westward and begun his campaign to weaken Hardorn from within.
Tremane turned away from the window and walked back into his study in silence. The light from his mage- lamp on the desk was steady and clear, quite enough to give the feeling that no storm would ever penetrate these stone walls to disturb him. Odd how comforted we humans are by so simple a thing as a light.
There was an initial report on Valdemar from his tame scholars, hardly more than a page or two, lying in the middle of the dark wooden expanse of his desk. He picked it up without sitting down and scanned it over. He didn't really need to—he'd read the report several times already—but it gave him the feeling that he was actually doing something to pick it up and read the words.
The gist of it was that some centuries ago, a minor Baron of a conquered land within the Empire named 'Valdemar' reacted to the abuses of power by his Imperial overlord in a rather drastic fashion. Rather than bringing his complaints to the Emperor, he had assembled all of his followers in the dead of winter when communications were well-nigh impossible, and instructed them to pack up everything they wanted to hold onto. Valdemar was a mage, and so was his wife; between them, they managed to find and silence all the spies in their own Court. Then Valdemar, his underlings, their servants and retainers right down to the last peasant child, all fled with everything they could carry. At last report, they had gone into the west, the dangerous west. Valdemar had probably known that the Empire would be reluctant to pursue them in that direction. Presumably his quest for some land remote enough that he need no longer worry about the Empire finding him bore fruit. The coincidence of names seemed far too much to be anything else, and according to the scholars, this present 'Kingdom of Valdemar' bore the stamp of that original Baron Valdemar's overly-idealistic worldview.
That was all simple enough, and it could account for the animosity of the current leaders of Valdemar toward the Empire of which they should know very little. If they, in their turn, had a tradition of 'fear the Empire,' they would react with hostility to the first appearance of Imperial troops anywhere near their borders.
That much was predictable. What was not predictable was the shape that Baron Valdemar's idealism had taken. Where in the names of the forty little gods did this cult of white-clad riders come from? There was nothing like them inside the Empire or outside of it! And what were their horses? His mages all swore to a man that they were something more than mere horseflesh, but they could not tell him what they were, only what they weren't. How powerful were the beasts? No one could tell him. What was their function? No one could tell him that, either. There was nothing really written down, only some legend that they were a gift of some unspecified gods. Were they 'familiars,' as some hedge-wizards used? Were they conjured up out of the Etherial Plane? No one could tell him. Nor had the agent unearthed anything; the riders themselves, when asked directly, would only smile and say that this was something only another rider would understand.
That was hardly helpful.
I never liked the idea of employing an artist as an agent, he thought with distaste. When they aren't unreliable, they're ineffectual.
Not that he'd had any choice; the agent was an inheritance from his predecessor, and there hadn't been time or opportunity to get another in place.
White riders and horses were bad enough, but worse had somehow occurred before Ancar took himself out in some kind of insane battle with an unknown mage or mages.
Valdemar had somehow managed to patch up a conflict going back generations with their traditional enemy, Karse. And how they had managed to make an ally of that stiff-necked, parochial bitch Solaris was completely beyond him! He wouldn't have thought the so-called Son of the Sun would ally herself with anyone, much less with an ages-old enemy!
And where had all the rest of Valdemar's bizarre allies come from? He would hardly have credited descriptions, if he had not seen the sketches! Shin'a'in he had heard of, as a vague legend, but what were Hawkbrothers? And who could believe in talking gryphons? Gryphons were creatures straight out of legend, and that is where they should, in a rational world, have remained!
His agent's report credited most of this to Elspeth, the former Heir. Former? When had a ruler-to-be ever lost his position without also losing his life or freedom? Yet Elspeth had abdicated, continuing to work in a subsidiary capacity within the ranks of the white Riders, the Heralds. Elspeth was too young to have made alliances with so many disparate peoples! She'd have no experience in diplomacy and very little in governance. In the end he'd simply dismissed the agent's report as a fanciful tale, doubtless spread about to make the former Heir seem more important and more intelligent than she really was.
He wished he could dismiss the gryphons as more fanciful creations, but there were others who had seen them as well as the agent. The gryphons worried him. They represented a complete unknown; in an equation already overcomplicated, they were a dangerous variable. Were there more of them? A whole army, perhaps? The idea of flying scouts and spies working for the Valdemarans was not one that made him any happier.
He groaned softly and flung himself down in a chair. Useless to ask 'why me?' since he knew why all this was happening to him. I want the Iron Throne. An Emperor must be able to deal with situations like this. If I want the Throne, I must prove to Charliss that I am competent.
Of course, now that he had begun, it was impossible to bow out of this gracefully.
His nearest rival was also his nearest enemy, and if he failed here, or even gave it up and admitted defeat
