The Rill Lord: Excerpt of Chapter 2

Many things enter into the series' conclusion in The Rill Lord and some make their appearance early. For one thing readers get to return to Gustan Manor, the great house Marc Frederick built. It hasn't seen action since The Kheld King.

There's a bit of exposition in this chapter, including a reintroduction to the Manor, and even more new information. Characters too make reappearances. SPOILERS: Readers who have finished the preceding books won't find any spoilers. Any readers who have yet to catch up (depending on where they are in the series) will encounter a spoiler or two.

2

Humans are constructed to think of Time as linear. What if it runs in circles? Or exists as loops of events that will not change course unless critical moments intersect to create new patterns?

                                    Emrysen Malyrdeon, Ergeiron and Daln: A Study in Leur

Hans set out before dawn for Gustan, riding from Trulo beneath heavy gray skies. Orem Darm, with his keen sense of the wind, pronounced there would be rain or maybe even snow before evening. Determined to reach the town that same day, Hans chose Arne and Aubrey to ride with him, and the Dog Men too because Cortogh would not have it otherwise. The mounted force also included Aubrey’s Saemoregh riders, Fran Gorseddson’s Neuberlanders, and the Trongorians. Other of Hans’s forces would be mere hours behind, but he felt better having the Neuberland Khelds with him, away from the newly arrived army of Pandaros Vidyamemnon. Day edged toward purple twilight by the time he and his escort rounded the road overlooking the town beside the Dazun River.

At the foot of the hill, the village nestled cheerfully, a line of buildings with sloping roofs, a fine quay for river traffic, and the stone thrust of what had been a sturdy and ancient bridge. That bridge, destroyed by the flood, was now a jumble of toppled footings and piles of rubble rising above swirls of current. A lesser bridge, built across the smaller, gentle River Orry on the approach from Trulo, had fared better. Just west and slightly north of the town, visible across fields and tall trees, a cluster of buildings crowned the next hill.

“That’s where we’re going?” Arne had noted where Hans was staring.

“Yes.”

The enemy had fled Trulo toward the north instead of along the river, and Fran’s advance cavalry had pronounced the town safe to enter. Hans did not tarry. He ordered Fran to make sure of the road and town, then took the remainder of his troops with him to secure his grandfather’s estate.

Gustan Manor had been Hans’s childhood home. Once the Khelds had posted their forces and assured everyone that the Manor held no danger, Hans indulged an urge to explore the place his grandfather had built, lived in, and loved. From an ancient maid who had stayed on through the years, he ferreted out which room had been his—on the third floor of the south wing, upstairs from the State apartments and bedchambers. His feet tread hallways and passages narrower and less lofty than he’d remembered. The half-forgotten images were vague, and the reality was nothing like them.

Hans’s old bedroom was small, part of a suite including his governess’s chamber. A dormer overlooking the courtyard provided good light, though rain now pattered dismally against glass panes, making the small room seem cold and cheerless. It had seemed vast when Hans was a boy, before he had gone away. The furnishings remained as he remembered, faithfully dusted but otherwise untouched, the trappings of a boy-prince whose concerns had been with toys and childish comforts. A bed with carved horse-head posts and bright, embroidered covers. A wooden chair in the same mode, with a table that might have been used for studies or games or maybe for meals at such times when he had been ill or confined to his room for minor offenses. A few toys—a rustic, hand-crafted puppet of a bear that looked like it might have been made in Amallar, a child-height map on the wall. Hans discovered with a sinking sense of loss that he remembered almost none of it. His mind, until now so hopeful of his past, was nearly a blank.

The room had been his, of that he was certain, but the things in it had belonged to a stranger, someone he no longer was. Hans picked up a beautiful bank of pewter and gilt that stirred his memory, pushed the lever with a finger no longer small and watched as the woodsman swung his little silver ax into the golden trunk of a tree. A small lapis squirrel with ruby eyes popped from its hole to grasp at the coin that should have been sitting atop the woodsman’s head. Turning the bank, he shook it. There was money inside. His money. Looking underneath, Hans found the catch and opened it. A small hoard of silver coins spilled out into his hand. He counted it, a child’s treasure.

Footsteps sounded at the door and he turned, expecting to see some aged servant or one of the Khelds looking for him. But the newcomer was no one he expected to find.

“Marenthro!” Hans broke into a wide smile. “I was thinking I might see you here.” They grasped arms and Hans let a moment pass before awkwardly breaking the embrace.

“You didn’t take the Rill to Permephedon,” Marenthro said, “so I came to see you here. I’ve been following your progress.”

Hans felt he should at least try to explain. “Dorilian told me he sent you status reports from Sordan. But I guess those stopped when he followed me to Amallar.”

“It was almost a pleasure when they did. They were excruciating in their brevity. Shall I quote some? ‘A pleasant surprise—he takes after his mother.’ Or this one, ‘Taught him to use a sword. I cannot spare him Tiflan as a bodyguard.’”

Hans laughed.

“You look well.”

“Well enough,” Hans admitted. He added, “So do you.”

“I try not to change.” Marenthro glanced about as if drinking in the past. “This room was yours.”

Hans set the gilded bank back in its place atop the bookcase. “I don’t even remember,” he confessed. The coins jangled as he weighed them in his hand. Laughing, he showed them to Marenthro. “Look,” he said. “The entire contents of my treasury.” He tucked them into his pocket.

But Marenthro tapped the underlying source of the remark.

“Does Dorilian make a point of your lack of funds?”

Instantly, Hans felt his guard go back up. It was just the sort of comment Dorilian himself might have made, the same incisive penetration to the core of an issue, and Hans had learned to be wary of it. Marenthro and Dorilian were not as unlike as they seemed. It was a wrinkle that intrigued more than it disturbed him.

“It’s not Dorilian,” he said. “It’s the general state of things. The prince is a pauper, at least for the time being. If other people didn’t provide funds I couldn’t afford the clothes I wear much less pay to mount the kind of war I’ve had to fight. Mother started helping once I came north. Even so, Dorilian is beyond generous. He never even mentions it. I don’t think he ever will. He has more riches than he can ever spend, and he doesn’t think twice on spending to battle Nammuor. I think Dorilian considers me an investment.”

Arching an eyebrow with interest, Marenthro took a seat by the window where he looked out over the courtyard and the rain-drenched winter landscape. “Tell me about Dorilian. Do you get along well?”

“Well enough. We have our differences, but he seems to have accepted them.”

“He followed you to Amallar. I wonder if you realize how extraordinary that was.”

With a sigh, Hans resigned himself to talking about his unexpected ally. “At the time, I was too surprised to know what to think of it… or him. Later, I realized that was exactly why he’d done it. And by then we were learning some things about each other. Real things. True things.” He sank down onto the edge of the bed. The old boards creaked. “I realized that the man I’d met in Sordan, the man he’d let me see, was just a glimpse in a mirror. He throws back at everyone what they assume he is, what they think they know Dorilian to be. I bet he even does it with you. It’s like armor, a wall of reflections. But in Amallar, only a few people knew who he really was. To most, he was just some man they associated with me. It’s funny, but I think they saw someone very close to the real man—not the armor. Does any of this make sense?”

“Yes. A great deal of sense.”

“I remember being surprised almost daily.”

“But you dealt with him.”

“I needed to understand him. I needed an alliance with Sordan. And I wanted the Rill for the Khelds.” Hans traced the embroidered trail of stars upon the coverlet. Had he ever dreamt of faring the midnight sea? “Dorilian resisted until I reminded him of his promise to Marc Frederick. That was the breakthrough, I know it was.” He looked up, pensive. “But the Rill changed us both—his giving of it, that he even could. It changed everything. It set him free somehow, more than it has me.” Rain pelted like pebbles against the window, drenching the room in a pale, wavering light. “I wonder where he is right now.”

Marenthro studied him for a moment. “Dorilian’s at Stauberg. Last night he broke the spell—he unmade the Promise—that anchored the Wall to its ramparts, and he breached the Wall this morning. His armies have entered the city.”

“He did it? Conquered the Wall? He told me he could!” Hans laughed out loud and barely suppressed a sudden urge to run downstairs to find Arne and Aubrey, and maybe Fran too, and tell them what Dorilian had done.

“He outsmarted Ergeiron.” Marenthro allowed a fleeting smile. “Not many can claim to have done so.”

“How did he do it?”

“He removed the last Highborn corpus from the City.”

Hans thought for a moment about what that meant. “I’m not even going to ask, right now, how he knew about that. I know he studied genealogies at Rhondda, books and books of them. His library table was covered with all kinds of maps and archeological studies. He’s a brilliant strategist, isn’t he?”

“Yes. He can be.” Marenthro regarded him frankly through the wavering gloom. “Stauberg is supposed to be your city, Handurin. The Star Throne of the Malyrdeons and Essera’s capital. Why didn’t you go to Stauberg with him or join him there? Was that his idea?”

“No.” Hans shook his head. “People read too much into that. I think the original plan was to have me go north with him from Sordan. But I ended that plan when I left Sordan unexpectedly and forced him to follow. And any other plans got thrown out the window when he had to leave Amallar suddenly, just before the Rill made its appearance. He made for Merath and joined his army in Lacenedon. Once there, he figured he’d get a jump on Stauberg—and Nammuor—before the weather got any worse.” Hans smiled. “He hates winter, you know.”

“He always has.”

“Besides,” Hans reasoned, “it’s actually better for me, in terms of the alliance, to have him gone. When he’s around, I don’t know, but things enter into this kind of orbit around Dorilian. Events just seem to take shape as he perceives them. Sometimes I just stand by and watch. Like at Bellan Toregh, when the Rill came. If he’d been there, I would have experienced it differently. For me, it would have been about him: his Highborn blood, his Rill—his destiny even. Instead, I stood there alone. I confronted the Entity myself. The Rill came to my hand because of him but not in any way because he was there. All of a sudden, it was my destiny to be there, at that point, on that hill, with all of Amallar amazed as the Rill materialized before their eyes. I have such a clear vision of what’s possible now that I might not have had otherwise.”

Marenthro gazed upon him, proudly, it seemed. “I witnessed. I felt the Rill awaken to Trestethion. When it activated in Permephedon, I observed the event and that you were in its field.”

“Did you?” Hans smiled, remembering the moment the Rill’s sentience had opened to him, the prismatic mind of an Entity. “Dorilian was there too. At least I think he was. I felt him through the Rill. I saw him somehow. Maybe all three of us were there.”

“I think that’s possible. However, I almost never feel him—there or anywhere.”

“That’s another funny thing. I feel him all the time.”

Marenthro let his head fall back, exasperation warring with amusement, though Hans could not have said at what. “Now you understand why I ask about him so incessantly. I have no other way of knowing. Other people may see only mirrors, but I see nothing at all. This is not a position in which I usually find myself.” He rose and indicated that Hans should follow him.

They walked downstairs, the Manor opening to them in room after half-remembered room. Although it had not had a royal lord or lady in residence for two years, the residence had not been neglected or, for that matter, desecrated. Khelds respected the Manor for its ties to them; Staubauns continued to hold Marc Frederick’s memory in great regard and viewed the place as strange and otherworldly, its architecture and its inhabitants both bearing the stamp of the late King’s Mentan roots. And magic. Rumors of powerful magic adhered to this place, the rich texture of lives that had intersected here, the proximity of another World, a place of doors and windows, magic of a human kind.

In the music room attached to the formal parlor, paneled all in rare wood and bathed in ruddy light, another surprise awaited. A woman stood before the fire. Hearing them, she turned, still wearing a heavy woolen wrap of dark browns and black over her dress of vivid blue. That same blue repeated in her eyes when she lifted her head to look at him. Her hair still had the rich brown sheen Hans remembered.

“Mother?”

“Oh!” Emyli looked at Marenthro, then back at Hans before stepping forward, arms open. “Hans! I’ve been so worried about you!”

Astonished, he ran to her. All these months, Emyli had seemed more an idea than a person, and now here she was. As her arms wrapped about Hans, his only thought was that his mother was surprisingly small. He remembered her as a child might, as larger than himself. But Emyli’s embrace was fierce as she locked her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. He hugged her back, amazed to find her real and warm, her hair soft, with a fragrance like flowers. They stood this way for a long time, her arms not wanting to let go, until at last she did.

“Look at you! You’re so tall!” She only reluctantly pulled away. The look she gave him was warm with pride.

“A Staubaun wouldn’t say so, but Khelds think I’m impressive.” He laughed. “Dorilian says I’m still growing.”

“Does he?” Some of the ease left her expression.

“He says a lot of things. I don’t mind believing that one. I can’t believe you’re here. I meant to see you at Permephedon, but the war kept me—and the Khelds needed me. But here… you shouldn’t be here.” A new concern reared its head. “There’s still war all around and roving bands. Many of Zel’s men fled into the Glainoi. I brought some men with me but… it’s not safe yet.” Hans consigned his hands to hers as she continued to hold them.

“Gustan will never be unsafe for me. For us. There’s strong magic here still for any who Marc Frederick loved. Most especially his Heirs.” Emyli smiled again at Marenthro in that familiar way the Stauberg-Randolphs had always had with him. “I don’t have a regency to dissolve for him. And only the stewardship of my father’s name and house to give.”

“He needs nothing else.”

“Some things must wait upon some other course.” Continuing to hold Hans by the hand, Emyli led him past a grand piano to a great table of carved mahogany, upon which several parcels awaited. “Though the regency was taken from me, I retained custody of our family emblems.” She opened one, a wooden box, unfolding layers of velvet within, from which she lifted a circlet. It blazed in her pale hands with blue-white fire. The icy metal the ancients had forged melded with pale blue gemstones in the piece, which ranked as one of the most recognizable royal insignia in the Triempery. “My father wore this when he was Endurin’s Heir, and my brother Jonthan also. Then your brother.” She held it out to him. “It is the state crown of Dazunor, the crown of the next King.”

Hans took it from her. It felt impossibly light. Marenthro and his mother both watched him as if waiting to see what he would do with it. He supposed he should put it on, though the thought jarred him. He hadn’t yet gotten used to the notion of wearing a crown.

“Let me.” Emyli took the circlet in her fingers and, lifting it, placed it on his head.

Hans felt the crown settle over his hair, above his brow, and he thought he also felt the kiss of power in its making. The look in his mother’s eyes was reward enough, despite his confusion.

“It’s yours now. You’ve won Dazunor by conquest as well as inheritance. And you’ve won the right to this.” She lifted a long, velvet-wrapped object from the table. By the way she handled it, Hans knew it must be important. He watched as she carefully folded back the cloth, revealing the gem-encrusted hilt of a sword. “Take it,” she said, turning the hilt toward him. When he grasped it, she gently slid off the velvet wrapping. The shining blade, long and deadly, gleamed orange in the firelight.

“It was my father’s sword,” Emyli explained. “The blade was forged in Sordan, but the metal is from Mena’tantaureus, the First Creation, before it was destroyed. The hilt bears the Randolph sapphire, the famous jewel his father gave Ariande Malyrdeonea upon their wedding. The other jewels are also hers.”

“It’s magnificent!” There was no need to feign admiration. Hans had never seen such a marvelous sword.

Emyli smiled at his obvious pleasure. “It isn’t just for show. It was forged to be a weapon and your grandfather used it as one. He was never defeated while he bore it.”

“Are you giving this to me?”

“Yes. You’ve earned it. The sword was placed on Marc Frederick’s sepulcher when he was interred, and the scabbard put on display in Kyrbasillon, where it was made, as he’d requested. But he had stipulated that if his Heirs ever had need, his sword was to be restored to them.”

Hans looked at her in dismay. “You took it from his grave?”

“I did,” Marenthro interceded. His ageless face wore the solemn look of one who had more intimacy with the dead than the living. His life overflowed with the deaths of others. More than that, Permephedon was his place. The burial place of Kings. “The Highborn Kings lie on biers in Permephedon’s Vault of Incorruption. Marc Frederick was interred with them. The sword was laid atop the grave cloth. His body was never disturbed.”

“And there are obviously no grave robbers in Permephedon.” Hans examined the priceless blade in his hand.

“Only one.”

Emyli looked from her son to the wizard and smiled. “Come with me. There’s more.”

She happily led the way into the main passageways of the house, pointing out its many unusual features. The entry guarded by a portion of her father’s collection of suits of armor, including one astride a life-size white marble horse. Five waterglobes suspended from the main hall ceiling in a fixture Marc Frederick had himself designed. The Randolph Library housed shelves of books brought from Marc Frederick’s home World. The Grand Staircase fashioned entirely from the wood of two great Mentan oaks, the gathered acorns of which he had planted throughout the estate and now were grown to be great oaks themselves. She led them up the richly carpeted steps to a floor Hans remembered.

At the end of a long hall stood a double door Hans remembered as well. The polished carvings in the wood still beckoned, horses and wings, the brass hardware massive even now that he’d put childhood well behind him. Within were other rooms. Hans saw bedchambers, libraries, drawing rooms and antechambers: the royal wing of apartments. Other doors. A State bedchamber, its bed hung with blue curtains. The life-size picture of Marc Frederick above the enormous fireplace. Emyli stopped before one more door and placed her hand on the latch, her eyes shining.

“This was my father’s study. I had it and other rooms removed to Permephedon for safekeeping upon his death. They have been returned, for now, for you to use should you need them.” She opened the door and they walked into a room of wonder.

Hans barely remembered this room. He’d been too young for Marc Frederick to have spent much time with him here, yet he had known it in some vague way. The room was tall, with white walls and wide windows. Architectural drawings, archeological sketches, and ancient maps hung on the walls or were braced in frames, stacked against the furniture, displayed on easels. Stone treasures, carvings, gems and crystals lay scattered among manuscripts and models, banners and swords. And everywhere there were books.

Hans walked across the room and picked up a dagger, recognizing it as a Sordani blade. The desk before him held a collection of scrolls and bound books, drawings, a plaster model of a Rill platform like that at Bellan Toregh except he knew somehow that it was not. A smooth box rested on the desktop, its gray surface glimmering, a key in the lock. He tested the lid and found that it opened. Inside he found papers, letters, drawings… a journal. Leafing through the latter, he saw sketches of Dog Men and the Maw and the record of his grandfather’s journey there. Raising his gaze, Hans marked the map on the wall, the path of the Rill traced on it in blue, with conjoining paths in pale red. One red line led to Stauberg, another to very near Gustan. Walking to the map, he touched his fingers to it, astounded.

“He thought the Rill could go to Stauberg,” he wondered. “And here?”

“At one time, it did,” Marenthro noted. “Marc Frederick was not the first to have dreamed of a more omnipresent Rill. He worked off of Tarlon Sordaneon’s maps.”

“Tarlon sounded the Rill structures?”

“No. But Tarlon compiled notes from earlier soundings. The structures to Stauberg were sounded generations before him, but most were found to be missing or non-functioning. Stauberg, though, has only a handful of missing arches. Other locations would need dozens. But there are Rill nodes here”—Marenthro tapped Stauberg—“here and here.” He indicated the hills near Aral, Gustan, and the Kragh.

“Did he and Dorilian plan some kind of expansion?”

“Not in any concrete way. I’m sure he discussed it with him. But no Sordaneon in memory ever raised new Rill structures beyond the ones Derlon set. I’m sure they thought it could not be done.”

A tingle shot through Hans. “Can it be done?”

“I don’t know.” Their eyes met. “I think Marc Frederick wanted to find out.”

“And he knew Dorilian was a Rill Lord.”

“No. Not then. No one knew anything for certain. Three people might have opened the line to Hestya, including Sebbord Teremareon—he was both Sordaneon and an Archmage. Few credited Dorilian with the deed. I still don’t believe he did it alone.” Marenthro touched the map, at Sordan. “I’m not sure when Dorilian learned Derlon’s power ran true in him, but he kept it well hidden. No one saw or even detected his aptitude, not even I until a few months ago. When Dorilian commanded the Rill to cease operations to Essera, the world knew.”