Shadow Over Kiriath (10 page)

He turned to the small group of border lords clustered at the front of the table farthest to his left, lamenting anew that more of their fellows weren’t in attendance. With the passes still closed, he’d known most would be unable to leave the highlands for his coronation, but in the end he’d traded the need to get it done before the Esurhites attacked against the need to bind the border lords to him. Now he half wished he’d waited. It would have been good if more of them could experience the coming revelation personally.

“It has come to my attention,” he announced, “that when the workmen removed the Hasmal’uk stone from the Coronation Chair to transport it back to the vault after the ceremony, they found it had undergone a transformation.” He returned his gaze to the border lord. “Lord Ethan?”

Laramor tugged the sheeting aside to reveal the familiar lozenge-shaped stone lying like a fattened hog on the platform. It had been cracked down the middle, the two sides gaping about a hand’s width apart at the top. A thin shell of darkened rock, which appeared to have once encased it, was broken now into shards as if it had been popped right off the inner surface. An inner surface comprised of pure gold.

As those nearest leaped to their feet with cries of astonishment, Abramm stared at it with amazement of his own. Though Laramor had already informed him of the stone’s change, it was another thing entirely to actually see it.

One of the border lords called out from his place at the closer end of the leftward-most table. “Sire, may we have leave to examine it?”

“You may, sir. But keep it orderly.” Abramm glanced at Captain Channon, whom he’d already instructed regarding his guests’ viewing of the stone.

As Channon sprang to see to it, Trap turned to Abramm with a cocked brow. “You’re turning granite to gold now?”

“The Light did it,” Abramm replied with a grimace. “Maybe when it drove the rhu’ema away. I only know that I had nothing to do with it.”

But he could feel Prince Leyton’s eyes upon him and knew this revelation would not help convince the man the regalia were not the talismans of mystical powers Chesedhan legend made them out to be.

Now Simon leaned around the crown prince and said, with some excitement, “Melt it down for sovereigns, sir. Think of the supplies it’ll buy. And the armsmen it’ll support.”

Abramm saw at once that he was right, a chill of wonder crawling over him.

“It seems Eidon favors you yet again,” Leyton said quietly. But Abramm liked neither the tone of his voice nor the look in his eye.

INTERLUDE

FIRST

FURY WRITHED WITHIN the man’s body—more, truly, than human flesh should be able to stand. Hazmul made no effort to curb it. What, in his unveiled form, would have manifested in lurid, blinding explosions and searing heat, was forced to channel itself through the body he had taken on. Muscles contracted to rigidity, then exploded in violent motion; tooth ground upon tooth; the heart drummed frenetically against the chest cavity, forcing blood and adrenaline through dangerously distended arteries and veins. In the delicate capillaries of the brain, a tiny vessel swelled on the verge of rupture. . . .

Hazmul knew it, even through his rage. Knew if he did not control himself, the vessel would burst and the body become useless to him.

He didn’t care. He almost wanted the silly thing to die, weak bag of water that it was.

We almost had him. He should have been ours! He
was
ours!

Hazmul still could hardly believe what had happened. He’d been in close contact with Terstans for centuries and prided himself on his toughness, his ability to endure a multitude of manifestations of Light without the slightest flicker of unease. He was a warhast, after all.

But this . . . this
searing
had taken him completely by surprise. Just as he’d been about to help the miniol strengthen its hold on its target, the Light had burst upon him, spearing through the buffering flesh of his host. . . . The next thing he knew, he was lying here in this darkened room, brought here from the coronation because he’d
“had another spell.”

Another wave of fury swept through him. He could hear the air exiting the trachea of his borrowed body in deep, ragged grunts. It brought no comfort to know the others had been overbowled just as brutally, nor that all the unfleshed host gathered in that hall to witness what was to have been Hazmul’s great victory had fled screaming.
He
was a warhast, and warhasts did not collapse when faced with manifestations of the Light. Particularly not when they came from within a mere man. When he found out who among his organization was the cause of this debacle, he would see them damped. He would
not
tolerate incompetents.

Already he’d had to endure a rhu’eman inquiry regarding the incident with the morwhol last fall, when the boom of Abramm’s passage into his destiny had been heard all the way down to the Throne. Whatever had happened in that coronation hall today would have been heard, as well. There would be a full investigation this time.

The little cadre of inspectors would probably arrive tonight, questioning him in their sly, smarmy tones, auras sparkling with presumed superiority. Hazmul swore harshly and felt his host’s limbs thrash. The vessel began to vibrate alarmingly. He teetered on the verge of letting it rip, letting the useless blob of pudding destroy itself.

But to give in to that urge was exactly what Hazmul despised in his inferiors, and so, finally, he curbed his wrath. The pressure eased. The racing heart slowed; the breathing deepened; the fists unclenched. Abruptly he realized he was drooling.

Disgust welled in him. So weak these creatures were. And this body in particular.

He brushed away the spittle, startled to note that the hand he used was blistered and burned. With that awareness came the perception of smoke burning his eyes and nose. He looked around at the splintered, blackened furniture, some of it still smoldering. White shards of porcelain littered the wine-colored carpet. The velvet drapes hung in scorched shreds beside the window.

He felt another surge of disgust, this time with himself. The mess would have to be cleaned up and the room redecorated without arousing suspicion—an inconvenience he could ill afford at present. He should have exercised more self-control. And if he wanted to stay in control of this situation, he’d better calm down right now and start thinking again.

Not long after Hazmul regained his composure, Underwarhast Vesprit slithered through the crack under the bedchamber door, arriving as a saffron ribbon of light wreathed in veils of shadow. Seeing Hazmul up and alert, the underwarhast immediately shifted phase to present his formal persona and bowed in salute.

Like all Bright Ones, Vesprit was beautiful, his highcheekboned face set off by a mane of long, glossy black hair briefly tamed by the silver circlet on his brow. His smooth skin gleamed with the subtle amber glow of his characteristic essence, and there were times looking at him made Hazmul resent having to hide within the clumsy ugliness of his current host. On the other hand, he would not be able to accomplish nearly as much were he not so shielded, and thus he must bear it for the short time needed to carry out his plans.

He saw the beautiful dark eyes flick around the room, noting the devastation, saw the brief darkening of uneasiness that shivered across his essence.

“So tell me what happened, Underwarhast,”
Hazmul said.
“Abramm was reeling when I left the palace. Devastated by the sight of his scars and securely in the grasp of his Shadow. . . . How could he have recovered in time to facilitate a manifestation like that?”

“I’m not sure, sir.”
Vesprit did his best to suppress the vibration of his doubts, but it was a skill he had yet to master, one he would have to if he expected to advance higher than underwarhast. Indeed, if he had a superior officer less compassionate than Hazmul, he would have been sent to the
ghahera
on the spot, for such doubts were highly insulting. Fortunately, Hazmul was sen sitive enough that he also perceived the harmonic of Vesprit’s accompanying admiration for him, and so he let it go.

“You’re afraid of him, aren’t you, Underwarhast?”

Vesprit’s form suffused with the muddy ochre of embarrassment.
“Sir . . . he is strong in the Light.”

“Of course he is,”
Hazmul cut in dryly.
“We wouldn’t bother with him if he wasn’t. But even with the Light, he is hardly more intelligent than a cockroach. Moreover, the Shadow lives within him, waiting to do our bidding. How can you think we won’t defeat him?”

“I . . . I suppose I didn’t think it through, sir.”

“No. You did not. Now, what happened after I left the palace this morning?”

“Well, sir, there was Lady Madeleine’s preparation of the horse. The krator on duty said learning of it produced a definite lightening in Abramm’s aura. And his man Haldon said—”

“Give me the memories.”

“Yes, sir.”
And Vesprit opened his mind to release the recollections of the two kratori assigned to monitor Abramm and Lady Madeleine.

An instant later, Hazmul swore aloud.
“How was I not made aware of this? She spent half the day at it!”

“Sir, it didn’t— We didn’t think it would make any difference. She was just trying to escape her brother. Who could have guessed Abramm would choose to ride the horse? It’s against tradition. His clothes weren’t right for it. The horse is hard to handle and unaccustomed to close crowds. . . .”

“And the old man? Haldon. He should never have been given the opportunity to speak.”

“We had no idea he would challenge him like that, sir. The words were out before anyone had any inkling he was going to say them.”

“Who was on duty?”

Vesprit told him.

“See that he’s disciplined for inattention. There is always some indication of these things; he simply did not draw the right conclusions. Most likely because he made too many assumptions. Haldon may only be a chamberlain, but he, too, carries the Light and, worse, has become as fanatical about living in it as the king. Such men are always a danger.”

Vesprit murmured his assent as Hazmul fell into silence, already compiling the information he’d received. A nasty Light plague would emerge from all this, but such things happened to everyone now and then. Of greater concern was the regalia’s manifestation.

“How was it Abramm was able to trigger the regalia? I sensed him when he arrived, and he seemed nowhere near strong enough to have done that.”

“No, sir.”
Vesprit hesitated.
“The consensus is that
He
overruled.”

Hazmul stared at his underling, fear ghosting through him for the first time. He squelched it immediately lest it be transferred to his host’s aura and Vesprit note it.
“Lodge an official protest, then. That is against the rules. I’ll file another when the investigative team arrives. If it’s true, no one can fault us for this.”

He paused, aware of the sick suspicion that this situation might be more complicated than he’d thought. All the theatrics that went on today would very likely provoke Abramm’s curiosity as to what he had in the regalia and could lead him into an investigation that could be very troublesome. Not only with regard to the regalia but also concerning the other things that were part of his royal inheritance—things so far Abramm had no idea about; things that, if Hazmul had his way, the king would continue to be ignorant of indefinitely. Better set some distractions in motion right away.

“Initiate containment measures on the plague at once,”
he said to Vesprit.
“And get our boy Prittleman fired up. I expect he already is, but don’t let his passion wane. I want a new pamphlet. Give him some extra protection and get as many copies out as you can. How receptive is he to suggestion?”

“Given the right sort, sir, very.”

“Good.”
Hazmul went on to detail the sorts of things he wanted the pamphlet to say.

When he was finished, Vesprit’s essence was vibrating with an unmodulated concern that bordered on alarm. Hazmul kept his own irritation tightly controlled.
“You have an objection to these instructions, Underwarhast?”

Vesprit sparked with surprise and chagrin, immediately tempering the frequency of his reactions. Then he straightened his shoulders and said firmly,
“Sir, if you have Prittleman write these things, Abramm will take strong measures. Someone will surely give him up.”

“Let me handle that.”
Hazmul took satisfaction in noting how his own confidence worked to settle Vesprit. He went on.
“That Terstan group that broke off from Kesrin under the cobbler—they were disgruntled with Abramm’s toleration of the Mataio, so I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear how Bonafil and his boys were driven from the coronation. I want you to see that they are ecstatic.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good, then.”

It was not a direct dismissal, but one Vesprit should have read as such. Still he stayed, concern flickering through his essence.

“What is it now, Underwarhast?”

“What about Abramm himself, sir? Shall we continue our work on him at the same pace or intensify?”

Hazmul snorted.
“Of course not! What have you been doing for the last four thousand years?”

The warm lemon of surprise flared across Vesprit’s form.
“I’ve spent all of it in the deep south, sir. There haven’t been too many with the Light. And I thought the rule was that whenever they have a success we’re to immediately pound them with a counterattack.”

“That is only one of several relevant guidelines, all of which must be considered together: flexibility, variability, and target awareness are also in view here. If we become so predictable he knows what we’re doing, we’ve lost our advantage. He’s on to us now, ready for another attack. So we’ll let him think he’s won for a time, while we turn our efforts in other directions.”

Vesprit’s saffron glow deepened with understanding and approval.
“I see, sir.”