L. Modesitt: Imager’s Battalion

Quaeryt had a sinking feeling. “Are matters that bad in Solis?”

“Not any longer. That’s because of you and the imagers. Once word came about you…”

“Me?”

“Bhayar could explain that better than I.”

Quaeryt could see she didn’t want to talk about that, and as long as whatever difficulty had eased in Solis … but that raised a more urgent question. “What date is it?”

“The nineteenth of Feuillyt.”

“Almost a month … a month?”

“Yes, dearest.”

“When did you arrive?”

“A week ago Lundi.”

“You’ve been here more than a week?”

She nodded. “At first you didn’t hear me, but the last few days, something was different, and I kept hoping. Then you would stop listening and murmur about the wailing and the pleading…”

“What happened? Why can’t I remember?”

“That’s because you didn’t see what happened,” she said. “Khalis told me that when the ice flakes fell from everywhere you sat in the saddle and never moved. They had to pry the reins from your hand, and three of them had to lift you out of the saddle.”

“You haven’t told me what happened.”

“You secured a great victory for Bhayar.” Her words were even.

“How great a victory?” Even as he asked, he feared that he already knew. Still … he had to know. He disengaged his hand from hers and stood, twinges running through his bad left leg, then slowly walked, his legs shaking under him, even with Vaelora supporting him, toward the window, its interior trim white, the glass set in small panes suggesting that the frame was old and belonged to someone of wealth. But then, High Holders seldom lacked for golds.

“Dearest…” Vaelora stopped him before he could reach the window.

“What?” He looked into her warm brown eyes and saw only love and concern.

“Remember it is now fall, not harvest.”

Why would she say that? Then, as he turned back to the small tower window, his eyes took in the seemingly endless brown and gray, the trees without leaves, and the few evergreens that he could see from the height of the tower even looking beaten down, he understood … and swallowed. “How much…?”

Vaelora was silent.

“How much?” he repeated.

“A great area around the Chateau Regis, all the way from the isle of piers to a mille west of the chateau, nothing north of your battle lines within a mille survived. That is what Khalis said. All was ice for days. Even the river froze solid.”

The river he understood, but so much else? “You saw this?”

“Most of the ice had melted when I arrived.”

Quaeryt did not have to ask how many had died. “What about Rex Kharst?”

“He and all his family were in the Chateau Regis.”

“Where is Bhayar?”

“Somewhere below, waiting, doing what he must, and hoping that you will be yourself again. I told him you would be.”

“You saw?”

She smiled. “I know what I know.”

As he turned from the window, he caught sight of an image in the wall mirror-a man with light honey-gold skin and snow-white hair, and white eyebrows, yet the face was yet that of a man young and in his prime, if haggard, except for the darkness in the black eyes, a darkness that went beyond mere black. For a moment, if only a moment, he wondered who that man might be, that man of winter.

Who indeed, to have done what has been done?

“Dearest … you have me … and you have our daughter.”

Quaeryt stopped, then turned back to her, forcing a smile, sad as he knew it to be. “Yes, I do.” And I will need you both … more than even you know.

“And we have our dreams…”

Ah, yes, the dreams of what will be … He kept smiling, hard as it was. “For them, for our daughter … there is tomorrow.” When all will change, change utterly.