Gregory Keyes - The Briar King

“You will have access to whatever this kingdom has,” the queen assured him. “Now, tell me. Do you see anything of Hansa in all of this?”

“Hansa, my queen?” Stephen asked, confused. “Nothing. Desmond Spendlove was from Virgenya. The Sefry owe allegiance to no nation.”

“You see no involvement of Liery, either?” she asked, very softly.

“No, Majesty.”

“Did you know the king was dead, as well? Did they speak of him?”

Stephen found his mouth was open, with nothing coming out.

“Well?”

“No, Majesty,” he managed. “No mention was ever made of the king.”

“It must have happened on the same day,” the queen said. “The rider just reached us with the news.”

“I … my deepest condolences, Your Majesty.”

“Thank you.” Her brow wrinkled and smoothed. She seemed to start to say something, think better of it, and start again. “Much strange happened at Cal Azroth. Much out of the ordinary. Your account has been passed to me, but I would like to hear it again, and your thoughts on the matter.”

Stephen told her what he could of the greffyn and the Briar King, of Aspar White’s adventures and his own. He knew it all sounded incredible, but his saint-blessed memory was clear. He could not, like an ordinary person, retreat to a dreamworld where the events themselves had been a dream, where the Briar King and the greffyn had been born of terror and exhaustion, blood haze or wine.

“The accounts are mixed,” he concluded. “The greffyn was in the habit of following the Sefry, I cannot say why. I don’t think they commanded it, or it them, merely that they traveled untouched by it, as did the monks. The Briar King himself was wakened and summoned by the horn, I think, and it seems he has returned to the King’s Forest.”

“His trail is clear enough,” the duchess remarked. “My riders found a path of dark thorns marching to the edge of the forest.”

“The same thorns that destroyed Cal Azroth,” the queen said. “You cannot say why he came?”

Stephen winced. “As you know, I returned yesterday to Cal Azroth with knights in the service of her ladyship the duchess. The growth of the vines, at least, has subsided; they creep still, but at slower pace. As for the Briar King—and I do believe that is who we saw—the Briar King is very ancient, perhaps one of the old gods the saints were said to have defeated. He came to Cal Azroth because I summoned him there with his horn. The sedos provided the summoning, and the feinglest sacred to Fiussa became the door of his manifestation.

“Whatever he was before, he is flesh now, and walks the world.”

“You haven’t answered my question,” the queen replied.

“I do not know the answer, Majesty,” Stephen said quietly. “But if the accounts we have are to be trusted, his waking forebodes evil times.” He paused. “Very evil times. Perhaps the end of everything we know.”

“So I have heard. And yet the world still exists.”

“Your pardon, Majesty,” Stephen replied. “That may be so, but I feel as if an hourglass has been turned, and when the sands run out …” He shook his head. He had nothing to finish the thought with.

The queen seemed somehow to understand, and did not press him. And yet her silence itself was a weight.

“Majesty,” he began again, “I threatened blowing the horn only to stop Desmond Spendlove completing his sorcery.” He paused, and guilt as keen as grief nearly stoppered his throat. “I did not intend to sound it, nor did I believe anything would result if I did so. I am to blame for whatever follows.”

The queen shrugged. “If Sir Neil had turned changeling, I would now be dead. That threat is ended, thanks to you. I only wish you had acted earlier, for my daughters would also be alive. As to the apparition we all saw, despite your instincts, there seemed no malice in his actions. He spared me, certainly. He left as soon as he appeared, and the destruction of Cal Azroth, I think, was just a by-blow of his coming. Keep your guilt, Stephen Darige, for when it has proven itself justified.”

Stephen bowed. “I will try to learn what I have done and right it, Majesty. I once thought I knew quite a lot. Now I think I know very little indeed.” He looked the queen directly in the eye. “But I must repeat. I speak from something deeper than instinct. Our troubles are not ended. They have just begun. The world is changed. Can you not feel it, Majesty?”

“Two of my children are dead,” the queen said, her eyes focused on some middle distance. “My husband, the emperor of Crotheny, is dead. My best friend is dead.” Her gaze suddenly stabbed into Stephen’s. “The world I knew is not changed. It is dead.”

Stephen’s audience was ended soon after that, and he took the opportunity to wander through the airy halls of Glenchest to the hospital that had been set up in one of the lesser-used chambers. A young knight from Liery lay there, one Neil MeqVren. His deep, regular breaths proved him asleep, taking the rest his body needed to recover from the insults dealt it.

Stephen’s own bed had been empty for two days; the wound in his arm still ached and leaked frequently, but the fever in it had gone quickly.

The third bed—Aspar’s—was empty, of course.

Outside he heard voices. He peeked through the door to the terrace beyond, where two figures shared a bench between a pair of potted orange trees, gazing on the rich, rolling hills of Loiyes.

He’d turned, deciding not to interrupt, when a gruff voice called his name.

“What are you skulking about for, Cape Chavel Darige? Join us in the sun.”

“Yes, do,” Winna—who sat next to Aspar—said. Stephen noticed the two were holding hands.

“You’ve told me often how poor my skulking is,” Stephen replied. “I thought to improve it.”

“By practice? Is there no book on the subject?”

“Indeed,” Stephen said. “It’s contained in a certain bestiary I know.”

Observations on the Quaint and Vulgar Behaviors of the Common Holter-Beast.

Stephen suppressed a smile. “But sometimes,” he went on, “sometimes, I’ve learned, a bit of practice is necessary.”

“Yah,” Aspar allowed. “Sometimes, I suppose. And some-times—not often, mind you—the learning of books may have its use.”

Stephen ambled out onto the white stone of the terrace. The air was edged with a promise of autumn, and to prove it the apple trees out on the fields wore golden crowns.

Winna rose, patted Aspar’s hand, and kissed him lightly on the lips. “I’ll return,” she said. “I’m off to see what I can garner from the kitchen. I’ll bring us back a picnic.”

“No pickled lark’s tongue or gilded cockatrice balls,” As-par grunted. “Look in the servant’s larder and see if you can find some honest cheese.”

When she had gone, Aspar glowered at Stephen. “What are you grinning about?”

“You blushed. When she kissed you.”

“Sceat. It’s the sun, is all.”

“She’s good for you, I think. She improves your disposition considerably.”

“It never needed improving.”

“So the old rooster said before ending in the pot,” Stephen replied.

“Huh,” Aspar grunted, apparently at a loss for a protracted defense.

Stephen took a seat on another bench, and a quiet grew between them, until Aspar cleared his throat.

“Why am I alive?” he asked. “The medicine Mother Gastya gave me could never have been that potent, and it was gone, besides.”

“True,” Stephen replied. “I’d hoped you would remember. Don’t you?”

Aspar looked off toward the King’s Forest. “ He did it, didn’t he?”

“I think so. Don’t ask me why.”