Kingfisher(45)

The magus stopped, seemingly at random in the middle of a thought, and asked if anyone had a question. Half the hall rose. He looked nonplussed at the response. Even the wyverns flying across the ceiling seemed to peer bewilderedly down at him.

“I have as well,” the king said, quieting the hall again. “But perhaps Mystes Ruxley’s thoughts on the matter will answer some of our questions.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” the mystes said with what sounded like equal portions of indignation and relief. “And thank you, Lord Skelton, for a presentation that was scholarly to the point of nebulousness.”

“You’re very welcome,” the magus said imperturbably.

“I’m sure the question uppermost in your thoughts is: Where should I look for this vessel? In the sea? In the streets of Severluna? On a mountaintop? Lord Skelton seems to think that it can be found only by not looking for it, or only by those who have already found it. Some such. The vessel is formed in the Severen; it might be somewhere along the river. Or at the estuary, where the Severen meets the sea. There are, as well, references to the moon in her aspects of child, queen, crone. The phases of the moon might suggest clues. There is also a reference to Calluna’s cave. Perhaps there are ancient clues on the walls of the cave, even an image of the vessel itself.” Lord Skelton opened his mouth; the mystes lifted his hand. “Yes, yes, I know that every scratch on the cave walls has been studied. But maybe that’s why the vessel has not been found: Nobody would recognize it if they saw it. A cooking pot, they might see. A simple drinking cup.” He paused, hearing his own words. “I suppose,” he added reluctantly, “in that idea, Lord Skelton may be right. Perhaps only the heart, not the eye, would recognize the power in it.”

Daimon, motionless in his chair, heard his mother’s voice again, on a noisy street corner in Severluna, not far from where he had been born: Whatever shape it has taken, you have the eyes, the heart to recognize it. Find it for Ravenhold. Find it for us.





13


On the far side of the Hall of Wyverns, Pierce, sitting with a wyvern glaring from the stones on one side of him, and Val in his formal black leather and silk on the other, tried to render himself invisible. He was still in his black server’s uniform; he would, Val assured him, be all but inconspicuous wearing that among the knights. Two old men had been droning on the dais for an hour, with the king between them. Pierce hadn’t heard a word they said. He had taken one look at the king’s sharp, golden eyes, his strong, inscrutable face, and his own head had tried to recede, turtle-wise, into his untidy collar. He stared at his feet, waves of anticipation and dread rolling through him, sweat running down his hair, down his back like brine.

Val turned to him once, his ice-blue eyes wide. Calm, they said. Calm. Pierce swallowed dryly, kept sweating.

There was a sudden stir throughout the hall. Something had happened; knights turned to speak to one another; others rose. Pierce jumped at the touch of Val’s hand.

“We’re taking a break,” Val explained, and stood up. “Come on, let’s find my father. Our father,” he amended, as Pierce stared at him incredulously.

“I can’t go out there among the knights. Not like this. If I even stand up, I’ll melt into a puddle of kitchen-server black on the floor.”

His brother’s brows crooked. “You’ve come this far,” Val reminded him. “Just a little farther—” Something in Pierce’s expression, his inextricable huddle, made him relent. “Stay here, then. I’ll find him. Don’t go anywhere.”

He shifted his way through knights down the aisle, then disappeared among them. Pierce slid down in his chair a few more inches and closed his eyes.

They flew open again as a hand clamped onto his shoulder.

“What are you doing in here?” a voice barked indignantly into his ear. The hand pulled him to his feet; by some miracle, he stayed on them. “You’re that kitchen knight. You were on the field. You had no business there; you have even less business here. Wearing black doesn’t make you a knight any more than climbing over a wall to wave a knife around on the practice field.”

Pierce, tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, gazed speechlessly at the knight who had dragged him out of his chair. He wore his sandy hair in a tightly shaped bristle that peaked down his forehead and along his ears like spearpoints. Even under his quilted jacket, Pierce could see muscle. His long, lean face was pinched with extreme irritation.

“Why are you still in my eyesight?” he demanded. “Go. Get back to the kitchen where you belong.”

Pierce, his brain dissolving into a nebulous cloud under the furious, hazelnut stare, found a salient point. “For one,” he heard his tongue say, “you’re still holding on to me.”

The knight scowled. Pierce felt his fingers open, the weight finally lift. The knight jerked his head at the nearest doors.

“For another,” Pierce said without moving, “I’ve been told to stay here.”

The knight’s face flamed. He pushed it so closely into Pierce’s that the wrong word, Pierce felt, could spark and ignite them both. “If you were anyone at all in this palace, you would know me. I am Sir Kyle Steward, first cousin of the king and seneschal of this house. Whoever brought you in here will answer to me. Go. Now.”

Pierce’s knees gave way; he sank back into his chair. In the gathering their squabble had begun to attract, someone loosed a faint gasp. Someone else chuckled.