Way Walkers: Tangled Paths (The Tazu Saga)

by Leigh, J.

  Jathen eyed his mother’s guardsman, images of Dolomith on a pyre fluttering his heart. “The queen summoned me? Why?”

  “She bid me come and fetch you when her audience with the king was over.”

  “Oh.” Relief spread through him. “Did he agree to a meeting time?”

  “Yes.” Eglestonith bowed lower, wings and tail twitching. “Now.”

  “Now?”

  “We’re particularly pressed for time, Highness, so we’d best be off.”

  Jathen climbed aboard Eglestonith, ignoring Skaniss’s comment of “Oh, the poor moot has to hitchhike.” Too flustered by the sudden turn of events to enjoy the rare flight, the short trip passed as a fast blur.

  “Thank Spirit,” Rhodonith proclaimed at their arrival on her balcony. “What took you?”

  “I had to wait for him to get out of Distillation,” Eglestonith said as Jathen dismounted. “Can’t disturb the isolation.”

  Blinking at the absurd suggestion of taking part in such an involved ritual penitence, Jathen started to object then realized, Skaniss… that worm! His revelation and annoyance must have shown in his face because Eglestonith rumbled, and both of his mother’s eye-ridges shot up under the rim of her diamond-studded golden circlet.

  She shook her head, amethyst earrings clinking against the net of peacock pearls binding her hair. “We’ll sort it out later. Jathen, there’s not enough time for you to change.” She pointed to the dressing alcove. “But I ordered an over-robe brought from your room. It’s semiformal, and I didn’t have time to have your crown delivered from the treasury safes. But we’re only meeting in Kyanith’s chambers, so it will have to do. Hurry.”

  Dressing, he tried to stay calm, but the thought of standing before Kyanith Monortith armed with almost no plan of what to say soon had his hands trembling so hard he couldn’t finish fastening the robe. His mother rescued him, her dark claws deftly moving up the line of amethyst buttons on yellow silk.

  Standing behind him, she met his gold eyes in the alcove’s mirror. “It will be all right. No matter the outcome, it will be all right in the end.” She hugged him. “You look handsome.”

  I looked better in another mirror today. “I look frazzled and dusty. But thank you.”

  “Frazzled describes both of us.” She clasped his shoulders and gave him a playful shake. “Let’s go rub it off on Uncle, hmm?”

  “Riiiiight,” he drawled.

  They were partway down the hall to the king’s chambers when Lord Bertran Larsenitiss dashed toward them in an unusual show of uncouth haste. Stopping short enough to maintain decorum, he bowed before the queen, managing a genial if breathy greeting. “Majesty. I made haste to inform you that His Highness has decided to hear you in the throne room in lieu of his private chambers.”

  “The throne room?” his mother asked. “Why?”

  The blue ribbons braided in his brown hair caught the light as Bertran bowed again. “Convenience of a tight schedule. His Majesty is not inclined to lose time in moving when he must receive others after you.”

  “He’s not budging because my son was late? We all know that excuse holds little weight, Bertran. Is it merely intimidation, or is he cultivating something more?” Even Jathen was surprised by his mother’s bluntness.

  To his credit, Bertrandith didn’t flinch. “Practicality of schedule was the only rationale offered to me in explanation, Highness. My apologies if the convenience of the king’s office inconveniences the queen.”

  “Very well then.” His mother sounded far less compliant than her words implied. “Lead the way.”

  The long, disconcerting walk took them all the way to the other side of the palace and into the heart of the municipal wing. A childish longing to wrap his mother’s comforting claws through his own fingers scampered through Jathen’s mind. He snuffed the image, knowing that would not shield him.

  Dragon sculptures flanked the throne room entrance, towering far above the Tazu sentries beneath, another venture of Kyanith’s ever-continuing renovations of the palace. Despite their freshly chiseled allure, Jathen moved past the artworks without a second glance, observing instead the same two guardsmen who’d snubbed him earlier in the week suddenly jumping to attention since his mother was by his side. He made a note to return later to examine the gilded wonders on his own time and to make certain he conceived of a way to subtly annoy those particular guardsmen while doing it.

  As they crossed the threshold, he fought the welling sense of cornered panic that the creaking bang of the colossal doors slamming behind them caused within his heart. Jathen was accustomed to the beat of his body when confronting the king, so the fear in his chest was not unexpected. The ember cooled as it always did in the presence of Kyanith. Fear replaced his anger, a shaking resonating through every pore and casting him down a narrow pit of tunneled black terror. All he was capable of was steadfast stoicism, as no tears could be shed, no wobbling of tone permitted. Kyanith would seize upon such breaches of decorum and confidence like a feral alpha-dragon pouncing on its prey, laying Jathen’s flaws bare as if they were entrails, so the rest of the court could smell the blood and share in the kill. Jathen had learned that lesson the hard way.

  Walking into the imposing marble and gold chamber along a lush, plum-colored carpet, Jathen could not tear his eyes away from the raised gilded dais surrounded by colored glass against the backdrop of a vaulted, three-story ceiling. The Tazu king received them as a tyrn, his huge silver body draped regally over the massive golden throne. The arch of his neck and his folded twelve-point wings were tense with potential energy. The effect was not lost on Jathen, who begrudgingly admitted how very ridiculous he would appear sitting in Kyanith’s place upon the throne. He recalled the twitching legs in Master Hatori’s workshop. The way an insect would look drowned by molten gold. Jathen bowed.

  His mother performed a modest curtsy. “Uncle.” She inclined her head. “Lord Bertran.” Then, she added curtly, “Nemon.”

  Nemon was the official stenographer of the Tazu court, and as the sleekly dressed human nodded his shaved head, Kyanith’s reasoning crystallized in Jathen’s mind. So that’s what he’s up to. He’s brought us to the formal throne room so every word could be recorded, any misstep the moot makes forever held as official. The act made him swell with anger, something that had never before occurred when he was in the king’s presence, his fear overriding all other emotions. Right. The old lizard is trying to get me to inadvertently give up my birthright.

  “I was under the impression,” his mother said tightly over the scratching of Nemon’s quill, “that this was an informal meeting among family.”

  “And I was under the impression the moot knew his place.” Kyanith’s voice sounded metallic, bouncing off the vaulted walls like clashing swords. “Yet here we are.”

  “Jathen Monortith’s place,” she replied, “is forever as my firstborn son and rightful heir to the king’s throne.” Her chin tilted up in much the same manner as Thee’s had when she’d challenged Skaniss. “Unless you wish to contest his legitimacy as my son with some legal proof?”

  Silence fell. Even Nemon’s quill hand froze in suspension as the two Monortith rulers waged a soundless battle.

  The king ended the stalemate. “You brought the boy to speak to me, so let him speak.”

  Caught unprepared, Jathen glanced uncertainly at his mother. She bobbed her head encouragingly.

  “Well?” Kyanith did not bother to mask his irritation. “Can you speak?”

  Fear and rage warred within Jathen’s head and chest, nearly blinding him with their incendiary attacks. “Majesty, I—” His throat snapped closed from raw fury.

  Like a clap of thunder from a silver raincloud, the king ordered, “Speak!”

  Anger was getting him nowhere. Hausmannith’s words surfaced in his mind. Timing is a d
eserving quality to hone. If you cannot beat them, and you cannot join them, then you might want to consider getting around them.

  Taking a deep breath and clearing his mind, Jathen changed strategies. “I am not my mother. I’m not going to appeal to your sense of faith, for I don’t know what Way it is, nor do I presume to interpret the finer points of it for you. I also do not presume to know what is better for this country than you, who have ruled it in peace and rebuilt it through tragedy, for hundreds of years before I was even born. I do not have that arrogance. I do not presume to think I can do as you have done and hold together a nation. I do not know. What I will entreat of you, however, is to allow me the time to find out.”

  “Time?” Kyanith raised an eye ridge. “You want time, boy? A hundred years would not be enough time to turn a moot into a king. You ran out of time the moment a proper heir was born, and I have no legal need to be saddled with you any longer.” He coughed, a deep phlegmy sound hinting at a chest cold.

  “Time is a two-edged sword, Uncle,” the queen said. “What happens if that tickle in the back of your throat grows into something dire? You are mortal, and all mortals die. Dolomith is barely a week old. Do you really think Jathen would be so much less preferable than a toddler king if we were faced with a civil upheaval?”

  “You’ve sung this song before, Rhodonith. It makes as little headway with me now as then. You’ll not scare me into a corner with my mortality so I’ll leave to a moot a throne even he admits he cannot hold.”

  “I admitted I don’t know.” The ember in Jathen’s chest truly sparked in Kyanith’s presence for the first time. “Not that I absolutely cannot.” The edges of his vision smeared red, and his throat was aflame as words he couldn’t fully control burst out. “Nemon can read it back to you, if you would like.” He barked an angry laugh at Kyanith’s discontented rumble as he saw the old dragon clearly for the first time. “Am I such a threat to you, great King, that you cannot give me a few years’ time—a drop in the bucket of your lifetime—to decide for myself who I can be? Is an insignificant moot that much a danger to you—who shall probably outlive me, probably never have to see the supposed disgrace of me upon your throne—that you must deny me even this tiny speck of time? I did not realize you were that spiteful.” Or that much a coward, he added mentally, not having quite enough gumption to say such a thing to Kyanith’s face.

  “You mistake the difference between spiteful and sensible,” the tyrn growled. “Time for what you are asking only delays the inevitable and leaves unwelcome questions amidst the court and my people. Time. Ha!” He swiped his wing through the air. “A foolish notion and a child’s gambit. You said a moment ago that you were not that arrogant. Well, I see arrogance and ignorance.”

  He leaned so close that Jathen felt the sour steam of his breath. “Your mother pleads to me again and again with ‘Who am I to decide who shall rule over who Spirit has seen fit be born to the line?’ Well, I shall tell you who I am: I am the king! The one also chosen by Spirit, who agreed to rule in this life and has ruled for all these years. It is my choice to decide who is worthy to rule my nation, my home. You are arrogant to think you can take this from me and an ignorant fool to think for one moment you can even imagine what it takes to master this throne.”

  “Then let it be your choice,” Jathen declared as Nemon’s quill scratched away. His mother started to protest, but he waved her to silence. “Give me the time—from the moment I leave until the moment I return—five years at most. When I return, I will tell you what I have decided. If it is the throne, which I do not guarantee, then let it be up to you. I only ask to be allowed to prove to you on your terms that I can do it. If you truly see in me the capacity to hold this nation despite my birth as a moot, then you do not deny me my birthright.”

  “And if not?”

  “If I return not wanting to rule, then I will step aside of my own accord. If I try to prove myself as a ruler and you find me failing in some way other than being a moot, then I shall adhere to your greater judgment and broader wisdom and step aside.” Jathen held his arms wide, feeling oddly giddy. “You can’t lose, Uncle.”

  “Convenient wording, boy.” The great silver head shook. “But my issue with you is your human skin and little else. Being a moot makes you unworthy and will always seal your fate. A flaw ‘other than being a moot’ makes this issue return to the beginning.”

  Jathen smirked. “Oh come now, Uncle. You think you can’t find a flaw to condemn me with other than a birth defect? If my human skin was the only failing you found so distasteful and unworthy of the throne, then you would have spent more time with me all these years merely for my company.” Jathen could not be certain of it, but he thought he heard his mother stifle a chuckle, perhaps Bertrandith or Nemon, too. Even Kyanith seemed to take a breath, the tip of his massive tail twitching a fraction in perhaps begrudging admittance or agitation.

  Jathen continued in a cooler tone. “I have made my job of proving myself no easier in asking that we place the moot issue aside. I only ask that you assess me honestly when I return and do not judge me on what I suspect is prejudice and not true judgment. I’m not so ignorant as to think being a moot will not be a consideration in your decision. I know I must overcome it in order to rule with it. I ask that you don’t toss me aside based only upon my face.”

  “You seek to prove you can overcome being a moot, enough to rule the Tazu Nation, by sheer personality?”

  “If I can prove it to you, Uncle, then I can prove it to anyone in court.” He laughed snidely. “And to that, I believe we both can agree.”

  Kyanith huffed, his bright eyes scanning Jathen with a touch less malice. “Why should I agree to this at all? I still have a Tazu heir.”

  “Because at the very least, if you don’t agree, you will have to deal with my mother fighting tooth and claw for me until the day you or I die. And if for some reason she weren’t around, Thee would pick up the mantle. At the very least, this will put an end to a nineteen-year-long battle.”

  He looked eagerly at the queen. “And you’d agree to this? To drop it if the boy doesn’t prove himself?”

  “So long as your terms are made in the spirit of fairness and honesty. You cannot limit him any more than he already is, Uncle.”

  Kyanith snorted, shifting his massive weight on the throne. “No telling the boy he has to tear apart an enemy with his bare claws as a true Tazu would? I’d have to give the little moot a sword?”

  She nodded. “And any derivative of such therein. If Jathen makes adjustments to overcome not being able to shift, then it’s up to him to show the full of how he has compensated.”

  “Fair enough. Though I doubt it will be enough to convince me. So you would agree as long as I am fair in testing him?”

  “This is Jathen’s idea and his choice. Upon fulfilling this deal between you two, I will have fulfilled my mother’s duty to him. Whatever’s decided, I shall abide.”

  Kyanith drummed his claws in a slow clicking rhythm on the arm of the golden throne. The sound reminded Jathen of the lost presence of his timepiece, the tick, tick, tick of the ebbing hour echoing in his pounding chest.

  “Very well then,” the king eventually said. “You have your time, boy. Five years.” Massive wings flapped twice then folded neatly against his silver-blue back. “I suggest you take the full amount of it.”

  Chapter 8

  The preparations began.

  Rhodonith wasted little time in ordering Jathen to fittings for a new travel wardrobe, meetings with the treasurer to discern how much he would need in monetary notes, as well as submitting him to Petalith for a full physical, all while Thee moped silently in the background. Jathen walked around in a kind of dazed shock for the first few days of being shuffled from appointment to appointment, completely bedazzled by the concept he was really, truly going.

  With Kyanit
h’s blessing.

  It caused a stir in the court. Comments like, “I didn’t think the moot had it in him,” or “Kyanith finally got rid of him,” swirled in the corridors. Normally, Jathen would have boiled over such scathing barbs, but being caught up in the whirl of activity made him absentminded to the point of absurdity. He even forgot to tell Master Hatori of the ruling for three full days.

  When he gathered the wherewithal to visit on the fourth afternoon, a blue body nearly collided with him just outside the shop. He barely slid to the side in time to avoid the slight Tazu bolting out the door.

  “Hey, watch it,” Jathen said, only to be confronted with a set of quaking pretty eyes. “Oh, hello. Sorry about that. Serendibiss, right?”

  “Yes.” Hiding her face behind her blond hair, she trembled, maybe crying. A familiarly wrapped package was clutched tightly to her chest.

  “Oh, don’t be upset. Master Hatori yells at everyone, even customers.” Jathen chuckled. “You should see how he is to me, and he likes me.”

  “I know. I have to go.” She scampered away before he could say anything else.

  Inside, Jathen asked Jephue, “What on the continent did he do to her?”

  “A kindness, believe it or not.” The newly strawberry-blond man brushed long bangs out of his eyes with an ostentatiously ruffled sleeve. Not looking up from the parcel he was wrapping, he jerked his chin at the workshop door. “He’s in the back.”

  Hatori took the news quite well, even though Jathen was fairly certain he had already heard, given the gushing narrative of listed tasks he began spewing. “Ah, there is so much to do, then! You need to be taught Lu’shun, and I know you could use some polish on your Tar’cil accent. Jephue will help you there. Not to mention simple tasks for the road. Jeph and I are quite accustomed to doing for ourselves, but you’re going to have to learn more self-sufficiency, boy. There won’t be servants about to pick up your slack.”