Crownless

by M H Woodscourt

  Jetekesh resisted an urge to roll his eyes. Rille had given no proof of anything; she had merely told him what he wanted to know. And even then…wasn’t it subject to interpretation? Was the man so blind, so deaf, he couldn’t detect the risk in her words? Might not immortality also mean death?

  With a clap of Gyath’s hands, music struck up again. He commanded Prince Aredel to stand. “You’ve done me proud this day, First Prince.” Gyath’s gaze roved the remaining party behind his children. “Who else do you bring? More gifts?” An edge of greed guttered his voice.

  “No gifts, but one among them is honored throughout all the eastern kingdoms for his talents.” Aredel swept his hand toward Jinji. “Behold, my lord father: the storyteller of Shing gifted with the tongue of ancient bards in spoken form. If it pleases you, Holy Emperor, he shall weave a tale in celebration of your triumph over all the civilized world.”

  A dark light flickered in the emperor’s eyes. “Granted, surely. I look forward to measuring the worth of my son’s boast, storyteller. Welcome to KryTeer: paradise upon this world.”

  Jinji stepped forward, and pressing his palms together, he bowed. “Venerable Emperor of KryTeer, it is a privilege to stand upon this ancient stone in the hall of long ages, and present to you my art. If you will allow, I beseech you to stay your music and give heed unto my tale.”

  With a gesture, Gyath silenced his musicians. The courtiers and gentry hushed again, and the stillness was broken only by the tinkle of chimes swaying in the open windows. Smoke from incense curled across the beams of light from those windows, and Jetekesh held his breath, waiting, aching for Jinji’s story.

  “A shroud drapes over the world of men,” said Jinji in somber tones. “Ever there is bloodshed and war, greed and sorrow. But ever is there light; and that which I speak of this day is of light. Shinac, it is called; most ancient word. No man recalls its meaning. It is not important now, except to know that its meaning grants a spell of protection for all who dwell worthily in its hallowed lands.”

  “This Shinac,” said Gyath, cutting Jinji’s spell as he might sever a spinner’s thread. “I’ve heard tell of it. Is it not the realm of merfolk and sprites spoken of at the hearths of Amantier? Bedtime stories, they are called, yes?”

  Jinji nodded. “So they are called. And so within Shinac dwell all the fae of this world.”

  Gyath chuckled. “I thought so. But it is no realm of light, as you claim. Aren’t Unsielie also inhabitants of this hallowed land?”

  Jinji’s shoulders tensed as Jetekesh’s spine stiffened. How did Gyath know of the dark fae?

  “You know of the Unsielie, Your Eminence?” asked Jinji.

  Gyath’s eyes gleamed. Jetekesh could swear a mantel of darkness settled across the emperor’s shoulders. He leaned forward in his throne, teeth flashing a wicked smile. “I know many, many things, Master Teller. I know a great deal about you. Indeed, I knew your mother. I knew her very, very well.”

  Jinji’s face lost the last of its color, and his frame trembled beneath the sinister figure above him.

  “Then, it was a lie,” whispered Jinji so softly Jetekesh could hardly hear him. He swayed on his feet. Jetekesh snatched Jinji’s arm to steady him. He could feel the penetrating, gleeful eyes above, but he didn’t look. Why bother? Who was the tyrant Gyath next to the meek and gentle Jinji?

  Jinji tried a smile, but it fell at once.

  Jetekesh smiled in his stead. Squeezed his arm to reassure him.

  “What child is this who dares to aid you before the Emperor of KryTeer?” rumbled Gyath.

  Jetekesh faced the throne and held his head high. “I am Jetekesh, son of Jetekesh, prince and heir of Amantier’s throne. I am a descendant of Cavalin the Third, and I see no emperor before me. Only a pig. If this world were not broken, it would worship and serve meek souls like Jinji rather than gluttonous, self-serving peacocks such as you or I.”

  Aredel moved in from the shadows and laid a hand on Jetekesh’s shoulder. “Enough, Your Highness. If you wished to die, you had but to ask.”

  “Leave him, Aredel,” barked Gyath. “I am not angry but intrigued. All word of this boy was that he would amount to nothing but his mother’s lapdog. Spineless, fragile. Weepy like a woman. Yet I see before me a budding man, the kind any father should be proud to sire. There is strength and virtue in true Amantieran tradition. My, my. It does me good to see that the diluted bloodline of Cavalin yet has hope. I will spare him for now.”

  Fire rolled through Jetekesh. He curled his hands into fists. “Do not make it sound so noble. You want my life for sport alone. But I won’t serve you or bow to you. I may be a prince without a country, but I still have pride—and honor, what’s more. The latter cannot be said of you.”

  Gyath threw his head back and roared with laughter. “Well, King Jetekesh. What say you concerning your insolent son? Shall I whip him to bind his tongue, or let the harmless pup alone?”

  Father’s voice held strong and steady. “Whip him, Holy Emperor. It will do him good. I’ve long been tired of his insolence myself. He gets it from his mother, bless her rotting corpse.”

  Laughter broke over the courtiers. Gyath chuckled. “Let him alone. Young men should be free to express themselves, and I cannot fault a prince, even if he is throneless.” Gyath’s mirth dimmed. “But now, the matter of Jinji of Shing.”

  His smile darkened again. “It is a strange life you have led, O crownless one. Marked by meetings and partings of all the great souls of Nakania. You have slept in dungeons and supped with kings. Wandered the byroads and fields. Sailed the open seas. Loved well. Hated deep. And mostly, you have preached. But preached what? Peace? Tolerance? Faith in that which is unseen? What good has this journey done you? You’re dying. That is obvious. No power in this world can save you, and the powers of your precious Shinac will not save you. What is left?”

  Jinji lifted his eyes from the floor. His body shook, but his gaze, that stalwart, blue green gaze, held Gyath’s stare. “I must tell you one last story, and then…then I may finally rest, Lord Father.”

  36

  Five Spears

  Silence spilled over the chamber. Jetekesh couldn’t believe his ears. He’d heard wrong. Jinji had misspoken. But as Jetekesh turned toward the throne of KryTeer, as he looked into the face of Gyath, tyrant-emperor of Nakania, he saw the truth. There was no indignation in Gyath’s expression. No confusion, fury, wonder. He smiled. Acknowledging truth in the triumph of his squared shoulders, the tilt of his head.

  Desperate, Jetekesh looked for Aredel. The Blood Prince stared, horror and wonder written as clearly as script across his brow. His wide eyes darted between Gyath and Jinji.

  “You must be confused, Jinji,” said Anadin, the only one in all the throne room who would dare to fracture the silence. “You called the emperor your father. Don’t you mean Lord Emperor? Or Divine Eminence? Or a thousand other titles?”

  Jinji shook his head. “I am not confused, nor am I mistaken. Is this not so, Lord Father?”

  Gyath leaned back and folded his hands over his immense belly. “She never told you, did she?”

  “No. But now I better understand her shame,” said Jinji, bowing his head. “There is much that I better understand.” His head lifted. He found Aredel. His smile was like a dove’s wing. “Aredel, my brother.”

  The Blood Prince stiffened and stepped back. Blinked and shook his head. “Jinji…? I don’t…”

  “It’s not that challenging a concept, boy!” Gyath scoffed. The lamps above trembled. “This lowly shepherd’s mother pleased me, and she was glad to do it, too! Never let her later efforts to play the victim fool you. She knew what I was, and all I would become, and she offered herself to me. She wished to be empress. Ha!”

  Jetekesh shivered as Gyath’s laughter chased warmth from the chamber. It still made no sense. Shing had been occupied by Amantier for years before KryTeer ever invaded, and that had been after Jinji was born. Before Gyath had been an emperor. How had h
e made such an impression upon Jinji’s mother or even crossed Amantier to visit Shing?

  “You all appear perplexed. Why not enlighten them, my long-lost son?”

  Jinji weakly shrugged. “Which question shall I answer first? My lady mother always led me to believe my father was a man of Amantier, for it explained the color of my eyes. Yet always I felt uneasy with that answer, for I sought the man who sired me, and when I found he whom she had named as such, he could not—or as I thought, would not—claim me. He had been in Shing during the Amantieran occupation, and even some years preceding that, but not as a loyal Amantieran citizen. He worked for another, stronger force. Long before Amantier entered our borders, KryTeer held a presence there. We were, in all but name, a province of this mighty land many years longer than history recounts.”

  He sighed. “Gyath, called king aloud, was already an emperor, and by my own mother’s admission, he frequented court often, attended by his Blood Knights and his agents from Amantier. One of these was the man I had thought my father. It is only today I have learned otherwise, yet I feel the truth of it within my breast.” He placed his fist over his heart and gazed up at the throne. “What I do not understand is why. Why you know of me. Why you openly declare my lineage. Why allow me to live all these years in ignorance, yet today, within your own court, reveal a secret none living but you were likely to know?”

  The emperor’s smile stretched until Jetekesh’s mouth ached to see it. Gyath flexed his neck from side to side slowly, lazily. His fingers drummed against the arms of his throne in a drawling rhythm.

  “That,” he said, “is simple. I discovered who you were when my son met you in Shing five years go. He returned to KryTeer to, shall we say, discipline those men who beat him and threw him in the river. He also carried a story of you, and the strange creature you are. Strange men alarm me, and so I sent out spies to learn about you. Your history was not hard to discover. I even had the pleasure of corresponding with your lost love—Naqin, isn’t she called? She was very forthcoming in all she knew, for she hoped to curry favor with the emperor of KryTeer, that she might gain you back. Of course, she didn’t know your true bloodline, but I learned enough of your life to fit the pieces together myself. You are my own seed. Why acknowledge you, you ask? Why not? You are my kin. Illegitimate, yes. Unworthy to sit upon a throne, true. But I do not forsake what is mine. I always gain, never lose.

  “Let all my court, all my lands, know the truth! Jinji called Wanderlust, born of a princess of Shing and the Holy Emperor of KryTeer, raised on the streets of a seaport city, cultivated in the courts of ancient philosophers, favored by a noblewoman, exiled to a shepherd’s hill, and lastly donned in the mantle of an outcast storyteller with delusions of a fairy kingdom, soon to die of a lingering illness—this, my son, has come home at last, where his most holy father claims him as his own. Is it not a grand tale?”

  Gyath leaned forward. “You have done me much service in the world, my son. By your efforts I have shaken the foundations of all countries in Nakania.”

  Jinji’s brow drew together, and he shook his head. “How can that be? I’ve done nothing to influence the world so greatly. I do not understand you.”

  “Doubt, my son. You have planted doubt in the minds of miserable people. Paranoid fools such as Queen Bareene latched onto your drivel and wasted time and coin on capturing you. And so, she formed an alliance to supplant your efforts, as fear drove her thither. You have also planted discontentment within the common folk of pastoral Amantier and Shing. Such has led to rebellions, enough to chip at the last pockets of resistance in my empire. By your words, Jinji, you have handed me the world as fluidly as Aredel himself. After all, you inspired my heir to begin his deadly work. Brothers, working together. Is it not a touching concept? The day you met was fate; indeed, the gods themselves moved mobs and soldiers to bring you together.”

  Jinji was trembling.

  Jetekesh gripped the man’s arm tighter as his anger boiled over. I will let him say no more.

  “Liar! Fool!” His voice rang throughout the chamber, rolling over the strafing laughter of the tyrant. “You think, just as my mother did, that this man plants sedition and doubt and unhappiness among the peasants of every country—but that isn’t true! He brings hope. Faith. Joy! But how would you know? You’ve never heard his stories. You’ve never witnessed what happens to those who do listen. I, I may not be the best example, but I want to be better, all because this peculiar man believed I could be, and showed me how to try.” Tears shimmered in Jetekesh’s vision. He swiped at his eyes with his free hand and met the dark, glinting depths of Gyath’s. Haughty disdain flickered in his gaze, but there was something else.

  Jetekesh laughed. “I see the truth in you, Gyath! You’re afraid. Jinji of Shing frightens you witless. Of course you must claim him. If you don’t, if you keep silent, he will destroy you; for he stands for everything you are against. He will buoy up your oppressed people, inspire them, make them think and hope for themselves. He will preach liberty. Friendship. Loyalty. Love. Faith. Faith in something greater than you or your gods, for he does more than mollify and degrade. He lifts by example. If you disown him or allow him to run free, untied by blood and oaths, he will stand as a banner by which others may rally against your tyranny. So, you claim him, and soon you will call him mad, as you do your spare.

  “If you can just make Jinji bow his knee and call you liege and force him to swear an oath to his kinsman, you can quietly undermine his work. This you must do, or he’ll overthrow you. You cannot kill him, certainly not that! A martyr lends unmatched strength to the masses: so history has taught us. It is the mortar to fill in the cracks of newfound faith. This you know. And so, you chain him with your blood claim and hope it’s enough to stem the tide before it rises up from all your provinces.”

  Jetekesh panted as he finished, his face hot with curdled blood. He knew he’d been babbling. Had he made any sense at all? Everyone was staring. Even Jinji stared. A black fury scarred Gyath’s round face, and he looked for all the world like an Unsielie, though fat and looming, wingless, and garbed in the colorful silks of KryTeer.

  “You have crossed the threshold of my patience, young prince,” rumbled a voice like glutting flames. Gyath rose, lifting his bulk until he towered above Jetekesh.

  Trembling servants shoved the table aside, and Gyath took the steps that led from his high dais. When he descended, he stormed forward and stood before Jetekesh, tall—not as tall as Lord Peresen, but wide and powerful nonetheless. Gyath’s skin was splotched from too much drink, and the wrinkles of his face were deep crevices. But there was nothing aged or weak about his eyes: two dark, sharp spears, fastened on Jetekesh, wrathful and murderous.

  “My lord father,” Aredel began, his tone one of warning.

  “Silence.” The emperor’s command tolled low, edged. Aredel fell still.

  Jetekesh’s knees had grown weak, and his mouth was like sand. If this man struck him with his hand, surely Jetekesh would snap in two. Will I die here?

  He drew himself up, urging his hands to be still. Be proud. Be brave.

  Gyath lifted his hand. Father shouted as Aredel reached out. So slowly. Too slowly. The hand flew down. Jetekesh flinched. Why? Why couldn’t he keep his composure in the end?

  The blow never came. Cries and murmurs hummed through the air. Jetekesh pried his eyes open. Who had intervened? Who had dared?

  Oh no! Jinji?

  Jetekesh found Gyath standing several paces back, clutching a bleeding wound on his arm. At his feet, writhing beneath the hafts of four spears, lay Tifen, a discarded steak knife near his hand. Invisible, forgettable, loyal Tifen. Beside him, a spear jutting from his back, knelt Sir Palan. Had Sir Palan tried to save his son, while Tifen protected Jetekesh?

  As Prince Jetekesh stared, blood rushing through him like icy water, the old knight reached for his dying son and pulled him near. Tifen cried out but raised his shaking hand and caught Sir Palan’s fingers in a clasp. />
  “F-Father, I…”

  Sir Palan leaned forward until his ear was near Tifen’s lips. His son spoke, words lost in the murmurs of the crowd. But Jetekesh knew what they were: Father, I’m sorry. Forgive me.

  Tifen gave one last heaving gasp. His eyes flattened. Sir Palan slumped over the body and joined his son in death.

  37

  Caught in a Trap

  I killed him.

  Jetekesh crashed to his knees. Jinji sank with him.

  “Quite a spectacle,” said Gyath, with a chuckle. “Bring my physician. This wound won’t stop bleeding.”

  Someone sobbed. Jetekesh tore his eyes from Tifen and his father to find the source of the alien noise. Rille. She clutched Yeshton’s arm, face turned away, shoulders shaking.

  I killed them both.

  Jetekesh turned his eyes to the rug beneath him.

  Why had he not held his tongue? Why? Why?

  The murmuring of the courtiers and gentry had grown from an angry hum to an energized buzz. Tifen’s death had revenged their wounded feelings, feelings not even their own; but what the emperor felt, so too felt his sycophants and lackeys. These preening, mindless peacocks were for display alone; they had a collective mind. Jetekesh well knew their sort. He’d been raised to rule them.

  He’d been one of them.

  Disgust cushioned his guilt, easing his pinched heart. He couldn’t look at the bodies of Palan and Tifen as KryTeeran guards dragged them away. Think about it later. Grieve later.

  If there was a later.

  The emperor’s physician had arrived.

  While Gyath was being treated, he gestured to the company brought by Aredel. “We are indeed blessed this day. Two less Amantieran dogs plague the world.”