The Misbegotten King (18 page)

T
he wind whined across the cliffs, bringing no hint of summer warmth, no promise of the sun. Only a damp rain spattered fitful
drops across Amanander’s face, and low clouds scudded across the midday sky. He glanced at his cousin, Harland, with undisguised
contempt. “They’re late.”

“Aman, they’ll be here.” Harland’s voice had the slightest pleading edge, and Amanander smiled grimly to himself.

How was it possible, Amanander thought, for any man to be such an idealist? Harland had been less than three years old the
day his father died so horribly at Ferad’s hands, but he seemed to have absorbed his father’s idealism with his mother’s milk.
Of course, Harland had no idea of the role Ferad had played in his father’s death, and Amanander, who had witnessed the whole
event, had never seen the need to tell him.

Amanander glanced sideways at the younger man, who sat poised and eager in the saddle beside him. The less Harland knew, the
better. Now they waited on top of the rocky promontory, on the edge of the no-man’s land which was the border of Loma, for
the leader of the Harleyriders.

The wind blew more rain in his face. Up here, exposed, there was no shelter, but curiously, Amanander was not bothered.

The equations of the Magic flitted through his mind, as they did constantly these days, while he turned them over and over
in his brain, endlessly toying with them. He had delved a little into Harland’s mind, loathe to go too deep lest Ferad notice.
There were already a few signs that his old tutor distrusted him. More than once he had felt a whisper of Ferad’s presence
in his mind. Lately he realized that the intricacies of the Magic could be used to shield his mind from Ferad’s probing. And
there was always Gartred. He had but to touch her mind and Ferad withdrew, leaving the unmistakable trace of contempt.

It was that contempt Amanander had seized upon in his initial experiments with emotion and its effects upon the Magic. Directed
upon Gartred, the hen responded as he expected. But then he had realized that she had always been more or less in his thrall.
He was eager to try his newfound knowledge on someone of greater mettle. He looked at Harland with speculative interest.

Just then, Harland reached over and grasped his forearm. “Look there.” He pointed. “I told you they would come.”

Amanander followed the line of Harland’s finger. Across the desert floor, a dozen dark shapes on shaggy, short-legged ponies
emerged from the entrance of the canyon opposite.

“Come on.” Harland tugged at the reins, and wheeled the animal around. Amanander took one last look at the
dozen riders trotting across the valley. His gaze swept up and down over the heights opposite.

“Just how well do you think you know this Kahn, Harry?”

“You know my father and his shared the same dream,” Harland replied. “I have known him all my life.”

Amanander swept his arm to the surrounding hills. “If we go down there, we are vulnerable to anything they have placed in
the hills. Let them come to us.”

Harland stared. “That’s an act of distrust.”

Amanander met his cousin’s gaze. “So?”

“Aman, I have explained to you and explained to you. We can’t treat these people like enemies if we want to make them our
friends—”

“Spare me the nursery lectures, Harry. If you want to risk your neck by going down to meet them, go on. I will wait here—you
bring them to me.”

“Aman!”

The two men stared at each other. Amanander considered using the Magic. Finally Harland dropped his eyes. “I-I will go down
and see.”

“Good.” Amanander nodded his satisfaction and watched his cousin pick his way down the rock-strewn path. He pursed his lips.
In any battle of wills, Harland was sure to be the loser. No wonder Abelard had treated Eldred, the father, with such contempt.

He had Abelard’s will, Abelard’s determination. In that, he was clearly his father’s son. He knew, that as surely as he knew
now that he was the true heir of Meriga. And why he was successful at using the Magic— it was the force of his will which
fueled the fire within.
A man like Harland might not have difficulty grasping the concepts of the Magic, but he might well have difficulty imposing
his will. He intended to use that mettle to bring about the destruction of every ideal his father had ever cherished. And
the best part of all was that Abelard would watch. He chuckled softly, thinking of Abelard’s red-rimmed eyes in his tortured
face. There was nothing of the King about him now. Strange how low one could sink when stripped of every vestige of dignity,
every basic human need.

He watched thoughtfully as the trail dipped down and Harland disappeared from view. It was easy to control the minds of men
like Harland, but the energy required was enormous, draining. He remembered how Ferad had achieved a link to Alexander, enabling
him to drain from his twin the energy needed to restore himself to relative health. That link had been relatively easy to
forge and to maintain, until that witch of Roderic’s had interfered. If only there was a way to feed off the life force of
anyone he wished. The answer seemed to hover just outside the range of his perceptions, but he was certain emotion was the
key. Harland’s high-minded ideals were a bit too lofty, a bit too ephemeral. But it was a matter to which he intended to give
a great deal of thought.

His attention was diverted as he saw the riders pull up short at the bottom of the hill and heard Harland’s welcoming shout.
He peered over the edge, taking in the view of the men below.

There were exactly a dozen of them, all clothed in black leathers, intricate chains bound over their chests, necks, and upper
arms. Their hair was long and dirty,
hanging in greasy locks down their backs. Water was sacred to the Harleyriders. So sacred they refused to waste it for bathing.
They bragged that at puberty they were sewn into their leather skins and never removed them. His flesh crawled at the thought
of being in the company of such unwashed vermin. He refused to apply the word
men
to them. Even dogs kept clean.

He watched as Harland gestured upward, and the eyes of the riders followed. Amanander gazed down calmly into the dark eyes
and dirt-caked faces of his father’s mortal enemies. Strange bedfellows, Dad, he thought, and then chuckled to himself. Well,
maybe not so strange at all. The Harleys had roamed for centuries unchecked across the Arkan Plains, until the Ridenau Kings
had risen to power and made Meriga a nation once again. He would turn the ancient enmity to his own advantage.

He nodded with grim satisfaction as the leader, at least the one he took to be the leader, gestured for his companions to
follow. Harland turned his horse and started back up the path. “Very good, cousin,” he mused. “Very good.”

He waited until Harland emerged from the path and gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I knew you could make them see it my way.”

“Just be careful, Aman,” Harland hissed. “You’ve got tigers by the tail here. These men must be treated with all respect,
or all the groundwork I have lain will come to naught.”

Amanander slid his dark eyes over Harland, smelling the rank, greasy odor which clung to his cousin like the
stench of the poison pits. “Let’s hope they are as strong as their stench.”

The odor hit him even before they emerged from the path onto the top of the cliff. He choked, his stomach heaving, and tried
not to gag. He looked at Harland, wondering how his cousin could have stood the stench up close.

He narrowed his eyes and bit hard on his lip until the pain took the nausea away. He focused on the large figure riding closer,
his shaggy mount sure-footed and steady across the rock strewn path.

He squared his shoulders and resisted the urge to cover his mouth and nose with his cloak. It wouldn’t do much good, anyway,
he knew.

The Harleys came closer, and Amanander saw the dirt-caked skin, the hard bright eyes in the filthy faces. He met their gazes
unblinking.

About ten paces from where he sat, the company halted. “Kahn,” said Harland, his voice higher-pitched than normal, “may I
present to you my cousin, Amanander.”

The Kahn did not reply immediately. He looked Amanander up and down, and in his eyes, Amanander saw the same kind of scorn
he recognized. We don’t have to bed each other, he thought. Amanander did not flinch beneath the scrutiny.

Amanander inclined his head in the fraction of a bow. “Kahn.”

“Lord.” The rider stared at him for a few beats longer, then gestured over his shoulder. “My woman. Mamma-Doc.”

Amanander looked past the rider, to the figure who
pushed her pony forward. She was heavyset, with broad shoulders. Her enormous breasts splayed out from either side of the
leather vest she wore. She seemed only marginally cleaner than her man. It was hard to tell what color her eyes might be,
for her long, tangled hair hung low over her brow. He noted she wore no chains and carried no weapons. He nodded shortly.

“We have come,” said the Kahn simply, and folded his thick arms over his massive chest.

Harland glanced at Amanander. Amanander drew a quick breath. “I seek to claim my father’s inheritance. Help me regain it,
and the Arkan Plains are no longer under the protection of the Ridenaus.”

A stir went through the ranks, but the Kahn himself did not move.

His eyes flickered over Harland and then back to Amanander. “What are you saying?”

“That when I am in my father’s seat in Ahga, I will not forget the debt, and the Arkan Lords who support my upstart brother—”
Amanander tripped over the word
brother.
“There shall be no more aid from Ahga for them.”

“I told you he thought as I, Kahn,” said Harland eagerly. “I told you he believed that Meriga was big enough for everyone
to live peacefully.”

Amanander fought the urge to laugh. The look in the Kahn’s eyes surely matched his own. He looked up as Mamma-Doc cleared
her throat.

“Fine words,” she said. “What else can you give us besides promises? We send our men to fight for you… we could end up dead…
with nothing.”

“Mamma-Doc,” said Harland, with as much respect as he might have used to a lady of the court, “we have been friends, our people
and yours, for as long and longer than I can remember. You have ever had friends in Missiluse. Would we turn against you?”

Amanander watched the woman’s face closely. Her tension resonated through her like a plucked harpstring, palpable as a sound
to his mind. With narrowed eyes, he allowed his mind to delve the first of the equations of the Magic. Harland’s voice went
on, making promises, sweet as honey, liquid as wine. Quickly as the arrow’s flight, Amanander delved deeper into the Magic.
He sought the woman’s eyes, searching for an opening, feeling the emotion tangible as a thread leading him in.

A thousand images swam before his eyes: dark nights, white hot days beneath a merciless sun, the tang of the mare’s milk,
the rank odor of the dung fires, the sounds of the chains around the Kahn’s neck as he bent over her to couple.

And then he was inside, deeper, in the place of all her secret hopes and fears, an open book laid before him as easy to read
as a child’s scrawl. Say yes, he murmured.

“Man,” the woman murmured, using the title of respect among her people, interrupting Harland’s awkward stammerings. “Yes.”

“What do you say, woman?” The Kahn turned and stared at her.

“Say yes—accept his offer. I have a vision about this one.”

The Kahn stared. “What—what do you see?”

“A vision of land, stretching out to the sky from east to
west, and horses, more than we can count between us ” Her voice trailed off as Amanander gently withdrew. No sense in damaging
the hen. If she had this kind of influence over the Kahn, she was too valuable to be wasted.

A ripple went through the riders; they leaned their heads together and muttered. Mamma-Doc was a seer, a wise-woman known
for her visions. She sat at the Kahn’s right hand and guided his decisions. If she had said to do this, then it should be
done.

The Kahn narrowed his eyes at Amanander, and Amanander wanted to laugh. The war between his own instincts and the timeworn
lessons of his woman was so clear upon the Kahn’s face, he might have spoken it aloud. Finally he said, “We shall do this.”

“Good,” said Amanander, speaking aloud for the first time since the introduction. “Bring your men and rendezvous with my cousin
at the garrison at Meridien. I know you know the way.”

The Kahn turned uneasily in his saddle, seeking out the eyes of Mamma-Doc. The woman sat entranced, her own eyes on Amanander.
He willed her to smile, and obediently her lips turned up. As the Kahn nodded, Amanander felt a little shiver through his
own mind. The hen was fighting him! He tightened his clamp upon her, showing her an image of her children torn and bleeding.
The answering surge of emotion was overwhelming. Energy poured into his mind, unchanneled like a river at floodtide. He controlled
his surprise with an effort and threw it back out, reaching into the minds of a few of the other companions on either side
of her. They instantly focused their eyes on him.