Of Kings and Killers

by Will Wight

  Then a familiar scream pierced his awareness, cutting through even the panic of battle. Jerri.

  He turned again, spinning back to her. She had been overwhelmed, her knife plunging into a Slither that had bitten her shoulder even as two more crawled up her legs. So much for her not facing the brunt of the attack.

  But she still wasn’t in as much danger as Andel, and he had the crown. She could possibly still make it without his help.

  She met his eyes, fear in her warm brown eyes, and she screamed his name.

  That settled it.

  Calder ran for her, swift motions of his cutlass scraping away the two on her legs and two more that were about to launch themselves from a nearby tree. Only seconds of attention had been lost, and he completed the motion by spinning around to help Andel.

  Just in time to see him swallowed by the frog.

  Its maw had opened unnaturally wide, flexing out enough that it looked like the massive creature could have swallowed itself. With the fanged flaps on the side of its mouth, it tucked the quartermaster—along with the safe—inside.

  The sac on its neck was now distended, packed with a living human, who flailed and pushed and kicked against the inside. The Elder’s flesh flexed as Andel fought.

  Jerri screamed. Calder whipped back to her, searching for danger, but the Slithers were gone, vanishing back into the remaining undergrowth one after another.

  Urzaia hit the behemoth like a cannon-shot, tearing up one side of the creature’s body. Its whole side exploded, leaving a sticky blue crater where its ribs, shoulder, and right arm had once been.

  But it borrowed the momentum to leap off into the jungle, Andel and the crown still tucked into the sac beneath its chin.

  The Champion gave chase, roaring and leaving the rest of them shocked and horrified.

  Lakiri lay on the ground, twitching, foaming at the mouth with her eyes staring blank into the sky. The burned Goss knelt over her, weeping and shaking her, but he was himself covered in blood. He looked like he barely had the strength to stay on his knees.

  Jerri buried her head in her hands and sobbed.

  Calder moved to her and put his arm around her on instinct, drawing her close to him. “It’s okay,” he said, even though it wasn’t.

  “There’s nothing you could have done.”

  Chapter Twelve

  present day

  All due respect to the crown, but am I supposed to listen to the Imperial Steward or my Imperial Regent?

  Until the answer is clear, I’m afraid I can’t justify the expense that it would take to further reinforce the Tomb of Kthanikahr. If it eases you, we have detected no unusual activity from the Great Elder since the night of the Emperor’s death, may his soul fly free.

  Perhaps if you could persuade the Blackwatch to focus on their duties instead of acting like a militia, we would not need to fear for the security of our Elders.

  Respectfully,

  Natalia Corwin

  Governess of Dylia

  Calder preserved the message for the Imperial records, but he wanted to crumple it in his fist.

  The message had been delivered that morning from an Awakened pen with the ability to transmit handwriting. The words required no ink, burning themselves into the paper, and he had similar methods to contact each of the other governors.

  Only two of the seven had given him a positive response, but even those had included a request for funds or manpower to support their efforts.

  The governors would only listen to him if he had the power to back them up. The Regents had wanted to empower the governors to act independently, but that was clearly a mistake. The governors couldn’t be relied on to act for the greater good.

  Maybe Calder could find a solution if he could speak with Jorin Curse-breaker, but the Independents were ignoring his messages.

  Worse, he suspected they were killing the messengers.

  Only one, the courier from the Magister’s Guild, had returned. He had reported delivering the sealed message into the hands of a personal aide to a Guild Head, but there had been no response from the Independents whatsoever.

  Even if he could assume the other messages had been waylaid, at least one had made it through. Odds were, more had gotten through as well.

  They were ignoring him.

  He handed the Dylian governess’ message back to the servant that had delivered it to him in the first place, then took a deep breath, organizing his thoughts.

  He was dressed in the Emperor’s old clothes today, layers of red and orange and gold like a sunset, with the silver Steward’s crown on his head. He didn’t need the wrestle against the authority of the Emperor’s Intent today, and if he had to compel his next visitors to do anything, he’d already lost.

  Though he did wish General Teach was at his side as he addressed the remaining Champions.

  Calder strode out into the Emperor’s throne room, which was like stepping into a mural of the Elder War.

  Scenes of battle painted on the walls merged seamlessly with images of a littered battlefield on the floor and a smoke-darkened sky on the ceiling.

  The depictions and the shape of the room cooperated to draw the eye to one place: the throne. It was opulent, imposing, and a reminder of its long history in Imperial culture.

  His remaining Champions waited for him. Kern had brought very few of his Guild in the first place, and after the debacle in the Imperial Palace and Kern’s death, even fewer remained.

  “The Independents have ignored our messages,” Calder said as he strode across the floor toward his throne. “Clearly, they are not interested in talking.”

  His throne was a small, plain seat of polished wood at the base of the stairs leading up to the Emperor’s throne. At this point in his career, he had decided that it would demonstrate too much ego to take visitors while sitting on the Emperor’s ancient seat.

  Even if his true throne had been the Optasia, almost no one knew that. This was the seat that represented the Empire.

  Calder lounged as well as he could in his lesser chair, throwing a leg over the side in deliberate imitation of Ozriel. “If they don’t want to talk, I can only conclude they want to fight. That’s your department.”

  He had been trying to ignore the fact that there were only two Champions before him.

  Rosephus was smaller than most Champions tended to be—meaning that he was the size of an average man but muscled like an Izyrian statue—and he had weapons strapped everywhere.

  Everywhere.

  There was a sheathed dagger strapped to the back of his neck, and his helmet looked like it was made from the head of a hammer.

  Calder knew Rosephus was deadly, as he must have been to have survived Champion training, but he looked ridiculous. His breastplate was a bunch of swords strapped strategically to his chest. The one practical aspect of the costume was that Calder had no clue which of the many exotic and strangely positioned weapons was the man’s Soulbound Vessel.

  The second Champion, Tyria, hadn’t brought any weapons at all.

  She had the naturally tan skin and brown hair of a Vandenyas native, and while she was a head taller than Rosephus and just as broad in the shoulders, she looked like she might have stolen her outfit from a milkmaid.

  He had lived with Urzaia for years, and he had still never seen a Champion so casual. Urzaia often slept in his armor, and always kept his weapons close to hand. Tyria’s hair was tied in a loose bun and she carried a greasy paper wrap from which she was munching on something fried.

  “And it looks like there will be plenty of fights to go around, if it’s just the two of you,” Calder added.

  He masked his irritation; he had invited six Champions to this meeting, though he had expected the woman called Twelve to decline. She had been neutral to begin with, injured by Kern in the fighting, and he’d received word that she planned to travel back home to Izyria.

  Another of them had died, he knew, but he had still expected to see four people here. The
other two might have been running late, but if they weren’t in the room, he had to assume they weren’t coming.

  “They’re dead,” Rosephus said from inside his helmet.

  Tyria crunched into another snack.

  Calder tried to pretend to be unruffled by this information, even though someone had potentially murdered two Champions. “How did you find out?”

  “They found Trip dead in his bed this morning. Had to be poison, and it takes some real poison to kill one of us without waking us up.”

  Rosephus’ voice boiled with hidden anger, and Calder found that more understandable than Tyria’s apparent boredom. Her eyes roamed around the room-wide mural, and she didn’t stop eating.

  “The alchemists said it was heart failure,” Calder said. This was the one Champion death about which he’d been informed. “I’m told that’s not unheard of in members of your Guild.”

  Champions were built for battle, not longevity.

  “Would have thought so myself,” Rosephus growled, “if not for the others. Oleana was stabbed to death in a bar fight down by the docks.”

  Tyria spoke with her mouth full, still examining the art on the ceiling. “Normal guy with a normal knife couldn’t stab her to death if you gave him all night. The blade would break before she did.”

  “And then there’s Interion. Rode out to Hightower yesterday. Taught the Luminians a lesson and then disappeared on the way back.”

  Calder had heard about the “lesson” that the Champion Interion had inflicted on Luminian headquarters.

  Most of the Order was in Rainworth, so they had left only a skeleton crew manning their fortress. Interion had unleashed the wrath of a Champion on a few washouts, old-timers, and servants. Calder had already drafted up an order to have him executed for it after the fighting was over.

  “And you think he’s dead?” Calder asked. “He could be anywhere.”

  Tyria yawned. “He said he’d be back to Hightower this morning. He didn’t show. He’s dead.”

  Rosephus tightened his grip on one of the three swords buckled to the right side of his hip. “I know the work of Gardeners. Cowards. They would have gotten me, too, if not for my battle instinct.”

  “He had to relieve himself,” Tyria explained. “Stepped out at an unexpected time and saw someone running away. Found a bomb just lying there.”

  Rosephus growled at her like a dog. “I knew there was something wrong. I could smell it.”

  “Bomber got away, though, didn’t he?”

  Rosephus’ knuckles tightened on his sword, and he glared pure wrath at her. She fished around in her paper sack for crumbs.

  Calder’s own feelings were more in line with Rosephus. The Consultant assassins had struck against his Champions.

  So this is their answer to my message.

  Rather than responding with diplomacy, they killed his greatest warriors as they slept.

  But they couldn’t afford this sort of infighting anymore.

  He had to give them another chance.

  He sat up straight, forgetting his casual façade. “If the Gardeners are acting against us, what do you think their next move will be?”

  “They’re softening you up,” Tyria said easily. “Next they’ll go for the kill.”

  That was Calder’s instinct too, though it was disconcerting hearing it from an expert. If the Gardeners were bold enough to remove Champions, they were setting up for something else.

  Calder fixed both Champions with his gaze. “I’ll be addressing the public tonight…and when I do, I intend to give the Consultants the opportunity they’re looking for. Present myself as bait. Will you be my hook?”

  Tyria tossed aside her greasy paper sack. “Why do you think we’re here?”

  “I almost set out to Rainworth on my own,” Rosephus said.

  “Good.” Calder shifted on his throne, adjusting the Emperor’s clothes. “This might be my last act as Steward. I want to make it a good one.”

  The official Witness account of their peace accords was going to print today. Nathanael Bareius’ printing-houses had made sure that it would be big news all over the Empire.

  Calder had taken what countermeasures he could, as even in the Witness account, it was the Independents who had struck first.

  But the fact was that Estyr Six had accused him of collaborating with Elders, and damage to his credibility would be irreversible. There would be a call for his removal by sundown, or tomorrow at the latest.

  When he told them, neither of the Champions seemed surprised.

  “Ideally we’d all go out like Kern,” Tyria said. “On our feet with swords wet.”

  “We still might.”

  There was every possibility he would be dead by dawn tomorrow if anything went wrong.

  And if everything went perfectly…well, he might still end up dead.

  That was what usually happened to the bait.

  After leaving the Champions, Calder had his Guard lead him deep into the bowels of the Imperial Palace. Their destination was the heart of the Palace, next to the Emperor’s quarters and his private armory, but the Guards wouldn’t tell him exactly what it was.

  “It’s a secret,” they’d said. “We’re not even supposed to say it out loud.”

  He didn’t understand why he had to go to such lengths to meet his body double.

  When they arrived, the building looked the same as a thousand others around it: white plaster walls and a sloping red-tiled roof.

  Ordinary guards bowed as Calder and the Imperial Guard approached, then unlatched and pushed open the doors. To his surprise, there was a second set of doors inside, and these required a pair of locks.

  He began to wish that he’d come armed and armored; if his Guards wanted to kill him while he had no weapons, he would be easy prey.

  The inner set of doors opened onto…he wasn’t sure how to describe it at first, actually. Something like a costume gallery.

  There must have been two or three hundred wooden mannequins populating the tiered rows that covered the back half of the building. Some wore wigs and thin, rubbery masks, while others had fake facial hair pinned to boards nearby. All were dressed in pristine costumes from all over the world.

  The closest mannequin, looming on a raised pedestal over the entrance to the room, was covered by a full set of the Emperor’s white armor. As far as Calder could tell, the suit was identical to the real thing. The Intent couldn’t be faked, of course, but the armor itself appeared to be real.

  At the base of the pedestal stood Calder’s twin brother.

  …or so it appeared. A smile crept up as Calder looked himself up and down, gazing into what might have been a mirror.

  His copy matched his smile, even speaking in his voice: “Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, you’re one handsome man.”

  “Amazing. I knew they’d found a double for me, but…even the voice?”

  The fake Calder swept a bow. “Rojric Little, at your service.”

  Calder didn’t consider himself superstitious, but it seemed like a more-than-mortal coincidence that this man who shared his appearance should have his father’s first name.

  In fact, maybe it was no coincidence at all.

  His father had been separated from his mother for years, after all.

  “I don’t want to offend, but you weren’t perhaps…named for your father, were you?”

  The copy gave him a grin that Calder thought was rather dashing. “I was, as it happens, but my father’s a fisherman working down on the bay. Saw him this morning. I’d consider it a compliment to my acting skills that you mistook me for a brother, but it’s less my acting and more Soulbound magic.”

  Rojric gestured to one side, where an ornate portrait of an ancient woman hung on one wall. The woman sat in a high-backed chair, posed carefully for the painter. Behind her, where another woman’s family might have gathered around her for a family portrait, were half a dozen mannequins.

  “She crafted disguises. Died a
few years ago, may her soul fly free, but her works remain as potent as ever.”

  He reached up, peeling away his fake beard about an inch. “She hadn’t crafted one for you, of course, but she left a few materials behind that we could cobble into shape. They’re invested to make me look as much like the subject as possible…and of course there’s some alchemy and some rather fine acting involved.”

  “Uncanny.” Even considering the powers of a Soulbound, doing all this only with what she left behind would have taken an impressive level of dedication and artistry.

  A candelabra stood near the painting. It had been replaced by a quicklamp, but there were still fresh candles in their holders; Calder pulled a small box of matches from his pocket and used one to light the candle.

  One of the Guards cleared his throat. “Sir, would you like us to turn on another quicklamp?”

  “Not necessary.” He lit the other two candles as well. “Now, Rojric, are you aware of the public address at the Emperor’s Stage tonight?”

  “It will be the biggest stage I’ve ever played,” the double said proudly.

  In times of crisis, the Emperor could invite people to gather before the Emperor’s Stage, a balcony overlooking a huge courtyard.

  He could use the Hall of Address instead, but the Stage was more secure.

  Knowing when the Farstrider report would be released, Calder had issued a statement three days ago that he would be delivering an address from the Emperor’s Stage. Thousands of Capital citizens would gather in the courtyard, waiting to hear his words.

  “I’d like to go over the security measures together with you, if you don’t mind.” Calder walked over to the base of the portrait, where a small table held a notebook and a pen.

  A quick glance revealed that it was a sort of logbook, within which Imperial Palace staff had noted down which costumes they were borrowing and when.

  One of the Guards stepped up. “I will recount our preparations, if the Steward doesn’t mind. Your double will be onstage, addressing the citizens using the script you have prepared.”