Seven Sorcerers: Book Three of the Books of the Shaper

by John R. Fultz

  She spoke his name and embraced him heartily. There was no longer any heat or passion between them. It was the embrace of a sister, not a wife or lover.

  “Why have you come?” she asked him.

  Her eyes said: Please do not say that you have come for me.

  “I need to speak with Iardu,” he said. “I must know the truth once and for all.”

  Sharadza sighed and led him into a courtyard beyond the gate. The trees here were full of tiny, domed huts like oversized beehives. Chattering monkeys pale as clouds darted in and out of them. A lion creature with the head of a beautiful girl watched D’zan and Sharadza approach the doors of the citadel, petite wings fluttering on its tawny back. What other strange beings lived in the Shaper’s domain? D’zan could not begin to guess. The scents of the wild garden were overpowering: citrus, jasmine, vanilla, starberry, and a hundred others he could not name. He became dizzy amid the mélange of exotic fragrances.

  Sharadza sat beside him on a stone bench before a gurgling fountain carved into the shapes of impossible creatures. “Iardu is not here,” she said. “He has not returned from… wherever he has gone.” Her voice was tinged with sorrow. Yet it was obviously a sorrow she had lived with for some time, not some fresh wound. D’zan could always read her moods.

  With careful words she explained to him what he had not understood after the siege of Uurz. The Shaper had sacrificed his own living heart to work a spell that turned the invaders away from the Five Cities and sent them back to their side of the world in peace. Yet it had done far more than that.

  “Iardu changed their hearts with the power of his own,” Sharadza said. She told him more, but D’zan could not understand exactly what the Shaper had done. Only that he had apparently given up his life to save the Five Cities and create peace between the two sides of the world.

  “Are you telling me the Shaper is dead?” he asked.

  “Iardu cannot truly die,” Sharadza said. “One day he will return.”

  “When will that be? I must know the truth of what he told me.”

  “I do not know when,” she said. “He has gone beyond my power to reach him.”

  “Then why do you stay here alone?” he said. “Come to Yaskatha, or return to your family in Udurum. Surely either would be better than this isolation.”

  Sharadza shook her head. “I wait for him.”

  He tried once more to sway her.

  “I wait for him,” she said again.

  He gave up and accepted her offer of food and drink. Now that he was on solid ground again, his appetite had returned. The inter ior of Iardu’s manse was as opulent as any palace. The dining hall was thick with ancient silk hangings in colors of mauve, ochre, and gold. D’zan ate roasted fowl and drank an entire bottle of amber Uurzian wine. The lion-lady sat upon a purple rug in the next room. D’zan sensed that the creature was watching over Sharadza. Perhaps it was a specimen of some lost race that Iardu had preserved in his sanctuary. Or the Shaper himself might have created the beast specifically to guard his house.

  “What is this truth you seek?” Sharadza asked.

  He put down the cup of wine and swallowed a mouthful of meat. He laid his hand upon hers, and the words came tumbling out of him.

  “Iardu told me about the nature of this body that you and he created for me. If not for its magic, I would be dead many times over. He told me I will not sicken or age. Yet he also told me that my children would be normal. Human.”

  Sharadza blinked. Her hand twitched beneath his own.

  He understood her enough to know what these small things meant.

  “You are not barren, are you?”

  She said nothing.

  “I must know,” he said. The wine had loosened his tongue, and he let the words spill forth. “I look at my son and I do not see myself in him. I remember your pain and my accusation, and it tears me apart. You must know as Iardu knew. Is Theskalus my son? Can I have a son? I must know the truth now or I will go mad. It is why I have come all this way, sailing every league in the shadow of nightmares. I will not leave this place without an answer.”

  Sharadza took a deep breath and turned away from his eyes. “You cannot father children in this body,” she said. Her voice was only a whisper.

  Gods of Earth and Sky, I knew it. Somehow I knew it.

  “Then… Theskalus is not mine?”

  Sharadza shook her head.

  “I could not tell you,” she said. “I wanted to spare you pain. D’zan, I am sorry.”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. The lion-lady sprang up but did not advance. Her eyes were upon D’zan, yet she was a civilized creature.

  “No,” he said. The tears began to fall and he did not try to stop them. “I am the one who must apologize. I blamed you for not giving me an heir. I let this ruin our love, when all the time it was my own fault. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “I already have,” she said.

  They kissed then, but he did not remember moving toward her. The kiss was a tender one, but she broke it first and moved away from him.

  “Come back with me,” D’zan said. “Cymetha is not fit to be Queen. You are the only one I love. Let me fix my terrible mistake.”

  Sharadza shook her head again, and her black curls shuddered.

  She dabbed at her eyes with a silken napkin. “Please try to understand,” she said. “I do love you. But I am waiting for Iardu.”

  D’zan could not finish the fine meal. Sharadza held him in her arms for a while, and they said nothing. She knew Cymetha was unfaithful, but she chose not to tell me. She took the blame to spare me the reality of my impotency.

  Theskalus is not my son.

  And I will never produce an heir.

  D’zan rose from the table at last and emptied his wine cup. “I came to learn the truth from Iardu, but you have given it to me. I thank you.”

  “Wait,” Sharadza said. “Your voyage was long, and your men are weary. Stay here a few days at least. There is room.”

  “I cannot,” D’zan said. “The longer I am near to you the more I will want you, and the more I will hate myself for what I did to you. To both of us. Yet I am grateful. You have given me a precious gift today, as you once gave me the gift of life inside this body. I may not have a son to bear my crown, but I still live to sit upon my father’s throne.”

  “What will you do?” she asked, one hand on his chest. She meant about Theskalus. Yaskathan tradition did not allow for illegitimate offspring among royal bloodlines. Women and children had been put to death many times over the issue. D’zan knew now how those betrayed Kings of history must have felt. He could not imagine spending another night with Cymetha, or holding Theskalus in his arms ever again. Yet he would have long days of sailing ahead of him. Plenty of time to decide the fate of the liar and her spawn.

  My father would have them both killed without another thought.

  Trimesqua had been a Warrior King, with a warrior’s ruthless nature.

  “I do not know,” D’zan told Sharadza. He did not want her to bear any guilt for the death of a faithless trollop and a bastard child.

  I will do what must be done. As all Kings must do.

  He left her standing at the top of the sea-stained stairway and rowed back to the ship with a few hours of daylight remaining. Sharadza waved as the Cointosser raised its sail and glided from the cove. Andolon and the crew had not questioned D’zan’s orders for an immediate departure. They saw the look on his face and knew that a King’s worries were not theirs to share.

  There were no storms as they left the isle behind. The sorcery that kept ships away from Iardu’s domain must have been configured to assault only approaching ships. Or perhaps Sharadza spread her own magic across the sea to ensure D’zan’s safe departure. He sat in the shuttered cabin and drank Andolon’s wine until he passed out.

  Over the next few days the King rarely emerged from his cabin. He refused the company of Andolon, Hammon, and the minstrel. He drank and read the pa
ges of Lyrilan’s book until his eyes grew bleary and his head was too full of wine vapors to continue. The nightmares of marine slaughter returned, but they were distant and blurred now. He was unsure if this was the wine’s effect or the result of his new concerns. The weight of what he must do pressing on his soul before he even gave the order.

  Bastards cannot be Kings.

  A King must have an heir.

  D’zan could not unravel the knot in his mind, and his anger grew like a sickness inside his non-human heart. He shouted visitors away from his cabin door and refused the company of anyone but the guard who brought him fresh bottles of wine. This man visited him often.

  Mumbaza came and went upon its bone-bright cliffs.

  D’zan was lost in a dark dream of flame and smoke when the shouts of men and clanging metal eventually roused him. The wooden deck rumbled with the thundering of booted feet. The voices of sailors and soldiers mingled into a violent cacophony. The sounds of a battle outside the cabin door were unmistakable, and the scent of burning sails filled D’zan’s nostrils.

  Still drunk, his head pounding, D’zan took up his greatsword and staggered out of the door onto the middle deck. Black, ragged shapes rushed about him, driving silver sabres into the bodies of crewmen and dueling with the skilled Yaskathan guards. The main sail had been set ablaze by a half-dozen flaming arrows.

  Along the starboard rail of the Cointosser sat a black Khyrein reaver flying a tattered crimson sail without insignia. The free-blood banner of pirates. The immersion into carnage sobered D’zan instantly. Before he could raise his voice to rally the ship’s defenders, a grinning pirate rushed at him with a curved blade raised high.

  D’zan caught the downstroke against his greatsword. The pirate was not a Khyrein, but a Jade Islander. His eyes were squinted with bloodlust, his brown face marred by scars and open sores. He screamed something in the dialect of Ongthaia, but D’zan did not understand it. Most likely a curse.

  “Protect the King!” someone shouted. The middle deck was a forest of clashing blades beneath a canopy of black smoke.

  D’zan’s greatsword cleaved his attacker from shoulder to breast-bone. The brigand went down howling. The decks were already lathered in blood, littered with bodies and piles of slippery entrails. D’zan’s arcing blade took the head of another charging pirate. The raiders were clumsy fighters, used to preying on those that feared them.

  Yudun the Minstrel lay dying not far from where D’zan stood blinking. The singer’s throat was sliced from ear to ear. Men died every second that D’zan hesitated. The pirates had killed a dozen men already, and now they outnumbered the Yaskathans. D’zan leaped recklessly into the fray, catching a glimpse of Andolon fighting for his life atop the foredeck.

  The greatsword that bore the mark of the Sun God cut men down like a great scythe. The points of curved daggers and rusty sabres bit into D’zan’s flesh, slicing deep cuts into his chest and back. He ignored them all, knowing that each wound would heal. He could not die at the hands of Men, and certainly not from the blades of diseased vagabonds. He had stood against the Manslayers of Zyung in their multitudes and stolen hundreds of their lives. These desperate thieves were no match for him. He poured his anger upon them like a poison, slicing through arms and ribcages and knees like summer grasses.

  The fury of D’zan’s assault gave fire to his guardsmen, who shouted his name as they cut down pirates. This in turn inspired the sailors to fight bravely and with confidence. Soon the decks were choked with dead brigands: Khyreins, Jade Islanders, Sharrians, even a few Yaskathan outlaws. The black reaver cut loose its grapples and glided away, the last of its crew no doubt regretting their decision to raid the Cointosser.

  Andolon Silver raised his dripping longblade and shouted a cry of victory. He bled from a deep shoulder wound, but his fierce skill with the sword had kept him alive. Half of the crew was dead, and only three guardsmen were left standing. The Cointosser’s losses were great, but it had survived the boarding.

  If I had not been a sleeping drunkard, I would have fought sooner.

  Some of these men would still be alive.

  How many times must I fail those who serve me?

  D’zan barely heard his name ringing out as sailors rushed buckets of water toward the burning mast and sails. He dropped his filthy blade to the deck and leaned over the nearest railing. His guts rumbled, wanting to spill from his belly into the sea.

  With his eyes on the foaming water, D’zan never saw the shaft that flew from the distant reaver’s deck. Something slammed into his right shoulder, and the arrow struck with a meaty sound. D’zan fell on his left side into a puddle of congealing blood, and he retched. He rolled away from the stench and discovered Andolon lying near, the black-feathered shaft protruding from his chest. The young lord gasped for air.

  He took this arrow meant for me.

  Some pirate aboard the departing ship had heard D’zan’s name and tried to pin the King of Yaskatha with a well-aimed shot. Andolon had shoved him out of the way, but could not avoid the speeding shaft.

  The reaver was too far out now for another shot. D’zan shouted for help. Hammon came running across the smeared planks, crying his brother’s name. D’zan sent him for bandages and wine.

  “Rest easy,” D’zan told Andolon. He examined the arrow. It had sunk deep and pierced the heart. There would be no need for bandages after all. Whether or not D’zan removed the shaft, Andolon would soon be dead.

  “Majesty…” Andolon’s voice was a rasping croak.

  D’zan hushed him. “Don’t try to talk. You are a hero, Lord Andolon. A statue of you will stand forever in my palace courtyard. Bards will sing of your great deed.”

  “No!” Andolon spat blood. He waved away those gathering about him, even his brother. “My words are only for the King’s ears.”

  D’zan poured a bit of wine into Andolon’s mouth and leaned low to hear him.

  “Speak quickly then.”

  “The child,” said Andolon. His eyes burned, drowning in tears. “The boy Theskalus… He is mine. I am his father.” D’zan saw it clearly now, as if a spell of blindness had been washed from him. The face of Cymetha’s child mirrored the face of Andolon. The same blue eyes.

  “You cried out in your sleep,” Andolon breathed. “I heard your pain. Let the lie die with me. Please… Majesty… Forgive me…”

  You gave your life to save mine.

  You could not know that no arrow can slay me.

  You died for nothing. Nothing but loyalty.

  “I already have,” said D’zan.

  Andolon grabbed his King’s hand, sticky with blood. He squeezed it with the last of his strength. “I have loved Cymetha… since we were children,” he wheezed. “I could not forget her when… she went to the palace. I have betrayed you…”

  “And saved me,” said D’zan.

  Let him believe this. It might have been so.

  Andolon smiled through his tears. “You are a great King…” He gasped and coughed blood. His flesh grew paler by the moment. “Promise me… that you will not slay the boy. Exile him… give him to the temples… but let him live.”

  D’zan nodded.

  “Promise me!” Andolon’s red fingers clutched D’zan’s shoulder, the final spasm coming.

  “Theskalus will live,” said D’zan.

  Andolon’s head fell back against the deck. His blue eyes were dull glass.

  D’zan would never know if the young lord heard his promise.

  A King must have an heir.

  The funeral of Andolon Silver was a grand affair, and his statue erected in the palace courtyard was of purest white marble. Cymetha wept as D’zan had never seen her weep. He knew her heart was broken. He comforted her as best he could.

  The following week he conducted the ceremony that raised her officially to the status of First Wife and Queen of Yaskatha. In the years that followed, he would take many more wives. They too would bear him children: sons and daughters who look
ed nothing at all like their royal father. Yet only Theskalus mattered to the masses, for he was the first-born heir to the throne.

  D’zan saw Andolon in the boy more and more as he grew, yet the King never spoke of the young lord to any of his wives or children. One day D’zan would teach Theskalus the ways of the sword, the spear, and the arrow. Yet he would also insist that the brightest of sages tutor the boy in diplomacy, commerce, and philosophy.

  Theskalus would make a clever Prince and a wise King.

  Yaskatha deserved no less.

  23

  The Living Empire

  The contents of the messenger’s scroll made Sungui’s eyes water. His fingers trembled and his female aspect rushed from within to take command of the body. Men should be allowed to weep as openly as women, yet somehow the act always sent his male aspect into hiding as if ashamed of its sorrow. As the metamorphosis finished, she held the ink-scrawled parchment to a candle flame and watched it shrivel.

  The first casualties of enlightenment.

  There were bound to be more.

  Since Sungui had returned from the Land of the Five Cities a year ago, the reformation of the Living Empire had proceeded with hardly an impediment. The millions of families in the Outer and Inner Provinces had been dreaming of such a day, pining for freedom in the midst of oppression, worshipping the old Gods in secret, and praying to them for change. At first Sungui had felt ashamed. Her fellow High Seraphim had never seen this hidden desperation that permeated the empire, never heard the whispers of hope that refused to fade. Yet the shadow of Zyung had blinded all of his servants, even those who stood highest among them.

  News of the Almighty’s death had spread from the Holy Mountain like a storm. A day of fear and dread fell across the Celestial Province, while the Inner Provinces remained quiet and the Outer Provinces held blasphemous celebrations. A fleet of dreadnoughts had traveled to every corner of the empire, and the mere presence of the sky-ships had quelled distant revelries.