“What is it Palius?” she asked, though she knew there was only one matter that had ever shaken Palius.
In answer, he merely handed her the scroll; it was made of parchment and no more than five inches wide. An unmarked red wax seal was broken open, and inside was a brief letter, written in a concise block style of handwriting. It was specifically addressed to her, and the tone of it was one that the writer clearly considered respectful. According to the date, the letter had been written approximately three weeks ago.
Queen Erella of Aquis,
I believe you have looked for me since the day I was born, though I am not certain why. Your priests watched me and taught me; of course, I have come to understand the teachings of Garod to be true only from a certain point of view. After my parents were slain by a Loszian, I escaped with a man of my own kind, a man who taught me how to be what I am. With information from a spy no doubt, your priest Jonn came after me with armed men. He killed my mentor, and I repaid him in kind.
I will be coming to Byrverus, and by the time you receive this letter, I will be well on my way. I come to see you Queen Erella, and I come in peace. Expect me within two weeks.
Dahken Cor
“Well, Palius it appears we no longer have to look for the Dahken,” she said, placing the scroll on the table before her.
“Majesty,” started Palius, a sense of urgency in his voice, “this boy, man, has already caused the death of a dozen of your loyal subjects, including a respected priest. He admits to the murder in this correspondence. He says he comes to see you; we can have the entire royal guard awaiting his appearance, and we can end this now.”
“Palius, he also says he comes in peace. This letter is no different than a request for formal parlay. I cannot order his murder, regardless of the harm he has caused,” responded the queen.
“Majesty, years ago you confided in me a fear that this one man could destroy both the Shining West and the Loszian Empire. He has shown a willingness to kill the servants of Garod. I respectfully suggest –“
“I will not,” shouted the queen, slamming her fist on her desk, then suddenly quieting her voice, “commit a murder, regardless of his crimes. We have our honor Palius; I would extend the same courtesy to the Emperor of Losz. Leave me, and I will pray to Garod for guidance.”
“Yes Majesty,” Palius said with a bow. He turned from the queen and left her chambers. Palius was as loyal as any of Queen Erella’s subjects, and he would not go against her will. But that did not mean he wouldn’t prepare for the worst.
* * *
Cor had paid a courier, a boy only a few years younger than himself, very well to deliver the scroll to the temple in Martherus. He also gave the black stallion to the boy as an incentive for discretion, that is, lying about where he came from. Cor hoped to use Worh as his home for as long as possible; he had stayed another week after dispatching the letter, during which time he struggled to stay busy. Before leaving Worh, he purchased a new horse, a gorgeous palomino mare; she had a dark gold coat and a mane and tail of platinum. Cor was taken with her the moment he saw the horse, and her name was Kelli.
Cor took his time riding to Byrverus, keeping Kelli at a leisurely pace; He wanted to be absolutely certain that his scroll reached Queen Erella about two weeks before he did. The boy had told him how long it would take to reach Martherus, and once there, Cor knew one of the more senior priests would read it and immediately dispatch it to Byrverus with all haste. The summer heat had broken, much to Cor’s delight, as he had found that wearing steel armor in the summer sun to be a most uncomfortable experience. The days still tended to the warm side, especially after midday, but the oppressive heat of the sun had faded. Cor was vaguely aware that he would arrive in Byrverus within days of his nineteenth birthday. He felt much older than that somehow; more had happened to him in the last three months than perhaps his entire first eighteen years. It amazed him how things changed.
Cor had formulated what he hoped was a clever scheme. He knew the Loszian did not want him dead; the necromancer’s first agent had come to kidnap Cor as a boy. In their second encounter, the Loszian offered him power, luxury and pleasure; he would live as a king. Cor needed the location of the Dahken ruins in Losz, and he had no doubt the Loszian necromancer would either know or be able to divine their location. Cor also needed to learn anything he could about Noth. He would go along with the Loszian’s plans as long as necessary to get what he needed; then he would slay the necromancer in vengeance for his parents.
The Loszian knew Cor could be found at Sanctum; he had not divined this information from sorcery, or he would have come for Cor long ago. No, he had to wait for the knowledge to come by mundane means, and then he came by ship, smuggled into Aquis. It was possible that the Loszian had sent his own spy to Sanctum, but it simply seemed too coincidental. The Loszian arrived very shortly after Jonn and his soldiers, making it very likely that Queen Erella had a spy in her midst.
Cor had little doubt that the queen would choose to meet with him in open court. It seemed that she feared him, for what reason he still could not summon, and keeping the meeting in the open would prevent him from attempting some sort of assassination. He certainly had no intention of harming anyone, but he somehow doubted the queen would trust him, and Cor saw little reason to trust her either. Cor hoped to placate the queen, making clear that he harbors no ill will to the West; he did hope to reestablish the Dahken, but this was another matter altogether. He would then publicly announce his intent to enter the Loszian Empire in search of the necromancer responsible for the death of his parents. During their short expedition, Cor had learned from Kamar that there were few passes that completely crossed the mountains between the West and the Empire, and these were heavily defended at both ends. Cor would ask for safe passage through Aquis’ checkpoints, and beyond that, he would be left to his own devices.
On some level, Cor felt this plan was daring if not clever; he was counting on the logical deduction that the Loszian had a spy near Queen Erella. But even so, he didn’t know exactly what the Loszian’s plans were for him. The necromancer was a noble or lord of some sort, however the Loszian system worked, but he was no emperor. The emperor would never come himself, even with protection. “Together we shall overthrow both empires,” he had said. That made his intent plain enough, but how Cor figured into his plans remained to be seen. Regardless, Cor had little doubt that the necromancer’s agents, if not the man himself, would intercept Cor shortly after he left Aquis behind. He counted on it.
Cor expected the Westerners would consider his plan suicidal, and hopefully would view allowing it to go forward as an easy way of ridding themselves of him. It was most definitely dangerous, but since reuniting Ebonwing and Soulmourn, Cor began to feel a proud confidence. He could feel how the artifacts bolstered his strength; he had energy whenever he needed it and simply felt stronger and more agile than ever before. Somehow, he knew his blows would rend steel as easily as flesh and bone. Regardless as to why, he would not die at the hands of the Loszians; of this he was sure.
Once he crossed into Aquis from Roka, Cor chose not to wear his hood as he had for the past two months. He had announced his coming to the highest authority in the kingdom, and the hood now seemed inconsequential. He did not hide from villages and towns, but instead rode through them on the most direct path to Byrverus, even staying the night at a small local inn if he was near one at the end of the day. Cor drew looks from nearly all of the commoners he came across; it was curiosity, pure and simple, as Garod’s priests had eliminated any history of the Dahken from common knowledge. He did not mind the inquisitive glances or even the long stares; Cor had already decided that everyone in the Shining West would come to understand that the Dahken were neither evil nor to be reviled.
Byrverus could be seen from miles off; it was a great white beacon shining brightly in the early autumn sun. The entire city seemed to be made of bright white stone, and when the sun was low to the horizon, the city reflected
the sunlight with so much brilliance that onlookers had to avert their gaze. Byrverus, the most populous city in the Shining West at over fifty thousand persons, dwarfed both Worh and Martherus, and rich farmlands extended outwards for miles from the city itself.
An immense wall, larger than anything Cor had ever seen, surrounded the city proper; it was perhaps twice as tall as the city wall around Worh and made of the same gleaming white stone as the towers protected within. Even from a distance, Cor could see ballistae and catapults topping the wall and armored figures glinted as they walked the battlements. Though the West’s premier center of learning and culture, Byrverus was clearly designed with war in mind. The wall had enormous gates much like Cor had seen in Worh, and passing through them, Cor saw the walls themselves were nearly twenty feet thick.
Cor noted more soldiers around the gates, both inside and outside the walls; they were all professional soldiers, clad in chain or scale mail, and paid him no more mind than they did most of the others who passed through the gates. Even so, Cor knew there were eyes on him, no doubt many from those people shocked by his pallor. More importantly, Cor was certain the queen would have placed spies specifically on the lookout for him, surely using his marked skin color as the defining characteristic for identification.
Once inside, Cor could not help but stare in awe at Byrverus; the city was absolutely magnificent. Every building was made of the same reflective white stone, similar to marble in appearance, but the stone was pure white with none of the swirl associated with marble. Even the common homes were built of this material, and basalt paved the streets, which were kept impeccably clean. There were small temples to the lesser Western gods throughout the city, in the midst of businesses as well as homes, but Garod had no temples among them. At Byrverus’ center stood two massive complexes; one was the palace of the reigning monarch, who was also the highest of Garod’s clergy, and the other was the largest temple to Garod in the world.
Cor decided he would not see those buildings today; for now, he sought a well appointed inn with stable to sleep off the day’s travel and allow Kelli some well deserved rest. He had little doubt that by now the queen was aware of his arrival in the city, and surely Cor was being watched at every moment. He idly wondered if only Queen Erella’s agents had their eye upon him, or if Loszian spies watched him as well. There was one thing of which he was certain; fighting one’s enemy with a sword was far more honest than matters of intrigue.
Finding a suitable inn turned out to be an easy task in the wealthiest city of the West. The building was wrought of the same white stone as everything else in the city, except the stable located around the building’s rear was of a normal lumber construction. Late in the day, he secured his room and lodging for the horse, as well as a hot meal. It seemed to Cor that every innkeeper in the West must look alike; either that or there was but one man with awesome powers of transportation who ran them all. Cor dined amongst the inns other patrons; he ignored the stares, some of which he was certain were more than mere curiosity, and he retired to his room in a vain attempt at a restful night’s sleep.
25.
Apparently no one in the city of Byrverus slept much beyond sunrise, for once the sun rose high enough to shine over the city’s walls, the rays of sunlight reflected off every surface of every building. The entire city lit up almost instantaneously, casting near blinding light through curtained windows. Cor had not slept well, and he was not pleased by the early morning light.
His room was more than well appointed, containing a bed that he was certain was big enough for three or four persons, and which he did not doubt it occasionally contained. The room was impeccably kept, exceedingly clean and not one fold of linen or blanket out of place. It was also the most advanced room he had ever seen, with a small side room containing basins and a sort of hand driven contraption that produced water from a spout. There was a second basin, low to the floor and physically attached to it, for relieving oneself, after which one could pour water from the spout into it and wash away the waste through a round hole in the bottom of the basin. Modern engineering was clearly its own kind of magic.
In the bedroom itself, a floor to ceiling mirror hung on one wall, clearly for those merchants, diplomats or members of other professions in which it was necessary to always look one’s best. Never before prone to vanity, but with the mirror available, Cor looked at himself at length while buckling on his armor. He surely looked like death’s messenger; deep black and purple rings under his gray eyes from lack of sleep accentuated his corpselike pallor and straight near black hair. Ebonwing, with its skull and batwings, did nothing to dispel the image, and Cor’s scale mail hauberk and armguards, polished to a high shine the night before, added hardness to his appearance.
Hopeful that his appearance denoted someone not to be trifled with, Cor retrieved his palomino from the stable. He would ride to the palace, hopefully adding to the image of strength he wanted to project, and his silver armored countenance contrasted well with the golden horse. Cor rode through the paved streets of Byrverus, not completely certain of his destination, but he knew both Garod’s temple complex and the palace were both near the dead center of the city. Again, he knew he was being watched and followed, and those who monitored him did little to hide themselves at this point.
Garod’s temple and the palace of Byrverus were the two most astounding buildings Cor had ever seen. Made of the same white stone as the rest of the city, both buildings were incredibly immense. The palace had one tall spire that rose at least one hundred feet in the air, as well as two smaller ones, all of them accented with silver and gold. Banners and flags of rich silk hung from every window and spire with the heraldic symbols of Aquis.
The temple was even taller than the palace, no doubt because Aquis was truly a theocracy as opposed to a hereditary monarchy. The giant structure was geometric and unimaginative in design, appearing as one huge block of white stone standing on end, with squat cubic towers at each corner containing huge polished copper bells. The temple complex stood on a white stone platform with a dozen basalt steps leading up to it; whether this was a natural formation covered with stone or something specifically built to elevate the temple above the other buildings Cor did not know. Twelve foot tall marble statues of Garod, a fair young man in robes, lined the steps leading up to an open portal.
Plate clad soldiers wearing royal blue surcoats with the emblems of Aquis and robed priests of Garod filled the plaza around the two buildings, and access was unlimited to the public areas of the complexes. Keeping his horse at a slow walk, Cor headed straight for the palace’s main entrance; eight soldiers in two columns of four with a ninth at their head marched directly towards him. Citizens endeavored to stay out of the soldiers’ way, while priests watched warily, some of them likely aware of what was to transpire. The soldiers, all of them clad in highly polished steel plate armor with royal surcoats, shields and swords, stopped ten feet short of Cor, and he pulled Kelli to a halt facing them.
“Dahken Cor,” said the leader, his voice rose in a tone practiced at addressing crowds, “Her Majesty Queen Erella of Aquis welcomes you to Byrverus. We are to escort you into the palace, and her Majesty shall receive you in court presently. This is to be a peaceful meeting, is it not sir?”
“As stated, I come peacefully,” Cor answered.
“Perhaps you would surrender your sword, sir. It will be returned after your audience with the queen is concluded.”
“And will every soldier in Byrverus also lay down his sword? I somehow doubt I could escape the city were I to commit violence,” Cor reasoned. “I go as I am.”
“Then sir, I beseech you to maintain your honor,” the captain concluded, motioning for his men to take up flanking positions on either side of Cor, and the fact that he was surrounded was not lost on him. He idly wondered if he could defeat them all.
The small contingent continued to the palace, Cor and his horse at their center, and guards opened the double doors as the group m
arched into an antechamber. The interior of this room was not made of the same stone as the palace’s exterior, but sandstone with marble floor instead. Inside two more royal guards opened doors allowing Cor to ride Kelli forward at a walk, still surrounded by his escort. The mare tossed her tail from side to side in annoyance at the soldiers’ proximity. The antechamber opened into the great hall in which the ruler of Aquis kept court. The room was immense, roughly eighty feet wide and over twice as long with a domed ceiling nearly forty feet in the air, and easily a half dozen passages led away from it. The hall was also made of sandstone and marble, and a rich burgundy carpet led from the entrance straight ahead to a raised dais, centered on which was a single throne. Cor wondered at the need for architects, or perhaps monarchs, to place thrones on raised platforms.
Perhaps forty or fifty people, mostly priests and soldiers, milled about the room, a respectful distance from the throne, and they all froze as soon as Cor rode his palomino into the hall. The silence in the room was palpable, and Cor could feel every eye fixed upon him. He walked Kelli until she was about ten feet from bottom of the steps leading up to the dais, and then he dismounted, bowing to the figure on the throne in what he hoped seemed a respectful manner.
The woman on the throne was ancient, older than any person Cor had ever seen before, and everything about her seemed to be a badge of office. She wore white robes marked with symbols of Garod and Aquis, a heavy gold and jewel crown and a scepter lay across her lap. Queen Erella had pure white hair and extremely fair skin that seemed stretched across her face, and the image of Noth appeared unbidden in Cor’s mind. The queen regarded Cor intently, and he allowed her to inspect him as long as she liked. He stood before her, just an inch or so shy of six feet tall, and he had no doubt he would tower over her should they stand next to each other. The pigmentation, or lack thereof perhaps, of Cor’s skin blended somewhat with steel shine of his armor and gray eyes, but contrasted sharply with shoulder length near black hair that he made no effort to restrain. He became suddenly aware of somewhat scraggly growth on his cheeks and chin and began to think he should have shaved it off with his knife before coming to the palace.
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