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I gave the pad to Parthet, and he read it with some difficulty, moving his arm in and out until the letter focused for him.
"Is any of this true?" he asked when he finished reading.
"Most of it, I think." I told him about the nuclear bomb. "The rest seems likely as well, don't you think?"
"It's possible, perhaps possible enough to start something."
"If you can get the message to the Elf king."
"I'll do what I can."
"Now, suppose we reconvene the meeting I broke up yesterday."
I didn't say anything about my abrupt departure or the reasons for it. I did tell everyone about the nuclear bomb in New York and my guess that it was related to events in the buffer zone. The others all nodded. Even King Pregel seemed to understand the implications of nuclear weapons. There might not be TV or radio in the buffer zone-not even a newspaper as far as I knew-but that didn't mean that the elite was totally ignorant of our world. They couldn't afford to be.
"I'll try to get the Elflord of Xayber off our backs, if just for a few weeks, so we can concentrate on the Etevar," I said. "I've given Parthet a message to send to the Elf king. I'm going after sea-silver. If I get a chance, I may spend a day or two pretending to be the army of some other elflord marauding in Xayber." That last was a throwaway, a chance thought that came while I was talking. It sounded pompous as hell, but nobody even blinked.
"If I can sidetrack Xayber, so much the better. We can use the sea-silver to move the army east to meet the Etevar. If I can't sidetrack the elflord, the silver becomes even more important. We'll set up passages from Arrowroot and Coriander to Thyme so we can move troops back and forth to cover both fronts. When I get back from the isthmus with the sea-silver, I'll set up the doorways at the northern castles, then ride to Thyme, to that cottage in the orchard, to set up the other end. With me there and either Parthet or Mother handling the doors in the northern castles, we can keep the passages open for the troop movements." I gave them a moment. There were no questions. The Hero was speaking words of salvation. They were eating it up. It gave me a sick feeling.
"In the meantime, it might be wise to strip the rest of the kingdom of every possible fighting man and move them east."
"It sounds risky, but it's the only chance we've seen that offers any hope af all," Pregel said when I paused again.
Heaven help us all, I thought. But I took it as a go-ahead.
"Mother, there's one thing you need to do while I'm gone. First thing Monday morning, take Uncle Parthet-hog-tie and drag him if you have to-to Louisville. Take him to one of those one-hour eyeglass places. Get his eyes tested and buy him a half-dozen pairs of unbreakable, unscratchable glasses with those neck chains to keep him from losing them off his face." Parthet looked embarrassed, more so when the rest of them laughed.
"Uncle," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder, "we need you at your very best for this. We may need every magic you know before it's over. And since you need to see well to do your magics, cracked eighty-year-old glasses just won't cut it."
"You're right, of course," Parthet said sheepishly. "I should have done long ago, but I never find the time."
"Is there anything else we need to do right away?" Pregel asked. His willingness to defer to my plans so easily, so completely, gave me mixed feelings. It was heartening that he trusted me, but it was also discouraging, to say the least. If the wild ideas of a novice were the best Varay could manage, we were in deep trouble.
"People, weapons, and food," I said. "As much as we can start moving east, I'd say. And whatever authorization I'm going to need to get things moving in the north. Those people don't know me."
"I'll prepare a warrant for the royal seal," Kardeen said.
"You go with the full authority of the crown," Pregel added.
A damn blank check. That gave me more chills. But there wasn't much more to be said right then. I went off with Mother and Parthet to learn what I could about the inherent magic of being Hero of Varay. They couldn't tell me much. There was the greater awareness of danger that had been mentioned before. The magic was also supposed to convey something of the strength and skill of Vara, first of the line, the mystical hero-king whose golden age I was supposed to bring back.
"Your father was secretive," Mother said in answer to my complaint. "He told me that he couldn't explain most of the magic, that it might weaken it. You may be able to pull off your deception in Xayber. It's a guess, but from hints I picked up over the years, that magic may deceive an elflord at a distance. For a time. Not forever."
"The magic grows on you, with you," Parthet said. "That is the ancient wisdom, and your father said it was accurate."
It wasn't much. I decided to go to Arrowroot in the morning after a couple of good Basilier meals and a night's sleep. When I got to my room, I found that my entourage had grown. Harkane, Dad's squire, was waiting with the others. When I entered the room, Harkane came to me and went down on one knee.
"I would be honored to serve you as I served your father," he said. There was no way to refuse-especially after Lesh told me that the king had sent Harkane.
We all went to the great hall to eat, and when we got back upstairs after we finished-about two hours later-I told my people what we were going to be doing for the next couple of weeks. "Timon, you'll be okay here while we're gone," I added.
"My place is with you, lord," he said.
"Not this time. We ride to war, to Fairy and Dorthin. It's no place for a boy your age." He argued longer than Lesh or Parthet would have. Even when I made it a flat order, Timon sulked.
"You did right, lord," Harkane said when we were more or less alone. "Your father always left his page behind when the danger was greatest also." I felt that it was a presumptuous remark for a squire new to "my service," but I was glad he'd made it. Varay was still strange to me. I thought that by local standards. Timon might be right, that he did belong with me, even on such a ridiculously dangerous mission. But there was no way I was going to haul a kid his age along on what might be as suicidal a quest as my father's last one.
I lay awake for a long time that night, second-guessing my decision to return to Varay, and trying to put together a more solid plan for its defense. But no matter how I stirred the mix, I was going to have to ad-lib most of it, and that didn't feel very smart to me. The algorithm was full of bugs. After midnight I got up and headed down to the crypt. Alone. I managed to get out of the room without waking the others by taking the scenic route. I stepped back into my parents' bedroom in Louisville, went down to the basement, and stepped back through to a different part of the castle. Some of the rigmarole was sinking in. I took my sword and knife along. I strapped on the belt almost without thinking. The Hero of Varay must be armed.
The route to the crypt wasn't as brightly lit as it had been for the funeral procession, but there were occasional torches along the way, even one inside the burial chamber-fresh, so someone took care to keep a light burning there.
I don't think I went down there to communicate with the dead. I never believed that was possible. I'm not sure why I headed almost instinctively for the crypt that night. Maybe Hamlet was working on my head again. A stone-carver had been at work, preparing the headstone on the new niche. Dad's name was finished, but not the dates. I put my hands against the stone. Cold marble. In my mind, I talked to Dad, told him what I was pla