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//-->A Path to Coldness of HeartGLEN COOKNIGHT SHADE BOOKS SAN FRANCISCOA Path to Coldness of Heart© 2012 by Glen Cook This edition ofA Path to Coldness of Heart©2012 by Night Shade BooksCover art © 2012 by Raymond Swanland Cover design by Claudia Noble Interior layout and design byAmy PopovichAll rights reservedFirst EditionISBN: 978-1-59780-329-8Night Shade BooksPlease visit us on the web at http://www.nightshadebooks.comChapter One:Year 1016 AFE (After the Founding of the Empire of Ilkazar)The Price of HubrisThe prisoner clamped his jaw on a shriek. He had moved too suddenly, turning. He did swear softly. Hecould not work his muscles, could not build the strength to escape if his wounds did not heal. And they wouldnot if he kept trying before the meat was ready.A clatter rose outside. This austere suite might be his entire world for the remainder of his existence: areward for having befriended a woman and having saved the life of a man.It was the middle of the night. Darkness with stars filled the single foot square window high in the eastwall, well beyond his reach. He should be sleeping.He lay in bed, back to the doorway, feigning sleep, when the visitors arrived. Three, from the sounds ofit: one large, one small, one delicate. Female, if fragrance did not lie.“He heals slowly,” one said. “The physician blames his despair.”That voice belonged to Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i, commander of Shinsan’s Western Army. It was by Shih-ka’i’s grace that the prisoner lived.A second familiar voice said, “The physician should look closer. He’s clever. He’ll show you what youexpect to see till you relax. Then you’ll be dead.”The prisoner’s exact strategy. If only his body would heal!Shih-ka’i said, “The physician says his wounds pierced his soul. He overreached—and it cost himeverything.”Mist, Empress of the Dread Empire, considered before she replied. “It can’t be easy, living on after makingso many bad decisions.”The prisoner, who thought of himself only as “the prisoner” because of his shame, compelled himself torelax, to breathe slow and deep. But he could not stop tears from leaking.Thousands had died because of his decisions. A kingdom might be destroyed by civil war. His family wouldbe fugitives already. The childwoman he had loved… Who knew? If Sherilee was clever she would insistthat she had known him only as someone who visited her friend Kristen, widow of his son and mother of hisgrandchildren.He thought about Inger, his wife and queen, seldom. When he did, though, it was with a grand ration of guilt.That love had died.Inger came to mind when the pain was bad. They met the last time he lay just outside the Dark Gate, she avolunteer nurse helping heroes injured while holding the wolves of the Dread Empire at bay. In his lonelinesshe had asked her to become his wife.He had lost another wife, Elana, and another lover, Fiana, before Inger.Women who loved him did not fare well.“Were I in charge here,” said the woman who had been a friend, and a wife to his best friend’s wife’sbrother, “and I was sure that he would recover, I would brick up the doorway.”Lord Ssu-ma said, “I bear the man no love but that is excessive. He’s a cripple. He’ll never recover fully. Andhe’s nowhere where he can cause any grief.”The prisoner had no idea where “here” was. Inside Dread Empire territory, certainly. Though Shinsan hadsuffered severely lately, not one inch of ground had been abandonedHow were Shinsan’s wars coming? He had helped facilitate the conclusion of one and had been the loser inanother. The Matayangan front must have turned favorable, too. Mist had time to visit.She observed, “O Shing was a cripple.”“As you say. Vigilance is required.”The night visitors withdrew, to the prisoner’s frustration. He had hoped to hear something more heartening.Despair led to self-flagellation. Then, finally, feigned sleep segued into the real thing....Inger watched her captains bicker over a map. They were getting nowhere. She was too tired to scoldthem. Too tired to ask what new disasters had them bickering.Ethnically, three were Nordmen from Kavelin’s old ruling class. Two were Wessons, freemen,descendants of long-ago immigrants from Itaskia. Inger was Itaskian-born, as was the sixth man, whom shehad borrowed from her cousin Dane. Dane’s little army was wintering fifty miles west of Vorgreberg, too faraway to provide quick support. Regions nearer the capital were less friendly. Dane’s men suffered virulentguerrilla attacks if they moved nearer to Vorgreberg. That forced them to cluster in stronger bands. Thosebecame a strain on local resources, which, in turn, left the locals more sympathetic to the rebels.Inger refused to let Dane move into the city. She said she did not want to cede the countryside. In truthshe did not want her uncontrollable cousin in position to control Kavelin by controlling her.He would try, given the chance.Power was his reason for having come to Kavelin. Power was why she had wed Kavelin’s lonely king.Inger sipped scalding tea.She was a tall, handsome woman whose blond hair had begun to streak grey. Time was not the thief of herbeauty. Stress, fear, and lack of sleep were the demons responsible.The hot tea wakened her fully. “Silence! Thank you, gentlemen. Using the term loosely. Mr. Cleary, you talk.Everyone else stay quiet.”Cleary was the senior Wesson, a stout, sturdy man of thirty-three who had served King Bragi faithfully andremained loyal now that Bragi had fallen. Inger trusted him. The Nordmen and Nathan Wolf, borrowed fromDane of Greyfells, she trusted not at all. In Wolf ’s case it was no secret that he was here to watch herbecause Dane no longer had faith in Josiah Gales.“Ma’am. Your Majesty. The contention arose because General Liakopulos has gone missing. No one knowswhere, when, or how. He was polling units out west to see where they stand, now. Our discussion concernedpossible hows and whys of his disappearance.”Inger’s heart sank. This was bad news indeed, though not a surprise. Liakopulos had had little interest insupporting her. He had been Bragi’s man. He considered her incapable of, or uninterested in, pursuingBragi’s reforms. “What are the theories? Mr. Wolf?”“He deserted. He didn’t want to be here anymore.”“And the rest of you disagree?”Two Nordmen, Sir Rengild and Sir Arnhelm, thought the truth more sinister: The Guild General had goneover to the Marena Dimura strongman, Credence Abaca. Sir Arnhelm insisted, “Those two were alwayscozy.” Which he found repugnant because, as a class, Nordmen considered Marena Dimura less thanhuman woodland savages. Colonel Abaca and his henchmen had developed massive pretensions duringthe reign of the lost king—a savage himself who would not distinguish between noble and ignoble.The third Nordmen, Sir Quirre of Bolt, said nothing. With a slight sneer and shake of the head he expressedcontempt for his fellows. He believed in King Bragi’s vision.Inger turned to the Wessons. Boyer disagreed completely with Cleary. Neither considered Liakopulos avillain. Cleary was sure the General just did not stop heading west when he saw a chance to leave. Boyerwas sure that Liakopulos had been murdered. “And rebels didn’t do it. It will be Greyfells when the truthcomes out. It’s a matter of who stands most to gain, Your Majesty.”“Spoken like a true money-grubbing merchant,” Sir Arnhelm snarled. “Everything comes down to a balancesheet.”“Yes, it does,” Inger said. There was no love for the General here. Liakopulos had kept these men in check,favoring no one, contemptuous of them all because he considered them adventurers and plunderers whocared nothing for Kavelin. Bragi, Queen Fiana, and her husband the Krief, who died when Fiana was a teen,had all stretched reason to breaking to create a nation in which all the peoples had a stake.Inger covered her forehead with her left palm, rubbed, thumb and little finger massaging her temples.“Jokerst, find Colonel Gales. I want him here for a working breakfast tomorrow.”Gales would replace Liakopulos. He had been understudying, with the General’s assistance. The move wasexpected. And might be what Dane wanted to see.Was he behind Liakopulos’s disappearance? He was capable. But would he dare the hostility of theMercenaries’ Guild?Inability to predict consequences accurately was the bane of the Greyfells line. Again and again theydropped stones on their own toes while trying to be clever.“The rest of you. No more speculation. Get me facts. Find out what actually happened.”Several faces went pale. It was dangerous out there.“One thing can’t be denied,” Sir Arnhelm said. “The break with the old regime. Liakopulos was the last.”Inger suspected that pleased the man no end. “All of you, go away. I need rest before I go mad.”They went. She sent for Dr. Wachtel, an overlooked holdover from the old regime. But Wachtel was aholdover from every regime. He was Castle Krief furniture. He had tended Kavelin’s rulers for sixty years,whoever they were.The doctor provided a draught to make Inger sleep. The medication sometimes had a harsh side effect. Itcaused vivid, often prescient dreams, some of which would be nightmares.Inger wakened less rested than she had hoped. She did not remember her dreams but met the new dayafraid....Credence Abaca’s Marena Dimura partisans kept their political prizes in comfort but there were limitsto what could be managed in the wilds of the Kapenrung Mountains. Kristen and her companions learnedthe cost of commitment to a cause, though the privations were social, intellectual, and circumscription ofmovement rather than a dearth of food, warmth, or shelter.The children, including young King Bragi II, did not mind. They ran wild with the Marena Dimura urchins,getting every bit as filthy and bruised while having just as much fun in the ice, snow, and forests. Kristen triedto convince herself that this was good for a boy who would become king of all Kaveliner peoples, includingthe disenfranchised Marena Dimura.Which was their own fault, Kristen believed. They would not leave the wilderness and become part ofthe nation, though some had done so while Bragi was king. Abaca had been one of the army’s topcommanders.Kristen and Dahl Haas shared a bench inside a cozy cabin equipped with the blatant luxury of a hugeglass window. Kristen often wondered where the forest people had stolen it. Snow fell outside. Big chunkshit the window, melted, slid downward as they perished. “Winter here is harder than it is in Vorgreberg.”“Think so? How about during the Great Eastern Wars?” “That was one bad winter.” She frowned. It hadbeen more than one winter and had been unimaginably worse than this. Hunger, danger, fear, and sicknesshad been constant companions.Haas leaned close, no longer discomfited by his affection for the girl who had been the wife of his king’s sonand who was the mother of Bragi’s legitimate heir. Kristen had abandoned reticence long ago. She knewher father-in-law approved.She said, “Sitting here like this, I don’t think this is such a bad life.”“How much better the world if everyone were equally content.”“You ought to be content. You’ve got me.”“Somebody is getting a big head.”Sherilee came for the fire and to watch the snow. The couple said nothing. Speaking to Sherilee gave herlicense to vent her unhappiness. She could be tiresome.Sherilee was young, small, beautiful, almost porcelain in her perfection. She looked years younger than shewas, which was only Kristen’s age. In his absence she had become pathologically enamored of King Bragi,based upon a brief, furtive liaison with a man older than her own father. In her dramatic way she hadreconstructed her life around what she thought she had lost when the King had fallen.Sherilee sighed dramatically. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]