Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5) (32 page)

“Well, gods, father, how many new recruits did you bring in to make this happen?” Terian asked. “A five-fold increase in the size of the army?”

“We pulled from the Saekaj militia first,” Amenon said, “then from the nobles of Saekaj as well as the existing enlisted men to help form the officer corps. Once we had the bones in place, we expanded enlistments in Sovar. Where before they had been capped, we … loosened things somewhat. Took a few men from the Depths.”

No wonder your army had a problem
, Terian thought, watching his father warily.
You’ve sifted down to the dregs, thrown them into the field and found them … wanting.

“Lord Amenon!” Terian turned to see a man approaching on the back of vek’tag. He watched with surprise—vek’tag were normally used for pulling wagons, not carrying a single passenger. The spider moved quickly and surely, and the rider seemed to have a good grip on the beast. “I bring a message from Saekaj.”

Terian turned to look at his father. His mouth was open and his tongue was pushing at the side of his cheek as though it were about to burst out, as though he were putting all his unspent fury into it. “Very well,” Amenon’s reply came hushed. “Deliver your message.”

The man on the vek’tag slid off the side, keeping his grip on the reins. He wore silk clothing, and when his boots splashed into the water Terian knew they soaked through. “I bring a message from the Sovereign, Lord Amenon. He requests and requires your presence and that of your heir at the Grand Palace of Saekaj immediately.”

Chapter 47

The Grand Palace of Saekaj was carved out of the farthest wall of the cavern, fine stone work covered in gold and lit with braziers and torches to project light upon its surface. Terian had heard countless people over the years whisper about the Sovereign’s hypocrisy for making his palace a beacon of light, but so far as he knew, no one had ever whispered a word of it to Yartraak’s face.

The carriage rattled as they moved under the portico. The cavern was still seeping, droplets of water falling from above. Terian stepped out onto the cobblestones fired in the kilns of craftsmen and laid end to end to make proper roads in Saekaj. The cave’s dank smell was nearly unnoticeable here, replaced instead by the scent of incense burning from the braziers. Terian wondered if the Sovereign had ordered the expensive oils burned, or if that was something Shrawn had begun in his absence.

Terian glanced at his father. Amenon’s shoulders were slumped as he got out of the carriage, but he straightened his back and raised his head as he stood under the portico. He appeared to be composing himself, preparing for whatever was coming. He did not so much as look at Terian as he stared at the intricately carved doors to the palace. They swept slowly open, pulled by unseen servants as Terian stood with his father staring into the open door.

This can’t be as bad as he thinks. The loss of face in front of the Sovereign concerns him more than it would anyone else.

On the other hand, he didn’t get into the number two manor in Saekaj without taking things like this into consideration.

“Come along,” Amenon said, starting his walk at a fast clip. His legs moved swiftly, and as they entered the palace the smell of the air changed: still incense, but something far different—a deeper aroma now, something that caused Terian’s nose to curl.
I don’t remember that being here before.

“This way.” A servant stepped into their path, a broad-shouldered, expressionless dark elf with white hair and blank eyes. He made a motion with his hand gesturing them onward then began to move into a hallway to the right of the foyer. Everything was covered in deep, rich woods, lit by lamps that flickered with more illumination than was common even for the streets of Saekaj.

Terian followed his father, who followed the Sovereign’s servant. They entered an antechamber that Terian vaguely remembered from some ceremony or another he had attended in his youth.
The Sovereign’s throne room lies beyond.
He stared at the wooden double doors, carved in a style that would not have looked out of place in Sanctuary. He drew a sharp breath at the thought of Sanctuary.
This is not the time to be thinking about that place.

The doors cracked open, and once again unseen servants pulled them wide for Terian and his father to enter. A long, sweeping room lay beyond. It stretched like the Great Hall of Sanctuary, and Terian cursed himself again for thinking of the old guildhall. Sconces held metal lanterns on either side of the wall, but they burned darker than the other lights, as though they were burning on the last of the wick.

The room’s floor was all wooden, opulence stretching as far as Terian’s eye could see. The walls were paneled as well, and the blatant show of wealth made Terian think of the throne room as possibly the largest dance floor he had ever seen. That thought forced him to stifle a smile, keeping his lips in straight, unmoving lines, though he felt one corner of his mouth quirk upward.

“Good of you to join us,” the Sovereign’s voice rasped from the throne at the far end of the room. It was massive, carved out of grains of wood both light and dark, mingled together in a stunning display of craftsmanship that would not have been out of place in shops of the finest Reikonosian artisans. Here, in Saekaj, it was unparalleled.

“My Sovereign commands and I leap to obey,” Amenon said, sweeping low in a bow as he continued to cross the distance toward the throne. The room was easily several hundred feet long, and even at their quick pace, Terian and his father were still a great distance from the throne.

Terian could see other shapes in the gloom around the throne. The Sovereign was not covered in darkness as he had been at the ball. Here he was only slightly shrouded in the dark, his figure showing upon the throne. He was nothing like the shape of a dark elf, nor an elf, nor a man—nor like anything Terian had ever seen. Long, thin legs of grey flesh stretched out from the bottom of the throne. His torso was angular and stretched to a thin middle, and bent at the center of the chest as though he had a second waist there. His long arms were almost stick-like, and three-fingered claws rested upon the arms of the throne. His head was shrouded in shadow, but the outline of horn-like protrusions around where Terian suspected a mouth might be were visible, and a third horn seemed to spring from the top of his head and swept forward, curving to match the other two.
He’d be a difficult bastard to kiss with those things protecting his face; I wonder how his harem handles it?

“You have not seen my true form before, Terian, son of Lepos?”

As they approached, Terian guessed the Sovereign was at least ten feet tall, if not taller.
Taller than Vaste.
“No, my Sovereign.” Terian bowed low. “I have only been in your presence when you were shrouded in darkness. I apologize if my eyes offend you by trying to glimpse your greatness—”
The bullshit just flows out of me when I’m in his presence. I wonder if I should worry about that.

“Curious eyes do not concern me,” the Sovereign said as he stood. His body moved in the
 
oddest ways, and Terian could not help but stare as he moved. “There are more troublesome matters at hand.” He moved his face into the light cast by a nearby lantern for but a second, and Terian caught an impression of ridged flesh, as though wrinkled but not by age. He recalled an elephant he had seen once in Reikonos, and remembered the grey skin that bore wrinkles as natural to it as blue pigment was to his own.

“I bring news of the suppression of the insurrectionists in the Back Deep,” Amenon said, clearing his own throat.
Is he nervous?
Terian wondered. It took only a second to answer his own question:
Who wouldn’t be?

“News has already reached us of the events in the Back Deep,” Yartraak said, stretching taller. Terian looked up, and then up some more. The Sovereign was much taller than ten feet; at least fifteen as he currently stood, and he seemed to be stretching before Terian’s eyes. He shot a look at his father, but Amenon remained silent, head bowed. “Not only was there an insurrection by civilians, but a squad of the Third Army has killed their officer and made their own revolt.”

“Yes, my Sovereign,” Amenon said.

The Sovereign waited, as though he were expecting Amenon to say something else. “So it is true? You do not deny it?”

“Why would I deny a truth to my Sovereign?” Amenon said, and Terian had never heard his father sound so lifeless. “Three Sovar rats joined our army and when their loyalty was tested, it failed like gnomish steel.”

The Sovereign stood before them, and in the shadows next to the throne, Terian saw movement. Dagonath Shrawn stepped out from behind the arm’s rest on the right, leaning on his staff and bearing a thin, satisfied smile.

“This is grim news indeed,” the Sovereign said. “Disloyalty in your army, Amenon?”

“It has happened, my Sovereign,” Amenon said. “That much is plain.”

“I’m sorry,” Terian said, feeling a certain amount of anger bubbling up within. “When was the last time you actually saw that army, Father?”

Amenon’s response was immediate, a blazing fire in his eyes as his head snapped around to look at Terian. The message was obvious:
Shut up!

Terian waited, looking back to the Sovereign, whose head was slightly cocked. Terian wondered if it was in curiosity. “Lord Amenon, that is a valid question.”

Amenon’s teeth gritted together so obviously that Terian could not miss them. “It has been … some months, my Sovereign. There are … many armies at this point. I make inspections of each as often as I am able.”

“Perhaps running the army is too great a responsibility for you,” Shrawn said, speaking at last.

Amenon did not answer, but Terian saw him fire a searing glance at Shrawn. “Perhaps it’s too great a responsibility for any one man,” Terian said, drawing Amenon’s look back to him. “Especially when we’re drawing our candidates from Sovar while you’re doing all you can to starve them out and foment insurrection in the lower chamber.”

There was a deadening silence that settled over the room as Terian realized the full weight of what he had said. His father wore a stricken, wide-eyed look and did not bother to turn to send Terian any message. “My Sovereign, forgive my son for his foolish and wagging tongue. He knows not what he says—”

“Is this true?” The Sovereign’s calm voice echoed in the throne room. “Is it true, son of Lepos, that you know not what you say?”

“I think the better question, my Sovereign,” Terian said, letting the anger boiling within him find its outlet in his calm, controlled words, “would be to ask Lord Shrawn why he went to great expense and effort to import a monster into the Great Sea that killed our fishermen and helped to starve the people of Sovar.”

There was another long silence. “Do you have any proof of any of these accusations?” Shrawn said, looking surprisingly cool.

“Of course not,” Terian said, with more confidence than he felt. “You are not so foolish as to leave alive anyone who could speak to the truth of that particular scheme.”

The Sovereign stood silently and then nodded. “Excellent.”

“Yes, I—” Terian started, then cut himself off. “I apologize, my Sovereign. I don’t think I quite take your meaning.”
Please, I hope I don’t take his meaning.
If he means what I think he’s saying, we’re screwed.

“I ordered Lord Shrawn’s actions,” the Sovereign said quietly. “I ordered him to cut production of mushrooms in the Depths, to find a way to slow the fishing of the Great Sea. The rats of Sovar are in need of culling, and our armies need strength. There was to be no way to trace his actions back to us.”

“Why?” Terian asked, focused on the tall shadow of the Sovereign’s figure. “Why not just do it and take credit?”

“Because,” Yartraak said, “the people must believe that I am working toward their ends. Insurrectionists will always be about, looking to blight our order with their chaos. But only a fool would give these malcontents true and just cause for their pathetic visions. They are a blight on our people that must be wiped out. This winnowing would help us to separate the weak from the strong and grow our strength by wedding the willing of Sovar to our cause. Desperation makes men willing, and this starvation has created more willing servants of your Sovereign than any ten years of normalcy could.”

Terian could feel his tongue flapping uselessly in his mouth, licking the back of his teeth.
This is truly monstrous.

And if I say one word in recognizance of that obvious fact, I will die.

To the hells with it.
He started to open his mouth. “I—”

“Obviously you operate with the greatest wisdom, my Sovereign,” Amenon said, cutting across Terian before he had a chance to speak his mind.
He’s just going to glaze over this whole thing
, Terian thought.
Just let it slip.
“To grow your strength while eliminating your enemies is wise indeed.”

Terian felt his face struggle to remain neutral, the sudden dread seeping in at the gut-level.
Say anything and I’m dead.
He caught a glance of warning from his father and let the disgust settle in his belly.
Fine. I’ll just eat it and deal with the indigestion of this later.

“It was a rather brilliant stratagem,” Yartraak said, “but I have a problem now. My most loyal army commander has professed that he is not up to the increased challenge I have handed him.”

Amenon straightened. “My Sovereign, it is not that I am not up to the challenge. I am willing to undertake any challenge you set before me—”

“I have set this one before you and you have failed it,” the Sovereign said. Terian could see his eyes moving behind the veil of shadow, hints of red glow lighting them in the darkness. “The numbers are too great for you to manage, to be able to keep closest watch upon without letting details of loyalty—something of utmost importance in my army—slip out of your sight. No,” he said slowly, “I think we have reached the threshold for your talents, my friend, and it is not in overseeing the entire army. I think a new candidate needs a chance to prove whether they are equal to the task you have failed at.”