by J. S. Morin
The emperor's smile flickered briefly before resuming its indolence. "Well, you are here now. I have an announcement I plan to make. Sir Brannis, you advised me to spend my days finding an empress, did you not?"
"Yes, Your Highness, I did," Kyrus replied.
"I believe you also forbade me choosing my empress from among the Circle. Is that not also true?"
"I pointed out that there would be opposition from the Inner Circle and advised strongly against it, Your Highness. I did not—cannot—forbid you anything," answered Kyrus. He sensed a trap being set but had no choice but to play along.
"There was also talk that I ought to find a more decorous way to test the noble ladies with whom I would share my empire," Sommick said. He painted pretty words around treating half the empire's unwed noble girls as whores, and pitting them against one another for his affections. "But I have found a path around that mountain." Sommick paused and widened his smile.
Kyrus kept a sigh in check. "What solution have you devised?" he asked dutifully.
"I shall wed them all," the emperor proclaimed. There were gasps from some, cheers from others. When those died down, Kyrus remained staring at Emperor Sommick, having said nothing. The emperor looked at Kyrus with a simpering grin on his face. "Well, what say you?"
"I think I would like a private word with the emperor," Kyrus said. The musicians stopped. A few of the more attentive courtiers slunk quickly toward the exit. Before long everyone had gotten the hint and vacated the emperor's chambers. The last to go were the two guardsmen who departed after receiving nods of acknowledgment from Kyrus.
"What?" Emperor Sommick asked. "You disapprove?"
"This is not how things are done in the Kadrin Empire," Kyrus replied, the only argument that came readily to mind. The idea was incalculably stupid; he could not find an end amid the tangled problem from which to begin unraveling it for the neophyte politician.
"Not at all. It makes some sense and there is precedent for it—I had the blood scholars look into it for me. It seems that in times of crisis, multiple imperial consorts have been a way to spread the dynastic seed a bit and ensure succession." The emperor looked appallingly pleased with himself.
"When was this? I have not ever heard of such a thing and I do enjoy a good history book."
"It's been a while, I admit, but that's nothing keeping us from dusting off old traditions and polishing them up a bit."
"How long ago?"
"A ... while."
"How long? They must have told you. The blood scholars are very thorough," Kyrus pressed.
"I don't know exactly. The last to have made such arrangements was Emperor Theselon ... seventeen, perhaps eighteen hundred summers ago," Sommick said with a shrug.
"Emperor Theselon's first two wives were both barren, by stroke of ill luck. Normally empresses were exiled or executed when they failed to produce an heir. Theselon just wed again and kept the first two by his side as a kindness. This is not the same thing."
"Astaranor the Third, then," Emperor Sommick said, not granting Kyrus any time to sink the claws of his argument deeper.
"Astaranor ... Astaranor ..." Kyrus said aloud to himself. "Astaranor the Fourth must have been nearly three thousand winters ago. Who was the Third, then?"
"His father," Sommick answered. "Reigned for but two summers and a season, fathered eight heirs, the eldest being his namesake."
"Ah, yes, the lecherous emperor who was killed by one of his own consorts in a jealous fit," Kyrus added, his memory refreshed on the subject. "Not the best of examples to follow."
"I had hoped that a more vigilant group of guards might be available in modern times than in those bygone days. Besides, now we know to protect me from them," Sommick said. Kyrus opened his mouth to speak but Sommick stole his initiative. "And I have thought this through. I have a tenuous position, with no support but what Rashan offers me. This will give more than a dozen noble houses a stake in my reign. There might be some bloody business to hold in check of course. There will certainly be some competition for the first heir, and he will be a target for assassination. These are problems we can work around."
Kyrus had queued up a number of arguments in his head, each of them a different angle from which to chip away at the emperor's strained logic. There is just no reasoning with him, Kyrus decided. He let the arguments tumble through his mental fingers and shatter on the floor.
"As you command, Your Highness."
"No point drawing this whole business out. This is bound to be contentious enough without giving the nobles time to gripe. Can you have everything arranged by the solstice? Best time for an imperial wedding." Kyrus stared at him in shock.
"That only leaves four days!"
"Excellent! Plenty of time."
* * * * * * * *
"He got you good, didn't he?" Axterion asked. The ancient sorcerer chuckled. "I wouldn't have thought that bugger had the gumption to pull off a trick like this."
"I did not anticipate it either," Kyrus admitted. "He seemed to have already set everything in the works with the blood scholars, making sure everything had precedent. He was right—gut him six ways. He has the authority to do this."
"Nobles will get in a snit, for sure," Axterion said. He shrugged. "What are they going to do though? I'll tell you what they'll do: get in a snit. That's the start and finish of it. It might be a nice long snit, don't mistake me, and it might even be an uncomfortable snit to be around. In the end though, just a snit. Days are gone when a noble army would get itchy thinking they might take on the emperor's troops—gone long before my time, at that."
"What about the emperor?" Kyrus asked. "He could wind up like Astaranor the Fourth ..."
"Boy, you're aiming to either vex me or test me," Axterion said, waggling a warning finger in Kyrus's direction. "It was Astaranor the Third who pulled this stunt last and got a chalice of poisoned wine for his trouble. I've forgotten more than you've learned yet, young dragon. All that power can't be getting to your head yet, can it?"
"I hope not. I still have a lot to learn before I can hope to confront Rashan. Have you had any luck in your research?" Kyrus asked, changing the subject.
"Aye, after a fashion," Axterion replied, scratching his head. "I have had a rare and tedious sort of success: I have established that no one in the history of the Kadrin Empire has left any written record of what lies deep in Podawei Wood."
"Well, so much for that," Kyrus said. He slumped back in his chair.
"Bah, you don't know a dratted thing about humans, do you?" Axterion asked.
"How do you mean?"
"Have you looked around in libraries?" Axterion asked. Kyrus nodded. "There's a book in there on every bedratted subject the gods saw fit to build this world with. Anything mildly interesting and a dozen poor scribblers wrote about it. You mean to tell me that a little forest not far outside Kadris has sat there for six thousand winters and no one thought to have a look? No one keeps humans away from a mystery that long with nothing to show for the attempt. Someone doesn't want folks knowing what's there."
Kyrus smiled. It was good reasoning.
"Grandfather, I know you do not get out much but I think it might be time for you to have a talk with Fenris Destrier," Kyrus suggested.
"What's that chubby little jackal gotten himself mixed in now? Never looks where he's heading ‘cause he's always got his nose up someone's backside, looking to push them up a ladder ahead of him."
Kyrus chuckled, remembering that Axterion knew everyone in the Circle from a much different perspective than he ever had.
"I think he could use a bit of help filling a list. Just ask him."
* * * * * * * *
Kyrus lay awake atop his blankets, fully clothed but for his boots. Far away—how far no one could tell him—Brannis lay awake as well in the Kheshi city of Skasgrenn. Kyrus relaxed his mind until the black marble ceiling of his bed chamber melted away and he could feel a rhythmic breathing tickle his chest.
The plan was to set out again at dawn and scour the city. They had ridden the day through and collapsed into bed once they had reached an inn. Soria still had trail dust graying her hair and both of them smelled of horse sweat.
"Soria, my love," Brannis said. He kissed her forehead and jostled a bit to rouse her. Before even coming fully awake her first move was to climb farther atop him. He put a hand on her side and gently rolled her the other way. "Soria, we have a bit of time. Finish reading me the book. Who knows when our next chance will be."
"I was thinking the same thing," she mumbled, still not yet awake.
Brannis gave her a moment to collect her wits and orient herself once more between worlds.
In her cabin on the Starlit Marauder, Juliana opened The Peace of Tallax and began reading once more about Tallax’s obsession with immortality.
Kyrus listened in from Veydrus as Brannis heard the tale continue. Tallax had demanded of the immortals that they share the secret with him but was rebuffed, told that it was not possible for him. Tallax knew that the immortals sometimes traveled between worlds and so he traversed the space between worlds to find his answers there.
Tallax found nothing on his journeys to the worlds beyond Veydrus but caused much strife. He brought magic to worlds that had never seen it and saw wonders that no Veydran was ever meant to. When the gods themselves chastised him, he told them: "You who are eternal and creators of the world must know this secret. Tell me and I need not disturb these distant peoples any longer." The gods refused and Tallax then tried to threaten them as he had with the immortals.
Tallax had made a grave error in thinking he could contest with the gods themselves. To spite Tallax, the gods departed Veydrus and shattered the links between the worlds. The mightiest sorcerer ever to have lived was stranded on one world when he knew in his heart that what he desired most was somewhere on another.
In the end, Tallax sent word to all the great kings and dragons, to the stone folk and the forest spirits, to the immortals and the greatest among mortal sorcerers. He gathered them and they heeded his call, for defying Tallax was woe to any who held their life dear. He stood amid the gathering and the sun dimmed in the sky above, shrinking to a pinpoint of blinding light.
Those who had gathered there gazed up in wonder and fear as the light and heat of the sun fell from the heavens in a great column of destruction that only a few, quicker to flee than the rest, managed to survive. Those survivors bore witness to the wars of pent up rage that seven hundred winters beneath the boot of one sorcerer had held in check.
Kyrus blinked away the sights and sounds of Tellurak to think on what he had heard. That was the part that made Soria and Juliana fear for him: that the path he was treading had led Tallax to madness and self-destruction.
It was a long time before exhaustion claimed Kyrus.
Chapter 22 - The Fourth Necromancer War
The ship listed in air as the mountain winds played havoc with the rigging. Jinzan knew the seas and knew them well. He knew where to find a tailwind in any season, and where the currents could be used to best advantage. The skies were a mystery. It was as if they possessed a different type of air entirely from what blew nearest the ground and waves.
The Black Gull had been rededicated Dhakoun after the god of death, though the allusion was lost on anyone unfamiliar with Telluraki mythology. Jinzan and his crew of enslaved Kadrin sky-sailors had taken as many of the Ghelkan apprentices aboard as fit, and skirted the Ogrelands on their way into eastern Kadrin. The conquest of Glan's Reach had been a lark, a mere test on the way to a real city. A small contingent of apprentice necromancers were left behind to tend and herd the newly risen dead while the rest continued onward.
Jinzan clutched the Staff of Gehlen and wondered at the power it possessed. Sources would be rent asunder, sucked free of aether as easily as slurping soup from a bowl. It seemed a quick, painless death. It was a kindness to the Kadrins who were being converted to the Megrenn cause, to pass beyond pain into a post-life of useful servitude in a better cause than they had known in life.
When the gentle plains around Glan's Reach had given way to the mountains further inland was when Jinzan realized how little he knew of airship flight. The dead crew was obedient but seemed sluggish in its actions and reactions. If any of his own sorcerers had known how to work the ship's controls, he would have at least appointed one of them to altitude control. They brushed the tops of alpine trees and yawed dangerously close to crags that they would have done well to fly above.
"How close are we to Reaver's Crossing?" Jinzan shouted over the wind. He could have thought the question but he was still unaccustomed to doing so and always thought of it too late.
"We ... are ... close. Just ... two ... peaks ... left. Should ... be ... two ... marks ... off ... starboard," the captain replied. The thing was already decomposing a bit and he was only days old. Jinzan might have been adept at creating the dead vessels but had much to learn on the reanimation process; Loramar's creations lasted seasons by his own writings.
"Fine, just get us there in one piece. Stop flying so low," he ordered. He amended his verbal command with a series of telepathic ones to the crew at large, especially the sorcerer whose Source, he suspected, might need replenishing before they arrived at Reaver's Crossing.
None of his own living sorcerers spoke to him unless spoken to. There was no idle conversation, none of the gentle teasing he had received as he learned the rudiments of necromancy. He saw awe in their eyes when he looked at them. I am not Loramar yet. I will earn that respect, I swear it.
* * * * * * * *
Reaver's Crossing was an old trade route built up over hundreds of summers. The pendulous rope bridge that had spanned the crossing in lost seasons had been replaced first by a wooden bridge, then a stone one, then another stone version worked by magic into a span no architect in Veydrus could have gotten to stand on its own. It straddled Reaver's Gorge with an unsupported length of over two hundred paces.
The city had grown along with the bridge, from a cabin at either end with travelers' supplies, to an outpost, to a trading city, to a strategic fortress, and finally to the keystone of the defense of the empire's heartland against Ghelk. It had fallen twice to Loramar and twice been taken back. Nestled into the mountainsides on the north and south sides of the gorge, the citizens had taken a lesson from ancient Raynesdark and tunneled their city into the mountains. Though split by the great bridge, each side was nigh impregnable.
Of course, a significant exception to that invulnerability was via the air, where the long, narrow pass made it treacherous for armies to march up precarious ground while under fire from the city's defenders. If one possessed an airship—or perhaps a dragon—the city was an egg: hard around the outer edge, but soft inside.
The first they saw of it was the bridge—its long, shallow arch of seamless, charcoal-colored granite. They were looking up at it, for though his crew had obeyed Jinzan’s command to pull them higher, the mountains still rose all around them and Reaver's Crossing was higher up than anyone had realized.
"You fools, higher!" Jinzan shouted. He did not wait for them to obey, but rather thrust out a hand and conjured a gale force updraft to speed their ascent. "Ready shielding spells for the hull and yourselves," he added, switching to Ghelkan, since the dead needed no words and his followers spoke only their own tongue. This would all be so much simpler if everyone spoke Megrenn. I should see to that once we conquer Kadrin. It is always nice to have long-term goals.
When first the Dhakoun appeared over the walls, it seemed the Kadrins had no idea that they were under attack. Jinzan surmised that the Kadrins assumed they were a Kadrin ship filled with their own troops. He laughed, or tried to. His voice went hoarse and he turned his mirth internally to save face in front of his apprentices.
He ordered the crew to find a landing spot. They circled the city a bit, awkwardly by his judgment, looking for a flat enough spot to land. The city was built like a set of stairs int
o the mountainside. The dead captain eventually found a small plaza that was large enough to fit the ship and set it down. It ignited panic among the Kadrin merchants and shoppers, furious and scared by the unplanned interruption of their trade.
Jinzan strode to the railing and unleashed the staff's power, drawing in aether from any Kadrin who could be reached. Sorcerers crumpled dead like discarded dolls wherever he drew. The smooth wood of the staff warmed in Jinzan's hands. He had developed a knack for buffering aether within it, rather than taking it all within himself.
"Get down there. Spread out, begin subduing the populace. Those of you who can animate, you are given leave to do so. Focus on armed resistance first. I do not need an army of cloth-peddlers and washer-women. We will get to them later," Jinzan instructed. Rope ladders were thrown over the sides of the Dhakoun and Ghelkan sorcerers clambered down. It was an awkward operation as none of the crew he had brought along had any combat experience—or much exposure to the out of doors, physical activity, or military command. All the experienced sorcerers had already been sent to war or were being held back in defense of Princess Shiann. Still, they were versed in Loramar's techniques under Jinzan's guidance; they were death's apprentices.
Jinzan was the last down. He felt ancient, his creaking joints protesting the relatively acrobatic task of putting a leg over the rail. Nothing hurt, or at least his recent mental training had inured him to the pains of his mortal body. Remarkable man, that Loramar. I really should be up and about more though. The war should limber me up once I accustom myself to its rigors. My body may only be a vessel for my Source but it still needs to be a working vessel.
* * * * * * * *
"Report," Jinzan ordered. He stood in the hub of the undercity in the southern half of Reaver's Crossing. He had never gotten much of a chance to see the version in Raynesdark but suspected this one was more hospitable. There was an underground waterfall that poured into a public fountain and down into the sewers, and more ventilation shafts up to the surface than he knew Raynesdark to possess. A series of panels spread across the cavern ceiling, the westernmost of them illuminated, creating an artificial sunset for the subterranean residents.