and drew it out, and found a parchment roll in the dark hollow behind it, old and brown and fragile.”
Sylvi wanted to shout, I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you! It’s a trick! What you say you found—if you found anything—you put there for yourself to find!
The young bearer shifted his position and a breath of alien air fanned across Sylvi’s face with a smell of hot metal and blood.
“My dream, as you will have guessed, spoke truly. I went to the corner of the library, and I found that stone—but it was not loose in the wall, and had I not spells to loosen it, it would remain there still, and its secret dark behind it; and had I not had the dream I would not have recognised the stone that I needed to loosen. This stone has the ancient symbol for lightning etched upon it, as guard and ward; but it itself had been warded, that no one might see there was something there defended, for whoever hid this thing badly wanted none to find it. And had I—I—not been so absorbed—consumed—by my desire to fulfil my obligation to my king that even my dreaming self did continue the search on planes of being and perception I cannot reach awake, I too might have passed it by. As it was I spoke certain subtle words of power, and I drew the lightning-blazed stone out, and there I found the parchment roll.”
Fthoom paused, sure of his audience. “That parchment roll,” he said, his voice now low, and slippery as oil on a plate, “tells a story of the reign of King Ascur II, who was also twelfth of his line.”
Ascur II, thought Sylvi frantically. Ascur II—she could remember a little about him because he did not have a placid reign like Egelair III, and he made more interesting reading—what—there was a war, and the crown went to a cousin—it was a long time ago, long before the Great Hunt—some of the palace got knocked down—the war had rocs in it—
“In the days of Ascur II, there was a deadly invasion of taralians, norindours, ladons and wyverns, and led by rocs. The kingdom was hard-pressed by these creatures, and whether Ascur’s forces or the opposing army would win at last was often in doubt. The war stretched on for years, with neither side able to claim a decisive victory.
“Ascur had three sons; the youngest was named Tilbad. He was bound, at the age of twelve, to the pegasi king’s third child, a daughter, Erex.”
Three children? But the crown went to a cousin. The Sword chose—I can’t remember anything—
She heard the echo of a great—a vast—hoarse shriek, perhaps like the sound that a roc might make—she shook her head to clear it. No, she was imagining this, as she was imagining the tawny roc of her vision in the Great Court.
“The war broke out several years after this binding: four years, in fact, although the two events appeared to have nothing in common. When Tilbad reached the age of seventeen, he and Erex joined the army and they were, the records tell us, very valiant. But the army—including Tilbad and Erex—were now driven back till they were fighting within the palace Wall—the Wall which was still of some defense against taralians, but its magic was failing as the strength of Ascur’s armies failed.
“The battle went ill for Ascur’s army; so ill, at last, that the Wall was breached, and the palace fired. So much all our histories tell us. But this is where the lightning-guarded scroll takes up the story:
“The palace was torched and burning, and there were only scattered handfuls of defenders left. Everyone who could be sent away had been sent long ago; Ascur was now trying to gather what remained of his forces for a tactical retreat—even though he knew there was nowhere left to retreat to.
“His messages had gone out, and his soldiers gathered slowly round him. Those who came did not include Tilbad and Erex, although no one could say they had seen them fall; and as the beaten remnants of the army crept through what had once been the parkland surrounding the palace of the king, they saw Tilbad and Erex—fighting a roc. Alone.
“I assume you all know how large a roc is? Even the smallest of them can pick up a war-horse with one claw and its armoured rider with the other, and fly away with them. One man—and one pegasus—cannot possibly defeat