Seven Princes

by John R. Fultz

  Fangodrel stood his ground. He stared first at Vod, then at Shaira.

  Does he hate me now? Poor boy… poor, misplaced soul. We cannot tell you that your father was a monster and that you’ve no claim to this throne. It would destroy you.

  Fangodrel said not a word, but strode across the hall, his cloak flapping like the wings of an incensed bat. He stalked through the main arch and was lost in the shadows beyond.

  “Little does he care about the loss of his only father,” spat Tadarus, staring after him with disgust. Vireon said nothing.

  Sharadza wept aloud, and Vod pulled her to his lap and hugged her.

  Shaira did not know what to say, so she sat in her royal chair and wept as well. I will be alone now… the burden of Queenhood on my back. O Vod, my love. You have cursed me.

  Vod’s sons, his true sons, stood with their hands on his massive shoulders. They wept also, though silently, as Men do to hide the shame of it.

  Above the hiss of the burning braziers, Shaira heard a strange, low sound. It took a moment to recognize. Even the six Giant sentinels who stood guard in the hall were weeping. Their tears glistened like great diamonds in the glow of orange flames.

  The black hound slipped quietly into the night to weep alone.

  3

  Sea, Storm and Stone

  Murala was a tiny city, a collection of gray stone dwellings without a single tower or rampart to protect its inland borders. For less than a league it stretched along the western coast, a town built upon the convenience of its busy wharves. There were no other ports north of this place, so Murala was gateway to the Stormlands for the southern kingdoms. It was a passing place, a weigh station on trade routes that ran to Uurz and New Udurum, the metropolises of the north. Dozens of galleons were moored here in various stages of loading and unloading. The sky was full of rolling thunderheads. The sun rarely broke through that eternal layer of cloud, and a day without rain here was as rare as an eastern jewel.

  D’zan was glad to put the ocean behind him with its endlessly rolling face and unpredictable temper. For thirty-three days he had endured the lurching decks and sodden quarters of one trading vessel after another, on a diet of dried fish, hardtack, and stale keg-water. He would never take ship again if he could avoid it. The weeks were spent in nausea and misery, nights in silent despair or nightmares. The Stone hardly left his side, and D’zan would not weep in sight of the big man. So he let his tears flow only in the dark of night, among the moldy blankets of whatever cabin they had secured. The Stone slept lightly, and sometimes not at all. For a time D’zan wondered if his guardian was human, but eventually he saw the man give in to weariness, and his snores were undeniably mortal. The one thing all their cabins and berths had in common was the ever-present odor of fishy brine. It was a reek D’zan was glad to escape along with the pitching decks and foul-mouthed sailors.

  Nine days out from Yaskatha they had approached the white cliffs of Mumbaza on the merchant vessel Lion’s Heart. The capital city stood proudly atop the precipice, a cluster of pearly domes and spires glaring down at the sea with arrogant beauty. D’zan marveled at the Upward Way, the staircase road cut into the bare rock leading up to the city’s towering sea gate. The trip had been a torture, and his inability to sleep made it worse. The Stone said they would find sanctuary in Mumbaza with the Boy-King Undutu. But it was not to be.

  When the Lion’s Heart drew into port, an inspector boarded the vessel. He wore a cloak of sable feathers and a helm of beaten gold. His skin was as dark as his cloak, and his eyes were nuggets of onyx, cold and hard and without mercy. He spoke to the Stone in a tone that no man of Yaskatha would ever dare to use, and D’zan thought the two would draw their blades and settle the matter right there on the foredeck. Yet the Stone only walked away, his great hands balled into fists, and came to stand near D’zan as the official continued his inspection.

  “Will the Boy-King let us stay?” D’zan asked his guardian.

  “No,” said the Stone, his eyes still focused on the strutting inspector. “This man serves the King’s mother, Umbrala. She is the power behind the throne of Mumbaza, and she refuses to give us sanctuary.”

  “But how can she overrule the King?” D’zan asked. Even here, with the ship tied to the stone quay, his stomach churned. He wanted to sleep, but feared what sleep would bring.

  “The King is only eleven,” said the Stone.

  “Oh,” said D’zan. “But why does she refuse us? We have a treaty with Mumbaza.”

  “She fears Elhathym… and she is fool enough to think she can maintain neutrality in what is to come.”

  D’zan closed his eyes. He had almost forgotten – his father was dead. A new power set on the throne that should be his own.

  “What… what is to come, Olthacus?” D’zan asked.

  “War,” said the Stone.

  The Mumbazans would not grant sanctuary, but they would not hinder the Prince of Yaskatha either. Therefore, Olthacus booked passage on a series of northbound galleons. They stopped at various dismal trading ports along the coast every few days. D’zan’s nightmares eventually subsided under the weight of sheer exhaustion, but his nausea never entirely faded. He dreamed of speaking with his father often, but he could not hear the words of the dead King. Visions of the walking dead still came to him, but infrequently. Sometimes he dreamed of dead men marching along the deep sea bed, staring up at the keel of the vessel in which he slept. Could there be an army of drowned sailors following him at the command of black-hearted Elhathym? He tried not to think about such things, and a cup of strong wine before bed each evening reduced his morbid night fevers. He still wept in the dark, hoping Olthacus did not hear.

  The Stone’s pouchful of precious jewels served them well for passage and foodstuffs, but there was little to no luxury to be had on these austere vessels. D’zan used to stare at the ocean dreaming of adventures among the waves, discovering fabulous islands full of monsters and recovering lost treasures. But now he hated the gray-green expanse of roiling, capricious chaos. The farther north they sailed, the more storms they encountered. The skies grew black and the rain nearly drowned them, not to mention the great waves that swamped the deck. D’zan learned to stay below during the squalls.

  One evening he stared at a dagger, the one his father had given him for his sixteenth birthday, and contemplated opening his throat while the waves tossed the ship to and fro. He studied the tiny jewels set into the hilt, the traceries of silver and gold in the burnished bronze. The pommel was a griffin’s head, its eyes miniscule emeralds. The blade was nearly as long as his forearm, and sharp enough to shave a man’s beard. He could draw it across his throat in one fluid motion, using all his strength, and in a few short moments his life would be over. Blood would flow out his neck, seep through the cracks in the cabin floor, and join the brackish bilge water down below. If he killed himself now, his blood would ultimately rejoin the sea, the place where all men came from, if legends were true. The sailors would likely throw his body overboard, completing his journey back to the source. He would join those armies of drowned dead who crawled along the sea bottom like brainless crabs.

  It was that last thought that made him sheathe the dagger. Could he even escape Elhathym by dying? If he killed himself, might that be giving the usurper complete control over him? The thought of this deathly surrender made him set his jaw. He must stay alive, no matter what. This was the only way to defy the necromancer. The only hope of freeing Yaskatha from a tyrant who used the dead to dominate the living.

  “We’ll go to Uurz,” the Stone told him. “The Emperor there is kindly and wise. He was once a soldier, a friend of your father’s.”

  “Will he grant us the asylum that Mumbaza denied?” D’zan asked.

  “If the Gods will it be so.”

  “What then?” D’zan asked. “What can we do against someone like Elhathym?”

  The Stone stared at him. His rough face was craggy, unshaven, his eyes twin diadems of blue ice. �
�We make alliances. We build an army. We prepare you for the role you must play.”

  “What role is that, Olthacus?”

  “You already know,” said the Stone. “Avenging son. Liberator. You must take back Yaskatha.”

  D’zan thought on those words often during the voyage. Of course he must do these things. Of course he must slay the monster who had slain his father, and take the kingdom that was rightfully his. But how?

  A few days after their conversation, he posed the question to Olthacus: “How can a mere boy hope to gather an army and oppose a sorcerer with such terrible power?”

  Olthacus did something then that D’zan had never seen before, though he had known the big man since infancy. The Stone smiled. “There are other sorcerers in this world, Prince,” he said. “And there are many men hungry for glory. Men who are willing to die for a cause they know is just.”

  D’zan contemplated this. “And all of this… begins at Uurz?”

  “At Uurz,” said the Stone, looking across the leaden sea where stormclouds flared and rumbled. “And at New Udurum. And at Shar Dni. These are the cities of the north. The Stormlands. It is a land of Giants and legends. It is where the Gods drive us. We must trust in Their wisdom.”

  D’zan could say little more about this. The Stone knew what must be done, and where they must go. Was Olthacus now his father? This common soldier, this man without a drop of royal blood in his veins? He would sacrifice his entire life to ensure D’zan’s return to the throne. There was no denying it.

  A glimmer of hope showed through the churning clouds at that moment, and D’zan breathed deeply of the salt air. For a slight moment, his future seemed secure, as if predetermined. I will do this, he told himself, and his dead father.

  Late that night a hail of flaming arrows set the sails alight. Under cover of a raging storm, a reaver ship drove alongside the Lion’s Heart and men boarded the galleon. From his doorway D’zan watched Olthacus draw his great sword and cleave the skull of a howling boarder. The Stone led a party of sailors against the ragged pirates, who had not expected to find a true warrior among the seamen.

  D’zan locked himself in the cabin and listened to the sounds of battle, his dagger drawn in case some pirate came crashing through the door in search of plunder. He heard men die, squealing like animals, and watched blood leaking through the planks above (as he had imagined his own blood doing before). The reek of burning wood and rigging choked him. Sooner than he expected, it was over. The Stone came into the cabin, gore smeared across his silver breastplate, a smattering of brains clinging to the blade of his sword, and gulped down a bottle of yellow wine. The reavers had been a desperate bunch, he told D’zan, not a worthy swordsman among them. Still they had killed nearly half the crew. The captain survived with a wounded arm, and his men had succeeded in putting out the fires. The ship would hold together long enough to reach Murala… assuming no more pirates appeared. D’zan stayed below as the survivors scrubbed blood and offal from the deck with buckets of seawater.

  Olthacus and three volunteers stove in the reavers’ ship and left it a sinking, empty hulk for the angry waves. He tossed five captured reavers overboard, each chained to the corpses of their slain brothers. They sank like boulders, screaming as their lungs filled with brine. D’zan imagined them joining that undersea army of tireless marching dead, but he kept such thoughts to himself.

  A few days later they saw the green coast again, and there stood Murala, as unimpressive as a city could be. Yet she represented dry land, an end to the terrors of the sea, and D’zan had never been more elated to reach any destination. Beyond this humble township lay the Stormlands with all their mystery and promise.

  The streets were cobbled and muddy, and the air stank of horseflesh, manure, and woodsmoke. Walking on solid ground felt strange, and D’zan stumbled. Olthacus’ strong hand was always there to grab his shoulder and get him upright before any of the scattered commoners noticed. They both wore black cloaks which hid their southern clothing, and the Stone impressed on him how important it was to stay unnoticed until they reached Uurz. But the busy folk of Murala hardly seemed to see them; foreign sailors and merchant crews were common here, and when they entered the central bazaar the noise and spectacle of commerce made them entirely indistinguishable among the masses.

  Now D’zan’s stomach growled and his mouth watered at the smell of baking bread, roasted beef, braised pork, and a heady blend of raw spices. He wanted to stop at the first meat vendor’s table, but the Stone drew him onward, ignoring the booths of brightly colored silks, the wine shops, the armories, the spice barrels, the sweetmeats laid out like delicious jewelry. Goats and sheep bleated on the auction block, and somewhere a band of musicians played a strange northern song with drums, flute, and lyre. Dancing girls swirled in masses of diaphanous silk, smacking tambourines as eager sailors tossed them coins.

  Olthacus ignored all of these temptations and many more besides. He drew D’zan into a narrow street where the signs of a half-dozen lodging houses hung from poles over wooden doors reinforced with strips of greenish bronze. Beyond each door rang the sounds of revelry, drunken sailing songs, and female voices raised to enchanting pitch, or simply the jovial bellowing of drunkards. The Stone chose a house carved with the unlikely sign of a golden skull with imitation sapphires in its eye sockets. Inside the smoky den a profusion of tables and commoners ignored their entry, and the smell of cooked food was overwhelming.

  D’zan hardly remembered the Stone paying for their stay, or his long conversation with the southern-born innkeeper. He dove into a steaming bowl of pork stew with potatoes, carrots, and other northern vegetables, served with slabs of warm bread. It was the finest meal he had ever tasted. He drank too much of the wine that accompanied the meal, and soon found himself in the comfort of a warm bed, in a room whose decor he didn’t bother to inspect. The Stone laid himself down on a rug near the roaring fireplace, and that was the last thing D’zan remembered. He slept without dreams, warm and dry for the first time in what seemed like forever.

  A serving girl woke him the next day well past mid-morning, and the Stone was gone. At first D’zan knew panic, then he realized the girl had run a hot bath for him. She did not speak the southern dialects, but his father had insisted he learn all the major languages of the realms, so he thanked her in her own language. This made her laugh greatly, and she left him a plate of fruit and cheese for breakfast.

  He bathed before the water grew cold, then dressed in his laundered clothing and broke his fast. The girl did not return. Too bad, he thought, she was quite beautiful. A simple beauty, dark of skin and hair. These northerners were dusky-skinned like his own people, but their hair was almost always black or heavy brown. The folk of Yaskatha were fair-haired. He thought of the many palace girls whose attentions he’d enjoyed before… before Elhathym destroyed his world. How many of those golden lasses had perished in the takeover? How many had risen again as—

  No. He must put such thoughts out of his head.

  There are other sorcerers in this world, the Stone had said. Elhathym’s magic could be countered with another, stronger magic. But how would a deposed Prince gather such great powers to his cause? Olthacus would know.

  As if summoned by D’zan’s thoughts, Olthacus the Stone opened the door and stepped into the room. His breastplate and helm were polished to a silvery sheen, the embossed standard of the sword and tree bright upon his chest. His beard was still unshaven, but clean now, and he appeared much refreshed. Yet he still seethed with that same air of urgency that had driven him since the fall of Yaskatha.

  “Majesty, I’ve found us horses,” he announced.

  D’zan nodded, drinking a cup of honeyed milk. “When must we leave?” he asked.

  “Now.”

  D’zan pulled on his boots. “Can we not stay here a bit longer? It is… comfortable.”

  “No, Prince,” said the Stone. “It is not safe. Nor will it be safe for us anywhere until we find sanctuar
y. We are for Uurz, and right away. You always liked riding, eh?”

  D’zan nodded. He was a good horseman. When he turned twelve his father had given him White Flame, a highbred steed. For the first time, he missed the horse. He wondered if the royal stables had burned when the palace caught fire. Don’t think of that; think of the road ahead.

  The horses were pale imitations of the champion stallions bred by Yaskathan horselords, but they were strong and swift. In the inn’s muddy courtyard Olthacus loaded both animals with packs of hastily prepared food and gourds of water. D’zan climbed into the stirrups and introduced himself to his steed.

  “Does it have a name?” he asked, petting the horse’s mottled neck.

  “I didn’t ask the seller,” said the Stone, pulling himself up into his own saddle.

  The horse neighed and stamped the mud lightly beneath D’zan, and he decided the beast was good-tempered enough.

  “I’ll name him then,” said D’zan. The Stone was silent, adjusting the sword belt over his shoulder. A brand-new crossbow hung from his saddle, and a quiver of bronze-tipped bolts. Was Olthacus expecting trouble on the road to Uurz?

  “You are Northwind,” D’zan told the horse, rubbing its neck.

  “And mine?” asked the Stone. Every now and then he indulged the Prince in a boyish whim or two.

  “Yours is Stormcloud,” said D’zan.

  “Very good,” said the Stone, looking at the steed below him as if truly seeing it for the first time. “Then may Northwind and Stormcloud speed us to the City of the Sacred Waters.”

  Olthacus steered his trotting horse through the courtyard gate, D’zan and Northwind following close behind.

  Thunder split the air, and a soft rain began to fall. The horses carried them slowly through the crowded streets until they reached the eastern edge of Murala, and the green plain stretched away toward a gray horizon where lightning danced between heaven and earth. The wide unpaved road cut across the plain with hardly any curves. There were no hills here to speak of, hardly any trees… just wide-open flatland and tall green grasses waving in the winds. D’zan smelled fresh rain on the air. He spurred his horse and galloped away from Murala with Olthacus riding alongside him. A grassy wind caught up his hair, and he found himself smiling for the first time since leaving home.