Seven Princes

by John R. Fultz

  Well before midday he reached the great bridge. Traffic here was more dense: basket-toting laborers, wagons laden with produce, carts pulled by those who could not afford wagons, and the occasional camel-mounted nobleman. A guard at the bridge peered at Gammir, his eyes rimmed in black kohl beneath a turban-wrapped helmet. The spear of his office stood higher than the point of his helm, and a scimitar hung from his wide belt. He motioned Gammir to stop.

  “What brings you to the city?” asked the guard, his voice thick with the Sharrian accent.

  Gammir’s eyes ached in the full light of day, so his face lay in the shadows of the purple hood. “Duty,” he told the Sharrian.

  “You are a soldier?” asked the guard.

  Gammir laughed. “I am far more than that.”

  The guard frowned. “What is your business? Where do you come from?” He wanted clear answers, not riddles and bravado.

  Gammir considered the question. Killing this fool would complicate his entry into the city. “Udurum,” he said. “I come from the palace of Vod. My business lies with your King Ammon.”

  The guard blinked and studied him. Gammir’s stately black mail and Udurum cloak were impressive enough to support his claim, so the man waved him onward. The black horse’s hooves clacked on the stone, and a crowd of peasants parted to allow the horse a clear route. Gammir rode toward the open gates at the far end of the span. More guards stationed there would require more lies. Easy enough to lie. Lying was its own kind of sorcery.

  The same story earned him passage into Shar Dni’s main thoroughfare. The street was cobbled in black basalt, lined with hanging gardens, and ran directly toward the first of the temple pyramids. A flock of priests in pale robes, faces painted indigo, walked among the crowd. Dusky-skinned girls went barefoot, their faces hidden behind veils, almond eyes gleaming green like his mother. Less reputable women bared their faces and the tops of their breasts, flaunting their worldly goods in windows and along balconies. The city seemed infested with brothels. The smells of roasting meat, camel dung, rotten fruits, and a thousand spices filled the air. Sometimes a gust of salty sea wind blew all these smells to nothing, but they crept back into his nostrils as soon as the air grew still.

  When Gammir was last in this city, he had been Fangodrel, and thirteen years old. His mother had brought him in a caravan to meet all her royal relatives, brothers, sisters, cousins. His grandfather, King Tadarus the First, had just died, and he remembered watching the coronation of Ammon, Shaira’s eldest brother. Tadarus and Vireon beamed with pride that day as their uncle took the oath of rulership and accepted his crown from the High Priest of the Sky God. Even then, Fangodrel had known the emptiness of the ritual and the spectacle. The people had cheered for their new monarch, and since then King Ammon was a much-beloved ruler. Yet his reign was plagued by growing tensions with Khyrei, which had now broken into marine warfare.

  Prince Andoses was Ammon’s only son and heir to the throne. He was sent to gather support for a war against Khyrei. Gammir smiled as he circled the blue temple-pyramid. His shadow-children had slain Andoses at Steephold… torn him to bloody shreds. Word of his son’s death had not even reached the Sharrian King yet. Gammir would bring it. As he stood over the twitching body of Ammon, his lips wet with royal blood, he would tell the King that his son was dead by the same hand that now strangled him. He anticipated the exquisite moment.

  Somehow he had always known his mother’s people were not his own. Shaira was his birth-mother, that much was true. But everything he was came from his father, the betrayed and murdered Prince of Khyrei. Soon this city would bow before the new Gammir. It had no inkling that a black viper crawled through its streets carrying poison toward its heart. When Ammon was dead, and all his royal family, Khyrei would sweep across the sea to take this valley and its riches. These smug, milling crowds would all be slaves and chattels.

  As he rode into the Great Market between the four blue temples, he sensed a sea of blood washing about him, foaming and dark against his boots as he rode. All these dull-eyed sheep walking through a world whose truth they could hardly suspect. The first pang of thirst came upon him then, riding among the cloth merchants, jugglers, livestock sellers, and fruit vendors. He ignored it. The sounds of the living city rang in his ears like a storm, hawking voices, clanging metal, lilting music, shouting children, groaning camels, laughter, the squawking of caged parrots. This city was a rich feeding ground. It would be his.

  Beyond the plaza rose the white spires of the Royal Palace. The black steed carried him across the bazaar, and he licked his lips.

  A face in that milling crowd caught his attention. Blue eyes staring directly at him, as no Sharrian had dared to do. Dead Tadarus stood there, unmoving and unseen among the busy throng. No, it could not be Tadarus… only some passing resemblance. But then what of the ghost on the ridge top?

  Perhaps it was the purple cloak that invited the dead man’s shade to haunt him. He considered dropping it from his shoulders and leaving it in the dust of the plaza. But he needed it as part of his disguise to gain entry to the palace. What’s more, he liked the cloak. It was the last piece of Udurum he could claim – until his Khyrein armies took the city. First Shar Dni, then Udurum. The Giants were dying; they could not defend it forever. War was coming and it flew on wings of shadow.

  Tadarus stared at him from a sea of faces.

  Gammir turned away. I’ll give him his damned cloak once I’ve entered the palace. Damn him. A nuisance in death as he was in life.

  He looked back, but Tadarus was gone.

  The outer wall of the palace loomed before him.

  “I am the eldest Prince of Udurum,” he told the trio of guards at the gate. “I come to speak with my uncle, King Ammon.”

  The guards bowed and opened the gates wide for his passage. A splendid courtyard lay beyond, a forest-orchard of palms, cypress, pear trees, marble fountains, and sand gardens. The white towers and cupolas of the palace proper rose above the green fronds of the trees.

  “I’ll take your mount to the stables, Lord,” offered a guard.

  “No need,” said Gammir. He slid from the black horse, and it faded to nothing like smoke dispersing in sunlight.

  The guards gasped and stepped away. Their fear was perfume to him. The blood in their veins rushed with fear and awe. They knew the mark of sorcery as a hare in the forest knows the tread of a predator. One of the men made the sign of the Sky God on his breast, and Gammir smiled. The man grew even more frightened at the sight of his feral grin.

  “I’ll be your escort, Lord,” said the ranking guard.

  “Take me directly to the King,” said Gammir. “I’ve come a long way and I am thirsty.”

  The guard swallowed his fear and led Gammir through the courtyard to the golden doors of Ammon’s palace.

  Beneath the branches of the cedars, among the hedges and roots and untrod patches of the royal gardens, a swarm of hungry shadows awaited the coming of night.

  15

  Court of the Sea Queen

  The owl flew beyond the forests of Uduria, across the snow-capped peaks of the Grim Mountains. When walls of dark cloud rolled into its path, spitting lightning and fierce winds, it rose higher into the sky and soared above the churning storm. It winged westward across the sleeping world, seen only by the blinking stars and mute moon. When the sun rose at its back, it sailed downward through the clouds and found a soft place on the grassy plain of the Stormlands. There it became a young girl again and slept in the lee of a mossy boulder, obscured by a sea of waving green stalks.

  Sharadza awoke at midday and drank rainwater from a natural depression in the crown of the boulder. She found a wild patch of cloudberries and picked them for breakfast. Before the sun climbed high enough to battle the army of clouds, she took the black owl’s form again and soared westward. After a while the clouds below her beating wings grew thinner, and a cool salty air blew into her shining owl eyes. She left the Stormlands behind and the vast blue o
cean lay beneath her, a shimmering blue expanse spangled with shards of sunlight. She flew south and west now, and the coastline dwindled behind her.

  By sorcerous instinct she flew toward the place she had seen in her vision. It lay beneath those sparkling waves, in depths where the sun’s rays could not reach. The great waters stretched in every direction, and the owl hovered between white cloud and azure sea. Its feathers flowed like smoke and Sharadza took her true form once again. She fell feet first through the air, inhaling the rush of sea air. She dropped without panic or concern, with arms outstretched, fingers pulling from the fabric of the world those things she would need.

  In her right hand she grabbed a bit of wind. Her left hand grabbed a strand of sunlight, and she squeezed its warmth in her palm.

  The part is the whole… There can be no separation.

  The dancing waters rose to meet her. She pulled the wind about herself in a tight bubble, an ethereal armor, a sheathe of fresh air welded to her skin. She draped the sunlight across herself like a cloak, spreading warmth and light along her limbs. A second before she broke the surface of the sea, she became an oblong slab of granite which kept the semblance of her features.

  The ocean swallowed the warm glowing stone and welcomed it with a rush of bubbles. It fell into an aquamarine realm where sunlight refracted across schools of silver fish. The stone Sharadza’s weight carried it into the purple gloom of deeper waters where sharks and rays skirted its sinking form. Then it entered the darkness that cloaked the floor of the sea, where gnarled reefs and forests of seaweed hid multitudes of darting, skimming creatures.

  The stone Sharadza’s journey might have ended there, but it plunged into a great fissure like a meteor, shedding the golden radiance of a miniature sun. Inside the great chasm an ultramarine glow replaced the dark, and a wilderness of massive luminescent anemones waved their tentacles in silent dances. Immense squid sailed past the sinking stone, ignoring its advent, and rainbow-scaled fish parted ranks as it found the coral ridges of the chasm floor.

  Some distance away, an even greater glow lit the depths in blazing hues of crimson, magenta, a dozen greens and blues, shining amber, and deep turquoise. There stood the immensity of the coral city and its palace, a citadel of spires, vaults, and terraces formed by ancient generations of polyp and shell. Giant anemones waved along its ramparts like the flags of sunken kingdoms. Subaqueous gardens enclosed its grounds for leagues, brimming with marine flora and fauna.

  When the bright stone fell to rest among a forest of dancing blue-green weeds, it lay still for a while in its thin shell of air. It still emitted the glow of the upper sun, and it had left a brilliant streak across this realm of watery twilight. A group of Sea-Folk swam from the palace in search of the sun-stone, gliding toward its resting place, waving cautious tridents in its direction. Their skins were a mix of silver and turquoise scales rippling in the aquatic light. Webbed fingers and toes propelled them through the depths with great speed, and their eyes were orbs of amber brilliance. Fish-lipped mouths hung open in wonder as they surrounded the Sharadza-stone. They bubbled in their mysterious language, spiny ridges on their backs twitching with excitement.

  Making some decision, they hoisted the stone in one of their great nets and pulled it through the pastel city of coral toward the gates of the palace. Hundreds of their curious brethren watched them enter and some followed in their wake, eager to know the mystery of the glowing obelisk. The retrievers gained the accompaniment of a general dressed in plates of azure shell, and he conducted them through a great scalloped hall into the presence of their Queen. They sat the sun-bright rock on the floor before her pearly dais.

  The Mer-Queen reclined at the base of a great upright oyster shell upon a seat forged of dead coral the shades of bone and sapphire. Jewels torn from a thousand sunken galleons dotted the nooks and crannies of the coral throne. The scales along her shoulders and arms gleamed soft as polished silver. Her great mane of air danced about her shoulders like black eels, alive in the subtle currents. She leaned forward, amber eyes narrowed to slits, and peered at the strange rock.

  The mer-warriors slid away from their catch as it melted into the shape of a land-dweller. Sharadza stood at the foot of the Mer-Queen’s throne, gleaming in her golden armor of sun and air. Her dark hair danced like the Queen’s own now, though its thick curls gave her a wild and savage aspect. Some of the mer-folk shouted or whispered in their incomprehensible language, and the mer-general spewed a command, drawing a sword of jeweled bone. But Sharadza stared only at the Queen.

  “My people do not speak your dry language,” said the Queen, her words like the notes of an underwater music. “Yet I do. What reason for this trespass?”

  “Your warriors brought me here, Sea Queen,” said Sharadza. “How can that be a trespass? Am I not a visitor, having been escorted with all due honor?”

  The Mer-Queen smiled, revealing pearly teeth with incisors like tiny fangs. “They thought you a sacred stone sent to us by the Sea God, or his brother the Sky. So they brought you to me. This was your intention, was it not?”

  Sharadza swallowed. The brine did not enter her mouth, nose, or lungs. She breathed instead the air carried in the invisible sheathe about her skin. The golden light was of no substance, not really armor, but its glow kept her comfortable in these frigid depths.

  “The Queen is wise,” she said. “I am Sharadza, Princess of Udurum, Daughter of Vod the Giant-King. I come for my father.”

  The Mer-Queen placed a slim elbow on the arm of her throne, and rested her tiny chin against her palm. “The daughter of Vod, who was once called Ordra? Stealer of the Pearl?”

  “Yes,” she said. Her father had admitted the crime, no use in denying it. “Where is he? I know he came here to give himself up to your curse.”

  The warriors and royal mer-folk weaved about the chamber like irritated fish, trying to understand what passed between the landwalker and their Queen.

  “Your father was well warned,” said the Mer-Queen. “When he stole Aiyaia’s Stone, I told him never to enter the sea again or he would perish. Knowing this, he did return, though it was many years later. In truth, I had forgotten my vow… but I know all things that pass in this sea, so I knew when he returned.”

  “What did you do? Kill him? Enslave him? I must know.”

  Please tell me he lies in some dungeon. Please tell me you did not murder him. Please let me bring my father home. Gods of Sea, Sky, Earth, and Sun, grant me this.

  The Mer-Queen blinked. “I did none of these things. It is true I took a legion of warriors to seize him. What we found was only a drowned Giant. His corpse floated among the seaweed, and he bore no crown or weapon.”

  Sharadza winced. Her stomach writhed toward her mouth. She nearly fainted. Could the sea-bitch be lying?

  “There were no marks upon his body, no wounds,” said the Mer-Queen. “His lungs were full of brine. We found him not far from the northern shore of his own kingdom. You may doubt my words, but I tell you true: Vod walked into the sea and drowned.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Sharadza shouted. The mer-general raised his white blade but the Queen waved him away. The salt of the Princess’s tears ran down her cheeks inside the layer of air. The crystal drops could not blend with the greater salty flow of the ocean because of her spell. “You must have killed him! You sent him the nightmares – you drove him mad!”

  Again the Queen waved back her guards. She swam upward from her throne, then glided to hover above Sharadza. “I swear by the Sea God’s beard, by the Sacred Pearl which Vod took, I took no vengeance on him. I sent no visions to torment him. I had all but forgotten his name until the day he re-entered my kingdom. We accepted the Great Pearl’s loss long ago, and we know who truly stole it. We do not linger on such loss here. The sea lives on, and so do its people.”

  “What do you mean, ‘who truly stole it’?” she asked. “Was it not my father?”

  “It was Iardu,” said the Mer-Queen, stroking Shara
dza’s dry shoulder with delicate webbed fingers. The scales of her knuckles glimmered in the sheath of sunlight. “The Shaper sent your father. I knew this from the day it happened. Iardu’s hand shapes everyone he touches. He uses Land-Folk and Sea-Folk for his own purposes. I did not truly blame Vod, but had made my vow in anger. If I had found him alive in my realm, I would have killed or imprisoned him. But as I said, we found him dead.”

  Sharadza’s head seemed to spin. Iardu had indeed reshaped her, opening her eyes to the heritage of her own power. How had he manipulated Vod into stealing the pearl, and for what reason? Vod had admitted the theft, but would not give the reason. Iardu had known the reason, but never mentioned it. Did Vod steal the Pearl so Iardu would teach him sorcery? Iardu said Vod had barely learned anything when he left… just like Sharadza. No, there had to be more to the story. Vod must have had a greater reason for doing Iardu’s dirty work.

  “What about my father’s nightmares?” she asked the Queen. “Why did your words weigh so heavily on him? Why did he give up his family, his kingdom, and just walk into the sea? Why did he destroy himself?”

  The Mer-Queen shook her head. Her serpentine locks twisted. “I did not know him, child,” she said.

  Sharadza’s mind raced. What did Mother know of all this? Did she know Iardu was Fellow? That he had used Father to steal the pearl? Iardu must have the answers. Could Iardu be the one who drove Vod to suicide? If so, she would find out, and she would make him suffer. She would find a way.

  She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I came here thinking I must be strong… demand my father’s release… and now I weep like a little girl.”

  The Mer-Queen hugged her. “You have suffered a great loss. There is no shame in tears. Did you know that the oceans are the tears of the Gods? If even Gods can cry, why should we mortals be ashamed of it?”