The Immortal Crown

by Kieth Merrill

  “You vex me, Raven!”

  “With apologies, m’lord.”

  “How can a king reconcile with a traitor who denies I reign by the will of the gods?”

  “Exoneration? A royal pardon? Reconciliation between a father and a son?”

  “How can a father reconcile with a son who loathes him?”

  “Forgiveness?”

  “You are a fool.”

  “Perhaps, but your promise of a different future will change him.”

  “Or embolden him to open the gate of his treachery to rebellion and force me to send him to the gallows!”

  The Raven quietly rejoiced to see the zealotry in Kublan’s eyes, knowing that his fear of rebellion would make him far easier to influence. He held the king’s eyes, then, leaning close so none could hear, he whispered, “What would an immortal king do?”

  Kublan’s face darkened in deep thought. “Tell the master of the stables to ready the swiftest horses and prepare his finest rider to leave at first light. He must catch my grandson with word of this gathering before he reaches Stókenhold Fortress. Kadesh-Cor will know how to deal with his father, my traitorous son.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The pungent scent of horses kissed Qhuin’s nose as the breeze blew past. He loved horses and the smell was a fragrance as fine as flowers. The weather was warm, and except for an afternoon thunderstorm on the second day, the sky was clear. The only clouds were the plumes of red dust billowing up from the King’s Road, and yet for Qhuin, there was nothing but beauty. The sights and scenery flowed past his chariot on either side. Each new vision delighted his eyes and teased his imagination.

  In truth, the days of the journey from Blackthorn to the Tallgrass Prairie were the finest Qhuin had ever known. There was a steady succession of travelers moving north on the road between Knight’s Tower and the historic hamlet of Mordan with its ancient canals and crumbled ruins.

  They passed many hostelries, alehouses, and taverns, and though the procession rarely stopped at the inns, the curious names of them made Qhuin smile. There was precious little merriment in his life, and he committed the whimsical names to memory: Inn of the Fatted Goose, Inn of the Stone Hag, Inn of the One-Legged Jester, and, his favorite, Inn of the Yelling Horseman. He imagined the proprietors who poured the ale looking quite like the names they’d chosen.

  Beyond Mordan, the expedition of Prince Kadesh-Cor had the King’s Road largely to themselves. When gusty winds blew the dust away, Qhuin could see the royal road of kings winding ahead of them until it was nothing but a squiggle of brown swallowed by the shimmering haze of the horizon.

  Days into the journey they had camped north of the Isthmus, a narrow bridge of land connecting north and south. It was where the waters of Dragon Deep filled a hole dug by the hand of a giant—or so the story was told.

  Qhuin arose before first light to care for his team and prepare for another day on the road. The rays of the rising sun broke over the horizon and ignited a mist of clouds that swirled around a monolith of stone far to the west. The morning light crawled slowly down the ragged face of rock. It was unlike anything Qhuin had ever imagined. Rusthammer had spoken of this place many times, but no picture painted with words had prepared him for the splendor his eyes beheld.

  “There is a temple there.” Rusthammer had spoken about the mountain with reverence, as if there was more to the place than mere beauty. “From the time the temple was built in the years following the time of First Landing, it has been the place the pilgrims call the Mountain of God.”

  As Qhuin gazed upon the monolith of stone he thought he could see the cluster of buildings on the ridge. He wondered what it would be like to live in such a place. He closed his eyes and, as he often did, allowed his mind to drift away and for a moment be somewhere else . . . be someone else.

  He wondered if at that very moment the man he might have been was standing on the mountain to watch the sunrise. The thought had scarcely formed when he felt a quivering of warmth that frightened him. The pulsing waves of heat seemed to emanate from the center of his being, but Qhuin quickly realized they came from the mysterious treasure Rusthammer had given him a few days earlier—a small, white stone of clear crystal—which Qhuin had hidden in a secret pocket sewn inside his leathers.

  Glancing in all directions to make sure no one was near, he took out the stone and held it in his hand. It felt both cold and hot. It shimmered softly, then brightened and, for a moment, seemed bright as daylight. Qhuin closed his fist around the stone and carefully tucked it away again.

  In the weeks before the expedition of Kadesh-Cor left Blackthorn for the Tallgrass Prairie, Qhuin had worked side by side with Rusthammer to prepare for the journey. They toiled through endless days and sleepless nights. New iron for the horses. Soaping leather, oiling saddles, mending harnesses and tack. Building new wagons and repairing the old. Ensuring that the royal coaches were serviced and prepared to endure the arduous journey. Of greatest interest to Qhuin was finishing the special chariots designed by Rusthammer for use on the hunt.

  Qhuin had gone to the blacksmith shop to repair the buckling of a broken harness. On his way back to the tack room, he heard an angry voice coming from the portal where the chariots were stored.

  “A slave? Are you really so stupid to believe I would disgrace ­myself?”

  The high, shrieking voice was unfamiliar to Qhuin. He knew he shouldn’t listen, but the voice grew louder and angrier. He could not stave off his curiosity, so he slipped into the narrow space between buildings. He crept closer and peered through a crack between the blackened boards.

  Horsemaster Raahud stood face-to-face with Princeling Sargon, youngest son of Kadesh-Cor. Rusthammer stood nearby with one hand on the cowling of the chariot.

  Qhuin had seen Sargon many times but had never spoken to him. The princeling was younger than Qhuin by only five seasons, but by any standard of manhood he remained an immature boy. He was spoiled by the pampering of royal blood and known for his churlish behavior and harsh treatment of those who served him. The whispering of slaves was rife with rumors of his blatant cruelty. Qhuin had wondered if the stories were true. The royal tantrum unfolding before him left little doubt.

  Sargon was of average height and slight of build, though he was rarely seen without his sculpted chest plate and shoulder caps. The boiled leather gave him the appearance of a muscular body and widened his narrow frame. He was not unattractive, but his face was soured by a scowl, and his brows were pinched in a perpetual expression of disapproval and self-importance.

  “You presume to give me a reinsman who is lower than a lowborn!” He gasped for air. “I am a princeling of Blackthorn!” The veins on his forehead bulged. “A slave!” he screamed again. “By the gods, I shall have you put in irons before I will be driven on the hunt by a slave bastard with the stink of the stables on his breath and a brain the size of a withered pea!”

  Qhuin was stunned by the princeling’s pathetic behavior. Horse­master Raahud was highborn, skilled in his trade, and highly reputed among his peers. He was also nearly twice the age of the arrogant prince who was throwing a tantrum like a spoiled adolescent.

  “The chariot was made for the hunt. It is of special design and easily overturned. It will demand the finest of reinsman.” Rusthammer’s voice was calm.

  The princeling whirled and pointed his finger as if it were a lance intended to run the old man through. “You will speak when spoken to!”

  “It is our finest chariot. It was made for your father, but he suggested it was best suited to a younger man of great skill and agility.” Rusthammer was a man of impeccable integrity, but Qhuin knew him well enough to know that what he said was a diplomatic shade of gray.

  Sargon’s finger quivered with uncertainty, then slowly withdrew.

  “A’quilum Ereon Qhuin is our finest horseman,” Master Raahud said. “The chariot will be
drawn by the horses he has trained. As master of horses, I can tell you there is none more capable than he. In his hands and in this chariot, you will be the champion of the hunt.”

  The war between the princeling’s contempt and vainglorious ego was being fought by the muscles of his face in a fusillade of indecisive twitches.

  “Sargon!” Kadesh-Cor stepped from the darkness of the passage that led to the stables and motioned for the boy to come to him. There was a disapproving scowl in his voice.

  Sargon’s indecision ended quickly when he realized his father had been watching. “Well enough, but he shall be last in the procession where he can breathe our dust.” He whirled and strode after his father, who had already started down the passage. Sargon turned just before he disappeared into the darkness beyond the arch. “And he shall be chained!”

  “M’lord, for a driver to be chained to the chariot does not give him—”

  Sargon cut him off. “And nothing can happen to your ‘finest horseman,’ eh? If he allows the chariot to falter and is dragged to death by his neck, it will be his fault, not mine.”

  Rusthammer watched the princeling disappear, then stepped forward and put a hand on Horsemaster Raahud’s shoulder. All that needed to be said, or could be said, was evident in the exchange of their expressions.

  “Qhuin is a gifted horseman because of you,” Raahud said, allowing a smile at last. Rusthammer shrugged the compliment away. Then Raahud, leaning closer to the blacksmith and glancing about as if wanting to make certain they were alone, continued in a whisper, “If this boy’s blood were known, I wonder if we’d be surprised. He is no ordinary man.”

  Rusthammer bobbed his head slowly and smiled. “I’ve known that since the day I found him on the steps,” he said and tapped his fingers to the grizzled shag of hair at his temple.

  Found on the steps? By Rusthammer? Qhuin had never been told the story. A whirlwind of questions filled his head. Rusthammer’s voice brought him back.

  “Not sure why I’ve felt the way I do,” the blacksmith said. “Might’a been the winged spirits of the God of gods whispering in my head all these years, though I confess they’ve little cause to speak to me.” There was a flash of lightning in his eyes, the smile widened at the corner of his mouth, and Qhuin could see there was much more to be told.

  Rusthammer returned to the blacksmith shop. The pounding of his hammer covered the sound of Qhuin’s footsteps. The blacksmith was fashioning a rib of iron, and when he laid it to the fire again, Qhuin gripped the handle of the billows and began to fan the flame. The blacksmith glanced up and thanked him with a smile.

  “You were the one who found me and brought me to Blackthorn.” It was not a question.

  Few things could discomfit Rusthammer, but Qhuin’s words clearly had. Rusthammer held his eyes until the silence was uncomfortable, then nodded and glanced at the portal. “You were listening?”

  Qhuin nodded. “Behind the wall.” They stood in silence for a moment, then he spoke again. “Tell me.”

  Rusthammer set the hammer aside and let the rib of iron lie. The hot white cooled to yellow, then orange, then gradually went dark. “There’s little to tell. You were left on the stone step of my cottage in the middle of the night. I was awakened by . . . Well, it was not your crying—you didn’t cry at all—it was something else. Something that I . . .” He shrugged away whatever else was in his head and took a deep breath. “I felt a strange urge to walk into the night, and when I left the cottage I found you in a basket on the steps.”

  “That’s all? That’s all you know of who I am, or was, and where I came from? Why have you never told me?”

  Rusthammer narrowed his eyes. “Because that is not all. Because until now, until Horsemaster Raahud made his decision to send you to the Tallgrass Prairie with the Baron Magnus, I have never felt the time was right to . . . I was not sure if . . .” He shrugged the thought away and looked at Qhuin a long time. “From the day I found you on my steps to, well, until this very moment, I’ve endured a nagging premonition that you are different. Special, somehow.”

  Qhuin’s face tightened with unspoken questions.

  Rusthammer turned abruptly and, pulling the thick leather gloves from his hand, disappeared into the cluttered chamber behind the stone furnace. Qhuin heard the rattle of things being moved and the squeaking of hinges. There was a thud of a lid closing. Rusthammer emerged with a small bundle in his hand and offered it to Qhuin. “This was with you in the basket when I found you.”

  Qhuin’s face twisted in confusion as Rusthammer placed the bundle in his hand. He lifted away the folds of fur to expose a stone of unusual beauty. It was smooth and white, opaque and yet translucent in a curious way. Whether by the sensation of the strange stone in his hand, the fatigue of long, laborious days, or the whirl of expectations spawned by Horsemaster Raahud’s pronouncement, Qhuin could not be sure, but in that moment a shudder of warmth he’d never felt before rushed through him.

  A slave was not allowed to own a single personal possession. As he held the strange stone, he could hear Rusthammer’s graveled whisper. “’Tis a treasure that belongs to you. You must never divulge it nor be without it. It holds the secret to who you are and a window on your past. More than that, it is an emblem of your life beyond the dominance of your masters. A promise from your past that you are not what they have made of you. It is a symbol of the freedom that no man can take from you. The freedom that is here and here.” Rusthammer touched Qhuin’s head and heart.

  The last thing Rusthammer said was, “Someday this stone—­whatever it is and wherever it came from—will lead you to who you really are.” And then he mumbled under his breath, “And what the winged spirits of the God of gods were sent to help you become.”

  Winged spirits of the God of gods. Qhuin was struck by a memory. The voice of his kitchen-maid mother who had said nearly the same thing to him so many years before: “The winged spirits of the God of gods are watching.”

  Qhuin slept that night with the stone clutched in his hand and his hand curled beneath his arm. His dreams were a vivid profusion of impressions with no basis in anything he’d known.

  He rode on the back of a magnificent horse in a place of exquisite beauty, with endless meadows and a sea of flowers and trees that reached clear to the stars, and the great horse could fly and it carried him to the columns of clouds that became a temple of white filled with luminous beings.

  The next day, as they prepared to depart Blackthorn, Horsemaster Raahud petitioned Kadesh-Cor to allow Qhuin to drive free of restraint. “Like the other reinsman,” he argued. “If the horses spook and the chariot topples, he will be unable to escape the chain and collar and will be dragged to death.”

  Prince Kadesh-Cor had listened, then nodded and walked away.

  Presently, someone came and unlocked the clasp and took the iron collar from Qhuin’s neck. He was so accustomed to the weight of the iron that he felt a strange rush of freedom when it was lifted away, but it was more than relief from the iron. It was the feeling of the secret stone hidden next to his hip.

  The sense of freedom was short-lived as the attendant who removed his collar attached it to the chariot instead. “By order of Sargon,” he said quietly.

  The billow of powdered red dirt on the King’s Road worsened. A choking cloud swirled up in a gust of wind; the wheelhorse shied and jolted Qhuin back to the moment.

  Qhuin looked for the rear guard of kings­riders, but they had turned their horses from the road to avoid the strangling dust, and he could not see them through the murky pall.

  And they cannot see me, he mused. The thought made his heart pound faster. He slowed the milk-whites and allowed himself to fall behind the other chariots. In the dust and rising wind, no one seemed to notice. As the procession pulled away, the billow of dust went with it.

  Qhuin pulled the wrap from his face and took a deep breath, in
haling the scent of the horses.

  He swept his eyes to the open country east of the road, then back to the way they had come. The road wound northward to the Narrows. It was still empty. No sign of the rear guard.

  Until that moment, all of Qhuin’s thoughts had been forward. By day, he’d been enraptured by the unexpected beauty of the journey. At night, his thoughts were consumed by a vision of chasing wild horses in the Tallgrass Prairie.

  Looking to his future with a sense of excitement, rather than routine and certainty was an unfamiliar experience. But then, almost everything during the fourteen days of traveling was new and unexpected. But, for all the joy Qhuin felt and in spite of his eagerness to go after the wild horses, he could not quell the temptation to run away.

  A dust devil swirled away to the north, daring him to follow.

  This was his chance to turn the chariot and race for freedom.

  What then? He pushed the thought away. He reminded himself that slaves lived in the shadow of punishment, or death, for the smallest misdeed on an impulsive whim of a master. The iron collar was more than a restraint. It was a reminder.

  Rusthammer had given him the curious stone only days before, yet it had already given Qhuin a strange sense of destiny, the unreasonable sensation that someday he would be free. Irrational and unjustified as it was, there was a part of Qhuin that would not accept his circumstance as the final reality of his life. Thanks to Rusthammer, he had long since refused to see himself as nothing more than the property of another man. Today, in some small way, that belief was evolving into certainty.