The Hunting of the Princes

by Peter F. Hamilton

  That bothered her a great deal; so much so, she asked King Manokol for the floor at the afternoon session. Public speaking wasn’t her strong point – she hated the school debating club – but she felt she just couldn’t say nothing while the others grumbled about war.

  ‘We must be careful who we accuse,’ she told the assembled dignitaries, trying not to shift about on her feet. Standing in front of King Manokol’s dais, looking at the semi-circle of her fellow royals was an intimidating position. They didn’t seem to be listening so much as judging. She clenched her hands behind her back to stop them trembling with nerves. ‘It is easy to blame the Karraks for every misfortune we suffer. But they are not the only force of darkness at work in the Realms today.’

  ‘Did anyone else usurp the First Realm last year?’ King Iaswian of the Fifth Realm shouted; his naturally red face seemed even darker.

  Taggie blushed. ‘That is not the issue we are here for,’ she countered in a shaky tone. ‘There has been much talk of using armies and force. I have even heard the word “invasion” used.’

  ‘And rightly so,’ King Saraga said sharply. The King in Exile of the Fourth Realm was in his twenties, a big man who liked to tell anyone who listened about his prowess as a hunter and fighter. Taggie was worried by how aggressive he was the whole time. But then his family had been waiting for an opportunity like this for a very long time. ‘We should not be afraid of using force. The Grand Lord certainly isn’t.’

  ‘But what actual proof do we have that the Karraks are behind these murders?’ Taggie shot back.

  ‘My son is dead,’ the Queen of the Sixth Realm said in a shaken voice. ‘Fasla was fourteen years old. Who else would do that to a child?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Taggie said meekly, unable to look at the Queen, who she knew was on the verge of tears. ‘But I do know the assassin sent to kill me wasn’t a Karrak Lady.’

  Queen Judith rose from her seat. ‘Just what are you suggesting?’

  ‘You told me yourself,’ Taggie said desperately. ‘You didn’t know who placed the assassination contract on me.’ The rest of the Gathering all seemed to be glaring at her.

  ‘I said we weren’t aware at the time,’ Queen Judith said.

  ‘Do you know now?’ Taggie asked. ‘Did you find the woman?’

  ‘No, she has vanished. No doubt back to the Fourth Realm from whence she came.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Taggie continued, despite the tremble that had crept into her voice as she opposed the impassive sorceress Queen. ‘None of this makes any sense,’ she appealed to the circle of royals regarding her impassively from behind their broad oak desks. ‘Why would the Karrak Lords and Ladies do this? How would they possibly benefit? All they are doing is stirring our anger. Is it not more likely to be driven by something else?’

  ‘There is no other dark power at work in the Realms,’ King Manokol said lightly. ‘Dear Queen, perhaps you should take your seat again.’

  ‘But you don’t know there’s nothing else at work here,’ Taggie cried, hating the way her voice had risen, but she was cross now as well as angry. And these royals seemed to be able to argue much more convincingly than her. ‘Please, we must have proof the Karraks are behind this before we do anything rash. We must examine the assassinations themselves and who really carried them out. We must find the reason behind them.’

  ‘But we have none of the assassins,’ King Saraga said. ‘The cowards have vanished back into the darkness from which they came.’

  ‘Actually, not all of them,’ Queen Judith said levelly.

  The representation chamber fell utterly silent.

  Taggie turned round to face Queen Judith. ‘What?’

  Queen Judith ignored her. ‘My dear friends, even my house was subject to this atrocity the Karraks are committing. In the hours before we departed for this esteemed Gathering, an attempt was made on my own precious daughter’s life.’

  A startled murmur swept round the hall. Taggie gave Queen Judith a suspicious glance.

  ‘I am proud to say my Katrabeth thwarted the attempt.’ Queen Judith gave Taggie a mirthless smile. ‘I believe the Queen of Dreams wanted to talk to an assassin? Is that right, child?’

  ‘I . . .’ Taggie knew that somehow she’d been completely outsmarted. She wanted to run back to her desk, or preferably out of the chamber altogether. Bizarrely, all she could think of was Lord Golzoth turning away in the seconds before she’d unleashed the full power of the First Realm’s sun to obliterate the Karrak Lords. He’d known he was about to lose, and he’d fled in time to save himself. Some small reserve of courage made her stand her ground.

  Queen Judith bowed to King Manokol. ‘I bring you a gift, my most gracious host.’ She raised a hand and clicked her fingers in summons. The great doors to the representation chamber swung back. Like everyone else, Taggie craned forward to see what was being brought in. Some kind of box, ten feet a side and draped with red silk, glided forward through the air. Katrabeth walked in front of it, dressed in the opulent robes of her family house, her face perfectly composed. Four older sorceresses walked alongside the box, each holding a black staff that crackled with magical energy. Taggie had to scuttle out of the way as the box slid to a halt in front of King Manokol.

  ‘Behold,’ Queen Judith proclaimed in a triumphant voice. ‘Katrabeth’s would-be assassin.’

  Each of the sorceress guards turned to face the box, and held up their staffs. Katrabeth crooked one finger and beckoned. The red silk slithered to the ground, revealing a glass cage. Taggie, along with everyone else, gasped in shock at the figure hunched up inside. It was a Karrak Lady.

  Nobody noticed Taggie slinking back to her chair. She hadn’t wanted to see a Karrak again for as long as she lived, let alone be so close to one. This one wore the usual silver-hewed mist gown of the Dark Ladies, which swirled around her body, protecting it from the light. Her face had the whitest skin, stretched tight over her skull and around the thin nose with its single nostril. Unlike those Taggie had dealt with last year, she had no sunglasses. So for the first time Taggie could see the sunken eyes which seemed to be slits opening into a starless night sky.

  ‘Why didn’t she bring her out yesterday?’ Taggie whispered to Mum.

  ‘Timing is everything, especially in political strategy,’ Mum answered. ‘She was waiting for the best moment to strike, and you gave it to her.’

  ‘But . . . this Gathering is supposed to bring everyone together, so we can help all our peoples as best we can,’ Taggie protested.

  Mum shook her head sadly. ‘Oh my dear, thank the Heavens you were never born into the Third Realm. You wouldn’t have lasted a week.’

  Queen Judith took King Manokol’s hand and led him gently towards the glass cage. ‘You,’ she said forcefully. ‘Your name.’

  The Karrak Lady stirred. Long bone fingers emerged from the sleeves of her mist gown to flex slowly. ‘Lady Dirikal,’ she hissed. ‘Would you like me to bow as well, to complete your pitiful theatre?’

  ‘Your kind will do more than bow to us before this is over,’ Queen Judith said.

  Lady Dirikal lunged forward, smashing into the side of the glass cage amid a blizzard of magical blue light unleashed from her fingertips. The sorceress guards were ready for her, thrusting their staffs forward. Emerald counter-spells streamed out and flared across the glass. The Karrak Lady staggered back, growling and snarling like an injured wolf.

  Queen Judith hadn’t even flinched. ‘Tell us why you were in the Third Realm,’ she commanded, as if nothing had happened.

  Lady Dirikal slowly tilted her head to one side, regarding Katrabeth contemptuously. Her dainty silver-tipped teeth grew into long fangs. ‘To kill you. As we will kill all of your kind.’

  Taggie gazed at her in amazement. She couldn’t believe what she’d just said. The Karraks were the masters of treachery. They would never mount such a brazen attack. It was beyond stupid. And yet she’d just heard Lady Dirikal admit it.

  �
�I believe,’ Queen Judith said silkily, ‘that settles any question of doubt.’ She turned to give Taggie a victory smile that was mostly a sneer. ‘Even for the most sceptical among us. My friends, you have heard the truth from this creature. But of course, you are free to ask it what questions you wish.’

  Lady Dirikal had followed Queen Judith’s gaze. She opened her mouth wide, a predatory hiss exhaling a long stream of grey icy breath as her empty eyes found Taggie. ‘Ah, the Abomination herself,’ she hissed. ‘Ignore this Queen’s foolish theatre, Abomination. It means nothing. You will die. You will all die. And all we will remember of you is your screams at the end.’

  Taggie started to get up. She wanted to ask Dirikal a question. The most important question of all: Why?

  Mum’s hand came down on her knee. And Taggie couldn’t move a single muscle.

  ‘Not a word,’ Mum whispered through unmoving lips. ‘We are outmanoeuvred. For now. Do not weaken our position further.’

  The King of the Fifth Realm stood to face the Gathering. ‘Friends, only once before have the Realms been subject to such a perilous threat as we have been shown this day. Our revered ancestors faced the full might of the Dark Lords and Ladies before at the Battle of Rothgarnal when Mirlyn’s Gate was bravely taken from them. I say we must respond to this new peril with the same absolute resolution of our ancestors. I nominate King Manokol as the War Emperor, that we may place the armies of every Realm under his command.’

  Standing in front of the imprisoned Karrak Lady, King Manokol bowed in dignified gratitude to the King of the Fifth Realm.

  King Saraga stood and punched the air vigorously. ‘So say I!’ he shouted eagerly.

  ‘And I,’ Queen Judith added serenely.

  The call went round the chamber. Only Prince Andrew abstained, along with Taggie, while everyone else endorsed the proposition. Taggie was now free to move. But she sat motionless at her desk, saying nothing.

  ‘I will not fail you, friends,’ King Manokol said, with tears of pride and gratitude leaking down his cheeks. ‘Together our armies will be unstoppable. We will storm the Fourth Realm, and finally throw the Karrak vermin into a darkness beyond even that which spawned them. A darkness from which no one returns. The King in Exile will be King again. This I swear to you.’

  Taggie stared at the Karrak Lady. In turn, Dirikal hadn’t stopped looking at her – despite the anger raging around the chamber, despite the Kings and Queens promising to exterminate all her kind. Somehow Taggie knew the only victory in the chamber somehow belonged to Lady Dirikal. ‘I will know the truth,’ she told her foe soundlessly.

  QUESTIONS ANSWERED

  ‘There have been several sightings of the submersible craft,’ an excited Prince Lantic said when Taggie arrived back at his hemispherical chamber. ‘It’s been visiting Shatha’hal for at least a couple of years, according to the harbourmasters. There might even be more than one of them.’

  Jemima waved a big sheet of paper in front of Taggie. ‘And this is a much better drawing of the gol arm.’

  ‘Not that I understand the attachment yet,’ Lantic said with a momentary flash of gloom. ‘But once my friends from the anamage houses reply to my queries I might have a better idea of what it is they’re all for.’

  Taggie ignored their jabbering, and picked some books off a chair so she could sit down. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But we’re facing something a lot more serious than some smuggling.’

  Lantic nodded slowly once she’d finished explaining about the incredible prisoner and the last vote that had been taken at the Gathering. ‘It’s what my father wanted right from the start,’ he said. ‘That’s the real reason he called the Gathering, in the hope he could somehow convince the other Realms to invade the Fourth Realm and take his war to the Karraks in their dark citadel. It’s how he aims to avenge Rogreth’s death.’

  ‘And my aunt gave him the perfect excuse,’ Taggie groaned.

  ‘I think “excuse” might be the wrong word,’ Lantic said meekly. ‘The Karrak Lady was captured while trying to kill Katrabeth, after all.’

  ‘Why her, though?’ Jemima said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lantic asked.

  ‘Katrabeth doesn’t inherit the throne of the Third Realm. When Queen Judith dies, the crown of the Third Realm will pass to the next sorceress house on the list. In all the other Realms the Dark Lords have hunted down the princes, the heirs. Even Taggie was technically the heir, because Dad is the regent governor.’

  ‘Oh,’ Lantic said. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. That is odd.’

  ‘Queen Judith is up to something,’ Taggie said through tight lips. ‘I know she is. She and Katrabeth are in this together.’

  ‘In what?’ Lantic asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Taggie turned to look at him. Lantic seemed to squirm on the spot, the way he did when his father stared at him. ‘I need to talk to Lady Dirikal. There are things I have to ask her.’

  ‘I . . . I’ll talk to my father for you, of course,’ the prince said. ‘I’m sure he’ll let you see him.’

  ‘No,’ Taggie said. ‘I need to speak with Lady Dirikal alone. I don’t want anyone else there twisting things. There’s been enough of that, enough politics, in the Gathering.’

  ‘I don’t think Father will agree to that.’

  Taggie stood up and approached the prince, ignoring the panicked expression on his face as she stood directly in front of him. ‘If Rogreth wanted to visit Lady Dirikal in private, how would he do that? Would he meekly ask the King’s permission?’

  ‘No. But . . . but . . .’

  ‘You are his brother, you know. He’d be expecting you to do your duty. I’ll bet he didn’t treat you the way everyone else here seems to, did he?’

  ‘No,’ Lantic mumbled.

  ‘And would he go marching off to a war where thousands of people are going to die, and not be certain about why it’s being fought?’

  ‘Well, obviously not,’ Lantic said, refusing to meet her gaze.

  ‘So. We have to do whatever we can to find out the truth. And if that means sneaking a visit to a Dark Lady . . .’ The charmsward bands spun softly inside the folds of her sleeve. An enchantment to bestow courage was on the tip of her tongue.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Lantic said miserably.

  Taggie subtly let the enchantment slip through her fingers into Lantic, smiling reassurance as she did it – ignoring the startled look Jemima was giving her.

  ‘Actually, yes,’ Lantic announced with a sudden air of determination. ‘You’re right. This is exactly the kind of thing he used to do.’

  ‘Right then,’ Taggie said, as if she was impressed by his resolve. ‘Now how would he go about getting in to see Dirikal?’

  ‘One of his best friends, Bromani, is a lieutenant with the palace guard,’ Lantic said boldly. ‘He might help me.’

  ‘Then please could you go and ask Lieutenant Bromani? We need to know this, Prince. We must uncover the truth.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lantic nodded. ‘Yes, Queen of Dreams, I will do this, I will take you to the prisoner. I swear it.’

  Three hours later, Taggie, Jemima, Sophie and Felix were following Lantic along the stone passages in the vaults below the palace. The courage enchantment was clearly still working: Lantic didn’t hesitate as he led them through the maze of corridors until they were finally outside a pair of large metals doors, inset with runes that glowed with binding enchantments. Two tall gols stood guard outside, holding axes that looked like they could fell an oak tree with a single blow. Jemima flinched at the sight of them. Lieutenant Bromani was waiting beside the doorway – a handsome young man in the blue-and-green uniform of the palace guard. As he caught sight of them, he looked nervous, darting glances along the passageway.

  ‘I thought you said just the Queen of Dreams,’ he hissed at Lantic. ‘I can’t allow all these children and a . . . squirrel in there as well!’

  Felix’s tail flicked in annoyance.

  ‘I thank you for grant
ing me a moment with the prisoner,’ Taggie said in her ‘royal’ voice – which was basically as posh as she could manage without giggling. ‘I will not endanger your favour by taking my friends inside. They can wait here and keep watch.’

  Bromani didn’t seem happy with the notion. The charmsward bands turned quietly around Taggie’s wrist as she prepared an enchantment to make him more amenable.

  ‘Taggie!’ Jemima hissed in disapproval.

  ‘Majesty,’ Felix said more forcefully. ‘I am responsible for your safety.’

  ‘I believe I have shown I can take care of myself when it comes to the Karraks,’ Taggie said firmly. She smiled politely at Bromani, and rested her hand on his arm. The obedience enchantment slithered into him. ‘That will be satisfactory, surely? There will be no risk.’

  He still didn’t look happy, but came to a decision. ‘Very well. You may have five minutes,’ he said. ‘No more.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Taggie avoided the suspicious stare Jemima was directing at her.

  Bromani placed both hands on the doors, and chanted a long invocation. The glow changed to a flickering purple, and one of the doors swung back slightly. Taggie slipped through the gap. Lantic followed, with Bromani just behind him – Taggie didn’t protest, even though she could have done without the guard officer present.

  The vault was a simple circular space with stone walls, carved with runes similar to those on the door. They glowed with blue enchantments so intense it was almost violet. The glass cage sat in the middle, with worms of scarlet magic slithering with slow menace across the surface. Ten gols stood guard around it, holding enchanted swords and magical sceptres ready should the prisoner attempt to escape.

  A lone window well in the roof shone a shaft of sunlight directly on the cage and its occupant who cowered within it. Her body was shifting constantly as she sought to avoid the light, but there was no escape. A relentless growl of suffering came from her throat.

  Lady Dirikal’s head snapped round as Taggie came into the vault. ‘The Abomination,’ she purred. ‘I am honoured. Have you come to gloat?’