The corporal finished chewing out fat Tugbat. The hapless first soldier had poured water on his injured hand and was waving it around again.
“Behold!” Tugbat roared. “Risrinc thinks he’s become a war-eagle. Hap your wings, O mighty one. Fly up to your aerie.”
Risrinc opened his mouth to reply. His jaw dropped farther than he’d planned. “Look,” he said, pointing past his fellows.
Moriana had slid down the rear of the hill, slung the satchel over her shoulder, and boldly walked around the flank of the rise.
“Dark Ones suck my soul,” the corporal said, turning. “This is a welcome sight, indeed.”
“We’ve earned the favor of the Dark Ones,” Risrinc said, his scorched hand forgotten. He leered as he said, “Look at the fine gift they’ve sent up.”
Moriana felt fury boil in her veins. She stood before the men, legs parted slightly, head held high. “Take me at once to the Sky City,” she demanded.
The soldiers exchanged glances. “Who do you think you are?” the corporal asked with a sneer. “To order the troops of the Sky City about like serfs is risky business, wench. And His Excellency Prince Rann has himself decreed that none shall be permitted to ascend without a special pass.” He eyed her with his head tipped to one side and lust plain in his eyes. Her garb was outlandish, and her build taller than was common among those from the Sky City. He obviously mistook her for some slut from the Quincunx cities.
“You need a lesson in manners,” he said, starting toward her. “You’ll not go to the Sky City this day. Instead, you’ll go with me beyond yon wall and relieve the tedium of my watch. After that, I’ll let my men amuse themselves as well. Please us and we may not cut out your tongue for impertinence.”
Moriana let him draw near, then casually dropped her right hand so that her fingertips touched the hilt of her sword.
“It’s you who needs a lesson in manners,” she raged. “Curs! On your knees before the Princess Moriana, daughter of Queen Derora, scion of the House of Etuul, Mistress of the Clouds!” Fury blazed from her like a hard, clear light.
The soldiers dropped to their knees. “Your pardon, Sky-born,” gasped the corporal, rubbing his face in the black loam at her feet. “We did not know!”
“Had you knowingly addressed a princess of the Blood as you did me, you’d find yourself flayed and bathed in brine before the sun touched the Thails.” She walked to the crumbling wall of the dock. The hissing roar of the fire elemental was the only sound disturbing the sudden silence. “Now,” she continued, “do as you were commanded. Take me to the city at once.”
The corporal struggled to his feet. He kept his eyes averted. Color seeped up from the collar of his jerkin.
“Speak, man! Why do you not obey me?”
The corporal looked at his men. They looked elsewhere. “Uh, Your Ascendancy, we… our orders are very strict. None is permitted up without a warrant signed by Prince Rann himself.”
“Surely you don’t think such prohibitions apply to me?”
“The orders were, uh, quite specific. No exceptions.” He looked up at her with doleful eyes. “Please, Lady, have mercy. We are poor men who do our duty and have no wish to be exiled.”
Moriana held in a sigh. She’d hoped to deal with the soldiers individually, or at least with two first, and then the other. But there was no choice now. It had to be all three at once. She hoped her absence from the city hadn’t made her powers wane too much. But the nearness of the Sky City aided her. She reached out and felt the immense power flowing from the bedrock of her sky home. The magical powers mounted, then flowed smoothly, her will directing them easily.
Her eyes became disks of green fire. With a choking gasp, the corporal reeled back. The eyes became green moons, became suns, became glowing infinities engulfing the soldiers’ souls.
Feeling magic near, the elemental vented a whistling scream. Moriana fought to keep her concentration. She had the two soldiers, but the corporal fought back more strongly than she would have thought possible. He didn’t lightly surrender his soul.
The green, flaming eyes focused on him. His mouth worked spastically. Drool rolled down his chin. He raised trembling hands as if pleading, then jerked violently and let his arms fall limply to his sides.
Sobbing with exertion, Moriana slumped against the wind- and rain-worn wall. The three soldiers looked at her with dead eyes. The compulsion would last an hour, enough time for the corporal to ferry her to the city that loomed like a dark, oblong moon overhead, then return to his fellows and awaken, like them, with no knowledge of the encounter.
“What’s this?” a querulous voice demanded. She jumped. “Have you enchanted them? Foully done! You could have slain them easily.” The spirit’s voice turned sulky. “You’re no better than Fost. Fine behavior for a princess, if you are actually a princess.”
“I am.” Moriana frowned. She had no time to waste on the garrulous spirit. She turned to the corporal. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” the man said in a distant voice.
“Good. Take me to the city, then come back here and forget you saw me. You others will forget all that has happened, also.”
“As you say, Sky-born.”
The wicker gondola bobbed as she climbed in. She felt a momentary surge of indignation. It seemed disgraceful that a princess must ride in such a plebeian manner. Moving stiffly, the corporal loosed the ratchet that held the great, rusted windlass immobile, dragged himself into the gondola and finally moved a ceramic lever that opened vents in the top and bottom of the fire elemental’s vessel.
Air rushed in through the bottom and, heated by the sprite, billowed upwards. The red-and-white striped gasbag swelled to gravid tautness. The elemental was contained by symbols etched around the vents. Moriana could feel its fury at being confined. The rage sang along her nerve endings, as discomforting as the heat that washed from the glowing firebox.
Pulleys squealed as the balloon lifted. The ground fell away beneath Moriana’s feet. Guy lines of woven silk ran from the windlass at the dock below to one set in the rock of the city. As each ground station was passed, an eagle-riding engineer flew to the next to affix guidelines for the balloons.
Moriana glanced at the corporal. He stood as rigid as death beside her; with no volition of his own, he was incapable of movement except in obedience to her commands. The woman felt triumph at having wrapped three men at once in the soul-numbing compulsion. Granted, that they were Sky City men had simplified the task. Sorcery always worked best against those already touched by magic. Sky Citizens lived intimately with enchantment, from the simple running-trim spells that kept the vast raft of skystone that was the city stable, to the powerful wards that bound Istu, dread demon of the Dark Ones.
One not so imbued with magic would prove more difficult to subdue. She doubted that all her strength and skill would have served to make Fost submissive. The courier’s life-force, his will, would extinguish itself into death before permitting another mastery over his soul.
Moriana shook off the image of Fost, wondering that he’d come into her mind again. She looked about her and forgot all but the view. The Sundered Realm spread itself beneath her. Forests and mountains, plains and the distant glimmer of the Gulf of Veluz, her gaze encompassed all. Far off to the north brooded Mount Omizantrim, marked by a horizon-hugging smear of smoke from its crater.
“Poor ground-crawlers,” she sighed as the wind whipped through her hair. “They know nothing of beauty, who have not seen this spectacle.” The corporal did not respond.
Above, the city grew until it filled the sky.
“Is this the fabled Sky City?” asked Erimenes. His voice was muffled by the heavy, tattered cloak Moriana had wrapped about her to conceal the outland garb. “I expected somewhat more. Where are the streets paved with gold, the statues of nude maidens with perfumed wine fountaining from their nipples?”
In the crush of bodies that packed the approaches to the Circle of the Skywell, no one no
ticed that the voice had no attendant body.
“You’re thinking of High Medurim,” Moriana whispered.
“Even so, I find this tedious. Why not betake yourself to the bird rider’s barracks? A woman as lusty as I perceive you to be should have her appetite no more than whetted by that mongrel Fost. But eighty, say, or ninety hot-blooded stalwarts would…”
She thumped the hidden jug with the butt of her hand. She’d hidden her glorious, distinctive hair in a kerchief as ragged as the cloak. She’d taken both from a drink-sotted derelict lying stupefied by a warehouse in the wharf district. Her new garments reeked, but they kept the mob from pressing her too closely.
No sooner had she set foot on the ornately carved pier jutting from the rim of the city than she had seen a great fluttering in the sky above the city’s center. Something of importance was occurring. Chilled by premonition, she hurried inwards along narrow streets flanked by soaring buildings.
The human torrent carried her out into the openness surrounding the Well of Winds. Moriana gasped as she saw the procession approaching down the Skullway.
From the Palace of the Clouds the parade stretched down the skull-paved avenue that ran broad and straight to the Well. First came captives dressed in greasy prison smocks, moaning and raising bound hands in supplication. Dog riders herded them, hitting out with clubs and jabbing with lances. Next came the band, three hundred strong, lifting a dirge with flute, trumpet, and somber drum. Mages followed, shaven-headed, chanting and swinging fuming censers.
A sky-barge came after. Twelve feet square, an airy, arabesqued framework of silver, it floated inches above the foot-burnished skulls. Chains at its corners hung from the harnesses of war-eagles, their great wings beating in time to the slow roll of the drums. On the barge was spread a cushion, and on it lay an urn of dark jade. A few steps behind, servants carried a smaller silver Utter that bore a golden vessel the size of a cooking kettle.
Above all flew the Guards. Sunlight broke from polished helmets and the heads of lances couched in holsters of serpent hide. At the fore flew an eagle black as any raven. A blazing red crest adorned its head. Moriana’s heart lurched. There was no mistaking the war mount of her cousin Prince Rann, commander of the bird riders.
Tightness gripped her throat. Her eyes stung. She tugged at the sleeve of a stout woman nearby, who was raising her voice to join the lament that wailed from the throng.
“What’s happening?” she asked, pitching her voice shrill both to carry and disguise it.
The round face turned toward her was flushed and tear-bright. “You don’t know?” the woman cried. “Our gracious Queen Derora is dead. She died in her sleep a night ago.”
Erimenes spoke from his jug. Moriana didn’t hear him. She swayed dizzily, fighting against panic, against sudden wild grief.
“By rights, Moriana should ascend the throne, and blessed would we be if that could happen. But rumor says she came to misfortune in the wastelands of the south, and I fear…”
A mighty shout drowned out her words. As one, the flock of bird riders descended, Ryan bringing his mount to rest on the very lip of the Well. Heads turned toward the Palace of the Clouds. Silence blossomed.
Vast black wings reached across the front of the Palace. A splendid war-bird with feathers like midnight flapped slowly along the Skullway. Hatred burned within Moriana. Here was Nightwind, greatest of all eagles, and the slim feather-cloaked figure on his back was Moriana’s sister Synalon.
Moriana’s fingers crushed against her palms. It was all she could do not to begin muttering a deathspell. Her sister would sense it before it was half uttered, and a swarm of Guardsmen would fall on her like owls on a mouse. Never had she felt her weakness more. If only she had the amulet now! She could conjure the spells and give Synalon the Hell Call. But the Amulet of Living Flame rested far to the south, locked in the bowels of a glacier. She had to bide her time, as much as she loathed the idea. She was still too weak and Synalon too strong.
Nightwind touched down at the head of the procession. Scarred, handsome features obscured by a sallet, Rann himself helped Synalon to the pavement. Raising her arms like wings, Synalon chanted toward the sun. Rann gestured to the dog riders.
Shouting, they drove their mounts among the captives. Driven by spear, bludgeon, and knout, the prisoners fell forward. They shrieked as they pitched into the Well. They screamed as they fell, fivescore men and women, until the prairie a thousand feet below cut short their cries.
“A sacrifice of a hundred souls!” crowed Erimenes. “This is more like it.”
Tears gushed from Moriana’s eyes. “Be quiet, you,” she shouted at the spirit. “Be silent or I’ll cast you after them!” In the uproar surrounding them, no one noted her outburst.
Singing, Synalon paced to the hovering barge, carried the jade urn to the Well, uncapped it and hurled forth its contents. She returned to the barge. Next she lifted the golden vessel. Forty feet from the Well the skull pavement ended, to reveal the marble beneath. The stately black-haired princess paced solemnly to the end of the ghastly cobblestones, set down the vessel and dropped to her knees to open it. Whiteness gleaned within.
Thus did Derora V, called the Wise, find rest after a long rule, with her bleached skull set among those of her forebears and the ashes of her remains scattered to the winds.
* * *
“No, gentlemen,” said Moriana as she emerged from the passageway. “Don’t rise on my behalf. I have small standing in the city these days.”
The man at the head of a long, knife-scarred table shot to his feet, his face the color of the white halo of whiskers that fringed it. The others stayed seated, gaping at the golden-haired apparition who had invaded their den through a panel in what they’d believed a solid wall. A hint of wood smoke hung in the air and through closed doors drifted the sounds of thriving trade being done in the common room of the inn. Dusty sunlight fell in through cracked and fly-specked skylights, providing the room’s sole illumination.
The normal crimson hue returned to the standing man’s features.
“But how did you find us?” he asked. Moriana regarded him levelly. “My lady,” he added, after a short pause.
Moriana’s lips twisted into a smile of confidence she didn’t feel. “Properly, it’s ‘Your Majesty,’” she said, “but I’m in no position to insist, am I? Do be seated, Councillor. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Uriath of the Council of Advisors to the Throne lowered himself heavily into his chair.
“I would still like to know how you found our meeting place, my lady.”
She laughed. “What sort of fool do you take me for? I’ve long known what would follow my mother’s passing. My sister is not the only one who has spies throughout the city.” At a great cost in lives and effort, her agents had infiltrated Rann’s intelligence network. She had known of the amulet hours before Rann and Synalon, even if she hadn’t been able to prevent that knowledge from reaching them. Her thoughts turned to Kralfi, ancient but erect of stature, the palace chamberlain and master of Moriana’s own intelligence network. She hoped he’d made his own position secure against Derora’s death. He was more to her than a trusted servant; he was a friend she’d loved since childhood.
“Don’t worry,” she continued, pulling a chair to the head of the table and seating herself next to Uriath. “Rann’s creatures don’t know of this rendezvous of yours, or you’d be writhing on a grill this very minute.” Uriath’s face lost color again.
Moriana gazed intently at the man to her right, until he passed her a jack of ale. She’d had a long, thirsty day. She drank deeply of the bitter brew.
Synalon obviously did not know that Uriath was head of an underground movement dedicated to preventing her accession to the throne. But she’d be watching him, all the same. He had long been the voice of the loyal opposition in council, standing against Derora in stormy confrontations that often skirted treason. He was too powerful to do away with out of hand, but Synalon wo
uld watch him as keenly as any war-bird, waiting the slip that would give grounds for his arrest.
Moriana was proud that her own spies knew more, in this matter at least, than Synalon’s. Kralfi, wise as he was, could not easily outmatch Prince Rann’s cunning. Yet he had found out about the meeting in the back room of the Inn of the Boiled Eel, and the hidden passage that gave access to it. One question he had not answered. Uriath opposed Synalon. But would he back Moriana? It was that which she had come to learn.
Another question burned more urgently within the princess. “My mother,” she asked, leaning forward. “How did she die?”
The men eyed each other uncomfortably. “She’d not been well for some time, Princess,” a man halfway down the table said in a high-pitched voice. “Skilled chirurgeons attended her but could not restore her strength.” He dropped his eyes uneasily from Moriana’s. “She died night before last. And yesterday she was cremated and her skull purified to take its place upon the Skullway.”
“The Sky City disposed of its queen with unseemly haste. Why wasn’t the weeklong vigil before cremation observed, Master Tromyn?”
Tromyn bit his lip. “The mages of the Palace feared contagion.”
“Do you believe that?” she flared at him. “My mother was murdered, and her body was burned to conceal evidence of the crime. Isn’t that true?”
“We don’t know that for a fact, my lady,” Uriath said. “But it seems likely.” He tipped his head to one side. “Still, what is there to do about it?”
“What I propose to do about it is claim the throne, as is my right, and bring retribution to the murderers.” Moriana stared at the fleshy man in his rich, feathered robes, her eyes bright as though about to take fire in the compulsion spell. “Do you back me, Lord Uriath?”
Silence drew taut between them. To the sides, men shifted and murmured uncomfortably. Moriana held the Councillor with her gaze.
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