Seven Princes (9 page)

The Stone introduced him. “May I present to you Prince D’zan, Son of Trimesqua. Heir of Yaskatha.”

Tyro’s eyes narrowed. He bowed to D’zan, who returned the courtesy. “I am honored to welcome you to Uurz. Please sit. There is food and drink.”

Servants appeared from behind the tapestries and laid out a feast. D’zan found himself entirely without appetite. He had many questions, but he did not know what to say. So his eyes turned to Olthacus.

“We thank you for your hospitality, Majesty,” said the Stone. “Too long it has been since I’ve tasted the fare of your house.”

Tyro waved the servants away. He seemed uninterested in food or drink.

“Traders brought news of Trimesqua’s fall only days ago,” said Tyro, addressing D’zan now. “The Emperor mourns your loss.”

“I… thank you, Prince,” said D’zan.

“You have traveled far and your journey must have been taxing. You will find safety and comfort within these walls. These are the Emperor’s own words.”

D’zan thanked him again, somewhat awkwardly.

“Please… eat, drink,” said Tyro. “There will be plenty of time to talk when you have bathed and rested. My father will see you on the morrow. Tonight he is otherwise engaged.”

Olthacus attacked the delicious fare, and D’zan found his own
appetite. Tyro ate little, and was polite enough not to stare as the two hungry riders sated their appetites. A second princely figure glided into the room. His broad face resembled Tyro’s, but he was skinny, his nose a tad longer, and a coronet supported a trio of emeralds above his eyes. He carried in his arms a great book bound in worn leather.

“Ah, my brother Lyrilan joins us,” said Tyro, “having found his way out of the musty depths of the library. A rare occurrence, Prince D’zan. You are met with interest.”

The thin Prince smiled at D’zan and stood at the end of the table.

“He is a
scholar
, you see,” explained Tyro with the faintest trace of scorn.

D’zan caught the hidden meaning of those few words:
But he ought to be a soldier
.

“Greetings to you, Prince Lyrilan,” said Olthacus, wiping his mouth with a silken napkin. “May I present Prince D’zan of Yaskatha…”

Lyrilan smiled at D’zan, offering the briefest of bows. “Forgive my curiosity,” he said. “Tyro usually handles matters of state. News of your arrival only just reached me, and I wanted to pay my respects. I’ve been reading, you see…”

Prince Tyro laughed. “When are you
not
reading?”

Prince Lyrilan ignored the question. He laid the great book on the end of the table, well away from the nearest dish. “Your father, King Trimesqua, was a great man,” he said. His fingers absently traced the engraved patterns on the book’s cover. “A great warrior. A hero in thought and deed. It is an honor to have you here. I have many questions about Trimesqua’s life.”

“Brother!” interrupted Tyro. “Our guests have only just arrived.”

“No, it’s all right,” said D’zan. The potent wine made him feel
at ease, and there was something about this skinny Prince he liked immediately. Perhaps it was simply nice to hear someone speak so highly of his father. “What is that book you’re carrying?”

Lyrilan lifted the volume to display the embossed cover, its title written in the northern dialect. “
Odysseys of the Southern Kings
,” he said. “It lists the entirety of your family history going back three hundred years. Did you know your father slew a sea monster that devoured a thousand ships? The Beast of Barragur, they called it. He freed the shipping lanes for a generation of trade.”

D’zan smiled. Of course he knew that story. “My father told me that one several times.”

Lyrilan’s eyes lit up like twin candles. “Fascinating! This is why I had to meet you. There is only so much you can learn from a book. I’ll bet you have hundreds of stories to tell.”

“If you want to know the best stories, ask the Stone.” D’zan indicated Olthacus, who was chewing on a leg of fowl. “He and my father travelled the world together… long before I was born.”

Olthacus nodded, his mouth full of meat.

“Plenty of time for that,” said Prince Tyro, rising from his chair. “Lyrilan, don’t tire our guests any further.”

The Uurzian Princes said goodnight, and robed attendants led the guests through a maze of sumptuous corridors to their sleeping quarters. Olthacus insisted on sharing the same room as D’zan, and the servants finally relented. They had prepared a separate room for the big warrior, but there was no changing his mind.

D’zan stripped off his soiled road-clothes and climbed into the chamber’s great soft bed while Olthacus lay down on the cushions of a broad couch. The moon gleamed through a leaf-shaped window, casting its beams among miniature trees growing around the chamber. Sleep took D’zan before he could even say good night.

It must have been the whisper of a naked foot on the marble floor that woke him. Something dark loomed over his bed, and a cold ray of moonlight gleamed above it. The knife came flashing downward, aimed at his throat, but never reached it. Instead, a shower of warm blood splashed his face and sheets. A severed hand fell on the pillow.

A scream rose in the bleeding man’s throat, but Olthacus’ next sword-blow took off his head. D’zan lay paralyzed and bloody, barely conscious of what was happening.

Then the Stone’s voice filled the chamber, shocking him into alertness. “Up, D’zan! Run for the hall! Call the guards!”

D’zan rolled out of bed, nearly vomiting. He landed atop the headless, leaking carcass. The clash of metal met his ears from the other side of the bed, and he glanced up to see Olthacus kill another man. Like the headless one, he wore tight-fitting garments of black silk, his face obscured by a smooth mask of ebony.

The dead man’s knife lay on the floor, and D’zan grabbed it. From hilt to point it was carved of a single jade piece. The blade was smeared with purple flakes, some kind of venom. He ran for the door as Olthacus screamed.

Two spearmen rushed in to protect the bloodstained Prince. Their corselets gleamed silver-gray in the moonlight.

The Stone sank his great sword point first into the belly of a third assassin, and the man died without a sound. Three dead men lay across the chamber, and Olthacus stood near the open window, his hands now empty and dripping red.

More guards rushed through the door, but there were no more assailants. The Stone had killed them all. Someone pulled D’zan out of the room, but he pushed his way back inside. Olthacus sat on the couch where he had been sleeping. The green hilt of an assassin’s knife protruded from the big man’s chest just above his heart. His sword lay across the chamber, still embedded in the
body of his last opponent. The Stone’s mouth was open, and he gasped for air like a landed fish.

D’zan shoved his way through the guards. The Stone’s eyes focused on the ceiling, ignoring the poisoned blade protruding from his chest.

“Olthacus!” D’zan cried, but the Stone remained silent. His eyes fixed on the patterns of the ceiling, swirling traceries in the shape of grape vines spreading from wall to wall. D’zan grabbed the jade hilt and pulled the dagger free. Someone announced that the royal physician was on his way.

D’zan shook the Stone by his shoulders. The veins in the warrior’s neck and face stood out starkly purple. His eyes were orbs of cloudy glass.

D’zan shouted his name again, but the Stone never moved. He sat as still as his namesake on the blood-spattered couch in the blood-drenched chamber.

Even when the physician arrived with bandage, elixir, and stitching, the Stone’s wide eyes remained fixed on the golden grape-leaf ceiling.

They stayed that way until the physician’s gentle fingertips pulled them shut.

T
housands of books lined the shelves of King Vod’s library, and hundreds of scrolls from every kingdom known to man. The pelts of wild beasts hung between the towering bookshelves, and the fanged skull of a great Serpent lay on a central pedestal beneath a dome of transparent quartz. A dozen torches flickered in sconces like the yawning mouths of gargoyles. The room was spacious enough for a Giant to comfortably peruse the shelves, but Giants did not read. Only their shamans knew the magic of capturing ideas into runes, and all their shamans were dead for two decades now. Sharadza sat in her father’s reading chair and pored over tome after tome, finding only frustration in the musty pages.

She sighed as she closed the most recent volume, re-clasping its lock of bronze and staring at its embossed cover. If
The Codex of Ancient Knowledge
did not contain the secrets for which she searched, what hope did she have of finding it anywhere else? She had read at least a hundred such works in the month since her father went marching westward to give himself to the Sea Queen. Her mother made daily offerings to the Four Gods, Earth, Sky, Sea, and Sun, but Sharadza held little faith in her mother’s
religion. Queen Shaira had learned her faith during a childhood in distant Shar Dni. Sharadza could never admit it to her mother, but she did not believe at all in those faceless Gods.

Unseen powers of earth and air would not help her father, any more than his army of men and giants could. This was a matter of deepest sorcery, a curse that haunted Vod from before the birth of his children. The only way to fight it was through sorcery. In all the tales she’d ever read in the history texts, in all the legends told her by Fellow, even in the tales of traveling singers who visited Udurum, there was never any story of a sorcerer defeated by anything less than a more powerful sorcery. Her father was a sorcerer of legendary reputation – he rebuilt the crumbled city, slew the Lord of Serpents, and brought green life to the Old Desert – but he had given himself over to this curse and would not fight it. He was a man of honor, and that she understood. But
she
was not bound by the curse. If she could only learn sorcery, she might aid him in his time of need. She might defy the vengeance of the Sea Queen.

Had Vod reached the ocean shore yet? She checked the date on a nearby calendar. Any day now Vod’s chariot would come upon the Cryptic Sea, and he would cast himself into the lightless depths. Time was running out. Unless… unless his magic prevented him from drowning. Would he walk the sea bottom for leagues until he reached the Sea Queen’s aqueous palace? If the sea itself did not rob his life instantly, there might still be time for her to learn. Time to call up some dark power and send it to redeem her father.

She lowered her head to the dusty cover of the book, and tears welled in her eyes. She was tired of weeping; she felt dried up inside. But there was nothing in this damnable library to tell her, nothing that opened her mind to the secrets of sorcery. Why did her father keep all these books if they had nothing to do with his
sorcery? Her grief turned suddenly to anger. She tossed the heavy book to the floor and kicked over her chair as she stood and wiped at her cheeks. This place was useless. Her brothers might accept that their father was doomed, but she would never believe it.

Damn them for being so chained to his will! Their sense of honor prevents them from defying him, even to save his life
…

She called for a servant to darken the library, gathered up her cloak of purple wool, and stalked into the hallway. Tadarus and her mother were in the council chambers meeting with members of the giant and human populations, discussing taxes, tariffs, and other meaningless minutiae. Let them waste their time with such trivial notions; she would not sit and pretend that her father was not approaching death at this very moment. Signaling her personal escort, two soldiers by the names of Dorus and Mitri, she exited the palace through the lesser gate. The two men gathered up their shields and followed, but knew she was in no mood to wait so left behind their winged helms. She could not enter the city proper without their presence, or a single Giant guard. But the Giants drew far too much attention. She preferred these man-sized guardians; the fact that they were dumber than giants was a plus.

Evening in the City of Men and Giants was pleasant. Orange sunlight warmed the black stone of the towers. The lanes were dry today, and the sky was blue, filled with scattered cotton clouds. Since Vod had departed, there was hardly any rain, and no storms at all. It appeared that an age of warmth and sunlight had fallen on New Udurum, but Sharadza knew it for what it was: a drought caused by her father’s absence. The weather of Vod’s kingdom had always reflected his moods. Now an
absence
boiled in the azure sky, a smothering
lack
that nobody seemed to feel but her. Laughter boomed from open doors, and the drinking songs of Giants rang inside vast taverns as she walked the Street of
Grains. Such jollity only made her more angry. The entire city should be in mourning, but life seemed to go on as if Vod had never gone off to die.

“Majesty, would you rather we call up a coach for you?” asked Mitri, clomping along beside her in bronze-plated boots.

She shook her head. She didn’t feel like reminding him that he wasn’t supposed to talk to her. Or that doing so while she was in this mood was even less of a good idea. She did not want to say anything cruel, so she remained silent. They turned onto the Avenue of Legends, where the crowds were thicker. Along this wide thoroughfare the number of taverns, wine shops, and entertainment venues increased dramatically. Several Giant-sized drinking houses rumbled with mirth, although some of the human taverns grew even louder. Jugglers, musicians, and street performers lined the avenue. Peddlers pushed carts full of sweetmeats, apparel, or souvenirs in the form of figurines shaped like Giants. Ladies of the evening stood in doorways or windows, flaunting their fleshy wares. When visitors came from the southern lands, as they often did, they flocked to this wanton part of the city. Sharadza did not like it here, but it was the one place where she was sure to find Fellow.