Seven Princes (60 page)

Iardu stared at the great throne now, peering at its golden arms, velvet-lined back, the jewels set along its surface. He reached a hand to pluck a single jewel from the burnished metal, like picking an olive. Then another stone, and a third. In his palm now lay three blue opals.

He breathed on the jewels and waved his free hand above them, and he sang in a low, tremulous voice. Two of the gems expanded, flowed like glistening water, and grew tall in his palm, until an opal decanter the size of a wine bottle stood there. He picked up the third opal and used it to cap the crystal flask. Now it was a sealed vessel and fine enough to carry the wine of a King.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A trap.”

He removed the opal cork and set the decanter beneath the throne, centered between its four golden legs.

Two quiet hours passed in the tomb-throne room, and Sharadza stood in her granite statue guise at the exact spot where Elhathym had left her. On her shoulder crawled a black ant that was Iardu, and he muttered precise instructions in her ear.

She felt Elhathym’s presence before she saw him. He did not enter the hall through the great doors, but manifested as an invisible presence on the velvet cushions of the throne. At first he was glimmer of emptiness in the gloom, then a man-shaped phantasm, translucent as a ghost. Over the course of several long seconds the substance of his body grew darker and more substantial. His ethereal face was an expression of bitter anger as it solidified. When his form reached the consistency of a dense smoke, it began to sink toward the floor, wafting between the legs of the throne toward the mouth of the opal decanter.

At first he did not notice this, so consuming was his rage. But then his half-solid hands grasped the arms of his seat as his legs became columns of black vapor streaming into the decanter.

Iardu leaped from her shoulder, and she took fleshly form again. As they raced toward the dais, Iardu waved a hand and the throne became a pebble of gold. It fell through the black vapor into the bottle with a tinkling sound. Now there was only Elhathym, his
lower half streaming into the opal container. His arms flailed, his clawed hands grasped at the air, and he belched a deep moan like the grinding of monoliths.

Sharadza did as Iardu had told her. Standing on the right side of the dais, she stared between her fingers at Elhathym. Opposite her, on the left side of the throne, Iardu did the same. She poured every ounce of her willpower along her arms, into her fingers, and thrust it against the phantasmal sorcerer. Iardu’s will joined with her own as the Mer-Queen’s had earlier. It was like pushing against a wall of heavy stone that threatened to fall back and crush her beneath its inevitable weight.

Elhathym writhed and howled and struggled against the gravity of the opal decanter-prison that drew him inward. The lower half of his body was already trapped, nothing but black mist inside the bottle, but from waist to head he floated nearly solid. His arms reached now for his assailants. He roared and pounced like a tiger as his left claw wrapped around her throat, his right around Idaru’s. She almost fainted, so deadly cold was his touch… colder even than that void from which she had pulled Iardu.

She shivered and whimpered, but refused to lose her concentration. A trickle of blood ran from her nostril and crawled across her lips.

Iardu’s teeth were gritted above the strangling claw. “Ignore the pain,” he shouted. “Force him in! He is sorely weakened! We’ll not get another chance – force him in!”

Elhathym’s responded in the guttural howls of a beast. He slavered and ravenous sounds arose from his gaseous throat. His claws squeezed tighter about their necks. Sharadza could not breathe. A red haze clouded her vision… His talons sank into her flesh… She bled across his iron-hard fingers as the shadow-smoke of his torso swirled and drew toward the decanter mouth. The
bottle shivered and rocked beneath him, drawing him into its tiny, self-contained void.

Now Elhathym laughed, and his substance reversed itself.

He began flowing
out
of the bottle-prison.

Sharadza wept, knowing Iardu’s ingenious trap was a failure.

Elhathym grew larger and more solid, and she felt her neck about to snap in his grip.

The chamber doors crashed open. A contingent of Yaskathan warriors marched into the dim hall, crimson cloaks billowing from their shoulders. The silver of their armor was tarnished with dried blood. At their head strode a fair-haired youth without a helmet. His black mail was purple with gore from chest to knees, and he hefted a greatsword in both hands. His skin was milk-pale and bloodless, his eyes rimmed in darkness, his mouth set with determination. The sigil of Yaskatha on his chest had been cloven in a recent battle.

He vaulted to the top of the dais and a gleam of sunlight burst from a mark on his forehead. A golden flash rippled along his blade as he thrust it deep into Elhathym’s nearly solid breast. The sorcerer howled with fresh agony. Sharadza saw now that it was Prince D’zan who wielded the bright blade. Elhathym’s claw fell away from her throat. She sucked in stale air, coughing.

Elhathym flowed once more into the decanter now, his corporeal form lost completely. He was no more than a writhing black vapor… a fog of hate being drained from the world.

She breathed in deep gulps as she forced him down, down. Iardu laughed and squeezed his hands into fists. Elhathym gave a final screech of defiance, his hands grasping at the mouth of the bottle until they faded and were drawn inside. His shoulders and head flowed downward into the crystal prison, dripping like black blood from the blade that impaled him. D’zan raised his blade, staring at the decanter with unblinking eyes.

Iardu moved quickly, stuffing the opal cork into the top of the bottle.

“Sharadza!” he called.

Already she stood before the Glass of Eternity. She focused her will on it, ignoring the gashes on her throat, the chill of pain. The glass became a pool of utter darkness, as it had before. Iardu stepped up and hurled the sealed decanter toward the mirror. With a soundless ripple it passed into the empty dimension beyond. She watched it spinning there like a meteor of blue crystal. It grew smaller and smaller as it tumbled into that sea of ultimate dark, and then she could no longer even see it. Iardu waved a hand, and the mirror faded to dull obsidian.

“Your Majesty.” Iardu bowed to D’zan. The Prince had watched their actions with no trace of emotion on his pallid face. He did not look well at all. His blood loss must be severe.

Suddenly she feared for him.

“Would you be so kind,” said Iardu, “as to destroy this looking glass?”

D’zan stepped atop the dais. He brought his blade down upon the mirror with both hands, shattering it to bits. The noise of its breaking filled the throne room and deafened Sharadza momentarily. As if a whole world of mirrors had died instead of one.

Thousands of gleaming shards lay scattered in the gloom.

D’zan pointed his blade at the marble floor. He stood wordless and still on the throneless dais. The warriors who had entered after him tore the black shrouds from the windows. The golden light of early evening fell into the chamber, chasing shadows from the door.

Iardu worked a spell above the barren dais. The white marble flowed upward to take the form of a high-backed chair engraved with the sword and tree of Yaskatha.

D’zan gave the Shaper a silent glance, then sat heavily upon his new throne.

The Men of Yaskatha fell to their knees, bowing at last to their rightful King. Now their voices raised in salute: “Long live D’zan! Long live the King!”

The sound of metal boots filled the outer corridors, and more Yaskathans came rushing in to hail their monarch.

“Long live D’zan! Long live the King!”

Sharadza watched the young King’s pale face. His eyes were sunken in pools of shadow, and there was no joy in his gaze. He did not smile, or weep, or look upon his people with cheer.

She saw then the gaping wound in his chest… the hole where his living heart had beaten.

King D’zan sat with sword across his knees, tranquil as a sculpted icon.

“Long live D’zan! Long live the King!”

T
he survivors of the night’s blood-feast gathered in the withered courtyard outside the Sharrian palace. Most of the city’s men were dead, so the majority were wailing children and weeping mothers, huddling in miserable clusters. Masked soldiers roamed the city tossing thousands of drained corpses into bonfires. The horde of Vakai had drank their fill and sunk into the cracks between the city’s stones, or fled to hide in cellars and tombs until sunset. At daybreak the Khyreins had claimed the massacred city for Ianthe. They burned the dead and rooted out the living, herding them like sheep into the royal gardens. A bounty of perhaps three thousand slaves for hauling back to Khyrei.

After sating his own thirst on the blood of panicked Sharrians, Gammir found the bloodless corpse of Omirus slumped on the Sharrian throne. The Vakai had entered the palace before him and taken the last of the royal blood for their own pleasure. It was a small price to pay for conquering the kingdom in a single night. Gammir kicked the corpse away with the heel of his boot. He wondered why Omirus wore no crown, only the golden circlet of a regent. No matter; the Khyreins would scour the palace vaults until they found the crown Ammon had worn. It must sit upon
Gammir’s own head. He would claim the Valley of the Bull as his own, a colony of Khyrei. In time he would grow a new city to replace the old, as Vod had replaced Old Udurum with New. From Prince of Khyrei to King of Shar Dni. His rise had been faster than he ever expected.

Perhaps he should change the city’s name when he rebuilt it. Shar Dni was dead. He might give it her name: Ianthe, City of Shadows. That might please her.

While he sat upon the Sharrian throne and legionnaires poured through the palace looking for loot and prisoners, Ianthe walked the corpse-littered streets and called lightning down upon the Four Temples. The thunder of their destruction, one collapsing pyramid after another, brought laughter spilling from Gammir’s mouth. His chin and chest were stained with the wine torn from living veins. The smell of roasting flesh wafted through the high windows of the palace. He breathed deeply the savory aroma… the tang of overcooked Sharrian pork. Not unpleasant, but his appetite was only for the rich red fluid, and his belly was full. For the first time since he mastered the Power of the Blood, he was satisfied.

She had taught him so much since then. The weeks spent with her in the sanctuary of her High Tower were an interval of dark bliss. Ancient texts and words of power he had learned, and the gates of deeper sorceries opened before him. There was so much more to learn… and so much time in which to do it. Tonight they would send the Vakai horde to Uurz, ridding themselves of northland opposition. Not long after that would come the sweet pleasure of draining Udurum dry. He relished the promise of blood from men and giants. His lying mother would die then, or perhaps he might keep her as a slave… Make her pay for betraying his true father. Yes, that would serve his taste for irony – a Queen reduced to serving a King whom she had rejected as
unworthy of her own throne. Unless Ianthe wanted her blood… He could deny her nothing.

The Khyreins found the treasure vault of Ammon, and they brought him chests of gold, silver, and jewels, pouring them into mounds before his throne. Caskets of sparkling jewelry, strings of pearl, gemmed statuettes… a hoard of wealth glittered at his feet. Among these treasures they also cast the severed heads of Sharrians found hiding in the palace.

The white panther came stalking through the gates. She picked her way through the treasure-mounds to join him by the throne. He ordered a great chair brought from some other chamber and Ianthe took her human form to sit beside him. It was easy to imagine she was not his grandmother at all then, but his young and lovely queen. All these riches had been gathered for her pleasure. Perhaps it could be that way if he convinced her of his regal presence. His power would grow to rival hers… then he would be her equal. Then he might claim her as his own, just as he did this slaughtered capital.

“How do you enjoy your new kingdom, Sweet Boy?” she asked him.

He met her dazzling dark eyes with his own.
One day she will be mine
.

“I find it amusing,” he told her. “I quite enjoy this game of blood and fire.”

She laughed and his skin tingled. “These baubles are of some interest,” she said, poking at a mound of jewels with her toes.

“They are yours,” he said.

“You will need most of this to rebuild this pile of refuse into a city worthy of your rule,” she said. “Still… I may take a choice stone or two. To remind me of this day’s sweetness. Did you drink your fill?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “And you?”

“The blood of priests pleases me most,” she said. “Nearly as much as the crumbling of their temples.”

He frowned. “Their Gods came not to help the Sharrians. Why endure the presence of such useless shrines? They should thank you for ridding them of these reminders that their Gods care nothing for them.”

“
We
are their Gods now,” she said.

“Well, then…” he reflected. “We must build a temple!”