by John F. Carr
Anaxthenes let his fish wriggle against the hook, then set it. “It’s your choice, Your Majesty. You can stay an outlaw and outside of the Five Kingdoms--remaining a provincial lord who claims to be a Great King. Or you can join your equals and be one with the Great Kingdoms. We will discuss this further after the sun rises.”
II
The assembled princes, barons, highpriests, kinsmen and captain-generals filled the Great Council Hall at Tarr-Harphax with their fur robes, velvet finery and silvered breastplates. Duke Mnestros noted with interest that the smaller the realm, the larger and more colorful the plumage. He even recognized a few princes from the northern princedoms of Hos-Ktemnos, although the majority of the Ktemnoi nobles, including Great King Cleitharses, were too far away to attend on such short notice.
Most noticeable, however, by their absence were the Great Kings of Hos-Agrys and Hos-Zygros. Of all the Great Northern Kingdoms, only the recently crowned Great King Lysandros was in attendance. The piglet going by the name of Great King Demistophon was still hiding in his palace, blaming his loss in Nostor to Prince Ptosphes on Styphon’s House, while the Great King of Hos-Zygros had sent two parchments ripe with excuses why he would not be able to attend the Great Council of the Union of Friends of Styphon’s House.
It was a pity about the death of King Sopharar’s only son, but Prince Pariphon was doomed at birth. His uncle, now Prince Eudocles, wanted nothing more than to be Great King, and like Lysandros here, only fratricide stood between him and his heart’s desire. It was unfortunate for Hos-Agrys, thought Mnestros, that Demistophon was an only son and the issue of a long-lived line.
As the representative of the Princedom of Ubros, Duke Mnestros was one of the few pro-League of Dralm nobles in attendance. He had offered to take his father’s place to better learn the faces and names of their enemies. Few outside of Ubros knew of his captaincy in Kalvan’s army, since the fighting last year had been on the frontier, but he still felt like a plucked turkey dropped into a kennel at feeding time. He was surrounded on all sides by yellow robed highpriests and Styphoni sympathizers.
As the organizer of the Union’s first council, Great King Lysandros was seated on a raised dais to the right of Captain-General Phidestros, the commander of the Grand Host. To Phidestros’ left were seated Grand Master Soton, who looked as if he’d rather be any place else, and Archpriest Phyllos in the yellow robes with red trim of the Inner Circle of Styphon’s House. Phyllos, a great debaucher, was said to be concealing both his gold and his mistresses so they would be safely hidden when Investigator Roxthar arrived in the spring. Soton, who was said to have just arrived from Balph by horseback, looked drawn and fatigued. Seated he appeared normal sized, but the Grand Master was reported to be much shorter when on his feet.
Great King Lysandros made a chopping motion which stopped the noisy chatter that filled the room. Lysandros, with his short black beard and black hair, now shot with silver since Kalvan’s arrival, made an imposing figure as he rose to his feet. “Grand Master Soton,” Lysandros paused to give Soton--who was sitting besides Phidestros--a nod, before continuing, “has told us of the preparations the Order and our allies in Hos-Ktemnos have made for the invasion of the False Kingdom of Hostigos. The Grand Host will be joined by eight thousand Brethren of the Holy Order of Zarthani Knights, four thousand Holy Warriors from Hos-Ktemnos and two thousand Order foot. We have been told Great King Cleitharses will be supporting the war with the reformed Royal Square and six of the Sacred Squares of Hos-Ktemnos.”
Lysandros went on to name all the Ktemnoi princes and how many additional troops they had promised to send in the spring. Mnestros wondered whether, with all these mouths to feed, there would be a single stalk of barley or cob of corn left in Hos-Harphax before they returned to Hos-Ktemnos.
“Now,” Lysandros continued, “I would like to introduce Grand Captain-General Phidestros who will be commanding the Grand Host.”
Mnestros couldn’t help but notice the way Soton’s jaw muscles tightened at that announcement. He wondered if this were a possible fracture in the Styphoni alliance or Soton’s indigestion.
Lysandros continued, “Grand Captain-General Phidestros is the only man alive who has faced the Daemon in three different battles. His under-commander, Grand Master Soton, defeated the Usurper Kalvan’s army at the Battle of Tenabra. This fall our Grand Captain-General captured a castle right under the nose of the Usurper’s murderous wife and two of his best captain-generals. Next spring we intend to take the war into Hos-Hostigos and make Kalvan pay the butcher’s bill! I give you the man who will lead the Grand Host to victory--Grand Captain-General Phidestros.”
Phidestros, looking martial in a high-combed burgonet helmet with green and black plumes and a battle-scarred but polished steel back-and-breast, stood up, standing half-a-head taller than the Great King. As he looked out over the crowd, Phidestros smiled, like a wolf ready to lunge upon its prey. According to the yarns and minstrel ditties in the Harphaxi wineshops, Phidestros had done just that in the Princedom of Thaphigos where he’d devoured the Thaphigos army and bested Price Eltar in single-handed combat. His legend was beginning to grow as fast as Kalvan’s.
After Great King Lysandros sat down, the Grand Captain-General made his formal address to the assembled dignitaries. He had a gravelly voice that demanded attention--and he got it. Phidestros quickly got to the meat of his speech. “We are in a life or death struggle with the Usurper Kalvan. We have one last chance to stop this devil in human guise from sacking our towns and cities, pillaging our homes and ravishing our wives and daughters. You have all heard how he has made Great Kings out of Trygathi bumpkins and made blood-oaths with Sastragathi barbarians. Is this the same man the peasant priests of Dralm call a Man of Peace? The man who says he wishes harm to no other man?”
Heads nodded their agreement. A voice cried, “Kill the Daemon!”
“His lands are stolen from their rightful overlord, Great King Lysandros. This Kalvan is no king, just another ambitious bandit or warlord from the Trygath. The Usurper will not be satisfied until he has deposed all rightful Princes and lords from their hereditary lands and estates.”
Phidestros pulled something out of a tall silver urn from behind his chair. Holding it by its hair, he raised up the half rotted and decomposed head of the Prince of Phaxos. Bits of rock salt fell from the head and rattled off the marble floor. There were horrified murmurs from the assembled lords. Having just fought the nomads, Mnestros had seen far worse outside Tarr-Ceros, but not at the dinner table--his own stomach lurched.
“THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE WHO OPPOSE THE DAEMON!” Phidestros shouted. “If we do not stop him now, this will be the fate of all of you!”
The assembled lords looked back and forth at each other in horror. Then Phidestros tossed the severed head into the audience.
Prince Mylestros of Balkron tipped back in disbelief as the head landed in his lap. He picked it up by the hair, looked at it and cried, “It is Araxes! May Styphon Be Merciful! Kill the Daemon Kalvan! Kill the Daemon Kalvan!”
Soon the huge hall echoed with “KILL KALVAN! KILL KALVAN! KILL KALVAN!”
Mnestros noted with interest the frown that crossed Lysandros’ brow as he watched his princes and noblemen fall under Phidestros’ sway. Mnestros would not want that malevolent gaze aimed in his direction.
When the room had settled, the Grand Captain-General went on to detail his plans for the invasion of Hos-Hostigos, but not in enough detail to provide any intelligence to the few members of the League of Dralm who’d dared attend, or secret Kalvan sympathizers. He did emphasize the part the Royal Army of Hos-Harphax would play in the proceedings.
“In past battles, we have left it up to the Usurper to pick the battlefields. This spring we will take the war to Kalvan and to the False Kingdom of Hos-Hostigos. Our target is the Usurper and his army--not Hostigos Town. We will take our united command and fight this False King on our terms. With the help of our friends from Hos-Ktemnos
and Hos-Agrys and Hos-Bletha our army will be great in number and stouter in heart that the False Army of Hos-Hostigos. It’s time he tasted our steel!”
There were shouts of agreement from the assembled nobility.
“Our friends in Styphon’s House have promised their full support and will provide all the victuals and fireseed we will need. Those of you who are vassals of Hos-Harphax are sworn to bring your standing armies, but we are going to ask for more. In addition, we want you to muster a levy of every man-jack of fighting age in your Princedoms to come to the aid of your Great King and god, Styphon!”
Prince Mylestros rose to his feet again. “I pledge not only my Princely army of three thousand horse and two thousand foot, but I will lead my own bodyguard and another two thousand cavalry, if I have to drag every nobleman in Balkron and his retainers behind me!”
There was a thunderous applause and suddenly almost every lord and Prince in the Hall was on his feet with his own pledge, trying to outdo his neighbor. The only silent ones were those, like Ubros, sworn or sympathetic to the League of Dralm. The Harphaxi were oath-bound to provide their standing armies, although some would be ill-armed and poorly trained. Mnestros saw that both Lysandros and Phidestros had more eyes for those who were quiet than for those Princes who shouted out their contributions to the Grand Host. He decided that this would be a good time to make his exit.
NINETEEN
Kalvan was pacing back and forth in front of the blazing fireplace while he wai.ted for Prince Phrames’ briefing on the negotiations with Great King Nestros. Word had just arrived that Phrames--far in advance of the rest of the expedition--had just arrived atTarr-Hostigos. Kalvan suspected that it wasn’t good news that brought the Prince so quickly. Something must have gone badly awry in Hos-Rathon. But what? he asked himself.
Has something happened to Ptosphes?’The Prince was clearly unwell and the only reason he’d asked him to lead the expedition was that Nestros would have been insulted if anyone of lesser rank had headed the party. Nestros was too much in awe of titles, and not enough of the people who bore them. Maybe it was part of Nestros’ inferiority complex, stemming from the fact that he was the self-proclaimed king of a hick kingdom--at least, that’s the way the Northern Kingdoms viewed him. And maybe how he viewed himself. Nestros certainly took a lot of pains to ape Northern manners.
Of course, it was also true that Ptosphes would have been insulted if he hadn’t been invited to head the expedition to Hos-Rathon. Kalvan had purposely sent Prince Phrames along to keep an eye on Ptosphes. His father-in-law had many of the symptoms, shortness of breath and chest pains, of some sort of heart ailment. There were no cures here-and-now for heart disease and Kalvan saw no benefit to having the Prince spend his last years as an invalid--even if Ptosphes would let him, which he doubted. The Prince could be as stubborn and headstrong as his daughter!
There was a knock at the door.
“Enter.”
Prince Phrames, his face and clothes travel worn, walked into the audience chamber. “Your Majesty.”
“Have a seat, Phrames. Would you like some of Ermut’s Best?”
“Please.”
While Cleon came and filled two goblets with brandy, Kalvan noticed that Phrames was clearly agitated.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Nestros.” He looked sick. “Your Majesty, he’s turned down the alliance with Hos-Hostigos.”
“Really! He needs the alliance more than We do. It’s not as if I was ordering him to attack Hos-Ktemnos next spring! At the least, I was hoping for at least five thousand Rathoni troops for next year’s campaign.”
Phrames took a long drink, shuddered and said, “No, we’ll be lucky if we’re not fighting the Rathoni right along with the Styphoni.”
“How could this be?”
“From the day we reached Rathon City, we observed that Nestros was avoiding us with delay after delay. In our talks he was distracted and making unrealistic demands, such as Hostigos sending him a flying battery and a hundred rifles with gunsmiths.”
Kalvan whistled and then lit his pipe. “He must have known those requests would never have been granted.”
“Exactly. Then a big delegation from Balph arrived, headed by Speaker Anaxthenes and the Commander of Styphon’s Own Guard.”
“Ouch! Nestros must have been waiting for them. Maybe he was planning to play both sides off each other?”
Phrames nodded. “We were in Rathon City almost a moon-quarter and Nestros wouldn’t grant us even a perfunctory audience--until after the Styphoni arrived. At the meeting Nestros was very distant and it was apparent he’d already made his decision to ally himself with Styphon’s House. At a later meeting, when Chartiphon accused him of being dishonorable,
Nestros blew up and told us that it was only because of his honor that we weren’t already in chains being marched to Balph. He then stated that our alliance with his enemy Sargos had freed him from any obligations to either Hos-Hostigos or Your Majesty. We were then ordered to leave Rathon at all haste.”
Kalvan shook his head; this was completely unexpected. Nestros had sold out to Styphon’s House for something--but what? “Do you have any idea why Nestros is allying himself with our enemies?”
“Prince Bosphro of Distros, a man who fought alongside Your Majesty, gave us some information. It appears that Styphon’s House has bought Nestros’ loyalty with the promise that he will be recognized as Great King by all the legitimate Kingdoms. Prince Bosphro claims that the Archpriests have promised Nestros military aid in his war against the Sastragath as well as an alliance with Hos-Ktemnos, which Nestros believes will give Hos-Rathon true legitimacy as the Sixth Great Kingdom. That’s what he’s telling his Princes.”
Kalvan made a bitter laugh. “Until Styphon’s House doesn’t need him any longer. Will we now be facing Rathoni troops in the spring?”
“No, Nestros told Ptosphes, as long as we recognized his territory and made no claims upon Hos-Rathon, he will continue to remain neutral in the Fireseed War.”
“The silly bugger! If anything happens to Hostigos, the Styphoni will dismember Hos-Rathon, enslave his people and eat him alive.”
“True, Your Majesty. Roxthar will feast upon his corpse. The stink of his betrayal will reach the very Throne of Dralm!”
II
As Anaxthenes entered the ornate private chamber of Styphon’s Voice On Earth, his eyes traveled over the room’s decor: fine paintings, with depictions of Styphon throughout the centuries by the Five Kingdoms’ greatest artists; elegant wall hangings; the wall-sized Fireseed Tapestry, displaying the struggle between the fiend Dralm and Styphon, as he struggled to steal the Fireseed Mystery from the Palace of the Gods on Mt. Vynarth after the Trickster had stolen it from Ormaz’s Pit; and thirty-six cast gold images of Styphon, each with upraised hand to hold a candlestick. One day soon this will all be mine, he thought.
Sesklos had not regained his full health since ingesting small portions of Thessamona’s poison throughout summer and fall, and Anaxthenes was the first visitor to enter this chamber in over six moons. Other Archpriests had attempted to visit Sesklos since his recovery, especially Dracar, but all audiences had been refused. He wondered if Sesklos had figured out that he’d stopped the poison not out of loyalty, but because the timing was not right.
Sesklos, wearing the red robe of primacy, was sprawled on a large purple velvet divan. His bald head peeped out of his robe like a dead turtle’s skull stretching out of its shell. Sesklos lifted a frail hand and waved him to sit down upon an ornately carved highback chair.
“Speaker, your poison has not yet killed me, as you can see.”
Anaxthenes sat still as a stone. “I do not know where you get such ideas, but--”
“Do not attempt to cover your deeds with lies. You have used your little vials too many times at my bequest. Make no denials. Just be careful that you do not put any of your other mistresses above the Lady of Death who shares your chamber. For who knows whe
re her fang may strike next...”
Sesklos pointed his skeletal finger at his face. “Next time make sure the poison works. I am tired of this life and all its travails. Archpriest Roxthar sent me a missive from Harphax City reminding me to appoint Dracar as my successor.”
So Roxthar is already in Harphax City. Since his leaving, the City of Balph had let out its collective breath and a celebratory air had blown through the City. The Investigator is mistaken if he believes all of Balph will jump at his commands while he is in Hos-Harphax.
“After my most recent illness, death holds few terrors for me. Of course, I will do no such thing--I’d as soon appoint Roxthar my successor, as Dracar. Don’t look so anxious, old son. After all, everything you know, you learned at my knee. One does not blame the panther for its sharp claws. Don’t interrupt--let an old man have his last words. I have made many mistakes in my long life, but entrusting the fate of Styphon’s House into your stewardship was not one of them.”
Anaxthenes forced himself to contain his glee and put on a solemn face.
Sesklos lifted up from the divan. “Don’t waste your pity or guilt on this old man. I have committed many sins in the name of Styphon because of my own ambition and lust for power--too many to judge anyone else. But during my reign, Styphon’s House flourished and grew prosperous, and made its first real advances into the Northern Kingdoms. We now have our own Great King in Hos-Harphax. This is my legacy. I had always thought when I died, all would pass with me. But I know now that I was wrong.
“A vision came to me while I was ill: an image of a great black raven, with a man in its beak, which flew around Balph. I was that man, but the black bird did not hurt me. Instead it cradled me in its beak and flew over hill and valley until it came to a great Temple, mightier than Styphon’s Own Temple in Balph. I watched as a great army descended upon this fortress and shot all manner of big guns at its walls. Still, despite all their efforts, the walls of the Temple held. Finally, the Temple door was opened and hundreds of white rats scurried out of the Temple. The army chased after the rats, stabbing and clubbing them until they were all dead. I know this was Styphon’s Own Message to me that Roxthar and his Investigators will be driven from Styphon’s House!”