Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  But she was also, Hasyan’s chirurgeon had assured Nycolos upon summoning the knight to his own suite of chambers, which included his operating theater, the single greatest healer he had ever met, versed in methods both mundane and mystical.

  That latter had sent a frisson of nerves through Nycolos. As she pressed her fingers around his wound, however, muttered invocations and slathered him with herbal and alchemical salves, then sniffed at the aromas they’d produced, he grew convinced that any mage-craft she knew was indeed limited to the medicinal arts, used solely to augment her own learned skills. Ilkya was no true sorceress or witch, and highly unlikely to sense that the body he wore, and which she now struggled to treat, was not originally his own.

  Besides, this was why he had come to Kirresc, why he had assumed the form of the man who had nearly slain him: to acquire just this treatment. For the promise of freedom, to have that cursed sliver of blade excised from his breast and be allowed to take on his true shape and his true name, he would risk, and endure, far worse. Even through the agony as her magics warmed and chilled the intruding steel, as she poked beneath the skin and deep into muscle with needles and probes, as the discharge of putrefaction burst from his flesh and dribbled in warm rivulets down his torso, he couldn’t quite keep from smiling at what was to come.

  Then, as if she’d sensed his earlier worries, “You don’t happen to know any mighty sorcerers, do you?”

  It was a half-breathed mutter, one he wasn’t certain he’d been meant to hear, but it set his mind to racing. Or perhaps, imagining a near future in which he’d returned to his old body and his old life, his thoughts had already been inclined toward memories of that life.

  Ondoniram. Oh, Tzavalantzaval had met many a practitioner of the occult in his time—human, fey, dragon, and other—but none had possessed half Ondoniram’s right to the title of wizard. The old man had been longer lived than some of Tzavalantzaval’s own cousins, and potent enough to challenge the wyrm himself. Until Nycolos Anvarri and Wyrmtaker, no human had come so close to slaying Tzavalantzaval as Ondoniram once had.

  But the ancient mage was long dead, and wouldn’t likely have been inclined to help Nycolos now even had he not been.

  Which train of thought, as a dog chasing its tail, finally circled back around to the start. With a sudden spike of fear, Nycolos voiced the question that should have been his very first thought. “Why do you ask?”

  The old stick of a human stepped back, carefully wiping each of her tools clean with a wine-soaked rag, then placing them—in their precise order, of course—in the pockets of a deerskin case. “I can treat your injury,” she informed him. Her tone was haughty, matter of fact, yet she wouldn’t quite meet his gaze. “The infection should be gone within weeks, the pain greatly reduced, even absent more often than not. Your body will heal around the sliver, rendering it unlikely to cause you any further harm. Within months, I doubt you’ll have cause to often recall it’s even there.”

  “But…?” No. No, no, no, no, NO!

  “But,” she admitted with a long-suffering sigh, as though he were at fault for thwarting her, “the fragment is too deeply embedded, too near your organs. Without magics far more precise and more potent than anything with which I’m familiar, it would be…”

  Don’t you dare say it, you filthy, ignorant little primate! Don’t you dare think it! Don’t you dare!

  “…impossible to remove without killing you.

  “I’m sorry, Sir Nycolos,” though she didn’t sound very sorry at all, save maybe to have found a challenge she couldn’t best, “but I’m afraid you’re simply going to have to live with it.”

  ___

  In a distant wing of the palace, Andarjin of Vidirrad and Dame Zirresca lazed about a sitting room that was one small portion of the margrave’s vast suite. As heir apparent to the greatest duchy in the kingdom, currently dwelling within Oztyerva to learn the ins and outs of his Majesty’s court—as was traditional for all firstborn sons and daughters of Kirresc’s high nobles to do for several years—he was entitled to a standard of living not much below that of the royal family themselves. Servants came and went, ensuring that the decanter of fine drink on the table remained no less than half full, and satisfying the dictates of propriety by never leaving their young lord and his female guest alone together.

  They were, however, well trained to remain out of earshot when not needed, and to make a point of never hearing a word spoken even when they could have. Not that either Andarjin or Zirresca had spoken at all in minutes.

  “Come on, now,” the margrave finally said after a particularly large sip of the pear brandy they currently enjoyed. “You know I’d not offend you for the world, Zirresca, but this sulking isn’t remotely your best look.”

  “You weren’t there, Arj!” she snarled, twisting the goblet between two fingertips. “You didn’t see it!”

  “No, but seeing as how I’ve heard the tale nigh unto a dozen times now…”

  “I want him destroyed! I want him cowed! Beaten! I want—!”

  Yes, yes, he’d heard that a dozen times, too. “Zirresca,” he said with far more patience than he felt, “Nycolos isn’t a threat. He’s not even an obstacle. You want him destroyed? He’s doing a magnificent job accomplishing that on his own, wouldn’t you say?” He took another swig. “You should try actually drinking some of this, you know, instead of just spinning it about. It’s an excellent vintage.”

  The knight’s grunt was unamused.

  “You need to calm yourself,” he continued more seriously. “Prove yourself more patient than he. He really is demolishing what little regard, and what little chance at the position, he has remaining. We should let him flounder, and focus our attentions on Lord Kor—”

  An imperious knock on the suite’s front door silenced him. Since his private guards stationed in the hall wouldn’t have permitted anyone without official business or sufficient rank to disturb him, Andarjin waved at one of his servants at the room’s periphery. The man bowed his head and departed.

  A few exchanged words, muffled by the cold stone walls, and then he returned a moment later. “Her Highness,” he announced, “the Princess Firillia.”

  Andarjin rose, of course, as did Zirresca, then joined the various servants in a series of deep bows.

  “Oh, get up, you two.” Firillia swept into the room, clad in a golden gown that contrasted beautifully with her complexion but wasn’t quite formal enough for court proper. Her attendants filtered in behind her, joining Andarjin’s at a polite distance.

  The princess took a place at the table, straddling the chair in a casual and most unladylike pose, and poured herself a brandy before any of the servants could draw near enough to do it for her.

  “My dear,” Andarjin said, seating himself beside her, “there are people here who would be glad to wait on you, myself incl—”

  “Don’t fret over it, Arj. I promise, I’m capable of pouring a decanter with my own two dainty hands. I’ve known how for, oh, at least a year or two, now. You pick up all sorts of skills observing the royal court.”

  Zirresca snorted, then politely hid her grin behind her glass.

  Andarjin’s own chuckle was, perhaps, a tad forced. He waited until Firillia placed one hand on the table, then gently laid his atop it. “To what do I owe the honor, your Highness?”

  “I assume the two of you are speaking of Zirresca’s campaign?”

  “Indeed, yes.”

  “And perhaps of Sir Nycolos?”

  The knight’s smile perished of natural but swift causes and toppled from her face.

  “Yes,” the margrave confirmed. “I was just telling Zirresca that Nycolos is doing splendidly at sabotaging himself, and there’s no need for us to be all that concerned with—”

  “You have no idea.”

  That certainly got both their attention. “Has something happened? Is that why you’ve come?”

  Firillia took a deep draught, then set it down. “I’m not all that f
ond of pear brandies,” she admitted. “I much prefer plum or apple. But this isn’t bad.”

  “Your Highness, please…”

  She laughed, then. “Sorry, Arj. Just having a bit of fun with you.” Her expression sobered quickly. “Though in truth, it’s nothing to laugh at. It’s going to cost us hundreds of zlatka to replace the tools and furniture he destroyed, and Lady Ilkya has declared that she will never again work, or so much as set foot, in Oztyerva. Gods know how long it may take, or how many additional zlatka-worth of gifts, for her to reconsider.”

  Neither of her two companions seemed entirely able to follow. “Are you saying…” Zirresca eventually asked. “That is, Nycolos attacked her?”

  “Not… specifically,” Firillia hedged. “Apparently, whatever news she delivered, he didn’t care for it. As I’ve heard it told, he seemed to go mad. Hurling tables, shattering tools, even taking doors off their hinges. He made no deliberate move to harm her or the others, but she was nearly crushed under a bench, and a number of the guards who subdued him suffered contusions and even a few broken bones.”

  “I should go look in on them,” Zirresca mused, her expression a study in contradictions. “Make certain they’re taken care of.”

  Andarjin, for his part, was smirking openly. “I’m sure they will be. But yes, you should make an appearance.” If he noted Firillia’s brief flash of disdain, or that she chose that moment to remove her hand from his, he gave no sign.

  “What happened to him out there?” Zirresca asked, for all that she well knew nobody could answer. “Nycolos was always impulsive, but this sort of temper…”

  “Why should you care?” the margrave sneered.

  “Far safer to know, wouldn’t you think? If only to anticipate whatever else he might do, or in case Kirresc is ever, gods forbid, threatened by another dragon? Besides, whatever else I might think of him, Nycolos has always been a strong warrior, and loyal to his liege. He would be—or would have been—useful, once he’d accepted me as Crown Marshal.”

  “Bah. Perhaps. Still and all, it’s better this way. It certainly makes the road forward easier for you, and thus for all of us. That’s worthy of some small celebration, no?” Chortling, he reached for his goblet.

  And it was then, as he faced her, that he felt, and begin to wither beneath, Princess Firillia’s frosty mien. “This sort of gloating,” she informed him, “is not becoming in a man who would be king.”

  Andarjin physically recoiled. “Who, then? Your brother? I am by far the better candidate—!”

  “So you’ve convinced me, Margrave, otherwise I’d not be here at all. But I’ve made you no vows yet—of any sort—and Kirresc has others I might choose to support, or who might be enticed to support me.”

  A moment of burning, prideful anger, then Andarjin dropped to one knee. “You’re right, of course, your Highness. My love. That was inappropriate of me. I humbly apologize.”

  Zirresca looked away, made deeply uncomfortable by the whole spectacle.

  “You’re not wrong, for all that,” Firillia said, utterly failing—deliberately, no doubt—to address the issue of whether she’d yet elected to forgive Andarjin’s impropriety. “If we’re to assist Zirresca in succeeding Orban as Crown Marshal, we’re probably better served in focusing on Lord Kortlaus. I truly don’t think Nycolos is likely to prove any further competition.”

  ___

  The following days made Nycolos long for a return to the dreary, painful exhaustion of his slow hike across the Outermark. At least then, he’d seen a possible dawn at the far end of the impenetrable darkness. Then, he’d had hope.

  None but Smim could possibly understand his reaction to Lady Ilkya’s pronouncement. None of them understood that it wasn’t enough to treat the trauma around the splinter of broken blade, wasn’t enough that it should soon cease to bother him save under the worst of circumstances. How could they?

  But Nycolos understood the repercussions. No matter how much healing, how much scar tissue wrapped the cursed thing, as soon as his heart became that of a dragon it would again begin to move, to seek, slowly digging through whatever his body might place in its path.

  Returning to who he was, what he was, meant death. And Nycolos sincerely wondered, now that he faced not merely weeks or months as a human, but perhaps the rest of his life, if that death might be worth it.

  He ceased to shave, to bathe or allow himself to be bathed, even to eat save when the ache of hunger grew intolerable. He rarely appeared where he was expected—at court, on the field, at his Majesty’s table—and as his foul disposition and even fouler stench grew ever more offensive, fewer and fewer objected to or even commented upon his absence.

  “What can I do for you?” Margravine Mariscal had asked, nearly begged, standing in his doorway one afternoon. He had ignored messenger after messenger from her, and even her own pounding at the portal. Only when she’d ordered several palace guards to force the door had he deigned to open it, and then only because he wouldn’t be able to lock the world out if it were damaged.

  She seemed unsure what to do with her hands, intertwining her fingers and nearly wringing them one moment, fists clenching in anger the next. Her tear-sheened eyes drifted from his ever more gaunt and unwashed face to the wreck of the chambers about him. When they once alighted, however briefly, on the goblin who stood back in the far corner, Smim could only shrug.

  “What can you do?” Nycolos repeated, his throat a heap of gravel.

  “Yes! Anything!”

  “What can you do?!”

  And damn if he didn’t nearly tell her. After all, why not? What had he left to lose? He almost blurted the entire story, almost shouted it in her face, daring her to understand what he was and what he’d lost. How eager would she be to help him then?

  Almost, but he did not. It wasn’t worth the effort, wasn’t worth the pain.

  “You,” he told her, “can leave. Me. Alone!” He didn’t think the slamming door had actually struck her, but he didn’t care enough to open it back up and be sure. The sound of her fading steps meant she was well enough to walk away, and that would suffice.

  What few people had been making an effort ceased calling after that. Kortlaus still tried to strike up conversations whenever Nycolos appeared outside his quarters, but each time he found himself ignored, and slowly his attempts grew more and more perfunctory, until they were scarcely more than a polite nod and a “Good afternoon.” Mariscal uttered not another word to him, though he knew she watched his every move. Once, even Prince Elias had approached him as he’d wandered one of Oztyerva’s various gardens, this one made up primarily of poppies, peonies, and tulips.

  “Sir Nycolos.”

  “Mm. Your Highness.”

  “Listen, I… I can’t, that is, I obviously have no notion what’s troubled you so since you came home…”

  “Obviously.”

  “You’ve been through something I can’t possibly understand,” the earnest prince bulled on. “But I know you’re a good man, Nycos. And I know you don’t want to be hurting people the way you have been.”

  “You’re absolutely right, your Highness.”

  “Good! I’m glad to—”

  “You can’t possibly understand. With your permission?” Not that he’d waited for it before stomping on his way.

  And so it might have continued, Nycolos further and further isolating himself until he was nothing but a hermit in the midst of the palace, friendless, shunned by all and without purpose or meaning.

  The day things changed was a holy day, though Nycolos hadn’t heard, and didn’t much care, to what purpose. This observance in particular was sacred not to the followers of the many gods of the Empyrean Choir, but rather to the monotheist Deiumulin. They accounted for a minority of the nobles and servants in the palace, and indeed of the Kirresci populace, but it was a sizable, significant one. As such, while they carried less weight and held less influence than the Empyreans, a few of their holiest days were granted offici
al status.

  Today, then, was a time of pious ritual and sermons for some, and a day of feasting and freedom from work for a great many others. Smim convinced his master to leave their chambers, however briefly, if only to acquire some food to bring back. This was, after all, an opportunity for unusual dishes and finely prepared fare that wouldn’t require him to tolerate the presence, and the unforgiving disapproval, of the king’s table.

  The mismatched pair were returning to their quarters—Nycolos carrying plates heaped with cuts of roast boar, braised in garlic butter, Smim balancing a pair of bowls full of a sharply scented paprika-heavy venison-and-vegetable goulash—when they turned a corner of the winding stone passageways and found themselves face to face with a group of young knights and other gentry.

  These were led by Sir Tivador and some of his friends, and while the young knight was normally of a more polite, well-bred disposition, today an excess of drink, the presence of so many peers, and the general disdain in which courtly gossip held Nycolos, all conspired against his better nature.

  In all fairness, though, it was one of Tivador’s companions—a slender, blond-haired young man, baronet of something or other, whose names and lands Nycolos could not have cared about less had he been fully unconscious—who started it all. “Has Sir Nycolos actually emerged from his den? Perhaps even beasts have a limit to how far they’re willing to foul their own nests!”

  Caught up in the spirit of things and the sniggers of his friends, Tivador then chimed in. “I imagine he’s simply run out of rats to hunt. Poor fellow. It must be difficult learning to live as a goblin with only the one instructor.”