“‘Beast or dragon of ancient times’?” the Raven mused. “I fear your imagination has twisted your head. Might it simply mean ‘horses’?”
The loremaster stroked his cheeks as he puzzled over the cryptic text. “No, no. Can’t be ‘horses,’ not with that.” He pointed to an obscure marking on the parchment. “Most likely means ‘beast,’ but the way its written it could be any wild creature of ancient times, a humpbear or smilodon or even the mythical dragonwolff.”
The king chortled with disdain. “You think this concubine is capable of such complexities? The betrayer is lurking in the shadows of Kingsgate, laughing at your stupidity. Or is the traitor standing among us? Is it you, or you?” He swept his finger across the room, then looked at the Raven and lowered his hand. The knot in his stomach tightened.
The old king leaned down until he was near Maharí’s face. Her eyes were wide and pleading. She turned from his sour breath, but he gripped her face and turned it back.
“Who gave you this message? Who? Please, sweet flower, tell me.” His voice grew cold. “Who gave it to you? Who is it for?”
The loremaster spoke suddenly. “This mark is a declaration. ‘Behold’ or ‘attention.’ And this means ‘revenge,’ quite literally—‘eye for eye and head for head.’ And this . . .” He rambled on as if they had gathered for a translation of the document rather than the execution of a traitor. He narrowed his eyes and rippled the skin of his face once again. “This is a royal title of some sort. No comparable words, really, most likely ‘prince of revenge’ or . . .” He mumbled to himself in low whispers. “Lord of . . . of . . . hmm. Vengeance.” He cleared his throat. “‘Behold Lord of Vengeance’ is what I think is here written.”
“Lord of Vengeance?” the king’s face twisted into a fist of wrinkles.
The loremaster nodded.
The king leaned close to the concubine again. His face softened as memories of her swirled behind his eyes, but his words were hard and bitter. “Who is the Lord of Vengeance? Is it Drakkor? Is it the bandit who slaughters my kingsriders?”
Maharí clenched her jaw and rolled her head away. Her cheeks were smudged with the soot of the brazier and streaked with tears. Crusted scabs of blood clung to her skin.
Not even the savage circumstance could rob Maharí of her exotic beauty. The sweat of her body and smoke of the fire could not smother the scent of her. Kublan took her face in his hands and slapped her hard across the cheek.
“Tell me, or by the gods I shall leave them to their task. Please, please don’t force me to step aside. . . . Tell me what you know of this bandit Drakkor, this Lord of Vengeance.” The king’s shoulders sagged, and his hands slipped from her face. He was no longer a king condemning a traitor. He was an old man with a wounded heart. “Why have you betrayed me? Speak to me! Let me save you!”
“If I tell you do you promise to spare my life?” The words came in a short gasp of breath. She wet her lips and coughed. “Will you believe me if I speak? I am dead to those who have beguiled me.” She held his eyes. “Am I also dead to you?”
The king rubbed at the pain in his palm from slapping her, the sting of it deeper than the skin.
She choked on the bile in her throat. “They will torture me until I say whatever they want to hear. It is not the truth they seek. It is only the salving of their shame for murdering a woman the king loves more than them.”
The king swept his eyes around the chamber in search of a sanctioning nod to violate the rules of the tower. Some ascension to his need to show the woman mercy. Every face was resolute and grim, save one.
His anger was a voice crying in his head. May you who disapprove and dare to question me be cast into the pits of fire! I am king. I rule by the will of the gods, and I will soon have endless life and stand on your graves long after the stink of your decaying flesh is gone and the last trace of you is devoured by worms.
The thought pounded through his head, but courage came from the gentle nod of the silent nursewoman. The look on her face was one of understanding if not forgiveness. He gave no thought to the irony that the woman who brought Maharí to justice was the only one willing to extend her mercy.
“If I refuse to confess,” Maharí said, “they will torture me until I’m dead, and even if I live, they will throw me from the tower unless you prevent it.”
The king jutted his chin and straightened his frame. His voice was defiant. “Betray this rogue who has beguiled you. There is no shame. He beguiled my great captain, Borklore. Tell me all you know of this Drakkor and promise loyalty to me and you will live.”
“Will you swear it?”
“Yes.”
“Will you swear it on your honor as King and he who rules by the will of the gods?” Maharí moaned.
“You mock me with the snarl of a witch-woman.”
Kublan screamed and lifted her head with a fistful of her raven hair. He pulled a dagger from an ornate scabbard of encrusted brass and held it against her throat. “By the gods, I shall cut your throat and throw you from the tower myself if you show no humility or gratitude for granting you your life.”
“Swear it,” she said, her voice trembling and pinched to hoarseness.
“Curse you!” He yelled and slammed the dagger into the wood so close to her head the knuckles of his fingers touched her face. His shoulders sagged as he yielded to the strange power she held over him. “I swear it on my honor as king. Now tell me where I shall find this Lord of Vengeance, this Drakkor.” He wrenched the dagger and held it up. “I will personally cut his heart from his chest while he is yet alive.”
The chamber went as silent as black stone. A blister of sap popped in the fire. A crow cawed over the bridge. No one breathed. Maharí’s head thumped on the wood as the king pulled his hand away.
“Gracious lord,” she said and bid his eyes follow hers to the leather thong binding her bleeding wrist. The king waved his hand, and the punisher untied Maharí’s bindings. She stood slowly, drawing the king’s cloak around her. Every movement registered as pain on her face. Fluid oozed from the deep burns and mingled with her blood. She retreated to the open portal where she stood with her back to the wall. She scanned the faces in the room, stopping at each. Her black eyes gleamed with defiance and hate.
Every eye was on the traitor. Every ear was eager to hear her confession. Maharí stood tall and elegant.
She raised her chin and brushed aside her fallen locks, revealing her face.
“The Lord of Vengeance is not the bandit Drakkor. I have never heard that name before today.”
The Raven was drawn forward by the shock of the woman’s confession. “If not Drakkor, then who is the Lord of Vengeance?”
“I swore to tell you all I know of the bandit Drakkor in exchange for my life. I know nothing of the man. I have kept my word.” Maharí sought the king’s eyes, but they were wide and fierce and staring at the Raven.
“What trickery is this?” the Raven demanded.
“There is no trickery, m’lord Raven to the King. I have answered truly as I was asked.”
“Who is he?” the king demanded. “Not one of House Romagónian? Ormmen would not dare. Such treachery is too easily uncovered.”
“She did not come from House Romagónian,” the Raven reminded him.
Not Drakkor? Is he an unknown rogue or—Kublan shuddered at the dreadful thought—Someone I trust, hiding in plain sight, shrouded by familiar robes of respectability?
Maharí held the king’s eyes and said nothing.
The Raven came closer to the concubine. “But the Lord of Vengeance is not unknown to you. Earn the unworthy life granted to you by this gracious sovereign and reveal this enemy to us.”
A mocking smile quivered at the corner of Maharí’s mouth. “‘Tell me all you know of this Drakkor and promise your loyalty to me and you will live.’” She recited the words of Kubl
an. “These are the words of your gracious sovereign.” She locked eyes with Kublan. “I have told you all that I know of the bandit—nothing. And now I call upon your honor as king to grant me my life.”
“I shall grant you death!” Kublan shouted, pushing past the Raven and gripping Maharí’s perfect face in the bony claw of his hand. “You will speak the name of this enemy who dares to plot against me. I am the king!”
“You are no king!” Maharí scorned. “You are a pathetic old man who will soon be dragged into the street and put to death by the Lord of Vengeance.”
The king’s lips quivered, but he was too stunned to speak. The madness in him was rising. His eyes were wide, his nostrils flared. He crushed her face with one hand and grabbed a fistful of her hair with the other, twisting her neck.
“How I loathe the touch of your hand and the stink of your breath. Death will be a sweet escape,” she said.
“Kill her!” he screamed.
The punisher started forward, but in an explosion of violence, Maharí ripped the king’s fingers away from her face. The cloak fell away. She slammed her bare knee into the old man’s crotch. He crumpled with a horrible groan and released his grip on her. She whirled through the portal and ran to the end of the bridge. The punisher and the kingsrider started after her.
“No! No!” Kublan groaned. He was crumpled in a heap. “I will kill the whore of a traitor myself!”
The men stopped where the narrow wooden bridge met the open porch. The Raven helped the king to his feet.
“The ax. Give me the ax.” Kublan staggered to the portal with the Raven’s help. The punisher handed him a bloodstained ax and stepped aside. The king approached the bridge, but the commander of kingsriders blocked the way.
“It is too dangerous, m’lord.”
“He speaks truly. It is for him to finish it.” the Raven said.
“Move aside!” The king pulled free of the Raven’s steadying arm and gripped the handle of the ax with both hands.
The commander grimaced but stepped aside as Kublan started across the bridge.
Maharí faced him from the end of the wooden walkway. She stood perfectly still, tall, and defiant. A shaft of sunlight pierced the clouds as if the gods were watching. When the light struck her hair, it glistened with a sheen of burnished gold. The sun was low and cast her in a haunting glow as if she were an incarnation of Inanna, goddess of war and sensual love.
Reason smothered his rage. The king was gripped by fear. He stopped a few strides away and looked into the abyss. The crashing waves were faint and far away, but the sound of them rose in the swirling mist and pounded in his ears.
He was suddenly enveloped in a white haze. He wobbled to one knee, blinded, light-headed, and lost. When he was able to see again, Maharí was no longer on the bridge. She was floating downward on a shaft of light that pierced the swirling mist, a shimmering glow of silver on black wings that caught her up and carried her aloft to clouds that glistened amber in the last light of day.
He couldn’t breathe, and all that was light became darkness.
The king jolted awake with fire in his nose. The Raven knelt over him with the salts of hartshorn crystal pressed to his nostrils.
As the biting scent awakened his senses, his mind was knotted around a single question: How soon before the Lord of Vengeance emerges from his secret place and comes to murder me?
As he stared at the circle of faces huddled over him, he felt an urgency to convene the council at First Landing. He must form an alliance with all the houses, great and small, to quell the forces of darkness rising on a tide of sorcery beyond his ken.
CHAPTER 28
Tolak looked at his beloved daughter, who was hastily wiping tears from her cheeks. How he loved this child. Meesha had listened to the hard tale of her family’s history and borne it with grace and understanding. So like her mother, he thought with pride.
The light from the window behind him illuminated Meesha in a halo of gold, reminding him of the night she had been born.
Katasha had been terribly distraught by the crimson stain on her infant daughter’s face. Tolak did what he could to comfort his wife, but his own reaction to the blemish was unexpected. At first, he wondered if the birthmark was a punishment by the gods he disavowed. But then, like a flower opening its petals to the rays of the sun, the strange words came into his mind: “The kingdom of light will come again.” It was more than a mere thought; it was the whispering of a quiet voice. The impression was accompanied by a wave of calm reassurance that there was purpose and meaning in all things—even the mark on his daughter’s face.
That same sense of reassurance returned to Tolak as he watched his daughter dry her tears. He felt certain she was known by the great cause of the universe, whatever it might be.
The kingdom of light will come again, he thought. How odd that those words have found me again after so many years.
Tolak had heard the expression the first time nearly thirty years before. The line came from a fragment of a very old parchment that had fallen into his hands, reportedly uncovered from earthen jars found in the ruins near Village Candella. The tattered scraps of calfskin were badly damaged, but certain of the curious markings could still be seen and, he hoped, deciphered. As a young man, Tolak had developed a fascination for the lost peoples who inhabited the land before the coming of the early voyagers and those mistakenly called “First People.”
He sent for Rooshléembish Onlottle, the Mankin scholar of Harven, known for his adeptness at pictographs and archaic languages. Some said he even had a magic stone that allowed him to interpret ancient writings.
Tolak brought the diminutive scholar to Blackthorn to study the fragments of parchment and use his “magic stone”—if the rumors were true—to interpret the symbols. The scholar was a persnickety fusspot and insisted on complete privacy to study the old manuscripts. The Mankin was fastidious in his labors and peered at the manuscripts day after day through his stone of translucent white crystal, often from first light to dark, and then by candlelight.
Tolak was the only one allowed in the solarium when the scholar was working. As a condition of their arrangement, Tolak took a vow of secrecy and agreed not to stand too close to the scholar or pester him with questions. From what he could observe about the “magic stone,” the facets of the crystal refracted the light and enlarged the markings in a way that made them legible. Or did the light change them?
On the ninth day of Making Fat Moon in season Res S’atti, the Mankin scholar sent for Tolak. It was midsummer and the days were long, but by the time Tolak arrived at the cottage where the Mankin worked, the sun was setting behind the forest of giant redwoods to the west.
The Mankin lighted a double-wicked candle as daylight turned to the blue of night. “It’s a riddle of sorts,” the little scholar said and pulled the flame closer. He puzzled over the scribbling of characters and symbols and the alternate translations he had made with his quill on leafs of calfskin vellum.
“What kind of riddle?” Tolak asked, settling beside him on the bench.
“If I knew,” the Mankin chortled with a demeaning scowl, “it wouldn’t be a riddle, now would it?” He leaned over the parchment until his large head was almost on the table and put his eye to his stone. He hovered over the parchment for a long time, reading aloud, but with such muted mumbling that Tolak understood none of it.
Though his view of the parchment was mostly hidden, he was able to catch a fleeting glimpse of the white crystal. At times it looked to be opaque. At other times it was clearly translucent and seemed to pulse with a soft glow. Not the yellow light of candles but a clear light of perfect white. From where he stood and what little he saw, Tolak had no idea what it was. He found the mystery of it unnerving.
The Mankin straightened at last.
“What does it say? Tolak asked.
The Mankin shoo
k his head as he slipped the stone into the bag around his neck. By the look on the scholar’s face, Tolak had the feeling he had discovered something he was reluctant to share.
“It seems to be a prophecy or . . .” The Mankin paused to scratch out some of what he’d written on the vellum.
“Can you interpret it?”
“You’ve paid me well, and I cherish my reputation, but I am not sure I’ve got it right.”
“Can you make out the essence of it?”
“The manuscript is damaged, and we have no words in our language that can be directly translated from much of what is written.”
“But you must try.”
Rooshléembish Onlottle scratched the stubble on his right cheek with his little fingers. Against a face too large for his body, his hand looked even smaller than it was. “I cannot attest to the accuracy,” he warned again.
“Well enough,” Tolak agreed with growing impatience.
“And you must not speak of it!”
“Never with your name attached,” he promised. “Even if I could pronounce it, remember it, or write it in the ancient tongue.” Both men laughed.
“If I fill the holes with the closest words we have, it might mean something like, the kingdom of light will come again and the stones of the sun . . .” He paused and looked at his notes, shook his head to indicate there were no words to fill the gap, then continued. “The stones of shining—perhaps, the stones of light—be gathered in thy hand and returned to . . .” He paused again as if trying to decide which of the three words he had written should be used. “Returned to the Immortal Crown on the sacred mountain of him—” He tapped the symbol he had carefully copied. “This symbol was also used for the name of the god of the pilgrims, Oum’ilah,” he commented and then continued, “of him who touched them for renewal, regeneration, and the promise of eternal life.”
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