“Hissune! Lord Hissune! Long life to Lord Hissune!”
“And long life to you, Divvis—for we will have need of your bravery in the struggle that lies before us. Get up, man. Get up!”
Divvis rose. His eyes unhesitatingly met Hissune’s; and across his features there played such a succession of emotions that Hissune could hardly interpret them all, though it seemed to him that he saw envy there, and anger, and bitterness—but also a certain degree of respect, and even a grudging admiration, and something like a tinge of amusement, as if Divvis could not resist smiling at the strange — permutations of fate that had brought them together in this place in these new roles.
Waving a hand behind him at the river, Divvis said, “Have I brought you sufficient troops, my lord?”
“An immense force, yes; a brilliant accomplishment, recruiting an army of such size. But who knows what will be sufficient, Divvis, in lighting an army of phantoms? The Shapeshifters will have many ugly surprises for us yet.”
With a light laugh Divvis said, “I heard, my lord, of the birds they sent you this morning.”
“No laughing matter, my lord Divvis. These were dread monsters of a most frightful sort that struck down people in the streets and fed upon their bodies before they were cold. I saw that done to a child, myself, from the window of my own bedroom. But I think we have slain them all, or nearly. And in due course we will slay their makers, too.”
“It surprises me to hear you so vengeful, my lord.”
“Am I vengeful?” Hissune said. “Why, then, if you say it, I suppose it must be so. Living here for weeks in this shattered city makes one vengeful, perhaps. Seeing monstrous vermin turned loose upon innocent citizens by our enemies makes one vengeful. Piurifayne is like some loathsome boil, from which all manner of putrescence comes spilling out into the civilized lands. I intend to lance that boil and cauterize it entirely. And I tell you this, Divvis: with your help I will impose a terrible vengeance upon those who have made this war on us.”
“You sound very little like Lord Valentine, my lord, when you speak of vengeance that way. I think I never knew him to use the word.”
“And is there any reason why I should sound like Lord Valentine, Divvis? I am Hissune.”
“You are his chosen successor.”
“Yes, and Valentine is no longer Coronal, by that very choice. It may be that my way of dealing with our enemies will not be much like Lord Valentine’s way.”
“Then you must tell me what your way is.”
“I think you already know it. I mean to march down into Piurifayne by way of the Steiche, while you go around from the western side, and we will squeeze the rebels between us, and take this Faraataa and bring a halt to his loosing of monsters and plagues against us. And afterward the Pontifex can summon the surviving rebels, and in his more loving way negotiate some resolution of the Shapeshifters’ valid grievances against us. But first we must show force, I think. And if we must shed the blood of those who would shed ours, why, then we must shed their blood. What do you say to that, Divvis?”
“I say that I have not heard greater sense from the lips of a Coronal since my father held the throne. But the Pontifex, I think, would answer otherwise, if he had heard you speaking so belligerently. Is he aware of your plans?”
“We have not yet discussed them in great detail.”
“And will you, then?”
“The Pontifex is currently in Khyntor, or west of there,” said Hissune. “His work will occupy him there some time; and then it will take him a very long while to come this far east again, and I will be deep into Piurifayne, I think, by that time, and we will have little opportunity for consultation.”
A certain slyness entered Divvis’s eyes. “Ah, I see how you deal with your problem, my lord.”
“And what problem is that?”
“Of being Coronal, while your Pontifex remains at large, marching about the countryside, instead of hiding himself decently out of sight in the Labyrinth. I think that could be a great embarrassment to a new young Coronal, and I would like it very little if I faced such a situation myself. But if you take care to keep a great distance between the Pontifex and yourself, and you credit any differences between your policies and his to that great distance, why, then, you could manage to function almost as though you had a completely free hand, eh, my lord?”
“I think we tread now on dangerous ground, Divvis.”
“Ah. Do we?”
“We do indeed. And you overestimate the differences between my outlook and Valentine’s. He is not himself a man of war, as we all well understand; but perhaps that is why he has removed himself from the Confalume Throne in my favor. I believe we understand each other, the Pontifex and I, and let us not carry this discussion any further in that direction. Come, now, Divvis: it would be proper, I think, to invite me to your cabin to share a bowl or two of wine, and then you must come with me to Nissimorn Prospect to share another. And then we should sit down to plan the conduct of our war. What do you say to that, my lord Divvis? What do you say to that?”
4
The rain was beginning again, washing away the outlines of the map Faraataa had drawn in the damp mud of the river-bank. But that made little difference to him. He had been drawing and redrawing the same map all day, and no need for doing any of that, for every detail of it was engraved in the recesses and contours of his brain. Ilirivoyne here, Avendroyne there, New Velalisier over here. The rivers, the mountains. The positions of the two invading armies—
The positions of the two invading armies—
Faraataa had not anticipated that. It was the one great flaw in his planning, that the Unchanging Ones should have invaded Piurifayne. The coward weakling Lord Valentine would never have done anything like that; no, Valentine would rather have come groveling with his nose in the mud to the Danipiur and begged humbly for a treaty of friendship. But Valentine was no longer the king—or, rather, he had become the other king, now, the one with the greater rank but the weaker powers—how could anyone understand the mad arrangements of the Unchanging Ones?—and there was a new king now, the young one, Lord Hissune, who appeared to be a very different sort of man. …
“Aarisiim!” Faraataa called. “What news is there?”
“Very little, O King That Is. We are awaiting reports from the western front, but it will be some while.”
“And from the Steiche battle?”
“I am told that the forest-brethren are still being uncooperative, but that we are at last succeeding in compelling their assistance in laying the birdnet vine.”
“Good. Good. But will it be laid in time to stop Lord Hissune’s advance?”
“That is most likely, O King That Is.”
“And do you say that,” Faraataa demanded, “because it is true, or because it is what you think I prefer to hear?”
Aarisiim stared, and gaped, and in his embarrassment his shape began to alter, so that for a moment he became a frail structure of wavy ropes that blew in the breeze, and then a tangle of elongated rigid rods swollen at both ends; and then he was Aarisiim once again. In a quiet voice he said, “You do me great injustice, O Faraataa!”
“Perhaps I do.”
“I tell you no untruths.”
“If that is true, then all else is, and I will accept it that that is true,” said Faraataa bleakly. Overhead the rain grew more clamorous, battering against the jungle canopy. “Go, and come back when you have the news from the west.”
Aarisiim vanished amidst the darkness of the trees. Faraataa, scowling, restless, began drawing his map once again.
There was an army in the west, uncountable millions of the Unchanging Ones, led by the hairy-faced lord whose name was Divvis, that was a son of the former Coronal Lord Voriax. We slew your father while he hunted in the forest, did you know that, Divvis? The huntsman who fired the fatal bolt was a Piurivar, though he wore the face of a Castle lord. See, the pitiful Shapeshifters can kill a Coronal! We can kill you also, Divvis. We will kill you also, if you are careless, as your father was.