Word of Truth

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Mahi didn’t bother with such pleasantries. She ate how she’d learned to among her father’s warriors. Bones and plates clattered against the blackwood table. After every bite, she glanced up at her future husband, only to find him still silently eating as well.

  “Your Grace, how are you enjoying it?” Lord Jolly asked Pi, rising from his table to come to the King’s side.

  “It is a welcomed change,” Pi replied. “I believe I’ve had all the roast pheasant I can stomach.”

  His voice was soft but stern. Deeper than expected, too. Mahi studied him in detail. When he spoke, he maintained constant eye contact with his conversation partner, no matter who it might be. That alone spoke volumes of the man. He wasn’t like Babrak or any of the other snakes with shifty eyes. She noted the way his lips rose at the corners as he momentarily allowed his gaze to freeze on her. It seemed genuine. Though, she imagined Liam smiled before he bent Sidar Rakun’s knee as well.

  “A little too spicy for my blood,” Jolly whispered, not realizing how the wind from the Sea Door and the domed ceiling made his words carry.

  “Northern pis’trudas,” Bit’rudam murmured from his seat behind her, clearly having heard as well.

  “What was that, my Lord?” Lord Jolly asked.

  “Nothing.” He then grumbled in Saitjuese with the others at his table, and they all laughed. None of it was pleasant.

  “Well, we are honored to be here, breaking bread together after all this fighting,” Lord Jolly said.

  “There is nothing so soft as bread here,” a former afhem said.

  Lord Jolly grinned and nodded. “An expression.”

  “Bread would make this tolerable,” the scarred Shieldsman called Sir Mulliner said under his breath, again not used to the acoustics of the room, designed so the Caleef could never mistake any words of his advisors, nor they, the Caleef’s. The voice of the God of Sand and Sea would not go unheard.

  “So, would cutting out your tongue,” Bit’rudam said in Saitjuese before biting a chunk out of a bellot fruit.

  Mulliner glared. Though he clearly couldn’t understand the language, the tone was unmistakable.

  “My Lady Caleef, we agreed to all speak in one language here,” Lord Jolly said, folding his one arm behind his back. The other empty sleeve flapped in the gentle breeze.

  “And why don’t you know ours?” another afhem at Mahi’s back spoke up.

  “I do,” Pi said in Saitjuese. “And you are correct. Without a tongue, he would taste nothing.”

  Mahi’s finger slipped and crunched through the shell of the mollusk she was preparing to eat. The young King spoke with an awful accent, but his pronunciation was near perfect. He didn’t bother looking up this time either. Just continued eating, as if nobody should be surprised.

  “Your Grace, your studies have proven fruitful,” Lord Jolly said, lighting up like a proud father watching his baby walk for the first time.

  “Lord Jolly, our hosts have provided a feast in our honor,” Pi said. “You should go and enjoy it.”

  “No,” Mahi said.

  Lord Jolly took one step and stopped. His face scrunched.

  “Everybody out except King Pi,” Mahi said.

  “My Lady Caleef, I meant no disrespect,” Jolly said.

  “Out!” she bellowed, pounding down on the table. A bit of boiling hot tea splashed onto her arm. It should have scalded her. Instead, she felt nothing.

  The Shesaitju group at her back stood immediately. Most began marching out of the room, whispering questions, but Bit’rudam stopped at her side and lay his hand upon her shoulder momentarily, before reeling it back.

  “My Caleef, is something wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing is wrong,” she said. “I simply gave an order.”

  Bit’rudam stuttered over a response, but she glanced back at him and offered an assuring nod. He straightened his back, exhaled, then ordered the Serpent Guards arranged around the circumference of the room to leave.

  “You heard her. Out,” Pi said, as his people continued to loiter around in confusion. Lord Jolly bowed, and Sir Mulliner stirred the rest up. His scowl never left Mahi until he stood in the outer courtyard.

  “You too, Your Eminence,” Pi addressed Dellbar.

  By then, the High Priest was flat on his back on the lowest level of the stands wrapping the circular room. He groaned as he stood, cracked his back, then shuffled toward the exit as if the world wasn’t in danger of being swallowed by an angry goddess. He stopped in the doorway and turned to them. His eyes didn’t work, but Mahi felt like he could see them. Judge them.

  “Everything we know rests on your shoulders,” he said. Then, he turned his face toward the ceiling. “I hope You know what You’re doing.”

  At that, he backed out of the room. The last thing Mahi saw outside before the great doors slammed shut was Bit’rudam staring at her. His shoulders sank, eyes bulged, and he chewed his lower lip.

  Fully alone now, Pi cleared his throat, pulled a folded handkerchief from his pocket, and flapped it until it unfurled. After a quaint smile, he dabbed at the corners of his mouth.

  Just like Glassmen. Always prepared to get fat, Mahi thought.

  Out loud, she said, “Is eating always such a fanciful affair with you?”

  “Growing up in a castle, you get used to doing things a certain way,” he replied. Then, refolding the cloth once, he paused and, instead, let it fall onto the table in a clump. Mahi watched closely, unable to tell if it was an act of genuine rebellion against his upbringing, or if he was merely trying to please her.

  “This is the furthest you’ve ever been from home, yes?” she said in common.

  “It is,” he admitted, showing no sense of shame in it. Then in Saitjuese, he said, “The books don’t compare. The way the light catches the black dunes, shimmering on the rare white grains. It’s beautiful.”

  “You speak well.”

  “I’ve had too many teachers in the years I can remember.”

  Mahi grunted in acknowledgement. She understood that. Farhan, Impili, her father—they were all dead now. Shavi too.

  She scoured the food arrangement for the perfect bite, then ran a finger through the bowl of root mash and brought it to her lips.

  “They said you were worthless,” she said, sucking the last bits off her fingertip.

  Pi’s brow furrowed. She expected to see anger. That word would elicit ire in most men. They’d explain how that’s what she was, a woman desperate to be a warrior. To be everything she wasn’t meant to be.

  He remained unequivocally calm as he said, “Excuse me?”

  Mahi leaned over the table on her elbows. “The rumors from our spies in the west. Yuri Darkings. My father. They said you were short, scrawny, worthless, and a pale reflection of your legendary father. You’re certainly one of those things, but not all.”

  A few seconds went by in silence, and then Pi grinned. “Worthless?”

  Mahi cracked a smile as well without intending to. He’d caught her off guard, something she knew a good warrior should never be. But all the things she’d heard about him… about how he’d been a mad child scribbling on walls, or that he was quiet and damaged. He didn’t seem any of it.

  “Scrawny,” she clarified. “Though, I expected you to look younger.”

  “And I thought you’d be older,” he retorted. “The way the soldiers you defeated speak of you, perhaps with fangs, too. But rumors were my mother’s obsession. I’ve learned to trust only what I can see.”

  “I appreciate that.” Mahi shifted in her seat. “I suppose I should’ve known better than to trust Yuri Darkings.” She leaned forward more, where the wind and rumble of waves through the Sea Door were unmistakable. “He pushed me through that opening, did you know that?”

  Pi shook his head.

  “No warning at all,” she continued.

  “’Once a traitor, always a traitor,’” Pi said, inflecting like the words weren’t his own. Impressed upon him by some gr
eat Lord or one of his countless advisors, perhaps even his father, Mahi imagined. And he didn’t seem to believe them, which only made her sit up straighter. That someone his age might seek to form his own opinions, she had to admit, it was impressive.

  “Did you know Yuri?” she asked.

  “Barely. I wasn’t allowed in Royal Council meetings until Father died and by then… I wasn’t myself for a long time.”

  “You were sick, weren’t you?”

  “There is no need to be coy. I was possessed by Nesilia and servant to Redstar’s blood magic. It’s all unclear after…”

  “You died,” she finished for him, deciding to take his advice and not be coy.

  Pi swallowed audibly and sank back in his chair as he nodded, eyes shut, and a palpable wave of discomfort crossing his features. It was the first time she’d seen him display any sort of weakness. She thought she’d revel in it; in an opening that would allow her to twist and flex her control.

  Possessed, she thought instead. Forced into something he’d never asked for or wanted. She understood that better than most.

  “What was it like?” Mahi asked.

  Again, she’d expected him to object to her intrusion or at least display the slightest hesitation. But instead, he answered softly. “Quiet. Dark. Empty.”

  “And your god brought you back?”

  “So, they say.”

  “As did mine.” She pointed back toward the Sea Door. “After Yuri pushed me, I fell, hit the water, met my God, and the one trying to kill us all. Then, I woke up on a beach looking like this.” She gestured to her body, skin black as pitch unlike shades of gray like the rest of her people.

  “I’m… sorry,” Pi said.

  “For what? Yuri came to us and we took in a traitor. And yet, here you and I sit—a King, resurrected by his god. A Queen brought back by hers. Each of us, the last of our respective bloodlines.”

  That seemed to get the young King to perk up. “All our parents’ fighting over whose god is the true god,” he said. “How can we say now? They’re either both powerful enough to bring us back from the dead or the same god by a different name.”

  “Your High Priest would choke if he heard you say that.”

  “He wouldn’t,” Pi said. “He’s… different. But Sir Unger might.”

  “Yet you believe it?”

  “I’m no warrior yet, and they don’t let me leave the castle much, but I’ve read many stories of history across Pantego. So many seem impossible, and yet, I see no reason why truth cannot be in all of them.”

  “Many of my own people think me a liar. They think my father fabricated all of this to make me Caleef.”

  “People like to doubt.”

  “Does this look fake?” Mahi lifted a knife from the table beside a bowl of fresh, yellow bellots. Without taking her eyes off Pi, she dragged it along her arm in a way that would scrape off paint or normal dried blood. She knew she shouldn’t show a potential enemy that she, the one chosen by the God of Sand and Sea to bear His power, could bleed. She did it anyway.

  Pi sat up, watching intently. He didn’t squirm at the sight of her fresh blood being drawn from her completely black skin. He only focused, like she did, on how, within the cut, there was no pink as there should’ve been. The dark coloration spread down through the layers of flesh. Part of her.

  “No, it does not,” he said.

  “At least you can remove a crown,” Mahi grumbled.

  At that, Pi lifted the Glass Crown off his head. He held it in front of his eyes, rotating it, so all the jewels cast light like a rainbow on the floor. Then, he dropped it unceremoniously onto the table.

  “Maybe it would be better if you couldn’t,” he said. “My father wore a different crown, not this one. The day he died, slumped over in his chair in the middle of a dinner quite like this, it rolled off his head. They say it was stolen. A story very few people know.”

  He was smart. Matching Mahi’s admission of weakness with one of his own.

  “Well, King Pi, as far as I’m concerned, it’s just jewelry,” she said. “A King, like an afhem, is only as worthy as the things he does. My father—“

  “Won many battles,” he interrupted. “Yet killed many innocents.”

  “As did your many commanders. The Wearer of White—the one chosen to represent the whole of your army… he burned down the very town where I grew up. Slaughtered everyone there to send a message to my father. I suppose he didn’t consider that my father was four days’ travel away, and there was not a single warrior present. I barely escaped with my life.”

  Pi frowned. “I’m glad you did, Caleef Mahraveh.”

  Mahi smiled at the use of her title. Another mark for the young Glass King. The arrogance of his predecessors would have kept them from putting themselves on equal ground, but apparently, not this one.

  “Mistakes are made in every war,” he continued, “on every side. My father made many while believing all people should think like him. I’m here because I want all fighting to stop, so we can work together.”

  “Two miracle children of legendary leaders joined as one.”

  “Exactly.”

  Mahi stood to her full, impressive height. Her midriff was exposed by her lacy gold dress with black shells strung along the trim. Her obsidian skin glowed a soft green from the nigh’jel lanterns hanging around the room. She skirted around the table, letting her fingers drag along its surface.

  “And so, we must marry,” she said, stopping right beside Pi. “I’ll be honest, I thought you’d be a rambling fool I could rollover. I thought this would be simple.”

  Pi stood as well. He rose only to the base of her chin, but he was younger by a few years and would likely pass her in height. And up close, she could see the slight muscles of his chest through the loose collar of his tunic. Maybe he wouldn’t be Liam the Conqueror, but he would be strong.

  “I thought many things, all of them wrong,” Pi said in near-perfect Saitjuese.

  Mahi took one step closer. “If I do this, and we defeat Nesilia, can I trust you not to betray my people? Not to force Iam upon them, or your people’s indulgent ways that have no place in our unforgiving desert.”

  “I’m not my father,” he said, not backing down. “Can I trust you not to rebel and burn villages? To know when talking might be more beneficial than the sword?”

  “I’m not mine,” she replied.

  “Then I would be honored to have you as Queen of the Glass. You need not love me or force yourself to try to. We need only work together.”

  “Then tomorrow, beneath the light of your god’s domain, and on the shores of mine, we will be made one.”

  Pi smiled as he took her hand. She thought he might try and kiss it, but he only held it for a moment, staring down before releasing it and sitting again. “Then we should eat.”

  “We should,” Mahi agreed. She stared into his eyes for a moment, only then realizing how blue they were—like the Boiling Waters on a clear day, all the many hues and shades of playing over and under each other.

  She started toward her seat. “And King Pi,” she said as she walked, not looking back. “If you keep your word, I do not believe love for you will be hard to muster.” She fell back into her seat, catching his slight smirk before it faded. Then, she clapped twice loudly.

  As if reading her mind, Serpent Guards promptly reopened the entry. Again, the face awaiting her was Bit’rudam’s, as if he hadn’t even moved. Sweeping in, his features lit up, which he hid by checking the room for any wrongdoing.

  Then came a man she’d never seen, but immediately recognized. The massive, Glintish Shieldsman who wore a blindfold, yet could see. The legendary warrior her father had faced off against and defeated, and yet, one of the few men to be there when Muskigo died.

  Pi’s calm composure slipped away when he, too, realized Torsten Unger had arrived.

  “Master Unger!” he exclaimed, pushing off the table so hard a goblet fell. Torsten placed a fist against his ch
est and bowed, and Pi embraced him, barely able to wrap his hands around the man’s broad torso.

  “Your Grace,” Torsten spoke, tracing his eyes in prayer to Iam. Then, he returned Pi’s embrace. While he did, his head lifted and the enchanted blindfold Tingur had warned Mahi about aimed straight at her. Immediately, she knew. Winning over the King was important, but winning over Torsten Unger was the key to the Glass Kingdom’s army.

  The Outcast

  Balonhearth.

  It had been far too long since Dwotratum “Tum Tum” Goodbrew laid eyes upon the majestic mountain. Far too long since he’d breathed in the frigid air of Brotlebir and the Dragon’s Tail.

  It was home. He was home.

  So why didn’t he feel like it?

  Perhaps, it was that for longer than any of his companions had been alive, Tum Tum had called Winde Port home, and he’d liked it. No, that wasn’t true, he’d loved it. Every second spent serving up ales and jesting with the locals at the Winder’s Dwarf—he was still proud of that name—had been pure joy. His heart had been heavy since that awful, fateful day when the fires of Elsewhere charred its walls, and the winds tore the place asunder. That’s not even mentioning the dastardly Black Sandsmen.

  But this… Balonhearth, the home of King Lorgit Cragrock, the ruler of Three Kingdoms, the seat of dwarven power in all the realm—this was where Tum Tum had popped out of his mum, beard already touching the floor, hand outstretched in search of an ale and a pickaxe.

  Then, when he was of age, his father did what all dwarven fathers had done, sending his son out on his Commute—a day all dwarves longed for and feared. It was rare that one of his kind left the halls of the Dragon’s Tail and didn’t return. Why would they? Within the stone of the mountains, they had all they’d ever need. Food, ale, gold, warmth, and the camaraderie of fellows.