Seven Princes

by John R. Fultz

  Tonight it was no wood creature that roused him. It was Alua, slipping from the coverlet and running toward the black wall of forest. He called her name, but she did not hear… or chose to ignore him. He stood and pulled his sword-belt over his shoulder as she disappeared into the darkness between trees.

  Andoses raised his head. “What is happening?” He blinked at the moonlight.

  “Alua,” said Vireon. “Stay here.” And he was off, racing after her.

  Andoses yelled for him to wait, but Vireon was already among the leaves now. Alua leaped through a moonbeam ahead, and he jumped across a wild hedge to follow. He called her name again, but she ran on. Some spell had grabbed hold of her. Or she truly hoped to lose him. He had chased her across the breadth of the northlands and into the White Mountains. She would not outpace him now.

  She splashed through rills and streamlets, pounced over mossy heaps of rock, and tore through verdant thickets. The ground was uneven and dense with bracken. Up a slope she ran, then down its far side, dodging low limbs and hanging vines. The moonlight glimmered in her hair, and her pale skin was silver. Thorns and brambles tore her fine Udurum gown to shreds.

  Now she became the white fox again, and her speed increased. Vireon whispered a prayer to the Earth God that she turn back and heed his call. But she raced ever deeper into the shadows of the forest. He could chase her for days, but Andoses must not be abandoned. He ran faster, the white fox a blur between the trees.

  At last he climbed the far side of a hollow crested with a stand of silverbark and found her standing at the edge of a great and ancient ruin. Now she was a woman again, and she gazed upon the tumbled blocks of green stone, silent as a ghost. He joined her there, but she paid him no mind. Her eyes drank in the panorama of shattered flagstones thick with lichen and made uneven by sprouting weeds. Fallen pillars lay in pieces beneath shrouds of thick verdure. The forest here opened to the sky, and the full moon poured its gold across the bones of a primeval city.

  Alua walked a winding avenue through the collapsed metropolis. Vireon followed, drawing his Giant-blade from its scabbard. They passed the husks of crumbled towers in vestments of blooming vine. Fragments of colonnade and arch stood heavy with curtains of leaf and hanging moss. It seemed that every fragment was made of pale jade. The stones had faded from emerald brightness to pastel green over the ages. In a broad plaza headless statues stood on blocks or lay in pieces among clustered ferns. Some of the figures were tall as Giants, but they bore no aspects of Uduru or Udvorg. These were the effigies of Men, garbed in baroque armor, hefting broken spears or the hilts of swords whose blades had gone to dust.

  Curved terraces had become hillsides of wild growth, and fractured fountains of marble had ceased long ago to spill their waters. A high temple stood at the center of the ruins, its dome cracked and open to the night atop a series of terraced landings. Alua was drawn to this place. Vireon walked beside her, but she heard nothing of his whispers. He did not wish to raise his voice any louder in this place, for it held an aura of forgotten holiness. Dusty jewels lay scattered across the moss at their feet, treasures unclaimed for so long they had lost their gleam. Alua climbed the temple steps, and he followed.

  A pale skull lay upon the highest step, secured to the stone by clinging lichen. It wore a helm of violet and gold blossoms. Alua glanced at it, as if she might pick it up, then she passed through the open arch of the temple gate. Its portals had fallen to dust long ago, and the high-walled vault within refracted moonlight from its round walls like dirty mirrors. She walked into that glow and a mass of tiny furred things skittered into the corners. Four massive pillars had once supported the dome, and three of them still stood. A dark form stood in the shadows across an expanse of toppled masonry.

  She walked into the streaming moonlight and stood before an idol of some ancient Goddess. Vireon’s eyes traveled up the slim figure of sculpted jade, over its naked breasts, and settled on the finely sculpted face. It was a beautiful girl with eyes of inset onyx, or obsidian. The icon stood intact but for a few hairline fissures in its slim arms and legs. The green Goddess held a three-pointed flame symbol in each of her open palms.

  Vireon looked at the young face, then at Alua, and he knew.

  She wept now. Her tears sparkled in the gloom as she stared up at her own face. There was no doubt that it was her. At the idol’s feet sat a great round bowl, and a low altar also of jade. She waved a hand over the bowl, and a white flame rose up there, along with a deep sound that echoed through the ruined streets.

  She fell to her knees, and Vireon put his arm around her.

  “What is this place?” he asked.

  She looked at him with drowned eyes.

  “This was my home,” she said. “These were my people…”

  She looked again at the idol’s face.

  “I remember…” she whispered and sighed. “I remember it all now.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Omu,” she said, her voice swelling with pride and sorrow. “This was Omu the Green City. I watched over them here like my own children… They worshipped me with sacrifices of blossom and herb. I was old even then… older than they could understand. I had not yet forgotten everything. I… I loved them.”

  He held her close as she sobbed. The white flame danced in its bowl, and Vireon felt a presence now in the temple. Something or someone had entered. He looked about, squinting. Alua lifted her head at his sudden intake of breath.

  They wandered in through cracks in the walls, or the crumbled gate. Men and women with painted dusky skin, feathers tangled in their hair. Some carried spears of wood with triangular tips of jade. Their bodies were transparent as mist, their eyes sorrowful and yet somehow joyous as well. The moldy stones of the temple shone through their ribcages and faces. They were ghosts, every one of them. Of this Vireon had no doubt.

  “The spirits of my people,” said Alua, rising. “Children,” she said to them. And a few of them now were children, walking unhurriedly with the rest to fill the temple. “Forgive me… I could not save you.”

  As she wept behind those words, the ghost-people went to their knees and bowed their translucent heads to the floor. They were silent as the moon, but their message was understanding. Forgiveness.

  “Go now,” she said. “Go and rest. You need not have waited for me all this time. Take your peace and know that I remember you. I remember Omu.”

  The phantoms faded from the world like pale smokes. She and he stood alone inside the sanctuary. Her eyes scanned the faded frescoes along the walls.

  “Alua,” he called to her softly.

  “My name was Ytara,” she said. “Though I had many other names.”

  “What shall I call you?” he asked.

  She turned her eyes on him again, smiling a little now. “Call me Alua, for that is who I choose to be. It is more fair than all my other names.”

  “What happened here?” he asked.

  She sighed and sat herself upon the fallen pillar. “Omu was a peaceful kingdom. How long I fostered them I cannot say, but when I found them they lived in woven huts. Over time they built this city from a hill of precious stone. It was a happy age. The laughter of children and lovers was as common as the singing of birds. Gentle rains fed the streams. The beasts of the forest looked to the People of Omu as friends and guardians. There is a word in your tongue to describe it. Paradise.

  “Then the Pale Queen came, spreading darkness and contagion. Our waters dried up and our young ones died. She brought a horde of demons against our city and sought to drive us from the forest if she could not kill us all. She was as old as I… yet so very wicked. A selfish thing driven by her lust for destruction… a drinker of blood. I stood against her, but she cast me down. Her pacts with dark powers made her too terrible, and there was nothing more I could do. Rather than be her slave, I rode the flame as far as I could go. It carried me north, to a land untouched by her evil. There I roamed and hunted and forgot my pain… my name… my people
.

  “I forgot my power too. Until you came, Vireon. You awakened me from a long sleep. It was your love that brought me home… You have given me the gift of memory.”

  She kissed him then, long and deep. They made love on the temple floor, wrapped in the glow of the white flame. Her urgent cries echoed through the ruins, but there were no ghosts left to hear them.

  “I remember the Pale Queen’s name,” she told him afterwards, lying in his arms.

  “Tell me.”

  “Ianthe,” she said. “Ianthe the Claw.”

  He held her tightly, and they slept for a little while amid the ancient stones.

  In the hazy light of pre-dawn they ran laughing together until they regained the forest’s edge and the camp of Andoses. The Prince had risen early and stoked a breakfast fire.

  “Where have you two been?” he asked.

  “To the Ruins of Omu,” said Vireon. “Visiting with the spirits of a lost people.”

  Andoses’ eyes grew large. “You never cease to amaze me, Cousin. Here… have some vegetables.”

  Alua ate none of the breakfast, but stood quietly and stared eastward. The direction they must go to reach the sea and passage north.

  “Vireon,” she called to him. “You spoke of vengeance yesterday.” A gust of rising wind caught up her blonde locks and tossed them savagely about her shoulders.

  “For my brother,” said Vireon.

  “I, too, seek this,” said Alua. “Though I had forgotten it. Now this desire has returned with the rest of my memories.”

  Vireon quaffed a bowl of steaming broth. “We seek two things that are one… intertwined, like our fates.” He went to Alua and pulled her close.

  “She must pay for what she did,” Alua whispered.

  “As must he.”

  “I sense them now,” she said. “North and west…”

  “Shar Dni?”

  “It must be. They are no longer in Khyrei.”

  “Then we must travel faster,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  Andoses eyed them curiously as he stamped out the morning fire. “Shall we ride?” he called. He had not yet saddled and burdened the horses, waiting for Vireon’s strong arms to help.

  Alua took Vireon’s hand and led him to stand beside his cousin.

  “This way is too slow,” she told them. “These mounts are too tired. We must ride the flame to Shar Dni.”

  Andoses looked at him. Vireon nodded.

  Alua spread her arms, and white flames erupted from her palms. She cast the fire about them in a burning ring that floated in the air like smoke. Then another, and another, until they stood cocooned in a sphere of blazing whiteness. Vireon and Andoses shut their eyes against the brilliance. There was no heat, only a pleasant warmth that replaced the cool of morning.

  Alua grabbed them by the hands. Now the globe of white flame rose, and Vireon felt his feet leave the ground.

  She is a sorceress, he thought. This power is the substance of her memory.

  The flaming sphere rose into the sky, hurtling eastward. Vireon could see nothing, but he felt great winds rush past the globe. He remembered a comet he and Tadarus had seen as young boys, a spark of light rushing across the starlit sky. That must be how they looked from below, if any could see them against the blue vault of sky.

  The smell of seawater met his nostrils, and he knew they flew now above the Golden Sea. At what great speed, he could not guess. The hand of Alua was cool and strong in his own. The hand of Andoses was sweaty and warm. After a while came the gradual sensation of sinking. The white flames faded and their feet met the earth again, ever so gently.

  Vireon opened his eyes, blinking. Alua smiled at him. Andoses smiled too, and gave a quick laugh. They stood upon damp green grass atop the western heights of the valley containing the River Orra. The Valley of the Bull. Andoses stared past Vireon’s shoulders toward the city. The laughter died on his lips.

  Vireon turned and saw the charred walls of Shar Dni across the river. Red fires danced like crazed Giants, and pillars of black smoke rose from the streets. They were not the ritual smokes of the temples. The holy pyramids were piles of rubble; slim towers stood ablaze. The stench of burning flesh hung over the valley, and the bridge to the Western Gate was gone, great chunks of it lying in the river. The Orra ran black with blood, or oil, or both. The husks of burned ships lay along its banks, tilted on their sides like dead fish.

  In the harbor a fleet of black warships flew the emblem of the white panther.

  30

  Stone, Glass, and Crystal

  True to his word, he placed her in his throne room between two fluted pillars. She was a statue of white granite flecked with gray, and even a discerning eye would see her as no more than a finely crafted sculpture. Yet the only eyes in the great hall were Elhathym’s, and he knew she was a slave of living stone. He had restored her to human height and would keep her in this petrified state until it pleased him to do otherwise. Or he might simply forget about her, until her thoughts grew thick and dull as the granite of her body. For now she lingered fully conscious inside her stone form, imprisoned but aware of everything that passed in the royal chamber.

  What had once been a sun-bright dome where the Yaskathan Kings held feasts, rituals, and entertainments was now an austere vault of gloom. Tapestries of black wool obscured the soaring window casements so that no sunlight could intrude on the usurper’s court. Statues of former Kings and Queens had fallen to mounds of dust in their niches. Three great braziers burned with eldritch fires that never waned and required no oil or tender. The rich carpets and wall hangings depicting the histories of Yaskatha were gone, replaced by drapes of crimson fabric stitched with the hair of corpses. A pile of bleached skulls sat where the Vizier’s podium used to stand.

  The Great Hall of Trimesqua was now more tomb than throne room. About the royal dais concentric rings of sigils, wards, and runes were carved into the marble floor. Elhathym sat and brooded in the jeweled throne at their center. Near his chair stood a tall mirror of murky obsidian, its frame embroidered with tiny carved demons. Often he stared into the volcanic glass, and Sharadza saw and heard the things that he saw and heard there.

  At times he trailed a finger along her chin or breast, anticipating a delicacy he would devour later. His touch brought a rush of fear into her stone heart. But always he wandered into the shadows, or back to his throne to mumble incantations and stare into the enchanted glass. Terrified servants or cautious generals entered through the chamber’s high doors. Elhathym spoke with them in tones of menacing calm, or raged and brutalized them, giving orders that were followed to the letter. Once he killed a trembling cup-bearer with a touch of his finger. The man had spilled drink at his feet. Other servants hauled his corpse from the chamber, and there were no more clumsy servitors. Mostly the tyrant sat in his mausoleum throne room alone, but for the mute presence of the stone girl between the pillars.

  After several days of captivity she became aware of the dark jade nestled at the center of her granite being. It was the amulet given to her by Indreyah the Mer-Queen. She had forgotten it, but had worn it when Elhathym’s sorcery overcame her own. The words of Indreyah echoed in the chambers of her stone brain.

  And if you wear it while you sleep, we may speak together in dreams.

  As an entity of living rock, she could not truly sleep, but neither was she fully awake. She lingered somewhere along the line between Life and Death, near the drowsy kingdom of Sleep. She pulled her attention away from the tyrant’s bleak hall toward the crossroads of Dream and Death. The shard of jade thrummed inside the granite effigy. Elhathym’s attention was elsewhere, so she hoped he could not hear it.

  She swam through the dark emerald waters of dream, across aqueous gardens thick with anemone and iridescent schools of fish. The coral palace opened before her, and she saw the Sea Queen on her oyster-shell throne. Her silvery scales were phosphorescent, and she turned the amber slits of her eyes toward her visitor. Here
Sharadza was no longer stone, but neither was she flesh and blood. This was her dream-self, an extension of her bodiless consciousness. And this was not truly the Mer-Queen’s hall, but a dream place created by their thoughts.

  “Princess,” Indreyah greeted her with a pearly smile. “It pleases me to see you again. You have learned to use the trinket I gave you.”

  “I have,” said Sharadza. “There is little else I could do in my present state. I seek your aid.”

  “Let us walk in the gardens as we did before,” said the Queen. Now they stood among the waving sea-plants and gliding manta rays of her aquatic courtyards. Sharadza told her of Iardu and Khama. She spoke of the confrontation with Elhathym that had killed them both and left her a prisoner of stone in the conquered palace of Yaskatha. Indreyah listened intently, strands of green-black hair swirling in a halo above her heart-shaped face.

  The orbs of the Queen’s eyes grew wide when she heard Iardu’s fate. “You say the Shaper… Iardu… is dead?”

  Sharadza bowed her head. Dream tears floated like diamonds from her eyes, rising like bubbles of air. Iardu had loved Indreyah, and perhaps she had once loved him. Sharadza hated to be the bringer of bad news. Yet what other news was there in these times?

  “No,” said Indreyah. She looked toward the distant surface of the sea as a land woman might stare into the sky. Perhaps her senses extended far beyond the roof of her sunken kingdom. She seemed to observe some distant vista or scene before turning back to Sharadza. “No. Iardu cannot be dead. If he were, I would feel it. We once shared a bond… that I cannot explain. We are linked in subtle ways that have more to do with spirit than flesh. He might eventually perish in some distant eon, but he lives now. This I can tell you without doubt.”

  Sharadza told her about the black void spewing from Elhathym’s mouth, and Iardu’s plunge into that vortex of darkness. It had utterly consumed him. She saw it herself. Unless…

  “Iardu lingers somewhere,” said the Mer-Queen. “Perhaps he is imprisoned as you are. You must find him if you can. Tell me more of this Elhathym.”