by William King
The Lady Melissa glanced at him and smiled again. Larien stared rudely. It seemed like a deliberate attempt at intimidation. Tyrion shrugged and walked over.
‘I trust running to your crippled brother and your frosty aunt has put your mind at rest,’ said Larien. His face was a little flushed although whether with wine or anger or something else Tyrion could not tell.
‘About what?’
‘About your dubious parentage.’
There was a moment of silence. This was not the sort of thing said in polite elf circles. Even those nearby were quiet now, waiting to hear Tyrion’s response.
‘There is nothing dubious about my parentage,’ said Tyrion calmly.
‘I am sorry, perhaps I should have said your dubious parents,’ said Larien.
Definitely drunk, Tyrion decided. The goblet in his hand was empty, and Tyrion could recall seeing it refilled more than once.
‘Hush,’ said Lady Melissa. ‘This is not the time or place for this. You are a guest of House Emeraldsea.’
She shot Tyrion what looked like an apologetic look, but he could not miss the glitter in her eyes and the faint twist of her lips. She was enjoying this.
‘Yes, hush, Larien,’ said one of her friends. ‘You are embarrassing yourself.’
Nothing could have been better calculated to goad Larien than pointing this out, Tyrion thought. Perhaps that was the intention.
‘I am not the one who should be embarrassed. I am not the one who was conceived at some Slaaneshi orgy.’
‘Nobody here was,’ said Tyrion.
Larien gave a cruel laugh that was all the more shocking because of the note of pity in it. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’
‘Larien,’ said Lady Melissa. The warning in her voice was obvious. Larien paid it no more attention than a drunken dockman would pay an ant.
‘Know what?’ Tyrion asked. He knew that he really should not, but he was curious.
‘You and your brother were conceived in the Temple of Dark Pleasures. That is why your brother turned out the way he did...’
‘How would you know?’ Tyrion asked pleasantly. ‘Were you there?’
‘Are you implying that I am a member of the Cult of Luxury?’ Larien asked. He looked a lot more sober all of a sudden. His words were said very loudly, as if he wanted everyone to hear them.
All around was silence. All eyes in the room were on them now. Tyrion understood what was going on but there was no way he could stop it. It had all happened so quickly.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Korhien moving across the room towards the disturbance. He would not get here in time to intervene.
‘Well, are you?’ Larien was almost shouting now. He cocked his head to one side as if Tyrion had already replied. ‘How dare you imply such a thing?’
Tyrion decided he might as well make the best of a bad situation. He smiled mockingly at Melissa and her friend and then at Larien. ‘I was merely astounded that anyone could claim such familiarity with Slaaneshi ritual as you did. If anyone implied such a thing, it was you.’
Larien’s hand shot out towards Tyrion’s cheek. He obviously intended to strike the blow that marked the formal challenge to a duel. Tyrion had been expecting it. He stepped to one side and struck Larien hard in the stomach. The goblet fell from his hand.
When he had regained his wind, Larien said, with some satisfaction. ‘You struck me.’
‘It seemed better than allowing you to strike me,’ said Tyrion.
‘There can be only one redress,’ said Larien. ‘The Circle of Blades.’
‘As you wish,’ said Tyrion, ignoring the way Korhien was shaking his head.
Larien pulled himself upright and glared around.
‘Leave now,’ said Korhien. ‘You’ve got what you came here for.’
Larien smirked at him.
‘And I would not smile like that if I were you,’ Korhien said. ‘If this young elf does not kill you, I most assuredly will.’
That took the smile off his face, Tyrion thought. He grinned and then the thought struck him that the only circumstances that Korhien would be taking vengeance for him, was if he himself was dead.
‘You cannot do that Ironglaive, duelling is forbidden to White Lions,’ said Larien. His smirk had returned. Surrounded by his clique of adoring ladies he made his departure.
The air seemed suddenly very chilly.
‘That was very foolish, doorkeeper,’ said Korhien. He had led Tyrion into a side room. Outside, the hall was in an uproar.
‘Listen to the commotion,’ Tyrion said. ‘Apparently challenges to duels are not as common at Lothern parties as this evening’s experience has led me to believe.’
‘This is not a joking matter. That elf intends to kill you and he is quite capable of doing it. Sober he is one of the best blades in this city.’
Korhien’s seriousness communicated itself to Tyrion. ‘I wish you had told me that before I hit him.’
‘Go ahead! Joke your way into an early grave, doorkeeper.’
‘I did not start it.’ It was the sort of thing a child might say and Tyrion was conscious of it as soon as the words left his mouth.
‘I am sure you did not.’ Korhien expression was bitter. ‘I should have seen this coming.’
‘Who would have expected anyone to be so boorish as to start a brawl at a Lantern party,’ said Lady Malene. She had just entered the chamber. Teclis was beside her, his face pale.
‘The question is who put him up to it and why?’ said Korhien. ‘We need to know who it is so we can put pressure on them to make him withdraw.’
‘What?’ Tyrion asked. He had never heard of such a thing. Or read about it. ‘No one withdraws challenges.’
‘It happens all the time,’ said Lady Malene. ‘Larien will lose face and have to leave the city for a few years.’
‘If we can make whoever set this hound on Tyrion call him off,’ said Korhien.
‘We are going to have to,’ said Malene. ‘I do not think he is ready to kill his first elf just yet.’
She was wrong. After what Larien had said about his parents Tyrion was more than willing to kill Larien. In fact he would enjoy it. It was the first time he had ever realised such a thing about himself. It was not a pleasant thought.
He was disturbed to discover that Liselle had been wrong earlier. There was malice in him. It was just more deeply hidden than it was in most elves. And there was a terrible anger too although most times he hid it from everyone, even himself.
Tyrion heard a knock at the door. Cautiously he padded over on his bare feet and answered it. He could hear someone just outside. He was not too worried but he slid the bolt back cautiously and pulled the door open. He was surprised to see Liselle standing there. She was dressed in a night robe which clearly had nothing underneath it.
‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘I’m sure you already know,’ she replied.
‘Then I suppose you had better come inside,’ he said. He pulled the door fully open and gestured for her to enter. She strode inside and looked around.
‘My room is just down the corridor,’ she said. He reached out and pulled a strand of hair from behind her ear. He leaned forward as he had done earlier, and whispered into that ear, ‘That is very fortunate.’
She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. It was a long kiss and it started experimentally, tentatively but it ended up being very passionate.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it is. Let us both make the most of that fortunate accident of geography.’
She led him by the hand towards the bed.
N’Kari roared as he raced through the streets of Tor Yvresse, killing as he went. He was strong now. He had eaten many souls and supped on many pleasures, his own and others. He felt almost as mighty as he had been on the day he had faced Aenarion millennia ago.
His army was an army now, no longer a mere raider band or an ill-organised group of cultists. It was a force strong enough to take even an
ancient walled city like this one.
Hundreds of partially altered warriors had joined him. He had found more humans, shipwrecked mariners from the Old World. Groups of beastmen who had somehow survived in the high mountains and kept to the old ways had been drawn to him. Decadent elves had responded to the summons of his magic. Souls offered up in sacrifice had multiplied the number of daemons bound to his will. All of them rampaged through the streets of the city now, maiming, killing, raping, torturing, pillaging.
Terror and pleasure and hatred and fear pulsed through the air around N’Kari. It was like a banquet to him. He drank it all in.
A company of elf soldiers formed up in the square ahead, moving in a disciplined phalanx to repulse a company of his beastmen. The brutes threw themselves against that steady line with simple-minded ferocity that might have worked if they had been facing tribesmen as primitive as themselves but which had no chance of success against these foes.
Briefly N’Kari considered aiding his followers, of using his own power to break the bodies and spirits of the enemy but he sensed the opposition to his presence was growing and he still had a task to perform here. Somewhere out there a cabal of wizards was using its power to strengthen the ancient wards against his kind that had been built in ancient times. These were spells that could hurt him. They were already making him uncomfortable and they had the potential to banish him from this place if he was not careful. He was not going to take the risk of that happening, not until he had completed his vengeance on the Blood of Aenarion.
He could sense the nearness of the prey he sought. His nostrils flared in response to what his spiritual senses detected. Saliva filled his mouth and dripped onto the ground. Elrion leapt forward and grovelled in the dirt, licking it up, moaning in ecstatic pleasure that contact with N’Kari’s secretions always gave to mortal things. N’Kari trampled on his back, leaving great talon marks on the writhing acolyte’s flesh, forcing Elrion face down in the puddle of drool as he strode forwards.
Ahead of him was a small tenement house, inside of which a few warm bodies huddled. The ones he sought, two elves half-garbed in their militia gear who had obviously been trapped here en route to joining their unit, were being menaced by a group of beastmen. They bore the spiritual scent of the Blood of Aenarion.
N’Kari shifted his form, becoming an elf of spectacular beauty, goddess-like. He blasted his own beastmen in the back with a bolt of purple lightning and raced up to the elves. They stood there bemused by his loveliness and the narcotic cloud surrounding him.
‘Quickly, follow me,’ said N’Kari in a voice at once seductive and commanding. ‘I will see you to safety.’
The elves looked at him, grateful for being saved, bemused at the appearance of a powerful sorceress they did not recognise. N’Kari reached out and stroked the cheek of the nearest one. He quivered with pleasure. ‘We do not have any time to waste. Follow me. I will weave a spell that will get us out of here.’
He opened a portal and without giving the elves time to think, shepherded them through it before following him themselves. The elf he had touched was already looking at the other with insane jealousy. N’Kari chuckled, thinking of the sport he would have with this pair.
Behind him his army battled on. It would take them some time to realise they had been abandoned by their leader and begin a fighting retreat. N’Kari did not care. He had found what he had come for. Soon there would be two fewer of the line of Aenarion left.
There were not many more now. Soon his vengeance would be complete.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lord Emeraldsea looked up from his telescope. He had obviously been studying the ships in the harbour. He gestured for Tyrion to join him on the balcony. Tyrion walked over, curious why he had been summoned into the august presence this fine morning.
‘It took us a thousand years to put Finubar on the throne,’ said Lord Emeraldsea. His words took Tyrion off guard. He had expected to be lectured about the events of the previous evening, about challenging other elves to duels at family parties.
‘A thousand years?’ Tyrion said, just to see where this was going. He was exaggerating. Finubar was not that old.
The old elf obviously sensed the current of his thoughts. ‘He was the first Phoenix King ever to come from Lothern. You have no idea how difficult it was to make him that. The work began long before Finubar was born.’
Tyrion wondered why his grandfather was telling him this. Perhaps the old elf was lonely and just wanted someone to talk with, to go over old triumphs with, but somehow he doubted it. Lord Emeraldsea did not strike him as someone who did anything without a purpose.
‘Why was it difficult?’ Tyrion asked, because he felt he was expected to.
‘The princes of the Old Kingdoms objected to it, of course. They have had a monopoly on the throne since before the time of Caledor the Conqueror. Aenarion was the only one they never had a say in the choosing of.’ He glanced at the huge statue of the first Phoenix King in the harbour with something like admiration. From up here all they could see was his back. ‘It’s always been one of their own they made ruler.’
‘Why did they object to Finubar?’
‘Because he was from Lothern.’
‘Because he was not of ancient blood?’
Lord Emeraldsea laughed bitterly. ‘Finubar’s house is as ancient as that of Caledor. So is mine for that matter. We have been here since the Kingdoms were founded.’
‘But you are not of princely blood,’ said Tyrion. He did not really care about that himself, he was just trying to understand the argument. Lord Emeraldsea looked hard at him, as if attempting to discern any trace of mockery or pride in his own ancient lineage. Apparently he was satisfied with what he saw.
‘No, we are not. But nowhere is it written, nowhere did the gods dictate, that our rulers must be of that blood. In the past, some of them were not, some were simple scholars or warriors.’
‘But they were chosen by the princes.’
‘Indeed. They were chosen by councils of princes, selected from candidates put forward by them, usually because the princes felt they could control them, or because they were in the debt of one prince or another.’
Lord Emeraldsea was tampering with his faith. Tyrion had always liked to believe that Phoenix Kings were chosen from the best elves available with the best interests of Ulthuan at heart. This all sounded rather sordid. He said as much.
‘All the workings of the machinery of power look sordid when you see them from close up,’ his grandfather said. ‘And they are. But that does not mean they are a bad thing. At least we do not have Malekith as our ruler like the dark elves. And that is the point. It is why he is not our king and we still fight wars with the druchii.’
Tyrion understood at once. ‘You mean because he wanted to be the single absolute ruler like Aenarion, and because the princes would not let him be. They chose one of their own to make that point.’
His grandfather seemed gratified by the quickness of his understanding, which pleased Tyrion. He was not used to being appreciated for that. ‘In a way. Malekith wanted more power than Aenarion ever really had. Aenarion was a war leader, accepted as such because in times of danger it is necessary to have a clear line of command. Any ship’s captain can tell you that. Malekith wanted the same power as Aenarion held in war in peacetime, or rather his mother wanted that for him, or so it seemed at first. Our system is as much about preventing that sort of tyranny as it is about the exercise of power. The dark elves have a different system. You can see what it has brought them to.’
‘Surely they have a bad system because they have a bad ruler,’ Tyrion said. ‘What has happened there merely reflects the personality of Malekith.’
‘Or perhaps they have a bad ruler because they have a bad system,’ his grandfather countered. ‘There are no checks on the power of the Witch King. He does what he wants. He rules by fear and terror with a fist of literal iron. He does not need to consult with anybody, or take the in
terests of anyone except himself into account. I think that sort of power would make anybody mad, and believe me I have had some experience of wielding power in my life.’
‘I do not doubt it,’ said Tyrion.
‘It’s a very seductive thing,’ said Lord Emeraldsea softly. ‘To stand on the command deck and issue orders. To know everyone has to listen to you and obey and that their lives depend on it. Even when you are not on the command deck, it distorts life around you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Sit at a captain’s table on a ship. Watch his officers and his crew as they eat. They laugh at his jokes, acknowledge his wisdom, burnish his pride. They have to because their own assignment of duties and their own prospects of promotion depend on his assessment of them. Power exercises its own magnetic field. Never doubt that, Prince Tyrion, and remember it if you exercise power yourself.’
‘I will,’ said Tyrion, and he meant it. He was glad of the circumstances that had forced him from his father’s house at times like this. He felt he had a lot to learn from elves like his grandfather and Korhien and Prince Iltharis. He could never have learned it if he had stayed at home.
‘I know you will, which is why I am telling you it.’
‘You were telling me about the election of Finubar,’ Tyrion said. ‘Of how difficult it was and how much it cost.’
‘It was and it did. We needed to convince a large number of the old princes that we were serious. We extended loans to some, bought up the debts of others. Gifts were given to those who could not be pressured. In the end, we still could not have done it, if it had not been Finubar’s time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The princes recognised that the world had changed and we needed a new style of leadership, one that engaged us with the younger races and the world beyond Ulthuan. They saw that we needed allies and those allies would need to be made by someone with an understanding of those far lands. That’s one advantage that Finubar had and one advantage that we have. We tend to get the leadership we need when we need it because in the end all of our interests are conjoined. Your idealistic view of the world is not so far from the truth as it may sometimes sound, lad.’