The Curse in the Gift (The Last Whisper of the Gods Book 2)

by Berardinelli, James

  Sorial would work at it with her, but first they had to secure the city so this home of theirs would still be standing once The Lord of Fire arrived. The enemy’s goal would be to burn it down along with the rest of Vantok.

  * * *

  Sorial wasn’t in his element. He was ill equipped to navigate the minefield of small talk and mindless babble that represented the primary terrain of grand dinners. Fortunately, whoever had assigned the seating arrangements - Myselene most likely - understood this. Sorial was seated with his wife to his left - a gross breach of etiquette since husbands and wives never sat together - and Duke Carannan to his right. Myselene herself sat directly across the long, rectangular table from Sorial. Thus insulated, he was spared a litany of irritating questions from those of Vantok’s nobility at the banquet and jibes from those in the Obis party, who made no attempt to hide their scorn for a man they viewed as an unprincipled fraud.

  Once the dinner was over, it would be Sorial’s task to convince them otherwise. Or, if he couldn’t manage that, at least to give them something to think about - something that might make them hesitate if their intentions were more belligerent than a celebration of the nuptials. Alicia had jokingly referred to him as “the after-dinner entertainment” and remarked that in some courts the role was reserved for The Fool. Sorial didn’t find that amusing.

  He was attired in the same clothing he had worn for his wedding, a choice Alicia labeled as “gauche.” In her opinion, while it was acceptable to wear “everyday” clothing more than once, wardrobe used on special occasions should never again be donned. She was dressed in a teal gown Sorial had never before seen; if she was to be taken at her word, it would be discarded once they returned home, never again to adorn her body. Sorial shrugged off her sartorial criticism; he was reasonably certain that, by the end of his demonstration, whether or not he was dressed in previously worn garments would be of little matter.

  Occasionally, Carannan or Alicia would consult his opinion about one matter or another, more to give the appearance of involving him in the conversation than because he had anything to contribute. He quickly learned that, while at table, nobles talked of the most boring, inconsequential things: how many puppies were in a prize hound’s litter, whether Duchess Berthinger, who had given birth to six sons in six years of marriage, was again pregnant, or what hardy plants could survive the withering heat of Vantok’s endless Summers so as to keep gardens from being completely barren during the coming seasons.

  The only ones less active in the conversation than Sorial were the king of Obis and his heirs. They picked at their meals - the grain and poultry-rich dishes were apparently not to their liking - and sat in determined silence, their fierce glares challenging anyone to engage them in pointless chatter. Their most baleful stares were reserved for Sorial, whom Rangarak referred to as “The Cancer of Vantok” among less flattering names.

  Eventually, after what seemed an interminable amount of time spent devouring seven courses and drinking several different varieties of spirits, Azarak rose to explain what would happen next. Now the time has come for The Fool to entertain all the great and mighty lords and ladies gathered for dinner. Pray be kind to him. His tricks are untried.

  The king’s introduction was short and plain, re-iterating points every citizen of Vantok now knew. Rangarak’s expression displayed scorn and contempt when the word “wizard” was mentioned, but everyone else clapped politely. Those who had watched Sorial build the mountain were keen to see what he could accomplish in a more intimate setting. Surely, he wouldn’t attempt to create a similar monument in the royal dining hall?

  When Azarak had finished extolling his virtues, Sorial rose from his seat, executed a shallow bow to the Iron King, and then moved a distance away from the table. All eyes were on him, as had been the case when he stood atop the palace walls. “I am The Lord of Earth,” said Sorial, his voice infused with a pompous solemnity. “Rock is mine to command.”

  It began as a distant rumble; a bass throbbing that was as much felt as heard. Then the ground began to shake, gently at first then with growing urgency. Sorial stood rooted to his spot, riding the undulations of the earth with no difficulty. Everyone else was grasping for whatever was close - the table, the back of a chair, or another person - but those things were also moving. Aside from the man causing the vibrations, there was no stability. Alicia, Carannan, Azarak, Myselene, and Toranim remained unperturbed by what was happening. They were the only ones who stayed seated. Alicia continued to nibble at a slice of some exotic fruit, apparently unconcerned that the solid rock floor of the dining hall was rolling and pitching like the deck of a ship during a storm.

  Eventually, Sorial allowed the event to subside. It was more difficult to stop the trembling than to start it, but neither tested the limits of his stamina. It was more than a simple parlor trick but had it achieved the desired effect?

  There was no applause when it was over. Dignitaries nervously retook their seats - silent, respectful, and more than a little nervous about what they had experienced. But the reactions of Vantok’s nobility were of little matter. Most had observed Sorial’s previous display; for them, this was merely a reinforcement of what he was. Few needed additional convincing that there was a wizard in their midst. The men from Obis, however, had spent the better part of their stay denying Sorial’s claims.

  For Grushik and Sangaska, that hadn’t changed. “Trickery!” spat the former, glaring at Sorial with naked hostility. Both had their hands near the pommels of their weapons. Draw, and then you’ll see a demonstration no one will think to deny. The Iron King said nothing. His gaze was unwavering but speculative. There was no fear in him, but Sorial sensed his reticence was evaporating. Rangarak knew what he had experienced and could see no way for it to have been arranged through deception.

  Sensing how easily Rangarak might be swayed at this critical moment, Sorial decided to do something else. The floor beneath him was solid, built on a foundation of deep, thick rock. There were cellars and dungeons below, but they were distant enough not to interfere with what he intended.

  “I apologize if my next act will offend some of you, but there are things I can only do naked.” So saying, he began to divest himself of the clothing Alicia had earlier ridiculed. He responded to her shocked expression with a sly smile. As he disrobed, most of the women at least pretended to look away - excepting Myselene, who gazed at Sorial’s lean, muscular form with admiration. An uneasy atmosphere settled over the gathered diners. None knew what to expect from the bronze nude man who stood before them, his finery pooled carelessly at his feet.

  His body began to sink into the floor as if it was quicksand. Slowly and deliberately, he descended, like a man wading ever deeper into a pool. Sorial’s eyes locked with Rangarak’s until his head disappeared into the stone, leaving behind nothing but the discarded clothing. The great hall was so silent that individual gasps could be heard. Sorial had vanished, swallowed up by the floor.

  Unconcerned, Alicia resumed eating her fruit. She glanced in Myselene’s direction with annoyance. She hadn’t liked the appreciative appraisal the queen-to-be had cast in her naked husband’s direction. It was perhaps the first time Alicia had felt the stirrings of jealousy. She knew she had nothing to fear from Myselene, but still... The look had been inappropriate.

  Rangarak, who had risen during the quake and not retaken his seat after it ended, moved away from the table to the spot where Sorial had stood. He tapped the stone gently with his foot then, when it proved solid, with greater firmness. It didn’t yield. Sorial hadn’t vanished through a hidden hatch or a concealed panel - that much was certain. He had appeared to melt slowly and deliberately into the floor - the same floor that only moments earlier had undulated at his command. Little room remained for reasonable doubt.

  After having been gone fewer than five minutes, Sorial made his reappearance. About a dozen feet away from the space he had previously occupied, he bled upward through the floor, rising in a perfec
t reversal of the way in which he had disappeared. Once free of the stone, he calmly retrieved his clothing and dressed.

  Giving Rangarak a direct look, he said, “Lords and Ladies and Your Majesties, this ends tonight’s entertainment.”

  * * *

  “Did it work?” asked Azarak, sitting in his easy chair sipping from his customary pre-bedtime goblet. He saw no reason to alter the comfort of his regular routine just because he was getting married the next day, just as he saw no reason for Myselene to sleep elsewhere. No attempts were being made to pretend she was coming to the wedding as a virgin. It was widely known that she had been his mistress for many, many weeks. Their marriage was a formalization of a well-established relationship.

  She was naked atop the bed sheets, but her position was more relaxed than sensual. If Azarak wanted sex, he would come to her. If not, she would drift off to sleep. She no longer felt the need to be constantly seductive. “I think so. I watched him carefully and there was a change in his expression and bearing. My brother and sister’s ass of a husband continue to claim it was somehow the work of a charlatan, but my father is smarter than both of them put together. He knows that not even a master illusionist could have faked what Sorial did.

  “He won’t admit it in public, of course. The Iron King cannot be seen to be wrong on such a subject, but he won’t say anything more against Sorial. Grushik and Sangaska will continue to babble their rubbish but, without their king’s support, their insults will be hollow. “

  “Have we staved off danger?”

  “It depends how seriously my father views Sorial as a military threat. It’s one thing to make the floor of the dining room tremble, but it’s another to endanger a highly trained army of more than two-thousand. For that matter, neither you nor I know how valuable Sorial would be in such an engagement.”

  “True, but this isn’t the way I want to find out.”

  “If my father decides Sorial could shift the balance, he’ll curb plans for a military engagement. Even with only a fraction of his army here, a defeat would be devastating. It would reverberate all the way to Obis and he could return home to find the throne occupied by an opportunistic usurper.”

  “But you think he might try something non-military?”

  Myselene nodded. “I’m not sure it was ever his intention to force a confrontation. Even with Vantok’s army not in battle-ready condition, going into combat outnumbered three-to-one is a risky proposition. If he intended to fight, he would have brought more men. This is a show of force, and Sorial’s demonstration may not influence his eventual gambit. Or I could be wrong and now our wizard represents a barricade to his goal - one that must be removed before he can press forward.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: PRICES

  The Royal Wedding occurred without a hitch and, despite all the wrangling beforehand, there was no indication to the guests that any aspect had been contended. The ceremony was held in the main throne room with every inch of space occupied. No special accommodations were made for class: nobles sat alongside peasants, a situation that pleased few of Vantok’s landed citizens. Alicia watched from a seat next to her father in a bench several pews from the front. Sorial wasn’t in attendance. He was in a cellar directly below the throne room, using his powers to “feel” for danger by sensing vibrations through the earth and rock beneath the palace.

  The visitors from Obis behaved themselves, sitting quietly to one side and treating the occasion as if it was the most solemn event imaginable. Alicia wondered if it was like that for all Northern weddings. Their attitude seemed more appropriate for a funeral. Perhaps Sorial’s demonstration the night before had scrambled the plans of King Rangarak. Surely he wouldn’t try a coup knowing that Azarak was backed by a wizard? Two, actually, but her status remained a strategic secret.

  The queen was, of course, radiant in a gown that made Alicia’s simple wedding dress appear appropriate for a village virgin at her first dance. Myselene was attended by a timid girl Alicia had never before seen - most likely the maid from Obis who had traveled to Vantok to resume service for her mistress. Azarak was dressed in the robes of state to emphasize that Myselene was joining herself to the city and its ruler. His second was his chancellor, Toranim. Azarak had eschewed a political opportunity by not offering the honored position to a noble. Some part of Alicia admitted a sliver of envy that she hadn’t been accorded an opportunity for such a lavish ceremony. She understood the reasons for it, and they were all sound, but she couldn’t help but mourn the loss of another girlhood fantasy. Still, in Sorial, she had gotten a prince. Sort of.

  Neither Ariel nor The Lord of Fire did anything to interrupt the nuptials. The potential of something happening kept Alicia on guard; she had to be in a state of constant readiness in case Sorial needed her. The tension meant that not only was she distracted throughout the wedding but she was glad when it was over. Perspiration beaded on her forehead and caused her dress to stick to her body, and it wasn’t all from the unseasonable warmth in the poorly ventilated throne room. Drained and needing time alone, she left the palace immediately after the couple exited from public view, although Sorial remained behind to continue his watch.

  Alicia awoke when he came home much later in the day. She was sprawled on their bed and struggled with a moment’s disorientation. The windows revealed that it was night but she was still dressed in the outfit she had worn to the wedding. The last thing she remembered was lying down for a moment to rest. Apparently, it had been a long moment.

  Sorial moved around the bedroom quietly, or at least as quietly as he was capable, trying not to disturb her. He lit only one lantern so the light was dim and the shadows long.

  “What time is it?” Alicia murmured sleepily, stretching like a cat with her arms extended above her head.

  “Just past midnight. Myselene and Azarak have gone to their wedding bed to make the next king of Vantok, although popular scuttlebutt argues it’s already happened. He advised me to get home to you so we could work on making little wizards.”

  That jolted Alicia awake as surely as a bucket of cold water to the face would have done. Telling him was something she couldn’t put off any longer. She really should have addressed this with Sorial before now, but she had procrastinated. Foolish. There was no chance it was going to go away.

  “Sorial, we need to talk.”

  “Okay,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots. He wasn’t looking at her, meaning he hadn’t caught the note of earnestness in her voice. And he had missed that she called him “Sorial” instead of “stableboy,” another sure sign of her seriousness.

  “Back in Ibitsal, you told me the price you paid to be released from the portal. I never told you mine and you didn’t ask.”

  That got his attention. He stopped removing his clothing and turned to face her, his features hidden in shadow. “I didn’t want to push you. I know how personal it is. I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”

  Was the time right? No. It never would be. But it was necessary that he know. In a way, it was his price as well.

  She took a deep breath. “I surrendered the ability to have children. It seemed such a little thing at the time, but now...”

  She slid across the bed to be closer to him, and what she saw in his face gave her cause for relief. There was no accusation, no shock of betrayal. There was no anger or sense of having been duped, no pain of loss. His features were placid. This revelation wasn’t a blow to Sorial; it might even have been expected.

  “I’m glad that’s all you had to give up. It ain’t easy living with no smell or taste. If I was to tell the truth, I worried about the possibility of you getting with child with things so unsettled. I’d hate to think of a son or daughter growing up an orphan. If we survive this war, maybe I’ll be disappointed in the future, but raising an army of little wizards was never a goal.”

  “I wanted children,” confessed Alicia. “Until the portal, I dreamed of having them with you. But, if you eve
r decide you want them, you’ll have to find someone else to carry them. Maybe… I could even help you with that. Find a nice girl and lend you out to her enough times for her to get pregnant.” Such a simple solution in many ways. It was often done when a noblewoman couldn’t have children and the line needed to continue. But she knew it would hurt.

  Sorial shook his head. “You could argue it might be best for everyone if our bloodlines, manipulated by Ferguson, ended with us. Any children would have become pawns in the next generation’s political games.”

  “I guess I just had an idyllic vision of four or five of us together as a family.” It was a pleasant fantasy, but she had always known it was divorced from reality. Wizards weren’t just “normal” people with special powers. They were fundamentally different and the belief that they could live uncomplicated lives was as realistic as believing a king could marry for love.

  “The road ahead’s hard for us, Alicia. If we had children, it would be harder still. Your infertility might be a blessing. It means we can fuck as often as we want without fear of your getting with child and we’ll never be placed in a position where we have to choose between the safety and security of a son or daughter and our responsibilities to this city.”

  His words were harsh and they stung, but she knew he was right. And recognizing the truth of what he said was perhaps the most painful revelation of all. She would never have children and it was better that way. Better for the children who would never be born, better for her, better for Sorial, and better for everyone else.

  So why was the disappointment so acute?

  * * *

  “You realize that’s not the best way to go about creating a royal heir?” noted Azarak, leaning back to catch his breath.