Harry Turtledove: The Scepter's return

Pterocles thought he'd succeeded where everyone else had failed. He had a hard-won advantage over the wizards who'd come before him. Up in the Chernagor country, a spell from the Banished One had all but slain him. When he recovered — a slow, painful process — he'd understood the Banished One's sorcery from the inside out, as only one who had suffered from it might do.

He had freed one thrall. Otus still lived under guard in the royal palace. No one wanted to take too many chances with him. But, by all appearances, he was a thrall no more. Pterocles could track the Banished One's wizardry deeper than any other sorcerer had ever been able to. By all he could sense, Otus was free.

Grus sighed. "I think our wizards can keep us free and free the thralls, yes. That's what we're gambling on, isn't it? When the army crosses the Stura, I'm going with it. I won't ask you or the men to face anything I don't have the nerve to face myself."

Hirundo bowed in his seat. "No one has ever questioned your bravery, Your Majesty. No one would dare to now."

"Ha!" Grus shook his head. "You're too sunny, Hirundo. People always have. They always will. If someone doesn't like you, he'll find reasons not to like you whether they're there or not."

"Maybe," Hirundo said — as much as he would admit.

Laughing, Grus added, "Besides, I have another reason for crossing the Stura this year. I want to get down to Yozgat."

"The Scepter of Mercy?" Hirundo asked.

"That's right." Grus laughed no more. His nod was heavy. "The Scepter of Mercy."

Kings of Avornis had coveted the potent talisman for more than four hundred years. The nomads — and the exiled god — kept it in Yozgat, the strongest citadel they had. If the Avornans ever got it back, it would make a great shield and a great weapon against the Banished One. He had never been able to wield it himself. If he ever found some way to do that, he might storm his way back into the heavens from which he'd been expelled.

"Do you think we can?" Hirundo, for once, sounded altogether serious. No one could take the Scepter of Mercy lightly.

"I don't know. I just don't know," Grus said. "But if not now, when? We have — we hope we have — a spell to cure the thralls. The Menteshe are in disarray from fighting one another. When will we ever have a better chance?"

"If you can bring it off, your name will live forever," Hirundo said.

Grus started to tell him that didn't matter. But it did, and he knew it. All a man could leave behind were his children and his name. Ortalis had always been a disappointment, even if Grus was reluctant to admit it even to himself. As for his name… He'd kept the Thervings from lording it over Avornis. He had — or he hoped he had — stopped the Chernagors' piratical raids on his coasts, and he'd kept the Banished One from gaining a foothold in the Chernagor country. He'd also kept Avornan nobles from taking the peasants under their wings — and taking them away from their loyalty to the king and to the kingdom as a whole. The nobles didn't love him for it, but that — since he'd beaten a couple of rebels — wasn't his biggest worry.

If he could bring the Scepter of Mercy back to the capital in triumph… Well, if that wasn't enough to get him remembered for a long, long time, nothing ever would be.

He noticed Hirundo watching him. The general smiled, noticing him notice. "You do want it," Hirundo said. "It's as plain as the nose on your face."

Considering how formidable that nose was, it must have been plain indeed. "I can't tell you you're wrong," Grus said. "Ever since the Scepter got stolen, there hasn't been a King of Avornis who didn't want to take it back."

"Yes, but how many of them have had a chance to do it?" Hirundo asked.

"I don't know," Grus answered. "I'm not even sure I have that chance. But I aim to find out."

"One thing, Your Majesty — you can leave Lanius behind to run things here while you go off to war," Hirundo said. "He'll do fine while you're away."

"Yes." King Grus let it go at that. Lanius had done fine running things in the city of Avornis while he went on campaign himself. He wasn't sure whether that was good or bad, though. He'd kept Lanius away from power as long as he could. The more the scion of the ancient dynasty held, the less secure Grus' grip on the rest was.

Lanius had never tried to rise against him. If he did.. Grus didn't know what would happen. Not knowing worried him. He was reaching the end of his prime of life as Lanius entered his. He realized that. He wondered if the other king did, too.

He hoped not.

Lanius washed down his breakfast porridge with a sip of wine, then said, "I'm off to the moncats."

Queen Sosia looked back across the table at him. "Is that where you're going?" she murmured.

Lanius' ears heated. That had nothing to do with the wine. "Yes, that is where I'm going," he said. "You're welcome to come along if you care to."

His wife shook her head. "No, thank you — never mind. If I came along, that would be where you went." She took a long pull at her own cup of wine.

"It was where I was going anyway," Lanius said. Sosia didn't answer. The king got up from the table and left in a hurry. Anything he said after that would make things worse, not better. There were times when he told Sosia he was going to visit the moncats and he paid a call on a serving girl instead. It wasn't that he didn't care for the queen. He hadn't expected to when Grus arranged their marriage, but he did. But he was king, even if he was the second of two kings, and he could do more or less as he pleased. Every so often, he pleased to yield to temptation.

Grus was in no position to tell him what a wicked fellow he was. The other king didn't hesitate, either, when he saw a face or a form that struck his fancy. Queen Estrilda had given him as much trouble for it as Sosia gave Lanius.

This time, though, Lanius left the small dining room by his bedchamber in a warm glow of injured innocence. He really had intended to go to the moncats and nowhere else. Well, almost nowhere else — he stopped in the kitchens for some scraps of meat first. "You're going to waste more good food on those thieving, miserable creatures," one of the cooks said, sadly shaking her head.

"They aren't miserable." Lanius couldn't deny that moncats stole, because they did. The cook only sniffed.

When the king got to the moncats' chamber, he opened the door with care. He didn't want them getting out. With their grasping hands and feet and with their agility, they were hard as a demon to catch when they got loose.

Some of the moncats in the room were washing themselves, some sleeping with their tails wrapped around their noses, and some climbing on the framework of boards and branches that did duty for a forest. They stared down at Lanius out of green or yellow eyes.

They were clever animals, clever enough to give him the uneasy feeling they were measuring him with those glances, measuring him and finding him.. perhaps barely adequate. "Pouncer?" he called. "Are you here, Pouncer, you miserable beast?" He stole the cook's word now that she couldn't hear him do it, though he meant it for reasons different from hers.

He laughed at himself. He was a fairly miserable creature in his own right if he expected Pouncer or any other moncat to come when called. Moncats weren't just like ordinary house cats. Thanks to their hands and sharp wits, they could make bigger pests of themselves than house cats could. But they were every bit as cross-grained as the most ordinary tabby.

Pouncer should have been here. The moncat shouldn't have been able to get out. But it could. Lanius had yet to figure out how it managed the trick. Once, Pouncer had disappeared right before his eyes. He'd stopped watching the moncat for a moment — no more than a moment — and when he looked back, Pouncer wasn't there to be watched anymore. It made the king wonder who was smarter than whom.