by William King
Most of the serving wenches and staff were humans. That was increasingly the way with all menial labour in Lothern. Some of the great trading houses had even started using slaves as labourers in their warehouses, although technically it was still only permitted to sell slaves in Lothern for purposes of transhipment. There was no business in this world that could not be pursued in this greatest of port cities. The merchants of Lothern did not want to miss out on the slightest copper piece of potential profit.
Tyrion glanced around to see who else was present. The place had gone quiet for a moment when the patrons had noticed his entry. It pleased him that he was so well known here. The tavern’s owner came to greet him.
‘Prince Tyrion, I had heard you were back.’
‘News travels fast, Garion,’ said Tyrion.
‘In Lothern, always.’ The owner led them to a massive platform where they could stare down on the less wealthy and famous below. Drinks were brought. The most beautiful courtesans began to drift away from other tables towards their own.
Tyrion sipped his wine and studied his friends. They were a typical cross section of the young, outrageous and wealthy of Lothern at this moment in time; part of the new generation that had grown up over the past century as Lothern was transformed from a half-dreaming city into the hub of a global trading empire. They had the swaggering, piratical look of young merchants on the make. Many of them had captained ships to the far corners of the globe.
Here was Lucius, whose family had grown wealthy in spices and silks from Cathay and the Mystic East. He affected long flowing wizardly robes of the Cathayan upper echelons. It was intended as a joke, a parody of the self-importance of the mandarins but somehow it suited him.
Here was Kargan, who had made a fortune raiding the coasts of Naggaroth and the dark elf colonies. He was lean and scarred with a vulpine look to his features and two dark elf blades strapped to his sides. He hated the spawn of Naggaroth with a black passion that matched that of the druchii. He had lost a beloved sister to their slavers and was taking a lifelong revenge. Tyrion had made his first real gold shipping out with him and raiding the coasts of Naggaroth. Although he was very far from squeamish about these things himself, Tyrion found Kargan’s bloodlust somewhat disturbing.
Here was Drielle, a she-elf who prided herself on being every bit as ruthless and tough as her male companions, who wielded a sword in battle with the same skill as they did, and who never refused a bet or a challenge. She was also reputed to be the best navigator in Ulthuan. Tyrion had funded several of her voyages and turned a huge profit on all of them.
There were others cut from the same cloth, spending freely, gambling unwisely, drinking all they could. They were all part of the same social group, all useful to each other. Tyrion had made small fortunes on the back of bits of gossip picked up from one or the other, and made sure to return the favours whenever he could.
These elves were not the powers in their Houses now, but they would be one day, and it did no harm to cultivate them. They could all be useful to him for as long as he was useful to them. In the future they would provide the spine of a very strong power base. One day these people would rule Lothern, and through Lothern the rest of the world.
Of course, they were not without rivals. There were other cliques and factions in the city, many of whom hated his friends or found it necessary to pose as if they did. In some cases, as with young Paladine Stormcastle over there, it was because they belonged to families who were hereditary enemies of the Emeraldsea. Tyrion suspected that under most circumstances he could have liked Paladine, but it looked as if they were doomed to be at each other’s throats by an accident of history or birth. They were rivals in business, for the favours of courtesans and the notice of the Phoenix King. It could be no other way, and there was no sense in regretting it.
Paladine rose from his table and walked over to Tyrion’s accompanied by a couple of his swaggering hangers-on. He had a new pet, Tyrion noticed, a small monkey dressed in the britches, tunic and exaggerated codpiece that the humans liked to wear. It even had a broad-brimmed feathered hat. It was a joke at the expense of the humans, an expression of contempt that Tyrion was not sure was at all wise in this new era. The monkey waddled over and bowed to Tyrion, as it had obviously been trained to do, then it began to scratch its private parts. All of the elves laughed except Tyrion.
‘Prince Tyrion. I had heard you were back.’
‘And if you had not heard, you could see it with your own eyes.’
‘I hear you found the blade Sunfang,’ said Paladine. Tyrion nodded and waited for the inevitable sneer. He did not have long to wait.
‘Your crippled brother has a gift for sorcery and forgery, I have heard. It would not surprise me in the least to learn that the blade you bore was some sort of fake.’
A gang of other young elven blades was closing in. Tyrion did a swift head count. His own group would be outnumbered unless some of the others here came to his aid. Most of them were looking on, waiting to see what happened. There was an atmosphere of tension, of barely controlled violence about to explode. Tyrion shrugged and forgot about his good intentions from earlier. It looked like a brawl was inevitable. That being the case, he thought, he might as well enjoy it.
Tyrion yawned. ‘I have been having some difficulty sleeping of late. I am glad you have come over to bore me. It is very relaxing. And what have you been up to while I was in the jungles of Lustria? Bravely keeping your father’s account books, wielding that razor-sharp pen of yours to good effect, terrorising the clerks in the counting house with the prospect of listening to your jokes.’
Paladine flushed and stepped forward. His monkey shrieked and capered, obviously disturbed by the anger in the voices around him. Out of somewhere a flagon of ale came flying, tumbling towards his head, soaking his clothes. Within seconds a brawl had erupted. Tables were smashed, punches were thrown.
‘No blades, lords and ladies, no blades,’ Garion shouted. Tyrion wondered if anyone would pay the slightest attention.
Standing on top of the moving mountain that was the Black Ark as it ploughed through the waves, Malekith studied the horizon. The sea was dark with ships. Every one of those ships contained troops loyal to him, or as loyal as elves and fickle Chaos worshippers were ever capable of being. It did not matter. They would serve his purposes in the end. He was not going to let anything spoil the mood of triumph this day.
He was returning home after all these years. That was what it felt like. He had dwelled in the cold northern lands for a much greater portion of his millennia-long life than he had spent in Ulthuan, but still it was so. He had brooded over the fate of the island-continent far more than he had over the lands he had seized so long ago.
His first memories were of the blue skies of Naggarythe. He still had vivid recollections of his first horse ride, the sight of dragons moving across an empty sky, the cloud-girt mountains, the emerald seas. He could remember talking with his father in their few quiet moments together when he was young.
Much had changed since then and he had been the one who changed it. By his actions he had sunk part of the ancient land. He now believed his mother had tricked him into that as part of her own secret plans. It was difficult to truly remember. It had all been so long ago.
This enormous sea-going vessel had once been part of a mountain citadel. Mighty magics kept it afloat. Without the power of the ancient sorcery that pulsed all around him, even now it would be on its way to the monster-haunted ocean bottom. It was not a ship. It was an enormous berg of hollowed-out stone, filled with warriors.
The sea seethed with the crude vessels, carrying the army of savages his mother had recruited in the Northern Wastes and bent to her will. Their guttural chanting and bestial bellowing drifted across the waves as they tried to placate their crude daemon gods. Sharks and smaller sea monsters swam in their wakes, devouring the offerings the barbarians ma
de, still living members of their own tribes sent on as messengers to the afterlife they thought they were going to.
The joke was on them. Long ago, when he had been little more than a child, his mother had told him the truth. There was no paradise, no afterlife such as the priests spoke of. There was only the black horror of the realms of Chaos in which daemons devoured the souls of the dead, feasting on them, as they feasted on the strong emotions of the living. His father had hinted confirmation of this, and his father had seen more of the workings of the universe than any living being before or since when he passed unshielded through the Flame.
Malekith himself had caught no glimpses in the hazy, agonising time when he had attempted that feat himself. He had caught sight of the presence of Asuryan and the god had rejected him…That fact still burned as much as the pain of his wounds.
Behind him, emerging from the bowels of the Black Ark, he sensed the chained malevolence of the daemon he had bound to his will. N’Kari still wore the form of an astonishingly beautiful elf maiden, naked, but now forged from steel, tattooed with runes that parodied those on Malekith’s own armour. Normally Malekith would have brooked no mockery, but there was little more he could do to punish the daemon than what he was already doing. Let it have its little joke. In the end, it too would do his will. That was what was important.
Sometimes he let it shift to the form it was most at home in, that of a monstrous four-armed denizen of the deepest hells. At all times, the chains of cold iron and truesilver glittered on its limbs, the jewels on each of the alien bracelets pulsing with the power of the spells that bound the daemon to his service.
It was temporary, Malekith knew that. Not even his spells and that ancient alien artefact could hold the daemon enchained forever. He could feel its evil and its hatred where he stood. It was a palpable force, radiating outwards like heat, curdling the erotic, narcotic clouds of vapours that billowed always around N’Kari’s form.
‘Brooding, Malekith?’ the daemon asked. Its voice was innocent and beautiful and completely at odds with its appearance, but then it could look and sound like anything it wanted. Malekith envied it that. There were times when he thought he would give anything to wear the body he had once possessed, to feel cool air on his skin, not to be entombed in iron. He pushed that weakness aside.
‘Dwelling on the past?’ the daemon asked.
Malekith did not ask how the daemon knew. In some ways it was preternaturally sensitive to the thoughts of others, in other ways completely blind. Also, it would never do to lose sight of the fact that the daemon was not of this world. It had gifts, in some ways like his mother’s.
‘That is my business, daemon.’
‘For the moment, your business is my business,’ said N’Kari. It brandished its chains. ‘You have made this very clear to me.’
‘This does not mean I have to discuss it with you. Do not make me sorry I granted you permission to speak once more.’
‘Who else are you going to discuss it with, Witch King – those idiots out there on their pathetic ships?’
‘I do not require to talk about it with anyone, least of all you, lackey.’
‘Then you are most unusual among your kind. Always they need to talk, to boast, to vaunt their pride. They are worse than humans in their way.’
Malekith was inclined to agree, but he was not about to admit it to this creature. ‘You were thinking about life and death and the gods,’ said N’Kari.
Malekith wondered if the daemon had been reading his mind. He did not think that was possible. His helmet was inscribed with very potent runes to prevent exactly that sort of thing from happening and he had shielded his thoughts for millennia using magic.
No, he thought, the daemon was simply making an obvious insinuation and attempting to unsettle him, and that was not something he was going to allow.
‘That shows no great gift of understanding,’ said Malekith. ‘It is what most elves would do, standing on these heights, and looking at this view.’
‘While engaged in an exercise on this vast scale…’ said N’Kari. ‘It is what you mortals are like.’
‘I am no mortal,’ said Malekith.
‘That remains to be proven,’ said the daemon, allowing some of its malice to creep back into its voice.
‘By you?’ Malekith allowed his contempt to show in his voice. An elf or a human would have quailed.
The daemon merely smiled. ‘My time will come.’
‘If ever it does you will find me ready.’
‘I did this once,’ said N’Kari. The daemon sounded thoughtful. ‘Invaded Ulthuan. In the time before ever your father arose to oppose me.’
Malekith laughed. The sound was iron, cold and biting as a blade. ‘It seems mortals are not the only ones compelled to talk, to boast, to reminisce.’
‘It is a weakness of being bound in this form in this world,’ said N’Kari. ‘Every day I become more like you. I live. I breathe. The realm of my birth becomes an ever fainter memory. But then you understand that too, don’t you? We have some things in common you and I.’
‘I very much doubt that.’
‘You are attempting what I once did. I suspect your results will be much the same.’
‘I will prevail. I do not seek to destroy the world and enslave my people. I am merely reclaiming what is mine by right of birth.’
‘Are you certain of that?’
‘Of what?’
‘That you are Aenarion’s son? Your mother was, to say the least, promiscuous. I lay with her myself many times in many different forms. More than even she is aware of.’
Malekith knew the daemon was merely trying to goad him. He would not let it.
‘The Flame rejected you. It did not reject Aenarion.’
There was nothing Malekith could say to that, so he let it pass. He knew it was pointless debating these things with daemons.
‘Why do you think that was?’
Malekith exercised his will. The bracelets that bound the daemon pulsed with energy. It stood frozen in place, unable to move or speak until he willed it. He returned to contemplating his fleet.
Soon, he thought, he would be home and there would be a reckoning: with this daemon, with the elves of Ulthuan and with their gods.
Chapter Twelve
Teclis woke from an unpleasant slumber. Strange dreams had haunted his sleep, filling his mind with images of destruction and slaughter. In every nightmare was the hideous image of Morrslieb, the Chaos moon, blazing brightly in the sky. Something had transformed it into an eye through which a daemonic god looked down on the world.
He washed, pulled on his robe, and went down to breakfast. He had barely sat down at the table when there was a knocking at the door. Moments later Rose entered and said, ‘A messenger from the White Tower wishes to see you, sir.’
‘Send them in,’ said Teclis. He was surprised to see a Sword Master of Hoeth, a tall slender woman with a great two-handed blade strapped to her back. He recognised her at once. ‘Izaraa,’ he said. ‘What brings you here this fine morning?’
‘The High Loremaster has summoned a conclave at Hoeth. I was dispatched to give word to all associates of the White Tower. I heard you had returned so I brought you the message.’
‘What business is so urgent that the High Loremaster would summon us all back to the tower?’
‘I do not know, Prince Teclis. All I know is that it concerns the Chaos moon. Many dark portents have been observed and perhaps the realm is threatened.’
‘Omens indeed abound. I dreamt of Morrslieb this very night and awoke from a vision of it just before you arrived.’
‘Such things are not uncommon at the moment, prince.’
‘I had not noticed them before I returned to Ulthuan.’
‘Rumour has it you were in Lustria, far south of here.’
‘Rumour f
or once speaks truth and you are right; perhaps I have only recently returned to the area wherein these baleful omens hold sway.’
‘You will come to Hoeth, Prince Teclis?’
‘Most assuredly. I was returning anyway to consult the library. This only makes the errand more urgent.’
‘How will you get there?’
‘My brother is due to sail north very shortly. I can arrange to travel with him.’
‘Good, then I shall bid you farewell. I must travel on and summon others.’
‘I understand you just came back from Avelorn,’ said Tyrion to Prince Iltharis. His head hurt a little from all the wine he had drunk the previous evening. He had a few bruises from the brawl. He needed this sparring session to get rid of the grogginess and work the stiffness from his limbs. That was why he had come to the courtyard of the Emeraldsea mansion. Around the ancient fountains members of his family’s faction practised their skill at arms.
Was it his imagination or did Prince Iltharis flinch at the mention of the forest realm? Tyrion continued to strip off his shirt and don his practice armour. Iltharis paused and looked at him and then said, ‘Yes, I have. Why do you mention it?’
‘My aunt wants me to go there and take part in the great tournament to become the champion of the new Everqueen.’
Prince Iltharis let out a long breath that sounded suspiciously like a sigh, ‘Of course. Of course. I thought for a moment that you too had become overcome by morbid curiosity, like so many of my fellow citizens of Lothern.’
‘Morbid curiosity?’ Tyrion began strapping up the padded tunic. He looked directly at his friend as he did so. It was plain that the prince was a little upset, which was very unusual because he was normally the most self-possessed of elves.
‘I was one of the last people to see her alive. I was talking with her about my latest history when she was taken ill.’