“Alright,” Aram said. “Here is what I mean to do. I intend to go through the doors – Thaniel will bear me in. You two will follow close behind and ride into the hall as well.” He looked at Marcus. “Once inside, you will turn to the right and dismount next to door closest to where the council sits. Show your face only when I give you the sign.” Then he turned to Thom. “Stay mounted if you think it necessary, general, but I want you to take immediate command of the palace guard. I have no doubt that they will be somewhat frightened by events and therefore submissive to your will.”
Both men nodded in silent understanding. Marcus cast a furtive glance at Thom and then asked Aram, “What do you mean to do with Rahm, my lord?”
Aram looked at him sharply. “He murdered your family, Your Highness – he requires judgment and there must be retribution. As a consequence, he will not survive the day. Elam is your land, Your Highness, and the palace is rightly your house. One does not leave a poisonous snake alive to wander at will in his own house.”
“But, that means that you intend –” Marcus stared. “My lord – we have laws in Elam. They have stood for thousands of years and govern the actions of every citizen from the High Prince down to the least of us.”
“I understand this,” Aram agreed. “But I am not subject to your laws, my friend. Nor, it seems to me, is Rahm Imrid, at least in his mind.” His eyes narrowed. “And we are at war. Manon will not wait while we take care to abide by every letter of your ancestors’ edicts. I will not slay Rahm for any crime he has committed against you, Basura, or even the land of Elam itself. None of that is within my purview. No – I will destroy him because he is allied with my enemy, and is therefore my enemy and subject to my laws. Nothing in writ or word will dissuade me. Do you understand this?”
Marcus swallowed and stared for a moment longer. Finally, without speaking further, he nodded.
Turning his attention back to the city a few miles to his front, Aram sat for some while longer in silence as the sun climbed higher behind him. Then he lowered the eye guard on his helmet and urged Thaniel forward. “It is time,” he said.
Thaniel lunged ahead and pounded westward along the center of the road, followed closely by the others. There was little traffic moving upon the streets of the capitol city of Elam as they drove into town and began to ascend toward the grand palace upon the low hill at the other end of the main thoroughfare.
Those citizens that were abroad, upon seeing three armored and mounted warriors thundering into their town, bolted for doors and alleyways, anywhere out of the way of these dangerous-looking men and their terrifying beasts.
The palace of the High Prince of Elam rose up before them. An impressive structure, it sat atop the highest point in the town which sat at the feet of the foothills of the distant Iron Mountains. The lines of the structure were simple yet elegant, with fluted buttresses on each corner. It was built of a pale tan stone that shone faintly gold in the morning sun. A second story of the structure, fronted by a balustrade and veranda that stretched across the whole of its front, rose above and just behind the main hall that jutted out from the main part of the palace toward the avenue. This part that jutted out, which contained the Hall of Councilors, was in itself very impressive, and was fronted by a massive pair of doors. Above the twin doors, there was a large round window made of colored glass.
Two hundred yards from the palace, as Thaniel galloped through a district comprised of businesses that crowded the main road, Aram drew the Sword and held it high, up into the sunlight.
In front of the palace, there were a dozen or so soldiers at their posts, half standing to one side of the wide, tall doors and half to the other side. Seeing the approaching horses and their riders, these men momentarily attempted to adopt defensive positions even as they subconsciously slid away to either side. Then, their tenuous courage giving away completely, they leapt out of the path of the black and massive armored horse that led the others, driving down upon them.
For it immediately became obvious that this great armored beast and its rider intended to charge right into them; maybe even intended to crash through the palace doors.
At the corners of the palace, the two groups tried once more to summon bravery and make some sort of stand.
Fifty yards from the doors, Aram lowered the Sword.
“Move aside or die!” He shouted and let loose a flash of fire.
This was too much for men whose duties up to this point had been to stand about and look impressive. As one man, they dove for the alleyways to either side of the palace.
Aram aimed the Sword at the center, where the doors came together, and released almost all of the accumulated power stored in the blade, a great bolt of flame.
With a flash of fire and a loud Bang! the doors blew inward. The door on the left, which had received the worst of it, came off its hinges and slid into the interior where it found the row of guards standing in a line next to the wall, knocking most of them off their feet, injuring several, and breaking the leg of at least one.
Thaniel charged up the steps and into the hall, sliding to a halt near the middle of the floor. Phagan slid in as well and spun to the right, depositing Marcus next to the door. Norgen and Thom moved up next and halted a bit behind Aram on his left.
Holding the balance of the blade’s fire in check, Aram quickly took stock of the interior of the hall. To his front, a man he assumed to be Rahm Imrid sat hunched against the high back of his throne, staring at Aram with rounded eyes. To the right, forty or fifty men in fine robes cowered in their seats. Lacking anything substantial behind which they might hide, these men all attempted, with limited success, to make themselves small.
To Aram’s left, there were about twenty soldiers, the bulk of whom had risen to their feet and stood clumped up together, gazing at him in fear and wonder. A few held their lances pointed in his general direction but none seemed willing to confront him. One man writhed in obvious pain upon the floor, holding his left leg, which lay at an odd angle.
Aram lowered the Sword at the guards and let a bit a flame leap to its end where it snapped and popped.
“Lay down your weapons or I will destroy you all.”
Twenty lances clattered immediately to the floor.
Aram looked over at Thom. “Take command of these men, General.” He moved the blade, indicating the injured man. “And see to their wounded.”
There was still power stored in the blade. Needing a means of release, Aram looked up at the skylight. It was a relatively simple affair, built of crossed beams with squares of thick glass between.
He chose one of the transparent squares above his head, aimed the Sword up toward it, and released the rest of its flame.
As the bolt of golden lightning shot out through the skylight in the ceiling, shattering the glass and sizzling into the sky above the palace, the man upon the throne cringed and the councilors tried in vain to make themselves even smaller.
Aram dismounted and sheathed the Sword. Raising the eye-guard in his helmet, he looked toward the councilors. “Sit.”
There was a moment of terrified bustling while the leaders of Elam regained their seats. During this moment, Aram turned away from them and studied Rahm Imrid. The High Prince of Elam, though frightened and confused by the events of the preceding minute, seemed to grasp that if he did not try to regain a measure of control over the situation in his hall, the fullness of his life’s work in rising to rule over the greatest nation on earth teetered on the very edge of a precipice.
Finding a scrap from a deeply buried reservoir of courage, Rahm rose to his feet and stood on the top step before his throne.
“Who are you?” He demanded in a loud yet shaking voice. “How dare you invade my hall in this manner?”
Without answering, Aram took one step toward him. Rahm flinched and stumbled, and only just managed to stay on his feet.
Aram lifted his gauntleted right hand and pointed a finger at him. “Speak again, without invitation,”
he stated harshly, “and you lose your tongue.”
Then he lowered his hand and turned away from the cringing Rahm to face the councilors, most of whom shrank from beneath his gaze.
“Your High Prince wishes to know my name,” he told them. “No doubt you desire to know it as well.”
He studied them for a moment, letting his gaze rove over them, noting which of them attempted to meet his eyes openly despite their fear and which of them shared Rahm Imrid’s stark terror – terror born of the conviction that this frightening man was very likely not a friend of Elam’s current ruler.
“I am Aram, Lord of the North.” Noting the widening of many of the sets of eyes that stared back at him from the gallery, he shook his head. “No, I am not he that steals your daughters from you to give to his vile beasts. I am not he that sends those same vile beasts to enslave your neighbors and ravage their lands.”
He lifted the accusing finger once more and pointed to his left, centering it again upon Rahm. “I am the enemy of Manon the Grim – he whom your High Prince names as an ally.”
Slowly, deliberately, he lowered the arm and turned to face Rahm. He moved one step closer and halted.
“Tell me, Your Highness; how did your brother, Waren, die?” He asked. “What were the circumstances of his death?”
The High Prince’s gaze flitted back and forth, looking for aid in his ruined hall. There was none to be found. Thom had gathered the guards together, disarmed them, and piled their weapons over near the far wall. None showed any impulse toward resistance. On the other side of the room, his councilors, the heads of the Great Houses, some of whom feared him, some of whom detested him, and nearly all of whom hated him, sat silent and unmoving in the fearsome presence of the armor-clad stranger.
Rahm Imrid was trapped, like a rat cornered in his own hole, with the serpent not just at the door but already inside.
With courage born of desperation, he dared to meet Aram’s eyes. “M-my brother died of illness,” he answered. “Something got into the water supply.”
Aram nodded. “Just so,” he agreed softly. “Something was indeed placed into the palace water supply. And this ‘something’ is known as nectar of niessuh. Hurack Soroba placed it there.”
There were scattered gasps from the gallery at this statement but its effect upon Rahm Imrid was to give him the perception of an opportunity to slide free of the coils of the serpent and convince the predator to focus his sharp attention upon another.
Who this man was that named himself “Aram” and had entered his hall with such violence, Rahm did not know. Whether he was a friend of Waren’s come seeking revenge for the decade-old loss of comradeship or if he was a hitherto unknown enemy of Hurack Soroba did not matter at the moment.
If the stranger’s desire was as simple as revenge and he already had seized upon Soroba as a likely culprit, Rahm was more than willing to aid him in turning his attention to his former compatriot. Anything to get this man to leave his hall. Corrective security measures could be taken later.
“Yes – I’d always suspected it,” Rahm blurted out. “Soroba was a changed man after he allied with Manon – deceptive and untrustworthy.” Cautiously, he turned away from Aram to look at the gallery. “If what this man states be true, then this I swear – I will arrest Soroba upon his return to Elam and we will discover the truth of the matter.”
He turned back toward Aram to find the unknown “Lord of the North” gazing directly at him. Flinching at what he saw in those fierce green eyes, he nonetheless plowed forward. “I promise you, sir,” he told Aram, “we will find the truth of your assertion and exact justice.”
Aram took another step toward him, causing the Prince to shrink ever so slightly back into his throne.
Aram halted and spread his hands. “I have already found the truth and exacted justice,” he told Rahm. “Soroba lies dead, along with his contingent of beasts, upon the southern edge of the great plains of the north.”
Rahm’s eyes widened in alarm at this statement and his terror returned. “I-I am very glad to hear that justice was visited upon him,” he stammered. “But – if the matter has been rectified, sir – then ….. what do you seek here?”
Aram watched him with cold eyes for a long moment and then pivoted back to the gallery of councilors. “Before he died, Hurack Soroba admitted to me that the reason for the murder of High Prince Waren and his family was this – Manon wished for Rahm to sit the throne of Elam, for that would render Elam more compliant to his designs upon the world.”
After hearing this accusation, Rahm breathed heavily for a moment and then managed to shout out, “Lies!”
Aram looked over at him. “Which of these assertions do you declare to be a lie, sir?”
The High Prince’s breath came fast and haltingly. “All of them. I swear I had nothing to do with the death of my brother!”
Aram turned to face him and took another step toward the throne. “The dying testimony of Hurack Soroba directly contradicts you – and you name him a liar?”
“I – yes, I do.”
Aram was now less than ten feet from the throne. He watched Rahm in silence for another long moment and then turned back to the gallery of councilors. “Many of you know Hurack Soroba – or knew him. He swore that Rahm Imrid knew of his brother’s impending murder, along with that of nearly his entire family, and approved of it.”
He let silence fall for a moment and then continued. “I know what I believe to be true, and will act upon that truth whatever any of you decides. Nonetheless, I will put it to you to consider.” His hard eyes swept the gallery. “Which of you think that Soroba lied?”
More than thirty pairs of eyes gazed back at him, all of them completely engrossed in the drama of the moment – and utterly terrified, all of them wondering if what this fierce stranger intended next would directly touch them.
Fixing them with sharpened eyes, Aram pressed them. “Who lied? – Rahm Imrid or Hurack Soroba? Speak.”
Silence fell once more and thickened inside the hall.
After a time, during which Aram watched them in silence, ignoring Rahm, one of the councilors cleared his throat and stood. This man was strongly built, of average height, with short, thick, black hair and a short beard of the same color. He drew in a deep breath, shot one quick glance down the hall at Rahm, and then addressed Aram.
“I do not know you, sir, nor do I know what you intend here today as it concerns me and my fellows on the council. But this I will say, whatever happens to me – Rahm Imrid murdered his brother.” The man looked again toward the High Prince, drew in another breath, and plunged on. “Understand – I have no regard for Hurack Soroba. He was as vile a man as ever walked the earth. But if he says that Rahm was complicit in the death of Waren and his family, I believe him, for I have thought this for some time without proof or witness.”
“Who are you?” Aram asked the man.
“I am Kavnaugh Berezan, head of House Berezan.”
Aram turned to face him and watched him closely. “Do you know Marcus, son of Waren?”
Berezan nodded. “I know him, sir – or at least I did, before he disappeared.” He cast a dark scowl in the direction of the High Prince. “I have often wondered if Rahm Imrid has slain him as well.”
Aram nodded. “More than just you have shared that fear.” He turned back to face the gallery straight on and let his gaze move among the other councilors. “Tell me,” he said. “How many of you believe Rahm Imrid to be innocent in the deaths of Waren Imrid and his family? I will accept your silence as belief in his guilt.”
Silence fell and lengthened.
None spoke or rose to defend their ruler in the face of the tall, dangerous “Lord of the North”.
Aram pivoted away from them and faced the throne.
Rahm Imrid’s features were ashen. While Aram’s attention was focused upon the gallery of councilors, the High Prince had feverishly searched his mind for some means of extricating himself from the alarmin
g situation into which he had been placed but had found nothing. The rat was back in the corner of his hole and the attention of the serpent had fallen full upon him once more.
Aram walked slowly, deliberately, toward him, making the High Prince flinch and attempt to meld with the high back of his throne.
“It seems,” Aram stated softly as he stalked toward Rahm Imrid, “that none of your closest advisors believes you innocent of murder.” He held up his hand, cutting off Rahm’s protestations. “You have been adjudged guilty by those that know you best.”
He halted five feet from the bottom of the steps below where Rahm tried desperately to slink back into the recesses of his throne. “But hear this – I do not hereby condemn you for the murder of your brother, in which I have no doubt you were complicit,” Aram told him. He shook his head and his voice became quieter. “Nor do I condemn you for the crimes committed in your name against your own people in the towns and villages of Basura. All those things are the province of others.”
At this, a tiny measure of hope seeped into Rahm Imrid’s eyes, replacing an equally small bit of the terror that had taken up residence there.
Aram continued to watch him, resisting the urge to look back toward Marcus, still fully armored and as yet unrevealed, standing by the door. “As Prince Marcus recently reminded me, this land has its own laws – laws to which I am not subject and which I may not enforce. And I accept that judgment.”
With this declaration, the High Prince sat up a bit straighter. Desperate hope began to brighten the dark corners of his face. His eyes narrowed toward normal size and a hint of the old shrewdness showed in their depths.
Aram’s next words dashed it all. “That for which I condemn you is perhaps not worse than those particular crimes, but it afflicts the world at large in a most despicable manner.”
He moved forward and came to the bottom of the steps that led up to the throne. His eyes hardened further, making Rahm Imrid shrink away from him. “I condemn you for the enslavement and the deaths of thousands of the daughters of Elam – lives you sacrificed willingly that Manon the Grim might increase his vile minions and you could rule this land in the stead of a much better man than you have ever been – your brother.”
Kelven's Riddle Book Five Page 8