A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  Had it not been for the prophecy, he would be duke of Rivermead by now, reveling on his estates—hunting, partying, and wenching to his heart’s content. He had postponed that satisfaction, but Eshiala would make it all up to him.

  Eventually he found himself at the head of the line, and the heralds went into conference. Apparently Shandie’s decision to wear uniform required an amendment to the program. A consensus emerged—his signifer would have to stand by the throne. Ylo wondered what a Commander in Chief’s standard looked like. It might be too Evilishly heavy to lift.

  He was placed in position like a sapling transplant beside the central dais. Above him, Shandie slouched on the Opal Throne. At his side, in a chair on the upper step, sat Eshiala. She glanced down at Ylo, so he winked. She frowned coldly and looked away.

  Lady Eigaze stood behind the throne, being two maids of honor. All this standing must be hard on her feet, Ylo thought. Aunt Eigaze, he had called her when he was a child. Fortunately for her, though, she had been an honorary aunt, not a true relation, or she might have perished in the massacre of the Yllipo Conspiracy.

  Gradually the rest of the two processions advanced. Dignitaries or their understudies were directed to their places. The huge space was becoming populated.

  The hereditary bearers deposited Emine’s sword and shield on a table near the dais, then withdrew. The Rotunda was almost dark.

  “My Lord Herald!” Shandie bellowed angrily. “We shall have to adjourn this meeting very shortly!”

  The chief herald whimpered and all his underlings began to fluster around like mosquitoes.

  Ylo stiffened. Someone was standing beside the White Throne and waving to attract his attention, or possibly Shandie’s. He thought it might be Hardgraa. Now what?

  Ylo glanced up, and Shandie had not noticed. He was actually chatting to his wife!

  The newcomer abandoned his attempt to be noticed and strode forward, straight-arming a herald out of the way. Yes, it was Hardgraa. He must have brought a message. Messages were Ylo’s responsibility. Leaving his place, he headed to meet the centurion, ignoring bleats of complaint from the officials. He could think of only one message important enough for this.

  They met halfway. Hardgraa’s face was rigid.

  “It’s happened.”

  The world rocked. “When?”

  “About twenty minutes ago.”

  “I’ll tell him.” Ylo turned and headed back to the center. The dome had fallen so silent that he could hear the centurion marching away behind him.

  Ylo stopped at the foot of the two steps and looked up at Shandie, who was visibly pale, even in the gloom. Eshiala had both hands to her lips.

  Softly—“Sire… Your grandfather has passed away.”

  Shandie nodded. He turned and reached out to his wife. Ylo felt an illogical twinge of annoyance.

  Eshiala rose from her chair and stepped to her husband’s side. Even in that near darkness, Ylo could see the wonder in her face. She bent and kissed the new imperor, who reached up to put an arm around her.

  Now what? Ylo turned again and located the chief herald; and beckoned him over impatiently.

  Shandie said quietly, “The imperor is dead. My Lord, I fear we must adjourn this.”

  The old man had been growing more and more incoherent even before this sudden change. Now he just stuttered. “Highness… Sire?…”

  “You will be needed,” Shandie said hoarsely, “for the proclamation.”

  They had all been expecting it for months, but now it had happened their minds could not take it in. Emshandar had ruled the world for fifty-one years. His departure left a hole in all their lives. Hardly anyone could remember the Impire without Emshandar IV. Ylo was picturing the iron-bound chest he called Battle Plan and wondering if there was anything he had forgotten to include. Everything anyone had been able to think of was in there waiting to be dated and sealed—announcements to all proconsuls and praetors and legates, Ionfeu’s nomination to the Senate, a million others. There was sure to be something missing, of course.

  And all over the hall, everyone else must have guessed the news and be struggling to adjust. From now on the name Emshandar would not mean a wily old relic spinning webs but a dynamic young man with fresh ideas and new advisors—a young man who ironically had succeeded while actually sitting on the throne. If he lived to the same age as his grandfather had, he would reign for over sixty years.

  Then a sudden light blazed in the Rotunda.

  5

  The White Throne glowed within a nimbus of white fire that made its ivory carvings seem to writhe. A man stood before it, on the low dais. He was very short, gray-haired, and grotesquely thick. He wore shabby workers’ garments and heavy boots, and he glowed also.

  He bowed.

  Shandie was on his feet in an instant, returning the bow. The Rotunda buzzed like a beehive.

  “Do it now, Imperor!” the newcomer roared in a voice like grinding millstones. The deep tones reverberated from the dome above. “Hurry! There is not a moment to waste!”

  Ylo’s scalp prickled—the warlock of the north… Raspnex.

  “Do what?” Shandie mumbled, caught off guard.

  “Proclamation and enthronement! Hurry!” The occult light seemed to brighten and take on an urgent reddish tinge.

  Ylo looked at the chief herald, who was standing with his toothless mourn open and an expression of complete idiocy on his ancient features.

  No soldier he!

  Ylo sprang past him and up the two steps to Shandie’s side. Hastily recalling the words on a hundred parchments he had approved, he swung around to face the warlock and the assembled crowd.

  “By the Grace of the Gods!” he yelled at the top of his voice, hearing the echoes roll. “Emshandar the Fifth, Rightful Imperor of Pandemia, Lord of the Four Oceans, Fount of Justice, Enhancer of the Good! Gods Save the Imperor!” He had omitted about a dozen other titles, but they were unimportant rigmarole.

  He leaped to the floor in a single bound, even as the congregation roared in reflexive echo, “Gods Save the Imperor!” He grabbed the shield and buckler from the table and raced back up the steps.

  Shandie took them, pushed past Eshiala, and turned to nice the east. He slammed the ancient sword against the shield. Clank! Nothing happened.

  Ylo stepped back down to the floor, wondering what he had just written in the history books.

  Shandie waited perhaps three heartbeats, then he was around to the back of the throne, facing south.

  Clank! went the sword and buckler.

  Again nothing.

  West…

  Shandie struck the shield a third time.

  Just for an instant, a rosy glow suffused the Red Throne. A dark shape stood before it—huge and hulking, white-haired and pale-skinned. An ancient female troll, she bowed to Shandie.

  And was gone into darkness.

  Two of the wardens had acknowledged him as imperor. It was enough. The ceremony had been lightning-fast, but legally Shandie had succeeded.

  He dropped the sword with a clatter to put an arm around Eshiala. His other arm raised the shield, as if to cover them both. All eyes swung around to the north again, to the dwarf.

  “Take your wife and your child and begone, for the city is no longer safe for you.” Sepulchral echoes rolled and he boomed even louder, to drown them. “The Protocol is overthrown and Chaos rules the world!”

  With an ear-splitting crack, the four thrones of the wardens exploded. Colored fire blazed momentarily on the four platforms, brightening the hall, reflecting from the glass and snow of the dome. Men cried out as they were struck by flying fragments, while a rubble of gold and stone and ivory rattled and bounced across the floor. The dwarf had vanished and the Rotunda was pitched into darkness and terror.

  Unhallowed ground:

  Like strangers’ voices here they sound,

  In lands where not a memory strays,

  Nor landmark breathes of other days,

  B
ut all is new unhallow’d ground.

  — Tennyson, In Memoriam, CIV

  TEN

  Wild bells

  1

  For forty days the King of Krasnegar had been riding with the west wind at his back. Horse after horse he had ridden to exhaustion, triple-posting, sometimes four-posting, thundering along the great highway, bound for Hub, and yet the foul weather had delayed him. He was thirty-five years old and had lost the uncaring endurance of youth. Numb in his soul and sick to death of riding, of bedbugs and bad food, of rain and cold, he had not dared tarry. Winter fields and gloomy cities rolled past unending. Post followed post. Once in a long while a royal courier would overtake him, but no one else did.

  He dreamed of humble, sleepy Krasnegar, of warm firesides, of Inos and his children. He reminded himself sternly that he was doing all this for them also.

  Never in his life had he felt a greater urgency, yet he did not know what he feared. Night and day the dark premonition in the east overhung his thoughts, a constant invitation to despair. As he moved over the continent, the source gradually shifted toward the north, confirming that it was rooted in Dwanish, but he still did not understand that evil foreboding.

  Stranger even than that, though, was the eerie stillness in the ambience. In his youthful experience as sorcerer and demigod, he had seen that alternative plane of existence alive with flames and flickers of sorcery—or heard it sing, rumble, and moan with sorcery, for the observer could choose his metaphor as he pleased. Now it was dark and silent.

  Very rarely he picked up a tremor, usually brief. Only twice had he been close enough to risk a glance of farsight to identify the source. The first had been an elderly rake propositioning a young man in a saloon and the second a portly chef seasoning a sauce. Mere geniuses, both of them, with power so weak that they might well be unaware that their talents had an occult element to them.

  Where had everybody gone?

  Was he the only sorcerer left in the world? Or were all the others hiding, as he was hiding?

  Sorcerers he could understand. Sorcerers and some mages could sense the ambience as he could. Like him, they would have noticed the quietness and sensed the evil portents, and held back their own powers to listen. But the two-word adepts and the one-word geniuses—they could not have felt the danger, so they could not have taken cover of their own volition. They had been silenced. Who could have done such a thing, and for what reason?

  The shieldings remained, for the Impire had been home to sorcery as long as anyone could imagine and occult shields took centuries to decay. They showed up easily to farsight. Some of them had outlasted the buildings they had covered and now guarded only a copse or a vegetable patch. Twice he had taken refuge within such an invisible haven to use power: healing his weariness, mending his clothes, replenishing his purse. He could still make gold—in small amounts—but it took all the effort he could summon. That meant he must rattle the ambience savagely as he did it. It wasn’t very good gold, either.

  Sleazy inns, spavined horses, sun and rain and wind and cold… winter was no time to journey posthaste across Pandemia. On a chilly morning three weeks before Winterfest, Rap rode into the outskirts of the capital’s sprawling suburbs as snow began to fall from a morbid sky.

  Shivering, he turned in his post horse and purchased an elderly gray mare at the livery stable. She had a forgiving disposition and a comfortable trot and her wind seemed sound. He named her Auntie, patting her neck apologetically when he had tightened the girths.

  “I know it is no day to be traveling, old girl,” he said, wishing he dared use a little mastery to encourage her.

  Auntie flicked her ears resignedly.

  Where to? Soon he must decide between three possible destinations, although all of them were many hours’ ride away yet, for this was no meager city. He swung shakily up into the saddle.

  Once Hub had been a hotbed of sorcery, a constant rumble in the ambience. Now it, too, was silent; or almost so. He knew that there were many occult contrivances in the city—magic doors, phantom watchdogs, bottomless wine bottles, and other such gimcrackery, cobbled together by sorcerers over the years as gifts for their friends, most like. He could still sense many of those gadgets clicking away in the background, but deliberate use of power seemed to have ended even here.

  As Auntie trotted out of the yard, he heard a bell tolling in the distance. A few minutes later another joined in. He knew then that there was no use going to the palace today. The palace had never been a promising option anyway.

  Waves of sound flowed out from the center until the whole capital reverberated with grief. One by one the other temples entered the sonorous chorus, a measured, mournful clamor that rapidly became a torment. The City of the Gods, the imps called Hub, meaning the City of Temples. Soon it was a madhouse of dolorous metallic clanging on all sides. Dogs howled crazily at the carillon and the very stones seemed to shake.

  Rap thought of those ripples spreading across the frozen countryside, from hamlet to hamlet and town to town, outrunning the couriers until they lapped the waters of three oceans. The Impire was paying tribute to Emshandar.

  He was surprised at the intensity of the sorrow. As a sorcerer, he could smell grief in the air as clearly as he could see the whirling snow. Imps had a mystical loyalty to their imperor, like bees to a queen. They would mourn any imperor, no matter how brief or unpleasant his reign, and tonight they knew an age was passing. Even the imps of Krasnegar would mourn when the news arrived there, in the summer.

  Gradually the streets cleared. Wagons and carriages seemed to disappear first, pedestrians became scarce and then rare. Soon the snow was falling almost undisturbed. Auntie’s hooves thumped a muffled note on the deepening blanket, barely detectable through the endless tolling of the bells.

  As dusk fell, windows darkened. Obviously the mourning city was going to show no lights, not even the door lamps that the wealthy maintained as a public service to brighten the streets.

  Rap wondered how footpads and cutthroats viewed their civic duty on such occasions.

  His choice was clear now. Sagorn must wait—if he and his gang were even in town. Rap headed for the center, the abodes of the rich and the aristocracy, where the Epoxague mansion was.

  2

  Take your wife and your child and begone, for the city is no longer safe… To Eshiala, the words seemed to echo and echo, round and around the dome. Maya was in danger!

  Momentarily blinded by the explosions and the sudden darkness after, she groped wildly for the side of the Opal Throne to steady herself. She opened her mouth to speak to Shandie, but Shandie was already barking commands to others.

  Maya in danger? The thought was crippling. She was only a baby; her second birthday was just past; but she was a royal baby, second in line to… No! Minutes ago her father had become imperor, making Maya heiress presumptive, the princess imperial, first in line.

  And she herself was the impress. Gods preserve me!

  “Come, my dear!” Shandie swung his cloak up to cover her, also, in a useless gesture. He hugged one arm around her tightly, urging her down the steps to the floor. Then he rushed her toward the door.

  “What did… Who was…” She struggled to collect her thoughts, for she had so many questions that she did not know what to ask first. The floor was littered with gravel and rubble and she still could barely see. Being entangled in Shandie’s cloak and tight embrace didn’t help. “What did that dwarf mean about…” She stumbled.

  “Careful, my love!” Shandie said. “Here, I’ll carry you…”

  She started to say that if he would stop wrestling her around and perhaps just hold her hand, things would be a lot easier, but he tried to lift her just as he himself stumbled on a pebble, which rolled. He almost fell, pulling her down with him. She broke loose from his grip and now she could see better where they were going, too. She clung to his arm and then they proceeded in a more sensible fashion.

  “Why did that dwarf say Maya was
in danger?”

  “I don’t know. Gods, look at that!” On the platform where the Red Throne had stood until two minutes ago, now only a few fragments of rock remained. The rest had been blasted to gravel and spread over the Rotunda. The base itself was cracked. “Can you imagine how old that thing was?”

  Did he really think she would care, when Maya was in danger?

  They hastened around the remains, plunging into the gloomy tunnel beyond, almost running. She was glad she was wearing sensible shoes, or he really would have to carry her.

  “That was the warlock?” she demanded.

  “Yes, that was the… Well, I suppose it was! Nobody else would dare, would they? Ah! Legate!”

  “Sire!” A large man in glittering armor fell into step on Shandie’s other side, and all three rushed along together.

  Shandie began raiding orders again. “Her Majesty and I are going to the personal quarters. Send a contingent to Oak House —“

  “No!” Eshiala shouted. “We are going to Oak House. Or I am at least!”

  “Beloved —“

  “I want my baby!”

  “Oh, very well!” Shandie said, sounding surprised by this sudden rebellion. “We’ll go around by Oak House and pick up the child ourselves. My signifer has orders, but he’ll need your assistance… and of course I want to see you as soon as you have organized this madhouse…”

  They burst out into daylight and falling snow. Armored men were everywhere, with a coach waiting. Shandie handed her up ahead of him, which was a breach of protocol she supposed, but a welcome gesture. He leaped in himself and the horses were moving even before the door closed.