Seven Kings

by John R. Fultz

  Two heavy chests rattling on the floor of the carriage contained all that was left of his royal status. The first one held the Books of Imvek the Silent, along with a few fresh quills and rolls of good parchment. The second chest held a fortune in tourmalines, topazes, opals, emeralds, garnets, and other precious stones. Undroth had chosen well the most valuable items from Lyrilan’s personal treasury. Although he was no longer King, he would still live like a monarch wherever he decided to go.

  One piece of jewelry stayed gripped in his hands for that ride, and Undroth could not remove it with soft words or prying fingers. Ramiyah’s necklace of pearls was set with a single great ruby; it was all he had to remind him of her. He moved the pearls tenderly through his fingers, kissed the bright ruby, and at times he even spoke to it. He offered to the stone the apologies that he would never be able to bestow upon his wife. Volomses indulged him, though often Undroth would peer in through the carriage window, braided beard heavy with the dust of the road, and wipe his sweaty face in consternation.

  Lyrilan spoke very little as the carriage pulled them along the Western Road, past villages destroyed by the long drought. Undroth gave out bits of copper and bronze to appease the crowds of beggars, but he did not stop the little caravan often. Lyrilan peered out the window at the brown and yellow fields that were once verdant and prosperous. They passed by like sad dreams sweltering in the heat of day. It seemed the Stormlands were dying.

  Tyro had won the Empire, but it would crumble beneath him. His war would sap the land of its strongest and heartiest men, and the drought would continue to drain the land of everything else. Eventually this realm would all be desert once again, as it was in Dairon’s day. The Desert of Many Thunders would return. All those who survived would have to leave the Stormlands or move to Uurz itself, where overcrowding and starvation had already taken hold of the poorest quarters. These were the problems Tyro and his advisors ignored as they planned for the red game of war. Madness.

  Lyrilan wondered if his own miserable condition was simply part of the madness that infected his homeland. Perhaps a Great Dying had come to the realm, and there would be no escape from it. No escape except, perhaps, for that of an exiled King. He laughed that day in the carriage, imagining himself the last survivor of the dead and decaying Stormlands, yet unable to ever set foot there again. Tyro and his descendants would soon rule a kingdom of dust and bones.

  Dreams of Ramiyah tormented him during those nights on the seaward highway. When there was no inn, or when he wished to keep their presence hidden, Undroth made camp in the dry grasses far off the main road. There Lyrilan’s retinue slumbered beneath the stars, and all the men heard his moaning as he attempted to sleep. He clung to Ramiyah’s necklace and whispered to it when he awoke in the dark, then fell back into dreaming her murder over and over again. He remembered few of these nightmares, but in some of them Tyro executed him before the assembled crowds of Uurz, shearing off his head with a double-bladed axe. From these dreams he awoke calm and full of disappointment. For an instant he thought himself mercifully freed from the burden of living. Volomses ignored his perpetual heavy sighs, enduring them like a patient physician. He prepared boiled herbs and mulled wine to ease Lyrilan’s pain.

  The carriage and its guardians crossed a stone bridge spanning the Western Flow, where a few tiny fishing villages still clung to life. Fishermen pulled catfish from sluggish waters. Not enough to trade for any kind of profit, but nearly enough to feed themselves and their meager families. The river flowed brown and low from its source high in the Grim Mountains. In better days there would be riverboats gliding to and from Murala, trading the river’s bounty for the sea’s riches. Not so in these troubled times.

  Six days on the road brought the Scholar King’s company to the coast, where the hearth smokes of Murala rose to join the flat gray sky. Beyond the unwalled town’s squat towers and peaked roofs lay the blue face of the Cryptic Sea. Ocean breezes carried the scents of brine and roasting fowl along the narrow avenues. Swanships from Mumbaza sat in the harbor alongside slim traders from Tadarum and a few Yaskathan galleys with billowing triple sails. Here the cliffs of the coastline sank low so that the town itself sat directly above the bay with several muddy roads leading directly to the wharves.

  Murala itself was as unremarkable as ever, excepting its colorful blend of peoples and the enticing nature of its tavern girls. Harlots did a brisk trade with the endless parade of seadogs and soldiers passing through the port. Here the drought had less effect on the populace, for the storms of the sea often fell to land. The wells were full, as were the pockets of traders and fishermen. In another twenty years, Murala might grow as large as Uurz itself. In that same time, the City of Sacred Waters might have dwindled to a pile of sacred ruins.

  The sight of the open sea was good for Lyrilan. As the land fell away, so too did the weight that he had borne all the way from Uurz. He stepped from the carriage’s open door and blinked at the sinking sun, letting the immensity of the ocean view wash over him. He ran then into the bustling streets, past the calls of leering strumpets, ignoring the cries of fish vendors, canvas makers, and tanners hawking leather goods.

  Undroth sent three men after him, but they ran slower than Lyrilan due to the weight of mail hauberks and longblades. By the time they caught up to him he was already wading into the white surf, giving himself to the roaring waves that battered against the sand. He might have run on into the deep sea and drowned himself like poor, mad Vod had done decades ago, but one of the soldiers caught him by the shoulders and dragged him back to the beach. He later learned that the man’s name was Haruud, and thanked him for the favor with a jewel from his travel chest. Yet, that day, he only wept and sat mute upon the beach, watching the waves roll in and out. Undroth let him sit there for hours, until the sun went down. Volomses then persuaded him to seek rest at a local inn.

  “We have secured southward passage, Majesty,” the sage told him. “The Sunrider sets sail for Yaskatha tomorrow, after a successful trading venture in Tadarum.”

  “Yaskatha.” Lyrilan repeated the name. It held a fresh meaning for him that night. The spell of the ocean had cleared his head of cobwebs. His heart was still heavy, and the betrayal of his brother was unforgivable. Yet he breathed more easily, and he ate a solid meal of roasted lamb and boiled lobster. Volomses and Undroth took heart from his renewed appetite.

  In the morning they boarded the Sunrider and Lyrilan greeted its captain in the formal manner. The brawny trader bowed low before him, vowing to give safe passage under penalty of his own life. The mariner knew, as most Yaskathans did, that Lyrilan was a close friend of his own King. He introduced himself as Captain S’dyr. His ship’s hold was loaded with ingots of ore and raw steel from New Udurum, both acquired at Tadarum. Also among his cargo was a selection of expensive Uurzian wines taken on at Murala. The captain offered his private cabin to Lyrilan, although Volomses quartered there as well. The sage made himself at home on a pallet of blankets near to the bed where Lyrilan would sleep.

  As the ship cast off and Murala diminished in its wake, Lyrilan stood at the railing with Ramiyah’s necklace, studying the waves and the purple horizon. He prayed to the Gods of Sea, Sun, Earth, and Sky, but not for the blessings of a safe voyage. He prayed for Ramiyah. They had only let him see her tomb once before he fled the city. He had set a bouquet of fresh roses next to the mausoleum door, then guards had escorted him back to his room. That had been his last day in Uurz.

  He ran through a litany of prayers for the dead while stray memories rose like bubbles to the surface of his mind. The day of his marriage, a glorious ceremony of gold and green splendor. Before that, the first time he lay with her in a Yaskathan garden outside D’zan’s palace… the same citadel in which he now sought refuge. Ramiyah’s arrival in Uurz and the foolish way she substituted Yaskathan etiquette for Uurzian protocol, gifting baskets of ripe fruit to the lords and ladies of the court, as if she were a fawning tributary instead of a King’s
wife. He had shielded her from the laughter and pointed remarks of the courtiers who found her rustic ways amusing. She had a giving heart, Ramiyah. Always looking for some way to help with the duties of the realm. Perhaps in two years’ time she had grown bored with the idle life of a northern Queen. He had no doubt she would have made a fine vizier or diplomat.

  It was the warmth of her broad smile that had first drawn his eyes across a hedge purpled with blossoms; that smile won the hearts of every man that met its radiance. He recalled the evening he had proposed to her on the beach below the southern capital. She wept when he asked her to be his Queen; he thought for a moment that she would deny him. Yet they were only tears of joy. She said, “Yes,” and they stood cheek to cheek while the surf pounded at their feet. The ocean was an abyss of watery stars ruled by the moon’s silver reflection.

  Only once had she lost her gentle temper with him. He was assembling notes and journals for The Life of Dairon when she came into his study. One look at her sweet face gone to gray and he knew the pain in her heart. She had endured his isolation and lack of attention while he wrote the previous book–the writing of it had consumed half of their first year of marriage. But this second volume seemed beyond her patience.

  “It is time you produced an heir, Scholar King,” she scolded him. “These books that you are so fond of writing… they will not rule your kingdom when you are gone. Nor will they warm your bed at night!” She turned to storm out of the room, but he caught her by the shoulders.

  “I do not blame you for asking this of me,” he said. “I love you more than any book or jewel or kingdom.” She would not meet his eyes as he explained the importance of Dairon’s biography, how it might create understanding for Tyro and himself. How it would set the tone for the next fifty years of Kingship in Uurz. Not only would it be a testament to his father’s wisdom, it would bond the Twin Kings together as only a father’s love could do. “My father gave me a throne,” he told her. “The least I can give to him is this one last tribute. One more year is all I need to complete what will be my greatest work.” He begged her to understand.

  “You are my King,” she said at last. “And my Lord. I will do as you command.”

  He grimaced. “I do not command you, Ramiyah. I only ask you to believe in me.”

  She met his eyes again. He stared into the deep blue of her pupils, the color of love itself.

  “One more year,” he said. He kissed her forehead, wrapped her hands in his own. “I promise. Then we will have a dozen children if you wish it.”

  She laughed unwillingly and smacked his hand from hers. “You make a fool of me!” But he was winning her over. He grabbed her about the waist and she wiggled away from him. He strove to kiss her lips but she was too quick. She bounded to the door and raised a hand to stay him.

  “You ask me to wait, so I will,” she said. “So too must you wait, Scholar King.”

  He tried to sweep her into his arms, but again she evaded his grasp.

  “Ah-ah,” she said, peering from behind a pillar of glossy stone. “Perhaps if I deny you certain… pleasures… your year will shrink to a few months… or days.” She smiled in mock wickedness.

  He poured wine into crystal cups, but when he turned around she had slipped from the chamber. He dispelled the desire in his loins by drinking deeply of the vintage, and it took him nine days to get her back into his bed. There were many nights when he worked alone until dawn, yet when he came seeking comfort in her arms, she never again denied him. At this point she might have refused the arts of the palace midwives, who taught northern women how to stave off pregnancy with herbs and ancient remedies. She might have fooled him, taken his seed sooner than he had wished. Ultimately, it was a woman’s decision whether or not to use such arts. Even in the absence of them, it still took years for some women to conceive.

  Yet Ramiyah kept her faith and her word: she had waited for him to finish the book. She waited too long, and it was all his fault. Now she would never know the joy of a son, a daughter, or a family. Now she waited only in the realm of the Gods, some mysterious netherworld where only the dead might go. He did not believe the priests of the Grand Temple, who pontificated that loved ones are united in the realms beyond death. Those were only words to comfort simple-minded mourners. If he killed himself to join Ramiyah, he would likely find only oblivion. Not even the greatest of philosophers could prove otherwise. And he had read them all.

  His prayers complete, he kissed the ruby heart of the necklace one last time. Then he cast it far into the churning waters with all his might. Let this precious bauble sink and be lost to Men, as Ramiyah has been lost to the world. Let it linger in the sands of the seabed until the day her death is avenged by my own hand. Let it rejoin the deep earth as an offering to Sea and Sky.

  Only Volomses saw him cast the priceless memento into the sea, but the wise sage said nothing about it.

  Lyrilan spent the first day’s voyage on the deck, lost amid the cries and shuffling of busy sailors. Undroth came to stand near him, and the two of them enjoyed the rolling freedom of the sea. The old warrior did not say much, and Lyrilan was glad of it. Undroth had given up everything he had ever worked for… as had the twelve men under his command. It was a gift Lyrilan could never repay. A silent understanding passed between deposed King and devoted subject.

  Tucked away in the captain’s cabin after sundown, Lyrilan opened the first of the traveling chests. The First Book of Imvek lay dusty and faded beneath his fingertips. He called for a cup of wine, which Volomses hurried to find for him, and began to read. In fact he read more than he slept during that first week at sea, until the weariness of travel and grief finally caught up to him. He studied the esoteric theories and obscure philosophies that lay behind much of sorcery and its demands. He read the exploits of Imvek, the wayward Prince who had left his imperial home in Uurz to search for ancient knowledge. He had found it in the ruined temples of the Southern Isles.

  Unlike Lyrilan’s predicament, Imvek’s exile from the green-gold city was voluntary. Yet soon Lyrilan found himself identifying with the shrewd Prince. Among the tribes of idol-worshipping islanders Imvek discovered the gateway to a lost cache of treasure, the scroll chambers of a kingdom long dead. He spent years studying the lost language of the scrolls, learning from them the precepts of magic, defying the curses that accompanied such knowledge.

  At the first volume’s conclusion, Imvek returned to the islanders and gifted them with jewels pried from the depths of the ruins. He worked small miracles for the tribes, improving their crops, ridding them of the amphibious raiders who came out of the deep sea to plunder the islands. The King of the Southern Isles was a warrior known as Caramong the Great. His grandson would one day unite the islands to wage a war against Yaskatha and its allies. Yet Caramong himself was not as ambitious as his heirs would be. He loved Imvek and wanted to keep him as a bondsman. Yet, seeing how determined the Prince was to regain his homeland, he relented and gave only one condition for Imvek’s safe return to Uurz.

  “You have raided the tombs of our ancestors,” declared Caramong from the steps of his great pyramid temple. “You have learned the secret of powers long forgotten by my people. Our stone Gods do not wish this knowledge spread to our enemies. Therefore, if you leave us, your tongue must stay here, so that you may speak to no one of the great wisdom you carry.”

  For months Imvek lingered, weighing the choice of a simple life among the islanders against a return to the power and prestige of Uurz. He longed to taste the Sacred Waters again, to feel the hot breath of the Desert of Many Thunders on his skin, to see the girl he had left behind and vowed to wed one day. He was the eldest son of his father, so he must return to take the throne. Otherwise there would be civil war and riots when the Emperor died.

  The Prince of Uurz wrote at length about the irony of his situation. The islanders had lost the art of written language, so their King did not understand that Imvek–even tongueless–could still communicate his arcan
e discoveries by means of ink and parchment. For a whole year he brooded on Caramong’s decree, until finally he accepted it.

  The feathered volcano priests drugged him so that he would not feel pain. Then their High Priest cut out his tongue with a knife of steaming obsidian. As soon as he recovered from the mutilation, he bade farewell to the Island King. On his journey back to Uurz, he began writing the first of his six volumes, and that is how the book concluded.

  Discussing the book’s contents with Volomses, Lyrilan found his voice again. He spoke of the sacred power of blood and its relationship to true sorcery. The sage listened with careful intent. Together they recalled the names of the philosophers of old who had confirmed and hinted at the dark truths in Imvek’s work. Ultimately, the Silent One had outsmarted the Island King because knowledge of the islanders’ forgotten magic was passed on to Uurzians in his books. Yet, in another tragic irony, that hard-won knowledge had lain forgotten and disused for centuries.

  Until now.

  While the first of the summer storms rocked the ship, Lyrilan read his way through Imvek’s second volume. This took far longer as the text evolved from narrative to a succession of formulas, recipes, and rituals. At times the book veered off into myth and legend, transcribing the tales of ancient beings and primeval realms whose origins and endings must be understood to provide context for conjurations. By the time Lyrilan finished the second book, the ship had been at sea for seventeen days. He stopped his reading there, turning instead to his quill and parchment. He assembled notes to reconfigure the book’s various truths, translating them in his own way for greater understanding. He scribbled complex formulae and strung together the syllables of enigmatic tongues.