The Chernagor Pirates

He didn’t speak the name—however one spoke in dreams—but the Banished One sensed it. “Yes, I am Milvago, shaper of this miserable world,” he declared. “How dare you presume to stand against me?”

“You want to conquer my kingdom,” Lanius replied. He could answer honestly; the Banished One, he’d seen, might commandeer his dreams, but couldn’t harm him in them. “You want to make my people into thralls. If I can keep you from doing that, I will.”

“No mere mortal may hinder me,” the Banished One said.

“Not so.” Lanius shook his head, or it felt as though he shook his head, there in this dream that was all too real. “You were cast down from the heavens long ago. If no man could hinder you, you would have ruled the world long since.”

“Rule it I shall.” The Banished One tossed his head in more than mortal scorn. “What is time? Time means nothing to me, not when I created time. Think you I am trapped in it, to gutter out one day like a lamp running dry? You had best think again, you mayfly, you brief pimple on the buttock of the world.”

Lanius knew he would die. He didn’t know the Banished One wouldn’t, but Milvago had shown no sign of aging in all the long years since coming down from the heavens. He couldn’t assume the Banished One was lying. Still, that didn’t matter. The king’s tutors had trained him well. However intimidating the Banished One was, Lanius saw he was trying to distract him here. Whether he would die wasn’t the essence of the argument. Whether he remained omnipotent—if, indeed, he’d ever been omnipotent—was.

“If you were all you say you are, you would have ruled the world since you came into it,” Lanius said. “That you don’t proves you can be beaten. I will do everything I know how to do to stop you.”

“Everything you know how to do.” The Banished One’s laughter flayed like whips of ice. “What do you know? What can you know, who live but for a season and then go back to the nothingness from which you sprang?”

“I know it is better to live free than as one of your thralls,” Lanius answered. “Did the gods who sprang from you decide the same thing?”

Normally, the Banished One’s perfect countenance showed no emotion. Rage rippled over it now, though. “After yours, their turn shall come,” he snarled. “You need not doubt that. Oh, no, do not doubt it. Their turn shall come.”

He reached for Lanius, the nails on his fingers sharpening into talons as his hands drew near. As one will in dreams, Lanius turned to flee. As one will in dreams, he knew he fled too slow. He looked back to see how much danger he was in. The Banished One, apparently, could make his arms as long as he chose. His hand closed on the shoulder of the King of Avornis.

Lanius shrieked himself awake.

“Are you all right?” The hand on his shoulder belonged to his wife. Even in the dim light of the royal bedchamber, Sosia looked alarmed. “I haven’t heard you make a noise like that in…” Grus’ daughter shook her head. “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard you make a noise like that.”

“Bad dream,” Lanius said.

He would have left it there. He didn’t want to worry Sosia. Grus had arranged the marriage—forced it on both of them, in other words. The new king wanted to tie himself to Avornis’ ancient dynasty as closely as he could. In their seven years of marriage, though, Lanius and Sosia had come to care for each other as much as a married couple could reasonably be expected to do—which was, perhaps, more than anything else, a triumph of good manners and patience on both sides.

Sosia shook her head. Her dark, wavy hair, down for the night, brushed across his face. “That wasn’t any ordinary dream,” she said. “You don’t have dreams like that—nightmares, I should say. Did you see… him?”

She didn’t even want to call him the Banished One. She didn’t know the name Milvago, or what the Banished One had been before his ouster from the heavens. So far as Lanius knew, only he and Grus knew that. Grus had told him not to tell anyone—not his wife, who was Grus’ daughter, and not the Arch-Hallow of Avornis, who was Grus’ bastard son. Lanius hadn’t argued. He too could see that the fewer people who knew about exactly what sort of enemy Avornis faced, the better.

After his scream, he couldn’t very well lie to Sosia. “Yes, I saw him,” he said with a reluctant nod.

“Why doesn’t he leave you alone?” She sounded indignant, as though, could she have been alone with the Banished One, she would have given him a piece of her mind. She probably would have, too.

“He sends me dreams. He sends your father dreams. He doesn’t bother other people—General Hirundo never gets them, for instance,” Lanius said. The Banished One didn’t trouble Sosia, either, but Lanius forbore to mention that.

His wife sounded more irate than ever. “He should bother other people, and leave you alone.”

But Lanius shook his head. “In an odd way, I think it’s a compliment,” he said. “He knows your father and I are dangerous to him, so we’re the ones he visits in dreams. That’s what we think, anyhow.”

Maybe we’re giving ourselves too much credit, he thought. Could he and Grus—could any mortals—seriously discommode the Banished One? On days when Lanius felt gloomy, he had his doubts. But why had thralls under the Banished One’s will tried to murder the two Kings of Avornis the winter before, if those kings didn’t represent some kind of danger?

Sosia said, “What I think is, you ought to go back to sleep, and hope no more bad dreams come. And if they don’t, you can worry about all these things in the morning, when you feel better.”

Lanius leaned over and kissed her. “That’s good advice,” he said. In fact, he could think of no better advice for the wee small hours of the morning. He took it, and the Banished One left him alone… then.

King Grus and the man he hoped to make his new wizard eyed each other. The wizard, whose name was Pterocles, said, “I’ll do everything I can for you, Your Majesty.” He was young and earnest and very bright. Grus was sure he would be diligent. Whether he would be versatile enough, or discreet enough, to make a royal wizard… Grus wished he weren’t quite so young.

And what was Pterocles thinking about as he sat studying Grus? The king couldn’t read his face. That was, if anything, a point in the wizard’s favor. After dealing with so many petitioners and courtiers over the years, Grus knew how transparent most men were. Not this one.

“One of the things a king’s wizard needs to do,” Grus said, “is keep his mouth shut. I think you can manage that.”

“I hope so,” Pterocles replied. “I don’t want to cause you scandal.”

“Good,” Grus said, a little more heartily than he should have.

“And I do have a certain advantage along those lines,” the wizard went on.

“Oh? What’s that?” Grus asked.

“I’m a man,” Pterocles answered, and stroked his silky brown beard as though to emphasize the point.

Grus’ glower would have made most men hoping for royal favor cringe, or more likely despair. Pterocles sat impassive. Grudgingly, Grus said, “You’ve got nerve.”

“I hope so, Your Majesty. I wouldn’t be much good to you if I didn’t,” Pterocles replied. “And would you want me if I were so stupid—no, so ignorant—that I didn’t know why you need a new wizard?”

“Mph.” Grus pursed his lips and blew a hissing stream of air out through them. Everyone in the palace, and probably everyone in the city of Avornis, knew why he needed a new wizard. Alca the witch had been as skilled at sorcery as anyone in the capital. She’d saved Grus’ life from murder by magic before he became king. Grus had admired her, used her talents… had an affair with her. Her husband found out. So did Estrilda, Grus’ wife. The king made himself bring his attention back to Pterocles. “Are you too frank for your own good?” he wondered aloud.

“If you decide I am, you’ll pick someone else,” the wizard said. “But if I can’t speak openly to you, what good am I?”

“A point. Yes, definitely a point.” Grus drummed his fingers on the marble-topped table in front of him. The stone was cool under his fingertips. “Tell me,” he said, “has the Banished One ever appeared to you in dreams?”

That cracked Pterocles’ shell of calm. He jerked as though bitten by a horsefly. His eyes opened very wide. “Once, Your Majesty. Only once, King Olor and Queen Quelea be praised,” he said. “But how could you know about that?”

“Wizards aren’t the only ones who know strange things,” Grus answered. “I wouldn’t want you as my wizard