“Is that so hard to understand?” Grija snarled, baring his teeth. “You created human magic, and through it this place was created. We are barred from interfering there, but you are not. Go there, destroy her, and the threat of our father’s return can forever be ended.”
TheNewWorld
Chapter Five
6th day, Month of the Hawk, Year of the Rat
Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th Year since the Cataclysm
Kelewan, Erumvirine
Prince Nelesquin dismounted before the walls of the Illustrated City. He would enter the capital of his empire on foot, unguarded. His new subjects might not believe he was that Prince Nelesquin, but as long as they knew he was both strong and fearless, that was all that mattered. Strong, because those who had conquered the city would bend their knees as he passed. Fearless, because he would walk through Kelewan’s streets unarmed.
The large man strode confidently toward the Violet Gate. It was the smallest of the city’s gates and only those of royal blood were allowed to pass. The massive purple doors slowly slid open and a dozen of his Durrani warriors fell crisply into ranks on either side. The dawning sun washed gold through their silver mail and lightened the blue of their flesh. The sharpened tips of ears appeared through thick, dark manes, and their amber eyes searched restlessly.
As he drew closer, the warriors dropped to a knee, hammered right fist against left shoulder, and bowed their heads. Not all at once, of course, but in sequence, so someone could always ward him. And beyond them, on the shadowed road, their commander waited, even more watchful.
Nelesquin’s blue eyes tightened. “If you are here to greet me, Keerana, then I assume Gachin is dead?”
The Durrani leader nodded once before dropping to a knee and saluting his master. He held that posture until bidden to rise again. As he stood, he drew his sword and presented the hilt to Nelesquin.
“What is this?”
Keerana looked up, meeting Nelesquin’s gaze without fear. “Had I not petitioned you for permission to pacify the Five Princes, I would have been the one assaulting Tsatol Deraelkun. I would be the one lying in state.”
Nelesquin threw back his head and laughed. “Tsatol Deraelkun has defeated the greatest of warriors. Even I was defeated there once.”
Keerana frowned. “How is that possible, my lord?”
Nelesquin beckoned his warlord to walk with him as he started through the narrow streets. The tall buildings choked off all but a bare glimpse of the sky, but it did not matter. Nelesquin only had eyes for Quunkun, the Bear Tower, and the palace that was meant to be his.
“It was not your failing, Keerana, that cost Gachin his life. He fell to a man who once defeated me on those plains. We were brothers.” Nelesquin shook his head. “Would that my blade had slipped and killed him then.”
The Durrani, trailing half a step behind and to the left, kept his voice low. “The man called himself Moraven Tolo. He took Gachin’s head, though he had the grace to let us recover it.”
“It does not matter what he calls himself. I know who he is. I will deal with him in time.” Nelesquin’s voice trailed off wistfully. He studied the buildings lining the street. Kelewan had been divided into a dozen cantons of varying sizes, and the Violet canton was home to nobility minor and major, as well as embassies from the provinces. They thought of themselves as nations, but Nelesquin refused to acknowledge them as such. Their birth had been as illegitimate as that of Gachin’s killer.
The colorful murals decorating the buildings earned the Illustrated City its name. He strode past one embassy-Moryth by the look of it-its layers of images celebrating historical high points. Lies and fantasies all, as near as Nelesquin could tell. He would order the walls whitewashed and repainted with more suitable work.
He would have issued an order to Keerana to begin the task, but he would not dishonor him. The Durrani had been created to be perfect warriors, and they were. Nimble, strong, fearless, and intelligent, they had spent generations fighting every challenge Nelesquin had thrust upon them. The Durrani who had sailed from Anturasixan had conquered most of Erumvirine with blinding speed, and had likewise pacified the Five Princes. That secured the southern border, so now all that remained was driving north into Nalenyr and beyond.
Soon, very soon. Nelesquin smiled, turning onto an avenue that widened on its way to the heart of the city and the palace, Quunkun. The Prince paused and the Durrani came forward. Keerana dropped a hand to the sword at his hip, but Nelesquin’s grip on his shoulder restrained him.
“There is no danger, Keerana. It’s just that the beauty takes my breath away.”
Unlike the gaudily painted city surrounding it, Quunkun remained unadorned. The building had been clad in white marble. Nelesquin found it easy to imagine he’d been gone only a week, not seven centuries.
He glanced at his warlord. “They did not surrender the tower without a fight.”
“No, Highness.” Keerana looked up at him. “We rounded up masons and quarrymen and the damage was repaired as best as possible.”
“Very well done. It is as I remember it.” Nelesquin picked up his pace and, moving into the wide courtyard surrounding the tower, became aware of how much destruction had been visited upon Kelewan. While the Violet canton had been scoured clean, soot still stained other buildings. Empty windows stared back at him with shutters askew. People, gaunt and moving slowly, huddled in shadows or listlessly picked through middens for scraps.
“Have the people been much trouble?”
“Resistance collapsed with the military. Prince Jekusmirwyn was convinced to make a public statement which put an end to any other trouble. We control the storehouses, so people must come to us for food.” Keerana smiled wryly. “Each person is entitled to a fistful of rice a day, but our quartermasters give more to those who serve us.”
“You have dealt with this wisely. Have you also assumed the post of Dost, so you may properly lead your people?”
“Not unless you deem I should, my lord.”
“The position is yours, Keerana.” Nelesquin ascended the broad steps to Quunkun. He entered through doors that bore no sign of the battle for the tower. His boots clicked against the rotunda’s marble floor and again he paused. Beneath the dome had been placed a bier. On it lay a body, which he assumed to be that of Gachin. A tall, slender figure in an emerald-and-black hooded cloak stood beside the body, his extended hand wreathed in purple fire, which he passed forward and back over the corpse’s chest and head.
Keerana stepped forward, his sword coming to hand with a hiss. He moved without hesitation; Nelesquin marveled at how easily he stalked ahead-effortless and lethal. That he faced something he had not seen before did not daunt him.
“Keerana, wait.” Nelesquin smiled. “Friend, throw back your cloak so my eyes may confirm what I know in my soul.”
The purple fire died as the figure reached up and unclasped the cloak. It fluttered to the ground, revealing a man wearing a jet robe with a green dragon coiled breast and back. The slender man smiled, and delight played through his hazel eyes.
He dropped to a knee and bowed his head-though he held the bow neither as long as Keerana had nor Nelesquin liked. “Greetings, Prince Nelesquin. It has been forever.”
“At least you could mark the time, Kaerinus. This is a luxury unknown in Grija’s realm.” Nelesquin put aside his pique with minimal difficulty, then grasped his friend by the shoulders. “This has been a long time in coming.”
“As per your plans, my lord.” Kaerinus stood and nodded toward Gachin’s body. “He is too far gone for me to revive. His spirit and soul have fled. He is lost to you.”
“No matter.” Nelesquin waved the Durrani warrior forward. “This is Keerana, now Dost of the Durrani. And this, Keerana, is Kaerinus, one of my vanyesh. Certainly the most faithful of them. You were named in his honor.”
Kaerinus smiled. “You must feel
the others out there as I do, my lord. They gather to your service.”
“I feel many things.” Nelesquin extended a hand toward the corpse and invoked a spell. He sought to confirm what he already knew. “It was Virisken Soshir who killed him. How is it that he still lives?”
“I do not know, my lord.” The wizard gestured vaguely toward the north. “I have spent my time in Nalenyr healing those who dare risk the touch of magic. We made it infamous. They blamed the Cataclysm on us. The vanyesh are seen as fell creatures whose return to the world is dreaded.”
Nelesquin laughed. “It is good we are feared.”
“But we were also anticipated. I felt Soshir again, dimly and distantly, last year at the healing. He did not know who he was then, but I think my magics may have helped him learn. He will be coming for you, of course.”
“Of course. It was to destroy him and his ilk that I shaped the Durrani. Keerana here would kill him with ease. Is that not correct?”
The Durrani warrior dropped to a knee. “As my lord desires.”
“That, and more.” Nelesquin smiled. “More ships are coming, and aboard them I have many weapons to crush Soshir and his army. You will choose for me a cadre of your best warriors-yourself included-and you will rise to heights you could not have imagined.”
Keerana nodded, then bowed his head. “Shall I begin now, my lord?”
“Please. My friend and I shall make ourselves at home.”
The warrior gave Nelesquin a salute, then withdrew. The Prince looked at Kaerinus. “They are quite remarkable in their loyalty and ferocity. Rather like dogs in that way, only smarter.”
“Not many dogs would engage Soshir at Tsatol Deraelkun.”
Have you forgotten I did just that and lost to him? Nelesquin watched his companion for a moment, then shook his head. “You will see Keerana engage him there and take the fortress.”
“That is a bold claim.”
“He would sooner die than disappoint, and with what I have brought, he will prevail.” Nelesquin sighed and glanced at Gachin again. “Their loyalty does complicate things. Imagine, allowing this one to rot here in the palace.”
The Prince gestured, and violet energy trailed from his fingers. It swelled to a billowing cloud that engulfed the corpse and bier both. Lightning flashed argent within the cloud. The heat of high summer pulsed heavily enough to send Kaerinus’ cloak rolling across the floor. It wrapped itself around the base of the column within the empty alcove.
A wan smile twisted Nelesquin’s lips. He waved his hand toward the alcove. The cloud filled it, then fell away like Kaerinus’ cloak, unveiling a statue of Nelesquin.
Kaerinus smiled. “Very well done, my lord. Your return makes things right again.”
Nelesquin opened his arms, intending to rise on magical wings, but weakness washed over him. He staggered, yet before he could fall, Kaerinus caught him. He lowered the Prince to the ground, but Nelesquin refused to be prostrated before his own statue.
Nelesquin shoved him away, surprised at his own weakness. “Speeding my ship, making that statue…I have overtired myself.”
“There is some truth to that, but it is not the whole of the matter.”
“I have not felt this weakness before.”
“Yes, you have. You have just forgotten.”
Nelesquin shook his head, but dizziness sapped his strength. He sank back onto his elbows. “It was not like this, the time we perfected the magic. I felt some weakness, but it was transitory.”
“As this will be, my lord; but you will tire.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kaerinus crouched beside him. “When we perfected the means to sever your spirit and soul, then draw your soul from your body, we guaranteed you could not die. When your body ceased to function, Grija drew off your spirit and thought your soul had come with it. Your spirit languished in his realm until your return. Body, soul, and spirit form the eternal triangle-your spirit anchoring your soul in whichever realm it inhabits. Your spirit drew to it the materials to create a body as you emerged from the underworld, but this creation was not perfect. You feel the lack of your soul. Once we return it to you, you shall be greater than you ever were.”
“As we planned.” Nelesquin smiled. “I have not forgotten the bargain, Kaerinus. When I am world emperor, you shall rule many nations. Ours will be the whole of the earth. You, me, and my consort.”
“Consort?”
“Nirati Anturasi. She is the one who granted me escape from the Nine Hells.”
Kaerinus’ eyes narrowed. “Nirati Anturasi. I know her. I have touched her with magic. I had not thought she was that powerful.”
“No matter.” Nelesquin sat up again, clutching his knees to his chest. “I shall husband my strength until we can undo what was done at my death.”
“Do you sense where your soul lies?”
Nelesquin concentrated for a moment, then nodded. “North, distantly north. If I could feel more, I would command it to appear.”
“And the effort would likely kill you.”
“Ironic, no?” Nelesquin slowly rose to his feet. “I felt something else. The Empress. She stands between me and my destiny.”
Kaerinus shook his head. “That is not a place I should like to be.”
Nelesquin smiled. “That is an opinion I am sure she will quickly come to share.”
TheNewWorld
Chapter Six
8th day, Month of the Hawk, Year of the Rat
Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th Year since the Cataclysm
Tsatol Deraelkun, County of Faeut
Erumvirine
I leaned on the battlements of Tsatol Deraelkun and stared down at the battlefield. Green fields had been churned into bogs of grasses, matted with blood. The kwajiin had recovered their dead companions and withdrawn. My scouts had trailed them, and reported they were returning to Kelewan.
It didn’t matter. We knew they would appear again, soon.
The blue-skinned warriors had abandoned the bodies of their vhangxi. I really couldn’t blame them, as the batrachian creatures had smelled none too pleasant in life, and even less so after they had been slaughtered. The web-footed, leaping beasts were good in an open-field battle-that much I’d seen when they destroyed the Iron Bears. Laying siege to a mountain fortress, however, requires more brains than bravery. The vhangxi had neither.
The mud had begun to dry, freezing footprints as if they were tiny fluctuations on a calm brown sea. If I looked closely, I could have picked out tracks of scavengers, including a few of the vhangxi survivors hiding in the nearby woods. They would venture out to feed, and House Derael’s archers placed bets, then killed them.
A small island lay at the center of the battlefield, with a stone circle upon it. I’d come close to dying there. Gachin had died there, and his assault with him. Had he killed me and left anyone alive to remember the fight, I might have had a small shrine erected in my memory.
Instead I just had a story destined to become legend.
As with other Mystics, though, I was healing quite nicely, and far more quickly than a man of my years should. My right ear still itched from where the Soth Gloon, Urardsa, had sewed it back on. The wound in my chest had closed, but it still hurt when I coughed. One more scar in a lifetime of them. But the good thing about scars is they mean you survived.
“Master Tolo, are you going to die?”
Smiling, I turned toward the boy who had climbed up to share the tower with me. I’d met him when he was only nine, on the road with his father and grandfather, bound for Moriande and the Harvest Festival. Barely six months later, it was hard to recognize him. Dunos had been small for his nine years, but bright-eyed and happy. He weathered his withered left arm well: his greatest desire at the time had been to become a swordsman, though he would have been happy to help in the family mill.
Even now, despite the horrors he’d witnessed, he s
till possessed a touch of innocence. His lower lip trembled and his green eyes glistened. “They said you were going to die.”
I slowly shook my head. “They misunderstood.”
“They said the Gloon saw it. They can see the future.”
“Not always, Dunos.” I removed the twin swords from my robe’s sash and sat at the base of the wall. Dunos sat at my feet, his withered arm looking close to normal sheathed in ring mail. He’d been given a red robe once worn by Pasuram Derael, resplendent with the family’s wounded-bear crest embroidered in yellow. In spirit, he was one of them.
I made sure my voice was warm. “Do you remember when we were in Moriande and went to the healing Kaerinus performed?”
“We were there with that lady, Nirati.”
“Yes, we were. You saw that big scar on my chest, remember?”
He nodded. “It looked like someone tried to cut you in half.”
“They did a better job of it than the kwajiin. I went to the healing in hopes that it would be healed. It wasn’t.” I tapped a finger against my temple. “There was something else I needed healed and, over time, it has been. The scar…well, I remember little about it. It’s much like you and your arm.”
“I was out playing and found a glowing stone in a riverbank. I grabbed it and don’t remember anything until my father fished me out of the mill stream.” Dunos lifted his left arm and let it drop. “When I woke up, my arm was like this.”
“I remember you telling me. You were a mile or more downstream, but you survived. I survived, too, and woke up in my master’s home. They took care of me. They nursed me back to health. My master trained me to be a great swordsman. He passed on all the lessons he’d learned from his swordmaster, Virisken Soshir.”
I handed him one of the two swords I carried. “Take a good look. The cords wrapping the hilt are orange and black in a tiger-stripe pattern. The man who carried them came from Moryth.”
He peered closely at the cords. “Yes, I see the little bronze tiger charm under there.”
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