“Well met, Ax-Wed.” Numi nodded and a sly twist in her smile told the Thulian she was making a point of not questioning the epithet. “Would you like to join our little procession to the Azure Gate?”
After a quick look at the bruising horizon, she decided that spending the night with a caravan outside the city would be far better than a night alone. Hospitality being sacrosanct in the East, she might even hope that some food and, gods be merciful, wine could find her.
“It would be my pleasure,” she replied warmly. “We’re too late to make it into the city but a night among friends doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Too late?” Numi snorted as she began her shuffling waddle up the hill. “Don’t you bet those long, meaty legs o’ yours, gell.”
Ax-Wed was utterly bemused—something that was becoming an uncomfortably familiar sensation around the Wain Dwarves.
“Mehk Numi, Jehadim closes its gates at sundown,” she said and fell into step beside the dwarfess. “And we still have a few miles to go yet by my reckoning.”
“Not to worry, young one.” Numi grunted as they approached the chariot where Durra waited with the secured aurochs. “You don’t need to worry yourself about anything but holding on tight.”
Without a word, the younger dwarf fell to one knee and held an arm out. Using the arm as a rail and the knee as a step, the old dwarf mounted with minimal fuss. Durra hopped aboard after his elder and shuffled to one side as he nodded encouragingly for Ax-Wed to join him.
The warrior woman forced herself to stride past the watching aurochs and squeeze herself onto a vehicle she was sure was not designed for three, much less one of her size. The wicker gave several rising squeals of protest but everything held fast—to her astonishment—although she was far from comfortable.
“She wasn’t joking about holding on tight,” the young dwarf muttered at her shoulder.
“What?” she asked but Numi snapped the reins with a braying cackle and things became self-evident.
Chapter Two
Hazarbed Guuhal leaned low enough that Tarkhind could smell the bluegum on the guard commander’s breath over the oils perfuming his beard.
“He has come to visit again, my prince,” the tall officer whispered before he straightened quickly to match his staff of office.
Prince Tarkhind, the current ruler of Jehadim and son of Prince Turlihnd the Sentinel, choked back a curse as he spluttered into his wine bowl. He tried to play it off as a sniff of his fine aquiline nose but it was a futile gesture at best.
The prince’s guests—three men representing major caravans, the very lifeblood of Jehadim— noted the reaction but were too well mannered to comment although they darted a few furtive glances between themselves.
Vipers. He seethed internally as he placed the bowl on the table and dabbed at his mouth and immaculate beard while his mind raced. He felt the pressure of three powerful men who intentionally did not notice his distress but he shrugged it off as his face settled into one of his best smiles. Crafted to seem genuine yet not display his striking good looks—at least too much—it was a gentle, almost self-deprecating expression and he’d refined it to perfection.
“It seems the needs of Jehadim call,” he intoned apologetically as he rose slowly from the table where they reclined. “I have been advised that a small matter requires my attention although I am loath to leave you all, if only for a moment.”
The words, only lies in part, had enough of a ring of truth that the three merchants saw fit to nod understandingly as they nibbled and sipped the refreshments.
“I’m sure it can’t be helped,” one of them replied but his cordial smile didn’t reach his eyes and he studied his host as though evaluating a stallion on the block. If the prince was any judge, the merchant’s eyes indicated that his evaluation was less than complementary.
“My master of revels shall attend you immediately,” Tarkhind said before he took his first step away from the table, still facing them. “He is a diverting old fool, at least, and should see you well satisfied until I return.”
“If you’d rather…” another merchant began and hauled him back from what would have been an expertly executed withdrawal. “You could always send your seneschal in and we could resolve the details with him. We understand the prince’s time is quite valuable.”
Prince Tarkhind smelled the trap instantly.
“Our seneschal is seeing to some of our other interests and not immediately available,” he replied smoothly, careful to keep the same appeasing smile in place. “And I would never dream of shuffling such esteemed guests and their business to a mere functionary. No, a moment only and we will dine and see your concerns properly addressed.”
The answer had the desired effect on two of the men and their chests swelled slightly as they sank easily against their cushions. They were esteemed guests with a prince’s word that they would be heard. It was everything men like them loved to hear.
The other man—who’d evaluated the ruler of Jehadim like a piece of horseflesh—seemed less impressed but at least spared them all by not expressing himself. He merely shrugged and took another sip of wine.
“Only a moment,” Tarkhind promised with the slightest bow—a master stroke—before he fled the room as quickly as decorum permitted.
“Do you wish me to enter with you, my prince?” Guuhal asked, his fierce gaze fixed on the tall door which opened behind the throne of the Lower Court. His scarred hands tightened around the iron-shod staff as though preparing for an enemy to thrust through the portal.
“No,” Tarkhind replied testily, a little flushed and out of breath from the rush down the corridors and stairs of the palace to the subterranean halls where the Lower Court was situated. “Once I’ve caught my wind, I will go in and deal with this.”
The man frowned but he knew better than to argue the matter.
“He’s brought two of Them with him this time,” the guard commander warned and his curled lips made his beard twitch. “I’m amazed we can’t smell them from here.”
The prince muttered a curse and pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyelids where a dull ache there threatened to drive the orbs out of his sockets. When he’d taken the throne a decade earlier, he’d been prepared for many of the demands of state, the burden of which he had been preparing for since he was born.
But this… No tutor or training had been offered to prepare him for this.
Because it springs from sins you should never have committed.
The words echoed in his mind but he knew they were not his own. A chill ran down his spine and he repressed the shiver. Beyond the limits of rational hearing, the rustle of great wings tickled his ears.
“My prince?” Guuhal asked, his voice low and edged with concern.
Tarkhind shook fear’s frigid claws off enough to straighten and fix his gaze upon the door before him.
“Once my business is done, have two servants scour the floor,” he commanded as he moved to the door, his head held high. “I don’t want the stink of them to linger.”
The guard commander might have answered but the resounding boom of his sovereign throwing the door open drowned out the sound and the prince swept along the railed walkway to ascend the dais to his throne.
The Lower Court—or the Court of Judgment—sprawled before the throne, a wide, vaulted chamber lit by rings of candles placed around the walls and ceiling. The light reflected and bloomed across the fresco-emblazoned dome overhead, which was supported by parallel rows of columns that divided the entire space into three roughly equal parts.
In the section where the throne stood, the area was occupied primarily by rising aisles of seating where functionaries and scribes would sit around the central throne. They would record and advise the prince as he issued judgments and sentences upon those who had been brought before him. At the moment, the seats were all empty which was just as well. He didn’t imagine that any mortal man could offer him any useful advice and he certainly didn’t w
ant the present proceedings to be recorded.
The portion farthest from the throne was separated not only by the pillars but also iron grate-work stretched between the stone supports. The far wall, visible through the iron works, was a series of dark corridor entrances which wound to the depths of the palace where dungeons and less conventional prisons held various inmates. The single gate which allowed access between the far section and the rest of the chamber lay ajar, something which filled his chest with a crippling concoction of anger and dread.
In the middle of the central section was a platform where the accused would appear before the prince, his hands and feet shackled to the solid block of stone which legend claimed was the first stone laid when the palace was built. However, instead of an accused prisoner bound and trembling upon that singular rock, He stood there with two of Them cringing and pawing around him like whipped dogs.
All three wore threadbare robes so soiled that their original colors were impossible to determine and although voluminous, the garments could not completely hide the twisted, lesioned creatures within. The fawning underlings stroked their master's filthy robes and poxed feet with sore-riddled claws. Beneath their hoods, distended, dribbling jaws worked jagged teeth and wormy tongues to mewl adorations in slurping voices.
He somehow seemed sinister and powerful despite a hunched spine and twisted legs and appeared utterly disinterested in the mongrel worshippers at his feet. Any trace of his visage was hidden in the shadows of his hood but even in that deep and unnatural darkness, Tarkhind felt an immense and malicious intelligence scrutinizing him. The attentions of the three merchants in the halls above were tiny stars compared to the intensity of the black sun which glared at him from beneath that grimy cowl.
“You will secure more,” the faceless figure declared, his voice resonant, deep, and beautiful. “The current quota is insufficient.”
Despite feeling like a mouse before a serpent’s cold gaze, the prince mustered enough indignation to scoff at the instruction.
“Do you realize what will happen if anyone of any significance catches wind of what I am doing?” he asked acidly and his fingers dug into the arms of his throne. “Even worse, have you ever considered what would happen if the people found out?”
The two curled about their master's feet bared their snarled teeth at him and uttered a bubbling hiss of accusation. He didn’t bother to respond to the degenerate creatures but he grasped the throne tighter to hide the tremor in his hands when he saw their wet, hungry eyes gleaming at him.
“Are prince's memories so short?” his visitor asked and the prince’s heart quickened as the darkness beneath the hood seemed to permeate the room. “Have you already forgotten what you unearthed?”
The cloying shadows threatened to close in around him and blot out the light which should have surrounded him. His throat was suddenly painfully dry and his tongue felt like a mummified husk plastered in his locked jaws.
“What you awoke with all your scratching, scratching, scratching, scratching.”
With each utterance of that final word, Tarkhind heard the grating scrape of shovel, pick, and file upon stony earth as mind-shivering memories were stirred. He tried to drive the assaulting visions away with an effort of will and denial but the scraping continued in the congealing dark and he felt he might come undone.
He yanked his rigid hands from the arms of the throne to cover his face.
“Enough, please,” he croaked and hated how small and pathetic his voice sounded in his ears. “I haven’t forgotten. Please!”
Even the gibbering worship of Them at His feet hadn’t sounded so pathetic.
The scratching receded and he felt the venomous smile under the shadowy cowl as he lowered his arms to wrap them around himself. The chamber was not cold and his finery was thick but he still felt as though his teeth were about to start chattering.
“I am only here to help you, dear prince,” the voice assured him, soft, seductive, and as fathomless as the ocean depths. “This is not simply to avert the disaster you almost brought upon yourself but also to one day raise Jehadim above all the earth, resplendent and glorious.”
The icy claws of fear still dug into him but when he heard this, an ember of naked ambition bloomed in his heart. He warmed himself over its smoldering, nebulous promise and leaned forward despite his fears to grasp the throne in feverish hands.
“But when?” he asked, unable to master himself enough to sharpen the question into a demand. “When will you have enough?”
The impression of a smile in that potent presence remained but the tone of his voice curled with a warning edge.
“All in good time,” He reassured him in the same tone and cadence with which he’d first sworn almost two years earlier. “All things in my good time.”
Tarkhind slumped into his throne and his fingers raked ineffectually at the polished stone beneath his fingers. He entertained the idea of pressing for more information but the thought that the scratching sound might emerge again banished the thought immediately.
“Very well,” he said and did his best to act as though he were an indulgent lord who succumbed to the minor entreaties of a needy subject. “We will increase the amount provided. How much?”
“Double,” said the voice from the darkness as though the word were not a hammer stroke.
Double, the prince thought as his heart began to sink. Double.
There was the faintest rustle of feathers in the back of his mind but he drove them away with desperate energy.
“Double it will be,” he agreed and let himself lean slowly into the throne as though he were melting. “Is there anything else?”
“No, great prince,” He replied, the title said with silk insincerity. “I leave you to see it done knowing you are up to the task.”
Tarkhind pinched the bridge of his nose when he felt the grinding ache return with a vengeance.
“I don’t see that I have a choice,” he muttered softly and immediately felt the smile in the voice again.
“You don’t.”
With a trailing sigh like the last breath of a dying man, the unnatural shadow evaporated from beneath the deep hood and He was gone. In his place was another of the malformed creatures, its lumpy jaw slack and drooling. The two that had fawned at its feet only moments before rose from their reverential crouch and grasped the staggering vessel, one by each arm.
With malformed tongues muttering something that seemed uncomfortably like language, they dragged the third toward the open gate at the rear of the chamber. Without a backward glance, they hauled their charge through it and drew it closed with a clang.
Tarkhind winced at the sound but did not turn his gaze from watching them slip into the darkness of one of the tunnels leading to his dungeons. Even after the echo of their shuffling steps and wheezing grunts had faded, the prince of Jehadim sat in the candle-bathed Lower Court and stared into the darkness beyond the wrought-iron gate.
“I used to think such things kept us safe,” he whispered to himself. “That the stone walls and metal gates could keep out the worst of this world.”
When I was a child I thought as a child, recounted the voice in his head that was not his. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways.
“It’s bad enough I have to contend with those things.” He groaned and ground both palms into his aching sockets. “But now you will torment me too?”
You are firstborn of the Line, the voice answered, as unperturbed and undaunted as ever. I will never leave. I will never forsake.
The not-quite heard susurration of feathered wings shifted around him, this time accompanied by the padding of immense paws. The prince felt a presence as weighty and terrifying as malice yet suffused with something even more terrifying—certainty.
Whatever haunted and overshadowed him now was suffused with a surety that was like an unquenchable fire. Nothing could stand before it without seeming determined to be consumed by it and thus only fed its inevitable inevitability
.
The prince felt all this and it shook him to his very marrow.
“What curse lies upon my family that I am tormented like this?” Tarkhind sobbed, his head still in his hands. “I have a dynasty to maintain and a city to preserve. I don’t need to be haunted twice over.”
The only curse upon your head is that which you brought upon yourself, the voice reminded him with infuriating calm. And if you don’t turn aside soon, you will lose something more sacred than a dynasty or precious as a city.
“What would you have me do?” he snapped and darted his gaze around in a fit of savage temper. “I am doing the only thing I can to prevent this doom and keep my family intact. One misstep and one error could ruin me and thus condemn all of Jehadim. I have no choice!”
Doing what is right is never a misstep, and truth can never be an error.
“It is easy for you to say,” the prince all but snarled and his fingers curled into claws. “You are not the ruler of a city.”
Neither are you. Only He rules in Jehadim now.
Tarkhind leapt to his feet with a scream of rage and his hands twisted into fists to beat against his chest.
“I am Prince. Prince of Jehadim!” he roared in a shrill, wrath-strained voice. “I rule here. It is my hand that holds the Keys of the East. I am Prince!”
The stirring of great wings beyond what ears could hear was the only answer and he was left alone and panting for breath.
After a long heartbeat, the door behind the throne opened and Guuhal’s face peered into the chamber. The Hazarbed’s brow was creased with concern and he waited for a moment before he spoke.
“My prince,” he said at last and cringed as his voice echoed in the Lower Court. “Is everything well?”
Tarkhind spun on his heel, prepared to chastise the man for daring to ask such an incredibly stupid question but then realized Guuhal had heard his ranting after the gate had shut with a great clash. His inflamed irritation imploded into nothing more than a nervous laugh as he shrugged and put on a disarming smile.
Circle In The Deep (The Outcast Royal Book 1) Page 4
