silver on the hardened seal. As if the chamber walls around us had yielded a great sigh, I felt the dark enchantment unravel, dissolve, and swirl away. The gray seal disintegrated, leaving naught but two ugly strips of metal and a patch of dust.
“Magnificent!” bellowed Gar’Dena over my shoulder. “Great Vasrin’s hand, girl, you’ve done it!”
Ven’Dar fingered the metal and the dust, sniffing it, tasting it. His smile grew slowly and when he looked up, his gaze met mine straight on. “Marvelous.” No other words were necessary. He knew what this meant to me.
“We must think carefully about this,” said Ustele, hobbling back to his seat, one hand raised in warning. “We can’t just - Such a weapon. This news must stay amongst us. Secret. Until we decide how to use it.”
“Balderdash!” said Gar’Dena. “Proclaim it to the world. Let the Lords know their time is fading.”
“Well done, Preceptor,” said Ce’Aret, her withered cheeks flushed, her fist clenched. Ce’Aret had lost three sons, two daughters, and her only grandson to the Lords of Zhev’Na and their warrior Zhid, four of them taken into slavery as she watched from the walls of Avonar. “Of course you can’t be babbling the formulation about the city. We can’t have the devils restructure the making of mordemar to counter your formulation. As Ustele warns, we must be careful and thoughtful.”
“Did anyone assist you?” I asked, awed at the enormity of Jayereth’s accomplishment. Yes, caution was certainly in order. “Have you told anyone? Written it down?”
“No, no, and not yet.” Grinning delight danced across her countenance. “I wanted to surprise you, lord Prince. You’ve seemed out of sorts of late.”
“No insolence, young woman!” But I grinned back at her, knowing she spoke truth.
Four years of unrelenting duty had been dragging at my spirits, leaving me snappish and dull and feeling sorry for myself. For weeks I had been promising myself a venture across the D’Arnath’s Bridge to steal a few hours for my own need, and the only thing that had enabled me to sit through this day’s tedium was my vow to go this very night no matter the Preceptors, the Lords, or the end of the world.
But this discovery changed things, of course. I ran my fingers through my hair trying to focus on duty and quell the resentment rising in my gut. One of Gar’Dena’s daughters was ill. Ven’Dar was due to take the evening inspection on the city walls, a duty that would take hours. Neither Ce’Aret nor Ustele had a moment’s patience with Jayereth and both were asleep with the pigeons on most evenings. We dared not spread the news to Zhev’Na, but the surest way to secure Jayereth’s knowledge was to share it amongst ourselves. “This meeting is over. I’ll go with Jayereth, so she can show me her - ”
“No need to shepherd me, my lord,” said Jayereth, bundling her materials into her arms. “I’ve already started copying my notes. If Mistress Ce’Aret will excuse me from the rest of the meeting, I’ll promise not to leave the palace tonight until warded transcripts are safely in each Preceptor’s hands.”