"So?" He asked Mansa, while not looking up.
"As you've said, Great One, Hybron is in a state of flux and upheaval. Ripe for the plan."
"My father was perceptive. He was right to strike while Hybron is weak and it remains weak with a succession of usurping rulers, illegitimate, all of them."
"What do you think of this Red King coming?" Mansa asked. Kufun barked out a harsh laugh.
"Is not Teraht the so-called Red King? Or is it the Black King now?"
"Who knows?"
"I do not care. If some other king rises up after Teraht he will merely be another weak usurper. The markings on the map, these are the cities the generals have decided to sack?"
"Yes, Great One. All these in the red circles. Except Jhis."
"Naturally."
"I have one more to add. All of the generals feel we should sack Rhuctium. It is a city full of wealth."
"Do not destroy the port cities, especially Beth-Ayin. Beth-Ayin and Haiga are necessary in order to establish an easy base of operations."
"They have fortified it greatly since your father sacked it."
"This time we will use sea fire. See how they like that. I will discuss each city and its importance tomorrow with them. Before we do anything we must seize all port cities."
"Yes, Great One. A devilish strength we will have with sea fire!"
"Which means we will have to be extra careful. It can destroy my armies as well as theirs if wielded foolishly. The rebels are never allowed to have it. Understand?"
"Of course not, Great One." Two servants brought in a tray of banana beer in a silver jug and set it down and left. Kufun poured out some in two goblets and offered a goblet to Mansa.
"There is the other matter, Great One."
"Tell me what is needed, Mansa."
"The crowd of slave rebels in the Soudan mountains. They grow each month and they have established a hideout at an abandoned quarry. They are making our work easier."
"Good, good!" The king took up a map of Egi, running his hands over it. He gave Mansa a sly look.
"This matter has come just in time. Have Wusu and his men supply the rebels with as many of our older weapons as we can spare. I have had one of the ships loaded with extra spears, swords, bows and arrows and even poison. Have him sail tomorrow morning and when they reach the shore, they must go by the Golden Road."
"It will take a long time for these supplies to get there. I have given Wusu enough coin to bribe another of the merchant caravans."
"Good. Tell Wusu I want these rebels to know that King Kufun is their ally in this fight against Egi. Hybron destabilizes them on their eastern border and their own slaves will destabilize them from the inside. Nothing could work towards my purpose better than those slaves! They must have all the weapons they can get."
"They cannot fight the Egian army."
"I do not need them to win anything, Mansa. I need them to create trouble. I need them to destabilize the land so that they are harried and frayed and distracted when I get ready to invade the Middle World and conquer it." He rolled up the maps.
"Long have I waited for this time. For things to be complete." The king got up and walked the perimeter of the room. "We cannot move too quickly. That was a mistake my father made."
"I have planned to have several groups of men infiltrate Egi. Some as merchants and some as musicians or what other work they can find in the land. Eyes and ears to what is happening."
"Good. This time we should not be rash. I will not make the mistake my father made." Kufun appeared to his men to be of utmost confidence and he usually was. He had never felt more confidant that the gods and ancestors were on his side than now. He had won every military campaign beside his father and on his own after old Kufun had died of dropsy. But this would be the greatest undertaking of his life.
"The glory of my ancestors is at stake, Mansa. Of our ancestors. We have always achieved it by conquest. In the old days of the high conquerors, the Age of Empire, the greatest feats were wrought. I long for days like that again."
"So do I, Great One, but there is also the matter of the business of the kingdom. And the treasury. . ."
"Yes." The king stopped pacing for a moment and looked straight at his general. "In these low days Jura stagnates. The glory of Jura is wrapped up in gold. More gold and silver needs to flow into the kingdom so that Jura may be mighty again." A horn was heard. It was the ninth hour in the morning. The morning meal was about to be served in the fortress.
"Have all of my meals brought to me here in this room. Later this evening call all the generals and you also must come. We have much planning to do."
"Yes, Great One." Mansa bowed and left. Kufun looked over his maps again, then glanced at the carved head of the yaryebu in the door.
"Give us the power, O Mighty One, to defeat this Red King, whoever he may be. To take back what was once ours by right."
Chapter Ten
Anet had been following a small swarm of firebugs, having called them up while in the desert to help her find a safe place to hide. She was being trailed once again. It was something she had come to expect for supporting a king not sitting on the throne. She had sensed it after about three days' travel one night while sleeping in her small tent. She was laying out beneath blankets watching the stars when one star seemed to draw close. At first it seemed like a firebug of odd color but as she focused upon it, it did not move or behave like one. Her staff close by, she lifted it, its wood still warm to the touch. Her own warmth made it course with strength and heat and she slipped the thick covers off and quickly flicked a glance around her but the blackness of the night desert obscured physical vision of all but the stars. She focused on the light as it drew nearer, her mind becoming more alarmed and battle ready. It could be a trap or a trick to distract her from another enemy but she dare not take her eyes from it. She listened for any sound not of the desert. Suddenly, it dropped down quickly above her and she swung at it with her staff, hitting it. The thing sputtered to the ground and before it could move again, wielding the staff with all the skill of an ancient desert prophetess she smashed it. It glistened faintly in the moons' light but did not move. Feeling for her dagger she anchored the staff into the ground, carefully moved away from the thing and scraped a smoldering ember from her dying fire upon a piece of old leather with her dagger, blew upon it and made it light up again and drew near to it. It was either a poison wing or a tinkering machine designed to assassinate from afar.
"I should have known. Cowards. There was once a time when people killed each other face to face! If there was a dispute it was settled in the arena or on agreed upon fighting ground." She said to no one in particular and in disgust. She shook the sand from her hair and clothes in quick, fluid movements. She peered around. Then she waited for a few hours. Finally, the little moon had risen again. After a time the mother moon was now peering up from the black shadowed horizon. Then, in the milk moons' light Anet examined it. The thing looked as if it were made of bronze and she could see the broken stinger under it. Carefully, she turned it over. Liquid dribbled black and unctuous into the sand in a slow, sludgy stream. Careful not to let the liquid touch her skin she knelt to take a whiff. It smelled both metallic and sweet like rotten fruit. Tarshu. A bold and ugly venom, unlike more elegant substances such as the poison ascerbinum. Once injected or ingested it rendered the victim nearly like a corpse but did not kill immediately. It was used often to temporarily stun animals or people. A few medicinal potions could counter-act it but if too much was ingested it liquified the organs which in turn seeped out through the orifices. If huge amounts were taken it burned the internal organs and matter in the body until they turned to black ash. Often Black Alchemists and others versed in the dark arts used it on their victims' corpses for other purposes after killing them.
"Dak Rullak! Not particularly subtle!" But then she was near the open desert where one need not hide anything. She listened. There was nothing but a slight breeze and the so
unds of natural night. In the far distance she heard a jackal. She did not fear jackals anymore and had on several occasions killed and eaten them when she could get nothing else while traveling the high desert. Jackals rarely ventured into the open desert, thankfully. She wore a belt made partially of jackal bones and pieces of old cloth around her waist now.
She dropped the poisoner and stood. Her adrenaline was such now that she could not sleep and she could see well enough to travel, if slowly. She wrapped up her small tent, blankets and all her meager belongings and packed them onto the donkey and kept traveling her way northeast, by the stars guided.
Her mind wandered from the latest assassination attempt to her own odd place in the firmament of Hybron. She was noble born. She had a family name that meant something in society. Family name. She had lineage attached to another high noble family, the House of Seht. The thought made her shiver involuntarily. The donkey flicked his ears, sensing her physical apprehension at this thought. They, who she'd heard descended from ancient demons. But people talked and often made up legends to build themselves up. They were an ancient noble family with great honor in the land of Egi and her mother, who was one of them left her family to come to Hybron and marry the man she loved. She had become a proselyte and she was no meek, shy woman to be silenced either, which made Anet proud to be her daughter. How kind they were to the poor, how devoted they were to the temple. If only she could remember her mother and father. She mourned silently for Eliaz who had saved her life when the fires came and took her parents. And she shivered at the thought that the dead queen was her aunt and that the dead queen's son, the new king that had not yet risen, was her own cousin. Her thoughts often turned to this one as she sometimes saw him wreathed in flame and fire with a shining sword. Who really is this young lion? So bold and confident? she thought. Things sometimes turned out in shocking ways one did not expect. And how did this all matter now that she was walking the Red Path? Did it matter at all when one's inheritance became divine? She traveled on for hours thinking deeply in thoughts that rose and fell like the sea. Around the edges of her senses she picked up an old and familiar feeling. She was being followed again. It was not always easy to know when a pursuer was out of sight and hearing and if she was traveling with someone, that companion's own life force caused some interference with concentration. But when alone it became clear as a gong if she concentrating. It was like a tiny tingling sensation around the mind at the very outer edges. A warning that something was coming. Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing only she could discern and that was usually through experience. Experience told her they were enemies. She was being trailed by someone hired by one of the royal princes; she just had the feeling. The culprit was most likely Alin the crown prince, who had quickly built up a bad reputation in Hybron once his father had installed him as ruler of Galieh. He was a satyr of a man with uncontrollable passions and lusts. Any woman was an object to be used and he had a few killed for refusing him, even the wives of other men.
"It looks as if I shall travel by moonlight from here on until I get home," she said to the donkey. The donkey flicked its ears silently at the sound of her voice. She wasn't too worried. Her dreams of late told her what would be waiting there besides security. A great crowd of tribal peoples would be there and she would fall among them like a child falls into a mother's arms. Their "little mother" would be home again and she would tell them of the last great portent. The greatest blood mark in the sky, a sign that the Red King was on his way to deliver the land, finally. On the edges of her mind she felt something disturbing, bothering her. One of her visions was rising up to warn her again of a looming darkness; one she would need cunning to defeat. The dark hand was rising out of Hybron to touch the Red King. Perhaps the same one that tried to poison and capture her. Guided by the unnamed one. She would meditate on it once she came to the hill. Her work, never done, she would have to be on the move once again.
. . .
And the tribes had gathered before her, thousands and more were coming; the Karigites, the Raea, the Arvadites and even the Domites had descended the Habad, looking for the last sign, and even some of the Gilphaens and the Holamites from Egi. Some had brought gifts of necessities for her. One old man had a small bundle wrapped in rawhide that he laid at her feet. When she unwrapped it, it was Asp of Assenna, simply called Asp. The plant that made blue dye, the color of the wealthy, once plentiful in the ruined city. It was precious and as it was once a symbol of the ancient holy city of God she bowed to him as he bowed to her and she thanked him for it. Then they went calling out to her: "Little Mother! Little Mother! Tell us what is the sign?" And she told them when they had all gathered of the sign of the great star of the heavens, in its Morning aspect and its Evening aspect.
Red.
Chapter Eleven
"Have the letters sent immediately, Himmut. Remu needs to arrive there before the week has past. And Alin must bring me Ilim, alive or dead. Send that witch of his to Lord Erol. Of her, Alin and Erol may do what they will."
"Yes, Your Greatness." The king covered himself in one of his silk, striped robes, the black robe sliding around his feet and over the arms of the chair. He was grasping his scepter. Before him was a wide iron brazier burning brightly with fires of a special black ash used for magic. His astrologers were with him for he had a great matter that had forced sleep to flee from him. The gods of Sleep and Dream had turned their backs on him since the incident at the banquet with the prophet of Airend-Ur and his female minion. An ill omen. One of the priestly men, a nobleman and father to the High Priest of the Golden Temple had died there, struck down by Ilim. Teraht could barely contain himself. It had happened in his own presence and he could do nothing to stop it. Perhaps he really should have listened to the High Priestess of Nimnet and gotten rid of that entire sect and its offshoots once he had come into Hybron. He shot a venomous look at one of the astrologers.
"The raw organs have shown us nothing," said the head astrologer.
"You mean nothing useful!" Spat the king.
"Your Greatness, we must look again, this time in fire." Said another astrologer. There was a knock upon the great bronzed doors. The king was growing hot with rage. How dare anyone interfere with sacred business!
"Your Greatness! It is Lord Erol, the Royal Alchemist!" Announced an attendant outside the doors. The king's anger subsided, slightly. He held out his scepter, allowing entry.
"Lord Erol. You come at an opportune time," said the king. "Do you have something important to add?"
"I do, O great king, otherwise I would never have dared come." Lord Erol's footsteps were light and graceful, his dagger-sharp heels barely tapping upon the polished floors. Giving his black robes a short swirl, arranging them around his feet, he stationed himself by the head astrologer. The two nodded to each other in respect. The king gazed at both of them in suspicion then turned his attention back to his astrologers.
"Continue!" The head astrologer proceeded. He motioned to one of his companions and the organs were brought out, having been stuffed into a dried bag made from a bull's stomach. He poured the bull's liver and kidneys and the heart into the great iron brazier and sprinkled a heavy, black salt and the ash over these. The flesh sizzled and burned in the fire and from the salt and ash a black, thick smoke rose from the brazier. They peered into the flames and at the burning organs, one of them throwing more black salt into the fire. They chanted their words.
"I see red, red, red fires! A great wall of fire engulfing the whole land. The Red King!" Said the head astrologer.
"The Red King. The Red King! I am the Red King!"
"Have we said different, Your Greatness?" Countered the head astrologer.
"Watch yourselves! Is there any other man you see before you in the fire or do you refer to me?"
"Of course you are the true Red King, Your Greatness, but the problem of the imposter comes from the Ainash and the Aishanna-La. For centuries they have awaited and looked for the Red King and now th
at he is here, you, I believe they foment rebellion against you." Said his head astrologer.
"Yes, O great king. They would raise up another. This one is who we see in the fires, an imposter," said the second one quickly. King Teraht leveled his scowl at them for some time without speaking. Then looked over his jeweled ring of the silver falcon and moon of sapphire. The sacred emblems of Egi. He looked carefully at each of them again.
"What do you say I should do about this problem?"
"The High Priestess has gifted you with her wisdom, O great king." The others nodded. The head astrologer continued.
"Root out all sentiment of rebellion and sedition, Your Greatness. You must start with the Ainash priesthood. They have been against the ruling class, using them as puppets no matter the ruler sitting on the throne for generations. They cannot be trusted and it is their religion that preaches this sedition against you." Between them they gave each other knowing looks. Teraht watched them carefully.
"Yes, my lord king! Dasheb speaks right! Outwardly it is a religion but secretly they use prophecy to topple kings. Treachery! They have roused one from the deserts to come for you. A rebel leader they can control."
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