Authors: Dave Duncan
An
hour or so dragged by and noon was nigh when a fanfare announced the arrival of
the regent. Inos forgot her troubles and watched in growing excitement. The
limp figure in the carrying chair was obviously the old imperor himself, a
wasted hank of cloth and bone, and now Inos understood Eigaze’s disgust. That
pitiful relic should be dying in peace somewhere, in a comfortable bed. She
wondered if he was being deliberately abused to hasten his end, but just to
pose the question would be sedition.
And
then came the royal family, led by Regent Ythbane himself. He was short and
lean and paleskinned. His cloak was of purple velvet, trimmed with ermine,
spangled with imposing orders and bright sashes. There were enough
miscellaneous jewels in his osprey-plumed hat to qualify it as a crown. He
moved with a studied grace, nodding and smiling to the courtiers’ bows. Even at
a distance, Inos felt his charm and his authority. When he reached the inner
slope of the bank and was visible to the crowd, he stopped and stood at
attention for the imperial anthem. The ensuing cheer sounded thin from so large
a congregation.
Princess
Uomaya was a disappointment, running to plumpness, almost blowzy. She also was
decked out in purple, but it did not flatter her complexion and she was not
wearing the garments as well as their cut deserved. Ten years ago she might
have been a wondrous beauty, or even five years ago; but she had let her face
sag into a permanent expression of defeat and resentment.
The
small boy with them was whey-faced and puny, his legs thin as broomsticks
within his hose. He was strangely subdued and much less interested in events
than seemed right for a child of his years. Now Inos saw why Eigaze had called
him a “poor little prince.” Uomaya had a chair beside the throne, the boy stood
on the regent’s other side, staring out blankly at the empty field.
Obviously
the marquis had passed the message, for Ythbane was barely seated before his
eyes searched out the senator. They narrowed ominously at the sight of the
djinn.
A
curly-haired page came running to Epoxague, who nodded to Azak and began
working his way through the throng. Inos followed with her heart starting to
pump. Every girl in Pandemia dreamed of being presented at the imperor’s court
one day. She had been no exception, but she had always visualized the kindly
old imperor in a great shiny ballroom, not this muddy grass and a substitute
who seemed to be half regarded as a usurper, seated on a rather ugly thing of
gilded wood under a low-slung leather canopy.
The
closer courtiers reluctantly made way for the arrivals. Ythbane’s face was dark
with suspicion. “Senator! We were advised that you had something important to
tell us?” The accompanying expression was warning that it had better be good.
“Your
Imperial Highnesses!” Epoxague bowed to the regent and then to his wife. The
onlookers watched him with calculating eyes. “First, I have the honor to
present a distant relative, who arrived at my house unexpectedly last night-his
Majesty Azak ak’Azakar ak’Zorazak, Sultan of Arakkaran.”
Azak
removed his hat in impish style, but then he doubled over in one of his djinn
gymnast’s bows. The regent flushed angrily. “An emissary, your Eminence? This
is neither the time nor the place!”
Epoxague,
Inos noted with surprise, was nervous. “No, your Highness! His Majesty visits
the City of the Gods merely to invoke the Right of Appeal to the Four.”
Ythbane
was clearly surprised, and yet perhaps relieved that his war was not imperiled.
He glanced at some of the onlookers-advisors, likely-and then made a fast
decision. “That right is enshrined in our oldest traditions, your Majesty.” He
relaxed his frown. Epoxague had dropped a hint earlier that a mere regent might
enjoy boosting his personal prestige by showing how he could invoke the great
occult council. Perhaps that calculation was going on now in Ythbane’s
obviously quick wits. “We shall enjoy hearing of your petition very shortly. If
it meets the requirements of the Protocol, then we shall fulfill our ancient
responsibilities and facilitate your suit.”
And
then he noticed Inos. No djinn, she! His eyes narrowed again.
“`First’,
you said, Senator?”
“Second,
your Majesty. . .” Epoxague drew a deep breath and glanced around as if to make
sure than Inos was still there and had not been magically transported to some
far corner of the world. “Your noble predecessor was badly misinformed. This
lady is the wife of Sultan Azak, Sultana Inosolan of Arakkaran . . .”
Ythbane
began to shape a formal smile, and stopped abruptly.
“...and
also a distant relative of mine ... and also the rightful Queen Inosolan of
Krasnegar.”
“You
are joking!” the regent said flatly.
“I
fear not, your Majesty. She is, as you can see, very much alive. Reports of her
death appear to have been ill-founded.”
The
regent, his wife, the courtiers within earshot ... stunned silence ... shocked
glances ... Ythbane was the first to recover. “Can you prove your claim, ma’am?”
Inos
rose from her curtsy and faced him squarely. “I will make it before the
wardens, should your Highness so desire. Or before any other sorcerer who can
detect falsehood.”
Ythbane’s
lips moved in silence. Then he turned his head and bellowed, “Ambassador
Krushjor!”
An
elderly, massive jotunn shouldered his way through the crowd. He wore a metal
helmet and a long fur cape, clasped at the throat and gaping to display the
silver-furred chest below it ... Nordlanders spurned shirts. His blue eyes were
blazing with fury.
“Your
Highness?”
“Thane
Kalkor must be advised that there is a third claimant to the throne of
Krasnegar.”
The
jotunn put his fists on his hips and the cloak gaped wider to reveal a
jewel-encrusted belt buckle and crude leather breeches. “The Reckoning must
proceed. Once a challenge has been uttered, there is no way to withdraw it.”
Ythbane’s
pale cheeks flushed again. “But Duke Angilki may very well wish to recant his
claim.”
“He
made it falsely. He must suffer the consequences. “
Epoxague
said, “But . . .” and then fell silent.
The
regent turned to look at the vast crowd ringing the field. It was growing
impatient, its voice a menacing undertone of anger, like some restless sea
monster wakening in the deeps.
And
at that moment a man in a red cloak emerged from one of the tents and raised a
trumpet to his mouth.
“Stop
him!” the regent shouted.
“I
can’t and you can’t!” the ambassador said. “With all due respect, your
Highness, here you are merely another spectator at a sacred ceremony.”
The
brazen notes of the challenge came drifting over the campus, and the crowd
noise died. The mounted patrol cantered to the far end of the field, then lined
up to watch the action.
Ythbane
shot a glare of fury at Inos, and she stepped back hurriedly. The senator took
her elbow and led her aside. He looked shaken. “Didn’t work!” he whispered.
“I
am sorry,” she whispered. “Your kindness has brought you trouble.”
He
shook his head angrily and muttered, “Never mind now.”
The
Reckoning was going ahead. Was that good news or bad news for Krasnegar?
Everyone
was watching the field. Another man emerged from the other tent to repeat the
process. Red cloak flapping in the wind, he blew an answering refrain. Then
they both stepped back inside.
“Is
this what you saw in the casement?” Azak whispered, somewhere above and behind
Inos. “Roughly.” Why was there no rain, though? The sky was dull enough, but in
the prophecy there had been rain falling.
The
two contestants emerged simultaneously, each wearing only a fur wrapped around
his loins. Kalkor was too far off for Inos to recognize, but his silvergold
hair and pale bronze skin were unmistakably jotunnish. The other was
grotesquely bulky, with skin of a muddy mushroom shade, and he seemed to have a
woolly beard, although she could not be certain at that distance. It was only
when she compared him to the spectators on the banks nearby that she saw he was
a giant, as meaty as an ox and perhaps even taller than Azak.
Behind
the two contenders, the attendants reappeared, each bearing an ax. A painfully
angular lump grew in Inos’s throat as she watched the ritual of transfer. She
had foreseen Kalkor’s part of this ceremony in the magic casement’s vision.
Now
there was no Rap there, being her champion. And no rain falling. The casement
had been a flawed prophet.
Kalkor
swung his weapon up on his shoulder-as predicted-and went marching smartly
across the grass. The troll shuffled forward to meet him, idly waving his own
ax as if it were a fly whisk. The crowd murmured appreciatively.
Then
the troll stopped and raised a tree-trunk arm over his head, spinning the huge
weapon around like a baton to show how easy it was. The crowd rumbled and
roared in delight. Mord of Grool, the favorite, was about to wreak justice on
the murdering raider.
Kalkor
had also stopped and was watching.
When
the troll ended his display, Kalkor lowered his ax to touch its blade to the
grass and then hurled it heavenward. It went spinning up, and up . higher even
than the onlookers on the bank ... it seemed to hang in the air ... and then it
began to fall, faster and faster. Kalkor reached out and caught it
effortlessly, without needing to move his feet. The spectators groaned a low,
grievous cry.
Could
mundane human muscles have performed that miracle unaided? Inos knew just how
heavy those axes were, because the casement had shown Kalkor straining to hold
his out at arm’s length. Yet now he was suddenly able to perform circus stunts
with it?
“Sorcery!”
muttered the senator’s voice somewhere near Inos.
Nobody
argued.
The
two combatants began to advance again through the silence, more slowly this
time, holding their weapons ready. They came to a halt just out of each other’s
reach, and perhaps they spoke then, taunting each other.
The
troll moved first, with unexpected agility. Wielding his ax like a saber to
take advantage of his superhuman reach and power, he made a horizontal lunge at
his opponent’s neck. Kalkor did not attempt to parry, nor was he foolish enough
to attempt the same stroke-lacking Mord’s great bulk, he would have
overbalanced at once. Instead, he skipped nimbly back, holding his ax in both
hands athwart his chest. The troll followed, jabbing repeatedly with the great
blade. Kalkor withdrew, staying out of reach. The crowd started to jeer.
This
might go on indefinitely, Inos thought. Trolls were reputed to be tireless;
they had been known to work until they dropped dead.
Kalkor
did not wait for that to happen, and he struck so fast that Inos had to take a
moment to work out what she had just witnessed, because she had not registered
the movements. The thane must have ducked and sliced upward at the troll’s
wrist and slipped away again before the ax could fall on him. She was not alone
in her surprise-for an instant neither the onlookers nor Mord himself seemed to
realize what had happened. Relieved of its burden, Mord’s arm had jerked upward
of its own volition. The colossus just stood there, arm raised high, staring at
his life’s blood hosing from the stump. Belatedly Inos closed her eyes and put
her hands over her ears to shut out the animal howling rising from the
spectators.
When
she looked again, Kalkor was standing on the corpse, holding the great head in
the air, rotating slowly so that all might see its face.
Azak
whispered in her ear, “I always did want to visit the City of the Gods. We
barbarians have so much to learn about civilization.”
“Give
me Angilki!”
Kalkor
had arrived at the base of the bank, as near to the throne as possible. He
still held the great ax, and he wore the troll’s lifeblood as if it were an
honor. Hair, face, torso-all were joltingly red on so drab a day. The centurion
had already told his men to draw, and a cordon of swords stood between the
bloodsoaked thane and the slope. He looked madly angry, ready to scythe through
them with his ax.
Leaning
forward on the throne, the regent seemed scarcely less enraged. His scheme to
rid the world of the raider had been a disastrous flop. “He is not here. He is
in the infirmary.”
“Get
him!” the thane screamed. “He should have been here! He must be fetched. He
must be brought out to me so I can have my satisfaction!” He was rock ing from
foot to foot in his fury, barely in control of himself. “I demand his head!”
The
legionaries were about as taut as longbows fully drawn. Inos had watched jotnar
brawl on the streets of Krasnegar and she knew their frenzies, but she had
never seen a true bloodlust before, a mad-dog ravening.
Rain
was starting at last, in scattered, splashy drops. The crowd seemed to be
easing back, although there were no gaps visible in it yet. The hussars were
riding the lines again.
“You
have won your contest,” Ythbane shouted. “You are not about to murder a sick
man in cold blood.”
“You
agreed to a Reckoning! Angilki must die!”
“Not
if I can help it! There is another claimant to the throne of Krasnegar.”
That
news worked a strange magic on the thane. His gibbering wrath vanished like a
snuffed candleflame. He stilled, and his eyes traveled over the group near the
throne until they settled, eerily blue even at that distance, on Inos.
“Aha!”
Now Kalkor yelled in glee, and tossed the ax over his shoulder like a pinch of
salt-it traveled a good ten paces. Legionaries reeled aside as he stepped
forward. He ran nimbly up the bank and angled over to Inos, coming to a halt so
close to her that their toes were almost touching. She could not retreat,
because Azak and Eigaze and the senator were all behind her, together with
several other people. Else she might have fled, screaming. She tried not to
cringe before the bloody killer.