Michael said, “That’s true. But it doesn’t matter. That kind aren’t a problem now and they won’t be if they’re given no fuel for the fires they want to set.”
“We’l find a way.”
Everyone looked at Ragnarson. That made no sense. He added, “You wanted to engineer unity by showing off a transfer gate.” He looked at his wife. “A good idea, only some Nordmen obstructionist wil claim that it was left over from the occupation or when Mist was here.” Gales said, “That point did not elude us. It wouldn’t stand up, though. Everyone knows that Varthlokkur has been underfoot. The Unborn has been around a lot, too, and easterners have been seen by people definitely not part of our cabal.”
Nathan Wolf offered his first comment. “Most people want an excuse to get along. Today’s divisions mostly start right here, with us.”
Gales grunted agreement. The sorcerer did the same.
Ragnarson said, “You’re right.” He waited. Nobody else had a comment. He looked Inger in the eye. She looked back without flinching.
Memories were in the air, not al nostalgic. Sherilee was on both their minds. Ragnarson did understand that his liaison had hurt Inger.
He had not thought that way before. He got caught in the moment… Which was not unusual. People did not think ahead and did not worry about consequences. But now he had positioned himself so that thinking that way was expected. His role demanded it. Making bad personal choices promised bad choices made as a ruler—and had that not shown itself clearly in the east already?
“Understand this. The Bragi Ragnarson you see here isn’t the Bragi Ragnarson who roared off through the Savernake Gap. That Bragi’s ordeal forged a better man—I hope.” Ozora Mundwil er proclaimed, “Here comes the part you won’t like.”
Ragnarson scowled. She was not intimidated. He was half her age and a man besides. She had spent the night with him, observing, chiding, once threatening to paddle his behind if he kept on being immature.
“The most excel ent lady from Sedlmayr is correct. This won’t be popular but it wil help you stop wondering about my relationship with Shinsan.”
Inger said, “Do talk about that, husband. The Thing wil bring it up, I promise.”
Everyone wondered how he and Michael could materialize so suddenly. Michael might have been close by al along, yes, but they al knew that he had not been.
“Both… Varthlokkur and Shinsan have joined forces.
Haroun bin Yousif and the Disciple are with them, too, believe it or not. They have combined to battle the world’s oldest fiend. The prospects don’t excite me but I may choose to get in on that, too.”
Michael gestured a demand for quiet. “Yes. Him. The first step on that path is that we no longer mention him directly.
We don’t name anything commonly associated with him, either. There are spel s floating around that warn him whenever people start talking about him.” Ragnarson said, “Michael may choose to participate, too.” Inger announced, “I don’t understand. Why?” The others nodded.
Even the sorcerer’s girlfriend seemed curious.
“I’m not sure I get it al myself. You’d need to be Mist or Varthlokkur to do that, I guess. It’s like the Kavelin disease, only for the whole wide world. On the surface it does seem like a good idea to get shot of the mind behind the world’s pain.”
Michael volunteered, “We’re like soldiers on the line. We’re letting the generals do the fine thinking. Maybe we’l fight.
They hope we wil . They’ve conveyed their reasoning. We can do our part without grasping the nuance. No one can make a case that this enemy is good for the world.” Ragnarson and Trebilcock understood a fraction of what Mist and Varthlokkur were up to—which was an order of magnitude more than anyone else did. The Star Rider was not just weather, he was weather that happened somewhere else. He was not real y real to most people.
Ragnarson stipulated that. “I don’t expect conviction from you if we get caught up in this, just that you give us the benefit of the doubt during the struggle.” He sounded like he was leaning toward getting involved.
Michael gave him no chance to clarify. “We’l probably participate because it wil require the combined efforts of a lot of people—most of whom spend their lives at each other’s throats because of him.”
Ragnarson added, “If his victims gang up… It wouldn’t mean an end to conflict. I’m not naive enough to think that.
But persistent aberrations like Hammad al Nakir, grotesqueries like the Great Eastern Wars and Shinsan’s massively destructive conflicts with Matayanga and Escalon, that wil al be a lot less likely. That old vil ain won’t be shuffling from faction to faction, stirring the cauldron. He won’t be pushing Magden Norath and Greyfel s types in where things would stay peaceful otherwise.” Inger said, “You can only put some of what happened off on other people.”
“Too true. I paid in pain, misery, and loss, and I’m stil paying.”
Trebilcock said, “You meant to whip up support by making Shinsan a boogerman. Wel , Shinsan has been up to mischief involving Kavelin, but nothing wicked. The Empress wanted…” He could not explain just what Mist had in mind. That could be nostalgia at work instead of Kavelin being a cog in the machinery meant to silence the tyranny of the Star Rider. Her invisible engine remained perfectly hidden inside her own mind. Her progress toward assembling its parts remained obscure.
Ragnarson thought he knew al the people and parts but he could not get them to sift down into a recognizable pattern.
He did see that she had stripped the vil ain of resources—if you cal ed people he used resources, like timber and ore.
Old Meddler must stil be whining about the loss of Magden Norath.
“Bragi!”
He started. Inger was barking. “What?”
“You stopped talking in the middle of tel ing us how Shinsan has become our beloved friend. Where did you go?” Sarcasm? He had not seen that side of his wife before.
“The land of confusion. Boggled by the awesome scope of my ignorance.” He paused, chose his words. “I don’t trust anybody much anymore. Not even me. Maybe especial y not me. But I do trust Mist, on this, as far as I trust anybody.” Michael grumbled, “You’re saying the same stuff over, pretty much.”
“I’m out of practice saying things out loud.”
“He was in solitary confinement.”
“Hel , I wasn’t even conscious for a long time. Luck and a good turn I did earlier are the only reason my bones aren’t scattered across that hil side, too.”
He went away again, to that day and the last angry hour of his embarrassment, when men ran at the critical instant, the moment when a touch of stubborn would have claimed the day. For half his captivity his purpose had been to get back here so he could inflict deep and abiding pain on those who had abandoned him.
He was not over that yet. The rage remained but he had a harness on it now. It no longer obsessed him. And, he realized, he no longer recal ed exactly who he had scheduled for the headsman’s ax. Anger had become habit.
Inger demanded his attention again. “You haven’t made clear what you hope to accomplish personal y, nor have you given us any convincing reason why we should put up with you trying to do it here.”
There it was, on the table, not bluntly, but insistence that he make a case for his right to strol in and take charge.
The suggestion that he had lost that right caught him on the wrong foot—despite his having spent months wanting to make war on his own people. But that had been a lust for draconian vengeance, not an assertion of a right to rule.
Not even his enemies could argue that he was not king.
Could they?
He said it. “I am the King.”
And Michael said, “There it is. The gauntlet thrown down, without forethought, in an unfavorable venue. Majesty.” The latter spoken with an edge.
“Huh?”
