The Ruin of Kings (A Chorus of Dragons)

by Jenn Lyons

  Galen blushed and looked away. “I thought we were here to have some fun.”

  “Did you see her? Trust me, this is fun.”

  Kihrin leaned back in his seat and tried to act nonchalant as he saw the waitress drop off the ale and message. A moment later the woman dressed in men’s clothing pardoned herself from the group of gamblers and made her way through the crowd, avoiding their table entirely as she walked to the back stairs and out of sight.

  “Hey! Wait, she was supposed to—”

  “Your drink, my lord,” the waitress said as she set the glass down on the table.

  “We haven’t finished our pepper beers yet—” Galen started to protest.

  Kihrin threw him a dirty look and shook his head.

  “Thank you,” Kihrin said as he tipped the waitress.

  The moment she turned away, he fished a key out of the drink and grinned.

  “Did you bring me here just so you could meet a girl?” Galen didn’t hide his indignation.

  Kihrin gave his brother an odd look. “Why, jealous?”

  “What? No. That’s stupid.” Galen was even redder now. “Why would I be jealous of some tavern wench I’ve never met before?”

  Kihrin leaned over. “We’re here because what I’m doing may or may not be legal. And I certainly don’t want Darzin to know about it. You still in? Because if you’re not, you can stay here while I finish my business.”

  Galen swallowed. “I’m in. Of course I’m in.”

  “Okay.” Kihrin waved the key. “Then let’s go meet a girl.”

  * * *

  The door was locked, but then, that’s what the key was for. Kihrin ushered Galen inside and then shut the door behind them.

  “If you’re expecting something out of Velvet Town, you’re going to be very disappointed,” Tauna told them both. The woman sat in a chair in a corner of the inn room, looking out toward the Arena Park through a window. “I don’t do kids for any price.”

  Galen crossed his arms over his chest and looked thoroughly annoyed at being called a “kid.”

  Kihrin just nodded and pulled up a chair for himself. “Merit said he’d leave his present for me with you.”

  The woman raised an eyebrow. “Present? Is that what you call it?”

  “Sure, why not?” Kihrin paused. “Unless he hasn’t found anything…?”

  She reached behind the mattress and pulled out a smallish satchel before tossing it on the bed. “I didn’t say that.”

  As Kihrin started to reach for the satchel, Tauna tsked and shook a finger. “Ah, ah, ah. Payment first, my lord. Merit said this isn’t a freebie.”

  “How much?” Kihrin asked.

  “One thousand thrones,” she said, as if she were listing the price of a glass of brandy.

  “What?” Even Galen seemed shocked.

  She smiled at that. “Just between you, me, and sweet pea over here, your friend doesn’t know what he’s found, or he’d be asking ten times that. One thousand’s a bargain price.”

  Kihrin tilted his head and looked at her critically. She was confident and calm and doing a good job of suggesting she didn’t care how the bargaining came out, one way or the other. “How about I give you two thousand thrones and you tell me what you didn’t tell Merit?”

  “Make it fifteen hundred so I don’t feel so guilty about robbing the cradle.” Tauna reached for the satchel herself and pulled it into her lap. As Kihrin handed her the wad of promissory notes from the Temple of Tavris, she opened the bag and pulled out a roll of vellum, several wads of silk string for a harp, a bundle of old clothes, and a gold ring set with an intaglio ruby.

  Kihrin’s breath caught as he saw the ring.

  She saw and grinned. “Oh, you’ve seen one of these before?”

  Kihrin reached for the stone. “Yes, I have.”

  Galen leaned forward and also examined the ring, but his expression was less intrigued. “It’s just a gem.”

  “No, it’s not. Give me a second.” Kihrin grabbed the ring away from Tauna and spent a few minutes staring at it. “This isn’t the same ring I saw before. It’s just the same design. My father had this?”

  Tauna’s eyes widened. “Oh sweetheart, I don’t know the details. Merit said you paid him to do a job. This is the job. That’s all I know.” She leaned forward. “But I’ve seen the rings before, worn on the least likely of fingers. All of them carved with that same crown and gryphon. It’s a kind of club, I figure, a very secret club that pays no attention to race, sex, or class.* I’ve seen that ring on Council Lords and I’ve seen that ring worn hidden around the necks of slaves—or least on people pretending to be slaves.”

  Kihrin sat there frowning, moving the ring back and forth in his hands. Galen hated how unhappy he looked. “This is … this is about your father? Surdyeh?”

  Kihrin nodded. He turned back to Tauna. “Would you be willing to find out more information on them for me?”

  She stood up. “Not in a thousand years. I’m sorry, but I know enough about staying alive in this town to not meddle in some things. Tell you what though. I’ll pass the request on to my father. Maybe he can help you.”

  “Who’s your father?” Galen asked.

  “Doc,”* Tauna said. “He owns the bar.” She started walking to the door. “Now if you don’t mind, I have a room full of suckers to finish fleecing.”

  63: TEA WITH DEATH

  (Kihrin’s story)

  Things blurred for a bit. I was aware of events, but disconnected from them. The sound of coughing as Tyentso gasped for air and was Returned to life. Voices as people talked about her and probably about me. One of those voices was Doc’s and another was Teraeth’s. Eventually, Tyentso’s voice joined in. Shouting. Everyone seemed excited, which I suppose was to be expected.

  Then quiet. Everyone left.

  A hand came down on my shoulder. A moment later, Khaemezra sat down across from me. “What happened, Kihrin? How did you end up in Kharas Gulgoth?”

  I stared at her. Her appearance was a lie, just as much an illusion as the one she had woven when we first met in Kishna-Farriga. Her name was a lie. Everything about her was a lie. She wasn’t Khaemezra, High Priestess of Thaena.

  She was Thaena. I saw the truth now.

  I wondered if Kalindra had known when she had claimed Thaena only lived in the Afterlife. Had Kalindra lied to me, or had Khaemezra lied to her?

  “Kihrin?”

  I clenched my jaw and looked away.

  After a beat, I turned back, met her gaze, even though it was stupid, even though she terrified me. “How could Relos Var have created the Eight Immortals? The Eight created the world. You—” My voice cracked. “—created the world. Yet when he said he made you, you didn’t protest.”

  Khaemezra sighed. “Were my parents still alive, they would object to both the idea that Relos Var made me and equally to the notion I helped make the world. The Eight did not create the universe. We were empowered.”

  “By Relos Var?” My voice cracked again.

  Her reluctance to talk about this was palpable, but I was long past caring. “That wasn’t his name back then, but yes, by Relos Var.”

  I found myself standing. “I’ve worshipped the Eight since I was a child! Worshipped Taja! You—” I pointed a finger at her. “—you lectured me on faith. And you were never gods at all?”

  “Sit down, Kihrin.”

  “No. The whole reason the Eight went after the god-kings is because they were all false gods. And you’re sitting here telling me that you’re no better than the god-kings who enslaved—”

  “Not one more word!” The second time, her voice was Thaena’s, and not just that of an old woman. In her anger, the illusion dropped, and she was Death once more—ebony-skinned and waterborne. “Sit. Down.”

  I sat.

  “If you were anyone else, you brash little bastard, I would strike you down for daring to say such a thing.” She stood, effectively trading places with me. “If we had our way, there w
ould be no temples, no altars, we would not be called gods. We never wanted to be gods. And we have no interest in enslaving the people we sacrificed everything to save.”

  “Sacrificed? What sacrifice? He made you GODS.”

  She held up a finger. I swallowed and shut up.

  “Imagine that you are a soldier, Kihrin,” Thaena said. “Imagine that you are locked in an endless war against an enemy whom you literally cannot see. That was us, fighting the demons. Trying to fight them. Failing. Now imagine someone comes along—a clever, clever man—and tells you that he can give you the keys you need to fight these demons invading your home. He can give you the keys to drive them back so millions of your people will live. All you must do is let yourself be tied to a cosmic force. You will have power beyond imagination. But you will be removed from your race, from your family, from your friends, from everyone you care for. That’s not the worst part. The worst part is that the job will never end. You will be a soldier standing on the wall forever, guarding those who cannot protect themselves. You cannot die and you will serve until the end of the universe. You will never be able to put aside your burden, hand it off to someone else, and go back to a civilian life. Would you volunteer for that?”

  Something made me take the question seriously. I had the weird, itchy feeling that she wasn’t really asking me hypothetically. I bit my lip. “I think I might. I … yes. If I knew what I was getting into. If it was my choice.”

  Thaena nodded and looked away. She mumbled something.

  “What was that?”

  She turned back to me. “I said: that’s what you said the last time, too.”

  I stared at her. My mouth went quite dry. I didn’t really know how to respond to that. I certainly didn’t want to jump to the conclusion that she seemed to be suggesting. “You—” I cleared my throat. “Are you suggesting that—”

  “Yes?” A flicker of amusement, brief and bitter, returned to her eyes.

  “Okay, so if anyone accuses me of hubris, uh, I guess they’ll have a point, but are you implying that I have held that job? I used to be one of the Eight?” I laughed nervously. “I mean, that would be impossible. Because, for one, you don’t have a missing member of your group. All eight of the Eight Immortals are accounted for. And for two, surely, I would remember if I was a god! That whole problem with Darzin and Dead Man would have been easier, although I guess Relos Var would still have been a thorn. And also, because, uh, you just said the Eight can’t be killed. I mean, unless you were being hypothetical there too.”

  “None of the Eight has ever been killed,” Thaena said. “We’re tied to elemental forces. You’d have to destroy the force—luck or death, magic or nature—to destroy us.”

  I exhaled. “Okay then.”

  “However,” Thaena continued, “lest Relos Var claim I’m being deceptive—” Her voice dripped with bitter venom. “—you should know that we have not been eight in number for many years.”

  “What?”

  “In the Capital, if you ask someone who the eighth member of the Eight is, they will say Grizzst. In Eamithon, they will think you a fool for not knowing the eighth member is Dina. In Jorat, he is called the Nameless, his statue blank and covered by a shroud. The Vishai worship him as Selanol, the sun god, and claim that he is dead. None of these is right, but the Vishai are perhaps closest to the truth, even if the name they worship has drifted over the years. What they don’t understand is that S’arric never technically died.”

  “So where is he?”

  “You met him tonight, locked away in the center of Kharas Gulgoth. He opened his eyes as you approached.”

  I drew a shaky breath to restart the beating of my heart. I felt my gorge rise. “So that was a god?” I must admit a part of me was relieved, consoled. You see if that figure was the eighth, well, then it meant that Thaena had been speaking hypothetically after all.

  I’m not sure why I thought that was better, really.

  “Yes,” Thaena said. She looked haunted. “The demons renamed him Vol Karoth.”

  I tried not to think about how the very name sent shudders through me. “But why did I go there? I had no idea that place even existed.”

  “Do you really want to know?” Her glance was scathing.

  “I just asked. I’m tired of being lied to.”

  Thaena’s nostrils flared. “I have never lied to you.”

  “But you sure as hell aren’t telling me everything. What about the prophecies? Are those even real—or are they just a propaganda game played by one side against the other?”

  She walked behind me and gathered my hair, pulling it over one of my shoulders. “For a very long time we assumed they were a long-term mind game being played by the demons. Then more and more of the prophecies began to be fulfilled, in very specific ways. Now we are mostly trying to discover if they are a prediction of unavoidable events given by a race that does not perceive time the same way we do, or if they are instructions on how to derive a specific outcome. Are they colorful future histories or recipes couched in symbolism?”

  “Which way are you leaning?”

  “Toward the recipes,” Thaena admitted. “Plus, Relos Var seems to be interpreting it that way, so we can’t afford not to as well.”

  “So, you’re trying to stack the deck. Just like they are. You’ll have all the trumps in your hand when you figure it out.” I tried looking back at her, but she was standing directly behind me, so close I could feel the glittery coldness of her dress against my skin.

  “Yes. And since it is difficult to repeat certain variables, it may be that we will never have this chance again. Even now, we do not control certain important cards. Before Xaltorath found you, he did worse damage elsewhere, and you have seen for yourself what Gadrith has twisted his adoped ‘son’ Thurvishar into. He may well be beyond our aid.”*

  I remembered the Lord Heir of House D’Lorus and shivered, in spite of myself.

  “He’s part of this too?”

  She nodded. “Sadly.”

  “And here I was hoping he could be someone else’s problem.”

  “No, I’m afraid he is yours. Someday.”

  I flinched as I felt her fingers on the back of my neck, her nails picking at the chain of my gaesh. “I still feel like you’re not telling me everything.”

  “That’s because I’m not,” she agreed as she untied the necklace clasp. “You’re young and what you are not yet ready to know would fill the Great Library back in Quur. I have my reasons. I think they’re good reasons. Obviously, you’re in no position to judge, but knowing you, you’ll keep pushing until you find out. Maybe Relos Var will attempt to make it a wedge between us, which I will not tolerate. So, remember that you asked for this.” She sighed. “I don’t know for certain why you appeared in Kharas Gulgoth tonight, but I don’t think any outside force was responsible. You did it, and you did it as a primal response to being possessed by Tyentso.”

  I could hear her voice but couldn’t see her, and it made me all kinds of nervous. “Yes. I guess that’s possible. I just … kind of panicked.”

  “That is on me. It didn’t occur to me that given your past, it would be perfectly understandable for you to have a response to that sort of stimulation. I should have also expected the sympathetic response that transported you to the middle of the Korthaen Blight.”

  I frowned. I didn’t know of anything in my past that qualified as justification for my reaction. And I knew enough about magic to know that a “sympathetic response” was flowery language for a common magical technique: like calls to like. I really didn’t know of any reason I’d have any sort of sympathy with a fallen, imprisoned god.

  I closed my eyes. I did know. I could lie to myself for a thousand years, but on some level, I knew. I just couldn’t say it. I couldn’t make that leap, admit that truth out loud.

  “I have a cousin named Saric,” I mused. Then I shook my head. “So S’arric was the one in the drawings I saw on the walls of Kharas Gulgoth. A man�
�I’m assuming Relos Var—led one of the Eight away from the others, and performed some sort of ritual. And afterward, everything was a mess and S’arric was just a dark outline. So that must be the morgage telling the story of how S’arric became Vol Karoth, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, so why S’arric? I assumed Relos Var lied about what would happen back then. You all acted like he betrayed you and killed your favorite puppy. I’m guessing S’arric was that puppy: brave, loyal, not too bright. I saw the looks Tya and Relos Var were giving each other too. You all knew Relos Var. He could have lured any of you into that ritual. Why did he pick S’arric?”

  “Kihrin…” Her tone was placating, faintly scolding.

  “No,” I said. “I have to know.”

  “Isn’t it obvious? When Relos Var invented the ritual to create the Eight Gods, he assumed he would be one of the recipients. When he was not, the rest of us assumed that he would be content with the judgment of our government. And we were, all of us, wrong.” She paused. “He picked S’arric for the purest of petty emotions. Jealousy. S’arric was his younger brother.”

  You’re a long way from home, little brother, Relos Var had said.

  You shouldn’t have brought him back. It was cruel.

  She must have felt it when my whole body went tense. “He called you brother, didn’t he?”

  “And you weren’t going to say anything, were you?” I pulled away from her, thumped the reed mattress with my fist as I turned around. “See? This is why we have trust issues. Are you serious? He hates me because in another life I was the brother he murdered?”

  As I leaned back, the gaesh necklace stayed with her. Not just the gaesh necklace, though: I saw she was also holding a necklace I hadn’t seen in years. The necklace of star tears.

  My mouth suddenly felt dry.

  She piled the necklaces into one hand. “Haven’t you been listening? He did not murder you. I could have fixed it if he’d only killed you. He did something much worse.”

  Thaena shook her head. “Var likes to claim that he didn’t mean for things to happen the way they did, but I never believed him. He was as jealous of you as streams are jealous of the sea. At first we thought he had slain you. It was only after Vol Karoth tracked us down one by one, like a shark stalks fish, that we realized the truth.”