Wrath of Kings

by Glen Cook

  The King sneered his disgust. The thing called the Unborn was a monster which should never have been created. “He’s in the east, then.”

  “If it’s him. The far east.”

  “Prisoner of Shinsan?”

  “Lord Chin took him.”

  “Chin is dead.”

  “Just thinking out loud. Lord Chin and the Fadema took him. We’ve assumed they delivered him to the Pracchia, who used him to twist Mocker’s arm. But maybe they didn’t have him after all.”

  “They had him. You couldn’t bluff Mocker. You ought to know that. They did some fancy convincing to make him attack me.”

  The wizard peered into the misty east. He did not reply, though he could have admonished the King about romanticizing his one-time friend, or about listening too closely to the guilt he bore.

  The King mused, “We never had proof that Ethrian died.”

  The wizard was proud that he had no scales over his eyes, yet he did have his blind spots. The man Bragi had slain, and whose wife the wizard had later married, had been his son. Sometimes that fact got in the way.

  Bragi shifted ground. “Was there anything else?”

  “Anything else?”

  “Your claim to be preoccupied was unconvincing.”

  Varthlokkur shifted his attention from the distance to the man. His basilisk eyes crinkled. “You grow bolder with age. I recall a younger Bragi shaking at the mere mention of my name.”

  “He didn’t realize that even the mighty are vulnerable. He hadn’t seen the dread ones in their moments of weakness.”

  Varthlokkur chuckled. “Well said. Don’t take the notion too much to heart, though. The Tervola won’t give you a decade to find the chinks in their armor.”

  Bragi stood. “I’ll try this conversation when you’re feeling more pellucid. Maybe you’ll deal some straight answers.”

  Varthlokkur faced the east. His eyes lost focus. “We will speak later, then,” he said.

  Bragi frowned, not understanding. The wizard had changed languages. He shrugged, left the man to his mysteries.

  The road called Lieneke Lane drew its name from the civil war which brought mercenary captain Bragi Ragnarson into Kavelin. Ragnarson had destroyed then Queen Fiana’s enemies. A key victory had occurred near the town of Lieneke.

  The road meandered amongst the homes of the wealthy. A lone, rain-soaked rider pursued it westward. A park appeared at his right hand. To his left the homes grew larger and wealthier. He glanced at one. The survivors of the King’s family by his first marriage lived there, neither in penury nor in ostentation nor fame. The horseman averted his face. He left the lane just a few houses beyond the King’s.

  A footman braved the drizzle, took his animal. “The lady just arrived, Mr. Dantice. She said to wait in the library. Bette will be there to serve you.”

  “Thank you.” Aral scampered across the porch. He shed his rain cloak and left it with the doorman. Ambling toward the library, he watched for Mist’s children. Usually they were too much in evidence, and too filled with curiosity. He did not see them today, though, and wondered if Mist had moved them elsewhere. Despite the best coaching, little tongues would wag.

  “Good morning, sir,” the maid said.

  “Good morning, Bette. Could you bring me something light? Butter, bread, and preserves, say? I haven’t yet eaten.”

  “The cook has a nice grouse, sir.”

  “I don’t think so. I shouldn’t be here long enough.”

  “Very well, sir. Tea?”

  “Anything hot. This rain will give us all the rheumatism.”

  Dantice prowled nervously after the woman departed. So many books! They represented so much wealth and knowledge they intimidated him. He had no formal education. His limited literacy skills he had garnered from his father, who had troubled to learn only because he was too mean to hire clerks.

  Aral was sensitive about his ignorance. His contacts with the court had shown him the value of literacy. His association with Mist had underscored it. She had opened his eyes to uncounted new ideas….

  Aral Dantice called himself a realist. He did not believe in the free lunch. His peculiar romanticism lay askew from that of his acquaintances. His relationship with Mist was an alliance of convenience. They were one another’s willing tools… so he told himself when he worried.

  So why this untamed interest in matters neither commercial nor political? Why did she take time to teach him when the lessons were so elementary they had to be excruciatingly boring? When his long-run value was severely limited and localized? Why did he?… It had come at him from his blind side. It had jumped and mauled him, and had left him with feelings and visions that were new to him. And he was frightened. This was not the right time. And Mist was not the right woman.

  She was old. She had been old when his grandfather was a babe. Maybe she had been old when Varthlokkur was a pup, and the wizard had stalked the world for four long centuries. And she was a princess of the Dread Empire. No cosmetic could hide that fact, no term of exile change it. The cruel blood of tyrants coursed her veins. Even now she harkened to its roar.

  But she was the most desirable woman alive. When her melting eyes poured fire on a man, he couldn’t help but become their slave. Only some gonadless creature out of the same devil’s jungle that spawned her could ignore her.

  He wondered, perhaps for the hundredth time, just what went on behind her perfect mask of a face. The male thaumaturges of the Dread Empire concealed themselves behind hideous beast dominoes. She hid behind beauty.

  He scanned all the titles and finally selected the book he chose each time he came here. Bette brought bread and butter and tea. He sipped and nibbled while studying meticulously prepared, hand-pressed woodcuts of the architectural wonders of the age.

  He had seen the real structures during the war. The representations were woefully inadequate. “Damn!” he swore softly. “There’s got to be a better way.”

  Michael claimed there were painters in Hellin Daimiel who could portray people perfectly. Why didn’t they try place portraiture?

  “Aral?” Her voice was soft. Its edges tinkled like tiny silver bells. Her beauty punished ugliness for existing. He rose, gulped.

  “Sit down, Aral.” She took a chair beside him. He imagined he felt the heat of her burning across the foot of air separating them. “That book again. Why?”

  He swallowed. “The technical challenge. There has to be a better way to illustrate.” Did his voice sound like a frog’s croak? How could she do this to him? He wasn’t a kid anymore.

  “Did you talk to Michael?”

  “We went riding. He didn’t say much. He was even more cryptic than usual. I did get the feeling he was trying to warn me off.”

  “How so? You think he knows?”

  “I couldn’t tell. He must suspect something. But he isn’t sure. Not yet. He kept changing the subject to landscaping and betting on Captures.” He thought, I’m talking too fast, and probably too much.

  He knew he wasn’t in love. Not really. It was all in the glands. But it was powerful. She destroyed reason by inflaming the urge to mate.

  “He knows more than he told the King, Aral. That was obvious. He knew too much about Lord Ko Feng and Lord Kuo not to have known more. He has a good contact east of the mountains. Possibly somebody who’s caught wind of us. You’d better have your smuggler friends find out who it is.”

  “Do we have to do it this way? Mike could help a lot if we let him in.”

  “He could get us killed, too. I don’t trust him, Aral. He’s too much his own creature. He doesn’t form loyalties, he makes temporary alliances. He’s the kind who can change horses without a qualm. I don’t think it’ll be long before the King is sorry he hasn’t kept Michael on a shorter rein.”

  “Yeah. The riots in Throyes. He admitted he was involved. And he’s under orders not to irritate Lord Hsung. The King wants trade reopened bad.”

  “What about Cham Mundwiller? Is he still
sitting the fence? We don’t have to have backing from Sedlmayr, but I’d feel better if we did. They could finance another battalion, and that would make my friends a lot more comfortable.”

  “He’s playing it cagey. He wants to be covered both ways. He’s got the Michael shakes. He’s never gone against the King before.”

  Mist gnawed a cuticle. “Go on.”

  “That damned Mike! He’s like a ghost anymore. You never know where he is or what he’s doing, or even if the guy next to you is maybe working for him. I spend half my time looking over my shoulder. Hell, Mike is just plain bad for business. And now that damned wizard is back, and he and Mike have always been thick. What Mike can’t find out for himself Varthlokkur will dig out for him. All he has to do is ask. I don’t mind telling you they’ve got me spooked.”

  “Has Cham asked for anything?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t offer. Let him come around his own way. I don’t want to do business with people who have to be bribed. Other people can bribe them too. He’ll just have to settle for secure trade.”

  Dantice nodded. “Far as I’m concerned, trade is the whole point of the exercise.” Once a less belligerent, more commercially oriented regime was established in Shinsan, the riches would flow in rivers. All Kavelin could fill dippers in the stream—the way it had been before the Great Eastern Wars.

  Aral believed in what he was doing. He was a patriot. His conscience was healthy. He’d had a bad moment when he learned Prataxis was making headway with Lord Hsung, but Mist had calmed him, and had assured him that Hsung was playing diplomatic games, that he had no intention of relaxing his stranglehold on the trade routes.

  “What is happening in Shinsan?” he asked. “The wizard had something on his mind.”

  “I really don’t know. They’re restructuring army commands and shuffling legions. Lord Kuo’s people give the orders. They don’t explain. My friends can’t tell me much.”

  “Or won’t?”

  “I’ve thought of that, too. There’s always a chance they’re working the other way, or both ways. I’m considering bypassing them. I have other resources.”

  Aral shuddered. He had seen some of those resources during the war. She was one of the great wielders of the Power, a fact emotion tended to obscure.

  “I’d better get back. When I’m away too long the whole shop goes to pot.”

  She touched his hand lightly. Her eyes misted. “You’re sweet, Aral. You’re not quite real. Valther was that way too.” She sounded wistful.

  If only he were a tad more bold. It had been four years since Palmisano and her husband’s death. She should be ready.

  Aral took his leave. He tried to distract himself with debate on how to bet the day’s Captures matches.

  FOUR: YEAR 1011 AFE

  A FLASHBACK TO THE WAR

  It was one of those mornings when spring became an insidious disease spreading disaffection and restlessness. It communicated an undirected desire for action, for movement, for the doing of anything but the task at hand. The dawn breeze off the Kapenrungs had been cool, piney, and invigorating, virile with the seed of unrest. Now the air was still and warm, incubating ill-considered actions.

  Nepanthe stood at the window of her second-floor bedroom in her brother’s Lieneke Lane home. She stared at the towers of Vorgreberg, visible between the tops of the trees. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she whispered. “I’m going to go crazy if I don’t.” Her gaze touched the palace. Maybe Bragi could arrange for her to move in there.

  Her thoughts turned to her husband, Mocker, who had been gone for a year. An erotic image sprang into her mind. She pushed it away, disgusted with herself. She wasn’t that kind of woman. Base physical desire was the mark of a street wench.

  She pounded a fist against the windowsill. “I really am going mad,” she whispered. And, “Bragi, why couldn’t you just leave us alone?” Poor Mocker never did have any sense when it came to Bragi or Haroun. They’d put him up to the stupidest things… This time it had been some kind of spy work for Bragi. And he hadn’t come back.

  There was no proof that he was dead. Not even a rumor, Bragi claimed. But… if Mocker were alive, he would have come home long ago.

  The door to her room creaked open. Her son stood there, looking at her, a confused look on his face. At twelve he already showed a lot of the man that would be.

  There was little of his father in him. Mocker was short and fat and brown. Ethrian would stand a hand taller, and would have the broad shoulders and hard muscles of the masculine side of his mother’s line.

  A rush of sentimentality hit Nepanthe. She wanted to wrap him in her arms, and keep him there forever, safe from the wrath of the world. “Ethrian? What is it?”

  In a puzzled tone, the boy said, “There’s a man downstairs. He says he has a message from Father.”

  Something with violent claws grabbed her heart. She babbled questions.

  “I don’t know, Mother. He just said to tell you Father sent him with a message.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Down on the porch.”

  “Get him inside. Into the library. Don’t let anybody see him.” Intuition told her to be circumspect. Mocker wouldn’t have sent a messenger had there been no need for caution. “I’ll be right down.”

  She whirled to her dressing table, mind aroil, telling herself to stay calm. She failed utterly to take her own advice.

  The messenger was a strange one, a hard, dark, silent man with a big white scar across one cheek. He radiated a chill which made Nepanthe shudder. She ignored the reaction. All Mocker’s friends were a little bizarre.

  Once the man had identified her to his own satisfaction, he said in difficult Wesson, “I am sent at the command of your husband, Lady, to bring a message important. First, two tokens of faith, that I may be known as friend and not a liar thought. He says you will know the true message they carry.” He handed her a ring of plain gold and a small dagger with a tiny silver three-armed swastika inlaid in its hilt.

  Nepanthe collapsed into a chair, one item in each hand. Yes. She understood. The messenger had to be genuine. Who but Mocker would know how much these meant? The ring she had given him in token of love soon after their wedding. There was a love charm graven in invisible characters round the inner face of the band. The dagger had been a tenth anniversary gift. It had belonged to her father, and to his father before him, a token of the power of a once mighty family. Someday it would belong to Ethrian. Yes, only Mocker would guarantee a message by sending those. “I accept you as the real thing. Go ahead. What’s the message?”

  Ethrian demanded, “Where is my father?”

  “Be quiet, Ethrian. Go stand outside the door. Warn us if anyone comes.” The messenger had chosen the perfect day to appear. Almost everyone was out of the house.

  The courier produced a sealed packet. “I am to give you these letters. Read. Then we will talk.”

  Nepanthe ripped at the packet, fumbling in her eagerness. Finally, she got to the first letter.

  It was not written in Mocker’s hand. She wasn’t surprised. Her husband could write, but unless he worked with uncharacteristic patience his penmanship remained impenetrable even to himself. Anything he wanted understood he would have someone write for him.

  The letters were crazy. Bizarre, paranoid, unbelievable. Rambling, tortuous, and only partially coherent.

  He flatly accused Bragi and Haroun of plotting against his life. He was in hiding in the middle east, where he had friends. He wanted her to slip away and join him before Bragi took the next logical step and imprisoned her and Ethrian.

  It made no sense. He’d never mentioned having friends in the east. And what reason would Bragi or Haroun have for trying to kill him?

  The messenger asked, “Have you finished?”

  Startled, she looked up at his cold assassin’s face. “Yes. What’s it all about?”

  “Lady, I am sorry. I was not told. I was sent to bring you to him. I
have two friends with me. We are to guard you during your journey to Throyes. We are to avoid notice by local authorities. That is all I was told.”

  “But…”

  “I am sorry. Will you come?”

  “Yes. Of course.” She rose, surprised by the haste with which she had made her decision. It was as crazy as Mocker’s letters.

  “Pack quickly and lightly. We will travel by horseback, in haste, lest our enemies discover us and give pursuit.”

  “Yes. Of course.” Of course. That was Mocker’s way of life. Travel in the shadows, work in the shadows, always moving fast and light. Live and die in the shadows. Don’t look back because something might be gaining.

  She burst out of the library. “Ethrian, pack some things. We’re going to your father. No. Don’t ask questions. Just do what you’re told. And hurry.” She left him looking baffled.

  She threw things together with little thought for the journey she faced. Her mind was wholly taken with the puzzle of what was happening.

  “Keep up, boy!” Scar snarled. In all the weeks of travel Nepanthe had learned no name for Mocker’s messenger. He was in a vicious temper today.

  She didn’t blame him. His wounds had to be hurting him terribly.

  Two days earlier they’d had a brush with bandits, just when Scar was beginning to relax because they were nearing Throyes. His comrades had both been killed.

  “It’ll only be a little while longer, Ethrian,” she promised. “We’re almost there.” They were among the farms which supported Throyes. A hazy patch of horizon lay ahead. “We should spot the city walls any minute now.”

  “No walls at Throyes,” Scar said. It was one of the few times he’d said anything remotely conversational. “Three hours, we be there.”

  He was close. Only a few minutes over three hours later they were dismounting before a home as stately as any Nepanthe had known in Lieneke Lane. A grossly fat man met them. He did not seem pleased to see them. He and Scar argued, then Scar terminated the discussion by mounting up and riding away. The fat man fumed and sputtered and threatened his back.