The Seventh Sentinel

by Mary Kirchoff

  “Well done,” he’d called. His voice held a hint of knowing humor that made the elf pause long enough to bob his head in acknowledgment. But Salim did not meet Lyim’s eyes or stop his press toward the inn’s door.

  “Very clever, but I don’t imagine you can use the, um, technique, more than once in any district.”

  The elf stopped in his tracks. He turned his head so that his voice could barely be heard through the deep folds of his hood. “I won the coin fairly.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Lyim said. He leaned back in the wooden chair and crossed his arms. “I always consider it fair when fools are willingly parted from their money. How did you come to lose your hand?”

  The elf was taken aback by the unexpected question. He looked briefly, unexplainably deflated. Then he faced Lyim squarely and dropped his hood to his shoulders. “It was chopped off by the Silvanesti, who sought to enslave me. Have they sent you to fetch me?”

  It was Lyim’s turn to be surprised. “So you’re a hunted man, too.” He nodded toward the severed arm. “Any good mage could fix that for you.”

  “I choose to keep it this way as a reminder. I will never allow myself to be enslaved again.”

  “We’ll get on well, then. I mean to offer you a job. The pay is food and a place to sleep. In exchange I expect total and unfailing loyalty. Without question.”

  “I’ll take it,” the elf said promptly.

  From that moment, Lyim’s climb to the position of district amir had been swift. He’d needed a sewer rat, someone the people of the area would—but shouldn’t—trust. Lyim would have always been the newcomer without the help of one such as Salimshad.

  The elf did his best to remind his master of his importance from time to time—as now, under Lyim’s cold scrutiny at the district fountain. “You wouldn’t be looking at me that way if you knew what I’ve been doing on your behalf,” Salimshad murmured.

  “I thought you were at the palace, handing the district taxes over to the treasurer.”

  “Better,” the elf said with clerkish contempt.

  Lyim frowned. Salim knew he didn’t like games, so the news must be juicy. “Tell me.”

  Salimshad looked slyly at the stony-faced guards. Reluctantly, Lyim ordered them to stand six paces away.

  Salim leaned in, speaking from the depth of his hood. “Rusinias is having trouble making his tax payments.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “The treasurer didn’t say, despite my best efforts to squeeze the details from him. All he would reveal was that Rusinias has been suffering from terrible tooth pain, of all things. Perhaps he’s been bedridden and has not been collecting as faithfully as usual.” Salim glanced over his shoulder. “In any event, the treasurer is furious, which means that Aniirin is angry, too. Rusinias is definitely out of favor.” The usually restrained elf was red with excitement. “This is a golden opportunity to remove him entirely!”

  “I think you may be right,” Lyim agreed. “But how?” The amir groomed a fingernail between perfect white teeth while he pondered.

  “Poison?” suggested Salim in an undertone. “He’s already sick. Shall I make some arrangements in the palace kitchen before this afternoon’s soiree?”

  “No,” Lyim said slowly. Still, the elf’s question had given the former wizard a wealth of ideas with one word. “Tell me, is Rusinias too ill to attend today’s soiree?”

  Salimshad looked at him from that tattooed, cynical face. “You know that only death qualifies as ‘too ill’ to miss one of Aniirin’s gatherings.”

  Lyim acknowledged the truth of that with a lift of his brows. Over the years he had considered endless convoluted plans to ensure his eventual rise to potentate, had discussed them at great length with Salimshad. Now one that was the soul of simplicity sprang to mind. Lyim felt certain it would work. Best of all, win or lose, there was little chance he could be caught at it.

  “No,” he repeated with greater surety, “say nothing to anyone. I have a better idea.”

  Salim’s eyes sparkled with malicious delight. “Tell me!”

  Lyim sprang from the edge of the fountain to his feet. Withdrawing his head through the strap of the tax pouch, he handed it to the elf. “Wait for the two inside the bakery. Then meet me back at the town house,” Lyim instructed, his voice accelerating with excitement. “I’ll tell you what I have in mind there, after I make a stop at the apothecary.”

  The elf knew better them to press his master further. Besides, he hadn’t time. The amir had already disappeared from view on the busy River Avenue, sandwiched between two bodyguards.

  * * * * *

  The midafternoon bells rang all over Qindaras. In the time of the first potentate, they were meant to summon the faithful to daily worship. Few found reason to be faithful in the era of Aniirin III. Now, most citizens used the ringing of the bells as an excuse to break from the day’s work and return home for a nap.

  Aniirin himself used it as an opportunity for a major meal of sweets between the noon repast and dinner. Four bakers were occupied full-time in the palace kitchens, creating new concoctions daily for the potentate’s insatiable sweet tooth. Once a week, on tax day, all seven of Qindaras’s amirs were invited to join Aniirin in his orgy of confections. The word “invited” was a misnomer, as every amir, wise and foolish, soon learned.

  Lyim stood in Aniirin’s frilly, overstuffed parlor—far too feminine for any man to endure, he thought. His tiny, flower-shaped cup of hot bergamot water lolled indifferently at an angle, the weight of it in his hand merely comforting. Any moment now, the bakers would arrive bearing cart after cart of elaborate baked goods. In keeping with tradition, Aniirin would make a grand entrance immediately after.

  All six of Lyim’s peers were present with their tasters, another long-held tradition when dining at the palace. No one knew why the tradition continued, since no one had been poisoned there in any living person’s memory. Lyim checked his own lackey, standing behind him with a look of greedy anticipation. Usually, Salim served, but today Lyim wanted the elf as far from this room as possible. Instead, he had randomly selected a pudgy, small-eyed youth from a crowd of toughs he had passed on his way to the palace. There was nothing complex about sampling a forkful of tart before a person of higher rank.

  “Why must we come to this event every week?” moaned Vaspiros, amir of the garment district. He was a slight, nervous man who was prone to whining. Lyim thought it a travesty of fate that the stoop-shouldered, concave shadow of a man had the most opportunity to acquire quality clothing and the least suitable form to display it. “Aniirin doesn’t care to see any of us, let alone hear our concerns about our districts,” Vaspiros mewled.

  “You know why we’re here,” snorted Garaf. The amir of the craft district was an older, cynical man who had seen much and been surprised by very little of it. Lyim thought he might have liked the compact, gray-haired man under other circumstances. “The first Aniirin had these soirees. Our current potentate eats the same food, sleeps in the same bed, wears the same style undergarments as his ancestor,” he finished in a humorous undertone.

  “Besides,” interjected boorish Dafisbier, overhearing their soft conversation, “like any trained animal, Aniirin needs treats to perform!”

  Most of the gathered amirs burst into self-conscious laughter, never quite sure if the potentate had some way of overhearing them. Lyim stayed out of their talk. Instead, he sought out Amir Rusinias, who sat in a ruffled, damask-covered chair next to a sideboard that would soon be lined with pastries. The forty-odd-year-old was slumped in his chair, his face the pale gray of dirty snow. A bald-headed, big-nosed man with a drooping right eye, he did not cut an impressive figure. Rusinias had the distinction of the longest reign as amir. It was largely the reason he was considered Aniirin’s favorite. Until recently, anyway.

  “How’s the tooth, Rusinias?” Lyim asked, sipping his tea.

  The amir of the warehouse district cupped his cheek at the reminder. H
e looked up vaguely from his chair, not bothering to open his droopy eye when he saw who spoke. There was no love lost between the two men. “If you must know, it’s killing me.” He winced as his breath whistled over the sore tooth.

  “Too bad,” Lyim said pleasantly. “I could give you the name of a good barber in my district. He could remove it for you in a procedure as painless as sleep.”

  Rusinias looked askance at Lyim, who had not spoken a kind word to him in months. “Thanks,” he said cautiously. “I may just need it.”

  Lyim nodded, then was forced to move back a step as the pastry chefs burst through the curtained archway. Each pushed a cart heaped with pastel confections.

  The potentate followed. He was as eager-faced as Lyim’s taster, who waited impatiently in the wings for the promised treats. All heads bowed according to custom. “Good! You’re all here!” Aniirin III exclaimed, clapping his hands. “How I do love tax day!” He considered the carts with greedy eyes, but his manservant, Mavrus, whispered to him briefly.

  With obvious reluctance, the potentate went on to greet his amirs with hasty handshakes. Aniirin came to Lyim second only after Rusinias.

  Grinning up into Lyim’s face, Aniirin pumped the mage’s hand and lingered just long enough for his amir to get a good look at him. The potentate appeared to be possessed of fifty-odd human years, though Lyim knew he must be considerably older, at least according to his published birth year. His palm in Lyim’s felt dry and paper-smooth, like an old man’s. The flesh on the back of his bejeweled hands was dusted with age spots. The potentate had magical enhancement or a carefree life to thank for his relative youth.

  For all his self-control, Lyim found it difficult not to stare at the potentate’s face. His head was shaped like a gourd left too long on one side in the field; a lopsided and receding hairline aided the slightly bashed-in look. The indent was further marked by a kinked blue vein. At such close range, one could not help but notice it throbbed with every beat of the potentate’s heart.

  If his oddly shaped head weren’t enough to attract attention, Aniirin had a feature that would have got him stoned by the superstitious if he were anything less than the potentate. One of his eyes was green, the other blue. To Lyim, at least, Aniirin resembled a badly painted picture, as if the artist could not draw a proper circle or even bother to decide which eye color to give his subject.

  As the potentate departed to welcome the other amirs, Lyim noted that at least Aniirin’s golden robe was expensive and well tailored. Unfortunately, it slipped off one sloping shoulder and so drooped over the hand of that arm. His belly was rounded from drink and the rest of him so lumpy his torso looked like potatoes poking through a homespun sack.

  With the niceties out of the way, Aniirin wasted no time in snatching up the large plate of sweets intended for him. Ignoring the serving spoons, the potentate used his pudgy, ringed fingers to pluck sliced pastries from the silver trays, sucking the digits clean after each. To the watching chefs’ silent dismay, Aniirin heaped one delight on top of the other as if he couldn’t go back for seconds, until his plate was a hopeless pile of unidentifiable sugared pastry.

  It was always the same.

  Lyim waited to be last in line behind the fidgeting Vaspiros. As Lyim expected, Rusinias took nothing. Eating any of the items would have been agonizing to his tooth.

  Better yet, everyone else had taken at least one of Aniirin’s favorite delicacy: a chocolate- and cream-filled puffed pastry whose gooey center also concealed bits of candied pomegranate. The whole thing was smothered with powdered sugar and cinnamon. Lyim found them repulsive, but he took one of everything, careful to perch Aniirin’s favorite on top.

  Smiling pleasantly, Lyim sat and watched his compatriots. In his youth, he had traveled with a cruel magician, hoping to learn some real magic. His mentor had turned out to be a complete phony as far as wizardry was concerned, but Lyim did learn many sleight-of-hand techniques before finally running away. Lyim covertly passed his sleeve over the plate and shook it. A fine powder, indistinguishable from ground cinnamon, filtered down over the puffed confection.

  Etiquette demanded that no one eat before Aniirin; it had never been a problem. Today, however, Lyim watched the potentate closely. Aniirin’s two-tined fork was raised and ready to descend.

  “Wait!” Lyim’s shout was so loud that even Aniirin, in his mesmerized state, gave pause. “Your taster has not sampled your food yet, Potentate,” he pointed out, letting a desperate note creep into his voice.

  Aniirin rolled his eyes in dismay. “I thought we might dispense with that; in all my years no one has ever been poisoned at a soiree. Am I not beloved by my amirs and my people?”

  Lyim coughed uncomfortably, then cleared his throat. “I would hope that, Potentate. Yet I fear that today of all days may be the wrong time to depart from custom.”

  Aniirin’s lop-sided head cocked suspiciously. “Speak.”

  Lyim adjusted his tone. “I wish it were not my duty to reveal that I have had word from a reliable source that someone means to poison you and all amirs who stand in his way.” The other amirs gasped and looked aghast at their plates. Mavrus rose to the potentate’s side, blocking his master with an arm, as if that could shield Aniirin from poisoned food.

  “Who is this traitor?” demanded the potentate.

  Lyim sent his gaze traveling to Rusinias, letting his eyes linger on the man only briefly. “If I knew that,” he said, “the man would already be rotting in the dungeon.”

  “Yes, of course,” Aniirin muttered. Even he had the sense to feel foolish at the question.

  “How is it you came by this information?” asked Garaf.

  “Like all of you, I have sources throughout the city,” Lyim said. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear of the plot, Garaf.”

  The man grumbled, but said nothing further. He’d already stuck his neck out farther than he’d intended.

  “We can point fingers all day long,” Lyim said. “Or we can put it to the test straight away. Let us see whose food has been poisoned, and whose has not.”

  He wagged a finger toward the pudgy youth he’d pegged as his tester. The boy’s eyes were wide, his face pale and sweating. His fear was evident, but it was equally obvious he could think of no good way to run screaming from a room filled with the city’s most influential citizens. At the very least, his flight would be taken as a sign of guilt. He might even be struck dead before he reached the curtained threshold.

  Quaking visibly, the street thug stepped forward. Lyim handed him the plate of food he had collected. “I deliberately took a portion of each confection,” Lyim explained. “Be sure to taste each.”

  The hand holding the fork shook. One after another it poised over a sweet, then plucked a morsel and carried it to the lad’s fishy lips.

  Many long, tense heartbeats passed. No one else ate. They scarcely breathed. Slowly, the youth smiled, the heavy folds of his face creasing and uncreasing. The entire room breathed a sigh of relief. Back by the curtains, the other tasters were the most relieved of all.

  “I knew it! A hoax!” crowed Vaspiros.

  Without warning, the pudgy thug grabbed his throat, gurgled once, and fell to the carpeted floor, dead.

  The room exploded with shrieks and shattering china. Lyim called above the din. “Gentlemen, order! You are destroying the evidence!”

  Slowly, the room quieted.

  “Shall we continue with the tasting?” Lyim suggested.

  But after the death of the frightened youth, no other amir would subject his tester to the same fate. Lyim had counted on their foolish sense of compassion.

  “The death of your taster proves nothing,” remarked Rusinias from his chair. “Maybe someone just wanted you dead, Amir Rhistadt.”

  “That is a possibility, though I can’t imagine why anyone would want to poison only me,” Lyim replied. “The position I hold is of no particular importance … unless one of us felt his own position weakening and was afraid I w
ould usurp it.”

  Lyim’s tone was innocent enough, but everyone present recognized the target of his barb. Obviously the news of Rusinias’s tax problems had spread to all quarters.

  None appreciated Lyim’s poorly disguised accusation less than Rusinias. He sent Lyim a look that was as poisonous as arsenic. “Perhaps you staged this stunt yourself.”

  For an answer, Lyim arched a brow toward the amir’s empty hands. “I notice you have taken nothing to eat from today’s repast, Rusinias,” he remarked pointedly. He could see that his remark had tickled the imaginations of all present.

  “My tooth—how could I eat such sweets?” the amir protested, but Lyim cut him off.

  “You have viciously questioned my loyalty to Aniirin, Rusinias,” Lyim said, his voice as tight as a fist. “If you feel so strongly that this attack was directed only against me, I challenge you to taste our potentate’s food as a demonstration of your conviction. I believe it is poisoned, as I have said. Yet I will taste it myself if that is what it takes to know the truth—and to keep our city’s gracious sovereign safe. Are you willing to do the same?” For effect, Lyim snatched up a fork and crossed the room, headed for Aniirin’s plate.

  “Go ahead and taste it,” Rusinias declared. “Poisoned or not, it proves nothing about me.”

  “That could be true,” Lyim responded, turning to face the older amir, “but you are the only person here who has taken no food. Your toothache has struck at an unusually favorable time. I ask you again, Rusinias: Will you demonstrate your loyalty and taste this food with me?”

  Like a cornered animal, Rusinias looked around the room. The other amirs were silent, glancing nervously from Lyim, to Rusinias, to the potentate, to the platter of delicacies before Aniirin. “It’s only because of this tooth that I took none of the sweets,” Rusinias protested again. “Everyone here knows how it plagues me.”