“I could not agree with you more,” Mendices said. “Yet it is Tyro who will feel the bite of this pain.”
“He is a warrior,” she said. “Tyro will endure this as he has endured all other wounds.”
“Are you so sure of it?”
Talondra gritted her teeth and looked again toward the river. It ran black and deep with secrets. The current was fierce and relentless.
“When I was fifteen the Khyreins came to Shar Dni,” she said. “A horde of bloodthirsty shadows came before them. Ianthe the Claw and Gammir the Bloody led an armada of reavers across the Golden Sea. My three little sisters and I stood upon the wall with our parents and watched the Sharrian fleet sail out to meet the cloud of darkness. You know the slaughter that followed. The bloodshadows reached our gates well before the warships. They swam through the air like smoke, falling like great bats upon man, woman, and child. I will never forget the sound of my family’s screams.” She offered a sidelong glance to the Warlord. “Have you ever heard an entire city scream, Mendices?”
Mendices lowered his head again. “No, Majesty.” A raw whisper.
“We fled into the cellars, but the shadows followed us. My mother and father died as we watched, helpless. Their lives were torn away by dark, wolvish things. They stared at me with eyes like flames hungry enough to burn the world to a cinder. They were the servants of Death itself… things never meant for our world. We hid in empty wine barrels but still the creeping shadows found us. My sisters…”
Her voice betrayed her. She cleared her throat. Her eyes welled. She must not weep. It was not becoming for a Queen to weep.
“My sisters were torn from me. Sashai, Elymna, Tehroti… they were only three, five, and seven. The shadows carried them away. I heard them howling in pain as I ran. What could I do? The devils would come for me next… I had no protection to offer the little ones. The entire city was dying. I found my way into the bloodied streets, where the bodies of Sharrians lay like trampled flowers. The flagstones were red as rubies… pools of blood reflected the light of great fires. The shadows swirled, and I stood there waiting for them to take me. I had no hope left: my family was gone, and I would soon join them. Yet the shadows lingered, bloated on the feast of blood perhaps.
“Then the soldiers came with their iron-masked faces, the faces of grinning demons, and they plundered the city. You’ve been to war, Mendices. I don’t have to tell you of the cruelties they inflicted on me.
“Then the white flame arrived. Vireon the Slayer had come to liberate us. The Khyreins fled like frightened hares. Yet the Lord of Udurum had come too late. I might well have perished that day. In some ways, I did die. Yet someone found me in the street among the corpses and nursed me back to health. When my torrid fever finally passed, I awoke days later, already on the trail to New Udurum with the survivors. I did not speak for weeks, though I wept often. Many times I considered taking my own life. But I made a choice. I would make the pale ones pay for what they had done. This was my vow, and it has brought me to Uurz and delivered me to the Sword King.
“I love Tyro as I could love no other man. He is the key to my vengeance. Now is the time to turn that key. Tyro will survive this wound… as I survived all of mine.”
The Warlord’s face was pale. If the tale of her past had moved him, he did not show it. He only nodded and raised his dark hood.
“So be it,” said Mendices.
He marched up the gleaming stairwell to set their plan in motion. Talondra stared at the rushing waters, so like a flood of hungry shadows surging through the dark, penetrating the earth with its violence. Like the Sacred River itself, she would carve away all obstacles between herself and her satisfaction.
Alone now in the grotto, standing well apart from her maidens, she wept freely. The sounds of her sobs were drowned beneath the thundering river. Then she splashed river water against her face and ascended to pace the resplendent halls.
Lyrilan dined with Ramiyah on the balcony of the Western Tower. They watched the lights of the city emerge from purple twilight as the sun sank beyond the horizon, a ball of orange fire. She had brought her favorite blossoms up here from the courtyards. Their table sat surrounded by painted vases ripe with flowers, heady with the scents of tarnflower, elderleaf, jasmine, and mistblossom.
He told her about the meeting with Tyro. She shared his hopes. If the book changed Tyro’s mind about Lyrilan, about Dairon, about war itself, then all would fall into place. The strife would end and the blood would cease to spill.
“Lyrilan,” said Ramiyah, grasping his hands, “you must be prepared for the worst. Your brother may be beyond your reach.”
Lyrilan groaned, stared across the city where evening caravans were streaming through the northern gate. A parade of camels, horses, men, and goods from north, west, and south. Eight years ago there would have been Sharrians among those traders. Yet Shar Dni was only a pile of haunted ruins now. The result of war with Khyrei.
“I must reach him,” he told Ramiyah. “If I don’t, who will?”
She wrapped her arms about him and laid her head against his chest. “Only the Gods can say. Only the Gods…”
He kissed her and led her into their bedchamber. In the final glow of evening they made love. “I want sons,” he told her. “I have waited long enough.” She breathed satisfaction in his ear.
“You… will have… many sons…” she promised. She sang it to him as their bodies merged in the ancient dance of man and woman.
He did his best to ensure she kept that promise. He had been too careful for too long. Too involved with his books to start a family. He would deny his wife no longer. No matter what happened with Sword King and Scholar King, a man must have sons. This was something else he had learned while writing the book of his father’s life. Let the world be filled with the joy of children and the laughter of family. Let blood spill, let the Gods cast Uurz into ruin. Let Tyro march off to war if he must. Lyrilan would rule his family here, and it began on this night, in this room, in the arms of the woman he loved.
The winds of passion cast him headlong into dream. He slept deeply and fully. Dairon spoke to him from the lips of a marble statue. Two hearts… one kingdom. The voices of his unborn sons sang to him a distant melody. Lyrilan’s dream-self walked alone in a garden of fruiting vines, an old man full of wisdom precious as magic. He followed the sweet song of innocence, seeking its source among the green opulence. He found the shore of a river flowing bright as silver beneath the sun. Ramiyah beckoned to him from the distant bank. She was not old like him, but young. Young as she had been on this night of nights. The night he would never forget.
The cool breath of early morning wafted through the windows. The sun rose on the far side of the palace, so that shadows lingered about the western wing. Lyrilan’s eyes fluttered open in the silver gloom. A sensation of wetness came to him through the sheets. He pulled them back and discovered a world gone red.
Blood smeared his naked body, sinking into the bedding, staining it from purest white to violent crimson. The breath fell from his slack mouth as he found her lying next to him.
Ramiyah lay still. Her flesh was pale as marble but for the obscene scarlet spray on chest, arms, and shoulders.
He raised his hands. His fingers dripped a thick, congealing red.
He cradled her close to his breast and moaned. Her body was already cold as a stone.
The legionnaires found him shouting and weeping as he dragged her body about the chamber. He searched and searched, and carelessly kicked aside the bloody dagger on the carpet.
Where is it?
Where is her head?
When they carried him away, kicking and screaming, he still had not found it.
7
The Night of White Flame
Fear ran unleashed through the broad streets of Udurum. The invisible chain that normally held it far from the necks of the populace had been broken. The fear itself wore many faces: the towering forms of Uduri in plates of bl
ackened bronze, the fourteen legions of Men who marched beneath the banner of the Fist and Hammer, the great black wall that encircled the city, and the massive gates that were locked and impervious from either side. In a single morning the city was sealed, and a forest of gleaming spears stood on every corner.
In the Merchant Quarter all commerce was halted by order of the City General, Ryvun Ctholl, a strong-jawed veteran whose green eyes spoke of Sharrian blood. Drunken caravan drivers, mercenary guards, and the most vehement of the merchants were arrested and hauled away to dank cells beneath Vireon’s palace. All traffic in and out of the city halted, swelling the inns and boarding houses with travelers bound for Uurz, Tadarum, or Murala. Wagons and cartloads of produce from surrounding villages piled up outside the gates, where a dozen Uduri stood with grim faces and spears of polished steel. Incoming merchant trains were halted on the road. For leagues along the Western Way there sprang up makeshift merchant camps and hastily erected tents as the sun sank closer to the horizon.
Squads of legionnaires on strong southern-bred horses carried word along the road: Udurum is closed to friends and strangers until further notice.
Ryvun’s legions quelled three riots on the first day alone. Foreign visitors did not like being told where to stay, what do do, or when they might expect to leave. The less diplomatic of these outlanders grew determined after a few hours to fight their way out. A small melee had ensued, and Ryvun’s Palatines handled it well. Twelve foreigners dead, thirty-two more in custody, and not a single merchant willing to admit to employing any of them. Not that any seller of southern goods could truly control the ruffians he hired to guard his train. Such hirelings were men of the road, little better than thieves and scoundrels, sometimes worse. They were sellswords, not soldiers. When the Uduri showed themselves in the crowded street, the fight went out of the mercenaries, and when the first of their mighty axes cleaved a man in two, those who saw it were eager to throw down their swords. More guests for the King’s dungeons.
Vireon’s grip fell strongest upon those rumored or proved to be wizards, soothsayers, seers, somnambulists, or magicians. Anyone whose name was associated with sorcery in any way had been gathered up by the Palatines or the Uduri. It fell worst upon those who resisted. The Uduri brought down two whole houses with their axes and hammers, picking the inhabitants out of the wreckage and carrying them senseless to cells deep in the earth. One self-avowed wizard fought back with a few meager spells of his own, throwing naked flames from his hands. The Uduri laughed at his antics, then sliced off both his hands. They tossed him bandaged and howling behind a set of iron bars.
The sound of the city had become a constant roar. The streets resounded with chattering peasants, outraged citizens, shouting fruit-sellers, rollicking children, and strumming bards. The Uduri stood above the chaos like pillars of dark stone. Their golden braids spilled from helms of iron wrought into the shapes of black Serpents. Each Giantess remained a resolute center of calm in the swirling sea of gossip, confusion, fear, and indignation. By the eighth hour of the city’s lockdown, no one dared risk the drawing of those great steel swords or the casting of spears tall as flagpoles. Ryvun’s legionnaires patrolled the streets promoting calm, dissuading any further violence. As the sun disappeared beyond the western wall, the City General turned his coal-black charger toward the palace gates.
In the violet blush of evening, a white flame blossomed from the palace’s high tower. Ryvun hailed the gate guards as the miniature sun sprang to brilliant life. In the streets surrounding the palace grounds the anxious crowd drew its breath sharply and marveled at the wondrous light. The tower was not burning, anyone could see that. Yet it flamed like a star newly born. It was the King’s Tower, and all who looked upon it knew the source of that flame.
Alua the Queen, Mistress of the White Flame, worked her sorcery.
Ryvun gave the reins of his horse to the stablemaster as he watched the white flame grow. It ran down the smooth black walls of the tower like water, then spread leaping across the domes and turrets of every palace wing and spire. From every vantage point in the city people must be looking toward the white glow of the palace, amazed at the lack of smoke and the pure glow of this fire that blazed yet did not burn. The City General removed his silver helm and placed it in the crook of his arm, while the white flames spread like an intricate spiderweb, invading the courtyards and gardens that surrounded the palace proper.
Cats howled, horses bucked, and dogs ran to hide themselves as the web of white flame spread through the trees and hedges. It gave no heat, this flame, nor did it consume. It danced along paths made for human feet, leaving not a single scorched leaf or singed blade of grass. It brought light, and something else. Something that could not be named. It was fascination.
The net of flames reached the inside of the palace wall and climbed up its smooth surface. Now white fires danced atop the encircling wall, between and among the feet of patrolling legionnaires. In the bustling taverns nervous Men discussed over their cups what the Queen’s white flame must mean. Women huddled their children into cellars and attics, certain of a coming apocalypse. Merchants bristled and complained among themselves, fingering their jewels at neck and wrist. Even the King’s legionnaires muttered questions here and there, though none was bold enough to demand an answer from Ryvun himself.
Only the Uduri remained silent. The gravity of their charge, blended with the weight of their sorrow, made them silent, brooding icons of power. This was Vireon’s city, and today he had reminded everyone of that fact. He would not let the deaths of six Uduri or the infiltration of his palace go unanswered. In the search for truth and justice, Ryvun Ctholl was the King’s right hand. Since Vireon had taken the throne from his mother seven years ago, Ryvun had served him with pride, just as he had served Vireon’s father for a decade previous. He carried Vireon’s trust, which was a stronger weapon than sword or spear could ever be.
As for the blacksmith Trevius, the unfortunate who had discovered the massacre at the Three Stallions, Ryvun himself had dragged the man before the King earlier in the day. Trevius had not put up a fight when the Palatines invaded the sleeping room behind his smithy and clasped irons about his wrists. He was still half-drunk from the night before and in no mood to argue. He walked between the warriors like a timid child, looking about with anxious twitching eyes.
Vireon sat on his throne that day in uncomfortable silence. His orders were given in close whispers, to Ryvun, to Dahrima the Axe, and to a handful of chancellors. Most of the time he spent staring at a tapestry that showed his father Vod battling the Father of Serpents. His thoughts were unknowable. The King took no wine and refused a fine lunch of roasted pork. It was just after midday when Ryvun presented the blacksmith on his knees before the throne.
“Tell me what you saw,” Vireon commanded.
Trevius did not pretend ignorance. He knew why he had been called here. Vireon made him tell his story five times before rising from the throne. He came down to stand before the trembling blacksmith. “You saw no man outside the tavern? No man living inside it?”
“No, My Lord,” stammered the blacksmith. “As I said… I am a man of few friends. I hoped to find Finney the Cobbler at the Three Stallions. We sometimes drink together. Thank the Sky God he was not there or he would have…” Trevius’s voice trailed off. His eyes rolled up at Vireon, who towered over him like an Uduri over a turnip stand.
Vireon crouched then to look Trevius in the eyes. His hands reached out to grasp the blacksmith’s shoulders. The man’s face was pockmarked, etched by a half-hundred little scars made by flying embers and pieces of cinder. His arms were likewise covered in miniscule wounds, and one great scar ran across his left forearm. This was a working man, not a weaver of deadly sorcery. The King knew this as much as Ryvun did.
“Tell me something I can use, Trevius,” Vireon asked. “Anything. All those men and women torn to pieces… their hearts stolen. And now it happens to Uduri in my own house.”
/> Shock and horror fell across Trevius’ craggy face. His chains rattled as he wiped the sweat from his sweaty beard. “Oh, My King…” Tears welled in his eyes. “Some evil thing has fallen upon us. I would give my life to help you if I could. But I am only good for hammering and smoothing metal. It is all I have ever known.”
Vireon tightened his grip on the man’s shoulders. “Think!” he said. “Any detail you might recall could be a clue as to who conjured this curse.”
The blacksmith wept in his King’s grasp, opening his mouth and closing it dumbly again, like a fish gasping for air. Vireon endured this for a moment, then stood and turned away.
“A lady…” murmured the blacksmith. His choked voice was barely audible.
Vireon turned back to him. “Yes?”
“I heard… just before I opened the door and saw… the blood. I heard something like…”
“What did you hear? Tell me!”
The blacksmith’s swollen eyes turned to Vireon. “It was the sound of a lady’s voice… and she was laughing. I thought it came from inside the tavern… but there was only death inside.” Trevius stared into space, amazed at his own recollection. “Surely it must have fallen from some open window nearby… but I was sure it came from within the tavern.”
Vireon sighed. His big hand squeezed the man’s shoulder. “I believe you,” he said.
“What could it mean, Majesty?” asked Trevius. “All the ladies inside were… were…”
“Perhaps not,” said Vireon. He ordered the blacksmith’s chains removed, and the man returned to his smithy with a few new gold coins in his pocket.
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