The Seven Towers Read online

  “It came north because of the towers. I believe it wanted to get back where it belonged, if something that isn’t really alive can want things, which I suppose might be possible even though it doesn’t happen very often. The rest was really just an extremely unpleasant side effect.”

  “A side effect? Dragonfire and starflowers, that thing ate halfway through the outer wall of the castle in less than a minute! And you say that’s a side effect?”

  “Exactly. Galerinth was trying to make the towers totally good, you see, and not being totally good himself he wound up with an exceedingly peculiar mixture. Though I’m afraid the Matholych didn’t precisely eat through the wall.”

  “It certainly looked to me as though it were eating!” Crystalorn said, shuddering.

  “What a thing looks like is frequently quite different from what it is. Those odd little insects that look like dry twigs, for instance, and very bad pastry that’s been covered in whipped cream, and the crown jewels of Mournwal.”

  “The crown jewels of Mournwal?”

  “About half of them are paste. At least, they were the last time I saw them, but that was rather a long while ago, so I suppose a few more of them might have been replaced by now. I can think of a great many better ways of paying for one’s government, but then, perhaps whoever is the King of Mournwal just now doesn’t have a great deal of imagination.”

  “They’re paste?” Crystalorn sounded outraged.

  “I believe I did say they weren’t what they seemed,” Amberglas said gently.

  “About the Matholych,” Vandaris prompted.

  “Yes, of course. You see, Galerinth apparently had excessively grand ideas, which isn’t at all surprising, because if he hadn’t been that sort of person, he wouldn’t have tried to cast that spell in the first place, and everyone would have been spared a great deal of trouble and inconvenience. I believe he wanted to use the towers to control all the magic in the Seven Kingdoms.”

  “I don’t think I see how that explains what the Matholych was doing,” Jermain said.

  “It was the other half of the spell on the towers,” Amberglas said patiently. “But I’m afraid they were quite out of balance in a great many ways, so of course the towers didn’t do enough and the Matholych did far too much. I rather doubt that Galerinth expected the Matholych to be quite so active about soaking up magic, though he really ought to have realized that destroying things and killing people can generate a good deal of power, which of course his spell would have to deal with somehow if it were going to control all the power in the Seven Kingdoms. But unfortunately, he didn’t.”

  “I still don’t understand why the towers collapsed,” Eltiron said.

  “Dear me, I thought that was quite obvious. The Matholych had been sucking up power for years, and so of course it grew bigger, though I believe it took rather a long time to assimilate everything it took in, which is perfectly reasonable since the spell wasn’t designed for that sort of thing in the first place. So it was entirely too much for the towers to absorb all at once like that, and the whole spell came apart, which is really the best thing that could have happened under the circumstances.”

  “How long have you known all this?” Crystalorn asked suspiciously.

  “If you are referring to the details of the spell on the towers, I’ve known most of it since yesterday, though of course I’ve studied them for years and it was quite evident that they had some connection with the Matholych even if it wasn’t clear precisely what it was. Spells are so much easier to understand when one can watch them being put together or taken apart.”

  An unpleasant thought crossed Eltiron’s mind, and he looked at Amberglas. “You lived in one of them, didn’t you?”

  Amberglas nodded absently. Eltiron said, “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Amberglas said vaguely. “There wasn’t anything particularly interesting about it, except of course itself, and one can say that about nearly everything, whether it’s magic or not.”

  Crystalorn looked from Amberglas to Eltiron and frowned. “Well, if Amberglas’s tower is gone, what are you going to do about it?”

  Eltiron winced as the rising note in her voice stimulated his headache again. “There isn’t much I can do! I can’t put it back up again; I’m no sorcerer.” He did not feel like bringing up the bits of knowledge he’d acquired from Carachel.

  “But—”

  “King Eltiron is quite right,” Amberglas interrupted firmly. “And besides, there are a great many other places I haven’t tried living in yet. The capital of Navren, for instance, or that odd little seaport in northern Vircheta that changes its name every few years for no particular reason. Though I expect I will start with Sevairn, since it’s much more convenient at the moment.”

  “I’m glad you’ll be staying,” Eltiron said. “I may need a sorceress around when the rulers of Vircheta and Mournwal and Tar-Alem and the other kingdoms start asking why their towers collapsed. Most of them weren’t exactly in out-of-the-way places.”

  “You don’t have to worry about those flea brains,” Vandaris broke in, grinning.

  “What makes you say that?”’

  “I’ve heard the talk going around Leshiya. By the time the kings hear it, I doubt that any of them will want to offend the Wizard-King of Sevairn.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me, granite ears.”

  “But I can’t—I mean, I’m not—” Eltiron broke off, took a breath that made his ribs ache, and tried again. “Carachel was the Wizard-King! I don’t want his title!” He saw Crystalorn frown in puzzlement and Jermain nod slowly in understanding. Then Vandaris shook her head.

  “You don’t have any choice. People think you’re a wizard, so Wizard-King is what they’ll call you. If you forbid it, they’ll just do it behind your back and make up stories about the things you do in secret.”

  “Vandaris is right, I’m afraid,” Jermain said. “Carachel never titled himself Wizard-King; others did that for him.”

  “I suppose so, but I don’t have to like it,” Eltiron grumbled.

  Jermain nodded again, and Eltiron looked at him for a moment. “What are your plans now, Jermain?”

  “I have none, Your Majesty.”

  “Then would you resume your position in Leshiya as King’s Adviser?”

  Jermain hesitated. “I’ll . . . think about it,” he said at last.

  Eltiron started to reply, then looked at Jermain and stopped. They had not spoken privately since Jermain’s return, and this was not a good time or place for whatever else needed to be said between them. But he had made a beginning, and perhaps that was all he could expect for now.

  There was a moment’s silence, then Vandaris looked at Crystalorn. “There’s one thing still bothering me about that fight yesterday. Why did Carachel let himself be distracted like that? He risked his neck to save yours, and from all I’ve heard, that’s just not like him.”

  “I don’t care whether it was like him or not,” Crystalorn said. “I could feel the Matholych coming after me, and I knew I couldn’t get away in time, and then I felt Carachel throw his spell. I don’t know why he did it, but I’m glad he did!”

  Vandaris did not look away. “It still seems odd to me.”

  “It was odd,” Eltiron broke in. He had to get Vandaris off this subject. “But since Carachel is dead, we don’t have any way to know his reasons.”

  “That may not be precisely correct,” Amberglas said. “But I really wouldn’t recommend that anyone try learning Black Sorcery just to ask Carachel questions that it’s extremely unlikely he’d remember the answers to anyway, particularly since I very much doubt it would make any difference now.”

  Vandaris shrugged. “All right, then, let it be.”

  If Vandaris had not been watching him, and if the bandages around his chest had not been so tight, Eltiron would have breathed a sigh of relief. He knew why Carachel had helped Crystalorn. He had known since the impossible moment of one
ness when the sorcerer had drawn on all his power to save her, and had drawn Eltiron into his mind along with it. Crystalorn was Carachel’s daughter; Carachel had been unshakably certain of it. That was why Crystalorn had been able to feel Carachel’s magic, and the Matholych, and the magic of the Tower of Judgment earlier. How Carachel had seduced the Queen of Barinash, and how he had kept his secret so long, Eltiron neither knew nor wanted to know. His only real concern was to make sure the secret remained a secret, for Crystalorn’s sake.

  He saw Vandaris watching him closely, and for a moment he was afraid that she had somehow guessed the direction of his thoughts. Then she said, “Fire and ice storms, you look exhausted as a day-old corpse! Here’s the list we came to give you; Trevannon’s marked the nobles he thinks knew what they were doing when they supported Terrel Lassond. We can discuss it tomorrow or the day after, when you’ve had time to go through it.”

  She dropped a folded paper on the table beside Eltiron, then turned to Jermain and Crystalorn. “Come on, we’ve done enough damage for one day.”

  Jermain glanced at Eltiron and rose; Crystalorn followed. “A moment, please,” Eltiton said. “I would like the Princess Crystalorn to remain.” He looked at Crystalorn and added, “That is, if you’d be willing to.”

  Crystalorn turned and looked at him uncertainly. Vandaris shot him a sharp look, then grinned and took Jermain’s good arm and hauled him along with her, out of the room. Amberglas surveyed first Eltiron and then Crystalorn with an absentminded air that nearly made Eltiron laugh. She nodded once and turned toward the door.

  “Amberglas?” Crystalorn said hesitantly.

  “It’s certainly possible,” Amberglas said vaguely. “Though I’d really recommend you settle it yourselves, and of course the sooner it’s taken care of the easier it’s likely to be for you to stop fretting about it. So I believe I shall leave anyway.” She turned and departed; the door closed softly behind her.

  “Please, sit down,” Eltiron said. Now that he had the opportunity he’d been waiting for, he did not know how to begin. How did one tell a person one wanted to marry her? Particularly if one was already betrothed to her? His head hurt, his ribs ached, and he was beginning to think this had not been as good an idea as it had seemed.

  Crystalorn sat down and looked at him for a moment. “You want to talk to me about the wedding, don’t you?”

  “I—yes, I do. Since so much has happened.”

  “Well?”

  “I thought we could have the wedding and the coronation at the same time. That is, if—if you wanted to. Marry me, I mean.” This wasn’t coming out at all the way Eltiron had thought it would. He groped for the right words, then suddenly abandoned the effort and blurted, “I do want to marry you; I don’t care what the Sevairn nobles say. But if you don’t want to marry me, we’ll think of something so it won’t matter.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Crystalorn said, studying him. “But I think we’d better wait a month or so, until you look a little more like a king and a little less like something the dogs chewed over.”

  Eltiron looked blankly at her for a moment before her words penetrated. “You really want to marry me? After the way you’ve been avoiding me, I was afraid . . .”

  “So was I. I kept hearing people talk about how King Marreth ordered you to get married and picked the bride and everything, and I thought you’d want to get out of it once he was dead.”

  “Not after I’d met you.”

  “How could I know that? You never said anything.”

  “There never seemed to be time.”

  Crystalorn looked at him. “I think I’m going to have to teach you a couple of things about being a king. You don’t have to wait until there’s time for things if you don’t want to.”

  Eltiron laughed; the resulting pain in his ribs made him wince. Crystalorn saw it and frowned. “Vandaris was right; you do look tired,” she said. “Maybe I’d better go.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t, but I suppose Darinhal will make a fuss if you stay.”

  Crystalorn grinned suddenly. “He’s not the only one. This court has more gossips than all of Navren and Gramwood put together! I can hardly wait to see what they do when they find out I’m going to be Queen of Sevairn after all. But I’d better leave anyway.”

  She looked at him, then leaned forward suddenly and kissed him, warm and gentle. He caught her hand in his good one as she straightened up to leave. “You’ll come back tomorrow.”

  “Of course. If you’re well enough.” She smiled, slipped her hand out of his, and left.

  He looked after her, feeling happier than he could remember being in a long time. Briefly, he wondered whether he should have told her that Carachel was her father. If anyone had the right to know, she did. But it didn’t really matter; he would have time to think about it later. They had the rest of their lives.

  Now that he thought of it, there were a few other things he ought to deal with as the King of Sevairn—the armies Carachel had gathered in Gramwood, for one. Perhaps if Sevairn offered to help Elsane regain her title as Queen of Tar-Alem, she would disband them. He would have to talk to Jermain about that. And there was Vandaris. . . . How long could he persuade her to stay this time? He might need her support if he decided to make any changes among the nobility of Sevairn. And Amberglas . . . He was still planning when he fell asleep.