by Paul Kidd
"Never extend the final act, and always dazzle them with an unforeseen display!" Ilego raised a careless bottle to the crowd. "Time's up, my friends! It seems we have our curtain call!"
Down on a cleared street, among the mob, armored gunners checked their hoses and retorts, then raised clenched fists to their commander. The master gunner jerked the valve release and slammed his visor shut across his eyes.
Mounted at the forefront of the machine, the Sun Gem blazed unutterably bright. A searing bolt of violet light spat across the air, and Ilego's gatehouse wall blew apart. Molten stonework fountained through the sky and superheated masonry exploded in an example of demolition such as all Faerun had never seen. In an instant, the palace of Ilego was no more.
Svarezi surveyed the lifeless ruins with a cold, unwinking eye. Turning into the arms of an adoring, cheering crowd, he rode forth to take the city as his own.
"Never! He shall have neither my blessing, nor my hand." Lady Ulia Mannicci, looking like a veritable storm front in her black widow's gown, glared down across a multitude of chins. "I am the widow of this great city's rightful prince. I shall not besmirch his name by wedding myself to a foreign usurper!"
Ugo Svarezi's envoys, a Colletran Blade Captain and a representative from Sumbria, both kept diplomatic smiles as they held their bows.
"Madam, the prince's offer is sincere. He is now the prince-elect both of Colletro and Sumbria, and is moved to offer marriage to the greatest lady of the age."
Ulia gave a snort and cracked a cast-iron fan into her fist. The death of her husband had left her disgruntled, but not diminished. With the coming of peace, Svarezi had wasted little time in sending emissaries of his love. Lady Ulia had been found in command of one of her own palace towers, a place in which she had gathered almost a hundred young girls to save them from the ravages of the civil war. She had defended this treasure through two weeks of constant battle, keeping all comers from her door by a combination of hurtled rocks, chamber pots and invective… and the largest trebuchet battery in the Blade Kingdoms.
Peace had come, and Ulia's teeth had been carefully drawn. She now stood and confronted new enemies, glowering at them with the eyes of a maddened bull.
"I am aware of exactly what your master wants, and he shall not have it! I have read all the same books as he. If he wishes to legitimize his conquest of Sumbria, he may seek marriage elsewhere."
Colletro's diplomat changed his expression to a sly, calculating smile.
"Perhaps we can persuade the great lady to change her mind?" The man flipped his colleague a lazy glance. "Were she to sample our hospitality, she would surely see the error of her ways.
"Alas, the chambers we have to offer are a trifle cramped. We cannot guarantee her ladyship's total satisfaction…"
Ulia gazed down at the man as though about to crush him like a snake.
"You would not dare! The prince has an heir, sir. An heir who will avenge slights delivered to his family!"
"An heir?" Awake at last, the Sumbrian delegate raised a sardonic, mocking brow. "Cappa Mannicci sired no heirs."
"I refer, sir, to his daughter Miliana, who has escaped this city to organize an army to reconquer her lost home!"
"Aaaaaah… then it is vengeance my lord must fear!" The Sumbrian delightedly clapped his hands. "I am sure he will lie awake in terror at nights, dreading the arrival of your stepdaughter and her avenging sword."
Still pretending to a veneer of friendliness, the Colletran emissary intruded himself at Lady Ulia's side.
"Seriously, my lady, the prince's offer is the best for us all. Would you let mere pride destroy the bright hopes for our new nation?"
"I wish your new nation to the dogs, sir!" Ulia let her bodice creak with the swelling of her pride. "I can smell a despot as well as anyone, and despotism is the stench that creeps across this land. The people still cheer too much to notice it, sir, but they shall come back to their senses in time."
"By which time, my lady, it will all be far too late." The Colletran snapped his fingers and summoned a horde of guards. "With your permission, my lady, we shall install you as our master's special guest. Diet and exercise may help clear the evil humors from your mind. A good brisk run tied behind a team of horses twice each day, and a diet of bread and salad greens." The man chuckled as he saw the color flush into Ulia's face. "You may halt our little regimen at any time, of course; simply agree to become my master's bride, and you may once again return to the lap of luxury."
"Varlet! Do your worst!" Ulia shoved her guards aside and proudly hefted up her hems. "Toril itself shall expire before you manage to break the likes of me!"
Trailing a nervous procession of guards, Lady Ulia stormed away into the talons of her enemies. Outside the palace walls, the street crowds still excitedly bubbled as the new prince of Sumbria was showered endlessly with praise.
As far as cities went, Lomatra placed itself at the picturesque end of the scale. Overlooking the clear waters of the Akanamere and capped off with spectacular limestone promontories, the city had the look of a sleepy fishing village grown to unmanageable size. It seemed a land of pastel colors and evening hush, of warm lakefront and eccentric little trees bounded by a broad, deep river that masked the city from the mountain pass above. Miliana, who had spent her life confined to the Mannicci palace in Sumbria and a few closely chaperoned bridle paths, found the place utterly enchanting.
The city's general air of sleepiness and disarray were what annoyed Lorenzo the most. Clad in bedraggled clothing, tired and filthy from long sleepless nights beside the road, he surveyed his native land from the hills up above, and gave an irritated snarl.
The Blade Kingdoms were each quite tiny when measured on the scale of other lands. Each nation consisted of a single town, a few surrounding villages, and their supporting fields. Most could be crossed in less than a day's ride. Even so, the escape route taken by Miliana and her band had taken two weeks of vile, uncomfortable tedium. They each had only a single set of clothes, and those had been damp and muddy from their trip under the river gates. With no money, the group had been unable to afford food; dinner had been provided by Tekoriikii, who had scavenged rabbits, watermelons, and long poles threaded with dozens of dead, dried carp. While the bird seemed to enjoy the salty fish, no one else could bear to ever look a carp in the face again.
With brigands and rapacious refugees scouring the hills, Miliana and her friends had hidden in a cave for many long, boring days. Now bedraggled, scratched by brambles, and beset with chafing itches, they had all endured quite enough. Despite Lorenzo's protests, the footsore humans had shambled on to the promised haven of the Lomatran city walls.
Flying gaily overhead, Tekoriikii gave a screech of heartfelt joy and looped toward the sun. His companions glared up at him and muttered curses under their breath.
Miliana felt utterly exhausted; she had never walked a full day's march before in all her life. Footsore, unkempt, and smelling like a sea hag dragged backward through a sewer, she was quite ready to sell her soul for a decent bed and a massage. She watched, uncaring, as Lorenzo and Luccio exchanged conversation with the soldiers at Lomatra's gates, never even questioning why the gate commander offered her a horse.
The girl leaned upon Lorenzo for support. As she rode, Miliana nodded wearily, casting an eye up to a fine, half-timbered house that occupied the slope of a quiet hill.
"Where are we going? Is that an inn?"
"No… it's home." Lorenzo kept his shoulders hunched and kicked irritably at vagrant cobblestones. "My home. So now I have to crawl back in through the doors and beg for leave to stay."
"Oh?"
Miliana sensed a delicate situation in the offing, but was just too damned tired to care. She held Tekoriikii on the saddle bow before her and hugged him tight to keep him still. "What about Luccio? Does he have a house here too?"
Luccio answered with a polite cough, hiding his responding blush behind his hand.
"Yes. Ah-well… I suppose I am what is
best called a 'boon companion.'"
"Meaning I have to convince my father to let him free-load from our kitchen once more." Lorenzo spared his own front door a bitter, reluctant glance. "All right, let's get this over with. He told me to bring home a princess-and now I'm bringing one…"
Pulling his ruined clothing into some semblance of shape, Lorenzo the artist, scion of the noble house of Utrelli, moved up to the thick wooden bars across the gatehouse door. An old man bearing a spiked wooden club scrabbled up from his comfortable chair behind the portal and waved the weapon back and forth above his head.
"Be off with you, ragamuffin! You'll get no charity here!"
"Oh, hush!" Miliana regarded the old man with a foul-tempered scowl. "Can't you see he's Lorenzo Utrelli?"
"He knows…" Lorenzo kicked at the gate in spite. "Open the gate, Alonzo, or I'll burn the damned thing down."
The old gatekeeper muttered; seething with dislike, he ripped open the locks and swung the heavy doors aside. Lorenzo led Miliana and Luccio in through the gatehouse, biting his thumb at the gatekeeper as he passed.
Just to prove superiority, Tekoriikii strutted back and forth past the old man three times, clucking to himself as he shook out his fabulous tail.
In a courtyard formed by a hollow square of half-timbered walls, Lorenzo handed Miliana down from her horse. The girl shot an ill-tempered glance back to the gate.
"Is he always like that?"
"Nasty old…" Lorenzo tried to help Miliana bash her hat back into a presentable cone. "I tried to replace him with an automatic door-opening machine."
"What-because it was less expensive?"
"No, because it would have offered better conversation." The young artist adjusted his rapier belt and headed for the stairs. "Come on up. Tekoriikii, leave him alone, you don't know where he's been!"
The group entered a darkly panelled, badly lit great hall that smelled of wood polish and fried onions. A pair of overfed maids took one look at Lorenzo, gave spiteful scowls, and stalked off without a word. Lorenzo ignored the scene and busied himself opening up the curtains, trying to bring some illumination to the room as he spoke for the benefit of his friends.
"Welcome to House Utrelli. Contents: One father-heavy cavalryman, retired. One brainless dolt of a younger brother-light cavalryman, not retired. The barracks house three hundred Lanze Spezzate, four noblemen, five squires, and a gatekeeper with a club. An environment tailor-made to foster hostility and hate." He turned as the sound of silks whispered down a connecting hall. "The house also contains one sister: Name-unimportant. Profession-gold digger."
The door opened, revealing the sister in question-tall, haughty, and wearing a well-stuffed court gown. She faced Lorenzo with a sweet, false smile and dropped herself into a little bow.
"Brother scribbler."
"Sister bloodsucker." Lorenzo looked at the girl with absolute, unfeigned dislike. "These are my friends. This is Princess Miliana. We've all just escaped the fall of Sumbria."
"Why, how very nice for them!" Lorenzo's sister simpered, keeping her malicious face locked into its perfect smile. "And so why have you brought them here?"
"Why do you think?" Lorenzo ignored the girl and began wrenching open doors. "Where's father?"
"Father has left word that he is not at home."
"Meaning that he is home and just doesn't want to see me." Lorenzo pulled open a broom cupboard and stuck his head inside. "Father?"
A muffled reply drifted through the wall; thrusting into the room came a massive, powerful old man. Although fully seven decades old, he towered over his own son by some six inches in height and fifty pounds of muscle mass.
Franco Utrelli, once a cavalier of the realm and now father to a nitwit inventor of a son, took one look at Lorenzo and let his nose wrinkle to a hidden smell.
"Oh, it's you." Lorenzo's father looked as though he had just trodden in something nasty. "Unless you've got a princess-get out."
"Father, it's an emergency! And anyway-I have a princess." Lorenzo flicked a glance at a man behind his father who could have been his father's younger clone. "Hello, Alberto. Father, Sumbria has fallen to Colletro. The whole city just passed into Svarezi's hands."
"Good riddance to 'em, too!" The senior Utrelli tried to wave Lorenzo from the room. "Always cluttering things up with do-good intentions and too-clever-by-half plans…"
"Father-we've been allies for a hundred years!"
"And look where it's gotten us! It's turned our young fighting men into a race of worthless nancies." Old Utrelli senior prodded a finger at the dandified Luccio. "In my day, men were men. Soldiers and commanders… like your brother here. Now there's a fine figure of a man. Not some damned paintbrush-swizzling, tinker-brained, gnome-headed, leveling little freak!"
Lorenzo's younger brother puffed out his muscular chest in pride. Lorenzo sneered and jabbed at the creature in unremitting spite.
"He's exactly what's wrong with the entire system of social class! He has the brains of a golem and the education of a goblin; yet we're told that the lower orders have to listen to every word the damned fool says! If we're ever going to have true justice, we need to run governments through meritocracy. Set up a way to have the ruling done by those most fit to-"
"The nobility are most fit to rule!"
"No one has given the common folk a chance to try, so how can we possibly…"
Lorenzo's father stuck his fingers in his ears.
"I'm not listening!" He began to sing loudly and tonelessly, instantly attracting Tekoriikii's attention. "Not listening! Not listening!"
Lorenzo's sister tried to intrude with her sweet, genteel smile.
"Now, Lorenzo, you know how father feels about your proposition to overthrow the ruling classes."
"What would you know about it? The only thing you ever overthrew was your own virtue."
Lorenzo's brother stirred into action with an "I say, steady on…" The family argument settled into full swing. Watched by an innocent and confused Tekoriikii, who flicked his head from side to side and up and down like a frog at a gnat convention, all four members of the Utrelli family, their two maids, and their gatekeeper all crowded into a circle and began a wild melee of words. Invective flew like an arrow storm, accompanied by hand gestures, stamping feet, and wild bellows of rage. Miliana watched in growing fury, slowly cramming her ruined hat deeper down over her brows.
"Shut up!"
Miliana's voice snapped like a lightning bolt, bringing an amazed halt to the family wars.
"Shut up! I order you to shut up!"
Lorenzo's sister blinked at her in shock, then opened her mouth to speak. She took one look at Miliana and blanched as the princess bunched a fist.
Short, begrimed and bespectacled, Miliana kept the Utrelli family rooted to the spot as she snapped out orders like a leader born.
Her first command sent Lorenzo's brother scuttling away.
"You! Go return my horse to the city gate. You maids-go get a room for me and then pile some straw in a corner as a nest for the bird. He wants a box of salt biscuits, a bucket of nuts-and get me a bottle of new white wine." Filthy, tired, and angry, the princess kicked Lorenzo's brother on his way. "Move it! The rest of you-I want baths for me, for Luccio, and for Lorenzo, a change of clothes and a meal-and someone get me a map of the Blade Kingdoms, now!"
Trying to preserve her air of cynical gentility, Lorenzo's sister faced Miliana with lowered lashes.
"And is there nothing else?"
"I'll work on it." Miliana marked the door to the bathhouse and hitched up her filthy skirts. "I get the bath first. Just find me a decent dress and some towels."
The sister gazed down her nose at Miliana with a sneer.
"And what, my dear, should you be called?"
"I should be called when I've finished my bath." Miliana ruthlessly pushed the larger girl aside. "After that, you can call a meeting of your Blade Council, and call your troops to arms."
Miliana departed i
n a slap of bare, muddy feet. Lorenzo's sister kept a smile frozen on her face as she swiveled furious eyes upon Lorenzo.
"And who, exactly, is she?"
"She's serious." Lorenzo managed to pull off one mildewed boot, releasing a shower of stones across the floor. "Don't bother her until she's had her bath."
Luccio departed for the pantry, slapping his hands together in glee. Lorenzo crawled off to find himself a tin bath and a mug of beer. Watching the entire household whir like a hornet's nest, then depart, Lorenzo's sister drew in a magnificent breath of protest, only to find her audience had flown.
Exasperated, the girl stamped her foot in rage. With a toss of her head and a heave of her breast, she stormed irritably from the room.
… Leaving Tekoriikii in full possession of the floor. The bird looked about himself in curiosity, spied a string of pearls dangling about Lorenzo's sister's receding neck, and waddled off in swift pursuit, naked avarice gleaming in his eye.
"My lord? My lord, the dockyard guildmasters wish to tender their report."
Approaching nervously in the shadow of the hippogriff aerie atop Sumbria's highest tower, the Colletran chief of staff faced Ugo Svarezi with a bow. Behind the administrative head of Svarezi's new army, terrified technicians tried to hide from the bite of the first winter storm.
Forever clad in his black velvet brigantine, Svarezi ignored the interlopers and stared at the tower above him. His cold, chiseled face showed neither hatred nor joy, merely a desire for absolute, soulless efficiency.
With the winter months blooming bitter cold, the hippogriffs were restless. Svarezi ordered boilers stoked beneath the aeries, warming the floors to a springtime heat. Normally, the creatures bred in spring, the mares raising their young across the summer season, but this year, Svarezi wanted every mount upon the wing. He would breed his beasts through winter, and have the fledglings weaned before the summer campaigns began.
"My lord? My lord-the dockside artisans… their report i-is quite important…"
Svarezi turned and his expression chilled the artisans' blood stone cold.