The Sleeping King (3 page)

The old man held his hand out, and in his palm rested a large, ugly iron key. The Emperor reached for the key just as a small disturbance came from behind the throne.

Anton spied Princess Endellian, Maximillian's daughter and heir to the throne, slipping out from behind the giant stone flame carving. She was slender, almost waif-like, with long, dark hair that floated around her like a sable cloud. Her complexion was golden, her features vaguely elfish, with slanted, sultry eyes as black as her father's throne.

Maximillian's hand paused over the key.

Anton had to fight to tear his gaze away from the mysterious princess, forever caught in the bloom of young womanhood. He never made the mistake of underestimating the Emperor's offspring, though. She was fully as devious and brilliant as her sire, if not quite as powerful. It was likely her mental manipulations that made males unable to look away from her. Maximillian listened as she leaned down to whisper in his ear. Anton caught snatches of the exchange.

“… oracle glowed … spoke in a strange tongue … prophecy appears to be about you, Sire … cannot force it from her mind … neither of us can read her … need your permission to use the sands…”

The Emperor frowned. Without a word of explanation or apology to Anton, he stood and followed his daughter through the private doorway behind the throne.

*   *   *

Endellian led her father quickly down the undecorated stone hallway to the special room where the Emperor's personal oracles were housed, a plainly furnished but comfortable chamber. Her father's chief torturer had no need for racks or hot irons to extract information from his prisoners. It was all much more civilized—and effective—than traditional blood, gore, and screaming.

Magically suspended in midair, this oracle was an aged woman who had lasted much longer than the majority of her kind. Normally, her interrogator did not have to resort to such measures to get her to talk. The Crone, as she was known, generally had no compunction compared to previous Children of Fate about giving up her visions. Perchance, the cynicism that came with age had helped her grasp quickly and well that resistance was pointless. Which was why, when the seer refused to give up her prophecy tonight no matter what persuasion or coercion Laernan tried, Endellian had fetched her father.

Lord High Inquisitor Laernan Zaphre, the Emperor's personal interrogator and her half brother by way of their shared mother, reported briefly, “The Crone was speaking of Haelos before she abruptly refused to continue.”

Endellian studied her father's torturer carefully. Layers of nuance danced in his words. An interesting man, Laernan. Handsome, of early middle age, he had stolid features, a sturdy build. Everything about him announced his dependability. He was the kind of man soldiers wanted at their back.

She stared into his wise, intelligent eyes and noted that their habitual sadness was more guarded than usual tonight. His special talent was to see into the minds of prophets. His father, the Sand Pharaoh of Kufu, was a Master of Time Magic. High Perceptor Iolanthe, their shared mother, was the sage council to Emperors of Koth. Together, his parents had passed Laernan an ability to look into prophets' minds and see through the cracks in Time along with the seers. Whereas her father could brute-force his way past obstacles any mind placed before him, Laernan's gift was one part surgery and one part subtle art.

If Laernan was alarmed by the things the oracle had been seeing and saying, Endellian, in turn, was alarmed. It took a great deal to perturb steady, unflappable Laernan. How on Urth had the oracle managed to sever his connection to her visions?

“The north seems to be much on my seers' minds of late,” Maximillian commented.

Endellian had not paid much attention to the newly discovered continent since Ammertus led an army to it and broke the Council of Beasts. He did not manage to kill any of the Great Beasts, but he had captured a few animal lords before requiring rescue by her father's personal legion, the Dark Amphere. The few who knew of it considered the expedition a failure. Not only had Ammertus failed to subdue the continent; but his near defeat had required Maximillian to unleash the third forgetting, and furthermore, forced Koth to begin its campaign for Haelos anew.

Her father stepped near the oracle, who struggled fruitlessly against the magic gripping her as he approached.

“Tell me what you see.” Her father's command was accompanied by a burst of mental power designed to force the old woman's thoughts into her conscious mind where Maximillian could read them.

Endellian watched the suspended Child of Fate carefully. As the prisoner's unwilling eyes glazed with other vision, Endellian sought the source of this glimpse beyond the fracture in Time the seer peered through. But even as Endellian tried to trace the link, it slipped away from her.

“Ahh. There it is,” the old woman sighed.

“Tell me,” Maximillian demanded more dismissively than Endellian would have. Something in the prophet's voice disturbed her. She sensed a seed of danger germinating.

“So powerful…,” the seer's voice trailed off, then rose again in disbelief, “No. Truly? Is it possible?” The Crone's staring eyes widened in something wavering between wonder and awe as she watched the vision unfold in the landscape of her mind.

Abruptly she laughed, a hyena's cackling howl that made everyone in the room jump. And then she lurched within her restraints as if a bolt of lightning had struck her. She blinked and looked around the chamber. For all the world, it looked as if the oracle had been ejected from her vision. Endellian frowned, relieved that she had summoned her father.

The Crone announced to Maximillian, “The Mistress has reminded me of who I am. Shown me that hope is not lost. Resistance is not meaningless.” Her voice gained strength. “I will
not
give this vision to you, Maximillian of Koth. This is not the end of me. It is the end of you.”

Shock rolled through Endellian—a sensation she could not recall the last time she experienced.
No one
spoke thus to the Emperor.

Maximillian stepped forward and grasped the Crone's throat. “Show it to me,” he ordered coldly.

“I will not … give … it … up.” The words sounded ripped from the oracle's throat, as if her vocal cords were slowly being torn free of their moorings.

And then she shouted, “Unto the last, I shall resist thee, Usurper of All! You shall not have this final vision. Die blind, Murderer of Hope, never knowing what struck you and from whence—”

Her screamed curse cut off with a strangled cry, her body abruptly limp. Lifeless. The magics holding her aloft collapsed, and the Emperor cast her corpse down in disgust, a broken and useless toy.

“Shall I revive her, Your Resplendent Majesty?” Laernan asked emotionlessly.

Maximillian shook his head, staring thoughtfully at the body lying twisted at his feet. “It was not I who ended her life. The vision itself killed her and consumed her spirit in the process. Neither your skills, nor even mine, will bring her back. Her spirit is no more.”

Endellian's jaw sagged. A vision so powerful it destroyed the seer who looked upon it? A prophecy that protected itself from the Sight of the Emperor? What strange magic was this?

The Emperor ordered no one in particular, “Clean that up. And bring me another oracle. The weakest one you've got. I shall have this prophecy. Now.”

*   *   *

Gabrielle Aquilla, the young Queen of Haraland, smiled carefully as gossip erupted around her. Why the interruption in naming a new governor? What crisis called the Emperor himself from his throne?

Privately, she considered Anton Constantine an extremely poor choice for the job. Whispered rumors had swirled around him for as long as she'd been at court of graft, bribery, and excesses of the worst possible kind. Even the Imperial guilds were said to despise him, and they were renowned for their corruption.

Her own astute and experienced husband had been mentioned as a possible candidate to become the first governor of the new colony. It wasn't that Regalo Aquilla was a thorn in the Emperor's side. Quite the opposite. If anything, Regalo was too popular and successful a ruler in his kingdom not far from the Imperial Seat.

Haraland, one of the largest and most prosperous of the hundred kingdoms of Koth, was blessed with a mild climate, fertile valleys, ocean access, rich mines, and thick forests. Not to mention a contented populace. More than enough to draw Maximillian's suspicion.

Realizing the deadly turn of her thoughts, she hastily shifted her attention back to Anton fidgeting before the throne. Her impression of him was of a slimy social climber at best and a vicious whoreson at worst. She felt a frisson of sorrow for the colonists who were about to inherit him and his insatiable appetite for wealth and power.

“If you will excuse me, my dear,” Regalo murmured at her elbow, “I have business to attend to. Sir Darius, if you would escort my lady wife in my absence?”

“It would be my honor, my lord.” Her husband's knight bowed courteously and took up a position at her side.

An automatic smile upon her face, she spied an old childhood friend who was also another young newcomer to court, wife of the ambassador from the Heartland to the Imperial Seat. The Heartland was the only known source of Heartstones, the magical stones that allowed dead spirits to return from the Spirit Realm to the land of the living. A massive organization of healers had sprung up around the use of the stones over the millennia, and its headquarters were in the Heartland as well.

“Come, Darius. Let us give our greetings to Lady Stasiana and help her feel welcome.”

Exotic and expensive colognes warred with one another all around her, and Gabrielle felt her breath grow short as she was forced to inhale the cocktail of fumes. She wended her way slowly across the ballroom praying all the while for the imaginary iron band that tightened around her chest from time to time to stay away tonight.

Some high functionary, mayhap one of the archdukes, must have signaled a dance, for abruptly the center of the floor cleared. The crush around the margins of the room became even worse. Her breath began to come in wheezing gasps. Air. She needed air.

Blessedly, Gabrielle spied a small opening in the press of bodies and slipped through it. Of a sudden the ambassador's wife was only a few feet away, looking as bewildered as she had when she first arrived in the capital.

“Well met, Madame Ambassador,” Gabrielle said warmly.

“Gabrielle! I was hoping you would be here to guide me through this madness.”

“Welcome to court, Sasha.” They traded kisses on both cheeks as was the current court custom, followed by affectionate hugs.

“Is that your servant trying to dance his way through the crowd?”

Gabrielle glanced over her shoulder and laughed as Darius frantically dodged dancing couples in an effort to rejoin her. “That's Sir Darius, my ever-faithful watchdog,” she replied fondly.

“This crush is terrible, and I confess, I am still afeared of crowds,” Lady Sasha murmured.

For her part, Gabrielle desperately needed to sit down and loosen her stays until her breathing returned to a semblance of normal. She glanced around. “Let us retire to an alcove. There is one just over there with its curtain open.”

“I do not have sufficient rank to use one,” Sasha murmured in alarm.

“You are the wife of an important ambassador now, Sash. You'll be fine. And besides, I'm a queen.”

They giggled for a moment like the schoolgirls they had once been and, ducking Sir Darius again, made their way to an arched opening leading to one of many small chambers adjoining the golden hall. Ostensibly, high-ranking nobles were invited to rest and refresh themselves in them. But in point of fact, conspiracies and romantic trysts were the stuff and fare of these private niches. The two women climbed the steps to an alcove whose curtains hung open and paused for a moment to look out across the swirling kaleidoscope of dancers.

“Come,” Sasha murmured. “Your breathing does not sound good. The old affliction has flared up again?”

“Aye,” Gabrielle sighed. “It does not like the stress … and perfumes … of court.”

They ducked into the dim alcove.

“Well now,” a male voice said from within the alcove's deepest shadows. “What manner of peacocks do we have here?”

Gabrielle flinched at the power vibrating through the voice. A Kothite lord. And she knew this one—or of him, at any rate. Tyviden Starfire, son of Archduke Ammertus and of the Corona of the Shattered Isles. A Dread High Lord by virtue of his father's well-earned honorific, “Dread,” Tyviden was no one to trifle with.

Starfire and her husband had crossed swords with each other a few years back. Ammertus had been ordered by the Emperor to increase production of Black Ships, and in turn, Ammertus had sent his son, Starfire, to Haraland and Quantaine to increase the harvesting and preparation of the rare and magical ironwood from which the ships were built. Tyviden had promptly provoked the Forester's Guild and shipbuilders so badly that all ironwood and Black Ship production had been seriously threatened and even temporarily ceased.

Regalo had stepped in and smoothed everything over, not only restoring but also increasing production. Tyviden's anticipated glory at court had been quietly stolen by Regalo, and Starfire had not forgiven her husband for it. It was never a good thing to thwart an Imperial noble. Sooner or later, they always got even. And given Kothites' indefinite life spans, they could be extremely patient in taking their revenge.

The iron band around her chest tightened even more as her anxiety climbed. “My apologies, Dread High Lord Starfire,” she said carefully. “We did not see that this chamber was occupied. We shall leave you to your rest.”

“Nay. The floor is crowded with simpletons and sycophants. Ladies such as yourself should enjoy better. Join me.” Starfire added, “I insist.”