Trickster's Choice (40 page)

Imajane glanced at the captain of the guards. “The servants fled as well?” The captain bowed. “Find them and the healer,” Imajane ordered in a crisp, elegant voice. “Search wherever you must.” She looked at her husband. “My dear?”

“All things seem plain enough.” Rubinyan spoke firmly in measured, deliberate tones.

Aly shook her head in pity for Hazarin. Except for Dunevon, these people were his only family, and they obviously didn’t sorrow over his senseless death. “We must ensure that the servants do not gossip,” Rubinyan continued. “Until we can make certain that the change of rulership is complete. Dunevon must be crowned as soon as possible. We need the Mithran High Priest. He can do it quickly now, and we can stage a ceremony with all manner of pomp later.”

“Certainly Your Highnesses can and must crown the new king before all else,” said the healer, drawing a sheet over Hazarin’s face. “But it is well past dawn. There has been too much coming and going here. By noon the whole city will know the king is dead.” He flung the terrace curtains wide and yelped, staggering back, eyes wide with terror. “Who needs servants to bugle the news?” he cried, pointing.

Imajane and Rubinyan moved forward to see what had frightened the man. Stormwings perched on the terrace rail, males and females alike, their bare, human chests streaked with filth and caked with dark fluids, their steel wings and claws gleaming in the early-morning sun. They grinned broadly, steel teeth glinting, and spread their wings, sending darts of reflected sunlight and an unspeakable smell into the room.

“Got something for us?” one of them asked. “Dead kings always mean trouble, fighting in the streets, with plenty of hate and dead bodies. A meal for us.”

“Not today,” Rubinyan said firmly. “Order will be preserved.” He yanked the drapes shut.

“You’ve trouble at your backs, mortal, and you’re too full of yourself to notice!” shrieked a female, her voice cutting through the heavy brocade drapes. “If I were you, I’d watch for the Trickster’s choice!”

Aly looked at Kyprioth. “Do they mean me, or just the changes you’re setting in motion?”

“They’re Stormwings,” replied Kyprioth evenly. “They’re just stirring things up.”

Aly raised an eyebrow. “Somehow I don’t believe you.”

Kyprioth shrugged. “And that hurts me,” he said in a blithe tone. “You have no idea how much that hurts me.”

Time passed. The Mithran High Priest and his acolytes hurried to the palace. There, in the throne room, Aly and Kyprioth looked on as the three-year-old Dunevon was prompted through a brief coronation. Aly felt bad for the little boy, who was just Elsren’s age. Dunevon looked thoroughly terrified. He obeyed Imajane’s orders, acting his part like a trained pony in front of as many nobles and guild leaders as his regents could find. At last he sat perched on the immense teak throne that dwarfed him, a small, pearl-bedecked crown on his dark curls. On his right, his half sister and regent, Imajane, held Dunevon’s diamond-crowned scepter. On his left, his co-regent, Rubinyan, held a pillow with the bared sword of the king’s justice on it.

Bronau stood in the third rank of the nobles before the dais. He was unhappy, the look in his eyes murderous as he stared first at Imajane, then his brother. This was not the laughing, charming man who had spent so many days with the Balitangs. Looking at him now, Aly saw him as a volcano on the edge of explosion. Imajane and Rubinyan saw it, too. Their eyes continually flicked to Bronau throughout the proceedings.

Once the last hymns were sung, Imajane stepped forward. “We have a new king, to ensure our safety as we take our beloved former king to his resting place,” she proclaimed, her voice ringing through the stone hall. “Now must His Majesty, and his subjects, give way to the condition of mourning, in honor of our beloved Hazarin, and to cleanse our souls of sorrow.”

Imajane beckoned the Black God’s High Priest forward from the first rank of notables. It would be his duty to see to Hazarin’s burial. As he stood before the dais and proclaimed the order of the funeral rites, Aly turned to Kyprioth. “It just occurred to me: if it’s afternoon here, it’s afternoon in Lombyn. I have to get back, before they bury
me.
”

“They won’t,” Kyprioth said blithely. “Ochobu won’t let them. Just enjoy the performance. How many royal funerals have you been to?”

“Why keep me dawdling?” inquired Aly at her most patient. “The Balitangs should know they have a new king, again.”

“There are a few more things you should see,” Kyprioth replied. “We’ll just wait.”

“I don’t
want
to wait,” Aly said firmly. “I need to get back. If something happens to any of the Balitang children while I’m kept here, our wager is finished. You can’t say I lost if something happens to them when you have me a whole country away.”

“Nothing will happen. The wager stands,” Kyprioth told her.

“I’m
bored,
” she informed him. “I bore easily. I do
not
wish to loll about here while everyone talks and eats and does whatever other silly things these luarin pests do for fun.”

“There, at least, I can help you,” Kyprioth said. He raised a glowing arm and wrote a sign in the air. Shadows wrapped around her.

She drifted for some time. At one point she thought she was waking up inside her own body. She heard Ochobu say firmly, “I can do nothing here.”

“No more should you.” Aly struggled to open her eyes: that was Nawat’s voice. What was he doing in Inti, where she had gone to sleep? He had stayed at Tanair that day. “The god has her fast,” the crow-man continued. “He will give her up when he is done with her.” Into Aly’s ear he whispered, “If he does not give you back, my flock and our kinfolk will make him suffer.”

Aly struggled to reassure him, and to say his breath didn’t smell of bugs in the least. In the end, the darkness in which she floated pulled her back into its depths.

Finally her awareness returned. Now she was standing in a luxurious child’s room. Expensive gilded and painted toys lay on the floor. A pair of hounds barely out of puppyhood wrestled for control of a silk table runner. Dunevon, clad all in black velvet, giggled and clapped his hands as he watched. Half-eaten marzipan fruits, candied violets, and raisins lay scattered on the rug around the boy.

Aly didn’t like that. From her own experience with Elsren and Petranne, she knew it was bad to give a child so many sweets. Didn’t the little king have a nursemaid, someone to look after him properly? Aly thought very little of those who dressed a little boy in expensive velvets, then left him to play on the floor. She looked around for the god, but Kyprioth was nowhere in view.

Wood creaked. A tapestry bulged. Someone pushed it aside to enter the room: Bronau. He was holding a wooden marionette in one hand.

“Uncle Bronau!” cried Dunevon, running to him. “How did you come in? Was it magic?”

“No, just a secret door,” Bronau replied, catching the boy king up in one arm. “It’s
our
secret now.” He jiggled the marionette invitingly for the child. “I told you I would bring you a present. I wanted it to be a surprise, just between us. Is Your Majesty pleased?”

“I’m not a majesty,” replied the king, pouting. For a moment he looked much like his dead half brother. “Hazarin’s a majesty. I’m a highness. I keep telling them, and they keep doing it wrong.”

Bronau chuckled, that rich, seductive sound he had so often lavished on Sarai. “Don’t you see, Hazarin had to go away. Before he left, he made you a majesty,” he explained. He looked around nervously.

Aly didn’t like Bronau’s manner. His charming mask often slipped, to reveal tension-bright eyes and tight jaw muscles. He was up to no good.

“Where’s your cloak, Dunevon?” he asked.

The boy pointed to a clothes press. “But it’s summer. I don’t need a cloak in summer.”

“We’re going sailing,” Bronau told him, offering the child his best smile. “I have a wonderful ship waiting in the harbor.”

“Sailing?” asked the boy, clearly delighted. “Can we go see the howler monkeys at home and winged horses and maybe a kraken?”

Bronau crossed the room, still holding the boy. “I’d prefer to avoid the kraken, Your Majesty,” he said, fumbling one-handed to open the press. “But there will be monkeys, even merpeople. Perhaps, if you’re very good, a herd of winged horses. There’s one on Imahyn Isle, did you know that?” He scrabbled through layers of clothes until he produced the cloak. Once the press was shut, Bronau stood Dunevon on it and put the cloak over the child’s shoulders, tying it securely.

“Can’t we go in the morning?” asked Dunevon. “This cloak’s
hot
.”

Bronau chuckled without humor. “Actually, sire, it must be now. Uncle Rubinyan and Aunt Imajane want to send me to Carthak. If I go there, I’d never see my favorite little king again. I’d rather take you sailing now.” He raised Dunevon’s hood and tightened it until the child’s face was barely visible.

“But it’s too
hot,
” complained the boy, flailing under the garment’s heavy folds. “I don’t need a cloak. I don’t want to go sailing now. Aunt Imajane promised I could have jugglers if I ate all my supper.”

“Well, I have supper waiting on the boat,” said Bronau, picking the boy up once more. “We’ll find you jugglers even if you don’t eat your supper. Dunevon, just hold still and do as you’re bid!”

“I don’t want to!” wailed the boy, his eyes filling with tears. “I want jugglers now, and my belly hurts!”

Bronau clapped a hand over Dunevon’s mouth. “That’s not all that will hurt if you don’t be quiet!” he snapped.

The two dogs had stopped their play when Bronau came in. Dunevon’s greeting had told them this was no stranger, but their manner changed the moment he began to cry. They barked shrilly, advancing as their young master fought Bronau’s grip. Suddenly Dunevon shuddered with the effect of too many sweets on a young stomach. He vomited into the hand Bronau held over his mouth.

The man reacted just as Aly would have done: he swore and dropped Dunevon, holding his drenched hand out. “You disgusting little brat!” he cried, trying to clean himself on a tapestry. “You did that on purpose!”

Dunevon ran across the room, screaming as he wept. The door burst open, revealing a handful of guards. Beyond them Aly saw a bottle of wine and a pair of dice on the floor, explaining why they hadn’t checked on their king until now.

“Halt in the king’s name!” cried one of them, fighting to get clear of his fellows so he could draw his sword.

“Halt!” yelled another guard.

Bronau looked at Dunevon. The boy was out of his reach now. The guards planted themselves between him and his quarry. He started to draw his sword, reconsidered, then fled through the secret door. The guards poured after him, leaving the sick king to scream alone.

“Is he mad?” whispered Aly. “He just tried to kidnap the king!”

“Not mad, necessarily.” Kyprioth’s glowing form materialized beside Aly. “Hungry for power, which Imajane and Rubinyan will never give him. If he can’t get it here, he will try to find it elsewhere. Those who search for him will bring power in their train, power they will bring to bear on anyone who tries to help Bronau. So, now, Aly of Tortall. We come to the days when you shall win or lose our wager—”

He stopped abruptly as two bright forms appeared before them, shining so fiercely that Aly shaded her eyes. They solidified until she could tell that they were male and female, and make out their features. The man, black-skinned and powerfully built, a crown like the rays of the sun blazing on his head, wore gold armor and carried a spear. The woman was bare-breasted in the style of the priestesses of old Ekallatum, with a bell-like skirt hanging from its bodice. The crown atop her tumble of dark, wavy locks blazed silver like the moon. Immense snakes twined around her bare arms.

“Brother, what is it that you do here?” they demanded, their attention on Kyprioth. Aly clapped her hands over her mouth to prevent herself from screaming. The divine voices and presences tore through her ghostlike body, shredding her like ancient silk.

Mithros—he could only be Mithros, Aly knew—added, “We left you the seas that cradle this place, and the seas alone.” His voice rolled like horses at the stampede, hammering Aly’s ears. Daggers of pain thrust into her skull as she fought to keep from fainting.

“We have been occupied with affairs on the other side of this world. Now we return to find you in the Rajmuat palace, which is no part of the sea.” Aly’s mother had described the Goddess’s voice as the belling of hounds and the bugle of hunting horns. To Aly it was more like the shriek of triumphant eagles and the slow, whispering glide of snakes on rock. Her knees wanted to give way,
demanding
that she kneel. She would not do it. It was one thing to kneel to the Black God, who would take her in hand one day. It was another to kneel to the pair who had done the raka such a terrible wrong when they supported the luarin conquest.

Aly fought. She trembled as she summoned all of her willpower to stay upright. They were gods, but
she
was not sworn to them. She would
not
collapse in a heap.

“Should brothers and sisters suspect wrongdoing at every turn?” asked Kyprioth. “Are you so unsure—”

Aly kicked him. Later, when she was herself again, she would question her sanity, and wonder how his glowing body felt the kick from her insubstantial leg. Right now she saw only that all three brilliant heads turned their attention to her.

She followed her instincts. She smiled, bowed deeply to the Great Goddess and Mithros, and said in a tone her father would know quite well, “Begging your pardons, O Great Gods, ruler of we mortals, but I ask that you forgive my father’s friend and patron.” Kyprioth
had
said he’d worked with her da, after all. Remembering to speak only the truth, she continued, “At present I am deeply interested in the politics in Rajmuat—
vitally
interested, I should say. If my time here is to be well spent, I should understand how things work. These Isles have long been a factor in Tortall’s politics—” She cut herself off carefully. She dared not play this too broadly, or they might suspect a rat. Humbly she continued, “What am I saying? You are the Great Gods. You know what there is here to know. Forgive me, I beg—I am flustered, standing before you. You divine brother Kyprioth is my father’s patron. He has been helping me to understand the Isles. Since I was stranded on Lombyn with the mortals I presently serve, Kyprioth generously gave me this chance to observe the change in kingship.” There, she thought, wondering if her insubstantial face was sweaty. I spoke only the truth.