Five Kingdoms Read online

  “Is it?” Tristus asked weakly, disliking the way his hand shook as he took hold of the spoon.

  Taya smiled wistfully. “I’ve only seen a blue so vivid one other place in this world.”

  Tristus carefully sipped a spoonful of broth when Taya held the bowl up to him. He tried not to grimace as his dry, tacky mouth gave the warm, pungently spiced fluid an acrid aftertaste. In response to Taya’s statement, he asked, “Where?”

  The dwarf maiden’s hazel eyes looked directly at him. “I’m staring at it right now.”

  For an instant, Tristus was confused. And then he recalled that his own eyes happened to be blue. He made himself smile through his illness. “Taya, you flatter me. And needlessly, too. I know I must look dreadful right now.”

  “A little pale,” she offered with a shrug. “But still handsome.”

  Tristus had his doubts, but he elected not to voice them. He swallowed some more of the broth, as he felt it already setting his stomach somewhat at ease. Then he asked, “Have you seen Alere?”

  Taya frowned. “Who cares about that snide, uppity elf?”

  “I do, Taya,” Tristus replied truthfully. “You know he’s really a very gentle person, inside.”

  The lady dwarf scoffed openly. “Is that where he keeps our names then? Inside?” She set one hand on her hip, leaving only the other to hold the soup bowl.

  Tristus decided to sit up better and take the dish from her.

  She used the freed hand to wag a finger at him. “All he does is stalk around here, staring at everyone out of those narrow gray eyes of his, like he doesn’t trust anyone. He addresses everyone either by their race or occupation.” She lifted her nose in the air and badly impersonated Alere. “Dwarf. Knight. Mystic.”

  “Taya,” Tristus chided.

  The dwarf maiden continued. “Everyone, that is, except Shirisae. He acts as if she doesn’t even exist. I didn’t know it until recently, but she’s really a very sweet person.”

  “Because you’ve spent time with her,” Tristus assumed, and when Taya nodded, he added. “You probably haven’t spent much time with Alere.”

  Taya shuddered and made a protesting noise. “Don’t you think it’s cold enough on this ship? I get chills just thinking about that elf. Spend time with him? Are you serious? He’d probably throw me overboard.”

  Tristus shook his head. “No, he wouldn’t.” He sampled more of his meal. “Now, D’mitri, on the other hand… I’ve no wish to be uncharitable, but he might be so inclined. I think it would take considerable effort to reach his softer side.”

  “He has a softer side?” Taya said in open disbelief.

  “Shirisae does. You said so yourself. And Shirisae and D’mitri are siblings, aren’t they? They must have something in common, apart from their red hair.” Tristus shrugged, and in so doing lost his blanket off his shoulder. He delayed reaching back for it, knowing that if he were to interrupt his eating now, he might not resume. The broth seemed to be helping, as was the conversation with his dear little friend.

  Taya retreated to the opposite bunk and sat down. “Well, I can tell you why I didn’t have any fond feelings for Shirisae at first.”

  Tristus looked at her while he ate, listening and feeling markedly better as he put something warm inside of him.

  The dwarf maiden said, “She had too many fond feelings for you.” Taya held out her hand, as if to ward away words that never came. “Don’t get any ideas, my charming friend. I was just looking out for your welfare.”

  Tristus smiled irresistibly. “Of course. And I thank you, Taya, but you should know you’ve broken my heart.”

  “No,” Taya said loftily. “I’m really very sorry, but it would never work. You’ll have to find someone else.”

  “If I must.”

  “Well, don’t get all emotional,” Taya snapped. “You lout! I suppose you mean to tell me next that you didn’t have the slightest bit of interest in our pretty elven friend either.”

  Tristus briefly considered asking her which pretty elven friend she was referring to, but decided against it. He said honestly, “I think Shirisae is quite lovely and a wonderful person, but I am content to simply be her friend.”

  “Are you?” Taya smiled, but it did not last as a thought evidently occurred to her. Carefully, she relayed that thought. “Did you...leave someone behind? In Andaria?”

  Tristus stopped eating. He stared into the remains of his soup, and said softly, “No.” A frown slowly developed on his face. Without looking at Taya, he began to speak again. “Taya, you’ve been my friend from the start, knowing nothing about me. You’ve been kinder to me than I deserve and I...” He lifted his gaze, noting that his little friend was listening attentively. “I want us to stay friends, Taya, always. I love you, like the sister I never had. You’ve never judged me and I know we’ve never talked all that seriously...much, but I want to be honest with you—and share things with you that I’ve been having trouble coping with on my own. I’d also like for you to be that open with me.”

  Taya’s eyes became slightly misted. She brushed the back of her hand across them quickly, then nodded. “You can always talk to me about anything, Tristus. I love you, too.”

  He smiled, then looked down at his soup bowl again. He hesitated, even after giving such a speech, and then decided he had to get the weight off his heart. If he didn’t, it was going to collapse. He felt sure of that. “Taya, I... I’m in love with two people...and I don’t know what I should do about it.”

  The dwarf maiden blinked, then seemed to be thinking. In a moment, she said, “Not me, of course. You just said...not Shirisae.”

  Tristus shook his head and Taya took another moment to think.

  “You told me you didn’t leave anyone in Andaria and the only other people you’ve been around long... enough...to...”

  Tristus felt a dreadful wave of embarrassment break over him with her pause. He sat up and set the bowl aside. “Please, forgive me. I didn’t mean to offend you. I think I’d better just rest.”

  Still wearing her thoughtful expression, Taya asked, “What makes you think I’m offended?”

  Tristus looked at the floor. “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you sorry for now?” Taya asked, coming toward him. She sat down on the bunk beside him and laid her hand comfortingly on his arm. “You don’t have to be embarrassed, Tristus. I’ll admit, I didn’t suspect...but that doesn’t matter. Love is…well, it’s not always rational, predictable, or even traditional, I suppose. That’s the way of things. You walk a rebellious and difficult path, and the odds are against you. So you fight. You push on, just as all of us have been doing since joining this company.”

  “Taya, that’s beautiful,” Tristus said softly, and he put his arm around her. “Thank you.”

  Passage across the Sea of Ice was to be slow, and taxing.

  The view from the high deck of the Pride of Celestia was of water that appeared as liquid iron at times, and which at other times became starkly blue and salted with great chunks of ice, some of which were large enough to be small land masses in their own right. It was a plane of many faces…perhaps of a thousand faces.

  A thousand winters, indeed.

  In the face of such cold, Xu Liang thought of fire; the Flame of the Phoenix, which had entered his body via the blade that had been its conduit. Since hearing of the ritual that had been performed over him in Vilciel, it had taken him many days to begin to digest all that the event had entailed. At first, he could only dwell on the immediate result, which was life, from death. He had died in the Flatlands of Lower Yvaria. The magic of barbarians had brought him back, though it may have been through the guidance of the ancient gods as well. The Priestess Ahjenta’s report of the ritual she had performed had been filled with the cryptic verse of one seeking to preserve the mystery of her god, and of her culture. Her daughter’s account
had been no more straightforward. Both assured him that the Flame had resurrected him because he had the will to carry on. He knew that he did have the will, but he knew also that what had been done to him had not been done without consequence.

  He had weakened himself, even before falling at the hands of an enemy that would only have recognized him as such in the moment, and only in the merest sense. Xu Liang had been merely an obstacle to the Flatland giant, and only for a few fleeting moments. They were moments a creature such as that might not ever consider again in its lifespan—however long that may have been—and unbeknownst to it, they were moments that nearly decided the fate of an empire. Those moments would be forever emblazoned on Xu Liang’s heart, and in his mind. They were moments of failure, and yet still of triumph.

  Unfortunately, the triumph was difficult to hold on to, in light of the fire that continued to hold him in its burning embrace. To be resurrected by the Phoenix was to be reborn not by fire, but within it. Xu Liang felt that he would perish after all, and that the elderly seer of Lower Yvaria had been wrong in her foretelling. He had not escaped the burning.

  It was in the midst of that thought that his small triumph spoke to him.

  “Xu Liang,” Tristus said, his voice scarcely strong enough to rise above the wind of the far northern sea.

  Xu Liang looked over his shoulder, though he didn’t fully turn his head. Tristus Edainien was just visible in the corner of his vision. His view otherwise was of his remaining guards, aligned along the deck railing…refusing to stray too far. They had once protected him in the height of his strength—a manifestation of his spiritual vivacity that only a properly versed student of the mystic arts could accomplish in Sheng Fan. Xu Liang was said to have been especially gifted in that; in strengthening his spirit to levels that enabled him to move as the gods moved. That movement had become his death dance, and now his guards protected him at what may have been the prelude to his weakest time. It would be in that time that he would have to maintain the resolve to accomplish his greatest feats.

  Recalling the presence of the knight who had participated in some of those most fateful steps, Xu Liang said, “I was told that you were feeling unwell.”

  “Yes,” Tristus admitted, hesitating to come nearer to the railing. “I’ve no legs for the sea…nor a head or a stomach, for that matter.”

  “You’re not accustomed to sailing,” Xu Liang deduced.

  “No, I’m not,” Tristus admitted. “I… well… Taya concocted a broth that aided me quite a lot. I’m feeling much stronger.”

  “I’m glad,” Xu Liang replied, giving his gaze to the sea once again. In the same moment, the talons of the Phoenix clenched around his heart, and he suppressed the instinct to cough.

  Though Xu Liang’s response had been slight, Guang Ci appeared to notice. The youngest of his guards looked to him, observing him for several moments before Xu Liang finally dismissed his concern by turning his head toward the younger man.

  Guang Ci appeared embarrassed by the potential of a silent rebuke, and promptly diverted his gaze elsewhere. Though his holding of the Night Blade had promoted him from his previous position as a mere bodyguard, Guang Ci had not yet shaken his sense of duty. Perhaps that was to be expected.

  Xu Liang let the youth be for now, and looked toward the place where Tristus had been standing when he noticed that the knight was no longer there.

  “Are you the kind of man who can love another man?”

  The question was not what Xu Liang had been expecting upon answering the priestess’ summons before his departure from her city. He stalked around the question internally, though he stood facing her in her reception chamber as if the answer were already easily at hand.

  “Do you mean beyond brotherly love?” he asked her, determining with her steadily returned gaze that they were at a point of understanding where the elected topic was concerned. “Perhaps I’m not qualified to give an answer. I seem to know nothing of brotherly love, or so I have been accused.”

  “You have brothers?” Ahjenta inquired.

  “My father has three other sons,” Xu Liang replied. “I respect them as the sons of my father and the lord of my house, and as fellow servants of the Empire.”

  Ahjenta held silent for a moment, seeming at first to accept the response that was given to her. And then she said, “Perhaps I should rephrase my question; Are you the kind of man who can love at all?”

  That was not the first time the priestess had managed to offend him. While he understood that she was his elder, he was not accustomed to such a directly castigating tone. He did not believe this topic required lecture, besides. “I have never given in to an allegiance purely of the heart,” he said. “I find the obligation too burdensome, and the cost too great.”

  “So, you have been at war, then,” the priestess determined. “With yourself.”

  Xu Liang felt needled by her persistence, and her insistence. He strove not to make that apparent, and believed that he approached his reply with patience and even equanimity in the face of her unreasonable desire to site his personal failings. “You seem a woman of wisdom. Let me ask you this: What is there to gain in personal happiness? Those who seek it only suffer, and those who attain it do so at the expense of others. It is a selfish journey, that of the heart, lacking sense and reason.”

  Ahjenta drew in a breath, and seemed to be drawing herself up as well, as if Xu Liang faced her with a physical confrontation, over one of philosophies. “The Phoenix touched your heart, and therefore so did I.” She delivered the words in a tone that would brook no argument. “I know there was a passion there once, before your sense of reason became a servant of your beliefs and smothered it.”

  Xu Liang was not in a mood for argument, and so said, “Perhaps.”

  And now the priestess let go a breath, as if allowing some measure of defeat or surrender in the face of stubbornness she may have been used to in her own children. She said, “You are blessed…lovely and delicate…gifted with a charming grace. People are drawn to you. You wield a terrible power; the power to control hearts. You have an empire in your grasp, and yet you do not claim it.”

  Those were not among the words he expected to hear, and he did not appreciate that she was reaching into him with her god’s gifts. He had yet to appreciate that her god had reached into him either, for its grip was fierce.

  “If that were true, it would not be the Empire I held, but only the individuals that people it,” he told Ahjenta. “They may follow me into any hell I lead them to, but they would leave the Empire behind. Neglected, it would fall into ruin. Charm does not give life; it enthralls and saps the vigor from that life. I was not meant to unify the people and the land. I can only advise a leader blessed divinely to take guarded steps through a landscape peopled with rebels and betrayers harboring foolish ambitions. Their hearts must be turned to the land, and they must realize the love the Empress has for it, and for them. It is that care which will restore the Empire. Restoration is what I have dedicated myself to.”

  Ahjenta let him speak without interruption, and afterward she even waited for several moments to ensure that he had finished, or to allow herself the time to analyze his response. At length, she said, “You have a cautious tongue, shandon, speaking neither lie nor truth. Such a skill can be as cruel as it is merciful.”

  Xu Liang had no reply to that comment.

  It was in his silence that the priestess revealed the true purpose behind this parting conference. “If I may offer my advice, you should be straightforward with the young man whose heart you have captured. Speak truth to him, in words that he can understand. It is the least you can do to repay him. You would have drowned in your darkest dreams if he had not pulled you out.”

  Xu Liang bowed, out of respect for her age, her station among her people, and all that she had done for he and the others during their stay.

  Alere sat upon a
stack of crates near the stern of the vessel that had borne him away from Yvaria. He had never left its shores so surely as this—he empathized with Tristus in that. A part of him also wondered whether he would ever return. The stronger part determined that he would. His fight with the keirveshen had not ended, nor would it end because of his commitment to the mystic’s quest. Even if he should find that Sheng Fan was the primary nesting ground for the source of the shadows, he doubted that destroying that source would therefore eliminate all the demons that had already spread throughout Dryth. Malek Vorhaven had claimed to be their master. Killing him had not eliminated all of the shadows even surrounding his manor.

  It occurred to Alere that Vorhaven had also claimed to have been the creator of the keirveshen, and as well he recalled that Vorhaven himself had turned out to be one of them. Killing him seemed to have amounted to very little beyond the retrieval of Behel. Perhaps it was Alere’s lingering dissatisfaction that crafted the tone of his current ruminations. He had left his home in search of vengeance, and disguised it—at times even to himself—as safety for his family. The realization had almost returned him to the Verres Mountains. The want to rectify his wrong had guided him back to Xu Liang’s quest, and would carry him now to Sheng Fan.

  He reminded himself that it was not that alone which would carry him quite so far from home. His gaze sought out the knight, who had finally dared his unsteadiness over ships on water in order to join the rest of them in the biting air of the Sea of Ice. Currently, Tristus stood in the company of Fu Ran and the dwarves, though Alere had noticed him first venture in Xu Liang’s direction.

  Alere could not be jealous. His own discoveries of the heart were too new and too unfamiliar to allow for it. Apart from that, he understood that Tristus’ draw to Xu Liang had begun as reverence, perhaps in the absence of the spiritual leadership he had been accustomed to in Andaria. Alere did not know much beyond the reputation of the knights of the lower mountains of the Alabaster Range, but he surely knew more than many elves of the north since traveling with Tristus. He couldn’t help but to feel that Tristus Edainien was a rare example among them, and not one that they would necessarily take pride in. That the knight proclaimed himself an outcast stated as much.