Page 31 of Valdemar

Kordas exhaled from strain as Jonaton foisted yet another “liberated” Imperial Library tome down onto the stack the new King already held in both arms. Jonaton apparently didn’t take any note of his liege’s discomfort—being a little too much like the cats he loved—and scooped up a set of scrolls and paper flats, following Kordas. A good dozen cats were dotted around the room, atop tables, tucked between books and bottles, and occasionally chasing down some highly suspect mote of dust.

“You’ve known me all your life,” Jonaton continued, “so the things I do can’t be a surprise to you anymore. If I needed something, you’d give it to me, and if I needed something another person had, you’d persuade them to give it to me. All I do by stealing it is simply save some time for myself, and save you some bother.” Jonaton then pointed to a cat-laden planning table. “Over there.”

Kordas frowned before putting the stack down heavily on the table, scattering cats with the thump. “Well, I can assure you that everybody tasked with inventory duties loses their hair over you,” the King replied. “I find notes in the margins saying ‘Jonaton?’ for about every twentieth discrepancy. A band of thieves could operate with less than you.”

Jonaton, unfazed by the King’s words, answered, “Open those to their bookmarks,” like he was directing a hireling page. Kordas growled at the quirky mage to remind him there was a Serious Discussion going on here.

“I didn’t come here to squire for you, Mage,” Kordas replied, attempting to be at least slightly intimidating, which was utterly blunted by one of Jonaton’s charming grins.

“Anytime you want me to stop my exploration, Kordas, just give me the royal decree,” the mage replied. “Be sure to send Hakkon to enforce it. He’d love that.”

Hakkon, of course, was in charge of the pages and squires of the Palace, and long-time partner with Jonaton. One of Hakkon’s common grumbles was that he and Jonaton seldom got enough time together, and Kordas had to admit there was truth in that. The last few years had been “settled,” but that didn’t mean “idle,” and both of the men were prone to overwork in service to the people.

“As the Old Men would say, ‘I can arrange that.’” Kordas chuckled. “And I won’t deny you’re vital to us, Jonaton. As a dear friend to me, as an esteemed asset of the Crown, and as a bad example to all.”

“It’s settled, then. In this case, all the missing paper was for what I’m about to show you. I also took the last draft of the city map. Technically it was outdated. It said ‘Manor House,’ not ‘Palace,’” Jonaton taunted Kordas, while collecting some marking and geometry instruments. Cats scattered when Jonaton kicked at a carpet to unroll it. Chalk arcs, spirals, lines, and abbreviations filled the darkened, stained pile of the rug, and Jonaton laid his instruments down on it from one knee. “Obviously, there were strange things happening at the coronation. I heard you were made a King or something, but my attention was on the sky.”

Kordas was no stranger at all to Jonaton’s ways of taking notes, and he read the new charting. It was a map, of sorts, and though the buildings of the city were barely approximated, the map was one of fields of tension and energy, not roads, around Haven. Jonaton pushed his hair back and then clapped twice. Yellow and green lines of dim light climbed upward from a handful of points on the carpet map, and they curved, united, multiplied into and around each other. New lines came up from the chalk in sheets of green, and Kordas surmised that this represented the Tayledras’s protective shielding, which extended slightly across the Terilee River and its bridges. The fields bent in on each other in an architectural fashion, revealing buttresses and pointed domes to multiply their strength and disperse threats.

“The Hawkbrothers and my apprentices worked with me on these.”

“Where are your apprentices? Why weren’t they helping you with the books instead of me?” Kordas asked.

“I have them busy stealing things for me,” Jonaton replied, and honestly, Kordas wasn’t certain he was joking. “But to continue, this interlaced defensive structure was also readable by mage-sight as a direction finder, like the mental discipline we taught you.”

Kordas nodded and Jonaton turned his palms in midair, bringing motion to the display of the energy structure. Stabs and flashes of light struck the midair shapes from the inside of the structure, much like raindrops falling upward might. “These are the shows and celebrations. The bigger wipes are the light shows and the big illusions. Here.” He accelerated the display, and the area over and around the Palace popped and hissed like wet firewood, with dazzles of light to match, each traceable by lines of light to points on the “ground.” “And this is fine—this is what we expected. For this next part you need some distance. Go over there by Sydney the Third.”

Jonaton’s jaw set firm as he clenched his teeth. “You and the Circle and I have dealt with some impressively high power in our years. You can read by the colors here which kind of energy is which—what affects the physical, emotion, mind, temperature, and so forth. This is not something I want to show the Council. I haven’t even shown Silvermoon yet.” Jonaton turned his palms again and the shimmering approximation of the silver horse came into view, over the defensive structure. Thousands of wisplike lines of white radiated out from it.

Kordas’s jaw fell open slightly, and he all but whispered, “Its origin is—”

“Everywhere. Yes. You’ve seen that before, we all have. That’s when something from outside our physical world comes “through” into ours. It didn’t come from people.”

“Divine?” Kordas ventured. “We thought it might have been a symbol sent by Epona to encourage us, but none of us actually know anything about its origin.”

Jonaton pressed his palms together and then turned them, and the visualization restarted, but this time, the energy shown smeared into long paths, lingering in the air to form something like brushstrokes, which showed motion better than dots.

The white horse’s path went across the river before fading above the forest there.

“This is for your eyes only, Kordas.”

Kordas saw a red ball of light make its way across the far side of the room, maybe miles away in the visualization’s scale. It winked out at the opposite side of the room. A few seconds later, another one came from the nearer side of the room to the King, and then it, too, dwindled away. Then a third one, and a fourth, and each time they grew closer to the Palace and the coronation gathering.

Jonaton gravely said, “Now what does that look like to you, from your war-college study?”

Kordas felt himself pale, and he visibly shuddered when it occurred to him. “Ranged warfare, on open water. Straddling the target—firing testing shots to either side of a target to adjust for range, until eventually the target is centered, and the heavier attack is unleashed.”

Jonaton tapped the tip of his nose, and then a significantly larger red sphere of light cruised in from the wall and arced down to the Palace. It struck true, bursting over the layers of the defensive structure, and its displayed force whipped out, following the grooves and arcs of the shield layers. A core of red light reeled away like a stickball spinning out of control, to fall upon a spot across the river, where it struck and dispersed into white around its edges. A disc of white remained there—on what seemed to be the exact spot the white horse had drawn down.

“Everyone thought that the red thing was a great light show, and I admit, it was—but Kordas, it was unplanned. Uninvited. I don’t think it was meant as any kind of gift we’d want, and it came in from the north.”

• • •

Restil had only just come into the royal suite from an entertaining card game—gambling for pins with his friends. These particular friends were a pair of highborn, Piet and Jarl, whom he had recruited for his archiving endeavors, Jarl’s sister Elanir, and one of the senior horse trainers, Kanni Grimson, who cleaned them all out to great hilarity. Kanni was a fellow who had luck in as great an abundance as Rothas Sunsinger had musical talent. They all liked playing against him, though; he was a good (if rare) loser and gracious winner, and always happy to share his knowledge of cards. And while he enjoyed gambling (and winning), he enjoyed simply playing for points rather than for stakes, so they did that as often as playing for pins.

Restil stopped and put his hand on the door when he heard an unfamiliar voice inside. He glanced at one of the guards.

“The King brought that new girl back here to talk with the Queen,” the guard—one Restil only knew as “Scar”—said. He sighed. “The real pretty one, I mean. The one that’s got night watch on the wall.” That sigh said volumes; Lythe Shadowdancer certainly left an impression wherever she went.