The kheld king, p.23
The Kheld King, page 23
Asphalladra lifted her pretty chin. “Of course. It’s just that… I have heard not a word. If you have, please tell me. Is Nilla all right? Last I saw her, she was so quiet and pale, and no one will tell me anything.”
It seemed Asphalladra truly cared about Nilla, though her determination to fish for information raised suspicions. Spies abounded at royal courts. Emyli hated that she had become cynical. Stefan’s enemies were many, but surely did not include this young woman. Asphalladra had sacrificed her high position in Staubaun society the day she married Cullen.
Rampant suspicion was a poison Emyli’s father would have cautioned her to avoid.
“Let’s walk,” she said. Her guard followed, far behind so she might converse with her visitor. This secluded wharf, set on the other side of the Mount from the huge mercantile piers nearer the Rill’s massive elevators, was uncrowded and restricted to royal vessels. Directly facing them across the waterway was the Rillhome Palace, the former Sordaneon seat that Stefan had given over as offices and apartments for his ministers. Cullen and Asphalladra kept a sumptuous residence there.
“Nilla is doing well. Losing the baby was a great shock, of course, but she is young and strong and will recover fully. She is in seclusion, as she wishes, and is being tended by her mother and sisters.”
Understanding took root in Asphalladra’s gaze. “Oh, that makes such sense. I should have guessed.”
“She and Stefan wish privacy for now.”
“Yes, of course. I will stop asking. I have been wearing Cullen thin with questions.”
Emyli could imagine that scenario. “Spare your poor husband. Write Nilla a letter.”
“I have! And I have passed several personally to her other ladies in hope they would see them into Amallar. I don’t know if Nilla gets them and even if she does… she is not much of a reader, I know that. I used to read correspondence to her and books, as part of teaching her Stauba. She liked that. It’s just—” Asphalladra sighed. “I hope she knows I wish her well.”
Asphalladra’s frustration was clear. Emyli frowned. It was entirely possible Nilla had never received those letters. The notion that the queen’s Kheld-born ladies would not play the same manipulative political palace games as Staubaun women was ludicrous. Probably every one of Nilla’s ladies hoped to advance their husbands by making Cullen’s Staubaun wife look bad.
The air vibrated with mighty thrums to herald the Rill’s arrival. Such events happened constantly in Dazunor-Rannuli. Asphalladra’s eyes shone as she looked up at the arriving charys. The young woman’s Staubaun birth meant she could ride simply by paying the fee, but Stefan had warned Asphalladra that to do it too often, even to visit her sister currently in Simelon, would be taken as flaunting. Emyli had been at hand for that conversation.
It was time to depart, but Emyli wanted to leave on good terms. Asphalladra had impressed her.
“Write a letter to Nilla but disguise it as being to me. First line to me and every second line to her. If you send me a letter like that, I can see that she gets it.”
“I can do that. But how can you get it to her?”
Emyli smiled. “I know her mother. You’ll understand soon.” She turned so they might walk back toward the boarding point of her barge. “We mothers have our ways.”
Dorilian felt a brief flash of Levyathan’s distress, though no danger… and then nothing.
Midnight had passed by the time the escorts had found the Raudra’s stranded survivors—entirely too long in Dorilian’s estimation. He had boarded the ship Haeskos said was fastest, taking his men and Haeskos with him, leaving Tidus to bring the rest of the shipwrecked survivors to safety on the second ship. Undeterred by night, Dorilian had ordered the ship to sail hard.
In the cold gray of dawn, he found Ivernesse in a state of high alert and the Nereid Palace swarming with soldiers from the local garrison. Ilmar’s Bas met him at the pier to relate what had happened. The once serene dwelling resembled the aftermath of an invasion—or a conquest.
Dorilian walked marble floors splashed with blood from a skirmish none understood at all. The Bas and two ranking officers claimed at least three score of soldiers without identifiable uniforms had invaded the palace, slain any who resisted—armed or unarmed, household or guards—and searched the residence. Upon determining that the Heir and his guardians had fled, the invaders had vanished into the night. The port’s military commander and the man in charge of the palace’s dock had scant news to give.
“The vessel that brought the soldiers was Suddekan. That we know, Thrice Royal. Painted with the Basarchate’s colors. Flying the Suddekeon flag. We damaged the ship and drove it onto a bank not far upstream. Captured a few, but many escaped. We’re hunting them.”
“Suddekeon?” The Suddekeons were Dorilian’s own extended family. Deleus was his trusted cousin. Ermenthalia was Dorilian’s grandmother.
“Yes, sire. That’s how they slipped past. It was late, night and all; it looked to the guard here at the palace like they had been cleared. Turns out they slew every man on the patrol boat, then used it to escort them in.”
“But Prince Levyathan… and Tiflan Morevyen—”
“Were not here when the invasion happened, Thrice Royal. They had left on your ship two hours earlier, along with the women and the little girl. Took guards with them. Even took on extra crew.”
The schooner. How had they known to leave? And were they doing what Dorilian hoped—or something too terrible to contemplate? The Suddekeon vessel presented a treacherous turn.
“They sailed for Sordan?” Dorilian presented the conclusion he most wanted to believe.
“That’s what I think, Thrice Royal.”
Not learning what he most needed to find out, Dorilian clung to what he did know. Levyathan was not dead. He would have felt that. As for Tiflan… if Dorilian could not trust Tiflan, he could trust no one in this world. He had Legon with him. And Tutto. And Haeskos could be left in charge of the naval force. Ilmar’s Bas would hunt down the men who had invaded the palace.
Last night Dorilian had driven himself sick with fear—fear that the attack might extend beyond him, fear that he had failed to protect Levyathan and his family. This morning had revealed that the situation in Ilmar had moved beyond those fears. By whatever means they had known to do so, his loved ones had fled, leaving him with a new set of terrible possibilities. Nammuor was not the only monster in the world. Dorilian had experienced enough betrayals to know even people close to him could prove deadly.
Be wary, but beware. It is possible to see enemies for no reason other than fear has planted them. Marc Frederick had offered those words early in their relationship. Then, Dorilian had scorned the advice, though he had known it to be apt. His enemies worked in fear—planting it in fertile soil and harvesting results. To defeat fear, he must work from facts and pursue truth.
Sordan, then. Palimia and Raxa would not let the children come to harm. Tiflan would get them safely to Sordan. Dorilian needed to believe these things.
He exchanged crews, commandeered extra oarsmen and left Ivernesse within the hour. The port master conveyed news, gathered by way of watch towers and mirrors, of sightings of the Sordaneon schooner headed upriver. To Sordan, then—or Suddekar if not.
Unheralded, aboard a ship that displayed no sign it carried Sordan’s Hierarch, Dorilian set sail into the heart of a plot he had not anticipated.
“This was Nammuor’s work.” He spoke of his conviction to Legon and Tutto. Both men stood with Dorilian at the front of the ship, from which he stared at the dawn-gilded river. On board the ship were the remaining Eagle Guards from the palace. Two hundred men. Right now, he didn’t care if the damned gold-crusted barge he left behind made it back upriver unpillaged—or at all.
“I can think of no other who would or could attack you with lr weapons,” Tutto concurred. “The arcane arts are all but lost. Permephedon’s Sages and the Order of Epoptes restrict that knowledge too well. No one in Suddekar would know how to make these weapons. If they have such, Nammuor provided them. That and the cloaking illusion that allowed the mage vessel to get behind your escort ships.”
“Yet the attackers at the palace used swords at every turn,” said Legon. “Brute force, not arcane weapons.”
“On land, a warrior can discriminate.” Tutto spat into the river. “The lr weapons we faced were meant to cripple the ship, as well as every man on it. Especially him.”
“Because Nammuor knows I cannot fight sorcery.” Admitting it seared Dorilian’s pride like a burn. He fixed Tutto with an unhappy frown. “I should have powers by now, don’t you think?”
“You do have powers. I don’t see anyone else on this ship able to make light pool in his hand.”
“I am twenty-three years old. I wear the most powerful enhancers ever to be wielded by mortals and I do not even flinch. The almighty Rill has sunk its teeth into my god-cursed flesh. I should be able to do more than generate a damned orbus.”
Legon looked on with grim agreement.
“Twenty-three years?” Tutto scoffed. “That’s nothing for your kind.”
“I am not going to wait until I am fifty.”
“And now is not the time to try!” The scars scoring Tutto’s face furrowed into a scowl. “I have no malt to give you. The last thing we need is for you to be weak as a babe. You drank the whole damned flask back at camp.”
“I did that to leave more water for the men. They needed something actually drinkable.”
The first light of day glimmered across the eagle-feather details of the divine armor Dorilian still wore. He would not take it off until he got Levyathan back.
Tutto glared up at him. “Heed a wiser man’s wisdom for once: Do not rush into these powers of yours. Remember your uncle and how he died.”
Delos Sordaneon, Deben’s twin, had burned from the inside out by the very power he had unleashed against the Vermillion Aqueduct. Too much a man and too little a god. Dorilian shook his head. “Nammuor is not going to stop attacking me. You understand that, don’t you? Nammuor. Stefan. The Seven Houses. I have too many enemies. I will never be safe—and neither will Lev or anyone I love—until I master the gifts other people are working damn hard to make sure I do not learn.”
“Because those gifts are dangerous!” Tutto wrapped his mailed fist around the hilt of his sword. The weapon didn’t flinch, but neither did he. “You think I would not teach you, if I knew how to do it? Any of it? I know a lot, but no one knows how to do what you want to learn. None but others of your kind!”
Dorilian sagged against the mast. He commanded armies, economies. Ruled half the remaining Triempery. Had driven Essera back on its heels and made millions of his people prosperous and secure. He had opened a thrice-cursed Rill node. He had even—somehow—traveled from Permephedon to Sordan in an instant and carried the Rill within him like a parasite. But he had no way to release or command the power under his skin.
That he did not opened the door to Permephedon’s darkness and overwhelmed his efforts to wall off the Demise. Death and more death. A room filled with poisoned princes who could not fight back. Only Marc—
Stop. Stop. Stop and go no further. He used an arcane defense. Wall power…
Dorilian shook his head to drive back those thoughts.
He opened his eyes again to see Tutto’s dark sympathetic gaze.
“I taught you how to read men, boy, and read them well,” Tutto said. “I taught you how to use steel and wits to stay alive. I taught you how to defend and attack and to understand a few things about the devices to which you are heir. I have taught you observation and strategy and how to anticipate what men will do. I will keep teaching you these things. But in matters of the Entities, or those gifts native to your Leur flesh and being, you need your own kind. Maybe they won’t come to you, and if you cannot go to them—”
“I do not regret what I said.”
“To never set foot in Essera again while that fool Stefan lives? You forged your own chains with that one!”
Bitterly, Dorilian acknowledged both that fact, and another. “I bought us time. All of us. Stefan is… part of something I must avoid. Something that happened and wants to keep happening, only I won’t let it. Except I think it keeps trying. That’s why I have to put my time to good use. If my kindred will not come to me or teach me, I will just have to give them a better reason to do it.”
The aura hit him without warning. His next breath tasted of water and distress, Levyathan’s cold skin and the clashing of swords. But he could not unravel the confusion or pull it into focus. Was Levyathan safe? Or in danger?
No matter how long Dorilian stared at and into it, the river gave no answer.
Her hair lifted and dried by hot breezes and her body covered by bright lengths of fine Lahgaelan cotton, Palimia sat astride a horse at the side of Jooar Zetharnna to watch the end of the river battle. She kept an arm firmly around Levyathan, who sat in front of her on a pillow. Raxa and Fahme were mounted nearby. The Lahgaelan governor had thus far treated them as guests. The schooner drifted farther downriver, its masts pointing south and creating trails as spars dragged along the surface. The vessel listed so heavily its hull threatened to slide beneath the water. Both Suddekan vessels crowded near, and one had taken enough damage that it too began to sink. The other ship, beset by Lahgaelan rivercraft, was being subdued. Corpses dotted the river. There were swimmers, also. Jooar had given orders that any who reached his shore were to be captured and held.
“One of your poets would describe this scene in shades of red.” Levyathan spoke to Jooar, whose careful face betrayed little of what he was thinking.
“You have read our poets?”
“Issahan. Dorilian read to me his ‘Seven Springs in Agalor.’”
“Truly?”
Levyathan nodded. Sun-blond strands of hair were whipped across his face by the wind.
“In Agalor the sun breaks black rock
“Upon salt-moon heights and reaches not
“Into dark valleys where secrets remain hidden.
“There I came upon a town blessed by prophets
“And ruled by seven sisters
“Whose stone lips speak from wells of truth.
“There are seven springs in Agalor.”
Jooar slid his dark gaze to meet Palimia’s. “You are aware this is not normal for one of his age?”
She laughed. “Yes. But you get used to it.”
Shouts and greetings came from the direction of the river, so she turned to look. A group of maybe seven men guarded by Jooar’s soldiers strode toward their party. At their head was a gold-haired man who commanded all eyes. Tiflan beamed to see Jooar’s companions.
The governor also smiled. “I am pleased to see you again, and alive, Bas of Teremar.”
“And I you, my good friend. Are you well, lad?” Water-soaked but whole, Tiflan spoke to Levyathan directly.
“You were right. Mia is the better swimmer. I breathed in only a little of the river.”
Tiflan turned his gaze to her. Palimia had seldom been happier to see a man. “We are all well. And so very happy to see you. Do we know what happened?”
“Suddekan flags. We need to learn more.” To Jooar, Tiflan said, “Finding you here is a welcome turn.”
“We are within sight of my city’s defense towers. Let us retreat to the palace. My men can finish this work, and we will continue this conversation in more comfort.”
Palimia had never seen a more elegant map. Centerpiece of an open room bordered by pillars, the tabletop was a work of art. Its mosaic of marble, precious stones and metals brilliantly represented the lands from Sordan’s gold-laced crystal towers set within Sarkuan’s turquoise lake to the lapis expanse of the ocean. The colors of the land ranged from white desert to golden plain to green lushness along the azure line of the broad river that bisected its surface—and from the mighty Telarkans to the emerald-rimmed southern sea. Jooar pointed to the wide deep blue of the Sorand’ruil, for the map portrayed its course.
“We have detected over the last week more ship movement by Suddekar. Ordinarily I would not think much of this. The Sorand’ruil sees many ships, from many domains, and Suddekar is on the river, as are we.”
“And yet something drew your attention?” Tiflan prompted.
Though she was not part of the conversation, Palimia listened. She stood near the map and was glad Tiflan, not she, held Levyathan, who had insisted on being part of this discussion. What she was right now was exhausted.
Jooar nodded. “The vessels did not pull into any town or dock. They were not carrying cargo or passengers to a port, neither up nor downstream. They would turn around and return to where they started. They remained on the river for some purpose. This activity began after the Hierarch’s barge left here to continue its journey.”
“But they did not go to Ilmar.” Levyathan looked curious.
“Not these. We now know they were waiting for someone to come back this way. Maybe another Suddekan ship, maybe yours.” Jooar tapped an area of smoky quartz mountains to the south. “There is also this. Herdsmen in the high pastures have reported more movement of men on horseback passing through this area, near our border with Orm.”
“Mormantalorus!”
“You know your geography, little prince. Yes, and the horsemen were seen to travel to here.” Jooar tapped another part of the map. “To Suddekar. My father the king has been watching this activity. We believe it is because the border between Suddekar and Othgol has become more difficult to infiltrate.”
“You would be right,” said Tiflan. He frowned. “You did not think to tell Dorilian about these movements?”
“I did tell him, when he was here a week ago. Now, however—” Jooar picked up a pyramidal marker and placed it on Ilmar, near Ivernesse. He placed another on the point where the schooner had been attacked west of Ben-Aranath and a third on the mountains between Lahgael and Suddekar. “Prince Levyathan tells me his father is alive. Much as I wish to believe this—”
