Seven Princes (5 page)

When he was finished, cold rain blew in through the window and the storm still raged. The girl lay limp in his hands. He pulled away. Her neck bore a purple ring, and his fingers were numb.

Lightning threw mock daylight into the chamber, and for an instant he saw himself in the oval mirror on his far wall. A pale, emaciated figure bending over the pink and lifeless carcass of a slain animal. He stared into his own eyes for an eternal instant. Then the chamber plunged into darkness again. The coals in the brazier had burned out, moistened by the big raindrops blowing through the window.

He stood and fastened the obsidian panes into place, shutting
out the storm. He re-lit the candle with a tinder stick and held it over the body of Yazmilla. So beautiful she was, even in death. More beautiful even, for the absolute stillness of her features, the cool pleasantness of her pallid skin.

A pounding at his chamber door brought him out of the trance, and he turned from the dead girl to face the oak-and-bronze portal.

“What is it?” he bellowed.

“My Prince, your Lord-King Father summons you.” A thin, reedy voice. “Even now he gathers in the Chamber of Audience all those of his household.”

Fangodrel watched the candle flame dance in the dead girl’s eyes, twin rubies captured in orbs of glass.

“My Prince?” came the voice again, through the heavy door.

“Rathwol, is that you?”

“Yes, My Lord. So sorry to trouble you. The summons comes from the King’s Viceroy.”

He stumbled to the door and unfastened the heavy chain. Opening it just enough, he motioned his body servant inside.

Rathwol entered, a slight man with a hawkish nose, his lavender tunic reeking of turnips, sweat, and sour ale. His bald pate was covered by a leather skullcap, and his tunic bore the fine gold trim of a palace servant, though it needed a good washing. He appeared to have crawled out of a gopher’s burrow somewhere. The man was an offense to royal sensibility, but he was very useful.

“Light a brazier,” Fangodrel commanded him, handing over the candle.

Rathwol followed the order, using a fine oil to ignite some coals in a dry bowl of hammered iron. His close-set eyes immediately fell upon the body of Yazmilla, lying on the soiled couch. Another man might have screamed in shock or revulsion, but Rathwol had seen much worse. He had prowled the streets of Uurz for twenty
years before finagling his way onto the palace staff in New Udurum. Most likely he had fled his native city to avoid imprisonment. Fangodrel had never asked what crimes he may have committed, and he did not care. He only knew that Rathwol was a loyal subject, and a man who could keep his many secrets.

Fangodrel scrubbed himself with a towel and bowl of lemonwater. Rathwol bent to examine the dead girl’s neck, checking for a pulse.

“Oh, My Prince,” he muttered. “Here was a tasty bit of flesh for the nobbin’…”

“Get rid of her,” said Fangodrel, pulling on a pair of doe-skin leggings and boots of black leather. “
Discreetly
.”

Rathwol looked up at his master. “Into the furnace? Same as the others?”

“Need you ask, fool?” Fangodrel pulled on a high-collared tunic of green and silver, fastening it along the sternum with engraved buttons. “There’s a palm-weight sapphire in it for you.”

“My Lord is generous,” said Rathwol, his eyes turning back to the dead girl’s face.

“Get rid of that carpet, too,” said Fangodrel. “She
burned
it.”

Rain pelted against the window panes, like claws scratching at the inner hood of a coffin. Such thoughts made him wince, but it was only the lingering effect of the bloodflower. It always made him a bit morbid.

Rathwol laid the girl’s body gently on the ruined carpet and rolled it up.

“Get her clothes too,” said Fangodrel, motioning toward the bed.

Fangodrel checked himself in the big mirror. He combed his narrow mustache and groomed his short black beard into a single point in the style of Shar Dni. He wore his dark hair short, and he brushed it back from his forehead, running a handful of lamb
grease through it and wiping his fingers clean on the towel. He hung an amulet of opal and emerald about his neck, and placed a thin circlet of platinum set with a single onyx on his forehead. This was the crown of the Eldest Prince, the Heir-Apparent to the throne of New Udurum. A cloak of green and silver completed his raiment.

His pale skin did not matter, he told himself. It did not matter that his lean, V-shaped face in no way resembled the broad, rough-hewn visage of his father, nor that his physical strength was a mere fraction of Tadarus or Vireon. None of these things mattered, for he was the Eldest Prince.
Let men continue to call me Fangodrel the Pale
, he told himself,
for my skin will never be the umber shade of my brothers. But none can deny that I am the heir to Vod, King of Men and Giants
.

Rathwol carried his burden to the door. There was no sign of the girl now inside the thick roll of carpet. Fangodrel, grimacing at the faint touch of dirty nails, slipped a jewel into the man’s sweaty hand just before he exited.

The Prince waited a moment after his body servant left, lingering just long enough to drink a gulp of red wine from a crystal goblet. Lightning flared outside the opaque windows, bolts of fire dripping from the Sky God’s fingertips.

Thunder boomed above the soaring towers as he left the chamber and descended a spiral staircase. As he walked he thought one last time of pretty Yazmilla. The girl had been a simpleton but she was not entirely without charms. Tonight he must find a replacement for her.

But first an audience with his noble father.

What could the old fool possibly want of him?

T
he Giants of New Udurum welcomed the storm as they would welcome an old friend. They stood in the streets while the driving rain caressed their faces and shoulders, and the thunder greeted them in its booming voice. Every human soul fled toward hearth and home to put a roof between himself and the storm, but the Uduru came forth from their tall houses in great numbers. They loved the storm in all its fierceness, and they celebrated the rule of their King, Vod of the Storms, whose shifting moods often brought these tempests upon the city.

Within the black palace Queen Shaira sat waiting for her husband. The fires of twelve hanging braziers dispensed steady heat and dancing light. The walls thrummed and pulsed to the rhythm of the squall outside, and she knew the six Giant sentinels lining the hall would rather be out in the rain and wind.

Vod’s man-sized chair sat beside the Queen’s own, both of these before the single Giant throne that glittered with the light of precious stones. Vod would only take the Great Throne when some matter of weighty import was to be discussed with the Uduru; then his magic swelled him to the proportions of his Giant kin. Mostly he sat beside Shaira in his accustomed man-form. All three
thrones sat upon a dais of black-veined marble. On the highest step of the dais sat Sharadza at her mother’s knee.

“Where are my brothers?” asked the Princess, taking her mother’s hand. Shaira stared into her green eyes. It was like staring into a mirror, looking at her daughter. A mirror that showed herself as she was twenty years ago, back in the days when Vod’s love for her had been an all-consuming fire. Before the weight of time and wisdom had settled on her husband’s shoulders, the heavy chains of kingship.

“Summoned from the wood’s edge,” she answered. “They will be here presently.”

“Fangodrel too?” asked Sharadza.

“Yes,” she said. “Even Fangodrel.”

As she spoke his name, she saw him enter the hall in a flash of green and silver. Fangodrel was her first-born and her greatest secret. She spent her life trying to hide the truth from him, but as he grew he seemed to sense the imperfect nature of her love, and it spoiled him. He was the fruit of a cruel man whose domination left a scar on her heart and a life in her belly. Vod had raised him as his own, but with the same reserve and detachment as Shaira. The pale, quiet boy grew into a hard-hearted and distant young man. Despite his grim nature she tried her best to love him.

“Evenbliss, mother,” said Fangodrel. “Sister.” He took each of them by hand in turn, kissing their knuckles with his cold lips. Everything about him was Khyrein; nothing of her had invested his appearance or mood. He was entirely the son of his dead father, and he could never know it. The eldest of her sons, and the weakest, yet the most human. It was not his fault that his progenitor was a tyrant and a savage.

“Why does Father call us?” asked Fangodrel. “Is some new war in the offing?”

Sharadza looked at her mother. Her oldest brother’s moods and temper had frightened her more than once. As far as Shaira knew, he never abused or threatened his sister. Yet his presence was a quiet threat, a storm that simmered behind clouds of courtesy.

“The King’s mind is his own,” Shaira said. “We must wait to hear his words.”

“Of course,” said Fangodrel, looking toward the main entry. “And here come the Twin Brutes.”

Tadarus and Vireon entered the hall side by side, broad shoulders mantled in fresh cloaks of violet and black, dark manes slick with rain. Shaira swelled with pride at the sight of them in the hall. They were heroes in every step and mannerism, every word and deed. They were her strength and her glory.

Sharadza ran to embrace them both. Fangodrel stood atop the dais, hands behind his back. How he must envy his brothers’ great strength and heartiness. How he must despise the way their father doted on them. Shaira wanted to love Fangodrel in the same way as Tadarus, Vireon, and Sharadza… and she had tried for twenty-six years. It simply was not possible.

Tadarus and Vireon hugged their mother, kissing her cheeks, and took their places next to Fangodrel. The senior brother offered a courteous half-bow that was returned by his two juniors, and this was all they ever displayed in the way of brotherly love. Tadarus and Vireon were nearly inseparable, and neither had much to do with sensitive, book-minded Fangodrel. He wrote verse while they wrestled Giants. Perhaps he feared they would murder him one day for the right to claim the throne. But Shaira knew her boys better than that. They would support their elder brother even to their deaths.

A flourish of trumpets announced the approach of King Vod. Shaira stiffened in her chair. She had not spoken with her husband since he arose in the early morning. Something troubled him
deeply. For two moons’ time now he had not slept a full night. When he did sleep, he tossed and turned, rolling on the mattress like a man drowning. He mumbled strange things in his sleep, too. Curses, or incantations. At times he woke screaming, “Take the Pearl! Take it!” or, “Too deep! It’s too deep!”

When she asked him about his nightmares he grew quiet and stubborn. There was something he could not bring himself to share with her. Something that haunted him. In his youth he had demanded her body every night, and even as they grew older – he now in his forty-sixth year, she in her forty-fourth – his hunger for her had persisted. Since his nightmares began, Vod had not touched her.

What secret guilt or terror tormented him so? Would he finally share his dread tonight?

The King sent away his train of human chancellors, advisors, and attendants before taking his place beside her on the man-sized throne. His face was grim beneath the heavy crown of gold with its eight stones of onyx; his puffy eyes were dark, full of secrets. The years had turned his flowing hair from sable to gray, and his thick beard was of that same distinguished color. All these years and she hadn’t come close to plumbing the depths of those eyes. She had learned to accept his mysteries, as she accepted his twin statures, Giant and Man. Everyone knew Vod was a sorcerer, but she suspected that he did not know the true depth of his own power. Tonight’s storm, for instance, was the direct result of his troubled mood.

The King looked upon his children. Flames crackled in the braziers as the Princes and Princess sank to their knees before him. He took Shaira’s hand and looked at her with those restless eyes. It was a look that said,
I love you, and I wish I could avoid what I have to say now
.

Shaira smiled at him, and her eyes said,
You are my husband and
my love, and whatever you do I will honor and accept
. But it also said,
Let me share your burden
.

Vod turned to his daughter and sons.

“My sweet children,” he said. “Dearest of all the treasures in my realm, I love you above all others. It fills my sad heart with pride to look upon you.”

Their eyes sparkled in the firelight, perhaps Fangodrel’s most keenly.

“For twenty-five years New Udurum’s walls have stood strong, and I have ruled from this seat of power. I watched you grow from tender infants to young men and a woman. You are the pride of giant and man alike, the future of this realm built by the hands of both races.”

He paused, as if to weep.

Fangodrel broke the silence: “Father, why speak of the future now? Surely you are not so old and feeble as to give up the throne.” Yet his glimmering eyes said,
Yes, give it up now. Give it to me! I am the eldest, and I will take this great chair from you. Gladly will I take it!

Shaira dismissed this as her own distorted fancy.