“He’s pretty awesome dead,” muttered Forin, reaching out and taking the skull. “And this is a rare find. The Daroth were virtually immortal, reborn through the eggs. At the time of rebirth the body of the dying adult would shrivel away, bones and all, then the same Daroth would emerge from the pod.”
“Well, this one didn’t shrivel away,” said Tarantio.
“Indeed he didn’t. I wonder why. Perhaps he chose not to mate, and there was no pod for him to return to.”
“I can feel the evil here,” said Dace. “Like a cold flame waiting for life.”
Symbols had been carved into the walls, but Tarantio could not decipher them. There were no paintings, no boxes, no possessions of any kind—with the exception of three bizarre pieces of furniture set against the wall. They resembled chairs, save that the seating area was in fact two curved, horsehair-padded slats set six inches apart and crafted at a rising angle from just above the floor. The back of the chair was low; this was also padded, but only along the top of the back-rest.
Brune tried to sit down on one and he looked ludicrous—too low to the ground, his legs splayed, his back bent. “No, no,” said Forin. “Let me show you.” Striding to the chair, he pulled Brune upright and then knelt on the slats, leaning forward to rest his massive forearms on the top of the back-rest. “The Daroth spine was not suited to conventional chairs.” Rising, he tucked the skull under his arm.
“In times of peace,” he said, his voice echoing eerily inside the enclosed chamber, “the bones here would have been worth a sack of gold, and the statue outside would have fetched a fortune. Now we’ll be lucky to get the price of a meal for the skull.”
“You keep it,” said Tarantio. “I’m sure there will still be people interested in acquiring it.”
He swung on his heel and walked from the chamber, clambering up over the mud and out into the sunlight. Forin and Brune followed him. In the bright light of earthly reality the skull looked somehow even more eerie, out of place, out of time.
“The Eldarin must have possessed great magic indeed to wipe out a people so formidable,” said Tarantio.
Forin nodded. “According to legend they annihilated them in the space of a single hour. Perhaps that is what the Eldarin were trying to do to our army, and their magic betrayed them.”
“Perhaps,” Tarantio agreed.
“I wonder what they ate,” said Brune.
Forin chuckled and lifted the skull. “Beneath this beak there are sharp teeth, the front canines pointed like spikes. At the rear . . . here, look . . .” he said to Brune, beckoning the young man forward, “are the molars . . . the grinding teeth. They were like us, meat and plant eaters.”
Once more the ground beneath their feet trembled. Forin swore, but the tremor died away swiftly. The three men stood nervously for a few seconds. Then a second quake hit, hurling them from their feet. The skull flew from Forin’s hand and struck a boulder, shattering into a hundred pieces.
Tarantio lay hugging the earth, nausea swamping him. For several minutes the rumbling continued, then silence settled on the land and he rose shakily. Forin rolled to his knees and looked down at the shattered skull. “Who’d have my luck?” he said, then pushed himself to his feet.
By mid-morning the following day they sighted the spires of Corduin. Tarantio found that he knew the guard on the main gate, and there was no problem entering the city. At the first cross-roads within, he bade farewell to Forin. They clasped hands. “Good luck to you, big man.”
“I hope fortune favours you, Tarantio,” answered Forin with a wide smile. “Look after the simpleton. If you cut him loose, he’ll starve to death within a week.”
As he rode away, Brune, who was holding on to Tarantio’s stirrup, looked up and asked: “Where are we going now?”
“To a merchant who will give us money.”
“Why would he do that?”
“It is my money,” said Tarantio.
“What will we do then?”
Tarantio sighed. “I will teach you how to use a bow and a sword. When I have done that, you will join a mercenary unit.”
Brune thought about this for a moment. “I’m not a fast learner,” he said, with a wide grin.
“That isn’t a surprise, Brune.”
Chapter Four
Sirano, the fifth Duke of Romark, was the image of the man who had sired him—tall, athletic, handsome, his hair black and his eyes a deep ocean blue. It was for this reason that his father, a short, burly, blond-haired man, hated him. The fourth Duke of Romark was a bitter man, who had married for love only to find that his feelings were one-sided. His wife betrayed him with the captain of his Guards, and fell pregnant by him in the third year of their unhappy marriage.
The captain died in mysterious circumstances, stabbed to death in what appeared to be a drunken brawl. The wife was said to have fainted and drowned in her bath three days after giving birth to Sirano. Everyone agreed it was a tragedy, and there was great sympathy for the fourth Duke.
The child was raised by a series of nurses. Quick and alert, he was always desperate for his father’s affection, which was never forthcoming. He never knew why. At school Sirano was the best in his year, and swiftly grew to understand the intricacies of language and the arts. By the age of twelve he could lead discussions on the merits of the great sculptors, debate the philosophical attitudes of the Three Teachers, and had written a thesis on the life and work of the soldier-king, Pardark.
Those who knew him as a young man claimed his father’s coldness finally turned the boy’s heart to ice on his fifteenth birthday. On the night of the celebrations he was heard to have a terrible row with the fourth Duke, who was heavily drunk.
It was after this that Sirano became fascinated by the wonders of sorcery. He studied day and night, forsaking the normal noble pursuits of hunting and whoring, and gathered to himself books and scrolls. His first spell, involving the sacrifice of a pet rabbit, went awry, the headless creature running down the long corridor of the east wing, spraying blood onto the hanging velvet drapes. His second spell was more successful and ultimately damning.
In a bid to discover why his father loathed him, the sixteen-year-old Sirano wrought the ancient spell of summoning, and called upon the spirit of his dead mother. He conducted this rite in the marble bathroom in which she had died. No spirit came, but what did occur changed the young man’s life.
Somewhere during the spell he made a small mistake and instead of summoning a spirit, his spell became one of revelation. In an instant the room grew cold, and Sirano felt a curious sensation of dizziness and weightlessness. Bright colours shone in his eyes, and his body fell to the floor. His spirit, however, floated free and he found himself staring down at a beautiful woman taking her bath. Her eyes were sad, her cheeks tear-stained, and Sirano noted that her belly was still stretched and slack, evidence of a recent birth. The door opened and his father stepped inside. He was slimmer and younger, his hair thicker, and his face was white and angry.
“Did you think I would not find out?” he said.
“You have killed him,” she answered. “What more can you do to me?”
“Much more!” he hissed. Without another word he punched her full in the face, then thrust her down below the water.
The spirit of Sirano recoiled from the sight. Her legs kicked out, thrashing water over the floor, but the fourth Duke maintained his grip until all struggles ceased.
The room spun and Sirano opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor of the empty bathroom, a small cut on his temple from where his head had struck the edge of a marble sink.
Slowly he rose.
For two years he continued to study, mastering all that he could of spell-making. On the night of his eighteenth birthday he lit the black candles in his room and placing a grass snake in a round glass jar along with a lock of his father’s hair, he painstakingly worked through the Five Levels of Aveas. There was no feeling in him, no anger, no sorrow. When at last he had comple
ted the spell, he rose from his knees and, carrying the snake in the jar, walked slowly along the corridor to his father’s apartment.
There were two young serving maids in his bed. Sirano whispered two Words of Power and touched each of them on the forehead. Both rose silently, eyes flickering, and deep in a trance returned to their own beds. Drawing up a chair, Sirano gestured towards the lanterns set in brackets on the walls. They flared into life, casting flickering light on the sleeping man. His face was fat now, bloated with rich living, and a vein throbbed at his temple.
“Wake up, Father,” commanded Sirano. The Duke jerked as if slapped.
“What in Hell’s name?” He glanced to his left and right. “Where are . . . ?”
“Gone. Tell me why you killed my mother.”
“Get out! Get out before I fetch my whip!”
“No more whips,” said Sirano softly. “No more beatings or cold words. Just answer my question.”
“Are you mad?”
“As in insanity, you mean? I do believe that I am. It is not an unpleasant feeling. In fact there is some comfort in it. But let us get back to the question at hand. When you walked into that bathroom she said, ‘You have killed him. What more can you do to me?’ You said, ‘Much more.’ Then you drowned her. Why?”
Colour drained from the Duke’s face as his mouth opened, then closed. “How . . . ?” he whispered at last.
“It doesn’t matter, Father. Nothing matters except your answer. Speak.”
“I . . . she . . . I loved her,” he said. “Truly. But . . . it wasn’t enough for her. She took a man to her bed. One of my Guards. They were planning, I think, to have me killed. Yes, to kill me. I found out.” Anguish twisted his face. “Why do you want to hear this?”
“The man you killed. Was he tall and dark, with blue eyes?”
“Yes. Yes, he was.”
“I see,” said Sirano. “I have often wondered why your mistresses never swell with child. Now I know. Your seed is not strong. And you are not my father.”
“No, I am not!” shouted the older man. “But you will be the Duke when I am dead. I raised you as my own. You owe me for that!”
Sirano smiled. “I think not. That was just ego on your part. You robbed me of the love of a mother and a father. You have made my life miserable. But I am eighteen now, and a man. I am ready for a man’s duties. Goodbye, Father. May your soul burn!”
Rising, Sirano spoke a single word. The snake in the glass shimmered, then was gone. The old Duke made to speak, but something swelled in his windpipe. He scrabbled at his throat and his body writhed; his hand lashed out, striking the wall with a dull thump. His legs thrashed below the sheets, a low gurgling choke came from him. Sirano watched him die, then reached down and opened the old man’s mouth.
The head of the snake was just visible. Wrenching open the Duke’s jaws, Sirano pressed his fingers down into the throat, drawing out the serpent. It flapped and writhed around his wrist. Moving to the window, he flung the creature out into the garden.
After the official seven days of mourning, Sirano took the Blessing and donned the mantle of the Duke of Romark. The ceremony over, he took his advisors to the ramparts of the high west wall and pointed at the mountains of the Eldarin.
“There is great danger there, my friends,” he said. “They are sorcerers and shape-shifters. What are they planning, do you think?”
Eight years later the twenty-six-year-old Sirano sat listening as his captains made their reports. The forces of the Duke of Corduin had been repulsed, with heavy losses on both sides, on the western border. The renegade corsair, Belliese, had savaged a Romarkian supply fleet in the southern seas, and captured two war galleons. Elsewhere there was only one victory that could be described as anything but pyrrhic. Karis and her lancers had smashed a mercenary force heading to relieve a small fortress town eighty miles north of Loretheli. Two hundred and forty enemy soldiers were killed for the loss of fifteen dead and thirty-one wounded. The town had surrendered to Karis a day later, its treasury of 12,000 gold coins now swelling the Romark coffers. As the officers discussed tactics, Romark found his mind wandering, his gaze focusing on Karis. Tall and slim, her long dark hair held in place by a silver circlet, she radiated a martial beauty that Sirano found intoxicating. She was not classically beautiful, for her nose was long, and her face somewhat angular. Yet there was something about this warrior woman that stirred his blood as no other could.
Dismissing the captains, Sirano gestured for Karis to remain. Rising from the table, he moved to a beautifully crafted cabinet at the window wall of the large study, removing a cut-glass decanter. Half filling two crystal globe glasses he passed one to Karis.
“My congratulations, Karis. Your raid was an exemplary lesson in tactics.”
Karis gave a short bow, her large dark eyes holding to his own. “This is what you wished to discuss?” she asked him.
“I have nothing to discuss,” he said, “but I enjoy your company. Sit for a while.” Karis stretched out on a couch, leaving no room for the Duke to join her. But she lay back with one foot on the floor, the other leg straight, and Sirano did not try to stop his gaze from dwelling on her open legs and the cut of her blue silk leggings. Resisting the urge to run his hand along her thigh, he drew up a chair close to her and sat, sipping his brandy. Karis smiled at him, her expression cat-like.
“I hear you have a new mistress,” said Karis. “Is she sweet?”
“Indeed she is,” he told her. “She even tells me she loves me.”
“And does she?”
“Who can say? I am rich, and I am powerful. Many women would find that attractive in itself.”
“So modest, Saro,” she chided him. “You are also handsome and witty. I don’t doubt that you provide your partners with great physical joy.”
“How kind,” he said. “Are you still cavorting with that mercenary lieutenant . . . Giriak?”
She nodded, then sat up and drained her brandy. “He is young and strong.”
“And has he fallen in love with you?”
She shrugged. “He uses the words wonderfully, with exquisite timing. I think that might be the same thing, don’t you?”
“It certainly is for me,” he conceded. “But then I am not entirely sure I know what love is. Neither do you, dear heart . . . unless of course we are talking of your first love, battle.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You misread me, Sirano.”
He chuckled with genuine humour. “I do not believe that I do. There are many in all the Duchies who wish for this war to be ended, but you are not among them. War is life to you. The day peace comes—and come it will one day when I win—you will know panic.”
“I think not. Panic is alien to me. However, this conversation is entirely hypothetical. The forces are too even for there to be a decisive end to the conflict. Added to which there are the mercenary armies; they follow only gold. When you Dukes seek to end the battles, what do you think will become of them? Will they lay down their arms and return to the land? No, Saro. You and your noble friends and enemies have loosed the wolves. You will not round them up easily.”
He shrugged. “These are problems for another day.” His gaze returned to her silk-clad limbs. “You really are very attractive,” he said. “One day we should get to know one another a little better.”
“One day,” she agreed. For a moment neither of them spoke, then Karis rose and refilled her brandy glass. “Have you unlocked the secrets of the Pearl?” she asked him.
“I think we are close,” he said. “I believe it to be a power source of some kind.”
“You said the same thing two months ago,” she reminded him.
“Patience is one of my virtues,” he replied. “So far we have tried probe spells of increasing power. Nothing pierces the Pearl. Yet even as we speak my sorcerers are preparing themselves for the ritual of Aveas. I think we will have answers today. It is one of the reasons I asked you to wait with me.”
Karis sippe
d her brandy, then returned to the couch. This time she did not stretch herself out, but sat on the edge of the seat. “I am not a magicker, Saro, but do the spells of Aveas not require a death?”
“I am afraid that they do. But needs must when demons threaten, as they say.”
“And what will it achieve, this murder?” she asked him.
“That is hard to say. I tend to think that when wizards talk of human sacrifice they are at their wits’ end. But I have studied enough to know that great magic can be conjured from terror. And there is nothing more terrifying than to be chained to an altar, with a knife raised above your heart.”
Before she could answer, there came a knock at the study door. “Enter!” he called.
A tall, thin man wearing long robes of blue velvet entered and bowed. He was bald, the skin of his face stretched tight around a large skull. “It would be good,” Sirano told him, “if you have brought me welcome news.”
“Something of interest has occurred, lord,” answered the man, his voice low and deep. “It is something I think you should witness for yourself.”
“We will join you presently,” said Sirano, waving his hand and dismissing the wizard. After he had left, Karis rose to leave. “Wait!” Sirano ordered.
“I do not wish to see it,” she said. “Human sacrifice does not interest me.”
“Nor me,” he agreed. “Come with me anyway.”
“Do you order it, lord?” she asked him, her tone faintly mocking.
“Indeed I do, Captain,” he said, moving alongside her and laying his hand on her shoulder. Leaning towards her he tenderly kissed her cheek. “I adore the perfume of your hair,” he whispered.
Together they walked the long corridor, descending the circular stairs to the lower levels. Torches shone on the bare stone walls and a sleek, fat rat ran across their path as they moved towards two double doors. Sirano paused. “That rat was altogether too well-fed for my liking,” he said. “Remind me to send for the quartermaster when we are finished here.”
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