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  “Every Charisian may know that, but that doesn’t make it the real reason,” Nahrmahn said with a rather strange smile. “It turns out the real reason was one of Shan-wei’s little jokes. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover she’d planted that beach nonsense as part of the cover for it, in fact, and I can’t make up my mind whether the real reason for the name’s going to make Ironhill happy or drive him to distraction.”

  “In that case, I think you’d better unravel this little mystery for us,” Merlin said repressively, and Nahrmahn chuckled.

  “Let’s just put it this way,” he said. “I’m going to leave at least a part of this as a homework assignment for Cayleb, but did you ever hear of something called the Comstock Lode back on Earth, Merlin?”

  Merlin frowned. The term did sound familiar, in a vague, elusive sort of way. He couldn’t call it to the front of his memory, however, and he shrugged.

  “My, my, I am disappointed.” Nahrmahn’s smile grew even broader. “I think you should consider it a homework assignment for yourself, as well as Cayleb. And once you’ve done that, we’re going to have to figure out how we can go about ‘discovering’ the truth in a way that makes some kind of sense. Trust me, it’ll be worth it if we can.”

  Merlin’s frown deepened. He knew that tone, that smile, and part of him wanted to grab Nahrmahn by the scruff of his immaterial neck and shake him until he disgorged the information he was clearly enjoying not disgorging. Unfortunately, the effort would have been futile, and he knew it. From Cayleb’s expression, the emperor was thinking very much the same sort of thoughts he was.

  “All right, that’s all suitably mystifying,” Cayleb said after a moment in a moderately martyred tone. “Do you by chance intend to be a bit more forthcoming about those other ‘tidbits’ of yours?”

  “Of course I do, Your Majesty.” Nahrmahn blinked guilelessly at the other two. “How could you possibly think I wouldn’t be?”

  “I don’t want you to take this wrongly, Nahrmahn, but have you considered how fortunate you are that you’re not simply in Nimue’s Cave, instead of here where I can get my hands on you at this very moment, but already dead?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind. However,” the Emeraldian prince’s expression sobered, “in this case I’m not sure exactly what we want to do. I’ve had Owl scan Commodore Pei’s data dump from the original colony records, including all the biometric data, and I’ve discovered that Paityr and his family really are directly descended from Frederick Schueler.” Merlin and Cayleb both stiffened in their chairs, and Nahrmahn shrugged. “For all I know, by this time a third of the population of Siddarmark’s descended from Schueler. Without a broader genetic sample there’s no way to know that, though. There have to be a lot of collateral descendants simply given how long the Wylsynn family’s been around, but I can’t even begin to quantify that at this point. So the question is do we tell Paityr? Would he even want to know?”

  “Now that, Nahrmahn, is a very good question, and one I don’t think either of us is even remotely qualified to answer,” Merlin said slowly. He looked at Cayleb, who nodded vigorously. “At the same time, I don’t know we have any right not to tell him. I hope no one will think this is cowardly of me, but I think the person we ought to ask about it is Maikel. He probably knows Paityr better than any of the rest of us. Besides,” Merlin smiled briefly, “I think it’s the kind of question that comes under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Charis, don’t you?”

  “I certainly do if it gets me off the hook,” Cayleb said fervently. “This is one ‘decision of state’ I’m just delightedly happy to pass on!”

  “Interesting you should put it that way, Your Majesty,” Nahrmahn said, and Cayleb looked back at his image with a suddenly suspicious expression.

  “Why?”

  “Because it turns out Paityr isn’t the only member of the inner circle who descends from rarified, one might almost say sanctified, origins.”

  “Meaning exactly what?” Cayleb’s expression was more suspicious than ever, and Nahrmahn shrugged.

  “Well, it’s just that I’ve been a bit … suspicious about certain elements in the historical record, you might say, ever since you and the Brethren were kind enough to share it with me. Specifically, there’s this nagging little question I’ve had about Jeremiah Knowles and his in-laws.”

  “What?” Cayleb blinked at the non sequitur. “What does Saint Zherneau have to do with whatever you’re talking about? I mean, there wouldn’t be an inner circle without his journal, but aside from that?”

  “Well, it turns out Owl’s files have the genetic profiles on him and his wife and also on Kayleb and Jennifer Sarmac. So I had him take a look at them, and it turns out I was right.”

  “Right about what?”

  “Well,” Nahrmahn said for a third time, “we all know how names’ve shifted over the last thousand years or so. But did you ever stop to think, Cayleb, how much like ‘Sarmac’ the name ‘Ahrmahk’ sounds?” He smiled beatifically as the emperor gawked at him. “Always nice to be able to track your genealogy back with a degree of assurance, isn’t it?” he observed cheerfully.

  .IV.

  Outside Trevyr, The South March Lands, Republic of Siddarmark

  “Well, that’s a lovely bit of news.”

  Sir Hauwerd Breygart, otherwise known as the Earl of Hanth, was a solid, powerfully built fellow with graying dark hair and brown eyes. He was a calm, purposeful sort under most circumstances—not the kind of officer given to temper tantrums or shouting at subordinates. At the moment, however, those brown eyes were dangerously hard and his expression was not an encouraging one.

  “Excuse me, My Lord?” Lieutenant Hairahm Bahskym, Hanth’s Marine aide, said with commendable bravery. “Did you say something?”

  “No, I muttered something,” Hanth replied. He glowered at the dispatch which had just been delivered to him, then looked back up at Bahskym. “I imagine you already know what’s in this?”

  “Ah, I did receipt it and bring it over from the semaphore office, My Lord,” the lieutenant pointed out, and Hanth snorted.

  “In that case, why are you still standing here? Go get me Major Zhadwail, Major Mhartyn, Commander Karmaikel, and Commander Portyr. I’d tell you to bring me Commander Ashwail and Commander Parkyr, too, if they were available.”

  “Of course, My Lord.” Bahskym touched his chest in salute.

  If the lieutenant felt the least surprised at Hanth’s decision to call in all of his most senior officers—with the exception of Parkyr and Ashwail, both of whom were in Thesmar at the moment—no one could have told it from his expression. He bowed slightly and disappeared like smoke.

  * * *

  “I don’t suppose this is confirmed, My Lord?” Major Wyllym Zhadwail asked wryly the better part of an hour later. He was a weathered-looking fellow, four inches shorter than the earl, and the 1st Independent Marine Brigade’s senior battalion commander. Given that the entire “Independent Brigade” consisted of just under five thousand men and that two-thirds of its “battalions” consisted of drafted Charisian seamen, it was a possibly grandiloquent title, but no one was inclined to laugh at it, given what it had achieved little more than a month earlier in the Battle of Thesmar.

  “You suppose correctly,” Hanth replied with a wintry smile. “On the other hand, the numbers are coming from the same people who’ve been providing all our other numbers, so I’m inclined to accept them for planning purposes.”

  “Damn,” Zhadwail said mildly and shook his head. “I’d sort of hoped they were off this time.”

  The other officers standing around the map table in Hanth’s command tent chuckled, although there wasn’t really anything especially humorous about the situation. The earl looked down at the map, and his own inclination to smile fluttered away as he considered the unpromising position and the numbers coming at him.

  Sir Rainos Ahlverez alone would be bringing over fifty thousand men south from the capture of Alyksb
erg. Probably not a lot over fifty thousand, given the casualties he’d taken when Alyksberg’s defenders mousetrapped him. According to the dispatches Hanth had received, the rearguard General Clyftyn Sumyrs had left to cover his garrison’s evacuation had blown up the fortress city’s magazines—and themselves—just as Ahlverez’ assault columns were swarming over the walls. The best estimate anyone had was that somewhere around four thousand Dohlarans had been killed or seriously wounded in the resultant explosion.

  On the other hand, Sir Fahstyr Rychtyr, commanding the force Hanth currently had “besieged” around the city of Trevyr on the Seridahn River, had been reinforced from Dohlar. His roughly forty-thousand-man force was almost back to its original strength, and it had received several thousand additional rifles in the last couple of five-days. Between the two of them, Rychty and Ahlverez outnumbered Hanth by roughly eighteen-to-one, but the Royal Dohlaran Army was no longer the only thing he had to worry about. The “Army of Justice,” the Desnairian Empire’s contribution to the rape of Siddarmark, had crossed the border from the Grand Duchy of Silkiah. It had to come overland, and the going wasn’t particularly good around the northern tip of the Salthar Mountains, but something like sixty-five percent of that army was cavalry, which should at least give it pretty fair mobility. More to the point, the Duke of Harless had over a hundred and seventy-five thousand men under his command, not counting his artillerists or civilian supply drovers, which meant that something like a quarter million men were all headed directly for the 1st Independent Marine Brigade’s five thousand men.

  Even for Charisians, those odds might be considered just a tad high, Hanth reflected.

  “It looks like Sumyrs is going to get here before Ahlverez does,” he said finally, looking up from the map again. “That may not sound like much, but it’s another seventy-two hundred men. They’ll need rest, food, and medical care, but I imagine they’ll come in handy for holding Thesmar. And that’s what it’s going to come to, let’s not fool ourselves about that.”

  “Believe me, My Lord,” Major Lairays Mhartyn said feelingly. “The last thing I want to do is be anywhere in the open when that many men come crunching down on us!” He shook his head. “Mind you, if it were only the Dohlarans, I might feel differently about it. Twenty-to-one odds? Piffle!” He snapped his fingers. “My boys wouldn’t even work up a sweat!”

  “Of course they wouldn’t, Lairays.” Hanth shook his head. “Since those pesky Desnairians are going to be coming along, though, I think it’s time we started seriously planning to pull back. I’d prefer to do it under cover of darkness so Rychtyr doesn’t realize we’ve gone until we’ve got the artillery well away. That’s going to be up to you and Commander Parkyr, Wahltayr.” He looked at Wahltayr Karmaikel, who commanded one of his naval “battalions.” “I know Admiral Hywyt’s landed a lot more guns to cover Thesmar, but I’d just as soon not lose these, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Oh, I think we can manage that for you, My Lord,” Karmaikel assured him.

  “Good.” Hanth looked back down at the map for a moment, then up at their waiting faces. “In that case, I don’t suppose there’s anything more that needs saying. Get back to your commands, and Hairahm here will be bringing around formal movement orders by this evening.”

  .V.

  HMS Destiny, 56 Port Royal, and Royal Palace, City of Cherayth, Kingdom of Chisholm, Empire of Charis

  “A bit different from the last time we sailed, isn’t it?” Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk, the Duke of Darcos, remarked quietly as HMS Destiny and her escorting squadron got under way, accompanied by the explosive wind-ruffling sound of hundreds of wings. The even larger escort of wyverns and seagulls dipped and swirled about the ship in a multi-hued, whistling, calling cloud, and the dark-haired young woman at his side had to lean towards him to hear him. Even listening hard, it was difficult to pull the sound of his voice out of that thrumming aerial thunder and the noise of shouted orders, wind-struck canvas, the song of that same wind singing through the rigging, and the rush and gurgle of water. They stood at Destiny’s quarterdeck rail, safely out of the way of the seamen minding the flagship’s sails, and the activities of those hurrying, orderly sailors were no longer the mystery to her they once had been.

  “And even more different from the first time we sailed together,” Princess Irys Daykyn agreed. Her left hand stole out to capture his right, and she inhaled the smell of saltwater and tar as if it were some rare elixir, stray strands of hair flying on the wind. “In some ways, I’m a lot more worried about the outcome of this voyage, though.”

  His hand tightened around hers, and she felt an almost overwhelming need to move closer to him, let her head rest against his shoulder. It would never have done, of course—not in front of all those watching eyes. Although, given the standard Cayleb and Sharleyan Ahrmahk had set.…

  “I guess I can understand that,” Hektor said. “I mean, how could the possibility of going into permanent captivity as a state prisoner of the Charisian Empire possibly compare to the dreadful possibility of going home to face your own fiercely loyal people?” She looked up at him sharply, and he smiled. “With a Charisian fiancé in tow, I mean.”

  She laughed, but she also shook her head at him, because that was the very crux of the matter, after all.

  “You left out the bit about not having to worry about anyone trying to murder Daivyn or me in Charis,” she pointed out. “That made any concern about becoming ‘state prisoners’ rather less pressing than it might’ve been, given the alternatives.”

  He nodded in understanding since he’d had more than a little to do with that outcome.

  “And it’s not just the Charisian fiancé that’s making you nervous about going home, either, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t,” she admitted with something rather like a pensive sigh. “I know I’m simply borrowing trouble worrying about it when none of us know how it’s all going to come out,” she continued. “Phylyp’s certainly told me that often enough! For that matter,” her hazel eyes glinted at him, “I believe you may’ve mentioned it a time or three.”

  “Possibly even as many as four,” he said thoughtfully. “Probably not, though. I’m not one of those people in the habit of repeating myself, after all. Still, it might’ve been as many as four.”

  “More like four dozen,” she retorted. “‘In the habit of repeating’ yourself, indeed! I wouldn’t want to go around using any words like ‘nagging,’ but—” She shrugged.

  “Well, if you’d just gone ahead and agreed with me the first time, I wouldn’t’ve had to keep repeating myself,” he pointed out equably.

  “I did agree with you.”

  “Oh?” He cocked his head. “Didn’t I just hear you say—”

  “I agreed intellectually. That’s not the same thing as being able to actually take your advice. Mind you, I don’t think anyone could’ve taken your advice under the circumstances.”

  “Probably not,” he agreed. He looked back at the waterfront and the crowded harbor slipping slowly astern as Destiny and her escorts gathered way. “On the other hand, standing on this deck—in almost exactly this spot, as a matter of fact—while discussing weighty political matters seems to be something of a habit of mine. Do you want to talk about it now?”

  He looked back down at her and she arched an eyebrow at him.

  “I’m serious, Irys, and not just because it’s where Earl Hanth helped sort me out. It’s a good place to talk. I think people spend too much time talking about important things in offices and council chambers. Things … focus down too much under those circumstances. I think they’d probably make better decisions if they talked them over in the open air and sunlight more often first.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she considered the proposition. He might well be right, she reflected. Of course, the fact that he’d been at sea since his tenth birthday might have a little something to do with his perspective and his aversion to the hushed corridors of power associated with those offices an
d council chambers. He was far from any typical aristocrat of her acquaintance, and not simply because he’d been born a commoner. She tried to imagine any of the exquisite young sprigs of Corisandian nobility who’d begun vying for her hand before her father sent her to “safety”on a galleon’s quarterdeck, oilskins shining in the glare of reflected lightning as he fought a hurricane tooth and nail for his ship’s survival.