Elad was under no compulsion to justify his decision to his council; his edict was purely an imperial matter. The decision did not directly affect the military, which was anciently a concern of members of the Priton Nobility. The bankers and business representatives were naturally involved in mercantile interests, but those were not in immediate danger; Lord Thomo, of course, was already in the Holy City addressing those specific concerns and, meantime, trade had actually improved since the Salukadian takeover of western Erusabad. The public funds and assemblies and organizations represented by the Priton Common Administration were not in jeopardy simply because the king wished to send his wife on such a boat trip. The crown’s authority prevailed in matters of ambassadorship and international relations as well as in those affecting the Imperial Treasury.
Nevertheless, as the awareness of the king’s audacious plan began to settle in the minds of those few councilors present, one of them—Lord Oslin—lifted his hand for permission to take the floor.
Elad, from his throne dais, regarded him critically. “Anything you have to say, Lord Oslin, cannot affect my decision.”
“True, King Elad. But I should like to go on record with a statement concerning your proclamation.”
Elad could not refuse him that. “Speak.”
Oslin bowed his head and stood, moved from his seat and walked around the long stone table of the Nobility, saluted his king with the gesture of respect, and faced his fellow councilors.
“I should like to declare, and have it so recorded by the scribe, that while I am in agreement with our king concerning the need to improve our relations with the Salukadian Empire, I do not think that now is the proper time for us to do more than negotiate trade privileges—which envoys already sent to Erusabad are engaged in. Nor do I consider our queen, nor any member of the royal family, whatever their other merits or abilities, suitable representatives to visit the eastern empire at this time. I believe we should begin this process more slowly, make certain of mutual guarantees, and have our current ambassadors come to certain terms with the Salukadians before anyone from the Imperial House, for any reason whatsoever, sets foot on eastern soil.” Oslin turned to face Elad. “I say this from my heart, wishing only the best for the future of our empire.”
Elad nodded succinctly and told him, “I respect your feelings, Lord Oslin. Thank you.” He answered the councilor’s salute, then addressed his assembly. “If you gentlemen and lords will now permit me—”
“I would like to make a protest!” came a loud voice from the rear of the Nobility.
A heavy silence gripped the chamber; as calmly as he could, Elad looked in Ogodis’s direction.
“The Imbur of Gaegosh,” he said tensely, “is a guest in this hall, but he has no voice in our affairs, nor any voice in this decision.”
“You are sending my daughter,” Ogodis yelled, rising, “into the jaws of a—”
“Sit down, Imbur!”
“—into the jaws of a dragon that will only—”
“I said, sit down, Imbur!”
“You are deliberately risking an international situation simply to glorify your own—”
“Guards!” Elad yelled, looking away.
“—glorify your own ambitions to—”
“Guards!” Elad howled, fisting one side of his throne. He stared at his lap and refused to look either at Ogodis or at his councilors.
“Why do you think that any ‘good will’ will mollify a dragon that obviously—”
The heavy sounds of boots filled the hall as the Khamars positioned at the entry doors opened them and called for the services of their brothers in the outer corridor. Four from the main foyer entered and saluted King Elad.
“If you will please,” he ordered with barely restrained fury, “escort the Imbur of Gaegosh from this hall.”
The Khamars moved toward him.
Ogodis held his ground, slamming his fist on the table, glaring at Elad, and continuing to yell at him for the few moments left him. “You are jeopardizing my daughter’s—your wife’s!—very life by sending her straight into the house of these barbarians, simply because of trade rights and your fears that—”
“Peace, Imbur!” Elad yelled at him, unable to withstand any more. “Do you recall what you said about peace?”
“I will not have my—”
Two Khamars carefully took hold of his arms. “Your crown.”
Ogodis did not fight them but continued railing as they led him from the table, his face purple and damp, his head turned to keep his eyes on the king. “If you think any good can come of extending an open hand to these savages—”
“Will you be a man about it?” Elad suddenly shouted, rising from his seat and glaring at his father-in-law. “Can’t you let her out of your sight even for one day, Ogodis?”
“Mark me! Mark my words, Athadians! He will—”
And then he was removed outside the door and led into the corridor, while those Khamars who remained in the chamber pulled the great doors closed.
Shaking, Elad sat again, rubbed his aching forehead, stared at his councilors, and then looked beyond them to the overcast day showing through the high, open windows. “Gentlemen,” he began—but then said no more.
He turned to his scribe. “You will strike all that passed between me and the imbur.”
“Your throne, I have written nothing since Lord Oslin’s statement.”
Elad smiled weakly at him. “Good,” he said. “Good.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Last summer; before Yta had left to return to Hea Isle, she had presented Galvus with a memento of his murdered uncle: a small gold locket that the queen had had made for Dursoris at his birth. Not intrinsically any more valuable than an ordinary, well-crafted locket, it contained inside it a small ivory cameo of Lady Orain, which Dursoris had secretly commissioned from one of the palace artisans. Galvus, aware at the moment his grandmother gave him the locket of just how important Dursoris’s feelings had been for Orain, promised to keep it with him always: as a reminder both that true love actually exists in the world and that his Uncle Dursoris, slain by his own father, had been a voice for justice and responsibility in the Imperial House.
This afternoon, as he watched the commencement of his father’s execution, Galvus removed the locket from his vest and held it tightly in his right hand.
A scaffold had been erected that morning in the western courtyard, just beyond the palace gardens. The three streets leading into the Fountain Square, which sat across from the courtyard, were heavily guarded by long lines of city soldiers and Khamars on horseback. Elad had allowed the public to witness the execution, but he had limited their access to the courtyard, fearing a spontaneous reaction—not necessarily because of any sentiments toward Cyrodian himself, but simply because tensions were high. The rising joblessness, the increasing poverty and frustration, the hot, dry summer were potentially violent elements mixed in a simmering cauldron. Despite its acknowledgment that Cyrodian deserved to go to the block, the army had within it many members who still remembered whispered details concerning the events that had brought Elad to the throne; and, as well, there were those in the crowd who were eager to see the murderer of good Queen Yta meet his end with a taste of the violence the queen had suffered. Too, the public had not witnessed anything like this within the memory of anyone still living: the last of the imperial executions in Athad had taken place just after the civil wars. Banishment of royalty had superseded public bloodshed, and the post of imperial executioner had been abolished by King Darion II, Evarris’s great-grandfather.
So the spectacle of Cyrodian’s imperially sanctioned murder, its novelty and the attraction of vengeance, was not lost on the people of Athad, whose appetites had long been whetted by the tamer exhibitions of the arena. Entrepreneurs had started early, just before dawn, charging eager spectators a copper or two for the privilege of sitting atop public buildings that lent clear views of the courtyard below. By the time Elad had dism
issed his brief council meeting that morning, the crowds were swollen in the streets, and hawkers and vendors filled their purses by offering cold water and fresh fruit and skins of beer and wine.
Elad had discussed with Captains Mirsus and Uvars, and with those members of the Congress of Nobility who were on favorable terms with the military’s leaders, the wisdom of allowing high-ranking army officials to witness the ceremonial beheading. Assured by these intermediaries that the army would not in any way interfere with or try to delay the execution, the king had ordered a hundred or so seats made available just within the walls of the courtyard. Now, when Elad led his royal family and observers from Council onto the wide balcony overlooking the western gardens, these army officials stood as one and saluted him in a show of support, as trumpets blared to announce the king’s entrance.
Elad stepped to the balcony wall and, with a lowering of his arm, signaled the Khamars on duty to escort the prisoner from his cell. As they entered the palace, disappearing from view beneath the balcony, another Khamar, dressed in black breeches and vest, his face covered with a long hood, entered the courtyard from a garden gate and crossed the bricks to the scaffolding. As he mounted the wooden stairs, the great axe he carried in one hand bounced in his hand, betraying his corded muscles. This guard’s identity was unknown to anyone, even to King Elad: an extremely complex procedure had been followed wherein twelve Khamars chose colored tiles from sealed boxes, the boxes delivered to each Khamar separately by three different palace servants. None of the Khamars knew which of them had chosen the black tile, for each was ordered to a single, separated cell in various barracks houses throughout the city, in which cell each was to remain until well after the execution. The Khamar whose lot it was to perform the execution had been instructed to follow an elaborate path through the palace and through a secret passageway to an ancillary armory where he would dress and choose a weapon; following the execution, he would return to his cell by the same secret route.
Abgarthis had devised this complex scheme, and Elad had adopted it to ensure that no one involved might feel unnecessary guilt or shame. “It is the state that orders Cyrodian dead,” Abgarthis had said, “not simply the king. And it is not simply one man out of twelve who will slay him; it is every citizen in the empire.”
Standing to Elad’s right on the balcony was Queen Salia, and beside her, the wise Abgarthis. Just behind Abgarthis was a dour Imbur Ogodis. To Elad’s left stood Prince Galvus, beside him, Orain, and to her left, Count Adred. Omos, not eager to witness the violence, stood behind Galvus. Stretching along the balcony on either side of the royal family, two rows deep, gathered the councilors, ministers, and required officials of the state.
Galvus held tightly onto Dursoris’s locket.
Orain gripped Adred’s hand in hers, their clasp hidden by the balcony wall.
As the throngs below swayed and murmured, yelled and laughed, Elad watched the soldiers in the courtyard, then looked out over his city, and remembered many things.
“I’m a man of my word. If he can’t tell what happened, he can’t take it to court. You’re going to be king. I haven’t put in a lifetime of planning to have you back down now!’”
From the heavy clouds high above, a few stray raindrops fell; they splashed on the balcony wall, silent.
“What? Have they named you, brother? Did they discover the blood on your sword?”
Trumpets blared again. A wave of noise flowed backward through the crowd from those nearest the spectacle in the Fountain Square. In the courtyard, the military officers stood at attention.
“Brother—live! I do not want this! I do not want this throne!”
The Khamar escort came out of the palace, leading the bound Cyrodian, only his hair showing above the gleaming crested helmets. The officers of the army saluted the giant and called out, “Hrux! Hrux! Hrux!”
And he remembered the Oracle. “You will take the throne, and none other after you, and you will rule to see everything precious destroyed, every hope ruined, every man and woman wailing in torment.…”
“Hrux! Hrux! Hrux!”
As Cyrodian was led to the steps of the stage, the trumpeter let out another strident blast.
Rain fell softly in breezes upon the crowd.
Cyrodian did not resist as two Khamars walked him up the steps and onto the platform and stood him before the block.
Thunder boomed high above, and heat lightning hissed over the ocean.
Orain gripped Adred’s hand so tightly, he almost felt pain. He glanced at her: tears threatened at the rims of her eyes, but she stared straight ahead. She stared not at Cyrodian but across the city—out to where masts and sails were rocking in the harbor, beyond the city walls.
Another trumpet blast—and an official of the Imperial Court of the Law moved onto the stage, stood before the masked executioner, unrolled a parchment, and read aloud King Elad’s decree.
“For the grievous and unpardonable crimes of fratricide, the conspiracy of matricide, the conspiracy of assassination of the Queen of the Empire and of a Prince of the Empire, his blood kin, for the conspiracy to assassinate the King of the Empire—”
Elad looked down.
Cyrodian was staring at him.
“—his blood kin, this throne hereby declares the prisoner, Cyrodian dos Evarro edos Yta, once Prince General Crescented of the Athadian Empire—”
Elad looked away.
“—to be condemned to death by public execution on the twenty-sixth day of Sath of this year by me, Elad sollos don Athadia, on this date, twenty-sixth Sath in the Age of the Birth of Our Prophet 1879.”
The official looked up, rolled the scroll, cleared his throat, and asked in as loud a voice as he could muster, “Has the prisoner a last statement to make before the decree is complied with?”
Thunder boomed high above. Thousands of eyes in the courtyard and in the streets and from the buildings all around stared at the stage. The rain fell more heavily, wetting Cyrodian’s hair and face and beard, beginning to drip down his tunic and pants. He glanced up at the balcony again, stared at Elad, stared at Galvus and Orain.
Orain sobbed. Overcome, she turned to Adred, threw her arms about him, and dropped her head onto his shoulder.
Adred’s heart stopped. He stared at Cyrodian—
—and the giant trembled. He threw back his head—
“Has the prisoner any last—”
—and laughed like a demon, laughed loudly and forcefully, his tremendous voice carrying up and out from the courtyard, booming as the thunder boomed. Laughed and laughed and laughed.
The official eyed him apprehensively. The hooded Khamar twisted the axe in nervous hands. Was the tension, prolonged and not yet expressed, at last breaking through, a dam before a flood?
Cyrodian half-turned and wriggled his shoulders with difficulty because his arms were tied so tightly behind his back. “Kill me now!” he bellowed to the executioner. “Kill me now, and be done with it! Those are my words!”
Adred glanced at Elad; he saw the king’s hands curl and tighten upon the edge of the balcony wall.
Cyrodian knelt, crashing to his knees awkwardly before the chopping block. He bent his head forward and fit his throat into the wide groove. The space was barely large enough to contain his bull neck.
“Executioner,” the official declared, “the empire orders you to execute the prisoner.”
Another trumpet blast sounded.
The official hurried down from the stage, hastened across the brick courtyard, and went into the palace.
Elad leaned forward, holding the wall.
Orain muttered an incomplete sob, pressed her cheek to Adred’s shoulder, and stared, stared at the gray faces around her, at the balcony entranceway, at somber colors and dull shadows and things blurred because of her tears.…
The hooded Khamar came forward, stood beside the kneeling Cyrodian, and hefted the axe.
“Go on and do it!” the giant growled at him.
The Imbur Ogodis was perspiring.
“Name of the gods,” someone on the balcony whispered.
Adred, holding Orain very tightly, looked down and wondered if Cyrodian at this moment were thinking—thinking, before his earthly thoughts were ended—of whatever had happened in that cage, between him and the ikbusa. Thinking…of his mother.
The Khamar lifted the axe.
Several in the crowd below raised their hands to shield their eyes from the rain.
Salia glanced at her father; he sensed her stare. Salia’s eyes were cold.
Cyrodian squirmed, as if fitting his throat more comfortably into the block.
At the last moment, Galvus choked and looked away.
The sound of the strike was a hollow noise from the center of the courtyard, followed, within a heartbeat, by a second hollow noise, as Cyrodian’s head dropped into the wooden box before the block.
Thunder boomed, and with it came a thousand-voiced sigh from the crowd.
The locket in his hand burned as though it were on fire, and Galvus gasped and dropped it onto the balcony floor. He closed his eyes and did not bend to retrieve it.
From the darkness behind his eyes, he heard his mother sob in anguish.
PART SIX
STORMTIDE
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“But time hurries, Nutatharis. We live in days of consequence; the incidents come more and faster: road marks on the path to our conclusion. Do you not hear the storms at night? Don’t you see it in the stars, feel it in the twilight at the end of every day? If you listen closely in the silence of the dawn, you can feel it eating at the soul of every man and woman in this nation. The fear. The knowing. The understanding. We live at the end of time.…”
It was as though, in leaving the Isle of Odossos, in leaving Erusabad, in coming away from Abustad and in leaving behind Lasura, he had in some profound and actual way left behind civilization, and society, and the temporal things of all men and all women, all life. And he had left behind also the tremendous fears that had possessed him, the shadowed truths, the awareness. He wrestled no more with his destiny. Leaving Assia for the last time had changed him, or completed the transformation within him. Not willing to hide from it any longer, unable any more to refuse the awesomeness of it, yet still frightened of identifying himself with it—this truth, this shadow, this awesomeness—Thameron nevertheless accepted it. Accepted it in the way one accepts the fact that a disease has taken hold of him. The disease is here; it is you; from now until you die, you are the disease. What was you is now past, no longer you.
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