“Styx tried and failed. I’ve read the reports; there’s no way he’d work with us.”
“Perhaps not yet. But he’s the key to ending this when the time’s right. A couple of victories and he’ll be ready to dance to our tune. Then you can send me to negotiate.”
“I can’t do that. Don’t you remember what happened last time?”
“That was different; the justice had already sold me over. She betrayed me, allowing him an easy victory. This time he won’t dare touch me. He’s amoral, not cruel.”
“A faint distinction.”
“Crucial, though. Trust me, I’ll be fine. Anyway, I could meet him on neutral ground; perhaps Malekshei?”
Cyrus found it hard to focus on their conversation and stole a glance at Moirah. She looked stunning as she shuffled into the corner of the sofa, propping herself against the armrest and the back for support. Her eyes shot in their direction at the mention of Malekshei. She must miss the North.
“I’m not sure how neutral Paul will consider Malekshei. After all, the First are our allies.”
Parad nodded. “Perhaps another place then. We’ll figure it out when the time comes.”
Cyrus agreed and Parad touched his shoulder. “It’ll be fine, son.”
“Thanks dad. I know...” Cyrus picked up his courage and blurted out the words he really wanted to say, before he had a chance to change his mind. “…and I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” Parad said, squeezing his son’s shoulder for a moment.
Chamber of Justice, the Capital
Cyrus
Cyrus spent the rest of the day on various meetings at the Chamber. As night fell, his head swam with new information about his realm and the war. He groaned and collapsed onto his chair. Lehmor should come in any minute. He had the night watch, but was late, as usual. It seemed the First had a poor understanding of time. Perhaps a nice whipping would help those lazy bastards focus.
The whisper in his head startled him awake. He had fallen half-asleep in front of the raging fire. The winter had been heavy in the Capital, and even now, although technically spring, the nights chilled a man to the bone. It had been a long day, making him ache for the open fields of the North. If this proved to be a typical justice’s day, Cyrus failed to see the attraction.
David had left a fortnight ago. So far, they had not heard from him. In accordance to his plan, Lehmor and Moirah never left Cyrus alone. They stood their constant watch, ready to thrust their sheimleks into the shadows at the first sign of unusual behaviour. So far, there had been no trouble.
Cyrus’s only regret had been his inability to explain about the Whispers to his father. “Son, I believe in enemies I can see and fight, not in fairy tales,” had been the old man’s dismissive response. He had at least accepted his son’s apology, although Cyrus knew that forgiving was not the same as forgetting, and his harsh words had cut the old man deeply. Perhaps his inability stemmed for the fact he no more than half-believed David’s tales himself. He could still not decide if he or the Old Woman were crazier.
Still, he often felt confused, opposing emotions rushing through him. It will pass, he thought he heard Parad’s voice in his head tell him. A smile flickered on his lips, his mind returning to the childhood memory of a warm summer, every afternoon spent training in the courtyard. Cyrus had attempted yet another failed attack at Parad.
“Relax and hold your focus,” the old man had said.
“I can’t. My legs ache. I can’t lift my arms. I can’t.”
“It will pass,” his father had said with a set smile.
A few weeks later, he had finally managed to unbalance his father, throwing him to the ground.
“Best day of my life,” he had declared.
“It will pass,” Parad had replied as he got up to dust off his clothes.
Once again, Cyrus wondered what his life would have been like, had Styx not intervened. He still failed to understand her. David had once explained that the Whispers use one’s fears to corrupt one into hate and despair. According to him, Styx was not a monster, just a confused woman who genuinely believed she did the right thing. Cyrus failed to understand this; how can any sane person have a young boy killed and fed to his father? David had theorised she felt safer that way, but even he had seemed unconvinced by the explanation.
The prospect of him going down that road terrified Cyrus. He could not recognise himself sometimes; watching himself do things he knew were wrong, but unable to stop himself. It reminded him of his first drink in the Marshes. He had kept drinking until he got drunk. He had a clear recollection of the feeling; it had been the same sensation of knowing you could stop yourself if only you tried hard enough, yet being unable to do so.
The memory put a smile on his face. Living with the First had been simple. No-one had dared make him feel unwelcome, risking the Old Woman’s wrath. He had made many friends, but none as close as Lehmor, Moirah and David. Are they really your friends, though? Or did they merely tolerate you, laughing behind poor Pukey’s back? He tried to ignore the strange thought and concentrate on his feelings for them. Since returning to the Capital, his head often felt light and tonight the feeling seemed at its worst. Everything seemed foggy and out of focus.
So… what are my feelings for them. He liked the big oaf that had saved his life more than once and his guts clenched at the memory of the first night they had met. He had also seen Moirah for the first time that night. Although he sometimes dreamed of her in terms other than simple friendship, he dared not mention this to anyone, least of all Lehmor. Sometimes he thought she might feel the same, but had never discussed it with her.
He placed his hands behind his head and leaned back on his chair, trying to fight the strange drowsiness. For a moment the whole room hummed, a deep, almost imperceptible throb that confused him, giving everything a dream-like quality. He turned to gaze at Moirah, sitting next to him, half asleep on a large armchair. He watched her with eager, hungry eyes, and not for the first time noticed admiringly her firm body and pretty face. The tattoos on her chest and arms reflected the flames in the fire, making her at the same time fierce and cuddly, like a wild animal that you squeeze in your arms, despite knowing it could kill you with a swipe. His gaze travelled up her body, caressing her pleasant curves, until their eyes met. A thin smile crept on her lips and she licked them, as he blushed and lowered his gaze.
“Are you enjoying your Capital?” she asked him.
The simple question gave him pause. “I miss the Marshes.”
She studied the wooden beams criss-crossing above their heads. “I still don’t know how Newcomers can sleep under roofs.”
He followed her gaze. He, too, missed sleeping under the stars, hearing the thick canvas flap in the strong, cold winds of the North. “They offer protection,” he said, leering at her.
“People offer protection, not walls,” she said, stretching cat-like on her armchair.
His heart thumped as he stroked every curve of her body with starving eyes. Never had she seemed so desirable to him. He forgot all about Lehmor as their eyes locked.
To his surprise, the same passion burned in her eyes. Slowly, seductively, she slid under the armchair and onto the floor to crawl towards him on all fours. He tried to stand up, but his body refused to obey, sliding instead to meet her on the thick rug in front of the fire. No woman had ever looked as pretty to him as she did right then. His heart nearly stopped as their lips met and their mouths melted into each other. This is wrong, stop! He ignored the voice inside his head as the room spun around them. His senses on fire, his eyelids fluttered shut and he darted his tongue into her mouth to savour the sensation. She tasted sweet and intoxicating; he could not break that kiss if he tried. Instead, he drew her deeper in his arms, their bodies melting into a hungry embrace.
He undressed her clumsily with trembling fingers, and stood back to admire her firm body. The flames dancing on her naked flesh drove him insane with desire. He had had many girls before,
but never had he experienced anything like this. His whole body quivered as he approached her, then lost himself in her. He dove deep into her, their flesh soon entwined in one aching, passionate spasm of pleasure that seemed to last forever.
He had no idea how long they lay there, time having stopped just for the two of them. The fire had almost died by the time he opened his eyes again, to see Lehmor standing in front of them like a statue made of ice. He drew back in horror.
Moirah rubbed the sleep from her eyes with one hand, covering a yawn with the other. “Lehmor? What’s wrong?” she mumbled, grabbing Cyrus’s arm. Then she gasped and pulled away, as she realised what had happened. Her eyes darted around the room to meet Lehmor’s frozen gaze, burning with a cold fire that made her shiver. She clasped the rug and pulled it around her to cover up.
Without a word, Lehmor spun around and bolted outside.
“No,” she yelled into the empty air. “Lehmor, no!”
None of them noticed the sheimleks on the chairs, still in their sheaths, blue lights travelling along the ornate grooves of the silvery cylinder.
Lehmor
Lehmor thumped the wooden table in front of him with his remaining hand. “More,” he ordered. The barman ignored the drunken First. Although everyone in the Capital had heard of their new ruler’s one-armed companion, the barman doubted this could be him. The dimly lit, seedy tavern seemed a strange place for such an honoured guest.
“May I see some silver first?” he growled, leaning towards the inebriated First.
Lehmor frowned for a second, trying to focus, then reached into his pocket for the first thing he found there. He took out his Sheimlek.
“Here, have this,” he said and banged the cold metal of the hourglass on the wooden table.
The barman gaped at it, his brow furrowing. Lehmor read the man’s thoughts in his face. If this was the strange weapon people talked about, it would be worth a lot in the right hands. It could also bring a man trouble, and lots of it. Memories of Styx’s rough justice were still fresh in everyone’s mind, and no-one knew what sort of ruler Parad’s boy would turn out to be. The barman raised his shoulders and left, stealing hungry glances at the finely engraved cylinder with the eerie light blue glow. Lehmor chuckled as he put it back into his pocket.
A large hand landed on the barman’s shoulder, and he turned to see another First. This one had a bear’s claw on a string around his neck. It seemed oddly appropriate; the man himself looked more bear than human.
“The man said he wanted more wine,” he growled.
The barman was not easy to scare, though. He had obviously seen enough trouble in his life to know that when no one foots the bill, that’s because you will.
“Who pays for his tab?” he asked staring daringly into the man-bear’s eyes. A thin smile played on the man’s lips as he plonked a silver coin on the table.
The barman took the money and shook his head. He returned with a full tankard and a second wooden cup, which he filled before returning to his bench, muttering under his breath how dawn approached and he wished everyone would leave already and let him catch some sleep.
“We won’t be long,” the bear shouted after him.
Lehmor’s gaze had frozen on the claw on the man’s neck. “That’s a bear’s claw,” he said in a slurred voice.
The stranger followed Lehmor’s eyes. “Yes,” he said.
“No one may wear a bear’s claw,” protested Lehmor. “Not unless…”
The stranger finished his sentence for him. “Not unless you are a member of the Bear clan.” He bowed theatrically. “Stripet, last of the Bear clan, at your service.”
Lehmor jumped to unsteady feet. “I won’t drink with a traitor,” he shouted. “A servant of the Shei-ka-zuul. You’re worse than the Fallen. Worse!”
He tried to take a swing at Stripet, only managing to lose his balance and smash his head on the table with a loud bang before slipping onto the stone floor. Stripet chuckled and picked him up, throwing him on his shoulder with ease.
“What was that all about?” the barman behind him asked.
“You really want to trouble yourself with Ape history?”
Lehmor tried to protest, but the barman shook his head and Stripet fished another coin out of his pocket. “For your troubles,” he said as he tossed it, before vanishing into the lightless alley.
May 3, Parad
He had not realised how much he had missed her, but all his feelings rushed back as soon as he laid eyes on her. She seemed even prettier to him than last time. Perhaps her victorious command enhanced her beauty with a self-confidence that he found irresistibly sexy.
He shared the audience hall’s front row with the rest of the top brass, watching her walk down the long corridor to present Cyrus with her official report. The same corridor where his son had not so long ago confronted Styx. Pride swelled in his chest for a moment. His son, ruler of the Capital, waiting to debrief Parad’s victorious… what? What was Gella to him? My little moth-bee, he chuckled.
He realised he had no easy way of describing his feelings towards her. For a moment he thought he caught a whiff of lavender and citrus, his mind rushing back to their time together in Petria. A wistful smile crept on his face at the memory as his heart skipped a beat. He wanted her to be his everything: wife, mistress, lover and friend. She made him feel safe like a mother, and he always felt protective of her, like a daughter. Having never experienced this before, he enjoyed the sweet confusion. His relationship with Marta had been much simpler; he had loved her with all his heart, and she had been his strength whenever he had needed her. Until Cyrus’s death of course; that had proved more than she could handle. A wave of sadness washed over him, surprising him; if there had been any anger and recrimination in his heart at some point, these were long gone.
The men and women around him rose, interrupting his thoughts. Gella drew his attention, head bowed as she presented Cyrus with an e-lib. Parad knew this included a full report of everything that had happened during her brief southern campaign. He remembered numerous similar occasions, when he had been the one to offer the report. The last time the crowd had been so large, they had performed the ceremony in the Justice Square. The people had roared his name for hours, and he had glimpsed the unmistakeable hint of fear and envy in Styx’s eyes.
He examined Cyrus to decipher his feelings, but Gella stood between them, masking his son’s face. Parad worried about him lately. All his life, Parad had followed the advice of his own father; that the good soldier was not hot-tempered. Is Cyrus a good soldier? He wished he knew. It was as if he had met two different men since being rescued. The first, the brave young man who had saved him, the boy with the bright eyes on the deck of the ship escorting him to safety. The days they had spent getting reacquainted on board, along with the time spent together afterwards, helping move the tribes to Malekshei, were among the happiest in his life. His son’s accomplishments filled Parad with pride; he had been astounded by the way the First Elders respected him, only comprehending it after they had told him of Cyrus’s unlikely victory against an army of Fallen. He heard many tales of these strange creatures, but seeing their skulls with his own eyes in Malekshei had been strikingly different. He had gaped speechless at them for a long time, shivering from the cold malice their empty eye sockets seemed to exude even in death.
Then, they had returned to the Capital. Cyrus’s behaviour there troubled him, and his three companions had disappeared since yesterday. His son had been evasive when asked about it, but Parad understood that something had happened between him and the two First. He had no idea what; perhaps Lehmor was simply jealous of Cyrus’s stellar rise to the top. He assumed that Moirah had left to be with her husband. Are they even coming back?
Then, there was David… Parad felt a strange fondness for this curious young man, if anything because David’s narrow escape from Styx reminded him of Cyrus’s similar fate. It was more than this, though; he could feel the boy’s devotion to his
son. He had already heard how David had saved his son’s life during the battle in Malekshei. Cyrus seemed to take it all for granted, but Parad knew better.
So why had David left now? They said he sought help from a First shaman they called the Old Woman. Parad had no idea what sort of help an old woman might be able to offer them, but years of warfare had taught him two things; that one does not turn away help lightly, and that aid often comes where least expected. The First could be made into a formidable army, he knew, and he welcomed anything that ensured their allegiance. Not that he expected any problems, but again his experience had taught him that trouble always comes when least expected.
The first mistake, of course, had been Cyrus killing Styx. Parad had made him swear the night before that he would capture her alive. To lead you must first learn to follow, and his son had proven poor at this. Parad understood, even shared his son’s thirst for vengeance, but the killing had been a mistake. Despite everything, the Harpy had been part of a status quo, unchanged for centuries.
Young men like Cyrus failed to see this, but no-one rules alone. An invisible power structure lies behind every ruler; Cyrus’s rash decision could have lost them everything, had that structure turned against them. As a soldier, Parad preferred to ignore the politics in the Capital, and had but little knowledge of the various factions that always form around power. A prime example sat a few seats to his right: a big, bald woman. On the surface a simple Themis priestess, but why did she sit in the front row?
The people around him slumped back to their chairs, and he mimicked them. He noticed the sycophantic clerk at the foot of Cyrus’s seat; at least he had dissuaded his son from making an even greater mistake. At first, Cyrus had wanted to clear out the old regime, as he called it. Parad recognised this as an emotional decision that would jeopardise everything. In the end, he had persuaded him that fear served a ruler better when combined with gratitude. Making it clear that everyone would keep their position made Cyrus seem magnanimous. Making it equally clear that this decision might be rescinded at a moment’s notice made people conscientious and loyal.
Pearseus Bundle: The Complete Pearseus Sci-fi/Fantasy Series Page 27