‘Why not?’ she agreed. ‘Don’t take this personally, Porenn, but this project of yours – trying to turn me into a lady – is starting to distract me just a little. Would you believe that yesterday I left my room with only one of my daggers? I think I need some fresh air and stale beer to clear my head.’
Kheva’s mother sighed. ‘Try not to forget everything I’ve taught you, Vella.’
‘I have a very good memory, and I can tell the difference between Boktor and Yar Nadrak. Boktor smells better for one thing.’
‘How long will you be gone?’ Porenn asked the rangy Yarblek.
‘A month or two, I’d imagine. I think we’ll want to go to Yar Nadrak by a roundabout route. I don’t want to announce to Drosta that I’m coming.’
‘All right then,’ the queen agreed. Then she thought of something. ‘One last thing, Yarblek.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m very fond of Vella. Don’t make the mistake of selling her while you’re in Gar og Nadrak. I’d be very put out if you did that.’
‘Who’d buy her?’ Yerblek responded. Then he grinned and skipped out of the way as Vella automatically went for one of her daggers.
Eternal Salmissra looked with some distaste at her current Chief Eunuch, Adiss. In addition to being incompetent, Adiss was slovenly. His iridescent robe was food-spotted, and his scalp and face were sparsely stubbled. He had never, she concluded, been more than an opportunist, and now that he had ascended to the position of Chief Eunuch and felt more or less secure there, he had given himself over to the grossest sorts of debauchery. He consumed staggering quantities of some of the most pernicious drugs available in Nyissa and frequently came into her presence with the vacant-eyed shamble of a sleepwalker. He bathed infrequently, and the combination of the climate of Sthiss Tor and the various drugs he used gave his body a rank, almost rancid, odor. Since the Serpent Queen now sampled the air with her flickering tongue, she could not only smell him but also taste him.
He groveled on the marble floor before the dais, delivering a report on some unimportant matter in a whining, nasal voice. Unimportant matters filled the Chief Eunuch’s days. He devoted himself to petty things, since significant things were beyond his capabilities. With the mindless concentration of a man with severely limited talents, he expanded the trivial out of all proportion and reported it as if it were of earth-shaking importance. Most of the time, Salmissra suspected, he was blithely ignorant of the things that should really be receiving his full attention.
‘That will be all, Adiss,’ she told him in her sibilant whisper, her coils moving restlessly on her divanlike throne.
‘But, my Queen,’ he protested, the half-dozen or so drugs he had taken since breakfast making him brave, ‘this matter is of utmost urgency.’
‘To you, perhaps. I am indifferent to it. Hire an assassin to cut off the Satrap’s head and have done with it.’
Adiss stared at her in consternation. ‘B-but, Eternal Salmissra,’ he squeaked in horror, ‘the Satrap is of vital importance to the security of the nation.’
‘The Satrap is a petty time-server who bribes you to keep himself in office. He serves no particular purpose. Remove him and bring me his head as proof of your absolute devotion and obedience.’
‘H-his head?’
‘That’s the part that has eyes in it, Adiss,’ she hissed sarcastically. ‘Don’t make a mistake and bring me a foot instead. Now leave.’
He stumbled backward toward the door, genuflecting every step or two.
‘Oh, Adiss,’ she added, ‘don’t ever enter the throne room again unless you’ve bathed.’
He gaped at her in stupid incomprehension.
‘You stink, Adiss. Your stench turns my stomach. Now get out of here.’
He fled.
‘Oh, my Sadi,’ she sighed half to herself, ‘where are you? Why have you deserted me?’
Urgit, High King of Cthol Murgos, was wearing a blue doublet and hose, and he sat up straight on his garish throne in the Drojim Palace. Javelin privately suspected that Urgit’s new wife had a great deal to do with the High King’s change of dress and demeanor. Urgit was not bearing up too well under the stresses of marriage. His face had a slightly baffled look on it as if something profoundly confusing had entered his life.
‘That is our current assessment of the situation, your Majesty,’ Javelin concluded his report. ‘Kal Zakath has so reduced his forces here in Cthol Murgos that you could quite easily sweep them into the sea.’
‘That’s easy for you to say, Margrave Khendon,’ Urgit replied a bit petulantly, ‘but I don’t see you Alorns committing any of your forces to assist with the sweeping.’
‘Your Majesty raises a slightly delicate point,’ Javelin said, thinking very fast now. ‘Although we have agreed from the start that we have a common enemy in the Emperor of Mallorea, the eons of enmity between the Alorns and the Murgos cannot be erased overnight. Do you really want a Cherek fleet off your coast or a sea of Algar horsemen on the plains of Cthan and Hagga? The Alorn kings and Queen Porenn will give instructions, certainly, but commanders in the field have a way of interpreting royal commands to suit their own preconceptions. Your Murgo generals might very well also choose to misunderstand your instructions when they see a horde of Alorns bearing down on them.’
‘That’s true, isn’t it?’ Urgit conceded. ‘What about the Tolnedran legions then? There have always been good relations between Tolnedra and Cthol Murgos.’
Javelin coughed delicately and then looked around with some show of checking for unwanted listeners. Javelin knew that he must move with some care now. Urgit was proving to be far more shrewd than any of them had anticipated. Indeed, he was at times as slippery as an eel and he seemed to know instinctively exactly the way Javelin’s fine-tuned Drasnian mind was working. ‘I trust this won’t go any further, your Majesty?’ he said in a half-whisper.
‘You have my word on it, Margrave,’ Urgit whispered back. ‘Although anyone who takes the word of a Murgo – and a member of the Urga Dynasty as well – shows very poor judgment. Murgos are notoriously untrustworthy, and all Urgas are quite mad, you know.’
Javelin chewed on a fingernail, strongly suspecting that he was being outmaneuvered. ‘We’ve received some disquieting information from Tol Honeth.’
‘Oh?’
‘You know how the Tolnedrans are – always alert for the main chance.’
‘Oh, my goodness, yes,’ Urgit laughed. ‘Some of the fondest memories of my childhood come from the times when Taur Urgas, my late, unlamented father, fell to chewing on the furniture when he received the latest proposal from Ran Borune.’
‘Now mind you, your Majesty,’ Javelin went on, ‘I’m not suggesting that Emperor Varana himself is in any way involved in this, but there are some fairly high-ranking Tolnedran nobles who’ve been in contact with Mal Zeth.’
‘That’s disturbing, isn’t it? But Varana controls the legions. As long as he’s opposed to Zakath, we’re safe.’
‘That’s true – as long as Varana’s alive.’
‘Are you suggesting the possibility of a coup?’
‘It’s not unheard of, your Majesty. Your own kingdom gives evidence of that. The great families in northern Tolnedra are still infuriated about the way the Borunes and Anadiles pulled a march on them and put Varana on the imperial throne. If something happens to Varana and he’s succeeded by a Vordue or a Honeth or a Horbite, all assurances go out the window. An alliance between Mal Zeth and Tol Honeth could be an absolute disaster for Murgo and Alorn alike. More than that, though, if such an alliance were kept a secret and you had Tolnedran legions in force here in Cthol Murgos and they received sudden instructions to change sides, you’d be caught between an army of Tolnedrans and an army of Malloreans. That isn’t my idea of a pleasant way to spend a summer.’
Urgit shuddered.
‘Under the circumstances, your Majesty,’ Javelin went on smoothly, ‘I’d advise the following course.’ He began ticking i
tems off on his fingers. ‘One: There’s a vastly diminished Mallorean presence here in Cthol Murgos. Two: An Alorn force inside your borders would be neither necessary nor advisable. You have enough troops of your own to drive the Malloreans out, and we’d be ill-advised to risk any accidental confrontations between your people and ours. Three: The rather murky political situation in Tolnedra makes it extremely risky to contemplate bringing the legions down here.’
‘Wait a minute, Khendon,’ Urgit objected. ‘You came here to Rak Urga with all sorts of glowing talk about alliances and commonality of interests, but now when it’s time to put troops into the field, you back down. Why have you been wasting my time?’
‘The situation has changed since we began our negotiations, your Majesty,’ Javelin told him. ‘We did not anticipate a Mallorean withdrawal of such magnitude, and we certainly didn’t expect instability in Tolnedra.’
‘What am I going to get out of this then?’
‘What is Kal Zakath likely to do the minute he gets word that you’re marching on his strongholds?’
‘He’ll turn around and send his whole stinking army back to Cthol Murgos.’
‘Through a Cherek fleet?’ Javelin suggested. ‘He tried that after Thull Mardu, remember? King Anheg and his berserkers sank most of his ships and drowned his troops by the regiment.’
‘That’s true, isn’t it?’ Urgit mused. ‘Do you think Anheg might be willing to blockade the east coast to keep Zakath’s army from returning?’
‘I think he’d be delighted. Chereks take such childlike pleasure in sinking other peoples’ boats.’
‘He’d need charts in order to make his way around the southern tip of Cthol Murgos, though,’ Urgit said thoughtfully.
Javelin coughed. ‘Ah – we already have those, your Majesty,’ he said deprecatingly.
Urgit slammed his fist down on the arm of his throne. ‘Hang it all, Khendon! You’re here as an ambassador, not as a spy.’
‘Just keeping in practice, your Majesty,’ Javelin replied blandly. ‘Now,’ he went on, ‘in addition to a Cherek fleet in the Sea of the East, we’re prepared to line the northern and western borders of Goska and the northwestern border of Araga with Algar cavalry and Drasnian pikemen. That would effectively cut off escape routes for the Malloreans trapped in Cthol Murgos, block Kal Zakath’s favorite invasion route down through Mishrak ac Thull, and seal off the Tolnedran legions in the event of an accommodation between Tol Honeth and Mal Zeth. That way, everybody defends more or less his own territory, and the Chereks keep the Malloreans off the continent so that we can settle it all to our own satisfaction.’
‘It also totally isolates Cthol Murgos,’ Urgit pointed out the one fact that Javelin had hoped to gloss over. ‘I exhaust my kingdom pulling your chestnut out of the fire, and then the Alorns, Tolnedrans, Arends, and Sendars are free to march in and eliminate the Angarak presence on the western continent.’
‘You have the Nadraks and Thulls as allies, your Majesty.’
‘I’ll trade you,’ Urgit said drily. ‘Give me the Arends and the Rivans, and I’ll gladly give you the Thulls and Nadraks.’
‘I think it’s time for me to contact my government on these matters, your Majesty. I’ve already over-extended my authority. I’ll need further instructions from Boktor.’
‘Give Porenn my regards,’ Urgit said, ‘and tell her that I join with her in wishing a mutual relative well.’
Javelin felt a lot less sure of himself as he left.
The Child of Dark had smashed all the mirrors in her quarters in the Grolim Temple at Balasa that morning. It had begun to touch her face now. Dimly, she had seen the swirling lights beneath the skin of her cheeks and forehead and then had broken the mirror which had revealed the fact to her – and all the others as well. When it was done, she stared in horror at the gash in the palm of her hand. The lights were even in her blood. Bitterly, she recalled the wild joy which had filled her when she had first read the prophetic words, ‘Behold; the Child of Dark shall be exalted above all others and shall be glorified by the light of the stars.’ But the light of the stars was no halo or glowing nimbus. The light was a creeping disease that encroached upon her inch by inch.
It was not only the swirling lights, however, that had begun to consume her. Increasingly, her thoughts, her memories, and even her dreams were not her own. Again and again she awoke screaming as the same dream came again and again. She seemed to hang bodiless and indifferent in some unimaginable void, watching all unconcerned as a giant star spun and wobbled on its course, swelling and growing redder as it shuddered towards inevitable extinction. The random wobble of the off-center star was of no real concern until it became more and more pronounced. Then the bodiless and sexless awareness drifting in the void felt a prickle of interest and then a growing alarm. This was wrong. This had not been intended. And then it happened. The giant red star exploded in a place where that explosion was not supposed to happen; and, because it was in the wrong place, other stars were caught up in it. A vast, expanding ball of burning energy rippled outward, engulfing sun after sun until an entire galaxy had been consumed.
The awareness in the void felt a dreadful wrench within itself as the galaxy exploded, and for a moment it seemed to exist in more than one place. And then it was no longer one. ‘This must not be,’ the awareness said in a soundless voice.
‘Truly,’ another soundless voice responded.
And that was the horror that brought Zandramas bolt upright and screaming in her bed night after night – the sense of another presence when always before there had been the perfect solitude of eternal oneness.
The Child of Dark tried to put those thoughts – memories, if you will – from her mind. There was a knock at the door of her chamber, and she pulled up the hood of her Grolim robe to hide her face. ‘Yes?’ she said harshly.
The door opened, and the Archpriest of this temple entered. ‘Naradas has departed, Holy Sorceress,’ he reported. ‘You wanted to be told.’
‘All right,’ she said in a flat voice.
‘A messenger has arrived from the west,’ the Arch-priest continued. ‘He brings news that a western Grolim, a Hierarch, has landed on the barren west coast of Finda and now moves across Dalasia toward Kell.’
Zandramas felt a faint surge of satisfaction. ‘Welcome to Mallorea, Agachak,’ she almost purred. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
It was foggy that morning along the southern tip of the Isle of Verkat, but Gart was a fisherman and he knew the ways of these waters. He pushed out at first light, steering more by the smell of the land behind him and the feel of the prevailing current than by anything else. From time to time he would stop rowing, pull in his net, and empty the struggling, silver-sided fish into the large box beneath his feet. Then he would cast out his net again and resume his rowing while the fish he had caught thumped and flapped beneath him.
It was a good morning for fishing. Gart did not mind the fog. There were other boats out, he knew, but the fog created the illusion that he had the ocean to himself, and Gart liked that.
It was a slight change in the pull of the current on his boat that warned him. He hastily shipped his oars, leaned forward, and began to clang the bell mounted in the bow of his boat to warn the approaching ship that he was here.
And then he saw it. It was like no other ship Gart had ever seen before. It was long and it was big and it was lean. Its high bowsprit was ornately carved. Dozens of oars propelled it hissing through the water. There could be no mistaking the purpose for which that ship had been built. Gart shivered as the ominous vessel slid past.
Near the stern of the ship, a huge red-bearded man in chain mail stood leaning over the rail. ‘Any luck?’ he called to Gart.
‘Fair,’ Gart replied cautiously. He did not wish to encourage a ship with that big a crew to drop anchor and begin hauling in his fish.
‘Are we off the southern coast of the Isle of Verkat yet?’ the red-bearded giant asked.
Gart s
niffed at the air and caught the faint scent of the land. ‘You’re almost past it now,’ he told them. ‘The coast takes a bend to the northeast about here.’
A man dressed in gleaming armor joined the big red-bearded fellow at the rail. The armored man held his helmet under one arm, and his black hair was curly. ‘Thy knowledge of these waters doth seem profound, friend,’ he said in an archaic form of address Gart had seldom heard before, ‘and thy willingness to share thy knowledge with others doth bespeak a seemly courtesy. Canst thou perchance advise us of the shortest course to Mallorea?’
‘That would depend on exactly where you wanted to go in Mallorea,’ Gart replied.
‘The closest port,’ the red-bearded man said.
Gart squinted, trying to recall the details of the map he had tucked on a shelf at home. ‘That would be Dal Zerba in southwestern Dalasia,’ he said. ‘If it were me, I’d go on due east for another ten or twenty leagues and then come about to a northeasterly course.’
‘And how long a voyage do we face to reach this port thou hast mentioned?’ the armored man asked.
Gart squinted at the long, narrow ship alongside him. ‘That depends on how fast your ship goes,’ he replied. ‘It’s three hundred and fifty leagues or so, but you have to swing back out to sea again to get around the Turim reef. It’s very dangerous, I’m told, and no one tries to go through it.’
‘Peradventure we might be the first, My Lord,’ the armored man said gaily to his friend.
The giant sighed and covered his eyes with one huge hand. ‘No, Mandorallen,’ he said in a mournful voice. ‘If we rip out my ship’s bottom on a reef, we’ll have to swim the rest of the way, and you’re not dressed for it.’
The huge ship began to slide off into the fog.
‘What kind of a ship is that?’ Gart called after the disappearing vessel.
‘A Cherek war boat,’ the rumbled reply came back with a note of pride. ‘She’s the largest afloat.’
‘What do you call her?’ Gart shouted between his cupped hands.
‘Seabird,’ the reply came ghosting back to him.
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