People stooped in the market to sniff vanilla reeds for signs of mold. Slaves bent low in the weight of their spiked collars. Brass points curved from their necks toward their faces, and the poor delicacies had to stare down their doom. The entire city was rotting, crumbling, and smelling sweetly of the despair of crowded isolation.
Tethiel rode Eyebiter up the palace stairs. The courtyard tiles were in good taste. They showed the wailing faces of the king’s fallen adversaries. Tethiel dismounted, and his right knee exploded with a balefire of pain.
Knees were such a nuisance. It was a wonder people got anywhere with them. He would spend the next month riding from kingdom to kingdom, and after that he might not be able to walk. For now, the agony contracted to a humming point, thanks to the black wine beating from his heart.
He wore his fifth-best face into the palace, along with a crimson loincloth and a cape of jaguar black. He was announced as a messenger from the Lady of Gems.
The throne was broad and sculpted like the rippling wall of a cave. Stalagmites jutted behind the king, who sat with his oiled belly and the usual assortment of pale jade and terror-bird feathers.
On the king’s right side lounged a Green Blood. Here was beauty that transcended gender. They wore no trinkets, no clothes, only their glistening skin of blue, deathly blue, exquisite blue, speckled with a madness of black spots. Tethiel cherished the idea that Hiresha had also glimpsed the Green Blood’s vibrant danger. She had been here. If she had not seen, she had been impoverished.
A slave dropped a hot stone in a cauldron. Out hissed a mist of steam that a second servant fanned onto the Green Blood. They sported a fanged yawn. They didn’t bother to swat at a fly that landed on their neck. The fly fell off, dead after the first sip of the Green Blood’s sweat.
Tethiel addressed not them but only the meager man on the throne. “I bring the formal announcement of the Lord of the Feast’s betrothal to the Lady of Gems. He, you know. She, you’ve met by a different name. She saved your maize crops to the north. You rewarded her with an amethyst mine. She crafted a gemstone dragon.”
“Then it’s true.” The King of Gangral set aside his pet sloth and sat up in his throne. The Green Blood beside him didn’t stir. “She is an enchantress from the unbalanced lands.”
“They were afraid of her power.”
“The Empire is full of scribblers and she-men,” the King of Gangral said. “But this Lady of Gems, she hid herself from my eye. Is she beautiful?”
“As beautiful as the razor edge of an obsidian blade, and like one, she cut into the Sea of Fangs to harvest blood coral.” Tethiel flourished an invitation key. Hiresha had outdone herself with these. The red coral was inlaid in gold as sigils of irresistible horror.
The King of Gangral’s eyes swelled with greed. “She came cross the sea?”
“Yes, and she will have room enough in her wedding palace to invite the strongest. I will take this key to the Ghost Forest. Whichever king can capture it may attend.”
“Gangral is the mightiest city in the Lands of Loam,” the king said. “My treasuries are full of the brightest feathers. My warriors fight with spears slick with death. My hand is the giver and taker of life. And I am the greatest king. Give me that key.”
“I would, but I cannot defy my lady. I’m but a simple man, and she can conquer the sea.”
The King of Gangral gazed to his men. They stood ready to kill, their spears marked with green. He motioned to a slave, and she brought one such spear to the Green Blood. They scratched their crotch idly while rubbing the spear across their back. The Green Blood then spat on the spear. It fumed, and the sharpened wood blackened.
Tethiel gave his best performance of terrified lackey. He kept hold of the key.
“The Lady of Gems must be beautiful indeed to inspire such loyalty,” the King of Gangral said. “You will stay at the Palace of Rains tonight for rest. It is a long road to the Ghost Forest and a dangerous one through the jungle.”
The hospitality lavished upon Tethiel that evening was the height of generosity. Nothing was poisoned. The next day he rode off with his leper knights.
“The King of Gangral will have sent men to ambush us, my dandies,” Tethiel said. “I’ll feign our deaths, and he’ll have his invitation. With a crowned murderer, the wedding will have all the respectability it needs.”
Tethiel walked alongside the cliff edge with the King of the Sky Islands. Wind fled from the lonely mesas down into the corn lands below. The many-headed blue snake of the Gargantuan River coiled to the east.
“They say,” Tethiel said, “that the matriarchs forbid the marriage.”
“Ha! Those slit-licks would.” The Sky Island King laughed so hard that his necklaces rattled. They were adorned with of terror-bird claws. He passed the jug of beer back to Tethiel.
All drinks were brackish water compared to black wine. “It gets better. Heard the lady had a falling out with the Lord of the Feast. She’s sworn to marry whoever pleases her best at the wedding.”
“Is she beautiful?”
“As much so as a white jaguar leaping down for the kill. And as rare.”
“You say that little key will get me in?” The Sky Islands King’s eyes didn’t match. His left pupil gaped wider than the right. The frenzy of his eyes would have served him well intimidating other men.
Tethiel lifted the coral key. “If only I could give it, but—”
The King of Sky Islands seized the invitation and shoved Tethiel’s reflection off the cliff. The image of a young man tumbled head over feet twice before smashing against the forested slope. Tethiel himself escaped as a coyote, stumbling down the trails.
Nothing wearied him like casting in the daylight. He was nearly tapped out of black wine. He would have to harvest more on the way westward. Tethiel mounted beside Wane and Pall.
“This king has less tact,” Tethiel said, “but I do so admire a man of action.”
The King of the Cloudcrusher Mountains was like an old potato cloaked in gold, if Tethiel could be that generous. The king glanced to his queen then shook his head. “No, I shouldn’t attend. The nation will be better served in my staying away.”
Visiting Cradle City always pleasured Tethiel. The Cloudcrusher King had such delicious flavors of fear. Today it was truffles and mutton. Tragic that he never smelled like baked potato.
“The kings of Gangral and the Sky Islands are attending,” Tethiel said. “You could yet outdo them by sending a kingly gift.”
“We have seventy-four cords of fine-spun in the vault. They would humble any queen.”
“She is an enchantress,” Tethiel said. “What she values most is gemstone and gold.”
The king’s wrinkles folded into each other as he frowned. He conferred in whispers with his queen.
Above, a mosaic of the mountains spanned the ceiling. Effigies on the walls of the sun and the moon leered with human faces. With gods as disturbing as these, Tethiel didn’t wonder Celaise had turned out so well. She had been born and reborn here.
The Cloudcrusher King clasped the queen’s hand then turned to Tethiel. “Our gift will be the bride’s weight in turquoise.”
“Then she’ll have every reason to indulge before the wedding. A kingly gift, and since you’re committed to sending it, you may as well attend.”
The king didn’t speak.
Tethiel leaned forward and let a little of his true self out. For a moment, he filled the room, back pressed against the ceiling. He revealed the depth of his eyes. The fell mark on his brow boiled forth. The queen remained blind to all this, but the king was shivering in his gold jewelry.
The Cloudcrusher King was a coward, bless him. The Lord of the Feast could command him, could destroy him. With the king dead, Cradle City would panic. People would try to flee from the stone valley. They would run into the labyrinth fangs of hungry mouths. The Lord of the Feast could leave the city stillborn.
His black wine would flood him with power. He was the god of
night. He need not muddle about with the wedding. He didn’t need anyone. Not even Hiresha.
Her face glowed before him. How much brighter it was than the effigies of the sun and moon.
She outshone his hunger. That crystalline poise made his mouths snap closed. The half-frown on the left side of her lips reduced him back to Tethiel. As cramped as the body was, he couldn’t disappoint Hiresha by being reckless. She valued vision, and his was the most farsighted plan.
Tethiel smiled at the king. “’Tis always safer to be quiet at a party than loudly absent. The lady’s enchantments may be leading the invasion into the Empire. You wouldn’t want to be least among her favorites.”
The silence that followed was an exquisite agony. The king had locked his lips. The queen side-eyed her husband then spoke. “Is the Lady of Gems very beautiful?”
“Yes, she is voluptuously minded and ravishing in her tenacity. The groom is merely gorgeous. How unfair that no one asks after his beauty.”
“I will go.” Sweat trickled from the king’s feathered crown. “I have to, for my lands.”
Tethiel held out the key.
The Cloudcrusher King looked to its triangle handle then back to Tethiel’s brow. The king muttered, “May the Winged Flame save us all.”
“I’m afraid he shan’t be invited,” Tethiel said.
“One last invitation for one honored guest,” Tethiel said.
He lifted the key above the hushed plaza. The gold glared under the smoldering sun. Tethiel swung the invitation toward the priests of They of Jade Skin and their rain staves. He beckoned next to priests of the Obsidian Jaguar with their black and orange body paint. Last he raised the key to the priests of the Winged Flame and their volcanic display of feathers.
“Who will place their god above all the rest?” Tethiel’s words echoed off the blood-garnished sides of step pyramids. The hill-sized temples each had two stone heads, one short of the ideal. “Who will speak at the wedding for the City of Endless Day?”
The Talon of the Winged Flame was already reaching for the key. This priest hadn’t hesitated. As well he shouldn’t have. Tethiel judged the Talon better dressed than kings. They had to settle for the royal fashion of terror-bird plumage. The feathers exploding from the Talon’s headdress were greater. The shape of scimitars and just as large, they screamed with luster. They burned afterimages into the eyes of green and blue.
The Talon swiped away the key. “You shouldn’t have asked, shouldn’t have doubted the supremacy of the sun. Your insult risks us all. I’ll have to carve out your heart and feed …”
His words were overawed by a rising chant in the crowd. “Ta-lon! Ta-lon!”
The high priest faced the assembly. He spread his arms wide with the key in his fist. A man-sized shadow passed overhead from one of his winged warriors.
“Ta-lon! Ta-lon!”
“We will have the enemy’s magic,” the Talon said. “The Dominion will have its enchantress. The sun god will have his due.”
Tethiel slipped away before the priest cared to remember him and his luscious heart. He passed another group of priests who muttered and glared at the Talon. “The Dominion is led by fanatics.”
“No respect for balance or tradition.” Both priests wore skin suits. Fleshless fingers flopped below living ones. These priests sacrificed their fellow man and donned his hide, and theirs was the conservative voice. Oh, how Tethiel loved politics.
Maybe he could do without black wine. Nothing was as intoxicating as success.
If he wished, he could leap as high as the winged warriors. He could sprint up the wall of stairs leading up a pyramid temple. He had no right to be feeling this good. His knee, at least, should’ve been molten. He had ridden Eyebiter hard.
Tethiel stopped mid stride. This wasn’t right. Nothing was as foreboding as happiness and good health. He hadn’t felt like this since he had been half his age.
He reached to his neck and pulled out his engagement amulet. “What have you done, my heart?”
The enchanted jewel twinkled at him with mocking splendor.
30
The amethyst construct tinted the sea fog into a haze of purple twilight. Hiresha estimated the dragon’s wingspan would be a hundred and seventy feet. For now, bare spindle-fingers of crystals spread over the beach. She lifted sailcloth, dyed black, to the clawed wingtip. She slatted the canvas and Attracted to hold it in a vice of amethyst.
Footsteps crunched closer on the beach. Even thought his legs had straightened and the sound of his stride had changed, she knew it would be Tethiel tonight. In her other facet he had given her an ultimatum. She had to exile the Bright Palms or he would murder her friends. In this sunset facet he would make different demands.
“Genius is so little appreciated,” Tethiel said, “because it so rarely builds dragons.”
“My construct deserves silk wings,” Hiresha said. “For now, stitched sailcloth will have to suffice.”
“Your dragon can fly. Your crystal castle is built, and you’ll have kings for guests.”
“Everything is going according to wedding plan.” Hiresha should be happy. Yet the sea spume clung to her skin with a cold stickiness. She Repulsed the salt. The foreboding remained. She shouldn’t marry someone who had caused so much grief, was still causing it in her other facet.
“Yes everything, except for one thing.” Tethiel pulled his betrothal necklace from a vest pocket. He hadn’t been wearing it. “What enchantment is this? I feel too well to be right.”
“The magic has regenerated your bodily units, primarily.”
Tethiel dangled the dawn gem at arms’ reach. Pink and orange motes of light flickered over his coat. “Your amulet made me young.”
“It’s not the same.”
“How is it different? My heart, this is the one thing I asked you not to do. The most sacred thing about life is death.”
“I won’t enter holy wedlock with a man pining for the end.”
“Your enchantment faded my scars. It robbed me of my wrinkles.”
She assumed he was now merely being contrary. “You’re a champion of the superficial. You should be pleased.”
“Old age is more than skin deep, and you’ve made my bones young. A man’s faults are his truest friends. You never gave me a chance to say goodbye.”
Hiresha ran her fingers down a length of amethyst wing bone, sealing in the canvas as she went. Impurities in the crystal granted the gemstone its wealth of color. Otherwise, it would only be common quartz. The same could not be said of people. “My enchantment removed some of your flaws. Fear not. Ample ones remain in your mind.”
“Once, you understood that only the flawed could be flawless.”
She let go of the canvas and whirled. Her blue paragon spun up overhead in a bristling of faceted edges. “Shortcomings aren’t valuable, only our strength in overcoming them.”
“You replaced my teeth, regrew my ears, and made me young. Why not just recreate me entirely?”
“Doubtless I should, Tethiel. By the law of averages, your clone wouldn’t be half so ridiculous.”
“I suspect if I gained too much weight to fit my wedding coat, you wouldn’t marry me.”
“Of course I’d stop the wedding,” she said. “Such a sudden increase might mean a tumor.”
“I’ve lied to you. I’ve told you well-dressed truth, but I’ve never defied you.” He tossed the betrothal necklace over the surf toward her. “That’s what your enchantment has done.”
Hiresha caught the dawnstone and descended to him. Her eyes were level with his. Tethiel would never look down on her again.
He gazed from her jeweled feet, dry on the wet sand, up to her face. The corner of his left brow raised. “My, you’re looking especially tall tonight.”
“Yes, I changed myself. I did the same for you,” she said. “We’re now of a height and of an age. We’ll be a match for the wedding.”
“Contrast makes a couple beautiful, not similarity.” Every
word scratched her perfect calm.
He had thrown back his betrothal necklace. That might mean the wedding was off, all ostensibly because of a few lost wrinkles. The dawnstone stung her hand with its edges. “This enchantment is priceless. You should be grateful.”
“You scorned my will. That’s why I’m angry with you, my heart. And because you’re dearer to me than satin and sunset.” He reached halfway toward her. In his glove, embroidered dragons moved. Their gold thread crawled through the fabric, and the scaled beasts wrestled over his knuckles and flew down his fingers.
She could take his hand. He might accept the enchantment back. The wedding could progress as planned. “I’m not asking you to live forever. Merely as long as me.”
“I know.”
“I won’t marry to become a widow.” In her other facet, death had destroyed the happiness of an elderly couple. The husband of a venerable arbiter had died. Tethiel’s plague had drained the life out him through hundreds of pustules. The gentleman had wed at the age of eighty. He and his bride had shared only three years.
Hiresha’s fingers grazed Tethiel’s and her skin tried to crawl away. Her hand cramped in protest. Her insides wrenched, and she went cold all over.
No, she could not do it. Hiresha could not despise Tethiel in one facet and marry him in another. She couldn’t stand to touch him, and how repulsive to think of consummating the marriage.
Hiresha withdrew her hand, rolling the dawnstone between her fingers. Parts of the gemstone were yellow, others pink, orange, and gentle red. Together its impurities were beautiful. Tethiel might’ve been half right about flaws. She should tell him that much.
“Perhaps I was wrong.” Wrong to consent to marry him.
His eyes were a deep blackness. Nothing could escape their depths. “Maybe you were right.”
“I do value your efficiency, the force of your vision,” she said. “Curious how much easier it is to think well of you when you’re not so close.”
“Beauty is greater when seen from a distance. The truest love wilts with true closeness.”
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