The Crimson Queen

by Alec Hutson

  “A servant was dispatched, a man steeped in the unholy powers of his masters. Ambitious and cunning, he saw in the boy a weapon to use back in court, a means to elevate himself among his rival black sorcerers, perhaps even to the side of the Warlock King. If, of course, the stories they said were true. So he arrived at the monastery cloaked in the guise of a leprous old man, begging for help from the famous boy. Tethys frowned when he saw the hunched stranger, feeling something was amiss, and knowing he was discovered the sorcerer let his illusion melt away. The watching mendicants gasped, the abbot himself falling to his knees and pressing his forehead to the cold ground, for in that cursed age even the holy men of Ama were forced to pay obeisance before sorcerers. But Tethys stood tall, and matched the visitor’s stare.

  “‘It is good you do not grovel, ’ the sorcerer said, ‘for you are not sheep. ’

  “‘I bow only before Ama, ’ Tethys replied, and the sorcerer’s smile turned cold.

  “‘You would not bow before your emperor, then, the chosen of Ama, His vessel in this world? ’

  Tethys shook his head sadly. ‘The emperor is dead, his anointed line extinguished long before my birth. Ama has turned away from Menekar. ’

  The mendicants pressing themselves to the ground gasped, and some could not hold back burning tears, because they knew that their boy would now die a horrible death, a traitor’s death.

  But the sorcerer laughed. ‘You have listened too carefully to the teachings of these fools. They are animals to men like us. We are gods to them. Come, return with me to Menekar. The emperor will want to meet you, and with my help you could rise high, perhaps even one day carry a thorned flail of the Seven, command great armies, and give councel to he who sits the alabaster throne. ’

  “‘And if I refuse? ’ the boy asked, and at that question a fell wind rose, rippling the robes of the prostrate men, but leaving Tethys and the sorcerer untouched.

  “‘Then I shall tear down these walls, and feed the souls of those I find within to a creature of the Void, a demon of great and terrible power. ’

  The boy nodded. ‘Very well. Give me one more night here. I would meditate at the shrine atop this mountain, and ask Ama for his guidance. ’

  “‘As you said, boy, ’ the sorcerer snarled, ‘Ama has abandoned us. He fears us now, and what we will become. ’

  “But he allowed the boy to leave, to start upon the long and winding path to the mountain’s top, where in another age a famous holy man had once lived. Then he commanded the abbot to bring forth wine and to slaughter the fattest calf, and dispatched another mendicant bearing the imperial seal to a nearby village, demanding that the youngest and most beautiful women be sent up to the monastery.

  “The night passed, and in the cold, clear light of morning the boy returned, striding into the monastery’s great hall. What had happened to him atop that mountain has never been said, but now his eyes shone with the radiance of Ama, and in his hand was a sword of pale, white metal.

  “The sorcerer cast aside the girl he dandled on his knee and stood, blazing with dark power, an invisible force overturning the altar he sat behind and scattering the remnants of the previous night’s feast. ‘What trickery is this, boy? ’ he boomed. ‘Do you truly hope to challenge an initiate of the Black Dawn? ’

  “Tethys said nothing as he approached. The sorcerer marshaled his strength and flung it at the boy, a torrent of shadowy fire that washed over the hall. Tables and chairs burst asunder, the great metal sun of Ama that hung down from the rafters dripped in the unnatural heat, but the boy walked calmly through the raging maelstrom, and without hesitating plunged his white metal sword through the sorcerer’s wards and into his heart!”

  The mendicant suddenly leaped from the Speaker’s Rock into the crowd of seated children, thrusting out with an invisible sword. Laughter and cheers rippled through his audience as he danced among them, hacking and slashing at imaginary foes.

  “Word of what had transpired at the monastery spread quickly, and many flocked to see the child who had slain a sorcerer, whose belief in Ama shielded him from dark powers. The most pious, the most resolute of his new followers, Tethys brought to the shrine atop the mountain, and if they were found worthy they would return after a night of prayer with the holy light of Ama spilling from their eyes. And so were the Pure born, the paladins of Ama, warriors who moved through dark magic like fish swim in rushing streams.

  “Tethys led the rebellion that would consume the Warlock King and his depraved court. With his white-metal sword he opened the throat of that false emperor as he cowered upon the alabaster throne, forever staining the white stone black with the demon’s blood. And when the people wanted to lift up their hero, gird him with the imperial mantle, and set the diadem upon his brow, he refused, and vanished forever into the Bones, journeying west. But the Pure endured, the greatest warriors our world has ever known.”

  The mendicant bowed, to scattered applause. An old man in the shade near Keilan snorted and shook his head, turning back to his tzalik board, gnarled fingers idly stroking one of the dark, sea-smooth stones.

  “Do you think we’ll get another story?” Sella asked excitedly, the shadow of the morning’s events finally gone from her voice.

  Keilan watched the village’s children clutch at the mendicant’s robes as he waded through them to get back to the Speaker’s rock. “I’m not sure if they’ll let him leave.”

  The mendicant stooped to unhook particularly tenacious little fingers from the golden hem of his clothes, then paused as the child said something in words too soft for Keilan to hear.

  The young cleric tousled the boy’s hair and straightened, turning to address his audience again. “The child offers a wise question. He asks whether sorcerers still walk this world, and if the Pure will protect us.” The mendicant paused theatrically. “Black magic is practiced in these lands! We should be ever vigilant. If you suspect sorcery you must tell me, or another mendicant, so we might bring the Pure here to cleanse the foul taint!”

  The mendicant moved to climb the rock again, but the tugging on his robes was insistent, and with a slightly less patient expression he once more bent to listen to the child. Soman’s boy again, Keilan realized.

  Something passed between them, and the mendicant’s smile faded. He turned his head, following the boy’s outstretched hand, towards where Keilan stood beside the old men playing tzalik in the shade. A cold wave washed over Keilan as he met the mendicant’s surprised eyes, and he reached out to steady himself against Sella.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Everything, Keilan wanted to tell her. Everything.

  The roots of power, mused the emperor Gerixes Meneum III, were sunk deep in perception. An army was important, of course, the visible trunk holding aloft the rest, but without the fear and awe engendered by the imperial mantle, the tree of empire would most certainly topple at the first strong storm. Invisible, but the foundation of everything else.

  And similar to how the roots of a great oak might be glimpsed rippling beneath the forest’s surface, perceptions of his authority could only be measured in the reverence shining in upturned faces as the imperial palanquin passed by, or the way in which the crowds shrank back when he rode among them, resplendent in silver-flashing armor, accompanied by the Pure. He was the center of all this pomp and grandeur – divine, august, remote yet personal, offering to his subjects both the open hand of the mother and the closed fist of the father. They loved and feared him, as was the way in every family.

  Which was why he did not allow his boredom to show through when he sat in audience, no matter how weary he was of state affairs. The imperial mask must be without cracks.

  Today had been particularly tiresome, however. First that obnoxious Calliphon of House Belicau had come and fairly demanded – demanded! – that several more legions be dispatched east to protect his herds from th
e lizardlords. Gerixes had gritted his teeth to keep himself from ordering Velimus to collect the insolent satrap’s head there and then, and had instead held up his imperial scepter to show that he had heard. The emperor had become remarkably adept at focusing the sunlight that poured through the window behind him with the aid of the nine-pointed crystal topping his scepter, and he had found that blinding those who annoyed him to be a much better way of expressing his displeasure than abandoning his serene composure.

  Calliphon had shown only the faintest shiver of uncertainty as the light had played across his face – either he was braver than Gerixes thought, or his years away from the imperial court had left him incapable of reading into the subtleties of the emperor’s actions. The last person Gerixes had raised his scepter on, a representative from the padarasha of Kesh come to collect on a loan, still wallowed in the oubliette he’d ordered him dragged away to. That reminded the emperor – he should set the fool free.

  Gerixes gestured for his white vizier, Torrinis, to approach his throne. The ancient minister shuffled closer, his parchment-thin skin the color of cured vellum stretched tight over a strangely tapered skull. Torrinis had always seemed on the verge of death, even in the emperor’s first memories. He remembered the morbid fascination he’d felt as a child watching this cadaver draped in robes of the purest white bend to whisper in his father’s ear, and the comforting squeeze mother had given his hand when she’d noticed his unease.

  “Torrinis,” Gerixes said, trying not to wrinkle his nose at the sweet smell of decay that accompanied his white vizier, “we believe it is time to release that Keshian brat.”

  The old minister bobbed his bald, spotted head. “Your Grace is most wise. Unfortunately, cel Faraq caught a terrible chill and . . . expired yesterday.”

  The emperor frowned. “The padarasha will not be pleased. That fool was some distant relative.”

  “Should we repay the loan, then, your grace? Perhaps that would temper the padarasha’s anger.”

  “No. Our coffers are still as light as they were a few days ago. Dispatch a delegation west with our condolences and a white lion for his menagerie.”

  “It shall be as you say, Your Grace.”

  Gerixes waved his white vizier away and beckoned for his black to approach. Wen Xenxing detached from the shadows and waddled closer, rolls of flesh trembling beneath his loose, dark robes. His up-tilted black eyes were fixed on the floor before the alabaster throne; despite thirty years in Menekar he still could not bring himself to meet the emperor’s gaze – some lingering conditioning from his early years among the Thousand Voices of the Jade Court. Wen had been captured as a young boy at the Battle of the Shivering Stones, the greatest victory for the Menekarian legions over the Shan in centuries, and it had amused the old emperor to raise a child once being groomed to ascend to the Phoenix Throne in his own household. Wen had proven to possess a devious mind, eventually coming to don the robes of the black vizier.

  While Torrinis dealt with the quotidian problems of the empire, Wen attended to the shadows.

  “Your Grace,” murmured the vizier, his words flavored by a slight accent.

  “I’m sending a delegation to Kesh. I want several of your favorites traveling among the servants, ones we can trust in all matters. Perhaps a knowledge of poisons would be useful.”

  Plump fingers fluttered in acknowledgement. “Your words are like unwatered wine to this wretch’s ears. I shall instruct them personally.”

  “And now are we finished for the day?”

  Wen flashed a quick smile. “The delegation from Dymoria is here, if the imperial presence wishes to see them.”

  Gerixes sighed and rubbed his chin. He’d kept the Crimson Queen’s men waiting since the early morning in an unventilated antechamber, attending to every tiny matter of state while they suffered in their heavy brocade and furs. The proud and the powerful often made mistakes when irritated. He’d been considering postponing the audience until tomorrow, but his curiosity was getting the better of him.

  “Very well – send them in.”

  Wen pressed his forehead to the blue-veined marble of the top step and hurried down. The black vizier spoke quietly to Velimus, then melted back into the shadows as the captain of the Pure nodded curtly toward the emperor and moved to unbar the audience chamber’s massive ebonwood doors. Gerixes glanced about, assuring himself that the dignitaries could not hope but be impressed.

  The imperial audience chamber was the largest single room in the labyrinthine Selthari Palace, a forest of stone columns decorated with friezes extolling the glory of Menekar, mostly of legionaries with upraised swords cutting through the enemies of the Empire, and long lines of shackled prisoners winding toward stylized representations of the imperial city. Tattered mementoes of the legion’s martial brilliance hung slack between the pillars: the bloody remnants of silken Shan battle standards, stitched with strange geometric designs that seemed to float up from the fabric; the pale, flayed hides of lizards once bonded to Qell warlords; brightly colored streamers flown by the mercenary armies of the Gilded Cities; and banners adorned with the heraldic sigils of Shattered Kingdom lords. Many of those countries and cities now considered themselves allies of Menekar, but no emperor would ever be foolish enough to return the captured standards. They served as very important reminders.

  Glittering dustmotes floated in the late afternoon light shining through the huge window that backed the alabaster seat of the emperors; the throne crouched like a white lion of the plains atop a nine-tiered dais, each of those steps dedicated to a different facet of Ama, The Light Above. Flakes of quartz set into the marble floor painted a flashing avenue leading from the entranceway to the base of the throne, and flanking this approach was an entire cohort of the Pure, the elite warriors of the empire, armored in white-enameled mail. None wore helms, and copper-colored tattoos webbed their hairless scalps. The holy light of Ama shone from their eyes; this was the mark of the god’s favor, the sight that allowed them to see the taint of sorcery. Nothing unnatural could approach the emperor while his Pure stood guard – and while this always gave him comfort, it especially did so now, as the delegation from Dymoria filed into the chamber. Wen had brought him strange tidings regarding this Crimson Queen.

  They were only a dozen strong, with black beards forked in the style of the Gilded Cities, garbed in sumptuous many-colored robes. Sashes of black cloth cinched their waists, and silver flashed about their necks and fingers. They were large and burly, hairy as bears. Gerixes held his flail and scepter perfectly still and stared straight ahead, ignoring them as they approached. The delegation was not only men, he suddenly realized, his jaw clenching. There was at least one woman in the group, as heavy-set as her companions, her auburn hair bound into a long braid. The gall of these Dymorians! They must know that parading a woman before the Pure and the emperor without asking for permission first would be construed as an insult. He would have to punish Torrinis for not informing him of her presence.

  One of the foreigners drew the emperor’s attention: he was taller than the rest, young and clean-shaven, clad in a simple gray tunic with a bright red cloak secured by a golden brooch. His face was calm and his lanky body relaxed, but Gerixes thought he could sense an alertness, as if he was constantly taking the measure of his surroundings. This must be a member of the queen’s newly-formed Scarlet Guard. Wen claimed she was building an elite fighting force without peer in all of western Araen – natural rivals for his Pure, long the finest warriors outside of cursed Shan.

  Velimus stepped before the throne, facing the diplomats. The golden serpent bracelet coiled around his bared right arm flashed in the sun. “His Imperial Majesty, the Divine Light of the East, Chosen of Ama, Shield of the North, the emperor Gerixes of House Meneum, third of his name, welcomes the delegation from the far west.”

  An older Dymorian approached the throne and bowed deep. His hair and beard were clotte
d with gray, but the eyes under his heavy black brows were shrewd.

  “Exalted emperor,” he boomed, sweeping his arm to encompass his entourage, “we who have journeyed from distant Dymoria are honored to stand in your presence. Our hearts are filled with the wonders of your empire, the beauty of your people, and the flashing brilliance of your legions. Our queen Cein d’Kara, first of her name, gives thanks that such a mighty nation should count itself a stalwart friend of Dymoria.”

  “Old friends indeed,” said Gerixes, for the first time looking directly upon the delegation, “but we see new faces. Where is Count d’Tarren?”

  The speaker smiled, and behind his salted beard his teeth were very white. “Alas, Count d’Tarren was found guilty of fomenting rebellion against our queen, and has been put to death, along with other conspirators. I am Count d’Kelv, her majesty’s humble servant.” The count flourished another low bow, his beard nearly brushing the floor.

  Gerixes, of course, knew exactly what had befallen the old count. Although many of Wen’s sources had gone silent since the new queen’s ascension, several reports had trickled back of the attempt to cast down the young monarch and install a distant cousin in her stead, and the bloody reprisals that had followed. The emperor was impressed with how smoothly this Count d’Kelv had both admitted to the plot and glossed over its significance. He was very confident, this one.

  “A shame,” Gerixes continued, “d’Tarren was well-loved by our father. They often hawked together when he visited, and the old emperor even bade us call him uncle. We are surprised and saddened by his treachery.”

  The perfect white smile did not falter. “It was a peculiar madness, Light of the East, and our queen realizes the old count was not in his right mind. Many suspect he had been ensorcelled, or manipulated by dark powers to go against his rightful liege. It was with a heavy heart that our queen called for his head – but as the emperor knows, mercy will be seen as weakness, and only embolden the enemies of the throne.”