“You let him get stabbed beforehand!”
“Every augury I could cast had that boy being run through by Valen Hesswyn—this way he got stabbed without exerting himself. He got stabbed in a way that made him a hero.” Lyrelle wiped a tear from her eye. “I kept him alive, no thanks to you. You were too busy drowning your sorrows over the fact that the world is full of fools hell-bent on their own destruction.”
“And you’d have me be king of them.”
“Who else better to tell fools how to manage their affairs, than a man who’s made his profession out of manipulating them?”
“If that’s all it takes, then why don’t you rule them?”
“I am not a man, Tyvian!” Lyrelle shouted, the steel flashing behind her eyes. “Goddammit, boy! What do you think I’ve been trying to do my entire life?” Lyrelle swept her arm around, indicating the fullness of the world. “Do you know what the most important things in the world are? I will tell you.” She held up four fingers. “Peace, food, home, and children—that is all. Every damned other thing mankind has ever devised is worthless.”
“I’m reasonably attached to wine.”
“Don’t be glib with me. I am not in the mood just now.” Lyrelle was pacing. A frantic, nervous energy seemed to be spilling out of her and she could not stem the tide. If this was an act, it was beyond good—it was supernatural.
Gods, he thought, straightening in his seat, I might actually be hearing the truth.
“Human beings are imbeciles,” Lyrelle said. “They all want the same things I just mentioned, and they use all the wrong means to achieve them. How do they seek peace? Why, they invade other nations that look threatening. How do they seek justice? They imprison some and murder others. How do they make their homes? By stealing them from the original owners. It goes on and on and on, across cultures, nations, continents—it is all the bloody same, everywhere. I decided a very long time ago that the only reasonable way to get people to behave themselves was to lie to them. Tell them fairy stories. Get them to believe in miracles.”
Tyvian frowned. “And this is where I come in, eh?”
“The fools in this kingdom want a demagogue, and either you will be it, or Sahand will. The people believe in you, Tyvian.”
“The people are idiots, as you say.”
“So what?” Lyrelle pointed in a direction that Tyvian imagined was north. “Sahand will step into any vacuum you allow him to. Eretheria is wide open—he is probably already marching on Ayventry as we speak. Without you, in a year he will own this kingdom, thanks to those idealistic fools Myreon courted in the sewers. Gods, by the time Sahand gets here, their families will probably join him willingly.”
“I doubt that.”
“Don’t. Sahand is a fool in many respects, but he knows what people want to hear. He is a master at channeling the worst in people and forging it into an awful weapon. He’ll do it here just as he did it in Dellor. Just as he would have done in Galaspin and Saldor had I not stopped him thirty years ago.”
“Gods . . .” Tyvian looked around for a glass of water. He needed a glass of water. “You . . . Xahlven . . . Xahlven was right!” Tyvian staggered to his feet. The room seemed to spin. She knew his plan—she had to. She had driven him here, to this very pass, just as she had done with all those others. “You made me into this! I’m your greatest tool!”
Lyrelle stood up slowly. “Tyvian, you have controlled your destiny—”
“No!” Tyvian snapped, backing away. “I don’t want to hear it! Shut up!”
Lyrelle shouted over his objections. “You have controlled your destiny your entire life! I have only nudged you here and there. I’ve only seen the path ahead of you and cleared away obstacles! What mother would do any less?”
“Leave me alone!” Tyvian tried to find the door, but before he could get to it, his mother had grabbed him from behind. He struggled—was she attacking him? And then he recognized the gesture. She was . . . she was hugging him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered into his back. “I’m so sorry.”
Tyvian pushed her away and turned around. Tears were streaking down her cheeks. Her, Lyrelle Reldamar, the Queen of Poise. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
Lyrelle remembered herself suddenly. She wiped away the tears with a handkerchief that materialized in her hand. “This will be the last time I speak with you.”
Tyvian’s heart leapt into his throat. “Nonsense.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m quite sure of it.”
He shook his head. What wasn’t she saying? Where was the trick? “Why should I believe you? You have never spoken a true word to me in all your life.”
Lyrelle dabbed under her eyes with the handkerchief. “I have spoken eight.”
Tyvian’s eyebrows rose.
“I am your mother, and I love you.”
With that, she vanished from the room.
Tyvian stared where she had been for a long time. Only the sound of Artus breathing and the faint rustle of the curtains in the breeze could be heard. He ran a hand through his hair—it had sticks in it. “Fine,” he muttered to no one. “If I’m to die, then fine. Let’s get on with it, then.”
The Congress of Peers was in an uproar. What to do about the overreach of Saldorian power into the Congress—of Defenders in the actual chamber—was in hot dispute, even as the Defenders stood there, pikes in hand, waiting. Camis wanted a headsman. Vora wanted them drawn and quartered. Hadda would have simply settled for banishment. Ayventry—or what was left of it—wanted an investigation into Eretheria Tower, claiming that this couldn’t have happened without the Master declaring Argus Androlli Magus Errant. There were shouts and oaths, duels declared, and angry faces all around.
Then the great doors swung open. The Guardian entered and bashed his staff upon the ground. The peerage counted the strikes: once meant a commoner or foreigner, twice meant a knight or viscount, thrice meant an earl or count, and four times meant . . .
“The palace recognizes Tyvian Reldamar of Saldor, Declared Aspirant, who shall address the congress!”
The heir stood in the aisle. He was filthy—his hair mussed, his eyes bloodshot, stains covering his clothing. Black grime was caked under his fingernails. Only his sword looked clean.
He walked toward the dais, his eyes fixed only there, at the far end of the room. He hadn’t gone three paces before the Congress began to shout his name. Tyvian couldn’t make out what everyone said, but he knew what they wanted—his endorsement, his plan, him to use his clout with the peasantry to get them into line. A few hundred highborn men and women, all shrieking for attention like so many children. And from him—a man who looked like he’d been dragged through the gutter and hadn’t even the decency to bathe before appearing before them.
The Defenders came alive. Androlli started barking commands, moving his men to cut Tyvian off, readying spells. House Hadda’s own sorcerers—themselves former Acanostrum apprentices—raised wards to shield Tyvian from Androlli’s compulsions or spells of binding.
Tyvian kept walking, looking neither right nor left. When he passed the Davram box, Countess Velia hailed him. “Sir, House Davram stands loyal to you! We are so pleased you are unharmed!”
Reldamar said nothing. He passed them right by. Right past the benches and to the stairs up the dais. Where he should have stopped, like he did before. Where he ought to have turned around and addressed them.
Except he didn’t slow down.
He didn’t stop.
The entire Congress fell silent at once, their eyes riveted to Tyvian Reldamar. The smuggler. The criminal. The swindler.
As he climbed the stairs and threw himself into the Falcon Throne.
The world froze. Countess Velia’s mouth fell open. No one spoke or moved or did anything. Even Tyvian waited for the sorcerous retribution for his presumption, his arrogance, his blasphemy.
It did not come.
Tyvian slowly let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d
been holding. I’m not dead. This didn’t kill me. Not yet. Tyvian felt himself relax. His spontaneous act of suicide had just made his eventual, expected suicide much easier.
He leaned back in the throne and threw one leg over the armrest. “There. Now that’s settled, you miserable sons of bitches are going to listen to what I say and, when I’m done, I want to hear a good hearty ‘yes, Your Majesty’ or you’re all going to see how nasty I can be with a hangover. Is that understood?”
The only sound was the heavy sigh of Countess Velia as she fainted dead away.
Chapter 36
Tyvian the First
Tyvian had always been comfortable in front of crowds—a side effect of his large ego—but sitting on that hard throne in front of that array of wealthy peers, Tyvian felt more than comfortable. He felt transcendent. He hadn’t been king for thirty seconds and already he could see what the fuss was about.
His head still throbbed, his throat was still parched and, if he stood up, he was fairly certain his whole body would be trembling. Still, he managed a smile. “First things first.” He pointed at Androlli. “As the King of Eretheria and all its provinces, I hereby banish you and your representatives from the Peregrine Palace.”
Androlli’s mouth flapped. “But . . . I was only . . .”
Tyvian slapped his hand against the armrest. “You heard me—get the hell out!”
The Guardian tapped his staff and a pair of armored golems standing in alcoves along the wall came to life, their giant swords gleaming.
Androlli froze, weighing his options, and then quickly ordered a retreat. “This isn’t over, Reldamar,” he said over his shoulder before leaving the hall, although it didn’t really have quite the effect he probably hoped, as he was walking rather fast in the face of the golems. A hearty applause rose up from the assembly as he disappeared.
Tyvian snapped his fingers. “Not so fast!” He pointed at House Davram. Countess Velia was only just regaining consciousness. “By royal decree, House Davram and all its vassals are hereby forbidden from the floor of the Congress until further notice.”
Old Countess Velia looked likely to faint again. “Wh . . . Your Grace . . . by what right?”
“You may address me as ‘Your Majesty’ and I’m the damned king, that’s by what right—get out of here. Think you can poison and nearly kill my boy and not face the consequences! Go!”
Again, the golems flexed their sorcerous muscle. House Davram, their collected faces ranging somewhere from mute outrage to numb shock, filed out of the hall. When they had gone, Tyvian rubbed his hands together. “There—now that such unpleasantness is over, let’s get down to business.” He gestured to the remaining lords and ladies. “You people have a very serious problem. In your haste to steal land from one another to escape your monumental debts, you have earned the enmity of almost everyone who serves you.”
The peerage looked sullen at this. Countess Ousienne opened her mouth to speak and Tyvian took great delight in shushing her. “Not just yet, Your Grace—your king is speaking.”
A murmur of indignation arose from the Hadda section of the Congress, but it died down when Tyvian kept talking. “Let’s not mince words—a pauper with a few spells didn’t stick a knife in Count Andluss because everything’s fine. Something is very conclusively amiss, and yet since that attack, the only thing you lot have bothered discussing is how and to what extent the rest of you might exploit Ayventry’s lack of a leader to your own gain. Nobody—not one of you—has given more than a few moments’ thought to why it happened.”
Silence. Nobody seemed willing to meet Tyvian’s eye. Fine.
“Well, I’m going to tell you what happened: you’ve been taking your people for granted. For centuries the peasantry of Eretheria have, more or less, happily gone along with your pointless little provincial wars with only the occasional uprising. And, it should be noted, that about a hundred years or so back, possibly a bit longer, the spring campaigns didn’t happen every spring. I know, because I looked at the history—a subject your tutors could do a better job of, I should note—and while the spring campaigns date back to Perwyn’s founding of the kingdom, the past hundred years has seen the number of actual battles go up by one-hundred and sixty-six percent. That, my friends, is a lot of dead people. What’s worse, after my . . .”
Tyvian’s voice caught on the next words. He had to take a moment to clear his throat, take a deep breath. “After my father . . .” He looked at the throne and around the massive chamber. “Gods, he really was my father, wasn’t he?” He shook his head. “Anyway, the point is, after Perwynnon unified you against Sahand, he reinstituted the custom of popular conscription. And you people loved it so much that, after the war ended, you kept on doing it. Saved you a ton of money, and money was the thing you needed to wage war, and war was what you needed to make more money, and on and on and on.”
Tyvian sighed. “You got so caught up in that vicious cycle, you forgot that the quality of life in your little fiefdoms was going down. Far too many households bereft of their primary earner. Taxes that climbed every year. And now, after the Saldorian Crash, it’s worse than it’s ever been. And none of you seem to care.”
Count Yvert brandished his cane. “And what of it? This is the world! You cannot change it by waving your hands! You cannot issue a royal decree and make it vanish! If I stop taxing my vassals, if I order them to countermand their levies, my cousins . . .” He pointed to the other houses. “. . . will pounce upon me. I will lose everything. That is not reasonable.”
Seeing an opening, Count Duren hopped in. “Just so! And even if you command us to do it collectively, all it would take is one of us to go back on their word and . . . and . . . well, it would be chaos!”
“Not to mention,” Countess Ousienne added, “that it would make us weak in the face of Sahand, who is clearly influencing Ayventry’s decisions. He may even have troops in Ayventry city as we speak.”
This caused an uproar among the Ayventry folk—as much of an uproar as could be caused by their dwindling contingent, Tyvian noted. Many of them must have quit the capital already.
Tyvian raised his hand to silence them. To his complete surprise, it actually worked. He imagined this was due mostly to the novelty of it. He doubted it would last long. “Nothing can undo the damage you have already wrought among your subjects—on that, I totally agree. But you are going to need to make amends.” The Congress bristled and Tyvian had to head off an uproar with that wave of the hand trick—which again, surprisingly, worked. “I know, I know—your pride would be crushed and your authority undermined. But that’s why you aren’t going to do it—I am.” He cleared his throat. “I hereby decree two things: First, that the spring campaigns are hereby cancelled and all peasant levies be released to return home.”
There were shrieks of alarm from the gallery. People came to their feet, gaping at him.
Tyvian pressed on, “Second is this: all persons of Eretherian birth, be they of high or low estate, are hereby invited to my coronation, set to take place this very evening.”
Then the uproar came in full force.
The whole Congress came to its feet, shouting at him all at once. The wall of human noise was so absolute that he couldn’t pick out individual words at all. He got the meaning well enough, though. These people were terrified and the only way they could express it was with anger.
But he had diverted that anger now—toward him, and not toward the people. He wondered whether Myreon would approve of the gesture or not. It’ll make it harder for her to start a war, at any rate.
When it became clear that no one in the Congress was willing to hear another word he said, Tyvian rose and, rather than leave the direction he had come, elected to exit via the fifth door—the King’s Door. The door that hadn’t been used in nearly thirty years.
It opened easily, on counterweighted hinges, and when he closed it behind him, the furor of the Congress of Peers was wholly blotted out. Tyvian sagged against the doors f
or a moment, closing his eyes. He was trembling.
My father was Perwynnon, the Falcon King. Even as he said it to himself, it didn’t seem real. Perhaps his mother had tampered with the enchantment upon the throne. Maybe this was all some elaborate dream of his, and he was still drunk and dozing beneath that cherry tree in the gardens.
But no. I always knew your life would be difficult. His mother’s words. What had he been like? Had she loved him, or was he just another pawn in her massive, decades long game to . . . to do what? Prevent a civil war that Xahlven would only seek to cause almost forty years after Tyvian’s birth? It made no sense. His whole life was just a jigsaw puzzle of his mother’s incomprehensible plots.
He opened his eyes.
The chamber before him was vast—far larger than the Congress and also far, far older. A perfect circle about a hundred yards across, the floor of polished marble. The ceiling . . . was not there, or if it was, it was so far away that Tyvian’s eyes could not resolve it from the filtered sunlight that streamed down from a thousand tiny windows. He realized that he was gazing up the central bole of the Empty Tower itself, the hornlike white spire of the Peregrine Palace, visible for miles and miles in every direction. Seven hundred feet tall and all of it hollow. He heard the coo of doves and the twitter of starlings roosted in the windows high, high above.
At the center of the room, beneath a pure beam of soft sunlight, was a bier. On it, still lying in state, was the body of Perwynnon, Falcon King of Eretheria, dead these twenty-seven years. Tyvian could see the runes etched into the floor—a ritual of stasis erected around the body. Within that circle, no time would pass. Perwynnon would look exactly as he did at the moment of his death, or whenever it was that he was laid here.
Tyvian walked closer, shielding his eyes against the light, his soft boots making no sound on the smooth floor. His heart was pounding.
Dead But Once Page 33
