Page 25 of Beyond

Followed by the cat itself, puffed up to twice its size, tail a giant bottle-brush, hurtling back through the Portal as if on fire.

And Jonaton slapped his hands together, closing the Portal just as Kordas got a glimpse of black hair, a red tongue, and far too many white teeth snapping fruitlessly at the air then receding away.

“Well,” said Sai. “It appears there are bears, too.”

ydney-You-Asshole was nowhere to be found for the near future, having left a row of perplexed cats on either side of his escape path. It did not do to practice too much magical work at once, so the group adjourned the spellwork with handcloths dipped in the basins’ now-hot water to refresh themselves. Magicians who didn’t know how to dump off excessive heat didn’t live long, and Jonaton’s basins were for exactly that. Since the local stone was in Jonaton’s hands, and the anchorstone was across the Portal, that was all that was going to happen today. Isla whisked Delia away, following praise from the elders, up into the manor to get her strength back. Kordas went back to his stone grotto, and the Circle huddled with Jonaton—tabby in lap—for a magical consultation that was far above his own level of expertise.

Truth to tell, he didn’t mind stopping. It wasn’t as if he didn’t already have his hands full; having to help construct a major Gate on top of everything else would probably be the stone that sent all the rest tumbling into an uncontrolled avalanche. He also felt a little giddy. It was a delayed reaction, but it finally did emerge fully in his mind that it had been done—a Portal had been opened. There had only been a glimpse, but the air was sweet, the greenery was healthy, and there was no lack—at all—of trees for construction right there. And, thanks to the cat, they knew the air was breathable and the ground steady.

This was a vital advancement in the work his father had left with him, and it took a few deep breaths to come to terms with that. When Kordas was “just a Duke’s son,” he hadn’t understood—how could he?—that his father was more than a giant that Kordas owed his life to, a Duke who could point and anything he wanted would be done. His father had been more like a symbol of a father, rather than an actual person, for almost all of Kordas’s youth. The Duke shuffled him from teacher to mentor to stable, while Kordas saw commoners out playing with their children. It wasn’t until Kordas’s teens that he understood. His father wasn’t neglectful of him.

He was trusting.

Kordas’s mother taught Isla how to manage a household when both of them were thirteen, and she was responsible for taking in Hakkon, her sister’s bastard. It was from his mother that Kordas had learned the complexities inherent in kindness, and the thrift of acceptance. Kordas lived by that, in fact—a hardship was only dwelt upon long enough to determine what the hardship’s particulars were, and then his thoughts switched immediately to how to alter that situation. He admired, loved, and trusted his mother, so he kept his mind open when she explained that his father did the best he could in his position to be a good father.

His father was “Duke Erik of Valdemar”—even now, he heard a herald’s voice in his mind saying the title, not his own. A ruler. He had Counts, who had Lords, who had Estates, and all of them had people to look after. Only after his father was dead did Kordas realize that his father had shown his love by making sure that Kordas had the right people guide him. It was through those others that the Duke lovingly raised his son to not crumple under the weight of inheriting Valdemar. It wasn’t until he sat down with his father, under wardings, that Kordas learned from his father’s own lips the admiration and trust Kordas had earned. And then, all too soon, his father was gone, and Kordas stood before the Manor in the Ducal regalia. Counts, Lords, and every person of rank in all of Valdemar gave their condolences for the loss of the man Kordas didn’t know most of his life, but had ultimately been admired by.

He drew a deep breath, buttoned his jacket up again, straightened up his tabard and the Crest of Valdemar upon it, and emerged from the grotto.

Back to the Fourth Game.

* * *

“Messenger,” Hakkon told him as soon as he came within view. “Came and went. Imperial.”

“Oh, joy.” He sighed. Not that this was unexpected. After all, it had been roughly a week since Lord Merrin had sent that report containing news he’d been birthing his own foal. That would have reminded the Emperor of his existence, and also of the fact that this year’s tax and tribute was supposed to include two Valdemar Golds. With the Birthday and Regatta not that far away, the Emperor would want his new toys on view, he’d want to see them himself to decide how best to display them, and he’d want them delivered immediately.

Hopefully that was all it was. The two of them stood face to face for several long moments, much unsaid between them.

“How was the grotto?” Hakkon finally asked.

Kordas brightened a little, and put both palms up. “Our horse went the distance.”

Hakkon allowed himself a thin-lipped, but genuine, smile. “It always feels good when your charge makes the jump,” he replied. “Let’s have a cup and find out what the Empire requires.”

“Let’s go deal with the worst,” he reluctantly replied.

“The worst would have been if the messenger had insisted on seeing you, personally, right away,” Hakkon reminded him. “Or if there had been Imperial soldiers with him to enforce that request. So this isn’t the worst, not yet.”

When they entered the manor, Kordas’s herald, a fellow about Ivar’s age named Beltran, was waiting for them with the sealed message in his hands. Kordas relaxed a little, though only a little. Beltran was literally the lowest-ranked servant that could be entrusted with an Imperial message. If it had been more important, the steward would have had it. More important than that, Hakkon would have been holding it when he came out of the grotto. So …hopefully this was nothing he wasn’t already expecting.

He took the message from Beltran’s hands, and broke the seal on it. His Mage-sight detected a little shower of magical energy as he did so. That would be the spell that would tell whoever had set the seal that the message had been opened, and whether or not it was by the person to whom it was addressed. If someone else had opened this first, well …at the very least someone in the Emperor’s service, if not the Emperor himself, would want to know why, and the only permissible answer would be that he was too sick or injured to do so himself.

He opened the carefully folded paper. Very thick stock. Linen, cotton and softwood. Its deckled edges were jarred by the heavy-lined stamped block border surrounding the calligraphy.

There was the usual salutation, to him by his shortest possible title, from the Emperor by his longest possible title, which took up half the page, then the important part.

He looked up at Hakkon, feeling his mouth pursing as if he was tasting something sour. Which he was. The excitement, the energy drain, the celebratory mood and then the thoughts of his father and the Plan legacy had resulted in enough of a twisted gut that he tasted bile.

“I’m ordered to turn up with the horses in person,” he said abruptly. “As quickly as possible.”

Hakkon’s face took on an equally sour expression. “Well, that’s …inconvenient.”

“Yes,” he replied, not wanting to say anything more, in case there was some subtle enchantment on the paper that would allow what they were saying to be overheard. “But orders are orders. How long will it take to get the tribute herd together?”

“About two days,” Hakkon guessed. “We’ll want to make sure every horse has been attended to, checked to make sure it’s in fine fettle, and is shod for city streets. Grim’s up to it, of course, and we can always borrow a blacksmith from the village if we need one.”

“Do so. Let me go put this in a safe place, and we’ll discuss what needs to be done further,” Kordas declared. By a “safe place,” of course, he meant the drawer of his desk that was made of such heavy wood that it might as well have been warded on its own, and inside a pouch that scrambled up a spell’s precision. He’d need to bring the letter with him, of course, to present to the Gate Keepers, including the one who minded the Gate that was just outside the manor village, right at the wall around the manor estates. It would be up to the Keepers to decide how expeditious his trip was. If they decided to route him straight to the Capital, he’d be there in under a candlemark. If they decided to put him with the trade traffic, the way they had when he’d been sent to foster at the Imperial Palace, it could take more than a day.