by Cindy Dees
The magnificence of the Grand Receiving Chamber of the Flaming Throne, as this room was formally known, stole his breath away as it always did when he first entered. The floor was solid gold, which accounted for its less formal nickname. Frescoes thickly encrusted with gold and rare jewels adorned the soaring ceilings. The chandeliers dripped with thousands of thumb-sized diamonds.
The scale of the golden hall was enormous, befitting the epicenter of the mighty Kothite Empire. From this space the Emperor’s power emanated outward across the massive southern continent of Koth and thence across the entire planet Urth.
The people crowding the hall were no less splendid. Garbed in their Imperial finery, blazons declaring their houses, affiliations, and accomplishments covered their robes in the form of badges, sashes, enameled and jeweled brooches, rings, and in a few instances, like him, in actual tattoos upon their flesh.
But for all of the grandeur, it was the gigantic throne at the far end that utterly dominated the massive space. A long flight of golden steps led up to it, but the throne itself was black obsidian taken from the heart of Moten’s Furnace. It rose ten times the height of a man in the irregular shape of a rising flame—the Eternal Flame of Koth. The actual flame burned black in its great cauldron outside the Imperial palace, never waning, never weakening. The throne’s sinister curves and inscrutable surface were apt expressions of the massively powerful being who sat upon the seat carved into the base of the flames.
Anton had machinated so long positioning himself for this moment he could barely believe it had finally arrived. Rumors were already circulating at court that tonight he would be named governor of the newly formed colony of Dupree on the northern continent. For the past fifty years, Henrik Volen, Dupree’s longtime warden, had been in charge of taming the penal settlement. But tonight Volen was here, recalled home at long last by Maximillian.
The wealth, the power, the prestige of a full governorship … greed for all of it throbbed through Anton’s veins. An entire new continent his for the conquering, the possibilities were limitless—
Trumpets blasted demanding silence, and Warden Volen was called to the throne. An aging human, he looked and moved like a tired man as he laboriously climbed the golden steps using his weapon of office as a cane. Volen’s shepard’s axe had a narrow, pick-like head that doubled as a cane handle for the elderly man. Life on Haelos was dreadful, and the fellow showed every year of his long service in the hinterlands in his stooped frame and haggard face. Volen would have been young and brash, full of big plans, when he last left this place. How odd it must be for the warden to walk among people who appeared not one day older now, while he stood on death’s doorstep, overtaken by old age.
Anton did not listen as the Emperor thanked Volen for his faithful service and relieved him of his duty as warden. Instead, he made a mental list of luxuries he would build into the new governor’s palace that he planned to make his first priority when he arrived in Dupree.
“Anton Horatio Constantine. Present yourself to His Most Resplendent Majesty.” The voice of the Emperor’s chamberlain emanated from the vicinity of the throne, its clever acoustics amplifying and broadcasting his voice across the hall.
It was generally believed that the Emperor could pluck thoughts right out of a man’s head; hence Anton performed one last quick thought check. It is a great honor to be here. Humbling. I am overjoyed to serve the Empire.
The Emperor spoke formally. “You have served me well, Anton Constantine, and have demonstrated initiative and leadership.”
And those were not just empty words, he thought with pride. Few in the Empire could have captured a Heart of Kentogen and brought it back to Koth or rescued the entire Kithmar clan of rakasha from Pantera and made them faithful servants of the Empire. The cat changelings were notoriously stingy with their loyalty to authority figures. But he, Anton Constantine, had converted them.
Even though he knew what was coming next from the Emperor, exultation leaped in Anton’s breast. He knelt and received a silken banner of the newly created Constantine heraldry and listened while the High Herald read it into the record—a palewise inverted golden sword entwined in a vert palewise serpent in an argent bend sinister on a sable field—with all the pomp and ceremony Anton could have hoped for. The coiled green serpent was identical to the one tattooed upon his forehead at birth. The heraldry had been granted to the line of Constantines by the Emperor himself in return for the family’s faithful service to Archduke Ammertus.
The Emperor spoke once more. “Rise and be known as Lord Anton Constantine henceforth.”
He’d done it! He’d become a Lord of the Imperial Court! He had raised his family’s fortunes like no other member of his house had ever managed. All the years serving in the Assassin’s, Slaver’s, and Merchant’s Guilds … all his work leading the Coil … all the drudgery of military service … it had finally paid off. He would put seamstresses, jewelers and armorers to work day and night to plaster everything and everyone in his house with blazons proclaiming their fealty to House Constantine.
The Emperor gestured indolently, and a servant held out a long, tasseled pillow. From it the Emperor lifted one of a pair of magnificent golden short swords exactly matching the one on the banner. “These are infused weapons.”
Anton’s jaw literally dropped open. Infused? Not plated, or even made of regular gold, but infused? The magical forging process imbued the essence of the sword’s base material—high-quality steel most likely—with another material, in this case gold, at the most fundamental level of its existence. Maximillian turned the blade in his hands, examining the craftsmanship. The gold winked far too brightly in the light of the thousands of candles, as if it actually glowed from within.
Can it be? Is that Solinar gold? The substance, found only on the Sunset Isles, home of the solinari—sun elves—not only glowed at night, but also held the power to capture magic, and, furthermore, to cast that magic again at a later time. Solinar gold was among the rarest and most prized metals on Urth.
The Emperor planned to gift him with such a magnificent weapon of office? It shouted of just how high in Maximillian’s esteem he stood. The envy pouring off the other courtiers in the hall was palpable. Anton did not even try to contain his swelling pride.
A chamberlain turned to the retired Warden of Dupree, who still stood slightly to one side of the throne, and said formally, “The key to the warden’s residence if you will, Volen.”
The old man held his hand out, and in his palm rested a large, ugly iron key. The Emperor reached for the key just as a small disturbance came from behind the throne.
Anton spied Princess Endellian, Maximillian’s daughter and heir to the throne, slipping out from behind the giant stone flame carving. She was slender, almost waif-like, with long, dark hair that floated around her like a sable cloud. Her complexion was golden, her features vaguely elfish, with slanted, sultry eyes as black as her father’s throne.
Maximillian’s hand paused over the key.
Anton had to fight to tear his gaze away from the mysterious princess, forever caught in the bloom of young womanhood. He never made the mistake of underestimating the Emperor’s offspring, though. She was fully as devious and brilliant as her sire, if not quite as powerful. It was likely her mental manipulations that made males unable to look away from her. Maximillian listened as she leaned down to whisper in his ear. Anton caught snatches of the exchange.
“… oracle glowed … spoke in a strange tongue … prophecy appears to be about you, Sire … cannot force it from her mind … neither of us can read her … need your permission to use the sands…”
The Emperor frowned. Without a word of explanation or apology to Anton, he stood and followed his daughter through the private doorway behind the throne.
* * *
Endellian led her father quickly down the undecorated stone hallway to the special room where the Emperor’s personal oracles were housed, a plainly furnished but comfortable chamber.
Her father’s chief torturer had no need for racks or hot irons to extract information from his prisoners. It was all much more civilized—and effective—than traditional blood, gore, and screaming.
Magically suspended in midair, this oracle was an aged woman who had lasted much longer than the majority of her kind. Normally, her interrogator did not have to resort to such measures to get her to talk. The Crone, as she was known, generally had no compunction compared to previous Children of Fate about giving up her visions. Perchance, the cynicism that came with age had helped her grasp quickly and well that resistance was pointless. Which was why, when the seer refused to give up her prophecy tonight no matter what persuasion or coercion Laernan tried, Endellian had fetched her father.
Lord High Inquisitor Laernan Zaphre, the Emperor’s personal interrogator and her half brother by way of their shared mother, reported briefly, “The Crone was speaking of Haelos before she abruptly refused to continue.”
Endellian studied her father’s torturer carefully. Layers of nuance danced in his words. An interesting man, Laernan. Handsome, of early middle age, he had stolid features, a sturdy build. Everything about him announced his dependability. He was the kind of man soldiers wanted at their back.
She stared into his wise, intelligent eyes and noted that their habitual sadness was more guarded than usual tonight. His special talent was to see into the minds of prophets. His father, the Sand Pharaoh of Kufu, was a Master of Time Magic. High Perceptor Iolanthe, their shared mother, was the sage council to Emperors of Koth. Together, his parents had passed Laernan an ability to look into prophets’ minds and see through the cracks in Time along with the seers. Whereas her father could brute-force his way past obstacles any mind placed before him, Laernan’s gift was one part surgery and one part subtle art.
If Laernan was alarmed by the things the oracle had been seeing and saying, Endellian, in turn, was alarmed. It took a great deal to perturb steady, unflappable Laernan. How on Urth had the oracle managed to sever his connection to her visions?
“The north seems to be much on my seers’ minds of late,” Maximillian commented.
Endellian had not paid much attention to the newly discovered continent since Ammertus led an army to it and broke the Council of Beasts. He did not manage to kill any of the Great Beasts, but he had captured a few animal lords before requiring rescue by her father’s personal legion, the Dark Amphere. The few who knew of it considered the expedition a failure. Not only had Ammertus failed to subdue the continent; but his near defeat had required Maximillian to unleash the third forgetting, and furthermore, forced Koth to begin its campaign for Haelos anew.
Her father stepped near the oracle, who struggled fruitlessly against the magic gripping her as he approached.
“Tell me what you see.” Her father’s command was accompanied by a burst of mental power designed to force the old woman’s thoughts into her conscious mind where Maximillian could read them.
Endellian watched the suspended Child of Fate carefully. As the prisoner’s unwilling eyes glazed with other vision, Endellian sought the source of this glimpse beyond the fracture in Time the seer peered through. But even as Endellian tried to trace the link, it slipped away from her.
“Ahh. There it is,” the old woman sighed.
“Tell me,” Maximillian demanded more dismissively than Endellian would have. Something in the prophet’s voice disturbed her. She sensed a seed of danger germinating.
“So powerful…,” the seer’s voice trailed off, then rose again in disbelief, “No. Truly? Is it possible?” The Crone’s staring eyes widened in something wavering between wonder and awe as she watched the vision unfold in the landscape of her mind.
Abruptly she laughed, a hyena’s cackling howl that made everyone in the room jump. And then she lurched within her restraints as if a bolt of lightning had struck her. She blinked and looked around the chamber. For all the world, it looked as if the oracle had been ejected from her vision. Endellian frowned, relieved that she had summoned her father.
The Crone announced to Maximillian, “The Mistress has reminded me of who I am. Shown me that hope is not lost. Resistance is not meaningless.” Her voice gained strength. “I will not give this vision to you, Maximillian of Koth. This is not the end of me. It is the end of you.”
Shock rolled through Endellian—a sensation she could not recall the last time she experienced. No one spoke thus to the Emperor.
Maximillian stepped forward and grasped the Crone’s throat. “Show it to me,” he ordered coldly.
“I will not … give … it … up.” The words sounded ripped from the oracle’s throat, as if her vocal cords were slowly being torn free of their moorings.
And then she shouted, “Unto the last, I shall resist thee, Usurper of All! You shall not have this final vision. Die blind, Murderer of Hope, never knowing what struck you and from whence—”
Her screamed curse cut off with a strangled cry, her body abruptly limp. Lifeless. The magics holding her aloft collapsed, and the Emperor cast her corpse down in disgust, a broken and useless toy.
“Shall I revive her, Your Resplendent Majesty?” Laernan asked emotionlessly.
Maximillian shook his head, staring thoughtfully at the body lying twisted at his feet. “It was not I who ended her life. The vision itself killed her and consumed her spirit in the process. Neither your skills, nor even mine, will bring her back. Her spirit is no more.”
Endellian’s jaw sagged. A vision so powerful it destroyed the seer who looked upon it? A prophecy that protected itself from the Sight of the Emperor? What strange magic was this?
The Emperor ordered no one in particular, “Clean that up. And bring me another oracle. The weakest one you’ve got. I shall have this prophecy. Now.”
* * *
Gabrielle Aquilla, the young Queen of Haraland, smiled carefully as gossip erupted around her. Why the interruption in naming a new governor? What crisis called the Emperor himself from his throne?
Privately, she considered Anton Constantine an extremely poor choice for the job. Whispered rumors had swirled around him for as long as she’d been at court of graft, bribery, and excesses of the worst possible kind. Even the Imperial guilds were said to despise him, and they were renowned for their corruption.
Her own astute and experienced husband had been mentioned as a possible candidate to become the first governor of the new colony. It wasn’t that Regalo Aquilla was a thorn in the Emperor’s side. Quite the opposite. If anything, Regalo was too popular and successful a ruler in his kingdom not far from the Imperial Seat.
Haraland, one of the largest and most prosperous of the hundred kingdoms of Koth, was blessed with a mild climate, fertile valleys, ocean access, rich mines, and thick forests. Not to mention a contented populace. More than enough to draw Maximillian’s suspicion.
Realizing the deadly turn of her thoughts, she hastily shifted her attention back to Anton fidgeting before the throne. Her impression of him was of a slimy social climber at best and a vicious whoreson at worst. She felt a frisson of sorrow for the colonists who were about to inherit him and his insatiable appetite for wealth and power.
“If you will excuse me, my dear,” Regalo murmured at her elbow, “I have business to attend to. Sir Darius, if you would escort my lady wife in my absence?”
“It would be my honor, my lord.” Her husband’s knight bowed courteously and took up a position at her side.
An automatic smile upon her face, she spied an old childhood friend who was also another young newcomer to court, wife of the ambassador from the Heartland to the Imperial Seat. The Heartland was the only known source of Heartstones, the magical stones that allowed dead spirits to return from the Spirit Realm to the land of the living. A massive organization of healers had sprung up around the use of the stones over the millennia, and its headquarters were in the Heartland as well.
“Come, Darius. Let us give our greetings to Lady Stasiana and help her feel welcome.”
Exotic and expensive colognes warred with one another all around her, and Gabrielle felt her breath grow short as she was forced to inhale the cocktail of fumes. She wended her way slowly across the ballroom praying all the while for the imaginary iron band that tightened around her chest from time to time to stay away tonight.
Some high functionary, mayhap one of the archdukes, must have signaled a dance, for abruptly the center of the floor cleared. The crush around the margins of the room became even worse. Her breath began to come in wheezing gasps. Air. She needed air.
Blessedly, Gabrielle spied a small opening in the press of bodies and slipped through it. Of a sudden the ambassador’s wife was only a few feet away, looking as bewildered as she had when she first arrived in the capital.
“Well met, Madame Ambassador,” Gabrielle said warmly.
“Gabrielle! I was hoping you would be here to guide me through this madness.”
“Welcome to court, Sasha.” They traded kisses on both cheeks as was the current court custom, followed by affectionate hugs.
“Is that your servant trying to dance his way through the crowd?”
Gabrielle glanced over her shoulder and laughed as Darius frantically dodged dancing couples in an effort to rejoin her. “That’s Sir Darius, my ever-faithful watchdog,” she replied fondly.
“This crush is terrible, and I confess, I am still afeared of crowds,” Lady Sasha murmured.
For her part, Gabrielle desperately needed to sit down and loosen her stays until her breathing returned to a semblance of normal. She glanced around. “Let us retire to an alcove. There is one just over there with its curtain open.”
“I do not have sufficient rank to use one,” Sasha murmured in alarm.
“You are the wife of an important ambassador now, Sash. You’ll be fine. And besides, I’m a queen.”
They giggled for a moment like the schoolgirls they had once been and, ducking Sir Darius again, made their way to an arched opening leading to one of many small chambers adjoining the golden hall. Ostensibly, high-ranking nobles were invited to rest and refresh themselves in them. But in point of fact, conspiracies and romantic trysts were the stuff and fare of these private niches. The two women climbed the steps to an alcove whose curtains hung open and paused for a moment to look out across the swirling kaleidoscope of dancers.