A Darkness Forged in Fire Read online

  The carriage door swung open and a lieutenant in the green uniform of the Calahrian infantry saluted. The market smells washed into the cabin and the Viceroy fought the urge to gag.

  "Sorry for the delay, your grace, but one of the outriders' horses knocked over an elfkynan's stall, and the merchant won't let us past until we pay."

  The Viceroy sighed behind his handkerchief. "Is that all? Fine, shoot him."

  The officer blinked and opened and closed his mouth. "Sir?"

  "To delay the Viceroy is to delay the work of the Empire, which is tantamount to revolt." Of course, shooting a merchant in the bazaar as one of his first acts as newly appointed Viceroy would cause no little unrest in the country, he realized, and he was not unhappy at the thought. It was time for the Empire to forge a new path in the world even if Her Majesty did not agree, and to do so he would set Elfkyna aflame.

  The lieutenant coughed, clearly lost on the word "tantamount." The word "revolt," however, registered with him like a cannon shot. "Your grace, I don't think it's as bad as all that!" The murmur of a growing crowd indicated that it wasn't yet, but could be if given the right provocation.

  The Viceroy lowered his handkerchief and gave the officer a smile that showed teeth and not a hint of humanity. "Really? Bring me that news parchment," he said, pointing to a tattered scroll of paper pinned to the wall across from the open door. The lieutenant yelled at a sergeant, who quickly retrieved the parchment, handing it to the officer who in turn handed it to the Viceroy.

  "Can you read this?" the Viceroy asked, pointing to the large black letters at the top of the scroll.

  "It's the Imperial Weekly Herald, your grace," the lieutenant said slowly.

  "Of the Calahrian Empire, yes. And below that?"

  The lieutenant squinted. "NORTHERN TRIBES STAGE PEACEFUL PROTEST, a story by Her Majesty's Scribe Rallie Synjyn."

  The first twinge of a headache blossomed behind the Viceroy's eyes. The very idea of a reporter of events struck the Viceroy as running counter to everything he believed in. Spies for those in power were one thing, but informing the governed was quite another. The masses did not need to know, only to obey. Clearly, Her Majesty's Scribe Rallie Synjyn was a thorn that needed plucking.

  "The natives are growing restless. They have been without proper leadership for too long. Order must be restored." The state of affairs was indeed deplorable; things were not disorderly enough, a fact Synjyn and the Imperial Weekly Herald continued to convey.

  Two years ago, in a sop to Imperial brotherhood, Her Majesty had appointed an elf from the Hyntaland to oversee Elfkyna. It did not turn out as Her Majesty wished. For one thing, the elfkynan weren't actually elves, and harbored a deep resentment of those that were. Three centuries before, an explorer looking for an eastern sea passage to the homeland of the real elves in the Hyntaland discovered a new land by mistake. Convinced he really had found the Hyntaland, the explorer insisted on proclaiming the natives elf-kind, despite the fact that the elfkynan were a somewhat short, stocky race that looked nothing like elves and far more like humans, though the Viceroy deplored the idea.

  A second problem had been the previous Viceroy's capricious, brutal, and above all, bloody reign. An iron fist in an iron glove. How…appropriate, the new Viceroy thought, refusing to even entertain the pun—that the last Viceroy was murdered by the elf commanding the Iron Elves regiment, Her Majesty's colonial troops from the Hyntaland.

  The scandal had rocked the Empire. The elves of the Hyntaland, once viewed as the Queen's most loyal colonial subjects, were now seen as the duplicitous beings they were. The Iron Elves were disbanded, their soldiers placed aboard a galley and sent south across the ocean to the desert wastes, while their officer was court-martialed and cashiered from the service, but not, unfortunately, executed. Evidence apparently existed that suggested the previous Viceroy had in fact been working for someone else. While Calahr was mortified by it all, the elfkynan rejoiced in the Viceroy's demise, and much of their growing resentment was deflated. The urgency to appoint a new Viceroy diminished, and it took considerable maneuvering within the royal court for Gwyn to finally secure the posting. In the meantime, the work of the last Viceroy had simmered in the heat with no one to stir it up.

  Well, that was all about to change.

  "I expect to be in my palace within the hour, Lieutenant. Someone is going to be shot in the next ten seconds; I'll leave it up to you who."

  The lieutenant saluted and closed the door. Orders barked out and the sound of metal ramrods rattling in musket barrels sent up a cry among the crowd. The carriage swayed as people ran.

  "Fire!" The musket volley echoed off the mud brick walls, followed by screaming. The carriage began to move forward again, the squelch of things beneath its wheels adding to the din. The Viceroy closed his eyes and allowed himself another smile. Things had indeed changed.

  Four hours later the Viceroy stood among the ruins of his palace, looking for someone to blame. He took a calming breath and surveyed his new home. The palace was little more than a collection of tumbled blocks of sun-dried mud. It reminded him of a potter's wheel left unattended, the wet clay slumping and fracturing as it dried into soft, meaningless bits.

  Shattered pieces of statues representing deities once venerated now suffocated under sheets of lichen, slowly eating away at them until not even the memory of their godliness remained. Had the previous Viceroy actually lived among this squalor? He considered that. The man had been an elf, one of the races close to nature and all that rubbish.

  The lieutenant followed the Viceroy's gaze. "The last Viceroy never took up residence here, your grace," the lieutenant said, his voice quavering slightly.

  "Always off on some kind of expedition or other. Searching for buried treasure, no doubt," the Viceroy said. It was a poorly kept secret that the previous Viceroy had spent the bulk of his time, when not antagonizing the elfkynan, tearing up the country in search of magical artifacts. The elf's search had ended, badly, at the little garrison fort of Luuguth Jor.

  "They say he was looking for signs of the Stars, your grace, trying to find where they had once been. He had maps and wizards and everything to try and find them."

  The Viceroy looked closely at the lieutenant for the first time. He had the look of a wax toy left too long in the sun. Everything about him drooped, from his eyes to his stance. Middle-aged, only a lieutenant, and assigned to guard duty in a backwater like Elfkyna, he was the epitome of the Empire today: soft.

  The lieutenant blushed under the Viceroy's stare and continued. "You know, your grace, that old children's tale about how the Stars in the sky are really from the ground, and that one day, when a red star fell, the world would, well, end."

  "The Eastern Star?" The Viceroy knew the legend, had heard the rumor about the elf's expeditions, and had thought it a case of too much sun and too little brain, but now…"The Stars are myth, points of light of no more power than that elf-witch in her forest across the sea."

  The lieutenant shook his head, a not insignificant act of bravery for the man. "Oh, no, your grace, the Shadow Monarch is real. In fact, there's some who think, well, that the last Viceroy was working for Her, on account of him being an elf from over there, like Her…"

  The Viceroy's eyes stared daggers, perfected from practicing the look in the mirror.

  "Are you suggesting Her Majesty's representative was a traitor to the Empire?" The first rule he'd learned in the diplomatic corps was to never reveal your true thoughts to anyone. Ever.

  The lieutenant stammered, so far out of his depth the pressure was making it hard to breathe. "I-I meant no disrespect, your grace! It's just that when Colonel Osveen killed him—"

  "That will be all, Lieutenant," the Viceroy said, offering the man another tooth-filled smile. "I suggest you put your imagination to better use by wondering what will happen if this palace is not restored to a fitting state within two weeks."

  "Two weeks?" the lieutenant managed to squeak, his face dr
aining of all color.

  "Sooner, if you prefer. Now, don't let me keep you from your work," he said, turning away as the man saluted and stumbled off into the dark.

  The Viceroy walked toward what had been the throne room, or perhaps, he wondered, had they merely placed palm fronds on the floor and lounged there like so many dogs? Natives, he thought, they were the same the world over. The Empire was far too lenient in allowing them to keep their inferior cultures. It was long past time for the Empire to exert itself as it once had, bringing fire and steel and civilization to the unenlightened. Orcs, dwarves, elves, elfkynan, and the rest of the muddied races had been allowed to thrive in this age of peace, poisoning the Empire from within and without. The Queen's mercy would be the Empire's downfall if something wasn't done.

  As he walked, he considered the rumors of the Red Star. He trusted rumors the way he trusted sharp knives, and sought a way to grasp the point without getting pricked. However, if the Stars were real…

  Thoughts of the Stars were pushed aside as he entered his would-be throne room. Lanterns hung from iron poles in a circle. They cast a fluttering, yellow light, creating the impression of life where there was only crumbling mud and stone. The once ornate tile floor was spider-webbed with cracks and stained with splotches of fuzzy mold. Looking distinctly out of place in the center of the room was a long, oak conference table with two wicker chairs around it, the sum total of furnishings the palace had to offer. The chairs were of native design, far too rustic for his liking, but the table was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Its legs were carved to resemble those of a dragon, sinew and claw masterfully reproduced. It made the table look as if it were about to leap. The top gleamed with inlaid emerald leaves polished into the wood in the shape of a dragon's head, the mouth wide open and staring up at him with two black eyes. It made him feel he was being watched, a trick he suspected was created by more than a simple woodcarver's skill.

  Viceroy Gwyn sat down in a chair in front of the table and ran his hands along the surface, marveling at the smooth, tingling sensation that ran up his arm. He deliberately placed his hand over the dragon's maw then chided himself for thinking anything might actually happen. It was a marvelous creation. He smiled. Well, well, it was the first positive thing the departed Viceroy had left him.

  "Change is coming, wait and see," he said quietly. It might have been a breeze playing with the lantern flames, but for a moment, the table seemed to gleam a little brighter.

  * * *

  THREE

  Konowa Swift Dragon didn't trust trees, not since he'd fallen out of one when he was a child of six years. His relationship with them had only gotten worse since then. He spun around quickly to face behind him, alert for any sign of movement. The game path he followed was bare, the trees to either side big, brown, green, and motionless. Good. Something buzzed by his ear and he slapped a hand against his neck then held it out in front of his face to examine the kill. He grunted with satisfaction; at least one black fly would no longer torment him.

  "That'll teach you," he said, wiping his hand on the bark of a nearby tree. He grabbed the canteen slung across his shoulder and took a drink, looking around at this strange, sweltering forest that was now his home.

  A miasma of sounds and smells assaulted him at every turn. Bugs, birds, and furred-beasts twittered, chittered, spewed, cawed, oozed, growled, yelped, and bit all day and most aggravatingly, all night. The trees secreted bucketfuls of cloying sap, the smell every bit as vile as a formal palace ball he'd once attended at the height of summer years ago in the Calahrian capital.

  Between the stink and the racket there was enough to make him despise the forest, but fate, it seemed, wasn't satisfied with that. On top of everything else, Konowa was certain the trees were watching him. Worse, he had the growing suspicion that they were trying to tell him something. He walked up to one, even reaching out a hand to pat it, but it looked and acted just like a tree, being absolutely inscrutable as it stood there.

  It's just the heat, he decided, wiping the sweat from his brow. Elfkyna was suffocatingly hot in the summer, humid in the snowless winter, and miserable the rest of the year.

  He was, as he had been for the past year, alone in a forest.

  It brought to mind the angry words he'd shouted all those years ago as he clutched his broken arm and kicked the trunk of the tree that had let him fall: "I hate the forest and I don't want to be an elf anymore!"

  Decades later, that sentiment remained.

  Sighing, Konowa dropped the canteen to his side and held his hands out before him, palms up, wondering if he would ever hold his own fate again. He looked closer at his hands. His natural tanned color was deepening to a hue close to the reddish-brown bark of the trees around him. Great, he thought, I'm turning into a bloody tree. He ran his hands through the tangled thatch of long black hair on his head, half expecting to feel leaves sprouting there. Instead, his fingers brushed against the tops of his ears, feeling the point on the right, and ragged scar tissue on the left where the point used to be. The mutilation hadn't been by choice, but he wasn't overly upset with the results. He had never been comfortable with his heritage.

  Konowa closed his eyes and let the forest talk to him. Nothing. He opened one to see if anything had changed. A large, brightly colored snake wound its way up the trunk of an old, bent teak, using the tree's flaking pale-gray bark for grip. The snake paused, turning to look at him. Its tongue darted in and out of its mouth testing the air. Konowa closed his eyes again and focused his thoughts on the snake, but all he sensed was how foolish he was for trying. He gave up and sought out the trees themselves.

  They were nothing like the lean, straight pines and firs or thick and limb-heavy oaks he had known as a child. Here, everything curved, from the trunks of the trees to the creatures and vines that crawled over them. Even the leaves were different, some wide and flat, others garishly green and bitter to the taste.

  He tried a new approach. You're an elf, he reminded himself, born of the natural world; you're supposed to be able to do this. He slowed his breathing and willed his body to relax, trying to let the forest infuse him with its essence. Infuse? Essence? He shook his head. This was pointless. Everything teemed with life and all had voices, yet he heard only noise, felt only chaos.

  It had been the same the day he walked into the birthing meadow to become an elf of the Long Watch. He remembered the mix of excitement and fear as he entered the most sacred realm of the Hhar Vir, the Deep Forest, seeking a sapling cub among the tender green shoots to become his ryk faur, his bond brother.

  "Let your spirit walk among them, and one shall call to you," he was told, so he stayed in the meadow for five straight days without food or water, waiting, hoping. When the elves finally carried him out because he was too weak to walk, no sapling cub had yet called to him. The Wolf Oaks, the very embodiment of the natural world, had measured him, found him wanting, and rejected him. The thought still rankled. Even the elf-witch the elders told stories about to scare wayward children had found a sapling cub with which to bond.

  Knowing it was fruitless but trying anyway, he now raised his arms high into the air and called again to the trees around him. His only answer was a swarm of gnats that flew into his mouth. Exasperated and spitting bugs, Konowa lowered his arms and squirmed inside the tattered and patched remnants of his uniform. The Calahrian Imperial Army green had faded to dirty white, and the knees and elbows sported ill-sewn patches of black leather from his knapsack. His musket, however, was in perfect condition. He let his left hand brush against the stock and smiled at the cold and lifeless feel of wood and steel entwined. The weapon would work if he kept his powder dry and the moving parts oiled, not if he "felt" in tune with it, as the oath weapons the Wolf Oaks bestowed on their ryk faur elves required.

  A rumbling growl made Konowa turn. Jir, his companion of the last year, and probably the sole reason Konowa had not gone stark, raving mad out here, stood a foot away, having sneaked up on Konowa
without the elf hearing a thing.

  "You're better at this than me," he said, lightly rapping the bengar between the eyes with his knuckles. Jir snorted and shook his woolly head, staring up at him with big black eyes. Jir was larger than a dyre wolf, larger even than a tiger, sporting a coat of short, midnight-black fur streaked through with dull red stripes. His head featured a stubby, well-whiskered muzzle and a furry mantle of thick hair that ran halfway down his back. At the moment, he was marking his territory, forcing Konowa to jump back a pace. A swarm of black flies rose up from Jir's back as his long tail swished menacingly around his hindquarters. When he was done, Jir padded over on four big paws, rubbing against him and purring a deep, contented sound that made Konowa's body vibrate.

  They were quite a pair, Konowa mused, scratching the bengar behind the ears. The feel of Jir's coarse fur reminded him of bark and he looked again at the forest that had become his home. Cathedral light fell like shafts of gold between the trunks as the sun dipped below the tops of the trees. It was the kind of moment his father had urged him to commune with, to find his center and become one with the forest. Konowa snorted. It was the kind of moment when he wanted a tankard of beer and a grilled sausage.

  A light breeze sighed between the branches, evaporating the sweat from his forehead. After the heat of the past two weeks, it was a welcome change that would be even better once he and Jir were back in the hut with the door firmly in place. It was not wise to be out in the open when the moon climbed the sky.

  Jir growled and shook his woolly head, indicating he'd had enough. Konowa lifted his hand and moved off. Lifting the stock of his musket out of the way, he squatted with some difficulty, his left knee twinging in protest, a souvenir from an orc lancer many years before. He grabbed a handful of dirt and sifted it through his hands, mimicking the actions of the Hynta-elves he'd watched all through his childhood years. His hand tingled with the power of the natural order, but he had no idea what to do with it. Konowa shivered in spite of the heat, dropping the dirt as if stung.