Not that I would ever let it happen.
I sighed. “Go on.” I could at least hear her out. I owed her that much.
She said, “He wants me to talk to you about Swayvil's offer. I told him I would.”
I snorted. “It's a most generous offer, I'm sure. But I'm no one's puppet.”
“You should refuse,” she went on. “You must never go back to Chaos. And you must never trust Swayvil, Suhuy, or Aber again.”
I sat up. “What! I thought you would be in favor of it. A return to Chaos… freedom for Pella…”
“I know.” She shook her head unhappily. “I think the offer was meant as a distraction for us. For
“How so?” I wouldn't have accepted Swayvil's offer anyway, but I wanted to know her reasoning.
“Swayvil has a history of deception and misdirection. Aber may be my brother, and I love him, but I do recognize his flaws. He is too clever for his own good. Now he has fallen under Swayvil's influence, and none of us must trust him. The words he speaks and the plots he weaves are not his own. They are Swayvil's—and he cannot see the whole of them.”
“You can?”
She hesitated. “I… suspect things.”
Nodding, I said, “I do, too. You said the offer was a distraction.”
“Yes. What better way to put us off our guard? What better way to lure you back to Chaos?”
“Possibly.” I nodded slowly. “But why? He would not be able to kill me once I got there, if he publicly promised that pardon.”
“He can make the terms unpalatable to you.”
“Then I would refuse…”
“And?”
Frowning, I finished my thought: “… which is what he wants. If I refuse to swear allegiance to him, he will be free to move against Amber!”
“In the meantime, you will have been in Chaos. Distracted. Cut off from our troops. Everyone here will be unprepared. Perhaps the attack will occur while you are in Chaos… and there will be no Amber for you to return to.”
I swallowed. “Devious…”
She smiled thinly. “You begin to see the nature of politics in Chaos. King Uthor did not play the game well enough. We must.”
“If Swayvil is ready to move against us…”
“He is,” she said firmly.
“… then we must move against him first. We will fight as we would have fought against Uthor. Nothing has changed.”
I rose and paced. We would have to prepare ourselves, and quickly. My army numbered, what three hundred thousand? And we had been making allies among the neighboring Shadows. If we ran into trouble, we might be able to field as many as a half-million men.
And, of course, Conner had been approaching more of his “special forces,” as he liked to call dragons, ogres, trolls, and other non-human denizens of Shadow… they, too, would join us. We would meet whatever price they demanded.
We would need to dispatch scouts into Shadow… begin looking for Swayvil's forces as they marched on Amber…
“Please,” Freda said. “Bring Aber back? Before Swayvil tires of him and has him killed—for me?”
I swallowed hard. It pained me, but I had to be firm in my resolve.
“I cannot,” I said softly. “Do not ask me to.” I could never forgive him for what he had done.
“Is that your final decision?”
“Yes.” I could not look her in the eye.
She bowed her head. “As you will… Sire.”
That night, I summoned Conner and my father to a council of war. They listened raptly as I told them of Aber's tantalizing offer… and my refusal. Then I repeated Freda's and my suspicions about Swayvil being ready to move against us.
“Was I wrong to refuse to bring Aber back?” I asked them.
“No!” Conner said.
Dad said, “He would only betray you again. Do not be a fool, my boy.”
I nodded slowly. Having to make the hard decisions of a king sometimes hurt. I would have to steel myself to them. I would have to think not just of my own selfish pleasures—or Freda's for that matter—but make decisions for the good of all in Amber.
So be it. My decision had been made. It would stand.
To Conner, I said, “Have Aslom and the other generals start bringing in everyone from the field,” I said. “We must begin our preparations for war. I want to see the latest troop reports.”
“We can have all our forces in the staging area within the week.”
“Dad? You must bring the scouts into Shadows. Find Swayvil's army.”
“Easier said than done.”
I grinned. “I have faith in you. Just don't let them catch you.” Then I turned to my brother. “You know what to do.”
“Special troops,” he said.
“Right.”
He grinned. “This is the part I have been waiting for!”
“It's not going to be pleasant,” I said grimly. “A lot of people are going to die. Possibly even us.”
“I know. But we're going to win, Oberon. I feel it.”
“I do, too,” I said. A strange calmness came over me. At a time like this, I would have expected to be at least a little nervous. But I wasn't. Everything was coming out better than I'd hoped.
We would field an army unmatched in the history of war. Half a million soldiers marching against Chaos, all under my banner… Swayvil could not prevail.
Chapter 33
Freda always managed to surprise me. I expected news of King Swayvil's pending attack to come from Dad and the scouts he was scattering through Shadows. But it was my sister who came to me in the library and said simply:
“Swayvil's forces are marching now.”
“What! How do you know?”
“Great Aunt Eddarg.” She smiled. “We discuss dinner at the palace nearly every day. Apparently the king neglected to tell her that half the court wouldn't be at dinner last night because they had left on a military mission.”
“And you inferred from this that his men are marching on Amber.” I gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Brilliant!”
She smiled. “Tell Father and Conner.”
“What about Swayvil? Is he joining them?”
“No. By tradition, he will remain in the Courts of Chaos while his generals battle. And… Aber has also left the palace.”
“Why?” It didn't sound like him to pass up life in the palace for a military expedition.
“Great Aunt Eddarg did not know. Our brother is not a fighter; he would not take part in the actual battle. But I do fear another trick… something to remove you from the battlefield …”
“I will watch for him.”
