Royal Falcon

by Chris Svartbeck

  “Careful!” Iragana laid her hand on his. “Don’t touch it!”

  “What is that?”

  “An energy arrow!”

  Tolioro’s eyes widened. Energy arrows were legendary, powerful weapons. It was enough to think of the person it should kill while touching it. It unerringly found its mark, across any distance, through any obstacle. The perfect murder weapon. For exactly this reason, they had been outlawed by the Crystal Chamber more than four hundred years ago. Legend even said that the knowledge of how to create them had been lost generations ago.

  Iragana covered the energy arrow back up. “Kanata is planning to appear with you during the equinox celebration,” she continued. “You will stand beside him before everyone, as will I.” Almost lovingly, she stroked the covered arrow. “No one will notice if I withdraw early. Kanata is used to it. I will simply say I have a headache. I will then send out the arrow from here. You will be standing beside your father when the arrow strikes. You can even try to save him. That won’t stop an energy arrow. The king will die in your arms. You, the perfect son, will stand by him until the end. No one will suspect you.”

  Tolioro looked at his mother as though truly seeing her for the first time. Then, he took her hands, bowed over them and kissed them. “Mother,” he rasped, “I always knew I could rely on you!”

  An Attack on the King

  Sawateenatari was completely decked out. The equinox was one of the four highest holidays of the year. Early in the morning, the people lined the streets to get the best view of the royal family. The city guards had their hands full keeping the curious onlookers under control. A carpet of blossoms covered the broad street from the palace to the Temple of the Burning Goddess.

  Kanata was in a great mood. It seemed Tolioro had decided to lead a useful life for a change. In the past few days, his spies had not reported anything negative about the crown prince. Tolioro had even taken care of the paperwork he so hated doing.

  Kanata looked at the cheering crowd over the bobbing heads of his sedan bearers. Karapak hadn’t been to war in more than fourteen years. The people were well-fed, prosperous and content. He intended to leave it in this condition until his next endeavor was fully planned. Kanata leaned back in his sedan and dreamed of the day when the Karapakian kingdom would annex the bounties of Tolor.

  Tolioro, who also sat in a sedan behind Kanata, but before the three royal consorts, forced a smile to remain on his face. His jaw muscles were already starting to hurt. He had no choice. Today, he had to the demonstrate the peace, joy and conceited sunshine among the royal family. It was a good thing they would soon be inside the temple. At least he wouldn’t have to fake this stupid smile during the ceremony. He thought of the celebration planned at the palace after the ceremony. This time, his smile was real. Yes, it would be a joyous celebration.

  Ioro was exhausted. He hadn’t slept well for the past few nights. Something wasn’t right. He couldn’t figure out what, but it made him uneasy. Just to be cautious, he ordered another dozen guards. The equinox was one of the few holidays on which Kanata didn’t stay on his throne or in another fixed location, but instead, casually mingled with the guests. They were hand-picked guests; the finest Karapakian nobles and a few ambassadors, but Karapakian history had proven that kings weren’t always safe, even amongst their own followers.

  Ioro went through the planned schedule with the master of ceremonies again. First, the big reception, in which the entire royal family would participate, then, the king’s speech to his people, which was traditionally read out simultaneously by heralds, and finally, the casual portion of the party with music, acrobats and all kinds of entertainment. In the hall where the king would be, only trusted servants who had worked at the palace for years would be permitted to offer refreshments. The honor guard, with him at the lead, would always be in direct proximity to the king. Ioro stared at the plan without really paying attention to it. The whole celebration had been carefully planned and thought through. Still, a quiet doubt ate at him. He felt like he had overlooked something.

  It was already close to midnight. Iragana asked her royal husband to be permitted to withdraw. She wasn’t feeling well. Kanata nodded, distracted, took another sip from his cup of wine, and turned back to talk to Duke Noredo. Noredo was just explaining, at great length, the measures he had initiated to combat the increasing threat from pirates in the North Sea.

  Iragana walked to her chambers with measured steps, as behooved the first consort. She allowed her servants to undress her and bring her to bed, demanded her maid fetch her a jasmine compress and a bit of willow bark tea for her headache, and sent all of the servants out. She wanted to sleep.

  The maid closed the thin bed curtains to dim the light of the oil lamps and keep the mosquitoes out. Iragana heard her lay down on her cot at the end of the bed. The girl would be beside her if she made even the slightest sound. A royal consort was never truly alone. Iragana smiled. Her hand reached into the elaborate hairstyle she had had freshly pinned up this morning and carefully withdrew a small object wrapped in silk. She ran her fingers over the silk and felt the curve and tip of the energy arrow. So innocuous, yet so powerful! She enjoyed the sense of power. This object meant death. Kanata’s life lay solely in her delicate, jasmine-scented hands. Iragana carefully opened the silk cloth, making sure not to touch the arrow. It shimmered before her in the darkness; bluish white, thin and elegant, like an icicle in the moonlight. Iragana thought of the day she had first seen her royal husband. She was thirteen at the time. Kanata had seemed like a dream come true. Young, tall, thin and clad in the royal colors, aquamarine and gold, he made an overwhelming impression on the young girl from the countryside. She had been so happy!

  Kanata had quickly let her know after the wedding that he had not asked for the marriage. She had been primarily chosen because not a single drop of magical blood flowed in her veins. She had been chosen to bear the royal heir, nothing more. As soon as she had fulfilled her duty as a broodmare for the House of Mehme, Kanata only sought the company of other women. He gave her the respect to which a royal consort was entitled, but no more than that.

  Iragana touched the emissary of death and thought of her husband. The arrow slid from her fingers, silently penetrated the bed curtain and disappeared into the depths of the palace.

  Ioro started. His right side was suddenly burning as though it were on fire. Instinctively, his hand went to his hip. Ouch! What, by all the demons... Then he understood. Jok’s dagger! There had to be a threat of magical origin nearby. Damn, his intuition had been right, something was very wrong! Ioro’s head flew around. He searched the room. Where was the king? Up there, between Tolioro, Baron Sukido and Countess Jakkaita, a good sixteen steps from him. He carelessly pushed through the crowd. Dismayed looks and angry calls followed him. Kanata turned his head, surprised, to see what the strange upset was about. Ioro had almost reached Kanata. He heard a high-pitched hum. From the corner of his eye, he saw a flitting movement from the direction of the door to the royal chambers. His head flew up. Time slowed down. The people around him seemed to freeze like statues. Something small and bright flew through the air, straight at Kanata. Tolioro, who had not left Kanata’s side for the past several minutes, also seemed to notice it, but his expression was not one of concern. On the contrary, Tolioro looked happy!

  Ioro didn’t have time to process this information. That white object had almost reached Kanata. Tolioro pulled Kanata to the side and yelled, “Careful!” Kanata tripped and fell.

  Ioro almost couldn’t believe his eyes. The white object changed directions! It fell, in an elegant arc, and drilled into Katana’s back.

  Ioro was already holding the dagger in his hand. Whatever the white object was, it was magical and Jok had told him that this dagger could fight magic. His blade unerringly pierced the white end still protruding from Kanata’s back. The world exploded around him. Heat shot up his arm and bored into his head. His hand seemed to meld with the hilt of the dagger,
and it burned like fire. He heard someone screaming. A distant part of his mind registered that it was he who was yelling. Disgusted faces, screams. Feet were running. Then, rough hands grabbed him and pulled him back.

  Tolioro starred at the tumultuous scene before him without truly understanding what was going on. Where had Ioro suddenly come from? And what was his brother holding in his hand? Ioro was pulled back by the guards. Kanata was lying on the floor with a dagger protruding from his back. He was bleeding, but it was relatively little blood. The smell of something burned, scorched, hung in the air. Kanata stirred. The energy arrow! It had failed! How was that possible? It must have been Ioro. What had Ioro done? How had he known about the attack?

  One of the guards pulled the dagger out of the wound. With a nasty curse, he dropped the weapon. It clattered to the floor. The blade had turned into a black clump. A thin wisp of smoke rose from it. Sorcery! Forbidden sorcery! One of the soldiers wrapped a cloth around his hand, grabbed the end of the dagger, his face disgusted, and carefully picked it up.

  The court physician had already arrived. His examination determined that there was no acute threat to Kanata’s life. The king had been lucky. The weapon had not penetrated deeply enough to reach his heart. The heat from Ioro’s dagger had largely cauterized the wound and stopped any severe bleeding. Kanata would survive. If he didn’t overexert himself for the next few hours, he might even be able to continue handling Karapak’s political matters while he recovered. The king was carefully carried to a cot in a quiet side room.

  Tolioro drew a conclusion. The assassination had failed. Ioro’s magic dagger, which he realized was Ioro’s connection to the sorcerers, had destroyed the energy arrow before it could fulfill its fatal purpose. But everyone thought Ioro was the assassin! What a magnificent outcome! Tolioro wanted to dance and cheer. This would finish Ioro. An assassination attempt on the king in front of hundreds of witnesses. High treason! A shameful death certainly awaited him. Tolioro ordered the guards to lock up his brother in a nearby chamber and keep him under strict guard. They would have to wait until Kanata was able to decide himself what would happen to his treasonous son.

  *

  That same night, Kanata held the proceedings against Ioro. The entire Privy Council was rounded up. The men and women gathered in the small audience hall. Kanata was the only one who was seated. His chest had been bandaged and his face was pale. The physician remained within reach of him.

  Ioro was even paler than his father. He lay, bound on the floor before the throne, in the center of the Privy Council hall. A soldier from the honor guard was holding the dagger, which was wrapped in a piece of cloth, in his hand with his arm stretched far away from his body.

  Ioro felt a rough hand grab him by the hair and pull him up. Reeling, he stood up. “Kneel before the king, you mangy dog!”

  A kick to the back of his knees made sure Ioro immediately obeyed the command.

  Kanata raised his hand and the murmuring of the crowd ceased. His gaze wandered across the group and came to rest on Ioro. “I have called you to hold proceedings against my eldest son, Ioro,” he said, his voice hoarse. “As he is of royal blood, the Privy Council must witness the proceedings in accordance with the law.” He stopped for a moment and cleared his throat. “I am the accuser and the judge,” he then said coldly. “You are advisors. You are free to ask questions to clarify the circumstances of his crime. You are not free to question my decision. Ioro attacked and injured me with a dagger. I have sufficient reason to believe he wanted to murder me. His actions are high treason and, as such, are punishable by death.”

  Kanata looked around again. Then, he gestured to the on-duty honor guard officer. The man stepped forward. “Captain Giomo, report on what you saw.”

  Giomo bowed briefly. He began to speak in the terse tones of a military man. “Commander Ioromehme oversaw His Majesty’s safety during the celebration as he always does. He remained a good eight lengths of a man away from His Majesty. Shortly after midnight, Commander Ioromehme drew a dagger and, without apparent reason, started running and attacked His Majesty from behind. His Majesty fell and was injured below the shoulder blade. Soldier Trevek and I pounced on the commander and disarmed him. Soldier Trevek took the dagger.”

  He gestured toward the soldier holding the dagger.

  “We determined that this dagger bore a mirror which was destroyed during the assassination attempt. Based on the evidence, Commander Ioromehme is clearly working with sorcerers. I suspect he was acting on their orders.”

  Kanata’s question cracked like a whip. “Why on their orders?”

  “I cannot imagine another reason why Commander Ioromehme would attack Your Majesty.”

  Kanata nodded. The captain stepped out of the circle.

  “Commander Ioro!” Kanata’s rage hammered with each syllable. "Why did you attack me?”

  Ioro raised his head. “I did not attack you, Majesty.”

  “Lies! I saw it with my own eyes!”

  “You were attacked, Majesty, but not by me. I was merely trying to disarm the object that was attacking you.”

  “And what object was that? Only your dagger was found in my shoulder!”

  “The object dissolved when it came into contact with my dagger.”

  Ioro was aware how flimsy his explanation sounded. He could see on the faces around him that no one believed him. “I swear by the Goddess! I speak the truth!”

  Grand Duke Tweajat raised a fleshy hand. Kanata nodded briefly. Tweajat’s basso voice rumbled through the room. “Majesty, let us review his testimony using an interrogation mirror.”

  Kanata nodded. “A reasonable suggestion.”

  He gave the order. The captain of the guard left the room. A few moments later, he returned with two soldiers carrying a covered, narrow, almost head-high mirror. The mirror was placed before Ioro and the cloth was removed. The mirror was as black as night. Ioro felt the mirror reaching out for him. His latent magical powers rebelled. Without him doing anything, a defense shield went up in his mind. The mirror turned milky. Their astonished cries grew louder.

  “Sorcery!”

  “Witchcraft!”

  "The mirror has failed!”

  “More evidence!” Kanata’s voice sounded tense. “Commander Ioro! You are clearly consorting with magical powers. Who is the owner of these powers? With whom have you allied against me?”

  “With no one!” Ioro looked at the interrogation mirror in panic. If the mirror remained milky, he would stand no chance of convincing his father. He had to show the mirror his thoughts, convince it of the purity of his intentions! The mirror didn’t react. The surface remained opaque.

  “Another lie!” Kanata furrowed his brow. “Commander Ioro! I will give you one last chance!”

  Ioro’s gaze wandered from the mirror to Kanata and back. He couldn’t influence whatever was preventing the mirror from reading him. He was damned.

  “Majesty, ask him about the dagger!” The suggestion came from Countess Kirimarti.

  “Commander Ioro, who gave you the dagger and for what purpose?”

  Ioro remained silent. Every word he said was one word too many. Kanata’s facial expression left no doubt that his days were numbered. He wouldn’t drag his friend Jok down with him.

  “So be it.” Kanata arose. “Commander Ioro! I hereby strip you of your rank. You shall be expelled from the royal guard. You are no longer my son. Your name shall be erased from the House of Mehme’s family records. Traitor Ioro! You are sentenced to death for high treason, conspiracy, the use of magic and physically attacking your king. You shall die and, with you, your entire bloodline. I shall set the date of your execution at the appropriate time. You shall be publicly burned in the main market square. Your ashes shall be committed to the river.”

  Ioro collapsed. The death of disgrace! His spirit would be washed away with the water and damned to wander the seas for eternity. This death would plague him in all worldly realms and the realms of the god
s.

  “Guards! Bring the traitor to prison and lock him in the deepest dungeon!”

  Two soldiers took Ioro’s arms. Having lost his will, he staggered out of the room between them.

  The Death of a Grand Master

  Kanata sat back down again, exhausted. “The traitor will not give us any information,” he stated, “And the mirror isn’t helping. The traitor must have been in contact with a sorcerer, somehow, sometime. That is not possible here in the palace. Since my great grandfather

  integrated the banishment spell into the palace walls eighty-six years ago, no sorcerer has been able to enter the palace. So, how were they able to make contact?”

  Suddenly, Tolioro saw his opportunity. He could kill two birds with one stone. “There is only one person who could have exposed Ioro to sorcery and treason!” Tolioro’s voice almost sounded too excited. “Urgutan! I watched him visit Ioro at night when we were at the Temple of Ganae Elisam! It must have been him!”

  Kanata didn’t tarry long. A mounted rapid-deployment unit was sent to retrieve Urgutan.

  The temple willingly opened its gates to the king’s soldiers. The commander of the rapid-deployment troop had the instructors and students locked in their chambers and posted a few of his men to stand guard. The rest of the troop was on its way back before the sand ran through the hourglass. Urgutan rode with them, bound and thrown across the back of his horse like a common thief.

  Five days later, Kanata opened the public proceedings against Urgutan at the high royal court. The grand master appeared, looking righteously indignant.